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Student Since 1887 - The UK’s Oldest Student newspaper
Week 1 13.01.2009
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Library budget takes a pounding
News p. 3
Journalist Iain Macwhirter to stand against George Foulkes in the race for Edinburgh University Rector
Features p. 12 Katy Kennedy
• Exchange rates lead to £200k shortfall as value of sterling continues to plummet Anne Miller The University of Edinburgh library has been hit by a £200,000 shortfall, as plunging exchange rates have caused costs of academic journals to soar. A high percentage of the Edinburgh University Library’s acquisition budget is spent on journal subscriptions, many of which are paid in foreign currencies. A recent report by the library estimates that 50 percent of journal subscriptions are paid in euros, 15 percent in dollars and the remaining 35 percent in sterling. Sheila Cannell, Director of Library Services at the University of Edinburgh, told Student: “We are now in a global information environment; we are not buying only information published in the UK but international and global information.” “We did not know this would happen when we planned our budgets and this has led to a funding shortfall that we are working to address.”
She added that there is a “complicated supply chain” involving purchases that are paid for in sterling but priced in euros or dollars. The fluctuating exchange rate is adding pressure to library budgets as the purchasing power of the pound declines.
£12,000
Amount lost for each cent the pound falls against the euro The Assistant Director of Glasgow University Library, Tony Kidd, recently told The Times that they have had to ask for additional “exchange rate funding” of over £400,000. He added that if the pound dropped by a cent against the dollar in the course of a
year it would cost his library £7,000. A fall of a single cent against the euro would cause a £12,000 funding gap. Sheila Cannell said these figures are similar for the University of Edinburgh, although the overall shortfall is around the £200,000 mark. At the end of last semester, the library were quickly passing journal invoices to the Finance Office who examine exchange rates before deciding the best day to pass them for payment. It was estimated that the library will have to pay an additional £230,000 for invoices which represents a 12.7 percent increase on top of an average 7 percent increase in prices by publishers. The Chair of Research Libraries UK, Mark Brown, warned “the danger is that libraries will be forced to start canceling journals.” The University of Edinburgh library are working hard to patch the unexpected hole in the budget with the library currently in the process of preparing a paper outlining the extent of the problem.
EUSA Vice President Academic Affairs Guy Bromley told Student: “Just as many people who went abroad over Christmas will have found their spending decreased compared to previous visits, where the University has to import products from abroad its spending power is cut too.” Bromley added that he is “putting pressure on the University to ensure that journal subscriptions are not cut, and that money is found elsewhere to plug the gaps left by the weak pound. Were Britain a member of the eurozone, spending power would be much easier and budgets more stable.” The University of Edinburgh library made some savings by delaying some purchases until the VAT cut from 17.5 percent to 15 percent came into effect in December. It was estimated that this could save up to £35,000 but there are concerns that any savings have been dwarfed by the plummeting value of the pound. news@studentnewspaper.org
A city in shock Misa Klimes reports from Mumbai on the aftermath of December’s terrorist attacks
Film p. 16-17 Reviews of Che: Part One, Twilight, Australia and more.
Music p. 18-19 A look at the bands set to be 2009’s breakthrough acts, plus an interview with local heroes White Heath and January listings for Edinburgh’s best gigs.
2 News
13/01/09
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Stansted Airport activists sentenced • Group including Edinburgh student receives community service and possible Ryanair damages claim Anna MacSwan Activists involved in December’s Stansted Airport protests were charged last Wednesday with aggravated trespass and sentenced to community service, among them Lily Kember, a third year anthropology student at the University of Edinburgh. Nearly 50 campaigners from the environmental pressure group Plane Stupid have each been ordered to do between 50 and 90 hours of community service, in addition to paying compensation totalling over £3,000 for damage to the perimeter fence and court costs. Furthermore, the group faces the threat of being sued for over £2 million in damages, as Ryanair has lodged a compensation claim for loss of revenue due to cancelled flights and damage to reputation. While the claim is currently against the airport’s owner and operator, BAA, a spokesman for the airline has said they “would not rule out seeking compensation from other parties at a later date”. The December 8 protest, during which campaigners occupied a sec-
tion of tarmac in protest against the expansion of Stansted, saw the airport brought to a standstill for five hours, with the forced cancellation of 57 flights leaving thousands of passengers stranded. In a statement published by Greenpeace, Kember said “We’re
“There is an honourable tradition of peaceful protest in this country, but that does not justify the sort of activity you were involved in” John Perkins, Essex District Judge here because our parents’ generation has failed us and its now down to young people to stop climate change by whatever peaceful means we have left. We’re afraid of what the police might do to us, we’re afraid of going to jail but nothing
scares us as much as the threat of runaway climate change. We’ve thought through the consequences of what we’re doing here but we’re determined to stop as many tonnes of CO2 as we can.” District judge John Perkins told Essex magistrates court “Substantial loss was caused to the authorities that were carrying out lawful activities. I accept there is an honourable tradition of peaceful protest in this country, and long may it continue. But that does not justify the sort of activity that you were involved in.” Plane Stupid has stated its intent to target London Heathrow next, in reaction to proposals to build a third runway at the airport. Staff have since focused their efforts on heightening security. The group’s website was recently taken down after hosting service 1&1 complained that libelous comments about BAA were in breach of the company’s terms of service. The shutdown has prompted speculation over the possibility of BAA influence, although the airport operators denied any involvement. news@studentnewspaper.org
NOT EASY BEING GREEN: Lily Kember, student and Plane Stupid activist
Your University, your views Don’t miss the chance to help shape the future of your University. The National Student Survey (NSS) aims to gather feedback from final year undergraduates throughout the UK on the quality of their university course. The results are available online to help future students choose what and where they would like to study. The information is also fed back to the University so that we can continue to improve what we offer. Last year there was an excellent response from the University of Edinburgh students and we are hoping to get even more student views this year. You will soon receive details of the survey direct from NSS and if you complete the survey before 10 February you will be entered into a draw to win one of five £30 Amazon vouchers.
13/01/09
News 3
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Gaza protests hit the capital • Thousands attend as current conflict enters third week • SNP MSP pledges support for Palestine on behalf of Scotland
Calum Toogood
Calum Toogood
Mounted police maintain order as pro-Palestine demonstrators flood Princes Street; Protestors hurled shoes and brandished disturbing effigies of children killed in the conflict
Jordan Campbell Over 3000 protestors took to the streets of Edinburgh on Saturday in protest at the recent escalation of violence in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas militants. Cries of “Occupation is a crime, killing children is a crime, - free, free Palestine!” and claims of an “Israeli apartheid” rang out during the march which began at 1pm from
Market Street and culminated with a gathering in Princes Street Gardens. The route of the march saw protesters pass the US consulate on Regent Terrace where many on the march threw shoes at its doors, inspired by an Iraqi journalist who recently threw his at President George W. Bush. The protest was organised by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, with representation also from The British Muslim Association, Stop
the War Coalition and Scottish Jews for a Just Peace. The march was one of a wider set of protests throughout the UK, with an estimated 50,000 turning out in London, while demonstrations were also held in other major UK cities. At Princes Street Gardens a number of speakers expressed their views on the situation. SNP MSP Sandra White claimed that Scotland was behind the Palestinian people and
claimed that: “the US state is the biggest terrorist state in the world today.” Another speaker campaigning for the human rights of the Palestinian people drew parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany. Allison Philips, a retired teacher and participant in the march who worked as a humanitarian worker in Gaza, told Student: “It is important to make a stand - when will the world listen? Ethnic cleansing has been go-
ing on for sixty years.” There were no reports of trouble during the protest, with a police spokesperson commenting that the event had gone “very smoothly.” Another protest in Edinburgh is planned for January 20th to coincide with Barack Obama’s inauguration as US President. Read more in Comment p8
>>
Contact news@studentnewspaper.org
Macwhirter enters the ring Neil Pooran The race is on for the position of University rector, as prestigious Scottish journalist Iain Macwhirter announced his intention to run for the role. He will take on Lothians MSP George Foulkes for the prestigious role in forthcoming elections to determine which of the two men will chair the University Court. Macwhirter’s announcement comes as the University’s Conservatives revealed they would not be running a candidate in the February elections. With nominations closed on Monday, the contest will be between the two Edinburgh graduates. Macwhirter told Student that he would be a ‘working’ rector who would promote student and staff interests in the court and beyond, saying: “I live in the Pleasance and will be ready to put the hours in.” “I’m not a politician beholden
to any party line, but in my writing I have argued vigorously against top-up fees, the war in Iraq, and identity cards. The rectorship is too important to be part of the honours system, an award for long service to the establishment, or part of celebrity culture.”
“The rectorship is too important to be part of the honours system, an award for long serive to the establishment” Iain Macwhirter, Journalist and rectorial candidate The Sunday Herald political columnist also said he would push to make on-campus catering and accommodation more affordable, as well as improving the library opening hours.
On university funding, he said he would work with staff unions and EUSA to ensure the Scottish Government keeps universities adequately funded, continuing the campaign of current rector Mark Ballard. Perhaps most notably, Macwhirter aims to start a broader campaign for a minimum income guarantee of £7,000 for every undergraduate, overhauling the current system of student support. He said: “Students are in the front line of the credit crunch and the banks are turning nasty, so we need to address the issue of student poverty now” After having left the Labour Party at university Macwhirter is claiming to be above party politics, though he has the backing of the branch of the Green Party at the University, who will be doing much of his campaigning. Macwhirter has also written for the New Statesman and the Guardian, and is regarded by many as a
leading authority on Scottish politics. Macwhirter has disagreed over issues with George Foulkes in the past, including the creation of a ‘Scottish Six’ news broadcast which Foulkes felt would be too parochial. Foulkes told Student: “I know Iain well personally and I respect his work as a journalist. I’m pleased that there’s going to be a contest and look forward to a lively campaign.” “I’ll be concentrating on the issues that really matter to students and staff at the university including the challenges facing students graduating in an extremely tough economic climate this year.” “Edinburgh doesn’t just need a local, working rector. More than ever, it needs a rector that can really wield some influence in the corridors of power.” Contact news@studentnewspaper.org
Profile: Iain Macwhirter • Studied Politics at Edinburgh University when Gordon Brown was Rector and researched a PhD in reginalism and nationalism • Moved to London in 1989 to present BBC network political programmes such as ‘Westminster Live’. Later became political commentator for Scotland on Sunday. • Moved back to Scotland in 1999 with the creation of the Scottish Parliament and set up the Sunday Herald. • Now writes celebrated weekly column in the Herald and lives in Pleasance
4 News Leeds students ban bottled water Following a student referendum, the Leeds University Union (LUU) has made a pioneering decision to ban the sale of bottled water, it’s top selling product, in union shops. Plans are being implemented to phase out bottles by 2010 in the name of environmental sustainability, at the loss of profits of over £32,000. Instead, free water fountains are to be installed across campus and in halls of residence, and reusable water bottles are to be sold at low cost. While the National Hydration Council has called the scheme “a shame, removing the right to choose”, Tony Salmon of LUU has described it as a “measure of concern about the environment, putting sustainability before profit”. AM
13/01/09
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Fires at city’s hottest venues
University staff honoured IN ADDITION to a knighthood for Olympic triple gold medal-winning cyclist and University of Edinburgh graduate Chris Hoy, a number of University staff were recognised in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list Professor Sir Neil Douglas, President of the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh, was knighted for services to medicine, an honour also awarded to Dr. Andrew Cubie, formerly chair of the court at Napier University. Professor Neil Halliday of the University’s School of Physics received a CBE for services to science, while Professor Carole Hillenbrand, the former Head of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, was awarded an OBE for services to higher education. Professor Isobel Sharp of the Business School received a CBE for services to the accountancy profession. JE
Government encourages European exchange STUDENT UNION federation NUS Scotland has been granted £63, 325 from the Scottish Government to boost a project that seeks to encourage Scottish students to take up exchange programmes in Europe. The funding will be put towards a mobile ‘Euro festival’ at five Scottish universities to give students more information on opportunities for studying and working in other European countries. Liam Burns, NUS Scotland Deputy President, said the scheme would give students valuable skills. He also stated: “NUS Scotland has worked over the past year to ensure that all students have the opportunity that only a handful currently enjoy. With only one outgoing student from Scotland to every two incoming students from elsewhere in Europe, we have a long way to go.” NP
Calum Toogood
Flickr: cyocum
THE ROOF, THE ROOF, THE ROOF WAS ON FIRE: Khushi’s restaurant was gutted by flame shortly before Christmas, forcing diners to flee
Guy Rughani Firefighters had a busy festive season as several of Edinburgh cultural hotspots went up in smoke. December 20th saw three major blazes in the city, putting local fire brigades under considerable strain. Khushi’s Indian restaurant on Victoria Street was gutted as flames ripped through the multi-storey building, causing diners to flee along with revellers at the popular Liquid Room nightclub, housed in the same building. The scene was described by Lothian and Borders Police as ‘chaotic.’ University of Edinburgh student
Sarah Jones told Student: “The flames were huge - they were at least 20ft into the sky. We were all moved out of the building and behind a police line from where we just watched as the roof collapsed in on itself.” She added: “It is such a shame such great venues have now disappeared.” Kathrin Mackenzie, events manager at Liquid Room told Student: “the club suffered extensive water damage and massive internal structural collapse” as fire-fighters pumped gallons of water to try and dampen the flames. Utilising the full strength of the Lothian and Borders Fire and Res-
cue Service, all diners and clubbers escaped unscathed. The fire came at a disastrous time for both establishments, forcing them to close during one of the busiest times of the year. Both Khushi’s and Liquid Room will remain off-limits for a considerable period as a complete refurbishment commences and an investigation into the cause of the fire begins, according to a police spokeswoman. On the same night, blazes were also reported at a sheltered housing complex in Moredun Park Street and a bar in Frederick Street. The upmarket Rick’s Bar had to evacuate guests as ‘Edinburgh’s
hottest venue’ became dangerously warm. The three incidents are not thought to be related. The New Year brought even more challenges for the fire and rescue service. Crowds in the Luna nightclub on Picardy Place, having opted to avoid the freezing New Year temperatures, saw midnight strike through the smoke of a blazing ceiling fire. The club’s management, who had opted for indoor pyrotechnics to celebrate Hogmanay, seemed surprised when the fireworks set light to plastic ceiling netting. Fortunately no one was seriously injured in the incident. news@studentnewspaper.org
National intern scheme planned Neil Pooran A plan by the government’s universities secretary John Denham to develop a ‘national internship scheme’ to help graduates see out the credit crunch has made headlines over the weekend. The news comes amid fears that young people will bear the worst of the country’s stagnant job market, as companies are expected to slash graduate recruitment efforts. Denham’s scheme aims to have major recruiters take on graduates at a modest wage for a short period of time in a bid to make them more employable. So far Microsoft and Barclays have agreed to the plan in prin-
cipal, and Denham is attempting to canvass support among other recruiters.
“They will be more employable, and some of them will get good jobs. Employers won’t want to let good people go.” John Denham, Universities Secretary In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Secretary of State for
Innovation, Universities and Skills John Denham said: “At the end, they will be more employable, and some of them will get jobs. Employers won’t want to let good people go.” “These are the children of the baby-boomers. “They will be a very big group; around 300,000. What do we do with them? We can’t just leave people to fend for themselves.” There appear to be no figures as of yet on precisely how many graduates will be drawn into the scheme, or how large the increase will be in the number of internships granted by the companies included in it.
Denham did, however, hint that these internships would be paid, with the wage set slightly above the combined total a student would earn from loans and grants in that time, so that taking an internship would not represent a drop in income. The Conservatives have attacked the plan as not going far enough to deal with the problem of graduate unemployment. Denham is due to make a decision later this year on whether to remove the £3,145 cap on tuition fees in English and Welsh universities. news@studentnewspaper.org
13/01/09
News 5
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British academics endorse study drugs • New report states that brain boosting drugs can be beneficial Anna MacSwan Several leading academics have suggested that students should not be punished for the use of brain boosting drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall for academic purposes. Despite the stigma long attached to the use of prescription drugs by the healthy, staff from the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester have said that “given appropriate research and evolved regulation, cognitive enhancement has much to offer individuals and society”. Such views were published in a report in Nature magazine, and entailed that should relative side effects be marginal, the use of such drugs should be viewed not as unethical but in a similar category to more traditional means of cognitive enhancing, including information technology, good health habits and even education. This was based on the claim that brain function can be altered
by any factor which enhances cognition, ranging from exercise to reading. Drugs should therefore not be automatically dismissed as unethical and amounting to substance abuse, but be judged ac-
“If a drug made you ‘smarter’, maybe improving your memory or analytical skills, I would consider that an unfair advantage” A fourth-year biology student cording to the nature of their specific effects and availability, the report concluded. One fourth year biology student said, “It depends on the sort of benefit a drug delivers that determines its acceptability. If it just keeps keep you awake and able to
work longer, I don’t see anything wrong since people drink coffee and energy drinks all the time for the same reason. However if a drug actually made you ‘smarter’, maybe by improving your memory or analytical skills, I would consider that an unfair advantage and thus view it as cheating, much like steroids in sports.” A fourth year anthropology student said “It’s about priorities, because the truth is that most students are tired because they’re out drinking and partying and then want to sleep when they have to do schoolwork. I think most people are up in arms because of the health issues or the legal issues, and the moral and academic issues become inseparable with these in their heads. People get nervous about any sort of drug, but you hit a human element when you start talking about prescription drugs and whether or not they’re needed.” news@studentnewspaper.org
flickr user: hipsxxhearts
Leap in number Tragedy as Edinburgh student found dead in flat of Edinburgh • 23-year-old PhD student suffered from seizures students abroad • German politician father speaks of grief James Ellingworth
Sara D’Arcy and Neil Pooran A UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh student, Stephan Bisky, was found dead in his flat in Edinburgh on Christmas Eve. Stephan Bisky, 23, a PhD student of neuro-informatics was the son of German politician Lothar Bisky, cochairman of the left-wing Die Linke party. His father became worried when Stephan did not arrive at Leipzig airport to celebrate Christmas and instantly reported him as missing. Lothar Bisky said, “Stephan wanted to celebrate with us at Christmas. I waited at the Leipzig airport for him, but he did not arrive.” The police were called to the flat at approximately 1:05pm on Christmas Eve. They reported that a 23year-old man’s body was discovered at the flat, but that the circumstances surrounding the death were not suspicious. Lothar Bisky flew into Edinburgh to identify the body. The cause of death remains uncertain. Lothar Bisky announced, “The laboratory tests are still ongoing, but I have discovered that he was being treated in hospital for a hepatitis illness.” Hepatitis is an inflammatory dis-
ease of the liver, typically caused by viral infections or toxins in the blood. Edinburgh’s procurator fiscal is currently conducting tests to establish the cause of death. A spokesperson told Student: “We can confirm that the procurator fiscal at Edinburgh has received a report in connection with the death of a 23 year old man in Edinburgh on 24 December 2008.” “This matter remains under the consideration of the procurator fiscal. We will continue to keep the family informed of progress.” Stephan suffered from seizures, a possible symptom of hepatitis, on one occasion collapsing while with friends at the RockNess festival in June 2008. Stephan’s body will be transferred to Germany for burial. His father stated: “He should be buried quietly. It is as if time stands still. For me, 2009 can only get better.” Bisky was the second student in weeks to die while enrolled at Edinburgh. Cody Lavender, 20, died after falling from the fourth floor of Chancellor’s Court, Pollock Halls. news@studentnewspaper.org
More students at the University of Edinburgh are choosing to spend a year studying abroad despite the effects of the credit crunch, information obtained by Student reveals. The number of students applying to the International Exchange Programme, which coordinates placements in countries outside the European Union, has risen by 55 per cent in the past year. The total number of applications to the programme received by the International Office this year stands at 286, up from 185 in 2007/8. The greatest increase was seen in applications from students in the College of Science and Engineering, where applications rose 64 percent to a new high of 118. While data for the Erasmus programme, which covers students applying to study in EU countries, is not yet available, the University expects numbers to remain constant at around 250 to 300 students. Lesley Balharry, the University’s Erasmus Exchanges Officer, told Student: “We are hoping not to see a decline in numbers of outgoing students this year, and the fact that the majority of students participating in Erasmus exchanges are eligible for Erasmus grant funding should mean
that an exchange year in Europe remains a feasible opportunity.” Students who have taken part in the International Exchange Programme in the past have raised concerns that lack of publicity means many students are unaware of the scheme and its benefits. Ben Wilkinson, a fourth-year English Literature student who spent a year studying at the University of California, Berkeley, told Student: “I think the year abroad is not an opportunity that everybody knows about. You have to be pro-active and look for the application information because it is not widely advertised, and before you know it, the deadline might have passed.” “A lot of people I spoke to had false ideas about the exchange, and didn’t know for example, that the international fees are covered by the host universities and therefore, the exchange doesn’t cost as much as one might think.” Helen Bray, a fourth-year student who studied at the University of Melbourne, added: “Despite all the paperwork required and the time spent researching cities and universities, the whole experience was absolutely worth it. It is a brilliant opportunity that I will never forget.” news@studentnewspaper.org
6 News
13/01/09
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Edinburgh nurse safe after kidnapping
Details emerge on gruesome head-in-bag death
Neil Simpson
Neil Pooran
The South African nurse found in the boot of her car in Airdrie has been discharged from hospital. Magdeline Makola, who worked in Edinburgh, had been missing for 11 days. Concerns were voiced when Ms Makola, 38, failed to arrive at work in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on December 18. She was subsequently reported missing. Police found Ms Makola in her red Vauxhall Astra in Airdrie on December 26. She was severely dehydrated, traumatised and suffering from hypothermia. Justice Ngema, 35, has been charged with the attempted murder of Ms Makola and made a second appearance at Linlithgow Sheriff Court on January 6. Ngema, also of South African decent, but living in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, made no plea or statement during the hearing.
Ms Makola’s brother, Refilwe Makola, 36, flew from his home in South Africa to be with his sister during her recovery. He commented, “When I arrived she just laughed and opened her hands to hug me and asked about my journey and it ended up with her being more concerned about me rather than me being concerned about her.” Mr Makola said of his sister that “she is very strong and she is laughing now and starting to make some jokes”. Moving to Scotland from South Africa about six years ago Ms Makola is according to her brother “very quiet” and “lives a private life, loves to go to church and loves her job with her whole heart. She loves people and always loves to help everyone all the time. Ever since she was young she wanted to be a nurse” news@studentnewspaper.org
• Dismembered body parts found hidden around city Police in Edinburgh have charged a man with attempting to defeat the course of justice and breach of the peace after a mummified human head was found in a blue Ikea bag in Leith on New Year’s Eve. 54 year-old Alan Cameron appeared in Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Friday, after DNA tests revealed that the remains belonged to 44 year-old Heather Stacey, who may have died within the last two years. Cameron made no plea and was remanded in custody. The head, which detectives later discovered to be nearby bags containing other human remains, was found near a footpath by a walker in Hawthornvale. On Sunday, police revealed they had made further discoveries of body parts near West Granton Road and Granton View, which
they believe to be Stacey’s. The remains were located in undergrowth in both locations. Details of the case are currently unclear, but police say the bags had been dumped in the area recently. The Edinburgh Evening News reported a team of 30 officers were working on the case, and used forensic analysis to determine the identity of the deceased. Police also searched a number of areas around Edinburgh in connection with the incident, including an address in the Pleasance. At one point during the investigation, experts from the Ministry of Defence were called in to assist in the search of the surrounding area. In relation to the discovery of the new body parts on Sunday a Lothian and Borders police spokesperson said: “Detailed forensic analysis will now take place in order to confirm the identity of the
body parts recovered, and although the results will not be known for some time, we believe these to be Heather’s remains. “At this time we would like to reiterate our appeal for anyone who knew her to contact police as soon as possible.” Police had previously requested that anyone who might have seen someone with a large blue Ikea bag in the area should come forward. Mr. Cameron reportedly worked at the Spar store on Lindsay Road. Ms. Stacey, who is believed to have lived in Polton Road West, Lasswade in 2003, was never reported missing. Anyone with any information can contact Lothian and Borders Police on 0131 311 3131, or Crimestoppers in confidence and complete anonymity on 0800 555 111. news@studentnewspaper.org
13/01/09
News 7
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Public bailout saves masterpiece Claire Cameron THE SCOTTISH Government has attracted controversy after it emerged that its alleged £17.5 million pledge was key to the success of the campaign to keep the Titian masterpiece, Diana and Actaeon, in the public eye. The campaign had to raise £50 million by December 31 in order to purchase the painting from the current owner, the Duke of Sutherland, to prevent its sale to private collectors. In the current economic downturn, many have questioned the government’s involvement as an unwise investment. MSP for Glasgow South West, Ian Davidson, expressed his discontent towards the decision to have such a financial commitment come from the government: “Very few people will have heard of Titian, many will have thought he was an Italian football player.” He also questioned the painting’s role in Scotland’s national heritage, saying:“It’s not as if it’s Jock McTitian.” Although news of the campaign’s success will be greeted by many, the total cost has been substantial, with an estimated £40 million contributed from the public purse. Finance secretary John Swinney defended the Scottish Government’s decision to support the campaign, asserting that the Government was investing in “the future of Scotland”. The original campaign began in August, when renowned artist Tracey Emin delivered a petition to the Prime Minister signed by members of the art community, including Professor Ian Howard, principal of the
Calum Toogood
flickr user: Alastair Dunning Titian’s masterpiece Diana and Acteon, completed in 1559 Edinburgh College of Art. Professor Howard told Student: “Titian’s Diana and Actaeon and its companion painting Diana and Callisto…are amongst the most important Old Master paintings on loan to any public museum in the world.” “They are an invaluable part of our cultural heritage and represent a source of great inspiration to art students now and those of future generations.” The ECA appears to stand united
behind the individual views of their principal. In order to demonstrate their support for the campaign, a group of second year students at the ECA are currently reproducing a largerscale Diana and Actaeon, to be exhibited in February. Patrizio Ponto, the student leading the project, said it was a “celebration” of the painting as part of Scotland’s national heritage. The painting is cited a having in-
spired generations of young artists, and has been on display for over 200 years as part of one of the most prestigious collections of Old Masters in the world, the Bridgewater Collection. In addition to this most recent deal, the Duke of Sutherland has promised to sell the painting’s counterpart, Diana and Callisto, for the same price in four years’ time. news@studentnewspaper.org
University set to weather financial storm Guy Rughani IT SEEMS the University of Edinburgh is well placed to sail the turbulent financial waters, despite recent warnings that British universities could be vulnerable, with Scottish institutions tipped to be particularly badly hit. A report by the Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff said that “institutions are not making sufficient surpluses to cover their long-term needs”, highlighting risks such as pension costs and a possible future slump in overseas student numbers as universities in India and China improve. The report’s authors stated that UK universities would post an average surplus of 1.6 percent, but that this figure would equate to a deficit of 4 percent once the “real economic cost” of assets was taken into consideration, adding that the
outlook in Scotland was ‘generally less positive’. Although Edinburgh’s financial surplus in 2008 was lower than in the previous year, John Markland, Convener of the University’s Finance and General Purposes Committee, described the performance as ‘successful.’ Markland said, “The University has benefited for well over 10 years from a period of economic growth, which has boosted both public and private income to the University. In the current environment, the University will focus on delivering against its strategic aims.” Those aims include improving the recently criticised student experience, and keeping projects such as the Library refurbishment within budget. Research and staff costs are the two areas the report predicts will hurt UK institutions in 2009. Government and charities are
providing “below cost funding for research,” claims the report, which claims there is a £2 billion shortfall in funding across the country. Fortunately for the University of Edinburgh, staff have managed to attract over £200 million in research funding. The major concern about attracting research funding is that if UK universities fall behind their foreign competitors, lucrative international students may find attending their improved local centres more attractive. “There is a risk that the quality, innovativeness and international standing of UK higher education could fall with potentially damaging impacts on the national economy and reputation,” a spokesman for representative body Universities UK. Markland added that falling exchange rates will make Edinburgh even more attractive to interna-
tional students wanting to study in Scotland. Although staff have been awarded above inflation pay increases as part of a national pay deal, which saw staff costs rise by £28m in 2007-8, the University has also taken on roughly 200 more staff from the Roslin Institute. Staffing costs at the University account for roughly 60 percent of the total. The University is trying to reduce salary costs by not refilling some posts that become vacant and through selective early retirement plans. “Revenue performance is likely to weaken in the coming year,” commented the Convener but “Edinburgh is much better placed in terms of financial strength to deal with this period of financial turbulence.” news@studentnewspaper.org
1 in 10 young Scots considers life meaningless A RECENT study commissioned by The Prince’s Trust has found that one in ten young people in Scotland consider life to be meaningless. The poll, conducted by Yougov, sampled 2,004 Scots aged between 16 and 25 during October of last year. 9 per cent of young Scots responded that life is not really worth living, 23 per cent said they are ‘often’ or ‘always’ down or depressed, and 48 percent admitted to regularly being stressed. Mark Goulbourne, a mental health professional associated with confidential overnight listening service Nightline, told Student: “Based on my experience, on reaching university, students will find themselves in an environment where there are a lot of high expectations…and this can lead to apathy.” He went on to discuss steps that must be taken to ensure the wellbeing of young people, “Parents and the government have the greatest power in tackling apathy in young people… The government needs to be promoting an understanding of mental distress at a younger age and educating children on how to take care of their emotional wellbeing. It should be on the school curriculum.” The Prince’s Trust/Yougov Youth Index has been described as the first of its kind on a national level. JK (Nightline can be reached on 0131 557 4444 or nightline@ed.ac.uk)
World’s loneliest freedom fighter under attack One man’s plan to create the world’s smallest independent state on a tiny island off the coast of Shetland has been battered by strong winds and tax demands. Eccentric English would-be freedom fighter Stuart Hill declared Forewick Holm to be the Crown Dependency of Forvik last year, with himself as sole resident and head of state, but recent 115mph winds destroyed much of the island’s infrastructure – namely a tool shed, a tent and a flagpole. In addition, Hill is being pursued by the taxman for refusing to pay income tax, as well as almost £1,700 of VAT on his boat-building business. Hill claims that the twoand-a-half acre island is not part of the United Kingdom due to technicalities in a 1469 treaty between the Scottish and Danish monarchs. However, a spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs said: “People cannot just declare they are a different country and refuse to pay taxation”, adding that Hill owes £202 for failing to fill in his self-assessment tax returns. JE
8 Comment
13/01/09
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Comment
Lyle Brennan
Debating Gaza David Wagner and Shabana Basheer debate Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s call for an arms embargo on Israel as the search continues for a peaceful resolution to the current conflict in Gaza. Dear Shabana, The main question concerning Nick Clegg’s call for an arms embargo on Israel is, is the embargo justified? Considering that Nick Clegg wants to deny a sovereign, democratic country’s right to defend itself and its citizens against a terrorist organisation, then the answer must be no, it is not justified. If Britain were attacked, would we deny ourselves the right to respond? A successful arms embargo would deny the right of Israel to defend itself. It is also worth considering that an unsuccessful arms embargo would do more harm than good as it would undermine Britain and Europe’s future role in working alongside Israel to find peace. Let’s not forget that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, only for Hamas to be elected; a terrorist organisation that calls for the obliteration of Israel. And then the rockets started. While Israel’s response may be seen as heavy-handed and disproportionate, Gazans are the responsibility
of their government, and their government should not have put their citizens in the firing line in the first place. Israel warned Hamas for weeks leading up to the attacks to cease rocket attacks or Israel will have no choice but to respond. Israel is fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian people, but when those firing rockets do so from highly populated areas, and from within civilian centres, the sad truth is that civilians do get caught up in other people’s wars. The fact that Hamas is benefiting in the western media in a sick propagandist fashion from the suffering of its citizens is, in my mind, morally abhorrent. So what’s the solution? In the short-term, the solution has been reiterated countless times: Stop firing rockets into Israel and Israeli troops will withdraw and Gaza will cease to be attacked. There is no trick or conspiracy. Israel entered Gaza in response to rocket attacks. Israel will leave Gaza when they stop. Is this not correct? David
Dear David, You ask if an arms embargo on Israel would be justified. Considering Israel’s repeated disregard for international law and conventions of human rights in its military activities, I would say the answer must be yes. EU licensing agreements prevent EU member states from selling arms to countries if they fear that they will be used in a way that will harm regional peace, security and stability. The EU joined the US in putting sanctions on Hamas, who also came to power in free and fair democratic elections. Now it’s time for it to be equal in its dealings and stop all arms trading with Israel until such time as she abides by international law. I don’t agree that an arms embargo would be tantamount to denying Israel the right to defend itself. Rather it would put pressure on Israel to find diplomatic solutions to its problems. Until now, unfortunately, Israel has quite literally been able to get
away with murder in the name of ‘self-defence’. I want to make it clear that I agree that Israel has a right to defend itself and its citizens. At the same time, however, it has an obligation to ensure the safety of civilian populations and to abide by international law. It has consistently failed to do this. The current war in Gaza is a case in point. The civilian death toll in Gaza is completely unacceptable, and no claim of ‘self-defence’ can justify it. Regardless of whether or not Hamas is operating from civilian areas, Israel cannot respond by simply blowing everyone and everything in its way to pieces. Attacking UN schools which are sheltering refugees, and UN convoys delivering humanitarian aid, makes a mockery of the Geneva Convention, and also contradicts Israel’s own claims that it is not attacking civilians. Let us not forget that the entire population of the Gaza Strip had been under a state of siege for over 18 months before Israel decided to attack. Let us remember that this siege was not eased despite a
6 month truce, and that, far from giving ‘weeks of warning’, Israel attacked Gaza barely a week after the truce ended. The solution now is not for one side to demand the other stop fighting before a ceasefire is considered. It’s hardly reasonable to expect Hamas to back off while Israel is still attacking Gaza. The only way forward now is an immediate ceasefire, and international efforts to ensure that both sides meet their obligations. Shabana
Dear Shabana, The current situation is symptomatic of the long-term problems that have dogged the region and I believe that an arms embargo on Israel ignores the real issues and would be as effective as putting a plaster on a broken bone. I do believe that you are right in saying that the way forward is for an immediate ceasefire and for both sides to keep their obligations. This I agree with unequivocally.
13/01/08
Comment 9
www.studentnewspaper.org
Crouching Tigers With an end to Asia’s longest running civil war in sight Ian Powell advoates a political resolution for Sri Lanka and the Tamil People
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riumphant news emerged from Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa over the New Year with a report that the political capital of the Tamil Tigers, Kilinochchi, had been captured by the Sri Lankan military. Those in the Southern cities of Colombo and Kandy appeared in a state of euphoria, overcome with the idea that Asia’s longest-running civil war, which has claimed over 70,000 lives, was on the brink of ending. The Tamil people are the original inhabitants of the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka. They had their own state, which was separate from the majority Sinhala state, prior to the period of British colonisation. The Tamils are primarily Hindu, as opposed to the Buddhist Sinhala, and speak their own language and have their own customs and traditions. Tamil Eelam – the name given by certain Tamil groups in Sri Lanka to the state which they aspire to re-create in northern and eastern Sri Lanka – may in fact have a right to self-determination and self-rule in international law. However the reality is that any political movement for self-rule has been hijacked by the terrorist group the Tamil Tigers (the LTTE). And, contrary to the arguments of some, it is correct to label the LTTE as a terrorist group. The idea that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam only attack enemy
combatants or those linked closely to the Sri Lankan military operation against the Tamils is false. On June 15th 2006 the LTTE killed 68 people, including 15 children with a claymore antipersonnel mine attack on a bus. They have also admitted to using child soldiers and have been accused of having 5,794 child soldiers in their ranks since 2001. They have even gone so far as to conscript Tamil children orphaned by the tsunami. However, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam do not have a monopoly on fault. The Sri Lankan state must bear some responsibility for the ethnic conflict and has itself an appalling human rights record. According to a United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances report in 1999, Sri Lanka has the second highest number of disappearances in the world – ranking only behind Iraq. 12,000 people have gone missing after being detained by the Sri Lankan security forces since 1980. In January Tamil residents in Colombo were reminded of the city’s strict and highly controversial registration laws, whereby Tamils face year-long prison sentences unless they declare themselves to the authorities. The likely defeat of the LTTE offers Sri Lanka a real chance at reconciliation, but only if it is handled sensitively. The vanquished LTTE which has dominated, often by force,
the leadership of the Tamil people will create a power vacuum for the leadership of the Tamil people. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives claims that “the main danger is that we snatch defeat
However, what assurances are there that Hamas will abide by their obligations? While you and many others remind Israel of its obligation in keeping International Law, and pressure is applied from the United States and the E.U., what control does the world have on Hamas? They are outside the sphere of influence of even the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and indeed most of the Arab world. Their allies are not what you would call the world’s friendliest political club; consisting of Iran and Hezbollah, these allies would not be forthcoming in allowing Hamas to conform to international norms of practise. So again, how can Hamas be trusted? While Israel pulled out from Gaza; the settlements and militarily, Hamas only used that time to remove other political parties, take control of the press and stockpile an arsenal of rockets and fire them into Israel. If they were left to their own devices, what assurances would Israel have that the firing would not start again? After all, their charter calls for the complete
obliteration of Israel and says the Day of Judgment will only come once all the Jews have been killed. In the long-term, if peace is to be achieved in the region, and the Palestinians are to have a state of their own, Hamas has to change its fundamentals: Calling for the destruction of a neighbouring country and the Jewish race cannot be included in the charter of a national government. Indeed, Hamas has to want a Palestinian state; at the moment, Hamas’ aims do not include the creation of a Palestinian state, and their ideology is based on global Islamic jihad and even considers Palestinian nationalists as traitors to Islam. The chance of Hamas changing their charter is, unfortunately, unlikely. Therefore, the Palestinian people in Gaza have to summon the will to reject Hamas and embrace a society that is based on democratic values and which values all human life. The election of Hamas cost the Palestinians the chance of their own state in 2006, and now the
weakened Palestinian Authority (PA) has to wait for Hamas to fall from power in order to continue the pursuit of their dream of a country of their own. A Palestinian state is viable and possible; it is only Hamas that stands in the way.
away from the jaws of victory if we do not reach a political settlement. The political dimensions are not being addressed”. The government is obsessed with a perceived victory on the battlefield and is pursuing the same path to failure
Map of Sri Lanka Green: Territorail claims of Tamil People Grey: Undisputed territory
David
Dear David, You present a fairly whitewashed version of the truth in your argument. The world may not control Hamas’ rhetoric – but it has done its utmost to weaken its power by cutting off all financial, economic and diplomatic cooperation. This policy has resulted in nothing other than making Palestinians feel abandoned by the international community, and has increased rather than reduced support for Hamas. You say Israel withdrew from Gaza. It did indeed withdraw its troops and settlers. But to suggest that this was the end of Israel’s control over the popula-
tion of Gaza is dishonest. Even after the withdrawal, Israel still exercised full control over the freedom of movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza, giving the economy no chance to grow. Israel did not allow for the reopening of Gaza Airport. It carried out numerous military incursions and targeted assassinations in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians. Put simply, Israel created the circumstances for the election of Hamas. We all know that Gaza has been slowly strangulated by the brutal siege that was imposed soon after the election of Hamas. Israel’s officials laughed off repeated warnings of a humanitarian crisis, saying they were putting Gazans ‘on a diet’. As for Hamas – certainly, their charter is in need of a complete overhaul. But Hamas has in fact repeatedly stated that it would support a Palestinian state within ’67 borders, and that it will accept a long term truce agreement with Israel. Considering the suffering that Palestinians have been sub-
that the US so spectacularly made in failing to decide upon a coherent post-war reconstruction policy in Iraq. Unless the politics are addressed and a Tamil spokesperson or group emerges who can claim to speak for all Tamils in the region of Tamil Eelam then the political vacuum created by the collapse of the LTTE will simply be filled by another terrorist organisation. And inevitably the people of Sri Lanka will continue to suffer. Reconciliation can emerge following brutal conflict as long as the vanquished are quickly taken into the political fold by the victor. After World War One harsh terms in the treaty of Versailles resulted in the rise of Hitler. Softer terms and the deliberate incorporation of Germany into the EU following World War Two resulted in relations between Germany and Europe being better post-war than at any point before the war. The same can be said of the relationship between America and Japan. Who would have thought that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, relations between the two countries could be so affable in so short a time? The Tamils will soon be leaderless and the responsibility rests on the majority Sinhalese to encourage them to come to the negotiating table and discuss the future of Sri Lanka. comment@studentnewspaper.org
jected to at Israel’s hands, this is very generous offer and Israel should at least come to the table to discuss it. Now, Gaza is a massacre site and its population is trapped. Israel is being accused of war crimes, yet has made no effort to stop or even curtail the hostilities. Hamas has said it will end rocket attacks in exchange for two things – an end to occupation, and the opening of Gaza’s borders. But Israel’s current military might means that it has little willingness to talk, and still believes it can bomb the Palestinians into submission. Progress can only be achieved if Israel’s capacity to try and bomb its way to a solution is curtailed. Only then will both parties have to come to the table, and only then will there be hope, and a chance for peace. An arms embargo must be imposed. Shabana
comment@studentnewspaper.org
10 Comment A good year for Demos
13/01/08
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Mairi Gordon
W
arning: general doom and gloom comes with serious side effects. 2009 will undoubtedly bring more of the same but to the canny observer it will also bring hope. This week the Ghanaian Electoral Commission confirmed Professor John Atta Mills as the next President of Ghana. Former president John Korfur gracefully conceded to the victor. It is easy to overlook the significance of this moment. Any textbook definition of democracy will say this is exactly what is meant to happen, though history bears credit to the fact that a peaceful transition should never be assumed or go uncelebrated. Mr. Mills won with 50.2% of the vote, a narrow margin that could have spelt trouble for a peaceful transition, making the result all the more contestable. This however did not happen. With Mr. Korfur standing down, this narrow win could be a potential blessing for both sides, reminding the victor’s that they serve both halves of the country and giving the opposition’s argument credible sway. Will Ghana’s good news spread beyond it borders? In Southern Africa the people of Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa will all head to the polls in 2009. The proximity of these countries to Zimbabwe, one of the world’s most desperate regions means that fair and peaceful elections could bring change to more than just their own citizens. Neighbouring leaders are becoming increasingly vocal in their condemnation of Mugabe’s regime. Instability in Zimbabwe has spread beyond it borders as neighbouring countries struggle to cope with a massive influx of refugees and migrants. Democracy and justice in neighbouring countries may be Zimbabwe’s best hope, alienating Mugabe, and pulling the country back from a seemingly inescapable black hole. Of course democracy will not provide an antidote to all the challenges that many African countries will continue to face this New Year. Like democracy, the effects of the credit crunch know no borders and a dramatic drop in global resources coupled with the rising price of food will undoubtedly hurt a region that already faces extreme poverty. For the poorest access to medical care and drugs remains cruelly limited. However the celebrations across Ghana this are week are tribute to a resilient brand of hope that has survived decades of gloomy newsprint. Don’t miss the good news of 2009. As the sound of DJ Blakk Rasta’s hit song ‘Barack Obama’ that was played throughout Ghana in celebration this week suggests, the hunger for democracy is unlikely to be satiated anytime soon. comment@studentnewspaper.org
Jonny Stockford
Playing the brain game Professor Sergio Della Sala examines the suspect claims of popular brain training games and advocates that we use our heads
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hen we go to grab a burger we are allured by luscious pictures of succulent sandwiches, filled with tender beef, and moist with the most delicious sauces. Should we compare what we really get with the feigned advertisement, we would run a rudimentary scientific experiment. Where is the evidence that the lucious image on the poster will match the good we actually receive? A claim should be supported by evidence. The same applies to most realms of science. This is why randomised controlled trials are carried out and constitute the basis of treatment in medicine: to know whether or not a drug works, doctors give this drug to a group of patients affected by a particular disease, at the same time they give a ‘placebo’, typically sugar pills, to another group of patients with the same disease. In so doing they are able to find out whether or not the drug has any beneficial effect over and above the placebo effect. However, when it comes to brain related stuff, we abort our critical thinking and blindly accept unproven techniques. The media, on the whole, like discussing matters of the brain. They like the colourful blobs showing which bits of the brain does what. We all do! Two recent published papers make this point very clearly. Weisberg presented to lay people brief descriptions of psychological
phenomena followed by right or wrong accounts of these phenomena. They found that when the wrong accounts contained some irrelevant reference to the brain, lay people were much more inclined to rate the explanation as satisfactory. The pervasive influence of brain images was further reiterated by McCabe and Castel who demonstrated that a brain picture added to an argument made the argument much more acceptable and people rated it higher than the same argument without the picture of the brain. Perhaps for this reason, most training programmes proposed as remedy for ailments and impairments make loose and implausible association to brain theories, to appear more convincing. For example, the simplistic dichotomy between the two brain hemispheres ill-inform a series of training programmes. Such programmes, the best known of which is the notorious Brain Gym, are based on the popular assumption that we have a creative half hidden in our right hemisphere, which needs to be awakened. How do we stimulate our dormant right hemisphere? By practicing movements based on fanciful concepts of brain anatomy and preposterous logic based on loose concepts like energy activation. The reasoning is doubly flawed: first it is not true that the left hemisphere epitomises the military-industrial establishment of the West, while
the right brain has the glamour and mystery of the East; second even if this were true, we could not stimulate the right hemisphere by means of these asinine exercises. We all wish to be more intelligent and show off to our friends and family our skills in solving puzzles. We wish to have better memory and absorb volumes of material effortlessly, or to flaunt our astuteness and acumen at parties. However, to reach these goals by long hours of swotting seems a daunting enterprise, hence many jump at the idea of shortcuts and are prepared to pay for a quick fix. People believe that they could become more intelligent by listening to Mozart’s music or that their children could improve their scholastic performances by gulping up fishy pills or other improbable supplements. Newsmakers too often fuel belief in tall tales by running uncritical stories advertising preposterous methods and ignoring their obvious flaws. The only question that matters should be “Where is the evidence? And what is its source?”. Is there any evidence supporting the claim that by playing the Nintendo game one can actually improve their brain power, or even counteract the ageing of the brain? So far we have little more than anecdotal reports, and several debunking studies. The original Dr. Kawashima’s study included two groups of people suffering from Al-
zheimer’s Disease, which is a severe degenerative condition progressively damaging the brain. Each group was followed up for six months in a nursing home in Japan. The difference between the two groups was that one group continued with the usual activities, while the other group engaged in a ‘learning therapy’ method consisting in reading fairy tales and doing some simple mental calculations. The results indicated that the ‘learning therapy’ group deteriorated slightly less than the non treated group. However from this study it is impossible to disentangle whether this advantage was due to the extra mental stimulation or to the extra attention and social interaction that the treated group received. Moreover, speculating that some mental stimulation which allegedly slows the havoc caused by dementia should also improve the performance of healthy elderly people requires a long leap. We live in a very credulous world. Many people are prepared to pay good money in the hope of achieving goals that require more effort. As a rule of thumb, if something looks too good to be true, it usually is. Sergio Della Sala is a Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh and the winner of the Tom Dalyell Prize 2008. comment@studentnewspaper.org
13/01/09
Editorial 11
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Student Since 1887 - The UK’ s oldest student newspaper
Concerns over feedback are genuine
S
tudent came under fire from university teaching staff this week in an anonymous letter published on this page. While normally Student does not accept anonymous letters, in this case we felt the issues raised are extremely important, and in need of greater discussion. Firstly, we feel much of the criticism aimed in our direction is false. In the response to some of the particular examples, Student did not in any way blame University teaching staff for the increase in the number of first-class degrees awarded at Edinburgh. On another note, we cannot be held responsible for the comments or opinions of EUSA President Adam Ramsay. We would also like to make clear that Student in no way wishes to
make light of the work teaching staff perform in this university. The attributation of these opinions to Student we feel is entirely misguided. Edinburgh is, after all, a top university thanks to its excellent staff. The letter does of course make some very valid points. Of course students must take responsibility for their own work, and plagiarism should not be excused. Teaching staff are right to expect students to prepare adequately for tutorials and seminars, or essays and exams. But as the authors of the letter themselves accept, the teacherstudent relationship is indeed a two way street, and students do seem to have some legitimate grievances. The claim that students do, in most cases, receive adequate academic feedback and support is in need of some justification. The fact
is that most students feel the opposite, and University Vice-Principle Jeff Haywood has himself pledged to make improvements in this area. In truth this letter largely caricatures the issues, and we suspect its anonymity betrays the fact that it represents the views of only a minority of tutors at Edinburgh. Most teaching staff at the university are willing to accept that there problems with teaching at both ends, and are working hard to address them. At that heart of the letter however a very important point was made. ‘It’s time to make this a constructive conversation’, the letter ends with, and we couldn’t agree more. But if the tutors behind this letter want an open conversation, an anonymous letter is not an ideal way to begin.
Devil is in the details for Denham
A
s we become more accustomed to living in a recession it is increasingly apparent that finding a job after graduation will be no easy task. With some saying that young people will bear the brunt of the economy’s slowdown, working life outside the economic shelter of university could amount to little more than long hours and low wages, if any. News that the government is aiming to have more graduates fasttracked into internships with major companies is therefore welcome, but Universities Secretary John Denham’s ‘national internship scheme’ needs to be more than just a token gesture. As Student went to press no concrete figures had been released as to just how many new internships would be created by the scheme, or what industries it
would apply to. At most, we know that some companies will be taking on some new interns at some point.
Editors Lee Bunce/Neil Pooran Comment Mairi Gordon Culture Emma Murray/Hannah Ramsey Features Ed Ballard/Jonathan Holmes/ Rosie Nolan Film Tom MacDonald/Sam Karasik Illustrations Harriet Brisley/Henry Birkbeck/Zeeneth Ul Islam Interview Catherine McGloin Lifestyle Kimberlee Mclaughlan/ Maddie Walder
Music Andrew Chadwick/Jonny Stockford News Lyle Brennan/James Ellingworth Senior News Writers Sarah Morrison/Anna MacSwan/Guy Rughani Photography Katy Kennedy/Julia Sanches/Callum Toogood President Liz Rawlings Secretary Rachel Hunt Sport Martin Domin/Misa Klimes Tech Alan Williamson/Craig Wilson Treasurer Madeline Rijnja
“John Denham’s ‘national internship scheme’ needs to be more than just a token gesture... Facts are crucial if the scheme is to have any credibility” Since this more or less describes the usual state of affairs pre-credit crunch the lack of hard numbers is worrying. Facts are crucial if the scheme is to have any credibility, and the
government needs to be more forthcoming about how ambitious their plans are. With 300,000 students due to graduate this summer the economy must not be left to stagnate further with a huge cohort of young people entering the unemployment roll. Action has already been promised to create 35,000 apprenticeships as company after company folds in the UK. That plan will cost the taxpayer £140 million, but it is money wisely spent. We hope the internship scheme receives similar attention. Action must be taken at a university level as well, lest students find themselves walking into a job market they do not understand and cannot compete in. Students themselves would do well to seek the advice of the Careers Service before it is too late. TV Fern Brady/Susan Robinson Website Bruno Panara/Jack Schofield
Your Letters It’s time to be constructive, say tutors Dear Student, If one were a regular reader of your paper, one might think that all University teaching staff were part of a massive anti-student conspiracy responsible for everything from rampant grade inflation (‘New degrees of inflation,’ 18 November 2008) to student plagiarism (‘Copycats cheat the system’, 2 December 2008). Indeed, if we are to believe EUSA President Adam Ramsay, students themselves should not be held responsible for submitting plagiarised work. Rather, the blame (yet again) can be laid squarely at the feet of the University teaching staff, who are not providing enough ‘teaching contact time’ (2 December 2008). And what do your friendly neighbourhood tutors and demonstrators have to say about the situation? Nothing, because ‘no-one from the University was available to comment as Student went to press.’ Enough is enough. We are not out to get you. There is no darkened room overlooking George Square where we hold secret meetings of some sort of anti-student cabal. We agree completely with the fact that as an Edinburgh University student, you are allowed to have certain expectations of your teaching staff. You are certainly entitled to receive adequate academic feedback and support. We would argue that in most cases, you receive this. The majority of your teaching staff are dedicated and motivated individuals who put time into teaching and who genuinely want to see their students succeed. And, in fact, extensive information about plagiarism, referencing, essay preparation (etc.) is provided at both the departmental and the school level. But, the teacher-student relationship is a two-way street. While you are entitled to expect certain things of us, we are also entitled to expect certain things of you. We can
Advertising Tony Foster (Contact @ 0131 650 9189) Student Newspaper 60 Pleasance Edinburgh EH8 9TJ Email: editors@ studentnewspaper.org
expect you to show up to class regularly and on time. We can expect you to participate in tutorials and seminars. And we can certainly expect you to put in the required time and effort to adequately prepare for class assessments, including essays and exams. It is time for you, as students, to stand up and take responsibility for yourselves. If you receive a bad mark on an essay, you are certainly entitled to discuss that mark with a tutor or lecturer. But at the end of the day, the responsibility for that work (and corresponding mark you are given) is your own. And if you submit a piece of plagiarised work, you need to take responsibility for that decision. (As for our EUSA President’s ridiculous assertion that ‘expectations about plagiarism vary from country to country’, cheating is cheating, Mr. Ramsay. And we challenge you to find a university that says differently). So, stop pointing fingers and assigning blame. Think about ways to move forward. And have a think about which students you are supposedly ‘representing’. The majority of your university tutors are, in fact, post-graduate students, who have to find a daily balance between their own studies and their teaching responsibilities. And who, at pre-honours level, are paid approximately £26 for one hour of teaching time, a wage which is meant to include not only actual classroom time, but also tutorial preparation, office hours outside of class, and essay marking. Want a cause to get behind? How about raising the tutor wage? It’s time to make this a constructive conversation. Sincerely, Your Tutors
Student welcomes letters for publication. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity. Anonymous letters will not be printed but names will be witheld on request. The letters printed are the opinions of individuals outwith Student and do not represent the views of the editors or the paper as a whole. Published by and copyright © Student Newspaper Society, 2008 Printed by Cumbrian Printers Distributed by Lothian Couriers, North Berwick Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.
12 Features
13/01/09
www.studentnewspaper.org
2009 Tuesday
Monday
1TV:
As our need for light relief grows with the recession, television will supply us endless escapist fluff and frivolity. Expect ratings for Celebrity Big Brother and other ‘reality’-candyfloss to skyrocket, with a corresponding drop in so-called ‘quality programming’: people in distress at losing their jobs, homes and dignity are unlikely to be comforted by worthy BBC Four documentaries on steam trains. So, as we prepare for a year of televisual silliness, let’s try not to get too angry at the spiraling salaries of Davina, Dermot and Graham while we’re pawning the family china.
14 Religion will come back into fashion as a ‘cheap day out for the whole family’.
Film:
Bludgeoned by the welter of rapturous articles featuring some variation on the phrase ‘Danny Boyle eyes Oscars glory’, the Academy Award judges will obediently declare his Bombay melodrama, Slumdog Millionaire, the best picture of the year.
Sports:
1 President Obama will immediatly solve war, hunger, and period pain.
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In popular music, faux 1960s Motown is set to be replaced by faux 1980s electro-pop, causing faux 1970s prog-rockers to throw down their pan-pipes in disgust.
Gitmo:
Guantanamo Bay, symbol of Bush’s disregard for international law, disdain for human rights etc etc. There will be much rejoicing, except among inmates, who will be shunted to an American detention centre even further from the public eye.
22
Wednesday
2 Student-run publications will disappear in a puff of irrelevance.
Thursday
3 Robert Peston will hold the world to ransom from his secret volcanolair.
Obama:
Friday
Sadly, most of the best new acts won’t make it big in 2009. A few of the most talented bands and artists will break through to mainstream success, but they will be specks of gold dust in the ocean of excrement that is today’s popular musical scene. Those acts who, in a perfect world, would receive both critical praise and record sales this year - such as Sally Shapiro, Broken Records, Titus Andronicus and Ra Ra Riot - will probably be left languishing in much the same position they are now come December. Ah well eh? Not a massive problem considering the world’s real woes, but at least the talent of acts like those mentioned will be sure to soothe the wounds of the many disappointments that 2009 will surely bring.
Education: 13 The government will launch their long-anticipated Review of Higher Education Funding. This could lead to the £3,000 cap on top-up fees being lifted in England after the next election. If this happens, students at some english universities would end up paying around £10,000 a year. This would probably lead to fees in Scotland, which would be disastrous for students and universities. Education based on the ability to pay rather than learning ability is anathema to equal opportunity. How we fund education is one of the key questions in defining a just society. This crucial question might be answered in 2009.
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Politics:
2009 will see the political centre of gravity will shift perceptibly to the left. The financial crisis has shaken people’s faith in the free market and its orthodoxies. When jobs and financial security are threatened, people are more likely to turn to the government than to capital and business, and the crunch has already been responsible for Gordon Brown’s transformation from lame duck to saviour of the universe. Brown’s Lazarus-like comeback may be a herald of things to come, in Britain and internationally, and parties of the right should be prepared to contest elections on far less comfortable ground. Here, to have a fighting chance of winning, David Cameron would have the difficult task of making people confident the Conservatives would intervene to protect jobs and livelihoods, rather than simply letting the market take care of it.
Andy Murray will become the first British man to win a Grand Slam event since Fred Perry in 1936, either at the Australian Open this month or the US Open in September – an event he might have won last year, had he taken his A-game to the final against Roger Federer. He still has a winning record against the Swiss, and has improved his game for the start of this season, becoming frighteningly be-muscled in the process. Rafael Nadal’s clay court reign will continue at Roland Garros, and, unless the Fed regains his mojo, most likely at Wimbledon as well. Fortunately for Murray, Nadal has yet to extend his dominance onto the hard courts – the Scot’s favoured surface.
31 A scientific study will declare 2009 the greyest, most depressing year since records began.
Sunday
Music:
11
Barack Obama will leave some of his supporters feeling let-down in the months following his inauguration on the 20th of January. This has little to do with Obama’s actual ability - the stage is set from him to become the greatest US President in decades - but rather the unrealistically high expectations many of his supporters have. Many Americans voted for Obama in the hope that he would usher in a new type of politics radically different from the current kind. Yet with turbulent economic and political situations around the world, he will have to make many of the same compromises that leave people disappointed.This is already evident in relation to the situation in Gaza, with commentators condemning the President-elect for his silence over the issue. Other issues which could pose difficulties include keeping the economy afloat in the midst of a recession while also sticking to election pledges that were made in more prosperous times. Furthermore, America’s deep-rooted social problems will not be swept away overnight, and neither will the divisive schisms between Republican and Democrat supporters be easy to iron out. Still, we can rest easy in the knowledge that it would take an almost supernatural level of ineptitude on Obama’s part for him to prove worse than his predecessor.
Saturday
Russia will continue posturing on the world stage, with Vladimir Putin releasing a photo of himself nude, oiled and proud.
Jonathan Ross will become embroiled in scandal after repeatedly striking an old man about the face. Ross’s supporters will claim the public ‘just don’t understand edgy comedy.’
Osama:
Competing bands of soldiers, bounty-hunters and vigilantes will fail for the eighth consecutive year to capture Osama bin Laden cowering in a mountain lair. If you doubt this prediction, perhaps you’ve spotted a six-foot six, furtive-looking Arab on kidney dialysis living in the flat opposite you on Dalkeith Street. If so, you could make a few quid betting on intrade. com, where the odds of his capture are about 20-1.)
Climate:
December’s world Climate Change summit in Copenhagen will expose the emptiness of governments’ green rhetoric. Politicians will use the recession as an excuse to nix any strict CO2 cuts, fearing they will reduce economic growth. A contingent prediction: Greens will cry. Contributors: Ed Ballard, Sam Cable, Andrew Chadwick, Jonathan Holmes, Neil Pooran, Adam Ramsay,
13/01/09
www.studentnewspaper.org
After the Seige... Michael Klimes traces the effects of the carnage of the Mumbai terror attacks
I
didn’t know the Mumbai saying “Sab chalta hain” a week ago. It means, ‘Everything happens.’ What happened on the 26th of November will be marked in the memories of the city’s inhabitants for years to come. The English equivalent of “Sab chalta hain” is “life goes on” - and for most people it has. People went to work on the days which immediately followed the attacks, despite the audacity of the terrorists, and the widespread devastation caused in the city. The streets which were deserted in south Mumbai for three days due to the turmoil and terror caused by the strikes have now been restored to a semblance of normality, although undoubtedly an atomosphere of unease prevails. Five targets were hit: Queen Victoria Terminus (Mumbai’s central railway station, similar in size and traffic to London’s Victoria Station); the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel; the Trident-Oberoi Hotel; Nariman House, and Café Leopold. Cama Hospital also received a spray of gunfire.
“We immediately barricaded upstairs when we heard the gunfire... there were around five minutes of shooting” Prakash is a survivor of the attack. He works as a waiter in Café Leopold, a renowned tourist venue located near the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and was the site of an indiscriminate massacre on 26th November. He was saved by a coincidence - he happened to be serving customers upstairs when the gunmen opened fire from the cafe’s entrance on the ground floor. Unlike the Taj Mahal Palace and Trident-Oberoi Hotels as well as Nariman House (the Jewish Centre), the gunmen did not take any hostages at Café Leopold. Two of Prakash’s colleagues were murdered, along six customers. He says, “Two or three people attacked and we immediately barricaded ourselves upstairs when we heard the gunfire. There were around five minutes of shooting and three volleys of fire.” Just a block down from Café Leopold is Mondegar, another bar popular among westerners. Ramesh, a waiter here, is less composed than Prakash when asked about the attacks, despite having been further from the firing line. He reflects, “I have high blood pressure and cannot get to sleep. I am convinced there were more than
ten people who were in the assault. We think some of them escaped in civilian clothes from the hotels. I saw the dead bodies being taken away.” The other staff in Mondegar share Ramesh’s fear. They are persistently uneasy. Any smiles on their faces are interrupted by looks over the shoulder. There is an edginess they cannot shrug off lightly, even extending to a slight paranoia about the customers they are serving. Next I go to the Taj Tower, the hotel adjacent to the Taj Heritage, and the most the terrorists’ most iconic target. Together these twin hotels are called the Taj Mahal Palace and are owned by India’s leading industrial group: the Tatas. Srivinas is a doorman at the Tower, and refuses to discuss the attacks: “We are not allowed to talk about anything.” The hotel’s credibility as a business relies on the absence of any apparent vulnerability. The centrality of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel to Mumbai’s history, culture and economy is symbolised in the nearby Gateway of India, one of the most prominent features of the fallen British Empire. The Gateway of India is to this city what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris or Big Ben to London. Having a drink in Starboard, one of the bars in the nearby Taj Tower, I converse with Shetty, a waiter present during the attacks. He is visibly shaken by the events, but his account of them fits the official narrative, which seeks to minimize the extent of the loss of life. He claims, “under thirty people were killed,” and, “no hostages were taken.” The actual final death toll is almost 170 victims - a figure already widely known. Another waiter, Rupesh, says that he evacuated twelve guests from Starboard as soon as he heard gunfire. All the hotel staff’s reports are a testmient to the ruthlessness of the attackers who entered the Taj Heritage from the front and back, sprayed the lobby with bullets and stormed upstairs to take hostages as quickly as they could. I walked through the connecting hallway between both hotels and caught a glimpse through a locked doorway of the repair work that is going on. The cost of restoring the damaged sections of the Taj Heritage is estimated to be five billion rupees - approximately £700 million. It is difficult even to determine when it will reopen. In the lobby of the Taj Tower there is a memorial to those who lost their lives, called the Tree of Life, a sixfoot-tall tribal sculpture that was previously the centrepiece of the hotel’s extensive art collection. Nevertheless, the best testament to these people is the stoicism of the hotel staff who nevertheless attend to their duties, albeit with visible trepidation. Many in Mumbai are sceptical about the pronounced death toll given by the authorities and the number of terrorists, which
stands at 10. The chaos in one of the most colourful parts of Mumbai has raised many questions about the security forces: how is it that a group of militants could just land by boat in the centre of the city, walk into the most prestigious five star hotels and gain control? How is it that it took three days of incessant and bloody fighting to end the sieges? How is it that it required hundreds of members of India’s security forces to handle just 10 men? Nariman House witnessed not only murder but religious humiliation, torture and dismemberment. As a site of scholarly research and prayer, the centre plays host to many Israeli and Jewish visitors to Mumbai. The ideological motivation of the attack on Nariman House evidence is plain when you consider its position down an alleyway and behind a petrol pump on a main road. Its obscurity indicates the level of planning and reconnaisance carried out by the attackers. There are also unconfirmed reports in the Indian press that western victims were stripped naked at the Taj Mahal Palace and sexually abused before being shot. As more information has become available, it is evident that the Islamist group Lasker-e-Taiba was responsible for the attacks. On December 31, the Wall Street Journal claimed substantial links have been
“A saying unique to Mumbai is ‘My Beloved Mumbai - a remark often heard among the city’s citizens since the attacks” established between the gunmen and the Pakistan-based organisation, which apparently supplied them with training and weaponry. Since then, reacting to international pressure, the Pakistani government has accepted that non-state actors operating within Pakistani territory are Pakistan’s responsibility. Their subsequent anti-terror measures have met with approval from the international community, although American officials have still stressed that Pakistan needs to do more to make the region free from terrorism. Laskar-e-Taiba has been implicated in numerous other attacks and attempted attacks in India. Another Mumbai saying is, “Mumbai meri jaan”, meaning, “My beloved Mumbai” - a remark frequently heard among the city’s citizens since the attacks, and an expression of solidarity with those in need - a feeling of solidarity rightly shared by the rest of the world, as India comes to terms with the violence of its recent past.
Features 13
14 Features
Scotland’s political prodigy speaks his mind Liz Rawlings sits down with First Minister Alex Salmond in the midst of a crucial vote. On the agenda: a referendum on Scottish independence, tax, the controversial off-licenses ban and Salmond’s ‘unusual’ student days
D
espite gracing the pages of the country’s newspapers on a daily basis, it is difficult to attain a comprehensive account of Alex Salmond’s character. He combines left-wing politics with an authoritarian style of party management and in so doing, is a man who divides opinion like no other UK politician. He is described by his opponents as ‘ruthless’ and ‘vindictive’, while the Londonbased press have so-often sided with his former friend Jim Sillars’ account of the First Minister as ‘only a spin machine, spinning in a policy vacuum’. However, Salmond is also a figure lauded by his party and supporters alike as the saviour of Scottish political nationalism; the first SNP leader of Parliament in Scotland and above all, a master politician. Meeting him in his office at Holyrood, it is clear that Salmond is agitated, he tries to hide it but admits to having had a difficult day. He has just returned from illness, there has been a demonstration outside the Parliament attacking the Government on rape counselling for female asylum seekers and in half an hour there is scheduled to be a Parliamentary vote on local income tax – the amendments to which he has been debating in the chamber throughout the day. As leader of the SNP, Salmond is a figurehead for the fight for Scottish independence. Contrary to the opinions of various political commentators, he confirms that there will be a referendum to decide the issue in 2010: “We’ve always said 2010, we’ve never said anything else...That was in our manifesto, that’s the basis on which we won the election. The reason for saying 2010 was because we wanted to fight the referendum after having demonstrated our
competence in government. We’ve never changed on this. The only people who have changed are the Labour party who were firstly against the referendum then wanted an instantaneous referendum in Scotland at least but not in London and now they don’t want a referendum at all
“I want a hung Parliament and I want a lot of SNP MPs to exert influence in that Parliament” as far as I can make out...but that’s a matter for them.” This seems to be a theme throughout the interview – Salmond is keen to focus debate around his own party and their policies rather than worrying about political events outside of his control. Indeed, when asked about the potential outcomes of a UK general election, Salmond is once again, diplomatic: “I want a hung Parliament and I want a lot of SNP MPs to exert influence in that Parliament. I know some people argue that if a Tory government was elected at Westminster then the support for Independence would rise by fifteen per cent to a majority, but I think it’s much more important what’s happening in Scotland than what happens in Westminster.” Salmond’s insistence that Scotland would be better-off without being tied to the Union has been questioned by economic analysts, particularly in light of the current financial crisis. However, the First Minister is adamant that now, more than ever, Independence would benefit the Scottish economy: “Scotland’s single biggest economic difficulty over the last century has been the loss of its most
educated, brightest, best people. That has [been] what has happened to Scotland. We’ve exported more talent to more places of a highly educated kind than just about any country on the planet. That’s what’s happened when Scotland has been governed by Westminster . If I was to put one single economic reason for Scottish Independence [it] is to reverse that flow of talent outwards... instead of being an exporter of human capital, to be an importer of human capital and take a very adventurous idea of what you should do in terms of your immigration policy in terms of offering an opportunity for lots and lots of intelligent people from around the world. We’ve exported lots of talent over the last 200 years or so maybe it’s time to import some back again.” As he finishes this sentence, loud bells ring out across the Parliament; the voting has begun on local income tax: “I have to go and vote but I’ll be back” Salmond remarks as he leaves his office. The vote isn’t legislative, but it is extremely important – it will indicate whether there is Parliamentary support for Salmond’s controversial plans which would see council tax scrapped and replaced by a local income tax of 3p in the pound. The First Minister returns after fifteen minutes, “We lost” he remarks, visibly disheartened - the failed vote will dominate newspaper headlines in the morning. Despite the setback, Salmond is still adamant that local income tax will be successful in Scotland: “Why shouldn’t it work? At least a dozen other countries in Europe have it; it seems to work there so why wouldn’t it work here? At the end of the day people only pay taxation out of income... and the great virtue of paying tax out of income is the more income you’ve got the more taxation you pay. The problem with the council tax is its bourn a burden
which it was never really designed to bear because it’s increased, it’s doubled since the Tories and Labour doubled it. And although we’ve frozen it which provides some relief to people, it’s still unfair. So yes, we’ll pursue local income tax, but the vote this afternoon indicates that the forces of the council tax cabal may have the votes on us on this - maybe it’ll be different when we introduce it next year. Who knows?” The proposed tax changes have been of interest to students who feel they may be detrimentally affected if they undertake a part-time job to compliment their loan. Currently students do not have to pay council tax, yet the SNP has been unclear as to whether the same exemption would apply to local income tax. Considering that 73 per cent of students in Scotland are working during their studies – a figure significantly above the UK average, can Salmond guarantee that there will be an exemption for students if local income tax is adopted?
“The Labour and Conservative parties didn’t just vote down local income tax, they actually voted down an amendment proposing a student exemption” “The Labour and Conservative parties didn’t just vote down local income tax, they actually voted down an amendment proposing a student exemption” he explains: “Incidentally to be coverbilical by income tax as a student you’d have to earn £100,000 over your degree, in terms of what we’ve done as far as the graduate endowment is concerned. To be
worse off you’d have to earn that sort of sum. However, we’ve come to the conclusion and we’ve given an indication [through the amendment] that we think it would be better not to have students liable with local income tax”. As well as local income tax, one particular SNP policy last year caused uproar amongst students - the proposed drinking ban on Under 21s in off-licenses. Salmond admits that he drank before he was 21, and that drinking is for some students a vital part of the university experience, but argues that the proposed ban will revive student unions and ensure students drink alcohol in a controlled environment: “We’re not proposing to ban people drinking under 21, we’re proposing a ban on sales in off licenses and the difference is quite fundamental. I mean one of the obvious consequences of such a ban if it came in would be to revive the opportunity for University beer bars to exist because many University student unions and bars have gone out of existence because of cheap booze in supermarkets. It is very difficult for a University to compete with oodles of strong cheap cider stacked up in Tesco. Why are we not proposing a ban on alcohol sales to under 21s in terms of you know, drinking in a bar or club? Because it’s a controlled environment... that’s why it’s called a licensed premises. Binge drinking in terms of hyper sales targeted at young people is not a controlled environment; its exploitation and the people who suffer from it, by and large are the young people.” Salmond graduated with a degree in Economics and History from St. Andrews. His first taste of politics came in 1973, when he ran for President of the Students’ Association only to lose out to Tory opponent Peter Bainbridge, who
13/01/09
Katy Kennedy
Salmond referred to as ‘Peter Braindamage’ throughout the entire election campaign: ‘A s a student I did some pretty uh... nothing I want to report – usual student stuff ’, Salmond says tentatively, before chuckling: “I launched a campaign once to occupy the Hall of Residence as a protest... but I did lots of stuff like that, lots of daft stuff and quite a bit of student activism which seemed important at the time, and some of it was actually. “St. Andrews is a very Anglicised University, a very socially select university and so I went as a kind of Scottish punter because I wanted to demonstrate something but I’m really glad I did because I met all sorts of different people... and certainly broadened my horizons considerably. I just absolutely loved it, and if it hadn’t been for the money and the lack of it, I’d still be there... but unfortunately, eventually I’d have to go and get a job”. On the subject of his University days, Salmond’s mood abruptly alters and he adopts a serious tone
of voice: “I had huge fights with the University when I was at St. Andrews because they had lost track of their dimension with Scottish education. There was an instance of high failure rates of Scottish qualified students in the science faculty... and they weren’t failing because they weren’t clever. They were failing because the course structure in the 70s at St Andrews was oriented towards A Levels, despite the fact that it was a Scottish University... It was a huge scandal and then it was sorted because the University decided to reconnect itself with what it was meant to be doing in the first place. To actually get itself into that position just showed an attitude of the mind which was dreadful and I hope that no Scottish university would ever do that again. “A University owes an obligation to the people, to the state, a community; let’s call it the community of the realm and therefore it should contribute to other goals in society like, for example, having proper social rights for the students who come into University – that’s a
perfectly acceptable thing to ask for. I think for universities to pay attention to social factors and social mobility is very important indeed... as long as they take public cash then they’ve got obligations to people.” 2009 has been billed by the SNP as the year of ‘Homecoming’ – a phrase designed to attract visitors and ex-pats to the country
“I’ll just aspire to become sexy when I’m 78” to reconnect with their Scottish heritage – it’s a subject Salmond is clearly passionate about: “Homecoming is often seen as a theme of getting a few tourists back for next year [but] it’s a lot more than that. It’s about a reconnection with a wider Scottish family... it’s to re-emphasise and reconnect with that Scottish Diaspora” he explains. As part of the Homecoming celebrations the First Minister is hoping to welcome Barack Obama to
the country after it was revealed that the President-Elect’s grandmother was of Scottish descent: “I’ve certainly extended the invitation to him” Salmond confirms; “I mean he’s got one or two things to do but hopefully he’ll be able to find the time so we’ll see what happens. We’ve [also] got a Burn’s supper in Washington in February which we’re hoping he’ll be able to come to.” The Homecoming 2009 campaign has attracted hoards of media attention. It was launched in November along with a television advert, appealing to Scottish tradition to stir up nostalgia among Scots abroad. It featured stars such as Sean Connery, Lulu and Chris Hoy, and has become a cult hit among students and the Scottish population alike. Salmond himself seems genuinely surprised at its success: “We actually designed it for showing in Scotland because it was designed to galvanise people in Scotland to invite their relatives back for Homecoming but its proving so popular that we’re now going to
show it in England. I think, I’m right in saying in the cinemas in London and we’re showing it in America on PBS, they’re going to see it as well”. The star of the advert is undoubtedly Connery, who refused to sing along like the other celebrities. Instead he whispers seductively ‘let me tell you that I love you, that I think about you all the time’ over the soaring pipe music: “We went to the Homecoming premiere last week and Sean’s what? 78? And all the women were weak at the knees. It’s outrageous, I mean it’s unfair...I’ll just aspire to become sexy when I’m 78” he jokes. By now he is much more relaxed, recalling tales about his student life while his Blackberry buzzes incessantly. On the evidence of today, it isn’t difficult to see where the First Minister’s Jekyll and Hyde reputation stems from. Indeed, I suspect I may have caught a rare glimpse of the two guises of Scottish Nationalism’s prodigal son; that of a seasoned political street fighter and an ordinary countryman, hopelessly devoted to his nation.
16 Film
13/01/09
www.studentnewspaper.org
Blunder Down Under?
Susan Robinson kindly puts Lurhman’s epic a step above Kangaroo Jack Australia directed by
Baz Luhrman
aaadd If you go to the cinema to see a film named after an entire country, you should expect stereotypes. Australia does not fail to deliver, in droves. Baz Luhrman’s homage opens with narration by Nullah, a half white, half Aborigine child, about the importance of everyone being able to tell their own story. As charming as it is, to claim to represent the Aborigine culture through an overblown Hollywood epic and script a boy’s feelings towards his native land, is more than a little convoluted. The first half hour, essentially, establishes stereotypes and is suitably painful. As Lady Sarah, it is impossible to tell whether or not Nicole Kidman is pretending to act really badly. She arrives in Australia to lure her husband from the outback, is generally appalled by everything she finds and storms and huffs like them back soiled he declares with an upper-class caricature. She is a hoicking spit: ‘Welcome to Ausmeant to be picked up by Drover, a tralia’. It could only be more hackprofessional he-man played by Hugh neyed if he’d slapped her on the arse Jackman and called her ‘Sheila’. However he decides to start a Fortunately, if you do sit out the brawl, taking on an entire bar sin- pantomime, it does improve. There gle-fistedly and succeeding, natu- are moments that will have you edgrally. Her suitcase springs open in ing off your seat, rather than the exit. the fracas, immaculate silk under- When Kidman and Co. have to drive crackers sail through the air to be ‘those bloody cheeky cows to the big manhandled by Jackman, handing ship in Darwin’ facing sabotage from
the competing Carney stock-owners, involving a bottle neck, stampeding cattle, a cliff face and lots of fire, you do start to feel some sympathy for these cardboard cut-outs. Eventually, with a lot of bravado and some seemingly insurmountable obstacles they make it to Darwin. Nullah, Drover and Sarah make a perfect jigsaw family, embracing in slow motion whilst the baddie screws up his face after receiving his
comeuppance. It should end there. Romance, several deaths, unforgivable exploitation, lashings of violence and incredible panoramas are not sufficient for Luhrman’s epic. In the next hour, Nullah almost becomes part of the ‘stolen generation’, the mixed race children who were removed from their families and raised as soldiers, Drover gets cold feet and runs back to the wilderness and Sarah nearly has her
estate extorted from her. I hardly need point out that they are joyously reunited (again) despite being bombed by the Japanese and Sarah being declared dead for a second time. There is also an attempt at cultural reconciliation, with his adoptive parents’ consent Nullah performs the rite of ‘walkabout’ with his witchdoctor grandfather, despite the war raging on: Welcome to Hollywood.
funny character for the American Pie franchise, but its continual reappraisal is a disappointment. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, as Rudd’s protege, plays the nerd so well here (as in Superbad) that it seems not to be an act. Though still amusing, the audience is laughing at and not with him, which seems only to perpetuate a negative stereotype. There is a trend in recent film comedies for cinematic references. In most other cases, this serves only to remind the audience that those other films are so much better, but Role Models is bolstered by it. A
notable example occurs towards the end of the film; “Let’s crank this shit up to eleven”. Not only is this a reference to Christopher Guest’s This is Spinal Tap, but the performance of one of Guest’s key players (Jane Lynch) is a prominent feature of this film, adding another dimension with some clever word play. The language games and twists on established genre set pieces (the conclusion to the final act is a good example) make Role Models a stand out among the past year’s comedies. Edward Bower
Role Models directed by
David Wain
aaaad
Although comedy is very subjective, certain brands of humour are inextricably linked with the zeitgeist. With Gervais and Merchant’s The Office came a particular brand of humour resulting from the observation of a heightened reality. In Role Models much of the humour is played out whilst the two principles (Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott) watch the actions of the supporting cast along with the audience. Rudd and Scott play two energy drink sales reps forced to mentor a pair of socially awkward children (Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bobb’e J. Thompson) as community service to make up for crashing their bullshaped pickup truck. Despite this style of humour belonging to somewhat of a niche, it does manage to hit. Throughout Role Models, Paul Rudd shows his considerable talent for this genre. His timing is impeccable and his facial expressions are calculated but realistic, allowing the audience to believe his performance. Sean William Scott, on the other hand, seems only to have taken another Stifler role. This is understandable to the extent that he has created such an iconic and very
13/01/09
CHE: PART ONE
CHE IS an astonishingly accomplished biography, brought to us courtesy of the esteemed Benicio Del Toro (who is both the leading actor and executive producer). In unflinching detail it examines his character, unashamed of warts behind the glorified figure’s t-shirt friendly façade: the executioner, the ruthless warlord, and the uncompromising militarist. Del Toro seldom shirks from his true duties as biographer of the legend and as a result this film shines among the legions of fawning, adoring biographies that pollute cinema screens today. In Che we follow the enigmatic revolutionary’s initial years, the tumultuous times between 1952 and 1964, dealing specifically with the overthrow of the tin-pot dictator Batista and the subsequent Cuban dealings with the UN. Del Toro delivers a deliciously ambiguous turn as Che Guevara, at turns a benevolent doctor whose only concern is the welfare of his soldiers and the peasantry of Cuba, at other times a
ruthless war-mongerer with a penchant for brutality. Filmed in a remarkably stark style with a minimalist score, the film delivers us a Cuba rich with humanity; golden hues dominate the colour palate giving us the sense of a lazy country, with storm clouds on the political horizon. This of course is a by-product of the source material, being itself a direct adaptation of Che’s memoirs; the peasantry are glorified while all working of the opponents and bourgeoisie are demonised. The bias present is clearly indicative of Che’s personal views, meaning the film cannot be taken as a true historical account. Taking this into consideration, we are left with a bittersweet taste at certain moments as Che’s moments of fault occasionally disappear, slightly unravelling the work of the excellent beginning. With an admirable effort, at least initially, Che delivers an account of the revolutionary with visual panache, excellent music selection and an inspired performance from Del Toro, but still leaves a little to be desired. That said, Che: Part 2 is certainly worth anticipating. Sean Cameron
war crimes trial at Nuremberg. Hanna confesses to being an SS guard at Auschwitz and is found guilty of a particularly atrocious act of mass murder. During the trial, it emerges that Hanna liked to pick and choose ‘favourites’ from among the prisoners and force them to read to her. It is only at this point Michael realises that she is illiterate – a guilty secret she has kept for many years. Michael keeps this information to himself because he is ashamed of their affair, even though it could
result in Hanna receiving a more lenient sentence. The film draws an unfair parallel between their acts of moral cowardice – as if the two secrets are somehow equivalent. Michael’s silence condemned a remorseless concentration camp guard to a longer prison sentence, whereas Hanna’s actions led directly to the death of hundreds of innocent women and children. The audience is asked to believe that Hannah joined the SS to hide her shame and that had she been literate her actions might have been different. This is plainly ludicrous. The SS was Hitler’s elite force: its members were specially selected by Himmler for their allegiance to the Nazi racist ideology and their commitment to eradicate the Jews and other groups deemed ‘inferior’. Although the film briefly accepts that Hanna can never be absolved of her crimes, the sympathetic script and soaring emotional score attempt to persuade the audience to empathise with her character. By the end of the film, Hanna is a victim both of her illiteracy and of her circumstances. She was only following orders. She was not a bad person. She had no alternative. I disagree. Sam Ross
DIRECTED BY
STEPHEN SODERBERGH
AAAAD
TWILIGHT DIRECTED BY
CATHERINE HARDWICKE
AAAAD STEP ASIDE, Neil Jordan: Twilight is the teenage-vampire love story adaptation with longing and angst, regardless of the Mormon allegories. It’s witty, awkward and genuinely charming. Despite borrowing everything from Shakespeare, Anne Rice and John Hughes, this film still manages to come out clean. Hardwicke and her team excel, notably with the cinematography and set design which together give Twilight the qualities of a lucid dream. The updated ‘new girl in town’ story follows pale and clumsy outsider Isabella Swan (Kristen Stewart) who moves in with her dad to lead a dull life in the small town of Forks, but somehow ends up falling in love with an immortal vampire who doesn’t normally drink human blood but lusts especially for hers. Edward (Robert Pattinson), however, insists on the chastity belt. As the tormented romantic hero he first objects to their relationship in order to protect the all-too-eager Bella.
THE READER DIRECTED BY
STEPHEN DALDRY
AADDD THE READER tries to turn an illiterate, unrepentant concentration camp guard into a central figure of pity. It has received 4 Golden Globe nominations and film industry hacks are tipping it as a serious contender for the Best Picture Oscar. But while it has all the cinematic trappings of
Film 17
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The carefully down-played first half of the film follows this intimate and enjoyable battle of spirits. Bella narrates Stephenie Meyer’s original quadrilogy so her thoughts and notions dictate the look and feel of Forks, its old hippies, minivans, diners and breathtakingly gigantic forests. Firmly established as the ‘misbehaving teen- connoisseur’ by her previous films (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown), Hardwicke knows better than to over-use storytelling clichés and instead provides her charming young lovers with tons of screen time to court each other. The catch is it may be too much considered their limited experience and enormous pressures of fandom and franchise. Twilight lives and dies by its stars Stewart and Pattinson, the former coming out much more natural than the latter. Pattinson certainly carries the well-chiselled features of a gorgeous 17-year-old going 90, forced to hold his breath every time his favourite girl enters the same building, but too often lacks the required emotional depth. Fresh from Into the Wild (2007) Stewart takes the lead, making her vulnerable but feisty Bella the doom of anyone, undead or not. Jutta Sarhimaa
an award-winning film, it leaves a nasty aftertaste. The story opens in 1950s West Germany where 15-year old Michael (David Kross) begins an affair with a much older woman called Hanna (Kate Winslet). Their passionate lovemaking is punctuated by a ritual in which Michael reads Hanna the classic novels which he is studying at school. One day Hanna disappears and the film skips to the 1960s where Michael, now a law student, rediscovers her as the defendant in a
Matthew McConaughey’s Hollywood Roundup!
WHAT’S MY name punk? That’s right, McConaughey’s back in town and more than ready to again face The Haters…Since you asked, my period of hibernation involved a stiff surf board, golden sands like you wouldn’t believe, ten stripped-to-the-toes lesbians at my sexual beck and call, three tonnes of bleach for ma locks and a partridge in a pear tree. Hahahahahohmatthewhowyoumakemelaugh! I josh! I josh! The partridge never arrived. Shame that…real shame. Anyway, here’s the news. The nominations for the 2009 Golden Globe Awards are in, with Brad Pitt’s loose but nonetheless impressive adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Danny Boyle’s surprise stateside hit Slumdog Millionaire both in contention for this year’s Best Picture award. Those on the shortlist for Best Actor include Mickey Rourke for his performance as a drugged-up has-been in The Wrestler. Rourke, tipped for Oscar success in February, is a hearty proponent of The Method school of acting and has been preparing for the role for over twenty years. For his next Oscar-baiting role, Rourke will play… an angry adversary, tentacled of course, to Robert Downey’s Iron Man in the sequel to last year’s hit?!? Mickey! You really have no idea how to play the whole actor’s rehabilitation game do you? If you want respect then…well, let me give you an example: I chose not to follow my lauded and iconic role in Sahara with something trashy like Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D, did I? Well, actually I did, but there are few actors quite like Double-M are there now? Just be careful… Whiplash might not be the best character for you. Bad news for those of you incontinent with anticipation for Zack Snyder’s (300) filmic adaptation of seminal graphic novel Watchmen; a legal tussle between studios Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers means its release is likely to be delayed. Both parties claim copyright ownership of the original material and thus the right to distribute, though an apparently catatonic Fox rejected Snyder’s script three years ago, one executive explaining at the time “It was rubbish, just awful.”
18 Music
13/01/09
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Album of the Week What does 2009 have to offer? Win or Bin?
Here’s our guide to 10 bands tipped for success in 2009. Are they worth your time? Little Boots - WIN After having ‘Stuck on Repeat’, er, stuck on repeat last year, we’re predicting big things for this icy cool songstress from Blackpool. We just hope that she doesn’t rush and spoil her debut. White Lies - BIN
PAINT PAVILLION: The lads have yet to fully understand the basics of camoflauge.
Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavillion
Domino
aaaaa
The optical illusion that fronts Animal Collective’s 9th album has been one of the most blogged images on the internet this year. We may only be two weeks in, but Merriweather Post Pavillion has already been tagged as “the album of 2009”, getting a 9.6 rating from Pitchfork, and many calling it the band’s “pop” album. There is reason for all the gushing praise: this is the band’s most accessible and melodic record yet. Nevertheless, this is still never going to touch commercial radio; there are far too many unconventional song structures—too much drone—for that too happen. The most apparent change from previous records, though, is the omission of needless instrumental passages that frustrated before. Merriweather is sonically tighter, and crucially relies more upon the vocals of Dave Portner and Noah Lennox than ever before. Panda Bear’s wonderful 2007 release, Per-
son Pitch, seems to have influenced the rest of the band, because there is a slower pace throughout that reflects their newfound confidence. ‘Bluish’ is elegant and understated, two adjectives I would rarely have connected before with AC. It is the standout romantic moment on the album, built from woozy, aqueous verses that flower into a wide-eyed chorus of adoration: “Put on the dress that I like/It makes me so crazy, though I can’t say why”. Other highlights are the swirling synths and deep bass of ‘My Girls’ that build into the most addictive singalong here: “I don’t mean to seem like I care about/material things like a social status/I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls”, ‘Summertime Clothes’, a song that recalls Battles’ ‘Atlas’ with its robotic pulse, and the Afro-beats of ‘Brother Sport’, which sounds like Vampire Weekend having a good old-fashioned rave. Merriweather isn’t without its flaws, admittedly—the layered vocals of ‘Taste’ grate against the clumsy percussion and bass, and ‘Lion in a Coma’ features some pretty awful lyrics—but these minor gripes don’t stop this from being the band’s best record yet. Jonny Stockford
Gig Listings Date Band 13-01 Animal Collective Chris Brown 14-01 Franz Ferdinand Damon & Naomi 15-01 Gutter Twins Kizzy Star 16-01 The Bookhouse Boys 17-01 Healthy Minds Collapse 18-01 New Kids On The Block 19-01 Pussycat Dolls + Ne-Yo 20-01 Francoiz Breut 21-01 Architects 22-01 Karima Francis 23-01 Ed Rush/Randall/Hazard Duke Special 24-01 Boys Like Girls 25-01 Bloc Party 26-01 Of Montreal 27-01 Sharleen Spiteri 28-01 Fighting With Wire 31-01 NME Awards Tour
Venue Oran Mor, Glasgow SECC, Glasgow The Picture House, Edinburgh King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow Oran Mor, Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow SECC, Glasgow SECC, Glasgow Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow Studio 24, Edinburgh King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow Potterow, Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh Garage, Glasgow 02 Academy, Glasgow 02 Academy, Glasgow Oran Mor, Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow 02 Academy, Glasgow
Previously unsuccessful as Fear of Flying, White Lies have transformed themselves into an altogether darker brand of rock pop. Only thing is, we already have Interpol, and they’re yards better. Young Fathers - WIN Scottish Rap: a contradiction in terms, right? Wrong. If you like The Cool Kids tongue-in-cheek take on the genre, check these guys out. The Big Pink - BIN Taking their name from The Band’s debut, this London duo specialise in an altogether more spacey, early 90s, affair. They’ve been compared to Spiritualized and My Bloody Valentine, but to our ears they’re not worthy of sharing the same... Whoops.
Passion Pit - WIN This Massachusetts band came together after lead singer, Michael Angelakos, made an EP for his gilfriend as a Valentine’s present. That EP, Chunk of Change, was heard by record companies and it’s now available to us all. If you like Postal Service and The Sleepy Jackson, you’ll like Passion Pit. And there’s no better place to start than by checking out the sublime video for ‘Sleepyhead’. La Roux - BIN She shares the same management team as the Klaxons, she loves the 80s, and she’s only 20. In other words, she’s a PR dream. La Roux may look like the female Patrick Wolf, but sadly she’s nowhere near as talented. Dan Black - BIN
A messy, drunken riot of a band. We love this sort of stuff. Sounds like The Pogues, and the cathartic parts of Bright Eyes. Florence and the Machine - BIN Florence Welch’s voice dominates; and it’s very much a Marmite thing. If you like Leona Lewis and Adele you may be a fan. Not us.
Upcoming Releases 12-01: Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (See Album of the Week) 19-01: Antony & the Johnsons – The Crying Light Andrew Bird - Noble Beast White Lies - To Lose My Life... Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP
‘HYPNTZ’ shamelessly rips-off Rihanna’s Umbrella. So, expect a hit. But we’re sticking our necks on the line and calling this dude a onehit wonder. Next!
26-01: Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand Ben Kweller – Changing Horses
N.A.S.A - WIN
02-02: Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You
They’ve got M.I.A., Kanye West, Lykke Li, David Byrne, Tom Waits and Chuck D on board for their debut album. Nuff said.
16-02: N.A.S.A – The Spirit of the Apollo
Titus Andronicus - WIN
23-02 Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand
Andrew Bird Noble Beast
Fat Possum
aaaaD If 2008 was the year the album supposedly fell from grace, Andrew Bird’s fifth solo release belongs to another time. With eleven full tracks and three linking interludes, it plays as a complete work to be enjoyed as a whole on repeated listens.With a sound echoing Wilco fronted by Teddy Thompson or a less histrionic Thom Yorke, the instrumentation ranges from American (banjos), European (the album’s key instrument, the violin) and universal sounds (the omnipresent whistles, handclaps and synthetic percussion) juxtaposed with Bacharach-inspired chamber-pop chords and lyrics in Bird’s plaintive tenor lamenting the passing of time and the seasons. Bird’s rustic, farmyard upbringing emerges in the ‘grey-spotted owl’ imagery of ‘Natural Disaster’ with its altfolk strumming meshing with wordless ‘ba-ba’s. Other touches of bucolia lull the listener, as heard in the trilling violin of ‘Fitz and the Dizzyspells’ and the earthen string outro of ‘On Ho’. The folktronica sound of ‘Not a Robot, But a Ghost’ proves harsh in employing driving, Balkan strings, but is undercut by a melismatic vocal line and a resolution into a gliding Air-like coda. Though colours have ‘bled to grey’ on Nomenclature, Bird toys with the
BEASTLY: Only losers pick inanimate objects to have staring competitions with. listener by mingling the light and the dark, as variant styles clash yet concord. ‘Oh No’, the opening track, possesses a singalong chorus which masks the lyric ‘we are the harmless sociopaths’; cascading couplets trip over one another on ‘Tenuousness’ as the music shuffles along; progressive rock rhythms on ‘Anonanimal’ sit aside the gently melancholic bossa nova of ‘Masterswarm’ (‘we were the young’). The Conor Oberst-inspired
sarabande of ‘Effigy’ with its mournful lyric ‘fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone’ is a Celtic Van Morrison-influenced ode to a ‘man who’s lost his way’ while the symphonic ‘Souverian’ builds and broods to maximum effect. ‘Take me with you,’ Bird sings on ‘The Privateers’, advice well worth taking on this collection of hymnic, string-saturated sounds. Jonny Brick
13/01/09 Live Review
Broken Records Fix New Year Broken Records/ Glasvegas Waverley Bridge
31 December
aaaaD Broken Records have progressed in leaps and bounds over the past year, and their increasing confidence was evident here whilst playing in front of one of their biggest crowds to date. It’s fitting that Edinburgh’s finest new band should be a part of Hogmanay, the city’s biggest celebration, and Broken Records more than justify their booking. We are given a sample of new songs to be included on their
Music 19
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debut record, pencilled in for a May release date, and surprise, surprise, they sound astonishing. Watching the seven-piece, it’s clear they know they’re good enough by far to gain some genuine attention. It’s not smugness, just a self-assured quality that only adds to their performance. Closer ‘Slow Parade’ has lit up the dingiest, pokiest clubs and gig venues in Edinburgh over the past two years, and now finally it is played under the lights of the castle in a setting that truly matches its majesty. Cracking stuff. Glasvegas are similarly epic, closing the evenings festivities before the bells with a set that has more in common with the euphoric stadium singalongs of Oasis than a band
who this time last year were virtually unheard of in the mainstream. It’s barely three months since their debut was released and they’re now Scotland’s most successful export, battling with Metallica in the album charts and selling out shows at a phenomenal rate. ‘Geraldine,’ ‘My Own Cheating Heart...,’ the football chant refrain of ‘Go Square Go,’ it’s all here and it sounds monumental. Carl Barat (for some reason) is brought on to join in a rendition of ‘We’ll Meet Again’ - quite lovely really, conjuring the sort of nostalgia just suited to the occasion, before they finish with ‘Daddy’s Gone,’ and a rather spectacular end to 2008. Andrew Chadwick
Local Music
We’re kicking off 2009 with a series of interviews and features on Edinburgh’s local bands. This week, we talk to White Heath.
White Heath are: Sean Watson, Alastair White, Shoubhik Bandopadhyay, Adam Pearson and Mark Rowley. Can you describe yourselves to us? We are a 5 piece alternative band based in Edinburgh who started out as a mainly electronic 2 piece and expanded when coming to university. Shou plays djembe, cajon, violin and sings backing, Adam plays guitar, Mark plays bass trombone, Al plays piano and Sean sings and plays some percussion. We try and experiment with as many varieties of sound an mood as possible. There’s a lot of variety but hopefully we retain an element of identity in all of our songs. Flickr: The Outhouse
Reliable Predictions for 2009’s Least Likely Music Events Predictions are always a risky business, and that’s why ours for 2009 are completely ridiculous and far-fetched. Our first prediction is a reversal of kinds: musicians will feature in films throughout the year and make a mockery of performances by Winslet, DiCaprio and co. So expect to see Damon Albarn pick up an Oscar for his short animation on the lives of ninja ferrets. Expect Amy Winehouse to pick up a gong for her supporting role in a docudrama on alcohol abuse. And expect Britters to gain critical aplomb for her acutely perceived performance of a madwoman. Bono will provide cameos of himself in each of these
Video of the Week Lily Allen - The Fear Released on January 26th, ‘The Fear’ is the lead single from Lily Allen’s second album, It’s Not Me, It’s You. The video captures all the OTT decadance of material culture which she berates in her typical tongue-incheek manner. Search: ‘Lily Allen’ + ‘The Fear’
films. As himself. In shades. What is it with actors and models dabbling with music? Do they think that singing is easier than acting? Fools! First it was Kate Moss on Babyshambles’ ‘La Belle et la Bête’, then it was Agyness Deyn providing Godawful vocals on Five O’Clock Heroes’ ‘Who’. People really will be saying “who?” if she continues to sing like that. Scarlett Johansson also decided to get in on the act. Her album was, sadly, a complete let-down. Not that I want to direct a one-sided attack at actresses attempting to crossover. No, Pierce Brosnan’s ‘singing’ on ‘Mamma Mia’ was so unbelievably bad it was hilariously good.
What is this, the Film section? you say. No, better. This is Music, you plum. We predict that Cheryl Cole will twat Simon Cowell round the head with a salmon, and start filming the first series of The Coles At Home. Sharon Osborne will mostly sit at home and throw darts at images of Dannii Minogue. Lily Allen will begin a diet consisting entirely of eating peaches, Take That will go through puberty and their voices will break, and Gary Barlow will grow a proper beard. A1, 911, and every other 90s boyband will escape from Neverneverland to tour across Britain. Jonny Stockford
How were your highlights of 2008? Mark: Playing almost 100 gigs Adam: ...And managing to establish a fortnightly residency at the Tron for free where we are able to showcase some of Edinburgh’s talent. Shoubhik: We provided the live music for the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance show ‘Hard Rain’ in Dundee which was an amazing experience. What bands/musicians have influenced you? If we had to pick one each Adam: The Beatles; they were the first band I ever heard, the only band I have listened to consistently throughout my life. Mark: Wilco. There’s something about them which your attention can’t refuse. Shoubhik: Bela Bartok, a composer who made me aware of other ways of playing the violin. Al: Type O Negative. The structure, arrangement and originality inspired me to make music. Sean: Maynard James Keenan, from Tool. He definitely inspired me more than any other singer. There is real intensity, emotion and depth to his voice which influenced me to want to write lyrics and sing. What do you think of the current
music scene in Edinburgh? Adam: It’s interesting you mention those cities because they are the ones we are considering relocating to after university. Sean: As far as edinburgh goes it seems limited to some extent Adam: it’s easier to be heard but there are fewer opportunities. Shoubhik: Edinburgh doesn’t seem to attract musicians as a base in the same way as Manchester, Glasgow or London. A lot of successful bands in Edinburgh are from Edinburgh, which isnt a criticism; it’s just the way Edinburgh works as a musical centre. Tell us about your favourite album(s) of 2008. Adam: In Rainbows by Radiohead, the Panda Bear album (ed: released in 2007, but I’ll let you off). Shoubhik: the new Sigur Rós album, Narrow Stairs by Death Cab For Cutie. Sean: Ghosts and The Slip by Nine Inch Nails, Stay Positive by The Hold Steady. Al: I really got into Mahler this year Mark: I hadn’t really properly listened to Neil Young until this year and he is one of my favourite artists of all time now. 12 Crass Songs by Jeffrey Lewis also. All: Another World EP by Antony and the Johnsons What do you hope for in 2009? Al: To keep on having fun and to sustain the kind of opportunities we have already had this year would be incredible. Adam: To continue being able to play music, have new experiences, meet new people, play as much as possible. Can you recommend a band to look out for in 2009? All: In Edinburgh, Fox Gang, Meursault and Withered Hand. And also Passion Pit from Massachusetts White Heath play Cabaret Voltaire on 21 January. Listen to them at www.myspace.com/whiteheath
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Beedle’s about! Rachel Williams looks at JK’s latest sensation
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The Witches of Eastwick The Playhouse Until 3 Jan
aaaad The festive period became a season of sex, catchy musical numbers and well, more sex for Edinburgh theatre-goers as the cast of The Witches of Eastwick landed at the Playhouse. Lamenting the lack of hot crumpet in their town, Alexandra (Ria Jones), Sukie (Rebecca Thornhill) and Jane (Poppy Tierney) design their ideal man; cue the timely – and spooky – arrival of Darryl Van Horne (Wet Wet Wet’s Marti Pellow). The trio of women quickly realise that together they have a supernatural power, hence Darryl’s every trait being exactly what they wished for. Marti Pellow as Darryl proved to be quite the Christmas cracker as he simultaneously delighted both the unhappy and unsatisfied resident women of Eastwick, as well as many members of the (mostly female) audience. Oozing his way around the stage,
Aladdin King’s Theatre Until 18 Jan
aaaaa Children these days are undoubtedly spoiled with this year’s pantomime spectacular adhering to all the usual conventions but furnishing them with a bit of modern glitz. That is not to say that there is nothing for the adults to enjoy; the appearance of PVC clad, back-flipping policewoman, equipped with truncheons surely left the fathers happy. This adaptation of the classic story is comically written, with baddie Abanazar (Grant Stott) certainly meriting the boos and hisses thrown at him during his demise after destroying children and ensuring Hearts football club is relegated. In
Darryl plays to the insecurities of the women, and with his sixth sense for knowing their hidden desires, he goes about fulfilling them one by one. Pellow’s character can be best described as Russell Brand meets Harry Potter; an unusual but apparently irresistible combination. The friends realise that Darryl has been three-timing them when they all arrive at his mansion for the same game of tennis but their initial annoyance is forcibly shelved when they consider what the other men the town of Eastwick have to offer. Upon agreeing to share him – such promiscuity a plotline of EastEnders would be proud of - the trio become regular visitors to Darryl’s boudoir, much to the latter’s enjoyment which we gather from his ensuing hip gyrating and grinding of teeth. Pellow’s stamina for hip gyrating has to be commended and was sufficiently distracting from the disappointingly generic town-house set, which though aesthetically pleasing lacked variety, and became a little stale towards the conclusion. However despite this welcome distraction, it was the delicious harmonies from the leading ladies which really stole the show, with ‘Make Him Mine’ particu-
larly breathtaking. The appeal behind the nonexclusive relationship for Alexandra, Sukie and Jane is quickly extinguished as Darryl encourages their witchery to go a step too far. While Alexandra and Sukie are prepared to walk away, Jane’s dependency on Darryl prevents her from doing the same and it takes a lot of demonstrations of girl power from the former pair to remove her from Darryl’s predatory grip. John Updike’s novel on which the musical is based was criticised for its misogynist attitude whole-heartedly embodied by its leading man, but this active role the women play surely quashes such an attack. The costumes for The Witches of Eastwick are as charming as Darryl Van Horne himself. Darryl is consistently snappily dressed, favouring a purple suit and matching shirt – naturally with a couple of buttons open to reveal a well-oiled chest – for most of the production. The moral to take from this musical is clearly be careful what you wish for, and to be wary of smooth talking men with a penchant for purple.
order to fulfil his evil plan he must first acquire the magic lamp. As a result of a cunning plan which involves sending Aladdin into the cave and then stealing it from him, Abanazar procures the lamp. All is not lost however, as the day is saved by Amy Winehouse who emerges from Dr Who’s Tardis to tell the evil Abanazar to “go, go, go”, which he does, allowing the newly wed Aladdin and Yasmin to live happily ever after. The comedic hub of the pantomime is the traditional cross dresser Widow Twankey played by Allan Stewart. He appears very comfortable in his role as a woman and even sports a pair of fully-inflated balloons which are used in his attempts at seduction. Some of the funniest gags seem to be made up on the spot as a result of minor glitches. At one point a child in the audience is called up to the stage to
tell Widow Twankey where Yasmin has gone and inevitably doesn’t quite deliver all the facts, resulting in some improvised prompting which is hilarious for the adults without spoiling the magic for the children. A great deal of fun also arises from the pioneering use of 3D technology, employed to create the genie and some of the set backdrops. This was particularly effective when Aladdin (Johnny Mac) enters the cave and the audience are asked to don the not-so-stylish 3D glasses provided. The genie pops out of the lamp and zooms towards the audience, heralding screams and attempts to duck. Yet the interactive set didn’t detract from the real action. Particularly impressive was the performance by The Acromaniacs as the policewomen which involves a gymnastic sequence, the climax
Hannah Ramsey
n hearing of Rowling’s offshoot book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the cynic in me could not help but think, surely Rowling had enough cash with the £560 million fortune she amassed from Harry Potter. As the Pied Piper of literature, her hoards of fans did not disappoint making Beedle hit second place in Amazon’s annual sales, beaten only by the Mamma Mia dvd. Not bad for a book of only 128 pages, a mere pamphlet compared it to its predecessors. After the Hogwarts trio finally defeat Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the book of fairy-tales for wizards and witches was now set to donate its profits- all £4.2million of them- to Rowling’s associated charity, Children’s High Level Charity, a UK based organisation that helps around a quarter of a million children a year get out of institutions in Europe. Beedle was never intended for publication, originating as seven handwritten copies, six for those people closest to Rowling throughout the writing process of Harry Potter to be sold at auction for charity. Sotheby’s of London estimated the leather-bound book would sell for around £50,000, but the ten minute auction was brought to a close by Amazon’s staggering winning bid of £1.95million, making it the highest selling price of a modern literary manuscript to date. Amazon said they purchased the book as a ‘thank you’ to Rowling (not least for the amount of sales her books brought them) but for the tremendous impact she has had on child literacy in encouraging all age groups back to reading. Looking at the Potter phenomenon in this way, Rowling’s monopolising of the book market for the last 11 years no longer appears such a terrible thing and the end Harry Potter has by no means distinguished this excitement, as proved by Beedle.
The handmade book, complete with semiprecious stones and silver embossed skull, has become somewhat of a celebrity, holding pride of place in our own National Library of Scotland throughout December. Barry Cunningham, Rowling’s first editor, donated his personal copy to the Library for one of the few public viewings of the original manuscript in the world. For such a small book, its hard at first to see what all the commotion is about but upon looking at the open page featuring illustrations scrawled in blue biro, one does feel this book represents something more than just another member of the Potter franchise. Drawing inspiration from Brothers Grimm and even Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Rowling said the stories are updated versions of traditional moral fairy tales and who better to re-educate public morality through literature than someone who rejuvenated the nations love of reading. It is little wonder then, that when Potter fan Steven Vander Ark tried to exploit Rowling’s work for his own gain last year in releasing an unofficial Harry Potter encyclopaedia, Lexicon, it resulted in a high profile court case banning its publication. Rowling is more than aware of her immense influence over her fans and so instead of abusing her fandom, like Vander Ark, Beedle embodies her ability to use her position in literature to resurrect the communal spirit of reading that had been buried amongst piles of cables and consoles destined to be replaced a few months later. As I waited my turn amongst the line of people eager to get a glimpse of what is essentially an embossed notebook in a temperature controlled glass case in the NLS, I couldn’t help but think that maybe faith in the humble book is not yet dead. Wouldn’t Dumbledore be proud.
of which saw each member of the group jumping from the trampoline onto another’s shoulders to form a human pyramid. In addition to the ambitious movement sequences are the usual glitz and glamour expected of a Christmas show. The musical numbers are a mixture of classics, the highlight being “A Whole New
World” sung by the emperor over the wedding scene. Overall Aladdin is very successful and one not to miss if you are a fan of pantomime and appreciate a bit of fun. So in the words of Widow Twankey “go on, laugh out loud – you can with a Tena lady”. Alanna Pietrie
13/01/09
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Pausing for Pinter
Preview
Lisa Parr celebrates the life and works of the Nobel Aureate Harold Pinter
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don’t know why but I thought he’d live another seventy years” a friend of mine remarked on hearing of Harold Pinter’s death on Christmas Eve. I think in truth a lot of us felt that way. Despite his seventy eight years and declining health, Pinter’s presence on the British stage had lost none of its currency. Just two years ago he could be seen playing the title-role in Krapp’s Last Tape, a one-act monologue by Samuel Beckett, to rave reviews. As Krapp he sat listening to tape recordings he had made throughout his life, tracking and anticipating his progress, his sombre countenance contorted in memory, preparing for death. His last performance; at first glance perhaps befitting to one famous for his plays’ morbid retrospection, yet in complete contrast to the man himself, determined, industrious and … happy. Pinter described himself as “a very lucky man in every respect”, having achieved popular and critical success as an actor, author, poet, playwright and director. Beginning his career as an actor, he approached theatre from the inside out and his plays demonstrate a remarkably intimate understanding of the dramatic setting. His use of pauses in particular came to embody what is often described as ‘Pinteresque’. Though he himself rejected the term as “meaningless”, his contribution to the stage proved sufficiently unique and distinctive that it has persisted in usage against his protests, a tribute to the originality he so fervently denied. Toward the end of his life, Pinter turned his focus to poetry and political activism, having concluded that twenty nine plays was quite enough. In recent years he spoke publicly about his opposition to covert Western colonialism and the war on Iraq. His most recent literary effort was a slim volume of poems dedicated to his wife. But Pinter is most famous, of course, for his plays, which in 2005 won him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Since his third play, The Caretaker became a hit in 1959, his earlier and subsequent efforts have enjoyed huge popularity. Recent years have seen a revival of his earlier plays with The Hothouse, The
Edinburgh Playhouse 9 - 17 Jan
The Man Who Had All The Luck Royal Lyceum Theatre 16 Jan - 14 Feb
Cinderella on Ice Edinburgh Playhouse 20 - 24 Jan
Oor Rabbie
Scottish Storytelling Centre 23, 24, 30, 31 Jan
Sing-Along-ASound Of Music The Playhouse 26 Jan
Swan Lake Caretaker and The Birthday Party appearing in London theatres and a BBC screenplay adaptation of The Homecoming. The first Pinter play I saw was a 2007 production of The Dumb Waiter with Lee Evans and Jason Isaacs at Trafalgar Studios in London. Seated high above the stage in rows arranged so steeply the drop felt almost vertical, I watched in uncomfortable silence, until I began to laugh. That is the real genius of Pinter’s plays; the familiar
becomes alienating and the mundane becomes sinister. The audience laughs at the characters’ discomfort and then at their own. This is what is meant by the ‘comedy of menace’ in which the dialogue descends from trivial exchange to the darker sentiments that underpin relations, always with scathing humour. The result is an addictive sense of unease. Perhaps more important even than his productions, Pinter leaves behind a new awareness in theatre
and a new kind of audience. The subsequent generations of playwright must respond to his challenge and echo his awareness. In the monologue he selected for his funeral, taken from his 1975 play No Man’s Land he asks that we “tender the dead, as you would yourself be tendered” and there is no doubt that Harold Pinter will receive many a tender tribute in the years to come. For now, may I suggest a pause?
• “Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living”
• “One way of looking at speech is to say it is a constant strategem to cover nakedness”
In his own words... • “How can you you write a happy play? Drama is about conflict and degrees of perturbation, disarray. I’ve never been able to write a happy play, but I’ve been able to live a happy life” • “No matter how you look at it, all the emotions connected with love are not really immortal; like all other passions in life, they are
Fame The Musical
bound to fade at some point. The trick is to convert love into some lasting friendship that overcomes the fading passion” • “The crimes of the US throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented, but nobody talks about them”
• “I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on on earth - certaibnly greater than sex, though sex isn’t too bad either” • “Apart from the know and the unknown, what else is there?”
• “I derive something I can only call an actual aesthetic pleasure from certain ceremonies and a great deal of religious music, and even the physical presence of being in churches”
The Playhouse 28 -29 Oct
Turner In January - The Vaughan Bequest Royal Scottish Academy Building 1 - 31 Jan
A Sense of Place Patriothall Gallery 17 -28 Jan
22 Tech
13/01/09
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Art Attack
Craig Wilson
In a world of guns, babes and zombies, Craig Wilson wonders where the artist can reside
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number of years ago, the question of whether or not videogames could be art was answered with a resounding ‘Yes’ with the caveat ‘but so what?’. While the medium can technically support it, the gaming masses just don’t seem that interested in art. If the majority of players are content pretending to be space marines, football players or blowing the heads off zombies, then why ask for anything more? For the most part, videogames have been doing the same thing for over thirty years now: entertaining. Whole generations have grown up in their warm electronic glow, but the definition of ‘gaming’ has not expanded to encompass that. Dogged by their own title, the mantra from three decades ago remains that you play games to have fun. However, what happens when you don’t feel like having fun? In 2007, after another day working on one of the four Sims games released that year, the Head of Sims Studio at EA left the office and headed home. Rod Humble was unhappy. Unable to express himself in any other way, he ate dinner, went up to his study and made a game. The Marriage begins with two
squares floating toward each other. One is blue, the other pink. There is no soundtrack. When they touch, the pink grows bolder and larger while the blue diminishes and fades. The two squares either rebound or pass through each other. As they move, coloured circles enter the screen. Touching the circles strengthens the squares, but if too long a time has passed without interaction, the pink square begins to fade. When either square fades completely, the game ends. You move the mouse over the
“Humble released it for free for anyone to experiencetruly modern art” circles to remove them, or over the squares to bring them together. The Marriage is the pure distillation of a game as narrative. No explicit rules are given: only through interacting and observing will the player understand them. You have to stop and try to ‘feel’ it out. Through the most basic of art, a straightforward title and the game’s dynamics you are shown what it felt like to be in Rod Humble’s marriage a few
years ago: a constant dance between satisfying the needs of both husband and wife. Too much attention and the husband feels smothered; too little and the wife feels neglected. Maybe the circles are friends or perhaps they are hobbies, either way when the needs of one partner fail, the marriage fails. Succeed and the dance continues. The Marriage is not fun in the traditional sense, because it’s not trying to be. It’s something that goes beyond just being fun. Contented, Humble posted the game on his website where it spread amongst fellow developers and the public. He released it for free for anyone to experience- a truly modern take on art. What Humble achieved with The Marriage is akin to an engineer slaving away in a purpose built fun factory only to emerge from his garden shed producing a small, new creation that gave him the power to communicate his emotions and state-of-mind to the public in an entirely new way. Far removed from Humble’s EA office dwellings stands Jason Rohrer, a man who lives with his wife and child on $10,000 a year, in a carbonneutral home surrounded by their cultivated meadow in New York.
Whereas Humble is the creative engineer and Jonathan Blow the closet scientist (his game Braid is covertly about quantum mechanics), Jason Rohrer is a true artist, with The Passage his miniature masterpiece. In The Passage you inhabit a long, pixelated stripe of colour. Your world shimmers to the digitised notes of a medieval folk song. You are eight pixels tall and can move up, down, left or right. Venture down and you encounter a maze of blocks, hiding within it treasure and rewards. But just to your right lies a person in wait. Travel toward the distorted figure and it comes into focus. A woman. A partner. Walk past her and you can continue along your journey, alone with only the treasure chests and the points they bring. Or you can link up with her and have a companion in the world. A small heart pops up from the pair. They move as a single unit, less mobile but earning double ‘points’ with every step. As you voyage through the stripe, the distorted pixels in front of you pull into the present unveiling new areas. Looking behind shows the places you’ve been, blurring into the past. At this point, you start to notice that your character and spouse
look different. As the pixels atop their heads grey you realise: they are aging. Moving slower, they reach an evitable conclusion. Last year Steven Spielberg dipped his toe into the gaming waters and released Boom Blox! on the Wii. Think of Jenga, only made by humans with an actual imagination and genuine awareness of what ‘fun’ is. It was an odd thing for a master storyteller to do. However, his next game is a big-budget project codenamed LMNO, a cross between a spy movie and E.T. In it the player will meet a woman with whom a relationship will form. A player’s success will depend not on shooting bad guys, jumping puzzles or collecting hundreds of purple coins, but on the success of a relationship. To bring it all together, the creative directors have hired in a man who “instinctively thinks this way.” That man is, naturally, Jason Rohrer. Videogames finally have their artists. Their games pack larger, more significant emotional punches than the latest-and-greatest graphics. Slowly but surely, they are expanding the vocabulary of gaming into one that incorporates art.
Alan Williamson can’t pronounce Braid, but there’s always time for elocution lessons Braid Number None Inc
XBLA, PC (TBC) 1200 MS Points
aaaad Time. It is fleeting, it heals all wounds, it is either on your side or against you. Whatever the case we are a people obsessed with something we don’t even fully understand, a fact immediately apparent after spending five minutes playing the mind-warping Braid. The story is a deliberate ambiguity. You play as Tim, a young man searching for the princess he loves. It all starts off innocuously enough in a lavishly hand-painted platform game, charming folk music playing as you bounce off the heads of mon-
sters. It’s so delightfully tranquil that you could be mistaken for playing a Super Mario Brothers clone designed by hippies. Then a misplaced jump leads to your demise and the startling truth of Braid becomes salient: time is firmly on your side, yours to control. Rewinding time to correct your actions, death becomes a mere inconvenience. It is here that the Mario similarities end as Braid creates situations that would be unfair, or downright impossible, without Tim’s time-bending skills. Time is woven into the very fabric of Braid, reflected in the story that gradually unravels. If we could rewind mistakes in our relationships, what would the repercussions be? The plot is a literal puzzle solved by collecting jigsaw pieces scattered around five worlds. Each world has
its own unique time manipulation for Tim to use integral to the puzzle solving. At first, rewinding time is necessary to avoid being decapitated by a cannonball or killer bunny rabbit. Later on, rewinding can create a shadow doppelganger allowing for two actions to be performed at once. New concepts are introduced with excellent pacing as you progress, although the difficulty starts off as considerable and quickly reaches the stage where you will probably be tempted to scour the internet in search of answers. The most interesting world includes a clever pastiche of the arcade classic Donkey Kong. In the original, barrels roll down a slope and you have to jump over them to ascend. In Braid, time flows relative to your movement and the enemies move
with it- forward as you walk right, backward as you walk left- forcing you to set aside years of video game playing experience and think about the task at hand in a completely different light. So, is this a work of art? The enjoyment of playing and understanding Braid hinges on your familiarity with games. While anyone can appreciate the Mona Lisa or a Mozart concerto without prior knowledge, this isn’t the case with Braid. Depending on how you look at it, this is either its greatest strength or weakness. Unlike the ‘games as art’ movement’s poster child Bioshock, which needed no prior knowledge to appreciate, many of Braid’s puzzles succeed only because they prey on the player’s established preconceptions. This is great if you can tell
apart your Sonic from your Somari, but the intricate nuances of the puzzles may well be lost on neophytes. Braid is imperfect by design. It is impossible to complete the game without solving every puzzle and these usually have a single solutiona situation that often leads to frustration. There are no clues and there is little incentive to play through a second time once you’ve finished. The denouement is an ultimately unsatisfying one, if preceded by a truly unforgettable final world. It is a real shame that only the most dedicated of players will be able to experience it. Rather than deride Braid for its failings, however, we should praise its uniqueness, intelligence and underlying charm, which elevate it beyond mere entertainment. A flawed masterpiece? Only time will tell.
13/01/09
TV 23
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Dr. Who?
Wanker’s Paradise Fern Brady
Paddy Douglas welcomes an increasingly youthful Time Lord
U
NLESS YOU’VE been living under a large, soundproof rock, you will have heard that Matt Smith, a 26 year old virtual unknown, is to play the 11th Doctor, succeeding David Tennant’s five-year reign as everyone’s favourite Time Lord. Smith made his television debut just two years ago and will be the youngest ever actor to hold the keys to the TARDIS when the programme returns for a fifth series in Spring 2010. Seven million viewers tuned into the special edition of Doctor Who Confidential that saw Smith unveiled to play the 904-year-old time traveller, the identity of which had kept journalists speculating for months. Highly regarded actors such as James Nesbitt, Robert Carlyle, and David Morrissey were all seen as contenders. Chiwetel Ejiofor and particularly Paterson Joseph, sublime as tough-talking boss Alan Johnson in C4’s Peep Show, were considered to be the bookmaker’s favourites, and talk of the ‘first ever black Doctor’ was further bolstered by Obama’s victory in November. As ever, there was the usual guff about the Doctor lacking a Y chromosome, with head writer,
Russell T Davies, unhelpfully stoking the fiery pit of rumours by claiming he “wouldn’t be against the idea of a female Doctor”, citing Catherine Zeta-Jones and Amy Winehouse as possibilities. My preference is not borne of sexism - would you have a female James Bond? Despite the brouhaha and endless anonymous sources, Piers Wenger and Steven Moffat, the programme’s executive producer and head writer respectively when the production team changes in 2010, ignored the press and instead plumped for a young, unusual if not bad-looking actor who earned critical acclaim for roles in relatively high-profile dramas, such as BBC2’s Party Animals, and plays for the National Theatre. Some die-hard fans of the show may be angered by Smith’s casting as they will be forced to confront the fact that for the first time the Doctor is younger than them. However, we should all put our faith in Steven Moffat’s choice: he created statues that move when you close your eyes and gas-mask zombies that wailed, “Are you my mummy?”, chilling millions of kids to the bone. If anybody knows what’s right for Doctor Who, it’s him.
Fern Brady
DR HAIR: Befringed 26-year-old Matt Smith has the keys to the Tardis now.
Demonic
Helen Harjak confronts ITV’s Demons
AS SATURDAY evening viewing, Demons is bound to contain action, romance, naff music and a main character to swoon over. Demons evaporate in shimmering neon and the strongest nudity features the protagonist wandering around shirtless as an incentive for female viewers. One morning, Luke wakes to find a strange man who turns out to be his godfather. Rupert makes the somewhat startling revelation that Luke is the last descendant of the Van Helsings. However, Luke is only drawn to his destiny when his childhood sweetheart is kidnapped. The demons, or to be PC ‘freaks’, feature some decent computer animation. However, Galdiolus Thrip, played by Mackenzie Crook, is disappointing with a substandard prosthetic nose and a confusingly pretentious manner, leaving his
motives unclear. Another takingover-the-world epic is hardly necessary but really, all the demons care about is the existence of a teenager who can’t be bothered to hunt them! They only attack people connected to Luke. According to Rupert, the reason for extinguishing ‘the freaks’, is the fact that they’re among us and not human. Charming. Even if they do have unsightly habits such as eating cockroaches and spitting hairballs. The soundtrack is ridiculous with a particularly cringeworthy take on Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Ruby’. At least one of TV’s most embarrassing moments has been secured early this year. Although there are references to pop culture, the entire script is in desperate need of more to entertain anyone who already spent their teenage years watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
YOU COULD say that Celebrity Big Brother has really outdone itself this year, although nothing can ever realistically top seeing effigies of Jade Goody being set alight by one billion angry Indians. Still, we’re only one week in and I’ve already compiled my top 5 weirdest things in CBB9: LaToya Jackson’s Face Chins. Ever wondered why they have to be so uniform in shape and appearance? Why can’t they, for example, end in a perfect point? These are questions I’ve asked myself over the last week and presumably what LaToya Jackson asked her plastic surgeon, right after pointing to a picture of her brother’s nose and saying ‘I want that one’. Tommy Sheridan’s Career Congratulations to Tommy who, along with George Galloway and Alex ‘Potato-Face’ Salmond, has contributed to the growing belief that Scottish politics is in fact, one massive, hilarious joke. As Ulrika Jonsson accurately pointed out to fellow housemates, ‘if you were a serious politician, you wouldn’t do a show like this’. Right before Sheridan was forced to ice-dance dressed as a giant pepper-pot. Tina Malone’s Mouth Tina Malone is unquestionably the deserving winner for her turn of phrase alone. In only a week she’s come out with a stream of vulgarity that would rival that of her character in Shameless, including “I nearly pissed, shat and vomited myself all at once through shock”. When Ulrika raised the fairly banal conversational topic of ‘best assets’, Tina confidently responded with the classic line: “I’ve always had a great arse and fanny”. Coolio’s Ego Despite constant claims to be ‘keepin’ it real’, Coolio appears to be living out a delusional fantasy in which he is a gangsta rapper, held in high esteem by his compatriots. In reality, his entire back catalogue consists of Gangsta’s Paradise, a song which had the decidedly un-street Michelle Pfeiffer in the video. Something to look out for are the other males’ attempts to emulate Coolio’s speech, which usually takes the form of Verne squeaking ‘Coolio, ma man!’ while Tommy growls about being down with the kids. Word. Davina McCall’s war against aging “Garnier UltraLift Pro-X is great for my skin and really reduces the appearance of deep wrinkles” Come off it Davina; it’s not as good as lovely Botox, which is clearly what you’ve been spending your Laboratoires Garnier wages on.
This column is dedicated to the memory of the Trisha Goddard Show, which was axed this week following financial difficulties at Channel 5.
24 Lifestyle
13/01/09
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Fancy a brew, love? Kimberlee McLaughlan goes in search of a nice warm cuppa in some of Edinburgh’s favourite cafes
F
ollowing the gluttony and binging inherent in every festive season – whether it be too much chocolate or too many G&T’s - perhaps you are discovering that a warm and fluffy latte by the fire is more appealing than another day or night of indulgence at the expense of bodily neglect. In light of this statement, it should be confirmed to you my friends, that we here at Student are not, I repeat NOT, getting old. Perhaps a little concerned that our teenage metabolisms and youthful complexions are coming to a grinding halt, but otherwise thoroughly contented with our lot. Instead, and in keeping with many New Year’s Resolutions out there, we shall praise the merits of supping a hot drink over guzzling a pint of Teviot’s watered down lager. Trying to shift the Christmas
weight? Replacing drinking calorific alcohol with herbal tea is a good way to start. Cutting back on the booze? Same answer, different solution. Quitting smoking? Start nicotine replacement with caffeine. Ok, so perhaps these are slightly exagerated conclusions, and I’m sure that all of our problems cannot be ironed out with a pot of tea. However, sitting in an ambient coffee shop or cafe listening to a nice fellow strumming away and having a good old fashioned chinwag will soothe a world of ills, and make you look a wee bit more intelligent too. Cue Student’s favourite coffee shops, all very localised for your convenience, and steering clear of all this Starbuck’s chain malarkey.
2. 1.Elephant 21 George
for just
90p you can pimp your burger
with Bacon, Onion Rings, Chilli Beef, Mexican Chicken or Sour Cream
eusa.ed.ac.uk
Edinburgh University Students’ Association is a Registered Scottish Charity (No.SCO15800)
IV
House, Bridge
The Elephant House offers a uniquely ‘Edinburgh’ experience. Indeed, its location allows impressive views of Edinburgh Castle, and its deliberately random and rugged interior is a far cry from the standardized seating and decor inherent in yet another monopolized chain coffee shop. To heighten the view offered by the castle, over 600 ornamental elephants of various shapes and sizes are dotted around, resulting in a bohemian vibe, and a sense of collective disbelief at those suckers just around the corner in Starbucks. In spite that The Elephant House has heavily capitalized on the fact that JK Rowling deliberated much of her early novels there – deeming itself the ‘birthplace of Harry Potter’ with tacky souvenirs to match - prices remain reasonable with refills for as little as 50p. A wide array of cakes, lunches, internet access and alcoholic beverages attracts an eclectic crowd of students, professionals, and tourists donning brightly coloured Harry Potter hats. Open till as late as 11.00pm, the Coffee Shop regularly hosts live music, such as the Sam Danzig Jazz Duo every Tuesday Evening with table service. All of these factors contribute to a coffee shop with a relaxed and easy going community feel, a welcome sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the Old Town.
Forest Cafe, 30 Bristo Place
The Forest Cafe has created a world very different from the one that you and I inhabit, its doors providing a barrier between the rainy streets outside, and the theatrical dynamics indoors. Its interior oozes a kind of perverse charm, which has been nurtured by the vast collection of individuals who have consolidated the decor over the years with collections of art, colourful sofas, and mismatched plates and cups. Uniquely, the Forest Cafe is run by a group of volunteers and artists as an art space and cafe, meaning that a not for profit ethos plays an integral role in the chilled out philosophy that it purports, which is very much reflected in the vibrant surroundings. Tea and coffee is on offer for as little as £1.10 a pop, plus a selection of tasty dishes ranging from value meals such as beans on toast for less than two quid, to Burritos for under three quid. Corkage for bring your own booze is reasonable at £1.00 per wine bottle, and an assortment of live music both scheduled and unplanned provides spirited entertainment. Furthermore, the Forest Cafe operates various workshops and the like. For these unrivalled perks, one must look past the funky smell which occasionally drifts past, and the grim state of affairs which some describe as toilets. But hey, volunteers aren’t your bitches, so be grateful for the cheap and tasty goods, and remember to go beforehand.
3. 126
Kilimanjaro Nicolson
Coffee, Street.
Kilimanjaro Coffee offers a cosy place to sit and vacantly enjoy watching the world of Edinburgh University go by. Staff entertain customers with friendly banter, and an open and airy space is provided so that one can contemplate the meaning of life – or perhaps just trivia from their weekend - in the lap of luxury. Or comfort at the very least. Recently upgraded to a larger venue to meet demand, Kilimanjaro Coffee has alleviated itself of its main drawback. The previous venue tended to crush customers into a medley which closely resembled a can of packed sardines, almost inevitably ruining the potential for ambience. However, the new and sparkly coffee shop surpasses both its former self and the Starbucks a stones throw away in terms of value and comfort. Probability posits that more space equals more chance of getting a sofa, which is bound to make everyone that little bit happier. Food and drink tends to function on a traditional coffee and tea room basis, with an alternating soup of the day and a simple but sound selection of sandwiches, baguettes, cakes and pastries. Inspite that the venue cannot boast the charm nor quirkiness of the Elephant House, simplicity and good customer service tends to cement the appeal of Kilimanjaro Coffee, and ensures a good old fashioned brew to soothe the winter blues...
13/01/08
Lifestyle 25
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Jolly January Maddie Walder looks on the bright side of the year’s most depressing month
T
erm has begun, and as December stretches its festive sock clad toes and curls up in front of the fire, a new month rolls in. All hail January, the most despised 31 days of the annum. Christmas joy is long past, New Year celebrations have left you down in the pocket and down in the mouth, and an over indulgence in prawn rings has produced a wee belly bulge which, like an unwanted couch surfer, sticks around too long and has an insatiable appetite. As we brace ourselves for the up coming workload and potentially crushing exam results, is it any surprise that we start to wonder if there’s anything good about bloody January? It was this very same question I found myself contemplating whilst huddled in my attic room last week, adjusting to a no-heating lifestyle, spoilt by those few weeks of luxury home comforts. Apparently, suicides are at their highest in this dire opening month, and I must say I am not surprised, what with the end of the holidays, the inevitable failure of well meant resolutions and the whole year looming ahead, striking fear into the hearts of all. However, despite feeling particularly
blue, I forced myself to get positive and unearth the silver lining of this miserable little cloud. To start, there’s the obvious perks. The sales spring immediately to mind. Although we could do without a reason to open our already ravaged wallets, there’s nothing better than some dodgy coloured, ill fitting garment to brighten up a dreary day. Secondly, January offers a handy excuse to stay in and do nothing. After all, most of us are skint or ill or cold or suffering from a seemingly permanent hangover. It’s one of the most acceptable times to relax without your flatmates breathing down your neck, trying to persuade you to go out on the razzle dazzle. Bring on the DVDs. It’s pouring pets outside, so there’s no better time to snuggle in your duvet and chill out, if you’ll pardon the pun, without getting stressed over revision, present buying, or general Christmas preparation. In terms of academic work, January is pretty laid back. There’s no looming deadlines for a good while now. Unlike other unis, our assessment period is well over, whilst any essay threats are a safe few weeks away. So it’s time to kick back before mid term panic sets in and the library becomes our favourite hang
out all over again. Unless, of course, you’re in fourth year. If this be the case, keep on trucking comrades. Another plus is the general air of positivity. Everyone’s feeling fresh, enjoying the first shiny slice of a new year. Let’s give up smoking, go T total, and work harder. So what if, given a few weeks, all our good intentions fly out the window and it’s back to the drawing board?
Unfettered optimism surrounds us and it’s just lovely, so let’s kid ourselves for a while. And, on a final note, January is definitely better than February. That really is a bugger of a month. Such an in-between, not quite spring, just freezing and dreary, all memories of the good times long faded and all the leftover Christmas chocolate long eaten. The only bonus is the
Quiz Time Across 1. 1980s-90s US sitcom set in a Boston bar (6) 5. Swift’s traveller to Lilliput, etc. (8) 9. Writing’s on the wall for this street art? (8) 10. Forgetful actor’s assistance (6) 11/8 Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s smash roller skating musical (9,7) 12. Jane – actress, writer and cook (5) 14. Cole, US composer and lyricist (6) 16. German Dadaist/Surrealist painter of dreamlike landscapes (3,5) 18. German town, home to annual opera festival (8) 21. Astaire/Rodgers movie might go to your head! (3,3) 23. Goethe’s play about a legendary ‘soul-seller’ (5) 25. London theatre – where Lillie Langtry made first notable appearance (9) 28. Pierre-Auguste, French Impressionist painter (6) 29. Small symphony orchestra (8) 30. E.g. Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique’ or Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ (8) 31. Spring holiday cry for help? (3,3)
Down 2. C S Forester’s seafaring hero, __ Hornblower (7) 3. Author of ‘A Passage to India’ (1,1,7) 4. Isaac Asimov’s genre of literature (3-2) 5. John, wrote best-sellers ‘The Client’, ‘The Firm’ (7) 6. Sexy character in M*A*S*H, Hot __ (4) 7. Religious paintings of Jesus or other holy figures (5) 8. See 11 Across 13. Where you head for at the end of a show? (4)
15 Michel and Albert, French saucy chefs? (4) 17 Company putting on various plays etc. for short periods (9) 19 Society for the promotion / teaching of e.g. art (7) 20 Pop group created by TV’s ‘Popstars’ – rumour has it! (7) 22 Show-stopping number from ‘West Side Story’ (7) 24 Evelyn Waugh’s book about war reporter William Boot (5) 26 Musical note, worth two crotchets (5) 27 Group of three performers (4)
emergence of snowdrops. Yet even that happy event is tainted, as the earlier they flower, the more aware we are of the ever looming global warming crisis. On that jolly note, enjoy the month, readers. I dont know who I’m trying to convince, you or myself, but either way, happy 2009. If you want me, I’ll be in bed till March.
Easy
Hard
26 Sport
13/01/09
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A Bridge Aussie Open title up for too far? grabs Martin Domin
I
n 20 years time when our children are playing some sort of 3D virtual version of A Question of Sport, the question “In 2009, who became the highest paid full back in the world?” will perplex many of the next generation. “Ashley Cole?” some will ask. “Surely it must have been Daniel Alves?” others will cry. When a smiling, smug hologram of Wayne Bridge flashes up on screen, the resounding cry of “Who the hell is he?!” will be heard for miles around. If Bridge looks like the cat that got the cream; it is hardly surprising. He will probably never quite work out why anyone was prepared to pay a Chelsea reserve almost £100,000 a week. Not only have Manchester City redefined the meaning of the word ‘mug’, but they have also become a laughing stock. Their ambition to get into the Champions League have had to be readdressed somewhat. And then some. Languishing in the bottom half of the table, Mark Hughes has guided his team to a 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest and 2-0 defeats to Bolton and Middlesbrough yet has somehow kept his job. It doesn’t matter how much money they have if they can’t attract the very best talent to the club. And they can’t attract the very best talent if all they can offer is mid-table football and no hope of success. Money doesn’t always talk and players won’t uproot from title winning sides across the world just to take home some extra cash. If Bridge is worth as much as City seem to think he is, just how much would David Villa demand to be paid? Surely at least twice as much? Darius Vassell aside, City have a squad that is more than capable of challenging for a place in the UEFA Cup without making any lavish purchases. If they think signing the likes of Craig Bellamy or Scott Parker will suddenly make them world beaters, they should think again. Hughes can’t have too many games left to save his job despite what the owners say. People often say that managers are not given enough time to turn things around but there doesn’t seem to be any sign of that happening in this case. I will be very surprised if City pull off another signing of the calibre of Robinho and he didn’t exactly seem chuffed to be there back in August. City fans may have to accept that not even the richest man in football can bring the glory days to Eastlands.
Michael Klimes looks ahead to tennis’ first Grand Slam of the year in Australia
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oger Federer would probably disagree with Woody Allen when he said “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.” Just one grand slam behind Pete Sampras’ record of 14, Federer is eagerly chasing his own place in history as we head in the years first grand slam in Australia. But Federer need not worry, it is hard to image that in a hundred years from now his name will not be mentioned with a tone of reverence and awe. However, it is always dangerous to assume that something is certain in history. Nobody expected that after Pete Sampras’ form started to wilt in the early 2000s, signalling his inevitable decline, that there would be a player who would come along so soon after him and challenge his right to be called the greatest player of all time. What tennis pundits are now asking is what tennis historians could be asking in the future: was 2008 the year that Federer started to lose his invincible aura? Federer knows that one of the ultimate measures of any sportsman is how he handles adversity. There is nothing more the fans and press love than a triumphant comeback story, so it is not implausible to surmise that Federer is looking to regain his pre-eminence and invincible reputation by winning the Australian Open in January. Conversely however, it is difficult to judge if winning the Australian Open still means something to Federer. He has already won it three times and it is not as valuable to him as Wimbledon or his overall number one ranking. Similarly, winning the French Open and becoming one of the few players to win all four grand slams is a record to aim for. Federer has a definite sense of his priorities. “While I would love to beat Pete’s record, and also to regain my number one ranking, I place winning another Wimbledon title above all else.” Nevertheless, he seems to retain a lot of ambition, “Retirement is not going to happen any time soon because I want to play for many years to come.” Continuing to win the Australian Open could be part of this formula. Sampras is positive about the prospect of his heir mounting a successful counter-offensive in 2009 and beyond. On BBC Sport he said, “There’s a lot left in him. I think
he’d like to get back to number one, and he’s looking forward to breaking my record soon. He can win as many Wimbledons as he wants he’s got the game”. Sampras is not as confident about Nadal’s longevity, “The amount of work he has to do to stay on top and stay healthy...
“There’s a lot left in him. I think he’d like to get back to number one, and he’s looking forward to breaking my record” Pete Sampras on Roger Federer I think that’s where Roger has a bit of an advantage because it takes a lot less energy for him to stay on top than Nadal. Rafa puts so much effort into each point that eventually something will break.” Sampras’ thesis is interesting, but Nadal will surely not disintegrate yet. He is only twenty two and even if his career is extinguished by the age of twenty five like Björn Borg; on his current form who knows how many more Grand Slams he can annex for his record? He will feel the urge to stamp his
authority on both the Australian and US Opens. Although Rafael Nadal has been Federer’s arch-nemesis, there are two other players, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, who are snapping at their heels. Djokovic started 2008 in brilliant form by winning the Australian Open and closed it emphatically by victory at the Masters Cup. He will be looking to demonstrate he has the ability to defend a major title and take the world number two spot from Federer. He is an excellent allround player and follows the standard established by Federer over the past few years: a player must be competent in all dimensions of his game. And while the Serb is young, he is mature beyond his years. Murray will be dangerous as well following his two Masters titles in 2008: Madrid and Cincinnati. Almost more impressively, he reached the final of the US Open, only to be beaten by a Federer who finally rediscovered the heights of his game that he seemed to have lost for much of the season. Though that defeat was comprehensive, Murray has defeated Federer on a number of occasions. He has also improved his fitness considerably
END OF AN ERA? Roger Federer will be looking to regain the title he won in 2007
and appears to be on the precipice of winning one of the ‘big four’. The Australian Open certainly presents an opportunity for Murray, being on hard courts - his best surface. To date, Murray has only reached the fourth round of the competition, and lost in the first round last year. This time around however, he is on an upward trajectory, has been injury-free for a while. With his combination of talent, athleticism and gritty confidence, Andy Murray can go out with a real belief that he can win a big title. Perhaps the most significant evolution has been in Murray’s temperament as he now has a control over his intense restlessness. All of them have different personalities and styles of tennis that are bound to be exhilarating when they meet. But still there are others who could upset the four leading contenders. Gilles Simon, David Nalbandian, James Blake and Tomáš Berdych are all liable to be excellent on their given days, and whoever becomes the champion will have to be at their very best and more. One thing though is certain, Tennis is on good form at the minute.
13/01/09
Sport 27
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Snowsharks smell Glasgow’s blood Martin Domin previews the university basketball side’s most important match of the season
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he Edinburgh Snowsharks are gearing up for the biggest match of their season on Wednesday this week as they entertain an undefeated Glasgow University side who are coming to Edinburgh for the first time in many a year. Such is the importance of the match that it should decide the destiny of this year’s BUCS Scottish Conference Basketball Premier League title. Having won five of their six matches to date, including victory over last years champions St. Andrews, the Snowsharks are determined that their hard work so far this year will not ultimately be for nothing Glasgow are undefeated so far in this campaign and were victorious by a score of 68-61 in a tense match at the Kelvin Hall in the only other meeting of the two teams this season. Edinburgh, however, traveled west for that match missing no less than six regular players, including four of their starting five, and will be hoping to reverse that score line this time around. With a full complement of players available to coach Will Dillard, including Irish cap and former Lafayette Leopard Paul Cummins, and new American import
Yannick Mathews, as well as numerous Scottish University internationalists, Edinburgh will be hoping to get the eight point victory needed to give themselves a chance of winning the title in their final match at home to Robert Gordon University the following week. Having already thrashed the Aberdeen side 119-51 away from home, there is no doubt that they title would be theirs for the taking. Glasgow too have their share of international talent and the match, between the two top teams in the country, promises to be one of the most keenly and evenly contested of the season. The league winners assure themselves of a home tie in the first round of BUCS Championship later in the semester, and so the importance of victory cannot be underestimated with regard to the aspirations of either team in the Championships itself. Team captain and club President Liam McCable told Student: “This will be a difficult game, but one that I feel we have every chance of winning if we play to our potential and learn from our mistakes in the first game. We will have a stronger group avail-
able to us for this game and hope that the return of some key players to the squad will give us an edge over a well-drilled Glasgow team who are on course to win the League this season. We need to win this game to
give ourselves a chance of catching them at the top of the table, so the outcome of this match will make or break our season.” With an appearance from the EU Vixens already scheduled, this match
promises to be a great event and a fantastic way to tip-off the 2009 sporting calendar at Edinburgh University. Tip-off will be at 7.30pm at the Pleasance next Wednesday, 21st January. HHter Terry
READY FOR ACTION: The Edinburgh Snowsharks line up before their match against St. Andrews last semester
2009: A Year in Sport Thomas Kerr takes a look at what probably won’t happen in sport over the next twelve months
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n January, Andy Murray rocks up to the Australian Open and tells anyone who will listen how much he hates Morris dancing, Big Ben, rolling countryside and Russian linesmen, irreparably damaging his support in England. Despite this, no one in Scotland, Australia, or anywhere else really warms to him. Amazingly, he goes on to win his first ever Grand Slam title. The following month, the drama of Super Bowl XXXXXXXXLVIII is overshadowed by a risqué half-time show involving Claudia Winkleman, an over-sized banana and a very shy Newfoundland dog in a paddling pool. Meanwhile, the Six Nations tournament sees Scotland set up permanent camp on the five metre line at Murrayfield for the whole month. Despite this they fail to score a single try. The Carling Cup final in March comes and goes without anyone noticing and Roy Keane takes up the recently vacated Newcastle post, revealing, “I’ve had enough of walking the dog.” Scotland take on the Netherlands in Amsterdam looking to avenge the 6-0 thrashing they succumbed to during the Berti Vogts
years. They leave with their heads held high having held the Dutch to a tight five goal winning margin. April arrives and in a shock result pint-sized French Premier Nicholas Sarkozy rides the winner in the John Smiths Grand National at Aintree. William Hill immediately installs him as 2/1 favourite to win this season’s Champion Jockey. Roy Keane denies that he is considering walking out on Newcastle, cryptically declaring “I’m not sure if I’m the right man for the job but I’m definitely not not the right man for the job.” However, the next month, in a surprisingly move, Roy Keane does walk out on Newcastle, releasing a statement saying, “For all my failings I can only blame myself, but even more than that I blame every other fecker.” As the English Premier League draws to a close the title race between Liverpool and Manchester United becomes increasingly acrimonious as Sir Alex Ferguson reveals he has a highly lucrative second job as a Champions League night houseburglar. Despite this, Liverpool win the title on the final day when they
defeat Tottenham thanks to a 97th minute penalty after a buzzard striking the ball is mistaken by goblinfaced referee Mike Riley for Tottenham defender Ledley King’s hand.
“In Scotland meanwhile, Walter Smith continues his brilliant dealings in the transfer market by acquiring another seventeen Championship standard strikers” The summer arrives and Wimbledon heralds the start of the rainy season in SW19 but this fails to put off thousands of sickeningly posh folk who set up camp on what is affectionately called ‘Henman Hill’, ‘Murray Mount’, or occasionally ‘Muppet Mound’. Swallowing their toffeenosed pride they clench their fists and cheer for Scotland’s finest Andy Murray, who triumphantly fulfils expectations by getting knocked out in the second round by Vietnamese wild card Mi No Ace. The annual round of transfer rumours begins in July and the
Ronaldo transfer saga begins once again and quickly turns ugly when the permanently furious Sir Alex Ferguson and loud-mouthed Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon quite literally trade blows after bumping into each other in a Tenerife resort. A purple-eyed Ronaldo is spotted in Rio de Janeiro whining that he has been treated “worse than a double amputee forced to beg on the streets and eat nothing but twigs and gravel”. As Britain swelters in the middle of a 13 minute heat wave the transfer window reaches its busiest period in August. Backed by ultra-wealthy Dubai billionaires Manchester City are the most active buyers, purchasing a whole host of horrendously overpriced South Americans. Having spent hundreds of millions they are swiftly installed as strong favourites for next years League Cup. In Scotland meanwhile, Walter Smith continues his brilliant dealings in the transfer market by acquiring another seventeen Championship standard strikers. Nevertheless Kenny Miller remains the worst striker at Ibrox by some distance. As the football season gets into full swing in September, FIFA President
Sepp Blatter releases his blueprint for the future of the game. Amongst his more sane ideas is a proposal to replace penalties with a duel to the death between opposing centrebacks. John Terry takes a couple of seconds out from kneecapping his 73 year old neighbour to enthusiastically back the idea. As another Formula One season draws to its close in October, the nation finally takes a quick glance at what is happening and is unsurprised to note that Lewis Hamilton is leading the table going into the final race at Abu Dhabi. Incredibly he bottles it yet again, throwing away the title on the last corner of the last lap. His Pussycat Dolls girlfriend is the only trophy he’ll be kissing this year. In the penultimate month of the year Ricky Hatton takes on Oscar De La Hoya in what becomes known as ‘The Manc goes to the Bank’ after he is knocked out in the 2nd round, his fee for the short-lived bout working out at £120,000 a second. As 2009 draws to a close, Shaun Wright-Phillips finds himself surplus to requirements at the City of Manchester Stadium - talks begin with Chelsea.