Palatinate 825

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Thursday 6th February 2020 | No. 825

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Profile sits down with Bill Bryson and Radio 1’s Ali Plum

Interview speaks to the founder of Durfess to reveal its inner workings

Durham brings students in China home as Coronavirus spreads Tom Mitchell Editor-in-Chief Durham University has paid for flights home for students who were living in China, the epicentre of the Coronavirus outbreak.

There had been nine Durham students spending the third year of their degree studying Chinese

language at a Chinese university. There are now no Durham students remaining in China.

On Tuesday, the University offered students the opportunity to return home. On Wednesday this advice was strengthened as the International Office “instructed students currently in China to return to the UK as soon as possible”.

The University said it

would meet the cost of a single flight to return to the UK. The virus has caused over 400 deaths in China, and there have now been more than 20,000 confirmed cases, exceeding the number who were infected during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2002-3. The World Health Organisation has declared an international health emergency.

Alex White, a Durham student who had been in China, said he had initially planned to stay, but “with the imminent lock-down of movement within China, it soon became apparent that the best course of action was for me to leave the country, a decision echoed by the Foreign Commonwealth Office and the University.”

This comes as the first two

cases of Coronavirus were recorded in the UK last week. According to the BBC, the patients had been staying in a hotel in Yorkshire, but were transferred to Newcastle overnight to receive specialist treatment.

The University has said it will continue to monitor the situation and maintain contact with Public Health England.

UCU announces further strikes

“Crisis of mental health also present among staff”

• 14 days of action will start on February 20th • University : decision to strike is “disappointing”

Jack Taylor & Tom Mitchell Editors-in-Chief

Toby Donegan-Cross, Jack Taylor & Tom Mitchell

As the UCU announce they will once again strike later this month, in part due to casualiation and workloads, Palatinate can reveal that at points last academic year up to 28% of staff absences were due to mental health.

An internal university document seen by Palatinate presents data for staff absences from February to March 2019, showing that in total 27.56% of absences were due to mental health.

This breaks down as 8.39% Stress, 7.28% Anxiety, 6.78% Depression and 5.11% ‘Other Mental Health’.

An Associate Professor reacted to these findings by telling Palatinate: “The mental health crisis amongst students is also present amongst staff. Sixty hour weeks are not uncommon, many staff are suffering from anxiety themselves even as we try to encourage you, our students to look after your mental health.

“No amount of free yoga classes will make up for heavy workloads and inhuman research expectations around writing or grant capture. These are systemic problems – a competitive research culture and a marketised university system funded through student debt creates pressure and it is students and staff that pay...

Continued to page 3

The University and College Union (UCU) announced on Monday that its members at 74 universities will strike for the second time this academic year.

The industrial action will begin on February 20th and will escalate each week, culminating in a week-long walkout from Monday March 9th.

Durham University has already faced action this academic year, with UCU members taking part in industrial action from November 25th until December 4th.

Disputes centre around two issues, the first being the impact of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and its rising cost to members. Changes to the scheme since 2011 have sparked action after independent analysis showed that a typical union member will pay around £40,000 more into their pension but receive almost £200,000 less in retirement.

The UCU is also striking over universities’ failure to make “significant improvements” on pay, equality, casualisation and workloads.

For students at Durham since 2017 or before, this will be the third time that their studies have been affected by strikes. This round of

▲ After three shows DUCFS had raised £171,000 (Toby Lowenstein)

walkouts comes less than two months after the conclusion of the previous industrial action.

The 2018 and 2019 strikes affected 61 and 60 universities respectively. This makes the upcoming strikes, affecting 74 universities across 14 days, more nationally significant.

Complaints about perceived slashes to staff pensions are now combined with concerns such as the ‘casualisation’ of work, and BAME and gender inequality.

Palatinate reported last year that Durham is far below the Russell Group average for employing BAME staff, at just 7% compared to an average of 13.7% across other universities for the 2017/18 academic year.

These employment statistics are despite the fact that 23% of all job applications to Durham came from BAME candidates in the final quarter of 2018.

During the 2019 strikes, some departments held ‘teachouts’ at Durham Miners Hall, for example, the English Department held creative writing workshops and film screenings.

Last year’s strike culminated in a protest in the Palatine Centre, which holds the Durham Law School, student services as well as the University’s headquarters.

One 3rd year student commented:”I’m actually really annoyed about this, I’m missing all my contact hours...

Continued to page 3

Thursday 6th February 2020 | PALATINATE

2

Editorial

It’s okay not to be okay

L

ast edition Palatinate launched a mental health campaign. The aim is to highlight issues that people face on a daily basis. Part of that requires people being open about how they feel, with us and the rest of the University. I don’t think I should ask this of others without doing it myself.

Before coming to University I was under the impression that issues with my mental health could be avoided. As long as you ignored your problems, stayed positive and always replied with “I’m okay”, you’d be fine. I laugh now at how wrong I was.

By second year I thought I’d been set straight. I’d spent multiple Novembers with an awful moustache, repeated the line “it’s okay not to be okay” and always checked in on my friends. All whilst ignoring my own mental health.

I thought my mental health issues could be avoided During Easter Term last year I came close to dropping out, I still actually have the email in my drafts. I’m sure most people can relate that there are times when you really question if the late nights and stress are worth it.

That is what I was going through but at the same time I had a family member slowly dying back in Somerset.

My nan’s health had slowly deteriorated from around January last year. She’d had an operation to remove gallstones but her health still declined.

I went home for the Easter holiday to see her. She’d lost a huge amount of weight but also some of her mind. In later months

doctors would suggest it was dementia and at one stage they also thought there was a tumour or cancer involved, she ended up being too weak to be able to take to the hospital to find answer.

My most vivid memory of her during that time was going to her house for dinner that week. I’d always spent school holidays with my grandparents so that my parents could work, my nan had continued having us for dinner even once we could survive at home alone.

But this time was different. I was met on the doorstep with her crying, confused with the to do list my parents had left and panicking over cooked chicken. I sat her down, cooked and then had to make sure she’d eaten something. It was like caring for a child rather than the woman that has played an influential part in my upbringing.

I then basically ran back to Durham. My coping mechanism was to bottle up how I felt and attempt to get my work finished.

This didn’t really work well.

With my thoughts continuously turning back home I just couldn’t concentrate. I ended up writing my politics research project during the only legitimate all nighter I’ve ever done. It was a 63, not too bad considering.

I spent the rest of term on autopilot, just attempting to get through it all. I still had some good times with my friends and became Editor-in-Chief of Palatinate, but also had some of the lowest points in my life. After a Philosophy exam that contained a question along the lines of “should dying people be killed”, I remember just walking laps of the city until it went dark.

My nan eventually died in

early August. The day she passed away she couldn’t really breath or speak. I knew seeing her that it was the end.

I developed insomnia during exams and it continues until this day The rest of the holiday was a bit of a blur. I emotionally turned off to deal with everything around me and just continued as if nothing was going on.

I developed insomnia during exams and it continues until this day. I’ve honestly tried everything to stop it, only sleeping pills really work but there isn’t much point taking something to sleep that makes you feel more tired.

I didn’t really think I was grieving until earlier this term. I’ve walked to seminars, looked at the door and just walked back home.

A lot of time when I’m alone I get upset and my mind drifts back to summer.

It took an email from the Politics department asking if I was okay (I’d missed six seminars) for me to finally open up and tell people how I felt. Someone’s inbox in the department currently holds a rather detailed account of my mental health over the past 12 months.

Since then I’ve been referred to counselling with the University.

It’s hoped that the insomnia will go when the grief settles. They also hold a bereavement support group on Wednesdays, starting from 12 February 4.15-5.45pm in PCL058.

Multiple people told me to get help sooner without me even opening up. I think I ignored this advice as talking about how I felt initially made me feel worse. I

Inside 825 News pages 3-5 Comment pages 7-9 Profile page 10-11 SciTech page 12-13 Politics pages 15-17 Sport pages 18-20

indigo

Editorial page 2 Features page 3 Music pages 4-5 Creative Writing page 6 Visual Arts page 7 Stage pages 8-9 Books page 10 Interview page 11 Fashion pages 12-13 Food & Drink page 14 Travel page 15 Film & TV page 16 should have taken their advice, so if you are struggling please learn from that mistake.

Part of my issue was that I didn’t want to worry those people with what was wrong with me, I’ve told so many people that I’m always there if they need to chat but never really approached someone myself.

I’ve always said it but now I honestly know “Its okay not to be okay.”

Jack Taylor

Palatinate Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief Jack Taylor & Tom Mitchell editor@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Editors Jamima Westermann & Imogen Usherwood deputy.editor@palatinate.org.uk News Editors Will Hutchings, Jack Parker & Toby Donegan-Cross news@palatinate.org.uk Deputy News Editors Emma Lucia Felisi & Joshua Hurn deputy.news@palatinate.org.uk Investigations Editor Luke Payne investigations@palatinate.org.uk Comment Editor Jacob Whitehead & Pip Murrison comment@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Comment Editors Kiara Davies & Michael Knezevic Profile Editors Theo Golden & Tash Mosheim profile@palatinate.org.uk Science & Technology Editors Ewan Jones & Hannah Goldswain scitech@palatinate.org.uk Politics Editors Marina Mestres & Patrick Stephens politics@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Politics Editor Sophie Farmer & Meera Navlakha Sport Editor Tim Sigsworth & Tomas Hill LopezMenchero sport@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Sport Editors Alana Ker Mercer, Hector Pearce & Matt Styles Indigo Editor Shauna Lewis indigo@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Indigo Editor Hugo Millard Sub-Editors Lizzie Murrall, Ruth Waterfield & Alice Latham Photography Editors Mark Norton photography@palatinate.org.uk Illustrations Editor Heidi Januszewski illustration@palatinate.org.uk Website Administrator Calum Johnston Advertising Officer Oliver Henry oliver.advertising@palatinate.org.uk

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

3

PALATINATE | Thursday 6th February 2020

News “We do not wish to cancel classes but we have no other choice.”

Continued from front

We are just around the corner from the elections for your Student Officers, the people who will lead your union for the next year and champion you to the University and the community. I cannot wait to see what the candidates have to say; meeting students who are out campaigning and caring about Durham and their education is one of the best things about being your SU President. Look out for the elections candidates being revealed, and find out what ideas they have to make the future better for students.

Often, taking a stance and saying what you believe when it matters takes bravery. One of the things you learn quickly in this job is that you have to be bold in the face of people who seek to undermine what you say, dispute your proof or challenge your motivations.

This week is Assembly, where anyone can speak and ask their Union to take a stance on the things they believe in. Students are bringing ideas that show an awareness of the global world we live in and our responsibility to address those big issues, like climate change and the impact of colonialism, in Durham. It’s great hearing students talk passionately about the things that matter to them, and knowing that as your SU we can support you to take those ideas further.

When I am asked what my favourite thing about Durham is, I say that I love how much we care about each other. The very best part of doing my job is getting to work with people who see leadership as standing up for what they know is the right thing to do, when they could very easily just move with the crowd.

From when I was a homesick fresher until now, I’ve always believed that student leadership makes Durham different, and I want to keep working to make that true. I want us to make Durham the place where people work together, lead by raising other people up, and challenge people who seek to belittle and intimidate others.

One 3rd year student commented:”I’m actually really annoyed about this, I’m missing all my contact hours as my tutors are all members for an entire month before my coursework, dissertation and finals.

“This is the third strike I’ve been impacted by since starting university and I can’t believe there’s not been a resolution that’s been reached. This isn’t sustainable.”

An assistant professor at Durham told Palatinate: “The decision to take a further 14 days strike action has not been taken lightly. We do not wish to cancel classes and delay marking but we have no other choice.

“The offer from employers on the Four Fights (against casualization, heavy workloads, fair pay and against the gender and race pay gap) was inadequate.

“To be told by Vice Chancellors in the top 1% of earners who came from a generation who went to university for free that so little can be done to improve our peers’ contracts is offensive.”

Jo Grady, general secretary of the UCU, said: “If universities want to avoid further disruption they need to deal with rising pension costs, and address the problems over pay and conditions.”

The UCU also warned it would

Jimmy Allen’s has now reopened after an abrupt temporary closure. A message posted on the club’s Facebook page and from

This is the third strike I’ve been impacted by since starting university Nationwide, it is estimated that more than a million students will be impacted by this strike action. Some universities, such as Sussex, have launched schemes to compensate students for missed contact hours, inviting them to apply for cash payouts.

After the industrial action in 2017, over 5,000 Durham students unsuccessfully petitioned the University for compensation. The then Conservative Education Minister Sam Gyimah said: “I expect all universities affected to make clear that any money not paid to lecturers - as a consequence of strike action - will go towards student benefit including compensation.”

Durham University did not compensate students, in-

stead donating money to the Student Hardship Fund.

In response to Palatinate asking if Durham students would receive compensation this time round, Alan Houston (ViceProvost Education) said: “At this point in time, we do not know the precise impact of strike action on individual students. We are focusing our efforts on putting in place measures to ensure that students can meet the learning outcomes of the programmes on which they are registered.

“It is disappointing that the decision in favour of further strike action was taken when national talks on the future of the USS pension scheme are still ongoing and when intensive national

discussions to try to resolve the current pay dispute has resulted in proposals addressing casual employment, workload, gender pay gaps and ethnicity pay.

More than a million students will be impacted “While we respect the right of our staff to take strike action, we regret the impact on our students and their education and we are working hard to mitigate this impact. We also continue to urge both sides in the dispute to remain open to negotiation and compromise in order to prevent further disruption.”

“Free yoga classes don’t make up for heavy workloads” Continued from front ...students and staff that pay the price.”

As a percentage of total absences, the occasions of staff taking time off due to mental health issues has fallen from 33.34% in the fourth quarter of 2017/18. In particular, occasions of stress-related absences have fallen from 14.49% to 8.39%.

The University stated, in the document seen by Palatinate, that this was due to the number of days recorded falling but also due to the rise in other sickness such as colds.

The UCU announced on Monday that members at 74 universities, including Durham, will strike for 14 days later this month and into early March. This is in part due to what the UCU describes as

universities’ “failure to significant improvements” to pay, equality, casualisation and workloads.

An academic that plans to strike told Palatinate: “Locally, Durham is no stranger to using casualised contracts. Some members of our branch were on zero hours teaching contracts for up to nine years in one case. Hourlypaid and short-term contracts which provide no job security are a source of anxiety and both emotional and financial stress.

“They mean people cannot plan for their futures – having a family, buying a house, receiving long-term medical care – all of these things are impossible on zero hours or short-term contracts. We know this because these are our colleagues, our friends and our partners.

“These people teach your

seminars, they teach you language classes in the evening, they help you with academic skills, they help run your library and many other activities that make your university tick”.

vate events including weddings and birthdays.

their resident DJ on the 16th of January said Jimmy’s would remain shut “until further notice” without any explanation.

In a Facebook post from January 16th, it was announced that “Jimmy Allens has not re opened after the xmas break and will remain closed for now, unfortu-

nately we cannot give any more information.”

DJ Dave, the cult figure on nights out to Jimmy’s, said he would still be completing his usual three-day a week set at Klute whilst the club was shut. He did not say whether he would continue this after taking over ownership of the club.

Whilst closed, he specified he would still be available for pri-

Jimmy’s re-opens

Will Hutchings and Josh Hurn News Editor and Deputy News Editor

ballot members again after this wave of strikes if the disputes could not be resolved, to ensure branches could take action until the end of the academic year. Strike mandates are only legally valid for six months, so branches who walked out in November would need to secure a fresh mandate to be able to continue to take action after April.

Durham is no stranger to casualised contracts Joanne Race, the University’s Director of Human Resources & Organisation Development, said: “People are our most important asset and we recognise the importance of the wellbeing of our workforce.

“We have supportive structures and services in place, ensuring our staff can raise problems and seek help – be this from their line management, Occupational Health, Health and Safety, the Uni-

It is unclear why the club closed On the 30th of January, another message was posted by DJ Dave explaining he had now taken over the lease of Jimmy’s with his wife and it would re-open for certain.

versity Counselling Service or HR and Organisation Development.

“We are currently undertaking a University-wide project to develop a comprehensive Wellbeing Strategy to ensure we are providing a healthy and productive workplace. We have invited all staff to feed into this project through a Health and Wellbeing Survey and consultation events. We will soon be announcing new initiatives which are based on these findings.

“Alongside this work we are also reviewing the way in which we engage staff on flexible contracts and how we can ensure they are only used when appropriate, and with defined conditions. Representatives from the Students’ Union and our Trade Unions are involved in these discussions.”

One student said: “When it reopened I was relieved as you really take for granted the free night out in Durham.”

“Also I can’t wait to see the new toilets, that’s the most exciting aspect of its relaunch to me.”

It is still unclear why the club was forced to close in the first place, but it appears to be safe for now.

Thursday 6th February 2020| PALATINATE

4

News

SU President states she is a victim of misogyny Will Hutchings, Toby DoneganCross & Jack Parker News Editors A motion of censure against Durham Students’ Union President Kate McIntosh has been withdrawn, and will not be tabled as planned at the SU Assembly on 6th February.

Multiple sources close to Palatinate indicate that the motion had been drafted by a member of the SU Assembly who are themselves looking to run as SU President for the next academic year.

A motion of censure against Kate McIntosh has been withdrawn The Students’ Union requested that the post be deleted on the basis that it was defamatory. The letter defines defamation as including “statements that claim the plaintiff [...] is incompetent in

his job, trade, or profession.”

The letter argues the Durfess post “clearly has the potential to have serious impacts for an individual’s employment, reputation and future.”

The harrassment and intimidation I’ve faced is gendered In response to the Students’ Union letter claiming that the post was defamatory, Durfess posted the following on their Facebook page: “Unlike the SU, we believe in transparency and accountability”, alongside the link to a petition for anyone who wished to “express solidarity against the SU suing us [Durfess].”

As well as posting a partiallyredacted copy of the letter received from the Students’ Union, Durfess changed their profile photo to cover their logo with a ‘Censored’ bar. Several sources have told Palatinate that the SU has now settled the defamation issue. Durfess has since deleted

Minister full of praise for “inspiring” Durham Toby Donegan-Cross News Editor Chris Skidmore MP, Minister of State for universities, Science, Research and Innovation, visited Durham University on the 24th January.

During a two-hour tour, Skidmore was shown around Durham’s new Teaching and Learning Centre and tried out new digital learning tools, including virtual reality headsets.

In addition, Skidmore held meetings with the Vice Chancellor, Stuart Corbridge, and made a speech to over 100 staff, students and leaders of the TechUp project.

“This shiny press release fails to acknowledge any desire by the University to lobby the Government” Skidmore said that it had been a “fantastic opportunity” to visit the University, and called the research “really inspiring.”

Before entering parliament in 2010 as the Conservative MP for Kingswood, Skidmore worked as an advisor for David Willetts and Michael Gove. He is also a published historian, having written biographies of Edward VI and Richard III, as well as an account of the Battle of Bosworth.

Since December 2018, Skidmore has served as the Minister

for Universities, following Sam Gyimah’s resignation over the government’s Brexit policy.

Skidmore worked as an advisor for Michael Gove Corbridge commented that: “We were pleased to welcome the Universities Minister to Durham show him just a few of examples of how innovations that began here are supporting the regional economy and, as a result, benefitting our local communities.”

Simon Henig, Leader of Durham County Council, attended Skidmore’s speech, and commented afterwards that “I hope what the Universities Minister has seen in Durham will encourage him to lobby the Government for further investment in our region.”

The press release from the University has come under fire from DULC, Durham’s Student Labour Club.

Zoe Haylock and Jack Pearce, co-chairs of the club, said: “This shiny press release fails to acknowledge any desire by the University to lobby the Government to improve the welfare of the most debt-laden generation ever.

“A responible University would recognise that the appauling financial situation which is the reality for its students and staff is fundamentally detrimental to the incredible research they undertake.”

its post of the SU’s letter, and removed the ‘Censored’ bar from their profile photo after several hours.

Kate McIntosh was elected unopposed as SU President in March 2019, on a turnout of 14%, receiving 2,211 votes. Durfess’s petition criticising the SU’s libel accusation was signed by 1,299 people within 24 hours, equivalent to 59% of the total number of votes McIntosh received when she was elected.

McIntosh successfully ran in December 2018 to become a delegate to the NUS Conference McIntosh successfully ran in December 2018 to become a delegate to the NUS Conference, on a slate alongside current Undergraduate Academic Officer, Sam Johnson-Audini. JohnsonAudini successfully ran again in 2019 on a slate with two other

candidates.

Although McIntosh has not responded to Palatinate’s multiple requests for comment, she published a lengthy article on the Students’ Union website within hours of the motion leaking, entitled “Durham’s Problem with Respect.”

Her article makes no explicit mention of the leaked motion, but McIntosh writes: “I am confident that I’m doing my ob well because I speak up about the things students care about to the best of my ability.”

She continues, denouncing an “ingrained culture that permits misogyny, harassment and disrespect,” while also acknowledging that “we also have thousands of people who want to change that. Undoubtedly, the harassment and intimidation I’ve faced is gendered. No one calls a man ‘manipulative’, or takes notes of the exact date and time a man has an original thought, so that they can be called out later. Let me be clear: this is misogyny.”

“I’m just the next in a line of women student leaders called bossy, manipulative, overly opinionated or ‘unsavoury’.”

“No one calls a man manipulative” McIntosh claims that there have been “weeks of rumours, misinformation, ‘secret’ meetings, outright denials from people in positions of responsibility that they were behaving in underhand ways, Palatinate leaks, Durfess posts, WhatsApp groups.

Vicious rumours behind closed doors.”

Palatinate was not involved in the drafting, distribution or posting of the proposed motion.

Sharing McIntosh’s article on Facebook, SU Opportunities Officer Jess Dunning urged people to read it, calling it “a beautifully articulated piece about what it’s really like to be a female student leader.”

Grey break-in sparks concerns Jack Parker News Editor The Reception at Grey College was broken into towards the end of January, resulting in the theft of letters addressed to students.

In an email sent to all Grey students on 24th January, the College Master, Professor Tom Allen, told students that “police have investigated and made an arrest.

“They did a search of the suspect’s residence, and discovered a number of letters addressed to Grey students.”

Professor Allen could not confirm how many letters were stolen, or if “the letters that were found were the only ones that were taken.” It is unclear when, or if, the students’ letters will be returned by the police.

“Police have investigated and made an arrest” Although it appears no personal possessions were taken during the break-in, the theft of letters raises concerns about the college’s data protection procedures

and students’ personal details.

One final-year Grey student, who asked to remain anonymous, told Palatinate that the news “shocked us a lot, essentially because it’s nothing you never would think could happen.

“College is supposed to be a safe place. I would never normally lock my room - I would trust the codes for every door in Grey to work perfectly. Now there’s no way I would leave the building without locking my door.

“The news just confirms that Durham is not as safe as you might think. People think that Durham is such a small place that nothing like this could happen. The breakin has definitely shaken Grey, and there’s absolutely a bigger sense of insecurity in the college.”

The break-in is the second significant incident to hit Grey College this academic year - Grey and Collingwood livers-in were evacuated overnight to Maiden Castle following a major power cut in November 2019.

Professor Allen could not confirm how many letters were stolen.

Palatinate contacted the University to ask what measures they planned to take to ensure such an incident does not take place again. The University declined to provide further comment at this time, since this is an ongoing legal matter.

(DS Pugh/Victor Watts Lbrary)

PALATINATE | Thursday 6th February 2020

5

News

South College update Anna Marshall Senior Reporter South College has started recruiting members and interviewing prospective JCR presidents as construction finishes on their dining hall, gym and music room.

The latest college to join the hill colleges of Mount Oswald will be opening in August 2020, with 350 freshers entering a college community of 492 students, including over 40 current Durham students acting as ‘Pioneer Scholars’ and 80 postgraduates.

South College’s Principal, Professor Tim Luckhurst, who was previously editor of The Scotsman, said that “South College has huge advantages, with fantastic facilities at the heart of the college. In terms of making a community, buildings are a good start but it’s the students that matter.

“We have some great scholars who share my vision for an inclusive college, which will be dedicated to engaging with current affairs and open debate.

“I’m so delighted with our pioneer scholars who are transferring from colleges all over both

Hill and Bailey, all with something to contribute. We have scholars passionate about a creating a culture of music, sport, drama and wellbeing support – I’m so delighted with the variety of pioneer scholars we’ve already recruited.”

South College has received support from the University’s art collections to purchase their first sculpture, which will be Nancy Frankel’s Conversation II, to be installed in the college grounds, with further art already being commissioned.

An initial meeting of pioneer scholars has already been held and interviews for JCR President will be in February, before the first college formal in March at Collingwood College. Scholarships are still available for current students to transfer to South College.

Pressure for housing has mounted in recent years, but Luckhurst says “South College is part of the University’s strategic plan for 50% of students to live in college. Great buildings can become really great communities, if they are filled with shared ideals.”

“Totalitarian rule of the veg”: Chad’s meat-free Monday row

Emma Lucia Felisi and Will Hutchings Deputy News Editor and News Editor Chad’s has recently introduced ‘Meat free Mondays’ to their catered students. Meat will no longer be an option to catered students on Mondays.

The ‘Meat Free Mondays’ initiative has triggered much discussion within the Durham community.

The debate centres around whether this initiative is forwardthinking and progressive or restrictive to the rights of students to choose what they eat.

“The College acknowledges the climate crisis and is actively working to reduce its environmental impact” Students both within and outside of Chad’s have taken to Durfess to vent their frustration and take part in the conversation.

One user said: “The wholly undemocratic decision… forces individuals into paying even more money to eat elsewhere”.

They then sarcastically suggested the college “enforce a ‘vegetable free Tuesday’ - let’s see how that goes down with the garden gobblers.”

It ended with an ominous threat: “If the totalitarian rule of the vegetables does not end, there will be a rebellion.”

Several of the Durfess’ protesting against the initiative have created the hashtag #vivalarevolution to express their dismay.

Another Durfess is more supportive of the initiative, stating that “going veg is a good initiative but if the college won’t bother to

provide half decent meat free options, it is forcing students to just go and buy other food.

“Chad’s just need to do better or just stop this.”

The bursar of Chad’s, Alistair Jenkins sent out an e-mail to all Chad’s students, stating: “We acknowledge that there have been complaints in relation to the lack of prior communication about this initiative.

“The College acknowledges the climate crisis and is actively working to reduce its environmental impact across all of our operations, including energy use, waste reduction and food.

“Meat-free Mondays’ was a trial to gauge the response to meat reduction from our student body.

“We acknowledge that for many people, sacrificing meat is not something that they wish to do. We respect that position and it is important to us that we can cater for your dietary preferences.

“We have both students who are in favour of this initiative and those who object. We accept that change can be difficult, and that an approach to this that lessens the impact on those who prefer meat is the way forward.”

This comes following after

(Madie Flisher) the continued environmental efforts by the SU and Durham University students. Ideas such as a zero-waste consumers’ co-op proposed by Caitlin Guibout, and ECODU’s Valentine’s Day Climate Strike have preceded the college’s initiative.

The initiative was introduced by the college’s Green committee.

One Chad’s student said of the initiative, “it has been popular within college with a few complaints given in. However, the college management views the student opinion here very highly – so has taken these views into account moving forward.”

Meat-free Monday lunchtimes will be continuing For the foreseeable future, the college“will be staying meat-free on a Monday lunchtime, with enhanced meat-free options, but will be re-introducing a fish dish alongside the meat-free options on a Monday evening.

“We will also be hosting a series of environment discussions (starting with the Perspectives event on Monday) and welcome input from everyone.”

Trevelyan College to decide on sabbatical JCR President Will Hutchings News Editor Trevelyan College is to hold a referendum on whether to make their president sabbatical. If they vote in favour, they will be the penultimate DSO college to ‘go sabbatical’ with their JCR leader role.

The idea came up for Trevelyan College 16 years ago Already this year two elections have been held for the role.

The first saw the only candidate lose, as the JCR voted to re-open nominations, and in the second

nobody ran.

Current JCR president Giorgio Rand said of the motion to make the role sabbatical:“The idea came up for us 16 years ago. We decided that, because it had been around for a while, we should hold a vote just to get an answer.”

The issue of sabbatical presidency has been contentious in the past. Many students fear that sabbatical leadership could cause the JCR to be headed up by someone who doesn’t understand student issues.

To counteract these worries, Rand explained that Trevs have included “a clause that the JCR exec has to remain neutral.”

There is a logic to making the

role sabbatical, as according to Rand, “The DSO framework is promulgated on colleges having sabbatical JCR Presidents - there is a job description for one within the framework.”

The issue of sabbatical presidency has been contentious in the past The DSO framework is a document that regulates the executive bodies of all student organisations, including JCRs. Despite being crucial to their functioning, the framework has not been updated since its inception in 2010.

Though the role does not call

explicitly for the organisation head to be sabbatical, the workload they are given assumes one.

Rand explained that Trevs and Castle, the only remaining nonsabbatical colleges in the framework, both have “large exec numbers to split the workload” of the position.

The referendum will be conducted online for Trevelyan College students from February 9th until February 16th.

Though traditionally the role has been filled by a student, more and more colleges have voted to make their JCR leaders sabbatical in recent years.

Hatfield recently ratified their motion to make the role sabbati-

cal. This was after the role was changed to sabbatical for a trial period running through this academic year.

Web exclusive stories Visit www.palatinate.org.uk to read further stories from our news team, including: • SolidariTee’s New t-shirt design • Durham’s first Vegan Fair • International Human Rights Conference • UCU announce another round of strikes • Accommodation fees increase • Students abroad feel “lost, lonely and hopeless”

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Should Instagram remove likes?

William Costley

Is it possible for a social media company accused of being indirectly responsible for depression, anxiety, bullying, and FOMO to be an authority on the safeguard features needed to alleviate this social toxicity?

On the one hand, it’s hard to think of who else is better equipped to solve their own problems than the creators themselves. However, Instagram’s trialled new feature, which removes the like-count as a means to tackle the mental health struggles of their younger users, is as ironic as Heineken telling alcoholics to “Drink Responsibly”.

It does seem as though the new feature, which would allow only the person posting to see how many ‘hearts’ a photo received, could reduce the social pressure of having to reach a certain amount of likes for your post. However, as long as popularity is still quantitative, the fundamental problems will not change.

Firstly, Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, said that the initiative was to make Instagram less of a “competition”. The company is try-

Harry Cross Students, staff and common rooms have the fight of our lives this term.

Last year, the university’s Business Process Review part 1 (BPR1) led to severe cut backs and redundancies among support staff, especially in colleges. As a result, college services have come under significant strain. Remaining college staff are now overworked and underpaid, often on less than a 12-month salary. Now, the university is preparing BPR2 which will result in further cuts and could signal the death knell for colleges as we know them.

It is this ‘senior leadership team’ that imposes cutbacks and redundancies on our lowest-paid staff The reason for these budget cuts is the chronic underfunding of UK universities by Labour and Conservative governments. The university’s senior management have long believed that Durham’s

ing to change users’ behaviour by encouraging sharing that is more personal, to get users to focus on what they share and not on how many likes they get for a post.

However, as long as popularity is still quantative, the fundamental problems will not change However, the main problem Instagram faces is that as long as a metric exists to assign value, the underlying motivation for sharing a photo will still be for the likes.

Even though no one else but you can see your like-count, it is hard to see people changing the content of their posts; sharing their authentic lives as opposed to how they want people to see themselves. Instagram will always be about posting for others and not for you.

On the other hand, there is an argument that the removal of likes will lead to an overall reduction in toxicity and pressure, and that although Instagram is guilty of providing a platform for comparison and insecurity, removing the quantitative metric will lead to less anxiety.

However, because the individual can still see how many likes

their posts get, they will naturally compare their like count to your previous post. If one post got 20 fewer likes than the one before, you are alone in your despair. You are encouraged by Instagram to post more personally and honestly, however the payoff may be fewer likes than before. What then? Can Instagram change the success value of a post? As Rebecca Jennings of Vox writes, “no matter how much Instagram would like to be viewed as a place users feel good about visiting, its entire existence is predicated on reminding people that other people are having more fun”.

The initiative was to make Instagram less of a “competition” As a user who had their account trialled by the new feature, I would actually argue for it. I found it nicer not to see people’s like count, and my friends, who usually get hundreds of likes, be humbled by the hidden like-count feature. However, hiding likes will still not be able to successfully help those truly suffering from the competitive pressures of positing a glamorous lifestyle.

(Ella Blaxill)

The staff we can’t afford to keep staff bill, especially in colleges, is a large fixed cost that should be reduced as an efficiency saving.

Our staff bill is indeed large.

But then, why are we going after the jobs of the lowest-paid staff in the university? Vice-Chancellor Stuart Corbridge is paid roughly £300,000 per annum, double the salary of Boris Johnson. Palatinate has reported how Professor Corbridge has work-related business-class flights paid for him by the university, a luxury that most private firms do not award their CEOs. Stuart Corbridge is surrounded by a slew of other senior managers with similarly astronomical pay, office budgets and expenses. It is this ‘senior leadership team’ that imposes cutbacks and redundancies on our lowest-paid staff, even though their own salaries are never subjected to efficiency savings.

The argument in favour of paying university managers six-figure salaries is that this helps attract the best and brightest to Durham.

However, unlike the college staff

who are being made redundant, most of our senior management have no long-term commitment to the North East. Most of them come to Durham between other managerial roles, or from a military background.

Professor Corbridge has work-related business-class flights paid for him by the university They want to use their time in Durham to leverage a higher-paid job somewhere else, perhaps in the United States. Pushing through a difficult staff restructuring, unpopular expansion plans or toxic performance goals are preferred ways to do this.

Rather than being inspirational manager-leaders, senior executives in UK Higher Education are best compared to a plague of locusts, swarming from one institution to the next, destroying the livelihoods of students, residents

and workers while they progress in their careers.

So who are the staff we can’t afford? We must ask whether our model of senior management is fit for purpose. We should do away with imported Vice-Chancellors and Pro Vice-Chancellors who expect six-figure salaries to come here. Instead, Vice-Chancellors, like heads of department, should be recruited from ordinary staff for two or four year periods and earn similar salaries. Then, they can hand over to their successor and return to their previous role, therefore living with the consequences of their tenure. This would save money and create a less toxic working environment, where managers have knowledge and compassion for their region and institution.

The current inequality in pay reflects an inequality in power.

Wealthy men paid by student fees and public money are attacking the working conditions of local staff with already modest incomes.

This must be resisted at all costs.

“Vice-Chancellors should be recruited from ordinary staff for two or four year periods and earn similar salaries

”

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Half-baked: the Greggs staff bonus scandal Joseph Monaghan

At the start of the year, iconic North-East bakery chain Greggs announced that, following the success of their vegan sausage roll, that they would be sharing some of last year’s rewards with their employees- £300 each, or £75 per quarter with the company for newer workers, a payout totalling £7 million.

They were rightly met with commendation.

Companies give out performance bonuses all the time, but barely ever to frontline employees Companies give out performance bonuses all the time, but barely ever to frontline employees, the shop assistants and kitchen workers of the world. Its equal application meant that they would benefit disproportionately. However, there’s always a catch. Five days later, benefit experts pointed out that, under the rules of Universal Credit, part of the extra income could be clawed back by the Government. In the worst case, that of a worker earning £12,500 per year, only £75.48 of the bonus would end up in their pocket.

It’s not particularly surprising that something like this can happen.

Universal Credit is a scheme riddled with cruelties, punishing workers for the most minor infringements by simply reducing their payment.

When it was introduced, the waiting times of over a month for the first payment led many into debt, rent arrears leading to eviction, and food bank use, with one food bank

in Croydon, a trial council for the scheme, reporting a 97% increase in usage in the month it was introduced.

The steep withdrawal rate of the benefit also means that in many cases those earning slightly more actually end up worse off. There’s a particularly perverse irony to a system designed to “make work pay more” being one of the driving forces behind our country’s slide towards in-work poverty.

No one claims benefits as a lifestyle choice; the constant demeaning of welfare recipients by both the media and successive governments over the last 20 years and the difficulty of proving you can claim them (with the added cost of making it to every fitness-for-work assessment) has made sure of that.

The fact is that, for many of us, work does not pay enough to live.

Even with benefits, an eighth of workers in the UK earn below the Living Wage Foundation’s calculation of the cost of living. It’s particularly galling, then, for an attempt by a company to give something back to their workers to be snuffed out like this, with the added insult to injury that this is effectively a tax on bonuses, something that this Government will gleefully apply to the worst off but fail to even consider imposing on the financial industry.

It’s telling that they consider a marginal tax rate for the highest earners to be disincentivising hard work, but taking away 63p for every extra pound earned for the lowest earners to be perfectly fair.

Won’t someone please think of the bankers?

The current benefits regime is not sustainable, that much is obvious, yet the Government finds itself unable to accept the situation. The

problems with Universal Credit are, as seen when this issue was raised in parliament, dismissed with a wave of the hand and some waffle about the highest ever employment rate, when it’s no use having one of the many jobs that can’t support even the most frugal lifestyle.

With the rise in the cost of living showing no signs of stopping, people need more money in their pockets, and it’s not fair just to dismiss those without enough money to live as simply lazy or not work-

hard cure at this point), the mass casualties and the state of panic it has created in China and the rest of the world proves that the need for vaccinations and the utilisation of modern medicine to its fullest is not simply scaremongering by “Big Pharma” but an essential act of public safety.

the MMR vaccine and cases of autism in children.

The extent of the effects of this claim were evidenced not only in the steep drop in MMR vaccinations, but by the fact that there had to be repeated studies that categorically disproved Wakefield’s analysis, with the latest concluding in 2014. The fact that repeated studies concluded that the vaccine was indeed safe have been unable to shake off the negative perceptions of many parents shows just how dangerous misinformation can be.

In fact, childrens’ vaccination rates are only just above 90%, five points off the 95% mark characterising herd immunity. Recent university outbreaks of mumps suggests a worrying trend of these diseases poking their ugly heads to the surface once again even in an age of supposedly decreased risk and greater safety.

ing hard enough- such an attitude belies a lack of understanding of the facts of some people’s lives.

No one claims benefits as a lifestyle choice You also can’t rely on every company being as benevolent as Greggs, giving out bonuses and 10% of their profits to employees- it’s the nature of capitalism that there is no financial incentive for companies to do this, so

the vast majority simply won’t pay any more than they have to: not enough. The Government has the power to change this, with a more compassionate and well-funded welfare system and a rise in the minimum wage to match the actual cost of living. With the Conservative Party claiming at the last election to be the party of the working class, whether it will or not is a sign of whose interests it really has at heart.

(Heidi Januszewski)

Should vaccinations be mandatory?

Oscar Duffy

At the time of writing, the coronavirus that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan has resulted in more than 130 deaths, with almost 6,000 confirmed cases and up to 10,000 suspected cases. Following the revelation that the disease can be spread even when symptoms are not present, something not shared by other medical scares such as ebola and Sars, the issue of contagious disease, and the threat of mass outbreaks and how we deal with them, is now the point of discussion throughout the world again.

With that, comes renewed debate around compulsory vaccinations to create a “herdimmunity” that would protect society from outbreaks of diseases that many thought were beaten. While there is no vaccine for coronavirus (or

Childrens’ vaccination rates are only just above 90%, five points off the 95% mark characterising herd immunity The main risks associated with vaccinations in the UK (most notably the MMR or various hepatitis vaccines), are the all-too rare side effects that can follow any jab. This was most evident in the hysteria that ensued in 1998 when Dr Andrew Wakefield inflamed panic when he theorised a link between

Researchers have suggested that a vaccine for the coronavirus is still up to a year away, but the dangers that have resulted from it, and the ability for it to spread rapidly without noticeable symptoms requires a strong stance should the outbreak worsen.

Of course, punishing people who refuse to vaccinate seems harsh.

Australia has come under fire for implementing financial penalties on parents who don’t vaccinate their children. In my view, that’s a tough but necessary step to ensure public health.

The sudden nature of the oubreak reminds us that we are not invincibe Some like to put emphasis on the “health vs choice” debate, implying that the decision not to vaccinate is a matter of personal opinion.

However, when that path is taken, we undermine the medical innovations that have consigned many deadly diseases to history.

The coronavirus will most likely die down within the next few months, before a vaccine even needs to be implemented on a mass scale. But the sudden nature of the outbreak reminds us that we are not invincible. Vaccinations are there to help us fight diseases tha twould have killed thousands a few centuries ago. Through education and open-mindedness, preventable diseases should be a thing of the past.

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Comment

The future of HS2: Opportunity or cost?

Maddy Burt The costs associated with High Speed 2 (HS2) are absolutely staggering. The high-speed railway line designed to connect London with Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham in a Y shape, with significantly reduced journey time, has already cost years of planning and billions of pounds without a single mile of track laid. Of course, infrastructure projects of this kind take years in time and billions in pounds, but with an allocation of £56 billion in 2015 to the project and recent reports suggesting the real cost could be nearly double that at £106 billion, important questions need to be asked. At what point are the costs too high, given the way they’re spirally so dramatically currently? And is the project actually solving the issues it set out to address, including increased investment in the north and bridging of a north-south divide?

In theory, HS2 is a great idea.

Significantly reducing journey time around the country, adding more services to help counter commuter congestion in trains, offering more feasible environmentally friendly alternatives, and creating new jobs both during the construction

and after completion to name a few benefits. Importantly, offering much needed and promised investment into infrastructure in the north and midlands. There’s a reason why it’s backed so strongly by so many MPs from around the country.

However, I just can’t see the project being pulled off successfully. The enormous cost is already a huge problem, funded by increased borrowing and taking up a large proportion of budgeted infrastructure investment in the following years that could be spent elsewhere. Boris Johnson is making a point that cost cutting in the project will be a priority, but what will that look like? With a delay scheduled between the building of phase 1 (London to Birmingham) and phase 2 (Birmingham to Leeds, Birmingham to Manchester) there is a realistic possibility that at least parts of phase 2 will be scrapped to reduce costs.

An argument made by multiple northern MPs is that the north is long due this investment, and HS2 is needed alongside projects such as Northern Powerhouse Rail to boost the economy. This is all undermined if phase 2 is scrapped or even cut down. If this turns out to be the reality, then surely what would’ve been more worthwhile is spending on Northern Powerhouse

Rail first, as opposed to reducing the time of an already relatively quick trip from London to Birmingham, possibly encouraging a commute into the capital more than business the other way round. The greatest gains could be made in phase 2 – as could the greatest loss be felt if not fulfilled.

A further issue is the great environmental damage not included in monetary figures. There is potential for 108 ancient woodlands being at least partially destroyed to make room for the railway, and the

project is described by The Woodland Trust as “the biggest single threat from development to ancient woodland”. Such environmental damage will be irreversible.

Unfortunately, I fear that the political costs of such a venture will always outweigh all other costs, including those economic or environmental. Even if Johnson sees the project as enormously expensive for what it’s delivering, pulling out now, as well as losing £12 billion, would see him going back on his support for the project and

pledge of investment in northern infrastructure (even if money is better spent elsewhere). What we need from our government, who will mostly likely continue to back the project, is transparency around costs and a commitment to fulfil the whole project, with special emphasis on phase 2. A genuine care and support for woodlands and restoration over time would be ideal. What we don’t want is to be having this conversation again in 5 years’ time.

(Smudge 9000 via Flickr)

Disaster zone: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Jess Jones

You may have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a swirling mass of marine debris that has accumulated in the North Pacific Ocean. Although it is the largest patch, it does not stand alone.

There are in fact another four of these garbage patches scattered around the Earth’s oceans and collecting at major gyres (rotating currents in the water). The patch consists of small fragments of plastic, sometimes microscopic, which float in the upper water column. Plastic’s resistance to decay, a vital part of its design for modern usage, means that some of the particles in the patch have been found to be more than 50 years old. The plastic breaks down into smaller pieces but nevertheless, it remains plastic.

These garbage patches have huge impacts on the environment, the economy and human health. The Ocean Cleanup project claims there are over 5 trillion pieces of plastic currently polluting the ocean, affecting more than 600 marine species, directly killing wildlife, poisoning our own food

chain and causing vessel damages amounting to a billion USD per annum.

What’s more, due to its low density, the plastic can’t be seen with a satellite therefore it is difficult to know how far the garbage patches span. Through samples, scientists have estimated that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch blankets a surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers - twice the size of Texas. But how has all this plastic collected in our oceans? The numbers are astounding. According to the awareness organisation Plastic Oceans, a whopping 300 million tons of plastic is produced annually, 50% of which is single use and 90% of it is not recycled.

Every year more than 8 million tons of this plastic is dumped in the ocean and, if it is ignored and left to remain, by 2050 there could be as much of it in the ocean as there are fish.

There are over 5 trillion pieces of plastic currently polluting the ocean Whilst this may sound overwhelming, the situation is not entirely hopeless. The Ocean Cleanup operation was founded

in 2013 by Boyan Slat, at the time aged just 18 years old. Slat saw the importance of cleaning up the oceans and, although he knew it was going to be a colossal project to undertake, he was determined to find a financially realistic solution.

He developed a passive ‘ocean cleanup technology’ that catches the plastic as it moves with the currents in the same way the plastic does. The self-supportive platforms used save emissions, man power and funds. Slat believes that the garbage patch can completely clean itself within a mere five years. Furthermore, if all the plastic amassed from the five gyres was sold it would make over 500 million USD, which is more than Slat’s project would cost to execute, making it economically feasible.

So far the work put into the project has been rewarding. Mission 1 happened in September 2018 but, whilst the cleanup technology was successful, it did not adequately keep hold of the plastic it collected. Adjustments were made and as of 12th December 2019, the machine autonomously gathered and retained plastic for the first time. This was a huge achievement for the team

behind the operation and they have ambitions to construct many more and larger versions of these systems in order to collect plastic on a far greater scale. To support the progress and maintenance of of the cleanup the plastic waste from the ocean is being recycled into sustainable products - the first of which will be released in September 2020 - with 100% of the proceeds fueling the project’s continuation.

If all the plastic amassed was sold it would make over 500 million USD Although Slat’s project is the largest one in place to help clean the oceans, the world is waking up to the issue and beginning to tackle it from the root: new packaging solutions are being designed; the awareness of consumers is increasing; some people are refusing single use plastics and even going zero-waste.

Supermarkets are starting to try out new schemes to reduce plastic usage too. Tesco are making it their goal to eliminate hard-to-recycle materials, such as PVC and polystyrene. Soon in 2020 they are also trialling a new delivery system called Loop; products are

delivered in reusable containers which can be returned, cleaned and refilled. Waitrose are stopping also single-use plastic and Aldi have a target of making the packaging of all their products 100% recyclable, reusable and compostable by 2025.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch might seem a long way off for many of us but there is still a lot we can be doing in our everyday lives to help. For a start, using reusable bags when shopping (e.g. cotton ones as plastic and even paper bags have high carbon footprints), choosing loose fruit and vegetables instead of ones with unnecessary plastic packaging, buying locally from a greengrocers or market, or even using a milkman, if it’s something you can afford, to have glass bottles delivered straight to you. Properly recycling all the plastic we waste is another obvious way we can limit our contribution to the pollution of the oceans.

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Ali Plumb: “You need to be on top of your game” Profile speaks to Radio 1’s film critic on all things film, Scorsese and Chris Nolan’s stag do advice

Tash Mosheim Profile Editor Ali Plumb is a journalist, broadcaster and one of the UK’s most listened to movie critics.

He interviews the most exciting talent in Hollywood, including James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino.

Although Plumb says his role as a film journalist “never felt real until it actually started happening”, he has always had a keen interest in writing and presenting. Studying English Literature at Warwick University, Plumb fondly recalls working with the RAW 1251AM team at the radio station. “There was such a good atmosphere at the top of the Student’s Union. You got a couple of hours to play pretty much any music that you liked, and just have a laugh with your friends.”

that can often give away a lot. The joy of going to the movie isn’t to see all the footage, it’s actually going to the cinema, being in a room with a group of people who are all getting together to go and enjoy an experience. And sometimes trailers can take a bit of that away.”

“I want you to promise me that by the end of the day, you’ve got a traffic cone on your head” What is his memory of his interview with Christopher Nolan? “He spoke very well of his feelings toward Heath Ledger. I was really impressed by that and I really liked how refreshing he was about casting Harry Styles.

He didn’t say, ‘this was a gimmick

always full of energy. She’s there to have a good time and wants you to feel happy. Often a lot of my job is asking questions that allow the actor to tell the joke.

You’re setting up the punch line, and letting them deliver it.”

“No one, I would say, needs me in the interview. If you’re clicking on an interview with Chris Pratt, you want to see Chris Pratt - he’s the celebrity, he’s the star, he’s the reason why you walk through the door.

From Plumb’s perspective, he’s “the facilitator of these people having a good time and telling their stuff in an interesting, fun way. I don’t think anyone wants to see the likes of me trying to suck up or being sycophantic to a series of celebrities.”

Plumb’s highlight film he has reviewed over the years?

“Most recently, we had Avengers

the actual conversation.

“She’s there to have a good time and wants you to feel happy” “A lot of the points he’s making are around the idea that we go to cinemas in multiplexes, and nine out of ten of the screens will be the same movie, because that’s financially more sensible for the cinema chain. It’s harder for The Farewell or Leave No Trace to actually have the opportunity to be watched, whether it’s good or not, whether it’s in cinemas or not. So I would ask people who have only read the headline, to look deeper into what Martin Scorsese says.”

Plumb explains that Scorsese is “talking about the changing nature of how cinema and movies

He likes to see the human side of the “actors that we put on pedestals Plumb also worked at the university’s student paper, The Boar. This, Plumb concedes, is not the best name for a newspaper: “To anyone who hasn’t seen it written down, you just think, well why would I pick that up?”

Now that Plumb is BBC Radio 1s in-house film critic, he regularly speaks to the biggest movie stars in the world, and he says there is “a lot of stress that comes with the job.

“I’m not saying what I do, in any way, is actually hard work.

But there is a certain amount of ‘Oh my word, I’m going to make a mistake here and I’m going to properly embarrass myself.’”

He does a lot of research beforehand. Plumb confesses that he becomes “mildly obsessed” with the actor he is about to interview. “I did Jamie Fox recently, and all my YouTube suggestions are Jamie Fox interviews”.

How much should we rely on trailers before we go see a movie?

Plumb “actually tend[s] to not watch any trailers at all”. He advises to “find a couple of critics, whether they are Youtubers, radio people, written or are just your friends who you trust the opinion of, and let them encourage you to see certain films and be intrigued. People are getting more and more scared in the trailer houses of not showing literally every single expensive shot they took in the movie, and

and I was looking to sell tickets’.

He came in, was there on the day, auditioned well and so Nolan was happy to have him on board.

“Also, as a side note, my interview was the same day, coincidentally, that I had my stag do… I told him that and he really found that funny. He’s not known for his sense of humour or that he’s full of jokes and one-liners or whatever, but he’s actually a funny guy in his own dry way.

He said, ‘I want you to promise me that by the end of the day, you’ve got a traffic cone on your head and you’re hanging out from a lamp post’. He was really tickled by the idea that this would happen.”

His interview with Jennifer Lawrence “was a fun one - she’s

EndGame, and that was a highlight in a bizarre way because it was the end of 21 movies and it was finally wrapping up this humongous saga. I loved the movie, I had loads of good things to say about it, I found it so satisfying and epic, but no one actually wants to hear the knittygritty of why it’s good and why it’s bad.”

“The Big Lebowski is always a movie I’m up for watching” Does that mean Plumb disagrees with Martin Scorsese, that Marvel is “not cinema”?

Plumb thinks “a lot of what he’s said has been taken out of context and a lot of journalism these days is based off a headline and not off

are being consumed, and what they are trying to achieve. Are the Marvel movies trying to speak to your soul?” Or, are they trying to “offer escapism and to tell fun stories? Whilst giving you characters that you care about and special effects spectaculars?”

Should we place as much value in awards as Hollywood does?

“Use everything as a guideline. No one has the exact same opinions as anyone else. My best advice is bear in mind who gets the awards and ideally they are people you happen to enjoy watching most.

“They’re just a bit of fun. Would it have been nice if Jennifer Lopez had got an Oscar nomination, would it have been nice if she won? Yes. But we move on.

“I think a lot of work has to be done to make the movies

themselves cast better, and we really need producers and filmmakers to be more courageous with who they cast.

“We’ve got to make that effort and there has to be some sort of change.Everyone needs to get together to reflect society better.”

Unsurprisingly, Plumb will “always” prefer to watch a film in cinema. Whilst “sometimes you don’t have the luxury of time and money, and sometimes it’s hard to get friends to watch it with you,” Plumb would like to suggest “that we all give a chance to go see a movie by yourself. You’d be surprised how pleasant and fun it is,I think there’s no shame in going by yourself”.

“Use everything as a guideline. No one has the exact same opinions as anyone else” Why is Plumb such a fan of blooper reels? They are “the quickest, easiest way of understanding what it’s actually like on set. You’re seeing people at their most real, their most raw. And suddenly, not only are they doing something funny, but the artifice of the movie is taken away”.

He likes to see the human side of the “actors that we put on pedestals and give awards to”.

The most memorable piece of advice Plumb’s had? Whilst working at Empire magazine, Plumb could not find “a good way of writing” a piece, so he was told to “just get something done.”

Plumb advises to simply “push something out of your head, through your fingers and onto a piece of paper, and then work on that. Having something on the page that isn’t very good is better than having nothing on the page and you tearing your hair out, saying it can’t be done”.

I ask him what his favourite film is.

“My go to answer is The Big Lebowski, not necessarily day by day my favourite film, but it’s always a movie I’m up for watching.”

And finally, the advice Plump would give his younger self?

“Don’t worry. Enjoy the moment.

Don’t let yourself think it’s impossible because you are preventing yourself.”

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Notes From a Short Interview, with Bill Bryson Imogen Usherwood talks all things Durham with the former Chancellor of the University

Imogen Usherwood Deputy Editor-in-Chief “Durham is my favourite place in the whole universe – this is only place in the world where they call me ‘Doctor’ and name buildings after me.”

He might not be Chancellor anymore, but Bill Bryson’s love of all things Durham has far from diminished since he stepped down in 2011. “I wish Durham was regularly in my life again – I berate myself constantly for not making time to come up more.

One of the things I loved about Durham was coming here and seeing the same people and getting to know about their lives.

I miss belonging to something really quite special.”

“

This is the only place in the world where they call me ‘Doctor’ and name buildings after me

”

Bryson’s first visit to Durham, in the mid-nineties, is recorded in what is perhaps his most famous book, Notes from a Small Island (1995), when he described it as “wonderful – a perfect little city”, home to “the best cathedral on planet earth”. Twenty-five years later, he stands by every word of it: “That was all genuine and quite sincere. I’d only heard about Durham vaguely, but nothing had prepared me for it. I think one of the great views of the world is from the station looking out over the city – and, while I’m willing to concede that there are some other very fine cathedrals, I still think Durham is something special.”

Just ten years after Notes from a Small Island was published, Bryson was appointed Chancellor of the University, a post he held

until 2011. “I said some nice things about Durham in my book, and they gave me an honorary doctorate,” he jokes, “then I said some more nice things about Durham in my acceptance speech, and they asked if I wanted to be Chancellor.”

Bryson didn’t live in Durham during his Chancellorship – his family were residing in Norfolk at the time – but he was nevertheless heavily involved in university life. “I always tried to come up at least a couple of other times during the year to make departmental visits and stay at colleges”, he explains, mentioning an unfulfilled challenge he had set himself, to stay the night in every college at least once. This is the man who, famously, arranged for Russell Crowe to visit Durham and hold a workshop for twenty of the University’s finest student thespians: “We had the best day! He’s such a nice guy, he had a great time and thought the students were fantastic. That was the occasion when I think I was most proud of this university and the people in it.”

His other favourite memory of being Chancellor is, surprisingly, attending twice-annual Congregation ceremonies for graduating students. “Everyone told me to steel myself, because I would have to shake everyone’s hand as they graduated. But it was magical, and I loved it – I was the person who got to see each graduate as their name is read, and it dawns on them that they’ve done it. It’s like a little buzz of magic.” Bryson was evidently fond of the pomp and ceremony, too: “I got to sit in Durham Cathedral, wearing the fanciest robe of them all, with the best seat in the house. How could anyone ever take that for granted?” Not bad, he considers, for a kid from Des Moines, Iowa, where “a building from before 1900 is considered ancient”.

Bryson’s enthusiasm for all things Durham is contagious Nowadays, Bryson has dual citizenship and a British passport, having spent more than half of his life in the UK – and so it seems bizarre that he ended up here “totally by accident”. After travelling around Europe, he got a job in a psychiatric hospital just outside London, where he met Cynthia Billen, whom he would later marry. “I ended up falling for her and falling for England simultaneously, and I’m pleased to say I’m still with both of them – my wife and I are still happily

married and I’m still very fond of Britain.”

Despite spending so long in the UK, though, and even acknowledging that he is much more well-known over here (“I’ve never been recognised on the street in the US”), he still feels very much like an American abroad. “I will always be a foreigner, which is not a bad thing – the great part of having a second country is how much it enriches your experience.

I still feel really, really lucky to be here.”

“I wish Durham was regularly in my life again – I berate myself constantly for not making time to come up more” Bryson’s dual identity as an American-British author has been the source of much of his work, including Notes from a Small Island, Notes from a Big Country (1999), and The Road to Little Dribbling (2015). While he started out as a journalist before turning to travel writing, Bryson has since penned non-fiction books on history, language and science. “I start from a point where I know very little about a subject, and my challenge is to understand the subject and convey it to the reader in as interesting a way as I can.

When I write these books, I can’t write from the perspective of an expert, so I try to make a virtue of ignorance – and one powerful advantage is my capacity to be amazed all the time.” His most recent book, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, reflects this: “I always felt bad that I don’t understand about how I work. We spend our whole existence in this package of tissues, and I thought that I ought to understand it better.”

Indeed, Bryson has based an entire career around a love of learning and researching: “Learning is exciting, and it should be stimulating – everything you do should be at least a little magical.

It isn’t just a duty you have to fulfil.” His passion for accessible education and scholarship takes on a practical mode when he talks about Durham’s student body: “At Durham, you get the impression of a lot of relatively privileged white kids, and there ought to be space here for people who haven’t had those advantages to come here.

“The number of people who are really intelligent and could do amazing things, if institutions of higher learning would just identify them – if Durham were to contribute to that, it would

be a noble use of its time and resources.”

His passion for higher education is obvious, but especially for what Durham offers outside of its academic rigour: “You’re all smart here – you’re all here because you’re very intelligent human beings, but I don’t particularly admire you for that. What I do admire is that, in addition to all the academic stuff you do, so many of you find time to belong to a choir, or do theatrical productions, or these wonderful fashion shows – everything is at a level which is essentially professional, and I haven’t even mentioned sport yet. It is quite an achievement that Durham does all these things so well.”

Of course, the name Bill Bryson has one very specific connotation among Durham University students. His late predecessor Peter Ustinov’s legacy lives on in Ustinov College; Bryson, meanwhile, has given his name to the Bill Bryson Library. “It’s the best honour that’s ever been paid to me. I would much rather have a library than a college – to me it is absolutely perfect. I love libraries. Long before they named it after me, I used to come up here on my visits and spend two or three days in there – it’s a great place to do research for my

books and I was always treated very well. I do miss going into the library as a user.” He’s even fond of its affectionate nickname, the Billy B: “I think it’s very nice, I’m happy with that.”

“I would much rather have a library than a college – to me it is absolutely perfect” Bryson’s enthusiasm for all things Durham is contagious, casting the university – and the city – in a refreshed light where everything is, quite simply, wonderful. He offers a few words of wisdom for the current Durham student body: “Really, really enjoy your time at Durham – it goes so quickly, and then you’ll be finished forever. This is one of the most magical periods of your whole life – you get to soak up as much information as you can and try anything that interests you, and there are whole armies of people willing to help you do it. In a few years from now you’ll be thrust into the world and have to get a job – it might be really stimulating and rewarding, but won’t be anything like as fun.

Take a moment from time to time to reflect on how lucky you are to be here.”

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Thursday 6th February 2020 | PALATINATE

SciTech

There’s an evolutionary basis to mental illness

Annalise Murray The human body isn’t very well designed. Our eyes have a blind spot. We have too many bones in our feet and way too many teeth.

Our pelvises are too narrow. We have achy backs and knees from walking upright, for goodness sake, and we’ve been doing that for about six million years.

It’s one thing to accept the flawed and fallible nature of the human form. Consider it within the context of evolution, however, and it becomes a bit harder to comprehend. We’re taught evolution as based purely on the survival of the best-adapted traits, where form evolves to perform function, and although there isn’t an actual intelligent designer, but there might as well be. Why, then, do our bodies often seem so poorly adapted to the environments we live in? How does evolution explain hiccups and tooth decay and phlegm? How, indeed, does evolution explain mental illness?

If you’re interested, it’s thought that some of depression’s adaptations include shutting down behaviours that have more potential risk than return and concentrating attention on analysing complex problems in order to solve them. This, according to evolutionary theory, is why depression makes you withdraw from activities and why you may find yourself ruminating. There are a whole host of other theories to explain other depressive symptoms.

gles the mind to think of how different the environment of those early humans was.

Natural selection doesn’t reward genes for health or happiness Isn’t it easy to see how genes that are made to assist a huntergatherer would be anxiety-inducing when faced with the concept of the twenty-four-hour news cy-

might have evolved as a sort of risk-avoidance mechanism.

That’s a sensible evolutionary strategy, until it’s faced with social media, which rewards repetitive checking and circularthought. What was originally a feature can easily look like a bug in the context of our nervous planet. Our knees worked better when we walked on four limbs instead of two, and maybe our brains aren’t so different.

(As an aside, remember social

My genes aren’t trying to make me miserable, they’re just trying to help me survive

Why are our bodies so poorly adapted to the environments we live in?

Introducing antagonistic pleiotropy – the idea that all genes are basically an evolutionary trade-off. Genes are selfish, and they’re selfish because they have to be. Natural selection doesn’t reward genes that offer health or happiness. Natural selection rewards genes that offer reproductive success; in other words, genes that make more genes. The abject misery of depression might not seem a reasonable trade-off for its proposed adaptations, but the genes, well, they disagree.

ary basis for mental illness, but it doesn’t really help someone in the throes of dealing with one.

Well, I think there’s a potentially comforting moral to this story.

I know it’s unpopular thinking, trying to draw any kind of positive from mental illness, lest it strays into romanticising. We’re encouraged to think of our mental illnesses as black clouds in the otherwise blue sky of our minds, to struggle against them, to address every negative thought head-on, to take up running, to meditate, anything to fix the problem our minds have created.

For many years, my own favourite motif for my depression was my “brain goblin”.

Genes are important for mental health (ZEISS Microscopy via Flickr) It’s also worth remembering how much the modern world differs from the environment in which many of these genes initially evolved. The first fossils of early humans are estimated to be about 4 million years old. On an evolutionary time scale, that’s about five minutes, and yet it bog-

cle? That fairly innocent, rewardseeking genes could make you behave differently when smartphones cruelly deal out dopamine in response to every notification?

It has been hypothesised that the repetitive checking and circular-thought associated with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

media doesn’t want to offer you health or happiness any more than natural selection does. Not unlike the way your genes want to make more genes, social media wants to keep you on social media).

So what? It’s all well and good to know there’s an evolution-

But it’s not a goblin. It’s just my genes. Or not even ‘my’ genes, as such, but just ‘the’ genes; the millennia-old genetic signatures I’m currently providing a home for. They’re not trying to make me miserable. They’re just trying to help me survive, and it’s gone a bit wonky.

Unconventional?

Perhaps.

But just as it can be comforting to remember our cosmic insignificance (not as distressing as it might seem – see Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot for an example), it can be comforting to remember our biological significance. Trillions of cells, billions of years of evolution, millions of heartbeats, hundreds of thousands of miles of blood vessels. About 20,000 genes, 206 bones, 28 teeth if you’re lucky, and just one you. If you ask me, that’s pretty cool.

Readers’ SciGest: in the news this week Elise Garcon

More than 130 people have died as a result of the virus (Ben via Flickr)

At the forefront of scientific news this week, an outbreak of a previously unknown coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, in December has caused flight cancellations and quarantines for anyone travelling from mainland China.

These cancellations come after more than 130 deaths in China alone, and the spread of the disease to at least 16 other countries. The unknown virus, much like SARS, has almost certainly emerged from an animal origin, and is a particular risk for the elderly and those with pre-existing illnesses.

On January 29th, researchers in Melbourne announced their

success in growing the virus in cell culture. This culture will be shared with research labs around the world, to develop more accurate tests and vaccines.

The Wuhan virus has spread to 16 countries By sequencing the genomes of four children who lived in Africa several thousand years ago, researchers have found indications of ancient events in human history, including the emergence and spread from Africa of Homo sapiens. Geneticists at Harvard Medical School found the remains in a rock shelter in Cameroon, producing full genomes for two young boys, and partial

data from a boy and girl.

A team from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration have set out to survey Thwaites, or as it is known to glaciologists, the ‘doomsday’ glacier.

A huge expanse of ice the size of Britain, it is already responsible for 4% of world sea level rise yearly, and could lead to raising the world sea level by more than half a metre. The work being done is necessary for the accurate prediction of future sea levels.

Claire O’Neill was sacked as President of the UN Climate Comittee, COP26, due to be held in Glasgow.

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Send an email to scitech@ palatinate.org.uk

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PALATINATE | Thursday 6th February 2020

SciTech

Time is running out for the Thwaites glacier Poppy Wilson The continent of Antarctica was first sighted 200 years ago, proving the existence of erra Australis Incognita (“Unknown Southern Land”). Coinciding with the anniversary of this significant discovery, scientists have successfully drilled into one of this continent’s most unstable glaciers.

Thwaites Glacier is roughly the size of Britain. Its location is remote and hostile, even for Antarctica’s standards, being 1600km from the nearest research station.

The glacier has lost 54 billion tonnes of ice since the 1980s Despite long being hailed as one of the world’s “most important” glaciers, Thwaites Glacier

is remarkably understudied - the extreme remoteness and hostile environment are key factors in this.

The instability of Thwaites Glacier was highlighted last year when NASA reported finding a massive cavity, roughly the size of Cambridge, growing at the bottom. The hole could have held 14 billion tonnes of ice, most of which is predicted to have melted

in only the three years prior to its discovery.

Indeed, since the 1980s it is predicted that the Thwaites Glacier has lost approximately 54 billion tonnes of ice, with the melting rate doubling across the last 30 years. With the glacier already contributing 4% of global sea level rise each year, it’s crucial to determine how this may increase in the future. In a cautionary manner, glaciologists have suitably coined Thwaites as the “doomsday” glacier, as its melting would hike sea levels by over half a metre. For perspective, 40% of the world’s population live within 100km of the coast and significant sea level rise could displace millions. It is precisely for these reasons that the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) was set up in 2018.

Melting of the Thwaites glacier could cause sea levels to rise by over half a metre

Glaciers are melting at alarming rates (Kimberly Vardeman via Flickr)

The ITGC is a 5-year long joint UK and US project, involving over 100 scientists and costing £38 million. They aim to seek the answers to two key questions: how much could the Thwaites Glacier contribute to sea level rise, and how soon could this materialise?

They aim to explicitly examine the stability of the titanic Thwaites Glacier.

In the last couple of weeks, the scientists working as part of the MELT division have successfully drilled into Thwaites Glacier. Using hot water to melt the ice they created a 600-700m long hole through the ice sheet.

The glacier already contributes to 4% of sea level rise The group then dropped the NASA-funded IceFin robot through this hole to the grounding zone, which is the point at which the base of the ice sheet comes afloat, meeting the ocean water.

IceFin has provided crucial information regarding the interaction between the glacier and the ocean. The robot has proven that warm circumpolar ocean water has reached the front of the Thwaites Glacier and is “setting the glacier on fire”. Climate change is responsible for this worrying interaction as shifting wind patterns due to a warming Pacific Ocean are to blame.

Understanding what is happening to the Thwaites Glacier is key for us to accurately predict future sea level rise. Thwaites may not be going anywhere fast – in fact, scientists say it could take over a century to disappear – but we simply cannot choose to ignore this data. Acting now is imperative to mitigate climate change induced sea level rise.

Mind-controlling bacteria affects your mood Hannah Goldswain SciTech Editor It’s not just the re-opening of Jimmy’s, or Billy B himself going to the Billy B, that can shake the foundations of your mood - bacteria can too. Bacteria in your gut, of all places, where there are more bacteria than humans on the planet.

But it’s not all bad, most of the bacteria are the good guys. We need them for food digestion, maintenance of a healthy gut biome and even in responding to disease and infection through immunity. But what new research has elucidated is that gut bacteria play a huge role in mental health.

Gut bacteria play a huge role in mental health “Sickness behaviour” is a term referring to the short-term depression that may arise when you have a stomach bug, causing you to feel like not doing anything at all- and it’s controlled by your gut

bacteria. That’s not to say that some don’t give you the highs of Sunday Night Klute; bacteria can affect your mood in all sorts of ways, including bringing it up.

Can we manipulate our mood by controlling our gut bacteria?

So, what does that mean? Can we manipulate our mood through controlling our gut bacteria microbiome? Recently, it has been shown that gut bacteria are implicated in mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, which affect around 300 million people globally.

A study showed sterilised mice raised without a normal gut microbiome exhibited higher stress responses, spent more time with inanimate objects and had less developed brains. Another team of researchers found several species of gut bacteria absent in people with depression and that many bacteria release molecules that affect nerve function - thus could impact mood.

Not only do bacteria release molecules affecting neurons, but some can also produce antiinflammatory molecules, such as butyrate, important in getting rid of disease and maintaining general health. Recent evidence has come to light that depression may

have something to do with ongoing systemic inflammation in some cases, suggesting bacteria can play a huge role in the mood disorder.

This has led to novel opportunities for drug and treatment development for depression and

anxiety targeting the gut microbiome. Psychobiotics are being investigated to see whether modifying gut microbes can directly alter and improve mood but knowing more about bacterial populations and exactly how they affect mood. will need lengthy research.

Food for thought- bacteria can alter how you feel (NIAID via Flickr)

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PALATINATE | Thursday 6th February 2020

15

Taiwan votes for a future without China Acacia To On 11 January, Taiwan had its 15th presidential election, with a 57% victory for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Tsai Ingwen. Mrs Tsai has been Taiwanese president since the elections in 2016. She beat out the KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu as well as the third-party candidate James Soong.

Before I discuss the implications of this result, allow me to give a brief outline of Taiwanese politics. Mrs Tsai’s DPP is known as the more progressive party in Taiwan. As the first female president of Taiwan, she has overseen a boost in social services and public housing. Under her government, Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalise same-sex mar-

riage. While Mrs Tsai has yet to tackle key issues such as wealth gap or low growth, she is still preferred by many young voters to her conservative counterpart Mr Han. However, the spotlight of this election falls hugely on crossstrait relations, especially due to continued pressure from Beijing.

The Taiwanese people are eager to protect their identity While Mr Han is seen as the proPRC candidate due to his strong support for the ‘1992 Consensus’, Mrs Tsai has refused to acknowledge its existence. The 1992 Consensus is the vaguely-worded outcome of a meeting between the Chinese Communist Party (which has ruled over the mainland territory since 1950) and the KMT-led Taiwanese government in 1992.

The consensus suggests both governments have agreed to a ‘One China Principle’ meaning that they agree there is only one ‘China’ but the definition of this China differs for both sides.

This consensus has been widely contested since the term was coined, with many of the population refusing it as a principle. Mrs Tsai’s refusal to acknowledge the consensus therefore makes her popular among those who wish to see less of CCP’s influence in Taiwan. Combined with her longterm criticism of the CCP and her support for the pro-democratic movements in Hong Kong, Mrs Tsai is thus viewed as the anti-Beijing, pro-Taiwan candidate. Her victory therefore indicates that the Taiwanese people are leaning away from PRC influence, even if this could lead to further deterioration of cross-straits relations.

The DPP is the more progressive party in Taiwan

(istvan.szollosi via Creative Commons)

Since President Xi was ‘elected’ in 2012, CCP has increased pressure on the Taiwanese government. Since then, 7 countries such as El Salvador have succumbed to Chinese economic pressure or bribes to switch sides to support the PRC, reducing the number of countries that recognise Taiwan’s legitimacy down to 15. China has also been accused on multiple occasions of spreading fake news through social media accounts

Politics

to interfere in local elections. The landslide victory of an anti-Beijing candidate is then a hopeful sign.

Mrs Tsai is preferred by many young voters The phrase ‘today Hong Kong, tomorrow Taiwan’ serves as a warning of what could happen to Taiwan should the people accept China’s ‘one country, two system’ lie. The Hong Kong people were promised a democratically elected government with judicial independence after our return to PRC authority. Instead of universal suffrage, the people of Hong Kong are about to enter the eighth month of protest where they will continue to face escalating violence and wrongful arrests. Much like in Hong Kong, the CCP has a clear objective of claiming the democratic government of Taiwan, one governed by rule of law, as part of their authoritative regime.

Mrs Tsai’s landslide victory can be seen as the Taiwanese public’s way of refusing the Chinese attempt to further control Taiwan. It is a hopeful indicator that The Taiwanese people are eager to protect their identity and independence against the growing hegemony of China. It is time for the international community to support Taiwan and condemn the PRC for its blatant disregard for Taiwanese sovereignty, starting with recognising the Republic of China as a legitimate state.

Coronavirus endemic threatens China’s legitimacy Martha McHardy Coronavirus has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation. It has killed over 400 people in China, and has spread across continents.

Two cases have been confirmed in the UK; it is now a global threat.

China continues to put politics first Many businesses are shutting shop in China in an effort to contain the virus. Google has temporarily shut down its Chinese offices, while Apple, Starbucks and McDonalds have also closed their doors or limited operations in China. This comes at a time when the Chinese economy is already facing uncertainty due to US-imposed tariffs which have caused many companies to consider relocating.

Coronavirus could also cause disruption to global supply chains, as factories remain closed. China is the world’s largest manufac-

turer so reduced dependence on China will be difficult to adapt to.

Tourism will also take a hit from the virus, likely causing a decrease in tourism to China as well as a decrease in travel out of China.

However, the economic impact of Coronavirus will hopefully ease if the virus declines. That said, the epidemic will have long-term, farreaching consequences for China because it could also undermine the legitimacy of Xi Jinping’s regime. A disease as serious as Coronavirus should present an opportunity for closer cooperation between China and other states as they work to prevent the virus from spreading further, in a region fraught with tensions.

government refuses to accept the ‘one China’ principle. The global response will of course be less effective because of this, which is hardly a positive sign for a Chinese economy looking for alternative export markets. And any

government prioritizing politics over public health and economic welfare is one which is hardly likely to garner domestic or international respect, let alone any position of international leadership.

Unless the Chinese government

is prepared to compromise the ‘one China’ principle, or fudge it in some way, China will continue to be viewed as a hostile actor on the world stage, undermining their legitimacy at home and abroad.

China will continue to be viewed as a hostile actor on the world stage Meanwhile, China continues to put politics first; it refused to allow Taiwan to participate in World Health Organisation discussions because the current Taiwanese

(MDelli via Creative Commons)

Thursday 6th February 2020| PALATINATE

16

Politics

Trump impeachment saga

Max Kendix Just as the word that haunted Westminster recedes into relative obscurity, the word that haunts Washington gathers more weight.

Donald Trump’s impeachment passed the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and moved to the Republican-controlled Senatewhere a historically short but still mind-numbingly detailed procedure takes over, where the Senate becomes a jury in a grand trial of the President. Having approved the ground rules, it heard from witnesses and lawyers from both sides in the most politicised and toxic court you can imagine, even by American standards.

The latest twists and turns of the trial are dominating US media.

Former national security advisor and (now former) darling of Fox News John Bolton is releasing a book which could contain classified information – a manuscript accuses the President of directing to withhold security aid to Ukraine in exchange for information on his political opponents.

It alleges that Bolton and others

close to Trump told him a dozen times to release the funding, and could even see Bolton testify as a witness, if enough moderate Republican senators dare to vote for him to speak.

Unlike Brexit, the impeachment has an almost zero chance of succeedingbecause American senators are whipped far more effectively than our MPs were in the last Parliament - and Republicans control the Senate, which will make the final impeachment decision, by 53 votes to 47. Unlike Brexit, impeachment doesn’t seem to be dramatically realigning political allegiances either.

The whole crisis reveals the bizarre nature of the American system – the closest Trump has got to being removed from office is when he allegedly tried to stop funding a corrupt and militia-ridden state, and not when he allegedly colluded with Russia to win the election, nor attempted to stop all members of one faith entering the country, and not even when he oversaw children being kept alone in cages on the southern border.

Despite all this, he is the favourite to win a Presidential election later this year.

Putin’s crafty constitutional ploy?

Anonymous A mandated minimum wage, more democratic accountability for the President, and restricting foreign interference. That’s what stateowned Russian television points to in Putin’s sweeping constitutional reform. In reality, as Vladimir Putin’s popularity is plummeting, and corruption, poverty and his age keep increasing, the Russian elite has started to look around for an alternative to the behemoth of Russian politics for the last two decades.

For Putin, consolidating power for life is now the aim, and this change guarantees it.

For Putin, consolidating power for life is now the aim, and this change guaruntees it Putin’s successor will have to cede decision-making to Putin’s party in the lower house (the Duma), Putin’s technocrats and allies in the upper house (the Federation Council), and potentially to Putin himself as head of a now-enshrined cross-government

national security body (the State Council).

Not only that, but the successor can only serve two terms, as the reforms would dispose of the requirement that the terms be consecutive, a loophole that proved convenient for Putin, who switched with his Prime Minister for four years to avoid changing the constitution in 2008.

Putin has built a personality cult Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has resigned alongside all his ministers, allowing Putin to bring in a new bunch of loyalists, which have not yet been a public relations liability thanks to exorbitant corruption.

Meanwhile, to make sure no other branches of government interfere with the executive, the Federation Council will be able to fire judges in the highest courts – in fact, a reference to the Constitutional Courts being ‘independent’ is to be removed in the new draft.

All these manoeuvres and legalistic ploys do not take away from the brutal facts. Firstly, Vladimir

Putin has spent the whole of the 21st century building a personality cult in a media he presided over, while ensuring the whole state apparatus was accountable to him – so if Putin is anything but the President after 2024 when his terms expire, the political vacuum might allow for considerable divisions in the elite. Secondly, the Russian people are increasingly fed up with inaction on living conditions, and lost hope is turning into anger, especially in the capital.

A solution developed by Kazakhstan is often cited; install a puppet President by moving the leader to an all-powerful council.

But Putin should take note - the last time the State Council gained significant power was during Gorbachev’s reforms. Three months later, the Soviet Union was dissolved.

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“Tory MPs should be welcome at Durham Miners’ Gala” Oscar Duffy Durham Miners’ Gala is arguably the county’s biggest annual event.

Yes, once the hordes of students have moved back home (most likely down south), tourists and politicians swarm into Durham to celebrate the cultural heritage of the county and its history of mining. In the past 40 years, the gala has become all the more meaningful due to the large scale closure of pits under the Thatcherite government. Ever since, and especially during the era of Momentum, the Gala has become an event dominated by Labour. Jeremy Corbyn gave a speech there during his leadership campaign in 2015 (the only candidate to do so), thus indicating how closely tied the outgoing Labour leader is with the Miners’ Association. This worked rather harmoniously when County Durham formed part of Labour’s “Red Wall” and was full of heartland left seats.

Flash forward to 2020, and four out of seven seats are now Conservative, all of which were Labour holds in 2017.

It’s clear that the North East’s Direction of travel is to the right.

Many have argued that the issue

of Brexit has tainted the result and therefore, the politics of the region remains the same on domestic issues. Yet this is simply a denial of the change in Durham, and will only lead to more failure from Labour if they don’t address the fact that their traditional voter base has turned on them.

The problem here is that it reads as out of touch and denies the changes in Durham Thus, the recent statement from the president of the Miners’ Association that they would rather “die in a ditch” (an admittedly clever dig at the Prime Minister) than have the newly elected Tory MPs attend the Gala is a little difficult to swallow. There is still sentiment that the Conservatives are against the mining institution (it was a Tory government that closed down the pits after all), but a denial of the MPs to attend equates to a denial of the Constituents’ democratic decision. I don’t see the issue as an affront to Conservatism, but to the public themselves. The problem here is that it reads as out of touch and denies the changes in Durham. The only way I see this going is causing greater political dislocation in the county.

(alalsacienne via Creative Commons)

PALATINATE | Thursday 6th February 2020

17

Politics

Rohingya faces more injustice Editors’ against that of the ICJ, a complex legal issue for which there can be justifiable reasons for prioritising national justice.

Patrick Stephens Did the Burmese military commit genocide against the Rohingya, or merely war crimes?

The judges of the International Court of Justice are yet to rule on this question. But it is hopefully indicative of their initial thoughts that this week they ordered Myanmar to take significant actions to ensure genocide cannot occur while the proceedings take place. They have resolutely vowed to enforce the order.

The ICoE ruling is a cunning political ruse

The question is how to help the Rohingya Another court considering the question has already come to a judgement. That is the court of the Independent Commission of Enquiry, set up by the Burmese government who strongly protested against the existence of an international investigation and decided to set up its own court to come to a ruling to its liking.

Even the usually tight-lipped UN is agreed that its independence exists in name only Uncoincidentally timed just

(Utenriksdept via Creative Commons) before the ICJ’s order, the ICoE ruled that, though war crimes had taken place, the actions of the Burmese military did not constitute genocide. Their justification was twofold. Firstly, it could not be proven that the actions were motivated solely with the purpose of wiping out the Rohingya as an ethnic or national group.

But more tacitly, it did not use

the word Rohingya once in its report, suggesting a denial of the status of the Rohingya as having its own ethnic identity and status.

If an ethnic group does not actually exist, genocide cannot be perpetrated against them The timing of the ruling is expedient for another reason.

The counter-ruling of the ICJ pits a national justice system

It therefore can be framed as the international community overriding Burmese sovereignty, and treating its supposedly independent judiciary with contempt.

Which is all, in some senses, true; why should the international community trust the rule of law in a country where even a kangaroo court cannot deny that war crimes have been committed?

The ICoE ruling is a cunning political ruse. It tries to deflect focus from the ICJ ruling to complex questions of sovereignty.

It tries to treat the torrent of mass slaughter that displaced 740,000 people as war crimes a lesser crime than genocide: like downgrading murder to manslaughter.

The international community should pay no attention to such claims. The question is how to help the Rohingya, and how to make sure their plight cannot be repeated.

The real test for Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed Madeleine Burt Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has achieved a lot since coming into office in 2018. From freeing imprisoned journalists and lifting bans on political parties, to appointing half of the ministerial posts in his government to women and planting hundreds of millions of trees, he has brought about much necessary reform and initiative. One of his main goals is

unification both in and out of the country, and he leads the way as the first of Oromo ancestry, one of the main ethnic groups that had been neglected and side-lined by the government in the past.

Unification has also been achieved in his momentous peace deal with neighbouring Eritrea in 2018 to end a war that had been going on for decades.

This move was the final push to earn him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

However, Abiy’s work is a tale of two stories. In January, following the awards ceremony for the prize, Donald Trump uncharacteristically tweeted claiming that the prize deserved to go to him for his role in ending the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict and not to Abiy.

Although Trump’s comments mostly seem unfounded with minimal US contribution to the peace deal and more help coming from the UAE, the prize can still be seen as controversial, as can many of Abiy’s other initiatives and reforms.

In early 2019, despite crossborder trade and families reuniting after the peace deal in 2018, Eritrea shut border crossings again with Ethiopia. Abiy’s predecessor resigned following mass protests and general unrest in a country where tensions between ethnic groups run high. Such ethnic conflicts drove 3 million people from their homes in 2018, and remains a major problem.

He has brought about much necessary reform

(PMO Ethiopia via Creative Commons)

Revoking bans on extreme political parties to broaden democratic representation, he has let out centrifugal political forces which he cannot control.

Just recently, the kidnapping of university students that has been kept quiet by the government has led to more suspicion on the motives of Abiy, and whether his reform and change is strategic.

Ethiopia’s problems are far from solved but the prospects are relatively bright It will be key to see how his current dispute with Egypt over damming the Nile plays out. The peacekeeper Prime Minister has threatened (potentially not seriously) water war if Egypt does not cooperate over the dam, and both countries have travelled to America to resume diplomatic talks.

The upcoming August 2020 election comes with much uncertainty regarding its fairness and how Abiy and his Prosperity Party (PP) will perform against opposition such as the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF).

With so much potential leading Ethiopia out of authoritarian rule into reform and democracy, we can only hope Abiy does not slip at the final hurdle and support undemocratic elections. Either way, Ethiopia’s problems are far from solved but the prospects are relatively bright.

points

The Feminist Rant Marina Mestres Segarra Funnily enough, the news that Turkey could be releasing convicted statutory rapists - estimated to stand now at 4000 (gasp)- on the condition they marry their victim, is not the most alarming outcome of this new, yet prehistoric, bill. What’s most concerning, is that the only loose end left to tie for the Turkish court is whether the age-gap should be limited at 10 or 15 years rapist-victim wise.

“Strong nations come from strong families” is Erdoğan’s current justification for this leap back into medieval times. His aim to achieve population growth and no children being born outside marriage surely justifies taking the whole country back to the 1950’s, sacrificing women’s rights and positioning the male as the dominant sex. Turkey’s just fed to the lions every step it has taken - the ‘milk leave’, lifting the ban on headscarves- towards women’s safety and equality.

482,908 girls suffered child marriages in Turkey last decade, in spite of the legal age being 18. Turkish MP’s should listen to the cries in their own streets and the protests from Human Rights defenders, that clearly show old-men’s opinions no longer speak for the Turkish population’s will.

The Infamous Tweet Meera Navlakha When Felicia Sonmez, a reporter for the Washington Post, heard of Kobe Bryant’s death, she tweeted out a link to a 2016 article outlining the former NBA player’s sexual assault case.

But her tweet resulted in death threats, abuse from angry fans, and later being suspended by the superiors at the newspaper. Sonmez’s suspension drew attention for the ethics behind it, with the newspaper being criticised for silencing one of its own journalists for speaking the truth. Now reinstated, she and her employees have called for their executives to be more balanced in these sorts of decisions.

Thursday 6th February 2020 | PALATINATE

18

Sport Sport

“Football is an incredibly broad church and that’s a great thing” Football writer and Durham alumnus Jonathan Wilson speaks to Sport about the beautiful game, sport and politics, and Sunderland

Matt Styles Tomas Hill Lopez-Menchero Sport Team There are few football writers as prolific as Jonathan Wilson.

A brief scan through a list of his books is enough to demonstrate how wide-ranging his interest in the game is, with titles on everything from Eastern Europe to Argentina via his definitive volume on the global history of football tactics, Inverting the Pyramid.

A two-hour conversation with the acclaimed sports journalist proves to be no exception.

Wilson’s love of football shines through at all times in his encyclopedic knowledge of the game, but he is keen to stress the importance of other pursuits.

It is no surprise, then, that our interview veers into a host of non-football related topics including Gabonese politics and college darts.

Wilson, a Durham and Oxford alumnus, has become synonymous with all things tactics since the publication of Inverting the Pyramid in 2008. Even he could not have anticipated the kind of success a book on football tactics would have. Since its publication it has been translated into 25 languages worldwide and enjoyed serious global intrigue.

Football is an incredibly broad church “The Brazilians have gone berserk for it, the Argentinians love it, the Russians love it, the Syrians love it – which is incredibly gratifying,” he tells us.

“I’m just lucky I was the bloke who got there first.”

This was at a time pre-Monday Night Football on Sky Sports when discussing football tactics was not as fashionable as it is now. Even so, Wilson thinks there is something to be said for its innate commercial appeal given how the sport appeals to different kinds of fans.

“Football is an incredibly broad church, and that’s a great thing and we should appreciate that about it. It appeals to an enormous amount of people, and it appeals for different reasons and all those reasons are equally valid.

“You might be interested in football because it gives you a chance to get pissed with your mates and I totally understand that, and I do that, or because the tactical structure appeals to something in your brain that appreciates geometry and how you can try and control chaos, that’s also valid.”

His repertoire includes more

marketable books charting the histories of Liverpool, Manchester United and England, but it is when discussing Eastern European football that Wilson’s eyes light up. It was the subject of his first book Behind The Curtain, and he picks up where he left off in his latest book, The Names Heard Long Ago, which explores Hungarian football’s Golden Age and its subsequent impact on the modern game.

In those days you get 200 quid for a piece and as a student in the 90s that’s a fucking fortune He acknowledges how fortunate he is to be in a position where he can write books about topics he enjoys, but this wasn’t for a lack of hard work earlier in his journalistic career doing what he describes as “grunt work”. “By not doing stuff I didn’t really want to do, like doing round-ups of ice hockey or something, I then got in a position where I want to be.”

Although he recalls writing match reports from an early age, his first serious venture into football journalism came when he started writing for a Sunderland fanzine at the age of 15. From there he went on to write for Match of the Day magazine, then aimed at young adults, to make some money while at university.

“I thought ‘This seems like quite an easy way of making a bit of cash of the side’, and in those days, you get 200 quid for a piece and as a student in the 90s that’s a fucking fortune, that was your beer for a term! Well, maybe that’s not quite true…”

Wilson studied English Literature at Oxford and was sport editor of the student newspaper, although he says he did not take it altogether seriously back then.

He was unable to achieve the first he needed to do a Master’s at Oxford, which he describes as “the first thing I cared about fucking up with in my life”.

His decision to do a Master’s at Durham offered the chance to be closer to his family in the northeast. Despite not seeing eye-toeye with one tutor and never setting foot in Klute, he recounts how he had a fundamentally good time in Durham. The Howlands Farm site which was Wilson’s college no longer exists – it became Ustinov College and relocated to Sheraton Park – but he has fond memories of meeting all sorts of characters in the city’s pubs.

It was partly thanks to friends he made in Durham that he got his first break in sports journalism, undeterred by Alan Shearer snubbing him in the first press conference he attended. Having completed a short journalism

course in London after university, he caught wind of sports websites that were recruiting through the boyfriend of one of his friends at Durham.

He then quickly got a job working for OneFootball.com – which he describes as “the first pan-European, global football site” – and rode the wave of the dot-com boom of the early 2000s before that came crashing down after the 2002 World Cup. He has since written for the likes of The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and FourFourTwo magazine, and his lifelong desire to write books wasn’t realised until several years later when another old Durham friend put him in contact with an agent. As someone who has literally written the book on football in Argentina and Hungary and who has covered the sport in many more nations besides, where has been his favourite place to watch football?

“Watching football in Hungary now is shit. The level is so low and the fan engagement is so low.

Argentina – the atmosphere’s incredible given the poverty of the football. It’s still the 11th most watched league in the world, which given the standard is astonishing, given the stadiums are by and large falling apart and are pretty uncomfortable, given there’s significant danger in some stadiums. To still get the crowds they get is mind-boggling, it doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Wilson’s brand of football writing, often at the intersection of sport, politics and history, is far removed from the kind of clickbait which many sports sites rely on. He acknowledges, however, that there is a time and a place for transfer stories. Given the news in October last year that staff at popular US website Deadspin had been told to ‘stick to sports’ in their articles – Wilson calls it “lunacy” – should sports journalists always be looking to cover the bigger issues?

“It’s not every football writer’s role,” he explains. “When you’re at a World Cup or something, it is unbelievably intense. There’s no time to do the political stuff.

There is if you’re sent there with that brief, and some journalists hopefully will be. But that’s not going to be my remit, I assume it’s not going to be my remit [for the 2022 World Cup] in Qatar.

In Argentina the atmosphere’s incredible given the poverty of the football “To expect a football journalist to become overnight an expert in Qatari politics and labour law and human rights issues, you can’t do it. And you shouldn’t do it, because you’d be doing it badly and you potentially deflect from

Wilson has a comprehensive repertoire (Jonathan Wilson)

the journalist whose job it is to be very good at it.”

Even so, Wilson tells the story of how he and two other colleagues uncovered a story about the brutal repression of protestors in the wake of Gabon’s elections while covering the 2016 Africa Cup of Nations. It led to him securing an interview with the Prime Minister in which he confronted him with the proof that at least 27 people had been killed by mercenaries. He uses a football analogy to explain why sports journalists can do that but shouldn’t always be expected to.

“Your right-back might be able to play left-wing with six months of training – don’t just chuck him into a game and ask him to do it. If he’s got his role then he’ll do that to the best of his abilities, and if he finds himself on the left wing in a crossing position, he’ll try and put a cross in. But that’s not where you actually want him all the time.”

He is sceptical of sports journalism degrees, and recalls how one of his articles published in Match of the Day magazine as a young freelancer was deemed not good enough by the tutors on his course. When asked what advice he would give sports journalists now, he says they should look to

learn as much as possible about other subjects.

“Go out and find out about other stuff. It doesn’t actually matter what you find out about.

Whether you’re doing English or Spanish or physics or whatever – go read a load of stuff, go and learn a loads of stuff, go and do stuff that you enjoy, and what you learn doing that will give you a framework in which to structure what you think about football.

Wilson never set foot in Klute “If you do physics, I’m presuming you have to do some quite complicated statistical stuff, which is really useful in modern football. Or you’ll recognise something happening in football which is analogous with an archetype of literature – use that. Having a language or two languages is incredibly valuable in terms of talking to other players and other journalists and reading newspapers from abroad.

“All that stuff is much more valuable to someone who wants to be a football journalist now than understanding how football journalism develops in the 1890s or whatever.”

PALATINATE | Thursday 6th February 2020

19

Sport

Durham Palatinates on the ball Tim Sigsworth Sport Editor As Durham Palatinates walked out at the Birmingham Arena on Sunday 26 January to face Sevenoaks Suns in the final of the Women’s British Basketball League (WBBL) Cup, they did so with a vague sense of familiarity.

They had played Sevenoaks just eight days previously and in March last year, they had lost to Leicester Riders in the WBBL’s other knockout competition, the Trophy.

Those matches both ended in narrow defeat and, unfortunately, it was a similar tale in Birmingham.

Although guard Betsy MacDonald doubled the previous record for triples in a Cup final with six, a last-dash flurry from Sevenoaks’ Janice Monakana secured a 76-64 victory for her side.

“There were positive moments in the Cup final that we can take with us and use as momentum going forward as well as moments we can learn from,” MacDonald was keen to emphasise. “It was a fun experience playing in such a nice arena with an exciting atmosphere.”

“I love the challenge of having to perform 250 to 300 times a year” Coach Lee Davie, who oversees all aspects of the sport at Durham University as its Head of Basketball, echoed the same sentiment.

“It was tough to take as we know it wasn’t our best overall performance and we felt we had more to give on that day. That being said, the first five-and-ahalf minutes of the fourth quarter really showed us that we have what it takes to beat Sevenoaks, but we need to play to that level for 40 minutes.”

Another positive from his side’s run to the final was that it also yielded one of their best performances in recent seasons

DUAFC are looking to make the eight-team national play-offs and a win over Northumbria would secure their place (WBBL)

when they defeated Sheffield Hatters 79-72.

“The Cup semi-final was something special as we were going toe-to-toe with the ‘winningest’ franchise in women’s basketball and we were at their venue which is a very difficult place to play at.

“We were down 15 points with five minutes to go yet we ended up shutting them down offensively and went on one of the most dramatic scoring runs I’ve ever seen. We erased their lead and went on to win by seven points.”

Since joining from Team GB in 2013, Davie’s tenure has seen the club rebrand from the Durham Wildcats to the Durham Palatinates, consolidate its links with Durham University, and transition into an ever more professional outfit.

These developments have come as part of a wider University strategy to become the best in the UK for those who wish to balance team sports with elite academic study. As is also the case with DU rugby and football, the Palatinates’ recruitment has been bolstered by its ability to offer sport scholarships at both

undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Competing in the WBBL is just one aspect of the women’s basketball programme at Durham as almost all of those who play in the competition also play for the University in British University and Collegiate Sport (BUCS) matches.

It is therefore unsurprising that being a Palatinate comes with substantial time requirements, something which MacDonald − an American masters student who played for Southern Connecticut State University as an undergraduate − pointed out.

“Being able to study as well as play basketball is a great opportunity and I am extremely appreciative to be in Durham doing both. It does have it’s challenges with some busy days, but I feel accomplished getting into a routine and using my time efficiently.

28th minute was enough to see the boys in palatinate through to a valuable three points in the final game of the six-team BUCS Premier North. This secured their place in the end-of-season playoffs which see the top four sides from the Premier North and the Premier South compete for glory.

These two matches reflect the growing centrality of charity matches to the sporting scene here at Durham. DUHC is experiencing

success throughout the club, with the men’s fourth squad also topping their retrospective BUCS league. Both the women’s thirds and men’s thirds have reached the next stage of their BUCS cup rounds, facing Dundee and Aberdeen to also claim a spot in the ICG Trophy semi-finals.

Whilst the BUCS league is nearly at a close and the knockout stages of the Trophy rounds are underway, the club still engages

“The Cup semi-final was something special” “It’s all about time management and making the

most of the day, whether that’s studying in the library after class or going the court to practice and putting extra shots up.”

For Davie, these pressure and time requirements make his role all the more rewarding.

“I love the challenge of having to perform 250 to 300 times a year throughout all the practices and all the games both in BUCS and WBBL. In BUCS one loss can be the difference between being first and third and within WBBL you’re trying to be number one, so every game is also must-win.

“There’s 12 hours a week of performance analysis for scouting going into games and also evaluating how well we did in comparison to the scouting report we had going into the game.

“On gamedays there are on average 95 possessions per team and we have to track who we have on the floor versus who our opponents have on the floor, what style of play fits best with who we currently have playing, and whether we need to make subs or change tactics to maximise personnel.”

There is no sign of that

pressure relenting any time soon.

Davie and MacDonald both have a place in the WBBL Trophy final in their sights, and the Palatinates will play Nottingham in the semifinals of that competition on Saturday 15 February.

One thing that stands this Durham team in good stead for that match is their team spirit, something which is clear for all to see.

“I can’t say enough positive things about this team,” MacDonald stressed. “I am so thankful to have the opportunity to play with every one of my teammates.

“I think a defining characteristic is our unselfishness as a whole as well as our quickness. We look to share the ball and get out in transition. We play at our best when we are enjoying ourselves on the court and sharing the ball, that’s when we are the most fun to watch!

“I think a fitting quote from Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players to ever play the game, is ‘everything negative − pressure, challenges − is all an opportunity for me to rise’, and that is the mindset of our team.”

in additional performances within Saturday leagues, with teams travelling all over North East, North West and central England.

The women’s first team sit comfortably in the top half of the Investec Women’s North Division, whilst the men’s firsts dominate at the top of their table with an impressive 10 wins, one loss and one draw from 12 games.

Individuals in the club also

continue to perform hockey to the highest level, with Tess Howard continuing her path to a hopeful Olympic appearance by competing against Australia in Great Britain’s opening FIH Pro League game at the weekend.

Great Britain suffered a 2-1 defeat, a loss which goalscorer Robertson refers to as “gutting”, but will hopefully stand as a sharp learning curve for how to recover from the back-foot.

Durham University HC and AFC enjoy charity success Alana Ker Mercer Deputy Sport Editor Continued from back page Elsewhere, Durham University Association Football Club raised £1,424 for Sport in Action as they defeated Northumbria University 1-0 in front of a sizeable crowd on Wednesday 29 January.

A Ben Sampson goal in the

Sport

Thursday 6th February 2020 | PALATINATE

Inside Durham Palatinates basketball team

Sport speaks to coach Lee Davie and guard Betsy MacDonald (page 19)

Durham alumnus Jonathan Wilson talks football An exclusive interview with the author of Inverting the Pyramid (page 18)

DU Hockey Club defeat Birmingham in charity matches Alana Ker Mercer

Deputy Sport Editor

Durham prepares for Varsity Hector Pearce Deputy Sport Editor On Sunday 9 February Durham will host Loughborough in the annual College Varsity.

With the best teams from across the college leagues selected, the Varsity is an opportunity to showcase Durham’s college sports system at its highest level.

Whilst Loughborough University does not have a college system, its Intramural Sports (IMS) Teams, organised in terms of the halls students live in, play a high level of sport and will be formidable opposition.

This year’s programme has been extended to include men’s and women’s squash and men’s futsal, meaning Durham will be hosting Loughborough IMS teams across 11 different sports.

The Varsity represents an opportunity for college sport

athletes to represent the University, and, with an even bigger roster of sports participating this year, it promises to be the best Varsity yet.

After a crushing defeat last year, with only women’s football winning, the College Varsity teams from Durham hope to overturn this result, emulating the 2018 tournament in which Durham defeated Loughborough at Maiden Castle. This victory was emblematic of the rivalry between two great sporting universities, with the overall result determined by the outcome of the men’s hockey.

The victory of the Hild Bede men’s hockey team, who came up with a late wonder goal in a closely fought 3-2 victory, showcased not just a great story but also the opportunity to represent the university that the Varsity gives college players.

Often playing against other

colleges and fellow students, it is a unique competition in which inter-college rivalries are laid aside in the pursuit of victory for the University.

The college teams representing the University are selected from the premier college divisions for the 11 sports of the Varsity. The success of each team at the highest levels of college sport is ultimately rewarded and recognised with the honour of representing the University.

This year the colleges competing are: rugby (men’s) - Hatfield; netball – Josephine Butler; basketball – Chad’s (women’s) and Ustinov (men’s); football – Grey (men’s) and Trevelyan (women’s); squash – St. John’s (women’s) and Van Mildert (men’s), futsal – Collingwood (men’s), mixed badminton – Stevenson; and hockey - Hild Bede (men’s) and Collingwood (women’s).

Durham’s victory over York Uni-

versity last year in the York-Durham Varsity is testament to the talent and quality within the college system and the importance of playing at Maiden Castle. With teams representing 11 different colleges in fixtures running from 12-6pm, there is something for everyone to watch and support.

Keep an eye out for the Facebook event where more information will be posted including a confirmed timetable of the timings for the day alongside college and team releases.

In the words of college sport coordinator Polly Pearse, it promises to be a “truly brilliant day regardless of the weather”, so please get down to Maiden Castle on Sunday to show your support for the victory of the Durham Colleges over Loughborough, a clash that promises sport of the highest quality on an occasion which does not come around too many times a year.

The top two men’s and women’s squads of Durham University Hockey Club took to Maiden Castle to face Birmingham University for their first charity games of the season on Wednesday 29 January.

DUHC successfully raised over £400 through ticket sales for the event in aid of Sport in Action Zambia, a non-governmental organisation whose purpose is to “improve people’s quality of life through sport and recreational activities”.

Each team saw a successful victory from their games, with a total of 21 goals scored in the opposition net against a mere five conceded.

The most impressive score of the day can be attributed to the 11-1 victory by the men’s first squad, with players such as Ben Park achieving a hat-trick.

The women’s firsts also achieved a win through a more closely contested game, defeating Birmingham 2-1 and going top of their BUCS league.

Players Mollie D’Arcy Rice (Castle first-year) and Emma McIntyre (Grey third-year) contributed to the success, with goalkeeper Louisa Bray ensuring little got past her defensive line.

Both the women’s and men’s seconds also secured conclusive victories over Birmingham, with the likes of Lottie Gill (Mary’s first-year) and Harry Talks (Collingwood second-year) decisively smashing the ball into the back net.

The men’s seconds secured a 4-1 win, whilst the women’s seconds produced a 4-2 triumph, raising team morale ahead of next week’s BUCS game against Nottingham University, a match which will decide which of the two sides shall be reaching the BUCS semi-finals.

Continued on p. 19