The Cambridge Student

Interview: Calvin Klein

Harry Potter

Fashion Show

→ Part 2, p.10

→ Part 2, p.4

→ Comment, p.16

The giant of fashion and menswear pays a visit to Cambridge

www.tcs.cam.ac.uk

Government crackdown on loan payments “We will trace and prosecute borrowers who don’t pay”

T

he Government have threatened that people who avoid payment of their student loans may face prosecution.

Ministers have also pledged to pursue graduates living overseas who are dodging payments in a new ‘Joint Repayment Strategy’.

Universities Minister Jo Johnson argued that “it is vital that the repayment process is robust” especially given that the new loans are being issued annually to new students.

Punishments for those who evade repayment could include levying penalities, serving default notices to credit histories, or “the use of litigation where appropriate and cost-effective”.

The crackdown follows a complaint from the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee which called for greater action to improve the repayment system.

Currently, £8.3 billion of student loans is held by borrowers who are either in arrears, non-paying or unverified.

While 98% of the outstanding balance is thought to be held in Britain, where 72% of borrowers had up-to-date files, 123,000 of the Students Loan Company 5.5 million debtors live overseas. £457 million of the debt is held by by nonpaying or “unverified” borrowers who live abroad.

However, the SLC said: “Not all unverified borrowers will owe money.

While some do, others may not be working, may be in receipt of benefits,

Pretentious and elitist or a radical show?

The

18 February 2016 Vol. 17 Lent Issue 6

Stevie Hertz and Freya Clarke Deputy Editor and Deputy News Editor

Has the phenomenon gone too far?

not earning enough to repay or may be between jobs.”

Australia is the most popular destination for graduates with debt.

Under a new two-way partnership, with the government in Canberra, information about non-paying graduates will be shared both ways.

This follows a trial policy with Sweden and the Netherlands, where 90% of ‘lost’ debtors were found and 20% of those then went on to make payments after recieving only one letter.

Other European Union countries are set to join the movement, leading to a “wider European approach to data sharing”, according to the report.

Alongside these global initiatives, the SLC is hoping to use debt collection services and “tracing agencies”.

In a written statement to the House of Commons, Johnson stated: “We will take stronger action to trace borrowers including those overseas, act to recover loan repayments where it is clear that borrowers are seeking to avoid repayment, consider the use of sanctions against borrowers who breach loan repayment terms and, if necessary, prosecute.”

However, he acknowledged that this may not be a permanent strategy, writing that it will be kept “under review” reporting annually on their progress.

Students who took loans out after 2012 start repaying their loan when they earn £21,000 a year or more.

Concerned student Abigail Sharp welcomed Johnson’s announcement: “I am pleased that this action is being taken as it will allow the Government loan scheme to continue and make it possible for people from disadvantaged backgrounds to afford higher education.”

Cambridge Student

Regeni: More calls for inquiry into death TCS News Team

An emergency motion stating that there should be a “complete and full investigation into Giulio Regeni’s death’’ was submitted to Monday’s CUSU council meeting, proposed by the CUSU sabbatical officer team.

The motion was passed unanimously, with 26 votes in favour from JCR Presidents and Vice-Presidents, alongside other members of the University. There were no objections to or debate of the motion.

The motion also mandates the CUSU sabbatical officers to sign the UK Parliament Petition, calling for a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding Giulio’s death, and mandates the CUSU President to write an open letter “to be signed by JCR and MCR Presidents, Student Representatives and students, to the British Ambassador to Egypt.’’

A friendly amendment was submitted, mandating the President to contact the Italian Ambassador as well.

The petition, currently at 4,600 signatures, needs 10,000 in order for the Government to respond, and 100,000 in order to be considered for debate in Parliament.

The CUSU council motion comes on the heels of other calls for investigation and mounting pressure on the Egyptian and Italian authorities to investigate Regeni’s death. The Guardian reported last week that more than 5,500 academics from around the world have signed a letter protesting his death and demanding an investigation.

Giulio Regeni was a PhD student at Girton College in Cambridge, researching independent trade unions in Egypt. His mysterious disappearance in Egypt, and the discovery of his body nine days later marked with signs of brutal and inhumane torture, have sparked outrage and anger, with the The E-Luminate Festival shined a new light on the Great Gate of Gonville Italian foreign minister saying they and Caius College this week Image: Will Lyon-Tupman would not “settle for alleged truths.”

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18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

News

Editorial Team 18 February 2016 Editor-in-Chief Deputy Editors News Editors Deputy News Editors

Investigations Editors Deputy Investigations Editors Comment Editors Features Editors Interviews Editors Columns Editor Sports Editors Theatre Editors Fashion & Beauty Editor Lifestyle Editor Food & Drink Editor Books Editor Music Editor TV & Film Editor Escape Editor Images & Design Editor Chief Sub-Editors Sub-Editors

Directors

Volume 17 • Lent Issue 6

Elsa Maishman Stevie Hertz Jessie Mathewson Amelia Oakley Sherilyn Chew Hayden Banks Lili Bidwell Bea Lundy Lydia Day Freya Clarke Jane Lu Victoria Braid Tom Bevan Izzy Ryan Micha Frazer-Carroll Lola Olufemi Sriya Varadharajan Anna Bradley Taryn Challender Lydia Sabatini Maddy Airlie Julia Stanyard Tom Richardson Paul Hyland Jack Ranson Leyla Gumusdis Eve Rivers Ariel Yuqing Luo Lucy Roxburgh Charlotte McGarry Arenike Adebajo Ollie Smith Jack Whitehead Ed Ashcroft Jemima Jobling Urvie Pereira William Tilbrook Cameron Wallis Josie Daw Ines Boxman Rosie Mearns Marie Heinisch Elsa Maishman Jack May Freya Sanders Thomas Saunders Jemma Stewart Tonicha Upham

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.

tcd

• tcd@tcs.cam.ac.uk • INDEPENDENTLY INCOMPETENT

CUCFS VIA YOUTUBE

This week’s student journo mishaps: Jack Higgins, Varsity’s Senior News Editor, wrote for the Guardian defending the Freedom of Information Act, citing a story on the University’s alleged gender pay gap. “Uncovering such a story would have been nigh impossible without the FOI Act”, he said, failing to mention that this newspaper covered it two weeks previously, using publicly available data. Meanwhile, The Tab ran a preview interview on student opera ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with the show’s directors, failing to mention that the interviewer is the show’s producer. Oops.

BASILIC VEINS AND OLD WOUNDS

Spotted: Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner enjoying a fivecourse black-tie ‘feast’ at Gonville & Caius College.

On the menu: basil sorbet, and caught snippets of conversations on stairs about “Julian” being “a very gracious” something. Note to Diarist: don’t get stuck holding the door in future.

TIT HALL’S ELEVEN

It would appear that Jack Lewy (pictured above), former Union hack, and (briefly) of this newspaper, has a chip on his shoulder after missing out on the ‘Top 10’ of The Tab’s BIGGEST BNOCs by only one place. Having

paraded center-stage in the tabloidbeloved Cambridge University Charity Fashion Show, Lewy is set to appear in a CU-TV programme showing his RAG Blind Date as it happened. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

Gone but not forgotten

With the world of journalism still reeling from the announcement that The Independent and The Independent on Sunday are to cease printing, this Diarist thought it worth taking a nostalgic peek into the past of Cambridge’s own ‘independent’ firebrand, Varsity. A quick look revealed that Amol Rajan, current Indy editor, was Varsity editor in Lent 2005, whilst former Indy deputy editor Archie Bland (and author of a recent gushing tribute piece to the Indy for The Guardian) steered the ship the previous academic term, in Michaelmas 2004.

Meanwhile, i editor Oly Duff, who looks set to be more fortunate in the Indy group carve-up following a £24m purchase deal with Johnston Press, was co-editor in Lent 2003 with a certain Luke Layfield, who has blossomed into a similarly renowned public figure… investing in real estate for Aviva Investors. In such a market, who knows where this generation of student hacks will end up.

Front page: DAVID SHANKBONE, JAKOVCHE, VINCENT HASSELBACH

3

The Cambridge Student • 18 February 2016

News

Anti-Semitism allegations fly in Oxford Labour Co-chair of Oxford University Labour Club set to resign over ‘anti-semitism’ within society a significant and worrying issue and one that, on many occasions, Jewish students have felt that they are fighting alone.”

“We are grateful that Alex Chalmers Alex Chalmers, Co-Chair of the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC), has has made the statement that he did and announced he will leave his post over concerns of anti-Semitism.

“There needs to be a full Chalmers made his decision after the enquiry and suspension group, previously a platform for aspiring of OULC for the Labour Party politicians, including the likes of Ed Miliband and Michael Foot, allegations of racism.” agreed to endorse the upcoming Israel has brought the issue of anti-Semitism to the fore in a way that Jewish students Apartheid Week.

He wrote: “The decision of the club have so far been denied.”

He also expressed his hope that the to endorse a movement with a history of targeting and harassing Jewish resignation would “trigger a broader students and inviting anti-Semitic awakening amongst student political speakers to campuses, despite the concerns of Jewish students, illustrates

Sherilyn Chew News Editor

movements, and that anti-Semitism, particularly on the student left, is finally taken seriously.”

Some have taken to Twitter to express their anger at the allegations, with Labour MP John Mann writing: “There needs to be a full enquiry and suspension of Oxford University Labour Club for the allegations of racism.”

According to the Independent Business Times, the OULC has responded by saying they will look into the allegations raised by Chalmers.

Noni Csogor, fellow co-chair of OULC, commented: “We take allegations of anti-Semitism in the club very seriously and I will be discussing,

coming out of the OULC are extremely concerning. These reports, along with the decision of OULC to endorse Israeli Apartheid Week, show that OULC are against the interests of Jewish students.”

“I commend the bravery of former co-chair Alex Chalmers in his decision to resign from OULC and bringing “On many occasions, this issue to the attention of the wider Jewish students have felt public. Considering the number of senior politicians who have passed that they are fighting through OULC I hope that this matter alone.” is investigated urgently by the Labour Party with appropriate action taken.”

Langer also remarked that there was a Campaigns Director Russell Langer also expressed his disappointment, saying: “The reports of anti-Semitism with my executive committee how to deal with the kinds of statements Alex mentions, and what concrete steps we can take in future to preserve a club that’s been a safe haven for Jewish students in the past.”

Union of Jewish Students (UJS)

WWW.TORANGE.US

“We would not expect such disgraceful activity from any morally upright person.”

“Antisemitism masquerading as politics is abhorrent.”

“positive relationship” between UJS and Labour Club students, with many of the members being “strong supporters” of Jewish students.

“It is a shame that OULC seems to be an exception to that rule.”

The Israeli embassy has also released a response unequivocally stating that it is “appalled” by the reports of antiSemitism and the alleged “intimidation” of Jewish students. It also added that they would not expect such “disgraceful” behaviour from any “morally upright” people, especially not students from one of the most highly acclaimed universities in the world.

They stated: “Anti-semitism masquerading as politics is abhorrent.

It must be recognised as such and condemned by all.”

how uneven and insincere much of the active membership is when it comes to liberation.”

Chalmers also stated his distress at how some club members bandied the racist term ‘Zio’ about, and claimed that some members have even expressed solidarity with Hamas.

The Oxford University Jewish Society has commented they are “unsurprised” about allegations of anti-Semitism directed at left-wing students.

A spokesperson said: “It is not the first time that Oxford JSoc has had to deal with anti-Semitic incidents within the student left and it will not be the last. It is

Academics campaign for student’s freedom

Fashion show stirs controversy

Sherilyn Chew News Editor

Lydia Day Deputy News Editor

Academics at Oxford and the London School of Economics have signed a statement condemning the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, an Indian student leader, last week, criticising it as “illegal” police action.

The signatories included Professor Barbara Harriss-White and Professor David Gellner from Oxford University, and Professor Maitreesh Ghatak from LSE, alongside 500 other scholars.

Kumar was detained based on his alleged chanting of “anti-national” and “seditious” slogans during demonstrations last week at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Demonstrations erupted last week as students, teachers and journalists protested against violence by Hindu nationalists. There are also allegation

The starting point sentence, if convicted, for such an offence is five years

that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is cracking down on political dissent.

The new signatories add their voices to a growing chorus of protests, as thousands across India have rallied to show their support. The police claimed that they have evidence connecting Kumar to slogans chanted at the event expressing support for Kashmiri independence, a political hot potato – both India and Pakistan lay claim to the whole territory of Kashmir.

However, Kumar’s supporters claim that he was instead protesting against capital punishment by the Indian state and that any issue should have been dealt with by campus police.

Kumar was arrested under India’s 19th century sedition laws, introduced under British colonial rule.

“We attempted to create a celebration of the arts on a grand scale.”

The Cambridge University Charity Fashion Show took place in the Corn Exchange last Saturday, featuring top brands such as Amanda Wakeley, L.K. Bennett and Ted Baker alongside recent graduates from the prestigious Central Saint Martins fashion school.

The event, which attracted an audience of over 1,000, describes itself as the biggest philanthropic event in the Cambridge calendar. It also raised over £10,000 for Cambridge House, which tackles social injustice in South London. Students took to the runway to model couture lingerie alongside paper dresses and sportswear.

However, the fashion show generated significant press interest from the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror, who raced to condemn the outfits as

“bondage gear” and “controversial”.

The Daily Mail went so far as to describe the models as displaying their “assets” with “acres of naked flesh”.

One of the event’s organisers, Amna Hameed, defended the event, telling The Independent: “On a high-fashion runway, this would not have been deemed ‘controversial’.”

“The stereotype of Cambridge students as ‘swots’ is arbitrary and undermines the fact the student body is highly interested in the arts.”

“Thus, we attempted to create a celebration of the arts on a grand scale.”

Hammed then added that they will aim “to build on the profile of the event to ensure, next year, we can make it even bigger and better and keep fundraising for a valuable charity.”

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18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Investigations

The Freedom of Informatio Understanding the FOI Act Jane Lu Investigations Editor Since the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) came fully into force in 2005, it has transformed journalism and how public institutions are treated.

According to the legislation, FOIA aims to “make provision for the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for them”.

The main provision of the Act is the creation of a statutory right of access to information held by public bodies in the form of a freedom of information (FOI) request. Public authorities are required to implement these requests and can charge a fee in accordance to regulations set by the Act. However, not all information can be accessed as some information is exempted from disclosure, for instance, sensitive information of security services.

Under the Act’s definition of “public authorities” a university, college, school or hall receiving financial support under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 is considered to be a public authority, thus they are subject to the FOIA. The University

The Freedom of Information Act is “a sheep in a wolf’s clothing”

of Cambridge and its affiliated colleges fall under this definition.

The main rationale for FOIA is undoubtedly accountability. The enabling of public access allows transparency, giving poor administration a chance to come to light, and through that, forcing the authorities to be responsible for their actions. At the same time, FOI can also achieve openness by enabling the public to participate in the authorities’ decisionmaking process on a more informed basis.

Yet, as Mark Elliott, Professor of Public Law at St Catherine’s College, has pointed out the principle of FOI is not absolute, and an appropriate balance needs to be achieved somewhere “between public interest in FOI and competing public interests by nondisclosure.”

Whether or not the FOIA is good policy is debatable. Over the years, shortcomings of the Government have been exposed through the use of FOIs, such as their revealing of the parliamentary expenses scandal. Despite the MPs’ initial attempts

to bar the information from being released through legal proceedings, information about the MPs’ expenses was eventually released under a FOI request.

However, the role that the FOI request played in this scandal can perhaps be put into perspective when one considers that The Daily Telegraph independently obtained a full copy of MPs’ expenses claims and started publishing about it two months prior to the official FOI disclosure.

The FOI request to release Iraq Cabinet minutes also illustrates a major limitation of the FOIA. In that case, despite the Information Tribunal suggesting that there were powerful reasons why a disclosure would favour public interest, the Government exercised a veto to prevent the release of this information.

As Rodney Austin, Professor of Law at King’s College London, suggests, the FOIA is “a sheep in a wolf ’s clothing”. The system of FOI requests gives the public authorities the last say. Whilst it is a good method of accountability, in practice, it has its flaws.

Why the colleges want exemption Izzy Ryan Deputy Investigations Editor The University of Cambridge has long protested that they should be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of 2000. The main concern with freedom of information (FOI) requests from the University’s perspective is the cost involved.

The Head of the Office of Intercollegiate Services for Colleges, Dr Matthew Russell, wrote in a letter to the FOI commission that requests were becoming an “excessive financial burden”. He claims that the annual cost for addressing FOI requests

£450,000 Annual cost for addressing FOI requests is £450,000. With colleges collectively receiving over 1,000 requests a year, this puts the cost of each individual request at £450. However, the way this cost has been calculated is unclear.

In addition to financial costs, universities in recent years have claimed that they should not be classified as public institutions, under the remit of the FOIA, but as private institutions which are exempt.

Dr Russell writes: “The colleges receive no public funds. They receive student fees which, in the case of most undergraduates, are paid from student loans funded from the public purse. However, those fees are to pay for the education of students.”

The majority of university funding comes from fees subsidised and controlled by the Government. The distinction between public and private is now up for debate.

The University also argues that much of the requested information is already made readily available online.

However many of the requests cannot be answered by information provided online and require “substantial work to derive”, according to Dr Russell. He also claimed that some FOI requests were “plainly commercially driven.

“The colleges have received many requests from journalists seeking to have their work done for them at the expense of the college.”

The University finishes their letter to the commission arguing that the Act should be

restricted to the Government and similar bodies, whereas the colleges are charities, not in receipt of public funds, and therefore

£450 Average cost of each FOI request should be excluded. They suggested a £10 fee per FOI request to limit claims.

Tony Blair, who oversaw the creation of this policy, has since called it one of the worst mistakes of his premiership. He argues that FOI is used for the most part not by the public but by journalists, stating: “For political leaders, it’s like saying to someone who is hitting you over the head with a stick, ‘Hey, try this instead’, and handing them a mallet.”

However, it is not made clear what it means to be ‘public’ and ‘private’ and to what extent journalists act on the people’s behalf.

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The Cambridge Student • 18 February 2016

Investigations

on Act: Sourcing your news CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: DAVID DIXON, YAN ARIEF PURWANTO, GEOGRAPH.ORG.UK, KABOOMPICS.COM

How FOI requests have affected the University of Cambridge

Victoria Braid Investigations Editor In 2015, The Cambridge Student sent 400 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to aid its investigations.

By using this method of gaining access to information, this paper discovered that Trinity College, Cambridge’s land assets were valued at £730 million. FOI requests have enabled TCS to reveal exclusively that some colleges lost over a million pounds on conferencing arrangements between 2011 and 2014, whereas others made a profit of over £900,000. An FOI request from TCS in 2013 revealed that 54 dogs were dissected in the Veterinary School over the last three years, only three of which had been “obtained from veterinary practices following death natural causes or euthanized because of disease.”

Varsity similarly uses FOI requests. They recently conducted an investigation in the gender pay gap within the University,

“Student journalism is largely dependent on the ability to send FOI requests”

and FOI requests revealed that 89% of the university’s top earners are men.

The Tab launched an investigation into college discipline in Cambridge, discovering that from 2011 to 2013 colleges fined students a total of £16,398 for various misdemeanors.

Indeed, student newspapers across the country use FOIs, from Glasgow’s Guardian to The Exeposé in Exeter.

CUSU campaigns also use FOI requests to identify problems and strengthen their arguments. In 2014 the CUSU Living Wage Campaign found that Cambridge ‘underpays’ over 1000 employees, with salaries under the informal benchmark of £7.65 an hour. The CUSU Socially Responsible Investment Campaign used FOI requests to investigate the investments of the University, which revealed that Trinity College, Cambridge had investments in the company Lockheed Martin, a large US military defence contractor and a major producer of drones.

No exemption: FOIA does not go far enough Tom Bevan Deputy Investigations Editor The FOIA is clearly a vital mechanism in allowing individuals and members of the press to hold public bodies to account.

And in directing the debate on who should be exempt from these requests towards the higher education sector, the Russell Group and others have revealed a disappointing, regressive attitude towards democratic culture.

I stand with the News Media Association and the countless editors in student press who have heavily rejected the demand for immunity from our, and others’, university leadership. The fight for exemption makes me wonder if the Russell Group and Cambridge University understand the role of the university at all; a highly influential institution that exercises vital public functions, including regulating entrance and access to occupations, granting degrees and holding an unprecedented responsibility for the wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of young people. Universities exercise extensive authority in local communities as landowners, landlords, employers, and as business and industry partners.

Contrary to the suggestion of Russell

Group statements, they are also in receipt of billions of pounds of tax payer’s money each year. The Student Loans Company used by the majority of students is, according to its own website, “entirely Government-funded.”

But even if we accept the commercial fate our of higher education sector, I would argue that in the age of everoligarchic corporations, the transparency of the private sector should be at the forefront of our democratic concern.

The powerful role corporations play in shaping our lives, and in asserting and reconfirming societal structures, should not go unscrutinised by FOI type mechanisms. Non-profit WikiRate.org is one exciting example of how public research and accessible technology can be utilised to hold companies responsible for their ethical practices. There is a strong democratic case for proposing more accountability from the corporations who dictate our lives; alongside and, arguably, above the state.

If we wish to imbue our society with the democratic principle of public transparency, supposedly held up in the public sector, the FOIA should be extended to the private sphere. Yes, there are limits to how much we have a right to know. Yet if we believe in the unfinished democratic project at all, a precedent of near universal transparency must be set.

And at this early stage, our universities are certainly not going to be let off the hook.

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18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

College Watch

Images: Jessica McHugh

Emma

Jesus

Wolfson

Downing

Emmanuel College June Event tickets have sold out in record time. It took just three minutes and 12 seconds for all the tickets to be bought.

Following last year’s May Ball ticket disaster, in which many Emmanuel students were unable to buy tickets, the system was reformed this year.

Whereas previously all the tickets went on sale at once, which led to many finding out last year: “the tickets were... released at 10.30pm, but sold out in just 15 minutes. Many current Emmanuel students failed to get a ticket, and were, in the words of a first year, ‘surprised and upset that we couldn’t get a ticket for our own May Ball.’”

In order to avoid a repeat of last year’s outrage, the committee allowed Emmanuel students to buy a ticket for themselves during a 24 hour period before the tickets went on general sale.

After this period the tickets became avaliable for general sale and the purchase of guest tickets, and it was a mere 3 minutes before these tickets were completely sold out. This shows the popularity of the event, and thankfully Emmanuel students have had better luck this year purchasing tickets.

Lili Bidwell

Jesus College is in the process of their first ever Welfare Week. Organised by the JCR welfare officers, the week aims to raise awareness for welfare issues and to provide students with extra support. The events kicked off on Monday with free refreshments followed by a comedy event.

There are varied activities throughout the week, ranging from free testing for HIV and Chlamydia to an introduction to bike maintenance, where students are able to learn how to look after their bikes and how to cycle safely in Cambridge.

The welfare team also want to help students to relax and destress, so have organised classes in mindfullness, yoga and a posture workshop with the college physiotherapist.

By addressing key issues such as sleep, sexual health and bicycle safety, the welfare team have created a strong sense of college community and an atmosphere in which students can dscuss and share any difficulties they may face. The welfare team have been both innovative and dedicated in organising the week, ensuring that there is something for everyone.

Lili Bidwell

Wolfson College Student’s Association (WCSA) have announced that they are partnering with St. Edmund’s College for their May Ball.

This comes following the cancellation of Wolfson’s June Event which left many students disappointed. The early release tickets, which are usually only available to students at St Edmund’s, will now be available at the same price to Wolfson students as well. Similarly, there will now be representatives from Wolfson College on the St. Edmund’s May Ball Committee. The website has been updated to show the “official partnership” between the two colleges. Both colleges will coordinate a launch night at St Edmund’s on 27th January. The Wolfson June Event Committee were forced to cancel their plans after the college declared them to be “neither adequate nor practicable”. Former president of the June Event, Alfie Lambert, has commented that “Last year, we held what was widely regarded as the best June Event ever at Wolfson – students from other colleges commented on how good it was and how surprised they were.”

Lydia Day

Downing College’s JCR elections have come under scrutiny. Individuals from the outgoing committee allegedly sent messages via Facebook encouraging students to vote for particular candidates.

An outgoing member of the committee allegedly sent a Facebook message encouraging an individual to vote for the outgoing LGBT+ Officer Tom Meadows for president.

It is understood that this is in breach of Downing JCR election rules which stipulate: “no other written material or posters are allowed.

This includes using the forums such as Facebook to promote you or your policies. Only “face to face” campaigning is allowed; it states that candidates “should not send out, or allow others to send out, mass emails encouraging people to vote for you or promoting…policies.”

Outgoing JCR President, Medha Bhasin, told Varsity, ““in general people respect the election guidelines”, and admitted that the campaign to elect people approved by the outgoing JCR may have been “an error of judgement”.

Lydia Day

7

The Cambridge Student • 18 February 2016

News

Jo Johnson joins PM’s calls for greater student diversity Hayden Banks News Editor Jo Johnson has responded to the prime minister’s meeting with senior officials a fortnight ago, by claiming that there is a need for universities to establish “deeper partnerships” with disadvantaged schools.

David Cameron has proposed a ‘transparency duty’ on Universities in order to combat problems of low ethnic-minority intake, and improve the current situation whereby 1 in 10 white boys from the most disadvantaged backgrounds progress to higher education.

The government has now issued new guidelines to the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), advocating the need for more outreach schemes to link with disadvantaged schools and raise the aspirations of those from the poorest backgrounds.

Johnson claimed that there is still significant steps that need to be taken if David Cameron’s ambitious target of doubling the proportion of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university by 2020 is to be achieved.

He told The Guardian that a threepoint plan was necessary: firstly, the need to increase links with disadvantaged schools; secondly the need for smarter spending with regard to access schemes, and finally greater focus on students with learning difficulties.

The proposals are a reaction to statistics that have emerged recently which highlight that just 6% of students at Russell Group universities are from

the most deprived neighbourhoods.

The universities minister also noted that black students are 50% more likely to drop out of university than their white peers, claiming it be so “unacceptable in a country that believes in aspiration and opportunity’.”

With regards to spending, he praised Universities for their commitment to access schemes, with spending as high as £745million per year, up from £404 million in 2009.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, BME officer at Queens’, commented: “Getting universities to do more outreach in disadvantaged areas is really important. However, I think it’s naive to assume that by just raising the aspirations of BME or disadvantaged

Black students are 50% more likely to drop out

NEWS BULLETIN University researchers reveal possible Alzheimer’s drug

pupils they’ll be more likely to stay on or do well. The government needs to recognise that offering more tasterdays doesn’t negate socioeconomic realities, such as having your own bedroom, parents who work sociable hours, or financial responsibility – which are all factors that impact the education experience.”

“Asking universities to raise aspirations, whilst [simultaneously] removing government grants, seems an attempt to shift responsibility more than anything else.”

Johnson concluded that more needed to be done to reach those pupils in the most deprived areas, rather than tokenistically handing out bursaries to certain students.

KIT

The University Council has voted to continue to recognise the Graduate Union as a representative body of graduate students at Cambridge.

The decision comes amid concerns that the Union was beset by problems, losing its charitable status and facing allegations of “misconduct” in its election last year.

The University Council convened a report, headed by Graham Virgo, Pro-Vice Chancellor, promising a “full and fair review to determine the best way of providing representation for graduate students”. It found that graduates are a “very diverse group, covering those who have just finished an undergraduate degree to later-life learners, and face the same issues as undergraduate students, but also

Varsity restaurant to reopen following year-long closure An iconic Cambridge restaurant, Varsity, is finally to reopen after having been closed for more than a year following a fire. The fire broke out in January 2015 due to a build-up of fat and oil in a cooker extractor unit and meant that many customers had to be evacuated during the blaze.

After a long process of refurbishment, the Greek restaurant on St. Andrew’s Street could be reopening within the next few weeks. The front of the restaurant has been completed, so now all that remains is work on the kitchen. The restaurant has long been frequented by generations of Cambridge students, academics and residents since it was opened by Charles Antoni in the 1950s.

University given permission to construct £79 million building

Graduate Union survives following council vote Hayden Banks News Editor

Cambridge University researchers have detected a number of drugs that may be able to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. By experimenting on worms, they found that some drugs act like statins for the brain, preventing the first step towards brain death.

Professor Michele Vendruscolo, study author, wrote in Science Advances that “The body has a variety of natural defences to protect itself against neurodegeneration, but as we age, these defences become progressively impaired.

By understanding how these natural defences work, we might be able to support them by designing drugs that behave in similar ways.” However, it still remains to be seen whether or not these drugs are safe for humans.

many others, including those arising from being at a later stage in life”.

A second full-time sabbatical officer will be employed to make the Union less susceptible to failure, and the report advocated greater transparency in the discussion between the two student unions.

In a joint statement, they said: “The GU and CUSU thank the review panel for conducting such a thorough review within the given time frame. Both Unions supported the aims of the review and participated constructively, and each was open to suggestions on how graduate representation could be improved and made clearer to graduate members.

“The GU is very pleased that the review panel have acknowledged its progress over the past six months.

CUSU’s strategic aim to bring together

“Both Unions supported the aims of the review”

the unions more formally was not fully endorsed, but both unions will continue to seek opportunities to reduce duplicated effort and better communicate their work on graduatespecific issues to their members.

“Both Unions are collectively unequivocal in their ambitions for effective and reputable graduate representation at Cambridge, and therefore committed to working more closely together in the advancement of our students’ interests.”

Graduate Union President, Chad Allen, claimed: “I am absolutely delighted by the University’s vote of confidence in the current GU administration. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the GU’s chances of survival looked pretty slim this time last year. We really managed to turn things around.”

The council has recently granted Cambridge university planning permission for a new research building to be built in Cambridge. The University of Cambridge have plans for a £79 million project which would see the creation of a research building to bring together medical research groups. These groups are currently in many different locations in Cambridge and thus the university wants to unite them all under one roof.

The state of the art medical facilities will consist of a six-storey building constructed by Kier Construction and designed by architects from The Fairhursts Design Group, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.The project is currently due for completion in 2018.

New CyclePoint bike park opens in Cambridge After two decades, the much-anticipated CyclePoint bike park has opened at the Cambridge railway station.

The £2.5 million bike park provides 3,000 cycle parking spaces. Members of the public can park for free and the building is also open 24/7 for commuter convenience.

The opening has been welcomed by various cycling groups in Cambridge. A spokesman for the Cambridge Cycling Campaign commented: “Lack of cycle parking was one of the top three problems about which we were continually contacted over the last two decades. Until relatively recently, there were only 700 spaces provided, but demand was well over double that.”

The ground floor of the park is set to open in March, to accommodate those who have larger bikes or who have mobility issues.

8

18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

News

Study reveals male students First academic hip hop conference in Cambridge exhibit gender bias

Hayden Banks News Editor

A study from the University of Washington found that male students tended to give their male peers greater credit than their female ones. The study, written up by The Washington Post, asked 1,700 students to nominate their strongest classmates at three separate intervals in the year, with male students exhibiting a gender bias 19 times the size of that exhibited by female students.

The study also found that classroom ‘celebrities’, those students who gained the most recognition from their fellow classmates, were almost always male. In three classes surveyed, male students occupied the top three spots whilst females only peaked at number four. A study in one class saw the most nominated male gaining 52 nominations, whilst in comparison the most renowned female student scooped just nine nominations.

Anthropologist Dan Grunspan, who conducted the survey, argued that the results were not an anomaly. He claimed that “for 18 years, something under the conscious has been going on, these young men have been socialized to have this bias”. He added that being male is “some kind of boost”, at least in the eyes of other male

students, suggesting a worrying trend for employability bias in the future.

Gender bias in schools has long been a problem awaiting a solution.

Early this month, The Guardian reported that several Swedish schools have adopted gender neutral playing areas in response to an amendment to the 1998 Education Act which recommended that schools do more to tackle gender stereotyping. In addition to integrated playing areas, students are taught to use the gender neutral pronoun “hen” if they are unsure of the identity of a particular individual, to discourage stereotyping based on particular features or personalities.

The University of Washington report also found that expectations regarding a decline in gender bias with age are actually overly optimistic.

The report was targeted at Biology students to assuage fears that the gender disparity would be even larger in STEM subjects.

Researchers claimed that more could be done to combat the gender stereotyping, such as employing more female instructors, women-only study groups and greater emphasis on small-group discussions. Co-author of the report Sarah Eddy claimed that you do “what you can” to interrupt negative stereotyping.

Hayden Banks News Editor

Male students exhibit gender bias 19 times the size of that exhibited by females

Cambridge is set to host its inaugural academic hip hop conference. Scholars from around the world will be arriving at Wolfson College for academic discussion on the influence of hip hop in history, linguistics, gender studies, and musicology.

The conference, titled It Ain’t Where You’re From, It’s Where You’re At (from the 80s star MC Rakim), is organised by ethnomusicologist Dr. James Butterworth and sociologist Richard Bramwell.

Dr. Butterworth, who studied music in Cambridge, told Cambridge News they hoped the conference would unite researchers from a wide range of backgrounds, such as “music therapy, politics, [and] education.”

He stressed their keenness to show that hip hop was a worthwhile academic endeavour, saying they would strive to “put hip hop on the map as something worthy of study alongside the more traditional music things people study in Cambridge.”

Mr. Bramwell has also been working with Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology studying how young men within the British prison system use hip hop.

His website states he is “particularly

“...put hip hop on the map as something worthy of study alongside the more traditional music things...”

interested in...the role of rape in prisoner subcultures.”

“It’s specifically English hip hop, and why people are drawn to it,” he said.

“We are not trying to look at commercially successful artists, we are trying to find rappers and people that rap as part of their everyday lives.”

British scholarly interest has increased quite substantially on the study of hip-hop. The conference, slated to be held in June, will be the first of its kind in the UK. Dr. Butterworth said that the surge of interest in hip hop has only occurred in recent years, with “a lot of people” beginning serious academic work on it only in the last five years or so, although hip hop has a “fairly long history in the UK”.

As to how he would increase the appeal of studying hip hop in a serious academic context, he said that the conference would run in a “fairly standard” manner.

However, the organisers plan to conduct a workshop after it ends to follow on from the conference, in the hope of sparking more interest.

“We are doing a lot of work with young people from around the country. The idea is to get them to come to Cambridge and start to think about how they can do research.”

9

The Cambridge Student • 18 February 2016

News

The 9% 2.i and above bonus

NEWS BULLETIN NUS LGBT Officer speaks out against Tatchell

Study reveals the benefits of a high scoring degree on future earnings Hayden Banks News Editor Graduates who qualify with a 2.i and above can expect to earn 7-9% more than those with lower degrees, according to a report published this week by the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics (LSE).

The authors of the report, Robin Naylor and Jeremy Smith of the University of Warwick and Shqiponja Telhaj of the University of Sussex, claim that there is a surprising lack of research into the topic.

However, they cited the 2010 report from the Association of Graduate Recruiters in highlighting the importance employers place on graduate degree classifications. It found that more than 75% of employers surveyed filtered out applicants who had achieved lower than a 2.i in their degrees. The report found that the wage gap between graduates with differing degree classifications remained for years after graduation.

Telhaj claimed that “we obtain an estimate of a wage premium of 7%8% for a good degree (a first or upper second) relative to a lower degree (a lower second or third) at the ages of 30 and 38.

“We view the estimated premium to be large when we consider that our estimate of the premium for a lower degree relative to A-levels is 11% at

age 30.” She also stated that the report found significant increase in benefits of gaining a first class degree as opposed to a 2.i.

However, the academics criticised the current system for degree classification in the UK, arguing that it needs to become more nuanced.

One academic argued: “If degree class acts as a crude sorting mechanism for graduate employers, then this might be a further justification for the current trend in the UK away from the traditional system based on degree classifications and towards the issuing of detailed transcripts and grade point averages”.

Jo Johnson MP, Universities

The wage gap continued for decades after graduation

Minister, last year claimed that a toughening up of standards was necessary, arguing that a 2.i degree had become so commonplace that even students who “coast” through their degrees secure one. He highlighted the startling rise in the number of firsts and upper-second class degrees awarded since the 1990s. Now, more than 70% of all graduates achieve a first or 2.i, compared with 47% in the 1990s. This figure has risen 7% in the last five years alone.

One student commented on the wage difference; “everyone knows that in order to get a job, you have to get a 2.i or above. Oxbridge isn’t enough to get you in anymore.”

STUX

T

he morning of my Matriculation, sitting in my gown for the first time, our new Senior Tutor told us completely frankly: “you have to get a 2:i. Don’t think people will care that your 2.ii is from Oxbridge.”

Like a lot of the advice that he gave us that day – don’t start fires, emotional or physical, don’t walk on the grass, pass the port to the left – this advice would be inordinately useful throughout our degrees.

From the Fresher’s Fair, where TeamFirst were happy to throw free t-shirts at you, as long as you hit that magic 60%, to internships where it was made clear that there was no point in applying without

Market Square sees protest against austerity measures

People’s Assembly group, trade unions and other campaigners protested outside the Guildhall last Friday in response to budget cuts. Representatives from the MOMENTUM network, UNISON, the NUT, and Cambridge Disabled People against Cuts, and those from the Green and Labour Parties, were also present Neil Kirkham, local secretary of the People’s Assembly, told Cambridge News: “What is really striking is the scale and the range of the attacks that we are facing, and many of the speakers were concerned to put the local cuts in the context of the wider austerity project.”

He added that the county council could and should help to oppose the wrongful policy of austerity.

The group held a general protest against austerity last year, and continues to work with other local campaigns.

Cambridge join alongside MIT in security hackathon

A degree by any other grade would smell as sweet Stevie Hertz Deputy Editor

Peter Tatchell, the veteran campaigner for gay rights, has spoken out against the accusations of the NUS’ LGBT Officer, Fran Cowling, which labelled him a “racist” and a “transphobe”.

The pair had been due to participate in a debate but Cowling refused to take part unless Tatchell resigned from the event. In the emails to the organisers of the event, Cowling cited Tatchell’s signature on a letter to The Observer in support of free speech as evidence of transphobic beliefs.

Tatchell defended himself, saying: “I have never used racist language or harassed anyone. I have challenged Fran Cowling and NUS LGBT to produce evidence for these claims... I have supported every anti-racist and pro-trans campaign for the last 49 years.”

a ‘competitive degree’; 2:iis have become almost toxic to the touch.

But given grade inflation, the 2.i requirement becomes almost meaningless in many subjects. At Cambridge, for the History tripos in 2014, of the 200 candidates, only three received lower than a 2.i. . 69 people were awarded Firsts, leaving the vast majority, with a wide range of skills, ability, and knowledge, with a 2.i.

With such a broad rubric of what a 2.i really means, should employers be placing such emphasis upon it?

It is understandable that employers want to see evidence of academic achievment, but all they are getting here is the vaguest approximation.

If university results are to be seen to mean something, then they actually have to do. Many Masters schemes are already asking for a minimum of 67%, rather than a simple 2.i – should not this measure be used elsewhere, as the Americans do with Grade Point

Of the 200 candidates, only three received lower than a 2.i

Averages?

It would, of course, come with certain costs; it would become harder to make your degree secondary to the clubs and societies you are involved in, whether that’s theatre, sport or student politics.

But it would be a fairer reflection of our time at university. Whether I care to admit it to myself at not, looking back at the past two days, which I’ve spent almost entirely in the TCS offices, we are here to study, and we pay for the priviledge.

Our results should accurately reflect the work we put in; grouping the vast majority of graduates into one category might create a nice safety blanket while we are here, but once we leave it becomes suddenly meaningless.

If a 2.i is to follow us for the rest of our lives, offer jobs, pay and promotional advantages, it should be worth it.

Students from Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are set to collaborate on 4-5 March, in a special ‘hackathon’ at MIT, which has been dubbed the ‘Cambridge 2 Cambridge’ (C2C). Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama had hoped that the best young minds from across the Atlantic would contribute to tackling cyber security issues, and the plans appear now to have been realised. The ‘hackathon’ was first announced in 2015 as part of a series of initiatives organised by the UK and US to tackle global cyber threats, using the two nations’ brightest minds.

Participants will develop and apply attacks and defences in the face of ongoing cyber challenges. They will also compete in sets of exercises which will touch on web security, cryptography, and forensics.

Junior doctors strike outside Addenbrooke’s Hospital

200 junior doctors and their supporters rallied outside Addenbrooke’s Hospital last week in a show of solidarity as thousands went on strike around the UK in protests of a new contract from the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. About 10% of outpatient appointments and 10% of operations were cancelled due to the strike.

The new terms of the contract will make it cheaper for hospitals to roster doctors during evenings and weekends, in a bid to improve care.

Doctors say the new contract will compromise patient welfare by encouraging unsafe shift work, and have the worst impact on medics working the longest hours.

10

18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Features

The art o

Self Control: My detox tale Molly Biddell

L

ent can be seen as pretty archaic and irrelevant these days. We inhabit a fad-frenzied world, obsessed with the next regime, diet or life-changing detox; why on earth would we want to get caught up in another torturous month of change? Especially after completing dry January, and having already broken the numerous New Year Resolutions we overenthusiastically created.

However, I am a keen advocate of Lent, and not by any means for purely religious reasons. At my primary school there was always the classic joke that the whole class were going to give up lessons, homework, or attending school for a whole month, something we all thought was both novel and ingenious.

Sadly I can’t claim I ever kept any of those promises, but I usually aim to keep, or at least make, a promise that is achievable. I don’t want to sound selfrighteous; it has become a recurring (and really hilarious) family joke that I never manage to fully give up something.

However, in a family where breakfast conversation on Shrove Tuesday inevitably involves listing all the things we could give up, and where congratulations are due with every visit to our caffeine-dependent grandparents for stoically staying off the coffee, I feel that it is a tradition that causes no real pain or problems to others and, for me, it has many benefits.

After the pancake overload and indulgence of Shrove Tuesday, I usually feel I owe it to my digestive system to give

We inhabit a fad-frenzied world, obsessed with the next regime

up something, mainly to ease it.

My go-to ‘give-up’ is, without a doubt, chocolate. I have somewhat of an obsession/addiction to the stuff, and my cravings go far beyond healthy.

In trying to give it up for a month, not only does it significantly ease my Sainsbury’s shop budget, it also makes me realise those frequent late night dashes to the college vending machine for extortionately priced Maltesers, are not as vital as I thought. The other thing I love about Lent is that I then feel I truly deserve my Easter Egg, and it always tastes better than ever.

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook (oh the irony) to explain that she was planning to give up social media for Lent and would only be contactable via text or calls. I have a serious amount of respect for her, and am actually slightly envious, as no doubt her efficiency and productivity will increase ten-fold. Not to mention her happiness, from constantly Facebook stalking her over-achieving friends to confirm that they are indeed over-achieving (in holidays, relationships, fitness, work and baking).

I like this plan of hers and think it epitomises the point of Lent for me: that a small lifestyle change can bring lots of rewards, if you stick to it.

Lent encourages self-control and restraint, which I think is often lacking in our hedonistic university lives. And ultimately, it means I feel less guilty about devouring so much chocolate, for the 11 other months of the year.

How to power through an all-nighter Lydia Sabatini Features Editor

M

ake sure you don’t start your all-nighter too early, or the temptation to just give up and sleep, leaving the work until the morning can become overwhelming. You must commit to this method of working.

It is imperative to get the location right. Do not do it in your own bedroom, especially if you are alone. That bed of yours is far too tempting.

Also, make sure you have most of the essential tools you will need for the night such as caffeinated drinks, chargers for electronic devices, and, of course, any books you need.

Be sure to leave out one or two of these essential items so you can take a muchdeserved break in order to go retrieve it two hours later.

In terms of breaks, fresh air and exercise really are the most revitalising kind.

Whether it’s a walk back to your room to cuddle your teddy bear before embarking on that tricky third paragraph, or a relaxing internet yoga video to

calm you in an existential way, the new mix of hormones in your body these activities cause will help you plough on.

Motivation is really important. It is recommended that you work alongside friends as committed to an all-nighter as you, who, despite being distracting enough to elongate the all-nighter, will make sure you create some memories that make this little adventure worthwhile.

Listen to music that will help you keep going. Film soundtracks are a great way to turn the most boring abstract theory you are trying to grapple with in your essay into an epic intellectual battle that you, typing in time to the music, are determined to win.

Food must be consumed. Not necessarily for the energy - a sugar rush supplied by Sainsbury’s cookies can never be detrimental to your efforts. You eat a special meal to celebrate Christmas, so why not mark this momentous occasion the same way?

So there you have it. Turn that frown upside down, and turn that all-nighter panic into a party!

ANDREW TOSKIN

Women: Should we just give up?

Amelia Oakley Deputy Editor

A

woman? In Cambridge? You might as well give up now. Your views will never be worthy enough, your body never respected enough, and your academic achievement never enough to rival that of a man. At least that’s what Cambridge seems to tell women and non-binary individuals.

The idea that Cambridge has somehow entered a sun-kissed field awash with flowers of perfect gender equality is, of course, bollocks. Every way you turn in Cambridge, as a woman, you face exclusion from a world constructed by the men whose faces fill the walls of our halls.

Everything about the University tells us to give up: gags are rammed into our mouths, and books by old, white, male academics shoved into our hands. What can we do when our hands our tied by our own gender? Rebel, react, boycott. Give up conforming to the gendered boundaries of your degree, and rewrite the curriculum.

Part 2

2

End of the road for Coldplay?

CUADC presents: Peter Grimes

5

Bloc Party at the Corn Exchange

The Cambridge Student 18 February 2016

11

Making time for mindfulness

PHOTO: DANIEL KARAJ

2

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

Culture

Have Coldplay run out of road? Poetry Corner Jake Cohen-Setton

C

oldplay’s recent performance at the Super Bowl had me reflecting on their most recent album, A Head Full of Dreams. In the plant and animal kingdoms, some organisms have evolved bright and aggressive colours to warn off potential predators. ‘Stay away’, states the startling red livery of the granular poison frog, ‘I taste disgusting and will kill you if you eat me’. The messy, garish, my-first-timewith-scissors-and-Pritt-Stick cover artwork for A Head Full of Dreams unwittingly ends up functioning in the same way.

Listeners, don’t say you weren’t warned.

The band told us it was going to be the album with the freedom to ascend to Coldplay’s idea of sonic heaven, in which reside all of the exotic guitar riffs, guest vocalists and piano melodies from Chris Martin’s wildest and best dreams. It was definitely not, let us be very clear, going to sound a lot like a bad rehash of an album Coldplay had already made, a mere four years ago, called Mylo Xyloto.

It’s just that this is exactly how A Head Full of Dreams has turned out. A synth-heavy musical palette, a couple of completely pointless instrumental tracks, some lyrics about flying and birds and light. We’ve been here before, more than once. We can even tick off ‘unexpected collaboration with a leading female R&B/pop vocalist’, with Beyoncé’s presence on ‘Hymn for the Weekend’ mirroring Rihanna’s (far superior) appearance on ‘Princess of China’ years earlier.

‘Hymn for the Weekend’ is a good place to start, because it exemplifies the new heights of disappointment Coldplay are reaching on this album. What could have been a wonderful collaboration is ruined by the underuse and misuse of ‘Queen Bey’. Her relative absence would be tolerable if Chris Martin – Chris Martin the Hampsteadbased father of two - did not spend the rest of the tune doing his best bong-smoking Miley Cyrus impression, nailing unforgettable lines such as “I’m feeling drunk and high / so high / so high”.

The two most listenable tracks on the album – the upbeat, poppy title track and the warm, piano-led ‘Amazing Day’ –

Dani Cugini are on a firm course, until an old friend turns up: ‘Woah-oh’.

This became a feature of Coldplay hits in the last decade or so, appearing in many shapes and sizes (“Woah-oooahoooooh-oh” on ‘Viva La Vida’, “wooo-oo-ooh” on ‘Charlie Brown’ etc.) But where once ‘Woah-oh’ was just one hook among many upon which these songs built their appeal, it now sounds like a sudden last resort, as if the band are happy to switch onto crowd-pleasing autopilot after the two-minute mark.

Describing the soul-scratching guitar riff of ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’, Chris Martin remarked that he’d “been begging Jonny [Buckland], our guitarist, for years to make a riff that I like as much as ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ by Guns N’ Roses, then he showed me that one, and I was like, ‘That’s it!”’.

Listen to the track: it isn’t. Most baffling of all, however, are the instrumental tracks ‘Kaleidoscope’ and ‘Colour Spectrum’. In the former, bland synths shimmer as someone speaks the lines of a Rumi poem, before the whole thing segues into some muffled audio of Barack Obama singing ‘Amazing Grace’. All this head-in-the-clouds cooing stuff is something Coldplay can pull off (see ‘Life in Technicolor’, for example) – it’s just that this time, as with Mr. “Woah-oh” it doesn’t cut the mustard like it used to.

BRIAN FULLER

Dani Cugini is a first year student reading English at Emmanuel. She won the 2014 Foyle Young Poets competition, and in 2015 came second in the Ledbury Young Persons’ Award. .

-myopiaI have forgotten my glasses in the art gallery and so with L’Allee en Automne I have to stand so close to the introverted black-bark trees my nose is almost touching. Before that they lose some fineness; the blossoms crowd themselves, become a tumbling floral fog over the woman’s head and her fingers that blur over their gesture. The defect is slight enough, sometimes, to forget how everything is smoothed out, how this many-jointed sculpture relaxes his calves and throws his arm slower over his head, the edge softened to suggestion, and it is beautiful; ruinous, but beautiful.

At further distance – 20 feet – the trees are almost not there, hydra-headed, fanned out on trunks the sky closes over. They atrophy from base to neck then gently unfurl their caught light, that crisps and slackens and dies in autumn’s mouth. He doesn’t even swallow them completely, just grips in the teeth to tease, lightly, as I look on and do not notice the brown into the brown – how the light does not shut off but wickers, wickers, wickers out.

WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Interview with Great Expectations Leyla Gumusdis and James Antell

T

his week The Cambridge Student sat down with the Pembroke New Cellars production of Great Expectations. Great Expectations is of course an adaptation of a Dickens novel, and this poses a unique set of problems for the production.

For one, as the director, Kenneth McHardy, pointed out, audiences come into it with a lot of expectations – it is a well-loved novel and a well-known story.

In order to immerse the audience in the performance, the production team decided to stage it in the round and have a Greek chorus help to narrate the action. The firstperson narrative of the novel is reflected in the fact that Pip never leaves the stage, which was definitely a challenge for actor George Booth-Clibborn. He noted that the chorus helped engage the audience with Pip’s experience – he felt this helped ‘‘genuinely reflect what Pip’s going through’’.

Those familiar with the novel will know that it covers a long-time span and moves around Victorian Britain, both of which are concepts difficult to convey on a stage. The production team originally planned to stage the whole play as Pip’s memory, using minimal staging and strong lighting

effects to convey his emotions as he remembers an incident, alongside an original score. The chorus helps to create the sense of a bustle on stage, bringing alive Dickens’ London.

McHardy was originally attracted to the Victorian novelist when he participated in a production of Great Expectations at school. He remembers this production fondly, noting that he was constantly dreaming up ways of improving the adaptation. As a first-time director, he wanted a text that he was intimately familiar with, and Great Expectations offered that familiarity. For the lead actor too there is a sense of deja vu, as Booth-Clibborn participated in another production of the novel while at school.

There is a faithfulness to the original text in this adaptation, with many lines lifted straight from the novel to get across the spirit of Dickens’ writing. Many central lines from the book come into play here, tethering the audience and providing strands of imagery that run throughout.

The relevance of Dickens’ classic rags-to-riches story is not lost, with the depiction of Pip’s ultimately futile and self-destructive ambitions serving as a potentially necessary lesson to students at Cambridge. McHardy feels that some

scenes will definitely hit close to home, especially one where a group of young men ‘have dinner and get roaringly drunk while boasting about their rowing feats’.

All in all, this promises to be an exciting and imaginative adaptation. It will be running at Pembroke New Cellars from the 16th to the 20th February.

HANNAH TAYLOR

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

3

Culture

Film music in the 21st century

Playlist: Film & TV Ollie Smith Music Editor

Jared Bennett

I

n 2015, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman received a host of Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Sound Editing, amongst others. Despite many other awards associations nominating the film’s score, composed by jazz drummer Antonio Sánchez, the Academy Awards didn’t even include the music for Birdman on the longlist for Best Original Score. Although much of the music was composed specifically for the film, the soundtrack also includes works by various jazz composers, along with Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Ravel, and it is for this reason that Birdman was not nominated.

Even so, the score is hugely effective, the use of original composition and pre-composed material blending together, effortlessly fitting the contours of the film. It helps to bring a sense of cohesion to a feature that is in equal parts tragic, satirical, and ultimately extremely poignant.

The tradition of making use of pre-composed music goes back to previous generations of filmmaking. It is used to great effect in the films of Kubrick – think of A Clockwork Orange or 2001: A Space Odyssey – and continues right up to the present day.

The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’ in Love Actually springs to mind as an example – but there seems here to be a danger of de-contextualisation. The number of people who are first exposed to ‘God Only Knows’ by watching Love Actually is surprisingly large. Similarly, the opening of Richard Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ is known to many as ‘that bit at the start of 2001’. It could certainly be argued that this damages the true impact of the music: this argument is particularly strong in terms of Strauss, since

the segment used in the film is the prelude to a work which totals over an hour in length.

This is not the first time in the history of music that segments of music have been separated from their parent works – in many 18th century concerts, this was standard procedure, to provide the audience with the highlights of several composers’ outputs. Is this inherently dangerous to the integrity of the original composition?

Probably not, especially at a time when technology permits the curious to discover the rest of the work from which the ‘famous bit’ came. What about its use in film?

This is a trickier question. In the earlier days of film composition, composers such as Erich Korngold (The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938) were as much concert composers as they were film composers, and often film scores were written in a late Romantic classical music style.

As musical style diverged and scores began to be written in differing genres (The Matrix’s rock and metal-inspired soundtrack stands out as an obvious example), classical music began to be used more as a counterbalance to the grittier musical style of the rest of the film.

Re-enter Birdman. The use of music in this film is genius, with the percussive and classical soundtracks seamlessly intertwining. But, should it have picked up that coveted Academy Award? Ultimately, it probably isn’t of much importance – after all, it was disqualified for technical reasons as opposed to aesthetics or quality grounds With or without the award, it is an inspirational, gripping soundtrack: together, Iñárritu and Sánchez have created a genre-defining collection of music that isn’t easily forgotten.

Behind every good movie is a killer soundtrack. Music can make or break a film, and the best soundtracks are just as compelling as stand alone works. Among the eight I’ve selected are some real movie classics, as well as some slightly more unusual picks to try.

1. Jon Hopkins, ‘Candles’ From Monsters (2010) 2. Antonio Pinto, ‘Opening’ From Amy (2015) MOVIEMANIACSDE

3. Radiohead, ‘Talk Show Host’ From Romeo and Juliet (1996) 4. Mogwai, ‘Relative Hysteria’ From Les Revenants (2012-2015) WORLDHASPOSTROCK

TCS Books: Spotlight fiction Arenike Adebajo Books Editor

S

ometimes you just want to curl up with a good book and forget those looming essay deadlines. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the perfect book to read when you’re feeling a bit blue. It’s a gorgeous novel by Dominican-American writer, ARENIKE ADEBAJO

Junot Díaz, chronicling the life and times of an unlucky in love “ghetto nerd” called Oscar, who lives in New Jersey with his Dominican family. Oscar believes he’s cursed with the Fukú, an ancient curse that has haunted his family for generations, causing all sorts of mayhem.

Díaz narrates the majority of the action through the eyes of Oscar’s smart-mouthed – and better looking – friend Junior, who cuts back and forth between the present day and the turmoil of Oscar’s family’s past life in the Dominican Republic under the Trujilo dictatorship.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is written with a huge amount of warmth and is astonishingly funny.

Díaz makes liberal use of long and digressive footnotes, peppering the text with colourful Spanish and slang. My favourite thing about the book is its sheer range of reference.

Everything from The Fantastic Four to Oedipus Rex, from Lord of the Rings to Siouxsie and the Banshees is mentioned in a heady blend of high and low culture.

Díaz admirably counterbalances the hyper-masculinity prevalent within Dominican culture with nuanced explorations of the female experience through the characters of Oscar’s sister, Lola and his mother, Beli. His mother, whose skin is described as “the darkness before the black, the plum of the day’s last light” struggles with colourism, handled with a fierce self-assurance that never fails to move me.

This book is foul-mouthed, unashamedly nerdy, and very sweet – a perfect escape from term-time stress, essay crises, and hectic supervision schedules.

5. Antonio Pinto, ‘A Transa’ From City of God (2002) 6. Nino Rota, ‘The Godfather Waltz’ From The Godfather (1972) LANCASTER DODD

7. Prince, ‘Purple Rain’ From Purple Rain (1984) 8. Wendy Carlos, ‘Main Theme’ From A Clockwork Orange (1972) MOVIECLIPS TRAILER VAULT

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The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

Culture

The narrowing divide between art and advertising Jack Whitehead Film Editor

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t is no secret that art has been closely tied to the market as far back as we care to look. The propagandist’s statue work for King Amenemhat III; Michelangelo’s David for the city of Florence; Beethoven’s string quartets for Prince Razumovsky – all these works are inextricable from the cycles of patronage that brought them into existence. In the 21st century, individual patrons are more of a rare occurrence, but the market is in no way less involved in the production of art.

In our modern world it is the corporation that holds the reins, and this is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the film industry. Product placement has become the norm, perhaps a necessary evil – James Bond would most certainly have died had he not been able to track his nemesis on a Sony Vaio; where would Will Smith have been without his Converse in I, Robot? We even had a successful film based entirely on a product two years ago with the Lego Movie.

None of this is necessarily cause for concern in and of itself, but we need to be worried when the art world and the ad world collide on a less noticeable level.

The ‘fourth wall’ is becoming an increasingly permeable

boundary in today’s cinema, with recent films like The Revenant and Deadpool both exploiting this for disparate and yet equally exciting effects. However, under the surface of this pseudo-realism there is some worrying trickery taking place. Last year saw the coining of the word ‘Advertainment’, a process whereby advertising and entertainment converge, marking a shift away from product-centric messaging towards the marketing of an ‘authentic emotional connection’ with the brand in question. Where ‘advertainment’ is now headed, the starting point is no longer the product but the entertainment itself.

Indeed, we are starting to see marketing that doesn’t just use film-like adverts, but instead uses advert-like films. So far this has been used for very positive means, most recently with the Deadpool promos raising awareness for breast and testicular cancer, with Ryan Reynolds addressing the camera in full costume and comic character from the film.

Yet a corollary in the print world would suggest that this new medium of advertising, sometimes known as ‘native advertising’, could become an incredibly deceitful tool.

Of these adverts, those disguised in the print style of a

particular newspaper is perhaps the most obvious example, ones which draw the eye with their ostensible authenticity.

This seamless integration of promotion directly into content has the potential to undermine the art form it encroaches on, destabilising confidence in ‘art-for-art’s-sake’ and propagating the cynical and detrimental attitude that we are always trying to be sold something. What are we supposed to do about this?

Comedian John Oliver’s solution on Last Week Tonight doesn’t seem that practical; his suggestion to do the opposite and sneak news updates into popular commercials wouldn’t solve the problem of marketing’s encroachment on cinema. It’s also no good to advocate the total removal of this kind of advertisement; advertising is an art form itself, and although deceitful, some product campaigns have excelled thanks to the well crafted ‘short movies’ that aid them (e.g. the famous Levi’s Laundrette commercial).

What we need is to ensure that movies remain movies, and adverts stay adverts, and that the two don’t merge into what Marshall McLuhan, philosopher of communication, called the “cave art of the twentieth century”.

Has the Harry Potter universe expanded too far?

Rachael Hodgson

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he new bestseller by J.K. Rowling – the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – adds to her many successes following the initial ‘Harry Potter phenomenon’. The enthusiasm of her fans for all things Hogwarts-related has fuelled the desire for ever more material. The Harry Potter section of fanfiction.net holds over 735,000 works, making it the most popular section of the website. This relentless creation of new material from both author and fans alike does more than illustrate the passion of the fans for the world which Rowling created: it shows an insatiable desire for the series to never stop giving.

Rowling’s Twitter account is awash with extensions to the ‘canon’ of the world which she created. For example, in September 2015, she revealed the houses which Teddy Lupin and James Potter had been sorted into, provoking an outpouring of excitement for some and disappointment for others. Rowling’s desire to retain power over her works beyond their ending reflects an almost unheard of level of authorial control.

New material from author and fans shows an insatiable desire for the series to never stop giving Whilst her continuous shaping of the Harry Potter universe might be a source of inspiration, it also serves to invalidate her fans’ imaginations. Rowling’s additions to the canon prevent a wholly individual reading experience; the processing of what is read has to be consistently worked and reworked to fit the author’s expectations. The abundance of AU (Alternate Universe) works of fanfiction suggests a desire to push past these authorial limitations and restore a sense of the reader’s control.

In contrast, authors like John Green purposefully do not expand upon the canon of their works. When asked about the fate of his character, Hazel, from The Fault in Our Stars he stated, “I believe that a book ends when it ends and that the author’s voice should not be privileged when it comes to

matters outside the book”.

Rowling’s continuous expansion of her Harry Potter universe seems increasingly one of privilege over the world which she created. In taking control from her fans, she detracts from the legacy of the books. Whilst Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is an exciting expansion of the ‘Wizarding World’ for self-proclaimed ‘Potterheads’, taken alongside other expansion attempts such as the website,

KAREN ROE

Rowling’s additions to the canon prevent a wholly individual reading experience Pottermore, it seems an increasingly desperate attempt to control the destiny of her books. In doing so, Rowling dilutes the power of her works.

So, whilst I have pre-ordered my copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, I can’t help but feel a lack of enthusiasm which contrasts with the excitement of the original book launches.

JAKOVCHE

COLIN ZHU

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

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Culture

Library Spotlight: King’s vs.Queens’ Arenike Adebajo Books Editor This week, it’s a royal showdown in Library Spotlight as Haroon Mohamoud and Hayden Banks introduce us to the delights of the libraries of King’s and Queens’.

King’s Library: King’s College Library’s history stretches back to the College’s founding in 1441. Rather fittingly for a College whose chapel is world-renowned for its fine Gothic English architecture, the library’s founder was similarly ambitious with the plan for the library.

The architecture is aesthetically pleasing. Upon entering, one is met by the aisle, laid with a red carpet. Carrels jut out from the gangway, enclosed in towering shelves.

As you climb the flight of stairs, the ancient mahogany floorboards creak. On the shelves, freshly-printed paperbacks stand alongside aged tomes, whose spines resemble the trunks of oak trees. The homely warmth provides an optimum atmosphere for work – a noiseless hush – far removed from the bustle of King’s Parade, a stone’s throw away. The library houses some 130,000 items, among them books for teaching and reference, as well as collections about alumni including J. M. Keynes, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, and Rupert Brooke.

Haroon Mohamoud

ARENIKE ADEBAJO

Queens’ Library: Queens’ College is unique in that its library is divided into two sections, the War Memorial Library and the Old Library. The latter was founded in 1448 and contains a collection of around 20,000 early printed books and manuscripts ranging from the 12th-19th centuries. Of all the original Oxbridge libraries, the Old Library remains closest to its original state, with features such as the 15th century stained glass windows still intact.

HAYDEN BANKS

It is open to the public on holiday days.

The more modern library, used daily by Queens’ students, was named War Memorial Library to commemorate those who lost their lives during the Second World War. It is open 7am until 2pm in Michaelmas and Lent terms and 24 hours in exam term. It provides 54 study spaces on its three-tiered layout, and the mezzanine and attic offer views of Walnut Tree Court and Old Court. Hayden Banks

Chatting with Bloc Party at the Corn Exchange Ollie Smith Music Editor

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t is 10 years on from the release of their storming debut Silent Alarm, Bloc Party are back with fresh faces and fresh material. Stepping into the gaps left by the group’s 2013 break-up are former Menomena bassist Justin Harris and 21 year-old drummer Louise Bartle.

The two were brought in to record and perform the new album, HYMNS, which moves away from the reckless riff-driven energy that found them fame in the early noughties. Instead, the album focuses on a more delicate brand of songwriting, swapping out distortion pedals for synthesisers. As frontman Kele Okereke says in ‘Into The Earth’: “Rock and Roll has got so old, just give me NeoSoul”.

The band has been playing the new album on the NME Awards Tour, which has taken them around the UK over the course of 11 dates. Speaking before the Cambridge leg, guitarist Russell Lissack tells me the new album is getting a good response from fans: “when we play the songs live people seem into them. I’ve certainly noticed over the course of the tour more and more people are singing along.”

What strikes me about Russell’s response is that Bloc Party haven’t historically been a band to sing along to. Previous records were more likely to incite boisterous mosh pits than communal choruses. Something, then, is a little bit different about HYMNS.

“We wanted it to have a lot more space and room for sound” I ask Russell how the album came together: “I don’t think we had massive discussions about the direction but we set a few broad guidelines. We wanted it to be quite different from our last record and we wanted it to have a lot more space and room for sound and for parts to breathe.” Watching their performance later in the evening

it is apparent that the new tracks offer this opportunity to “breathe”, both on the album and in live performance. The enthusiastic moshing greeting older tracks ‘Banquet’ and ‘One More Chance’ subsides midway through the set as the band bring out a sequence of songs from HYMNS. As ‘My True Name’ segues into ‘Exes’ there is a palpable moment of calm, giving sweaty bodies the opportunity to cool and Kele the opportunity to slip into a more vulnerable vocal register.

It’s easy to forget in these moments of intimacy that the group are relative strangers. Listening to the sympathetic way they play together, it is apparent that the musical relationships are fully-formed even if personal ones are not.

I believe Justin when he describes his transition into the group as “seamless” but it is also clear that the band still has much to learn about each other. During our conversation my role as interviewer is made redundant on at least three or four occasions as Justin and Russell turn the interview upon themselves. Justin asks jokingly if Russell discovered drummer Louise in American magazine, Teen Beat. Russell’s confused response, “What’s that?”, is a reminder that the two have very different backgrounds. Bloc Party very much have been part of the London indie scene, a scene to which Justin’s Portland accent is gratingly foreign.

Our conversation concludes by discussing the difficulties of being in a serious band at university. Russell warns me that he’s going to give “the opposite answer to what you’re hoping for”, as balancing the two proved too much to handle.

“I dropped out after two years and three quarters. I was literally at the middle of my dissertation and had six weeks left, maybe less. When we got offered a tour with Graham Coxon from Blur it seemed like a good opportunity.”

Unfortunately, dissertations can’t always be avoided by touring, but hopefully the NME Awards Tour offered an escape for these students, if only fleetingly, from the toils of proofreading and referencing.

BRUCE

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18 February 2016 • Part 2 • The Cambridge Student

Reviews Cambridge’s own Will Robert Megan Fereday

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here’s something delicate and intimate about the atmosphere created between solo acoustic artists and their live audiences.

Will Robert’s audience are no exception: they grace his performance with a quietly enthralled attentiveness at The Junction. Even from where I’m seated on the balcony, there’s a closeness, rather than claustrophobia, created by his mellow, enchanting performance.

The Cambridge-based singer-songwriter has amassed enough solo material to fill a set that runs for over an hour. His folk-tinged acoustic pop is immediately reminiscent of artists like Ben Howard, Bon Iver and Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

But it’s on the tracks that he showcases his astonishing percussive skill that Will Robert stands out from the crowd of his genre. On ‘Best Laid Plans’ and ‘I Built a Boat’, his hands dance across his guitar, plucking and beating from the fretboard all the way down to the body in one impossibly quick movement after another. These dynamic techniques drive his intricately arranged songs, positively

hypnotising his audience. His tender yet uncomplicated lyrics, which complement the intricacy of his technical skill, are memorable enough to let these songs find a place in each listener’s mind. His latest album opener ‘City Lights’ seems already to have achieved this: the gentle twangs of the opening bar prompt whoops from his audience, who cheerfully sway their arms as they sing along.

Despite some lapses into selfdeprecation, Will Robert’s performance is technically assured and coolly captivating.

After playing solo shows across Europe and securing airplay on Radio 1’s ‘BBC Introducing’ feature last year, he’s certainly proved his merit as a solo artist by now.

For now, though, he seems quite at home on this modest stage. Perhaps with the fuller band of his album recordings, a bigger venue and a little more airplay, Will Robert could break out of this comfort zone and claim some of the limelight of his predecessors. The audience tonight certainly knows he deserves it.

8/10

AMAN SOHOTA

A divisive Metamorphosis Joanna Taylor

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erkoff ’s adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis is certainly intriguing, although its unorthodox presentation may prove divisive.

Gregor’s transformation into a beetle is done cleverly: his arms and legs are in part acted by two masked dancers, Emily Collinson and Holly Whitworth, and his impersonation of a creature is well-choreographed. Gregor’s increasing isolation and depression is well evoked by Joe Jukes, although the adaptation means that his character loses some subtlety.

Lighting and sound are used to great effect, with Gregor’s boss being projected onto the wall behind his bedroom. The staging itself does evoke the strange, surreal tone of Kafka’s work with its minimalistic structure and darkness, conjuring the feeling of being trapped.

Matt Gurtler is convincing as Gregor’s lazy and malicious father, while Elise Hagan as Mrs Samsa is successful in portraying her character’s deep flaw.

Gregor’s sister, interpreted by Alexandra Boulton, brings the greatest emotional complexity to her character.

Metamorphosis succeeds in balancing the real and the surreal, moving between experimental drama and fraught domestic scenes. Moreover, it is a play which definitely will generate debate. There will be other audience members to whom this production does not appeal. Aside from being experimental, it sometimes verges on melodrama and is not as minimalistic as expected.

I would recommend this production as an innovative retelling, with elements of surrealism and realism captured sideby-side, but caution that it is not for everyone. The acting, although generally good, suffers at times and passages of what almost constitutes interpretative dance doesn’t always work. together well.

7/10

Peter Grimes and beautifu Abigail Scruby

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darkened ADC stage: “I hear those voices that will not be drowned.” The ADC theatre seems a million miles away from the unsettled, heaving world of Walberswick. A half broken wooden structure, enveloped in bluishgreen fog stands proud on the stage, bodies swaying to a background of rolling waves. This atmosphere, and unsettling yet tranquil scene, sets the tone for what is to come in this accomplished production.

Based on the poem by George Crabbe, this new retelling of the Peter Grimes legend is not only fantastically told; it is truly beautiful to watch. From the very outset, the lighting illuminates the rustic set, and the changes from day to night are well-crafted with a strikingly realistic moon looking down from overhead

during the evening scenes. For a story that is set by the sea, the production does a great job recreating rustic harbour scenes, although modern glasses do distract from the otherwise solid costumes.

The original story itself is compelling, but it is the cast that really brings it to life, with some truly outstanding performances

The new retelling is truly beautiful to watch from Louis Norris, as Grimes, and Em Miles as Mary. Tom Ingham also plays John’s complicated, innocent yet fatally bold character well, though it is the trio on stage who steal the show. The supporting cast of villagers, with their dual role as a haunting chorus, are particularly strong

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

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Reviews DANIEL KARAJ

Rams: Singular but impressive Niamh Sauter-Cooke

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ike passing out in a snow drift or killing 147 sheep by yourself, watching Rams is a singular but impressive experience.

The plot revolves around two Icelandic brothers, Gummi and Kiddi, who live in a small rural sheep-farming community. They have not spoken to each other in 40 years, live on adjacent sheep farms and communicate (when they have to) through a long-suffering sheep-dog.

Every year, they compete in a sheep-

As bleak as it is beautiful: a stunning exploration of emotional complexity breeding competition where their herds constitute the last of the same ancient pedigree. “The sheep intertwines with the farmer’s being” says the moderator of the competition. And indeed, one of Rams’ great achievements lies in its portrayal of the animals. They are the emotional focus of the community. Gummi’s prize ram, Garpur, is perhaps his closest friend; it is a testament to the director how normal this state of affairs seems.

Then one of Kiddi’s sheep is found to have a rare degenerative disease, and the entire valley is forced to cull their herds.

At this point the audience remembers that

s is an epic ul retelling in depicting the rage of mob mentality when they confront Grimes. At points, particularly at the beginning, there are places where the action seem slightly

Atmospheric full cast scenes resonate strongly with the audience postured, or where there is a woodenness.

That said, the cast are especially strong in group scenes, with the end of the first act and certain parts of the second resonating with the audience as loudly as the strikes of thunder in the background.

What is most impressive, however, is the quality of the play’s script. Writer and director, Joe Winters, navigates challenging and heavy themes of

Rams was advertised as a dark comedy.

And to be fair, there are funny scenes.

After Kiddi passes out in the snow (the second time), his brother transports his frozen body to the nearest hospital in the front loader of his tractor, and Gummi is continuously interrupted in the bathroom.

But ultimately, like the landscape, the story is as bleak as it is beautiful; a stunning exploration of the complexity of old emotional connections and solitude.

Gummi and Kiddi deal with the catastrophe in very different ways. Kiddi’s character development is far more traditional: he drinks, he breaks windows, he refuses to kill his herd. In many ways, he is much easier to read than his brother despite having far less screen time.

Gummi is unquestionably the subject of Rams, which closely follows his solitary routine and reaction to the unfolding events. Nevertheless, by the end of the film the audience is left none the wiser as to what goes on behind his calm and kindly exterior. Like the sheep themselves, Gummi is inscrutable; we are left in the same position as Kiddi, with an emotional attachment to a character who in reality we barely understand.

8/10

TV: Jessica Jones Dylan Marks

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homosexuality, abuse, gossip and loneliness with incredible sensitivity.

Whilst I think that Act One perhaps goes on for too long, as indeed do some conversations between characters, generally the script has a good balance between naturalism and beauty – the dialogue between Mary and Grimes at the end being a superb example. Resisting melodrama, the motifs of the script (interwoven with poignant musical motifs) raise the script to something that strike a chord in the audience.

This show retains a balanced poise that is compelling to watch. Peter Grimes is a wonderful piece of student theatre.

9/10

etflix’s recent Jessica Jones follows along the same lines as Daredevil, the network’s other dark and brooding superhero show. Although Jessica Jones is about a woman with extraordinary strength, heroes are not its main focus. Rather, the show centres around the psychology of manipulation and the relationships between the characters.

The primary story arc of Jessica Jones is the mental recovery of the show’s titular character (played by Krysten Ritter) in the wake of actions she has committed under the manipulation of the show’s villain, Kilgrave (David Tennant).

Heroes are not the main focus of this dark show We follow Jessica through the narrative as she tries to undo Kilgrave’s influence, and gain revenge. The tense climax of the season is where these conflicts will play themselves out.

Tennant excels at portraying the

arrogant childishness of the show’s villain, captivating the audience with a refined charisma that disguises his darker monstrosity beneath the surface. Perhaps the only failing in this role is the repetitive nature of the mind-control, which loses its potency as the season progresses.

Krysten Ritter is also perfectly cast as the grumpy, alcoholic, and apathetic private-eye, who slowly becomes more determined to hunt Kilgrave down.

Despite great acting by both the main characters, the show suffers from Netflix’s compulsory 13 episode season length: several episodes could easily have been removed as they added nothing to the main plot’s development.

This show is worth a watch if you are into the particular brand of superhero TV show that is becoming more and more the norm. Otherwise, the show’s sloppy pacing and contrived plot points will simply prove unbearable.

6/10

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The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

Lifestyle

Where’s the fashion when you need it?

Ariel Luo Fashion Editor

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hen I received the email from Cambridge University Charity Fashion Show and it said ‘dress code: black tie’, I knew there was something funny going on – this was not going to go down the way I imagined. Nevertheless, I chose to dress down: the number one rule for watching a fashion show.

Upon arrival at the Corn Exchange, finding everyone else in their May Ball dresses and suits, and a tiny glass bottle of Jagermeister in the goody bag, I started to wonder what the event was really about. Of course, The Mirror and The Daily Mail called the show “risque” and “raunchy”, mostly because of the lingerie collection on the runway. But what really surprised me was the attitude wtowards fashion at the event.

This is not to say that the outfits were uninspired. Johanne Dindler’s menswear was genius. The patched fur coats and oversized down jackets unleashed the guilty pleasure of excessivism, both with the bold colours and the impressive

silhouettes. The embellished kaleidoscope floral print was unapologetically pompous. I thought the music which accompanied the show was very well integrated with the hiphop-inspired collection.

Jule Waibel’s collapsible dresses were also real eye candy.

The geometric structure changed with the movement of the body – it was as if the dresses could breathe. Adding a few bags and clutches might have improved some of the looks.

But it is fair to say that the design was fascinating to see.

However, the audience was clearly more concerned with whether the models flashed their boobs, than with the outfits they were wearing. In fact, the loudest cheer was probably when they weren’t wearing much at all – yes, I’m talking about Hannah Farrugia Sharples’s lingerie collection.

The garments freed and constrained the body at the same time, creating an audacious and intricate image. But the design was clearly overshadowed by the mere fact that it was lingerie. Not to mention that cheering at a fashion show is

simply bizarre. It almost felt like a strip club, just without someone ‘making it rain’, I guess.

And the models really didn’t make it any easier for people to appreciate the fashion on the runway. There were simply too many distracting facial expressions, incidents of eye contact with the audience, and unnecessary hand movements. I guess they were excited to see their friends in the crowd – I would be. But on a runway, too much personality on the models’ part shows a lack of respect for the designers. The point of an alleged fashion show is, or at least should be, to make people aspire to the fashion on the runway, not the vanity of walking it. The walk was also under-rehearsed, just like the other parts of the show. It just didn’t come together. I don’t deny that the show was well worth going to, if what you wanted was a night-out with something more than what Cindies has to offer: a dance by CUTAZZ and Holly Musgrave’s cover of ‘Chandelier’ by Sia. It was good fun. Except that it wasn’t about fashion at all.

VINCENT HASSELBACH

VINCENT HASSELBACH

VINCENT HASSELBACH

Happy birthday to the Urban Shed Charlotte McGarry Food Editor

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n 17th February, Urban Shed marks the anniversary of the big day that the retro lunch haunt began dishing up Cambridge’s finest sandwiches to hungry students, which started two years Serving an incredible range of artisan fillings on a variety of delicious homemade breads, the Shed’s sandwiches really are something to shout about.

For those of you who are yet to go (what have you been doing with your lunch hours?!), think coconut satay chicken with coriander mayonnaise, marinated artichoke on harissa hummus, or portobello mushroom blue cheese and candied walnuts. They’re as delicious as they sound, packing huge flavours into equally huge portions – only the prices fail to measure up to size.

The food isn’t the only thing there to delight the senses.

The shop itself is filled to the brim with retro goods; sandwiches are eaten sitting on airline seats, looking at the 1970s knick-knacks that adorn the walls and listening to vinyl on the turntable. It’s all very cool – exactly what you’d expect from the creator who has previously run Jools Holland’s Jazz Club and worked in some of the world’s hippest cities.

For Simon Morricem, the brains behind Urban Shed and catering business veteran, the atmosphere of the place is as much a part of the appeal as the food. He started the Shed

with the aim of creating an environment where everyone could feel at home. Anyone who’s visited before will know that this couldn’t be more true – guests are referred to by name, meaningful conversations are had over the till, and you always leave feeling as if you’ve had lunch at a friend’s house, not a cafe. This is because, to Simon and his team, us ‘Shedites’ are so much more than just customers. The vibe is very much that everyone who visits is part of the Shed, part of the fantastic lunchtime community that’s been created there.

And what a community it’s become. The snug, tworoom bolthole fills to the brim during lunch hours, every seat around each of the communal tables occupied. This naturally leads me to question – what next? Is there a second location in the pipeline? “Perhaps”, says Simon “but no rush. Maintaining our morals, beliefs and standards is the priority for us”.

Excitingly, there is something new guaranteed to come our way: “I like to change the menu once a year, so wheels are in motion for Year 3”, he tells me. This is particularly exciting news for plant-based eaters – the next menu promises another vegan option to add to the already generous list.

So whilst Urban Shed has already racked up a considerable number of accolades, including Trip Advisor’s Certificate of Excellence and a spot in Cambridge’s Top

Choice Restaurants for two years running, it’s only going up from here. If you haven’t yet paid it a visit, this two-year anniversary is the perfect excuse. And in true Shed style – everyone is welcome.

NIAMHRYLE

CHARLOTTE MCGARRY

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

10

Lifestyle

Recipe:Tarka Dhal Listings Emer O’Hanlon Recipe Columnist

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arka dhal is a simple dish with few ingredients made in two stages – a fried mix of spices, onions, and garlic added to a steaming pot of boiled lentils. There are so many different ways to eat dhal: with rice, with flatbreads, as a side dish, turned into soup – you name it. An easy dish to play around with and personalise, dhal is the ultimate comfort food, and the most perfect expression of self-love!

Ingredients (approximately four servings) 200-250g red lentils 2 tbsp turmeric 1 onion 1-3 cloves garlic, chopped 1 inch fresh ginger root, chopped 1 tbsp cumin seeds 1 tbsp mustard seeds Recipe: If possible, steep your lentils for an hour or two before you use them. Rinse and add boiling water, followed by generous amounts of turmeric and salt. Bring to the boil, making sure to skim away the scum from the surface, and then reduce the heat and simmer for at least twenty minutes, until the lentils are soft. The longer you cook them, the creamier and thicker your dhal will be. Make sure to keep stirring the lentils, as you don’t want them to stick to the bottom of the pan. You want the dish to have a soup-like consistency, so if the water begins to boil away, be sure to add more.

When the lentils are all but ready, heat the oil in a frying pan and add the whole cumin and mustard seeds. Fry until they begin to pop (at this stage the cumin will smell very aromatic – if it smells bitter, you’ll know it’s burnt) and add the onion, with the garlic and ginger following about a minute afterwards. When the onion is soft and brown – which takes about ten minutes – add the contents of the

pan (the tarka) to the lentils (the dhal) and stir through well before serving.

The recipe I’ve given above is probably the most simple possible, so please do experiment! Try swapping red lentils for different kinds – yellow split peas, puy lentils, and mung beans all make interesting alternatives. Remember, to check in advance how long they need to be steeped for, as some need 12 hours of soaking time. Yellow split peas and red lentils can be used straight away, which makes them good choices for eleventh hour dhals. You can also mix around the spices a little. Try adding a tablespoon of ground coriander at the same time as the onions, or a few curry leaves. Alternatively, add a couple of chopped tomatoes or a whole unwaxed lemon to the lentils halfway through cooking, or even two to three whole chillies if you’d like to add some spice. This is nicer than using chopped chilli, because the chilli becomes soft and sweet as it breaks down with the lentils.

ROBB1E

Thursday 18 A Midsummer Night’s Dream. West Road Concert Hall, 7:30pm.

Friday 19 ArcSoc CABARET. Cambridge Union, 9pm.

Impronauts Quickfire III. ADC Theatre, 8pm.

Kinesis CUTAZZ Dance Show 2016. The Leys School, 7:30pm.

Cultural Appropriation vs Appreciation. Keyne’s Hall, Kings College. 5:30pm.

Saturday 20 Cambridge Thai Festival 2016. St Pauls Church, 11.30am The Martian – Christ’s Films. Christ’s College, 9pm.

Sunday 21 Speakeasy. ADC Theatre, 8pm.

Monday 22 Corpus Smoker. Corpus Playroom, 9pm.

RAG Formal Freedom.

Tuesday 23 A Streetcar Named Desire. Corpus Playroom, 7pm.

Chocolate Moose: Footlights Spring Revue 2016. ADC Theatre, 7:45pm.

LGBT+ Month Mega Formal. Hughes Hall, 7pm.

Wednesday 24 Evan Davis. Cambridge Union, 7:30pm.

Compiled by Lucy Roxburgh

Best of Britain: Five alternative destinations Molly Biddell

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ur green and pleasant land; Blighty, the UK, Albion, whichever label you give it, is so geographically diverse that it’s impossible not to find a nook or cranny hidden somewhere that doesn’t float your boat or tickle your fancy. Although the lure of holiday hotspots such as South France or the Greek Islands often pulls us out of our British abode, I intend to dispel the myth that Britain is ‘boring’ as I have frequently heard, and introduce my top five alternative British 5estinations.

The Isle of Wight: Just off the South Coast and less than 2 hours from London, the Isle of Wight calls itself the UK’s ‘holiday island’. With a multitude of attractions, quintessentially British villages and coastal towns, it is a microcosm of the country itself. With beaches to roam, hills to walk, and plenty of pubs to explore, the island offers something for everyone.

The Brecon Beacons National Park: A walkers haven in the heart of Wales, famous for its stunning scenery,

Brecon Beacons mixes rolling countryside and valleys, wide open hillsides and beautiful forests, lakes and waterfalls.

Abundant with flora and fauna, the park is one of the last outposts for Welsh mountain ponies, which run wild across the rugged and remote uplands.

The West Coast of Scotland: Scotland’s west coast provides some of the most beautiful scenery Britain has to offer – from sweeping white beaches to the dark brooding lochs, the endless streams to the majestic and ancient mountains. It is the perfect place for any imaginable outdoor pursuit: swimming, fishing, sailing, kayaking, climbing, surfing, walking, running, cycling, the list goes on. The Hebrides, from remote and beachy Barra to the impressive Cuillins of Skye, are steeped in legend, proving the ideal destination for exploration and adventure.

Bath: For those city lovers among you, Bath has to be top of the list. Steeped in Roman history, nestled in the rolling Avon Valley and sitting above natural thermal springs, it is a beauty of a town with a million and one things to do.

A shoppers’ heaven, the city is famous for its Christmas markets, where smells of mulled wine and gingerbread drift down the streets, bringing the festive spirit.

Southwold: A bit of an odd choice, I hear you say. Or more likely I hear you question where on earth Southwold even is. Perhaps the biggest claim to fame of this seaside town on the Northern Suffolk Heritage Coast is the home of Adnams Brewery, from which the smell of malt gently wafts across the seashore. With chocolate-box houses and picturesque multi coloured terraces, it is a perfect British seaside town.

THOMAS888B

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The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

Lifestyle

Interview: Calvin Klein Maddy Airlie

M

aybe you own underwear with his name on it; maybe you wear his slip dresses with minimal accessories: it is unlikely your life hasn’t been influenced by Calvin Klein, one of the most important names in American fashion.

Although he no longer designs for the house, he is an occasional creative consultant which gives him time to work with charter schools in Harlem, designing their uniforms, or speaking to students at Harvard about architecture: one of his true passions.

Meeting the man behind the label does leave me a little more than star struck – he looks like Harrison Ford’s polished, trendy brother in all black (surely the beautifully fitting jacket must be his own label) and really, he couldn’t be nicer. The fashion industry types that exist in The Devil Wears Prada don’t encourage us to view that world kindly, and while I am dedicated follower of fashion, I was expecting someone possibly charming but mostly evasive, which is the opposite of Klein’s forthright manner.

“Business wasn’t in the family but aesthetic was” A question from the floor about whether he believes there is over-sexualisation in advertising prompted a simple “I do” and he did make reference to the controversial Brooke Shields advert for Calvin Klein.

However, despite stories of models next to phallic structures in Greece, the main basis of the discussion was his involvement in each step of the creative process, his penchant for design from a young age – “Business wasn’t in the family but aesthetic was” – and his own mantra regarding clothes: “I always believe that people should be comfortable – some of that’s missing in fashion today.” He does not have a bad word to say about anyone in fashion, including the direction the company has taken because “I’d

really done everything and said everything I needed to say.”

One of the most pleasing aspects of the discussion is how often Klein speaks positively about the women in his life, whether that be his high school art teacher or his ex-wife, Kelly: “I always seem to have a mentor”. Mentor, not muse; for Klein, his relationship with women does not put them on a pedestal, nor does he view them simply as objects to be dressed: “I take my lead from American women (and men) who are modern, on the edge…I’m not interested in ‘ladies who lunch’.”

There is no snobbery about Klein: he refuses to recognise fashion as art or himself as an artist, and he does not talk about trends, but rather that “clothes should last”. I ask him whether he would recognise the Calvin Klein woman, if she exists, and his answer is typically generous, claiming that the women who wear his designs, “they know” that they are the Calvin Klein woman: “Nothing’s that new [in fashion]… and there is no one way to do it.”

The next thing you see with Calvin Klein’s stamp may be an apartment building or a hotel rather than underwear, but you should keep your eyes open because there is no doubt that whatever he makes won’t be a labour of love: “I want to enjoy every moment. Success is about loving what you do.”

MADDY AIRLIE

Guilt free comfort food Helena Baron

C

omfort-eating is a go-to coping mechanism for many students. Whilst this is great news for Sainsbury’s, such snacking habits are not so great for our well-being in the long run. Here are three alternative ideas to try out!

1. Replace Coke with a peach shake: A delicious alternative to what is essentially just sugar and additives, this smoothie is quick to make! You will need a banana, tinned peaches (in their juice!) and milk. Pop all the ingredients into the blender and spin for about two minutes.

2. Replace ice cream with a creamy fruit bowl: This delicious bowl of goodness will keep those cravings at bay whilst also providing much needed vitamins and protein.

To make it, you will need frozen berries and vanilla yoghurt.

Microwave the cup of frozen berries for roughly a minute, then stir until it creates a sauce-like consistency. Add this coulis to a small bowl of vanilla yoghurt and mix well.

3.Replace crisps with a nibble jar: Perfect for on-thego, this pre-prepared snack is filling and delicious! Grab a small jam-jar and fill it with nibbles such as dried fruits and nuts. For a savoury option replace with trail mix or peanuts.

HELENA BARON

An MMLer abroad: Week six, weekends Reclaiming the weekend: the value of taking a break Rachel Rees-Middleton Columnist

A

few weeks ago I found myself without milk on a Sunday morning and so I set out to find some. I had forgotten that I was in France, it was a Sunday, and thus both my window of opportunity and my choice of shop were limited. The only supermarket open had run out of fresh milk and so I returned, empty handed.

Here in Albi, all shops are shut on a Sunday, the streets are empty. Even in the nearest city, Toulouse, most things grind to a halt. Pharmacies, libraries and even some museums remain closed. Sunday is a day where things are different. It is a day which is marked as precious, separate from the rest. It is a time to take a break from the hectic routines of daily life.

In Cambridge, I found the lack of difference between

the week and the weekend difficult to come to terms with.

A few weeks into Michaelmas in my first year, I remember phoning a friend from home on a Saturday night and asking her if she thought it was normal that most of my staircase were in the library. Shouldn’t we have been in the pub, having dinner together, watching the X Factor, or just doing nohing at all?

A Sunday at home had always been a family day, going for a walk, making dinner together, reading the newspapers.

I have nevertheless spent many a Cambridge Sunday in the library, desperately trying to get through reading, essays and translations. I have great admiration for a college friend of mine who treats Sunday as a complete day of rest: she goes to church, sees friends, Skypes her family. She is still able to meet all her deadlines despite the time off, and perhaps even because of it.

I know everyone works differently and has their own routine but there is clearly some merit in having a day

where, unburdened by work, you can do as you please. A day off does not necessarily mean a day in bed (although everyone loves a lie in from time to time).

Instead, reading a novel, catching up with a friend you’ve been meaning to see all term or finally taking a trip to the Fitzwilliam Museum are guaranteed ways to boost morale and escape from work pressure.Come Monday morning, when the 9am lecture beckons, you will (theoretically) roll out of bed refreshed from your day of rest, rather than burdened by the still-unfinished essay.

I love my year abroad weekends: I go running, do my shopping at the market, and try to visit somewhere new.

What’s more, it gives me something to look foward to during the week itself.

I am promising myself that next year in Cambridge, I will try to have a day where I leave the books closed and instead do something for myself, whatever that may be. I will not feel guilty, but liberated.

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

11

Lifestyle

The art of the city break: Turin Natalia Rye-Carriega

D

o you want to escape the ‘Bubble’ for a couple of days without breaking the bank? Are you keen to expand your cultural and linguistic horizons without spending hours on a plane? Here is a great proposition for anyone interested in getting away for a weekend break.

How do I do it? This obviously suits the ‘artists’ more than it does the ‘scientists’ but the way to do it is to skip lectures (justifiable, of course, if you read Italian!) and catch the cheap 06:55 flight out from Stansted on Friday morning to arrive in Italy in time for a lazy ‘weekend’ brunch. There is a train from Cambridge station at 04:44 so don’t worry about missing the flight, all you’d need to worry about is missing your alarm (at least you can sleep on the flight!)

FRANCOFRANCO56

Then, catch either the 09:55 on Sunday morning to be back for lunch or 15:20 on Monday afternoon if you think you can get away with it!

Where do I stay? If you are brave enough to tackle the language barrier, undoubtedly the cheapest (free) way to go is Couchsurfing but there are many other alternatives such as youth hostels (have a look on hostelworld.com for some great deals) or AirBnB if you’re going as part of a group.

Turin is a vibrant student city so it is unlikely that you would be paying more than 20 euro per night.

What is there to do when I get there? Often considered Milan’s much more beautiful cousin, Turin is not only the capital of the Piedmont region, it was also the capital of Italy during the final years of the Risorgimento DANIEL VENTURA

Because of this rich history, it is home to some of the most beautiful Renaissance architecture outside of Florence and nothing beats walking its cobbled streets just as the sun is going down... If you can, go for apericena from 7pm onwards, which for between 7 and 10 euro, you get a drink and free reign on a whole spread of Italian foodie delights, from canapés to selections of local cheeses and cured meats.

Can I go skiing while I’m there? Fortunately, being right next to the Alps, Turin is within touching distance of many different ski resorts such as Bardonecchia, Sestrière, and Montgenevre. Many of these resorts have direct shuttle links from the airport so it’s well worth a look if skiing is your thing. The season ends at the end of next month, so if you’re keen, book your flights today!

JEAN-PIERRE DALBÉRA

Making time for mindfulness ss

onger elax or e to n

ra y ively

n

Lucy Roxburgh Lifestyle Editor

I

am predominantly sceptical of mindfulness.

Cambridge is hectic and my chosen relaxation techniques normally involve baking chocolate doughnuts and binge-watching Friends rather than taking time to ‘listen to my breathing’. However, there are small and really easy ways that even busy students can use to improve mental well-being, by just taking a small amount of time to clear your head and de-stress.

Find some green space: Cambridge is commonly accused of being a ‘Bubble’, enabling problems to grow out of perspective, but this is easily solved. Get away from the tourists and go for a walk where you don’t bump into someone you vaguely know every two minutes. The walk WILLLIAM MARNOCH

to Grantchester is the obvious option (especially if you take advantage of student schedules and go in the week to avoid weekend crowds), but Coton Nature Reserve is a quiet alternative. Take advantage of fresh spring air and empty fields to work through whatever is bothering you – that essay plan, that rant at the noisy neighbour, the awkward phrasing of the ‘my essay is going to be late’ email to your supervisor. Get it all out of your system and you’ll be better prepared to face life on your return.

Find the off button: This may sound really obvious, but it’s surprising how many of us still ignore this common advice. The blue electronic glow of phones, laptops, and iPads has been proven to disrupt our sleeping patterns and FIRMBEE

confuse your body. Try avoiding your electronics for an hour before bed (or start small and gradually make it longer as you get used to the separation) and use the time to relax and clear your head away from a screen. Read a book for fun not work (woah), listen to a podcast or use the time to force yourself to break the Netflix cycle and catch up on much needed sleep. Make it your Lent resolution!

Progressive muscle relaxation: A fancy name for a simple technique to help you sleep. Start by tensing and relaxing the muscles in your toes. Progressively work your way up to your neck and head, tensing your muscles for at least five seconds, then relaxing for 30 seconds. Sounds weird but is more effective than counting sheep.

SPIRIT-FIRE

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 18 February 2016

12

Lifestyle

A city of hoarders: Cambridge’s collectors The curious comforts and odd obsessions we cling to during term time.

A collection of Lichtenstein – because it doesn’t get much better than pop art!. Ariel Luqing Yuo

A collection of coloured pens to help me – theoretically – stay organised. Jemima Jobling

Sainsbury’s offers are dangerous things. But who needs real eggs when you have Cadbury’s? Jessie Mathewson

A collection of books I naively thought I might be able to read for leisure this term. Polly Grey

My nail polish collection has grown since this picture – I’m up to 67 and show no sign of stopping. Lucy Roxburgh

My polaroid collection – all my favourite memories in pretty frames. Arenike Adebajo

You can’t have a biscuit break without a cup of tea in a biscuit mug with a tenuous pun. “A custard a day keeps the doctor away” sadly smashed. Kate Bell

I am obsessed with Soap and Glory products – they make any dry skin disappear so my arms now have the texture and smell of a smooth marshmallow. Maddy Airlie

I have a copy of every TCS printed since I arrived here, as well as several of Varsity, and a handful of nationals that were too pretty to throw away. Elsa Maishman

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The Cambridge Student • 18 February 2016

Features

of giving up

Lent, good for the soul Leah Mereb

T

he Lent period is being used by parents as a disciplinary measure to get children to cut down on sweets, by teenagers to lose a bit of weight and, most regretfully, by almost everyone else to mock how we’ve managed to corrupt a time that is supposed to be sacred.

This is not how it’s meant to be.

Lent is fundamentally a journey of self-purification, and an attempt to better yourself as a human being – not just as a Christian.

The increasingly artificial perceptions of the concept serve to trivialise it into nothing more than just another forty days on the calendar.

Lent is fundamentally a journey of self-purifcation and an attempt to better youself as a human being Lent is becoming the new commercial Christmas. Christmas has become about what presents you’ve been given and sadly, Lent has forcibly followed suit.

In a new superficial guise, it entirely revolves around what edible items people have given up. Gone are the days that Lent was actually used as a tool for self-improvement.

It’s time to stop this drift from the ultimate focus of Lent, lest we forget

DAISY EYRE

that it is all about realising how blessed and lucky we are.

It’s about being thankful to God for what you have, being kind to your families and trying to do more to help those who are not so fortunate.

The concentrated pressure upon the need to ‘give something up’ is not only treated dismissively nowadays, but can lead to the true meaning of Lent being forgotten: it’s not really about how much chocolate you’ve given up or boasting about how you’ve survived a week without meat.

Lent isn’t for everyone else – it’s for you. It’s principally a personal journey, about your own personal experience.

For those of you who aren’t religious, it’s a journey simply to become a better person and for those of you who are, it is to renew your faith in God and be reminded of what his Son has done for you and what you can do for others.

So maybe this year, rather than cutting down on chocolate, cut down on lying.

Rather than stopping eating sweets, maybe buy someone who is homeless a sandwich. Rather than reading through Facebook before you sleep, maybe read a prayer.

It’s great if giving up something that you love makes you think of the less fortunate and maybe makes you want to do something to help – but if you’re going to moan and complain about how hard it is, you’re completely missing the point.

Vegetarianism is for life, not just for Lent Haroon Mohamoud

C

ambridge has the ability to really change us, especially from a gastronomic perspective.

Those yet to overcome culinary ineptitude, being so far away from the home comforts of daily, immaculatelyprepared meals, are resigned to subsisting off food à la fast from the local takeout.

For others like me, whose usual consumption of meat is governed by halal or kosher dietary laws, navigating the city’s fine array of eateries can be made more challenging, by the limited number of restaurants providing for this palate.

Rather than relent in my quest, I made a simple, yet profound, change to my diet, which saves considerable time and effort.

I started to lean increasingly towards an herbivorous lifestyle, and began to choose the vegetarian option.

Life became more colourful – quite literally. A meat-laden biryani pales in contrast to its vegetarian counterpart, which teems with vibrant colours and tastes: bronze dices of butternut squash lie

ALICE LAW

alongside brown broad beans, and toasted flaked almonds add a nice crunch.

Increasingly opting for vegetarian dishes allows me to avert saturated fats and keep off the pounds. Knowing that skipping another portion of meat is doing our surroundings a world of good, also ‘lightens’ the burden on one’s conscience: for example, in its journey to our plates, the popular red meat beef requires 28 times more land and 11 times more water to produce than chicken, and results in five times more polluting globalwarming emissions.

On average, a whopping 40% of global grain production is used to feed livestock while in developed countries, the proportion of grain use for animal feed is around 70%.

These figures can be particularly daunting; 30% of the world’s land mass is used for feeding livestock when that same grain could be diverted to malnourished peoples of the world, who number almost 800 million.

Opting for the vegetarian lifestyle, in my situation, was done largely out of

convenience. But it soon materialised into an active choice: a conviction.

Indeed, it would perhaps be disingenuous to say I lead a completely herbivorous lifestyle; when the chance presents itself, I find it hard to resist a nicely-done steak seated in a nutrientrich salad or braised lamb shank served with rice.

Life quite literally became much more colourful I don’t wish to coerce others into making it their life choice as well. But in my experience, I definitely feel that our engagement with the world of greens (brussel sprouts, kale and all!) would be a very good venture indeed.

We would discover that we have far more options on a night out than chilli con carne; not to mention that the environment would thank us for making that decision. And our plates would be a lot more varied and colourful for it. How about that for a treat?

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18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Features

Looking for love in A week in the life: A Cambridge nightclub

Cambridge

Secret Dater

Week Six: Craving vanilla

F

ollowing last week’s hugely successful date with a great guy, I neglected Tinder for all of four days.

My mind was whirring with the implications of enjoying a date with a ‘nice guy’. Is my type now ‘nice guys’? Have I lost all desire to shower someone in souldestroying quips and (somewhat) good-humoured insults? Is it even humanly possible to remain a good sport for more than one date? Perhaps most significantly: is this column about to become a monotonous weekly update on a steady couple as they progress through happiness? Good God, the mundanity of it sickens me.

Unfortunately, the appeal of the conventional had increased tenfold in my mind. I’d discovered on our date that the man in question comes from a secure and content nuclear family from a respectable area. His dad worked away from home but his mother spent a lot of quality time with him. He suffered from the age-old fresher issue of making friends, but since first year his life has been stable and consistent – no relationship dramas, no mental health issues, and no unanticipated, rapid decline in work quality. Nope, this guy was the definition of vanilla. And

*As imagined by Lydia Sabatini

T

he exact identity of the club cannot be confirmed or denied as it wishes to remain anonymous. But the club interviewed for this article also wishes you to know that whatever its general reputation, it really is where the cool people go.

Monday: Monday morning starts at 11pm. They trickle in, the keen clubbers who secretly hope to be snug in bed by two. I can spot them a mile away, pretending to have a great time dancing to a song they don’t know whilst surreptitiously checking their watch mid arm-flail. They begin to

trickle out a few hours later, slowly, leaving a slew of sweat, saliva, booze and who-knows-what-else sticky on the floor. My morning smell and the stronger the better. I know there are other clubs which are more popular on any particular day, but while they are enjoyed, I am the one that is really loved.

Tuesday: Tonight, I am having a themed night to attract more of da kidz. It involves foam and a music genre chosen due to its alliterative quality when combined with the foam: funk. Would you find such a genuinely fascinating mixture at that other club, the one with the ridiculous hat-based name? I think not.

Lustful glances seem to outnumber instances of physical contact

Wednesday: Big night tonight.

Lots of people that call themselves the “gownies” come in. I don’t know why this is, as they seem to all be dressed in various attire. Though in my time, gowns have appeared so I suppose if these two groups are linked in some way that would explain the name.

People are loving the music, and loving each other. Although, I must say, lustful glances do seem to outnumber instances of (voluntary) physical contact. What a sad world we live in!

Saturday: Very keen clubbers in today! Dancing and dancing and... oh, the song has changed! But it won’t stop any of you, you just keep coming back for more!

TONY WEBSTER

Is my type now ‘nice guys’? everyone likes vanilla. I’ve developed an craving for it.

I decided to pull on my big-girl pants and message him first. It’s been a strong seven years since I’ve messaged anyone first, and even then it was my mum because I’d been taken hostage on a basket swing. But I sent that fateful message and we engaged in a game of conversational tennis for a couple of days until my friend asked if I was curious.

“Curious?” I ask.

“Just about him, his friends… All you know is what he’s presented to you on a date, and over the cybersphere.

Don’t you think there could be different sides to him? I wonder what he gets up to that you don’t know about.”

I pondered this. I like to be upfront – but I forget that others don’t always enjoy being this way. Generally, I assume they’re being 100% honest, 100% of the time, but could it be that my Vanilla Prince had deep, dark secrets?

I gathered my militia of female friends to investigate the case. So far, all we had was his first name and his college.

A quick search brought up seven potentials which we quickly whittled down to just him. Then, we partnered off into factions of investigation – friendships, photos, family, extracurricular interests. We huddled around my bedroom, presenting what we had discovered. He enjoys tennis and lacrosse. I wrinkle my nose in distaste. He played bass in a band at school. Not the sexiest instrument, but still a few brownie points to be had there. Someone presented a photo of him wearing double-denim. Bold.

Finally, we turn to the remaining member of our coterie. She looks sheepish and I start to get slightly twitchy.

“Spit it out, woman.”

She clears her throat.

“Alright. Fine. The Vanilla Prince…”

“Yes?” “…has uh, been in a long-distance relationship for the past 4 years.” Ah.

Week Five fails: the good, bad and ugly Maddy Airlie and Julia Stanyard

M

aybe you are now at the stage in your Cambridge career where you no longer believe in the week five blues; they have become cliché, or else they hit at a later or earlier point in the term.

However, in the case of this newspaper team, we are slaves to structure and all seem to have fallen prey to the mistakes and misfortunes this glorious institution has to throw at us: I cried because Eduroam was really slow, so my tea was cold by the time War & Peace had loaded.

Stevie Hertz I spent my Monday trying to remember my Sunday evening in order to write a review for this paper – I had been drunk (not surprising, since I had been drunk every day that week), recently dumped and had fallen asleep beside a boiling radiator which

This morning I spent a good ten minutes in my college library searching for a book. Turns out the book had already been taken out last week. By me.

Julia Stanyard

had melted the chocolates I had in bed, covering my jeans, duvet cover and sheets. Oh yes, and the chocolates were a gift from the ex.

Maddy Airlie My general life fail was going off on a tangent about kendall jenner in my supervision on 17th century economics, until my supervisor stopped me by saying he didn’t own a TV or read newspapers and therefore had no idea what I was on about.

Lucy Roxburgh My laptop broke and has probably wiped all my work (which isn’t backed up) and then my bike broke on the same day. Many a tear was shed.

Lydia Day The other day I closed my kitchen cupboard on my own head. Hard. Safe to say it was an indication of how the rest of the day was going to go.

Jemima Jobling

“I had been drunk (not surprising since I had been drunk every day that week”

I spent a good while this weekend filling out a particularly long internship application. Unfortunately, I misread the deadline for the application as 9pm instead of 9am, and so missed it. I was then walking down Mill Road and overheard the organiser telling her friend about all the late applications she got, begging to bel et in.

Saskia Binet I walked into a bollard on King’s Parade right in front of the bin busker.

Hayden Banks I was awoken by the fire alarm and a smoky room at 3am after my roommate decided to try his Korean shisha.

Anonymous

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The Cambridge Student • 18 January 2016

Features

Student Spotlight: The Gonville and Caius Music Society Taryn Challender Features Editor

I

t’s 8:15pm, on a particularly cold Monday evening. I set foot out of my accommodation block for the first time today, having written an essay and otherwise succumbed to the allure of hermit-dom. This is not good for my mental well-being and I know it, so this walk will do wonders for my sleeping patterns.

Yet it’s not the walk which I am looking forward to; tonight is the last rehearsal for Gonville and Caius Music Society’s Lent Concert choral recital of Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria’.

The Lent Concert choir was open to all members of the College, with

no audition required, so I jumped at the chance to be part of it when it had been advertised just two weeks ago.

I arrive in the chapel just as the rehearsal is about to start. The organ scholar, Michael How, is setting up the keyboard, whilst Kavi Pau, a first-year music student who is conducting the piece, settles everyone down. We sing through each movement several times until we get it right, and even when the dreaded request for ‘sopranos only, no piano’ is issued by Kavi, I still love every minute of the rehearsal.

The sound of four-part harmonies rebounding off the walls of the oldest surviving chapel in Cambridge sends shivers down my spine, and to actually be immersed in the music is immensely ANDREW STAWARZ

It offers students an insight into the communications industry

gratifying. If you’re ever offered the opportunity to be part of a choir, I highly recommend that you seize the opportunity with both hands: it’s the perfect way to chill out and forget your workload for a short time without too much of a time commitment.

Gonville and Caius Lent Concert, which will feature music by composers such as Vivaldi, Rossini, and Mozart, will be held on Sunday 21st February at 8:30pm in Caius Hall and is open to Caius members and their guests, completely free of charge.

A recital series takes place in either the College chapel or the Bateman Auditorium at 1:30pm every Saturday which is open to all members of the public free of charge, with a retiring collection.

The Music Society are also involved with the College’s thriving jazz society, hosting two nights a term; the first is a ‘jam’ session where all jazz musicians across Cambridge are invited to come along and improvise, whilst the second is a concert which features professional musicians. But the society’s activity doesn’t stop there! Preparations are now underway for the May Week show, Carousel.

Student Chat: What’s the best food that you can get in Cambridge?

Matt Hankin My strange addiction: Amazon Prime

Matt Hankin Columnist

I

t all started off so innocently. I was just going to listen to Prime Music and occasionally take advantage of the one-day delivery, all with the intention of discontinuing my free trial when it ended. I honestly can’t believe I got sucked in.

It now requires serious mental restraint to stop me purchasing something on Amazon Prime each day. My mum taught me to be sceptical of everything: one of her favourite refrains was “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” (this seemed odd because I got a lot of free lunches from her). But for some reason, I was convinced that Amazon, the tax-evading multi-billion-dollar company, just wanted to do something nice for me.

To my parents, if you’re reading this, I want to reassure you that I am not on track to star as Rebecca Bloomwood in a sequel to ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’. No, instead of buying designer clothes, make-up, or accessories, my Amazon Prime purchases are embarrassingly mundane.

Worse still is that I genuinely believe they have improved the quality of my life. My stain remover pen is a permanent feature in my bag, and has saved me on many an occasion from a coffee-spill-disaster. During an essay crisis, I once typed “study” into the Amazon search bar

Unlike friends, coat hangers don’t ask me to listen to their problems

and spent £20 on desk organisation products.

Despite these benefits, there have been two main downsides to this addiction. The first is its impact on my social life: I have cancelled on seeing friends because “I need to unpack and introduce my new 10 Jewel-Tone coat hangers to my room!” or “I’d love to go for coffee with you, but I need to find a place for my ultra-skinny polypropylene bin”. My friends think I am making excuses, but in my mind these are important reasons for not being able to meet up with them. And to be honest, unlike friends, coat hangers don’t ask me to cycle into town or listen to their problems The second downside has been the judgement I receive from the Girton porters. Look, I can cope with the type of porter who makes a joke about my excessive shopping.

“Caius mushroom soup, Caius “Afternoon Tease cheese scones.

“Sainsbury’s Basics – particularly, the I can explain to them that “This Mariah Carey CD from 1990 was only £2.19 and really with the cost of current ‘lumpy bumpy’ and Caius flapjacks.”

They make Thursdays great.” sultanas and the custard creams.”

Hannah Close Michelle Wan digital music that’s a bargain!”. Even if they’re a little sceptical, I don’t want to cry in a hole after our exchange.

Amelia Oakley But the second type of porter, the one who silently judges me as he hands me my parcel is the one I can’t deal with. I know I’m ordering excessively, okay? I don’t need that look from you! They give you no opportunity to even justify your purchases to them. Sometimes it gets too much and I pre-empt them, blurting out a host of justifications, hoping desperately they believe me. I now collect as many purchases in town as possible so the porters don’t know how much I’m really buying. It may be an arduous cycle with a full backpack up Castle Hill, but it is worth it to avoid the shady looks.

“Van of Life chips” “Caius churros.”

Katerina Zacharis When my friends ask me “why do you do this?!”, I Simon Goorney like to respond with a quote from Rebecca Bloomwood herself: “Because when I shop, the world gets better”.

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18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Interviews

Leading ladies of the Cambridge society scene Maddy Airlie and Julia Stanyard Interviews Editors

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t is well-known that there are many interesting student societies on offer in Cambridge. This week, The Cambridge Student talked to four women involved in some of these societies and how it has changed their times at Cambridge.

Ru Merritt - Chinese Lion Dancing Lion dancing (not to be confused with line dancing!) is a traditional Chinese dance whilst wearing a lion costume.

Our performances are based around old Chinese stories, combined with energetic dance and music.

What got you interested in joining?

I’ve always embraced life at Cambridge as a chance to take part in opportunities which would never be available to me outside of this environment. Chinese Lion Dancing was one of the most bizarre activities I saw at the freshers’ fair and I couldn’t help but get involved.

They seemed to have so much fun, and for those of us who are not naturally inclined towards sport, it seemed like a great way to keep active but have a laugh at the same time. Then again, I suspect that on a subconscious level, my interest was perhaps stimulated by my perpetual guilt at not embracing my mother’s Chinese heritage, but this wasn’t my main motivation.

“Chinese Lion Dancing was one of the most bizarre activities I saw at the fair and I couldn’t help but get involved” What’s your proudest moment?

It has to be my debut as the lion head at a recent Clare Chinese New Year formal. I’m fairly certain I hit a good few people as I went up and down the aisles, including someone on the masters’ table, but I guess that just makes the performance more life-like. Realistically, between you and a lion, you should be the one to move.

What does your involvement mean to you in the context of your time at Cambridge as a whole?

It’s been fantastic and I’m really gutted I didn’t get involved with the society sooner. I’ve met some great people who are really supportive and caring.

I’ve been able to go to formals at colleges I haven’t visited before, and I’ve also had the chance to practise a part of Chinese culture which would otherwise be extremely difficult to get involved in (especially since I don’t actually speak any Chinese dialect!)

from a Psalm. As Emma’s PowerPoint continued to cut out we were left with multiple five minute intervals staring at Jesus. No-one was very familiar with our society at that point and I think they may have thought we were recruiting them for something else.

Charlie Daffern - Ultimate frisbee What got you interested in joining?

I was pretty keen on taking up some kind of sport at uni, and ultimately won out in the end for two main reasons.

Firstly, it’s entirely self-refereed, with a lot of emphasis on fair play, meaning that you tend to get a really friendly crowd of players. Secondly, the vast majority of people have never played the sport before. That meant I was in the same boat as loads of other people, which really gives you the opportunity to learn together and compete on an even playing field. Cambridge is also a hotspot for ultimate, with multiple players competing on national teams at international tournaments, so there’s so much knowledge to draw on whilst learning the sport.

Zeena Beale - CATS Cambridge What inspired you to set up CATS? I was diagnosed with cancer during my first year at Cambridge. Specifically, it was Stage 2b Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which is a blood cancer and actually one of the most prevalent cancer

“I felt that if I left without making a significant effort to raise awareness, I would have been really disappointed”

What’s your proudest moment?

Probably captaining the mixed team through our monumental climb at mixed outdoor nationals last year. We came into the tournament seeded 34th, but stormed through a lot of our early games into later matches against some of the top teams in the country to finish the tournament in 6th place. Top job.

It was also a pretty fun weekend with the whole 14-person squad crashing on the floor of my family home. Very cosy sleeping arrangements. But hey, teams that touch more win more.

types for young people aged 18-24. So I felt that if I left Cambridge without making a significant effort to raise cancer awareness amongst students at Cambridge, then I would have been really disappointed. I just wanted to create something so that if anyone is in the same position that I was in feeling – really ill but ignoring all the signs and symptoms – they can have something that will encourage them to take action and see a doctor.

Do you have a proudest moment?

I would have to say it was right at the very beginning of the year during the freshers’ fair. We were incredibly new, but we managed to get a stall in the tent on Parker’s Piece and were able to attract so many people and had so many lovely comments. But there was one thing in particular that still sticks in my mind, and it was this lady who I saw enter the tent, who as soon as she clocked us, made a beeline straight to our stall and told us how glad she was to just to see our stall and to have our presence there – she’d recently been told some quite bad news about a very close family member who had been diagnosed with cancer, so she felt especially grateful that we could be there to support her.

Emily Clark - Zero Carbon What does Zero Carbon involve ?

When you’re so busy at Cambridge, and there is a huge problem that seems so far from your reach, it is easy to ignore it. So, with the wave of divestment movements that have spread across our country and many others, we decided to start our own campaign. Cambridge University collectively invests £5 billion, and it is predicted that at least £240 million of that is in the fossil fuel industry. If the University of Cambridge were to divest it would send a clear message to other institutions that fossil fuel industries do not have the social license to operate within our societies.

What has been your best anecdote?

The most embarrassing thing that has happened to us may have been at our first event. We were yet to launch our campaign, and there were only four of us in the society but we’d managed to get Emma Howard, the Guardian journalist, to give a talk on divestment.

Unfortunately, none of us had much experience organising events so she had been dropped off at the other end of college to me, meaning we started half an hour late and our campaigns officer had the only computer compatible with the projector cable – and his screensaver was of an extract

From top: Ru Merritt making an entrance (Alistair Gempf); Zero Carbon (Abdul Al-Mohammad); Charlie Daffern leaping to victory (Claire Baker); CATS members making a stand at the freshers’ fair (Emma Kavanagh)

What does the society mean to you in the context of your time at Cambridge as a whole?

I think that setting up CATS, as much as it’s been hard work and a little bit stressful at times, has been so so worth my time. Setting up something like CATS in a place like Cambridge is an opportunity I’ll never get anywhere else; the opportunity to reach as many young people as possible, and hopefully be able to influence them and change their perspectives a little on what is truly important in life.

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The Cambridge Student • 18 February 2016

Comment

TEDx Cambridge: Why we should unite the arts and sciences Urvie Pereira Chief Sub-Editor

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ictimised arts students, constantly teased by NatSci peers for 11am lectures, weekly supervisions, and frequent post-clubbing lie-ins; overworked CompScis and Mathmos, tired of being accused of having no imagination: the arts versus science student rivalry is rife and real, spurred on by league tables of ‘most employable’ degrees.

Yet is this divide really necessary?

TEDx University Cambridge featured an eclectic variety of different speakers this year, from diverse backgrounds, whose talks provided some food for thought.

Peter Robinson, Professor of Computer Technology at Cambridge University, related how understanding human communication – an area arts degrees place huge emphasis on, whether through analysing the sexual

tension and power dynamics in Wuthering Heights, translating pages of German Romantic philosophy, or theorising about the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa – is key to creating cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

He noted how computers have been shown to lack the subtleties of human emotion. Creating an algorithm that effectively emulates ‘human’ communication needs a full understanding of human nature to back it up, in an amalgamation of psychology, linguistics, and anthropology.

In order to show how uniting art and science can encourage greater empathy with those affected by psychosis, Paul Fletcher, Bernard Wolfe Professor of Health Neuroscience at the Cambridge Department of Psychiatry, ended his talk by showing a series of artistic visual simulations. Based on TEDX CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY

actual reports of the hallucinations and delusions that psychosis sufferers experience, it was a poignant visual reminder that our reality is confined to the processes of our brain.

Meanwhile, Physics PhD student, Kerstin Goepfrich, gave a presentation on her childhood love for origami art, which led her to work on DNA ‘origami’ nanopores,that can deliver drugs or kill malfunctioning cells: this is a game-changing field, with scope for curing cancer.

Goepfrich’s case offers a strong argument for why we should unite the arts and sciences: science skill sets, valued for their strong evidence-based approach to establishing ‘knowledge’ from mere speculation, become even more powerful when in collaboration with the imagination that an arts degree encourages.

Bobby Baker, a widely celebrated British performance artist, references Einstein in her discussion of why imagination is most important: “Knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces… all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Reinforcing an artificial dichotomy between the arts and sciences is ultimately going to cause more harm than good. If we are to progress as a species, culturally and technologically, we must embrace a future where both skill sets join forces. If you’re like me, you’ve been feigning understanding about ‘gravitational waves’ this past week, month, your whole life even. So budding physicists, do us a favour – find out, and explain it to us: so we can start producing poetry about it.

May Balls represent Cambridge elitism Sriya Varadharajan Comment Editor

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n some ways, the worst of May Week is over and done with by Lent Term. It seems like a distant dream, right now; February is dark and different to our idealistic visions of a sunny and decadent week of letting completely loose, not to mention the looming spectre of exams that cloud everything that comes afterward.

The only reason I’ve been thinking about them recently, in fact, is because the time has come to pay for it.

May Ball ticket releases have begun, with a steady stream of optimistic yet naive posts on the May Ball Marketplace Facebook page inquiring about the possibility of Trinity and St John’s tickets starting up in earnest. To

some extent, it is now that the true cost of May Week becomes apparent, and along with it, the knowledge that for many, it is a cost that is too high to pay.

The fact that most May Ball tickets are at least £100 seems ridiculous. This is the cost of dozens of meals in hall, and around a tenth of a termly student loan; most importantly, it is money that many cannot spare on extravagant parties. The stress of exam term – and, indeed, the rest of the Cambridge year – is excused by the fact that May Week offers a chance to let go completely in a dizzying and arguably slightly unhealthy jump between extremes, but surely the fact that it’s possible to pay more to do this more thoroughly makes this pay-off lose its strength?

We all work equally hard: it’s unfair that by paying more, some of us will

be able to experience May Week in the traditional fashion far more fully.

Of course, it’s more than possible to have a wonderful time during May Week without spending obscene amounts of money. June Events and Garden Parties are far less costly than Trinity May Ball, and even just having a week to do nothing but spend time with your friends sounds amazing in the middle of exam term. But there is undeniable social pressure to go to balls, not to mention invisible costs such as clothes, and it is an uncomfortable truth that the reward for having worked hard all year is one that is fundamentally inaccessible to many of us. Cambridge’s ‘work hard, play hard’ ethic must be rethought and reimagined so that the university can be a truly equal place.

Editor-in-Chief: Elsa Maishman Founded 1999 Volume 17

Goodbye FOI?

Universities should not be exempted from the FOIA Information is power. And it’s important. The Freedom of Information Act currently allows students to ask anything they like of their universities. As you can see on page five, the Freedom of Information Act is important and well used.

Editors of Oxford’s Cherwell, Bristol’s Epigram, the Exeposé in Exeter,

Manchester’s Mancunian and the Glasgow Guardian have all declared their opposition to the idea. The exemption of universities from the FOI Act would rob the student body of the power to hold their universities to account – universities that are, initially at least, funded by student loans drawn from the public purse.

The decline of print

A sad farewell to the Independent’s print edition This week, the journalism scene was rocked to its core with the news that the Independent and the Independent on Sunday will cease to print from the end of March. This is shocking not only because it heralds the loss of a particularly good-loooking publication and a large number of jobs, but also because it indicates that we are one step closer to the inevitable loss of print media.

Printed newspapers are beautiful, and important. The future may very well be in digital media; it is fast, much more easily accessible, and capable of sharing news and entertainment in so many more ways. However, nothing online will ever have the romance of a printed newspaper. Once you put something in print, it can never be unprinted.

There is something terrifying in having to take the leap of cementing something forever in permanent ink.

A front page is a special thing, and there have been some truly iconic front pages, documenting historical events such as the sinking of the Titanic, the death of John F. Kennedy, and the retreat from Dunkirk.

There’s also the excitement of headlines, and layout, and squeezing as much information into as few inches of page space as possible.

This announcement has sent shockwaves through the ranks of student journalism for another reason. Most of us are at least considering a career in print journalism. The idea that the only real skills we’ve managed to pick up at university won’t help us after graduation as everything has been digitised, is not an encouraging one.

For better or worse, the transition to digital is inevitable. Print media is a sinking ship, albeit one that I will cling to until the very last.

JOHANNES HJORTH

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18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Comment

Reflections on the DSO referendum Jessica Wing

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he yes votes alone were nearly double the number of total votes needed for the referendum to be quorate. None of us had ever thought this possible. The Disabled Students’ Campaign reformed a year ago, after a long break during which no group of disabled students had the energy or time to keep it going.

The committee was elected in February 2015 with just six students on it. By the end of the year, two had left Cambridge. Our committee currently stands at three active members. We didn’t and don’t really have the energy or time for this either; all of us are disabled students, each in our final year of study.

When the committee reformed we sat in a room at Homerton and compared ourselves self-consciously to the other Autonomous Campaigns who had so much support and energy in them. The Women’s Campaign currently has around five times the number of committee members we have (and I sit on both committees), as well as a full-time sabbatical officer. We considered our options. How do we do the things we want to do, when we are so under capacity, so ill, and so tired? How would we figure out our plan for the year? Would we be able to achieve anything at all?

We figured the absolute end goal – if the stars aligned – the absolute pinnacle of everything we could achieve as a handful of disabled members of the University, would be gaining a sabbatical officer to hold the institution to account for the damage it causes, whilst acknowledging the progress that has been made within the past 5-10 years. If a sabbatical Disabled Students’ Officer existed they would be

able to ask why, between the academic years 2011/12 and 2013/14, an average of 2.7% of undergraduates intermitted (947).

They would ask why 24% of those students would never return to finish their studies.

They would put pressure on the University, and its constituent Colleges, to provide structural support beyond ‘go away for a year and come back when you’re better.’

Because for many, disabilities are not just long term, they are life-long, and in some cases increasingly debilitating. A year out, in many cases, could make matters worse – before even considering financial implications.

They would ask why Directors of Studies and supervisors, let alone tutors, regularly have no idea what a Student Support Document does or stands for (it provides recommendations for teaching staff on how best to provide reasonable adjustments, by the way). They would ask why part-time study options are still considered incompatible with the rigid and unforgiving degree structure, despite there being obvious ways that part-time study could be made possible and has indeed been made possible on a closed, studentby-student basis.

They would ask why this fact has been kept concealed. They would ask why some disabled students have been humiliated and banned from recording lectures to listen to later despite having permission.

They would pressure faculties and departments to make materials accessible online. They would make ‘is this room accessible?’ a question on everyone’s lips no matter if it’s for a society-run event or a supervision. They would challenge the widely-held beliefs that exam adjustments

There is still work to be done. The next few months will be critical.

create an implicit advantage rather than merely levelling the playing field.

We thought that a full-time Disabled Students’ Officer would mean institutional representation, accountability, someone to turn to in a crisis, that we wished we’d had for ourselves. And the four of us sat there and believed it would never happen. But fast forward nearly a year, and it has. There were several ways of calling about a CUSU referendum, but we deliberately picked the method that demonstrated the greatest student interest: a petition requiring a minimum of 350 signatures, a number we managed to surpass within a few days.

Momentum built, and with the aid of other members and supporters of the Disabled Students’ Campaign as well as members of the other Autonomous Campaigns, a quorate yes result in the referendum became increasingly plausible.

There is still work to be done. The next few months will be critical. The referendum result must be passed by the University Council, funding for the role must be sought and finalised, and the concrete job description must be drawn up. But the biggest challenge is over. Our mandate for this position is monumental, and I am very proud of everyone who campaigned with me for the yes vote, as well as the huge numbers of non-disabled students who could have easily chosen not to engage with the issue but did.

We can view this from a different Jack May perspective. The passing of this referendum is not only the triumphant end to a year irst up, some truths universally of planning and hard graft, but also the acknowledged, because they beginning of a year of campaigning supposedly make for good openers: dedicated to accountability, accessibility, charity, and the act of raising money for and structural and attitudinal change. charity, is a good thing. Fashion – as a type PAUL STAINTHORP of art – is a good thing. Supporting and promoting the work of student fashion designers, is a good thing. An extraordinary amount of hard work went into putting on the Cambridge University Charity Fashion Show, which looks set to have raised around £10,000 for (you guessed it) charity.

Another truth universally acknowledged: The coverage of the event in The Daily Mail and The Sun was sexist, pervy, and, to use the de rigeur term, basic. Now here comes the more complicated part. What impression of Cambridge – of its students, and of the University as a whole – will the thousands of potential Cambridge applicants reading these articles have?

While we can safely say that the majority of them will hopefully be intelligent enough to see through the sexist veneer, and realise the event wasn’t primarily about naked flesh, it’s likely that responses will break down into three groups.

First comes the boy in the private school in Berkshire, or Kent, or one of those other counties that seems to yearn to rhyme with some insult or other, who probably thinks that the whole thing is ‘top bant’ and that the event would be a ‘right laugh’ and a ‘chance to crack out some champers’.

Then there’s the student at the Tatler-rated

Cambridge Fa Radical or pre

F

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The Cambridge Student • 18 February 2016

VINCENT HASSELBACH

Comment

What lies in store for print journalism?

Basha Wells-Dion

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ashion Show: etentious?

North London state school, whose parents own a property worth upwards of £1m, and who thinks the show looks ‘really hip’ and a lot like the ones that mummy takes me to, that she reads about in The Guardian.

It’s the third reaction that’s key: that of just about everyone else. It’s almost as if the people behind CUCFS have come up with the perfect formula to hit on the two key things that exemplify the way the media love to portray Cambridge: its eliteness, aloofness, intellectual and cultural superiority, and its tendency to be populated by posh champagne-quaffing black-tie-donning toffs. Or people who look a great deal like them in pictures.

The vast majority of people (myself partly included) will have looked at the pictures coming out of the fashion show and seen a load of pretentious people wearing a load of pretentious clothes in a room full of pretentious people drinking pretentious champagne and wearing pretentious black tie. And that’s a problem.

We’ve got gowns. We’ve got old buildings.

We’ve got stupidly regular candlelit dinners. We’ve got May Balls. We’ve got abhorrent drinking societies. What I fail to understand is why CUCFS have shown such a crippling lack of self-awareness as to give off the impression that we need more opportunities to shout to the tabloid press: “Hey, you guys! Come and take pictures of this thing we’re doing that definitely won’t put anyone off applying and is definitely a 100% fair, and balanced representation of what people at Cambridge are really like!”

n March this year, the last print editions of The Independent and The Independent on Sunday will be published. Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the paper, has recently confirmed that the paper is being sold to Johnston Press.

This is not a particularly sudden or surprising change. Recently, most of the articles published by The Independent have been online, with features such as i100 giving people quick and easy access to the latest news and comment pieces.

So what does this mean for print journalism? The beautiful irony of this for me is that I actually read about the cease in publication in an online article written for The Guardian. And I have to say that this change will not actually affect me all that much. I already consume most of my news online, and mostly this is from The Independent itself.

But is this all that news is becoming?

Clickbait ads in essay procrastination breaks? It is now easier than ever for people to access new ideas and to find out what is going on around the world, but this also means that we may be taking it for granted Reducing news and reading to a few clicks of a button has a trivialising effect on the stories we read; there is no effort involved in sourcing our information, and so it is all too easy to skip over the important issues of the day.

In the next few minutes there will be another snappy headline on our Facebook newsfeeds or on the Tumblr dashboard and our attention will be distracted again.

In a moment, we can scroll past breaking

news about important social and political change as well as clickbait articles about funny videos of baby animals. An equal amount of our attention is given to both – surely this lessens the value of genuinely important news?

The impact for student journalism, too, is concerning. More and more people are reading news online, rather than picking up a newspaper; is it possible that even this

paper will only be available online in a few years time?

The way we take in information is changing, and I’m not sure this is necessarily always a good thing.

There is a lot to be said for the easy access of new media found off the printed page, but I think there will always be a place for quality print journalism in our society.

HARSHIL SHAH

The way we take in information is changing, and I’m not sure this is necessarily always a good thing.

PSHE classes must be made compulsory

Diana Rina

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veryone has a story about their experience of sex education at school. It’s something to do with the fact that most students will be in their early teens when they are first sat down in Personal, Social, and Health Education (PSHE). Having grown out of the adolescent fascination that defined those classes for the most part, now the interest we have in discussing them lies not in the appeal of the facts of life themselves, but in the differences in how they have been imparted to us.

These recounts can sometimes involve odd apparatus, disconcertingly candid admissions of experience from authority figures, well-meaning but entirely obvious facts, genuinely useful advice, or, as is too often the case, dangerously bigoted views, or an absence of some views altogether.

The news that sex and relationships classes will not be made compulsory for all schools was justified last week by Nicky Morgan MP, Secretary of State for Education, with the argument that when

such education is provided, it is of a “variable quality”.

She quoted statistics released by Ofsted that found 40% of PSHE teaching to be “less than good”. But to many, this seems to be an incredibly lacklustre argument against what should be a vital part of the National Curriculum: surely if the issue lies in below-par teaching, the solution must be to raise the quality of education?

Though many of us remember our PSHE classes for being less than perfect, there is no question that they provide invaluable support for students. Teenagers, being comprised of a unique mix of confidence and vulnerability, are arguably the most at risk of being hurt by unhealthy relationships, and having access to objective and thorough information can give them the vital tools needed to recognise detrimental patterns of behaviour. PSHE provides the perfect opportunity to teach teenagers about consent, respect, and supportiveness – why is this something that any child would need to be exempted

If the issue lies in belowpar teaching, the solution must be to raise the quality of education

from? Preventing students from accessing information can only lead to wild theorisation and harmful assumptions that leave them unprepared and at risk.

Yes, education around sex and relationships is rarely comprehensive. In particular, LGBT identity is neglected to a horrific extent; few classes actually touch upon it, and the extent to which homophobia and transphobia is enabled in schools means that education intended to give students an understanding of how to navigate sex and relationships safely can become a tool for oppression.

Consent, too, is under-taught, which, given the statistics for sexual assault in universities, seems irresponsible at best.

Through making sex and relationship education compulsory, the Government would have the perfect opportunity to standardise its quality across the country.

Students deserve the best chance possible to succeed and be happy in their future relationships; it’s time for the Government to start ensuring this happens.

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18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Sport

The Puzzles Column

Toeing the line between Paul Hyland Sport Editor

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arcelona’s visitors had already been put to the sword. The Galicians of Celta de Vigo found themselves unassailably behind, 3-1 down at the Camp Nou thanks to a gorgeous free kick from Messi, followed by two goals from close range

by Luis Suárez, when something just a little bit out of the ordinary happened.

Messi, brought down in the 18 yard box for a penalty, stood over the ball ready to extend his team’s lead. Up he stepped, the keeper dived, and the ball was rolled gently in the direction of Suárez, tapping in to complete his hat-trick.

It’s a move that has been tried only a handful of times in the history of the sport. In 1982, legendary Dutch winger Johann Cruyff was up to similar tricks for Ajax, playing a penalty towards teammate Jesper Olsen to round the keeper and tap in. More recently, Robert Pirès and Thierry Henry of Arsenal made the headlines in 2005 for attempting the same schtick at home to Manchester City, though the ball failed to reach Henry as it had barely left the penalty Down spot when it was struck.

6. Mixed letters of a granma. (7) Of all of these, Barcelona’s effort 7. Body part executes horror. (3) on Saturday night was easily the 8. Expression of agreement. (4) most controversial of all. Though 9. Drinking before Cambridge party; not yet the 70,000 Catalan supporters in the delivered. (7) stadium erupted into a unanimous roar for what they’d just witnessed, not everyone was quite so impressed.

Amid the cheers and adulation came Compiled by Cameron Wallis cries of foul play across the press and

social media, accusing the Barcelona players of flagrant disrespect for opposition who were well beaten.

Diego Acedo, from the Spanish paper Marca, agreed: “I think it’s a lack of respect,” he says, “because Barça are the best team in the world and they don’t need to do that sort of thing.”

However, there were just as many who saw the incident as a stroke of genius, with Spanish football reporter Graham Hunter nailing his colours to the mast: “Anyone who can’t appreciate the nerve, skill, daring and vision of that penalty should be re-educated.”

It’s not always easy to separate moments of genius from acts of disrespect – especially when you’re dealing with the best front three in

Cryptic Crossword

Across 1. Payment sounds just. (4) 2. Magical dust does cleaning, but not quite fairly. (5) 3. Bird owns floating, discoloured jewel; fight then in a line. (7) 4. “On your feet! Sounds like they will drag our car away!” (3) 5. Strangely uneven. (3)

Women’s University Basketb Jack Ranson Sport Editor

Sudoku

Solutions from Volume 17, Lent Issue 5

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he Women’s Basketball Club held their Midnight Madness fundraising event last Thursday, smashing their target of 10,000 hoops in 24 hours.

Between midday on Thursday and midday on Friday, the club managed

by Thomas Prideaux Ghee a staggering 22,396 baskets: a rate of 933 per hour, 15 per minute or one every four seconds. Club President Molly Lewis called the level of support “astounding”, as they enter the final week of fundraising.

At the time of writing, the club are just under 60% of the way to their £3000 target, which it is hoped will be enough to enter the second team into a British Universities and Colleges Sports (BUCS) League next year. In previous years, the second team have been unable to register for a league that would enable them to play regularly at a competitive level, with the club citing a lack of University funding.

After their successful fundraising efforts, the teams can now turn their attention to the Varsity matches, being held this year on Saturday 27 February. The women’s second team – the Panthers – are looking to extend an extraordinary seven year winning streak.

The first team have had a more erratic history, with an 11 year drought only coming to an end in 2014. This year would be the third victory in three years, if the Light Blues are able to replicate last year’s performance.

It will be the final outing for captain Michelle Quay, having been with the team for the last three Varsity fixtures.

She told The Cambridge Student: “I can’t imagine a better way to wrap up my Cambridge basketball career than captaining this exceptional group of girls to a decisive victory over Oxford for the third year running”.

The Varsity matches for both men and women, will take place at Oxford Brookes Sports Centre on 27 February.

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The Cambridge Student • 18 February 2016

Sport

n genius and disrespect Six Nations round-up: France falter to victory world football, and possibly of all time. What prodigious talents such as Messi, Suárez and Neymar are capable of producing can be so surprising, so enthralling, and can tear up the rulebook so much that we often rush into condemning them simply for playing football on another level to most. These are people who turn genius and disrespect into synonyms when most people consider them polar opposites.

And let’s be honest here. Passing a spot kick to a teammate to tap home when 3-1 up is more than a touch impudent. It says so much about your attitude towards the match, and towards your opponents. To them, the opportunity to take a direct shot at

their opponent’s goal was expendable enough to be risked on a pass-andmove routine that would have adorned bloopers reels forever more had the ball not found its way into the net.

But what we did see was some of the most entertaining football ever from one of the world’s best ever teams, capped off by a routine no one else on earth would have attempted.

From Neymar’s dizzying run to set up Suárez to tap in, to his heart-in-themouth rainbow flick that left two Vigo defenders for dead, to Messi’s glorious free kick, and a moment of invention hardly seen before in the sport: if these moments are really what constitutes disrespect in football, then long may they continue.

OAO

Connor Lempiere

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s both a staunch Ireland fan and an indefatigable sucker for the underdog, the second week’s action in the 2016 Six Nations left me personally feeling deflated to say the least. A turgid encounter in which Ireland slipped to a narrow defeat was followed first by Scotland and then Italy, as they had a week previously, playing well enough to encourage hopes of an against-theodds victory before dashing them with costly second half errors.

Worse, another solid English showing means the impression that Eddie Jones’ regime could usher in a new era of dominance has grown, threatening the return of the post2003 years’ insufferable charioteers to rugby fandom.

From a slightly less partisan perspective though, England fans, as they are only too happy to inform me, have much to be content with after two away victories and no tries conceded, contrasting favourably with fellow

table-toppers France’s two shaky home wins against Italy and Ireland.

In fairness to the French, once they stopped trying to decapitate Ireland’s backs and, in the second half, started playing some rugby, they looked an improved force and merited the result given their opponents’ poor execution in the first half, when early pressure should have been converted in to a greater advantage.

For Ireland the biggest concern is yet more of the injuries that continue to expose a lack of strength in depth by befalling our most irreplaceable players, whilst Jared Payne remains in infuriatingly rude health. Overall, the weekend’s opening fixture was a forgettable, weather-blighted game summed up nicely by Eddie Butler’s comment that it was an excellent advertisement for stadiums with roofs.

The Millennium Stadium, roof on, hosted a far more engaging contest on Saturday evening, though it too suffered from some questionable refereeing decisions and an unfortunate injury, to Stuart Hogg. Greater Welsh experience

was eventually the telling factor, as second half tries showcased first the consummate class and power of Jamie Roberts and then some naïve Scottish defending as North also crossed.

Scotland will take heart though from having broken their try-scoring duck, despite again falling short. Italy, in contrast, took a step back this week, although that could have been a reflection of the change of opposition; England demonstrated strong fitness to eventually wear down their hosts, successfully blooded some promising young talent and at times suggested that Jones has successfully instilled some Southern-hemisphere sensibility into their ranks with good ball skills evident from the whole team.

To cap it all, I am already firmly rooted to the bottom of the Clare sweepstake table (jointly with an equally optimistic Scotsman, unsurprisingly), my predictions suggesting it is a good thing the TCS Sport Editors asked for articles from a rugby fan’s perspective, rather than a rugby expert’s.

DAVID PARSONS

ball smash fundraising target .

CHILLI HEAD

Russian gyms: Macho men and batty babushkas Sophie Penney

R

ussian gyms embody the country’s macho culture and its batty babushkas. The advert for them is a clue enough: a Russian man in lycra, bench pressing a beautiful blonde girl. It’s just Russia in poster format.

On the ground floor is the swimming pool. This is full of bobbing swimming caps on the heads of the infamous Russian grandmas (babushkas): only in there for a chat but terrifyingly scary if you get in their way, or worse still, swim into them.

The only lane in the pool is, as an unspoken rule, reserved for the men, who seem to be the only ones swimming at any pace, sometimes even breaking into front crawl. So where to swim? You could weave in and out of the babushkas (if you can find the space and the courage). Or you squeeze past a burly man, trying to synchronize your stroke so that you don’t hit him when you pass each other,

all the time dealing with the stares as you defy the gender stereotype.

Move up a floor and you arrive at the gym, or should I say the giant weights room. Imagine every type of weight machine you’ve ever seen, times that by ten, and that’s a Russian gym.

Walking into the room, images flashed into my mind of me, after four months of gyming here, as a super body-builder, ready to participate in The World’s Strongest Man. Certainly that seems to be the aim of a large number of the gym members, whose muscly torsos make them so top-heavy that they could topple over any second. This look is not helped by the extremely tight leggings and much too small t-shirts that seem to be the male uniform.

There is not a woman in sight in this room. And woe betide any woman that does try to lift a weight: in Russia women are not meant to lift anything heavy without a man’s help. My friend tried just once and was met with some

very odd looks.

Wading through the sea of weight machines I spy another room. It becomes apparent that this is the women’s room. Along the wall there is a line of older women in tight fluorescent tracksuits all on treadmills…walking.

Apparently running on a treadmill isn’t a done thing in Russia.

This room does seem to have most of the normal machines, which dispels the images of myself as a body builder, but if women aren’t meant to run or fully exert themselves, maybe images of a couch potato would be more appropriate for a Russian audience?

The feminist in me decides to play the foreign card. I pretend that I don’t understand these unspoken rules and therefore go all out in whichever room I please.

But not everyone has this card to play. Many simply conform to the stereotypes of burly men, and even burlier babushkas that even dominate the Russian gym-going experience.

Sport

20

18 February 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Women’s Basketball

Team smash fundraising target p. 19 →

www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/sport

REISIO WILLIAM LYON TUPMAN

30 16

Will Lyon-Tupman

I

t was a strong game from the start for the Blues, scoring a convincing try within the first two minutes. Their luck continued, easily scoring a further two tries over an increasingly frustrated opposition. Whilst this drove Loughborough’s determination forwards, leading to them scoring a try, it only gave Cambridge further success, responding with a great try. Loughborough certainly didn’t give up, and came dangerously close to scoring a second. But Cambridge defended brilliantly and maintained a strong lead, the half time score being 20-4. The second half had great pressure and much possession of the ball was with the Blues. The pressure continued to mount upon the opposition as the Blues brought more success.

Loughborough certainly didn’t give up – their struggle was briefly rewarded with a pair of tries with less than 10 minutes on the clock, but their luck was not to last as Cambridge regained control once again and the Blues returned another brilliant try.

Cambridge Leicester

3 2

Gerda Bachrati

F

ighting to stay in the Midlands Cup, it was Leicester that started off strongly, forcing some excellent saves from keeper Canham and winning a host of corners that worried the Cambridge defence. 15 minutes in, Cambridge began to dominate play. Bull scored the first goal with her favoured left foot, shooting clean across the keeper into the bottom right corner. Savage converted a Bull cross into a shot that was spilled by the keeper, and Hickman was on hand to send it into the opposition goal. 2-0 the half-time score.

20 minutes into the second half, Leicester won direct free kick just outside the 18 yard box which was lifted clear over the CUAFC wall and nestled into the net, making it 2-1. Shortly after, Leicester equalised after Cambridge failed to clear their lines and the ball broke through for 2-2. In the 90th minute, Savage stole the ball and crossed into the box for Sims to expertly intercept and volley over the keeper.

Women’s Lacrosse

Rugby League

Cambridge Loughborough

Women’s Football

A last minute victory for the Women’s Football team Cambridge Bristol

9 8

Alice Tebboth

K

ingies faced Bristol in a fight to reach the quarterfinals of the BUCS knock out league. Cambridge scored the first goal but Bristol came back strong with five consecutive goals leaving the score at 1-5. Cambridge captains Dunn and Tebboth called a time out to refocus.

Cambridge played stronger than ever, with some excellent attacking play from Veys, Lewis, and Peters.

There were some great turnovers and interceptions in the midfield to help the team keep the ball up in attack. Defence stepped it up a gear managing to slow Bristol’s attacking play down. There was also some excellent saves from our goalies, James and Marsh, at crucial points in the game. It got to 6-8 with 8 minutes on the clock. Attack then used their set plays to bring the score up to 7-8 with two consecutive goals, one from an isolation on Veys. Peters then scored the winning goal in the last minute.