720 Indigo

indigo

m o r F t s a o c e th e h t o t s e l b b co

0 1 0 2 .

0 1 .

05

indigo

I

Indigo

Features

store for we Durhamites, it’s not going to be all that hard to aclimatise afterall...

Whether you’re a fresher or a Phd old hat, there’s fun to be had everywhere from Saddlers’ to Stevenson and back again via Silver Street. Between the hallowed pages of this year’s first edition of Indigo, you’ll find 90% of what you need to make the run up to Christmukah one for the books.

As a wise old Oriental dude once said to a young boy learning karate, the rest must come from you...

New Pla ces

FLICKR ID: JULIANA COUTINHO

• Features: ‘How Not to Live Your Life’. ‘Going the Distance’, ‘Vulva Whatia?’, ‘Alex Wonders Why’. ‘From Home to Here’, ‘North Vs. South’, ‘No-man’s Land’.

• Food and Drink: ‘What’s in Your Lunchbox?’, ‘Cooking With Mice’, ‘Storecupboard Essentials’.

• Travel: ‘Why I love the NorthEast’, ‘Learning the lingo: How to be a Parisian’.

• Fashion: ‘Durham University Fashion Show 2010’, ‘Is Fashion Superficial?’

• Film and TV: ‘Hild Bede Film Soc’, ‘Top Ten Boxsets for Student Afternoons’.

• Visual Arts: ‘Art is Art and

•

•

•

•

Food is Food and Never the Twain Shall Meet’, ‘Blink and You’ll Miss It’.

Stage: ‘A Match Hardly Made in Heaven for Wilde Fans’, ‘So much for “No Talking in the Library”’, ‘Forget the Fair Check Out All the Fun at The Fringe’, ‘What’s on’.

Music: ‘Where is the Music Scene?’, ‘Glastonbury: Unpacking Another summer of Music, Mud and Muse’.

Books: ‘Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’, ‘Macabre, Frankenstein, Dracula, Twilight’.

And not forgetting...More fun with Games!

In this Issue...

FLICKR ID: MARYMACTAVISH

Ah, Embarassment. Whether it’s a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at a fancy dress party, accidentally vomiting down the front of that girl you like or realising you’re in the wrong lecture room 10 minutes in and very publicly leaving, we’ve all been in it’s clutches. Whether it’s at home or uni, embarassment will stalk you like a ninja - you’ll never see it coming. So, for any people who are mortified about what they did the night before, or need cheering up when homesickness (also ninja-like) creeps up on you, check out what we’ve done. Surely it can’t be quite as bad...

Fashion

Leading you from the darkness of ignorance to the light of inner knowledge...

New Fac es

Contents

Travel

Indiguru

Welcome Back!

f anyone knows where the summer went then could they please return it to the Palatinate office asap? Is it just us or have the last three months flown by faster than a rah with a one-way ticket to Perah?! With the season of bikinis, beachwalks and Bestival fever resigned to a Kodak memory, it’s time to stock up on fake-tan , bulk-buy the sticky tabs, swap the flops for thermals and let the new term commence. And we’ve got a funny feeling that with all that this term has in

Food

• Doy le Elvet B’sr, The new oldshop... idge. You’ll befashioned swe e like a ki • Haw d in a ctashop. kin’s Ba ndy zaar, Th Street e new to nearer.tSmaller than H y amley’s,shop. Silver • Ciao oo... but muc Ciao. No h turing a t as new little tas fantastic new as the others, te of Flo h b rence inomemade focaut feathe big N ccia. A orth Eas t.

Great • Copl laces to meet n leg ew quite liek Laundry Roo people... e your sm a bit of bondms -There’s no all t ing whil • Que st you sheing ues - Pas... s parate s cards b the tim purple jy befriending te in the line fo week... eggings you tr hat quirky gir r campus li ied on in • Soci Topshon the eties - A p last b with a b urningupnch of people in assion fo r knittina room all g. Score .

New Phr ases •

Lash : ‘CaptaiAns in ‘to go out on the... ’. A word ing • Stas a state of chro used in refere’,n‘Pre-’, ‘Pre-pre h: s in ’, n ‘Our veric inebriation.ce to achievsome...A y ’ C minor s lothin W • Banatrpaint in hoogdto declare socociety needs ial allegi ie er ance. coined:wAs in ‘It was aform. b s h o e l n u t o ginally e...’ A w ne rah it at everamusing drun decided to takord first k e y oppor tunity eun anecdote anadmarntil grad uation.r.etell .

New Dis graces If yo

u Week (hwave any embar need yo hich, if you h rassing storie u to do t s a wo thinve a pulse, youfrom Freshers’ gs: will do) 1.) Go , we those ofto ‘Features’ an 2.) Send the Palatinate d see if they c ompare them an them into us team. with . d W t ised bet hen your h ith any luc forevermween the pageumiliation wi k we’ll publish ‘banter ore, simultans of our belovll be immorta l points’ i n proceesously earninegd newspaper you maj s. or

Can you ketchup with this sausage dog?

FLICKR ID: FOXYPAR4

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Lifestyle Features How Not to Live Your Life

We’ve made the mistakes so you don’t have to! As indigo gets set to launch its very own ahem, ‘advice’ column we reveal the most humiliating moments of our ed board and the lessons they learnt...

Alison Moulds and Daniel Dyson

T

he Durham angst. We’ve all been there. One moment you’re a high-flying, über-achiever with the world at your overpriced Uggs. The next you’re knocking back a bottle of cut-price ‘wine’, Spotifying something suitably emo and researching how much it’ll cost to get the hell out of Dtown and escape the aftermath of that FML-moment you created at Klute.

But never fear! Before you speed dial those over-anxious parents for the ticket money home, you might want to consider another, less regrettable route. Because indigo is proudly launching its very own advice columns – Ask Alison for the femme-view, Dear Danny for the fellas’ perspective.

Now what exactly are our counselling credentials, I hear you cry... Okay, whilst we have no formal training and can offer no responsible advice in any way, shape or form, we can well guarantee that whatever the nature of your social faux pas we have both been there, done that and had our faces emblazoned across the proverbial T-shirt.

Yes, kids, we’re proud to announce our tagline as “we’ve made the mistakes so you don’t have to...”

So if you need to know how to navigate the after effects of locking lips with your bessie/ causing accidental offence to your most terrifying tutor/ starting some inadvertent quaddy-fuelled feud [delete as applicable], then type up your troubles and send ‘em to feature@palatinate.org.uk, with the Subject ‘Ask Alison’ or ‘Dear Danny’ depending on whose solutions you seek!

We promise full anonymity to all problems published and the kind of indispensable advice that can only be taken with a very considerable pinch of salt.

Still doubting the therapeutic qualities of a little ritual humiliation? Well in order to encourage all you distressed Durhamites out there to share – nay, overshare – we’ve compiled a truly cringe-inducing gallery of the mistakes made by our illustrious editorial board and writing team.

“Just after freshers’ week I had a male overnight guest and, early the next morning, while he was still asleep, I got up to make us a cosy breakfast. I was walking back to my room, scrambled eggs and oatcakes in hand – it was all I had in my cupboard - when the screeching fire alarm sounded. I glimpsed the warden coming up the stairs and, in blind panic, dumped the dishes in the corridor and fled the building. It was only after he had been escorted outside by the warden, in full view of one hundred of my neighbours, that my ‘guest’ and I finally said ‘Good morning’. “

- Rachael Revesz, Careers Editor

“A cautionary tale to all Freshers who, like me, are aware of the awesome power and beauty of the beard, and have cultivated one. It can get you into, if not trouble exactly, sticky situations. For you see, last November, I ventured for the first time in my then three years here into the Market Tavern for a friend’s birthday. Here, a muscular, tattooed, terrifying skin-headed patron approached me. He proceeded to ask if he could stroke my beard, told me how amazing it was, thought the girl I’d just met next to me was my girlfriend, bought me a drink (I’m teetotal) and sat with us. The aforementioned girl had to surreptitiously down the drink, whereupon we fled to Klute (in the circumstances the nearest and best sanctuary) claiming we had people to meet. Beware of the besotted beard lover. Also, sobriety won’t necessarily protect you!”

- Thom Addinall-Biddulph, Comment Editor

WARNING: not for the faint-hearted. “My housemate (we’ll call her Julie) had two younger sisters come up to stay and group of us were chilling out in my room. The night before Julie had gotten rather drunk and I’d racked up some pretty impressive shots of her inebriation that her sisters were dying to see. However, the very same camera was also home to rather a lot of ahem, saucy pictures of myself and a certain gentleman caller. Needless to say when I put my photos on a slide show, one of these pictures was broadcast to the entire room for everyone – including our teenaged guests – to see.”

- Ed Board member who wishes to remain anonymous

“One of my friends, who wasn’t known for having the greatest luck with the ladies, somehow managed to pull one night at Klute. The fact he didn’t stroll back into college until lunch the next day was a pretty major deal. Given it was like the world was over, I accompanied his lunch time appearance by thoughtlessly humming the funeral march. I didn’t realise until another friend ran out of the room in tears what a mistake I’d made – she’d just found out her grandad had died that morning.”

- Danny Dyson, Indigo Editor

“Embarrassment is one thing, but unadulterated foolishness quite another. I was in my college bedroom when I suddenly remembered I was late for an event at another college. I ran out of my room, sans handbag, locked my door, and, being a trusting soul, left my keys with my neighbour. I returned half an hour later to find my room LITERALLY turned upside down. Posters were the wrong way up, chair, bed and teddy bear upended... even my coat had been hung on its hanger upside down. NOTHING was sacred! A great prank certainly, but it did take me HOURS to get everything straight. The moral of the story: guard your room and your keys with your life, or run the risk of all your possessions being newspapered, tin-foiled, cling-filmed or even your whole room being turned upside down.”

- Alexandra Bottomer, Comment Editor

“Like the dutiful student I am I was handing in a formative essay on the day of my deadline “At Durham we are all assigned tutors – all I remember from run-ins with mine to one of my tutors. Unable to find his pigeonis that at every tutor gathering less and less people turned up. One Wednesday hole I knocked on the door to his office, thinkI received an email asking us all to meet for mince pies and coffee the next day. ing he would be expecting the submissions.

As it was nearly Christmas I was feeling charitable and replied confirming my After a couple of minutes and no reply, I tried attendance. I did not however count on such a heavy night that left me paralysed the handle. It was locked. I turned to start to on Thursday. Forgetting about the tutor meet up, I eventually hauled myself up in walk away when I heard movement inside, and search of Diet coke in town. Needless to say I bumped into my tutor who was just soon after the door opened to reveal my tutor walking to the “gathering”. Instead of being honest about my antics the night before standing in a completely dark room, looking and how awful I felt I found myself being talked into walking there with him. It was flustered. It was 2pm... I handed him the essay, a horrendous experience, sitting bleary eyed making small talk with people I didn’t and scarpered.” really know, and I’m ashamed to say I left half way through to throw up.”

- Madeleine Cuff, Film and TV Editor

- Harrie Bellamy, Features Writer

“Every Fresher quickly learns how to get on the right side of their Porter. It is an essential and often valuable lesson. My tactic was somewhat unconventional. I returned from another inebriated night on the windswept Bailey streets to greet our Porter. For some inexplicable reason, I felt that doing a distinctly uncoordinated dance to Stevie Wonder’s Superstition would be a welcome break from the Porter’s otherwise mundane night. Unfortunately, as I reached the chorus, I became over-zealous, slipping painfully on the steps to the Lodge at the Porter’s feet. He found the whole episode almost as painfully amusing as the fall had been for me. As he helped me to my humiliated feet he simply remarked that ‘that booze is coming out of your bones, son!’. ”

- David Wynne-Griffith, Politics Editor

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Features Going the Distance “Vulvo-whatia?” i Introducing ndigo’s brand new columnist

G

FLICKR ID: ADAM FOSTER

“the trials and tribulations, temptations and triumphs, of long distance relationships ”

Rachael Revesz

the resulting non conservative options of treatment, such as steroid injections or surgery, have, so far, proved to be generally unsuccessful. Furthermore, the lack of normative data means that there is little with which to compare “abnormal” results.

Understandably, having strange hands prodding around your sensitive parts works a negative effect on the brain.

Depression is a common side-effect of pelvic pain, and can lead doctors to accuse the problem of being psychological. This must be one of the most demeaning results; to hobble into a doctor’s office, be man-handled and then Depression is a common side-effect of pelvic pain told “It’s all in your head.” lightly on my pubic bone during a physical This medical situation mirrors that of examination. It hurt. Within five minutes back pain ten to twenty years ago and, alhad discovered more than any doctor though there has been slight improvement we could tell me: my problem was not internal since then, it is a slow-burning process. but mechanical. This came as a great relief.

Many sufferers remain in the dark with only gloomy cancer-filled on-line forums and a bottle of Amitriptyline anti-depressants to comfort them.

My third doctor blew everything out of the water when he said I had pudendal nerve entrapment, and provided me with a list of non-recommended activities: I was diagnosed with a condition called “squatting, cycling, piriformis stretches, Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD) - due gym work outs, exercise cycle, lifting, to a slight excess of elasticity around my bowling, ab crunches, leg presses, pilates, pelvic joints, the consequential shear and step aerobics, yoga, skiing, sit-ups, jogging friction was causing my pain. I was given a and spinning.” tight, elastic belt to wear between my hips This wasn’t lifestyle change. This was and pelvis during a flare-up (“to hold you eternal immobility. together”), and daily exercises to follow.

“You will have this for life,” he told me. will take time to see if any long-term Yet something wasn’t right. For all the tests, It improvement has been made. However, distressing internal examinations, rough the belt works. prodding, needles and even mini-electric Misdiagnosis is a worryingly common shocks I’d gone through, my symptoms result of a lack of knowledge and research didn’t match up. I only felt pain when I on the causes of pelvic pain. I’m not laying moved, kind of like a pulled muscle. And the sole blame upon the medical profesthe anti-depressants weren’t working: they sion – but I am saying that they can make just made me feel drowsy. And after two mistakes.

If I hadn’t bothered to research and a half years of frustrating, unpredictthe condition, I would still be drugged-up able and sometimes totally debilitating and out like a light at ten pm. If you are sufpain, I’d had enough. fering from pelvic pain, do not get fobbed I eventually got in contact with Dr off with a prescription, and do not take Sex Ruth Lovegrove, a senior physiotherapist and the City as gospel.

Those are two lesspecialising in pelvic pain. After taking sons which every girl needs to know. my complete medical history, she pressed

I

t’s vulvodynia,” my second doctor said to me from across his desk. He tapped his pen almost irritably on the hastily sketched diagrams of female genitalia, waiting for some kind of reaction.

I stared blankly at his pen – tap, tap, TAP – and considered the implications of his diagnosis.

A condition with no proven cure. A whole array of lotions and anaesthetic gels.

Steroid injections, surgery, nerve decompressions. And one large prescription of anti-depressants. Sex and the City fans may remember when Charlotte, after being told she had this condition, said to the gynaecologist “But I’m not depressed!” The gyno pityingly replied; “It’s not for you. It’s for your vagina.” This script is as laughable as it is inaccurate, and makes no attempt to even portray the real consequences of dealing with the reality of this condition.

Let me repeat; “vulvodynia” (literally meaning pain of the vulva) is a vague, umbrella term which neither precisely locates nor defines the cause of pain, and comes in handy for doctors who don’t really know what to do with you. An increasing number of women are suffering from this mysterious “condition” and symptoms can vary from pain during intercourse, pain exacerbated through exercise, pain when recumbent or, if you’re lucky like Charlotte, an infection which can be cleared up in 15 days.

“ ‘you will have this for life,’ he told me”

“a condition with no proven cure”” Stage one of diagnosing pain in the vulva is to rule out any other cause of infection. Tests for STIs and swabs will be taken, most likely along with a blood test and hormone profile. After that, a scan of the uterus will usually be carried out to check for cysts and other abnormalities. If your gynaecologist finds an extra-sensitive spot, they may suggest a few things: the inflammation of the Bartholin glands; the entrapment of the pudendal nerve; the formation of crystals in the urinary tract and so on.

These diagnoses can be dangerous as

Alex Wonders Why FLICKR ID: DISTORTED

instead, I waited till my rivals for the Boy’s affections – Liverpool FC – were playing a oing the Distance is an anonysemi-important match, and phoned in the mous series of articles about the 85th minute to ask for this, the smallest of trials and tribulations, temptations favours. and triumphs, of university long-distance Now he’s agreed, fairly and squarely, relationships in general, and mine in he doesn’t really mind the exposure. His particular. I am entering my second year response (after the final whistle of course) of study at Durham; my boyfriend (‘the was surprisingly similar to A’s; “Do you Boy’) is in his third year at another Red think you’re Belle De Jour or something?”

Brick at the other end of the country. We’ve “No,” I told him, “Except I am going to been together for five years and doing the refer to you as ‘the Boy’” ‘long-distance thing’ for two of them. This “Don’t! The boy is whiny and anhas given rise to an interesting, challengnoying!” whined the Boy, annoyingly. I ing, miserable and funny period of our explained that, regrettably, my mind was relationship and lives, which I have taken made up, and to chronicling ‘the Boy’ he for posterity. would remain.

When I told I had taken my best friend Belle’s literary A about the masterpiece idea for these away with us articles, her on holiday first question to read by was “Do you think the pool, to you’re Carrie Brada barrage of shaw or something?” mocking from Obviously, I don’t the Boy, who though the Boy did was virtuously slyly point out that cracking the this would make him spine of Hugo’s Big...

Les Miserables.

For a start, there Only a couple of are noticeably few days in, reading New York City eveover my shoulder, nings spent sipping he discovered Cosmopolitans in the true nature of Louboutins for my chick lit and me – though we promptly abando sometimes indoned Valjean’s dulge in Mojitos pre-revolutionary at Fabio’s. And, struggle in favour whilst Carrie Can long-distance relationships survive uni life? of Belle’s clients’ rents an (alarmpredilection for ingly large) apartment in the city on her kinky encounters, and her own lesbian freelance writer’s wage; I languish in a terexperimentation. race with three housemates in the viaduct Beyond the objection to his pseudon my student loan. onym, the Boy doesn’t object to our In Sex and the City, Carrie spends her relationship providing material for a more articles searching for love – revering it, general discussion of that breed of long philosophising about it and yearning for it. distance relationships that are almost When Big makes an entrance, it’s all glitter entirely unique to university. He even, and giddiness and being swept off her reluctantly, admits that if he didn’t already well-shod feet. Where I, as I often moan know all of the anecdotes that make up to A, am writing about a relationship that these diatribes, he might find them intergrew, sweetly, between teenagers, which esting himself. is battered by – not the dramatic - but the He also imagines that this publication mundane, the inconvenient and insignifiwill be the ideal vehicle for finally settling cant incidents of real life. the age-old debate that rages between A’s next question posed a far more couples – us being no exception – of practical query; “Will the Boy know?”

“Who’s the funny one in this relationship?”

I thought for a minute, imagining him (for the record, it’s me); and, to provide blissfully unaware that our relationship a fair solution to some of our arguments quirks were being shared with a large part through public support for ‘Team Boy’. of Durham’s student body... But I had to Frequently, when we’re falling out, the Boy remind myself that a secret like that might pouts that “if you are even a bit honest in lead to me not having a relationship to these articles, all anyone is going to think is write about. “Yes! Of course he will,” was ‘can you believe how mental that girl is?’” the indignant reply A eventually got.

While GtD will not provide the Next was to broach the subject with glamour of celebrity bloggers, or the sexual the Boy. Saying “Is it okay with you if I misadventures of a ‘high class call girl’s’ make our private life public?” and making memoirs, I hope to bring an honest, amusit sound like an attractive prospect was ing, non-whingy look at university relationquite the challenge. In the end, I decided to ships. GtD is a look into the private world ask maturely and diplomatically, without of other people’s business that I hope you any spin or coercion, and with the spirit of will enjoy, if only to roll your eyes and say compromise firmly in play.

“Can you believe how mental that girl is?!”

But the time never seemed right, so,

FLICKR ID: SPARKTOGRAPHY

Erin Garrett

“I couldn’t help wondering is it all in my head?”: the danger of misdiagnosis

Each issue Alex considers some of the more ‘pressing’ problems of life in Durham...

Alex Mansell

1)Why does Klute lack toilet roll, soap and door locks?

2) Why are there so many Peter’s Bakeries in Durham?

3) Why do fifty year old locals dress as twenty year old locals?

4) Why do we all mock Jack Wills yet take pride in owning something from there?

5) Why does the Gala theatre only

show films that no one ever wants to see?

6) Why do rahs not recognise themselves in the Gap Yah video and actually laugh along?

7) Why does everyone seem so desperate to pull in Studio on a Saturday night, yet you never see anyone pull in Studio on a Saturday night?

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Features

From home to here

In honour of our brand new batch of freshlings, we asked three consummate Durhamites to recall those first fish-out-of-water feelings...

“fresh out of my uberambitious, supercompetitive all girls’ grammar” The most exciting moment of my early adolescent life was my first at-arm’slength experience of dancing with a boy. I think it lasted about two hours though we exchanged nothing more than names, and certainly not saliva. Despite the fact I did of course spend hours agonising over this with friends for perhaps the

North vs South Harrie Bellamy

next month or so, it later emerged that this boy was very much gay.

It was perhaps this somewhat limited experience of men that meant that my coming to Durham was so much like being the proverbial fish out of water.

Not only were there about to be fleshand-blood men in the same building as my self they were, in fact, about to be living right NEXT DOOR. I’m not going to say it’s been the easiest of transitions. I’ve gone from naive, Stepford Wife throwback to infamous feminazi in the blink of an eye. Once upon a time I thought a woman should never finish eating a meal in front of a man and that the way to win the heart of any worthy gentleman was to wear knee-length skirts and sensible cardi-

“I discovered what should have been clear to any Durham-worthy mind all along”

Do single-sex schools stifle a healthy social life?

between myself and what felt like the rest of Durham.

Living in North Yorkshire, I imagI had never played lacrosse or been to ined when I applied to Durham that I’d Henley and I realised I was not a person be in safe territory staying close to my Northern roots, where a lunch box was a who would have mutual friends with others there because “we played their “pack up” and “put wood int’ole” meant shut the door. I had no idea that journey school at rugby...”

At the end of the first term I hadn’t farther north to Durham would be like let this unsettle me too much - it wasn’t visiting a strange bubble that seemed until the holidays were in full swing that to have floated from the south, carryI was to learn more of the divide. Like ing with it a whole host of main stream accents, Jack Wills, flip-flop over use and most students I have to work over my holidays to make up for the hole in my shocking blonde hair. purse that univerAt first this small culture sity has wrought. “a strange bubble shock was amusing and I I logged found the whole fresher that seemed to have intoWhen Facebook experience far more exciting floated from the however, I saw that than I had first imagined south” many of my new meeting people from private friends were not in and same sex schools made the same position.

Some went skiing for conversations genuinely interesting. two weeks, others to hot foreign destinaIt was only when I tried to explain I was from Scarborough, North Yorkshire tions, but what niggled me the most was that many of my friends were able to that I ran into difficulty: nobody knew meet up over the holidays. where it was, the only reference that Coming back I was worried about could be made was the old Simon and being out of the loop. I need not have Garfunkle song “Are you going to Scarworried so much. When I confided in borough Fair?” one close friend, she told me that the difAfter this I tried to recall if I had met anybody who was northern in my fresh- ferences between myself and many others week. As I racked my brain I realised ers were only positive and refreshing and that university was all about diversity, there were only three people I knew it would be boring if I took a Southern with similar backgrounds and it was at accent and wore the same clothes as this point I began to feel a little isolated everyone else. and started noticing lots of differences

gans. Fast forward one year later and I could hardly last a week without a rageout against the opposite sex.

Then, somewhere in between my radical transformation from Miss Marple to Girls Aloud’s missing member (think crazy stilettos and body con skirts),

between falling in out of love, between real thing and rebound fling, between all the wisdom garnered and ridicule suffered from male friends, I discovered what should have been clear to any Durhamworthy mind all along.

I’d always had the opposite sex chalked up as either knights in shiny armour or unwashed cretins using and abusing all the women folk in their midst. And then here I was at Durham learning that the very same man could pull off what I’d deemed the unthinkable; an astonishing double act.

He could wear a tux and walk me home but still drop in a throwaway, misogynistic putdown of the girl he’d bedded the night before.

Only it wasn’t a double act. This was man, the enigmatic opposite sex that had riveted me for so many years. They were just people. Stripping away all my illusions, from handsome literary heroes to tales of hateful heartbreakers, and I had what I should have known from the start. But if it took me a while to learn that not every woman was a Madonna or a whore, it took twice the time to realise that not each and every man was a prince or a playa.

So in the end I should really thank this quaint little town for one of life’s greatest lessons, that, extra appendages aside, men really aren’t all that different after all.

No Man’s Land

Jonathon Knowles

I’ve always found it strange when I hear my friends refer to Durham as ‘quiet’ or ‘boring’, or when my fellow students refer to there being ‘nothing to do’ here. I guess that opinions like this are all relative – to some people, Durham has nothing in comparison to ‘home’, especially if they’re from a big, vibrant city.

For me, however (and this may shock you), there is far more to do in Durham than where I live – hardly surprising, when I live on a desolate rock (primarily made of fields) called the Isle of Man. For those of you that don’t know, the Isle of Man is the ugly little rock in between England and Ireland with a flag like a ‘f*cked-up swastika’ (to quote a friend from Durham). We boast numerous novelties, such as the oldest continuous parliament in the world, the largest waterwheel in the world (allegedly) and cats that have no tails (due to generations of feline inbreeding). Oh, and we have £1 notes and no squirrels.

I moved over when I was at nursery, and, to the island’s credit, it was a wonderful place to grow up – crime rates are ridiculously low, unemployment virtually non existent (even during the recession), the schools reasonably good and there are plenty of pretty views dotted around. Yet as I reached the age where I becameaware of an outside world, it

became clear how little there is to do on the Isle of Man. I live in the third biggest town on the island, yet the closest thing to a ‘club’ is a 30 minute drive away – or a £60 taxi.

as an ‘upcoming film’ since June), casual sports clubs are rare and there hasn’t been a bowling alley for years.

To top it all off there’s very little organised fun back home – opportunities for things such as acting / musical / artistic are minimal at best.

In other words, there’s sod all to do! In comparison, Durham seems fantastic.

And yet Durham remains homely as there are many similarities to the Isle of Man – it’s not THAT busy, the people seem friendly, it’s a very pretty place, relatively safe and pretty crappy weather.

As such, Durham isn’t a “I still point and jump around like an idiot whenever I see massive culture shock, yet the a squirrel!” greater amount of things to do, especially for someone my age, Add on top of that the fact that the clubs make a noticeable difference – Durham’s are terrible (imagine Klute without any been one of the many factors inspiring cheesy charm) and it becomes clear that me to get off the rock I call ‘home’ as fast clubbing isn’t a regularly done. as possible once I graduate and escape As such, it’s unsurprising that the first to the real world where opportunities time I went to a club was on the Durham actually exist. open day. Indeed, coming to Durham a Both places, although different, are couple of years ago marked a complete wonderful, and I’m now wholly used to change of atmosphere for me. living in both – although I still point and The differences are more than alcohol- jump around like an idiot whenever I see related however; the Isle of Man has a squirrel. two cinemas of hilariously poor quality (they’ve been advertising Harry Potter FLICKR ID: PHILIPP KLINGER

W

hen I arrived at Durham, fresh out of my uber-ambitious, super-competitive all girls’ grammar, my view on gender politics was pretty simplistic. The supposedly salient lesson we had all been imparted with was that the mysterious sub-species of ‘man’ was undoubtedly out to steal our jobs whilst simultaneously infecting us with whatever they’d picked up from their obligatory bit on the side.

The solution enthusiastically presented to us? A nunnery, of course! Without any trace of irony, my all-girls’ haven once delivered an actual compulsive assembly complete with positive real-life accounts of joining a convent. It wasn’t a solution taken that seriously by most, who either plumped for casual lesbianism or the oily-faced Casanovas who preyed lasciviously upon the girls whose school was oh-so charmingly nicknamed “the Virgin Megastore”.

Nevertheless we had one peculiarly optimistic English teacher who, when she wasn’t reading us her own poems about menstruation, would gleefully demand to know “who’s having an affair with a married man?” I wasn’t sure how she expected us to meet these married men unless they were our teachers/ friends’ parents, in which case it was slightly worrying she

asked us with such relish. In fact, backtrack, it was extremely worrying she asked us at all.

Our main contact with the opposite sex was at the school discos, which only ran til Year Nine as by then there was already talk of hidden vodka and, reputedly, people getting jiggy in the school loos.

Or so ran the deliciously prurient rumours that somehow circled very far above my innocent little head.

DEEPALI KULKARNI

Alison Moulds

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Food & Drink

What’s in your lunchbox?

Cooking with mice

Why blogging has become the latest craze to hit the foody world

Kirstie Hopkin FLICKR ID: SPRAIN

South American snack For all those who have been travelling this summer here is a reminder of more exotic tasters, or for those who did not get away, there is a first time for everything. Here is a traditional South American dish from Bolivia. It is very cheap and easy to make for a lunchtime takeaway, and it is full of different flavours. It is called Pique macho, which combines all the major food groups: different meats, potatoes and vegetables all in one big dish, so it very easy for you to choose quantities and the exact details. It could be done with just one meat or a few vegetables as it is the spices which make it.

Ingredients: Beef, chopped up into bite size pieces Sausage Potatoes, chopped into thick chip shapes Onions Peppers Tomatoes – fresh or tinned Carrots/peas (optional) Boiled egg Garlic, cumin, chilli, salt, parsley, oil, soy sauce Mustard, mayonniase and ketchup 1)Season the beef with salt, pepper and cumin and brown it in a saucepan.

2)Meanwhile place the potatoes in a baking tray with oil, sprinkle with salt and put in the oven for about 30 minutes until crispy. You could always, for an easier option, buy ready-made chips or even serve with rice and salad for a more healthy meal.

3)Chop the onion, tomatoes (can be tinned), peppers and carrot into large pieces and fry in oil with garlic cloves (and chillis if desired and some people even add beer, which adds something special) for about 5 minutes until soft.

4)Add a little soy sauce and parsley.

5)Add the sausages to the meat in the pan until they are cooked (a few minutes) and remove from heat.

6)Season to taste.

7) To serve, pile the french fries on a large plate. Place the meat on top of fries, then add the vegetables and hard boiled egg. Garnish with lines of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

I

n a recent article, a food writer admitted to having made only 10 per cent of the recipes contained in her cookery book collection. I think this also reflects the amount of use that my recipe collection gets too. In fact, the never-fail cake I make for any celebration is the only recipe I have ever made from its 200-page volume. I do realise that this doesn’t make sense – if one recipe works so well, puts smiles on faces, licks around lips and the polishing off of the last crumbs, pressed together into thumb-and-forefingers pyramids, I really should try the others. If I think about the proportion of online recipes I have tried, this figure of 10 percent must drop to somewhere in between zero and one, and nearer the former. Why then, when there probably waits so many untried recipes on bookshelves, should I try to persuade you to over-look them for their digital counterparts?

“The beauty of blogs lies in the flexibility they give...”

I must make one thing clear: cookery books do still hold an attraction for me. I spend time between lectures reading them in Waterstones and the Oxfam bookshop.

I flick through food magazines in W H Smith every week. I have copied out recipes from others’ collections to keep them and repeat them. They fill my Christmas lists. I enjoy the citrus wrinkles to Delia’s lemonade recipe and reading my mum’s marginalia. The design of cookery books, their pictures, weight, paper quality, page markers, blemishes, stickiness, scrawls and memories all contribute to their continuing appeal for me. Their merits and appeal I do not deny.

The beauty of blogs, however, lies in the flexibility they give. I started last year by cooking lots of Thai inspired dishes and by the end had shifted towards more classic Italian and French food, whilst this summer I’ve hardly cooked anything

savoury. These culinary whims of mine have all been satisfied with ease; whatever you want to create, its recipe is out there somewhere. I’ve found that they also help make my cooking more creative. Last term I found two recipes for tomato tarte tatin, copied the methods into Word and cut and pasted until I had a new one to follow.

They allow you to realise absolutely any idea.

The unlimited space available in a website also give blogs an advantage over cookery books. The introductions to recipes are often much longer than normal.

They might tell you about the influences and gestation of a particular recipe, give detailed explanation of a certain techniques giving you a greater insight into the development of a certain technique, suggest possible variations, or all three.

So how should you go about finding them? Just like their tangible counterparts, the blogs I like the best are the ones I’ve stumbled upon accidentally, whose cooking style resonates with my own or which push me to try new flavour combinations or techniques. When you’ve found one of these for yourself, it’s like discovering a new piece of fruitful internet territory to explore and develop as meal times roll by.

Often the most frustrating part of using the internet to find recipes, however, is the feeling that with so many possibilities out there it is impossible to find anything useful amongst the flotsam returned by Google. You have to be savvy in your searching and so here is my guide.

Start with the following compendiums.

It is here that the liberation technology has granted cooking can really be seen: • www.tastespotting.com: if you visit one website mentioned in this article, please visit this one – an album of photos from food blogs across the world. By far the biggest recipe index I’ve come across.

•www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/recipesearch/search: whatever your political preferences, this recipe search engine has been waiting to be created for years.

• www.food52.com, • www.seriouseats.com, • www.epicurious.com: these are more like food community websites which have

CLAIRE COOMBES

Annie Lund

product reviews, technique masterclasses • Look for the recipe index link on the and eating out guides as well as recipes. front page of a blog, normally somewhere • www.orangette.blogspot.com near the top of the page. Click it and then • www.chezpim.com press ctrl + F on PCs or cmd + F on Macs • www.smittenkitchen.com and type • www.chocolateandzucthe ingre“Try to find some chini.com dient you • www.deliciousdays.com want to hyperlocal blogs. for •www.cannelle-vanille. cook into blogspot.com the bar that great tips on markets, • www.davidlebovitz.com comes up.

I have some favourites This highoutside of these but I won’t restaurants and meats...” lights all disclose them. If you find them the recipes yourself, they feel more special with that secret and private and I don’t want to in the title. deprive you of that. Instead here are some • Bookmark blogs you have found that tips as to how to best explore and exploit you like, recipes that you find but want to food blogs yourself. try later and most importantly recipes that • When you find a blog you like, look for you have made. From experience, I know the list of blogs that that blogger follows. how frustrating it is to lose a good recipe to This is normally on the right of the page. If the ether. you like their food, it’s likely you’ll like the • Blog archives are usually catalogued by food they like too. month and year. To find the most seasonal • Try to find some hyperlocal food and therefore tasty recipes, look to see blogs. For me, this means those writing in what the author has cooked this month in South East London. They’ll give you tips previous years, as well as this one. on the best markets, restaurants, meat, • Where possible, add blogs’ pages on fish and vegetable suppliers in the area, Facebook, or follow them on Twitter for advertise cookery classes etc. constant reminders of their newest recipes.

Store Cupboard Essentials Lydia Ashby

Dried Herbs Vital for any soup, roast or stew, dried herbs save the fuss and responsibility of fresh herbs; gone are the days of yellow, wilting leaves drooping from pots over the windowsill.

They last almost indefinitely, smell wonderful, and most importantly, give the cook an air sophistication and expertise (by putting herbs in things, you reach a new level of seeming cooking expertise.)

Tomato Ketchup A real bonus of leaving home is the new found ability to be able to eat Tomato

Ketchup whenever you want. No longer is it restricted to chips and sausages, but can be dunked into with gay abandon or even used as a cooking ingredient. The culinary possibilities are endless.

The sweetness of ketchup stops tinned tomatoes from tasting harsh and metallic.

Ooze generously to add a glossiness and thickness to bolognaise, chilli con carne, ratatouille or roasted vegetable couscous.

Stock cubes Dissolve a cube in hot water and add to stews or casseroles. Cooking couscous in stock adds more flavour. For a really low

budget meal, a stock cube can be served up as chicken soup, and eaten with lots of bread and butter.

Branston Pickle Branston makes a welcome addition to any sandwich, and its characteristic crunch can provide the basis for a ploughman’s lunch too. If taking sandwiches to the library for lunch, branston can stop the bread from going dry and hard to swallow.

Balsamic Vinegar Everyone knows that Balsamic makes the perfect salad dressing, but that is not

where its usefulness stops. Drizzle over vegetables before roasting, splash into tomato based soups and dip crusty bread into swirls of balsamic and olive oil.

Condensed Milk In hot countries, condensed milk is the substitute for fresh milk, and is poured into coffees etc.

As well as this, use condensed milk to make toffee sauce for caramel shortbreads and banoffee pie, or combine with softly whipped double cream and freeze to make homemade, soft scoop ice cream.

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Travel

Why I love the North East

Jess Jones

I

am writing this from a crowded Starbucks in Santiago, Chile, where I have spent six months of my year abroad.

I have loved almost every minute of this strange, exciting and eye-opening year, but that did not stop me dreaming of the cloudy skies and wild moors that marked my childhood in the north east of England.

It was not homesickness that struck me, but rather the pull of a land steeped in a rich history that is home to warm, lovely and down-to-earth people and is bursting with little-known treasures. You could say my longings for home were nostalgic and sentimental, but there is something about the North East that will draw you back to it again and again.

Durham is a beautiful cobbled gem in amongst the wilder, rougher region that surrounds it. Take advantage of your time at Durham University and explore the surrounding region. Head to the north for the rugged wind-swept Northumberland coastline, home of some of the most dramatic and picturesque castles in the country. Bamburgh Castle lies on an imposing outcrop of rock overlooking the beach at Bamburgh, Northumberland. An important English outpost, the castle experienced numerous raids from the Scots just across the border and has known a dramatic and bloody history. The Roman fortification of Hadrian’s

Wall marks one of the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987. Walk along the length of the wall and marvel and the well-preserved forts that mark its length from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Carlisle.

Follow in Dracula’s footsteps and climb the famous 199 steps to Whitby Abbey on the north-east coast. (Technically in North Yorkshire but a firm favourite of many a north-easterner) The quaint seaside port was the setting for Dracula’s arrival in England in Bram Stoker’s novel. Its famous literary history attracts many tourists, and the picturesque cobbled town takes on an altogether darker guise for one week every year when the Whitby Goth Weekend takes place. This year`s extravaganza will take place, when else, on Halloween weekend, 28 -31 October. So get your black hair dye out and try some of the delicious fish and chips at the Magpie Café, to be enjoyed on Whitby pier with smell of the bracing North Sea making them taste even better.

There are numerous sea-sides up and down the North East coast that make a great day out; ice-creams and donkey rides abound at Saltburn and Redcar.

For walkers and hikers, the North East offers a plethora of beautiful, unspoilt countryside to explore. Teesside, better known for its industry and monkey-hanging history (according to legend, during the Napoleonic wars some Hartlepool

“All those cloudy skies and wild moors...”

fishermen hanged a monkey, believing he was a French soldier), is home to the Cleveland Way, a beautiful, rugged hike amongst lovely hills juxtaposed against the industrial valley below, with the North Sea just visible beyond. Roseberry Topping is a legendary hill beloved by all Teessiders and fantastic for a weekend stroll, providing impressive views of the patchwork fields and little villages below. Near the source of the River Tees in the North Pennines lies Cauldron Snout, the longest waterfall in England which, according to legend, is haunted by a ghost called the “Singing Lady”, whose tragic tale is that of a young local farm girl who drowned herself in the waterfall when her love affair with a local lead miner came to an end. Maybe you can spot her on moonlit nights, sitting on a rock by the falls lamenting her lost love.

All these outdoor delights might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the region offers much more than its impressive landscapes.

Home of music festivals such as Gateshead and Newcastle`s Evolution Festival, which has stages either side of the Tyne with the stunning backdrop of Newcastle`s quayside, attract acts from Futureheads, The Streets and CSS to new bands like Delphic and I Blame Coco. In Middlesbrough only 10 minutes from Stockton Campus, there is the annual Middlesbrough Music Live, which has welcomed bands from the likes of Kasabian and Florence & the Machine to The Human League and Electric Six. For a night out, Newcastle, only 10 minutes by train from Durham, is the obvious choice. Catch a play at the Theatre Royal, see some of the biggest international acts

FLICKRID: THOMASORMSTON

indigo takes a look at everything you can do in Durham and its environs: music to museums, castles to clubbing

The angel of the North is just one of the many reasons why the North East is so wonderful

such as Lady Gaga and Beyonce at the Metro Radio Arena. The Sage, across the river in Gateshead, is a beautiful, modern, wave-like music venue from which you can enjoy enchanting views across the river, the lights of the quayside and the millennium bridge reflecting off the surface.

Go for cocktails at Florita’s then head out

Olivia Parker

How to be a Parisian… This is the question I’ve been asking myself since arriving in the French capital two months ago.

Having previously only experienced life in my Yorkshire hometown and Durham, I can freely admit I’m not the best candidate for being able to slot into a foreign urban backdrop with ease, and I had to start my transformation into a savvy city-dweller from scratch. To better understand and imitate my fellow inhabitants of my new surroundings, and being far from an expert anthropologist, I adopted an approach reminiscent of a nature study at school to answer three simple and crucial questions to understand the French: what do they look like, how do they get around and how do they behave?

Black is always the new black.

It’s true: Parisians do seem to have a kind of ‘look’, which yes, stereotypical as

it is, seems to be just more ‘chic’. However, I’ve come to realize this is easily achievable via the adoption of a monochrome wardrobe - maybe with a bit of navy thrown in if you want to spice things up a bit.

Conveniently, if you need a bit of guidance in choosing outfits, you can use the “what not to wear – an idiot’s guide” otherwise known as a tourist, which are often - and I have nothing against them other than the majority I’ve seen wear ridiculous clothes - Americans. Why visors are suddenly acceptable outside a golf course I have no idea. I have heard that double denim has made a comeback this season, but it should surely be banned for those who insist on teaming this style with a bumbag and Eiffel Tower necklace, and particularly when exactly the same look is being sported by a couple.

Conquer your claustrophobia or become a cycling hero.

Generally if you want to escape the traffic, you’re going to have to choose between

“Wearing visors when not on the golf course?”

Negotiating the cultural differences of French life can be far from easy

being a sardine on the metro probably with your face lodged in someone’s armpit, or fearlessly negotiating French drivers on a bike. Neither is for the faint hearted, so basically you’re going to have to choose between your personal lesser of two evils. I grudgingly take the metro as I lack confidence riding a bike, whilst my friend swears by velib – which is an amazingly

useful service Parisians can subscribe to, after which you can take any bike from any station, anywhere in Paris free of charge.

She arrives at work fresh yet windswept, whereas I usually rock up sweating profusely and cursing Line 1. If you take the metro, you’ll also have to just learn to live with striking, which is a monumentally irritating aspect of French culture, not least

FLICKRID: PEDROSIMOES7

Learning the lingo: how to be a Parisian

for a proper night on the `toon at one of Newcastle`s many clubs, making sure to take advantage of student nights at places like Tiger Tiger and Digital.

So, with all this, I am proud to call the North East home, and as new Durham freshers, I am sure after getting out and exploring your new region, you will be too.

as it forces you to go one worse than the metro, and take the bus to work.

Attitude Attitude Attitude.

For a country that’s supposedly quite socialist, it is rather surprising and disappointing to see that the ‘every man for himself’ rule prevails in day to day life. The metro is a hotbed for this kind of behavior, where flustered commuters aren’t happy to give up their revered seat to either pregnant women or war victims (as is even specified on the signs), and people will openly move to stand in the 10cm gap between you and the edge of the platform to be able to get on before you, even though you were there first. I am not quite ready to relinquish my innate English good old-fashioned manners in order to blend more into the Parisian culture, so I dutifully gesture to the pregnant woman close to me in the carriage to take my seat whilst simultaneously guarding it from the other vulturelike commuters. The accepted attitude is admittedly convenient though if you’re just having a bad day and want to look after yourself and behave in a selfish way, you won’t be construed as having some sort of problem; you’ll have just got even closer to becoming a Parisian.

Indigo

DURHAM UNIVERSITY FASHION SHOW 2010 GET INVOLVED! It is the 26th year of the Durham University Fashion Show and there is still chance for you to get involved! The Fashion Show is a much loved two day event which sees over 700 students descend upon the DSU to watch some of Durham’s beautiful students model local and London designs.

DCFS would also love to showcase some of Durham’s design talent so any students who design clothes should email DCFS who will try to use their work for the show. dcfs@hotmail.co.uk

Auditions: (Birley Room, Hatfield College)

October 13th (1-4pm) October 14th (1-4pm) October 15th (1-4pm)

Travel

Fashion Is fashion superficial?

indigo’s Fashion Editors battle it out to decide whether there is any soul behind the sequins Emma Spedding

Antonia Thier

YES

It seems though that the industry itself is acknowledging the superficiality of short lived trends and Fashion’s disturbing lack of diversity. As many well received collections embrace an ‘anti-fashion’ scar Wilde famously dismissed movement and present a stylish and “fashion as a form of ugliness so sustainable aesthetic with empowered intolerable that we have to alter female models. Stella McCartney for it every six months,” and in a way I have to example started her Autumn Winter show agree. In this economic climate there has with a replicated version of one of Tiger been a real “anti-fashion” sentiment with Wood’s telephone calls to his mistress, fashion dismissed as deeply superficial. setting women up as victims. Then strong, With new empowered models in trends every polished, stylish and “Fashion is defined by few months powerful items took to fashion is the runway. They change, consumerism surely just an emblem of our and trends. . . ” consumerist

O

I

NO

t is true to say that fashion is one of the key players in our consumerist society.

It is also true to say that it is an elitist industry, which tends to worship at the feet of the rich and dismiss those who cannot afford it. Yet this does not immediately label fashion as superficial; simply luxurious.

As Coco Chanel herself once said, “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” When most people hear the word ‘fashion,’ it leads to thoughts of high-end couture, but fashion is a part of everyday life. It’s not all about ‘Alexa’ bags and ‘J Brand’ jeans, but the choice about which sweater you put on in the morning to which shoes go with that handbag; choices made daily by even the most fashion-illiterate. Women dress in order to make them feel good about them-

of camel coats and uncomplicated accessories and bags of high quality rather than embellishment.

“The Kate Moss waif look is out. . .”

Yet the fashion industry not only dictates how we dress but how we look. This season boobs are in. The Kate Moss waif look is out and the Christina Hendricks full-bodied look is back, a look that hasn’t braced the fashion circuit since Marilyn.

So now instead of baggy shirts with skintight leggings and killer heels to try and create the most stick-like silhouette, waist belts and full skirts is back to celebrate womanliness.

Although a cliché, fashion is an art form.

FLICKR ID: ALLERINA & GLEN MACLARTY

The new DCFS co-presidents George Apperley, Habibah Aloao and Kritina Lazurenko are looking for students who want to get involved in this year’s event.

The University Fashion Show is the perfect platform for models, dancers, photographers, fashion designers and creative stage directors to show off their talents. Anyone interested in getting involved should come to the auditions on 13th, 14th and 15th October in the Birley Room, Hatfield College between 1-4pm. Please note that female models are requested to bring at least one pair of high heeled shoes for auditions.

Food

FLICKR ID: SEAN’S CAMERA

This year promises to be bigger and better than ever with the theme Masked Couture and a target to raise £20,000 for the humanitarian medical aid organisation, Medicins Sans Frontieres.

Guests will indulge in a high fashion masquerade with an extra special auction.

Features

Next season, these shirts might easily be everyone’s charity shop cast-offs

and shallow western society.

Disposable and short lived £1000 It bags and £200 pair of ‘in vogue’ jeans seem more unattractive and wasteful than desirable. Fashion is defined by change, consumerism and trends. Whereas an ‘anti fashion’ movement attempts to create a timeless style, emphasising the importance of quality and sustainability. ‘Anti-fashion’ doesn’t denounce clothing or design, merely is the wish for well made pieces which will last for years, regardless of whether it is leopard prints or polka dots, bows or stripes on the covers of our magazines. However well loved silhouettes and established classics will never go out of style.

Of course there is the argument that fashion is an art movement. A powerful form of creative expression in which change and innovation should be celebrated and commended. But there seems no arguement that fashion is shallow and superficial when the industry’s models are so thin they resemble a coat hanger more than your average woman.

It almost goes without saying that the fashion industry is a superficial and destructive realm which generates the wasteful impulse to buy, buy, buy. The fashion industry seems to be defined by superficial habits. A lack of ethnic diversity, a highly restricted view of female beauty and a loyalty to size zeros. The fashion industry’s closed definition of beauty can be blamed for the frightening number of eating disorders and self esteem issues which cripples our young female population.

were dressed in clothes that women would actually wear rather than fashionable statement garments which resemble costume or even fancy dress pieces.

Fashion greats have often favoured a long established style over trends and ever changing fashions. Diana Vreeland was a fashionista who sculpted a style which suited her and forever stuck by it. As a successful fashion editor she appreciated innovation calling blue jeans “the most beautiful thing since the gondola,” yet always remained faithful to her own signature black staples punctuated by red lips, nails and jewellery. The likes of Diana Vreeland show how flattering and quality pieces can in fact make you feel and look highly fashionable.

What we should aspire to is a stylish aesthetic and recognize the superficial and

“Fashion greats have often favoured a long established style over trends. . .” destructive nature of the industry. Find beauty outside the confines of the catwalk and wear what we want to rather than what we are told to. In the words of Coco Chanel herself, “fashion fades, but style remains.”

If fashion was purely superficial then there would be no grounds to call this dress art

selves; to draw attention and to make other Contrary to popular belief couture is not women green with envy at their Miu Miu made to be worn but to be appreciated; Coffer or Hervé Léger bandage dress. But hand-stitched, embellished pieces of featheven those who couldn’t tell apart their ered sequined art. Furthermore, the catLanvin’s from their Louis Vuitton’s still walk shows are becoming less of a défilé know and underand more of a performstand what makes “. . .this does not ance. Take for example them look and feel the Alexander McQueen good. immediately label shows, where he used his The influence knowledge of engineerof fashion is emi- fashion as superficial; ing to create the holonent in more parts gram of Kate Moss or of your daily life the paint-spraying robots than you would merely luxurious.” which created a piece of care to imagine. couture. Fashion and art Trends leak through from couture to prêt- even merge in the form of fashion photoga-porter to celebrities to the high street to raphy; Mario Testino and Richard Avedon your wardrobe. Thus, fashion editors of the have taken some of the most awe-inspiring world who control the trends each season fashion photographs of all time. If the imdictate what you are going to wear. Even portance of fashion were to be negated by for those who do not follow the trends, it dismissing it as superficial, the entire art inis impossible to escape from contemporary dustry would have to follow suit. trends; five years ago simplicity would have So next time you see somebody roll their equated to boredom, but now the likes of eyes at a discussion of current trends or the Phoebe Philo and Alberta Ferretti rein latest Marc Jacobs collection, ask them if the catwalk this season with their refined they wouldn’t quiver in their Hunters at the shapes and luxurious fabrics. Therefore, sight of a pair of Christian Louboutin black the high street will soon be crammed full patent mary-janes?

Indigo

Features

1

4

2

5

Food

3

6

Travel

Fashion

7 8

9

10

11 12

Wrap up warm!

This is without a doubt the coat season.

Numerous designers opened their shows with a showstopping coat and the high street is overflowing with must have coats and jackets.

As the bitter Durham winter approaches what better to invest in then a statement winter coat...

Turn to Asos and Zara for a cape or Next

and French Connection for fabulous military styles.

Boohoo offers an affordable alternative to the lusted after Burberry aviator, with shearling jackets starting at £25. This season also sees the return of a beloved classic, the camel coat. Invest in this unwavering classic for an expensive and elegant look.

1 Zara - Camel coat £129 2 Zara - Camel knit cape £39 3 Next - Military coat £60 4 French Connection - Cream coat £220 5 Asos - Hooded Cape £70 6 Next - Tweed jacket £65 7 Boo Hoo - Shearling Jacket £45 8 Asos- Leather jacket £100 9 Primark - Double-breasted ruffle £23 10 Next - Flare coat £75 11. Great Plains -Hooded coat - £95 12 French Connection - Military wool £160

Film & TV

Visual Arts

Stage

Arts Film & TV October:

November:

T

here’s no better way to forge a friendship with someone than over the shared love of a television programme. So, with that in mind, a number of experts (students) have suggested some DVD box sets that are great for bonding with new people.

Think of them like the modern day welcome hamper.

Pride and Prejudice (BBC, 1995) (Sugested by Claire Read) It is a truth universally acknowledged that if ever there were a doyenne of romance and social perception, it is Jane Austen. Therefore it seems logical that she be your guide as you embark on a new chapter of life lessons. So gather your landing-mates and experience together the rollercoaster of emotion that is the seminal romance of the 19th Century. Share and cherish the bitter blows (“She is tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me.”), the built-up hopes (“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”) and the gutting disappointments (“…you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?”). From the notorious Lake Scene, to the short but charged fencing scene that culminates in the sweaty Darcy’s proclamation “I shall conquer this!” – there is a favourite moment for everyone. And where better to aid your holistic university learning experience than from the models of eloquence and wisdom in matters of the heart, in relationships with friends, family and society and in securing a husband of uncommon wealth (which I hear is a popular reason for choosing Durham…). Your male friends should, for their own sakes, also be encouraged to view key scenes so as to promote their understanding of the female psyche and, even to go as far as moulding themselves on Darcy and Bingley (but certainly not Wickham, though I fear for some this is a lost cause). But the best thing about having your Pride and Prejudice box-set up with you is that, when you’re in need of a pick-me-up later to combat the mid-term blues, you can skip straight to episode 4…

FLICKRID: JOANNETEH_32

6.) Toy Story 3: (6th & 7th - Sat/Sun) 7.) Predators: (13th & 14th - Sat/Sun) 8.) The Girl Who Played With Fire: (17th - Wed) 9.) The Sorcerer’s Aprentice: (20th & 21st - Sat/Sun) 10.) Shrek 4: (28th - Sun)

indigo picks its favourite TV collections to wile away those long and empty hours

FLICKRID: SHARPANDKEEN

1.) ATeam: (10th & 11th - Sun/Mon Free) 2.) Inception: (16th & 17th - Sat/Sun) 3.) Eclipse (23rd & 24th - Sat/Sun) 4.) Four Lions: (27th - Wed) 5.) The Expendables: (30th & 31st - Sat/Sun)

Top five box sets for student afternoons

December: 11.) The Last Airbender: (4th & 5th - Sat/Sun) 12.) Scott Pilgrim: (11th & 12th - Sat/Sun)

Location: Films shown in Hilde Bede Caedmon Hall.

Time: Box office opens at 7:15, showings at pm. For more information visit: www.bedefilmsoc.com

Think of Studio Ghibli’s works such as ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ as being Japan’s answer to Disney

Studio Ghibli (Suggested by Thom AddinallBiddulph) The various Studio Ghibli films (box sets are available) are a brilliant series to watch together at university, not least because they’re still not hugely well known to most Brits.

Studio Ghibli is a groundbreaking Japanese animation studio, best known for Oscar winner Spirited Away- think Disney, but much more original. The films are nothing like the traditional stereotype of anime (robots, dystopia, schoolgirls with huge endowments and very little clothing). The animation is breathtakingly beautiful- proof that 2D old-school animation is still very much alive. There really is everything here, whether it be the nostalgia and fun of a childhood summer in the classic My Neighbour Totoro, the high school romance of Whisper Of The Heart, the hilarious Pom Poko, which marries comic shape-shifting raccoons to quite savage political satire and features perhaps the best matter-of-fact narration ever, after the two main raccoons consummate their love (don’t worry, it’s offscreen)- ‘THAT was a mistake’. A lot of people are put off by the reputation of anime, which isn’t always the most accessible genre in cinema, and there are dystopian robots in odd places (mainly Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind), but there’s also a lot of genuine humour, classic storytelling, memorable characters (the catbus!), and amazingly magical worlds. If you’re in doubt, these films were something my ‘college family’ watched together in first year, partly on our very own home cinema (overhead projector, DVD player…we had two computer scientists)- if you already know and love the films you’ll want to watch them again, and if you don’t it’s a great new discovery, exactly what university is about!

Chuck (Suggested by Jon Zhu) A flatmate bought a DVD boxset of Chuck that was on sale. It was a series which none of us have seen before so we thought we might as well give it a try. Straight from episode one we were hooked like a fish to a rod; more people started watching and pretty soon it was a regular event on free evenings for everyone in the block to get together and watch a few episodes.

It’s a comedy/action/drama about a funny computer geek who by chance gets the worlds most secretive intelligence information downloaded into his brain and subsequently gets recruited to be part of a spy team. I know you are probably raising your right eyebrow at that description, but have faith. Its quirky humour, plot twists, cliff hangers and will-they-or-won’t-theyromances will win you over like an Obama Chuck (Zachary Levi) is not your average speech, in no time you will wonder how superspy when it comes to competence. . . you managed to burn through all the episodes so quickly and when the next season will released.

The Thick of It (Suggested by Maddie Cuff)

FLICKRID: WATCHWITHKRISTIN

Michaelmas Term

Books

Film and Television Arts

FLICKRID: POTATOJUNKIE

Hilde Bede Film Soc

Music

The Thick of It is not for the faint hearted. A quick test to see whether or not this particular programme is up your street: Firstly, open your laptop lid, load a fresh page of Google, and type in ‘Tucker’s law’.

If this results in either baffled amusement or a chuckle, read the following sentence: “Come on people, let’s get going here! I’ve got a to-do list that’s longer than a f*cking Leonard Cohen song.” Now imagine fourteen half hour episodes, and a feature length film of humour precisely in this vein. If this fills you with excited anticipation, then you’ve caught the bug. The Thick of It is a political satire lauded by critics and public alike as the 21st century’s answer to Yes Minister, and brainchild of writer Armando Iannuci. You don’t need to be a politics nut to appreciate the fast paced and unrelenting wit of it, but you almost certainly need to be comfortable with prolific swearing. Director of Communications Malcom Tucker (Peter Capaldi) leads the Scottish contingent of ingenious swearers, leaving you wishing that you also Malcom Tucker (Peter Capaldi) is certainly could get away with saying “f*ckitty-bye” at not a man you’d want to upset the end of a phone call. I cannot recommend this show enough, and watching it with likeminded people will only improve it. The bond that comes over discovering a similar sense of humour in someone else cannot be overstated, and there’s also the added bonus that if conversation ever runs dry, you can engage in an epic quote-off. However, with new acquaintances it may be prescient to mention that the c-word is bandied about pretty much willy nilly, and they should treat in that most Durham of ways; as banter.

R Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet (Suggested by Jess Jones) I know it makes us sound like weirdos, and many of our friends thought that we had more than a screw loose when they heard the shrieks of laughter emanating from our room in first year, but my room mate and I bonded over the genius “rap opera” of r “n” b legend and jail bird himself, Mr R Kelly. We had both discovered his genius before coming to university, and on discovering that my room mate adored the 13 part deadly serious (but actually so bad its brilliant) series, I knew that I would be able to share my room with her and that we would go on to be great friends. In the rap opera, R Kelly narrates a poorly filmed tale of adultery and violence, all the while grasping but failing to come up with anything that remotely resembles a rhyme. Classic lines include the heart warming, “Bitch move! She moves!” and the terrible realisation that “Not only was there a man in the cabinet, but the man was a midget”. While the rest of our corridor friends didn’t really get our obsession, it definitely helped us to bond, and you can still find us quoting random lines at each other to this day.

Film & TV

Film

Stage

Music

Visual Arts

Books Film and Television Arts

Art is art and food is food and never the twain shall meet indigo explores the way food has influenced art down through the centuries

W

e humans spend a considerable portion of our lives availing ourselves of food. Whether by preying upon pickles or by gorging upon goujons, the average human is said to consume around 25 tonnes of food in their lifetime. Leaving aside the time spent actually eating, a recent study has shown that on average, women spend 44 minutes of each day just thinking about their next meal while men dedicate around 39 minutes of their day to the same end.

This amounts to almost two years over one’s lifetime! It comes as no surprise then, that humanity’s fascination with tood has formed an integral part of almost every culture throughout history.

This apparent reverence of food has manifested itself in the rich volume of art that has been produced over the centuries.

The depiction of food along with many other subjects was achieved by the people of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt through the sculpture, pottery, furniture and ornaments. As these societies developed, so too did the quality and detail of the art that they produced.

Eventually in the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, the genre of still life began to emerge in an embryonic form.

This served as the perfect vehicle for the expression of the love of food that these two great civilizations held. Although few examples survive, both Greek and Roman still life paintings display a greater attention to detail than ever before and even attempts at shading and perspective.

Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the ensuing early Middle Ages gave rise to a general decline in the decadence of art; with paintings being mainly religious in nature. However, the Renaissance in 16th and 17th century Europe heralded a rejuvenation of the still life genre. Artists all over Europe began to study in immense detail the objects around them and arrangements of fruit and vegetables became the exclusive subjects of paintings. Artists began to get much more involved with the food they were painting as evidenced by the work of Dutch painter Jan Davidsz de Heem and French painter Jean-BaptisteSiméon Chardin. Both of these artists constructed perfectly balanced arrangements of food and captured them with almost excruciating intimacy. It became fashionable for rich lords to purchase large paintings of extravagant banquets that could be viewed indulgently as they themselves were dining.

Italian still life painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo was renowned for his detailed portrait heads that were actually constructed from manipulated pieces of fruit and vegetables.

In the 20th century the use of food in art took another leap forward into the world of the real (and the surreal) following the invention of photography and film.

During the Second World War, films and advertising campaigns were constructed to highlight the scarcity and vital importance of food. Since then, film has been used to highlight ideas such as the rise of consumerism and overindulgence that some artists felt were taking place. The 1972 surrealist masterpiece, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”, directed by Luis Buñuel dryly lampoons the arrogance and absurdity of the upper-class. It revolves around a group

FLICKRID: FRANZCONDE

Gordon Hack

“Humanity’s fascination with food has formed an integral part of almost all cultures...”

of people trying desperately to conduct a dinner party despite increasingly disruptive events occurring around them. Czech Surrealist filmmaker Jan Svankmajer also produced a short film in 1992 entitled simply, “Food.” This film observes peoples eating habits, portraying them in an absurd light and underlining their essential frivolity.

The advent of modern or contemporary art (and the apparent carte blanche bestowed upon its producers) finally allowed for the ultimate realization of food within art, i.e. its consumption! Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is an installation of contemporary artwork devised by the late Félix González-Torres. The piece consists of a large pile of sweets in the corner of

a gallery. The pile gradually diminishes as the sweets are taken and eaten by members of the public. The meaning of this piece is actually quite poignant; it is designed to represent the body of the artist’s lover who died from AIDS, and the slow and drawn-out process by which it happened.

However this piece and others like it also represent the final stage in the progression, over time, of the tangibility of food in art. Food has moved from something merely observed and painted from afar, to something which is intricately arranged and painted through intimate studies, to concrete, palpable elements in the world of film and finally straight into the mouth of the art consumer.

Nowadays, the role that food plays in art has extended so far that the role that art plays in food can now even be considered.

Every restaurant, grower, manufacturer and supermarket in the consumer food industry seeks to portray its own product in an evermore artistic and appealing way.

Thousands of photographs are taken of food products and each is retouched to make the product seem more beautiful.

Even the food itself is processed to make it more appealing: restaurateurs endeavour to construct wonderful sculptures on pristine plates while tonnes of slightly misshapen pieces of fruit are rejected and disposed of in warehouse bins. This outright glorification of food could yet be having a poisonous effect, with more than 1 billion people across the world now seriously overweight. At the other end of the spectrum we have the cult of the celebrity. Pages and pages of glamour magazines are devoted to spreads of disturbingly thin models, every inch of their skin meticulously cleansed of imperfection by computer. This use of artistic techniques within the media could be creating a damaging disparity between the sensational world it promotes, and the real world that lies beneath.

Blink and you’ll miss it...

indigo moves beyond the realm of the static image to take a look at the possibilities of art in motion Tamara Gates

B

ritish-born Eadweard Muybridge is one of the most influential photographers of all time. He pushed the limits of the camera’s possibilities, creating world-famous images of animals and humans in motion. His dramatic life included extensive travels in North and Central America, a career as a successful lecturer, and the scandal of his trial for the murder of his wife’s lover.

Muybridge was the man who famously proved a horse can fly. Adapting the very latest technology to his ends, he proved his theory by getting a galloping horse to trigger the shutters of a bank of cameras.

This experiment proved indisputably for the first time what no eye had previously seen – that a horse lifts all four hooves off the ground at one point in the action of running. Seeking a means of sharing his

ground-breaking work, he invented the zoopraxiscope, a method of projecting animated versions of his photographs as short moving sequences, which anticipated subsequent developments in the history of cinema. He also created unprecedented images of moving water, providing the audience with a depiction of the droplets’ journey second by second as the water is hurled from a bucket by an inexplicably naked woman! His work can also be undeniably terrifying; for example he persuaded wrestlers to mime sodomy, and one portrait by a colleague shows a cowering Muybridge cowering beneath an axe-wielding man. This explored the dark side of his genius and provided a sense of foreboding - after all he did go on to murder his wife’s lover.

This summer it appears to be in vogue to be acquainted with his work as recent weekend broadsheet supplements have

featured his work, recommending his exhibition at the Tate Britain which runs until January 16th. Here his work displays the combination of scientific analysis and artistic vision in his photography, as the exhibition brings together the full range of his art for the first time. It also explores the ways in which Muybridge created and honed his remarkable images, which continue to resonate with artists today.

I recently stumbled upon much lesser known artist, Lorenzo Fonda, the Italian director of the project The Circular Life.

The project attempts offer an explana-

tion on human behaviour and to convey everyday movements and cylcle, and the idea parallels Muybridge’s work but with the benefits of modern technology. Fonda suggests that ‘your surrounding knows you better than you know him’ and encourages you to pay attention to the particulars in life and observe what you may usually miss when consumed by your own world. Select one of the five Italian locations, and you are presented with a circle beneath the photograph around which you drag an arrow at any speed. This incredibly beautiful time machine allows you to observe one specific location at each hour of the day; the moving traffic, the morning rush and the muffled sounds of the crowds. The transient quality of the images adds an unearthliness to what are com-

“Muybridge was the man who famously proved a horse can fly.”

monly regarded as the mundane aspects of life, such as walking to the station, stopping at traffic lights or putting rubbish in a bin.

Move the arrow around slowly and the images overlap and fade into one another as the sun rises, noise increases, dusk settles over the city as you witness the life cycle of one place. Silent, dark, and littered with blinking city lights, it is beautiful to behold a moment in time that otherwise you would not witness. Becoming the observer at all hours of the day gives you a sense of acquaintance with the location, an insight into hours of life we would usually miss as we are tucked away in bed, or perhaps just to busy to notice. The Circular Life ‘beautifully captures what so many miss in daily routine.’ People we’ll never know, sounds we never hear, and the dark hours of night pass us by every day, and this site highlights the sadness of this while inspiring the desire to become more observant.

Visual Arts

Film

Stage

Stage

Music

BooksStage Arts

A match hardly made in heaven for Wilde fans An Ideal Husband St. Cuth’s Dramatics Society House 12 Garden

DELANEY CHAMBERS

indigo looks back at St. Cuthbert’s Dramatics Society’s dramatic offering from last term ««««« Kathy Lazlo

S

t Cuthbert’s Dramatics Society’s (CDS) production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband in the enchanting setting of Cuth’s gardens could have been more thoughtful when dramatising the playwright’s exploration of the fine line between love and worship.

It did succeed in revealing, however, what should or should not be considered ideal when staging a play.

The production offered a stream of surprises, springing from the observation that fulfilling expectations is not always advantageous and, finally, emptying into the spectator’s self-surprise at secretly wishing for verbal errors.

“It did suceed in revealing however, what should or should not be considered ideal when staging a play. ” The play’s set up seemed auspiciously innovative: against all Wildean pomp, director Lucy Martin resisted the temptation of defining a stage, employing artificial

of the staging would have been a better idea. Only Heather Moate’s (as Lady Markby) eardrum-shredding lady-of-society voice justified a traditional approach to the play, fantastically capturing in both her tone and gestures a hint of senility as well as a good nose for scandal.

“. . . little more visual effect than a decently read audiobook.”

This production of Oscar Wilde’s classic is sadly less than ideal but provided a marriage between enjoyment and error for audiences

lighting or having the actors appear in the order Wilde intended them to. Instead, there was the fresh breeze of a chilly Durham evening as a curtain, the sun as flood light and two benches with actorsseated on them as both stage-perimeter and common room. It was this openness of setting, initially not outdoable by all the upholstery furniture, candlestands and whitegloved hands in the world, which promised a refreshing interpretation of the

Victorian tale of corruption versus loyalty in 1895 London.

However, even though Beth Greenwood did her best to display calculating flush-right smiles, cunning looks and raised eyebrows in her portrayal of the evil Mrs Cheveley, a realisation emerged: that innovation in staging without innovation in acting is virtually meaningless. CDS’ production of An Ideal Husband disappointed in this respect.

In most instances, the acting was static and provided for little more visual effect than a decently read audiobook. Director and actors seemed to be resting on what Victorian discourse is expected to sound like: stiff-lipped and stylised for the ladies, matter-of fact with an ironic undertone for the gentlemen. However historically accurate this depiction might be, committing to communicate the message of the Wildean voice corresponding to the modern terms

Paradoxically, release, both comic and meaningful, was drawn from the fiends of every theatre lover: memory lapse and loss of self-control. Gianni Laino’s face betrayed his great efforts not to burst out in laughter at each announcement of the Chilterns’ guests in his role of the butler, and elicited more sympathy from the audience than any Wildean wisdoms ever could.

Similarly, Alex Morgan’s assurance that his character Lord Goring will “make a very poor wife” and his subsequent reaction to the audience’s amusement – utter shock followed by a hissed “shh” to the crowd and a mouthed “fuck” to himself – deserve applause.

Thus, as the actors fought less to maintain the fourth wall and the facade of the play, errors became desirable. Just like the notion of an “ideal” human being is rejected by the characters within the play, the production benefitted from being openly, humanly flawed and calling into question assumed beliefs about the theatre.

So much for ‘no talking in the library. . .’

indigo brings the review of ‘In The Dark of the Biblioteque’ finally to light and likes what it finds In The Dark of the Bibliotheque Arizona Bay Productions Durham College Libraries

««««« Daisy Wyatt

After the hundreds of hours students spent pouring over revision last term in libraries across Durham, it was a welcome surprise that so many deigned to set foot in one in such a short time after the exams. Luckily, this engaging and witty collaboration of plays written and performed by Durham students was enough to reignite one’s love of all things library.

In the style of Fringe theatre, audiences were whisked around St. Chad’s, Hatfield and Castle college libraries in order to view Arizona Bay Production’s three plays: “The Palace Green Incident”, “The Legwork” and “Anonymous & Co.”, which comprised the collaborative performance. All scripts deserve special commendation for their wit and playfulness, especially in

producing such strong comedic work given the subject matter.

Andra Catinecescu’s “The Palace Green Incident” imaginatively dramatised the

“strong comedic work. . .” circumstances resulting from the theft of the Shakespeare first folio, bringing to life sacked English academic Bill, whilst simultaneously ridiculing academia.

The outrageous farce “The Legwork”

by Ash Ogden and Clio Kennedy realised with hilarity and panache the sexual encounter of perverted Professor Francis Barlow (author of Twentieth Century Perceptions of Female Genitalia) and the equally lustful librarian behind the St. Chad’s bookshelves, and had the audience laughing throughout.

The real gem of the performance was left to last with Donnchadh O’Connaill and Andrew Macfarlane’s inspired “Anonymous & Co”, set in Castle Library. A light musical,It brought together canonical authors to debate and generally abhor the inclusion of female writer ‘Anonymous’ into the English canon. Songs such as “Women are too beautiful to take things seriously” were not hindered in their hilarity by their sometimes being a little out of sync. O’Connaill and Macfarlane can be proud of their script, which was not only written with intellectual brilliance and flair, but also bore testament to the writers’ in depth knowledge of the greats of Literature and the cultural problems inherent in the opening of the Western canon.

Performances were strong throughout “Anonymous & Co”, all actors played theireccentrics in a nuanced and well-observed manner, although Ollie Lynes especially shone in his misanthropic and reclusive portrayal of Samuel Beckett. In “The

Legwork”, Karim Mariey was particularly convincing in the role of the odious intellectual. Michael Hutchinson mastered an accurate middle-aged RP accent as Bill in “The Palace Green Incident” and Olivia Stuart-Taylor oozed presence in her role as the loudmouth girlfriend. However, morecould have been made of the infamously flamboyant folio pilferer Raymond, who despite his camp and ostentatious speech did not live up to his eccentric counterpart.

“the bookshelves served to comically disguise the sex scene - for the most part anyway. . .”

A special mention should go to Charlotte Wake in the role of Bill’s dowdy girlfriend, who was called in at late notice to play the part and therefore had to read from a script which went by almost unnoticed.

The directors utilised the space in the libraries optimally, but this was largely dependent on the layout of the respective rooms. The well-chosen spot in Castle allowed for the use of a balcony and for Anonymous to make her entrance down the spiral staircase at the back.

The actors interacted with the whole of Hatfield library in “The Legwork”: the bookshelves served to comically disguise the sex scene – for the most part anyway...

Overall, “In the Dark of the Bibliotheque” was a highly successful and thoroughly enjoyable collaborative work which showcased student written theatre at its best. It is only a shame that seating space in the libraries was limited, prohibiting more people from enjoying the performance.

Film & TV

Visual Arts

Stage

Music

Stage

Books Stage Arts

Forget the fair - check out all the fun at the Fringe!

indigo goes on a roadtrip to Edinburgh to cheer on Durham’s dramatic offerings at everyone’s favourite festival WITTANK

Wittank 2010 Wittank Edinburgh Fringe ««««« Rosanna Boscawen

««««« Lyndsey Fineran

I

W

learnt three things from WitTank’s 2010 Fringe show. One: that they are as unpredictable as ever.

Two: that Naz Osmanoglu can (still) shout very loud. Three: that Kieran Boyd is (still) frighteningly convincing as a woman.

There is also the alarmingly abrupt change in the trio’s behaviour as their pre-show relaxation (reading and smoking in a gentlemanly fashion) became a frenzy of noise and running and throwing things. The tragic Uncle Party cannot go unmentioned, perfectly written to capture the poignancy and ridiculousness of the sad and lonely man’s desperation for a party with his wonderfully nonchalant and unsympathetic nephew, played by Mark Cooper-Jones.

The intermittent speeches of Osmanoglu’s Lord Brinsley-Dresden, the all-round explorer and old- fashioned ‘lad’, were executed with his usual vociferous aplomb, but they felt a little like a chip off his deservedly loved Bear Grylls sketches. No such complaints about his salt and vinegar crisps sketch. The disgusting physicality (and incredible speed) of his eating, combined with his complete lack of sense of the personal space of his fellow bench-dweller, Cooper-Jones, was a fantastic performance.

The group’s years of experience together are evident. Their writing and performing are forever growing tighter and sharper and as their confidence increases so does their witty, even cheeky, improvisation: a personal favourite of the show I saw was when Osmanoglu decided to substitute a scripted stage slap for a real, and very loud, smack on the face (without warning the recipient). ‘A real reaction is the best kind’, he quipped. I’m not sure Boyd agreed...

The WitTank boys look innocent enough here. Do not be fooled.

The Wild Party DULOG Edinburgh Fringe ««««« Lyndsey Fineran

FLICKR ID: BETH M

DULOG hit the streets of Edinburgh to pose, look pretty and promote their show all in one.

W;t ‘First Person’Theatre Company Edinburgh Fringe

S

et in the apartment of jaded vaudeville couple Queenie and Burrs, DULOG’s production of La Chiusa’s The Wild Party proved a night to remember. Pulling you straight down into the underbelly of New York bohemia for a whirlwind hour of debauchery, decadence and a good helping of sin, it was the party to end all parties.

And what a party it turned out to be.

Queenie’s bathtub gin-fuelled revel quickly attracts the whole range of New York’s misfits, run-downs and sell-outs, all clinging on to the fringes of the theatrical world and brings them together to explosive effect.

Moving quickly from a boozy gathering to full blown orgy and, finally, to tragedy, Wild Party saw a DULOG cast move into much darker areas than in previous productions and it was all deftly handled.

The standout performances within the crowded den of depravity were Adele Pope as Kate, Queenie’s best friend and social rival, who gave show stealing vocals throughout and Oliver Stephenson as the psychotic and violent Burrs whose maniacal presence kept the play’s tragic end never far from the spectator’s mind (and gave one the best leading male performances I seen in a long time in a Durham production.)

In The Wild Party, where the pace is fast and the show time passes in a flurry of frenetic energy and a battle of out of control passions, the way in which its chaos is handled is integral. After all, in a show a little over an hour long we are introduced to a cast of 15 party goers, each of whom could easily fill a show with just their own back story. So it truly is testament to the level of talent in the cast that each gave a performance so idiosyncratic and well defined that each partygoer on the crowded stage seemed masterfully realised, however brief their moment in the spotlight. Had it been a different production, a number of the performances would have been show stealers.

“. . . hugely talented casts and tight direction” Finally, I must say that the smaller scale DULOG productions of late have been, for me, some of their best. Both Wild Party and summer term’s A Chorus Line, while being smaller scale productions, have with their hugely talented casts and tight direction created two fantastic and accomplished shows. For me, the best Durham show of the Fringe.

;t is a rare play, one which is equally as much for the mind as it is for the heart and, in combining hefty dialogue with stark emotion, it can make for a gruelling theatre experience. Presenting the last weeks of university professor Vivian Bearing’s life as she embarks upon a rigorous programme of treatment for advanced ovarian cancer, W;t is a play that is at once uncomfortable, thoroughly thought provoking and, when done well, cathartic.

Rebecca Mackinnon as ambitious Professor Bearing was simply excellent.

Charting the transition from staunchly self-sufficient and hard-hitting academic to vulnerable figure alone in a brutal cancer battle, Mackinnon struck the balance spot on and handled the dense script with ease.

As her condition worsened, her decline made for uncomfortable and powerful viewing and she must be commended for giving such a direct and unflinching portrayal of such a delicate topic.

Moreover I enjoyed Steffan Griffiths as the driven Dr. Posner and the difficult reversed teacher-pupil dynamic was well handled between him and Mackinnon.

A welcome antidote to Posner’s ruthless ambition and Bearing’s assuredness came in the form of Elizabeth O’Connor’s excellent performance as compassionate Nurse Susie – the real heart of the play among the battles of professional ambitions. The relationship built between herself and Professor Bearing was wonderfully emotive and desperately poignant; I simply couldn’t

fault her and I always looked forward to her scenes.

Going back to my earlier mention of catharsis, here lay my main (and only) critique. For the body of the play accomplished performances and an unflinchingly direct style made for an emotional watch.

One only had to look around the audience to see at least half in or close to tears. Yet as the production sped towards its final moments, I couldn’t help but feel things became a little sloppy.

“Uncomfortable, thoroughly thought provoking and, when done well, cathartic.”

While Elizabeth Clayden as the worldwise Professor Ashford was commendable in her earlier scenes as mentor to the young Vivian, I didn’t find her portrayal in the final poignant moments as Vivian’s only visitor fully committed and the emotional impact of Vivian’s death was weakened as a result. Likewise, the climactic final battle between Nurse Susie and Dr. Posner over whether to resuscitate Professor Bearing had the potential to be a very hard hitting scene and could have been seriously improved, had its direction been just a little tighter.

So for all the play’s work in charging up so much emotion, sadly the important final release just wasn’t there, and this was frustrating. Overall, W;t was a very good play, just disappointing in the sense that it had the capacity to be excellent.

What’s On? Friday 8th October - Saturday 9th October Hamlet - Royal Shakespeare Company - Newcastle Theatre Royal Shakespeare’s most famous play comes to visit the North East in what is sure to be a heartstopping performance. To see or not to see? That is the question. £5 - 11:00 start Friday, 10:30 start Saturday Tuesday 12th October - Saturday 16th October Antony and Cleopatra - Royal Shakespeare Company - Newcastle Theatre Royal Walk down to Newcastle like an Egyptian to see Shakespeare’s tale of love, lust and broken trust. £5 - 7:30pm start Friday 15th October Funny Bones Comedy Club - Gala Theatre Grab a group of friends and check out the various local comics on tour. £8.50, over 16’s only.

Film & TV

Visual Arts

Stage

Music

Books Music Arts

Music Where is the music scene?

indigo’s Music Editor leads you through the hyways and byways of all things musical in Durham FLICKR ID: MUSICISENTROPY

tastic classical concerts, but otherwise how can a city filled with so many sparky and creative young minds be so culturally and musically indiverse? I hear you ask. Well the short version is, it isn’t. The long version... If you would, for just a moment, peer past your freshers’ handbook regime, toss aside the sweaty innards of Studio, brush past the surreal haze of Klute, you will find a hive of wonderful activity (albeit a small hive, but with very dedicated bees).

Gigs in Durham aren’t necessarily of massive proportions. Not everyone who plays has had something produced by Timbaland or duetted with Katy Perry, but it’s safely nestled in the city with the help of a handful of student musos and it’s here to stay. Fishtank being the main host, with its modestly intimate size and dive-bar atmosphere with retro Blondie and Frank Zappa décor. It’s the sort of place where you could Last year’s Evolution festival crowd at the Baltic Quay stage. Who needs Glastonbury?!! wander in one night with a friend, grab a pint, make yourself comfortable at a pew Olivia Swash (literally- I told you it’s good décor), watch n embarking upon your years in physically cover the amount of the gigs in an up-and-coming synth/ukulele act, and Durham, you may or may not their city, whereas finish the night having become aware of the dwindling on the contrary “Diversity can be found made at least one new reputation of an obvious music scene here. we cheekily have friend. Quite a bit to The city’s odd dubstep night (if you’re to dip into our say about a little bar if you look beyond the lucky) being the most avant-garde and neighbouring city above a chip shop! Oh diverse it seems to get. This aids in making of Newcastle’s and contrary to popular Freshers handbook... ” it almost laughable that it expected to be music scene from myth- it does not smell in with a chance of winning the grand title time-to-time. of fish and chips. of ‘City of Culture 2010’ earlier in the year. The University Fishtank plays Other university student newspapers can’t Orchestral Society of course provides fanhost to nights lasting till the wee hours,

O

showcasing a diverse array of live bands well as a massive pool table, THE best beer as well as regular nights such as electro/ garden in Durham without fail, one of the indie Grammar on Tuesdays, reggae and most well-stocked jukeboxes and best real breakbeats DJ sets, Absence (the best DJ ale selections I’ve seen in a long time. This collective in Durham- trust me) nights, is the most underrated place in Durham. as well as A Deer For If you fancy popping “Durham’s music scene outside Your Lamb sessions of the bubble with their one-off for a change of scene stunners. Starting this is modest and needs to and something more term every Thursday specific, Newcastle is a are the new Fishtank be sought out, but still mere 15 minute train Acoustic Sessions, ride away. With its with a ‘bring an instru- has a lot to offer” variety of gigs spanning ment’ vibe, following from the English Philin the massive success harmonic Orchestra of Strum last year, (16th October at City which we’re chuffed to hear is carrying on Hall) to Tinie Tempah (14th at O2 Acadbigger and better this year every Tuesday emy) to Robert Plant (20th at The Sage), evening at underground restaurant/bar our north-eastern big sister has an unbeataCellar Door. Both of these bars are a breath ble music scene. The intimately cosy Other of fresh air after the body-popping sweaty Rooms hosts less obvious and discreetly blur of Durham clubs (which, as we all advertised gigs, contrary to its neighbour know by now, can be very fun indeed. But Digital, which showcases massive nights when you can predict the next song on the such as Wax:On and sets by Annie Mac playlist, maybe it’s time to try something (presenting Benga on 6th October) and different!). one-off performances (Professor Green Head of Steam, just off North Road, is on 13th October). Newcastle nights are a toddling in the footsteps of its big sister in must for your time in Durham, so why not Newcastle for its gig venue reputation as add a couple of gigs to your to-do list while well as amazing choice of Belgian beers. If exams are still a mere far-off haze? alternative/metal is more your thing, nip Durham’s music scene is modest and to The Angel behind North Road. It hosts needs to be sought out, but once you find alternative bands regularly, but it’s worth it you’ll wonder why you’d never tried it going in any time for the friendly tradibefore. Although it may be a while before it tional pub atmosphere with a punk twist as reaches Newcastle status, it’s home!

Glastonbury: unpacking another summer of music, mud and Muse tUnE-yArDs, the brainchild of the clearly unhinged but super-talented Merrill Garbus, opened my Glastonbury 2010 (Rolf Harris doing ‘Stairway To Heaven’ doesn’t count). In contrast to the lo-fi sound of the album, recorded solely by Garbus using a humble sound recorder, her set came with a full band, including 3 drummers forcing the tribal energy of the songs to break through. Driven by an afro-beat rhythm that builds and builds on top of Garbus’ distinctive chanting and yodelling, tUnEyArDs is a sound that’s both brilliantly smart and stupidly brilliant.

Rivaling Liam Gallagher in terms of misplaced arrogance, the totally repugnant yet totally irresistible Snoop Dogg finally arrived in Somerset to put the G in Glastonbury. Indulging the secret faux-gangstas in the crowd and demanding to speak to the ‘ladies’ in the audience between every song, Snoop was a formidable entertainer. Snoop has played a part in some of the best hip-hop of the past two decades with songs like ‘Still D.R.E’ and ‘The Next Episode’, but he’s also responsible for some absolute pap. So it was that commercial powerhouses like ‘I Wanna Fuck You’, ‘Sensual Seduction’ and ‘Beautiful’ gave the set a real patchiness that

What’s On? 12th – Yuck @ Head of Steam, Newcastle 13th – Darwin Deez @ Other Rooms, Newcastle 13th – Everything Everything + Mammal Club @ The Cluny 14th - Sub Focus + Caspa @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 14th – Tinie Tempah + Chiddy Bang @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 16th – Plan B @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 18th - Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. @ Northumbria University 20th – Carl Barat @ Other Rooms, Newcastle 22nd – Count and Sinden @ Digital, Newcastle

not even Snoop’s mind-blowing self-belief could cover up.

Thom Yorke mixed the jerky electronics of his solo material with some Radiohead classics, alongside guitarist Jonny Greenwood, in the special guest slot at the Park Stage on Friday night. ‘Pyramid Song’, ‘Idioteque’ and ‘Karma Police’, the latter inducing a much-wanted singalong, followed the more recent ‘Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi’ from ‘In Rainbows’. But played without drums the song is like eating cereal without any milk (although complaining about a secret gig from Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood must be just as annoying as the people who said Glastonbury was ‘too hot’ this year). ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’, as frequently played at a Radiohead gig these days as a convincing performance

by England at a World Cup, closed the set with an intensity that left you needing a sit down afterwards. I’m glad I don’t live in Thom Yorke’s head.

Although their music is better suited to weather the polar opposite to the glorious sunshine that they found themselves in on the Other Stage, Saturday afternoon, The National’s live performance gave credence to the band’s almost overbearing critical adoration. A bottle of wine, two reverse crowd-invasions and 13 atmospheric and impassioned songs later, The National left the stage after giving one of the best festival performances I’ve ever seen. The XX’s live show was disappointing, with the band dwarfed by the John Peel Stage’s vastness

FLICKR ID: MRMANC

Nico Franks

British summer festival weather: not for the faint-hearted or those lacking a decent pair of wellington boots

and the linear and bass-driven songs, perfect for headphones under the duvet, collapsing in such a sterile atmosphere.

The band were probably better suited to the open-air yet intimate Park Stage they played on the night before, but I had to miss that in order to fulfill my duties guarding a deserted pedestrian gate through the night.

So far over the wrong side of ridiculous

they don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘restraint’ anymore, Muse gave a predictably OTT performance headlining the Pyramid Stage on Saturday night. Stevie Wonder closed the festival and admittedly a bit of a stranger to the majority of Stevie’s work, I couldn’t help but immerse myself in the obvious fondness directed to the man from the thousands of people in the field, later cursing myself for basing my

Film & TV

Arts Books

Visual Arts

Stage

Music

Books Go to palatinate.org.uk

Books

Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

indigo looks at one of the most famous autobiographies ever written and finds it as compelling as ever FLICKR ID: SRIPPON

Tessa Dagley

T

wenty years ago, the most feared and, simultaneously, most eagerly anticipated man in South Africa walked free.

It was a sudden acceleration of events for someone who, for twenty-seven years, had perfected the art of patient resilience in the shadows of captivity. On 2 February 1990, President de Klerk, the leader of the Nationalist Party, announced his planned release, and on 11 February, in the frenzied glare of the international press, the tall, dignified Nelson Mandela greeted the Cape Town crowd, defiantly raising his fist in the face of Apartheid.

His memoirs, Long Walk to Freedom, were first published in 1994, the year that he became the first black president of South Africa. Although not a light tome, consisting of two volumes, I found myself engrossed in his eloquent and uncomplicated prose. It tells a remarkable life’s story.

The early chapters recall his tribal childhood as son of Chief Henry Mandela of the Madiba clan of the Tembu people.

From describing his ritualistic circumcision to the discomfort of his first pair of shoes, his writing occasionally conveys certain patriarchal arrogance, whilst at other times, reflecting genuine humility. By no means was he perfect. He recollects his naïve presumption that a university degree and royal connections would ensure him respect. And he remembers his already-rebellious nature as a youth.

Horrified at the idea of being matchmade to a girl chosen by the Chief Jongintaba, his guardian, he impetuously ran away with the chief’s other son, and lied his way into a job at a Johannesburg gold mine.

sive ‘black pimpernel’. There is a poignant moment in the memoirs, when he explains his decision to embark upon a clandestine life away from his family, noting that ‘the children of a freedom fighter…learn not to ask their father too many questions’. In fact, this is just one of many times, in which Mandela openly conveys his sadness, if not quite regret. His tone is honest, and thus we see Mandela, the man – the husband and the father. Furthermore, it accentuates the extent of his sacrifice for justice. His words are not easily forgotten, and often leave the reader with a lingering pensiveness.

In October 1963, he was tried again for conspiracy in the infamous Rivonia Trial, and on 12 June 1964, was sentenced to life imprisonment, narrowly avoiding the expected death penalty. And so began eighteen years of isolated captivity on Robben Island. The chapters recounting life here are arguably the most compelling – so much so that it is difficult to grasp the sheer length of time that passed within a few chapters. Clearly, the page-turning pace of the second volume does not mirror the monotonous years of confinement.

On the contrary, his anecdotes result in a varied and, although it seems flippant to use such an adjective, entertaining read.

Certainly, the reader is left in no doubt of the harshness of the island, and of the exhausting toil of the prisoners. But one is not left to dwell upon the hardships.

Instead, there are gripping Great-Escapeesque memories, such as when his fellow political prisoners planted the warders’ old, discarded matchboxes, within which they placed coded messages, in strategic places, and when he had to bury, and then hurriedly dig up, manuscripts for these memoirs.

One is left to admire Mandela’s unrelenting optimism, his phrase, ‘your

“Sixteen years on, it hasn’t lost its relevance...”

Mandela’s status as a global saint means he ‘s one of the most recognizable faces in the world

As a nascent freedom-fighter, he knew more what he was against than what he was for.

Such honest admission is typical of the book.

In 1944, he joined the ANC, a black-liberation group and became leader of its Youth League. With his colleague, Oliver Tambo, he then set up South Africa’s first black law practice in 1952, and, the same year, instigated a

“Although not a light tome, I was engrossed in his uncomplicated prose”

campaign against the restrictive pass laws.

This was merely the start of his political activism that would come to dominate his adulthood: most notably, in 1955, he was instrumental in the drafting of the revolutionary Freedom Charter, advocating non-racial social democracy.

Nevertheless, he unsurprisingly became a threat to the authorities, and was soon banned, his travel, speech and associations being severely curbed. Following the massacre of black South Africans at Sharpeville and the banning of the ANC, Mandela realised the inefficacy of his previously non-violent stance and called for active sabotage. He became an outlaw, the eva-

Macabre, Frankenstein, Dracula...Twilight FLICKR ID: BEN TEMPLE-

Sarah Parkin

It’s 1818, and since Facebook hasn’t arrived yet, you’re bored. You’ve just picked up a strange new book, published anonymously to very mixed reviews, with an unfamiliar foreign-looking title. Apparently it’s about a scientist who builds a human being- a plot so ridiculous it has been dismissed out of hand by several well-known critics. Curious, you turn the page and start to read.

You’ve just discovered Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley’s classic novel has become a benchmark for horror and science fiction over the years. It boasts a plot which, ridiculous as it seemed to much of the contemporary literary elite, has never lost its power. Chilling and grotesque, it plays with the boundary between life and death in a way which, if anything, is more relevant today in an age of scientific advancement which Shelley could never have imagined.

In fact, it carries the kind of reputation only

spirit can be full even when your stomach is empty’ being exemplary. Even when forced to collect seaweed along the coastline, he embraced the beauty of the island and laughed at a report of Princess Anne’s wedding: the royal lunch included mussels and crayfish, gastronomic cuisine on which the prisoners, at this point in time, were dining on daily. Correspondingly, his fellow prisoners marvelled at the fitness and discipline of the ‘old man’, as he executed one hundred finger-tip push-ups in his cell, four days a week.

And, of course, he continued to fight for justice and equality, from small details, such as challenging his warders for the right for him, and his comrades, to wear long trousers to the continued communication between ANC members both within and without the island’s boundaries.

When the time came for his transfer to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland, he expressed ambivalence over his departure. A move away from such a long-endured place was disorientating. However, it was also indicative of the impending change. Talks were to begin. The Nationalist government was becoming increasingly isolated, and on accession to office, de Klerk saw the necessity of Mandela’s release. Yet, even within this more flexible environment, Mandela maintained his intransigent principles, rejecting various offers of release. He was not a free man, and only free men could enter such negotiations.

Robert Frost, the American poet, famously noted that ‘Freedom lies in being bold’. Well, Mandela was (and probably still is) irrefutably bold. Long Walk to Freedom is a frank and inspiring story of defiance, reflection, dynamism and audacity. Sixteen years on from its publication, it has not lost its relevance.

The recent flurry of gothic fiction takes us back to those old masters of the genre

matched by an obscure Irishman eighty years later.

Few have not heard of Dracula. Bram Stoker’s masterpiece is a monolith of the horror genre, though in some ways it’s

fairly conventional: the Count is almost a pantomime villain, the plot is relatively predictable, and none of the characters are much developed. Whilst lacking some of the humanity of Frankenstein, its clever

epistolary form, piecing the plot together through letters and diary entries, and macabre sense of adventure as the heroes chase Dracula across Europe elevate it to the pantheon of horror fiction. These inventive and elegantly styled masterpieces, hold far more appeal than the Twilight series whose most macabre aspect is the coarse, crass, lowest common denominator prose in which they are penned.

The strange thing is that the originals are slowly being relegated to school syllabi and bad film adaptations. Obviously, over time new novels emerge - vampires have an entire subgenre of their own, and that happened long before Twilight took over the world.

But there are some which are worth revisiting and rediscovering for every generation. Despite being copied and reworked countless times, Dracula and Frankenstein still hold an attraction of their own, and we neglect them at our peril.

Freedom of Speech The tongue peeled from the roof of its mouth, Hot and strong as red brick in the sun.

Unbind me, it said, and sent the mind’s eye a snake Blistering, bursting its skin.

The lips’ membrane parted, A thought slunk in.

The tongue wriggled its veins.

Little ships of blood strung up their sails.

Taste-buds sniffed at the decks, Then tugged on their anchorchains.

It’s time to wage war, tongue said, And slipped its cage.

Lydia Knoop

Games

Photography

Leisure Crossword Challenge

Sudoku

Wordsquare

Crossword Clues

Down

Across

1. Associate (6) 4. Chew noisily (5) 8. Fork spike (5) 9. Argue noisily (7) 10. Disperse (7)

11. Without charge (4) 12. Pat lightly (3) 14. Border (4) 15. Uncommon (4) 18. Mythological bird (3)

Stage Arts

1. Meal (6) 2. Wild cat (7) 3. In company (8) 4. Steep rugged rock (4) 21. Falls away, declines (4) 5. Extreme annoy23. Beneficiary (7) ance (5) 25. Came out (7) 6. Like better (6) 26. S. American dance (5) 7. Sharp weapon (5) 27. Shy (5) 13. English resort 28. Spiritual beings (6) (8)

16. Servants (7) 17. Refuse to accept (6) 19. Scottish river (5) 20. Evil spirits (6) 22. Fish (5) 24. Old (4)

Combining the central letter and at least three other letters, find as many words as you can!

10 Words - Failblog 20 Words - Fair Play 30 Words - Fantastic

Theme: Wide Wide World Deputy Photography Editor Rob Burgess

Next Theme: Dark was the Night Deadline: Sunday 17th October. Entries to photography@palatinate.org.uk

Left:

Bottom:

Camera: Canon EOS 400D

Camera: Canon EOS 400D

Lens: Canon 18-55mm

Lens: Canon 18-55mm

Exposure: 1/400 sec @ f/8 (ISO 800)

Exposure: 1/640 sec @ f/8 (ISO 400)

During the snow last winter, I took this

This photo was taken in Cape Verde in

shot of an empty field except for one man

the north of the Isle of Sal.

and his dog.

You can see the huge sparse land

I really like the feeling of stillness the large

spreading out in front, with the capital

expanse of white provides, and the black

in the distance contrasted with the vol-

and white helps accentuate this feeling.

cano that created the island.