The Lion - Issue 6, Volume 2

Heythrop Students’ Union

The

Volume 2 Issue 6 Wednesday 14th March theheythroplion.co.uk

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www.thestudentsurvey.com

Lion

Are you a final year Undergraduate?

Do you want your opinions on your student experience to be heard?

Take part in the National Student Survey 2012!

Based on previous results here a few examples of changes we have implemented: * extended library opening hours * increased careers guidance * invested in more PCs in campus * improved coursework feedback * given more access to electronic materials Please remember your answers should be based on your time here at Heythrop, and include the good and not so good experiences you’ve had.

The NSS results are published nationally, and so your opinions also inform both prospective students and future employers how highly regarded Heythrop is compared to all the other universities.

If you want to highlight an example of good practice or raise an issue that isn’t covered in the NSS then please send an email to Kathryn Powell k.powell@heythrop.ac.uk. If you are eligible for the survey, Ipsos MORI will contact you to invite you to fill in the survey online.

You can now complete the NSS online or via your smartphone at www.thestudentsurvey.com.

It is important for the College to achieve at least a 50% response rate in the NSS. After 3 weeks Heythrop is currently on 25% as a whole (Psychologists 32%, Theologians 28% and Philosophers 22%) – so there are still around 130 of you to respond!

Memes...True Story

We compile our pick of the best Heythrop Facebook Memes

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Kony 2012

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Sam English on the Invisible Children Video

Heythrop Students’ Union

The

Volume 2 Issue 6 Wednesday 14th March theheythroplion.co.uk

Hippo Awards

John Ord gives his rundown of the best in Theatre

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Lion

HSU Given Second Sabbatical Position • College provide extra £16K of funding for new VP post • Post will be equally paid but lower than President’s Role Alex Hackett Editor-in-Chief The Heythrop Students’ Union is to have a second sabbatical position on it’s Executive, it has been announced this week.

The new role of “Sabbatical Vice President” will come with a salary of around £16,000 which will be paid through a budget increase given to the Union from the College.

This change comes after a proposal was passed at this year HSU OGM; it was then agreed upon by the senior management having already been approved by the College Governors as a proposal last year.

HSU President Gala Jackson-Coombs believes that the change will “be a massive step forward for the HSU, which is already growing at an exponential rate.

Another Sabb will allow us to focus more acutely on providing the facilities and services that our students deserve”.

The duties of the Vice President appear to be similar to those of the now

defunct “Vice President Development” position, with responsibilities including the overseeing of Union facilities and creating links with other London Higher Education institutions. The role will also include some duties for the College itself including “working in conjunction with the Student Ambassadors to promote Heythrop”.

When asked about the Collegespecific duties Jackson-Coombs stated that “I do not feel that this is a conflict of interests. The HSU and the College share an aim to let the wider world know what a great place this is and to get as many new students studying here as possible”.

The position of Vice President will be one of two new posts to be introduced this year, the other two being “Publicity Officer” and “Web Development Officer”, whose duties come from a division of the Communications and Publications Team’s duties from previous years. The current Vice President Campaigns position will be downgraded to a “Campaigns Officer”, with all the vice Presidential duties transfered to the new sabbatical Vice President.

Cambridge Debate Postponed due to College/HSU Concerns Advertisement

Joshua White News Editor The debate between the Heythrop Debating Society and the Cambridge Union Society has been “postponed” due to “limited budget and resources” as well as concerns regarding the representation of the College.

The Debating Society had planned to debate and dine with the Cambridge Union Society on March 14th with tickets being priced at £25. The founders of

the Debating Society, Sam English and Ben McFadyean had intended the event to be “the first of many formal dinners for Heythrop students and staff at the College”. There were plans for a blacktie candle-lit dinner with a three-course meal. Speaking about the postponment of the debate, Ben McFadyean stated that “the logistical need for the debate to be postponed at this time has been discussed and the decision was taken to reschedule the debate. The society is grateful to the HSU and our Principal Fr. Holman for their ongoing support of debating as a student activity at Heythrop”.

According to Student Development Manager Dominic McLaughlin “The Debating Society is a welcome innovation within the Union. However the event scheduled for 14 March presented some difficulties: it was found, from the catering and staffing point of view, that there was not enough time to make the arrangements to guarantee it would be a success.”

A meeting was held over the planned event in which the HSU President, Debating Society representatives, the Facilities and Services Manager and the Student Development Manager met to discuss the situation. In the words

of Dominic McLaughlin “We worked together effectively to iron out some of the difficulties encountered and we identified some of the opportunities for the Debating Society in the future.” The ultimate decision of the meeting was to postpone the event, a week before the debate was set to take place on College grounds. In regards to the conclusion of the meeting HSU President Gala Jackson-Coombs said “Unfortunately, due to our limited budget and resources, the debating event with Cambridge has been postponed.

Continued on P3>

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NEWS

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Top BBC Highlight Harvard Heythrop in New Lecturer To TV Series Attend Heythrop Philosophy Soc Event

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PAGES

The Lion is a magnificent 24 Pages this Issue! theheythroplion.co.uk Joshua White News Editor

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

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

Heythrop has been featured in a recent BBC Four Documentary exploring the world of young men training for the Priesthood.

The show, entitled simply “Catholics” followed 45 trainee priests as they studied for their three year theology degree at Heythrop as well as their time in the Allen Hall seminary.

The show appears to have been well received with Heythrop students, 2nd year undergraduate Thomas Mannion commented on Facebook that “ I thought on the whole it was good, although I didn’t like how every time you saw a woman she was either hid-

ing, cleaning or singing! Catholicism is like a rainbow and I think we haven’t seen it in its fullness here, obviously it’s only an hour but for example everyone was taking communion on the tounge which is uber traditional” The series consists of three episodes, following priests in training, children in a catholic school and catholic women.

The entire series of “Catholics” is available on the BBC iPlayer bbc.co.uk/iplayer Tell us what you think of it at theheythroplion.co.uk

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 Editor Faye West 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

Alex Hackett Editor-in-Chief Harvard Lecturer and Philosopher Christine Korsgaard will be visiting Heythrop College for a talk with the Heythrop Philosophy Society, entitled “A Kantian Case for Animal Rights”.

Korsgaard is a world-renowned academic who has lectured at Harvard, Yale and Oxford University. She is currently the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University.

The event will be held in the Newman Room on the 15th March at 4pm.

Editorial Team

NEXT DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS

20.03.12

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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NEWS

Follow the Elections for the Heythrop Students’ Union Executive 2012 online at our website.

theheythroplion.co.uk

THE 8TH FLOOR MASTERPIECE: A Collage arranged around the political spectrum created by the residents of Alban Hall’s 8th Floor. It is described by creators Peter O’Neil and James Kelly as “Spiffing” & “S’alright” respectively.

Created by Peter O’Neil, James Kelly, Charles Markham, Miles Smith and Graham Abbott | Photo by Faye West

Cambridge Debate Postponed due to College and HSU Concerns Joshua White News Editor >Continued from P1 This is a shame as I do feel like it would have been a brilliant chance to show how intelligent, eloquent and brilliant our students are. They have already debated against UCL, and I’m sure they will continue to do us proud.”

Dominic McLaughlin went on to add “It was agreed that more time was needed to make the event successful, and therefore it was best to postpone.

We all will make sure that the planning is smoother next time, and meanwhile the Debating Society will have time to grow within the HSU and the College community.” On invitation of the Cambridge Union Society, the Heythrop Debating Team are attending the Cambridge Union Society’s final debate on the 15th March.

On Wednesday 29th February the Heythrop Debating Society received the UCL Union Debating Society for a debate over the motion ‘This house believes that morality is subjective’.

The debate centred around the issue of whether we should see morality as a system of rules existing externally of the subject or as the interaction of the subject with their own moral axioms and regulations. Over 20 students from Heythrop and UCL attended the debate after which there was a wine and cheese event. Heythrop debating team member Krijn van Eeden said at the time “This was a very interesting and fun start to our debating calendar, UCLU are a smart and fun bunch of people, we learnt a lot and look forward to the next event in March.”

All information correct at time of printing

Postponed: Debating Society Poster Above: Heythrop Debating Society Poster with “Postponed” banner Far Left: Debating Society VP Ben McFadyean, Fr. Rocco Viviano and ULCU Debating Society President Ayub Hanif Near Left: Heythrop and UCLU in full swing during the recent debate.

Over 20 students were in attendance

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FEATURE

The State of the Union College Chaplain Fr. Dave Stewart on why he thinks Scotland deserves its independence.

Fr. Dave Stewart College Chaplain Perceptive Heythropians might have observed that I’m an exiled Scot. Heythrop’s not the only place where, in the first two months of 2012 especially, I’ve been asked what I thought of Scottish independence. True, I’ve been asked this, on and off, over the many years that I’ve lived outwith the land of my birth and upbringing but never as often, or as intensely, as over the past 8 weeks.

In 2011 it was already clear that the constitutional arrangement that has bound England and Scotland since early in the 18th century would be one of 2012’s biggest political stories.

Nobody, however, anticipated that it would become quite as big a story quite so quickly. The UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, made it so during an appearance on a BBC weekend political programme in early January, pushing the question to the very top of the political agenda and it still hovers around top spot over two months later.

In many ways, the Nationalists who are currently the ruling party in the Edinburgh Parliament, could barely believe their good fortune. Here was a HomeCounties, Eton and Oxford-educated English Tory politician sounding like he was telling the Scots what was good for them. Few missed the comparison with Tory Prime Minister Thatcher’s introduction of the hated poll-tax in Scotland a full year before the rest of the Union. The SNP knew that they did not need to comment. They employed Napoleon’s famous dictum – “never interrupt your enemy when you see that he’s making a mistake”.

Reasoned political debate always tends to skulk unwanted in the kitchen or the hallway whenever someone

holds a party to celebrate nationalism or an independence movement. Emotions are prëeminent; political violence is always a threat. There’s been none in this campaign. There has been some name-calling and political skulduggery but no shot has been fired; this has been a silence heard round the world.

When Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond called a press conference to launch the formal referendum document on January 25th, scores of foreign journalists flocked to Edinburgh Castle for the event. It may be that the import of the decision, which Salmond wants to put to the people in 2014, is understood more clearly abroad than it is in Britain. An alternative constitutional structure has implications, not yet fully understood or articulated, on a much broader stage. At the moment, the discussion is civilised and grown-up, a long way from silly “Braveheart” nonsense.

What’s at stake? The Union, and therefore the United Kingdom, came into being only in 1707. The two Crowns had been united for more than a century, on the accession of James VI & I. James had notions of a single united imperial entity, but the sovereign nations had remained distinct. The Union came about primarily for economic reasons; indeed, the historical evidence suggests that the emerging Scottish merchant class may have pushed for economic and political union more vigorously than their English counterparts, seeing in it possibilities of economic growth and prosperity that at the time trumped any sense of national pride. Not everyone agreed: Robert Burns’s haunting lament “A Parcel o’ Rogues in the Nation” is a polemic against those bourgeois operators rather than any English interlopers, asserting that his country had been “bought and sold for English gold”. Now, in our time, the value of

the 300-year Union is under scrutiny as never before; it’s regularly suggested that it has outlived whatever utility it had and that we need a different structure, and a recast relationship between at least these two nations in the future.

The Scottish National Party have been canny players in recent years.

Salmond, described by the BBC’s Nick Robinson as the shrewdest political operator in these islands, knew that he was in the driving seat. The SNP’s stunning victory in the Holyrood elections last May was never meant to happen.

The devolution settlement of the Nineties was supposed to prevent any party winning a landslide. New Labour concluded that the intermittent clamour for independence could be placated for years to come by a substantial devolution of powers from Westminster, while preserving the Union would mean that Scots Labour MPs would still be sent to London, thus giving Labour at least a chance of electability. The process, part of the national conversation in Scotland for decades, was meant to culminate in the opening of the new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in July 1999 and was hailed as a personal triumph for the late Donald Dewar MP, who oversaw most of that process for Tony Blair’s New Labour. But some have argued that Holyrood was designed as much to keep Labour in power at Westminster, or at least to make them electorally competitive. Labour, without its Scottish and Welsh MPs, might never again form a UK Government. Some observers suggest that the Scots electorate, far from being satisfied with extensive yet fundamentally limited devolution of powers from Westminster, are instead wondering why they shouldn’t just back all-out independence.

What is the state of the debate? Labour in Scotland appears to be in a

mess; arguably they gave the last Holyrood election to the SNP on a plate.

The Tories are almost invisible. A recent joke doing the rounds referred to the greater number of giant pandas in Edinburgh Zoo than Scots Tory MPs in Westminster. The Lib-Dems are haemorrhaging support everywhere.

What are the issues? The complexity of the debate is only just emerging. Powers reserved for Westminster include UK defence and foreign affairs; what happens in these areas? There is an important question about Scotland’s share of UK national debt. The future role of the monarchy has not been addressed. An independent Scotland’s status in the EU has still to be clarified. Nor is the issue just about Scottish independence. Increasingly there are rumblings in Wales, too. Increased, or full, Scottish independence drastically alters the relationship between London and Cardiff. Welsh politicians correctly observe that their electorate deserves a voice in this debate. And many people suggest that this applies to the whole of the UK population, because a fundamental change in the UK’s constitutional arrangement is in prospect.

What will happen? I don’t know. Polls suggest that support for outright independence remains just below a majority while support for so-called “Devo-Max” (basically, devolution of almost everything but stopping short of total separation) scores much more highly. Yet, there is an evident slight upward trend in support for the former. Most English & foreign observers have failed to spot that Alex Salmond is a gradualist. He and those around him in the SNP will gladly accept Devo-Max as an important stopping-point on the journey towards independence but not as a final settlement. Full independence remains the SNP’s goal and their basic raison

d’être. The Westminster coalition government sees this and thus are resisting SNP demands for a three-question referendum; they know that Salmond knows he might well win a referendum on Devo-Max but probably not a simple “yes or no” ballot. Much has been made of Salmond’s insistence on August 2014 for the date of the referendum, said to be designed to capitalise on the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn (a home win for the Scots under Robert the Bruce). But few have so far noted a much more significant event that year. The Commonwealth Games take place in Glasgow that summer.

There will be a significant upsurge in national pride, although we’ll win few actual medals. Preparations are already substantially complete. I’d argue that this could be a much more important factor in the SNP’s calculations than the Bannockburn anniversary.

This brief overview necessarily omits much, not least because issues such as economic viability and natural resources have hardly been touched on.

Is the oil running out? Can Scotland prosper by selling wind and wave power, and malt whisky, to England and the EU? If Holyrood can raise all the nation’s taxes, will present levels of, say, social care be viable, to say nothing of maintaining armed forces and continuing to attract English defence contracts for shipyards on the Clyde?

So, what do I think about Scottish independence? Like many of my countrymen, I suspect that the heart says “yes” but the head says “no”, or at least “not sure.” I leave the last word to my own brother. “The real question,” he asks is, “can England afford to go it alone?”!

What do you think?

Send your response to comment @theheythroplion.co.uk

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HSU PAGE

HSU NOMINATIONS NOW OPEN! Unhappy with student life?

Something you want to change?

Want to represent your fellow students?

APPLY TO BE PART OF THE HSU EXECUTIVE! Part-time and Full-time Positions available.

Nomination forms are available from The Common Room and the HSU Office.

More information on the roles available can be found on

heythropstudentsunion.co.uk Nominations will close on 18th March Voting will open on the 23 March

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FEATURE

HEY-STROP to GAYTHROP Features Editor Faye West discusses Heythrop’s changing relationship with it’s LGBT Community.

2005

2012

HEY-STROP and GAYTHROP: Above: The front page of the London Student from 14th February 2005 showing a mock-up of an application form for an LGB society being ripped up. Below: The first poster of this year’s LGBT society.

Faye West Features Editor In early 2005, a time in which the freshers of the College probably entered year 7, London Student newspaper published an article which reported the incident of the President of the Heythrop Students’ Union tearing up an application to launch an LGBT society at Heythrop. The London Student covered this by use of the witty headline “HEY-STROP” because if it rhymes, it’s true; first rule of mediocre journalism. The story ran as follows: “Heythrop College’s Student Union is facing allegations that it is blocking the establishment of an LGBT society “because homosexuality is wrong”.

In 2005 the College had about 60 undergraduates and just under half were in training to become Catholic priests. The College had a very different ethos and this context is worth noting. It was decided not to put condoms in the freshers’ packs as this would be disrespectful to the origins of the College. Whether it would be disrespectful or not I shall leave you

to decide, perhaps it is, but then again one may argue that you could disregard something you don’t agree with when you know not everyone agrees.

In 2005 also, the London Student was a different paper, rather more sensationalist than it is today. Other headlines from 2005 include “Israel, more questions than answers”, so perhaps we can permit somewhat of an allowance of gospel accuracy. However, they show a picture of a torn society application form and quote the Equal Opportunities Officer at the time, “I understand that certain members of the College and the Union do not want a society to be set up, however I do not feel this should be allowed to happen as homosexuality should not be seen as something that is wrong”. Although written with a strong journalistic flair, the article conveys appropriate outrage to the incident. I can’t imagine a large population of those at Heythrop presently and for the years between then and now believing that such an aggressive homophobic act is at all appropriate.

In the article published in 2005, a Heythrop Students’ Union spokesperson stated, “Heythrop is a small college of some 200 undergraduates, and as such we currently have only four

societies. Any member of the student community is welcome to start a club or society if they wish and they also have the option of joining any of Imperial’s clubs or societies, including their LGBT Society. As far as I am aware there has been no formal and proper attempt to start [an LGBT society], and thus your question is moot.” The use of “moot” suggests to me that this is not a fraudulent Heythrop quote.

The President of the Heythrop Students’ Union at the time and the man accused of ripping up the application for the LGBT society is Reverend Simon Gillespie, now a Parish Deacon.

Seven years after the event he tells The Lion that he does not recall the event as it was conveyed in the London Student and no formal application for an LGBT society was ever made. He asserts that this story “appeared out of nowhere” and that the first he had heard of the incident was someone ringing him to ask him if he has seen the latest London Student. Reverend Gillespie conveyed that it was a nonsensical issue as the deadline for the application for societies was the 18th of June the previous year. The picture on the London Student shows this on the application form. However, perhaps you may ex-

plain this lateness by there being so few students at the College and a decision made later to start an LGBT society.

The Heythrop Students’ Union of 2005 did not reply to the allegation in the London Student, Reverend Gillespie recalls speaking to the editor of the newspaper at the time and having it suggested to him that he write a letter explaining his memory of events. Reverend Gillespie told The Lion that there was “no point” in doing so and in a way it was “nice to put Heythrop on the map” as there is “no such thing as bad publicity”. It is perhaps questionable to be put on the map for alleged homophobia but it is certainly true Heythrop is not very well known outside of acedemia.

Over the years, the relationship between Heythrop and ULU has been strained. We rely on them for important things yet in another way have very little to do with them. The London Student’s portrayal of Heythrop regardless of the story seemed to be of an aggressive and sexually repressed little college, which we all know is false. Reverend Gillespie spoke the truth when he said that the ethos of the college was made by those who attend it.

HEYTHROP MEMES

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FEATURE

The Celebration of Idiocy 2nd year undergraduate Marc Crosby discusses the damaging effects of watered-down debates and dumbed-down television .

Marc Crosby 2nd year Undergraduate As a student, I get more time than most to watch those tacky daytime television shows which start pretty much as soon as the morning news is over (and the respectable have gone to work). The first thing I’m greeted to when I switch on the TV is self-confessed golf-ball licker Jeremy Kyle shouting judgementally at dysfunctional and intellectuallychallenged people (I’ve always reckoned that half the job of ‘after-care’ provided by the shows psychotherapist Graham must be undoing the damage that Kyle himself has done.) My initial reaction is always to ponder how these swamp creatures seem to have so much more sex than me (I’ve decided on their part it is down to a lack of standards and the absence of a moral compass, and on my part my rugged good looks clearly intimidate women) - but then a deeper depression sinks in; people are watching this exploitative crap for entertainment. Sure, the show has its moments. For example, over Christmas the show goes all nice and gives presents to deserving recipients and Jeremy Kyle does his ‘poor-man’s-Noel Edmunds’ routine, whom I prefer considerably, despite the fact he spends most of his time on the phone to bankers (although watching the Vile Kyle be nice to people is particularly disconcerting you can’t help but wonder if at any moment he’s going to tell the poor ten year old he’s ‘a dirty little liar’ or that he should ‘put something on the end of it’). Equally, the show isn’t as bad as some of the rubbish America has

produced like, for example, the ‘Steve Wilkos Show’, where the guests are so utterly morally bankrupt and Steve suffers from such a righteous anger that you’re not sure if he’s just going to flip out this time (whereas on the ‘Jeremy Kyle Show’ the security guys are there to protect him from his own mouth, on the ‘Steve Wilkos Show’ they’re there to protect the guests). At the end of the day we all have our guilty pleasures (mine being the surprisingly engrossing ‘Judge Judy’, which is far more engaging than any program featuring a short-tempered judge residing over a small-claims court has any right to be) but there’s no denying it’s utter junk and something clearly isn’t right that we derive so much enjoyment from such programs.

I suggest that this is all part of a pathological trend imbedded in our society, which I have labeled ‘the celebration of idiocy’. It’s pretty self-explanatory what I’m getting at but, at its heart, the problem seems to reside in the idolisation of what is stupid, something which is most suitably demonstrated by celebrated persons (Amy Childs, Katie Price etc.) The love of celebrity is virtually unavoidable, a great intellectual or a brilliant musician is going to be revered but the pathology lies in the celebration of the stupid; the absence of talent isn’t just accepted, it’s the very thing that is celebrated.

This can be seen in cheap reality TV shows like Big Brother where the winners are, as well as being fame-hungry wannabes, too often revered for their simplicity. The fact ‘playing it stupid’ is considered a game plan, a way to endear yourself to the public, is frankly disturbing (at what point did not know-

ing who Shakespeare was become an endearing quality, and not instead the start of an inquiry as to how the British education system has failed this person so badly?) This awful trend in society is what led to the brain-dead ‘The Only Way is Essex’ taking home a BAFTA last year (which, frankly, is as justified as Raoul Moat receiving a posthumous ‘Pride of Britain’ award). The fact that ‘celebrities’ like Katie Price, who cling on to fame by reality shows and bring nothing but their own egos to the world, are still somewhat revered and still somehow find a place in the public’s affections, is the embodiment of the problem. Some people wish to deny this is the case, those people who insist she’s a ‘good business woman’…please!

Every time I hear that claim a small part of me wants to bang my head against a brick wall, preferably until my brain falls out, so I’ll at least be on a level playing field with the person making the claim. Getting yourself into the position in which someone else will write your book to which you merely put your name to is no more being a ‘good businesswoman’ than someone who commits benefit fraud, realising someone else can do the work instead!

This ‘celebration of idiocy’ becomes objectified in shows like ‘Loose Women’; utter drivel and brain-rot. People sometimes try and defend it; ‘it’s a program made by women, for women’…if I were a woman I most certainly would be offended; it’s a program made by morons for morons!

This ‘celebration of idiocy’ seeps its way into more intelligent territory where it becomes less a celebration than an acceptance. Using an example I find interesting, note how the media

portrays the relationship between growing atheism and traditional religion; its portrayed as being so black and white, so adamantly opposed (as if all atheists are members of Dawkins. net and all theists insist on educating their kids by a strict Answers In Genesis curriculum) that it really is an insult to the viewer; there’s an acceptance of idiocy amongst the viewers, that they won’t be able to grasp more subtle and nuanced views (or perhaps the rot is so firmly embedded in society that the media outlet itself remains ignorant of the more rational positions). This dichotomy presented in society is probably responsible for such actions as the gross misjudgment displayed by the UCL Atheist Society in advertising by using cartoons depicting Jesus and Muhammad drinking together (don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of speech and not allowing religious taboos to prevent us from rational enquiry but if there is any suggestion that the message portrayed by this cartoon could not be portrayed better without causing offence, which this was obviously going to do, then perhaps I should take over, as I can certainly think of better ways; and frankly, Dawkins’ unsurprising endorsement shows the same sensitivity and empathy he displayed in ‘The God Delusion’. If an atheist society is going to be something more than a group of ‘Brights’ self-congratulatory patting themselves on the back for rising above ‘stupid religious folk’ then it’s going to need to be open to all people. If I wanted to persuade a friend of something, and particularly if I felt there’d be benefit for both him and society as a whole if he came around to my way of thinking, I wouldn’t start by showing him a

picture of me tea-bagging his sister. It perhaps explains why we haven’t yet got a program as efficient in dealing with theological discussions as Question Time is in dealing with political debate. The closest we have is perhaps BBC One’s ‘The Big Questions’ but it’s far from sufficient (I always find it ironic they call it the Big Questions yet tend to dedicate less than twenty minutes to each one). The questions themselves are usually vague and extremists tend to exhaust most of the running time of the program, leaving relatively little for anyone with something actually insightful to say. Perhaps there’ll always be an inherent difficulty in theological discussion on TV outside of formal debates, but the acceptance of idiocy doesn’t help. On a slightly interesting note I find Channel Four’s 4Thought.

TV, which featured Heythrop’s own Stephen Law, to be a promising way for portraying different views on TV. It certainly isn’t perfect but allowing individuals to put their point across without being shouted down mid-sentence by an opponent at least offers a tiny respite for reflection.

Ultimately, there is little that can be done about the celebration of idiocy found in our society but perhaps worry and (if you’re feeling optimistic) hope that we will see a move away from it.

Until then it’ll continue rotting away in the media, infiltrating TV programs, films, music and indeed even broadcast thoughtful discussion. It is important to remember, too, that the ‘Celebration of Idiocy’ was not in any way a vague unspecified notion created by me only so I could rant about things that annoy me, but a real phenomena…agreed?

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WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH | THE LION

“COMMENT.”

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

KONY 2012: A Triumph of Social Media NOT Social Consciousness Sam English 2nd year Undergraduate On Monday I’d never heard of Joseph Kony, by Wednesday I was filled with vitriolic hatred for him. Thanks to an online craze entitled ‘Kony 2012′ which began trending. By Thursday morning [the time of writing] Kony was inescapable. As of writing #STOPKONY has been the highest trending topic on Twitter for around 36 hours.

For those who do not have Twitter and Facebook ‘Kony 2012′, is a campaign pressurise Governments worldwide to find, capture and try Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a Ugandan guerrilla group who have forcibly abducted around 66,000 children to use as child soldiers.

It’s an emotionally charged and powerful film, for around 30 minutes we’re confronted with images of children that have been horrendously mutilated by the LRA and one victim, Jacob, describing the loss of his brother and how he would rather die than continue living.

The video has gone viral but I believe that the online success of ‘Kony 2012′ is not indicative of the fact that people really care. I think the online success actually shows how little we care. It is a PR stunt, aiming to convince us that we care. All it took was to make millions ‘care’ was a-minute film crafted by a media savvy trio who want to arm the Ugandan army further and perhaps inadvertently cause a full blown civil war, which would cost children their lives. I’ll confess, I didn’t care before seeing the film. If you want to moralise go ahead but I’d bet you didn’t care before either.

Naturally the argument is that

Kony has escaped conviction due to his low profile. I won’t hold not caring until now against you, how can we care about the capture of a man we don’t know for crimes we’ve never heard of?

The issue that pains me is that there are countless examples of widely publicised war crimes that a great number don’t care about. Take Syria. I watched the documentary ‘Syria’s Torture Machine’ and read the Independent’s description of thousands of children crammed into rooms waiting to die, I care about the shelling of Homs, but I know of no-one that actively does anything to help. Why is this? I believe, it is simply because no one has made an engaging video about Assad’s Kurtzlike trait that makes social networking a solution. It saddens me that people don’t care until it’s ‘cool’ to care, until there is a red bracelet in it. And then they only care because it is a short term scenario, it HAS to be finished by the end of 2012.!

I concede this is not necessarily a bad thing; I’d say using your PR-savvy nature to engage with peoples’ need to be ‘cool’ and direct them to charity and empathy is in my view much better than doing it to improve BP’s post Oil-spill settlement image, but in no way does ‘liking’ KONY2012 or helping it trend highly show real dedication to helping the children affected by Kony.

As it’s only just really taken off it’s far too early to tell whether the ‘Kony 2012′ campaign will really affect the kind of mass protest it’s CEO [a man who earns $90,000 per annum is a CEO in my book] aims at. Over 18,000 have signed up to the London ‘Cover the Night’ event on Facebook at the time of writing, but I know from experience that’s no guarantee of actual numbers, nor that the people who go really understand WHAT K O N Y 2 0 1 2 stands for; like direct military intervention, like the buying of weapons, like supporting the Ugandan army who rape, pillage and plunder just like Kony.

They seem to favour a lesser evil, KONY2012 will not provide a free Uganda, it may provide a less tyrannical Ugan-

da, or it may create a bloody mess which entwines the neighbouring nations and their raping, pillaging gangs.

My main concern with KONY 2012; that it will become just another fad, I think back to the white and black Nike bands that aimed at reminding all football fans to kick racism from the sport, they were followed in my local town by a band campaign to save a disability centre. Everyone I knew had both the anti-racism bands and the bands created by the disability centre; I don’t need to say that racism was not eradicated but I should add the disability centre closed and those bands... well, nobody I know wears them today.

I commend the raising of awareness but I believe, after my researching Invisible Children, the charity behind the video, that they aren’t the best placed people

to solve the problems. Several concerns should be raised alongside their funding of the Ugandan army and the Sudanese Liberation Army I already noted, the many misgivings about the organisation can be seen through the ‘Visible Children’ tumblr which was shamefully blocked by Facebook whose creator Mark Zuckerberg is a supporter of Invisible Children. Add to this pictures of I.C. staff posing with AK-47’s and RPG’s and suddenly whilst they may have triumphantly walked all over social networking, I don’t want to be measuring the social consciousness by the same yardstick as these people.

I concede that Joseph Kony’s capture would obviously help start clearing up the mess that is Central and Eastern Africa, but only people a few genes away from intelligent would consider his capture a solution the problems fac-

ing East and Central Africa. For decades ethnic and religious tensions and cleansing created problems far deeper than those any one man could create.

Take this statistic: in the Congo, on average 48 women are raped every hour.

Please don’t accuse me of being a contrarian or heartless I too would love to see one of the ICC’s most wanted on trial and I don’t believe ‘Kony 2012′ isn’t an incredibly moving and worthwhile film. It’s just that I can’t bring myself to think doing something is always better than nothing; it seems like a Roman Abramovich style approach to a problem far more important than Chelsea’s ability to finish in the top 4.

So please, please, please, if you do care about human suffering; realise that Africa’s problems are gordian and if you want to make a difference – you’ll have to do more than share videos online.

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WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH | THE LION

COMMENT

On the Wilde Side

Senior Editor John Ord provides his rebuttal to the ‘How to Self-Publish Your Novel’ article.

John Ord Senior Editor

Give It Up! College Chaplain Fr. Dave Stewart on Lent: What they say Christians do, and what they really do.

Fr. Dave Stewart College Chaplain What are you giving up for Lent?”It’s as much a catchphrase as an easy gag for a stand-up comic, or maybe at times the source of a quick snigger at someone else’s strange religious customs. Lent, a special 40-day period observed by all Christians, is well-known but widely misunderstood. Popularly, it’s probably thought of as a penitential time, marked by self-denial and the deliberate shunning of something that’s perfectly pleasurable, and usually harmless. But, as so often, the reality is otherwise; it’s deeper, richer and full of life.

Deliberately going without something during this time is a reality. Many people do so, and not only Catholic Christians. Fasting has a key place in many of the world’s great faiths and for broadly similar reasons. In the time-honoured custom of Christianity, fasting is only one part of a threefold practice. “Giving up something for Lent” forms one element of a trio of practices. The other two are prayer, and active solidarity with those who have less of the world’s resources than we do. “Prayer, fasting & almsgiving” is the traditional way of putting it. Each one of the three is worthwhile, of course, on its own but take away even one element from the trio and the whole of the custom loses much of its force. Simply to deprive yourself – of something sweet, for example – while probably good for you, risks becoming no more than narcissism, “feeling good about feeling bad”.

That doesn’t do justice to the richness of the tradition.

The spirituality of most of the world’s great faiths recognises the power of fasting and of self-deprivation. My colleague Jonathan Gorsky showed me how the Jewish tradition has a central place for fasting. The whole purpose of the holy days of Yom Kippur is “to withdraw from and lessen the impor-

tance of the body” as he pointed out. In Islam, Hinduism and in so many other creeds you’ll find something similar.

The shared insight is that we get too attached to material things. And to “rid oneself of disordered attachments”, as St.Ignatius Loyola put it, maybe some shock therapy is needed!

We hope that our Lenten practices do not turn out like New Year’s resolutions, since we usually break those within a few weeks at best. A severe version of Lenten deprivation led to Mardi Gras, meaning literally Fat Tuesday; in British culture, it’s more commonly been known as Pancake Tuesday. In contrast to the tough practices of Lent, the idea was to use up all the fat in the larder, parade around in costume, go a bit wild. It’s probably forgotten that Mardi Gras has something to do with the practice of Lent. But that just makes the question even sharper: what is it that we have forgotten about Lent and its penance?

Put concisely, in the Christian tradition, if we decide to do without something and somebody poorer than ourselves doesn’t thereby benefit, something gets lost. Lenten fasting was never meant to be an exercise in narcissistic self-denial but could easily turn into that unless we’re careful.

Three interlinked dimensions are at the heart of the Christian tradition of Lent -- prayer, fasting and solidarity with the poorest. Giving something up, saying our prayers remains incomplete unless the poorest benefit. That’s self-denial in the best sense! If I deny myself of something to which I’m really attached, it helps me to understand that I’m not the autonomous centre of my existence that I sometimes think I am. If I deny something to myself in order that another might benefit, that’s a good thing but if I deny myself and wallow in feeling bad; well, that’s the sort of thing that gives religion a bad name. And that would surely be something worth giving up for Lent!

If you read the article by Miss Yarwood in Issue 2 of the Lion this academic year you will be well aware of her objections to self-publishing as a pursuit of the ambitious writer. There are undeniably a long list of reasons why the young and even seasoned author should probably abstain from self-publishing as a way of achieving their goals. Miss Yarwood, however, doesn’t touch on any of them and turns instead to a more pragmatic view that engaging in self-publishing means a lot of work. In short: tough titties. Anything that’s worth doing is hard to do otherwise everyone would be doing it, making it not worth doing so much. As you may be able to guess, I’m going to outline here why I think self-publishing is a great idea and why both the traditional objections and those raised by Miss Yarwood are nothing but hot air blown against the chill wind of reality.

The whole point I’m making revolves around a question of attitude.

In essence, the goals of the pessimist are wrong. To hold the position that self-publishing involves a lot of effort, ‘a tedious process of doing everything yourself’ according to Miss Yarwood, you must on some level perceive self-publishing as a chore, in which case you’re begging the simple question of why you’re bothering at all. Is it something you think all writers should do? Nothing could be further from the truth. Publishing is something that professional writers do and if you want to play that game it’s a completely different set of rules.

The rules for writing are simple. If you enjoy doing it, keep doing it (check out William Safire if you want the ‘Great Rules of Writing’). You should write for its own sake and because it’s part of who you are, not because the writers’ lifestyle is something you aspire to. Bearing in mind that writing is something you enjoy doing for its own sake, the whole arena of self-publishing falls very nicely into place at the tail end of it. It no longer becomes a massive stress to save up the money to selfpublish and order hundreds of copies of your latest masterpiece to throw at everyone who’ll give you an unwitting second of their not-as-precious-as-theythink-it-is time. It’s a matter of saving up the pennies while you write the piece and then, once you’re done writing and you’ve saved the money you can embark on the next step of the journey.

What’s special about this journey is that it’s yours to command. It’s selfpublishing. Sure, you can hire designers if you want help with the aesthetics but it’s your decision on how it turns out and the buck stops with nobody but yourself. It’s a lengthy process the first time you try it where you’re putting everything you have into making sure that the final result is the best it can be but that affords you the myriad opportunities to discover new ways to express your ideas and involve yourself with every aspect of your creation.

It’s your creation so take your time.

Working on a piece of writing until it’s appropriate to share with the world requires a huge amount of dedication and patience in the first place, particularly if it’s a (good) novel. I can’t help but think that if you’re losing your wick

Photo: J. Paxon Reyes/Flickr.com

over the logistics of the printing and design then it can’t speak very well at all for the quality of writing. Ella Wheeler Wilcox famously wrote that ‘life is a poem to leisurely read / and the joy of the journey lies not in its speed.’ Savour the process and you’ll finish appreciating your book a great deal more.

Much is being made in politics and current affairs at the moment about tuition fees being raised so that one years’ education will now cost the same as three years did for me. Armies of academics and artists have spoken out against this quashing of the arts and humanities, vouching for their vocations as not being cheapened by the fact that they don’t lead to employability in the strict and ludicrously narrow definition of ‘employability’ the government is working from. The point of the arts is not to be commercial but to be an expression of our humanity. To make sharing your novel, short story collection, anthology of poetry or whatever it is you’ve written all about the financial side of it, all about paying for it and making money, bemoaning the elitism of publishing as inseparable from writing in general is to fall into the commercialism that has ripped through the arts. It’s really about a community sharing their love of the arts, not putting a price on their efforts to share it.

I shan’t rant or ramble about this issue much longer but shall instead lean towards a conclusion by speaking directly to everyone who is considering writing and sharing their work through self-publishing. Take it easy. Write the work and make it the best it can be.

Only when you’re completely satisfied

with the result will you be ready to take that next step to signing onto a selfpublishing website and beginning the design process. If you’ve been clever and have been saving up the pennies while you’ve been writing, or you just so happen to have a suspicious suitcase full of fresh non-sequential banknotes under your bed, then you shouldn’t be too far off what you need to print at least a handful of test copies, assuming you’ve put due diligence and patience into your craft up to this point.

The process is actually fairly easy. All you need to know is what you want the finished book to look like and then you delve into the mines to find the mithril hidden in the walls. The first attempt may take longer than subsequent efforts but that’s the same of everything when you’re trying it for the first time and once you’ve worked out what everything means and how it all turns out in the end then you’ll be able to make the book that you’re picturing in your head right now. Yeah, that one you’ve wanted to write for years but haven’t had the time for yet; you’ll be able to make that book near as dammit exactly as you see it in your imagination right now. That’s the beauty of modern technology. It’s feeding the world of reality directly from pure imagination. There’s so much to become addicted to you’ll have to be very careful indeed. It’s a Pringles thing. Once you pop you just can’t stop.

I’ll finish, then, by agreeing with Miss Yarwood on her final point at least.

Good luck; you’ll need it.

Send your response to comment @theheythroplion.co.uk

10

WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH | THE LION

COMMENT

Why YOU Should Run for the HSU

HSU President Gala Jackson-Coombs discusses her journey through student politics, and why she thinks you should get involved.

ELECT 2 12 Gala Jackson-Coombs HSU President When I arrived at Heythrop, I only cared about getting a good degree out of my three years at University. I didn’t care about “getting involved” or “Making a Difference”. I wanted maybe to make some friends, have a laugh, go out occasionally and come out with a 2.1 or above. It hadnt even occured to me to run for a position within the Students’ Union until nomination week.

My friend and fellow first year Alex Hackett (now Editor of this tremendous publication) wanted to run for the Communications and Publications role and wanted a running mate as it was a two person position. He wanted to make a real student newspaper, on newsprint like all of the bigger UL colleges had. We then started designing a couple ideas, coming up with concepts for names, and I thought of the name “The Lion”. It stuck, really. I believe our running group is still out there on Facebook somewhere. He won his spot. I didn’t, unfortunately. However, by that point I believed so much in the change we could make that I agreed to help out making a website and with the design and editing of the paper. Due the the paper still being under Communications and Publications, the workload was just too much for a two person team to handle and I became an Appointee so that we could make it happen. And the rest is history, I guess.

The next year I ran for the Big One: The Presidency. I didn’t run for the money, although it is a tad bigger than living on a basic student loan as I had previously. I didn’t run for the job prospects or for the “power” it could give me to lead a team. I ran because I saw how much I could do, personally, to make the lives of my fellow students, my friends, vastly better. I ran because

I loved Heythrop, but I didn’t necessarily love some the things we had put up with as 1st and 2nd years. I was driven to change things. I think if you look at my Manifesto from the time you can see that. And I will, by the end of my term, have completed every single pledge (bar one or two, due to investigating them and seeing that they were unviable). That is what I came here to do.

Now that I have completed them, I have fufilled my purpose. Its time for a bit of new blood, new drive and hopefully some brilliant and insightful new ideas.

I, needless to say, will not be rerunning for my position this year.

From my experience in just running for the position, I learnt so much. It’s a steep learning curve in cooperation, communication, design, public speaking, speech writing and so much more.

Running a good campaign takes dedication, strength, ingenuity and creativity. Also, you have to have some good ideas to back up the hype. Election time every year is my favourite time, seeing everyone’s amazing posters, their pledges, their innovative campaigning slogans. Its exciting. There will also be hustings and questions as there have been in previous years, which is always a great opportunity to question any candidate about a certain issue.

Being a part of the Students’ Union has given me something that my degree alone could have never given me: a clear direction. I know now that I want to do something creative, writing or designing and that I want to be working with people. I would have never considered a future in design had I not gotten involved. I guess my main message here is that you don’t have to want to be a politician to get involved in the Students’ Union. The skills you learn won’t necessarily be what you expect to. The great thing that is unique with the HSU is that there is very little bureacracy. If you have an idea, and the students of

Heythrop believe in it, it can become a reality. We have come so far in the past 3 years due to so many driven and inspirational Exec members that now more than ever is a really exciting and fufilling time to get involved. We now have two Sabbatical Officers, which is more than most colleges our size, and the first Sabbatical Vice President will be shaping how the HSU functions for years to come. I for one cannot wait to see who will run for the now Big Two. Also, when it comes to voting time, it’s nice to know that every vote makes a difference. Around a third of the student population vote, which means that every candidate knows each single vote could get them a victory. However, I do urge all students to read the manifestos in depth. There may be candidates you may not know personally but could be suited perfectly to the role. Vote for the candidate you feel will do the best job because these students will be representing all of us to the outside world.

You want to be happy with the choice you make. Furthermore, should you think that none of the candidates are suitable for the position, you can always vote for RON (reopen nominations).

I don’t know how excited everyone else is but I cannot wait for the elections to begin and to hear the fresh new ideas and enuthusiasm it always brings out of the candidates. Campaigning begins on the 19th March - Have a walk through the basement and check out the posters and manifestos. I know I will be!

Even if you didn’t ever see yourself being a part of the Executive before, have a look at the range of roles out there. As I said, I didn’t see myself representing students before. You may be surprised, and it may be the best mistake you ever make.

To nominate yourself for an HSU Position, go to the HSU Office in the Basement

Photo: Sander van der Wel/Flickr.com

A Complex Issue Josh Ferguson Senior Editor Mental health, if I may lapse into petulant complaint for a few moments, is something that everyone thinks they understand. There is so much pop-psychology on TV or in ludicrous self-help paperbacks sold in airports that reduce mental health issues to such grotesque oversimplifications and offensive misconceptions that the subtleties and complications involved in the actual mental health problems are ignored or overlooked. But, of course, the truth is a thousand different shades of grey.

Mental health is still largely misunderstood, and, to a certain extent, stigmatised. I would like to state as explicitly as I can here that I am in no way trying to play the victim card, or imply that people who have struggled or continue to struggle with mental health issues are in any way an injured or ostracised group. What I mean with the term “stigmatised” in this context is that people with mental health disorders often run into people who so misunderstand their problems, or worse, incorrectly think that they understand them, and have to deal with people changing their attitude around them or putting various actions on the sufferer’s part down to their mental health problem.

Mental health problems, in all their forms, whether they are bipolar affective disorder, unipolar depression, anorexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder or anything else, are extremely complex issues. Due to the nature of the human mind, no two sufferers, even of the same problem, are alike.

There is no blanket cure for any mental health issue and some may argue that there is no cure at all. You can’t stick people struggling with bipolar disorder on Citalopram and expect them to just jump straight back into being perfectly happy members of society, as though antidepressant or mood stabilising drugs are some sort of mental Panacea. All mental disorders can take

months, years, even decades to deal with, using everything from drug therapy to psychiatric treatment to ECT. The assumption that people with mental health disorders can be easily understood isn’t just wrong, it’s insulting. It is absolutely impossible for a person without clinical depression or body dysmorphia or OCD to understand what it is like to live with these problems. Trivialising the problem makes it harder to deal with. Psychiatrists study mental disorders for the best part of a decade to earn their qualifications, and even then it is not an exact science.

The idea that someone could understand bipolar disorder because they’ve watched a fucking documentary is an incredibly facile and ignorant view.

I don’t claim to be speaking for the majority in this piece; I can only represent myself as someone who struggles with bipolar II affective disorder.

I have worked long and hard to try and deal with my condition and I’ve had the pleasure of having help from other people with the same condition as well as professionals who have worked for their entire adult lives to try and comprehend the complexities of this disorder. It’s the same for anyone diagnosed with a mental health issue; they are unique, and deserve to be treated with exactly the same respect and judged exactly the same way as anyone else without such a condition.

There are, and always have been, people who will immediately judge others who have to deal with mental health issues. This is not going to go away, and of course the only way to end this is to raise awareness and to try and educate people. But it’s not an easy or quick process. So, I beg you, please do not make any assumptions about anyone who struggles with mental disorders.

It’s always more complicated than you understand. I don’t understand and I have one of these disorders. It’s an issue that needs to be treated respectfully, not with snap judgements or prim, smug platitudes, no matter how well meaning. Thank you for your time.

11

WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH| THE LION

COMMENT

MCKEITH

Faye West Features Editor I think we all remember Gillian McKeith, that angry Scottish woman who appeared on health shows shouting and squawking about nutrition until the fat people whose lives she was paid to “enrich” cried on national television. McKeith even had her own show, “You Are What You Eat”, in which her abuse of overweight people extended to their homes and family. However this is entertainment. Those people signed up for the McKeith health plan and to get on telly. So we sit back as she brow beats them into shape, while also taking in the health advice she has for us.

However, when her advice suggests that you should eat spinach (fair enough), the dark green leaves (okay if you say so) as those have more chlorophyll (hang on, I’d have thought the lighter green leaves had more chlorophyll but I am neither doctor nor botanist) because the chlorophyll oxygenates your blood (what?!). Dr Ben Goldacre, a popular and trusted doctor, wrote a book called Bad Science in which he condemns Gillian McKeith for misinforming and straight up lying to the public. Dr Ben astutely points out that for chlorophyll to “oxygenate” your blood you would need sunlight in your veins. That is not a comment on how blocked your chakras are, but you

would need a hole in your veins for the chlorophyll from that tasty spinach to produce any oxygen. But it sounded so believable, it sounded so scientific and sensible and something we should trust because it’s on the television being told to us by a nutritionist with a PhD in a lab coat.

When I say PhD, rather when she says PhD, she doesn’t mean a qualification in Medicine. She doesn’t mean a qualification from a reputable institution either. What she actually means is a PhD pretty much bought from a nonaccredited institution and which, Dr Goldacre pointed out, also sells vitamin pills on its website. He goes further to point out that on McKeith’s official CV it attributes her qualifications to a respected college but this was not where she gained her “qualification”. McKeith was taken to the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds of calling herself a Doctor and lost on the grounds of “substantiation” and “truthfulness”.

We as the public saw someone lecturing us about diet and nutrition that called themselves a Doctor and had no reason to disbelieve them. We were misled. Handily, Ms McKeith voluntarily stopped calling herself a Doctor after this, I’m sure she’d hate to cause any confusion.

So she lied to us. But perhaps that’s equally our fault for believing everything we are told. It is rare to find someone who questions what they are told; I

know how gullible I am. I watch these programs lying to myself that I am learning when I just want to be entertained. McKeith took advantage of this to become famous and respected and built herself a health food empire from it. She found a niche and made money, I can’t blame her for that; people want to be healthy and appreciate being told how to do it. However, her lies don’t stop at her qualifications. At a rather large push you can almost reason that her dubious qualification claims were a sneaky business move rather than a danger to public health but that’s it. Rebranding illegal pills for sale in the UK is not, I would say, something than can be at all justified.

In 2007 McKeith was brought up on her range of herbal sex pills, the “Horny Goat Weed” and asked to take them off sale immediately or face prosecution.

These pills were not safe and we would believe her that they were. Her website stated that it was new EU restrictions that had stopped the pills being sold.

She said to a newspaper that “EU bureaucrats are clearly concerned that people in the UK are having too much good sex”. Without shouting ‘she lied, she lied, the woman lied’, how is that okay? I am not proud that I don’t question what I am told but after this I think I might start.

Her products are just salad sold with buzz words. She sold a “Digestive Enzyme” from some plant to help your

body and make you healthy or something. Something good that we all know we should all have and we should all be. But wait a minute; we already have digestive enzymes, why would we need help from a plant? I don’t think that’s how nature works; won’t we just digest the plant? A test was proposed to McKeith to make sure the plant thing worked. She didn’t accept it, nor publish any results from any trial she claims to have done anywhere in anything. McKeith also has a nasty habit of trying to sue anyone who tries to prove her wrong or point out that her methods aren’t like what doctors are doing.

Who knows, maybe I’ll get in trouble for writing this. If it does I shall point out what I’ve said, unless of course she’s busy with Fame Academy or being a celebrity in the jungle.

Not a lot has been heard from McKeith recently. It seems that it all came apart when a few people decided not to listen. I’d like to be one of those people; there should be more of them in the world. Everything I have mentioned is written in Dr Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science and he goes into much greater depth. It has so much in that we should think about. The moral of this is don’t believe everything you are told and don’t eat chlorophyll without making sufficient holes in yourself to let the sunlight into your veins. comment@theheythroplion.co.uk

Watch the Heythrop Drama Society’s Production of “Lady Windermere’s Fan” online exclusively at

Photo: Loz Flowers/Flickr.com

theheythroplion.co.uk

Features Editor Faye West on her hatred for nutritionist Gillian McKeith and why people must fight “Bad Science” on TV

12

WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH | THE LION

COMMENT

The Divided Nations Senior Editor John Ord discusses the Six Nations and the problem with English Rugby

Photo: chrisangle/Flickr.com

John Ord Senior Editor For England rugby fans, the last few months have been painful. The drama surrounding the World Cup and the current situation we’re in during the RBS Six Nations is clouded in chaos and corporate subterfuge.

For all England fans there’s only one question: when will we sort ourselves out and play some decent rugby?

Taking a retrospective for a moment, I’d like to look at the World Cup in New Zealand; a tournament set to go down in English rugby folklore as an embarrassing and disastrous affair akin maybe to the previous Tour of Hell, and make a few apologies that I think weren’t made before. Firstly, much of the fuss that was made around the offfield antics of the team was more media storm than anything else. For a country that is so keen to have our sports teams do well in these international tournaments, the media was remarkably insensitive in undermining them so often and putting so much pressure on Martin Johnson. As much as the squad said that they paid no attention to the headlines, there’s no way the siege atmosphere that’s evident in all of the press conferences could have stayed there and not had an impact on the players.

The various charges levied by the media against the team were all blown out of proportion. Mike Tindall’s infamous camera-kiss friend was reportedly an old friend of his and Zara’s. The manager in the bar where the alleged midget-throwing was going on said that the players were all gentlemen and

behaved superbly. And that’s the Kiwis, the one’s who you’d think had a vested interest in seeing the England team do badly. Not so at all. Somehow it’s the English that start sticking the knife in with surreptitious headlines and aggressive press conferences. I won’t bother hiding that I feel quite passionately about this. There were some simply ludicrous stories about their conduct. It’s not the media’s business that some of them decided to go bungee jumping, stories about alleged harassment of a hotel maid were later retracted and the stories of a kicking contest within the squad to determine selection were so laughable that that’s the only response Martin Johnson could give it.

Nobody can deny that Martin Johnson is an England legend. Captaining the team that won the Webb Ellis Cup in 2003 and taking on the challenge of managing the national team with no experience (and a succession of poor managers before him that were sacked so quickly it felt like a football fiasco) surely garners him some respect. Not according to the media who shamelessly pressed and pressed until the legend snapped and was forced into ignominious retirement, leaving a country without the inspirational, passionate leader they so badly need. It was a tragic day when the media machine claimed Johno as its latest victim. He won’t be gone forever. At least I hope not.

I’m not blaming the media for the team’s admittedly poor World Cup. There’s so much more wrong than just that. Whichever way you look at it, the performances on the field simply weren’t good enough. Form was sloppy, the moves that they’d clearly prac-

ticed on the training ground weren’t challenging opposition defences and cohesion throughout the team wasn’t of the level that it should have been.

It’s a familiar story for England fans – scraping victories that we should have walked and constantly underperforming. The experienced players in the side didn’t step up and there needed to be a change. The gutting of the coaching staff (except Graham Rowntree who masterminded the scrum, one of the few success stories over the last four years) was a necessary step as I personally think that much of the lacklustre play was something they were responsible for. The clearing out of the old guard was also needed but probably not to the extent that it has been. We’ve now lost continuity from the development of the last few years within the squad that was beginning to see real progress. We’ve lost time. And we’ve lost Martin Johnson, which saddens me more than anything. We’re at square one again and it’s thanks to the desperately poor conduct of the RFU. The nonsense within the RFU didn’t stop there, though, continuing like a badly written episode of Fawlty Towers that still hasn’t reached a conclusion.

The players, who just wanted to play rugby, were once again sullied by the leak of their post-tournament feedback taken completely out of context by the headline-hungry media vultures as the Chairman of the RFU John Steele was sacked unceremoniously (but probably quite rightly). If anyone were to be asked what the most incompetent organisation was in this country, the bankers would be seriously challenged by the RFU. They haven’t done any-

thing right at all and it’s an embarrassment to the country and the game. Rob Andrew was essentially at the helm throughout the whole debacle and his position hasn’t even been questioned by the RFU, which is remarkable. It’s the beaurocracy at the RFU that has been the undermining and destructive factor for the England team and it’s the manager and the players that are out of a job and not him. Everyone I’ve spoken to who’s passionate about England rugby wants to see Rob Andrew disappear once and for all but he remains like the elderly relative who you’ve been hoping won’t be able to make it this Christmas who always manages somehow. That’s the past (I hope).

The future is clouded in uncertainty for us England fans. With so many top class players choosing to play abroad with a vast number based in France and James Haskell even moving to play in Japan (let’s ignore Danny Cipriani for now) the salary cap looks like it really will hamper club development and anything that damages the clubs will damage the national side. We have a home world cup in 2015 (thankfully another legend, Lawrence Dallaglio, is playing the part of ambassador for the tournament – another man in the Martin Johnson mould). If we’re going to be ready to compete for that we need to accept that it will take a few years to build but to do so we need consistency. Sir Clive Woodward’s 2003 side had a bad world cup campaign before they went on to win and Sir Clive was given the intervening four years to develop the side.

Not so Martin Johnson, who was forced into jumping before he was pushed.

So what’s next? Stuart Lancaster’s

Six Nations squad feels like a temporary fix, more like a school rugby tour than an actual international side, and the form is only half there, with loads of players being blooded for the first time. We need a long-term fix, though, not a short-term stop-gap. News has broken that the RFU (Oh, Rob Andrew, when will you leave?) has approached Jake White (who won the world cup with South Africa, beating us in the final in France five years ago) and I for one think this is a good thing. We need to stop trying to find quick results. We need to cultivate pride in the besmeared jersey and a new crop of young players such as Owen Farrell, Ben Foden and Chris Ashton to take us forward. Give him a four-year contract and leave him alone. Hear that, Twickenham? Leave them alone!

One thing is sure, though: we’re underdogs. Even with a home World Cup ahead of us and the rugby heritage we have behind us the bookies only have us at 11/2 to win in 2015 where New Zealand to win their home tournament was as safe as money in the bank. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done and we need to start now. Thankfully, there are top-class managers that want the job and a number of very talented English players in a Premiership that has a lot of high-class English teams so we have the raw materials to make it work, we just need an architect to fashion it into something worth having.

If we have the right Manager and a non-interfering RFU for the next four years those odds could change but there are a couple too many ‘ifs’ there for my liking.

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Culture[

Edited by Fran Gosling culture@theheythroplion.co.uk

Life: Your London Make it Macabre

Fran Gosling Culture Editor

Photo: huitgalerie/Flickr.com

People: The Cultural Olympiad Fran Gosling Culture Editor In conjunction with the 2012 Olympics, London is also in the process of hosting the Cultural Olympiad, a nationwide cultural extravaganza which will culminate in the London Festival 2012 (June-September). This festival, held as part of the host’s promise to the International Olympic Committee, looks to be the biggest the UK has ever experienced, rivalling even the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The Olympiad will be span the whole of Great Britain, allowing our artists as well as our athletes to participate in the nation’s most important season in decades! Throughout the summer months, London will be showing not only worldwide sporting events, but also free cultural events across the city, flooding smaller city venues as well as the likes of the Royal Academy. These projects are including all elements of cultural endeavour: art, film, theatre, literature, music, dance and even architecture with contributions from groups and individuals of all ages, nationalities and even physical abilities.

But it’s not just about summer 2012; since 2008, the Cultural Olympiad has been inspiring and commissioning all sorts of projects and performances, some of which have already won awards, including a Guinness World

Record or two. This weekend (3rd -4th March), for instance, BBC Music Nation showcased orchestras young and old across England and Wales with huge success. For anyone who has already been to see the extraordinary Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (and if you haven’t then I strongly recommend that you do), this is also part of the London 2012 Festival Countdown.

So what does an artistic event of such magnitude signify for the UK – already one of the most historically cultural centres of the world? From its very planning, the Cultural Olympiad was surrounded by the buzz of excited voices anticipating an international celebration of diversity, originality, talented youth, and solidarity in the face of economic and political struggle. And so on.

But amidst this conceptual porridge, the actual meaning of the Olympiad, already sporadic enough by nature, inevitably began to drown in itself. It started to suffer an identity crisis, if you will, in which the actual purpose of the Olympiad, as a cultural accompaniment to the Olympic Games, became lost and confused.

In 2011, this functional barrier was remedied with the appointment of Ruth Mackenzie, leader of both Manchester and Chichester festivals, as official director of the Olympiad. Her new involvement was met with mixed reviews by those who had worked with

her somewhat ruthless ways before, but her influence has so far proved to be effective. To reform and refine the Olympiad she has both cut and expanded certain events and, whilst still unsure of a specific tone to summarise the whole, she insists that its coherence and identity as a cultural festival has been reinforced by its official disconnection from the Olympic Games themselves.

This is partly down to the fact that the Cultural Olympiad has, and will continue to, stretch across the United Kingdom, rather than just London, allowing for the possibility of free events as well as the opportunity to get hold of any of the ten million free tickets on offer. External commissioning funds have come from a wealth of sources, including Arts Council England, the UK Arts Council and commercial sponsors, such as Westfield and the National Lottery. Certain events then aim to raise support and awareness for partnering charities such as Legacy Trust UK and UNICEF. Mackenzie also has her visions for the future legacy of the British Cultural Olympiad. Echoing the aspirations of IOC founder, Pierre de Coubertin, she hopes that the quality of performance expected this year will change lives and raise cultural awareness, not only in individual spectators, but in whole nations who hope to host similar festivals alongside their turn to host the

Olympics.

The heart-warming collaboration of the world’s most renowned artists and media organisations is already demonstrating a fulfilment of Olympiad chairman, Tony Hall’s, dream that these events will have the capacity of celebrating Britain’s rich cultural heritage on a world class scale. One of the most inspirational events so far, for instance, was the 2011 production of “The Itch of the Golden Nit”; an animation by the Tate Movie Project created by the artwork from thousands of young people across the country and brought to life by the voices of David Walliams, Miranda Hart and Catherine Tate, amongst others. The animation has won several awards already, including a BAFTA, and will be shown at London 2012 Live Sites across the country throughout the year.

This is just one of many astonishingly innovative and inspired feats of Britain’s Cultural Olympiad 2012 so far and it would be impossible to list and describe all that is to come in this entire paper, let alone on one page.

So if you are interested in following the latest, or even getting your mitts on some tickets, then keep your eyes on the official website or follow the news on Twitter @CulturalOlympic.

To send your articles to the comment section, email us at culture@theheythroplion.co.uk

If there is one thing that never goes out of fashion, whether via the mainstream or restricted by the leather straps of the underground, it’s our fascination with all things macabre. Since the Middle Ages, there have always been niches of society absorbed by this morbid obsession, inspiring a whole history of art, literature, fashion, religious ritual, crime and sexual deviancy. The definition of the word ‘macabre’ itself is to dwell on the gruesome, to produce horror or to portray some representation of death. The etymology of the word, however, is a little more mysterious: it has associations with the Apocryphal martyrdom of the Maccabees but, more commonly, with the old French expression “Danse Macabre”; the “Dance of Death” that takes deceased prince and pauper alike to the netherworld.

For those who still cannot help but be seduced by the dark, the deadly and the ever so slightly kinky, London is home to a whole wealth of macabre culture, from the very original to the most modern interpretation. So if you’re tingling for a taste, try visiting: • • • • • • •

London Dungeons (London Bridge) Highgate Cemetery (Highgate/ Archway) Jack the Ripper tour (Tower Hill) Museum of London’s “Macabre London” (St Pauls) Newgate Prison (Newgate Street) David Shrigley’s current taxidermy sculpture exhibition at the Hayward Gallery (Southbank) Wellcome Collection (Euston)

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CULTURE Music: The Cheek of Her Fran Gosling Culture Editor Thanks to a recommendation from a friend, I recently looked up The Cheek Of Her; a quirky female fronted band that have been taking the London music scene by storm since their foundation two years ago. Uninspired by this initial and very much typical description, I was sceptical – but then pleasantly surprised.

With an alternative pop/rock sound and general angst-fuelled, yet distinctly wistful lyrics, they offer something far more intriguing that your typical emo screech-fest. Front-woman, Helen Dooley, steals the performance every time with striking yet smooth vocals, distinctly reminiscent of Gwen Stefani, which she accompanies beautifully with piano melodies in her solo acoustic videos.

Still unsigned, TCOH have already recorded various works. Their recent EP, “Passionate Shit” features five addictive songs, my favourite being “Mended”, with a No Doubt-go-Letters To Cleo

feel that can’t help but almost nudge you down memory lane to the nineties. They have performed at many live London events, namely around Camden, and also boast appearances on several radio shows, including Deuce, and were even picked out for Featured Artist on ARfm at the end of last year.

The main reason I enjoy this band so much is not just for its nostalgically aggressive punch but because I find it refreshing in general every time I hear a female front-man with real power and honest feeling behind even the sweetest of voices. So, even if you feel like you would stick out like the purple leatherpanted Heath Ledger at Club Skunk, I genuinely think that this band deserves your attention, even if only for Dooley’s enchanting character. Besides, even if that style doesn’t do it for you, you can never go wrong with a strong and talented guitar-bass-drum band!

I really would strongly encourage anyone to follow them for upcoming gigs, or even download a tune or two, as The Cheek Of Her are definitely going places and we are sure to hear more from them very soon.

Theatre:

Ladykillers Ben Lund-Conlon 3rd year Undergraduate When I first saw the posters on the tube advertising the new stage adaptation of the 1955 film The Ladykillers I knew I had to see it. This was largely down to the stellar cast of some of the best comic actors in recent years but my resolve was reinforced when I looked more carefully and discovered who had written this adaptation. Possibly the best remembered of the classic British series of comic films, the Ealing Comedies, adapted for the stage by comedy genius and sitcom writer extraordinaire Graham Linehan (The IT Crowd, Black Books and Father Ted) and a cast including Peter Capaldi (The Thick of It, In The Loop), James Fleet (The Vicar of Dibley, Four Weddings and a Funeral) and Ben Miller (Armstrong and Miller, Johnny English) this production has a golden comedy pedigree which promised possibly the greatest comedy event in London theatre since Yes, Prime Minister or even Spamalot. For those who haven’t seen the film (among whom I must admit I am counted) the story follows a gang of bank-robbers who take up as their headquarters a rented room in a house owned by a sweet old lady (played by veteran actress Marcia Warren – No Place Like Home, Hattie) while posing as a string quartet. She eventually rumbles their plot and they are left with little choice but to dispose of the old dear as best they can. As anyone familiar with any of Linehan's TV shows would expect, the comedy comes from various sources, from cleverlywritten lines to compromising situations and a great number physical gags and slapstick along the way. Nothing is subtle, the characters are caricatures and stereotypes, but it doesn't pretend to be anything else. Fleet is as usual a timid, slightly camp upper-class twit (well, he does seem to play them better than anyone else) but what this lacks in novelty it certainly makes up for in entertainment. Clive Rowe (All the Small

Things) and Stephen Wight (Sherlock, Whites) don't look out of place alongside their more famous co-stars and Warren is of course the archetypal little old lady, displaying her obviously wry sense of humour through her portrayal of the stalwart and relentlessly naïve Mrs. Wilberforce. I wasn't particularly impressed by Ben Miller but judging by the delivery of the few lines he did have

I think this is more because of the character he was playing; it seems a waste to give such a talented comedy actor a silly foreign accent, a few grunts and very little else. Capaldi, while perhaps giving a slightly over-the-top performance obviously has the shoulders to carry the show, playing the part created by Alec Guinness with aplomb. Of course the uncredited member of the cast, but

without doubt the star of the show, is the set. Designed by Michael Taylor, the spectacular array of platforms, stairways and doors, all at awkward angles, move, rotate, flip, bend and shake to create any number of illusions and effects which perfectly complement the spirit of the play; all while being practical and visually stunning. It is worth seeing this play if only to see the me-

chanical gymnastics undertaken by the walls. All in all, a great night out during which I laughed at everything from a witty play on words to a conversation without words, via a man being hit on the nose repeatedly by a blackboard. Go and see it.

The Ladykillers is playing at the Gielgud Theatre until 14th April.

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CULTURE Life: Tripp’s Top Tips: Free Internet Services Daniel Tripp 1st year Undergraduate Welcome to the first issue of the newly inaugurated ‘Tripp’s Top Tips’. Me being Tripp and my tips generally being top, I would like to introduce you to a couple of online film and music services that will give you lots of content for absolutely no cost. It’s amazing what companies will offer to make you sign up for a monthly charge and so it’s easy for someone with a bit of common sense to take advantage - so long as you make sure you cancel your contract well before your free trial ends. Play it safe, don’t risk any charges and spend your money on more important things...like gin.

Firstly, we have two film and television services from Netflix and LoveFilm. Originally established in America, Netflix has made the jump to England and offers a free 30 day trial with access to a lot of films to watch online. Some are rubbish but there are also the occasional gems, such as Pulp Fiction and City of God. Television access also includes shows such as Misfits and 24. LoveFilm is owned by

Amazon and provides a similar service; they offer a selection of shows to watch online and will also send you DVDs in the post. I prefer Netflix as I don’t like the hassle of reposting the DVDs but both of them are offering free trials so just pick one, use it for a month, cancel, then switch to the other. Profit.

As for music, we have the increasingly popular Spotify. Spotify already offer a permanent free service, but it now limits you to only five plays of a song before it becomes unavailable – and there are adverts. If you sign on for their 30 day trial you’ll get unlimited access to Spotify Premium, which means unlimited plays of songs, no adverts and the ability to make your playlists available offline. This basically gives you access to one hundred percent legal, one hundred percent free music as long as you’ve made it usable offline and you have your laptop with you. You could also use Spotify on a Smartphone which has either unlimited internet or access to Wifi, which is amazingly handy. Of all music services, Spotify is the only one I still sign up to. I really think the service is worth the money and would suggest that everyone take advantage of their 30 day free trial. But, remem-

Film: The Artist Natasha Vaughan 3rd year Undergraduate The toast of the awards season, The Artist has been an international success. However, although it has enjoyed a great reception at the international box office for a French film, it could not be described as a box office smash. So is this a film about the decline of a silent film star and the rise of the talkies, one mainly for the critics and film buffs?

A resounding no, in my opinion. Although being transported to another era by this silent film can be disquieting for some (there was a stark warning at my cinema of choice about the film’s lack of speech), the story and superb performances cannot fail to draw you in. The film’s marvellous cinematography and score, deservedly recognised during this awards season, sweep audiences away on a journey of nostalgia. It is however the characters of George Valentin and Peppy Miller, for which both Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo have both been given gongs, that make this film unmissable.

It was supposedly the desire of the director, Michel Hazanavicius, to work with Dujardin and Bejo that prompted the forming of the film’s narrative.

The film is primarily the story of Valentin: a silent movie icon revered by his producers and adored by his fans. After a chance encounter with Miller, there is an obvious, yet delicately documented, attraction between the pair. The film charts Miller’s rise as the star of the new talkies and the descent of Valentin.

George stubbornly clings to the past with the contemptuous line “If that’s the future, you can have it”. Peppy, in con-

trast, becomes the darling of the press and the leading lady of the talkies era.

The film is full of spellbinding moments and is not short of light relief.

During the more humorous interludes, Dujardin is a master of comic timing and expression but all eyes are on his canine co-star, Uggie. Uggie has already acquired a cult following from those determined to see him properly recognised on the awards circuit with the social media campaign “Consider Uggie”. Halfway between a comic companion and the film’s answer to Lassie; Uggie is truly a star in his own right.

Although this escape to the past will make it impossible for you to keep a smile from your face, its darker themes are very current. The film charts the rise and fall of celebrity in the fastpaced nature of modern times. George Valentin’s only flaw appears to be his inability to move with the times in a “here today, gone tomorrow” culture of fashion and fancy. The fickleness of the press and the escalation of fame are well presented throughout the film and both the film stars and producers portrayed seem to be a slave to public opinion.

Hazanavicius’s enduring fantasy of making a silent film has created a masterpiece of art and storytelling. The level of thought that has gone into the costumes, score and set are able to transport audiences back to the twenties.

The cinematography is exceptional: the film was originally shot in colour and then converted to monochrome which gives it a depth not seen in many black and white films. However, most importantly the story is a heart-warming tale that is thought provoking at the same time as laughter inducing thanks to the wonderful performances on show.

Photo: tango.mceffrie/Flickr.com

ber, if you don’t want to be paying £10 a month, cancel before they charge you.

Finally, we have Emusic: a site where you can buy music using monthly bought credit. You sign up for a certain amount of money per month and then get that amount per month to spend on music. The music selection is not as broad as Spotify, though it does include a lot of lesser known music that Spotify doesn’t. But please note that their free sample lasts a week, not a month. However, they do give you

£12 credit to spend so my advice is to sign up, spend all the credit in a day and then cancel as soon as you can.

There’s some great stuff on there - I got all the Mr. Scruff albums for about £12 and, considering individual tracks normally cost only 44p, you can get a lot for your £12! Also, note that when you go to cancel, Emusic might offer you an incentive to stay. I accidentally forgot to cancel and so after I spent all my credit and went to quit, they offered me £10 free credit. They also give out

free credit occasionally, say if the site is being slow or they do some maintenance. I ended up spending £10 and, by the time I’d cancelled, I’d received £37 credit. Of course, this might not happen to you but it was still quite impressive!

All these services are great, provided you cancel before they start charging you. You may need to enter credit/debit card details but do everything right and they won’t take a penny. So try them out and enjoy some free, legal content.

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CULTURE

TIPSY HIPPO THEATRE AWARDS 2011/12 The Lion’s Resident Theatre critic John Arthur Craven Ord shares his pick of the past year’s finest productions.

John Ord Senior Editor A year on from the perhaps somewhat inauspicious beginnings of Tipsy Hippo Theatre Reviews just over a year ago we have come on leaps and bounds and it’s once more time for us to pause for thought and take a look back at the best of what the last year has given us here at Hippo HQ. In working out where the various awards below are most deserved one thing has stood out in every category and that is that there is stiff competition in every sphere. This is a wonderful thing. The diversity that is present in the West End and Off West End venues is undeniably brilliant and arguably the best in the world but the fact that there is so much high quality diversity makes it something truly special and something that we can all be very excited about with years and years ahead of us to enjoy what the British Theatre industry has to offer.

It’s been incredibly difficult narrowing down the forty-odd shows we’ve seen this year to just a few nominees and then further to just a few winners (the lead actor category provided a particularly taxing quandary) but all has now been decided and agreed upon. Last year when we had the 2010 Awards we were still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and hadn’t seen very much at all. The categories that were devised took a lot of painstaking thought but were very much a rough first stab in the dark. Come now and the end of 2011 and actually, having now seen a full year’s worth of theatre (more or less) and it still appears to work just as well so we’re sticking with the same system.

Enough waffle; to the business!

Outstanding Drama Winner: Jerusalem There really can’t be much argument about this. Jerusalem is in every way a modern classic. Every now and again you experience something that you know you’ll be telling your children about, that you know is a moment that will make a lasting impact on not only your life but the lives of a great many people. Everyone in theatre will know of Jerusalem because it really is that good.

Again and again I mention and explain in no doubt tiresome length that the key to good theatre is balance, a balance between great acting, great set design, great script, comedy, tragedy, elation, grief; a great show should include a bit of everything and have it in a balance that puts everything in a place the audience can see, understand and engage with. If you’re ever in doubt how this is done then the answer is in Jerusalem.

Some will no doubt criticise it for its length and yes, it is long. However, it’s no longer than a Shakespeare play and I can’t imagine why anyone would want it to be shorter having seen it. They may go in with the length in the back of their minds but it’s soon forgotten and once they leave they’ll be wanting more. Outstanding really is the word.

Outstanding Comedy Winner: Noises Off Farce is difficult. Farce within farce is

monstrous. However, Michael Frayn’s Noises Off has touched on a piece of genius and well deserves its place in the history of theatre. Farce is renowned for being difficult to achieve the right balance with. Backstage drama or comedy is also notoriously difficult and somehow both have been thrust together by Frayn with a careful and composed touch. Enjoyably, this production by the Old Vic has a similar level of craft about it, director Lindsay Posner deserves special recognition for this.

As with Jerusalem above, the balance here is carefully crafted. There is a balance between the exposure the various characters have, a balance between the comedy, the farce, the seriousness, the drama and above all, the onstage and backstage elements. There is a touch of brilliance about the set and the window one can see through during the second act. As appear typical with the Old Vic, it’s just a very talented show indeed put together with nous and foresight. I was crying with laughter towards the end as it all slowly built up and I particularly admired the expansion of the mayhem to the audience as well, giving us a programme for the show within the show in the programme for the show (yes, it’s confusing isn’t it?) and the music falling apart and the curtains falling down.

It’s just fantastic.

Outstanding New Play Winner: One Man, Two Guv’nors It’s been a busy year for Richard Bean, with The Heretic at the Royal Court at the start of the year and then One Man, Two Guv’nors doing so well on every level. Now set for yet another West End transfer to the Theatre Royal Haymarket that will see it remain in the West End for a few more months at least (and that’s no bad thing at all) as well as a transfer over the pond to Broadway it can’t be denied that it’s a phenomenon.

Bean’s reworking of the classic Goldoni Commedia dell’Arte play The Servant of Two Masters is a wonderful example of how to break the fourth wall (or at least appear to) and allows a brilliantly comic persona such as James Corden to really enjoy himself, which makes everything worthwhile. The script itself isn’t doing a huge amount but then to do a huge amount would be to ruin the play and it very masterfully doesn’t do that. He’s not trying too hard to be funny, he’s not trying to hard to make a point, as I thought he was guilty of in The Heretic. Here he is sitting back, confident in the material and rightly so Outstanding Leading Actor Winner: James Earl Jones This is the hard one. The two contenders that are vying for the spot are Mark Rylance for Jerusalem and James Earl Jones for Driving Miss Daisy. It’s not an easy choice at all. In the end we’ve gone for James Earl Jones. Rylance’s portrayal of Rooster Byron is phenomenal, it really is. There isn’t a moment that you don’t feel the character on the stage is alive and brimming with vitality and weakness in equal measure. It’s a stunning performance that will stop you dead. Jones, however, delivers something quite different. His character is quiet, humble and set in his

ways. You don’t watch a vibrant character living his story, you share yours with someone on stage. Jones brings out parts of each of us and does so effortlessly, naturally and comfortably resting back into the role, relaxing into the deep well of human emotion and experience to take us, to bring us, lead us by the hand through a story that will make you laugh and cry without you even noticing it. That is the majesty of James Earl Jones and that is why he came out on top. He taps into a deep commonality and connects with every member of the audience in doing so.

Outstanding Leading Actress Winner: Kara Tointon Kara Tointon is best known for her part in Eastenders. I am not familiar with Eastenders but I can appreciate the differences between stage and screen acting and Tointon appeared to naturally cross over the divide in Pygmalion.

Though somewhat over-dramatic in her characterisation that was, I think, the director’s choice and she took the direction well and ran with it. Moving from the Covent Garden flower seller that she was at the start to the lady she was at the end was a journey that was both entertaining an enlightening to behold. She did the best that anyone could have done with a somewhat onedimensional script and put herself in a very strong position because of it. Her chemistry with Rupert Everett was natural and she appeared to relish the part.

Whenever she was on stage you were watching her, compelled to see how she would develop and change. Other lead actresses this year have had characters and lines that have given them easy opportunity to shine but Tointon does more work here and for that reason pips them to the post.

Outstanding Supporting Performance Winner: Boyd Gaines Sharing a stage with a great actor can be a terrifying and daunting experience, even if it is someone who seems to be as effortlessly likeable as James Earl Jones. Boyd Gaines is a superb actor and a Broadway legend in his own right but here he found himself play not second fiddle to Jones but also to Vanessa Redgrave, another theatre great.

There was no trace of it in his performance, however, and his part in Driving Miss Daisy is key to the whole show. He was comfortable, even natural, on the stage and was both a figure of resentment and empathy, often in the same moment. To handle such a situation as this with the poise and composure that he did is impressive in itself but the fact that he delivered such a top class performance as well, a performance that on its own put him at the top of our shortlist for this award, is magnificent. A truly deserving winner.

Outstanding Director Winner: Ian Rickson I suppose when a project like Jerusalem lands on your desk (or perhaps your email inbox in our increasingly digital age) you know you’re onto a winner. I imagine you also know that

you’re in for a hell of a lot of work to make it everything it should be and not let anyone down, not to let such a golden opportunity pass you by. There must have been pressure on Rickson’s shoulders like Atlas but whether he was aware of it or not it doesn’t show in the final piece at all. As explained above, the balance is perfect and this is a directorial achievement more than anything else. An actor can perfect his performance but a director has to tie all the actors together, tease their best performances out of them, tie them together and then put them together with the script, the set, the props, the space, the audience and everything else that makes a production. Everything on the stage was in place and there for a reason. Everything just felt right, like all was how it should be and the performances rallied around each other and hit home, Mark Rylance in particular. Rickson has a very real achievement in directing such a show as this.

Outstanding Musical Winner: Matilda Although there is the noticeable omission here of Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show, which I was unable to see, there have been a few musicals out on the West End. Love Story was one of the worst things I have seen; one-dimensional and unengaging throughout but The Umbrellas of Cherbourg brought Kneehigh once more firmly into the West End consciousness and more than made up for it. Then we were treated to Matilda. After only a few weeks at the Cambridge Theatre, it had its run extended until this December 2012 and there can’t be a single person complaining about it at all. Bertie Carvel is nothing short of splendid, giving a performance that everyone will remember for the rest of their lives. The children are remarkable as well, though the RSC has a great track record with young performers so it’s not too surprising that they really are that good. The set is beautiful and ingenious, every actor on the stage, every dancer, every singer knows what’s going on and is having a whale of a time. The music and lyrics, thanks to Tim Minchin, are hilarious and moving as well as intelligent, even feeling a bit Sondheim in places.

There are very few complaints one could have about this new addition to the London scenery and we hope it stays for as long as possible.

Outstanding Shakespeare Winner: Richard III This year hasn’t afforded me as much of an opportunity as I’d have liked to see Shakespeare plays.

Yes, there’s been an awful lot that has been on that I’ve missed but I’ve always

had a frustratingly good reason for missing them. However, having read up on a lot of them and hearing about them through the year I honestly believe that Richard III would still have trumped the lot and wound out on top.

There are so many reasons why this is the case but in essence it was just remarkably engaging. Kevin Spacey gave a remarkable performance in bringing this tyrant to vivid life and brought Shakespeare’s eloquence from the page to the ear in such a way that it all felt perfectly clear and natural. There were so many impressive features to the production, from the use of video and audio equipment to the simplicity of drums and marching and the physicalisation of Richard’s leg was novel as well. It felt like they had taken a lot of time in working through everything so that everyone knew exactly what they were saying and what they were doing and when. It all came together as well and held together for the duration. Another famous Richard III. Show of the Year Winner: Jerusalem Having already praised Jerusalem earlier on I leave myself with little to say here but it wasn’t as clear-cut a decision as it would seem. We had a couple five-star shows this year that haven’t even been mentioned so far here, The History Boys and Vernon God Little.

Both were remarkable and unmissable nights at the theatre and were in serious contention for a number of awards, only narrowly missing out. Jerusalem, however, surpassed everything else. It was deeper, crisper, neater and more engaging than anything else all year.

It had the balance between all aspects of the production, it had everything a good show needs to have and it had them all in a talented abundance. It’s a paramour of new theatre and justly deserves the mantle of Tipsy Hippo Show of the Year 2011.

For more Hippo Reviews, visit hipporeviews.blogspot.com

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WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH | THE LION

Game: SoulCalibur V

Game: GAME say No to Mass Effect 3 Toby Fairclough Game Reviewer Videogame retailers GAME and GAMESTATION will not be stocking 2012’s estimated biggest hit, Mass Effect 3. On 29th February 2012, only 10 days before the game’s release, an internal email was leaked explaining that GAME stores nationwide will not be stocking any of EA’s March releases, including: SSX, FIFA Street, Mass Effect 3 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13.

Before 29th February GAME had been actively advertising pre-orders for Mass Effect 3, offering an exclusive “N7 Collector’s Edition” only available at GAME stores or on their website.

GAME have stated, via their Facebook page, that they will be reimbursing consumers who have already pre-ordered Mass Effect 3 along with £5 in reward points for their trouble.

With an alleged 90% drop in shares over the past financial year, is Mass Effect 3’s absence from GAME’s shelves a precursor for more bad things to come?

Toby Fairclough Game Reviewer Overall Rating:3/5 17 years after the events of SoulCalibur IV, the troublesome Soul Edge is up to no good and, to restore order and peace once again, it must be destroyed. Storylines have never really been a beatem-ups best friend and SoulCalibur V does nothing to break this trend in its 2-hour campaign mode. Indeed, it even takes a step back from its predecessors with the single story-arc following only two of the 28 characters; unlike SCIV which had a unique story for each fighter. The story puts you in the shoes of new-comer, Patrokolos, on his search for his sister, Pyrrha. Needless to say, trouble awaits him and the tale pits you against enemy after enemy, breaking up the battles for freeze-frame animated cut-scenes and the occasional CGI one for good measure to explain who your next opponent is. Whilst the CGI scenes show off the game’s graphics, the drawn segments make the mode feel dragged out, getting in the way of the fighting rather than drawing the player in to the reasons behind why it is taking place.

Thankfully, the campaign mode is not the only thing SCV has to offer,

providing the regular Arcade, Versus and Training varieties which have become standard among fighting games.

Yet despite these modes being a tried and tested formula, SCV lets the player down in every one. Training, ironically, gives no guidance towards what combos and moves are possible with the different characters, or even towards the new gimmicks introduced specifically for this version - such as the brave edge and critical edge attacks. Instead, it is simply a sparring platform in which you cannot die and have the option not to get hit.

Arcade is more similar to what one would expect: six rounds of fast-paced fighting action, beefed up by online leaderboards to share with the world your fastest time. Unfortunately, however, in emphasising online comparison, SCV did away with rule customization. Gone are the days in which you could have one K.O. wins or 15 second rounds.

Versus is perhaps the most acceptable mode, allowing for round time and K.O. limit editing, providing exactly what you would expect: fights against the computer or a second player. Versus lets itself down, however, in that it does not accommodate for the advances in SCV’s stat customization, such as the possibility to boost strength at the cost of defence, for varied battles.

Following suit from the likes of Call

Art: Lucian Freud Exhibition Stephen Bonnell 2nd year Undergraduate Lucian Freud exposes in his work his awareness of the finitude of his temporality as a being of flesh. Animate, sensual and meaningful, yes, but contingent and rough, too; the human flesh both forms and is formed by a world that preceded it and will succeed it. This relationship, the context of the human being, takes hold of Freud’s portraiture from fairly early on.

Sitters for Freud's portraits had to sit throughout the painting process, even through the painting of the background features. In ‘Two Irishmen in

W11’, Freud captures the boredom evidently invoked by such a process. The boredom is not a distaste for having to sit or a negative and denying gesture to the artist, however. The boredom is an openness; that something which comes through when there is nothing ‘to do’ is opened up and laid bare. It is the human being's relationship of inter-reliance or singular existence: flesh is of prior importance, but flesh is contextualised and provides context for the world around it.

In ‘Self-Portrait, Reflection’, Freud stands clutching a scarf knotted around his neck. As the scarf winds its away around his throat, it departs a blue hint into his skin which homog-

of Duty, SCV includes unlockable titles which can be used to customize your player card – a description of wins, losses and character level, viewable by online rivals. New titles can be unlocked by playing ‘Quick Battle’ which pits you against enemies of varying levels and designs only with the aim of obtaining their title. Player cards can be edited in other ways too, allowing for customizable pictures and regions.

New to SCV is the inclusion of ‘rivals’; a simple way of comparing your play stats with your friends or, in my case, complete strangers. The system is quick and simple, putting your win/loss ratio side by side with up to three others’ along with details such as total play time and even distance travelled. The feature is pleasant and could encourage competitive play among friends but for me it seemed a non-starter and I only really used it to obtain achievements.

By far the best feature of SCV lies in its final mode: ‘Creation’. Here you can either create your own unique character from scratch, editing things such as body-shape, hair styles and a variety of clothing or alter one of the existing characters’ dress. Character creation has been present in the series since SCIII but now greater customization for existing characters and the inclusion of patterns and ‘stickers’ allows for much more detailed constructions. Regretta-

bly, not all options are available from the beginning, with the best being unlocked through continued play and levelling up. Whilst this might encourage the player to keep playing, it does mean that, to replicate the best designs, you need to put a lot of hours into the game.

Nevertheless, despite my overwhelmingly negative comments, I did quite enjoy my time with SoulCalibur V. Combat is tight, responsive and fast; the graphics live up to its predecessors’ benchmark and, most importantly, it is fun. Even my wife, who never plays videogames, enjoyed beating me at this!

Whilst it is a shame that they removed many of the well loved characters of old, the new characters are mostly worthwhile (despite most of them being younger versions of the ones left out), especially guest character Ezio from Assassins Creed II. Even so, I find it hard to recommend SCV. Yes it is a good, fun game, but you are probably better off saving your money for Mass Effect 3. By all means, get this game and enjoy pummelling your friends with giant hammers and ridiculously long swords; but, if I were you, I would wait a few months until it’s at least under £20 first.

enises his flesh with the wall behind him and the jacket that rests on his body. By this point, Freud’s painting style had become much cruder, much more textual. His eyes are black dots that grow out across his face.

They lack the green curiosity of his youthful work ‘Man with a Feather (Self-Portrait)’, but have a new quality, a more self-conscious profundity.

Freud has been linked to subjectivist tendencies of the 20th century.

However, his concentration upon the subject is more cautious than some of that thought sometimes was.

Freud’s portraits do not assert the human being as dominating over the world but as necessarily fixed within it as contingent flesh; contingent, yet rich in human meaning and purpose.

The exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery runs until the 27th of May and is well worth visiting by all who

enjoy portraitist artistic explorations.

The ticket is £12 for a student and allows you to stay in there as long as you like. On Thursdays and Fridays the gallery stays open later which allows for a longer experience if wanted. Rooms are numbered to allow a journey from Freud’s portrait of his art teacher Cedric Morris when he was 18 through to the unfinished ‘Portrait of the Hound’, left only when he was too frail to complete it. As a retrospective of 130 works, the exhibition tells the story of a man developing through the years from the glassy-eyed stares of his earlier work through to the coarse images of people entwined with animals that occupied some of his later works. We should celebrate Freud's work in its being a characterisation of humanity's fixedness in a solid world and themselves works of mastery from a man of self-involvement and unique realistic talent.

What do you think?

Email us at submit@theheythroplion.co.uk

S T UD

CULTURE

HOB T N E

BBQ Basics Ann Fig-rols Spatula Thief

Now that the clouds have started ever so slightly to disperse and the sun seems to have finally yawned and stretched itself awake, it’s hard not to start fantasising about long afternoons of bottles in the park and late-night barbeques. It might not be toasty enough to risk wandering half naked around High Street Kensington just yet, but if you have the space and a bag of coal, it’s never too early to at least start the barbie! But, of course, Tesco et al know this and are starting to bring out their bumper boxes of frozen burgers and sausages – and they’re a bit grim. Making your own meaty treats is a little more expensive but, if you feel like being creative, then you’ll definitely appreciate the difference. That is, if you manage not to completely incinerate them.

Basic Burgers This recipe works just as well with beef, pork or turkey mince. Just empty a pack into a large bowl along with half a finely chopped onion, two finely chopped cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of chopped parsley and a large pinch each of salt and pepper. Add one beaten egg and then, using your hands, mix it all together until you have one large meaty ball (pun unintended). Take small handfuls of the mixture and roll into balls, roll them all over in plain flour and then flatten slightly to form thick patties. These can keep in the fridge until ready to grill!

Sticky Chicken Marinade The simple base for a chicken marinade is made by whisking together equal measures of vegetable or nut oil, wine vinegar and soy sauce; then you can add whatever combination of flavours you like. Why not try one or more of: a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, chopped red chilli, half a cup of whiskey, paprika, chopped parsley, oregano, black pepper, squeezed lemon or even half a cup of honey for an extra sticky, sweet and sour style sauce.

Just whisk them into the liquid base and then spread over your prepared chicken. Leave them to marinade in the fridge for a couple of hours before grilling and don’t forget to keep any leftover juice to use as extra sauce!

And if these don’t fill you up and you fancy something sweet, using a barbeque is a great way to grill marshmallows, bananas, and even to melt down a heatproof bowl of chopped up chocolate for deliciously messy fondue!

theheythroplion.co.uk /thestudenthob

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WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH | THE LION

Societies Sports and

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

Photos: Charlie Yarwood

Heythrop Football Team Storm forward in University of London League Charlie Yarwood 1st year Undergraduate When you’re in a college like Heythrop, even being able to form a team of eleven “men” and an appropriate number of subs is difficult, especially considering we’re meant to be a bunch of Philosophy and Theology nerds, but we’ve got to be doing something right after the last few games. According to the golden oldies of the team, to even consider winning last year was somewhat of a pipe dream, let alone imagining a winning streak with scores of 3-1, 5-0 and 4-2. This year, we don’t have to imagine it but it’s been no mean feat.

Even though the league is run by ULU some of the teams’ pitches are as far away as Heathrow or Chislehurst in Kent; having to set off an hour or two before kick off means the games pretty much take up all afternoon – which for many students actually means taking up the whole day. I guess it’s not difficult to believe that normally reduces the amount of people who can play.

Now, I’m sure that you’re thinking to be doing that well we’re surely playing the other teams at the bottom of the league, but you would be wrong in two ways. Firstly, we’re currently 8th and secondly, the other teams are around the middle of the table too. It is true that in any of the games you can question the ‘quality of the football’ actually being played, but in

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 BBP Law 1st x Heythrop 1st ICSM 4th x Heythrop 1st RSM 1st x Heythrop 1st St Barts 3rd x Heythrop 1st Heythrop 1st x Imperial 7th Heythrop 1st x ICSM 4th Heythrop 1st x St Barts 4th both the St Bart’s 4th (4-2) and Imperial Medics (5-0) there have been great displays of the team’s passing ability, teamwork and general skills.

Against Imperial Medics an equal effort was put in by the whole team but it was the goals of Andy, Dave, Matt, Hassan and James which eventually brought the well-earned victory (even if the other team disputed that the ball had been in the keeper’s hands when

Score 1-0 2-1 5-1 3-2 1-1 4-0 4-0 1-0 5-0 4-0 5-1 3-1 5-0 4 -2

Andy followed it into the net). Even if we were to discount that – don’t worry Swindley, no one’s going to take your goal away – we still emerged as the clear winners. Somehow, though, the 4-2 victory against St Bart’s was by far sweeter.

Normally, after the first goal is conceded everyone gets into the frame of mind that we’ve already lost and the second goal only confirms it; but something happened as Cap-

Position 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

tain Swindley moved Hassan from the wing into the middle of the pitch.

In fact, four somethings happened.

Even with some questionable decisions from the referee, Hassan and Dave got the ball into the back of the net and Michael scored twice. It really was exciting to watch since the team has come so far since the beginning of the season and now seem to realise they are actually playing to-

Team RSM 1sts St Barts 3rds BPP Law 1sts SSEES 2nds Imperial 7th LSE 7th ICSM 4th Heythrop 1st St Barts 4th RVC 2nd St George’s 4th CSSD 1st gether not just in the same uniform.

Although the feeling of winning the game, or watching the lads win, is pretty special in itself, this addition of 9 points means that we’re only separated from the team above us on goal difference with 4 games in hand - I don’t personally know what that means, but apparently it’s good. I guess the most important thing to say though is come on Heythrop! Keep it up!

19

WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH | THE LION

HSU PAGE

Summer Ball he

eythrop

2012

at

The Waldorf On The Strand

Champagne Reception 3 Course Meal with Drinks Coffee and Petits Four Live Band and Pianist Photographer DJ

Cash Bar with Complimentary Drinks Free Cloakroom

7.30 - 12.30 30th May £50 (£45 Cheapskates) Nearest Tubes : Covent Garden and Temple

20

WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH | THE LION

SOCIETIES Buddhism and Morality

Zac Phoenix Meditation Society There are a whole range of causes of suffering in this world and some are more obvious than others. Yet clearly most of them have their origin in the human mind when it is at its most negative, ignorant of the implications of cause and effect. There are many actions which most will agree are wrong, harmful or hurtful and should be avoided. Wrongful actions first have their origin in the mind and so it is unwholesome mental states which give rise to the intention to carry out wrongful actions, such as stealing, being spiteful, abusive in speech towards others, physical violence, so and on so forth.

Wrongful actions can be described as unwholesome because they detract from the well-being of someone, either the perpetrator themselves or those who are affected by their actions or, usually, both. Wrongful actions can also be called unskilful because they show a lack of wisdom and a certain amount of ignorance in the person carrying them out. On the other hand, those who possess greater ethical awareness are more skilful in the way that they behave towards themselves and others and do their best to refrain from carrying out unwholesome actions as they understand the effects of them. Far from being distant and scholarly, this is the immediate, pragmatic way in which morality has merit.

In the Buddhist tradition, there is no concept of sin or sinful behaviour because sin is about transgressing the divine moral law of God (whose existence Buddhism refrains from speculating on in either direction). Being ultimately a pragmatic philosophy of immediate benefit, “right” and “wrong” are understood not in terms of absolute truth but as synonyms for what is helpful or harmful, thus morality is often spoken of in terms of what is considered “skilful” or “unskilful”. The measure of moral judgment is down to the quality of fruit that such actions bear - good actions are considered wholesome and skilful because they lead to the elimination of suffering and the cultivation of well-being, whereas wrong actions are only called wrong because they are morally unskil-

ful and unwholesome, detrimental to the well-being of oneself and others.

Unskilful actions stem from unwholesome mental states such as arrogance, jealousy, spitefulness, conceit, laziness, craving and so on. These all eventually cause “dukkha”, which is a Buddhist term (in Pali, an ancient Indian language) that means suffering, unsatisfactoriness, discontent, and a whole range of other subtle meanings.

Dukkha is the perpetual “thorn” in the side of humanity that Buddha saw as our number one problem with living happily. He wanted to find a way to eliminate it and so he set out to discover what causes dukkha in order to cut it off at the source or root of the problem.

There is a whole spectrum of undesirable mental states that manifest in all kinds of ways but the Buddha taught that ultimately all of these mental defilements stem from three poisonous roots: greed, aversion and delusion. It is easy to understand what is meant by greed and delusion but aversion is slightly trickier: it means to have a strong negative disposition towards something; hatred, antipathy, or a strong sense of repugnance or dislike.

These three “defilements” give rise to a vast range of undesirable mental states, like those mentioned before which result in wrongful actions. So if we are to eliminate wrongful actions and consequently eliminate dukkha, we need to treat the symptoms of these poisonous roots and also cut them off at their source. They all originate from one point, one root which holds them all into place and allows them to arise in the mind. It is “avijjā” - ignorance, which is the ultimate form of delusion. Ignorance is a lack of knowing what is right or beneficial from what is wrong or harmful, being unable or unwilling to see correctly and it is this underlying ignorance which gives rise to all of the other mental defilements that tend to propel a person towards acting wrongfully.

Think of it like a tree, yet poisonous, twisted. At the lower roots, you have ignorance. Above these, closer to the soil and just under the surface is greed, aversion and delusion. These nourish the branches of the unwholesome mental states in all their forms, which lead to the bad fruit of unskilful actions that cause suffering. We might not begin to understand why it

is often said, “to cultivate that which is helpful, to refrain from doing what is harmful, and to purify the mind: these are the teachings of the Buddhas.”

So if we are to treat suffering we have to treat the root of the problem, which is ignorance. How are we to counteract ignorance? That seems like an overwhelming task and the difficulty here is that much effort and discipline is required to systematically erode the influence that ignorance holds over the mind. We each have the power and the responsibility to take command of the ways in which we think and act. You cannot destroy all the unwholesome mental states overnight but it is also wrong to think that it cannot be done.

The antidote to ignorance is “pañña”; wisdom. It is only wisdom that can counteract the undesirable fruits of ignorance. Wisdom is not just knowledge because one can amass a large amount of knowledge and be highly intelligent yet still suffer under the veil of ignorance and delusion, lacking the true seeing of clear sight in how cause and effect operates. What is required is “Right View”, a penetrating insight into the skilful ways in which knowledge is to be used, exercising discernment and good judgement informed by a firm ethical foundation.

So, it is wisdom that destroys ignorance and the three poisons of greed, aversion and delusion that breed mental defilements and cause wrongful acts that result in suffering. It is the weedkiller of the neglected garden that is the human mind. Wisdom is developed by cultivating the set of conditions that give rise to it and these conditions are outlined in the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path, the practical path of the philosophy taught by the Buddha.

In brief, the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path are Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Cultivating these factors through practising mindfulness, patient endurance and meditation, one is able to slowly erode the negative influence of ignorance on the mind, allow the nourishing spring of wisdom to arise within and replace the defilements with wholesome mental states that produce rightful actions, leading to well-being and the easing of suffering in the world. This is the path that leads unto enlightenment.

BUDO KICK ASS: Bradley Smith wins the Susan Davies Memorial Trophy for outstanding contributions to martial arts. A Budo Social will be held at the start of May.

Heythrop’s First Jewish Society Joshua White News Editor One of the most recent additions to the College's societies is the Heythrop College Jewish Society, with just over 50 members online. The first JThrop event took place on Wednesday 29th February beginning with an introductory talk on Judaism by Jonathan Gorsky held in the Marie Eugenie Room. Gorsky has remarked that he is "delighted that there is now a Jewish society at Heythrop for the first time in its 400 year history" and that there has been such "enthusiasm" about the society so far. After a concise introduction to Judaism attendees then went on a trip to the Jewish Museum in Camden. The students were given a guided tour around the exhibition which was designed to represent the story of Jewish history, culture and religion.

Abigail Kay noted that Heythrop has an average of "one or two" self-identified Jews every year and so "it makes sense to have a society which both provide things to enrich their Jewish life and at the same time educates non-Jews about our religion." So there are steps being taken to ensure that the Jewish Society lasts at Heythrop and the Society's first elections will take place at the next event. Around 20 people attended the first event and planning for two more events was soon underway, with a similar turnout expected at Lunch 'n' Learn on Wednesday 14th March and the interfaith event for Passover on March 28th. Kay went on to add "We are at a theology college, after all! We want to provide a range of activities,

across the whole range of cultural, religious, educational and social action."

The Lunch 'n' Learn includes a talk in the Callaghan room by Rabbi Gavin 'Rav Gav' Broder on the story of Joseph in the Torah as well as a free lunch.

Rabbi Broder is the Jewish Chaplain to the University of London and was the Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1996 to 2000. Following talk and lunch the society will hold its first elections to make way for a competent leadership to take JThrop into the next academic year. At the interfaith event in Loyola Hall on March 28th will offer students the chance to celebrate Passover, as the festival which commemorates the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Christian and Jewish students will exchange accounts of what Passover means to them in their traditions. As part of the Seder there will be rituals, stories, songs and food.

Since attending the introductory event Chaplain Dave Stewart SJ has commented "As one of the College chaplains, I welcomed the news that the JSoc was starting up and I was really pleased to be able to attend its inaugural meeting. Anything that increases understanding of and friendship between people of different faiths is surely to be applauded. That seems to me fully in accord with what our College is about and in the spirit of open and rigorous enquiry that you find in Jesuit educational institutions all round the world."

For Further information on the Heythrop College Jewish Society, to buy tickets or if you want to run for a position on March 14th please contact Abigail Kay or Natasha Mann at jthropsoc@gmail.com

Are you a final year Undergraduate?

Do you want your opinions on your student experience to be heard?

Take part in the National Student Survey 2012!

Based on previous results here a few examples of changes we have implemented: * extended library opening hours * increased careers guidance * invested in more PCs in campus * improved coursework feedback * given more access to electronic materials Please remember your answers should be based on your time here at Heythrop, and include the good and not so good experiences you’ve had.

The NSS results are published nationally, and so your opinions also inform both prospective students and future employers how highly regarded Heythrop is compared to all the other universities.

If you want to highlight an example of good practice or raise an issue that isn’t covered in the NSS then please send an email to Kathryn Powell k.powell@heythrop.ac.uk. If you are eligible for the survey, Ipsos MORI will contact you to invite you to fill in the survey online.

You can now complete the NSS online or via your smartphone at www.thestudentsurvey.com.

It is important for the College to achieve at least a 50% response rate in the NSS. After 3 weeks Heythrop is currently on 25% as a whole (Psychologists 32%, Theologians 28% and Philosophers 22%) – so there are still around 130 of you to respond!

ARE YOU A FINAL YEAR HEYTHROP UNDERGRADUATE?

STUDY AN MA AT HEYTHROP

If you’ve been predicted a 2:1 or higher, then not only will a postgraduate qualification improve your employment prospects, but pursuing an MA at Heythrop gives you an unparalleled opportunity to take further the interests you have developed in your undergraduate programme. The best of what you know we already offer is available at Masters level with teaching in small groups, an attention to the needs and interests of the individual and expert academic supervision.

Returning students get a 50% discount on fees, and we hope that this makes our courses genuinely affordable.

Find out more at our “Taster Week”, which kicks off on Monday 19th March at 1.30pm with an information lunch in the Marie Eugenie room. For catering purposes please confirm your attendance at this event with Annabel Clarkson, a.clarkson@heythrop.ac.uk. During this week you are invited to attend any MA module teaching session you like to experience studying at this level, and the opportunity to chat to postgraduate students.

For those of you interested in other careers don’t forget Kim Burke, k.burke@heythrop.ac.uk can provide you with information about the career services we offer here at the College and others provided by the University.

Programme

Convenor

Email Address

MA Abrahamic Religions MA Biblical Studies MA Canon Law MA Christian Spirituality MA Christian Theology MA Christianity & Interreligious Relations MA Contemporary Ethics MA Pastoral Theology MA Philosophy MA Philosophy in Education MA Philosophy and Religion MA Psychology of Religion MRes Christianity & Interreligious Relations MRes Philosophy

Ahmad Achtar Ann Jeffers Helen Costigane Edward Howells Martin Poulsom Damian Howard Anna Abram James Sweeney Louis Caruana Michael Lacewing Paul Rout Rachel Blass Michael Barnes Michael Lacewing

a.achtar@heythrop.ac.uk a.jeffers@heythrop.ac.uk h.costigane@heythrop.ac.uk e.howells@heythrop.ac.uk m.poulsom@heythrop.ac.uk d.howard@heythrop.ac.uk a.abram@heythrop.ac.uk j.sweeney@heythrop.ac.uk l.caruana@heythrop.ac.uk m.lacewing@heythrop.ac.uk p.rout@heythrop.ac.uk r.blass@heythrop.ac.uk m.barnes@heythrop.ac.uk m.lacewing@heythrop.ac.uk

www.heythrop.ac.uk f facebook.com/HeythropCollege t @HeythropCollege

admissionspg@heythrop.ac.uk 020 7795 6600