[THIS] Magazine

THE HEYTHROP LION PRESENTS

[THIS] WINTER TERM, 2015

03 EMPOWERED WOMEN

05 THE ABATTOIR

14 TRAVEL FEATURE

25

31

THE VOICE: A SHORT STORY

REVIEWS

39 RECIPES

41 A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

Editors-in-Chief Megan Skingsley Katherine Johnson Managing Editor Katie Milne News Editor Jenny Moran Web Editor Terrence Sibley Editors-at-Large Ben Mercer Catherine Squibb Oscar Yuill

HELLO! W

elcome to the first ever issue of [THIS]! Yes, you are correct, the Lion Team are now printing magazines (the normal newspapers will still be printed online). We are very excited about [THIS] and we hope that you will be as well. So go grab a cuppa and enjoy the variety of articles (look to the page on your left if you don’ t believe me) and the awesome job that the design team have done - can I just point out that this font is my actual handwriting - yes that’s how good your fellow students are.. Enjoy!

Megan Skingsley, Editor-in-Chief

To get involved with the next issue of [this], email your queries, articles, comments and complaints to thelion@heythrop.ac.uk or check out our social media facebook.com/theheythroplion theheythroplion.co.uk

MONIQUE REICHBERGER Undergraduate

HOW EMPOWERED WOMEN ARE SHAPING THE GLOBE: THE UNTOLD STORIES

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he Women in the World conference (WITW) held in Sloane Square by the New York Times and Tina brown, of which I was a delegate, attracted a lot of media attention due to the attendance of big names such as Nicole Kidman and Cara Delevingne. However, for this reason it also attracted a lot of

Malala Yousafzai by DFID

criticism as the point of the event was somewhat missed. Telling the stories of empowered women around the world and what they are doing to lift up others is the aim of the charity WITW, however the media coverage of the event solely focused on the celebrity hype and who was wearing what. Every ‘sum up’ quote mentioned in The Daily Telegraph was from a western woman. When the parents of Malala Yousafzai came to the stage following Cara Delevingne’s interview people began to leave, disinterested. Malala is only a survivor of a Taliban shooting and a global pioneer for the education of women... she’s never even modelled for Chanel!

Therefore I would like to tell you some of the stories that didn’t make it from this stage into the papers.

03

The story of: Leymah Gbowee from Liberia, a peace

activist, winner of the Nobel peace prize in 2011 and a woman with a great sense of humour. She, along with a huge group of women which started with just two and ended in thousands, protested and campaigned for the end of the second civil war in Liberia. They ousted Charles Taylor, persuading him to end the war and form a peace deal by standing in the road leading to the presidential palace, forcing the politicians to pass these women everyday. Eventually the women were threatened with arrest, it was then that Leymah showed her true courage and ingenious quick thinking. She described this moment at the WITW conference saying “[we said ok we’ll strip naked then]” to the shock of the audience. They were protesting against the endless rape and abuse of women which came with the ongoing conflict and they offered this as their weapon.

She explained further that at this point they had nothing to lose; they had lost so much of their dignity that, if anything, this was a way to reclaim the last of it. What courage.

But there was actually more to it that this as this was a very clever tactic. In a number of African cultures a woman stripping naked is considered a curse and wards off evil, (Anásyrma), “[as women give life so they can take it away, men

who are exposed to it are considered dead]” says Leymah, “[so, they ran, they ran back into parliament, so we chased them.]”. The group blocked the entrance to the presidential palace demanding a peace deal there and then, some of the politicians were so afraid of them that they tried to leap out the back windows. Staging a sit in, Leymah and her team stood strong and a peace deal was negotiated in 2003, after 14 years of war.

The story of: Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe A nun of the

Sisters of the Sacred Heart order, from Paidha, Uganda, who founded St Monica Girls’ Tailoring Centre in Gulu, Uganda. She has just been awarded a honorary doctorate of humane letters by Duquesne University and been put on Time’s 100 most influential people list. Sister Rosemary takes care of 500 young people at St Monica’s currently, but has helped over two thousand girls who were victims of sexual violence, torture, and abduction from the Lord’s resistance army, led by Joseph Kony (you may be familiar with the name due to a huge social media campaign in 2012 against him). Her story began when, during the war, girls in their hundreds that had escaped from Kony’s army would turn up at the village, lost and very hurt both mentally and physically, having endured forced marriages, rape, and often coerced into murdering their loved ones and friends. They were rejected by the community for being unclean and useless. Sister Rosemary just “[loved and accepted them]”.

It was as simple as that. She took everyone in, treating their scars with love and grace; she spoke of

this saying “[I’m not a therapist, a doctor or a counsellor, there’s only one thing I could do: love them.]”

Her humility and joy was the thing that struck me the most. She also brought two of the girls with her to the conference, Polline Akello and Agnes Igoye - both now work in the charity and politics sector and are shining beacons of hope, filled with the same joy Sr. Rosemary bursts with. They have seen unimaginable things, but the road to healing is made so simple yet so powerful by Sr. Rosemary. Polline, after speaking of her journey says; “[I chose to forgive [the henchman that abducted her]]”. But the story gets better.

As more and more girls turned up at Sr. Rosemary’s doorstep she knew something more sustainable would need to be done. She knew that for the girls to be re-accepted into the community they would be valued by what they can do: so she taught them to sew, thus founding St Monica Girls’ Tailoring Centre. Her method of rehabilitation she calls ‘trash to treasure’ - as she says this she gestures to the two girls next to her; “[see what precious treasures these girls are now,]” it’s such a testament to the power of love, as they are both now global advocates for the well-being and empowerment of women. So that’s exactly what her business does; they make beautiful handbags out of ring pulls from drink cans. Using trash to make treasures which are then sold to their international market funds Sr. Rosemary’s work and gives the girls a huge sense of pride and purpose. Being a part of the business and learning a vocational skill increases the girls’ profile and respect within their communities. Selling the products online and abroad also raises awareness about the effect of ongoing conflict on the lives of children and in particular girls, and promotes Sr. Rosemary’s successful method of

trash to treasure rehabilitation.

You can buy one of the bags here: www.sewinghope.com/ collections/handbags

The story of: Margaret Aderi n-Pocock research fellow at

UCL, a leading space scientist, and CEO and founder of Science Innovation Ltd. She is described with as having an infectious enthusiasm.

After battling dyslexia and transfers between 13 different schools as a child to get to this point, she really is formidable. Her career began after completing her degree in Physics and earning a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College, London. Using both these skills she produced satellites and telescopes, has worked for the Ministry of Defence and is now a space scientist and science communicator.

When Maggie took to the stage she seemed different to the other CEOs sitting around her; she had a quiet confidence but once she began to speak her power was evident. She is a champion for young girls and women in STEM subjects, speaking at schools across the country and on both TV and radio. Just hearing her speak lifts your spirit and empowers you right where you’re sitting regardless of whether you’re studying or working in humanities or STEM. Her enthusiasm and passion really is infectious. Her dream is still to get into space and

to encourage and inspire inner-city kids like herself to aim for the stars both literally and metaphorically, promoting careers especially in physics and space. She commented that it was tough for her to find people to recruit for these areas when she was involved in management as a lot of graduates are unaware jobs here exist. She also turned the conversation towards women in engineering more specifically, as a powerful means for the development and empowerment of women especially across the third world, simply stating “[women are the best people to design things for women,]”. With the recent rise of innovative designs by women, many lives have been improved.

For example: Jane Chen’s design of ‘Embrace: baby warmers’ as a replacement for hospital incubators; Zubaida Bai who designed ‘Ayzh: sterile birthing kits’, and Megan White-Mukuria who has designed low-cost sanitary pads to enable young girls in Kenya to stay in school, to name a few! Part of Margaret’s vision is that solutions for the safety and wellbeing of women globally can be sought

Margaret Aderin-Pocock

by IOP

much faster when girls are encouraged to get into STEM subjects.

BEN MERCER Editor-at-Large

THE ABATTOIR “SILENCE IS THE FACE OF EVIL” meanour; a Pope more in touch with modern Catholics; a Pope who might finally depart from the Church’s long and proud history of intolerance in favour of something nice; something more liberal.

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ad for gays, women, Trans issues, contraception, the poor, children, abortion rights, science, Native Americans, truth, morals, decency, common sense.

Some of us were never obliged or in the least bit inclined to grant Joseph Ratzinger, upon his promotion and assumption of the title of Pope Benedict XVI, a grace period.

It was, prima facie, a disastrous move, both morally and pragmatically. With a more-than-passing resemblance to Emperor Palpatine, this was (and, regrettably, still is) a man whose record whilst occupying a place on the mortal coil was far from unblemished.

05

Mr. Ratzinger’s membership of the Hitler Youth is interesting - if only because his proximity and apparent indifference to anti-Semitic violence in his hometown - to the resistance movement in Germany and to the local concen-

tration camp might not be considered the most holy and unspoilt of qualifications for a future pontiff.

During a two-decade stint at the Vatican as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and so in charge of the Church’s internal response to issues including the rape and torture of children, Ratzinger presided over a thorough and intensive programme of subterfuge and cover-ups, during which whistle-blowers were threatened with punishment whilst the offenders were quietly moved from parish to parish.

This unseemly and criminal record, and the exposure of it, defined Ratzinger’s tenure.

Little wonder that his replacement, the apparently pleasant and affable Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was met with such joy. Here at last was a Pope with a kindly de-

And yet the image that, to my mind, best sums up the truth of the matter is that of the lunch shared by Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict, held shortly after the former’s accession. They were dressed in almost exactly the same robes, as though just unpacked from a two-for-one papal identikit, and I remember thinking – I’d have been willing to place money on it – that, far from being the liberal revolutionary so many were so quick to hail, Francis would soon show himself to be the embodiment of a re-branding exercise; different in tone, no different in substance.

It should perhaps have been a sign of the limits of the promised change that, after finishing their luncheon, Pope Francis stood before the cameras and claimed his disgraced and disgraceful predecessor as his ‘brother.’ Now, I don’t know about you, reader, but I think I’d have been rather more keen to distance myself from a man, even from a real brother, who’d been guilty of such perverse and disgusting conceit as Mr. Ratzinger.

Bergoglio has thus far done nothing beyond populism to redeem

himself. In fact, where one can get a glimpse behind the arse-lit façade put up by his lieutenants and his supporters, things tend to get somewhat worse for this supposed moderate; this anointed reformer.

No one with even a passing knowledge of the Dirty War in Argentina, which took place whilst Mr. Bergoglio was one of the capital city’s chief religious figures, should require much by way of elaboration when it comes to the horrific crimes committed by the military junta during the period. The murders, the tortures, the kidnappings and ‘disappearances’, the anti-Semitic pogroms.

What is generally less wellknown is the level of complicity – institutional in nature – of the Catholic Church, which occasionally debased itself by its silence but was more frequently to be found in cahoots with the junta.

And Bergoglio has already been found to have lied or concealed the truth on more than one occasion where his actions and relationship with General Videla’s torturocracy are concerned. The most detailed account of the current Pope’s involvement with dirty dealings during the Dirty War is to be found in The Silence, a book by the Argentine investigative journalist, Horacio Verbitsky.

Verbitsky cites the case of Fr. Orlando Yorio and Fr. Francisco Jalics, two left-wing Jesuit priests opposed to the junta and from whom, it is alleged, the Church withdrew protection in order that they could be abducted by thugs in the pay of Videla and his secret police.

They joined the ranks of the desaparecidos; the thousands ‘disappeared’ by the military government, many of whom ended up in the naval base-come-torture camp ESMA, under the supervision of the vile Admiral Emilio Massera, of whose political aspi-

rations current pontiff was said to be a supporter. (And possibly, like so many senior clergymen at the time, a regular tennis partner.)

Yorio was tortured for five months and, though it has always been denied by the new Pope’s representatives, he maintained until his death that Bergoglio was responsible for, in effect, selling him out to the military police.

Mr. Bergoglio did not deign to offer an explanation for anything before a court until 2010, a decade after Yorio’s death, and having twice before invoked legal privilege to avoid having to give testimony on events that took place during the Dirty War. When he did offer an explanation, it was evasive. “There [are] no documents in the episcopal archive relating to the disappeared.”

Not true, says Verbitsky, who writes: “But the priest who succeeded him, José Arancedo, sent Judge Martina Forns a copy of the record of a meeting between military dictator Jorge Videla and Bishops Raúl Primatesta, Juan Aramburu, and Vicente Zazpe in which they speak with extraordinary frankness about whether or not to say that the disappeared have been executed.”

The courts also produced another indicator of Mr. Bergoglio’s questionable relationship with the truth, he having once claimed to have been unaware of the chicos apropiados until after the downfall of the regime. The chicos apropriados are the children of those who had been ‘disappeared’, many of whom have still not been accounted for. It is likely that we will never know how many there were (conservative estimates top 30,000) and how many are still alive. Regardless, Verbitsky writes that the courts “received documents indicating that in 1979 Bergoglio was well aware of the practice and intervened in at least one case.”

Granted, none of the above is proof of active wrongdoing on the part of

the Pope. But silence in the face of evil, and even the vocal approval of the actions and beliefs of its agents (such as Massera) is, at the very least, passive wrongdoing. Inaction is an action and silence speaks.

“He’s the man to cover up the rot.

He’s the expert at cover-ups,” said Yurio’s sister, Graciela. And Pope Francis’ uncanny ability to have large sections of the press and public accept him without interest in let alone critique of his past, and to euphorically distort even his most mundane and empty comments, speaks to the continuing veracity of her conclusion.

He is a man of at least two faces and an expert in doublespeak.

He knows his audience and plays their favourite tune, all the while disguising the fact that he is, in fact, a theological conservative with views that differ in no meaningful respect from those of his rightly unpopular predecessor.

It’s a useful game to play: name a single policy or cause championed

by Ratzinger and ask yourself what Bergoglio has done to change it.

His tone is only tempered when he speaks to the mainstream press; when he’s preaching to those not converted. Homosexuality? To the wider world he says “Who am I to judge?” And this is regarded as a momentous shift!

Meanwhile, to those in his confidence, and behind closed doors, he expresses the same disgust as his deposed brother. Same-sex marriage is “an anti-value and anthropological regression” which offends nature and contravenes God’s plan.

He’s lobbied against its legalisation almost everywhere from Argentina to Malta. The ‘gay lobby’ in the Vatican is to be lamented; mentioned in the same breath as ‘corruption’ and things ‘unholy’. The idea of gay couples being allowed to adopt is ‘abhorrent’; it harms the ‘human rights’ of the child. He has effectively endorsed, by his meeting

with the mad bigot Kim Davis and his speech before congress during his visit to the U.S., the contravention of national law – of the constitution of the United States, in this case – by ‘personal conscience’, branding Ms. Davis’ refusal to do her job as a legitimate form of conscientious objection. And France is now without an ambassador to Vatican City after its nominee, the openly gay Laurent Stefanini, was rejected by Vatican authorities, reportedly with the direct involvement of this moderate reformer, this nice and liberal redeemer.

And what about children - those whose human rights the Pope is so keen to defend against evil homosexuals? Well, the Vatican continues to do all it can to avoid making its priests and ministers accountable to the law. Whilst it can devote time to pen bilious replies to criticism of its recalcitrance by the United Nations (again suggesting that homosexuals are largely to blame for skewing the relevant reports), the Holy See has been somewhat slower to respond to accusations, not least those made in an investigative report for GlobalPost, that an astonishing number of priests from Europe and the United States – including several who had previously admitted to having raped children – have been relocated to parishes in less developed countries, most often in South America; the continent Pope Francis has been so keen to champion since taking office. Meanwhile, the likes of onetime Cardinal Bernard Law are being allowed, as with Pope Emeritus Benedict, to live out comfortable retirements in opulent palaces like the Palazzo della Cancelleria when they should instead be admiring the Italian scenery through prison bars.

And, whilst Pope Francis is all too 07

keen to prearrange supposedly spontaneous meetings with the children of the cities he tours, he remains silent on the thousands rounded up and placed in detention centres in order that his visits to countries like the Philippines not be marred by the unseemly presence of the poor and the destitute.

Not that this is the only example of Pope Francis failing to match rhetoric and action with regards to the poor. Whilst hugely popular amongst Catholics in the United States, his decision to make a saint of the brutish 18th century missionary Junipero Serro has caused great offense to the Native American population; descendants of those whom Serro systematically abused.

Indeed, if any act can be said to sum up a philosophy, Pope Francis’s decision to canonize a man to whom physical conditions and integrity mattered as nought next to the false promises of the spiritual is reflective of the hypocrisy of his ethic.

Women, especially poor women, find that their standing has not changed, either. Whilst Pope Francis has been lauded for his pronouncements on climate change and the folly of unchecked capitalism (things that his predecessor also said and said just as well), the current pontiff, like the last, will rarely miss an opportunity to include in his statements an attack on abortion rights; as though abortion, even in the case of rape, is morally equivalent to the climate catastrophe!

And as though what the poor really need are more mouths to feed!

This claim and others like it are ‘supported’ by fatuous and factually incorrect appeals to science; to the idea, for example, that the very presence of DNA within an embryo ‘proves’ that said embryo is a person.

Francis is not the first Pope to attempt to overlap the magisteria.

Benedict XVI and Pius XII made an attempt at the same hopeless game with evolution and the Big Bang, respectively. But that simply adds to the argument that, contra to popular perception and in spite of the enormous amount of credulous goodwill, there is no substantive difference between Francis and his predecessors.

And this really is the crux of the matter. Nobody should be surprised that the head of the Catholic Church is a flawed, fallible mammal, or that he has the morals of a villain and the appearance of a neutered blobfish, or that he and the church remain opposed to common sense and tolerance, decency and reason and modernity.

What is surprising is that so many people have been moved to forget the fact; that they’ve been won over for the small price of a warm smile and a façade of benevolence and kindness. Are we really so desperate to restore the Catholic Church to a position – that great protector of virtue and morality – that it only ever occupied in myth and propaganda that we will fall for any blossom-scented old fart they offer? Are we really so uncritical as to accept him without question?

The fawning is undignified and the faith misplaced. This Pope is not the messiah. He might well be a very naughty boy. And he is certainly no better than his predecessors.

MONICA ACHIENG-OGOLA

MY PHILOSOPHY

Comment Correspondent

My Philosophy is a chance for me to talk to Founders, CEOs and industry leaders about what has been their philosophy in life and work. It’s a chance to hear about what they would consider their fundamental values, how they are innovating with those values and some of the long-term factors being taken into account moving forward. This month I ask Roland Harwood, co-founder of 100% Open, the leading global innovation agency that works with the likes of Proctor and Gamble, Interface, Virgin Atlantic, Oracle, Oxfam, and Governments around the world to co-innovate with their partners. 100% Open began as a spin out of Nesta in 2010, the UK Innovation Agency and Investment Fund, where Roland was Director of Open Innovation. The vision was simple: to enable enterprises to realise fast and significant return on investment by making partners out of suppliers, customers or clients. 100% Open work to make this happen by connecting brands with new people and fresh opportunities to create a genuine partnership in which the risks and rewards of innovation are shared.

VALUES M: What are the core values of 100% Open?

R: The core values of 100% Open are openness, transparency, doing well through sharing, seeing the value of networks, being connected and connections.

Roland Harwood, Co-Founder 100% OPEN “Ideas are Worthless” Name: Roland Harwood Age: 41

Education:

Exec Ed, Leadership, Harvard Business School, (2008)

PHD Electrical Engineering, University of Manchester (1997-2000) Work:

Apps for Good, Apps for Good Expert (2012-Present) IPPR, New Era Economics Panellist (2011-Present) Union Network, Co-Founder (2009-Present) 100% Open, Co-Founder (2010-Present)

The world has become increasingly connected and it has fundamentally changed the way organisations operate and the way that people behave. We try to be a neutral broker and facilitator of innovation opportunities and information between companies, governments, charities and non-profit organisations.

We help people to think differently, to be more open minded, to cast the net more widely and look further afield for opportunities. We are creating a valuable channel and space for organisations to save money, make money and to create other kinds of social value.

I think the most important thing is a safe space to try new things. When I was at University 20 years ago, it was possible to do a degree because you love the subject; you never had to think too hard about what you are doing for career aspirations. These days it is difficult to do, because of student loans and the pressures on young people, the cost of housing and the rest of it forces one to be less exploratory and if you can’t do that when you are learning then when can you do it. I think we need a safe space to experiment as individuals, as a country and organisations within it.

M: Do you think innovation needs to be driven by the private sector?

R: Innovation does not need to be driven by the private sector, innovation can come from anywhere and can be led from anywhere; be it large companies, small companies, public sector, the private sector, creative or technical. There has been a democratisation of in-

novation because of the internet, a lot of innovation is led by companies and traditionally governments are slower and more risk averse, but that is not always the case as there is a lot of excitement around open data.

R: If you define technology as doing more with less or a tool to help us do more with less, I think technology is manifestations of our curiosity as a race; to do new things, learn new things and do things better. Technology is a by-product of that curiosity and it has changed the world in so many different ways. Within 25 years, since the internet was invented it has linked up the planet in a way that simply wasn’t before, and we are only beginning to scratch the surface of what that really means, especially in regards to business and innovation.

It is largely governments sharing data of which they hold on Citizens within their countries, with the idea of other people developing interesting and new innovative products and services. Governments are leading commercial companies; they are ahead of the game which is rare. There is a lack of creativity within the government; the public sector buy pro- There are many smart people all around the world cure services through issuing a brief getting quotes that may have some information or answers to some in response to the brief and then assess it according questions but until recently it has not been very easy to some rigorous criteria. They do that because they or possible to find those people or engage them. What want to be fair and give an opportunity to everybody has changed in the last decade largely is through the because they are spending taxpayer’s money and they advent of social networks not only is it possible to find are accountable to the taxpayer. In a weird way, they those people wherever they may be in the world; it get worse value for money by doing it that way than is increasingly necessary for businesses that want to perhaps companies who have the abilbe competitive. To be successful they ity to act quickly and spend less mon- “A SAFE SPACE FOR now need to tap into the best ideas ey based on instinct or what they feel DIFFERENT GROUPS and people, wherever they are on the is the right thing to do. The way that The internet has allowed that, OF PEOPLE TO COME planet. government is structured has meant and that requires a very outward lookTOGETHER” that it has become dehumanised with ing network approach to business and too much consensus and so decisions do not get made. this applies to Charities and Governments. The world Nobody wants to take responsibility for many things, is only changed when ideas are converted into actions especially if there is risk involved or something might of some form, whether it is through business (making go wrong. In innovation not everything will work money) or a Charity (doing good in the world). In a and so there is potential for blame culture. There are networked world I think that it is less about our cremany things that are good in government, such as ative and innovative ability, and more about our need transparency, openness and fairness but the way that to make connections and building connections. In the they have been implemented tends to have the oppo- 21st Century, the challenge of innovation isn’t about site effect, with it being less transparent and less fair. coming up with new solutions; it’s about finding existGovernments are changing and will need to change ing solutions in unexpected places. The art of a good inbut they are only just starting out on that journey. novator is about somehow being a good detective with great social or relationship skills to build partnerships There is potential for innovation in any sector, hous- once you have found the solution. Those that can take ing is such a huge problem in this country, it is ex- advantage of it are networked people or networked tremely expensive, poor quality and there is not organisations with good empathy and social skills to enough of it. Following working for Nesta, I think make the most of the networks that they are part of. that there is a shift from a competitive mindset to a collaborative mindset. The companies that are the In terms of who owns the output, ownership is inbest at collaborating will be the ones that win. Com- creasingly a thorny subject. I think the world of intelpanies like 100% Open persuade other people to try lectual property is going to have to change this cena more open and collaborative approach, by open- tury, to some extent ideas are worthless and there ing up a safe space for different groups of people to as so many of them therefore trying to protect an come together and then facilitate a conversation and idea is pointless. On the other hand, everyone needs a process where they can work together. I think that to make a living and need to have some recompense the world needs brokers and facilitators, not neces- for their contribution to a solution. In terms of who sarily of language but of culture and different ways owns and benefits from a solution, I think the modof seeing the world; 100% Open is part of that trend. el and ownership structure are very much up for grabs and I don’t think we have all the answers to that yet. Everybody has access to coding software INNOVATION anybody can benefit and anyone can build on it.

M: How do we think we can take advantage of global knowledge, technology and expertise to solve vast problems?

M: There has been discussion about the ethics of innovation in relation to data mining. Do you think we are more likely to renounce our privacy in the name of innovation? Do you think that we need an ethical code of practice?

R: Personal privacy is extremely important and I think that it is up to us as an individual to decide what we want to share. There is a huge lack of understanding on behalf of the whole population about free services like Facebook and Twitter. What it actually means is you are getting a free service, a social network and an ability to chat with your friends but then your personal data is being sold to advertising or possibly other services; people should be able to choose what they share about themselves.

Organisational transparency ought to be the default so organisations must be open and individuals should be closed by default. Google has a famous saying called “don’t be evil”; they possibly have more information about individuals than almost any organisation on earth. I think that it is helpful if we have ethics in our practice; not ethics where we are given permission by ticking terms and conditions that they have not even read. We are living in an interesting time where the nature of privacy is really changing and we need to debate far more than we do now and it is still very early days in this debate. It is very difficult for companies to run away from their reputations now, so if you have a good reputation for being an honest and upright individual or organisation; or a bad reputation for being an organisation that is fast and loose and not a reputable member of society because we live in a connected world and our reputations are the primary currency of how we are able to get stuff done; our reputation is there for all to see; it is very difficult to build trust but very easy to erode it. I hope the connections and the transparency that is happen through the web are forcing us as individuals and organisations to be more reasonable because everything we do is out in the open but there are potential downsides to that same scenario. I hope that makes us better citizens as there is nowhere to hide anymore.

THE LONG-TERM M: What do you think are the dangers of disruption when dealing with vulnerable populations’ lives such as tech, disruption etc.? How do we account for the potentially destructive results of innovations five or ten years from now without compromising the sort of risk-taking that is essential to the creative process?

R: There are dangers of disruption when dealing with vulnerable people. We often talk about open innovation as being all about shared risk and shared reward which constitutes risk as being a big company or the government; it is very different to what constitutes risk for a vulnerable person such

as losing their home or health risks. The rewards of any collaboration should be balanced as they are almost certainly very different on both sides.

We need different metrics depending on who we are working with, there are huge dangers and we need to be careful but that doesn’t mean we should shy away from it. The most vulnerable people within society are those that need the most help or have some of the most intractable problems to solve. Innovation is needed but we also need to be sensitive, on a micro level I am a big fan of prototyping, testing what you are doing every step along the way; learning from testing with real people, real customers, real citizens and learning from those experiments and increasing the sophistication and technology. That way you can hopefully spot the potentially negative results and then design them out of the process. Too many large organisations and governments build the big `white elephant’, a big building or a big solution that could potentially have disruptive results. We start small, test all the time and query more organically for purpose than something that is designed full scale and then built from scratch without that prototyping approach.

I think you could argue that the atomic bomb was at one level an incredible innovation of technology and a radically new way of killing people; on one level it stopped the World War and started the Cold War. At the biggest level, we need business and governments to be held to account if they are doing things that are disruptive on a small level or wider scale. We need to mobilize our own power as people to hold the institutions to account and minimize the negative impact that can come from innovation. Prototyping, testing, sharing and being transparent about what you are doing throughout is what we would advocate, which works for us.

M: What has been your biggest personal achievement? Have there been any challenges?

R: The products and services that we have helped create - we have created a carpet made of recycled fishing nets for a company called Interface; a new entertainment service for a mobile company called EE; a new mobile app for Oxfam where people give different amounts to charities each month depending on how much they can afford; and a waterless washing machines for Proctor and Gamble, to name a few.

To have grown 100% Open is a major achievement, to hold onto our values; grow them and affect and influence people along the way. We have been going for 5 years and I think we are a mission-driven organisation, our goal is to make enough money but we have been able to realise our vision and stay true to it and our values.

Every day there are lots of challenges from very practical to philosophical but as Roland Harwood one of my big achievements is my 3 children, they are lovely kids and I am very proud of them.

ADIB AMINPOUR Political Correspondent

RUSSIA'S MOVES IN SYRIA MIGHT BENEFIT THE WEST I

n a dramatic escalation in late September, Moscow joined the brutal civil war in Syria, further internationalizing the conflict that has claimed the lives of at least 300,000 people.

The Kremlin began its campaign with the pretext of fighting ISIS, the extremist militant group that has taken over large swaths of Syria and neighboring Iraq. The Russians have conducted more than 100 airstrikes on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s sole remaining ally in the Middle East since Anwar Sadat kicked the Soviets from Egypt in 1972.

On September 30, Russian jets began targeting areas around the cities of Hama and Homs, as well as Latakia province in western Syria; ISIS has little or no presence in these areas. On October 6 a Russian military source claimed that 3,000 ‘terrorists’ had fled Syria. Some ISIS militants and bases in Raqqa and Aleppo outskirts have also been struck. The Russian Navy has also reportedly launched 3M-14T Kalibr NK cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea.

Moscow maintains that it is fighting ‘terrorists’, a term it uses to describe groups that seek to oust Assad.

Western officials accuse Moscow of conducting asymmetric warfare in an attempt to prop up Assad, as most airstrikes seem to be aimed at mainstream opposition groups, including the western-backed Free Syrian Army. The head of the Liwa Suqour al-Jabal, a rebel group that received military training from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, told Reuters that his training camp in Idlib province was struck by around 20 missiles in two separate

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attacks. According to French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, ‘80%-90%’ of Russian airstrikes were aimed at propping up Assad.

Western allegations that Russia is targeting Syrian rebels rather than ISIS thus seem plausible, as various sources have also confirmed that hundreds of Iranian troops, joined by militants from the Lebanese terrorist group, Hezbollah, are now taking part in a major ground offensive, backed

by Russia’s air power, in an attempt to recapture territory lost to rebels during the past 4 years.

But Russia’s intervention has also resulted in a show of unity among normally fragmented opposition groups. 41 different rebel groups, including powerful factions such as Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, and the Levant Front, released a joint statement in early October claiming that the ‘new reality’ of the Russian intervention requires widespread cooperation between the various rebel groups against the Russian ‘occupiers’. This is a big development because a divided opposition has been one of the biggest obstacles to a military as well as a political solution to the conflict. The Obama Administration has tried to bypass this problem by running its own $500 million program with the aim to train and equip 5,400 opposition fighters; however it emerged last month that only 4 or 5 of these fighters remain active in Syria. Any cooperation between the various opposition groups will thus be a game-changer for western powers seeking to oust the Assad regime.

The Russian-led offensive is also putting Iranian revolutionary guards as well as Hezbollah militias on the front line of battles, causing

casualties among their ranks. Iranian Brig. General Hossein Hamedani was recently killed outside Aleppo, Syria, in what the U.S. describes as a ‘psychological blow’ to groups fighting on behalf of Bashar al-Assad. Former CIA officer Reuel Marc Gerecht commented: “He was in charge of Iranian operations inside Syria and was involved in this from A to Z”. A week following Hamedani’s death, Major General Farshad Hasounizadeh and Brigadier Hamid Mokhtarband, commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), were also killed.

Two top Hezbollah commanders have also been killed in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, as well as Hasan Husain al-Haj, one of the group’s most prominent figures. Hezbollah has already lost 1,400 fighters throughout the war, where it has mostly been on the defensive in towns bordering Lebanon. The Russian-led offensive will likely lead to further strains on Iran and its militias, which is a big bonus for Western forces against the Assad regime.

The fact of the matter is that Russia will most likely end up having to fight ISIS anyway to prevent it from reaching their borders. As Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said in an interview with CNN: “You have Russia that’s now there… Russia wants to get rid of ISIS as much as we do… let Russia fight ISIS”. Indeed, Russian authorities recently foiled an attempt, by terrorists linked to Islamic State, to attack Moscow’s public transportation system. The best outcome for the West would be to have the Russians and ISIS fighting it out with each other - a scenario more likely to happen than not.

TERRY SIBLEY Web Editor

MYSTICISM

I

n the last decade or so, with the advent of popular science, there has been a general (misguided) demand laid upon religion to back up its claims with empirical evidence, or, at the very least, logical reasoning. It comes as little surprise that the authentically religious are largely unfazed by such demands.

The central claim (for lack of a better word) of religion is to a deeper understanding about the truth of the world into what is then called God, Brahman, Allah, etc. Ironically enough for such people there is nothing more empirical than this reality that has been experienced.

This understanding, the mystical experience, presents itself upon you virgin-born (that is, without the effort of man) both of God and of man. It is what is elsewhere referred to as enlightenment, satori and divine grace, and has been described by many people as an experience of the cosmic consciousness.

It is a state wherein reality and the sense of life becomes absolutely clear, and the superficial antagonisms of life and death, good and evil, I and other, are realised as poles of a single harmonious energy. God is all there is, and all there is, is God. The story of Jesus, the gift of the Incarnation, implied and fulfilled itself in this experience. To quote St Althanasius: ‘God became man that man might become God’.

This fundamental understanding, in an inevitably inadequate

and clumsy way, is what we really point at when we talk about God. A true religious person, everyone knows, will see God everywhere, even within. As Meister Eckhart put it: ‘The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me’. It becomes clear, thereafter, that the whole point of religious practise and literature is to help people get to this experience and make sense of it, and in Christianity in particular to experience union with God in the same way and to the same degree as Jesus himself. We are all of God.

It is essential here to debunk a certain popularised view of God as a monarchical figure, caricatured as an old man sitting in a cloud ordering the universe about. This view taken seriously, I would contend, is fundamentally idolatrous, and can no longer be taken seriously in the 21st century. It is no longer plausible to the scientifically minded (for obvious reasons) nor the religiously minded, for it does not do justice to the nature of the mystical experience which all religious people have undergone, even though many have not fully come to terms with it. All religion is necessarily mystical at its root, but it is often forgotten. As the religion of Buddha became the religion about Buddha, and the religion of Jesus became the religion about Jesus, there came a great scramble to

latch the practises and literature of religion onto something more concrete. Is there any argument more ridiculously disingenuous as the Ontological Argument? Who is the argument even for? It is patently absurd to all non-believers, and completely unnecessary for all believers. Such idolatry as conceptualising God himself would have been deemed heretical had the Church’s monopoly on knowledge not been threatened by the emerging field of science. What religion points to is the Truth - beyond our conception but not beyond our grasp. The great failure of popular science is to shorten humanity’s reach to only what we can conceptualise. Religion points to a place beyond our conceptualisation, a reality prior to the representation and categorisation of phenomena that we call language, using the only tool that we have to communicate: language. The value of the mystical experience, if anywhere, lies in its ability to make the word seem worthwhile by returning to us a childlike sense of wonder, saving us from the nihilistic vision of the future that Nietzsche prophesied. In a society that seems to be getting more and more shallow, as popular science focuses on an ever-narrower spectrum of acceptable thought, and as popular religion and philosophy becomes less and less relevant, a return to mysticism in religion is necessary.

JACOB & OLLIE From the HSU

HeythropCollege x = independently organized TED event

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 // 5pm - 9pm // Loyola Hall

H

eythrop College is hosting its first TEDx event later this term. With the theme being set as “The Modern World”, it is going to span across a wild variety of topics giving you different insights into the modern world. It is interesting to see what people associate with the modern world, for some it means technology, but for others it ‘s the relationships between people. Others see the modern world as the time for individuality and personal preference. With lots of different opinions floating around the world, this TEDx event is going to try and bring in lots of different

I

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, like m a ny of you, a b stained f r o m taking a gap-year.

I followed the easy, well-trodden path of marching out of school and straight into higher education. I can’t say I particularly regret this decision – I didn’t want to spend another year in a city whose homogeneity was only surpassed in extent by its miniscule size, holding the title ‘city’ rather than ‘town’ in virtue of the cathedral it is famed for. Quite aside from anything else, I was pretty keen to get on and study Philosophy, a subject for which I couldn’t really offer any definition of (and I’m still not

aspects of that and contain it in one night. Not all subjects will be familiar but they will all give you a different sense and perspective of how the world is viewed today.

A full evening of short talks combined with videos of other TED speakers from different events will allow you a glimpse at why the TED project is such an interesting one, with the sharing of knowledge from people who would not always be stood side by side, as well as trying to entertain you by giving you this insight in such a short talk.

Before you come to the night you

should check out some videos on the TED website and see what kind of stuff interests you. There’s hundreds of hours of videos on there completely free to watch.

The event starts at 5pm on the 2nd December in Loyola Hall., with Heythrop students allowed first-pickings of the tickets. This event is also part of the promise from Heythrop’s Student Experience program, where the college is trying to give more back to the students by putting on a variety of interesting events.

today’s your lucky day

sure I can), yet the puzzles of which seemed frankly fun. How is it that utterances have meaning? How should we understand the concept of knowledge? (No seriously, please tell me, I have a dissertation to write…) This being said, I would be lying if I said that, on a miserable day in England with nothing but an ill-informed overly verbose cogitation of some philosopher (bold, given your author’s apparent fear of full stops), I don’t lament the missed opportunities of traversing across poorer regions of the globe attempting to make a small contribution – or perhaps helping with the conservation of some rare species in some tropical paradise.

Imagine my joy then, upon being able to advertise the fact that Heythrop are offering heavy subsidies to students to go and do just this (surprise, it’s an advert!). The

ball is very much in your court; you have complete autonomy to go where you wish, for whatever cause you deem suitable – simply organise your adventure, and then fill in a funding application form (available from the HSU Advice Centre). You will receive up to a thousand pounds, depending on the nature of the volunteering and the expenses incurred. Thousands of pounds have been put aside to allow students like you and I to go forth, armed with but a BA and good intentions, to make a positive impact on the world.

And frankly, if our university experience has taught us anything, let it be the importance of that.

For more information, or to comment on such an offensively convoluted writing style, pop by the HSU Advice Centre or email me at: hsupresident@heythrop.ac.uk

wish you were here...

Our Heythrop bunch is a well-travelled lot. We managed to snag tales of travel throughout Europe and an inside look at Erasmus-living. Check out their stories in our very first feature section: travel!

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K AT I E M I L N E Managing Editor

WANDERLUST: A MODERN AFFLICTION

W

e are all suffering from a perpetual case of Wanderlust

In this day and age it is becoming more and more possible to travel the world. Such an ambition has exploded since air travel started becoming cheaper and accessible to even working class families, giving children a taste for the wonder of distant lands from a young age.

Consequently, people are feeling more and more pressured (whether they are aware of it or not) to go everywhere and see everything.

Bucket lists have transformed from hot air balloon rides and sky-dives

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to a list of holiday destinations, and, with 196 countries in the world, the list can be a long one.

With ever-appearing stories in the media of people quitting their jobs to travel the world, littered with quotes such as ‘I never looked back’, and ‘Having

the time of my life’, sitting around at work all day is understandably a difficult pill to swallow. There is perhaps some consolation in the knowledge that half of these young, Instagram-able pilgrims will end up

scrubbing toilets at their own hostel to afford their next sachet of instant noodles. We find this so amusing because we are jealous that we didn’t have the guts to do such a thing ourselves, and feel smug that it hasn’t gone to plan for them - a grown-up case of ‘if I can’t have it then neither can they.’

However, despite the possibility for disaster, upping sticks to travel the world can be easier than it sounds, depending upon where you go. The cheapest places to visit are those with their own currency, especially destinations in South East Asia where you can stay in major cities and idyllic towns for months and still spend less than your monthly rent in London.

Having said that, setting out on a round-the-world tour with no savings in your pocket will only land you in the ‘cleaning toilets‘ and ‘oh, God, where the hell is the British Embassy’ situations.

A lot of the time the people you see posting photos of their new life in the big wide world neglect

to mention the alternate weeks they spend in an all-inclusive spa courtesy of Mummy and Daddy.

Of course this is by no means everyone, and plenty of people save their hard-earned cash for years to embark on their oncein-a-lifetime trip, and it is most often these people that truly embrace and immerse themselves in the culture they are temporarily joining - isn’t that the real point of leaving your old life behind?

Although living out of a backpack for a year is certainly the most committed way to experience a new country, there are a lot of people for whom this would be a living nightmare (myself included) and who prefer to do their traveling one country at a time.

I prefer cosy hotel rooms, warm showers and clean clothes over hitchhiking and hostel-staying, but each to their own. After all, the former is a lot more expensive and impractical than giving up one’s luxuries for a more ascetic experi-

ence. But I, like many others, am a meticulous planner and I could not experience far away places without hotels and transport booked, and a few restaurants checked out on Trip Advisor. Although I have not explored much of the world yet I am suffering from a chronic case of controlled wanderlust.

With so much to see nowadays and the power of Internet research at our fingertips, it is easy to become distracted by the endless possibilities of different countries and cultures. I know this well, having researched a different country solidly every week for the past year.

However, once I am decided on my first destination I have no doubt that I will soon be exploring the world, one country at a time, along with every other person who wants to. With our modern awareness, it’s almost as though wanderlust is now an innate facet of the human condition. Even if we all end up scrubbing toilets.

PARIS TO HOLLAND:

FAKING IT

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OSCAR YUILL Editor-at-Large

I

did travel in the summer, but, to be honest, I didn’t learn anything very notable. I didn’t return from France and Holland having made some profound observation about the human condition. But I did make some observations. Here you go.

Because students are poor, and I am a student, I went to France with the intention of fooling people into thinking I was rich. I even fooled myself for a bit. Ask my bank. I dressed decently and indulged in three course meals every night for a week. I managed to consume everything I’ve always wanted to consume and I did it with no regards to morality at all: rabbit, boar, snails, frogs and foie gras. I half expected a glazed Romanian from Calais with an apple shoved up his gob, knowing the French.

We started at King’s Cross, St. Pancreas (I travelled with a friend who lives in Soho), and took the new Euro Star service straight down to Marseille, but we didn’t stay there because apparently it’s shite – a sort of Mediterranean Luton. We caught the train to a small town called Bandol, and along the way I befriended a man who thought scoffing an anchovy pizza in 30 degrees would be a good idea. Bandol is famous for having housed some famous writers, including Thomas Mann, and it was actually a rather pleasant little town, if not a bit uneventful. We stayed for one night and moved on to Juan-les-

Pins in the commune of Antibes for a couple of nights, eating and drinking and swimming my way to a protracted hedonistic reverie.

to stab her. I wondered if I should approach him and let him know that, according to the problem of induction, the knife could explode.

On the penultimate night, my friend and I went in search of a gay bar, only to discover a sort of moderately hospitable family pub, so we bought a bottle of red and went down to the beach in the dark and indulged in some philosophy. I think Hume was a particular topic of interest, but it was difficult to hear the flow of conversation over a group of youths who had taken it upon themselves to excrete some tuneless, nauseating ‘musician’ into the air and animate their limbs in epileptic convulsions. And there was also a near-knifing right in front of us.

So far as I could make out, she had cheated on him, and he had found out, and she was denying it, so he thought it might be reasonable

In August I went to Amsterdam for three days with my family. I remembered why I hate a) airports and b) Heathrow when I was told to remove my Doc Martens at customs because I’d forgotten that school shooters wear boots. Upon arrival in Amsterdam I sampled the local cuisine and stuffed a Burger King down my face before we were driven to our apartment.

When we got there the maid was still cleaning. This angered my Mum, and I was a little angry that

And then we arrived in Nice. It was downright gorgeous. The Promenade des Anglais – promenade of the English – was once essentially a pedestrian highway for every rich, white, warmongering English aristocrat of the 19th century, topped off in the middle by the awesome Hotel Negresco, built in 1912. The water was warm, the sun was hot, the people were beautiful and the Old Town, a sprawling favela of ochre, red-roof-tiled 18th century houses, truly gave the impression of having stepped back in time.

On the last night it was the Faite de Nationale – better known as Bastille Day. I won’t lie: I’ve got no idea what it is and I don’t care, but from the scale of the celebrations I gathered it was the French equivalent of July 4th. I ate a meal of lobster and scallops with Bordeaux red, and a dessert of crème brule. Enough fireworks to finance another French invasion exploded in the sky and we all got drunk, at which point I fulfilled another wish of mine, donned a pair of goggles and launched myself into the sea and underwater, whereupon I got scared, pictured a great white coming out of the dark and gnawing on my face, and swam back to shore to the cheers of people who thought I was quite evidently insane, and also English. That was France.

my air bed hadn’t been blown up, but the maid had anticipated this and informed me of the presence of beer in the fridge, with which I promptly self-medicated. It was a decoy, however, because the airbed had a hole in it. I know this because at 3am I woke up with the sensation of having been buried.

The next morning we attempted to visit the Anne Frank Huis (that’s Dutch for ‘house’, by the way). It opened at 9, we arrived at 8:45, and the queue – we were at the back – was five hours long. I’m quite sure Anne Frank didn’t wait that long.

So we left the queue in a public display of weakness and went for a boat ride with a big-bearded fellow who was just like Chris Pratt.

He admitted as much. Actually, he was wearing sunglasses, so he probably was Chris Pratt in disguise. He let me take control of the boat. Both of us were drinking, so I recommended he did no such thing. ‘It’s easy,’ he said. ‘Left is right and right is left. Right?’

I was responsible for the wellbeing of two families and Chris Pratt onboard that noble vessel, and I think I performed my duties rather well – until the third beer, at which point, as the boat was fast approaching what I’d been told was ‘one of the oldest bridges in Amsterdam’, I made the mistake of giving the peace sign to a group of overweight, chain-smoking hippies wearing rainbow shirts.

When I turned round I’d already taken a chunk out of the boat and the bridge and virtually beheaded Chris Pratt on one of the low-hanging rafters. I was relieved of my duties, but a piece of Amsterdam will stay with me from that day.

It’s at the bottom of the Amstel and it probably costs thousands.

We did make it into the Anne Frank House on the final day. I get up at 5am in any case to watch the sun rise, so I was up to greet my family at 6:30. We were outside the House by 7:00, and by 7:15 about 200 people had joined the back of the queue. There’s a reason why: the Anne Frank House is incredible and well worth the wait. The top floor annex above her father, Otto’s, business was where the Franks et al. were hidden for two whole years, only to be betrayed by someone (still unknown) and discovered by the Nazis.

Only Otto survived. Anne and her sister Margot were transported first to Auschwitz and then to Bergen-Belsen, where they died just months before liberation.

Otto published his daughter’s remarkably sophisticated diary and decided that each room in the museum should remain empty, as the Nazis left it, to remind visitors of the temporality of life and the destruction of prejudice, bigotry, racism and ignorance. By the time we had left the museum most of us were rather fragile emotional-

ly. I felt as if I had done something that most people should do at some point in their lives. In fact, if I learnt anything during the holidays, it is that what is most important can be difficult to say, and that Anne Frank nevertheless said it.

The poetry of the day was somewhat ruined by the fact that my sister went missing. We called her and discovered she was on the same canal as us, but about half a thousand houses in the wrong direction. We gave her explicit instructions to walk in the direction of descending house numbers so that we could meet her along the way. An hour later we called her and discovered that we’d passed her by unnoticed and were now a thousand houses away from each other again.

Returning to London was bittersweet. I paid far too much money to get from Heathrow to Paddington. I sampled some armpit on the tube journey back home. A hooded man in a park offered me drugs at nighttime (whose only genuine concern was why I looked scared of him). And those were my travels. Now if you’ll kindly turn to page 30 there are some poems of mine you might like.

Italy.

Five nights on the coast of the heel-y bit. Most of this covers the cost of coffee and pasta. Coffee as in espresso because they serve no other kind (you will not find a Starbucks - as Italian as they claim to be), and pasta as in three meals a day everyday

£399

N Hull.

a

Spend four years in Hull for a price that wont break the bank because there is literally absolutely nothing to do there.

Five stars for boringness. Well done, Hull.

£13

N. Korea.

We accidentally inquired about cheap travel to the wrong Korea so now we have this deal for you.

Everyone who lives there says it’s great and they all mentioned their leader was a top lad.

£495

~

HANNAH MURPHY Undergraduate

ERASMUS

Two students take their university education elsewhere and soak up the culture of Europe. Erasmus affords students the opportunity to see the world and with plenty of different locations across the globe there’s lots of room to spread your wings.

MALTA

G

reetings from Malta, my fellow Heythropians! It is safe to say that living in Malta is like living in some form of parallel universe. As we draw further into November, I still get stunned when the weather report shows up as being 29˚C (definitely going to go into shock mode once I return to the UK at Christmas). Before moving to Malta, I being the worrier that I am, did what seemed like endless Google searches to try and get a full comprehension of the life I was about to embark on. Scrolling through

the countless images of marinas and beaches certainly made me feel better about moving here, but what I wasn’t expecting was for the real thing to be just as impressive.

Whether looking out onto the Maltese waters or the sunset sky, I can definitely call Malta the most beautiful place I have ever been to – let’s just say none of your photos would even need a filter! What Malta lacks in size it more than makes up for in scenery. Yes, you can drive from coast to coast in about forty-five minutes but the sights between

these coasts can be described as nothing less than beautiful. Home to over 365 churches which are at least 200 years old, there is often opportunity to be in awe. One of the more memorable experiences so far has been the one weekend when I spent both days at different beaches. I know a day at the beach may not seem too exhilarating but never before has an idle Saturday so casually turned into the phrase “why don’t we just go to the beach?” - especially in October…

Pushing the exquisite churches and

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golden beaches aside for one minute, the Maltese experience cannot truly be complete until you have experienced the notorious Paceville. Paceville can easily be described as a student’s dream in being a strip of clubs with the beacon of a Burger King; ‘buy one get one free’ drink vouchers being distributed left, right and centre means you’re bound to have one of the best nights you won’t remember.

Life within the University of Malta itself did get off to a rocky start. Organisation isn’t exactly their forte and there did actually reach a point where I almost came home. With all of the additional admin and the uncertainty of quite a few aspects,

my mind often trailed along to the thought of how much easier and more familiar it would be to book a flight and mosey on into the familiar Brinkman room. However, as much as I do love Heythrop I’ve found that persisting on here turned out to be the right decision. Once the paperwork calmed down and the structure of lectures started to kick in, I realised all of the things I would come to miss out on. Being on Erasmus really does verify the concept of ‘learning something new everyday’ – although that isn’t the hardest thing when you share a house with seven other nationalities.

Yes, the entire country is 19 times smaller than London alone and

each day introduces you to an additional mosquito bite, but it is an experience I am truly grateful to be embarking on. Being in constant sunny weather and clear blue skies certainly makes it easy to forget that I am actually here to study.

Malta’s size is nothing to be fooled by, as (so long as you’re not nursing a Paceville hangover) free time can always be turned into an adventure. Being amongst a new culture and lifestyle in addition to having friends from literally all over the world I have come to realise that the Erasmus experience is definitely something which cannot be fully understood or described until lived.

TA S H A H A W L E Y Undergraduate

BELGIUM

M

oving countries has to be up there with one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done: the lack of familiarity, constant confusion over the Dutch language and always having too much beer to choose from in any bar! However, doing it through Erasmus makes it a continuously rewarding experience. Initially I was over whelmed by how beautiful Leuven is, the European squares and neverending flow of bikes; it’s a nice mix between Harrogate and Amsterdam.

But within the first week it began to set in - I’d just up and moved countries! I knew no one. I didn’t know where anything was. My accommodation was only half built and still to this day has no WiFi - Ethernet cable only. Plus the Stella Artois brewery right outside my window let off a rather eggy smell every day at 2pm. There was, without a doubt, a small part of me that questioned what on earth was I doing?

Orientation week started and the first event was a bar crawl. The old market in Leuven is renowned for potentially being the longest bar crawl in Europe (if you make it that far) with over 40 places, some with over 3000 beers to choose from. Belgium is beer capital of the world for a reason! On the Erasmus page two Irish girls were looking for

people to go with so, full disclosure, I was the strange girl that inboxed them (promising not to be a murder) asking if we could meet up and go to the bar crawl together. Thankfully they’re ‘grand’ and after getting to know them, it’s safe to say my Northern accent has emigrated across the water as I too often catch my self sounding like an extra member of The Pogues.

Experiencing different cultures has to be a highlight of my trip so far, it’s such an opportunity. How often can you say you had dinner with a Russian, a Dane, an Irish, a Chinese, a German, a Slovakian and an American?! Learning about their politics and traditions and seeing pictures of their hometowns, you really do get a sense of being completely international. Mind you, being one of the few English does come with it’s novelties; No I have not met the queen, only sometimes do I say ‘bloody hell’ but yes I have brought with me a Costco packet of Yorkshire Tea. No shame.

Belgium is so central many of us are really set on taking advantage of living on the continent; we’ve booked weekends away in Paris, Luxemburg, Rotterdam and Aachen - only to be happy to spend the rest of our week in Leuven. One thing I really love here is the bar culture creating a constant buzz of students, with the majority of

the population in Leuven studying at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven there is always a lively atmosphere in the squares with everyone enjoying cheap beer closely followed by the abundance of Belgium fries. I’ve become far too much a fan of mayonnaise and chips!

With the Christmas season slowly creeping up, the elegantly Flemish buildings have been garnished in fairy lights and the Saturday morning markets have started to sell gingerbread houses and festive chocolate treats. When you’re cycling home wrapped up in your scarf and hat, the bells from the old church ring through the town a rendition of Tchaikovsky or even the Harry Potter themetune and you really feel lucky to be having what feels like an extended holiday! Yet through all the beer and the beauty of lovely little Leuven I’ve not forgotten that I’m only here for a limited amount of time.

I’m so thankful that I plunged into the unknown and took the risk of going solo in a foreign country for a whole year, because I knew that no matter how daunting the idea was, the excitement of all the opportunities and experiences would be worth it.

OSCAR YUILL Editor-at-Large

THE VOICE

D

usk: strange, disturbing, beautiful, undulating, cacophonous noises floating from the open window of a flat above an East London kebab shop.

‘That’s im there, sittin on the step,’ said John. He looked at his new acquaintance with a stupid, toothy, Igor-like grimace and back at the figure on the step.

‘Him?’ Jacob asked. ‘’im…yeah, im.’

‘Odd place for business.’

‘Business?’

‘Oh nothing. Right, cheers,’ he said and brushed past him to cross the street. Like magnets his eyes were transfixed on the disheveled figure on the step, looking down at the packet-strewn pavement with a cigarette, a fag, a smoke, dwindling tendriled from a scissor-protrusion of spindly fingers. ‘Crozier?’ he half stuttered.

The figure looked up. ‘Oui,’ he said and took a puff that obscured his face for a moment before the smoke subsided and revealed two cavernous black eye sockets on a skeletal face.

‘Ah. Umm…parlez vous Anglais?’

Another suck, another billow and then a little smirk below a subtle widening of the nostrils and a rearrangement of the eyebrows. ‘What you want?’

‘Oh, I thought you were French.’

‘No. I’m Crozier.’

‘Good. I was told you deal in…’

Crozier quickly gave a nod and puffed another puff and then stood up. ‘Come on in, mind your step…not the noise.’

‘Who is that?’

‘That right there is a cat.’

‘Oh, no, I meant the music,’ he said as he passed, and tousled, a ginger tabby.

‘Ask Ivan.’

‘Ivan?’

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‘In there,’ Crozier pointed. With an uncomfortable proximity he gave Jacob a brief once over with a pair of bulbous eyes before skulking off to a darkened bedroom.

Jacob felt a little uneasy. The beautifully strange singing—he imaged it was singing—had been replaced by a painful silence as he noiselessly peered into what appeared to be the kitchen, where all sorts of floral scents, mixed with sweat, coffee and something better repressed came wafting towards him. When the door was wide enough open he stopped and stared, for someone was apparently staring back at him from the other side of the room. A smoky silhouette sitting before some slatted blinds letting in strips of milky light, slowly, almost mechanically swannecked a cigarette up to their mouth, took a mute puff and smoothly guided the arm back down again on a pivotal elbow.

‘Well come in.’

Jacob suddenly felt rude; he’d been staring through the darkness looking as if he’d simultaneously ejaculated and been kicked in the balls and with a hint of slit-eyed fascination, like attempting to read a far-off advertisement adorning a suitably banal roundabout. Wordlessly he walked forwards and sat down on a ratty swivel chair.

‘Do you like it?’

‘That flat?’

‘Lord no, the flat’s crap. I mean the chair. I give it to guests because they can swivel and glide round the place and pass me my coffee and my tulips. I do like tulips. Do you like whiskey?’ The stranger spoke with an endearing lisp, and his otherwise impeccable Queen’s English occasionally melted into a near-Australian draaaawl.

‘Not really, thanks…’

‘My name is Ivan.’

‘Right,’ said Jacob, ‘Ivan…Ivan, I was told by the man who

brought me here that you could possibly provide me with what I’m looking for.’ Jacob began to sweat; he’d never had the opportunity to speak to anyone so openly, so ludicrously easily, about the subversive curiosity that had driven him to go searching in the mire for stranger pleasures, deeper crimes, a more interesting conscience and ambiguous moral life.

‘Fetch me a double whiskey from that cabinet over there,’ Ivan said matter-of-factly, and Jacob complied.

With his back turned at the far end of the room, by the door, Jacob clinked and rumbled among a few bottles of gin and vodka before finding the amber restorative at the back.

The cabinet was scarcely darker than the room, and considerably more illuminated than what was going through his mind.

‘No half measures, now,’ Ivan called, ‘and do help yourself. I’ve been inconceivably rude, not getting up and pouring them myself, but you see I must at least pretend to protect my identity.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Jacob, ‘I don’t drink anyway.’

‘Who on earth not?’

‘No reason.’

‘Extraordinary eccentricities require extraordinary reasons.’

‘Not eccentric,’ he said childishly.

‘A past life, then,’ said Ivan.

‘Demons! Demons…well, no matter, we deal in angels here. Unless I have you mistaken for the other gentleman I was expecting this afternoon.

C R O -

ZIER!’––a muffled rattle from the other room, an opening door––‘Crozier, what’s this gentleman’s name?’

Crozier, or rather a black shape in the hallway purporting to be Crozier, said nothing and receded back into his room.

‘Infernal creature,’ Ivan whispered. ‘What’s your name, sir? And don’t lie. I get quite enough of that from my therapist.’

‘Jacob,’ he said, ahemming some phlegm.

‘Jacob. How many do you want?’

‘Well.’ At this point Jacob had grown intensely curious of the figure that gazed back at him grey and dim through the smoky darkness. He could just about perceive a pair of incredibly large eyes; the body, of which he could at least be reasonably sure existed, was bulky: w e l l a c -

quainted with sofas and poufs and armchairs.

‘Well come on then, I’m a busy man.’

Jacob paused, as if in disbelief, and made a point of peering about the dingy flat and the murky yellow wallpaper, the starving flowers and towering piles of

…Fort y ? ’ he said cheerfully, ‘You didn’t imbibe anything back there after all, did you, Jakey?’

‘It’s Jacob. No, I didn’t.’

books.

He was genuinely surprised to notice a black cat curled up on a pink hardcover at the pinnacle of one of these piles. He turned back round to face Ivan, whoever Ivan was.

‘Forty.’

Raspberries: ‘SHPLURRRP!’ A comical squirt of whiskey spewed out of his shadowy mouth and, like a failed rocket, slopped miserably onto his lap. He coughed and spluttered and, finally, ‘A h e m , hmm.

Ah.

‘Jacob,’––he stopped, winced and sighed as the cat, jumping off from upon the books, toppled the whole stack in a spectacularly destructive fashion––‘let me tell you something. When I was a boy I was accused of being purple. I used to write wickedly awful plays and make them as purple and excessive and as flowery as my dazzling vocabulary allowed. I did this for some years until I hit puberty and stopped reading and found myself desperately wanting to be a man. Y’know, Teddy Roosevelt,’ he said like a verbal pat on the shoulder. ‘Of course, the pressups didn’t last long and I was too attached to my hair to be rid of it, but I did travel to the Occident (my mother comes from the Occident, you see–– very exotic). It was rather successful for a while, actually. Found myself a job in a car-parts factory, made a few friends, adopted the ‘lingo’.’ He chuckled and lit another cigarette, the orange ember briefly illuminating two reflective pupils in the dark, before continuing in that languid lilting voice of his. ‘Where was I?’ ‘Forty,’ said Jacob.

‘A h ’ – – he held up a finger that segued black across the slatted light––‘please. So’–– another puff––‘I wanted to be a man, mostly to impress my father, and for the most part I felt like one. I had a manly job and manly friends and, well, I had a pair of testicles. Tell me, Jacob, do you have the misfortune of having a mother with a sister?’

‘You mean an aunt?’

He puffed. ‘Yes, one of those. I have several, and let me tell you, the one I visited in the Occident was a real bitch. I remember, on my first night there, she took particular relish in showing me her air-rifle collection, and she took equal relish in shooting me in the buttocks with it on the day she discovered her husband and myself in the middle of an act of gross indecency. I won’t go into the details, Jacob, but needless to say I felt rather less manly by the time the sun had risen the next morning. With nowhere else to go I found refuge in a Dominican monastery many miles East of Brisbane. The monks were in possession of an alarming volume of bath salts. I am not sure whether a similar passion for essential oils exists among other men of the cloth, but these and other spiritual salves roused me back to my usual spirits, especially when I consider my good fortune that they were Christian and not Buddhist, since Buddhists cannot drink (Crozier claims to be one: ask him), and every Friday evening for three weeks, those Christian heathens and I got, oh, I don’t know–– take your pick: absolutely squiffled, gazeboed, jollied, bottled, sailored, tailored, fucked up, piffled and thricetimes-pounded by the finest Australian lager I’ve ever tasted. They were good nights, those,’ Ivan said wistfully as if this were the only irrelevant part to his story, ‘good nights indeed.

I had only to agree with whatever

nonsense (they call it theology) they put forward, and keep up the lie I’d been telling them from the beginning: that I was indeed a qualified gardener.

‘Anyhow. One evening I was walking back from the food hall and I heard a noise coming from the chapel. I decided to take a look because it was a Friday and I had observed that when monks get half the chance to get half-cut, God, that other narcotic, becomes somewhat less desirable. When I opened the door, my heart stopped. The noise I had heard––which thank goodness was undisturbed by my entering––was a boy. He was singing the Pie Jesu from what I later discovered was Faure’s Requiem. I need not tell you, Jacob, that it was the purest, most perfect sound in all of nature. I waited till the piece was finished and the boy had receded to some back room (at which point I was close to tears) and fled the scene to inform the monks in the food-hall. I said, “Father, father––in the chapel, a boy, singing…” to which he threw his arm round me and drunkenly responded, “Boy! Ha ha, boooy, ay mate? I’d never’v known. HA!” Yes, Jacob, he was too drunk to understand a word I was saying. I left that night and flew back to England a few days later. But I had changed. No: I was changing. The best of us are always changing, Jacob.

Never forget that. By the time I had returned to this, our fair isle (I must have been in my early twenties) I had the singleness of vision and the equally monstrous and beautiful aesthetic that has brought us together this evening. I wanted to resurrect it, Jacob. You know what I mean.

‘I also knew enough about my own nature, at that point, to indulge. I regularly descended into the mire and the filth of London to enter into blissful union with the cult of pleasure and hedonism I had discovered existed, like a shameful secret swimming just below the surface of a vast lake.

I remember waking up one morning on the balcony of a flat in Pimlico after a cocaine-fuelled bisexual orgy that left me with a less than robust larynx. I spent a few weeks in a relationship with a lovely young man, naïve, but lovely. Of course, I had to end it when I realised I was essentially a solitary figure, and in any case too predisposed to pleasure to

commit to anything that made passions contractual. True pleasure is a serious business, as Seneca says––do you read, Jacob?’

Jacob merely sighed. ‘Ivan, I don’t mean to be rude, but––’

‘Neither do I,’ he interrupted, ‘but I have just remembered the point of my story. I understand your vision, Jacob, I really do. I am perhaps the only man in London who does, except maybe for Crozier (but between you and me I doubt he is human).’

Ivan gave his whiskey a little swirl and gulped it down. ‘Nevertheless,’ he seethed and grimaced, ‘forty is simply too much, too tall of an offer.

It is difficult to find just one of them, these days, and I can tell you now that the Church is no longer officially sympathetic to our cause, our aesthetic. I suppose you think you can pull of a spot of the old Tallis, hmm?

Spem in Alium? You’re mad. Mad! Pleasure is serious, yes, but it’s no joke!’

‘Ivan,’ Jacob pleaded, ‘please listen to me.’

‘OK, I shall listen to you. I suppose you’ve heard quite enough from me, for which I apologise. But before you say another word, I insist you have a drink. We shall listen to records together.’

‘Very well,’ said Jacob, getting up and fixing a straight gin. ‘Now look,’ he said, sitting down, ‘just what on earth are you talking about?’

There was a knock at the door that summoned forth Crozier like some creature of the deep sea, or more accurately a necromancer reanimating a skeleton. Two sets of footsteps sounded their way back up. ‘Who is it, Crozier?’

There was an awkward silence as all parties decided what to do, what to make of the darkness and the books, the milky light and the smell of sweat, the tulips and the smoke.

Then Crozier went into his room and emerged with what appeared, in the dim, to be a large hammer. He wordlessly waltzed over to Jacob, squeezed his shoulder as if to apologise, and repeatedly bash his skull in until Jacob had sunk into the swivel chair like a jammy ragdoll.

‘Good God,’ Ivan gasped.

‘Wrong man,’ Crozier said, and threw the hammer onto Jacob’s life-

less lap before skulking back off to his room and shutting the door.

There proceeded a silence and a horror so long and miserable that no man should ever have to endure.

With shaking hands Ivan lit another cigarette and motioned to his guest. ‘Please…’ He sucked in a lungful of smoke and exhaled it unevenly.

‘Sit down. Sorry about him,’ he gestured with a nod. ‘Now before I say another word, what is it you want?’

‘Um.’ The guest looked pale and ghostly in the dark. ‘A b-boy. A boy.’

‘And why do you want a boy… what’s your name?’

‘Tim.’

‘Tim…why do you want a boy, Tim?’ ‘Um.’

‘Oh, forget it. Charlie, darling, come on out, won’t you? And mind the mess. It’s just Crozier.’ The second bedroom door opened and a shirtless, blond haired boy, who could not have been older than fourteen or fifteen, walked light-footed across the carpet and stood beside the elegant black silhouette of Ivan, turning to face the guest.

‘Our guest is a little shy, Charlie.

Show him what we can offer.’ Ivan leaned over across the table towards Tim, revealing a pale, podgy face with large eyes, thin dark lips, long dark eyelashes and a peacock-blue ascot. ‘Now, Tim,’ he said, ‘Charlie is fifteen. We found him through the network; a simple story, really: Jewish parents. The circumcision went wrong and a cleric we’re connected with finished the job. He was only there for last rites. The rest is in the voice. It is just the one you wanted, yes? This last fellow’––he pointed to Jacob with a blasé gesture––‘he wanted forty. Forty! Ha, I’ll be damned. At first I thought he was some deranged choirmaster. I never guessed he was after coke, or pills, or whatever it is the botched and bungled use for pleasure these days.’ He turned to Charlie with a smile. ‘Sing for us, Charlie my darling; like you were before.’

28

LIFE RUNS EVEN WITH BROKEN LEGS

DRIFTING BARCOL

BARCOL

My grandfather does not understand

will only get to you if you let her,

Drifting

this modern technology, it is not used

sadness comes to you if you gloom.

in green seas lost in space and time,

to it,

Each of my grandad’s breaths till his

I am not such,

it’s something he can’t stand,

last

yet accordance of nature is I,

an uncertain future he dreads a little

I shall hear him speak

as the mist covers

bit,

To him recanting his past

the slumbering eye

“What animal is that?”

no matter his voice soft or weak.

and thus the world

As he looks at my phone

The lion may not wake tomorrow

is, too, drifting

surely future must be more than a rat

yet for now I see it run and smile,

but for this should he die alone?

such magnificence is not a sorrow

Can a lion not be scared also

as it chases a gazelle for at least a

of the open wound of uncertain

mile.

future?

Why then not embrace the time left?

Perhaps he feels fear even more so

if you don’t run with this remaining

for he is perhaps the king of nature,

life

what is left in the kingdom after time

you’d be guilty of your own smile’s

once he is not there anymore?

theft,

Would his body be sold for a dime

and it will end without love but just

or is there something more to hope

with strife.

for?

but what should changes snap from the emptying hands of rightful pride?

Technology is progress, circle of life too but should that abandon my grandad?

Life wants us to wither what we pride to do I say no, to lose such marvel would be too sad, yet thus lies the future of this world, progress and adaption we need to have past the heavy breath of cold or the seeping dreading love.

But, we can make this better, Mother death with all her doom

BEN MERCER

A youth with golden hair Climbs atop a cold stone statue Of a famous city man Sat atop a cold stone mare.

There he stands with head held high Unfurls a flag and lets it fly And I who look upon him long

Thus also stands this college perhaps, change is necessary for us to strive

TRAFALGAR SQUARE

For one so earnest and so fair

BLACKBIRD

So vibrant as to

OSCAR YUILL

Bring to life that cold stone city man Sat atop his cold stone mare;

A blackbird in the morning rain–

To make it bray and make him sing

I saw it through the glass.

In praise of all the virtues

He hopped a jump to go unnoticed

Of the joy that fills the air.

And nestled in the grass.

But here I am, forgotten statue Of a forgotten city man;

This sight is a gift! I said to myself;

Looking on in stony envy

How sweet the blackbird’s trill!

Of that statue over there

And then I saw—no less the gift—

Crowned by the youth with golden

The worm he was trying to kill.

hair.

A DREAM

GOD

OSCAR YUILL

BEN MERCER

A sun-kissed cheek begot a smile,

In dreams I saw a roofless church

We mark the day when Adam fell

Sweet lips outpiped a tune,

All bathed in dusty light—

As mankind’s gravest crime

And every here and there it seemed

I slowly wandered up the stairs

Seduced by hate we cannot quell

A robin red the bloom.

To see what shone so white.

We curse a lover’s lie

“Sing! sweet robin, sing to me

On a balcony I saw all round

apple

Like a child that’s hard at play,

Were flowers piercing gold—

To desire to know the time.

Sing! sweet robin, sing to me,

And judging by their height and

And grace the dying day.”

number,

That God could doom the angels who

I knew the church was old.

Dared sing the rebel’s song

What greater sin than to take an

Then gift to Adam a fledgling mind

In the woods I saw a face Engraved into a trunk—

And there, amid the golden flowers,

Where thought does not belong

It stared right down a leafy tunnel

A drop of robin red!

And show with pride the tree of

From which the light had shrunk.

And so I fell upon my knees

knowledge

And freely weeping said:

And tell him ignorance is strong

I’d thought—

“Forgive me, sweet robin! O,

Well where is His famed benevolence

I often slowed to stop—

Forgive these thoughts, this mood—

His celebrated sight

But seeing that the end was near

And don’t you remember? I always was

When he behaves with such malevo-

I thought it best to not.

The sad one of the brood.

lence

When I emerged from out the end

Sing! sweet robin, sing to me

And change the way we judge the

I sank onto the ground:

As if you were our mother—

fallen

The house that I remembered well

Sing! sweet robin, sing to me—

For it seems that they were right.

Was not the one I’d found.

Are you my sister or my brother?”

The path was long, much longer than

Should we not pity Lucifer’s plight?

The truth brings us to death A razed and rotting wooden mass

But who would have eternal life

Was all that seemed remain,

Trapped in a coddling darkness

And through a choking veil of mem-

No, I am glad we have our eyes

ories

That we awoke to knowledge

I heard myself complain:

And learned to craft our own delight.

“Death is a sweet release,

And we saw that it was good.

Life is a subtle depravity, Envy the baby born blue, For life is an ugly profanity.” …

30

Top 10 Albums

Ibeyi

2015 1

Ibeyi - Ibeyi

These two twin sisters are XL Recording’s latest gem. Rumoured to have been produced by the head of the record label, Richard Russell, this record is one of the biggest of the year. This brand new kind of music coming from these French-Cuban twins has whispering vocals matched very well with background beats that can captivate anyone. This electronic music rooted in Afro-Cuban soul comes from their Father who was in the Cuban music business as they grew up. Their intoxicating voices sing in English and Yoruba, providing a harmonious element to their sound, and you can drift along with their lyrics.

2

Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats - Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats

Lumineers with a hell of a lot more soul and power! Rateliff’s voice is a truly great instrument that has the ability to captivate anyone, with The Night Sweats providing a perfect rhythmic background to the mood. The ensemble put together, a smooth sounding soul album with rock that is just truly outstanding. Definitely a band to check out. Look up their live performance on Jools Holland.

5

Glass Animals - Zaba

What I could call Experimental Indie, Rainforest Rock, Washing Machine Funk or ‘Psychedelic Alternative Pop Rock’ as Ebro Darden called it. This Oxford four-piece are really not too sure what to call their sound, as shown in a recent interview with Beats radio. This young new British band is a breath of fresh air into the English music scene, with slow melancholy vocals that play over a downbeat collection of miscellaneous sounds.

They have created the perfect relaxing music that

31

4

Tame Impala - Currents

This Australian band has reclaimed what rock is: psychedelic rock with rifting guitars and powerful male vocals of Kevin Parker. Think Vampire Weekend with a trickle of acid and an extra tab of hippie. The album’s first single “Let it Happen” saw the band put the right foot forward to becoming a global name. Space-like pianos, crunching guitars and flowing drums all come together to give a great new psychedelic era to the world of rock music. Earlier this year, the band supported Arctic Monkeys at their Finsbury Park gig, and now have sold-out their first two Ally Pally gigs in no time at all. Expect to see them at most major festivals next summer.

3

will have you wired in. It is hard to really compare them to anyone or anything as they’re so different but one thing is for sure, they are one of the coolest bands out there and should have surely been up for the Mercury Prize. Shame they were overlooked, really. Be sure to check out their new song with rapper Joey Bada$$, and definitely give the album a listen.

6

Wolf Alice - My Love is Cool

Wolf Alice was one of the first bands to be announced for the Mercury prize, with a debut album that has proven to be very impressive. The album has proved to be one of the stand outs of the year as Wolf Alice seems to have attracted the attention of lot of people with their music.

They’ve been playing shows and festivals and built up a brilliant pace to roll out their release of the album. The singles are really showing them to be coming out with a different and unique sound that stretches the length of the album. A real product of British rock music that can be appreciate by all different type of music lovers.

Halsey - BADLANDS

What originally seemed to be Apple Music’s first attempt at making a superstar, they almost did it with an album that charted quite high. The first attempt at an Apple dominant album roll out

A selection of some of the best albums from this year in music. With a lot of great debut albums that are starting to make waves in music and some later works from people changing up their sound.

8

Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit

Vegemite is no longer the coolest thing to know about Australia. Courtney Barnett has released a sensational debut album this year, with a unique voice that sounds like she wants you to go away so she can be by herself… but it’s too good. A wonderful band finds a good place to back up her vocals and on her bigger songs like ‘Pedestrian at Best’ and ‘An Illustration of Loneliness’ the music really comes alive. She definitely is the kickass female singer-songwriter that you can find yourself becoming a really big fan of.

10

One of the hottest rap albums of the year.

Yes, Kendrick did very well and made lots of big political statements, along with Dre’s comeback after years of “will he or won’t he put out new stuff”. Vince Staples has emerged top of the pile in my eyes. Storming LA with big beats and strong lyrics, he feels like a less prophetic version of Kendrick Lemar but that doesn’t mean his songs aren’t as varied and Courtney Barnett powerful with lots of references to cops and guns along with women. It’s a standard rap album but a fantastic modern rap album that should be fully enjoyed by anyone who vaguely enjoys the likes of Drake, or Earl Sweatshirt before he got sad.

Jamie xx - In Colour

Without a doubt the best British album of this year and sure-fire winner of the Mercury Prize this year. It would be absurd to see any of the acts, although worthy,

Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color

Released in the UK on Rough Trade Records, the melodic voice of leader vocalist Brittany Howard really works well with the soulful rock band supporting her. It’s been three years since their last album, with not much change to sound.

The new album still, however, does not disappoint with a range of tracks covering all the funky bases. The soulful voice gets your body moving to the music at the same time the rock music affects your legs and your feet. This sound is an accompaniment to any ambient setting but also lets you strut your stuff.

Vince Staples - Summertime ’06

9

Music Correspondent

take away from this colossal music giant. He’s remixed Adele, produced Drake, collaborated with Gil-Scott Heron and been part of the XX. For the 27 year old, this year couldn’t have really got any better. After years of releasing his side remixes and being fully committed to The XX, he’s finally had time to show the world what he is. He has it all. The man knows more about the transformation of the music in this country than anyone else.

With family ties in DJing and radio presenting, music and turntables have always been his forte.

The album itself is an insight into the wealth of ability he holds, with electronic lullabies, dancefloor fillers along with one of the catchiest hooks of this year. There have been some good times for Jamie on this release. The reason why this is probably the best album out there this year is because nothing comes close to originality and to the all-round diversity of this album. Did I mention he puts on one hell of a live set. This indicates big things for The XX’s third album soon to be announced.

didn’t really work. But the album is still a good anthem for the edgy, angsty youth of the modern world. Halsey comes across as the American, druggy version of Lorde. Her music has a message, a hook and beat - the latter for which she can probably thank Danish producer Lido. Lido, her ex-boyfriend, has produced some incredible remixes and been working with her for quite a while. I don’t think this is the end of Halsey before she has even begun but it was a shaky start to a career even though the album was good.

7

JACOB TONG

:(

Shittest Album of the Year: Slaves - Are You Satisfied.

No I’m bloody not, please don’t release another.

Wannabes!

DAN TOBIN Undergraduate

YE OLDE CHESHIRE CHEESE F

irst, a comment on the name ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese’. Despite what you may have heard, ‘ye’ is pronounced ‘the’ – this being due to the Saxons, not having the composite letters to spell out ‘th’, creating a symbol very similar to ‘Y’ to represent the ‘th’ sound. Thus, one could utter ‘The Old Cheshire Cheese’ and be correct in one’s pronunciation.

The Cheshire Cheese is situated on Fleet Street, midway between Chancery Lane and Ludgate Circus.

At a half-hour tube ride or an hour bus ride away, the Cheshire Cheese is not far from Heythrop for those wishing to pay it a visit. It blends in inconspicuously with its surroundings, despite sitting in the midst of a myriad of modern buildings.

It is set back away from the street so much so that one must divert down a narrow alleyway simply to get in. The cultural history of the Cheshire Cheese is particularly striking; it can claim to be the oldest pub in Britain, having had a pub on that site since 1538 (when Henry VIII was still sitting on his extra-large throne). That public house was one of many to fall victim to the Great Fire of London in 1666, which all but levelled the city.

33

The Cheshire Cheese sprang back up the following year, and has been at its current location ever since.

Outside the main door, for there are several ways in and out of the establishment, one would find a list of all the monarchs of the United Kingdom since the pub’s resurrection in 1667, beginning with Charles II and running to modern day. Upon entering the black-painted pub, the first thing that strikes the patron is the smell; a mixture of sawdust, sweat, ale and history waft around the place almost tangibly. It is such a shock to the senses to find a pub not play Iggy Azalea’s latest hit or selling Strongbow by the can, that one almost feels transported back to the seventeenth century.

Once you have recovered from the heady scent, the appearance of the tavern is next to strike you. Dark, dingy and buzzing with patrons at all hours, the Cheshire Cheese has a lively atmosphere. The black painted walls, covered with period beer advertisements or copies of the pub’s license agreements dating back to its origin, the decor is decidedly in keeping with its age.

A rather saucy part of its history

comes from parts of the decor recovered from a room on the upper floor – a series of plaster tiles displaying erotic scenes, since donated to the British Museum, indicate that this upper room of the pub most likely served as a brothel during part of the eighteenth century.

The first choice one must face as a patron is which bar to purchase your drink from. The Cheshire Cheese is a veritable maze of narrow corridors, winding staircases and low ceilings. While in keeping with its age and tradition, the layout is incredibly confusing for a first-time visitor. There are several bars on the various floors, each situated in different types of room; a hallway, a cellar, a drawing room etc. The cellars beneath the pub are vaulted, and are believed to date back to a monastery that occupied the site in the 13th century. Navigating these rooms and hallways, while difficult, is extremely worthwhile.

Each new room or turned corner provides the patron with a new experience; new faces, new decor to admire, new armchairs to sit in while you imagine yourself to be an author from the eighteenth century.

While on the topic of authors, it is another winning feature of the Cheshire Cheese that, due to its long and enduring history, that it has played host to many a literary figure, including Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Tennyson, P.G. Wodehouse, and Charles Dickens. The pub even garners a mention in Dickens’ famous ‘A Tale of Two Cities’.

Once you have found a suitably pleasing area in which to buy your refreshing beverage, the decision is which one to buy. Like any modern pub, the Cheshire Cheese is owned by a brewery; Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery of Tadcaster, North Yorkshire. While offering a range of Samuel Smith’s ales, the foremost (and in fact only cask beer that Samuel Smith’s produces) is Old Brewery Bitter, which is on tap at all bars within the Cheshire Cheese.

The writer highly recommends the Old Brewery Bitter, most simply because that is the most frequently served and ergo the cheapest, but it is also incredibly tasty, with different variations also available.

Now, another choice presents itself – carry your pint towards a peri-

od armchair and sit by the fire to enjoy your beverage in a pensive and reflective silence, or sit at one of the large tables and ingratiate yourself with your fellow patrons?

Both options are equally as enjoyable, however one might prefer the former to fully appreciate and partake in the history of the Cheshire Cheese; imagine oneself sitting in the place where Dickens sat as he formulated the stories of Oliver Twist or Miss Havisham.

Overall, the Cheshire Cheese is nigh on the perfect venue for those who wish to experience London as it was before the dawn of the industrial revolution, in a much simpler time. Its close, intimate feel along with its rich history serves to create an atmosphere in which one can sit, relax, and drink to their heart’s content in rich culture and London history.

TOP 5 HSU BAR ALES #1 Ghost Ship

Well-deserving of its number one status, Ghost Ship is an exquisite pale ale that delivers a strong, malty taste, together with a smooth citrus aftertaste.

#2 Bombardier

Marketed as the epitome of English Ale, with its bittersweet taste and fruity afternotes coupled with a surprising hint of biscuit, it’s definitely worth its stature so high on this list.

#3 Newcastle Brown Ale

This brown ale’s smooth taste and rich flavours make it a rather tasty beer and a good choice for anybody wishing to try ale for the first time. With a strong body of hops, the smoothness follows, ending with a subtle fruity note.

#4 Doom Bar

Cornish in origin (though truly brewed in Burton-on-Trent, the scandal!), this is certainly a refreshing ale in a sea of sameness. Dark amber in colour, it offers a rich variety of tastes – fruit, malted hops and a subtle bitterness in the aftertaste.

#5 Broadside

4/5

This ale from Adnam’s brewers is a decidedly heavy ale – dark brown in colour, almost meaty. Not to downplay its hop-y notes or fruity elements, but after a few sips the tongue becomes too bogged-down in the overwhelming flavour to notice the subtler ones.

VICTORIA WARD Gaming Correspondent

300% MORE NATHAN FILLION HALO 5: GUARDIANS

Bungie

T

he Halo Master Chief Collection was regarded as a failure because of the matchmaking and multiplayer issues, thus many Halo fans had very low expectations of Halo 5: Guardians. However, as someone who has never previously played through any of the Halo games and knew very little about the storyline, I hope I’m not biased in my opinion of Halo 5. Looking through its storyline and reading reviews on the previous storylines, shows this is an epic one which left so many fans waiting in anticipation for more. The storyline of Halo 5 is epic; you cannot help but get pulled in. It will make you laugh, sit on the edge of your seat, and cheer. My opinion: I loved it, and BagoGames playing in co-op mode made it even more enjoyable. However, I know this view is not widely shared. As a Halo newbie I asked a friend, Tim - a massive Halo fan, to share his opinions having played through the other games and been a part of the Halo franchise since day one:

‘In order to understand Halo 5 you really need to have played all Halo games, watched the TV shows and read all the novels to truly grasp the story. You start the game as Fireteam Osiris lead

by Spartan Locke hunting down Dr Halsey, then move to the legendary Master Chief himself and his Blue Team in an attempt to understand 35

a mysterious message received

by Master Chief. The storyline is amazing, but like with many franchises, a lot of background knowledge and reading is required to truly appreciate the full depth of the Halo 5: Guardians story.

As for Gameplay, this is a drastic improvement from the previous Halo games, with new armour abilities, easy AI command system and teammate control. You can turn the game on, pick up your controller and just easily play. However, in saying that, the look sensitivity is not the greatest and thus, to play it, the sensitivity on the controller needs to be turned up all the way, but a simple patch update could easily fix this problem.

Finally, graphics and sound, well, they are amazing and this Halo game is the best looking one so far.

The character models, different environments, weapons, vehicles and cut scenes are incredible. As for the sounds, they are so dynamic and lifelike, from the weapon fire to the vehicle sounds.’

Overall, his verdict is that this game is definitely a step up from the previous Halo, but a s with many games it h a s its flaws. In saying that,

Halo fans will adore and be completely engaged in the storyline, but this game is not for those who have never played any of the other Halo games. The overall rating of this game for Tim: 7.5/10.

While I agree with a lot of the comments made by Tim, there are a few extra points I would like to make. With a quick bit of reading and talking to some friends I understand the plot of the game.

Even if I’m possibly not as passionate about some aspects of the storyline as Halo veterans, I still know what is going on and am not struggling to grasp anything. I cannot speak in comparison to other games in terms of whether the gameplay has improved or not but for someone who has never played the Halo games before, I easily picked up my controller and was able to play and know the controls immediately. As for the graphics and sounds, they are so incredible with the cut scenes being so unbelievably cinematic, like watching mini-movies each time there is one.

Then there is the multiplayer. The game modes are completely new to me, having only ever played Mass Effect 3 multiplayer which is an AI horde mode and then Bungie’s Destiny multiplayer. While there are some similarities to those multiplayers the difference did throw me off and made me not want to play it. That,

C AT H E R I N E S Q U I B B of course, was until some friends talked me through it and we created a custom game of just running around on a free-for-all.

Overall, even not being a previous Halo game player, this storyline to me, and from what I have read of the previous ones, is so engaging and thoroughly enjoyable. As for gameplay, it’s such an easy game to play in regards to the controller schematics; anyone can pick up that controller and within a minute know what they are doing with it.

The graphics are beautiful and the

sounds are so dynamic it will force you into the Halo world and make you never want to leave. Finally, the multiplayer: while I was a bit hesitant at first, playing with a group of friends just makes it so enjoyable and fun. If you like person versus person games then the multiplayer will have you stuck on it for hours at a time. The price I paid for Halo was £44.99, which is pretty average for any digital download game from the Xbox Market Place, and I personally would not say it was worth it in terms of how much I will likely play it. However, if you are a mas-

Editor-at-Large sive Halo fan and will spend hours in the multiplayer, then it is completely worth that price tag. However, while in Sainsbury’s the other day I did notice the price tag had been taken down already to £31.99 in which case, grab it! For that price it is completely worth it for the story alone. Overall I would give this game an 8.5/10. I imagine if I were a Halo veteran who adores the multiplayer it would be a 10/10.

5/5

THE TRAINS ARE JUST FINE TRAINWRECK

F

or a stand-up comedian, Amy Schumer nails her first performace as a commitment-phobic, anti-monogamist career woman.

Not forgeting, she wrote it too.

Some would say that Trainwreck has turned Schumer’s amusing feminist stand-up into a true rom-com, and she did not mess around. The film was directed by Judd Apatow the renowned comedy creator, who has directed The 40-Year Old Virgin and produced Bridesmaids. So with credentials like that, how could Trainwreck not be comedy gold?

In most of Apatow’s films his main characters are usually either having very little sex, or way too much, plus, with the completely wrong people. Amy is no different. After being taught from a young age that monogamy isn’t realistic, magazine writer Amy has made sleeping around her dogma. After a display of one-night-stands, Amy finds herself in a rut and in some guy’s bed in Staten Island. But within seconds, Amy has a new assignment writing about sports surgeon Aaron.

From the moment you set eyes on him, you know he is here to rescue Amy. Her Maxim-style men’s

Run time: 2hr 05min ter of punchlines. magazine called S’nuff is Certificate: 15 However, the writing an article on the amazing work he does Director: Judd Apatow amount of subplots feels like a for athletes, and Amy has been forced to write Starring: Amy Schumer, way to push the time this piece. Of course they Bill Hader, John Cena running up throughout. don’t just talk about the Release date: August 13 The characters article. You know he is range from her ‘the one’ when he chivalrously calls her the morning homophobic dad and boring marafter they slept together, which ried younger sister to her current her colleague believes is basical- ‘thing’, Steven, who is gym-mad ly grounds to call the police. It is but like a marshmallow on the impressive that, with her disin- inside, and many others. It alterest in sports and the fact he most feels like director Apatow is has only ever slept with a couple just cycling through all the charof women, you are still convinced acters and hasn’t quite worked that they perfectly match. out which ones work and which ones don’t. This pushes the runThe script was full of hilarious, dry, ning time to a bulky two hours. anti-monogamist humour and of course endless sarcasm. This film Though overall this hilarious had the entire cinema crying with rom-com is the best film I have laughter at points - and that includ- seen in ages. Schumer proves ed grown men in suits! It didn’t that she can play the repentant only appeal to 20-something girls, grown-up, but we are all hopeful but a whole range of ages through she will not be subdued for long its hilarious feminist comedy and and the next film will let some famous sports players (yes, LeB- more of her pleasantly brash femron James is in it and is great). inist comedy be shown. The first I hope of many non-stop laughImpressively, Schumer created and ing comedies from Ms Schumer. portrayed a well-rounded character with real emotional problems, which shows she isn’t just a mas-

4/5

JENNY MORAN News Editor

THE DIARY OF A SPACE FARMER THE MARTIAN

Run time: 2hr 22min

Certificate: 12a

Director: Ridley Scott

Starring: Matt Damon,

Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig

Release date: October 8th

4.5/5

I

37

went to see The Martian without knowing anything about it.

I knew it was called The Martian and that was about it. I hadn’t even seen the poster for it - the one which has Matt Damon’s face, and ‘BRING HIM HOME’ written across it - which really would have given me a good idea of what the film was about, as opposed to sitting there for the first half-hour wondering if an alien was going to pop up at any point. I also had no idea who Matt Damon was, which is apparently a sin according to some people. It was one of

those days where you just fancy a trip to the cinema and I’d heard it was supposed to be good. However, I went to see it in 3D. I hate 3D. After seeing the astronaut’s battle through a fierce spacestorm on Mars, and the apparent loss of Mark Watney (Matt Damon) after being hit by debris, the captain makes the executive decision to leave Mars, thus abandoning the mission and leaving Mark behind.

We soon come to find that Mark was not killed, and after watching him gruesomely staple the wound in his stomach together, he comes to terms with the fact he had been abandoned on Mars with years to wait to be rescued. He, incredibly and impressively, starts to figure out how to survive by using the Thanksgiving potato supply and his own vacuum-packed dried faeces to start a crop. He does also try to contact NASA. Luckily, NASA realise he is still alive from the satellite pictures of the base camp, and spend a surprising amount of time trying to decide whether to send a rescue mission. After months of preparation, attempts, failures, and more attempts, it is his team who go back and save him, with thanks to the Rich Purnell maneuver.

The great story line is portrayed wonderfully by the incredible directing of Ridley Scott. I may have never heard of him before, and also never seen any of his films (yes, this includes Gladiator) but I have heard epic films are his forte, and The Martian is no exception.

I found this film incredibly refreshing. There was none of the violence that you come to expect from scifi-y space movies. There were no guns, no punch ups, and, to some extent, no bad guy either; it is simply the story of a man trying to survive on an uninhabitable planet, and the people trying to save him. There was little made-up as made-up stories can go, or at least to the average non-science-y person’s eye. Also, the hero is a botanist, which, let’s be serious, sounds pretty lame. But his lame-sounding skills turn out to be his power of survival: I’m not sure the rest of us would know how to grow potatoes with no oxygen and no organic matter apart from your own faeces.

The optimism and dry humour of Watney also makes the film. It would be very easy to make a film about a stranded guy on Mars in a serious manner, and of course he still had his struggles and tee-

tered on the edge but he kept high spirits and achieved so much. If he hadn’t been stranded on Mars, then he wouldn’t have colonised it, and that’s definitely something to tell your grandkids. Watney’s confidence and drive keep us captivated throughout the film, wanting him to survive. I’m usually quite a fan of the main character dying (I think Harry Potter would have been better if Harry had died, partly because of the predictability of him surviving) but in The Martian, the semi-reality of the situation Watney is in makes us pray for his rescue. Watney is so determined to survive against all odds it is hard not to root for him and also be sympathetic to his emotions.

It is easy to get lost in Damon’s performance. There wasn’t one point in the film where I thought Damon was a good actor, because I was so enthralled by the character and his story that there was no

time to stop and think. The effortless interpretation of the character shows that Damon was the right man for the job. He speaks with such sincerity and portrays such true emotions. As someone who has never watched a Damon film before, it is hard to imagine him as another character. He takes us on the same emotional rollercoaster as Watney; it is hard not to feel elated when his potatoes sprout and horror when they are destroyed (it’s not all potatoes, I promise you) and, to some extent, hatred towards disco music.

Damon was supported by an impeccable cast, who portrayed their characters exquisitely. The astronaut team were played with the perfect amount of seriousness and playfulness. The beginning of the film portrays them as average people who just happen to be astronauts which is reflected through the sincerity of the decision made to save Watney. The actors channel the warm heartedness and

struggles the characters feel which make them such a likeable team.

The same emotion is portrayed

by NASA HQ, where we can feel not only the difficulties but the clashes between the characters.

The story is of a guy defying the odds... on Mars, but also human nature overcoming rules. In the end, although it is obviously a very complicated rescue, it is his team going against the instruction of NASA and going with their instinct and heart that ultimately rescues Watney. The team sacrifice not only their time, but what could easily have been their lives, to save him, which is a truly beautiful thing.

The film also shows the extent to which the world will go to save one person, even when they’re on another planet, running out of food, and running out of time. The scenes of people all around the world watching the big screens as Watney is being rescued is something that you could easily see happening in real life. It is science that is endearing, heart-warming, and hard not to love.

And as for 3D, it brought very little to the film, so if you’re intending on seeing it I’d go for 2D.

We love food, here at [this], so we’ve brought you a little collection of some of our favourites. We also love going on the lash but we prefer to at least have some pretence of style. Recognising that sometimes vodka and coke in your Hall’s kitchen just doesn’t cut it, in an attempt to stay classy, we’ve prepared a few cracking cocktails based on some major releases happening soon(ish).

Try ‘em out, give ‘em a taste; we won’t be offended if you want to write in and tell us that you think our measurements are weak and our cake makes for a soggy bottom.

It’s just Nana Joan, a feisty lil’ ol’ lady from the north that you might make your mortal enemy. That’s on you.

RECIPES

-

K AT T & M E G

forget popcorn, these upcoming mega-blockbusters deserve a toast

a night at the movies

Editors-in-Chief

Firebomb

Blue Milk

Mockingjay pt. 2 We took the concepts of archery, fire and danger, and figured this ticked all the right boxes. There’s no bread involved - sorry, Peeta - but we suggest lining your stomach before attempting anything presented in this article anyhow.

Star Wars: Episode Seven Here on Earth we have to replace the sweet Bantha milk with alcohol (perhaps to mask the pain of knowing we haven’t conquered space travel and lightsabers yet) but we figure Luke Skywalker would love it just the same. Probably.

1 pint Strongbow

1.5 oz. Milk

1 oz. Fireball Whiskey

.5 oz. Cream 1 oz. Blue Curacao .5 oz. Amaretto

Drop the Fireball shot into the pint of cider.

Down the drink as if your life depended on it and you were fighting for survival in an arena with 23 other contestants. May the odds be ever in your favour.* *always drink responsibly

Shake all liquids in a mixer until chilled.

Pour into a chilled glass.

Try not to end the night in a garbage disposal or, even worse, with the Cantina theme in your head.

i am the steel Martian sunrise vesper martini Batman vs. Superman This cocktail melds the dark brooding personality of Bruce Wayne with the ever-bumbling, positive lifeforce of Clark Kent. Okay, so in this movie he’s not so chipper but a double whiskey shot is hardly a cocktail.

The Martian Solitary life on a completely different world sometimes calls for a cheer-up drink. The most Matt Damon can make is probably some moonshine. Here on Earth we have tequila.

Spectre For the secret agent in all of us who ‘better just have one’. Make it ice-cold and booze-heavy to see you through an evening filled with treacherous spying situations and then Netflix and chill with that damsel you saved from a laser beam earlier with just your wiles and winning personality.

2 oz. Whiskey

2 oz. Tequila

3 oz. Gin

4 oz. Lemonade

4 oz. Orange Juice

1 oz. Vodka

.75 oz. Grenadine

.5 oz. Lillet Blonde

Pour Tequila and orange juice over ice in a highball glass.

Slowly pour in Grenadine.

Allow to settle. Do not stir.

Garnish with an orange slice and maraschino cherry.

“Three measures of [gin], one of Vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet.

Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?” Bond’s own words.

Follow them sensibly.

Pour whiskey into a tumbler. Top up with lemonade.

Sit at a desk with your feet up like you’re some kind of business mogul that actually really needs to get started on that report for the Daily Planet.

Sip contentedly.

Alternatively, inject vodka into a potato for a week for a Martian take on a vodka watermelon?

42

K AT T J O H N S O N Editor-in-Chief

INGREDIENTS: 1 Naan 1.5 tbsp. Olive Oil 3 Cloves Garlic, minced 1 Tomato, sliced thinly 100g Mozzarella, sliced 1.5 tbsp. Balsamic Vingar Pinch of Basil Leaves, chopped

10 minute margherita Okay so this is just ostentatious cheese on toast but ‘pizza’ always sounds better. Not to mention you probably never thought of using a naan before. As with any pizza recipe, you can change around the toppings to your heart’s content but this recipe shows you a pretty decent, fancy margherita.

Pinch of Salt and Pepper

METHOD: 1. Preheat oven to 180˚c/350˚F/Gas Mark 4 2. Mix garlic with oil 3. Spread half oil mix on naan. Put in the oven for 5 minutes until slightly crisped 4. Remove and place mozzarella on top. Season with salt and pepper 5. Place tomato on top. Season again 6. Place in oven for 5 minutes. Grill for 2-3 minutes for meltier cheese.

Take care not to burn by removing before too dark 7. Mix remaining oil, and vinegar.

Stir quickly until combined 8. Garnish naan with basil and oil mixture to taste

43

For a fancy feast why not try these brilliant combinations: Breakfast: eggs, bacon, simple cheddar, fried onions, green salsa Peach: Carmelized peaches, balsamic vinegar reduction, ricotta and sprinkle with basil Apple: Carmelized onions, apples, goats cheese. Finish with thyme and a trickle of honey Taco: Well, uh, everything you’d put in a taco, put on a pizza instead

JENNY MORAN

Nana Joan’s Lemon Drizzle Cake

News Editor

INGREDIENTS: 125g Butter 175g Caster Sugar 175g Self-Raising Flour 2 Eggs, Beaten 4tbsp. Milk 2 Lemons, Juice and Rind 50g Granulated Sugar

METHOD: 1. Preheat oven to 180˚c/350˚F/ Gas Mark 4 2. Cream butter, caster sugar and lemon rind until fluffy 3. Mix in flour and add milk to soften the mixture: it should be soft enough to drop off the end of the spoon when shaken gently 4. Grease a 2lb loaf tin. Pour in mixture and bake in oven for 45-50 minutes until risen and golden Prepare lemon syrup just before cake has finished cooking.

5. Heat lemon juice and granulated sugar gently until the sugar is dissolved 6. Pierce the cake with a skewer as soon as it comes out the oven 7. Pour lemon syrup over top 8. Leave the cake in the tin until cooled

MEGAN SKINGSLEY Editor-in-Chief

INGREDIENTS: 180g Oats 30g Chia seeds 55g Goji Berries 60g Chopped Nuts 35g Pumpkin Seeds 2 tbsp. Honey 2 tbsp. Coconut Oil

METHOD: 1. Preheat oven to 180˚c/350˚F/ Gas Mark 4 2. Melt coconut oil in a pan on low. Once melted, leave to cool.

3. Mix all ingredients in a bowl thoroughly.

4. Spread evenly on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes until toasted.

5. Cool before serving and store in Tupperware in a cool, dry place.

45

granola

HOROSCOPES Horny Sheep Mar 21 - Apr 19

That essay you were so proud of will only receive 55 marks. Not for any legitimate academic reason, but because marking is so often an arbitrary business and your marker was in a bad mood.

Horny Cow

Apr 20 - May 20 Tom Hardy in Warrior.

starring Discuss.

Hot Russian Twins May 21 - Jun 20

In two weeks and three days you will begin to feel a strange and unpleasant tingling; a creepy-crawley tickling around your downstairs. I’m afraid it’s crabs. And that should teach you not to sleep with Fordham students.

Injustice

Test Your Might

Alleged Virgin Aug 23 - Sep 22

Sep 23 - Oct 22

You will read the Lion team’s THIS magazine and you will really, really enjoy it.

Me and the stars go way back. We’ve known each other for, about, 13 billion years, now. You’ll probably never have a friendship that lasts that long. #loser

Rest, rejuvenation, languidness. As we move through Libra, your task is to chill out. You may have deadlines but, trust me - the voice at the back of a magazine - you’ll be better off sleeping through them all.

Scott Bakula

Horny Mammal 3

Nov 22 - Dec 21 The Jesuits will reverse their decision to cut college funding. The college itself will appoint competent managers and qualified staff. It’s to stay open after all! Next year will see freshers return. The bar will have its license extended to midnight and it will cut the price of drinks. Ha! Only joking. We’re fucked.

Dec 22 - Jan 19 Peter Gallagher will apologise to you this week.

Jun 21- Jul 22

Life’s been feeling a little slow for you lately. It’s time to take on some extra work. Every opportunity that comes your way - jump onboard! Come assignment time you’ll have so much to keep you on your toes, you’ll feel great, engaged, assiduous, utile.

Mothereffing Lion!

Jul 23 - Aug 22

Ambiguous Crustacean

Squid Babe

Jan 20 - Feb 18 You have the best star sign, always remember that. I’m not saying that because I happen to be an Aquarius like your esteemed self... it’s because, uh, the stars told me.

Oct 23 - Nov 21 You will be caught smoking in your room and fined accordingly.

Fish

Feb 19 - Mar 20 Washing your hands after using the toilet will be greatly appreciated this week. And all weeks. Always. Always wash your hands after using the toilet.

[ t h at ’ s a w r a p ! ]