Seren - 160 - 1999-2000 - May 2000

seren SCANDAL! MAY 2000

UMCB President

UWB’S OFFICIAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDENT MAGAZINE THING

Executive Secretary

Yak

SU President

Ex-KGB Officer

Incoming SU Committee implicated in vague, unfounded insinuation: “We have no idea what this is all about,” admit baffled detectives.

B

angor SU was rocked to its very foundations and back again last night by the emergence of a slew of uninformative, uncorroborated hints of improper behaviour at last term’s SU elections.

“We were waiting for the votes to be counted, right. And it was getting very late,” admit-

inside

ted a source who did not wish to be identified, “and the bar was shut. And we’d been told we could be there for hours, see, and everyone was getting really, you know, stressed, and, well, I really can’t say too much more., but, well... just use your imagination, you know?”

“You know that one who was standing for, for, Welfare or Community Action, or whatever it was, something?” added

the same source. “Well, I... well, you’d never have thought it to look at her, eh? I say, you’d never have thought it to look at her!”

The non-specific allegations did not stop at candidates standing in the elections: the acts of the current SU committee were also described in evocative but opaque terms. CCSO Vicky Parry was singled out for description as “quite a girl,” and SU President Niall Duffy was wryly

alluded to as “the big man.”

The SU has yet to issue a formal statement in response to the ever-deepening crisis, but it is understood that the Executive Committee privately considers the non-actionable implications as ‘the meaningless babbling of some drunken third-year in the Belle Vue last Thursday.’

See page 5 for the full, terrifying story of... The Elections That Could Not Be Held!

NEWS, VIEWS, REVIEWS, PREVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, KANGAROOS AND VOULEZ-VOUS?

2 SEREN May 2000

NEWS

news@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Call for ban on The best bar none “date rape” drug T L

ast year the tranquiliser Rohyphol, known for its use as a “date rape” drug, was banned for over-the-counter sale in pharmacies throughout the UK. Now Plaid Cymru MP Elfyn Llwyd has urged a clampdown on the sale of the drug gamma hydroxy butyrate, or GHB, already strictly controlled in the USA and Canada.

GHB was synthesised in 1960

by French physician Henri Laborit. It was trialled as a preoperative anaesthetic, but was discarded because even in high doses it does not reliably bring on sleep deep enough for surgery. The drug induces feelings of tranquility, relaxation and sensuality. Inhibitions seem to evaporate, leaving the user with a sense of mild euphoria and an enjoyable drowsiness. GHB is prescribed throughout Europe for treating disorders such as anxiety, narcolepsy and depression and is accepted as one of the best and safest drugs for easing alcohol withdrawal.

Those who sell GHB products on the Internet typically describe it as a harmless nutritional supplement. Yet according to Dr Craig Schenk, an expert in this field, users can develop withdrawal problems if the drug is overused, though he admits that “the majority of people can use GHB without many problems.”

Nevertheless, over nine years ago the FDA in America, after monitoring the drug, made it illegal to sell or possess GHB further to “numerous cases of GHBrelated illness.” Pro-GHB groups point to its use in the treatment of psychological disorders and lack of side effects when taken properly, but when mixed with other depressant drugs such as alcohol and opiates it can be fatal. A study conducted in America by the Drug Abuse Warning Network found that GHB-related

emergency-room visits rose by 3,000% from 20 in 1992 to 600 in 1996.

Just a few grams of GHB can cause strong mental and physical relaxation within five minutes; the effects last for up to 3 hours. When taken with alcohol, the recipient experiences amnesia, so it is notoriously an ideal drug for would-be rapists — an alternative to Rohypnol (“roofies”) since the manufacturer of Rohypnol, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc, realised that the drug was being used for date-rapes and added a blue dye for easy drink detection. A version of GHB called “Liquid X” is easily made on a cooker ring with a kit bought over the Internet for £4 per dose. Although the primary “date rape” drug is still alcohol, GHB accounts for some 30% of all reported rapes of this nature.

A year ago Seren reported the story of a female postgraduate who may have had her drink spiked whilst in Time. The woman had no memory from 10.45pm until 6am the following morning when her friends found her upset and disorientated outside the venue. She could not speak coherently and was unable to walk.

Jane Chattoe TO REDUCE THE RISK OF YOUR DRINK BEING SPIKED, FOLLOW THESE PRECAUTIONS:

• Never take a drink from someone you don’t know.

• Never leave a drink unattended where others have access to it.

• If someone offers to buy you a drink, accompany them to the bar.

• Don’t drink anything that has an unsual taste or appearance, such as discoloration or residue.

• Never assume that it won’t happen to you.

• If you feel the need to experience GHB, never mix it with alcohol.

he Seren Bar Quiz on Tuesday 14th March was a close-fought battle. The eventual winner was Michelle Devitt with a score of 381⁄4 out of a possible 115, followed in second and third places by Julie Neild and Ruth Parry. Michelle claimed as her prize a ram wong drum, kindly donated by John Williams Music, whilst Julie received a £20 piercing voucher from Spellbound and Ruth left with just over seven litres of beer courtesy of Safeway. The organisers would like to thank everyone who came for making the event such a success and for helping Seren to raise nearly £3 towards its operating costs.

NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE: Michelle Devitt and Ruth Parry, prizewinners in the Seren Bar Quiz

I

Cartoons against chlamydia

n a drive to reduce increasing rates of Chlamydia among young people, an awareness campaign was launched on TV and the Internet at the beginning of May. The sexually transmitted disSorry about the quality: we had to get ease is a bactethis off the Internet. Won’t do it again. rium which lives inside body calls and causes genital infection. One reason why Chlamydia is so common is that is usually has no obvious symptoms. The campaign will features colourful cartoon characters “Clem and Lydia” promoting safer sex and highlighting the least known common STD. Internet users will be signposted to the website www.lovelife.hea.org.uk to view the advert online. A quarter of a million postcards promoting the Campaign have been distributed to universities and bars throughout the UK. Research carried out by the group, HEA reveals that fewer than half of 16-24 year olds have heard of the disease, compared to more than 80% who have heard of herpes, hepatitis B and more than 90% who have heard of HIV.

NEWS

news@seren.bangor.ac.uk

SU shenanigans

M

arch’s GM was disrupted by the circulation of a petition of no confidence in the Union’s sabbatical officers, prompted by the decision of the Executive Committee to replace the porters with reception staff. Initially it was confiscated

by Craig Owens, visiting Deputy President of NUS Wales, in the belief that those collecting signatures were Union employees breaking the terms of their contracts. Some twenty minutes later the truth was ascertained and the petition was returned.

“That decision was taken in response to the questionnaires we distributed at undergraduate registration in January,” explained CCSO Vicky Parry. “We received around a thousand responses, and one comment that came up time and again was that the Union was gloomy and unwelcoming. So, when we came to discuss how to use the funding we receive from the University for maintenance of the building, we decided to rebuild the foyer to make it more approachable. The staffing decision was only logical.”

Many students were angered that such a major decision involving the highly-popular porters was taken seemingly over their heads: SU President Niall Duffy explained that ‘staffing issues must be discussed in confidence: it’s a condition of all our terms of employment.’

‘Maybe we were over-cautious in discussing these issues,’ conceded Vicky Parry, ‘but the University’s personnel department simply wouldn’t allow us to throw open employment contracts for general debate. Renovation, however, was

discussed in open committee: the agenda was posted in the second floor corridor, and after the meeting the minutes were available as usual.’

‘Everything the Executive and Staffing Committee did,’ confirmed UMCB President Siân Alwen, ‘was strictly in accordance with the constitution and with employment law.’

While some students felt misled over the decision, there was equal furore over the petition itself. The preamble implied that the security and accessibility of the Union building were at risk — a risk which could only be countered by signing the petition.

‘That was never an option.’ responded Vicky.

‘The renovation will in fact greatly increase security in the building, with more fire alarms, panic buttons, escape routes et cetera. There was never any question of changing the building’s opening hours: as long as students want the building to open at night, it will continue to do so.’

Especially controversial was the line above the signatures stating that the undersigned ‘had no confidence in the sabbatical officers’, a far more forceful proposition than suggested by the preamble. Many respondents felt deceived when they discovered what they had signed, and Seren has received statements from signatories wishing to distance themselves from the petition.

Further doubt was cast on the legitimacy of the petition when it emerged that it had been circulated in the Main Bar, raising the possibility of signatories being inebriated.

Darien Graham-Smith

Students’ trade union?

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new survey by the Trades Union Congress shows that students are being forced into low paid jobs just to survive life at University. This will not come as much of a surprise to the student community, but the TUC is intent on proving that ‘students need trade unions.’ The survey, conducted by the Independent Labour Research Department, shows that 72% of students went out to work whilst at college, with 60% saying they would not be able to survive without the money they earn from working.

A high percentage of students actually miss lectures and hand assignments in late because they have to be out earning money.

A report, snappily entitled Students@Work 2000, was released to coincide with last month’s annual youth conference in London.

“It used to be thought that students were a rather privileged group,” said TUC General Secretary John Monks. “This is clearly not the case today.” The point that he stresses is that students need rights at work perhaps more than any other group, but are the least likely to call on a union for help: only 16% of students said they would seek advice on their rights from a trade union.

“Issues such as low pay and the exploitation of students can

be tackled through unions.

Trade unions are the way forward,” says Nikki Hardman, Community Action’s Sabbatical Officer at Bangor.

The TUC, which promotes trade union solidarity, claims to be one of the ‘best known institutions in British public life’. It is currently linking up with the National Union of Students to promote the trade union message to students in colleges and universities across the UK. The TUC ‘Know your Rights Line’ is 0870 600 4882. Lines are open every day from 8am-10pm.

Calls are charged at national rate.

Helen Harper

SEREN May 2000 3

Card warning

North Wales Police are warning customers to keep their till receipts and not discard them, following a spate of thefts by youths who rummage through bins outside supermarkets in order to retrieve the receipts, then use the card numbers printed on them to top-up their mobile phones.

Job bonanza Up to 30 new jobs are expected to be created in Bangor if cut-price food giants Lidl receive the green light to transform the Premier Motors car showroom opposite the city’s British Hotel. Welcoming the plan, president of Bangor’s Chamber of Trade, Roy Bestwick said “this is excellent news for Bangor. From what I understand the project would represent a major financial investment which would see the creation of more than 30 new jobs.”

Marmite nets youth vote Marmite continues to divide the country by inviting Internet surfers to vote in a Daily Opinion Poll. The makers of the spread have created www.hot-toast.com to spread the ‘love it or hate it’ message across the web.

Teacher training Quality and standards in schools improve when schools enter partnerships with universities, claims a report recently published by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector in Wales. Bangor in another report has been praised for the quality of its teacher training.

4 SEREN May 2000

SU STUFF

It’s your Union

su@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Outgoing CCSO Vicky Parry was born to make you happy

O

ver the past few months there has been a lot of controversy surrounding your Students’ Union. We, as the Sabbatical team, have come under a great deal of scrutiny as to how we make decisions and as to how your SU is run.

But I’m sure there are loads of you who are not even aware of what a Sabbatical Officer is and what we actually do. I’m not going to get into a long explanation of SU politics here, but I do want to ask a few questions, and point out a few facts.

The Sabbatical team is made up of the elected representatives whom you vote in to run your SU for the year. We work for you, the students, and we are the trustees of the money that the University gives to you each year to spend on the SU. Each year this grant money is cut considerably and we run on lower and lower budgets; this is why three years ago a Sabbatical team set up Undeb Trading Cyf, the limited Trading Company which runs the shops and services in and around the SU. As with any new company it has taken time to see a profit; but, three years on, Undeb Trading Cyf, is finally in profit. Its profits are covenanted directly to the Students’ Union, and this means that over the next few years we will start to see some big changes and improvements to the essential services that we offer. Services such as Welfare have been running on tiny budgets for the last few years, and it will be fantastic to see these services improve and reach so many more of you.

Over the past few weeks I have been visiting several Students’ Unions around the UK, as well as to NUS-run conferences that bring together students from all over the country. At one Union I picked up their phrase

that describes excellently how SU commercial services work: “We recycle your money!”. This doesn’t mean the Union simply scams dosh, but is a simple explanation of what happens to the money that students spend at SU bars etc. No Sabbatical

of Bangor students don’t know any of this, let alone how your student union is run. We obviously need to make the processes involved more accessible to you and to create more means of getting your feedback on what you actually want. At the moment

We need to make the processes involved more accessible to you Officer anywhere in the country makes a profit from their SU’s commercial/trading areas; just as here here in Bangor, the money is ploughed back into services for YOU! Initially our profits are being put into giving you better entertainments and helping our bars/shops etc. to compete with growing competition in town.

But the final profits will be spent on services such as Welfare and student activities.

I would guess that about 90%

there is a dedicated group of students who are involved in the running of this SU, and they give up their time voluntarily to do this, as well as the Executive Committee for which elections were held last term. The turn out of voters was very low, which was surprising considering the controversy involved!

Over the summer there will be some major structural changes made to the SU building which will make it more acces-

sible to you and more attractive to outside concerns (hopefully bringing more business in too!).

The University has been able to pay us some major backlogged maintenance, which is helping to modernise many of the current structures, as well as Undeb Trading Cyf contributing financially.

We’ll be re-developing the foyer area, the shop and the administration floor in order to drag the SU, no doubt kicking & screaming, into the 21st Century.

I am sure that many of you reading this are third years, who will be leaving Bangor in the next few days and think that this has nothing to do with you. But the feedback forms inside this edition of Seren will be used by the incoming Executive Committee to plan for the next year — so please, even if you’re leaving, fill one in and drop it in the box at Reception in the SU. If you’d like to get involved in the SU next year, then please write your name and e-mail address on a piece of paper and put that into the box too!

It may be battered and horrendously decorated (not least the Media Room), but it’s yours

ELECTIONS

su@seren.bangor.ac.uk

SEREN May 2000 5

Elections happen

Adam Pearson was there when the ballots opened and UWB said “whatever”

The winners Mabon Ap Gwynfor SU President

Adam Utton-Gaunt CCSO

Iorweth Jones AU President

Jo Boucher Welfare Officer

Harriet Steele SCA Organiser

Huw Tegid UMCB President

Andrew Wilson Union Chair

Bob Connerton Senedd Convenor

Adam Pearson Exec. Secretary

David Morgan Campaigns Officer

Karen Roberts Nursing Rep.

Claire Middleton Women’s Officer

Chris Beadsmoore LGB Officer

Rebecca Ryan Exec. w/o Portfolio

Frankie O’Dowd Disabilities Officer

T

he SU is run on a democratic basis, with the executive officers elected by the students of Bangor. And with something as important as Executive elections, you could be forgiven for assuming that the event would be impossible to miss. However, this year, with a voting turnout of fewer than 900, less than 10%, it seems that it was not the case.

Problems started with nominations. The elections committee set down the election timetable as required by the constitution, opened the nomination box and waited for the deluge of applications... however, the posters sent

by NUS were monolingual and could not be used. So, due to lack of publicity, the deluge was more of a trickle. Just 14 people stood for 20 posts.

Concerns at the low number of candidates were raised to both the elections committee and NUS, who threatened to annull the results and advised re-opening nominations. This was agreed and the decision was announced at the General Meeting Hustings. Nominations were re-opened that evening with posters spread over the campus advertising this. Credit must be given at this point to the committee and volunteers who worked long into the night designing and distributing posters.

When the election box was opened second time around, the number of nominations had increased to a healthy 29. Nominees were announced at a candidates’ meeting, along with new election regulations. Publicity would be limited, with candidates allowed only to produce fliers. The Union made posters with photos of every candidate standing. Meanwhile, candidates canvassed hard.

The proposed bouncy castle and barbecue at Hustings had to be cancelled due to bad weather, though this hardly excused the poor turn-

out, consisting mainly of candidates and their supporters.

Election Day dawned wet and windy, yet this did not dissuade the candidates who worked hard persuading voters with fliers, promises and chocolate biscuits. By the time the polling stations closed most candidates and their supporters were in Main Bar for the Fancy Dress elections party. The noticeable lack of fancy dress was compensated for by the alcohol, which was consumed like there was no tomorrow. This was partially true, as the bar closed at 1am, leaving three dry hours before results were announced.

Recounts were necessary for many positions such as that of Welfare officer, where the final difference was a mere 8 votes.

This delayed the announcement of results until around 4am, by which time everyone was exhausted.

Despite disappointment and a few tears, all candidates took the results in good humour, offering congratulations and the best of luck to the successful.

Standing for elections shows that an individual wants to get involved and make a difference, and all candidates should be congratulated for taking part, whether successful or not. Elections are a gruelling process, especially when a candidate is in the last few weeks of their course. So congratulations to all candidates for having the courage and conviction to stand, whether elected or not.

The following posts are currently vacant: Education Officer; Mature Students’ Officer; International Students’ Officer; Welsh Affairs Officer; and Normal Site Representative. If you are interested in standing for any of these positions, contact a member of the Executive Committee.

For details of of votes cast see www.undeb.bangor.ac.uk/e2000

An uneven ANALYSIS

6 SEREN May 2000

analysis@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Last year, a multi-team declaration affirmed the football establishment’s determination to remove racism and homophobia from the sport by the new millennium. Three months into the millennium, has anything changed? Karl Sadil investigates.

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ootball. Surely a game beyond race and nationality? Surely a game where any player, regardless of identity, can participate in their team for the crowd’s excitement? Perhaps not. Little kids (do they learn from their parents?), even in multi-cultural areas, make jokes and insults about ‘Pakis’ and ‘Frogs’ as they kick a ball around the playground. A black football player is taunted by calls of ‘black bastard’. Despite the fact that many ex-Empire nations have taken up the interests of their former occupiers – and are often much better at them than England – they are dismissed as savage ‘wogs’. It’s amusing that the average Indian is far more likely to be able to quote English literature than someone English from England: but even when trying to emulate the ‘civilised’ British, those who speak a different language, or who don’t have the ‘right’ coloured skin, still find themselves knocked down.

It could be argued that football, as opposed to mainly-monotone cricket sides, is a mixed game (about half the French national team is black). And there

are a lot of black players in UK sides, sometimes making up 50% or more of the team. And aren’t many of Britain’s other successful professional sportspeople and athletes black? Where’s the racism there? And of course, players are selected for their skill at football, not because of ethnicity. But still, the terraces’ response is ‘go back home!’

Which is silly, as most UK blacks were born here, as were their parents and often grandparents.

Our library has an interesting treatise suggesting that some of the Celts were black. UK blacks are already ‘home’.

And the success of blacks in sport itself has downsides for blacks in education. If a black child is struggling they may find themselves not helped in class but encouraged in PE. The black pupil is often, whether deliberately or not, steered away from areas that don’t traditionally employ many black people. This has repercussions for all blacks.

Black academics are still too much of a rarity.

Still, barriers are being broken. Benjamin Zephaniah was shortlisted as Poet Laureate, and

Non-whites on the terraces

Racism in football is not helped by the overwhelming majority of supporters being white. Many Premier League teams’ supporters include tiny proportions of non-white fans:

0% - 0.4% 0.5% - 0.8% 0.9% - 1.2% 1.3% - 1.6% 1.7% +

Sheffield Wednesday, Newcastle United Derby City, Everton, Southampton Aston Villa, Blackburn, Chelsea, Leeds, West Ham Coventry City, Liverpool Arsenal, Leicester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Wimbledon Source: Premier League Fan Survey 1997

in this writer’s opinion would have made a better one than the eventual winner. The autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire, the comedian Lenny Henry, the TV presenter Diane-Louise Jordan, the newsreader Trevor McDon-

and elsewhere) that – wow, amazing discovery! – black people go on holiday, black people brush their teeth, black people eat cereal. Presumably some black people even go skiing, though winter sports are

ARSENAL v SPURS: Nigerian-born Nwankwo Kanu breaks away from German Steffen Freund ald, the chef Ainsley Harriott — all have gone a considerable way in challenging perceptions of what black people can do. The nation’s most successful sci-fi comedy series, Red Dwarf, stars Craig Charles as the last human alive in the universe, and, incidentally, a black man. Or more accurately, a Liverpudlian from post-racism Earth, who just happens to be black. The Real McCoy and Goodness Gracious Me were popular, now-mainstream shows by black and Asian artists. And then of course there’s the Devil’s Advocate interviewer, the formidable Darcus Howe, whose latest work White Tribe involved Howe visiting ‘white people’ to find out about their culture.

Conversely, whites are finally starting to recognise (in adverts

largely a neglected area. The only people more ridiculed than the British ski-jumper Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards, in fact, were the Jamaican bobsleigh team, as immortalised in the film Cool Runnings (‘Hey man, what’s snow?’) So it doesn’t snow in Jamaica? What a surprise. In Blue Peter’s report, the team were shown building their own practice sleds and tracks and training hard all year round. These four men were dedicated to their sport. When the real thing came and the team crashed on live TV, the commentator’s sarcastic response was ‘well, they’re Jamaicans’. Jamaica’s first entry into this event should have been an occasion for admiration.

Instead, they were laughed at before they’d even tried.

field analysis@seren.bangor.ac.uk

S

o how can the ‘inclusive’ UK be racist? It’s true that the anti-black graffiti, once fashionable everywhere, is now dying out. But stereotypes abound.

The Dutch? Permissive potsmoking hippies who just wear clogs all the time and milk windmills or whatever it is they do (which doesn’t stop many Brits from wandering around Amsterdam in a dope haze). The Finns? Gloomy, drunk, depressive, suicidal, fish-eating lumberjacks with a sauna fixation. The Moldovans... hmm, don’t know much about them, probably all gypsies.

‘National pride’ (or national prejudice) has now even made it acceptable to insult even white, English-speakers from other countries. Americans: rich, self-important, over-exuberant, spoilt. Canadians: anal-rimming moose-humpers and tree-cutters, or something (we know Canada’s sort of somewhere North of America, but that’s

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ANALYSIS

about all). South Africans: KKK Nazis. Aussies: lazy, talk through nose, barbecue-obsessed. New Zealanders: sheep-shaggers.

Still, perhaps these attitudes too will start to disappear now that buying expensive players from other European teams has become commonplace. After all, these players are valued for their

the 1936 Olympics (because black athlete Jesse Owens had won the gold) has not been forgotten.

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ortunately, not everyone in the UK is racist. Kids often don’t notice their friends’ colours. White kids have black idols and heroes. But if it’s less ‘in’ to be racist, it’s still ‘okay’ to be homophobic. A few years ago the assumption was that there were no gay footballers: male homosexuality was associated with effeminacy. Then came Fashanu, which rather messed up that theory. There are groups

Black players sometimes make up 50% or more of a British football team worth as footballers, not as exotic add-ons. Except, in that case, howcome foreign or black players have had crowds – including the supporters of their own team – yelling abuse from the stands? These attitudes were supposed to have died out with Hitler, whose tetchy walkout at

for gay footballers (including the men’s team Stonewall FC); and the Gay Games (last held in Amsterdam) is an Olympiad open to gay and non-gay entrants. Gay groups exist for climbing and walking, sailing, martial arts, and many other sports.

But anyone listening to the

SEREN May 2000 7 supporters at the local stadium, many of them women and girls, could be forgiven for thinking we’d regressed as a society.

There may be fewer taunts about blacks or foreigners, but they have simply been replaced by shouts of ‘poof ’. After all, with an Islamic Centre at the east exit and Hindu families and students living right round the stadium in Bangor, it can be a bit risky to go around insulting people of different colours; but nobody likes poofs, do they?

But for now the FA’s main concern is racism, and every year it launches a new antiracism campaign. The Football Task Force (FTF) looks at conditions and recommends legislation. Racial abuse on the pitch is a sending-off offence for any player, and chanting racist slogans is now a criminal offence.

The FTF says managers or players who are racist should be sacked. Players and managers are required to make anti-racism pledges in their contracts.

It’s a start: but, in the words of Mr. Abi Ekoku of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, and Chairman of the Players’ Association, ‘there is still work to be done’ in getting prejudice and racism out of British sport.

State of the Art: Poetry in Bangor

rite, read, or listen to poetry? Bangor’s a good place for it.

With a Wordsmiths group that meets at the Greenhouse on Thursdays, courses in creative writing available at the University and a thriving literary/publishing poetry scene in North Wales, this is where to come. Every Friday there are live nights at Clwb Y Felin, Y Felinheli/Port Dinorwic, about half-way between Bangor and Caernarfon. A magazine for poets and writers, PUN, is available free at several outlets in Bangor. A340 is another magazine, with information to help local writer-poets. Writing courses are also held at Tyˆ Newydd, Criccieth (expensive!). The readers – sometimes speakers or poets are invited – are, well, anyone who wants to get up and perform their poetry into a microphone in front of lots of people. The event runs from 7.30pm till late.

Bangor itself has two main venues for public poetry readings.

‘Beirdd Yn Y Bar’ takes place at Theatr Gwynedd, costs £2.50 usually, and features readings by Welsh and English poets. The next is on April 25th and is entitled ‘New Poetics: Leonardo da Vinci, Destiny of Dreams’. I attended an Ian McMillan night there once, called ‘I Found This Shirt’. McMillan is the official poet for

Barnsley FC, and read only a selection of his work, which covers a wide range of topics, but it was intelligent and funny. He’s worth reading. Apart from poems relating to football, Ian McMillan writes about Ian McMillanish things happening to people: coffee machines that scald you, getting high on Balsa wood, The Hole In The Hall (don’t ask), a dog called April Is The Cruellest Month, and being stuck in someone else’s house with a lost taxi looking for you and a train to catch, and your hosts are asleep.

The other key location for poetry events in Bangor is the ballroom at the British Hotel, which hosts the ‘Poetry Reading’ series on some Mondays at 8pm, price £2. Famous UK poets come here to give readings from their work, including Matthew Sweeney (reviewed last issue). On the 21st of February I attended the reading by Geoff Hattersley, a Yorkshire poet who works in a plastics factory and once worked at a kibbutz in Israel. Hattersley’s work is mostly lighthearted – except when he’s dealing with subjects such as the Arab-Israeli conflict and suicide-bombers – and his cynical, quirky and offbeat verse made for a very enjoyable evening.

SOCRATES

8 SEREN May 2000

features@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Saunas, sawmills and cycling Socrates is a scheme giving students the opportunity to broaden their horizons by studying part of their course abroad. Cameron Maxwell went to Finland and lived.

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orestry students in the UK can have a hard time of it enduring the endless stream of lumberjack jokes, but it’s not all bad. Five second year forestry students from Bangor were handed a wad of Euro cash and dispatched to Finland, land of the... eh... Finn. We were to study (?) for four months in Joensuu, the easternmost university town in the EU. Finland is foresters’ heaven.

Nobody makes lumberjack jokes and there are trees everywhere.

A few facts about the place: Finland is the fifth largest country by land mass in the European

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Union. It has 67% forest cover and a population of five million. Six percent of the population speak Swedish as their first language. Finland is the largest exporter of printing and writing paper in the world. The Finns are the world’s most prolific mobile phone users. Finland has a lot of lakes and is very flat. And Santa Claus lives there with his reindeer.

Anyway, enough facts. Stereotypes are much more interesting. The Finns are allegedly the most pathologically shy, heavy drinking, blonde depressives in the world. They watch a lot of

Sign up for Socrates and you too could be lunching by a fjord

he Socrates/Eramus programme applies to Chemistry, English, Linguistics, Maths, Psychology and various other departments. You can spend up to a year studying in a completely different part of the world, Europe, USA or Canada, as a part of your degree and the credits you get are transferred to Bangor and form a part of your final mark.

Many Universities in Europe offer modules in English, so even if you don’t speak French, German, Finnish or whatever you can still take part. The University you visit won’t charge you a penny: all you’ll have to pay for is accommodation (just like if you’d stayed here in Bangor) and your travel expenses.

You can even get a grant — it’s awarded on a monthly basis and the amount varies from country to country.

The experience could be that vital edge that on your CV, so go and see the Socrates co-ordinator in your department or Angharad Thomas, central Socrates co-ordinator in the University. She’s in the Marketing and PR department in Athrolys (opposite Main Arts on College Road) and you can email her at angharad.thomas@bangor.ac.uk.

ice hockey, sit in the dark for six months and are obsessed with motor rallying and Formula 1.

The last bit is definitely true and they are convinced everyone else in the world is likewise car mad.

The (mis)fortunes of Mika Häkkinen dominate the Finnish news. A tidal wave hitting Helsinki would only make the inside pages if it was grand prix weekend.

Failure to show interest in Mika’s fortunes invites social isolation, and the only way to retrieve the situation is immediately to list all the Finnish footballers currently plying their trade in Britain. This is not because they are good but because they are Finnish. Finns are also genuinely surprised by your poor grasp of Finnish poetry and literature often despairing ‘but he is our most famous 19th century poet!’

Knowledge of the Moomins is not regarded as sufficient.

Keeping up with world events is difficult in Finland if you don’t speak Finnish. The language is so different from any other language in the world (apart from Estonian apparently) that listening to the radio or looking at the newspapers leaves you absolutely none the wiser. Understanding signs was no easier: as one Spanish student said to me, ‘everywhere in the world a bank is a bank, except here, where it’s an ous-

Looks like, um, rein. Dear. uuspankii’. Fortunately, many Finns speak excellent English.

We arrived at the beginning of September 1999 to catch the last of the summer and spent our first week in Lapland travelling up into the Arctic Circle. We saw the Northern Lights, reindeer, some amazing autumnal colours, lots of trees and managed to avoid Santa Claus. We also became acquainted with Finnish saunas, which unlike their British counterparts do not come with any sensual extras.

The Finns spend a lot of time in their saunas drinking and chatting. You soon get to enjoy sitting naked on the verandah outside the sauna looking at the sky, drinking beer and shooting the breeze.

The only recreational pursuit to top a sauna is a sauna inside your comfortable wooden cottage in the lovely forest beside the beautifully clear lake. The Finns seem to have perfected the weekend in the country. Back in Joensuu our student apartment block, of

features@seren.bangor.ac.uk course, came equipped with a rooftop sauna. Perhaps the halls management committee could be encouraged to fit these as standard in Bangor.

Super cooling during saunas became possible in December when the snow and ice arrived.

The tourist guide books showed pictures of attractive ladies sliding into ice holes cut into the lake or rolling naked in the snow and we therefore had no option but to practise this traditional Finnish pastime. Perversion or pleasure? I’m not sure.

Cycling was a favourite pastime for us. Finland is generally flat with a dry, continental climate making cycling a popular form of transport for Finns of all ages even at -17°C (that’s eyelash-freezing temperature).

Cyclists have a licence to behave completely irresponsibly, scaring the shit out of pedestrians by screaming past them on the pavements or hurtling across zebra crossings in front of speeding cars.

This latter pursuit can become a bit of an adrenaline high in winter when you know that the car will not be able to stop should your trusty one speed bike disappear from under you on the ice. My particular Finnish favourite was the cyclists who blithely rode along using an umbrella pointed in the direction of travel to shelter themselves from the snow storm. Very bizarre.

So Finland was pretty good and we also learnt a lot about forestry and forest products.

There was however one blemish: The Finns appear to be obsessed with dodgy 1980s pop music. We were subjected to the whole Phil Collins back catalogue on radio — every day.

I heartily recommend studying abroad on the Socrates scheme, but be careful when you get back because you’re likely to piss off even your best friends with your reminiscing.

Never say ‘ah yes, I remember when I was in Finland...’

V

INTERVIEW 1

SEREN May 2000 9

Grilled Amato

Clare Lewis talks to Erika Amato, lead singer of Velvet Chain

elvet Chain, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention, are the band behind ‘Strong’, one of the stand-out tracks on last year’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer tie-in album. Seren spoke exclusively to lead singer Erika Amato about life, vampire slayers and everything: the results are reproduced below...

Did your appearance on Buffy bring a stampede of new fans?

Yes, definitely. It was great exposure for us!

Were you fans of the show?

Actually, the show hadn’t even been shot when we were asked to do it. We shot the episode in June of ‘96, and it didn’t air until March 31st, 1997. As far as we knew, the thing might never even get on TV, let alone become such a huge hit!

Did the call to be on Buffy come as surprise or is it all part of the (insert Dr. Evil face here) plan?

Well, as I said, the show wasn’t even a definite go, so worlddomination wasn’t an idea of ours. We just thought it sounded like fun to do a TV show.

Filming your sequences: fun or dull? Got any favourite on-set moments?

50% fun, 50% hanging around.

The cast and crew were all really nice, so that was cool. No really wacky set moments, except for having Sophia do all those stunts in front of me, (big fight scene) ‘cause they needed my legs in the background of the shot for continuity!

Seth Green demonstrates A bm7 to Velvet Chain Is the musical equipment at the Bronze as bad as others have led us to believe?

We brought our own...so I don’t know!

Which episodes are you in?

Just one: ‘Never Kill A Boy on the First Date’ from Season 1.

Are the cast as cool as their on-screen alter egos?

We met some of the cast that day, but we really got to know them later on, when we played the wrap party at the end of season 2. That’s when we met Seth, who’s become a good friend of the band’s, and when we got to talk with Alyson and Nicky, etc.

They’re all great people.

Describe your new take on the Buffy theme tune. Is it much different to the Nerf Herder effort?

We don’t have a ‘new take’ on the Buffy theme. We wrote an entirely new song, called ‘Buffy’, which is about the Slayer, and the show, and is very much tongue-in-cheek. We love the Nerf Herder theme, though! We even covered it for the LAPBP this year.

Seth ‘Oz’ Green plays on the aforementioned track. How did that collaboration come about and would you like to work together again?

Well, as I mentioned, we met at the wrap party in April of ‘98. We became friends, and we asked him if he wanted to be a rock start for a night by performing the Buffy song with us at a gig. He did; it was a riot; and we decided to have him reprise his role when we recorded the song. He’s performed with us a few times live and it’s always been fun. He’s a great sport.

Your Angel theme tune was rejected: why? And are you going to visit Angel in LA? Yeah, we think we should be playing some club Angel is hanging out at, too! As for the theme, we were approached to submit something for the show, which we did, and we really like, but it apprently wasn’t quite what they were looking for. Oh, well.

That’s show-business!

For more about the band, and to hear a few more moody, smoky, choons, visit www.velvetchain.com.

10 SEREN May 2000

INTERVIEW 2

movies@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Carry On Slashing Chris Chapman talks to Neve Campbell and Wes Craven. No, really.

D

esperately holding back the urge to ask them about their favourite scary movies, Seren spoke to the gruesome twosome at the Dorchester Hotel in London.

Sequels are tricky things.

Apart from the rather persuasive financial reasons, why do a Scream 3?

WES: (Sporting a well trimmed beard, slight girth and a University education) “Well, since you’re doing a trilogy, it would be silly just to do two. The attraction for me was doing a series of films that actually had a true connection. Traditionally in horror sequels, the killer comes back and everyone else has been replaced, as well as new directors and writers. So they really lacked a sense of continuity.

The idea of doing three films about Sidney was intriguing to me from the get go. Kevin Williamson’s script for the first film was of such a level, that we had to explore the characters further. I was surprised though that the first one was seen by some people as a spoof, which I never saw it as, frankly.”

What was it like for Neve to play Sidney for a third time?

NEVE: (looking just as beautiful as she does in the movies, and laughing at EVERYTHING ANYBODY SAYS) What I liked about Sidney was that she wasn’t your typical horror film heroine, she wasn’t just a victim. Every time we’ve done a new film, it’s been fun to revisit the character and be able to create her in a new way. I remember struggling in the first film though, because there was so many funny lines and great stuff from the other characters, and I felt like ‘am I supposed to be doing that?

Am I failing somehow?

Should I be giving the film that kind of energy?’

And then I realised: no, I’m the eyes of the audience. One of us has to be stable, so the audience can care about someone. The more the audience cares about you, the more they’re gonna fear for you.

How did Wes imagine Sidney before Neve came on the scene?

WES: “I think when you read a character, you get a definite image of who she is, and then you go looking for her and hope she exists in real life. I think it was a simple sense of recognition. Neve is Sidney. She has that quiet dignity and sense.

And she used to be a dancer, so you can ask her to do all sorts of rough and tumble things and she somehow survives. She has a great physicality.”

NEVE: “I always know when I’m doing a Scream movie, ‘cause I’m covered in bruises and my eyes are all swollen by the end of the day. It’s pretty draining, I get pretty shaky.”

Writer Kevin Williamson was notably absent from Scream 3. Did he have any creative input this time round?

WES: “He had a notion of a trilogy. He did do the outline for the third one, having it set on the Stab 3 film set, but that was quite different from what we used and we ended up discarding it. I wanted to take Neve’s character into adulthood, and have the focus on characters of her age, rather than high school kids. Kevin’s outline had taken it back to a high school situation, which I didn’t want to do.”

Chris Chapman (off) arrives on the set of Scream 3 Surely, this being the supposed final chapter, it was tempting to kill off Sidney?

WES: “Yeah, there were discussions about it. I think David Arquette was the biggest advocate of slashing everybody in the final scene. He wanted the camera to turn round and have me standing there with a knife!

But Sidney had earnt the right to survive, and killing her would be a terrible downer to end it on — to say that ‘life sucks’, and ‘the good die’. I know it happens, but we felt like doing that would be an easy way out, just to kill everyone in a way that was kind of trite. Neve wanted to die quickley though.”

NEVE: “Less work! No, I thought it would be kinda cool to have her die in the first ten minutes like Jada and Drew had.

What made Wes decide to bring back Randy for a video message in the third film?

WES: “We loved him so much, and we missed him. We had a whole scenario where he was

discovered alive. His parents had spirited him away after finding him in the emergency ward, and he’d been living in hiding ever since. Thank God, Bob Wienstien (head of Miramax films) shot that one down. We just felt like he was the voice of the audience, and we missed him. It became clear it’d be wonderful for him to have a final word.”

So, the big question, are we going to see another Scream movie?

WES: “I had a lot of fun doing scary movies. But I do feel like Scream marks the end of this particular type of film for me.

There’s nothing the studio bosses could offer you?

WES: “Eternal life!”

NEVE: “I just don’t think it would be a good idea. This was meant to be a trilogy. I don’t wanna get bored doing it, I don’t want the audience to get bored. Unless, in six years time, I’ve got no career, I’ve got four kids, I’ve got to get into college....”

movies@seren.bangor.ac.uk

ALL THE RIGHT MOVIES

SEREN May 2000 11

Space & Vader

P

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace out now to buy on video

repare for a cliché. I know that’s not what you want to hear at the start of a review, but there’s just no getting around it. Star Wars was THE film of my childhood. I worshipped even the suspiciously shite talents of poor Mark Hamill, and I must have seen the trench run upwards of fifty times, somehow managing to be surprised by Han’s opportune arrival on every viewing. Yes, it’s that sad. So, as you can guess, my expectations for Menace were high.

Set thirty years before the original Star Wars (though the technology looks far more advanced), The Phantom Menace revolves around Jedi Qui-Gon Jin (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), who, along with a bunch of CGI misfits and individuals far below the age of consent, attempt to liberate the extremely grassy planet of Naboo. There are many digressions from this basic plot, but, honestly, I haven’t the stamina to explain them all.

The thing that first strikes you is how much of the dialogue is both brain-numbingly bland and utterly, patronisingly pointless (e.g. Obi-Wan: ‘This storm will slow them down.’ Ethnic minority guy: ‘Looks pretty bad.’)

It’s like listening to a night of improvisation at a nativity play.

The script merely says what needs to be said to advance the plot, nothing else, no sparkle. Granted, the original trilogy was no Wildean opus, but they at least had enough charm and enthusiasm to get by.

Both Jedi figures are essentially dull, neither registering a flicker of emotion throughout the entire film. McGregor’s ObiWan sports a seriously dodgy Alec Guinness accent, is given nothing to work with and ends up looking terminally bored. A

maverick Han Solo type would have helped. Natalie Portman’s Queen Amidala is good, though the bizarre Padme/Amidala decoy subplot serves no purpose other than to prevent us from consciously getting to know her character. Why Lucas felt the need to include this brain-dead ‘twist’ is beyond this reviewer.

Much has been made of the worth of a certain Jar Jar Binks.

I wouldn’t mind him if his particular brand of comic relief was actually… comical. As it is, he is merely a severely unfunny, slightly racist, completely unnecessary collection of badly placed pixels. So there. However, slave owner Watto is a nice, creative diversion, as is the inclusion of the world’s loudest thesp. That’s right, my acting God, boommaster Brian Blessed (‘GORRRRDON’S ALIIIIIVE!’) lends his vocal talents to some green, fat thing.

Praise be unto him, for he is indeed the holiest of all men.

Lucas has often stated that Menace is essentially a kid’s film.

If so, it’s a pretty odd kiddie pic: its plot reliance on the ideas of trade barriers and diplomacy feels utterly out of place with

amazing conclusion, yet feels the insecure need to give Menace four separate endings, speaks volumes for his decline as a directing and writing talent.

Apart from the edited highlights of this conclusion (that fast-forward button comes in very handy), Menace should also be praised for its subtle and nicely ironic treatment of Senator Palpatine: lines like ‘and you, young Skywalker… we will watch your career with some interest’ give the film at least one extra layer of depth. The visuals (though sometimes not solid enough to be real) are breathtaking, as are the tiny, quirky touches that pepper the film. The podrace too, though Darth Maul has had his Ready Brek unoriginal, is spectacular in its execution. any idea of childish fun.

In many ways, it looks and The film almost makes up for feels like a Star Wars movie. its many flaws with its climactic All the old aspects are in place light sabre fight. It is flawlessly — yet somehow it falls flat. choreographed and so intricate How much critical leeway can that many of its nicer details will you give a film merely based on pass you by on a first viewing. its pedigree? That pretty much It is accompanied by an exhil- depends on how obsessive you arating score, and is, quite are about the films. Personally, simply, one of the series’ finest I consider Menace a great dissequences. However, several appointment, coming nowhere depressing flaws mar this cin- near to the childlike awe of ematic genius. Firstly, we have the originals. Even the muddled absolutely no idea who Darth Return of the Jedi could kick MenMaul is; he is merely a rent-a-bad- ace’s sorry arse in a fight. It’s die with little more than three or sad, but true. The light sabre four lines in the whole film. Sec- extravaganza is almost enough ondly, he dies in the most stupid to merit buying this video, as and simplistic manner possible. is the misguided feeling of loyThirdly (and most importantly), alty that forced me to hand we are constantly diverted from over my cash. However, the conthis epic confrontation by three clusion is the only part of the other battles of a far less impres- film worthy of repeated viewsive nature. That Lucas was ing. The rest of the sorry mess confident enough to give the can, quite frankly, go to Hell. original Star Wars one single, HHIII

12 SEREN May 2000

NOT-SO NEW MOVIES

movies@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Pikapoo?

Pokémon: The First Movie was once at the Plaza Cinema

I

am writing this review from a hospital bed after being crushed in a stampede of Pikachu-crazed ten-year-olds.

Well, okay, so there were only about fifteen people at the screening, but the ones that were there shouted out the names of each and every bloody Pokémon that appeared on the screen. They even threatened to turn nasty when the Plaza failed to show the short ‘Pikachu’s Vacation’ film that was supposed to run before the movie.

Tsk tsk….

‘TRAINING IS OVER!’ bellowed Pokémon’s frantic trailer.

And it’s true. Pokémon has got all grown up. The style is darker, people actually die, and the bad guys are actually minutely scary (Mewtwo, the titular genetic freak, destroys a building, killing scores of innocent people before the credits roll) rather than the inept cross-dressing Pikachu catchers Team Rocket.

That’s not to say that Jessie and James don’t put in an appearance, but they’re sidelined to dressing up as valkyries and yelling ‘who’s that Pokémon?’ — damn it.

The animation is still choppy in the scenes which resemble the series most, but there’s some CGI which is well integrated and adds power to the gothic gloom of Mewtwo’s bio-cyber fortress. Some of the one-onone battle scenes are also fluid and brilliantly choreographed.

It’s enough to make you forget you’re watching a Pokémon flick.

Of course all this is ruined by the cast standing around and churning out the ‘why can’t they all just get along?’ and ‘deep down we are really all the same!’ morality speeches while the

Reaction shot from the infamous ‘Vicky Parry striptease’ scene world’s worst song about brotherly love drones in the background. Didn’t the makers realise that ten-year-olds are vicious, sadistic bastards and just want to see one Pokémon twatting another to a pulp? At least the dubbing is good enough to have everyone’s lips in synch while they spout this saccharine crap. Badly-dubbed cheese would have been too much for me.

So. It’s still surreal, it’s still cutesy, but it’s just got that bit darker, slicker and nearer to the more adult Manga basics. I’ll give it three stars on the basis of its being a decent anime flick and having the funniest Pikachuslapping scene ever. However, Pokémon lovers (stand up all you art students with daytime TV fetishes) should add a couple on, whilst those who wish to see Pikachu die in a graphic, painful and humiliating way should subtract a few. Unless they go for the aforementioned world’s weirdest slapfest. HHHII Clare Lewis

Just that bit darker, slicker and nearer to the more adult Manga basics.

QUIZ SHOW

WIN THE PHANTOM MENACE ON VIDEO! Just answer these peasy questions before September and you could win a copy of The Phantom Menace on video. Aren’t we nice?

1 What was the name of the cuddly good Mogwai fluffy thing in Gremlins?

2 What’s the name of Han Solo’s lovely spaceship?

3 Who starred opposite Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted? 4 Did Sid James ever get it on with Barbara Windsor in real life?

5 Is Marlon Brando dead?

Send your answers to movies@seren.bangor.ac.uk and hope!

Last issue’s winner: Maja Melendez, who even now is enjoying her copy of The Thin Red Line. Respect!

Sponsored by WHSmith

movies@seren.bangor.ac.uk

YESTERDAY’S FILMS

SEREN May 2000 13

Julia’s a joy

I

Erin Brockovich was on at the Plaza Cinema too. Ah, happy days,

think you should know something before you read any further. I am not, nor have I ever been a fan of the big-toothed box office vigilante who goes by the name of Julia Roberts. Personally, I find most of her film characters to be shallow voids of mainstream mediocrity. I believed that the woman sustained her film career simply on the basis of her classical good looks, and that essentially, she was talentless. In her last two films (both box office smashes of course), Notting Hill and Runaway Bride, she cemented my opinions.

However, with her latest film, Erin Brockovich, she has proven me to be a judgemental arsehole.

Erin Brockovich.

Odd name isn’t it? If the story weren’t based on real-life events then I would accuse it of being downright silly.

Erin (Miss Roberts, of course) is a single mum, strutting from one failed job interview to the next, when a (failed) attempt at getting compensation for a car crash leads her to kind-hearted lawyer Ed (Albert Finney). Ed gives her a simple desk job at his tiny law firm, in an attempt to make up for not winning her case. Erin soon becomes involved in the plight of the small town of Hinckley (bizarrely, the namesake of this reviewer’s home town), whose residents have been poisoned by the local big-hitting water company. Seeing the situation of Hinckley’s inhabitants at first hand, Erin gets the bit between her teeth and goes after the corporate bigwigs behind it all. Go Erin, Go Erin, Go Er— oops, sorry, don’t know what came over me. Ahem.

Not to mince words, Julia Roberts is fantastic in this movie, giving a deep, detailed and charismatic performance, I kept reminding myself, ‘She was in Hook. She was in Hook!’ but with little effect. Perhaps the reason she is so good is that Erin is such an unusual character for her — her kids have to tell their mum off for swearing, for God’s sake; her love interest is a bearded slacker, biker type; and I must say, I don’t think I’ve witnessed Roberts fishing dead frogs out of shit-filled water tanks in any of her other star vehicles. A Julia Roberts bosom appears from out of nowhere (though I’m informed it’s with the aid of strategically placed ‘pads’), and a seemingly gigantic wardrobe of low cut tops is employed to show it (or is it ‘them’?) off. Though I was never quite sure how the poor-as-a-church-mouse single mum could afford so many fashion statements. Most importantly though, Erin is a drama,

not a romantic comedy, giving Roberts a chance to display something other than her passable comic timing.

You can probably blame this change of direction on Roberts’ decision to work with American independent director Steven Soderbergh, the man who previously gave us Sex, Lies and Videotape and the Lopez/ Clooney lovefest that was Out of Sight. Soderbergh’s direction is unobtrusive yet provides a lovely sense of warmth and realism.

The film begins in a very low-key vein, merely casually showing us the nature of Erin’s troubled life and introducing the supporting cast (despite this being very much Robert’s film, Finney gives a particularly strong performance as Erin’s tolerating employer). However, just as this scene setting threatens to become dull, we are introduced to the far more engaging ‘save the little people’ aspect of the plot.

The subject matter at times can be Look at my bosom child! Look at it! a little less than interesting, but thankfully, Soderbergh rectifies this by concentrating solely on the human side of the legal battle: it is the faces and not the facts that are given central stage. Even at the film’s conclusion, it would have been tempting to concentrate on a series of ‘tense’ courtroom scenes with Erin sweating away in the prosecution box. Sagely, however, this side of the story is never shown, neatly avoiding the clichés of the genre. However, it seems odd that the subplot of Erin being threatened by the company is completely forgotten, I assume that was just how it really happened, but it does jar slightly within the film.

It may be a touch predictable, but the strength of the characters helps to overcome this. On the whole, Soderbergh walks a fine tightrope with a giant pit of cheese festering away below him, yet he never quite looses his footing.

Erin Brockovich is a slow-burner that eventually pays off your patience, providing a very satisfying evening’s viewing. Worth seeing alone for Roberts’ magnificent performance (which is already receiving Oscar talk for next year!), Erin is a powerful and heartfelt acting showcase that escapes the realm of the chick flick to venture cautiously into the ‘holy kingdom of decent movies’. If you’re a Julia cynic like myself, I think you’ll be very pleasantly surprised. HHHHI

MOVIES TO RENT

14 SEREN May 2000

movies@seren.bangor.ac.uk

A drugs life

Go available to rent now from Albin’s video

W

hat do you think happens to people when they leave Grange Hill? A feeble pop career?

Eastenders? Painful obscurity?

Well, don’t be put off, but Doug Liman’s Go is a Hollywood movie starring Grange Hill’s Desmond Askew! This is unusual in itself, but a level of complete weirdness is reached when he… well, maybe I shouldn’t say, but you’ll thank God it’s not Mr. Bronson.

However, I shouldn’t get hung up on the whole Grange Hill issue when there’s so much to enjoy about Go itself. It could well be described as a Pulp Fiction Lite, as it features three tales of mayhem that are all connected. Essentially however, the plot is unimportant — the initial quest to save Sarah Polley’s character from eviction is merely an excuse for the set-piece comedy

that follows. So the film is effectively pointless, much in the way that Liman’s Swingers was, yet it is fantastic viewing, a quality it shares with the near random plotting of big brother Pulp.

There are some wonderful comic moments (most notably a drug induced conversation with a cat), some lovely quirky touches and brisk, enthusiastic pacing. The pumping soundtrack adds to the sense of life as a sprawling, but fun, mess.

Sarah Polley is far more believable than most teen leads, whilst the engaging double act of Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf keeps their part of the story afloat.

Askew sports dodgy red hair, dodgy Hawaiian shirt, dodgy British accent and very dodgy CV credentials, yet never really manages to annoy me as much

Holmes, sweet Holmes as he could have. Perhaps this was merely down to his part of the story (a lad’s weekend trip to Vegas) being the most enjoyable. Katie Holmes, though endearing (in an ‘aah, bless’ kind of way) is far too close to her innocent and whiney Dawson’s Creek character to provide much in the way of entertainment.

Best watched late at night, perhaps in a ‘drunk but melancholy’ kind of mood, Go is a sharp yet undemanding slice of zealous cool, lacking in any real originality beyond some quirky touches, but nevertheless a joy.

I was tempted to make some kind of ‘Go see it’ pun here. But I won’t. HHHHI

Master baker

I

American Pie available to rent now from, yes, Albin’s video

waited a long time to see this film; I missed it at the Plaza and the Gwynedd, so I was pleased when it finally became available to rent. Sadly, I now wish it had never been made. Oh, and for that one person who doesn’t know, he fucks the pie.

The plot is straightforward; four guys decide that, as a bizarre rite of passage, they should all lose their virginity before the forthcoming prom. The film revolves around sex, masturbation, semen, diarrhoea and absolutely no suggestion of a plot.

Fresher than Madonna, at least

Whoever thought they could fill ninety minutes on such a lacklustre premise deserves to be shot. All that happens is a series of ‘hilarious’ set pieces focusing on the boys’ desperate attempts to get laid. I laughed once (at a scene involving female masturbation and the Internet). The good-looking but immensely wooden Chris Klein bears a strong resemblance to a 2x4. Tara Reid and Mena Suvari spend their time flouncing around as token girlfriend eye-candy, and it’s near impossible to sympathise with the other characters. The Saved By The Bell ending (when we realise that love is more important than sex) only adds to my feelings of nausea.

The main selling point of the film is its quota of gross-out jokes, but we’ve seen it all before in the likes of There’s Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber.

Is there any forensic evidence of merit lurking under the grubby fingernails of this godawful film? It is mildly funny in places, and reasonably short. Some performances are good: Jason Biggs shows promise for the future, whilst Buffy’s Alyson Hannigan easily steals the film with two lines.

But ultimately I can only really recommend this film to thirteen-year-olds. If you’re looking for high school capers in your films then rent Ten Things I Hate About You or Never Been Kissed.

Both are far from perfect, but at least you won’t feel the burning desire to hit the characters. Hard. HHIII James Dawson

movies@seren.bangor.ac.uk

RENTIES TO MOVE

SEREN May 2000 15

Food for thought

Ravenous available to rent now from Albin’s Video

H

eard about the vegetarian cannibal? He only ate Swedes. But there’s no Swedes in this film, so the cannibals have to make do with good red-blooded American meat.

It’s the mid-19th Century. Guy Pierce plays an army captain assigned to a remote outpost commanded by Ferris Bueller’s school principal, Jeffrey Jones. Soon Robert Carlyle stumbles in, recounting how his party became stranded in the mountains for three months with nothing to eat but… each other. Back they go to look for survivors, only to discover the grisly truth.

It’s quite rare to see a mainstream Hollywood film dealing with the subject of cannibalism, and this is certainly no Alive.

That said, for the most part the gore is toned down, with most of the horror suggested rather than seen. There are one or two rather yucky deaths but mostly the film deals with the psychological impact of eating another human and, according to myth, ingesting their strength — justifying

the seemingly OTT climax.

The cast is good value. Guy Pierce is well cast as the coward forced to go far beyond merely confronting his fears (although in my mind, no matter how good he may be in however many great films, he’ll always be Mike from Neighbours), while Robert Carlyle gives his most malicious performance since Trainspotting. David Arquette is good but largely wasted, and I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that any film in which Jeffrey Jones dies horribly is going to be great (see Sleepy Hollow for confirmation of this).

The soundtrack, by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn, is rather good and fits the mood well. The photography is excellent and makes good use of the picturesque scenery.

In all, this is a well crafted and generally quite restrained study of a taboo subject, and is certainly much better played and directed than the video nasties it recalls.

There’s also a welcome, very dark streak of

Not too sure what’s going on here. humour running through it which made me laugh out loud on a few occasions (perhaps that’s just my twisted sense of humour).

This isn’t a film for all tastes, and it may put you off meat for life, but if you’re in the mood and have a strong stomach it’s great fun. And to me, by far the most horrific thing about the entire film was Guy Pierce’s hideous woollen jumper. Not a patch on Cannibal: The Musical, mind. HHHHI Joel Coupland

Shrink rapped

Analyze This available to rent now from Albin’s Video

T

he mob are cool. They wear sharp suits, drive around in Limos, have huge houses and sleep with gorgeous women.

Occasionally they kill people, but only because they deserved it. They’re kinda like movie stars with fully automatic weaponry.

That’s one view at least.

Another view is that they’re a bunch of murderers who run

prostitution rings and choke small businesses in the name of ‘protection’. This is a view rarely seen in films, and Analyze This is no exception.

New York mafia boss Paul Vitti (Robert DeNiro) has ‘issues’, of the panic attack variety. Realising that this is bad for his tough guy image, he seeks professional help in the form of shrink Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal) — who, with a crushing inevitability, is soon mixed up with his patient’s rivals and the Feds.

Vitti, far from being a dispicable low-life like most mafiosi, ia a nice bloke who only kills people if they DeNiro and Crystal doing what they do try to take him out

first. His crew are top lads as well, there mostly to act stupid while their boss and the doctor exchange wisecracks. This rosetinted vision of organised crime is irritating, but we’ll let it slide.

Analyze This has some laughout-loud funny moments, mostly resulting from DeNiro and Crystal’s endless stream of one-liners. However, you have to wade through plenty of arse-achingly dull bits to get to them. Director Harold Ramis can do better than this – the classic Groundhog Day for example – but seems here to have just pointed a camera at the leads and let them get on with it. The film seems content to merely throw up every mafia cliché it can think of and hope it’s funny.

Further problems arise with the performances. Both of the

leads seem to be on auto-pilot.

DeNiro has lapsed increasingly into self-parody ever since Goodfellas, and as for Crystal, well, if the man tries to ape Woody Allen any more he’ll end up shagging his daughter.

A further problem is that the blonde kooky one from Friends is in it. There should be a law that no film with anyone from the World’s Shittiest SitcomTM can ever be released by anyone ever.

To conclude then, not soulnumbingly bad but by no means good either. That said, I doubt anyone was really expecting The Godfather with laughs. I did expect something better from Ramis, however. Still, watch it if there’s nothing on TV, if only for the spot-on parody of said classic. HHIII Dan Hartley

16 SEREN May 2000

A NEW ALBUM

music@seren.bangor.ac.uk

His name is...

EMINEM: The Marshall Mathers LP

Eminem plays the mediataunting game like a grand master: ‘Oh, now he’s raping his own mother, abusing whores, s n o r t i n g coke… and we gave him the Rolling Stone cover!’ he mocks, before BAD MEETS EVIL: Dr. Dre and Eminem suddenly rounding and turning arshall Mathers, you his attention to the listener: will have gathered, is ‘Bitch, I’m-a kill you!’ he promthe name on Eminem’s ises, and he really sounds like birth certificate; 1998’s epochal he means it. And then he laughs: The Slim Shady LP introduced ‘I’m just playing, ladies, you us to his larger-than-life, drug- know I love you.’ And he really addled, psychotic alter-ego Slim sounds like he means that too.

Shady, so the name of his second It’s when it’s toying with Dre-produced album would sug- your expectations that The Margest we’re in for something a shall Mathers LP is at its strongbit more honest, personal and est. Killer first single ‘The Real down-to-earth. Hmm. Slim Shady’ trumps ‘My Name The Marshall Mathers LP is, Is’ with a mocking ‘and Dr. Dre startlingly, actually more jaw- said…’ reference and a wry droppingly fuck-you outrageous ‘chicka-chicka-Slim Shady, yeah, than anything we’ve heard from I’m sick of him!’ The album is Eminem before. ‘Just bend over loaded with sly references to and take it like a slut, okay past glories: closing track ‘Crimmom?’ he snarls on ‘Kill You’ inal’ twists and concentrates the before proceeding to detail with intro to 1998’s ‘Still Don’t Give nightmarish glee exactly how he a Fuck’ into, believe it or not, likes to chainsaw heads not quite something even more scary and all the way off, so they’re left ambiguous. And it’s all given so dangling from the neck-stump. much more pith by being interIt’s horribly compelling, like a spersed with such intelligent bloody road accident, and all and affecting moments as the the more so because the effect tragic, almost beautiful, third is not of some bludgeoning lyr- track ‘Stan’, telling the ical pugilist, hammering at a story of an obsessive fan mass of taboos in the hope in the fan’s own words, that something will break, but or the plaintive ‘Marmore of a careful, patient, sur- shall Mathers’, on geon who, with terrible preci- which the eponsion, slides razor-sharp needles ymous emcee directly into nerve-centres. mulls over his

M

overnight ascent from nobody to global hate-figure. He laughs at the suggestion that he means all the things he says on his records, whilst laying into his own family with unnervingly convincing venom and joking about High School massacres and the murder of Gianni Verscace (‘Whoops, somebody shot me! And I was just checking the mail! Geddit? Checking the ‘male’?’)…

The downside? Well, with Dr. Dre at the helm you know the beats and breaks are going to be faultless; but sadly, just like The Slim Shady LP, while The Marshall Mathers LP contains three or so fantastic singles and three or four innovative and excellently-crafted album tracks, the rest is kind of average. I mean, songs like ‘I’m Back’ or ‘Remember Me’ are definitely not bad, but in the company of the genius on display here they sound just as uninspired as ‘Brain Damage’ or ‘I’m Shady’ did on the earlier album. This album didn’t have to come out so soon; it’s a real shame Eminem didn’t take more time to bring the standard of the filler up a bit closer to the good stuff. I was

also decidedly unimpressed to discover that he’s been loosing his lawyers on fan-run websites — though admittedly that‘s rather marginal to the point of an album review.

So The Marshall Mathers LP is in every sense a worthy successor to The Slim Shady LP, and definitely won’t disappoint – indeed, will probably delight – fans of that former album. However, it’s most definitely not for the faint of heart, and anybody expecting all eighteen tracks to sparkle with the same sheen as ‘The Real Slim Shady’ will be in for a let-down (about six of them are under thirty seconds long, for a start). Still, when Eminem gets it right, he gets it very, very right. Say kids, do you like violence? Then buy The Marshall Mathers LP. HHHHI Darien Graham-Smith

Aw, isn’t he cute? Can we take him home?

music@seren.bangor.ac.uk

OTHER NEW ALBUMS

Mission Unlikeable VARIOUS ARTISTS M:I2 OST

W

hatever happened to the metal, eh? There was once a time when being in a metal band meant acting like Satan’s own crack-fuelled stormtroopers attempting to destroy the planet armed only with power chords and a complete inability to sing. Nowadays, if the cackhanded attempts at the genre on display here are anything to go by, to do the metal you need “beats” and a “rapper.”

Put it all together and what have you got? Rap metal. Ewww.

Here Godsmack, the Pimps, ex-Soundgarden misery chimp Chris Cornell and comedy goth Rob Zombie all have equally abysmal goes at that tricky cross-over thing.

There are exceptions. Woodstock gang-rape soundtrackers Limp Bizkit remould the orginal Mission Impossible theme nicely, but are still brain-dead misogynist morons. Buck Cherry and the mighty Metalica (easily the

Limp Bizkit: Everybody knows why we want to hate them best thing here) do straight trad metal impeccably. There’s even, bizarrely, a latino track on here which is kinda cool.

Elsewhere, red-haired queen of dull, pretentious “intellectual” singer-songwriting Tori Amos shows up, doing what she does all the time, i.e. making you want to neck an E and listen to drum ‘n’ bass. Brian May also

appears, in collaboration with the Foo Fighters. Ewww.

That unholy union sums up this whole album, and indeed all hastly cobled together sound tracks; soulless, pointless exercises in money making. As Bill Hicks would say (and this goes double for the Foos), ”Suck Satan’s cock.” HHIII Dan Hartley

If only CRIPTIC

Is This The End?

C

This photo tells you everything you need to know

riptic were thrust into the media glare (Seren) by peoplesound.com.

This is something to do with the “Internet”, where shit indie bands whom labels wouldn’t touch with 20 foot poles are allowed to inflict their dirges on the unwitting public. Hurrah for the technology revolution!

This bunch do cross-over indie/dance music, something which has sucked since immediately after Screamadelica.

Is This The End? won’t be inspiring too many A&R men to take time out from snorting their own body weight in cocaine to investigate further. So Criptic are destined to remain unsigned, probably for ever. HIIII Dan Hartley

SEREN May 2000 17 WITNESS Zero Zero

W

hy do you all like Travis so much? They have three half-way decent songs (‘U16 Girls’, ‘Happy’ and ‘Writing to Reach You’) and all the charisma of a horsefly.

Here, listen to this instead.

It’s more infectious than Travis. It’s more experimental than Travis — listen!

Noises made by computers!

Beats and that! OK, so Witness too have all the charisma of a horsefly, but this is white boy indie guitar rock we’re talking about.

Zero Zero is a gorgeous midpaced affair, all acoustic guitars and keyboards until the surprisingly catchy chorus when bass and drums come in. Not very orginal, but that’s always the way nowadays.

The distinction? Witness are sad; Travis are depressing. Join us. HHHHH Dan Hartley

ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION New Way, New Life

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hangra, dub, punk, and drum ‘n’ bass all in one slick package. Cool! ADF are one of the most socially aware British bands since the Levellers, and many are touting them as the soundtrack of a new youth revolution. Maybe they’re right; there does seem to be a growing feeling amongst young people that merciless global capitalism is, you know, a bad thing. Just look at the riots in Seattle, and the May Day disturbances (not quite a riot — you need lots of people breaking things for that).

Anyway, what about the music? Well, it’s catchy, you can dance to it and it makes you think. Perfect pop in other words. HHHHI Dan Hartley

18 SEREN May 2000

SLIGHTLY LESS NEW ALBUMS

music@seren.bangor.ac.uk

THE WANNADIES Yeah

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Tonight, Matthew, we’re going to be the Human League

Rubber Band ELASTICA The Menace

E

lastica? Weren’t they declared MIA after the great ‘Fuck Britpop™’ massacre of 1997? Well, looks like something’s survived….

First, to answer the obvious question. No, unlike Blur’s 13, The Menace seems wholly unconcerned with the break-up of Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann. (Though of course you can read what you like into all the angsty imagery of tracks like ‘Mad Dog, God Dam’.) Also, unlike 13, The Menace seems to eschew the route of taking the band in a new and exciting direction in favour of making an Elastica cover album.

Okay, that’s a bit harsh. It is after all good business sense to give the public what they want, especially after such a long absence; but much of this is, well, familiar to say the least.

The Menace’s cover is even more of a forced lo-fi affair than Elastica’s eponymous debut, and the production values (or lack of them) seem to be still attempting to prove the band’s indie credibility. ‘How He Wrote Elastica Man’ is just begging to be ‘Connection’ Mk. II, even going so far as to have what seems like a tinny version of the older song playing in the background. Despite the excellent title, ‘Your Arse, My Place’ has none of the swagger of ‘Car Song’ and is instead reliant on the shouting-in-an-affected accent-to-squealy-guitars trick that Elastica still haven’t grown out of yet. Bah. ‘Image Change’ is one of the most markedly original songs on The Menace, sounding like Elastica have roped Massive Attack or the Chemical Brothers in to give them a hand with the beats and beeps. It still harks back to some of the slower, melancholic numbers that they’ve done before, but it’s more polished and intrigues rather than drones. In fact, in a strange way it’s stuff like this that’s the main problem with The Menace, because it hints at how, if only Elastica had stopped relying on lo-fi guitar massacres, they might have populated the album with some more interesting stuff, like the 60s Woodstock vibe of ‘The Way I Like It’.

Still, not a bad album, but only recommended for those who remember or care about Britpop™. HHHII

ention ‘You and Me Song’ to this album and you’ll find yourself in casualty pretty darn fast.

Yeah is for air punching, not smooching, to. Got that? First single ‘Yeah’ was a good sign that the Wannadies were going to come through with an album of chunky, original pop tunes… but don’t So you can walk through a tube? believe all you hear. Listen to the whole album and ‘disappointing’ is the word that springs to mind. Not that anybody was wetting themselves at the prospect of a new Wannadies album, but still it manages to disappoint. It’s a collection of near-identical grim guitar-heavy rock songs with the occasional mournful ballad thrown in for good measure. ‘I Love Myself ’ is good in a kind of ‘Nirvana take up knitting’ way, but the rest of the louder numbers didn’t tempt me to even try to tell them apart. Par Wiksten’s vocals are far too laid back to gel with the racing, thrashlite of ‘Kill You’. It’s like Hugh Grant playing Ghengis Khan.

Soaring ballads and pop songs provide the strongest moments of Yeah. ‘(You)’ is perhaps the only song I’ll be going back to on this album, being less inclined to falling into a dirge-like monotone than some of the rest and hitting the right mix of uplifting and melancholic with an impressively built chorus. Shame the rest of the tracks didn’t quite all work out like that.

It’s a cliché, and I hate wheeling it out again, but this is probably just for hardcore Wannadies fans. If there are any. HHIII Clare Lewis

DJ ASSAULT Belle Isle Tech

S

ome people accuse bands like Blink 182 of being juvenile, but those punk bands have nothing on DJ Assault. He has titles like ‘Asses Jigglin’’, ‘Ass N Titties’ and ‘Drop Dem Panties’. It’s almost funny isn’t it? Perhaps that’s the point. Maybe DJ Assault and partner Mr De are really two stoned students who are just, y’know, fooling with us. God help them both if they really mean it. If you really must know about the music, it’s pretty substandard drum’n’bass, although it occasionally gets interesting when the samples build and build to make a head-fucking collage of noise. This doesn’t excuse the brain dead misogyny though. DJ Asshole more like. HIIII Dan Hartley

THE MURDERERS The Murderers

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hrist this lot are pissed off; but then again, they’re gangsta rappers, so they’re legally obliged to be or something. The problem is, of course, that The Murderers, like all those other angry rap acts, are only ever angry at other rappers. So you get some spectacular dissing of ‘industry ass niggas’, but no rage directed where it should be, towards the police, the government etc. Rap used to do that, remember? Public Enemy back in the day and so forth. Seriously, I’m a white indie kid from Rotherham and I could make a more original, vital hip hop record than this. In a word, shite. IIIII Dan Hartley

SINGLES

music@seren.bangor.ac.uk DESTINY’S CHILD Say My Name

Oh no! Two of the band members have left! Oh well; they’ve got two brand spanking new members, Farrah and Michelle and a super duper new single.

‘Say My Name’ is about when your boyfriend’s on the phone and he just won’t say your name cos he’s with another bird.

Happens to me all the time. Having said that, it’s not as if you’d mess with this quartet after the man-hating ‘Bug a Boo’ and ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’.

In all seriousness, this song is a beautiful piece of R’n’B pop that stands out a mile off the Writings on The Wall album.

James Dawson

Okay, two things: firstly, the chorus makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What’s she on about, ‘don’t drop the baby’?

Secondly, once this song’s in your head it’s never getting out. Will Geri eclipse the Spice Girls completely? Watch this space....

James Dawson

washes over you. I listened to it five minutes ago and I’ve forgotten it already. Avoid.

Dan Hartley

MIDGET These Things You Throw An upbeat rock number with a catchy chorus and bags of energy to keep it racing along.

SEREN May 2000 19 lowed the hugely successful ‘Unbreak My Heart’ with a more aggressive TLC-alike tune.

The song is about (wait for it) a relationship gone bad (quelle surprise), but Toni’s not a bit bothered cos he wasn’t half the man she needed.

On first glance it sounds a little bit boring, and like so m a n y other man-hating R’n’B songs, but after repeated playing, believe me this song will grow on you like a nasty fungus.

James Dawson

SINGLES

THE DRUM Reasons EP

A boring mix of elctronica, guitars and random vocals. Not big, not clever and not something a sane person should want to spend much time in a room alone with. Some of the tracks nearly had me dismantling my CD player to see where the noise that sounded like a bluebottle with its testicles caught in a clamp came from. It would take a really amazing band to turn this pile of cobblers into a listenable track, and The Drum just ain’t it. Avoid it like it was a rabid yak in mating season.

Clare Lewis

GERI HALLIWELL Bag It Up

‘My name is Geri and I really want a large gay audience’ is rapidly becoming this girl’s mantra. Here she enlists the help of some naked pink haired gentlemen as a backdrop to this throbbing disco anthem bearing more than a passing resemblance to her chums’ ‘Who Do You Think You Are’.

KING PRAWN Day In Day Out

Aaargh! Ska! And pretty mediocre ska at that. An overexcited guitars/drummer/singer combo intones ‘better watch your back!’ about a million times over what may be the world’s most repetitive beat. Yawn. The B-Side remix is more of the same, but with a slower beat and about two minutes of the noise of a spaceship from a 50’s B-movie tacked on the start.

Other track ‘Racist Copper’ is too stoopid and hackneyed to mention. So I’m not going to.

Clare Lewis

KNEE-HIGH Matchbox Heroes

Music, in my opinion, should engage the listener on some sort of emotional level. In my case, The Handsome Family are the perfect downer, Rage Against The Machine make me want to mosh like a monkey and Robbie bastard Williams makes me want to kill people (and I swear to God if they play him once more at Trash I will start killing people). Everyone, presumably, has the same sort of deal with different bands.

This single by Knee-High however, just makes me feel ... nothing. It’s a seriously dull acoustic strumalong with comedy bleepy noises that just

It’s probably not going to set the charts alight but cheery enough if you’re a music editor who gets these things for free.

The B-side acoustic tracks show they can actually play their instruments, and the whole package suggests that Midget may be a name to look out for very soon.

Clare Lewis

SAINT ETIENNE How We Used To Live

New millennium, same old Saint Etienne. Electronic-flavoured pop topped off with a sugary sweet vocal from Sarah Cracknell. Even the cover is a bland, anonymous landscape. What’s this? A mid-song tempo change into a fluffy dance number then into a smoky lounge song?

Nope, still not impressed. And as for the B-sides, well, it’s hard to tell where the A-side ends.

Pleasant enough, but, sounding as it does like (a) a toothless Blondie song and (b) a bloody Saint Etienne tune, it does little to endear itself to the casual listener.

Clare Lewis

TONI BRAXTON He Wasn’t Man Enough For Me Toni Braxton has been away and been bankrupt, but it’s okay because she’s finally returned from the obscurity that fol-

UNDERWOLVES So Blue It’s Black

Underwolves bring us a reggae-dance fusion that’s high on atmosphere but low on thrills.

Still, with the summer finally (YES! YES!) about to hit even wet ‘ole Bangor, this moody little number is just the ticket for lounging about outside on summer evenings to.

You get three remixes to play with, which make the tune sound like things ranging from ‘Theme from Shaft’ to a bizarre new age Ricky Martin song.

Only without the mental horror that picture conjures up.

Clare Lewis

WARM Word I Say/New Man

Why didn’t they just stamp ‘WE WANT TO BE RADIOHEAD’ on the sleeve and be done with it? The second of these double A-sides, ‘New Man’, is just dying to follow in the footsteps of Yorke & co. Sadly, it’s a bit pants. And yes, that is a technical term. ‘Word I Say’ is pacier and definitely the top tune, but it sounds a bit dated and well, a bit like a school band that should put away their Oasis albums for a bit.

Clare Lewis

HAPPENINGS

20 SEREN May 2000

culture@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Extreme Bungee Croquet Performed by Rostra in Jock’s Bar on 4th April

T

he title gives you an indication of the kind of wacky, mad and downright fun comedy presented here by Rostra. A night of fast and furious sketches, this production had everything from gay canoeists to axe-wielding moustached murderers to insomniac simpletons. Written and performed by the cast and crew, it was a highly varied and painfully funny evening out.

Ian Fallon was especially memorable. In one sketch, as a suffering Crusoe-type figure, starved of food, living in darkness and cold amongst rats and decay in a tiny cell, he reveals himself to be... a tourist, enduring a stay in a hotel in Rhyl.

Wittier still was his character who hadn’t slept in twelve years, finally driven insane enough to

visit his doctor. Sleeping pills, counting sheep, alcohol, exercise — none of these things would help. The doctor’s final impatient suggestion: ‘have you tried closing your eyes?’ He gave it a try and instantly fell asleep.

Hmm. The scene in Hell was another highlight, with top performances from Frankie O’Dowd as a demon and James Dawson as the fey and effeminate Angel Gabriel. Chris Chapman superbly played a man mistakenly damned via a secretarial mix-up. Although not the serial-killing, rapist he was down on their notes as, so irate is our protagonist that he winds up bursting into a rage of violence and blasphemy, ruining his chances of being re-directed to Heaven!

Chris Woodward hammers the point home to Joel Coupland; Chris Chapman is cock-a-hoop All in all, Extreme Bungee Croquet was a thoroughly enjoyable, punchy and outrageously funny production from the Rostra gang. Jocks’ Bar was fairly well

packed to the rafters with punters, so who knows — maybe this one-off comedy night could become a regular event?

Felicity Collier

The Miracle Maker

Certificate U: shown at Theatr Gwynedd on 24th May

I went along with an open mind to see this film. I wasn’t going to go when I found it was part of the drive to get people into church, but I read some more about it and it was recommended as a good-quality animation. The models are very detailed in the main body of the film, made in 3D in Moscow. The parables and flashbacks are told in brightly-coloured 2D animation, produced in Cardiff,

by Cartýn Cymru. These parts are rather confusing, and break up the story too much. The 3D was shot at 24 frames per second, but has an often jerky look to it.

Computers were used for special effects and to model a lot of the scenes.

The Miracle Maker tells the story of Jesus Bar-Joseph, a carpenter who leaves work and becomes a travelling preacher.

He heals a mad woman (Mary Magdalene) and cures a dying girl called Tamar. Both join his followers, although Tamar’s father Jairus does not initially trust him. At the

same time, a band of freedom fighters led

by Jesus Bar-Abbas is trying to overthrow the Romans by violence; John the Baptist is executed in reprisal. Jesus becomes a political criminal for spreading the word of peace and love. The authorities conspire to condemn and execute him.

There were a few faults with this film. Mary is shown as too young to be mother of a man of 33. It’s never quite clear which of the followers are with the freedom fighters. The conversation Jesus has with the other crucified men and the death of Judas are not referred to. In other respects, however, it was graphically accurate: the characters laugh, bleed, cry. They are all human — although Jesus is the son of God and the miracles are true. Some of the darker aspects of the story are rather too glossed over: if God sets Judas up to betray Jesus, then isn’t Judas just God’s pawn? There was some attempt to explain Judas and Barab-

bas as real people, but the writers could have gone deeper into Judas’ character.

On the other hand, although The Miracle Maker is heavily scripted directly from the Bible, the scenery and the human story stop the viewer getting bored with the formula. I liked the way that the characters are ‘normal’ and can be empathised with. Satan is also in the film, though the story leaves out the question of free will. Those who convict Jesus are the cruel ones, though the film’s writers have God make them so. At least the models were ethnically accurate: the soldier sent to get Jesus is an African.

Jesus offers compassion to thieves, the mentally ill, prostitutes, lepers, tax collectors and the Roman soldier wounded by one of Jesus’ own men. See this film if you don’t mind being preached to a bit; the quality of the models and the writing is generally high.

Karl Sadil

culture@seren.bangor.ac.uk

BOOKS

SEREN May 2000 21

Dangerous Parking

by Stuart Browne Bloomsbury, paperback £9.99

N

oah Arkwright is a successful filmmaker, a husband and father of two. He is also a recovering alcoholic with cancer. The book starts with Arkwright trying to make sense of his life during a journey in Greece, then cuts back and forth through his drink and drugs lifestyle to his domesticated present existence. The action hops between London, America and Africa as the story unfolds.

The blurb on the back of this novel reads ‘The best book about alcoholism, sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, love and death…ever’. The book does contain tales of alcoholism, sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, love and death, but they have all been told before by countless authors, and were probably better written. The worst thing is that it’s not even clear if the author is trying to write a parody about boring, pretentious ex-druggies, or is just a really

WHO WANTS

TO WIN A

Who wrote Henry V, War Criminal? & Other Shakespeare Puzzles?

The first correct answer drawn by November 1st will receive ONE copy of Henry V, War Criminal? & Other Shakespeare Puzzles by John Sutherland and Cedric Watts, as mentioned above.

Jasmine’s decision is final and she’s not taking any weird stuff from you freaks out there.

This is a bad book.

Don’t buy it.

Mara and Dann

by Doris Lessing Flamingo, paperback £6.99

BOOK? S We’ve got ONE copy of John Sutherland and Cedric Watts’ Henry V, War Criminal? & Other Shakespeare Puzzles to give away to a lucky reader. For your shot at happiness, simply email culture@seren.bangor.ac.uk with the answer to this question:

bad writer.

The central protagonist is an intensely unlikeable character. His tale is an indulgent meander down addiction alley, introducing us to people almost as uninteresting as himself. When he meets his future wife, Clare, you almost feel sorry for her, until she turns out to be equally pretentious, arrogant and annoying as he is.

Arkwright doesn’t tell us anything new about substance abuse. He is, in essence, a deeply boring man, and his wild behaviour and ‘cool’ exterior just makes him ridiculous. His life with cancer does make the book more readable, as he then drops the act and lets the story unfold easily and naturally. But the style and tone of the book makes the rest of Noah’s story seem so grinding and foolish it doesn’t seem worth the effort to read it.

et in an indeterminate future, Mara and Dann is the story of a sister and brother travelling across Africa (now called ‘Ifrik’) in search of a better life.

The Northern Hemisphere is in a second Ice Age, while Ifrik is slowly being consumed by drought. The novel starts when Mara and Dann are children, separated from their parents and sent to live with a tribe in Zimbabwe, and follows them as they try to escape from the drought and as they grow into adulthood. Mara and Dann is partly travel dialogue, partly fantasy but predominantly a demanding look at the way human nature is formed.

The events are seen through Mara’s eyes, so this tale is mainly about female experience. Lessing charts how Mara’s nature develops as she encounters racial hostility, marriage, abortion and the constant threat of rape and murder. She also has to cope with her younger brother’s

opium addiction and paranoia.

She is the hero of the story, a strong, intelligent woman whose quick thinking manages to save Dann and her from a lot of lifethreatening danger.

Civilisation as we know it died out a few thousand years before Mara was born, with a second Ice Age destroying most of the world’s population. A few scraps remain from this — a train carriage with no engine and a solar panel, which are viewed with distrust. Most people Mara meet are determined to forget about the technologically advanced past, but Mara is determined to find out more. When she eventually does, she discovers we weren’t so admirable as she thought.

Mara and Dann is a complex novel that asks questions and makes the reader see human experience in an entirely different way. It is also well written, rewarding and believable, and can be seen as a premonition of

the future — Lessing explains that the next Ice Age is overdue, and ‘may begin in a year’s time or in a thousand’. Lessing’s portrayal of Mara and Dann’s relationship is sympathetic and touching, and shows that even thousands of years in the future human nature is still the same.

This is a good book.

Buy it.

BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM TYLER’S ACADEMIC BOOKS, 154 HIGH ST. TEL: (01248) 372057

22 SEREN May 2000

YOUR THINGS

letters@seren.bangor.ac.uk

YOUR LETTERS

Ex-ed responds

Dear Seren — Congratulations!

The new Seren looks great.

However, whilst you wrote some very kind words about my departure in your Editorial, I must point out that I did not produce Seren or the reply to the Union fiasco ‘single-handedly’; Theresa Kudelska was very supportive and did a great deal of the layout herself. She deserves a large proportion of any credit, for she too had sleepless nights at Deadline.

I was also disappointed to read the letter pertaining to February’s front cover. I feel that the cover was valid and had something to say: female menstruation is a taboo (we were censored from printing red blood!). It tied in with the blandness article and was also an attempt at some Serenbrand shock art. It had no sexual context or agenda at all — it was a serious comment on one of society’s many hang-ups. I deliberated fully whether to publish it, questioning whether it would cause offence or was worthwhile, and asked several people’s opinions. Everybody’s reaction was positive, and so I printed it.

Compare that with the March issue’s cover, which had absolutely nothing to say, and which was arguably not particularly attractive to look at, nor humorous. I find it offensive to be called a schoolboy obsessed by women’s bits (they are nice, but hey, that’s beside the point).

Life would be boring if eve-

rything were middle of the road and safe, and I feel it is a student newspaper’s duty to be slightly risqué and challenging both visually and intellectually.

Jamie O’Connell

Stat’s quo

Dear Seren — A response to last issue’s letter on the Psychology Stat’s lectures: it always appears that those who complain about the Seren replies: lecturers are Sincere apolothose that gies to Theresa rarely attend.

Kudelska: we For those that simply didn’t bother the lecrealise. As for turers’ accents Jamie’s other become easily comments, we’d understood love to hear after a couple what other readWe wish someone of sessions. ers think. Episwould bag her up For the tles to the usual record, Stat’s address, if you please. provisions and lecturers in Psychology are great and vastly superior to many other departDear Seren — I read in the ments. For the whinging few national newspapers about the who expect information to be growing drugs problem in delivered on a silver plate, try Wales. How true. We can’t get doing what most of us do: any! You try and get an ounce actually attend the lectures of weed or skunk together and the abundant Stat’s tutoriand it seems impossible. All als. Perhaps even do the readthat’s around is that horrible ing and of course contact the resin, with no flavour at all. lecturers themselves to ask Come on, where’s the confor help; you’ll find they’re sumer choice? amazingly nice people who This is a terrible problem, are enthusiastic and willing to and what’s more, the Monophelp anyone who needs it. olies Commission really needs Ieuan Hopper to check out the pricing here: everyone is set at the same prices. Where’s the consumer choice? I thought the govDear Seren — It’s just a ernment was supposed to be thought, but wouldn’t it save putting an end to ‘Rip-Off Brita whole lot of heartache and ain’? Sod this, I’m migrating annoyance if we had change to Amsterdam for the summer. machines in the Ffriddoedd See you in the mushroom site laundrettes? The burning season! need for 20p pieces that the Yak current system causes is just

Drugs are cool

Dirty money

getting on my tits. People of Bangor, we must unite against this common foe and preserve our quality of life! Well, something like that.

Vernon Bennett

Pie bawled

Dear Seren — I’m writing in response to your review of Paul Weitz’s American Pie (p20, this issue of Seren). I recently saw this film and am still giggling about it as I write.

It does indeed have a teenage, all-American High School ‘ooh, aren’t we naughty!’ feel, and yes, its basic premise is the quest of four hormoneridden young things to lose their virginity, but it’s FUNNY! It works! It’s not profound or intellectually challenging but it doesn’t claim to be! ‘Lacklustre’ it’s certainly not.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I liked it. It’s a good, funny, stupid film and it made me laugh and cringe and hope against hope that men really, possibly, could not be that obsessed with sex (who was I trying to kid?)

The ending is indeed one of hair-stroking, sun-setting soppiness, but as by that point I had given up all hope of anything at all romantic occurring, it seemed fitting, if a little trite. So hurrah! It’s good.

HHHHI

H Fisher

Election scandal

Dear Seren — Raaaah! Don’t we love election time! Out of the (approx.) 7,500 students in

Shout. Shout. Let it all out. It’s your letters@seren.bangor.ac.uk

YOUR THINGS

letters@seren.bangor.ac.uk Bangor a little over 850 people voted! This is about an 11.3% turnout — worse even than the elections for the European Parliament! Ah, Union incompetence mixed with Student apathy.

And as one who did actually vote this year, I was even more worried when I was accosted by one of the campaigner-supporter people outside the Union. A dark-haired lady, claiming to be a Sabbatical Officer, claimed that the real reason the elections had been re-opened was Niall Duffy being overheard saying he was certain to get president, because he’d taken down all the nominations posters — and that he was then suspended after this was passed onto NUS for investigation.

As Niall Duffy was able to keep standing, I assume he was innocent: so why was this officer spreading these presumably unfounded allegations? Since she gave her position I assume she was representing that Union. A lot of people have heard this rumour; the Union should publicly explain the truth, particularly as I understand Niall Duffy will continue to be president until August-time.

It’s just another nail in the coffin of this year’s elections.

Matt Doors

T

Old news

he more astute of you will have noticed that this month’s Seren is, shall we say, un soupçon de retard. Well, it’s like this: Seren was supposed to be out last term, but when the elections were postponed, the issue had to be delayed. After all, the election of a new Executive Committee is pretty much the most significant thing that happens in the SU, and, since Seren costs money to print, it would have been irresponsible of us to bring out a new issue just a week before the elections and then have to publish an update to bring you all the results.

So, to cut a long story short, we didn’t. The fabled April issue was held over until it became the May issue you’re reading now.

So what of April’s articles? Well, we could have thrown them all out; but we didn’t. You’ll have seen, for example, Chris Chapman’s review of The Phantom Menace, which was released to buy on VHS last month. Were you waiting to see what Seren had to say before buying it? Thought not. But everybody likes to read reviews of films they’ve already seen, albums they’ve already heard, books they’ve already read — just to see if they agree. At least, we here at Seren do. So for the most part we’ve kept over last month’s reviews, whilst adding in the more recent stuff to make this month’s Seren the most review-tastic issue since records began. After all, all the videos we reviewed last month are still available to rent; the albums and books are still avail-

Immense hatred

Dear Seren — I was disgusted to see that the band Westlife were number one in the singles charts (this was long, long ago, but my anger still burns!).

I suspect that the record-buying population of Bangor must partly responsible. Therefore, I suggest a survey to establish which students bought the single, then a giant culling of all the responsible individuals.

I feel it is the only course of action that remains open to us. Thank you.

Charlton Taylor

SEREN May 2000 23

Editor Layout Production EMB News Analysis SU Movies Music Culture AOB Sport MIA

Darien G-Smith Likewise Julie Neild Ian Fallon Kevin Shoesmith Karl Sadil Adam Pearson Chris Chapman Clare Lewis Jasmine Stables Lola Kidney Ben Caile Derek the Dodo

able to buy; you get the idea. Even the films will probably still be on at the cinema when you get home for the holidays, assuming you live in some sort of sensibly-sized city and not, eg, Bangor.

W

Home time

ell, that’s that. The end of term is upon us — or quite possibly past, given the cavalcade of locked SUs, forced ejections, postponed elections and vivisections that have conspired to damn near prevent this issue of Seren from reaching you.

But hey; by hook or by crook we’ve all made it this far. Exams have been and gone. Many of you are moving on to pastures new, and those of us who remain can only pass on our best wishes and hope that you find a life that makes you happy (and believe me, it’s not all about money, though right now it probably feels like it is.)

For the rest of us it’s just a case of shuffling on up to make way for a whole new year of freshfaced young things for whom the adventure is only just beginning. That was us, once; but, probably without even noticing it, we have acquired experiences, friends, even partners. Next term we will be to the new first years what those who are leaving once were to us: the cognoscenti; the old school. Funny how time ticks by.

Anyway, if you only take one thing away from this academic year, make it this: if you ever meet Stephen Hawking, don’t ask him for his autograph because that would be horribly tactless.

seren

Students’ Union, Deiniol Road LL57 2TH Tel: 01248 388017 Fax: 01248 388020 Seren is the monthly magazine of UWB Students’ Union.

Its editorial independence is guaranteed by the SU’s constitution. If you’d like to get involved, send an email to the address above the relevant section or contact the editor directly. Thanks once again to Deadline, Argraffdy Menai and all the young dudes. Peace.

When the truth is found to be lies / And all the joy within you dies Don’t you want somebody to love? / Don’t you need somebody to love?

24 SEREN May 2000

PULLING ‘EM DOWN

features@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Poster politics

Last month the Surf Team was forced to apologise over a Nice Choons poster featuring a pornographic picture — but Frankie O’Dowd and her colleagues had already ripped many of them down. Were they right to do so?

YES P

says Frankie O’Dowd icture a girl wearing a Stetson and a gun belt, smoking a cigar. She has her nipples barely covered by a line of green text. Her pubic hair has been badly airbrushed to a flesh colour. A page out of a low quality porn magazine? No, a very badly thoughtout idea to advertise the Surf Team’s ‘Nice Choons’ event.

I am proud to say that where I saw this poster, I ripped it down. My friends ripped it down and I’ve had a few reports that others were concerned enough to tear the posters off walls too.

I am not and never will be against pornography. It is one of the few professions where women get higher salaries than men do. I have no objection to men and women appearing in pictures, films etc. naked or having sex. Porn is really quite funny. So before anyone starts to accuse me of objecting to the posters because they featured a naked woman, they can think again. I am a woman, I don’t find anything weird about female nudity.

My main objection to the posters was that the photo had nothing to do with ‘Nice Choons’. It was a cheap and tacky gimmick which only reflects badly on the mentality of the Surf Team. It was pornography used only for the sake of using it. I fail to see how a nude cowgirl has anything to do with ‘Nice Choons’, or music, or surfing for that matter.

The posters were plastered all over the different hall sites.

This showed extreme stupidity; students who move into halls with their children, or those of us who have relatives visit, would not have appreciated them. The Obscene Publications Act points to material not corrupting anyone who accidentally sees it. Basically, anyone who wants to buy porn can, but it must not upset anyone, such as a child, who might inadvertently see it. The Surf Team blatantly didn’t care who might see their posters. Again I have no problem with the making of porn, or selling, etc, but when no forethought is given as to where a poster showing an image of nudity is put up, there I object.

Let me state categorically that I am against censorship. I am, however, against thoughtless and possibly upsetting material being placed where you have no choice of viewing it or not. Case in point: these posters.

The posters also reflected badly on the Union, as this was a Union-sponsored event.

In fact, the Surf Team didn’t get full approval from the sabbatical AU President before putting up their advertising posters. Due credit to the AU President; after raising this point at an Exec Meeting I received an apology from the Surf Team by means of

a letter.

I followed a course that I believed was right. I put myself forward to take responsibility for actions that I, my friends and many others took, in taking down these posters and object-

Do you have a problem with this sort of thing? ing to them. Would you like to have your home bedecked with tacky pornography without your permission? I only hope that in future, clubs and societies will keep their porn collections to themselves, and not display them on posters.

NO

says Darien GrahamSmith

A

nother naked woman, another backlash. Me, I don’t see the problem.

Yes, low-grade porn tends to objectify its subject and is rarely very sexy. But that debate is a red herring; the picture’s function in this poster is not so much erotic as semiotic. Merely a symbol of overt sexuality, it inverts nightclub convention by leaving the music implicit while making the sexual undercurrent explicit. At the same time, the posed, unreal, pornographic nature of the image undermines the promise of sex by portraying it as fictive and manufactured. It is a self-cheapening gimmick: the event is at once both a hedonistic meat-market and a knowing lampoon of one. The word we’re looking for here is irony.

But why bother decoding a poster when you can just rip it down?

Of course, we’re not supposed to worry about the significance of the picture anyway, as the auteuse of this particular work of censorship insists that she is not against pornography.

Personally, I think it’s a shame when women feel the need to conspicuously accept pornography, presumably for fear the hard-won privilege will be with-

aob@seren.bangor.ac.uk drawn. Why not just come out and say that some porn can be fun and sexy, but that this particular poster promoted a mechanical, anticlitoral perception of sex? Then we could have had an honest debate as to whether or not it was liable to result in worse sex for women (or some even worse outcome), and, weighing our conclusion against the intended reaction, decide whether or not we agree with the Surf Team’d using the image the way they did.

But no; the broadside of pejoratives loosed at it by its soi-disante champion notwithstanding, we’re assured that the picture isn’t the problem: this clean-up was aimed only at sparing the blushes of mothers, visiting relatives and the rest of the illiberal, prudish, unenlightened world. How thoughtful. How responsible.

Well I’m sorry, but I believe mothers and visiting relatives should be given the chance to speak up for themselves. The alternative seems to me repulsively presumptuous. The issue might be foggier had the posters depicted some degrading or non-consensual act, but, as the Surf Team’s forced apology makes clear, this was nothing particularly shocking. To set out to censor the image in the name of protecting others whilst wearing on one’s sleeve one’s pro-porn credentials seems to me the height of hypocrisy.

When the Surf Team issued these posters they surely recognised the potential for offence.

Those who judged the posters inappropriate were always free to boycott the event, complain or otherwise communicate their concerns. But thanks to a small band of self-appointed moral guardians, many of us never had the chance to make this judgment for ourselves, participate in the debate and register our views. I suppose we must be grateful that at least this particular censor has had the courage to publicly own her actions.

HOROSCOPES

SEREN May 2000 25

Coming up...

Mary Stone returns to terrorise your neighbourhood Aries

Leo

Pour energy into sorting money matters. Want a loan? You have the mixture of charm and drive to secure it. Putting cash toward summer travel is worthwhile if you plan carefully. Go for value of experience not unnecessary luxury. Put yourself in the forefront for whatever reason, you are sparkling with charisma.

You have itchy feet and an active mind this month. It will be easier to apply yourself to developing idaes especially if it involves thinking laterally. Your plans get the go ahead. You impress now, but may seem too pushy or over keen.. If you don’t have an interview lined up, chase up leads.

You ooze success.

Sagittarius

^bf

March 21st - April 20th

July 24th - August 23rd

November 23rd - December 21st

Your will to work is tremendous; get much done so you’ll be free later. Watch out for your health, as a sudden accident may upset your routine. Enjoy a moment of fun-loving indulgence with someone you fancy: it will be a well deserved treat. There’s also fun to be had with siblings and neighbours.

_cg `dh ae i

Taurus

Virgo

Capricorn

Full steam ahead this month. You are endowed with energy, enthusiasm, ambition and have all the facts in front. Be bold and trust in your instincts especially if you want to promote your creative potential. If a friend lets you in on a secret it could lead you to realise your own feelings about a particular issue.

Bright ideas make work more interesting. Don’t hoard these ideas and work alone as you will put some backs up. You feel cramped in and want to branch out, if travel is not possible turn your mind to stimulating topics that are fun as well. You are strong willed now and need your freedom badly.

You are the life and soul of the party. If it is a party for two so much the better! Indulge to the max as your limits are endless. Taking time out for your family will get lots of pampering. Making a special effort for someone will be rewarded. You might be surprised by the generosity of a certain person.

April 21st - May 21st

August 24th - September 23rd

December 22nd - January 20th

Gemini

Libra

Aquarius

Relationships are a link to your psyche, as others will channel parts of your personality that are difficult to acknowledge.

Your recent vitality is infectious.

Warm and friendly, you have plenty of bright ideas, especially concerning your love-ife.

Your original approach to amour makes you hard to resist.

Relationships are in focus this month — generally for the good. New romances will be full of promise, maybe a fling will turn into something more.

You can do no wrong in others’ eyes. Coupled with this surge of romance is an increased libido.

You won’t think twice about making the first move. But be careful not to scare folks off.

Friends are demanding your attention, but the results could be fun and exciting. Your magnetic charisma is addictive and everyone wants to be with you.

Your family is also making demands, so if you have plans include them. If tempers flare turn your hands to being of practical use; then you will be appreciated.

May 22nd - June 21st

September 24th - October 23rd

January 21st - February 19th

Cancer

Scorpio

Pisces

You will shine at work in the coming weeks. Accolades and rewards could be yours, so enjoy the attention. Put more effort into job hunting now if you are unemployed. Go out on the town and have fun especially if you have to work over Easter. Friends are a real motivators and enthusiasts who have lots of valuable advice.

A sudden unexpected event and when you least expected it you’re swept you into the dating game again! An irreppressible urge makes you jump in before you realise just how desperate you were... only trouble is, right now work is – and should be – at the top of your list of priorities. So knuckle down and manage your time wisely.

Finance needs your attention.

A little tweak and your funds should see an increase. But keep all your dealings above board.

You are the merry messenger with all the gossip, so be careful that your tongue doesn’t run on. Avoid last minute rusharounds. Concentration will help avoid accidents, especially on the road.

June 22nd - July 23rd

October 24th - November 22nd

February 20th - March 20th

RANT IN E MINOR

26 SEREN May 2000

aob@seren.bangor.ac.uk

Never fade away

EMB sounds off about the state of music in Bangor and further afield

R

ock, as I believe Marilyn Manson once said, is dead. And it’s true. I know it’s true because the music press tells me so. Every six months or thereabouts.

Of course, if I was feeling particularly sceptical I might question the shocking frequency with which this proclamation is made.

In the same vein, I might point out the correlation between doomsaying and an increase in circulation of a paper. I could say that it’s quite likely to just be an attempt to sell a few more copies of their magazine before they follow it up a couple of months later with their ‘hot tips’ for the next year’s vibrant new music scene. I could say all these things but I won’t, as that’s an incredibly cynical way to view the world, don’t you think?

So back to my original point: rock is dead. I know and you know that there are rock bands out there (and many other types of bands when you get down to it) and some of them make really good music – music that can touch your soul, make you want to grow your hair or maybe just make you want to jump around a bit – but an album or a single here and there is not enough to keep rock alive. A few B-sides six months after you’ve got to the point where you’ve heard the album too many times is barely a heartbeat.

So instead of keeping your album collection pure, you find yourself diluting it with pap while you wait for the bands you really love to get their collective fingers out and make another record. A case in point might be the Travis album The Man Who; it’s not a bad album, don’t get me wrong, but it just doesn’t seem to have enough there to really get excited about — I bought it and still haven’t felt

the urge to listen to it a second time. Second-rate bands are filling up my CD rack while bands that I love are spending years getting a new album together (stand up Radiohead, you bunch of slackers — the new stuff had better be fucking fantastic). If this is the future of rock – one or two albums of any merit every five years – then yes, my friends, Marilyn was right all along.

people came along. That’s not RAG’s fault. It’s probably not the bands’ fault either (I don’t actually know as I wasn’t one of the 127) but I don’t think it’s fair to blame the people who went to Trash either. I think people need to realise that there have been occasions when a band has played on a Wednesday night and this has resulted in Trash being cancelled. These people

The Rolling Stones. They’re so not coming to Bangor.

S

o it falls to us, the peoples, to keep rock alive for ourselves. We must crusade for our rock (oops — and maybe mix some metaphors while we’re at it). Look around for the next big thing; after all there’s nothing quite like being among the very first to get into a band — especially if they’re any good. And it’s such a rush to find a fantastic band playing live. But fantastic bands don’t seem know where Bangor is.

Where to place the blame?

Where to place the blame? Could we blame the union? I suppose we could. After all, they generally only seem interested in shoving dancy crap down our throats. But on the other hand they do seem to give us a band every now and then — behold the RAG spectacular! Yes, RAG attempted cardio-pulmonary-ventilation on poor old rock. What happened? That’s right, only 127

are then forced to sit in Time (a venue spurned by quite a number) and listen to other bands’ songs being butchered by a band with no material of their own. Why can’t bands play on a different night? People who like Trash would also like to go and see live music but they just don’t feel comfortable in giving up a night they know is good to chance a night which could be absolutely dire.

W

hy aren’t there more student bands?

Bangor doesn’t seem to have a particularly vibrant student music scene and to be honest that surprises the Hell out of me. Surely there’s more than two or three people out there who can hear ‘destiny calling’ (© 1998 James)? I’d like to apportion some of the blame to the Music department. When I tried to start a band they weren’t exactly helpful or encouraging:

‘We can’t give you anywhere to rehearse or give you access to anything to rehearse with (like a PA or a drum kit). We suppose that you could put up some posters around the department to attract members but we think you’d be better off advertising at the union. Now go away.’ Okay, I’m paraphrasing slightly but you get the gist. What’s to be done?

You can’t practice in your house — the landlord doesn’t like it.

‘You read our agreement! This break everything you sign! You! You — big bass man! Why you come here?’ And so hopes and dreams fade away before they even start.

And there you have it. Rock may not be completely dead — maybe it’s just playing dead so that we’ll leave it alone and pick on something else for a while. But affirmative action is required! C’mon all you rockers and rock chicklets out there! Do you want this state of affairs to continue? Then get out there and do something! Start a band!

Or try and get bands that you like to come here! Otherwise, all you’ve got is Trash, and that’s just not enough. As for myself?

Well, I’m not just sitting on my arse bitching about stuff (at least not all the time); it’s just that my own plans for musical world domination have had to take a backseat of late when our drummer decided to break his fucking ankle. But once we’re ready to rock – and we will be ready to rock at some point – I’m hoping that people will come and watch and dance and love us. I just pray that we won’t be all you’ve got left.

The author sends a big shout out to Andrea Waring for giving us the George Bar to practise in on Saturday afternoons: a shining light in the eternal darkness.

MOLOTOV LITERATURE

molotov@seren.bangor.ac.uk

SEREN April 2000 27

It’s a man’s world

David O. MacGowan kicks over the traces of a night out

T

hey’re just the wrong people in the wrong place at the right time, but I have my sights on David ‘Sarong’ Beckham and his lovely wife Victoria (‘Reasonably Comfortable Spice’). Mind you, like the rest of this fair isle’s population, I can hardly not have them in my sights, all over the media as they are.

It’s enough to make me genuinely envy my Great Uncle Molotov, columnist for the Red Army Herald: blinded in a vicious attack he may have been (by a group of moptops protesting at his ‘Ban These Sick Beatles’ article), but at least he’d have been spared the sight of a grinning anorexic hobbling down a catwalk dressed as Chris Moyles’ snot, and was never subjected to endless special issues of Hiya! magazine with the Posh Twosome whoring away their already-spoilt child to the willing pimps of our national press (metaphorically of course).

What exactly makes me detest them thus? Is it their disgusting and inane pampering of a child too small to care, a pampering that has less to do with the comfort of baby Brooklyn (the poor sod’ll love mumsie for that one) and more to do with the Beckhams’ desire to flaunt their wealth so crassly that nobody can ignore them?

Is it the fact that they continue to deny enjoying their relationship with that crosspollinated audience of media darlings, paparazzi and Sun readers, decrying their supposed ‘intrusion’ and ‘lack of empathy’ at every given opportunity despite, in actuality, loving every goddamn egotistical minute of it?

Or is it just the fact that I hold an irrational hatred of any fuckwit who, despite having no discernible talent whatsoever

save the professional equivalent of singing in front of the mirror with a hairbrush or kicking an inflated pig’s bladder up and down a field, is hailed as an arbiter of style, good taste and post90’s modernity when in fact they should be on the failed-GCSE scrapheap with the rest of the vacant idle wannabes, watching the sky-high pay-cheques go to nurses, teachers and

otov Literature than just write a column with that name, it was a strictly black and white affair. All men, all heterosexual men that is, were shit. Simple As. Everywhere my meek little workshy queerboy Morrissey-fixated frame went, there they were, making their presence known, filling up every moment of silence, following their urge to impinge on your space, on your

All it takes is one night to remind you of the reality of the world you’re living in. indeed anybody who actually Does A Job, does it well, and possesses intelligence, wit, style and humour somewhat in excess of that of a stuffed and mounted platypus (look it up, Beckham)?

Yes, I think that’s it.

A

nd now the loneliness of the long-distance column writer.

Michael Crawford may have run himself into a silver screen mental and physical breakdown, but there are times when all I can come up with is the pen and ink equivalent of ‘Abort, Retry, Fail’. The risk of nobody reading this is a virtual certainty in my head – this is Seren, after all – and as for not being liked, well, I’ve lived long enough to get used to my opinions slipping through people’s cracks (quite literally, in my erotic writing career).

What worries me is repetition. Certain related themes keep thrusting their rusty fisogs in me glazzys, usually unexpectedly. This whole men thing, y’see. In my militant days, when I was more likely to literally Mol-

existence. And behind everything, every little word, every little gesture, you knew there was something sinister. Something animal and violent, just waiting for an excuse to bubble up to the surface, the thing people secretly fear in their male partners. You knew, because deep down, you were virtually one of them.

But then, as I entered a heterosexual relationship, I entered too a social world, a world of Getting Along With Others. And, you know, superficially at least, straight men are all right really.

Always there with a joke or two, some of them are very talented, you know, and not all of them are egotistical shits, and so what if most of them are ugly fucks, at least they’re not evil, right?

At least all they want is a normal life. Like the rest of us.

So — goodbye to all that, I thought.

But one night is all it takes to ruin a thing.

One night is all it takes to scratch away the veneer, to pull you back, to remind you of

the reality of the human world you’re living in, the male world, the world of control and violence and fear and coldness and repression and a million other things you can point to every day, no matter how banal they appear.

Two-point-four children.

Rape. What’s the difference between Santa Claus and an intelligent blonde? The poster on your wall. The House Of Lords. Strange fruit hanging from the tree. Slut. Slag. Bitch.

Whore. Faggot. Dyke. Bent.

Jewboy. Queer. Nigger. Smells.

Like. Teen. Spirit.

‘What?’

You’re dancing, you’re talking, it’s Trash, main bar, pissed, happy, Wednesday night, good.

You hear a guitar — Nirvana?

Teen Spirit? You wanna dance!

But you can’t. Something new is in the air now. Not booze, not smoke. It’s the smell you thought you’d finally escaped from, that smell that takes you back, that makes you sad and small and angry all at the same time... testosterone. In all its glory. The smell that tells you the world has a long way to go before your argument breaks down... can’t think... testosterone – on the dancefloor – men hitting, grabbing – they take it so seriously – the one in the black shirt, looking away as he pushes me to the floor – men grabbing, men pushing – all to this, this music, this music I love, that I thought meant something to me – something else, a long time ago – argument breaks up – words break up...

Men. Here to stay.

I stumble away, me and Clare go home. We leave.

And now there’s something in my head again that won’t go away. Not until it has good reason.

SPORT

28 SEREN May 2000

sport@seren.bangor.ac.uk

SHAPE team runs marathon O

n Sunday 16th April 2000 the World’s largest fund-raising marathon took place — the Flora London Marathon. Its prestige was greatly enhanced by the presence of 20 Bangor University Students.

Back in November 1999, a vaguely deranged PhD student from the SHAPE department named Deborah Fleming had the bright idea of setting up a team to raise money for local Children’s charities and improving student relations with the Community. Come March 2000, 20 dedicated SHAPE students were pounding the roads and mountains of Bangor day in, day out, preparing to meet the Olympian challenge and raise money for four National children’s charities: NSPCC, Childline, Whizzkidz

(movement for non-mobile children) and the Asthma Campaign. All money raised is to be allocated to the North Wales Region.

Ahead of the event the the team had a potential £15,000 in pledges and £4,000 already in hand through fund-raising events such as a pancake delivery service on Shrove Tuesday, a pub quiz at the Albion, a record number of raffles and a thirty-hour treadmill run at Tesco.

THE RUNNERS Back row (from left): Ioz Jones, Chris Byrne, Ian Wood, Dave Middleton Eglan, Kate Giegiel, Stuart Laing, Juliet Bailey, Sion Quinn, Wayne Scott Roberts.

Front row: Becky Kendall, Debbie Fleming, Ali Casey, Marie Field, Kate Reid, Donna Carinboeuf Clarke.

AU awards A

t this year’s annual AU dinner the following awards were presented by AU President Alison Casey.

CLUB OF THE YEAR Men’s Hockey FULL COLOURS Chris Anderson (Men’s Hockey); Louise Bingham (Sailing); Lorna Davidson (Ladies’ Hockey); Leslie Ditchfield (Ladies’ Hockey); Richard Gomersall (Men’s Hockey);

Darren Jones (Men’s Football); Denise Marie Newsome (Horse Riding); Jayne Smith (Rowing); Rhian Thomas (Sailing) BLUES Chris Anderson (Men’s Hockey); Catriona Beggs (Gaelic Football); Richard Honeyford (Sailing) AU AWARD Nan Owen SPORTING PERSONALITIES OF THE YEAR Faris Alaskari & Catriona Beggs

Sticking it to ‘em: the Men’s Hockey team celebrates winning Club of the Year

UWB Gymnasts enter BUSA On Saturday March 25th, UWB was represented at the BUSA Gymnastics championships for the first time in history. The competition was held at Lilleshall National Sport Centre, home of British Gymnastics.

First year zoology student Christine Pordham finished seventh overall with scores of 9.000 on the floor, 8.450 on the vault and 8.975 on the beam to finish with a total of 26.425.

Gym club captain, Rebecca Morris finished 14th overall with scores of 8.450, 8.300 and 8.675 on floor, vault and beam respectively.

“It was great to break new ground for Bangor,” said Rebecca. “Our aim now is to return next year with enough gymnasts to take part in the team event. We are always on the lookout for new members.

Anyone interested should come along to training at Maes Glas on Thursdays 6-8pm or email me on gymnastics@undeb.ac.uk.”