The Founder, September 2015

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FOUNDER

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The Independent Student Newspaper of Royal Holloway, University of London

September 2015

Volume 9, Issue 8

Dear Freshers,

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BY JASPER WATKINS CO-EDITOR As you stare out of your new flat, waving, teary eyed like some 1940’s child of the evacuation as your parents pull away, it slowly dawns on you- you made it. You have worked and earned your place here so congratulations!

You are probably overly well equipped to deal with any possible culinary (who needs four different kinds of frying pans?) and alcoholic scenarios that will inevitably arise during your first week in this brave new world of university. Cuba libre mixed in that extra-large wok you

thought you might need, why not? Look at me now Mum, I’ve made it to university.

For those of you who are totally unafraid of this new environment, go out there and seek your fortunes (or lack of once the SU opens). But spare a thought for those who are, quite understandably, a little nervous. University is a big leap from what you will have known whether its managing your finances, cooking for yourself or, most importantly, making new friends. So reach out to that flatmate whose door hasn’t opened since day

one because I am certain they will appreciate it. For those of you who are truly worried, the SU offer all kinds of support which can easily be accessed to help you ease into what is an incredibly different way of living.

You will make your best friends here and undoubtedly share memories you will never forget, or did forget until you got to the bottom of ‘what did actually happen last night?’ My advice for you young faced, optimistic freshers is this: explore and approach everything with an open mind. You will be the envy of all your new friends if

Inside: News

you can casually navigate Founders without getting totally and utterly lost. ‘What do you mean you’ve never been to the steam tunnels?’ you ask casually, sipping on a VK like one of those third year folk you’ve seen haunting that library which you haven’t quite had ‘time’ to go into yet. Seen Thomas Holloway’s ghost? Of course, great guy.

For those of you returning back to Royal Holloway, it is a much less poetic arrival. The discovery of that milk you forgot to throw out before going home for the summer has probably had a greater social life than you. The exceedingly warm embrace of Crosslands is welcoming, the sticky floors of the SU a blessing. Dressing up to go out at home really was a bore wasn’t it?

Braced for the inevitable bombardment of ‘What year are you, what course do you do?’ (a chant that will soon haunt your sleeping nights, dear freshers), you return to your friends proudly discussing your highly productive summer or, if you’re like me, you’ve spent the last three months attempting to scramble out of your overdraft. Maybe you should have taken those budgeting lessons your Dad offered.

So welcome one and all, glad to have you. Make this the year that you achieve everything you set out to do and if not, well, you’ll probably have a bloody good time anyway.

HARBEN LETS your oldest and largest private landlord www.harbenlets.co.uk 07973 224125

Jeremy Corbyn says cut it out

page 3

Comment

The longest reigning monarch in history, good or bad? page 10

Features

Intern Down for What

page 11

Arts

Review of The Elephant Man starring Bradley Cooper page 13

Music

The best music from this Summer

page 16

Lifestyle

A Love Letter to Radio 4 page 22

Sport

The re-branding controversy

HL

page 23

THE FOUNDER

September 2015

FOUNDER Editorial

EDITORIAL

Editor@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

Content 3 News 8 Comment 11 Features

12 Arts 15 Music 22 Lifestyle 23 Sport About The Founder The Founder is the independent student newspaper of Royal Holloway, University of London. This means we are not affliliated to the students union or college. We pride ourselves on our investigative journalism and aim to keep our readers up to date with news on and off campus.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Editors, particularly of comment and opinion pieces. Every effort has been made to contact the holders of copyright for any material used in this issue, and to ensure the accuracy of its stories.

Editorial Board 2015/16 co-Editor

Jasper Watkins

The Founder is always looking for contributors without them, we wouldn’t have a paper! As you’ll see from this issue, we print a huge variety of articles. If there’s a particular topic you’d like to write about and you aren’t sure whether it’s appropriate, just email our editor (editor@thefounder.co.uk) and they will be happy to discuss any ideas you have.

Sami Roberts

Managing Editor

News Editor

Deputy News Editor

Comment Editor

Features Editor

Arts Editor

Lifestyle Editor

Sport Editor

Music Editor Natasha Barrett

Film Editor

Dominic Pini

Kyle Hoekstra Alex Santema

How to get involved

co-Editor/Designer

Eleanor McCloskey

Matt Jones Joe Burns

Laura Burnett

Sam Williams

Zak Derler

THE FOUNDER is printed in Cambridge by Iliffe Print

The next content deadline is 14th October!

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NEWS

FOUNDER News

THE FOUNDER

September 2015

News@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

Corbyn Says

Cut It Out ‘Corbyn to tell Whips to say Nae Nae to Cameron’

BY MATT JONES NEWS EDITOR Jeremy Corbyn romped to victory in the Labour leadership election with a resounding 59% backing and declared, ‘that Britain can’t cut its way to prosperity, we have to build it’. The man described as the ‘Party Divider’ unified enough support from party members to elect him, but he faces a struggle to capture the support of Labour MPs let alone the wider public.

His victory flies in the face of the odds given that he was widely assumed to have been included in the ballot as the rank socialist outsider, almost to prove that the party has some socialist values despite pandering to middling Blairism. The other three candidates unexpectedly ended up playing catch up to the vested Old Ben Kenobi look-a-like who stormed into an early lead and never looked like losing. Not that the press didn’t try to derail his unexpected success.

Any headline to do with Corbyn involved reducing him and his ideas from a few rather general interview statements into easily consumable and contentious soundbites. The press were caught between a fervour of excitement at the prospect of such a dividing figure and a gnawing fear that he would eBay Trident off for a copy of The Communist Manifesto. The Daily Mail was so concerned for British Sovereignty and for Britain’s finances that it launched a tirade of attacks upon Corybn labelling him a “rich-bashing friend of terrorists”. Their attacks on Corbyn only worsened when he criticised the ‘free-press’ and tax dodging corporations given

their huge readership and tax exemption thanks to their Bermudan domicile.

The media became caught in a storm of dystopian predictions that seemed to be competing for most ludicrous headline. They bordered on absurdity, and you’d be forgiven for being led to believe that his cabinet meetings are going to be held in two separate gendered train carriages, running on a line between Russia, Palestine and Northern Ireland, fronted by a unionised IRA and ISIS. Cameron weighed in, declaring Corbyn to be a national security threat despite Corbyn’s free access to Parliament for three decades. It is telling that the Conservative Party are employing a narrative of fear, that Corbyn will ruin the country as opposed to the Tories declaring themselves to be the most competent and in control.

The media campaign against Corbyn was organised not only by the right wing but by the pro-corporate establishment left who see the defeat of Labour in the last general election to be down to a lack of appeal to the middle ground. Corbyn offers anti-austerity and a ‘quantitive-easing for the people not the banks’ which garnered the ludicrous headline ‘Corbyn’s bid to turn Britain into Zimbabwe’ from the Telegraph. It will be a tough ask to flesh out his policies into a credible manifesto for 2020 when the mere mention of economic reform draws comparisons to the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe.

Compromise is the biggest threat to Corbyn, making grand political statements is what gets you into a position of power, but exercising this power is another prospect entirely. Corbyn is untested as a

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leader but this is part of his charm, he is the vest and jumper to Cameron’s suit. Despite being a sexagenarian he has breathed life into grass roots activism, celebrating his victory by attending the pro-refugee march and then heading off for a swift half in a pub.

His primary task must be to rejuvenate the Labour party and distance himself enough from the image of a party that many do not trust with the economy after Brown’s stewardship or tough enough after Miliband’s.

He has already stated that he will oppose the cuts of the Conservative party rather than collude in the “illusion of austerity”. Corbyn was one of the few MPs who voted against the cuts, adding to his history of going against the Labour consensus. But if he is one of only a few like-minded MPs, he may struggle to gain the backing of the MPs. It is possible to suggest that this is just a case of the power of whips over voting tendencies but perhaps more worryingly, are the representatives of the Labour party radically different in ideas to the party members? Tristram Hunt and Jamie Reed have already resigned from their positions in the shadow cabinet citing differences in opinion with Corbyn. While the voting process involved around a half a million people and gave a landslide victory it does not suggest a significant shift in the political mentality of the wider public.

Labour membership may have swelled by 14,500 members in the day after Corbyn won but general polls place him behind Cameron still. Corbyn faces a monumental task in satisfying his grass root backers and appeasing the establishment left front into a genuine opposition to Cameron.

THE FOUNDER September 2015

NEWS

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FOUNDER News Around You News@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

Royal Holloway Expansion Plans Approved

BY MATT JONES NEWS EDITOR

Royal Holloway has received approval for new town houses with the capability of housing 621 students in Englefield Green to be built in time for the September 2016 intake of students. The Runnymede Borough Council’s planning committee gave permission for 19 blocks of three and four storey town houses either side of Harvest Road. The plan includes the construction of an on-site management building along with an energy centre to power the off campus accommodation. A spokesperson for the University claimed that the new site would ‘relieve pressure on the local housing market’. It is yet to be seen whether this will lead to a lowering of living costs within the area due to increased competition as Royal Holloway have not announced any approximate figures for the rate of rent they will charge for occupancy. Royal Holloway’s current rent prices are between £87.73 and £166.99 a week and it seems reasonable to expect that provision will be made for both ends of this spectrum within the building designs.

The approval of this development has been greeted with the ire of local residents who feel that the expansion will drive out families and residents and turn Egham and Englefield Green into essentially a sole residency for students.

The residents of Englefield Green and Egham have been invited to raise any concerns over Royal Holloway’s self-coined ‘masterplan’ at a public meeting.

The meeting will feature MP Philip Hammond, Simon Higman, the Director of Operations at Royal Holloway and a number of Runnymede Borough councillors.

Community of Runnymede Squatters Face Eviction

BY MATT JONES NEWS EDITOR The inhabitants of the Eco-Village are set to be ejected from their site near Englefield Green, formerly occupied by Brunel University after the High Court ruled in favour of the site’s owner Orchid Runnymede Ltd. The squatters placed a legal challenge based upon tenets of both the UN charter of Human Rights as well as the Magna Carta, for which a memorial commemoration stands within walking distance of the Eco-Village. Mrs Justice Simler ruled that, ‘There is no arguable basis for this appeal’ and that despite its proximity to an important legal landmark it “doesn't make it common land or alter its status as private land”. The site itself was bought for £46 ½ million in 2007. Orchid Runnymede is a company that is registered and has its tax domicile in the Isle of Man, who have earmarked the site for development as student accommodation, affordable housing, and have made provision for a care home.

Photo provided by bbc.co.uk

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NEWS

THE FOUNDER September 2015

FOUNDER News Around You News@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

RHUL Nominated in T.H.E. Awards

BY MATT JONES NEWS EDITOR Royal Holloway has been placed on the shortlist for two Time Higher Education awards 2015. The university was nominated for Outstanding Contribution to Leadership Development which seeks to reward universities with ‘imaginative schemes that foster leadership development at any level of management’. RHUL’s last nomination was in Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community owing to the university’s contribution to the celebration of the anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. The winners will be revealed at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 26 November 2015.

Student’s Union Reopens Campus Shop

BY MATT JONES NEWS EDITOR The Students’ Union is set to take over the management and running of ‘The Store on Campus’ and will be relaunching a new shop in its place on 16 September after a refit. ‘The Store on Campus’ will close at 18:00 on the 11th September and will reopen as the ‘UnionShop’ on Wednesday 16th September. The SU President Nayab Cheema states that the ‘focus is on offering students great value while putting money back in their pockets.’ The income garnered from the shop will be plugged back into the services provided by the Student’ Union. The opening hours are also to be changed, meaning that the shop will be open from 08:00 – 22:00 on weekdays and from 10:00 – 20:00 at the weekends.

New College Joins University of London

BY MATT JONES NEWS EDITOR City University London is to join the University of London (UOL) following an agreement by the UOL Board of Trustees at its meeting on Wednesday 15th July, to the positive recommendation made by its Collegiate Council. The inclusion will see City join the federation as a self-governing College. The University of London was founded by Royal Charter in 1836 and currently consists of 17 self-governing Colleges and 10 smaller specialist research institutes. City intends to join the University of London in August 2016 when it will remain a chartered self-governing institution, with its own Council, Senate, Students’ Union and other bodies of representation.

Photos provided by www.telegraph.co.uk and rhulsupportandadvisoryservices.blogspot.com

THE FOUNDER September 2015

FOUNDER News

NEWS

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News@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

NUS Protests ‘Repressive’ Government Counter-Radicalisation Policy

BY KYLE HOEKSTRA DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR

Photo provided by mancunion.com

The National Union of Students is urging a boycott of the government’s counter-radicalisation strategy following new guidance which makes colleges and universities legally obliged to monitor students who may be at risk of ‘violent extremism’.

The Students not Suspects tour, which will take place this October in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Swansea, will challenge the new guidance. It is organised by NUS, Black Students’ Campaign, Fosis and Defend the Right to Protest.

In an open letter published in The Independent on 10th July, hundreds of academics warned that the extension of Prevent—one of four pillars in the government’s counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST—would have a ‘chilling effect on open debate, free speech and political dissent’.

Prevent was first developed by the Home Office in 2003 and now has an annual budget of £40m with the stated aims to respond ‘to the ideological challenge we face from terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views’.

New guidelines in Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, due to be ratified in parliament in early October, includes legal duties for public bodies such as colleges and universities to identify and share information concerning individuals ‘at risk’ of extremism.

In response to the new legislation, NUS vice-president Shelly Asquith expressed concern, saying ‘this is a recipe for “extremism”, not a solution.’ The strategy recommends monitoring students who appear ‘withdrawn’ or who are seeking ‘political change’.

While studying terrorist tactics at the University of Nottingham in 2008, Dr Rizwaan Sabir was held for seven days without charge, accused of downloading Al-Qaeda literature for terrorist purposes. He was awarded £20,000 after it emerged officers had fabricated evidence against him.

Sabir said the act encourages self-censorship and warns that innocent people may be seen as terrorists. ‘The problems with the Prevent strategy are endless and any campaign to raise awareness of these problems in a democratic way is important.’

Addressing concerns in a speech at a Birmingham school in July, Prime Minister David Cameron said that critics of counter-terrorism policies were paranoid.

‘The world is not conspiring against Islam; the security services aren't behind terrorist attacks; our new Prevent duty for schools is not about criminalising or spying on Muslim children.

This is paranoia in the extreme.’

The NUS is challenging the ‘repressive’ pres-

ence of Prevent Officers on campuses and its tour will offer ‘skills-based workshops for tackling surveillance culture on campuses’.

In July a schoolboy was questioned by police for distributing leaflets promoting the boycott movement against Israel. The schoolboy told Al-Jazeera that the officer ‘said these are terrorist-like beliefs that you have’ and that “he explicitly said you cannot speak about this conflict at school with your friends.”

Shelly Asquith said the new guidance has created a ‘level of expectation that student unions will sign up to whatever colleges or universities say’. In 2010 it emerged that the student union at UCL had given information regarding Islamic society members to detectives investigating a former student later found guilty of planning a terrorist plot in the US. ‘It is not, nor should it be within the ability of a student or lecturer to report on extremism or people showing signs of it,’ said Yusuf Hassan, the vice-president of student affairs at the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis).

The Home Office says there are now Prevent programmes in place in all key sectors, including local government, health, education, prisons, immigration and charities. 75,000 pieces of "unlawful terrorist material" have been removed from the internet since 2011 and the number of UK suspects which have come to the attention of police and security services through Prevent is in the thousands.

But Aminul Hoque, lecturer at the University of London, contends that despite the basic protection of British citizens, Prevent has not worked.

‘The irony is that it has become counter-productive… what has happened is that it has widened the schism between the “Muslim” us and the British “other”’.

Charles Farr, Director General of the Home Office’s Office for Security and Counter Terrorism contradicted the Prime Minister’s comments at Birmingham that the “root cause” of terrorism is “extremist ideology.”

“The background of broken families, lack of integration into what we might call mainstream society, some level of criminality, sometimes family conflict, are all more than normally apparent.”

He said that by implying that some Muslim societies “quietly condone” extremism, as Cameron had in an earlier speech, “we risk labelling Muslim communities as somehow intrinsically extremist, which actually despite an unprecedented wealth of social media propaganda, they have proved not to be.”

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COLLEGE NEWS

THE FOUNDER September 2015

FOUNDER College News News@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

Freshers, We Want You! If you are interested in writing about newsworthy events, music, arts, sport, or anything that interests you, send your articles to The Founder!

Email your article to the editor whose section it falls under:

News - news@thefounder.co.uk Comment - joe@thefounder.co.uk Features - features@thefounder.co.uk Arts - arts@thefounder.co.uk Music - music@thefounder.co.uk Film - film@thefounder.co.uk Lifestyle - lifestyle@thefounder.co.uk Sport - sports@thefounder.co.uk

THE FOUNDER

September 2015

COMMENT

FOUNDER Comment The Refugee Crisis, continued:

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joet@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

BY JOE BURNS COMMENT EDITOR

Fix your dinghy and leave Syria to ISIS

In our final issue of last year we featured an article called The “Migrant” Crisis: A Divided Europe in which Jack Colyer wrote, ‘The images thrust onto our televisions, our browsers and news feeds tell a depressing story; thousands upon thousands cling desperately to what more often than not is a boat completely obscured by masses of people still barely afloat. This is a disturbing vision of the Mediterranean.’ In recent weeks, a more harrowing picture has emerged.

One photo is all it takes to change opinion. A few weeks ago, the bleak photographs of a young boy’s body on a Turkish beach made David Cameron remind us that he’s a father himself. Politicians are supposed to put policy before the personal, so that kind of response seems trivial. Only last month it was business as usual, as Cameron described people trying to get to the UK as a ‘swarm’, and stated that he would not allow the ‘swarm’ to ‘break into our country’. His attitude fuelled his policy. Since the conflict broke out four years ago Britain has accepted fewer than 5,000 Syrian refugees.

When thrown against Germany’s proposed intake of up to 800,000 asylum seekers, Britain’s response seems pretty insufficient. The Government has given over £900m to fund refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and neighbouring countries, making Britain the second-largest aid donor in the world. Only the US has offered more. It could be said that Britain and the good ol’ USA caused this anarchic humanitarian disaster through relentless bombings, invasions and drone strikes in the first place. If anything, the Government has a moral responsibility to find homes for these refugees.

However, the Government has not made much of a promise in the way of actually taking in refugees. The current proposal is to take in 20,000 people over the next five years. This is nowhere near the figure many were hoping for. But in or-

der for the country to take in the huge numbers estimated, the Government would have to take drastic measures. Otherwise there is no doubt that taking in refugees will cause an initial problem. Sure, it’s easy to say ‘come and live with me, I have a spare room.’

Unfortunately that is just the beginning. Ten percent of the British people have said they will house a refugee family six months, but how would they also pay for their medical support, their schooling, and their initial funds for living? After six months would they find the family a new house to live in or offer them a job? Providing accommodation hardly scratches the surface. We cannot just accept everyone and

have denied refuge to every single Syrian refugee.

Not one has been taken in. They argue that accepting refugees would put them at risk of terrorism. These are countries that speak similar languages, live with similar morals and maintain similar cultures. Not to mention they are far easier to get to from Syria than anywhere in Western Europe. Without a doubt, these are the nations that are best suited to deal with the problem, but once again, it is left to the powers of Western Europe and America. It is true that these oil rich countries have given aid funds, but the UK has still donated more than Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar combined. Furthermore, these countries have a combined military force of around five million.

Isis is realistically about 30,000 people. If these states put their minds together maybe a real solution to the problem could be met.

Our Government’s financial support of refugee camps is unsustainable. As leaders around the world hesitate to act on ISIS, there is no end in sight to the conflict, meaning Syrian refugee camps could need funding for decades more. The worst case scenario is that we end up with a situation like the South Sudanese in Kenya or Uganda, where some children struggle their entire lives in barely habitable refugee camps. To solve this migration crisis, the Government needs to implement a solid plan to deal with the threats facing people in the Middle East - which must fully include the Arab states - while showing care, understanding and hospitality to those in urgent need. Let’s just hope the compassion explosion doesn’t drift away as the photo of Aylan Kurdi fades from front pages. It’s completely possible.

A final note: the numbers currently fleeing conflict will be hugely overshadowed by the population movements expected as global warming strengthens its grip on the planet. Millions will be moving for safety. That is something we may be too late to prevent. But if it must be done, then let it be thoughtful, within a worldwide context, and in a way true to our morals of free movement, virtue and humanity.

“We cannot just accept everyone and leave Syria to ISIS and Assad.” leave Syria to ISIS and Assad. The Government must implement measures to ensure we can take in everybody that comes our way, but the more important issue here is the threat itself.

Bombing is not the answer. Remember that the UN did not authorise the bombing of civilians in Libya back in 2011. Cameron still has blood on his hands for that, so it wouldn’t be wise to start again.

But there is more to solving conflict than bombs.

Unfortunately, our leader is weak and wet, so hasn’t made any substantial efforts to end this conflict alternatively. However, he has made a far greater effort than many. Five of the wealthiest Muslim countries, the super-wealthy Gulf nations of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain,

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THE FOUNDER September 2015

COMMENT

FOUNDER Comment joe@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

BY DANIELLE CAVENDER

The Myth of Tolerant Britain

In Britain, I think it would be fair to say that message to make it seem reasonable to the wider there is a general belief that we, as a nation, have public by simultaneously building up the tiny pera history of being welcoming and supportive of centage of people Britain has so far agreed to take, ‘genuine’ refugees and those fleeing persecution. and filling his speeches with justifications as to why The current tough (and at time openly intoler- Britain shouldn’t have to take any at all. ant) measures, such as building more fences Sadly, this intolerance has a long pedigree in Britand increasing security in Calais, are reported ain, but the general public’s perception is that in the as necessary to stop, as David Cameron put it past, we as a country have done all we could have to whilst speaking to the BBC’s Louise Minchin help those leaving their homes in order to survive. on 17th August, ‘illegal migrants’ trying to ‘get in to our country, to jump the queue…’ for a better life in Britain.

This intolerance of those escaping Syria and other similar places is made more muddled by the mixed messages surrounding the language being used. The word ‘migrant’ has become warped and filled with negative connotations of illegal and clandestine attempts to sneak in to countries in order to scrounge from their welfare systems.

Politicians and the mePhoto provided by swedishsurveyor.com dia use the word ‘refugee’ for those they consider worthy of help, and This myth could not be further from the truth. A yet David Cameron has been equally quick to 1938 article for the Daily Mail, headlined ‘German point out that once a refugee has reached a safe Jews Pouring Into this Country’ is full of comments country, they are no longer fleeing persecution, that wouldn’t be out of place today, such as ‘The way and are therefore simply trying to get in to Brit- stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from evain for economic or social means, without any ery port of this country is becoming an outrage’ and comment on the fact that, whilst the rules about refers to Jews fleeing the Holocaust as ‘aliens enterasylum technically state they need to seek refuge ing this country through the “back door”’. in the first country they reach, countries such as Rather than relaxing entry requirements for AustriGreece and Italy cannot possibly be expected to an Jews after the Anschluss - Germany's annexation bare the entire weight of this crisis just because of Austria in March 1938 - the British government of their geographical location and regardless of tightened them, introducing new, strictly controlled their own country’s economy. The message from visas precisely to restrict their numbers.

David Cameron seems to be that whether you Britain proudly recalls her involvement with the are an illegal migrant or an asylum seeker, you Kindertransport (the secret rescue of Jewish children aren’t welcome in Britain, but he sugar coats this out of occupied European territories and bringing

them to the UK) without recognising that all of those children would have had parents and families which were left behind, when they could easily have been included in the rescue.

British postwar immigration policy deliberately excluded Jews, and cabinet minutes of 1945 claimed that ‘the admission of a further batch of refugees, many of whom would be Jews, might provoke strong reactions from certain sections of public opinion’.

We are one of the richest nations in Europe, and yet our leaders continue to insist that supporting this humanitarian crisis to our fullest capacity would destabilise and jeopardise our country. We are fortunate in that, because we are an island, we are able to have a much greater degree of control over access to our country than nations such as Hungary, but this doesn’t mean we should simply ‘raise the drawbridge’ and hope the problem just goes away with minimal effort on our part. It won’t, and the time to act is now.

How long will it be before Britain looks back at her response to the crisis today, and either, as with Jews fleeing the Holocaust, convinces herself that we did everything that could have been asked of us, or recognises these people for what they really are?

Not a ‘swarm’ of benefit scrounging illegal immigrants, but millions of people, fleeing for their lives and in desperate need of support.

If you would like to respond to any of these articles, or want to offer an opinion on university events, current affairs, entertainment or anything else, please email replies to joe@thefounder.co.uk with the subject line ‘IN REPLY TO’.

THE FOUNDER

September 2015

COMMENT

FOUNDER Comment

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joet@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

The Longest Reigning Monarch in History, Good or Bad?

BY SAMI ROBERTS CO-EDITOR/DESIGNER

On 9 September, Queen Elizabeth II officially became the longest reigning monarch in history, as well as the oldest living head of state to have served during WWII. She is living history herself, and has seen countless historical events come and go through her six decades on the throne. Though for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, according to The Guardian, 1.2m people stood along the Thames to watch the Queen pass on her flotilla and 14.7m people watched from their home televisions, there are still citizens, particularly from this generation, that are opposed to having a constitutional monarchy for their government, and would agree with what Nick Cohen wrote for the Times that during the Diamond Jubilee, “if the media had taken their cameras to the beaches, parks and pubs of Britain, they would have found millions of others who no longer cared for the spectacle and maybe, just maybe, were beginning to agree with Price, Paine, Jefferson and Franklin that their country deserved something better.”

Students at Royal Holloway have voiced their opinions on the Royal Family and Her Majesty the Queen.

Photo provided by www.ibtimes.co.uk

“I think we should shove them out of Buckingham Palace and turn it in to a homeless shelter.” -Eleanor McCloskey, 3rd year, Anti-Royalist Harry Gallow, 3rd year studying Biochemistry, Pro-Royalist “I see the Royal Family as a whole as a symbol of tradition which runs deeply in the history of Britain and its empire,” Gallow said. He stands by the revenue that the Royal Family brings into the UK. “From an economic standpoint yes she does [benefit Britain] as the Royal Family as a whole generates a profit each year which clearly helps boost the economy, or some part of it,” he said.

“And despite what Anti-Royalists might say, from my experience is that when a Jubilee comes around everyone seems to band together and enjoy the experience of celebrating a milestone in her reign as Queen.”

Sophie Brotherton, 3rd year studying Drama and Classics, Pro-Royalist “Lots of people don't like [the Royal Family], saying they claim the country and take the tax payers’ money, but what those people forget to remember is that the fraction of money they take is nothing compared to the amount they bring into the country. Tourists are constantly visiting England to see Buckingham palace.

Do they forget how many tourists visited for William and Kate's wedding or the birth of Prince George?”

“After all you don't see their 89 year old grandparent still working every single day, do you?”

Matt Jones, 3rd year studying English Literature, Anti-Royalist “The Queen herself has a nominal effect upon politics, merely a performer in the state opening of parliament and inviting political parties to form a government. Despite her small role, she still holds the title of Head of State.” Jones does not take this as a valid reason for the family to still be ‘Royal’.

“Hereditary head of state is weird. If you are not born royalty, you can never be the head of state,” he said. “This does not apply to any other job really.”

“I don’t want to be a subject, I want to be a citizen.”

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FEATURES

THE FOUNDER

FOUNDER Features

September 2015

Features@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

Intern Down For What Features Editor Alex Santema knows someone who spent his summer more productively than you did and wants to warn you

BY ALEX SANTEMA FEATURES EDITOR Here is a guess—you spent the majority of your summer trying very hard to pump some excitement into your mediocre life with the help of pastel-coloured pills, an unasked for absence of clothing from the waist up and a pair of wellies sopping with an array of bodily fluids. You raved at an ironically named festival. Meanwhile, my friend… Eugene was jittering from a more widely accepted stimulating substance: caffeine. He got up early for London commutes, he ditched T-shirts for dress shirts and he pretended to know how to operate Excel. He interned.

What Eugene will tell you about are the obvious benefits that come attached to any lengthy summer placement. He will be a smug little pug about the chic company lunch that he attended, his feed will reveal an admittedly impressive string of central London snaps (#internlunchbreak #internperks #havemylifetogether #udont) and he will reply ‘Sorry, super tired, long day at work, have to get up on time tomorrow, my life is so busy’ if you ask him to hang out. If he is a special kind of eager, he will even add the company he is interning for to his Facebook ‘work’ section.

What Eugene will not tell you is that the leap from a life of leisure to full time, albeit temporary, employment pulled him into a spiral of stress, fear and instability. Have you ever cried in a printer room? Eugene has cried in a printer room. He had five minutes to print out a spreadsheet on double-sided A3 paper and it was nearly the end of him. The rows and tables came out wobblier than Kim K’s photoshopped bum in half of her Instagrams. Eugene ‘accidentally’ stapled that soft flab of skin between his thumb and his index finger once the task was completed.

You know what marks a true office worker, a sea-

soned 9-to-5er, a legitimate adult? Staple scars. Was it the sudden stress of the situation that drove Eugene to this deed? I doubt it. He is the kind of guy who will bash out an essay the morning of and still blag his way to a first. What is it, then, that drove Eugene to a shaky state of crumbling sanity? Here is my guess—a lack of sleep. What every adult forgets to tell you (possibly because they are too tired to tell you) is that work takes up, like, totally all of your time.

People with jobs are expected to turn up every morning, stay till at least the late afternoon and then do the same thing five days a week, close to forty-nine weeks a year. You do not get a month off for Christmas to get permanently pissed. You do not get lazy days devoid of responsibility that allow you to lounge around in torn, revealing pyjama shorts (guilty as charged) and write last-minute articles for your university newspaper (guilty as charged 2.0). You do not get to go out impulsively on Thirsty Thursdays and (t)werk it up on the dance floor because your phone has a 7am alarm with your name written all over it.

I met up with Eugene halfway through his twomonth internship and frankly, he looked rather shite.

Being a somewhat fashionable lad who cared about first impressions and his professional appearance, he had invested in an branded, suede, chocolate-brown man bag (‘It is a briefcase!’, my metrosexual friend poorly defended himself). Guess what was not Armani, though? The bags under his twitching eyes.

His jittery state resembled the demeanour of a hitand-run animal victim that would have rather perished than been made to suffer. As we had lunch, a businessman next to us slapped his laptop shut. Eugene let out a terrified little cry and crumbled.

I noticed his left hand was all bandaged up. ‘Aggressive wanking sesh?’, I asked, because I enjoy occasional banter. “No”, he said, “much worse bruv”, because Eugene is the kind of guy who uses slang ironically. Turns out, Eugene had been asked to make the office a big batch of cups of tea. Entering the office kitchen, he noticed the absence of a kettle and started questioning his competence for this task.

His hands got clammy with cold sweat and he decided to wash them under one of two taps, realising in the process that this was a swanky office that had hot water taps installed in their kitchens.

His abruptly pulled back his red, roasted hands and dried them ferociously, opening up the staple wound in the process. There he stood—sweaty, blood-stained, burned, defeated. A colleague walked in and looked at his sobbing self. ‘Just bad hay fever’, Eugene stammered. Our lunch break was over. I left my friend—he was off to pretend to be a functioning adult. As soon as I turned a corner and was out his eyesight, I pulled up my sleeve. Two different club stamps were still faintly present on my wrist. ‘I am not an adult yet’, I hummed, ‘I am not an adult yet’.

This mantra, these comforting lines for any millennial, I repeated all the way home. Here is what you can expect once first term breaks loose – pretentious twats desperately trying to convince you that their productively spent summers were enjoyable and, dare I say it, desirable. Do not fall for this trap.

Internships are a seemingly delicious slice of impending doom. They look appealing, but upon your first bite you discover that they are filled with raisins, not chocolate chips. Stay a carefree child inside of the body of a student for as long as you can. And while you are at it, do not learn how to tie your shoelaces any time soon.

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We are the Dead

1984 at the Playhouse Theatre

BY LAURA BURNETT ARTS EDITOR Hailed as “stylish and sophisticated” by the London Evening Standard on its acclaimed run at the Playhouse in 2014, Headlong Productions returned to the West End this summer before beginning a national tour with an adaption of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece.

In an age of mass surveillance and GPS tracking, creators Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan brought forward the chilling endurance of Orwell’s text. The audience follows the harrowing journey of Winston Smith (Matthew Spencer) as he attempts to rebel against state oppressors known as “Big Brother”. In his quest to avoid the hauntingly named “Thought Police”, Winston encounters suspected member Julia (Janine Harouni), whom he soon discovers is a fellow resistor who confesses her love for him in a tightly hidden written note.

The journey that ensues sees the lovers, persuaded by Inner Party Member O’Brien (Tim Dutton), join the enigmatic Brotherhood, a secret organisation designed to rise up against Big Brother. No place is free of observation however and the threat of Room 101 soon beckons.

Diverting from the novel, the play is framed by the meeting of a book club analysing Winston’s diary as a piece of historical fiction in the year 2050.

This fresh offering on Orwell’s work taunts both Winston and the audience as they simultaneously begin to question what’s real and what isn’t.

Transitions between past, present and future are achieved by arresting lighting, sound and video

by Natasha Chivers, Tom Gibbons and Tim Reid respectively, creating a vivid theatrical experience which does not make for easy viewing. At times the theatre is plunged into unbearable darkness and as Winston and Julia’s solace is interrupted by the Thought Police, Chloe Lamford’s inspired set design transforms into the white-walled abyss of Room 101, a sudden assault on the eyes after the dark, institutional world Lamford displays for the

Photo provided by http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/10325047/1984-Nottingham-Playhouse-review.html

majority of the play. lative persona played to perfection. In his interroThe ensemble took on the complexity of Orwell’s gation of Winston, Dutton displays the disturbing characters admirably, with Dutton’s quietly terrifying intimacy between a torturer and his victim, a fascinating relationship we simply cannot look away from.

While clever in design, the production is at times “Chloe Lamford’s inspired set de- lacking in clarity. Audience members who have sign transforms into the white- not read the book may find themselves scratching heads wondering what is actually happening walled abyss of Room 101, a sudden their at points where future and present events merge. assault on the eyes after the dark, However, the extreme intensity and frightening institutional world Lamford dis- relevance of 1984 cannot be ignored and it is this which makes it so powerful. plays for the majority of the play.”

The national tour of the production begins at the Nottingham Playhouse on the 9th September and is guaranteed to make you unrelentingly nervous, tense, and thoughtful for a whole 100 minutes. InO’Brien inducing uneasiness from the outset while terval not given. somehow remaining likeable: a smooth and manipu-

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Beyond Recognition: Bradley Cooper as The Elephant Man If you only know of Bradley Cooper from his cinematic escapades in ‘The Hangover’, its two inevitable sequels and the glory that is the explosive 2010 ‘The A-Team’ remake, you might consider the forty-year-old taking on a role made iconic by John Hurt, Mark Hamill and David Bowie as pretty damn odd. Playing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket for a limited twelve-week stint, The Elephant Man follows the tragic true life-story of Joseph Merrick in the late eighteen hundreds. Liberated from the horrors of the workhouses to a torturous number of years on parade as part of a circus freak show, Merrick settles into the sanctuary of a London hospital in the final stages of his life. Displaying the two ends of a traumatic spectrum, the remarkable extent of common kindness and the utter brutality that our species can subject on those who are different, Bernard Pomerance’s adaptation of a movie classic is heart-wrenching. It successfully reduced the bodybuilder twenty-something sitting in front of me to a gibbering wreck, pretty much weeping against his girlfriend’s shoulder.

While Hurt opted for prosthetics, Cooper performs the role stripped back and bare (quite literally), pushing extensive talent in method acting to its limits. Presented on stage in merely his boxers – remarkably not even a glimpse of a wolf whistle from the stalls in sight – Merrick’s doctor proceeds to explain the immense deformities riddling him.

Cooper’s body slowly morphs, forming and cracking rigidly into place, his mouth crumbling into his right cheek, his voice slurred and legs crooked.

Virtually unrecognisable, the actor once branded ‘The Sexiest Man Alive’ by People Magazine is no longer Bradley Cooper: he is Joseph Merrick, and that is all. One of the most convincing and fully enveloping performances I’ve seen. The ‘American Sniper’ star transforms the world within the walls of the Haymarket into something beautiful: a forum for the human spirit and a tranquil space for asking what it is which makes us human.

The Times calling the experience ‘touching and wonderful’, the dialogue is truly the aspect responsible for tugging the heartstrings; if the scene in which leading lady Patricia Clarkson’s character leaps into a heated debate with the Elephant

Photo provided by elephantmanlondon.com

Man on whether or not Romeo was ever deeply in love with Juliet at all doesn’t cause your lower lip to tremble, then you are simply an emotionless robot.

Undoubtedly a multi-millionaire, this production is clearly earning his skills nowhere near the amount of cash he bagged in Silver Linings Playbook or

“A spectacle akin to that of when The Elephant Man himself occupied London.” possibly any of his recent film projects: so why has he chosen to do it? Much like Martin Freeman in Richard III last year and Cumberbatch’s notorious upcoming attempt at Hamlet, a ridiculously popular actor has climbed down from his throne (probably made entirely out of money) to bring young people

and first-time theatre-goers into the realms of classic acting, the appeal I can only hope that drama had for Cooper when he began his career all those years ago.

An act which truly has to be seen to believed, the leading man steals the hearts and tear ducts of a full capacity theatre in the heart of the West End, a spectacle akin to that of when The Elephant Man himself occupied London. Nominated for four Tony awards during the play’s period in Broadway—including Best Leading Actor in a Play—yet winning none, Cooper was snubbed beyond belief despite a phenomenal role. Instead, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was the award-grabbing, all-powerful winner of the year, bagging five Tony Awards and its leading man Alex Sharp beating Cooper to the podium for that Best Actor prize. We can only hope that the 2016 Olivier Awards will recognise the abilities of a superb actor breaking out of his typecast comedy shackles, an all-round perfectly selected cast and the emphatic power of this truly humbling production.

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Audrey Hepburn at the National Portrait Gallery 2nd July – 18th October 2015 For lovers of Golden Age cinema

BY JOSIE ELDRIDGE

Through this summer and into autumn, the National Portrait Gallery is hosting a variety of photographs of iconic film star Audrey Hepburn, whose acting career lasted forty years. As a long-time fan of Hepburn’s work, I found the most endearing part of the series was its portrayal of her off-screen life. In particular, her appearance on the cover of a Japanese lifestyle magazine on her wedding day to Mel Ferrer illustrates the widespread celebrity of the actress, yet there were also candid shots of Hepburn enjoying holidays with friends, and even grocery shopping with her pet deer, Pippin. Equally intriguing portraits were those of Surrealist photographer Angus McBean, who staged Hepburn against a backdrop of ancient ruins in order to suggest that her beauty was timeless.

The collection spans her lifetime, with portraits from her youth, throughout her acting career, followed by touching images of her work as a UN Goodwill Ambassador in her later life. It is a fitting addition to a gallery housing portraits of many celebrated icons, which aim to depict the personality behind the acclaim. Overall, the juxtaposition of iconic prints with lesser-known images within this exhibition demonstrates the professionalism of Hepburn, who observed a strict boundary between her private and public lives, as attested in a recent interview by her son Luca Dotti, and the presentation of the collection is as stellar as the works themselves.

Absent: A Review

BY CARRIE ELLIS Dreamthinkspeak take to their Shoreditch stage with their latest strangely thought-inspiring production, Absent. In this piece, the actors are absent, the plot is absent and a more traditional theatre experience is, surprise, absent.

However, despite the lack of all things standard, this piece will leave you wonderfully curious and keen to explore your own interpretation of the theatre company's newest instalment.

Absent is a new installation by the site-responsive theatre company Dreamthinkspeak. Guided by artistic director Tristan Sparks, the company have produced works in a number of interesting locations, varying from the former Co-op department store in Brighton to an underground Abbatoir at Clerkenwell. Their current project begins in the lobby of the newly refurbished Shoreditch Town Hall in edgy East London. As a grade II landmark building built in 1865, it sits impressively amongst the vibrancy of Shoreditch and Hoxton Square, perfectly combining both the modern and historical aspects of the capital.

This combination seems to work perfectly in relation to the story of Absent’s main character, Margaret Beaumont. Margaret is not purely fictional—she was based upon the real life socialite Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll. Argyll was a controversial figure and the daughter of a Scottish millionaire. She spent the later years of her life living in the Grosvenor House Hotel until she could no longer afford her lavish lifestyle. She was unceremoniously evicted in 1990.

Upon arrival at this impressive venue, you are greeted by the ‘hotel staff ’, who ask that you wait in the hotel bar until you are collected. The bar is much like you would expect a modern hotel bar to be, apart from the edited copies of the evening standard lying around. All seem to be opened to an article surrounding a mysterious woman who resides in the Shoreditch town hotel.

Soon you are escorted in small groups down to the eerie basement of the Shoreditch Town Hall and motioned to enter a hallway leading to a bedroom.

You are left alone in the room.

The interior is small, basic, and modern and would not be out of place in a Premier Inn. Before enough time had passed to allow you to get comfortable in your surroundings, the lights begin to dim and you catch your first glance

Step inside Dreamthinkspeak's unsettling theatre experience of Margaret Beaumont. She is an elderly lady, almost ghostly, spiralling around the room, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. Although she seems to know she is being watched, her small audience is never acknowledged.

This is the only time in the production that Margaret is visible in the flesh, as the installation piece is visually layered with the use of videos. As you move on to discover more of the maze of the Shoreditch town hotel, you digitally encounter Margaret both in her old age and in her days as a lavish socialite.

The installation provides a haunting atmosphere, particularly emphasised by the lack of lighting and the unsettling space. Absent invites you to play both the part of a bystander and a detective, depending on how much you want to take in from your self-guided tour. You journey through damp areas with exposed brickwork allow you to notice a few newspaper clippings, slightly hidden by dust. However, you also see some of the grander rooms—fragments of Beaumont’s past.

As you are unescorted on your journey, there is an underlying sense of voyeurism—should you be here at all? Is it okay to peer into every snapshot of Margaret’s life? Would it be wrong to sit on the bed in which she once slept, or even spray some of her perfume that has been left behind? This sense of unease is heightened by producer Lapalux’s beautiful soundtrack, featuring the heart rendering ‘Waiting’ by Alice Boman. The haunting repetition of the line ‘Are you coming back?’ keeps you asking that very same question. Is Margaret going to return?

The atmosphere reminds one of message that lingers quietly inside of this piece.

The deterioration of the hotel seems to mirror the sad decline of Margaret Beaumont. However, at the same time, the regeneration of the hotel in this constantly evolving city left no room for the drunken, penniless Beaumont. Her only legacy is the jumble of remaining possessions, broken and left to rot under mounds of rubble.

Absent will not appeal to traditionalist theatregoers. You have to work to find your own meaning in the experience. Artfully, the almost empty rooms create a piece that is visually exciting and shows a captivating side of ever-modernising London. If you want to be submerged into an innovative and curious spectacle, Absent is an experience not to be missed.

Absent can be viewed at the Shoreditch Town Hall until Sunday 25th October, 2015.

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Summer 2015 In The Music Industry

BY NATASHA BARRETT MUSIC EDITOR As part of our introduction to this year’s Founder Music Section, we thought we would provide you with a quick recap of what has been happening in the industry since our May issue. As per usual, festival season has been utterly glorious with the fantastic Florence And The Machine headlining Glastonbury following Dave Grohl breaking his leg and the Foos being forced to pull out. Her energetic set filled the entire main stage with a strong presence and beautiful tracks, memorably ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ which she presented as being particularly close to both her heart and the message of Glastonbury. Yorkshire rock band Bring Me The Horizon gained a solid place as one of the highlights of Reading and Leeds alongside major artists like Kendrick Lamar, playing a lot of new material from their (then) upcoming album That’s The Spirit. Metallica and Babymetal also belted out sets that garnered them huge crowds and great reviews by the likes of NME and Gigwise, the latter being described as ‘the talking point of the weekend’.

As for album releases, Florence Welch released How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful in June just before her Glastonbury performance, including the already popular tracks: ‘What Kind Of Man’ and ‘Ship To Wreck’. Jason Derulo’s fourth studio album Everything is 4 proved a success following its lead single ‘Want You To Want Me’ reaching number one in six countries after its March release. Towards the end of June, Carly Rae Jepsen, Everything Everything and Tyga added their contributions to the month’s album releases too.

Going into July we had new albums by Owl City, Years And Years and The Macabees, but more importantly at the beginning of August, Frank Turner dropped ‘Positive Songs For Negative People’ which despite being a little softer than his usual material was much celebrated by fans. Top tracks included ‘Glorious You’ and ‘Get Better’ and the album continues to do well in the run up to his October tour dates. Towards the end of summer FKA Twigs offered us M3LL155X and Bullet For My Valentine’s Venom was a vast improvement on Temper Temper that even the band disliked after being constricted by their record label.

In our Fresher’s issue, we have received a good variety of festival and album reviews following these exciting summer months, some even from new first year students in advance of their arrival. We are looking forward to an even bigger and better year as the Music Section so please don’t hesitate to contact us.

That One Deaf Music Critic

What Genre?

I don’t like genres. This applies across the spectrum: to books, movies, music, any creative product that ends up being categorised, seemingly to make it easier to tell what one would or wouldn’t like. On the one hand I understand the logic behind it: let’s make the decision about whether or not something is worth your time marginally easier by providing you with the simplest summation of it that we can find. Or the most complicated (see Quentin Tarantino’s description of Pulp Fiction: ‘rock ’n’ roll spaghetti western with surf music’). But on the other hand, the risk of alienation and missing out on potentially great things because of preconceived notions that come from these genres is immense. Certainly if something is categorised as pop punk I will hate it without listening to it. Loathe though I may be to admit it, I would probably hate it less without the slapped-on label that makes me instantly resent it.

There is also an accuracy issue when it comes to genres. Hampered as the genre names (usually) are by the need for brevity and simplicity, simple terms are used to encompass incredibly diverse types of music. Indie rock, for example, has to be one of the loosest categories for music because it seems to encompass anything from Radiohead to Mumford and Sons to Gotye to Bon Iver. Something that started out as an attempt at helping consumers has become meaningless. On the other side of the spectrum, however, are the fifteen different genres that are invented every week. While, arguably, less meaningless they defy the point of genres.

The fact that something is categorized as drone doom doesn’t help anyone, unless someone is looking for one of the (probably) two bands that record and perform it. Why does the genre witch house exist?

Genres are pointless, meaningless, and ultimately misleading. Because of them I’m sure I’ve missed out on plenty of great music that I’ve judged without listening to, and yet there isn’t really a decent alternative because we can’t just get rid of them. Can’t live with them, and all that jazz. (See what I did there?)

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Foals

Sounds of the Summer 2015

BY CERI-ANN HUGHES

We’ve been bombarded with new releases at an almost weekly rate this summer, and they certainly haven’t disappointed. From Foals to Tame Impala to Spector, our ears have been treated to a synth-y, riff-y musical feast that is sure to last for the next few years. Here is my view on what have been the best albums and tracks of summer 2015.

The mighty Foals returned with their fourth LP What Went Down, which the band has been teasing for months with the release of title track ‘What Went Down’ and the beautiful guitars of ‘Mountain At My Gates’. There is no doubt that the album is one of Foals’ greatest to date, with beautiful melodies and haunting vocals from frontman Yannis Philippakis. Standing at a bold 6 minutes and 52 seconds, track ‘A Knife In The Ocean’ might even be my favourite Foals track yet—it’s understatedly powerful, and is probably the most beautiful thing I’ve heard in a long while. What Went Down is the definite must-have of the year so far!

Wolf Alice

Wolf Alice made their album debut this summer with My Love Is Cool, which had been predicted to be the ‘90s-grunge album everyone had been waiting for.’

Pigeonholing the band into this concept, however, allowed for the album to surprise everyone, as it is so much more. Although some tracks, such as ‘You’re A Germ’ and ‘Giant Peach’ are a revival of grunge-rock, other tracks on the album such as ‘Soapy Water’ and ‘Silk’ show a different side to Wolf Alice, and this variation is what makes My Love Is Cool such a great listen. If I were to say one thing, it would be that I preferred the original version of ‘Bros’ to the re-master that’s on the album (I guess you can’t have it all!).

Spector Spector’s 2011 debut Enjoy It While It Lasts was the soundtrack to my younger years, so I’m so happy that they’ve finally decided to release album no. 2 – Moth Boys.

Tracks ‘All The Sad Young Men’, ‘Don’t Make Me Try’ and ‘Stay High’ released in the run-up to the album are an indie-lover’s dream; with lyrics that I’m sure could be found in many artsy Twitter bios. Other tracks such as ‘Kyoto Garden’ show a softer side to the band, with slower melodies that are in a different world to older tracks such as ‘Celestine’ and ‘Chevy Thunder’. The new tracks come across so effortlessly on stage and I’m excited to have this album on repeat for quite a while (especially as synths are currently my musical kryptonite).

Tame Impala

Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker had promised a pop-psych masterpiece, something that was less ‘lonely’ and more commercialised than 2012’s Lonerism with their third album Currents. The vibes Tame put out on this record are some of the best I’ve heard in a long while. Currents is a very clever creation that beautifully represents what the band was, is, and will be, through their use of different sounds and their increasing appeal to a more commercialised audience. Tracks ‘The Moment’, ‘‘Cause I’m A Man’ and ‘Let It Happen’ are my favourites because Tame Impala have made some bold moves on these tracks and moved away from the sounds they put across on their previous albums, which is a risk that has definitely paid off.

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‘I Cry When I Laugh’

by Jess Glynne

BY FRANCESCA MUDDANAYKE You get the feeling Jess Glynne has arrived at an awkward time in music. Had she dropped her album circa Amy Winehouse people may have praised her for ingenuity in making club smashes and possessing distinct vocals. However, it’s 2015 and the music industry is saturated with the huge soul voice/big chart hits combo à la Sam Smith and Ella Eyre. Alas, the debut album from this songstress doesn’t possess any distinguishing features from her contemporaries.

The hype for Jess Glynne has largely been building from mid-2013 as the feature vocal on Route 94 and Clean Bandit tracks. Therefore, by the time her album was released, she had the honour of having five number one singles in the charts – a feat only knocked off of top spot by Cheryl. If anything, Glynne’s recent successes highlight her capability to pick smart collaborators including Starsmith (Ellie Goulding, Kylie Minogue) and TMS (Emeli Sandé, Little Mix).

The entire album walks the line between uplifting and introspective, designed to either make you fall in love and dance or look inside yourself and dance.

The first half of the album contains impressive vocals combined with the pulling power of the lead singles ‘Hold My Hand’, ‘Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself ’ and the ubiquitous ‘Real Love’. Even in ‘Why Me’ we see a glimmer of Glynne’s potential as the sparse production complements her angry vocal prowess. However by the second half, the album has descended into a parody of itself. This ranges from the incessant gospel choir backing to the repetition of select lines in each chorus of each song such as ‘Love Me’. Furthermore the piano backing for most of the songs seems to have just been pulled from Clean Bandit’s debut and implanted in this album and the downward spiral into pure saccharine as heard in ‘Saddest Vanilla’ is pretty apparent.

The album ends on a triumphant note with Glynne’s original first single ‘Right Here’ but it’s not enough to make up for the fact the entire album lacks any identity and underplays Glynne’s full potential. Her smoky vocals are no doubt a huge draw to her music but one gets the feeling she is yet to find secure footing.

She has happened upon an industry that is largely suffering a lack of creativity save for a few exceptions (FKA Twigs, The Weeknd) and has been given the impossible task of trying to establish herself as ‘something different’. Here’s hoping her sophomore effort will showcase a different side to her.

Writers, Don’t Forget!

Send your articles in by 14th October for our next issue!

See page 7 for details Music photos provided by time.com, songsonlyric.blogspot.com, www.hitthefloor.com, thelimitedpress.com, www.soundwishes.com, www.theguardian.com, diymag.com, www.idolmag.co.uk, www.theedgesusu.co.uk, www.reddit.com, ppcorn.com, and hannesmeyer.de.tl

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Album Review

Foals’ What Went Down

BY CERI-ANN HUGHES

Foals had built up a lot of anticipation in fans before the release of their fourth LP What Went Down in August. It had promised to be one of the best albums of the year and a bold statement for Foals after 2013’s Holy Fire, and with some very clever writing and melodies, What Went Down has taken the music scene by storm since its release. The album as a whole is beautifully written and organised, and each track speaks of a different part of Foals’ repertoire, making it one of my favourite releases of the year so far.

Foals released the title track as a teaser for the album back at the start of the summer, and it really set the hype going for the album. The track is packed with attitude and Foals’ raw edge that makes it one to watch out for at future festivals and arena tours—there’s no doubt it’s going to be remembered as one of Foals’ big songs.

‘Mountain At My Gates’ shows the funkier side of Foals, with strong bass lining the track and catchy guitar rhythm. This track and lyrics give it much more wide appeal

Album Review

BY ANDREW MITCHELL

than heavier tracks on the album such as ‘What Went Down’ and ‘Snake Oil’.

The whole album is unmistakably in line with the musical footprint Foals have carved out for themselves, with ‘Birch Tree’ and ‘Night Swimmers’ consistently following previous catchy tracks such as ‘My Number’. The album moves through different styles of tracks like ‘Give it All’, an haunting love song which is Foals’ best attempt at an anthem with fewer guitars and a stronger backing beat. This comes at a good point in the album to refresh our musical palette before the upbeat ‘Albatross’, which is incidentally my least favourite track on the record, as it doesn’t seem to fit with the vibe Foals are putting across on the rest of What Went Down.

Foals’ edge is reinstated on ‘Snake Oil’—a track comparable to early Black Keys tracks, with stronger guitar and gritty vocals that leave frontman Yannis’ roars echoing over the album. ‘London Thunder’ brings the album back down to a mellower medium. The first time I gave the What Went Down vinyl

a spin, this is the track that really stood out for me. It’s more stripped-back but is in no way boring – it shows Foals’ raw talent for writing lyrics and melody that could give even a Foals-hating person goose bumps. I enjoy ‘Lonely Hunter’, though I don’t think it can stand up at this point in the album between such intense tracks such as ‘London Thunder’ and the mighty ‘A Knife In The Ocean’. ‘A Knife In The Ocean’ is the best possible way Foals could have ended What Went Down—it’s understatedly powerful and serves as a lasting reminder that Foals have become a band that have undoubtedly mastered their art and are perhaps one of the best of our generation.

What Went Down is an absolute must-listen—it’s bold, intense and beautiful all at the same time, and when the fog of riffs clears, you can see that Foals are at their best at some points of this album.

Other points, however, are calling for Foals to keep building their tracks rather than insistently reverting back to the safe residence of past Foals albums.

Neck Deep’s Life's Not Out To Get You

For a band that sells t-shirts with 'Generic Pop-Punk' under their name, the song that kicks off their second full-length release is a post-hardcore influenced head banger. The Wrexham-based band have been in a bit of trouble recently, but after touring the US on the Vans Warped Tour, they parted ways with the offending member and found themselves on the Reading & Leeds Festival main stage- a promotion from playing the Lock-Up stage just last year.

Their familiar, jumpy brand of punk returns after the heavier opening track, with 'Threat Level Midnight,' which Kerrang called the 'Pop-Punk song of the year.' It is followed by what is most probably the bands biggest hit to date, 'Can't Kick Up The Roots’—a catchy song about their home town and the perfect song for people who have just moved out and miss their home a bit. I'm sure you know someone a bit like that at the moment.

Next is the melodic, summery 'Kali Ma,' which has a weirdly addictive chorus, and 'Gold Steps': the second song that the band pre-released in preparation for the album launch. A song about being positive about the future, and getting over life's obstacles is the perfect song for a bad day- and helps describes the rapid ascension of the band from a small local group, to touring the US and main staging festivals. The next song is one of my favourites; not least for it being called 'Lime St,' after the main station in Liverpool where I have spent far too much time and money, but as a bouncy song about love and longing, a subject that the band are able to write about

well—and seemingly with plenty of experience.

Following that is 'Serpents', a song that starts slow, but kicks in pretty soon into a punkier, heavier number that compliments the bouncier, more positive songs that precede it. 'The Beach is For Lovers...' is a more traditional pop-punk song—the influence of the more active American punk scene can be felt quite heavily here. The contrast between this and the next song could not be more apparent, with 'December' being a slow, acoustic song about love and loss—again.

The album continues with the fun, 'Smooth Seas Don't Make Good Sailors': a song that I cannot wait to bounce along to. 'I Hope This Comes Back To Haunt You' is a song that combines their bouncier, pop-punkier songs, with acoustic sections and heavier verses, with the album finishing on 'Rock Bottom', a worthy end to what is easily one of the best albums I have ever bought.

British Pop-Punk is no doubt back, and Neck Deep is leading the way.

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FILM

FOUNDER Film

THE FOUNDER September 2015

film@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

Movies You Should Look Out For In The Upcoming Academic Year

BY ZAK DERLER FILM EDITOR

Considering that this is both the first issue of the academic year and my first issue as Film Editor of The Founder, I feel it necessary to discuss a certain few movies that fellow film enthusiasts should look out for in the coming months. The period between this September and next June looks promising and includes a variety of mainstream and independent pictures that will grace our theatres and push filmmaking boundaries further than before.

The majority of the mainstream box office will be consumed by the ever-increasing number of sequels, franchises and remakes, and although it is these kinds of movies that arguably extinguish the artistic flair of filmmaking they are nevertheless still important to the multiplex industry. I instead want to introduce some original gems that may go unnoticed. Despite my previous comment it is enlightening to know that after a ten-year hiatus Star Wars VII has a December release date and is in the hands of science fiction genius J.J. Abrams, the mind behind the LOST TV show. This is sure to be one of the highest grossing movies ever made due to the franchise’s large cult following. The same can be said of the DC Extended Universe’s third instalment, Suicide Squad (David Ayers), set to be a comic book epic encompassing several characters from the fictional universe. Other upcoming franchise follow-ons include the twenty-fourth James Bond film Spectre (Sam Mendes), the ninth X Men instalment X Men Apocalypse (Bryan Singer) and the 2016 Pixar release Finding Dory (Andrew Stanton).

Quality American filmmakers are also making exciting returns in the coming months with their newest releases, such as Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, his latest film since the highly successful Django Unchained (2013). Similar to Django, The Hateful Eight is a violent Western dark comedy and features what looks to be solid performances from actors previously seen in his filmography. Oliver Stone, director of Natural Born Killers, returns with a political biopic, not uncommon of Stone, presenting Snowden: the real life current story of Edward Snowden, the CIA agent who leaked classified information from the NSA. Joseph Gordon-Levitt fills this role with ease, and is in fact not his only biopic lead in the coming year considering his much awaited part in The Walk, directed by legendary filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, the brain behind Back to the Future and Forrest Gump. The Walk is based on the true story of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit and his attempt to cross the twin towers, similar to 2008 critically acclaimed documentary Man on Wire. It is

also essential to mention the biopic Steve Jobs directed by Danny Boyle and starring Michael Fassbender as the titular role – this promises to be an award garnering modern classic.

The independent and international film market will also be abundant with brilliant releases in the wake of recent film festivals. Such films include the latest Gus Van Sant picture Sea of Trees, starring Matthew McConaughey and Ken Wantanabe. Although the film was surprisingly met with severe critical reception at this year’s Cannes, I personally feel it necessary to at least check it out due to its dark concept and director/actor collaboration.

Love by notoriously risqué Argentinian director Gaspar Noe is one for hardcore film enthusiasts.

For a precursor of erotic content, it is advisable to check out the promotional posters before entering the film blind! Another film dealing in the subject of sexual relationships, but in a much more sensitive light is European dark comedy The Lobster starring Colin Farrell and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, a story of seeking love in a mystical dystopia. Other independent or foreign market films to check out include Youth (Paulo Sorrentino), Crimson Peak (Guillermo del Torro) and Regression (Alejandro Amenábar).

However I want to draw attention to my three most anticipated movies in the coming months.

Nicolas Refn, the director of a personal favourite Drive (2011), has just concluded with principal photography on his latest mystical picture Neon Demon, set to release in spring next year. Although critically and commercially his artwork’s success fluctuates, Refn never fails to create a cinematic universe rife with ultra violence, lust, dark psychology and their conceptual portrayals. Knight of Cups, directed by the illustrious Terrence Malick, has been in the pipelines for several years and had its international premiere at the Berlinale Film Festival. Malick’s work is deep rooted in philosophy and asks existential questions whilst displaying an overly thoughtful and prestigious visual style. Speaking of visuals, Emmanuel Lubezki, cinematographer of Knight of Cups, has teamed up once again with Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, director of 2014’s Oscar winning Birdman, to devise The Revenant: a film which will go down notoriously in filmmaking history for its ruthless shooting style and barbaric on set conditions—but it makes for one hell of a trailer. And if all the films mentioned make you half as excited as myself, then I think we’re in for a really good year in film!

THE FOUNDER September 2015

FOUNDER Film

FILM

20

film@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

Trailer For Eddie Redmayne Project Sparks Intense Debate

BY GEORGE SOMERS After Director Tom Hooper and Eddie Redmayne’s first major motion picture project together Les Miserables earned four Academy Awards, the allure of a second cinematic outing with an actor greatly admired

by Hooper proved too great to pass by—and this follow-up does not disappoint.

Based on the real life story of artist Lili Elbe, one of the first people to undergo sexual reassignment surgery, The Danish Girl has already been tipped for Oscar success and cinematic stardom, despite the trailer only having been released this month. Although already being crowned 'Best Actor' by The Academy Awards, The Golden Globes and The BAFTAs for his role as Steven Hawking in A Theory of Everything this year, Redmayne is clearly not content with only one blockbuster success before the end of 2015. The Danish Girl expected to be one of the unstoppable record-breakers of the season, but it has not come without some controversy.

Many believe a transgender actor would perform the role with more believability and emotion than a Cambridge graduate who only made his film debut less than a decade ago, but Redmayne has been quick to defend his casting. Elaborating on some of the thorough research he undertook before the project began shooting said, “I met many people from the trans community… there were two things that stayed with me: Cadence said she would give anything and everything to live a life authentic; and the other was… how deep was her partner’s pool of empathy.”

Lili Elbe promises to be yet another role, much like Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher and Colin Firth as George VI, to be award-hungry beyond imagination, with almost every actor performing the role of a real person in recent years nailing it at the peak of their career.

The Danish Girl premieres in US cinemas on November 27th, with the UK having to wait until New Year's Day for the release.

Inside Out

BY CHARLIE GRANBY

Has Pixar Made An Attempt To Tackle Mental Health?

Pixar films have always pushed the boundaries technically and thematically—its newest picture Inside Out, directed by Pete Docter, was no exception. Having seen the film three times now, I’ve had plenty of time to ponder about the innate meanings behind the five colourful characters deep-rooted inside Riley’s brain, and think about what it is exactly that Pixar are getting at. The five emotions; Joy, Anger, Fear, Sadness and Disgust are all, obviously, the reason behind why Riley feels the way she does each day and are physical characters in her mind. Joy however tries above all to make sure that every day is a good one. This narrative strand is a classic, and commonly used for standalone Disney films; everything is dandy. This time however, Pixar took a sharp turn and went deeper into the psychology of their characters than ever before and this is where my pondering has led me to ask the question, is Inside Out on the brink of tackling mental health or is it merely a story about teenage angst?

Riley is a pre-teen girl who has had a lot of change to deal with in a short space of time. Therefore it can be argued that her behaviour such as acting out, becoming introverted and a lack of general interest could all just be symptomatic of reaching puberty. Yet one of the voices inside my head is ringing alarm bells that this film is so much more than that.

My reasoning behind this was cemented in the line of dialogue, ‘we can’t make Riley feel anything’ when Fear, Disgust and Anger are fighting to keep Riley ‘happy’, and Joy and Sadness have found themselves lost in the depths of Riley’s long term memory. Riley becomes numb to her surroundings and after initially displaying bursts of anger and emotion, she slowly falls into what can be recognised as depression, as each of her ‘islands’ turn grey and bleak, with all manner of happiness and hope falling into the dark memory dump, a place where even Joy struggles to find solace in her own eternal optimism.

Mental health is finally becoming less and less of a taboo, and whether Pixar intended to include such narrative elements in the film that have been interpreted as, and alluded to as signs of depression within the protagonist, we might actually be on the verge of a breakthrough. Pixar, one of the most influential groups of visual storytellers are moving out of the comfort zone of ‘safe emotions’ and are delving deeper into the psychosis of their characters, bringing the stigma to an end.

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FILM

FOUNDER Film

THE FOUNDER September 2015

film@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

What It’s Like To Be At Venice Film Festival

BY FEDRICO D’ACCINNI This month I’ve been watching up to five films a day for ten days and it wasn’t because I suddenly went crazy and decided to close myself in a room and just watch one film after the other.

No: I went to the Venice Film Festival, an experience every true movie fan needs to have at least once in his or her life.

Being at a film festival means different things. You can watch films shown to an audience for the first time ever. You can bump into an actor or a director while walking to a screening.

Sometimes you can even watch a film while sitting a few metres away from the whole cast. When people talk about film festivals they always refer the idea of it to the red carpet. But that’s just a small part of what a festival is all about. An event like this is an opportunity to discover new realities, new worlds and new voices from across the world. It’s a chance for young authors to show their work to a wide audience and for older ones to confirm their talent and their skills.

A usual day at a film festival usually means waking up very early in the morning to be able to enter the first screening and be awake for the next 15 hours for screenings, press conferences, photo calls, interviews, discussions and Q&As. You will never be bored if you love filmmaking and want to learn more about it.

This year’s Festival was rich with surprises; a well-balanced mix between different genres and different ways of representing reality on the big screen.

The war atmosphere in Beasts of No Nation by Cary Fukunaga astonished me and the director’s aim is to show how war can contaminate, transform, and destroy a young soldier’s life in West Africa. The direction was as phenomenal as it was in True Detective Season 1. I then delved into Charlie Kaufman’s bizarre world with Anomalisa about a middle-aged man who finds true love while staying in a hotel in Cincinnati. Kaufman is one of the few writers who is able to transform a simple story into an ironic and dreamlike journey. In Thomas McCarthy’s Spotlight we witness the events of a newspaper investigation on a sex abuse scandal in Boston. Rigorously written and impeccably performed, Spotlight is a dense film about being a journalist and discovering truth.

Venice was not only about watching films, but about meeting people from the very inside of the industry and discovering cinematic realities that I would have not been able to see anywhere else. Film festivals should keep encouraging young people to participate as much as possible: it’s the only way for these kinds of events to stay alive and transform young students into potentially successful filmmakers in the future.

‘Quality’ British TV Drama is Getting Complacent

BY EDWARD CAIO I am not an expert, I am not a professional television writer or director, nor do I know by default what’s best for British television.

But as a consumer, if I am not happy with the product, creators don’t get to decide how I feel. And I am not happy with what I’m seeing.

Popular British TV drama these days (Sherlock, Luther, Broadchurch, and so on) is getting stale. In the writing I am seeing protagonists becoming inconsistent, supporting characters getting no development, and plot threads being resolved hastily or ignored altogether. Visually, there is an over-abundance of handheld shaky-cam, pointless slow-motion, and processing the image to make it look expensive. These are all trends that while acceptable in music videos or commercials, become excessive and nauseating in what claims to be ‘cinematic’ television.

I recently watched the Fargo TV series, which completely surprised me. With over ten hour-long episodes, I watched characters evolve and adapt in a manner consistent to their being, while in each episode the stakes got raised, until each plot thread and character arc finally got resolved in a gratifying finale. I felt rewarded for investing my time, and felt like the creators were treating me with respect. It didn’t feel like I was watching TV. It felt like I was watching a story. I find myself feeling the same way about a handful of other US dramas. So why can’t we do the same here?

I considered the difference in financing and budget but I feel that really it’s the directors and writers duty to, well, be creative and work with what they have. It doesn’t cost money to open up a script and change or remove dialogue, or write in certain actions to define character, and it doesn’t cost that much more to place the camera in a way that creates a meaningful image that reflects the story. It’s about little things that could vastly improve the narrative value of a scene, which are often ignored in lieu of expositional dialogue or empty one-liners.

So the issue then, as far as I can see, is attitude. Creators who feel that ‘it’s just TV, and should not be treated as anything more than that’ are also unwilling to experiment. In the US, there is a growing attitude of treating each season as a 10-hour long film (or whatever the season’s running time may be), whilst here it still often feels like radio with photographs of people talking attached to it.

American dramas are not all perfect and UK dramas are not all terrible, but a lot of them are just slightly above mediocre. As a consumer, I demand better content. I am and many others are putting in effort to engage with what people have spent their time making, but if very few are making the effort to actually make the content engaging, then I don’t know why I should bother.

Film photos provided by www.m-magazine.com, www.youtube.com, www.indiewire.com, www.theedgesusu.co.uk, stuartreviewsstuff.wordpress.com, busyghana.com, and craftypioneer.com

THE FOUNDER

September 2015

FOUNDER Lifestyle

LIFESTYLE

22

Lifestyle@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

My Love Letter to Radio 4

BY ELEANOR MCCLOSKEY LIFESTYLE EDITOR

To my beloved Radio 4, We are nearing our two year anniversary, so I thought it probably a good time to tell you how much I love you, how happy you make me and to thank you for everything you’ve taught me.

My mother introduced us, but I was dubious at first. She has known and loved you for years, and thought that we’d be perfect together. She had spent a lot of my adolescence gently nudging me towards Woman’s Hour, and the afternoon plays, but I dismissed you. I thought you were far too grown-up for me, a bit stuffy perhaps, a radio station for boring old men. You had been the background noise of my childhood, as my parents had often had you there with us, in the kitchen, the car, the garden. Darling, if I had known then how headily I was to fall in love with you, I would have paid better attention. But that’s always the way isn’t it, what we are looking for is usually right under our nose.

It was only when I came to University and felt homesick and out-of-sorts in the flux of fresher’s week that I sought sanctuary in you. I wanted some familiarity, some clarity, and turned to Desert Island Discs. I was hooked instantly and quickly garnered favourites - I must have listened to Mark Rylance’s passionate defence of Ophelia from Hamlet about eight times. Noel Gallagher’s stories of 90’s hedonism, Kristin Scott-Thomas’ mellifluous voice as she remembers running away to Paris as a teenager, Bill Nighy’s total apathy to his career and Celia Imrie’s choice of a chandelier for her desert island luxury have all stuck in my mind. You learn so much more about a person through their music and literary choices than if it were a normal interview. Every episode is guaranteed to equip you with some golden piece of information that you didn’t know before.

But that’s the case for every programme that you broadcast, isn’t it. Once, during an interview, you came up in conversation, as you often do if I’m talking.

I said to my potential employer that, “I never regret listening to Radio 4” because I always come away knowing something interesting that I didn’t before.

The interviewer leaned back nodding, and repeated what I’d said slowly with a huge smile, in total agreement. You are so loved, you see.

We quickly became inseparable. Remember that 10 hour coach trip to Paris? You were the only thing that made it bearable. You were there that night I stumbled back from some party, heartbroken and fuzzy, and lulled me to sleep with the shipping forecast. I dreamt of high easterly winds and forgot all about that boy. If I am struck with a bout of insomnia, which I often am, you are there with a political debate, or a documentary about Mary Wollstonecraft, or an episode of ‘The Unbelievable Truth’. I go on about you on tinder dates, I share links to your programmes to my friends, I download your podcasts so I’m not bored on the tube. You have bewitched me, 4.

I knew that you were the real deal when I started tuning in to Woman’s Hour, the unashamedly feminist programme fronted by Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey, on every weekday at 10am. By its own admission the programme hopes to celebrate, inform and entertain women, and consists of discussions on issues affecting us today. I often find myself nodding along to the contributors and tweeting things that they have said in support, in a bid to get others to listen to

you. It’s a fantastic programme and I wish I’d started listening to it sooner. You champion equal rights, 4, and I adore you for doing so.

Then, of course, came the Misogyny Book Club. Thank you for that, by the way. It was my turn then to pester my mother to listen to you. What a thought-provoking and compelling series that was. I was so proud that my favourite radio station cared as ardently as I do about the poison and price of misogyny. Jo Fidgen and various literary experts dissected the hidden misogyny in some of society’s most-read books, and discussed how they might have shaped attitudes to women today. We started with the depiction of Eve in the Bible, and ended with the subordination of women in Fifty Shades of Grey, and I have not stopped going on about it since. You have been instrumental, my dear, in shaping my feminist ideology, among other things.

Four Thought, which is on every so often, has been an alternative education for me. Recorded at Somerset House in London, various speakers air their thinking in front of a crowd, on a myriad of topics. I have listened to Charles Leadbetter argue that we are living in a whirlpool economy, and that we should be wary of artificial intelligence. I have heard Amanda Palmer reconcile art and motherhood, the philosopher Amia Srinivasan defend anger as a necessary and good emotion, and Rebecca Mott make the case for the total abolition of prostitution. I have listened to the comedian John Williams talk about his autistic son and the unexpected joy he has found through him and heard Anna Bear ask why there aren’t more women composers. I have listened to Jasper Fforde explain why he thinks humans have reached their limit of intellectual creative thought, heard former priest Mark Vernon make the case for narcissism, and Amber Dermont on the benefits of having an unhappy childhood. It’s a brilliant programme, one that picks apart cultural trends and issues in society in an extraordinarily personal way. And the best thing about it? There are about 200 episodes that I am yet to listen to, just waiting for me.

You have no idea, my darling, how furious I was when I heard that the Tory government have plans to effectively dismantle you. How dare David Cameron lay his hammy hands on you and try to change you in any way. We need to protect you, just as you protect ideas, discussion, and debate. Chris Bryant called the BBC the nation’s “cultural NHS”, and he couldn’t have put it more perfectly.

Your presence is somewhat medicinal, for me anyway.

I’m aware that this relationship is rather one-sided. You are dazzling, intelligent, and funny and I am merely an ear. You are hopelessly uncool but that’s okay, I can be the cool one. I hope the fact that you have a loyal listener in me is enough. And babe, I’m in it for the long haul.

Johnny Cash wrote in a letter to his wife June in 1994, ‘you still fascinate and inspire me. You influence me for the better’. And whether I am listening to the Today programme in the morning, the midnight news or the world service, you are always fascinating, inspiring and influencing me too.

Hear you later, my love, Eleanor

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SPORT

THE FOUNDER

September 2015

FOUNDER Sport Controversy Caused by SU Sports Team Rebranding Sports@thefounder.co.uk / @rhulfounder

BY SAM WILLIAMS SPORT EDITOR With a new term starting, a new era has begun for sport at Royal Holloway. Over the summer Royal Holloway University and the Students’ Union announced that it would be reinventing the RHULSPORT branding under the new banner Royal Holloway Sport.

The Co-President of Sports and Development, Alex Reilly-Cooper, stated that the identity change was an ‘essential development’ to the previous brand as the ‘RHULSPORT branding did not tie in with the current Royal Holloway brand’.

The conception of the brand change began in January and evolved through a series of meetings that involved representatives from members of all registered sports clubs. A project board was established from those meetings that included members from Royal Holloway, the Students’ Union and the President of Men’s Rugby (2015/16) acting as a student representative. A final consultation took place at the Students Activities Conference during which the representatives chose which design they most preferred, with the most popular being selected with minor changes made via student feedback.

The new brand aims to unify every aspect of sport at Royal Holloway, including all student-led clubs, using the college crest alongside a clear image of the ‘Bear’. The university’s mascot, Colossus D’Bear, was adopted by many sports clubs but has never been linked to them under the overarching sports banner. Reilly-Cooper stated that while there was ‘no clear identity’ for sport with the previous branding, the new brand ‘incorporates the rich heritage of the College Coat of Arms’ that allows all members of every sport team to participate ‘with pride’ with the knowledge that they are representing Royal Holloway.

However, some teams have taken issue with

the way the change has been enacted. A representative from RHUL Men’s Rugby Team, Harry Cranston, commented that while the concept of a ‘wider identity’ for RHUL sports clubs is viable for discussion, it should be always be ‘a discussion between equals’, a feeling that was not felt by some.

Cranston also stated that the brand change was ‘unwelcome’ and ‘instituted in a dictatorial “doctor knows best” fashion’ which only added to the unease already felt by some clubs. The relationship was further damaged through a campaign that Cranston states ‘saw comments censored’ and both current and Alumni members ‘shut out of their own Facebook page’.

Furthermore, Cranston viewed the timing of the changes as appearing ‘calculated and cynical’ due to the final meetings taking place during the summer months, at time in which ‘only two year groups are available to protest’. By doing this many of Royal Holloway’s sports clubs feel that this change has been enacted on a basis of ‘false legitimacy’ built through current SU leadership ‘concealing their intentions’ in meetings with student representatives. This unsatisfactory treatment has left a bad taste in the mouths

Photo provided by royalholloway.ac.uk

of the Men’s Rugby Team, with Cranston concluding that the actions of the SU were ‘unsatisfactory’ and ‘deplorable’ and have therefore ‘damaged [the] relationship’ between the RHUL sports clubs and SU. Due to the timing of the changes it cannot be said how the changes have affected the state of sport at RHUL and there may be some ill feelings towards the Students’ Union held by some teams. However, with all RHUL teams ranging from the BUCS leagues to the Active Lifestyle teams now collectively gathered under the same banner, this year’s intake of athletes will enter into a unified environment at Royal Holloway Sport.