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PALATINATE Lifestyle, Features

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The official student newspaper of Durham Students’ Union since 1948

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Friday 11th December 2009 | Edition 713 | palatinate.org.uk JONATHAN ALLEN

Principal calls time

Jodie Smith

Newsbox Lindisfarne Gospels Return

After much campaigning from Durham City MP Roberta BlackmanWoods the Gospels are set to return on a trial basis in 2013 Page 3

Collingwood college bar was recently closed for several days after a dramatic incident that left staff and students in shock.

On Sunday 15th November, Collingwood Bar Committee held a social in their ‘Redwood Arms’ bar whilst a JCR meeting was taking place. This ‘lock-in’ social lasted for several hours and saw bar staff consuming excessive amounts of alcohol paying discounted prices or nothing at all.

Damage to the bar was extensive: broken glass, toilets and sinks blocked with vomit and sick seeping into the hallway awaited those who tried to access the area.

Cover staff were forced to clear up the mess when the bar committee were finally made to leave and only half an hour of opening time remained before last orders were called.

Collingwood’s Principal, Professor Ed Corrigan, closed the bar indefinitely so that an investigation could be made into the night’s events, which also included two Fresher members of bar staff being encouraged to provide drink to the point of passing out and being effectively left to fend for themselves with Welfare not being made aware of the situation.

The bar remained closed for several days after the event whilst senior members of college staff looked into what had happened. The members of bar committee responsible were asked to issue an apology for the inconvenience caused by the bar’s closure and to complete a period of community service.

It has also been decided that bar socials will no longer take place in Collingwood bar as incidents like this put the licence at risk.

The incident has raised serious questions about college graduates working as sabbatical bar stewards and there is much specualtion at Collingwood that the position may be abolished and a professional bar manager brought in instead.

Bryson cleans the countryside Chancellor makes a visit to support the inaugural ‘Environment Week’ and lends a hand at Trevelyan Page 4

Mitigating Circumstances

Are you getting a fair deal from your department? Palatinate turns its investigative eye to an important safety net.

Page 7

Spellbound JCR

College changes its name to Gryffindor and encourages others to break with tradition and get creative Page 6 The Christmas lights are up: we enter the Yuletide season, but Durham’s festive streets will grow empty as students return home

Union stays affiliated

Naughty Noughties

Landslide majority vote to stay with the National Union of Students Jack Battersby

In the second of this term’s two cross-campus referenda, Durham students have voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining affiliated to the National Union of Students (NUS).

In all, 17.5% of those eligible voted – a record high turnout for an issue-based referendum at the University. Mandated by the Durham Students Union (DSU)’s AGM in June, students were given five days to use online voting to decide whether or not they believed the DSU should remain affiliated to the NUS. In the run-up to the poll, a public debate Continued on page 3 was held in Elvet Riverside on the evening

of Sunday 22nd November. The event balanced the experiences of representatives from Unions which had previously taken the decision to disaffiliate from the NUS (Aston and Sunderland) against the proNUS Northumberland.

In addition, NUS President Wes Streeting attended the debate as part of a concerted effort by the Union to ensure Durham voted to retain its membership.

Over the week, many voiced their concerns over the presence of a large number of NUS campaigners around the University. One student told Palatinate that he felt intimidated by promoters stationed outside the University Library, who at one point held up his entrance to the building.

Indeed, Palatinate has learnt that University security staff were forced to remove NUS activists from the science site due to them causing an obstruction in the area.

However, DSU Societies and Student Development Officer Ben Robertson was satisfied with the conduct of campaigners.

“Considering the ‘invasion’ of NUS officers and staff onto campus, there were minimal breaches of election regulations during the week. This reflects our efforts prior to the election to inform key participants of the regulations of fair campaigning.”

Mr Robertson went on to express his delight at the level of turnout the referendum Continued on page 3

End of decade debate Comment, page 11

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

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Editorial Favourites, letters, corrections and editorial

PALATINATE Rattles and prams F

Why the DSU needs to grow up

rom time to time, Palatinate comes under scrutiny and analysis from those outside of its production process. Shouldn’t the student paper be a bit more hard hitting? How much control does the DSU exercise over our content? How dare you print that?

Since this is the final edition of our editorship, we thought we should take the opportunity to provide a little insight into these issues for those of you on the outside.

After all, the paper is published by the students’ union and exists as a service to the community: it doesn’t belong to a temporary set of student editors.

The DSU provides us with an office and with the computers we use to typeset the paper. These facilities ensure the continued stability of a sixty year old title and a solid, if not always dazzling, vehicle for journalism experience. In return, the Union has the benefit of the consistent margins between our printing costs and advertising revenue.

As our publisher, the Union is legally responsible for what we decide to print. If we were to face law suits over libel or copyright, the DSU’s money would be targeted. For that reason, it is right that the DSU should screen our content. Currently, the Marketing Manager and the Societies and Student Development Officer read over everything before it goes to the printers. We also appreciate the extra subbing this process incidentally provides, since there are occasion when we make mistakes of various kinds.

Journalists have something of a reputation for inaccuracy and misrepresentation,

T

and not an entirely undeserving one. The behaviour of the tabloid press, in particular, generates an immense amount of distrust and hostility for hacks. It’s important that student journalists recognise their fallibility and acknowledge when mistakes have been made.

However, having been involved with various teacup-storms over the years, we’ve had a rather depressing tutorial in the narcissism and censoriousness of which people are capable. As editors, it has been truly disheartening to have encountered these mentalities at the heart of the DSU. A month or so ago, a comment article published online, but not in our print edition, offered criticisms of a welfare service in a blackly comic mode. It wasn’t the best piece ever written, and if it had been submitted for print we’d have thought hard about whether it was worth printing, considering the offence it might cause. Nonetheless, the complaints we received from both the DSU President and the Membership Services Manager were straightforwardly ridiculous.

The offending article ended with a jokey reference to a comment about DSU brownies in the President’s email. Natalie Crisp wrote online in complaint: “For the record though, referencing the DSU President at the end of this article has genuinely upset me. It seems to indicate that the DSU, and I, personally believe that brownies are a solution to these issues.” The article took a flippant tone in its approach to student welfare. Sarah Elliott wrote in her complaint: “I wish the article to be removed immediately

before there are any casualties as a result of [the author’s] spiteful rantings.”

It’s hard enough operating in a country with authoritarian libel laws (and without the funds professional papers have set aside to lose libel suits).

An institution which claims to represent students should take a more libertarian approach. The expectation should be that students are old enough to read whatever is published and make up their own minds.

Broadly speaking, and of course within the limits of the law, if we are putting our name to a piece of writing or to a decision, we are taking responsibility for the quality. Leave it to the hustle and bustle of letters and comments boards, rather than demanding that offensive content is censored.

Taking a leaf through our archives, it’s clear that Palatinate has been free to make enemies and cause offence in the past.

That’s how it should be, not least because heat very often does produce light. It can be extremely valuable to have suppressed tensions and disagreements ‘outed’ in public.

If the DSU wants to support quality journalism, it will have to learn that its only role in decisions relating to our content is the one demanded by strictly legal considerations. We have no problem at all taking this restriction seriously, the only difficulty is when ‘libel’ is conflated with all the other reasons people might have for demanding that articles be pulled.

Apart from that, we’ve enjoyed our time at the helm. So long, farewell, Merry Christmas and best of luck to our successors.

To have your say on anything featured visit palatinate.org.uk

11.12.2009 No. 713 Favourites Comment page 9

Why we should support the troops

Don’t listen to the nay-sayers page 9 Film & TV page Profile page 21 25

From Collingwood to the Beeb

Lorraine Heggessey looks back page 21 Visual Arts page 27

School of Saatchi: X-Factor for the arts

Our duty to Bahá’í Iranians

he last person in Britain to be executed for blasphemy was Thomas Aikenhead, an 18-year-old student at Edinburgh University who was altogether too vocal in his lack of respect for the scriptures as authoritative texts on history and morals. On the day of his hanging in 1697, he wrote: “It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure”.

The conflict between education and religious chauvinism is thankfully not something that contemporary students in this country have to worry about. In Iran, however, there are 300,000 Bahá’í citizens excluded from university because of their religion.

Their cause has been brought to the University’s attention by Bahá’í students in Durham, individuals who have approached the issue with an impressively persuasive and level-headed eloquence.

As a result, the ‘Closed Door’ campaign, which calls on leaders in academia to express concerns about discrimination to their Iranian peers, was endorsed last March by DSU Council. More recently Hild Bede SRC has followed suit.

There are many injustices in the world, and many in Iran besides this one. A reason to pay attention to the plight of the Bahá’í in particular is that we are indirectly involved in it. The University recruits postgraduate students from Iran: this pool of talent excludes people of the Bahá’í faith.

We are also well placed as a University to influence the opinion of Iranian students and academics, precisely because we have such well established links with the country. Indeed, this time last year Palatinate reported on the collaboration between the Iranian government and Durham’s Centre for Iranian Studies to present the Ferdowsi lecture series. The arrangement is formalised by a Memorandum of Understanding, a document currently in force which facilitates academic exchange over a 2 year period and the transfer of £10,000 from Tehran to the University.

While we are accepting cash and welcoming Iranian colleagues, we must not forget the Bahá’í Iranians who can’t take part.

Vacancies News and sport The news section is at the very heart of any newspaper (the clue’s in the name).

Next term, our news team is set to be shuffled around. The news editor position will open up, and consequently also a

deputy editor position. There will also be one editor appointed to deal with news features. If you’re interested and would like more information on how to apply, email news@palatinate.org.uk

At the other end of the paper, the sport section is in search of a deputy editor to help out. This is one of the most popular sections and great fun to work on. Email sport@palatinate.org.uk to find out more.

The meaning of modern art page 27

Contents News pages 3-7 Comment pages 9-13 Features pages 14-17 Listings pagea 19-20 Food and Drink page 20 Profile page 21 Travel page 22 Fashion page 23 Film & TV page 25 Photography page 26 Visual Arts page 27 Stage page 28-29 Books page 30 Music page 31 Sport pages 33-36

Palatinate is published by Durham Students’ Union on a fortnightly basis during term and is editorially independent. All contributors and editors are full-time students at Durham Send letters to: Editor, Palatinate, Durham Students’ Union, Dunelm House, New Elvet, Durham, DH1 3AN. Alternatively, send an e-mail to editor@palatinate.org.uk

Editorial Board

Editors-in-chief Daniel Bjelis Chris Wright editor@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Editor Liza Miller deputy.editor@palatinate.org.uk News Editor Vincent McAviney news@palatinate.org.uk Deputy News Editors George Stafford Adam Painter Jack Battersby Jodie Smith deputy.news@palatinate.org.uk Comment Editor Thom Addinall-Biddulph Deputy Comment Editor Alexandra Bottomer comment@palatinate.org.uk Chief Lifestyle Editor Dipal Acharya lifestyle@palatinate.org.uk Features Editor Ally Bacon features@palatinate.org.uk Food and Drink Editor Fiona Hicks food@palatinate.org.uk Fashion Editor Dipal Acharya fashion@palatinate.org.uk Profile Editor Anna Brook profile@palatinate.org.uk Travel Editor Katy Balls travel@palatinate.org.uk Listings Editor Tamara Gates listings@palatinate.org.uk Books Editor Matthew Richardson books@palatinate.org.uk Film and Television Editor Alison Moulds film@palatinate.org.uk Music Editors David Tshulak Olivia Swash music@palatinate.org.uk Stage Editors Daniel Dyson Sophie Zeldin-O’Neill stage@palatinate.org.uk Visual Arts Editor Rosanna Boscawen visual.arts@palatinate.org.uk Sports Editors Rajvir Rai Vacant sport@palatinate.org.uk Chief Sub-Editors Kayleigh Brandon Lucy Dearden sub-editing@palatinate.org.uk Contributing Sub-Editors Emma Pursey, Emma Hyde, Lisa Paul, Louise Quarmby, Vicky Woodcock, Natalie Kent, Mei Yew,Aysling Gaffey, Joanna Harrod, Sarah Cannon Website Editor Gwilym Newton web.editor@palatinate.org.uk Illustration Editor Anthonie Chiu-Smit illustration@palatinate.org.uk Photography Editors James Dunn Jonathan Allen photography@palatinate.org.uk Multimedia Editors Alistair Barber Ben Swales multimedia @palatinate.org.uk

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

For even more news visit palatinate.org.uk

Durham News BRIXTON

The Gospels are widely regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of an illuminated manuscript from the Early Medieval period

Lindisfarne Gospels to return to Cathedral in 2013 Daniel Johnson

The British Library announced this week that the Lindisfarne Gospels are to be returned to Durham in 2013, but only for a three month period.

Sir Colin Lucas, chairman of the British Library Board, said that the board “look forward to working with Durham towards the loan of the Gospels”. But he added that the loan was “subject to the necessary assurances around the display, security, conservation and other conditions”, as well as a six-month feasibility study.

The decision comes after many years of campaigning against resistance from the British Library. A group including the

University, Durham Cathedral, Durham County Council and the Tyne and Wear Museum Service recently met to work out the logistics of the move.

A group of North East MPs central to the campaign warmly welcomed the announcement. In a joint statement issued by the MPs, Roberta Blackman-Woods, Kevan Jones, Sharon Hodgson and Dari Taylor said they are “very pleased that the British Library has agreed in principle to the loan of the Gospels to Durham”. They also expressed their intention to “work with all our partners including the Northumbria Association to ensure that the loan happens and that is a success”.

Further to this, the group of MPs stated

that the eventual aim was for the “permanent return of the gospels to the North East in the future” and that they will continue to campaign to this end.

Durham Cathedral, in a statement on their website, said that they are “delighted” by the decision. The statement alluded to their “intention to create a completely new exhibition of our Treasures in the next couple of years”, with the Lindisfarne Gospels as the “centrepiece” of that display whilst it is on loan. The move of the Gospels is likely to offer a new range of engaging educational opportunities, as well visitor experiences for people of all ages in the North East.

In light of Durham’s aim to be UK City of Culture 2013, the MPs expect that the

move of the Gospels will be a major asset and are “hopeful that the Gospels’ return will really boost Durham’s bid for the UK City of Culture in 2013”.

The last time the Gospels were exhibited in the North East was in 2000 at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle. On this occasion, an estimated 200,000 visitors went to see the Gospels on display and it is hoped that a similar level of interest will surround the 2013 exhibition in Durham.

Concerns raised over referendum

“We will continue to campaign for the permanent return of the Gospels to the North East.”

Continued from front page

The Gospels, produced in Lindisfarne in Northumbria in the late seventh or early eighth century, are widely regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of an illuminated gospel manuscript from the period, with spectacularly intricate decorations being its trademark. Part of the rationale behind the campaign is that the Lindisfarne Gospels spent a lengthy part of their history in Durham. From the late tenth to the early sixteenth century, the Gospels were a key treasure of the community of St Cuthbert, as part of an ensemble of sacred relics.

Professor Richard Gameson, a specialist in the History of the Book and Medieval Art at the University, also welcomed the decision. He spoke of how “re-displaying the Gospels in Durham presents a uniquely important opportunity to recreate something of their historical and cultural context”.

A sister manuscript to the Lindisfarne Gospels are the Durham Gospels, which are currently being kept in the Cathedral.

It is hoped that studying the two in tandem will enable a greater historical understanding of the Lindisfarne Gospels, as “a masterpiece amid masterpieces.” Professor Gameson believes that though reuniting these with other Northumbrian manuscripts, the coherent, cultural context of the Gospels can be better enjoyed by historians and history-buffs alike.

Hild Bede vote to support Bahá’í Iranians Diya Sagar

On 11th October, the Hild Bede SRC (Student Representative Council, comprising the JCR and MCR) passed a motion to “express concern regarding the denial of higher education to students of the Bahá’í Faith in Iran, and its impact on the diversity of our College community”.

The motion mandated the SRC President Chris Moore to write a letter of concern to the Durham MP Roberta Blackman-Woods, and indicate the problem to the Vice-Chancellor and the Dean of Internationalisation through the JCR Presidents’ Committee (PresComm).

This motion reaffirms the unanimous vote at the DSU Council Meeting earlier this year, where the DSU voted to support the ‘Closed Doors’ campaign for the rights of Bahá’í students in Iran.

The Bahá’í Faith is a world religion based on the unity of humankind, and constitutes Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority. Bahá’í’s are currently banned from all higher education institutions in Iran solely due to their religious beliefs. The government of Iran actively works to prevent them from obtaining an education so they can-

not contribute to their society. The Bahá’í writings state that “conflict and contention are in no ways permitted”, and thus Bahá’í’s refrain from political partisanship and protest. Hence, while certainly expressing serious concern for human rights abuse, the motion is not a ‘protest’; it merely asks recognised academic organisations to express their worries in a civil and collegial manner.

“The problem is that members of our faith are banned from all higher education institutions in Iran.”

Durham’s student Bahá’í community is in favour of increased academic exchanges and scholarships between the UK and Iran. James Russell, who proposed the motion to both the DSU and Hild Bede SRC, showed his apprehensiveness of the situation: “the teachings of our faith emphasise the need to unify humanity and

the importance of education. The problem is that members of our faith are excluded from eligibility to study at Durham, because they are banned from all Higher Education institutions in Iran”. As it stands, any incoming group of Iranian students to Durham would exclude members of Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority.

This discrimination is an important matter to Durham students because the University is currently recruiting students from Iran. Indeed, Mehdi Hashemi, Chair of Council of Azad University of Tehran, visited recently to discuss the possibility of Durham leading a PhD programme for academic staff from the University.

Bahá’í students banned from entering the university system in Iran are therefore also prevented from continuing on to postgraduate study at Durham. As a result, religious discrimination in Iran limits the potential diversity of Durham University and prevents qualified international students from becoming part of the university community.

Hild Bede has been designated as one of five colleges favoured for the recruitment of residential postgraduates. The college currently represents international students from 21 countries and is proud of “its long-

standing traditions as a vibrant, all-inclusive, tolerant and caring community in which the contributions of all members, regardless of their position, role or background, are appreciated as being equally important”.

The SRC believes that the University Administration needs to be informed about the detrimental impact of the discrimination on its applicant pool and firmly deems that university admission to students of all or no religious traditions should be based solely on academic merit. SRC President Moore stated in an interview, “Hild Bede is committed to ensuring inclusion, diversity and freedom of education for all”. He hopes that together with the support of the JCR PresComm, the Vice-Chancellor and Dean will communicate their joint concern to colleagues in Iran and the government.

International anxiety has made a difference for Bahá’í students in the past. In 2004, Bahá’í students were briefly allowed to enroll in Higher Education after the EU and other international institutions made representation to Iran. However, whilst discrimination against our fellow students of the Bahá’í Faith is ongoing, Durham’s student Bahá’í community continue to campaign.

drew. “What strikes me most is the true quality of voting – all colleges got acceptable turnouts. Credit goes to Senior DSU Reps in colleges for this, and of course the people who made an informed decision about NUS over the week”.

Van Mildert College achieved the highest turnout, with 43% of students voting. However, participation at other colleges was somewhat lower, with Hatfield and Ustinov Colleges registering only 10% and 3% turnouts respectively.

The latter reflects a trend continued from recent DSU elections and referendums in which undergraduate turnout was consistently far higher than that of postgraduates. In total, only 4% of postgraduates voted, compared to 25% of undergraduates.

Although the referendum was one of the most high-profile in the DSU’s history, concerns were raised over the manner in which results were announced to the student body. Although voting closed on the evening of Friday 27th November, it was not until Monday 30th November that a university-wide e-mail was sent out by DSU President Natalie Crisp.

Defending her decision to delay the announcement, Ms Crisp stated that university e-mail policy restricted her from sending more than one e-mail per week to the student body, and that Senior DSU Reps and JCR Presidents should have been on-hand to publicize results. “Ensuring that the DSU remains transparent to the student body is fundamental to everything we do as sabbatical officers, and if there are concerns it’s something we can look into in the run up to the Sabbatical and Trustee elections next term.”

Many were surprised to see NUS President Wes Streeting using social networking site Twitter to voice his delight at the outcome of the referendum, despite students receiving no official online publication details until after the weekend.

Bar closed Continued from front page

Professor Corrigan issued the following statement to Palatinate: “We received a number of complaints from students concerning an event held in Collingwood bar during the evening of 15th November. With regret for the inconvenience caused to all other students, we decided to close the bar until we had interviewed people responsible for the event and some of the others attending it. We investigated the complaints, which we took very seriously, established the facts and decided on a course of action to ensure a similar incident will not occur in future.”

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

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Durham News

News Durham

DUCK Officer’s Column Mel Punton

Minette Paes

Trevelyan College had the privilege of enjoying an afternoon visit from the University’s Chancellor, Bill Bryson, who along with a large group of their students took part in a litter pick.

Just over forty people from the college took part in the activity on 17th November.

The event was organised by Professor Evans the College Principal, Claire Markwell the JCR President and Mark Roger, the MCR President.

Chris Bliss, Trevelyan’s Environment Representative, was pleased with how the afternoon turned out: “The event appeared to be a success with a large mountain of rubbish being collected.”

After the work was done, Trevelyan students had the opportunity to enjoy a chat with Bill Bryson over mince pies and Winter Pimms at a reception in the SCR. The litter pick was organised to raise awareness about how much litter people produce and how much could potentially be recycled. Bryson’s presence at the litter pick was particularly significant due to the litter campaign he launched on behalf of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).

The University Chancellor is currently also the President of CPRE, a registered charity, of which the Queen is patron.

The charity promotes a sustainable future for the English countryside, highlighting threats and promoting solutions.

A litter campaign was launched by the organisation called ‘Stop the Drop’ in June 2008 and Bryson has made a statement on on the CPRE website saying “We launched

IAN WILLIAMSON

this campaign because we believe that people care very much about their community, streets and countryside and don’t want to see it disappearing under an ever increasing pile of litter”.

Bryson, who wrote the well-known travel book, Notes From A Small Island, in which he celebrates his love of the English countryside, continues “nowhere in the world is there a landscape more lovely to behold, more comfortable to be in, more artfully worked, more visited and walked across and gazed upon than the countryside of England. It is a glorious achievement and much too lovely to trash”.

“Nowhere in the world is there a landscape more lovely to behold .”

The successful litter pick at Trevelyan College was one of many taking place throughout the colleges in Durham in the University’s first ‘Environment Week’. The event was arranged by the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Group (ESAG) between 16th and 22nd November.

The week of events could not have taken place at a better time in raising environmental awareness, in the wake of recent flooding in and around the Elvet Riverside area and in Durham during the summer. A variety of activities were held for staff and students alike encouraging them to work and live in a more sustainable manner.

Chancellor Bill Bryson pitches in with the clean-up of Durham’s littered pathways and verges

The week got off to a great start with an Environment Fair, which Bryson also attended, featuring a variety of exhibitors offering advice on recycling, energy, transport and Fairtrade.

Another highlight included an ‘Alternative Travel to Work Day’ promoting more sustainable ways of getting to work. There were also lunchtime talks by the Energy

Saving Trust, recycling displays and guided walks and bike rides, all of which were free of charge.

The University have also set up a competition for students to design a energy sticker to remind others to switch off lights and save energy. The Competition closes on January 22nd and full details can be found at www.durham.ac.uk/environment.

Toilet twinning comes to a loo near you Maddie Cuff

Most of us assume that the days of outside toilets are over but when Gordon Brown opened his front door on November 19th, he was confronted by two toilets covered by signatures, forming a novel petition for World Toilet Day. Durham University student Elisabeth Martin was responsible for this stunt, along with collaborators Tearfund and End Water Poverty. Her aim was to highlight the

ongoing sanitation issues in the developing world.

Inspired by a trip to Uganda this summer, Elisabeth has not only produced this petition, gathering hundreds of signatures in the process, but has also brought toilet twinning to Durham.

“One way to flush away sanitation poverty is the ‘Toilet Twinning’ initiative run by the charity CORD,” she comments, “The DSU have supported my motion to ‘twin’ the toilets in the DSU building with toilets ELEANOR BENTALL

One day in the life of a DUCK: 8am: Sunday morning, wake up, gird loins, head to river. Quick hushed conference with some people who know about rivers and flooding and rowing and things. A decision is made – let’s send 20,000 little rubber ducks downstream and hope for the best. 9am: several bleary eyed but incessantly enthusiastic volunteers dressed as taps (hot and cold), toilets and overly skintight DUCK stash line the bridges and streets of Durham, flogging race tickets to all and sundry. 9.30am: aforementioned ducks are tipped from eight enormous wheelie bins into the scoop (unsure about official terminology) of one enormous digger. Fact: said ducks make a disturbingly lifelike squeaking noise when moved in large quantities.

9.45am: ridiculously large digger is manoeuvred onto Elvet Bridge while volunteers in skintight stash do a bit of a dance to keep pedestrians out of the way.

10.30am: the DUCK manager ventures onto the Wear for the first time ever since she came to Durham (she’s no rower). It’s high. The ducks are troubled. The men in the boats more so. But the men manning the giant inflatable orange boom (aim: to stop ducks escaping out to sea) are nonchalant – it can take it, they say. The show is on the road.

12pm: one human and one tap start marshalling the pedestrians of Durham with the aid of a giant megaphone.

12.30pm: the Mayor arrives, mounts the digger and starts an admirable charitable patter with the megaphone, flogging us a couple of hundred more tickets. 1pm: the countdown. The digger lurches, and the ducks are in! Thunderous cheers.

They’re speedy this year – speedier than ever before. The kayaks race to keep up and stop some of the poor creatures getting sucked into a whirlpool under Elvet Bridge. Six and a half minutes later, and they’re at the finish line! Alistair from Northumbrian water scoops the lucky winner, Jake, owned by Sophie Allinson from Collingwood who walks away with the £1000 prize.

1.07pm: minor catastrophe – there’s a gap in the boom! Intrepid ducks make a break for it and whiz off downstream.

Kayaks and motorboats speed after them and after a thrilling chase most of the escapees are scooped back to another year of hibernation in a bin under Prince Bishops.

3pm: the clearup operation is finally complete and at least 19,990 ducks are safe and sound. Keep an eye out for the remaining 10 if you’re near any Norse beaches this Christmas. And so the annual Grand Durham Duck Race draws to a close. Many thanks to all the stalwart DUCK volunteers who’ve been flogging tickets for months, to all the help offered

by Durham Amateur Rowing Club, Durham City Kayakers, Durham College Rowing, Northumbrian Water, the Prince Bishops and Indoor Market, the Mayor and of course to all of you – for helping us make around £4000 for some ducking good causes.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Bryson backs inaugural ‘Environment Week’

Elisabeth Martin and Rachel Tiffany outside Westminster with their signed toilet seats

being built in the Giharo Commune and Rutana Province of Burundi.”

Following DSU council approval, DUCK is planning rag raids to raise funding, with the aim of getting all the DSU loos twinned with those in built by CORD in Burundi.

A twinned toilet will be identifiable by a framed photo of its foreign sibling hanging in the cubicle, serving as a continual reminder of what Tearfund views as ‘a silent emergency’. 2.5 billion people lack access to clean sanitation, and it is estimated that this causes 1.8 million deaths per year.

The petition produced for World Toilet Day is designed to particularly highlight the lack of progress of the Millenium Development Goal, which is currently 100 years behind its sanitation target for 2015. This is due to a lack of investment and awareness of the issue; reluctance to break the silence on ‘the greatest and last taboo’ means that ‘toilet talk’ has been stuck in the u-bend for a number of years.

Progress has been made in the last few years, and the petition and ensuing publicity comes ahead of the first annual high-level meeting on sanitation between international diplomats, to be held in Washington in April 2010.

Prompted by Tearfund’s campaign for a Global Framework for Action, the meeting hopes to facilitate the creation of an achievable international strategy on the provision of sanitation and water. The formidable force of Elisabeth and Tearfund hope to

ensure that the UK sends Mike Foster, the Minister for Water and Sanitation, to the talks and want assurances that no scheme would fail due to a lack of funding.

Martin was inspired to get bogged down in the world of toilet campaigning after she led a team of volunteers out to Uganda this summer to build rain-collecting tanks in remote mountain villages. Experiencing the problems first hand, a lack of sanitation and water inspired her to become more heavily involved in flushing away the problem.

“For women and children, walking four hours a day to collect diseased water is a normality. Girls miss school, carry phenomenal loads and are vulnerable to rape.

Without basic toilets, people lack hygiene and dignity. Improving water and sanitation are at the heart of tackling poverty and building a better future – this is a silent emergency. Governments must recognise this issue as a political priority”.

Establishing a functioning sanitation infrastructure is seen as crucial for a country to develop, both economically and socially.

The DSU’s creative step of toilet twinning highlights the importance of this issue in an ever-developing world, and hopes other university student unions will follow its lead. In the meanwhile, you can help Martin’s cause by signing the online petition at www.tearfund.org/makelifeflow.

Alternatively, get someone a unique Christmas gift at www.wateraid.org. Taps…£12.

Loo…£30. A safe, dignified poo…priceless.

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PALATINATE Friday 20th November 2009

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Steel plant closure a blow to region Ally Bacon

The North East was faced with another blow to its economy after steel giant Corus axed 1,700 jobs just three weeks before Christmas. It was seen as a “shameful betrayal” by its workers, in an area where unemployment rates are already some of the highest in the country. Various North East unions called it a “premature decision”, demanding immediate action from the Government to help those who have been made redundant.

The closure was blamed on a ten-year deal that disintegrated after an unnamed international consortium halted plans to buy cast products from the Teeside plant last March, six years earlier than planned. Following this cancellation, the steel plant had no further orders or any success with finding a rescue deal, despite a series of worker marches in July as part of a “Save our Steel” campaign.

A Department for Business spokesman stated at the time, “We have offered £5m in training support to help the workforce up skill for the upturn, signalling a real commitment from the Government to Corus and its workforce”, but added, “The difficulties that the company is facing are caused by an extreme downturn in demand for steel

around the world”.

The business had run up £130 million in debt this year since April, and was no longer seen as sustainable.

Alan Clarke, chief executive of One North East development agency, said: “It is a devastating blow for the dedicated work-

“the plant is not sustainable without a long-term strategic partner.” force and the Tees Valley economy”. Redcar MP Vera Baird was dismayed; “My heart is with those people getting this abysmal news three weeks before Christmas”.

The decision will hit the North East unemployment black spots hard, with the region’s jobless rate at 9.5%, one of the highest in the UK. Earlier this year 1,300 jobs were cut at the failed Northern Rock branches based in Newcastle and Sunderland, contributing further to the bleak economic situation in the area.

The Indian multinational corporation Tata, which also controls Jaguar, owns Corus. They have said that part of the site will remain open, keeping around 600 jobs

Durham, national and columns News intact, out of its 2000-strong original work force. Overall across the country, the UK staff cuts by Tata have been 6,700. This is in striking comparison to the quarter of a million Britons who were employed by the steel industry during the 1960s.

Corus said in a statement: “Since the consortium broke this legally-binding agreement, from which it made an estimated 800 million US dollar profit, Corus has been diverting internal orders to Teesside Cast Products.

“The company has also been securing external orders on an ad hoc basis in a bid to keep the plant open while an alternative future for the plant was sought. This has cost the company about £130 million. Operating a three million tonnes peryear merchant slab plant is not sustainable without a long-term strategic partner”.

Corus chief executive Kirby Adams claimed the company had no option but to “mothball” the Teesside Cast Products factory after the international consortium broke a binding contract.

Adams also added: “ One [employee] even told me ‘This is a divorce - we’re taking the money, you have the kids’. This is the last thing we wanted and we feel deeply about what is happening. Sadly, it has become unavoidable, through no fault of our people on Teesside”.

Steel processing around the world remains under huge pressure, with an estimated 300 million tonnes of excess capacity, the company said.

Lord Mandelson, the government’s Business Secretary, has stated that local officials will do all they can to help find Corus employees new work. Residents of the North East however, are less optimistic.

DSU President’s Column Natalie Crisp

It has been democracy central at DSU in the past few weeks. Both the NUS affiliation referendum and the NUS conference delegate elections ensured that we were getting out into colleges, speaking with students and most importantly of all putting decisions directly into your hands.

As reported on the front cover of Palatinate, over 18% of students voted in the referendum and this is a turn out which I am exceedingly proud of. It is testimony to the hard work of all of the Senior DSU Reps in the 16 colleges, the DSU officers, the JCR Presidents and of course my fellow sabbaticals. They all put in a concerted effort to engage with students, and here and now is an appropriate place to thank them.

The results of the referendum were announced publically in Kingsgate on Friday, and we also informed all of the Senior Reps, whose job it is to disseminate this information to their colleges appropriately.

The results of the delegate elections will be released in a similar way, so if anyone wants to come and watch the results being announced, they are more than welcome to come to Kingsgate a little after 5 this Friday.

On top of all of this very exciting democracy in action, the DSU Trustee board has also met for the second time this academic year. As the highest governing body of the union, with ultimate legal and financial responsibility, it is an exceedingly important group. High level strategic decisions are made at these meetings, determining the direction of travel for the union.

We had a really interesting discussion about how to make the governance processes of DSU more transparent. I am really keen to ensure that you all know what is happening in your union; after all, we only exist to provide representation and services to you, our members.

I believe it is important that students understand why certain decisions are made, and are able to feed into the process wherever possible.

If you have any ideas or questions about this then please do email me and let me know (my email address is dsu.president@durham.ac.uk.)

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Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

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Durham News

News in brief

Gateway gets go-ahead

JONATHAN ALLEN

News Durham, national and columns

Adam Painter

Planning permission has been granted to the University’s Gateway Project. The project, which is to see the science site transformed, has been met with some opposition from the local community.

The plans (costing around £48 million) will see a new law school, a library extension and student services department.

Durham’s Labour controlled council voted by nine to one to back the scheme which is expected to bring many jobs.

The University claims that over 200 construction jobs will be created with around 22 permanent jobs once the scheme is complete.

Opponents have however urged the council to reconsider. They believe the building needs redesigning as it will block sunlight and dwarf nearby houses. Colin Jubb, of the Elvet Residents Association, said he believed the University could achieve its plans by building elsewhere. City of Durham Trust spokesman Roger Cornwell said the development was “inappropriate” in the location. He said a pavilion-like building with “bulging glazing” was more suited to the riverside and was “urban, hardly university and certainly not Durham”.

Professor Chris Higgins, Vice-Chancellor of the University, said that “Gateway will have significant benefits for the University, the city and the wider region and I am delighted that the project has been approved”.

Mr Cornwell has pledged that the trust will monitor the construction work to make sure the project will meet what had been set out within the proposal.

Fantasy theme park to open Jodie Smith

Myths, fables and legends will soon become part of Durham’s landscape with the opening of a new world-class tourist attraction: Orchestrator.

The fantasy theme-park will offer visitors the chance to choose their own character and take part in a live action role-play experience that lasts anything from a single day to a whole week.

Guests will be put into groups and leave reality behind them as they set off on their adventures. They will stay in character for the duration of their visit as they tackle various problem solving tasks and puzzles, surrounded by mythical characters, monsters and magic.

The site, which will be built on 250 acres of land owned by East Durham College, would also include themed accommodation and restaurants as well as a small top-of-the-range housing development.

Bruce Murray, Orchestrator’s managing director, says the project will offer a whole new experience for tourists in the area. “It’s an interactive and immersive style of tourism where visitors will be involved in the action and not passively watching what goes on around them”, he says.

Orchestrator is looking to recruit “talented, motivated” young employees for both seasonal and year-round work, and will create around 400 jobs when it opens in 2012.

A public exhibition of the low-impact, environmentally friendly project will take place on 17th and 18th December so that local residents can learn more about the project.

The Palatinate team took an educated guess as to how the Hogwarts’ Sorting Hat would judge some of Durham ‘s Colleges

JCR changes its name to Gryffindor

Alison Moulds

Last month students at Magdalene College, Oxford University, voted to rename their Junior Common Room “Gryffindor” in honour of the house attended by boy wizard Harry Potter in J.K. Rowling’s bestselling novels.

The decision was made on Sunday 22nd November at a JCR General Meeting, following a proposal made by third-year student Zoe Tyndall. The proposal claimed that Magdalene embodied the “values of courage, daring, nerve and chivalry” that characterise the house in the novels. The idea was initially raised by third-year Matthew Shribman during his JCR presidential bid. The motion only received six votes in opposition and the tone of the debate was irreverent, with the only opposition speech

light-heartedly suggesting the purchase of a ‘sorting hat’, an object which features in the novels to assign Hogwarts student to the different houses.

Magdalene’s JCR President, Laurence Mills, has apparently contacted fellow Oxford JCR Presidents recommending they follow suit. Magdalene proposed that St Hugh’s and Merton re-brand themselves Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw respectively, whilst Christ Church was encouraged to adopt the moniker ‘Slytherin’, after the infamous house populated by the darkest wizards in the Harry Potter tradition.

Fellow colleges have joined the hype, with Christ Church proudly accepting the name bestowed upon them and St John’s demanding that their academic record entitles them to the privilege of being known as Ravenclaw, which is traditionally the house

of the most intelligent wizards.

Although the college JCR will now be referred to by its new name in ‘all official documents’, it is highly unlikely that the college itself will adopt the new title.

Despite the droll attitude of the Magdalene JCR itself, the name change marks the first instance of such an amendment in the college’s 550 year history.

Reaction amongst college students has been mostly positive, though rumours abound both inside Oxford and at other universities that the motion was the product of an alcohol-induced debate and that those proposing the amendment thought there would be failsafes to prevent the JCR’s name being changed officially.

The question remains whether such a change would be possible amongst college JCRs in Durham. Martin Brown, Chair of

Trevelyan JCR, says that, based on Trevs’ constitution, it seems it would be “certainly possible for a JCR in Durham to change its name as Magdalene have done” as “any members of Trevs JCR can propose a motion on any subject”. The only exceptions are motions which propose illegal activities or ones designed for financial gain.

However, Brown notes that such a decision would not be finalised until the Exec had managed to convince the College Council to pass the name change. Furthermore, there is uncertainty over whether using such a name would infringe copyright laws.

“Personally,” Brown adds, “if pushed I would opt for a name change to Beauxbatons”, alluding to the fictional French magic school which also appears in the Harry Potter series.

New admission policy to attract locals

Lucinda Rouse

January 2010 sees the beginning of a new scheme run by the University to encourage schoolchildren from underprivileged areas of the North East to apply to Durham.

The Supported Progression Programme will provide academic and financial assistance for 100 selected school pupils who fit a certain criteria and wish to study one of fifteen subjects, including Physics, Law and Anthropology. To fit the criteria, candidates must be in Year Twelve or the Lower Sixth, attend a state school or college in County Durham, achieve higher GCSE results than their school’s average, and live in one of the 40% of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country.

The programme will include an assessed residential summer school, as well as admissions guidance. 36 successful par-

ticipants will obtain a Supported Progression Qualification, which consists of 40-60 UCAS points and a guaranteed offer of a place at their chosen participating department. However, the programme does not exonerate applicants from a UCAS application, nor can they obtain lower grades required of any other student applying to the University.

The scheme has raised concern among some, who see it as an example of the University following the social engineering policy encouraged by the government.

Oxford University has also been accused of denying interviews to extremely able middle-class candidates in favour of those from working-class backgrounds. However, such claims have been stringently denied by the senior management team at Durham. The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Chris Higgins, maintains the University is an autonomous

institution, and is not seeking to meet governmental targets with regard to admitting some students over others simply because of their background. He stresses the University’s policy of choosing applicants “based on merit and potential alone”.

Certain areas of County Durham and Teeside have some of the lowest higher education participation rates in the country.

The Supported Progression Programme seeks to attract able pupils who are simply lacking in confidence and aspiration, but possess the ability to be among the highest achievers at the University.

In 2008 and 2009, offers given to applicants with North-Eastern postcodes was in a minority at an average of 8.1%. This is proportionate with the number of applicants from the North-East, who constituted 8.9% of the total applications received.

Over the same two years, the University re-

ceived 59.8% of its applications from state sector pupils, and 40.2% from independent schools. 56.3% of offers given were given to applicants from state schools.

The programme is part of a larger Outreach Programme run by the University, which seeks to widen participation and recruit students from a diverse range of backgrounds and ages. Applicants are required to submit a personal statement, as well as a reference from a teacher. The first intake of participating students for a degree course will be in autumn 2011.

There is no evidence to suggest that applicants are chosen for any reason other than academic excellence. The scheme, according to Professor Anthony Forster, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, has been set in place to identify and recruit “the brightest and best students” who might otherwise be overlooked.

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

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News Feature

Demystifying mitigating circumstances

With end of term essay deadlines fast approaching, Deputy News Editor George Stafford decided to investigate this confusing system for students in need. Depending on what you’re reading, you’re in for a very different experience DELANEY CHAMBERS

T

he mitigating circumstances system is designed to provide students with a mechanism for ensuring that their grades reflect their abilities when their assessment has been seriously affected by circumstances that are beyond their control.

However, following complaints by students and a subsequent investigation, Palatinate has found that there are serious problems with how the system operates.

Currently it seems that a student wishing to claim mitigating circumstances has their application considered according to the arbitrary rules of whatever department controls their course, rather than the rules set down by the University. They could be given extremely misleading information and receive absolutely no communication regarding what effect their application has had on their assessment, or even if it has been received.

In the course of the investigation, Palatinate spoke to several students who had needed concessions due to unforeseen events. The Deputy Academic Registrar Sam Dale was also interviewed to represent the University. His responses were slightly restrained as he did not wish to criticise other University departments or suggest reforms prematurely before the group report on possible changes to the system is disclosed in March. However he did comment on most of the areas under question.

If you wish to claim for mitigating circumstances you must submit a form to your department’s Board of Examiners before their meeting that precedes the assessment in question. They will then decide whether your circumstances are serious enough to warrant a free pass to the next year or an upgrade to your degree classification if your marks are deficient. Definitive details of the process that is followed and aspects of the system that operate throughout the University are supplied online.

However, Palatinate found that when asked, several departments’ policies regarding how they dealt with students were very different to what they were meant to be. For example, the Archaeology Department stated that claims for concession due to illness would not be considered unless accompanied by a doctor’s note. Yet the guidelines clearly state that “submissions will not be discounted simply because they are not supported by independent evidence”.

More bizarrely, the Law School stated that it would not answer a number of questions about how it dealt with mitigating circumstances because this would “relate directly to the material exercise of the Board’s discretion, which is always exercised on the basis of all the facts of the individual case”.

This suggests that the Law School declined to answer questions about how they deal with students because this may prevent their Board from enacting the policy they choose for each individual under consideration. Yet the questions merely required answers that adhered to University guidelines, and should not be subject to the discretion of each department’s board. The implica-

Summatives and sitting exams is something all Durhamites are used to, but some students still struggle to cope with the pressure

tion is that the Law School does not have a consistent policy that adheres to University guidelines when it should do. It seems that the Law Department, and several others, is a law unto itself.

The result is that students have to face a different policy depending on which department is in control of their degree, that this policy may not correspond to what is meant to be University policy, and that the policy is not what they were expecting.

When asked to comment, the Deputy Academic Registrar Sam Dale stated that:

“students face a different policy depending on which department they are a member of” “Of course we would expect departments to correspond with the guidance set down.” When asked whether the system needed to be reformed because departments were clearly not following University guidelines, he added, “I’m not going to make a judgement about where I sit on this debate until the work is done”.

Even more distressingly, Palatinate received a complaint from a student who had been treated in a way directly contradicting both the published University guidelines and the policy of any department that responded to the Palatinate investigation. None of the departments stated that evidence was essential to obtain mitigating circumstances

No ones favourite place, especially when something out of your control has disrupted work

when a student was suffering from bereavement, and the official guidelines correspond to this. But one anonymous student was told their claim was undermined predominantly because they had not provided evidence that both family members and friends had passed away in the run up to exams. The student was extremely distressed: “I was insulted that they asked me to provide evidence that people had died. It’s very hard to do this for close friends while their families are grieving.”

This implies a lack of sensitivity by several of the University departments, ignoring the University guidelines that are created for such upsetting circumstances.

A lack of clarity in what students need to make a successful claim appears to be another vital flaw to the current system.

If you do need to request mitigating circumstances, there are two vital things that must be remembered. The first is that, despite what the guidelines say, evidence seems to be essential, so get what you can. Second, it is very important that you submit your claim before you sit your exam.

The online guidelines suggest that evidence of mitigating events should be “submitted with the form if appropriate”, but quickly go on to specify that “submissions will be discounted simply because there they are not supported by independent evidence: in some entirely valid circumstances there is no independent evidence that can be brought”.

This description is contrary to the experience of the vast majority of those using mitigating circumstances, several stating that a case rests on or is useless without some sort of evidence; even in a case of bereavement.

In the words of one anonymous student, “I questioned the emphasis on the need for evidence when the handbook stresses that people won’t be penalised for no evidence”.

The University seems to be giving students

false information about what is required for a concession, undermining students’ efforts before they have even begun. Mr Dale understood the problem and sympathised with students who felt that they had been misinformed, adding, “We might want to address the wording, in particular if its causing students distress, as that’s the last thing in the world that a university like Durham would want to do”.

Others felt that a lack of transparency extended far past the deficiencies of the official guidelines. In the build up to exams last year, Modern Languages student William Lucas suffered a chemical burn to his cornea. After submitting an application for mitigating circumstances, he received absolutely no communication from the Modern Languages department or any other part of the University about it. There was no confirmation of whether his application had been successful or even whether it had been received: “The lack of communication increased what was already a stressful time for me in the build-up to exams. I don’t know whether this happens to every student applying for mitigating circumstances, but if it does, it really needs to be resolved.”

To the credit of the University authorities, the system is under review. A working group has been established and will report its findings in March 2010. One of the members of the group is Mr Dale, who stressed that it is not assured that anything will change. “We could fundamentally rewrite everything, or we could say that it seems to be OK”.

There are two main areas of fault with the current system. Firstly, the system is riddled with contradictions, conflicting between how academic departments think the system works, how the online guidelines state the system works, and how the system actually works in real life. The second problem consists of a striking lack of clarity on behalf of the University: the ambiguous nature of the online guidelines, and lack of communication to students who are attempting to claim mitigating circumstances.”

Students must be made more fully aware of what is required for a successful application and when the best time to submit a request is. More advertising is needed and the guidelines must be much clearer about how the system operates. Finally, academic departments must be made to adhere to the rules set down by the University, so that students with mitigating circumstances receive a fair chance.

It is still not known whether the working group will advocate reform of the system, but since their recommendations will not be implemented until the academic year 2010/2011 one thing is for sure: it will be some time until these problems with the system are resolved.

The University looks upon claims post-assessment with more suspicion, and the process involved to receive a concession is much more difficult to pass through successfully. As Mr Dale suggested, the question that will be asked is: ‘Why didn’t you bring this to our attention before exams?’

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

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Opinion Comment

Comment Help for Heroes has become the charity du jour

Our writers discuss topical matters This edition: Noughties - the verdict

From the The charitable attention paid recently to returning soldiers is welcome social development Union IVOLIC

James Dunn

T

his month saw the safe return of soldiers from their tour in Afghanistan after some of the bloodiest fighting in post war history. Many took part in the frontline on Operation Panther’s Claw, one of the most ambitious and some consider foolish pushes into Taliban strongholds. However, almost all of the people returning have experienced the bereavement of losing members of their regiment who become like family, entrusting their lives to one another throughout the six months.

During the operation a massive percentage were injured, with almost half of the frontline troops requiring significant medical treatment (according to a Guardian reporter who received this information from a senior military source). These casualties were sustained during intense fighting, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or the massive strain of being in theatre. The single most astonishing aspect of this fighting is how those who were injured have coped and how positive they have been in the face of a life altering event.

My brother was serving with the Light Dragoons in Helmand during Operation Panther’s Claw. He was lucky to escape with only minor injuries after his tank drove over an IED and my family know how different the outlook could have been.

As the recently retired Colonel of the Regiment, Lieutenant General Sir Roderick Cordy Simpson put it, “lucky for Charlie he is built like a brick shit house and wasn’t badly hurt”.

Many members of his regiment were not as fortunate; the Light Dragoons suffered one of the highest numbers of wounded and fatalities during their time on tour. These losses were not only felt through the regiment but throughout the UK as the faces of the deceased were plastered in every tabloid and news programme. In comparison, however, the number and faces of those injured remained somewhat of a mystery. This is where Help for Heroes has stepped in, to care for those who are to an extent away from the public eye but who desperately need support in picking themselves up from the brink to recover a fraction of a normal life.

Since being formed in September 2007, Help for Heroes (H4H) has sky rocketed into the public spotlight and raised over £33 million. The Ministry of Defence was very quick to jump on the band wagon and by the 1st October it had formally shown its support. Bryn Parry (founder of Help for Heroes) made the purposes of his charity clear: “Help for Heroes was formed to raise money to support our wounded in their long battles towards rehabilitation and with rebuilding their lives,” he said.

“The money raised will enable our service charities to provide facilities which are today beyond their means.” The charity’s rise begun very early and by Christmas it

Many soldiers return from Afghanistan with serious injuries, and Help for Heroes provides a vital service in creating facilities for their recovery

had attracted support from national newspapers, such as The Sun and The Sunday Times who made it one of the beneficiaries of their Christmas appeal in 2007.

“Help for Heroes has skyrocketed into the public spotlight and raised over £33m” But the real leap to a household name came a year later, when two very public events took place. The first was the Help for Heroes rugby match that took place at Twickenham, featuring top rugby players from around the world. It raised £1.1m and was televised live. The most public fundraiser occurred a week later when the ‘unforgettable’ stars of the 2008 X-Factor brought out their rendition of Mariah Carey’s song Hero. The government saw this as a PR opportunity and Alistair Darling announced that he would effectively waive VAT on the single, so that more profit would be made. In the first week of its release it went straight to number 1 and sold 313,244 copies, more than the rest of the top ten combined.

So how did a charity started by a husband and wife raise on average £1 million a month? With charities already in existence that offer similar support it is very surprising that Help for Heroes is capable of being so successful. The Royal British Legion was founded in 1921 and sets out to provide financial, social and emotional support to millions who have served or who are currently serving in the British Armed Forces, and their dependents. In my view Help for Heroes has triumphed because it focuses on the younger genera-

tions. The poppy appeal is associated with the elderly veterans while newer charities like Help for Heroes resonate more with the current front liners. The H4H’s patrons show very clearly the focus on younger people, with Jeremy Clarkson, James Blunt and Ross Kemp heading up the list.

The extreme media attention surrounding the Iraq and Afghanistan war has also created mass sympathy for soldiers serving as their day to day struggle is beamed through all media by journalists posted out there. With the horror stories of the injured soldiers shown on screen in such documentaries as Wounded and Dispatches, H4H has become the outlet for those feeling helpless about the government’s treatment of our men and women.

Critics of Help for Heroes say its media attention and its fashionable status means that other charities suffer. However, the Royal British Legion’s financial statements show a 9.4% increase from 2007 to 2008 and the poppy appeal for last year raised an incredible £31 million. Within Durham the Poppy appeal fundraising increased from £1,412 in 2007-2008 and £1,887 in 2008-2009. So even though Help for Heroes raised such a massive sum others have not suffered, pointing towards the general public simply giving more to military charities then ever before.

The H4H website shows where the money is going; the most impressive would be the building of new facilities at Headley Court. Headley Court provides specialist medical officers, remedial instructors, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and those working on the building of prosthetic limbs. Not only does the centre deal with patients with new physical disabilities, but it also deals with patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. They have donated £8 million to the building

of a swimming pool and other buildings.

In previous years they have had to use the public swimming pool in Leatherhead, which has not been ideal. In November 2007, soldiers were working on their physiotherapy when they were jeered at by onlookers, two women even demanding that they be removed because it would scare their children. The soldiers no doubt suffered a massive hit in confidence as they try and fit back into society. So H4H’s money is allowing them to recover in state of the art facilities and away from disrespectful morons.

H4H’s fashionable success has also reached into the Durham bubble with members of Hatfield College raising almost £13000 this term alone. Even if you don’t like Hatfield (as many of the chants at 2am will show) they still should be appreciated for their contribution to ensuring these men and women can have normal lives.

To conclude by showing how the money is spent on individuals: early this year Lt Guy Disney, 27, a family friend, lost his leg from below the knee to a rocket propelled grenade when his armoured reconnaissance vehicle was engaged by the Taliban. Since returning to the UK in July he has undergone surgery and rehabilitation at Headley Court and now he is able to walk, run, horse ride and last week he was able to march with his regiment and collect his medal.

Our soldiers should get the best. They give more, risk more, sacrifice more, and they should be given more. We can give them more. Even if you don’t agree with war, there’s a difference between supporting the troops and supporting the war. So I urge you to follow the example of Hatfield and make Help for Heroes a Durham wide fashion.

Tom McCall & Jamie Scott

This week has been one of the biggest in the Union’s debating calendar for a while, with two significant awards coming into focus for the Society: on Sunday, Jon Worgan and Tom Ball won the Sheffield IV; and on Wednesday evening, some talented new member will have won the Freshers’ Cup. Seeing as we are fast approaching the end of term, the coupling of these victories together seems appropriate, as they emphasise the dual features of the old and the new in the Union. To begin with the old: Tom Ball has been at Durham, by his own admission, since time immemorial. Through those years, he has not only featured in more Friday Night Debates than almost any other, assumed a host of officerships, and drunk an awful lot in ‘24’; he has also been an invaluable debater on the national and international competitive circuit. For at least the last three years, he has ranked as the best speaker from Durham in every tournament he has participated in, a record extended over the weekend when he was judged to be the finest individual competing. In winning the Sheffield IV, Tom has won the Society its first main-event debating trophy since he himself collected (alongside Luke Wells) the Manchester IV in 2007. I am confident he won’t be slacking anytime soon, either. But Tom probably will leave us at some point in the very distant future, and the vacuum will have to be filled; and that is where the significance of the Freshers’ Cup comes into play.

Whereas Tom represents the ‘old guard’ of the Society, whomever the champion was – whether Guy Miscampbell, Dan Tookey, Roger Fox, Konrad Putzier, Ettie Bailey-King, or Pete Doughton – is at the forefront of that next assembly of speakers we hope will continue our fine debating tradition. Indeed, the World Championships is this January, at which Guy and Ettie will be competing alongside Tom and Jon – we wish them the best.

And it’s is not only on the debating circuit that the Union is experiencing a changing of the guard, but at the top of its hierarchy too. Today will be the ‘Farewell’ debate of Tom McCall – a man of diminutive physical stature, but commendable resolve as our President for the past few months. The motion will be ‘This House Believes Thatcher Was Our Greatest Post-War PM’, which should be entertaining, albeit easily defeated by the loud, boisterous leftist intellectuals in the officer benches.

Perhaps more importantly, though, it will be the occasion when Anna Birley accedes to the Chair. The first female President in years, she will no doubt be well received by the membership at large, and not just those campaigning for equal rights. Her Epiphany Term promises to be excellent, with debates ranging from Obama to the War on Drugs. So, farewell 2009; bring on 2010.

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

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Comment Opinion

Share your views with the Palatinate readership at palatinate.org.uk

‘New media’ is not a solution to the newspaper cash crisis KEVIN DOOLEY

Murdoch’s pay walls are indicitave of journalism’s narrow reaction to the challenge of intellectual property Chris Wright

Y

ou will have heard it said that the media is under threat because of the internet. All across the world, reporters fearing redundancy are desperately trying to think of something to say in 140 characters or less. Blogging is now standard as a requirement on journalism courses. Hacks are right to be worried, and it’s probably wise for them to try anything that might save their careers - but the frantic obsession with ‘new media’ smells more of desperation than of adaptation.

The difficulty is that intellectual property is inherently unstable. What journalists have to sell is information, in the broadest sense of the term: not only facts, but also the arrangement of words and images. Any industry which trades in information is vulnerable to technological developments which open up the ways in which that information can be reproduced and communicated. As such, the ownership of information, as words or pixels or whatever else, is not generally a sound basis for making money.

Newspaper websites have certainly damaged circulation figures, but the damage caused has not been so crucial as generally believed. Remember that papers were not forced to provide their

A sad looking Murdoch owned newspaper

content free of charge at the same time as selling it: they simply chose to, because the difference between ‘free’ and ‘cheap’ seems fairly negligible when the substance you trade in is about as tangible as air. No radio bulletin ever bothered to cite The Times or The Sun, but where else do they get their stories from? Is this piracy? Facts (and fictions) become common property as soon as they’re out of the starting gate.

Consequently, newspapers were hit hard

by TV and the radio before the internet came along.

The Telegraph’s recent fortunes make for an interesting case study. Britain’s best selling ‘quality paper’ had to work hard to ‘own’ (have its name associated with) the expenses story. As a result, its ‘investigative journalism’ (sifting through documents) has been widely celebrated in media circles: the celebration is really about the branding achievement. It seemed for once that a newspaper was actually in control of information! (This is also why you hear the word ‘exclusive’ a lot in the media.)

Economically, the expense scandal success was a drop in the ocean: circulation increased by about 2% temporarily, but - at least according to the Guido Fawkes blog - The Telegraph still pisses away around £200,000 every week.

To put it another way, a newspaper has almost nothing to sell. The most it can offer is the warm familiarity of a brand, backed up by assorted small pleasures: Charlie Brooker, page 3, the sudoku. You don’t need to buy one to find out if the

Prime Minister has resigned, supposing you should care, because you will hear anyway. Curiosity about the world now has little or no input in the decision to purchase a newspaper. That would have been the case with or without the internet.

“Curiosity about the world now has little or no input in the decision to buy a newspaper.

That would have been the case with or without the internet.”

Anyone who wants to think seriously about the future of journalism (and who cares about it as a social good rather than a way of making money) will have to see the disintegration of the economic model in the light of the broader issue of intellectual property.

Journalists find themselves, along with artists, selling an inherently communistic entity - information - while still having to answer to capitalist supermarkets and energy companies in order to live. This is a threat to forms of career, but more profoundly it is a threat to the notion of a worldly reward for valuable creative work.

Art is information in just the same way that news reports and opinion columns are - patterns of ones and zeros - now easily copied, shared, downloaded. The vexed question of an artwork’s ‘aura’ complicates matters (large numbers of people who can see the Mona Lisa on Google images still flock to the Louvre), but where mass reproduction of artistic material is already the norm there is no difficulty in democratising it: film and music, in particular, have been hit hard by the new digital age; with the rise of the ‘Digital Book’, publishing is soon to join them.

There are all sorts of cunning strategies underway to protect the traditional roles of machineries of production and distribution: Murdoch’s pay walls, those wonderful propaganda shorts about piracy, 3D films (it’s the experience that counts), voluntary payment schemes. The issue is naturally attended to most energetically by those with a financial interest, but it is really a question for everyone. The answers will have to come from a social point of view, or they will merely be innovative forms of authoritarianism - more sophisticated ways of controlling information.

We should look on this challenge as a moment of opportunity, because culture as an industry - in so many ways antithetical to real values - is experiencing a slow spontaneous combustion. The problem is how to rescue culture as a way of life from the flames. We can be sure that the ghastly Australian media wizard and his ilk aren’t interested one iota in that task.

For all that Durham jokes about it, the class divide persists Danny Dyson

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h yes, the dirty C-word. No, not that one, not Christmas or even chlamydia – class. Possibly the biggest elephant in the room in the life of the Durham mass, class (and its implications) are everywhere. From the very first day of arrival, your social and economic history is weirdly open for conversation with what are essentially complete strangers.

Whilst we all commit various acts of shame (or, in some cases, debauchery) during one of the most stressful weeks of our lives, first impressions can and do say a lot about a person. For the majority of us, it is the first time we are meeting on a large scale people from up and down the country and discovering the plethora of accents that the United Kingdom holds.

Or at least, supposedly, since the majority of people seem to be based in London. In fact, despite being in the North East, one is led to believe that Guildford is the centre of the universe.

Class is a subject of much humour and parody in Durham though. Skinny girls with their oversized accessories, Ugg boots and pashminas who look like they’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, and boys who wear flip-flops in December

JEAN-FRANCOIS MERCURE

Rahs may be good for a few laughs , but the truth about how background affects prospects is rather more sobering and think nothing of going on a short break fox-hunting are everywhere. Known collectively as the ‘rahs’, these people sport accents which pre-Durham, I’d assumed were dubbed only by actors in badly made American TV shows, pretending to be British.

“Meritocracy seems to have gone out of the window as opportunities become scarcer” Whilst there’s nothing wrong with the ‘rahs’ – some of my best friends could easily fall under their umbrella – their habit of letting Daddy pick up the bill for the latest shopping trip to Mr. Wills which normally requires an endearing collective eye-roll, is not quite so amusing when Daddy is helping them get a job in law or publishing through no other reason than that Daddy has contacts. For the most part, it seems to be that the people getting all the jobs as we all rush inevitably closer to graduation are the ones who’ve had a few strings pulled.

Whilst coming from a state school as I did is no big disadvantage in getting into university, for many of my state school friends who happen to have had the misfortune

All together for graduation, but where we go from here still depends too much on our class

not to live in London and attend the best schools that money can buy, the future post-graduation is looking considerably bleaker than those who are accidentally lucky.

It may be astonishingly naïve of me to assume that the government was helping the less economically able of us to go to university via student loans and bursaries to aid social mobility, as that certainly doesn’t appear to be the case recently.

Meritocracy seems to have gone out of the window as opportunities become scarcer due to recession and perhaps nostalgically, we’re reverting back into a more traditional

class-like system where desirable jobs are passed down in an almost hereditary way as a coping mechanism.

Who knows? It may be that I’m feeling insecure about my own future prospectsbut the evidence is on my side as even under Labour, the gap between the rich and the poor has grown and continues to expand; not something helped when opportunities aren’t there for talented students who simply don’t have a foot in the door when it comes to certain industries. Of course, I’m being highly idealistic when I suggest that there should be a fairer system of opportunities in place but get-

ting a career through virtue of knowing the right people surely isn’t conducive to the growth of society in general.

I’m not saying that those lucky enough to have careers and plans already in place don’t deserve them, but it’s no wonder that many young people don’t bother going to university. There’s no way that they can ever become what they want to be since they don’t know the right people or are put off by the enormous debt they’ll mount up which they can’t afford to pay off. Those who start disadvantaged continue to remain so, and this is in within one of the better economically developed countries at that.

Of course, all the issues are complicated further by the almost idiotic bias towards the South. Whilst the M1 would have you believe that after Leeds, one reaches only ‘chimneypots’ as one delightful girl put it on a train near me, that’s simply not true although even Durham’s careers service would have you believe otherwise. It is a joke that the only opportunities that do exist are (or seem to be) London based.

Even for those who do have contacts, a large chunk of money is needed in order to do anything so that even those who are genuinely best qualified for jobs are those who have money behind them in the first place. It is disheartening to watch those who are able and talented struggle for their future livelihood whilst those who are fortunate sail right through. But then again, I suppose that’s capitalism for you.

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

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Debate Comment

The Noughties have been a truly terrible decade for us all As the decade draws to a close, we should look back on the decade of the war on terror and YouTube with anger TONX

Matt Urwin YES

NO

S

o we’ve come to the end of the Noughties. The decade that brought us America’s first black president, Live 8, and, of course, Simon Cowell, is drawing to a close.

And good riddance.

It’s not that I don’t think that great things have happened in the last decade. I was as excited as anyone else when Barack Obama became President of the United States last November. I, too, was amazed by the ways in which such innovations as the iPod and the Blackberry developed and transformed the way we communicate with one another and use our free time.

Family Guy, QI, Peep Show; if nothing else, the Noughties have brought us good television.

But this decade’s achievements, notable as they were, have done nothing to change the fact that human beings are, in the final analysis, complete and utter idiots. For all our discoveries of water on the Moon and our ability to watch re-runs of Top Gear on Dave, we still haven’t tackled the basic problem; that humanity has the collective intelligence and sensitivity of a newt.

Looking back on the Noughties, we see ample proof of that sad fact.

We’ll start off with the painfully obvious; namely that the Noughties has been a decade consisting to a large extent of people trying to kill each other for very stupid reasons.

In Britain, the most high-profile of 21st century wars so far has been the rather ridiculously titled ‘War on Terror’, which has proven to be a catalogue of horrendous man-made tragedies. Starting with the unprecedented September 11th terrorist attacks in the US in 2001, which saw the deaths of some 3000 people – the worst terrorist attacks in history – the ensuing conflicts have seen hundreds of thousands of deaths, mostly civilian, as the US and British military leapt into Afghanistan and Iraq with all the forethought of a pair of drunken toddlers, and with about as much success. Appalling atrocities committed

by Islamic extremists as well as– to our deserved shame – US and British soldiers, have helped drill into our heads just how hideous war can be.

“Where we stop killing each other, the planet seems to take over” Couple this with genocide in Darfur, and continuing misery well after 2003’s official end of what is nicknamed ‘Africa’s Great War’ in the Congo, and you can see why the whole Noughties franchise might not appeal.

Where we stop killing each other, the planet seems to take over. Nearly a quarter of a million people died as a result of the vast Indian Ocean Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004; begun by what would prove to be the second deadliest earthquake in recorded human history. In China, another earthquake struck Sichuan province on

Maddie Cuff

W

The 2000s ended with Barack Obama’s historic election, but has the decade been hopeless?

12th May, 2008, causing the loss of some 80 thousand lives.

Meanwhile, bankers decided that shooting or bombing people was far too unsophisticated for their tastes, and vigorously proceeded to mortgage people to death. Around 2007, as house prices began to fall, banks realised that their carefully thought out policy of ‘lending money to anyone who walks in the door’ was showing one or two flaws; namely, that it was utter nonsense. The result? Banks collapsing, government bailouts amounting to billions of pounds, homes being repossessed, and my lunch money today only affording me a shrivelled pear and half a damp cheese sandwich.

Surely we can take solace in our improvements in technology and entertainment? Music, film, the internet, the mobile phone – everything seems to have improved by leaps and bounds over the last decade. But even here, the good stuff only seems to highlight what we’re doing horribly wrong. In music, manufactured band Hear’Say burst onto the scene before promptly vanishing fifteen minutes later, their only impact being a host of reality TV shows propelling ‘stars’ into obscurity, and every musician in history rolling in their graves.

What about films? New digital technol-

ogy has revolutionised the way we make movies, while the world’s film output has ranged from the blockbusting Lord of the Rings trilogy to the heart-warming and laugh-out-loud funny Pixar tales. But for every hit it feels like there’s been a dozen misses, some of them so bad they almost seem to stick in the head for longer. Seeing 2012 recently, I distinctly remember wishing the events of the film might happen there and then, just so I could be spared having to finish watching it.

As for technology, let’s just take the internet as an example. Yes, sure, it gives us news, entertainment, education; but it also seems to be the one place where people’s depravity really lets rip. If you don’t believe me, just see how long you retain your faith in humanity after typing the following four words into Google; ‘two girls one cup’.

(For those who don’t understand that last sentence, don’t ever, ever, type those four words into Google.)

And so there it is: the Noughties summarised from the ‘glass-half-empty’ perspective, revealing, as it does, humanity in all its ridiculous and tragic idiocy. So as Christmas and New Year rolls round, let’s raise our glasses to the incoming decade, and hope that this time we learn from our mistakes, and make it a better one.

hen I think back to how I saw in the Noughties, and a new millennium, I realise how far I’ve come. I was 11, and it was the era of the gel pen. For the entire year I faithfully kept a diary, colour themed for the year 2000, with alternate days written in the millennium colours of purple and silver.

It contained such thoughtful musings as “mmm roast for dinner tonight” and “I wish mum would let me wear trousers to school, instead of my skirt.”

Reading this back is painfully embarrassing, but it makes me realise just how much the Noughties have done for me, and, assuming everyone is pretty much in the same age range, for all of us.

The Noughties have been a decade of firsts. I don’t mean in the global sense, although I suppose the first black President of America could be up there. No, it was a decade of firsts for our generation. First kiss, first car, first exams (although the latter probably isn’t something to look back on with joy). How anyone can argue that the Noughties were a bad decade is beyond me; it was probably the most exciting period of my short life.

I won’t deny there are some painful moments, some personal, some now comical.

I have gone from being a teetotal tween to a generic student. On the 31st December 1999 I tried whisky for the first time, out of my aunt’s hipflask, and that pretty much set the tone for the decade.

I learnt not to drink neat Ouzo, or be sick in my friend’s silver handbag, but crucially, if vomiting was the only option, walk backwards while you do it. I learnt that red fleece trousers are never a good idea, and that GHDs can bring joy, hope and happiness.

I learnt that Ricky Gervais is a king amongst men, and that no matter how hard I try, I will never find The Mighty Boosh funny. I perfected exactly how much to tell my parents, and what homework was actually compulsory. I learnt how to drive (and crash). I learnt that You Tube wastes time, and ASOS wastes money.

The Noughties have been a decade of education, socially and academically.

They taught me to have a taste in music, bearing in mind the only music tapes (!) that I owned from my nineties childhood were Steps and Ricky Martin. The Noughties have brought us The X Factor, the iPhone and... hell, the noughties pretty much brought us the mobile phone! The internet! The Wii! I’m beginning to sound caught up in capitalism here I realise, but the point stands. Just imagine trying to pass your degree without fast and widespread access to the internet and you’ll see what I’m getting at (let’s cut Facebook, for better or worse, out of the equation). Sure, the internet entered houses in the nineties, but it entered our minds, becoming an extension of ourselves, in this decade.

The internet has democratised society, and given everyone a platform on which to espouse their passion. Admittedly, most blogs are awful, or overrated (Tavi, the 13 year old ‘geek fashionista’, I’m referring to you), but the point is that everyone has

the chance. To type, sing, or tweet, as the mood takes.

I’m not going to lie to you all, and say that globally this has been the best decade.

9/11 has changed and shaped our world, leaving indelible influences on our cultural landscape. But with every decade comes its disasters. The thirties had the depression, the forties WWII, and the eighties suffered the dual hardships of the cold war and Sting.

No one could expect the Noughties to be disaster free. If anything, the Noughties has been the decade where the world has woken up to the big threats facing humanity, and the really intense disasters that we may face in the future won’t come in the noughties, but the... tensies?

You could argue that society has become trivialised, and the nation dumbed down, but in response I would switch on Radio 4. You could argue that the war on terror has been a blight on the decade, but the Noughties was also the decade when George Bush departed power. You could say the environment is not looking so hot, but the ozone layer’s staged a dramatic recovery in the last 10 years.

“I urge you to take a step back, and think what this decade has meant to you. The kind of person it has shaped, the experiences it has afforded” You may say the music industry has descended into a commercialized mulch of synthesized pop tunes produced by reality TV contestants, but that’s lazy, selective listening. The Noughties has been the decade of Arctic Monkeys, M.I.A, Jack Johnson, Jamie T... It has been a musical era where there is something for everyone, accessible through sites such as Spotify, YouTube and MySpace, in ways easier than ever before.

The Noughties has been the era of progression. Agonized worry over climate change has morphed into concrete agreements, mobiles have gone from being just phones to carrying our photos, schedules, e-mails and music: our lives. Eco-friendly cars are now not just an idealistic vision.

England became good at cricket and rugby, for a short while, at least.

In the next few weeks we will be inundated by lists, reviews and programmes all attempting to sum up the decade. 9/11 and 7/7 will be discussed, analysed and lamented to death. The X Factor will be scorned, the iPod will be praised. Bankers will be flung on the trash heap next to the Cheeky Girls, whilst Obama will be idolised.

But I urge you to take a step back, and think what this decade has meant to you.

The kind of person it has shaped, the experiences it has afforded. And if that gets you stumped, just remember: the Noughties brought us Harry Potter (Warner Brothers style).

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

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Comment Opinion

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The HPV vaccine is more cost effective than it first seems ALVISENI LOPEZ

University students are left out of the nationwide HPV vaccination programme, leaving a generation unprotected Alexandra Bottomer

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ince its initial licensing in 2006, the move to introduce an HPV vaccine for school-age girls has been contentious. Firstly, there was the cost implication, then doubts over effectiveness, worries about encouraging promiscuity... the list continues. Despite these concerns, in September 2008 the vaccine was introduced in schools across the UK with the plan to vaccinate all girls aged 12-13, with a “catch-up” programme covering girls up to the age of 18. The aim is to vaccinate girls before they are exposed to HPV. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but what about the rest of us?

Cervical cancer kills 1000 women every year in the UK and is the second most prevalent cancer in the world. By the age of 24, two fifths of women are infected with the strains of the Human Papilloma Virus which can cause cervical cancer. In the UK, cervical screening is only available to women over the age of 25. So, what is the best course of action for those sandwiched in the 19-24 gap – the gap into which most university students fall?

Presently, there are two vaccines available which combat HPV: Cervarix and Gardasil. Both protect against strains 16 and 18 of the virus – the strains responsi-

ble for 70% of cervical cancers. Gardasil also protects against strains 6 and 11, which are responsible for most cases of genital warts. The UK government has opted for the slightly cheaper Cervarix, however, both vaccines are available privately in this country to those outside the immunisation programme. When a course can cost up to £450 privately, it is not an option open to most students, however much they value their health.

“Cervical cancer kills 1000 women a year in the UK”

The vaccine could save lives for both sexes

Should the vaccination programme be extended? Research published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases indicates that Gardasil provides a degree of protection to women already infected with strains 16/18 of HPV. Over three years, the efficacy of the vaccine at preventing pre-cancerous or cancerous cervical cell changes in those already infected with HPV was 91%.

Likewise, a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal asserted that older women are increasingly exposed to HPV infection: “Changes in sexual behaviour during the past 30 years, characterized by rising age at first marriage and an increase in divorce rates, have led to more widespread premarital sexual intercourse and acquisition of new sexual partners around middle age,

respectively,” – thus, older women could seriously benefit from a prophylactic HPV vaccine. As yet, the Gardasil vaccine is only licensed in the UK for women up to the age of 26. Conversely, Cervarix is licensed to be administered to women up to the age of 55, although only those aged 18 and under may be vaccinated on the NHS. The main aim of the HPV vaccine is to guard against cervical cancer. It may be a surprise that there has been demand for the vaccine amongst men. Whilst HPV causes more life-threatening cancers in women, men can be carriers of the virus too, often having no knowledge or symptoms of the infection. Thus, men can unknowingly pass on HPV to their partner.

It would be unreasonable to suggest men should be vaccinated for the purely to prevent the spread of the infection to women. Surely, however, an approach which sought to completely eradicate the infection would be desirable in the long term. A little known fact is the relation between HPV infection and various male genital cancers. Whilst these cancers are rare, there is an annual incidence of around 1200 cases of HPV-related male genital cancer in the UK, with around 400 cases proving fatal. Reducing the prevalence of HPV in men would not only induce a state of greater immunity across the population, it could also save lives in the case of these rare cancers.

Thus far, I have avoided the wholly unpleasant matter of genital warts. A

favourite topic of discussion at SHAG week, genital warts may seem a somewhat embarrassing and even humorous complaint talked about by eager Welfare Reps across the colleges. In reality, it is a particularly grim condition, which is often difficult and painful to cure. Genital warts are the most commonly diagnosed sexually transmitted infection in the UK. In 2003, there were an estimated 76,457 initial and 55,657 persistent cases of genital warts dealt with at a cost of £22.4 million.

Suddenly, this uncomfortable disease and the possibility of its prevention seem a less laughable prospect.

I have previously defended the National Institute of Clinical Excellence as an essential agency which “balances the books in a country where any drug deemed effective and necessary is available to the individual”.

In the case of HPV vaccinations, the books have been balanced against men, older women and in opposition to the prevention of genital warts.

Expense is a key issue in the debate; the vaccination programme is already costing up to £100m a year and the “catch-up” could cost up to £400m over two years.

This approach may however, be deemed short-sighted considering the advantages of so called “herd immunity” in the long term. Perhaps NICE has made the right (or most cost-effective) decision. However, there is still room for debate. Meanwhile, perhaps the only option for cash-strapped student is to take advantage of the free condoms doled out by the Welfare Reps.

Does the Lisbon Treaty spell death for the European Union?

Unelected, undemocratic and a bureaucratic black hole, the Lisbon Treaty is yet another nail in the EU coffin

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zechia locuta est: causa finita est.

The first of December marked the entering into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the final piece in the European Union’s constitutional jigsaw, a document which has just transferred swathes of powers away from elected politicians and the people they represent. Its passing can hardly be said to have been smooth, having been soundly rejected in referendums by the French, the Dutch, and the Irish. But with the signature of the Czech President, Václav Klaus, the deed has finally been done.

Even though our faith in our MPs has never been lower, the British people remain resolutely opposed to any such transfer of sovereignty; in a YouGov poll for the Telegraph in September, only 13% of those polled said that they would have approved the Treaty in a referendum. All three parties promised such a vote in their manifestos for the last election, but when the crunch came, both the Government and the Lib Dems pushed it through regardless. And they wonder why people feel so disengaged with politics!

Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg may have behaved highly dishonourably, but

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

Mark Harmstone

at least they’re in the real world. David Cameron’s response was to abandon his “cast-iron guarantee” of a referendum – fair enough, as anyone who has glanced at the text will realize that it merely alters other treaties, and doesn’t exist in itself. As the man likely to be Prime Minister in just a few months’ time, he could use the Crown Prerogative to repeal it, but it wouldn’t alter the legal situation one jot.

“No state can survive if it ignores the will of its people so persistently” Cameron’s new promise is to negotiate opt-outs in specific policy areas, exempting the United Kingdom from, for example, the Working Time directive, which has been harmful to the NHS and the fire service. Few people would disagree with what he’s offering, but such a deal would require a new treaty, and hence the unanimous agreement of the other twenty-six member states.

It’s plainly not going to happen – the French Europe Minister, Pierre Lellouche, has already called Cameron “autistic” and told him to get lost. The new Prime Minister would have to have a pretty big trump card to force it through: the only comparable situation is the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936 throughout the whole

Baroness Ashton, though largely unknown in the UK, has become a highly powerful EU figure

Commonwealth, and the consequence of failure – minor political embarrassment – is in nowhere near the same league as the collapse of constitutional monarchy.

Even so, let us assume for a moment that Cameron gets hold of compromising photos of Angela Merkel, or whatever.

It’s not going to help. Peter Mandelson allegedly once proclaimed that we were entering a “post-democratic age”, and even those who consider themselves Europhiles should be alarmed at the way in which accountability is being subordinated to back-room deals and corruption.

The passerelle clause, for instance –

from the French for “footbridge” – allows unelected Commissioners to permanently abolish national vetoes in any policy area.

A Labour government could hence lean on its fellows on the Continent and abolish the veto on employment law, and Bob Crow and friends would never have to worry about any anti-trade union legislation that may be passed by any future Thatcher. Until the next Winter of Discontent, that is.

Similarly, the EU’s new legal personality allows it to sign treaties with other states in its own name. Say goodbye to hoi polloi having any influence on foreign affairs. In

the future, will it be David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, who will tell the Iranians to stop being so beastly to anybody with a nice yacht? Or will it be Lady Ashton, the EU’s Foreign Secretary, whose only elected post – ever – was in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament? Who is going to want to talk to the monkey rather than the organ-grinder?

By all rights, we should be livid. But any opinion poll will tell you how few people are concerned about the European Question, and it seems to be largely the preserve (to use Cameron’s own words) of “fruitcakes, loonies, and closet racists”.

Our transatlantic cousins would no doubt disagree: we find ourselves with a President, in Herman Van Rompuy, who is mulling over the possibility of a panEuropean Tobin Tax. Communism may be long gone, but a new anti-democratic curtain has descended across the Continent – and Britain is now on the wrong side of it.

No state can survive for any period of time if it ignores the will of its people so persistently. In 2003, nearly a million people marched to try to prevent the War in Iraq. They failed; but Blair was vindicated at the ballot box two years later. Without such a release valve, such demonstrations can only happen more often.

No-one has yet come up with a better system than national, liberal democracy; if politicians ignore that, they should not be surprised when it all ends in tears.

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

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Opinion Comment

Love it or hate it, Lotto has made millions for good causes Fifteen years of predictable weekly disappointment, yet we have all seen the many benefits of Lotto’s philanthropy

I

t is a familiar situation; the family congregates and the television blares, whilst all eyes divert frantically from the television screen before them, to the tiny scrap of reddy-pink paper that is clutched in hopeful hands. This is a scene which has been embodied within living rooms religiously for the past fifteen years, since the nationwide phenomenon that is the national lottery came into being.

Since the 19th of November 1994 week in, week out committed followers re-enact this regime, dedicating their most avid attention to the square box before them.

And even after 15 years of disappointment, the sheer suspense that a machine and a colourful array of balls can produce is outstanding.

Yet it is not the presence of a ball-popping-machine that causes people to dedicate their Saturday nights to the fraught edge of a sofa, it is the prospect of being a winner that sucks people in with the force of a new rollerball Dyson, the prospect of winning millions.

And it is this system of hope that underlies the lotteries’ very simplistic but very brilliant genius. A hope, that when combined with the addictive quality of all gambling, leads to dedicated followers

lusting after the day when one might win that phenomenal jackpot.

It is this simplistic genius that has enabled the lottery to flourish so immensely.

Not only do we now have the Lotto, but people can test their luck at the Thunderball, the Daily Draw, the Dream Number, the Lotto Hotpicks and the Euro-Millions, as well as an exciting variety of scratch cards. All which open up an expanding realm of opportunities in order to attain that illusive fortune.

VIDEORAN

Georgina Waite

“The lottery is responsible for creating over 2300 millionaires” Whilst the concept of gambling is often condemned, very rightly, in so many contexts, the lottery is different somehow.

The lottery provides a controlled form of gambling, a way of potentially becoming very rich, very quick, with very little effort.

And although unlikely, the hope is enough to keep us hooked.

The concept of the Lotto is as simple as its genius. The small sum of a pound is paid, each week, in return for the hope of millions. The temptation to splurge is little, due to the sheer improbability of actually winning, but it is the magic of chance, that small emblem of possibility, which keeps people hooked, and for the rare few that do get lucky, the effects can be mega.

Winning Lottery tickets may be rare, however, the funds raised have benefited many millions

Over its fifteen years of being, the lottery is responsible for creating over 2300 incredibly lucky millionaires. Discrimination free, winners range from 58 year old Audrey White who won one million on an accidentally chosen scratch card, to 19 year old Alex Parry who won one seventh of an incredible £45,750,835 jackpot, following a syndicate within her workplace of Manpower. Ironically Parry chose to work over attending university in order to avoid debt, a feat she has certainly achieved!

Yet the benefits of the national lottery

go far beyond a few blessed individuals, with its generosity extending to impact the society as a whole. Not only is it reported that individual winners are typically philanthropic in nature, with a generous 91% giving to charity, but the lottery is a key provider of funds in its own right. From every £1 spent on a ticket, 28 pence goes towards funding of good causes, a small amount, yet it accumulates alarmingly. An average of £25 million per week is raised, totalising to an overwhelming £23 billion over the past fifteen years. Funding which

has been well spent “across the arts, sports, heritage, charities and voluntary organisations, health, education and the environment projects, funding the greatest period of regeneration since the Victorian era”.

A feat that some would praise as being a rejuvenation of our nation.

Projects are plentiful, helping with a non-discriminatory ethos. Over £10 billion has been spent on projects to help children and young people, whilst land that has been purchased in order to protect rare species expands over an area that is more than three times greater than the Isle of Wight. Further more, there are plans to contribute £2.2 billion towards the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

The national lottery therefore plays a central role in shaping our past, present and future by providing the finance to influence, aid and improve. Furthermore, the UK national Lottery should be praised as it returns more of its revenue in the form societal funding than any other Lotto worldwide.

Therefore, let us celebrate that national lottery. Over fifteen years, thanks to its ability to enforce organised control over the addictive pastime of gambling, it has harnessed our weaknesses into something productive. It has made many individuals rich, given much to charity and worked extensively to support the prosperity of our cultural and physical landscape. So every once in a while buy a ticket, think of it as quarter of a quaddie, its bound to do some good somewhere along the line.

Christmas is a commercialised secular holiday, and so what?

FRANCOIS REJETE

Perhaps the true meaning of the festival is merely to provide us all with a period of meaningless rest and relaxation Freddie Myles

I

can already hear the keyboards clicking away; the sound of a thousand middle class hacks blurting out another addition to their annually expanding catalogues; “why Christmas is commercialised and we hate it”. Every year in the press and on the airwaves reporters fall over themselves to decry the tragic state of our largest national holiday. “People don’t understand what it’s about any more” they inform us, “it’s all been so commercialised” they are quick to add, before presumably going home to finish re-reading Das Kapital.

The hypocrisy of this is barely worth mentioning, the same writers who want Jesus removed from any vestige of public life suddenly demanding his plasticine presence in every shop in the country. It’s either that or cancelling Christmas, they seem to say. And the latter won’t happen; otherwise they’ll miss their paychecks for Grumpy Old Christmas or The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year, God forbid.

What these writers fail to realise is that Christmas is, of course, not about Jesus, Mary, or asses at all. Sure, when the holy family jumped on the pagan bandwagon and conveniently went looking for some lodgings at just the appropriate time for a winter holiday feast they instituted

stretching back to the Hellenics invoking a deity borne out of Zeus’ thigh to give them an excuse to get drunk and have indiscriminate sex with each other. You could argue it only becomes special through its acknowledgment as a transgression of normalcy. I argue that, post-enlightenment, life’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

“Christmas is essentially now a secular activity. And why on earth should it not be?”

Is it time to re-evaluate what a secularised Christmas might mean?

something the Victorians decided should make up the biggest public holiday of the year. Yes, it is sad when people are so ill-informed they can’t even give the facts of what is, at least culturally, the most significant event of this epoch of humanity. Then again, I wonder how many could give a great amount of detail about the French Revolution, and this ignorance doesn’t seem to come up at dinner parties very much.

Now however, the majority of us live in a post-Christian Society. The questionably mystical birth of an undoubtedly very

pleasant man two thousand years ago isn’t really going to be the deal that legitimises a week off work and at least a month off normalcy.

Those who hark back to a Christmas where we hold a minute’s silence for each of Mary’s contractions fail to recognise that Christmas is essentially now a secular activity. And why on earth should it not be? Must we dream up justifications for us to go slightly mad once a year? Do we need exterior reasons to spend a week ignoring our families? It seems to be a trait of humanity that we do need justification,

So can Christmas truly mean anything without the Christ? Immediate prospects are bleak. Fetishisation of the consumer culture isn’t exactly what I have in mind to invoke some sturdiness to this holiday; indeed, this kind of capitalist takeover of all institution is precisely the kind of thing we should be looking to reject, with our one chance in the calendar to invest actual meaning into an event.

What then can Christmas be about, if we’re going to be such misanthropes to reject both the Midnight Mass and the Midday Maelstrom of the high street?

Without wanting to dwell on a cliché, family are going to have to be involved here. Whether or not we particularly enjoy it, family are certainly considered and experienced more at Christmas, which

must count for something. No one should reject the holiday’s place as a time to think about family, what each member means to you, and what it would mean to you if they weren’t there.

There’s space for other things meanings around Christmas though, and I’d like to put forward what is for me at least, the true meaning of Christmas(discounting Frank Capra). It is, oddly enough, that it doesn’t mean anything. For me Christmas is important due to its complete arbitrariness, its break from life and reversal of normality, in an utterly uncalled for manner. It gives me a curious feeling to walk through a city centre and see the lights gleaming, frenzy among the people, for no reason whatsoever. It reminds me that away from the eleven and a half month slog of the working year, things can be utterly different. People are swept up in something, acting differently, kindly, towards each other for no real reason. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

There’s no reason to have a holiday now, no reason why every Christmas we remember Christmas’ past and reach towards them, never able to touch. On Christmas Day the TV comes on and everything’s changed. Everything we’re used to is recognised as simply a bundle of expectations we, once every year, realise can disappear with a movement of the clocks. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, things won’t always be this way.

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

14

Lifestyle Features

Lifestyle

Pitch your own feature ideas to us: feature@palatinate.org.uk

Relax with seven pages covering student life Includes Food and Drink, Features and more

Lady and the Vamp

CrackBerry Culture Ever find yourself stuck with a mobile addict?

Mei Leng Yew

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s any student will know, the frantic morning dash to get out of bed and to the lecture theatre is nearly always marked by a checklist and some panicked self-berating. For me, this is usually along the lines of “Paper? Check.

Keys? Where did I leave my keys?” before a desperate hunt for the everelusive biro begins. Inevitably, something is forgotten and yet amid all this chaos, there is always one item that is never left behind: my mobile phone.

people seem to literally be tied to their handsets I have to wonder if it’s now gone too far. Especially since network providers are fighting harder than ever for a slice of consumer pie and most of us can afford the latest if not the best handsets.

All it takes is a signature on one of the many attractive contracts available and a WiFi-ready, Bluetooth-enabled baby is in your hands. With ever improving mobile technology, the question is, are we truly better connected?

Have you ever found yourself in conversation with someone who constantly checks for a text that never arrives? Or someone who twitches every so often,

Palatinate muses on our undying obsession with the vampire

ANTHONIE CHUI-SMIT

ANTHONIE CHUI-SMIT

Emily Hodge

ANTHONIE CHUI-SMIT

T After eight months travelling and sending a text message a grand total of twice, I returned to England convinced

“In the lunch queue guaranteed there’ll be several girls texting boyfriends and at least one Facebook fanatic” I could be the epitome of ‘never-connected’ at university. In fact, I’ve never needed my mobile more and the same seems to apply to everyone else. The next time you find yourself in the queue for college dinner, cast a glance around you and you have my guarantee there’ll be several girls texting their boyfriends, someone shouting down the phone and at least one Facebook fanatic updating his status. Forget the future; it’s here and it comes with GPS technology.

As someone who had been forced to make plans and simply stick to them, it was a shock to come back and find everyone glued to their mobiles with arrangements dissolving and reforming in a matter of seconds. Whilst I can’t argue that relying on your phone to organise your social life is a must these days, when

startled by the phantom vibrations of a caller who just isn’t calling? Maybe this person is you and you’re one of many afflicted by ‘ringxiety’, when anything from a distant church bell to the tinkling of wind chimes makes your heart race and your hand reach out. Not only is this strange and frankly, disconcerting behaviour, I can’t be the only person who wonders how much time they waste each day exchanging messages such as “running l8, b der in 5, x” when a bit of patience from both parties would surely suffice.

Owning a mobile phone has long been the norm but nowadays, not having it on your person at all times is the exception and as the modern phenomena of ‘ringxiety’ demonstrates, not only are we reliant on our gadgets, we are now dependent to the point of addiction, subconsciously craving the next ‘beep-beep’.

This is exacerbated by the increased use of mobile internet usage with lights flashing every time another piece of university spam is received.

However, after arriving for a lecture last week to find no-one else there then belatedly checking my e-mail the old fashioned way, that is, on a computer, to learn the lecture had just been cancelled, I’ve finally resigned myself to embracing the mobile phone. With my new contract tying me to two years with a Blackberry Curve and unlimited addiction, I can only hope the ghostly rings hold off for the time being.

hree weeks ago, the earth shook; the second instalment of The Twilight Saga, New Moon, was released. As predicted, it shot straight to the top of the UK and Ireland box office chart, making a reported £11.7m between the Friday of its release and the following Sunday, as a torrent of females descended on cinemas across the country to behold their beloved Edward Cullen.

The Twilight franchise has become a global phenomenon but it is only one example of the many books, films and TV programmes which have recently been cashing in on our adoration of vampirism and the gothic. True Blood, a very sexy, Southern take on the genre, is now the American channel HBO’s third most popular series after The Sopranos and Sex and the City. Megan Fox’s latest movie, Jennifer’s Body, penned by Juno writer Diablo Cody, is a radical step away from the current winning formula, as the leading vampire causing havoc in an American High School is a rather vivacious and sadistic female. These examples succeed a densely occupied line of vampirism in popular culture which can be traced to Bram Stoker’s famous 1897 novel, Dracula.

Belief in vampires and bloodsucking demons apparently dates back to prehistoric man and can be found in cultures all over the world. In the 18th century mass hysteria over vampires arose in Britain after legends and superstition were imported from Eastern Europe. But it is Stoker’s novel which most influentially established the vampire genre and the figures we recognise as vampires today.

Over one hundred years later, despite our innate instinct for survival, we continue to be enraptured by the dangerous and demonic. However, the character which once dominated the gothic and horror genres as the personification of terror and

destruction has more prevalently morphed into the epitome of romantic perfection.

The inherent sexuality in bloodsucking and the vampires’ lust for our blood is much more transparent in modern popular culture. A further explanation for our fascination with vampirism can be found in the seduction of supernatural elements of the gothic. Through an identification with these immortal creatures, we temporarily

“Our fixation with vampires points to an unfailing preoccupation with escapism” escape from our fear of mortality. This can be extended to all characters which inhabit the realm of unreality. Harry Potter, Heroes, Eastwick, and Misfits are just a handful of current films and TV shows built around our attraction to the transcendent and otherworldly.

The secret to the success of the Twilight franchise is incredibly simple: it does not lie in the literary style or technique of the books. As you might expect, the writing of the author, Stephenie Meyer, is riddled with clichés and cheese practically oozes between the pages. But if the meat of the novels is rather meagre, it is the bones of the story which give the Twilight series its power. Meyer’s success lies in her employment of a tried and tested formula: handsome, brooding, vampire rejects the dark side for his human girlfriend.

There is really nothing very innovative about Twilight. Edward Cullen bears a remarkable resemblance to Moonlight’s Mick, True Blood’s Bill and, let’s not forget, Buffy’s Angel. All of these characters would be utterly perfect if they were human. In fact,

their intrinsically malevolent and deathlike nature serves to emphasize the gravity of the love shared between the immortal and his mortal lover, thus fulfilling our romantic expectations. The “impossibly fast and strong” Edward taps into the deepest ideals and fantasies of your average heterosexual female. No wonder there are girls walking around with “I Love Edward Cullen” and “Looking for my Edward” strewn across their chests.

Our fixation with the vamps and other supernatural beings, and the irrational infatuation with these fictional characters, points to the larger issue of our generation’s unfailing preoccupation with escapism.

Social scientists warn that our frequent tendency to transcend the ordinary and everyday, through books, television, film and computer games, will ultimately leave us disillusioned and dissatisfied when faced with reality. One extreme view even suggests that this discontent will result in a generation unwilling or unable to forge meaningful connections with real people in the real world.

Is this really an issue to be concerned with? Does one literary creation have the power to spawn a melancholy mass of delusional and embittered young women, incapable of finding true love in human society because Edward Cullen has set an unattainable standard? Perhaps. Just a glimpse at current internet forums demonstrates how the entire world is completely enveloped by, and insanely fanatical about, the Twilight franchise. And with the added lycanthropic element of Jacob Black and his werewolf posse in the latest film, female excitement is reaching fever pitch. One thing is for certain, as long as our grip on life remains transient our love affair with beings of the brooding, bloodsucking variety will live on. In the meantime, I’m off to the Gala.

New Moon anyone?

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

See our archived features online at palatinate.org.uk

A Degree of Character Are you the future Freud, Flintoff or Fry? Nicole Tallant

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ith the government’s attempt to offer equal opportunities for all, the number of students attending university has dramatically increased. This increase is not viewed as entirely positive. University was once a place for the pursuit of knowledge, but it is now argued that this is no longer the case.

Some universities today offer courses in the study of football and it is now possible for students to study Coronation Street as the basis of their degree. Does the introduction of such courses undermine the concept of university? It is certainly harder for today’s graduates to get jobs than it was for graduates in the past. A degree alone is no longer enough to ensure a job after graduation. This certainly puts more pressure on undergraduate students.

When I started university I was wholly focused on the prospect of gaining the best degree I could and hopefully getting a well paid and fulfilling job in return. The first term is now drawing to a close and I have quickly realised that university is about much more than gaining a degree; and in fact perhaps getting the degree is the simplest part of our journey here.

Being thrown into a new situation surrounded by people from a variety of backgrounds is far more challenging than I first imagined it would be. Making friends with people who are potentially worlds apart from yourself and your friends at home is tough and taking complete responsibility for oneself is something most have never done before. Although this new and challenging situation can seem overwhelming

“University is about so much more than just your degree” at first, I think it is the most wonderful opportunity we can be presented with, and something that I had overlooked when considering university.

The concept of university is currently under debate, with some arguing that university as the ‘pursuit of knowledge’ has now been undermined by this modern concept of university for all, in which the classic courses have been replaced with vo-

cational courses that belong in vocational institutes rather than in the university setting. Whichever side we lean towards on this debate I can’t help but think that university is much more than acquiring a degree in a certain field. I have quickly realised that perhaps the most valuable aspect of university is the extent to which it shapes our characters .The new start that university presents is a blank canvas for us all; the opportunity to reinvent yourself.

University is unique in that it provides all students with an equal chance of success- something that can only be viewed as positive. Living away from home for the first time in most of our lives, we take on the responsibility of shaping our own future. We are all incredibly lucky to be at such a well known and reputable university. We have the chance to work alongside the best in our respective fields; we are presented with a fantastic variety of societies to join and groups to identify ourselves with. I have no doubt that we are surrounded by the figures of future success. New world leaders, the next Sigmund Freud, future Einsteins and even the up and coming radio DJs that in years to come will replace Chris Moyles in waking

“We have the chance to work with the best”

Features Lifestyle

A shade too far?

Palatinate takes on the hair dye experiment Alex Mansell

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on’t you find that in Durham, most girls look the same? That everyone just has that blondetousled-haired, distinctly ‘Durham’ look?

Well I did, and I decided to do something about it, to challenge the norm. At first, I simply got a Native American-cumAncient-Roman-cum-hippie style gold headband. No, not a headband, a forehead band. I thought it was kind of cool, although a lot of people laughed at me, one oh-so-kindly inquiring if I was wearing it for a dare.

And then, soon after I started bearing this ‘accessory’, I noticed that, actually, there are a lot of girls in Durham wearing these strange things. My whole going original thing was definitely not working out. I needed to be more drastic.

So what did I do? I dyed my hair pink.

Not pink. B-R-I-G-H-T pink. I don’t know why I was so surprised when I saw the result; the name on the tub was actually ‘Shocking Pink’, and boy, did they mean it.

If I wanted to stand out from the crowd, I definitely achieved it. The looks I got in the street ranged from bemusement to bewilderment to outright hilarity. I started to think maybe it was a bad idea, and cursed myself

I

t’s that time of year again, when the whole of Durham is bedecked with sparkling Christmas decorations and the windows of every cafe display delicious, festive-looking biscuits and cakes.

It would take a lot of will power for even the healthiest of eaters to resist the baked goods in Greggs on the way through town. Our house has recently made a unanimous decision to join Weightwatchers and lose the bingo wings so that we can fit into those tight dresses for the imminent Christmas Ball. But counting the points is already proving a very difficult challenge indeed; with mince pies and yule logs galore in every shop

“My whole going original thing was not working.. so I dyed my hair bright pink” clearly thought I fell into one of those categories. They simply looked at me and laughed.

But that’s not to

up and motivating the nation. Undoubtedly the most common phrase used in university prospectuses ‘the opportunities are endless’ is necessary here.

Some students at this university will make their mark on the world and this opportunity should be something that excites us all. But perhaps more importantly something that shouldn’t be overlooked is the opportunity to become ‘you’; for most people, university offers unbounded possibilities in terms of self-discovery. It’s also a chance to meet friends you will keep for life and indeed future partners. These years are the years that will create your identity for the future. It is your responsibility to make the most of them.

The memories, and experiences you will gain at university are just as precious as degrees. The greatest legacy of any valuable university experience is the more fulfilled person you can become by graduation.

Counting Christmas Calories Frankie Everson & Harriet Bellamy

for having made myself look like a walking highlighter for at least two weeks. I mean, I didn’t want to come across as a wannabe ‘crazy chick’, you know, those girls who feel they have to do something ‘alternative’ to rebel and be perceived as ‘wild’. But I didn’t want to look just plain crazy either.

And those people who didn’t know me

window, it is not easy to convince yourself that dieting is a positive thing.

Kate Moss has recently been quoted to have said “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, but we have found a way of having the best of both worlds. After copious procrastination, one of our housemates stumbled upon a life-changing recipe – simply swapping short-crust pastry with filo pastry when baking mince pies. Not only would they be far healthier, but they looked easy to make and pretty tasty too! What’s more, we found that there are tonnes of delicious recipes which are equally healthy. It led us to realize that we don’t need to padlock the fridge and wear blinkers through town in order to avoid putting on weight this Christmas;

we could still enjoy wonderful Christmas foods without being overly indulgent.

We decided to look further into how we could go about toning up and losing that extra tyre, or ‘love-handle’, if you will.

We headed on over to Freeman’s Quay – a gym, for those of you who have never ventured that far – and found that for just over £100 a term we could get unlimited gym and swimming pool access, along with free and fun exercise classes. It may sound like a lot of money, and it is for us poor students especially round this time of year, but it forces you to make the most out of what you have paid, and silently plays on your conscience when you feel like you can’t be bothered. If you really don’t want to splash out, maybe ask for

a gym membership for Christmas – but remember, a gym membership is for life, not just for Christmas, and it is still important to be committed. Also the DSU runs aerobics and yoga every week!

Christmas is coming, but this year the student doesn’t need to get fat! Remember our advice, and enjoy the Christmas period wholeheartedly, eating as many filo pastry mince pies as you think your stomach and

say there were no good sides to my new look. It meant that whenever I was in Klute or Planet of Sound, where it’s notoriously easy to lose people, my friends could always spot me. “Where’s Alex?” *takes one look around the room* “There she is!” And it’s a great way of solidifying friendships; a fair few people drunkenly stumbled up to me and said something along the lines of “Oh my God, you’re the pink-haired girl from my seminar!”, and we’d have a bond greater than that of studying Flaubert together. Even more amusing was the time I spent at work.

I do shifts at Jayne’s chip shop next to Klute, and I cannot count the number of people who, in their drunken state, could not comprehend my hair. They didn’t know if what they were seeing was simply a hallucination caused by one too many Quaddies or if my hair was indeed this colour. That was particularly amusing.

Now I’m back to being blonde, people ask “Where’s the pink gone?!” I’ll never know if they genuinely like it or want me to dye it back in order to laugh at me some more. So, in the name of being different, I endured a little humiliation, but I’ve got to say, it was massively outweighed by the enjoyment I got from it. I would encourage everyone to deviate a little from the norm, in the interests of being ever so slightly different and making life moderately more interesting. I’m not saying you should dye your hair, just don’t be afraid to do something a little out there for fear of what people will think of you.

Although one warning, if you do decide to go a little colourcrazy it makes it a hell of a lot harder to sneak late into lectures unnoticed…

your conscience can handle.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good diet!

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

See our archived features online at palatinate.org.uk

Features Lifestyle

Straight Acting

What’s wrong with being a masculine gay man or a feminine gay woman?

Nick Constantine

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arts of the gay community use phrases like “straight acting” to describe themselves. This re-enforces the negative stereotype that there are specific way of acting “gay” and “straight”.

The only real meanings of the words gay and straight should be “is attracted to the same/the other sex”, and yet gay men readily label themselves with the term “straight acting”.

The journalist Dan Savage has pointed out how prevalent the term is in gay WLTM advertisements, and it is a fairly widely accepted by the gay community that masculinity and therefore “acting straight” is a positive attribute and so a desired characteristic.

the word straight - it is certainly easier to summon up negative ideas for the word “gay”. There is just a kind of innate neutral wholesome “normalness” that goes with the idea of being straight acting in many (both gay and straight) people’s minds.

I think almost every gay man in Durham would be secretly pleased to be voted “Durham’s Straightest Gay Guy 2009” if such an award existed. It might be a guilty admission, but I think acting “normally” and being masculine are things they would secretly be proud of and maybe even subconsciously try to cultivate.

I think “Durham’s Gayest Straight Guy 2009” would be less proudly received but I still think it would be taken in good humour; the winner obviously must take care of himself and follow fashion in an

DUCK Rag Raiding revealed Palatinate gives us the truth about the joys of being a Rag Raider Jamie Hubbard

T

he philosophy: students + fancy dress = maximum money for charity. You’ll have heard all this before and the reason it remains so unforgettable is that it is conceptually simple but effective. DUCK raised over £100,000 from rag raids alone last year.

For amusement I consulted a dictionary for a definition. I was surprised to find: “an extensive display of noisy disorderly conduct, carried on in defiance of authority or discipline”. Whilst the author seems to have their head stuck in a time warp of student anti-establishment demonstration, I quite like the association with disruptive studenty behaviour. I’ve met enough rag raiders in my time who would nod approvingly at being referred to as ‘noisy and disorderly’, especially when they’ve spent the whole day dressed as Tigger in Liverpool, whilst scousers have attempted to tackle him to the ground.

Could one expect more from life?

“a free journey to London, free food and free accomodation for one night” It should be becoming increasingly obvious that I’m a convert. Although I tend to resent the idea that anyone would need converting. What other part of the university can offer you a free journey to London, free food and free accommodation for one night? Yes, you’ve just heard that magic buzzword three times in one sentence.

Let’s have an anecdote. Recently a friend of mine was rag raiding in Edinburgh dressed like a hippo. Comedy enough in itself, but it got funnier when a diminutive Polish couple came up and asked for directions to the National Gallery. Language barriers were high and it quickly became clear that he would have to walk them there.

Navigating a path through the crowds was difficult but nothing compared to the revolving door on the Gallery. Struggling through the security barriers he set off the metal detector and was asked to be frisked. However, essentially he had had to be glued into the outfit to stop it falling off. Requests to remove the item had not formed a large part of his hippo-related fancy dress decision-making process.

Better prepared were his diplomatic responses to the guard who approached him and he escaped harmed only in pride to the relative safety of Edinburgh’s streets.

I suppose an important lesson was learnt about the place of large acquatic mammals in contemporary society.

Despite this, true rag raid utopia is found rarely but outstandingly. When collecting in Leeds last week for Meningitis Research, a lady came up to us and unexpectedly offered a hug. I wasn’t sure but the atmosphere of many rag raids leaves you open to most suggestions so I agreed.

She wanted to thank us for what we were doing and to explain that her son had just recovered from Meningitis, which had brought him threateningly close to death.

It transpired that Meningitis Research had offered support and guidance at a time when she needed it most. Words almost failed her. It was hugely moving.

I don’t feel that the act of rag raiding in itself is very virtuous. It’s too much fun to be put into the “I’ve donated my last pair of shoes to Oxfam and am therefore walk-

ing round barefoot” kind of club. Ragging isn’t even like its foundations in Victorian London, where students gave ‘rags’ to children in desperate poverty. It’s a chance to spend time with your friends and escape from the bubble.

My associations with DUCK are traced back to my second term in college, when bored of pounding the same streets week after week I went to Leeds with a rag raid to escape the city with a couple of friends.

It was difficult and we didn’t do great but there was a determination to do better.

Over two thirds of people who do a rag raid come back again. There aren’t many better marks of appreciation than that.

“I don’t feel like Rag Raiding is in itself very virtuous, it’s far too much fun.”

Statements like “I believe in charity” don’t always seem to impress people in the way that you might hope. There’s considerable debate in the charity world about whether anyone should give up their time to do something if they don’t believe in it. Being honest, I don’t think it’s a very important distinction. As students, believing in something is great but with the wealth of opportunities available at university, sometimes you’ve just got to select what’ll be the best fun. How about combining the two?

I absolutely assure you you’ll have a good time. And even if after all of this you managed not to, you wouldn’t even have to ask for your money back.

A potential exchange our writer would take issue with

I am not sure the gay community should be comfortable with dividing up the world into “gay” and “straight”. To be so completely black and white, whether you accept ideas of fluid gender and sexuality or not, is outdated, unnecessary and by sorting people one tends to find oneself looking at differences rather then finding common ground. The gay community internally dividing itself into “gay” and “straight acting” could be seen as an attempt to deflect prejudice - “straight acting” gay people ring-fencing negative stereotypes and assigning them solely to the sort of doubly-gay “gay-acting-gaypeople” they have implicitly smeared, to disassociate themselves from what they see as negative “campness”. This leads to a situation where “straight acting” gay men find themselves alienated from the flamboyancy of the archetypal “TV gay”, but unable to comply with the physical reality that would actually define them as a part of the straight existence they feel they lead.

Primitive ideas of “straight acting” could be hunting and assertiveness and domination.

Bringing that into the modern context gay people try to apply positively to themselves, it could be - brooding, powerful, and confident. It would be a bit forced, but if we really tried we could come up with negative stereotypes of being straight, like insensitivity and maybe aggression. These negative ideas are quite contrived and not really what people think of when they hear

acceptably metrosexual way is the kind of thing a winner could read into it after any initial misgivings.

The question is different if you consider lesbians. The “straightest lesbian” may well be complimented by the award, but the “Most Lesbian Straight Girl” would probably not take it as any kind of compliment.

Widely accepted ideas of gender identity would be challenged uncomfortably for many. I don’t really know but I suppose this shows how far society has still to go to appreciate lesbians for the kind of light-hearted positive stereotypes such as being cultured that can now be attached to gay males.

If even in the gay community people want to advertise themselves as “straight acting” (which by definition they are not if there are looking for a relationship with someone of the same gender) then trying to make the rest of society change their prejudices is made much harder. Until people stop attaching positive attributes to straightness within the gay community, how does one stop negative ones from being sent their way from outside it?

With oxymoronic terms like “straight acting gay man” still widely used and accepted by gay men, how can ever fully be accepted for what they are and not what people assume them to be? Thus I suggest maybe it is wrong for anyone to use the term “straight acting” in any other context than the bedroom!

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Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

Listings

LISTINGS By Tamara Gates

PURPLE

YOUR POSTER-SIZED EVENT G Highlights this fortnight Mon. 14 Nov

Russell Howard ‘Big Room and Belly Laughs’

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nown to millions as a panellist on BBC Two’s Mock the Week, Russell is a favourite in the television comedy world right now. But it is on stage where Russell really storms it.

Three previous tours, including ‘Dingledoodies’, completely sold out. He is currently embarking on his ‘Big Room and Belly Laughs’ tour. Fans will be pleased to know extra tickets have been released.

Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, 7.30PM, £20

Fri. 11 & Sat. 12 Dec

Scared Scriptless

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ow in its second year, Durham Improvised Musical is heading to The Assembly Rooms to present its fresh new cast. They need YOUR help! The plot is left completely to the direction of the audience, who choose the title of the musical, the name of a song and the location of the first scene. It’s then up to the talented cast to improvise a smash hit show filled with scenes and songs.

The Assembly Rooms, 10.30PM, £2.50 DST, £3 NUS.

Mon. 14 & Tue. 15 Dec

Christmas Comedy for a Quid

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he impressive student sketch group, Durham Revue, invites you to usher in the yuletide with its annual showcase of economy comedy, offered this year with a festive twist. Come and enjoy an evening of comedy gold, frankincense and mirth for just £1! You can book online on www.durhamrevue.com The Assembly Room, 9PM, £1.

Art Until 15 Jan

The Orchid and The Insect: 150 years of the origin of species Celebrating the anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s groundbreaking book, Palace Green library will be showcasing books and jounals illustrating the evolutionary ideas of Darwin and his contemporaries.

Palace Green Library. Admission free. Email pg.library@durham. ac.uk for more details.

Until Wed. 16 December

‘Dusk, Interrupted’ and ‘Please Switch Off Lights When Not Required’ Photographic exhibition from local freelance photographer and artist Anthony Hope.

Dusk, Interrupted examines the relationship between natural and manmade light sources, paticularly at twilight whilst the latter exhibit offers an insight into the lasting human footprint on disused industrial buildings.

Van Mildert College, call for details.

Termly release

The Fun and Beautiful Journal The Michalmas edition of this off-beat, quirky, pocket sized journal has been released.

With a combination of poetry, art, comment, fashion, storieseverything creative you can imagine contained within one small, fun-and beautiful journal!

For more information, or to supply your own ideas or material for next term’s issue, join the Facebook group, ‘fun and beautiful journal’.

Copies are free. Pick one up in college bars, The Cellar Door, Fabio’s Palace Green library and the main library.

Film Sat. 12 – Sun. 13 Dec

500 Days of Summer Seasonal themes clearly aren’t the speciality of Hild Bede’s wonderful film society. Their last film of term is a romantic comedy that took the Sundance Film Festival by storm and most reviews have been glowing, including Palatinate’s. A quirky and moving story which experiments with non-linear narrative: don’t be put off by the ‘romcom’ label.

Caedmon Hall, Hild Bede College, 8PM both days. £1 members, £2 non-members

Sat. 12 Dec

A Serious Man The Oscar-winning brothers, directors of No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski, return with their quirky 1960s Jewish myth. Hard to describe, but definitely worth the trip to Tyneside.

Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, 8.10PM. £6.00

Sun. 13 Dec

An Education A film about the relationship between a 16-year-old girl and an urbane older man. The classic romantic-educational dynamic is explored by Nick Hornby’s sharp script. Worth taking a look.

Gala Cinema, 8.15PM. £4.50 - £6.00

Sun. 13 Dec

Durham University Big Band at Christmas A huge event guaranteed to get even the most stubborn of scrooges into the festive spirit.

Email bigband@durham.ac.uk to reserve a table. Durham’s big band, a twenty piece ensemble perform regularly around Durham and combine some of the university’s finest musicians with a varied and exciting repertoire.

DSU, 8PM. £5

Sun. 13 Dec

Durham University Chamber Orchestra Conducted by Dominic Brennan this exciting concert programme includes Vaughan Williams - ‘The Wasps Overture’; Debussy - ‘Petite suite’; and Poulenc - ‘Sinfonietta’.

Miss The X Factor results for one week and experience the wonders of Durham’s fantastic orchestral society. Tickets can be reserved by emailing orchestral.society@ durham.ac.uk St. Oswald’s Church, Durham. 8PM. Full Price £6 Students/Concessions £4

Tue. 15 Dec

Goldie Lookin’ Chain This unconventional comedy rap group have started their 2009 tour and are heading to Newcastle on December 15th. This is a great chance to hear some humorous and controversial music - most people will probably remember their most famous song, ‘Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do’.

02 Academy, Newcastle. Doors open 7PM. £11.50

Tue. 15 Dec

Until 24 Jan

Dance A new exhibition jointly curated

by Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland, featuring works by artists including Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso, and Diane Arbus.

Complemented by a video exhibition focusing on the way in which we lack inhibitions as children and the fears we develop as we mature.

Laing Gallery, Newcastle, Free entry.

Music

Thu. 15 Dec

Bright Star Is there any nicer way to watch a biopic of Keats than in one of the Gala’s ‘Golden Days’ screenings, with reduced prices for the elderly and an interval break for tea and scones? The film itself follows the short life of one of the greatest poets who ever lived.

Gala Cinema, 8.15PM, £4.40 - £5.50

Palatinate Orchestra Nothing to do with the famous newspaper edited by George Alagiah and Hunter Davies - even if we do sometimes receive their bank notices. The Palatinate Orchestra are a Durham classical staple. Next week they present a concert featuring ‘L’Aresienne’ by Bizet, Schubert’s ‘5th Symphony ‘and Mozart’s ‘Overture to Idomeneo’. You may discover an unrealised passion for classical music!

02 Academy, Newcastle. Doors open 7PM. £11.50

PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

19

Listings

E DIARY

GUIDE FOR THE REST OF TERM Nightlife Fri. 11 Dec

POS Planet of Sound is Durham’s biggest club night and has been running for ten years now with over 1000 students attending every week. Spanning four floors, each with different music, the night is sure to meet everyone’s tastes and provide an incredible atmosphere. It’s also a great way to hear some different music (instead of Studio’s predictable repertoire).

Celebrate the approaching end of term at POS tonight and dance your way into the weekend!

DSU, 10PM - 2.30AM, £5, £4 with Gold Card

Stage Fri. 11 Dec

The Suggestibles’ Famous ImproPantso Get to Newcastle tonight to catch this hilarious improvisation group for one night only. It’s perfect for those of you who want a more adult kind of panto which you are guaranteed to get from the kings of improvisation and innuendo.

Northern Stage, Barras Bridge, Newcastle 8PM. £8.50 for students/ under 25s For more information, email info@northernstage.co.uk.

To book, call 01912305151

Until 16th Jan

Cinderella Everyone’s favourite pantomime hits Newcastle’s theatre royal with Emmerdale star Roxanne Pallet playing Cinderella. Her prince charming is being performed by West End musical theatre star Matt Rawle. Expect a modern take oon the traditional fairytale, with a 3D flying Pegasus and many more magical treats.

Newcastle Theatre Royal. Prices vary. Box Office 08448112121

12 Dec to 17 Jan

Saturdays

Strum If the prospect of another Saturday evening in Klute is just too unbearable then why not try Strum, the only place to be for live acoustic music in the heart of Durham. The weekly event showcases talented artists of folk, acoustic, swing, jazz and much more. It is also a great outlet for aspiring musicians; to get involved with performing call 07852705196 or join their Facebook group.

Cellar Door, 10PM. £2, £1 guestlist

Sundays

Reggae Roast In contrast to what the event title suggests this does not involve roast dinner, but a chance to immerse yourself in some different music in the atmospheric environment of Cellar Door. ranging from soul to hip-hop. This is a great chill-out option on a Sunday evening.

DIA, 8-10PM. Free.

Mamma Mia! After the huge success of last year’s film, Mamma Mia! is now so widely known that this international tour is bound to be a sell-out. Telling an enchating tale of love, family and friendship on a beautiful Greek island through timeless ABBA songs, it’s something you just have to love!

Don’t pretend you don’t know the words- just go and sing-a-long!

Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle, prices range from £15 to £39.50. To book call 0844 4936666 or go on www.ticketmaster.co.uk

Mon. 14 Dec

STAB Spoof Nativity Student Theatre at Butler presents a hilarious and anarchic take on the traditional Christmas Nativity, written by Butler Students. Expect a completely unconventional performance full of everything Christmassy which is bound to deliver in terms of comedy. Drop your letters to Santa in the college JCR for the chance to have your Christmas wishes (or someone else’s...) read out on stage after the performance.

Butler College Bar, 9.30-10.15PM, Admission free.

Seasonal Sat. 12 & Sun. 13 Dec

Christmas At The Garden A weekend of festive activities in Durham’s enchanting Botanical gardens including a reindeer hunt, craft and jewellery making and musical performances from Durham’s only female barbershop group. The highlight of the day is sure to be festive music from Durham University Brass Band.

Botanical Gardens, South Road 10AM, all day

Sun. 13 Dec

St Mary’s College Carol Service The big question is whether castrati will be performing at the carol service of the formerly allfemale college? The only way to find out is to go!

St. Mary’s College, 6.30PM

Mon. 14 Dec

Cathedral Carol Service There’s nothing like the sound of familiar, traditional carols to get you in a festive mood, and the service at Durham Cathedral is sure to deliver. Performed by the Durham Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, this famous carol service will be a magical way to begin the Christmas season in a spectacular setting.

Durham Cathedral, 7.30 - 9.00PM.

Sat. 19 Dec

Durham Singers Christmas Concert This year’s concert programme is based around Rachmaninov’s all-night vigil-performance. The performance is is to be bathed in candlelight. Everyone’s favourite festive refreshments will follow.

St. Oswald’s Church, 7.30PM. Contact info@durhamsingers.org for more information

Day Trip Until 10 Jan

Peace For Your Time?

Discovery Museum is the North East’s biggest free museum. The displays celebrate the history, diversity and achievements in the region. The museum features fun and fascinating scientific exhibitions and important collections of maritime, social history, fashion and regimental life are on display. ‘Peace for Your Time?’ explores Britain’s involvement in international conflict and peace post-1945.

It challenges the idea that we are no longer a ‘nation at war’ and examines changing public attitudes towards conflict.

Discovery Museum, Newcastle, 10 - 5PM daily. Free entry

Talk Mon. 14 Dec

Durham French Cafe Brush up on your language skills in an informal, sociable environment.

This kind of atmosphere is perfect for relaxed conversation, making new friends and most importantly improving your French skills from whatever level you are at.

Gala Theatre, 6PM. Contact durhamfrenchcafe@gmail.com for further information

Until 5 Jan

Clothing Connections This exhibition uses items from the Dorman Museum’s archaeological, social history, costume and textile, natural science and ethnographical collections to make connections between different cultures and across different time periods through the materials and techniques used to create and adorn clothing. Find out where in the world pig’s tusks were as valuable for adornment as gold and silver in other cultures. Find out how the mucous secretions of a Mediterranean sea snail and the cocoon of a moth influenced world economies for over five thousand years.

Dorman Museum, Middlesburgh, Call 01642 813 781 for more info

Until 11 April

Goya’s Prison: The Year of Despair An investigation of Goya’s cabinet paintings produced around 1793 in the months after he was consumed by a mystery illness that left him profoundly deaf. The subjects were diverse – including shipwrecks, fires, a stagecoach hold up, bullfighting and a lunatic asylum. But of the 12 images it was his portrayal of the inside of a prison that perhaps best conveyed Goya’s state of mind. This display will study this painting in detail, with reference to others in the series.

Discovery Museum, Newcastle, 10 - 5PM daily. Free entry

Mon. 14 Dec

Public Seminar Engaging Publics Professor Dave Guston in conversation with Rachel Pain, Sarah Banks and Phil Macnaghtan. They will be discussing contemporary modes of engagement and participation and the meanings and practices entwined within them, and empowerment to anticipation.

Seminar Room 010, Department of Geography, 12.30-2PM. Free

Tue. 15 Dec

Democracy, Citizenship and Anticipatory Governance of Science and Technology Public engagement is increasingly being incorporated into the development of new research programmes. This is the second workshop of the ESRC seminar series ‘Critical Public Engagement: Perspectives on Public Engagement in Science and Environmental Risk’, and will explore this question in more depth Seminar Room 010, Department of Geography, 12.30-2PM. Free

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

20

Lifestyle Food and Drink

Delicious recipe idea? food@palatinate.org.uk

’Tis the season to be merry

A festive review of some of the city’s many taverns, with authors’ photography Thomas Welch & Jonathan Simpson

It’s coming to the end of term and you’re sick of the Durham bubble. Remedy: a country stroll to the Seven Stars for a scrumptious Sunday roast. Or maybe you were hoping to pop into Cuth’s bar to watch the sport, but, alas, they don’t serve food. Remedy: nip down to the King’s Lodge just under the Viaduct for a cheeky pint and a burger to watch the Heineken Cup. Or you’ve done the Bailey and Hill bar crawls to their full extent and want to visit a pub where the locals actually go. Remedy: the Swan and Three Cygnets just off Elvet bridge is central, cheap and extremely student friendly.

We thought that some inspiration to go and enjoy the local freehouses would be in order at this point of term, especially for the freshers searching for something a little different to round off their first term. What better way to entice you than a graphic display from two of the Palatinate photographers, with summaries of six great pubs within shooting distance of the undergraduate populace? We really do think the old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ to be true, and so this is more a piece of attractive photojournalism than an essay from an English student with a passion for ales.

We have come up with five categories for the article which we hope will help you to decide whether or not to give it a try and pop along. Obviously, considering our student status, the most important category is drink, and so Tom’s knowledge from be-

ing on the bar committee at Chad’s for two years has come in a little handy for analysing the comparative prices and range of drinks. Classifying the food available has been done on a combination, again, of price and range, with the cost of a burger giving a reference point to check against your budget. The service of the watering-hole takes into account the student-friendliness of staff and frequenters, along with the general atmosphere. We have also added a section for the ‘outstanding feature’ of each pub in order to give you heads up on what makes each place particularly distinctive.

A word to note however is that this is not an exhaustive list, nor is it a list of our personal favourites, just a few suggestions to get you started and on your way to sampling all the public houses Durham has to offer. We haven’t surveyed The Jug in Claypath, mainly because we’d be surprised if you ever got to that part of town, nor the Wellington at Neville’s Cross for that matter. But The Shakespeare (on Wednesday evenings for folk jamming) and Market Tavern are worth an exploration, and are easily accessible. There are also many other features such as the infamous Dunn Cow and Dunn Calf (for ladies) challenges just

by Elvet Riverside. Also the Colpitts, despite being a firm favourite of many, was not included simply because it’s another Sam Smith’s tavern, as is the Swan and Three Cygnets, and we were aiming to give you a bit of variety. So enjoy and go have some festive merriment in some of Durham’s fantastic freehouses.

Pub

Drinks

Food (Price of burger)

Service

Outstanding Feature

Overall Rating

Swan and Three ««««« Cygnets Lager £1.75 This place offers drinks at amazing prices.

««««« £4.95 Not bad food, but drinks are the highlighlt.

««««« Nice quick service, even at busy times.

The range of different drinks and the price.

««««« Very nice pub, great range of drinks.

The Victoria

««««« Lager £2.90 Decent range of local ales, changed on a weekly basis.

««««« ««««« No burgers, but A bit hit and 50p for a pickled miss. egg!

Rumour has it that they have regular lock-ins with the Durham constabulary!

««««« An interesting little pub; come here to meet some locals.

Elm Tree

««««« Lager £2.65 A decent range of drinks; a real atmosphere.

««««« £4.95 Pretty standard pub food.

««««« Friendly service, if a little slow.

The fireplaces and the atmosphere.

««««« Certainly a place to have a pint on a dark winter evening.

Bridge End

««««« Lager £3.00 Not the cheapest, but they have a loyalty system.

««««« £4.45 Excellent pub food!

««««« A busy pub but efficient service.

The food is a winner here.

There are also pub quizzes.

««««« This is a great pub and drinks can be bought cheaply .

King’s Lodge

««««« Lager £2.80 The range is sadly a bit of a disappointment.

««««« £4.95 Nothing to write home about.

««««« An empty pub makes for quick service!

The beer garden is probably this place’s best feature.

««««« One to miss – stick to your college bars unless you want food.

Seven Stars

««««« Lager £2.90 Serves a great range of whiskeys!

««««« No burger, but a mean steak for just under a tenner.

««««« Lovely staff who offer a 10% student discount (except in December).

Located outside the ‘Durham Bubble’, but not too far.

««««« A little gem for the more adventurous.

21

PALATINATE Friday 11h December 2009

Browse through previous interviews at palatinate.org.uk

Profile Lifestyle

Lorraine Heggessey: Media Queen Bee The First Lady of the British media reflects on how her Collingwood days set her on the path to manning the helm of culture-defining programmes from The Apprentice to Britain’s Got Talent

that stops you progressing is usually you yourself and the limitations that you put on yourself”. She even has regrets about lacking in self-belief in the past: “In my career I’ve seen people get jobs and thought ‘How on earth did they get that job?’ and yet I hadn’t put myself forward for it. Self-belief is very, very important”.

Rachel Aroesti

I

got rejected from the BBC without even an interview the first time I applied ... I eventually became the first woman Controller of BBC One”.

“It was working on Palatinate that made me decide I wanted to go into journalism”

“You never stop being a journalist. Once you’re a journalist, you are always a journalist”

Like Leslie Hill, the subject of last edition’s Profile, Lorraine Heggessey has held two of the most powerful positions in the UK media. Leaving the BBC in 2005, she is now Chief Executive of talkbackTHAMES, the television production company with a current crop of culture-defining programmes, including Britain’s Got Talent, The Apprentice, The Bill and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, not to mention the media frenzy that is The X Factor. Unlike Hill, Heggessey’s rise to prominence is not filled with celebrity anecdotes and strokes of luck, but down to years of single-minded ambition in her journalistic career, which can be traced back to this very newspaper, of which she was News Editor during her time at Durham University in the 1970s.

It was while she was studying English in the brand new and apparently “avant garde” Collingwood College that she was approached to write her first article, which led her to becoming part of the Palatinate team, under the editorship of future journalist and BBC newsreader George Alagiah - seemingly quite a charismatic figure amongst the other undergraduates. “We used to call him Gorgeous George because he was very good-looking and always very elegantly dressed in a beautiful knee length cashmere coat”, Heggessey remembers.

The idea of once being, and remaining a journalist, is something that Heggessey attributes much of her success to. “I think the skills that you learn as a journalist are really, really useful ... It teaches you how to write, it teaches you how to meet a deadline, it teaches you how to make quick, editorial decisions and when you run a channel all those skills are really important. Anne Robinson once said to me, ‘You never stop being a journalist. Once you’re a journalist, you’re always a journalist’. Even at parties now I find myself effectively interviewing people”. After commissioning a host of successful programmes in her time at the helm of BBC One, including Strictly Come Dancing and Spooks, she made the move from the BBC to talkbackTHAMES.

“She was offered the job of controller of BBC One; the highest position that the BBC had ever given to a woman”

“After leaving Durham in 1978, Heggessey worked for a year on that most glamorous of publications - the Acton Gazette” And it wasn’t just sartorially that the newspaper belonged to a different age. “It was before computers so we had to cut out bits of paper and stick them on to boards ... Typewriters meant that if you wanted to change the order of something you had to type the whole thing out again.” Her dad even bought her a typing course for Christmas, so eager was she to get her Palatinate articles typed more quickly. But it didn’t put her off; far from it, in fact. “It was working on Palatinate that made me decide I wanted to go into journalism. I hadn’t really had that idea before.”

After meeting with rejection after leaving Durham in 1978, Heggessey worked for a year on that most glamorous of publications – the Acton Gazette – before joining

“The only thing that stops you progressing is usually yourself and the limitations that you put on yourself” the BBC and eventually landing her dream job as a producer on Panorama. After years of high-pressured television journalism, she became Head of Children’s Television at the BBC in 1997, after which she was offered the job of Controller of BBC One in 2000; the highest position in the BBC that

had ever been given to a woman. But while Heggessey refuses to engage with speculation about how her gender has affected her career, “because you don’t know how you would be treated if you were a man, really”, she does concede that “it was difficult being Controller of BBC One as a woman just because I got a lot more media attention than my predecessor or my successor”.

This media attention included controversy over the move of the BBC news from 9 to 10 o’clock, and accusations of derivative programming. She offers a window into how she dealt with the pressure she was under at the time from the press: “You have to develop the hide of a rhino, frankly.

There were certain papers I stopped reading and stopped buying because they’d just make you too cross with the things that

they’d say. You realise that a lot of journalism is very inaccurate, and that is really irritating, especially when you’re a journalist and these people aren’t even checking their facts”.

“I got a lot more media attention than my predecessor or my successor” Self-belief and the possession of steadfast confidence in one’s own opinions is something she is keen to stress to those who wish to follow in her footsteps: “The only thing

Her new role admittedly called for a more business-minded approach, but she maintains that there was no conflict of interest between being a businesswoman and making good television. “[At talkbackTHAMES] we don’t do anything that we don’t think will be good TV, because in the end it would be completely counterproductive. You’re only as good as your last programme really and you’re only as good as your reputation. We would never sacrifice our reputation to make a quick buck and we’re quite a moral and ethical company.”

After what must seem like a dizzying rise to success in one of the world’s most competitive industries, coming back to Durham a few years ago to speak at the Collingwood Leavers’ Dinner, she found the town, on the whole, reassuringly unchanged. “The city hasn’t changed much, but there were no nightclubs when I was in Durham and there were only a couple of restaurants that you could go to. Palace Green and all the rest of it, thankfully that can’t change because it’s surrounded by the cathedral on one side and the castle on the other. I’d guess it would be the same in a hundred years time, which is rather lovely”.

22

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

Lifestyle Travel

Heading somewhere exotic for Christmas? Let us know at travel@palatinate.org.uk JAMES DUNN

many other New-Agey activities. Sadly, the opportunity to help the Tibetan people is for the most part lost on these people, who instead band together by staying in luxury rooms and eating in all the Italian restaurants and German bakeries, all whilst ignoring the surrounding incredible culture.

“When the sun rises over the peaks of the mighty Himalayas it makes the whole journey seem worth it”

The serene view of the Himalayas from the diverse McLeod.

On Mcleod Number 9 James Dunn

W

henever people think of India they picture the heat, busy streets and the bustling cities that never settle down. If this is not your cup of chai, then fear not, as there is a peace-

ful heaven in the Himalayan foothills. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India where he was granted McLeod Ganj (a colonial Hill Station) as a place of refuge for him and his people by the Indian government. It has since grown massively in size

as thousands of Tibetans also fled to join the Dalai Lama, creating both a refugee community and a spiritual hub for all Buddhists, as well as the massive tourist trade attracted by this community. Thousands of hippies and travellers alike come for the multitude of courses: Yoga, Reiki and

Away from all the “dudes” and the “I’m here to cleanse myself” hippies (which is hard to believe considering the amount of weed that is smoked), there is a truly beautiful Tibetan culture that should not be missed. Two years ago, I spent six months living and teaching in a Buddhist monastery in McLeod, which were the most incredible months of my life. So, after spending two years at Durham saving up by not drinking the extra pint here and there, I finally booked my flight back to my home.

I successful arrived in Delhi and, after arguing with the taxi drivers for twenty minutes (who were attempting to charge me quadruple the usual fare assuming that I was a first-timer to India), I headed straight to Majanu-Kal-Tilla, the Tibetan refugee camp in Delhi which offers a relative safe haven from the pressure cooker that is India’s capital. I then prepared myself for the bus journey to McLeod. The thirteen hours of spine-breaking, bum-aching and sleepdepriving travelling was hellish enough as it was but was made far worse when some-

JAMES DUNN

Youth in Asia

Palatinate looks at the adventures of Durham students on the largest continent John Salmon

S

andwiched between two of Asia’s ‘culture-factories’, China and India, Nepal can often be neglected. This, of course, is a mistake, as along with the rich mountain heritage of the North, the country offers so much to the open-minded traveller.

“Poor government of recent years has stunted development of infrastructure”

A rooftop view of one of Kathmandu’s beautiful monasteries.

Flying into the country’s only international airport, Kathmandu, ensures that most visitors sample the capital’s jewels.

The first thing which hits the senses is the perpetual sound of car horns – like the arrhythmic heartbeat of the city. The second would be the obvious and heart-wrenching poverty. While the country is particularly rich in water, the poor government of recent years has stunted any development of infrastructure.

I myself visited Nepal with DUCK, and as a result spent two rewarding weeks teaching English in a school near Kathmandu. Being integrated into a Nepali

community in this way certainly helps give a holistic view of the country and its people.

Furthermore, these projects run by charities such as Future For Nepal provide essential support for the world’s twelfth poorest country. Nevertheless, on shorter trips charity work can be a little impractical.

Spending time in Kathmandu, one can indulge in Western or indeed Nepali cuisine. The Everest Steak House is a particular draw for travellers, with a basic steak dish setting you back around £4.00. However, if you’re searching for ‘the real Nepal’, it’s Dhal Baht which you ought to ask for. This is a lentil-based stew poured onto rice, sometimes with vegetable curry and chutney.

It’s immensely filling, and really is Nepal’s everyman meal.

The religious sites of the Kathmandu Valley are also well worth visiting: to the east of the city lies the Hindu Pashupati Nath Temple, home to a number of Sadhus (the ochre-clad and painted holy men) and is a celebrated cremation site. Our guide reliably informed us that the Sadhus were men liberated from our earthly plane, but nevertheless they still charge 10 rupees for pictures.

To the west, the popularly named Monkey Temple proves an escape from the narrow and boldly-coloured streets of central Kathmandu. As a Buddhist site, a Stupa (or domed structure) is the focal point, and to reach this one there are 365 knee-crunch-

one vomited on my feet an hour into the journey...sandals were a bad choice. However, when the sun rises over the peaks of the mighty Himalayas, it makes the whole journey seem worth it.

The life that McLeod inspires is one of peace, with the silence of the Himalayas only broken by the multitude of different languages from all over the world mixing harmoniously and the monks and nuns offering up prayers. Best of all, the mixing of peoples leads to a mixture of foods! Places like Taste of India sell real homecooked Indian food prepared in a charcoal oven whilst Tibetan-owned eateries such as Peace Café make the best Tibetan delicacies such as Momos. If you are looking for something a bit more Western, then there are many places that cater to the homesick palates. There are so many Tibetan charities that anyone can volunteer for, while I taught within the monastery I also helped out at the Tibet Hope Centre. THC is a new charity with 150 students that relies on volunteers for its teaching. There are many other paths to volunteering from library work to computer programming.

“The life that Mcleod inspires is one of peace” McLeod offers such a massive variety of activities to fit anyone’s personality along with the rare chance to make an impact on people’s lives. I would encourage everyone to travel northwards from Delhi and break the Gap Year tragedy of the Golden Triangle because, without sounding like those hippies, this Hilltop Nirvana is unique, as it changes you without you even realising and will make you want to return again and again. ingly steep steps to climb. Kathmandu is situated in the central strip of three distinctive geographical zones. To the north lies the mountainous regions and to the south you find the Terai lowlands; an area characterised by humid grassland and forests.

For tourists the Chitwan National Park is probably the easiest way to see this side of Nepal. On my short stay in the park, I visited an elephant sanctuary, rode, and washed some of the jumbos, plus I saw some rare one-horned rhinos.

Nepal is a trekkers’ paradise too, indeed the capital is awash with bearded men and gnarled women eclipsed by their fridgesized backpacks. That’s not to say it’s all scrambling up mountainsides and dodging landslides though. We completed a far from intrepid ten-day ‘moderate’ trek to the Annapurna Base Camp.

“the feelings of accomplishment far outweigh the blood, sweat and diarrheoa expended!

Trekking was pretty tough, but after reaching 5020m, just above the Base Camp, the feelings of accomplishment far outweigh the blood, sweat and diarrhoea expended! Just wear the proper kit, and expect to be amazed as your Sherpa guide and porters amble up the hillside trails as though they were strolling in the park.

Their preference for umbrellas over hightech waterproofs only adds to their striking image. So don’t overlook Nepal - it has a wealth of experience to offer.

22

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

Lifestyle Travel

Heading somewhere exotic for Christmas? Let us know at travel@palatinate.org.uk JAMES DUNN

many other New-Agey activities. Sadly, the opportunity to help the Tibetan people is for the most part lost on these people, who instead band together by staying in luxury rooms and eating in all the Italian restaurants and German bakeries, all whilst ignoring the surrounding incredible culture.

“When the sun rises over the peaks of the mighty Himalayas it makes the whole journey seem worth it”

The serene view of the Himalayas from the diverse McLeod.

On Mcleod Number 9 James Dunn

W

henever people think of India they picture the heat, busy streets and the bustling cities that never settle down. If this is not your cup of chai, then fear not, as there is a peace-

ful heaven in the Himalayan foothills. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India where he was granted McLeod Ganj (a colonial Hill Station) as a place of refuge for him and his people by the Indian government. It has since grown massively in size

as thousands of Tibetans also fled to join the Dalai Lama, creating both a refugee community and a spiritual hub for all Buddhists, as well as the massive tourist trade attracted by this community. Thousands of hippies and travellers alike come for the multitude of courses: Yoga, Reiki and

Away from all the “dudes” and the “I’m here to cleanse myself” hippies (which is hard to believe considering the amount of weed that is smoked), there is a truly beautiful Tibetan culture that should not be missed. Two years ago, I spent six months living and teaching in a Buddhist monastery in McLeod, which were the most incredible months of my life. So, after spending two years at Durham saving up by not drinking the extra pint here and there, I finally booked my flight back to my home.

I successful arrived in Delhi and, after arguing with the taxi drivers for twenty minutes (who were attempting to charge me quadruple the usual fare assuming that I was a first-timer to India), I headed straight to Majanu-Kal-Tilla, the Tibetan refugee camp in Delhi which offers a relative safe haven from the pressure cooker that is India’s capital. I then prepared myself for the bus journey to McLeod. The thirteen hours of spine-breaking, bum-aching and sleepdepriving travelling was hellish enough as it was but was made far worse when some-

JAMES DUNN

Youth in Asia

Palatinate looks at the adventures of Durham students on the largest continent John Salmon

S

andwiched between two of Asia’s ‘culture-factories’, China and India, Nepal can often be neglected. This, of course, is a mistake, as along with the rich mountain heritage of the North, the country offers so much to the open-minded traveller.

“Poor government of recent years has stunted development of infrastructure”

A rooftop view of one of Kathmandu’s beautiful monasteries.

Flying into the country’s only international airport, Kathmandu, ensures that most visitors sample the capital’s jewels.

The first thing which hits the senses is the perpetual sound of car horns – like the arrhythmic heartbeat of the city. The second would be the obvious and heart-wrenching poverty. While the country is particularly rich in water, the poor government of recent years has stunted any development of infrastructure.

I myself visited Nepal with DUCK, and as a result spent two rewarding weeks teaching English in a school near Kathmandu. Being integrated into a Nepali

community in this way certainly helps give a holistic view of the country and its people.

Furthermore, these projects run by charities such as Future For Nepal provide essential support for the world’s twelfth poorest country. Nevertheless, on shorter trips charity work can be a little impractical.

Spending time in Kathmandu, one can indulge in Western or indeed Nepali cuisine. The Everest Steak House is a particular draw for travellers, with a basic steak dish setting you back around £4.00. However, if you’re searching for ‘the real Nepal’, it’s Dhal Baht which you ought to ask for. This is a lentil-based stew poured onto rice, sometimes with vegetable curry and chutney.

It’s immensely filling, and really is Nepal’s everyman meal.

The religious sites of the Kathmandu Valley are also well worth visiting: to the east of the city lies the Hindu Pashupati Nath Temple, home to a number of Sadhus (the ochre-clad and painted holy men) and is a celebrated cremation site. Our guide reliably informed us that the Sadhus were men liberated from our earthly plane, but nevertheless they still charge 10 rupees for pictures.

To the west, the popularly named Monkey Temple proves an escape from the narrow and boldly-coloured streets of central Kathmandu. As a Buddhist site, a Stupa (or domed structure) is the focal point, and to reach this one there are 365 knee-crunch-

one vomited on my feet an hour into the journey...sandals were a bad choice. However, when the sun rises over the peaks of the mighty Himalayas, it makes the whole journey seem worth it.

The life that McLeod inspires is one of peace, with the silence of the Himalayas only broken by the multitude of different languages from all over the world mixing harmoniously and the monks and nuns offering up prayers. Best of all, the mixing of peoples leads to a mixture of foods! Places like Taste of India sell real homecooked Indian food prepared in a charcoal oven whilst Tibetan-owned eateries such as Peace Café make the best Tibetan delicacies such as Momos. If you are looking for something a bit more Western, then there are many places that cater to the homesick palates. There are so many Tibetan charities that anyone can volunteer for, while I taught within the monastery I also helped out at the Tibet Hope Centre. THC is a new charity with 150 students that relies on volunteers for its teaching. There are many other paths to volunteering from library work to computer programming.

“The life that Mcleod inspires is one of peace”

McLeod offers such a massive variety of activities to fit anyone’s personality along with the rare chance to make an impact on people’s lives. I would encourage everyone to travel northwards from Delhi and break the Gap Year tragedy of the Golden Triangle because, without sounding like those hippies, this Hilltop Nirvana is unique, as it changes you without you even realising and will make you want to return again and again.

ingly steep steps to climb. Kathmandu is situated in the central strip of three distinctive geographical zones. To the north lies the mountainous regions and to the south you find the Terai lowlands; an area characterised by humid grassland and forests.

For tourists the Chitwan National Park is probably the easiest way to see this side of Nepal. On my short stay in the park, I visited an elephant sanctuary, rode, and washed some of the jumbos, plus I saw some rare one-horned rhinos.

Nepal is a trekkers’ paradise too, indeed the capital is awash with bearded men and gnarled women eclipsed by their fridgesized backpacks. That’s not to say it’s all scrambling up mountainsides and dodging landslides though. We completed a far from intrepid ten-day ‘moderate’ trek to the Annapurna Base Camp.

“the feelings of accomplishment far outweigh the blood, sweat and diarrheoa expended!

Trekking was pretty tough, but after reaching 5020m, just above the Base Camp, the feelings of accomplishment far outweigh the blood, sweat and diarrhoea expended! Just wear the proper kit, and expect to be amazed as your Sherpa guide and porters amble up the hillside trails as though they were strolling in the park.

Their preference for umbrellas over hightech waterproofs only adds to their striking image. So don’t overlook Nepal - it has a wealth of experience to offer.

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

Pitch your own fashion ideas to us: fashion@palatinate.org.uk

Fashion and Beauty Lifestyle

Ding Dong, the drought is gone Dipal Acharya takes a sartorial sortie into Durham’s newest boutiques

“there is little to inspire our inner fashion sense when you can count on one hand, nay three fingers, the number of places one can shop”

“With the selection available at Ding Dong, you are at liberty to rejuvenate your wardrobe guilt free”

kets and, quite literally, bags full of beads and gorgeous silk scarves. One would assume that the best of their wares is all out on show, but having visited the shop three times in one week (eek), it’s nice to see that the racks are constantly updated with stock stashed away in the underbelly of the shop.

My treasured find was a beautiful silver fox fur coat, in brilliant condition and just the thing to inject life into any dull party dress.

Which brings me quite nicely to our second new arrival; situated off Elvet Bridge, Dolly Rocks is as unpretentious as its surroundings, and full of lovely little party dresses. Having relocated from Newcastle, this lovely little boutique has already gathered quite a cult following. What struck me as most appealing about the shop was how well presented everything was; it always irritates me that shops selling affordable clothing often leave it in unsightly bundles scattered all over the place, forcing you to either work up a sweat in pursuit of something your size, or to give up entirely. Not the case here, with clean, brightly lit spaces, showcasing key pieces from their collections, and generally quite a chic atmosphere.

ing human congestion is quite refreshing when shopping here, and actually gives you a chance to sift through their garments properly.

A brief digression is necessary here; while the world has all eyes on the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference, the advent of this shop could not be more apt. Consumers are being encouraged to shop less, recycle and promote ethically responsible clothing. Though purchasing second-hand clothes is not everyone’s cup of tea, shopping vintage does make a difference, and with the selection available at Ding Dong, you are at liberty to rejuvenate your wardrobe guilt-free. Their strongest selling point is the fabulous accessories collection that the owners have collated; walls covered in bejewelled displays of brooches and hair pieces, cabinets full of one-off trinLORNA URWIN

“Dolly Rocks have put together a collection which will appeal to the average Durham student’s sartorial inclinations” So to the crux of the issue – what are the clothes like? Though not avant garde in their selection, Dolly Rocks have put together a collection which will appeal to the average Durham student’s sartorial inclinations. There are pretty feminine and whimsical dresses, which double up as evening wear and day wear with chunky knit cardigans and boots; there is also a nice

Street Style

T

aking our cue from the massive success of The Sartorialist, the fashion team decided to hit the streets of Durham in search of the best and worst of the season’s winter wear.

Fur (fake of course...) featured quite heavily, while we were also enamoured by quirky detailing in accessories and boots.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this week’s looks, so feel free to leave a comment at www.palatinate.org.uk!

Photography by Anne Berry

spread of androgynous separates which can be dressed up with the boutique’s satisfying spread of accessories. I thought that what made the separates a pleasure to shop from was how each rack worked from a particular colour palette, making it easier to LORNA URWIN

W

hen thinking about the sartorial offerings of Durham, one becomes rather depressed. It is an old (and rather tired) argument that in our little university town, there is little to inspire our inner fashion sense when you can count on one hand, nay three fingers, the number of places that one can shop. Which is why it comes as a pleasant surprise that in the space of a month, we have had two new boutiques spring up out of nowhere.

The first, following hot on the heels of the success of The Affordable Vintage Fair, is Ding Dong Vintage. I must admit, I had no idea where it actually was when word first got out, being tucked away on the side of the unassuming Gates complex. This is not necessarily a bad thing though; avoid-

visualise pieces together. The price point is exactly what you would expect from a small student boutique and, given its reputation and current stock, well worth the money.

Though by no means an end to the drought of fashion inspiration we have in Durham, these two new shops are a welcome arrival and come highly recommended.

Stockist Information:

Ding Dong Vintage - Unit 45. The Gates, Durham Dolly Rocks - 21A Elvet, Durham.

Telephone: 0191 386 7385

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

Know your film and television? Enjoy your writing? Write for us. E-mail film@palatinate.org.uk

Film and Television Arts

Arts The tweenage fang

The best in Durham-orientated arts and culture Including Visual, Books, Film and TV, Music and Stage SONGBIRDSINGS

Can a lad enjoy femme favourite Twilight?

With Christmas coming, it’s that month in the film calendar when a torrent of Hollywood multi-million blockbusters flood local cinema screens, hoping to catch the attention of millions of schoolchildren and students looking to fill all those hours they suddenly find they have free.

This year’s film contenders, however, may find themselves already cast into the shade by a certain silver-screen heavyweight that leapt to the front with a relatively early release and, has, it is fair to say, not done too badly (at time of writing, breaking records for most earned on first day, and first weekend, release), propelled by the hysteria its prequel attracted, and hype surrounding a certain Robert Pattinson.

Anyone whose residence hasn’t been under a rock for the last two years will have realised by now that the movie in question is of course New Moon. Last year’s Twilight got the hearts of teenage girls everywhere fluttering with its innocent de-sexualised romance, epitomised by the most perfect knight-in-shining-armour ever: Edward Cullen, played by the pin-up for this generation, the aforementioned Pattinson.

Considering that the film raked in around £115 million at the box office, it

probably wasn’t the longest ever meeting at Summit Entertainment when they decided to apply more of the same to New Moon, seeing how far the Twilight saga cash cow could go in regards to the ‘tween’ market.

The resulting advertising campaign did little to disguise the focus of the film: Pattinson posturing dramatically in posters, billboards displaying the chiselled six-pack of the topless Taylor Lautner (the story’s newly-transformed heartthrob, who plays the sideline love interest Jacob Black) and his similarly-ripped Quileute tribe, all adopting poses normally reserved for Greek gods.

In the face of such a clearly femalefocused marketing assault, is New Moon to be immediately written off as a film strictly for the fairer sex, to be avoided by men at all cost? The answer is not necessarily that obvious; despite the blatant emphasis on the male eye candy, in interviews promoting the film, both director (Chris Weitz) and actors alike promised that there was content in the film designed to appeal to guys as well, pointing to the presence of the warring werewolves and vampires, and more emphasis on action scenes. With this possibility of redemption, it is perhaps only fair to give the film a chance to see if it can live up to its description as a film

The corridors of power

Robert Pattison smoulders as vampire Edward Cullen

not to immediately be discarded by male film-goers as a ‘chick-flick’, and a threat to their masculinity.

For all the attempts at objectivity and optimism, the film does not open promisingly: Kristen Stewart (as protagonist Bella Swan) reciting Romeo & Juliet, a slow-mo shot of the impeccably dressed Robert Pattinson walking dramatically, oozing sex appeal and cool. While the longing sighs of teenage girls could probably be heard on the other side of the world, for the remain-

ing audience the effects are limited to a mix of indifference and cringing at the blatant tack of the opening twenty minutes.

Indeed, subtlety is not something New Moon is that interested in when it comes to wooing its primary audience. Pattinson recites classical love verses before reverting back to his favourite pastime of moving in slow-motion shots, the most laughable of which is him running open-shirted through a woodland scene. When Cullen has to leave Forks, the void is filled by

OLIVIER BRUCHEZ

Tony Barrett

Lautner and his predilection for taking his top off (because conveniently werewolves have naturally high temperatures, demanding them to be semi-naked wherever possible – obviously).

If an eyebrow is raised at this last point, then New Moon isn’t for you, for the film demands you buy into the Twilight universe and swallow some of its more preposterous plot lines and concepts, identify emotionally with Bella and truly believing in the story arc.

Unfortunately, few outside the ‘teenage girl’ bracket will be able to do so, as the impossible-perfect Jacob and Edward fail to convince, and Bella soon starts to annoy, spending a lot of the film in a state of selfpity. The plot twists towards making the film increasingly melodramatic, failing to take the audience along for the emotional roller coaster it is intent on portraying.

Admittedly the promised action scenes are very cool and fun (making their scarcity all the more lamentable) and the relationship between Edward and Bella is very sweet; after all, both genders can be sentimental and empathetic. And, without giving away any plot twists, regarding what happens to Jacob at the end of the film – well, let’s just say every guy (bar George Clooney perhaps) has been there.

However, these are rare moments of entertainment in a film that is perfection on screen for its intended demographic, and mediocre for the rest. But, having taken £84 million in its opening weekend, you wonder whether Summit Entertainment are currently shedding many tears on the way to the bank...

Charlotte Thompson celebrates the BBC’s triumphant political satire The Thick of It Charlotte Thompson

Considering the state of party politics – duck houses, porno habits, biscuit troubles, Boris Johnson – it seems that any comedy based on the corridors of power could write itself. Heck, you can just turn on Prime Minister’s Question Time and have a good laugh.

Instead, however, we seem to be at a nadir in terms of decent political satire. This is a generation lacking its Spitting Image or Yes Minister. And with the series of both the tepid Have I Got News For You and overly scripted Mock the Week at an end, it’s easier to get a giggle out of watching a racist being mauled by David Dimbleby than it is from any intentionally funny political programming. Yet out of this humourless dirge rises a giant of wit; a frantic, sweary beacon of hope for political TV. A show with all the key ingredients of a classic: realism, hands-over-your-eyes embarrassment, the c-word.

The Thick of It, created by genius Armando Iannucci, has finally hit the big time. First appearing as a niche satire on BBC Four, it now has a place on BBC Two Saturday nights and a spin-off film reaping critical and popular acclaim alike.

Into its third series, the plot documents the blundering ineptitudes of the fictitious Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship,

its civil servants, its shadow counterparts and its spin doctors.

The current series follows the new Minister Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front), a candidate about whom Malcolm Tucker comments was the only alternative to his “f**king left bollock with a smiley face drawn on it.” Full of native idealism and dreams of social mobility, within the first few episodes she quickly comes to terms with the fact that she won’t actually be changing the world, but instead will be dodging scandal and political bullets with as much real power as “those twats who sit either side of Alan Sugar.”

“A show with all the key ingredients of a classic” Harsh as this may be to the dear Nick and Margaret, politicians and political aides in this series are buffoons, crooks and cowards messing up and selling out on a daily basis. In the first episode, Murray finds herself standing in front of a sign reading LIAM BENTLEY, in the right position to make it read ‘I AM BENT.’ Other characters include the fantastically arrogant and inept Olly, special advisor to Murray, and an Oxbridge graduate more likely to be making masks of the

The Thick of It satirises the much-mocked world of British politics

opposition rather than election winning policy. Played by Chris Addison, this is one of many extremely well observed members of the team. Indeed, realism is integral to The Thick of It’s humour.

Written by some of those who are responsible for Peep Show, the programme utilises the same air of fly-on-the-wall documentary style to an even greater extent.

Dialogue is as quick-fired as gun battles in an excessively pacy Tarantino movie, and is apparently also often spontaneous, with improvisation among the cast encouraged.

Above this bumbling mess stands the Scottish puppet master: Malcolm Tucker, a vulgar mouthed, screaming king of spin (bearing no similarity to Alastair Campbell whatsoever, of course), who just happens to be one of the comic creations of the decade. Played by Peter Capaldi, Tucker

specialises in his ability to unleash one toe-curling, blush-causing, profanityladen diatribe after another onto the inept Government workers. To him, swearing is an art form; effing and blinding dots the script like notes on a Beethoven symphony, each as ‘did-he-just-say-that?’ inducing as the next.

In the last episode, New Labour Tucker met his match in the form of the Tory’s own communications officer and blue sky thinker Stewart Pearson (Vincent Franklin), a jargon-filled new age man, with as much pseudo-zen and brainstorming as Tucker has aggression. It is at these moments, the clash of the titans of communications, that we see Tucker for who he really is – an especially filthy mouthed clown, trying to control a circus spinning itself faster and faster out of control.

Don’t let The Thick of It put you off party politics, or your daily dose of BBC News. It may seem all cock-ups and no balls, but what emerges from the programme is a group of people whose priorities have been quite mislaid - somewhere in between expenses scandals and grotty love affairs. They do have - or once had dreams of improving society, of encouraging social mobility, of changing the world, but life got in the way. So watch, laugh, cower, squirm and even judge The Thick of It; the greatest political programme, perhaps even the greatest programme, of our generation. As Tucker himself would say, ‘f**kity-bye.’

The final episode of the current series will be shown on Saturday 12th December on BBC2.

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

26

Photography

If you would like to see your photos showcased, email photography@palatinate.org.uk Photography Winner Hugh Smith

Theme: People This photo was taken in Kerala, South India, in Summer. We were on scooters that day, but we must have got off because the focus is clear, in one place at least. They must have been playing football and come over when we stopped. I thought about cropping the photo; taking off the boy moving to the left, but I think it gives contrast and makes the four children on the right seem like they are in a kind of motionless bubble, with all this movement around them, stretching back to an uneven horizon.

I guess the main point of the photo is the sharp focus on one face; all the other slightly blurred faces seem to have really readable expressions. They look content at least, but the boy in focus looks so intense that it’s hard to see whether he’s happy or sad. It’s easy to read things into his expression.

It was taken on an Olympus OM- 2n, with Ilford HP5 400 speed film and an F-Zuiko 50mm lens with a pretty big aperture and short exposure; it was a sunny day and the film was fast.

Camera: Canon EOS 350D Lens: 18-55mm Exposure: 1/1250 sec at f/16 (ISO 1600)

Jonathan Allen “There was so much colour on offer in Africa, typified by the Masai tribes we encountered at the Ngorogoro Crater, so I found myself constantly taking photographs of not just the animals out of the window of the jeep as we sped around on safari..”

Next Theme: Black and White Photography Deadline: Sunday 10th January Send your photos to photography@palatinate.org.uk

Camera: Sony DC-W55 Lens: 6.8-18.9mm Exposure: 1/8 at f2.8 (ISO 200)

Ella Claire “I liked the difference in light and way that my boyfriend was silhouetted against the doorway and the reflective floor. He’s like a shadow made real.”

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

Want to get involved? E-mail editor@palatinate.org.uk

Visual Arts Arts

A lesson from Saatchi on the meaning of Modern Art

‘School of Saatchi’, the art world’s X Factor, searches for a new king or queen to lead the fight for popularity

air. Two or three of the twelve then poured convincing arguments into the ether. The rest fumbled with words and shirt sleeves and looked ashamedly at the floor. Surely one of the first steps along the path of conceptual art should be understanding why one is doing what one is doing?

These installations ranged from a film of hundreds of starlings flying together in a delicate yet definitely undulating flux, while seeming to be in stasis, to two magnets holding one another in the air by way of their magnetic fields – without actually touching. I could see that they were art, the first beautiful and the second conceptually fascinating, but the artists’ inability to explain them gets at the crux of modern art’s problem: it does not have intrinsic characteristics which reveal that it is art.

Therefore, we must speak for it, and attempt to express the ideas; these are often by nature more abstract than words know how to articulate, and herein lies the trouble. If the artists can’t explain the meaning, then what are we, the public, to measure our slivers of understanding against?

Perhaps I am missing the point of it all. In the second episode, the group, now whittled down to six, had to install public works of art in Hastings. Two of the three pieces did not work as intended, and as a result the artists seemed to be constructing ideas to fit the haphazard objects rather than eloquent installations to complement the thoughtful conceptions. The judges had few qualms about this. If I am to see their reaction positively I can only suggest that rather than having implicit meanings, installations of this kind are intended as personal exercises in thinking rather than a desire on the artists’ part to portray universal truths.

This inherent uncertainty leads me to another. The X Factor hasn’t unearthed The Beatles of the day, so is it likely that Saatchi will pull the previously unnoticed talent which has wandered the dusty side streets of the art world in to the town square?

Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. Arguably, though, the intention of School of Saatchi is not to beam a spotlight down on the individual but to garner good press and deeper understanding for the modern art world as a whole.

The British public loves to hate it, but it is the direction in which we are ineluctably headed. Saatchi et al are certainly fostering, if not adoration, much curiosity and thought beyond the commonplace dismissive attitudes, and for this they must be admired.

Pain painted beautifully: The Death of Marat

masterpiece. The art of today has turned its back on beauty and seems to be taking revenge on reality.

Harking back to the words of Plato, philosopher Roger Scruton advocates that beauty is an essential resource, transcending the onlooker to the world of contemplation making modern life worthwhile.

Scruton argues that it is the task of art to take the most painful parts of human life and recreate them in a work of beauty; only beauty has the ability to redeem life.

Although Scruton’s argument is refreshing, what he seems to overlook is that it is not the artists themselves who are to blame for this culture of alienation and impersonal art, but the critics and curators who call it art. The cult of ugliness in art has accelerated over the last few decades but this does not mean that beautiful art does not exist today; it does, just in the shadows.

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’; art is subjective so who am I to say what is art and what is not. For all that, I cannot celebrate the ugliness of much of today’s revered works and I hope that Scruton’s championing of aesthetic art will pave the way for change.

TRACEY EMIN/COMMONORGARDEN

Rosanna Boscawen

O

‘David’ in his place as a political piece

Something to aspire to: the young artists have to come up with artworks to rival the likes of Tracey Emin’s pieces

young artists in the second round at least puts the art world’s show above that of the music industry.

The majority of the finalists being art students, they (naturally) resented being asked to define what modern art is. The extent of their outrage suggested the judges

might as well have asked a handful of fully qualified doctors to name all the parts of the human body, rather than patronise the group with questions such as, “And why is this film art and not just a film?” Yet once the grumblings and mumblings of frustration had subsided, silence filled the BLHPHOTOGRAPHY

Is beauty damned?

Artists’ old rubbish is beauty’s new aesthetics Sarah Peake

P

ioneered by Michael Landy, The ArtBin sums up the movement away from the aesthetically beautiful in popular art today. The new project, to be launched in January in the South London Gallery, Peckham, will involve artist consigning works to a giant transparent plastic bin, Some of the artworks to suffer the dishonour of burial in the creative landfill has been valued at £10,000. Wasteful?

Perhaps. Landy, who describes himself as an “auto-destructive artist”, has always been concerned with displaying dismal issues of society. In 2001, Landy shredded or destroyed all of his personal possessions in a venture called “Break Down”, to examine society’s romance with consumerism; it

was only after the expulsion of self-defining possessions that a personal break down could commence.

Despite the complex theory behind Landy’s bin - and all his work - that is what it will remain, a dustbin. Art has been relegated to the art of ideas. But ideas are invisible; however great the idea is how, can it be construed as visual art and seem grotesque and painful.

The impersonal nature of popular art today mocks the pursuit of beauty to its core. Surely art should be a celebration of aesthetics, providing consolation in a postmodern world full of suffering and distress.

I am not saying that issues of misery or adversity should be ignored; what matters is not the subject matter but the artistic interpretation. Rembrandt painted a beef carcass and made it look beautiful, David transformed Marat’s assassination into a

Could the contents of a dustbin ever be art?

DAVID/PAUKRUS

wner of the Saatchi Gallery and world renowned art collector, Charles Saatchi is the “kingmaker” of the art world. Previously he has crowned Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst amongst many others, and has now sent his courtiers forth o’er hill and dale in search of new ‘talent’ in conceptual art.

I confess now that I dubiously tuned in to School of Saatchi with the sole intention of finding a mine of evidence from which I could dig out a tonne of gold and heap it up in the face of anyone who says there is value either in modern art or the dearth of the twenty-first century that is the reality TV talent show. I must then concede that the mine was not as rich in said evidence as I expected. Still, Saatchi’s aspiring kings and queens struggled to excavate much of this meaning on which their work is founded, creating somewhat of a quandary.

The judges were slightly more accomplished at this. “Art is an expression of the intention of the artist” according to Kate Bush, head of art galleries at the Barbican, (thereby silencing my remonstrations as I watched builders erect one of the installations in the second episode, while the artists lingered below). Tracey Emin, another panelist, pounced with dominating enthusiasm on anything that looked new and exciting, simultaneously silencing any squeaks from her fellow judges with a sideways glance that threatened to develop into a growl. Presumably, this lust for the new idea comes from the argument that all (or most) things bright and beautiful have already been achieved in other centuries and continents, but Emin came at the brawl against public perception from the other side; already a convert, she didn’t think to look at it from a cynic’s point of view. Art critic Matthew Collings and collector Frank Cohen likewise insisted on the wholly original, though in a more sceptic-friendly manner.

Emin’s understanding is clearly great, however, and though she might be the show’s Simon Cowell, her ability to explicate convincingly the work of the twelve

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Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

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Stage Arts

Drama abounds as two worlds collide DELANEY CHAMBERS

The Hill College Theatre Company offers us a look at both men and women’s feelings pre-marriage with skill to follow her heart, depicted a man with Stags and Hens “The immediate difunerring, but also honest, self-confidence.

Hill College Theatre Company this was a truthfulness of the stark ficulty of the play’s static Within Trevelyan College facts of life, which again added to the ««««« dynamism of the characters embroiled in setting in a bar toilet was such a simple plot.

Flora Hill Ned French as Roadie added yet ansuccessfully tackled with other dimension to the performance, and Stags and Hens by Willy Russell professed grounded the setting of the play, whilst the fluent and inventive providing a reminder of the characters’ itself to be ‘funny, witty and simply entertaining’; it achieved this and more from the backgrounds outside of the toilets. Conset design by Gemma outset. Performed in Trevelyan College’s tinuing the sense of the ‘outside world’ Sir James Knott Hall, the atmosphere was was Sam Watkinson’s character, Billy. With one of intimacy and unity between audian inspirational take on the laughable, Nelson” ence and actors. The immediate difficulty loveable loser, Sam was without doubt of the play’s static setting in a bar toilet was successfully tackled with the fluent and inventive set design by Gemma Nelson.

This allowed for the simultaneous conflicts and similarities between hens and stags, reality and delusion.

“Kay Hetherington. . . carried out her role with some stunningly timed moments of comedy. . . ”

ity between male and female, which was at once conflicting and cohesive.

Linda, played by Collingwood’s Harriet Tarpy, did not have a particularly dominant physical stage presence. However, due to this and to Harriet’s effective portrayal of a troubled young woman, Linda’s presence as the epitome of the subconscious reality was certainly felt.

This was further enhanced by her ‘livefor-the-moment’ conformist friends, who were hilariously close to the classic drunken girl friends on a night out. Sarah Peters, who played Bernadette, maintained a creditably enthusiastic and high-pitched energy that ran throughout the entire play, whilst Emmy Mattinson’s character, Carol, LARA KARADAKOVA

The plot of the play was a simple one, based around the dramas of Dave’s stag party and Linda’s hen party colliding in the same bar. However, amidst this seemingly trivial and drunken confrontation lay a much more sinister and emotive core, centred around the bride-to-be’s doubts about marriage and her friends’ flippant disregard for reality. There was a strong seam of dual-

Hill College Theatre Company’s production of ‘Stags and Hens’ is a definite success

was attributed with a faultless accent and genuinely vivacious personality.

Kay Hetherington, playing Frances, successfully carried out her role with some stunningly timed moments of comedy; and Sarah Watson as Maureen was convincingly ditsy and innocent with many brilliantly funny emotional outpourings.

The stags definitely brought a conventional culture of ‘guy talk’ to the forefront of their scenes, but with similar interjections of reality. George Haynes, who played Eddy, characterised the vein of seriousness from the male side, and achieved the very difficult task of sustaining such personality amidst heightened comedy.

Joe Terry, as Robbie, certainly fulfilled the role of the typical ‘horny lad’, but was also very diverse and impressively comical.

Kav, played by James English, was the perfect teammate for Robbie. James laudably pulled off the idea of laid back ‘attitude’, mixed with excitement and an underlying lack of self-confidence. Tom Harrison, as Peter, who eventually convinced Linda

the main source of laughter and should be applauded for his dedication to character when others assumed the vocal centre.

Finally we come to the character of Dave, played by Archie Dallas. Archie clearly took his preparatory method acting seriously, and was faultless in his portrayal of the drunken, slightly comatose partygoer with a delicate taste in alcoholic beverages.

The character of Dave embodied the essential message of the play, which was the conflict between what we say and what we think, and Archie should be praised for his stamina in facing the U-bend.

Although there were times when the motion of the drama seemed to stop, the use of space by all was very well done.

There were a few technical hitches with the lighting, and sometimes the extremes of emotion from comic to heart-wrenching were a little too much. However, the overall performance was definitely a success, and the Director, Charlie Cossins, and his team, have done an outstanding job.

Are you afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Palatinate’s reviewer is more scornful of the show than afraid Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

HildBede Theatre Company Caedmon Hall ««««« Emma Pursey

H

ild Bede Theatre ’s (HBT) production of Edward Albee’s

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Palatinate certainly isn’t afraid of Virginia Woolf but cannot speak for the cast of the show

was an exciting prospect; the publicity was impressive and even the tickets and programmes were presented exquisitely as individual scrolls for audience members.

The latter boasted no less than four directors and numerous stage-hands, which seemed slightly extravagant for a four-person play with very few props and no scene changes.

Ten minutes after the play should have started, the audience was finally admitted into the hall, though was taken around the building and in through the side door before being told where to sit.

Following the initial hold-up, the play finally began with the introduction of its main characters, Martha (Eloise Konieszko) and George (Charlie Warner,) an unhappily married New England couple with a scathing, sarcastic and sometimes violent dynamic. The relationship itself was portrayed excellently in the opening

scene, with the on-stage chemistry perfectly conveying mutual resentment.

The play then saw a younger couple arrive for a party, and the sense of intrusion and awkwardness was excellently conveyed by both Honey (Claire Reavey) and Nick (Ed Massey). The mousey timidity of Honey was superbly expressed by Reavey, whose squeaky voice and amusing accent were complimented by an awkward laugh, which had the audience giggling every time.

“Cringe-worthy fake smoking. . . ” Konieszko’s accent was excellently maintained and she achieved a deep huskiness which was ideal for her middle-aged character. Both Warner and Massey, however, spoke with English accents, though for the first ten minutes Warner’s accent can only be described as unidentifiable. He had some brilliant moments, and at times was extremely funny, but failed to maintain his character. Massey’s character was difficult to grasp, and would have benefited from further direction and character work.

The set was impressive; credit must go to Jess Gordon for creating a believable cluttered 1960’s living room, a difficult task given the excessive stage space of

Caedmon Hall. Director Riccardo Liberatore did his best to combat this, with the majority of the action taking place on a smaller stage in front of the main one. This was highly effective in achieving a sense of intimacy, though it brought about its own problems. Two lamps on the front stage meant that characters were often blocked by them, whilst basic blocking on the small stage was extremely poor; one of the arm-chairs obscured the sofa, so there was almost always someone who could not be seen. Such a step to combat the vastness of Caedmon Hall could have been avoided had HBT made the decision to use the Assembly Rooms instead. Such use would not only have been conducive to a more professional looking production, but it would also have avoided the cringe-worthy fake smoking which marred much of this play and should simply have been cut from the script.

Despite a strong start, the performance became boring at times and the ending really dragged. Messed up lines were not covered well, dialogue was often missed when the audience laughed, and the pace was so horribly slow that the play lasted far longer than it should have done. This play was made worth watching only by Konieszko and Reavey, whose superior talents seemed completely out of place in an otherwise dreary production.

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PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

Want the inside track on the Durham theatre scene? Visit palatinate.org.uk

Stage Arts HARRY GATT

props and on-stage setting were confined to a couple of plastic seats, leaving it to the actors and their dialogue to create the ambiance that other productions might let more elaborate dramatics generate. Obviously such a project succeeds or fails by the cast’s performance, and under this pressure, the performers thrived and burdened the responsibility well, clearly believing in the development and message of the play.

At times there was some slight over-acting, but sheer enthusiasm for the roles and the play itself countered this.

While some productions tend to emphasise the play’s philosophy, the Freshers’ production seems to have preferred the allure of the quaint culture of pre-war America and the love story of George and Emily.

In the first two acts particularly, the sense of small-town ‘Americana’ is really pressed upon the audience, with sub-plots such as George’s talent with a baseball bat and Dr. Gibbs’ fascination with the American Civil War given minutes on stage to breathe.

That no American accents were attempted, however, was disappointing.

“Frequently busy and hectic. . .”

Dr. Gibbs (Angus Milne) and George (Joshua Williams) talk business in the Fresher’s portrayal of small town pre-war Americana

Our Town pays a visit

The hustle-and-bustle of everyday suburban life was well-portrayed; the stage was frequently busy and hectic, and intersecting conversations and multiple plots occurred simultaneously. It was a tremendous achievement that they successfully created a fictional town from scratch in the minds of the audience. This was definitely one of the strengths of the play, not least due to good, light-hearted performances from the backing cast, key in generating this sense of trivial monotony.

Planted actors in the crowd and the direct

Does the Freshers’ play offering compare to previous years?

Our Town Fresher’s Play ‘09 The Assembly Rooms «««««

Durham Student Theatre’s annual Freshers’ Play is a chance for budding thespians and undiscovered talent to showcase their acting skills, this year through the medium of Thornton Wilder’s 1938 American play Our Town. Despite being a challenging, character-driven production that asks a lot of the cast, the show was

nevertheless humorous and engaging, with good performances from a cohesive cast.

The play tracks predominantly the love story of George Gibbs and Emily Webb, around which numerous other sub-plots and character backdrops intertwine. The Freshers’ production emphasised this character-driven aspect to the extent that

Musical madness much?

“The ensemble as a whole was generally convincing” The crucial third act, where the charming and low-key vibe previously developed is distorted into something wholly more macabre, was mature and effective. Here the lighting and costume was used impressively to convey this new sombre tone, and Emily Webb (Emily Saddler) showed a heartbreaking dramatic range in portraying the tragedy and sorrow of the act.

However, it did seem that more emphasis was given to the tragedy itself and its terrible impact on Emily and George (Joshua Williams), than the philosophical messages that the act is supposed to have at its forefront. However, this devotion to the plot’s emotional core certainly paid dividends, with the third act a disturbing and compelling climax. I feel a special mention must go to David Jenkins as Mr. Webb, who delivered the play’s stand-out performance, but the ensemble as a whole was generally convincing and committed.

IAN WILLIAMSON

Tony Barrett

interaction with the audience was done enthusiastically and with a sense of humour.

The main medium for this stage-audience correspondence was the stage manager, interestingly split into three roles and led

by Karim Mariey, who put in an elaborate and enjoyable performance. This decision lead to a more fluid and dynamic narration between the cohesive group of three, although arguably by watering down the stage manager into three parts the omniscient nature of the narration was lost.

Inkblot! portrays the love story we’ve all been waiting for. . .

Richard and Judy: The Musical Inkblot!

The Assembly Rooms ««««« Lorna Cruickshanks

H

aving evolved mainly from singing in the shower, lots of alcohol and plenty of daytime TV, Richard and Judy: The Musical was bound to hit the right notes with most students. The show followed the making of beloved TV presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan’s fictional musical, and mixed scenes of the self-centred, uptight director Marcus and his suffering cast and crew with some musical numbers from the in-show characters, Judy and Richard.

The singing was nothing short of remarkable, particularly that of the unparalleled ‘Judy’, played by Sarah Baillie. The songs themselves were cleverly chosen indeed, and sung to the tunes of other famous musical favourites, starting with ‘Judy’ parodying ‘Belle’ from Beauty and the Beast. This was brilliant, setting the tone for the rest of the show and commanding huge laughs as Richard (not quite Gaston) played by the naturally comical Joe Leather, sauntered past the swooning chorus girls, prompting the famous ‘isn’t he dreamy’ refrain. Other favourites included ‘Mammaries’ (in which Judy struggled to

overcome her shame at her National TV Awards incident) and, undeniably the best, ‘Defying ITV’ saw Judy convince Richard “primetime TV is a basic human right”.

The ‘show within a show’ provided many a laugh, but was made funnier by the knowledge that we were actually watching the cast we were also following. Think High School Musical.

“ Undeniably the best, ‘Defying ITV’ saw Judy convince Richard ‘primetime TV is a basic human right’” The cast and crew of the in-show musical provided brilliant characters for the audience to delight in. James Morton, also co-director and co-producer, portrayed Marcus the director magnificently as neurotic, lamenting and self-interested. When his only solace, his award, was ruthlessly smashed just a few scenes after seeing him find drunken comfort in it, the reaction was brilliantly played. There was also a wonderful range of characters; it included, amongst others, the ever-suffering producer Joyce, (Elizabeth Clayden) and the over-the-top ‘drama dahling’ Estelle, (Nao-

mi Flowers) complete with dog-shaped bag and feather boa. One other character who simply cannot go unmentioned is the comical choreographer Virginia. Sarah Cotton provided hilarious moments when swinging her bag ready to fight for her man against Joyce, teaching the dolphin and Hitler dance-moves, and laughing for what seemed like several minutes before coming out with ‘that’s the funniest joke I’ve ever heard! Now you tell one.”

Other comical moments came when, in the X Factor-style auditions, the talented Philippa, played by superb singer Bethany Cooper, was told to give up on life because she’d never make it with such an awful voice, and when news arrived of the rival Deal or No Deal’s celebrity-filled musical. The music, provided by Jon Rawles, appeared faultless. Lighting was utilised effectively to shift between the in-show musical scenes and the rest of the show, and at points to highlight certain aspects in the storyline. James Morton and Alex Harking were obviously sure of what they wanted to achieve in Richard and Judy: The Musical.

Though it came with an unbelievably cheesy ending, quite Richard and Judyesque, and the character Darren occasionally seemed a bit under-developed, the show was a massive success. Richard and Judy: The Musical was an enjoyable, hilarious show; those who missed it definitely missed out.

Sarah Baillie and Joe Leather: Durham’s answer to a pair of daytime TV legends?

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

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Go to palatinate.org.uk

The former Laureate talks poetry

JAMES KING

Arts Books

Palatinate picks the brains of the inimitable Sir Andrew Motion

Alice Graves

W

hen Andrew Motion reads his poems, the words seem to breathe, each beautiful cadence awakened by the sound of its creator’s voice. It is a strikingly powerful voice; soft, reflective and deep-rooted in the earth of the countryside where he grew up.

Unsurprisingly, Andrew feels very strongly that the sound of the poem is as important as the inherently visual impact of the words on the page. “Poetry has much to do with the noise it makes. I find often that it is possible to ‘get’ a poem, to determine the essence of it, without actually understanding it,” echoing Eliot’s, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood”. He is “immensely proud of” the exceptional Poetry Archive, the website he created in order to promote poets reading their own work, which now includes recordings of T.S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop and many others.

Poetry, it might be argued, speaks as much through the audible as the printed form. The response to the sound and the primary meaning that forms in our subconscious, before particular sounds are recognised as words is instantaneous, whereas seeing, reading words and then understanding is a more removed process.

In this way, poetry is more effective and affective when it encompasses certain ideas, related to resonance, of structure, form and rhythm, and Andrew agrees: “yes, I need a bit of [technical skill], a demonstration of considerations of that kind of thing”. Yet, when discussing his own poetry, he is curiously reluctant to admit to such technicalities: “I’m wedded to plainness of utterance.

If I write a line that is alliterative, I change it so it doesn’t seem meant in that way. I’m suspicious of rhyme too.”

“.. in the six months I have stopped being Laureate, I have written more poems than in five years.. but it was a wonderful opportunity to do good for poetry” Fittingly, his own writing processes and motives are tied up in a releasing of the emotional subconscious: “Robert Frost is a poet I greatly admire, and he has a brilliant remark, among several of his brilliant remarks, about poetic beginnings: ‘A poem begins as a lump in the throat.’ That has always mattered to me very much”.

Similarly, it is clear that poems, as products of a pure, emotional response, in a manner dictate themselves, and it is as much about listening to himself as a conscious effort to write: “Poetry allows us to access something that is a product of a very back-of-the-mind place. In my experience of writing them, the wish to write poems comes from a pre-verbal, pre-speech emotional wish”. When writing The Mower, one of the moving elegies for his father in The Cinder Path, he remembers the experience of being “struck by a memory so powerful it was like being drenched”.

Sadly, this “lump in the throat” indicates how much of Andrew’s work has arisen as

a result of tragic circumstances. When he was only 17, his mother was involved in a horrific riding accident that put her in a nine-year coma, after which she died. “My mother’s accident gave my life its shape, and in a sense poetry can be ghost-producing”. At the tender age of 19, he first wrote In the Attic, which he has subsequently revised numerous times, and, in its existence in various versions, demonstrates the complexities of the thoughts and emotions that still surround his attitude to her death.

The poetry and the event are inseparable, tied up in a time that has long passed, yet that still continues to reverberate in, and inform the emotions of, the present.

Andrew’s beautifully written memoir, In the Blood, significantly begins and ends with the accident and, to those that know and love them, Andrew’s poems are felt as an ethereal presence throughout as poetry-inspiring events are revisited. What is most striking about In the Blood, is the exceptional voice that has a curiously regressive, time-travelling power to it. This voice transports one back to ‘that age’, with all its awkwardness, frustration, innocence and purity of perception. Even this, however, he is characteristically modest about: “What was most difficult was finding the voice. Once I found the voice, the book just wrote itself”. In the Blood is a memorial to the loss of his mother, but also of the sudden, painful loss of childhood.

Heartbreakingly, the book also became dedicated to the memory of his father, who, despite only reading half of one other book in his whole life, read In the Blood.

“He rang me, and said ‘I’ve finished it’. And then he got ill, and then he died. As if to say, ‘that’s that then’”.

Andrew’s new collection The Cinder Path revisits the elegy for his father, but whilst the tone is still complex – “Dads are very complicated people” he says – here it is very different from that of the elegies for his mother: “It’s a slightly difficult thing to say, but my father’s death was not a tragedy, my mother’s was”. Throughout his collections, from The Pleasure Steamers through to Secret Narratives and Public Property, the poetry moves through phases, modes of conveyance, and I feel The Cinder Path attempts to engage with Andrew Motion’s own various selves, from writing as Poet Laureate in the commemorative Harry Patch, his childhood in the skilfully concise ‘The Sin’, or in the extremely moving elegies for his father that end the collection.

In this sense, Andrew is a highly self-conscious poet, and in many ways self-referential. He famously loves the qualities in a poem that amount to a reading experience like “drinking a glass of water that turns out to be gin,” and the importance of this striking element to his work can be seen throughout The Cinder Path, with humour in ‘Bright Star’, mystery in ‘The Stone’ or in the pathos of ‘The Wish List’. Larkin’s influence can obviously be seen here, but it soon becomes impossible to pin Andrew down when it comes to influences: “Tennyson is a poet I’m pretty much obsessed by”, “Hardy had an absolute effect on me” and “I’m in love with Keats”.

However, the one poet that he does admit to revering above all others is Edward Thomas, whose poetry appealed initially because Andrew found the poems, “characteristically about country things”, set in a familiarly pastoral landscape, were so recognisable: “I felt I could connect with them”. This primary enjoyment evolved in to a greater love and apprecia-

tion: “Thomas is completely vital to me.

His way of holding apparently differing elements in some kind of suspension, playing the unit that a line is against the verse against the poem...it is difficult to find

“Poetry has much to do with the noise it makes. I find that it is often possible to ‘get’ a poem , to determine the essence of it, without actually understanding it” a poet with such a sense of thought going on. You come round the bends of lines not sure what you’re going to find.”

Andrew has lent his writing voice to various different mediums - criticism, biography, memoir, and poetry – all with great success. Andrew’s exemplary biography of Philip Larkin is a fantastic achievement, acknowledged by the Whitbread Prize. He sees Larkin’s weaknesses yet holds a great deal of respect for the man and his work in spite of them. The extensively researched retelling of events seamlessly interweaves the poetry and the biography, reflecting on preoccupations in his life with reference to the poems that they inspired. Andrew’s poetic sensibilities shine and he writes with a clarity and lucidity devoid of preconceptions that presents itself as indisputable, and, most impressively, it is recognisably Larkin’s voice heard throughout. I believe that no one will or can better this. This book is utterly absorbing, and left me feeling deeply moved.

As the Laureateship was ultimately about what Andrew refers to as “sterile commissions”, perhaps this is why he admits that “in the six months I have stopped being Laureate, I have written more poems than in five years.” Despite feeling, a “sense of relief” that this particular period of his life has come to an end, the Poetry Archive and Andrew’s self-fashioned ambassadorial role have been hugely helpful in the promotion of poetry: “I found it impossible to write if real poetry is what you’re after, but it was a wonderful opportunity to do good for poetry... It opens doors”.

Andrew has been generous and touchingly open-hearted in his role as the Durham Book Festival Laureate, as anyone who has been lucky enough to hear him speak recently on a number of occasions will know. What the readings and interviews highlighted was that where Andrew’s poetry is most successful is also where it is most heartbreaking; in poems that attempt to engage in dialogue with that which can never reply, and that face articulating emotions that find one speechless. Here, Andrew turns to one of his most admired poets: “I think of Keats’s ‘Fall of Hyperion’, which is a massively profound, ruined thing, and just shows what poetry can do about suffering – it is able to find consolations within itself.’

Sir Andrew Motion’s latest collection, The Cinder Path, is published by Faber and out now.

Sir Andrew Motion: back to writing poetry after his ten-year Laureate stint.

PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

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Music Arts

Read these and other music pieces online at palatinate.org.uk

Monkeys’ new musical direction proves a success was easy to tell where their true talents lie.

Following some well-received cuts from their first album, the first epic moment came with I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor. It was at this moment that the vibrations from the standing pit at the front reverberated round the whole arena.

Following this, we travelled back to the slower world of Humbug. The three most accessible songs - Potion Approaching, My Propeller and Crying Lightning followed. The latter two tracks almost had the crowd singing and jumping along as well as any track from their earlier album. The show started to lose a little direction, with one new cut following another and no one sure whether to jump, sing or stare. When The Sun Goes Down came soon after and a beautiful mass sing-along ensued. The encore of Fluorescent Adolescent and 505 brought the show to an end with 505 ending where they began - moody and atmospheric.

Regardless of whether you appreciate their new sound or direction, it was a fantastic show. With the young and energetic audience loving every moment, their enjoyment was infectious. Though the band nearly fell into the trap many musicians on tour teeter over by playing too many new and unknown tracks, this was narrowly avoided. Where Sheffield’s favourite musicians head next is anyone’s guess, but for now, they can still provide an excellent evening of rock and roll.

Arctic Monkeys Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle 16th November ««««« Sebastian E. Payne

S

itting in the stands of the sports arena, the atmosphere emanating from the eleven thousand people present was electric. The Arctic Monkeys have a certain prestige among the residents of the North East. The songs from their first two albums have become local anthems and this appears to be the reason the audience shelled out their pennies.

“An excellent evening of rock and roll” The music started with a crawl, rather than a bang. Traditional red stage curtains revealed the band in full swing with The Jeweller’s Hands, from their hotly-debated album Humbug. Immediately noticeable was the lighting and stage set. Video screens, impressive lighting, smoke machines and strobes show they haven’t taken this important step up to arena tours too lightly.

Brianstorm kicked in soon afterwards and it

JUSTIN KENT

Sheffield indie wonders head Toonwards for an evening dipping in and out of their new atmospheric sound

Alex Turner with his recent James May-style barnet

BMTH: Death metal hits the Academy Bring The Horizon ArcticMe Monkeys Newcastle Academy Metro RadioO2 Arena, Newcastle 16th November

CHRIS HOYLE

Palatinate checks out the metalcore legends

The skill of soloist Rohan Saravanamuttu stands out in a ‘well-balanced programme’ Durham University Symphony Orchestra Elvet Methodist Church 5th December

««««« «««««

John Greene

With an extra date added due to popular demand, it is no surprise to find the Newcastle Academy a sell-out. Such a crowd attests to Bring Me The Horizon’s continuing role as forerunners in a never-more-popular metalcore genre.

Promoting the Sheffield boys’ latest album Suicide Season (as well as a recent remix compilation), this particular tour boasts fantastic support in the shape of August Burns Red and A Day To Remember.

The former begin proceedings, and the Academy crowd quickly find their dancing shoes. Although the sound engineering leaves a lot to be desired, there is no doubting the Pennsylvanian metallers’ showmanship.

Next up are A Day To Remember, a band that exhibit a refreshing diversity through their crossover of hardcore and pop-punk. Both brutal breakdowns and radio friendly sing-alongs seamlessly fuse to create a high-energy live experience. Definitely one to watch for the future.

A Day To Remember’s excellence makes headliners Bring Me The Horizon seem underwhelming in comparison.

Opener Chelsea Smile is a fine choice – as long as someone remembers to turn up the guitars that are so pivotal to the band’s heavy-hitting sound. A less-than-skilled sound engineer should take the blame away

DUOS’s winter concert

Dan Jeffries

How does a second year undergraduate student find the audacity and nerve to perform one of the most famous works for their instrument? This is the question I wanted answered by soloist Rohan Saravanamuttu performing Elgar’s Cello Concerto at the centre of Durham University Symphony Orchestra’s Michaelmas concert.

“Woodwind flourishes, brass hits and sharp percussion were all carried off” Frontman Oli Sykes

from the band; but it is an error nonetheless. Fortunately, the group seem to find their punch as the set progresses. Pray For Plagues uses a seemingly obligatory ‘wall of death’ (crowd splits in two, then run at each other – pretty silly really), which are always entertaining to see.

Hearthrob vocalist Oli Sykes somehow keeps the female contingent excited, in

spite of his choice to include tampons in inter-song banter. Love him or loathe him, his band do enough to keep the crowd moving. The problem is that it feels like Bring Me The Horizon have the potential to deliver unforgettable performances of special songs. Suicide Season is an amazing album; tonight, the live experience did not quite match it.

Led with precision by conductor Calum Zuckert, and orchestra leader William Foulds, the concert opened with Malcolm Arnold’s Tam O’Shanter Overture.

It is difficult to reach a definitive opinion on the piece - with its bizarre amalgamation of tight-lipped intensity interwoven with garish hornpipe melodies. However the Orchestra did a fine job producing a performance of threatening determination. Woodwind flourishes, brass hits and

sharp percussion were all carried off with momentous conviction. Stirring crescendos peaked with conspicuous impact in the large and open space of Elvet Methodist Church.

Next up: the aforementioned Cello concerto. Performing a piece that is so wellknown and loved by many is often a risky strategy that can lead to disappointment. It is like asking someone to play a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo. However, Rohan Saravanamuttu’s performance was more than worthy of praise. From the rousing first notes to the technical and lively fourth movement, Saravanamuttu showed great passion alongside an orchestral performance of both subtlety and vigour. If I had to find criticism it would only be one of balance; many, however, would argue this is simply an issue with the acoustics of the church.

The finale of the well-balanced programme saw the perhaps overplayed yet nonetheless popular ‘New World’ Symphony No. 9 by Antonín Dvořák. The orchestra provided a flowing account replete with warmth and drama. Mr. Hovis himself would have been proud of the poetic Cor Anglais solo

by Giacomo Pazzuto. The other soloists also played impeccably, bringing together a performance that, considering the time and resources available to a university orchestra, was outstanding. To my surprise I found the orchestra’s account dynamic and not at all clichéd.

All in all, this was a greatly received performance that showed a strong level of musicianship as well as professionalism - the orchestra can take pride in their achievement.

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Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

Whatever your game, get into it at palatinate.org.uk

Sport

Sport

Inside: Quentin Sloper on Team Durham so far, college tables, Birmingham controversially steal victory from DUHC

‘But come the next World Cup the team will be fine’

Profile

Name: Rob Vickers

Rob Vickers, former student and now Newcastle Falcons hooker, talks about England, past success, future goals, and the current state of Durham University Rugby Football Club

A

s an integral part of the Durham side that was crowned British University Champions in 2004, an England international at university level, and now plying his trade with the Newcastle Falcons in the Guinness Premiership, Rob Vickers knows a thing or two about Rugby Union.

Having played 50 minutes in the 25 -13 defeat against Gloucester last Saturday, Vickers is fast establishing himself as a key part of the “Falcons” front row this season.

Vickers said: “Given the nature of the position, I don’t think someone can become a permanent fixture in any side. But I am pretty happy with the way things have gone, of course there is always room for improvement, but generally I am pleased.”

After the weekends defeat (in which Newcastle gave away five penalties, which Vickers puts down to a passion to win and not ill-discipline) the club find themselves seventh in the table but Vickers believes the team have proved that they can beat anyone on a good day.

He said: “We won away at Bath and London Irish which shows that we have the players to win any match no matter the opposition.

“If we had beaten Northampton a few weeks ago we would have been third, and so in that respect we are disappointed we are not higher, but going into the European break we are in a reasonable position and are pleased so far.”

With England’s indifferent performances in the autumn internationals, many have been questioning why a team who just over six years ago were arguably the best side in the world have not improved, but - according to some - even regressed.

However, Vickers remains confident saying: “We got to the final of the last World Cup, and I don’t think too many countries would grumble about that.

“From the 2003 team a lot of big personalities left and it has been a rebuilding process; it’s taken longer than England would have

Position: Hooker NEWCASTLEFALCONS.CO.UK

Rajvir Rai

Age: 28 Clubs played for: Harrogate RFC, Leeds Nicknames: V-man, Bobby 60 Seconds

Highlight of playing career?

Lots to choose from! Everytime you enter the field its special, but winning BUSA 2004 championships.

Biggest disappointment of playing career?

No regrets. There is no point in having any. You just have to look to the future.

Who will win the 2011 World Cup? Being semi-patriotic I woud like to say England, but I think South Africa are the team to beat.

Who will win the Guinness Premiership?

London Irish Action from Newcastle Falcons 14-3 win over the Worcester Warriors, in which Rob Vickers celebrated getting on the score sheet.

hoped, but I think the team are now moving in the right direction.”

Vickers is adamant that Martin Johnson’s England “are right there with the best teams in the world”, and he insists that with a bit more cohesion and confidence they can be successful at international level.

“I can understand why there has been a little bit of criticism,” he said. “But come the next World Cup the team will be fine.”

Similar to England, the current Durham Rugby club, which Vickers, in his role as strength and conditioning coach, still helps coach on a regular basis, are going through

a “transitional period” and results have not been what the club’s hierarchy and players expected.

Having beaten Nottingham First XV in the annual charity match many expected the result would kick start the Palatinate’s season, but they could not maintain their momentum as they lost at local rivals Northumbria 27-20.

Yet, Vickers remains upbeat: “The current team is very good, they have some fantastic players, and I fully believe they can go on and be hugely successful as a team.

“Unfortunately, results haven’t gone their

way but they are improving. If you take the matches against Northumbria, second time round they only lost by seven points as oppose to the 40 point deficit in the first match.

“They are playing better and the key now is to make sure they are on top form when the knock-outs come round.”

Having tasted BUC’s glory in 2004 in front of a packed crowd at Twickenham (something that Vickers said will forever live with him and was an “unbelievable day”) he insists that his predecessors have every chance of emulating his success.

Who will win the Heineken Cup? Leinster Who is the best player in the world?

I think when the IRB award was made Ritchie McCaw deserved it.

The best team in the world?

I think South Africa just edge New Zealand to that award.

CSMF charity 6 aside ousts The X Factor as Sunday’s group activity James Faith

Another year, another week, another Sunday night at Durham. For many this can only mean one thing: another round of the Charlie Sumption Memorial Fund (CSMF) 6 a-side football league at Soccarena.

After a hugely successful first year of the league, the thought of calling it a day and hanging up my Soccarena boots was simply not an option.

Eight to nine o’clock on a Sunday evening is the one hour of the week permanently etched into my diary. It takes more than The X Factor results show to tempt away lesser the CSMF faithful.

This year the demand for a shot at the elusive CSMF trophy was higher than ever.

After Port Vale’s success last year (there are more originally named teams), teams were queuing up to strip them of their title.

Half way through the first round of matches, Van Mildert (OK maybe the team names need a bit more thought) looked like they were the team to beat, and if Port Vale were to have any chance of retaining the trophy they won last year, they had to get their act together.

There was still plenty of time for them to turn things around, and on the fields of Soccarena, anything is possible.

Sunday 6th December saw the first round of matches draw to a close. The second half of the season had its fair share of excitement, with Port Vale putting together a string of six straight wins to put them right back in contention for the title, if not make them

slight favourites. With other teams dropping points consistently each week, the pendulum certainly seems to have swung Port Vale’s way.

The Christmas break will provide a brief respite from the league, but I’m sure everyone will be back in January, fresh and ready to mount a strong challenge in the second half of the season.

To say the standard of play on show in the league is consistently high would be a bit of an exaggeration.

There are teams who like to consider themselves perhaps Arsenalesque, and also those whose talents leave a lot to be desired.

What you rarely see though is a team that shows no commitment. At the end of a game it’s handshakes all round, “well played mate”, but if your team’s best efforts are in

vain and result in two losses, the car journey back is a quiet one.

Every team takes it seriously, and that’s what makes the league so rewarding. The better you know the opposition, the more you want to beat them.

CSMF aims to support education in Kenya by sponsoring scholarships and investing infrastructure using funds raised in the UK. A few of you will have attended one of the memorable ‘Bombastic’ events last year, or took part in the touch rugby and rounders tournament at the end of Summer term.

The money raised by these events goes to a truly great cause. Just this summer, Ed Sumption (creator of the league) was out in Kenya at Mutunyi Primary School, building a library for the children and also initiating a water conservation project in the village.

The project was aimed at helping the locals to conserve water by building gutters on the school buildings and connecting them to water tanks. CSMF also offers a Gap Year scheme - if you are interested in volunteering at the school when you leave university, or even during the summer holidays, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

For more information about the CSMF, please visit www.csmf.co.uk.

CSMF is a fantastic charity, one which I am proud to say that I contribute to. I could think of very few more enjoyable ways of donating to a charity than spending an hour on a football pitch with my friends.

So, if your mate hasn’t asked you to play for his team, make sure you badger him for a game a come on down. You couldn’t ask for a better way to end the week.

32

PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

Whatever your game, get into it at palatinate.org.uk

Sport

Sport

Inside: Quentin Sloper on Team Durham so far, college tables, Birmingham controversially steal victory from DUHC

‘But come the next World Cup the team will be fine’

Profile

Name: Rob Vickers

Rob Vickers, former student and now Newcastle Falcons hooker, talks about England, past success, future goals, and the current state of Durham University Rugby Football Club

A

s an integral part of the Durham side that was crowned British University Champions in 2004, an England international at university level, and now plying his trade with the Newcastle Falcons in the Guinness Premiership, Rob Vickers knows a thing or two about Rugby Union.

Having played 50 minutes in the 25 -13 defeat against Gloucester last Saturday, Vickers is fast establishing himself as a key part of the “Falcons” front row this season.

Vickers said: “Given the nature of the position, I don’t think someone can become a permanent fixture in any side. But I am pretty happy with the way things have gone, of course there is always room for improvement, but generally I am pleased.”

After the weekends defeat (in which Newcastle gave away five penalties, which Vickers puts down to a passion to win and not ill-discipline) the club find themselves seventh in the table but Vickers believes the team have proved that they can beat anyone on a good day.

He said: “We won away at Bath and London Irish which shows that we have the players to win any match no matter the opposition.

“If we had beaten Northampton a few weeks ago we would have been third, and so in that respect we are disappointed we are not higher, but going into the European break we are in a reasonable position and are pleased so far.”

With England’s indifferent performances in the autumn internationals, many have been questioning why a team who just over six years ago were arguably the best side in the world have not improved, but - according to some - even regressed.

However, Vickers remains confident saying: “We got to the final of the last World Cup, and I don’t think too many countries would grumble about that.

“From the 2003 team a lot of big personalities left and it has been a rebuilding process; it’s taken longer than England would have

Position: Hooker NEWCASTLEFALCONS.CO.UK

Rajvir Rai

Age: 28 Clubs played for: Harrogate RFC, Leeds Nicknames: V-man, Bobby 60 Seconds

Highlight of playing career?

Lots to choose from! Everytime you enter the field its special, but winning BUSA 2004 championships.

Biggest disappointment of playing career?

No regrets. There is no point in having any. You just have to look to the future.

Who will win the 2011 World Cup? Being semi-patriotic I woud like to say England, but I think South Africa are the team to beat.

Who will win the Guinness Premiership?

London Irish Action from Newcastle Falcons 14-3 win over the Worcester Warriors, in which Rob Vickers celebrated getting on the score sheet.

hoped, but I think the team are now moving in the right direction.”

Vickers is adamant that Martin Johnson’s England “are right there with the best teams in the world”, and he insists that with a bit more cohesion and confidence they can be successful at international level.

“I can understand why there has been a little bit of criticism,” he said. “But come the next World Cup the team will be fine.”

Similar to England, the current Durham Rugby club, which Vickers, in his role as strength and conditioning coach, still helps coach on a regular basis, are going through

a “transitional period” and results have not been what the club’s hierarchy and players expected.

Having beaten Nottingham First XV in the annual charity match many expected the result would kick start the Palatinate’s season, but they could not maintain their momentum as they lost at local rivals Northumbria 27-20.

Yet, Vickers remains upbeat: “The current team is very good, they have some fantastic players, and I fully believe they can go on and be hugely successful as a team.

“Unfortunately, results haven’t gone their

way but they are improving. If you take the matches against Northumbria, second time round they only lost by seven points as oppose to the 40 point deficit in the first match.

“They are playing better and the key now is to make sure they are on top form when the knock-outs come round.”

Having tasted BUC’s glory in 2004 in front of a packed crowd at Twickenham (something that Vickers said will forever live with him and was an “unbelievable day”) he insists that his predecessors have every chance of emulating his success.

Who will win the Heineken Cup? Leinster Who is the best player in the world?

I think when the IRB award was made Ritchie McCaw deserved it.

The best team in the world?

I think South Africa just edge New Zealand to that award.

CSMF charity 6 aside ousts The X Factor as Sunday’s group activity James Faith

Another year, another week, another Sunday night at Durham. For many this can only mean one thing: another round of the Charlie Sumption Memorial Fund (CSMF) 6 a-side football league at Soccarena.

After a hugely successful first year of the league, the thought of calling it a day and hanging up my Soccarena boots was simply not an option.

Eight to nine o’clock on a Sunday evening is the one hour of the week permanently etched into my diary. It takes more than The X Factor results show to tempt away lesser the CSMF faithful.

This year the demand for a shot at the elusive CSMF trophy was higher than ever.

After Port Vale’s success last year (there are

more originally named teams), teams were queuing up to strip them of their title.

Half way through the first round of matches, Van Mildert (OK maybe the team names need a bit more thought) looked like they were the team to beat, and if Port Vale were to have any chance of retaining the trophy they won last year, they had to get their act together.

There was still plenty of time for them to turn things around, and on the fields of Soccarena, anything is possible.

Sunday 6th December saw the first round of matches draw to a close. The second half of the season had its fair share of excitement, with Port Vale putting together a string of six straight wins to put them right back in contention for the title, if not make them slight favourites. With other teams drop-

ping points consistently each week, the pendulum certainly seems to have swung Port Vale’s way.

The Christmas break will provide a brief respite from the league, but I’m sure everyone will be back in January, fresh and ready to mount a strong challenge in the second half of the season.

To say the standard of play on show in the league is consistently high would be a bit of an exaggeration.

There are teams who like to consider themselves perhaps Arsenalesque, and also those whose talents leave a lot to be desired.

What you rarely see though is a team that shows no commitment. At the end of a game it’s handshakes all round, “well played mate”, but if your team’s best efforts are in vain and result in two losses, the car journey

back is a quiet one.

Every team takes it seriously, and that’s what makes the league so rewarding. The better you know the opposition, the more you want to beat them.

CSMF aims to support education in Kenya by sponsoring scholarships and investing infrastructure using funds raised in the UK. A few of you will have attended one of the memorable ‘Bombastic’ events last year, or took part in the touch rugby and rounder’s tournament at the end of the Summer term.

The money raised by these events goes to a truly great cause. Just this summer, Ed Sumption (creator of the league) was out in Kenya at Mutunyi Primary School, building a library for the children and also initiating a water conservation project in the village.

The project was aimed at helping the locals to conserve water by building gutters on the school buildings and connecting them to water tanks. CSMF also offers a Gap Year scheme - if you are interested in volunteering at the school when you leave university or even during the summer holidays, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

For more information about the CSMF please visit www.csmf.co.uk.

CSMF is a fantastic charity, one which I am proud to say that I contribute to. I could think of very few more enjoyable ways o donating to a charity than spending an hour on a football pitch with my friends.

So, if your mate hasn’t asked you to play for his team, make sure you badger him for a game a come on down. You couldn’t ask for a better way to end the week.

33

PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

Whatever your game, get into it at palatinate.org.uk

Sport ROBERT BURGESS

Collingwood win as rivals Mildert slip up Joe Collingwood

Action from Durham University Women’s Hockey Club’s 2-2 draw against rivals Birmingham. The team will feel hard done by the result, but have every chance of reaching the BUCS final.

Hockey Club fail to overcome arch rivals Birmingham Battling men lose. Late drama in women’s match as visitors snatch a controversial draw

Emily Wilson

Durham University Men’s and Women’s Hockey Firsts both hosted rivals Birmingham last Wednesday.

With both games being BUCS Northern Premier League fixtures, the double header was of extreme importance to everyone.

The men’s played first and could not be criticised for their effort during their 2-0 defeat at the hands of the visitors.

Despite some good chances in the second half, the Birmingham defence proved too strong for the Palatinates.

A disappointing result leaves them only one match to play before knock-outs, for which they must up their game in order to advance in a very competitive division.

The women came out looking to avenge the men’s early loss against their biggest rivals.

The first ten minutes saw multiple attacks from a very confident Birmingham, who

were definately out for revenge themselves, having narrowly lost last time these two met.

However, the Durham defence remained tight and a great save from Harriet Tebs kept the score at nil-nil. Some good pressure from the attack forced many turnovers for Durham, but the Birmingham defence prevented Durham from getting a look at goal, despite their possession.

Another massive save from a short corner and some solid defence from Fen Pengelley kept Durham in the match as Birmingham pressured the home side late in the first half.

The Palatinates had a chance just before half time as a result of Flick Bamgbose’s turnover in midfield, but were unable to convert, leaving the score 0-0 at the close of the half.

However, the score didn’t stay that way for long: captain Ruth Gordon lead from the front and showed some solid midfield

work to cause a crucial turnover resulting in a great goal from Danni Bamber.

The goal panicked a very steady Birmingham attack slightly, causing them to commit silly errors and giving Durham the upper hand.

Constant pressure from the Durham attackers meant that Durham dominated the second half but were unable to convert some solid attacking into goals.

Half way through the half, the Birmingham attack made the home side pay, breaking an otherwise sturdy Durham defence to force a short corner.

The corner resulted in an extremely controversial goal, causing much anger at the referees from some of the home supporters on the sideline!

Nevertheless, Durham continued as they had for most of the half, and received a short corner of their own.

A Birmingham foot stopped a certain goal meaning that Durham received a penalty

stroke, which was converted by Ruth Gordon to give Durham a 2-1 lead with only minutes remaining in the game.

A very tense and exciting few minutes followed, with good attacking play from both sides. Durham’s defence faltered slightly giving the opposition a chance of a fast break, and a much needed save from Keeper Harriet Tebs preserved Durham’s lead.

Birmingham were not defeated yet and an extremely good bit of attacking play saw them equalise minutes before the full-time whistle went.

The final score was 2-2, and although many of the supporters and players would probably say that it should have been 2-1 due to some rather suspect umpiring, Durham should take encouragement in their performance against the topside in the BUCS Northern League.

The women only have Loughborough to play next term before the knock-outs, and many predict they could go all the way.

Weather causes havoc: typical north eastern showers meant nearly all sport last week was cancelled due to pitches being waterlogged.

DELANEY CHAMBERS

The most open Men’s Hockey Premiership in years took another twist at the weekend. Collingwood earned a hardfought 3-0 victory over Aidan’s, a potential banana skin in what is becoming an increasingly strong league, while title rivals Van Mildert slipped up against Cuth’s.

While those who lie at the top of the league are familiar names – Collingwood, Van Mildert and Hatfield – it is the steps forward that have been taken by the traditionally weaker teams that has made for such an exciting first half of the season.

A number of results have gone against the form book – Cuth’s holding Collingwood to a 1-1 draw, Aiden’s beating Hatfield in a 2-1 thriller and, this weekend, Cuth’s 3-1 victory over Van Mildert.

The Collingwood team will have been wary of their opponents in Saturday’s early morning match, knowing that they were up against a team capable of producing an upset.

Collingwood started the brighter of the two teams, dominating territory and possession. Their pressure was rewarded with the award of a penalty corner and, after the initial shot was saved, Joe Collingwood slipped the rebound under the keeper to open the scoring from close range.

Following the goal Aidan’s, led by captain Charlie Smith, began to get themselves into the game and, with an injury to Collingwood centre-back Ben Walker forcing a re-shuffle at the back, they had their first period of sustained pressure.

They were unable to create any clear-cut chances, however, and moments before the break found themselves two down.

A swift Collingwood break down the left wing created a half-chance for striker Ben Ripley, who showed good strength to hold off the covering defender and slot the ball past the Aidan’s keeper.

The second half saw both teams enjoy periods of sustained possession in the middle of the pitch, but very little in the way of a goal threat. Both teams were unable to pick out a final ball and promising situations were squandered by both teams.

Aidan’s had a chance to cut the deficit when a lack of communication between the Collingwood centre-back Will Hammond and keeper James Coe almost gave the Aidan’s striker possession with the empty goal gaping. Only a last ditch clearance averted the danger.

Moments later, Collingwood put the game to bed with a goal similar to the opener. A penalty corner was saved but Joe Collingwood was once again on hand to put the follow-up into the net.

The score-line finished 3-0, putting Collingwood top of the league following Van Mildert’s defeat.

Hatfield gave a reminder of their title credentials with a commanding 6-0 victory over Hild Bede.

With only 3 points separating the top 3 teams and with the likely possibility of more surprising results to come, the second half the season looks set to produce many twists and turns.

Friday 11th December 2009 PALATINATE

34

Sport

Have your say at palatinate.org.uk

Sport Results Rajvir Rai

As crazy it as it sounds, the first term of college sport is already over!

And what a term of sport it has been, except for last weekend when the weather caused chaos and numerous matches were abandoned. However, let’s not that dampen our spirits.

The close of the term sees Grey topping the scoring charts (right), after a late surge in the last few weeks which has seen them move dramtically up the rankings.

Last year’s inaugural winners Mildert, having been in the top three for most of the term, find themselves in fifth position and with a lot of work to do if they are to retain their title.

However, with the knock-outs and the college festival of sport still to come, both worth a huge amount of points, there is still

plenty of time for the table to change.

Quentin Sloper, Assitant Director of Sport, believes that the competiveness and interest in college sport is now at an all time high, and this is in no small part due to Team Durham’s introduction of the overall college points table last year.

“More and more people are now asking where their college is in the overall standings, and this level of interest can only be good for college sport as a whole”, he said.

However, he also stressed that while the running of college sport has been more professional, it’s still the students who are the integral part of making it a success.

If the particular team you represent happens to be languishing in the lower half of a table, or even worse at the foot of the table, do not be disheartened as there are plenty of fixtures left to play - everything can change dramtically.

Grey are early leaders as a frantic Find out where your team is plac Overall College Points Table College

Grey Collingwood St Hild & St Bede Hatfield Van Mildert Josephine Butler St Aidan’s Trevelyan St Cuthbert’s St Mary’s University George Stephenson John Snow St.John’s Ustinov St Chad’s

2008-2009 Position

2008-2009 Points

This Year Points

College Size

5th 2nd 4th 6th 1st 10th 3rd 7th 8th 14th 11th 16th 15th 9th 13th 12th

2003 2260 2100 1868 2353 1076 2252 1613 1540 692 923 407 609 1127 714 874

749 651 645 633 624 482 473 400 380 278 275 256 255 254 214 173

810 1178 1234 824 1125 810 834 712 1153 676 821 1032 929 447 1600 406

Women’s Netball

Men’s Hockey

Women’s Hockey

Premiership

Premiership

Premiership

College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

CollingwoodA Hatfield A Hild Bede A Castle A Grey A St John’s A St Aidan’s A St Mary’s A Butler A Van Mildert A Cuth’s A Grey B

5 5 4 5 4 5 5 5 5 6 5 4

4 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 0 1 1 3 3 3 4 5 4 3

12 12 12 12 9 6 6 6 3 3 3 3

Division One College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

StephensonA John Snow A Hatfield B Hild Bede B CollingwoodB Van Mildert B Trevelyan A Aidan’s C CollingwoodC Trevelyan B Aidan’s B Cuth’s B

6 5 6 4 6 5 5 4 6 4 6 5

5 4 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 2 0 3 2 3 2 4 3 5 5

15 12 12 12 9 9 6 6 6 3 3 0

Division Two College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

Hild Bede C CollingwoodD St Chad’s A Castle B St John’s B John Snow B StephensonB St Mary’s B Hatfield C Van Mildert C Butler B Chad’s B

5 5 5 4 5 4 5 5 5 3 5 5

5 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 0

0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 0 0

0 0 2 1 2 2 3 2 3 1 4 5

15 11 9 9 9 6 6 5 4 4 3 0

College CollingwoodA Van Mildert A Hatfield A St Aidan’s A St John’s A St Cuth’s A Hild Bede A Trevelyan A

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5

4 4 2 2 2 1 1 0

2 1 2 1 0 2 2 0

0 1 1 2 3 2 2 5

14 13 8 7 6 5 5 0

* St.Johns A deducted 3 points! ** Van Mildert B and Cuths B lie 9th and 10th in this league, both having played 4 games and lost 4 games. *** Ustinov B lie 9th in the league having not played any matches.

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

7 7 7 5 7 7 5 5

6 6 2 2 1 1 1 1

0 0 3 2 2 1 1 1

1 1 2 1 4 5 3 3

18 18 9 8 5 4 4 4

Division One

College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

St Mary’s A Butler A Grey A Ustinov A John Snow A St Chad’s A Castle A Hatfield B

5 7 6 4 4 6 5 5

4 3 3 2 2 2 1 0

1 3 1 2 1 0 0 0

0 1 2 0 1 4 4 5

13 12 10 8 7 6 3 0

Hild Bede A St Chad’s A Butler A Castle A StephensonA John Snow A Trevelyan A St John’s A

7 7 6 6 5 8 5 6

6 5 5 3 1 1 1 1

0 0 0 1 1 0 0 2

1 2 1 2 3 7 4 3

18 15 15 10 4 3 3 2*

College Grey A Castle A Butler A Van Mildert A John Snow A Hatfield A Hild Bede A

Men’s Badminton

Women’s Badminton

Premiership

Premiership

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

3 3 2 3 2 2 3

2 2 2 1 1 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 0 2 1 1 3

6 6 6 3 3 3 0

Butler A Trevelyan A Van Mildert A Chads A Aidens A Hatfield A John Snow A Trevelyan B Castle A

5 5 4 4 4 5 5 4 4

4 4 4 3 2 1 1 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 0 1 2 4 4 3 4

12 12 12 9 6 3 3 3 0

Division One College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

St.Cuths A Collingwood A StephensonA Van Mildert B Trevelyan A Grey B Aidans A

3 3 2 2 2 3 3

3 2 2 1 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 0 1 1 3 3

9 6 6 3 3 0 0

Division Two

have changed.

Hatfield A CollingwoodA Ustinov A St Aidan’s A St Mary’s A St Cuth’s A Grey A Van Mildert

Played

Division One

Can’t find the table you’re looking for?

If you support or play for a team that isn’t represented in these tables, go to www.teamdurham.com for a completely comprehensive list of results, champions and league tables.

These tables were correct at the time of printing, Thursday 10th December 2010. Results are updated by Team Durham each Friday so standings may

College

College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

Butler A Hatfield A St.Chads A CollingwoodB St.Johns A Trevelyan B St.Cuths B Hild Bede B St.Marys A

4 3 5 3 2 2 3 2 2

4 3 2 2 1 1 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 3 1 1 1 3 2 2

12 9 6 6 3 3 0 0 0

Division One** College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

St.Marys A Grey A Hild Bede A Grey B St. Cuths A StephensonA Butler B CollingwoodA

6 3 4 4 3 4 3 5

5 3 3 2 2 2 2 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 0 1 2 1 2 1 4

15 9 9 6 6 6 6 3

Women’s Rugby Premiership College Grey A St.Cuths A Hild Bede A Van Mildert A Hatfield A

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

4 3 3 3 3

2 2 2 1 0

1 0 0 1 0

1 1 1 1 3

7 6 6 4 0

35

PALATINATE Friday 11th December 2009

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Tables Sport

Sport Results

c term of sport comes to a close ced in their respective league Division One College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

St. ChadsA CollingwoodA Trevelyan A Hatfield B St. Marys A

2 1 1 3 3

2 1 1 1 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 2 3

6 3 3 3 0

Men’s Football Premiership Pool A College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

HatfieldA GreyA Collingwood A Hild Bede A StephensonA Aidans B

4 4 3 5 5 5

4 3 2 2 1 0

0 0 1 1 0 0

0 1 0 2 4 5

12 9 7 7 3 0

Premiership Pool B College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

VanMildertA St. Cuths A Aidans A CollingwoodC JohnSnowA CollingwoodB

4 3 5 3 3 4

4 3 2 1 0 0

0 0 1 0 1 0

0 0 2 2 2 4

12 9 7 3 1 0

College Hatfield C Butler B Aidans D CollingwoodF Castle B Hatfield D Stephenson C St.Cuths C Butler C Trevelyan C Hild Bede F

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

Tevelyan A Castle A Ustinov A VanMildertB Staff A St. Chads A

5 5 5 5 5 5

4 3 2 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1

0 1 2 3 3 3

13 10 7 4 4 4

Division One Pool B College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

Butler A Hild Bede B St. Marys A John Snow B Aidans C CollingwoodD

5 5 5 5 5 5

4 4 4 2 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 1 3 4 5

12 12 12

6 3 0

Division Two Pool A College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

Hild Bede D VanMildertC St. Johns A Hatfield B Trevelyan B Ustinov B

5 4 4 4 5 4

2 2 2 1 1 0

2 2 1 2 2 1

1 0 1 1 2 3

8 8 7 5 5 1

Division Two Pool B College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

Grey B StephensonB St. Cuths B VanMildertD Hild Bede C St. Marys B

4 4 3 5 5 3

4 3 2 1 1 1

0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 1 4 4 2

12 9 6 3 3 3

College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

Collingwood A St. Marys A VanMildertA Hatfield A Hild Bede A Aidans A Butler A Grey A

5 4 4 4 3 2 2 4

4 3 2 2 1 1 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 2 2 1 1 1 0

12 9 6 6 3 3 3 0

Conference Pool A

Premiership

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

5 4 7 5 5 6 5 5 5 5 4

5 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0

0 0 3 2 2 3 2 3 4 4 4

15 12 10 9 9 9 7 6 3 3 0

Conference Pool B College CollingwoodG CollingwoodE Grey C Hild Bede E Castle C St. Johns B John Snow C St. Cuths D VanMildertE Grey D

College Hild Bede A VanMildertA Trevelyan A Grey A St. Cuths A CollingwoodA Butler A

College

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

5 6 4 5 4 3 4 4 4 5

4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1

1 2 1 2 2 1 2 3 3 4

12 12 9 9 6 6 4 3 3 1

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

5 6 4 4 4 4 5 5 4 5

4 4 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 2 1 1 1 2 3 4 3 5

12 12 9 9 9 6 6 3 3 0

CollingwoodA Hatfield A St. Cuths A Van Mildert A St. Johns A Grey A Butler A St. Cuths B Hild Bede A Castle A

Division One College

Played

Played

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

7 6 5 7 6 6 5 4 7 6 3

7 6 5 4 3 3 1 1 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 3 3 3 4 3 6 6 3

21 18 15 12 9 9 3 3 3 0 0

StephensonA John SnowA Aidans A Grey B Trevelyan A Hild Bede B CollingwoodB St. Chads A Aidans B Hatfield B St. Marys A

Men’s Squash

Mixed Lacrosse

Pool A

Pool A

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

5 5 5 6 5 4 4

5 4 3 2 1 1 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 2 4 4 3 3

15 12 9 6 3 3 3

College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

3 3 3 2 2 1

3 2 2 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 1 2 2 1

9 6 6 0 0 0

St. Johns A CollingwoodA Trevelyan A Butler A Van Mildert A Aidans A

Pool B

Pool B College St. Johns A Aidans A Hatfield A Castle A St. Chads A St. Marys A Grey B

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

5 5 6 5 6 5 6

5 4 4 2 2 2 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 2 3 4 3 6

15 12 12 6 6 6 0

College

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

4 3 2 4 2 4 1

3 2 2 2 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 0 2 1 4 1

9 6 6 6 3 0 0

Grey B St. Marys A Hatfield A StephensonA St. Cuths A Castle A St. Chads A

Men’s Basketball Division One***

Premiership College StephensonA Ustinov A John Snow A Grey A Aidans A Trevelyan A Butler A CollingwoodA

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

3 2 2 2 1 1 0 0

2 2 2 2 1 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 0 0 0 2 1 3 3

6 6 6 6 3 3 0 0

College St. Cuths A Hild Bede A Castle A VanMildertA St. Marys A St. Chads A Hatfield A VanMildertB

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

4 2 2 2 1 3 1 1

4 2 1 1 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 1 1 3 1 1

12 6 3 3 0 0 0 0

Women’s Basketball Premiership College

Women’s Squash

Men’s Rugby

Played

Division One Pool A College

Men’s Football

Castle A Aidans A VanMildertA Hild Bede A Hatfield A Trevelyan A

Division 1

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

4 3 2 2 2 3

3 2 2 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 0 1 2 3

9 6 6 3 0 0

College Grey A CollingwoodA ButlerA St.CuthsA St.MarysA St.JohnsA

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Points

4 2 3 2 2 1

4 1 1 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 2 1 2 1

12 3 3 3 0 0

Calling all budding sports writers! Palatinate is looking for a new deputy sports editor...

If you love sport, especially sport at We’re always on the lookout for new vacancy for the deputy sports editor.

Durham University, then get in touch! writers, and we currently have a E-mail: editor@palatinate.org.uk

Friday 11th December PALATINATE

36

Sport Back page

Sport

Catch the latest Durham sports news and results at palatinate.org.uk

Rob Vickers on all things rugby, latest college tables, CSMF news, and Durham Hockey host Birmingham.

Palatinates fly the flag proudly with best ever start to campaign Assistant Director of Sport, Quentin Sloper, reviews the early season form that has sent Team Durham to second position in the BUCS table

Team Durham’s exceptional start to the season means that the Palatinates flags are proudly flying all across the country. Sloper is confident that Team Durham can once again finish in the top five by the end of the campaign

BUCS Overall Championship Points Table

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Institution

Points

2008-2009 BUCS Position

Loughborough Durham Swansea Stirling Newcastle Leeds Met Carnegie Bath Nottingham Manchester Reading Edinburgh Imperial Birmingham Leeds Portsmouth Edinburgh Napier Plymouth Oxford Cambridge Bristol Strathclyde Aston Northumbria Queen Mary Oxford Brookes

799.5 220 216 184 182 176 143.5 122 110 104 99.5 82 79 76 75 66 65 63 50 43 40 38.5 38 37.5 32

1 6 31 28 10 3 2 7 11 44 5 22 4 15 25 78 51 8 9 13 53 90 19 82 46

Quentin Sloper

The first term of 2009/10 has been one of great promise for Team Durham. The Christmas break simply marks the end of the first third of the season, but things are going according to plan thus far for Team Durham.

Although we are just one term in, a number of British titles have already been decided and Durham have won more than expected at this time of the year.

Second year V.C. Scholarship athlete Sandra Hyslop walked away from the British University River Race with a gold medal in the Classic and Sprint Divisions, whilst she teamed up with former Club Captain Alison Auld to capture second place in the Mixed Team Race. Durham finished third overall, our highest finish in a number of years.

Our Triathlon Club also had a great deal of success at the British University Duathlon Championships. Matt Gunby’s second place finish in the Men’s Individual event and an equally impressive second place finish in the Men’s Team event being the highlight so far.

Cycling has also had an exciting start to the year. Medals have already been secured at the British Universities Hill Climb. Rob

Simpson came away with an individual bronze medal but the club as a whole came home with the greatest prize, winning the men’s team gold. The women also had a fantastic result, securing a team bronze for the first time in their history.

Not to be outdone, our rowers have also had an outstanding start to the season. As is so often the case, they have once again set the standard for all at Team Durham to follow.

The British Universities Small Boats Head saw the Palatinates come away with Emily Taylor winning a gold in the Women’s Single, Jo Fitzsimmons and Jenny Arnold winning a gold in the Women’s Pair, and Matt Rossiter and Stuart McCluskey winning Gold in the Men’s Pair.

Sarah Cowburn and Rosie Gaunt also came home with a silver in the Women’s Double, whilst there were bronze medals in the Lightweight Women’s Double for Olivia Short and Flo Cox, James Dodds and Stuart McCluskey in the Lightweight Men’s Double, Emily Taylor and Jess Budget in the Women’s Double, and Lee Fisher and John Ford in the Men’s Double.

V.C. Scholarship athlete Kira Roberts has also led the charge in fencing for the second year in a row, winning a silver medal at the BUCS Sabre Championships.

DELANEY CHAMBERS

We are also exactly where we need to be in the winter league sports. Women’s hockey are all but guaranteed a seeded position in the BUCS Championships, whilst they sit at second place in England Hockey National League North.

Our men had a tough start to the year but have steadied the ship and National League and BUCS Premiership survival is already a certainty.

Women’s and Men’s Lacrosse have also had an outstanding start to the campaign.

The women have already secured a seeded knockout birth for the Championships, whilst the men have gone through the league season undefeated and will go into the knockouts as the favourites to win the National Championship.

Men’s Basketball has continued to impress.

Their third league title in a row will see them playing off for a place in the BUCS Premier League. It’s almost an identical story for Netball. A Premier League play-off and a crack at the Championship knockouts is likely to be secured with games to spare.

We enter the Christmas break sat second in the overall table. We will not stay as high as second but we have never been this high in the table at this time of the year, so we are very hopeful that we are on course to break back into the top five this time around.