Indigo 725 for website

indigo 25.01.2011

Jonathan Safran Foer on eating meat, writing stories and how they fit together

I’ve been in Durham a long time now; for four years or so, but one thing that never fails to surprise me is how one of the best universities in the country, with some of the brightest people (let’s not be modest!) can be so...vanilla. You know exactly what I mean, predictable in every way. I’m not even going to bother listing the many Durham stereotypes because that in itself would be stereotypical and you know them all already anyway. It’s predictable, it’s old hat. It’s blah. Don’t get me wrong, I love Durham’s peculiar eccentricities, like a seeming resistance most people have to hypothermia for example, and it’s sleepy charm is undeniable. But occasionally it would probably do everybody a world of good if they left the gillet (should you own one), by the door and go out and

rock for a change. “Durham’s boring though!” people cry. “There’s nothing to do!” Bored of Kludioshack? Have you ever been to Market Vaults, the place hidden behind the Market? Or Fishtank? Have you ever found yourself in Studio on the heavy metal night?

Ok, that for me and my bubblegum pop loving ways was a mistake, but it was a fun mistake. It’s something that, like watching water polo matches or playing drunken Boggle with a bunch of strangers, is something that I never thought I’d do. When was the last time you did something completely different? Something out of your comfort zone? If you can’t remember, then here’s Indigo’s advice for you: don’t be vanilla, be rhubarb. That’s my thought of the week anyway...

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CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS 1 - Make an impression once prepared for college (9) 5 - Moon in the Man making sauce (5) 8 - Treat Democratic Unionist Party toppled by punch (7) 9 - For the record, we hear Noah’s bees live here (7) 11 - E.g. Shrek rampages around posh scoundrel (5) 12 - Build up power and credit and topple Lau (7) 14 - Dubnium contains gold fleck (4) 17 - Trick drunken initiated fly with secrecy (15) 19 - Boot burden (4) 21 - Head of plough for farming in Bible story (7) 23 - Assume female on headless reign (5) 24 - Man with

no energy at foot of bottomless canyon?

Dreadful! (7) 26 - Icelandic river and the Spanish one linked by a Middle-Eastern chap (7) 27 - Say “Oh, no thanks” to proprieter (5) 28 - I’m in chain of word knowledge (9) DOWN 1 - Is said to return Palatinate for softcover (9) 2 - Deep blue crack in unbottled Pinot (6) 3 - Country church on French Island (5) 4 - Food made by cooking little algae (11) 5 - Start accelerating round calamitous bend (3) 6 - Terrible overdose leads to debts (6) 7 - I hand out some-

thing perfect (a special sort of ring?) (5) 10 - Mythical bird leading Russian Orthodox Church (3) 12 - A general concept of muscle friction (11) 13 - To revise in a hurry, inject energy lotion (5) 15 - Hello, James Arnold Beckett! What is that on your head? (5) 16 - Empire bet in zany muddle (9) 18 - Writer curt to Yvonne, oddly (6) 20 - Game created by glutton a long time after (6) 21 - Play this softly?

(5) 22 - Local Education Authority? Not my field! (3) 23 - Introduce farsighted Persian (5) 25 - Deface upturned animal (3)

Reviews

Stage Arts

Seen a film or been to a gig, read a book or heard an album you want to rant or rave about? Have your say... email your short reviews to indigo@palatinate.org.uk

MUSIC Golden Age of Knowhere Funeral Party Loog Records

Palace Chapel Club Loog Records

««««« Briony Chappell

««««« Nico Franks

Mine Is Yours Cold War Kids v2 ««««« Nico Franks

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

indigo

Indigo Editors: Daniel Dyson and Madeleine Cuff | www.palatinate.org.uk

As the doom-rock formula becomes ever more diluted, it’s getting harder and harder for a band to stamp their own unique footprint on a style of indie that, arguably, was perfected by Joy Division back in 1979. Songs on Palace like The Shore swell to nothing much more than waves of expansive guitars and hefty drumming, producing a powerful yet completely indistinctive sound. If you find it difficult to discern between Editors and White Lies, Chapel Club will only add to your confusion.

The modern reworking of the ancient Dream A Little Dream of Me on the meaty Surfacing shows a rare moment of creative prowess while the sheer force of White Knight Position is impressive. Bowman’s downbeat vocals and wry lyrics combine well with the heavyweight production on show to give the album a lot of clout.

Essentially, the best compliment you can pay Chapel Club is that if they are the new White Lies, at least they’re a

If you liked the single New York Moves to the Sound of L.A. there’s no doubt you’ll adore Funeral Party’s debut album Golden Age of Knowhere. They are one of the most charismatic bands to emerge in the last year and their record boasts 11 new tracks of total rock-pop joy. Post-punk guitars, jerky beats and chanted lyrics make it very hard not to tap/clap/nod/boogie along and never has the indie-disco dancefloor been quite so inviting. I’m not going to lie, they just sound cool; they’re the product of those L.A. backyard parties you always wish you could’ve gone to. But while they ooze with potential, they do come with some pretty generic flaws; the songs are all similar to each other and often unmemorable. However, you could just see this as an excuse to push the repeat button.

Cold War Kids’(CWK) charm was once obvious. Their blues-rock tales of alcoholism, thieving from church collections and, most memorably, hanging the washing out, were irresistible to your average indie-rock fan, always a sucker for heavy feedback and even heavier motifs. On Mine Is Yours, however, CWK’s gutsy spirit seems to have deserted them completely.

Only Royal Blue, Sensitive Kid and the uplifting Bulldozer make a go of actually imposing themselves with a memorable riff or melody. Elsewhere the emotional, overblown climaxes that seem to plague almost every song on the album often go awry. The band has lightened up since their deadly serious second album, but now it’s feebly introspective lyrics like ‘I finally open my arms wide / Finally I let you inside’ will depress. And where once Willet’s yelped vocals grated on some because of their coarseness, it’s his warblings à la Alicia Keys here that really begin to jar. A massive shame.

Interview by: Rosanna Boscawen | www.palatinate.org.uk

Stage Arts

The Cover Story

It’s a meaty debate for Jonathan Safran Foer Rosanna Boscawen

His excursion into the world of investigative journalism¸ Eating Animals, was first published in 2009 and is released in paperback in the UK on 27th January this year.

The book, a beautifully woven tapestry of fact and the

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t 33, Jonathan Safran Foer has caused quite a stir in several different circles. His first two novels, Everything is Illumintated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close divided the critics – for some they are pretentious and for others intellectually exciting. His most recent novel, Tree of Codes, is something of a work of art, a story cut from the pages of Bruno Schulz’s Street of Crocodiles to create a new work, though one which is rooted in and grows out of Schulz’s tale.

artistry of storytelling, is a frightening glimpse at the reality of factory farming in America, strung together with a very personal approach that traces his Jewish heritage in Europe through to his young son’s future in America.

“For a long time [the meat industry] is something I have longed to be more sure about”, he explains. “I wanted to expand the conversation about meat; we need more information and better ways of talking about it”.

Safran Foer dabbled in vegetarianism throughout his youth, torn between the ethical issues of eating meat produced under inhumane conditions, and the fact that food and eating are, for people across the world, an essential part of cultural and personal identity.

The table is where old stories are recounted with a laugh or a sigh, and new ones are born. Meat is part of the food on that table, and is responsible for many of those stories, he argues.

It may seem strange that Safran Foer prioritises “Storytelling” (the first and last chapters are so-titled) over issues such as the health benefits of eating meat, but to read the book is to begin to understand its significance in his life, and all our lives.

In spite of the power and value of stories, Safran Foer concludes that, knowing the facts, he can no longer justify eating meat.

In his writing he is forceful, yet when talking about it he admits that “it’s difficult still” to be a vegetarian and stick to it. “People who deny that it is difficult aren’t fully honest”.

Towards the beginning of the book, he claims that it is not “a straightforward case for vegetarianism”, but rather a personal investigation, one that really got underway when he discovered he was to become a father. However, upon reaching the end, it is hard to describe it otherwise, as Safran Foer first argues for his own position, and then pushes for the reader to change his or her habits as well.

When I open the book at a random page I read such facts as “upwards of 95% of chickens become infected with E.Coli” when reared on an American battery farm.

Perhaps this pro-vegetarianism is the logical conclusion, then? Safran Foer, surprisingly, disagrees.

“I actually thought the case would get stronger the more research I did, but small farms undermine the case for complete vegetarianism; their existence confirms the seeming impos-

sibility of it”. Safran Foer displays deep affection and concern in his writing and in conversation for these farms, where the farmers care for their animals as individuals during their life and their slaughter. But they are few and far between.

How much difference is there between the industry in the UK and in the States? In his Preface to the UK edition, Safran Foer says that we “should not find any peace in being British”; in other words, although the book focuses almost exclusively on farming in the States and the laws and attitudes here are markedly better, many of the same practices exist on both sides of the pond. I asked him if he had done much research into factory farming in the UK. “The UK is certainly better than the States. Meat produced on factory farms is in the low nineties [percentagewise]. But the problem is that everywhere in the world is becoming like the States. And”, he asks, “how much better does it have to be” before the meat produced is deemed acceptable?

Different people would undoubtedly have different standards and expectations”.

Safran Foer’s book is, if not enjoyable, compelling. (“Most people don’t really know what to say about it,” he laughs. This can only be a good thing from his point of view, proving he has touched something in his readers.) He has noted that “people are persuaded” by the book; perhaps, then, he might bring consensus among his readership about what it ought to expect in terms of the treatment of meat.

Critics have praised him for his belief in the power of writing to bring about change – but isn’t this a little idealistic, to say the least?

“I think we can be simultaneously idealistic and realistic – we can want things to change but accept that they are not going to happen straight away”.

He later adds that “not everyone [in the world] has the same ability to change”. For some it is a question of means – their own financial means and the means (or lack thereof) of their countryside to produce crops. Indeed, the only other place in which Safran Foer himself would eat meat is, he says, “if I was living in one of those places where it’s hard to grow crops”. (He would also have considered it if he was living fifty years ago or more, before factory farming condiditons became as extreme as they are today).

The old days of farming are now far behind and barely visible, livelihood has been condensed into poetry on the page and on the screen. Safran Foer tells me: “Today, big bosses of farms are always away. The big companies will remove humans whenever possible, and the ratio of farmers to consumers is smaller than ever before”.

As his book demonstrates again and again, farming seems no longer to be about producing enough meat for the masses; instead it is an operation in

generating money for the few, with no regard for the cost.

This is not an innovative book in terms of content, but, being primarily a creative writer, Safran Foer presents the information in a personal and refreshing style.

“It was a strange thing for me to do.

My career as a fiction writer was going pretty well”.

“Do you think it will affect any fiction you write in the future?” I wonder.

“No I don’t think so. Obviously fiction is influenced by the world but it shouldn’t be influenced by a personal goal”.

His latest fictional offering, Tree of Codes, certainly falls in the first category: the text is literally cut from Bruno Schulz’s Street of Crocodiles (‘Tree of Codes’ is ‘Street of Crocodiles’ with a few letters removed). It is a fragile object, a collection of terrifyingly delicate pages: “It took me about a year to make,” he recalls. Despite being turned away by numerous printers, he and his publisher eventually found a Belgian company, Die Kuere, which was willing to take on the project.

There were two main reasons for the book, the author – or artist, I should say in this case – explains: “I’ve been interested in die-cutting [where holes and shapes are cut into the page] for a while. I also liked the idea of a book that had pieces missing”. Not just a pretty face but also a complex aesthetic idea.

Schulz’s novel is Safran Foer’s favourite: “Some writers create lots of readers and some create lots of writers. Schulz is in the latter category. In his writing I always want there to be something else”.

Safran Foer’s suggestion as to what that “something else” might be is, in a seeming paradox, smaller than Schulz’s novel. The 3,000 words are “an experiment”, and not something he expects to become the norm in fiction.

Like all of Safran Foer’s contributions to literature, both fiction and non-fiction, the carefully chosen phrases and floating sentences of Tree of Codes are wonderfully unexpected.

To talk to, Safran Foer is pensive and calm, but on the page he is gripping and provocative. Whatever your personal opinions on vegetarianism and literary and visual aesthetics are, I can guarantee that if ever you pick up a book with Jonathan Safran Foer’s name on, you will find yourself questioning them.

Eating Animals, at £9.99 andpublished by Penguin, is out in paperback on 27th January 2011 Tree of Codes, £25, published by Visual Editions, is currently being reprinted but more copies are expected in shops soon.

Features Editor: Alison Moulds | www.palatinate.org.uk Stage Arts

Features

FLICKR ID: DENN

Going the distance Erin Garrett

my fall, and I’d dislocated my knee and torn all of the ligaments and tendons in it. oing the Distance is a series Ski-patrol were sent for, and I was of articles about the trials skied down the mountain – that is and tribulations, temptadragged behind the patrol man on my tions and triumphs, of university long-distance relationships in gener- back, in a contraption that resembled al, and mine in particular. I am in my a body bag to the hospital. By the time second year of study at Durham; my I’d got there, my knee had popped itself back into place and I was gagging for boyfriend (‘the Boy’) is in his third year at the other end of the country. the morphine they doled out. They put me in a brace for the flight so my foot We’ve been together for five years obstructed the path of every passing and doing the ‘long-distance thing’ trolley and passenger, and got a good for two of them. This has given bashing. I was on crutches for 10 long rise to an interesting, challenging, weeks and had surgery, putting a very miserable and funny period of our conclusive stop to my dreams of aprèsrelationship and lives, which I have ski adventures. taken to chronicling for posterity.

Six months later, in the summer, me, the Boy, my best friend ‘A’ and her These opening few weeks of the boyfriend went to the Isle of Wight New Year always make me yearn for sunshine and fun; there are persuasive for a lower effort break on sandy beaches, revisiting our childhoods with adverts for holidays on telly and I feel sandcastles, whilst drinking warm cider my post-Christmas malaise would and having 4-way arguments about be cured by 40 degree heat at the end whether we should trust the Sat-Nav. of the term-time tunnel. This year, One night, after drinks, we got a taxi the Boy wondered aloud whether we home and I got out of the back seat, should book for the two of us to get slamming the car door on my right away together this summer, but my reaction was, at best, hesitant. The idea thumb. ‘A’ had to open the door to free my hand as I screamed in pain, conis a good one, conjuring up pleasvinced that I had beheaded the digit. ing images of him and me, slim and glamorous, sipping delicious cocktails. I’m not normally squeamish, but there But I know, from tragic experience, that was a lot of blood; it ran down my arm, soaked into my top and wrecked my this is not the way holidays with me pretty shoes. Eight miserable hours pan out. in Casualty saw X-rays taken, stitches The year after my GCSEs, the Boy stitched, cast set, and another holiday and I went to America on a ski-trip seriously marred. with our sixth-form. I’d never been Foolishly perhaps, the next summer, before, but I gamely (naively) thought the 4 of us from the IOW saga booked “How hard can it be?”. Very, is the a 10 day proper summer holiday at a answer to that. I went to the local skislope (indoor, obviously, I’m not from tasteless all-inclusive resort in Egypt.

We were so excited for it, stretching to the Alps) and by the time we went, the obligatory group T-shirts (with an I could just about manage a wobbly, accidentally possibly racist slogan) and wide snow-plough. so, imagine, in the stifling heat of the On our first day, we queued to get airport my disappointment, nay, my our skis set; for the non-skiers among you, that involves telling a stranger your horror, at the absence of my distinctive height and weight and them adjusting suitcase on the carousel. And that was the skis so if (when) you fall over, your it, my worst nightmare made real; 5 boot is released from your ski, and you pools and no swim-wear, only one pair of pants, no tan accelerators, books, don’t dislocate your knee. When I got toothbrush, accessories or sandals. to the front, I met Charming Kyle, a What was the point of being on holibeautiful blue-eyed Californian, day?! For seven days I sweated it out and told him my height in by the pool, publicly flaunting my inches, and weight in pounds, mismatched bra and knickto which he said “Are you sure ers while the hopeless and that’s right? That seems heavy disinterested reps did nothing for you”. Flattered, I giggled to help, and my dodgy tanand allowed him to deduct lines deepened. a good 10lbs. I smugly While the idea appeals, I considered it a successknow that it would not be a case ful encounter until, of glamorous travelling with the on day four (slowly, Boy, but rather, another comedy of slowly) making misadventures and unfortunate my way down a happenings. So, I am defirun, I didn’t notice nitely in favour of saving our a glassy patch of ice pennies and safely sunbathand toppled onto my side, FLI C ing in my garden where looking like a tree being felled. At KR ID: HAM ED there is limited chance of OG first, only my pride hurt, until I felt the catastrophe striking again... severe pain radiating in overpowering waves from my right knee. I sat up in the snow and saw that, as I’d been warned, my incorrectly set ski had not released my boot during

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Postcards from France

I’m French, you’re female, let’s make love

everyone sober, and a guy tells me I have pretty eyes. It’s like what the f*ck Thought Klute was the ultimate show- do you expect me to say?! “Take me now?”. Right here on this platform?! case of predatory pulling techniques?

And whereas in an English club I’d Think again... be quite happy to stand outside while my friend used the Ladies, you just Venturing into the unknown can’t do it here. If they see a girl on her wilds of the French social scene, me own they pounce. She’s alone, thereand some other anglaises hit a club. fore she’s an easy target. Problem is, I What struck me most (apart from often don’t actually understand what the amount of English music blaring they’re saying and worse, I don’t know out - I swear Alors On Danse was the most French I heard all night), was the how to reject someone in French. It can be hard enough trying to be nice unsettling directness of French men. about rejecting someone in English, They actually do not give a sh*t. but how can I be subtle and polite They will hit on anyone, and have no when all I know what to say is “Non” in concept of leagues. They can be ugly this situation? I tend to use the age old as hell and try it on with the prettiest girl. Flirting is not an art form, it’s a way trick of “Je ne parle pas le francais” and they soon figure out it’s more hassle of life.

Wahey, you might think, an easy way than it’s worth and move on.

Saying that, in the name of fully to make the pull. No no. It’s far from a throwing myself into French culture, I good thing because it’s so insincere.

Telling me I’m beautiful (a line they didn’t brush away one of the more attractive guys that struck up a conversaactually use) doesn’t have quite the same impact when you’ve just said it to tion guy in a bar. When he asked me the girl standing next to me. Although out, however, all I could think about was the fact I can’t speak French.I’m I often lament the standoffishness actually having to think of conversation of English guys, I couldn’t crave it topics and prepare the necessary vocab more right now. At least if an English – if that’s not dedication to pulling, I boy said something nice you’d know don’t know what is. And if you thought it must be genuine ‘cos boys giving sexual politics were hard, try playing compliments is like freakin’ gold dust the game in another language: decien Angleterre. I mean, yesterday I was phering the true meaning of a text, for at the railway station, broad daylight, Alex Mansell

example, is made ten times more complicated when you need a dictionary to reply, when they use the formal ‘vous’ and you take it to mean they’re not that into you, or when they overzealously use emoticons (note the wink is used a hell of a lot more in France and is less suggestive than it is here).

I was always under the impression French guys would be poetic and aloof and moody in a hot kind of way but it’s just not the case. They want to get laid, and they’re not afraid to make it known. The mysterious Frenchman is the one cliché that, for me, isn’t true. I mean, there are baguettes on every corner, strikes every week and cigarettes at every café, so why can’t the one cliché that actually matters be true – why aren’t French men enigmatic and romantic goddammit?!

Needless to say, of the three guys I’ve locked lips with thus far, two of the three were English. Not because I didn’t want to brave the language barrier, but because of the guys’ attitude.

Rather than being slimy and obvious, they were typically English and played a little harder to get. And as I say, although this is something I so often complain about, I’d take Jack or John over Jacques or Jean any day…

Features Editor: Alison Moulds | www.palatinate.org.uk

Features

The art of conversation is hard to master

Alison Moulds discovers that Durham banter and intellectual chat doesn’t get you far outside Durham

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his Christmas I went on a date with an ACTUAL person. Not the term I employ simply to describe those of the living and breathing variety, but the moniker of choice for anyone outside of the identikit personalities we have become so accustomed to - namely a non-university type who manages to properly operate in a world outside of the almost anaesthetised Durham bubble. So feeling like a fish tossed rather a few miles out of water, I turned to my best friend for help.

“What do I talk about?” I pleaded, wildly sifting through my bank of conversational currency and calculating its worth as pretty much zilch. She was not the best person to ask. This was the girl who threw off her former council estate credentials by the time she was made Head Girl of our super bourgeois all-girl grammar school and once uttered the disgustingly elitist, but amusingly immortal “how do you speak to someone from a comprehensive school?” hours before our first ‘proper’ party (think less Skins, more Smirnoff Ice).

Unsurprisingly, she wasn’t the greatest help. She uttered a lot of words which were foreign to me – largely regarding the fact it was absolutely imperative that I made some allusion to the fifth generation Chinese jet bomber... thing. I have no clue what she actually said because I am utterly out of the loop on all things not pertaining to either my beloved Eng Lit degree or to our glorious little stomping ground.

Confronted with a stranger in Durham-land, a thousand ‘safe’ topics immediately spring to mind. Whether your companion loves or loathes treading the tiles of Klute, they’re bound to entertain an opinion. Ditto the

student/local rivalry (cf. Facebook’s illustrious I Hate Durham Uni Students! Group), the baffling subculture of rahs and ‘lads’ or the toe-curlingly cold plight of living in a student hovel.

If you’re totally stumped and not immune to a rah mentality yourself, you can always try and incite a little bit of college rivalry in your conversational sparring partner.

But what about subject matter out of this rather-too-cosy comfort zone?

Glance at my Internet search history, and amongst all those JSTOR articles on bizarre tomes no one but myself seems to have read, you won’t exactly find any articles on current affairs or political polemics. No, when I am done for the day or yearning for a little procrastination, my mind switches within seconds to vacantly Googling such beautiful topics as ‘rhinoplasty’, or, my personal feminism-throttling favourite, ‘how to look hot’.

This is not something I am proud of. I am pretty sure I used to have some sort of hobbies. Searching through the files on my adolescent computer I found scores of evidence of the interests (albeit lame) I used to enjoy. From thousands of half-completed murder mystery novels and sci-fi television show proposals gracing my hard-drive, to reams of self-propelled research on the popular culture of yesteryear, it seems I used to have the energy and enthusiasm to read outside of whatever subject matter I could be academically rewarded for.

Finding myself faced with a date outside of the student scene, I was absolutely stumped on what exactly I had to offer. I was conversing with someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of punk rock, casually dividing his time between reading Dawkins and real-life

crime biopics, who could reel off the dishes offered by obscure restaurants on the outskirts of Chinatown and needed know map to navigate the streets of London. Once upon a time I could have held forth on film noir or at least the latest offering of watercooler television. Nowadays, I’m desperately trying to get up to speed with my Mad Men boxset, whilst simultaneously accepting that I can no longer be the queen of pop culture I once purported to be.

Ask me what I do outside of my degree (cough-Palatinate-cough), and you’ll pretty much find a list of things to embellish my CV, from extra-curricular Russian classes to working two jobs in marketing. The last book I read was The Mysteries of Udolpho, a book popular in the late 1790s, but hardly bestseller material any time since and not exactly likely to spark a look of recognition in the eyes of company outside of the Durham Uni English Department.

As a result, whilst my CV shines, my conversation has lost rather a lot of its sparkle. Living outside of college it

FLICKR ID: BRODY 4

seems I’m barely called upon to converse with most friends in a sober state, and who needs a sharp wit or keen political insight when you can simply resort to screaming ‘down it fresher!’?

No one expects you to wax lyrical on any subject of import when you’re in Klute and can barely comprehend whether your friend has just headed for the bar or the bathroom.

Of course I’m not suggesting we’re all totally straitjacketed by our subjects.

But I do think the British education system encourages us to become somewhat academically isolated. Even the more interdisciplinary of subjects hardly allow time to seriously interrogate any outside concerns.

Every time I pause to pick up a newspaper or Wikipedia the most significant gap in my knowledge, I’m struck by the thought that I could be pursuing something more geared towards my own academic success. My resolution to read the newspaper every day of the Christmas holidays soon went up in smoke when confronted with my terrifying reading list, and it was up to my mother to inform me of the Arizona shooting.

Even when we students are stimulated into something approaching fierce, real-world debate (and this usually only happens in the wee hours, and often after a little light inebriation), we all seem to adopt a wildly different personality to that which we’ve paraded all evening, suddenly complete with overemphatic gestures, a tone of barely-concealed hostility and the sort of dark

looks usually reserved for melodramatic episodes of Eastenders. We’re so used to sparring in a seminar situation that relaying our point of view to someone else seems to take on a bizarrely competitive edge, as if our lecturer is secretly concealed about the room, with pen poised above paper ready to take notes on our performance.

So even when the archetypal student speaks with some sense of purpose about the world outside the bubble, we’re still restricted by a decidedly bubble-esque mentality.

My scary step into the brave new world of non-student territory was pretty much a confrontation with just how rigidly compartmentalised the standard student mind seems to be.

We know how to write with lucidity – nay, even flair, we know how to dance like no one’s watching on the sweatstreamed tiles of Durhamtown and, under certain circumstances, we know how to launch into a dogmatic diatribe.

What we don’t seem to know is how to package these multiple personalities into anything approaching a convincing whole.

Why do we self-efface when we speak of our interests instead of speak with pride? Why do we mutate into some sort of monster whenever we allow our passion to emerge? We need to take a leaf out of the barely-thumbed books of those who haven’t slid so easily into the expected path of university life and allow some sort of fluidity between all the different facets of our knowledge. Forget scoring the First, this is where my real resolution lies.

FLICKR ID: THE HAMSTER FACTORY

If only I’d read those books I might have something to say...

Food Editor: Charlotte Allen | www.palatinate.org.uk Stage Arts

Food & Drink

Against the clock: Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals

Can a top meal be prepared in half an hour? Indigo tests Jamie Oliver’s latest culinary claim Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals Jamie Oliver Amazon: £13.00 «««««

Charlotte Allen

I

approached this best-selling book with caution and mild disbelief.

Previous Jamie volumes had led me much astray when first beginning my culinary endeavours, with terms such as “about six handfuls” wracking me with uncertainty, and often proving dish-destroying.

The vagueness and lack of explanations of some basic cookery techniques also fooled me at times, not to mention the sometimes exotic or expensive (but usually key) ingredients. After a good year and a half of enthusiastic learning, however, Jamie’s work becomes to make sense; his flavours and techniques are appealing and interesting, and the vagueness can instead be interpreted as the opportunity for the cook to personalise a dish.

This book, however, has been glorified as a new way of cooking, showcasing an approachable and new recipe writing style insinuating that dishes such as “Swedish style fishcakes, roasted new baby potatoes, sprout

salad and fresh zingy salsa” are achievable by absolutely anyone, in a mere 30 minutes.

Amazon’s reliably acerbic review system nevertheless plays host to a total of nineteen damning reviews, through which certain themes run with indignant displeasure. “If you read other reviews I have yet to see anyone claim they could complete the recipes in 30 minutes. I certainly couldn’t.

So why on earth is it called a 30 minute cookbook? If you were told your flight to New York would take 30 minutes you wouldn’t fall for it would you... Maybe if I had all the ingredients bought and prepared for me by slavish minions “claims one; “For anyone in the same predicament as me, don’t bother buying it, it’s a waste of money... unless you have a fetish for looking at pictures of Jamie cooking, there’s plenty of them (mostly of him doing his trademark throwing the food onto a plate from distance trick or stuffing his fat face at the end of cooking)”, screeches another. Jealous, anyone?

Another accusation levelled at Jamie’s book is the cost of the extensive lists of ingredients. In all fairness, I find it hard to believe that Jamie could claim his recipes cost less than a take out meal without having checked this; just

because things sound different does not mean that they cost the world.

I double checked with Tesco Direct, costing the list by mixing some value products with some finer ones. With the recipe serving six-eight, it would roughly cost eight people £2.94 a head, and six, £3.92 a head. A large haddock and chips in Durham costs you at least £5, and that’s at least double the fat and involves none of your 5 a day.

Naturally, my interest was piqued.

Despite there being nearly 200 ecstatic, inspired and exceptionally laudatory reviews, these somewhat petulantly disappointed comments invite contradiction.

I began at once. I chose the “Tasty crusted cod, mashy peas, tartare sauce and warm garden salad” on p 140-143,

although despite Jamie’s introductory warnings not to exclude elements of a meal or change the ingredients, I sneakily swapped the cod for haddock and ignored the tartare sauce, something I didn’t fancy.

After a couple of hiccups in finding all my ingredients and laying them out (including a ten minute burst of scraping copious mould off my parmesan and an attempt to defrost my fish), I began at precisely 17:49.

Considering the key element of timing in the book, and the accusations levelled at it, I carefully recorded my progress, finishing precisely at 18:26.

Seven minutes off is not at all bad, if I do say so myself; and for all my enthusiasm, I am no maestro in the kitchen.

However, at 18.27 I found myself amongst inordinate amounts of mess, high levels of stress and a plate of food that nearly resembled Jamie’s... but left

me very concerned about the seemingly peculiar method and flavours I had almost reluctantly combined, although hopefully with time and practice these side effects would abate. I lifted my fork with distinct scepticism, and almost a sense of defeat.

The result, however, was extraordinary. The haddock was light and soft, and the crust tangy without being acidic and crunchy with a garlicky hit.

The mushy peas were the perfect accompaniment, with the pancetta salad adding a peppery tone. My Mother raised her eyebrows and proclaimed that she would happily eat the dish in a restaurant – although as an only daughter, I wouldn’t take this far to heart.

I was heartily pleased with myself; all that rushing around, panicking, fiddling, and a small amount of finger burning was soundly rewarded. I take none of the credit; I followed the instructions, I combined things – anyone could. I will never doubt Jamie’s mastery again.

So, he may be cocky, he may annoy you, but I certainly cannot deny that he is most definitely talented. And if I can produce a flavoursome, healthy, restaurant style meal in 30 odd minutes, I certainly cannot deny his book the triumph of being proved right.

Battle of the bulge: just how evil are ready meals?

Charlotte Allen As students, we are perpetually warned against the evils of ready meals, especially low price alternatives. So how do these seemingly effortless buys compare to some easy homemade alternatives?

grisly, and the varieties with bacon taste freeze-dried. Cheese also distinctly plastic-like. Worryingly, if it’s not cooked for precisely the right amount of time, it tastes much worse.

Effort: 4/5 Very quick, but can be messy.

Time: 3/5 Although it’s a basic process, the grilling, preparing and measuring of ingredients can take time.

Taste: 5/5. This can be adjusted to each eater, so you can’t go wrong!

Batchlor’s Supernoodles in Spicy Curry, 69p each.

Instant microwave burgers with buns Feasters Xl Burger 250G, £1.98 for one.

You won’t necessarily find a homemade recipe cheaper, but the health benefits are huge, as Supernoodles contain lots of empty calories.

Calories 605kcal, protein 34g, Carbohydrates 73g, sugars 4.25g, fat 19.75g, saturates 3.75g, fibre 2.5g, salt 3.25g.

530kcals, protein 9g, carbohydrate 69.8g, fat 23.8g, saturates 12g, fibre 1.6g, salt 2g. For such a small portion, and one that doesn’t fill up, the calories and fat are very high.

The fat and calorie contents are very high here, as is the salt, at ½ to 1/3 of your daily allowance.

Effort: 5/5. Just chuck in the microwave.

Time: 5/5 Again, 70 seconds in the microwave.

Taste: 1/5. Very artificial flavour from all the additives. Somewhat

VERSUS Home-cooked beefburgers 313 kcal, protein 24g, carbohydrate 35g, fat 10 g, saturated fat 4g, fibre 3g, sugar 5g, salt 1.99 g. Calories are halved, fat is halved, and the salt content is completely up to you. Grilling and cooking from fresh make all this possible.

Effort: 4/5 Needs an occasional stir. Can be quite watery.

Time: 4/5. Not as instant as Feaster’s, though 3 minutes in the microwave isn’t at all bad.

Taste: 2/5 Spicy, though predomi-

nantly salty. Very glutinous, and not particularly filling.

VERSUS Home-cooked Singapore noodles 276 kcal, protein 9.9g, carbohydrate 41.7g, fat 8.9 g, saturated fat 1.7g, fibre 2g, salt 2 g. Once again, the nature of cooking this yourself makes it possible to get rid of a lot of the fat and salt, and maximise the flavour instead.

Effort: 4/5 As long as you prepare all the ingredients before starting, it just involves throwing the things in one by one to the wok.

Time: 3/5 The preparation can take time, but if the recipe were replaced with a plain stir fry, pre chopped veg of any sort could be used instead.

Taste: 4/5 A little spicy for some tastes, but full of distinct flavours.

Very filling, and very satisfying.

Come Dine With Me! Palatinate is hosting Durham’s very own Come Dine With Me! Five people will be picked to entertain four other guests at their home with a three course meal (and any other entertainments they wish to include) in the hope of garnering enough points to be crowned the champion host and chef.

Each issue of Palatinate will cover the dinner party of each guest, and footage will be shown on Palatinate TV. In order to raise prize money, each participant will be asked to contribute £5, and the highest rated host will take the £25 pot home with them.

If you would like to apply for this exciting opportunity to showcase your skills, email food@palatinate. org.uk for an application form.

Travel Editor: Jess Jones | www.palatinate.org.uk

Stage Arts

Travel

To The Centre of The Earth: Easter Island Jess Jones

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In Easter Island the past is the present, it is impossible to escape from it...”. So said British archeologist Katherine Routledge, who conducted one of the first surveys of the island in 1914. Routledge was born just a few miles from me in Darlington, County Durham, and is counted among the great female explorers and travellers of the time. I wanted to travel to Easter Island, following in Routledge’s footsteps, to see if her words still ring true today, 87 years on.

Easter Island is home to 877 moai; towering stone statues with unnaturally massive heads, leading many to name them ‘the Easter Island heads’.

They are majestic and regal, yet menacing; their stares are cold and hard and their sheer size is intimidating. The moai have come to symbolise and define this remote volcanic island and their iconic image is instantly recognisable around the world.

After a five hour flight from Santiago, I arrived along with two friends to the bustling crowd of people that filled the tiny, packed airport, not surprisingly, the remotest on earth. Garlands of fresh flowers were thrown around our necks in greeting and the tropical air was buzzing with excitement; families awaiting loved ones returning from the mainland, and tourists, delighted to have finally made it, no doubt eager to see their first moai.

Easter Island is one of the world’s most remote inhabited islands. Although belonging to Chile, it lies over 3,500 km to the west, in the southern Pacific. It’s population of around 4,000 people is concentrated in the only town, Hanga Roa. It’s people are the Rapa Nui and speak both their native language, Rapa Nui, and Spanish.

From the wooden terrace that led down to the hostel’s garden, teeming with banana trees and tropical plants, I could see Hanga Roa, and beyond, the imposing peak of the islands highest point, the volcano, Terevaka.

Our hostel was run by a welcoming Rapa Nui couple in their 40s who lived with their teenage children in the adjoining house.

We set off to explore the island with our guide Rick, an American who had visited Easter Island some years before and had never left after falling in love with a Rapa Nui woman.

They now had two Rapa Nui daughters,

something he told us with pride - he was eager for them to preserve their ancient traditions and, even though they had an American father, to be classed as Rapa Nui. Every single one of the 877 moai statues that covered the island were carved from the volcanic rock at the moai nursery in the Rano Raraku crater, between 1100 and 1680. Once professional carvers had crafted the moai, they were transported all over the island before being raised. 397 moai remain in the quarry, eerily protruding from the grassy slopes at jaunty

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you really do feel a million miles away from the rest of the world. On Easter Island, history and culture combine in a tantalising mixture that gives the island its distinct magical quality.

In the Kari Kari dance show Rapa Nui dancers in traditional dress stamp and shake their hips while a band play Rapa Nui songs - fast and rhythmic beats that sound like a call to battle.

The women wear white feathered skirts, and many are tattooed like the men, who wear their hair long and grimace menacingly - bringing to mind the Maori Haka - made famous by the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team.

The Pacific waters around Easter Island are said to be the clearest on earth, and contain 24 species of fish endemic to the island. The waters are a haven for diving enthusiasts, but it doesn’t matter if you are a complete novice; there is no better place to learn to dive. I spent a morning diving with Orca, a diving comRelax on the white sands of Anakena beach pany located just off angles. They are gigantic, and the mind the harbour in Hanga Roa. Diving is a boggles at how the islanders could have brilliant way to explore another side of ever moved these great slabs of dense Easter Island - it’s wildlife and nature rock weighing up to 86 tonnes. are mesmerising.

Many of the moai at the Rano RaClimbing to the highest point on raku site are only visible today thanks the island involved traipsing through to the efforts of Katherine Routledge’s green rolling fields, more reminiscent expedition, during which she uncovof the English countryside than a tropiered many of the statues, which had cal Pacific island, where wild horses previously been completely or partially were grazing nonchalantly. We slipped buried under rubble and earth. In her through barbed wire fences (ok, so we 1919 account of the expedition, ‘The didn’t realise there was a path), and Mystery of Easter Island’ she describes scrambled up the near-sheer face of being “overcome by the wonder of the the volcano, Terevaka. Standing at the scene”, as she glimpsed her first sight of highest point for thousands of miles, Rano Raraku. looking out at the azure blue Pacific Looking down from the Rano surrounding us for as far as the eye Raraku quarry you are met with an could see was an incredible experience. incredible sight - Ahu Tongariki, the The crater lake at Ranu Kao is speclargest ahu (the plinth on which the tacular and unforgettable. As you walk moai stand) on Easter Island. It holds up and gaze over the rim of the crater, 15 statues, standing proudly in a the sight awaiting you is breathtaking. straight line, their backs to the Pacific.

The fresh water lake, covered in green It is no surprise the moai statues were specks, stood out against the bright originally regarded as the embodiment blue sky, and gazing out towards the of powerful former chiefs and were horizon, I could actually see the curvaregarded as important status symbols ture of the earth in the distance.

- they are imposing and fearsome, The Rapa Nuis’ relationship with especially when you are confronted Chile is traditionally tense. Right up with fifteen! until the 1960s, Chile confined the At Anakena beach you are sudnative islanders to Hanga Roa. At the denly transported back to the tropical time of Routledge’s expedition in 1914, Pacific island - families barbecue and the Rapa Nui indigenous population sunbathe, or snooze in the shade under were only allowed out to the archaeotall palms. But even here, there is no logical sights to provide any informaescaping the island’s history; seven tion that might help the expedition. moai keep watch from their ahu resting In Hanga Roa, banners filled the place. main square declaring ‘IndependenAccording to Rapa Nui legend, cia!’ - something many Rapa Nui crave.

Easter Island is the centre of the earth, The owners of our hostel told us that and, close to Anakena beach, you can it is not uncommon for Chileans to find ‘el ombligo del mundo’ (the navel come to the island and commit crimes, of the world), a smooth, rounded stone especially robberies. A Chilean maid that, it is said, fills you with energy if at the hostel, who had recently arrived you lay your palms on its surface. Here, from the mainland, was caught trying

EASTER ISLAND FACTS Located 3,500 km west of Chile, in the middle of the south Pacific, between Chile and Tahiti.

Currency is the Chilean peso, some tourist companies accept American dollars.

Language - Rapa Nui, Spanish The island, indigenous population and language are all called Rapa Nui. How to get there - Only one airline, LAN Chile flies from Santiago, Tahiti and, from January 2011, Lima, Peru.

Easter Island gets its name from its discovery on Easter Day, 1722. to steal our money. She had been employed the previous week because the Rapa Nui maid, who had worked in the hostel for many years, had been taken ill. The Rapa Nui hostel owners were utterly dismayed - she had threatened their livelihood by taking advantage of their customers, something many Chileans are accused of doing on Easter Island.

The indigenous Rapa Nui have been protesting recently about what they say are plans to develop the island, as immigration and tourism increase. They are demanding the return of ancestral land they say was unlawfully seized from their grandparents.

Easter Island is magical, other worldly and full of exciting things to see and do. But the best part of all is the Rapa Nui people, the modern incarnation of centuries of history and culture. They are kind and extremely welcoming, fiercely proud of their traditions and past, and want to preserve it at all costs.

Katherine Routledge was right, Easter Island’s past is most definitely it’s present.

Fashion Editor: Antonia Thier | www.palatinate.org.uk Stage Arts

Fashion

Marios Schwab: designer, artist, genius Laura Gregory

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of the human body’), as the fabrics used for his collection. He inverted the body-con concept by designing prints of abstracted muscles and blood vessels, rolling fabric – like skin – away to reveal this vivid under-print. Close up, our blood vessels look like Rose petals.

Schwab explored this fascination with the body’s topography by reflecting the inner structure of a garment onto the outside. A dress holds complex internal harnesses; straps

pull fabric away from and around the body; fabric is manipulated with of wire simulating veins twisting to fit. All of this holds a silhouette in place in order to reveal the form beneath.

Using large plastic zips as spines, metalwork bolted on as ribs, strings of pearls as symmetrical muscular structures, Schwab forms a supportive frame around body and garment. To personalise the garments he used heat reactive fabrics, affected by personal touch: causing each piece becomes unique to the wearer. Schwab inverted the act of revealing: from necklines as windows onto the skin, through to externally exhibited mechanisms of the internal body.

The Autumn Winter ‘08 collection (pictured) followed the body in its entirety - outlining the contours of the female silhouette. The garments are so fitted that although the figure is entirely enclosed, it stands completely revealed. We were asked to visualise this as if “the female body is walking out of wallpaper”, the woman as a silhouette constrained by beautifully printed fabric. For this collection Schwab actually

collaborated with artist Tom Gallant.

Gallant’s work examines the Western fascination with sex by cutting and mounting stunning William Morris prints on to pages extracted from pornography; the delicacy of the exterior layer obscures the sexual activities. Schwab’s garments reciprocate Gallant’s representation of flesh and the body; fabric acts as canvas covering the entire form - but is then incised, revealing different portions of the original silhouette.

By ‘09

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root: abito meaning ‘dress’; causing living space and clothes to be inevitably intertwined. This is exactly why Schwab sees such importance in beautiful dressing of the body.

This inspiration is extended in his work through his fascination with anatomy, and the body as a topographical and sexual sculpture. Schwab asks why clothes conceal and reveal certain parts of the body, and specifically why dressing is so self-conscious. The Spring Summer ‘08 collection demonstrates a rebellion against the human skin concealing the beauty of the body’s organs, capillaries, and blood. “This concealing has convinced us that all that we contain is ugly, functional gore”, he told his audience. The SS08 collection (pictured) took a literal journey within the body using inspiration from a historical anatomy book which dissected human corpses. Schwab exposed the interior on the exterior using the actual art of Andreas Vesalius’s ‘De Humani Corporis Fabrica’ (‘the fabric WWW.BLOG.DRESSCODE.FORMAL.COM

little. Furthermore such a comment immediately alienates anyone who only has a fleeting interest in fashion.

But I eat my words - I was staggered by how directly Schwab translates art onto the catwalk. It was almost visual plagiarism. Fashion has a reputation of being full of women’s egos, bravado, and little substance – but no; I had a famous male designer standing before me giving an intellectual art-history lesson.

“We live in our dresses more than we live in

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fter bursting onto the scene in 2005 with his own label, Greco-Austrian Marios Schwab was awarded Best New Designer at the British Fashion Awards in ’06. His designs now emblazon editorial from Vogue to Dazed & Confused, and juxtapose fragility and strength of the feminine form through a fascination with human anatomy.

I heard Schwab speak in November about the art that has inspired his collections. I am sceptical to buy in to the phrase ‘fashion is art’, because for me this sweeping statement means very

our homes”, he told us as he explored his obsession with the concept of clothes as a personal living space.

Indeed, his designs embody Giuliana Bruno’s ‘Atlas of Emotion’ and its excerpt ‘address to a dress’, which discusses habitation, habitus and abito.

These three words come from the same Latin

Schwab’s AW and SS inspirations came fiercely from sculptures

by Rodin and Man Ray. Rodin’s human forms (famously left half unfinished) convey the body growing out from marble rock.

For AW09 (pictured) dresses cascaded down the runway half tightly silhouetted and half naturally and chaotically expanding away. Schwab slashed into these dresses and embellished them with Swarovski crystals (as seen on Cheryl Cole) – a tribute to the female form growing out from rock under heat and pressure. “Investigating of mineral metamorphosis and the effect of climate change on rocks, is a very poetic and important idea”, he informed us. Man Ray’s surrealist

‘Venus Restauree’ (pictured) demonstrates constriction, sectioning and proportioning of material up against the skin. Schwab clearly took the same body-image, subconscious and lust

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onto the catwalk in SS09.

Schwab’s artistry stands as an emblem for how designers and artists stand unified as surgeons who section up materials. Today, Schwab’s genius is a favourite amongst the most enviable celebrities, who were all born with bodies ready to be sculptured and empowered by such artistic references. If you had never heard of Marios Schwab before now, do not be mistaken into thinking he creates un-wearable garments representing philosophical or artistic nonsense. Instead, let him enter into your fashion hall of fame as a man who shows absolute respect for the female body.

WWW.PAULOCOELHOBLOG.COM

Fashion Editor: Antonia Thier | www.palatinate.org.uk

Fashion Stage Arts

Spring/Summer 2011 with ASOS

As the new year rolls in so does the new summer wardrobe, so take a look at this seasons hottest trends on the high-street

WWW.PRSHOTS.COM/ASOS

Pleats are back and bigger than ever. Although shown here on a maxi dress, pleats are versatile, allowed on any piece of clothing from a mid-length skirt to a cropped summer jacket.

Pleated Sleveless Maxi £65

This seasons trends can otherwise be seen as a salute to the 70s, as seen here with bright block colours, oversized hats and washed denim.

Accessories this summer are more daring , as spring’s hats have a dressing-up box charm, think sailor or maybe cowgirl?

WWW.PRSHOTS.COM/ASOS

Denim rules once again, yet updated to suit current trends, teamed with the go-to accesory - the skinny belt - and a cyan blue crop top.

High Waist Peg £32

Set to raise £3000 for Breakthrough Brest Cancer.

Showcasing brands including g-star raw, new look, next and lipsy.

17th February £18 for VIP tables £12 for standard tables WWW.PRSHOTS.COM/ASOS

For tickets contact Laura Gregory 07736866636 Briony Chappell 07821359773 Sponsored by Studio Nightclub

Collingwood College Charity Fashion Show

Film & TV

Film & TV Editor: Madeleine Cuff | www.palatinate.org.uk Stage Arts

Books to films: the fad continues in 2011 2

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On the Road

to please. The casting is a good start: a mix of established and upcoming stars.

Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst assume the female supports, whilst Dean Moriarty is played by the relative newcomer Garrett Hedlund, recognizable as Patroclus from Troy and star of the 2010 blockbuster Tron. Dean’s char-

Never Let Me Go

pockmark their pinball-like route back and forth on the highways; this is a story about the journey as much as the Never Let Me Go is a rare find; a destination. If Salles pulls of something science fiction film that will appeal to 011 is going to be the year of akin to the travel narrative displayed non sci-fi Believe me, I’ve never the book. Or rather, the year in the Motorcycle Diaries, not attention even seenfans.

Star Wars, yet this film is hot that books become films. A grabbing but nevertheless compelling, on my Orange Wednesday hit list for collection of recent (and not so recent) then this film could potentially be one 2011. Due for release in February, the novels are in the pipeline for cinema of the film stars Carey Mulligan FLICKR ID: EMDOT release this year: One Day (An Education), Keira

by David Nicholls, The Knightley, and AnRum Diary by Hunter drew Garfield (The S Thompson, Gulliver’s Social Network) as Travels by Jonathan Swift boarding school (although I’m not sure the children in an alJack Black film can be ternative reality of labeled an adaptation of the 1990s. Members the 17th century satiriof Hailsham school, cal classic) and Age of the children lead what Dragons, a retelling of seems on the surface Melville’s Moby Dick, to an idyllic, sheltered name but a few. life, but, as you might But the books/films expect, a dark reality causing the most buzz glimmers beneath for 2011 are On the Road the surface. The and Never Let Me Go, children are clones, bred which, incidentally, are for organ donation, and it both on Durham’s reading is this discovery that list for English Literature fuels their journey students: it seems Durof self-discovery ham is bang on trend for in life, love and the New Year. Below friendship. is a sneak preview of Never Let Me what to expect from the Go is based on hotly tipped releases… the incredibly moving novel

by Kazuo Ishiguro, and Like hundreds of met with both other English (and popular and indeed non-English) critical acclaim. students, I went armed Alex Garland, with pen and paper to novelist and the Michaelmas term writer behind lecture on On the Road, the cult novel a 1950s experimental turned movie novel by Jack Kerouac.

The Beach, has The lecture hall was abadapted the solutely packed; a testawork into a ment to the cult status screenplay. this novel has acquired.

From the Filled with drugs, jazz trailer, it and hair raising trips seems direcacross the United tor Mark States, the novel is filled Romanek has with an exuberance and grasped this energy that has inemotion and spired legions of young, ramped it up impressionable teenagers to full throttle; and twenty-somethings I had tears to “burn, burn, burn like in my eyes fabulous yellow roman after just 30 candles exploding like seconds. It spiders across the stars”. It seems to be a laid the template for such novels A section from Kerouac’s original typescript , written on a 120-foot roll of teletype paper film inspired by cum movies as Fear and Loathing in Las British nostalgia; the feeling of a fading Vegas, and even Thelma and Louise. summer and last vestige of calm that A film version of On The Road has acter will be a tricky one to pull off; an best of the year. It just remains to be comes with a sense of predestined fate. been threatened for some time; the inexhaustible flurry of drugs, women seen whether the film will display as Romanek has background in making rights have been held and screenplays and insanity coupled with a sustained much integrity as the book, and sidemusic video, notably for the Red Hot have been written since the late 1980s. likeability that draws enduring attenstep the more commercial habits of Chilli Peppers, so is adept at creating a In the hands of Brazilian director tion from the other characters, so I Hollywood. mood without overt explanation.

Walter Salles and screenplay written look forward to seeing how Hedlund No trailers are available as of yet, as While the casting may not be perby Jose Rivera (the same team behind handles it. the movie is still in post production, fect (we are supposed to believe that Motorcycle Diaries), the stakes are The central plot is one of the tradibut this is one to await with anticipathe pixie-like Mulligan is 28) this film high. We should be under no illusion tional American journey West. Dean tion. With a budget of $25 million, the will certainly tug at the heartstrings that the upcoming film of the novel, and Sal thumb, hitch and barter their Beat generation has come a long way and prompt pub discussions on the due for release in 2011, has a lot way across the states to San Francisco, from hitching lifts through Texas. ethics of cloning, if nothing else. to live up to, and a lot of people and back again. Spontaneous decisions Madeleine Cuff

Artist’s impression of David Mitchell

indigo’s pick of the Christmas Specials Arthur Dimsdale

Peep Show Christmas Eve saw a night of Peep Show that included the two best episodes (chosen by voters), Peep Show and Tell; a behind-the-scenes documentary that answered the lifelong question of ‘how on earth do they film it’? And the Christmas episode in which Jeremy (Robert Webb) is feeling down because he’s used to spending Christmas at home. Mark (David Mitchell) then releases seven series worth of pent-up anger towards him when Jeremy jokes that he didn’t get a turkey. Mark’s family also come over and an excruciatingly awkward Christmas lunch ensues in which his family meet Dobby. A great Christmas Special from a great show.

Misfits E4’s critically acclaimed British superhero comedy-drama, aired at midnight on Christmas Eve as a festive finale to an outstanding series. It is refreshing to see such a diverse, original, and funny Christmas Special. Being nice and Christmassy, the episode packs in the return of Jesus Christ (... a disenchanted vicar/con-man who buys the characters’ superpowers), a Mary and Joseph style birth (except with Nathan and the new character Marnie) and a cast rendition of Little Donkey (a possible low-point). It was a controversial, blasphemous and amusing episode with a couple of plot flaws but a phenomenal set-up for series three.

Visual Arts Editor: Tamara Gates | www.palatinate.org.uk

Stage Arts

Visual Arts

Mind the porcelain: Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds 1,600 artisans worked for two years to make 100 million artificial sunflower husks with a combined weight of 150 tonnes. Was the decision to prevent viewers walking on the exhibition health and safety gone mad?

Emma Richardson

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very year in its great Turbine hall, the Tate Modern hosts a large-scale, commissioned art work to fill the space. This year sees the turn of internationally recognised Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and a statement piece of art entitled Sunflower Seeds.

The work consists of 100 million individually hand-crafted seeds made from porcelain which fill the floor of the hall, each of which has undergone a traditional 30-stage process in the ancient porcelain-making village of Jingdezhen.

Through the involvement of over 1600 local workers, all of whom have been grateful for the paid work given to the community for their traditional and sadly dying craft, stone has been mined, ground and moulded into the shape of sunflower seed husks.

Every single one was then handpainted with multiple black stripes. An accompanying video in the Tate which details the process and the people involved is fascinating to watch and adds an emotional level to the viewing of Sunflower Seeds, as one feels the effort and attention that has been given to its creation.

The experience of visiting this artwork is one of magnitude and starkness. At first, the large, seemingly flat area appears to be a uniform mass of grey but when one gets closer, each individual seed can be seen.

Upon examination, it is less about the uniformity that these objects demonstrate as a result of their making process but instead about the minute differences and variations that have occurred from one seed to the next, through that very same creation.

Interestingly, the experience may have been very different when the exhibition first opened as it was intended for people to be able to walk across and sit on.

Having seen the pleasure and thoughts inspired when people were able to feel the movement of the seeds beneath their feet and the sensation of them running through their fingers, it seems a shame that this extra, physical dimension to the work had to be stopped by health and safety advisors because of the fine dust released by the porcelain when used in this way.

Nonetheless, it feels as though Ai has succeeded in achieving his intention that, “people who don’t understand art understand what [he is] doing”, particularly through the video response area, which is open for visitors to record their responses and opinions and have this. in turn, seen by the artist.

As with all his work, the public interaction and interpretation of his work are key. Ai Weiwei is known for his outspoken expression through his art and through Internet media. Much of his work is politically motivated and often causes great controversy in the restricted Chinese arena.

An example of this is Remembering, which comprises of a sentence made from Chinese characters meaning, “she lived happily for seven years in this

world”, spelt out in the side of a building out of school childrens’ backpacks.

This was Ai’s response to the tragic death of school children in the 2008 Chinese earthquakes due to the inadequate structural support being put into the building of schools by the government; using a quote by the mother of one of the victims. As a result of his protests, both through artworks and his online blog, Ai was put under house arrest in November 2010. His blog has been shut down by government officials and he now communicates to the world and his many fans through the medium of Twitter.

It is therefore very important that people engage with and ask new questions in response to each work of art. For Sunflower Seeds, the political message behind it is tied in with the metaphor it is based on, which comes from Chinese Mao propaganda which showed Mao as the sun and the people as sunflowers turning to follow him wherever he moved.

It is also though indicative of the sharing and gesture of human compassion shown through the sharing of sunflower

seeds as a common Chinese street snack. He intends to provoke questions in the viewer such as: Are we insignificant or powerless unless we act together? How are our simple day to day interactions linked to greater political and cultural significance?

The Tate is showing Sunflower Seeds until 2nd May and whether you engage with it on a visual, emotional or political level, I strongly encourage you to visit this piece of art, as it is a thought-provoking and important work for our time.

In pictures: Ai Weiwei at the Tate Modern

Visitors were invited to interact with the bed of sunflower seeds

100 million husks were produced The Tate Modern was criticised for its reaction to health worries

Stage Editors: Kathy Laszlo and Lyndsey Fineran | www.palatinate.org.uk Stage Arts

Stage

Love under the microscope I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change The Lion Theatre Company The Assembly Rooms

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tirical female strength, and “The Very First Dating Video of Rose Ritz”, where Pope moved with impressive strength from self-deprecating divorcée to hurt but recovering single woman, with dumbfounding vocal ability.

She was not alone in her success.

Tori Longdon displayed matching ability in performance variety, ranging from her amusing portrayal of the cliché female in “Tear Jerker”, where her and Spencer joined the audience (in some interesting blocking) to the sexually suppressed mother in “Sex and the Married Couple”, where I had my own personal part in the show as Longdon’s audience-member victim for some…venting.

Longdon’s peak was in “He Called Me” - her comic timing with ‘Ma’ and the shock of Ken calling, more than once (!) got many laughs from the audience, as did her mother performance in “Hey There Single Gal/Guy”, which demonstrated her versatility as a performer. This number again displayed what I liked so much about this show: the performance quality of the musical numbers. Vocal quality did not result in a recital-style performance. Instead, a song with character and story ensued, and Longdon did not fail to please.

HARRY GAT T

originally thought was an odd location.

“Will my hopes be met, will my fears dispel?”, rang through the bar as the girls prepared for a date stage left (or rather, on the left of the stairs) and the ««««« boys on the right. The humour of the Daniel Turner frantic-getting-ready for-a-date stuck a familiar chord - something I enjoyed Everything you have ever secretly immensely about this show. thought about dating, romance, The sincerity of the four performers marriage, lovers, husbands, wives only furthered this sense of familiarand in-laws, but were afraid to admit”. ity, and the division of the stage by the Amidst the intimate and unexpected stairs opened up the idea of gender setting of Hatfield Bar, love went under ideology with its age-old conflict. the microscope and returned with an Not only aurally but also in her extremely surprising result in The Lion collective performance, Pope excelled.

Theatre Company’s production of I In “A Stud and a Babe”, the transition Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. from the initial shy girl who gets exI Love You, You’re Perfect, Now cited about her brother having eleven Change is written in the form of a toes, into the babe she aspired to, ocseries of vignettes, all connected by curred with thoughtful delicacy. the central theme of relationships and From high-pitched and “awkward love; a Love Actually if you will, without and whiney” in both her spoken and the cheesy airport scene to tie it all sung voice (something similar to the together. nasal Kate of “Avenue Q”) to divaThe show is framed by a harmoniesque, seductive and swoon-worthy, ous narrative, sang by all four perform- combined with the then confident ers, setting the tone of the show aptly posture and body language to match, amidst comedy and romantic introPope was far from two-dimensional. version. Tori Longdon, Adele Pope, Similar comic success was enjoyed in Tom Elkid and David Spencer started her portrayal of “Single Man Drought”. off the show in good stead, entering a I am often disappointed in student cappella, and in perfect tune. Wearing productions when the difficulty of gowns and walking in procession, the vocal perfection detracts from the permock-formality of the opening imme- formance quality of musical numbers. diately suggested the tongue-in-cheek However, Pope never failed to pick up nature of the show. on the comedy of songs such as this.

The first ‘vignette’, “Cantata For A Her performances though were not First Date” showcased the high talent solely comical. Pope portrayed great the audience were to experience for emotional variety in songs such as the whole show, and validated what I “Always A Bridesmaid”, full of sa-

Theatre of discomfort and madness Bugsy Malone Fountains Theatre Company Fountains Hall, Grey ««««« Merhala Selvarajah

“Bugsy Malone” is a self-proclaimed work of lunacy. It whistlestops the underbelly of the Prohibition era with all the irreverence of a toxic custard pie in motion. It is sublimely conscious of its own madness, pounding out a frenzied, meta-satirical splurge.

The Fountains Theatre Company delivered a night of thoroughly consumable violence. It effortlessly staged its own parody, disdaining the formal trappings of overly serious and humourless theatre.

Seated in the reviewer’s seat on the front row, claustrophobia set in as Bugsy (David Benhamou) initiated us into his daft world. I was so close that my welly brushed stupidly against Hannah Dunnett’s Fizzy. I felt uncomfortable in this kind of

proximity to fiction.

But that’s the point.

The play continually invades our safety zones of spectator escapism; a Fat Sam gangster playfully rubbed my head, Livvie Murphy’s Tallulah burst off the stage with all the character’s unnerving self-assurance and various fluids spurted off the stage into the front row.

You’re made complicit in a farce that treads

exquisitely between drama and pantomime.

The clammy exasperation of Sam Batty expertly evoked the bumbling mobster ‘Fat Sam’ who oscillates crazily between composure and fury as he desperately tries to keep up in the splurging rat race. The framing of the Fat Sam gang’s clumsy assertion that “they’re the very best at being bad” by the vibrant glamour of Rachel Morley’s choreography sets in place a slippage that threatens to unravel the speakeasy’s self-assurance.

Livvie Murphy’s Tallulah seamlessly summoned to the stage the unerring condescension, the unsettling confidence, the insecurity and the sexual anxiety of this iconic temptress. Murphy evoked a sexual madness in her character in the crazy flashes of her eyes as her vain attempts to seduce Bugsy grow more desperate. She’s the frustrated heroine in the speak-easy of waning illusions.

The spirited radio-broadcasts, delivered in a hilarious array of accents, provided a mock-epic frame for Bugsy’s anarchic and lethally creamy world. The chaos was compounded in the cast’s effortless assumption of multiple characters, Bhavul Haria’s lawyer cum ventriloquist dummy and Amy Stitson’s singer cum detective expertly trounced any solemnity of character.

Stitson’s a comic genius; her flamboyant exaggerations rested on the right side of slapstick and her squeaking fury never got old.

There’s always a nervous intake of breath when amateur actors take on the dreaded American accent and this cast didn’t quite steer away from its pitfalls; either wearing thin the same tone of voice or daring and failing to master different intonations.

Lucy Jamieson’s Blousey perfected the world-weary melancholy of the perpetual have-not but couldn’t move away from it, the exchanges between her and Bugsy were based on an im-

plausible chemistry that left me egging on Tallulah’s attempts at seduction.

The solo vocals captured the spirit of the jaded speakeasy with their bleak and modest huskiness being pitted against the desperate optimism of the group songs especially ‘Fat Sam’s Grand Slam’ and ‘You Give A Little Love’. Spitting whipped cream at the formal laws of drama, Bugsy Malone leaves seriousness behind and initiates you into its strange, collective in-joke.

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Stage Editors: Kathy Laszlo and Lyndsey Fineran | www.palatinate.org.uk

Stage Arts

Stage

The politics of Durham Student Theatre revealed A response to the criticism of DST’s apparent elitism

would argue that if you’re not getting into things maybe you are just not very good. urham Student Theatre If you look at the world outside Dur(DST), is one of the best, if ham, celebrity after celebrity is getting not the best organisation for Student Theatre in the country. And it acting job after acting job over people that maybe could have done them betis one that a hell of a lot of people are very proud of. Whilst other universities ter. Why? Because people know who such as Newcastle and Manchester put they are, know they are of a certain on two productions a term, we put on standard and know that they are going to pack audiences into theatres. I ask three a week. However, the university this: Why should people be cushioned does not advertise this to applicants. I into a deluded sense of security here, had no idea what Drama at Durham was like before I came - I was pleasantly when they are just going to go out into the real world and get sh*t on? It is a surprised.

There’s a good standard of theatre at tough business after all…

However, I am to some degree playDurham. And those who partake in it ing devil’s advocate with the author of are driven to this good standard by es“Is there something rotten on the stage tablished events such as the D’Oscars of Durham”?

(Palatinate 7th December which aim to celebrate the best work 2010), and all of those who agree with of the year. It goes without saying him. One of the roles on the DST therefore that directors want to make exec is to get as many people doing their productions as good as possible.

And what’s the best way of doing this? theatre at Durham as possible. This is the role that I am pleased and proud to Pick the best people. The people who perform as Festivals Secretary for DST, are going to deliver and who impress because I love to share my passion for in auditions. It’s just like real life – so I theatre with people. Don’t you think Callum Cheatle

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that the 150+ freshers that joined the society last term, the three productions a week, the three-fold increase in DDF applications this year as well as events such as the Freshers’ Play, show the effort we go to in attempts to expand our outreach?

I somewhat agree that it may be “satisfying to bring a richer diversity of casts to the stages of Durham”.

However, I do not think bitterness towards those people who do grace the Durham stage over and over again is at all appropriate. There are a number of DST members who want to go into the profession. Some are effectively using DST as their drama school, to get experience, learn from each other and bolster their CVs. We should not stop them. It’s what they want to do in life, and this top educational institution should give them chance after chance to do what they love. At this point it is up to individual directors to decide whether to cast them or not to cast them. It’s simple: if you are good you will get cast, if you are not, then you won’t.

In this sense, it is wrong to plead “give people a chance”. We are at one of the top Universities in the World.

Everyone in this setting has the potential to be creative, inventive, is able to think for himself or herself and has a go-getting attitude. If you feel like you are not “getting a chance”, go out and make it happen for yourself! In other words, go and make your own work!

You’ll find that DST is an institution supportive of all creative projects. DST exists to offer advice and help you realise your ambitions.

I just want to pick up on and clarify a couple more points in the article: there are no “massive amounts of funding” for university-wide productions. All finances for productions with personal companies (i.e. the vast majority) come straight out of the director’s own pocket/overdraft/student loan because they are willing to take a risk for their passion.

When, with every production individuals are risking over £1,000 of their own money, it is unfair to tell people to “For once, take a risk” - that risk is not

simply the flopping of a production but the potential of a seriously big hole remaining in his or her pocket.

It’s naive to suggest that we are shying away from risk in our striving limited as it may be - towards theatrical professionalism. Surely mounting projects such as USA tours holds quite enough risk for the meantime. I personally will confess to worrying far more about the risk of mounting an international theatrical charity project in a poverty stricken post-conflict zone than to worrying about the lack of risk in casting X (who I know from experience can do it) rather than the newbie Y to play the part of ‘Woodimp 7’ in my Edinburgh production.

But, of course, everyone has to start somewhere, some time. If anyone wants more convincing about the welcoming attitude of DST, you’re very welcome to get involved with the Durham Drama Festival 2011 (www. dramafest.co.uk), we’d love to have you - and in all other productions, for that matter!

FLICKR ID: ANDYROB

The way to get through the stage doors of London’s theatres is via DST productions and performances on the Assembly Rooms stage DAN JEFFRIES HARRY GATT

Last term’s plays included the artistic and moving Bluebird (above left) and a delightful production of Stoppard’s Travesties (above right)

Music Editors: Olivia Swash and Nico Franks | www.palatinate.org.uk Stage Arts

Music

The ones to watch in 2011

Our music writers’ selection of the artists you’ll be listening to in the next twelve months

Will Sutton, Jess Denham and Nico Franks

THE HIP-HOP BAND: Chiddy Bang www.myspace.com/ chiddybang Chiddy Bang hail from Philadelphia and whilst widely known by many for their MGMT sampling of the ‘Opposite Of Adults’, the expectation surrounding their first album really makes them one to watch for 2011. The intelligently produced Swelly Express and Air Swell mixtapes showcase the duo’s ability to create catchy pop-sampling tracks that frame their own intelligent and often humorous wordplay. New track ‘Bad Day’, a collaberation with Darwin Deez, reflects the group’s ability to sound current and appeal to a wide range of music listeners whilst maintaining credibility.

Recommended track: ‘The Good Life’ Will Sutton

www.myspace.com/ jcole J. Cole was the first signing to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Imprint and has already released three critically acclaimed mixtapes, The Come Up, The Warm Up, and Friday Night Lights. All of these reflect a growing talent, lyrically and musically, with the third mixtape largely produced by J. Cole himself. He provides a sound reminiscent of classic 80’s and 90’s East Coast Hip Hop but with a very modern feel. Plus, his affiliation to Jay-Z has seen him travel on tour with the rap-legend himself, which makes J. Cole’s break into the mainstream all the more inevitable.

Recommended track: ‘Who Dat’ Will Sutton

into the mainstream with ‘Do It Like A Dude’, a commercial hip-hop track with a British reggae twist. Dubbed the “best singer in the world right now”

by Justin Timberlake, she is also a proficient songwriter, having penned hits for Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys and Miley Cyrus. Winner of the 2011 BRITS Critics’ Choice award, Jessie claimed to have written ‘Do It Like A Dude’ for Rihanna to record, before deciding that she’d damn well do it herself. With a powerful voice and attitude to match, Jessie is essentially everything that Cher Lloyd wishes she could be.

Despite being hotly tipped to follow in the folksy footsteps of Mumford & Sons (they’re signed to ‘son’ Ben Lovett’s new label Communion), Matthew and the Atlas offer a distinctly laidback vibe that is far from a mere copycat effort. Matt Hegarty’s honest, earthy vocals combine with female harmonies, hand-clapping and banjos to create a captivatingly original sound.

As hearty and warming as a bowl of homemade soup, few things would be more perfect than chilling out around a campfire with these guys.

Recommended track: ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ Jess Denham

Recommended track: ‘I Will Remain’ Jess Denham

THE INDIE BAND: Islet

www.isletislet.com/ THE R’N’B SINGER: home.html Jessie J www.myspace.com/ jessiejofficial Urban-styled and sassy, 22 year old Essex girl Jessie J recently shot

Islet are a four piece from Cardiff who have so far released two minialbums, ‘Celebrate This Place’ and ‘Wiggy’. Sounding like a performance of the choreographed percussion musical-theatre show Stomp, except conducted by Mark E. Smith of The Fall, they have a spirit of experimentalism and daring about them that is genuinely exciting. Notoriously elusive due to their lack of presence on the web (they don’t even have a Myspace!), the band are building a dedicated fanbase through their intense live show, which involves multiinstrumentalism, two drum kits and lots of toplessness.

Recommended track: ‘We Shall Visit’ Nico Franks

THE FOLK BAND:

THE ROCK BAND: Mona www.myspace. com/monatheband Ambitious four-piece Mona come from Nashville, Tennessee (home to Kings of Leon) and are intent upon raising hell with their aggressively energetic brand of youthful rock’n’roll.

Having already incited a tangible buzz amongst critics, the boys are unrelenting in their quest for stardom. Recently named Record of the Week by Fearne Cotton on Radio One, latest release ‘Trouble On The Way’ is a driving hurricane of grandiose passion and sexy, grinding rhythms.

THE DUBSTEP ARTIST: James Blake www.myspace.com/ jamesblakeproduction With his debut self-titled album due at the beginning of February, Londoner James Blake’s fusion of moody dubstep and soulful electronica creates an intriguing vibe not dissimilar to the icy cool of The xx. A classical pianist since his early teenage years, Blake recently graduated from Goldsmiths College in London where he studied Popular Music. His edgy and experimental cover of Feist’s ‘Limit To Your Love’ demonstrates a refreshing confidence in the power of ‘less is more’. What Blake cleverly chooses to leave out renders his music all the more hauntingly futuristic and bewitching.

Recommended Track: ‘CMYK’ Jess Denham

...

The Chiddy Bang duo

THE RAPPER: J. Cole

Recommended Track: ‘Trouble On The Way’ Jess Denham

Matthew and the Atlas

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James Blake: The Dubstep artist of 2011?

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CHUFF MEDIA

www. myspace. com/matthewandtheatlas

Books Editor: James Leadill | www.palatinate.org.uk

Stage Arts

Books

Larkin: Questioning Paradise 10am, Wednesday morning. The academic year is stretching, yawning, sprawling into life and it’s early enough in term for the lecture theatre to be almost full.

Well, with this amount of time on our hands, why not? Deadlines are still distant thunder at the lip of the horizon, and mostly we’re frothing at the mouth from the night before, and the night before that, and we’re coughing and blaming the freshers for being too young and for making us ill.

“Philip Larkin” our lecturer begins – immediately I’m falling into all the old habits: I’m thinking Motion, controversy over pornography, a distorted perception of paradise, and I’m irritated that in front of me is a handout with all the poems I studied at A level.

“High Windows” loiters unashamedly among five other of Larkin’s finest, or best-known, and I can’t help an exasperated sigh when our lecturer begins aloud: “When I see a couple of kids...” and tells us we can read the rest to ourselves. I’m frustrated that three years later I’m still confronted with a

teacher who balks at saying ‘fucking’ and ‘diaphragm’ in the same sentence, or in different sentences for that matter.

I feel like I’m back in school.

My attention span has reached its limit and I scan through the poem listlessly (with a few bittersweet thoughts of an intense and mystifying boy who sat next to me in AS English). And then – there it is.

Bam. ‘...paradise...everyone young going down the long slide / to happiness, endlessly’.

I’ve spent three years almost being convinced that I’m taking a mickeymouse degree and I want to pin that line out across the sky; trail it from the engine of a plane. Suddenly it doesn’t matter if someone would rather not say a few words aloud, or whether the same few poems appear on every googlesearch, or page-flick, or handout: they appear for a reason, and no matter how tired I become of Larkin’s weary words draping themselves across the page... that doesn’t matter either. Because in 1974 a poem was published that was something to do with slipping the chains of religion, with embracing an

age of swearing and sex, and it became a poem that questioned freedom, that questioned happiness.

It’s a slap in the face. Suddenly here’s a poem, reaching out across the decades and saying: is your generation any different from the generation before?

Are you still obsessed with happiness, with paradise?

Well, if the poem ended there, I’d be writing quite a different article. But it doesn’t. It ends with ‘the thought of high windows...deep blue air’; with a sense of the greater plan, the larger universe, the ‘sun-comprehending glass’ through which we can still feel raw heat if we only let ourselves get close enough.

It ends with a rather terrifying implication of human potential, alongside our insignificance, alongside a huge space that will never be filled by all the generations to come... but above all, it leaves me stunned by all that can be said in twenty lines. It leaves me standing face to face with the reason why I’m still studying Philip Larkin at all.

FLICKRID: SIMONK

Lydia Knoop

Short story: Monday Morning

by Lydia Knoop

Philip Larkin, author of High Windows and The Less Decieved, amongst many other collections

It’s a Monday when we disappear, that nameless no-man’s season between mid-August and October. The temperature is jibbering up and down the car thermometer and as I cross to the passenger seat the wind-screen crops the sky close around me: my reflection wrapped senselessly in shorts and scarf. South-East England, or something like that. I learned about contour lines once, the red rivers threading a map, but the towns I forgot. There’s a cafe shadowed under white and green stripes and immediately, Bristol gutters with their Wednesday fish-eyed tide sour my tongue. His shades are too dark; beard-dark, and surrounded with stubble, his shirt says ten years in rehab and still relaxed. I’m mad at him for lining up powder on a dashboard eight weeks running and planting peripheral dreams in my head with words he can’t pronounce.

We stop the car on Coley Hill. The station is hot red brick in the sun and I snatch my scarf from my neck, confused by how my skin burns white when he touches my shoulder. I’m sick of working seventeen hour shifts on minimum wage and I know he feels the same.

We watch crowds pour through the city, through the hot brick, trampling stairs and insects.

The world must be in meltdown, I say. Everyone’s hanging out their fucking arses.

He smiles and I check the clock.

* The train now standing at platform two is the ten forty-eight to London Liverpool Street. Calling at – A nursery rhyme kicks in. Grandpa’s knee. The spots on his skin dark as cloud on sun and how he never stopped coughing.

Please mind the gap between the platform and – He looks into me and puts his hands in that concave place in my back.

Come on, he whispers.

We can’t.

My hands are full of sweat and frustration.

He smiles.

Of course we can.

We walk out of the station clutching hands, clutching railings as the pavement pumps sudden rain beneath our feet. His shirt is heavy and deep, deep blue when it touches my skin.

We drive 270 miles and start walking.

We’re on a mass of land bigger and wilder than the sea, with ragged tufts of surf blowing like cotton in our faces. We grab it between our fingers and it sparkles – white, blue, silver, gone. Seagulls hurtle towards the sky and it blossoms black, shameless as flowers at a funeral.

The buds of darkness catch one another and silence beats small and frantic, a mouse-pulse, quivering and strong.

We circle our wrists and ankles with fire and shout into each other’s ears look!

look! forgetting the shelled drums that could shatter with this music. * We sleep short sleeps in the lightpunctured dark, waking to men in white dresses and women lining their faces with bright paint, putting their feet in sheathes of fluorescent fabric.

In the morning we stumble haphazardly through stubbled grass, trees and words, and a slow haze of vision.

There are wheels spinning with light, men forcing thick food in our palms and pushing sweet white things on our tongues.

Fuck, we whisper. Fuck.

We stretch and lick our fingers at the stars, try to wrap our arms around ideas too big for the world, too small for the gods. We walk in straight lines and find ourselves staggering into curves, into canvas circles where the skin around our eyes is gemmed and flame sparks quietly from repeating corners. We dig our fingers between stones, try to find anchors in the grass.

He smiles at me, one hand warm on my hip and the other reaching for yellow discs, for a long chain that promises to take us flying, to make us birds and take us above these colours. Come on, he whispers. Come the fuck on!

Words of the week ‘Carouse’ To engage in a noisy or drunken social gathering; to drink to excess

‘Importunity’ Pressing or pertinacious solicitation; urgent request; unsuitableness; rudeness

‘Jade’ A disreputable or ill tempered woman

Clay

by Lydia Knoop In the beginning there was beauty.

The undisputed perfection of eyes opening like buds; of limbs lost in time, in grace, in phenomenal frailty.

There were hands to hold, and the old lies that shaped comfort’s face dissolved, as kisses on cold glass.

The heart of love and madnessall that mattered.

In the beginning.

If my eyes did not gasp like blind fish and my mouth, a rolling socket of words, disjoint my tongue, if thoughts did not lie spineless I could tell you of such beginnings as never saw ends but reeled with possibility, and you would love me again.

Games Editor: Jon Zhu | Photography Editor: Quin Murray | www.palatinate.org.uk Stage Arts

The Back Page Conflict of the consoles Ed Owen

PlayStation Move The Wii is huge; you can’t watch the television without seeing whatever celebrity popping up; gurning and swinging peripherals about. It’s only natural that Sony would want a piece of that profitable JLS pie, and thus the Move was born.

The reason that I’m insinuating Sony has been copying FLIC

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Similar peripherals make for a similar experience.

However, where the Move is triumphs over the Wii is in it’s responsiveness; more specifically in gaging the accuracy of your movements. This is due to the use of the PS Eye webcam that comes in the bundle; it is simply the better motion sensor, able to pick up inertia and precise movement.

Whereas wrist-flicking had the same effect as scything across the living room and scaring the cat on the Wii, Move can gauge everything precisely, and I must say it makes the gaming far more immersive.

Yet what of the games themselves?

Unfortunately, they

Nintendo’s homework is this; the Move is so much like the Wii-mote, that one could almost be forgiven for thinking that the Wii had dolled itself up in black and worn a spherical wig.

Snow and ice 1st Place (below)

3rd Place (right)

Gavin Bell Snow Games Sony DSLR-A200 70mm f/8 Exposure 1/250th

Kevin Sheehan Frosted Rose Canon EOS REBELT1i 48mm f/5.6 Exposure 1/50

are mostly mediocre; either shallow novelties (Start the Party, EyePet) or unneeded integrations of the technology into existing games that didn’t need it (Heavy Rain). Nevertheless one does stand out; Sport Champions. It operates as a high-end Wii Sports, but the precise nature of Move makes it far more engrossing; you’ll definitely notice the difference in the tennis. This is an excellent advert for the Move; it’s a great party game that offers you depth and rewards skill, immersive enough to warrant the hardware’s purchase.

Jack Percival

Kinect

ence in the game without the need for a controller.

Like many, I was initially sceptical of the device, particularly having previously seen a number of systems which neither lived up to expectations, nor the hype surrounding them! The Kinect however, was a refreshingly involving experience and after a short set up process, which involved moving furniture and performing various “dance moves” in front of the sensor it was set up and ready to go. The voice control and face recognition work really well and the controlling of the menus and dashboard by just holding your hand out in the air, had a sense of a scene from a

When Microsoft and Sony weighed in with their original ideas for motion controlled gaming systems in May 2010, it was the Kinect for Xbox 360 that people were getting really excited about. Combining multiple cameras with sensors, as well as voice and face recognition, the Kinect as a package is revolutionary, tracking 48 points on the player’s body to give a fully immersive experi-

futuristic spy movie.

Many of the games involve significant amounts of movement, something which may surprise Wii users who are used to lying on the sofa and controlling games with a mere flick of the wrist. Whilst the potential is definitely there with the Kinect and the device itself is an impressive piece of technology, the one element that lets it down is the current lack of games compatible with the device. Most of the current titles are family friendly fun and will let down hardcore gamers.

However, as the technology develops, hopefully the games will also come and the infinite possibilities of the device will be truly explored.

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2nd Place Jo M - 2nd Quayside in Snow Fuji Finepic S9600 1/7000 exp Focal Length 6mm Aperture f/8

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Next theme: From Another Angle All entries to : photography@palatinate.org.uk by 27th January 2011