Issuu [smiths]

issue seventy two | january | twenty fifteen

editors letter Dear readers, Welcome to issue 72, the first printed issue of the academic year.

If you haven’t met us already, then consider this a formal introduction. We are the award winning and official magazine publication for Goldsmiths Student Union, here to provide you with an abundance of articles that will get your brain connections ticking and creative fingers itching. Providing everything from Politics, to Food & Drink alongside Literary & Creative and many other sections, there is really something for everybody in our little bundle.

Last Summer [smiths] was taken over by a whole new editorial team, one of the largest in its over fifty year history, who have worked exceedingly hard to present to you a fresh and current publication that we are very proud of.

At the start of the year we received a wealth of compliments on the re-design of our online publication, created especially for us by the very talented James Oldfield, and so we only hope that you love the re-design of our print editions just as much.

Not only has the design of [smiths] evolved, but so has the size. We have increased the issue by almost double, aiming to give you a beautiful and substantial hard copy of printed word, which you can keep to remind you of your time at Goldsmiths.

In this issue you will find the scrutiny of art, through an interview with the Fine Art MFA leader at Goldsmiths, as well as a number of answers to the question ‘What Is Art To You?’ and the chance for your work to be published in our web or print publications. You will also come across the winners of our poetry competition, in which you were asked to write something along the theme of ‘Pretention,’ as well one of the most unique approaches to restaurant reviews we have ever published.

This issue also sees the Fashion team questioning why they can’t get their fucking nipples out, and the Music team pondering over the kids who mindlessly masturbate over Alex Turner, forgetting the sassy political punk era trailing behind them.

So sit back, grab a flat white from Bridy Num Nuts, and bask in the words of your classmates.

Enjoy! Lots of love, Taylor and Hannah Senior Editors

Art & Culture What is Art to You? - 4 I’m Reliant on Technology and I Hate it. - 6 Words With David Mabb - 8 I Everybody an Artist Now? - 1 0 Is Cinema a Dying Artform? - 1 2 Tracey Emin : White Cube, Bermondsey - 1 4 Rethinking Celebrities and Mental Health - 1 6

Tr a v e l How To Have Your Identity Stolen in Barcelona - 1 8 Losing My Hitchhiking Virginity - 2 0 The Feast - 2 2 The Time I Thought I Was Going to Die on a Bus - 2 4 A City of Contrasts - 2 6 The Kindness of Strangers - 2 8 TheProblem with Travel Writing - 3 0

Literary & Creative Poem Made From The Definitions of two Letter Scrabble Words - 3 4 Poem by (poet) - 3 6 We Need to Talk About Race Again: What’s Wrong With Alt Lit - 3 8 Books of my Body - 4 0 Untitled - 4 2 Weight - 4 4 Third Time Lucky - 4 6

Food & Drink Why Are There So Many Bullshit Bourgeois Watering Holes in New Cross? - 4 8 Hangover Cures - 5 0 I Ate Nothing But Superfoods For a Week and I’m Still Mortal - 5 2 Restauranterrific: Not Your Average Restaurant Review- 5 4 Food Porn - 5 5

Fashion Waiting For Sun - 6 0 Hey Macklemore, Let’s Go Thrift Shopping - 6 6 Long Live the Trainer - 6 8 A Political Fashion Statement - 7 0 Nipping it in the Bud - 7 2

Music

IMAGE BY STEFAN SCHWEIHOFER

Hookworms Infecting! - 7 4 Wanking Over Alex Turner: The Lack of Politics in Music- 7 6 A Moment of Happyness - 7 8 Head, Heart & Ballz: An Interview With Fiende Fatale - 8 0 The Dalai Gaga - 8 2

Politics Food for Thought - 8 4 IS: Fact From Fiction - 8 6 Lads Mags: The Ugly Truth - 8 8 Free Education Protests - 9 0 Should Sex Sell? - 9 2 Hong Kong: The Hub of Diversity - 9 4

What is Art to You? The [smiths] Arts & Culture team challenge their fellow writers to answer one confounding question

As the Arts & Culture editors for the magazine of such a renowned liberal collage, we could not help but start to question the very core of our being at Goldsmiths: the art. Why do we feel a lingering urge to make art? Why do we even bother thinking about it? How does it translate in our daily lives? But more importantly: why are we so attracted to it? Mulling over these questions, we decided to challenge three of our writers to answer the one question for which no marking is allowed: What is art to you?

N.B: No students were harmed with extra readings of Bourdieu, Foucault or Kant during the writing of this article.

- Feride Sahin Art to me is everything and everyone. Art has been around since the start of time and I think will be around until the end of time. From the way you dress, to the way you do your hair.

It demonstrates your individuality. Food is art. Make-up is art.

The colour of your eyes is art. Technology is art. Everywhere you look is art. The architecture around you is art. Everything that includes design is art. Sound is art. From music, to the sounds you hear outside. To me, there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to art. It is there to express the way you feel there and then, with no one telling you it’s wrong. Art is what appeals and what is beautiful to you. Art can be messy or it can be neat. It can be used to communicate or to get rid of your boredom. The way you speak or the way you write is art. It can be abstract or it can be contemporary. It can be 2D or it can be 3D. Art comes in several different forms. Art is freedom and to me it defines humanity. Art is also a noun.

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- Christina Deakin I drew pretty faces, and my work was considered ‘art’. But what in these attractive blank faces actually resembled art? Was it the big empty glossy eyes, or the perfect round curves of the graphite pout? What narrow closed off perspective of art allowed my pretty faces to hold such high praise? Art is not pretty or attractive, but beautiful and ugly. Art is true, revealing not only our dreams but also our reality. Art is a face with eyes full of spirit and a mouth ready to speak. A simple pretty face is not art. For a pretty face to be artistic, it must take on the challenge to express beautiful ideas and ugly truths. I don’t draw pretty faces anymore; they were never ‘art’. Although my view on art seems to be narrowly focused on just faces and personality, it was an attempt to display my realisation that art is a force and a lifestyle, not only an object with aesthetic pleasure. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live a life of art? Wouldn’t it be wonderful for us all to be art?

Art & Culture

– Je n n i f e r Pa v l i c k

“

Art is freedom and t o m e i t d e f i n e s h u m a n i t y.

Art is also a noun.

”

IMAGE BY TAYLOR MCGRAA

When presented with the question ‘What Is Art To You?’ I have to acknowledge its close proximity to the dangerous and stale ‘What Is Art?’ However, here, the specificity of ‘to you’ alleviates the impending failure, the hopelessness, and the futility of attempting to answer, ‘What Is Art’ and re-frames itself as a question worth answering. For me, art is the space in between, where answers are not absolute and feelings are not resolved. It is the joining of many to create a new singular.

Art is in the everyday, in the ordinary, and it is what keeps the ordinary from becoming dull. It is the point of intersection, a collision that allows for an outcome that one could not predict, foresee, or contrive. Art is a precise point that reaches beyond its restrictions, it is easy to overlook, often goes unnoticed, but it is what gives me pleasure in my surroundings, my encounters, and my interactions.

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Art & Culture

I’m Reliant on Technology, and I Hate it Alex E. Lee looks at our growing reliance on technolog y and why we should all be concerned.

IMAGE BY ROXANNAH LINKLATER

In this day and age, where privacy and anonymity are practically non-existent, I feel like it’s still not acceptable for people to behave like paranoid Internet hermits. Why isn’t it okay if I want to meticulously read the privacy policy for selfie-taking apps before downloading them due to my rational skepticism of the developers’ malicious intent? Shouldn’t it be absolutely fine to allow myself a couple of seconds to think about how secure my thumb print really is before I tap it on the Touch ID sensor of my phone? I feel no shame in admitting my cynicism of any company that mines my data without upholding any form of transparency. But I have to watch out for more technological pitfalls than most, because I have a visual impairment. In situations where people can get away with avoiding technology, I can’t.

When you have a visual impairment, online privacy can be comparable to a double-edged sword. Dictation is a solution to many problems I face on a daily basis - it’s fantastic, but it fills me with dread whenever I use it. The software has learned my voice, it has mapped out every single syllable I have ever spoken and has registered every change in pitch that I have made; the software knows me inside out. The company now has access to a treasure trove of voiceprints that could identify me in seconds. If I could avoid having to use dictation to write my essays or create voice memos, I would dodge it like hellfire.

Alas, I need the technology because it makes my life easier.

This got me thinking about how phones these days are filled to the brim with our personal data that we willingly share. Of course, we use Siri, because it’s fun to shout expletives at the thing, (or in my case use Siri for something productive like

sending a text), but who knows if doing that is just like dropping a trail of breadcrumbs that lead right back to our identity?

When I go food shopping, I can use an app that identifies products through the camera. It’s great, but when I use it I am all too aware that my diet of ready meals is under the scrutiny of the developers of the app, and that’s the least of my worries.

It’s like having a loyalty card; handy but yet another thing that advertisers can get their grubby hands on. Data is money.

Companies make millions from selling our data to advertisers, data that we just give away for free. When I found out that UCAS were selling student data I was appalled. A ‘non-profit’ organisation that we are supposed to trust were doing the one thing we didn’t want them to do. This was something the most paranoid of us might have struggled to avoid because if we opted out of UCAS Media, we would be missing out on potentially useful information. However, I don’t know how true that is anymore, because all I seem to get from UCAS Media is advertising spam.

Living in this post-Snowdon era feels like a dystopian novel in which we have to watch everything we do online for fear of being put under surveillance. More so, those in society who are disabled and rely upon technology haven’t got the comfort of avoiding privacy-probing tech. Is it really that strange to want some form of privacy from the omnipotent power of technology? All we want to do, as human beings, is to languish in our indolence and indulge in a spot of consumerism without being tracked. Can’t we be granted that one luxury?

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Art & Culture

Words with David Mabb Looking through previous issues of [smiths] and The Leopard, through endless press nights, art exhibitions, latte reviews and editorials, Adam Morby notices a startling absence of the one thing that actually makes Goldsmiths what it is: Fine Art. Here, he speaks to David Mabb, head of the prestigious MFA. One of the main differences between Goldsmiths and other art colleges is the recognition here that every artist needs a specific skill set in order to realise their own individual work. In other places, a painter is a painter, a sculptor is a sculptor. They are taught alongside fellow sculptors and fellow painters. But a landscape painter, for example, might have more in common with a video artist also interested in landscape than with another painter – which is why at Goldsmiths, artists work within the same environment and converge their practices within collective studio spaces.

Most of the studios are situated in Laurie Grove Baths, built in 1895 and contained within the two main poolrooms, now flattened out and partitioned off with temporary white walls.

It’s a wonderful space, overlooked from the mezzanine, exciting and bright, and very much living up to the prestige that seems to have surrounded it over the years: a prestige that is far from declining.

IMAGES BY NASTASIA VESELIA

There are about 400 applicants and 2 principal ways in which the Fine Art department decides which 60 applicants get a place. Firstly, of course: the art. Secondly, it seems they are looking for that one essential trait: drive. “It’s one thing to make art in college,” David tells me, “where you have the facilities and resources and materials. But to go out and do it off your own back – it separates the students from the artists.”

We speak about the 2010 BBC Four documentary series Goldsmiths: But Is It Art?, a show exhibiting a year in the life of 4 artists enrolled in the MFA in Fine Art. I tell him I think it made a mockery of everything that the course is about. He tells me that his problem was that it left out the theoretical work that is central to the course. “They asked a lot of questions about it that weren’t in the programme, but the answers certainly were, so they set up a certain discourse and narrative that became the agenda [of the series]. The debate, discussion, criticality, the questioning and argument - none of that was in the programme. That’s

what’s interesting and difficult about what we do.”

When it comes to the MFA, students are expected to conduct presentations alongside their own work. “What do they need to know about? What should they be reading?

It doesn’t have to be Deleuze, it could be Dandy comics.

So theory should be appropriate to somebody’s practice.

It’s something we really test out; we look for a really good syncopation between theory and practice.”

I ask him about the difficulties of making a living as an artist: “You don’t get a job as an artist. There are no jobs as artists. You are the job. You make your own career. There’s no salary at the end of it. It’s a much more precarious way of living your life. Maybe people want their children to go off and have a secure job in the civil service...but fuck me, it’s boring as shit. Who wants to do that? People who come here are interested in becoming creative and intelligent people who want to do something interesting with their life, not go and work in a bank or something.”

Although Goldsmiths will have its own on-site gallery in a few years, [smiths] magazine have decided to get in there: we are calling for Goldsmiths artists to come forward with their work, to exhibit it online or in print. So keep your eyes open because soon you will have the privilege of experiencing the cream of the art world at the very moment it reaches completion. Try to appreciate it now because one day, as you walk through an art gallery with your 4-yearold grandchild, they might say to you: “Why, just look at it, utterly profound!” And you can reply, “Yeah, whatever, I was there…I saw it happen.

We Want Your Art If you are interested in collaborating with us and getting your work out there, either online or in our next print issue, email us at smiths.gsu@gmail.com or tweet us at @smithsmagazine

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Art & Culture

Is Everybody an Artist now? [ s m i t h s ] s e n i o r e d i t o r , H a n n a h Tw i g g s , discusses whether Instagram will have the same i m p a c t f o r t h e 2 1 st c e n t u r y t h a t D a d a d i d i n t h e 2 0 th.

In 1917, French-American Dada artist Marcel Duchamp put an upside down urinal in an art gallery, signed it, and called it art.

100 years later it is recognised as one of the most important artworks of all time because it challenged the principles of traditional art. By flipping the urinal over, introducing it to the gallery space, and appropriating it with the semiotic construct of an artwork, i.e. title, date, signature, Duchamp was able to take an everyday, off-the-shelf object, and transform it into art.

In an age where everyone is an artist thanks to the likes of Instagram, Duchamp’s genius is still relevant today.

IMAGES BY BROCK DAVIS

While we are estimated to spend approximately 4 years of our entire lives staring down at our phone screens, basking in the warm glow of an Amaro filter and showing @beyonce some proverbial ‘love,’ modern digital artists are making waves.

Whether they’re consecrating the visual rhetoric of social media or generating GIFS, memes and vines, one thing is becoming clear: the Internet is their playground, their art studio. But the question is still the same a century later: is it really art?

Similarly to Duchamp, Instagram artist Brock Davis finds his craft in transforming everyday items into works of art, with a touch of whimsy, and documents his creations on his Instagram account. “I think everyday objects, like a spider’s web, a piece of gum, a head of cauliflower, all have creative potential inside of them,” says Davis. In essence, Davis’ work is intended as a commentary on life in the 21st century, but there are explicit parallels with Duchamp’s ‘Fountain.’ Like Duchamp, Davis

has taken things that already exist and consolidated them to engender new meaning, and called it art.

Our production and consumption of art has changed dramatically since the inception of the Internet and smart phones, as we are no longer restricted to just creating in the corporeal space. But if anything, this has made it even harder to distinguish between what is art and what is not – if there’s even a difference at all anymore. As we receive all our information, whether it’s an Instagram picture or a Snapchat, through the same device, how are works of art meant to stand out from the hoard of digital content we’re exposed to on a daily basis?

Because of this digital liberation, art doesn’t necessarily have a specific set of indicators around it that say, ‘this is art.’ We have been propagandised to recognise art in a gallery, but if you take the social construct of ‘the gallery’ away and replace it with a 1936x1936 pixel Instagram frame, how are we meant to differentiate? But maybe that’s the whole point.

Essentially, anyone with an iPhone can subvert images into professional works of art, just by adding a filter. Does this mean that all our carefully constructed selfies could be considered art? Clearly, there’s some sort of inferred difference between artists chronicling their creations on their Instagram page and our everyday bathroom selfies, but if you simply say something is art, is it? In 1917, Marcel Duchamp redefined the meaning of art. 100 years later, we’re still working on it.

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Art & Culture

Is Cinema A Dying Art Form?

Lifelong film fanatic and seasoned c i n e m a - g o e r, D a i s y G r a h a m , t a c k l e s one of the most desperate and gripping issues of our time – what is happening to cinema? And who is to blame?

Happiness is a darkened cinema. There are few things better than the lights dimming and the knowledge that the next two hours have been purposely crafted for my enjoyment. Yet recently, the never-ending barrage of samey and clichéd movie trailers I am forced to sit through before the start of the film have marred my experience.

IMAGES BY REBECKA FRED

Both my dad and uncle are constantly telling me how great it was growing up as a film-loving kid in the 70’s. There were far fewer films being made and released, so a trip to the cinema was a bigger, exciting event. The censorship laws had been relaxed and filmmakers were breaking boundaries with landmark films such as Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and Spielberg’s ‘Jaws.’

Nowadays, there’s very little that is still considered taboo, and subsequently there are fewer ‘controversial’ films being made.

That’s not to say that cinema has nowhere left to go: there are many exciting possibilities but it sometimes seems like laziness and complacency are more celebrated within today’s film industry than originality.

A typical list of films at your nearest cinema will probably look something like this: a big budget (by big, I mean HUMUNGOUS) superhero movie; an animated family film weirdly involving the sexualisation of either animals or cars somewhere along the line; a cringey American frat-boy comedy with multiple penis gags; finally (and this is by far the most disturbing), an Adam Sandler movie. Is this really the best we can do?

That was not a rhetorical question. The answer is no. Don’t get me wrong, there is certainly room for these sorts of films and

some of them are done very well; ‘Avengers Assemble’ and ‘21 Jump Street’ are two good examples of recent films that are immensely popular but also clever and genuinely entertaining.

Yet neither of them is original. The former is based on a comic book series and the latter is a spin-off of an 80’s TV show.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but it hints at a lack of ambition within the industry, a desire to rehash old ideas because they’re familiar and safe.

Partly this is the fault of Hollywood studios like Universal and Warner Bros. They are, in essence, moneymaking machines and are quite happy for Michael Bay to churn out yet another Transformers movie because…well… it will make billions. And unfortunately, 12 year-old boys are not discerning film critics. The studios are not going to change. Businessmen, not creatives, run them. It is now up to the directors who have become so successful that they don’t rely on the studios for money or clout.

Directors like James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino and Steven Spielberg, all of whom are excellent filmmakers. They need to affect change within the industry and pave the way for the next generation of filmmakers.

Cinema’s future is bright, but only if we can reduce the mindnumbing garbage making up about 95% of film releases. There are wonderful, imaginative films being made all the time but these are being overshadowed by our obsession with inane, repetitive film fodder. I don’t pretend to have a 5-step failsafe plan to get the movie industry back on track, but I do know where we can start. Banishing Adam Sandler to Mongolia is step 1. Sorry Mongolia.

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T h e r e’ s a v e r y simple reason they were one-hit wonders: w e c o u l d n’ t h a n d l e a n y more of their shit.

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Art & Culture

Tracey Emin: White Cube, Bermondsey Adam Morby discovers something that is bright a n d n e w a n d o r i g i n a l i n Tr a c e y E m i n’ s n e w s h o w a t W h i t e C u b e … i f y o u’ v e h a d y o u r h e a d in a paper bag for the last twenty years.

If we look at Tracey Emin through a more musical lens, specifically through the lens of the ‘one-hit-wonder,’ certain similarities seem to abound: suddenly she becomes the artistic manifestation of Whigfield or Gotye or Mr Blobby or Psy. But unlike them, she seems to have found license to endlessly replicate her initial success…again and again and again.

There’s a very simple reason they were one-hit wonders: we couldn’t handle any more of their shit. The art world, however, doesn’t have the filter of ‘supply and demand’ on a mass scale.

Instead, it has the opinion of the few, obsessed as they are with the power of the recognisable name and the possibility of longevity.

IMAGE BY WHITE CUBE

When a large national gallery buys a piece of work, the same questions seem to resurface: How many magazines has it been in? Was it in RA Monthly? Did it appear on TV? Are they a recognisable name? Emin is all of this and much more. My Bed was one of the few works of art that defined the turn of the century. That bed gave her license to churn out the same record over and over again - which is exactly what she has done at the Bermondsey branch of White Cube.

It is all quite true and raw and brutal and all the other things you would expect from her, but the problem with Emin, in my opinion, is the place you end up if you start looking at the relationship between her politics and her art. Her art is very much about her, possibly more than any other artist, living or dead. She has spent the entirety of her professional life unpacking all the shit she went through when she was growing up in Margate: the

rapes, the abortions, the alcohol, the parenting. Fine, and good, and genuine; if art can’t be about identity I don’t know what it can be about. The deeper, and more truthful, the better. But herein lay the problem: there are a lot of young girls out there just like the younger, pre-artistic Emin. They are everywhere, in all of their guises - they are victims of the state, victims of all the things they lack, victims of the deeply entrenched nature of social reproduction. Is Tracey Emin’s work about them? Is it for them? Is it deeply, genuinely, authentically empathetic?

No, it is not. She is a Tory. Ideologically, she has a distinct lack of empathy for these kids. According to her politics, she believes that they should all be able to drag themselves out of their own milieu, just as she did, which very suddenly situates her inside an enclosed bubble of deeply un-empathetic, repetitive, self-congratulatory and utterly empty indulgence. Unless I’m wrong, of course, and it turns out the Tories are in fact in it for the working-class, teenage girls of Margate and elsewhere as they attempt to navigate their identities through this hypermasculine culture of disenfranchisement, disengagement and disempowerment. I’ll leave that one open.

And anyone who thinks that art and politics should not mix like this clearly needs a lesson in post-structuralism. Emin’s art is about her, all of her, so it has to be about her politics too. She deals in the authentic, the candid. Her candid authenticity paid for her twenty million pounds worth of property. So if we cannot pull it apart like this then it reduces art to nothing more than fifty or so very lucky people making fancy ornaments to sell at a very high price to another fifty or so very lucky people.

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Art & Culture

Rethinking Celebrities and Mental Health Becky Bee takes an honest look at the way mental health is represented in the media.

Frank Bruno to Amy Winehouse, schizophrenia to depression to addiction: most of us can’t say that we haven’t come across celebrity mental health problems in the media at some point.

Many celebrities took part in World Mental Health Day on October 10th, designed to raise awareness and promote mental health around the world. But does this coverage really contribute to any greater understanding of mental health issues? Does it help to combat the stigma faced by the many individuals who face mental illness in their everyday lives?

As a teenager struggling with severe mental health problems, I looked everywhere in the press for examples of famous people who were experiencing the same things. I couldn’t seem to find any. What I found in films, fiction and TV, was this rough, unrealistic narrative of mental health and recovery:

IMAGE BY TAYLOR MCGRAA

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Person is ‘normal’ Person becomes unwell Person undergoes several changes, both circumstantial and internal Person becomes well, and is ‘recovered’ (Think Girl, Interrupted), OR Person does not ‘recover,’ and dies, usually by suicide (Think Dead Poets’ Society)

More recently, it seems that there is a plethora of images and stories of celebrities struggling with and even dying from mental ill health. The narrative of mental illness seems to be changing: real-life documentaries such as Stephen Fry’s ‘Secret Life of the Manic Depressive’ and Rachel Bruno’s ‘My Dad & Me’ in particular, have challenged notions of there being a ‘solution’ to mental illness. Instead, these documentaries explore the difficulties of living with a mental health condition, accepting that some psychiatric disorders do not disappear, and focusing instead on ways of coping and living with such a condition.

This is one of the great positives of allowing more celebrities to

handle their own stories of mental illness.

However, as celebrities tend to be wealthy and well connected, it is also possible that we are presented with unrealistic views on treatment and recovery. Gwyneth Paltrow, for example, recommended diet, exercise and therapy following her diagnosis with post-natal depression. With the initial NHS assessment period for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy starting at around 13 weeks, and with each patient being allocated just 12 sessions, it is unlikely that Paltrow’s methods will be available to the average person.

This year, coverage of Robin Williams’ suicide was, by turns, awful - Shep Smith of Fox News called him a ‘coward’ - and thoughtful. Responses to his death showed the spectrum of understandings of suicide across society. Yet the coverage also allowed for other questions to be raised: Why do people commit suicide? What is depression? What, ultimately, does it mean to have a mental illness?

Of course, media coverage of mental illness has not always been sensitive or eye opening. Coverage of, for example, Britney Spears’ struggles with mental health was sensationalist, often using phrases like ‘going crazy’ or ‘off the rails’ to describe her behaviour. This sums up the media’s general attitude towards Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, et al: crazy exes, bad mothers, spoilt starlets…and/or victims of celebrity culture.

Between these labels, little room was left in which to accept that these women might be suffering from mental health conditions, addictions, or both. Or none of the above!

In all, coverage of celebrity mental health issues has been a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it brings mental health issues in to the public eye, helping to educate people about the reality of mental illness. On the other, it can be confusing, and sometimes negative and damaging both to the celebrities concerned, and the readers influenced.

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Tr a v e l

How To Have Your Identity Stolen in Barcelona Difficulty: Easy Camilla Mills tells you exactly how to have the shit hit the fan at a festival in Barcelona.

Are you a holiday control freak? Let’s be honest, if you’ve been abroad with a group of friends, you’ve been the one taking control, or the one who’s grateful for the other person who is taking control. I am the former. Sometimes, however, the universe tries to find a way to undermine your command of a situation.

Requirements: - A weekend ticket to Primavera Sound Festival.

- A timetable for the musical acts.

- Enough Spanish to order a free-poured spirit of your

choosing.

- A friend - preferably one prone to poor common

sense when drunk.

- A bag containing your passport, cash, cards, phone

and any smaller items that you would be annoyed

to lose - I chose make-up and high-end SPF 50+

sunscreen.

IMAGE BY KAROLINA KOPACZ

Step one: Once you arrive at the festival, go to the nearest bar and using your threadbare Spanish, order a spirit (sólo). If you’re good, persuade them to serve it to you in a large cup with plenty of ice (this will serve as a distraction from the true volume of your drink). Once the bartender has started to pour, don’t tell them to stop, instead give them an encouraging waggle of the eyebrows. Allow yourself a moment to feel proud of how much booze you’ve just thriftily managed to acquire.

Step two: Repeat step one as many times as possible. Ideally you want to be getting yourself above a six or seven on a tenpoint scale of inebriation. Encourage your friend to do the same.

Step three: Get out your festival timetable, select a band that your more responsible friends want to see, then decide to go to get hot dogs with your drunk friend instead. Buy another drink and settle at one of the food court picnic tables.

Step four: Excuse yourself for a minute, leaving your bag with your drunken friend. Ignore any instinct that tells you to keep your eye on your belongings. While this may not have served you well in the past, your general holiday goodwill will be telling you to trust your drunk friend instead. Go with this feeling.

Step five: This one you can coast a bit. If all has gone to plan, all you need to do is and walk away and the magic will happen in your absence.

Step six: Walk briefly in the wrong direction of your stated goal.

Your friend, now drunkenly foolhardy, will arrive by your side to correct your trajectory. Tell them that you’re fine, but - wait – in a puzzling development you realise that they don’t have your bag. Point this out to your friend and enjoy the brief moment of silence that follows.

Step seven: Run back to the table you were sitting at, berating your friend for ditching your stuff. You will quickly realise that there are over a hundred identical (but oh-so-charming) yellow tables in the damn food court, and none of them appear to be housing your bag.

Step eight: Now, this step can vary in length, depending on how long it takes you to admit that your bag was gone before you’d ever realised it was missing in the first place. How you choose to react to that depends on you. I chose to throw my pint clean over my friend’s shoulder, being too uncoordinated to get it in his face.

Congratulations, you have successfully had your identity stolen in Barcelona! Now you have earned yourself a well-deserved day off your planned holiday itinerary in order to go to the police station and your country’s embassy. I hope you enjoy it, because you earned it.

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Tr a v e l

Losing My Hitchhiking Virginity

IMAGES BY SARAH VOWDEN AND GOOGLE MAPS

Dreadlocks, Boyzone and bankers: S a r a h Vo w d e n b a r e s a l l a s s h e t a k e s u s on a hitchhiking journey to Croatia.

Hitchhiking has become a taboo. If a holiday hasn’t got the comfort of a flight and hotel package deal from Expedia, many people reject such spontaneity and label us humble hitchhikers as reckless dreamers with dreadlocks and harems. But, as someone who lost their hitchhiking virginity this year, it is an experience that will not only challenge your orienteering skills but also redefine your perception of human kindness.

Mercedes - probably equating the total value of my student debt - with an immaculately dressed investment banker driving.

I couldn’t believe that he wanted to give two unwashed kids a lift. Needless to say, he was quite a character. We listened intently as he talked about his love for Mika, salted caramel macaroons and life in the world of finance. He might have been a banker, but he was the kindest banker I’ve ever met.

To raise money for charity, a few friends and I embarked on a hitchhiking challenge to Croatia earlier this year, in April.

Without boring you with the mundane details of our wait at a petrol station in Bratislava, I wanted to share some of the more memorable lifts and what made those three weeks some of the most bizarre of my life.

Somewhere outside Frankfurt: Optimistically we left Frankfurt at 4pm and were stuck at a petrol station, with dusk drawing ever closer. Thankfully, an Austrian rugby team showed up, rather rowdy from a recent sporting victory. “Get in and help yourself to some beers!” “Why thank you (attractive Austrian guy).” Hours of chanting seemed like minutes after those Heinekens, and before we knew it we were in Munich.

Liege: Mid afternoon, the continental breakfast starting to wear off, we finally caught a lift with a trucker. “Hop in,” he said, “but you’ll have to sit in the back there, behind the curtain. Can’t let the police see you.” I was initially a little hesitant but I hopped in and eventually acclimatised to the constant Boyzone on the radio and his perpetual smoking. He was going in the completely wrong direction (our French was rather rusty), so we got out by the side of the motorway and bid him adieu. The wait was long but finally an ice-cream man/DJ in a tiny van pulled up. The tunes were cracking and he was willing to take us all the way to Luxembourg, with a little de-tour to his house to pick up more choc-ices.

Luxembourg: After a few hours of raising thumbs to miserable truckers, we began to lose hope, when along came a shiny new

Somewhere in Austria: Finally the lift I had been waiting for: the ultimate hitchhiking cliché. Out of a camper van emerge a beautiful hippy couple, oozing coolness. Soft 70’s rock music played in the background, and they told us about their spontaneous road-trip to Dubrovnik. I sat in the back smug, feeling like I was living their bohemian dream.

Slovenia: Croatia was in sight, and so was our final hitchhiking hero. Accountant by trade but also a keen diver, he even stopped for us to take that typical tourist picture outside the ‘Welcome to Croatia’ sign. 21 lifts later and we had done it and I can tell you now, it was way more satisfying than disembarking an EasyJet flight!

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The Feast Tr a v e l - e n t h u s i a s t N a t a l i a D o m a g a l a g o e s b a c k to basics as she hitchhikes across Georgia, and experiences the traditional feast, Supra, with a l l t h e p e o p l e s h e m e e t s a l o n g t h e w a y.

Two miles after the road finished, we bumbled along something that may have been a gravel path once. The driver suddenly stopped in front of a run-down cottage. “Right,” he said looking at me. “You guys speak Russian, so go and ask someone how to get out of here.” “Sure,” I replied, knowing that in reality, I wasn’t going to make sense to anyone.

It was our fourth day in Georgia, the country of breath-taking landscapes, wine, wild drivers, friendly people and delicious food. The brochures described it as, ‘the country of life.’ Having spent some time in Tbilisi, the stunning capital, my travelling companion Raphael and I moved to Signaghi, a quaint little village situated on a hill surrounded by vineyards. We only stayed for a day, exploring one of the longest ramparts in the world and savouring the local wines. The next morning we decided to hitchhike to Telavi, the main town of the Kakheti region and then on to the mountains. We didn’t have to wait longer than five minutes - the first car stopped immediately and this is how we ended up in the middle of nowhere with three Israeli guys who couldn’t speak a word of Russian or Georgian.

“Hello, do you know if there is anything worth seeing in the neighbourhood?” asked Raphael in Russian as we approached two men from the cottage. They exchanged looks and one of them said something in Georgian. “There is a beautiful church in the next village,” replied the older one, observing us with amused, penetrating blue eyes. “Is there a winery as well?” we asked. The younger man who didn’t speak much Russian smiled. “Wine?” he repeated and suddenly they left us and went towards the house talking quickly in Georgian. We weren’t sure what to do, but after a while we heard a voice calling us over. We approached the house cautiously and the three Israeli drivers followed.

To my utter astonishment, inside there was a huge table filled with homemade Georgian local specialities. And the wine! An

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enormous jug of a fresh, natural, aromatic beverage was the centrepiece. We sat down shyly, encouraged by the younger man’s wife, who had prepared the feast. Our glasses were already full and the blue-eyed man, David, proposed a toast.

We couldn’t believe our luck: getting a first-hand experience of the essence of Georgian culture, the feast traditionally known as Supra.

The Georgians are endowed with the ability to celebrate.

They appreciate their beautiful country, they are grateful for their families, they enjoy spending time with their friends and they treat foreigners kindly. Every unexpected meeting, every visiting tourist, every reunion or any other opportunity is always a good reason to set up a table and feast. Tamada, traditionally the person responsible for raising toasts, chooses a pace of drinking and declaims touching and rousing speeches before every round.

After a few more glasses and experiencing the ritual of drinking from the horn - another traditional thing - we forgot the language barrier and even the Israeli men started speaking Russian somehow. Our tamada David didn’t want to let us go. His friend’s wife was constantly bringing more and more wine and food, despite lack of space on the table between the dishes of delicacies. We were talking, laughing, confessing; an alcoholic haze made us discuss life, deep existential questions and even politics.

Unfortunately, we were forced to leave our newfound Georgian friends to continue our journey. After a touching farewell and taking some photos together, still dizzy and drunk, we left the cottage. Exhilarated and excited after my first encounter with real Georgian culture, I had one thought in my mind: travelling is not only about the places you go, it is about the people you meet on the way.

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IMAGES BY NATALIA DOMAGALA

Tr a v e l

The Time I Thought I Was Going To Die On a Bus Emma Henderson tells a story of scenic landscapes and sick bags.

I once had the journey from hell. I’ve always been a bad traveller; by that I mean terribly car sick, or bus sick, or ferry sick, or whatever mode of transport I happen to be frequenting.

As a child, I couldn’t even make it 30 minutes up the road to Devon – although it’s debatable if this was my Dad’s driving, or the fact that I was in Devon.

The bus I took from somewhere vaguely near to Vang Vieng in Laos, to Phnom Phen in Cambodia, terrified me from the onset.

Typically, it was about five hours late, which is shrugged off as ‘Asian time’. I then saw that it was a double decker sleeper bus, and my heart sank. When you book a bus in Asia, you’re promised one thing, and usually something else will turn up that you just have to deal with.

I climbed up the stairs to the top section, and being 6ft 1, I clearly had no hope of standing up. Instead, I got friendlier with the floor. I found my bed, where a French woman tried to hop in next to me, but I managed to convince her to swap so that I could share with a lesser stranger I’d met a few weeks before.

In hindsight I’m sure she thanked her lucky stars.

Once all passengers were acquainted with their new space, dinner was served. I was met with some rice and an unidentifiable grey meat in a burger box. I had to pass. I don’t know what it is, but even the smell of buses sets me off into a frantically worried

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world of feeling sick. I tried to distract myself with the view – a lesson I’d learnt young. Luscious green mountains covered in forests, forming the rise and fall of the seamless and untouched landscape. It was almost mesmerising.

The bus driver was the least excited person to ever sit behind a wheel. Baring in mind we were in Laos, the roads were still very new and were essentially beaten down dirt tracks. Still, he thought it necessary to incessantly blow his hideously high pitched horn at every goat, chicken, donkey or rare passer by and hit every pothole as if it were a cruel game.

When it came to lying down, it was worse. I had to perch on the side of my bed and hope for the best. In the end, I’d never been so grateful for the plastic bags that travel duvets come in.

Luckily everyone had taken their duvets out and left the bags lying around. Upon the first time, I ashamedly walked down to the driver asking for a bin. He did not understand. The two men laughed at me and, to my horror and embarrassment, threw the bag out of the window. This happened six more times, stripping me of every last ounce of dignity. I called for assistance from my friend, but she cowered away in fear. The bus journey was over 30 hours long.

When it was time to get off, I could barely move, let alone claim my colossal backpack. I’d never felt so weak in my life and never

Tr a v e l As a I c r e s e t o u l d n’ t e v e n make it 30, minutes up the road to Devon...

”

IMAGE BY EMMA HENDERSON

been so happy to sit on a dusty track where I was rescued by a can of Cambodian coke. The journey couldn’t have consisted of more polar opposites; fear, anxiety and the sheer uncertainty of my stomach, while driving through the serene and peaceful landscapes outside. And for this reason, I will hold my hands up and say that, yes it was more than worth it - which is surely saying something about travel, right?

“c h i l d ,

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A City of Contrasts Marthe Holkestad explores scars left by a p a r t h e i d t w e n t y y e a r s o n i n C a p e To w n a n d its surrounding townships.

Last year I spent a term living in South Africa, studying philosophy and human rights. Little did I know that Cape Town, with its people, culture and history, would leave such a big footprint in my heart. Staying in a new city for so long really made me feel that I got to know it, both the good and bad, compared to places I’ve been to on holiday.

Our school was located in Camps Bay, an area said to be Cape Town’s Hollywood, which was the area my friends and I lived in. It was like a fairy-tale waking up to the most incredible view I have ever seen every morning and watching a sunset unlike any other every night. We were lucky, because this area is heaven compared to its neighbours.

South Africa has a history quite different from Norway, where I grew up. I knew of it, but learning about segregation in postapartheid Cape Town made a difference. In 1948, the National Party ruthlessly enforced the apartheid policy, forcing black people to move out of the cities. Different races were moved to different areas, separated like good and bad fish at a market.

District Six was one of the areas people of race were forced

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to move from. More than 60,000 inhabitants involuntarily left their homes. When the apartheid ended in 1994, the District Six Museum was opened. It is a place dedicated to remember not only the events of the apartheid, but also the culture and history of the district. On the ground floor there’s a big street map where former residents have written notes, indicating where they used to live.

A short boat-ride from the coastline, you’ll find Robben Island, where the government sent prisoners during the apartheid, including Nelson Mandela. Our guide used to be a prisoner there and passionately told us about his time spent behind bars.

He showed us where they had to work, letters to prisoners from loved ones and Nelson Mandela’s cell.

Outside of Cape Town you’ll find the townships - what’s left of the areas people were moved to. We went to ‘Dinner @ Mandela’s’ in Imizamo Yethu. A woman named Sylvia met us.

She was not just a guide – she was a local and the township was her home.

25,000 people lived in an 18-hectare area in houses built of

Tr a v e l IMAGES BY MARTHE HOLKESTAD

surplus materials. Children were playing with things the western world would consider rubbish, but they were smiling wider than most children I see at home who complain about not having the newest iPhone.

In a township called Gugulethu, we witnessed a stabbing.

We were waiting outside Mzoli’s Meat Place, a famous tourist attraction, when one of the locals came to beg for money. He followed us inside and when the ‘security guard’ forced him to leave – he drew a knife out of his pocket and stabbed the guard in the thigh. The knife was far from sharp and it didn’t look too serious, but we were frightened all the same. We were told that police rarely interfere with incidents in the townships. The owners punished him by beating him with a wooden stick in the back. It was terrifying.

These townships are everything you need to see to believe that the scars of the apartheid are still showing. Oliver Wainwright wrote in The Guardian earlier this year “Apartheid may have ended 20 years ago, but here in Cape Town the sense of apartness remains as strong as ever.” I could not agree more.

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The Kindness of Strangers L e w i s Wa l k e r e x p l o r e s I n d i a d i s c o v e r i n g t h e picturesque plains, to kill a mockingbird, and befriending a young Amristarian.

A few months ago I was sat on a particularly long train journey long enough for me to eat three meals and read the majority of To Kill a Mockingbird - from Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, to Amritsar, 600 kilometers to the north. The train was late, even

by Indian standards, and three hours after the departure time of 9 am I was still waiting at the station.

As the train meandered laxly through the Indian countryside and the sun dropped over the picturesque plains, a young man, named Chetan, struck up a conversation with me by offering me a drink and asking about my plans. His family was on their way back from a weeklong pilgrimage to Mumbai, a journey that takes three days.

Chetan expressed concern at the hour I would arrive in Amritsar, a supremely religious city that, like many areas of India, becomes eerily quiet after dark. Seeing as I didn’t have anywhere booked to stay, he asked if I’d like to stay with him and his mother in Ludhiana, 150 kilometers to the south and in the morning get a bus for the last leg of the journey. I had a dilemma: I could arrive in a city I didn’t know in the middle of the night with nowhere to stay, or go to a city I’d never heard of to stay with people I’d just met.

I chose the latter. His mother didn’t speak a word of English,

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but they both seemed decent and affable people who were well dressed, so I was reasonably confident that I wouldn’t be taken to a slum to sleep in a hut next a goat (I think this was one of the only times I could be excused for judging a book by its cover, so to speak).

At around 10pm, we alighted from the train and the three of us crammed into a rickshaw, taking a ride through the surprisingly buzzing city of Ludhiana. Their home in the suburbs was beautiful and modern, and over the next twelve hours I was amazed at the generosity they afforded me. Indian homes are usually packed full of aunts and brothers and fourth-cousinstwice-removed, but Chetan and his mother lived alone. When I first arrived, I asked if anyone else lived with them. Sadly, his father, a prominent businessman, had been missing for years in what they suspected was a robbery or business deal turned sour. The police had done nothing and it was hard for them coming to terms with the fact that they may never know what happened or see him again.

As soon as we arrived at their house, Chetan and I headed out again, this time on his motorbike, speeding helmetless through the lights of prosperous Ludhiana. He took me to a renowned ice cream café. His mother made us a paratha breakfast in the morning and a packed lunch before we went to the bus station.

Tr a v e l IMAGE BY KRISTA DAYMAN EDITED BY BEN JONES

Chetan and his mother’s fundamental altruism were incredibly humbling. During my stay I constantly and embarrassingly tried to offer even a small amount of money, but I was consistently refused with a smile. As I waved goodbye and headed towards the grandeur of Amritsar’s Golden Temple, where anyone can get a free bed and a good meal, I was left wondering how often foreign strangers in the UK are offered a bed for the night.

“

I think this was one of the only times I could be excused for judging someone for w h a t’ s o n t h e o u t s i d e

“

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Tr a v e l

The Problem with Travel Writing

IMAGE BY TAYLOR MCGRAA AND HANNAH TWIGGS

H a n n a h Tw i g g s d i s c u s s e s h o w s h e c r a v e s a fresh approach to travel writing, which goes beyond the bullshit bloggers.

Over the last century, travel writing has changed existentially from simply recording adventures for pleasure into something much more synonymous with marketing. The rise of ‘the blogger’ has had a consequential impact on the mode of writing, and popular destinations are now thronged with iPadwielding tourists that tweet and live blog every moment of their travels. We have thus begun to understand culture through a 320 x 480 pixelated window. I’m not saying this isn’t a highly revolutionary method of journalism, nor creative, but my real question is: where have all the great explorers gone?

quite often, brutal assessments of people, tribes and geography the 13th century Italian merchant experienced as he voyaged across Europe, Central Asia and China. It is one of the truest travel narratives to date. His description of Kashmir, in the northwestern region of South Asia, was a candid, unequivocal analysis of its population: “They exhibit themselves in a filthy and indecent state, and are devoid of respect for themselves, or those that see them. They suffer their faces to continue, always unwashed and their hair uncombed, living together in a squalid style.”

I’m talking Christopher Columbus, Charles Darwin, Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta: significant historical nomads who travelled to and recorded their impressions of fantastic new continents. I think it’s this empirical, hands-on approach that 21st century travel writing is missing. Millions of ‘travel’ blogs exist today, but I haven’t read many yet which aren’t trying to sell me a cheap holiday, are full of food porn, or record ‘fun-filled’ adventures on the back of a yacht in a skimpy bikini sipping Prosecco.

While this may seem quite distinct from today’s superficial travel writing, Polo came from an era of embarking on an adventure and recording everything you experienced, from the people and the landscape to the blisters and dodgy stomachs.

While his descriptions of the natives might need to be taken with a colonialist pinch of salt, who was going to contradict him? In the 13th century, the concept of travelling to the next town was farcical, let alone across the pond. Perhaps that’s the real problem: now that there are very few parts of the world untrodden by humans. Nothing is new. There aren’t many temples, landmarks or cultures that we can’t experience through our television or computer screens. Woe to our wandering hearts.

One of the pivotal milestones in travel literature history was the birth of the aristocracy: people who had time and money to invest in ostentatious adventures. In the 21st century, travelling rurally on a shoestring budget has become fairly unremarkable.

In fact, if you haven’t ‘chundered everywhere’ on your ‘gap yah’, then apparently you haven’t lived. Is that what travelling really is? It’s certainly not how it began.

Take one of the most iconic travel books, The Adventures of Marco Polo, within which was etched unflinchingly honest, and

Perhaps I’m being excessively skeptical, but all I ask is for you to look between the pages of a Michael Palin volume or a Bill Bryson globetrotting novella for a more traditional cultural study with a longer shelf life. Maybe even get inspired to fill that everwidening gap in the market of travel writing; a gap that seeks journalism that is borne out of pure passion. We need more

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Lit & Creative IMAGE BY TAYLOR MCGRAA

This being Literary and Creative Writing, we thought that the best way to open our account for the year would be to reach to the very core of our subject and launch a winner-takes-it-all, do-or-die poetry competition. The theme we set was ‘pretention’, and oh, you really cooked up some blinders. The winner, overleaf, blew us away with her painfully pretentious attempt to be create poetry from the definitions of scrabble words. Although the next poem that we have included in this section was not submitted as a part of the competition, but as a serious poetry submission, we thought it deserved second place anyway…seriously though…shit.

So there you have it, Goldsmiths in a nutshell. Innovation, imagination, high comedy…and at least one very pretentious knobhead.

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Lit & Creative

1 st P l a c e

Poem Made From The Defintions of Two Letter Scrabble Words

By Re b e c c a Ba l f o u r t h

IMAGE BY CYRIELLE ANDRÉ

Rough, cindery lava.

One three-toed sloth. East Indian tree. (to exist to the same degree…)

To cut with an ax.

To exist.

Expressing hesitation used as a greeting. expressing thought: Sweetheart; Egyptian spiritual self; vital life-sustaining energy force; sixth tone of diatonic musical scale.

Chinese unit of distance. expressing satisfaction? no. NO! – negative reply coming from expressing dismay.

Orifice/bone/ridge of sand, expressing sudden pain.

Expressing hesitation. Um… Expressing hesitation. One to raise you. You.

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2 nd P l a c e

Poem by (poet)

by Anonymous Although this anonymously sent poem was actually a serious submission, and not a submission for the Poetry Competition on the theme of Pretension, we thought it should win second prize anyway.

poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem poem

poem poem poem poem poem

poem poem

poem

poem

poem

poem

poem

(poem)

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poem

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IMAGE BY CYRIELLE ANDRÉ

Lit & Creative

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Lit & Creative

We Need to Talk About Race Again: What’s Wrong With Alt Lit Aria Aber shouts out for more sincere literature that deviates from the white protagonist default.

A Note from the writer: Wikipedia describes alt lit as an abbreviation for ‘alternative literature’, which is conscious of the meta-reality produced through use of electronic devices and, most and foremost, our divine, ubiquitous web of the internet.

The movement revolves around writers like Tao Lin (recently uncovered as a rapist), Mira Gonzales & Spencer Madsen… read their twitters. You’ll laugh.

IMAGES BY CYRIELLE ANDRÉ AND ALICIA SIMPSON-WATT

Poetry’s trendy little brother, alt lit, remains ignorant of something large: race. Ah, yeah, here we are again. Apart from Gabby Bess ,(once called ‘The Simone de Beauvoir of the Internet’ - lol), who blogs and writes excessively about feminism and sometimes even about race, the whole inequality thing between humans is haply dismissed by the alt lit movement.

This is where the danger begins, as some of the writers aren’t even white themselves. So why does an educated, grown up, non-white person like Tao Lin - an Asian-American - officially state that he eliminates race from his writing in order to convey the profound depth of his characters’ existential despair. The first time I read this, I wanted to scream: WHAT TAO? PEOPLE OF COLOUR CANNOT PONDER EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR? HOW COME YOU CAN THEN; AS A PERSON OF COLOUR YOURSELF! As journalist Katrina Richardson eloquently argues in her article ‘How can white Americans be free?’, Tao is ultimately blinded by the belief that the WASP experience is ‘The Default’, that anything related to a person-of-colour would be different. Which, of course, is right; but it doesn’t make it less existential, or less normal. The fact that a POC has to fight against something as earthly as skin colour does not diminish the intensity of their philosophical despair.

I wish it would be cool to be sincere about race, and for Tao Lin to accept the fact that he has also gone through some racerelated experience, and that it is okay to include this topic in his writings. “Most of my favourite writers are white, male, rich or middle class”, is something Tao has said, and I have to admit the same - but isn’t this a dangerous thing to even think about?

How is it progressive for the evolution of our consciousness if instead of fighting against this white default, we decide to follow it? Like Katrina Richardson, I too sometimes automatically come up with a rich white male protagonist for my stories, but this is not me. I am a poor female person of colour. Just because I struggle to make a living, had to deal with racism throughout my life and accepted sexual assaults as a part of my reality, this does not mean that I failed to understand what Camus was bragging about or that I am blind to the eternal nothingness of our existence - that I am somehow, through my physically visual ‘impediments’, saved from feelings of casual emptiness or realising how sad my cat is, or how iPhones have brought us further away from ever properly connecting to another human being.

This is why, with alt lit gaining excessive amounts of popularity by the minute, I want to shout out to more sincerity. To accept writing as a medium beyond irony, beyond hip ennui, beyond stupid, ignorant and casual racism: to collectively un-mantle the artificial construction around ‘The [white] Default’, to make it cool, trendy and edgy to write about anything that is not white, male and well-off, to normalise the concept of deviating from ‘The Default’, instead of further strengthening the normality of it, so that gradually, we can erase the inherent belief that we are separated from one another. I want to shout out to support, to read, to write more sincere poetry, stories, novels, even tweets - to replace ‘#valium’ with ‘#ferguson’.

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Lit & Creative

Books of my Body Serial bookworm Lorna Scott trades body parts for books.

“Picking five favourite books is like picking the five body parts you’d most like not to lose.”

- Neil Gaiman.

tradition of storytelling. I thought that stories in their purest form were there to enthral us on dark nights and keep us alive.

He shook his head.

As if to mock Gaiman’s wisdom in favour of the gods of procrastination, there has been a recent influx on my Facebook dashboard of ‘Pick Your Top Ten Favourite Books’ posts and I – serial bookworm that I am – have naturally been drawn to participate, and to share the almost too-personal treasures of my own bookcase.

‘No,’ he said, ‘Some books, some stories, are there to challenge things and teach us things.’

I chose largely comfort books (but even in writing this I’ve remembered, Oh god, I didn’t put down Cold Comfort Farm, I love Cold Comfort Farm! and other such pressing neuroses) and wrote my list on a whim, rather than letting myself stew for hours on the merits or failings of Jane Austen versus Dianna Wynne Jones, Gabriel Garcia Marquez versus Leonora Carrington…

IMAGES BY CYRIELLE ANDRÉ

Many people went along in a similar vein, choosing the sort of books they turned to in times of dire need. I saw one list taken up by at least five works of Tolkien and another that claimed that ‘The Harry Potter Books’ counted as only one (respectively, I went for Fellowship of the Ring, and The Prisoner of Azkaban, because I’m a just a martyr like that).

But many others still went for weighty, impressive tomes: Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky and Plath. All of whom are exceptional of course, but I personally would place none of their works in my top ten favourites. I might perhaps place them within ‘Ten Books That Everyone Should Read (Provided You’re Feeling Emotionally Stable That Day).’ Nevertheless, I think I can work out who chose those books because they read them, and who chose them because they wanted people to know they’d read them.

And in some ways, I think this shows the differences in people’s approaches to literature: I once told a friend I thought that books were fundamentally there as an escape from reality, a means to entertain, taking my proof from years of myths and the oral

And he was right.

Because books, and stories in all their forms: films, comics, theatre, do both, they are the comfort we seek when we are sad, and the holiday read that entertains. But they are also the thing that makes us question our surroundings and ourselves. They teach us new things and challenge problems we didn’t even realise existed. Stories, if I may be so bold and pretentious, are the constant reminder of our humanity: they show us who we are, and also who we could be.

Our favourite books will be ever changing accordingly; with whichever thing we need at the time. If we need to escape, or to learn, or to challenge, or just to laugh, that is where our reading loves will be.

So yes, picking five, or even ten books, will always be a decision rivalling the sacrifice of body parts in intensity, and not just because there are so many to choose from, but because we, and the literary world, are always changing. Better that we choose our ‘Ten Favourite Books This Week’ and mosey along loving and learning from literature as much as we can.

As to the body parts I would most like to hold on to: skin, so I might achieve my true form as that ‘moisturise me’ creature Zoe Wannamaker played in Doctor Who; brain because where would you all be without my undying wisdom; heart, though metaphorically I could probably do without; and eyes, because they’re actually quite a nice colour really, you know, in some lights if you look really closely…though I may later amend this to hair, as, having recently acquired a Mohawk, I’m feeling awfully punk rock.

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Lit & Creative

[Untitled]

By Anne Fisker Nielsen

IMAGE BY ROXANNAH LINKLATER

The third splash of water did the trick. Woke her up. She needed to wake. Clearheaded. She would look at it with fresh eyes. She would not despair. She left the water running as her fingers ran over the tense skin.

Stretched over swollen cheeks and chin. Just another splash to get ready.

With eyes closed. Water dripping from her eyelashes. She reached for a towel and stood up. She wiped her face. Gently. Cautiously. Looking into the mirror as she removed the towel she saw it. The eyes, the same.

The same green that occurs when blue and brown meet in the iris of an eye. This she recognized. The rest. No. Swollen and chafing lips. No cheekbones. No jawline. Tense and sore skin. Green. Brown. Pale. She stared into this face. Is this me? She watched herself investigate this face with her fingers. Will this be me? She knew what they had done to her. She had asked them to. She had been dreaming of this moment for as long as she could remember. It was finally here. This face would be hers. She would be it. There was no going back. This beaten up, bruised and swollen face would be hers. These tired eyes. These sores that would turn into scars. Forever marking her. She closed her eyes.

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Weight

by Anonymous

Metal screeches as I watch the hangers move along the rail. “This?” I say nothing. I feel the texture of silk flowing through my fingers as I listen to the hum of people at my ears. “Fine, this?” I shake my head, I probably sigh. All I can hear is people, laughter, enjoyment. I’m entranced by other mothers and daughters smiling, content.

I gaze at my own mother and feel uneasy. There is so much I want to say but we’re trapped in our silence. We’ve never really talked and now we have nothing to say. She doesn’t understand what she’s doing to me. We never agree, even on this, a simple dress choice. “Look, I’ve had enough; just find something now, before I get angry.” That’s the last thing we want, so I endeavour to look busy, I pick up a dress to show her, a sharp intake of breath expecting thunder and, “Ok, let’s try it on.”

Time faltered, just for a second, the words reverberate around my ears. Everything seems impenetrable. My heart pangs at the thought of what’s to come. I whisper, “I don’t want to.”

“Enough. I don’t have time for this. You are trying it on now, move.” She just glares - I’m too tired for this. I crumble but we go over to the fitting rooms. A distracted girl shows us to a room, but we’re not allowed in together. I almost feel hope.

“I’m her mother.”

“Mum, its fine. I’m not five, I can change alone.” One look said it all, the girl retreated, and we were alone. I instantly start to panic at the sight of the daunting wall-mirror and cramped space. There was nowhere to hide. My heart increased slightly and a knot started to form in the base of my throat. I could feel my body shaking. I slowly start to remove my uniform, feeling her gaze. I feel her stare burning at my skin. “Remember to remove your bra.” This is the last moment; I unclasp my bra.

“Nothing just had a shower,” she says to me, as if I don’t know she probably spent ten minutes standing in front of the scales.

If shopping for clothes wasn’t bad enough. I just stare at her blankly, there’s nothing left to say, a pregnant pause. As she turns to leave I catch sight of her back, what once used to be a pristine patch of clear skin is now a skeleton, perfectly visible with spots and scars in between. Her father jokes and says that you can see every bone in her body; she could be used for the university students.

I don’t find that funny. I don’t find it funny that she lies in bed at night cutting arms. She thinks I don’t notice the blood stained sheets, and the razor with chunks of her skin nestled in the edges. She left her ring, and I am just about to go and give it to her when I see the mirror. What is it she sees that I can’t? I saw beauty; I now see nothing but death. I then stare at the scales, the cold glass block that is ruining my life and driving my daughter to the point of insanity, making her hate herself, making her starve herself and throw up just by showing her a number. I can’t seem to get inside her head, get through to her, and make her understand. I get so cross, I yell and cry, but she doesn’t understand that it hurts me. She’s killing herself and it hurts me. I open the faucet and splash cold water on my face, dark circles, pale and drawn skin. Without even thinking I remove my clothes and stand in front of the scales. I close my eyes, step up and wait two seconds. ’73.56kg’, I shudder and dread to think what number flashed up before this one. I walk over to the shower, turn the handle and wait for the water to heat. I suddenly get a whiff of cigarette smoke through the wall. I can hear in the bathroom next to me her crying and groaning to herself, then the toilet seat goes up and I hear her. She weeps all the way through every time now, and her stomach is empty, just acids. Without knowing what to do in a sudden urge to crumble, I enter the shower and turn up the water higher and let it pound away at my skin. Her retching is distant and barely audible, for the next ten minutes my daughter doesn’t exist, I don’t exist. I am no longer aware of it; the world is distant and barely audible. I turn to look at the mirror but it is all cloudy with steam.

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IMAGES BY ANNE FISKER NIELSEN

Lit & Creative

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Lit & Creative

Third Time Lucky

by Aria Aber

I tried it once, when I was sixteen, lying in a bath tub, warm with a kitchen knife, my mother watching me in disbelief. Her scream, a delicate fountain transmigrating her Buddha stomach, spread a thousand tessen fans

up my throat. I did it because of school, because I wanted t o be white, because of the jokes. I did it because I was b ored. The second time I was twenty-one, when I realised I had torn off all of your hair and lived on it for days without noticing. I saw the streaks and bushes cold against the kitchen tiles, my face scabbier than my knees. The genius said Not yet, not

yet. So I dragged down a chicken from the neighbour’s yard instead, cut it in half, and watched it spread its desaturated wings incongruently to an alleviative squeal. The feathers smiled calmly, sprinkled like the pride of an albino peacock, a rubber-feet-framed breathing cross-section of a Rorschach dream. Nothing was crimson, but it was magnificent, the way the blood amounted my ankles as I lay my ear against the palpitating earth, waiting for an answer of its core. I don’t feel at home on this

IMAGES BY NASTASIA VESELIA

planet, I said. And I swear I heard the earth reply, cooing in the birds’ murmur, nested somewhere between the chromosomes of the ziziphus shrubs, Then leave, then leave. Why don’t you leave.

Sometimes, on a train, or when I hear my flatmate’s piss strolling down the toilet like the tiptoed nonchalance of a 19th century flaneuse in the middle of the night, I think of this, of your hair on my tongue, of the chicken’s feet, its flyblown head, of the ziziphus shrubs, or why I decided to stay.

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Why Are There So Many Bullshit Bourgeois Watering Holes in New Cross?

As a final goodbye wave to the Hobgoblin S a o i r s e O’ L e a r y d i s c u s s e s t h e c h a n g i n g face of drinking culture in New Cross.

It’s a drizzly Wednesday night at our uni’s closest local – The Marquis. Upon news of the Hobgoblin closing (to be replaced with what has probably been best described as ‘a New Cross House-type pub with a stone pizza oven’), I meet with local bartenders Aaron Savage and Dylan Tynan to discuss the near extinction of proper pubs within the New Cross ‘main strip.’ In their place, a surge of upmarket bourgeois bars, with trendy punters and pricey cocktails are taking over. I hand over a modest three-sixty for a Foster’s and scan the room for somewhere to sit. It’s midweek but it’s bursting and with the jukebox blaring out a somewhat questionable mix of the Pogues and disco music. The place is in full swing.

“Pubs like the Marquis have been tried and tested - it’s a constant,” says Aaron. Dylan agrees: “Irish pubs are so over.

Ha. That’ll be the day, right?”

But the area has experienced an undeniable shift in drinking culture within the past three years. Traditionally, being the haunt of students and locals, the landscape of New Cross has long reflected a working class mentality. Yet with an increase of popup bars and pubs catering to a more middle class, gentrified crowd, (with prices to match), traditional locals are falling into decline.

When I ask why a previous student favorite, the Hob, is facing closure, the answer is shrugs. “All sorts of reasons,” admits Aaron. “All pubs have a fad period where it’s the place to go.

They kind of failed to keep the hype going with the types of punters they were pulling in.”

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“The Hob was relying on an undergrad crowd. But students will fuck off, they’ll go to their halls and drink, go anywhere else and drink,” adds Dylan. “There’s a high turn-over of people in New Cross because of the university. They should have artificially kept up the hype - they didn’t manage to do that.”

At the pricier end of the spectrum, there was a time in which New Cross House seemed somewhat out of place in the area, an oasis of posh pizzas and craft beer. The Sun described the New Cross area as ‘dingy’ after Shia Lebeouf infamously visited the ‘scruffy’ Hobgoblin early last year. Residing comfortably within what has been voted the UK’s least peaceful borough, it is somewhat of a surprise that firmly middle class establishments like New Cross House find the business they do. “It’s almost as if someone’s done their market research wrong,” admits Dylan.

But this seemingly bizarre placement of bourgeois watering holes is in practice working very well; not only does it never seem to be at a loss to find people throwing a tenner over the bar for a pizza, but a team of similar establishments have spawned, with places such as LP Bar and Birdie Num Nums adding to the string of hipster hangouts.

But the question that poses itself is why these additions were ever required in the first place. In many ways, pubs like the Marquis are arguably more enjoyable than their fancy bourgeois counterparts. Staff are usually friendlier (or friends), and there is a unique atmosphere in places like the Hob and the Marquis that is difficult to find in the more ‘upmarket’ establishments.

However, the key difference between trendy bars and proper boozers is their clientele. It sometimes feels as though New

Food & Drink IMAGE BY TAYLOR MCGRAA

Cross House has some kind of entry requirement: young, trendy and good looking. But looking around, we all acknowledge a unique atmosphere in the Marquis - the kind that the likes of hipster bible, Vice, have directed hapless visitors to for years.

“You look around, and you see LGBT students, mainstream grads, local young people,” says Dylan. “Miles is still in his work gear. There’s a mix, and that’s actually really healthy. You just wouldn’t find that in these new places.”

“If it goes too much one way, it’s actually going to be ugly. If you get too much of any one grouping of people, especially outsiders with a lot of money, it’s not going to be the authenticity that these people ask for in the first place. So what’s the point?”

But stylish, artificial establishments have their image, too. “I think there’s a lot of pressure to be a graduate in London. I have a lot of friends that are actually very depressed, because they either can’t find a graduate job, or they’re in one and it’s not what they thought it was. There’s huge pressure on young people in London to be successful.” And it’s easy to see why people find this in classy establishments; drinking a 2009 bottle of Rioja makes you feel as if you’re a part of something bigger than your zone two surroundings. “It creates an image of luxury, and an image of affluence,” concludes Dylan.

“

If it goes too m u c h o n e w a y, i t’ s a c t u a l l y g o i n g t o b e u g l y. I f y o u g e t too much of any one grouping of people, especially outsiders with a l o t o f m o n e y, i t’ s n o t g o i n g to be the authenticity that these people ask for in the first place. So w h a t’ s t h e p o i n t ?

”

As we huddle in the doorway to have a cigarette, we get chatting to a young guy from Bromley. “I’ll just go to Wetherspoons,” he says with a cheeky grin. Nicely summed up - thanks mate.

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Hangover Cures Sophie Rees Rumney investigates the perfect remedy for a hangover whilst reminiscing on tunes of the previous night

It’s Saturday morning and we blast out our post-Amersham playlist in hope of feeling less like a shell of a human.

The music makes us feel roughly twenty percent more whole but we are hungry and wish we were farmers living in Strawberry Fields Forever, feasting our taste buds on The Cranberries and a Blood Orange.

However, we are not farmers, and the half eaten Meat Loaf that lies on the side reminds us we are still in New Cross. I think about sweet Vanilla Fudge, but this and the idea of putting a Lime in the Coconut is cast aside and we resort to Smashing Pumpkins for fun. I deliberate eating Red Hot Chili Peppers to numb the pain of my self- inflicted headache as I remember all I have in my cupboard are Green Onions.

I ask those around me what their ideal hangover treatment is and what the best Superfood is. I dream of eating Jerk Chicken and Black Eyed Peas but I tell my thoughts to just shut up, just shut up, shut up.

Enjoying your night does not have to leave you stuck in a post-drinking day of misery, destined only for bed and paracetemol. It is one of very few events which gives you a reason to replenish yourself by indulging in food and drinks packed with vitamins and minerals. Try and opt for organic foods - your liver will already be feeling sorry for itself and won’t want to break down a load of toxic pesticides found in processed foods. Enjoy finding your own hangover medicine whilst also drinking responsibly and all that, blah blah blah. My personal favourite is a Hot Chocolate.

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Food & Drink Kaela – Can I give a prevention?

Because it would be to drink a sugary flat drink, like lemonade or a flat coke, and a full pint of water just before bed.

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Alex – T h e t h r e e ‘ W ’ s’ – W a t e r , W h i s k y a n d c a n I s a y We e d ?

IMAGES BY SOPHIE REES RUMNEY

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Ruth – Wa t e r , a n d a l o t o f i t .

Drink it so the future you thanks your present self.

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”

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Henry – Fluffy pancakes with crispy bacon and maple syrup, or a banana, then spend the day feeling really sorry for myself and wearing the same thing as last night.

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Rachel – I want a large Peach Iced Te a . I t ’ s s u g a r y , l i g h t a n d t a s t y a n d g i v e s m e e n e r g y.

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Lloyd – Can I have two things?

Because if so, I’d eat a Sunday Roast and Spaghetti bolognaise. They give me a w a r m f e e l i n g . I t’ s t h e t o m a t o e s a n d i t’ s j u s t beautiful and amazing and I love it.

“

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I Ate Nothing But ‘Superfoods’ for a Week, and I’m Still Mortal A m y Wa l k e r t e l l s a l l a s s h e t r i a l s , t e s t s a n d survives the superfood trend.

To start with, I may as well give you a low down of what I lived off for a week in my quest to become better than you:

+ Carrots

Superpowers: Rich in Vitamin A and good for your sight.

Drawbacks: One too many may turn you a shade not dissimilar from top bell-end Dapper Laughs.

+ Eggs

Superpowers: They are loaded with all the good shit that was meant for developing another living being.

Drawbacks: Aside from ethical ones, cooking eggs smells like baby feces, and nobody will want to be in the same room as you, ever.

The term ‘superfood’ has been lingering around like a bad smell for quite some time now. Any rational being might begin to ask themselves how the mass population has been so brilliantly duped by food marketers. I couldn’t help but wonder to myself, what is it about ‘superfoods’ that makes them, well, so fucking super? Will living off kale and carrot curry genuinely make you, in plain terms, better than everyone else?

As one always up for a good fad diet and a clearing of the bowels in the name of journalism, I investigated this claim over reading week.

+ Blueberries

Superpowers: If you were to eat them every single day there is a slight chance they could lower your risk of getting cancer or heart disease.

Drawbacks: if they’re not coated in sugar, what’s the point?

+ Cranberries

Superpowers: Outranking every other fruit/veg with their disease fighting antioxidants, enlightenment has also been bestowed upon the female race by Erykah Badu who ranks a healthy dose of fresh cranberries every day the best way to a sweet tasting cum.

Drawbacks: They’re seasonal, as if that term still exists.

+ Tofu

Superpowers: They are full of good stuff, and you could eat a bucket-full of it before reaching the calorific content of a custard cream Drawbacks: Eating tofu is a little like plucking a slug from your garden and making a stir fry out of it.

+ Kale

Superpowers: Generally and all around good for you Drawbacks: It tastes bad + Celery - Same. + Oats - Same. + Lemon – Likewise

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Food & Drink

Five Days Of Purgatory The first of my five days of purgatory began with good handful of blueberries and cranberries, mixed in with porridge oats and a dash of cinnamon. Then after snacking on yet more berries, I finished my evening off with a tofu and kale curry, served with a side of couscous.

The next few days followed pretty much the same route, with the change up and switch around of a few ingredients here and there.

Here’s the thing: the super-diet is a restrictive one, so by the third day every mealtime had begun to repeat itself. It did not feel normal to constantly produce your meals from soy curd, vegetables and thin air. However, knowing that I was gaining my daily dose of supremacy somehow pushed me to these limits.

By the fourth day, I’d had enough chocolate to cancel out the detoxifying benefits of the cranberries and on day five, I ate chips.

Psychological Effects Day one of this purgatory felt a little like what I imagine Beyoncé must feel like every day. Like in any diet, the one day of your life in which you don’t consume carbs allows you to look through rose-tinted spectacles at the rest of the world. Rest assured, this familiar feeling was hastily followed by periods of not being able to look my housemates in the eye as they savaged a Sainsbury’s microwaved Tikka Masala. Despite being able to gloat about my swapping of Watsits for vagina flavoring cranberries, there didn’t seem to be anything all that super about the psychological effects this diet.

IMAGE BY KATYA KRASNER

Physical Effects Of course, consuming enough to feed a small household pet is going to make one lose a couple of pounds. Nevertheless, when this is made up for by an intensive lack of energy and the chuffing of around twenty fags a day, combined with your head inflaming to twice the usual size whilst talking excessively about your new super eating habits, it doesn’t really seem to be that great after all.

So, In Answer To That All Important Question Perhaps ‘superfoods’ have a certain capacity to make one feel superior, and overall better - that is if you’re cutting out anything else with actual necessary fat content from your life.

Be reminded that being super will materialise itself as fitting into your smallest jeans, being capable of defecating multiple times a day, and spending about a tenner more on food shopping than usual. However, if you actually manage to eat enough of any of the flourishing list of foods to make you a super healthy champion, chances are that the ensuing alcohol and carbon monoxide abuse will cancel out the benefits.

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Food & Drink

RESTAURANTERRIFIC: NOT

YOUR

RESTAURANT

AVERAGE REVIEW

Shrimptron Adams takes us on a journey of terrific sensations and gluttonous recommendations.

Bahar: BBQ & Restaurant We had just taken a salt-shaker full of LSD. Me, myself, Jacob & I had begun our journey into the deepest depths of Peckham. BAHAR: BBQ restaurant; a barbeque restaurant indeed, offering, in its own words ‘Kebabs; Pizzas; Burgers; eat in or take away’. Eat in or take away – eat in o(u)r takeaway, as I had understood it. And so we ate.

By Queen’s Road station, we ordered, to share, their speciality grilled chicken wings (£6.50) with humus & pitta (£2.50); to be brought to rude health by bottled Efes (£2.50pc). Undercover: an earthy dose of ‘real’ London, we dwelled discreetly among the locals of Little Lagos. A lightspeed montage, propelling us through sojourns in Morocco, Paris, and Amsterdam. And yet, it was that uniquely English fusion of kebaberie and diner, of charcoal grill and polystyrene boxes…

Poor humus. But the chicken wings.

The char: skewered over broiling coal; the tremendous ripple of burnt skin, the moist embrace of flesh beneath hymenous membrane. [!] And so we ate. As the fish from the trawler do flee, so to does the wayward son find his place among white laminate tables.

9/10.

Shared meal for two; one starter and one large main w/ two beers: £14.

Overall – 7/10

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Mishkin’s Deli – Covent Garden Pockets empty, in a drunken haze we trudged through the ruins of Covent Garden, that once-resplendent phantasmagoria that had earned the world’s renown. Still the crowds bodied forth in all their cosmopolitan dreaming, thrown into narcotic stupor by the endless plate glass. The aura, however, was long since dead, and on the steps of the Apple Store we were once again overcome by nausea.

Yet in our wounds a fertile madness grew: a lone violin upon an Eastern zephyr roused us from our priestly catatonia with the promise of vodka-soaked synagoguery. We find ourselves thrown into MISHKIN’S – a kind-of-Jewish-not-kosher-deli, specialising in pastrami, rye, and, again, cocktails. And so we ate.

‘East End chips’ [?] (£3); beef dog w/ sauerkraut, pastrami, and half-sour pickles (£9); meatloaf w/ gravy, mash & greens (£10). Chips perhaps too dry after ‘thrice-frying’, too common among ‘gourmet street food’ joints. 5/10.

Excellent meatloaf – served with a fried egg (somewhat surprisingly), which approached almost dosa-like texture in places. 8/10. Contents of the beef dog were good, but the white bun in which they sat scattered was perhaps too plain, and the meat too minimal for the meal to really merit praise. 6/10.

Decent cocktails, and a delightful baked cheesecake (£6), exquisite enough to justify the exacerbation of Jacob’s mortifying cheese-related skin condition.

Oy vey.

Two mains, one side, two cocktails, coffee & cheesecake to share; inc. discretionary service charge: £55 Overall, given staff friendliness and atmosphere – 8/10

The Savoy – Strand We were coming down from the valium; we had found ourselves exiles among kings. Excess, madness, violence and delirium: we sat in THE AMERICAN BAR, our only line of flight ruthless expenditure. The piano was muted and the guests – corpulent scum dying slowly under a Parisienne syphilitic regime.

Ludicrous caricatures of an eighteenth century bourgeoisie, the walls a mirror of their morbid decline.

“Gentlemen”. We scanned the menu for the cheapest liquor and found ourselves awaiting a Maid in Cuba (Bacardi, Lemon & Cucumber, £15 [6/10]) and a Secret Agent (Bourbon, Absinthe, Albumen & Grenadine, £17 [4/10]). Two unpretentious drinks: a sensible booze upon linen. A crooning penguin filled the cloister with a stagnant, impotent wealth that had lost the ecstatic glut of its aristocratic ancestry. Nice loos.

Spooky.

Two drinks inc. compulsory service charge: £36, Overall, given cost – 2/10

y b a e ca m s t

ific-MAY lor

- conten S T U

FOOD PORN

WARNING! 18+ only

IMAGES BY HUGH J’PENIS

TAIN BI G N CON

the following section contains scenes of a calorific nature, viewer discretion is advised

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N a o m i , 2 0 , i s h o t f o r t h i s L a s Ve g a s b u r g e r , d r i p p i n g w i t h garlic mayo and laced with three-day-old lettuce. She digs her nails in and tears it apart as she takes the first bite.

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IMAGES BY TAYLOR MCGRAA & BEN JONES

Dave, 19, loves to trace his tongue over the skin of these s p i c y c h i c k e n w i n g s . H e c a n’ t g e t e n o u g h , s o h e t a k e s t h e m both at once, anticipating the juicy meatbeneath.

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S a m e e r , 1 8 , c a n’ t w a i t t o g e t h i s t e e t h i n t o these mozzarella dippers. He loves to get a good grip on them before slowly pulling tModel: h e m Sameer a w a y, r e v e a l i n g t h e m o l t e n , g o o e y, unnaturally coloured cheese beneath.

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IMAGES BY HUGH J’PENIS

Wa i t i n g For Sun It is still bitterly cold and the consolation of Christmas is left trailing behind us as we delve feet first into the New Year. We look ahead to the days beginning to lengthen – a minute a day, a minute a day. We dream of our summer adventures, frolicking in Berlin with the remaining scrapes of our student loan. But while we wait for the sun to come out of hibernation, we can indulge in the last chances to layer up with our favourite winter warmers.

Our editorial of this issue takes inspiration from the slowly changing temperament of the weather, creating a layered and snug feel to our looks and topping them off with a touch of 60’s and 90’s nostalgia. We also wanted to embrace the love affair that our students at Goldsmiths have with thrifting and so sourced most of our featured clothing from London thrift stores East End Thrift Store and The Vintage Store. Our shoot entices and excites a cosy comfort, whilst also offering a more accessible source of inspiration.

Photos by Matthew Barnett Edited by Ben Jones Styling by Jessica Cole & Sophia Hinton-Lever Make up by Sophia Hinton-Lever

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Darius Binning (left) wears a Lyle & Scott Harrington Jacket in black, ÂŁ100 and a speckled t-shirt, models own.

Mark Juggins (right) wears a cropped check jacket, East End Thrift Store, ÂŁ15 and a white t-shirt, models own.

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Jessica Cole (left, also on opposite page) wears a cropped jacket, £35, velour leopard print trousers, £25, both The Vintage Store, and black slip-ons, models own.

Amy Mills (right) wears a velour leopard print turtle neck, £18, a mustard shift dress, £35 both from The Vintage Store, and Dr. Martens, models own.

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Mark Juggins (left) wears a checked flannel jacket, East End Thrift Store, £20 and a Lacoste denim jacket, stylist’s own.

Ben Easton (centre) wears a Lyle & Scott Harrington Jacket in black, £100, a tartan scarf, East End thrift Store, £5 and a leopard print shirt, The Vintage Store, £18.

Darius Binning (Right) wears a leather bomber, East End thrift store, £25, a paisley shirt, East End Thrift store, £15 and a navy Amarni jumper, stylist’s own.

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Fashion

Hey Macklemore, Let’s Go Thrift Shopping R o b b i e Wo j c i e c h o w s k i d i s c u s s e s t h e c h a n g i n g face of thrift culture, and wonders what the f u t u r e h o l d s o f L o n d o n’ s f a s h i o n c o n s c i o u s n e s s ?

IMAGES BY NASTASIA VESELIA

London fashion is constantly on the move, changing, diverting and reanimating the subcultures of bygone eras with new cuts and different colours. But there’s nothing quite like fashion that never loses it’s appeal. Classicism is something we often miss when it comes to working out our wardrobe. In our own bids to stay on the mark, we forget that it’s often the thriftier materials stolen from old family members, mates, and parties that really hold the texture of our outfits together.

In the last few years, London has seen a boom in thrift culture, permeated by a massive rise in bargain warehouses selling clothes by weight and bag rather than clothing line and brand name. As a sales technique, it’s wonderfully appealing. Not only does the shopping experience usually consist of digging through boxes and clothes rails of staples from the past, it also brings out a selective, more personal approach to finding clothing to wear. After all, how many times have you seen the obscurities you’ll find in a backroom bargain thrift basement appear again on other students around campus? Thrift culture is wonderful. It restores the old, comes at bargain prices, and allows you to imprint your personality on everything you wear.

But what’s the future of thrift fashion, and could it be on the cusp of becoming part of the mainstream London fashion consciousness? Considering the number of bargain basements opening every week, from Brick Lane to Shepherds Bush, items sourced from these outlets appearing in the weekly fashion press is surely not an impossible notion.

At the heart of thrift is a culture that’s been lost to modern society. In many senses, our clothes now are more dispensable than ever before. We throw away our unloved items. With thrift, there’s a culture for sharing the antiquities of the past. Thrift lets us share common cultures, exploring the counter-narratives to society’s common consciousness that permeate the past. Thrift brings out vitality for expression. Thrift brings out an eagerness to be different. It’s an essential part of British fashion, and it’s something we should all embrace.

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Fashion

Long Live the Trainer Jessica Cole discusses the takeover of the t r a i n e r o n t h e s t r e e t s a n d c a t w a l k s o f t o d a y.

IMAGES BY SOPHIE RAMISCHWILI | MODEL: AISHE SHEKMAGAUINA

Once upon a time, fashionable footwear needed to come with a health warning. The towering heels worn by models of the 90’s, and even up until recently, were tempting fate with their towering height and toothpick thin construction. A perfect example of such dangers include Naomi Campbell’s infamous ‘ankle roll’ of 1993, in which a pair of Westwood’s notoriously high heels saw her fall on the catwalk, and pretty damn hard too. She was totally legs up, butt down, and just sat there on the runway for a second, stunned.

Then, in 2010 we saw death-by-the-Mcqueen-‘Amardillo’shoes. These were a pair of heels so high, and so scary that some models refused to walk in the spring show exhibiting this creation. Toes curled at the thought of squeezing into these ever narrow and astronomically high heels of the show.

Images of Victoria Beckham tottering around in six inch, spindly thin Louboutin’s, clutching a baby and an over sized bag, still haunt my dreams today. I still wonder how this was ever done.

My conclusion: she doesn’t actually have feet, but just clips on shoes like a Bratz dolls.

It appeared that in terms of heels, the fashion world was turning into an architecture business, trying to create the most amazing, but also massively impractical skyscraper shoes.

If we were to get down low and I mean really low, on a personal level, I can tell you that I am the owner of some size eight feet, with a hyperactive disposition and the balance of Bambi on ice. I ask you with this knowledge, how on Earth would it be possible to wear shoes like this in a normal world?

But now, the footsie fashion scene has seen a revolution, and something amazing has happened. Fashion got, urm, real? Gone are the nerve-racking heels of previous high-end collections. Instead, they have been replaced with the most glorious trainers I have ever laid eyes on!

Last season we saw Uncle Karl send his models down Chanel’s Paris runway with achingly chic trainer wear. Albeit, couture trainer wear, and way out of my student budget; but I still rejoice for these flats! Stella McCartney’s star spangled flat forms and Balenciaga’s leather offerings are also to die for!

Fashionable flats have taken the industry by storm – along with its price tag. A perfect example of this would be Kanye West’s Yeezy trainers, which were recently sold for an eye watering $93.000 on Ebay.

It seems that everyone has gone a bit sneaker crazy for comfort. I for one, along with what appears to be the majority of Goldsmiths students, have definitely been converted into a trainer devote. It’s so much easier and more practical to be dashing around in a pair of Janoskis than it is to be mashing my feet into a pair of pointy brogues.

Trainers are the Spag Bol of the clothing industry; they are a nourishing yet refined statement, with a good grating of immense comfort and pragmatism for all. So quit shoving your pinkies into those Lady Gaga monstrosities, give those ankles a bit of well-needed TLC, and join me in lifting those trainers up into the sky. Hold them up a little higher - yes that’s right. Feel the trainer. Become the Trainer. Scream, praise, and shout at the top of your lungs, ‘long live the trainer’. Refrain. ‘Long live the trainer’. There we go, you saucy little things.

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Fashion

A Political Fashion Statement Jennifer Hahn discusses the controversy concerning C h a n e l ’s S S 1 5 s h o w, a n d a s k s w h e t h e r f e m i n i s m h a s b e c o m e t h e u l t i m a t e f a s h i o n a c c e s s o r y.

The increasing and unprecedented speed that characterises the fashion industry today demands constant innovation, improvement and trumping of the competition. It is no wonder then, that even the most established labels feel the need to distinguish themselves from the rest of the fashion populace.

Karl Lagerfeld, known for staging extravagant shows for Chanel including a shopping centre and a barn erected within the Grand Palais in Paris, decided to stand out by initiating a feminist protest for the finale of his SS15 show.

IMAGE BY BEN JONES

The almost exclusively white and exclusively skinny models were carrying signs proclaiming ‘Women’s rights are more than alright,’ ‘Ladies First’ and ‘We can match the Machos’ whilst yelling into quilted megaphones. One solitary male model followed them holding up a ‘HeForShe’ sign as a nod towards Emma Watson’s UN campaign, encouraging men to get involved in the movement for gender equality, which has generated heated conversation around the feminist debate in recent weeks.

Some people see the show as a return to Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s feminist tendencies.

Her designs have always epitomised a certain innovative, not to say revolutionary, spirit. At a time when opulence, conspicuous colours and accentuated curves were the order of the day, Coco simplified women’s fashion to more androgynous, almost masculine colours and silhouettes. Instead of solely focussing on the aesthetic, she added comfort and functionality to the

equation. Indeed the SS15 show itself was also heavily inspired by menswear, visible in pinstripe patterns and Brogue-esque shoes.

Lagerfeld’s gesture to the label’s history of feminist orientation seems inappropriate, however, when considering some of the statements he has made throughout his career. He is quoted as saying, ‘It would have been difficult to have an ugly daughter,’ ‘No one wants to see curvy women’ as well as angering a considerable amount of people by making derisive comments concerning Adele’s weight and explaining his preference of Pippa Middleton’s ass over her face.

In this light, it appears Lagerfeld took on the feminist viewpoint more as a trend accessory that might go out of style next season, than an educated political opinion. Or, as Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett wrote in the Guardian: ‘It is the fate of any countercultural movement to become co-opted and repackaged. The market dictates, and the market has decided feminism is cool.’

It should not be disregarded however, that a time when political activism, especially for younger generations, comes in waves (#Kony2012, #YesAllWomen, #ALSIceBucketChallenge and the like) which rapidly gain momentum only to disappear shortly after. The newfound popularity of feminism in fashion, music and other cultural areas presents an opportunity to remove the negative connotations from the term, even if the mass media will presumably not dwell on the topic for much longer.

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Fashion

Nipping it in the Bud Jessica Cole discusses the sexualisation of the female nipple, and why it is getting a bit ridiculous

IMAGES BY TAYLOR MCGRAA | MODEL: JESSICA COLE

Since I can remember, I have always had this compulsive desire to get my nipples out. Even as a child, I vaguely remember always wanting to walk around without a top on. A Freudian reading of this would suggest that I have always possessed a rebellious streak, wanting to go against what etiquette is expected of me. However, the reality of this situation is more like my inner free-spirited hippie trying to break free.

Despite this, it wasn’t until quite recently that I’ve actually taken the plunge and decided to go braless – flashing my nipple piercing and all, letting those poor little nips get a bit of fresh air.

I mean, what’s good for Moss is good for me, right? However, it appears that this little bit of lumpy flesh seems to cause a greater society offence than I thought it ever would.

With the advent of page three, and the billion-dollar pornography industry growing every day, the female nipple has become hyper sexualised, and worst of all, recognised as a taboo image. This fleshy piece of offence has most recently been creating a shit storm on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which deems a flash of areola or nipple as inappropriate and graphic.

Instagram defends its censorship of the nipple by saying that they want the app to be a ‘safe place’ for everybody, of all ages.

Now, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m pretty sure that if you walk into your local corner shop, have a quick scan across the magazine rack, flick through the newspaper, or watch a Nikki

Minaj video, then you’ll probably end up seeing some form of inflated sexualisation, regardless of Instagram sticking smiley faces over nipples or not. Furthermore, if you are a teenager or adult that uses social media, and who hasn’t seen a female nipple before, then I seriously suggest that you get out from underneath your rock and immerse yourself in the 21st century.

This social inequality, and yes, I’m going to use that dusty pink term, ‘feminine injustice’, just seems ludicrous to me. Why is it okay for guys to walk around shirtless on building sites, or at the beach on a baking hot day, but for a woman to expect to be heckled and scorned at if they ever dream of doing the same thing? At the end of the day, it’s just a bit of flesh.

Interestingly, nipple showing on the streets of New York has actually been legal for women since 1996. However, in less tolerant places such as Louisiana, a woman who dares show any nipinky can face up to three years in jail! If we are truly to be treated as equals, then surely we must be allowed to expose the same body parts without fear of censorship. No wonder most women have such a distorted view of their bodies. This archaic attitude towards the female nipple really needs to be ‘nipped’ in the bud. I mean, come on, most of us were breastfed. Nipples aren’t scary; they are a practical, natural part of the human antimony. It’s about time that we grew up from our teenage boy views, and embraced the little things, boobs and all.

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Music

Hookworms Infecting!

Ed Ginn reviews the gloriously sound of Hookworms

Hookworms are Leeds-based five piece, who interestingly, (and awkwardly for this article), each perform under the alias of their initials. They’re known for their fuzzy noise-rock numbers and have also been pushed into subgenres such as ‘neopsychedelic’ and ‘feverish space rock.’ Their second full length studio album, The Hum, was released through Weird World, but still involved a DIY aspect, recording some tracks at the lead singer (MJ’s) suburban home studio. Released on 10th November 2014, the album has received solid reviews and was voted into one of Rough Trade’s albums of the month, being described as ‘fierce but beautiful.’

The ironically titled first track on the album, ‘The Impasse,’ starts with a singular rotary note, layered with an acoustic drum kit, before it is enveloped by a tumultuous crashing of noise.

MJ’s distorted, squealing vocals combined with the church organ and punk rock baseline create an oxymoron of images, like the Pope moshing at an early Horrors gig.

IMAGES BY HOOKWORMS

‘On Leaving,’ the second song on The Hum, contrasts greatly and runs on beautifully from the disorder of the previous, allowing us to catch our breath and wipe the sweat from our foreheads. The vocals are withheld, gentler and a lot more understandable. Harmonising of vocal melodies ensues, and we feel safer within the steady order of perfectly intertwined guitars and organ. The lyric ‘nothing stays the same’ foreshadows the rest of the album - a project of varying sounds and ideas.

‘Radio Tokyo’ surprised me in seeming to have a massive blues vibe, yet not sounding out of place on the album. It is as if someone has taken a Little Richard song and deep fat fuzz fried it. This is expressed by strained vocals, accompanied by a boogie-woogie organ. However, if we were to extend this metaphor, the batter would be the thick, distorted guitar solo and baseline. Even more surprising is the breakdown halfway

through the song, where we can hear Deep South influences which, although has the occasional futuristic feedback sound, grows into a fully harmonising gospel choir.

The pacey baseline is the skeleton in which all of the other accompanying instruments hold onto in ‘Beginners’. The vocal is used in numerous ways throughout this track, starting off as an atmospheric drone, distorted and jolty, giving a futuristic, space-rock feel to it. We then receive a hard-hitting, screeching voice which, although we have no idea what he’s saying, we agree with. The lead singer’s screeching on-top of a soft backing vocals harmonise perfectly, creating more texture.

The variety of uses for the vocals in this song are extremely impressive, allowing Hookworms to create an ever-flowing, futuristic sound.

We reach the more melancholy aspect of The Hum, with ‘Off Screen.’ Interestingly, we can still make out the powerful distortion of guitars, contrasting with the overall volume of the song, making it seem like distant chaos. We hear a lackadaisicalness of this track through the barely heard sigh of vocals and the far away experimentations of electronic sound, like the static on television when a household have all gone to bed. This track is a prime example for the differing tones used through the album.

Annoyingly, it may seem that The Hum is a mere extension upon last year’s album Pearl Mystic. There seems to be a very similar structure in both projects, as each involves three ‘filler’ instrumental tracks, which are all named with roman numerals.

If you are looking for a band to try out new things then it is hard to see how you could class this album as a development.

However, although there may be some exceptions with ‘Radio Tokyo’, Hookworms have stuck with their ‘fierce but beautiful’ sound and are sure to please their massive cult following.

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Music

Wanking Over Alex Turner: The Lack of Politics in Music Ewan Atkinson makes a rallying cry for musicians to give a shit about politics again.

IMAGES BY ALICIA SIMPSON-WATT

Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ burst onto the airwaves in 2004.

On hearing it for the first time, my ten-year-old self, and pretty much everyone else who heard the record, became aware, and angry, about the gross misconduct of the United States’ government in their foreign and domestic policies. This led to a resurgence of popularity in older punk bands such as AntiFlag, Sex Pistols, and The Clash. Needless to say, this album changed my life.

American Idiot put politics at the forefront of popular culture, but has it been there since? In 2005, especially in Britain, popular music cut ties with angsty American punk after the arrival of Arctic Monkeys. After their first single ‘I Bet That You Look Good On The Dance Floor’ made it to #1, their LP became the fastest selling debut album ever. Turner’s straight-talking lyrics vividly illustrated the life of the common man and they were cast as working class heroes. However, in July 2014, that view changed irreversibly after the revelation that Arctic Monkeys had syphoned off up to £1.1m in tax through the Channel Islands. This came at a time when thousands of teachers, fire fighters, and other public sector workers were striking to defend services funded by the state. In Turner’s own words: who would want to be a man of the people, when there’s people like you?

Since Arctic Monkeys turned the popular music norm on its head, bands have disregarded politics, instead portraying a sense of nonchalance with current affairs. It is almost as if

they are scared to risk making political music for fear of not being seen as ‘cool’ by hipsters from Shoreditch, or not being able to find big label interest in their sound. Political music has, interestingly, gone underground into alternative scenes such as the Guardian-reading indie scene and heavy metal.

This ignorance of politics in the wider public sphere comes at a time of capitalist crisis, Conservative governments, austerity measures and rising poverty. It’s wrong that bands, which represent the ‘common people’, should ignore the problems that face their own fans. Where are the teens that go to gigs and come out wanting to fight the system? They’re all staying in listening to The Smiths and wanking over Alex Turner.

In 2011, riots took place all across the country. These were initially sparked by police brutality, but became a show of anger from the young working class at the economic and social inequality that was infecting the country. How did the rest of the generation respond? They denounced the rioters as mindless thugs and held tea parties to suck up to the establishment.

Fuck that! Sham 69 sang ‘If the kids are united, they will never be divided.’ I’d say we are the divided generation. The lack of politics in music not only shows the gap in our generation, but it also shows the lack of sympathy with those who are struggling with every day life due to the social and economical divide in our country. This needs to be sorted. We need to be united. We need politics back in music!

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Music

A Moment of Happyness Ed Ginn met up with Happyness at their Manchester gig in The Castle Hotel and had a chat about their debut studio album, We i r d L i t t l e B i r t h d a y.

Ed: Describe the sounds and the ideas behind Weird Little Birthday.

IMAGES BY ALICAI SIMPSON-WATT AND HAPPYNESS

Happyness: It’s not a concept album! We were just about to release it and we were asked what the album was about in one sentence, and we gave them the whole concept thing and it kind of caught on. There are common themes that run through it, however these are completely coincidental, probably because we wrote it in a specific time and place. We started recording in early spring last year at a disused church, but we only ended up recording the instrumentals for Baby Jesus there and left because we felt like we’d burn in hell or something. We were kind of creeped out that there was a congregation of dead people sat watching us, so we thought we should go.

sang in to it on his verse, it sounded incredible.

E: Your album was mixed by Adam Lassus, who produced some Yo La Tengo albums, and it was mastered by Greg Calbi, who worked on The Horrors new album and with War On Drugs. What was this like?

H: It’s weird because we have only had many conversations over Skype with Adam but feel like we know each other really well. For all we know he could be seven foot tall and have six fingers, not that we’d think that. Adam has worked with Greg a lot in the past as well. Adam spoke to us about every song we did and what gear to get, but he also just spoke to us about his studio/pool house that he’d made.

E: What were your main influences when making this album?

E: Is this your first tour? And how are you enjoying tour life?

H: The moment when we had the courage to try and record it ourselves was when we started listening to Sparklehorse. Ed Harcourt, (who features on the track Pumpkin Noir), introduced him to us. We loved Sparklehorse’s records and how they were made. You’re always pulled in different directions of what band you want to be, and we didn’t want that, so we just recorded this album ourselves. In the future we’d love to work with producers and collaborate, but we feel that making this album ourselves is the first step of establishing what we are.

H: It’s our first headline tour we did a few dates supporting Ezra Furman and The Boyfriends, which was awesome. But this is our first ‘our tour’. It’s not like we’re going around the country saying “Hello MEN arena!” but even if ten people show up it’s nice that they’ve come to see us and know some songs. We have a tour bus/van which used to be an old Siemens van. It has a very thin bed. It’s very comfy but you can’t lie down on your back, you have to be on your side. I think it’s my favourite bed in the whole world.

E: Speaking of collaborating, you worked with Saffron Le Bon and Ed Harcourt on some of your tracks in this album.

What were they like to work with?

E: If I could describe Happyness it would be: if Stephen Malkmus couldn’t get to sleep and picked up a guitar and started writing songs, the songs would sound like Happyness.

H: She has a beautiful voice and knows the album pretty well.

She brings a different dimension and completely makes some of the tracks. She adds some definite tone to the album. We worked with them in a very relaxed way and let them have their own input. On Pumpkin Noir, Ed brought in a radioactive mic that looked a cross between a hairbrush and a sex toy, and

H: I like that. Someone said ‘if Larry David was in an indie band, that would be Happyness’, which was one of our favourite reviews. Another was ‘Happyness are like The National for people who don’t have kids’. Not to say we don’t like people with kids, we like everyone.

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Head, Heart & Ballz: An Interview With Fiende Fatale Becky Bee interviews upcoming indie band Fiende Fatale on ever ything from locking their drummer in a basement to fantasising about David Cameron on MDMA.

“It’s kind of daunting to be in a band,” admits Matt Magee, lead singer of high energy indie band Fiende Fatale. “There are just so many bands out there. When I was younger I used to hate other bands, but there’s room for that nowadays—just playfulness and irony.” Rolph Angelucci-Edwards, lead guitarist for the band adds, “it’s about giving something different.”

G.A.Y, with the rest of Parliament.

Irony, playfulness and having that ‘something different’ certa inly feature heavily in the band’s invigorating and theatrical stage presence. As Rolph and Matt agree, good performance has got to have “ballz—with a zed!” - a word that too often crops up in our conversation.

I ask if the band has any funny stories to tell. Both Matt and Rolph look suddenly very serious. “Not yet,” says Rolph in a tone that can only be described as ominous. “Well,” Matt looks thoughtful, “Dom’s last band did replace him with a drum machine.”

“He has a proper chip on his shoulder about that,” Rolph adds.

“Does that count as a funny story?”

So, how do they keep their performances so lively? “Well.

We keep Dom [Bowman, the band’s drummer] locked in a basement with gym equipment, on a high protein diet and whenever we have a gig we just... release him.”

IMAGE BY LISSI SIMPSON-WATT

“Rock and Roll is a show,” Rolph explains. “It’s as much about performance as it is music. It’s really important to communicate who we are. I mean - it’s called ‘show’-business for a reason... rock and roll is a toss-up between head, heart and ballz!”

Asked about their influences, Rolph— ‘the romanticist’, according to Matt — cites “debauched urban fairy tales” by the likes of The Jam, Warren Zevon and Lou Reed. “It’s hard to talk about your own sound without sounding like a wanker” Matt adds. “I dunno, we sound like something really abstract—a dripping tap in a Brixton squat. No, that’s not it... it’s ballz.” Matt says that he is influenced as much by BBC Radio 1Extra as he is by Radio 6. “1Extra is where it’s at! This is rock and roll via drum and bass.” He admits that if he could produce music himself, then drum and bass would be his style of choice. Yet the band’s references range from Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde through to fantasies about David Cameron on MDMA, at

What would Fiende Fatale’s other members say if they were here? “Alex’s catchphrase is ‘I dunno, man,’ ” says Matt. And Dom, the band’s “most virile” member, would, according to Rolph, “probably say something about females,”

Is fame on the cards for Fiende Fatale? “I think if I wanted to get famous I’d have to murder someone,” Matt says, looking alarmingly serious.

“Yep,” says Rolph. “Serial killer or rock star [...] it’s hard to get famous in rock & roll right now—but you can have success!

There’s a chorus of voices out there now, it’s not like there are rock Gods. We’ll never be Bruce Springsteen, but we’ve got a lot to say.”

Matt argues that a lot of music at the moment is “empty [...] there”s still a lot of big voices but there’s nothing to say. It’s easier to get by singing someone else’s songs than your own.

I’m not ‘in touch’ at the moment, really.”

And what about advice for new bands? “Give up!” Matt yells, almost knocking his coffee over. “Kill yourselves in a dramatic way, then post it all over the Internet!”

Rolph disagrees. “Everyone’s got something to say, you know... you can’t ever be wrong. You can only be you.”

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Music

The Dalai Gaga A l l e y E u g e n i c o s’ r e t r o s p e c t i v e m u s i n g s o n G a g a’ s A r t R a v e a t t h e O 2 A r e n a

IMAGES BY ALICIA SIMPSON-WATT

I would like to start off by saying that I really like Lady Gaga.

There is no doubt in my mind that she is an incredible, vivacious performer who can capture the audience in song and dance.

She writes her own music, performs without syncing and can sing and play beautifully on demand. She is definitely a talent; however, I left the London ArtRave with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. A few years ago, I attended her Monster Ball Tour and although I was not initially sold by the Gaga image, I was still left spellbound and a devoted Little Monster – her talent had blown me away. ArtPop is perhaps not one of her best albums, but that was still not the issue. The issue, rather, was that Gaga spent the evening mainly giving us unnecessary crowd-pleasing speeches.

One thing that I noticed was the amount of people who dress outlandishly like Gaga. You are not being different and outrageous if you are simply copying her outfits. This is part of the ‘Mama Monster’ delusion; the sense that you are free and able to ‘be yourself’ in a comfortable environment. Actually, you are simply endorsing and marketing the Gaga brand. I am more than happy for people to wear what they want to express themselves, in fact I encourage it. However, if you are simply copying one of Gaga’s images, that is not individuality, that is mimesis.

Gaga is a known gay icon - people were donning the Pride colours and her shout-outs to the LGBTs were actually rather sweet. That side of Gaga is nice. Despite this, there was one occurrence that really made me start to question the whole genuineness of her liberal image. At one point she was ‘handed a letter’ from the crowd, (so clearly a set up, it was

embarrassing), and began to read out the letter which contained extreme personal difficulties a certain Little Monster had been encountering. The girl suffered from mental illness, for which she takes medication and had even considered taking her life, but the music of Gaga showed her that there is a future for the ‘freaks.’ This person was called onto the stage and sat with Gaga while she sang ‘Born this Way.’ In theory, this seems nice, but the painfully obvious manufactured circumstance took away from the already superficial moment. Ultimately, it was another way to promote the Gaga brand and the ‘power’ that her music brings to people. I don’t doubt that Gaga has helped many through tough times, but her obvious profiteering and manipulation of the vulnerable does feel uncomfortable to say the least. She sees herself as the survivor of many things such as depression, sexuality confusion, and substance abuse – but while that is inspiring, as a fan I want to be able to connect with that through her music and not her motivational rhetoric.

Another amusing irony was when she asked for a beer from the bar and then proceeded to pour it over the crowd. While doing this she stated the struggles she faced against the monstrous music industry who insisted she conform to the norms and how when asked to change she ‘fucks shit up.’ As much as she would disagree, Gaga is the living embodiment of the Pop music industry. We all remember hearing her say ‘Red One’ (her producer/co-songwriter) at the beginning of her ‘Just Dance’ single. She does conform to mass Pop taste with her new album, and I think she is more than painfully aware - even dressing scantily clad is in some way buying into the Pop idol franchise. Less hypocrisy Gaga and more music please, if you really want to ‘fuck shit up.’

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Politics

Food for Thought Here’s something for you to chew on. We have listed 2014’s hot topics that have developed and pervaded the zeitgeist. It has been a politically and socially challenging year on many fronts, and through our articles we have hoped to illuminate and engage with issues affecting us as students in the wider world. These five questions that we pose to you are, in a sense, rhetorical and ambiguous, but are also vital in exercising a moral and philosophical thought process.

1.

Child Sex Abuse, Operation Yewtree Having been hushed up for decades, the disgusting revelation of child sex abuse by people in the public eye. After two resignations of positions, victims are fed up with the system of persecution, with still no one to head the investigation. Will anyone ever be appropriate? How far do the roots of sexual abuse and scandal go in our cultural elite and, by consequence, our political and justice system? Furthermore, will this help with the prosecution of child abuse on all levels.

2.

Growing Inequality It has been at a consistent rise throughout the Western world, with Forbes magazine recently announcing that the richest 66 people in the world own over half of global wealth. What threats will this growing gap between the 99% and the 1% pose for the future of the neoliberal market?

3.

Burkina Faso Revolution Though always popular, people’s revolutions can be dangerous and African track records do nothing to defy this assumption.

What are the threats caused by military regimes and their relationship to the plight of the people?

IMAGE BY BEN JONES

4.

The General Election With the general election in May this year, and with the political landscape of a two party system seemingly evaporating, could we see the key to power held within the growing ‘minor’ parties?

5.

Ebola Yes, we know. You have either had enough or you are scared shitless. However, a very interesting debate has been sparked by the Ebola crisis. It has surpassed international borders and forced the hand of Western governments to go to Western Africa and contain the epidemic. Médecins Sans Frontières, (Doctors Without Borders), have been holding the front line for months and cracks were beginning to grow into craters.

Therefore humanitarian pleas have been accepted and there is now Western involvement in these regions. Is Ebola just another example of Western authorities getting involved only because it affects them? Can there be such a thing as national altruism?

If you’re still hungry and want to contribute to a discussion, then email your thoughts or articles to us at smiths.politics@gmail.com. Any and all input welcome!

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Politics

IS: Fact From Fiction

IMAGE BY BEN JONES

Alley Eugenicos and Shaun Balderson c o n t e x t u a l i s e t h e I S i n t e r v e n t i o n c o n t r o v e r s y.

19th March 2003 marked the start of the Iraq invasion by American, British and other national forces, its main aim under ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ to depose the Ba’athist government of Saddam Hussein. However, according to ex-British PM, Tony Blair, the true mission was to ‘disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), to end Hussein’s support of terrorism and to free the Iraqi people.’ The justification of intervention being the possession of WMDs, the legality of the invasion itself, the preceding occupation, alleged human rights abuses and high use of drones has made the invasion subject to both of public and legal debate.

valuable towns and were close to the Kurdish capital Erbil, with other significant threats stretching across the Middle East and North Africa. IS gained a major breakthrough victory in Mosul, a northern Iraqi city and the country’s second most populated. On Tuesday 19th August, a video depicting the execution of James Foley, an American conflict reporter, surfaced in the media.

The video, produced by IS, was a warning to the west to stop air strikes and foreign intervention against the group in Iraq.

Over the following months, more brutal warning videos were released, including the execution of American journalist, Steven Sotloff, and British humanitarian aid worker, Alan Hennings.

IS stands for Islamic State, commonly thought to relate to extremist jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria. The idea of an Islamic state is ancient, dating back to Muhammad in 622 C.E. It literally meant a state of governance following the teachings of Islam. The concept of Al-Shura was another interesting part of ancient Islamic State. It included almost liberal ideas of free speech and representation of the people, all in accordance with the teachings of the Qur’an. However, the use of the phrase ‘Islamic State’ is fairly new, only used in the early 20th century.

Many Muslim countries have incorporated parts of Islamic law into their legal systems. However, IS is an active Jihadist militant group, an unrecognised state that interprets the Qur’an in a radical extremist form of Islam. They are so extreme that even members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have spoken against their savage reign of barbarity.

One undoubtedly important reason for intervention is to attempt to stop the mass genocide of the Iraqi and Syrian people. This is a mess that, to an extent, the Western world is responsible for. Critics argue that the UN is not acting quickly enough and more civilians are dying as a result. Though many Arab nations have denounced IS, this has not been enough to deter IS militarism. However, another on-the-ground intervention could possibly result in a third Western ‘invasion’ of Iraq and cause more problems than it solves. Issues with US drones and UK air strikes are mostly financial and ethical. It costs enormous amounts of money, almost £4.7 million daily, and is yet another threat to civilian life. The UK parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the strikes, with 534 MPs voting for and 43 against.

The UN has suggested the civilian death toll by IS stands at around 5,500. IS controls a vast amount of land across both Iraq and Syria, equating to the size of Belgium. IS have made great territorial advances in a short amount of time into Iraqi Kurdish land. By 7th August 2014, they occupied several

There are several alternatives, for example an electricity boycott. Another option, though risky, is to arm and aid rebels fighting IS in Iraq and Syria. It also seems that more should be done to belittle Assad’s dominance in this region. However, there is fear that eventually air strikes will lead to on-the-ground intervention regardless.

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Lads Mags: The Ugly Truth Shaun Balderson tells you to ignore the anti soft-core porn rhetoric and reassert the abolishment of vulgar sexist content.

Earlier last year I competed in the Institute Of Ideas Debating Matters competition. During the process a wide range of topics were discussed on an intellectual and civil platform, one of the propositions being ‘Lad’s mags degrade women and should be covered up’. We had a unanimous, clear and logical conclusion that agreed with the statement.

Yet, the UK government’s position on this issue is anything but.

A year on from the ‘Lose the Lad’s Mags’ campaign, the story of Mary Brandon rose in the media. She was a woman who faced an attack when confronting a man who groped her at Notting Hill carnival. I started to question why the UK government is so relaxed in targeting such problems with lad’s mags and ‘lad culture’ itself, despite the extremely worrying and blatant impacts that they have on women.

The ‘Lose the Lad’s Mags’ campaign has sometimes been mistaken as a harsh lash against the right to enjoy sexual content. However, I understand that it is not the fact that the magazines include sexual content, but the way in which they approach the sexualisation of women all together. Personally, I wouldn’t like to see the movement attacking porn the idea of nakedness and nudity or openness about sexuality. In fact, the freedom to choose what you wish to do with your body without any social stigma attached is precisely one of the reasons for targeting such misogynistic magazines.

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Covering up lad’s mags isn’t interfering in the contract between two consenting adults, but an effort to stop the growing normalisation of the degradation and objectification of women.

Of course, the magazines are not the only bearer of the blame for sexist culture - but any industry that promotes the objectification of women will inevitably have an impact on the reinforcement of the sexist attitudes that underpin society.

The degradation in lad’s mags is achieved mainly by habitually using specific language and imagery. An example of this includes the 2006 Maxim article, which advised male readers that ‘most women fantasise about being raped’. Another case can be found in Zoo magazine’s 2005 competition, where male readers could win breast implants for their girlfriends - not to mention an issue of FHM in which they judged female singers by when they lost their virginity.

In 2011 some universities, such as Middlesex and Surrey, studied the content within the genre and found that the language used in lad’s mags ‘normalises views about women that are disturbingly close to those mirrored in the language of sex offenders.’

With this in mind, we have to ask exactly what the impact is of such magazine publications that show a normalisation towards hyper-sexualisation, dehumanisation and male domination.

Politics IMAGE BY JOSHUA EDWARD NOON

The British crime survey of 2011 concluded that 45% of women have experienced domestic abuse since the age of sixteen.

According to the Ministry of Justice, Home office and the Office for National Statistics, 20% of women had been victims of sexual assault in January 2013. Even more worryingly than this, according to EVAW, 1 in 2 boys and 1 in 3 girls think that it is okay to hit a woman and force her to have sex.

It only takes a quick glance to witness how lad’s mags are reinforcing ideas which support female subordination, and that perpetuate such severe impacts on society. Sometimes we do need to remind ourselves that lads mags are not the necessarily the central root of the problem, but are just a product of it. However, I truly believe that by covering them up, we can at least make somewhat of an effort to try and stop the reinforcement of such a damaging and destructive culture surrounding society today.

P.S Fuck Dapper Laughs

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Politics

Free Education Protest On 19th November last year, banners and picket signs flooded central London and students from across the country came together in solidarity to march for free education. I arrived along with other Goldsmiths’ students after wobbling about on tubes and even losing each other a few times, but once we arrived the atmosphere felt safe and welcoming – and of course, a sense of genuine passion and urgency for the protest hung in the air too. I had only been to one march before, but this one felt more special. As a current student I felt like the ‘books not bombs’ picket I was holding was not only relevant to my own beliefs, but was a symbol of educational rights that reached beyond simply westernised issues. A few obligatory anonymous masks and the odd smoke bomb appeared but ultimately the intent was the same as the chants that rung out in central London - students in Britain want free education, and they want it now.

Words by Teodora Kosanovic It was a good feeling standing up for something I think should be accessible to people without the looming prospect of £50,000 debt. Yes, we have it better than the yanks but that won’t stop me marching my way to Downing Street and saying/ singing / chanting my bit to make it more like Norway, Sweden and Germany. At times, it was a bit surreal and I do apologise to Mr. Cameron for starting a chant that called you scum. I’m sure you’re a nice guy, I that heard you once paid off someone’s mortgage because they stopped you walking in front of a bus, maybe if I do the same you’ll pay off my tuition fees? There’s always hope.

Words by Stefan Newton Photo by Sophie Ramischwili

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Buying or selling sex in the privacy of your home is legal in the UK. However, as soon as two or more women work together, it becomes a brothel, therefore organised prostitution, therefore a criminal offense.

According to a 2004 Home Office investigation, more than half of the women in prostitution have been raped and/or seriously assaulted. At least 75% have been physically assaulted at the hands of the pimps and punters. 74% of prostitutes identify poverty, as well as the need to pay household expenses and/or support their children, as primary motivators for being drawn into the sex industry.

Women in prostitution are 18 times more likely to be murdered than the general population.

People are much less likely to be convicted of murdering a prostitute than of any other murder. The conviction rate of 75% for murder drops to 26% when the victim is a prostitute.

For more information visit avaproject.org.uk/our-resources/statistics/prostitution

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Politics

Should Sex Sell?

Sophie Morlin-Yron meets sex-workers and LG BTQ c a m p a i g n e r s t o h e a r t h e i r v i e w s o n t h e decriminalisation of prostitution

A lecture hall at London Metropolitan University fills up to a bursting point before a meeting to discuss prostitution, in collaboration with the Anarchist Bookfair. A joint campaign between LGBTQ organisation Queer Strike and the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) is announced, and Laura Watson from ECP, an organisation made up of current or former sex workers, kicks off the discussion: “Police crack-downs, arrests, raids and prosecutions, all of which have pushed sex workers much more underground and into more isolated areas. As a result, rape and violence has increased massively.”

point out a range of problems with the parliamentary group and its report. The campaigners argue that women should have the right to chose whatever job they wish and have the freedom to decide what they do with their own bodies and that “consenting sex is not a crime”.

Prostitution has been a small but hot topic in UK politics for the last couple of years, and the central question is its legal status. An all-party parliamentary group on prostitution has investigated whether or not the law - which today allows prostitution as long as it is not ‘organised’ - should be reformed.

Their report, issued in March last year, recommended that the UK follow the so-called Swedish model, in which buying sex has been criminalised, but selling sex remains legal.

Hannah from LGBTQ group Queer Strike says that women should not be criminalised for doing any work which helps provide for their families, including selling sex. “As a lesbian and non-biological co-mum, I have experience of how difficult it is to make ends meet when you don’t have recognition [as a mother] or access to financial support.”

The ECP, which campaigns for complete decriminalisation, objects to the report. Watson says: “Criminalising sex workers’ clients won’t stop prostitution, but it will make it much more dangerous for sex workers to work.”

IMAGE BY DOMINQUE BARRON

One of the main problems with criminalisation is that it makes it difficult for sex workers to come forward and report violence, because they are afraid that the police will arrest them for prostitution offences. Decriminalisation, on the other hand, allows women to work together for increased safety.

Watson says that decriminalisation is supported by the Royal College of Nursing, sections of the Women’s Institute, Women Against Rape, and the Lancet Medical Journal, as well as some UN bodies. “Amnesty International also have a draft policy on decriminalisation, so we now feel like the tides are turning.”

The joint campaign has drafted an open letter to the government to urge them to consider decriminalising prostitution and to

Watson says that LGBTQ people are particularly susceptible to police harassment and stigma, hence the joint campaign.

She also adds that the majority of sex-workers, gay or not, are mothers and grandmothers trying to provide for their children.

New Zealand decriminalised prostitution in 2000. The ECP says that a five year official review of the change showed that prostitution hadn’t increased or decreased and that sex workers were better able to report rape and violence to the police.

However, specific figures are difficult to compile, as much of the prostitution goes on underground. A 2009 report by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour estimated there were around 100,000 people engaged in prostitution in the UK. In London alone there are an estimated 1,500 brothels.

Lisa Longstaff from the organisation Women Against Rape agrees that safety is the key issue. She has seen many sex workers seek help at their centre. She claims that the Swedish model will not solve these problems: “That is an absolute lie and a total cover up. Swedish women have said in public events: ‘my rights are much diminished under this criminalisation’.”

She finishes off by saying that getting accurate information out is crucial to be able to make changes that can protect women in the future. “If prostitute women aren’t safe, no woman is.”

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#Umbrella

Revolution

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Politics

Hong Kong: The Hub of Diversity

IMAGES BY DOMINQUE BARRON

Ruth Boon, from Hong Kong, writes a personal account of the demonstrations earlier this year in favour of democracy and liberal values.

There is no place quite like Hong Kong. Filled with vibrancy, excitement and a friendly, dedicated atmosphere, it’s hard to fault it. Despite this - the ‘Occupy Central with Love and Peace’ movement organised ‘peaceful protests’ to take place earlier this year in September, against new proposed electoral reform.

It doesn’t seem like a particularly joyful concept if a place is in need of a political movement, yet the outcome could bring great advantages to the city and her people. There is no single group leading the movement, but tens of thousands of ordinary citizens have been protesting in the hope of bringing democracy to Hong Kong.

Leung and the Hong Kong Government have sworn to support the Chinese Communist Party. Many people in Hong Kong are trying to stay calm, but physical barriers have been broken and tear gas, as well as batons, have been used against the peaceful protestors. It is my opinion that this is not acceptable, yet it has been done. There have been many people injured and over thirty arrests, however, no governmental change seems to be happening as a result. If there is a significant outcome from this movement, the people of Hong Kong and other countries can unite, make some sort of emotional difference and allow their voices to be heard throughout the world.

What is the reason for the movement? The Chinese government have decided that they will have a ruling in 2017 on who will stand as candidates for Hong Kong’s leadership, nominated by a government committee, rather than the general public.

This is still on going. Streets have been flooded with people to protest peacefully against these reforms and make positive change. There has been no other protest quite like it in the rest of world, otherwise known as ‘The Umbrella Revolution,’ using the umbrella as a sign of peace and unity. Hong Kong’s people have been bringing out umbrellas, homework, signs, kind words, flowers, and the works.

During these protests, social networks such as Buzzfeed, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been filled with inspirational pictures, quotes and information about the protests. Many people have changed their Facebook profile pictures to either yellow ribbons or umbrellas in order to show support and love for the protestors of Hong Kong. When I think of the colour yellow, I think of millions of people and a hard working, passionate community. I think of skyscrapers, mountains, islands, experience and diverse adventure. It’s true, there is no place like home and that is why, right now, it’s difficult to imagine the situation in Hong Kong, whether you’ve been there, lived there or never even visited. It has a sneaky way of connecting the world together and is a wonderful cultural hub, making it is so important for Hong Kong, and it’s people, to do what is best for its community.

The very core of this protest is to promote positive change so that Hong Kong may have the independence that so many of its people believe it deserves. Chief Executive of Hong Kong, CY

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A Few Words About Safe Sex N o w t h a t y o u r M u m’ s a l m o s t d e f i n i t e l y n o t going to walk through the door with some tea and biscuits, Adam Morby gets all grown-up to talk to you about sex.

A warning: This is a bit of a car crash piece, shock tactics and all that. If your parents ever get a hold of this, uh oh, well, parents, I know what you're thinking - you're thinking “They're not ready!

They’re still babies!”

Well you might be right, but it’s the place they're at now. The place where they're free if they want to go out and get completely hammered before going home with someone and putting parts of their bodies inside each other’s parts, with the moaning and the grunting and the sweating and all the other stuff. Scary as it may sound, it’s also brilliant fun, and so long as it remains safe, everything is exactly as it should be.

I call it the Moment of Baboonian Overload, when you just met and you're freshly intertwined and the smells are beginning to emanate and the sounds are beginning to emanate and the passion is so high it’s almost bursting the light bulb hanging over the bed – you're edging closer and closer with intent and you're so close you can feel the sheer heat of each other’s genitalia – it’s the closest you'll ever, ever be to the animal kingdom, that moment, your bestial superlative, a joyous conflagration of five billion years of evolution.

But it’s also when you need to show a bit of responsibility; a

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wildly frustrating paradox demonstrating itself, probably more than in any other set of circumstances in the unwavering comedic absurdity of human life. You know what you’ve got to do - grab one from the drawer, pull it out, roll it on, enjoy yourself.

I won't patronise you and tell you that there are plenty of other things you can do, because when you get back from the club and you're both hot-to-trot for the full-on slop of complete penetration, you probably won't remember my advice, so always, always have a drawer full of condoms.

The withdrawal method is not enough. Listen, unprotected sex is something that should really come with a monogamous relationship - simple as that. You go together to get tested, like a little outing, you listen to what the doctor tells you, you start on one of the other contraceptives and you finally get to share those fluids.

However, if you do have unprotected sex outside of monogamy, go for regular check-ups. If, and I can only speak for men here, you’ve never been, they're actually interesting and slightly amusing. The good-humoured, unimaginably relaxed attitude and chirpy sexlessness that the specialists have perfected

Other IMAGES BY BEN JONES

over the years is truly something to behold. ‘Pull your jeans and pants down to your knees and sit on there,’ and they had a look, took a painless little scrape, then they asked me if there was anything else, so I asked them to check my balls – the whole time I was amazed at how wrong I'd been to worry about it. In fact I think it’s the most grown up I've ever felt, discussing my balls with a doctor.

Don’t do anything you don’t want to. Don’t have anal sex on the first date, unless that’s exactly what you want, in which case use plenty of lube and take it very, very slowly. If you are gay or bi, or whatever goes against the normative expectations of your hometown, and you’ve been waiting until uni to get stuck in with it all, check out www.loveyourcondom.co.nz for a good, straight-forward guide to getting the most out of giving and receiving anal sex, with straightforward language, funny accents and very grownup videos. As they remind you, your arse, your rules.

So go forth and don’t multiply, and fuck each other as much or as little as you like – stay sensible and stay safe and remember that the least serious Sexually Transmitted Disease on the market stings like friggin crazy whenever you pee, and that’s the last thing you need right now.

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acknowledgements S e n i o r E d i t o r s - Taylor McGraa & Hannah Twiggs

smiths.gsu@gmail.com

Sub-Editors Arts & Culture -

Ingrid Granarolo, Ndella Longley & Daisy Graham

Literary & CreativeMusic -

Aria Aber & Adam Morby

Edward Ginn & Jacob Wyatt

Politics -

Shaun Balderson & Alley Eugenics

Food & Drink -

Sophie Rees Rumney & Amy Walker

Tr a v e l - Emma Henderson & Natalia Domagala Fashion -

Jessica Cole & Sophia Hinton-Lever

smiths.artsandculture@gmail.com

smiths.literaryandcreative@gmail.com

smiths.musiceditor@gmail.com

smiths.politics@gmail.com

smiths.foodanddrink@gmail.com smiths.traveleditor@gmail.com

smiths.fashioneditor@gmail.com

A r t D i r e c t o r - Ben Jones Designers-

Roxannah Linklater, Dominique Barron, Alicia Simpson-Watt, Anne Fisker Nielsen, Katya Krasner & Cyrielle Andre

Featured Photographers Matthew Barnett - Sophie Ramischwili - Joshua Edward Noon - Nastasia Veselia -

mbarnettphotography.tumblr.com sophieramischwili.tumblr.com/ joshuaedwardnoon.tumblr.com perlucid.tumblr.com

Image Credits Taylor McGraa – Cover, p.5, p. 16, p. 30, p.32-33, p. 49, p. 55-59, p. 72 | Ben Jones – Cover, p. 29, p. 55-59, p. 70, p. 84, p. 86, p. 96 | Stefan Schweihofir – p. 2-3 p. 98-99 | Roxannah Linklater – p. 6, p. 42-43 | Nastasia Veselia – p. 8, p. 46, p. 66 | Brock Davis – p. 10 | Rebecka Fred – p.

12 | White Cube – p. 14 | Karolina Kopacz – p. 18 | Sarah Vowden – p. 20 | Google – p.20 | Natalia Domagala – p. 22 | Emma Henderson – p. 24 | Marthe Holkesead – p. 26 | Krista Dayman – p. 29 | Hannah Twiggs – p. 30 | Cyrielle André – p.37, p. 38-39, p. 40-41 | Alicia Simpson-Watt – p. 3839, p. 76, 78, 80, 82 | Anne Frisker Nielsen – p. 45 | Sophie Rees Rumney – p. 51 | Katya Krasner – p. 53 | Henor08 via Pixabay – p. 54 | Matthew Barnett – p. 60-65 | Sophie Ramischwili – p. 68, p. 91 | Hookworm Album Art – p.74 | Joshua Edward Noon – p. 88 | Dominique Barron – p. 92, 94

A special thanks to all of our contributors for this issue, the standard of submissions have truly blown us away – we look forward to your future articles.

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