QMessenger 76

Q

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013 ISSUE 76

QMESSENGER.CO.UK

THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF QUEEN MARY STUDENTS’ UNION

QM AWARDS AND HONOURS 2013 A FULL SUMMARY OF AWARD WINNERS ON PAGE 21 Introducing your new Quest Radio with Santander Sabbatical Officers raise £2142 for Comic Relief

Quest during their 24 hour broadcast in The Blomely Rooms. Image by Florence Taylor

Emily Eyre

Image by Haneef Rehman

Keumars Afifi-Sabet The elections seasons have firmly ended; and from the dust emerge a new sabbatical team; bringing with them a fresh host of ideas, and a fresh perspective on the issues affecting students. President-elect Sarah Sarwar, VP Education Gaby Dale Leal, VP Welfare Katarina Nordanger and VP Barts & The London Ali Jawad took time from their busy schedules to speak with QMessenger about the elections, the state of the union, and their plans for the coming year.

NEWS

“It was lots of fun actually” Sarah reminisced about her time campaigning with the slate Open Union, to which her new colleagues agreed. Gaby added how “it was both stressful and exciting” maintaining “if anyone had an off-day then there were people helping out.” Sarah aptly summed up; “it’s difficult electioneering at times because it’s something that you really care about – you pin everything on it.” “Winning at all costs” was a notion some candidates took too seriously, as Ka-

Continued on p.08

COMMENT

Research on The Rise of Drug Driving Rape Jokes

This year’s Comic Relief broke records as £75 million was donated to the cause on Friday night. All over the country the public have been finding innovative ways of raising money and the student radio station here at Queen Mary is no exception. The team at Quest Radio bravely decided to embark upon a 24 hour broadcast in order to reach the target amount of £300. Chris Smith, Katherine Williams, Florence Taylor and Alex Sensier tackled the entire 24 hour stint whilst fellow presenters and various members of the university were allocated visiting slots.

My turn to drop by came around at 1am on Friday morning and being half asleep myself, I assumed I’d find an exhausted heap of presenters struggling to remain conscious. To my surprise, I arrived to discover that morale was unexpectedly high. Biscuits, chocolate and energy drinks were scattered

CULTURE

SATIRE

amidst the makeshift studio in the Blomeley rooms; evidently doing their part to keep everyone in good spirits. The brightly coloured bunting, space hoppers and numerous red noses that adorned the space sustained the party atmosphere that is upheld by Comic Relief each year and made me excited to get involved.

Even after 13 hours of non-stop broadcasting, the team were enthusiastic and managing to maintain their usual good humour.

When discussing how they made it through the broadcast, Katherine Williams commented that ‘The most difficult thing was battling to stay awake. There was one point when I really didn’t think I’d make it to the end of the show!’ The support of listeners and presenters played a huge role in keeping the dedicated team entertained as there was never a moment when they were without guests in the studio. Students with musical talents also called in to give special

SOCIETIES

performances and one of the highlights was a live lounge session from The Lion and The Shark who played chart hits on the viola and flute. My own visit included discussion of some (hilarious) cat pictures and some red nose themed photographs involving space hoppers. After what seemed like only a few minutes, an hour had passed and it was time for me to say goodbye and good luck.

Using Facebook and Twitter, Quest filled our social media with pleas for donations in order to raise as much money as possible.

And so finally the important question: did they manage to hit their ambitious target?

The presenters finished the show with a total of £1071 which was then matched by Santander to make a final sum of over £2000.

One of the biggest and most exhausting efforts for Comic Relief, the Quest team have set a new standard for fundraising here at Queen Mary.

TECH

SPORTS

McAvoy as Exam Season Bridging the 3D Printing Merger Cup Yes or no?

Macbeth Looms Gap

02NEWS

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Laws catch up with drug-driving trend

EDITORIAL TEAM:

Nilufa Yasmin

Executive Editor Kashmira Gander

Managing Editor Isabelle Leach

Creative Director Lloyd Ramos

Photography Pippasha Khan

Sub Editors

Jasmine Virhia, Sarah Power, Tasha Mathur and Aisha Rimi

News

Joseph Flaig and Bethany Moffett

Features

Preston Abell and Silvia Ainio

Comment

Stephanie Relf and Stevie Rankin

Culture

Belphoebe New and Rhiannon Evans

Satire

Keumars Afifi-Sabet and Lucretia McCarthy

Image by Jeff Wilcox

Societies

Becky Adkins

Sports

Hannah Clarke and Jeremy Baily Special thanks to Tom Sutton and Melissa Snyder

on the roads due to a lack of technology. However, in regards to this new proposal, several roadside saliva testing devices are in the consideration process by the Home Office who are expected to provide their view on this matter.

The machine in question will test the person for drinking firstly, even if the person does pass, a swab of their saliva will be tested. If any substance is thought to be found within the body, the same legislation related to drinkdriving will be followed.

There are various families of victims who are hoping for a zero tolerance in regards to this offence. However the penalty for whichever drug has been taken as well as the quantity consumed is yet to be confirmed and will be decided based on the advice given from the panel as well as the public.

Success for the Mile End group Bethany Moffett The Mile End Group has been praised by a top think tank as ‘the way forward’ for Universities.

Queen Mary University’s Mile End Group, which is a forum for Government and Politics, has seen much success in its tenure, and indeed has received much praise.

The report, An Avalanche is Coming: Higher Education and the Revolution Ahead, notes that this group should act as a model and example for UK Universities in the future, noting its access to top industry leaders, politicians and business sponsorship.

Our other media outlets include:

QMTV

Station Manager: Ozzy Amir www.qmtvchannel.co.uk

CUB Magazine

Managing Editor: Anna Matheson www.qmessenger.co.uk

Quest Radio

Station Manager: Chris Smith www.questradio.co.uk

QMessenger is printed at Mortons of Horncastle Ltd, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, LN9 6JR. Tel: 01507 523 456. Each issue has a print run of 1,000 and costs £445 to print and deliver.

The issue of drug-driving is one that has been thoroughly discussed as of late, and could potentially become an offence that will be issued with a fine as well as jail time. Although drink-driving overshadows drug-driving, they are both being treated as equal offences; however the police must be able to prove that driving whilst under the influence of narcotics could in fact impair driving.

The new offence introduced by the government is the driving of a vehicle with a specific amount of drugs in the body. Based on this potential law, drivers could face up to six months prison time, a fine of up to £5000 and a driving ban for 12 months at the least.

Atholl Johnston, Professor of

Clinical Pharmacology at Queen Mary, was on the panel of experts asked to make recommendations in regards to drugs and driving.

In his published report Professor Johnston said: “driving while impaired by drugs is dangerous.

The recommendations of the panel, supported by scientific evidence, set out limits for the concentrations of drugs in blood that would bring the prosecution of the offence of drug-driving inline with that of drink-driving.”

The panel acknowledged the danger in driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs as equally damaging; however the two combined is most alarming and the reason behind the regular accidents in relation to the topic in question.

The Police have not been able to provide a rounded figure of the amount of drug drivers there are

Authors of the report, Sir Michael Barber, Katelyn Donnelly and Saad Irzvi, compiled the evidence for the Institute for Public Policy Research. They encourage British Universities to distinguish themselves more in order to survive the current global market, and tailor courses more specifically rather than generic programmes within degrees.

The Mile End Group, which was created in December 2003

by Lord Peter Hennessy, offers modern history students the opportunity to meet and hear from leading figures in Whitehall, Parliament, Fleet Street and the

City, in specially held seminars throughout the year.

Indeed, the report praised the group for providing access to a ‘fantastic set of additional materials’, especially referring to the fact that each MEG seminar is filmed and archived for future students to use.

The report makes particular note of the fact that ‘almost all the leading figures of the New Labour Government, including Tony Blair himself, have attended meetings of the Mile End Group and, in relaxed and academic surroundings, been willing to reflect on their successes and failures,

moments of inspiration and mistakes.’

In 2005, the Mile End Institute was also created, for the study of Government, intelligence and society, and jointly this and MEG published two books in 2007. Currently directed by Dr. Jon Davis, the organisation also has an advisory board, including Lord Hennessey, Professor Simon Gaskell, Queen Mary’s Principle, as well as Lord Adonis, Labour peer and reformer, The Observer’s senior economics commentator William Keegan, and Conservative former MP and Cabinet Minister Baroness Shephard of Northwold.

Hope for West Smithfield Library yet?

Established in 2008, QMessenger is the free weekly newspaper of Queen Mary Students’ Union. We are proud of our editorial independence and endeavour to always hold the College, Union and external bodies to account and to provide the best news and analysis to the students of Queen Mary, University of London.

QMessenger is created entirely by students and the publication retains all copyright of design, text, photographs and graphics, along with the individual contributor.

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Joe Flaig The West Smithfield Library will be increasing services from April 29th, in apparent response to work done by outgoing Vice President of Barts and The London student union, Andy Smith.

In an emphatic post on the ‘Keep Barts Library Open!’ Facebook page, Smith detailed the new plans for the library, which had been severely affected by cuts to university services.

The post, which came with a picture entitled ‘Bart’s Library has been saved’, reveals that full

lending services will be restored to the library, after they had been completely removed. The post also confirms that the library will be opening between 9am and 9pm on weekdays, and 1pm to 8pm on Saturdays.

As the initial cuts resulted in a lack of paid staff to keep services running as usual, the implementation of these changes rests on ‘staff recruitment’.

Smith is clearly confident, however, as he claimed the development as a ‘major win’, and that the library will be ‘a world away’ from the current situation.

In an interview with QMessenger, Smith was obviously very pleased: ‘I am overjoyed at what we have achieved with the West Smithfield Library. Compared to the situation of 9-5pm opening with no lending that we were facing before Christmas, we have come a long way.

It has taken lots of lobbying, endless meetings and even volunteering time to work in the library; but we have brokered a much stronger deal.

Praise must go to Kerrie Wilson, Aaron Braddy and Alex Fowler for their efforts also.’

He went on to mention how the reaction of the student body had led to ‘a new consultation board... between the union and university which will add tremendous benefit in the long run.’

The changes to the library will only be temporary, however.

Weekday opening hours will be reduced in August for the summer break, and will only be increased to 12pm to 9pm when students return for the autumn semester.

A 24/7 reading and computer room will remain in use.

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QM Research into Multilinguals Sao Mai Ly Londoner’s children whose first language is not English will have an advantage over those with English-speaking parents when it comes to finding a job, said a lecturer in Linguistics at Queen Mary, University of London.

According to Devyani Sharma, Senior Lecturer, children who only speak English face the risk of being surpassed by their multilingual peers in the job searching race as job markets in South Asia and Eastern Europe open to the West.

Dr Sharma, whose research interests include sociolinguistics and bilingualism, said: ‘Multi-lingualism is excellent for job prospects. These London kids who are bilingually proficient could find a great advantage the more Britain looks to these regions for business partnerships. At the moment the situation is quite dire in Britain in terms of foreign language learning.’

The study of a foreign language after the age of 14 has not been

compulsory in Britain since 2004, but the government is thinking about a reintroduction.

The number of pupils studying foreign languages at GCSE level has decreased in the last few years.

In 2002, 75 per cent of GCSE pupils were entered for the study of a foreign language, while only 43 per cent were entered in 2010.

In 2012, Education Secretary Michael Gove expressed his desire to make foreign languages compulsory in British schools from the age of 7.

Specifically, the foreign languages in Gove’s plans include Mandarin, Latin and Greek, as well as French, German and Spanish.

Census data shows that 22.1 per cent of Londoners speak a language other than English as their mother tongue.

Nearly one in 50 Londoners have Polish as their first language, making it the most commonly-spoken foreign language in the capital.

Next on the list are Bengali and Gujarati, spoken respectively by 1.5 per cent and 1.3 per cent of London’s population.

Image by DixieBellCupcakeCafe

‘Sacred Tarts’ at Barts Musuem Bethany Moffett Easter festivities will explore a truly religious dimension in the form of cakes and sweets at the Barts Pathology Museum on the 30th March.

The event ‘Sacred Tarts’ will be hosted by the Museum, part of Queen Mary University of London’s West Smithfield Campus on Saturday. The day will see a popup cake shop to celebrate when Christians believe Jesus Christ was raised to life after being crucified.

Cakes will include stigmata cookies, ‘Holy Spirits’, cupcake saints, as well as edible relics, a rising

Christ Cake and a Miracle Messiah cocktail bar.

The themed desserts aim to provide an alternative way of celebrating Easter this year without the clichés of chocolate eggs.

The Curator of the event is the Museum’s Assistant Technical Curator, Carla Connolly, who stated that ‘Easter eggs are always well received, but are pretty boring when you know you’re going to get them every year. The Sacred Tarts team will be busy over the next few weeks coming up with some exciting alternatives – from crystal sugar crowns of thorns to cake Popes, butterscotch crucifixes to

edible saints.’ Connelly, a Catholic and ex-convent resident, will also be blogging regular snippets of popular religious news as well as the creations of the day.

The talents of food artists including Laura Edwards of Mama Jamma Cakes, will be seen, as well as Nicola Shipley of Tattoo Cakes, and food artist Hannah Glennerster, as well as many other cake experts joining the team on the date known to some as Holy Saturday.

Barts Pathology Museum holds many events over the course of the year, with this ‘Sacred Tarts’ day running from 11am to 7pm on Saturday 30th March.

Noiseline - Library staff at your service for disturbance Isabelle Leach Editor in Chief A service enabling students to report noise in the library is being piloted from Monday 18th March. This is done by texting your location code to the number 07903116114 and a member of staff will attend as soon as possible. It is not only noise but ‘other disturbances’ that are also included in this service. It is not specified what qualifies as intolerable ‘noise and other disturbances’.

This could range from the guilty rustler and oblivious sniffer to outright shameless talkers in the silent area.

It is clear from the lighter posts of social media platforms such as QM Library Mugs that the library can at times be a disruptive environment and is a concern for students. However this service has potential to be abused widely, and at the new 24/7 hours system.

As the texts only require a location code, there is no way to filter the messages in order of urgency or factuality. The boundaries for misuse of this system are limit-

less, especially as the guidelines have not been initially set. This is however only a trial period for 6 weeks, only to be used between 10am and 8pm Monday to Friday. This pilot may be futile, as the questionable factuality of the claims cannot be measured.

Budget cuts featured briefly in the election campaigns, demonstrating an increased awareness in the student body. Where the university and its staff are already under pressure, this could create a real strain on the already reduced number of staff.

The Library staff were unavailable to comment on this issue.

This service was also piloted by the University of East Anglia this time last year ‘in response to student feedback’ but it is unclear how this has affected the students. However, the provision of this service does not seem to be fuelled from the same origins of student necessity. With the rise in student fees, this could be an attempt to enrich the student experience and enhance communications but could be at the expense of staff and other services.

Image by Pippasha Khan

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04NEWS

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Accessibility issues are starting to be addressed on campus

Aisha Rimi For many of us, mobility is something that we do not have to think twice about. We just get up and go. Nevertheless for a smaller amount of people, it is not as easy.

With an estimated eleven million people living with a disability in Great Britain, the majority of those are affected with mobility, lifting or carrying impairments.

Living in a country that is supposed to be the world leader in many domains, access for those with disabilities is something it has not quite mastered yet.

However, attempts are being made by the Government as earlier this year they published the document, ‘Fulfilling Potential: Building a deeper understanding of disability in the UK today.’

This aims to increase the public understanding and to prompt debate about disability and the issues faced by disabled people.

It also hopes to raise awareness, drive a change in attitudes and support an increase in commitment to improving the lives of disabled people in the UK today.

Hopefully, through increased understanding, issues regarding accessibility will be addressed.

For someone with a physical

disability like me, Queen Mary appealed to me as an ideal university to attend because unlike most London universities, the campus is very much self-contained. The university website boasts that the student village allows easy access to the library and 'lectures are a short walk away'.

The current Disabled Students Representative, Daniel Holt's, 'Access at Queen Mary' video, has highlighted the great number of restrictions and difficulties with regard to accessibility on campus, in particular those that affect wheelchair users. With 19% of QM students declaring that they have a disability, 2% of them are wheelchair users. Although they are the minority, they are still one that matters.

Measures have been put in place at various points of entry on campus to increase accessibility for those with disabilities, yet problems have still arisen at times. As seen in the video, the only way the Hive can be accessed for wheelchair users is by using the lift in the Student Union. Regardless of this, these lifts have been inaccessible for weeks as they have not yet been fixed, with no signs of improvement looking to be made in the near fu-

Executive Editor Kaz Gander when the QMSU lift broke on 29th January. It is yet to be fixed. Image by Lloyd Ramos

ture. The Curve and the Ground Cafe also hold restrictions for wheelchair users due to the doors being heavy and difficult to open.

Muccis, the Queens Building and the library all have access catered towards wheelchair users. In spite of this, they have all been broken for months.

The video received a positive response and the university immediately took action and the wheelchair access was fixed in

the library, Queens Building and Muccis. Currently, Holt is lobbying the university to look into having all main doors on campus automated and stated that, “We are very happy with the university’s approach.”

The 2010 Equality Act clearly imposes that reasonable adjustments should be made by service providers to a provision that may be at a substantial disadvantage to those with dis-

abilities. With reference to this, it is evident that all students have the legal right to feel like they have full access to campus facilities and all it has to offer.

It is no secret that access around campus for students with disabilities has been a great problem in the past and is still a matter that needs to be dealt with, but progress takes time and is still on going.

QM Women Occupy The Women’s Library on IWD Meredith Strachan What did you do on International Women’s Day? Were you even aware that such a day existed? The ‘day’ occurs on the 8th of March every year, and has done since the early 1900s (though on different days until it was standardised in 1913). Its purpose is simple: to recognise and celebrate women – their aspirations, their achievements, their struggles, and their victories.

Many ask why such a day is necessary, and a few dare to suggest that there ought to be an accompanying International Men’s Day. I guess those few refuse to acknowledge that the other 364 days of the Gregorian Calendar are days for, and engineered by, men.

On International Women’s Day this year, women in Tower Hamlets were still refused their twenty-four hours of illusory liberty— illusory because, of course, the day is only a day, and we live our entire lives as women, as ‘other,’ as ‘less than’— ceaselessly undervalued and underrated. Tower Hamlets is cur-

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Image by Save the Women’s Library

rently home to the purpose-built Women’s Library, which houses the most extensive collection of material relating to women’s history in the UK. The Library is now under the management of LSE after it was victimised by cuts made by London Metropolitan University, who previously owned the collection.

In 2007, the collection had been designated by the UK Museums, Libraries and Archives Council for

their ‘outstanding national and international importance’, but clearly this recognition remained too little to save the library.

The Women’s Library is due to close on March 22nd. On 1 January London Metropolitan University divested custodianship of the world-renowned UNESCO awarded archive collection, which passed to LSE. The collection will be moved out of its purpose built, heritage lottery-funded building in

London’s East End, to the fourth floor of LSE’s academic library, where it will likely gather dust and become gradually more remote, despite promises to maintain its accessibility.

In response to these developments in what has already been a difficult history for the Women’s Library, people gathered to occupy the space on International Women’s Day this year. The occupation, despite the rain, began with a musical

ensemble of drums and bells.

A weekend of events and workshops had been planned, including talks and meals and more musical accompaniment. However, the festivities and productivity of the movement was cut short only a day after the initial occupation on March 8th. It was at 3.30pm on March 9th that the protesters, despite remaining peaceful, were forcefully evicted. A crowd of an estimated one hundred people waited to cheer the final protestors, who had to be dragged from the premises by High Court Bailiffs and Police officers.

Sussex University students wrote what they called a ‘Eulogy’ to the occupation, noting how, in the case of the Women’s Library, we stood to ‘lose access to our own history and memory of struggle.’ The protesters present at the occupation on International Women’s Day this year followed in the footsteps of the Suffragettes before them, but it is unknown as yet to what extent their actions influenced the decisions surrounding the fate of our Library.

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MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

When Student Elections Turn Nasty : London Student Editor Sam Doherty Voting in the elections for the University of London Union closed on Friday 8th March. A record turnout of 2,500 students voted in them (out of a total University of London student body of 135,000, three cheers for democracy!). The results were released later that same night and, to considerable surprise, the results for the editor of London Student were withheld.

There was no official announcement on ULU’s website, instead they posted the results of all the elections and, without explanation, simply neglected to mention why it was that the London Student role remained undecided. The answer lies hidden in the murky depths of student politics.

The election was contested between just two candidates, London Student Deputy Editor Katie Lathan and Oscar Webb, investigative editor of independent student newspaper The Cheese Grater.

As far as I was aware the election was hotly contended on both sides.

Supporters of both candidates and leafleted on Mile End Campus. Webb’s campaign was helped along by his much acclaimed investigative journalism in The Cheese Grater and was seen by some as an exciting anti-establishment candidate. Lathan, on the other hand, was very much part of the current London Student set up. London Student’s current editor, Jen Izaakson made no secret of the fact that she was backing Lathan, and took time off from her role to actively campaign for her potential successor.

It was in this context that the election controversy was situated.

An official public announcement as to why the result was withheld is still to come although ULU have

released a ruling in which they state that the election results are null and void due to their publication of two “random facts” about the candidates which, they argue, are ‘a clear breach’ of the election rules and are ‘obviously capable of affecting the result of the election.’

The ‘Random Facts’ in question were printed below the candidates’ manifestos in London Student. Lathan’s ‘Random Fact’ read ‘Katie has received nominations from over twenty societies across the University of London’ , while Webb’s, situated adjacent to Lathan’s, read ‘Oscar has never written for or been in involved in London Student.’ It has been made clear that neither Lathan nor Izaakson were implicated in any way with the publication of these ‘facts’. Nonetheless, ULU, after a series of complaints, deemed this biased and thus the election void.

ULU Senate will meet on Friday to decide whether to release the results of the election, have another election, or simply appoint the editor themselves.

Since the election results were withheld, things have gotten very dirty, with both candidates clearly unsatisfied with the election debacle. Webb’s camp are clearly aggrieved by London Student’s postelection stance. On the cover of this week’s paper there is a call for the election results to be released, with a link to a petition to support that motion. Inside the paper, Lathan has written an article in which she claims that hateful graffiti has been written about her around campuses and that members of her campaign team have received threats of physical violence. In the same article she also says that were there to be another election, she would not stand. She also accuses Webb’s supporters of issuing a ‘complaints

template’ designed to nullify the election results. Webb himself has denied all of the above and also railed against the way London Student’s cover presents the issue as being a straightforward choice between having a democratically elected leader and one chosen by the senate. He has stated that he would not take the role should he be appointed undemocratically.

All in all, ULU have found themselves in a conundrum from which there is no easy outcome. To uphold the election results will infuriate supporters of Webb, whereas to annul it will lead to claims of undemocratic leadership from many. Ignoring all the post-election drama, what this essentially boils down to is whether or not two footers on one page of a newspaper is a case for nullifying an election which, despite having a low turnout proportionally, had a higher turnout than most years.

In my eyes the case for a fresh election just doesn’t hold up; the turnout will undoubtedly be much lower and the campaigns, with exam season fast approaching, far less vibrant. The ‘Random Facts’, while clearly favouring Lathan, are likely to be inconsequential when it comes to the results and it must be noted that candidates who pose as ‘outsiders’, especially with someone like Webb’s track record, can work that to their advantage.

Something like a docking of a small percentage of the votes seems to be a much more suitable action.

The fact remains that we still don’t know who has won, and I support the call to release and uphold the results and put this mess behind us.

After this article was written, it was announced that the London Student Elections will be re-opened in the summer.

Image by Haneef Rehman

Image by Aaron Parr

Isn’t it time you went to give blood?

Aaron Parr On Friday 28th March, there is another opportunity for anyone living around Mile End to donate blood at The Grove Pavilion. Earlier this year, I went with Emily Eyre to the Give Blood session held at the pavilion less than 10 minutes away from campus. Afterwards I asked her a few questions about her experience and why more students at Queen Mary should Give Blood.

I know you were really scared about giving blood before hand, but how to do you feel now?

I don’t feel as light headed as expected actually. I’m a bit emotionally exhausted though, as I have a massive phobia of needles!

That’s quite brave of you to donate then! Did you get cold feet at all?

I got here 10 minutes late because I had cold feet! But I always wanted to give blood so I powered on.

You said you were 10 minutes late, but how long did it actually take?

Well, I booked in advance an appointment for 4.40 and left the

pavilion at 6, but if I was on time I could have probably done the whole process a lot quicker. They told me it would have taken less than an hour.

I think the question everyone wants to know the answer to is: Does it hurt?

It stings a little, but for me I think the worst thing about it was feeling the blood run through your arms.

If someone comes a long with you, it makes the whole experience a lot easier. Knowing that I could be saving a life made it all worth it.

So would you recommend giving blood to your friends then?

Absolutely! I will be attending another Give Blood session in May, as you have to wait 12 weeks between donating, otherwise I would have done it sooner! I think everyone should do it at least once in their life and there are no excuses for people from Queen Mary as it’s only 5 minutes away from campus.

You can book a session to give blood at The Grove Pavilion on Grove Road by going to www. blood.co.uk . Alternatively, you can contact Aaron at le12100@qmul. ac.uk for more information.

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MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

A fresh start - or more of the same?

Continued from front page tarina explained. Though while tensions at Mile End were heightened, things were a little different for Ali at Whitechapel. Running unopposed gave him the chance to sit back and “[watch] how things went a bit crazy.” Though, he made no less effort in “[speaking] with students one-onone.” He continued to say “when you meet people, you get to see what they want – and I enjoyed that quite a bit.”

However, the fact the position for VP Barts & The London was once again uncontested raised intrigue in itself. There’s no faulting the commitment of Barts students’ when it comes to student politics and the issues they face. Ali went some way to clearing this up; “the role itself is a big commitment, you take a year out of a five or six year course. You’re extending your time at university, and some people might be put off by that.

Specifically why we don’t get a lot of people running? I think it’s that we haven’t been engaging enough with people.”

Engagement, or the lack of it, was a major talking point not only for Ali, but for Sarah, Gaby and Katarina.

One of the team’s priorities will be in engaging with the student body; be it encouraging wider participation or encouraging the union to make better efforts to listen to students’ concerns. Sarah believed attaining ‘transparency’, a self-confessed “election buzzword”, began with “making sure links [between students and the union] are opening up more.”

The dire voting turnout served a perfect example. The notion as to whether this reflected a disparity between the student body and the Students’ Union was met with a categorical “yes” from the presidentelect; “the union doesn’t do well enough of a job because it’s perceived as something the very small minority do.” Katarina believe it depended on which factuality a student belonged to. Ali however felt Barts weren’t necessarily ‘disconnected’ from the union, more “the union needs to show them you should get involved, make your voice heard, and you can get things done, and that people should take responsibility.”

While issues surround the union were discussed at length; elusive ideals such as “transparency” and “accountability” too needed clarification. The sabbs team shared differing, though no less valid, interpretations on what these “buzzwords” actually meant. Sarah perceived ‘transparency’ to apply financially such as in the case of “publishing figures…making sure the union are

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Images by Haneef Rehman

more open about what its money and funds are going to.” Katarina on the other hand spoke of her experiences with the trustee board, more specifically being unhappy “with the way the information is [shared].” Gaby explained how these can be applied practically: “one of the main things we want to do is create drop-in sessions for sabbs. The idea is to have an ‘office hour’ where anyone can come in.”

While engagement remains an issue, it pales when compared to the continued problems facing education. “A fear of cuts to education” was cited as one of the biggest issues facing students at Barts; “some students felt they were cutting members of staff that were better than others purely on their research,” echoing the issues faced by SBCS students. “The library is a recent example,” more specifically West Smithfield Library.

“It is definitely a funding issue,” Gaby confirmed as she continued to explain the problems with seeking resources for all libraries; “[we’re] not trying to find money from where it isn’t; it’s just a matter of re-budgeting.”

Further plans to improve education centre on better utilising course reps, and scouring for more student revision space. In terms of course reps, Gaby stressed how more effort should be put in on both sides; “there are some who drift a bit more – maybe they’ll go to the first meeting but then they’ll lose interest.” When asked about how much influence course reps had Gaby cited a recent example where sustained pressure

resulted in the Politics department book budget was boosted in excess of £30,000. “I want to make them feel that I expect a lot from them. Not in the sense ‘you’re not doing enough’ but in the sense ‘you could be doing so much more.’”

Plans to boost departmental–society relations are also a keen focus point. The ultimate goal; to expand societies in their capabilities and how they function; an aim Sarah shares but plans to address in a different manner. Speaking on how the Debate society and New Turn run programmes in schools, Sarah feels that developing a relationship between students, societies and the wider community of Tower Hamlets will go some way towards not only bolstering employability but boosting the reputation of societies, and the university itself. “We are one of the largest universities in the city. And as students we benefit so much from the local community and I think that it is about high time we gave something back.”

Better supporting societies will also be a focus at Barts over the coming year. While “funding is sufficient for societies at the moment, one of the biggest things societies struggle with is funding space to run events.”

Ali spoke of how there was only a single adequate lecture hall on the Whitechapel campus which didn’t require booking fees, “so you have dozens of societies fighting to get that space.” He will be working towards exploring different avenues, such using the recovery room.

Alongside manifesto pledges to re-

organise the Mums & Dads scheme and to launch a well-oiled Mental Wellbeing campaign, Katarina expanded on plans to review the Students’ Union commercial outlets; not only the Village Shop and Ground but in “making Drapers more successful.” She spoke of how the new Sainsbury’s served no better reminder of how expensive food can be on campus. “I’ve been told several times that I can’t make this decision on my own. When I start my role I will have to look into different contracts and suppliers and see if there’s a cheaper alternative.” Speaking on her plans to better encourage the ‘campaigning culture’ at Mile End Katarina proposed to launch an online campaigns guide; “if you want to start a campaign – this is how you do it – this is what you need – this is the help you can get from your students’ union.”

And it’s this very ‘campaign culture’ which Ali, rather enviously, showed interest in emulating at Barts, and the Whitechapel campus.

“There’s a lot to be learned on both sides,” he continued as he spoke about the strength and pride behind the BL identity, extending this towards Sports Club and Society autonomy. “Queen Mary students are very proud at Queen Mary, but the difference is that we voice it very well.

Some people think we might voice it too loud,” Ali said, breaking into a smile. A sentiment perhaps shared by the many in Mile End sporting community.

And while Queen Mary students are revelling in the victory of the 2012/2013 Merger Cup, the “night-

mare” BUCS issue may threaten to jeopardise this unique sporting rivalry. Uncharacteristically breaking from his calm and collected demeanour, Ali lambasted BUCS for “[a lack of] consultation with students; leaving [us] with these two options which aren’t ideal for anybody; at Queen Mary nor at Barts.” While expressing a reluctant preference for option two, Ali maintains it would be less of a problem if the union were better encouraging students to get involved in sports.

The lack of effort made by the Students’ Union in reaching out to the student body was a common point of view among all sabbs. Sarah illustrated this using a lack of publicity behind the 24-hour ‘Questathon’ for Comic Relief as an example of how student media, for instance, is let down by the union. “They don’t have enough coverage at university.

Nobody knows how to get on the quest website to actually look at how to play the radio. I struggled at points this year. It’s making sure that students know how to access the media in the right way.”

According to Sarah, though, this may be a far more challenging task than first anticipated. “We’re in seriously difficult times. I can’t sit here and say I’ll put loads and loads of money into student media, but what I can do is ensure the Union takes its responsibility.” Speaking about QMessenger’s transitions this year Sarah highlighted the changes were “very evident to the student body.

It did go under at a point this year, and that’s a real shame, but a lot of it is making sure it’s resurrected and brought back fresher. And my role in that would be making sure media gets the right sort of support.”

While the media presence at Queen Mary is flourishing, the same can’t be said for that at Barts. Newspaper The Vulture “needs to be more active – students enjoy the media that comes out of BL,” mentioning he was “very happy discussing with anybody if they had ideas in bringing media to Barts.”

Overall, though the team’s ambitions remain high they all appear firmly grounded in terms of their own limitations and the limitations of the union; a refreshing positive. Katarina outlined how “funding is a massive issue; we’ll basically be looking into how we’re spending our money.” The new sabbs team take office in August following a short handover process, and while they’ve all devised extensive plans for the coming year, for now at least it’s back to chasing deadlines and revising for exams like the rest of us.

COMMENT07

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

The importance of student media First Class Honours vs The Well Rounded Student Experience Sophie Ranger

When I was growing up, I imagined being a journalist would involve sitting at a type writer, probably with a cigar, a fedora tilted to one side while shouting down the phone to someone important, doing everything I could to get the latest scoop. So far the life of student media has not lived up to this expectation.

Well, not all the time! Laptops are more convenient and all the shouting tends to happen via email, facebook, or twitter.

Perhaps too many of my notions of journalism come from “His Girl Friday” or the “Gilmore Girls”, but even if Carey Grant isn’t the star of QMessenger or Cub, there’s still something to be gained from being involved in student media.

If nothing else, student media is a tradition. The Yale Daily News or the Harvard Gazette are clearly the archetype of newspapers but radio and TV have also made their mark in recent years.

Student media is where budding journalists turn, it’s seen as the

blood sweat and tears of many a student trying to balance Uni work and the extra-curricular activities needed for a well-rounded CV and excellent organisation skills.

It is true that we can’t really know how many actually read QMessenger or Cub, watch QMTV, or listen to Quest, it certainly would not be the majority of the student population. Most probably don’t know how to access these outlets if they wanted to, and if they did, let’s face it, they’d be humanities students.

Does this matter?

I don’t think it should. Student media is about grass roots, low budget reporting, proof that the media is not just for moguls like Rupert Murdoch. What University can honestly say their students listen to their radio station more than Radio1? The point is that students can, they can support their media, they can write for the newspaper without needing any qualifications or interviews, and know that (within reason) their article will be published.

Students get first-hand experience of participating in or run-

ning a media outlet, the responsibility and the skills are all there to be tried and tested. Maybe it’s not a month internship with the Times, but there’s no denying the satisfaction of seeing your name in print, of writing something people will see, not something that will stay tucked in a file in the labyrinth of your computer where no one will ever find it.

Saying that, as contributors tend to be noticeably English, History or Politics based, sadly there’s very little that can be done about that. Those who are interested in writing tend to take writing intensive degrees, though this isn’t a golden rule, I’ve definitely met Physics students who love to write and just don’t which is definitely wrong, everyone should feel able to take part, and it’s sad it is seen as inaccessible to some.

Hopefully most if us enjoy our courses, but very few of us will get to write essays on topics we are thoroughly interested in, student media provides a way of pursuing those interests, whether that’s radio DJ, capturing the essence of University life on cam-

Your editorial team hard at work, Image by Lloyd Ramos

Zoe Cantley So we’d all love a 1st class honours degree in our chosen degrees wouldn’t we? But at what cost?

How important is a 1st?

Over the last few weeks, I, like many Queen Mary students have started to panic about the little time left until our end of year exams and essay deadlines.

My friends and I have been discussing how we should probably stop having so much fun and concentrate purely on our degrees, which of course we intend to (try) to do. But lets look at the university year in its entirety rather than just the mad panic that ensues before summer…How important is it to focus on your degree exclusivelyobviously at times when deadlines threaten to engulf you, shutting yourself inside your room or the library is the only solution. But I’ve come to discover over the last year that there is a lot more out there than just the actual degrees that we are here to study.

For instance, in September I joined the hockey team, started writing for CUB and became a news presenter for Quest. The cynics out there would say I was doing these things purely to fill up my CV, but really I do them purely for the enjoyment they bring and if it helps me with my future career along the way, all the better! My point is that there are so many opportunities at

our university, whether it is charity work, media involvement or sports clubs, we would be fools not to take the chance to get involved. I was lucky, I got into university before the government increased the fees to 9 grand, but many freshers are paying just that, so surely we should be milking the university for all it has to offer?

I am a firm believer that it is a positive and healthy decision to set aside some time in order to achieve a well rounded experience. I always wanted a 1st degree, but I’ve come to realise that this just isn’t going to happen, as my IQ means I would have to focus solely on my degree and give up all the amazing hobbies I have taken up this year.

Of course a 1st is fantastic but I think there is a lot to be said not just for a well rounded experience but for a well rounded CV, so that when you’re kicked out into the real world an employer can truly see that you are the full package and have more to offer than just straight A’s.

The majority of us will only have one shot at the university experience, and when we are old having (hopefully) had successful careers, with homes, children and pets, personally when I look back on my time at university I want to be satisfied that I made the most of my time at university. Clichéd I know, but I’m a big fan of the mantra ‘no regrets’.

Industrious business women or lazy socialites?

Joel Wood I find it amusing when people rant about so-called ‘socialites’ for doing nothing, because in actual fact, they always appear to be doing something! Regardless of whether or not you’re a fan, everyone has heard of Kim Kardashian, Katie Price and Paris Hilton. What do they all have in common? These multi-millionaires have carved a career for themselves in ‘celebrity’.

Unlike most celebrities, these women haven’t earned fame through the usual route of having an exceptional talent or skill, they’ve earned it through sex tapes, glamour modelling and a lot of hard work.

I have to say that Keeping Up

With the Kardashians (KUWTK) is a guilty pleasure of mine. (Infact I watch a lot of trashy reality television; I’m a sucker for cheap TV!) One thing that KUWTK has highlighted to me is just how hard these women work. People think that Kim and her sisters (aptly named Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall and Kylie) are just lazy, vain, materialistic, women. They might be vain, they might be self-obsessed, their names might all start with ‘K’ but they are definitely not lazy.

These women are constantly working. They’re ruthless, ambitious business women who have created something out of nothing.

Kim alone is worth $38 million and rumour has it that the whole Kardashian brand is soon to be

worth $1 billion. Their brand is built on promotional appearances, clothing lines, reality TV shows, the fly-on-the-wall documentaries, perfume collections, tell-all autobiographies, modelling, magazine deals, calendars, lingerie, make up, jewellery, endorsements... the list goes on. You name it, they’ve done it.

Although they may have originally made their names from doing nothing, in order to maintain that level of fame and stop it from just being the 15 minutes that everyone strives for, they’ve had to work exceptionally hard. They know exactly what they’re doing, they know how to make money and milk every possible opportunity that comes their way. Their product is them-

selves - and that empire didn’t just create itself. Yes they have a huge team behind them in order to make it happen, but ultimately the driving force and workload falls onto the Kardashians themselves.

I don’t envy how hard the Kardashians have to work in order to stay on top as the most famous family in America. All that time, effort and sacrifice just for it all to one day come crashing down, because lets face it, once that first wrinkle appears on Kim Kardashian’s brow she’ll be out the door before you can say “botox”. But next time you open a magazine to see one of these ‘socialites’ just remember: it takes a lot more than an alliterated name to forge a career in ‘celebrity’.

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08COMMENT What do we really know about Hugo Chavez?

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Katie Schuster

Image by ukberri.net

On the 6th of March 2013 Hugo Chávez, socialist and president of Venezuela for fourteen years, died of (unspecified to the public) cancer. To many, he was a father figure, who dedicated his presidency to supporting and helping the poor.

Yet for others, who celebrated with fireworks on the announcement of his death, Chávez was seen as an authoritarian figure that destroyed the country. So, first of all, where does Chávez’s death leave Venezuela and secondly, what does this mean for socialism?

Chávez was certainly a controversial figure whose charismatic and revolutionary character led to creating many opponents over the years. With many failed coups before he gained presidency in 1999, Chávez fought until he won office, at the moment that the previous Venezuelan government was falling apart. He won four, fair elections with large majorities behind him, the last in 2012 beating his challenger Henrique Capriles, 54% of the vote to 44%, giving him the presidency for another six year term.

Unlike other Latin American countries, what Venezuela has under its belt is its massive oil wealth. Under the Federal Repub-

lic, Chávez made it his mission to distribute this wealth across the nation to the poor and at the expense of the elite. He taxed the rich in order for the masses of poor to be able to eat and live, he put in place projects to make health and education available to everyone.

He wanted to unite the people of Venezuela and South America and considering that for many years Venezuela has been an extremely unstable, divided country, with a large part of the population being in extreme poverty, it is no surprise that Chávez received the popularity that he did.

Furthermore, it is no hidden fact that Chávez was particularly antagonistic towards America, calling George Bush a ‘devil’ and a ‘donkey’. However, America is known for intruding on Latin American politics, trying to enforce a capitalist system and what Chávez saw, and being right, is that a capitalist system that works in countries such as the US and Britain, is not right for the needs that Venezuela has. As a result of Chávez’s opinion towards America, and maybe for the better, America stopped intruding in on Venezuela, allowing Venezuela to be independent and move forward. And this is certainly what they have done. However, have they, and are they moving

forward at the same rate and as much as other countries in South America?

What is evident is that, unfortunately, ‘Chávez has left his country in a worse state than he found it.’ Venezuela’s economy is left in a mess, inefficient and there is a constant inflation. He weakened and undermined the institutions of the country such as the judiciary and legislative institutions by trying to control them. Chávez used the money of the government unwisely by subsidising excessively. Yes, subsidisation is a normal action for many governments to take, even here in Britain, but subsidising must be done sensibly and this is where Chávez failed.

The country is in grave debt and has a shockingly high level of crime with at least 21,692 people killed last year, a 12% increase from 2011.

The worry now looking at the capitalist system in Venezuela is that firstly, it has been very dependent on one man, Chávez.

Now that he has gone, how will the country cope? Secondly, it has been and still is very dependent on the wealth of oil. But what happens when this wealth runs out?

It is only a certain amount of time before this happens and will socialism be able to continue at that

point in the future?

What is to be seen over the next few days in Venezuela (that is thirty days from Chávez’s death) is whether the Venezuelan people will vote for the United Socialist Party’s (PSUV) vice president, Nicolás Maduro to be elected and hold up socialism. Or will Venezuela choose to start a new leadership?

Without a doubt, it is clear that Chávez has been a hero to the people of Venezuela. He has shown them hope and the possibility that things can be different, life can be better than before. The problem though, is that for all his good intentions, Chávez took his mission to help the poor a step too far and as a result has weakened the country, forgetting about the importance of spending the money of the country wisely, on increasing productivity of the economy and of investing in industry.

What is clear is that whoever takes over during the next election, which PSUV has a very strong chance of doing, will have a tough job ahead of them. Venezuela needs to be run differently but a balanced ground needs to be found between the good Chávez has done for the Venezuelan people and the desperate need for improvements to the country’s economy.

‘It Happens Here’ - Trafficking in the UK Victoria Cavolina Nearly two hundred years after Britain passed the bill to abolish slavery, and statistics suggest that the levels of modern slavery are now higher than they ever were during the years that William Wilberforce was fighting to see change. Whilst society now accepts that slavery is vile, horrendous, and tragic, too little is being done to fight against the increasingly complex web of criminality that continues to oppress the men, women and children on our doorstep.

In the last week the Centre for Social Justice, a leading thinktank that has spent eighteen months researching Britain’s modern day slavery, released a damning paper. The report indicated that at every level, the UK is failing to protect those trapped in situations of trafficking, forced labour and sexual abuse.

The findings of the paper, titled ‘It Happens Here’, should be

enough to move every reader both to tears, and to frustration, so it comes as a shock to discover that the Home Office has indicated that it believes its current methods of tackling slavery to be sufficient.

The report indicates that the front line services that should be in the very best place to recognise and rescue victims of slavery are in fact utterly unable to do so.

With a lack of understanding, a messy referral system and police force intent on arresting victims over immigration issues because they are unsure what to do with them, the entire structure created by government to protect citizens is proving chaotic; to the detriment of all involved.

The very nature of modern slavery requires tough measurements to be made by politicians and social services alike. For a crime that is often hidden, it is essential that the methods used to bring justice are not obscure, but clear and available to all professionals. Whether it is school girls

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being pressured into prostitution, or marginalised men forced into manual labour without pay, the government needs to send a clear message that trafficking will not be tolerated in the UK. Up until now, there has been a ‘shocking failure’, to do so, says the report.

Most of this seems to be common sense, and the right response of anyone with a social conscience.

It is utter foolishness therefore for the government to pretend that their broken system is working, when research evidently proves it is not. But more than foolishness, it is a grave breach of responsibility if the government continues to ignore the plight of thousands of people that have been represented in the CSJ report.

Media coverage of the recent findings has been surprisingly sparse, and certainly political response has been minimal. When the terrifying statistics of human trafficking fail to make the news, it should be a clear indicator that something in our public con-

sciousness has become anaesthetised to the suffering of others. Is this not the precise attitude that allows slavery to continue undiscovered in communities across the UK? It is high time that the government response was a radical and compassionate answer for victims of abuse, and a strong stand against criminals. Trafficking and slavery require co-ordinated attempts throughout every social sphere, to ensure that as Wilberforce dreamt, human slavery would cease to exist. The title of the CSJ report, ‘It Happens Here’, suggests that they are trying to awaken society to the prevalence of slavery. Admitting there is a problem is the first step to seeing change, and this report is certainly a first step. The question now is; what will the government choose to do, to move from recognition into action? As Wilberforce once said, ‘You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.’

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COMMENT09

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Image by zapthedingbat

Will you kill the The Rise of the Rape Joke romping Bambi?

Zoe Cantley

Laura Gilbert Scientists at East Anglia University, among them Dr Paul Newman, have called for an increase in deer culling. A census taken across 145 miles of woods and heathland in East Anglia (a local survey) showed that the estimates of deer numbers in the area were much higher than first expected. The study calls for 53% of muntjac deer and 60% of roe deer to be killed by professional stalkers after thermal-imagining cameras calculated an approximation of the number of deer in the area. The estimate of the national deer population is around 1.5 million and if the census was to be applied to the entire country, 750,000 deer would need to be killed, an elimination of half of Britain’s deer population.

A 50-60% pillage of the deer population, specifically roe and muntjac deer, has been proposed before the deer advance further on our British woodlands. Before the deer population coordinate their strategic advance, antler bayonets at the ready, towards more urban areas, taking out bluebells and nightingale’s as they go, the British people must protect their borders from such foreign invaders. The survey published in the Journal of Wildlife Management gives detail of the localised census and its sentiment is, if we the British public want to prevent such an onslaught to our countryside we must march in to battle, controlling the explosion of enemy numbers, already at 1.5 million and cut it by at least half. Dr Paul Newman insists this figure is not his final strategy to prevent this ‘muntjac putsch’, however he has admitted that the elimination of a large proportion of the deer population should be the final military campaign.

The increasing deer population

in Britain undoubtedly causes problems; destroying parts of our countryside, becoming increasingly comfortable in urban areas, and causing 14,000 car collisions every year. It is indisputably an issue that needs to be dealt with however deer culling already takes place in many areas of the country and people are uncomfortable with such a sweeping figure of killing 50% of our romping Bambis’ – regardless of whether it puts fresh venison on our tables.

The overwhelming reaction to the localised census in East Anglia has been national, catalysing outcry from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association. Gamekeepers, particularly in remote villages in Scotland, said that a massive slaughter of animals would destroy the livelihood of thousands of people dependent on the deer stalking industry. The industry in Scotland is mainly focussed on the stalking of red deer, a species whose numbers are already dwindling. However the census taken by the East Anglia University was specified to only roe and muntjac deer, more commonly found south of Scotland.

For land owners (including the National Trust) to agree to pursue the action of culling over 50% of the nations deer herds it will take more than one localised census.

There needs to be a wider ranging census of the national deer population taking into account all the deer species and the effect they have in individual areas. Until empirical justification is presented to landowners and the public alike, the deer will stay where they are.

I couldn’t stomach watching Bambi’s mother being shot by a hunter as a child, and as an adult I still find it difficult to support the war against one of Britain’s most stunning and magnificent creatures.

Facebook rape, face rape, and now rape t-shirts. Am I the only one who doesn’t find rape funny? In recent weeks I’ve started re-evaluating my lexicon, as I will admit I used to coin the term frape just as often as any other social media user, but then I sat and thought about the implications of using such terminology. When we so casually use words such as rape in an everyday context in a blasé, humorous manner, I think we begin to forget the seriousness and horrific connotations of the word rape. By using the word rape in this context we are inadvertently normalising rape.

In the last couple of years we have been bombarded with the World War II wartime propaganda slogan ‘keep calm and carry on’.

I’m sure you have all seen these five little words emblazoned on a variety of merchandise, enough times to make you scream. But have you heard the newest variation of this popular slogan, ‘Keep calm and rape’? That’s right, Amazon have been criticised (rightly so) for listing T-shirts from a US firm with this very slogan. Not only did the firm have T-shirts condon-

ing rape but they also had a T-shirt saying ‘Keep calm and hit her’. This just shows that once you start joking about rape, it becomes hard to draw the line, and apparently ends up on T-shirts.

69,000 females and 9,000 males are raped each year according to the data published in a collaborative report by the Ministry or Justice, Home Office and Office for National Statistics. I was shocked to read that only 15,670 of these offences are reported to the police, and only a meager 1,070 people a year are actually convicted of rape.

The statistics make for a harrowing read, and clearly demonstrate that the issue of rape is a very serious one indeed, and definitely not something to be laughed about and emblazoned on a novelty T-shirt.

Rape, is definitely not a novelty.

My fear is that if we do not collectively recognise that rape is not something to joke about, we are accepting rape as a normal, everyday occurrence. This is completely absurd however, rape is neither normal nor acceptable and we must stand up and say no to merchandise and terminology that contradicts this irrefutable fact. If we allow people to continue using the

term rape in this way then I fear that perhaps we are sending a message to potential rapists that rape is actually not that big of a deal.

The number of jokes I hear with rape featuring as the punch line is frankly disgusting. I know most people would defend themselves by explaining that of course they know rape is bad but they’re just joking with their friends. But the big problem lies in where we draw the line, when do we start taking this topic seriously? It is my firm opinion that we cannot ever joke about rape and even though you may think joking about rape with your friends is innocent, and harmless you never know who is listening or if potential rapists are taking note. Did you know that the majority of rape victims knew their attacker? It could be one of your friends or colleagues.

Instead of joking around about sexual violence we must continue to fight the problem head on with determination and self-assurance.

Rape is not acceptable. Rape is not normal. It is definitely not a laughing matter. We therefore should not accept rape in any form, hypothetical or real.

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10COMMENT

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Image by Berto Garcia

Learning from our mistakes: How much do our politicians pay attention to history?

Nick Garland Politicians, on the whole can be put into two categories: the rankly ahistorical, and the historically-fixated. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the contrasting characters of New Labour’s two Prime Ministers: Blair, the innovator by very virtue of his ignorance and lack of respect for the Labour tradition, and Brown, rooted in that tradition and a man whose idea of a witty anecdote revolved around quoting John Maynard Keynes.

However, even the least historically-minded of politicians have tended to cast themselves in a grandiose role, as part of some great political tradition or other.

Blair tried to claim the traditionally Tory ‘One Nation’ mantle for himself, just as Ed Miliband is now doing. Cameron essentially did the same, citing as his political hero not the divisive Thatcher but that most moderate of Tories, Harold MacMillan.

Meanwhile, there isn’t a Labour politician who won’t speak the name of Aneurin Bevan in the most reverential of tones, though few of them would find his brand of uncompromising leftism remotely tolerable now.

And at Queen Mary’s own Mile End Group, Oliver Letwin went out of his way to identify himself as a Gladstonian liberal. And yet, it’s hard to see what relevance any of this is meant to have for ordinary people.

When Ed Miliband gave his

party conference speech last year, he made a specific point of referencing Benjamin Disraeli, founder of ‘One Nation’ Conservatism. What significance this is meant to have to people who are concerned about their jobs or their ability to feed their families is quite beyond me. When David Cameron sought to fight back and defend his party’s claim to be truly ‘One Nation’, the petty, navel-gazing nature of political discourse in this country could never have been clearer.

“Study history - In history lies all the secrets of statecraft” Here were people charged with solving an economic crisis and trying to address deep societal problems that have endured for decades, but instead they chose to spend one of their few opportunities to convey their message to the nation by arguing over who might have a greater claim to an essentially meaningless term. What is it to be ‘One Nation’?

As attractive as it might sound, and as attractive as any policies associated with it might prove to be, it’s hard to find anyone outside of the remorseless circle-

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jerk that is party politics who knows or cares. Isn’t this history-fixation just another way in which politicians- deliberately or not- keep political discourse confined to their own small, selfperpetuating group of humanities-graduate careerists?

That’s not to say history doesn’t have its place in government. Obviously it would be wrong for those expecting to make effective policy to discount what is essentially all the test data they could possible have. If we want to narrow politics down to a science- and minimise its fallibility- then surely we must heed Churchill’s advice: ‘study history, study history- in history lies all the secrets of statecraft.’

And indeed, any pretence to understand the economy or society as a whole must be rooted in an understanding of their origins and past flashpoints.

But in spite of this, so much of politicians’ focus on history is not on the economy or on society but on their own place in it. Time and again, we’ve seen Prime Ministers seized by the belief that their actions are carving them a place in history, one way or another.

On the one hand, it can be manifesto in sheer ego, vividly embodied in Tony Blair’s pronouncement that he felt ‘the hand of history’ on his shoulders during talks preceding the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Of course, it all ended in tears, when he somehow cast

himself in the role of Margaret Thatcher and led Britain to war with Iraq. Some might suggest a better reference point for Blair would be Anthony Eden and the Suez Crisis.

Brown meanwhile somehow balanced out those self-same delusions of grandeur, with being paralysed by a crippling fear of leading Labour to political and electoral humiliation as he dallied over the nationalisation of Northern Rock for fear of being labelled too ‘Old Labour’.

“History is past politics and politics are present history” The irony is of course that it was Brown who abandoned Labour’s roots in the most damaging way of all, as his desperate eagerness to prove himself and his party to be one quite different from the out-of-touch, taxand-spend socialists who spent 18 years out of power led him to become quite reckless in regards to regulating the banks.

In this case, even the historian lost sight of history, so swept up was he in the present and once again in his own place in it, as was so damningly indicated by his claim to have ended boom

and bust.

So what is it one should take from this about what the role isand what the role should be- of history in politics? And isn’t this article itself an extension of that same humanities-dominated, self-important, history-obsessed political culture? Against the latter, it’s hard to argue. If it’s true that ‘history is past politics and politics are present history’, then maybe this is inescapable.

The people interested in one are inevitably going to tiresomely insist on passing comment and seeking involvement in the other.

But surely the key is to draw a distinction here. To neglect history is to neglect any warnings the past can offer a policymaker, and any who does so should rightly be branded both unintelligent and wilfully negligent.

However, for a politician to give in to the lure of ego and examining their own place in history, we should be very wary of their ability to make decisions with clarity.

Perhaps if anything it is a warning against politicians being allowed to stay in office too long, detached from real life in the Westminster bubble. And perhaps we should remember, whatever political analysts and historians scream at us at every turn, that every politician is an individual, fallible human being. What’s more, every event is unique- and all of us must remember to teach them as such.

FEATURES11

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Nick Clegg won’t bounce back after Eastleigh victory Nadine Mariah

The Great Debate Should attendance be monitored at University?

YES

Sarah Power

dents), surely taking a register is a way helping students get the most out of their money, nevertheless they complain because we believe it should be our own decision how they spend our time.

In fairness, we’ve all worked up the energy to go to a lecture and all our good intentions are squandered because the lecture is so boring you fall asleep, or has seemed completely irrelevant to the topic; it’s easy to get disheartened and stop going.

Even so, there is certainly evidence that students who attend lectures and seminars get better grades, so unless you’re one of the few who are able to do no work all year and still pull off a 74 in the exam, if the University decided to monitor attendance with actual consequences, they would surely be doing us a favour.

How many times have you told yourself, “I’ll do my work later”?

Or “I’ll sleep or do something fun and write up the lecture slides later when I’m more awake and have watched 3 episodes of CSI”?

Students will put things off forever so surely to force us to go to lectures will mean that we do at least some of the things we say we’re going to do when we’re motivated and have some free time.

Work is always the last thing we want to do, which is why we need a reasonable incentive to go to lectures other than the pure joy of learning.

Stephanie Relf

Almost every candidate for the elections was promising to improve lecture capture or record more lectures because, admittedly, it is definitely a crowd pleaser (along with cheaper/ healthier food in Ground, and more books/ computers/ space in the library).

There are certainly benefits to lecture capture, revising for exams, or for those who are genuinely ill, but if the lecturer is talking to an empty room because students decided to stay in bed and watch it later, why should they bother? Surely most professors would think they were wasting their time preparing and giving a lecture if no one turns up, and they can’t be sure anyone will actually bother to watch it at home. The result of this will surely be a decline in lecture quality.

To some, monitoring lecture attendance might seem counterintuitive. The University education experience is about taking responsibility for your own learning, including attendance, so if most would rather watch their lectures from the comfort of their own home, surely that is their prerogative and they shouldn’t be penalised for that. Then again, most students don’t need another excuse to stay in bed.

It seems ironic that many students complain about the price of fees, yet are also willing to waste the few contact hours they have (particularly humanities stu-

NO

Image by Kevin Bacongco

Despite holding the Eastleigh seat, the Lib Dems’ national opinion poll ratings have remained low. The Lord Rennard scandal, the Chris Huhne affair, not to mention the tuition fee betrayal at the cost of an entire generation of voters and their unforgiving predecessors indicate the party is unlikely to recover in 2015.

The victory in Eastleigh correlates increasing scrutiny of Cameron’s leadership, and the dissatisfaction of his backbenchers wishing to see him both neutralize Europe and the rise of UKIP. This is advantageous for Clegg because being ignored (again) allows him not just to recover, but also to monopolize the Eastleigh seat to encourage buoyance in his party members and his voters.

At the party conference, in light of recent developments regarding former cabinet minister Chris Huhne perverting the course of justice, accusations of sexual harassment against former Lib Dem executive Lord Rennard, and revelations that Clegg was aware of both these wrongdoings before they even emerged to public knowledge, he addressed his party members to “Keep fighting” and to “Keep winning…building a stronger economy, a fairer society” and that they will “win again”.

If anybody has recovered or is likely to “win again” from Eastleigh, it is in fact UKIP; pushing hard on policies on immigration, pensions and employment in an anti-establishment snarl slowly gathering momentum across a country disappointed by mainstream party politics.

Eastleigh was their strongest ever election performance with Diane James winning by 11, 571 votes following Mark Thornton the Lib Dem candidate who won by a swing of 19.3%. The conservative defeat has fuelled concerns of the Tory vote splitting to further fragment and scrutinize Cameron’s leadership in the next local election.

A recent ICM survey shows that disillusioned conservative voters now largely favour Farage and his policies.

So is Clegg wrong to believe that his party will recover because of Eastleigh? Absolutely. Although watch out for Farage, who in fact dined with Rupert Murdoch last week to discuss a possible UKIPConservative coalition. Someone needs to crash his plane again, quickly!

After fourteen years of education and therefore fourteen years of constant, rigorous attendance monitoring I assumed that by the time I reached University I would be in charge of my own attendance and punctuality. Although I am fully aware of the temptation to miss class because perhaps you had a few too many drinks at Drapers last night or maybe just because your bed seems extra comfy that morning, I believe that it should be our choice if that’s what we want to do.

If you choose to skip your lectures and seminars and therefore perhaps risk the quality of your degree you are completely within your right to do so because, above anything, you are paying for your degree. The choice to study at University, although a luxury, is still a choice and some students are now paying up to £9000 a year. Surely if we are considered responsible enough to place ourselves in thousands of pounds of debt we are responsible enough to decide whether or not we need to attend classes.

Many of those who believe that university attendance should be monitored will be under the illusion that increased attendance will improve grades and lead to a better quality of degree. This is definitely not true. Turning up to a lecture or seminar does not guarantee increased engagement with the subject or material. Just because you are present does not mean you are listening or taking part and could mean that

you are in fact taking away teaching staff contact time from other students who are more deserving of it.

Those who turn up to lectures purely because they want to are surely more productive than those attending because they fear being deregistered if they do not show up.

There are also occasions when an absence may not be due to a hangover or pure laziness. Many staff members do not regard missing class for an interview as an authorised absence; even if you are a third year desperately hunting for a graduate position. Perhaps you have an important essay due and already know the subject of your lecture in depth, surely as an adult taking part in higher education you should be able to decide how best to spend your time.

University attracts an extremely wide range of people, some of whom have families and jobs and other commitments. Surely part of the point of having minimum contact hours is to increase flexibility and encourage independent study.

Monitoring attendance could also penalise those students who perhaps although are not attending class regularly are still producing high quality essays and assignments and who will achieve a high calibre of degree.

The point of going to University is not only to gain knowledge but also to mature into a well-rounded adult, something which comes from being in charge of your own time management and responsibilities.

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QMInterns to come under the QM Careers umbrella group

Image by Thomas Thor

Preston Abell There are exciting new opportunities available through the Queen Mary Careers Centre. The career centre has now expanded its services to help students find exclusive internships across London.

The new scheme is called QMInterns and joins the other schemes that the career centre currently offers: QMTemps and QMProjects.

QMInterns was just launched in February 2013, so while it is a relatively new project, it already has 6 three month paid internships which it is advertising. The internships available offer opportunities for students looking to enter into fields from science to technology to insurance brokerage, and there are new opportunities popping up all the time. QMInterns’ goal is to place 50 students into paid intern-

ships in its first year.

The incredibly beneficial thing about this new service is that it finds and advertises internships that are offered exclusively to Queen Mary students, narrowing down the ever-daunting googling process that so many students undertake. In order to take advantage of this great new scheme, all you need to do is register your CV on the careers website: www.careers.qmul.ac.uk/qmtemps.

James Weaver, who works at the careers centre and is personally involved in helping students find the right career fit, says that “roles come up all the time, and we’ll get in touch if we spot something ideal for you, but make sure you also keep an eye on our vacancy site JobOnline, where we advertise all roles.”

JobOnline can be found at www.

careers.qmul.ac.uk/jobs. It has recently been relaunched and offers an even wider range of potential job possibilities, even advertising full time roles for recent or upcoming Queen Mary graduates.

QMInterns is not the only job placement programme that the career centre offers, QMProjects, another programme that was launched by the career centre in January 2012, aims to place students into local charities for work experience.

This programme is designed to help students who are still Queen Mary students and might have limited work experience or need to build up their CV. By placing these students in local charities, it gives students tangible, meaningful, and hands-on work experience as they simultaneously directly aid their local community.

Since it launched, it has placed 126 Queen Mary students into 23 different charities, in positions and departments ranging from design to data analysis to social media management.

The final scheme that the career centre is offering is QMTemps, which places students into temp

positions in small to medium companies in the local area, as well as internally at Queen Mary college.

Since its launch in August 2012, it has placed 46 students in 13 internal departments, like the library, the events team, and the school of economics, and 9 external organisations, ranging from a nearby school and a technology company.

The career centre hopes that all Queen Mary students will take advantage of its wide range of services and new programmes, for the more CVs they have, the more opportunities they can recruit externally.

It is incredibly beneficial for students to establish a relationship with people in the careers centre while they are still working towards their degree, because even after students graduate, the centre is willing to help students for up to two more years, and will continue to have them in their database, keeping an eye out for any availabilities that might be the perfect match for them.

By establishing a personal connection within the centre, students are provided with much-needed support, coaching, and detailed feedback, all which prove invalu-

able in an increasingly difficult job market.

The career centre does recommend that before students start using their online services, they come into the centre to get their CV checked, or perhaps just brush up on their interview skills.

Weaver says that “if you want some advice on your CV, or your career options in general, take a few minutes to book an appointment by visiting the Careers & Enterprise Centre in Room WG3 of the Queens’ Building or calling us on 020 7882 8533.”

The centre also has a range of online resources available via: http://www.careers.qmul.ac.uk/ students/resources.

Starting May 1st, the career centre will begin a rebranding process which will advertise its services more widely, hopefully getting more students, who don’t know what services are offered to them, involved in the new programmes.

Until then, students are also advised to follow the centre on facebook.com/qmcareers and twitter @qmcareers where all available opportunities are continuously updated and promoted.

What’s best this spring at Brick Lane Market Silvia Ainio In these first Sundays of Spring, what else could be better than to make the most the sunny weather by going out for a walk around Brick Lane market with your friends?

Not too far away from campus, and well-known as being in one of the coolest streets of London, Brick Lane market does not only offer a wide variety of antiques, clothes and bric-a-brac, but has much more to see and try.

Start at the bottom, coming from Mile End, where Brick Lane turns of Whitechapel High Street, and make your way right up until Bethnal Green Road. During your walk you will discover how Hanbury Street has a fantastic indoor market and multiple art stores, .edley street is the reign of secondhand furnishing and right under the railway bridge, reggae music starts spreading all around in a party atmosphere, the air heavy with smells of spices and frying falafel.

The market is in fact a place to head to for all types of food, from

home made burgers to Ethiopian coffee, not to forget the fresh fruit juices (only 1 pound!) the Japanese yakisoba and the tasteful Spanish tapas. In addition, unforgettable Indian restaurants serve what is said to be the best chicken curry of the city.

While chilling around, you’ll see how the stalls sell any type of ware you can think of, like old coloured indie shirts and arty jewels, and, for what you haven’t already thought, there are vendors that set up on blankets their weird articles such as dodgy videos, creepy broken dolls and old CD players.

If this is not enough for you, you’ll like to know that Brick Lane is something of a hotspot for graffiti and Public Art and has been decked out by some of the art form’s most famous exponents, like Bansky, D*Face and Ben Eine.

In practice, it is a kind of opencast art gallery, in which young faces of purple haired women, coloured balloon animals and strange beautiful multi-coloured skulls stand quietly on the corner of the streets, watching the coming and going of the crowd.

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MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Feed Your Literary Appetite: Nibfest 2013 Alainna Georgiou

Image by Robert Schomler

Can literature be successfully interpreted through dance?

Hari Mountford The question of what belongs in the Literary Canon and what is considered ‘literature’ is a topic of discussion which is unlikely to get old, at least for the time being.

What makes a work of literature a ‘classic’ is debatable, but arguably the success of the storyline is the main component, and this is one of the reasons the classics seem to lend themselves to being adapted in one way or another. Take Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, for example: a world-renowned tragedy in the form of a play, a successful Baz Luhrmann film, and a performance that could be found in the repertoire of any reputable ballet company. Mediums such as film, art and music have been inspired by and based on literary works for centuries, and the world of dance is seemingly using the classics more and more as stimuli for their productions. Recently, in addition to Shakespeare’s works, other literary texts, such as Eugene Onegin, Alice in Wonderland and Don Quixote have been re-worked for the dancing stage. The question remains, however, whether such a wellknown, often detailed novel, where the words are what essentially ensures its success, can ever be totally represented or interpreted through dance; a physical and ultimately word-less art form.

The Royal Ballet’s recent production of ‘Onegin’ was, I must admit, quite incredible. A welcome change to the traditional somewhat repetitive and predictable ballet repertoire, this performance included every ‘essential’ component of a successful ballet: love, lust, drama and tragedy. Add in some excep-

tional music, beautiful choreography and an impressive set and costumes, and the ingredients for the recipe are all there. In true ‘ballet-style’, this new adaptation was of a literary work: ‘Eugene Onegin’, written by Alexander Pushkin, which is in fact a verse novel. Despite the poem aspect being completely lost through an adaptation which entirely lacked language, I believe that the overall plot, message and themes were successfully conveyed. However what is lost in one area is often gained in another: through watching The Royal Ballet’s adaptation, one can get a sense of the clothing and landscape of the time, which may be more of an imagined notion if one were merely to read the text. The accompanying music was a great enhancement to the story; intensifying the emotions of the characters and assisting the audience in the understanding of what is happening on stage, and what ought to be felt.

Perhaps a better known text which was recently adapted for the ballet is Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’; a novel which children and adults alike are bound to be familiar with. From a Disney cartoon to Tim Burton’s 2010 film, the literary work is no stranger to being reworked into various forms and in hugely different ways. Most recently, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon created a brand new production; a modern, up to date and exciting performance featuring the Royal Ballet’s first full length score for 20 years. Premiered in 2011, the ballet received huge praise due to its special stage effects, danceable melodies, and relative comedy with which the piece was performed. Ar-

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guably, though, Carroll’s novel is a fair bit easier to interpret through dance than, say, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ or ‘War and Peace’; the reasonably straightforward and simplistic storyline which does not require in depth character development or plot intricacies is a suitable choice for a balletic adaptation.

Coming to the London Coliseum later this year is a performance of ‘Don Quixote’; Cervantes’ work which is argued by many to be the ‘first modern novel’. Now if this isn’t a piece of ‘literature’ to convert to dance, then I don’t know what is. Anyone who has ever read, or indeed even seen on a bookshelf this epic narrative ,will know that it is a hefty text. Trying to condense the storyline into a 2 hour dance piece is no mean feat, and the possibility of it going completely heads up is, admittedly, a huge risk.

Ultimately, dance is in no way going to trump the original literary work: despite reworking the novel or play, what the performance will be is, after all, an interpretation, albeit often a very good one. Where words, language and syntax are the main successes, turning a classic book into a production where there are no words is never going to completely recreate the real thing. But by watching a danced interpretation of a piece of literature can offer new perspectives on the original, and often serves to enhance appreciation and understanding of a familiar text. At the end of the day, however, an interpretation of literature through dance is a work of art in its own right, and must be considered as a standalone performance as well as its success or failure in reworking a literary classic.

Calling all bookworms! This April will see the first of a brand new London literary festival, set to rival the likes of Stoke Newington and Richmond. The Notting Hill International Book Festival, aka Nibest, takes place from Friday 12th April to Sunday 14th April, boasting the likes of novelist and ex-editor of Red Sam Baker, sports writer Anthony Clavane and the duo behind Rastamouse.

Founded by literary agent Laetitia Rutherford, the event has something for everyone. Forming part of the Friday launch will be a conversation with sassy blogger Sasha Wilkins, aka LibertyLondon Girl.

Other events include a talk with Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers about her upcoming book, as well as crime novelist and lecturer Henry Sutton in conversation with Sabine Durrant about her new thriller Under Your Skin.

Notably, the festival will include London’s first ever Once Upon a Deadline competition, where eight writers are pitted against each other to complete a short story in just 72 hours.

The eight writers, who include Evie Wyld and Alex Marwood, will

have only their own imagination and some surprise locations to help them create their short stories. The results of this will be read aloud on the Sunday event and the audience will vote to decide who wins.

With the rise of digital media changing the face of literature, events such as this are a reminder of how social the experience of reading can prove to be. Taking place in the same month as the International Book Fair and World Book Night, the inaugural Nibfest aims to bring together a variety of writers to help engage a new generation in the world of books. In the current economic climate, literary festivals also help remind us to support our local bookshops, literary venues and small businesses.

Happening in one of London’s most fashionable and culturally active postcodes, Nibfest is definitely one for the student calendar. Not only does it stand to be an exciting opportunity to meet authors, journalists and bloggers, but the concessions tickets means it won’t break the bank either.

For more information and to buy tickets for any of the Nibfest events, go to nibfest.co.uk. Find out more on Twitter @Nibfest1 and Facebook.

A View of London Kat Cole The vast, sprawling metropolis of London has something to offer for everyone. Since moving to London in September of 2012 I have had the privilege of being part of many different events and seeing a plethora of different sites.

First, to start off the new academic year, there was the International Student’s Welcome Boat Party on the Dixie Queen, London’s largest entertainment boat.

Following on from that I also went to a few concerts including Nightwish, a Finnish symphonic metal band, at the O2 Brixton Academy and Green Day’s Broad-

way musical of American Idiot at the Hammersmith Apollo. Of course I would still have been able to go to the concerts regardless of living in London.

However, I would never have had the opportunity to go on the Dixie Queen if I had not been living in London or attending Queen Mary University, which has in itself been a wonderful and enriching experience.

The pictures I have taken are a visual reminder of some of the events that I will always cherish. London is most certainly a city with many things to offer, of which I definitely have not seen everything yet.

CULTURE15 A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come again

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Leigh Whitlie After standing in a queue for four hours on a cold Friday morning, the only thought running through my head was that James McAvoy had better pull out the performance of his career, if we managed to get the tickets. By some miracle, the waiting paid off and the excitement started for the staging of my favourite Shakespeare play for the student friendly price of just £15.

I had never been to Trafalgar Studios before. It was certainly a different experience as there were seats on the actual stage, allowing a new form of actor/audience relationship. Yet It did still have its disadvantages. It meant that on occasion, specifically during Macbeth’s poetic yet disturbing soliloquies, the audience on both sides of the stage ended up looking at the back of McAvoy’s head.

This doesn’t make the play any less of a success. Director Jamie Lloyd has ensured he’s put his own stamp on what is arguably Shakespeare’s most bloody tragedy. The play is set in post-Apocalyptic Scotland; a world which had been destroyed by climate change. This was a fear which resonated through

the theatre as it’s a topic which is unsettlingly close to home.

The play begins with a literal bang and the entrance of the three witches. My first thought was that I was watching a live episode of Doctor Who. Their faces were hidden by gas masks and they were dressed in army camouflage. Their perfect synchronised speech allowed this 21st Century adaptation to preserve the beauty and enhance Shakespeare’s original words.

Choosing to reject the royal surroundings and castle settings might seem odd as it is at the heart of Macbeth. Yet Lloyd’s decision pays off. The bleakness of the setting makes the various deaths in Macbeth all the more horrific. It allows the emotions of the characters to be more emotional than what it would be if they were surrounded by pomp and circumstance. A key example of this is during the appearance of Banquo as a ghost.

Rather than a decadent feast, the characters living circumstances are so depressing that it makes Macbeth’s hysteria all the more powerful.

It cannot be denied that McAvoy makes an outstanding Macbeth.

And he is supported by an excellent

cast, particularly through Claire Foy’s raw performance as Lady Macbeth. Her famous ‘unsex me here’ speech literally sent shivers through my spine. I did however feel that the relationship between husband and wife was more romantic than portrayed in the play.

On occasion, the play does push the boundaries of humanity. Jamie Ballard’s grief upon discovering the murder of his wife and child was heartbreaking. It felt like the audience were sharing his grief. The murder of Macduff’s son was quite possibly the most horrific moment; the screams were literally ringing in my ears. I also felt rather sorry for those in the front rows during the final scene when Macduff entered with a bloody replica of McAvoy’s head. The head acted as a symbol for the recurring savagery and animalistic, bloody behaviour that runs right from the first scene; ‘fair is foul, and foul is fair’.

McAvoy has without a doubt proved he is made for more than blockbuster action films. He’s brought to life the haunted and tortured figure of Macbeth. In doing so, he has left his audience exhilarated by a performance they will never forget.

Image provided by Trafalgar Studios

Immerse yourself in the The Pinstripe Trilogy Jack Shirlaw

Image from Pinstripe Trilogy Press

The Pinstripe Trilogy is an immersive theatrical production housed at The Theatre Delicatessen in Marylebone. It attempts to articulate the confusion and anger its audience undoubtedly feels as a result of the current economic crisis through three different performances, performed in three different rooms; The Matador, The Bean Collector and The Trust Fund. One would naturally assume that the production attacks the powers in control and the bankers that ran amok in the City, but this is where The Pinstripe Trilogy stands out from the crowd and enlightens its audience in a more original way that its counterparts; the production not only targets the bankers, but it targets you.

The production first takes you into a room lit only by a series of spotlights aimed at a man posing as a streamlined, well groomed banker-type, holding a suit blazer lined with red material. He tells his audience his suit and shoes are designer, and then asks a member of the audience if their shoes are too – a positive reply lowers the audi-

ence to his disgraced level in that they too are excessive consumers.

He admits his role in the economic crisis, unapologetic and arrogant he shows us that we too are complicit in his rise and allowed him to rampage around the City.

He waves his blazer – as if enticing a bull – at the audience; The Matador seems here to be cleverly symbolising how the banks tried to see how far they could stretch fate. This first narrative acts as a stark and effective reminder of how we – like the ruthless bankers – pushed and pushed until the inevitable collapse fell upon us.

The second part of the trilogy – The Bean Collector – takes the audience into a dimly lit room occupied by a tax collector. With a change of lighting comes a change of tone, whereby the tax man is apologetic, worn out and lifeless.

The acting style – in being rather flamboyant at times – here is occasionally contradictory to the projection of a tired and ineffective institution. However, a very potent message concerning the nature of tax evasion is fairly comprehensively conveyed.

Starbucks is targeted for its

sly and evasive activities whilst the tax man drinks from a Starbucks cup, showing the audience how he too is a consumer, again complicit in giving Starbucks the power to pay what they want. Recurrent symbolism such as this in the production adds heavily to the sense of the unspoken truths and secrecy surrounding the economic turmoil, but gives no solution as to how we should expose them. The most this play can possibly do is to allow you to look in from the outside.

The immersive format of the production comes into its most effective element as we enter the last room of the theatre, where we witness the final instalment of the trilogy – The Trust Fund. Sinister and unsettling, a woman describes children who are taken by her company from their parents and invested in by shareholders, so they can ‘fulfil their potential’ in fields in which they possess talent or promise. A man interrupts her from the back of the room, giving the impression he is a member of the audience and tells his counterparts – here the forceful style of acting is much better suited –

how the woman’s company ruined both his and his child’s lives. The woman’s trickery is exposed but she manages to calm him and convince him to give to her his other child – he then breaks down as she reveals the small print. This section shows how the trickery of the small print culture can brain wash the consumer, and thereby again putting not only the financier but the audience at the source of the problems we are facing.

Despite the fact that many of The Theatre Delicatessen’s wealthy clientele are probably the very people responsible for the economic crisis and the distinct feeling that I was involved in a champagne socialist knees-up, the production was very effective in articulating an audience’s unexplored anger at whoever is to blame.

The audience were not expecting themselves to be half of the problem and this is where the play holds its originality. Its immersive and interactive style is welcome as one feels completely involved and never wondering where to look next, complimentary to the goal of explaining clearly why we might be angry.

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A whole lot of love for Lore Frida Runnkvist

Image by Garry Knight

Breaking out: The Breakfast Club Jasmine Virhia Having heard amazing things about the Breakfast Club I decided to make a visit on a Wednesday afternoon, when I knew it would be quiet. Be wary of visiting early on Saturday or Sunday mornings as the queue for a table usually reaches out the door and travels down the lane.

After perusing the menu for quite some time I decided on something simple, scrambled egg with wholegrain bread and tomato chutney (in an attempt to be somewhat healthy).

The “Brunch” menu is served from 9am to 5pm and is mainly breakfast type food however the “Lunch and Dinner” menu offers anything you could hope for; appetisers and bar snacks, salads, pasta, sandwiches, burgers, their menu even features “comfort food”!

For those of you that fancy a very late fry up, they still serve

some of their breakfast options in the evening so don’t pass up the opportunity to cure that hangover if you’ve only woken up at the time you started drinking the night before.

The décor inside and the relaxed atmosphere is what I expected from a quirky little place in Spitalfields. If you can divert your attention away from your food for some time, try and spot the funny little posters and signs dotted around the restaurant. Even the eclectic mix of obscure gym fixtures and lights somehow work in creating a fun dining atmosphere.

Whether it’s a hangover cure that you’re in need of or are just in the mood to treat yourself for breakfast I would definitely recommend The Breakfast Club.

Their convenient locations across London (Hoxton, Angel, Soho and Spitalfields) combined with their reasonable prices and variety on the menu definitely make a worthwhile visit.

Nazi-Germany is a popular topic amongst filmmakers, but seldom do we take part of this particular era from a German perspective, not the least under the direction of an Australian. It is a bold choice. Director Cate Shorthand swept critics of their feet with her debut film, Somersault, and she does not fail to impress this time either.

Lore takes its start as the Third Reich is about to meet its end. As the Allies sweep in over Germany, Lore’s family is forced to flee from Berlin, and slowly but surely the grim reality of Germany’s loss starts to become clear to the children. As her parents disappear, Lore is left in charge of her younger siblings, and with nothing but a purse containing a few valuables she has to lead them across them to their ‘Omi’ in Hamburg – a city that now is in a different country.

Matters are further complicated as they are joined by the Jewish concentration camp survivor, Thomas. He helps them survive and Lore thus is forced to decide whether she will trust him or not,

seeing as she has been conditioned to hate everything that he stands for.

The story is told from the German point perspective, and Shortland handles this with grace. The focus is on the children’s journey across the land, and not the ideology, but a sense of disenchantment permeates the story. This is embodied through newcomer Saskia Rosenthal’s portrayal of Lore.

Her conflict is conveyed through her stern facial expressions, and her controlled acting, and we can feel the weight on her shoulders as she fights for survival. There is nothing wrong with the other performances, but Rosenthal steals the show.

Shortland has an eye for detail and Lore is a visually stunning film. The cinematography is breathtaking and brings the story to a completely different level. The bright colours remind us of something belonging in a storybook, and Shortland lets the camera linger on the beauty of the nature, but neither does not shy away from the horrors. However, the sensations that we are granted by the visual

beauty of the film, the plot denies us. It is a story of survival, and there is no time to stop to reflect on life, death and love and loss, as the only way is forward. This creates a surreal, yet powerful tension that runs through the entire film, since we are tossed between images of beauty, and images of horror.

The visuals have resulted in an incredibly striking film, but I do find that the film does try a bit to ohard at times. The use of close-up images of objects in shifting focus feels slightly excessive at times as it does not serve the progression of the plot, and the urgency of the film is somewhat lost. And even though I understand and can respect Shortland’s decision to hold back on music and dialogue, Max Richter’s score is so incredibly haunting, yet beautiful that it saddens me that there is not more of it.

It is a beautifully crafted film, and all the components are there, but it feels a little bit like Lore did not live up to its full potential. Even so, it is a film that I will warmly recommend.

Welcome to The Night Circus : Morgenstern debut Ciara Judge “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”

Erin Morgernstern’s first novel The Night Circus is a show stopping debut to her writing career.

Set in the late nineteenth century the novel focuses on a handful of charming characters and their experience of a magical circus

that only arrives at night. Le Cirque des Rêves is truly a place you want to visit.

The vignette format of the book was inspired by ‘Einstein’s Dreams’ by Alan Lightman and it really allows you to get to know the circus through the complex intertwining of several characters.

Despite its initial beauty there is a sinister driving force to The Night Circus that involves two characters who are forced to play a dangerous game, with the circus itself a battleground.

The reader immediately becomes a Reveur alongside some of the characters, who are a

group of devoted fans who travel across the globe to see their idols perform and to experience the delicious and intoxicating atmosphere of the circus.

With hints of Shakespeare, Dickens and the fairytale aspect of Roald Dahl this novel is a treat for a dreamer.

At its heart it is a love story on a grand scale set within a fable; it is the type of novel that can appeal to hopeless romantics, history boffins, circus enthusiasts and more importantly lovers of a great story.

Morgenstern delivers a unique brand of magic straight into your own imagination, you feel

like you are actually at the circus. Beautifully descriptive, The Night Circus certainly tickles the senses, not only playing on sight but concentrating on smells, touch and sound. Playful and intensely imaginative, each chapter draws you in and wraps you up in its spell.

I recommend this book to anyone who would like to take a break from reality and dive into this strange world.

The eloquent descriptions and honest portrayal of love and darkness is worth turning the page over for. Erin Morgenstern is a true storyteller and a wonderful one at that.

cultureqmessenger@gmail.com

18SATIRE EXCLUSIVE: News International Lodges Bid for QMessenger, Union Decision Imminent

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Keumars Afifi-Sabet Silence stunned the newsroom last week when word reached that world-renowned controversy-magnet News International had lodged a formal takeover bid for the rights to print and distribute QMessenger. Although a decision hasn’t officially been made; sources claim QMSU are “strongly inclined to accept” the offer.

The undisclosed bid, rumoured to include a week’s subscription to ‘The Sun on Sunday,’ 13,000 denarii and the Golden Apple of Discord, sits in the region of “thrice the value of a second-hand Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.” Though deciphering the erratically inebriated messages from our QMSU correspondent remain a work in progress, it’s believed the Students’ Union are especially impressed with the “mythic nature” of these proposals.

News International are the proud publishers of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday as well as owning BSkyB (downgraded from BSkyA3 in 2004). They were, in addition, the publishers of the hyper-investigative News of the World, which until recently [this segment of the article has been removed due to libel reasons] though the debate continues.

QMessenger has been in a perpetual state of transition since its birth five years ago. The previous seven months especially have been a frustrating period for Queen Mary’s second most popular Students’ Union news publication, despite efforts to sugar-coat this as a period of “negative growth.” Scarce content and continuous errors continuous errors have become unwel-

comed fixtures in the newspaper’s bimonthly printing schedule.

It’s thought the newspaper’s inconsistency can be surmounted to its instability. There have been more frequent managerial changes at QMessenger than at Chelsea Football Club; whereas the lack of motivation in an editorial team which face a ruthlessly commonplace end of year mass-dismissal is unsurprising. Of course, while there have been continuous staffing shakeups, redesigns and Union cuts [disclaimer: there definitely haven’t been nor will be cuts to any avenues of the Queen Mary Students’ Union. There is definitely nothing dodgy with the Queen Mary Students’ Union finances] the newspaper has always been underpinned

by QMSU’s widely celebrated ethos of print freedom.

But more importantly, all of the newspaper’s successes can be directly accredited to the Students’ Union’s tireless efforts to support and develop all avenues of print media.

The decision to instigate a shift from a 16-page weekly release to a 24-page fortnightly release was heralded by critics; defying the laws of mathematics in “allowing more content in the long run” while enabling the regurgitation of news events a week post expiration; a unique niche which News International are said to be keen to exploit.

The takeover bid sits in its late stages though it’s just the start for what’s rumoured to be a formative QMSU Media Group conquest.

It’s thought the industry titans plan to launch similar bids for QMessenger’s sister outlets QMTV, Quest and CUB (formerly known as

QUB). Although this may mark the beginning of the end for Students’ Union funded student media, it’s time to put these fears to one side and focus on the future.

Upon takeover it’s thought QMessenger would be rebranded as a tabloid publication. (Not much work is thought to be necessary in this transition).

CUB would undergo a change in printing format; moving from ‘coloured card’ to ‘monochromatic gloss,’ following the example set

by QMSU in printing the recent election guide booklets. QMTV, on the other hand, would be commissioned to launch a 24-hour rolling ‘Queen Mary News’ channel while presenters at Quest will be tasked with broadcasting the Regent’s Canal shipping forecast once every forty minutes.

Despite the speculation, there has since been no formal response from the Students’ Union. When asked whether they were dancing around the subject, “avoiding the issue at hand,” a spokesperson for QMSU broke into an suspiciously well rehearsed rendition of ‘Safety Dance’ before rather unhelpfully informing our reporter “we can dance if we want to; we can leave your friends behind.”

While question marks loom over the future of QMSU Student Media in the shape of a garish blade of a primed Halifax Gibbet; there are too uncertainties over News International’s motivations.

It’s said the publisher’s hope to provide students with the training and skills required so they can step straight into the shoes of departing News International employees upon graduation. Another theory,

Image by David Shankbone

however, claims negotiations with QMSU serve as a mere microcosmic exercise for the eventual conquest of all UK media outlets.

Though a formal decision is yet to be announced, everybody at QMes-

senger would like to thank the Students’ Union for their continued support over the years, while looking towards a brighter future in the hands of our new reptilian overlords.

‘Margaret and I used to love a good fondle’: Elizabeth II makes shock revelation Nadine Mariah

Image by Bill Ingalls

satireqmessenger@gmail.com

With the signing of a new commonwealth charter opposing discrimination suffered by women, gay people and ethnic minorities, the Queen has made a childhood confession showing her raunchier side some claim could shake the foundations of the British monarchy.

At the risk of offending Commonwealth countries that exer-

cised laws against homosexuality, the Queen made specific references to the issue of gay rights. Her Majesty told the Commonwealth secretariat that ‘it was time the sovereign laws of this nation, and fellow nations truly accepted everybody, whatever their colour, gender or sexual preference’.

Allegedly she proceeded by revealing: ‘when I was a child, such issues were simply brushed beneath the carpet, and of course one

was taught to do so. I often hark back to the times Margaret and I used to touch each other when we were children. We used to kiss and take turns spanking each other’s bottoms. Had we lived in a more enduring society, perhaps we could have loved each other. It is a love Margaret died trying to recapture in others, and a love I know Philip and I couldn’t possibly have’ In light of such controversial revelations a Royal spokesman told

QMessenger that ‘nothing further will be said on the matter’ and that Her Majesty hopes this will begin the evolution of the ‘accepting, compassionate, taboo free nation’.

Prince Philip is yet to comment on the revelation, although he is said to have locked himself in his playroom of Nazi war paraphernalia. Royal psychotherapist Ann Drew and his team are said to have taken emergency residence at the Royal household.

SATIRE19

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Russian Billionaire takes Editorial Retrosplurge: Playboism to new heights The last seven months of madness Dan Hill It is not too rarely that tabloids report the extravagant acts of billionaire playboys as they continually attempt to out match one another through ludicrous displays of wealth; be it Pavel Dulov throwing a total of $2,000 of Ruble notes in the form of paper aeroplanes into the streets of St. Petersburg or Bruce Wayne spontaneously purchasing an entire hotel so he and his two supermodel dates could bathe in the reception fountain. Earlier this week however all of these men may well have been outdone

by Russian billionaire Aleski Billioneskelov whom quite literally took the art of playboyism to new heights.

Aleski Billioneskekelov earned his fortune after founding the global enterprise ‘Aleski Trading Multinational,’ more commonly referred to as ATM, which is currently valued at 2.3 bazillion dollars. After his overnight success, back in 2006, he purchased a Russian independent space agency into which he invested the majority of his finances.

In 2008 the company began construction on the world’s first

space hotel which currently sits nearing completion at an altitude of 370,000 meters in orbit over the equator. Earlier this year construction of the very first room (Aleski Biloneskeleskalanlov’s private suite) was completed; and in celebration the billionaire invited seventeen Russian supermodels to accompany him on his first trip to the revolutionary hotel.

Although Aleski and the supermodels he currently entertains are yet to return, the latest reports from astronauts aboard the ISS, partaking in an expended spacewalk to carry out repairs have sparked a minor scandal.

During an orbital passing they reported those aboard Aleski Billoneskelikalakolokenalnelekneov’s hotel were partaking in “acts of mass coitus,” having caught sight of the Russian billionaire and his party through his private suite’s 32 meter viewing window.

Aleski will likely comment on these rumors in the press conference scheduled for his returned.

But if true, Aleski will become forever known as the first member of the ‘200 mile high club’ and the official winner of life in general.

We’re students - don’t mention the E-word Lucretia McCarthy That time of year has come around again, and I’m not referring to chocolate-egg-Jesus-time – EXAMS. If you are in the majority who’ve spent the last six months eating at Dixie’s, questionably queuing for New Globe and acting like the downstairs of the library is some kind of social hub in which to carouse – you are likely to be a husk already.

If you are in the minority who’ve abstained from such glamorous eastend pass times and worked vigilantly on all your coursework in anticipation for this meltdown, then relax into the circus which is ‘revision’.

Here’s what you can expect: The beginning of revision season is always admirable, largely due to the new stationary fuelled false sense of security which comes over students.

This bright eyed hope is consistently exhibited in glorious ‘revision timetables’, colour coded excel spread sheets of wonder, accounting for every waking moment and taking a du-

bious number of hours to construct.

Many even consider the stress induced lunacy ‘group work’, swiftly re-naming their lazy friends ‘course mates’ in the hope they’ll enlighten each other on what the fuck they should have learnt in the last two terms of cell dynamics/applied econometrics/history of all time. Unsurprisingly, this phase ends quickly as the realisation that these ‘friends’ are morons and their only conceivable use is their stupidity forcing the adjustment of grade boundaries.

Rapidly there is a breakdown in all social etiquette – the library has become a bear pit fuelled entirely by pro-plus and contempt, monitored only by library police removing sleeping bags in an attempt to curb traumatised revisers creating shanty towns leading to territorialism and turf wars.

In the days before the exams themselves, when the all-nighters have been pulled and most look harrowed by the entire experience before a single question has even been asked, all

Keumars Afifi-Sabet and Lucretia McCarthy In a year which saw goats become an internet sensation and the general public gawp over grainy pseudo-pornographic photographs of a topless royal baby-maker, Queen Mary itself wasn’t impartial to a periodic dose of madness. While we’re all keeping an eye on the looming exams, it’s time to look back on the absurdity that ensued. The following is an acute crunch of the last seven months in Queen Mary, the last seven months in the world, the last seven months in you.

September: This year started as drably as any other barring the exception of a dismembered body found floating along Regent’s Canal. While a police investigation ensued, the newest batch of freshers flooded into Mile End in their thousands like a swarm of hungry locusts. Returning students were mesmerised by the presence of a Subway by Mile End tube station; though aired disappointment with the lack of a McDonalds.

Students occupied Drapers for two weeks to celebrate their new found ‘independence’ by investing hundreds of their government-funded student loans into poor judgement, rough mornings and persistent memory loss. Overall it was a promising start.

October: A fairly slow month followed.

QMessenger began its upward spiral of “negative growth” while freshers who’d previously been found throwing up on the Drapers bar began to discover better clubs; leading to the ‘Mass Exodus of 2012.’ In the US&A, President Barrack Obama fended away hot competition from Senator John MacCain and his

hope of remembering anything has been lost.

The general atmosphere around campus is not so much resignation to failure but utter incoherence. Though the changes aren’t just mental, visually the stress diet is both extreme and unpredictable; most will either loose or gain three stone, leaving a sketchy mix of heroin-not-so-chic and ‘Biggest Looser’ contestants of the future.

The exams themselves come and go in a blur, leaving shell shocked undergrads vowing to be prepared next year whilst drinking down ‘nam style flashbacks of sleepless nights, questions unanswered.

‘misunderstood’ pet rottweiler Sarah Palin to win the throne to the United States.

November: ‘The month of renovation’ saw Queen Mary strike a partnership with Santander, allowing for the constructing of a branch on campus. “We’re a real bank, we swear it,” a spokesman cawed as the bank pledged £120,000 to Queen Mary, to be paid in instalments – a phenomenal sum considering the increase in student fees will see the university garner a total of [information withheld] during the same period. The new Student Hub finally opened its doors to the student body; the fully renovated ‘Hive’ boasting whiter walls, more space for printers and fewer couches.

December: While we counted down the days towards the end of Semester A, most of the media, morons and maniacs were raving about the flaming biblical barbecue planet that earth was imminently due. Inevitably, however, the world didn’t end, and it probably won’t for some time. Unless, of course, over the next twelve months a crackpot nation run by a number of high-strung lunatics – let’s say North Korea – decided to launch a spectacular, yet devastating nuclear strike on the West ‘for banter.’

January: Happy Semester B! And as the New Year dawned, change arose in the form of a brand new, shiny QMessenger Editor in Chief. The Students’ Union launched a ‘reunion’ fare, which proved about as successful as a torrid second season to a disappointing ITV1 period drama. And the recently closed “Queen Mary Confessions” Facebook page died a horrible death – but in its

place sprung countless alternatives, allied together like a degenerate hillbilly family, as in the one found in ‘The Hills have Eyes.’

February: The ‘Harlem Shake’ was a bizarre internet phenomenon which spread across the world faster than the norovirus. Of course, since everyone else was doing Queen Mary decided it best to have a crack. The ‘official’ version was filmed in Library Square and released over QMTV’s YouTube channel, garnering at least four times more views than the combined total of every other QMTV video. The ‘Students’ Union’ version, on the other hand, was so shocking it made Saw VI appear more high-spirited than ‘Jim’ll Fix It.’ (Look at how current we are).

March: The melancholy month of March had a number of talking points.

Queen Mary defeated another part of Queen Mary to claim the 12/13 Merger Cup, and election season hit once again. Co-incidentally it was also flu season and while many were prancing around in Library Square others were found to be coughing up sputum with more integrity than some of the candidates themselves.

March is yet to finish and due to the distinct gap between the completion of this article and release of the newspaper, anything could happen. After all, it’s been an interesting academic year. While it’s not yet over, the current print cycle of QMessenger is. The Satire Section would like to wish every single one of you the best of luck in your continued quests in not getting evicted, not succumbing to alcoholism, and not being expelled from Queen Mary once you all inevitably fail your exams.

Image by comedy nose

satireqmessenger@gmail.com

20SOCIETIES

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

Finding my faith in Inter-faith Imogen Atkinson I am going to be totally honest; when Campus Lokahi first approached me to help create an inter-faith event at Queen Mary, my reaction was one of ambivalence.

It seemed like a fairly nice idea to get different faith societies to work together and reach out to campus, but what was the point really? As far as I was concerned we were all getting along fine as we were and not causing any trouble. Besides, I already knew plenty about different faiths as RE lessons had told me everything I needed to know... right?

Wrong. As the meetings which gathered representatives from the Hindu Society, Amsa Islamic Society, Islamic Society, Christian Union and Jewish Society progressed, I started to realize how little I actually knew about the beliefs which shaped the lives of different students at our university, and also how rare it was to have so many of us sitting in one room at the same time, let alone actively working together with a common goal. Through recognizing this, we decided to create a communal event which would help stimulate conversation and understand-

ing between different students of any faith or belief, whilst also addressing pre-disposed assumptions about religions. Our event started to take form and consisted of three main parts; an exhibition with posters, pictures and artefacts providing basic information for each faith, then a trivia game where people could win prizes if they correctly answered questions based on common misconceptions of different religions, and finally a food hall which offered foods important to different faiths or cultures.

We also designed a tea corner where people could eat, have desserts and drink, whilst engaging in deeper conversations and bonding with new people. Whilst celebrating the differences between us, we also tried to find common ground in aspects like Prayer which had its own photo display. ‘Bridge the Gap’, Queen Mary’s biggest ever inter-faith event, was born.

After months of planning, Tuesday 12th came around and following a night of battling with fairy lights, arranging centre-pieces and marvelling at how many university students it takes to successfully put up bunting, Blomley Room 1 in the student HUB was

transformed. Volunteers from five different faith societies welcomed the constant stream of people, and conversations and questions flowed through the afternoon; some challenging, some trivial, but all valuable.

I think the key to the atmosphere was that it was not a case of different religions pitching against each other, but a common desire to spread understanding and connections. We had been

hoping for 300 students to visit the exhibition but closer to 500 came over the course of the afternoon, displaying not only the amazing power of free falafel but also the openness which people have to find out more about world religions if given the chance.

In the UK we are incredibly privileged to have the freedom not only to practice any chosen faith without fear of persecution, but also that we have opportunities

to work together and bridge gaps that are currently causing conflicts in other parts of the world.

This is why I see the ‘Bridge the Gap’ as the start of something more important than free food, nicely decorated tables and an exhibition; it is a step towards realizing the potential that we have at Queen Mary to celebrate and recognize different faiths and cultures through the lives of real people on campus.

Marrow soc: Give a spit and save a life Almira Khaliq

Image provided by Barts QM Marrow Society

societiesqmessenger@gmail.com

Uzair Akhtar, Martin Solomon and Aneesa Hussain. Three very different people - all in need of a life-saving bone marrow transplant. Have you got what it takes to give a spit?

A bone marrow transplant is often the last hope for people with leukaemia or other blood disorders, such as aplastic anaemia or HIES. The first bone marrow register was set up in 1974 and it is now maintained by Anthony Nolan in order to match the tissue types of those individuals needing transplants to those willing to donate stem cells.

A key part of this is raising awareness and dealing with the various misconceptions involved with bone marrow donation.

Currently only 2% of the UK population are on the bone marrow register and with 37,000 worldwide waiting on a transplant, Anthony Nolan desperately need more people to sign up. So what exactly does the process involve?

The first step involves joining the bone marrow register. Once you are on the register, you remain on it until the age of 60. If anytime between now and then, your marrow is found to match that of some-one who needs a transplant Anthony Nolan would contact you and once it has been checked that you match, you can donate!

Around 80% of donations can be collected peripherally through a vein in the arm though it is sometimes safer for the patient for the marrow donation to be collected from bone marrow in the hip.

And that’s it – you have just saved somebody’s life!

At Marrow Society, we aim to raise awareness of the amazing work that Anthony Nolan does by holding donor recruitment events throughout the year and holding various fundraising and publicity events. This year, we have managed to recruit almost 100 people to the bone marrow register – these are all people that could one

day save a life!

If you are interested in finding out more, please feel free to contact us directly via email, Facebook and Twitter (details below). We are also always on the lookout for new volunteers to help fundraise, promote events and you can also train to become a marrow counsellor and help us recruit even more lifesavers to the register! It’s a great way to build transferable skills as well as making a real difference to others.

If this feels like something you’d like to get involved in, please do get in touch.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Barts and QM Marrow email: bartsmarrow@gmail.com f : f a c e b o o k . c o m / groups/267602993275363 t: twitter.com/bartsqmmarrow

SOCIETIES21

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

25th

Monday’s Calling Drapers 8pm - 2am

26

Sports Awards Dinner Proud Cabaret 6.30pm

27

th

th

Last Hail Mary of term!

Drapers 9pm

28th Last day of term 29

th

30th

Good Friday Day of rest

31st Happy Easter!

Image by David Faluyi

It’s that time again : Awards and Honours Becky Adkins On 18th March, QM’s equivalent of the Oscars took place. The 2013 Awards and Honours, which this year was held in the newly renovated Great Hall, was advertised on www.qmsu.org as a chance to celebrate “the achievements of societies, student media, volunteering, RAG, campaigning and student council” over the past academic year.

Costing only £5, the event was a great opportunity for everyone who has worked as part of the SU to come together, have a drink or two and generally just relax before the start of the dreaded examination period. Just like the Oscars, there were an array of fabulous dresses and sharp suits, though nowhere near as many TV cameras and, in fact, no red carpet whatsoever.

It was nevertheless an enjoyable evening, with fancy canapés, heartfelt speeches and copious amounts of good sportsmanship from the audience.

The evening opened with two songs Unite Choir and a speech from SU President Babs Williams, in which he surprisingly

acknowledged that the SU overcharges us for sandwiches and weirdly admitted to being rejected by Sophie Richardson.

There then followed a range of speeches, award giving and fantastic entertainment which included a monologue by Izzie Richardson of Theatre Company on Ryan Gosling and a dance showcase from BLAS. Awards were handed out by some of the well-known faces of QMSU, including QMedia’s very own Kaz Gander.

Probably the most prestigious type of award on the night was the Jack Petchey Award (of which four were given out.)

These awards were for those who had made outstanding commitment in their area and came with a cash prize of £200 which will be used by the winners to improve their given student union section in the coming months.

There were several categories of awards available on the night aside from the Jack Petchey Award, adjacent is a run through of the outcomes. Congratulations to all who won awards on the night!

Raise and Give

Volunteering

RAG Honours - Oyedola Osilaja, Rishi Krishnan, Charlotte Johnson, Nazlee Sabhipour, Katy Carroll, Ellanor Covell, Ajobola Ayorinde, Aysel Kucuksu

Volunteer of the Year Kristini Stoli New volunteer of the year Hayley Peacock

Fundraising Group of the Year Bangladeshi Society

Campaign of the Year Access on campus Daniel Holt and Ozzy Amir

Fundraiser of the Year (Jack Petchey Award) Jon Choy

Societies

Most Improved Society of the Year Pakistani Cultural Society Best New Society Debate Society Society of the Year (Jack Petchey Award) New Turn

Student Media

Contributor of the Year Lloyd Ramos Student Media Outlet of the Year CUB

Union General

Special Project of the Year (Jack Petchey Award) Jannat Hossain Student Representative or Part-time Officer of the Year (Jack Petchey Award) Andrea Scheel Honorary Lifetime Membership Dominic Bell Sam Creighton Sophie Richardson George Ryan Oscar Williamson Union Honours Afreen Kashmiri, Jannat Hossain, Oliver Brown

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22TECHNOLOGY

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

The new age of printing : 3D becomes a reality

Image by DorzD

Haneef Rehman The world of making things is currently undergoing an upheaval. From manufacturing to research to medicine, no industry is safe.

The advent of 3D printing has caused a massive stir in the past couple of years, with the potential to revolutionise how we cre-

ate. It is a technology that I have been very interested in ever since I heard about it. But, realistically, how far will it go?

The concept is quite hard to explain without watching a video of how it works. But 3D printing (or additive printing) is a process where objects are made by putting down successive layers of material. The material is placed

down very precisely by a robotic "arm" and, layer by layer, can create objects of any shape.

To create an object in a 3D printer you first need a 3D model of it. These are created in CAD softwares and are used as blueprints for the object by the printer. Cross sectional "slices" of the model are taken, which then become the layers that are placed down to create the object.

When the 3D model has been sent to the printer it starts using it’s raw material to make the final product.

Different printers use different raw materials, with most consumer based 3D printers using liquid resins that solidify after placement. Higher end printers used in industry make their objects by melting powder layer by layer with electron beams.

There are countless uses of 3D printing, all with growing potential and viability.

Industrially they can be used to rapidly prototype products. Architects and engineers use them to model their creations. There are even consumer printers in the market that you can buy and use to print anything you'd like.

There are some more interesting uses of 3D printing, like replacing 75% of a person's skull.

CT scans were used to find the needed sections, and the information was sent to a 3D printer which churned out the necessary shape that was then involved in surgery.

More controversially, 3D printing has been involved in weapons manufacturing, with people having made gun parts with the process. This is perhaps the most

frightening use of the technology and has started the first wave of major regulations and restrictions.

While it’s all well and good talking about the potential of 3D printing, to get the best idea of where it will be in the future we need to look at what it can realistically be applied to, and what problems it may face.

One recent advance that I found very exciting was the Makerbot Digitizer unveiled at SXSW. Makerbot is a company that manufactures consumeroriented 3D printers. The new product is a 3D scanner that uses cameras and lasers to digitise an object placed inside of it. The digital file can then be printed by a Makerbot 3D printer without any modelling done inside of CAD software. This product is literally a copy and paste for real life. While these consumer printers aren’t cheap, coming in at a couple thousand pounds, one can imagine in the next 10 years these products becoming cheap enough to drive adoption and end up being ubiquitous.

And while we’re on the topic of ubiquity, that in of itself causes a lot of issues. If everybody has a 3D printer and can make their own products then the concept of ownership gets more and more cumbersome. Intellectual Property law already confuses most people, and how would it work when the designer, the printer manufacturer, the material supplier, and the printer owner are all involved? This could discourage a lot of talented designers and engineers as how could you know or control who is using your products?

As I mentioned earlier, there are now a lot of regulations coming into place with regards to 3D printing. Governments are concerned with how easy it could be to mass produce weapons and corporations are concerned with the possibility to “pirate” objects.

All of this has put a lot of pressure on 3D printer manufacturers and other related companies to regulate products and designs.

This all seems nice enough, but it isn’t hard to imagine the patent wars moving to this new technology and preventing many people from making what they want.

This would really discourage consumers and could be one of many pre-emptive nails in the coffin of 3D printing.

The biggest factor in determining whether 3D printing will go far in the future, I think, comes down to a simple question: will people want to use it?

The answer to that is an unequivocal yes. Of course people will.

This is a technology that is already being used to do things that 10 years ago we couldn’t imagine.

In the next 10 years it will only continue it’s trend of having bigger and better capabilities. Yes, it might have to work in and around rules and regulations, but it will still be huge. 10 years down the line I wouldn’t be surprised if we had 3D printed cars, electronics, kitchen utensils, buildings, and even business cards. The process is scalable to large projects as well as the smaller ones that it works on now.

3D printing will get better, 3D printers will get cheaper, modelling will be easier, materials will be stronger. What’s not to like?

Sim City isnt state of the Electronic Arts Finlay Milligan It’s not easy being the CEO of a company, especially when that company is slowly becoming the most hated video game publisher in the industry. After arguably one of the worst game launches in recent years, John Riccitiello has stepped down as CEO of Electronic Arts.

This comes after the scandal surrounding the launch of the most recent iteration of the famous SimCity games. EA’s ‘al-

ways online’ DRM policy means that the game has to constantly be connected to the internet in order for it to be playable, regardless of whether it’s being played in single player.

This, in theory, is to combat piracy and stop consumers illegally obtaining copies of the game.

However, it backfired when servers were down at launch, rendering the game unplayable.

This escalated further when EA claimed it was not possible to play the game offline, only for a

qmessengertechnology@gmail.co.uk

group of modders to hack it and show that it most certainly is possible.

EA’s reputation has slowly gone downhill in the last few years, with gamers claiming it has ‘ruined’ numerous developers and games.

It is also claimed that Star Wars: The Old Republic under performing at retail was a major factor in Riccitiello’s departure.

Larry Probst will be replacing him as executive chairman whilst a new CEO is found.

Image by benyupp

SPORT23

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013

David Moyes, The Great and the Powerful Tom Parrott The 16th of March 2013 saw David Moyes reach 11 years in charge of Everton Football Club, the third longest serving manager in the Premier League and certainly one of the best managers currently in the game. Everton, sadly, are a club who never seem to be able to attract any investment which would give them that all important lift which would almost certainly see them challenging the top four.

It is credit to Moyes that despite the limited resources Everton have been consistently in the top 10 for the past few years, cruising into the final Champions League spot ahead of Merseyside rivals Liverpool. Who in turn cried to UEFA and got themselves a spot as well, cheats.

The lack of money available to David (that’s right, I’m on first name terms) only makes his achievements the more impressive, storming into the FA Cup final and being consistently competitive season after season with a strong back four, midfield and magic Jelavic leading the attacking charge. Watching the Toffies play demonstrates the love they have for their manager, playing in any position and giving 110% game after game after game with devotion to helping Everton succeed.

The current speculation surrounding our dear David is sad to hear, that’s his team who thwarted Manchester City last Saturday and he is their manager. The strong bond between player-fan-manager is incredible in Goodison Park, with Moyes rising to legendary status within the 2005 European Capital of Culture. The desperate plea from Bill Kenwright is not only to benefit the club he so evidently loves but also to cement the manager, who’s been the catalyst of recent success, in the dugout.

Where else would he go? Obviously Chelsea are without a manager, but would anyone be convinced to leave a club they have so much respect and influence on to manager a team full of arrogant individuals with the constant threat of being sacked and thrown away like a broken toy after losing a few games?

Manchester United is another club Moyes has been regularly linked to, an opportunity which would be difficult for the most loyal managers to give up. Whether he goes or not will probably depend on what Mourinho wants to do next, being the special one and all that.

In an ideal world, some rich individuals would invest in ‘The Peoples Club’ and Mr Moyes wold have all the available resources he could possibly dream of to get him the long overdue medal he

Image by Loris342

deserves.

The inflow of cash would only benefit the team; Baines has been transformed from a lowly left back to one of the best full backs in the world, demonstrating attacking flair and defensive prowess all down to the guidance and man

management skills of the Everton manager.

To leave Everton without a winner’s medal would be disappointing for a manger who certainly deserves it. Hopefully he will sign a new contract and continue his incredible work for years to come.

Obviously it won’t last forever and Moyes will eventually move on, but I think that the grit and determination he shows on that Goodison touchline will continue for a few more years with the reward of a cup win sometime in the near future.

Michael Owen: The legend that never was Rumman Sikdar The curse of the commentator is very real. As a precocious 18 year old, Michael Owen burst onto the world stage when he scored one of the goals of France’98 against Argentina. The goal summed him up in a nutshell, displaying all his strengths: electric pace, fearless tenacity, clinical finishing. John Motson, commentating for the BBC, was quick to point out how young he was and pondered just how good he would be as a fully grown man.

Fifteen years later, Owen’s career has finally come to an end as he announced on 18th March that this would be his final season, a season that has barely seen him play, not unlike many of his last six. Many have begun questioning just how good he really had been in his younger days.

The threat he offered as a youngster was based almost entirely upon his searing speed; he never had the strength or trickery to threaten from outside of the box, but inside he was deadly.

Owen came through Liverpool’s academy, making his debut as a 16 year old against Wimbledon.

He scored within minutes of coming on, a goal that was to almost become a personal trademark as he lingered around the shoulder of the last defender, burst forward to latch onto a through ball, before sidefooting it calmly past the goal keeper.

Owen’s displays for England were equally impressive and for a long time it seemed almost certain he would become the nations leading goal scorer. Instead he had to settle for fourth highest goal scorer with 40 in 79 appearances.

After getting his last cap aged 28,

his fall from England’s elite was sudden and painful. Having suffered a broken metatarsal whilst playing for Newcastle against Tottenham Hotspurs in 2005, Owen faced six months on the sidelines.

With his third World Cup looming that summer however, he rushed back to fitness, and despite having played only half an hour of football since January that year, was included in England’s World Cup squad. His rush to fitness was wasted however, as he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament playing against Sweden in England’s third group stage game.

After 2006, his goal scoring rate fell greatly, and the injuries began to come even more frequently.

Owen left Liverpool in the summer of 2004 rather acrimoniously, after forcing the Reds into accepting a low £8 million bid from Real Madrid, having wound down

his contract. That he then had a fairly unsuccessful stint at the Bernabeau, whilst Liverpool went on to win the European Cup that season must have hurt him, but he claims he still tried to engineer a move back to Liverpool when it became clear he would have to leave Real Madrid in the summer of 2005.

Whether rejected by Liverpool or whether Newcastle United simply offered more money still remains unclear, but the Magpies paid a record fee of almost £17 million to sign Owen for Real Madrid. He started slowly again after injury, but he regained goal scoring form, scoring 7 times in 11 games until the injury against Spurs on December 31st. Over the next four years, he only managed to play 79 games for Newcastle, but still managed a respectable 30 goals.

Owen’s time at Manchester was embarrassing, as he barely played. His goals to minutes ratio remained phenomenal however, and he finally got his hands on a Premier League winner’s medal.

Despite scoring only four goals that season, he claimed it was the ‘pinnacle’ of his career, paving the way for many jibes and jokes.

The real pinnacle of his career must remain 2001, when alongside helping Liverpool’s treble cup winning efforts by almost single handedly beating Arsenal in the FA Cup final, he was recognised as Europe’s best player. To suggest such a phenomenal talent peaked at only 21 is sad, but more painfully for him than us, it is true.

With his abundance of talent locked in a cruelly weak body, his career never reached the heights it could have, and we, like him, are left with a sense of what if.

sportsqmessenger@qmessenger.co.uk

24

MONDAY 25th MARCH 2013 QMUL BUCs League Standings

16th March 2013 L Men’s Rugby Union(League): Queen Mary 2nd 3 - 12 St Bart’s & Royal 2nd 17th March 2013 L Women’s Football(League): UCL 2nd (LUSL) 4 - 1 Queen Mary 1st (LUSL) L Women’s Basketball(League): King’s College 1st (LUSL) 76 - 8 Queen Mary 2nd (LUSL) 20th March 2013 W Men’s Football(League): Queen Mary 5th (LUSL) 4 - 1 Greenwich 1st (LUSL)

Memories made at the Merger Cup Hannah Clarke Pulling on the royal blue and yellow kit, or in Barts case the black and white kit, you feel a sense of pride.

You are part of a team, a unit, a family almost, one of the chosen ones to go on and represent your University. You grab your various sporting equipment, and head to the chosen venue. You line-up, facing the opposition, seeing the steely determination in their eyes, as they can see in yours. Fans line up along the side-lines, flags, banners, cheers and cries.

A nervous silence passes over the pitch. The butterflies fly around in your stomach, making it hard to breath. The whistle blows, bringing the much anticipated sporting highlight of the academic year to a start. The Merger Cup. Barts vs. Queen Mary in all sports across the board. 2012 was the year of Queen Mary, and as we found out last Saturday at the Merger Cup, so was 2013.

As a field hockey player myself, I know that this battle is not an easy one.

It is one that I enjoy, but have a sense of relief once it’s all over.

The teams playing one another

are often leagues apart but this does not reflect in the fantastic sport that is played.

With QM’s Women’s Hockey Team losing 3-1 to Barts, and the Men losing 1-0, it was undoubtedly going to be an extremely tense battle right until the end, not just in hockey but in all sports.

Both teams in both matches put up a great fight, and personally I felt that that there was great sportsmanship from each and every player, a lot less “aggy” than people might have expected, and far more enjoyable for it.

The evening is something else completely. “Session” or “tables”

alongside your respective Queen Mary or Barts opposition, in Hockey’s case at The Griff Inn, before moving on to Drapers, for the results.

Most people leave and wake up the next morning without any idea of what happened the night before, or who even won the Cup. But these memories are what make it the best.

One year has gone by, and, for many, there is another one to look forward to. May the great competition live on, the battles grow more intense, the great sporting spectacles continue and more memories be made.

W Men’s Tennis(League): Queen Mary 2nd w/o East London 2nd L Women’s Rugby Union(League): Queen Mary 1st 5 - 42 LSE 1st W Women’s Hockey(League): Middlesex 1st 0 - 10 Queen Mary 1st L Mixed Badminton(League): LSE 1st (LUSL) 7 - 2 Queen Mary 1st (LUSL) L Women’s Basketball(Cup): King’s College 1st (LUSL) 67 - 48 Queen Mary 1st (LUSL) W Women’s Netball(League): Essex 2nd 13 - 41 Queen Mary 2nd

Image by x-oph

Nicknames and knickers : The social side of rugby Nicolas Finch “Why are you doing this to me” Once again, the almost mythical Queen Mary Rugby Club socials have hit huge heights and they have given many people nights they will forget. The rugby club has successfully managed to run a social every week in the academic year, the only club in the whole of Queen Mary to do so.

Despite the new tuition fees and all the health warnings out there about the excessive sugar levels in a WKD, the rugby club has never been tempted to drink it and has continued to drain the taps of drapers dry through the drinking of Red Beer.

Angelina, chairmen of the rugby club, 2 years after being social secretary, has built upon the wide foundations that Jam created in his year in charge. Jam has not been as prolific at socials this year due to

‘cricket’ but has been helping enforce the order.

This year, some freshers have earned the right to represent the club. Mr Beaver and Mechano showed on the first initiation to what lengths they were willing to go to for what par described in his first year as ‘the ultimate pussy magnate,’ the red beer top. Snorlax has also shown you can never be too young to have beer belly. Jade Goody also ‘popped’ in to say hello a few times before discovering that session can sometimes be a dangerous place.

Whilst some freshers earned the right to the top, many have so far failed to show the commitment to obtaining the top. They are working towards hopefully gaining this honour with the final chance this year coming at the clubs AGM meeting at the end of March.

Some of our cousins in America have also come over in a bid to es-

cape drinking out of red cups, but instead, drinking red stuff! Many have failed to match the British counter parts and have resorted in trying to bribe the Chairmen to help them raise their tolerance.

Socials have been well attended by 2nd years too. Genocide has been up to his usual tricks and has been belligerent in session, almost causing his flatmate to commit but he has too much of an affection to drapers that he must see it through, just so that he can be in drapers the following day.

Snookie has continued to lose items of clothing quicker than a porn star whilst Gareth Gates has been known to round up the lads and convince them that session is the only way forward. Wildlife has been known to roam the Drapers room late at night, before calling up upon his last resort, an Acer Aspire 5732.

Grawp has been a keen attendee,

insistent on showing all freshers his pet.

The rugby club lost a valuable member when Order Number After was forced to leave university after an administration mix up meant that he was unable to complete his studies, so was forced to leave early. He was one of the stand out new members as he showed his true colours by being willing to volunteer for anything and helping out his fellow freshers.

The academic calendar may be falling to a close but there are still important dates that must be attended by the club. The club’s tour destination remains a mystery to everyone involved but the rumours have been flying around that the team will jetting off to North Korea, whilst others have predicted a tour to the Vatican City.

Wherever the tour goes though, they will not be playing cricket or rowing a boat.

sportsqmessenger@qmessenger.co.uk