ISIS Trinity 2015

THE ISIS

EDITORIAL PRAISE FOR THE ISIS: “Some silly student magazine” – English Defense League, (2013) “You evil worshiper helpers.” – Tammy from South Mountain, Maine (via Facebook, 2015) “Continually going on about workers in Cowley and run by a self-perpetuating minority almost exclusively Marxist” – David Dimbleby, (1961) “An anodyne, non-political magazine, whose editor is reputed to be too nice to have any opinions at all and whose style will combine the Richmond and Twickenham Times and the last coronation broadcast” – Kenith Trodd, (1962) “The only people who read The Isis are the people who write for The Isis” - 2nd year Biologist (2014) “More like The Was-was.” – Cherwell Editorial (1937) “I thought The Isis was a club-night?” – 1st year English Student (2015) We’re not just a collective of evil worshipper helpers and club promoters. This term, our writers have canvassed with UKIP, Skyped a plane hijacker, protested for Freddie Gray, learnt how to speak with ghosts and dined with Lucian Freud. In response to our 500-words “Borders and Bodies” competition, entrants wrote haikus, screenplays and essays about the royal baby, cyber aliens and body shame. We had a lot of fun putting the magazine together, feel free to take it apart.

Huw and Miranda The ISIS Editors, TT15

Cover: Startled Man Self Portrait, Lucian Freud. Credit: Private Collection© The Lucian Freud Archive/Bridgeman Images

Articles

CONTENTS

4. George Grylls – On the Campaign Trail with UKIP 7. Anon. – Nose Jobs in Tehran 8. Shorts 10. Isabella Steel – Skype with a Plane-Hijacker: An interview with Leila Khaled 14. Rachel Dlugatch – May Day for Freddie Gray 16. Christian Hill – Our Mourning Ritual 18. George McGoldrick – Lonely Men and Where to Find Them 20. Borders & Bodies 500 word competition 28. Frances Timberlake – A Kurd in Cowley 32. Ieuan Perkins – Amazon Reviews Reviewed 34. Shorts 36. Katy Jones, Susan Irvine – Dinner with Lucian Freud 39. Emily Frisella – How to Talk to Ghosts 40. Hetty Mosforth – When they were Bad 42. Eye-Spy Architecture 44. Kiley Hunkler – Female Military Academy 46. George Grylls – An Interview with Zaha Hadid 48. Seán Ó Néill – Abortion in Northern Ireland 50. Jessica Sinyor – A One Way Ticket to Mars 52. Tom Ball – Cottaging 54. Nasim Rebecca Asl – An Interview with Simon Armitage 56. Thea Slotover – Meltem Avcil on Life inside Yarls Wood detention centre Fiction 13. Florence Reed 33. Alex Shaw 31. Sarah Murphy 38. Fintan Calpin

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL WITH UKIP

George Grylls

4

“T

here’s a woman who uses asparagus to see the future and she knows who’s gonna win.” Jim’s cancerous throat wheezes out this barely comprehensible sentence. It’s three weeks before the general election and I’m having gammon and shandy with a local UKIP faction in the West Midlands. I have spent a hot day watching them canvass the pot-holed roads of this forgotten part of England where they seek to overturn a 15,000 Tory majority. James is the candidate for the local seat; Jim, proudly kitted out in a Walsall strip and a purple rosette, is one of his crack team of leafleters. Hearing Jim’s opinion is not a cue for me to rejoice that my metropolitan preconceptions of UKIP are justified. It is sobering and it is heartbreaking.

Despite the semi-urban sluggishness of the midday surroundings, arriving into Walsall I am plunged into a hive of UKIP activity.

James is negotiating with Steve Crowther, the UKIP chairperson, on his car’s handsfree. “If we could get Nigel just to say something for the loudspeaker I think it would really make a difference.” He is haggling for Farage’s Midas voice to add sparkle to his election day battle bus. Crowther is reluctant to commit the leader’s precious time to this West-Midlands backwater, overlooked by most of the country – and, it seems, UKIP HQ. They continue to talk as we drive through mile after mile of pebbledash to pick up James right hand man, Dennis. Dennis is a lorry driver for Jaguar, kept on permanent tenterhooks by a zero-hours contract. I subsequently read UKIP’s manifesto on the subject: “Because UKIP recognises that zero-hours contracts suit many people, we will not ban them.”

James, clad in a tweed jacket and cream chinos, sees Dennis waving his arms at him and pulls the car to a stop. Dennis is morbidly obese but flip-flops with surprising energy into the back of the car. It’s hard not to get carried away by him as he tears my mediocre cricket stats to shreds with his chirpy Brummie affability. The chat turns political after some initial cricketing banter and I chastise Dennis for describing Walsall as “Beirut”.

“What is your definition of racism?” he retorts fervidly. I give myself five seconds leeway. “An unsubstantiated fear or…” I begin, but Dennis objects to my pretentious use of “unsubstantiated”. He then jumps topic to explain why educated pockets of the constituency do not

vote UKIP. We pop into an office in an industrial car park to rent equipment. Farage’s team is reluctant to commit to the speaker system but Dennis goes ahead and pays £300 of his own money to rent it for two weeks, “Chips or no chips? Chips! One week or two? Two! You see George, I’m the decision maker!”

Dennis rushes off to seize a last-minute shift that has become available at work, and James takes me out of the industrial estates and into the housing estates for some traditional door-to-door canvassing. He locates ex-serviceman Jim, his other trusty assistant who is “mad as a box of frogs.” Jim is hobbling with leaflets along the parallel roads of semi-detached properties. Marking a map stretched out on the car bonnet, James identifies some uncanvassed roads and sends Jim off to recruit in fresh pastures. Some leaflets are then thrust in my direction. James notices my furrowed brow and pompous air of neutrali-

I chastise Dennis for describing Walsall as ‘Beirut’.

“What is your definition of racism?” he retorts fervidly. ty. “Oh I’m not asking you to vote for us!” he blurts, slightly red-faced from the sun. I agree to carry them but will hand them to James to shove in letterboxes.

We get into a routine. I proffer a leaflet to James, if there is a car in the drive he rings the bell and waits fifteen seconds, if there is not he assiduously posts and moves on. People seem by and large receptive to James’s message, which emphasises cutting the foreign aid budget by £8 billion as well as scrapping HS2. A 76-year old who has voted Labour all his life nods vehemently as James sets out his stall; a freight-train driver opens the door scornfully and closes it promising to “have James in mind in the polling booth.” Over the whole afternoon only two people refuse to listen to the UKIP pitch. Time and time again people join James’s criticism of immigration by saying “I’m not racist but…” James notices me scribbling this down and explains that this common refrain is an unwitting double bluff, that this does indeed prove that they are not 5

racist.

One man rushes across the road to greet James keenly. “Have you got a poster for me to put in the window?” he demands. James says that he does not have any on him but takes down the man’s details in his leather notebook. A couple of moments later he sternly tells me that he will not be following up on what seemed like a prize catch. I ask him why.

“He was trying to hide a Nazi tattoo on his right arm. That man gave me the willies.”

Tired from politicking, we get back into the car and drive to a Toby Carvery to buy a

“Well ‘amateur’ comes from ‘to love’. We are in politics out of love. We are patriotic.” well-deserved meal for Jim. James explains his decision to join ‘a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists.’ For him UKIP’s naivety is their attraction, “UKIP will have lost its meaning when it is full of political animals.”

He says that he left the Tory party because their politics had become cynical vote-grabbing and cites David Cameron’s legalisation of same-sex marriage as an example. I ask him if this amateurishness is enough to be politically successful. James takes a long pause, “Well ‘amateur’ comes from ‘to love.’ We are in

politics out of love. We are patriotic.” I point out the St George’s Flag, which flutters appropriately past at this moment in time. Twice that day people have complimented me on my “strong English name”. “The English have a very strong sense of place. When I first came here as the UKIP candidate my neighbour at the meeting told me proudly ‘I love Walsall wood.’”

Pulling off a traffic-heavy roundabout into the car park, we see Jim, his eyes watering in a perpetual squint. James orders tiredly, “One pint of orange squash, two bitter shandies, and two carvery suppers… George are you sure you won’t have a carvery?” I acquiesce. We take our plates of deliciously fake beef back to the table where Jim continues a conversation with me, of which I am lucky to understand every other word. I do catch a telling sentence: “Yer see I was bullied at school.” Jim grabs my hand and jabs it against his chest where an abnormal pectoral growth testifies to some horrific injury.

One month and an election later, I manage to extract the telling statistics about Jame’s constituency from the gizmo-heavy analysis of the BBC. James increased UKIP’s share by 19.6% and came third in terms of number of votes; so did UKIP across the whole of the UK. For these gains they have one singular MP. The voiceless therefore still lack a voice. It’s hard to say whether or not this is a good thing.

Neglect can be dangerous; so can the far right.

6

NOSE JOBS IN TEHRAN Anon.

I

n a marble-floored hotel lobby, five women and two men lounge around a low coffee table. They have been sitting there for hours.

Their conversation ebbs and flows, now reaching a crescendo of laughter as one of the women affectionately slaps the thigh of the man next to her; now petering out as members of the party check their phones and take sips of tea. To the Western tourist newly arrived in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the party seem remarkably unrestrained in their behaviour: contrary to the guidebook’s cautionary advice, both sexes are touching each other in public, and the women are wearing head scarfs that cover so little they appear to be only a cursory nod to Iran’s Islamic dress regulations. What surprises the tourist most, however, is that all of the (otherwise very elegant) women’s noses are heavily bruised and bandaged.

I might be being carelessly irreverent in describing the appearance of an unfortunate group of women who have all coincidentally experienced the same disfiguring accident. But it’s more likely that the women in my hotel lobby are among the vast numbers of Iranian women who obtain nose jobs. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran has come to be considered the nose job capital of the world. The Rhinology Research Society of Iran, in

cooperation with John Hopkins university in the US, estimates the number of women undergoing nose jobs in Iran to be seven times the number of those in the UK. One explanation is that since regulations on how women dress have become so strict, they have focused their attention on their faces. It’s still difficult to reconcile the permissibility of cosmetic surgery with the government’s stipulations that women must present themselves modestly; surely the state Islamic authorities cannot approve of such obvious displays of vanity?

Nose jobs might be above board, but a lot goes on in Iran that isn’t officially sanctioned. The punishment for drinking can be up to 160 lashes, but our state-approved tour guides both offered us alcohol over the course of our trip. Though dissenting can result in a lifetime in prison, almost everyone who engaged us in conversation willingly and audibly volunteered their dissatisfaction with the regime.

Ten days in the Islamic Republic of Iran gives the distinct impression the country’s religious façade is little more than flimsy sticking plaster on a newly built binee (nose). Iranians who can afford plastic surgeons and police bribes continue to sculpt their lives and noses as they wish.

7

lookup.org

You may have noticed a new graffiti ‘tag’ that has recently managed to wheedle its way in amongst the obligatory “Reg was ere 93”s and “Jack n Sally forever”s of Oxford’s concrete community. Though it may be lacking Jack and Sally’s tenderness, or mawkish Reg’s sentimentality, the sheer ubiquity of this new upstart ‘tag’ is impressive in itself: from Magdalen Bridge to the Bodleian Library, the High Street to St. Giles. The words are plain – look-up.org – just a simple web address. And I suspect I am among the many residents of this town whose piqued interest sent them racing to the nearest wifi hub, brimming with vague expectations of an anarchist militia group, funded

by North Korea, and headed by Lord Lucan. But no such glamour. Type in look-up. org and you will be greeted by a puritanically drab webpage, which protests against the “long spreading trails” left by airplanes across the skies. It’s hardly Ian Fleming.

And nor is the graffitist himself that masked Scarlet Pimpernel of my imagination, capering across the cobble-stones, with spray-can in hand. In fact he is, as the website explains, “an educated, 40-something”, who until 2013 lived in an “amazing family home in Walthamstow”, which he sold to fund the project. But surely there must be better ways to advertise your cause, anonymous, educated, 40-something. Did you never consider putting something in a local newspaper, or maybe even in a magazine?

Tom Ball

the chicken who couldn‘t cross the road

sex-boyfriend

There once lived a chicken that decided to cross a road.

Most of his mates had crossed it so it wasn’t a big deal.

As the chicken was crossing the road, he saw a gaggle of geese appear on the horizon. The geese occupied the far side of the road and squawked at any chicken who tried to cross it. “You chickens have got everything you need on your side,” they squawked. But in truth they didn’t know a thing about the chickens’ problems.

They probably wouldn’t have cared even if they did.

A few chickens, the cheekiest fellas, were able to nip across whenever they liked and brought back tales of how great the geese’s side was. But no baby chickens could cross, and certainly no hens. Just because of the geese.

Alex Stewart

Indigo Wilde

8

advice:on waking up next to a tory

Remain calm. You probably weren’t to know. That’s right, you’re beginning to remember it now, the drunken fog receding from your mind. The patterned brogues, the flash of a signet ring. You look over, he is still asleep and definitely a Tory. Look at his hair! The follicles reek of monarchism. You should leave, you think, before he rouses and invites you to Port and Policy. But do try to think of the upsides. If things become more serious, you’re quite likely to be invited on a nice holiday. And he probably knows a lot about wine. Now he has woken up, he’s smirking at you.

He knows the look on your face: he’s seen it many times before. There’s eggs in the kitchen, he says, and hands you a spare toothbrush.

Alex Hartley

rothko on toast

Georgia Herman

drinking from the furry cup Meret Oppenheim and Pablo Picasso are eating lunch in a café in Paris. In admiring Oppenheim’s fur covered bracelet Picasso noted that anything could be covered with fur, “even this cup and saucer”. Oppenheim laughed and called out ‘Waiter, a little more fur!’

Soon after their lunch Oppenheim went to a department store, bought a white teacup, saucer, and spoon and wrapped them in speckled Chinese gazelle fur. An object normally associated with feminine decorum conjured in the viewer wicked sensations of hair-filled mouths. A joke sparked Oppenheim’s most work, Object, or as it is more affectionately known – The Furry Cup.

9

Holly Isard

SKYPE WITH A PLANE HIJACKER DEFINING TERRORISM WITH LEILA KHALED Isabella Steel

I

dial the long Jordanian number a little nervously. The line crackles and a tired voice finally answers, “Leila Khaled speaking.” It soon transpires that our timings, carefully formulated over several emails, had been wrong, Jordan being two-hours ahead not behind, and we agree that midnight is not the best time for our conversation. Our next attempt begins with similar difficulties, my ear burning as I strain to hear. The landline proves a better option, however, and I eventually begin my conversation with this self-professed revolutionary; internationally condemned terrorist.

On 29 August 1969, Leila Khaled hijacked a plane from Rome to Tel Aviv for the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). No one was injured, but the aircraft was blown up after hostages had disembarked. A year later, she underwent six cosmetic operations on her face without general anaesthetic in order to do it again. This time, on a flight from Amsterdam to New York, sky marshals overpowered Khaled and killed her partner. She was imprisoned in the UK and subsequently released by the British Government in exchange for hostages from another hijacking. Her former notoriety was reignited this year by her declaration, at a BDS Conference in South Africa in February, that the PFLP, contrary to their official description by the US and EU, “are not terrorists.”

‘Terrorism’ is defined by the Oxford En-

glish Dictionary as the “unofficial, unauthorised use of violence or intimidation in pursuit of political aims.” I ask Khaled whether this description is too narrow.

Khaled agrees it is, arguing that “morality and legality are relative.” She believes that her enemies have defined the ethical and legal paradigms of the Arab-Israeli conflict, so that while she is called a terrorist, they can act inhumanely with impunity. She cites the destruction of Gaza by Israeli forces as an example of

“What crime did I and my people perpetrate to deserve the fate we suffered?

None.” such inhumane behaviour. Considering that the right to armed resistance under occupation is enshrined in international law, it is understandable that members of the Palestinian resistance view the use of what may be termed terrorism as legitimate means of achieving their ‘revolution’.

Khaled believes that not only is her form of resistance legitimate, but that it is imperative as a means to bring the plight of the Palestinians to the world stage.

She describes the PFLP’s revolutionary ideology and strategy as “very just, very noble and very beautiful… having our homes back, having back our country.” In 10

11

She underwent six cosmetic operations on her face without general aesthetic so that she wouldn’t be recognised

her autobiography, she writes of the suffering she witnessed of a “homeless, hungry, barefoot…humiliated multitude” that motivated her to engage in resistance. “What crime did I and my people perpetrate to deserve the fate we suffered? None.”

I ask if resistance must be violent, alluding to various international attempts to resolve Arab-Israeli conflict through treaties and accords. Khaled quickly acknowledges that resistance can be anything from saying no to taking up arms, but explains that given the futility of diplomatic pursuit of resolution, force is necessary. She laments the “unresponsive, Zionist-inspired, Zionist-informed Western public opinion” that has hindered the peace process, arguing that the PFLP “acts ‘violently’ in order to blow the wax out of the ears of the deaf Western liberals and to remove the straw that blocks their vision.”

In Life of a Revolutionary, she describes seeing a child playing, about to board the Flight TWA 840 that she was soon to hijack. Reminding herself that the child “had committed no crime”, she resolved not to jeopardise the lives of passengers unnecessarily. Khaled reminds me that on arrival in Damascus, she and her associate surrendered and turned over their weapons. She reiterates that no-one died as a result of the hijacking, and that the PFLP have since banned the resistance tactic, deeming it no longer useful or necessary as a means to make heard their plea of desperation.

Khaled sees herself “as a soldier who carries out her assignment” (as indeed she told the Syrian guard who arrested her following the 1969 hijacking). I ask whether future generations are imbued

with similar duty. She believes that so long as occupation continues, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees is compromised, resistance will endure. She laments that such resistance is increasingly difficult, and attributes this to a shift in the focus of Palestinian politics under the PA from refugee communities to the occupied territories.

George Habash, founder of the PFLP, said that if he returned to his house in Lydda he would not expel the Jewish family living there, but would build another floor to accommodate them. I ask whether this is a typical attitude. Khaled agrees it is, distinguishing between the desire of most Palestinians to live peacefully, following Islamic precepts, alongside Jewish neighbours, and antipathy towards Zionism. Khaled sees Zionism as a racist, reactionary movement that seeks to rule the global economy and, if unabated, will precipitate “World War III”. She believes Zionist atrocities go unchallenged because Europe and America fear appearing anti-Semitic in a post-Holocaust world.

I thank Khaled profusely, and she replies that she hopes that one day I might visit Palestine.

I know that such a prospect is unlikely, and am reminded of the Western media’s oversimplified portrayal of the Middle East as a region of chaos. The inability to see the light and shade of the issue also applies in relation to the definition of ‘terrorism’. Khaled’s arguments encourage us to reconsider how equating of certain kinds of violence with immorality precludes necessary debate about how and why ‘terrorists’ act as they do.

12

13

MAY DAY FOR FREDDIE GRAY 14

Photographs of the May Day for Freddie Gray protest in New York on the 1st of May, taken by Rachel Dlugatch.

15

OUR MOURNING RITUAL LIFE AFTER DEATH ONLINE Christian Hill

16

E

arlier this year, on Thursday the 26th of March, I attended my father’s funeral. At the reception I was approached by a man I had never met before. Once he introduced himself I instantly recognised his name, but couldn’t pin down where from. The name hung in the back of my skull. I suspected it was just one of a multitude my dad had mentioned over the years.

Only when researching for this article did I realise where I had heard the name. He was tagged in my dad’s last Facebook status. After my dad passed away all of his accessible ‘last words’ became hugely significant to me: statuses; tweets; voicemails; emails; texts. I was, and still am, determined to hold on to him. Through Facebook I was able to capture my father’s ‘best self’. To cope with my grief, I called upon a catalogue of words, music and photographs all dedicated to my father.

Suddenly, the function of social media changed.

Messages came flooding in on his wall; old photographs and stories from his childhood emerged.

Perhaps the anecdote that touched me the most was the tribute to his old band, Electric Hernia.

Formed in their early teenage years, it was deeply moving to see the lasting impact my dad had on their lives: “Together we waged a campaign to recreate the sixties at the beginning of the eighties. We created our own magical world -- memorized the lyrics of Pink Floyd, burned josticks, wore afghan coats, chanted Hare Krishna, played The White Album backwards, brewed dandelion wine, and set secret campfires deep in Adel woods… Hilly -- I haven't seen you for so many years but have enjoyed seeing your new life and wonderful family on Facebook. I had always hoped for some kind of Hernia Reunion, maybe in a pub in Leeds one night so we could talk about the old times and get some of that laughter back. That will never happen now. It hurts my heart we never got to see each other again. I think I speak for all the band when I say we will miss you and we love you… xxxx” My father’s digital fingerprint provided almost tangible evidence of the positive impact he had on those around him. It was easy for me to see

him in this way and rely on his online persona.

How could I have lost my dad? Here he was online. If you can still reach out to them, still message them, if you’re still receiving emails about fucking health insurance addressed to them, how can they be gone? Rather than face the truth, the more palatable belief was that he’d eventually see and reply to these messages. I would call my dad up to five times a day hoping to hear his voice.

There was something cathartic about reclaiming an echo of the relationship we had, even when I knew he wouldn’t return the call.

What do you do with an online presence when that person has gone? A relatively new Facebook policy allows for accounts to be ‘memorialised’, enabling family members to monitor or, if requested, delete the account of their dead loved one. The policy requires proof of your relationship to the person and of their death; once given, the profile is transformed into a ‘memorial page’ which only confirmed friends have access to.

The transformation allows sensitive information such as birthday reminders to be removed at will.

Facebook’s policy reflects the demand for a psychosocial space to deal with death online.

Online mourning is young, and the social norms are still being developed. As with any other cultural ritual, unspoken protocols take time to develop and solidify. Our expression of grief through social media will evolve. Just as one knows to wear black at a funeral, so too might we one day understand the rules and formalities of online rituals. Death is the most profound point at which our online and offline selves converge.

In my experience, social media provided solace when I needed it. For me, there was no need to rush into grief. I tried to reach out for help where it was available, but that wasn’t always possible.

It’s a difficult experience to let people in on. Facebook operated as a halfway point between the life I had before and the reality I am presented with now. Intangible but permanent, synthetic yet sincere – grief is here to stay, and has found another home.

17

LONELY MEN

R

oy looked out of the window. His gardener and local parish priest were embroiled in some kind of scrap (on the mud path). The priest was gnashing at the gardeners knee, and subsequently dominating the tussle. (This was good news, as Roy was rooting for the priest.) Roy turned from the scene and loaded a couple of crumpets into the toaster. When Roy finished and looked back he saw the priest had re-gathered his Nordic walking sticks and disappeared. It was evident that they had been put to use in the melee.

18

AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

George McGoldrick

C

hadley had been farming racing goats since the ‘70s. Prior to that he sold large ride on lawnmowers and tractors. Chadley was excited for today’s big goat race. Perhaps a little too excited. It wasn’t by any accounts the largest of the season. But for him it was the pinnacle of the calendar. Chadley wandered through the dewy ground towards the stable. He smiled a toothy grin at the thought of Steven galloping to victory later in the day. And just when he thought this day could get no better… he was right. Steven lay sprawled in a corner of the stable. An amassment of Guinness tinnies were toppled around his little goat bed. It was evident that Steven had got completely fucked up the night before. On his hairy chest a crude illustration of a bronze medal had been spray-painted. Chadley fell to the ground and wept. This would teach him never to use Dave O’Keffe’s parking space at the turkey market again.

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500 WORD COMPETITION

SHAMI

J U D G E S:

MELVYN BRAGG ALAN RUSBRIDGER CHAKRABARTI EVIE WYLD

B O R D E R S & B O D I E S

20

Illustrations by Frank Lebon

PARTITION Because they scored a blood line up our mother’s spine and because you terra-cotta cup your hands when you pray and because my father turned yours out before he left her and because you call your auntie khala not mausi and because your brother blames me and because we were never in the same relay race in sports day and because my Nani tries to hide the burn tears in her bed sheet and because it took them two years to process your visit visa and because our mother’s dead now, you are not my sister.

Ankita Saxena, Winner

21

I KNOW THIS BODY I laughed when she kissed me, which is not what you’re supposed to do when someone kisses you. I snickered when she bit me a little on the ear, which made her laugh, too, and kiss me on the nose. And I giggled when she unzipped my jeans and made her way downward, which is a scientifically-proven way to ruin the moment.

I laughed for the sheer lunacy of it, the pure improbability of someone ever wanting to do anything sexual with this body. I know this body. No one should ever want to kiss this body.

I know this body folded into a little bundle in the third cabinet on the left in the kitchen in the church basement the one that looked too small to hold somebody, but could, if you put the gravy boats in the cabinet next to it where it hid long after the seeker had found everyone else and gave up seeking and had been watching The Emperor’s New Groove in the Youth Lounge by the time this body came out.

I know this body, fingers rooting around in its nose, extracting orange globs from its ear canals, extruding the goop from blackheads on its nose, chin, and back. I know a time when, long after it should know better, this body put some of those substances in its mouth.

I know this body heaving and sweating, concealed behind a tree at cross-country practice because it can’t keep running and doesn’t want anyone to know.

I know this body, clumsily rubbing and pulling itself to an ashamed climax under the covers, then washing its hands under water kept too hot on purpose no one punishment is sufficient, but perhaps many together will be instructing itself never to do this again.

I know this body doing the same the next night, devising and adding ever more multifaceted punishments, pulling its sleeves down over its hands to cover the scald marks.

I know this body naked, confounding curves exposed, hair too thick in some places and too light in others, flexing in front of the bathroom mirror. Maybe with this tightened and that turned, with the bangs flipped this way and the glasses perched just right maybe then! But no, this body swaddles itself in a sweater instead.

I know this body wracked with cold, I know it hot with diarrhea, I know it aching from bad sleep, I know it with asscrack exposed from a too-loose belt, and I know it shuffling sheepishly on a dance floor, moving just enough not to stand out but not enough to invite more than passing attention. I know it enraptured in brain-fantasies too depraved to record.

I know it unmoved by the dead body of a beloved grandfather.

I know this body. No one should ever want to kiss this body.

But she does, so I laugh.

Adam Mastroianni, Runner Up 22

PHANTOM ISLAND In November 2012 the RV Southern Surveyor confirmed that 'Sandy Island', which up until that point had appeared on many maps just north-west of New Caledonia, did not actually exist.

I undiscovered an island today. Undid a centuries-old geographical knot and found it wasn't tied to anything.

I unraveled its borders until there was nothing left. I didn't mean to: I would have been content to leave the map the way I found it. I am not some chaotic anti-cartographer, intent on losing places, on obscuring routes and charting absences. But as always I am subject to the whimsy of the sea.

Otherwise my journey has been blissfully uneventful. The weather is average.

I trust I would have had a pleasant stay on Sandy Island, had it stuck around.

Instead I spent an hour sailing through the place it should have been; listening to the waves lap against what would have been its shore.

David Carey, Shortlisted

23

update errrrr last nite i had one of the strangest experiences of my life.. after walking home from drinks with friends on the other side of cowley, i got home, sat down, had another shot and turned on the h g wells stories im reading atm (haha yup, thats what i do!). i was almost asleep when my phone pinged. i looked down and saw a twitter notification from some anonymous account (its now disappeared.. i :seriously cant find any trace of that account online..). it just said, *open the door*. didnt say who it was from or anything, just: open the door. i was pretty mindlessly drunk, so without thinking about it put down my kindle and went to the door. so standing right outside was this well, i dont really know what to call it. she wasnt exactly a person, as i found out later when i made an advance. but it/she looked like one. like, completely like one. she was like “hey hudson, how are you, its been soo long!” and i assumed it was just my bad memory and that i knew her from the past or something, though i thought it was strange cos she was photoshopstyle gorgeous, so i wouldve remembered.. neway, i invited her in, and we chatted for a bit. i offered her a drink, and she said yeah, but when i looked afterwards, i realise she hadn't drunk any of it, she must have just been faking the motions. ok so she was being pretty flirty, so i thought it was reasonable about half an hour later to touch her, but when i tried... well, my hands just went right through her. there was nothing there. she was nothing. there was a shriek, and she vanished in an instant, as if she’d been deleted. end of. i dont really know what to make of the whole situation. things she said keep ringing through my ears. they feel kind of unreal now. they were like oneliners, as if everything she said was a status update. like for eg, i was talking about where id just come from, and she just said “cant will till summer 2015. gonna be cray”. then out of nowhere she said ‘im feeling happy to be with someone so for real”. and when i asked her about what she’d been up to, she said “just been to the bar over by lions gate. best night of my life”. except she pronounced “just” as “jsut”, as if it was a typo.. the way she spoke was less casual than normal human speaking. it was like someone trying too hard, or a bad actor. it was like she was a computer trying to find a body but not quite able to work out how the mouth works lol. idk. everything’s weirding these days.

Leo Mercer, Shortlisted

24

HOW ARTIFICIAL BORDERS HAVE ENDED THE BEDOUIN TRADITION

LINES IN THE SAND A cold concrete tower block on the outskirts of Cairo’s urban sprawl seems an unlikely home for a Bedouin. Yet my host Ahmed tells me proudly that he is descended from nomads who have lived, worked and migrated through the deserts of the Middle East for centuries. How has nomadism found its final resting place in an unlikely urban home?

For young Arabs like Ahmed, the legacy of European colonialism is the source of the region’s problems. A glance at a map is enough to reveal the disinterested nature of imperialism: the sharp angles and straight lines of state borders reveal their function as administrative aids, neglecting the reality of people on the ground. Long after the departure of the Europeans, these borders remain, creating barriers where none exist and overturning the Bedouin’s ancient patterns of migration.

In a world committed to the European notion of statehood and to territorial authority, taxation and regulation, the nomadism of the Bedouin is seen as a threat.

Modern states have tended to settle, assimilate or expel nomads where they challenge these norms, a policy whose effects are clearly visible throughout the region. After Israel’s creation in 1948, 85% of the Bedouin living in its Negev desert were expelled, while those that remain are restricted to an area just 10% of the size of the land inhabited previously. In Egypt’s Sinai region,thE Bedouin have had their valuable coastal property nationalized and sold to hotel operators. Only in Jordan has the culture of nomadism been protected, al-

beit in a fetishized context designed for Western tourists seeking an authentic desert experience.

The Bedouin, whose livelihood and identities depend on their ability to migrate the region freely, are trapped within state borders or coerced in to moving to urban areas like Ahmed’s under a campaign of modernization.

Some have placed the demise of nomadism in the context of wider social progress, with rising levels of education, healthcare and material wealth the corollary to their demise. Ibn Khaldun, the medieval Arab sociologist, argued that the Bedouin were a socioeconomic class, and that “urba isation is found to be the goal to which the Bedouin aspires”. A recent survey also supports this idea: amongst Bedouin mothers in the Negev, 90% aspire for their children to attend secondary school, a choice incompatible with a nomadic existence.

However, urbanisation is often not a choice. The Israeli policy is a particularly egregious example: Moshe Dyan, the Israeli minister of agriculture in 1963 argued for transforming “the Bedouins into an urban proletariat – in industry, services, construction, and agriculture… the Bedouin would not live on his land with his herds, but would become an urban person”. The experience of other nomadic groups illustrates that nomadism is not incompatible with modernity: Europe’s Roma are free to migrate transnationally within the EU. The conflict between modern states and nomadic culture is artificially drawn, with the Bedouin on the losing side.

William Key, Shortlisted

25

THE STRANGE EXPERIMENTS OF D R. B O G D A N O V The October Revolution of 1917 inaugurated a great (albeit brief) epoch of experimentation in Russia. From Eisenstein’s films (the baby carriage tumbling helplessly down the Odessa steps) El Lissitzky’s lithographs (Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge!), there was a flowering of the bold and the new in all spheres of cultural production. But some amongst the Russian avant-garde were not satisfied to limit their experimentation to mere meddling with painterly or cinematic form. The ambition of these revolutionaries extended much further: they sought nothing less than the fundamental transformation of the human body.

The leading light of this early Soviet drive to improve the physiological armature of mankind was a Russo-Belarusian polymath named Aleksandr Bogdanov. Bogdanov was a fascinating figure, a founding Bolshevik who once rivalled Lenin himself in revolutionary stature, a doctor of medicine, an author of science fiction, a systems theorist, a philosopher of proletarian liberation.

He was also, in his own way, an artist: but where Malevich and Kandinsky worked in oils, Bogdanov’s chosen medium was blood. In his 1908 novel Red Star, a Russian communist who finds himself on Mars discovers that the locals make extensive use of blood transfusions: intrigued, our human hero asks one of the Martians why humans do not make more use of blood transfusions. “I don’t know”, the Martian confesses, before wondering whether it was not “your predominantly individualistic psychology, which isolates people from each other so completely that the thought of fusing them is almost incomprehensible to

your scientists”.

There was, however, a way out of this atomistic mire. Blood was the “special juice” whose manipulation would be the royal road to human betterment, and whose mingling represented the “comradely exchange of life”. Bogdanov dreamt of overcoming these psychological and physiological barriers and bringing about an age of “physiological collectivism” through blood transfusions, where the mingling of blood would facilitate the transmission of evolutionary advantages. Perhaps it could even reverse the effects of aging: could it be that the Fountain of Youth which men had sought at the farthest ends of the earth had lain within our circulatory systems this whole time?

In the end, Bogdanov would give his life to the quest for sanguinary perfection: he died in Moscow in 1928 after achieving a stormy communion of the blood with a malarial, tubercular student.

And so ended a brief but stimulating footnote in the history of the human body.

Not that Bogdanov’s death stopped the Soviet state from continuing to push the frontiers of what the body was capable. Stalin’s firing squads (like those of Lenin before him) repeated, in the name of scientific exactitude, an experiment they had performed so many times before: the resilience of man in the face of bullets. Other brave souls accepted selflessly the opportunity to observe first-hand the effects of Siberian winter temperatures on the human metabolism.

And thus did the borders of the human body grow ever more porous.

Daniel O’Neil, Shortlisted 26

“K A T E ‘ S B O D Y T O G O V I R A L, ” KENSINGTON PALACE SAYS In a startling announcement just hours after the birth of the second child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Kensington Palace announced today that they are taking new measures to ensure that Kate Middleton’s next pregnancy is “the most public event Britain has ever seen.”

After recent concerns aired by Germaine Greer and others that the Duchess may in fact be “too thin” and that she “shouldn’t have any more children”, Kensington Palace officials came out with a new action plan designed to give the British public and the world “up-to-the-minute information about the Duchess’s body and her general overall health.”

The new measures, funded in part by a coalition between Snapchat, Facebook, and many British television networks, will include hourly weighins as well as a live feed of the baby’s heart-rate, made possible by a new device nicknamed “The Fitbit for Foetuses.” Users will have 24-hour access to this information through a new dedicated website, which will include useful tools including illustrations comparing the Duchess’s figure across her previous pregnancies. The site is set to be ready by early 2016, by which time officials hope the media will once again be clamouring to know whether or not the Royal Family will be welcoming a new member.

There are, however, some concerns that Kensing-

ton Palace is ill-equipped to handle the new demands placed on them by this virtual exhibition of a royal body. NHS officials are particularly sceptical of a plan to incorporate a five-camera news crew into the delivery room, with one midwife suggesting that a GoPro strapped to the Duchess’s thigh would work just as well.

Unsurprisingly, media outlets from around the world have clamoured to sign on to the new service, which Kensington Palace believes will make the Duchess of Cambridge’s third birth “the most televised event in human history.” Ladbrokes has even expressed interest in the service, hinting at the possibility of a specialty-betting scheme for those interested in guessing how many hours she will be in labour, and how much medication will be used during the delivery.

When asked how the Duchess took the news that her next pregnancy would be sold as a viral sensation, Kensington Palace replied that “The Duchess initially had her doubts, especially considering the huge throngs of press that were already stalking her day and night to find out the status of her womb. She suggested a nation-wide tour with televised weigh-ins, a sort of mixture between Britain’s Got Talent and The Biggest Loser UK. We told her she was foolish – we know what the public wants, and that’s easy and guiltfree access to every inch of her body.”

Frank Vitale IV, Shortlisted 27

A KURD IN COWLEY Frances Timberlake

C

owley Road, Oxford, five in the evening.

Behind the bright green walls and electric blue shutters of the Greece Greek Taverna, a Kurdish family group sits down to a modest selection of traditional meze dishes, a daily routine before the restaurant opens for business. Though there is a well-established Kurdish community in Cowley, some members of the group have only recently arrived in the UK. Siwar, a 22-year old from Aleppo, Syria, fled his homeland three years ago at a point when the country was becoming increasingly unsafe for civilians, especially those of Kurdish descent. “It was like a video game,” he recalls. “I started seeing violence on the TV, and people started carrying guns and knives around on the streets. It was too dangerous to stay.”

Siwar first decided to move to Kobane, the hometown of his family and a Kurdish-dominated region recently liberated from ISIS, because he felt it was the only place left in the country where his ethnicity would not provoke such great persecution. “As a Kurd, for centuries we have had

problems. We were forced to get out, otherwise we would be killed or massacred or put in prison.

That’s typical Syria, typical Middle East.”

But even Kobane, an area that has remained under separate control from the Assad government

“It was like video games," he recalls, “I started seeing violence on the TV, and people started carrying guns and knives around on the streets.” since 2012, was not left untainted by the turmoil and unrest sweeping the country. “There were no opportunities left there, unless you wanted to carry guns and go and fight people. I thought to myself, I have to move away from this city. I don’t 28

between various French cities, Siwar made his way to Calais where he eventually found a truck driver willing to run the risk of smuggling him over the border into England. He hides a rather bashful grin. “It was very frightening, I did not know whether I would make it. But I did.”

“When I arrived at the airport I waited, but nobody came. I had given 6000 euros to a liar. I had no one.”

like it, I can’t do it, I have other things that I want to do with my life.” With help from friends, Siwar escaped over the border via illegal means to Turkey, joining the plight of several million other Syrians displaced by the ongoing violence and oppression. From here he obtained documents to travel to Greece, where he soon met a Greek girl with whom he decided on a strategic marriage that would allow him to remain there legally.

But he found the new language and environment increasingly difficult, and realised he could not survive in such isolation. “I couldn’t stay because I didn’t have anything there. No family, no friends, no nothing. It wasn’t easy for me. But because I had a Syrian passport I was not allowed to move.”

Some months later Siwar befriended a man offering to provide him with a forged ID and organised route to Paris, for a charge of 6000 euros. “I was told, a guy will come and get you at the airport in Paris, pick you up, show you round, everything. It was my only option.

So when I arrived at the airport I waited, but nobody came. I had given 6000 euros to a liar. My family and my friends were at home; they couldn’t do anything. I had no one.”

After a two-month period of liminal existence spent 29

Siwar prefers not to dwell on the perils of his journey out of Syria, however, telling it as a matter-of-fact story rather than a dramatic narrative. “The past is past now, it’s gone and there’s no point thinking about it anymore.” He resists laying blame and is still ceaselessly appreciative of the more settled life he has found in Oxford, where he has signed up for an English language course in the hope of being able to continue his university studies in the UK. His two uncles come to join us at the table, both of whom left Syria a much longer time ago. Typically Kurdish hospitality accompanies the food. “You’re not eating anything!”

They complain after I have finished off enough for two. “Come on, eat! Be a Kurd!”

The emergence of Kurdish fighters as the group with the greatest capacity to contain ISIS has again brought to attention the position of this embattled minority who are spread throughout the Middle East. Kurds have long experienced severe persecution from governments in the region; the most famous single instance of Kurdish persecution being the Halabja genocide in Iraq in 1988. Kurds were long barred from being educated in their own language in Turkey, Iraq and Syria (in which printing material in Kurdish is still forbidden). There is currently a semi-autonomous province of Iraq held

by Kurds, but many continue to fight for a fully independent state.

Mustafa, the younger, is a determined

campaigner for Kurdish independence and for Western support in Syria. His charisma and charm, accompanied by emphatic hand gestures when he speaks, add to the aura of a tireless activist. He shares moving experiences of growing up a Kurd in Assad’s Arab-dominated Syria. “Can you imagine not being able to practise your language, your culture, in your own country? Not being able to practice your rights? We were born in Syria, our grandparents were born in Syria, it’s our home, but we never had any rights as Kurds, we couldn’t be active there. We have never been home.”

Mustafa talks extensively about his work campaigning for the British government to support the Kurds in Syria, and about the prospect and

“We don't need military intervention! We, the Kurds, can fight them.” utility of western intervention. I asked what he thought of the UK government’s vote, in August 2013, not to intervene militarily in the country.

“We don’t need military intervention! If they support the Kurdish movement, then we don’t need troops on the ground. We, the Kurds, can fight them. We have people, we have resources, we have the ground there. We are more...” He searches for a polite way to phrase this. “More knowledgeable. We know more about our own town than the US or the UK does. So it’s easier for us to fight than to bring other western people in to go and die without even knowing who’s who. We don’t want you guys to die on our behalf. But we do need support. And we will keep asking until we get it.”

The West’s post-Iraq response to humanitarian crises seems now to be primarily in the form of aid. A simpler option for Britain, perhaps, but not for Syria. “Aid doesn’t work!” Insists Mustafa, motioning angrily, his hand full of flat bread and hummus. “Over the years the aid money from Europe just went towards weapons for different groups. First aid and charity organisations have become like a business in the Middle East – the groups take it and sell it on to make money. Any-

way, who should they give it to? The Free Syrian Army has collapsed now, they don’t exist anymore.

There’s just the militant factional groups that came out of them. All we are asking for is for education, training, not for weapons. Because if you support us now, we can do something together, we can clean up the mess that you guys made, or that whoever made.”

Mustafa diverts the conversation briefly to tell me about the strands of salted cheese we are eating, a Kurdish special. “When it’s fresh, without salt, they warm it in hot water, then they pull it out into strings like this and make it like hair. My mother used to do it, and my grandmother. And there’s still a Kurdish community here in Oxford who makes it.” The meal continues as Turkish guitar music provides a soft backdrop to our conversation.

“The Kurds are the ones protecting the minorities in the Middle East at the moment – Christians, Arabs, everyone. We are the only ones who are really able to stand up and fight ISIS. They may be out of Kobane but they’re not very far away. They can come back again anytime, and they will. The West needs us. Of course the UK won’t support a Kurdish state though, because then they would have to do this for the Palestinians as well. So it will be very hard to get the West to agree on an independent Kurdistan, because Turkey is in NATO, and Turkey doesn’t want a separate Kurdish state.

Naturally, they’re too self-interested.”

I ask tentatively what his hopes are for an independent Kurdistan, if it will ever come into being.

“It’s gonna happen!” He replies with conviction, “Whether the West wants it or not, it’s gonna happen. The Kurds are never going to go back where they used to come from. This is our time.”

30

pouring out of his ears like oceans.

Sarah Murphy 31

AMAZON REVIEW REVIEWED

Ieuan Perkins

W

I

n 2010, historian Orlando Figes was revealed to have written reviews of his and his colleagues’ work under various pseudonyms. He described a book by Robert Service as “curiously dull” and “hard to follow”, while characterising his own prose as “beautifully written ... [it] leaves the reader awed, humbled yet uplifted ... a gift to us all.”

The option to write with total anonymity has led to farcical abuses of Amazon’s reviewing system.

With credibility of the average reviewer damaged, it falls upon the Amazon ‘Hall of Fame’ to be the wellspring of Internet reviewing credibility. The current reigning champion of the UK Amazon site ‘Hall of Fame’ is Mr Baz, who has written 1,975 reviews and collected a remarkable 12,371 ‘helpful votes’. It is Mr Baz’s sheer voracity, alongside his 97% ‘helpful’ rating, that secures his position at the top of the podium. Mr Baz’s profile picture, a monochrome image of a door led up to by stone steps, reflects the seriousness with which he reviews: “I try to give honest and upfront indepth… if I am sent a product to review I always state this clearly.”

However, upon simple examination of a long list of Mr Baz’s reviews that bear the disclaimer – “the maker supplied a review copy for evaluation” – it is challenging to find many examples of products receiving anything below four stars. It might be that Mr Baz has a very positive outlook, or perhaps that marketers understand that Mr Baz is an individual who appreciates quality, but clearly the Amazon reviewing structure discourages criticism.

Trevor Pinch and Filip Kesler’s study of the top 1000 Amazon reviewers found that 85% of respondents had received free products in exchange for their high-profile reviews. As a consequence of this direct relationship with

manufacturers, writers often avoid writing negative reviews for fear of damaging this delicate relationship. Pinch and Kesler also note that some respondents permit producers to vet the evaluations of their products, allowing them to decide if the material is published.

Because the reputation of reviewers is established in part by the percentage of ‘helpful votes’ compared to ‘unhelpful votes’ they receive, critics that challenge consensus opinion are routinely punished. This means more positive reviews tend to be better written, as accomplished reviewers become afraid to critique products honestly. Take, for example, two samples from reviews for a pair of oven gloves. A five star review: “The fact that they have fingers gives you increased dexterity, which is, of course, an additional safety factor in itself.” Compare this to a one-star review of the same product: “Rubbish burns hands.” The result of all this is that more positive reviews are almost invariably deemed ‘more helpful’.

The free outsourcing of reviews to ‘Hall of Fame’ contributors causes the entire system to lack true credibility.

“We have an obligation to let the truth loose,” said Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, “that’s what we try to do with customer reviews.”

However, a reviewing system intended to enfranchise the consumer has instead become a method by which manufacturers can better control the information received about their products. Amazon’s reviewing system reminds us that anonymity, a crowd-pleasing mentality and free content does not necessarily lead to the empowerment of individuals. Perhaps the most unnerving aspect of this claim is that people like Mr. Baz may be unwittingly supporting powerful bodies by obscuring critical views, while under the illusion that they are championing the consumer to make “informed decisions”.

32

1833

digital break-ups An old hook-up pops up on Facebook. You met on Tinder last year and dated for a number of weeks before you both decided it wasn’t going anywhere.

The relationship had died out long ago, but the digital world is populated by ghosts. A 2013 paper by researchers at the University of California at Santa Cruz investigated the damaging psychological impact of digital possessions (photos, social networking sites, texts, emails and music files) after a break-up.

The researchers suggest that in the future we will all be gifted with a digital Pandora’s box that will “automatically harvest digital material about the relationship, using face recognition, machine learning or entity extraction to generate a unified set of possessions.” This Pandora’s box will stow away all evidence of the relationship; out of sight and out of mind. That is, of course, until it’s re-opened – not with the removal of a lid, but with a swipe to the right.

Charlotte Juckes

Fred Woodward 34

‘i w i s h i t c o u ld be christ mas everyd a y’ : d i s c u s s I recently bega n to consider th e proposition of do “wish it coul whether or no d be Christmas t Wizzard real every day”. In their wish wer ly the hypothetic e granted, and al it situation that w ere mandated ebrated every that Christmas day, the marke t for songs enti was to be celevery day’ wou tled ‘I wish it co ld presumably uld be Christm be severely curt already be Chr as ailed, due to th istmas every da e fact that it wou y. With no-one be Christmas ld buying the song every day’, W ‘I wish it could izzard’s financi al future wou ld be jeopardized.

Is this simply a case of poor ly thought th zard? Or is it rough song-w rather the ulti riting from W mate statemen bling reality is izt of self-sacrifi that they wou ce? The humld place their tential peril in ow n financial fu a selfless cam ture in popaign for thei a world in w r dream of a hich it is Chr istmas every be tter world: underappreciat day. This is su ed acts of m rely one the m oral heroism ost in the last hu ndred years.

Dom Hewett

burton goes to a bop “How funny it will be lecturing at Oxford without a degree!” Richard Burton writes in his diary on Monday 28th October 1968. He has just been asked to become an English don at St Peter’s College Oxford. “Now I’ve always had this pregnant woman’s yearning for the academic life, probably spurious, and a term of smelly tutorials and pimply lectures should affect a sharp cure.” College life, however, proved disappointing. One party in particular failed to provide that “sharp cure” to Burton’s academic pangs: “Cheap. Everything very shabby. Clothes, cars etc.

Students unattractive. Beer warm.

Depressing. Glad to get to bed.”

Jessica Sinyor 35

DINNER WITH LUCIAN FREUD FROM THE ARCHIVES 1983 Katy Jones, Susan Irvine 36

O

nce Lucian Freud was asked to paint the portrait of a former Principal of Jesus College. “A charming physics don asked me if I would do it. I rather liked the idea of being up there amongst a lovely collection of Elizabethan works, but the problem was that I find it difficult to paint people I don’t know. So, the don invited me to a Guest Night at High Table during which I took meaningful sidelong glances at the Principal and eventually agreed to paint him for a rather phenomenal fee. The Principal came along to three sittings in all, but after several hours of, ‘what d’you think of that stuff painted in little dots and dashes, eh?’

I realised that this man was simply unbearable…

I’ve spent the last fifteen years waiting for his obituary to appear in The Times. Eventually it did.” He laughed. “You know, I was really worried when The Times went on strike that I was going to miss it.”

It’s several years since Lucian Freud has given an interview and he explained why he had decided to talk to us. “The signatures on your letter look as though you wrote them whilst doing a handstand. I was so intrigued, I decided to invite you to dinner.”

It was arranged to meet at the eleventh hour in a Greek restaurant in a quiet mews near Queensway.

There, amongst the taramasalata and dolmades, sat Lucian and his daughter Bella.

“I often worked late into the night and keep unpredictable hours,” he told us, “That’s why we had to meet so late.” He has day paintings and night paintings, working on several at one time because the models can’t sit for too long. He mainly paints people he knows intimately, conveying a sense of their whole personality rather than catching a fleeting image. He pointed out that he sometimes liked to paint people he disliked but found fascinating.

Absorption in his work is so complete for Lucian Freud that even his mother (of whom he is very fond) does not have his address in case of emergencies. Apart from a luncheon in Oxford and breakfast in Bristol, he has not been out of London for three years. “London is sufficient for me. I love walking in the streets and feeling the sense of the past – that Eliot has lived here too. I know this city so well, I hate discovering that a building has been begun and finished before I have even become aware of it.”

An observer of the world who nevertheless does not feel pressurised to participate in it, he talked of the di-chotomy between the artist and the man of action. He reads five newspapers a day: on the Falklands Crisis he said, “I’m glad they won,” indicating both his isolation and involvement.

He was not ashamed to admit his lack of moral 37

conscience about world affairs, caring much more deeply about his friends. “The death of friendship is worse than the death of a friend,” he quoted from Byron. This attitude seems to be part of the creation of a singularly intense world centred round an almost objective fascination with his own desires and perceptions.

He disdains pretension in art, and mystification. “Why do people talk about ‘gut reaction’ to art?

They never say they have a gut reaction to food,” and disagrees with the maniacal labelling used by art critics. “You know when a work of art is good by its empirical and intuitive appeal. Certain individual works of art are great, you can’t group them by artist or movement.”

“The Ingres of existentialism” is how Herbert Read referred to him, but Lucian Freud defies categorisation. “Though it’s very flattering to be compared to Ingres, I don’t find the label relevant. Existentialism was just a passing phase in post-war Paris, it embodied no great ideas. Whereas the ideas of Nietzsche are still significant and relevant today.”

Other great figures he admires include Baudelaire, (“you don’t even need to understand the language, the sounds are enough”), Robin, Mondrian (“full of energy”), Stravinsky, and Fats Waller. He admires Yeats as an artist who was capable of developing from a minor lyric poet to a great poetic realist. Most people, he said, cannot change after the age of three.

One artistic medium he no longer likes, however, is the cinema. He used to go often, taking his pet hawk, but found it depressing after a while. “I felt I’d been told a lot of lies,” he said.

He occasionally watches TV but only for the racing as he likes to gamble and is a great lover of horses. He used to go to the races 8 or 9 times a year and had horses of his own, including a pink one. (“Well, pinkish,” said Bella.) “If I wasn’t able to paint, I’d probably work with horses,” he added.

He sees a clear connection between animals and people. “It’s funny how people always think their clothes are so much a part of them. In fact they often look like animals dressed up – quite ridiculous.”

But he’s interested in clothes, and he himself likes to look “negotiable”. He objected to putting one of his famous nudes on the front of his new book. Instead the cover is an untypical dense undergrowth. “Vine leaves on the outside and all the meat on the inside.

Based on a Dolmades.”

Outside, and several bottles of retsina later, we jumped into a taxi and when we looked round to thank him, he was gone.

38

HOW TO TALK TO GHOSTS Emily Frisella

T

he road narrows between two hedgerows and, as the cab slows, a redbrick manor house comes into view. I have arrived at Arthur Findlay College, the UK’s premier educational institution for psychic mediums, to attend the college’s annual Open Week. Minister Steven Upton, Vice President Administrative of the Spiritualist National Union, greets me at reception with a brief history of Spiritualism, which he calls “the thinking person’s religion.”

“Most religions believe in life after death,” Upton says, “but we’re the only one that scientifically proves the existence of life after death.” Spiritualism is the eighth largest religion in the UK and has its origins in the 19th century, when it regarded itself as a “radical” branch of Christianity. “We’ve always ordained women, gays, straights, blacks, whites. Your soul is genderless and timeless so why should that matter?”

In the college museum, Upton shows me a

glass case is filled with wax-coated plaster casts of hands and feet among other objects offering proof of ‘spirit return’. In about 1876, the Librarian explains, these moulds were produced as scientific evidence of the manifestations. The materialised spirit would dip their ectoplasmic hand or foot into hot wax, creating a thin glove; once the wax dried, the limb enclosed in wax was removed through dematerialisation, and the mould was filled in with plaster for purposes of preservation.

Many contemporary mediums believe that these methods might be useful in a medical context, and Upton tells me about the “series of experimental séances” working towards a cure for diabetes. Type I diabetics are unable to produce insulin, and the only way to fix this, Upton says, is to replace the islet cells in the pancreas. “Current medical science can’t do that yet,” he tells me. “But the spirit world can do it by apporting them from another location, another body.”

At a discussion group later in the morning, Judith Seaman, Vice President Spiritual of the SNU raises this same question of adapting mediumship to the modern age. “Our world has evolved technologically at an amazing pace in our lifetime, but have we evolved in a spiritual way?” she asks the twenty-odd people seated in the sunny workroom.

A chorus of “no”s fills the room. “Health is contagious as well as disease. How do you feel about that?” A woman in a pink scarf stands up to speak: “Positive thoughts bring positive outcomes. You hear stories about people who beat cancer through positive thinking.” The room replies with nods and murmurs of affirmation. As the discussion comes to an end, Seaman asks, “How many of you believe that you are spirit?” Almost everyone in the room raises their hand. “I don’t believe that I am spirit,” Seaman says, then pauses for emphasis. “I know I am.”

Over lunch, Upton and Seaman attempt to explain to me what it feels like to work as a trance medium. “We allow our minds to be controlled by external intelligences,” Upton says. “It’s a state of conscious cooperation.” “I know who’s there with me, from the spirit world,” Seaman says. “I’m always aware of the group of people who work with me. For the big demonstration, it’s nearly always a man who’s called Jackson,” I nod, trying to remember if Jackson was one of the speakers I met this morning. “He’s got a sense of humor,” Seaman says, “He’s still very much like he was when he was alive.” Jackson, I realise, is a spirit.

39

WHEN THEY WERE BAD NOTES FROM A PUPIL REFERRAL UNIT Hetty Mosforth

P

upil Referral Units. Short Stay Schools.

Education Centres. There are numerous names for the places that teach the children rejected by mainstream schools. Given the current vogue for television documentaries exposing the educational lives of ‘bad’ teenagers, pupil referral units (PRUs) are in the public consciousness. The narrative of tough teenagers doing well despite the odds has become a familiar shtick. But volunteering at a PRU as a class assistant revealed the unglamorised reality of the students’ experiences and the day-to-day running of a system that all too often fails them. PRU students don’t necessarily do well despite the odds; the odds are stacked too highly against them. …

“They are going to look for weaknesses to use against you. They will make personal comments. They will threaten you.” This warning about the PRU students came from their suitably severe-looking headteacher. I had agreed to a two-week volunteering placement at the PRU, reasoning that as I wanted to teach, a rapid introduction to the ‘worst’ of the education system would be a good way to test my capabilities. But listening to the headteacher, this logic felt masochistic. The deputy headteacher countered her boss, saying optimistically: “You’ll be alright. The students will take to you because you’re new.

When they are good, they are very, very good.

It’s just when they are bad…” she trailed off with a laugh. The PRU was housed in unremarkable Sixties architecture, square and shabby but serviceable. It could be distinguished from mainstream school buildings only by the bars on the windows and the automatically locking doors. ...

There are 393 PRUs in the UK, all reserved for students who can’t learn in a mainstream environment. As better-behaved students are reintegrated into the mainstream system and newly excluded students arrive throughout the academic year, there is never any permanent improvement in how a PRU’s student body acts as a whole. Many teachers refuse to work in PRUs or stay only for short time, despite the apparent enticement of small class sizes. It is draining to lose continually the students who work hard. The high turnover of staff also has a negative impact on the students, who are already challenged by a great deal of unsettledness. …

‘Corridor duty’ is the name given to a role undertaken PRU staff on a daily basis. Necessitated by the frequency with which students leave their classrooms in the PRU, a member of staff permanently patrols the corridor in case of trouble.

One morning, ‘corridor duty’ involved encouraging an out-of-bounds student to stop attempting to throw his exercise book into a gym net suspended from the ceiling. “Talk to me. Just talk 40

to me. You were doing good work the other day.

What happened?” “What do you care? You’ll just leave.” The exercise book hit the net and was lost. …

The frustration of the pupils is a response to the inflexibility of the education system. Its illogical flaws are especially apparent in the PRUs, where most of the students aren’t academically minded. Even if students want to learn practical skills, academic qualifications are still mandatory. Though only 1.4% of PRU students achieve five or more A* to C GCSEs, staff are pressured into finding ways to push their students to attain higher grades. Their time would perhaps be better spent finding ways to diversify their students’ skills and catering for individual needs.

Being able to define an oxbow lake will not improve the lives of the majority of PRU students.

The practical value of the knowledge is limited.

The PRU students understand this. Having fallen through the system and feeling like they have less to lose than their mainstream counterparts, they freely acknowledge that what they are learning is irrelevant by causing trouble and not paying attention. …

“What’s the difference between a bicycle and a black man?” Pause. “A bicycle doesn’t sing when you chain it up.” Shouts of laughter follow. The joke graces a Year Nine maths lesson via the mouth of a pupil. The pupil and his cohort are dis-

appointed when they elicit nothing more than a raised eyebrow from their black teacher. …

It is much easier to sensationalise the bad behaviour of PRU students than to establish whether their needs are being met. For certain teachers, the way PRUs are perceived and failed by higher educational authorities is a continual problem. Ian Hedley, a PRU headteacher in Dorset spoke of the ubiquity of negative perceptions that have a direct impact on students’ learning: “We have to do a lot of work with our pupils when they arrive, because they’ve had a long time of being told that it will be a disaster for them if they end up having to come to us.” ...

Since their conception in 1993, PRUs have been growing in number and improving in quality (according to Ofsted). Regardless, they are still difficult places to work and study in. My time at the PRU ended when I went to Oxford to study for a degree (an irony which was not lost on me). Like everyone reading this article, I will never have to cope with the problems faced by PRU students and can only indistinctly appreciate life from their perspective. When they are good, they pass as mainstream students and those in charge are satisfied. When they are bad, they indirectly rail against a system that has not accommodated them well enough.

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E Y E - S P Y ARCHITECTURE LEARN MODERNISM ON THE OXFORD TUBE!

T

he fallacy of a productive Oxford Tube journey is over. No need to pretend anymore that books will be read, essays will be planned and notes will be made. Instead sit back and check off these buildings. You will step off the coach in London with a grounding in 20th Century Architecture.

St Mary’s Church by Nugent Cachemaille-Day (1958) Veering away from the stop-start misery of the London Road and onto the Headington Roundabout you catch sight of St Mary’s Church. Eschewing ornament and splendour, the brilliantly named Nugent Cachemaille-Day gives us here a lesson in austere North European ecclesiastical architecture. Although built thirty years after the heyday of backsteinexpressionismus or Brick Expressionism it displays the Teutonic industrial angularity typical of this movement.

The Hoover Building, Grade II*, by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners (1933) Reclining amidst surrounding suburbia draped in emerald bling, the Hoover Building appears on your left about five minutes after Hillingdon.

She is the Art Deco Queen of England. Note how the Ancient Egyptian motifs of the fanlight culminate in a crown of Gatsby lettering. The Temple of Hatshepsut was surely a point of reference for her mysterious architects (the ‘Gilbert’ of the firm remains unidentified- did he even exist?).

She is fabulously untamed by drab Tesco flags.

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Park Royal Tube Station, Grade II, by Welch and Lander (1931) The functional geometry of Park Royal appears on the right hand side of the coach a matter of minutes after the hoover Building. Welch and Lander were long time collaborators of Cachemaille-Day. All three worked extensively on the Garden City movement and so their legacy is by and large suburban. Much credit for this building should also go to Charles Holden.

Park Royal emulates his modernist template for the metro-land tube station. Brick, glass and concrete combine with continental simplicity into a cylindrical ticket hall, which is complemented by an unfussy tower; the tube sign at the top thereby looks like a clock-face.

The Trellick Tower, Grade II*,

by Erno Goldfinger (1972) What a thrill it is when the Trellick Tower bears down on the coach as it deferentially scurries past along the Westway. Brutalism’s archetype is in fact the younger sibling of Goldfinger’s earlier Balfron Tower in Poplar. Both are formed of lean service towers attached by arterial bridges to dominant residential blocks, all clad in beautifully honest concrete. The term ‘Brutalism’ comes from béton brut meaning raw concrete. The conventional metaphor for the Brutalist building is that of the fortress and the arrowslit windows of the service tower reinforce this comparison.

Artwork by Maya Leah Gulieva 43

FEMALE MILITARY ACADEMY Kiley Hunkler

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“U

sed to date a beauty queen,” my platoon sergeant’s voice rang out. His left foot hit the ground and he continued the cadence, “Now I date my M-16!”

Marching with 35 men and five women, swinging a rifle, and singing about the women we left behind was a sharp contrast from my former life at an all girls’ high school with my five sisters.

Cadet Basic Training (CBT), affectionately known as ‘Beast’ among cadets, is a seven-week course designed to transition civilians to cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Once at the Academy, students are trained to become commissioned officers in the United States Army upon graduation. In 2013, women composed about 15% of my graduating class.

Both my gender and my smaller stature shaped my four years at West Point. During the third year, cadets must complete an indoor obstacle course in a 105-year-old gym within a certain allotted time.

Among the obstacles on the test is a dreaded shelf suspended eight feet in the air. At five-foot-two (1.57m) I could barely jump and reach the shelf, let alone hoist my body over it. On testing day, the gym filled with cadets who came to watch the struggle unfold. When my turn came, I jumped up and grabbed the shelf, hooked my ankle, and swung my hips over. After I finished, a tactical officer approached me and said that he enjoyed my “little lady” technique for negotiating the obstacle.

Most of my encounters with sexism at West Point involved these kinds of patronising comments and attitudes rather than overt discrimination, which represented a significant improvement from the experiences of women in the first co-ed class at West Point in 1980, two years after the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) dissolved and women fully integrated into male units. Those sixty-two women dealt with blatant assertions that women undermined the West Point’s mission, reminiscent of slander campaigns initiated by male service members in 1943, which claimed that WAC women were sexually promiscuous and thereby devalued the profession. We have come a long way, but instances involving disrespect of women suggests that the armed forces have not fully inculcated a climate of equality.

Many of my female West Point classmates currently occupy male-dominated spaces in combat arms branches, where the narrative of exceptionalism is constantly thrust upon them. One of my classmates is a Field Artillery Officer attached

to an all-male Infantry unit. Her unit praised her for her fast two-mile run time at her most recent physical fitness test, but they ultimately viewed her an exception to the rule that women are less capable than men, rather than as an example of women’s potential. Military culture often assumes by default that men are the norm and women are the deviation from the norm, which perhaps encourages ‘damage control’ approaches to women’s integration into direct combat positions Departing from the paths of my classmates, I am currently reading for the MSt in Women’s Studies at Oxford, looking at how military discourses inherently exclude women from equal status in the military, such as differentiating between ‘soldiers’ and ‘female soldiers.’ In terms of readiness, studies have shown that gender has no negative effect on unit cohesion, which is an essential component to modern warfare. So long as they are treated as equal players in discourses and in practice, women have the potential to improve the armed forces’ reflection of the American population, and to increase the military’s effectiveness by enhancing global engagements through access to new sections of local populations.

Improvements of gender dynamics within the armed forces’ institution would likely ripple through civil society. The United States recently witnessed how the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” coincided with legal authorization of same sex marriages in many states, and different housing and education benefits for white and black veterans after the Second World War still affects wealth disparities today. My time at Oxford, inundated with both comments about the merits of ‘Women’s Studies’ and the prevalence of men-only spaces, such as gentlemen’s cigar and whiskey nights at college MCRs, have shown me that academia is one such civilian institution that needs to improve women’s standing.

Both the advice and example of my Oxford supervisor at Oxford, a woman who has danced professionally and served in the military, have shown me how to be devoted to, yet critical of my profession. As a future Army physician, I intend to cultivate an internal military climate that does not tolerate any form of oppression.

1st Lt. Kiley Hunkler is a 2013 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the U.S. Army or U.S. Department of Defense.

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“I’M S U R E A S A W O M A N I C A N D O A V E R Y G O O D S K Y S C R A P E R.” AN INTERVIEW WITH ZAHA HADID George Grylls

D

ame Zaha Hadid is one of the most famous architects currently practising in the world. She was the first female recipient of the Pritzker Prize, which is commonly referred to as the ‘Nobel prize of architecture’. Her Middle East centre opened at St Antony’s College on Tuesday 26th May The building has been coined the ‘Softbridge’ because it straddles two existing buildings and will be ‘a bridge between the Eastern and Western worlds.’

Is the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s a particularly personal project given your Iraqi heritage?

ZH: I must say that all the projects interest me equally. There is a personal connection with this project on several levels. My brother was a fellow of the college and as a centre of Middle East studies, there is an obvious connection with my own history. I am an Arab, but I was not brought up in a traditional Arab way, I have not lived there for many years, so in that sense, maybe I’m not a typical Arab. I’m Iraqi; I live in London; I don’t really have a particular place.

The Softbridge rises to reflect and respond to the Hilda Besse Building opposite. Do you appreciate this Brutalist building and the movement to which it belongs more generally?

ZH: There is an integrity within the Brutalist work that displays a real commitment to ideas of change and liberation. The 1960s were an incredible moment of social reform and levelling. The beauty in these projects is their material and their austerity.

There are no embellishments to make them conform to the status quo. Brutalist architecture fell out of favour and much of it has suffered neglect or been demolished, but it includes some very

46

good buildings that are beginning to be understood and appreciated again. These projects appear to be of their time, and yet they are essentially timeless, continuing a narrative of social reform and expressive materiality.

Can you explain your decision to use such a distinctive stainless steel for the Softbridge.

ZH: Its surface reflects light very softly to give the building a wonderful ephemeral quality, introducing a contemporary element amongst the historical sandstone buildings. The contrast works to highlight the integrity of the past and the present.

Both we and the client felt that Oxford needs to continue to look to the future as much as it protects its heritage. The stainless steel reflects the existing protected buildings and trees and the endlessly varied weather conditions, but it is also a physical entity, a representation of the present and ever-changing evolution of both Oxford and the wider world beyond the city.

All your buildings, including the Softbridge, emphasise curvature and you have professed an aversion to rectangularity. Is this an important battle in the history of architecture?

ZH: Architecture follows neither fashion nor political or economic cycles – it follows the cycles of innovation generated by social and technological developments. I think contemporary architecture must move beyond the 20th Century architecture of orthogonal blocks, repetition and compartmentalization – towards an architecture of the 21st Century that addresses the complexities and dynamism of our lives today. My ambition has always been to create fluid space. People do ask 'why are there no straight lines, why no 90 degrees in

your work?' This is because life is not made in a grid. If you think of a natural landscape, it’s not even and regular – but people go to these places and think they are very relaxing. We often look at nature when we create built environments; at her coherence and logic.

Architecture is a notoriously male-dominated profession and you are often asked about the role of women within it. Would you prefer that your buildings spoke for themselves or is it a necessary distraction to your work?

ZH: People used to think women do not think logically. That is absolute nonsense. It was also assumed that a woman architect could not take on a big commercial project - and I do recognise a bias that pushes women towards designing interiors.

It is thought they understand interior shapes, and I’m sure they do understand them better than men actually, but the idea is based on the presumption they will prefer to deal with a single client, rather than with corporations and developers. I am sure that as a woman I can do a very good skyscraper. I don't think it is only for men.

50% of first year architectural students are women, so women certainly don't perceive this career as alien to their gender. I still experience some resistance though, and I think, it’s made me much tougher and more precise – and maybe this is reflected in my architecture. I never thought of myself as a role model. At the beginning of my career, I always thought I didn’t want to be known as a ‘woman architect’ or an ‘Arab architect’. But later, I realized that it is critical I acknowledge the fact that I could influence others. So I think it’s important that I can – in some very modest way – help others to have the courage and determination to achieve their ambitions.

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ABORTION IN NORTHERN IRELAND “Pregnant people with money have options and pregnant people without money have babies. Or drink bleach.”

Seán Ó Néill

“P

regnant people with money have options and pregnant people without money have babies. Or drink bleach,” observes Mara Clarke, the director of the Abortion Support Network in Northern Ireland. Together with draconian restrictions in the Republish of Ireland, Irish attitudes towards abortion have long made for an island widely regarded as an anti-abortion stronghold. Women requesting abortions have been physically thrown out of GPs’ surgeries and verbally abused upon leaving abortion clinics. Failed by politicians, it falls to organisations such as the Abortion Support Network to fight for reproductive rights across the country.

The 1967 Abortion Act, which revolutionised reproductive healthcare in England, Scotland and Wales, closed with a clause that reverberates to this day – “This Act does not extend to Northern Ireland.” Terminations are only legal in Northern Ireland where there is a risk of the mother’s death or permanent damage to her health. A deliberate absence of clinical guidelines means that only fifty abortions are carried out in Northern Irish hospitals annually, at a rate 120 times behind the UK average.

Yet this masks the reality of crisis pregnancy in Northern Ireland. The Family Planning Association estimates that 2,000 people travel from Northern Ireland to England for a termination each year. But the legal situation means that anyone who registers as a patient in Northern Ireland

is denied the right to an NHS abortion anywhere in the UK. As a result, not one of these procedures is state-funded. As Mara Clarke puts it: “People think about what they would do – and what they would do is use their passport and credit card.”

Not only do Northern Ireland’s laws enforce discrimination across social classes, the choice of people in rural areas is also compromised. A combination of poor infrastructure, wide church presence and diminished access to impartial family planning services culminates in a scenario where, according to Clarke, “if you’re from anywhere other than Belfast or Dublin, you’re fucked.”

The case of Savita Halappanavar, who died in October 2012 in a hospital in the Republic of Ireland, shocked many across the country. Ireland’s confused abortion law was found to be a material factor in her death. By August 2014, ‘Ms Y’ became the next casualty. Having moved to the Republic after being raped in her home country, she sought an abortion for the resulting pregnancy in England only to be arrested as an illegal immigrant. She was refused a termination and sent back to Ireland, where she became suicidal and went on hunger strike, but was forced to continue her pregnancy until 25 weeks – at which point her child was born by C-section. These cases were a result of the Republic of Ireland’s laws, rather than those of Northern Ireland, but still they chipped away at the long-standing attitudes of people all over the island.

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Media coverage has a tendency to decontextualise these events, framing them as tragedies rather than inevitabilities. But Mara Clarke is used to the institutionalisation of this mistreatment. “The Ms Y case was nothing we haven’t heard of before, absolutely nothing,” she tells me. She recalls the case of a woman “who was told by her partner that if she were to avail of an abortion, he would leave her and paint ‘murderer’ on her house.” Another client was pregnant as a result of rape and told by an anti-choice ‘crisis’ centre “an abortion would make her a worse criminal than her rapist.” These cases are not tragic accidents, but deliberate products of a warped system.

Dawn Purvis, director of Marie Stopes Belfast until March 2015, paints a similar picture to Clarke: “The women who face the most dire circumstances are usually those who are the poorest.”

In the reception of Marie Stopes, I am met with the question “Is Dawn expecting you?” The clinic is notorious as Northern Ireland’s battleground for anti-choice campaigners, and unexpected visitors are frequent. Recently, footage emerged of one campaigner following a woman leaving the clinic, threatening, “You’re going to have a much harder time whenever you can’t bring your baby back.”

Volunteers such as Clare Bailey escort clients in and out of the clinic, protecting them from abuse.

Bailey describes a common tactic adopted by the anti-choice campaigners: “they say to women coming out of the clinic – we’ve named your baby Joseph.” Her frustration is audible, but the core issue is the clients. “Some are shaking, some are crying, some ask for escort all the way down the street because of their nerves. All of them ask why these people are doing this.”

Bernadette Smyth, director of Northern Ireland’s foremost anti-abortion group, Precious Life, was convicted of harassing Dawn Purvis outside the clinic last December and imposed with a restraining order. This highly disputed case has led to a significant police presence outside the clinic, observes Bailey, but law enforcement is reluctant to meaningfully resolve the threat to clients. Indeed, in some circles Smyth is viewed as a hero. She acts as official support for the Northern Ireland Assembly’s cross-party (all-male) pro-life group.

My former school invited her to speak just weeks after the conviction.

Though the pro-choice movement is making gains, the legislature lags well behind. Purvis is sharply critical of the Assembly’s drastic failure to represent public opinion: “it doesn’t reflect women, young people, ethnic minorities or disabil-

ities.” Currently, only two of Northern Ireland’s 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly are vocally pro-choice, despite a recent survey indicating that 70% of citizens support legislative reform on the issue. Politics in Northern Ireland is so accustomed to speaking in the nationalist-unionist binary that other issues are set aside, and misogyny and racism can so easily flourish in a state that conceptualises them as fringe problems.

Thanks to the advocacy from those in Ireland and further afield, the situation has improved. The Abortion Support Network has laid the groundwork for a level of accessibility previously unthinkable. Marie Stopes has dragged the national debate out of the anti-abortion absolutism that it previously took as a premise. Sinn Féin, a considerable political force all over Ireland, have begun to support termination in cases of fatal foetal abnormality. Yet there remain strong reservations about abortion policies that seek to set up a dichotomy between the good and bad abortion, ignoring the wider narrative of choice. Mara Clarke asks instead – “It’s a huge job being a parent. Why isn’t that the moral choice?”

The crucial step is to remove the duty of care from dedicated volunteers and advocates, and make it the responsibility of a state that for too long has ignored the voices of its most vulnerable. In the face of abuse and adversity, advocates have forced this state into taking the first steps in confronting its own brutality. But Bailey tells me bluntly, “I’m not optimistic at all.” It is a fight far from won, and the greatest shame is that, all the while, people will suffer.

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ONE WAY TICKET TO MARS Jessica Siynor

“M

y mum doesn’t just want me to explode in the middle of the atmosphere – and nor do I! That would

be bad.”

In January 2014, Laurel Kaye found out that she had been shortlisted for a one-way trip to Mars.

The Duke University student is no stranger to travelling: she was studying on her year abroad in Oxford when she heard the news. Unlike a studyabroad programme however, the Mars One mission does not plan on bringing its astronauts back home. If selected as one of the final 24 candidates, and if the mission succeeds, Laurel will spend the rest of her life on Mars.

Laurel is a space-obsessed physics major who has wanted to be an astronaut since childhood.

She smiles when I ask her about the media coverage of Mars One, which has accused the candidates of being everything from dishonest to misguided to, quite simply, insane. “I am a little bit crazy, but everyone’s a little bit crazy about what they’re passionate about.”

It is the very permanent nature of the Mars One mission that has attracted such interest and, in some cases, horror. Run by a Dutch non-profit organisation, the mission plans to establish a permanent human colony on Mars by 2027. Applications opened almost two years ago, and within five months they claim 202,586 aspiring astronauts from around the world had paid $37 to put themselves forward. The number of applicants, like everything about Mars One, is much contested – the actual figure is reportedly as low as 2761.

Some argue that these amateur astronauts would be completely unqualified for the challenges of settling on Mars. Only seven of the 100 candidates have a Ph.D., while 19 have no degree at all.

But strip away the logistical concerns, and you

are left with a diverse group of individuals who want to leave Earth and never return. As one candidate tells me, being part of the mission essentially involves “blowing up your life for an uncertain return.” Another describes how his selection has changed the way he lives: “It’s like knowing the date of your own death. Mars One settlers will for all practical purposes be dead to Earth.”

Mars One candidates have been questioned relentlessly about why they are willing to abandon their family and friends. Laurel explains that she sees the mission not as “sacrificing my life or something, but actually having a life, and having a life that I’m happy with and excited about.”

That life, according to shortlisted candidate Chris Patil, “would probably be a combination of awe-inspiring and just frustrating and dull.” The mission plans to send six teams of four astronauts to Mars, with the first team leaving in 2026 on a flight that will take seven months. The 42year old biologist and scientific editor does not pretend that the idea of spending the rest of his life with as few as 23 other people appeals to him: “There’s not much chance we wouldn’t have a lot of cabin fever.”

I receive several strange responses 50

from Mars One candidates when I ask for their thoughts on the mission. One writes back, “I was so bored of planet Earth I dreamed of an alien abduction: only in my case I would beg the aliens to keep me.” But Chris and Laurel are more realistic about their motivations for and chances of going to space. Chris is yet to ask himself any “existential” questions because “the likelihood of the trip

“I was so bored of life on planet earth I dreamed of an alien abduction: only in my case I would beg the aliens to keep me” actually happening is fairly low.” This pragmatism is perhaps due to their backgrounds in science; they are both more interested in the possibilities for research than their own desire to leave an intergalactic legacy Sonia van Meter, a 36-year old political consultant from Austin, Texas, does not share the same scientific qualifications as Laurel and Chris.

“I have no medical training, no technical training and no engineering training. I would be less than useless on Mars.” She thinks that the selection

process so far has largely been based on personalities. She smiles out at me from the screen and bashfully checks that I won’t be recording the interview for video as she isn’t dressed for broadcast; although her wardrobe choice is fittingly a Mars One t-shirt. She appreciates that the application process may seem “a bit superficial”, but points out that “we’ve got another 12 years before any of us goes anywhere. In 12 years you could conceivably train a monkey to speak Latin.”

Although research is not her reason for going, Sonia claims that, “I don’t do this for me. I do this because humankind needs it, and it is worth a life. It’s worth multiple lives.” All the candidates I speak to are strikingly optimistic, willing to give up a legacy on Earth – children, a partner, friends – for a very long shot at a place in history.

For some that might constitute a mark of personal glory, for others a more altruistic legacy might be in mind. “Space exploration benefits us in immeasurable ways,” Sonia tells me. “This is the next giant leap for humanity.”

For other candidates, the desire to go to space is neither philanthropic nor academic but simply a childhood dream that has endured. Chris grew up watching Carl Sagan’s TV show, Cosmos, the celebrated 1980s documentary that looked at our place in the universe, on the floor of the living room. “What finally made me apply was the realisation that my nine-year old self would totally kick my ass if I didn’t.”

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C T I

O A N

Image - Mirren Kessling

Tom Ball

S

ometimes at night when walking home late and looking over the dead-black of the parkland by my house, I see a man beneath the light of a lone street lamp, slightly set apart from the main road. He is always alone, always smoking and roves a circular track around the low walls of a squat, hut-like construction. Most nights will pass without incident, and after innumerable cigarettes and several laps of the remote building, he will slip from the light and into darkness. But sometimes, on other nights, beneath the lamplight another male figure will appear, affected by the same cautious disposition of the first, warily dipping in and out of the sodium rays. A brief exchange follows before cigarettes are extinguished and both steal off into the hut.

This seemingly peculiar ritual, which for several years I had intruded upon with my episodic bouts of observation was, and is, cottaging – or at least the preliminary stages thereof. But it is in decline, demonstrable by slumping conviction rates, and evidenced by my own local barometer whose nocturnal visitations to the lamplight have become more and more infrequent over the years.

Cottaging, to clarify, is the act of anonymous sex in a public toilet. Like its al-fresco counterpart, cruising, cottaging takes place uniquely between gay or bisexual men, having historically

T G G

been practised as a means by which marginalised gay men could meet for sex at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Britain. These dingy brick shanties, with their microbe-laden tile surfaces, became safe-havens where men could expect to meet other gay men freely and without concern for the law and social disgrace. The outings, though, of a string of prominent public figures, caught with their pants down – most notably Labour MP Tom Driberg and actor Sir John Gielgud in the 1940s and ’50s – largely brought about the Wolfenden Report which was to later influence the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.

However the legalisation of homosexual relations was not to chime the death knell of cottaging – in fact, quite the reverse. In the decade immediately following the act, the number of convictions for indecent exposure doubled as high-profile figures continued to find themselves on the front pages of red top newspapers. The Daily Mail even went so far as to claim that Prime Minister Ted Heath had been a known frequenter of the public men’s rooms around Westminster –though this assertion might want to be taken with a fistful of salt. But what was once a slang term used exclusively by a relatively small community of gay men quickly became common knowledge. And so too 52

did public attitudes undergo a steady shift: from a nation who in the 1950s branded any form of homosexuality as a “plague” and an “epidemic”, to one that merrily chortled over their sprouts at cottaging gags about George Michael in the 2007 Extras Christmas special.

Cottaging’s prolonged legacy into the post-liberation era hence relied not on necessity, as it once had, but rather on the curious mechanisms of the human sexual psyche. As filmmaker and former cottager, Graham Kirby, explains, cottaging offers “a sense of adventure into the unknown” achieved by the sheer anonymity of it, the “easy, consequence-free sex” and the ever-looming risk of being caught in the act. A system of significant gestures exists among experienced partakers by which to readily identify one another. Sideways glances, foot tapping under cubicles and eye contact maintained for just a moment too long all add to its cloak-and-dagger allure. A Channel 4 documentary from the mid 1990s demonstrates some of the tactics used by cottagers to evade detection, for instance having one participant stand in a large shopping bag so that any would-be rumblers would see only one pair of feet and a bag when looking beneath a cubicle door. But more important than the eroticism of risk is that cottaging represents sex for sex’s sake. As LGBTQ journalist, ‘Gordon’, notes, cottaging represents “raw sexuality...it is not sex for any purpose other except to have sex.”

Having said all this, though, cottaging’s heyday is long passed. With the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS virus in the 1980s, casual sex among the gay community became markedly more dangerous, resulting in a drop-off in the number of convictions over the decade. Added to that, the wider public recognition that cottaging garnered in the 1970s and ‘80s brought with it greater demands for a police crackdown. Those cottages that have not now been demolished have been subjected to CCTV surveillance, as well as regular police checks.

Practical considerations, however, represent only a very partial reason as to its waning popularity.

For the resolute cottager, pragmatism is a mere minor concern in the face of mounting libidinous impulse. Now, though, it would appear that even this is being eroded. Cottaging’s fundamental appeal of ‘no-strings-attached’ raunchy intercourse is gradually being challenged by the 21st century’s liberalised attitudes towards sex, with its dating apps, ubiquitous Ann Summers branches and endlessly recurring seasons of Geordie Shore. More to the point, sex, and more latterly homosexuality, are no longer taboo topics, thus

undermining cottaging’s “forbidden fruit” eroticism. Equally, so too are any residual elements of necessity that may have remained for closeted homosexuals, looking for an anonymous thrill, falling by the wayside. When smartphone apps like Grindr and Gaydar can provide all of this with one fell swipe, the prospect of stepping out into a wet night and trudging down to the nearest public defecation facility seems rather more unattractive.

To quote one veteran cottager, “we sometimes cruise around but we are like survivors in a nuclear winter.”

But type in “cottaging” to any search engine and the first website to appear will be the unabashedly named cottaging.co.uk (one wonders how many countryside holiday-makers have mistakenly found themselves here). The site itself may have all the web design qualities of a coding page, yet still it lays claim to 260,218 registered members, evidencing the fact that the Information Age has not entirely killed off cottaging but, perhaps more accurately, taken its physical system of gestures and transplanted them into cyber reality. It is essentially a gay hook-up site and brands itself as such. Though many of its visitors will use it to swap tales of cottaging trips gone by, and exchange information about cottages, the majority,

“We sometimes cruise around but we are like survivors in a nuclear winter.” apparently, have no intention at all of ever visiting one. The term, it seems, has become amorphisised to embrace all one-off homosexual encounters, regardless of where they occur. Users, who range in age from early twenties to late seventies – in fact one man from Godalming purports to be 91 –, have a profile which displays an optional photograph along with details pertaining to their sexual preference (dominant/ submissive), hobbies and interest, and “measurements”.

But there will always be those few stragglers for whom the internet’s glossy allure just doesn’t quite cut it; for whom nothing can ever quite match the thrill of a dusky Sunday evening spent waiting by a park lavatory, smoking countless cigarettes to quell the rising tide of anxious excitement. Anachronisms of the modern age they remain, forlorn in the knowledge that homosexual emancipation came for the good of society – but at the forfeit of cottaging.

53

AN INTERVIEW WITH SIMON ARMITAGE Nasim Rebecca Asl 54

SA

: T here is, at the end of the day, somethingslightly couched about a poem. They’re not upfront. My dad once compared it to putting your hand over your writing when you’re young, so that no one else can see it.

ly wrong…maybe those roles are always there and it’s just waiting for somebody to fill them.

Despite the walks along the Pennines that you’ve done being in honour of your prose works, how did the experience of being a walking poet affect the way that you now write?

You have talked about a natural change when a writer publishes their first piece; looking back on the first piece you published, how did it feel?

SA: If I go out for a walk, I usually come back with a poem, or at least the makings of one. Walking’s a very contemplative activity. You’re left with your own thoughts for six or seven hours a day, your blood’s circulating at a slightly faster rate and thoughts come to you, and because you have nothing else to do you start processing your thoughts.

They lead to daydreams. I’ve always associated daydreams with poems, that’s how they start for me – I’m thinking one thing, then I’m thinking another thing and another thing, and before I know what I’m doing, there’s a poem developing. There’s a historical relationship between walking and poetry. Wordsworth was a great walker poet, Mandelstam, Coleridge were too. I’ve heard people say that there’s a relationship between footsteps and the heartbeat and iambics, and that they all fall into step with each other. I don’t know so much about that – I think just spending time with yourself leads to poetic thoughts.

SA: This is something I’ve written about – I don’t think it ever gets any better than publishing that first poem. I published my first poem in a small magazine in Leicester and they sent me a cheque for £2. I’ve never cashed it. I think it’s that idea that to go from absolutely nothing to something is an increase in infinite proportions, especially for somebody who was never considered a candidate for literature and I have no literary pedigree of any type. Although I’ve had an exciting life in publishing and poetry, just seeing work in type that somebody else has judged worthy of publishing for the first time, I don’t think it ever gets any better.

What place do you feel poetry has in the world as it stands now?

SA: I believe it has the same place it’s always had – marginal. It’s not a front line art form; it’s not for everybody but if you’re looking for a place to go where a single voice is saying something that’s being thought about and considered, and written about in what is hopefully a memorable and tense and sometimes intimate way, then poetry offers that. I feel – and I have no way of proving this statistically – that the same proportion of the population that appreciated poetry in 1760 still appreciate it today.

Looking at events in the news at the moment then, how do you feel the next round of austerity cuts will affect the writing and poetic communities of Britain?

SA: It’s very worrying. Certainly where I grew up, and my experience, I was able to go to a poetry workshop at a local library and meeting other people. All those circumstances were provided by the local authority – the venue, the teacher. My worry is that, in the way that it’s become true for acting, if you take away a lot of those access routes it will become an occupation for the privileged because you might need some sort of support while you’re doing it. I also worry, in this climate, about the BBC, that the government might take the license fee away. Nearly all the writers I know have an opportunity of creating work and selling work to the BBC; it’s been a big commissioner of work for poets and playwrights. But that money has been disappearing for 15 years now – arts council money, grant money.

Looking at the big poetic landmarks of the last couple of years, Seamus Heaney’s death attracted headlines and really rose to the public consciousness. How do you feel it has affected Britain’s poetic community?

SA: I think, for my generation, he was a kind of chieftain. A high priest. We’d all grown up reading his poems, and writing about them. It’s an absence.

I think along with Ted [Hughes] it may be that he represented the last of that generation of shamanic writers, the wise men. I don’t think a lot of contemporary poets see themselves in that way. They see themselves as sort of peripheral in some sense.

When Seamus died, it felt like it was a passing of that idea of who the poet was. I might be complete-

Finally – is punk dead?

SA: [Laughs and raises arms] It’s not dead!… I don’t know, is punk dead? … It’s not in Huddersfield!

55

SET

HER FREE: MELTEM AVCIL ON LIFE INSIDE YARLS WOOD DETENTION CENTER Thea Slotover

“B

elieve it or not, when you are a refugee you are always taught that being a refugee is a bad thing. So, to some extent you are subconsciously ashamed of yourself.”

Meltem Avcil has an incredible story. Aged 13, she and her mother were locked in Yarl’s Wood, the notorious women’s immigration detention centre. During their detention Avcil began a campaign to end the practice of holding children in the centre and others like it. Now 22 years old, Avcil is fighting for an end to immigration detention for all women.

As a Kurds and Shi’a Alevi Muslims, Avcil’s family suffered much persecution in majority Sunni Turkey. Her mother was determined for Avcil to have a chance at a safer, better life. “She decided that she wanted me to be educated. She tried to leave the country five times. She sold everything she had, to a point where she only had the clothes that she was wearing and me.”

Avcil’s family first fled from Turkey to Germany, but their case for asylum was refused, so they left to the UK. Before being placed in Yarl’s wood, Meltem and her mother had already lived in Britain for six years. Her mother was always open about her pleas for asylum. “She wanted to seek asylum, and not just to be the ‘illegal immigrant’.

She never tried to abscond.”

After being relocated by the home office 14 times in six years, and Avcil and her mother were placed in Yarl’s wood. They received no warning; they were woken at six in the morning by eight security guards and told to pack a bag each. “They treat you as criminals. Refugees can’t make a life, because they know that it might be destroyed.”

Avcil’s mother has now also been released from detention and is living in Cambridge. But the pain-

ful three months they experienced are still clear in Meltem’s memory. “Nine roll calls, three times a day. Windows that only opened an inch, barbed wire fences, high walls… prison, it’s a B-class prison for innocent people.” In a report in January 2015, Women for Refugee Women found that 33 out of 38 women they had interviewed had been watched by male guards at Yarl’s Wood while naked or partly dressed. Reports of sexual abuse are common. In June 2014, Serco, the private security company that runs Yarl’s Wood, admitted that it had dismissed eight of its staff after 31 reported cases of sexual abuse in the past 7 years. Avcil confirms that male guards often sexually abused female inmates. “Most of the women don’t know what to say to that; they don’t speak English, or will go along with it because they think it’s a way out.”

Avcil recounts one particular example of neglect, in the case of a mother trying to find medical attention for her infant. “The baby had a 38 degree temperature. The guards told her that she needed to wait for the morning. The woman gave her child to someone else to hold and started shouting and screaming. But the officers didn’t care.” The monotony of the daily routine left Avcil feeling desperate. “I self-harmed. We had five attempts to get bail and each time the judge said no. The final time, the judge said, ‘You cannot prove that Meltem doesn’t like being in Yarl’s Wood.’ I felt selfharm was the only way to prove it.”

Avcil’s campaigning began while she was still in Yarl’s Wood. Though she is not religious, she describes the first opportunity she had to alert people outside the detention centre as “a miracle”.

“A woman who was brought in by accident left me the number of the NCADC (National Coali56

tion of Anti-Deportation Campaigns).” She called.

Soon her story began to receive media coverage, and she was visited by the founder of Women for Refugee Women, Natasha Walter, and actress Juliet Stevenson.

Despite the media attention, plans were made for Avcil and her mother’s deportation. “We were taken from our rooms at 3am. When we got to the immigration office at Yarl’s Wood, male officers strip-searched my mother and me. Then a male and female guard took us to the airport. Paul [the male guard] told me that if I screamed and made a fuss, they would tie up my hands and legs and put me in a solitary area on the plane. Because her mother did not speak English, the immigration officer’s vitriol was directed at then 13-year-old Avcil.

“We arrived at the airport and they took us through the back. We were treated like terrorists, criminals.” As her mother took a step back in hesitation before getting plane, the guards pushed her to the grounds and put her in handcuffs, cutting her cheek in the process. To hide the wound the guards threw a towel over her head.

Avcil was forcibly held down into her plane seat by one guard on either side. “I was looking out of the window. I thought, are you embarrassed to get up and speak for yourself? Then, and I remember

Reports of sexual abuse are common; “Most of the women don’t know what to say to that; they don’t speak English, or will go along with it because they think it’s a way out.” this very clearly, I said, ‘I don’t want to go.’ At that point I just wished for a little more strength. I was so drained. It was the first time I had been outside in three months. And I just stood up. The guards were kicking me, punching me. They seat you right at the back of the plane, so that no one sees you. A man was reading a newspaper and I kicked his chair; I said ‘The news is happening here.’ I exploded. And my mum exploded as well.” The pilot intervened and had Avcil and her mother taken off the plane.

This was not the end of their struggle to avoid

deportation. In order to avoid another incident, the home office rented a private jet for Avcil and her mother at a cost of £25,000 – a figure that undermines the assumption that tougher controls on immigration will always benefit the taxpayer.

Merely the process of detaining immigrants and asylum seekers is expected to cost four or five times as much as it would to process an application within the community.

Avcil and her mother were only, finally, released from detention when the Children’s Commissioner arrived at the hospital where they were being held, in order to recuperate from the trauma of the first attempt at deportation. “We were released the next day in order to wait to be rehoused to Newcastle, and life started again.”

Following her success in the campaign to prevent the detention of children, Avcil is now leading the ‘#SetHerFree’ campaign with Women for Refugee Women. The campaign has a petition on change.org that had received 98,781 signatories at the time of writing. As a result of the campaign, in February Theresa May agreed to conduct a review of the immigration detention system. But as Avcil states on her petition site, “The review will not look at why so many people who have come to this country to seek safety are being locked up in the first place.”

Eventually, she would like to see an end to all immigration detention, but acknowledges “you have to take each step at a time.” She is currently writing a film script, in which she aims to provide different portrayals of the lives of refugees, and is particularly keen to spread her campaign throughout schools and universities. As a young campaigner, she places great importance in reaching out to teenagers and adolescents. “I like to think that changing one person’s ideas can change those of a generation.”

57

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