The Lion - Issue 3, Volume 2

beaver outrage

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LSE beaver Causes media Storm over “Sick” rape Jokes

Faye-theist

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Faye West on Atheism and Col. Gaddafi

The

Heythrop Students’ Union Volume 2 Issue 3 Wednesday 23rd November theheythroplion.co.uk

NaNoWrimo

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Charlie Yarwood on Writing a Novel in a month

Lion

Union VP and Socs Officer Elected

Barrie Nelson and Ashley Doolan Elected to the Heythrop Students’ Union Executive Alex Hackett Editor-in-Chief

68% 32% barrie Nelson

r.o.N

Barrie Nelson and Ashley Doolan have been elected into the Heythrop Students’ Union Executive Committee 2011/12. barrie Nelson will take on the role of vice President Development from Jasmin Khosah, who left the position after personal and academic issues. Ashley Doolan will become Sports and Societies Officer, a role vacated at the start of the year when student Joey Youll left the country to emigrate to Australia.

Nelson won 68% of the vote, running against no candidate, bar “re-open Nominations”. The vPD received a high

voting turnout for the roN Position, garnering 32 votes and thus 34% of the electorate. Doolan won a 62% share of the vote running against President of running Society and unsuccessful candidate for Isoc President, Qudd0us Ahmed, who won little over 22% of the vote.

Nelson has not previously held any senior position in the Union or within a society before, and stated that he was spurred on into student politics by current Male Welfare officer Andrew Swindley. He pledged in his manifesto to create a system by which graduating students could sell their books onto new students, with the union taking a cut in order to help fund student activities.

Doolan was President of the LGbT Society last year and unsuccessfully ran

for the position of Male Welfare Officer this year, losing out by 12 votes. Doolan pledges to make it easier for students to start societies and make the system for union funding of societies clearer.

When asked about the new appointments, HSU President Gala JacksonCoombs said she “congratulated Ashley and barrie on their new posts and I look forward to working with them greatly”.

The election received an unprecedented voter turn out for a by-election of 106 votes which equates to roughly 12% of Heythrop’s student population.

Both candidates attended a Hustings on 28th October, filmed

by The Lion and available at youtube.com/TheHeythropLion

62% 22% 16% Ashley Doolan

Quddous Ahmed

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2 In, 1 Out: vice President Campaigns Stands Down Advertisement

Joshua White News Editor The HSU has seen another resignation before the end of this term.

Sam English is the second vPC to resign half way through an academic year in a row. It was Phillip Woods who first stood down before the academic year was out in the last union. Woods tendered his immediate resignation back in march 2011 whereas English has stepped down in November 2011. When asked why he decided to resign at this point in the year English said “Well, the

timing is far from perfect as we’re now a fair way into the year but the reason for my resignation is wholly personal and the reason for my resignation will keep me away from College a lot, it seemed unfair to retain an elected post whilst knowing all the while I wasn’t doing the job to the best of my ability.”

English was then asked if the position was worthwhile holding “Well; the position is in my view a vital one within any SU and I’d like to be seen as someone who did a good job within the role; any SU Exec is independent of, yet a medium for, students to get in contact with the governors and col-

lege staff and I think the vPC is, bar the President, the main way students can get their opinions to the governors.

As any campaign should be endorsed by the vPC. I’d like to think students got a lot from me being fairly visible and approachable around college.”

As to whether it was the HSU, or the state of affairs in the College, that led the vPC to stand down, English insisted “I had no intention of resigning of my post until I was forced to think seriously about my own health and general wellbeing in light of some recent events.” He went on to add “The Union Exec is in my view a highly com-

petent one and a united one. I guess if the state of affairs was dire within college and the relationship between the HSU and College was strained I may have stayed on but that’s not the case. We’re fortunate to have governors who see things from our side too.”

When asked if he is optimistic about the future affairs of the HSU and the College he responded “most certainly; next year we’ll have two Sabbatical officers which is a huge step forward for any Union and a massive one if you consider where the HSU was 4 years ago”.

A by-Election is to be held at the end of this term.

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WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

NEWS

Heythrop Drop-Out Figures Announced Heythrop have lower drop-out figures than the national average but more fail than choose to leave.

Podcasts are Coming!

Visit the Lion’s website to listen!

theheythroplion.co.uk/podcasts f facebook.com/theheythroplion t twitter.com/theheythroplion Y youtube.com/theheythroplion : flickr.com/theheythroplion

Photo: Gates Foundation/Flickr.com

Joshua White News Editor

Please recycle your Lion at one of the many recycle bins around College

In this academic year, 5% of undergraduate students and 3% of postgraduates have dropped-out according to the College’s latest figures. This puts Heythrop below the national average drop-out rate of 8.6% for students studying in the United Kingdom. Heythrop has not seen as many students dropout this year as other universities have

in recent years; in the academic year of 2008/09 around 9.9% of undergraduates in Scotland dropped-out in their first year.

According to the college’s statistics, more students were removed from their studies than left for any other reason. out of the students who were withdrawn from Heythrop this year, 40% of leavers dropped-out citing “personal reasons” as opposed to 52% of students withdrawn for academic failure. A further while 8% were withdrawn after failing to enrol. None of the undergraduates who dropped-out cited “financial

The Editor-in-Chief Alex Hackett alex@theheythroplion.co.uk

News Editor Joshua White news@theheythroplion.co.uk

Senior Editor John Arthur Craven ord john@theheythroplion.co.uk

Features Editors Josh Ferguson and John ord features@theheythroplion.co.uk

Senior Editor Joshua Ferguson josh@theheythroplion.co.uk

Comment Editor ryan boyd comment@theheythroplion.co.uk

The Lion is the independent student newspaper of Heythrop College, University of London. We distribute at least 1000 free copies during term time around campus and to popular student venues in and around Kensington.

The Lion is published by HackJack Ltd. and printed by mortons Print Ltd. All Copyright is the exclusive property of HackJack Ltd. No part of this publication is to be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system or submitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Culture Editor Francesca Gosling culture@theheythroplion.co.uk Sport and Societies Editor Joe Walsh societies@theheythroplion.co.uk

reasons” whereas 15% of withdrawn postgraduates did. 36% of leavers cited “personal reasons”.

It would appear that the number of drop-outs from UK institutions has increased year-by-year, as the Higher Education Statistics Agency found 7.4% of undergraduates left after a year in 2007 against 7.1% in 2006. out of 125 fulltime first degree entrants at Heythrop College in 2006/07, 84.9% continued at Heythrop into 2007/08. by 2007/08 only 4% had transferred to another UK university and 11.1% were no longer in higher education.

Editorial Team

NEXT DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS

28.11.11

Please send your submissions to: submit@theheythroplion.co.uk The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Editors or of the Heythrop Students’ Union. Every effort has been made to contact the holders of copyright for any material used in this issue, and to ensure the accuracy of this fortnight’s stories.

Created by Alex Hackett and Gala Jackson-Coombs © HackJack Ltd. 2010, 639 Nell Gwynn House, Sloane Ave, Kensington, London SW3 3bE

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WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

NEWS Students donate less than £1.60 to Poppy Appeal

Alex Hackett Editor-in-Chief The Student body donated less than £1.60 to the Poppy Appeal it was revealed this week. only £1.58 in total came from the poppy box located in the common room, with only 10 poppies remaining in the box when collected. This is in stark contrast to the box placed upstairs at the reception, which raised over £30, with over half the poppies left.

HSU President Gala JacksonCoombs stated that she was “deeply dissapointed by the lack of donations” given to the appeal, and hoped that “once this injustice is highlighted, more people will give”.

The Poppy appeal is run by the royal british Legion in the run up to Armistice Day, and is used to support veteran’s hospital costs and rehabilitation. The poppies are handmade by veterans and are then shipped in boxes around the UK. It is still possible to donate to the poppy appeal, if you would like to support the royal british Legion, please go to britishlegion.org.uk/how-to-give

Ex-College Chaplain roy Dorey Dies aged 76 The Lion Editorial Team Former College Chaplain, Fr. roy Dorey, passed away on Thursday 10th November. A college mass was held in his honour on the 17th November, celebrating the life of a much-loved Heythrop figure. There is a special feature later in the issue, written by close friend Phillip Woods and current Chaplain Fr. Dave Stewart SJ. If you have any messages to Fr. Dorey’s family, please email submit@theheythroplion.co.uk and we will ensure they reach them.

PROTEST: Students march on the 9th November to “Defend Education and Fight Privatisation” Photo: facebook.com/TheHeythropLion

LSE Beaver Causes Outrage with “Sick” Agony Uncles Column Ashley Doolan Sports and Socs Officer The beaver, Student Newspaper of the London School of Economics, have appeared in national newspaper, The Daily mail, as a result of the choice made by Executive Editor, Nicola Alexander, to publish an article that, it has been claimed, makes light of rape as well as other arguably sexually demeaning and misogynistic activities.

The article in question, “Houghton Street Headaches”, appeared in the November 1st issue of The beaver within their social section and contained such lines as “ if you were the last person in the world she wouldn’t have a choice in the matter” and “it’s not rape if you shout surprise”. The opinions expressed in this article caused the LSE Feminist Society and Women’s representative to LSESU, Lucy macFaden, to hold an emergency meeting in order to calculate a response to the article. Comments made on the Facebook event include, “come down on the beaver hard”, “this is disgusting” and one student even compared the views in the article with those expressed by Geert Wilders, the famous Dutch satirist, saying that just because something has been expressed in an ironic/sarcastic way (as Wilders claims to do) that does not detract from the disgusting attitudes purported in the content. This led to an open letter being sent to the editors of The beaver calling into question their judgment.

In this letter the undersigned outlined that while they accepted the article was intended to be sarcastic/satirical, the fact that “only 10% of women students report that they have been sexually assaulted to the police” shows that rape is “no laughing matter”. It continues by saying “The beaver is published in the LSE Student Union’s name and is responsible for upholding the SU equal

opportunities policy (as according to the by-laws). The article published in last week’s paper was undoubtedly in breach of these responsibilities due to its sexist and offensive material. The beaver’s constitution states that the Executive Editor “is responsible and shall have ultimate editorial control over the final content” (4.4)”. As a result of this a motion of censure has been called against the editorial board of The beaver. on November 21st 2011, this letter had 237 signatories.

This response led to the story being picked up by The London Student, newspaper for the University of London, which is circulated to the 150,000 students within the university. This article, which appeared in the November 7th issue, was written by London Student News Editor, Hattie Williams and within it she has quoted the Social Editor of LSE beaver, Shrina Poojara who claims to have “deeply regretted” the decision to approve the Agony Uncle column based on satire. Further to this they quote Executive Editor, Nicola Alexander’s decision not to release the names of the Agony Uncle writers and her assurance that “the Agony Uncles will not be allowed to write for The beaver in future”. by being picked up by the London Student, and in fact being printed front page, one might question whether working relations between the two papers will be as strong as has been seen in previous years, such as the work done within the London Student Journalism Support Network (LSJSN).

The Daily mail picked up this story and published an article on the 18th November outlining what they described as a “sick newspaper column about the violent rape of women”.

They claimed that the writers of the article had had to go into hiding as “the strength of anger was so extreme” they feared for their safety. They also claimed that students were outraged that the college faculty were refusing to discipline said students or the edito-

Photo: lsesu/Flickr.com

rial board as although the college believed the article to be “disgusting in the extreme” the matter was not within the college’s jurisdiction as The beaver is “independent of the university”.

Nicola Alexander was quoted as saying the article was “distasteful at best” and though she believed it was mistake to publish it she did not condone the content of the column. ms. Alexander is resisting calls for her resignation.

The column seems to have split the opinion of mail readers with some in the comment section declaring, “How disgusting that people think this sort of humour is acceptable. You may not have experienced rape, but I assure you its not funny, and then to have to read utter rubbish like this makes it feel worse. Whilst we still listen to idiots like this making jokes about rape,

we’re trivialising what has happened to a lot of the population. Its no wonder that only 6% of rapists are prosecuted. Disgusting”. Whereas others believe that, “Clearly the boys aren’t seriously telling people to rape their girlfriend so what’s the big problem!!”

With attempts to censure the editors and calls for ms. Alexander’s resignation this would appear to once again open up the argument for freedom of speech in the press and whether there really is such a thing as going too far.

When does freedom of speech become offensive and at what point can a joke be said to have gone too far? No matter what the outcome of this latest controversy one can be certain that this argument is far from over and will return in many and differing forms for many editors in many papers across the land.

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OBITUARY

Remembering Roy

College Chaplain Fr. Dave Stewart and Postgraduate Student Philip Woods pay their respects to a Heythrop Legend, the Ex-College Chaplain, Roy Dorey.

Philip Woods Friend of Roy Revd. Roy Dorey, best known at Heythrop for his service as Chaplain until June 2010, has died aged 76.

Roy Dorey was born on 22nd December 1934. While he later became a staunch pacifist, it was during his national service (1952-4) that he became a Christian. Roy was ordained to the Baptist Ministry in 1960. Before Heythrop, Roy held many jobs, including lecturing at the North London Polytechnic, and headmaster of the Aseef school for disabled children in Dubai.

Revd. Roy Dorey was, for many years, a familiar face at Heythrop and was deeply beloved by staff and students, of all faiths and none, until the end. Roy studied MA Pastoral Theology at Heythrop from September 2001 until June 2002, when he founded the Donkey Club (Heythrop’s real ale society, of which he remains Eternal President Emeritus). Roy became Heythrop’s first non-Catholic Assistant Chaplain in 2002, before serving as Heythrop’s first non-Catholic Chaplain from 2006 until his retirement in June 2010; later that year, Roy was made an Honorary Member of the HSU (Heythrop Students’ Union) and a Fellow of Heythrop College. Even in retirement, he remained active in his ministry at Brandon Baptist Church, Peckham and St. Mark’s Anglican Church, Camberwell.

For me, PR (Pastor Roy) was not only a partner in ministry, but a dear friend, mentor, confidante and allround amazing man. I feel lost without him, but am comforted by many fond memories. I am not alone!

Indeed, for Heythrop’s Ecumenical Chaplain, Fr. Rocco Viviano sx, “It was a real honour to be Roy’s friend and to succeed him as Heythrop’s chaplain … We became friends quickly, and I have felt the support of his trust and of his prayers. I regret, probably as everyone else does, not having had more time to chat with him when I could hear his voice with my physical ears!”

Chris Clarke, President of Donkey Club, told The Lion that “Roy’s enthusiasm for good ale, lively conversation and simply being a damn nice person will be continued through The Donkey Club.” HSU President, Gala Jackson-Coombs described Roy as ‘an emotional rock for many Heythrop students’. James Johnston, former HSU President, also remembers a ‘chaplain,

Fr. Dave Stewart College Chaplain Quite quickly, I found that I was able to count the late Roy Dorey as a friend.

This was long before I was assigned to Heythrop. Roy got wind of something I was running in my previous job, a programme of theology discussions in a central London pub. Perhaps once he’d vetted our choice of location, particularly the quality of the ales served, he began to bring a handful of Heythrop students to those meetings. That’s how I learned about his gift for friendship; so obviously for the students whom he brought but also as a genuine offer to me. Roy believed, and practiced, something I’ve always wanted to believe and

minister, political activist, and one of the most amazing men I will ever have the privilege of saying I knew’, adding that ‘he was a gifted poet’.

Many alumni also shared fond memories of Roy. Former Ecumenical Christian Union President, Henry Balkwill, remembers ‘a faithful servant of God’. Lot Grundy described Roy as ‘ever cheerful, ever willing to listen and put up with the immature posturing of undergraduates, and a good man’. Meanwhile, Katie Higgins recalls how “At the summer ball in 2010 I had the fortune of sitting next to Roy ...we talked a lot about his inner-city based/ charity work and it was the highlight of my evening. He was so passionate about social issues, and he was also extremely kind and patient when listening. He offered me a lot of good advice and said that if you focus on the issues you care about then everything else falls into place … He was a good guy.”

Roy was a very outspoken man. He described his politics as “Left of Tony Benn”. Even in his final days, Roy was still Roy and was very excited about my involvement at St. Paul’s. Nonetheless, his great outspokenness was met with his great gentleness. Roy was driven by his strong, unflinching faith in God. Roy did not believe in praying for the dead. When asked why, he would tell us how a certain division of police avoids the hassle of arresting drunken disorderlies. When police from this division discover a drunken disorderly, they are picked up and dropped off in another division’s jurisdiction. The point being that the deceased are likewise ‘no longer in our jurisdiction’. Roy has left our jurisdiction, but is in good hands Nevertheless, Roy’s legacy remains.

Indeed, former HSU Women’s Officer, Bethany Farr recalls how ‘Roy once said to me that the best way to remember someone is to live a full life’. As Roy said, “The most important thing about Heythrop is YOU!” What I have just written is not his real legacy - we are!

So long as we live by Roy’s loving, passionate and good-humoured example, we will be Roy’s living memorial.

On 6th October, Roy was taken into St. Thomas’s Hospital for emergency surgery on an aortic aneurysm. He remained there until the night of 9th November, when he died peacefully.

Roy is succeeded by his widow, Mary, two brothers, two sisters, his daughter, Ruth (and husband Jeremy), his son, Peter (and wife Janet), and two grandchildren, Isla and Jake. practice, but nowhere near as well as he did; that perhaps the most important thing in the world is friendship. Roy has friends, family too of course, who mourn him because of that. The Christian faith that he personified was articulated in his genial gift for friendship.

All bereavements are tinged with sadness; some more so than others. There is, of course, that sense of loss, of coming to terms with not seeing the person again in this life, a loss that can ache for ages because it touches our core humanity. Usually there is something around the topic of that which was left unsaid, like a half-finished conversation, an unanswered question, a shared interest that would have been great to talk through a bit more. When I came

back to Heythrop partly to work in chaplaincy, after a few months off sick, our paths crossed again but fairly soon after that Roy made it known that he would soon retire. I was to take over as one of the chaplains. I’ll never forget Roy’s answer to a student who asked him about what advice he’d given me.

“Never listen to the advice of your predecessor”. I don’t think I ever got round to thanking him for that simple, amusing, self-effacing insight.

Standing behind all this was the simple faith of a pastor, a man of God. His Christian faith found its expression in a denomination other than mine and the role he had at Heythrop, a college deeply rooted in its Jesuit, Roman Catholic heritage, might at times have been

more testing than he’d ever let on. He was humbly proud (but never proudly humble) of his ministry to his Baptist congregation in an unfashionable part of east London, an aspect of his life and service possibly not known to too many Heythrop people. I suspect, but never got round to engaging him on this, that he wasn’t always comfortable with some aspects of Roman Catholic practice, particularly our liturgy. If that’s right, it certainly didn’t stop him generously attending & supporting events, before and after his retirement. He and Mary made a point of supporting the first public performance of our new Schola Cantorum, which its members appreciated. Social justice and the constant struggle for human dignity were

more key concerns for Roy but he was just as quietly effective as a counsellor, a confidante; and, of course, as a friend.

So we remember him and his friendship with joy and gratitude and we extend our condolences to his beloved spouse Mary and his family of whom he spoke with such joy. How best to remember him? It’s too early to say but the good Lord will see to it that a suitable memorial will emerge. In the meantime, here’s a suggestion that will gladden Roy’s heart. Repudiating, as he always would, any suggestion that fizzy lagers or artificially smooth beers – “used washing-up liquid” in Roy’s view – merit being called beers, let’s raise a glass of the best draught real ale you can find in London to his memory!

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WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

Capitalism is (Un)Dead

FEATURE

News Editor Joshua White discusses how Capitalism relies on its own failure for its continued success.

Joshua White News Editor To report the death of capitalism is, to say the least, an exaggeration, given that, in the last four years, we have found ourselves subject to austerity measures while the global economy stumbles from one crisis to another. In the past, capital has been likened to a vampire, insofar as, in its relation to labour, it is parasitic. but it is no longer a suave Count; capital is seemingly dead when it comes to the suffering of ordinary people. At the same time, it is still capable of violent bursts of energy and it is mindlessly destructive in the pursuit of its sustenance. So it seems appropriate to describe the current order as zombified capitalism; it requires a minimum of 3% compound growth in order to continue - that translates into a need of profitable investments of $1.5 trillion. In the future, the system might demand even more, perhaps $3 trillion in growth - and the global economy is struggling to find $1.5 trillion as it is. one day, the banking sector could become so large that it could not be saved by state intervention, and we will be dragged into the abyss of its collapse. For us to gauge where we are today, and where we might be heading, it is important to remember the causes of the crash of 2008.

As David Harvey has noted, this crisis can only be understood if we go back to the crises of the 1970s, when organised labour posed a threat to capital, to the extent that the workers’ share of GDP

peaked in 1967. The unions had demonstrated a capacity to undermine the Establishment in britain with the fall of the Heath administration in 1974.

So, a need to break this labour movement emerged, which concluded with Thatcher and reagan (in the US) imposing such strictures on the workingclass labour movement. With the fullon assault on organised labour and its political allies came the mobilisation of a global labour surplus; the development of labour-saving technology and increased competition as neoliberalism emerged. The consequence of this was a sharp decline in the share of wages in total GDP globally; an enormous disposable labour reserve emerged and survived under marginal conditions.

In fact, some of the biggest wage-cuts in the world were endured in the US in 1985 and the UK in 1990, which were a direct consequence of the defeat of each country’s labour movements.

The structures of monopolised power were undermined, with the state-monopoly being displaced in the meantime as the system was opened up to fearsome international competition.

Ultimately, the intensity of global competition led to lower corporate profits in non-financial domains. The early signs of a hegemonic shift of power towards East Asia came as uneven geographical development and inter-territorial competition had become key factors in capitalist development. The most fluid and mobile form of capital was utilised to reallocate capital resources at a global level, which led to the de industrialisation in traditional heartlands of industry whilst new forms of industri-

alisation and resource extraction began in emergent markets. The character of these new forms might be labelled appropriately as “ultra-oppressive”, for instance, in the Congo around four million people have been killed in the extraction of coltan. The ultimate aim was to enhance the profitability of financial corporations, thus the need for new ways to absorb risks through the creation of fictitious capital markets.

Accumulation by dispossession became a means to increase class power for the ultra-rich and so a new round of primitive accumulation - against indigenous and peasant populations - was needed in order to augment the asset losses of the working-classes in the developed world. We have only to turn to the African-American victims of the sub-prime housing crash. The mass-privatisation of social housing in britain, which took place in the 1980s, appeared as a gift to the working-classes as it enabled them to convert, from rental ownership at a relatively low cost, to the control of a valuable asset which may enrich them. Speculation, though, soon took over the housing market, eventually pushing low-income earners out to the outskirts of cities.

David Cameron is about to further this process as part of a bid to recreate the property boom. It used to be that the capitalist invested in production. but for the last thirty years the economy has undergone increased abstraction, as the capitalist has, out of necessity, turned to making money out of money rather than out of anything concrete.

The increase of sagging effective demand was accomplished by pushing

the debt economy - in governmental, corporate and household spheres - to its limits. This became the standard method in the West, so it should be no surprise that in the US household debt relative to income doubled from 1982 to 2007. By 2007, the ratio of financial assets to GDP had doubled since the early 80s. Incidentally, household debt in the UK was around £1,560 billion in 2010, and may rise up to £2,126 billion by 2015, as a result of the governmental budget cuts. The compensation for anaemic rates of return in production came in the form of a construction of a whole series of asset market bubbles, which culminated in the property bubble that burst around 2007. Each of these asset bubbles drew upon finance capital and were facilitated by extensive financial innovations, specifically derivatives. The control of assets and resources at the heart of international finance has become central to the system in the last thirty years. In essence, we no longer make things, we make money from nothing (i.e. by playing ever more intricate economic “tricks” in order to temporarily stimulate growth).

The way that the crisis of the 1970s was circumvented led to nearly sixteen years of growth in britain from 19922008. It led to Gordon brown claiming that “boom and bust” had been abolished. The current crisis, too, has to be circumvented; in the past this has required the enforced destruction of productive forces, the conquest of new markets and an even more thorough exploitation of old ones. So, british manufacturing went into a decline from which it has yet to recover under

Thatcher. The very means by which the system regenerates itself typically paves the way for even more extensive and destructive crises, as the means whereby crises are averted are diminished in doing so. The “financialisation” of the economy led to the financial crises of the last 30 years. The infinite capacity of capitalism to regenerate itself at the expense of the majority of the population should not be underestimated, but with each recovery the foundations for another crisis are laid.

The pressure is on the ruling class to crank out profitable investments worth $1.5 trillion, so it can meet that minimum 3% of growth for the time being.

The state’s reaction to the crisis has opened up a door, through which we are being led, and we don’t yet know what is on the other side. This is nothing new, with the crash of 1929 came such an opening and we all know what happened in Europe as Germans were marched into the darkness. Then there was the crisis of 1973; in britain, as a result of the oil crisis, the collapse of the Heath government led to the reign of a weak Labour government, which gave the space for the emergence of Thatcherism. This is not cheap fearmongering, it doesn’t seem realistic that either of these will emerge, but we have to keep in mind what is possible.

We might take comfort in the fact that when the Americans were marched into the same abyss it was the New Deal which emerged and not National Socialism. but it is not necessarily the case that history is on our side. livinginphilistia.blogspot.com

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WEDNESDAY 23rd November | THE LION

“COMMENT.”

Edited by Ryan Boyd | comment@theheythroplion.co.uk

Referendum? The electorate has no idea of the EU’s complexities Heythrop Alumnus Edward Cain questions whether it is really appropriate to let the electorate decide Britain’s place in Europe.

Ed Cain Alumnus

The EU is a complex union of politics, trade, economy, diplomacy, bureaucracy, and Ferrero Rocher. Understanding the UK’s place within that monolith - our duties to it and our net gain from it - is a nuanced task requiring deep knowledge of each of those aspects. For example, sunlight-deprived members of the blogosphere frequently conflate the European Union, European Commission and European Court of Human Rights, as if they form a homogeneous gloop, from which we can only escape by some UKIP-led act of heroism. If this confusion is present, then opposition to one arm of “Europe” can lead to a misguided opposition to the EU. I call it misguided, because that voter will not get what they thought they had voted for in a referendum on EU membership. The complexity of what we would ask the public to decide precludes a sufficiently well-informed plebiscite.

I read my first book on Europe at the embarrassing age of twelve. Other boys branched out into exciting disciplines such as geography and girls, but regret-

tably I decided to come to conclusions about European macroeconomic stability before even thinking about that kind of filth. No, no, I don’t want your sympathy. My point is that even I – a certifiable politics geek who sacrificed a normal childhood in an attempt to understand our policy towards Europe – do not feel well-informed enough to vote in an referendum on the EU. So who has time to do the legwork necessary to decide our membership of the EU? What species of malcontent would voluntarily scrutinise the latest legislation on non-fatal deployment of hairbands in the workplace environment? It must be your democraticallyelected representatives in the House of Commons. That’s right, those creatures with the genetic predisposition to paper-waving and guffawing. They do have a use, you know: MPs have volunteered themselves to take the initial decisions on those issues either too boring or too complex to waste the time of the more gainfully-employed population. This is why we are not constantly plagued with plebiscites on government business such as the “Draft Medicines Act 1968 (Pharmacy) Order 2011.”

They’re not perfect, these MPs. One of them had the cheek to claim expenses

on a packet of Hobnobs when we all know M&S biscuits are far superior.

More pertinently, many or most politicians probably don’t have time to become any more expert on a particular subject than your average political anorak. But as a collective voting bloc, they will tend to come to a better-justified decision than the collective electorate.

This is not meant to insult the intelligence or application of our fine nation of shopkeepers and shop looters. In a perfect, sunny world of clean-shaven citizens, everyone would read around the subject, delve into both sides of the public debate and weigh up the arguments before skipping to the polling station and putting a tick in that box with a sharp HB pencil. On the dreary, wet streets of non-CBeebies, highcrime Balamory, most earthlings do not have this luxury of time or information, yet still feel an opinion strongly enough to vote. So let’s leave it to those flagellants in the Palace of Westminster.

My message to the Tory rebels? Leave me alone and do your own work; I have a lost childhood to make up for.

Read more from Ed at threelinewhippet.com

Photo: inyucho/Flickr.com

Controversial, Faye...

Fresher Faye West begins her first column on atheism by discussing such varied topics as Heythrop, tradition and Colonel Gaddafi.

Faye West Fresher Seeing as there are a good few people here who are either not convinced or not quite convinced that there is a “divine power”, I want to start a Lion column about atheistic matters. I considered writing “wizard” there, but perhaps that is in bad taste. Anyway.

So, an atheist column – or, at least, not a theist column. Let us continue.

I don’t think it is necessary to affirm in this article that God is a lie, as it is kind of irrelevant. I think all the atheists here must either respect - or are fascinated by - religion, seeing as we are in fact studying at Heythrop.

I would describe myself as an openminded/liberal atheist. I think people have the right to believe pretty much what they wish to believe, so long as it doesn’t hurt or aim to convert anyone else. I may even say that faith is something wonderful that I just don’t understand, but respect it enough to never challenge it or seek to take it away from someone. I think that stealing faith is

bad, really bad - abominable, deplorable and unpardonable (thank you Microsoft Word for your synonyms).

We have that clear now, and so I won’t be going on any anti-religion rampages, but I will talk about things I don’t understand and would call a bit silly. From my experience most religious people are incredibly reasonable, and what they believe is in harmony with modern developments, so I do hope what I say will not be taken in an offensive manner, that’s not what I’m trying to do.

Let’s talk about an issue. Um. There are quite a few. How about the recent murder of Colonel Gaddafi? I don’t think it was necessarily right that he was killed, but I think most would agree he had it coming. Can’t really do what he did for so long and expect a pleasant retirement, with maybe some golf and gin and tonics. The world is starting to work differently. As an atheist, I welcome change and development; I disagree with the view that things should be done now because they have been done so in the past. Something always breaks and then it gets harder to hold together. Take Gaddafi. He had

his hands around Libya for a long time, and was far too powerful for anyone to tell him to let go and be a sweetie about it. Eventually, it fell apart and can now be rebuilt. It won’t be easy, but you can tell the families of Libya with relative confidence - that things will get better. I’d say that maybe some parts of organised religion could benefit from a similar de/reconstruction, but I know that would upset quite a few people and I have no authority to make such a challenge. It’s just that I fear embedding oneself in tradition calls for a change to be made. I think it’s also very clear, however, that there are plenty of religious ideas which prevent this embedding from happening.

I would conclude with some shallowly profound point, but this isn’t that kind of operation. Think what you like, tell me (if you know who I am) these thoughts. They’re interesting. On another point this article needs a name. If I think of anything delightfully witty I’ll call it that, I just want to shake the nickname “Controversial Faye” - is that at all likely? Oh, I need to conclude. Um. You stay classy, San Diego.

8

WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

COMMENT

The Life and Times of Steve Jobs Heythrop Fresher Faye West gives her take on Apple’s late founder and CEo.

Faye West Fresher

I’m not an Apple user. I find using Apple mac and other Apple related software akin to wandering into the Early Learning Centre and playing with the try me light up number-and-letter-andsciency-kid-friendly-noises keyboard toys. In a way macs are user friendly, in another more accurate way, infuriating and needlessly colourful. I also dislike the turning on noise of macs. my little Dell chirpily informs me of its operating status with a short tune, assuring me nothing is at fault and wishing me a good and productive day. macs, on the other hand, assert their presence with a singular, stern tone which seems like the computer equivalent of the nasty cowboy dramatically entering a saloon. regardless of my quibbles, I understand macs and the brand Apple are a fantastically successful global company, all credit to Steve Jobs. Founded in 1971 with Steve Wozniak, this basement business, more accurately garage business, was discovered and funded by the clued-in people at Intel. Then exponential growth. Jobs lured away one of his CEos, John Sculley, from Pepsi Cola by asking him “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” Presumably he burst into Journey’s Don’t Stop believing after. It would have persuaded me.

The early 1980s saw the invention of the macintosh. Thank you Jef raskin.

Unfortunately, according to Apple

employees, the outward warm charisma of Jobs masked his erratic and paranoid character. There are accounts of Jobs holding meetings through the night, and the relationship between Jobs and Sculley soured. Sculley labelled Jobs to be “bad for Apple”, believing that he should not be running it. The board of Directors agreed and in 1985 Steve Jobs left Apple. oh look at that I wrote “Apple” and “soured” in the same paragraph. metaphoric. So Steve, armed with $7 million founded NeXT computers. Like Apple, NeXT computers produced innovative and advanced products. With these computers, Tim berners- Lee invented the World Wide Web at CErN, and web designs created the basis for Apple iTunes and the App store.

Jobs ran NeXT with the obsession which had driven his contribution to Apple, and, with the profits of his second company, bought The Graphics Group, later renamed Pixar.

What would the ‘90s been without Toy Story? Again, thank you Steve! A bug’s Life however, not so much. So Steve had done pretty well for himself, and in 1996 Apple asked him to return. Here’s a question, how many of you are in an emotional relationship with your iPods? Well in 2001 the wizard Steve Jobs magically created it out of pixie dust and the tears of Paul mcCartney. or something equally as technical. In 2007 the multimedia leviathan which they call the iPhone was summoned into being. Throughout the period between the iPod Classic and the iPhone, Apple became one of

the largest global businesses, iPad increasing this influence even more so.

In 2011 Steve Jobs resigned as CEo of Apple but remained on the board of directors. Apparently, Apple shares dropped 5% in the half hour after this was announced. Jobs was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer (ironically shortened to PC) in 2003. Instead of conventional treatment, Jobs chose an alternative treatment by use of a particular diet, acupuncture and consultations with a psychic. Harvard researcher Dr. ramzi Amir described his decision “led to an unnecessarily early death”, Which is very sad. Steve Jobs died at 3 am on october the 5th 2011.

Fans and mourners laid down ipads animated with burning candles. Steve Job’s career was always controversial, but it can’t really be doubted that he was a brilliant man who changed everything. Again.

Photo: acaben/Flickr.com

This is Not a Placebo Aishah Mehmood

Culture at The Lion

Peace One Day Soc

There is a common situation we all find ourselves in, where we question our efforts and abilities. I’m sure most of us, who have started our courses, have already been bombarded with essay deadlines and may feel like this. one by one, we probably (well the organised ones of us) write down the deadlines in our diary planners, until the stark revelation comes clear: we have more than one essay due in the same week! Alas, we panic and probably then question our own ability to get these essays written. Consequently our mindset changes. We probably end up saying ‘I’m not going to aim for an A, rather I’ll just work enough for a b or a C grade’. one response: wrong answer.

What’s the point of us believing we are already destined for disaster that we give up so easily? As if, we know we cannot do a good enough job, so we’ll leave the other person to get that better grade. This issue with our condition echoes the short story ‘The City Coat of Arms’ by Franz Kafka. The whole message of the story is of a generation who leave the next generation to complete building the Tower of babel.

The tower signifies our purpose and human aspirations, but all the people are concerned about is how ashamed the next generation will be of their efforts. However there is a monotonous pattern to this story, and as a result, the tower never gets built. Now, I’m

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LEMON Show & Tell with added zest!

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not saying that accomplishing that grade signifies our life purpose, but we know that trying is the first step in self-belief. Sometimes I think about the time when I was first learning to ride my bike, and the amount of times I got bruised from falling off! but my dad said to me ‘If you give up now, you’ll never accomplish anything’ and he was right. before I knew it, I had learnt how to ride my bike, even being able to ride holding onto one handlebar (haven’t accomplished riding without both handlebars yet - but we’ll see how it goes!).

My point is that even if you find yourself in that position I briefly described, we are just becoming like the people in

the story of Kafka- we will never ever accept responsibility and hence never truly discover what could have been.

Never give up I say, and as one of the greatest song writers, George Harrison once said, ‘If you believe, if you believe in you, everything you thought is possible is possible’. okay, perhaps this cannot be said in fulfilling every success we want, because I am well aware that certain things do not necessarily work out all the time. Therefore, I’m not going to say, that everyone’s chances and dreams in life will become a reality, but if you don’t try to achieve anything in the first place, there will always be that curiosity of ‘what if I

had done this’ that would haunt you.

Life is not perfect, and life would not be life without rejection and sorrow, after all: ‘Joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the soul divine’. The message is simply: believing in yourself is the first step of promoting change. So, if you’re reading this and you’re thinking about pursuing any opportunity or any dream, ask yourself: what is holding you back? Is it the fear of rejection? because if it is, then those wasted opportunities will be your regrets.

The basic theory of the power of the mind over the body: keep in mind that this article is NoT a placebo! Good luck.

Bring your weirdest and most wonderful artefacts, tell us why you love them and convince us to love them too.

Books, art and all other miscellany welcome!

Presented By

Gnöra Sfling theheythroplion.co.uk/podcast

9

WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

Ask Mollie!

Say hello to Heythrop College’s agony aunt!

No problem is too big or too small, this mischievous ms. has been through it all.

Mollie Puttock Agony Aunt “Fast Food Fresher” I am a 1st year student and I have started to become worried about my weight. I have no experience in cooking nor an understanding of the nutritional value of food products. On a normal day, I skip both breakfast and lunch and then only eat ready meals and snack during the evening. It worries me that if I put on weight my parents will think that I cannot look after myself.

The fresher’s stone is a well-known concept that generally relies on the stereotypical understanding that fresher students drink copious amounts of alcohol during the first few weeks of their first year at university. As you do not specify your drinking habits, I cannot asses this, but it is good to look up and understand how many calories you are consuming via alcohol (with lager and cider being the most calorific). You also do not give your current weight and height or how much weight you have gained since starting university. I would advise you to go to your doctor to be weighed properly to get your bmI and body fat percentage checked. If you are found to be overweight your doctor can also give you information on the nutritional values of food. In the meantime, use the calorie content charts on food packaging to work out exactly how many calories you consume in a day, and then compare this to the GDA of 2000 calories for women, and 2500 calories for men (this will also be useful to tell your doctor). Also, the fact that you miss a lot of meals is detrimental to your health and I would urge you to eat something even if its something small at these times. As far as cooking goes, look online for easy student recipes or, at the back of this paper, where there are incredible recipes courtesy of “The Student Hob”. In regards to your parents, I would not worry: they will most likely just be very proud that you are at university and that you have successfully flown the nest.

“Sleepy Student!”

I am a 1st year student living in halls and I can no longer cope: I am just so tired! Over the past month, I do not remember ever waking up feeling rested and like I can handle the challenges of the day. I feel that if I do not stay up

with everyone else all night then I miss out and will not be able to further the friendships I have made.

Firstly, if this lack of sleep is getting you down so much, just remember that reading week is just around the corner and, since most fresher’s end up going home, you can always have a good catch up! Try not to worry about losing friends as everyone will have to at least slightly normalise their sleeping patterns now that lectures have started and essays are due in. If these points do not help, then all I can say is ‘If you can’t beat them join them‘. Just have a quick nap during the day!

“Abhorrent Alcohol Abuse” As a 1st year student, I obviously did everything to the extreme at the beginning of term. This includes the amount of alcohol I consumed. I had never really drunk to that extent before coming to university and, although I did not make a major fool of myself or do anything stupid, I was violently ill for several hours (Hm. – Ed.). Ever since this incident, I now cannot stand being around anyone else who is drinking as the smell makes me feel so ill. This is affecting my social life, what should I do?

I am presuming from your letter that you have not drunk since the incident and that the nausea is not related to any pre-existing medical condition. Therefore, I would say that the best way to get over this is to drink only in moderation.

Definitely do not try to drink the beverage that caused your illness, but have say one glass of beer/cider/wine/spirit and mixer, next time you are not feeling stressed and you are socialising. You will be able to quite quickly build up this tolerance of not feeling ill and be able to be the life and soul of the party again. I hope you have learnt your lesson though!

All questions are printed as anonymous and all answers are simply advice.

Questions may be edited in order to protect the identity of the person in question.

If you would like advice on any issue there will be an envelope in the HSU office, in which to deposit your questions.

COMMENT The Limits of Protest Senior Editor Josh Ferguson on his view of the student protests and union representation.

Josh Ferguson Senior Editor The very idea that protests need to be disruptive is one that is doubtless going to cause much contention in the minds of the general public. Lest we forget that the general public is the group that we want to win round, let me start by defining my terms. An effective protest is one that raises the issues by bringing them to the fore through the medium of public demonstration. If more people start talking and thinking about the issues that caused the protest, then it has been an effective protest. If all people are talking about is the disruption caused by said protest, then the protest, in my mind, has been a failure.

This was more than adequately demonstrated in the first of the student protests last year. many thousands of students flocked to London to demonstrate their anger at the proposed increase to tuition fees and cuts to the education system. The fact that so many students were there for one purpose was nothing short of admirable; but we (and I speak as part of the student body here) were betrayed by a small but vocal minority who don’t seem to understand that anger does not mean violence.

From that moment on, all that anybody could focus on was the broken windows at millbank, the clashes with the police, and that bloody fire extinguisher.

I can think of no more potent an example to back up my point. In the subsequent interview with Jeremy Paxman

on Newsnight, the current ULU President Clare Solomon made a horrifically embarrassing attempt to defend the actions she and others made at millbank, all the while seeming to be blissfully ignorant of the betrayal she had done to her own cause and the cause of the student body as a whole. violent disruption can only serve to engender antipathy and hostility towards a group and their cause. A cool head, not a hot one, is what is needed if the student body is ever going to be taken seriously as a political demographic worth listening to.

In stark contrast to this, the November 9th protests this year were much more of a success. There was very little (if any) violence or disruption on that march, the atmosphere was friendly and passionate throughout, and subsequently it was the issues for which we were marching that were discussed, not the broken windows or the tactics used by protesters and police. Clare Solomon and her ilk are always keen to trot out the line that “a few broken windows are nothing compared to what the government’s doing to our educa-

tion”, failing magnificently to see the point. Those broken windows cost an awful lot. They cost us credibility, they cause the protests to lose focus, and they cost us the support of the public at large. breaking into buildings and terrifying receptionists and working people who have got children to feed and mortgages to worry about is going to make us all look like petulant, thuggish children throwing a tantrum and flinging our toys out of the pram.

Peaceful protest is the only way to truly make our voices heard. I think it is a terrible shame when people can’t see the sense in not smashing up the city where you have to live and work within the society you so vociferously decry.

Co-operating with the police is the best way to protest. most of these policemen will sympathise, they have student debts and mortgages, and the police have cuts of their own to look forward to.

Disrupting the society in which we live can only be harmful to the student protest. The sooner we realise that and start acting on it, the better.

To Reassure Mr Woods...

HSU President Gala Jackson-Coombs replies to Ex-HSU vice President Campaigns Philip Woods on Heythrop’s fee changes.

Gala Jackson-Coombs HSU President I was surprised to read in my copy of the latest issue of The Lion (Lion volume 2, issue 2) an article entitled “Ave Heythrop” written by former vice President Campaigns officer Philip Woods. The article itself raises concerns about the lack of an aggressive stance on the College’s tuition fees by the Heythrop Student Union (HSU) Executive. I found this puzzling. Firstly, because the year in which the new tuition fee level of the College was discussed, and ultimately decided, was the same year of mr Woods’ term in office. Therefore, one would assume that if there was more of a battle to be fought on this issue, it would be have been his to fight, with the support of the Executive and the student body.

Secondly, the initial annual tuition fee of £7,500 was what the Executive decided to aim for as a realistic figure of what we could achieve for students.

This was before any form of negotiation with the Governing body or calculation based on College finances had been considered. Taking these finances into account, £8,250 was (and is) the least we could possibly charge as an institution to break even and ensure the financial future of the College. Lower than this level and the College could not remain open for more than a year, and not be

able to serve any students at all. The figures from HEFCE (the Higher Education Funding Council for England) on student limits are non-negotiable; if we take in any more students than our allotted amount, we would not receive any of the fees or funding attached to those students. Therefore, taking in any more students than we are allotted would not help us financially whatsoever, and would just become a needless drain on the little resources we have.

In his article, Mr Woods insist we fight HEFC; I would only ask as to how we do this, since this is a national governmental decision, and accepting more students than we are allowed to and keeping their money would be illegal.

I am completely in agreement with mr Woods that the new fees cap given by the government and their removal of all arts and humanities funding is both “absurd and obscene”. However, until the government changes its mind on its new education policies, all that small humanities institutions like ours can do is make it as affordable as we possibly can for students. The College itself has implemented many new ways in which to incentivise students to study here, including bursaries of up to £3,000 for those coming from households with an income of less than £25,000. The HSU is also sitting in on all of these discussions, pushing for the best possible deal for students, and being steadfast on our principles where appropriate.

I know for a fact that last year the Ex-

ecutive fought very hard to get the fees as low as we have at the current time, and I thank them for working so hard on our behalf. I will also mention that the London School of Economics also campaigned very hard as an institution to lower their fees, but only managed to get them to £8,500, and even more University of London colleges such as Goldsmiths campaigned very hard to no avail, ending up still having to pay the maximum £9,000 a year in tuition fees.

The HSU Executive and the College have a very good working relationship and mutual respect for each other, which allows us to be inclined to help each other as much as we can. However, should there be something we do not agree with, there is no hesitation to fight it to the best of our ability. We are also very fortunate to have a Governing body so sympathetic to our cause, and dedicated to the mission of the College; for education to be accessible to all. This is not the case in many universities, where the student union is in a constant battle with the governing body, who do not sympathise with their message. I do appreciate mr Woods’ concern, however, unless he is a millionaire and willing to fund every student’s degree for the foreseeable future, or has a friend who is willing to do so, I see very little that the HSU Executive could do to change the current situation. If he has any more pragmatic suggestions, I am more than willing to listen.

10

Culture[

Music: University Music League Fran Gosling Culture Editor

About time! Considering the seemingly endless plethora of extra-curricular activities, events and competitions available to members of ULU, it is hard to believe that there have been no major intercollegiate music contests. With so many student artists around the city, there is no reason why the words “battle of the bands” should remind us only of our teenage rocker phases! but not to worry, this shocking revelation has been rectified this year by the foundation of the Uni music League

by Karel Severin and Daniel Zawadzki.

The whole project is being funded, more or less, out of their own pockets (with the support of Karel’s company, Fatter Lane Productions) which is just one of the many testaments to their true belief in the importance of more promotion for student musicians, whether it’s group bands such as Painting Elephants (Westminster) or solo artists such as benedict Gibbon (UCL).

The concept is essentially an intercollegiate battle of the bands tournament which will run throughout the year, encouraging healthy competition between student artists from most University of London institutions. The main goal, as well as producing some fantastic gigs and events open to all UL students throughout the year, is to give young

musicians some real performance experience, generating exposure and general support to boost their musical careers.

It is for this reason, to encourage the development of real talent without any fixed winners or untoward cheating, that there will be no external judges judging the competition.

Instead, voting will be open to all London students with a once-in-alifetime professional recording prize for the final winner. As for the rest of the participants, with a great promoting team behind the project, its highly likely that there will be plenty of industry interest scouting the shows!

The gigs themselves will be announced throughout the academic year, with voting details to follow, and will be held across a variety of London university venues. With tickets going for either free or very low, studentfriendly prices, they look to be some of ULU’s hottest events of the year, especially as the competition narrows down.

However, with a proportion of participants belonging to smaller colleges with smaller scope for pre-established fan bases, will the competition improve intercollegiate links or boost their artistic rivalry? Get involved and cast your own influence!

Don’t forget to follow UmL on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date with the competition and enter free prize draws.

WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

Edited by Fran Gosling culture@theheythroplion.co.uk

Life: Your London Photo: matthew black/Flickr.com

Daniel Tripp Fresher

Literature: National Novel Writing Month Charlie Yarwood

Photo: mshea/Flickr.com

Fresher

Sometimes, I feel like I’m speaking a foreign language. No, I’m not having a little racist rant about people in this country that don’t understand English, I’m talking about the annoyance I feel when I talk about my favourite writing competition, NaNoWrimo, and am met with nothing but blank stares. Considering this competition happens to be an international event which reeled in 200,530 participants last year, I can’t help feeling just a little surprised when nobody ever seems to know what on Earth I’m talking about. So, to rectify this, here is a small education in all things NaNo. National Novel Writing Month first launched in July 1999 with only 21 writers but since then The Office of Letters and Light has expanded into hosting the Young Writers Programme, Script Frenzy (the less said about that, the better) as well as our beloved NaNo. There are t-shirts and everything! The idea is that, during the month of November, you eat crap, get no sleep and be generally anti-social. oh, and did I mention you’re meant to complete a 50,000 word novel in a month, averaging out to 1667 words per day? This is the trickiest part but it’s only on the very worst of days that most of us would probably do sexual favours for

the man who created Write or Die...

Yet, thankfully, being based in big cities, we come together to create a network of writers there to support each other when the going gets really tough.

Though, in all honesty, if the NaNo in manchester is anything to go by, the meetings are focused more around gen-

A Newbie’s Guide to a Non-Alcoholic London

erally getting to know your co-workers, rather than looking at each others’ plot-lines and current difficulties.

Though there may be a vague discussion ever so occasionally which alludes to the writing side, the majority of time tends to be devoted to discussing our daily lives which range from attending

high school to raising the grandkids.

It really is a competition which brings people from all walks of life together.

So don’t miss your chance to get involved in the writing event of the year. one last piece of advice if you do: stock up on coffee and frozen pizzas because,

by God, you will need them!

My first full month here is now over and I have learnt many a thing. While I love to go out and have a pint of cider (just the one to make myself feel manly, then I hit the G&Ts), I feel that the more cultural side of London should get a look in. Though, please note, I use the term “cultural” loosely, as my excitement over cheap postcards will shortly reveal!

The best thing about London is that you can experience amazing things for free – and there’s no catch! My best no-cost recommendation so far has to be the The british Library. It’s a brilliant experience for all students; it has a great atmosphere and is the perfect place to go to run away from distraction and procrastination. Plus, who doesn’t want to see original manuscripts of John milton or Jane Eyre? You can even get, as promised, snazzy pseudosci-fi postcards for twenty pence each!

I know I said no cost but, come on, it’s a bargain. Go on, treat yourself to five.

I’d also like to draw attention to one of the best theatre deals you could possibly find, considering London is home to one of the most reputable theatre districts in the world. The Apollo victoria is currently showing ‘Wicked’ which, ordinarily, the stereotypical impoverished student can’t afford to see.

Even the cheapest tickets usually mean diabolically bad seats that have either no leg room, no view of half the stage or even no seats (standing room only at a theatre? Come on, it’s not a ryanair flight). However, I’ve discovered that front-row day tickets can be acquired for any performance at the low price of twenty five pounds each. Sure it’s not something you can afford to do every day but it’s great for a treat. The only downside is that you have to buy the tickets directly from the theatre and you’ll have to get there before eight o’clock in the morning on weekdays (probably even earlier on weekends) to stand a chance of getting tickets. Cash only and limited to two per person but, believe me, the seats are amazing and the show is incredible!

I’m just skimming the surface as there are so many deals and savings to be snapped up everywhere if you look hard enough! So get online, have a dig around and try something new. Whether it’s a museum or an antiques mall over near marylebone, it’s almost always worth checking out. Some of you may only be living in London for three years so make the most of it and don’t let these once-in-a-lifetime chances pass you by!

11

WEDNESDAY23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

CULTURE

Music: Supersonic Festival Josh Ferguson Senior Editor My not-quite-first foray into the world of underground music festivals (the first being a trip to All Tomorrow’s Parties earlier this year) was, I admit, unplanned. Although I had been vaguely aware of the festival, I hadn’t entertained thoughts of actually going until an old chum called me up and informed me he had won two tickets to this event, and wanted me to be his plus-one. bromoerotic moment over with, I swiftly packed a bag and jumped on a coach from victoria to birmingham. After a lengthy and annoying trip, we disembarked at birmingham Coach Station, strolled over to the pub where we were staying, dumped our bags and headed to the first event.

What followed was a succession of events that would fill rather more than the remit we have for this paper, so instead of merely describing my experiences, I will list the more notable bands that I saw and give a brief review of each one. Hopefully some of you will be inspired to check them out, or if not, this might well provide a tiny win-

dow into a strange world where music other than inane warblings by lingerie models in S&m clothing is enjoyed.

Slabdragger - The first band m’colleague and I saw, and certainly a very good one. This three-piece band hails from Croydon, and play heavy, doom-laden rock, with a force and passion that is quite surprising (in a good way). They certainly put on a hell of a show, kicking off the festival in excellent style. Although their brand of doom metal probably isn’t for everyone, they are certainly entertaining.

Drumcunt - You know that bit in the intro part of dubstep songs where it sounds like something is just about to happen? Drumcunt are like that, except that nothing happens. An absolutely appalling duo, shat out of the gutters of Lewisham like the waddling, pretentious turds that they undoubtedly are.

Take it from me: Never trust a grown man wearing a duffelcoat, because he’s either going to molest your children or play you music as bad as this.

Scotch Egg - by contrast, this curiously-monikered Japanese fellow is really rather good. His music is made

using a warped drum machine and circuit-bent Gameboys in lieu of synthesisers, and he puts on an energetic, fun, lovable performance of the weirdest and most wonderfully, likeably fucked-up electronica I’ve ever heard.

Everyone should check this guy out.

Cloaks - These guys are a duo who mix dubstep with creepy dark ambient and industrial sounds to great effect. I’m no fan of dubstep, but the music that these guys made was scary, fascinating, entertaining and strangely calming. It’s rare that a band I’ve never heard of can make me a fan after a 40-minute live set, but Cloaks really are that good.

Wolves In The Throne Room A black metal band from the Pacific Northwest. but please don’t let that put you off, becase WITTr are amazing. They use black metal as a catch-all category for largely-improvised sets of dark, compelling music that runs the gamut all the way from pastoral folk pieces to chilling dark ambient to ballsto-the-wall black metal, with none of the ridiculous poseur-trappings that their Norwegian counterparts fall prey to.

Electric Wizard - The highlight of the festival. Electric Wizard are an example of a band that refuse to kowtow to trends, or indeed to even acknowledge that any trent past 1978 even happened.

The result is slow, heavy 70’s rock, with references to dope, sex, Satan and Hammer horror films abound. Even though they only played a criminally short set, they were utterly magnificent, managing to be heavy yet catchy, villainous yet charismatic, and churning out some mind-bending music.

Barn Owl - A San Franciscan pair of hippies and their vintage electric guitars, who play rather lovely, willowy guitar drones, mixing psychedelia with ambient music to wonderful effect.

The music can get a tiny bit monotonous, but they livened it up by having an excellent rapport with the crowd and a rather lovable sense of self-deprecating humour about what they do.

Astro - Another Japanese solo act, who uses several synthesisers to create a wall of shrieking, nigh-atonal noise. This is, one feels, the very cusp of the avantgarde when it comes to “entertainment”. Astro also pissed off a lot of peo-

ple by storming off the stage in a hissy fit for 15 minutes of his 45-minute set, complaining that the music wasn’t loud enough. I would like to make it abundantly clear that the music was plenty loud enough. my right ear doesn’t work. I wish I was fucking joking.

Cut Hands - This is another solo noise act, which was infinitely better than Astro by virtue of the fact that it was fun to listen to. Cut Hands is the solo project of William bennett, formerly of the “power electronic” band Whitehouse. Cut Hands takes the white noise manipulation and screeching feedback of Whitehouse and combines it with Ghanaian voodoo percussion, to rather wondrous effect. Although it doesn’t sound all that good on paper, the music is danceable, hypnotic and, when the drums climax and combine with bennett’s synthesisers at the height of the set, absolutely euphoric. The show was given another layer of poignancy by the backing film, which showed the native people of Ghana juxtaposed with the colonialisation that nearly destroyed their culture. A spectacular end to a strange, confusing but life-affirming show.

Game: COD 4: Modern Warfare Toby Fairclough Game Reviewer

Call of Duty, just like Christmas, comes but once a year, and as of 8th of November 2011 the world’s gamers have made their yearly pilgrimage from one version to the next. The third and final chapter of the modern Warfare story arc, CoD4:mW3 promised to be the biggest and best CoD to date, but does it live up to its high expectations? Should it tempt you to part with your hardearned student loan? And what does the latest CoD do that the others didn’t?

In answer to the last rhetorical question: not much. Players of the previous games will immediately recognize the menu interfaces with most (if not all of them) being a near direct copy from mW2. That’s not all the keen-eyed among you will recognize however, with mW3 utilizing an updated version of the graphics engine that ran its previous 2 iterations. Though it doesn’t look ugly, with the game boasting a smooth 60fps, it simply can’t compete with other titles such as Crysis 2 or the recently released battle Field 3. The controls are another rehash of games gone-by, but at least this is a positive thing with the game being immediately accessible for previous players. once

again there are three main components to the title: Story-mode, Special-ops and multiplayer. I imagine the developers’ motto would have been something like: “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”.

The single-player story is your typical CoD affair. Following on from where mW2 left off, you control several different characters across the globe executing different objectives and building on an overarching narrative of “World War 3”. If you haven’t played the previous two modern Warfares: to sum up briefly, the Russians are invading – everywhere. Such a story does allow for some interesting and memorable set-pieces such as driving through the underground and witnessing the Eiffel Tower’s demise. Fast paced levels break up the RSI from your trigger finger although several scenarios will give the veteran CoD player a strong sense of déjà vu. You won’t feel it for long however, with the campaign clocking up around only 5 hours of overall gameplay. Despite not sharing the complex moral ambiguity of mW2 or the freshness of black ops, mW3 does have its own charm largely thanks to its popular destination back-drops. Coming up from Westminster Tube Station with soldiers all around you certainly added to the realism of the WW3 premise, even if it was slightly tarnished by an

inaccurate Tube map and street vendors selling ‘Potato Chips’. Had mW3 gone all out and replicated the actual locations (ala L.A. Noir) it would have been all the more engaging. mW3 introduces a new Spec-op challenge mode, ‘Survival’, which pits you and a friend against wave after wave of enemies. Evidently inspired by black ops’ Zombie-mode, this scenario plays very similarly, with the players being rewarded for kills with money to purchase new weapons or ammo. However the map is open from the get-go, which gives the players some tactical advantage; and most importantly it is A LoT easier! The other Spec-op missions are very much a new map pack, seeing the players partake in short challenges based loosely around events in the story line. A new points system enables you to unlock more levels which carry over for both Survival and mission modes; this works well and enables less-able players to try the new co-op missions without having to complete all the previous ones (as in mW2).

As for multiplayer the main change from mW2 is the introduction of ‘Kill Confirmed’ mode; a basic team-deathmatch with an additional objective in which you have to run over the dead enemy to collect their dog-tags. Scrolling through the match types I was de-

lighted to see the return of ‘Gun game’ and ‘one in the chamber’ from last year’s black ops, with an additional two modes ‘Juggernaut’ (in which you protect/destroy the other team’s Jugger) and ‘Infected’ (ala Halo reach’s ‘Zombie mode’). However, as of writing this review the only way to access these modes is offline split-screen, LAN or private match – meaning no match finding or joining! Effectively this makes these modes unplayable unless you’re having a party. We can only hope that Infinity Ward can either add these to the regular multiplayer modes or that they follow suit on black ops’ patching which enabled bots for offline split-screen. But until then MW3’s biggest selling point – the multiplayer – seems to be somewhat of

a let-down when compared to the diversity of play in last year’s rendition. of course there’s improved levelling, defensive kill-streaks that add up even if you die and lots of guns to unlock, but throughout playing online it felt just like I was playing a map-pack for mW2.

If you’ve played a recent Call of Duty title, you’ll probably know what to expect, An explosive but short campaign, a fast paced addictive multiplayer and an entertaining mission based co-op. mW3 doesn’t seem to bring anything particularly new or inventive to the table, but what it does bring isn’t bad.

The whole experience is actually rather fun, it’s just a shame that they limited the few new alternative modes to people with real friends...

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WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

CULTURE Film: Werner Herzog/Into the Abyss

Tipsy Hippo

Photo: Erinc Salor/Flickr.com

John Arthur Craven ord tipsyhippo@theheythroplion.co.uk

Death and The Maiden

Photo: www.yphr.org.uk

The newly christened ‘Harold Pinter Theatre’ may live life for a while as ‘The Theatre Formerly known as Comedy’ but it’s making an effort to fit nicely into the history of the West End. Ariel Dorfman’s Pinter-esque thriller was originally dedicated to the man himself after he had helped it to its premiere in London 20 years ago at the royal Court. It was received well, winning the olivier Award for best New Play in 1992 and, two years later, being adapted into a film directed by Roman Polanski. Now it once again returns to its roots in London and with Harold Pinter.

With the apparently perfect-fitting play to open the new chapter in the theatre’s history, the stage is set (yes, pun intended) for a grand reopening. I can only think that the pressure took its toll on director Jeremy Herrin and he bottled it; it certainly wasn’t grand, though it was fair enough try.

The story itself revolves around the character of Paulina who was a tortured and raped political prisoner in an unidentified country who believes the man her husband has invited to stay the night in their home is the ringleader she only knows as ‘the Doctor’ (not, I repeat NoT Doctor Who). Holding him captive, much to her husband’s annoyance (big shot lawyer that he is). She proceeds to put her captive on trial and the play revolves around whether or not the man is innocent. Since there are no sure indications in the script, the tension and catch of the play centre on the nuance of the performance. Unfortunately, this is where the house of cards falls down.

Death and the maiden also acts as Thandie Newton’s West End debut. She treads the boards with poise and a confidence in her character and what her character believes to be the truth and this gives her a cool and collected manner. This, however, causes problems when she must then be a bit less in control, a bit more tortured and more furious and frustrated. Her performance in full lacks a depth that is necessary for the piece and is thus somewhat disappointing.

Despite her coolness throughout, her having a gun is by no means a compelling justification as to why the two men have to play along with what is little more than a sadistic game. If Gerardo was half as powerful as it appears he should be then he would have diffused the situation at the beginning and spare us the second hour. Her slight build is also a problem. The opening sees her running about with a gun that is almost comically too big for her to handle easily and the moment of her ‘recognition’ of miranda’s voice went by barely noticed.

Tom Goodman-Hill as Gerardo is as-

sured and dominant, fulfilling the position of a man used to power and keenly aware of his morality and ethics well.

He is the character that tries to make the audience aware of the moral dilemmas in the play but his willingness to succumb to his wife undermines him and thus the dilemma itself. He is a strong character but we see very little of this strength as he is always on the back foot without a strong enough justification for why that is the case.

Anthony Calf was the victim of overcautious direction. The whole play hinges on the unanswered debate over his innocence or otherwise. There was never really any doubt along the way that he was innocent in this production.

Calf’s miranda needed to be much more sinister and unpleasant, much more of a dual personality and a dark person.

The points are there for exposure in the script. Why did he come back when he knew whom Gerardo was? Why does he like Schubert? There are all sorts of points and buttons that are ripe for development but there just isn’t any. In this production he’s just a hapless good guy caught in the rage of a madwoman’s subconscious. This makes the play somewhat pointless all in all.

There is no thrilling aspect to the thriller; there is no sense of darkness, of pitch and moment regarding the previous regime, though all the material is evident in the text. None of it is translated onto the stage and the play falls flat as a result.

The set is simple and nice, the lighting effects of the cars pulling in and out are good and I enjoyed them, the effects when the gun was fired were loud enough to give the dramatic moment what it needed and everything else seemed to have a place and purpose, which is good. It also looked pretty swish as well, feeling like a holiday home but it didn’t give any indication of place. The script appears to be a nondescript Latin American country but the set could have been America or any country with a ‘President’ at all, which I’m not sure is a good thing. It needed a bit of grounding as the text itself isn’t universal enough to justify the attempt.

If you know the play already, and have an interest in it, it may be worth going along to see this production in case it throws light on a scene or conversation that you hadn’t seen before but other than that I would struggle to say it would be a good way to spend your hard-earned cash in this economic climate. If you don’t know the play already, I would strongly advise not going as it will likely give you a bad false impression of what can be done with the script.

Competent if nothing else (and not much else besides).

Ryan Boyd

Comment Editor As part of this year’s London Film Festival, Werner Herzog’s latest film was being shown at the vue Cinema in Leicester Square and I just happened to be there. The film, Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life, is a documentary about a triple homicide committed by two eighteen year old boys in 2000. one of them, michael Perry, was on death row at the time of filming with his execution scheduled for eight days hence. The other, Jason burkett, was serving several life sentences with no option of parole until 2040.

For those unfamiliar with Herzog, Into the Abyss is bizarrely stereotypical of his work. The most one can say about categorising Herzog’s films is precisely that they fall either into fiction or non-fiction; one is assured only of the events’ pure factuality. To demonstrate, one only has to look at Herzog’s most recent filmography: in 2009, he directed my Son, my Son, What Have Ye Done? a surreal and fantastical story of a maniac who takes his own two pet flamingos hostage after having murdered his own mother. In the same year he directed what appeared to be a misjudged remake of Abel Ferrara’s bad Lieutenant, until it turned out that not only did it have very little, if anything, to do with Ferrara’s film (nor Harvey Keitel’s haunting performance), but it had managed to be a very good film in its own right despite its mainstream budget and audience. Then, in 2010, he directed a documentary entitled Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a film shot in 3D about a prehistoric cave in France whose wondrous wall paintings are the subject of an entire feature length film.

Herzog’s filmography reads like the frenzied output of a schizophrenic.

What exactly is it that ties all these multifarious threads together? one is tempted to ascribe to Herzog an entire artistic movement – it is almost as if Herzog defies being categorised with any pre-existing notion of film or art.

Since one has to create a new phrase in order to explain properly Herzog’s style, I will refer to it from now on as his “poetic realism”. This poetic realism consists in abstracting totally from the “concrete” explicative context of a situation; in a Herzog film we are never

truly “there” in a specific place or time.

We are always removed, ripped out of a Whole and thrown “into an abyss”, where specific objects or practices gain a significance – a truth, even - which they would never have been associated with without Herzog’s narrative techniques.

In the case of Into the Abyss, we know we are in America – people speak with American accents, the landscapes and townscapes are clearly American, etc.

– but Herzog’s genius means we never, as it were, go through border Control; we are instead plunged into a world usually only found in fiction. It is this technique which, far from making the “real” events (e.g. that a murder took place, that this person will die, that these people are grieving) seem unreal, gives them a far greater truthful impact. As Andy Warhol is attributed as saying, ‘if you don’t believe something is happening, imagine it’s happening in a movie’ or, to be more academic, as Jacques Lacan (the French psychoanalyst) said, ‘truth has the structure of a fiction’. This decontextualization is not a simple self-blinding for the sake of the beauty of poetic romanticism; on the contrary, we blind ourselves to the truth of a situation with the very overabundance of brutal facts. one always has to pick and choose what to tell, the truth of a thing is always based on a rejection of something else. In other words, there is no such thing as a purely neutral, bias-free, perspective on or rendition of a story. on top of this, it is precisely such a striving for this position which gives us a feeling of total unreality. Like watching a news channel report a death in a war, for instance.

In Herzog’s documentaries, the narration is done almost entirely by Herzog himself. It is here that his poetic realism is transformed into Word. The beautiful, dramatic imagery of his language gives a new truth to the footage which accompanies it. one, however, could just as easily use the footage to make a purely factual documentary simply by replacing the narration. In his 1992 work, Lessons of Darkness, about the first Gulf War in Iraq, of course we are abstracted totally from the political facts of the war and reduced to a zero level of understanding. We see endless shots of blazing infernos, barren landscapes filled inexplicably with cars, the paraphernalia of crude oil extraction with no explanation but the war is al-

ways just “the war”, never the Gulf War, never a war between Iraq and America with two specific people as the leaders, each with specific reasons for waging it. Again, we are never simply in Iraq.

We are not even on a specific planet.

The opening lines state we are “on a planet in our solar system” – Earth, of course but this is not Earth. The inhabiting people, ruined by war, do not feel human and do not even feel that they are living life. Herzog, therefore, gives us the truth of the situation by, paradoxically, lying to us – essentially by taking metaphor to its extremity and even pushing it over the edge, so that Herzog comes across as a naïve idiot who thinks he is witnessing events on another planet (e.g. when we see a person gesticulating in the direction of the camera, Herzog remarks that ‘the creature tries to communicate with us’).

In the same way, Herzog is totally naïve and unassuming when interviewing the friends and family of Jason burkett and michael Perry, the two convicted murderers shown in Into the Abyss.

It is a strange result of his technique that, although we know it is a “manipulative” presentation of the situation, it seems as if Herzog needed to ask only the simplest of questions and the truth simply appeared. In the opening scene, Herzog interviews a clergyman assigned to be with the men as they are strapped to the gurney and given their lethal injection. After talking quite routinely about why God allows men to be killed (the typical question you would expect in the situation), it simply appears as if the priest suddenly breaks out of his official role with its appropriate language and breaks down crying, lamenting how he cannot save their lives even though he wished he could.

These reticent looking humans, these sane and rational looking people reveal to us their deepest idiosyncrasies.

Herzog is above all a humanist in the strongest sense of the word. He fully recognises the bizarre poetry which penetrates each of our lives, available our conscious if we could only embrace it in a naïve and yet knowing way. Fundamentally, Herzog’s poetic realism shows us that we should not be afraid to talk about the world as we see it through use of fantasy; striving to be objective about our own lives and the world is the biggest lie we can tell to ourselves.

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WEDNESDAY23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

CULTURE

Fran Gosling Culture Editor Due to popular demand, the opening of Exhibition #4 of The museum of Everything at Selfridge’s Hotel was extended until 6th November to give all those who couldn’t get a chance before the original closing date of 24th october to see this intriguing collection. The foundation, created in 2009, aims to expose the progressive work of self-taught artists worldwide and has, so far, installed itself in renowned cultural centres, such as the Tate modern This display in particular consisted of an archive of 55 constructions by American fibre artist, Judith Scott’s, most of which were never intended to be seen.

Involved behind the development of

this spectacle were many of Scott’s personal artistic fans, including Tal r and David byrne. born deaf, mute and with Down Syndrome, Scott’s work presents an astonishing insight into a range of emotions through the use of unconventional artistic methods which, at first glance, may seem nothing more than childish scribbles and sculptures strewn haphazardly about the room. She began to experiment with art as a therapeutic hobby but it soon became her passion to the point of near obsession. one particular UAL student gave her opinion on the exhibition. She explained that the form of presentation using peepholes, stairwells and shelves created a sense of intrigue as, whilst subliminally guiding a path for the observer, it hints towards things hidden and waiting to be discovered. As a re-

S T UD

Art: Museum of Everything

sult, she found the makeshift museum “engaging and genuine” while the art itself was “bursting at the seams with current issues, anger, love and, above all, a desire to communicate a message”.

Though this particular exhibition is now closed, The museum of Every-

thing is definitely worth following for its unique creative ethos which always brings something new and thoughtprovoking to the observer. Keep your eyes peeled for the next installation coming to another random London site soon!

Using Pumpkins

Ann Fig-rols Spatula Thief

Photo: boymeetsFashion.com/Flickr.com

Game: Batman Arkham City

With Halloween over and the remaining pumpkins all at half price in the supermarkets, you couldn’t find a better value ingredient. Apart from the fact you get loads of the stuff for your money, they have a great seasonal flavour, providing a low calorie base for stews, soups and other vegetarian dishes. So long as you don’t mind committing to the mission of digging the flesh out in the first place! If you’re stuck for ideas, why not try: Pumpkin Muffins

Toby Fairclough

½ baked pumpkin (simply cut into chunks, cover with foil and back in the over until tender)

Game Reviewer

For those unfamiliar with the series, Arkham Asylum brought batman to life. Players across the world experienced what it is like to hide in the shadows and instil fear into the hearts of thugs by hanging them upside down from gargoyles. Asylum spanned the events of one night in which the Joker takes over a facility for the criminally insane with only you and your bat-toys to stop him. The atmosphere, suspense and all-round coolness of being batman ensured it a place among the greats, and the title well-deserved its bAFTA for being ‘Game of the Year 2009’ Two years later, we are graced by a sequel which promised bigger and better things allround. but does Arkham City live up to its predecessor? or is it yet another case of all hype and no substance? Like its little brother, City puts you in control as batman himself over a series of events spanning a single night. The tale begins with *spoiler alert* bruce Wayne protesting against the construction of a walled city within Gotham City to house all the inmates from the first game’s Asylum. Unfortunately, bruce is kidnapped and becomes one of the inmates. The story unravels from there and, without giving any real spoilers away, you will encounter villain upon villain that any casual fan would recognize (as well as a few you might not).

Though the presence of so many villains means that some only have 15 seconds of fame, descriptions and back-stories can be unlocked which make them feel much more like bona fide characters and less like a check-list of cameos. being set inside a city allows for City to be a much bigger and freer game than its predecessor. Whilst gliding in the first game was limited to swooping down on some distant enemies, they’ve put a real emphasis on flying in City which makes you really feel like the bat. The ability to freely explore from the get-go is also a major plus, with side-quests and missions littered throughout. Whilst these aren’t essential to the plot, and can at times be a little distracting, they add replayability to the game, allowing you to freely roam the city’s streets to tieup the loose ends (and criminals) you missed the first time around. Though often not very long (excluding the rid-

HOB T N E

300g plain flour 200g sugar 2tsp baking powder 1tsp salt 3tsp your favourite mixed spices (cinnamon, ginger, clove, nutmeg, allspice) 200g vegetable oil 3 eggs Simply mix all the dry ingredients together in one bowl and, in a separate bowl, beat together the pumpkin, eggs and oil into a thick paste. mix the two mixtures together until smooth, spoon into muffin cases and bake in a preheated oven (180 degrees C) for about 20-25 minutes, checking every now and then, until cooked through.

Cheesy Pumpkin Pasta Photo: bhautikjoshi/Flickr.com

dler Challenges and Trophies), these side missions introduce you to new villains and feel much like separate stories of their own. Aside from flying around, the game is split into two sections: fighting and stealth ing. As in the first game, City has a unique ‘free-flow’ combat system that has you performing punch after punch with the press of one button. This might sound simple, but throw in counters, evades, gadgets, stuns and you have an easy to use - but hard to master - system. The balance is just so that you’re not scared to take on 20+ thugs, but when you’ve downed the last man you still feel a sense of reward. Though very similar in style to the first one, subtle tweaks - such as being attacked by multiple enemies at once and extreme bullet damage - make the combat feel more complete. A great new addition is the option of replaying without counter markers, making combat go from tough to insane; but it feels all the more realistic because of it.

Stealth is, again, much the same as last time, with ‘Detective mode’ play-

ing a vital part in seeing through walls and evading capture. The inclusion of new gadgets, such as the ‘disrupter’, allow for new tactics but the overall feel remains very similar – but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Though there are new and effective gadgets, the omission of the three-pronged bat-claw from Asylum was a real disappointment for me and left me feeling slightly more weakened than before. However, this is only a small gripe as you seem more empowered in practically every other way. Unfortunately, this too was slightly disappointing for me as there is a prolonged time during the game in which batman’s health is deteriorating but the only indication of this are the alterations in his own physical appearance. This time around rocksteady have included different playable characters, in the form of robin, Nightwing and Catwoman. Although Catwoman is the only one so far not bound to challenge maps, they each have a unique feel to them: speed for Catwoman and acrobatics for robin. Catwoman’s story

also fits into the main arc of Batman’s and provides some explanation as to why she keeps turning up to give him a hand. Though their continuity within the game may seem, at times, to be lacking, Catwoman’s appearances work well in relief and often are well integrated into moments of suspense, leaving the gamer wondering what’s happening to batman. Although it may not have the same level of innovation as its Arkham Asylum, Arkham City improves on its predecessor in many ways. This is not necessarily in the form of alteration to parts that Asylum got wrong, but rather further tweaks to the bits they got right.

If you’re thinking about getting City, I would first recommend trying out Arkham Asylum. If you’ve played it and loved it then what are you waiting for? buy Arkham City! once again I’ve been left feeling that I am Batman – and for those brief 40+, I was!

Send your game review to our culture team at culture@theheythroplion.co.uk

Chop your pumpkin flesh into small chunks (don’t be shy on the quantity, it reduces a lot when cooked) and put your favourite type of pasta on to boil as normal. In a hot frying pan, add a little oil and fry the pumpkin pieces along with a handful of sliced onion for about 20 minutes until tender. Then add in a knob of butter, a sliced clove of garlic, a generous pinch of salt and pepper and a sprinkling of parsley and rosemary. Allow this to cook together for another couple of minutes before taking off the heat. mix this in with the cooked and drained pasta and transfer to an ovenproof dish. Cover with your favourite grated cheese and bake until melted and starting to brown.

Cheeky tip! While you want to remove the seeds from the pumpkin flesh when cooking it, don’t throw them away! For a tasty (and addictive) snack, place the seeds, separated, on a baking tray and brush them on both sides with some salted melted butter and bake them at 140 degrees C for about an hour, giving them a little shake occasionally so they don’t burn.

14

WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

Societies Sports and

Edited by Joe Walsh | societies@theheythroplion.co.uk

Heythrop 1st Football Team: Match Report Hassan Kassem Football Team Captain Heythrop’s second game of the season was a tough away fixture against highflyers ‘Royal School of mines’ 1st, which unfortunately ended with a narrow 2-1 defeat.

The first half saw plenty of opportunities for Heythrop Football Team, due to the effective use of perfectly timed lobbed through balls, which could have seen lone front man Hassan Kassem with a hat-trick on another day. Unfortunately the ball never seemed completely under his spell and the flows of chances were not exactly clear cut.

Towards the end of the first half relief was felt all round when playmaker rob Wilson’s low driven shot was pushed wide by the goalkeeper into the path of Dave roberts, who was left free to drive the ball into the empty net, a much deserved goal for the rapid winger.

Soon after the goal, however, rSm 1st were awarded a controversial penalty, which could instead have been seen as commendable defending. Arguably justice was done when rSm slotted the ball wide of the goal bringing relief for Heythrop once more. Despite Heythrop feeling aggrieved by some controversial refereeing, and the lack of converting chances into goals, Heythrop very much had the momentum going into the second half, leading 1-0.

However the momentum swayed in a very different second half. Substitutions by both teams as well as a growing lack

of self belief and determination from Heythrop players seemed to be the underlying factor. rSm took control of the match and soon drew level early in the second half from a set piece. The match opened up as tired legs and minds allowed rSm to keep possession of the ball far too easily. However chances from open play were still rare from both parties. It wasn’t until roughly the 70th minute that a freak corner was whipped over Heythrop’s sprawling goalkeeper, Simeon Cunningham, aided by the strong wind, directly into the back of the net. Unfortunately with 10mins to go centre back Will Slee had to come off due to a sprained ankle, and could not be replaced as all the substitutes had been used. The feeling was very much that Heythrop had lost this game once and for all. Playing with 10 men exposed Heythrop’s defence, resulting in last ditch defending from many. Despite the opportunities (being the underlying theme of the match) rSm could not capitalise, hitting the post once, and seeing one-on-one shots saved by Heythrop’s gifted goalkeeper.

In fact Heythrop went close in the last dying moments, when a deep cross was delivered into the box by Daniel Cote which was met by Hassan, who squandered the opportunity. man of the match was given to Darcy Ward, who delivered many of those quality throw balls for Heythrop, and never lost his competitive and determined spirit.

This was a match Heythrop could have won, and the team is very much looking forward to the next match in order to put the record straight!

Date 12/10/11 19/10/11 26/10/11 02/10/11 09/10/11 23/11/11 30/11/11 14/12/11

Teams Heythrop 1st x LSE 7th rSm 1st x Heythrop 1st Heythrop 1st x rvC 2nd SSEES 2nd x Heythrop 1st Heythrop 1st x St barts 3rd Imperial 7th x Heythrop 1st Heythrop 1st x St barts 4th Heythrop 1st x bbP Law 1st

Score 1-0 2-o TbP TbP TbP TbP TbP TbP TbP - To be Played

The Silent B...

Laura Reside

Heythrop LGBT Society Within the LGbT (Lesbian, Gay, bisexual and Transexual) community, bisexuals are often much forgotten in terms of support from their counterparts in the LGbT community. We walk in the shade of grey, we experience massive biphobia from both the heterosexual community and the lesbian and gay community. on some level, we are rejected by both. We are ridiculed as the joke sexuality where we only claim to be attracted to both genders because we seek attention, or we are using it as a stepping stone to coming out as gay or lesbian, because ultimately we have to choose a gender.

It is difficult to explain to someone who has a sexual attraction to only one gender what it is like to be a bisexual, but let me try. For myself, it is not that I am attracted to both men and women, it is that gender isn’t a factor in my sexual partner. It bears no more affect on whether I am attracted to them than it is, for you, whether your life partner has green or blues eyes.

I’ve often heard the argument that bisexuals rarely are cut straight down the middle and that they aren’t equally

attracted to men and women in equal amounts and have a sexual preference.

This is perhaps true, but this doesn’t mean we are cannot be attracted to both genders, despite being perhaps drawn to one gender particularly.

Another prominent viewpoint that I have personally come across is that if, and when, bisexuals get married they will have decided on the gender and consequently they will finally either be straight or gay. This is not my view, I believe that bisexuals choose a person, not their gender. If I marry a woman, I will still find men attractive and vice versa. To suggest otherwise is not only incredibly hurtful but is demeaning to men and women who come out as bisexual each year.

The LGbT community should be in place to support bisexuals, as bisexuals face a lot of the same problems as lesbians and gays in making their identity clear. This is not always the case for bisexuals, from my personal experience. I have been told by people within this community that we are offensive to the LGbT community, and we are the reason people don’t take them seriously, because we are not a genuine lifelong sexual orientation. Even within the Heythropian community I have been told numerous times that “it’s not

a real sexuality” and “I will choose”.

If I told you at 14 that I was heterosexual or lesbian, you may have had an opinion on my sexual preference, but you almost certainly wouldn’t have questioned the honesty of my claim. but when I told my friends and parents at this age, it was deemed “a phase.”

This phrase was something that I would ultimately get over and that my choice was a result of attention seeking. Alternatively I was told that I was in fact a lesbian and in a few years I would come out “properly”. Talking to other bisexuals, my case is certainly not limited to myself, but also it seems to be a common running factor that elements in the LGbT community are very intolerant of us claiming that we are somehow making a joke out of their sexuality.

We are taught of two worlds when we

grow up, of black and white, good and evil, straight and gay. So many people have a genuine problem in understanding the shade of grey that bisexuals are and I believe that their biphobia comes from ignorance. I understand that it can be difficult to understand the concept of gender not being an issue in sexual attraction, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t a valid choice to be bisexual.

Some of the most obvious viewpoints of bisexuality suggest that bisexuals get the benefits of being gay and straight, suggesting that we can jump from one to the other on a whim. but we don’t choose to be gay or straight depending on the day of the week, we are bisexual all the time, it’s no more a choice than any sexuality is. bisexuality is on the outside of both heterosexuality and the LGbT community, yet an

integral part of it. We sleep with the same gender, so we can experience the same homophobia from the heterosexual community as lesbians and gays. The LGbT community that is supposed to support us from the hate and biphobia we are abused with are often complicit in it. We are left alone, with no one to stand up for our rights.

I am not trying to force you to accept bisexuality, or even believe that everyone who claims to be bisexual genuinely is. or that even heterosexual, lesbian or gay person is a biphobic, because this is by no means the case. What I am saying, however, is that casually throwing jokes around about bisexuality not being a ‘real sexuality’ are hurtful, and demeaning. It makes coming out as bisexual even harder. We want to be accepted for who we are, just as you do.

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WEDNESDAY 23rD NovEmbEr | THE LION

SOCIETIES

Art Soc’s Trip to Leighton House John C Ross

Art Soc President So october rolled around and the Art Soc visit was upon us. However, due to a number of lectures happening on that particular Friday, no one appeared keen on coming, which was very saddening. Art Soc members reading this, boo hiss boo to you! Hopefully you’ll be able to make the next one.

Thankfully I had one loyal member, the wonderful fresher (and mature student) that is Ellen mcHugh, who came along with me. Can you imagine! A Society! With quite a few members, I might add, usually. We had a wonderful and productive first meeting! And the first visit – two people including myself. It was enjoyable not being part of a gigantic group, but still, I did feel rather panicked, thinking “Jesus John you are doing something wrong.” I had to then rationalise, and realised that a lot of people were busy with lectures and evidently other things that took priority over a short visit to a local museum.

Anyway, small number aside (it’s never stopped anything happen in Heythrop before, says the man who was a member of a three-student class for Love, Sex, Death and God in 200910), Leighton House was GorGEoUS. Well, well worth a visit. It takes less than an hour to go around, and has

some beautiful paintings and pieces of artwork, most of which were created by the man who lived in the house, Frederic Lord Leighton. I would advise going in the Summer, as in Autumn and Winter the garden is closed – but it must be beautiful in the Summer. Travelling in through the entrance though, you’d have no idea of the beauty and grandeur of the place, and I’d quite happily hold a party there – though only with a select few individuals, and mainly so I can parade down the gigantic staircase (beside which is a large and ornate stuffed peacock) in welcome.

but I digress; the halls are beautifully lit, terribly tall and each step just makes you hate poor old Lord Leighton, who you imagine shuffling around within the tiled passages in his old age, gazing out the gigantic windows, sitting on each comfortable chair – all on his lonesome of course. but then again, would you mind if you lived in such a superb house?

The only room that is in any way humble and quiet is Leighton’s own bedroom, holding only a small bed, a bearskin rug and a few framed pictures on the walls. beside the room is a small

ante-room which was a water-closet that is used as a small viewing room with a television to watch a documentary about the upkeep of the house in.

For students to enter it is only £3 and it’s well worth a visit – basically just walk down the High Street and pass Holland Park’s grand gated entrance, and the first right after that is the road you need to be on (melbury road). After turning right, cross over and turn left onto Holland Park road. Halfway down you’ll reach the red brick exterior, and walk through the small doors, and in. You will not regret it.

Photo: zoer/Flickr.com

Philosophy Society Duy Hoang and Peter o’Neil

Philosophy Soc Head & VP The Heythrop Philosophy Society share the belief that philosophy is a subject which is just as suited to an environment outside the lecture theatre or library as anything else. Whether we are in a park, a pub or in a restaurant, philosophy grows or diminishes in the environment we discuss it in. Hence we think that after hours of lectures, the last thing you want is to be cooped in a hot stuffy lecture room for another couple of hours. With a subject as broad and varied as philosophy, students of every subject are able to contribute in unique and interesting ways – and that is just what the HPS is interested in; diversity of minds, intrigue, and reflection.

In previous years we have brought guest speakers along for lectures and discussions, this tradition I am happy to say will certainly continue. However we’ll emphasise outings such as trips to

Photo: Lawrence oP/Flickr.com

various public lectures as well as organising more formal (sobriety optional) debates on issues. being somewhat a medievalist philosopher I have an itching towards making a few ‘provocative questions.’ Pending someone brave enough to step up to the challenge of taking an impromptu crossfire of philosophical questions, that is what the HPS hopes to bring out in everyone.

We are also widely open to the prospect of different forms of indulging in the subject, barring of course the feeding of wine to animals – for health and safety purposes, as Chrysippus found out.

The question arises as why someone who studies philosophy would then join a Philosophy Society, since ‘that is what we do all day’. Students come here to study because they love the subject! otherwise, you’re doing the wrong degree! So I find it hard to imagine why anyone who loves philosophy wouldn’t want to immerse themselves in the subject and engage on a sociable level with different schools of thought beyond and outside the traditional four or so modules one encounters per year.

Speaking to people who differ greatly in their respective traditions and interests comes as a great opportunity to jump start one’s extra-curricular direction with the question ‘what/who is he talking about?!.’ To put it concisely, Socrates practiced both elenchus and lecture, and so no one should dismiss the value of dialogue in the learning process.

In case anyone is labouring under the misapprehension that the philosophy society is simply a handful of bumbling bearded egotists citing archaic thinkers for solutions to problems that only exist in the unbalanced mind of the philosopher, then I shall be happy to inform you that this is not strictly true; some of the problems – such as which pub to would be best suited to discuss Schopenhauer in, is a real problem! on a more serious note, we are quite a varied bunch; at least two of our members shave! So whatever your interest or subject, feel free to come along and discuss philosophy at whatsoever length or depth you please. We have a number of people from the first year (myself included), we’ve theists, atheists, agnos-

tics, and veritable profusion of courses, ages and eye colours, so all are welcome. The format of the (weekly) meetings is very flexible and unstructured, somewhat like this article, insofar as we don’t stipulate pettifogging rules and questions to be discussed, so one needn’t fear immersion into a muskeg of pedantic sophistry and arbitrary legalism. Whilst more structured events will be provided for those who enjoy the nit picking structuralism of a formal debate, our weekly events are about as open as conceivable. This year we shall be organising a number of different campaigns to do with philosophy, ranging from the problems associated with philosophy being ‘tied to’ religious studies in many schools, to a lack of general provision of earlier-level philosophy, and a lack of a broad spectrum of philosophy throughout all levels of education. If you can think of any problems of philosophy in the UK, or in general, feel free to raise them at meetings and we will see if we can address these issues or do anything about them. Philosophy isn’t just speculation from an ivory tower – if we can get involved and encourage the use of critical thought at all levels of society, then we will. meetings vary from time to time, but we’re determined to hold more varied events in and outside the college with more engagement between Undergraduates, Postgraduates and past Alumni. There is an eclectic representation of different views and opinions in the society, encompassing traditions as distinct as the continental and scholastic, so whatever your interest, be it Nietzsche, russell or simply thinking about philosophical subjects, feel free to come along and share. more information of the meeting dates can be found on the Heythrop College Societies board, The Heythrop Philosophy Society Facebook and Twitter pages.

Climb with ULMC! Tanya Leonard ULMC

I would personally like to welcome you and open your eyes to the University of London mountaineering Club (ULmC).

It is not too late to join, if you’re still looking for new clubs/societies to join.

Come and have a go climbing at the climbing wall to try it out before committing. We are a very friendly club and we offer climbing, scrambling and hiking. If you would like to do some outdoor or indoor climbing, outdoor walking or just finding people to go to the pub with, then feel free to join us on our mini adventures! It is the perfect way to meet new people and others interested in the same activities. We cater to all levels and climb every tuesday at mile End Climbing Wall from 7pm, we’ll be wearing ‘ULMC’ T-shirts so come find us. If you’re a beginner, we teach you the basic skills and no experience is required. Unless you want to go on the trips then we must have seen you at the climbing wall at least twice. We provide all equipment (harnesses, ropes etc.) and if you’re coming to the climbing wall, please bring suitable loose clothing to climb in. Climbing shoes are available to hire if you don’t have any. more details about the venue, prices and location can be found on the mile End website: www.mileendwall.org.uk.

There is always an event on ranging from day climbs, pub crawls and visits to restaurants. We also have some amazing trips every month to a different area in England/Wales, such as the Yorkshire Dales, Peak District, Snowdonia, Scotland etc. our trips are a very reasonable £35 which includes food, accommodation and transport! Not only do we climb, but we also go walking and scrambling, so there are day walks every month and a group that go on our trips.

There are weekly socials every Thursdays in the Penderal oak Pub on High Holborn at 8pm. The nearest tube station is Holborn or Chancery Lane. This is a perfect opportunity for newcomers to meet us and find out what the ULMC is about as well as enjoying a curry and drink.

To join the ULmC, membership costs £12.50 and you will need a ULU card which you can get from the reception in ULU. Membership benefits include access to monthly trips, civil liability insurance, socials and a chance to borrow from our extensive kit store on trips.

For more details of our events and upcoming trips, search ‘ULmC’ on Facebook or visit our website: www.ulmc.org I hope to see you there, whether you’re a fresher, second, third, fourth or even masters and PHD student.

Everyone is welcome!

If you have any queries feel free to email me at: tan.aus.kell@gmail.com