Michaelmas 2017 Issue 2 by The Cambridge Student

The

Cambridge

19th October 2017 Vol. 19 Michaelmas Issue 2 www.tcs.cam.ac.uk

Union harassment allegations uncovered

Student

Frustration as online Union ticketing crashes Ali Chard News Editor

Chrystel Papi Deputy News Editor

ollowing the news of allegations of sexual harassment by a frequent guest speaker towards the members of the committee, the Cambridge Union has ensured that the concerned perpetuator will not be invited back. It was early this morning that Tim Squirrell, former Cambridge Union president, took to Twitter to confess by stating how a “well-known” and “frequent invitee” sexually harassed “several” of the committee members during his term as president. Out of “fear of libel accusations” Squirrel refrains from naming this specific individual, but assures that “they are a lawyer and appear in papers regularly.” He also added that “later committees have had other speakers do similar.” Squirrell admits to have initially “failed to act.” He only “informally” asked that the alleged perpetuator would not be invited to return and neglected to assure that he be “officially blacklisted.” Now, having taken the matter into his own hands, Squirrel has “finally”

contacted current committees, informing them of the issue. The Cambridge Student has approached the Cambridge Union for comment, who has said they will release a statement by the end of the day. The story will be updated on the TCS website. The news came today together with the official announcement on behalf of the University of Cambridge of a new initiative to safeguard respectable relations between students and staff members. Affirming its zero-tolerance position on the issue of sexual harassment and assault, this new approach aims to discourage intimate student-staff relationships. Tackling the rising rage against the culture of harassment is not an easy task, and while not looking for “forgiveness or flagellation,” Squirrell can only try “not to be complicit again,” though rightfully asking whether one has “done everything you can to stop harassment?”

An ochre-coloured hue was seen over Cambridge on Monday, October 17th, as Hurricane Ophelia passed. Photograph by Ada Günther.

nion members were unable to book tickets to see Anthony Scaramucci after the Union website crashed, after members were informed by email and on the Union Facebook page that tickets would be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis from 10 am on 17th October. When members tried to book the tickets the webpage was unresponsive. Members reported being able to enter some details in the system but being unable to submit the request. A member commented on the Union Facebook page, “Nice to know the money we spent goes towards quality IT” The Union did apologise to those complaining on the Facebook page saying, “the ballot has been paused due to too many people logging in”. The initial response from the Union left members unsure if tickets were sold out or if the ballot was just temporarily paused. One member commented, “Is the ballot still paused or can I now trust the site when it says the spots have all been taken? Quite confused.”. By 4.30pm on 17th October the Union had come up with a solution posting on its Facebook page, “*SCARAMUCCI apology and next steps*”. They went on to say they would allow people to apply for tickets from 8pm until midnight. The ticket winners will be drawn in a ballot tomorrow morning. Tickets for the event were also available on the door on the night on a first-come-first-serve basis.

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

News

Editorial Team Editorial: Signing the Mental Health 19th October 2017

Volume 19 • Michaelmas Issue 2

Editor-in-Chief

Sophie Dickinson

Deputy Editors

Noella Chye Juliette Bretan Molly Moss

News Editor

Ali Chard

Deputy News Editors

Beatrice McCartney Catherine Lally

Science Editors

Simon Langer

Features Editors

Caithlin Ng

Comment Editors

Sebastian Shuttleworth Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh

Interviews Editor

Will Bennett

Theatre Editors

Carina Harford Rose Aitchison

Music Editor

James Mackay

Fashion & Beauty Editors

Miriam Balanescu Gabby Koumis

Lifestyle Editor

Roshni Prasad Katelyn Nash

Sex & Relationships Editors

Jake Kroeger Aleph Rosenbaum

Food & Drink Editor

Finley Kidd

TV & Film Editor

Shameera Lin Megan Harding

Chief Sub Editors

Hannah Prentice

Sub Editors

Olivia Norris

Staff Illustrators

Beatrice Obe Hosea Lau

Directors

Urvie Periera Will Tilbrook

Media Charter

Sophie Dickinson Editor-in-Chief

he Cambridge Student signed The Mental Health Media Charter on Mental Health Awareness Day this year. The Michaelmas 2017 team have decided that the values expressed in the charter are shared amongst the editorial team, and have made a commitment to the sensitive reporting of mental health issues. Too often, the portrayal of mental health in journalism can be insensitive, or worse, sensationalist. As a source of news and comment in Cambridge, TCS feels it is important to be conscious and critical of how we report such issues, and share useful resources. Hopefully, this awareness amongst our writers will allow the conversation around mental health to be a constructive one, and also guide people towards getting the appropriate help. The charter gives some

suggestions about how to do this, and comments on the impact of indifferent commentary. Triggering, or just thoughtless reporting, can be detrimental for an individual, but also on a general societal level. That is not to say mental health should not be talked about – our newspaper is dedicated to providing resources for those who feel they need help, and is also a space in which honest discussions of mental health issues are welcome. The commitment feels particularly important at this university. Statistics obtained by The Cambridge Student in 2015 found that only 55% of Cambridge students find the workload on their course manageable, whilst only 38% agreed that their course “does not apply unnecessary pressure”. As this stress is apparently endemic, national attitudes are still based in stigma, and services are underfunded, The Mental Health Media Charter is a vital contribution to the conversation about our mental health. This committment covers all of TCS’ writing from now, and we would love your opinions on how we’re doing- feel free to message our Facebook or email to keep us vigiliant! To focus on Issue Two of Michealmas, then. It really is a wonderful issue, with the best

of Cambridge creativity and comment. The Cambridge Diary has all the best uni gossip, so give that a read over breakfast – it’s tucked away on page 30. The Features section is focussed on female empowerment, with articles talking about art and life in Cambridge. There’s a lovely illustration by the fantastic Beatrice Obe, too. The Thursday Magazine is particularly strong this week too, with an amazing fashion shoot directed by Gabby and Miriam. Take a look at our bright make up ideas for when you want to go full glam on a night out (or just when you’re writing an essay). There are some behind-thescenes snaps on our Instagram too, so make sure you follow us to get extra content. As ever, we’re always looking for contributors. Fancy some free theatre tickets? Review a show, and get two in return. Or if you’ve got strong opinions on anything happening in Cambridge or the world, Comment is the section for you. We accept submissions, too, so pitch your article, illustration and photography ideas to us via social media or to a specific section email.

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. BEATRICE OBE

The Cambridge Student • 19th October 2017

News

Hurricane Ophelia casts sepia sky over Cambridge An ochre-coloured sky was seen over Cambridge on Monday 16th October. Andrew Tan and Ada Günther tell us the story in pictures. ANDREW TAN: FOUR LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHS

ADA GÜNTHER: THREE PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHS

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

News

Cambridge-based charity launches campaign to educate vulnerable children Noella Chye Deputy Editor SOS Children’s Villages UK, the world’s largest charity caring for orphaned and abandoned children, is launching an education campaign named Power a Pupil, which aims to raise money to educate vulnerable children. UNESCO reported last year that 263 million children worldwide do not attend school. Factors such as extreme poverty, conflict and natural disasters all affect whether a child can access sustainable, uninterrupted education. The campaign will call on schools, community groups and individuals to raise funds for Power a Pupil. The charity states that a donation of £275 will pay for one child’s education for one full year. This includes ensuring they are taught by a qualified teacher and have the books and educational materials and new school uniform they need. The Cambridge-based charity is the world’s largest NGO caring for orphaned and abandoned children. It is a federation of 134 member organisations delivering programmes in 125 countries to prevent family breakdown and care for children

who have lost parental support. SOS Children’s Villages UK currently runs 570 villages across five continents where children live with their qualified SOS Mother alongside SOS brothers and sisters, and operates 400 nursery, primary and secondary schools, as well as 48 vocational training centres. It has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times and is a consultative partner to the UN, helping develop the UN’s Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. SOSUK’s CEO Catharine Pusey said: “Education is key to ensuring families can break out of poverty. Across the world there are hundreds of millions of children who do not attend school and this means they cannot reach their full potential and contribute fully to their communities and economies. “Right now, SOS Children’s Villages ensures more than 125,000 children worldwide receive a good quality education. We want to make sure we can support all those children and more through to young adulthood, helping them thrive and lead happy, productive lives.”

Interested in writing for News or Investigations? Email news@tcs.cam.a.uk for more information.

The Cambridge Student • 19th October 2017

News

Cambridge Burger Joint raises the stakes to win prize at the Great Food Club Awards Molly Moss Deputy Editor

Cambridge burger joint has bagged the “best street food” category at the Great Food Club 2017 Awards. The restaurant, Steak & Honour, was featured on The Cambridge News’ Ultimate Guide to Burgers a few weeks ago, winning The Cambridge News’ Best Burger Poll, and has now been named Best Street Food Producer in the Great Food Club 2017 Awards. The title was awarded after a public vote online throughout summer 2017. Votes were cast mainly by Great Food Club members, and well over one thousand people took part. The Great Food Club commented: “The street-food category was a challenge to judge, with each shortlisted business impressing. “In the end, though, Steak & Honour won through thanks to doing what it does to near perfection and with a flourish. “This minimalistic burger restaurant (it has vans, too) in central Cambridge takes the humble burger and hones it, hones it again, and then delivers something close to the ultimate meatin-a-bun experience.

Steak & Honour is open seven days a week

“On our visit, we wolfed down a perfectly cooked medium-rare burger (beef sourced from The Art of Meat in Cambridge). “It was topped with jalapeño peppers, and placed between a halved brioche bun (baked by Dovecote Bakery in Cambridge). “We loved the carefully chosen range of canned craft beers on sale, too. With Steak & Honour, less is more: it is simple but devastatingly effective Steak & Honour is open seven days a week, incorporating Mondays 11.30am3pm and 5-9.30pm, with a special offer £5 burger to beat Monday blues. Weekly van locations can also be looked up online. Katie Underwood of Steak & Honour said: “We’re delighted to be the winners of this category. “It’s wonderful to see the GFC championing local independents, and that our local artisan product has shone through! “We’re also grateful to GFC readers and now offer 20 per cent off to cardholders at our Wheeler Street burger shop, seven days a week.”

University of Cambridge launches new sexual harassment scheme Noella Chye Deputy Editor

he University of Cambridge has launched a campaign aimed at preventing coercive behaviour, harassment, and sexual misconduct, called ‘Breaking the silence’. The campaign includes a University statement of zero tolerance, a revised dignity at work policy to include sexual misconduct, and a new policy and guidance document concerning personal relationships between staff and students. It will function primary through the official campaign website, breakingthesilence.cam. ac.uk. The website offers guides for those who have been affected or accused. For the former, the page lists sources of accessing support, including the Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre, and possible actions to take, such as submitting an anonymous report to the university. For those who have been

accused, the page lists information about the reporting and investigation process. Forms for making anonymous reports can also be found on the website. The University commented, ‘There is no place for any form of harassment or sexual misconduct at the University of Cambridge. ‘All members of the University community must be able to thrive within their roles without fear of sexual violence, abuse, coercive behaviour or related misconduct. ‘The University will continuously work to improve the prevention, response, support and investigation of all instances of harassment and sexual misconduct; and to enable staff and students to make disclosures without fear of reprisal.’ The Cambridge Student has contacted the University and CUSU Women’s Officer Lola Olufemi for comment.

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

College Watch

Images: Jessica McHugh

Sidney

Sidney Sussex catering were under fire yesterday as the Meat Free Monday scheme appeared to have dissapeared from the hall menu. Sections of the college took to the Sidney Facebook group to complain about the absence, and the apparent lack of consultation with students. A controversial open JCR meeting in 2015 saw the motion for Meat Free Mondays pass after a long debate. A delay in implementing the scheme followed, but by Easter term of 2016 a standardised menu two vegetarian and one meat option was available every Monday. The Green Officer for Sidney, Arthur Beard, wrote: “The Sidney catering team did not consult with the student body before discontinuing Meat Free Mondays.” The Head Chef Stephen Mather said that Meat Free Monday had not disappeared for good, and is likely to be moved to another day after a meeting with the student body.

Christ’s

Christ’s College Cat has recently been reported missing. The cat, known by the students and staff of Christ’s under the name of Rocket, has been a beloved and valued member of Christ’s college for many years. After discovering its absence, many dismayed students of Christ’s College took to Facebook to spread the word and begin a search for the beloved cat. The tabby has a distinctive coat featuring orange and black patches, as well as a white chest and paws, and can often be found wandering the grounds of Christ’s. While cats remain too mainstream for some colleges, every college has an animal, whether that be a cat, a dog, a duck or even a hedgehog. It is hoped that the cat will be found soon so that it can continue its active life within college. If you see a cat matching the description of Rocket wandering around Cambridge, don’t hesitate to contact the Porter’s Lodge at Christ’s College, so that the college can get Rocket home Sophie Dickinson safe and sound. Molly Moss

St John’s

Pembroke

St. John’s Picturehouse is unable to screen films after the sound system was damaged, it was reported to the college. The college is uncertain of how the damage was caused. Commenting on their Facebook page, St John’s Picturehouse said: “We have some really terrible news - it appears someone has seriously damaged the input box for the sound system. We have no idea who has done this but have reported it to the college. Unfortunately this means we will be unable to show the screenings of Pulp Fiction this evening – we considered playing a free screening but the sound is so temperamental that it is really unwatchable and most of the speakers are not working. We apologise sincerely for the short notice - we have been working to resolve the issue for the last hour but it appears the damage is just too extensive. We hope to have this resolved and the equipment repaired very soon, and will try and reschedule a screening of Pulp Fiction for later in the term.” Molly Moss

Pembroke College’s Dean, Dr James Gardom, has recovered his recumbent bicycle after having it stolen in Cambridge on the 16th October. The bike disappeared from outside Newnham Co-op at around 9.45 PM. The Dean, in an email sent to students of Pembroke on the 16th, said “I do not think it is going to sell, so I suspect it will be abandoned somewhere in college. If you see it, could you let the Porters know.” The email also contained a picture of another recumbent bicycle which resembled the Dean’s own bicycle. The bike was recovered, undamaged, about 400 metres away from where it had been left. In another email sent out to Pembroke college students on the 17th October, the Dean said “I’m delighted to say that my recumbent bicycle has been recovered. Very many thanks for the expression of concern, and for your combined vigilance in keeping an eye out for it! I am really pleased to be back on my bicycle!” Molly Moss

The Cambridge Student • 19th October 2017

News

New Vice-Chancellor forced to defend £365,000 annual salary Beatrice McCartney Deputy News Editor

the lead to complete a £2bn fundraising campaign, which means I am searching for all possible sources of income, while developing the international reputation of the university, working with business, government and civil society to develop partnerships, while being responsible for operations and the entity of the university”. The news came as Vice-Chancellor Toope opened Jesus College’s new West Court development, alongside the Earl of Wessex last week. The pair are both alumni of the University and perfomed together in a performance of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible whilst they contemporaneously studied together. Other vice-chancellors have recently come under pressure to take salary

cuts, notably Oxford University’s vice-chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, who receives a £350,000 salary. She branded politicians who criticised the policy as “tawdry”, with their comments damaging the sector. Toope also aired his view that, if handled poorly, a review of student fees could damage the high global standing of UK universities, but also questioned the 6.1% interest rate on student loans when commercial interest rates are much lower. Toope recently started in his position as vice-chancellor earlier this month, taking over from Leszek Borysiewicz, who, according to Times Higher Education (THE), earned £353,000 in the final year of his tenure.

rofessor Stephen Toope, the new Vice-Chancellor, is facing criticisms over his pay. Professor Toope, defending his £365,000 pay “I am packet, which is more than double that of the Theresa May’s, told The Times responsible that it is “reasonable, given the scope for for of the job”. The challenge to Professor Toope’s £1bn a year pay has come after the warning turnover” earlier this month from Jo Johnson, universities minister, that institutions will be fined if they are unable to justify paying their vice-chancellor more than £150,000 a year, urging vice-chancellors to “embrace accountability”. Others, including Sir Michael RICHARD MARSHAM/RMG PHOTOGRAPH Barber, chairman of the Office for Students, have urged vice-chancellors to cut their own salaries to restore public confidence. On the possibility of moves to cut vice-chancellors’ pays in order to silence critics, Toope said “I think it is not a good idea, to be frank, because what it does is reaffirm the sense that the UK is not operating in the open market for global talent.” The average salary for a university vice-chancellor is £257,904, which has been seen as unreasonable when many students will be leaving university with about £50,000 of debt. Toope argued that his salary was justified: “I am essentially responsible for £1bn a year turnover, 11,000 employees, 19,000 students, and am in Vice-Chancellor Toope and the Earl of Wessex open Jesus College’s new West Court development

“Necessary changes” will close ADC Theatre Will Tilbrook

he ADC Theatre is to close its doors from April to October next year to allow for “necessary refurbishment” to take place, according to Victoria Collins, the theatre manager of the ADC, who posted the news on the ‘Cambridge Theatre’ Facebook group. This was confirmed by the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club committee (CUADC) in a later statement. The theatre, which has seen the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, Tilda Swinton, and Emma Thompson tread the boards during their time at the University, will be closed for Easter Term 2018 and over the summer vacation before reopening a year from now.

The refurbishment will include changes to the auditorium temperature controls, repairs to the roof, and the addition of two new lightning bridges. When the work has finished, it will have been 10 years since the last major renovation. The ADC building houses the 228seat auditorium, the Larkum Studio, and the ADC bar. The committee said they will announce whether the Larkum Studio and bar will remain open whilst the work is ongoing nearer the time. Collins in the Facebook post said “We’re very sad to be closing one of our venues for this period, but we will still be maintaining an active programme at the Corpus Playroom.” She also announced that three or four productions will be put on at

“We will still be maintaining an active programme”

alternative venues across Cambridge during the period of closure, including a dramatic adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials at the Fitzwilliam Museum. In a statement to The Cambridge Student, the committee wrote the following: “The refurbishment of the theatre is exciting news. It will bring the theatre up to industry standard, allowing students to continue to create drama in a professional environment. There will be several student productions staged at alternate venues around the city. Kate Collins, a student and regular contributor to the Cambridge theatre scene, echoed this last remark, by saying: “I’m hoping it might encourage ore people (especially non-students) to see theatre at other venues like the Corpus Playroom.”

NEWS BULLETIN Sixty fellows support submission for divestment A coalition of academics and activists, including Noam Chomsky and National Union of Students President Shakira Martin, are calling on Cambridge to divest from fossil fuels. The submission, co-written by the National Union of Students and student campaigning group People & Planet, urges the University to divest its £6.3 billion endowment from the sector. It criticises the industry for misleading the public on climate science, and draws attention to human rights abuses by fossil fuel companies. It also argues that the industry’s business plans run counter to the Paris Agreement, and highlights a ‘reputational risk’ if Cambridge chooses to maintain its investments with companies such as ExxonMobil.

Tickets for Oxbridge Mental Health Charity Ball go on sale Tickets for Conscious: The Oxbridge Mental Health Charity Ball went on sale at 5 p.m. on Saturday the 14th of October. It was announced earlier in the week that the ball would be held on the 19th November. A committee member added that there will be “lots of exciting food, drink, ents, an amazing secret location which people won’t know until they arrive... and we’re going to have another celebrity endorsement next week.” The theme is art as a method of expressing your thoughts and feelings, perhaps as a way of helping dealing with difficult times, or explicitly about mental health. The organisers have announced that it will be held at a secret location between Oxford and Cambridge, with students from each university being shuttled there.

Murray Edwards revises Transgender Policy

Murray Edwards announced on the 3rd October that potential applications no longer have to be legally recognised as female to apply. Previously, this was a stipulation of anyone applying to the college. The policy now states the college will consider any student who, at the point of application (or requesting a transfer to the college) “Identifies as female and, where they have been identified as male at birth, has taken steps to live in the female gender”. The college’s singlesex status is not affected by the change. Dame Barbara Stocking, President of Murray Edwards commented: “We are a College that is open to all outstanding young women and so it is absolutely right, both legally and within our set of values.”

Addenbrooke’s Hospital buys two age-simulation suits

Addenbrooke’s Hospital has bought two agesimulation suits to allow medical and administrative staff to better understand the difficulties the elderly face daily. The suits cost £1,500 each, and were paid for with donations from the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, which is an organisation that raises funds for the purchase of hospital equipment. They come with a weighted vest, and ankle and wrist straps, to mimic the loss of strength which the elderly can feel. Padded foot panels and restrictive wraps around the knees and arms simulate a loss of balance and limited mobility.

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

Features

Column: Are adverts ruining culture or are they its saving grace?

James Daly

t was announced last month that a number of French theatres are to start projecting adverts before theatre productions. Unsurprisingly, this stirred quite the reaction among theatregoers, who are already charged up to hundreds of euros per ticket. I think the shock is a result of our arguably delusional preconception of the theatre as a sacred space, free from the flashy, abrasive marketing of commercial television, sponsored social media adverts, and the sides of buses. The theatre is enshrined in culture as a space kept separate from the outside world of profit-hungry corporations, where we can just enjoy pure art in one of its rawest forms – but is that breed of cultural enjoyment unhindered by capitalism a fantasy of the past?

A lot of people consider the pay-off for adverts on TV, radio and (increasingly) the internet, to be that these services are essentially free. We accept their acceptance of money because we aren’t contributing anything towards their continued existence. But the truth is, the theatre has long held out as one of the only places left untainted by paid media, and this luxury may have finally run its course. We don’t mind it in the cinema, having paid almost £10 for the ticket. In fact, one of the highlights of the cinema can be the sequence of trailers before the film. The reality is, in a world bursting at the seams with cultural production, tied with a dismally funded arts industry, advertising money is increasingly one of the most viable ways to stay afloat. The key question is: do we really care? Does often tacky and always undesirable advertising really undermine or devalue the art that it is financially supporting? Let’s look at The Great British Bake Off, for example: I love and support the BBC but clearly, public funding wasn’t enough for the nation’s favourite reality competition to survive, so a private deal JAGGERY

was the solution. Is the show any different since it moved to Channel 4 purely for the money allowed by advertising? No. Is people making money for producing great television a good thing? Yes. We may not like it, but a capitalist society demands remaining financially competitive, and culture and art are not exempt from that. So, all we can do is make sure that the actual art bit stays as pure and authentic as possible. On the bright side, in many ways, the more advertising surrounding a cultural product, the more popular and, by definition, successful it is. Advertisers sniff out where public interest lies and put the money there. For example, one of my favourite podcasts is now heavily saturated with adverts. Do I wish they weren’t there and I could enjoy the presenters talking without having Sainsbury’s Home plugged to me every ten minutes? Obviously. But I am equally delighted that the people behind the podcast are actually making a living off their contribution to pop culture, and I recognise the realistic financial needs of putting time and effort into producing a piece of work. I would hate to see the best elements of popular culture go under because producers were too precious about where their money comes from. So yes, the theatre will feel a bit more weird and a bit less special with a 5 minute advert segment at the start, and yes, it can be frustrating when your favourite YouTuber has to pretend they use some obscurely sourced moisturiser, but I think – I hope – we can all try to look past the ads and the capitalist monster they represent, and enjoy the well-funded art beneath them. More columns are available online.

CUSU to open recruitment for enquiry Noella Chye Deputy Editor N CHADWICK

USU president Daisy Eyre announced at CUSU Council on 9th October that recruitment will begin tomorrow for roles on the financial enquiry committee. Eyre detailed that her predecessor, Amatey Doku, should have begun the recuitment process after the final CUSU Council meeting of the 2016-17 academic year. Despite this not being fulfilled, the motion itself will not be amended. Applicants will make a speech at the next CUSU Council, and then will be voted on to the enquiry. This comes as CUSU confirmed a £50,000 loss for the last financial year. Eyre told TCS that the delay in announcing this loss was due to “the process of getting to grips with the new charity accounting framework (the FRS 102)” and “more protracted communication between ourselves and our accountants”. CUSU’s finances have also affected The Cambridge Student’s print schedule, which is now fortnightly. More information about applying to for an enquiry role will be available on the CUSU website.

CUSU Council proposes new elections’ staff role

motion proposing to add a staff member to the CUSU elections committee, who will be voted in at the next council, was passed at the bi-weekly CUSU council on 9th October. The CUSU elections committee is chiefly responsible for overseeing all elections run by CUSU over the course of their one-year term, including the Graduate Union and CUSU sabbatical officer elections. This includes mandating for various restrictions on running candidates, and deciding on penalties should an election rule be broken. The committee last year consisted of one chair and four student members, all of whom were students in the university. The staff member would be responsible for helping voting members of the committee with making decisions, as well as providing the support of his or her institutional memory, which is lacked given the yearly cycle of re-election. The motion was put forth by current CUSU president, Daisy Eyre, who prefaced with the question, “How can CUSU make being a member of the CUSU elections committee less stressful?”

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

The Nobel Prizes for Science, 2017 Simon Langer Science Editor Physics – Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, Kip S. Thorne LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves

he Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 was divided, with one half being awarded to Rainer Weiss and the other half jointly awarded to Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne. Thanks to the dedication of these scientists, humanity was able to observe the universe’s gravitational waves for the first time, 99 years after Albert Einstein predicted their existence in his theory of general relativity. This time period seems like a mere blink when taking into account that it took 1.3 billion years for the waves to arrive at the LIGO detector (Laser Interferometer GravitationalWave Observatory). The waves emerged from a collision between two black holes and, according to Einstein, could never be captured. However, using colossal laser interferometers to measure changes thousands of times smaller than an atomic nucleus, the LIGO detector and the associated researchers were able to detect the gravitational wave as it passed Earth.

of self-control, limited rationality and social preferences. Thaler also implemented several projects researching fairness, coming to the conclusion that consumer’s fairness concerns stop companies from raising prices in high demand periods, but not in times with high production costs. Physiology or Medicine – Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, Michael W. Young Molecular mechanisms of the circadian rhythm

The researchers Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms underlying the internal, biological clock known as the circadian rhythm. During their time at Brandeis University (Hall, Rosbach) and Rockefeller University (Young) respectively, the Nobel laureates were able to identify a gene responsible for this daily biological rhythm in a study with fruit flies. This gene encodes for a protein that accumulates in the cell during night time and is then degraded during the day. Such an internal clock is also present in humans and imbalance between our lifestyle and our biological clock is implicated with Economic Sciences – Richard H. an increased risk for various diseases. Thaler Behavioural Economics Chemistry – Jacques Dubochet, Richard H. Thaler from the University Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson of Chicago has been awarded the Cryo-electron microscopy Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences for his work on behavioural For their revolutionary development economics, combining psychological of cryo-electron microscopy, the Jacques Dubochet ideas with analyses of economic researchers decision-making. As a scientist, he (University of Lausanne), Joachim has investigated the consequences of Frank (Columbia University) and psychological phenomena such as lack Cambridge’s own Richard Henderson

n a remarkable turn of events, it appears your Editor-in-Chief is writing the research round up. Once famed for literally wearing a lab coat to a fancy dress party (because apparently the notion of serious research is so fantastical it warrants a costume), here I am, writing about the latest discoveries. On a serious note though (and as the unparralled BlueSci wrote recently) experts are important, and now more than ever, we should respect factual evidence. Here we go then. Science.

1 Sophie Dickinson Editor -in-Chief

It was reported on Wednesday that French scientists claim they have found the cause for dyslexia in light-receptor cells in the eye. Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Guy Ropars, from the University of Rennes, said this discovery could lead potentially to a ‘simple’ diagnosis. The research seemed to show that whilst these cells were arranged asymmetrically in nondyslexic people, they matched in those

(MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) have been distinguished with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Through their work, the imaging of biomolecules has been improved and it may be possible in the near future to provide detailed pictures in atomic resolution for the life sciences. Scientists who utilise cryo-electron microscopy can freeze biomolecules during their movement and therefore take into account processes that have never previously been seen. This technique will be able to upgrade chemical research and creation of pharmaceuticals. CHATHAM HOUSE

with dyslexia- which perhaps explains the sensation of mirroring in those with dyslexia. According to The Guardian, about 700 million people are known to have dyslexia, which equates to about 1 in 10 of the global population.

In a similar vein, a study by The Conversation suggests that children who are struggling to read or write may actually have hearing problems. Ear infections may linger without parents or teachers realising, meaning that children may be struggling with hearing. This in turn mean that it could be harder to ‘map out’ how spoken words are represented when printed. However, the article goes on to mitigate the research by detailing the complications of language acquisition: a number of contexts affect literacy in children, including memory and sociological factors. The research went on to suggest that a compulsory hearing test for children could provide a solution.

Science How gravity can break your heart Noella Chye Deputy Editor

n the movie Interstellar, a main character, Dr Brand, played by Anne Hathaway, puts forth the idea that love is a force of nature, like gravity or electromagnetism. She says,“Maybe it means something more, something we can’t understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artefact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive,” then goes on to explain, “Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that’s capable of transcending dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t understand it yet.” I do not propose that we take her claim seriously, but it remains important, for it overthrows our preconceived notions of what a force of nature is and can be. When I think of forces, I think only of invisible, largerthan-life mechanisms. I picture them cold, and disparate, in a way. The idea that a feeling as personal as love could be akin to it is just outrageous enough to be mesmerising. This gradual, creeping disintegration of the artificial barriers we place between physics and love continues throughout the rest of the film. (Spoiler alert; skip the next two paragraphs if you have yet to see the film.) Just about halfway through the film, for example, we see Cooper’s crew, travel through a wormhole in our solar system, just by Saturn, to find itself in a distant galaxy with potentially habitable planets. They decide the first course of action will be to explore what they call Miller’s planet. Yet on Miller’s planet, time is severely dilated because of its proximity to a nearby black hole, Gargantua — as such, an hour on the planet is equal to seven years on Earth.

One image from this part of the film is seared into my memory. Just before it, we see a video message from Cooper’s daughter, who remains on the quickly shrivelling Earth. She tells Cooper, “Today is my birthday. And it’s a special one, because you told me... you once told me that when you come back we might be the same age. And today I’m the same age you were when you left. So it would be a real good time for you to come back.” Then we see Cooper onscreen, and this is the image I cannot shake off. He gazes at his daughter in a whole other galaxy. Everything is painfully still; the only movement comes from Cooper’s heart-wrenching weeps, his face contorted into the picture of anguish, body trembling, then positively shaking in waves and waves of emptiness. This is the beauty of Interstellar — the way it takes love and science, those two goddesses, the pinnacles of passion, and smashes them together. It is almost too much to bear. In it we find a blazing, pulsating reminder of how gravity can break your heart. The level at which we conduct research has far surpassed the observable. Researchers constantly make predictions about the very big and the very small. In the film, Dr Brand says, “I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen in a decade whom I know is probably dead.” Watching it, I began to ask: why this gorgeous, elusive world? Ultimately, it reminds us to have a sense of perspective: in our search to understand the vast world around us, we cannot forget that we, too, are a part of it.

NATIONAL LITERACY TRUST

19 October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

Features

Women making history in Cambridge

Getting involved when

Caithlin Ng Features Editor

n light of Murray Edwards College’s recent decision to unconditionally admit transgender women, we are looking back at the history of female students at University of Cambridge. As most will know, it was centuries between the university’s establishment and the admission of its first female students, and even then, 79 more years until women were officially granted full membership of the university. While ‘distance’ might now be the first thing that comes to mind when Girton College is mentioned, the college actually has the distinction of being the first established for women. Founded in 1869 by Emily Davies, Barbara Bodichon and Lady Stanley of Alderley, its first term in October of 1869 saw five students embark on their studies. The college’s first location was in Hitchin, 30 miles away from Cambridge – a decision made in order not to stir up controversy with the existing university population. Amongst Girton’s first five students was Adelaide Manning, who went on to found the London branch of the National Indian Association, an organisation which focused on the needs and education of women in India. She would later be awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal, first class, by the monarchy in 1904 for her work. Another of these students was Louisa Lumsden, who was amongst the first three female students to sit the Tripos exams in 1873. Lumsden continued to pioneer education for women throughout her life, briefly becoming a tutor at Girton and later the first warden of University Hall, University of St Andrews. Philosopher and economist Henry

Sidgwick – also of Sidgwick Site fame – was another notable champion of women’s education, and went on to help Anne Clough establish Newnham College in 1871. Newnham College was founded in part in response to demand from women who wished to attend Cambridge’s Lectures for Ladies (started in 1869), but were unable to travel to and from the university on a daily basis. Three more women colleges, Hughes Hall, Murray Edwards College and Lucy Cavendish, were eventually established in 1885, 1954 and 1965 respectively. However, it was not until 1948 that women were granted full membership of the university – this was the third, and finally successful, time that the university had voted on the issue. Prior to this, women were only granted the “Title of the Degree of Bachelor of Arts”. The move came 28 years after Oxford had made the same decision to grant female students full memberships and legitimate degrees, despite Cambridge having admitted women slightly earlier. Of the existing all-male undergraduate colleges, Churchill College was the first to admit women in 1972. It was followed by Clare and King’s Colleges, with the last to do so being Magdalene College in 1988. Since Oxford’s last all-female college, St Hilda’s College, made the decision to end its ban on men in 2008, Cambridge has remained the only United Kingdom university with colleges committed to allfemale education. But while the official admittance of women as full members of the university may have been a long and arduous process, the achievements of the women before were recognised by Cambridge in 1998.

At a ceremony attended by 700 women, the university marked the fiftieth anniversary of the first official graduates – women who had worked equally as hard alongside their male counterparts, and who were now receiving the recognition they deserved. For more information about women in Cambridge, keep an eye out for anniversary events at your college.

Churchill was the first all-male college to admit women

The Meaning of Success, a book highlighting the lives of female staff and academics at Cambridge, was launched last year. It should be available in your library- and if it isn’t, ask why! Other books on the topic include: Women at Cambridge by Rita McWilliams Tullberg A Concise History of the University of Cambridge by Elisabeth Leedham-Green

Feminism is not a dirty word: But learning what it means is key Juliette Bretan Deputy Editor

was first introduced to feminism at the age of 11 when, in the first week of my status as a naïve Year 7 navigating the complexities of secondary school education for the first time, my form tutor announced proudly to the class that she was a feminist and that we, too, should consider the concept in all of our future endeavours. We looked at each other, baffled. Feminist? What’s that? I think the majority of us had never heard the term before – and those who had been introduced in previous years knew it carried vociferous

baggage. We did not want to be activists yet, we thought; we were the young, new members of a vast school, and we couldn’t possibly allow ourselves to be involved in politics before we had even been set our first piece of homework. Our tutor went on to explain the implications of the term; the reasons behind it; the history – but we remained stumped in ignorance. Later that day, when I went home full of the events of the school hours, I refrained from telling my parents about what she had said; I was terrified of being pulled out of the school I had only just become a part of through anxieties over the propagandic influences

education could teach. Feminism, to me now, is a symbol of strength - but also a symbol of that naïvety. It is only now that, looking back, I realise how important it was to take part in that upward learning curve, to gain a full comprehension of what the movement actually stands for. Over the years that same teacher taught us so, so much about what feminism can do for the world: the equality it can bring to women and men alike; the empowerment it promises; the individuals it has helped. Now, I am a proud member of an all-women’s college; I write for feminist magazines; I stand up

We looked at each other, baffled. Feminist? What’s that?

for everyone, no matter who they might be, because I know it matters. I’m still learning approaches even today, too – moral education is a lifelong journey. Ignorance, however large or small, is something that can hold you back: as it turns out, that teacher was right about everything she told us; despite my misconceptions at the start. Feminism has enabled me to carve my own identity; has given me and so many others a voice; and taught us so much about our world. You can bet your bottom dollar that I will be teaching any children ever in my care exactly the same.

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

music editor james mackay music@tcs.cam.ac.uk

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

welcome to the second thursday magazine of Michaelmas term.

lifestyle editor roshni prasad and katelyn nash lifestyle@tcs.cam.ac.uk

the theme for issue two is colour, something we’ve tried to represent across the paper- and so has cambridge, with its autumnal leaves and apocalyptic light on monday. the incredible fashion team have shot some wonderful images based around bright makeup, so take a look at pages 4 and 5 to be inspired. we have an article from the ever-brilliant jake on page 11 about queer relationships which is a must-read. on page 19, we’re looking at food in film and tv, and a perfect accompaniment to your netflix binge.

sex and relationships editor jake kroeger and alfie rosenbaum culture@tcs.cam.ac.uk

as ever, we’re looking for your ideas for our culture section. if you’ve visited an exhibition, have a budget recipe or a uni-room decor solution, submit your pitches to us and you could be featured online or in print.

fashion and beauty editor miriam balanescu and gabby koumis fashion@tcs.cam.ac.uk

we’re looking for models and make up artists to join our fashion team, too. our next shoot will be taking place in the following week, so send an email to gabby and miriam to find out more.

books editor ellen birch culture@tcs.cam.ac.uk

film and tv editor shameera lin and megan harding culture@tcs.cam.ac.uk food and drink editor finley kidd culture@tcs.cam.uk theatre editor carina harford and rose aitchison theatre@tcs.cam.ac.uk staff illustrators beatrice obe and hosea lau images@tcs.cam.ac.uk

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

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

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

front cover model: louisa keight photography: noella chye make up: ada gunther and veronica welch soto direction: gabby koumis and miriam balanescu

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Don’t worry, all genitalia are ugly Irrah Carver-Jones

enitalia is ugly. No one falls in love with someone for what’s between their legs. it’s just a fact that there is no such thing as a pretty penis, or voluptuous vagina. Dispel the myth. Shout it from the roof tops. Think about it, having extended eye-contact with a penis is kind of disconcerting. Vaginas, they’re like some sort of grotesque sea creature. They’re also so complex they’re terrifying, what do you MEAN I’m carrying an ecosystem around in my pants? Sexual organs are not fundamental to sexual attraction, so why are we so demanding of them? Warped standards promoted by the media insist on what it is to be a woman or a man (they are the only two options apparently) according to the physical. Women have vaginas. Women are meant to be curvy, but somehow still have a flat stomach. We should be hairless and apparently pores are undesirable. Sorry for my bodily functions. Men are constantly being told to “grow a pair”, “man up”, and develop a chest I could grate cheese on. The rigid definitions of gendered ideals we have ingrained in social consciousness are alienating and simply misleading. The media has set some extremely odd rules for genitalia. Think about the Free the Nipple campaign. Does censorship socially classify the female nipple as a genital? What about the rest of the breast that’s allowed to go bouncing around on television? Censoring something manufactures a taboo, the consideration of nips and tips as private property has cursed private areas. We must conceal areas of our body as they are grotesque and inappropriate...and yet Donald Trump is allowed to keep his face on display. Pop culture is increasingly placing sex on a pedestal, encouraging sexual expression and exploration, and yet leaving genitalia behind. I presume that when Ed Sheeran keeps going on about how he’s “in love with her body” he’s not talking about her vagina. Otherwise the line “every day discovering something brand new” is horrific. It sounds as if her vagina is some sort of horrendous advent calendar

(do not try at home). Almost the entire female body is sexualised, but the vagina is frequently abhorred and heavily censored. There is a growing movement working to destigmatize the vagina, fighting its depiction as dirty or even (weirdly) ethereal. Artists such as Megumi Igarashi make statements fighting against the unfair treatment the vagina receives, aiming to treat it as any other body part is. Although the anatomical image of the vagina is gradually becoming a symbol of power, when considered in a sexual context they remain pussies, minges, and teens still aim to be knee-deep in clunge. The regressive sexual attitude towards those with vaginas persists in obscuring them with infantalising euphemisms which, frankly, is just not hot. Penises have long been a power symbol: they penetrate and can be viewed as violating. This can corner men in a predatory cliché. The intrusiveness of an erection can be kind of terrifying, after all Alien was designed with a phallic head. Age-old attitudes towards sex and gender have ring-fenced men and women in a predator/prey dichotomy, tainting the good name of the penis in the process. Penises are paradoxically funny and scary at the same time. This is most likely why there is there is no such PCDAZERO

momentum behind any penis art, whilst the vagina is being reclaimed. 15 year olds scrawl dick doodles on every surface available, “dick pic” is now integrated into common vernacular, and I can’t even say helicopter without laughing now. We all know they’re comedy gold, dick jokes can be traced back to even Chaucer, but the vagina is still in the wings waiting for her time to shine. The taboo around vaginas has resulted in a widespread anxiety about getting naked. People with vaginas fear that they have something to hide; they have been lured into believing in the impossible concept of an ‘attractive’ vagina. The pressure to have pretty genitalia is exacerbated by the porn industry, as cosmetically modified people are lauded. So much social value is attributed to penis size, even though no one really knows how big “big” is meant to be. We shouldn’t simplify the penis, reducing people as either growers or showers is simply blind to the kaleidoscopic variety and benefits of each idiosyncratic body-type. Standardised expectations only allow poor relationships with your body to develop. Being body conscious inhibits so many people from getting on and getting it on. Getting naked in front someone for the first time is terrifying, it’s like confessing all of your secrets in one foul sweep. Personally, I really struggle getting naked: in terms of being self-conscious, as well as the fact my head sometimes gets stuck in my top. This is an unhealthy mindset the media has ingrained in me, but at least I’m aware of that. So, I have adopted a method to get myself through. I ask myself “Is there anything I can do to change my body right now, at this very moment, standing in front of this person?” No. So why worry? Never stress if it’s out of your control. This might not work for anyone else, but what I would encourage is fighting against the oppressive paranoia modern society has developed around genitalia. Yeah, the Mona Lisa isn’t between my thighs, but she’s not between anyone else’s. So, what I’m really saying is just get naked and I’ll be there to applaud you for it…metaphorically.

Colour me Autumn: The guide to Cambridge this season Olivia Morris

gainst the protests of my already aching body, I decided to go for a short run the other day. I don’t traditionally run if I am entirely honest, but this term I decided “why the hell not?” So off I went, jogging down Sidgwick lane and not actually immediately loathing my decision to exercise. As I ran, I started to notice a familiar crackling sound underfoot. I looked down and was amazed. Leaves. Leaves everywhere, with every autumnal colour of the rainbow featuring: yellow, auburn, brown, gold, orange, red. I was astounded at how beautiful the sight was, and it immediately reminded me how wonderful the season autumn truly is. Halloween Of course, leaves aren’t the only attractive thing about autumn; Cambridge has a range of seasonal events and activities to help you make best of your Michaelmas term. I don’t know about anyone else, but one of the best things about Michaelmas term in my honest opinion is the fact that Halloween is just a few weeks away! That means goofy costumes, gory-looking sweets, and the promise of pumpkin carving (I can tell you that this is literally one of the best things to do with newly-made friends, and a

not-too-expensive activity considering you can grab a great pumpkin from Sainsbury’s or the Market Square for a reasonable price!) Fireworks And that’s not all – just a few days after Halloween, it’s time to get excited for fireworks! The best firework display in Cambridge is undoubtedly the one hosted at Midsummer Common, this year on Saturday 4th November, with the display kicking off at 7:00 PM. Again, this is a fantastic opportunity to grab a few friends and roll up to watch. I have been for two years running now, and have never regretted standing in the cold once. The plus side is that there are usually a number of hot food stands at the ready if you get chilly! Walks One of the places I always choose to go for a quick run or walk is to Grantchester Meadows, or indeed into Grantchester itself. It’s always a lovely walk no matter the weather, but with autumn now in full swing it’s especially lovely to see the trees slowly becoming barren of leaves, and to take a refreshing breather along the river whilst taking a break from study. I’d definitely recommend taking an hour out to see it for yourself, if you haven’t already – it’s a bit of a Cambridge favourite!

Decoration A great way to brighten your mood when the weather gets cold and it starts to get dark before you even finish your last lectures of the day, is to inject your colour into your room. A pop of colour, whether in your cushions, a chunky blanket or your bed covers can really inject some life into your living space and help with brightening your spirit after a commute home in the rain. I would recommend IKEA as the best place to buy some brightly coloured decorative pieces that won’t break your student budget. Coffee And finally, I can’t conclude this article without noting the amazing ranges of coffee that you can try in these upcoming winter months. Pumpkin spiced latte is of course a classic flavour of Starbucks, but just taking a gander into any other coffee shop should offer you a range of amazing autumnal choices to warm you up. Also a hot chocolate is a must if you’re feeling particularly bogged down with work (a particular favourite of mine is Caffé Nero, not overly exciting I know but super yummy!) - just don’t forget to get cream on-top!

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

DREAMING IN COLOUR Creative Directors Gabby Koumis Miriam Balanescu Sophie Dickinson Photographer Noella Chye Makeup Artists: Ada Gunther Veronica Welch Soto Models Nathalie Holloway Reiss Akhtar Louisa Keight Roshni Prasad

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Review: Edibles: A treat for all the senses Rose Aitchison

dibles, which runs this week from Monday to Wednesday in the normal Corpus late slot, feels delightfully indulgent. An exploration of the weird and wonderful imagined characters of the British food industry, from the ice cream machine bouncer to the alcoholic Saturday Kitchen sommelier, it blows its characters delightfully out of proportion in order to pull us in. Collaboratively written and performed by the cast of Comrie Saville-Ferguson, Emma Plowright, Emmeline Downie, Eve Delaney, James Coward, Laura Cameron, Leo Reich, Will Bicknell-Found, Noah Geelan, Ashleigh Weir and the directorial team of Ania Magliano-Wright and John Tothill, the play consists of a series of monologues. Falling somewhere between a play and a sketch show, character as well as food is really at the heart of this play. There were a few particular standout characters – my theatregoing companion in particular almost fell out of her seat during the brilliant monologue by Noah Geelan, detailing his struggles with his secret reptilian identity whilst working in an almost empty tea factory as a taster (‘Everyone remembers how hard puberty was. Growing hair in places where you never had hair before, Growing scales, growing a tail, your tongue being cleft in twain...’). I also particularly enjoyed Ashleigh Weir’s lustful ode to Nigella Lawson (‘leading your fans to an early grav...y soaked evening of delights’). Also particularly memorable was the perennially side-splitting Emma Plowright’s turn as an overly aggressive guardian of an ice cream machine, (‘confectionery crosscontamination is no joke. Two nieces ago, I had a niece die of gelatine poisoning from a contaminated scoop’) and Laura Cameron and James Coward as the aforementioned Saturday

Kitchen salubrious sommeliers (‘This wine tastes a bit like cigarette ash, and I would know from all the ash I ate at the weekend. All the tastes of sweat, ash, alcohol: it’s like eating a working men’s club’). Overall, the show was extremely well written, and the script felt fairly unified, despite the large number of contributors to it). However, I did feel that some of the monologues might have felt more unified if there had been more of a common theme or storyline running through them, rather than the tack taken in most of the scenes, which was to create the most amusing character possible in a vacuum away from the other characters and possible common storylines.

Food makes up 100% of the human diet, sometimes more. Having said this, I really enjoyed the transitions between scenes and other nods to earlier story lines. These were reminiscent in their choice of music and style of voiceover to the kind of food programme we put on when we’ve got nothing else to watch on a Sunday morning when we’re hungover, on a Wednesday evening when we’re tired after work, or on a Monday morning when we’re still feeling a bit delicate. These shows are a kind of cultural grazing, which this show so wonderfully and hilariously explores. ‘Edibles’ is a treat for the senses, and should definitely not be missed by those looking to add a little levity to lunchtime. Or, indeed, their cheesy chips on the way home.

8/10 IMAGE: EVE JUDAH

Voices which scream si between stories: Right Anna Stephenson

overage of the refugee crisis has been a staple feature in British newspapers for the last few years. When a subject becomes such a perennial element, it can become lost amongst traffic reports and weather forecasts, turning from shocking statistic to the horrifyingly humdrum white noise of yet another news cycle. Rights of Passage, running this week at Corpus Playroom, aims to take us on a journey beyond the printed word and into the visceral, hyper-physical universe of the immediate spoken accounts of LGBT refugees. While factual articles regarding the issue can raise awareness and promote discussion of a topic many of us may be insulated from, the narrative can be alarmingly skewed towards seeing these human lives in crisis as merely statistical problems to be solved, or fixated on numbers entering the country, used either to encourage more government action or to scaremonger. This production, in collaboration with OxCam (indeed, its associate director, Miriam Quinn, is OxCam President), aims to, as Margaret Atwood would put it, draw attention

to the people whose full experiences are not and cannot be contained in conventional print media, who live in the blank white spaces at the edges of print, whose voices scream silently in the gaps between the stories. Rights of Passage puts the true, documented experiences of three LGBT+ refugees at centre stage. It therefore makes a political, as well as a theatrical, point about the stories that the media or our existing biases prompt us to tell, and these may not always be the stories we need to hear. The play revolves around the stories of three protagonists: Miremba, a Ugandan victim of forced marriage; Izzuddin, a Malay man who faces loss of scholarship and deportation due to his sexuality; and Hamed, an Iranian man whose identity is both ridiculed and denied by the Home Office. While these characters (who are, crucially, real people) form the focal point of this production, the ensemble cast backing them are not simply used to illustrate the traumatic events recounted by the narrators. They invade the spaces of the monologues, even when other

The Cambridge Student • The Thursday Magazine • 19th October 2017

IMAGE: LAURA WELLS

Youth teetering on the edge of real life: BOYS review Jess Chinegwu

ilently in the gaps ts of Passage review characters are not strictly necessary to the action. Forming a physical, threatening barrier to the refugee as they attempt to speak, this production adopts the disturbing technique of personifying the often abstract and disturbing mechanisms that can obscure the humanity or voice of a person and prevent them from speaking their truth. However, this role is subverted later during the play, as the ensemble form a literal support for the speaker. This innovative use of the ensemble allows us to experience the almost literal weight of words, and the extent to which words can be spoken, amplified or suppressed in a vacuum. There is no solitary speaker in any monologue; and the characters’ words do not stand alone. Not only are the asylum seekers persecuted in their own countries, but their experiences of discrimination and erasure do not end with their arrival in Europe, instead, being forced in an ironic twist to prove the sexual identity they had learnt for so long to be silent about. The idea that It is not just who speaks but how they speak, is heavily emphasised by Sneha Lala’s direction. Letting refugees speak

in their own voices, not one that is chosen or ‘sanitised’ by the West, proves a deeply effective technique. The most grammatically ‘correct’ utterances are often the ones repeated like a mantra, such as referring to homosexuality as ‘demonic’. The contrast between the initially almost humorous broken English of Hamed’s first forays into online dating and the technical accuracy of the ensemble’s homophobic screeching implies that those who speak in the most orthodox ways can sometimes make the least sense. Taking us on a journey through Malaysia, Uganda and Iran, Rights of Passage reveals the structural problems and institutional discrimination in the UK as well as in the characters’ countries of origin. The proximity of the ‘issue’ to ‘home’ forces the truth behind the headlines into extreme focus.

7/10

outh: what does it really mean and when does it really end? Does it ever end? Ella Hickson’s new play, BOYS, this week’s ADC mainshow, tackles these difficult questions. Four young Scottish men - Benny (Conor Dumbrell); Cam (Tom Taplin); Timp (Adam Mirsky); and Mack (Louis Norris) - must face the impending and terrifying transition from their secure bubble of university to adult life. And, despite the title, there are in fact girls in the play. Sophie, played by Jessica Murdoch, and Laura, played by Maya Yousif, are two characters who must also figure out whether they are ready to leave the irresponsibility and freedom of adolescence behind. The play opens in a messy student flat the morning after a party. There are bin bags and balloons strewn across the floor and a pink bra hanging from a door handle. It is the end of an era, and the four boys contemplate whether they are ready to move on from blissful youth to the grim and daunting world of adulthood. Exams are over. Prospective students seem to be invading the area that these boys regard as their home. The lease is up in a week. Surely the best and only way to go out is with one last raging party? The four flatmates may seem to be at odds in terms of their personalities, but they all share the idea that nobody wants to grow up, not really. They were all portrayed fantastically, and experience appropriate levels of character development as the play progresses. The bawdy ‘lads’ chat’ shared between them soon transitions into more serious and sometimes uncomfortable exchanges. The council won’t take the rubbish away, and the heat is making it stink. The clutter onstage gave the set a cramped feel, as if all the characters were invading each other’s personal space. As the amount of bin bags piled up, so too the agitation the characters expressed towards each other increased. The events of the outside world are reported by characters to one another by looking out of

the window but, even then, sometimes the madness outside feels secondary to what the six young adults are experiencing within their bubble. The two acts cover only a few days and nights, and because of this, there seems to be an added time pressure; a need to get all the revelry out of the way before they finally have to settle down and be serious. The tone of the play becomes foreboding once the curtains drop after a dramatic question is blurted out during a party. The second act sees tensions flare further, friendships deteriorate, relationships questioned, secrets revealed, confessions made, and even more drugs and alcohol being consumed. As an audience member, I felt like if I moved too much in my seat or coughed loudly enough, something else would go wrong. As Tuesday was the show’s opening night, there were some expected blips, such as muddled lines and issues with sound. However, overall, BOYS was an enjoyable watch. I was a fan of the bright background colours and the music played during scene changes. I took particular interest in the play’s portrayal of masculinity and male friendships as well as its nuanced look at mental health. After the show there was an opportunity to give to the charity Mind, a nice touch and testament to the play’s sensitive treatment of mental health issues. BOYS is enjoyable because it is not only honest, but also relatable. Navigating romantic and platonic relationships at the same as worrying about the future feels oddly familiar. In spite of the mistakes that the characters make, the play ends on an optimistic note. The bin bags begin to be shifted by Benny and Cam, which seemed to signify upcoming change in all four of the boys’ lives. BOYS is colourful, irreverent and wonderful to watch.

8/10 IMAGE: EVELINA GUMILEVA

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Colour and mood in Wes Anderson’s films Megan Harding Film & TV Editor

or most filmmakers, colour is an important part of the creative process, but one which will inevitably take a backseat in the final cut of their work. For Wes Anderson, however, building a colour palette is not just foundational work. What springs to mind when I mention colour and Wes Anderson? Meticulously symmetrical set designs, for one. Ambitiously euphoric pastel palettes for another. But when watching any of Anderson’s oeuvre, it’s not just these aesthetic signposts I notice, but also the director’s acute sense of relationship between colour and emotion. In fact, colour in Anderson’s work has become almost shorthand for interpreting the themes and feelings of his characters. Let us look at some of the characters who best embody Anderson’s trademark melancholia and deadpan nihilism: Monsieur Gustave of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Margot in The Royal Tenenbaums, Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic, and the entire cast of The Darjeeling Limited. What stands out most is the recurring correlation between emphatically bright colours and the hollow sadness they seem to hint at. For M. Gustave, legendary concierge of The Grand Budapest’s eponymous hotel, life is a long and frivolous party in much the same way as for literary characters like Jay Gatsby. Socialising and bedding increasingly eccentric women is M. Gustave’s replacement for genuine emotional fulfilment, so naturally, Anderson reflects this feigned superficiality with the confectionery pinks that populate Ralph Fiennes’ scenes. Just like he cannot escape the extravagant persona he has created for himself, neither can we avoid garish colour when watching him on screen. This also seems to be the case for Margot Tenenbaum of The Royal Tenenbaums, played with sultry sadness by Gwyneth Paltrow. She too dedicates her time to adventure and sensation, but with less direction and enthusiasm than M. Gustave.

As a consequence, she deals not in the breezy pinks and purples of M. Gustave, but in muddy yellows, muted pinks and deep browns. This ironic interplay between bright colour and dark emotion can also be traced in The Life Aquatic, one of Anderson’s more controversial films, released in 2004. Though critically it is his weakest-performing film, many long-time Anderson fans argue there is a case to be made for the striking melancholia of the film’s failed and irritable main character, Steve Zissou, and the realism of his emotions. Steve doesn’t wear many bright colours, but his signature red beanie becomes symbolic of his disdain for life and suppressed urge to fulfil an ideal of masculinity. Meanwhile, the film itself expresses a ‘dollhouse’-like perfectionism that verges on the cartoonish. How can we relate to the film’s miserable characters when the colours used - a bright yellow submarine, for instance - are so conspicuously juxtaposed? Maybe the answer lies with The Darjeeling Limited, a film whose themes are arguably some of the most overtly sad in all of Anderson’s body of work. Three brothers try to make it back in time for their semi-estranged father’s funeral, overcoming multiple barriers along the way and discussing the individual failures that make up their lives. In another director’s hands, these ideas would be painted with a heavy bluegrey brush. Yet for Anderson, yellow serves as a constant in the film’s Indian landscape, its confined spaces, and the character’s clothes to portray their emotional emptiness. Is it an obvious inversion of convention? Most definitely. But is it also effective in demonstrating the ways in which each brother struggles to reconcile themselves with life in its purest forms as it passes them? Certainly. And by the film’s end, these characters’ disconnection from happiness has turned into a hesitant optimism. Maybe the

yellow has a slight something to do with it. So why exactly does Anderson deal so heavily in bright colour if his themes are inherently melancholic? Perhaps it all comes down to the way the director sees life itself. After all, he never sets out to accurately reflect life when he plans his next endeavour in deadpan comedy and dollhouse visuals. Rather, he creates a microcosm of the human experience that takes place in curious settings, with curious people, doing curiously human things. And as a consequence, a microcosm of humanity also requires a microcosm of colour. When we think of The Grand Budapest, we see pink; when we look at The Royal Tenenbaums, we see sepia yellow. This sends each film out into an orbit of its own, presented more like a vivid memory, boiled down to one colour, than a large canvas. It is this unique and striking use of colour that has helped Wes Anderson carve out a particular niche for himself in a business obsessed with flashy explosions and cheap dialogue, and a reason why the films he makes often surpass pure entertainment, and become works of art. FoxSearchlight via YouTube

The colourful world of picture books Ronan Marron

here is nothing like attempting to wade through the treacle of some dense academic text to make one look wistfully outside the library window and remember how nice it was to enjoy reading. This is not to say that I do not enjoy what I study, yet it is undoubtable that in some ways the saturation of reading that accompanies many (especially arts and humanities) students’ lives here can make it difficult to reclaim reading as a source of escape and care. This is in part because the texts we tend to embrace for pleasure are sometimes as dense as the ones we seek to escape. No one has time after a day of reading Foucault to come back and get stuck into Tolstoy or the latest overly intense Booker Prize nominee. I have tried to read ‘good literature’ as a means of escape here on many occasions and found myself exhausted and turning all too easily to a marathon session of Gilmore Girls on Netflix. In place of this I have often found at the most difficult times the place I go to for escape is not just to reading for pleasure, but in fact to familiar friends in the form of

children’s literature. What is it exactly that makes these books such a comfort to me? A big part of this for me is illustrations. There seems to be an unwritten, and in my view entirely misguided, rule that only books for children are allowed to be illustrated. Yet the presence of pictures allows the eye, and the mind, to wander in and out of focus on the text without losing narrative immersion.

There seems to be an unwritten rule that only books for children are allowed to be illustrated They also tend to be short accessible narratives, free from a demand for commitment at a time when commitment is the last thing one seeks. My personal go-to is a beautiful edition of Tolkien’s The Hobbit illustrated by Allan Lee. The rich and colourful depictions of scenes that run through the book gave it an

enduring magic during my childhood which I suspect will never wear off. Even to this day when I am having trouble sleeping, or I am anxious about something, this is the wellworn book that I always take off my shelf. I always find that spending an hour with it is an activity which leaves me feeling refreshed and relaxed.

The rich and colourful depictions of scenes gave books an enduring magic While Netflix is a great escape, I (usually in vain) try to cut down on my screen time. Sometimes the attempts to do great reading during term time defeat us, and that is what drives us to easy mindless comfort on a laptop. I think this term I might try to beat the foolish feeling of opening a picture book and allow my bedtime reading to be childish, colourful and unproductive. Perhaps, although this may be step too far, we ought to encourage our libraries to stock a few nicely illustrated picture books alongside Hobbes and Econometrics.

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

My Favourite Book: Mapp and Lucia Joe Maron

t was my mother who first gifted me a copy of E.F. Benson’s seminal comic stocking-filler, Mapp and Lucia. I was a young whippersnapper of 15 at the time and wheezed (I’m asthmatic) my way through it in stitches, proclaiming with every other gasp that the novel comprised of surely the most hysterical 286 pages that I was ever going to read in my life. Well, lots more comedy classics have passed through my system since then, Wodehouse, Amis, Toole, and while Benson’s romp probably finds itself sharing the top spot these days, it has yet to be definitively superseded. Yes, despite being almost 100 years old, Mapp and Lucia still has the power to curl my belly up and it still demands that I read it with an inhaler close at hand. The plot of Mapp and Lucia is disarmingly simple. Universally acknowledged Queen of the Village Mrs Emmeline Lucas (but Lucia to all but her sworn enemies) grows weary of her creaking Elizabethan country house in Riseholme and ups stakes, swooping down upon

The novel unravels into a Wildean fracas of femmes, fetes and face-off-inios the picaresque seaside village of Tilling with her best friend Georgie in tow. Once settled, she duly sets about conquering the local social scene but is stymied by the waspishly-dispositioned incumbent First Lady, Miss Elizabeth Mapp, and the battle lines are drawn as the rest

of the novel unravels into a Wildean fracas of femmes, fetes and face-off-inios (as Lucia would term them in her schoolgirl Italian) which are sure to have even the more stoically immovable of readers guffawing helplessly. Fans of Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and the other great polite society satirists will feel right at home in Benson’s universe. The many pedicured exchanges between Lucia and Mapp have always reminded me of that famously fraught tea party between Gwendolen and Cecily, and, indeed, much of the book’s humour is derived from precisely this tension between Mapp and Lucia’s attempts to keep looking cucumber cool and cordial whilst simultaneously manoeuvring each other’s jugulars into their crosshairs. Mapp is often forced to dive without dignity into all sorts of dykes and ditches to avoid being caught spying on her rival and Lucia too finds herself the ape of societal mores as she seethes impotently over high lunches. Much as I love it though, Mapp and Lucia isn’t without some weak points. At just under 300 pages, it sometimes feels like a long read for what is essentially just a string of reworkings of the same basic trope of one-upmanship. The same tendency to surplus is also, if I’m being really critical, detectable in Benson’s prose. 95% of the novel’s sentences are a joy to read, stuffed full of bombast, longwinded but comically so. The other 5%, however, feel like they’ve been culled from the least penetrable paragraphs of Dickens; weighed down by their own verbosity, to try and read them is like wading through treacle.But in spite of these minor faults, Mapp and Lucia remains one of my all-time favourite novels. I’ve laughed out loud every time that I’ve read it and its best scenes are among some of the

funniest and most snort-inducing in all literature. No doubt it has its fair share of ‘lull’ moments, but when I’m hankering for a comedy of manners, Tilling’s still my destination of choice. JEAN-HONORE FRAGONARD

Food in film and TV: The importance of eating Ashley Woodvine

hether you’re somebody who takes great care and pleasure in food, or somebody who sees little more in it than sustenance, food is a frequent consideration in our lives. It is also something which can take on a myriad of connotations, to do with family, class, love, or passion. As a result, food is an excellent tool for film and TV makers to use to forge a connection or understanding between the world they’ve created, and the world of the audience. I’ve selected four examples which I think use food in interesting ways to do this. Master of None Food is often a central driving force on this show, for both plot and character. The show uses food in a whole range of ways, but it does it best when food is given a deeper emotional significance. At the end of season one, Dev is gifted a pasta maker by girlfriend Rachel. We’re told pasta making, for Dev, is one of those entirely achievable pipe dreams you just never get around to actualising – until he does. The sequence of Dev making pasta for the first time is shot with love and tenderness, in a stark contrast to the loneliness and dispute that is looming over his fraught relationship. This moment captures the birth of a passion that will motivate the entire second season, our first hint at how food will embed itself into Dev’s work,

dreams and relationships. For me, the other stand out food moment is an episode in season 2, which traces Dev’s friendship with Denise through a series of Thanksgiving meals they share from the 1990s to present. The episode explores how Denise’s sexuality impacts the relationship she has with her family, and it plays with what the process of cooking and eating together can be – one of love, one of communication, but also one which is withholding and tense. Blue is the Warmest Colour When I think of food in film, this is what my mind immediately springs to every time. Adele is shown eating extensively, indulging in it with a disregard for table manners. She takes a raw and youthful pleasure in food, and the way the film displays her relationship with it gives us an important insight into how her character is impulsive and desiring. The most interesting use of food and eating is how it ties to the respective, differing social classes of Adele and Emma. When Adele eats with Emma’s family, both the food and manner of dining represent an affluence and restraint that she finds unfamiliar and isolating. Food plays an early role representing the irreconcilable differences between Adele and Emma that will rise to the surface. Jane the Virgin At the very beginning of the series, we’re told that Jane loves three things – her family, God, and grilled cheese.

The grilled cheese takes on a near-mythical role in the show, becoming a strong and consistent emblem for love. The recipe (1/3 white cheddar, 1/3 yellow cheddar, 1/3 grated American cheese) was passed down to Jane from her abuela; it is something which is steeped in their family history, and is shown to be one of their greatest sources of comfort and bonding. The importance of the grilled cheese to the Villanueva family is mirrored in how important the grilled cheese is as a device for the writers, and a sign to the audience. It is a sure-fire way to easily and effectively ground the drama of a telenovela in something homely and everyday, a carefully selected reminder that however high the stakes or ridiculous the twist, Jane the Virgin is a show principally interested in the dynamics of a family. Arrested Development One of the things I love the most about Arrested Development (and there are a lot) is how it uses food to illustrate how out of touch the Bluth’s wealth makes them. Food and money often work in combination on this show (‘There’s always money in the banana stand’), and when Lucille estimates the cost of a banana at $10, it is an effective reminder that what we are watching is a show about a family on a whole other plane of existence. Food and cooking are not associated with a serene domesticity; the Cornballer machine the family invented causes serious burns on every use, and Lindsay’s attempt to take on a domestic role results in the meal ‘hot ham water’. Food in Arrested Development never ceases to be a cause of chaos.

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

The fashion of Theresa Kahlo

Katherine Whitfield

t a time when British politics has been injected with capitalist versus socialist debates left, right and centre, we can look at the presentation of these polarisations in both a leader’s policies and their pantsuits. Under the harsh critique of the public eye and fellow party members, Theresa May is under a lot of pressure in the way she dresses Spanning back through history, fashion and materialised objects are integral to political activism and vice versa: think Black Panthers and the Beret; the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and the Headscarf; Evo Morales (Bolivia’s first indigenous president) refusing to conform to the suit and tie vibe expected to prevent “selling out” his integral identity and disenfranchising voters. Theresa May wearing a Frida Kahlo bracelet does not fall in to this line of fashion statements. Why? Because Theresa May is not a revolutionary. She does not fight for inclusion and equity. She has not been systematically and violently oppressed, nor does she speak for those that have. She is not surrounded by people who are revolutionising politics and battling to get their voices heard: she is the leader of a party that still, despite denials, is misogynistic, oppressive and racist, to name a few. And wearing a bracelet emblazoned with perhaps the world’s most recognisable female revolutionary wil not brainwash the public. It would be like Trump wearing an NWA hat to hide his catastrophic receding hairline whilst condoning systematic police brutality. There would be criticism. So why on earth would May choose this? Maybe it was May’s stylist in an act of sabotage. Or maybe, as succinctly

pointed out by Deborah Shaw writing for the Independent, it is the commodified vision of Kahlo that May is relating to. Kahlo’s “market-derived” identity follows much the same of Che Guevara, where their faces stand for struggle and “triumph over adversity”, making their radical politics and ideologies more palatable for the globalised audience. They have become trendy: “look at me, I’m so liberal” with my Kahlo phone case and my Che poster. Yes, Kahlo is accessible and iconic, rightly so; but her aesthetic often outshines her ideologies. Is May appropriating the commodified Kahlo as an emblem for her own struggles within her own party whilst reaching the top and attempting to remain there? If so, she is ignoring the sweet irony that Kahlo strongly identified with, associated with, and advocated violent communism. Yes, Theresa May is the second female prime minister this country has ever had, and yes that is quite a feat. Yes, she represents women when she sits opposite a vile misogynist in the White House. However, a rich, white, privileged woman climbing up to the top of the ivory tower who then uses her position of power to perpetuate an oppressive society is not a feminist. To be a feminist, to be a revolutionary, systems that are currently in place need to be dismantled. We need action. Wearing a tacky plastic bracelet of a commodified and toned-down image of a feminist hero in the vain hope that you internalise some of her history does nothing for us. Frankly, it’s quite insulting. Revolutionaries are not just an aesthetic, they are freedom fighters.

Playlist: My Writing Music Jess Chinegwu

ost people who know me know that I love to write, but I’m often easily distracted. One of my solutions has always been to put on some of the 200+ songs from my “Writing Music” playlist - there’s no particular theme tying the songs together, but the collection as a whole is intended to help me concentrate on writing. Here, in no partiular order, are some of my favourites from it: Riot - Childish Gambino: “Riot” is short, just over two minutes long, but packs a punch nonetheless; it’s reminiscent of a certain era of funk (think Sly and the Family Stone), all twanging guitars and visceral background screams. In the chorus, Gambino shouts “Everyone, get down baby!”, a line with a sense of ambiguity that I’ve always loved. What could simply be a trope of classic funk, a line encouraging people to dance, could just as easily be a warning, a desperate cry from one rioter to another. Sweet Life - Frank Ocean: “Sweet Life” sees Frank singing about the effects of wealth, about how it makes people oblivious to anything outside of their blissful bubble. I like this song because it’s smooth and relaxing, telling a story while maintaining a summery vibe. Frank sings about the sweet life with a mocking scepticism, questioning those sheltered from the grim realities of the world. The Arch of the Sim - Mark Mothersbaugh: I’m not

sure whether it’s the nostalgia of hearing music from the games I spent most of my childhood playing, but I find that listening to soundtracks from The Sims makes for a pleasant writing experience. “The Arch of the Sim” is one of my favourite songs from The Sims 2 score - it helps me to write because it’s cheerful, upbeat and a little bit silly, sounding like it could be straight out of a cartoon. Common Sense – J HUS: This is the opening song from J HUS’ second album, released earlier this year. I love the joyousness of it, epitomised by the booming trumpet which appears towards the end of the song’s old school instrumental. Much like “Did You See” from the same album, it’s empowering; a song about adjusting from a low income background to the life of expensive cars, women and haters that often comes with newfound success. LOVE. - Kendrick Lamar feat. Zacari: This is a genuinely lovely song from Kendrick’s most recent album, DAMN. It’s very soft, combining Zacari’s gentle vocals and Kendrick’s earnest rapping with questions about unconditional love. I like that it’s kind of poetic – undeniably romantic at the very least, making me want to close my eyes and sway along to the beat. Abraham, Martin and John - Marvin Gaye: This song is important to me because it reminds me of mornings in my dad’s car spent crooning, out of tune, to his “Best of Marvin Gaye” cassette on the drive to school. It’s calming in spite of its melancholic, political undertones.

Balancing FOMO and your degree Ellen Skipper

he first time I heard the phrase “FOMO”, I was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It struck me as a bit of an unexpected title for a stand up show, not least because I had no idea what it meant, but somehow I got sucked into going anyway. That was the day I learned that I suffered from chronic FOMO. Maybe this shouldn’t have come as such a revelation after all, nobody likes to miss out on social activities. But somehow, hearing it stated in such plain terms made me step back for some self-assessment. Was this piece of understanding the key to unlocking the new, improved me? Was my perpetual procrastination in fact just a manifestation of my need for social interaction? For a happy week or two, I entertained many grand visions of myself arriving at university and striking the perfect work-life balance, now that I understood that I was just afraid of missing out. Of course, upon arriving at Cambridge, I quickly discovered that I had not discovered the key at all, and wondered if it even existed. In my first year, I probably missed more essay deadlines than I met. I almost entirely failed to take on extra-curricular activities because I knew that I wasn’t doing enough work as it was, and more importantly, I was afraid that I’d miss spending time with my friends in college and never end up close to them as a result. And while plenty of Cambridge students plainly do more than enough work, that’s not to say they’ve found the balance any better than I had: every year hundreds of students work themselves into the ground without giving themselves a break. It seems like time management is a struggle for everyone. It’s all well and good knowing what our problem is, but what can we do to solve it? Certainly the question of work-life balance isn’t one I’ve been able to answer entirely; in fact, so far this term I’ve managed to hand in work one minute before the deadline as well as worry that I’ve hardly seen my friends. But I do feel like I’m a little closer to a solution this year. For me, that’s meant coming to accept that in choosing Cambridge, I chose to sacrifice a little bit of the free time I would have had otherwise. Yet it’s also meant allowing myself to set time aside for activities even when they won’t necessarily bring me closer to friends; and they do, of course, come with the added chance to meet new people. It’s vital to remember that every time you worry you’re missing out on something, plenty of your friends are probably feeling exactly the same way. Everyone’s in the same boat of having a heavy workload, and friendships aren’t formed in five minutes: if skipping the odd night out really makes any difference to how close you are, the chances are that you never would have been particularly good friends anyway. And if you talk to your friendship group, there’s no reason why you can’t coordinate and give yourselves the same evenings off, or just work together; which means nobody has to miss out on the social times. All this being said, it’s always seemed to me that Cambridge’s biggest problem is overworking. While it’s true that everyone needs to do some work, if work is taking over your life to the point that it’s making you unhappy then you’re almost certainly doing too much. As long as your supervisors are happy with your work, you should be too. In the famed “Cambridge bubble”, it’s easy to feel like everyone else is doing more work than you, but you’re probably not factoring in the time they’ve spent watching Buzzfeed instead of reading up on the minutiae of Roman law. Ultimately, you’ll only be at university for a limited period of time. So for any freshers out there: “it’s only first year, it doesn’t count anyway.”

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Do queer relationships mean queer liberties? Jake Kroeger Sex and Relationships Editor

round a year ago, I received a phone call from a close friend about to go on her first date with a girl. There was a mixture of excitement and anxiety in her voice as she marched to her destination. ‘I’ve got no idea what I’m doing - what does a date between two girls even look like?’ she questioned. For me, her bewilderment summed up well a fundamental aspect of coming to terms with a queer identity and queer relationship making – what American scholar Sedgwick calls an ‘open mesh of possibilities’. Every person I know has grown up exposed to heterosexual love, heterosexual dating and heterosexual relationships. TV, literature and advertising form a triple threat to educate children in the age-old paradigms of who pays for the meal, who holds out for sex, who calls first, who wears the pants, who asks who out – the list could go on (and on…). I do not claim that because of this straight dating cannot entail surprise or uncertainty for people going on their first dates. However, I think there is a particularly strong sense of the unknown for queer people embarking on queer love lives. While representations of LGBT+ narratives have slowly made progress over the past century, the fact of the matter is that most of us grew up with exposure to next to none. Although the downsides to the lack of representation are manifold, there is excitement and opportunity in stepping out into the unknown. I can recall it in my first experience

going on a date with a man, and in my friend’s on her first date with a woman. Instead of narratives of how a gentleman treats a woman and how a lady ought to behave is freedom and possibility. This is in equal measure thrilling and terrifying. The shape of my own and my queer friends sexual and romantic lives have taken on forms I often cannot imagine for heterosexual friends of mine. For example, I have a number of close friends who I met through hookups and dating. This transition from the romantic and sexual to the platonic appears almost non-existent for my straight friends. Even small interactions - like kissing a boy in a club and being told I need to meet his boyfriend who might also think I’m cute - are unthinkable within heterosexual tropes of propriety and monogamy. It is easy to get lost in the romantic narrative of queer agency and making our own rules and relationships that make sense within what we need them to be and look like. However, sometimes the lack, the absence of the limitations of heterosexual tropes such as propriety and monogamy, is not romantic but disorienting and unsettling. Staying over at a lovers five nights in one week and being unsure of whether you mean anything more than casual sex to them, or ambiguity over whether sleeping with someone’s partner was you being complicit in infidelity or a genuine open arrangement of sexual behaviour exemplify this. As much as I love to get on my queer high horse and tut disapprovingly at my straight friends anecdotes, telling

them it ‘wouldn’t happen if it were gays’, sometimes I crave a few more clear parameters to make sense of things. It is also dangerous to fall into misguided thinking that queer relationships are inherently freed from the ways people typically hurt one another in relationships. Particularly given queer people are at liberty to have individualised understandings of what relationships look like, there is certainly room for miscommunication, manipulation and deceit. Recently, while speaking with a lesbian friend she spoke of a former intense butch/femme relationship she had had. All the typical gendered tropes of who was the man and who was the feeble, submissive woman were reproduced in their dynamic, regardless of how ‘queer’ their relationship was. Indeed, romanticising queer possibility, particularly within a language of progression, can lead to assumptions that put queer people in danger. No matter how queer someone is they can still be liable to abusive or sexually coercive behaviour. So let us both enjoy and navigate critically Sedgwick’s ‘open mesh of possibilities’. =There is no doubt a romance in the possibilities of queer dating, loving and relationship making but this romance only goes so far when it is entwined in cluelessness and potential misuse. Let us queers do what queers do best and continue to trail blaze, turning the result of a lack and absence into something heterosexuality can truly learn from.

Rediscovering a classic: David Lynch and Twin Peaks Alasdair Glynn

hen Twin Peaks originally aired back in 1990, it amassed the kind of excitement very much alien to American television at that time. The show was renewed for a significantly longer second season, its female stars were featured on the covers of Rolling Stone and Playboy, and it had the kind of long lasting influence that was to inform TV shows as great as Fargo and True Detective. Yet the mania surrounding the show did not last: the mystery at the centre of the show – of who killed the troubled high-schooler Laura Palmer – was solved half way through the second season, leaving its protagonist – Special Agent Dale Cooper – with nothing to do for the best part of ten episodes. ABC cancelled the show just as Twin Peaks was moving into more experimental territory, ending with a fantastic but baffling final episode. Much like the filmography of showrunner David Lynch, Twin Peaks is uneven, but when it is good, it really is some of the most fascinating television of the past twenty-five years. Friendly neighbours. Homely diners. Roads flanked by miles of fir trees. Hot coffee and cherry pie. The town Homecoming Queen wrapped in plastic and dumped in the town river. A red suited dwarf dancing in a room decorated with red velvet curtains. Twin Peaks has images that stick with you on a subliminal level; in fact, a lot of what David Lynch does sticks with you on a subliminal level. His films are like music. They operate on a dream logic which always feels artistic and never frustrating. When Lynch does something weird or strange or absurd, it feels somehow legitimate, somehow that bit more compelling than the images that, say, a director like Harmony Korine (Spring Breakers, Gummo) would put in his films. The good thing

about Twin Peaks for first time viewers of Lynch is that it exists on the boundary between dreams and reality; it is nowhere near as obscure as his Inland Empire or as disturbing as Blue Velvet. It is eccentric and weird, but rarely ventures into extreme territory, perhaps due to cocreator Mark Frost, whose sobering influence keeps the surreal nature of the show restrained. The characters and writing compliment the stimulating imagery. Protagonist Dale Cooper starts most episodes monologing into a tape recorder about the virtues of black coffee, cherry pie and the Douglass fir trees which circle the town, addressing each tape to a mysterious ‘Diane’ who we never meet. Many of the mystery’s clues are revealed by an ever-present ‘Log Lady’, a middle-aged woman who cradles an omniscient log in her arms, or a peculiar ‘Tall Man’, who fades into Cooper’s life in times of peril, giving him vague pointers before disappearing into thin air. Everything works together to give the impression that Twin Peaks is a conventional murder mystery being told in an unconventional way, with oddball characters and deliberately ambiguous dialogue. The second season may have signalled the end of Twin Peaks on ABC, but it continued elsewhere. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, a feature film directed by Lynch, opened in 1992, and was met with a level of critical disdain it did not really deserve. Focusing on the five days leading up to Laura Palmer’s murder and featuring a brief performance by David Bowie, it has a darker tone to the series and has numerous editing issues, but succeeds in delivering the surreal imagery we have come to expect from Lynch. In fact, it has experienced a reappraisal in recent years, mostly due to the revival series, Twin Peaks: The Return, an 18-episode experimental piece of

television which is so gloriously bizarre that it is difficult to recommend to anyone who already isn’t a die-hard fan of Lynch’s abstract artistic vision. It’s great, but moves more into the realm of interpretative art than conventional television. Go watch Twin Peaks. With television being as great as it is now, it is interesting to see where the origins of shows like Riverdale lie. Not only that, but it offers a fantastic crash course into who I think is one of the best directors of the last few decades: the irreplaceable David Lynch. Oh, and watch Blue Velvet. And Mulholland Drive. Those are great too. MOVIEvsFILM TRAILERS VIA YOUTUBE

19th October 2017 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Illuminating On a frozen night, I once saw the Great Bear rise. Then I froze as darkness stirred the Goddess of the Dawn. Wisps of magic descended from a silent expanse, as vast shimmering arcs swooped above silent shadows that speckled the white satin sea. Translucent reds, pure pinks and greens; hazy violets and blues swished and swirled and danced, then charged headlong across the deep black velvety void, billowing like sails. Some say they are the old souls, whispering across the years and riding the solar wind for an eternity of light. Humbled and rooted by nature’s brilliance, I watched, eyes wide, now aware of my insignificance. Suddenly, these wispy particles dissipated like the first rays on fog, fizzling first, a sky on fire, then flickering, and then they were gone. The Goddess of the Dawn sleeps as the Great Bear falls. Ella J 2013

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The Cambridge Student • 19 October 2017

Features

studying at Cambridge

BEATRICE OBE HOSEA LAU

Exhibitions in celebration of women Caithlin Ng Features Editor

t is an arresting sight – along the walls of a hall within Girton College is a series of photographs depicting early female students of the college. Dressed in a fashion long since dated, many are pictured with solemn expressions, yet with racquets and other sporting equipment in their grasps. As the first college in the university established for women, Girton is undoubtedly making a point with these photographs – these are the pioneers, the precedents, and it is in these touches throughout the University that I am reminded of the long battle to where we are today. In this spirit, two other exhibitions hosted by the University are worthy celebrations of women’s achievements – the first is Murray Edwards College’s New Hall Art Collection and the second is the Centre for Computing History’s exhibition on women in computing. The New Hall Art Collection is a permanent showcase of modern and contemporary artists by female artists, and now features over 450 art pieces. The college describes inspiration for the collection to be “Murray Edwards College’s role as a women’s college and its sympathetic setting for contemporary art”, and it now has the distinction of being the most significant collection of its nature in Europe.

Located in Murray Edwards’ famous Dome, the collection features the work of artists including Mary Kelly, Sandra Blow and Anthea Alley. The New Hall Art Collection successfully evokes social and historical themes alike, as it charts through its art the achievements of women in the visual arts of over 50 years. From the abstract to still life, the portrait to the landscape, Murray Edwards’ collection is an artistic statement in more ways than one. While its name might evoke a very different set of associations, Cambridge’s Centre for Computing History’s temporary Computing History: Where Did All the Women Go? charts too the historical achievements of women. Running from 5 October to 26 October, it celebrates the work of women including Ada Lovelace, widely regarded as the first programmer, and Delia Derbyshire, the composer of the 1960s Doctor Who theme song. Closer to home is a talk by Professor Jean Bacon, who, in 1985, was the first woman to be appointed to a Lectureship in Cambridge University’s Computer Laboratory. Other events at the centre include a film screening of the acclaimed Hidden Figures and a pop-up exhibition on women in gaming.

From the perspective of an international student Devika Agarwal

n my parents’ generation and for generations before that, studying abroad for an Indian was considered a status symbol, and the mark of an elite family was a degree from either Cambridge or Oxford. While we have come a long way since then, the glamour associated with studying abroad has not died down among the Indian student community. For many, the opportunity to go abroad is the chance to travel and see the world, experience a different culture and to also try their luck at settling permanently in a country with better living conditions on offer. For me, the reasons to study abroad were no different. Most importantly, I loved the confidence that there were no geographical limits to what I could achieve and that the world was my oyster. Thus it was that at 26, I set foot outside India for the first time, to study in Cambridge. Just as an infant opens their

I loved the confidence that there were no geographical limits

eyes to the world for the first time and tries to make sense of a world outside their mother’s womb, I felt that I had been transplanted into a different world altogether. Studying abroad is much more than travelling the world and making new friends, and unlike the leisurely globetrotting which is glamorised by blogs and the internet, studying abroad also requires a lifestyle and mind-set change which we are seldom prepared for. The things which we take for granted in our home country can seem like an effort when living abroad as a student – I took time to adjust to the food, weather, accent and long distances covered on foot. While these may seem trivial considerations, they can have a big impact on how you get along in a place. A misguided notion which many of us have when applying to universities abroad is that everything will be hunkydory from the moment we step into

an international university. We fail to appreciate that we are moving out of our comfort zone into a world with its own etiquettes and definitions of socially acceptable behaviour. Fortunately, humans have the ability to adapt to changes and we inevitably learn to adjust to our new surroundings and also enjoy the freedom which comes with living in a new country, where we are the masters of our lives. We find people who share common interests ranging from sports to cheese, and end up challenging ourselves to try new things like rowing or volunteering at music festivals. You also come to realise that studying abroad at an elite university by itself is not enough to guarantee you an excellent life experience: it is what you make of that experience that determines how successful your stint abroad is. International students spend an exorbitant sum of money to study abroad

and when the experience falls short of their expectations, they may wonder whether the decision to study abroad was indeed worth the money and effort expended. This is especially true in cases where international students fail to land a job in the UK to pay off their education loans. However, if we start evaluating our study abroad experience only in terms of its job prospects, we would completely overlook that studying abroad is as much an opportunity to grow personally, as it is about increasing our employability. The success of our study abroad experience should be measured by the life lessons we learn, which changes how we view the world. In the words of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, “Once your mind stretches to a new dimension, it never goes back”

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

Features Short story: The Finish

IMAGE BY SOPHIE BUCK

Anna could feel the sunscreen intermingled with the balmy perspiration

sibling, The Met Breuer, in the same day, which had seemed logical as a

she had worked up during the day, an oily film enveloping her body. It was

ticket for one museum gave simultaneous entry to the other. Though, when

an uncomfortable dirtiness she knew well, the familiar by-product of being

Rachel had said the Met Breuer was ‘right next to the Met’, Anna hadn’t re-

a tourist in summer when you wanted to squeeze all you could out of the

alised Rachel’s conception of the term meant a half hour walk. Neither had

holiday, even if it meant foregoing a shower for an extra museum. But she

the energy to rush, and perceived the need to do so as a nuisance wrought

didn’t quite see the point of this museum.

by the other: Anna saw Rachel as unflinchingly dogmatic in her insistence

“Unfinished: thoughts left visible,” she read the title off the promotion-

upon making it to the guided tour of the Unfinished exhibition at 3.30pm,

al banners that like breadcrumbs guided her and Rachel along Madison

while Rachel couldn’t help but begrudge Anna the padding steps that had

Avenue. “Remind me again why we’re going to an exhibition of works that

characterised her slow trudge throughout all the exhibitions that morning

aren’t complete?”

that had jeopardised arriving at the Breuer in time for the tour according

“It got a really great review in The New Yorker.” Rachel would know – she had been reading it religiously in the lead up to their vacation. Though she

to the schedule she had planned. When Rachel finally stopped, Anna looked around in confusion. It

was only twenty-one, Rachel inhaled cultured like a septuagenarian with

appeared the Met Breuer was not at all like its grand neo-classical sibling;

season tickets to the opera, ballet and theatre. She had planned the itiner-

where the original was laden with marble and pillars, the new museum was

ary with the efficiency of a military strategist and with an evangelists’ zeal.

a silver variation upon the box-like structure that modernity calls archi-

For example, Monday: morning, Morgan Library & Museum; afternoon,

tecture. Pink-faced and heavy breathing late-comers, Rachel and Anna

MOMA; and in the evening, Midsummer Night’s Swing live music and

attached themselves to the back of the group and focused on catching their

dance class to keep up Anna’s spirits.

breaths as the curator began to explain the exhibit.

As much as Anna didn’t like to admit it, Rachel was normally right about

“This exhibition examines the term “unfinished” across the visual arts in

these things, but, as the younger sibling, whinging was a privilege Anna

the broadest possible way; it includes works left incomplete by their mak-

liked to exercise.

ers, a result that often provides insight into the artists’ creative process, as

Then again, her whinging this time felt justified. The day before, Rachel had proposed that they should visit both the original Met and its newborn

well as works that engage a non finito—intentionally unfinished—aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended.”

The Cambridge Student • 19th October 2017

Features It was only by the time the group arrived at Klimt’s Frauenbildnis that the

never could quite tell where the line lay between the love she had for her

sisters had shed the frazzled cloak which lateness drapes the mind with.

sister that made her feel her pain, and the indignation at that pain that was

the venal result of its infringement upon her happiness.

Anna and Rachel looked into the tranquil hazel gaze of the woman

in the portrait. Her face was the most detailed part of the picture; soft hair

like russet clouds framed a countenance that was very pale and, though not

without their parents. It wasn’t an epic road trip or venture into some

beautiful in a conventional sense, had an undeniable mystery to it. Below,

remote wilderness, but for millennial young adults brought up with all

the body and dress were fabricated merely from charcoal sketches, which

the middle-class comforts life could offer them, the experience felt novel

stood out against tentatively placed coloured patches of paint and impre-

enough of budgeting their money as well as time, staying in a hostel where

cisely outlined ornaments waiting to be filled in.

a great plastic port-a-loo dominated the room, and assessing menu prices

along rows of cheap-eat restaurants like they were on a scavenger hunt.

“This is one of my personal favourites of the exhibit. Though you

This was their trip – their first one abroad, just the two of them,

might not have guessed it by the look of the painting, its story is not a

Rachel had images in her head, ideas where their travels might lead them

happy one. It both starts and ends in death. It was commissioned as a post-

to, who it might lead them to – maybe a lanky musician in a jazz club in

humous portrait of Maria “Ria” Munk, by her parents after she committed

Brooklyn. But “Brooklyn’s so far out”, Anna had moaned yesterday evening.

suicide on December 28 1911. Her fiancé, the writer Hanns Heinz Ewers

So instead, they had crawled, mollusc-like in their jet-lagged stupor, into

had broken off their engagement via a letter. Klimt had painted two earli-

bed before any of the jazz clubs had opened.

er portraits of Ria, neither of which had met the family’s approval, and he

himself died before he could complete this third one.”

was so serene, at odds with the curator’s tale of lost love and life. Anna’s

logic hypothesised it as the artist’s attempt to appease the grieving family,

There was undeniable poetry about the incompleteness which char-

Looking upon Ria Munk, Anna wondered why the expression

acterised both the painting and the lives that surrounded it. And in that

but then another sense emerged in which Ria Munk’s tranquil gaze was

incompleteness in its blatant imperfection there was something tantalising

the expression of one who had been released from love’s sadistic tortures.

and intimate. For the people gazing upon it, it was as though they were no

Anna wished she could extricate herself from thoughts of Lance; memories

longer in a gallery but looking at the canvas still hanging upon the artist’s

and emotions, conversations and hypothetical scenarios were constantly

easel, the paint still wet, allowing for its fumes to tangle with the brush

seething in her mind like an unrelenting tide battering her tired soul. To

strokes of their own minds.

the abuses of Lance’s ever present spectre in her mind was added a lurking

guilt that was never far behind; the knowledge she was poisoning Rachel’s

Rachel thought about the cowardice of stinging words like those

of Ewers, conveyed through faceless interactions like letters, or in today’s

perfectly planned vacation with her broken-hearted lethargy.

world, the telephone. She thought of Anna, the week before they left,

dropping her mobile upon the floor and how then her body followed suit

hostel through Central Park, still straddling the world of the inner eye of all

in crumpling upon her knees with the flaccidity of a doll. Something of

they had seen that day and the outer eye taking in the pleasantness of the

Anna’s paralysis in the foetal position into which she fell must have been

evening walk. The humidity had eased and the strength of the midday sun

contagious, for Rachel didn’t know what to do. She didn’t have words that

was replaced by her more amenable sister, dusk. Though it was summer,

would make anything better and she hated wasted breath and time. Even in

most of the flowers were still out – violet bulbs and pansies lining the walk-

the gallery, the weight of silence and the expectation to impart big sisterly

ways, whole bushes with yellow trumpet flowers dripping down from them

advice weighed upon Rachel.

like fruit. Not in a hurry to be anywhere, the sisters stopped on a bench,

and Rachel with a caress took her sister’s hand. Anna squeezed it back,

She wanted to tell Anna about the rage she felt on her behalf, at

Lance breaking up with Anna days before they were about to go on their long-awaited trip. But Rachel’s ire was a confused mixture of indeterminate ratio that was partially felt on Anna’s behalf and partially for herself. Rachel

The tour having finished, Rachel and Anna walked back to the

understanding the gesture.

The Finish was written by Tasha May

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

Interviews

‘Great experiences and warm friendships’: Toff at the Union Isabelle Burroughes

managed to catch up with Georgia Toffolo, or ‘Toff ’ as she is otherwise known, after the Union’s reality TV debate. The title of the debate being ‘This House Would Rather be on Reality TV’, Toff was expected, alongside fellow Made in Chelsea co-star Sam Thompson and Love Island runner ups Marcel Sommerville and Gabby Allen, to defend her career in the industry and persuade the audience that reality TV was a positive and fulfilling occupation. The reality stars took a serious grilling. One member of the audience claimed that their careers would lead to unfulfilled lives with little achievement, and another questioned Toff on what she would do when ‘her looks faded’. Toff pointed to the longevity of the series, and the fact that it has led to fellow co-stars Binky Felstead and Joshua ‘JP’ Patterson settling down and having a baby together. The sexism inherent in that kind of question is incredible, where it is assumed that a woman can only draw media attention and maintain a successful public profile when young and conventionally attractive. It calls into question the intelligence of the supposed ‘academics’ of Cambridge, who chose to look at her career from

What would she do when her looks faded?

such a superficial point of view. Toff joined Made in Chelsea in its seventh series. Since then, she has been a prominent cast member, forming a close friendship with co-stars Mark Francis Vandelli and controversial Mimi Bouchard. She has also recently appeared on Channel 4’s Celebs Go Dating, notably going on a blind date with a Welsh stripper. Presumably, this was a world away from the white apartments of Kensington and Chelsea. When I spoke to Toff after the debate, she seemed excited to continue her career on television. ‘I think my life’s going to carry on as it is… I see no reason to leave what I’m doing’, she says about the programme that has opened so many doors for her. One of the big questions raised in the debate was whether the people we see on reality TV are accurate representations of themselves, or more like caricatures of their personality. I asked Toff whether she felt like people knew who she really was, simply by watching her every Monday night on E4. ‘Well I think it’s quite difficult, I mean you obviously can’t show me dancing on table tops, but I do think it is quite representational. The more time you spend on television the more of you

people see, because you get more air time. If right at the beginning you had asked me that question I would have said no, I don’t think people see who I am. But now I’ve been through breakups, I’ve been through fun times, I’ve done it all! And I think then you get a better idea of who I really am’. The star has had an emotional journey on the series, experiencing turbulent relationships with the likes of Francis Boulle and Sam Prince on screen, and explosive arguments with co-stars such as Liv Bentley. But these dramatic moments have been accompanied by great experiences and warm friendships. She looked back fondly at one of the most enjoyable moments of the show. ‘It was when I was living in the South of France. It was so funny, I was with Binky and Ollie. And we just laughed. It was amazing. Yeah, that summer was definitely my favourite’. The show is also well known for its spin-off series which chronicle the affluent West Londoners’ travels to different locations, such as Ibiza and Los Angeles. I asked Toff what her favourite location was. ‘I really didn’t like it in LA’, she admits. ‘I was only 20 at the time. I mean, obviously I snuck out, but I did have problems with ID, and I just

You obviously can’t show me dancing on table tops

didn’t really like it. Whereas in the South of France, I mean everything was just amazing. Having a car and everything like that, it was just so nice’. From speaking with Toff, I feel like the title of the debate was a little misguided. It doesn’t matter whether or not us Cambridge students would like to be on reality TV, or whether we see it as menial or mindless. What matters is that bright and ambitious people like Toff enjoy the career they have forged for themselves. I feel sure that she will continue to appear on our screens for the foreseeable future. CHRIS WILLIAMSON/GETTY IMAGES

‘Bro, there’s something we must discuss’: The Conscious Ball Will Bennett Interviews Editor

ro, there is something we must discuss’, was the line that kickstarted planning for Conscious: The Oxbridge mental health charity ball. Midway through revision season the idea for the ball came to founders Dil and Kam and the dramatic one liner soon ‘turned out to be good news’. Held in conjunction with Oxford, the ball will be held at a secret location, equidistant between the two universities. All I could squeeze out of the committee was that it is a ‘very cool space’ and ‘different to your standard May ball’. Transport has been organised in both directions which is included in a ticket price of just £75. All food will be ‘ethically sourced’ and the committee is even on the hunt for ‘non-powered sources of entertainment’. Tickets went on sale at 5pm on Saturday. The purpose of the ball is a combination of fundraising and

raising awareness of mental health at Oxbridge. 70% of funds generated by the ball will go to Mind and Rethink. Keir filled me in on some of the things that Cambridge has been getting disastrously wrong. That ‘colleges are all allowed to be different’ is his most pressing concern, in that each has its own policies regarding intermission and counselling. At some you are not allowed to be on site while intermitting and employment over the year often still has to be cleared with the university, stranding lots of students with little or no income. Of course, people intermit for all sorts of different reasons and Keir pushed the point that ‘week five blues are not the only way people develop mental health problems’. Many more people find themselves with one thing ‘out of whack’, quickly discovering that work and other commitments are spiralling out of control.

70% of funds will go to Mind and Rethink

Keir noted that Cambridge is improving and some people are now getting ‘counselling appointments within a week’, but the group’s consensus was that mental health here still has a long way to go. It’s like ‘trying to push a ball up a hill and every time it might roll back down again’ was Keir’s choice of analogy. He has campaigned to reduce the workload but the problem remains that the nature of the college system blocks change. Keir told me that the vice-chancellor of education himself conceded that he has almost no power in this regard. Clearly Cambridge’s mental health system can be improved and the money and awareness raised by Conscious looks like it will go a considerable way to doing so. Go to the Conscious: The Oxbridge mental health ball website for more information about ticketing and the event.

AMIR KBAH

The Cambridge Student • 19th October 2017

Interviews

‘Belonging’: Simon Schama on his new history of the Jews Blanca Schofield-Legorburo

inding out that historian Simon Schama was to appear at the Cambridge Union to speak about “Belonging”, the second instalment in his history of the Jews, made the startling amount spent on my membership immediately seem worth it. He had been one of the driving forces behind my interest in history at school; a discussion on his vigorous The Story of the Jews BBC documentary, which preceded the writing of these books, was what saved me in an interview for my 6th form. The opportunity to interview him seemed absurdly surreal to me, and indeed it was: he rejected press two minutes before we history fanatics posing as journalists were given the opportunity to meet him. This could have clouded my impression of an academic who, up until that moment, had been held in my highest regard for being warmer and more open-minded than others in the field, but his subsequent interview with Tom Sutcliffe brought me back around. From the onset, Schama was even more vibrant than expected. Within minutes he was explaining how his book was one about universal human sympathy, an important theme to emphasise in the current political climate. He explained that the title “Belonging” was triggered by his encounter with a Syrian immigrant in the US who had lived there for years

“How can we ever belong?”

and was now faced with resurfacing tribal attitudes and the “politics of estrangement”; for him, this resonated with what Jews had repeatedly faced between the 15th-20th centuries covered in this book. He used the example of Jews who, albeit wholeheartedly attempting to convert during the Spanish inquisition, were still persecuted and prosecuted and again left with the question: how can we ever belong? History graduate and ex-Director of Studies at Christ’s Cambridge and Brasenose Oxford, writer and creator of several history books and documentaries on various topics and current professor of Art History and narrative non-fiction at Columbia University, Schama really breathes life into history. His speech was enthusiastic and rapid, even hard to follow at several points in its desire to get everything out. His professor at Christ’s was vital in this attitude towards the depiction of history, with Schama attributing to him the fight for “forthright, polemical, rhetorical and dramatic” history instead of the “editorial interpretation” of that time. His preference for this style of history - being “thrown through the window into the past” - is evident in his rhetoric, where he uses several anecdotes instead of a broad, theoretical approach. In the talk we were introduced to a Dutch free-thinking Christian from the 17th century who liaised with a

“Brexit was so bloody strange”

Jew, along with 18th century Daniel Mendoza, the first famous British boxer, who proudly represented his Jewish heritage in subsequent memoirs. Schama highlighted his use of the word “story” rather than “history” in the title of the series, as Jews have never been able to depend on monuments or buildings for their history, but have instead relied on the story of their past maintained in the Torah and religious and cultural scrolls. Throughout the talk, Schama’s assertion that “fundamentally, I’m an optimist” was justified. He stressed that he wanted the book to be about “vitality, not mortality”, but also repeated his use of the “death star” image, which he had employed in an earlier interview with the Guardian. He said that this death star had always been present in the Jewish story, but that it was still a story of “if only” and continuous hope. Nonetheless, in response to one of the audience questions on whether he

knew of any aspects of Jewish culture lost over the centuries, Schama reminded us all of the frightening number of Jewish lives that had been prematurely taken, including up to 200,000 in WW1 alone. He went on to deal with a wide array of political polemics from other audience members, from the American political elite not learning from the failure of Reagan’s tax cuts, to that of Northern Ireland and its past. In response to “How would you title the last 10 years in the UK”, Schama persisted in his long, detailed answers, and though failing to give a concrete reply, emphasised the importance of facing up to “cultural alienation”, so as to avoid another situation like “Brexit [which] was so bloody strange.” While my Simon Schama experience began with disappointment and frustration, it did not end so. His ability to eloquently explore this history of revival and the danger of estrangement in depth but with an FREDDIE DYKE

‘There shouldn’t be one cookie cutter’: Women in business Will Bennett Interviews Editor

he leadership team of Cambridge Women in Business recently took the time to chat to TCS about the things they are trying to achieve in Cambridge and their ambitions for women the world over. “‘Loads of things’ is the long and short’ of what CAMWIB do in Cambridge, Lucia starts out, and this includes speakers events, a mentorship scheme with female MBA students at the Judge Business school and networking events. Above all, CAMWIB are looking to build a strong network of women who will support each other in their careers both now and going forwards. I mention the frequently echoed statistic that at one point there were twice as many FTSE 100 CEOs named John as there were female CEOs.

“Its all too often white priveleged men versus the rest”

Lucia answered briskly that ‘It’s not as binary as just John versus women. Intersectionality is important because it’s all too often privileged white men versus the rest.’ A similar women in business group recently founded in Swansea faced stigma as they tried to get things up and running. No doubt there is opposition here as per Swansea, UCL, LSE and KCL whose Women in Business groups are developing links with CAMWIB for the year ahead. At the Freshers’ Fair, CAMWIB themselves were on the receiving end of dissent from one plucky fresher who decided to declare the society sexist. The mantra that the society is open to ‘all friends of women’ came through strongly in our chat, and his was a rare reaction to a group dedicated to inclusivity and diversity. Diversity has been the group’s ‘buzzword’ for the past five years.

‘Historically, feminism has been white privileged women’ Jayna remarked, adding that it was also the topic of her dissertation. CAMWIB throw a lot of weight behind getting all women involved in their initiatives, co-hosting their network launch later this year with the Afro-Carribean Society, where social entrepreneur Natalie Campbell will be the flagship speaker. The editorship for an upcoming policy paper in collaboration with The Wilberforce Society was also opened to women from FLY and ACS before being open to all. Jayna pointed me towards an article in The Economist on the gender pay gap which asserted that a big part of the problem was that women often take time off work or quit altogether at the sort of age when employees might start to win managerial roles. The paternal leave is often too short

“Never ever ever think there’s one way to be”

to be of any real help, and one Dutch father interviewed by The Economist said that even Google was against him, correcting his search relating to fatherhood and work to ‘motherhood and work’. Unlike lots of societies, CAMWIB conduct their initiatives with serious thought. ‘Networking events can be really intimidating’ and CAMWIB have successfully created the ‘ethos of a network of women’. The platform CAMWIB has created provides career opportunities but also fosters a wider web of women who spread their message and teach other women to ‘never ever ever think there’s one way to be.’ To get involved in CAMWIB, sign up to their mailing list via their Facebook, or attend one of their networking events- details online.

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

Comment

Weinstein: From scandal to action Aleph Ross

hen I first heard about the Weinstein ‘scandal’, I made a mental note to avoid the news for the next few days. Whenever big sexual abuse stories hit the media I am either driven into mental breakdown or total hibernation, and I didn’t want this one to get in the way of my first few weeks of uni. And yet more and more accounts of his violence seem to pour endlessly onto my news feed- an unstoppable flood of horror stories that I cannot avoid. Harvey Weinstein has gotten under the world’s skin, and subsequently he has gotten under mine. This isn’t the first time in recent history that something like this has exploded across the media. Off the top of my head, I can list a handful of similar examples: from Saville, to Rotherham, to Cosby, to Brock Turner and even to Trump, though there have been many more. There are lots of things that distinguish these cases from one another, and each requires careful inspection as its own phenomenon, but there are also things which unite them. Each one of them has sparked an international outrage. Why then, I ask, are people so shocked to hear that Weinstein- arguably one of the most powerful men in the media- is guilty of much the same stuff? What

progress, if any, has been made since we found out that the BBC had protected Saville’s career right up until his death? Like many people, I get a sadistic kick out of watching the lives of rapists fall apart underneath their feet. This hasn’t happened to all of the people I listed above, but it is happening to Weinstein, and this is something I take pleasure in. I hope that all survivors can be empowered by the cathartic experience of watching Harvey Weinstein being burnt at the stake. We can and we must find strength in this- and yet it is not enough. Every woman and non-binary person I know has experienced sexual harassment over the course of their lives, and the vast majority have been victims of some form of assault or rape. Despite this fact, news outlets still feel there is value in the endless process of ‘awareness raising’ cases like this one encourage. The recent explosion of the ‘me too’ hashtag is an example of this- where survivors are urged to publicly declare themselves, as if the only reason people don’t care about sexual violence is because they don’t know it’s happening. I want to stress as clearly as I can that I do not wish to dismiss the power of a survivor sharing their story. I commend

Weinstein is the symptom of a very deep and serious infection.

anyone who does soon Twitter, using a hashtag, or privately to family and friends. But to those people that the ‘me too’ hashtag is intended to enlighten, I pose this question: where have you been for the however-many conscious years you’ve spent alive? How have you missed the violence going on around you? Whilst I noted previously that there is some fun to be had in watching a man like Weinstein burn, I think we must be wary of the scapegoating tendencies these stories often seem to take on. If the tale of Jimmy Saville has taught us anything, it is that stories like these can grow to heights of enormous potential and still teach us nothing. Weinstein is the symptom of a very deep and serious infection. He has been grown and enabled by a culture where sexual violence is a normal element of gendered interactions. If utilised well, Weinstein’s case could lead to some serious development in the ways we talk about rape culture, and about the kinds of power people in positions like his yield in the world. If utilised poorly, figures like Weinstein become a useful way of allowing people to avoid looking inward. They are the extremes- the grotesque, serial abusersand anyone who’s guilty of any less than they are is no longer guilty at all.

Cycling in Cambridge can be a culture shock Nailya Shamgunova

n my first day in Cambridge, the most distinctive thing about it was the bikes. Coming from a country where cycling as a method of urban transport is not widespread or well accommodated for, that was a bit of a cultural shock. Blessed with a central college, I resisted the inevitable introduction of the bike into my life as long as I could. Now, six years (one of them at Churchill) later, I finally gave up, and a whole new scary world opened up to me. I think there is an assumption in Cambridge that everyone can cycle, and if they can’t, they’ll learn very quickly with no external help. No one tells you how hard it can be to learn to balance if you’re in your late teens or even mid twenties. No one teaches you the traffic rules you are meant to obey if you’re on the bike, no one tells you about the unwritten conventions. No one talks about how terrifying it is to hear the sound of cars and buses behind you and not being able to see them, hoping that the drivers know the rules and will just overtake you. Cambridge itself changes once you’re on a bike. Some familiar routes can’t be taken anymore and others are experienced very differently. A roundabout which is just

laboriously long for a pedestrian might be impossible for a beginner cyclist. Other items on the road just become endless hazards. After two weeks of beginner cycling, I am not sure whom I hate more the cars, the other inexperienced cyclists or the experienced ones, who swear at me if I am too slow. Pedestrians are a whole other story. I must confess, as a non-cycling pedestrian I was never too mindful of how I used roads and paths. Everyone should be. There is a special place in hell for tourists, who feel entitled to all the public space as they paid for the visit. If the part of the bridge has a bicycle painted on it, don’t stand there attempting a thirty fifth take on that selfie. You don’t need a full score in IELTS to understand that a picture of a walking person designates the area where you are allowed to walk. Cycling made me think about physical mobility structure. As a cyclist, am I a glorified pedestrian or a puny vehicle? I have been thinking for a while that decreased use of cars is the way forward for the planet, and that is partly why I invested in a bike rather than driving lessons (and being on a student stipend has nothing to do with this, hush hush). Now I am convinced that urban infrastructure should be better adapted

Am I a glorified pedestrian or puny vehicle?

for cycling, and that there should be clearly separated lanes for cars and bikes, everywhere, and that cars should not be allowed in central areas of towns. Currently, cyclists always have to share a space with either pedestrians, for whom they can be a hazard, or potentially much more dangerous vehicles. Unless we adapt the infrastructure, the cultural change green activists keep talking about will be slow in the making. Education is a part of that change. I firmly believe that both the university and the colleges should provide free cycling lessons. The lessons should include a practical element on provided bikes, as currently the only way to learn on your own pace is to invest into quite an expensive purchase before you even start learning. They should also include the theory, maybe not as rigorous as an actual driving test, but clear enough to be able to cycle as a part of the general traffic. Not everyone learned to cycle as a kid, and not everyone grew up in a society where it is the norm. Accessibility is an important part of the mindset of Cambridge University, and it’s time that this is stretched further to encompass road safety, for cyclists and walkers alike. City roads can be a dangerous place, and steps need to be taken to increase the safety of Cambridge’s students and residents..

It’s time for Am question their Seb Shuttleworth Comment Editor

n the night of October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock opened fire on a large crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 58 people and injuring 489. The incident is the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the United States. In a press conference following the event, the White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointed out that “Now is the time to unite as a country,” tactfully avoiding the issue of gun control policy reform. However, gun control debate has flared up again recently despite the White House’s dismissals, with attention focused on bump firing, a technique Paddock used to allow his semiautomatic rifles to fire at a rate similar to that of a fully-automatic weapon. With each mass shooting, Congress reignites a longstanding debate on gun control. But it’s largely one that fizzles out in time, resulting in little to no legislative changes. On January 16, 2013, in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and other mass shootings, President Barack Obama announced a plan for reducing gun violence in four parts: closing background check loopholes; banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines; making schools safer; and increasing access to mental health services. The plan included proposals for new laws to be passed by Congress, and a series of executive actions not requiring Congressional approval. No new federal gun control legislation was passed as a result of these proposals. President Obama later stated in a 2015 interview with the BBC that gun control: “is an area where, if you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied, ven in the face of repeated mass killings. And you know, if you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it’s less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it’s in

The Cambridge Student •19th October 2017

Comment

Bi the way: Equality is a two-way battle Priya Bryant

merica to r gun control the tens of thousands. .” Sarah Huckabee Sanders added to her comments at the press conference: “If you look to Chicago where you had over 4,000 victims of gun-related crimes last year, they have the strictest gun laws in the country.” I share in Barack Obama’s frustration, and do not doubt that many of TCS’s readers feel the same way. It seems that Sanders is arguing that strict gun laws don’t necessarily mean safety from guns, which is a stance likely to enforce a reaction of outrage in any rational being. In 2013 John Oliver interviewed Philip Van Cleave of the pro-Second Amendment group the Virginia Citizens Defense League, in which he portrays the hypocrisies of American gun law and demonstrating the Australian example of gun control. In the last two decades of the century, following several high-profile killing sprees and a media campaign, the Australian government coordinated more restrictive firearms legislation with all state governments. Gun laws were largely aligned in 1996 by the National Firearms Agreement. A person who possesses or uses a firearm must have a firearm licence. Licence holders must be at least 18 years of age, have a “genuine reason” for holding a firearm licence and must not be a “prohibited person”. All firearms in Australia must be registered by serial number to the owner, who also holds a firearms license. The result was clear: reduced gun violence and zero mass murders since 1996. However, an abundance of Americans are determined to defend the “freedom” uplifted by the Second Amendment, giving citizens the right to bear arms. It must be so easy to forget that this legislation was written in 1791, when guns could hold one bullet, as opposed to the machines we see being used today, capable of doing such devastating damage as witnessed in Las Vegas just over a week ago. It is time for the American population to question if they are willing to pay the price for the ‘freedom’ owning a firearm allows them.

oming to Cambridge from a school where LGBT+ students had to set up practically all our own support networks for ourselves, I was blown away by the levels of support in place for queer students here. The idea of having LGBT+ welfare hours in college, being given a ‘family’ by the CUSU LGBT+ campaign, and the thriving queer writing and arts scene at uni was something completely alien to me. I imagine I’m in the same position as most queer freshers here – very few schools have the willingness or resources to provide such extensive help. In that sense, then, my trepidation about how confident I would feel in sexuality while at

I’ve been wondering whether there’s a problem of specificity to the LGBT+ support system here.

Cambridge was unfounded. That said, I’ve been wondering over the past two weeks whether there’s a problem of specificity to the LGBT+ support system here. Students who are already confident in their sexualities and feel happy selfidentifying as queer, like myself, certainly have access to practically everything we could want in terms of medical, emotional, and social support. Yet university is one of the key places where people who previously thought themselves straight and cisgender might begin to explore different aspects of their sexuality. Particularly from my own experience as a bisexual woman, I know that plenty of female friends of mine both at Cambridge and at other unis have realised that they’re not as straight as they thought they were – university provides a lot of people the chance to break out of the compulsory heterosexuality they performed at secondary school. When we take that into consideration, it seems like an oversight to mainly have support systems in place for students who already identify as queer. Of course, freshers are all technically made aware of the counselling and advisory services that we can approach if we were grappling

with sexuality issues – but in reality, very few people are going to remember all the information they were bombarded with in the first couple of days. In addition to people exploring their sexualities and genders while at uni, there’s also the issue of awareness of LGBT+ issues among the cis-het student population. While few people our age are still willing to espouse explicitly homophobic views, I certainly know I’ve encountered more than enough casual ignorance and jokey discrimination in my two weeks here. In light of that, I think there needs to be more programmes of support and awareness which are targeted not only at queer students but at everyone – for example, alongside the compulsory consent workshops held in my college in freshers’ week, there could have been a discussion of sexuality involving all students. There are a thousand reasons why we should be providing help specifically aimed at queer students – but we also need to remember that achieving equality is a two-way battle. We won’t get anywhere if we don’t work to foster more respect for LGBT+ issues among the whole student body, from day one and beyond.

Are early UCAS deadlines suitable? Juliette Bretan Deputy Editor

ast Sunday, 15th October, was the all-important UCAS deadline for Oxbridge applications for 2018 entry; as well as those for medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences. Whilst the stress of navigating the impenetrable UCAS website, finalising a personal statement, and working out plans for the next three years is now over for these applicants, their struggle to gain a place at desired institutions remains; with examinations, interview processes and other dialogues scheduled to occur over the following months. Meanwhile, the UCAS process for others will continue to trundle along until the 15th January deadline for all other applications; raising the question as to whether it is healthy to have an earlier cut-off date at all. Whilst the October deadline does encourage the individuals aiming to study more demanding courses to complete their admissions as soon as possible, thus leaving ample time to dedicate to their studies; the

premature date, coming so soon after the end of the summer holidays, may cause more problems than it is worth. The worry here is that by rushing some students to complete these all-important applications, the content being sent to Universities may suffer as a result: finding the right course and writing an appropriate personal statement is hard enough as it is; but even more difficult if there is only a short period during which the outside advice of teachers can be given. There is a reason behind such practices: it allows candidates the space to retain focus on the responsibilities of the year, such as examinations and experience, ensuring that the last year of school is completed to the best of their abilities; an essential for an application to any university. It also, and possibly more importantly, gives adequate time to prepare for the tough interview process in December; a procedure which might be more challenging than the UCAS form itself. But interviews are not exclusive to Oxbridge applications; though Oxbridge

The deadline may cause more problems than it is worth

interviews are known for their difficulty, students applying to other institutions may also need extra preparation time. In any case, having an early deadline does Oxbridge candidates no favours: the application may be rushed and preparation strained; it may therefore be easier on all candidates if they feel they have a choice over how much time to dedicate to their efforts in applying to Universities And it must not be forgotten too that those applying for Oxbridge will most likely petition other Universities in addition – Oxbridge may desire early applications, but other institutions are not impacted by however early the UCAS form is sent. If Oxbridge applications are unsuccessful, the frenzy to complete the UCAS process may also have negative implications on any other University applied to. Couple this with the recent loss of AS-Levels and the reformed nature of A-Levels themselves, and a toxic mix of insecurity and incompetence is cultivated; promising only damaging results for those already facing the anxious road to University.

19 October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

Comment

The Cambridge Diarist Could musicians and politics

Graduate Prospects

s This Diarist finds himself embarking on his final year of the ‘Cantabridgian fantasy’, he has drawn great optimism from the fact that the Tab has on their website an advert generously offering ‘Graduate jobs and internships you really want’ If the Tab can be so bold as to

be estranged lovers?

Charlie Walton

consider employing the writers of such seminal works as ‘Which tick to writing music” is a Manhole Cover is your College?’, common refrain of those and ‘Cambridge’s Best Bums’ one can dismissing artists who express a only hope there is still a chance for an political belief in the media. untalented philistine such as myself. Yet this phenomenon is not The search continues. particularly new. From the Punk scene in the 1970s, inaugurated by ‘Anarchy in the UK’ and ‘God Save the Queen’, to the Smiths anti-Thatcher identity in the 1980s, to the present day when Stormzy endorsed Jeremy Corbyn at This Diariast likes to imagine the the 2017 General Election. Many artists seek to cultivate an pair, who were contemporaries during their time studying in Cambridge, apolitical image in order to broaden had lots to talk about, including their appeal. Politics seems to be their similar work schedules: cutting increasingly becoming a taboo topic multiple ribbons a week, being driven for musicians to discuss. Love, loss, happiness, sadness – to impressive functions, and making a broad human emotions are the fertile forgettable speech once a year. ground of much of modern day popular music. Politics? No. Morrissey is the most recent musician to draw the anger of many for his political views. He shocked many given the opportunity to be platformed of his fans back in 2013 when he said on national television, and especially that he nearly voted for UKIP out of rare for opportunities to be given to a respect for Nigel Farage and his views student who, at such a tender age, has on Europe. This was followed up by his had reported accusations against them endorsement of Brexit as ‘magnificent’ of using derogatory language and and his claim that the 2017 UKIP threatening behaviour. I commend the election as rigged against controversial television producers for their talent- leadership candidate Marie Waters. For this he was lambasted in the spotting.

He Toopes to Conquer

ollowing reports last week that the newly-appointed Vice Chancellor Professor Stephen Toope gets a daily salary of £1,000 for his “relentless” work, This Diarist was unsurprised to hear that the VC would be opening Jesus College’s new West Court with none other than Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

he BBC has in recent years been accused of showing bias towards more ‘progressive ideologies’ in their current affairs programming, but this Diarist is pleased to note that turning on the television on Tuesday night led to his fears being put to rest. It is not every day that a student is

media, with one columnist arguing that his audience were just ‘supposed to be having a fun day out’. Eminem in America has also stepped in the political fray. He launched a lyrical tirade against Donald Trump at the BET’s Hip-Hop awards in which he called on any of his fans who supported Trump to choose a side. Similarly, Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr famously ‘banned’ David Cameron from liking the Smiths after he chose ‘This Charming Man’ during his appearance on Desert Island Discs. Some have suggested he do the same to Morrissey in the wake of his latest comments. But why do we hold artists to a higher standard than we would almost any other individual? Surely it is unreasonable of us to expect that an individual, with hopes, dreams and strong beliefs, would not speak out when they feel strongly about something? Of course, they have a responsibility as a role model to behave in a certain way. Evidently, the focus of their appearances will be the music, for that is why they have achieved such fame. But why should we draw the ‘line which should not be crossed’ at politics? Music is about the articulation of feelings and of beliefs. It is about expressing an individual’s thoughts

and emotions. Politics, alongside love and loss, happiness and sadness, is part of the identity that every person forms. To deny this is a betrayal of authenticity. Perhaps the reason why so much vitriolic anger is levelled against those who do speak out about their political beliefs is that music, for many, is a form of escapism. When artists use their platform to expound a political belief, this flight from reality is shattered. But perhaps also an artist speaking out about politics is only aggravating when they express a view that you do not agree with. For Morrissey who built up a following of left-leaning sensibilities due to such songs as ‘Margaret on the Guillotine’ and ‘Still Ill’ which denounce the Thatcher government, his comments on UKIP would prove particularly disturbing. But also for any Republican fans of Eminem in America, his declaration that they had to choose between politics and music would be especially frustrating. Politics and music act like estranged lovers – they are intrinsically linked, no matter how hard they try to forget about the other. Perhaps Morrissey was spot on when he sung ‘It’s too close to home and it’s too near the bone’. For many, its simply too close to the bone.

We’re all in this together- Cambridge and activism Emrys Travis

y last column - about validation, and how the hard work that goes into making material differences often goes unrecognised – came appropriately a couple of days before Murray Edwards published their updated policy detailing that the college now accepts trans women applicants who have not had their gender legally changed on their birth certificate (a long and pointlessly bureaucratic process that is inaccessible to a multitude of trans

people for various different reasons). Positive, vital changes like this are the result of years of unseen work from staff and students alike, and the input from various individuals - present and past CUSU women’s officers, the Medwards women’s officer, and various members of CUSU LGBT+ among them - went mostly unacknowledged in statements from the college as well as in the vast majority of press coverage. One of the biggest downsides of this lack of transparency is that it can provide an inroad for certain ever-present public figures who aim to present progress as something polarising, rather than as the material outcome of intra- and inter-community solidarity that it actually represents. Disappointingly, the national press’s transparent efforts to dig up opinions from certain “feminists” who disagree with the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces (and to present those

opinions as in any way legitimate or valid) has been mirrored in the student press. An article entitled “Cambridge women react to Murray Edwards policy change” wasted almost half its wordcount detailing comments made by Germaine Greer, who resigned from Newnham after the college appointed a trans woman fellow, making her apparent inclusion under the category “Cambridge women” a mystery to me. More importantly, though, the press turns to people like Greer whenever it wants an “opposing view” - a clickbait quote that it knows will reflect Greer’s trademark discrimination against trans women - and then pits that view directly against trans women’s voices (specifically, in this article, a quote from Dr Rachael Padman), playing into the myth that trans inclusion is an issue that divides trans and cis women on separate sides. This is, in a word, bullshit.

Generations (at least in Cambridge terms) of women and non-binary people have been working together, cis and trans alike, towards improving the university’s trans inclusivity; the current working group aiming to expand Medwards’ policy to Newnham and Lucy Cavendish (email womens@ cusu.cam.ac.uk to get involved!) is a microcosm of this work of feminist solidarity. It is woefully irresponsible to allow people like Greer to dominate the narrative, especially when multiple Medwards students, fellows, and alumni, regardless of gender or trans identity, have spoken out in support of the change. Instead, we need to continue working together, keeping up the positive momentum from the Medwards policy change and redoubling our efforts to expand it to the other women’s colleges. I’ve seen four years of activist

committees and communities grow and change hands in Cambridge, and, whilst the autonomous campaigns (women’s, disabled, LGBT+, BME, international) have always interacted and worked together with one another and with other activist bodies in Cambridge, this year’s joint efforts (helped by an excellent CUSU sabb team!) are looking even more positively intersectional than I’ve ever seen before. Pull back the flimsy veil of shitstirring and lazy journalism, and you’ll find genuine, productive solidarity between activists - both cis and trans - working to make Cambridge a better place for everyone who faces gendered (and other forms of) oppression. Roll up your sleeves and join us we’ve got work to do. Find the rest of Emrys’ columns at tcs.cam.ac.uk

The Cambridge Student • 19th October 2017

Sport

Cryptic Crossword by Cameron Wallis

Clare Summerskill on LGBT asylum seekers Molly Moss Deputy Editor

Across 1. Bizarre pirate golf is irresponsible (10) 6. Fruit in charge of boat (3) 7. Hand out unemployment benefit (4) 9. Amphibian reported to have removed vehicle (4) 10. This Friday, restaurant starts transporting gigantic ice (3) 11. Pin thrown from Olympus hits dog (4) 12. Aquatic plant conceals abysmal Gaelic (5) 13. Thatcher famously said, or sang, “What’s love got to do with it?” (4) 14. Unusually aroused by capital of Kazakhstan stained with pen (5) 15. Prejudice in conversation over our heads (4)

Down 1. Strong cauldron meets a talkative tree (6) 2. Fledgling of rapacious creatures (3) 3. Inattentive indicator of location, I have purged you (8) 4. Every other barn on food forms inns in the year of the Lord (4,6) 5. “Anchovies sent I also, smuggling only the bare necessities.” (10) 7. Dance move looks terrible in mirror (3) 8. Pure airline (6) 12. Boat made from chopped wood of a tree (3)

Sudoku

by Thomas Prideaux Ghee

Solutions from Volume 19, Michaelmas Issue 1

ambridge theatre is staging Rights of Passage from the 17th October in Corpus Playroom, a play uncovering the voices of LGBT asylum seekers with a script based solely on interviews. I listen to the author Clare Summerskill, also LGBT activist, comedian and PhD student researching the role of the contributor to verbatim theatre, as she inspires a room full of students at Sidney Sussex college with the story behind her play. Based on interviews with LGBT asylum seekers in the UK, and also interviews with people who work in that area, Rights of Passage is “a powerful, direct, challenging and moving means” of sharing experiences and lives which have been ignored and overlooked for too long. Why are LGBT people seeking asylum in the UK? Homosexuality is still illegal in a shocking 76 countries around the world, and in 41 out of the 53 commonwealth countries. These statistics are beyond frightening. “We have an obligation”, Summerskill insists, to stick to the terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and give people fleeing their countries in desperate fear of punishment, torture and death the rights they deserve. But how can you ‘prove’ you are gay? Sexuality isn’t something which can be shoved on a certificate, and is instead policed by the Home Office in what can be a cruel game. “The more I heard about the treatment of LGBT asylum seekers the more these practices seemed criminal and violent,” Summerskill adds. “LGBT people who had travelled to the UK were being subjected to personally explicit sexual procedures, and then sometimes deported.” The process can be a vicious cycle, with one traumatic blow followed by another. To begin with, Summerskill wasn’t sure what the final direction of the script would be. She gathered interviews from “people from African countries, Middle Eastern countries, as well as from Russia, Malaysia, Turkey, China and several others besides”. She adds, “I also interviewed

people from the home office, from the asylum group, and LGBT and human rights lawyers.” The play ended up focusing solely on three contributors: a lesbian from Uganda, a gay man from Malaysia, and a gay man from Iran. The first act of the play is staged in their home countries, detailing their traumatic experiences, while the second act follows their encounters with the asylum system in the UK. The trauma of asylum seekers is ongoing, Summerskill makes clear, and by the end of play only two out of three have successfully attained refugee status, the outcome of the third left “theatrically in the air.” But is it insensitive to reduce the tragic to an art form? Does this distance us from the reality of it? Rights of Passage proves that this is certainly not the case. When working ethically and sensitively, as Summerskill has always endeavoured to do, blending art with real world suffering can raise awareness and bring about change. Summerskill has been on demonstrations highlighting LGBT rights abuses, supporting individual asylum seekers faced with imminent deportation, and offering free writing workshops for LGBT asylum seekers. Having become personally acquainted with LGBT asylum seekers, they approached her when she began writing the play. As the talk comes to an end, Summerskill talks about Miremba, a main contributor to the script. Some of her words in the play recall a visit to London, and her shock at seeing two women kissing publicly and that the kissing is legal. In her country, Uganda, gay people are raped as a ‘cure’, or punished with a number of car tyres on top of them which are then set on fire. Such brutal torture and killing is advocated by the police, and even the community. The voices of the contributors have been overlooked for too long. Summerskill is passionate that one day the world will have changed, and that asylum seekers will have the option to return to their home country. With artistic productions like Rights of Passage demanding awareness of neglected issues, this is certainly something we can hope and fight for. SNEHA LALA

19th October 2017 • The Cambridge Student

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

One to Watch: Rugby Blue Jake Hennessey Finn Ranson Sports Editor

Cambridge rugby Blues and Harlequins academy full-back Jake Hennessey talks the key to sporting success, discovering his passion and university life.

e sit down in a room just above Trinity bar, looking out on the hallowed turf of the college’s famous quad. It is one of those places in Cambridge that wears its prestige like a strong musk. But then fresher Jake Hennessey takes it all in his stride. “I’m really enjoying it in the Blues squad, [there’s a] really good team environment,” he said. “There’s no hierarchy, there’s no ‘you’re a fresher I’m a post-grad’. We’re all the Blues together. I really look forward to getting to training every evening. I think it provides a good balance to my life here.” Balance, it would quickly become clear, was the Wimbledon-born fresher’s touchstone. Studying French and Ancient Greek, Jake Hennessey came to Cambridge with a wealth of rugby experience. He captained Harlequins to the U18s title last year, playing in every fixture; had a starring role for his school, King’s College Wimbledon; and even earned a Scotland U19s cap. Having travelled with the Blues squad to Paris in May and toured South Africa in the summer, Hennessey has quickly settled in. The strong chemistry he already has with his teammates was clear for all to see against Loughborough last month, setting off some dazzling combination play with Chris Bell and Henry King to carve out a try. Despite breaking into the Harlequins academy this summer, one of only six players in their U18s squad to do so, for Hennessey the decision between higher education and full-time academy rugby was always clear. He is one of those few sportspeople blessed with both passion and pragmatism. “Obviously I was very lucky to be offered a contract, and that had always been my dream,” he remarked humbly. “But careers in rugby are short. An injury and it could be over next week. I wanted to have that back-up if something goes wrong, and although rugby’s a big passion of mine I like studying as well. It was something that I wasn’t ready to give up. It was always the case of where can I get the best education, rather than will I get to uni.” Rather than being pushed into rugby by over-zealous parents, there was a

“It was never a chore. It was always something I’d look forward to”

GETTY IMAGES

romantic fortuitousness to how Hennessey fell into the sport. “When I was five or six my best mate’s Dad was coach for the local club,” he recalled. “I was round his house one time and he said ‘Jake, come down to rugby on Sunday!’ I begged my Mum and Dad - they weren’t too keen to sacrifice their Sunday! But luckily they took me down, and ever since that moment they saw the enjoyment it gave me, and they’ve only been the most supportive parents they ever could be.” What’s more, the Wimbledon-born fresher was something of a late bloomer. He only discovered his desire to take rugby further when he was 15, by which point most youngsters have already had premonitions of greatness. Hennessey was adamant that this was a crucial advantage in his development. “I think it’s easy to see, especially the people who really care, how it can affect them negatively once they lose that enjoyment [in] that pressurecooker environment,” he said firmly. “That’s why coming here and studying and having a life outside of rugby is so important. I can go to a lecture and try and take my mind off it. They both feed into each other.” As David Conn’s article in The Guardian recently outlined, the cutthroat

short-term nature of football’s academy system has led to serious mental health problems among young players. For Hennessey in Harlequins’ development system, the love-affair with rugby is still strong. “I’m a big believer that your mindset, even subconsciously, can affect your performance,” he said, animatedly. “I’ve come here to Cambridge and just absolutely loved my rugby, and my performances have improved because of that. It was always something I’d look forward to at the end of the day. “I’ve always enjoyed that pressure with your teammates on a rugby pitch. Some of the bonds you form on a rugby pitch are honestly life-changing and unforgettable. That helps to alleviate the pressure. Of course there’s times where it’s not always enjoyable, but the love for the game and the love for the teammates you have next to you makes the tough days bearable and the good days unforgettable.” That’s not to say, though, that there haven’t been bumps in the road. When I brought up a video of a spectacular try for Hennessey back in 2015 on England Rugby’s Facebook, he grimaced. “A couple of weeks before [that try] I’d played a pre-season tournament with Quins, and I’d played awfully,” he shook his head with that self-reproachful look typical of sportspeople. “I was worried that that could be the end of the road for me. My nose got bashed up as well. There was a time when I wondered whether I’d even be playing in that match. I really needed that match to get my confidence up and scoring that try confirmed to me that after the low of not playing so well at that tournament that rugby was where I wanted to be.” More than a decade on from his first taste of rugby, Hennessey still looks to the future with childlike excitement. “Short term there’s a big match at Twickenham in December,” he smiled. “Hopefully I can be involved, and we can get a win over the other place. That would be a memory I would never forget. I’ve played at the Stoop twice but never run out at HQ [Twickenham]. That would be wonderful. “Next couple of years I just want to keep representing Cambridge well. If I can get some appearances for Quins in the A-League, or the Singha-Sevens, the Anglo-Welsh Cup, whatever it is, it’s always an honour to put on the Quins badge.” And although he has only been here two weeks, I couldn’t resist asking that dreaded question: what’s next after Cambridge? “If I can keep going in professional rugby that would be great,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. “Hopefully I can go on to represent Harlequins. That’s the dream, and I’ll keep getting my head down and working towards that.”