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Thursday 5th November 2015
INDIGO
Durham is a city of incongruities. It is somehow comfortingly familiar but also terrifyingly distant in its magnificence. 3 S TAG E I N D I G O E D I TO R S The Cathedral, silhouetted against the November fog, looms Some insights into violence and its role Patrick Brennan over us protectively as we tread on the soft, undulating cobin theatre Sraddha Venkataraman bled roads, its architecture embodying the pinnacle of human 4 & 5 V I S UAL ARTS achievement. This integrity sometimes assumes a different B O O K S E D I TO R S Helen Marriage sheds light on the shape though, one that is more disconcerting. Occasionally Hannah Griffiths inspiration behind Lumiere it is almost unnerving- this larger-than-life structure towerEllie Scorah ing over us, intriguingly infallible and unimpeachable. The 6 BOOKS ridged, rippling cobbles are forgotten, the essays are set aside, C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G E D I TO R The past and future of gender in and we look up at this exceptional edifice, perplexed and asCeleste Yeo literature tounded. 7 MUSIC FA S H I O N E D I TO R It is this proclivity towards an awkward suspension in paraIn conversation with Gengahr Sally Hargrave dox that becomes the most defining characteristic of our ex8 & 9 F E AT URES perience in Durham. Klute and the Cathedral, for instance, F E AT U R E S E D I TO R S Indigo charts out the relationship beEllen Finch are both magnetic, and for many of us they are icons of our Cristina Cusenza (deputy) tween the refugee crisis in Greece and it’s engagement with this city in very individual and dissimilar impact on tourism ways. Complicating this is the fact that we’re often forced to F I L M & T V E D I TO R S decide between one of the other- lying in uncertainty is indeed Rory McInnes-Gibbons 1 0 F I L M & TV a Romantic aspiration that we cannot hope to achieve- and Hugo Camps-Harris (deputy) Indigo speculates about ‘Spectre’, the often in choosing one we forget the other exists. Durham, benext in the James Bond series ing so defined by its contradictions, is a place of extremes- we F O O D & D R I N K E D I TO R S often forget that several things are masked by the mist and Adrian Chew are rendered incapable of judging nuance. There needs to 1 1 FOOD & DRINK Charlotte Payne be something that cuts through this fog, illuminating the fact We look into the hype surrounding the that everything lies in shades of grey. ubiquitous Pumpkin Spice Latte M U S I C E D I TO R S Jacqueline Duan 1 2 & 1 3 C R EATIVE WRITING In this edition, Indigo attempts to do just that. Lumiere lights Will Throp Ruminating on ‘relationships’ up our streets (p.4), as it provides a mirror to reflect light off the extremes of Durham and onto the streets. The streets S TAG E E D I TO R 1 4 FA S H I O N themselves shed light on the diversity in our unity, as Fashion Isabelle Culkin We take to the streets to find that coats (p. 14) finds out. However, in spite of our diversity, we seem are winning winter 2015 to be united against the insipid taste of Pumpkin Spice Lattes T R AV E L E D I TO R S (p. 11). Features (p. 8) looks beyond Durham to discover that Megan Thorpe 1 5 T R AV E L though tourists and refugees stop at Greece for very differLaura Glenister A review of Oktoberfest in Munich ent reasons, their seemingly incongruous relationship may be only a misinformed mistake the mist leads us to believe. V I S UA L A RT S E D I TO R P H OTOGRAPHY / ILLUSTRATION
There is more to Durham than the icons we Angana Narula construct, just as there is more to our stuJanet Echelman dent population than the stereotypes Mariam Hayat we are given to believe. We are forEleanor Ryall ever vacillating between the exEmma Wall tremes of the Cathedral and Klute, Olivia Howcroft unable to look at the middle, often Faye Chua because mist leads us astray. Sometimes, Maira Bakenova however, it is in the middle that there is the least Alexander Gottlieb amount of mist and the firmest acknowledgement of percipience. If we gave it a chance, we might find that the middle is where there is the greatest chance of Thank you to our fantastic Illustrations Editor encompassing all these opposites. After all, the CatheMariam Hayat for designing the fornt page of dral looks best from the river side - snaking through the this issue middle of Durham - for the trees that frame it reassures us that even this mighty symbol of the sincerity of human For your fix of everything arts and cultural, effort needs its organic, natural frame to bring out its own please visit: splendour. Besides, the river isn’t too far from Klute. www.palatinate.org.uk
www.facebook.com/palindigo @palatindigo
Hope you enjoy this edition and good luck for November! Sraddha
Jane Simpkiss
WRITERS Felix Hawlin Jane Simpkiss Helen Spalding Ingrid Schreiber Jacqui Duan Kate Dean Cristina Cusenza Rory McInnes-Gibbons Charlotte Payne Emma Wall Maira Bakenova Raisa Bashar Aung Zin Phyo Thein Emily Lara María Sally Hargrave Harvey Burgess
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Thursday 5th November 2015
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STA G E
Violence in theatre:
not a modern phenomenon Felix Hawlin discusses why violence may still be shocking but is not unique to modern drama, following Bailey Theatre Company’s controversial production of ‘Blasted’
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hen it first was staged in 1995, Sarah Kane’s Blasted was met with critical incomprehension. From the predictable Daily Mail (Headline: ‘A Disgusting Feast of Filth’), to The Independent (like ‘having your whole head held down in a bucket of offal’), it was hard to find any mainstream outlet that saw beyond the play’s shockingly graphic violence. Most reviews consisted of not much more than a list of the various horrendous acts committed onstage. Even now, they are worth repeating for the uninitiated. Featuring two rapes, a man having his eyeballs sucked out and eaten, and the cannibalising of a baby, the play has certainly not lost its shock value. The reason to bring all this up is that, twenty years after it was first staged, Blasted has been put on by Bailey Theatre Company. Even after all this time, the way in which most audiences react seems unchanged. Many comment solely on the violent content, as if this was all the play had to offer. Yet since it was originally performed critical appreciation of Blasted has moved far beyond simple shock at its violence. Set initially in an ordinary Leeds hotel room, which is quite literally blasted apart as it is revealed that the play exists within a war zone, the acts of horror within it bring the cruelty of conflict directly to an ordinary British landscape. The contents of the play are no more than a reflection of reality, at the time a comment on the evil in the Bosnian war. In 2015 the play’s representations are more relevant than ever. With the campaign of rape, torture, and starvation currently taking place in Syria and Iraq, it would seem we cannot afford to emotionally distance ourselves from the realities of the world we inhabit. Depictions of violence are seemingly essential, as Kane herself puts it, “If you are saying you can’t represent something, you are saying you can’t talk about it, you are denying its existence.” However, there remains the ever present danger that violence in scripts will be used simply as another tactic to entertain. This is the trap which the production might arguably have fallen into. In this case it becomes nothing more than a horror show; with the text itself so flawed, the shock is used simply as a crutch to prove the controversial standing of the production. Andrew Shires for Durham Student Theatre’s First Night described how the audience became “desensitised” to the events onstage, with many elements less shocking but instead “coming across as ludicrous”. Kane
Greg Plummer as The Soldier and Henry Fell as Ian in Bailey Theatre Company’s recent production of Blasted. The production received very mixed reviews about its controversial content.
was aware of this potential hazard. In the first German production she condemned that “it completely glamorised the violence. The director thought it was a stage version of Tarantino. It’s not”. Although Kane clearly wished to transcend this style, it would seem to most people that her script never even begins to convey such noble intentions.
It is clearly not the physical content of theatre which has changed, rather the reaction which audiences have to it Audiences have never found it too difficult to accept the idea of non-gratuitous violence. As modern plays, works like Blasted have to try harder than others to justify themselves. But to look back, even in Shakespeare there are equally shocking events. In Titus Andronicus Lavinia is raped before having her tongue and hands cut off, while Tamora is tricked into eating her two sons who have been baked into a pie. In King Lear a man has his eyes plucked out, while the body count of Hamlet or Macbeth goes beyond anything near what is seen in Blasted.
Even the racist and misogynist spouting of Kane’s characters is arguably met by those in The Merchant of Venice or The Taming of the Shrew. Yet when these plays receive attention it is hardly ever for their violence, but for their beauty; they are not ‘filth’, so why is Blasted? It is clearly not the physical content of theatre which has changed, rather the reaction which audiences have to it. It is arguably only Kane’s premature death which allowed her plays to be so quickly revaluated and accepted for what they are. But it remains hard to take the savagery of works like Blasted at face value. This failure to take onstage violence seriously is a reflection of how it is experienced in the everyday. Usually encountered in such trivial ways, when confronted with the seriousness of Kane’s violence, the natural instinct is often revulsion. But as Kane points out, ‘we need those moral ordeals’. If we are shocked, we need to be shocked. Particularly as Durham students experience this play, they should be reminded that it is hardly unique, but nevertheless deserves more thoughtful attention than many will give it.
Photograph: Angana Narula
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Thursday 5th November 2015
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V I S UA L A RT S
Let there be light!
Jane Simpkiss interviews Lumiere’s Artistic Director Helen Marriage in the run up to this year’s festival of light
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his month, Durham will play host once more to Lumiere, the UK’s biggest and brightest festival of light. Such has been the success of Lumiere that in 2013 an edition of the festival was held in Londonderry and in 2016 Lumiere will make its debut in the West End of the UK’s capital. I was lucky enough to speak to Helen Marriage, Lumiere’s Artistic Director, about the inspiration behind the festival, the complexities involved in setting it up, and the impact it has upon this fantastic medieval city. I asked Helen Marriage what her inspiration was for starting Lumiere in Durham in 2009. “The intention was to create a festival in the winter, as most outdoor festivals take place in the summer for obvious reasons, but I was interested in working with light and artists whose inspiration came from the power of light. Durham being such a dark city, deliberately dark, seemed to be a great canvas to use for experimenting with what artists could do to transform a physical landscape.” For Marriage, the transforming power of light is what is truly at the heart of the Lumiere festival. She says that as well as being concerned with “the artistic imagination, it’s about the transformation of the public’s experience of a place” and the “extraordinary ability [of light] to transform very familiar urban landscapes into something else mesmerising.” Perhaps this is the reason why Lumiere has proved so successful over the years. In 2013, 175,000 people descended upon Durham to explore the illuminated city and this year Durham can expect even more visitors. It is truly, as Marriage states, an “irresistible spectacle, people really love to see the buildings change and transform and because it’s momentary, it’s just there for four days, every two years, it’s a sort of must see thing.” The last time Lumiere came to Durham, viewers were treated to the resplendent spectacle of a giant illu-
minated Sun, a 3-D trumpeting elephant and hoards of stick men taking over the Durham Miners’ Hall. This year the pieces will similarly be integrated into Durham’s medieval environment, with each installation, in the director’s words, “responding to the history of that particular area or celebrating it in some other way”. Visitors can look forward to installations such as Fool’s Paradise, a projection of images retelling stories from local history onto Durham’s ancient castle, or Fogscape #03238 by Fujiko Nakaya, an ethereal fog that references the famous St Cuthbert’s mist, which will float above the River Wear.
“People really love to see the buildings change and transform, because it’s momentary” It seems very important for Marriage that Lumiere is not just a marvel for the senses, but that it celebrates Durham and the North East. One of the most popular spectacles in previous years has been The Crown of Light, a projection of the Lindisfarne Gospels onto Durham Cathedral itself. Marriage tells me that this is “a way of giving people in the city back their heritage in a very public and visible way”. After three years on show, the Lumiere team are now working on a different project for the Cathedral, which is still centred on Durham and focused on placing Durham not just in a worldwide, but a universal context. I asked Helen Marriage what might be in store for this year’s visitors; “With the academics at the University’s Institute of Computational Cosmology, led by Professor Carlos Frenk, we’re working to make visible their research. They work on creating simulations of the farthest reaches of the universe and audiences will see extraordinary projections created in Durham but of worlds that none of us can actually see or imagine on the front of the Cathedral.” Just like the Lumiere festival as a whole, the Brilliant Scheme (an initiative that allows anyone to submit an idea for an installation) places a spotlight on the North East and the immense amount of talent here. It is something Marriage seems passionate about: ”It really is an opportunity to give people who may be practising artists or may not think of themselves as artists [a chance] to have a great idea and then for us to help them realise it…we can point to numerous
ex
amples of people whose lives have actually been changed for the better, I hope, through taking part in that scheme.” Setting up such a fantastic array of light installations is not without its challenges. As all who live in Durham know, it is not a large city and Helen Marriage knows this more than most. She tells me, “We’re dealing with very large numbers of people in a medieval city that was built to keep people out and we’re inviting them in.” Fundraising, pedestrianising the city and making sure that the festival is as environmentally friendly as possible are all challenges to be overcome by the Lumiere team; she explains “you have to persuade people to do things that might be against their better instinct or cause them some sort of inconvenience or whatever the reason might be. Part of our role is to navigate the waters between the many vested interests around the work that we do in order that we can animate the public domain in a way that’s pleasing to the audience.” Lumiere promises to be a truly unique experience not to be missed. Light will bedazzle viewers as it transforms this ancient city. When I ask Marriage what her personal highlights will be this year, she laughs “It’s all great, it’s like choosing between my children, I never have favourites. I think that people should expect not to see it all in one night, pace yourself and expect very, very big crowds on Friday and Saturday night. I think you should expect the world to descend on Durham in a way that is really remarkable. Artists from as far a field as Japan, the US and all across Europe [will] bring their extraordinary imaginations to a tiny city in the North East of England, it’s going to be very exciting”. Lumiere runs from 12th – 15th November 2015. Illustration by Mariam Hayat
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Thursday 5th November 2015
V I S UA L A RT S
Lumiere’s Brightest Lights
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Jane Simpkiss offers a sneak peek at the installations you don’t want to miss at this year’s Lumiere 1. Mysticète by Top’là Design’s Catherine Garret - A light installation of an enormous 3-D whale appearing from out of the river Wear that explores the relationship between human society and the natural world. 2. 1.26 Durham by Janet Echelman -A vast aerial net constructed from thousands of feet of knotted twine will float about the city. Visitors will be able to change the coloured light projected on the sculpture with an app. 3. Complex Meshes by Miguel Chevalier -Inspired by Op Artists like Bridget Riley, geometric shapes will dart across the ribbed ceiling of Durham Cathedral’s Central Nave. The light will distort and change in accordance with the movement of the people below. 4. The World Machine –the story of the birth of modern cosmology will be projected onto the front of Durham’s iconic cathedral. 5. Fogscape 03238 by Fujiko Nakaya– an ethereal work that uses illuminated fog to recreate the essence of St Cuthbert’s mist over the river Wear. 6. Home Sweet Home by Shared Space and Light – A projection artwork featuring Durham residents including those
from County Durham housing group, Derwentside Homes and the Chester-lestreet area, discovers the moving stories about where we call home. 7. Precious – Storybox, in collaboration with Durham Sixth Form centre, have used Skype to create a projected work that features Durham residents and their most valued possessions. 8. Brilliant – This year’s commissions include Neon Bikes created by Robyn Wright, The Stars Beneath Our Feet by Louise Mackenzie inspired by microorganisms and Rainbow River by Richard Hornby and Alison Lowery, which explores the magical nature of rainbows. 9. Litre of Light by Mick Stephenson – a replica of the rose window in Durham Cathedral made out of illuminated recycled bottles. 10. Fool’s Paradise by Novak – a projection exploring the history, folklore and legends of the local area that uses Durham castle as its Canvas. Photographs: Janet Echelman and TILT
@visualarts_palatinate
Thursday 5th November 2015
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BOOKS
Is the future genderless? Ingrid Schreiber discusses the future of gender in literature
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e, she, it, they. What possible insight can such tiny words afford a story? I remember the moment a few years ago when I realised all of my favourite novels were narrated by women, and I began to wonder what that said about me and my ability to rePhotograph: Little, Brown late to others. Was I drawn to these characters because of some deep, underlying kinship or merely by sheer statistical probability, having encountered them through the kindly recommendations of librarians and family members? Gender is a complex topic and it’s easy to get lost among the dense and often waffly poststructuralist understandings of the gendered self. In literature, the problem extends far beyond which stories you find yourself particularly invested in: you only need take one glance inside a Waterstones or a WHSmith to recognise the concept of gender is central to the politics of the publishing industry. The producer, the medium, the audience: everything is gendered in the consumption of story-telling. Pink covers here, geometric fonts there. Female writers publishing their
fantasy or science-fiction works under donyms or initials. Sometimes it seems self-fulfilling prophecy that little boys want to read about little girls and vice
pseulike a don’t versa.
Marketing theory tells us that gender sells: consumers are drawn to purchases that reassure them of a concrete self-identity. Yet, in a world where gender is becoming an increasingly obsolete facet of individual character, we have an obligation to wonder exactly what it is we are selling with these specifically gendered genres and character traits. In some ways, the divide grows smaller and smaller with every new feisty heroine embarking on her hero’s journey in some dystopian universe. In the majority of cases, however, books that achieve mainstream success still feature traditionally gendered characters: ambitious and resourceful men; and emotional and dependent women. Stephanie Meyer’s recent gender-swapping experiment, Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, did little to challenge the gap between normative feminine and masculine roles; in fact, the media response was overwhelmingly negative and claimed that the relationship between “Beau” and “Edythe” no longer made any cultural sense for readers. Even within adult fiction, protagonists are often specifically and not incidentally gendered: their identity depends largely on the genre they narrate. Fur-
@palatinatebooks
thermore, transgender and intersex perspectives remain dangerously underrepresented. Overall, it seems a misguidedly optimistic approach to expect gender to just fizzle off of our shelves in the coming years. The gender binary remains a convenient and profitable way to organise the market. Theoretically, a world of genderless protagonists would be a stark political statement for the equality of all human beings. In reality, however, it would be a denial of the essential subjectivity of literature. Talking of John Eyres and Olivia Twists seems to forget that the beauty of literature lies in its ability to capture the diversity of human experiences and the contingent circumstances that shape them. So long as the gender binary remains meaningful for real lives, it cannot be erased from the page. Perhaps the best we can hope for is a more inclusive publishing industry and a new generation of writers who embrace the multiplicity of modern gender instead of reproducing the myth of mutually exclusive male and female perspectives.
Feminist literature through the ages
A timeline of key moments from Helen Spalding’s article, ‘A Brief Tour of Feminist Literary History’ See the website for the full article Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, a name you may recognise from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (featuring as a chocolate frog collectible card), wrote a text on the moral and theological superiority of women, Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, as early as 1529.
1500
The 19th century saw more female writers published, though many under male pseudonyms. Austen, the Brontës, Shelley, Sand, Gaskell and George Eliot, explore in their works the restrictions and the limiting social expectations for women and their consequential resentment.
Perhaps the most cited female feminist writer of the 18th century was Mary Wollstonecraft. Her acclaimed text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), laid the foundation for feminist thought, arguing for better education for women and for equality in fundamental rights.
Photographs: Universitatsbibliotek Leipzig, Skara Kommun, The British Library and Thierry Ehrman
Feminism evolved as it gained ground historically, from suffrage to issues of discrimination and social inequality in feminism’s ‘second wave’. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970) are key feminist texts, challenging social ideals that govern women’s behaviour and expectations.
2015
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Thursday 5th November 2015
MUSIC
Getting to know Gengahr
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Jacqui Duan interviews frontman Felix Bushe about the band’s growing popularity. Hi Felix, thank you for speaking to me. So, let’s start with an introduction to the band and how Gengahr became Gengahr. Well, Danny, Hugh and I always played together in school since we were about 13. We were playing in different ensembles, but we always had similar music interests and I think that really worked in our favour. We then met John later because he played guitar for us in a show, managing to learn all of our songs for that set which was amazing. Over the course of the years we sort of drifted in and out of playing together, and I guess we got to a point where we realised that we only had one last real shot at putting ourselves out there as a band so I got writing some songs and we uploaded them online and yeah, that’s how Gengahr really began. Do you remember what some of those early songs you wrote were? ‘Lonely as a Shark’ was one of the first. That’s quite interesting because in your debut album, A Dream Outside, ‘Lonely as a Shark’ features as one of the later tracks. Did you guys focus on those few songs as the mainstay of your album or did you add them in later? Writing the album was actually more of an organic process. The transition between the tracks is quite natural and in the songs themselves we didn’t want too many synth sounds or anything like that. We had the idea that things should change as organically as possible. For instance ,Trampoline was one of the last songs I wrote and one of the last tracks in the album, and I also believe it’s the one that sounds the most different. It was important to us that the album should be cohesive. It is quite an intimate sounding album. We didn’t want to overproduce it. We wanted the songs to speak for themselves. John particularly is very good at helping you realise your audio vision, so that was really important in helping the four of us really come together as a band and for us to find the sound that we liked. I think it’s a very honest album. I think that comes across definitely, and what do you think about the genre of ‘Odd Pop’ that has been associated with the band? I think when you’re putting music out there people will always want to label it and define it. I just see it as alternative pop music. We like to write songs in a fairly traditional structure.
But we don’t do it in a way that’s too conventional, unlike most of the stuff you hear on the radio. We try to offer something different to the mainstream - we just wanted to offer people a sound we liked and hoped they would like it too. And I think you’ve definitely succeeded in that - what do you think then about the inclusion of more synth-y, electronic sounds? Is that something you think you would consider? I mean John is a very new age guy, - he’s very into his tech and he knows what he’s doing with that stuff and how to manipulate sound, but he limits it to the guitar which is an art form in itself. I would say that the core of the band is pretty old-school, but it’s really cool we have that modern edge coming through John and the way in which he considers sound differently and it helps us produce something that’s a bit more special. Do you think then that keeping up traditional performances is important? I personally do believe that seeing the musicians on stage with their instruments performing together is, in its own way, more rewarding than just watching a guy on his laptop. When you’re performing as a band obviously it’s a collaborative effort, and you want to be able to see the guitarist do his own thing, and the singer and so on. I think it’s really rewarding to be able to see the individuals perform together as a whole, and to see each of them to be able to hold their own. I also think it’s important that all the members of a band can be recognised for their own value and that no one is more sig-
nificant than the other. I think that traditional bands do have the ability to present a lot of talent and depth on stage. Yeah, for sure. And what about influences? With songwriting, we’ve always driven to do our own thing. We do listen to a lot of left-field guitar bands, like Air Hunter and UMO records - hip hop and drum and bass sounds. We also listen to more sparse vocals like Kevin Parker productions. We get a lot of inspiration from American bands and from the rest of the world. That’s the one thing we noticed when we were looking for inspiration, that there wasn’t a lot of British bands that we turned to, most of the music we reference are more internationally influenced. Amazing. Well thank you so much for speaking to me Felix, and good luck with your tour! No worries, bye now.
Photograph: Sonic PR
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Thursday 5th November 2015
F EAT U R E S
Culture clash in Kos
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Kate Dean provides an insight into the refugee crisis and its impact on tourism on the Greek island of Kos
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he streets of Kos Town, the capital of the Greek island Kos, are lined with makeshift tents and mattresses while in the clear blue waters life-jackets float across the waves. Like many other Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, Kos has become overwhelmed by a huge influx of refugees mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Such islands have become stepping stones for families and individuals fleeing war-torn countries due to their location close to the Turkish coast. Over 4,000 refugees remain in Kos and every day more desperate and exhausted people arrive. However, rather than being an idyllic escape, many refugees find themselves in a state of limbo as they wait for the processing of vital documents that will allow them to travel to mainland Greece and eventually to countries granting them asylum, such as Germany. The frustrating nature of such screening processes is highlighted by the situation on the third largest island, Lesbos, which has seen an intake of around 25,000 refugees. On arrival on Lesbos, migrants are forced to undertake a 60km mountainous trek in order to reach the town Mytilene, where they can carry out the necessary paperwork. Individuals are forced to under-
take this strenuous journey having just survived the dangerous water-crossing from Turkey, which has been known to leave up to 40 drowned in a single weekend. Strict Greek laws preventing the transportation of unregistered migrants deter local people from helping refugees as they travel across the island. Such examples demonstrate the inability of the Greek government, one already unable to control its own economic situation, to respond effectively to an additional crisis. What is most striking when wandering around Kos and these other destinations is the culture clash between tourists and refugees. While frightened, tired refugees sit beside their tents at the side of the road, holiday makers stroll past uncomfortably, not knowing where to look or how to behave. The culture clash is staggering and it is almost tragic to see tourists stop by the harbour to take selfies while refugees watch. While it is easy to condemn the attempts to carry on the usual tourist trade and encouragement for holiday makers to ignore the crisis, it is also important to consider the importance of the continuation of tourism for the local economy. For Kos, a hugely popular destination
for the British in particular and famous for its wild nightlife, tourism makes up 60% of the local economy and 1.1 million people visit the island each year. For tourists to stop visiting would damage both the locals’ lifestyle and the refugees’ prospects as it would further disrupt an already damaged economy, meaning the necessary bureaucracy would be slowed down even more than the current situation. Moreover, many tourists, shocked by the crisis situation, have been aiding local relief efforts to provide food, clothing and other basic supplies during their stays. If you’re travelling to an Aegean Island or any area affected by the refugee crisis it is important to do your research as to what you can do to help before you go there. There are many online resources you can use; for example there are many discussions concerning Kos on Trip Advisor forums, while information can be found on the Refugee Action website concerning volunteering and fundraising (http://www.refugee-action.org.uk/ support_us/volunteer). The UNHCR (the United Nations Refugee Agency) is also a great resource for those looking for more information and can be found on Facebook and Twitter. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons
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Thursday 5th November 2015
F EAT U R E S
A comprehensive guide to Durham’s welfare system
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Cristina Cusenza compiles an overview of the welfare network available for Durham’s students
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he safety and protection of all students is a priority for Durham University. Its comprehensive welfare system offers a variety of services which aim at supporting students throughout their academic life in Durham.
dents for students that is open every single night of term from 9pm till 7am. What this means is that any Durham student can contact them between these hours for a listening ear, information, or to pick up sexual health supplies.
College Welfare
You can contact Nightline by phone (the number is on the back of your campus card, on DUO and on our key fobs); Instant Messaging (this can be accessed through our website and DUO); or dropping in (our office is behind the Dun Cow pub on Old Elvet). If you speak to one of
All colleges (in both Durham City and Queen’s Campus) assist students with a wide support network in order to provide a safe, supporting study environment that allows them to fully focus on their university experience. This network includes: student support offices; the Equality and Diversity Mission - which promotes equality of opportunity for everyone and wants to eliminate any form of discrimination; Faith support - which provides facilities for all religious communities; and counseling services - college mentors are a valuable source of security and confidentiality for all students. More generally, students can rely on a wide range of sources of advice (student funding, financial problems, academic, personal and employment issues, amongst others). In addition, healthcare is a central focus for college welfare activities; there are healthcare and GP services (the University oversees the registration of all students with the local GP practice), disability support services (which aim at integrating students with disabilities in the student community and facilitate their daily life with college facilities), nursery facilities, and support for care leavers. Disability Support If you experience a disability and would like to discuss how it affects your studies, the resources available and how you access our service please contact Disability Support. They are a specialised service providing information, advice and guidance to prospective and current disabled students, as well as to staff working with disabled students. Find them in the Palatine Centre, and contact them by phone on +44 (0)191 3348115 and 0789 504 2483 (text message only), or by email (disability.support@durham. ac.uk). Nightline Nightline is a listening service run by stu-
if you’d prefer. All of their welfare services are confidential and they will never push you to take action on your issues if you don’t wish to. At their weekly Monday night socials you can pick up safe sex supplies from Molly, which can also be requested via email. The association can additionally provide information on safe sex (including direction to STI/GUM clinics), access to safespace socials, more specific LGBTQ+ organisation details, and news on upcoming events. There are also pages on mental heath, sex and coming out on their new website at http://www.durhamlgbta.org.uk/welfare/. LGBTA welfare was highly rated last year, and continue to offer support and a sense of community to new Durham students who wish to join the association. It Happens Here It Happens Here is a student-led campaign group fighting sexual violence at Durham University. They’re available to do three things: to educate, to support, and to demand action. Education is very often the key to social change. It Happens Here’s campaign aims to show people how prominent sexual violence is on campus, and to help make a stand against it with us. They have a blog, ithappensheredurham.wordpress. com, where writers share their experiences and debate how to go about demanding change.
their volunteers your conversation will be completely confidential and can be about absolutely anything- big or small. All night, All term, All ears. LGBTA Durham’s LGBTA welfare system is available for students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, any sexuality or gender identity, or are uncertain of their sexuality or gender identity. The Welfare Officer Molly can be contacted via email at welfare@durhamlgbta.org.uk anytime if you have concerns or questions that relate to sex, gender or general welfare as an LGBTQ+ individual, or if you just need someone to talk an issues through with. LGBTA also have a weekly drop-in where a welfare-trained member of the association exec will be free to talk face-to-face
Although they can’t provide support online ourselves, they can direct people who have suffered sexual violence to other resources and helpful sites. These include places such as counselling centres, The Meadows, Durham Women’s Refuge, GUM and sexual health clinics, Survivors UK and Rape Crisis. Visit their website or our Facebook page for details on how to contact these resources. Demanding change is the final step to fighting sexual violence, and It Happens Here actively work to alter university policies on sexual violence. They also run training sessions for college reps, and our members undertake training from Nightline and Rape Crisis, as well as internal training. By spreading the word through education and support, we can and will work together to make Durham University a safer place to be. Illustration: Mariam Hayat
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Thursday 5th November 2015
F I L M & TV
Retrospective Spectre Inspection
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Film & TV Editor, Rory McInnes-Gibbons checks out Bond, James Bond’s return in Spectre. After the success of Skyfall, what’s next for Britain’s export of espionage...?
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he name is Craig, Daniel Craig. All the speculation ahead of Spectre’s 26th October release was whether this would be Craig’s last outing as Mr Bond. But then, who next? While the Homeland and Wolf Hall star, Damien Lewis, has recently topped the list of likely contenders, the potential first ginger Bond is being outdone by the prospect of The Wire’s Idris Elba as the first black Bond. Toms Hardy and Hiddleston, Henry Cavill and Michael Fassbender are other contenders, raising the question of why the character even needs to be gender specific. Playing it ‘in-house’ is surely the best option with Dame Judi Dench’s death in Skyfall paving the way for her race to the role.
most underused. Her involvement is over in a flash. Strangely pinned against a mirror by Craig’s Bond in a bizarre moment of sexual vanity that shouts more of selfindulgent cinematography than artistic merit. She seems a little too subordinate and a wasted opportunity that could have been developed. As for Seydoux (Blue Is The
Spectre’s story arc seems to definitively settle the question. Not of who next, but of the efforts made to provide some closure to Craig’s tenure. In the homemade Bond referendum, the man himself has been wavering from a definite ‘no’ (“rather slash my own wrists”) and a possible ‘yes’ under the weight of the financial incentives for staying on. The actor has been the best paid Bond, after taking $10.7mil of Skyfall’s billion dollar gross and is contracted for an estimated £31mil for Spectre and its follow up. So perhaps the best bet for the next Bond is Craig himself. Whatever the case, it is a race that will provide tabloid anathema for the more intellectually burdensome EU referendum. Intellectual burden is not really the ‘essence de Bond’. James prefers fragrance for men: dry liquor, carnal rutting and holster sweat stains on an ivory white tux. The art of Bond is its linear narrative that means you can regenerate the face (apologies Whovians) without actually killing him off in each film (à la Kenny, apologies South Parkers). As a result, tuning into any Bond film, a viewer can immediately draw comfort from the characteristic features of the franchise. Be they martini snobbery, first-class railway carriage destruction or a sexual predilection that lies more at the date-rape end of the seduction spectrum, they are all unmistakably Bond. Almost as Bond as a Bond woman. The femme fatale is split between the early cameo of Monica Bellucci and Parisienne, Léa Seydoux. Bellucci, billed the oldest Bond woman to date, is now perhaps the
ing featured across two decades of Bond. Director Sam Mendes has never feared returning to the Bond archive for some fan pleasing material and Spectre continues where Skyfall left off: a celebration of the franchise as much as a new phase. The issue is that in the attempt to unite the threads of Craig’s previous films, Mendes risks alienating a more casual viewer through the dependence on earlier storylines. For many of the character references we are asked to return to Quantum of Solace, the weakest of Craig’s films, leaving Spectre as a kind of hybrid caught somewhere between Skyfall and Solace. Meanwhile, the obsession with Bond’s family history makes the film at times seem like an episode of Who Do You Think You Are, with guns. Nevertheless, the reboot in Skyfall, featuring the Shakespearean safe hands of Ralph Fiennes (at his serious, rather than Gustavian best), Rory Kinnear and Ben Whishaw maintain the quality of the cast. Add into the mix Andrew Scott, and there is once more a star-studded British ensemble that showcases the prodigious talent that Britain produces and exports. Moriarty vs Voldemort is a showdown worth tuning in for, as Andrew Scott (C) goes face to face with Ralph Fiennes (M), resulting in the worst pun on the ‘c’ word that hearkens back to the bygone days of Pussy Galore.
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Warmest Colour, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) she is cast as the equal of our indefatigable double agent. And, as Madeleine Swann she is easily up to the task. The pair are pitted against Christoph Waltz’s Oberhauser, a gloriously Germanic, stereotypical Bond villain who spends his time in the murky world of surveillance with a serious pastime in human engineering. Mind you, he does still have room in his heart for a white, Persian cat, a duplicate of Blofeld’s cat, whose onscreen purr-
If there was any doubt where the $300-350mil budget was spent, the locations are fantastic. It seems a long time since Die Another Day had to make do with a windy Cadiz to capture the spirit of Havana, recreating global scenes on a european budget. Rome by Aston Martin will surely beat the segways and selfie sticks into second place on the tourist trail.
The only thing missing is a fight scene on the back of the Popemobile as events take a turn for the Tiber. Mexico City and a couple of thousand of extras are the highlight of big budget excess. El Dia de los Muertos, with its ghoulish skeleton suits and spirits of the dead is a real Spectrecle. Daniel Craig is not quite dead yet, as his pectoral parade on the opening credits proves, it just depends on whether he wants one more shot. If not, the favourites are lining up.
Illustration: Mariam Hayat
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Thursday 5th November 2015
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FOOD & DRINK
Taking the #PSL
Taking one for the team, Charlotte Payne explores the following behind the Pumpkin Spice Latte to figure out if the ubiquitous drink lives up to its hype
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offee to me is a means to an end, to provide a handy caffeine boost before my 9am or to last me till 4am the day of an urgent deadline. Simply put, I will quite literally drink anything. However, having seen the cult of the Pumpkin Spice Latte reach new heights in recent years – its official (yes, official with the blue tick) Twitter page, founded on October 10 this year already has over 18,000 followers – I resolved to investigate the fuss surrounding the Pumpkin Spice Latte. My first port-of-call was, naturally, Starbucks. As I walked through the doors of the branch of North Road, I was assailed with pumpkins, everywhere – cups, blackboards, photos, even nametags. It was almost enough to make a PSL-novice like me turn tail and leave the shop, dignity in tact before sacrificing it to the gods of the too-large coffee mugs and decorative loose beans. Almost. And this was how, 10 minutes later, I was confronted with a tepidly brown extraGuatemalan-shot-spiced monstrosity with a lurid orange pumpkin on the side of the cup signalling to all and sundry my beverage of choice. At this point, I’m not going to lie, it was yummy. But it did not explain the hype surrounding this drink. And in spite of my undiscerning coffee habits, I understand now why no regular coffee drinker would actually drink it - the “Pumpkin Spice Mix” masks any hint of coffee. One might as well order a cup of hot chocolate. Surprisingly, the Pumpkin Spice Latte is not a recent release. Launched way back in 2003, in
By Emma Wall
recent years it has risen to dizzying heights of celebrity, driven by its primacy on social media (#PSL) and annual large-scale marketing campaigns, which has not only allowed it to latch itself onto the tastes of millennials, but also lends itself easily to stereotyping and online memes. However, even more surprising is the fact that the PSL may have never been released at all. According to Tim Kern, ex-Starbucks senior manager and product development exec, the PSL narrowly avoided shelving even though “a number of us thought it was a beverage so dominated by a flavour other than coffee that it didn’t put Starbucks’ coffee in the best light.” Well.
Unimpressed, I resolved to delve into its anatomy. In hindsight, it was little wonder that this little 350ml cup contained 330 calories. Actual pumpkin on the other hand, has 26 calories per 100 grams. Aside from matching the caloric value of 1.27kg of pumpkin, 100g of Dairy Milk and a whole Egg McMuffin, it also generously provides 75mg of caffeine, so at least we know it does the job. But what’s this? On its website, Starbucks lists a “Tall” Whole Milk PSL as containing 39gs of sugar – a whopping 130% of the daily sugar intake for those 11 and over recommended by the NHS. Funnily enough, this August, Starbucks proudly announced that the PSL will henceforth be made “with real pumpkin and without caramel colouring”. In previous years, the most natural ingredient in the syrup that was termed “warm fall spices with [the] delicious flavour of pumpkin pie” was annatto, an orange food colouring derived from a tree seed. Its presence seemed rather superfluous to me, given the final drink turned out a murky beige. Having come this far, I have yet to unravel the manic craze for all things PSL, and I will probably never let another one touch my lips again. But hey, at least this “fall” Starbucks fans can drink the PSL with the pride and satisfaction that 12 long years after its conception, it finally contains pumpkin.
A Vegan Venture
As November is World Vegan Month, I decided to give veganism a go for a week. Having had a vegan housemate last year, I was somewhat wary of what I could make of vegan diet, but being quite a keen cook I thought I would be able to cope well. However, the difficulties of cutting out such a substantial proportion of what constituted my normal diet came as quite a shock. Early on, my first troubles arrived in the supermarket. My usual 10 minute shop degenerated into a painstaking process: with me picking up a routine purchase off the shelf only to realise that it had some sort of dairy extract in it. After almost an hour I emerged with a bag filled mostly with vegetables and legumes, at the exchange of what felt like most of my sanity. My first vegan meals were a challenge as it was difficult to keep it interesting; it seemed you needed a good imagination and plenty of time on your hands. Time constraints and hunger soon pushed me to settle on making spicy bean wraps: a flavourless veggie standard recollected from my time living in college. I added as many herbs and
spices as I could find in my cupboards to make them tasty. The result? Sure they were nice, but I couldn’t imagine eating them more than once a fortnight. The next few days were manageable. I settled on salads and pasta, though without dairy, pasta was especially repetitive: consisting mostly of tomatoes outside of the two times where I made dairy-free pesto and dairy-free gnocchi on my afternoon off. However things quickly began to deteriorate. Despite trying to eat as many proteinbased foods as I could: beans, chickpeas, lentils, etc. I wasn’t feeling completely full after meals, and soon ran out of inspiration for interesting meals to cook. Lunch proved particularly confusing: what can you put in a sandwich when neither meat nor cheese nor butter are allowed? At this point, just give me a good slab of cheddar and let me die in peace. And the yoghurt sitting in my fridge was taunting me more by the minute. It’s been a long week, and I have discovered that
Illustration by Eleanor Ryall
veganism is exceptionally hard. There’s no point trying it unless you genuinely believe it makes a difference, and have the willpower to have either repetitive food or spend an awful lot of time trying out new things. But I have gained serious respect for those who can pull it off and eat well. And from now on I will never take yoghurt for granted again.
Photograph: Emma Wall
@palatinatefood #palatinatefood
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Thursday 5th November 2015
C R EAT IV E W R IT I N G
Country, Name OR Name, Country? By Raisa Bashar
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n the first day at Durham University I was sitting alone in a classroom at the Business School when a boy came up to me and asked if the seat beside me was taken. I gladly said no and he sat down. We started talking about the class that was about to start and how we had found Durham till then. Next he asked me which country I was from. I replied without thinking much, “Bangladesh.” He said, “Okay….umm…where is that, somewhere in South America?” I was happy to correct his mistake and we conversed on. However, from the moment he asked me about my country, I could feel my interest dwindling. It wasn’t until the girl sitting on my other side introduced herself that I realized the reason I lost interest in the boy – he hadn’t even bothered to know my name or tell me his. Don’t get me wrong. I love my country and I am proud of being born and brought up there. There is, however, something about my name that can’t be replaced by anything else. My mother had specifically taught me to introduce myself properly with my name when meeting new people. The ‘country issue’ hadn’t come up till then, because this was the first time I travelled abroad to study. More importantly, I identify with my name more than anything else in the world: Raisa Bashar. This is the name that my parents call me by since the day I was born; the name that my teachers and friends use to speak to me; the name registered on my passport and National ID Card. It is my identity.
The next few days went pretty well. I made friends in class and college and I was slowly grasping the lessons. However, I faced similar situations to my first day when people kept asking me about my country before I could give them my name. Firstly, I was getting the feeling that maybe, just maybe, friendships at this new place were forged on the basis of where you were from rather than who you are. Secondly, I felt out of place every time this happened. I thought, “Was I the only one who thought it odd that an ‘internationally rich’ place such as Durham University would have kids who didn’t think it was rude to define people by their countries before even knowing their names?” I was wrong on both accounts, of course. People who didn’t know my name would readily sit with me at dining halls or greet me when I entered classes; some of them even saved seats for me! Later, when I brought up this issue with my new friends, they found it odd too. I felt comforted knowing that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. This is what surprised me. Many people actually got down to asking for your name when they needed your contact number! This might sound funny to you, but reflect for yourself and try to recall those times. I am sure this has happened to you more often
Relationships
than you realize. Maybe you were the one who actually did it. Influenced by this demeanor of others, even I sometimes forgot my welltaught ‘manners of the old’ and asked ‘almost strangers’ where they belonged before exchanging names. The weird thing when I did this was that I did not feel guilty or out-of-place until a few minutes after they left. It then dawned upon me that I hadn’t even gotten their names. Can you remember a time like this? This feeling contrasts with what I feel when I am at the receiving end.
So after discussing this issue with my friends and some close teachers over the course of my year in Durham, this is what I would like to conclude: • Most people ask about your country first without realizing that this isn’t the right way to go about befriending others; however their intention isn’t to hurt or judge you based on where you are born • It is difficult to understand the discomfort that an individual may feel when his or her country is given precedence over his or her name, until you have experienced it yourself Top relationship experts and books on the art of bonding will tell you that it is really important to give the person you are speaking to, in any conversation, the respect that he or she deserves. I think that the etiquette of first asking for a person’s name, then his or her country, race, or religion, is crucial to establishing mutual respect. I am not saying that you simply cannot create friendships if you take the ‘country-first’ approach, but it is only ideal to ask your ‘friends-to-be’ their names first before finding out where they are from. Do you agree?
Illustration by Maira Bakenova
Parallels
By Maira Bakenova We could’ve been perfect, But we weren’t at all You lived to party, While I stayed at home. You’re Nickelodeon, And I am Fox Kids. You talked too much, When I wanted peace. You were forgetful And driving me mad, Yet charming and funny – You weren’t that bad. We’re complete opposites But at a faraway point, On the line at infinity Parallels join.
Illustration by Mariam Hayat
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Thursday 5th November 2015
C R EAT IV E W R IT I N G
Relationships
Yes, Let Us Rage Once More By Aung Zin Phyo Thein Crawling, cold and naked Weak of bone and soul Of blood drained in all but a drop Of heart that questions Why not relent And be like them? Fellow shells Hollow miseries Mere dust that care not the killing wind
His By Emily And now I sit in the dark, thinking how you brought red wine, every time, when I wanted white, every time. How I’d drink it all and not cry, in front of you, every time, because I wanted to press myself into your voice, and not be hurt. You could do it with a single sigh. I didn’t hear from you after that night, when I opened my thighs to a stranger’s lies and prayed that the scars on my wrists were whispering their final good bye. Yet when the sun’s made its last reproach, scorched the earth from the guilt of having to die, I go back to see you when you held my hand and turned your gaze to the stars in the sky. “Look at them shine,”
Desolate, darkened Flutter now in the slightest breeze Once were they bright And free In flight of mind and soul Now trodden into grounds that once they stood Broken backs, hunched over broken dreams It came close The wintry ending To killing the flame we wrought Burning together In brightest, scalding passion Laying all before us To ashen ruin And rejoicing only In our fire Our skins hardened thick And forged in-separate So let us trod Upon a bridge of broken backs Let not your feet delicate Tread on earth unholy Come now, and let us go on And rage a love beyond worldly belief And defy this world once more.
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“Nostalgia for lost love is cowardice disguised as poetry. […] Sighing over a fantasy drains energy from reality. What happens in our heads isn’t private; it is unspoken, that’s all. We all know what it’s like to live in the stifling atmosphere of what is unsaid.” – Jeanette Winterson, ‘The one that got away’ in The Guardian
Illustration by Olivia
Requiem for Requited Love By Lara María Warmth. A continuous, elegant glow – subtle, discreet – that is mixed into your blood and runs through you. This game that we play, it’s a tug of war, and we play it with our arms whilst we tangle our hands together and I stroke your neck and we walk and breathe and live. You have me whole, as one, but I do too, and our reality is morphed into good love. Fear. Overwhelming, shipwrecked insides, and you are holding yourself to keep the body parts together but you are spilling out through every pore. A paradoxical dance with the devil- in every embrace hides the alter ego of This, of Us, the clenching fear of an end. That you can leave whenever you want. But you have me whole, so you would be taking me with you, leaving me empty and used and limp, as nostalgia piles up on me like dust.
Illustration by Faye Chua
I can smell you in my clothes, and you’re starting to speak a little bit like I do. We feel safe, secure. We know each other’s scars on par with our tattoos. Trust is vulnerability, but we have both jumped over the edge; you can’t push me off, we’re drowning in risk, and we’re drowning together. When my body becomes your body and your body is mine, and we’re fighting our wars with carnations. When we cry and know whether they are tears of joy or of anguish from the way they taste, and my words to you are centuries, and we’ve reinvented meanings. When togetherness is pure, the hurricane that is paranoia has no place, and our warmth is bliss.
Illustration by Lara María
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Thursday 5th November 2015
FASHION
Street Style: Winter Warmers
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Sally Hargrave took to the streets of Durham to find the coats that are winning winter 2015
Name: Kate Peck. Your Durham statistics: Cuth’s, 2nd year. Where did you find your leaopard print jacket? It’s from Shrimps. Three words to describe your style? I have two - think pink! Favourite club in Durham? Loveshack, obvs!
Name: Wan Hee Kim. Your Durham statistics: Grey, 4th year. Where did you get your jacket? From a charity shop on North Road. Three words to describe your style? Alluring, distracting, sensitive. Favourite club in Durham? Loft.
Name: Emily Marsden. Your Durham statistics: Hild Bede, 2nd year. Where is your cardigan from? I found it for £10 on eBay! Three words to describe your style? Random, colourful, eBay. Favourite club in Durham? Klute.
Name: Daisy Blaksley. Your Durham statistics: Castle, 2nd year. Where is your coat from? It’s from a vintage shop in Edinburgh. Three words to describe your style? Vintage, bold, bright. Favourite club in Durham? Fishtank. Photographs: Alexander Gottlieb
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Thursday 5th November 2015
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T RAV E L
Oktoberfest
Harvey Burgess reviews the 182nd Bavarian festival
ktoberfest, which takes place every year in Munich and other parts of Germany, is officially the world’s biggest folk festival. Around six million people descend on Bavaria for 16 days of beer, wurst (sausage) and more beer. The event has just finished for the 182nd time and the numbers are simply staggering. Over the course of the whole festival, close to seven million litres of beer have gone, while visitors have consumed around 150,000 wurst and 500,000 roast chickens. However, these statistics do not even begin to explain the mayhem and madness that is Oktoberfest.
Once inside, moody waitresses (many of whom can carry up to 20 litres of beer at once, no exaggeration) tend to your every need as you lap up litre after litre of any of Munich’s six local beers, washed down with saltier-than-salt pretzels, while becoming best friends with the people who happen to be around you.
The festival first took place in 1810 in honour of a royal wedPhotograph: Interior of the Hofbräu-Festzelt tent, Andriy Golovnya via Flickr ding of the Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and his wife Princess Therese, with the main event being a horse race A band plays in every tent across the park, with around the meadow – the guests had such a good endless cheerful German songs soon becoming antime that they decided to do it again the following noyingly stuck in your head as you sing along with year, and then the next and the next. The Bavarians limited knowledge of the actual words, until a fanhave not looked back since. tastic rendition of Robbie Williams’ classic Angels comes on to signal home-time. It is no surprise Drinking beer in excessive quantities is nothing that hoards of drunkards known as Bierleichen new for the vast majority of British students, how(“beer corpses”) pass out on the limited grass that ever, Oktoberthe meadow offers, while even more end up in the fest potentially hands of extremely patient nurses. surpasses any expectations An article about the Wiesn is not complete without you may have mentioning the traditional outfits that locals adorn. – it is simply Lederhosen for the men, Dirndls for the women. unique. From Ironically the former are very comfortable, while the moment the apparently the latter couldn’t be less so (it’s basiLord Mayor of cally a dress with a full skirt, apron and tightened Munich officially opens the festival on the opening chest area). Of course wearing the outfit is not Saturday with the famous Bavarian words “O’zapft compulsory but it really helps to fit in and join in is” (“It’s open”) until the numerous tents, rides, the fun with the locals. stalls and any other classic festival instalments are taken down just over two Oktoberfest is, however, weeks later, the meadow not all about beer – it is known as the “Wiesn” by actually targeted at familocals (and located just outlies as well. There are fairside Munich’s city centre) ground rides, candy floss is a giant-sized beer-fuelled stalls, shooting games and party that runs all day, every almost any other arcade day. game you can think of sprawled across the The keenest of visitors meadow and this is purely arrive well before dawn at the festival. to secure a table in one of the many tents and can be The city of Munich has far known to queue for hours more to offer and is well just for the privilege. You worth a visit at any time of may think this is the year. The Englischer slightly ludicrous Garten (one of the biggest just to get a Maß (litre) of city parks in the world Photograph: David Zimmerer beer, however it is well worth it. and twice the size of Central Park in New York)
“the mayhem and madness that is Oktoberfest”
provides a welcome escape in the heat of the summer, especially as you can take a dip in the river flowing through it. The main square Marienplatz is stunning, and houses the beautiful town hall, while the skyline is awash with spires and domes.
“litre after litre of any of Munich’s six local beers, washed down with saltierthan-salt pretzels.” Needless to say the city is home to one of the world’s best football teams as well, Bayern Munich – tickets to their home matches can be bought for as little as €20. I can think of only a couple of downsides to this enormous festival; it can be exceptionally busy, especially on weekends, so it is best to avoid this time; and prices across the area for accommodation and travel are hiked up 10-fold. It is worth flying to somewhere like Stuttgart or Memmingen and getting a bus from there, while hostels/hotels/campsites are well-worth booking far in advance to ensure you get a spot. Or you could always just sleep on the grass for the night.
“Tourists will just have to accept that there may be a few more faces in their location of choice than they expected”- Jenny Lawrence
Visit Palatinate Online for more fantastic Travel Articles, including Refugees and Tourism: A European Pickle? Illustration: Mariam Hayat Instagram: @palatinatetravel Interested in writing for us? Email travel@palatinate.org.uk
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Durham in the autumn photography competition winner: Andrew Mole
Comic by Mariam Hayat