Tuesday October 27 2009 | Week 6
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Teviot loos go transgender Gender neutral toilet to be installed 'very shortly'
New students unable to register with University GP
Hopes that unisex facilities will be extended
First year student with bleeding IV tube turned away
Max McColl
THE UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh Health Clinic has been forced to turn away new patients as the service struggles with the large increase of new students to the area. This week, notices were displayed in the Bristo Square clinic stating that “we are unable to accept any further new patient registration at present”, leaving many first year and international students without a dedicated health service on campus only a few weeks into term. A University of Edinburgh spokesperson said: "The University Health Service has had to temporarily suspend new registrations for all patients - student and non student - as a result of a number of factors, including increased concerns about Swine Flu from patients and there being a higher number of students at the University this year.” Scottish Universities have seen a six per cent rise in admissions this year, pushing already over stretched resources to the limit. First year student Eddy Cairns was refused medical treatment to remove a bleeding cannula tube from his arm after a visit to Cabaret Voltaire nightclub ended up in a trip to Accident and Emergency. “I was advised to get it removed by my local doctor in the morning.” he told The Student. Leaving a cannula in the arm for a prolonged period of time can lead to serious infection and discomfort. “This operation would take two minutes, but was told they would not help me as I was not registered and they had no room to register me.” EUSA President, Thomas Graham, said he could not comment on individual cases but was 'disappointed' at
PATIENTS OUT: A student was stuck with an IV tube hanging out his arm after being turned away from the clinic the situation and was working with the Health Clinic to review and hopefully increase current resources. Concerns have been raised that graduates now living away from Edinburgh remain registered, clogging up the system with patients who no longer use the service. Gabi Jones, EUSA Welfare Convenor, emphasised the importance for freshers or international students who are new to the area to have 'access to a
central health centre that they know they can trust.' No timescale has been given by the University for when the Health Clinic will resume registering new students however they have assured students that they are dealing with the problem, saying: "Additional staff have been taken on to process registrations to date but this will take time. It is anticipated that the University Health Service will be
JOHANN BRYANT
Harrison Kelly
open to new registrations again at some stage.” In the meantime, students are able to register with other local GP surgeries, and can also call in at the Advice Place for further suggestions. Other local practices include Richmond Street and Bernard Terrace in Newington, and Tolcross Health Centre, on Ponton Street.
A GENDER neutral toilet is to be introduced at Teviot Row House to provide facilities for transgender students, following approval of plans last week by EUSA’s Committee of Management. This will involve re-designating an existing toilet outside the dining room in Teviot, currently a ‘Gents’ room, to read ‘Toilet’. Explaining the decision, a EUSA spokesperson said: “It is important to have facilities that are accessible to all students including those who do not identify with traditional gender definitions.” “EUSA is committed to equality of opportunity and so therefore the decision was taken by the Committee of Management, upon request by the welfare committee, to introduce a single gender neutral toilet.” The spokesperson said that the new toilet will be ready ‘very shortly’. EUSA Equal Opportunities Officer Susannah Compton welcomed the news, telling The Student that “While I am by no means suggesting that every toilet become gender neutral, I think it’s important to have single units across campus that can serve a multitude of functions.” “While they are obviously fantastic steps in terms of creating a positive choice for students with ambiguous gender representation, they are open to all students and will make our campuses feel more inclusive. I think Edinburgh has a duty to follow the example of other universities and local councils in this country, and I completely support the introduction of gender-neutral toilets here.” Jess Dowson, a student at the University of Edinburgh who identifies as transgender, described the advantages of a having a separate toilet: “The simplest answer is comfort. Continued on page 2»
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What’s in this issue NEWS »p1–6
»
Transgender Teviot: EUSA's unisex loo is on the way
DEGREES OF INEQUALITY p5
Britain in lack of social mobility shocker
RATE YOUR LECTURER p6
10 out of 10 for looks; 3 out of 10 for feedback; 7 and a half for biscuits but could do better.
SWINE FLU VACCINE p6
Makes you cough steam! (see picture for evidence)
COMMENT »p8-9
TREAT YOUR BABY DADDY RIGHT p8
ARTS&FEATURES »p11-21
GIVING UP THE GHOST p11
Thomas Hutchens comes over all Vincent Price and tells us about Edinburgh's thriving ghost population
GETTING BLOGGED DOWN p13
Rebecca Monks discusses the changing face of political commentary in the world of new media
"BUT I DON'T WANT A WINKIE, MUMMY..." p19 "...I want a flower" says 8 year old transexual child
SPORT »p23-24 VROOOOOOOOM! p27
GOING POTT Y? Gender neutral toilets have been the subject of fierce debate in Manchester and the USA continued from frontpage »
ever clearly something needs to be provided for people who have strong concerns about gender identity." Gender neutral toilets have become a focus of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) campaigning groups in recent years. Many of these groups are university-based, and university campuses are often amongst the first workplaces to feature the facilities. Now common at universities in the United States, the toilets have recently been introduced at a number of UK institutions. The issue was brought to widespread media attention after the introduction of unisex toilets at Manchester University last year, following an unspecified number of complaints from transgender students. The ‘Ladies’ and ‘Gents’ rooms were re-labelled as ‘Toilets’ and ‘Toilets with urinals’ respectively. The move provoked criticism from the university newspaper and complaints
from female students. Woman’s Officer for Manchester University Hazel Kent told The Student that the first reports overreacted to the changes, saying that only one set of toilets at the student union building was affected, and since then the gender neutral facilities have worked smoothly. At Edinburgh the plans will affect just one toilet at Teviot, although LGBT Action Group Convener Kate Harris, who has been pushing for the changes, said that the group would like to see facilities extended to the Kings Buildings campus and sports centres. Various establishments in Edinburgh already feature unisex toilets, including The Brass Monkey, a pub popular among students. An employee told The Student that complaints are rarely, if ever, received, and that the toilets "save space and encourage boys to wash their hands"
George Bush launches his new career: motivational speaker
Teen denied wine gums for being underage
Schoolboy blows up Edinburgh flats
GEORGE BUSH, the ‘misunderestimated’ 43rd president of the United States, is set to be paid £61,000 per 40 minutes to lecture leading businessmen and women on his experiences as leader of the free world. The company behind Mr Bush’s new deal touts him as a “motivational mega-show that packs more inspirational fire-power than a stick of dynamite." Topics Mr Bush will be discussing include “How to master the art of effective leadership.” Bush left the Oval Office with a 22 percent approval rating. GR
TEEN DENIED wine gums for being ‘under age’ Fifteen year old Jaz Bhogal was forced to put back his wine gums after a shopkeeper in Cambridgeshire believed the fruity gummy treat contained alcohol. ‘’He asked me how old I was and when I said I was 15 he said he couldn’t sell me the sweets,” said Bhogal. “He said they had wine in them and pointed to the word wine on the packet. I was speechless.’’ A spokesman for the store said that Jaz has since been given a 9-item voucher, “on condition that at least one of his purchases are wine gums.’’ GR
ROBERT MILLAR, an eleven year old schoolboy from south Edinburgh pressed the big red button on Sunday bringing down 246 flats in the Gracemount area of the city. The 1960s towers located close to the city bypass have been demolished to make way for a new development of houses and flats. Jenny Dawe, leader of the council said: “The blowdown was a truly spectacular sight - and all went as planned, which is credit to all those involved.”
"Someone who might not necessarily identify as male or female might not want to use traditional toilets because they fear being hassled by those who do." The news has brought mixed reactions, however, with one member of the Student Representatives Council saying: "What’s being done at the minute is really positive, but the possible future adaptation of larger toilet areas is far more complicated, involving health, safety and cultural issues. "Just ripping out urinals and making communal toilets gender neutral or unisex could be a poor solution. I wouldn’t want anyone to have to tramp through pools of urine as found in the Potterrow gent’s cubicles, and what would happen to girly bathroom banter? I don’t think anyone wants to see the end of gender specific communal toilets, how-
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Adrenaline-packed coverage from the University Motorsports Karting Championship
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Rosie Lloyd argues the case for extending paid paternity leave
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News 3
BNP spark protests at Holyrood Fiona Cuddihy BNP LEADER Nick Griffin’s controversial appearance on BBC's Question Time was met with hostility in Edinburgh, as a crowd of approximately 100 people gathered in protest outside the BBC studio at Holyrood last Thursday afternoon. Students from the University of Edinburgh were present amongst the crowd, including Stiofan Macfadden, president of The University of Edinburgh’s Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Trans and Intersex Society (BLOGS).
BNP leader Nick Griffin
“
The BNP does not have a place on our screens. It was a disgusting spectacle seeing that man peddling his racist filth." Ross MacRae, Edinburgh University Labour Club Chairman
Though there is speculation with regard to the validity of some of the information revealed, the list has shown 28 members to be Edinburgh residents. If true, this would indicate a significant rise since the last membership leak in November 2008, when Edinburgh membership stood at nine. The Student has found that many of the listed phone numbers are in fact wrong. Contact was however made with one member, who cannot be named for legal reasons, who had not heard of the leak and was clearly perturbed by the news. Stephen, an activist from United Against Fascism also present at the Holyrood protest, told The Student
GRIFFINDOR: Around one hundred people gathered at Holyrood to protest against the BNP that the membership leak “provides us with insight into how the BNP operate. It’s a party with extremely committed members and when intra-party feuds occur, they turn on each other by doing things like leaking information”. The programme was aired at Teviot on Thursday night in a special screening attended by over 100 students. All were eager to voice collective disgust as Griffin spoke of his desire to ‘free’ Britain of foreigners and his dislike of public displays of homosexuality, and claimed that Winston Churchill would be a member of the BNP if alive today. Jeering and laughing was par-
University heads enjoy hefty pay rises Edinburgh Principal reportedly earning £228,000 Jordan Campbell AN INVESTIGATION by the Glasgow Herald has revealed that the salaries of principals of Scottish universities have increased by as much as 70 per cent over the past five years. The revelations have caused widespread concern, coming at a time when many university staff have experienced redundancy or much smaller pay increases. Tony Axon, speaking on behalf of the Scottish University and Colleges Union, told The Student: “The size of awards handed out by the unaccountable remuneration committees and rubber-stamped by governing bodies are ludicrous at a time when universities are shedding staff.” Hugh Henry, the chair of the Holyrood Public Audit Committee added that the rises were 'truly staggering.' In February this year The Student reported that Sir Timothy O`Shea, the vice-chancellor and principal of the
University of Edinburgh, had enjoyed a 9.6 per cent salary increase between 2008 and 2009. The new figures from the Herald reveal that in the past five years his salary has in fact increased by 35 percent, from £170,000 to £228,000. Though more modest than increases at other institutions, the principal also benefited from a £10,000 bonus in 2006 and £15,000 payment this year from the university to purchase more days of pensionable service. O’Shea is also entitled to a private annual health check-up and the use of a chauffeur-driven car. The biggest rise over the past five years has been that of the salary of James Fraser, principal of the High-
PRINCIPAL PAY PACKETS University of Edinburgh: £228,000 University of St. Andrews: £214,000 University of Stirling: £213,000 University of the Highlands and the Islands: £162,000 University of Glasgow: £284,000 (including pension package)
FIONA CUDDIHY
Leaked list claims huge increase in Edinburgh BNP membership
Speaking to The Student, he said: “The BNP are trying to remove all the rights we’ve achieved for LGBTI. I’m against their Nazi, homophobic views.” Meanwhile, a document claiming to be a current list of BNP members, including phone numbers and addresses, was leaked on the internet last Monday on website Wikileaks.
lands and Islands Institute who has seen a salary increase of almost 70 percent from £97,440 in 2004 to £162,000 in 2009. Notably, Christine Hallett, principal of the University of Stirling, has seen her salary increase by 60 percent from £132,000 to £213,000 during the same period. This rise may prove particularly controversial; in the past week, protests have taken place outside the court of the University of Stirling over the proposed cut of 140 university jobs. Elsewhere, the principals of Glasgow and St. Andrews universities have seen their salaries increase by 47 and 30 per cent respectively It is expected that principal pay will now be scrutinised by the independent watchdog Audit Scotland. Hugh Henry said: “Universities seem to be accountable to no one but themselves. I am calling on Scottish ministers to examine this damning evidence and consider ways to control this profligacy.” Salaries for 2010 will be revealed early in the year. The University of Edinburgh was unavailable for comment as to whether Professor O’Shea will be awarded a further pay increase. news@studentnewspaper.org
ticularly rife when Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Chris Huhne brought up Griffin’s past statement that 'Adolf Hitler went a bit too far.' Griffin denied having made the comments, which was met by much mocking laughter from the panel as presenter David Dimbleby assured him that it could be viewed on YouTube. Students were divided with regard to the decision to allow the BNP to publicise their controversial views on the popular debating programme, which was watched by around eight million viewers across the country. University of Edinburgh Labour
Club Chairman Ross MacRae, present at the screening, told The Student: “The BNP does not have a place on our screens. It was a disgusting spectacle seeing that man peddling his racist filth.” Others, however, stood by the principle of free speech, with Mathew May, a first-year Philosophy student commenting: “It was good that the party was allowed to be challenged and exposed on national television for what they really are.” news@studentnewspaper.org
EUSA investing capital sums
Charlie King
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY Students’ Association has revealed that is has spent over £400,000 on recent building development projects. Following the success of the Library Bar renovation, which was completed in 2007, EUSA has invested in renovating the Potterrow shop, coffee counter and club venue, the Mayfield Bar at Kings Buildings and the Pleasance Theatre. Combined, this represents the largest capital expenditure programme in the organisation’s history. James Wallace, EUSA vice president for Services, told The Student that such investment “highlights the fact that when money is spent in our bars and ca-
tering outlets, it goes directly back into improving services for students.” The Association now intends to focus its spending on redeveloping Teviot, which, as the oldest purpose-built union building in the world, celebrates its 120th birthday this month. Wallace added: “With Teviot requiring millions of pounds worth of investment we cannot achieve that on our own and will be reliant on the University and fundraising to ensure that Teviot remains for the next 120 years.” Wallace also acknowledged that many of EUSA’s facilities have been deteriorating and highlighted that as well as Teviot, Pleasance and the Bedlam Theatre will also require investment. news@studentnewspaper.org
Happy Birthday Teviot: here's a transgender toilet
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Anti-fascist crowd gather at BBC studio
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News 5
'Graduate blackspots' revealed across Britain
Jordan Campbell Increasing disparities in educational qualifications have been highlighted across the country in a report issued by the University and Colleges Union (UCU). UCU has compiled a table ranking every UK parliamentary constituency in order of those with the greatest percentage of degree holders within their working populations. Though the proportion of graduates in the UK has risen as a whole, from 26.6 per cent in 2005 to 29 per cent in 2008, the report reveals a widening gap between the poorest and richest areas. While the top 20 constituencies in terms of degree holders have increased their proportion of graduates on average from 8 per cent to 49 per cent between 2005 and 2008, the 20 lowest ranked constituencies have seen their average decrease marginally from 12.6 per cent to 12.1 per cent. The proportion of graduates in Edinburgh is relatively high, with all five Edinburgh constituencies in the top 100 areas with the most degree holders. Edinburgh East was the constituency with the lowest proportion of gradu-
ates, 39.32 per cent, and Edinburgh North and Leith ranked highest with 54.76 per cent. Rates across Scotland as a whole, however, lagged behind that of England, with particular contrast being identified in Glasgow. Within the constituency of Glasgow North, 53 per cent of the working population have a degree. However, the figure for the Glasgow East constituency is only 16 per cent, with almost a quarter of the working population having no qualifications at all.
IMage from www.flickr.com
Fears of increasing divide between 'haves and have-nots' Proportion of Scottish graduates lags behind English rates
“
Investment must be increased if Scotland is to reach the levels of population with degrees that will allow the knowledge economy to rise out of the ashes of the recession" Sally Hunt, UCU
Richmond Park in London has the highest percentage of graduates of anywhere in the UK with 64 per cent of the working population classified as degree holders, followed by Bristol West and Chelsea & Kensington, the proportion for both standing at 62 per cent. At the other end of the scale, the
proportion of graduates for constituencies Birmingham Dodge Hill and Doncaster North stands at just 9 per cent of the working population. London has been described as a 'tale of two cities,' with parts of the city attracting a huge number of graduates from all over the UK while other parts fall further behind in terms of those gaining qualifications. The authors of the report expressed alarm at their findings. Head of UCU Sally Hunt stated that she “believes the current divide between the haves and have-nots is growing” and that "the problem is even more deepseated than previously thought." Furthermore, the research indi-
cates that graduates originally from areas of lower social mobility are unlikely to return home after university, creating a 'brain drain' and resulting in many areas of the country lacking a highly skilled workforce. Mary Senior of UCU Scotland said: “While Scotland is achieving reasonable levels of the population with degrees, it lags behind the rates achieved in England. “Investment must be increased if Scotland is to reach the levels of population with degrees that will allow the knowledge economy to rise out of the ashes of the recession.” The Labour Government has invested heavily in recent years in achiev-
ing a target of 50 per cent of school leavers going on to university, viewing education as the most important factor in improving social mobility. The report highlights concerns that where people are born still plays a significant factor as to whether they will hold degrees. Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the Department of Business, Innovations and Skills stated that the Government "has worked hard to widen participation with the overall number of students from lower socioeconomic groups going to university at its highest point in seven years." news@studentnewspaper.org
Edinburgh international students pay close to highest fees in the UK Julia Cobb RECENT FIGURES indicate that the University of Edinburgh is one of the most expensive universities for international students in the UK. International students at Edinburgh will pay £11,050 in tuition fees in 2009-10, £14,500 for those studying a lab based science. Standard fees for home students not including those from Scotland and the EU are £1,820 a year. Edinburgh’s fees are second in Scotland only to St. Andrews, which will charge £11,350 this year to all international students. A table listed in The Guardian this week compared tuition fees for all universities currently accredited in the UK. The most expensive university for international students is Imperial College, which charges £15,500 for classroom based courses and £19,450 for lab based courses. The least expensive is Birkbeck College at the University of London, which charges international students £3,936 a year. The nature of Scottish degrees, however, which usually last a year longer than those south of the border, mean that an international student at Edinburgh will upon graduation have paid close to the highest fees in the UK in total.
'Emily', a fourth year History student from the United States, says that while envious of the Scottish and EU students who are exempt from paying fees, she considers herself lucky to be attending Edinburgh, given the cost of higher education in the United States. “Edinburgh's cost is great especially considering the quality of the education. When I was applying for university, my parents made enough money that the government deemed me ineligible for financial aid, but nobody can really afford to shell out $45,000 a year, can they? Edinburgh is a much less expensive option than most US schools, and I think it's a really smart choice for kids like me who didn't qualify for much aid.” She did, however, express the feeling that the University administration could do more to help offset international students' costs: “Things like printer credits. Students can spend a fortune on things like printing, but international students have already given so much to the university it would be nice to get some help in that department. They could also offer rent reductions on university halls of residences. Basically, things which won't cost the university much money, but will benefit students who have already given significant amounts of money in tuition fees.
“Also, I wish that Edinburgh would charge the same rate of tuition every year rather than raise the cost each year for continuing students. When I started I think my fees were around £8,500. I now pay upwards of £11,000. If they want to raise the fees for new students, that's fine, but be consistent with the rate for returning students. That's something that schools in the US build into financial aid plans, that costs for the individual student won't go up over the course of their time at university.” 'Sara', a first year from France, highlighted other difficulties that students from abroad face, such as arranging university housing: “I wanted to be in Holland House or Chancellor’s Court because they have practice rooms for music, which I’m studying, but I got placed in John Burnett House, which is the most expensive residence at Pollock! I have requested to change rooms, and [the University] have been fairly helpful with that.” A University of Edinburgh spokesperson told The Student, “The University of Edinburgh is one of the top ranked universities in the world. Comparing like for like, taking a degree at the University of Edinburgh costs less than at any other British university in the world top 20.” news@studentnewspaper.org
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Rating website angers lecturers
"I'm with the UCU on this one. Education is not a consumerist transaction, nor are ideas bought and sold on a market. We want students and lecturers to be partners in education. “As for Mr Willetts or, indeed any politician talking about improving teaching at university, far and away the best thing they can do is to start talking sensibly about how to fund it properly." In comparison, Evan Beswick went on describe the success of last year’s
“ RATING OUTRAGE: Constructive gossip or online bullying? Tory plans for websites like this have provoked anger from the lecturers' union quality of teaching and average graduate salaries by course. The Conservatives have been developing the website with Microsoft for several months now, which comes with a raft of other proposals aimed at improving the quality of teaching before a rise in tuition fees is pushed through. But the proposal, outlined this week at the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) conference, has been met with outrage from groups includ-
Josh King BOTH STUDENTS and staff have criticised Tory proposals under which UK students would be asked to rate their lecturers online. Shadow Universities Secretary David Willetts announced this week that under a Conservative government, a government-run central website would be set up, through which students would give feedback on areas including
ing Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA). Comparisons have been drawn to ratemyprofessors.com, the largest of several existing sites, which includes ratings for helpfulness, clarity and 'hotness'. Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), expressed her anger at online personal criticism, stating: "All staff and students have the right to work free from intimidation, online or oth-
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Scotland prepares for H1N1 vaccine
Jack Serle A NATIONWIDE swine flu vaccination programme was launched on Wednesday as four more fatalities were recorded in Scotland. In each case the deceased had severe underlying health problems. Health Protection Scotland es-
timates that over 14,650 people contracted swine flu, or Influenza A H1N1, in Scotland over the last week. The vaccine, consisting of one or two doses of a pill or injection, depending on the patient, is to be offered first to those most at risk. These include people aged between six months and 65 years of age with underlying health problems like asthma or diabetes, pregnant women and front-line health workers. Hospitals are to receive the first doses of the vaccine, for staff and long-term patients, followed by GPs' surgeries. Students registered with the University Health Centre who think they could be at risk should wait to be contacted by their GPs. A University of Edinburgh spokesperson told The Student: "The University's Health Service is expecting formal instructions in the next week or so as to the NHS vaccination programme plans. Once these are received and plans in place, registered students in at-risk categories will be notified by their GPs.” Comprehensive vaccination is seen as one of the best ways to combat a pandemic, a view supported by Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon.
But The Student has learned from Dr Sheila Burns, director of the Edinburgh Specialist Virology Unit, that only 30 percent of front-line health workers in Lothian take the non-pandemic, seasonal flu vaccine. If this low uptake is repeated for the pandemic vaccine it could have severe consequences for the fight to halt the virus. While the virus is apparently not as deadly as first feared, in weeks and months to come Scotland could see ten times the present number of cases. Without an adequately vaccineprotected population, businesses and services could be severely disrupted by mass sick leave – leaving GPs' surgeries and hospitals overwhelmed and understaffed. Vaccination is voluntary and remains a personal decision for members of the public and medical professionals alike. Doctors and nurses, however, are urged to take the vaccine by major public and regulatory bodies including the British Medical Association in Scotland, the Royal College of Nurses Scotland, the Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland and the Royal College of Midwives. news@studentnewspaper.org
ratemyprofessors.com
Education is not a consumerist transaction, nor are ideas bought and sold on a market. We want students and lecturers to be partners in education."
erwise. “Online gossip might seem harmless enough and even fun to some people; however, it can lead to serious online and offline bullying.” Her comments were echoed by Evan Beswick, EUSA Vice-President of Academic Affairs, who told The Student that “when we criticise teaching and feedback at Edinburgh we want to do so openly and constructively - but we're far happier celebrating what’s positive.
Evan Beswick, EUSA Vice-president
EUSA teaching awards, conferred on those lecturers and teaching staff the student population believed were best able to engage with students and show a willingness to communicate outside of lectures, communicate their passion for their subject, provide high standards of feedback and were reliable as a teacher, in both preparation and punctuality. news@studentnewspaper.org
Charity opens specialist childhood epilepsy centre Josh King THE UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh is to open the UK’s first paediatric epilepsy centre with the support of a leading charity. The centre, which will focus exclusively on translating laboratory research findings about childhood epilepsy directly into improved clinical care, was made possible by a £1 million investment from the Muir Maxwell Trust (MMT). Ann and Jonny Maxwell founded the MMT when their son Muir was diagnosed with epilepsy in infancy. Ann Maxwell told The Student that the “Trust was attracted by the University's desire to create a world-class centre of excellence in neurology.” The facility will benefit from stateof-the-art imaging equipment at the University of Edinburgh, which includes the UK’s first ultra-fast computerised tomography (CT) scanner, one of the world’s most advanced diagnostic tools. Such equipment can help researchers determine how the brain’s electrical pathways are disrupted in patients with epilepsy and help scientists better understand how this leads to seizure.
Over 70,000 children in the UK suffer from childhood epilepsy, and Ann Maxwell says that “up to 15,000 of these children are severe, with early onset epilepsy in infancy which can result in severe speech and language problems, developmental delay and a prognosis for a short life. “Parents of small children find themselves trapped in a 24-hour vigil, fearing seizures, injury and even death, particularly during the night. “The £1 million we have pledged I regard as ‘seed capital’ that will kickstart the project and enable a worldclass team to be appointed. Thereafter, the University fundraising team will pursue further investment of approximately £9 million.” Professor Sir John Savill, head of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh said: “We are delighted to begin this partnership with the Muir Maxwell Trust, which has already made such an important difference to the lives of children living with epilepsy. Our aim is to gain greater understanding of the disease and to use that knowledge to develop better preventative measures and treatments for children with epilepsy.” news@studentnewspaper.org
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Edinburgh Univerity Students’ Asociation is a Registered Scottish Charity (No.SCO15800)
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It takes two, baby Rosie Lloyd makes the case for going 50/50 on childcare me, Miss Twenty-Something, So,weretellyou thinking of starting a fam-
ily anytime soon? An unnerving question by anyone’s standards, but throw in a wedding band, a company struggling under the grips of the recession and several equally qualified male competitors, and it’s a professional death sentence for many young women. As a female undergraduate, I was under the impression that I stood facing the foothills of employment on a more or less equal footing as my male counterparts. However, following the recent press surrounding JO Hambro chairwoman Nicola Pease’s statement that "women wreck their careers by taking a year’s maternity leave," I realised that such an ideal has a time limit. At some point in her twenties, the shackles of the biological clock are flung round the neck of the young professional female as her marital status and reproductive potential become of particular interest to future employers. Fact: many women would like both a family and a career at some point.
Unfortunately for them, the prime ages of employment and reproduction happen to coincide spectacularly. So good ol’ feminism stepped up to the mark, joined hands with political correctness and eked out a year’s paid maternity leave so that British women could tread both paths successfully. Hooray! The problem comes when, after working the specified minimum of two months, many women repeatedly push off for a year to have babies on an almost full salary. As Eleanor Mills puts it, this kind "takes the piss." Who in their right mind is going to employ someone who is likely to disappear for a year three months into a new job, and then threaten to sue the authorities if they complain? Or someone who has to continually cut out of work because the childminder is sick, leaving colleagues and clients in the lurch? The complications are endless; for God’s sake, just hire the man, right? Obviously, if you’re sure you have no intention of ever having children
then you haven’t got a problem. However, for most young people the idea of a family hasn’t even crossed their minds, so it seems horribly unfair that anything short of whipping out a chastity belt mid-interview puts young women at an immediate disadvantage in the race for employment. Nicola Pease is correct in saying that the legislation designed to protect women’s maternity rights has somewhat backfired and is now either ruining their careers or making it very difficult for others to get one. However, her suggestion that maternity leave be cut back to the twelve weeks enjoyed by our American sisters somewhat misses the point. For employers, it all boils down to the fact that women can legally take a whole year off after having a child, whereas men have traditionally been allocated far less. Previously, two weeks paid paternity leave was deemed an adequate period of time for new fathers to get to know their sprog before returning to treadmill. As of 15 September 2009, this
measly fortnight was lengthened by three months, if after six months the woman goes back to work first. Thus, the length of paternity leave is depen-
“
It seems horribly unfair that anything short of whipping out a chastity belt mid-interview puts young women at an immediate disadvantage" dent on the choice of the female. I don’t mean to whinge, but it seems that this sort of legislation entirely undermines the modern role of the father, is based upon archaic assumptions of maternal instinct and emphasises the inconvenience of the physical role that women play in having children.
The result is still the same: a sizeable black dot next to the name of any female applicant of reproductive age, and a blaring green light for the lads. Undoubtedly, finding an answer that suits everyone will take some time, but it would at least be more fair to equalise the terms of parental leave so that both sexes could be judged with the burden of the same prejudice. Nicola Pease’s campaign to reduce the period of maternity leave to twelve weeks does not solve the problem of discrimination, nor does it make pregnant employees much less of a headache for the boss. Instead, it provokes a barrage of angry psycho-babble from child welfare committees about the importance of the first year of childhood and all in all, no one is better off. Ultimately, the political and legislative rhetoric surrounding this subject should be updated so that men are required to take as much responsibility for their reproductive potential as women. As much as it may be convenient for everyone to ignore, it takes two to get tangoed.
Bottom of the class bonuses
Ian Powell argues that failed banks have no right to reward themselves with lucrative bonuses
I
n a newsweek dominated by the appearance of Nick Griffin on Question Time and the reappearance of a British postal workers’ strike, many may have failed to realise that the champagne is once again flowing in the city. This is almost certainly because for most us, it really doesn’t feel as though the recession has ended. In fact, it categorically hasn’t; the GDP figures released in the last few days show that Britain is suffering its longest reces-
sion on record. Despite this, on Tuesday night Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, launched a scathing attack on the city banks who are collectively set to pay out £6 billion in bonuses for 2009. Invoking the spirit of Churchill, just like creepy Nick, he declared that “never in the field of financial endeavour has so much money been owed by so few to so many.”
In anticipation of this bonus shower, the number of London houses selling for more than £1 million rose by 234% last month. But how? I thought the entire financial sector had completely imploded. Where on earth will they get the money from? Oh that’s right; from us, of course.... You see, the reason for these very large bonuses is that banks, including some of the major culprits of disaster like RBS, have been making massive profits in the first half of this year. But this is not because of any fine performance of the bankers themselves. Rather, it is that the banks are earning money from using the massive amounts of taxpayers’ money that the government gave them to get them out of crisis, and earning their massive profits in the financial sector because
they have very little competition in the market. These banks are kept up with scaffolding consisting of the taxpayer’s money. They know that the government will not let them go under. Therefore what was once a risky business is no longer so. Mervyn King acknowledged this when he accepted that by underwriting risk-taking that is normally constrained by the prospect of bankruptcy, the banks could become more reckless, not less. I have less issue with banks like Goldman Sachs paying out large bonuses to their employees who appear in line to receive average bonuses of more than £425,000 this year. Goldman Sachs genuinely appears to be a highly successful institution. It is hard to see why Lord Myners can be so indignant with a bank to which absolutely no British money has been lent and that has already paid back the US Treasury the money it was pressured to receive from Washington. It is the news that banks, like the Royal Bank of Scotland, are planning to hand out lucrative bonus packages that angers me. The state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland is handing out between £1 million and £5 million of taxpayers’ money to its top twenty employees. Remember Fred "The Shred" Goodwin? Well, the current chief executive is on a pay package of £10 million for 2009. After a strong start to 2009 the Royal Bank of Scotland had the choice
of using its profits to either lend more money, stack it up as capital, or give it back to itself through bonuses. Ian Hislop on Have I Got News For You likened it to “them murdering someone and then you paying them to carry the corpse away.” Another analogy could be to imagine that your neighbour buys a luxury boat. When he fails to make the repayments, the repayment company lets him keep the boat and puts your name on the repayment plan. When you question this you are told it is all perfectly legal and there is nothing you can do about it. Bankers like to surround their industry in a haze of mystique and exclusivity. And it is true that it is very hard to understand the world of economics and city finance. However, the public know when they are getting screwed. They believe rightly that bonuses should be paid only for exceptional performance and there should be accountability for poor performance which due to the nature of the system will directly and adversely affect them as customers. There are many compelling arguments on both sides for whether bankers should have their bonuses capped. But surely what must be non-negotiable is that when a bank is largely owned by the nation (as 70% of RBS is), profits must go to either returning money to the government, or attempting to strengthen the bank’s own position by increasing capital and securing its place in the financial sector.
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�������� Tuesday �������� October ��� 27 ���� 2009 ��������������������� studentnewspaper.org�
Comment 9 � Flying without wings
Goodbye to posties?
Anam Soomro
in the US has always Airspace been a somewhat hypersensi-
Katherine McMahon stands in solidarity with the postal workers
T
he postal workers were on strike last week. They are facing a pay freeze (despite bosses continuing to be awarded bonuses), serious attacks on their conditions, and redundancies, all in the name of “modernisation.” I went to the picket lines on Thursday morning, at the sorting depot in Sighthill. The workers there told me about the reality of modernisation and its effects on their working conditions: a man who had worked for Royal Mail for 40 years (starting off delivering telegrams on a motorbike at age 15!) described the increased workload, which results in, effectively, unpaid overtime. Another worker told me about the abandonment of a guarantee of family-friendly hours for those with children, which obviously makes it more difficult for those who do the majority of the childcare – usually women. And another worker told me how workers in the sorting office are now expected to put their hand up to go to the toilet, and how she was pulled up for going to the toilet too often. Across the country, workers are coming out with these kinds of stories – a quick internet search for news items on the strike will come up with interviews from both local and national papers full of this kind of thing. These strikes are about fairness for workers, about their right to
decent pay and dignified conditions. But these workers are also striking for a public service: much of the talk on the picket line was about the way in which the introduction of competition has damaged the postal service as a service, and the workers I spoke to still believe that Royal Mail should be a public service – one run in the interests of society rather than the
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Students are not an isolated group: we must appreciate those who contribute to society - to our lives - and we can and should support other groups" interests of profit. For all these reasons, we should be standing in solidarity with the postal workers. Students are not an isolated group: we must appreciate those who contribute to society - to our lives - and we can and should support other groups who are struggling for their rights. We
are facing massive cuts to public services, and every loss affects us all. Education is a public service too, and we may face a fight for that as well. We need to set a precedent that we will not stand for it. There are ways that we, as students, can make a material difference to the strike: in the last national strike, Royal Mail targeted students for temporary, strike-breaking labour. This time, they are recruiting 30,000 workers (that's twice the usual number of temporary Christmas staff ) to clear the backlog caused by the strike. This may sound reasonable, but consider what a strike is intended to do: the point is for those who make the company function – the workers – to withhold their labour in order to force management to treat them better. The mail delays are obviously inconvenient, but it just goes to show how much we rely on this service, and employing all these extra workers will make the strike less effective; it will mean that the striking workers are less likely to win. The answer to clearing the backlog is for Royal Mail to treat their workers better, not to take advantage of high levels of unemployment to break the strike. The CWU – the postal workers' union – said, "instead of spending vast sums of money on untrained temporary workers we urge the Royal Mail to engage with
talks to reach an agreement to get the permanent staff back to work... Postal workers deserve more than this dismissive attitude.” During the last national strike, in 2007, Royal Mail targeted students to fill these jobs. I'm in the process of putting a motion through EUSA to ban Royal Mail from recruiting on campus for the duration of the dispute, and to oppose the University doing so. By doing this, we can help to make the strike as effective as possible. This action will also send a clear message of support: going on strike isn't an easy option by any means, and solidarity is essential. One of the workers that I met at the picket line, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “We don't like being on strike. We lose pay, and we don't like our customers suffering either, but we are fighting for better pay and conditions to make the service better.” Obviously, for those students who have had difficulty finding a job in recent times this offer of seasonal work is tempting - and as soon as the dispute is over, go for it. But I urge students to consider the wider issues before taking a job which could have such detrimental effects on someone else's. Real and positive change only happens when people stand together. Victory to the postal workers….
tive topic, but the incident of the “missing” boy was bizarre to say the least. On Thursday 15 October, YouTube addicts around the world tuned in to watch the realtime air-chase of a helium balloon that allegedly contained 6-yearold Falcon Heene. His family, a group of science enthusiasts, built a hot air balloon designed for experimental purposes and capable of only holding 20lbs. That Thursday afternoon, 911 received a frantic call from Falcon’s parents, Mayumi and Richard Heene, prompting the police, Federal Aviation Administration and National Guard into a feverish search. Listening to the 911 call you can’t believe that someone could hold such heightened emotions for a five minute conversation but, retrospectively, it’s just shameful and disgusting. Worldwide concern was charted on Twitter and the BBC and Sun websites posted a minute-byminute update on the child’s potential whereabouts and welfare. But when at last the balloon had landed it was discovered that the child wasn’t in it. The local sherriff suspected the boy might have fallen out, causing onlookers and blog-readers to hold their breath as helicopters scanned the county for the child. Finally, at 4:30pm, the world could breath easier as Falcon was found climbing out of the attic. Emotions aside, questions arose regarding the sincerity of that epic day. Apparently, before reporting to the police that their child had been whisked 7000ft into the air by a helium balloon, the Heenes called the local news channel. A closer peek at their past reveals that the Heenes are just famewhores, doing whatever it takes to get fame including signing up to do Wife Swap. Quite rightly the police have chosen to prosecute the Heenes for, amongst other things, conspiracy and filing false police reports. The most important issue, however, is that of the children’s welfare. The Heenes have previously taken their children stormchasing, and frequently upload home videos onto the internet. I may not be a parent, but I don’t think this is a positive mental environment for children. Just like the ever-pathetic Octomom, who gave birth to eight children with five already at home, some people are willing to go the extra mile for attention. And each time another nutter jumps out of oblivion waving a flag to attract the paparazzi and tabloids, the press jumps. Granted, anything can be news to sell some papers – after all, not everyone wants to read about the Middle East or President Obama picking his nose. But each time an article is written about Octomom, the Heenes, or any former contestant of Big Brother they are given more credibility. Now you may be thinking, this article is doing just that, but in all fairness we do have to report the news too. Wanja Ochwada
Tuesday October 27 2009 studentnewspaper.org
10 Editorial
Join us! The Student is always looking for budding reporters, reviewers, illustrators, photographers and designers to join our team. No experience necessary! If you're interested, here's how to track us down: » In person: Meetings are held in the Pentland Room, Pleasance, every Tuesday at1:15pm. Socials are held in Native State every Tuesday at 8:00pm » By email: editors@studentnewspaper.org » On Facebook: tinyurl.com/StudentFacebook » On Twitter: twitter.com/TheStudentPaper A quick history lesson...
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studentnewspaper.org Tuesday October 27 2009
FEATURESINTERVIEWSREVIEWS » ARTMUSICFILM » LIFESTYLE » TECHTV
ARTS & FEATURES
IN THE STUDENT THIS WEEK
REGINALD D HUNTER CULTURE P17
DEAD WEATHERS MUSIC P15
FANTASTIC MR FOX FILM P14
Student haunts
Thomas Hutchins delves into the real spirits that you may have the pleasure of meeting when celebrating All Hallows' Eve dinburgh is known as one of the E most haunted cities in the world and with hundreds of years of bloody
history, dark alleys and brooding castles it’s hardly surprising. Thousands of tourists are escorted around the city each day, hoping to experience the supernatural thrill of coming face-to-face with a spook. However, not all of Edinburgh’s ghosts and goblins are restricted to overgrown cemeteries, dank vaults and lonely castles. In fact, most of us wander past their haunts everyday and are (thankfully) none the wiser for it. So let me take you on a quick tour of some of Edinburgh's more unlikely and mundane haunts. Our first stop is George Street, where students wish they could afford to shop and where Mademoiselle Jane Vernelt spends eternity. In life she was a celebrated dressmaker delighting high society with her continental fashions with appropriately continental price tags; however, as time went on customers began to see a change in her demeanour. She became fascinated with the spiritualist craze that was sweeping the nation and began to claim she could hear the voices of the dead. It came to a head one night at a social function when she suffered a nervous breakdown after claiming to see the devil himself. She was subsequently committed to the local insane asylum where she died within months still screaming about the spirits of the damned and her precious dressmaking business was sold on. To this day, a graceful figure dressed immaculately in old-fashioned clothes can sometimes be seen gliding down George Street, as if walking on air, before heading for the same shop and disappearing in its doorway. Perhaps Mademoiselle Vernelt was making more sense than anyone would like to think. Cab Vol is one of the premier venues for live bands in the city, but a nearby street has another claim to fame - this one a touch more gothic than indie. George Gourlay, a locksmith, lived with his wife Christian in a second floor house on Bell's Wynd. He was fascinated with the house below them, as it had stood empty for 21 years. His wife refused to talk about it and the story amongst locals was that it had been an ordinary house one day and completely deserted the next. George couldn't resist any longer, and took action. After a few stiff drinks he let himself in with his keys. He went into the kitchen first. There were plates and a sauceboat, waiting to be carried through to the dining room. The skeleton of a goose was on a spit above the
upswept fireplace. In the dining room the table was set for dinner with wine glasses, plates and two full decanters. George was terrified, but he continued to the bedroom. He looked toward the bed and was rooted with fear. An ethereal figure glided noiselessly toward him and out into the hall extinguishing the candle. George was determined though. He relit the candle and walked toward the bed. He pulled back the velvet drapes heavy with dust and grime... and behind them, propped up, dead eyes staring and manically grinning, was a skeleton. George ran. Two days later there was a knock at George and Christian's door. An elderly man stood there and began asking questions about the house below. Could George, as a locksmith, let him in for a look? George must have looked horror-struck because the elderly man said, "Then you know the secret?” With that, Christian suddenly recognised the man and ran out of the house screaming. The stranger on the doorstep was Mr Guthrie, the owner of the house below, who had come home to find his wife in a lovers’ tryst. He had killed them both and then bribed the servant, Christian, never to tell. But 21 years later, tell she did. The magistrate let Mr Guthrie go free, supposing that he had been punished enough by his own conscience all these years. Mrs Guthrie was given a proper burial and her ghost was, thankfully, never seen again. Another house holds a tale to tell;
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You were warned about the danger lurking in these seemingly innocent fields: the muggers, murderers and rapists. What they didn't tell you to watch out for is the walking dead..." this one resides in the Cannongate and was home to the Edinburgh Cannibal. Queensberry house was once the home to the Duke of Drumlanrig. The duke, however, was known to be insane, and spent most of his life confined to a gloomy attic cell both for his own safety and for that of others. In 1707, while his father and the rest of the household were out signing away Scotland's rights, the duke escaped his quarters to search for food. What he found instead was a dozing kitchen
boy. When the family returned they were met with a hellish vision and the smell of burning flesh tainted the air. They found the child’s charred remains tied to the spit in the kitchen − he had literally been roasted alive − and in his attic room was the duke chewing greedily on the boy's leg. It is said on a still night you can still hear the boy's screams for mercy, but how can you reason with a lunatic? After all that excitement I suppose we really should head home. A large proportion of students live in Marchmont, Bruntsfield and Sciennes, which will mean a quick trip over the Meadows. Now I’m sure when you came to Edinburgh you were warned about all the danger lurking in these seeming innocent fields: the muggers, murderers and rapists that all emerge after dark ready to accost any student foolish enough to cross their path. What they didn’t tell you to watch out for is the walking dead... Bruntsfield Links and the southern Meadows are the last remaining remnants of the ‘Old Burgh Muir’, an oak forest that used to cover most of south Edinburgh. These lonely forests were where the plague-ridden citizens of Edinburgh were sent to die. The Links themselves are home to a number of plague pits − mass graves for the putrid dead. Smaller grave sites are also found with a disturbing regularity within Bruntsfield during garden excavations and utility works. So as you wander home just be careful; you never know whose grave you’re stepping on. Almost home now, but there is
time enough for another tale of supernatural woe. This time hidden deep within the bowels of a local Marchmont school. The site originally held a grand stately home of great elegance built in the 14th century later inhabited by Lieutenant-General Robertson. However, within weeks of taking up residence his head butler began to complain of exhaustion on account of a headless woman, carrying a baby, who would appear by his fireplace late at night. Against his better judgement the general decided to spend a night in the room himself. Within minutes of midnight the sickening spectre appeared cloaked in shimmering faerie fire holding aloft a screaming infant. Terrified, the general fled with the ghostly babe’s cries echoing in his ears. The room was converted to storage; no one went into the room at night so the ghost was never seen again. This should be the end of the story, but years later during the building's demolition they lifted the hearth of the fireplace within the infamous room and found the skeletal remains of a woman and baby. The woman’s head had been severed from her body − a brutal act of violence by any standard. Who she was and how she had earned herself and her child such a grizzly fate nobody will ever know, but it is said that upon a
full moon at the witching hour she can be glimpsed holding her wailing child high, burning in righteous fury – which I’m sure adds an extra something to parent/teacher night. So ends our tour, but before all you intrepid ghost hunters trek back out into the night I must relay a final cautionary tale. Close to the botanical garden there used to be a terrace of houses. One in particular, number 17, held a particularly nasty secret. It was run by a young couple as a boarding house. Yet one of the attic rooms had a distinctly unpleasant atmosphere. Word soon reached the University and soon students were daring each other to take up residence there. A young man named Andrew Muir finally decided to test his mettle, demanding proof of the supernatural. The owners, anxious to put an end to speculation, agreed and equipped him with a bell which he should ring if he witnessed anything supernatural, before retiring for the night. They were all in bed asleep when they heard a blood curdling scream and the ring of a bell. Rushing upstairs, they found a terrible sight – Andrew Muir lay dead with the bell at his side, on his face a look of absolute horror. It was as if he had literally been scared to death. So I guess the moral of the story is: be careful what you wish for this Halloween...
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Tuesday October 27 2009 features@studentnewspaper.org
12 Features
It's only au naturale
Sophie Currie argues that naturism is more than sex here are some features of the T international naturist scene that endure. Most notably, the preponder-
ance of retired elderly gentlemen with those peculiar wicker hats and, naturally, acreage of flesh on display that you really wish you had not been privileged to witness. However, it is also fair to say that many aspects of naturism are perceived totally inaccurately by the outside world, and these opinions too remain unchanging. So, despite the odds, here's one more go at refuting them: it is not a sex club. Swinging, wife swapping and generally orgiastic behaviour are features curiously absent from areas where large numbers of people turn up and take their clothes off. This is for a number of reasons, not limited to but including the presence of several gangs of desirekilling, squealing, naked children racing around the place, accompanied by desperate looking parents who just want to lie down in the sun for a few hours. Other fun-hampering factors include people who look like your grandparents. So what is naturism about then? What is this obsession with taking your clothes off that seems to capture people from all walks of life, of all ages and nationalities, of all body shapes, sizes and styles? There is no simple answer to this question, but a pretty good guess is that it is just quite nice to not have to worry about what you look like, not to be worrying about whether your bikini fits or your bulges are showing. In all honesty, what is left to the imagination
Trust area of beach on the south coast of England that looks like it has been transplanted from the Med but still manages to retain the weather patterns of Bournemouth) wear only t-shirts, as tackle-out is the only way to be. The same beach provided an example of a man who we thought was naked, but actually turned out to be wearing orange swimming trunks. I leave the rest to your imagination. They were a really friendly bunch too; the regulars warned us about a few intolerant locals and said they would keep an eye out. In any other world, an encounter with a nearly naked man offering to look out for us would be unbearably
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Swinging, wife swapping and generally orgiastic behaviour are curiously absent from naturism"
by few small triangles and some bits of string anyway? And as for Speedos... Another reason is that people who are this liberal physically can have pretty much any other view at all in other aspects of their lives - good conversation is inevitable. I have met many people I can argue with really well who also happen to be naturists, and there is no end to the excitement you enjoy when you run into somebody else who
is also a naturist when you are not in a naturist area. I suppose it is not really the first thing you mention to someone either. It has the same effect as telling people you eat three kilos of chocolate a day: you can see the attraction, but wouldn't do it yourself. Probably. The naturist world is an endless source of amusement too. There are the die-hards who, on a frosty Friday in August in Studland Bay, (a National
Forever Friends?
creepy, but naturism is one of the few scenes I have delved into where the innocence remains. How many other ways of life allow you to arrive for dinner with your ex-boyfriend's parents, unbearably warm owing to both weather and excessive cycling, and take your top off? They are already wearing the bare minimum, which I have to say does worry me occasionally. I feel that cooking is perhaps one of those departments that requires a small layer of protective covering, especially in certain places. Families, singles, couples, hon-
Some friendships can stay fresh, believes Rosie Lloyd he sheer quantity of superlatives T my sister used to describe her first week at university was enough to have
me utterly convinced that Freshers' Week was a fairy land of alcohol, petty debauchery, foam parties and, above all, a social scene that puts the International Congress of It-Girls to shame. So imagine my surprise when I found myself seated in my never-tobe-refurbished Grant House bedroom, eyeballing Arthur's Seat and suffering from a mild panic attack. Thus was my first memory of Freshers' Week, and thanks to some extremely insightful parents and several bottles of wine, pretty much my last. So here’s the situation: you've got a bunch of wide-eyed innocents, more or less in the throes of hormonal tumult, hurled into the midst of an entirely new society and, on the whole, utterly out of their comfort zone. Nearly every Edinburgh student I have interviewed has a plethora of crazy fresher anecdotes, ranging from waking up snuggled beside a smurf they definitely didn't go to bed with, to climbing scaffolding and getting arrested by the police. Nothing conservative about that, eh? Aided tenfold by the alcohol intake and chronic social panic, such antics create a mirage of shared experience
upon which the baby-faced population of the university can begin to buddy up. Given the above evidence, it seems fair to say that the social side of Freshers' Week is, at least in part, a manifestation of mass insecurity. Don’t get me wrong; for most people the experience was generally positive. However, I reckon I’m not alone in saying that, in the grips of such initial fear, I would have made
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You are most likely to meet/dance with/ throw up on your future spouse at some point" friends with a lamp-post if I could have passed it off as an animate object. Believe me, there are those who tried. So, you make friends with anyone and everyone, and why not? The statistics say that you meet more people in Freshers' Week than at any other time in your life. In fact, as my nauseatingly loved-up friend informed me, you are also most likely to meet/dance with/throw up on your future spouse at some point during this time. It’s alright - don't panic kids, I'm not suggesting that ten years down the line you'll be shacked up with Mr Personal-Hygiene Problem from
across the hall, but it’s a scary thought. Pukesome statistics aside, how many of you can remember more than about 15 percent of the people you met or spent time with during the first week of the semester? I, for one, met pretty much all of my closest friends within the first two days. However, there are definitely one or two with whom I shared my life story and deepest secrets, convinced I had made a friend for life, and to whom I now probably wouldn’t grace with much more than a passing nod. Unfortunately, it is this fickleness that breeds so much doubt as to the longevity of Fresher’s ‘friendships’. Though, before we add this to the list of Freshers' Week evils the government is compiling, it is worth thinking about what actually makes or breaks a friendship in the first place. If I implied Freshers' Week was scary the first time round, it was nothing compared to having to go through the process again, two years later in Spain. Needless to say, having to negotiate almost all of Europe’s language barriers with only the most rudimentary Spanish was almost impossible. Throw in a French clique the size of Nantes University, and you can imagine why I spent most of the first morning planning how to get back home pronto. Luckily, I manned
up just in time to realise that it isn’t necessarily fluent communication that is important. Sometimes, it's a sly grin from the person next you when they realise that you ordering an Apple Sourz gives them licence to ask for their own vaguely embarrassing beverage. Sometimes, it is when someone sings you a Britney Spears song because that’s the only ‘English’ they know. Sometimes, it’s the nod from the guy who also got chucked out of the lecture for not changing out of last night’s fancy dress. My point is that friends are made most effectively by actions instead of blank communication. It's more than likely that most of the acquaintances made in Freshers' Weeks worldwide will be forgotten, along with that initial insecurity and ill-acquired nickname, after a few days. At its worst Freshers' Week can be lonely, stressful and seemingly superficial. Regardless of this, I still say thumbs up to a system which allows you to meet everyone, discard the blips and ultimately make friends with as many lamp-posts as you want.
eymooners, politicians, students, travellers: everyone is welcome. For some reason, the Germans are exceptionally keen, followed by the French who are not quite as keen but allow toplessness on all beaches. There are weekends away too, at places like Alton Towers, if you can imagine that. These are all planned and held by British Naturism, an organisation with extremely helpful lists of beaches and clubs around the UK (although I'm curious as to what they mean by 'special interest groups' offered as a membership benefit). I have to confess that I am not a member. I am freelance naturist - a bit more moderate, influenced by my own family who are all fine with parading round starkers in front of each other, but, with the notable exception of my exhibitionist father, are not so keen on the formalised bit. That's the other important fact really: no pressure. No true naturist will ever try and pressure you into joining them, and many people grow up with naturist families and grow out of enjoying it. In my biased way, I think everyone should have a go, but there are some people who are just not comfortable with everyone else seeing their wobbly bits, and that is OK too. This is a way of life that is very much a personal choice, but before you rubbish it completely why not try for yourself? British Naturism lists two naturist beaches in Scotland, Lower Largo in Fife and Cleat's Shore on the Isle of Arran. Provided you're not afraid of blue extremities and possible hypothermia, it could be just a bus ticket to freedom and body confidence.
studentnewspaper.org
Tuesday October 27 2009 features@studentnewspaper.org
Features 13
Edinburgh is Pretty in Pink
Catherine McGloin examines the pioneering research at the University in light of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
I
t seems Edinburgh is getting pretty in pink this October, officially Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with stores up and down Princes Street retailing the iconic pink ribbon. Since the early 90s, this silk trimming has become an international symbol for breast cancer charities. Immediately recognisable, it was designed to express support for victims and survivors of what is still the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women in the UK. Many of the big retailers are behind this month’s campaign, dressing their windows in various shades of fuchsia, magenta and cerise. Boxes of ribbons are unavoidable, strategically placed at every cash desk – although Jenners appears to be one up, sporting the diamante version instead of the traditional trimming. This yearly campaign is nothing new. Marks and Spencer have raised 11 million pounds for Breakthrough Breast Cancer since 2001. Celebrities, from Linda Robson to our very own Ms Annie Lennox, have donned the pink ribbon in order to generate some high-profile and much needed exposure. However, this year also saw the one year anniversary of the University of Edinburgh’s Breakthrough Breast Cancer Unit down at the Western General Hospital. So, one year on and what has been achieved? Opened last June, after successfully bidding for the Breakthrough Breast Cancer sponsorship, the unit set out to become the leading centre in breast cancer research. Specifically, this means striving to improve breast cancer treatment, investigating how and why certain cells become drug resistant and developing diagnostic techniques. David Harrison, director of the Breakthrough Research Unit at the University of Edinburgh, recognises
the pioneering studies currently underway at the centre, the only one in Scotland dedicated exclusively to breast cancer. Professor Harrison praises the visionary nature of the work undertaken in Edinburgh: “Thanks to this forward-thinking unit, some of the most groundbreaking research into breast cancer is taking place right here.” Many improvements have been made, and new innovations are trialled regularly in order to improve the lives of thousands. Close to the laboratories and the patients, the unit is ideally located to provide world-
“
Show your breasts some TLC - checking them isn't complicated" class treatment directly to those most in need. Nonetheless, breast cancer remains the most common form of the disease. Incident rates have increased by more than 50 percent over the last 25 years. Each year 4,000 women are diagnosed in Scotland alone. However, there are more uplifting statistics which indicate that 80 percent of those diagnosed survive for at least five years. Your chance of developing breast cancer increases as you get older, with the over-50s at most risk. In spite of this, what is the harm in being aware at a younger age? As the old adage goes, knowledge is power and it seems that many young women are still in the dark about the symptoms of breast cancer, as well as simple preventative measures they can take to reduce their risk. If knowledge is the key, then
recent research, conducted by Breakthrough Breast Cancer, reveals that many of us are still in the dark about the realities of this devastating disease. Of the 542 Scottish women aged 16 and over who took part in the survey, one in six could not identify any signs of breast cancer and only 33 percent admitted to checking for symptoms regularly. However, knowing the full facts is more complex than reading off statistics and mortality rates. Much of what is written about the subject can be misleading, often distorting the reality of breast cancer. Most of the facts and figures focus on two things: mortality rates and female victims. Today, an increasing number of patients successfully recover, with thanks to the research conducted largely in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, male patients
remain hidden behind the statistics. Deceptive literature would have you believe that breast cancer is a disease which solely targets the female population – but this is a myth that must be busted if we are to fully comprehend its devastating impact. Every year 300 men are diagnosed with breast cancer, 20 of those living and working in Scotland. They too are encouraged to check regularly for the symptoms which include lumps, a change in size and nipple inversion. This year, the pink ribbons are out in force and we are urged to rely on more than just self-examination, and to cultivate a more general 'breast awareness' – knowing what is natural for your own body. Audrey Birt, director for Scotland at Breakthrough Breast Cancer is asking men and
women across the UK to “show your breasts some TLC. Checking your breasts isn’t complicated and there’s no need to follow a fancy routine. Just be familiar with how they look and feel normally.” As well as screening, healthy lifestyle choices are stressed as a more immediate way of reducing your risk, which means drinking less, exercising more and eating those five-a-day. Regardless, the surest way to beat cancer is to know the signs and to recognise that it can affect anyone, any sex and at any age. Awareness is essential, knowing what’s natural for you is wise and pink ribbons are always cute. So this autumn, whether girl or boy, pick up one and go pink.
reached such heights in fact, that it has become known as a source of immediate and accessible exposure within politics. The now infamous McBride affair was originally exposed by blogger Guy Fawkes, sourcing the scandal to thousands before the news could reach stands nationwide. ToryBear comments: "Since mid April when Fawkes brought down McBride, people have taken blogs more seriously". With an average site traffic of 4500 to 5000 a day, he is more than aware of the power of the blog. The popularity of political blogging however, is not the issue being raised. To live in a climate in which micro-media is exacerbating political obscurity is to ask the question: to what extent do we consider this a powerful tool? With an unquestionably large audience, arguably appealing to a younger demographic, there is definite cause for debate as to whether the future of politics lies in the hands of a blog or a twitter feed. If a blogger's online petition can lift an injunction questioning journalistic integrity in parliament, can a blog influence our
constitution as it stands? It is a powerful force which must be acknowledged, for we have been provided with a 21st century platform for ultimate free speech. The power of the personal has infiltrated the political; opinion and comment are being published without fear of censorship. The views of the masses are doubtlessly better represented, but to what extent will this influence our policy making? When political gadfly John Jay Hooker was quoted as saying, "I sincerely believe blogging can save America", surely political bloggers everywhere swelled with the pride of responsibility, and perhaps rightly so. Blogging has extended far beyond the day to day denotations of talented personal authors; it is a serious form of political journalism. It is a hybrid of fact and opinion, a hyperbolic form of political personalities, a forum for discussion both important and light hearted. To the modern day Voltaire, remark not on the necessity of the pen, but on the importance of the blog.
Regular Joe Blogs
Rebecca Monks on the real world impact caused by political bloggers
I
t was in the tireless defence of civil liberty that Voltaire declared: "We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard". It is of course conjecture, but it is my belief that had Voltaire known of blogspot. com, he would be an absolute advocator.
In a world where Facebook has replaced face to face, tweeting has replaced talking and the iPhone has become an extension of our palms, it is inevitable that the power of the internet in communication would extend beyond being tagged in a drunken photograph. Political blogging is reaching new heights with party bloggers being awarded for their contributions to modern politics, lists being compiled of our top political bloggers and awards lavished upon the successful. To what extent, dare we ask, does political blogging influence our constitution? In 2005, Marytn Perks remarked that "it is impossible to hold anyone to account in a virtual town hall"; yet four years on, do we find ourselves accountable members of a virtual jury? In a survey conducted by ‘bloggasm’, site traffic on mainstream political blogs last year increased on average 48 percent. The growing interest in personal and political blogging has led to an inevitable rise in viewing the blog as a powerful political tool. The recent injunction placed
upon The Guardian regarding the Minton case, more informally known as ‘The Guardian Gag’ has made relevant the true power that political blogging holds. Online petitions fronted by Twitter and supported by prominent political bloggers nationwide generated enough support to have the injunction lifted. What the case created, if not an upsurge of excitable status updates, is a great question both in the fields of modern politics and journalism. Paul Farrelly and the journalistic voice had been banned from reporting proceedings in parliament, yet it was blogging that gave the media back their microphone. The growth of political blogging is effectively changing the spectrum of political media. Speaking on the influence of blogging in journalism, ToryBear, Edinburgh’s infamous right winger blogger says: "The thing with breaking news is, by the time it gets to the news stand it’s already old news. Not so long ago, people would turn to the newspaper, but now they turn to blogs. The thing about the blog affair is you don’t subscribe to editorial stance; it’s breaking down the traditional role of the media." Online political commentary has
Tuesday October 27 2009 film@studentnewspaper.org
16 Review
FILM FANTASTIC MR FOX DIRECTED BY WES ANDERSON oald Dahl’s beloved tale about R the chicken-stealing escapades of a charismatic fox is brought to life in this quirky animated feature. The story sees Mr Fox (voiced by George Clooney), smooth and mischievous like a red-furred Danny Ocean, tempted back into a series of daring raids on three local farmers (Boggis, Bunce and Bean; "one fat, one short, one lean...") despite promising his family that he had finished with that all that risky business long ago. The first half of the film is fresh and interesting as the characters are introduced and the scene set. In animation, Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited) may have found the perfect way to express his eccentric style and droll humor. The characters, though anthropomorphic, occasionally display bursts of animal behavior that are comical due to their unexpectedness, and serve to remind the audience that, as Mr Fox points out when attempting to explain his recklessness, we are all “wild animals” at heart.
CIRQUE DU FREAK DIRECTED BY PAUL WEITZ hy was this film made? How W could this film have been released? Why is the man in the next
seat snoring? These were the questions spinning around my head as I was subjected to yet another stab at bloodsucking lunacy. You have to wonder what the producers were thinking back at Universal Studios; perhaps the phrase, “Oh dear God!” cropped up a few times. It seems they thought they would release the movie anyway and hopefully we wouldn’t notice. Cirque du Freak is an adaptation of a book from a fantasy series by author Darren Shan. Weitz, the director, was expecting to create a film franchise out of this first attempt at Shan's book series; however, if he has a merciful bone in his body he will stop now. As I watched the film it did remind me of the first Harry Potter film in terms of style and atmosphere, and as bad as the swashbuckling wizards and witches were on their first release, the young vampires are far worse.
FAMILY PORTRAITS: Mr Fox always knew his granny had been a bit of a slag British filmgoers may be disappointed to find that, predictably, all of the good guys are American. Furthermore, Mr Fox and his foxy wife (Meryl Streep) send their morose adolescent cub ( Jason Schwartzman) to an all-American high school complete with Owen Wilson’s ferret-faced sports coach. Yet all of this seems to be going on somewhere in rural England, with its rolling green hills and red post boxes, and the old-style aesthetics mean that this still feels like a film A review should at least attempt to set some sort of scene in terms of the plot and this will be no easy task in this case, but here we go: hard working school boy (Darren) and his rebellious chum (Steve) go to see a travelling freak show in their town. Steve recognises a man there who he knows to be a vampire from an old book he owns, and the boys’ interest in the travelling “freaks” leads them into the depths of a vampire civil war. As for the rest, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. The main character Darren is played by Chris Massoglia and his flat performance never allows this film to even attempt to lift off the ground. The only redeeming feature is John C. Reilly's performance as the vampire, Crepsley. Reilly adds some rather good humour to an otherwise boring attempt by Weitz; his short, blunt comments are rare highlights that punctuate a pretty rubbish script. If vampires are your thing, rent out Twilight or any number of halfdecent efforts in this overcrowded genre; and whatever you’re into, save yourself from this mess. Tom Feehan
YELLOW FACE/SHIRT COMBO: Trinny and Susannah were harsh but fair
made and produced in the UK. Anderson favourites Adrien Brody, Anjelica Huston, Willem Dafoe and Bill Murray also voice a succession of woodland creatures whose characters look like haggard taxidermy models, their fur bristling and twitching as they are repositioned after every frame. The retro stop-motion animation, in refreshing contrast to the modern diet of computer generated extravagance, brings a charming element to the film that goes some way to counter-
ing the unsettling Americanization of the principle characters. It looks a bit creepy, like a Radiohead music video, and it is perhaps a shame then that the overwhelming terror of the animals that is so powerful in Dahl’s classic book is never brought to life here. For a children’s film though, which is essentially what this is, it does have its fair share of chicken-munching, fox-shooting grittiness, which helps to preserve the spirit of the original story. As with all good kid’s movies these days, there is also plenty to admire for older viewers, such as Mr Fox’s private quest to define his true identity and rationalize his irresponsibility towards his family. Unfortunately, the novelty begins to wear off and the film loses momentum when the three farmers, lead by the cider-swigging brains of the operation Bean (Michael Gambon), turn up and try to exterminate their pointy-eared nemesis. It is at this point that it all becomes a bit too predictable. However, this is still not enough to totally undermine all of the good work leading up to it. Dahl himself would probably have approved. Davie Heaton
IZULU LAMI [MY SECRET SKY] DIRECTED BY MADODA NCAYIYANA his South African film was T selected to be shown at opening night of the 2009 Edinburgh Africa
in Motion film festival. The Festival, now in its fourth year, is based at the Filmhouse, with the theme being the trauma, reconciliation and conflict of the African continent. Directed by Madoda Ncayiyana with the dialogue all in Zulu, the film follows the journey of two young siblings, ten year old Tembi and eight year old Kwezi, from their rural village to the city of Durban. They are left with nothing after the death of their mother when their aunt sells all her possessions except one straw mat that their mother had intended to enter into a craft competition in Durban. In an attempt to honour her, they travel to Durban but are plunged into a world of exploitation and violence, being drawn into one of the many child gangs within the city. Unable to find the craft competition, Kwezi and Tembi become dependent upon gang life in order to survive, spending their days roaming the streets, and their nights sleeping in a disused toilet. Faced with such harsh realities they become more and more disillusioned with the life they have been caught up in and dream of moving back to their village. This is a serious film but Ncayiyana has included moments of real humour between the two main characters, capturing the innocence of youth in the process. The onscreen chemistry between Tembi and Kwezi is a joy to watch and in this way is reminiscent of Slumdog Millionaire.
CUTPRICE TATTOO: Not worth it Another striking aspect of the film is the fact that all the main stars are children. Such mature themes being explored by young actors and actresses is something rarely seen in mainstream cinema and reflects just how quickly some people grow up in South Africa. Overall, My Secret Sky is a poignant reminder of the inequalities within South Africa. Nevertheless the charm of Tembi and Kwezi, who are played by children from poor backgrounds, and the visual shots of rural South Africa make this an inspiring piece of cinema. The festival runs until 1 November and other films that will be shown include the classic 1960 Anti-Apartheid film Notice to Quit and the award winning Zimbabwean film Flame. Jordan Campbell
5 Films... ... the best children's book adaptions
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005) Author C.S. Lewis created the fantastical world of Narnia, which since The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe's release in the 1950s has remained a cornerstone of literary classics, setting ablaze the imaginations of generations of school children. For a film to live up to the expectations of the world created within the book was to be a risky task for even the most visionary director. However, the film's animation was aesthetically mind-blowing, with the character of Aslan proving to be the most beautiful simulation of a talking animal ever fashioned. The Witches (1990) Witches have a highly developed sense of smell, stumps where their toes should be, and facial features so grotesque that they must be disguised by painfully restrictive human-style masks. And their favourite snack: children. The cleaner the child, the more repugnant, and therefore alluring, their scent becomes. Roald Dahl's children's classic is brought to life in this underrated film, which boasts enough spectacularly monstrous props and visual effects to stock the set of The Rocky Horror Show thrice over. The Jungle Book (1967) Most adults and children by the age of ten will be very familiar with all of the song lyrics to this Disney classic. Based on Rudyard Kipling's classic and the adventures of the feral child Mowgli, the story of the man cub raised by wolves in the Indian jungle has remained compulsory viewing for decades of children. The colourful images and catchy lyrics provide enough entertainment for the wee ones to bop along to, and ample excuse for the adults to sing along too. The Snowman (1982) There's a reason why this film has been shown on TV every Christmas without fail since its first airing 27 years ago. The beauty of the animation and the quality of the music means that no dialogue or narration are needed to tell Raymond Briggs' story of the adventures of a snowman who has come to life. Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince (2009) It's difficult to pick the best of the film adaptions of the first six books, all of which have been translated beautifully onto the big screen. However, The Half Blood Prince does not suffer as much as the others have done for deviations from the books; and more fully embraces the darkness and violence of the stories, something which previous films have shied away from. Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn is the latest in a very long list of the series' excellent casting decisions.
Don't go anywhere without your iPod? music@studentnewspaper.org
Tuesday October 27 2009 studentnewspaper.org
Review 15
MUSIC ATLAS SOUND Logos 4AD
s the A frontman of indie-rock
darlings Deerhunter, Bradford Cox has always cut a more interesting figure than most in the alternative press. His second album under his solo moniker Atlas Sound doesn’t change this one iota. Diagnosed with Marfan Syndrome and always an engaging interviewee, this album’s cover art (a shot of Cox’s exposed, frail body) should let slip what a listener should be prepared for: frank, emotional nakedness. While this album should of course not be coloured solely by Cox’s physical condition, it does provide a handy bit of context to go some way into explaining what kind of place the record comes from. Lines as haunting as “This criminal walked into my room/he asked me why do you live this way?” and “No one wants to die alone” provide decent examples of the type of self-questioning uncertainty that permeates the albums 11 tracks. It’s to Cox’s credit
Live BAT FOR LASHES Tuesday 20th October PICTURE HOUSE
2
009 has proved to be the crucial year which Bat for Lashes has to live up to her hype. After a Mercury nomination for her debut album and a support slot for Radiohead, her follow up, Two Suns, was released to much critical praise, dispelling the fear that she may just have been a gimmick of pop songs with harpsichords. Now the challenge lay in capturing these more mature, sonically layered songs in the live environment. Support for tonight’s show at the Picture House was provided by Yeasayer who are an esteemed band of the indie world in their own right. This showed in a spirited 45-minute set largely comprising of new material from their forthcoming second album. Under a frenzied light show, the band created an infectious energy with
synth-driven syncopated rhythms and three-part vocal harmonies along with Chris Keating’s David spasmodic dancing which will next year surely see them gain the popular acclaim they deserve. Following such a strong opener, standing centre stage bathed in ethereal light, intoning the words "I will rise now", Natasha Khan appeared to be setting a precedent for a transcendental evening with Bat for Lashes. However, as it transpired, Khan remained in her own world for most of the night, rarely letting the audience into it. This is not to say that this performance did not have its moments. The elaborate stage set-up that utilised screens, projections and strobe lighting really lent themselves well to the atmosphere of Khan’s songs. Surprisingly though, the musical highlights of tonight did not come from Two Suns but from Khan’s debut, Fur and Gold. 'Horse and I’ built up into its staccato harpsichord refrain from an eerie string introduction, bringing out its more mystical edge and ‘Trophy’
that these lyrics never come across as over-earnest, cloying or needlessly angst-ridden. The music that accompanies such inward reflection at times offsets it, and at times embodies it. The former approach is demonstrated most ably on the album’s clearest highlight. 'Walkabout', a collaboration with Noah Lennox of Animal Collective fame, is as bright and summery a song you’re likely to hear coming out of the American independent scene, combining Animal Collective’s spritely recent sound with Cox’s well-honed and unique atmospheric touch. Elsewhere, Cox continues to expand his sonic palette in myriad directions. 'Sheila' revisits his fascination with vintage 60s pop, while the likes of 'The Light That Failed' and 'An Orchid', though occasionally a touch too meandering for their own good, prove Cox an adept writer of lilting acoustic strumalongs. When these myriad directions converge, as on the astounding 'Kid Klimax', the results are extraordinary. Not only will this get Deerhunter fans amped for their next release, but it is an accomplished and incredibly worthy release in its own right. Michael Russam sounded considerably more menacing than the original with its sinister guitar harmonics. Only occasionally did the songs off Two Suns surpass the heights of their recordings, like in the thunderous climax of tumbling tom rolls and swelling piano chords of ‘Siren Song’. Underlying the whole night, though, was a feeling of fatigue. Although this can probably be attributed to tonight being the last night of Bat for Lashes’ UK tour, nevertheless Khan’s music demands emotional engagement. Tonight, however, with little acknowledgement of the audience, at points it felt like we were merely bearing witness to an elaborate dress rehearsal. Perhaps on an earlier night of the tour, this would have been an intense theatrical performance; at the Picture House this evening though, the theatrical components were certainly there but sadly Bat for Lashes’ detached performance largely deprived it of the emotional impact it promised. Calum Barnes
THE DEAD WEATHER Thursday 22nd October ABC
S
trobing is best experienced outdoors, so why the lighting crew for this impressive show pummelled the audience’s poor pupils with pulses of light is irritating in both senses of the word. Nonetheless, another Jack White-fronted (or -backed) group plugged their album full of dirty blues-rock to a crowd who would have gone into a Bacchic frenzy if White so much as slept onstage, such was their adulation for him and his band. This band consists of the long-haired bassist out of the Raconteurs, who makes a convincing drummer on one number; the keyboardist out of Queens of the Stone Age, who anchors the group with terrific playing; Kills lead vocalist Alison Mosshart, whose Courtney Love-meetsPeaches vocal stylings were married to banshee dancing and the whiff only obtained from being a female singer in a rock’n’roll band. And White. When not bent over his
kit thumping out a backbeat for the lively cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘New Pony’ or drumming while singing something sexual and sensual on ‘Cut Like a Buffalo’, he was centre stage doing the White Stripes-sounding riffing and wailing that just didn’t exist before he introduced John Peel and the British public at large to his contemporary lo-hi-fi blues. Brilliantly sharing a microphone with Mosshart on one number and sliding up and down the fret of his guitar with insouciance, White was compelling even when he was walking to the stage, a true star and one who can do no wrong in any of his three bands. Setcloser and big hit ‘Treat Me Like Your Mother’ took on a life of its own, the audience yelling back the "Breathe when you lie!" refrain, entranced and empowered by their White-worship. Feel sympathy for the other bandmembers whose tight playing seemed just a sideshow for the main star tonight. Next time, less strobing, more imploding. Jonny Brick
Singles FRIGHTENED RABBIT Swim Until You Can't See Land FAT CAT
THOSE OF you who have heard the Frabbit boys will have come to know what to expect by now. For those of you who haven’t, I’ll give you a wee run-down of what this frighteningly good band has to offer your world. Melodrama, melody and mightily great sounds, that's what! "Swim, until you can’t see land!" shrieks lead man Scott with a voice as strong as a 1970s Scottish prop-forward, and a theme that seems to be continuing on from Midnight Organ Fight favourite 'Floating In The Forth'. The main back-up once again comes from the beat and the bass, which work much better together than Lance Armstrong’s balls did. It's hard to see if there's been any progression from 2007's Sings The Greys, and it's no classic, but a massive tune nonetheless. [Michael Wynn] RIHANNA Russian Roullette DEF JAM
THE LEAD single from Rihanna's first album in two years should surely indicate her graduation since that last LP to the status of a genuine pop superstar and dazzle us with its globe-straddling brilliance. Sadly, it's a comepletely flaccid ballad that belies that dark, throbbing beat and crackly ambience that underpins its verse. It's trying to be too dramatic and dangerous, as the titled suggests, and just ends up being cheesy and, worst of all, boring. Disappointing stuff from the artist who brought us arguably the biggest pop smash of the 00s. [Andrew Chadwick] JLS Everybody In Love EPIC
"EVERYBODY IN luuurve, come put you hands up!" Begins the standard boy band fare that is the new JLS single. Bless them though, there's something quite endearing about how they still can't quite believe their luck at becoming C-list celebrities and getting to release a couple of singles that Blue chucked out back in the day. It's nice that they're all mates too, so when they're forgotten in a few months they'll be able to sit around in their trackies eating pizza and reminiscing about that time they were on The One Show, or when Judy Finnegan said they were 'fantastic', or something. [AC]
Tuesday October 27 2009 culture.thestudent@gmail.com
16 Review
CULTURE ENTERTAINING ANGELS UNTIL 25 OCTOBER KING'S THEATRE
Lost in Austen
Kamila Kocialkowska awards four stars to the current exhibition at Ingleby Gallery
ENTERTAINING ANGELS is a play that begins and ends with a mobile phone; a modern signal in an otherwise old-fashioned setting. We are in the territory of an English country vicarage. Penelope Keith stars centrestage as Grace, recently widowed by vicar Bardolph, whose reputation has long overshadowed her own character. Keith performs with perfect comedic timing, elegantly awakening each scene. The primary conversation Grace has is interrupted by the outside world: new vicar Sarah, signifying change, sister Ruth mowing the lawn, nature beyond her control, and daughter Jo’s demands. This metaphor for disruption in a woman’s life is indeed a potent one; arguably the strongest throughout. Grace communicates with Bardolph’s ghost; her reactions to his spirituality were as true in life as in death. In this, disruption occurs, as the present encroaches upon the past. With setting, sometimes the subtle gestures are overshadowed by melodrama. Between scenes branches lower, signalling regrowth and rebirth. While the garden is overgrown, the outside world is ripe for welcoming transition. Under branches, by the river, confessions begin with vigour as Sarah confesses her affair to Jo. Well-cast and directed, Jo is loose, nymph-like and barefoot, while Sarah hovers unsteadily, full of tense energy. Here too, missionary Ruth confesses she has a son in Uganda, resulting from a oneoff sexual encounter with Bardolph. Their names resonate, the biblical Ruth having been in a marriage associated with redemption, and Grace must give grace and forgiveness. The plot enforces on Grace a duty that seems unfair, though the play itself acts in justifying it. Grace and Jo share the same flippancy, and when Grace collapses, changeover, Grace rocked in Jo’s arms. Sarah and Ruth wash in the stream before confessing, inducing ideas of purity. Bardolph, however, died there, truly cleansing his soul. “Betrayal” is never applicable; with Bardolph stripped of blame, the women are left to solve what is termed as their problem. Concluding moments reveal they are meeting Ruth’s mysterious son, hopes and futures settling on him as they once did on Bardolph, for a man to give their lives substance. Grace consistently terms herself “difficult” without acknowledging that she was dealt a difficult hand. The first surprise, that it is Sarah, not her husband, taking over as vicar, is well-delivered and thought-out. It disappoints therefore, that Ruth’s surprise seems closer to soap-opera standards. Abortion, infidelity and faith are skimmed over rather than explored. The five characters in Entertaining Angels are all excellently cast, played, and directed around a script that sometimes sits awkwardly. Making up in comedy for what it lacks in integrity, it seems baby steps away from a courageous ending it couldn’t quite commit to. Christine Johnstone
WHEN AN exhibition takes a title like 'My love, I have been digging up my own bones in the garden again’, you get the impression that the artist is something of a latent Romantic. That is exactly what we get with David Austen. His subjects are Love, Death, and the whole spectrum of histrionic emotions in between. It is his consistently quirky observations of these sentiments that form the narrative of this hugely entertaining show. Ingleby's latest display of Austen's work takes the form of an assemblage of prints, paintings, sculpture and film, each providing a sort of fragmented glimpse into the artist's psyche, and converging together to form a coherent body of work. Most frequently recurring are prints and paintings of impassioned statements: ‘The Death of Love’ and ‘Desire, Lust and Sin’, printed in loud, large, capital letters across the entire page. These words intermittently shout at us across the gallery, demanding our attention in a display of egomaniacal assertion. This, then, is art all about exalting personal emotion; unashamedly self-absorbed and melodramatic, it invites us to forgo all reservations and wallow in the drama. The upstairs gallery contains all of Austen’s colourful works, (his
monochromatic works are hung as a group below). This excellent curatorial decision creates a striking and lively visual impression. Brightly coloured plaster spheres hang from the ceiling, surrounded by glossy, beaming oil paintings. Everything fits together unobtrusively; seemingly nonsensical abstract shapes start to converge together to form plausible associations. A seamless web of joyful objects is created, all unified together by the vivid colour scheme. With Austen’s strong graphic style and fascination on the tragicomic nature of love, his art is the visual equivalent of a pop song. Particularly beautiful are Austen’s watercolours. His minimal, gestural drawings co-exist peacefully amongst the larger works. Their naked, cartoonish figures have an perculiarly sexualised feel, which chimes nicely with the exhibition's overall sentiment. It is in 'Man Smoking', Austen’s new film, that the show reaches a neat sense of completion. This simple, self-explanatory study consists of silent black and white images, which probe the facial expressions and gestures of the subject in close detail. It feels as if all the emotional excesses of the previous rooms are converged here to their origin, in silent, thought-
David Austen Untitled (Pink Top Hat) ww 2005 ful resolution, and forms the perfect denouement to this hugely engaging exhibition.
TIMOTHY
WORDS ARE NEVER WASTED
WEDNESDAY 21 OCTOBER
TUESDAY 20 OCTOBER
BEDLAM THEATRE
TRAVERSE THEATRE
IT IS always intriguing to see what a theatre company can achieve in a short show – cue EUTC’s latest lunchtime offering, Timothy, at only forty-five minutes long. As the audience takes its seats, a bored-looking young woman in dark clothes, played by a brilliantly aloof Ankita Chadha, sits at a table. The table and three chairs are the only things on a black stage except a bare hanging light-bulb. The lights go down and Alex Cory enters - the exact opposite of her friend - dressed in light colours and positively bouncing. Neither know why they are there until their friend Annette arrives and reveals that her husband, the eponymous Timothy, intends to murder her. Created by Michael Milne and David K. Barnes, Timothy daringly combines philosophical thought with a slightly backwards murder mystery. Chadha and Cory are drawn slowly into Annette’s world - one threatened by logical insanity and poisoned cocoa. Viewers of this show may have noticed the uncannily French and Saunders-esque dynamic between Chadha and Cory. The juxtaposition of two such utterly opposing characters, both in manner and dress, works perfectly throughout the play, making a particular impression in the opening scene, when all they seem to have in common is the table they sit at. Kate Roberts gives a compelling and disturbing performance as the increasingly paranoid Annette;
'My love, I have been digging up my own bones in the garden again' is running until 21 Nov.
her body language, manner and even eyes giving an impression of being just slightly unhinged. Neville Billimoria’s performance as Timothy also deserves note, creating a lasting impression on the audience despite his brief appearance on stage. Throughout the play it must be admitted that there are moments when conversations become perplex-
“
Chadha and Cory are drawn slowly into Annette's world - one threatened by logical insanity and poisoned cocoa" ing, occasionally moving close to nonsense - but, as becomes obvious, this confusion is deliberate and ultimately intrinsic to the story. The magic of this play is the fact that, though wonderfully simple language is used throughout, it somehow succeeds in creating intellectual and consistently witty dialogue – a goal many writers never achieve though they may utilise the whole dictionary. Despite the skill evident in the writing, this approach would have failed miserably without a very talented team of actors, which luckily this production had plenty of. Anna Reid
EVERY THURSDAY morning for two hours Dunfermline’s Carnegie Hall is home to five Scottish writers, who devise short theatrical pieces under the guidance of award-winning Dramaturge John Binnie. They call themselves the Out of the Dark Theatre Company, and their subject matter is something they have learnt to cope with from their own diagnoses in the 1970s: mental illness. The result is Words Are Never Wasted, a collection of seven isolated plays influenced by the writers' personal experiences of living with either paranoid schizophrenia or manic depression. Far from being jarring and disjointed, the anecdotes are fascinating and evolve as naturally as a single piece. They weave from the heart-wrenching monologue To A Loving Wife to the Pinteresque fable of a man unable to cry despite his mother’s consuming jealousy over his adoring father’s love for his son. Admittedly, with a play of this ilk you can’t help but anticipate melodrama; incoherent scenes performed with cryptic physicality and, more often than not, an awful lot of swearing. But Words Are Never Wasted does not resort to any of that. Its anecdotal simplicity, captured by natural language and strikingly modest direction, conveys a reality considerably more effective than any amount of shouting would achieve. This is, if you like, your everyday mental illness.
Linda Duncan McLaughlin’s crowning moment is as the hilarious eponymous role in Beth Beveridge’s Posy, the neighbourhood nuisance who hunts for Al Qaeda in suburban Scotland. Her claims that she is the mother of “baby Bin Laden” and that attacks are being carried out by MI6 are so clearly expressed and logical, that her reasoning seems flawless until engaged in conversation. Equally as engaging is Taqi Nazeer’s bipolar teenage son of a bipolar mother in Rita Armstrong’s The Ups and Downs of Life. The intense stand off could easily resort to histrionic but Nazeer’s refreshingly genuine portrayal poignantly identifies that the family, more than anyone else, shares the bleakest moments of mental illness. Each scene is punctuated by esoteric guitar whines that convey a sense of mental distortion but occasionally border on the deafening. The rest of the tech, too, seemed a little rough around the edges, with a few strange choices in lighting, but this is forgivable considering the production was at the Traverse for one night only. Words Are Never Wasted will not change your life, but it is not trying to. Its unassuming presentation of vulnerability is designed to educate rather than to shock, and at the heart of these exceptional pieces is the sense that, ultimately, things can and will improve. Debbie Hicks
Tuesday October 27 2009 studentnewspaper.org
culture.thestudent@gmail.com
Review 17 STAR RATING Excellent
Very good
Good
OK
Terrible
The N word
A MODEL OF ORDER: CONCRETE POETRY
Charlie Shute catches up with Reginald D Hunter after his stand up performance in Edinburgh last week
'Big cuddly thing' Reginald D Hunter FOLLOWING A sell out run of his eighth Edinburgh Fringe show and a whirlwind tour of his native United States, Reginald D Hunter brought his stand up show home on Sunday night, when he performed The Only Apple In The Garden Of Eden And Niggas to a capacity crowd at The Stand Comedy Club. In a tour that began at Udderbelly’s 320 capacity upside-down cow and culminates at London’s Soho Theatre in November, Hunter clearly relished the opportunity to return to the dimly lit realm of the comedy die-hard. While he describes performing at The Stand as "playing a home game", the intimate comedy club is a setting with which Hunter may have to quickly reacquaint himself, as he attempts to break into the US comedy circuit. It is a challenge which he appears to enjoy: "it’s like starting all over again," he says to me after the
show, "just like I had to learn where the line was in Britain, I have to learn that about America." And indeed the line is central to Hunter’s show, as he continually courts the boundaries of an audience’s sensibilities. Such a desire is apparent from the name of the show itself (Hunter’s past shows include A Mystery Wrapped In A Nigga and Pride And Prejudice And Niggas), which in typically controversial style, freely utilises language to make some of us squirm. "Now I know that it’s a word that middle class white people find offensive... which I find ironic," Hunter quips on stage, but the truth appears to be that he simply likes the word. That said, Hunter seems to classify his audiences by how easy it is to shock them (for the record, Glasgow audiences are tougher than Edinburgh, but both are tougher than the "shi shi poo poo" audiences
that Hunter encounters in London). Shocking crowds has certainly become, if not easier, then surely more commonplace as Hunter’s swag of recent TV appearances has begun to change the makeup of his audience. On stage he confidently declares to gales of laughter that "some people who see me on TV come to my show and they leave disappointed and emotionally broken... TV Reg has editors, Regular Reg has vodka and weed!" For the Georgian the increased potential for audiences to take offence is part of the territory, and is part of the reason he savours starting again in the US. He believes that audiences tend to be willing to put up with more if "they don’t see you coming". "People who see me on TV come to my shows expecting this big cuddly thing who doesn’t say much, and they can sometimes leave a bit surprised, a bit disappointed," but as his material testifies, Hunter prides himself on his honesty and ability to tell it like it is. Any fears of a disappointed audience were nowhere to be seen on Sunday, as Hunter truly justified advertisements expressing his ability to hold an audience in the palm of his
“
TV Reg has editors, Regular Reg has vodka and weed! hand. His views on returning home, on his own social relationships and his desire to say what he feels are all a fair and crowd pleasing game. The crowd at The Stand, possibly unlike Hunter’s TV audience, clearly understood the comic's brutal honesty, when he stated that "it’s not like I say something fucked up and then go and vote in parliament." They were all too happy to allow Hunter to bounce his ideas off them, which is how his shows often develop. It is a skilled performer indeed who
can end a set with "I believe I have fulfilled my contractual obligations," and still bring down the house. With America calling, Hunter’s relatively newfound mainstream recognition may well become a thing of the past, but again the comic is happy for the challenge. "I’m an open slot over there, and I enjoy the anonymity of that." The US scene will contain new tests for any comedian, but presents particularly tough ones to Hunter, whose abrasive style is what has got him so far. "Americans like violence on their television, but not in their comedy," he observes, and I cannot help but wonder how well the anecdote of an early gig at a US military base, told earlier that evening ("Thank god we have a military – that we have somewhere to send those people!"), would go down in the land of the free. Beckoned by bright lights or not, Hunter assures me that we are in no danger of losing him – "America is a place where you go to sell an idea that you’ve come up with somewhere else", a place which, to his disgust, fills him "with optimism and hope," clearly antithetical to his ability to stir those dark truths which lie within us all. On Sunday he returned to The Stand with the desire "to get my snarl back" and jump head first back into the UK scene that has repeatedly embraced him. Doubtless he will relish the challenge of the US, but at least for the foreseeable future, Hunter’s significant comedic presence will remain in the UK, because as he says, "doing this makes me feel good, and you’ve got to keep doing what makes you feel good". If that is the case, then just as Hunter continues to perform, we will continue to laugh. Reginald D Hunter tours with his show The Only Apple in the Garden of Eden and Niggas until November 21.
Watch this space
Gordon Mclean discovers the new artistic workspace only a stone's throw away from Potterrow
IF YOU go down to the Informatics Forum today you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise. Tucked away in the recently refurbished left hand corner is Inspace, a collective artistic workspace cum gallery and the new home of New Media Scotland. Set up in conjunction with The University of Edinburgh and supported by The Scottish Arts Council, over the coming months it will be host to a range of original artwork exploring the interface of Informatics, culture and New Media practice. Inspace is unlike any other setting in Edinburgh, something you realise as you walk past its purposefully enticing ‘shop window’ on Potterrow and when you walk through the door. The Student spoke to Mark Daniels, Executive Director of New Media Scotland and Creative Director of Inspace: “We moved here for our tenth birthday after changing from a partnership with Napier University. Inspace is a joint venture between New
Media Scotland and the Informatics Department at Edinburgh”. “The ‘space’ itself is really the experiment. Because we are highly
“
With a constantly circulating plethora of fascinating and unpretentious installations, Inspace's finger is very much on the pulse of the cutting-edge collaborative we get a unique degree of neutrality and our open source curatorial philosophy means we can welcome a wide range of artistic, academic and technological collaborations from across the country and even the globe”. This is evident from the artwork
on display. Visible from the shop window are numerous hanging globes, constantly rotating and filled with blue ink onto which text from selected literary classics is projected by an internal ray gun. The artist has never been in the gallery- these were collaboratively produced via the internet and shipped over from New Zealand. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Inspace is that there is no direct English equivalent, and Inspace is the first organisation of its kind in Scotland. Much of the work on display has a distinctively grainy texture generating an idiosyncratic Scottish milieu. Situated in the most technologically advanced building in Scotland, its ‘modern’ art benefits from a unique environmental osmosis adding a depth to the work which would be highly unlikely in London or New York. In the upcoming year Inspace will host four exhibitions each showcasing the creative interface between a specific technological theme
and contingent art practices. Opening on the 24th November, Are We Human? will explore the evolution of artificial intelligence in people and technology in tandem with the upcoming Darwinian commemorations. Are Friends Electric? will be an installation on the boundaries of human(oid) relationships, to be followed by Tell Me Now How do I Feel? - an exploration of emotional contagion with technology. To round off there will also be a showcase of the best new media practices in Scotland. If you want to donate some artistic blood in the upcoming year, you could do worse than Inspace. With a constantly circulating plethora of fascinating and unpretentious installations, a rare combination to be treasured, its finger is very much on the pulse of the cutting-edge. Just make sure you bring a comfortable mouse mat - the front row of the avant garde is likely to be a crowded place.
UNTIL 3 JAN DEAN GALLERY
STARTING AS a Brazilian movement in the '50s, Concrete Poetry sought to break down the traditional ties of poetical composition and release poetry into the world around us. Poetry became object, material and real, seizing language and transforming it into its visual representation. Words would take on the form of their meaning, creating a sensory playground, spinning shapes, words and images across space and welcoming their consumption by the viewer. 'A Model of Order', which currently occupies the Dean Gallery's Keiller Library, shows this medium at its most powerful and communicative. Just as a wave clearly denotes a greeting, or a handshake an introduction, so too does Concrete Poetry speak naturally to us. It gestures across the canvas divide and cajoles our senses into recognising its message. In fact, it is this simplicity in style and vision which makes this work so infinitely powerful. Eugen Gomringer’s piece 'PingPong' exemplifies this idea, where the reader is literally thrust into a visual game with the poet as the words ping, pong, pong, ping, evince the movement of the ball across the imaginary space. In this way the reader easily slips into a sensory game with the poet, playing backwards and forwards with the sounds and movements of the words. These sounds and movements moved to and fro across the Atlantic as Concrete Poetry became international, inspiring Scottish poets such as Ian Hamilton Finlay and Edwin Morgan in turn to engage with it. Finlay’s work in particular is spectacular; his poem 'Star/Steer' re-creates the experience of sailing on the ocean on a moonlit night. With only a second’s glance at the silvery words snaking along the grey canvas, the reader immediately feels the emotional and physical reality of such an experience. In this way, Concrete Poetry can speak a thousand words. It maps out through sound, movement and word a visual experience that is completely solid and tangible. This ‘model of order’ strikes out into the world of mankind, shattering the restrictions imposed by tradition and, through this, is able to achieve universal communication. It is through this universality, furthermore, that it became such an important vehicle for social commentary. Edwin Morgan’s 'The computer’s first Christmas card' comically repeats and jumbles the two words ‘jolly’ and 'merry’ until they become insignificant and unrecognisable, a statement perhaps about the meaninglessness of such generic terms on such a formerly important religious holiday. Pierre Albert-Birot’s Instructions for the performer of the sounds of an aeroplane similarly pokes fun at his contemporaries’ fascination with the machine. It is in the world of the machine that we still live, but Concrete Poetry does something the text or the video message cannot: it hits deep, entertains and pricks at all your senses with only a momentary glance. It is, in a word, irresistible. Claire Moran
Tuesday October 27 2009 studentnewspaper.org
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18 Lifestyle COSTUME TERRORS
Trick or Treat...
Caitlin McDonald discovers what really spooks students time of year again: the last Ileavest’sof thethat summer tan fades, autumn blow in, people start carving
hat should I wear?" That age old question never bears more weight than in the weeks leading up to Halloween. In a time when we have a wider array of costumes to chose from than ever before, the pressure to come up with an original idea is almost unbearable. Come Halloween night the streets of Edinburgh will be overrun with the usual groups of Smurfs, Mario Brother duos, and gaggles of scantily clad girls in naughty nurse/sex kitten/playboy bunny outfits. But those of you who really want to make an impression will have to make an effort to outshine everyone else in the room. The first step is to make your choice. The summer success of the Star Trek film and sci-fi’s recent rise in popularity has opened up a whole new area of inspiration. No longer will the Spock-eared and the Leia-bunned be received with blank stares, so don’t be afraid to branch out in unusual directions. Secondly, you actually have to put the costume together. This can be tricky, even if you are a determinedly industrious individual - making a Tranformers outfit that can really transform is no mean feat. We Edinburgh students are also unlucky in that this city is (temporarily) devoid of a Primark, depriving us of ridiculously cheap materials. Cardboard boxes, paint, and glue can all be found for low prices at discount shops but between tutorial readings and essay hand-ins no one but first years have enough time to devote to the more ambitious projects. If you don’t have the time or energy to give to making your costume, you can always turn to Edinburgh’s numerous costume shops. From lion onesies to 50p bunny ears, there is nothing you can’t find as long as you’re prepared to pay for it. If you’re willing to invest in a £50 Power Ranger suit (complete with flashing lights and sound effects), or coloured contacts for £25 a piece, this is definitely the option for you. However you can’t guarantee that someone else won’t turn up to the same party in exactly the same outfit. It’s not difficult to see why most people will settle for the classic easy options (werewolves, zombies and, if you’re tall, Frankenstein’s monster), but dressing up for the sake of it just isn’t as fun as finding something interesting. Make the most of the night and do something different, and if you’re still stuck for an idea on the night you can always cut eye-holes in a sheet.
Shan Bertelli
TRICK: MORNING SEMINAR Yes it’s only once a week, yes the medics have it worse than you, and yes you really do have to go – but that fucking alarm clock is getting a vicious beating if it doesn’t stop ringing RIGHT NOW.
SHAN BERTELLI
"W
creepy faces into their veg, and most females dress up as some form of slutty animal/Disney princess. Yes, it’s Halloween this week, but are there horrors beyond the usual ghouls, ghosts and goblins that terrify and torment students? We investigate the tricks and treats experienced during a day in the life of an average student and the perfect way for you to face these fears.
TREAT: SHOPPING Obviously you wouldn’t be seen dead in the same outfit twice, so it’s time to hit the shops. Your student loan has come through; your Topshop card is glinting seductively; oh, and you absolutely definitely need new shoes as well. Go on, you deserve it after that hellish 9am start. You’re saving the economy! You’re a trend pioneer! You’re the Captain Kirk of fashion, boldly going where no student has ever gone before! You’re – oh, you’re skint. Bummer. Ah well, you always knew that overdraft would come in handy...
TRICK: CHORES Remember the good old days when you got pocket money for hoovering your room or doing the dishes? Now that you’re a fully fledged student, you’ll be lucky if you have enough dosh left over after the pub for the washing machine. Or rent. A notoriously unhygienic species, we students tend to place tidiness and cleanliness at the bottom of our
To-Do lists. Somewhere after ‘return overdue library books’ but before ‘phone Gran’. Go on, take a peek at your laundry basket – is it full? Overflowing? Developing its own eco-system? Yep, thought so. You’re now faced with three choices: a) beg/borrow/steal some change from your flatmate, take a deep breath, hold your nose and hastily stuff your month-old gym gear into the nearest washing machine; b) take it home for your poor mum to do at the weekend (thus becoming an object of both scorn and deep, deep envy for all your friends); or c) ignore it.
TREAT: TAKEAWAY Indian? Chinese? Thai? Pizza? Fish’n’chips? Kebab? Good God, the possibilities are endless! After expending all your energy on walking everywhere and forcing yourself to listen in lectures, a calorific dinner is just what you need.
Possibly the hardest decision you’ll make all day is what to order, so it’s well worth your while to try out every takeaway within a two-mile radius – purely for research purposes, you understand. Maybe you could work out some sort of scoring system for all of them, perhaps a wall-chart or line graph? (With a point deducted for every time you see your food again at 4am, exploding violently into the toilet bowl?) No? OK then, go for the pepperoni.
TRICK: ESSAYS And readings. And presentations.
And reports... Hey, you’re a student, this was bound to happen sometime. Just switch Neighbours off, get your head down and get on with it. You never know – it might pay off someday. You might even like it... probably not, but maybe.
TREAT: PUB The student equivalent of Narnia (except without the fawn). The pub is a glorious refuge from deadlines, presentations and all things academic - at least until last orders when you have to go home and face the music, albeit somewhat more merrily than before. The pub is why you regularly have to email apologies to your Facebook friends for abusive, misspelt, 2am comments; why everyone in your tutorial group now knows that you can put one leg behind your head whilst fitting the other foot in your mouth; why the local kebab shop man winks every time he sees you. The pub is why you never seem to get any work done – worship it.
TRICK: HANGOVERS An explanation is hardly necessary: we all know how this works.
Edinburgh's Top Scares
Emma Segal takes the horror out of your planning woes or a Union-based event, look no email apmckenna@hotmail.com side of popcorn try the Edinburgh F further than the Teviot House directly. GHQ is at 4-6 Picardy Place, Filmhouse who are showing Lars of Horror Fancy Dress Party from off Leith Walk. For details, phone 0131 Von Trier’s film Antichrist. The movie, 9pm-3am. In addition to student-friendly drink prices, there’s £100 in prize money for the best fancy dress. A ‘Trick or Treat’ chocolate fountain, headphone party and Going Underground complete the lineup. Tickets, priced £3, are on sale at Potterrow now, but if tickets sell out the Big Cheese will be open too. For an alternative party, Monsters Ball at Studio 24 professes to inject your Halloween with rock, indie, punk, breaks and metal music. For tickets/guest list queries go to Studio 24, 24 Carlton Rd or phone the venue at 0131 558 3758. If you like the idea of a costume party, but aren’t keen on going to the Union events, GHQ are preparing a night of fun with the proceeds going to Motor Neurone Disease Scotland. Spooky cocktails and a charity auction complete the fun. For tickets,
550 1780. If you like your scares with a
starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Defoe, sees the couple, who
are mourning the death of their son, take refuge in a cabin in the woods. A series of sinister events soon unfolds. Tickets can be bought from the cinema, located at 88 Lothian Rd, online or by phoning 0131 228 2688. For those who fancy avoiding the scary and predictable ways to spend Halloween legendary comedian Tom Stade will be appearing at Jongleurs Comedy Club with support from Susan Murray, R David and Chris McCausland. Book in advance online at http://bookings.jongleurs.com/ As a final treat, The Edinburgh Dungeons are hosting a special evening entitled ‘The Scare Witch Trials’. Not only will you get the dark history of Edinburgh retold with live actors and gruesome rides, you will also have to Outrun the Scare Witch and meet the Witch-finder General before it’s too late. Details and tickets can be found at http://www.thedungeons.com/en/edinburgh-dungeon/index.html
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Tuesday 27 October 2009 studentnewspaper.org
Review 19
TV
Whiter than white
SEX CHANGE BABIES
Ed Ballard examines the only edition of Question Time to have more than four viewers
I
n the few days before I got around to watching Question Time on iPlayer I became worried that I was going to feel sorry for Nick Griffin. Sure he’s a far-right douchebag but I imagined that the mauling I was about to witness might provoke some essential human compassion, the kind that kicks in when you see somebody being persecuted. I pictured Griffin spending the allotted hour in the stocks as the sneering audience took turns to smear their excrement on his face. Each of them would turn to David Dimbleby like participants in a televised Milgram experiment: ‘Is this really OK, Mr Dimbleby? Can I really smear my poo on his face?’ Dimbleby would give a sombre nod to each, and Griffin would be reduced to deliriously babbling bits from Mein Kampf. Feeling sorry for Nick Griffin is surely a victory for fascism so I was relieved to discover that he really is too odious to allow even the teensiest bit of sympathy - even if the debate itself occasionally became objectionable. As it happened, Griffin did spend much of the programme wiping shit from his face. Dimbleby himself got in on the muckthrowing, shushing some audience member (who invited them, anyway?) before presenting Griffin with yet another damning selection of his own words. The show was peppered with these confrontations as panellists took turns reeling off the shocking Griffinism they had memorised. Best of all was just how horrible Griffin looked - like a fat Hitler on crystal meth. His hair, too, seems to have ‘Hitler’ as its default setting: no doubt the finest scissor-work the white power movement can offer is channelled daily into denazifying the
SS CLUB: There ain't no party like a British National Party. leader’s barnet but the more flustered and sweaty he gets, the more and more dictatorial his side-sweep becomes. All good fun then - a victory for democracy, even. With references to ‘militant homosexuals’ and the ‘ultraleftist BBC’ Griffin proved resistant to any sympathy a more presentable fascist might have won in his position, which was a relief. The panellists got to compete in the dignified outrage stakes and the audience had a good boo. And for all their furiosity, the audience’s questions were intelligent, a welcome change from the last time the show got this much attention - when
Mother Tucker
the sacrificial panellists were ritually degraded by a baying audience spitting blood about ministers’ expenses. If this was a lynching, it was at least done with a little decorum. And a good night for the BBC, whose commitment to democracy won a record audience. They weren’t doing it for the ratings - heaven forbid - so it seems a little churlish to point out that, according to subsequent poll data (and the BNP’s own recruitment wing), many of Thursday’s 8 million viewers are apparently more fascist now than they were before they tuned in. Nice one, Auntie.
QUESTION TIME DRINKING GAME Drink when: • Someone shouts out "RUBBISH!" • Someone whoops • Everyone cheers • A panellist is booed • Dimbles shushes a question he doesn't fancy, saying "we may come to that later" • Someone asks a question that isn't a question (these usually end with "and I think it's disgraceful!" and some embarrassed applause) • When your faith in the British electorate sinks to a new low
Paddy Douglas watches the new f**king series of The p*ssing Thick of It
W
hen The Thick of It first arrived on our screens in 2005 it did so in the most inconspicous of circumstances - broadcast late at night during the week on BBC Four. Thanks to a steadily growing fanbase, endless amounts of critical acclaim and a relatively successful featurelength spinoff, In the Loop, its new series has been granted a prime-time slot on Saturday nights. The character most associated with the programme is Malcolm Tucker (played with venomous aplomb by Peter Capaldi), Number 10's spin doctor extraordinaire, whose bombastic style of governing bears just a little resemblance to Tony Blair's former Director of Communications, Alastair Campbell. He stomps around Westminster abusing special advisers and civil servants with his hilarious use of the profane. The Thick of It focuses on his dealing with DoSAC (Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship), a government ministry so flimsy and unimportant that by its very title you know it was designed just to hoover up all the crap the other departments don't want anything to
do with. The first episode of the new series deals with the arrival of a new Secretary of State, Nicola Murray MP, whose private school ambitions for her daughter and husband's potentially dodgy business connections will cause unwanted grief for Tucker. Trying to save their skin are policy advisers Ollie
Reeder and Glenn Cullen, as they one-up each other constantly to stay on the good side of their new boss. Now, if this all seems very confusing and you're feeling slightly put off by the political jargon that was thrown about in the last few paragraphs, do not be afraid. It is a political satire, but that isn't to say those with no
SPIN THIS: "Gordon? I've forgotten my cocking keys again."
knowledge of Westminster goings-on won't find it inordinately entertaining. Most of the comedy does not stem from intimate knowledge of the nature of select committees, rather the wonderful way the characters pepper their speech with probably the most beautifully written invectives available on TV (within the first few minutes alone we get someone described as a "massive abortion"). The Thick of It succeeds because it strips the bullshit out of British politics and shows us that it's much like any other job. The only difference being the consequences of your decisions are a tad more important. Its shaky camerawork and moderately complex plots might put some viewers off but for those of us who enjoy extremely dark, sweary humour and satire so on the nose it hurts this new series is like manna from heaven. "I'm off to wipe my arse on a photo of Nick Robinson. I'm getting good at giving him a quiff!" If lines like that don't make you smile, then, in the words of Tucker himself, you can just "fuck the fuck off ".
FOR MOST of us, regardless of gender, childhood was full of grazed knees, snotty noses and perhaps the odd playground romance. This, we assume, is a pretty universal experience. Not so, according to Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change. Another triumph of controversy for Channel 4’s documentary series Bodyshock which documents four transgender children between the ages of 8 and 16. The programme spends most of its fifty minutes in a bathroom or hair salon filming 8 year olds being polished, varnished and highlighted (which is as ludicrous as it sounds) as they loudly refer to their genitals as birth defects or physical disabilities. It’s all pretty perplexing stuff, but it’s meant to be. The thing that’s hardest to swallow isn’t necessarily the children’s adamant claims to be transgender but the mortifying range of technical information they have on the subject. Listening to a prepubescent boy buoyantly describe a sex change operation is surreal both for the concept and because the word “vagina” is coming from an 8 year old's mouth. Then there’s the unnerving realisation that gender is perceived by these kids aesthetically; being a “girl” constitutes wearing pink sparkly clothes and having curly blonde hair. There’s undeniably an alarming undercurrent to all of this, though, and you can’t doubt that juvenile gender dysmorphia is a legitimate issue when a sobbing mother, who forced her now daughter into football shirts for years, relays the sobering story of when she found her child about to take a pair of nail scissors to her penis. The purpose of the documentary is to examine the situation as various chaps in white coats are thinking of changing UK leglislation to legalise the prescription of "puberty stoppers" and hormone treatment (which causes infertility) for under 18s diagnosed with gender dysmorphia. The position in the UK is barely mentioned though, as the narrator apparently only learnt a few token lines and decided to repeat them ad nauseam. The problem is endemic in Channel 4 documentaries: a fascinating subject, deserving of analysis, is let down by the constant repetition of material which is barely discussed. "Most children grow out of it", declares the narrator halfway through; let's hope Channel 4 does too. Debbie Hicks
Tuesday October 27 2009 studentnewspaper.org
20
tech@studentnewspaper.org
Review DOOM
JOHN RUSHTON
RESIDENT EVIL
JONATHAN MOWAT
t’s 1993. I’m eight years old. I’m running down a corridor. I turn a Iquently corner and a massive monster leaps at me. Terrified, I jump - consefalling backwards off my chair. That’s right, I’m playing Doom. A landmark step in immersive gaming, Doom pioneered the 3D environment where God only knows what is waiting for you through the next doorway. It caused controversy for its violent content but, let’s face it, that’s what made it so unrelentingly awesome! The current gaming world owes a debt of honour to the legacy of Doom and – oh God, what’s that? Run!
PROJECT ZERO
KATIE CUNNINGHAM
nexplained deaths, mysterious disappearances, brain hungry U zombies and a creepy abandoned mansion. Yup, we’ve all seen this film before, but with Resident Evil, we get to survive for ourselves.
From the first time you witness one of the infected devouring a hapless comrade to those terrifying moments where the moaning, rotting un-dead jump out at you from the dark when you least expect it, this game is truly frightening. The ominous ‘something’s-about-to-govery-wrong’ music should have warned you though. Resident Evil is atmospheric, scary and has plenty of skin-crawling moments that will have you leaving the lights on when you go to bed, just to make sure.
he Project Zero games all have the same premise; someone gets T trapped in a creepy place filled with ghosts and has to escape. What makes them awesome is the weapon: a camera. The forces of evil are after you and your weapon is photography. It’s deliberatly difficult to control and while you’re trying to aim terrifying things are flying at you. The ghosts appear out of the walls; out of everywhere. The tension builds with relentlessly creaking doors and floorboards. It took me a week to beat the first game and I wasn’t even playing it alone.
DEAD SPACE
PENUMBRA: BLACK PLAGUE
RICHARD LANE
TOMMY WATSON
he terrifying opening scene of Dead Space has the tragic protagoT nist Isaac Clarke inches from being gored in an elevator, wading through knee high piles of corpses. A truly disturbing atmosphere and soundtrack, with drop-kicked mutant babies for good measure, haunt you all the way to the dramatic conclusion. Giant mutants with scythe hands and a ludicrous number of teeth can only be halted by accurate shots to the knees. Precision aiming to the arms stops the beasts clawing onwards and proving just how flimsy that survival suit actually is. Watch out, there’s two more behind you! And another on the roof!
et beneath the Greenland tundra in an abandoned mine cum World S War 2 bunker cum esoteric research facility, the Penumbra trilogy is easily the scariest series of games I've ever played. All three are good, but the second game, Black Plague, is an absolute masterpiece of twisted psychological terror. Depicting your own character's descent into insanity, Philip's madness gradually forms a divide in his personality. One half remains rational and human. The other, calling itself Clarence, repeatedly tries to misguide Philip, luring him into traps and occasionally trying to seize control of his body. This unique narrative mechanic combined with an astounding plot make Black Plague a must for horror buffs.
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Tuesday October 27 2009 studentnewspaper.org
Review 21 BIOSHOCK
DAVID WILLIAMSON
reepy dystopian setting, genetically modified psychotic inhabitants and C autonomous 19 century diving suits aside Bioshock is not a particularly scary game. th
It does however feature one of the finest ‘jump-so-much-that-you-drop-the-controller-scream-like-a-six-year-old-girl-and-later-have-to-be-scraped-from-the-ceiling’ moments I have ever come across; in a dentist surgery of all places. Upon entering the room your vision is obscured by smoke before clearing to reveal the dentist, apparently quite dead on his chair. After a quick rummage around, the smoke descends once more, clearing again with the not quite so dead doc standing right behind you, not moving until you’ve turned round , inducing the panic-ridden moment mentioned above. They should have called it Bowelshock.
SILENT HILL 2
STUART YOUNG
hen it comes to survival horror the Resident Evil series may have W created the genre but Silent Hill made it into an artform. Eschewing shock tactics for a rising sense of unease and disgust, Silent Hill 2 is not just one of the scariest games ever made - it's also genuinely emotionally harrowing. Playing as James Sunderland, a character drawn to the sinister town of Silent Hill by a letter purporting to be from his dead wife, the player must pass through an allegorical purgatory to heal his fractured mental state. Gripping and powerful, this game rewards the patient player.
Puzzles
This is now a game of “who’s to blame for this arsehole?” "
During the recent BNPtastic Question Time episode (22nd of October on http://twitter.com/charltonbrooker)
The Student Crossword #7 ACROSS Across
Puzzles
Solutions
Sudoku # 7 7
4 6
6 5
3 4
HITORI
Sudoku is a logic-based number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill the 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9 only once.
2
1
1
6 3
2
6
1 4
1
7 6
8
7
4 4
4
3
5 3
7 8
6
Hitori # 7 The object of Hitori is to eliminate numbers by shading in the squares such that remaining cells do not contain numbers that appear more than once in either a given row or column. Filled-in cells cannot be horizontally or vertically adjacent, although they can be diagonally adjacent. The remaining un-filled cells must form a single component (i.e there must be no isolated numbers).
Legible (8) Advantage (7) Lives in rented rooms (6) Utter joy (5) Vast chasm (5) Indifferent (2-2)
6
2
9
2
1
6
4
2
6
4
9
5
1
2
7
3
4
1
5
2
5
7
8
2
6
5
9
5
6
3
2
5
1
5
6
3
2
5
7
3
6
4
9
5
7
9
5
8
6
2
5
2
4
2
8
6
7
2
9
8
8
5
3
7
3
2
9
4
2
5
1
4
3
8
2
1
7
7
1
2
ANDY PANDA
21 24 25 26 27 29
1
CROSSWORD
3
SUDOKU
3 Invariable (8) 9 Sooty's best friend (5) 10 Snowflakes, glaciers, frost (3) 11 Little drink (3) 12 Dealer in cigars and cigarettes (11) 14 Pertaining to a sovereign (5) 16 Nuisance (4) 17 Mistaken (5) 19 Indicative of poverty (6) 20 Sailor (3) 22 Posted (6) 23 Concerning (5) 25 Burden (4) 26 Expanse of sand (5) 28 Bits and pieces (4,3,4) 30 Not me (3) 31 · · · — — — · · · (3) 32 Dimensions (5) 33 Evade (8) DOWN 1 Mixed up tins (4) 2 1x106 t (7) 4 Adversary (8) 5 Burst of speed (6) 6 Birthplace of physicist Sir William Lawrence Bragg (9) 7 A wee bit drunk (5) 8 The Morning Star (5) 13 Pass (8) 15 ________ personnel carrier (8) 18 Swift dog (9)
“
Charlie Brooker says:
SCOTT MAHONY
Addicted to the box? Email sport@studentnewspaper.org
Tuesday 27 October 2009 studentnewspaper.org
Sport 23
Hughes races to karting success
Bruce Holborn reports from the latest round of the Karting Championship Round Two of the Edinburgh University Motorsports Club Karting Championship took place last week with an impressive 38 drivers representing three universities. After the tense Freshers’ Karting, Euan Hunter was the championship leader. With him being unable to attend, the door was left open for a new challenger to emerge. With rookies Pierre Nicolet, Valtteri Hyvonen and Antti Makela in hot pursuit it was a chance that was not going to be missed. The event format consisted of five heats for every driver (33 heats in total) with the top six drivers qualifying for the final race. After the first few heats things were starting to look familiar with the usual suspects atop the timing sheets. Last year’s champion Calum Hughes had maximum points after his first two track outings along with Scott Douglas and Stevie Campbell who were racking up the wins. It would be these drivers who stayed at the top of the leaderboard for the rest of the meeting. There were shocks early on as usual grid back-marker Ewan Leeming raced to a superb win from pole, holding on to his position with a combination of tenacious skill and ruthless defending. Last year’s championship runner-up Richard Crozier struggled to find pace and consistency and, despite a commanding victory in his last heat, missed out on the final. In his place however was Nicolet who stormed to the top of the standings, his consistent and smooth driving helping him carve through the field on more than one occasion. His lap times were falling dramatically, shaving half a second off his personal best by the final for which he qualified
fifth on the grid. Joining him in the final was another rookie but it was not Makela or Hyvonen, who narrowly missed out - it was the surprise package of Ross McAudrey. Two wins and a second place in his five heats had seen him quietly sneak up on the top six, and with the fourth-fastest lap time of the day he was looking a threat for a podium place. The driver finishing off the grid for the final was karting veteran Robin Kyle, who’d used every ounce of his experience to see off some of the more rash competitors and secure a solid fourth place on the grid. The race was now set up for a tense finale. Hughes would lead off from Campbell as, although they had
amassed the same number of points, he was granted pole on account of his faster lap time. Douglas was now down in third ahead of Kyle, Nicolet and McAudrey. An edgy but fast final got underway with all drivers keeping their positions off the grid. Campbell and Hughes fought for the first couple of laps before Hughes broke free and started to build up a lead. This pushed Campbell into the reach of Douglas who, after sitting an inch off his back bumper for the majority of the race, finally made a move and took second place. That would prove to be the only overtaking manoeuvre of the final, as despite setting a fastest lap of 21.30s, a full three tenths clear of anyone else,
Douglas could not catch Hughes who took the chequered flag. This guaranteed a University of Edinburgh one, two, three. Behind them Kyle, Nicolet and McAudrey had a close battle but were not quite able to make a move. The win for Hughes was well deserved and also his first in the championship. However it was not enough to lift him to the top of the championship leaderboard, which Nicolet now leads with Hyvonen and Makela hot on his heels. Whether he can maintain that lead through the rest of the season remains to be seen. With the next round in November the pressure will be mounting.
A swing and a miss?
Michael Mawdsley discusses the decision to add golf and rugby to the Olympic roster
I
t’s going to be out with the old and in with the new come 2016, when South America will be granted the first opportunity to have the Olympics on its own soil. After 120 years, Rio de Janeiro has been awarded the games. However the choice of location is not the only new element of the 2016 Olympics. Following the IOC’s decision to raise the number of sports from 26 to 28, both golf and rugby, following almost a century without their involvement, have been returned to the Olympics. The question is, despite both sports’ prominent international status in recent years, are they really going to be good additions to the Games? The issues with golf as an Olympic sport are quite tangible and provide a strong background for the case against its involvement in 2016. The major issue as any sofa sports fan will appreciate is the length of time it will take for a game of golf to be completed. The average game of golf is roughly between three and four hours long, including the time spent waiting around while your opponents take their shot, searching for balls and waiting for the green to clear up ahead. A practical example already in existence to support such a claim
is perhaps the marathon, a far more historically significant Olympic sport. During the event your average individual will not sit down and watch the marathon for its duration. Instead one will resort to flicking round the channels and tracking back only to check the progress of the race’s front-runners, rather than devoting themselves to the hours of television coverage. Who is to say that golf will not be exactly the same? The opposite is true for rugby 7s however. Arguably one of the most riveting sports of the past 30 years, the frantic and attractive shortened form of the game has brought excitement to fans in ever plentiful quantities. It’s establishment in the Commonwealth Games in 1998, 2002 and 2006 has shown the success of the competition. The 50,000 turn-out for the last day of the competition at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne proved it to be a crowdpleaser, which is undeniably important for the Olympics. A critique of both golf and rugby is that both already have numerous competitions. This leads to the question of whether the sports are acting upon greed or on a genuine interest for the Olympics. In golf, throughout the entire year, we have the PGA,
US Open, Open and the Presidents Cup whilst in rugby there is the Tri Nations, 6 Nations, World Cup and the Magners League to name but a few. Do these sports, which already have such a significant and successful international framework, need to further substantiate their presence on the world? There is certainly ground for debate here. The profile of both sports is undoubtedly rising in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, therefore justifying an increased importance. Through the prominence of 7s rugby has grown in distant nations, far away from the playing fields of British grammar schools. 120,000 people witnessed the Hong Kong 7s in 2005, while the 2005 FIRA League allowed nations such as Lithuania and Germany to compete, a fact which can only bring further success and expansion to the game. Golf has had a fresh start in Asia with Y.E. Yang winning the US Open this year, defeating Europe and America's top golfers in the process. Furthermore, five new golf courses have recently been built in the Kashmir Valley between Pakistan and India. In fairness to both golf and rugby 7s they probably grant a greater opportunity for smaller countries
to achieve success, an aspect of the Olympics long dead with the rise of the proverbial Chinese 'Red Army' and American dominance. There is no arguing the fact that for all our national pride and sporting loyalties, nothing inspires people more with regards to the Olympics than a victory for the underdog. Take the story of the Iraq football team in Athens in 2004 as they came from the ruins of the war and, having trained on pitches with shell-craters, beat Portugal. With rugby and golf there is such a diversity in the number of teams and players who could effectively compete and challenge for medals. Such an opportunity for the 'Olympic dream' could only be positive, both for the system and spectators. While the return of both sports to the Olympics looks set to provide a diverse change of scenery, the truth remains that the resulting effects will be controversial. Whilst it is undeniable that both sports will bring excitement and development to the Games, the hidden dangers and long-standing issues will perhaps not provide the IOC with the successful new direction they were looking for. Perhaps there is a success story in there somewhere. For the sake of the Olympics, let’s hope there is.
Injury Time takes A look at the world of sport
To go, or not to go? AS THE draw for the qualifying stages of the 2010 World Cup were made in 2008, there was reason to be cheerful for England fans. There seemed to be little standing in their way as they sought to put the embarrassment of failing to qualify for Euro 2008 behind them. With Fabio Capello at the helm, their path to the finals proved to be rather straightforward. Scotland found themselves looking at a favourable draw; the chance to make it to South Africa 2010 was there for the taking. Netherlands would of course pip them to first spot, but a play-off spot was within reach. Wales were always going to find it hard and getting drawn with Germany and Russia in their group, qualification seemed an unlikely dream. Yet, the same could be said for Northern Ireland, a small country with little chance of progress. However only a poor finish to their campaign meant that they missed out on the play-offs. For the Republic of Ireland the play-offs were definitely a target. Winning the group would be a challenge with Italy among the opponents. Yet, with a world-class manager in the name of Giovanni Trapattoni, anything was possible. However, although they pushed Italy all the way, they did eventually fail to overcome that rather large obstacle to claim an automatic spot in the draw for the World Cup. Unfortunately for them, other 'big' teams were struggling against socalled 'lesser' nations. France and Portugal both failed to hit the top spot and even Germany at times looked doomed to a one-on-one match up in November. How could we ever have a tournament without some of its so-called main players? Evidentially I was not the only one to jump to such a conclusion as Sepp Blatter announced that the play-off games would be drawn on a seeded basis leaving Ireland, once again, in a bit of a pickle. This new addition now means that Ireland must now face former world and European champions France as they bid to reach South Africa next summer. Surely the fact that these teams have all finished in second place means they are all equal and so deserve no preferential treatment off the pitch for losing on the pitch? Yet, Sepp feels differently. One is not denying that Irish fans are likely to be feeling similar emotions to what they felt in the summer, eagerly anticipating the chance to see off the French. However surely they should have earned the right to have just as much chance of playing Bosnia as they do of facing France? Blatter feels otherwise. But then again he is the man who wanted women to wear tighter shorts, so clearly he has a sensible mind when it comes to the game's big issues.
Ed Senior
Sport studentnewspaper.org Tuesday October 27 2009
Should rugby and golf have been included in the Olympics?
27
Michael Mawdsley debates the issue P
Edinburgh stun champions
Joanna Sweeney reports as Edinburgh snatch victory with a last gasp goal against Loughborough Women's Lacrosse Premier Women's North University of Edinburgh Loughborough
11 10
EDINBURGH'S LACROSSE women recorded an impressive victory over reigning champions Loughborough last week. After losing to Birmingham in the opening match of the season, Edinburgh were determined to get back on track. In so doing they inflicted the English side's second consecutive defeat of the campaign. As the match got underway, Loughborough’s attack was strong but Edinburgh’s persistent defence held off the away team’s moves and soon moved the ball to their attack. A great feed into Hannah Preston saw Edinburgh bring the scoreboard to life. Although this goal raised the spirits of the Edinburgh side it only intensified Loughborough’s competitive nature. A quick play from the centre left the Edinburgh defence confused allowing the Loughborough attack to break even. It wasn't long before Edinburgh’s determination in midfield paid off however and Caroline Jones soon had Edinburgh in front again. A high-quality clearance and a quick give-and-go up the pitch then saw Townsend hit the back of the net to increase Edinburgh’s lead. With spirits high Edinburgh’s momentum continued with two further goals in quick succession putting the home side 5-1 up. Loughborough, determined not to let the score line slip away, immediately counteracted with a wellprocessed, patient goal. Not to be deterred however Edinburgh fought back. A high feed from behind goal into Sophie Sweerts saw a difficult ball placed effortlessly into the back of the net. As the game started to swing from one end to the other a swift goal from the visitors reduced their arrears to 6-3. Edinburgh were quick to re-establish their lead however and defender Rhiannon Carr moved the ball well before scoring a tidy goal to put Edinburgh 7-3 up. With only one minute to go until half time, Edinburgh increased their lead as a great assist from Sophie Rajska allowed Caroline Jones to catch the Loughborough goalkeeper off guard, making the score 8-3 at the whistle. It was clear from their attitude that Loughborough were going to come out fighting in the second half.
Edinburgh on the other hand looked slightly complacent. This was reflected in the opening minutes of the second half as Loughborough, going from strength to strength, scored two quick goals. A difficult call from the umpires resulted in a penalty to Loughborough giving them an easy goal. As the score line rocketed up to 8-6 within the opening minutes of the second half it was clear Loughborough were beginning to dominate. Edinburgh earned themselves a little breathing space as Caroline Jones scored her hat-trick to take the score to 9-6
Loughborough continued to dominate in attack however and Edinburgh’s goalie Jo Roele came into her own, especially when saving two shots in a row. It proved to be third time lucky for Loughborough as the attack gradually wore down the defence making it 9-7. With Loughborough dominating the groundballs and maintaining possession, the outcome was far from certain. Another goal from Loughborough saw the score line narrow to 9-8. With the score excruciatingly close tensions started to rise. Play became scrappy and dangerous resulting in a
whole team warning being issued to both sides. Following this warning Loughborough were the first to commit an offense resulting in a yellow card. Edinburgh, determined to profit from the two minute, man-up advantage, used careful passing around the fan. Natasha Barr, another of the Edinburgh defence, scored her first BUCS goal giving Edinburgh slightly more breathing space. This widening of the score line merely saw Edinburgh’s concentration slip once again allowing an excellent goal from the away side. The Loughborough team continued to
IN THE THICK OF THE ACTION: Edinburgh's women battle to a hard earned victory over reigning champions Loughborough
pound the Edinburgh defence, scoring an equaliser with four minutes left on the clock. As both teams continued to fight for the ball the standard of play deteriorated and with both teams calling for fouls the umpires were tested. Edinburgh managed to keep their heads for the final minute with an excellent show of teamwork allowing Townsend to score the winning goal which was greeted with more than a sigh of relief. With the reigning champions beaten the promising Edinburgh side look forward to playing Durham at home on Wednesday.