Fashion and the ethics of Photoshop
INTERVIEW: Dallas Buyers Club stars Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto
OPINION: p. 10
PartB: p. 16 INTERNATIONAL WEEK
The
Beaver Tuesday February 4 2014 | www.thebeaveronline.com | No. 805
FREE Newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union
Get Your Own Hack!
LSESU RAG
Dennis Mooney, Executive Editor
‍ ښ‏RAG Week raises over ÂŁ5,000 ‍ ښ‏Tough Guy contributes ÂŁ3,700 ‍ ښ‏Gunge event loses money deVSLWH /6( VWD૸ FRQWULEXWLRQV
A SLICE OF 90s TV nostalgia returned to LSESU on Friday as Dave Benson Phillips, host of the legendary Get Your Own Back, gunged several students and one SU official in aid of RAG. The event was the culmination of RAG week, which also saw LSE students complete the Tough Guy challenge, make origami cranes en masse, sell cakes, salsa dance DQG GRQDWH WKHLU OLEUDU\ னQHV in aid of RAG’s three chosen charities for this year: Spires, Make A Wish Foundation and )RRG&\FOH 7KH ŕŽ‹DJVKLS %DWWOH of the Halls event, however, is yet to be rescheduled following cancellation, as reported in last week’s Beaver. Taking place in The Venue, Get Your Own Back was a repeat of last year’s successful gungefest in the Quad. The additional capacity of the new facility was not put to use, however; Benson Phillips made repeated references to the poor attendance, calling for the attention of ‘ladies, gentleman and that big bit of HPSW\ ŕŽ‹RRU RYHU WKHUH‍ ڑ‏ The Beaver has also learned that despite donations approaching last year’s ÂŁ800+ total, RAG in fact lost money on the event due to Benson 3KLOLSV‍ ڑ‏VLJQLனFDQWO\ KLJKHU appearance fee of ÂŁ1000 this time around. The vast majority of the money raised was pledged in support of the gunging of RAG president Nona Buckley-Irvine and the ‘Saw Swee Hock Fire Alarm Technician’; given that such a position does not H[LVW D VHQLRU 68 VWDŕŽ‰ PHPber bravely stepped into the tank instead. Both were praised by major
donor and long-time supporter of RAG Andrew Farrell, the LSE’s Chief Financial Officer, who donated nearly a quarter of the overall total raised by the event. Buckley-Irvine, who has vocally opposed the recent Teaching Task Force 2 recommendations, also received a special donation message from Professor Paul Kelly, Pro-Director for Teaching and Learning, who suggested that ‘89% of the 2,780 students on my survey said they would accept bigger class sizes if Nona got Gunged!’ She told The Beaver that the experience was ‘humbling’, adding ‘It was great to be supported not only by my friends but by political foes such as [noted right-wing hack Jason] Wong and Kelly’.
Athletics Union Treasurer Thomas ‘Brand’ Meaden, who had a particularly spectacular exit from the gunge-tank, slipping on the gunge and landing with quite an impact, made a vague threat of legal action against Benson Phillips, but The Beaver understands
he will not be pursuing it; he was unharmed and in any case does not have a sporting career to be threatened. Meaden, who was present at last year’s gunging, commented: ‘It was a pleasure to be reunited Dave Benson Phillips; it’s just a pity the event wasn’t better attended.’ Also gunged were Environment and Ethics officer and former president of CarrSaunders hall Gabriel Bonaventure Everington, his successor as president Frederick Derbyshire - who received a donation from ‘Jilted Fresher’ - and controversial lowercase events promoter Ranny Wei, who lived up to his billing by commenting, having been covered in gunge, that he ‘could now sympathise with women’, prompting a sharp collective intake of breath amongst spectators. Wei was also labelled as ‘the only person more annoying than me’ by DBP’s cohost, RAG committee member Alastair Duncan, who was operating his alias ‘MC Nortee’. His entrance to the event was considered sub-standard by Benson Phillips, who demanded that he try again, and Nortee also incurred the displeasure of his president when he revealed her romantic history with a fellow gunge-ee. The money raised by Get Your Own Back will be added to the ÂŁ3700 from Tough Guy, ÂŁ220 from the RAG Bake Sale, ÂŁ143 from Salsa dancing and WKH DV \HW XQFRQனUPHG WRWDOV from Library Fines and Origami. RAG estimate that, with Battle of the Halls still to take place when the ongoing issues with Saucy are resolved, RAG week has raised at least ÂŁ5,000.
LSESU Amnesty International Launches China Campaign Joseph Grabiner
THE THIRD WEEK of the Lent term saw The London School of Economics’ Student Union (LSESU) Amnesty International Society take to Houghton Street as they launched their China Campaign. The aim of the campaign was to raise awareness of Chinese Human
Rights issues. The group deYLVHG DQ DFWLYLW\ னOOHG ZHHN on campus to bring this message to the masses. On Wednesday night the group showed the acclaimed documentary Ai Weiwei - WithRXW )HDU RU )DYRXU 7KH னOP tells the story of Ai Weiwei, one of China’s most famous contemporary artists and ac-
tivists who was arrested by the Chinese authorities in April 2011, and subsequently released after 11 weeks. Throughout the week members of the LSESU Amnesty International Society VWDŕŽ‰HG D VWDOO RQ +RXJKWRQ Street where they provided information about certain issues and talked to passerbys.
They tried to engage people in one aspect of the campaign by JHWWLQJ WKHP WR DGG WKHLU னQgerprint to a poster to signify they were in favour of the lifting of the one-child policy in China. Even the rainy weather couldn’t stop the activists enthusing the LSE community. Silke Xenia Juul-Sorensen, D னUVW \HDU %6F 3KLORVRSK\
/RJLF 6FLHQWLனF 0HWKRG VWXdent, commented, “It’s been really great to learn a bit more about Chinese Human Rights abuses this week. I’ve been happy to try to help by adding P\ னQJHUSULQW WR WKH SRVWHU ‍ڕ‏ Continued on page 3