Lent 2016 Issue 3

LGBT+ History month

Cambridge to Tibet

Why colleges should fly the rainbow flag this February

Bridging the gap through teaching and travel

→ Comment, p.27

www.tcs.cam.ac.uk

Uni ‘strongly opposes’ plans to raise fees University rejects policy to raise fees with inflation

T

Why the very Cambridge band is not yet finished

→ Interviews, p.15

→Part 2, p.5

The

28 January 2016 Vol. 17 Lent Issue 3

Sherilyn Chew News Editor he University of Cambridge has rejected many of the British Government’s Higher Education proposals.

The proposals were initially set out last November in a Green Paper, entitled ‘‘Fulfilling our Potential: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice’’. It outlined the Government’s vision for higher education in England.

The University has said that it is “strongly opposed” to a link between teaching quality and the ability to up tuition fees with inflation, as the Green Paper set out.

The report states that the policy would force students to choose between high quality and affordability, while discouraging students from lowerincome families from applying to the best universities.

Although the University approved of the proposal’s central desire to “recognise teaching excellence” and reaffirmed their shared goals of “encouraging social mobility” and simplifying the “regulatory landscape”, the report argued that the mechanisms to achieve those objectives might be counter-productive.

The teaching quality would be assessed through an Ofsted-like ranking, known as the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).

Universities would also be ranked on student satisfaction rates, drop-out level and graduate job prospects.

The University response said that while it welcomed the aim of the TEF to promote excellence in teaching, it did not consider it to be beneficial in

Shooting Suns

decision-making, criticising it as being too “blunt” an instrument to assist students choosing their university.

Moreover, they did not have the confidence that the suggested metrics would be fit for the purpose of establishing teaching reputation.

The Independent reported last year that the TEF fee proposal received negative response from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, with the group’s James Elliot warning: “It will be a disaster for students and education workers alike.”

In an interview with Times Higher Education last year, Jo Johnson, Universities and Science Minister, defended the Green Paper, saying it was about “reforming our higher education so that it’s more effective still at delivering value for money for students…and delivering the pipeline of graduates we need.”

The general secretary of the University and College Union, Sally Hunt, had previously condemned the scheme, saying “simply finding a few measures to rank teaching will do nothing to improve quality.”

Similarly, Labour’s Gordon Marsden stated that the Government’s plans were a “Trojan Horse for raising fees” and that they risked creating a ‘two-tier’ education system.

The University’s report also levelled criticism at the proposal for a new Office for Students.

It said that the lack of a single, overarching, independent, regulatory body for universities amounted to a “basic flaw” in the proposals.

Editorial Comment page 15 →

Cambridge Student

Cambridge University Press cuts 45 jobs TCS News Team

The Cambridge University Press (CUP) will be cutting up to 45 editorial and production jobs at its English Language Teaching (ELT) division in Cambridge, as the company relocates more of its operations abroad.

The move comes as the publishing company continues to implement changes to its global English Language Teaching group.

CUP employs 1,100 people in Cambridge, and the company has a total workforce of 2,400 people spread out across the world, operating in 50 different offices.

Globally, CUP employs over 700 people at its ELT division, although it declined to reveal the total number of ELT staff based in Cambridge.

Changes to ELT markets have been caused by “new digital learning technologies, developing trends among teachers and students, and shifts in the global economy,” the publisher said.

Cambridge will remain its “centre”, although global staffing levels within the ELT group are “likely to increase”. In 2014, in excess of 90% of the company’s total sales originated from outside of the United Kingdom.

Peter Phillips, Chief Executive at CUP, told Cambridge News that: “The publishing industry is going through its biggest change in 500 years. Cambridge’s English Language Teaching group is responding by increasing our investment in digital products, focusing our people and products in our key markets and streamlining how we do things.

“Overall our global staffing in this area is likely to increase and Cambridge remains our centre.”

While he “deeply regrets” cutting jobs across CUP, he says it is the cost of their commitment to being a “truly global digital publisher” and upscaling Regulations on punt touting have opened to public consultation following their efforts to better support English numerous incidents of aggressive behaviour.

Image: Amelia Oakley language learners.

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28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

News

Editorial Team 28 January 2016 Editor-in-Chief Deputy Editors News Editor 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 3

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 Haroon Mohamoud Ed Roberts Josie Daw Camilla Penney Victoria Campion 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 • FRIENDS IN HIGH LODGES

CMGLEE

Did you know: the Master of Trinity College is automatically a Governor of the elite Westminster School (pictured right).

Part of Sir Gregory Winter’s additional role is hosting the Old Westminsters’ drinks at the Masters’ Lodge, described as a chance to “meet old friends and make new contacts” by the alumni association’s website. At least it’s something to keep Trinity College Student Union’s outgoing Access Officer, Caitlin de Jode, busy during what her tweets term “#camlyf ”: a mix of “advertising Access schemes, sharing social justice-y stuff and pics from black tie 21sts”. Fight the good fight.

TCS TIME TRAVEL

‘From East Anglia to the East Pacific’, read the headline of TCS 11 years ago, celebrating that year’s RAG Jailbreak winners. In that paper: profiles of Wes Streeting and Tim Stanley, and a review of Graham Ross’ (now Clare Choir Director) early forays in conducting. Quite the historical almanac.

ONCE EMAILED, TWICE SHY

Gonville & Caius’ Master Alan Fersht took to the podium at last week’s Finalists’ Dinner for a pre-exam speech. Wishing arts students the best of luck in “revising storylines”, he reassured Caians that “whatever

happens in the exams, you’ll all have great careers”. Quite the change of tune from October’s email, in which we were all set to “become unethical pariahs like insider traders, exchange rate riggers and corrupt Volkswagen engineers”. Long may it continue.

LOOPY & JADED

Sarah Howe, a former Gonville & Caius fellow, has won the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry for her collection Loop of Jade.

Whilst the prize carried with it a £20,000 cheque, the real caché comes from the fact that hers is the first winning debut collection in the prize’s history.

However, not all were happy. Private Eye, was not best pleased, speculating: “Was [the award] perhaps, as some suggested, for extra-poetic reasons? As a successful and very ‘presentable’ young woman with a dual AngloChinese heritage, Howe can be seen as a more acceptable ambassador for poetry than the distinguished grumpy old men she saw off.”

This Diarist would politely suggest that the grumpy old men who likely wrote this piece (knowing the standard demographics of the journalistic world) take their ‘extrapoetic’ considerations back to the pre-Eliot past, where they rightly belong.

PHOTO CREDITS FIRST PAGE

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The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

News

University gets a step closer to entrance tests Director of Admissions meets with headteachers amid a reform of the admissions procedure Hayden Banks Deputy News Editor A briefing was held last week, with selected teachers from a range of UK secondary education institutions, regarding the University’s proposal to reintroduce entrance tests. The meeting was expected to have included a diverse range of schools, “putting informed teachers at the heart” of its changes.

A University of Cambridge spokesperson said: “The Director of Admissions for the Cambridge Colleges recently met a group of teachers from across the UK to discuss the collegiate university’s developing plans to adapt its admissions system.”

It was added: “The purpose of this meeting was to seek feedback from representatives from a range of institutions. We are considering feedback and will announce any changes to our admissions system in due course.”

the start of this academic year that the Previously, applicants were asked to proposals include a language aptitude submit a Supplementary Application Questionnaire (SAQ) alongside the UCAS form when applying to The University is Cambridge, detailing performance in considering entrance each A Level module taken to date. This tests to combat grade was seen as the most accurate way of inflation predicting A level and tripos results.

A University spokesperson previously test, a thinking-skills assessment, and a said: “The University is considering all 45-minute essay. options but has made no decisions. We The proposals emerge in the light of already use admissions tests for some government reports that render AS Level subjects and the option of introducing qualifications redundant to the overall A wider testing is part of discussions about Level result, reducing the information how to adapt to [A Level reforms]. available to admissions tutors and “Whatever decision is taken, making it harder to distinguish between all applicants will continue to be applicants. assessed holistically.”

With an average of five applications per place, the University is also considering entrance tests to combat grade inflation.

Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Psychiatry at the University, commented: “What people are concerned about is

“What people are concerned about is whether A-Levels still mean quite the same thing as what they used to” whether the A-Level exam results still mean quite the same thing as what they used to mean. There are a lot of students getting very high grades but not all KF

of them would have got the grades in the past, so it is hard to discriminate between candidates.”

However, despite the consultation and proposals, concerns have been raised regarding the introduction of entrance exams in fuelling the stateprivate divide at Britain’s premier educational institutions.

Sir Richard Evans, Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge, said that he was worried that the entrance exam would place older pupils, in particular mature students, “at a severe disadvantage.”

Other have lambasted the move, saying that it would perpetuate the culture of paying for expensive private

Entrance exams only worsen the divide between state and private intake tuition to increase one’s chances of gaining entry.

Oxford University uses admissions tests for many of its undergraduate degree programmes.

Oxford saw a state school intake of 56.3% in the 2014 admissions cycle compared with Cambridge’s 62.3%, prompting many to argue that entrance exams only worsen the divide by benefiting those from privately educated backgrounds who will have more specialist help to prepare for the tests.

The Sutton Trust, a social mobility think tank, is due to publish more findings on the validity of entrance tests in the coming weeks.

4 The current number of undergraduate courses requiring an entrance test Speculation regarding the introduction of a universal entrance exam has been ongoing for some time, with The Sunday Times reporting at

Consultation begins on new punt tout ban

Men still dominate academic jobs

Bea Lundy Deputy News Editor

Lydia Day Deputy News Editor

Public consultation has begun on a new Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) that would deal with the issue of punt touting. This order would ban the current “advertising or soliciting custom” of punt tours.

However, this new ban would also affect walking tours, as well as the hire or use of punts, boats, and similar in other specific areas of Cambridge.

The council is seeking the public’s views on the newly proposed ban until 5pm on 17 February.

Punt operators, says Girton student Elli Wilson when asked to comment on the proposed ban, “don’t bother students as much as tourists. I don’t think this proposed ban will really affect Cambridge students that much.”

She added: “However, I do think that

“It could have a negative impact on the Cambridge economy”

it could have a negative impact on the Cambridge economy.”

Other members of the public have raised similar concerns about the impact of a blanket ban, with some residents calling it “heavy handed”.

Cllr Lewis Herbert, leader of the city council, told the Cambridge News: “We are committed to listening to any individual, business or organisation that may have something to contribute to the consultation.

“It is important to consult and listen to the views of local residents and others first and they will have every chance to tell us what they think.”

The council is committed to receiving questions and responding to the consultation. A drop-in session will be open 12.30pm—4pm on 3 February in the display area outside the council chamber at The Guildhall.

“23% of professors are female... there are only 17 black female professors”

Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency have revealed that only 23% of professors are female.

The figures also showed that there are only 17 black female professors in the UK. This is despite the fact that women make up 45% of academic workforce and are more likely to apply for university than men, with UCAS figures showing that 58% of university applicants are women.

This figure is even lower in Cambridge; in 2014 it was estimated that 15.3% of professors were female.

Last time these figures were published, more than 50 Cambridge academics wrote to the Times Higher Education Supplement calling for a change into the way the University appointed professors. They called for measures

such as outreach work and teaching to be taken into account as well as academic publications and research.

Writing in The Guardian, Professor Dame Carol Black, principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, commented: “Employers also need to realise what an asset women are to the workforce and make sure they actively facilitate their ability to climb up the career ladder. This can be by making sure women are on shortlists or by encouraging men to take their share of parental leave when the plans come into place next year.”

It has also been revealed, according to a Higher Education Leadership and Management Survey. that female academics are more than twice as likely to suffer from severe stress and mental health problems as their male peers.

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28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Investigations

Questions raised over Unive BME numbers not as they appear

Izzy Ryan Deputy Investigations Editor

Admissions data from 2015 reveals that Cambridge University continues to see an underrepresentation of domestic Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students.

However, statistics on BME students fail to take into account distinctions between undergraduate and postgraduate, domestic and international students.

2

Some British Asian groups also appear the University are international students. proportionally under-represented. British This is weighted by the large amount of international students in postgraduate study. By including these numbers in statistics, the lack of British BME students can easily be overlooked.

The overall intake of British Black students in 2014 was as low as 1.2%.

Micha Frazer-Carroll, Ethnic Minorities officer at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, said: “Cambridge likes to Percentage of Cambridge manipulate its statistics regarding BME students who identify as applicants, so it’s important that we look at Chinese them with more scrutiny.

Bangladeshi students represent 0.4% of the She continued: “When we break down the Cambridge student population compared statistics... separating undergraduate from with 1.3% nationally. postgraduate, international students from British Pakistani students appear even more under-represented making up only 0.8% of Cambridge students, while they make up 3.4% of the general student body.

The University often claims to have a relatively high proportion of BME students; however their statistics fail to distinguish between international and home students.

For example, in 2013, the University Cambridge students classified as offered 23% of places to BME applicants. international in 2014 The national average of applicants was 36%.

However, Cambridge combines the home, offer holders from those who are statistics of all students, disguising the actually admitted, and different ethnicities image of undergraduate diversity. from one another, vast discrepancies Over a third of the student population at crop up.”

11%

“An unrealistic image of undergraduate diversity”

Number of British black Caribbean Students admitted in 2015

35.2%

In 2015, students matriculating accross the University included only two British Black Caribbean students, 0.1% of the fresher population that year, compared to 1.7% nationally. British black African students were also disproportionately under-represented constituting 1.3% of the Cambridge freshers, with a national average of 5.9%. The University has not yet responded to The Cambridge Student’s request to comment on the issue.

CUSU President: responsibility of the University Izzy Ryan Deputy Investigations Editor

Cambridge University has a responsibility to take problems of under-representation seriously, says President of CUSU Priscilla Mensah.

While the University is not solely responsible for the disadvantages faced

by BME students applying to university nationally, it does need to address the low rates of BME students at Cambridge.

Priscilla Mensah, talking to The Cambridge Student, argues that just looking at BME statistics as a whole is not a helpful way to tackle the issue of underrepresentation. Diversity at the University must be analysed in a more specific way, taking into account particularly underrepresented groups.

She said: “We do not get a proper picture of which groups remained consistently underrepresented at the institution, for an accurate picture, CUSU, the University and colleges all need to be looking at the data in a more granular way”.

There is also a discrepancy in places offered to BME students compared to students classified as white.

“This is a discussion that the government and education policy makers have to address”

In 2013, of the BME students who applied, 23% were offered places. In the same year 29% of white applicants were offered places.

This discrepancy in offers combines with a lower success rate of BME offer holders at A Level, and leads to the poor

7% Success rate of black Caribbean students in 2015 intake representation seen in fresher intake.

When asked why she thought BME students were under-represented at Cambridge the CUSU President cited systematic inequality and the British education system which routinely disadvantages BME students: “this is a discussion that the government and education policy makers have to address, it is not purely on the University of

Cambridge to try and solve the problems structurally of an entire education system”.

However, she also acknowledged that the University “have every responsibility just as the colleges do” in its responsibility to address diversity. She believes that they take the issue seriously and she remains positive that CUSU and the University are working towards a better situation for BME students at Cambridge.

It is still argued by many that the University needs to do a better job at presenting relevant information about BME numbers at Cambridge and make a more high profile attempt to tackle the University’s diversity issue.

Micha Frazer-Carroll says: “It’s no good institutionally patting ourselves on the back, saying ‘over 20% of offer holders this year were BME’. Six Caribbean applicants received offers and only two made it here. Did they reject their offers, or did they not make the grades? Why? It is our responsibility to scrutinise. Look closer.”

The TCS Investigations team contacted the University to comment on the issue of diversity in Cambridge admissions. The University declined to comment.

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The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

Investigations

ersity’s BME student intake FROM TOP: INFROGRAM, DAVID SPINKS

Cambridge University needs do to more to increase BME intake

Jane Lu Investigations Editor As The Cambridge Student reported last week, The Times Higher Education list has ranked the University of Cambridge as the 13th most international university in the UK, and the 36th most international university in the world, behind other universities such as Imperial College, London, University College London, the University of Essex, as well as the University of Oxford.

The lack of representation of black

Applications from BME students remain low

27 Number of black Caribbean home applicants in 2014 and minority ethnic (BME) students at Cambridge has always been under criticism. One of the primary reasons – and defences – for this is the low number of applications from BME students.

Although the University has a number of TULANE PUBLIC RELATIONS

access schemes to encourage applications from BME students, it is clear that more needs to be done.

The Group to Encourage Ethnic Minority Applications (GEEMA) was set up to encourage applications from BME students to the University of Cambridge.

According to their website, “[s]ince GEEMA was founded the number of UK BME undergraduate students studying at Cambridge has increased considerably.”

Yet, looking at the admission statistics published by the University in 2014, applications from BME students remain low. Compared to the 7317 white home applicants who applied in the same year, only 27 black Caribbean home students applied.

The same can be said for UK domiciled applicants in 2004. 1.8% of all UK domiciled applicants were black Caribbean, 1.2% were mixed white and black Caribbean; in contrast, 73.7% were white.

In addition, the University and its colleges also aim to “widen participation to the University” through access schemes.

For example, the Insight programme aim to encourage applications from students, targetting mainly pre-16s from areas of London with strong BME backgrounds, such as Newham. Similarly, the CUSU Shadowing Scheme is currently taking place, where potential applicants spend a weekend with a current students.

Since such schemes do exist, we must ask wider questions. Why are they failing?

Inequality in admission standards Jane Lu Investigations Editor The higher admissions standards for international undergraduate students could perhaps explain the low application rates from BME students to Cambridge.

According to the University’s Undergraduate Admissions website, Indian students taking CBSE or ISC Class XII examinations will be considered only for admissions onto to five triposes, which are all largely science-based: Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences.

The Cambridge Student Investigations team contacted the University for comment on the special admission standards for Indian students mentioned above, but the University declined to comment.

Whilst many oversees students take the International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations, IB offers made by the University are higher than those made for

Higher standards for international students explain low BME application rates

the equivalent grades achieved at A Level.

For example, for students applying for undergraduate Law, the typical offer given to IB students is 40-41 points, according to the University’s website, but a Law applicant to Christ’s College, Cambridge told TCS Investigations that her offer was 43 points, equivalent to approximately an A Level offer of A*A*A. Higher IB offers are often given to the students not taking formal exams at the end of the first year; as such, there is less data for the admissions process. It remains to be seen how the removal of AS levels will change this.

Speaking to TES Newspaper, a Cambridge University spokesman commented that the University’s offers are based on the University’s “own rigorous research into the levels of performance in public examinations which best predict success at undergraduate level.”

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28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

College Watch

Images: Jessica McHugh

Selwyn

Trinity

Caius

Homerton

Maintenance teams at Selwyn College have uncovered a sealed-up Victorian-era cooking range along with old letters, postcards and cigarette cards. Over 100 years old, this discovery was made on the third floor of the college’s Old Court whilst they were stripping out old wooden panels in one of the kitchens. The iron cooking range is an example of what students used to use to prepare tea and toast in these original ‘gyp-rooms.’

Builders were surprised to find the room in question, as it had been refurbished twice in the past 16 years, and the cooking range was never disturbed. The range has been covered back up whilst the work is completed, however the college staff have requested that it be displayed behind a glass front so that the whole college can enjoy visting it.

The college staff now hope to trace the owner of the letters and postcards. The archivist is currently studying the artefacts and trying to find a match between them and somebody living on the floor at that time.

Lili Bidwell

Trinity College may be planning to create a massive wall of water, in the form of giant temporary fountains, in a bid to make this year’s May Ball a safer event – after the event last year was disturbed by violence and disorder.

This year will mark the 150th anniversary of Trinity’s first May Ball, and the College wishes to ensure the smooth running and safety of the event. Part of the river may be closed off during this year’s event due to fears of a “significant risk of loss of life”. A 50-metre high, 6-metre wide pontoon may be erected. The fountains would prevent party-goers from entering the safety exclusion zone of the fireworks, which some reached from self-driven punts last year. In 2015, the river Cam became gridlocked with boatloads of spectators, and disorder broke out with bottles being hurled at the partying students.

Jed Ramsey, the Conservator’s river manager said: “We’ve come up with a plan that will reduce the number of punts on the river and also create a more secure exclusion zone. I’m hopeful this will keep the event safe but retain the fun.”

Bea Lundy

Ryan MacDonald, a 22 year old student from Gonville and Caius, has made it to the final 100 candidates of the Mars One Programme, and hopes to secure one of the 24 places on the expedition to Earth’s closest neighbour. Ryan is currently studying for a PhD in Astronomy, and has cited Major Tim Peake, the first Briton to walk in space, as one of his biggest influences.

The Mars One expedition was first announced in 2012. The programme aims to establish a human colony on the planet by 2027, with the website for the programme claiming that human settlement on Mars ‘will be the most profound and influential event of the 21st century.’ The programme currently only has a team of eight people, yet its mission is in need of 24 new recruits, with Ryan aiming for one of the places.

He has cited the mission’s potential legacy as his motivation for applying, telling Cambridge News that it is “inspirational potential” which really drives him. A two-week assessment will take place in September to decide the final 24 candidates who will travel to Mars.

Hayden Banks

Beth Brookfield, a Psychology student at Homerton College, is in the running to be crowned Miss Cambridgeshire when the beauty pageant takes place in April. Cambridge has already produced a former Miss England, with medical student Carine Tyrrell winning the competition in 2014.

Speaking to Cambridge News, Beth said that her psychology course has taught her that individual perceptions go a long way in determining how one is perceived by others. She further commented that “self-love” and “selfbelief ” are often lacking in contestants for beauty pageants, and argued that beauty is not the only factor in these pageants; other factors such as “confidence” and “a hardworking attitude” are equally important.

Stressing the importance of a healthy body image, she said she hopes to promote a “strong rather than skinny” look at the finals. She claims that she was initially sceptical of entering due to the negative connotations associated with beauty pageants.

Hayden Banks

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The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

News

BME academics get lower student satisfaction scores Freya Clarke Deputy News Editor

A study undertaken by the University of Reading has found that students are less likely to give high satisfaction scores when taught by Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) academics.

Analysis of the 2014 National Student Survey (NSS) found that ethnicity was one of the most influential factors in determining overall course satisfaction amongst undergraduates, an outcome that researchers attribute to respondents’ “unconscious bias”.

Adrian Bell and Chris Brooks of the Henley Business School, who are the chair of the History of Finance and a Professor of Finance respectively, undertook a comparison of the NSS results with data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

According to the Times Higher Education, they found that for every 1% increase in the proportion of faculty staff that said they were white, there was a 0.06% increase in the proportion of satisfied students.

Though this may seem negligible, the only factor found to be more significant, all other things being equal, was the departmental response rate to the survey.

Other staff characteristics, such as gender and age, did not appear to have the same statistically significant bearing on student satisfaction.

However, some factors such as the average length of service and proportion of doctorate-holders in the department were found to have a

positive impact on student satisfaction.

The NSS is a popular method employed by UK universities to monitor the performance of different departments. However, Professor Bell, who heads Reading’s International Capital Market Association Centre, has warned that “there is a bias in the NSS” and that if we want to build “a diverse workforce” we must be prepared that “our results may go down” as a consequence.

Whilst the Reading study is unique within the UK, it echoes the results of similar research conducted in the US that has also found ethnic minority lecturers are rated far more harshly than their white colleagues, according

Ethnicity was one of the most influential factors

to the Rate My Professors website.

John Gill has pointed out that this is not the first study to examine racial bias in student satisfaction – a 2009 paper in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that there was a “double standard” in how students evaluated academics; black academics were “stereotyped to be relatively less intelligent” than their white counterparts.

The Reading researchers warn that this “unconscious bias” means using such subjective ratings as staff performance indicators from student surveys could work against institutional efforts to increase and promote faculty diversity in the UK. KONNECT: JISC

Research has shown that a disproportionate number of medical students come from the UK’s most well-off families and neighbourhoods.

The study, entitled “Fair Access to Medicine?” was carried out by academics at Dundee and Central Lancashire universities, and surveyed roughly 33,000 applicants across 22 medical schools from 2010 to 2012.

The data showed that around 80% of medical students came from households with family members in higher managerial roles or professionals, and over 25% were privately educated.

The news has reignited social concerns about the diversity of the UK’s medical profession.

New species of sea monster discovered in Cambridge Archaeologists from the Oxford Clay Working Group have discovered over 600 fragments of 165-million-yearold reptile remains at Must Farm quarry near Whittlesey – possibly new species of plesiosaur. The team spent over 400 hours cleaning and repairing the fossilised remains, in order to accurately reconstruct it.

A plesiosaur is a type of marine reptile that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs; they became extinct 66 million years ago. Experts at Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History, have commented on the skeleton’s unique features – it bears some anatomical features that have previously only been observed in smaller species before, leading scientists to believe they may have discovered a new species of plesiosaur.

Former Cambridge university rowers cross the Pacific Ocean Former Cambridge University rowers Emma Mitchell and Isabel Burnham are part of a female team which has successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean, smashing two world records. Burnham joined the team for the first leg of the trip to Hawaii, while Mitchell remained part of the coxless crew throughout the trip. After months of gruelling rowing, having first set off from San Francisco in April, the team arrived in Cairns, Australia to a warm welcome from their family and friends.

Although the trip took three months longer than planned, the team has made history by being the first allfemale team and first team of four to cross the Pacific.

The coxless crew now plans to focus on raising money for two charities they are supporting.

Study shows Cambridge more badly polluted than New York

Medics likely to have wealthy background Lydia Day Deputy News Editor

NEWS BULLETIN

The study also revealed disparities across the UK. For example, 38% of students from England came from the wealthiest 20% of postcodes, compared with 55% in Wales, 54% in Scotland and 51% in Northern Ireland.

Similarly, in Scotland, 35% of medical students were privately educated, compared to 29% in England – with a further 22% coming from selective grammar schools.

The distinction between Scotland’s higher percentage of privately educated students and the rest of the UK can partly be attributed to the greater prevalence of these schools amongst Scotland’s middle class.

However, researchers warned that there were notable differences in the way different parts of the UK measured socio-economic data, which could possibly influence the final figures.

“There’s a need for educational reform... and better pastoral care in state schools.”

This research will be followed by another study investigating whether the selection tests are fair and whether the current system actively discriminates against students from less affluent backgrounds. The best performing medical school was making large efforts to improve its access and outreach programmes.

However, it remains unclear as to whether measures improving the university system would be enough.

Mita Dhullipala, a student studying Medicine in Glasgow, told The Guardian, “I have come to realise it’s really not about university. There’s little point in universities setting up more schemes if the uptake isn’t there.”

“There’s a need for educational reform, more funding put into the education system and there needs to be better pastoral care in state schools.”

Data from the World Air Quality index has revealed that air pollution in Cambridge is over two times worse than in New York. The Cambridge index hit 109 last Wednesday, a level considered unhealthy for the more sensitive members of the public. By contrast, the index in New York was only 44, not posing much risk to health.

Professor Rod Jones, who works at Cambridge University’s Chemistry department, commented: “It’s highly likely that the very high pollution levels that we have seen over the last few days are linked to the meteorology and slack winds.” However, he noted the importance of cutting down on pollution from transport: “Any way that we can reduce emissions levels from transport is likely to reduce emissions in the city.”

Launch of “Early Detection” cancer research programme A new cancer research programme has been launched in Cambridge. The “Early Detection Programme” aims to find new and innovative methods of detecting cancer at the earliest possible stages. The multi-million pound project will see scientists from the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) working in conjunction with Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre. Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, who co-leads the programme, told the Cambridge News: “Making advances in this area is vitally important” and “until we can diagnose earlier it’s very hard to do anything other than relieve... symptoms.”

8

28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

News

‘Self-care’ group under fire UCL students protest as following Tab drug ‘exposé’ rent costs spiral higher

Stevie Hertz Deputy Editor

The former ‘CUSU WomCam SelfCare tips group’ has come under fire this week after a Tab article on the swapping of prescription drugs. The group has since disaffiliated from the CUSU Women’s Campaign.

CUSU has released a statement on its website, stating that: “CUSU does not endorse these messages as they may be counter to students’ wellbeing. CUSU exists to defend extend [sic] student welfare at Cambridge University.”

Various perscription drugs were swapped via the page; the majority were contraceptive pills, but antidepressants and acne medications were also exchanged.

Possession of prescription drugs is not a criminal offence unless they are specifically classified under the Misuse of Drugs Act. However, the sale is restricted to those with a prescription.

It is generally seen as unsafe to take drugs that are not prescribed to you.

Prescription drugs can have dangerous side-effects if they are not taken according to instructions.

Around a million people a year in Britain take medication that was not prescribed to them.

The Facebook group, which is a

self-declared ‘safe-space’ for women and non-binary people, was created over a year ago.Various members of the group have defended it, with one saying “the group is based on an ethos of mutual respect for each other and the safe space. The article was not just a violation of journalistic ethics but also respect for the members of the group.”

The Tab has since defended its decision in an editorial: “The crux of our decision to publish rests on the fact that not only did this activity contravene the purpose of the group but, crucially, the group bore the name of two very public organisations with stated missions of care.”

Charlie Chorley, CUSU Women’s Officer, who was previously listed in the group’s information page, has also commented to Varsity, that they were “awaiting decisions from the moderators of the group as to how they will proceed.”

A week after its initial publication, this ‘exposé’ has been picked up by The Telegraph, with their report saying that the “page was originally intended as a forum for women to offer each other advice and support...but some members have started using it to source prescription medication and distribute the drugs to others.”

Lydia Day Deputy News Editor

Around a million people a year take drugs not prescribed to them

More than 150 students at University College London (UCL) are refusing to pay rent of over £250,000 until the university agrees to cut rent by 40%.

The protest comes following rises of around 56% since 2009.

Ramsey Hall, one of the halls where students are on strike, has 473 rooms that it rents to students for £158.97–£262.43 per week. According to the National Union of Students, the average rent in London for students is now “more than 100% of the maximum grants and loans” on offer to students.

NUS issued a statement saying that they “fully support the campaign.”

The ‘Cut the Rent’ campaign was started last year to protest the living conditions within UCL accommodation.

Students were awarded £400,000 compensation due to rat infestation and noise.

Nyima Murry, a history of art student at UCL, told The Guardian: “I’ve struggled massively with the cost of rent. I’m not from a wealthy background, and last term I had to work two jobs, which really affected my studies... many people I know are put off moving to London because they can’t afford to study here.”

The prices are making it really difficult for some of the students to attend university in London

“I’m striking so that future students have the opportunity to study at UCL on their academic merit, not because of their financial background.”

A UCL law student, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Cambridge Student: “On one hand it’s violating the rent agreement to withhold rent but on the other hand, the prices are making it really difficult for some of the students to attend university in London.”

“Although students can rent privately from another zone, the purpose of UCL residences is to provide reasonable housing options, especially for first year students unfamiliar with London.”

In response, a spokesperson for UCL issued a statement saying: “We make every effort at UCL to keep rents as low as possible, which is a difficult challenge considering our central London location.”

Last year, TCS carried out an investigation into the rent disparity amongst different colleges. King’s provided the cheapest accommodation in 2014 with an average weekly rent of £91. By contrast, Newnham had the most expensive with a flat-rate weekly rent of £146.70. The difference between colleges was described as “grossly unfair” by some students.

Wartime bomb discovered at Cambridge train station Write for The Cambridge Student!

Join our mailing list Interested in writing for the most dynamic weekly student newspaper?

We are always looking for new writers to jump on board and write for us.

Whether you have been involved in student journalism before, or are a complete novice, we want you! Sign up to our mailing list and you will receive our weekly commissioning emails, featuring an exciting range of content from news reports to fashion shoots to comment debates.

Email the Deputy Editors at deputy@tcs.cam.ac.uk for writing opportunities.

Why write for us?

“If you like what you’re reading, but are scared to take the plunge to get involved, never fear! We’re very receptive to new writers. And it’s great to be able to see your name in print.”

- Jessie Mathewson, Deputy Editor “If you’re interested in journalism, but aren’t sure where to begin, put your name on the list – who knows where you’ll end up?

- Urvie Pereira, Chief Sub-Editor “I’ve been writing for TCS since Michaelmas of my first year, and there’s a reason I’m still doing it.

Writing for the paper is unpredictable, and incredibly fun. Give it a go.

- Amelia Oakley, Deputy Editor

Camilla Penney

Cambridge train station was evacuated on Wednesday morning due to a bomb scare after builders dug up “an unexploded device”.

The British Transport Police were called at 8.47am and bomb disposal experts cordoned off 200m around the area. Nearby offices were evacuated, the station was cleared and all trains were stopped. The disruption was initially expected to last until midday causing consternation to commuters, many of whom were felt compelled to return home, “They said it might be hours before [the station] opens again so I am going to work from home,” said Jennifer-Rose Mitchell who was on her way to work in London when the scare occurred.

The 15cm long device which, according to Saffron Walden Reporter, was “the width of a board marker pen” was initially described by an Abellio Greater Anglia spokesperson as “a wartime bomb.” It was subsequently identified by the Cambridgeshire

The station was cleared and all trains were stopped

Constabulary as “an old bullet,“ although it has “been taken away for further analysis.” A reader of Cambridge News commented, “15cm is a big bullet, this is more likely a cannon round… It was wise to clear the station.”

Many of those compelled to change their work plans took to Twitter: “Turns out there’s an unexploded bomb at Cambridge station. Getting comfy for a long wait on the train.” In the event, however, the station had reopened by 9.40am after the device had been removed.

This is not the first time that Cambridge Station has been closed due to a security alert and extensive building works at the station have left one stallholder concerned that it may not be the last; “You get worried because there could be all sorts of things like this just lying around the station which could go off at any moment,” she told Cambridge News, “everything’s gone back to normal now. At least until they find another bomb.”

9

The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

10% of women in US colleges sexually assaulted in 2015 Ian Morse A new survey has revealed that one in every ten female college students in the US experienced sexual assault in their university last year.

The survey is a result of the 2014 White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, which emphasised the pressing need for more data on campus sexual assaults.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics interviewed 23,000 undergraduate students from nine US colleges.

The survey also found that 4% of all students had been raped during that academic year, while more than 5% had experienced sexual battery.

The universities, which remained anonymous in the report, covered a wide spectrum of results. The rates of sexual assault in some schools were five times higher than others, suggesting that some schools might be fostering a more harmful environment.

Sofie Karasek, Director of Education at the End Rape on Campus project in the US, told The Guardian that sports and fraternities are predominant factors in colleges that experience high rates of sexual assault. She commented: “Unfortunately there’s a culture of sexual assault that exists in both of these spheres. There’s often a level of impunity given to both of these organisations.”

She added that statistics show that 20% of campus sexual assault perpetrators are athletes, and further noted that members of fraternities are three times more likely to commit sexual assault.

The report also found that only 12.5% of rapes were reported to officials, either within the college or to police, while only 4.3% of sexual battery cases were reported.

Karasek suggests that this silence was, sadly, standard when it came to campus sexual assaults: “A big part of the reason why that is is that people don’t expect that the people they are reporting it to will do anything about it.”

While the percentage of cases reported at US colleges is similar to estimates for those at Cambridge, the percentage of students who have experienced sexual assault appears to

“There’s a culture of sexual assault that exists in both of these spheres.”

be higher at Cambridge.

In 2014, a joint CUSU and Varsity report revealed that, of the 2,126 students who responded, 28.5% of them had experienced sexual assault at Cambridge University, and 3% had been subjected to penetrative assault.

35% of those surveyed said that they had suffered sexual harrassment, including groping and inappropriate sexual remarks.

As with the US survey, the data also revealed that only a minority of cases – 12% of serious sexual assault cases and 2% of rapes – were reported and that the majority of cases were perpetrated by someone known to the victim.

CHRISMETCALFTV

Earlier this week, Daniel Zeichner, Labour MP for Cambridge, signed the Holocaust Memorial Day Book of Commitment after the Holocaust commemoration at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.

Zeichner also tweeted “Proud to speak at Camb Holocaust Memorial event. Vital we reflect, remember & work hard to ensure Europe today is united peaceful & tolerant”.

Zeichner also released a statement on his website on the Holocaust Memorial, saying “After the shocking events in Paris at the end of last year, and rising tensions across Europe, now more than ever we must ensure that we continue to challenge all forms of extremism and instead celebrate tolerance and diversity.”

NEWS BULLETIN Oxford Dictionaries to review definitions after criticism Allegations of sexism from a Canadian anthropologist have prompted Oxford University Press (OUP) to review the language used in its dictionary definitions.

Professor Michael Oman-Reagan commented that the use of the example phrase ‘rabid feminist’ with rabid previously being defined as “having or proceeding from an extreme or fanatical support of or belief in something”, was deeply offensive to the feminist movement.

Oxford Dictionaries was at first indifferent to OmanReagan’s comments. However, when “rabid” became the most searched term on the Dictionaries’ website, an OUP spokesperson said that they would review the cases of sexism illuminated by the anthropologist, to “ensure that it reflects current usage.”

24-hour hackathon comes to Cambridge Corn Exchange 400 students from around the world will gather in Cambridge’s Corn Exchange this weekend as part of a 24-hour hackathon. Attendees from 62 countries will be competing for prizes in categories such as hardware, machine learning, virtual reality and security. The event is sponsored by major corporations including Thales, Google and Bloomberg.

Nathan Wangliao, founder of Hack Cambridge and student at Hughes Hall, told Cambs Times: “Unlike most US colleges like Yale and Harvard, Cambridge still lacks an annual hackathon: “This is a shame, but it also means that there are many talented students looking for opportunities to get into technology and coding.”

Hot air balloon lands in a playing field to avoid sheep

MP commemorates Holocaust anniversary Sherilyn Chew News Editor

News

COMMENT: This is not a publicity opportunity

Stevie Hertz Deputy Editor

T

he Holocaust is something no-one knows how to commemorate. To commemorate means that we must somehow accept that humans have done such things and are thus capable of doing them again.

However, while we might not know what to do, we can do better than press releases. Daniel Zeichner’s statement on his website, while I’m sure it is genuine, comes alongside his previous press releases: ‘‘Cambridge

Just another attempt to get in the local press and to hunt for a few easy votes

MP takes on blindfolded challenge through the city’’, ‘‘MP Recycles Christmas Tree’’, and ‘‘Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner supports Cats Protection.’’ Among such company, the Holocaust appears out of place; it becomes just another attempt to get in the local press or a hunt for a few easy votes.

Zeichner tweets that he was “honoured” to sign The Holocaust Education Trust’s Book of Commitment, alongside a photo of himself. While other MPs have joined him in doing this, that doesn’t make it any more tasteful.

We must remember the Holocaust and acknowledge its horrors. But we should do so privately, without asking for applause from Twitter followers.

Adrian Brown, pilot of a hot air balloon, made an unscheduled landing at Bassingbourn Primary School at 8.40am last Tuesday morning.

He commented that his proposed destination, Royston Heath, could not be reached due to light winds and the fear of disturbing sheep in a nearby field. So instead, he thought he would liven up the start of the school day at the Cambridgeshire primary school.

Mr. Brown said that “Ideally, we like to land close to a road or track, to enable easy access for the retrieve crew to come and collect us.” However, light winds prevented him from reaching his destination, and so he instead landed on the school playground, much to the delight of his daughter, a pupil at the school.

Cambridge set to improve ties with Mexican universities The University of Cambridge is set to sign an agreement with the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP) to establish an academic mobility programme in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The agreement will be valid for five years, and will create an annual Visiting Fellowship. This is the first agreement of its kind between the University and a Latin American higher education institution, and is seen as a step forward in strengthening ties and enhancing mutual understanding between both countries. The Visiting Fellowship will be open to fulltime research staff in those subjects at both universities.

10

28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Features

My secret Cambridge crush

Anonymous

W

hen choosing papers for my final year, I naively thought that an introductory module would be an easy ride, compared to more literature-heavy papers. How wrong I was.

I had always sneered at my fellow students who had fluttered their eyelashes at their wizened, silver-fox supervisors. Trust me to fall flat on my principles in my final year. It all started at the introductory paper meeting…

I rushed into the meeting late, like some tragic rom-com floozy, the first time I saw him. He wasn’t like most of my other supervisors. For one thing, he was a man.

For another, he was not on the verge of retirement. Sweating and panting like an aroused asthmatic, I managed to utter the word, “Sorry”, to which he responded in his husky accent, “It’s OK. Here’s the course handbook.” As he leant over to pass me the book, time froze for half a second.

Our eyes locked. His furrowed brow

masked his sharp, brown eyes, giving him an air of mystery. On the surface, he was the quintessential image of a lumberjack.

Now my supervisions are largely spent picturing him in a chequered shirt, denim jeans that are just that little bit too tight, wielding an axe as he chops down a tree on Jesus green...

If he turned up to supervision in a chequered shirt, I don’t think I would be able to function. Instead, he opts for smart casual, often wearing a tweed blazer (without elbow patches – he isn’t ancient), and jeans. I’ve never encountered a specimen like him before: he is Doctor Lumbersexual.

Sometimes he seems to take an interest: he once asked me what I like to do in my spare time. I couldn’t bring myself to answer truthfully – Tinder. As I swipe through images of bulky rugby players on my account, I cry myself to sleep knowing that, unfortunately, Dr. Lumbersexual and I will never be.

KYLE RUSH

Seeking out the sec

The ‘exclusivity’ of secret societies is not for everyone ATHENA LETRELLE

Taryn Challender Features Editor

W

elcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!

We’ve all had a moment in our lives – perhaps in childhood, perhaps during a mid-life crisis – where we’ve fantasised about being a member of an exclusive, members-only, uber hush-hush, ‘youcan’t-sit-with-us’ club.

From the Plastics to the Death Eaters, popular fiction is permeated by examples of such coteries – the very antithesis of the communal inclusivity drilled into our heads by Mrs Bainbridge in year 2. But the playground elite doesn’t depart with the Barbie dolls and glitter eye shadow, oh no!

It festers like a sore, oozing its poisonous pretensions onto us mere mortals.

‘Why?’ I here you cry, ‘Why do we crave exclusivity?’ As if being merely accepted by our peers wasn’t enough, we want to intentionally alienate others from doing the same thing as us in the future. Is this some sort of primitive fear welling up

Do we all fear being dethroned like Regina George?

inside us? A fear that we will be dethroned like Regina George that one time she wore sweatpants and was hit by a bus?

Holding onto the victor’s crown in a popularity pageant has never really tickled my fancy, and to be brutally honest, I find it incredibly dull and tiresome. Exclusive clubs may be all rainbows and unicorns from within, but just think about the word ‘exclusive’. To have an ‘exclusive’ anything necessitates there also being an ‘excluded’ group. No one wants to have the door slammed in their face.

Coming to Cambridge, I was aware that there would be all sorts of secret or exclusive societies – maybe even one that I could fit into. I, having been someone who was bullied incessantly at school for actually giving a shit about education, theoretically could find people who would accept me! I could be like a lion being released from captivity into the wild, finally finding my pride!

No. I don’t need to forge a collective identity by being in an exclusive club to feel like I belong here.

You can keep your ‘squad goals’, I don’t like rugby anyway.

Part 2

The Cambridge Student 28 January 2016

2 3 9

CUADC presents: Trojan Barbie

Flash fiction: 140 characters max Inside Cambridge film scene Men’s fashion: dos and don’ts

PHOTO: JOHANNES HJORTH

2

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

Culture

Cambridge Listens: Charlie Whitehead Ollie Smith Music Editor

E

ver wondered what your supervisor, porter, or bedder listens to? Curious what Cambridge students were listening to 30 years ago? The Cambridge Student is on a mission to find out how musical tastes have changed and what has stood the test of time.

What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?

I had a weird phase a couple of years ago where I became a big fan of eighties funk. I’d listen to bands like Earth, Wind & Fire, Brand New Heavies, Ohio Players, Sly & the Family Stone etc. I still have a Parliament-Funkadelic T-shirt and a bass guitar to show for it.

This week we have second-year Emmanuel geographer, Charlie Whitehead, giving his say.

What has your listening been like over your university days?

My music taste is all over the place, but at the moment I’m getting into Drum and Bass: Fred V Grafix, London Elek, DC Breaks and that sort of thing. At first glance I think it all seemed pretty same-y, but it’s a genre that really has a lot of musical diversity and sounds great whether you’re working in the library or out on the town. Really looking forward to Hospitality Cambridge in March!

What is your favourite record?

The Smashing Pumpkins - ‘1979’.

What’s great about it?

It’s not the kind of music I normally listen to, but I remember that I first listened to it after cycling home on a beautiful, post-exam, summer evening spent at the pub. The lyrics really captured the optimism and freedom I felt at the time, and the kind of sad harmonies give me little tingles of nostalgia when I listen to it today.

Where is your favourite place to listen to music in Cambridge?

Sometimes I sneak into the Fellows’ Garden at night and listen to my iPod (seriously).

Why? Being surrounded by nature, history and general calm makes the bass drop even filthier.

Which song defined your 2015?

Kendrick Lamar – ‘How Much A Dollar Cost’. I listened to this song over and over when his album came out.

Cambridge flash fiction Arenike Adebajo Books Editor EYECMORE

“CULS Masquerede Ball: plan is to pull. Meet a guy. I say, ‘Hi.’ Start twerking on the dance floor; his mask slips. He’s my Maths supervisor.”

Urvie Pereira

ELIZA MITNICK

“Late for supervision: he was running. Fast. Free. Through a field, full of flowers. Legs unstoppable, muscles fluid, bones bouncing. Quicker, younger. Bleep. Bleep. The monitor flutters.”

Molly Biddell

KRGJUMPER

“I ignored the advice and fed the porter a digestive biscuit.

He started to twitch, and then there was only a pile of crumbs left.”

Meggie Fairclough

Press play on your iPod. What song comes on?

Marvin Gaye – ‘Let’s Get in On’. Nice.

“Drunk, 2am. Looking for a friend’s room. All the doors look the same. Will try knocking on all of them. I’m sure I’ll find him eventually.”

Theo Tindall

If you could choose one artist to play in Cambridge in 2016, who would it be?

The Prodigy, preferably at an Emma bar extension What do you put on during an essay crisis?

Something relaxing... maybe The Cinematic Orchestra.

‘Ambitionz Az a Ridah’ by 2pac would be my backup if relaxation wasn’t working and I needed motivation.

“Match on Tinder, bump into each other at the Union. He is hurt that I never responded. I am embarassed in the queue for the ladies. We part.”

Magdalen Christie

Do we read differently when reviewing?

Miriam Longman

U

ntil recently, my idea of a book review was a couple of lines on Goodreads so that I didn’t forget everything about a book a week after finishing it.

In August I decided to resurrect my longabandoned book blog. Okay, so it was mostly with the goal of getting free books from publishers in exchange for reviews, but there are worse reasons. ‘Miriam Joy Reads’, the imaginatively-titled counterpart to my main blog, ‘Miriam Joy Writes’, took a few unsteady steps to get going…and the rest is history. Sort of.

My readership is small, though growing but I mostly review for myself anyway: it helps me remember what I thought of what I was reading, and makes it easier to recommend books to others. I joined NetGalley, which enabled me to get pre-publication eBooks for review and led me to things I’d never have read otherwise. I even got a couple of books sent to me by authors I’ve admired for a long time. But the main thing I noticed about reviewing was how differently it makes me read.

I read quickly; that hasn’t changed. My tastes are eclectic,

mostly involving fantasy but darting all over the place; that hasn’t changed either.

What’s changed is that when I’m reading, I’m always analysing my own response to a book.

“Why am I having an emotion right now?”, I ask myself, trying to figure out which quotes I would share to give people an idea of the mood of a scene without spoilers; “Is my enjoyment of this book based on my own niche interests, or is it actually a good book that normal humans would enjoy?” I ask, upon reading yet another novel inspired by obscure Celtic mythology. And don’t even get me started on star ratings.

Even partway through a book, I’ll be weighing up whether it will get three or four stars – five’s a rarity, and not something I’ll settle on lightly. Fewer than three probably means I didn’t like it enough to finish it. I’m not saying any of these things are necessarily bad; on the contrary, I’m sure I read more thoroughly and analytically than before, and no doubt my reviews are improving as a result.

One thing is certain: it’s changed how I decide on what to read next from my ever-expanding to-read pile.

MICHELLE KINSLEY BURNS

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

3

Culture

Mark Danciger: Inside the Cambridge film scene Jack Whitehead Film Editor I sat down with Mark Danciger to chat about his experience on the film scene in Cambridge. Mark’s latest directing venture – the short film Tacyhon – is currently in postproduction, scheduled for release during Easter Term.

So what is Tachyon actually about?

It’s about a scientist, Emily Lewis, who attemps to build a machine that can send messages back in time. The film takes place over the 15 minutes of the first test of the machine. She invites an amateur filmmaker called Paul to document the first trial. And then things start to go wrong.

Why did you decide to make this film?

So I was at hall in college with some random people, and one of them was a physicist. For some reason we started having a conversation about relativity, and he started explaining it to me with chips and ketchup. Eventually we got onto the theory of tachyonic particles (hypothetical particles that always move faster than light), which would allow the possibility of things travelling back in time.

Einstein proposed a very similar device to the one in the film, called the ‘tachyonic antitelephone’.

Which films influenced you?

Oh there were tons. The main influence on me was this film called Primer (2004) which was made on an extremely

low budget of about $7000. It’s a time-travel art-house film about these people who create a machine to send humans back in time. Shane Carruth, the director, studied theoretical physics just so that the film would be accurate.

Darren Aronofsky’s Pi (1998) was a big influence on the production design as well.

What have you learnt from this project?

Time management definitely. We didn’t really have enough time for the speed we were working, particularly on the first day. A lesson learnt from post (production) would be ‘get more coverage’. The editor had to work round stuff and cut lines just because we didn’t get quite enough coverage.

What was the most enjoyable part of being on set?

The actors were incredible, and very nice to work with. They never complained or moaned. The other great experience was working with the camera: we were very lucky that RED lent us one of theirs to shoot with – cameras that have been used professionally to shoot films like The Hobbit.

What about the least enjoyable thing?

Lack of sleep during the shoot. I was on set for seven days: three days of get-in, three days of production, and a day of get-out, and I basically didn’t sleep. There was one night where I had half an hour dosing on a sofa that was part of

STEPHEN ALLWRIGHT

the set. You forget about all of that when the cameras are rolling though, and it’s incredible.

So why do you make films?

It’s what I’ve wanted to do for a long time. When I was 12 my mum got me a mini DV camera and I started making movies with my friends. From a more personal perspective, I like making movies because I like creating little worlds.

The idea that film is set in an abstract reality, and yet that reality has a tangibility, is fantastic.

What would you say is the most important thing for a director to be able to do?

For me it’s about getting a sense of an overview of the whole thing. It can be easy to focus on just one character, or one line of dialogue, or one scene, but one of the most important things is to be able to link it all together, to see how everything interacts.

What advice would you give other students trying to get into student film?

Join Cinecam! We have loads of great events: speakers, workshops, etc., but its main function is as a contact and support network. Students don’t have the money to employ huge crews, so having a contact network is fundamental for making anything. Filmmaking isn’t a solo game.

ROB DICATERINO

Interview: Duo behind the ADC’s Spring Awakening Leyla Gumusdis Theatre Editor Earlier this week we met with Rebecca Vaa and Oscar Yang, the director and producer of Spring Awakening (the Week 3 ADC Musical) to discuss the show.

What attracted you to Spring Awakening?

RV: It was a musical with real substance, with something to say and something to teach, that was very applicable to all generations and could speak to young people.

What have been the challenges of putting your own ‘stamp’ on such a famous play?

RV: Luckily, I’ve never seen it, so I had no preconceptions. I watched videos of the original but the ADC stage wouldn’t let me do it the same way even if I had wanted to.

What do you think it has to say to our generation?

RV: A lot of people think our society, the West, is so openminded and so liberal and has freedom of expression and tolerates all sexualities but that does not ring true everywhere. There is still a dearth in sexual education and

awareness of sexuality and this has massive consequences.

OY: I was attracted to it because it was not explicit just for the sake of it.

Did you find yourselves shying away from the explicit nature of the musical, or embracing it?

RV: I would never cut anything. However we toned it down: the sex in the musical is much more consensual than in the play and felt too polished, like they knew exactly what they were doing. Ours is less explicit because it’s more awkward, because it’s a first time.

OY: It is hard to put sex on the stage in a way that isn’t sensationalist, to set the tone, all during a musical number.

Why should people come to see Spring Awakening?

RV: They should come to be blown away!

OY: The cast is so strong – they were great from the first rehearsal. We are pushing the boundaries, exploring rebellion. It’s still quite new – not everyone knows of it. We want to bring them this experience. It is the most daring musical this term, a real emotional roller coaster.

OSCAR YANG

4

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

Culture

Fargo mania Creative chameleons: When musicians become film stars

Jemima Jobling

I

f you’ve not seen the first season of Fargo yet, the time has now almost certainly come (and gone) to take a long hard look at yourself and the TV you’ve been watching for the past couple of years and ask – what have I been watching? If this is you, please now allow me to pretentiously pontificate about why you most certainly should – as soon as possible – be watching it.

I can pretty much guarantee that whatever shows you’ve been watching, they will not have been as good as Fargo, in all its neo-noir, North American crime drama glory.

A veritable swoon-fest for all dark comedy fanatics and a snowy, sensory feast for any fan of cool-toned, silvertongued moodiness, it’s easy to see why this FX original series has racked up so many dozens of awards and nominations since its initial release in April of 2014.

Whilst Fargo’s recently concluded second season misses out on the stellar performances of Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton and Allison Tolman, in no way does Noah

Take a long hard look at yourself and ask why you haven’t been watching Fargo Hawley, the show’s creator and writer, skimp on his now characteristic edge-of-your-seat plot development and unrelenting finesse and style.

Whilst the first series, based on the Coen brothers 1996 film of the same name, focuses on police deputy Molly Solverson and a series of mysterious, murderous events taking place in and around Fargo, North Dakota, the second skips back a generation and follows her father, state trooper Lou Solverson, and his quest to quell the sinister rampage of crime family, the Gerhardts.

Flawlessly threading together these two time frames, as well as multiple compelling subplots, Fargo’s second season never ceases to thrill. Sashaying into Tarantino-esque 1970s-style flare with glorious ease, series two is almost more stylised than the first; with each scene so rich in muted colour and so meticulously composed, every episode feels like a piece of cinematic art in its own right.

In short – and in case I haven’t made it clear enough already – Fargo is an excellent show, one that is brilliantly acted and beautifully constructed. I implore you, if you find yourself despairing about the looming term ahead and in need of some serious essay denial and TV show binging, give Fargo a go. You will not be disappointed.

CHANNEL 4

Alice French

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ita Ora is a very busy woman. Originally shooting to fame as a singer in 2012, she has now held judging positions on both The Voice and The X Factor, as well as designing a line for Adidas, being an honorary ambassador for Kosovo and portraying Mia in the Fifty Shades of Grey film.

One might look at this random collection of achievements and conclude that Rita is just fame hungry; she has made a foray into almost every part of the entertainment industry, and has no doubt made a large sum of money along the way (her net worth is estimated to be $145 million).

Films need actors to please critics, and skilled performers to secure box office success You would be forgiven for making a similar judgement about Justin Timberlake, J-Lo or Rihanna, who have all starred in films despite enjoying great success in their musical careers. It is easy to explain popstars’ roles in films as nothing more than a clever marketing ploy; if we see Justin Timberlake’s face on the side of a bus, we are more likely to pay attention than if we saw Mr Up-and-Coming Actor on a promotional poster. But are Hollywood big wigs really so money-oriented that they cast people according to how famous they are as opposed to how well they can act?

Let’s pause for a moment to make an important distinction. There is acting, and there is performing. The difference between the two skills may be slight, but there is a difference nonetheless. A performer, for example Rita Ora, is talented when it comes to entertaining an audience, whether that audience be a field full of music festival goers

or a cinema of film fans. A performer’s focus is on the audience; they are eager to provoke a reaction and will adapt their performance according to who is watching.

An actor, such as Eddie Redmayne, is focused not on the audience but on their own work. This is why we often hear actors talk about the difficulty they have getting out of a role after leaving the set; they are absorbed in their character and the roles of the other actors, as opposed to directing their focus outwards. Acting training cultivates this focus, and it is this skill that allows actors such as Anne Hathaway and Daniel Day-Lewis to give Oscar-winning performances on screen. A film needs actors in order to please critics, but skilled performers are essential to secure box office success.

The most successful film stars are those who are able to act and perform. Good examples include Will Smith, Johnny Depp and the iconic David Bowie. Bowie will be remembered primarily for his music, but his foray into film is regarded as an achievement rather than an embarrassing career blip. Individuals who are able to focus on their own performance and the reaction of the audience simultaneously are few and far between, but they do exist and ought to be highly treasured.

SCREEN FURY

Review: Eliza and the Bear Megan Fereday

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he Portland Arms was left full of smiles after Eliza and the Bear’s superb set. To an audience that knows them only by sporadic EP releases, they perform with a self-assurance that shows they’re now more than ready to break into mainstream indie territory – and we’re just as excited as they are for it.

The London five-piece have a knack for creating infectiously joyful pop anthems. They open the set with ‘Lion’s Heart’: a bright, punchy piano anthem which immediately gets everybody’s hands swaying and clapping in the air. But there’s a darker feel to their new tracks such as ‘Oxygen’. Piercing, smoky guitar riffs backgrounded by stomping, crunching drums and bass drive home an impressive sense of strength in the band’s developed technical skills. It’s a refreshing change of emotional direction, and promises a progression from the slightly homogenous moods of their past releases.

The three years in which the group have developed their eponymous debut album has seen them go from strength to strength. Despite remaining unsigned until their recent deal with Capitol Records, they’ve been featured on Radio X’s Great X-Pectations, Radio 1’s Favourites lists, played Reading and Leeds, and even Wembley Stadium where

they supported Paramore in 2013. But the band thankfully manage to avoid coming across as worldly-wise or arrogant in their performance. Even when a fire alarm goes off midway through ‘Talk’, the band take the opportunity to do some hilarious impromptu riffing of ‘Fur Elise’ and ask if there’s anyone in the audience they can wish a happy birthday. They can still find the funny side amongst the inevitable pitfalls of a first album tour – they can make this accident a happy one.

This is clearly a group who possess a rock-solid foundation of performance experience on which to launch their debut: a daunting task. Backstage, drummer Paul Kevin Jackson tells me: “98% of it was recorded live. We played it as if we were playing it to people.”

During penultimate number ‘Friends’, the band triumphantly yell out the joyous chorus – “I’ve got friends, I’ve got family here” – with arms outstretched as if to pull the entire audience into a massive ‘bear’ hug. This benevolent sense – of having created a record as a gift for their audience – is likely what has sparked off every smile in the room full of dancing listeners tonight. They’ve left space for growth, and most importantly, for a few laughs too: their trajectory seems upward, but their feet as yet remain firmly on the ground.

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The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

Culture

Uni Tunes: Talking to Shooting Suns Ollie Smith Music Editor

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ew bands can claim to be more Cambridge than Shooting Suns. The group has been through multiple iterations since it formed four years ago, but the core duo of James Christie and Edward Taylor has remained throughout. The two went to school together in the city before moving to Downing and Jesus respectively.

Now graduates making their way outside the bubble, I welcomed Edward back to have a chat about where their brand of pop-rock is taking them.

At the start of our conversation Edward breaks the news that singer Gabby Martin is “going off to do her studies because she’s in Upper Sixth. It was always sort of expected but we needed a singer to record on the albums.” He seems tired by the loss of their fourth band member in four years. A recent statement on their Facebook page claims ‘We are most certainly not finished, and we have so much already on its way’.

Speaking to Edward, it is clear that he’s investing a lot into the band despite the recent setback. I’m impressed to hear that he comes back from his home in Bordeaux once month to work on new material with James. He also tells me: “we have good kit for playing live and have never cheaped out anything – that’s probably where most of my money is going to.” It seems this is more than just a hobby.

whole time. We did pretty much every single May Ball possible, we did all the venues around Cambridge and a few London ones too.”

We don’t want to be a student band, we haven’t wanted to be for a year and a half now Considering the number of gigs that the band have played, I want to hear what the highlight was. He doesn’t pause for thought: “It was probably Jesus May Ball. It was the last time that most of our friends were around, although I had another year. For Ceri and Matt that would be one of the last times they played with us. Everyone knew all the words to the songs and were singing along.

There were a lot of highlights but that stands out the most because you’re playing the songs that you’ve been writing for ages and people are singing them back to you and seem to really enjoy it.

He speaks of May Balls as though they were the glory

days. “We don’t want to be a student band, we haven’t wanted to be for a year and a half now. That means you’ve really got to take a step up because it’s not just a group of your friends who are going to come and watch you even if you sound shit.”

Taking this step up is the immediate focus for Shooting Suns with their next performance. Edward recognises this and says “you really have to focus on what your music is, on how you represent yourself.”

As he’s leaving, he takes a moment to reflect on our conversation, and laughs: “it sounds like we’re in the shit – and sometimes it feels like we are, but then you listen back to some of the stuff and realise the situation isn’t that bad.”

It really isn’t all doom and gloom for Shooting Suns.

Making the leap from May Week to Alexandra Palace was never going to be easy, but it is a path that has been trodden before. If they are to follow the example of Clean Bandit, then they are going to have to get over the significant obstacles facing any graduate band. The first of these is their search for a female vocalist. Maybe one of you could help them on their way.

SHOOTING SUNS

We are most certainly not finished, and we have so much already on its way He cites London Grammar as one of their influences and you can clearly hear this in the aesthetic of their most recent song ‘Overload 2’. He is aware of the similarity but says that he’s aiming for something “not quite as dark as London Grammar but that still keeps that raw sound. We want to have just a bit more energy to it, something a bit more upbeat and fun to play.”

The band have gigged extensively and may be familiar to those nearing the end of their degree; “When Ceri, me, James, and Matt were together we were playing gigs in Cambridge pretty much every week, at the minimum every other week. We were rehearsing and gigging the

‘Books like that’: Down with book snobbery Miriam Longman JONATHAN HOEGLUND

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friend in the midst of applying for English at university saw me reading a Cassandra Clare book and asked how I had time to read “books like that” – she was too busy reading classics to improve her chances of getting into Oxford.

The fact was that I decided on a manifesto of reading several years ago, and at the heart is this: read whatever you want, however ‘trashy’ it is, and ignore anyone who tells you otherwise. If that means crying over City of Heavenly Fire while your friend tackles Great Expectations, so be it.

I read a lot, but for the most part I don’t read books that will ever be called ‘classics’. For years, I adamantly refused to read highbrow books. Maybe I missed out on a few good ones that way, but I don’t think it did me any lasting harm. I got through dozens of Young Adult novels while my friends trudged through Dickens, and I had more fun, too.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t read Dickens. If you want to read Dickens, do (I enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities). But that’s the thing. If you want to. If you enjoy ‘classics’, then read as many of them as you want. It’s when people force themselves to read highbrow books when they’d much

rather be working their way through the Young Adult paranormal romance section that I get frustrated.

Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy just because you think you’re supposed to, and it’s certainly too short to spend your time telling other people to do so.

I’ve found the most profound messages in the books you’ll find in the Teens or Children’s section of a library – books that pulled me out of dark places when nothing else could.

Trashy teen fiction is what got me through school, and it’s still what keeps me going.

When I pick up a book, it isn’t because it’s on a list of ‘100 books to read before you die’, or ‘best novels of the 20th century’. It isn’t because it’s number one on a Goodreads list.

Ultimately, it’s because it interests me and I want to read it.

If the two happen to coincide, that’s cool; if they don’t, who cares? I certainly don’t.

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28 January 2016 • Part 2 • The Cambridge Student

Reviews Canons – Transparent EP Theo Howe

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anons are a Cambridgebased alt-rock band who have recently released their debut EP: Transparent. The release is currently available for you to listen to on Spotify and iTunes.

Give it a listen and then read on...

It’s great to see new music being released by a Cambridge band, but those who expect me to cheer for the home team when talking about Canons’ new Transparent EP should probably stop reading. One cannot make the complaint that Canons are at all inconsistent in their musical style; they aim for a particular sound and stick to it.

That means that this EP is fantastic news if you enjoy music that sits contentedly in the safest regions of the disparate, poorly defined genre of ‘alt-rock’.

From the opener, ‘Give It Up’, we are treated to some fairly catchy, math-rockstyle harmonised riffs and crisp, impressive drumwork, both of which are positive trends running through the EP. However, after six runthroughs of what is essentially the same song, the effect and enjoyment somewhat wears off. Whilst JOHANNES HJORTH

every song has something of a praiseworthy musical idea held within it, every song also progresses with exactly the same structure.

The music goes through the motions of what we understand to be the blueprint for middle of the road alt-rock, not because the music feels that it should naturally progress that way, but because that’s the way it has always been. I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t grooving along to the revelatory, if obligatory opening riff to the title track, or that the intricacy of the production of ‘Double or Nothing’ didn’t cause me to relisten to it a lot more than I expected just to catch the haunting synth vocal sounds during the pre-chorus. This EP is by no means musically inept.

However, I need to question what Canons wanted me to take away from Transparent, because if it’s a sadness that four clearly skilled and passionate musicians aren’t making more interesting music, they succeeded in their aims. Stick to the title track, it’s the best iteration of the one song that is offered here.

4/10

Review: Arsenic and Old Lace Molly Biddell

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non-stop rollercoaster of confusion, calamity and charisma, this 1940s classic went down a storm in the Corpus Playroom. Set in Brooklyn, the plot follows the barmy Brewster family as the dark side of the family’s genes are rapidly revealed.

The audience are embraced in the loving arms of Aunties Abby (Rebecca Cusack) and Martha (Jasmin Rees) from start to finish. Both hostesses perform exceptionally, providing endless laughs whilst luring the audience into their sinister acts of charity.

The Corpus Playroom transforms into a quaint and impressively dynamic living room, complete with period furniture, a lot of lace, and a glass or two of elderberry wine. The 1940s music, warm lighting and costumes transported the audience into an era of elegance.

The energetic Mortimer (Aurélien

Guéroult) provides an entertaining dynamic with his fiancé Elaine, (Gabrielle McGuiness). Teddy (Colin Rothwell) storms the stage blowing his trumpet and blasting orders, in an almost ‘Captain Mannering’ style, while particular praise is due to Joe Shalom for his endearing performance .The Machiavellian duo of Jonathan Brewster (Jerome Burelbach) and Dr Einstein (Henry Wilkinson) also give convincing performances, exposing the dark side of the Brewster clan, complete with German accents, gruesome face paint, and brilliant comical timing.

Overall it the show guarantees an evening of comedic revelry mixed with a hint of debauchery, and fantastically topped off with a twist of humour. This slick performance was true entertainment.

9/10

Trojan Barbie us of the evil Izzy Ryan

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here are few things more unsettling than walking into a room full of dismembered Barbie dolls. The set of Trojan Barbie is somehow deeply dramatic without going over the top: the focal point remains the women draped over the piecemeal props. Over the stage hang damaged dolls in an arch. Across the front, plastic body parts tangle in barbed wire. This prepares us for the horror of Christine Evans’ shocking depiction of the aftermath of war.

The story appears to begin in an English woman’s toy shop, where the brokenlooking women stand like mannequins, and we quickly descend into the chaos of what looks like a modern refugee camp. Based on the story of the fall of Troy, but shown in the modern era, we are constantly reminded that the epic

tragedies of the ancient past exist in the present day. We follow the tale partly through the eyes of a Western tourist caught up in the conflict, who travelled to the area as part of a tour group, seeking to meet new people. This perspective stinks of the Western voyeurism of foreign disasters. The story is framed by images of humans as dolls, implying that the

The story of humans as dolls morph the victims into our playthings watching world shows little regard for those caught up in conflict – they become almost our playthings.

While the plot itself is occasionally a little disjointed, the acting by the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

7

Reviews The Big Short impresses Grace Dickinson

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nless you were hibernating in 2008, you will be aware that markets crashed and bankers left the Wall Street trading floor with their heads hanging. Hardly fitting inspiration for a comedy film. The Big Short, however, is a dark, comedy-disaster picture which follows outsiders in the banking world who predict the impending doom of the housing market and then profit from it.

Based on Michael Lewis’ non-fiction book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (2010), Adam Mckay’s film strikes a chord by highlighting not only the ignorance, but also the complete idiocy of bankers blind to the incredibly unstable system for which they were responsible.

The sterling cast includes Christian Bale, who is Oscar-nominated for his

Economic crisis films: incomplete without Jenga

JOHANNES HJORTH

e: Reminds of mankind Club is flawless. The story could easily descend into uncontrolled anguish and chaos, but the actors continue to portray their overwhelmed shock at the tragedies in front of them. Bethan Davidson as Hecuba is particularly powerful in her depiction of a woman slowly and delicately

The powerful female cast remind us of the forgotten women in war broken by the death of her family. A particular highlight is Emma Corrin as Cassandra, the youngest daughter of Hecuba, whose unhinged hysteria never quite loses the darker undertones of her character. As the play draws attention to the forgotten women in war, it is poignant

to see such a powerful female cast.

This production of Trojan Barbie should also be commended for its ingenius costumes, from designer Amanda Ekström, which are minimalistic but effective. Sinister music adds to the atmosphere of impending tragedy, though sometimes it clashes with the actor’s voices. The interjection of Western news reports shows the cold perspective of the outside world compared to the dark reality of the camp, though the device is used inconsistently and could perhaps have been built on more.

While the play is not perfect, it deserves much praise for its incredible acting and ingenious design and direction.

9/10

performance as Michael Burry, a heavymetal listening, socially awkward recluse who bets against the housing market.

The real 2016 Oscar snub, however, is Steve Carell, who shines as Mark Baum, a morally conscious and conflicted hedgefund manager, full of pent up anger and frustration. Baum finds himself caught up in an industry he despises.

Although the film’s opening does not appear promising, stay for the ride.

Initially you find yourself bombarded with

cut shots to famous brands, Mark Twain quotations and so much mumbo-jumbo that it’s easy to regret not doing a sensible subject like Economics.

Yet it soon becomes clear that this is all part of the crude and cruel joke – no-one really knows what a ‘subprime bond’ or a ‘CDO’ is, not even the bankers creating them. Many of the jokes are delivered as celebrity cameos, such as Margot Robbie in a bubble bath, sipping champagne, explaining subprime bonds. However, by the time Selena Gomez appears at a casino table to explain CDOs, this joke has worn a little thin. And of course a film about an economic crisis would not be complete without a Jenga demonstration…

The film’s greatest success is its direction.

Adam McKay packages numerous subplots into one huge narrative without losing the viewer. There are enough jokes to overshadow the morally dubious aspects of the film. Although it does not share in the glamour of The Wolf of Wall Street, the outsiders you root for to outwit the high-end bankers profit off the devastation of millions.

The Big Short just won the Producers Guild of America’s highest film award; it seems that this feature may prove a huge shock winner at the Oscars. It’ll leave you satisfied, but with a bitter aftertaste.

7/10

Review: Love and Information Eve Rivers Theatre Editor

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orpus Playroom’s Love and Information is a theatrical whirlwind. Within the short hour of the play, the scope of human emotion and experience is explored. The audience is transported into different eras and lifestyles through the emotive expression of the actors – all set against the simplistic yet effective staging of a suburban home.

A discontented couple, played by the brilliantly disaffected Kate Wainer and the empathetic Em Miles, provide the backdrop of the play, and the audience are repeatedly tuned in and out of their lives.

The main ensemble of four drive the play on with their astonishing ability to change actions and personalities with a flashing shift of lighting. As the actors emerge from the seating area, it feels as if they are portraying our lives, and is an excellent staging decision from director Bali Birch-Lee. The costumes are also great: the ensemble being dressed in all back allowing them to fluidly slip in and

out of their characters.

The snapshot scene of Dolores Carbonari portraying the mind of a mentally ill woman is spectacular. Glen Collier beautifully interprets the role of an amnesiac husband, bringing real sincerity and tugging at the heart-strings of the audience. Xanthe Burdett’s range of expressions is outstanding: she moves from nonchalance to seriousness in a heartbeat. Her stand-out moment is the recounting of a tale of a boy who felt no fear, her blasé tone allowing the delivery of the punchline to be a comedic highpoint of the play. Finally, Hollie Witton brings great comedic value to the play with her portrayal of a man questioning God providing gentle humour.

Overall, this gripping play is a must-see that leaves you eager to inhabit the mental space of the characters it portrays.

8/10

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The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

50 shades of skin tone

Listings

Lifestyle

Lynne Ramsay

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tandards of beauty are constructed. They evolve and change over time in response to cultural, economic and political factors. For a long time in the history of cosmetics throughout Europe and East Asia, the dominant trend was to maintain a pale skin. This was achieved through use of a variety of lead-based creams or even poisonous powders that were meant to lighten and even out the appearance. It was not until the 20th century, when travelling possible for more of the population, that a tanned complexion became a fashion statement in the Western world to denote availability and affordability of leisure time. Contemporary technological advances in cosmetics and skincare have allowed us to achieve our ideals with comparative ease and safety. Now we can easily brighten, darken, or simply maintain our skin tone according to our personal preference.

Even and bright: If an even and bright skin tone is your major concern, try to seek serums loaded with melanininhibiting ingredients, such as vitamin C, niacinamide or acetyl glucosamine. These treatments work together to yield impressive results on a range of discolourations. If you just want some instant gratification, apply a brightening primer with light-reflecting pigments before foundation.

Sun: Friend or foe? Research has made it clear that repeated unprotected sun exposure causes DNA damage that triggers skin cells to mutate. Without sun protection, the result of sun exposure is skin damage: wrinkles, brown spots, discolouration, dull-looking skin, and potentially skin cancer. Sun damage is particularly dangerous for those with light complexions, since melanin helps block out damaging UV rays up to a point. It is therefore highly recommended to use a sunscreen with SPF 15 or greater every morning.

But many of us do look better with a tan. While getting a bronzed glow from the sun should be avoided, self-tanner can revitalise a dull or sallow complexion.

Tailor your foundation: Finding the right shade of foundation can be difficult, as everyone’s skin tone is slightly different in the undertone: yellow, pink, or olive. However, as many brands do not cover shades lighter or darker than the majority of British girls, many people may struggle to find a good match. The good news is that there are many multi-tasking primers nowadays that can be used as a foundation modifier, to lighten or darken your foundation up to a few shades.

For product recommendations by the author, read the full article online: www.tcs.cam.ac.uk

OLIN GILBERT

Thursday 28 Law Society Wine Tasting with Cleary Gottlieb. Cambridge Wine Merchants, 7pm.

CAMWIB welcomes Cilla Snowball. Knox Shaw Room, Sidney Sussex College, 5:30pm.

Cambridge Caledonian Society Burns Supper. Corpus Christi Hall, 6:30pm.

‘Labour Behind the Label’ Amnesty Clothes Swap. Barbara White Room, Newnham College, 4pm.

Cambridge Half Marathon. Victoria Avenue, 9am.

Friday 29 Jailbreak 2016. Parker’s Piece, 9am.

Saturday 30 The Marshall Society Annual Conference 2016: The Evolution of Economic Thought. Cambridge Union, 10am.

Ekphrasis Poetry Workshop. Fitzwilliam Museum, 2pm.

Toddla T Takeover. Cambridge Junction, 10pm.

Monday 1 Jeremy Vine. Cambridge Union, 7pm.

Tuesday 2 Jesus May Ball 2016 Launch Night. Jesus College, 5:30pm.

Spring Awakening. ADC, 7:45pm.

Life of Gallileo. Corpus Playroom, 7pm.

Wednesday 3 Iolanthe. West Road Concert Hall, 8pm.

Compiled by Lucy Roxburgh

An MMLer abroad: Week three, Airbnb The ‘new way to stay’ gives a different experience everytime Rachel Rees-Middleton Columnist

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irbnb is full of surprises. When we arrived in Split, Croatia, were greeted somewhat unusually by our Airbnb host, who had just realised that he had doubled booked his ‘sharming’ Croatian room: “He’s a good man.

He goes to church every day.” He quickly led us through to a room belonging to one of his pals, who seemed used to welcoming confused strangers into his home.

The mix-up was of little consequence to us: we had just spent three days camping so all we needed was a bed.

Moreover, the half-hour we spent drinking coffee with our host, a self-proclaimed small business man with a speedboat who was impressed by Bristol’s nightlife, was more memorable than the room with a balcony he was supposed to provide us with. A week later, our Airbnb in Dubrovnik was a dream: our elderly host brought us fresh fruit for

breakfast, pointed us in the direction of the best swimming spots and gave us a timetable for airport buses home.

I have since realised that no Airbnb experience is the same: the kind lady who converted her garage into a beautiful bolt-hole in Carcassonne; the smelly studio in Toulouse owned by a student who wanted a bit of extra cash, the bizarre attic in Albi I stayed in whilst waiting to move in to my house; the huge draw of Airbnb is the opportunity to meet and talk to locals. Whether you choose to stay in a room in someone’s home or reserve a private room, you are guaranteed to meet someone who lives in the area, who can point you in the direction of good restaurants, cafés and sights which might otherwise go unvisited. The website has over two million listings in 190 countries and is becoming increasingly popular not only amongst unfussy travellers looking for a place to crash,

but also among professionals, who can tick the ‘business travel’ option to streamline their search. Despite the horror stories, including the Australian family who recently found themselves at the centre of a drug ring, Airbnb remains a wallet friendly, social and practical form of accommodation.

Indeed, are there any disadvantages? For the student on a budget, not really. If you’re with a big group of friends and want to pre-drink or stay out late, a room in someone’s family home is probably not ideal. However, you could try to find a private apartment where you would be more or less free to do as you please, as long as you clear up after.

Frankly, I’m over hostels. Having stayed in too many 10 bed dorms in characterless institutions where the receptionist can barely give you a city map, I hail the (mostly) generous and quirky hosts I’ve met through using Airbnb as the new face of tourism. Happy exploring.

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

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Lifestyle

Sartorial tutorial: Men’s fashion in Cambridge Jonathan Woolley

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cademics are not known for dressing well.

Although the day of the ill-fitting tweed jacket is mercifully past, its hallmarks – bad tailoring, wine stains, and want of an iron – still manifest on one very peculiar occasion: Formal Hall. This hallowed tradition of fine dining, and less-fine wines, forces the average Cambridge student to dress up far more often than they might do otherwise.

Despite the rarified atmosphere, port-passing, and enough airs and graces to give Lady Grantham a fit of the vapours, you’ll still find plenty of guys in attendance who look like they’ve resorted to using their shirt as a tablecloth.

Still more numerous are suits that aren’t dirty, but are just boring – muted charcoals, and funereal blacks.

The twin spectres of apathy and fear bedevil many a hapless young gentleman as he gets ready for a wine-fuelled night out under the wood paneling.

All this has lowered everyone’s expectations. Once, when I attended a seminar just before a Formal Hall, a colleague upon observing what I was wearing – a blue TM-Lewin one-button slim-fit suit, blue monkstraps, with a matching

Review: The Olive Grove Charlotte McGarry Food Editor

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estled unassumingly at the end of Regent Street, independent Greek restaurant The Olive Grove arrived in Cambridge from Elafonisos in 2013. Being of Greek descent myself, I was going to be a tough critic, but this surpassed all my expectations and certainly gave my YiaYia’s cooking a run for its money.

Greek cuisine is known for being meat heavy and this restaurant is no exception. Fortunately, vegetarians are well-catered-for too, and whilst the salad descriptions are not quite as enticing as those of their meaty counterparts, the fantastic selection of dips and mezze dishes means that meat-free friends will not be disappointed.

We went for feta and spinach pastries with tomato marmalade and aubergine dip with pitta to start. The dip had a lovely smokiness to it, but the stars of the starters were the pastries. My only suggestion would be: provide more! A third pastry would better justify the £6.80 price.

Our starters set a high bar for the mains, but when they arrived fifteen minutes later, we knew they would measure up. My boyfriend’s lamb shank was beautifully presented and the flavours also impressed, with him declaring it ‘some of the best lamb he ever had’. The chickpea puree it was served on also deserves a mention. It had a great, nutty texture – a sophisticated alternative to mashed potato.

My orzo pasta with prawns was rich, creamy and featured Chios mastic (nope, I hadn’t heard of it either) which lent it a unique cedar like flavour. The owner took great pride in explaining the origin of this ingredient and its role in the dish to me. This is something we noticed in all the serving staff: they care about the menu and want you to enjoy it as much as they do.

Prices are not student budget friendly, but high quality ingredients, refined flavours and thoughtful presentation more than justified them. Perfect for special occasions, The Olive Grove serves up excellent food, friendly service and a lovely dining environment. Find a friend with a late January birthday and head down to Regent Street now.

JASPERREBEL

pin-dot tie and pocket square – wore a countenenance of extreme surprise, she asked if I was going to a wedding.

Sigh. No. Just no.

What you miss, when you reach for the tinfoil two-piece you bought from C&A, is a big visual cue, saying “Hello everyone! I think you’re worth all this effort!” People will respond in kind. In fact, formal is one of the best opportunities to make an impression – suits are designed to make you look great, regardless of your build.

But that said you don’t need to cleave to the dress code like it’s driftwood in a furious sea. There has been a real revolution in men’s tailoring in recent years, as – fuelled by shorter supply chains and easier marketing – there’s now far more choice and excitement out there that’s totally affordable. You can rebel against stuffy semi-formality by showing off your personality and looking great. Instagram is replete with examples of dapper guys with excellent taste – whether you go bright and bold like @meeeotch or utterly classic like @jasperrebel. Get creative, and find your style.

So whenever guys complain about formal wear, I say this: pipe down, branch out, and suit up!

ALL IMAGES: CHARLOTTE MCGARRY

MEEEOTCH

Making the most of social media Lucy Roxburgh Lifestyle Editor Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram – the list of social media we can’t live without gets longer every year. With so much to keep track of, here are some top tips for making sure being on each one remains enjoyable and not a chore.

Unfollow boring people on Facebook. Defriending irritating people seems harsh and incredibly awkward if they realise, and you bump into them. But at some point you will reach your limit with the endless photos from the smug couple you already see constantly in college, with the Candy Crush updates and Farmville requests from that person still living in 2010, or with the dodgy Soundcloud links from that random guy you got with in Fez who is trying to become a DJ. Life is too short for these people to clutter up your newsfeed – have a detoxing unfollow spree.

Separate work and fun. If every time you log on you are bombarded with requests and to-do lists from your various extra curriculars, get your choir/boat/ADC crew (delete as appropriate) onto Slack – a messaging app for large groups – so that you can properly switch off.

Refresh your Twitter. Start by having a clear out of who you are following, much like with Facebook. Rather than The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea stars endlessly plugging their clothes ranges, follow up-andcoming comedians to make you laugh, journalists whose articles you turn to each week and travel bloggers who have beautiful pictures to remind you that there is a whole world outside the Bubble.

Keep your Snapchat exclusive. People are their most unashamedly and happily boring on Snapchat – here is where you will see the most pictures of people’s lunch or pets being mildly cute.

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

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Lifestyle

From Amsterdam to Budapest Helena Baron

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urope’s cities are some of the most interesting places to visit, steeped in history but often also teeming with a thriving youth-driven culture, make them the perfect travel destinations for students.

Unfortunately, however, it is only seldom the case that you end up having enough time in each place to really get the most out of your time, especially if you choose to follow the Interrail trend, where you’re not likely to have more than three nights at each destination. With this in mind, here’s a run-down of what I found to be the best places to visit and the best things to do in both Amsterdam and Budapest – the two cities that marked the beginning and end of my own Interrail trip last summer – to help you get as much out of your own travels as possible.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city with a village vibe; since it is the second biggest melting pot of cultures after New York, the majority of its inhabitants also speak English, making

it one of the most welcoming destinations for us islanders!

By day, get your bearings either with a free walking tour of the city, leaving from the Market Square every day at 11, or hire a bike for the day and take a trip to the Vondel Park. It’s a great idea to head to Amsterdam during the ‘Sail’ festival, when the canals are filled with boats from across the world, allowing you to cross the canals at any point, and take in the markets and music performances taking place in the boats.

If this isn’t your scene you can simply enjoy a pint of beer with the neighbouring boat!

By night, as an alternative to rather pricey clubs, the canals are lined with wonderfully atmospheric pubs, and usually full of other travellers who are almost always full of interesting stories. To end the trip, weather permitting, pick a canal with a view, dangle your legs over the side whilst snacking on one of the waffles from the street vendors, and enjoy the Amsterdam sunset.

Budapest, whilst very big, is extremely easy to get round with a metro ride costing roughly 70p, making it the ideal way to get from A to B whilst also avoiding getting heatstroke! There is so much to do and see in Budapest by day, and I would urge anyone to visit Margaret Island, a serene park-island with beautiful gardens, and, more importantly, huge waterworks with little canals in which you can dangle your feet to cool off in the shade – a huge relief in the humidity of the Budapest summer. Another amazing place to visit is the Central Market Hall; a hustle of activity, you can buy everything from traditional Hungarian dress to the local cuisine in an old warehouse filled top to toe with stalls.

By night, Budapest’s ruin pubs are famous for their great atmosphere, and provide an experience like no other with a bar and dance floor in one room, and a couch with coffee tables in the next!

DD-ANG2S

DAVE WINER

HELENA BARON

A day in the life of a tea drinker Emer O’Hanlon

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hether it’s packed with work or more relaxed, any day can be improved with copious amounts of tea. What’s not to like? Aside from being super tasty, tea comes in so many different varieties – I’m convinced there is a tea out there for everyone.

1. Assam Breakfast should be simple, and that’s why I love Sainsbury’s Assam tea. Their blend is strong, tasty, and a complete bargain. The best way to describe drinking pure Assam (rather than in a blend, as you’ll commonly find it) is that it tastes just like tea, only more so. If you find it a bit much on its own, Sainsbury’s English Breakfast is just as good value.

SELENA D.H.T

2. Formosa Oolong Now for something a little more interesting. There are many varieties of Oolong; the name refers to the process by which it is cultivated rather than the flavour. I don’t find it overbrews as easily as other teas, making it a perfect choice for when you’re finishing an essay and want a pot of tea to keep you company.

3. Masala Chai When you hit the mid-afternoon slump, call it quits and have some tea and biscuits. Chai tea is very popular at the moment, and it’s so tasty that it’s not difficult to see why.

Disappointed by many shop-bought blends, I decided to start brewing my own. You can tailor the tea to your own A GIRL WITH TEA

preferences; my recipe goes for strong and spicy. Dry roast a few coriander seeds and five de-seeded cardamom pods, until you start to smell them. Then add a mug of cold water, a black tea bag or a teaspoon of tea leaves, three thin slices of fresh ginger, a generous pinch of cinnamon, and a pinch of crushed chillies. Brew for 10 minutes, strain and serve.

4. Darjeeling In the evening, delight yourself with a Darjeeling. There are two varieties: first and second flush. First flush is picked in springtime, and has a lighter flavour with a slight bitterness.

Second flush is less expensive, but still maintains the characteristic musky spiciness. Darjeeling overbrews very easily, though, so take care.

KIRINOHANA

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

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Lifestyle

Plant-based eating: Not just for January Rhian Williams

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eganuary may be coming to an end, but this doesn’t mean plant-based eating has to. Even if you don’t want to go full on vegan, you could still base your diet on meat free meals that are filling, protein-rich and super satisfying. Even though I’m not fully vegetarian or vegan, I enjoy regularly eating plant-based meals because they’re healthier, cheaper and much quicker and easier to make. It’s also better for the environment and animals.

A favourite recipe of mine is this colourful and flavoursome quinoa salad with avocado dressing and butternut squash – guaranteed to brighten up your hectic days! It’s really quick and easy to make, especially for students using a tiny communal kitchen, and you can even make it without a hob.

Quinoa is quite easy to cook from scratch, but if you’re lazy like me, you can buy microwaveable quinoa from most supermarkets. It’s a perfect addition to a plant-based meal because it’s very rich in protein, with eight grams per cup.

If you don’t like quinoa, you could easily substitute it with couscous or brown rice.

The avocado dressing sounds fancy, but it’s really easy to make – just mash an avocado with a fork and add some seasonings. I love adding a handful of dried cranberries to this salad as it gives you lovely bursts of sweet juicy flavour..

Butternut squash is one of the more cumbersome vegetables to chop and peel – but Sainsbury’s has recently RHIAN WILLIAMS

started selling ready peeled and chopped slices of butternut squash, which just makes life so much easier. You can either cook these in a frying pan or roast them, if you’re lucky enough to have an oven. If you can’t get butternut squash, use pumpkin or sweet potato instead.

This salad is also great as a packed lunch – just make sure you’re generous with the lemon juice in the dressing so the avocado doesn’t go brown. Infinitely better than forking out the better part of a fiver for something unsatisfying and mediocre from the Arc Café…

Not your average red Ariel Luo Fashion Editor Thursday: Crimson. #throwbackthursday. There’s none better than Giorgio Armani’s ‘Lip Maestro’ in #402: velvety texture paired with incredible durability. Emphasize the lips by keeping eye makeup clean and simple, but contour like you’re Kim Kardashian if you want maximum drama.

XUE AN

Ingredients (serves one): 1 packet microwaveable quinoa Handful of dried cranberries (or raisins) 1/2 packet butternut squash 2 tablespoons oil, any kind 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika Salt and pepper, to taste Optional: 1 tablespoon pine nuts For the dressing: 1 ripe avocado 1 tablespoon lemon juice/cider vinegar 2 tablespoons olive oil Salt and pepper, to taste Optional: 1 teaspoon dried coriander Method: 1. Cook the quinoa according to instructions on packet 2. In a bowl, mash up the avocado with a fork, add all other dressing ingredients and mix well 3. Add the cooked quinoa and cranberries to the bowl 4. Heat some oil in a frying pan and cook the butternut squash until soft and slightly browned (season with the paprika and salt and pepper) – alternatively, place the squash on a baking tray, add the seasonings, drizzle with oil and roast in an oven at 200 degrees Celsius 5. Once cooked, place the butternut squash on top of the quinoa and scatter over some pine nuts

Friday: Rose. This is the one for sipping on Mojitos at Lola’s. Use a shimmery eye shadow and highlight the inner corners of your eyes to get that youthful look. Chanel’s ‘Rouge Allure Velvet’ in #042 captures the perfect shade of rose. It is matte and can be a bit drying.

Saturday: Burgundy. Because it’s the only day of the week when we live a little. Dior’s ‘Diorific’ #001 is just right, and smells gorgeous. Work burgundy lips in the daytime with a cream white chunky jumper and a pair of trainers. At night, dance to Lorde.

Sunday: Nude. This colour works with everything, from smoky eyes to a makeup-free day in the library. The colour contrast also makes nude the most flattering lip colour for tanned skin. YSL’s ‘Rouge Pur Couture’ #108 should do the trick. A sheer nude is better than matte.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE FILMS

Voluntourism: Stereotypes and Reality Edward Ashcroft Escapes Editor

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hen Matt Lacey released his Youtube comedy sketch ‘Gap Yah’ in 2010, featuring ‘Orlando’, his travelling alter ego imprisoned in Burma, it was an instant hit. Perhaps it was the ridiculous voice, but more likely it was because it resonated with perceptions about how privileged young Westerners behave on their travels. As Lacey put it: “It’s a satire on the great number of people who seem to be leaving these shores to vomit all over the developing world.”

As comical as ‘Gap Yah’ is, it has an important message: a dark reality inspires the fiction. While Lacey’s Orlando is imprisoned in Burma for breaking drug laws, last year four Western travellers were sentenced to three days in jail in Malaysia, after they stripped naked for a dare on the sacred Mount Kinabalu.

Even supposed ‘do-gooders’ are not beyond reproach.

As ‘voluntourism’ has become a major industry, stories of incompetent young volunteers building schools, only for them to be taken down so they can be built again by the next batch, have become commonplace.

At best, voluntourism seems to be about self-fulfilment,

CV points, and the chance for a new profile picture.

At worst, however, it’s cultural exploitation. In Nepal’s ‘orphanage industry,’ children have even been kidnapped and neglected to fuel the demand from ‘voluntourists’ on an ‘authentic’ adventure that promotes the imperial myth of the ‘white man’s burden.’

At times it seems that ‘seeing the world’ – and ‘saving’ it – can become nothing more than the acting-out of neoorientalist visions in the playground of the developing world. The search for the ‘exotic’ is only one step away from demeaning racial and cultural fetishism.

However, in spite of all the stereotypes, stories and dangers, travelling does not have to be this way. As clichéd as it sounds, travelling can be an eye-opening experience: anti-orientalist realities do exist, and can be discovered.

Terms like ‘Gap Yah’ and ‘voluntourism’ are often nothing more than lazy labels that promote unhelpful stereotypes.

Despite the dangers, travel is in your hands. No one has to be a ‘Gap Yah’ prick. ‘Voluntourism’ can be done responsibly. The act of travelling is not unethical – it’s the way you do it that counts. Just make sure that you try not to vomit all over the developing world.

Monday: Coral. Tinted lip balm is low-maintenance for lectures. I’m currently on my fifth Dior ‘Addict’ Lip Glow in #004. It’s the best thing since pistachio ice cream.

Tuesday: Cranberry. Try YSL’s ‘Rouge Volupte Shine’ in #005 if you’re feeling brave. It is ridiculously hydrating and tastes like candy: the perfect choice for an ombre lip.

Wednesday: Citrus. Try Guerlain’s tinted lip balm in ‘Peach Party’. We can’t get enough of that dewy texture.

Find it, and the rest, in Boots (Valentine’s present alert!)

ARIEL LUO

The Cambridge Student • Part 2 • 28 January 2016

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Lifestyle

Running in Cambridge Jessie Mathewsson

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ambridge degrees are a constant exercise in finding time. With lectures, supervisions, and a vaguely functional social life to squeeze in, it’s easy to let exercise slide. The last thing I want after struggling through an essay is to put my body through the same torture my brain has just faced.

For me at least, sport is the first thing I drop when I’m pushed for time, but this year, I’ve resolved to change that. I may still put on my trainers with a sense of mounting dread, but once I start running I remember how good it can feel.

It gets me up in the morning, and kickstarts my day better than a double espresso. Achieving something before 9am is always a boost. On top of this, exercise is known to help relieve stress – and who at Cambridge would say no to that?

The ideal run motivates me to push myself, and takes me out of ‘the Bubble’ (if only for half an hour). My favourite route starts on King’s Parade. Warm up with a walk along Trinity Street, and down Bridge Street to Magdalene Bridge.

Once you reach the riverside path it’s quiet enough to start running. I like to follow the river: early in the morning you can watch the rowers train. Seeing other people enjoying exercise always spurs me on, and following the river you can run for just about as long as you like. When you’re suitably exhausted, loop back and cut across Midsummer Common or Jesus Green – you can drop into Sainsbury’s on the way back to the centre for a well-deserved reward!

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The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

crets of Cambridge

Features

RHIANN RONE-CLARKE

My favourite ‘Bubble’ escape: Deep in Sheep’s Green Lydia Sabatini Features Editor

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here exists an area in Sheep’s Green, the large open-space in the town centre, at the end of Queen’s Road, that has become a sort of haven for me here in Cambridge. In order to preserve some level of secrecy, I am unwilling to disclose its precise location.

I don’t go too often, or for particularly long periods of time, but that feeling of returning to a place that is somehow yours, despite being public and sometimes busy, is valuable in these hectic days.

Whether it is a college social space or a faculty library, there are so many wonderful spaces in Cambridge that are communal. The downside of these, however, is that it can be difficult to find somewhere that feels like you’re away from it all. I really enjoy the walk down Queen’s Road, from college, as it gives

me time to think – which in itself is refreshing. But the welcome feeling that comes from having a destination at the end of the route is even better.

A key part of any space is the way you use it. In my secret space you can sit and relax, study (weather depending – the pitfall of any outdoor secret space), or walk about and contemplate life.

Although I am inspired by the famous long walks Charles Darwin used to take around his garden while working on his world-changing theory of evolution, the epiphanies I have experienced walking around my space have been a little smaller in scale – a new way to structure an essay, or an emotional breakthrough about the true meaning of a social interaction I had while drunk last Friday.

I highly recommend straying from the path of your daily routine and seeing what spaces you can suss out for yourself!

SEBASTIAN BALLARD

Secret Cambridge: Everything you didn’t already know Will Amor

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water. It is rather hard to find, however, as the UK and Ireland. Obviously not enough ith over 800 years of existence, presumably Trinity wants to keep this part pornography was actually published to fill such a formidable tower as at the UL, but Cambridge has its fair share of of its history secret. rather all non-academic materials were secrets. After the best part of a stashed up there. millennium, there have accumulated many Chiming Cambridge A current research programme, known fun facts and peculiar stories about both Great St Mary’s church, the literal centre of the University, adds to the cacophony as the Tower Project, is examining all these the University and the city.

Here are a few lively episodes from of bells which ring at every quarter hour to discarded books, such as cookbooks and Cambridge’s history which few people mark the passing of the day. You may have children’s literature, to better understand noticed that the church plays the same ordinary life in Britain in the recent past. know today, having fallen into obscurity: tune as Big Ben, often referred to as the So no, the tower is not full of porn, despite Westminster Chimes. popular belief.

Tap at Trinity What you may not know, however, is The ostentatious fountain at the centre of Trinity’s Great Court was the source of that this melody was written by Cambridge Byron’s Bear a riot when it was built at the turn of the undergrads for the University Church. Lord Byron, the archetypal Romantic poet, 17th century, and not because of its poor The adoption of the chimes for the most was a student at Trinity in the early 19th architectural taste. The college had built famous clock tower in the world is an century. He took exception to the college’s over one of the town’s three safe wells, and excellent example of Cambridge’s often ban on pets which prevented him from taking his beloved dog Botswain into in doing so made it even harder to find hidden influence in the wider world. residence with him. potable water.

He decided to retaliate in kind by At a time when water borne diseases like Tower of Porn dysentery were the major public health A favourite story to tell on Access tours or, purchasing a bear to share his rooms with issue of the land, the local people were even better, to elderly relatives is the UL’s him instead, and as bears were not covered in the college’s statues, they reluctantly outraged. They started a riot which finally fabled Tower of Porn.

Supposedly, the phallic central tower of agreed to allow the bear reside in the convinced the college to build a pipe and the Library holds all the porn and erotica boundaries of the college. tap on Trinity Street for the locals to use.

Byron even suggested that the bear take This tap is still there today, though now the University received when it was it is not recommended that you drink the required to stock all books published in up a fellowship.

DEREK HARPER

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28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Features

On modern life: In praise of useless knowledge Benedetta Maisano Columnist

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ertrand Russell used the example of knowing the etymological roots of the word ‘apricot’ to defend his claim that ‘curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant, but also makes pleasant things more pleasant’. He argues that knowing ‘apricot’ shares the same Latin ancestry as the word ‘precocious’, because of the fruit’s early ripening season, and that the ‘a’ was added by mistake and never removed, can only make it sweeter to the taste. However, unless you dabble in fruit etymology, this knowledge is useless. As is being able to quote Homer to an engineer, or knowing organic chemistry to a painter. Yet, a case can be made for valuing knowledge that is not needed solely to further individual success.

The UK’s education system is particularly guilty of treating knowledge as means to an end. I used to ask questions at school in the hope of learning something new and was told not to worry because that wouldn’t be in the exam. If it suffices to take what we ‘need’ to know, condense it, remember it, and regurgitate it in order to succeed, then it’s no surprise that learning is no longer considered a means for creating a broad and humane outlook on life. As a generation whose employment prospects are crippled by competition and technology, even for the most privileged and brightest people there isn’t time for learning what isn’t relevant.

This is harmful because it both confines mental enjoyment to passive activities and propagates the close-mindedness that follows from ignorance. In the first case, if we are to be happy when we are idle, we ought to develop interests independent of our work. This is something I’ve found particularly true of students, including myself; there is a fear of boredom and idleness because it strips us of the comfort of a goal. Furthermore, the ignorance and self-centredness

As a generation whose employment prospects are crippled there isn’t time for learning what isn’t relevant that follows from this instrumental view of knowledge works against efforts to weaken geographical, cultural and socio-economic barriers. The importance of ‘useless’ knowledge is that it cultivates a contemplative habit of mind – necessary for people who are a part of a global society and need to develop an equally global perspective. Of course, one cannot speak against the benefit of useful knowledge.

Having a maximally effective workforce is beneficial – it’s built us planes and found cures for diseases. However, it’s unclear that a workforce that is unable to cultivate independent interests really is as effective as it could be.

Furthermore, it’s clearly a privilege to meander through inapplicable knowledge for the sake of allroundedness, when the majority of people need to learn for the purpose of working and surviving, and this I do not challenge. However, the more pressing need for some people to gain applicable skills should not exclude their opportunity to learn for the sake of curiosity.

One of my best friends confessed to me that, as an 11 year old, when realising that God might not exist, she learnt as many things as possible because it made her feel safe. Faith aside, we should remain hungry for knowledge – who cares if its useful or not?

A week in the life: A Cambridge car *as imagined by Anna Bradley

the front of their bikes as well. I’m sure they can’t actually see where ometimes I think Cambridge is they’re going. a place specifically designed for Wednesday pedestrians and cyclists.

There seems to be nowhere for me Spent the whole day in the garage. to go – just when I think I’m going I have absolutely no idea where my to be allowed anywhere near the owner went – I bet she used her bicyle city centre, they start a furious instead. I feel so betrayed. I should conversation about parking wardens. have known.

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Monday Almost knocked over a cyclist today.

Almost, but not quite. At least it wasn’t dark – the minute it’s gone 5pm, they just veer out of nowhere, no lights, no fluorescent jackets, nothing. They seem to think they’re invincible.

They all have these basket things on

Almost knocked over a cyclist today

Thursday Still in the garage. Starting to wonder if my owner has died. Not sure they’ve even left enough petrol in here to see me through the week. The walls feel like they’re closing in – I’m sure the humans must have a word for this.

Saturday They’ve returned! I’ve never been so glad to see the garage door open in my life. I thought I was going to suffocate in there. I can feel the sweet, sweet sun on my car bonnet and life is – oh no what is that? That looks like a hose.

You don’t even drive me, I definitely do not need a wash!

Sunday I feel like they’ve stripped away my dignity. I’m cold, wet and alone. On the upside, I’ve heard whispers of a picnic in Thetford Forest, which means I’ll finally get a chance to stretch my wheels. Adios, Cambridge, I’m leaving your narrow streets behind and taking the high road from now on!

MOYAN_BRENN

Why I ditched Shakespeare for Seneca Elliott Wright

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he words struck me: “Elliott.

This is a lamentable mess of inaccuracies, generalisations and an almost wilful misunderstanding of the text.”

At this moment I realised I probably shouldn’t be studying English. Easter Term 2015, the conclusion of my first year. Since those triumphant times of Michaelmas where I spent my days getting on with work, I had acquired a social life, yet failed to reconcile this exciting new novelty with my workload. Moreover, I was utterly lost.

I distracted myself with involvement in theatrical productions that I had no real place being in. My examination results were average at best. I woke up most days around 1pm, to my cleaner’s familiar refrain: “get up, you lazy boy”.

Even she’d had enough of my shit, and she was the one being paid to clean it up. Worse still, I was being made to study Shakespeare; not only that, but Cymbeline. As I observed the braying members of my faculty class agreeing with the lecturer’s every sentiment, I felt all the more philistine. My only

companion in indifferent silence was a girl I sat with; who I later discovered, despite being a dedicated student, loathed every moment of those classes.

As I wish I knew then, disengagement does not equal idiocy.

Yet I found myself in a situation that not only made me feel an idiot for not engaging, but seemed to be explicitly preoccupied in telling me that I was.

I was being compelled to do things that held no interest for me, and I did not fear authority enough, nor hold enough belief in the existence of my future happiness, to actually care.

While I’m certain it was never the intention of any lecturer to directly contribute to my misery, my academic failures reflected and illuminated my personal ones. The thought of continuing with English into a second year seemed tantamount to accepting that my life was going to continue in this manner for the remaining years of my university experience.

Soon after receiving this feedback, I made the decision to switch to Classics.

Despite objections from my parents that I was bankrupting myself on a

I was being compelled to do things I had no interest in

useless degree (which, as I informed them, is no more useless than English), something felt immediately right about this decision.

I visited the faculty’s cast gallery, feeling immediately at home among the small-genitalled forms. I began taking on Latin, and despite being far from the most gifted Latinist in my cohort, learning an ancient language has provided the discipline that I probably needed. Furthermore, baffled as I may still be by the subjunctive, at the very least I can write essays on satirical poems about the Emperor Claudius shitting himself and call this legitimate academic activity.

Though it would be over-zealous to say that my degree change saved me, it was the first fundamental change in a series of many that allowed me to live the satisfied student life I now do.

If this lamentable mess has any message to impart, it is that one should never feel afraid to admit that something does not engage you. If it’s really proving a hassle, cut it out entirely. It might just be one of the best decisions you ever make.

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The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

Features

Student Spotlight: Student Community Action Matt rants: Alice Rogers

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very Sunday, at five o clock, I get my bike. I cycle past Emma, past Jesus Green and past Midsummer Common. However, unlike the majority of Cambridge students cycling this route, I don’t turn off at the boat houses (I gave up coxing long ago when I realised I had no hand eye co-ordination and hated the cold). Instead, I continue for a couple of minutes until I arrive at the house of an old lady who I have visited for the last year with Student Community Action (SCA).

I always enjoy the hour or so that I spend each Sunday with her. When I first started volunteering, she had just bought a new laptop, and it was

primarily technological problems that I assisted her with. Now, having known her for over a year, we have come to be great friends and she often asks me to help out with tasks that she finds difficult, such as carrying heavy things and replacing light bulbs. One day I even rearranged the furniture in her dining room – I’m always kept on my toes!

I love having conversations with her, and I feel that this is where I can really make a difference (besides, I never really understood computers anyway).

It is so often the case that elderly people living alone feel incredibly isolated, so having someone to talk to can make their week. Having an activity outside the Cambridge ‘Bubble’ reminds me that there are

One day I even rearranged the furniture

Girton’s great: A message for pooled offerholders

people in our community who really cherish it when we give up our rowing and offer our help.

SCA are always in need of new volunteers, and there is such a diverse array of projects to get involved in. Big Sibs provides volunteer befrienders for vulnerable children; Betty’s sees volunteers entertain residents of carehomes with singing, and Homework Help involves students going into Matt Hankin Columnist schools to help children who are struggling academically. ow that the madness of January 12th has died How much time you put into down, I’m guessing pooled offer holders are volunteering is completely up to you, feeling two things. Firstly, they’re extremely and you can do one-off projects if glad to have got an offer but, secondly, they you feel like you can’t commit in the are worried about their college and how its reputation may long term. Pop into the SCA office on affect their experience of the university.

I’m going to make a potentially inflammatory suggesPembroke Street to get involved. You tion that all colleges have relatively equal positive and won’t regret it!

LYDIA SABATINI negatives and that the Tompkins Table and application statistics don’t determine a college’s worth or a student’s enjoyment there. This will probably be dismissed by students at “top tier” colleges, but if you take one thing away from this column it should be that your self-worth isn’t defined by the ranking of your college and people who acts like it is are not worth your time.

Speaking for the first time in a public debate at the Cambridge Union, a student tweeted (and this was then read out by the President in front of the whole chamber) “Matt is great for a fresher, but was he pooled to Girton?”.

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When they’re rocking the Freshers’ 15 and you’re fit as hell, distance is a trade off you might be willing to make Not only is the first part of that sentence patronising, but the second half, making a “joke” about my college and the quality of applicants it receives was unnecessarily hurtful and actually cemented the idea in my mind that I had a higher chance of finding normal and down to earth people at the pool colleges (I was a direct applicant). This isn’t to say the majority of people at “higher tier” colleges behave like this, however I am yet to encounter this level of snobbery at a pool college.

I’ve found people at Girton to be less arrogant and more likely to want to talk or do something fun than chain themselves to a desk in the library. True, you will hear relentless jokes about the distance which weren’t funny in Freshers’ Week and still aren’t two terms in, but it can end up being a very positive thing separating work and home.

And, to reassure you, cycling is far safer in Cambridge than it is in most places in England. It takes 15 minutes to get into town and if generations of Girtonians have managed it, so can you.Someone at a central college might laugh at you when they can roll out of bed into lectures, “Fox – it reminds me of Robin “Sloths – their confidence is “Bird of paradise – especially the but if they’re rocking 15lbs of freshers’ fat and you’re fit Hood’s girlfriend in the Disney film” mesmerising” as hell, that’s a trade-off you might be willing to make. (I one that does the moonwalk” Lydia Sabatini am not fit as hell but am comparatively fitter than I would Pierandrea Conti Seb Horner have been had I gone to a central college). And we have an amazing swimming pool, the only one of any college.

You may be worried that a pool college will be less academically rigorous, but the amount of work you do is your decision. If you want to spend all your time on your degree at Girton and aim for a first, you are more than able to do that. All students get access to the same lectures and I share most of my supervisors with students from different colleges. The quality of teaching you receive is unlikely to be affected by being at a pool college, as discrepancies between colleges are somewhat random.

“Definitely a lynx” “A bear” The benefits of Girton are understated, but don’t let Danny He Anastasia Bruce Jones getting an offer from a pool college affect your decision to firm Cambridge or your elation at getting in. You might end up realising that it was the best outcome for you.

Student Chat: Which animal is the sexiest?

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28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Interviews

Bridging the gap between Cambridge and Tibet Julia Stanyard Interviews Editor

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ased in Cambridge, English Language Studies for Tibetans (ELST) is a charity involved in fascinating and vital work, promoting the teaching of the English language and education in Tibetan communities, through organising volunteer teaching in the exile communities of India, Nepal and Mongolia, and supporting Tibetan students to come and study in Cambridge. This week, I spoke with Hilary Papworth, ELST founder and Cambridge resident, and Yum Skyid, Tibetan student at Murray Edwards studying for an MPhil with the help of a scholarship from ELST. Hilary tells me how it all began: “ELST sprang to life nearly 20 years ago. My husband Bill and I were on a trip to India and received a request for help from a young doctor of Tibetan traditional medicine. He needed better English skills in order to communicate with the numerous Indian patients who flocked to their Tibetan Medicine clinic.” She explains how subsequently, over the years, many bright young professional Tibetans: teachers, doctors, monks, administrators, translators to the Dalai Lama, all from the exile community in India have come to Cambridge.

“Generally, they found their short but intense English Language programmes and encounters with people and ideas in the wider world enriching. All were selected on individual merit, and those Tibetans are now a remarkable Tibetan exile alumni group, including

the senior manager of the Dalai Lama’s Foundation for Universal Responsibility, founded with the latter’s Nobel Peace Prize money, and the director of the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts.”

From these beginnings, ELST has evolved a lot, leading to the foundation of a University society associated with the charity (CU-ELST), which was set up by a returning volunteer. Each year the society helps student volunteers organise teaching placements in Tibetan communities in a number of countries: India, Nepal and Mongolia, from Ulaan Bataar to Dharamsala, to name a few.

“volunteers are wanted and appreciated by their host communities. They give a lot and they also get a lot in return” While ELST provides volunteers with support, advice and what Hilary describes as a ‘seed-corn grant’ of a small amount of money, volunteers are largely expected to take responsibility for their own placements, offering a level of independence which sets them apart from other volunteering opportunities in Cambridge.:“Volunteers are expected to uphold ELST and CUELST’s good name and to return with an account of their achievements and experiences.”

From my own experience of volunteering with CUELST over last summer, I can safely say that GEORGINA COLLIE

YAO TANG

this responsibility is not to be underestimated. When a friend and I set off by ourselves to volunteer in the Zanskar valley, a remote part of the Ladakh region in the Indian Himalaya, it definitely felt like a leap into the unknown. While daunting, this independence definitely brings its own rewards. As Hilary describes it: “The great thing about ELST/ CU-ELST is that the volunteers are wanted and appreciated by their host communities, and it can be a hugely enriching experience for the volunteers themselves. They give a lot and they get a lot in return.”

However, while CU-ELST organises the volunteer placements, ELST itself is busy with other matters, not least of which is the Williams Papworth Studentship, which supports postgraduate students from the Tibetan Plateau, or surrounding regions, to study in Cambridge.

Hilary is enthusiastic about the work that the scholarship does: “So far [the studentship] has associated with three wonderful students.” The latest of these is Yum Skyid, from the eastern Qinghai province of China, who began her MPhil last October. Yum describes her experience of Cambridge with great enthusiasm: “I never thought I would ever have a chance to study at Cambridge, one of the best universities in the world, but the studentship made it a reality.”

With the prospect of CUELST recruiting a fresh cohort of volunteers over the next few weeks, it promises to be a bright future for the organisation.

Clockwise from top: The students of Government High School, Phey (Credit: Hugh Hathaway), Volunteers and class at Asrai centre NGO, Mongolia (Credit: Rūta Valaityte), Travelling around Ulaan Baator (Credit: Rūta Valaityte) , Williams Papworth Studentship holder Yum Skyid matriculating at Murray Edwards (Credit: Yum Skyid)

Charity work beyond ‘the Bubble’ Maddy Airlie Interviews Editor

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fter reading English Literature at Clare College, Cambridge, Georgina Collie graduated last year. She is now working at Bede House, a London-based charity, which looks into many different areas of people living with difficulties, whether they are disabilities or domestic violence. It is the latter that Georgina has become involved in, as part of a scheme called The Starfish Project: “The ultimate goal is that the people we help will never get into another abusive relationship. What excited me about it was the prospect to have an actual impact on an issue which is so pervasive yet so hidden, and so deeply entrenched in our society.”

For her, “the opportunity to actually be influencing others’ lives so soon after graduation is incredible.” wI wondered if there was anything in her Cambridge experience which propelled her towards charity

work, and she remarked that she had always been involved in charitable work during her time here: “Nowadays, the charity sector is so integral to how our country functions that I think any recent graduate would be mad to pass up a good role in a charity, no matter where they want to go into long term.”

This brings up the question of whether our time during our degree allows for us to contribute to charities in a meaningful way, given our

“The opportunity to actually be influencing others’ lives so soon after graduation is incredible” privileged position. For example, when asked if volunteering should be made compulsory, Georgina stated: “While the idea of community service for the privileged, reforming them to understand reality, is a both a rather wonderful and faintly humorous

thought, it is one which I doubt would change many attitudes in real terms.”

However, Georgina is keen to add: “There should definitely be a more robust infrastructure to encourage wilful volunteering throughout the colleges, particularly in the local community, which is often sorely neglected in favour of more exciting charity work abroad.” While there is plenty of charity activity amongst students, Cambridge can be a problematic space for discussing these ‘real world’ issues.

Ultimately. Georgina warns us to remain self-aware: “There is a danger in the luxury of debating everything in such a strictly theoretical, detached sense, as we tend to at Cambridge.

When we are reaching out to those outside ‘the Bubble’, we need to take into account the sheltered space our ideas have been bred in...the bottom line is just to respect everyone’s experience, whether it chimes with your ideals or not.”

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The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

Comment

Colleges should fly the LGBT+ flag with pride this February

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

Izzy Ryan

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lags are controversial. Burning a flag is seen by some as one of the greatest insults imaginable, and all it takes is flying the wrong flag in the wrong place to start a riot.

This February marks LGBT+ History Month, and many colleges have agreed to fly the rainbow flag in memory and recognition of the LGBT+ movement.

Many are indifferent to this; for others, it means everything.

Some JCRs are struggling to get college approval and many students simply don’t see the significance of the campaign. The argument from the conservative wing is that this would set a precedent. If the LGBT+ community can fly their flag, what stops a multitude of other movements doing the same? Surely, a line must be drawn somewhere? From the liberal wing there are accusations of tokenism.

I believe, in spite of this, that colleges flying the rainbow flag this February would symbolise so much more than support for the movement and should be encouraged, if not enforced, by students and JCRs. Last year, like many LGBT+ people, I was underwhelmed by Facebook’s rainbow profile picture epidemic.

Suddenly, girls that I knew had been homophobic at school, and other people who I knew had no interest or knowledge about the movement, were with one click loudly declaring their support for LGBT+ rights and receiving pats on the back from all their Facebook friends in an ultimately meaningless show of solidarity.

Such simplification of issues in a low-effort attempt to support LGBT+ people, felt hollow and almost offensively half-hearted.

Some may see the flying of the flag, this February, as an attempt to easily express how open and accepting we are, while making only a very minimal effort to change anything about societal oppression.

I can see why many would feel this way, and admittedly, I don’t expect those reluctant in college to suddenly be banner wielding activists after waving one flag for one day.

However, some of the oldest institutions in the country waving the rainbow flag would scream so much more than reluctant acceptance and lukewarm support. We do not fly the flag in order to reform the people raising it, but as a symbol for the LGBT+ students who see it.

There are LGBT+ people all over the world, including those in the UK and in Cambridge, who spend part, if not all, of their lives in hiding because it would be unsafe for them to come out.

It’s easy to forget in the student bubble that being open and honest about one’s sexuality can, for some, be life threatening. Coming out is not a cute side-plot in a sitcom. It is not an exaggeration to argue that for many people it is one of the most fundamental moments of their lives, as well as being potentially one of the most dangerous.

It is important to bear in mind that the colours of the rainbow flag don’t just represent the diversity of the movement, they symbolise pride in the face of adversity, happiness when the world around you seems to be collapsing, and the promise of a community that understands you when your own community treats you like a freak.

Flying the flag this February isn’t just a tokenistic attempt by colleges and JCRs to appear accepting. It is a powerful statement from LGBT+ students that says: I’m here – I won’t be forced to hide. And above all, despite the odds, I exist.

LISAMIKULSI

On fee-raising

The price of attending a top university Access in Cambridge is often given a very bad name. It’s true that this is one of the most intimidating universities in the UK, but it must be said that there is an awe-inspiring ethos of ‘access’ within Cambridge.

Indeed, the notion of ‘access’, in the sense that we see it here, is almost unique to the old and traditionally inaccessible universities of Oxbridge.

In an ideal world, the most valuable educational resources would be free of charge to everyone. However, realistically that quite simply cannot be the case. The real cost-per-student to the University was claimed by the vice-chancellor in 2014 to be £16,000: Lecturers must be paid, faculties and resources must be funded. It is not feasible to suggest that taxes, coming from households already stretched to

breaking point, should cover the cost of education for all.

Therefore, the best solution is for those who can afford to pay to do so, while those who cannot afford to do so receive support from the state.

The recent scrapping of maintenance grants may not have left less well-off students with more money to pay in total, but the move most certainly made the commitment of going to university seem much more daunting, majorly setting back access initiatives. Access is about appearance and perceptions; the raising of fees in line with an institution’s performance only serves to render the best educational opportunities even further out of the reach of talented students from more deprived backgrounds.

Admissions tests

A daunting turn-off or great equaliser?

Admissions tests are sometimes hailed as ‘‘the great equaliser”. They are fairer because they do not carry the subjectivity of a face-to-face interview, and can be moderated, controlled and standardised.

However, I know countless classmates who chose Cambridge over Oxford simply because Cambridge

did not demand an admissions test pre-consideration for interview.

Daunting as an interview with world-leading academics may be, the last thing any aspiring Cambridge applicant needs is another exam to add to the already sufficiently exhausting process of applying to university – particularly Cambridge.

The Oscars boycott: It’s not just a temper tantrum Micha Frazer-Carroll Comment Editor

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ext month, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Spike Lee, and other black actors and filmmakers will boycott the Oscars in protest of this year’s startling all white acting nominees list.

Among support for a brave act of rebellion that flies in the face of one of the most prestigious institutions in the business, came cries that those involved needed to check their privilege and consider themselves lucky to be in such a fortunate situation as to be making movies in the first place.

Interestingly, many of these came from other black celebrities; Janet Hubert of The Fresh Prince remarked: “Our boys are being shot left and right.

People are starving. People are trying to pay bills. And you’re talking about some f*****g actors and Oscars.” But Hubert fails to see how these things could be interconnected.

When actors choose to boycott, they aim to provoke change from the top down. To revolt against diversity in Hollywood is to stand up for black people everywhere; not a temper tantrum on the part of actors who need a reality check, but rather a reaction to systemic oppression from the people in the business who are most in touch with reality. As long as marginalised members of minority groups can’t climb into the highest ranks of a given institution, it will be more difficult for their less privileged compatriots to even get a foot in the door. Lack of

respect for black talent in Hollywood means a deficit in serious roles for black actors, which means a lack of black representation on screen, which means a lack of respect for black lives and black stories. I commend actors brave enough to kick up a fuss despite the fact that in theory, they don’t need to work another day in their lives.

And the same goes for Cambridge.

Always think twice before questioning a member of a marginalised group’s dissatisfaction with a system that holds down their peers, friends and families.

To question a BME student’s outrage at the fact that white students are five times more likely to gain a First than them is to miss the point entirely.

“You’re at one of the best universities in the world, you can’t really com-

plain,” isn’t a good enough argument; in ‘elite’ institutions, whether they be Hollywood or the Russell Group, there is a proverbial glass ceiling that affects ethnic minorities too, and we should consider the trickle-down effect that would occur if it were to be smashed.

An ethnic minority student gaining a First could create an opportunity to pursue a career in academia, creating visibility for BME people within the field and encouraging more ethnic minority students to apply to university.

To still fight for those who suffer from the same oppressions as you, even when you have found yourself in relatively fortunate circumstances, is an act of selflessness and loyalty to your community. “You’ve made it this far, be thankful” just isn’t enough.

LOREN JAVIER

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28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Comment

New age, new priorities: student protests today Lola Olufemi Comment Editor

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he national obsession with how students organise themselves leaves much to be desired about mainstream understandings of the function and purpose of liberation movements.

Students have been ridiculed for their use of safe spaces and trigger warnings which have become synonymous with the curtailing of ‘free speech.’

Limitations on ‘free speech’ already exist. Individuals have a right to say what they like, of course, but they do not have the automatic right to be heard and appreciated. The idea that it is possible to limit the ‘free speech’ of prominent individuals with newspaper columns, books, blogs, and national press attention is nonsensical, and fails to take into account the fact that ‘silencing’ requires authority that students simply do not have.

Refusing to entertain the ideas of those who maintain structural oppression is a recognition that the lives and lived experiences of marginalised people are more important than controversy or the value of debate.

What is also often overlooked is who exactly ‘free speech’ exists for; does it exist for marginalised people when they try and critique systems of power – Bahar Mustafa was nearly charged for her use of the hashtag #killallwhitemen, (a popular feminist slogan used to express anger at structural oppression – or does it merely exist for the privileged to undermine valid critiques in order to maintain violent structures within society?

What this narrative also fails to take into consideration is the fact that the way students organise will inevitably change depending on the age we live in.

It is ludicrous to believe that our political campaigning looks like that of our parents, and is perhaps reflective of the fact that the mainstream media is dominated by individuals of a certain race, age, gender and class who seem to constantly hark back to a golden age of activism and freethinking that never really existed. What I see in the way this generation organises is the skilful conservation of energy in order to focus on the issues that matter most.

Trigger warnings allow individuals to choose whether or not they expose themselves to harmful material, safe spaces act as a refuge from daily microaggressions that drain physical and emotional energy.

This means that when we do campaign, we are in a better state emotionally to do so.

The idea that looking after yourself is cowardly comes from years of masculinised activist practices that were fundamentally exclusionary for anyone who could not get out onto the streets.

The collective nostalgia that exists in our idea that the only effective way to organise is to get our bodies on the pavement, does not take into account the number of individuals who are unable to do this because of physical and mental health reasons. The disdain for ‘armchair activism’ dismisses the power of social media that did not exist in a pre-90s world. It is helpful to utilise the tools that

Trigger warnings allow individuals to choose whether or not to expose themselves to harmful material

are available to us now in order to create a new kind of activism founded on the idea of inclusivity. This involves critiquing old practices and ensuring that our new ones are accessible to all.

A recognition that platforms equal power and therefore we should think critically about who we give them to isn’t a refusal to engage in “debate” but evidence that we understand that debates have consequences. They don’t exist in a vacuum and determine dominant narratives about racism, sexism, homophobia which shape the experiences of marginalised people. By debating issues of identity and humanity in ways that don’t critique power, we merely maintain structures of disadvantage.

The premise that debate is the best way to acquire knowledge or information in order to make valuable judgments is one that has been long advanced by a white male thought paradigm.

When the complexities of our political organisation are mocked by those who don’t understand what it means to be a young person today, our aims and motives become obscure. We begin to buy into a narrative that we have lost any ability to be exposed to new ideas when really what we are doing is considering that not all ideas are inherently valuable or worthy of debate. This allows for entirely new focus Rhiannon White on issues that have been overlooked by the generations before us – change should olocaust Memorial Day is not be viewed as threatening, as our commemorated nationally each campaigning priorities evolve, so will the year on 27 January, and marks the methods we use to achieve our goals. anniversary of the liberation of AuschwitzBirkenau, the Polish concentration and CLAUDIA GABRIELA MARQUES VIERIA death camp, by Allied Forces on this day in 1945.

The day is an opportunity to reflect on the position of the Holocaust in public consciousness today, and to ensure that the memory of those who were murdered in and whose lives were touched by the Holocaust are honoured.

In 2016, Holocaust Memorial Day marks the 71st anniversary of this date, and the challenges facing the accurate and sensitive remembrance of these lives are everchanging, and ever-growing.

In the historical moment we occupy, the number of surviving eye-witnesses to the atrocities that were perpetuated is very limited, and so access to first-hand testimony, which is arguably a crucial means of connecting to these human stories, is dwindling.

It therefore continues to be imperative that we make the right effort to listen to and faithfully record these accounts, both for posterity, and for those future generations who will not be able to meet someone who experienced the Holocaust.

The primary purpose of Holocaust Memorial Day is remembrance, and the inherent importance of this remembrance cannot and should not be diminished in answering the question of how much

Holocaust mem compassion, n

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The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

Comment

INGY THE WINGY

Access work is not enough to achieve equality Sriya Varadharajan Comment Editor

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quick look at admissions statistics proves that Cambridge University has an access problem: the success rates for applicants from comprehensive schools are disproportionately low, as are those for BME students.

However, although the University has clear issues with being accessible, the abundance of access schemes prove that it is not for want of trying by students on both a college and university-wide scale.

The most wide-reaching of these is the CUSU Shadowing Scheme. Reaching out to students from underperforming schools and giving them the opportunity to experience life in Cambridge for three days is an intense experience, but the worth of these schemes cannot be underestimated.

Demythologising Cambridge in this way can make a world of difference to students who would otherwise have applied with little knowledge of life here, or who would not have applied at all despite having the potential to thrive.

The root of the issue lies in social inequality

But is it enough? The best efforts of people involved in the Shadowing Scheme and similar initiatives cannot possibly expand the experience to be representative of a term at Cambridge, or a year.

Three days packs in a lot, but we have to acknowledge that the University, as an institution, can prove to be unfriendly to underprivileged students over a long period of time.

Of course, the value in access initiatives like the Shadowing Scheme lies in proving to these students that this does not have to be the case. Cambridge is filled with genuine, thoughtful people – both students and academics – who can make all the difference. The root of the issue lies in social inequality, which predates any UCAS application form.

The University should truly seek to become more accessible, because – for anyone who cares about the future of education – the amount of talented students who are missing out on opportunities to gain access to some of the best resources in the world, that would allow them to thrive,

is truly heartbreaking. Furthermore, the initiatives required to make this change would provoke a revolution throughout the entire education system due to the huge scope and influence the University holds.

Cambridge could play its part by consistently lowering offers for students from low-income families or who go to underperforming schools, in order to account for the difference implied by the lack of resources. It also could provide support to these pupils to help them through the application process, so that they rival students from more privileged backgrounds and circumstances.

Additionally, Cambridge has both means and motive to provide support for younger students in their academic activity, which may allow them to gain the qualifications necessary for University, whether they apply to Cambridge or not.

The problem of access is an urgent one, and one that deserves to be tackled with the full power of the resources that the University possesses. Cambridge can affect real change – and it must.

morial needs Contesting colonialism: Colleges must take steps not academia to represent the rich history of BME students contemporary relevance the Holocaust is seen to have in the world today.

Nevertheless, 27 January is also often used as an opportunity to reflect on the factors implicated in creating the Holocaust, and their position in society today. The mechanics of power, of prejudice, and of persecution, should not be pursued with a kind of ‘intellectual curiosity’ at the expense of honouring the memories of those who were killed, but can be valuably reflected on as continually insidious, and as shaping human realities.

We may be engaging in recollections of recollections, in memorial at a distance, but this does not mean we can afford to be ignorant of the reality of systematic denials of basic rights in our own communities, as well as in the international community.

The particular theme of Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations this year is ‘Don’t Stand By’. This will hopefully encourage those marking the day to productively think about the influence of bystander behaviour during the Holocaust, and in their own lives.

We cannot exempt ourselves from the act of remembrance, or we risk forgetting, and we risk denial. We cannot, in 2016, exempt ourselves from the responsibility to understand and challenge the undermining of marginalised groups, and the appalling psychological cruelty and violence so many face based on factors of difference today.

And we must not exempt ourselves from acts of compassion.

Phelan Chatterjee

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iberal thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth century justified imperial conquest by stressing the need for a civilising mission. Yet in order to civilise, you needed a blank canvas. So the history books were written, and the colonies were born: void of any history, culture, morality or intellect.

Centuries on, the portraits on our walls reinforce this colonial imagination. In my first year at Cambridge, I didn’t come across a single portrait of a person of colour. This existed in the face of stories I’d heard from family in Kolkata – the heart of the empire – about the countless Indian renaissance men, independence leaders and scientists who had all received a “proper British education” in Cambridge.

Where were they?

Our imperial history has meant that people of colour have been attending this institution for centuries. Yet our reluctance to acknowledge them ensures that whiteness remains supreme.

When I approached Christ’s College, Cambridge, on this issue, together with my JCR BME officer, I got the response that there weren’t any alumni of colour whose achievements matched the excellence of the white men. Yet what of Davidson Nicol, a 1940s Sierra Leonean groundbreaking diabetes researcher, diplomat, academic and poet; the first African fellow in Cambridge? Or Sze Szeming, Chinese cofounder of the World Health Organisation?

We were lucky; we might not have found

LORENZO

alumni whose achievements were deemed as “excellent”. Would it have then been too radical to suggest that these “inferior” achievements should be seen in a different light, owing to the structural racism, elitism and dehumanisation students of colour would have had to overcome to attain them?

After a year of talks with the college, they finally conceded, admitting that there were in fact a few small photos of women and minorities lying around. Now, they are considering enlarging some of these.

Although perhaps a drop in the ocean of

The portraits on our walls reinforce colonial imagination

white men, this was significant.

We’ve often had to frame our arguments in terms of access; in other words, prospective applicants of colour are likely to feel more comfortable applying if they see people who look like them represented in portraits. It’s the least that can be done at a university where black students and staff face under-representation at all levels.

But it’s about more than just access.

At the end of the day, it’s about students of colour battling centuries of colonial erasure, and affirming that we, too, have a history at Cambridge.

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28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Sport

Puzzle Column

Do sponsors now have too

Paul Hyland Sport Editor

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t seems like every sport these days is plagued by some form of scandal.

First football, then athletics, then tennis, these days almost none of our national pastimes seem safe from allegations of corruption.

Take the International Association 6.

5. of Athletics Federations (IAAF), currently engulfed in controversy after revelations of state-sponsored doping

by Russian athletes has seen the country banned from competing in the sport for a year. In the aftermath, 7. three senior officials were banned for life, following the findings of an ethics commission showed that they had covered up evidence of positive drug tests from Russian athletes.

UK Athletics has unveiled its new 8.

9.

‘Manifesto for Clean Athletics’ and IAAF president, Sebastian Coe, has come under public scrutiny as to 10. his role in the cover-up. But it’s not the public, the government or UK Athletics that have put the IAAF under the most pressure. It’s Adidas.

The German sportswear company announced this week that it is set to terminate its £5.6 million a year sponsorship deal with the organisation Across Down 1. Go through to get into a building; 1. Shindig, party or bash organised by JCRs; four years before expiry in late 2019.

The decision is understood to have potential type of exam before Cambridge a particularly chatty tree (3) (Page 3) (8) 2. Better __ could lead to higher fees? (Page been a direct result of the ongoing investigations into doping in athletics.

5. A tasty leaf; whose life we experience for a 1) (8) An investigation that has now cost day (Part 2, Page 10) (3) 3. More BME students needed, the group them £21 million in lost income over 6. Call the plumber, your drain has some trying to make this happen (Pages 4 and the next four years.

Dutch dancing shoes (4) 5) (6) It’s hard to know whether this is a 7. Short actor (5) 4. Beauty pageant winner’s titular surname is good thing. The problem with pressure 8. Harry’s ginger friend who doesn’t like the very patriotic (Page 6) (7) exerted by massive companies like candidates for the JCR (3) Adidas is that moral standards in 9. All good things come to this (3) sport are being set by organisations 10. Your Cambridge cooking cupboard (3)

1.

2.

4.

3.

whose concerns are financial, rather than ethical. It’s surely a problem that the greatest pressure on the IAAF has come from an international sportswear conglomerate who, in withdrawing millions of pounds’ sponsorship from that under-fire organisation, have little interest in a transparent investigation into alleged acts of doping in the sport, but only want to protect their assets from guilt-by-association.

This situation is all the result of the commercialisation of sport. Football’s governing body, FIFA, can hardly complain that tournaments held in

Governing bodies sell their sports to the highest bidder

Crossword

Sudoku

by Thomas Prideaux Ghee

Solutions from Volume 17, Lent Issue 2

Signs of optimism for new er Jack Ranson Sport Editor

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n Tuesday night, members of the University of Cambridge’s Sports Department were out in full force to respond to the queries and problems raised by its athletes.

There were coaches, administrators and directors out talking to students for two hours, in a bid to allay concerns and improve transparency in the Sports department.

In two sessions entitled ‘Strategy for Sport’ at Wilberforce Road Sports Ground, the University gave students the chance to come along and pose questions to some of its most senior staff. The food and drink flowed, the combined love of sport making conversation easy; but there were some grumblings of discontent amongst students, which the decision-makers were keen to address.

With five different stations, the

There was a mood for positive change

students had the chance to talk to a lot of Cambridge Sport’s key players, as well as being able to place feedback onto large noticeboards. Students were asked what University Sport could do to help improve ‘resources’, ‘profile’, ‘participation’, ‘performance’ and ‘governance and management’.

The recently appointed Director of Sport, Nick Brooking, spoke of the need for patience when it comes to the University’s role in sport: “It’s obviously a huge issue. It’s difficult here because everything is so fragmented.

We’ll look at all the feedback we’ve got tonight and hopefully put together a response in the next couple of weeks.”

Speaking to sports captains, there was a mood for positive change. Molly Lewis, President of the Women’s Basketball Club, acknowledged the unique pressures of Cambridge Sport: “There are huge academic pressures.

I was told in my first week to stick to

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The Cambridge Student • 28 January 2016

Sport

much power in sport?

Russia and Qatar, from which they can comfortably expect to better their almost £2 billion profit margin from Brazil 2014, have caused companies such as Emirates Airlines and Sony to decide not to renew sponsorship deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Such is the bind that governing bodies including FIFA, the IAAF and the International Tennis Federation find themselves in. Much of what these organisations do is to sell their sports to the highest bidder, and now they’re dying by the swords they live by.

If anything is going to persuade

them to become more transparent, and embrace higher standards of ethics, it will be the fear of losing out on millions of pounds from marketing their sports to the public.

Though the morality of doping, match fixing and even human rights abuses is probably not too high on the agenda of most multinational corporations, their power to enact change could be the start of a new era of transparency and ethical values in sport. At least we have that to look forward to, in the wake of the drama we’ve witnessed in the past few weeks.

GRZEGORZ JERCZEK

“The Tenn Integ Unit the te

GRANT STANTIALL

Women’s Football team hit stalemate against Lincoln Gerda Bachrati

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ambridge’s Women’s Football team, second in the league, travelled to first in the league Lincoln University. Both sides perform in the Britsh Unviersities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) League Midlands 2B, gunning for promotion by the end of the season. Cambridge came into the match with a six match unbeaten run under their belts, but Lincoln were league leaders and thorougly dominant in their early fixtures. Separated by two points, both teams were desperate for the win.

Lincoln quickly took the lead, taking advantage of the strong wind to carry the ball over keeper Farrell and into the net. The weather contained the ball down the right hand side of the pitch, until a defensive interception let Edwards bamboozle the Lincoln defence to set Bull up, whose shot bounced off the far post and into the net. Picking the ball out of the wind,

ra of University Sport one thing outside my subject. If I’d followed that advice, I wouldn’t be playing Basketball.”

Brooking rounded off the evening on a positive note: “We need to find a

Cambridge were able to play around Lincoln and again, set Bull up to shoot clean into the Lincoln goal from the left corner flag bringing the score to 2–1. A goal kick from keeper Farrell fell to Cambridge’s left-back, setting up Bull down the left wing, who was able to take it right up to the Lincoln goalkeeper and slot it through her legs, completing her hattrick. Cambridge’s chances continued with the frustrated Lincoln team giving away multiple fouls, but free kicks were cleared and shots from the Cambridge midfielders were saved by the Lincoln keeper - who suffered a kick in the head from Savage in her effort to get on the end of a cross.

Lincoln managed to break on the counter attack, and find space in front of the Cambridge defence to send a ball over keeper Farrell, ending the half on 3–2 to Cambridge. Both sides left the pitch tense, looking ahead to the second half with everything still to play for.

The second half started with both teams fighting for control, and equal control and possession between both teams. Centre backs Brown and Malley held off the Lincoln strikers, but Cambridge were unable to extend the lead. Five minutes from the final whistle the Lincoln striker pulled away from the Cambridge defence to score the equaliser. Facing a 3–3 draw, Cambridge dominated the attack, winning two corners in the last two minutes. The Lincoln side ran down the clock, happy to hold out for the draw that they’d worked so hard to get.

For Cambridge, all attempts at regaining the lead they’d had for most of the match were scrambled off the line by the Lincoln keeper. Full time, a frustrating 3–3 for the Light Blues.

The Cambridge Women will soon be heading up to Gloucestershire for the annual BUCS competition against several other universities, where they’ll be hoping to take the positives of scoring three excellent goals.

University triumph in ‘Town vs. Gown’ boxing tie Paul Hyland Sport Editor

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way to integrate. Whether it be social or college sports. I’m still getting n a hotly fought contest at the used to colleges, so bear with us.” The Guildhall on Saturday evening, message: watch this space. Change is Cambridge University edged out on the way. a team of local residents to take this COLIN year’s Town vs. Gown boxing title 7–5.

It is a good omen, as last year’s Town vs. Gown victory led seamlessly into a momentous Cambridge victory in the 108th Varsity Match.

Their perfect preparation for March’s Varsity showdown with their Dark Blue rivals was marred by a scare for heavyweight Tosin Buraimo, who was taken to Addenbrookes to be treated for exhaustion. His fight against Essex University counterpart Rory Lambert, had lasted all three rounds, with the judges voting unanimously in favour of the Cambridge stalwart.

When the decision was announced, Buraimo could barely raise his arm in celebration. “The paramedic said he’s fine, he’s just exhausted,” explained

his coach, Lee Mitchell. “He hadn’t taken any head punches, but it’s all the adrenaline and the night and he just gave it everything for two rounds and in the last round he couldn’t move.”

Elsewhere there was a business-like victory for Cambridge’s Ope Oduyeye, making his debut in this event, as he dispatched with his opponent, Greg Hedge, in less than a minute.

There was disappointment for Cambridge Women’s captain, Omba Kumwenda, who was defeated by Priya Sangar of London’s Gator Club thanks to a unanimous decision by the judges.

From there, Cambridge suffered a string of defeats. James Claridge and Sid Pratha-Naik lost to split judges’ verdicts, while Jamil Shah-Fordi was knocked out in round two of his bout: 4–1 down.

Cambridge roared back into the contest, with Aiden Dobney, Sara Hogan and Piers Dawson picking up victories thanks to unanimous

calls from the judges. Now 4–4, and Buraimo and Oduyeye put Cambridge two to the good before Ciaran Hill extended the lead to 7–4 thanks to yet another unanimous call from the judges. Rob Liu’s second-round defeat was little more than a consolation for the Town team, who went down 7–5.

As for the Gown team, they now look ahead to their Varsity on 1 March at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, and on this kind of form, you wouldn’t bet against them.

HISTORYWORKS

Sport

28 January 2016 • The Cambridge Student

GRANT STANTIALL

Women’s Football

Match reaches stalemate in windy conditions → p. 19

www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/sport

WILLIAM LYON TUPMAN

William Lyon Tupman

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thrilling game for the spectators, with a very strong start for Oxford, scoring two tries within the first ten minutes. But the Light Blues were quick to respond, with a try of their own just moments later. The intensity continued and a strong performance was maintained by both, albeit with one of the Light Blues being sent to the penalty box. Oxford weren’t fault free, but their luck held out, resulting in a half-time score of 20-12.

The second half saw a similar style to the first, with fierce competition characterising both halves.

After a couple of near-misses from both sides, Cambridge’s valiant efforts were finally rewarded with two convincing tries and conversions in quick succession.

Oxford’s first attempt to respond was blocked by their knock-on, and while their second attempt was successful, another fault from Oxford ensured Cambridge’s well-earned triumph.

Cambridge Oxford

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Emily Birch

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t was Cambridge’s last fixture against Oxford before Varsity. Morrill quickly took the ball and assertively slammed home the first goal for the Light Blues team.

A second goal from Cambridge followed quickly before Oxford began to make a fight back. After a long period of defence from Cambridge, Oxford were able to win a penalty, which saw them make a mark on the scoreboard. Determined to power ahead, Cambridge chased back in midfield, which resulted in Nicholls, Lehovsky, and Morrill hitting the back of the net to make it 5-1. Oxford called a time out and were able to make a double strike against Cambridge before half time, making it 6-3. A messy start after half time saw a yellow card for Gillespie. Some stellar play from Morrill triggered a shift in momentum in Cambridge’s favour, and she proceeded to slam another goal into the net. It means Cambridge go into Varsity confidently having won the league.

Men’s Football

Men’s Rugby

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Women’s Lacrosse

A thrilling victory for the light blues in the Men’s Rubgy Cambridge Oxford

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Cambridge Birmingham

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Stuart Cummings

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ong stick midfielder Will Barrie scored 2 including an impressive quick stick goal from close range, Pete Baddoo scored after a great team fast break, Oskari Timgren after a great team move involving every attacking player touching the ball on the move, and Cody Jacobucci got 2 goals, one off a well worked man up play, and the other a powerful shot.

Keeper Stuart Cummings was MOTM after a lot of saves from the Birmingham attack throughout the match, with impressive defensive performances from Ed Wigley, Tim Schaitberger and Alistair Fisher. The result leaves us needed one more win from our remaining two games to secure top of the league, and though our 100% record may be broken, we’re still unbeaten in the league since March 2014.

A great performance in the build up to the 100th Varsity exactly one month away!