The Cambridge Student

The

Cambridge

1 February 2018 Vol. 19 Lent Issue 2

www.tcs.cam.ac.uk

Trinity Hall June event faces cancellation Caithlin Ng

T

he Trinity Hall June Event committee has announced that the event is at risk of being cancelled if 390 tickets are not sold in the next ten days. This decision was made by the college, and it is thought that this is a result of poor ticket sales for last year’s June Event. The June Event committee announced this decision on Facebook, with the post stating: “Tit Hall’s June Event is in Crisis. We’ve planned an event so bold that unless we hit our ticket target by the Fifth of February College will plug the plug.”

“They said it couldn’t be done. Don’t let us down.”

This year’s June Event theme is Solstice, which previously drew ire from a student claiming it was an appropriation of her Wiccan religion.

On Monday, the student took to Facebook to condemn the June Event theme of Solstice, arguing that it was “gross” to use “a religious holiday as a theme”.The first, a post on 22 January by, a Wiccan student, condemned Trinity Hall’s June Event theme of Solstice, arguing that it was “gross” to use “a religious holiday as a theme” and that Trinity Hall were “not even having [the Solstice-themed event] on the right day”.

Student

More colleges than ever fly LGBT flag

Sophie Dickinson

M

ore colleges than ever are flying the LGBT flag for LGBT History Month this February. Only four colleges are still not participating: Trinity, Trinity Hall, St John’s and Clare Hall will not be flying the flag. Fitzwilliam, Jesus, and St Edmunds have not flown the flag in previous years, however are now participating.

Queens are displaying the flag from the Mathematical Bridge rather than their main flagpole.

14 colleges flew the flag at some point last year, although Gonville and Cauis only participated on the last day of History Month. Last year a specific flag-flying committee was set up at Jesus, with the aim of preventing flags other than the Royal Standard and the college flag from being flown.

Emmanuel College was the first college to fly the transgender flag last November, to mark Transgender Awareness Week. At the time, ECSU JCR President Katie Nelson said ““It was paramount for me that visibility actions were not just directed towards LGB people, and that the T was not forgotten” CUSU LGBT President Ali Hyde commented that “Flying the flag is important: it is a symbol of colleges both showing their support and solidarity with their lgbt+ students and staff, and their dedication to the welfare of those communities”.

Trinity Hall’s inThenet and JCR websites are also facing scrunity following complaints on Facebook about their information on Superhall menus. Commenting on Humphrey’s post, one student sent a screenshotted image of a Trinity Hall website’s Superhall information, which says: “The menu is themed, and ranges from the classics of Italian and French, to the more exotic and unusual tastes of the Orient and beyond.”

In a statement to TCS regarding the June Event theme, Humphrey said: “I’m mostly upset that not only is a religious festival that thousands of people celebrate being made into an excuse for drunkenness, but the religious site at which pagans celebrate the solstice is even being used in their publicity with apparently no thought given to how insensitive that might be...I know that my religion isn’t a persecuted one..but it’s still faintlyridiculous.

Especially since when I talk about my religion, and my belief in witchcraft, people tend to think I’m either joking or mental. But it’s fine to use the images and traditions that make up that belief as a form of entertainment.”

The President of the June Event, Julia Davies, issued a statement two days later: “The Trinity Hall continued on p.7

ANDREW DUNN

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1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

News

Editorial: change is a process that cannot be taken lightly

p3-8 News & Investigations P Science p9

Juliette Bretan and Molly Moss Editors-in-Chief

Features p10-13

The Thursday Magazine

pull out

Interviews p14-15

Comment p16-18

Sport p19-20 The Cambridge Student takes complaints about editorial content seriously. We are committed to abiding by the Independent Press Standards Organisation rules and the Editors’ Code of Practice enforced by IPSO, and by the stipulations of our constitution. Requests for corrections or clarifications should be sent by email to editor@tcs.cam.ac.uk or by post to The Editor, The Cambridge Student, Cambridge University Students’ Union, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1RX. Letters to the Editor may be published.

This week marks the start of LGBT History Month, and more colleges than ever are flying the LGBT flag.

There are changes too in attitudes towards women, with the Time’s Up movement campaign recently.

But we, as female journalists at the beginning of our adult career, have seen even in our short professional lives how measures towards furthering equality often fall short of complete success.

In the news recently, a story concerning women being kept behind their male colleagues covering Mike Pence’s visit to the Western Wall escalated into a comment on inqualities between journalists. Many female reporters took to Twitter to discuss receiving letters with male titles preceding their surnames (an experienced; others claimed visiting professionals had assumed they were secretaries to their male colleagues.

Of course, this is not to say that we, as Editors of The Cambridge Student, suffer in similar ways - inequality is, after all, a nuanced matter - but even if such matters do not impact you, that does not mean they should be ignored.

Changing the world is about changing it for everyone, both in and outside the bubble.

In this edition TCS has run an investigation into college rents in light of the ‘Cut the Rent’ campaign, illuminating disparities between different colleges and encouraging them to join the campaign.

Nevertheless, the change that has been seen this week cannot be taken lightly.

This edition is jam-packed with gorgeous insights and experiences, in a rich celebration of the diversity we, as a paper, pride ourselves on.

But it can be easy in Cambridge to forget that there are still vast schisms of inequality across all sectors of life in the ‘real world’, regardless of the myriad of beauties we can celebrate here.

We hope you are inspired to act by what is on display in the following pages - not just in your life today - but in every part of the world you will go on to touch.

We are always keen to hear your voices and ideas, so contact us at any time during term.

Editors-in-Chief Juliette Bretan & Molly Moss

Comment Editors Josephine Skorupski & Iván Merker

Lifestyle Editor Holly MacAskill

Deputy Editors Will Bennett & Caithlin Ng

Interviews Editor Munira Rajkotwalla

Sex & Relationships Editors Nadia Dahrup Razali & Celia Morris

Senior News Editor Eddie Spence

Theatre Editor Alex Sorgo

Creative Writing Editor Tasha May

Science Editor Nol Swaddiwudhipong

Books Editor Ellen Birch

Features Editor Jane O’Connor

Fashion Editor Lydia Karayianni

erhaps unsurprisingly for an institution that prides itself on archaic traditions, change here can be a slow and, at times, arduous process.

As ever, national media have been quick to pick up on any suggestion of change.

Following a complaint by one of Christ’s student, who is Wiccan, condemning Trinity Hall’s June Event theme of Solstice as a “gross” misuse of “a religious holiday as a theme”, right-wing media were quick to scandalise a story about a presitious university and cultural appropriation.

The Telegraph ran the headline ‘Cambridge May Ball accused by pagan student of belittling her religion’ using her picture with the caption ‘LGBT officer at Christ’s’.

Following this, the student has become the target of intense national scrutiny Not all change comes with national media coverage, but that doesn’t make it any less important.

Staff Illustrators Emil Sands & Kitya Mark

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The Cambridge Student • 1 February 2018

News

Fourteen dates of staff strikes ahead Beatrice McCartney and Sophie Laura Weymes-McElderry

U

niversity and College Union (UCU), the further and higher education workers’ union, has announced a further series of strikes to take place next month and in March.

The 14 strikes are scheduled to take place over a four-week period, beginning with a five-day walkout around a weekend.

61 universities will see these strikes

take place, as lecturers, researchers and admin staff protest changes to their pension contributions which they say will leave them almost £10,000 worse off.

The move to strike follows the disintegration of talks between UCU and the employers’ representative Universities UK (UUK) to transform the scheme.

University of Cambridge staff will join with members of other Russell

Group universities, such as Oxford, Manchester, Exeter, and University College London. In a recent strike ballot, 88% of members were in favour of striking, with 93% backing action short of a strike.

The new reforms wills peg pension income to stock market fluctuations, and proposes to do away with a minimum level of pension income.

Modelling has shown this is likely to cause a typical lecturer to lose

TL4457

£200,000 in retirement.

According to the UCU press release, the first walkout will take place over the 22nd and 23rd of February, followed by three days the following week (26-28 February).

It will then escalate to a four-day walkout between the 5th and 8th of March. Strike action ends with the five-day walkout the following week (12-16 March).

Sally Hunt, the UCU general secretary, commented: ‘Staff who have delivered the international excellence universities boast of are understandably angry at efforts to slash their pensions.

They feel let down by vicechancellors who seem to care more about defending their own pay and perks then the rights of their staff.’

This magnitude of strike action has not been seen before on UK campuses.

Seven more universities, which failed to meet the government’s new 50% turnout requirement for strike action to be allowed, will be balloted again.

During last Monday’s CUSU Council, a vote was held to determine support for the University and College Union (UCU) in strike action against proposed changes to pension schemes for academics. Daniel DavisonVecchione, a PhD student, presented the motion to CUSU Council. He asked them to vote ‘in the name of staff-student solidarity’ and reminding them that we ‘owe it to the teachers, administrators, and workers that keep

our university running’.

He acknowledged the negative impact this could have on student learning, and stating he was “not going to pretend [he had] an immediate concrete solution for how it can be made up in term”.

However, he also argued any detriment would be “more than made up for in our interest to preserve the good functioning and purpose of the education sector in the long term”.

CUSU President Daisy Eyre also recognised the significance of any strike action, recalling a conversation with Martha Krish, CUSU Education Officer, in which they had acknowledged “student-staff solidarity is a very important thing”.

The motion was carried by a significant majority after 29 voted in favour, only one against and three abstained.

Commenting on the upcoming strikes, a spokesperson for Universities UK said: “Changes to USS pensions have been agreed by the JNC. That decision is a necessary step, made in the best interests of university staff, to put USS on a sustainable footing for the long-term.”

The UCU website claims: “The union said it hoped that the overwhelming mandate for strike action would focus universities’ minds and that more vicechancellors would publicly pressure UUK to agree a deal.

UCU said it was happy for talks to be extended in an attempt to resolve the issue without strike action.”

NUS President accused of bullying NUS Women’s Campaign condemns Christ College for celebrating alumnus palaeontologist officers in vitriolic social media spat Sophie Laura Weymes-McElderry

T

he National Union of Students (NUS) is once again marred by scandal after leader Shakira Martin was vilified for comparing criticism to an abusive relationship, provoking allegations against Martin for bullying other NUS officers.

The tweet by Mark Crawford, the UCL Student Union’s postgraduate officer, called Martin a ‘scab’ for her apparent failure to oppose gentrification and told her to ‘get over herself ’. The tweet, which has since been deleted, was then screenshotted

by Martin and posted to Facebook, along with her response, which said: ‘I feel like im back in a domestic abuses realationship’. [sic] Hareem Ghani, the NUS Women’s

The tweet called Martin a ‘scab’

Officer, announced she would be filing a complaint to the NUS based on her ‘distasteful’ comparison and ‘deeply dangerous behaviour.’ She later added: ‘I will no longer be going into NUS HQ until the complaint is concluded.’

Amelia Horgan, the Postgraduate Officer for the NUS, tweeted that ‘this comparison is not only very messed up but also silences people with serious political problems with the NUS president.’

The opinions of NUS Presidents were also criticised last year, when then-President Malia Bouattia was accused of anti-semitism for calling her former university, Birmingham, a ‘Zionist outpost’, leading to numerous Students’ Unions’ disaffiliation from the NUS. Martin is now under investigation after these accusations.

Beatrice McCartney

C

USU Women’s Campaign has criticised praise by Christ’s College for Matthew Baron, who has been placed on Forbes Magazine’s “30 under 30” in Europe list, and has called for him to be removed from this list.

Baron, a PhD student in earth science at Christ’s, was found not guilty in September 2017 of assaulting Sophia Cooke during an argument in which she admitted that she had cheated on him. He was not convicted of any charges at his trial, which concluded in him paying £300 as a discharge for damaging a car stereo, according to the magistrates, “under provocation”. All accusations of abuse against him were dismissed or have been fully acquitted.

Baron was found not guilty of assault

Baron has recently been placed on Forbes’ list for his research into palaeontology, overturning a 130-year-old theory and landing him a place on the Science and Healthcare section of the list. Christ’s College has congratulated Baron for making the Forbes list in a tweet, an action which has drawn condemnation from the Women’s Campaign.

CUSU Women’s Campaign tweeted in response, “Shame on Christ’s for praising the work of a student convicted of criminal damage and accused of domestic violence.” They also reiterated that they stand with all those who experience abuse and ‘condemn the lack of repercussions for intimate partner violence’. Baron has contacted TCS correcting the tweet; he was not convicted of criminal damage.

4

1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

Investigations

Revealed: College rents - a sc

‘Cut The Rent’ in Cambridge: the story so far Eddie Spence & Sophie Laura Weymes-McElderry In late November, a Murray Edwards College student launched a ‘Cut the Rent’ petition, the first in a spate of studentlaunched petitions asking colleges to cut accommodation costs.

Despite gaining over a hundred signatures in the space of 48 hours, the College JCR refused to endorse it, leading to the disappointment of many students who felt it disagreed with the College’s strong focus on accessibility for ‘young women from all backgrounds’.

Magdalene and Robinson College students have also since released similar petitions, asking for 20% cuts in rents and in some cases the abolition of extra overhead and wifi costs.

Leila Sackur, one of the JCR Ents Officers at Murray Edwards, commented: ‘It’s people from low-income families and working-class backgrounds who we hurt the most when we prioritise our relationship with College over our duty to stand up for marginalised students.

With the overwhelming student support and engagement we’ve received in the last two days alone, the campaign will continue

in spite of this setback.’

The current campaigns have focused on the high level of dissatisfaction amongst students over the discrepancy between charges and living standards.

According to the Big Cambridge Survey 2016, 60% of Robinson students and 57% of Murray Edwards students were ‘dissatisfied with the value for money’, whilst 24% of Magdalene students felt they were represented in accommodation matters.

Robinson College was criticised for calling their £1330 termly rents as ‘value’.

The Magdalene campaign has focused on excessive Kitchen Fixed Charge costs, currently £190 per term, which has increased ‘well above inflation’ according to Angus Satow, a student at the college, who likened the handing out of excessive fines to a ‘regime’.

Multiple students have found that they have been fined £150 per wall for putting up posters or photos.

James Hedge, President of the Robinson College Students Association (RCSA), added that: ‘only four out of the 275 rooms in the main college building are cheaper than £1615 per term.

In light of this, the RCSA will do everything it can to support the ‘Cut the Rent’ campaign.’

CMGLEE

Analysis: Living up the hill - b Eddie Spence Senior News Editor Although national media outlets have a tendency to paint Cambridge students as a homogenous beige mass of privilege, the real picture is more complex. Life at one college can be entirely different from the next, due to differences in facilities, location and policy. Nowhere is this more evident than in the huge range in weekly rents available.

At the lower end of the scale, £70 a week is enough to stay at Peterhouse and Trinity Hall, while Girtonians must shell out £160 for even the worst rooms. Such a huge spread of minimum rents creates significant disparities in a less well off student’s ability to enjoy Cambridge life, especially given that many are not aware of the price of accomodation when applying.

This by and large has been the focus of Cut the Rent, which so far has only campaigned at Murray Edwards, Robinson and Magdalene. While for the former two, minimum rates are significantly above average, Magdalene students can pay around £103 each week for the cheapest room - hardly an outlier when 18 other

Many of the distant colleges have high rents

colleges face minimum rents of £100+ a week. Whether the movement will spread to these colleges remains to be seen.

Interestingly, many of the distant colleges have fairly high rents in comparison to the more central ones.

Pembroke, Trinity, St Catherine’s, Clare and Sidney Sussex students can all rent for below £90 a week, while as discussed Girton and Medwards pay high rates.

This suggests land value has very little bearing on the cost of rent - which instead depends largely on a College’s need to extract money from students and the cost of maintenance and refurbishment.

Both of these considerations go a long way in explaining the high rates for newer colleges like Robinson.

Also interesting to consider is the difference between the maximum and minimum rents at each college. The cheapest room at Downing costs £116 per week, which while not exactly low, is dwarfed by £198 rent on its most expensive room. Other offenders in

5

The Cambridge Student • 1 February 2018

Investigations

chism across Cambridge

JCR Officers share their thoughts on college rent figures TCS asked college JCR Officers to comment on whether their college rents have hidden charges, or costs separate to the rent. Here are their reponses.

be prepared to pay a larger bill

a rule our rent doesn’t cover any vacations and we have to move all of our stuff out every time we leave.

College are quite accommodating with not charging people who might need to Dan Edwards, Girton Accommodation stay for extenuating circumstances though, and they’re very good at letting us stay for Officer Girton is unique in having a flat rate for free over Easter if we apply to them for a rent. While some students like this, we vacation residence study grant. recognise that others feel it doesn’t suit Edward Parker Humphreys, Jesus their needs.

The system is open to revision. The JCR President Whilst the accommodation at Jesus is currently in negotiations with college is generally of a high standard, as JCSU over proposed rent increases.

The JCR is striving to ensure that President I am keen to ensure that rents Girtonians are paying rents that are both continue to remain affordable for students. realistic and affordable in the short and I will resist any dramatic increases in the level at which rents are set and and will long term lobby for reductions in other charges such as the Kitchen Fixed Charge.

Bec Robinson, Peterhouse President We have a kitchen fixed charge of £184, Harry Gibbins, Selywn President a minimum spend in hall of £98 and an The college also has a facilities charge, electricity bill of around £30 each term.

70 is one of the lower options - most are which currently stands at £180 per term a bit more than that but the rent prices for students living in college and £48 per here are definitely super reasonable and term for students living out of college.

Although rents have risen over recent priced differently per room, no bands or anything, so we get a lot of choice - more years, our accommodation is generally of a high standard and students get good than most colleges.

The rent system generally seems to suit value for money. students but the main downside is that as

Girton rent increases this area include Queens, with an £82 maximum-minimum disparity, and Churchill, where rents start at £98.40 but stretch all the way to £179.40.

Such disparities raise questions as to whether colleges are perpetuating preexisting economic inequalities between students by charging hugely variable rents.

Admittedly the higher rents likely subsidise lower rents, making university more affordable for students from poorer backgrounds.

The alternative is a having a flat rent like Girton, which removes inequality but, as discussed, massively raises minimum rent.

Of course these conclusions should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Our figures only give the maximum and minimum rents available, as opposed to the mean rent, which gives better a representation of the cost of accomodation at each college.

This is largely because these figures are not readily provided by colleges.

Given the significance of rent to a prospective student’s ability to afford

These figures are not readily provided by colleges

Cambridge, this is especially surprising, however might be explained by the university’s desire to avoid self segregation of students by familial wealth.

Ultimately these figures show that the often repeated idea that your choice of college won’t affect your Cambridge experience is patently false.

Given the huge proportion of the maintenance loan taken up by rent these disparities make a huge difference to a students disposable income.

While some colleges go a long way in providing a range of prices to suit students, a disturbingly large number burden their members with high rents.

Given the incredible level of demand for accomodation in Cambridge, driven by the city’s booming technological and research industries, the private market is simply not an option for most undergraduates.

While Cut the Rent aims to decrease prices across the board, ultimately what is needed is both choice in price and uniformity across colleges.

6

1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

College Watch

Images: Jessica McHugh

Pembroke

St John’s

Lucy Cav

The Pembroke College Green Week is to kick off with a four-course vegan formal extravaganza.

The Facebook event description states the event will be complete with ‘decorations and amazing company’.

The formal is to be followed by a screening of ‘Cowspiracy’, a 2014 documentary looking at the effect of cattle on the environment.

The event also permits diners to bring in wine without paying corkage.

Pembroke College, which last year won Gold in the university-wide Green Impact environmental accreditation scheme, is not shy of progress in the name of the environment.

It is currently trialling Meat-free Mondays, in response to an increasing number of vegetarian and vegan students who are dissatisfied with the current food options.

The scheme did originally face some criticism, being compared to ‘Stalinism’, but Pembroke Food Officer, George Lowe, commented that ‘there will be ample opportunity for discussion as the trial moves forward.’

Sophie Laura Weymes-McElderry

Internationally acclaimed Irish poet Paul Muldoon visited St John’s College on Friday 26 January to give a reading of a selection of his work.

The free event, which took place on Friday afternoon at the Old Divinity School, was highly anticipated on social media.

A former professor of English at the University of Cambridge, Paul Muldoon is the author of twelve major collections of poetry, including One Thousand Things Worth Knowing (2015), Maggot (2010), Horse Latitudes(2006), and Moy Sand and Gravel (2002).

His poetry has been translated into over twenty languages.

He won the 1994 T.S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2003.

The Times Literary Supplement described him as ‘the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War’.

He has also served as President of the Poetry Society.

Lucy Cavendish alumna Cherish Watton has received the first Royal Historical Society’s Undergraduate Public History Prize for her work on the Women’s Land Army (WLA) and Women’s Timber Corps (WTC). Watton, who is now a MPhil student at Churchill, completed her prize-winning project while an undergraduate at the College.

The prize is supported by the Institute for Historical Research and the Historical Association, and is awarded in recognition of “creative and innovative ways to the interpretation and exploration of the past in the present”, according to Lucy Cavendish’s website. The project follows the history of the WLA website, which began as an Extended Project Qualification at Dereham Sixth Form College, and is now a national source of information on the WLA and WTC. College President Jackie Ashley said, “Many congratulations to Cherish for this well-deserved Prize, which comes hot on the hells of her First Class degree last year.”

Sophie Laura Weymes-McElderry

Clare

On Tuesday night Clare College alumnus, Sir David Attenborough, scooped up the Special Impact Award for his BBC show, Blue Planet II. At the National Television Awards held at the O2 Arena in London, Attenborough was given a standing ovation when he collected his award.

Attenborough gushingly addressed his audience on receiving the award, “It was my joy and privilege to provide the words for that story.” He said of his team, “I know they would all join me in saying all we were trying to do was raise an issue that is of great importance to, not only this country, but worldwide, what we’re doing to our planet”.

Other winners included Ant and Dec who were awarded best presenter for the 17th consecutive year.

At the end of his speech, having declared that he hoped to “ stir the consciousness of people around the world”, he begged his audience to protect the “beautiful world”.

Caithlin Ng Will Bennett

7

The Cambridge Student • 1 February 2018

Cambridge may adopt American grading system

Will Bennett Deputy Editor

C

ambridge could be set to discard the current grade system in favour of an American style Grade Point Average.

The proposition is the result of the widespread concern of UK academics with the vast grade inflation students have experienced in the last twentyfive years.

This comes after Lord Willetts, the former universities minister, called for a national test of the GPA system, fearing that the system in the UK has become obsolete. The North American system has already been trialled in more than 20 universities in the UK. Universities UK announced that the

The review approved of college initiatives to reduce stress

finding of a report last year showed that 27 percent of universities were already considering the switch.

Employers are finding it increasingly difficult to choose between graduates across the country, as three quarters are now graduating with a 2:1 or first. UNder the US system., students graduate with a mark between 0 and 4, expressed to three significant figures.

This mark differentiates students more and is a result of constant testing over the course of a degree.

The UK currently places its emphasis on modules in a student’s final year.

Professor Graham Virgo, pro-Vice Chancellor at Cambridge has labelled the current system a “blunt tool”.

He also suggested that the input

of the Office for Students would be necessary to effect real change.

He clarified that the possibility of a “hybrid system” is being explored rather than “just ditching the traditional”.

GPA or not, The Telegraph reported that the OfS is looking into the option of creating “sector agreed standards” for the distribution of degrees.

Professor Virgo made headlines recently for defending the University from accusations of artificial grade inflation.

He commented that “we do not necessarily need to say that grade inflation is a bad thing. We have analysed it and the evidence is that students are working harder.”

News NEWS BULLETIN Former Professor to run for Armenian Presidency

Armen Sarkissian, a former maths professor at Cambridge, will campaign under the Republic Party of Armenia as a presidential candidate, outgoing President Serzh Sargsyan announced in a statement.

In 1982 Sarkissian became a Visiting Research Fellow and later on a professor at Cambridge. Sarkissian was Armenia’s Prime Minister from November 1996 to March 1997, but in the position of President, he would perform ceremonial roles. The current Armenia President, Serzh Sargsyan proposed for Sarkissian, current ambassador to Britain, to run in the March election. This move has been criticised as an attempt for Sargsyan to retain power after constitutional amendments in 2015 determined that the Prime Minister and Parliament would take on more responsibilities.

Facebook campaign to bring Shakira to Cambridge

A Facebook campaign has been started to get famed singer Shakira to perform in Cambridge on her upcoming tour. The description of the event page states: “We want mega-star Shakira to come to Cambridge on her tour. Help us make this event go viral to catch her attention.”

It then calls for Facebook users to like and share the page with those who also “want to hear Hips Don’t Lie live in our fair city”. It is unclear from the information on the page whether the campaign is student-organised.

Shakira recently announced that she will be performing in London’s O2 Arena on 11 June as part of her upcoming El Dorado World Tour.

It is set to be the only UK venue of her tour, which is in support of her latest album release.

Sidney announce Shakesperean June Event theme HELPFULLGUY99

Giulio Regeni killed for researching Egyptian trade unions, Rome prosecutor announces Eddie Spence

O

Senior News Editor

n the second anniversary of Giulio Regeni’s disappearance, Italy’s leading newspapers have published an article

by Rome’s chief prosectutor Giuseppe Pignatone, confirming Regeni’s death was motivated by his research into Egyptian trade unions.

Summarising the results of a joint Italian-Egyptian investigation, Giuseppe also confirmed Giulio was the target of state surveillance, but stopped short of accusing the Egyptian state of involvement in his murder.

Regeni, who was in Egypt to research for his Cambridge doctorate, was kidnapped and murdered in Cairo two years ago. His body showed signs

of torture, leading to accusations of state involvement in his death. No arrests have yet been made for the Italian’s murder.

“The motive can be easily traced to Giulio’s research activities during his months in Cairo,” Pignatone wrote, in his first public discussion of the graduate’s death. What also has become clear is that Giulio had for months attracted the attention of Egypt’s state apparatus, which continued in an increasingly pressing way until Jan 25.”

The news came on the same day a candlelit vigil was held in Cambridge for Regeni, with the Facebook event titled ‘Truth for Giulio.’

“The motive can easily be traced to Giulio’s research”

Organised by the Cambridge branch of Amnesty International, a human rights group, the event called on the Egyptian government to “prosecute those responsible for Giulio’s death” and aimed to show “solidarity for all those Egyptians who have been victims of torture and forced disappearance, and to that Giulio will never be forgotten.”

The Egyptian government still deny involvement with the Regeni’s death. Three weeks ago Giulio’s supervisor Dr Abdelrahman had her computer and cell phone seized by Italian prosectutors. Cambridge deny any link between Abdelrahman and Regeni’s murder.

Sidney Sussex launched their June Event on Sunday night with a ‘Back to School’ themed night at Fez. The theme will be ‘Reverie’, inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream - the organisers are hoping to create their “very own waking dream”.

This is the second annual June Event at Sidney, who will be hosting further June Events until the Master’s Garden is available again in 2020 after renovations.

The event will be held on the Summer Solstice with the “unforgettable atmosphere of a May Ball” but a more “intimate setting”. There will be live music across three stages from Cambridge’s best, with a headliner to be announced at a later date. The event will go on 90 minutes longer than last year with an extra 200 tickets going on sale.

Hawking to take Hunt to court over ‘backdoor privatisation’ Together with leading doctors, Stephen Hawking has been granted a full judicial review of Hunt’s plans to introduce Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs).

Mr Hunt’s plan is for non-NHS organisations to have the ability to win contracts to offer care packages. This would alleviate the strain on hospitals this winter.

Hawking’s group are concerned that the ACOs would be able to allocate NHS money and accountability would fall under commercial contracts rather than what Parliament has decreed.

8

1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

News

Column: Student poverty is a barrier to academic success In the first of a three-part series on student poverty, columnist Rebecca Heath analyses the impact of undergraduate student poverty on learning experience at Cambridge.

Rebecca Heath

T

he Cambridge Student has uncovered that the poorest Cambridge students are facing significant barriers to academic success.

In its Cambridge Undergraduate Poverty Survey, TCS found that poorer students faced barriers that included money anxiety, being forced to waste time on money-saving activities and struggling with course costs.

Most Cambridge students are unaffected by student poverty. In a survey of Cambridge students from 17 different undergraduate colleges, TCS found that most respondents were comfortable on their student income.

When asked to rank how comfortable they were on a scale from one to ten, where ten was exceptionally comfortable, 60% of respondents voted eight or above.

Most respondents had a student income at least equal to the University of Cambridge’s official living standards estimate for 2017/2018.

These findings are consistent with

CUSU’s 2016/2017 Big Cambridge Survey, which found that most undergraduate students do not believe income has had a negative impact on their University experience.

Thankfully, our data suggests that severe poverty affects a minority of students at the University of Cambridge, with TCS identifying only 3.3% of survey respondents as living in severe poverty.

Severe poverty means that a person cannot afford either regular meals or essentials, such as soap, or both.

But, for those living in severe poverty, the costs are astronomical.

Skipping meals, for example, significantly impairs mental faculties, meaning that students struggle to concentrate and are less productive. Money worries are also a huge distraction from work.

While the vast majority of students are not in severe poverty, our survey has uncovered that limited incomes can still act as a barrier to academic success.

Some Cambridge students are forced to take up part-time jobs to

3.3% are living in severe poverty

fund University living costs.

Nearly a quarter (24.4%) of TCS survey respondents had taken up a part-time job in the past to fund University living costs.

As one survey respondent pointed out, part-time jobs come at the cost of precious revision time during the holidays.

Even during the summer, jobs mean that poorer students miss out on the same opportunities to read up on content and broaden their knowledge as wealthier students.

For example, poorer students could miss out on the opportunity to accept poorly paid, but highly valuable, internships.

Some Cambridge students even have to take a gap year to pay for their University living costs.

Limited incomes also mean less time for study during term time.

In the TCS survey, several students said that time spent cooking, including shopping for ingredients, to cut down on costs, ate up precious working hours.

Large course costs, such as for books and field trips, also increase

Nearly a quarter had taken up a part-time job

pressure on poorer students.

In the 2016/17 Big Cambridge Survey, CUSU reported that 31% of undergraduates found course costs problematic.

Our poverty survey suggests that students at Cambridge do not all have the same opportunity to succeed.

For those living in severe poverty, everyday life is extraordinarily difficult, with students struggling to afford meals and constantly worrying about money.

TCS actively encourages all students living in severe poverty to seek financial support.

Hardship funding is available at a college level.

The Bell, Abbott and Barnes Funds, provided by the University of Cambridge, also supply financial hardship grants to undergraduate students.

Information about all hardship funding can be found online at the University of Cambridge website.

You should not have to struggle alone.

Please seek support.

Trinity Hall cont...

Eddie Spence Senior News Editor June Event is one of the most popular events in May Week.

We are therefore eminently mindful that guests will come from an array of faiths, cultures, socioeconomic and political backgrounds, and will represent myriad beliefs and traditions. Our theme - Solstice (from the Latin ‘solstitium’, which refers to a stopping of the sun’s motion in the sky) - is a celebration of an astronomical phenomenon which has been recognised and celebrated for several millennia across nearly all cultures and continents.

“We recognise the importance of the summer and winter solstice to the

“We invite people of all beliefs”

Wiccan community.

“Our theme is intended to highlight and celebrate the beauty of an astronomical marvel.

“Our predecessors across the world were awed by the beauty of the solstice and, like so many before and since, we share in their wonder and celebration.

“It has never been our intention to appropriate any aspect of Wiccan practice.

“We wish only to acknowledge and celebrate the beauty of the natural world.

“We invite people of all beliefs to experience the wonder of the summer solstice with us.”

TRINITY HALL

1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

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Science

Eye contact with babies synchronises brain activity Nol Swaddiwudhipong Science Editor

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esearchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered that eye contact between infants and adults cause their brain waves to become more synchronised with each other.

These results were recently published in PNAS, with Dr Victoria Leong as the first author.

In their study, the researchers used electroencephalography to monitor brainwaves in infants and adults.

In one experiment, infants were shown video recordings of an adult singing nursery rhymes. 3 types of video recordings were shown – with the adult looking directly at the infant, with the adult’s head turned away but their eyes oriented towards the infant, and with the adult’s head and eyes turned away at an angle.

The researchers found that in the first two scenarios with eye contact, there was better synchronisation between the infant and the adult’s brain activity than in the third scenario.

A second experiment was conducted with infants and adults put together in real life. The adult either faced the infant directly or oriented their head and eyes away at an angle.

Brainwaves in adults and infants were compared across the two different scenarios. As in the first experiment, eye contact caused their brain activity to be more in sync. In addition, the effect went both ways – the adult’s brain activity affected the infant’s, and

Speech and eye contact get our brains to synchronise

vice versa.

These results highlight the important role that eye contact plays in communication, while uncovering an intriguing connection in brain activity between infants and adults when they interact.

At the same time, the study invites many questions about how our brains think as we communicate with one another.

A previous study by Liu and colleagues in 2017, which was referenced by Leong in her paper, looked instead at adult pairs and also found increased coupling of brain activity during communication. In the study, the researchers monitored the brain activity of 15 adults as they listened to audio recordings of stories.

Coupling was observed between listeners and the speaker they were listening to. However, this effect disappeared when the story was told in a language that the listener did not understand.

It appears that both speech and eye contact can get our brains to synchronise with each other. An intriguing question to explore is how each component contributes to this effect. Eye contact is a visual stimulus while speech is auditory. The first stages of their processing are carried out in different parts of the brain.

Are the mechanisms by which they elicit brain activity synchrony different in both cases, or do they converge on a common pathway? These are complex questions that probe deep into our

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Designing contact lenses to monitor sugar levels in diabetics

Nol Swaddiwudhipong Science Editor

In people with diabetes, the blood sugar level becomes abnormally high, which leads to serious health complications.

Monitoring blood sugar levels is important for diabetics to maintain their blood sugar within a safe range.

A team of scientists have overcome numerous challenges to design a contact lens capable of monitoring the level of glucose, a type of sugar.

The lens material is specially designed to be soft enough so as not to cause damage to the eye while still supporting the necessary machinery.

Most of the components are transparent and do not hinder vision.

The lens works by measuring the glucose level in tears as an indirect indicator of blood glucose levels.

As glucose level increases, current flow in the contact lens is affected, causing an LED pixel to turn off past a cut-off point.

This provides an easy way to show when blood glucose is too high.

The results have been published by Park and colleagues in the journal

PIXABAY

understanding of neural function.

Another point of interest is how the brains of babies might respond to a language they do not understand.

While brainwave coupling was not observed in adults when they listen to an unknown language, perhaps babies respond differently during the course of language acquisition.

The idea that brainwave activity may be linked to language and cognitive development has been raised before.

Previous research by Benasich and colleagues published in 2008 has linked increased brain EEG activity in the high frequency gamma range to better language and cognitive abilities in children.

Science Advances.

The scientists have tested the contact lens on a live rabbit and with further experiments to confirm its safety, perhaps it may find its way for human use in the near future.

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Artificially designed helix may reduce toxicity of protein in Alzheimer’s disease

Scientists have constructed helical molecules that are structurally similar to amyloid beta, which are proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease.

In a report published in Science Advances, Guan and colleagues

An avenue for us to learn how we socialise

An easy way to show when blood sugar is too high

The study by Benasich looked at bands of a different frequency from Leong’s study, and the studies do not directly relate to each other.

Nevertheless, such studies tantalise with the possibility that brain waves detected by electroencephalography may be an avenue for us to better understand how we think and communicate.

We are still a long way from figuring out how communication works in our brains. However, by investigating human communication in infants, at its most rudimentary stage, we can perhaps begin to learn what goes on in our brains when we talk to each other. describe how making various tweaks to their artificial helices enables stronger binding to amyloid beta.

Binding amyloid beta prevents them from clumping together, which is thought to contribute to the disease.

In support of this idea, the researchers found that administering these helices reduces the diseasecausing effect of amyloid beta in a worm model of Alzheimer’s.

With further research, these helices may inspire similar designs for drugs.

In the meantime, these artifical helices provide a tool for scientists to investigate what goes on between amyloid beta molecules in Alzheimer’s disease.

Zephyris

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1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

Features

Why my Dyspraxia diagnosis really matters

Speaking out from the m

Ellie Williams

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s a kid, it was joked that I should have an A&E Loyalty card. By the age of 11, I had broken 4 bones, and had semi-permanent scraped knees. I only managed to learn left and right semiproperly because I had a scab on my right hand for 2 months. I was, for all intents and purposes, a ‘clumsy child’.

Previously referred to as, in fact, ‘clumsy child syndrome’, Dyspraxia is a specific learning difficulty that is most commonly understood as a disorder which affects gross and fine motor control.

These difficulties are often accompanied by social and emotional difficulties as well as problems with memory, perception and processing, time management, planning and personal organisation.

Dyspraxia can also affect articulation, speech, and thought, which I like to think explains why I’m so terrible at supervisions.

My Dyspraxia only really became an issue at university. A backdrop of poor mental health, struggles making friends, constantly losing things, missing appointments, and generally living a very chaotic life fed into my internal monologue that I was clumsy, careless and useless.

Luckily, college agreed to pay the £400 for the official diagnostic test, and I now have a long document proving that it’s not my fault I lose my phone 5 times a day.

My diagnosis was so delayed because as a quiet, somewhat geeky child, I did not display many of the key features that may indicate a learning difficulty. I wasn’t disruptive in class, I was in top sets, and I could read and write well.

That said, while my sister could pore over books for hours, I found it far easier to read Harry Potter when listening to the tapes simultaneously. Although I

had a high vocabulary and reading age, my ability to actually read books on my own was limited, and it took me an exhaustingly long time.

There were more signs: my constantlyremarked-upon poor handwriting, inability to colour inside the lines and my frustration at maths which often reduced me to tears.

There was also the inability for permission slips finding their way home; the host of forgotten homework and lost worksheets; and my inevitable lateness to pretty much everything. Most significant and distressing was my inability to read other people’s behaviour, my tendency to repeat myself and jumble my words. The general difficulty of social situations made me feel different and alone.

My clumsiness and disorganisation slowly became a part of my persona, my parents would jokily tell us not to ‘Ellie’ the car door (to hit it on another car), and to do something clumsy or awkward was known affectionately in my group of friends as ‘doing a Williams’.

It sounds cheesy, but my diagnosis was life changing. It was a massive comfort that I was not just ‘useless’ or ‘lazy’, and it gave me the arse kick I needed to work on my flaws. Whenever I messed up, I didn’t resort back to old patterns of self-pity, but instead acknowledged the legitimate difficulty I face and put strategies in place to overcome them.

One of the worst things about Dyspraxia is that it often comes across as incompetence, when in reality I deserved reasonable adjustments that would put me on a level playing field with others.

I’ve sometimes felt like a ‘special snowflake’, who sought out this diagnosis to absolve me of responsibility, and that I didn’t struggle ‘enough’ to be ‘really’

dyspraxic. When speaking to an old friend about it, he said ‘you’re one of the most dyspraxic people I’ve ever met’ – it’s amazing how much comfort this gave me.

Dyspraxia is far less well-known than its close cousin dyslexia, despite around 1 in 10 people suffering from it. The fact that I had 20 years of feeling useless before being diagnosed, a diagnosis I was only able to get because my university paid for the test, is shocking – and I still experience discrimination in the workplace

and in academic settings because of it.

I can’t help but wonder whether they would take other learning difficulties more seriously. Nevertheless, the support from the DRC, the Dyspraxia Foundation, and my college has been invaluable – not least in making it clear that I deserve help.

My experience as a Muslim woman at Cambridge Majida Begum

A

s a visibly Muslim female from a BME, working class background, the stares, subtle Islamophobia and sparkling water in champagne glasses have made me feel more marginalised and more other than ever before.

The slogans of the punting touts are ingrained in my mind because any brown Muslim woman, especially in a group of others that look like her, must be a tourist.

The question “are you a member of this college” is played on loop in my mind every time I walk through the grand older colleges such as St John’s and King’s.

At home, I am told my accent is too different but in my 8-week home, it’s my clothing, ideals, beliefs and dietary

requirements that are too different, and I am constantly judged against Cambridge’s ethnocentrism.

But in hidden corners of this institution are Muslims: praying in the fitting rooms of almost every shop in town, with the hope that the music will quieten and they will not miss their lecture. Smiles and apologies that move every muscle of our faces and tear apart the skin on our lips are made every time we feel we are an inconvenience to anyone.

But this feeling of otherness and suffocating alienation has only made me prouder and closer to my beautiful religion. It reminds me of an old Arabic saying that translates to “differences are a

mercy”, and indeed they are.

Feeling like the “other” means that I appreciate and celebrate my culture and community more. It has helped me to understand individuals from different minority and marginalised groups and it has led to numerous heart-warming moments that remind me I am not alone.

From my supervisor accurately pointing to the direction of the Qiblah (the direction in which Muslims pray, the Kaaba in Mecca), to conversations with people from many different backgrounds over our subject or our rent, I have discovered that there is a community where my difference and our differences, are only celebrated.

There is a community where my difference, and our differences, are only celebrated

Split between Cambridge and home, I have become a more assertive, visible Muslim. I wear my headscarf with pride because it is a symbol and celebration of my empowerment against the misconceptions and narratives about Muslim women, as well as being a daily representation of my religion.

It is proof that the institutional narrative of Islamophobia present in the media is part of a right-wing agenda and is an innacurate construction.

And my visibility, my writing, my pride and our communities will only remind the Islamophobes and racists of their ignorance.

The Thursday Magazine theatre - music fashion - books relationships - lifestyle food - film

The Thursday Magazine theatre - music - fashion - books - relationships - lifestyle - food - film

1 February 2018 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

welcome to the second thursday magazine of lent term we’re celebrating the empowerment of the individual in this week’s edition, epitomised in our gorgeous photoshoot, ‘fierceness’, which is all about the confidence you can gain from your own choice of image. jump to pages 4-5 and 6-7 to see what out models think of the positive impact of self-definition! we also have a variety of vibrant opinions and reviews, from vegan and veggie restaurants on page 10, to previews of french theatre shows on page 8. with a focus on the bold, the colourful and the beautiful, we hope this magazine will inspire you as much as it does us!

sex and relationships editor celia morris and nadia razali culture@tcs.cam.ac.uk fashion and beauty editor lydia karayianni fashion@tcs.cam.ac.uk books editor ellen birch culture@tcs.cam.ac.uk

Your Hero I was your weak-smile, shoulder-high, wedding child, dressed in white.

I was your mealy-mouthed, wound tight absent-presence, mute with fright.

I was your painted slut, writ large as life, your tainted, fallen paradise, your mirror-you, your anatomy, your feminine depositary, your oh-so-ironic colony, your central zero.

Much ado.

If I had more than the words which I was given would I still be your hero? A girl is like an empty room, with white-washed walls, an empty womb – the nothing that I am to you is central to my being.

If being is believing. My word or yours, on our stage of blame, when a girl’s world breaks in an alleyway, when you strip us back and make us prey and your word conquers anyway – welcome to the modern age. I can no longer be the carcass of your wet dream, raw and splayed on a computer screen, the unprotesting thing unseen but I will speak, my words will teem – I will not be your Hero.

I am not your hero.

lifestyle editor holly macaskill lifestyle@tcs.cam.ac.uk

Olivia Sutherland

theatre editor alex mirosevic-sorgo theatre@tcs.cam.ac.uk

You left something on my desk last week.

creative writing editor tasha may culture@tcs.cam.ac.uk all other enquiries editor@cam.ac.uk

You wrote me a note in the back of a book and love was inked on paper.

It felt warm in my fingertips brushing over coarse blue post-it note paper confessions that held nothing in absolutes.

The worn pages of the book contained you – thoughts scrawled in margins it even smelled of you.

interested in photography or illustration? contact editor@tcs.cam.ac.uk to be featured in tcs.

I lay it on my bedside table, glance over at it as I switched out the light and fall asleep with you by my side.

advertise in the thursday magazine contact jennifer.payne@cusu.cam.ac.uk

instagram: tcsnewspaper twitter: tcsnewspaper facebook: the cambridge student

Finty Hunter

1 February 2018 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIBAL VIA YOUTUBE

Queer jams

Dance roles Charlotte McDonald

Toby Ashworth

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NOHNI - Why Did You Separate Me from the Earth?

The new musical project of AngloAmerican singer ANOHNI (previously known as Antony and the Johnsons) is a beat-driven tirade of queer and ecological activism.

This track is one of many standouts in an album of ground-breaking lyrical potency: another highlight is ‘4 DEGREES’, where ANOHNI uses her vibrating tenor voice to decry man’s destruction of the planet.

The Hidden Cameras - Dark End of the Street Veterans of the Toronto indie rock scene, The Hidden Cameras returned to what their lead singer once called ‘gay church folk music’ for their most recent album ‘Home on Native Land’. While some tracks take inspiration from gospel and other genres, this one is a lilting ode to a love that is hidden by circumstance, but nonetheless beautiful.

Mashrou’ Leila – Maghawir Hailed as the voice of youth in Beirut and the wider Middle East, Mashrou’ Leila have been making waves in Lebanon and further afield for some time, thanks in part to their unapologetically queer style (see their album covers). This song criticises gun laws in the wake of a shooting at a club in Beirut. On the album, lead singer Hamed Sinno’s relatively high-pitched voice lends intensity to the band’s modern and upbeat tracks, though the NPR Tiny Desk Concert version of ‘Maghawir’, filmed the day after the Pulse shooting in Orlando, is slower, and filled with an audible pain.

Perfume Genius – Otherside From sadness, joy: while it starts in a reflective, hushed verse over a subtly repeating piano line, this song

by Seattle native Mike Hadreas quickly erupts into a

shimmering, vital and glorious explosion of colour, only to return to its quiet beginnings once again. It’s a treasure of an introduction to one of 2017’s best albums. serpentwithfeet - four ethers The coupling of serpentwithfeet’s gorgeously flowing voice with a monumental orchestral part is irresistible.

It sounds like if an angry, queer Nina Simone met Brahms in a bar and decided to work together on a song.

Coupled with hard-hitting lyrics about mental health, it’s well worth a listen.

Marika Hackmann – Boyfriend In a nod to 90s rock, Marika Hackmann challenges commonplace narratives of queer love between women, and her witty and sardonic lyrics put two fingers up at the male gaze.

Gossip - Heavy Cross Angry lyrics, shouty vocals, an upside-down cross on the album cover - Gossip seems more intense than it really is. ‘Heavy Cross’ is a very listenable anthem, perhaps about queer love. It’s a cruel world, but Beth Ditto is with you, after all.

No Girlfriends – Sheets This is a resolutely queer and feminist rock anthem, accompanied by a witty video in which the band’s members sport moustaches and beards in a caricature of relationships and expectations.

Moses Sumney – Doomed From his 2017 début album ‘Aromanticism’, this soaring track is centred around a heart-breaking repetition of the line ‘My wings are made of plastic’. Exposing Sumney’s voice in all its falsetto vulnerability over a delicatelyarranged string part, it’s a melancholy but beautiful.

Sophie Zhang

Being LGBTQ+ at Cam

O

ver a year ago, I arrived at my college for my interview expecting beautiful lawns and quaint architecture, but was surprised by what caught my eye: the two toilets near the junior parlour, which had the words “+ non-binary”. This was a sign of progressiveness and tolerance that I didn’t expect from somewhere associated with tradition and privilege, but it was a happy surprise that signalled what was to come.

Before coming to Cambridge, I had only come out to two people in the 18 years of my life. Being queer was internal, something I clutched to my chest secretly. Even some of my closest friends knew nothing about it and I would brush it off if they asked if I liked girls. Perhaps the only person who guessed anything about my gender identity was my English teacher, who’d let me do my coursework on breaking free from gender conventions, even though it wasn’t on the curriculum.

It was only after coming to Cambridge that I lived my life more fully and openly as a queer individual, trying to live life in all its colours. I have come out to more people at Cambridge than ever before, and I have met more

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LGBTQ+ individuals than ever before.

At Cambridge, I feel like I am part of a vibrant and extensive LGBTQ+ community, with all the wonderful events and socials organised by groups such as CUSU LGBT+, my college JCR and FUSE. Of course, it’s not perfect here, and I’m unsure whether I can come out to all my friends, but what makes me feel safe is that I know that I have spaces where I can be who I am and know for certain that I will be accepted, and not judged.

LGBTQ+ issues aren’t treated like a side issue that’s brought up once or twice a year. Instead, LGBTQ+ discussions and politics feature prominently in student journalism and conversations. Before coming to Cambridge, ‘non-binary’ was a word that I had only seen as an accepted and widespread term on certain Internet sites. But once I became part of Cambridge Facebook groups, I saw the word everywhere. Although it could seem to many like a small thing, what this meant for me cannot be understated. I felt for once that my existence and my gender identity were being acknowledged and included. I also felt a real sense of respect and recognition, as I was often asked about my pronouns at discussion groups and by one of my supervisors. I was surprised at first, but now that it has sunken in, I’m glad that there are many open-minded and supportive people at this university.

Although I’ve been able to express and explore my sexuality and gender identity more at Cambridge than anywhere else, I am also aware that the university has a long way to go before it can be said to be fully supportive and inclusive of all LGBTQ+ students, and there is still room for improvement regarding social attitudes.

D

ancesport is a sporting world like no other; incredibly challenging, requiring stamina and precision alongside grace and performance, all whilst doused in compulsory tan, gel and glitter. Behind the fancy costumes and sparkles is an apparently gendernormative and heteronormative sport. As such, it is worth scrutinising in the context of modern attitudes towards gender and sexuality.

Dancesport is the sport of competitive ballroom and latin dancing. It requires a partnership, traditionally of one man and one woman, known as the leader and follower, and is pervaded with expressions of traditional gender roles. Generally, masculinity is necessary to the leader, while you present your effeminate woman. Take, for example, the paso doble, in which the leader is a hypermasculine matador intent on overpowering his follower.

This year, I became the beginners’ captain for the University’s Dancesport Team. In this role, we recruit and train new dancers. It is also our duty to ensure inclusivity of all those keen to learn. With such potentially problematic roles being an engrained part of the sport, we have to consider how to ensure people feel comfortable taking part in the sport, regardless of gender or sexuality.

The answer comes from something felt fundamentally by many dancers, but rarely discussed or acknowledged openly.Alongside all the other skills required, we are actors.

We play a role in every dance. To lead, you are not required to be a masculine, heterosexual male but instead to play the role of a strong and passionate leader. Having danced with both straight and gay men, it is clear that although the part is outwardly heterosexual, it isn’t necessary to play a heterosexual man (or a homosexual woman) as a leader but simply be, as one leader described it, a “caricature”.

One thing that makes this particularly clear is that we have more self-identifying women than men, with some women therefore having to lead. For myself, this has often been the case. As a tall woman, it is harder for me to follow, as a leader should (for predominantly practical reasons) be taller. I’m not a man and I wouldn’t feel comfortable dancing a male role (or pretending to be a homosexual female), nor do I want any other female leaders to feel pressure to do so. The sport, thank goodness, embraces this; competitions run same-sex only heats so as to allow couples of any gender to compete and be celebrated in their own right.

Naturally, as the sport evolves and endeavours to be as inclusive as possible, people are encouraged to choose the role in which they feel most comfortable, often based on how they self-identify. For those who are at times not dancing in their preferred role, an understanding that these roles need not be a reflection of their identity is vital.

Particularly for leaders, of any sexuality, it is necessary to understand that our dancing is an act and brings with it no actual expectations of conforming to gender roles.

Even now, halfway through the competitive year, ‘men’ and ‘women’ are not terms you will hear, but instead ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’. There is no expectation of who you are or need to be. No questions. Only a sport welcoming everyone with open arms into its wacky world. And I’m proud to be a part of it.

JAZZART DANCE THEATRE

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1 February 2018 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

FIERCENESS Creative Directors Lydia Karayianni Nadia Dahrup Razali Cathlin Ng Photographers Johannes Black Makeup Artists: Dragtime Helena Fox Models Prince Daddy Princess Porecelynn Sneeze Kylie Gender Tobias Benjamin Regina Rex

Don’t miss DRAGTIME!: SPEED DATE 15th -17th Feb at the ADC Theatre!

The Cambridge Student • The Thursday Magazine • 1 February 2018

“Drag is an outlet to perform and experiment with different looks to express a new energy, that contrasts my day to day image” - Prince Daddy

“Drag is a release for gender expression that makes me feel beautiful” - Princess Porcelynn

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1 February 2018 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

“I love crossing boundaries in society whilst having fun creating amazing new looks” - Sneeze

“The unique sense of confidence that comes from being in drag is empowering; it is a powerful way of celebrating your body” - Kylie Gender

The Cambridge Student • The Thursday Magazine • 1 February 2018

“Being able to inhabit a different person is the ultimate form of self-expression” - Helena as Tobias Benjamin

“Taking on a persona brings out different sides of yourself and feeling comfortable being exposed is empowering” - Regina Rex

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1 February 2018 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

TCS Previews: the French Rêver, Peut-Être

Alex Sorgo Theatre Editor

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ext week at the Corpus playroom there is a rare opportunity to see a play performed entirely in French, Rêver, Peut-Être.

I caught up with the infectiously enthusiastic producer Sophie-Marie Niang and director Lina Fradin to find out more about what to expect from this enigmatic play.

Rêver, Peut-Être (‘to Dream, Perchance’)

by Jean-Claude Grumberg blends reality, dreams and fiction into an absurd comedy about the haunting power of the past.

Actor Gérard B., while rehearsing for Hamlet, murders Pollonius in a dream and is arrested for a lack of remorse.

From then on the play presents us with a recollection of all of his memories, dreams and fantasies which together make up a journey on which Gérard can reflect upon his fears, sufferings and memories of his father.

The play is about absurdism in many different forms from the absurdity of dreams to what the writer as a child perceived as the nonsensical deportation of his father.

This fascinating play can be seen as the cathartic output of Jean-Claude Grumberg, as Fradin explains: ‘He feels guilty for not having avenged his father from the war and on stage the absurd is his way of liberating himself from his souvenirs that have plagued him for years and years’.

In light of the playwright’s past, the producer and director made the decision to provide a cathartic interpretation of the end: ‘the actor is his final monologue is able to reconstruct his life and overcome his past and gets a release’.

Only performed a handful of times

LINA FRADIN

before, Fradin is especially excited about bringing this play to Cambridge.

She is brimming full of praise for her cast which, testament to the talent available in Cambridge, came to the play with a range of levels of French.

As Niang tells me, this reflects the content of the play: ‘the play itself is a mix between English and French references while the cast is a mix of Australians, Brits and French’.

The play is the opening part of the trilogy of plays on offer at the Cambridge International Theatre Festival (ITF, which runs from the February 6 to March 7), and is one of the few plays in Cambridge in a foreign language and as such is a mustsee for anyone interested in the French language.

As Fradin explains, Cambridge a perfect place for foreign plays and foreign genres.

‘Just because it’s a play in French’, she tells me, ‘doesn’t mean we wanted a safe or easy production.’

Even for audiences who do not speak French, there will be plenty to be drawn in by.

The producer has made every effort to ensure audiences will be able to follow the plot.

Leaflets will be handed out before each performance that summarise the play scene by scene with time being put aside at the start of the production for reading.

During the production itself, lighting and visuals will be deftly used to enhance the meaning of the scenes.

The French Society’s production promises to be a strong start to the inaugural Cambridge International Theatre Festival.

Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity!

Rêver, Peut-Être runs at the Corpus Playroom from Tuesday 6th February to Saturday 10th February.

TCS Previews: Cam International Theatr Alex Sorgo Theatre Editor

I

n a bold new initiative, the French, Italian Theatre and Spanish Theatre societies are hosting the inaugural Cambridge International Theatre Festival which will run from February 6 through to March 7.

The festival will showcase three productions, one French: Rêver, Peut-Être (February 6-10, Corpus Playroom), one Italian: Morte Accidentale di Un Anarchico (February 1517, Robinson College Auditorium) and one Spanish: Historia de una Escalera (March 6-7, Fitzpatrick Hall, Queen’s College).

Though the plays will be performed in their original languages, the directors and producers have developed strategies to involve all audiences as the director of Morte Accidentale di Un Anarchico, Victor Rees, tells me: ‘We have tried to balance faithfulness to the original text with accessibility for all audience members regardless of linguistic background’.

Harriet Phillips, who is involved in all three plays, explains: ‘We will have English supertitles for Morte Accidentale di Un Anarchico, but it is in the commedia dell’arte style which is highly physical.

There will also be projections, making for a visually engaging performance’.

The team behind Rêver, Peut-Être will take a different approach handing out leaflets explaining the production scene by scene before the show while the directors of Historia de una Escalera, Romy Welch and Aimée Ayaka, tell me: ‘We think that its emotive and exciting nature will make it more accessible to even non-Spanish speakers, and we’re also going to include a run-through of each scene in the programme, so the audience can enjoy it without having to worry about their rusty GCSE Spanish.

There is a good variety to choose from.

Rêver, Peut-Être follows the absurd dreams of an actor preparing for the role of Hamlet (for more, see the TCS Preview in this edition) while Morte Accidentale di Un Anarchico is a dark comedy that follows the aftermath of the death of an anarchist who fell (or was he pushed?) from a window.

‘I chose Accidental Death because it’s one of the most internationally acclaimed Italian plays (for good reason!)’, Rees explains, ‘and so I felt

The Cambridge Student • The Thursday Magazine • 1 February 2018

Preview: Cambridge Theatre Weeks 3-4

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Lavinia Lavizani

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PORTERHOUSE BLUE - CELINE CLARK

mbridge re Festival 2018 there wouldn’t be as much of an obstacle in terms of name recognition - it’s also brilliantly funny whilst dealing with searing political commentary regarding corruption and the abuse of power that still feels very pertinent.’

Ayaka and Welch, both MML Spanish/ Arabic students, are excited to be directing a particularly important piece of Spanish theatre, Historia de una escalera.

‘The play focuses on the stories of four families living in a run-down Madrid apartment block, and how the unfolding failure of their aspirations chart the hardships and frustrations of post-civil war Spanish society’ they tell me.

‘Buero Vallejo’s prize-winning play takes us through the whole range of the emotional spectrum and we hope this lively immediacy will mean the audience has as much fun watching as we’ve been having in rehearsals.

We’re so excited that our play has gone from an old script Aimée picked up in a second-hand book store to being a part of a festival of drama celebrating art from multiple cultures.’

That plays in a foreign modern language

is such a rarity for the Cambridge stage is a particular shame especially when you consider the popularity of the Greek Play which is performed in Ancient Greek and put on every two years.

Sophie-Marie Niang, producer of Rêver, Peut-Être, hopes that the festival starts a tradition of yearly (or more often) modern language theatre productions. She also hopes to have provided a stage for those who are unable to get into theatre because of a language or accent barrier. In the future, the team hope to incorporate more and more languages. Phillips agrees: ‘This is really just the beginning - we hope that it will grow year on year, incorporating theatre from all over the world! I’d love to put on a Russian play’.

Welch believes this year is a promising start: ‘I think the enthusiasm and support we’ve been shown so far shows there’s a real interest in international drama in Cambridge, and not just amongst MML students.’

For more information, find the Cambridge International Theatre Festival on facebook.

ettling in to term, what better way to spend weeks 3 and 4, than enjoying an array of the serious, ridiculous and truly thoughtprovoking theatre put on in Cambridge?

In Week 3, there is something for everyone. We begin with the Corpus’ Mainshow, Athol Fugard’s Sizwe Bansi Is Dead.

Set during the apartheid era in South Africa, this play obliquely references several of the struggles faced by people of colour during the time and tethers them to broader questions of identity and human worth.

Sizwe Bansi is a man who enters a photography studio to have his photograph taken. Entering as one man, he leaves as another.

On the other hand, there is comedy at the ADC, with the adaptation of Tom Sharpe’s novel: Porterhouse Blue.

A parody of life at the traditional Porterhouse College, where swan is served in hall and the rowers are head of the river, disaster strikes when a liberal politician is appointed as the new master.

Satirical and witty, it is a cutting comment on tradition and modernity in our very own university.

The Cambridge University French Society are putting on the French play, Rêver, Peut Être as Corpus’ Lateshow.

“To die, to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream...”: Gerard B., an actor rehearsing for his role as Hamlet, spends his nights trying to understand the character that he is playing.

One morning, he wakes to find himself being arrested on the grounds of inhumanity, killing Polonius in his dream.

ED BANKES

Memories, fantasies, fears and dreams soon merge into each other as he loses contact with reality.

This play promises to be a visual and aesthetic experience suited for a nonFrench-speaking audience.

Finally, The ADC Lateshow, The Seventh Seal, tells the tale of a disaffected knight returning from the Crusades.

He encounters Death, who agrees to spare his life while they play a game of chess.

A playful tragicomedy about medieval society and a journey into the knight’s soul; this play delves into the serious motifs of death’s inevitability, the difficulty of faith and the prevalence of suffering, however seemingly delivered all with caustic wit.

Week 4 meanwhile offers something entirely different, as Corpus’ Mainshow, Pomona, described as a “fierce dystopian drama with terrific comic edge”; explores the fictitious city of Pomona and its inhabitants.

Unsettlingly funny and deeply challenging, blurring the line between fantasy and reality, it leaves us questioning where the nightmare ends, and real life begins.

At the ADC, Assassins, presents a darkly humorous blend of fiction and history, conspiracy and truth. Through the medium of lyrical ingenuity and a variety of musical styles, it depicts the disturbing lives of the nine individuals who have assassinated, or attempted to assassinate, American Presidents, in the name of the ‘American Dream’.

These next two weeks at the ADC and Corpus Playroom, provide spectacles which all look to be intriguing performances, and well worth taking a break from work.

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1 February 2018 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Let me introduce my shelf: Ellen Travel Guide: the Lake District

Ellen Birch Books Editor The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes I recently decided to read more contemporary fiction, and, letting myself be guided by the prestigious Booker Prize, I decided to buy a hardback edition of Julian Barnes’ novel The Sense of an Ending that I came across at a village fete in the summer. The story tracks the lives of a group of friends before, during and after university, and is written retrospectively as the protagonist reviews his life. Being currently in the midst of my own university experience, many of the novel’s themes rang true. Reading the book feels a bit like being handed profound advice by an adult, warning you of their own mistakes and experiences at this stage of life, and is therefore very thought provoking.

Leila Menchari, the Queen of Enchantment During my year abroad internship at Hermès, I worked on an exhibition about Leila Menchari, a Tunisian artist who designed the company’s window displays for 60 years. One of my tasks as English copyeditor was to proofread the English novella which was written about Menchari’s life for the occasion. The story was long and repetitive but after it was published, I was gifted a copy of the finished product. With an orangey-gold hardback cover, 95% of the book consists of glossy photos of her windows with the sparse text positioned among them. It is a simple story but the book is beautiful and lovely to flick through from time to time.

novel, taking place in Baghdad, as the protagonist has to navigate her way among various political groups. The plot is hazy in my mind, but when I first read it at the age of 15, the thing that stayed with me was the main character, Victoria Jones. She has a can-do attitude and is phased by nothing, and became my fiction role model. If I’m ever worried about something, I like to dip into this novel for some courage and inspiration.

Autumn - Karl Ove Knausgård I have not yet read this book but am very excited to do so, and not only because of the aesthetic appeal of its beautiful cover. The book recently received a lot of newspaper coverage since it will form part of a seasonal quartet, similar to Ali Smith’s ongoing project.

It was in the newspaper that I read a long extract from Autumn: the book takes the form of a letter written by a father to his unborn daughter, and each chapter focuses on tiny aspects of life, encompassing the mundane, the sordid, the abstract and the profound.

Reading it is incredibly thought provoking and reminds me of a more accessible version of some of the experimental French modern fiction I study for my degree.

Ellen Birch

They Came to Baghdad – Agatha Christie There are, of course, multiple Agatha Christie stories on my bookshelves, but the one I like to have with me is They Came to Baghdad. This doesn’t fit into Christie’s usual calibre of murder mystery, but falls into the category of spy or action

Best Vegan & Veggie Restaurants Sophie We

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ith more than half of British consumers adopting vegan buying behaviors, restaurants in Cambridge and across the UK have been introducing more and more vegan and vegetarian options. Not quite satisfied with my college’s vegan options, and pathetically unable to cater for myself, I spent most of Michaelmas exploring the vegan food scene in Cambridge - so you don’t have to blow half of your term’s budget on overpriced and average falafel wraps!

Wagamama

Wagamama launched an entirely new plant-based menu featuring 11 completely vegan and 18 vegetarian dishes.

From Pad Thai and Yakisoba to Curry and Ramen, this menu offers all the (vegan) heart could possibly desire.

While Wagamama is certainly on the pricier side it is a great place to go with your non-vegan friends because there are options for everyone.

Stem + Glory Stem + Glory is an all-vegan café that offers breakfast, brunch and full table service lunch and dinner across two branches in Cambridge. Personally, it’s one of my favorite pre-lecture hangout spots. Because it’s a little further out from the city center, it’s also a great place to go to escape for a bit and just sit and relax with a Chai Latté and a good book.

Zizzi Zizzi is one of the few restaurants that offer good vegan cheese instead of just giving you a cheese-less veggie pizza!

What’s great about Zizzi is how clearly everything is labelled.

My personal favorites are the vegan bruschetta and the lentil ragu.

Pho Pho is 100% my go-to place for Vietnamese vegan food in Cambridge! You’ll find a vegan version of basically every main dish, from Cà-ri to Pho Xào. I would recommend checking the vegan menu online in advance because the servers aren’t always able to tell you about vegan options. A super cute place to go with vegan and non-vegan friends alike!

Doppleganger Burger Doppleganger Burger may be my favorite thing that ever happened to the Cambridge vegan food scene. Doppleganger serves an absolutely amazing vegan burger (probably one of the best vegan burgers I’ve ever tried) from Mondays to Wednesdays either at 2648 or to order on Deliveroo.

Starbucks / Pret Both Starbucks and Pret serve some great dairy-free coffee with Starbucks having recently introduced almond, coconut and oat milk in addition to their standard soy alternative.

However, it’s certainly more than a little annoying to have to pay an extra 30p for non-dairy milk. Pret definitely takes the lead in that respect. It’s great for small snacks like chia pots, sandwiches and soups!

Olivia Morris

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uring the winter break for the past three years, my boyfriend and I have consistently taken a few days out of our busy schedules to visit a part of the UK’s amazing countryside – and this year was no exception! This December, however, we decided to venture further north than I have ever been before, and set the Lake District as our destination. We booked our tickets and were away on the following week, just in time for my birthday on the 21st.

DAY 1 The journey itself was eventful, with one of our trains being cancelled after reaching the unfamiliar Oxenholme, a sign describing it as “the gate to the Lake District”. Just two hours after leaving my cosy house in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, we were deep in heavy fog, on a busy coach heading to our hotel, and getting brief glimpses of snow-capped mountains in the distance as a steady drizzle settled in.

Freshening up after a day’s travel, and settling into our comfy bed, we were now ready to face the hills.

DAY 2 By 9:30 AM, we were already on the bus into the nearby village, Grasmere, intent to get in as much walking as possible in the limited daylight we had. Our quest was to walk up to the 766-metre summit of Great Rigg, and then circle back around and pass along a ridge to Heron Pike and back down into Grasmere.

Just two hours after setting out, we stood atop Great Rigg, clear skies all around and phenomenal views of snowy ridges in every direction.

DAY 3 Upon waking, we faced a fog so thick that it was hard to see even a few metres ahead. We decided that some of the harder walks were out of the question, and settled for the relatively short Helm Crag.

A few pockets of ice lingered towards the top as we ascended. Sheep abounded, murky figures amidst the mist.

We were up and down within two hours, and then on our way to a nearby tarn by the name of Easedale. There was not much of a view of the lake, but the desolate atmosphere created by the fog was electric. After a quick lunch we proceeded to the famous gingerbread shop in Grasmere’s centre, and I picked up a stack of twelve to take home for Christmas.

DAY 4 After just three days in the Lakes, but enough good memories to last until next winter, we were rushing back to the now more-familiar Oxenholme station to catch our train back to less adventurous, but more familiar, surroundings.

Dillif

1 February 2018 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Oscar nominations 2018 Moriyo Aiyeola Film Editor

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he odd smile and moment of satisfaction does come when looking over this year’s Academy Award nominations. It is a rare occurrence that those achieving recognition appear to be more in line with audience opinion compared to most years. The British talent being recognised also offered a number of heart warming surprises. It nevertheless remains that #OscarsSoWhite characterised the Academy Awards a couple of years ago and was a symbolic reflection of the systemic and institutional racial bias within Hollywood. Social politics has now evolved in recent months to intertwine more specifically with gender.

Since the Harvey Weinstein allegations broke, #MeToo has once again placed women at the forefront of the conversation within Hollywood regarding power relations and equal opportunities. This year might very well suggest that change is being consolidated amongst Academy voters.

It was no doubt a joy for many to see thriller favourite

Get Out gain four nominations; years of Daniel Kaluuya’s under the radar grafting in the acting world have finally paid off with a Best Leading Actor nod. While Gary Oldman is likely to pick up this award more as an acknowledgement of his impressive career rather than for his portrayal of Churchill in Darkest Hour, it’s overdue for such a talent. Christopher Nolan, a relentlessly consistent director, finally got his first nomination for Dunkirk.

A film which topped many people’s ‘best of ’ lists for 2017 was Call Me By Your Name, propelling young star Timothee Chamalat to the acting A-list with his first nomination at just twenty two years old. The film has been celebrated as a modern LGBT narrative where the morality of the central relationship was not the central conflict of the plot but instead simply the emotional core of a film which was beautifully made and movingly romantic. This all counts as exciting stuff, despite obvious exceptions.

Greta Gerwig cemented her place in history as only the fifth woman in the Academy’s ninety year history to be nominated for Best Director. It’s an effort from

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the Academy, but before shoulders are patted too soon, many have been left dumbfounded by Patti Jenkins’ exclusion from the race for Wonder Woman, which has been considered a major snub this year. Gal Gadot won over millions of cinema goers last year with her portrayal of the famous superhero, storming ahead with a big box office draw facilitated by a well-directed, well-acted film from the struggling DC cinematic universe. It was socially groundbreaking, proving there was an appetite for female superheroes. With women currently at the forefront of Hollywood, this lack of recognition has been considered a failed opportunity to celebrate the achievement of women in film.

Increasingly, the Academy Awards have become more about the films being recognised. Hollywood has a history of reflecting the society in which its films are made and progress should be rewarded. Of course, talent should be recognised and will likely prevail.

The Shape of Water clocked up thirteen nominations and will likely get a great many of them, a win for fans of Guillermo Del Toro. There are snubs for everyone, and wins for everyone, in this year’s list. Nevertheless, the Academy Awards as a platform for social and political conversation is able to highlight uncomfortable truths.

This year’s nominations are still far from where they should be, but they are certainly a step ahead from what we had a couple of years ago.

The Post: a well-made film with some issues Helena Pérez Valle

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unreservedly loved The Post. I was smiling by the end, feeling good: about journalism, about freedom, about doing what is right. The acting in the film is impeccable, the directing is impeccable and the film is well written and well paced.

Meryl Streep is, as expected, fantastic as Katharine Graham, but, of course, not knowing much about Katharine Graham before watching the film, it’s difficult to make this assertion. The fact is, Streep is the centrepiece of a fantastic cast, and she is head and shoulders above everyone else.

In the first scene featuring both her and Tom Hanks, when they’re having breakfast before she’s due to have a meeting with investors, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Tom Hanks didn’t matter, his character didn’t matter, his character’s opinions, job, life, didn’t matter. All I cared about was Meryl Streep, and, in a film that’s supposed to be as much about everything else as it is about the relationship between Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, you would have thought that a scene with both of them in would be less centred on her.

It also doesn’t help that there are scenes where you can almost see how much Tom Hanks is enjoying Streep’s performance. This isn’t to say that actors shouldn’t enjoy themselves when they’re working, particularly in a film as gratifying as this, but when the audience can see it, it can be distracting.

The film is distinctly a Spielberg film. He uses his directorial experience in his favour, and creates a fantastic end-product, but the speed at which the film was made can be felt in how he easily falls back into tropes he uses in other films. In many cases, this is to the advantage of the film, but it sacrifices directorial creativity in favour of familiarity for the audience.

This film, which is about journalism and doing what is right, which could hold some moral grey areas about publishing top secret documents, which could use a moral conflict, ends up being about goodies (the journalists) and baddies (the politicians); and the conflict is transferred to the pressures of publishing versus the pressures of investors.

This is a mistake, because the fact is that any selfrespecting journalist would have published when The New York Times was told they couldn’t, unless they truly thought that publishing could harm the nation. This is mentioned in the film but not explored in enough depth to make it the central conflict, which would have made for a more powerful film.There are other avenues that the film could have explored but only hinted at. The fact that Katharine Graham is often the only woman in the room (she was the only female

publisher of a major newspaper at the time) is shown beautifully in two opposing scenes: the scene at the beginning when she is climbing up the stairs to the New York stock exchange and is surrounded by secretaries and other women looking at her in admiration, and the scene where she gets up those stairs and the doors open, and the room beyond is full of men.

It made me happy to see a well-made, well-directed, well-acted film.

But, upon analysis, I feel like it’s one of several films that could have been made using the same premise, of which The Post is perhaps the least interesting, and the least powerful.

20th Century Fox via Youtube

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1 February 2018 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

The Production Line As a little girl, I had always been given baby dolls, and once when I pulled the arm off one my mother burst into a rage. It was the angriest I ever saw her. Doll babies were to be taken care of, because when little girls became big girls they would have to do the same with real babies.

My mother was very fond of the way things were supposed to be. She woke up at the same hour every morning of her life, ate three square meals a day and her only snack allowed was her punctual tea at three. It was the same with her needlework and knitting; whenever anyone saw it, they could hardly believe human hands could be so consistent.

“Have you always been irregular?” was the first question the doctor asked me when Fred and I finally made the appointment. *** We had class lists in primary school. They were these single sheets of paper with very straight rows and columns that gave every student’s date of birth, their parents’ names, their home phone numbers and other useful information.

I remember reading the list and querying my mother why it was that Kathy’s parents were listed as Dianna and Mary. I don’t remember my mother’s reply exactly, but she told me it couldn’t be natural how they lived, and the proof of it was in that two mummies could never make a baby. *** The tests had shown that there was nothing wrong with Fred – everything was working fine where his part was concerned. I was the one with the problem, but there was still an uncomfortable embarrassment in Fred’s demeanour whenever we went to the appointments. He kept his eyes to the ground in the waiting room, refusing to flick through a magazine or pick up a newspaper. I usually went for Home Beautiful, but I could never concentrate enough to read the articles. I would stare blankly into its images, pretending that I didn’t feel like a faulty ware sent back to the factory for inspection.

Tasha May tcs.cam.ac.uk instagram: tcsnewspaper twitter: tcsnewspaper facebook: the cambridge student

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The Cambridge Student • 1 February 2018

Features

margins at Cambridge

KITYA MARK

Decolonising our curricula is closely tied to issues of access Haneen Zeglam

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f we value increasing and diversifying access to Cambridge, decolonising the curriculum needs become a priority.

Although in recent years, there has been an attempt by universities to increase diversity quotas and run access schemes, the Social Market Foundation argues that less consideration is being given to the range of factors that make black students 1.5 times more likely to drop out of university than their white counterparts.

Curricula seem to be one of the most problematic areas. An underlying emphasis on European intellectual superiority is a form of racially based exclusion, and may be part of the reason why, although three-quarters of white students achieve a 2:1 degree or higher, only 60% of ethnic minority students manage it, in spite of the fact that BME students are often performing to an equal ability at schools and in sixth forms.

As a visible Muslim, I cringed my way through my first few International Relations lectures, where the sole focus was the impact of 9/11 on the West. Before long though, we evaluated it as an event that had repercussions for the whole globe. We read about the experience of Iraqi women and their passionate fight against Taliban control. We grappled with meanings of the word ‘terrorist’ throughout history. I was more engaged than uncomfortable, but there is still a long way to go.

Knowledge has always been a product

of shared ideas and the intermingling of narratives. So, it only follows that our education should provide us with an understanding of the full range of experiences and perspectives that have contributed to world history.

Learning about the world and our place within in it requires representation, especially for people not usually reflected in the canon of Western knowledge, whether that be people of colour, women, the LGBT community or religious minorities. These groups have as much right as white men to understand what their own role has been in forging history.

To make our degrees worthwhile we need to understand that Plato, Kant, Marx and Milton didn’t write in a bubble, locked away from the world around them. Their lives and writings were shaped by a global context and this global perspective should be appreciated.

The campaign to decolonise the curriculum has been misinterpreted and smeared, with certain newspapers turning an open letter about decolonising the English Faculty into an all-out war against Lola Olufemi. Their subsequent attempt at apology was seriously bizarre. The Daily Telegraph can rage all it wants about the supposed slight against white authors; because on a real university campus, the only aim of the movement I see is to expand our curricula and expand our horizons.

LGBTQ+ alumni: historical and contemporary Sophie Zhang

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n its long history, Cambridge has been home to countless LGBTQ+ figures. In researching for this article, I discovered that Cambridge University has an extremely rich history of LGBTQ+ alumni and staff, however, this article unfortunately can only explore a few of them.

John Maynard Keynes (18831946) is famously the economist who revolutionised economic thought and policy in the mid-20th century, emphasising the importance of government intervention in the economy for stability and growth. He studied mathematics at King’s College, Cambridge and was encouraged to become an economist, despite his early attraction to philosophy. Keynes was bisexual, and openly dated men. He was part of the Bloomsbury Group, noted for its liberal attitudes towards sexuality. Keynes’ interests were not limited to the economy: he was also a keen campaigner for reform of the law on homosexuality and against discrimination women.

His last words were “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) is famous for being a philosopher of logic and language. Whilst studying aeronautics, he became engulfed in books exploring mathematics and philosophy, leading him to Trinity College, Cambridge. He had studied logic with such intensity that both Wittgenstein and his teacher, Russell, concluded that he had nothing left to study after just a year. After that, Wittgenstein wove in and out of academia, working in the army, as a teacher in a village and as a hospital porter. He had romantic relationships with both men and women throughout his life. Having enjoyed such varied experiences, his last words were, “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.”

Growing up through the Second World War, Pat Arrowsmith (born 1930) became very aware of the miseries of war, and often thought about how it could be prevented. Her misbehaviour at school led her to be expelled at age 14, and this sense of rebelliousness would continue throughout her life. She studied history at Newnham College, Cambridge, and later

co-founded the Campaign for Nuclear Disarment and would serve eleven prison sentences because of her political activities. Arrowsmith was a lesbian icon, being the first person to come out in ‘Who’s Who’ in 1977.

She admitted that she only married a man in order to receive her inheritance, and her marriage was quickly annulled, whilst her inheritance was donated to political causes.

Kwame Anthony Appiah (born 1954) was born in London but raised in Ghana.

Having studied philosophy at Clare College, Cambridge, he has gone on to become an renowned academic with interests in a diverse range of topics, including the philosophy of language and the mind, race, cosmopolitanism, political and economic development, the work of African and African-American intellectuals and religion.

He currently lives with his husband in the United States.

Sarah Brown studied at Trinity Hall and is a Liberal Democrat politician, and

was the only openly transgender elected British politician for a number of years.

She has campaigned for equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, openly discussing how such laws have affected her and her wife. Brown has used the hashtag “#transdocfail” on Twitter in order to highlight the poor treatment of transgender patients by the NHS. Lord Smith of Finsbury (born 1951) served as a Labour MP for many years, becoming the first openly gay British MP in 1984, when he announced during a rally, “Good afternoon, I’m Chris Smith, I’m the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury and I’m gay.”

As the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport under Blair, Lord Smith has successfully secured a tax rebate which allowed many museums to give free admissions.

After 20 years of serving as an MP, Lord Smith stepped down and later became a life peer. In 2015, he returned to Pembroke College where he had studied English to become its Master.

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1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

Features

The history of Selwyn College Stella Dixon

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elwyn College, hidden away amongst a blanket of gardens just past the Sidgwick Site, isn’t usually given much prominence in terms of its history. For starters, there’s not much of it – the College was founded in 1882, making it young by Cambridge standards. It’s never covered by the punt guides or walking tours, and most people I ask don’t even know where it is. But despite all this, Selwyn’s history is far from benign.

The name ‘Selwyn’ comes from George Augustus Selwyn, the first Bishop of New Zealand. Selwyn studied Classics at St John’s, and competed in the first Boat Race in 1829, later becoming ordained and establishing the Church in New Zealand. Naturally, this is pretty controversial in our post-colonial era, but apparently the Victorians found him quite impressive, so a memorial committee decided there should be a College founded in his name.

The committee wanted an ordinary College where everyone could be

educated, not just future clergy – they wanted to see university education extended to people who couldn’t afford it before. Of course, the fact that Selwyn was a bishop meant the College ended up having to make provisions for those who wanted to serve as missionaries, as well as the sons of clergy. Originally, only members of the Church of England were allowed to attend, and the chapel was built before the dining hall was.

Lots of Selwyn alumni are religious figures, like John Sentamu, and there’s still a bursary for children of clergy, so, for right or wrong, this Christian tradition lives on. Even the College motto is a quote from the Bible – ΑΝΔΡΊΖΕΣΘΕ or “Quit ye like men” in English. Uniquely for Cambridge, it’s written in ancient Greek.

Despite its ecclesiastical beginnings, early Selwyn was fairly liberal. The first master, Arthur Lyttelton, was a Liberal himself and knew the Liberal Prime Minister, William Gladstone, who was persuaded to donate a very loud chapel bell to Selwyn under the guise that undergrads needed to be woken up in the mornings.

Meanwhile, College fees were just £27 per term until 1916, covering food, accommodation and tuition. Living was modest – water toilets only came in 1913, and electricity in 1923. In a time when many colleges were having financial problems, Selwyn somehow managed to survive while still providing an affordable education.

Later on, Selwyn gained its dining hall. The woodwork has a particularly interesting origin – it came partly from the panelling of a demolished church in Rotterdam and partly from the old brewery of Magdalene College. Meanwhile, the planning and ornaments came from the office of Sir Christopher Wren, potentially designed by the man himself.

It was only after the First World War that Selwyn finally got its own library, built as a memorial to the 70 Selwynites who died in battle. The eagle-eyed might notice a left-facing Buddhist swastika above the bridge between the library and Old Court – that’s there because the bridge was funded by two Japanese noblemen as thanks for hospitality in the Master’s Lodge.

Later, during the Second World War, Selwyn was home to a training wing of the RAF, who damaged the paving in Old Court so much during their drills that it had to be concreted over. Selwyn also housed the West Cambridge air raid siren.

Since the wars, Selwyn has seen a huge amount of change. Part of this was physical.

The College built two new courts – Cripps Court in the 1960s and Ann’s Court in 2009 – so that students can all live together onsite. The surroundings of Selwyn also changed, including the appearance of the Sidgwick Site and the University Library nearby.

This wasn’t always constructive - the building of the UL involved so much ground movement that it left cracks in the Chapel. Some can still be seen above the south door.

Thankfully, the faculties and lecture halls built directly behind Selwyn were less destructive, instead offering Selwyn’s arts students a convenient lie in. With the building of the West Cambridge Site, Selwyn now sits at the heart of the modern university.

Change also came under the

leadership of the master Owen Chadwick. Selwyn’s longest-serving master, he served for 27 years from 1956-1983 (as well as being the Vice Chancellor for some of that!) and presided over reforms which helped transform Selwyn into the College it is today.

First of all, Selwyn became a full College in 1958, making this year its 60th anniversary. In academic terms, this gave Selwyn the room to expand its fellowship and offer the full range of subjects for study.

The student body also changed under Chadwick and beyond: becoming a full College meant it abandoned the requirement for students to be members of the Church of England, and in 1976, Selwyn opened its doors to women.

Meanwhile, the College now has one of the strongest state school contingents in Cambridge, and the graduate community has grown to include nearly 200 people from all across the world.

In this way, as its founders intended, Selwyn has truly become a College for everyone.

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The Cambridge Student •1 February 2018

Features

Features

The Long Read: A celebration of the individual voice Holocaust survivor, Eva Clarke, visits St John’s College Juliette Bretan

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ressed in a well-fitted monochrome blazer and skirt, with shards of red nails and lips, and an immaculate billow of cotton white hair, you would be forgiven for thinking Eva Clarke is your typical stylish grandmother.

And she is – though she was also born on 29th April 1945 in Mauthausen concentration camp, and thus, as she said so bluntly at the beginning of her talk at St John’s College on Holocaust Memorial Day, she is also ‘a survivor, but only just.’

This was precisely the point of the event, which began with a succinct examination of what it means to think about the Holocaust, and other genocides, and those whose lives were impacted by such atrocities. This presentation, given by John’s Chapel Team Lead Server William Crisp, was a pep-talk to prepare the audience for Eva’s late recounting of her own history, and the starkness with which it exposed the unbelievable depths of suffering that humans could inflict on others. It was a more than suitable deliberation over what it means to reflect on the Holocaust, particularly considering the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day: “The Power of Words.”

And Eva certainly knew what this meant: her talk was founded in family affairs, an intimate and strongly moving insight into her, and her relatives’, experiences; though she did not adopt that detached perspective so often seen in survivors’ testimonies.

Beginning with a family photography from 1913 which showed her father, his siblings and his parents, it was clear she was not going to shy away from telling her full history; her charming voice aching with stoicism throughout the hour-long speech.

Her parents spent the pre-war years stepping into early adulthood with ambitious career prospects.

Her father, originally from Germany, met her mother in Prague, where they married on15th May 1940, when their nation was entrenched in occupation; a testament to the rosy early years of their relationship.

As Eva explained, even the heinous Nuremberg Laws did not seem too oppressive at this stage: for Jews like her mother and father, failing to obey these despotic diktats was seen as the gravest danger. Indeed, Eva remarked that her mother remembered exactly what she was wearing on the day she first wore the star: a dark green skirt and tan suede jacket; the latter of which, her mother claimed, did not

‘look that bad’ with the star plastered on it. It was whilst she was detailing this moment that Eva revealed her mother’s enduring determination and self-assurance: a friend of her mother’s was also wearing the star for the first time on that day, bowing her body in shame to try to obscure its blatant branding. Eva’s mother walked up to her and told her bluntly to ‘stand up straight’ and ‘not let the bastards get you down’; a fortitude which would resurface time and time again in her mother’s story.

Soon, the pair were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto; holding a deteriorating box of doughnuts through the warehouse and railway station to ensure Eva’s father had the food he loved most, for the first few days at least. Here, they would live in bunks segregated by sex and work ardously; though they found time to surreptitiously meet together. It was during one of these occasions that her mother fell pregnant – but not with Eva. When the Nazis discovered this offence, they forced the couple to sign a document declaring they would hand the child over at its birth to Gestapo officers to be euthanized; a word Eva’s mother did not know until she asked another individual for the definition. When the baby, a boy, was born, the parents did not relinquish him to the Nazis – but he was to perish two months later from pneumonia. This, Eva claimed, is the reason why she is alive, for if her mother had been taken to Auschwitz with a child in her arms, she would have been killed immediately.

In 1944, Eva’s father was deported to Auschwitz, and days later her mother volunteered to follow him – though she would never see him again. Much later, she learnt from eyewitnesses that he had been shot on a death march on 18th January 1945; just days before the camp was liberated. Eva’s mother was put to work in a different area of the camp; where she would realise she was pregnant again.

Eva described the daily ‘Appell’ (roll call) that her mother suffered here; calling the term a ‘mild sort of word’, but detailing with no hesitation the desperation and exhaustion of standing still for hours on end, until prisoner figures tallied. On one such roll call, her mother recognised Dr Mengele, who quipped that the Nazis had ‘very good material in front of them’.

Her mother was then sent to Freiberg to work, where she became ‘more and more starved and more

JULIETTE BRETAN

and more obviously pregnant’. As the Allies began to sweep across Europe, the remaining prisoners were packed up and carted away to less threatened territory; Eva’s mother was sent on an open-air, 17 day train journey to Mauthausen. The train would stop at intervals to dispose of the prisoners who had perished en route; on one of these occasions, Eva’s mother, who by now looked like a ‘scarcely living pregnant skeleton’, caught the eye of a local farmer, who offered her a glass of milk. A Nazi nearby almost stopped this exchange, but eventually allowed her the drink; a choice Eva’s mother felt saved her life.

When the train eventually pulled into Mauthausen, a camp already notorious to her mother, the shock induced her labour.

As a Nazi in the camp stated brusquely that she could ‘carry on screaming’, she hauled herself from the train.

Feeling as if she was near death, her mother eventually gave birth to Eva – where a fellow prisoner, who had been a doctor, was allowed to tend to her and her daughter.

Eva weighed three pounds at birth.

Her mother believed there were three reasons behind her survival at this stage: on 28th April, the Nazis had run out of gas; on 30 April, Hitler committed suicide; and, days later, the Americans arrived to liberate the camp.

The opportunity soon came to be repatriated to Prague; and her mother experienced her ‘worst moment’ of the war upon arrival back in her city, as she realised all she had lost. She did not know if any of her family had survived. But an aunt had and, surprisingly, she already knew her niece now had a daughter.

Eva’s mother was able to move forward; she met and married an old family friend, who would bring Eva up as his daughter, and the trio moved to England.

It was only in these last stages of the talk that Eva became emotional, commenting that her mother was grateful to have survived and helped new relatives blossom, as she displayed a ‘happy’ recent family photograph featuring four generations.

She explained that she told her mother’s story because of the need to remember individual accounts and learn lessons for the future.

Nonetheless it also seemed like Eva wanted, more personally, to keep the memories of her family alive.

She mentioned that she had almost always known her mother’s story; growing up with gradual snippets of her own history and Jewish culture, which she said made her into a ‘mongrel’. It was this, it seemed, that had given Eva the extraordinary skill to communicate such lessons to a variety of audiences.

She spoke about wanting to speak about her own history to teach others – not just to save the world, but also to save her past. As her mother had always said, she was glad the family’s story was being told, as then more people would know of the relatives she had lost, and the relatives that so many people like her had lost.

It was a distinct, and effective attempt at humanising what can seem like an insurmountable tragedy.

Eva is not a figure trying to fix humanity, and she did not present herself as such.

She encouraged her audience to respect one another, though she later told me that she did not know if recounting her family’s testimony would have an impact on any audience; yet, as she pointed out, this was ‘not a reason not to try’.

More than anything, Eva was promoting the voice of the individual.

Indeed, her last message was an encouragement to speak: not merely to speak out against insjustice, but also to ask questions your heritage, and learn more about where your own voice is from.

The past, after all, forms the future.

And in her determined inspiration to sustain all the voices of humanity for the future, Eva proved that she was, truly, her mother’s child.

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1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

Interviews

“Men have to behave properly”, says Breaking Bad star, Bryan Cranston Megan Harding

B

ryan Cranston has lived a lot of lives. Of course, that’s the nature of the acting profession, but it’s also a recurring theme in Cranston’s own life. Before turning to screen and stage, he began his career as a policeman, as a way to fulfil his search for a father figure after his own left years before. This seems, on the surface, worlds removed from the success and fame Cranston now experiences every day, but we could never have had Breaking Bad’s Walter White without the influence of this absent parent, whose posture - slumped, as though he had ‘the weight of the world on his shoulders’ directly informed Cranston’s portrayal of a man sunken in the depths of depression, inertia, and unhappiness.

Finding the emotional core of a character like Walter White is something that few actors could do as well as Cranston, over the course of five seasons, on a show like Breaking Bad, which turns its sympathetically downtrodden protagonist into a terrifying antihero. Cranston won multiple Emmys for his portrayal of this terminally ill teacher-turnedcrystal-meth-cooker, the role that elevated his status from known actor to celebrity with a capital C.

‘It happened late for me,’ he says it’s easy to level that advice at people of his rise to fame, and credits the when you’re an award-winning actor, decades he spent prior to Breaking writer, director and producer, but Bad as a jobbing actor with a home the idea of letting everything go in and family as the reason why he pursuit of an ambition is daunting handled the attention well, though at the best of times. And, admittedly, adding, ‘they don’t train everyone for Cranston acknowledges that there is no career for you as an actor without how to handle celebrity’.

While this is certainly true, it seems ‘a healthy dose of luck.’ Even Breaking ascent to the Cranston deals with it better than Bad’s TV most, most likely because acting has top of the been his ‘relationship for a lifetime.’ hall of He first took an acting class in college f a m e and promptly ‘took off for a couple w a s of years on a motorcycle to try and find [himself]’, telling the assembled students at the Cambridge Union that the only way to truly succeed in skidyour profession is to find ‘something more that makes you happy, as opposed to something you’re just good at,’ and most importantly, to throw away any plan B. Of course,

founded largely on luck, because of ‘the timing of the antihero story’ - arriving at a period when stasis was the hallmark of television and characters were sitcom tropes who never deviated in their actions and reactions. Now, though, the world of TV and film looks quite different.

In Cranston’s view, our new generation ‘has a demand for a higher level of storytelling,’ though this is most likely because we live in a post-Breaking Bad world where the precedent for complex storytelling has been set. It’s not just the actual entertainment itself that is changing, either: the atmosphere in Hollywood is one that is tentatively looking to a newer horizon. ‘It’s beyond time to have men behave properly,’ Cranston says of the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse in the industry. ‘We are at the precipice of some really fundamental change in our society … it’s not about sex, it’s about power and control.’

In fact, Cranston’s exhaustion at the state of the industry is something he shares with his character Howard Beale in the West End stage adaptation of 1976’s Network, which will complete its run in March this year. Of

the theatre, Cranston says, ‘working on stage feeds me more,’ because of the ‘different level of intimacy’ you achieve in front of a live audience.

Playing a character like Beale, too, who among other things must deliver the iconic ‘I’m as mad as hell’ speech, effects him on a physical level, and he will likely take some time off after the play finishes to recuperate.

It’s just as well, too, considering how much of a busy future Cranston already has planned for himself. Later this year, premiering at the Berlin Film Festival, comes Wes Anderson’s muchanticipated new animated feature Isle of Dogs, and he continues to produce Sneaky Pete, the series named after his own childhood nickname. You might think this is enough to be getting on with, but Cranston also has plans to venture into playwriting, enthusing, ‘I love all aspects of storytelling. I don’t even know if I’m any good at it, but that doesn’t matter. I like to challenge myself.’

He’s not really a man who seems to find enjoyment in too much rest, it seems, if we can gather anything from his belief that ‘actors, writers and directors should never be bored - if you are, you’re not working hard enough.’ And with a mantra like that, it’s up to us to wait to see where he goes with his considerable creative talent

James Blunt on fame & the pitfalls of success Alfie Denness

T

he Cambridge Union was treated to an engaging talk from a warm and often funny James Blunt on Wednesday evening. Being what one might call a Blunt-Agnostic (not that I’m unsure if he really exists, I just don’t have enough knowledge of his work to take a stand on whether he’s the best or worst thing to happen to music), I was interested to pick up on the palpable buzz of excitement as a full-to-the brim Union Chamber awaited his arrival.

Nearly 14 years after he burst onto the scene with his debut album ‘Back to Bedlam’, the consistency of Blunt’s appeal in an era when fame is transient for many pop musicians is certainly impressive.

The talk itself proved that Blunt is an eloquent speaker, perhaps at least in part thanks to his PublicSchool education, which he appeared to remember fondly.

Blunt’s unconventional pre-music career as a Captain in the British Army was

almost as much a feature of the talk as his music. As a man uniquely able to provide an insight into the two very different worlds of military service and celebrity, it struck me that there was a degree to which Blunt missed the former part of his life. He spoke of the pitfalls of being world-famous, of the loss of anonymity and having his phone and emails hacked. He was clearly very proud of his military service; even if he did somewhat downplay his role in averting World War Three by refusing to engage with a unit of Russian soldiers while under NATO command in Kosovo.

However, Blunt also clearly appreciated, and was even slightly awed, by the impact his music had on people around the world. When asked by the Union’s interviewer if he was tired of playing ‘You’re Beautiful’ every night, he retorted that he was tired of being asked that question. Blunt’s attitude is refreshing; all too often musicians can be loath to play their ‘big hits’, the songs that made them famous,

“My phone and emails were hacked”

but Blunt is less self-centred than this.

He cheerfully admits that his megahits such as ‘You’re Beautiful’ and ‘Goodbye My Lover’ have made him tons of money, and that they mean a lot to many people around the world, and it was no surprise that when, in a first in many years for the Union, he performed at the end of his talk, it was those two songs that he played.

After the talk, myself and several other Cambridge student journalists got the chance to sit round the table with Blunt. He was keen to talk about his musical influences, citing 70s artists such as Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen and David Bowie.

Bowie may well have been more than a musical influence in fact, as when a journalist put it to him that he could still ‘sesh quite hard’, he quickly replied ‘yeah, totally’ and indicated his unwillingness to slow down anytime soon, living as he does in Ibiza. Another big theme of the talk had been Blunt’s Twitter, where he is well-known for his selfdeprecating humour and occasionally

“Living in Ibiza and not slowing down”

juvenile put-downs of ‘trolls’.

When it came to me, I asked Blunt, as a man whose career has spanned the massive popularity surge of social media, what differences he’s noticed in the interactions he’s had with his fans since the days of written fan mail.

He suggested that the ability to ‘give feedback so quickly’ had resulted in a lot more abuse being directed towards celebrities such as himself, and that usually when people had bothered to go the effort of writing a letter it had been a lot more supportive. Also, given his dedicated following around the world, I asked Blunt what his favourite country to tour in was. He gave the somewhat left-field answer of Lebanon, saying that Beirut was ‘the most amazing city in the world’.

It was at this point that I reflected on the surreal thought that this was a musician who can pack out big stadiums in probably every continent on the planet. Whatever you may think of his music (and I think Bonfire Heart at least is a true banger), this is no mean feat and surely must be respected.

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The Cambridge Student • 1 February 2018

Interviews

POPMISA

Reverend Richard Coles: It is not “difficult to reconcile” homosexuality and Christianity Lucas Boden

of it, which can be very frustrating sometimes, and in the end becomes a benign fog, in which people can live.

Y

ou seem to be outspoken about “narcissistic elements”.

Is that why you opposed the motion: “THB that Celebrity Fandom is the New Organised Religion”?

I think there are similarities between celebrity fandom and religious association, but they are, actually, very different things, indeed.

So why did I do it? I guess I wanted to meet Katie Price. Who wouldn’t?

You’re an openly gay man, and you were a former Roman Catholic. Were these two aspects hard to reconcile?

I’ve never found it personally difficult to reconcile the two, but then again, I never had any doubt that homosexuality was a variation of the universal theme of sexuality, and God has no problem with that at all. The Church does, historically, for obvious doctrinal reasons. What I liked about being Roman Catholic was that you had to work through that stuff. I enjoyed its rigour. After a while, I realized that I actually didn’t, and felt that there were constraints on living a life of integrity. I stopped being a Roman Catholic and returned to being Anglican. One of the things I like about Anglicanism is what used to annoy me about it, which is the reluctance to be doctrinally rigorous, the haziness

“I’ve stopped thinking of myself as a gay Christian”

Do you think your role as an openly homosexual, Christian public figure has had a positive impact on young religious people who are still coming to terms with their sexual orientation?

God, I would hope so! I don’t know for certain; occasionally people say nice things about me, but some will also detest me and find my display objectionable. I’ve stopped thinking of myself as a gay Christian.

I stopped thinking about myself as much of anything, really. I really like the acts of the apostles, which talks about people who are “in the way”, who follow the way, and I think of myself as that. My sexuality, which seems less and less interesting to me, though it is still, what it is. I spoke to a young man in his twenties today, and had to ask him what being gay was like today, simply because it is entirely different from the time when my sexuality was important to me.

However, I don’t think about it much in terms of how it forms my identity.

Do you think the Church has changed? Have they begun to legalise homosexual marriage?

I think some of it has. Unfortunately, some still view it as a place they are not

Phil Guest

willing to go, and it must be agonisingly difficult for them, but more and more people are less and less bothered. Now, there are still exceptions. I was at an assembly in a primary school today, and one of the kids asked, if I was gay. I said, “yes”, and felt a little shudder run down my spine. It reminded me that it wasn’t that long ago that it would have been dangerous to say that, whereas now that is fine, but that does tell you something about the distance we still have to come.

Should young people seek role models in celebrities, or religion ?

I heavily disapprove of role models.

I think they are like heroes – they fade.

I admire many people for what they have achieved, but I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to meet them.

Well, wanted

you did to meet

say that you Katie Price…

Me and my big mouth. The mystery of existence and perception… just make yourself aware of that mystery. I love that story about Jeremy Hopkins, when he was in Dublin. Every time he would look at a fly, people would think he was stupid, but actually, I think he was absorbed by the mystery of existence.

Read the full interview online: h t t p s : / / w w w. t c s . c a m . a c . u k / interviews/0038269-reverend-richardcoles-it-is-not-difficult-to-reconcilehomosexuality-and-christianity.html

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1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

Comment

There’s more to #TimesUpCambridge than clicking “like” Emma Turner

L

ast Friday, I was one of the 60 or so students dressed in black and standing outside the UL at 2pm, staring solemnly ahead instead of smiling for the photo, and thinking about the campaign’s motivations and aims.

The reaction to such campaigns is understandably mixed. The international campaign in which actresses took activists as their ‘date’ has been described by some as being performative or hypocritical as some celebrities pledge their support and then continue to work alongside known harassers in the industry, while others may see smaller campaigns such as the Cambridge one as ineffectual, or detrimental to larger-scale efforts like the Breaking the Silence campaign. It requires very little effort from participants, which is a good thing in terms of amassing support on a wider scale – but if the price of participating is so low, how much longterm support or commitment can we really infer from those who turned up? Why join

in with a campaign like this, if that is the case? Does it really achieve anything, or is it just a way of making yourself and the university look good?

I would argue there is absolutely a point to #TimesUpCambridge and all similar campaigns, despite the criticism. Perhaps, yes, there are those who participate simply as a performative gesture, an activity to make them look good for a cause which is popular at the time, but the point in these campaigns goes far beyond the motivations of one individual: they are a collective demonstration of solidarity and above all, awareness. The crowd of people becomes more powerful with every person who aligns themselves with it, no matter their motivation. The more times the same message is said, whether by the same campaign or by different ones, the more exposure the topic will get, and the more normalised it will become to talk about these difficulties and to speak up against the perpetrators.

The campaign on its own, however, is

It is not enough to wear black for one day

not enough. It is not enough to wear black for one day to show your solidarity, click ‘like’ on a Facebook page, donate some money, and think the work is done. The real work behind #TimesUp and other similar movements is the everyday grind which must take place behind the publicity moments. It is about changing mindsets worldwide and acting mindfully around those you associate with – something which requires a lot more commitment, and a lot more patience.

In Cambridge specifically, it is about cutting known perpetrators of assault out of friendship groups, supporting victims rather than blaming them, and creating safe spaces for survivors to access the Will Bennett Deputy Editor tools they need. These tools need to be accessed without the kinds of bureaucracy lassics is now one of the last subjects and endless question-asking we are taught almost exclusively at private accustomed to finding in institutions such schools – of the 260 candidates as a University, and they need to be given who sat Greek A-levels in 2013, 233 went freely, without judgement. to independent schools. The result is a trend of privately educated students (I am one) who start at Cambridge with a head DILIFF start over state educated students because they have already had access to Latin and Greek at school. The Cambridge course is divided into two depending on your existing language experience. If you don’t have one or either language as a fresher, there are intensive lessons to help students catch up with Latin and Greek .

There is support for a range of ability, but someone who hasn’t done a subject before university is obviously less likely to apply for it. in the first place This makes Classics an elitist subject in the most conventional sense. That isn’t to say that it’s obscured and made inaccessible by Cambridge jargon like “tripos”. It is literally less accessible to people with less educational privilege. A better school can only prepare someone better for an entrance test if it teaches the subject. less likely to submit an application.

It is difficult to articulate why anyone Project Access is an organisation that deserves recognition for its efforts in should pick up literature written in dead improving access to top UK universities. languages by the pale, male and stale about They match school pupils with current their own often drab or fictional hijinks.

Cambridge students in their mentoring We only know so much about Julius Caesar scheme, who give advice and share their because he liked to blow his own rather experiences in personal statements, privileged trumpet.

At the start of January a post was admissions tests and interviews. We as current students can give support that uploaded to “Oxfess” – a Facebook page applicants may otherwise lack. Project for Oxford students to post anonymous Access also makes sure that we don’t confessions. It levelled the accusation forget disadvantaged pupils who have that Classics is an “easy way to Oxford for received offers, who may be less likely to mediocre private school kids to avoid the make or take up their offers at Cambridge competition of state educated students by assigning them mentors to guide them. who apply for real subjects.” The title of Programmes such as these are essential this article is stolen from that post. If state in making Cambridge more accessible, educated students are largely applying for a and we should take responsibility different branch of the course (as is the case ourselves, as students of the University, if you haven’t yet learnt Latin and Greek), it regardless of our backgrounds, to do what is self-evident that there is less competition we can to support outreach. While larger for privately educated students.

So it is easier in this sense because the efforts than open days, summer schools and mentoring schemes are needed to competition is divided. However, even in make our university more equal, we still the entire Cambridge Classics 2016 intake, can help at least one person who deserves there was less competition for places than a place to get one who otherwise may have other subjects. The university website had less of a chance. quotes 2 applications for each Classics

C

Widening access concerns all Cambridge students Josephine Skorupski Comment Editor

I

n light of David Lammy’s report released last year, Cambridge University may welcome UCAS’ newly released Admissions Data. Last week, the figures showed a marked improvement for Cambridge in admitting students from disadvantaged areas. In 2010, pupils from the most advantaged areas were 18.4 times more likely to take a place at the university, but in 2017 this has narrowed to 8.4. This demonstrates that the university is not necessarily regressing in terms of widening access. However, there is evidently still a long way to go in terms of increasing admissions from disadvantaged groups, and we as Cambridge students play a significant role in this happening.

In the debate surrounding Cambridge and elitism, Lammy and many others propose a centralised admissions process, while others argue that the Cambridge and the UK’s other elite universities cannot be held responsible for the failings of the UK educational system. These arguments are necessary in the debate of widening

university participation, but the changes that many advocate are long-term.

We as Cambridge students ourselves have the opportunity to help with the University in widening access. It may not be possible to single-handedly change the demographics of the University as a whole, but we can make personal impacts, emphasizing that coming to Cambridge is possible in spite of the hurdles many face.

This is already happening – Youtubers such as Ibz Mo, Courtney Daniella, and Holly Gabrielle are debunking myths and stereotypes while allowing their viewers a glimpse into their lives as normal students.

Their honest, engaging, and often relatable content does not idealize Cambridge, but normalizes it. This honesty is essential, as Ibz says in a recent video: ‘I don’t want you to come to Cambridge, I want you to know that you can come here.’

While it may not be possible for most Cambridge students to document their lives here on Youtube to widen access, we should still take opportunities to encourage people to apply. One reason why students from disadvantaged backgrounds are not well-represented is simply because they are

Is Classics a bastion o

We as current students can give support that applicants may otherwise lack

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The Cambridge Student • 1 February 2018

CAROLE RADDATO

Comment

Column: Gays of our lives -

The curious case of the very itchy women Isabella Leandersson

of academic elitism? place in 2016. History and English both had double the total intake of students with 3 and 4 applications per place respectively.

So why does Oxbridge have a disproportionate number of places for a subject that is becoming less and less popular and has one of the highest application to offer success rates?

To broaden access, these places could be redistributed to English and History so that the supply actually matches the demand for each subject and the best students have the best opportunity.

It is a foul inheritance from times when Ancient Greek and Latin were considered “proper” subjects for young men, that there are a disproportionate number of places.

This comes from the idea that the Greeks were the source of some sort of indefinable superiority. Edith Hall’s notion is possibly a bit strong that this is now just plugged by “die-hard conservatives who have a vested interest in proving the superiority of “western” ideals”. It seems rather that we just haven’t yet washed away some repercussions of this idealism.

If there are more places available than is appropriate for the number of applications and the subject is particularly accessible to privately educated students, then Classics could indeed be an easier way in to Oxford as the Oxfessor declared.

This article was prompted by something I overheard on the Sidgwick site. Someone was basically justifying these issues by suggesting it is more demanding than other subjects. The snippet of conversation went something along these lines (quote unquote): “At Cambridge, the Classical Tripos in first year is all the humanities rolled into one and to add salt to the wound, they’re all in Latin and Greek!”. Whether Classics is harder can’t really be answered, but we can be certain that the subject does not have any qualities that lend themselves to a superior education.

The problem with elitism in Classics is not limited to Cambridge nor is it necessarily just the problem of universities to solve. As things stand, the current system in which it is quite clearly a more appealing and accessible course for some students, is not fair. Classics needs to be demystified and brought down from its pompous pedestal to prevent it becoming obsolete.

Let me set the scene. It’s the tenth century A.D, your name is Abul Hasan Ali ibn Nasr al-Katib, and you have two big interests in life.

One is in ways people do the naughty, and the other is writing.

What do you do?

You write a masterpiece, and you name it the Encyclopedia of Pleasure.

Our gay journey picks up some speed ahead of this though, as details about the “Saffron Massage” began to emerge in earlier medieval Arabic literary erotic tradition.

Okay, so I won’t actually go into details about the Saffron Massage, and if you want to find out about it I recommend you read the article I name at the end. What we will focus on instead are the incredibly cool (and vivid…) depictions of lesbians in it.

In a narrative that may seem only too familiar, lesbianism was considered to be an illness back then too.

It involved individuals with vaginas trying to, ahem, alleviate a certain itch in a private area by scratching it against a certain other area of another individual

with a vagina.

This was the only way to soothe the itch, and so people found themselves with no other choice but to become lesbians.

One of the many words associated with lesbians and lesbian behaviour back then was sahq, which literally translates to “to rub,” and likely arose as a result of the ‘itchy’ theory.

Mothers could literally turn their babies gay by eating things like celery, rocket or bitter orange leaves and then nursing their babies (I’ll have to check with my mum about this one).

This would then cause the ‘itchiness’ in their child that they had to alleviate as an adult.

What’s interesting to note is that whilst lesbianism was considered to arise as the result of an illness.

It was not necessarily considered deviant as a result (that came later).

This brings us back to the Encyclopedia, where the story of the lesbian couple Hind Bint al-Nuvman and Hind Bint al-Khuss al-Iyadiyyah and their incredible devotion to each other is recorded.

Al-Nuvman and al-Iyadiyyah were not only lesbians, but also an inter-cultural

Mothers could literally turn their babies gay

couple as al-Nuvman was Christian and alIyadiyyah was an Arab woman.

What’s touching is that their relationship was emphasised for its devotion and loyalty, the book saying of them that when one died the other “cropped her hair, wore black clothes, [and] rejected worldly pleasures.”

I find this depiction touching, seemingly approaching the relationship with a sense of respect and distance, something I find lacking in a lot of treatments of queer relationships today.

As a closing thought, many medieval Arabic texts also described what seemed to be Lesbian ‘communities’ of women who lived together and formed communities with each other.

This is the kind of history I want to learn more about, who were these women?

What did their communities look like?

Do we have things in common with our ancestors we would never begin to ask?

Source: Medieval Arab Lesbians and Lesbian-Like Women By Sahar Amer

Is a Hijabi model truly progressive?

Munira Rajkotwalla

O

n January 19th, a British youtuber with over 300,000 subscribers made headlines all over the globe as she became the first Hijabi Muslim woman to feature on a mainstream beauty ad. Amena Khan appeared on a L’Oreal Haircare ad alongside several others; while the other flaunted their hair in order to promote the brand, Amena adorned her scarf, declaring “just because you can’t see my hair doesn’t mean I don’t care about it”.

Naturally, this led to two polarized reactions from netizens and news outlets across the world. One group celebrated the increasing diversity and inclusion of the beauty industry, with Amena herself validating the campaign as “a platform for diverse voices and women who don’t fit the very narrow mold of beauty”. On the other hand, many criticized the campaign for its use of a religious object – the hijab – in promoting the L’Oreal brand.

Controversy about the campaign further ensued when Khan allegedly “quit” modelling for the brand after tweets posted by her in 2014 went viral for their antiIsrael sentiments. The whole incident, from Khan’s employment to her resignation, leads to several questions about whether this “historical” campaign and its effects were truly beneficial as “a platform for diverse voices”. Was Khan just a figurehead

in a marketing campaign? Did her donning of a scarf really challenge “the very narrow mould of beauty” enforced on women?

Would the rage that ensued over her tweets have been the same if the tweets were made by a non-Muslim, non-POC model?

It is worth noting that Amena’s entire presence in the ad campaign revolved around her identity as a Muslim Hijabi.

While other models spoke about their hair and the products they used, Amena’s primary line was: “Whether or not your hair is on display doesn’t affect how much you care about it”.

It can be argued that the ostentatious focus on Khan’s religious garment took away fromf the campaign’s aim of including Muslims and challenging what “an average woman” looks like – if our conversation about Muslim women revolves around their hijab, are we not reducing their identity to their clothing? By focusing on one difference, as opposed to many similarities, are we othering them?

Amena herself claims that her presence in the campaign broadens the “very narrow mold of beauty” that women must subscribe to. However, it is easy to see how Amena – a fair skinned, slim and tall woman – fits this very mold, with her hijab being the only thing differentiating her from any other professional model. Are we ready to accept Muslim women only if

Did her donning of a scarf really challenge ‘the very narrow mold of beauty’ enforced on women?

they fit within the exclusive standards of Western beauty? It is obvious that there is much to be done widening out conceptions of beauty to include all women, Muslim or not.

The most important question however, I believe, is to be asked about her very contentious resignation from the L’Oreal brand and the tweets that caused it. In 2014, Amena posted several strongly worded tweets regarding the situation in Israel and Palestine. Shortly after, Khan “resigned” from the brand claiming that her tweets “do not represent the message of harmony” that she stands for. L’Oreal released statements agreeing with her.

Whether the content of her tweets was appropriate or legitimate makes for an article of its own. Nevertheless, it is important to note the extreme backlash that Khan’s political views triggered.

Overall, L’Oreal’s campaign including the first Hijabi model for beauty products has been one that has opened the door to several considerations on diversity and the role of the media in creating inclusive spaces. Much is to be done before both women and women of color find true representation. Khan’s situation, if anything, has been useful in shedding light on the problems faced by both women and campaigners in creating diverse platforms.

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1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

Columns

Column: maintaining communication (sanity) Hannah Dyball Columns Editor

I

t’s 4am. Huddled under the warmth of blankets and grim determination, the smell of longabandoned pizza permeating the air, you and your fire team are storming through your latest adventure with well-oiled expertise. The walls are flickering in LED-induced rapture.

Your ears have grown deaf to all but the hail of gunfire. Your eyes are glued to the screen (or just glued open… who can tell at this point?)

Then it happens.

even when you haven’t meticulously just won’t cut it. The once euphoric structured it into your schedule. light no longer dances elegantly to the They’re idiots…but they’re your idiots. rhythm of your collective ineptitude.

Somehow, it seems like a sad and So, returning to Cambridge can lonely lament, spliting the cool, wintry seem like the beginning of a long air as a lone controller hums along. period of separation. It can be isolating Playing with strangers is always to be without the people who make you laugh through a blatant lack of an option, but they just don’t quite match up to your usual diet of crude skill…or shame. observational humour and terribly Sure, you could play alone, but inappropriate anecdotes. Also, after sometimes the single player campaign the sixth time a pre-pubescent urchin

Eyes snap open to the beat of today’s alarm as another day, another stack of papers, begins.

we find time to maintain our own sanity and our connections with our old gaming buddies while at university. Online games can get a bad rep sometimes, for bile-spitting communities or the occasional lack of coherent story missions, but there’s something to be said for being able to play past the parting; to duel despite the distance. We are lucky that online gaming exists and that we can keep hanging out with That is why it is so important that our friends, whether that’s from LUKE HAYFIELD the other side of the world or a few doors down the road.

has informed you of your need to “get good”, playing with randoms can seem about as attractive as a macerated chip on the pavement outside Cindies.

Where is the banter? The witty repartee that has always characterised gaming as a social activity? The jovial acknowledgement of your deeply dysfunctional relationships and the virtual inadequacies that they directly cause (because it’s definitely not you).

Regardless of whether your game of choice is Call of Duty, or League of Legends, or if Rocket League is more your speed, gaming can make being away from the people you love a little bit easier. You might not be able to have those mad 4am in-person sessions that you knew and loved at home, but you can still be present, in spite of your absence.

But, deep in the recesses of drained minds, a tiny, malnourished memory of those nights filled with laughter and companionship crawls tentatively into view. Yes, you ate like pigs. Yes, you drank like teenagers in a desolate field.

Yes, you were about as harmonious as the National Anti-Social Feline Choir on the day that the League of the Perpetually Jovial Hounds strolled into town. Nevertheless, despite the snatched controllers, childish bawling and nonconsensual haircuts, you love your friends from home. They keep you sane through the holidays. They will happily come over and play video games all night just to see you for a while. They remind you to have fun,

So, this week, message your home team or just check to see who’s online and reserve a little time to hang out in the virtual realm; it will make the quest of reality seem a little less unassailable. Go, be free; whisper sweet pixelated nothings and then blast them out of view by raining hellfire down on your favourite longsuffering idiots.

Column: Gays of our lives - the forgotten villa Isabella Leandersson

A

s I was doing the research for this column, I realised just how difficult it is to find out information about lesbianism in specific places in antiquity. Any and all roads seemed to lead to Sappho, and, although Sappho’s great and all (she’s the ancient Greek equivalent of Ellen Degeneres in terms of popularity), she was by no means the only queer woman around back then. How do I know? Oh, it gets pretty complicated.

If we turn to the ancient city of Pompeii, one of the most famous pieces which was found while excavating it was located in the Villa of the Mysteries (yes, that is its real name), where a fresco seems to depict a woman’s initiation into a cult. No, it’s not that really cool Lesbian cult I’ve been trying to join for years, but most likely a cult of Dionysus or Bacchus, god of wine, theatre and general

debauchery. The fresco has long been eye-contact, touch, and symbolism: debated to have homoerotic subtext, in both hetero- and homosexual and seems to be our best vantage point contexts. into a Lesbian Pompeii.

In the fresco, we find the presence of Our best shot at unpacking the queer both the muses and the three graces, imagery lies not in the straight up another all-female group often shown erotic. In fact, a depiction of a rather, ‘lost in each other’s eyes,’ dancing ahem, compromising scene between around an open flame (symbolic of two women does in fact form part of the burning passion of eros, or love), the fresco, though I have regrettably and touching each other’s hips and been unable to locate it in my googling shoulders in sensual ways. This kind of (perhaps because safe-search was on?) imagery was omni-present in ancient Instead we ought to focus on imagery Rome, not just in our mystery villa relating to feminine affection, such as fresco but in sculpture, myth, and with the muses. They were immortal legend. characters that inspired various kinds While researching lesbian antiquity, of art, such as epic poetry, science, history and so on. The muses were all I found that it was often presented as female, and often depicted together. It a chaste alternative, a calm pool of is in these images that we find a hint still water far removed from the allof homosocial behaviour. In Roman consuming flame that was masculine and Greek iconography, romance was sexuality. It was hard to know whether a subtle art. It was hinted at through the women in the stories were women

like Sappho, actively in love with other women and describing them in sexual contexts, or women who withdrew from men, being then suspected to be a “wife of somebody like yourself ” by men around them (see Luxorious).

I find that it’s a shame that men of ancient Greek and Rome muddied the waters for us in this way, as it makes recognising self-identifying homosexual and homoromantic women so much harder amongst the ruins.

Next week we will look at representations of homosexuals in Arabic texts from the Middle Ages, and see if we can find well-defined queer narratives there.

Further reading: Among Women; from the Homosocial to the homoerotic in the ancient world by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz & Lisa Auanger.

THORVALDSENS MUSEUM

19

The Cambridge Student • 1 February 2018

Sport

How to get away with a Blues award in Cambridge

Finn Ranson Sports Editor

C

indies queue-jump, overpriced membership to a glorified, elitist working men’s club and seventy quid from your college. Such is the celebrity lifestyle of a Blue – only topped for covetedness in the sporting world

by Lionel Messi’s left foot, Roberto Firmino’s gnashers, and Roger Federer’s anti-ageing cream. These sports could be your ticket to the holy land…

Tiddlywinks Breaking into the eight-man tiddlywinks squad could earn you a quarter Blue – and your name amongst the greats. Past ‘twinkers’ include a litany of world champions, the CUTwC being the birthplace of the modern adult game after a group of undergraduates met up at Christ’s College in January 1955 to come up with a sport at which they could represent the University. Mercifully, you’ll have ample opportunity to master this immensely technical discipline ahead of the Inter-Varsity Trophy, with the club involved in 13 tournaments on the tiddlywinks tour throughout the year, including Cuppers which kicked off on Wednesday night. All this for an affordable £3.88.

Orienteering This is no walk in the park – running, in fact, up hills. A starting birth in the orienteering team though would take you up to the heady heights of a half Blue; with only 20 active members, simply signing up and shelling out 28 quid earns you subsidised travel and entry to the Varsity Match.

Admittedly, while last year’s event was held in Fontainebleau, just south-west of Paris, this time around you’ll find yourself in the heathen wilderness of ‘The North’.

God knows how Londoners are going to be able to navigate above the tropic of Watford. There is the rather ominously sounding

KITYA MARK

weekly ‘Low intensity core stability exercises’ session to contend with – but amongst this are ‘Distance Judgment’ and ‘Compass Skills’.

American Football Bittier than a soccer game with VAR, American football is hardly the most taxing sport athletically.

Cambridge’s ‘Pythons’ are also pretty atrocious. Despite a promising campaign last year, narrowly missing out on the BUCS Midlands 1A title, this season has seen them lose all four league fixtures and tot up an impressive point difference of -99 having secured their only six points against fellow relegation candidates Imperial. The bar of expectation would be tolerably low.

Plus, you’d be universally adored – a jock and a Blue! The firsts train two to three times a week along with a ‘classroom learning session’.

Real Tennis According to CURTC’s website it is a sport where “subtlety and thought are more prized than power and fitness.” Sounds promising. loping roofs, openings and surprise kinks in the walls and an absolutely bizarre myriad of lines aside, real tennis is certainly for the gentler breed of sportsperson. It was, after all, a favourite of gout-ridden Henry VIII. There are about 43 surviving courts in the UK, Australia, the US and France so who knows, you could even push for the world championships. Helpfully, the club has a former world number two and four-time world champion in its ranks. Get yourself down to 56 Grange Road.

Without a single 6am outing on the Cam you could get away with a Blue – rise to the pinnacle of your sport, write your name in the history books, push the human body to its limits. Failing that, don a blue blazer and act confident in the smoking area.

STEFANB

20

1 February 2018 • The Cambridge Student

Sport www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/sport

CUCC’s Rob Walker on Froome, BUCS and going for a Blue - an insight into cycling FINN RANSON

Cambridge University Athletics Club Finn Ranson Sports Editor

C

ycling. It’s the picture postcard stuff of Cambridge – blue vintage bikes with straw baskets tumbling down cobbled streets. But at the Cambridge University Cycling Club, it’s a matter of blood, sweat and tears.

Needless to say, the hump on Orgasm Bridge paled in significance when top CUCC cyclist Rob Walker outlined his weekly schedule to me.

“I spend somewhere between 10 and 14 hours a week,” he said. “An easy ride Monday, some stuff on the static trainer Tuesday and Thursdays. Off the bike exercises as well core strength is really important for time trialling, and then four hours on Saturday and Sunday, 80 miles in the countryside.” Walker’s version of an ‘easy ride’, I soon found out, was 45 kilometres.

Although one of the University’s less heralded sporting institutions, the CUCC has been far and away one of its most prolific in recent years. Its headline events are the BUCS 10 mile time trial, and the more endurance-focused 25 mile event, a national competition, but usually organised by Oxford and

Only three male cyclists will get a Blue this year

Cambridge as the stage of the Varsity clash. In last year’s BUCS 10, where 48 universities were represented, the men’s firsts took gold with a staggering six Cambridge riders finishing in the top 20. A few weeks later, the first, second and third team secured first, second and fourth spot at the 25. It was the best performance by a university squad in the history of BUCS competition.

“We get spurred on by where other people are at,” Walker laughed.

“It becomes quite a competitive environment, trying to rip each other’s legs off at the weekends.”

It was always ordained to be so for Walker. He won the Freshers Race in his first week at Cambridge, finished second in Cuppers for Pembroke, then clinched a top-10 spot in the BUCS 25 with 55:28 in May – the best performance from a Cambridge newbie in three years. “We raced some BUCS track in November,” he added. “I did the team pursuit there, four of us racing over four kilometres and we got bronze.” It was Walker’s maiden track attempt. “I started this time last year, just doing trips down to the Olympic velodrome.” His last outing on the road in Light Blue saw a 17th place finish

in the BUCS hill sprint – not bad for a self-confessed endurance specialist.

After such a blistering 18 months, it’s not surprising that Walker is itching to get stuck in again as race season approaches. He has his sights set even higher this time.

“Blue is the main target this season.

But there’s only three people that’ll get a Blue this year,” he smiled. “And there’s a lot more than three people who want them.” Whereas representing Cambridge in one of the big Varsity matches usually earns an athlete their colours, in cycling a male rider has to not only finish within the top six at the Varsity, but achieve two sub-54 minute 25 mile races. Only 14 have managed it since 1993. But Walker doesn’t seem perturbed. “Who knows,” he added, “I might be able to get a mountain biking half blue as well.”

Cycling has been something of a lightning rod for the growing anxieties around doping in sport in recent years, and four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome’s recent failed drugs test has reignited cynicism. “I think the sport has moved on quite a lot,” Walker countered. “The stuff we’ve seen recently with Froome and Wiggins is different to

the Armstrong era where everyone was doping. Its ridiculous how much he’s been harangued by the press really.

“The facts don’t add up. The drug he tested positive for is not necessarily massively performance enhancing, is very easy to test for, and he knew what the limits were in terms of using his inhaler. I don’t understand how he’d had have such an extreme reading. It was over two times the amount. Cyclists are the most tested athletes in the world.

You can’t say that cycling’s the only sport where they dope, cycling is the only sport where they get caught.”

It’s a packed spring schedule for Cambridge’s elite cyclists. Cuppers in March, followed by the BUCS 10 and 25 mile time trials and the defence of Cambridge’s gold medal in the team trials. Walker himself has an eye on the Classics Series, six time trials on hallowed routes across Britain. It all kicks off on February 11 with the Ely Hardriders 25 mile course. “It’s probably going to be wet and cold and rainy,” Walker grimaced. “But I’m looking forward to putting down a marker for the season.”