The Journal - Edinburgh Issue 046

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EDINBURGH'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

ISSUE XLVI

WEDNESDAY 20 APRIL 2011

2011: The Battle of the Ballot Box With the Scottish election weeks away, The Journal interviews SNP First Minister Alex Salmond and Labour leader Iain Gray

» 6/7

Change at the top: Liam Burns to replace Porter as NUS UK chief NUS Scotland head elected UK president as rival faces censure vote for 'intimidation'

IN NEWS >> 15

Blain blamed After a month of silence, the sacked former president of QMUSU gives his version of events to The Journal

david monteith-hodge

Jessica Abrahams

IN NEWS >> 3

Student News Editor NUS Scotland president Liam Burns has been elected as the new leader of the National Union of Students UK. Mr Burns will replace current president Aaron Porter on 1 July 2011 for an initial one-year term.

The 26-year-old, who is a member of the Labour Party, defeated three other presidential candidates in the election at the NUS national conference in Gateshead on 6 April.

Speaking after the vote, Mr Burns said: “I am honoured and delighted to have been elected NUS UK National President for the year to come.

“It’s going to be a hugely challenging year across the UK for both further and higher education. I am looking forward to working tirelessly to defend, extend, and promote the rights of students.”

He told The Journal that he was "particularly grateful for the support that students from Scotland provided me at national conference."

In the third and final round of voting Mr Burns secured a comfortable victory over NUS vice-president for further education Shane Chowen, receiving a total of 446 votes — a 60 per cent majority.

Far-left candidate Mark Bergfeld, a current member of the NUS National Executive Council, was voted out in the second round. The following day,

Where now for Ivory Coast?

Gbagbo has been arrested — but is that really an end to the country's troubles?

IN FEATURES >> 20

The Twilight Eurozone

Comment: Liam Burns on the challenges facing Scotland as he prepares to move to national office Mr Bergfeld faced a motion of censure brought against him on the grounds that his language towards some Conservative conference delegates had

been intimidating, specifically a reference to "Tory scumbag millionaires".

The plaintiff, understood to be a delegate from Grantham College, claimed

» 17

Mr Bergfeld had created a conference environment that was 'inaccessible' to Continued on page 2

£9,000 tuition fee set to be the new norm Initial claims that the maximum fee would be limited to top universities prove false Polly Dallyn

More universities than expected have announced plans to charge the full £9,000 tuition fees, sparking

warnings of a major funding gap.

Ministers who voted in December expected the £9,000 fee to be restricted to exceptional circumstances. It was thought that competition would limit the highest fees to only the best performing universities. However, a BBC

survey has shown that more than half the universities questioned will raise their fees to the maximum £9,000.

The effect of competition has been limited, with universities at all levels charging the full amount. Oxford University, currently the best performing

university in the country, and Liverpool John Moores, which is ranked 109th, will both be charging £9,000.

Long-term financial modelling carried out in preparation for the Continued on page 2

Can the Euro really survive another round of economic turmoil?

IN MUSIC >> 23

Not so Frightened Rabbit A confident Record Store Day performance from the indie folk superstars at Edinburgh's Avalanche Records

2 News

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

This week in The Journal

»4

A Scottish Century Recently-released 1911 census data paints a surprising picture of Scotland before the First World War

Hitting the Marks

» 21

»9

ECA graduate's awardwinning evening dress design commissioned by M&S

Liam Burns wins NUS presidency Continued from p1 members of the Conservative Party. The motion failed to pass.

Thomas Byrne, a member of the Conservative Party and co-founder of Students for Tuition Fee Reform, exited the race in the first round of voting after receiving just 18 votes.

Current NUS president Aaron Porter announced in February that he would not seek re-election, amid accusations that he had been ‘weak’ on tackling tuition fees and claims that NUS leadership had lost touch with the student community. Mr Porter will be only the second president since 1969 not to serve a second term.

It is thought that Mr Chowen’s association with Mr Porter may have damaged his electoral chances. The vicepresident, formerly president of City College Plymouth, did not attend university and would have been the first non-graduate leader of the NUS. Mr Burns studied physics at Heriot-Watt University, where he served as president of the students’ union in 2007/08. He received a total of 446 votes in that election, an identical majority to that which won him the NUS national presidency last week.

He was elected president of NUS Scotland in 2009 and has been a popular leader. After initially winning the position on the back of a coin-toss after a tied election, he was re-elected by a

landslide vote in 2010.

He is credited with securing millions of pounds in funding for disadvantaged and vulnerable students and has led a successful campaign against the introduction of tuition fees in Scotland, securing commitments from the SNP, Scottish Labour and Liberal Democrats.

However, Mr Burns has made it clear that free education is untenable in the rest of the UK, and will campaign for a graduate tax, where contributions are pegged to earnings above a certain threshold.

He said: “I truly believe that a tax on well-off graduates, free of any price tag, is not only a fair way to fund student support and sector funding, but the fairest way in the context of other spending priorities.”

Speaking at the conference, he insisted that the battle over tuition fees has not been lost. “There’s never been a policy when the sums add up so badly," he said. "It’s a regressive policy that hasn’t even saved them any money.”

The NUS national conference also saw Ed Marsh re-elected as vice-president of union development. Toni Pearce will replace Mr Chowen as the new vice-president of further education.

Robin Parker, president of Aberdeen University Students’ Association, will succeed Mr Burns as president of NUS Scotland.

£9,000 tuition fee set to be the new norm Continued from p1

Acting Gay Homophobia and hypocrisy in a film industry that embraces gay roles — but not gay actors

» 30

Hacker: Pedal to the Vettel

He may be the reigning champ, but Sebastian Vettel can't rest on his laurels in this season of upsets and setbacks

increase in fees was based on an average charge of £7,500. As a result it is feared that the rise in fees will create a new and unsustainable funding gap as the government will struggle to provide more student loans.

The introduction of higher fees will also create a funding gap between English and Scottish universities. As previously reported by The Journal, experts have estimated a minimum of a £93 million deficit but it could be as high as £200 million.

The SNP, Liberal Democrat and Labour governments have all claimed that the gap can be bridged by making higher education a priority in Scotland. They have gained the support of NUS Scotland, who said: “The funding gap between Scottish and English universities is much lower than feared and we know that fees would now be a choice, not a necessity.

“Our own analysis has outlined improvements to higher education which would provide £118m a year

towards any funding gap for Scottish institutions.”

Sources of funding proposed by education minister Mike Russell include raising fees for students from the rest of the UK from £1,820 to £6,375 and plans to charge EU students.

However, Liam Burns, president of NUS Scotland and president-elect of NUS UK, told The Journal that the government could not treat English and European students as "cash cows".

The government has also faced criticism from Scottish universities.

Professor Steve Chapman and Sir Timothy O’Shea, principals of Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, warned Alex Salmond last week that the government had underestimated the size of the funding deficit.

Prof Chapman said: "I think we need some realism here... We will have a gap which will be more than £95m. To just assume that it is dead easy to fix is just not realistic. It is not credible.”

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News 3

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

From Gbagbo to Ouattara: A changing tide on the Ivory Coast?

The Journal explores the troubled history of Ivory Coast, and asks whether Laurent Gbagbo's arrest and the accession of a new president may finally signal an end to bloody conflict in the once-prosperous African state olmo calvo

Paul Foy Amanda Svensson Falk

Two decades ago, Ivory Coast was the archetype for a haven of peace and prosperity in Africa. Now, however, it is a melting pot of tension and turmoil as historical friction between the Muslim north and Christian south reached breaking point during the recent leadership crisis.

The West African country was first recognised as an independent state in 1960, having been a French colony since 1893, and enjoyed a steadier start to life as a sovereign state than many of its African counterparts. Many newlyindependent former colonies in Africa flirted unsuccessfully with Marxism, but Ivory Coast’s first president, Felix Houphoeut-Boigny, took a Westernstyle free market approach, a decision made possible by the country’s lucrative cocoa and coffee export trade.

However, an increasingly large influx of immigrants from poor neighbouring countries like Burkina Faso, underlined already existing economic, ethnic and religious tensions within the nation. As many of the immigrants shared ethnic ties with the northern, Muslim-dominated parts of Ivory Coast, the Christian south began to resent the non-Ivorian section of the population.

Following the recession of the 1980s and a damaging local drought, the country’s external debt tripled, and by the 1990s Ivorian students and civil servants began widespread protests against institutional corruption; since independence, Ivory Coast had been a one-party state under President Houphoeut-Boigny.

The unrest eventually forced the government to relent, and a multi-party democracy was established. HouphoetBoigny died in 1993, but not before nominating Henri Konan Bédié as his successor. Bédié was duly elected, and immediately set about abandoning his predecessor's liberal attitude to immigration in favour of a more avowedly nationalist mentality. Many analysts believe that this was used mainly as a tool to undermine opposition leader and former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, a Muslim whose parents originated from Burkina Faso.

Bédié’s government stirred the old embers of tension between the North and the South by closing opportunities for those not considered 'true Ivorians', barring them from many administrative and civil service jobs. These sanctions affected a large proportion of the population, especially in the north, and relationships between Ivory Coast's ethnic groups quickly became increasingly strained.

Following a military coup in 1999, Laurent Gbagbo was elected president in 2000. Once again, Alassane Ouattara — by that time leader of the liberal Rassemblement des Républicains (Rally of the Republicans, or RDR) — was excluded from the race to power by nationality issues, enraging his base of supporters in the north.

The relationship between the north

Gbagbo's refusal to cede power sparked outrage among Ivorians at home and abroad — here, Ivorian expatriates protest in Madrid and south was to deteriorate further in 2002 with the outbreak of civil war.

While President Gbagbo was abroad on a state visit to Italy, members of the Ivorian armed forces mutinied and launched an armed insurrection, attempting to seize control of several major urban centres. Government forces managed to hold the capital city of Abidjan, but ceded control over much of the north. Former colonial power France mounted a military intervention in an attempt to prevent further rebel gains, and French forces razed the shanty towns where rebel troops were believed to be hiding.

Solomon Diarra is an Ivorian national living in Edinburgh. Speaking to The Journal, he described the experience of family members in Abidjan during the war. “My heart was breaking listening to my mother crying down the phone," he said. "My brother was missing for a week, and the worst was feared. But he was hiding at a friend’s; he was too scared to try and make it home.”

The fighting paused briefly in January 2003 with the conclusion of the Linas-Marcoussis Accord between the Gbagbo government and rebel leaders.

The agreement mandated the formation of a new government of national unity and the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping troops to the country,

but the new government proved fatally unstable and in late 2004 the peace agreement collapsed.

President Gbagbo’s term of office should have ended in 2005, but civil unrest prompted both the African Union and UN Security council to endorse an extension of his term until elections could safely be held. The elections eventually took place in November 2010, with Allasane Ouattara declared the victor by UN monitors.

But President Gbagbo refused to relinquish power, sparking the most recent violence across the country - currently believed to have cost at least 1,500 lives.

Paul Nugent, professor of Comparative African Studies and director of Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh told The Journal that ”Cote d'Ivoire had always been a disaster waiting to happen from the point that Gbagbo cemented his grip on power in the absence of a proper election.”

Prof Nugent pointed out that Gbagbo’s refusal to leave power was a strategic ploy, and that his only chance to retain power was to force a crisis which might lead to the formation of a second government of national unity.

However, he said, Ouattara “has been waiting for the chance to become president for many years, and this was his moment. That meant that a standoff

was inevitable.

“If sufficient international pressure had been applied in the week after the polls, Gbagbo might have gone peacefully, but when ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States] dithered over the decision to use force, Gbagbo read that as a lack of resolve and dug in."

Mr Diarra expressed hopes of a brighter future for his home country, saying:“I think Ouattara can make things alright. Maybe he can get everybody to think about what a true Ivorian is not by where their parents were born, but what they do for the country.”

Prof Nugent was, however, more pragmatic in his assessment of the future of a formerly prosperous African state. “Ouattara is no angel," he said, noting that the north/south divide is often more a matter of self-identification than strict geography, "and it remains to be seen whether he possesses the statesmanship to win over people who perceive themselves as 'southerners'.

“How he deals with Gbagbo will set the tone for the rest of his presidency.

Within the sub-region, he can count on considerable goodwill and support for reconciliation. If he bungles the moment, and is seen to be vindictive, he will merely set things up for the next round of conflict.”

Read more online @ www.journalonline.co.uk

Cameron left red-faced over Oxford gaffe PM claimed that only one black student was admitted this year

Pens down, please!

Making the case for a fundamental overhaul of the university exam system

4 General News News

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

1911 census data released to public

New arrests in News of the World hacking controversy

A century-old time capsule offers insight into pre-World War I Scottish society

Two journalists arrested as Rupert Murdoch's News International set up compensation fund for victims of phone hacking DAvid a. selby

Kirsten Waller

The 1911 Scottish census has been released into the public domain, providing a previously-unseen picture of Scotland before the seismic social and cultural shift of the First World War. 2011 census director Peter Scrimgeour described how the century-old records show a very different country.

“Many people would have been born, lived and died in the same locality," he said. "Nowadays, when we ask people where they were 10 years ago, we find a lot of people have moved.”

In 1911 the majority of men were employed in highly physical jobs such as metal manufacturing, agriculture and coal mining. Women in employment mostly worked as domestic servants, textile manufacturers or dressmakers.

The Scottish population had increased by six per cent since 1901 to 4.76 million in 1911, compared to an estimated 5.15 million today. In contrast, the population of England and Wales, recorded at around 36 million a hundred years ago, had shot up to just over 52 million in the 2001 census.

Records show that Russians constituted the largest proportion of foreign

nationals, followed by Poles, Italians, Germans and Americans. Jo Graham, a genealogist and owner of Edinburgh company Our Scots Genealogy Research, told The Journal how several new questions had been added to the 1911 census: "Whether people were working at home was a new category, as was the question about which industry they worked in. This gives us more details about our ancestors’ working lives.

“This census additionally requested information from women about how long they had been married, how many children they had given birth to, and how many of those children were alive on 2 April 1911, and so has been dubbed the ‘Fertility Census’.

“It’s very exciting for genealogists to have access to this new ‘old’ information which can tell us so much about how our ancestors lived.” She also described how a party had been held at the Scotland's People Centre on 5 April, with staff dressed in period costume and a celebratory cake shaped as a census enumeration book.

Data from the 1911 English and Welsh census were published online in the National Archive in 2009, but privacy laws demanded that the Scottish findings be kept under wraps for a full century. Information can now be obtained on a pay-per-view basis on the Scotland's People website.

Leighton Craig

News of the World publisher News International has set up a multi-million pound fund to compensate the victims of phone-hacking by the newspaper.

The fund, estimated in the region of £15 million, is part of an offer made to the High Court in order to resolve a number of civil claims made against the paper.

The list of claimants is now believed to include actress Sienna Miller and former Sky Sports pundit Andy Gray.

In an apology published in the newspaper, News International said: “We hope to be able to pay appropriate compensation to all these individuals, and have asked our lawyers to set up a compensation scheme to deal with genuine claims fairly and efficiently.”

Napier media regulation lecturer Robert Beveridge, however, told The Journal that this is “just damage limitation. There needs to be a proper judicial enquiry.”

The announcement follows the arrest of the paper's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and recently-sacked assistant editor Ian Edmondson on 5 April, on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and unlawfully intercepting voicemail messages.

Mr Edmondson and Mr Thurlbeck

Edmondson and Thurlbeck are the fourth NoW staffers arrested were both charged after voluntarily presenting themselves at a separate police stations in south-west London. They are the most recent additions to a growing list of NoW staff and contractors implicated in the scandal.

The controversy dates back to November 2005, when the paper reported on a knee injury suffered by Prince William.

Three members of the Royal Household complained to Scotland Yard after concluding that the only way the newspaper could have learned of the injury was by accessing the Prince’s voicemail. A

subsequent inquiry resulted in the arrest of the newspaper’s royal editor Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007 for four months after admitting to illegally accessing the voicemail messages of a number of people.

In a statement, the Press Complaints Commission’s Phone Hacking Review Committee said that phone hacking was an ethical issue, and pledged that the Commission "will play its part in acting vigorously to deal with it, in regard to both the News of the World and the industry as a whole.”

Freshers week is closer than you think - book now and receive a great deal to reach students in Edinburgh.

Packages starting at £179, offers valid until May 31st, 2011 Interested? email ads@journal-online.co.uk

FRESHERS WEEK ADVERTISING IN THE JOURNAL Why advertise to Freshers? Why advertise with The Journal? o A huge market: 15,000 new students arrive in September, joining over 70,000 current students. o Word of mouth: With so many options, word of mouth spreads rapidly between freshers about where to go, what to do and where to shop. o Loyalty: Freshers seek out information and figure out what they like within their first 3 in Edinburgh.

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News 5

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Palace confirms final details for royal wedding

Beyond Edinburgh

Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton believed to have cost £20 million Mario testino

Aleksandra Jurczak

The final details of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton have been released.

The couple will tie the knot on 29 April at 11am in London’s historic Westminster Abbey.

The ceremony will be broadcast live by the BBC and is expected to reach an estimated two billion viewers across the globe, according to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Around 1,900 guests are invited, over half of whom are family members and friends. The list also includes members of the armed forces, charity workers and celebrities, and ex-partners of both the bride and the groom.

Ms Middleton will spend the night before the wedding with her immediate family, including sister and maidof-honour Pippa, at the Goring Hotel in Belgravia, central London.

The bride will arrive at Westminster Abbey in the Queen’s Rolls Royce, together with her father.

After the ceremony, the married couple will travel through London to Buckingham Palace in a traditional royal coach.

They are expected to leave for their two-week honeymoon the following morning, details of which have not been released for security reasons.

Prior to the event the Queen will announce new titles to be given to the married couple; it is speculated at this stage that they might be titled as the Duke and Duchess of either Cambridge or Clarence.

The event is now estimated to have cost around £20 million. By comparison, the 1981 wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, was estimated to have cost £4 million, or around £12 million today.

This year would have marked the 30th wedding anniversary of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, Prince William's parents.

Although the wedding will be financed by the Royal Family, taxpayers will have to pay for the security, which

Up to 10 students were hurt as a university building in Tripoli, Libya, was damaged following a Nato attack on a nearby military facility on Friday.

The BBC’s Middle Eastern correspondent Jeremy Bowen described the building being hit by a blast wave from the nearby attack, with smashed windows and blown off doors.

A student who was interviewed

by Bowen at the scene expressed anger and frustration as he said Nato is in the country to protect civilians, which includes the injured students.

Franco lands teaching job

ROYAL

WEDDING TIMELINE 1330 Fly past by the Caption

Royal Air Force and Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

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Prince William and Prince Harry leave Clarence House and arrive at Westminster Abbey.

Kate Middleton’s mother, Carole, and brother, James, leave the Goring Hotel for Westminster Abbey.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall leave Clarence House for Westminster Abbey.

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh leave Buckingham Palace for Westminster Abbey.

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The bride and bridegroom, together with their families, appear on the balcony.

The carriage procession leaves the abbey and arrives at Buckingham Palace.

The marriage service begins and is relayed by speakers along the route.

The bride and her father Michael leave the Goring Hotel for Westminster Abbey.

The bridesmaids and pages leave the Goring Hotel for Westminster Abbey.

0815-0945 The General congregation arrives at Westminster Abbey.

includes thousands of police officers being paid double time on the bank holiday.

Only 13 official applications for street parties have been submitted to Edinburgh City Council and less than 20 overall are being planned in Scotland.

There are fears that economy will be hit by two consecutive four-day weekends between the Easter and May Day bank holidays.

Kate and William announced their engagement last November, nine years after meeting at the University of St Andrews. They started a history of art degree programme together in 2001, but after William struggled to adapt to student life. Kate reportedly persuaded him to stay and he subsequently switched to study geography.

They shared accommodation with friends until their graduation in 2005.

That same year they were spotted skiing

together in Switzerland, after which they confirmed their relationship.

The couple split briefly in 2007, soon after William started his Army training, but later reconciled.

William proposed during the couple’s holiday in Kenya last October with his mother’s engagement ring. The newlyweds will move to Anglesey in north Wales, near the Royal Air Force base where Prince William is currently stationed.

Students warned of smartphone security threats

Using Facebook on your phone could make you an open target for cyber-attacks Greg Bianchi

The number of cyber-attacks on smartphones, particularly those running on Google’s Android operating system, and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have increased over the past year, leaving users at risk of infection by malicious software.

Social networking sites have also been exploited to launch attacks on profiles in an attempt to extract personal information from individuals,

Students caught up in Libya conflict

and a press release issued by Symantec, the developers of Norton AntiVirus, described social networking sites as “fertile ground for cyber-criminals".

Con Mallon, security expert at Norton AntiVirus, told The Journal that there has been “a steady increase in the number of cyber-attacks directed at smartphone users and social networks”.

However, David Emm, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, who provide anti-virus software, told The Journal that the threat to smartphones is significantly smaller than the threat to computers, due to the

“massive boom” in the use of social networking sites.

Mr Mallon further warned of the threat to social network users from cyber criminals posing as contacts on Facebook. He said students should be aware of cyber-criminals having “realised that people are much more likely to trust a link or attachment that a friend or family member has sent them, and they are exploiting that trust”.

The issue of sophisticated attacks was also addressed by Mr Emm, who explained that even an apparently innocent message from a friend on

Facebook might host malware used to target your computer or smartphone.

Usually messages carrying malicious software will involve the use of a shortened URL, which may lead to a 'Trojan horse' type virus infecting computers and smartphones.

Mr Mallon emphasised the importance for students to remain vigilant on social networking sites, not to “sustain online contact with people you don’t know” and to “avoid clicking on random URLs, even if they appear to be from a trusted contact” in order to avoid cyber-criminals gaining access to personal details.

Hollywood film star James Franco will teach some of NYU’s graduate film students next year, Washington the university’s Square News reports.

The actor, who was Oscar nominated for his role in 127 Hours, himself attended the NYU graduate programme after receiving his undergraduate qualification at UCLA. Franco also attended graduate school at Columbia University and Brooklyn College and is currently doing his Ph.D in English at Yale.

A section of the third years from the Kanbar Institute for Film and Television will have Franco in directing, where they will adapt a poem by Louise Gluck.

The director of the school, John Tintori, said: “James’ own film work has been based on poems, or about poets, so this is a nice fit for him. James has an amazing mind. And limitless energy. Our students will be fortunate to learn from him.”

Swedish students criticise government Lundagård, the long-running and reputable student newspaper of Lund University in Sweden, has published an opinion piece from the chairwoman of the university’s Moderate Party student organisation, Ida Drougge.

She is critical of the government’s lack of dedication to student issues, and the absence of new commitments in the recently proposed state budget. In a statement to the paper Drougge said: “Unfortunately we, the Moderate students, miss a bid to improve the Swedish higher eduction.

“If we want Sweden to be continuously competitive in a globalised world more has to be invested into the higher education system to ensure its quality.”

By Amanda Svensson Falk

6 National Politics

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

2011 Scottish Parliament elections

Salmond: Labour in Scotland have had a generation of believing in nothing The SNP's veteran political brawler has had a hard four years of government — but he's not giving up yet ewan mcintosh

Marcus Kernohan Editor-in-chief At a circular table in a glass-walled kitchenette inside the Scottish National Party’s Edinburgh headquarters, First Minister Alex Salmond is bullish about his party’s prospects at the impending general election. We find the formidable party leader on a busy afternoon: the Scottish Parliament dissolved the previous day, and Tory chancellor George Osborne announced his new budget only a few hours before our meeting, Salmond is taking to the campaign trail with characteristic fury: polls show Scottish Labour putting up a staunch electoral fight, and the SNP are in the midst of a relentless media blitz by way of a counter-offensive.

They’re in a prime location from which to do so: the SNP’s open-plan command centre is tucked away on an unassuming Holyrood wynd, but it’s wired straight into the Edinburgh media complex. Rupert Murdoch’s News International have their offices upstairs, and from the front door you can just make out the Scotsman building. The BBC’s capital outpost, meanwhile is just across the close — and it is from here that Salmond has just come as he strides in to greet us with a firm, double-fisted handshake. Flanked by a party aide who remains at his side throughout our time together, the First Minister sets on the table in front of him an old and very well-thumbed BlackBerry and a list of talking points headed ‘SNP achievements on education’. The young staffer next to him has a stack of similar policy crib-sheets, presumably left over from the day's previous appearances.

It is a blunt reminder of Salmond's innate sense for his audience: he has a knack for making the issue at hand seem like his foremost priority. Among students, for example, he lambasts the Westminster government for rolling back state involvement in higher education ­— an idea he laments as “another ridiculous, absurd mistake, and deeply damaging to long-term prosperity”.

Salmond is forceful with his belief in activist government: “I don’t believe you can finance higher education by either private donation or private wealth,” he remarks, with a wry jab at the largely privately-educated coalition Cabinet, Salmond does not deny that nonScottish students are likely to be worse off if he is re-elected. “We removed [fees] in Scotland, and we’re not going to reintroduce them. As I famously said: the rocks will melt in the sun before I have Scottish students paying tuition fees.

But I can’t finance English students in Scotland,” he says — with regret that seems genuine. “I can’t do that. I wish I could, but I can’t, and I can’t finance European students to the same extent that they've been financed."

Nor does Salmond deny that on

Background

specific questions of higher education policy, he has few definitive answers yet: he cannot put a precise figure on Scottish tuition fees, saying only that “we’ll try and set a figure where nobody will pay more coming for a four-year degree in Scotland than they will for a three-year degree in England.” He hints at a funding model inspired by that of Ireland, where a fixed levy on non-Irish students was deemed compliant with EU regulations. The SNP’s aim, he tells us, is to make Scotland academically competitive — and to avoid a potential influx of ‘fee refugees’. “We’re not going to price Scotland out of the market, as it were, but equally, we want people to come to Scotland because it’s the best education, not because it’s the cheap option.”

But he is quick to dismiss reports of a £200 million funding gap for Scottish universities, and to condemn those who perpetuate that figure. The worst culprit, we’re told, is University of Glasgow principal Anton Muscatelli, “the Labour Party’s favourite economist.”

Discussing the budget, Salmond

56-year old Alex Salmond was born in Linlithgow, West Lothian and studied history and economics at the University of St Andrews. It was at university that Salmond first became involved in nationalist politics, when he joined the student wing of the SNP. As a young man, he worked as an economist - first in government service, and later at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

In 1987, he defeated a Conservative becomes unusually ruminant, a professorial air the legacy of his first career as an economist. “We need a different approach,” he says, advocating “a big increase in capital spending...

The defence of the government is that they’ve just adopted the same capital plans as the Labour Party did, but the Labour Party were wrong.” Salmond doesn’t give ground easily, and even on those budget measures he agrees with, he damns with faint praise.

Moreover, he revels in his newfound freedom from the strained politeness of Parliament, and the campaign affords his notoriously sharp tongue plenty of targets. The Liberal Democrats at Westminster were “hoodwinked” by their Tory coalition partners, he says, disdainfully, and their leader Nick Clegg “suddenly became the greatest enthusiast in the world for fiscal orthodoxy.”

The hapless deputy prime minister seems to particularly frustrate Salmond. “I had to sit and listen to him in the meeting where he was telling us all how the wool had been pulled from his eyes and he’d suddenly realised

incumbent to become MP for the northwest Scottish constituency of Banff and Buchan. He was appointed deputy leader of the SNP some months later, and in 1990 won the party leadership by a large margin.

In 1999, Salmond won election to the new Scottish Parliament as MSP for Banff and Buchan, and for a time served in both Westminster and Holyrood legislatures. He resigned the leadership in 2000, and was replaced the extent of the criticality of the UK’s finances, and how he was frightened of a Greek situation developing,” he recounts with an exasperated sigh.

“Actually, the wool was pulled over his eyes. There was never a substantial danger of that occurring, and the degree of fiscal retrenchment that he was prepared to swallow was not necessary.”

But what about his rivals at home?

Despite polls forecasting a bitter fight on 5 May, Salmond seems unfazed: Labour in Scotland, he opines, are past their prime. Reeling off a list of largerthan-life Labour figures, he interrupts himself with character reviews: Donald Dewar (“a difficult person to like... but hugely talented”); George Robertson (“never really got on with him - Lord NATO, as I used to call him... but a talented guy”). He continues — John Reid (“a bruiser, but a talented politician”); Gordon Brown (“a substantial politician... [but] he wasn’t the right person to be prime minister”) — and, with no small satisfaction, concludes that “the problem for the Labour Party is that they’ve had a generation of believing in

by John Swinney. In 2001, he also left the Scottish Parliament, and served as leader of the SNP parliamentary group at Westminster.

In July 2004, he again ran for the leadership of the SNP, winning by over 75 per cent. He won elected as MSP for Gordon in the 2007 general election, and became First Minister of a minority SNP government. He stood down from his Westminster seat at the 2010 general election. nothing.”

Conversation with Alex Salmond is a curious experience. Current psephology paints him as a divisive politician facing a potentially bruising election in a matter of weeks, but the man opposite us is calm: he looks tired, but with a cheeriness that seems to suggest he knows something the pollsters don’t. “Four years ago, to be absolutely ruthless about this,” says the veteran political brawler, “the only person most people knew in the SNP was me. That’s no longer true: people know who Nicola Sturgeon is, they know who John Swinney is. These are substantial people, and regarded as such.”

Government has been hard: the independence agenda has stalled, and the SNP have suffered harsh defeats on alcohol pricing and the Edinburgh trams. But there is no hesitation when he is asked about his time in office. “I love it - I’m applying for the job again.

I’m Alex Salmond, and I want to be First Minister again.”

Interview by Marcus Kernohan and Robbie Marwick

National Politics 7

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Gray: Nick Clegg broke an £800m promise — the SNP broke one worth £2 billion The leader of Scottish Labour urges Scottish voters to seek politics based on policy, not personality David a. Selby

Jonathan Baldie

Background

National Politics Editor There are over 80,000 students living and studying in Edinburgh, and over 250,000 in the whole of Scotland.

Theirs is a demographic likely to prove crucial in deciding the outcome of 5 May's general election - that much is, by now, received wisdom, but for Scottish Labour it's a sacred creed. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are both likely to sustain heavy losses thanks to the unpopularity of their Westminster wings, and the Scottish National Party have been left vulnerable by a painful four years in government.

With opinion polls suggesting a strong showing likely for Labour, party leader Iain Gray is cautiously optimistic.

In the basement of a stationery shop off Shandwick Place, Gray pushes home his point with a faintly Blair-like hand gesture. He's just launched Labour's small business manifesto to a gaggle of assorted journalists and bemused shop staff upstairs, so he's pushing the economic message today. From his perch to Gray's left, the Labour leader's silverhaired spin doctor Simon Pia keeps a careful watch on our interview.

Higher education is "absolutely crucial" to Scottish Labour's platform, he says. "If you look at economies that are growing, it's not difficult to see that the number of graduates in the workforce correlates with economic growth." He even tries to sell the business manifesto directly to students: it is, after all, partly focused on "creating a whole range of opportunities for young people."

But the real question here is whether the Scottish system of free tuition is sustainable, and on this point Gray seems hesitant. "We believe it is," he offers. "That's why we're making a promise." Surprisingly, he even finds time to commend the current administration. "You know, for a long time there was talk of a funding gap of £800 million. I said it was difficult to see how that gap could be bridged, but the Scottish Government has managed to bridge it and bring the gap down."

He doesn't argue with the SNP's estimate of a £96 million funding gap for higher education, though he largely reserves judgement. "There are uncertainties," he says, "because we don't know until July at what levels English institutions will peg their fees."

His answers on questions of higher education tend to be tentative - it's clearly an issue over which the Labour policy wonks have agonised, but they seem to have reached few solid policy conclusions. His wariness on funding issues, in particular, risks giving the impression that if brought to power, a Labour government may put the question of free tuition back on the table.

Gray's views on the subject of fees for non-Scottish students, meanwhile, bring to light another commonality

Iain Gray, 53, was born in Edinburgh and studied maths and physics at the University of Edinburgh.

He went on to become a secondary school teacher, teaching maths and physics first in Edinburgh and later in Mozambique. Gray was for 12 years campaigns director for Oxfam in Scotland, before winning election to the Scottish Parliament as the MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands in 1999.

In the first Labour administration at Holyrood, he spent two years as a deputy minister before being appointed social justice minister

by First Minister Jack McConnell in 2001. When Wendy Alexander became leader in 2002, Gray took over her old brief as enterprise, transport and lifelong learning minister.

At the 2003 Scottish election, however, Gray was unseated by Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie and moved to London to serve as a political adviser to thenScottish secretary Alistair Darling.

He returned to the Scottish Parliament in 2007 as a list MSP for East Lothian, and was a member of the shadow cabinet.

After the resignation of Wendy Alexander in 2008, Gray announced his candidacy for Labour leader, defeating Cathy Jamieson by 15 per cent to win the election. between the Labour and SNP higher education platforms "It's inevitable," he tells us with a slightly unhappy note in his voice, "that fees paid by English students will go up. We can't continue with having £9,000 below the border and £1,800 here."

His candour is telling, and it's indicative of a general consensus forming around this issue. No-one expects fees in Scotland to remain at their current levels, but as social democrats Scottish Labour seem reluctant to let it get anywhere near the £9,000 level.

On EU fees, Gray once again joins the SNP in adopting a pragmatic view of things. Under EU law, European students must pay the same fees as home students. "That's EU law," he says, "but we support the Scottish government in exploring new ways of looking at this." The implication behind his faintly euphemistic turn of phrase is much the same as that hinted at by Alex Salmond in conversation with The Journal: that this is a piece of EU legislation that policymakers want to circumvent if possible. "The Scottish Government have said they're exploring ways of making them

make a contribution," Gray remarks, cryptically. "But a solution isn't clear."

"In Scotland, we don't have presidential elections - we have votes on what people want" As we talk, the Universities and Colleges Union is about to begin its second round of industrial action in as many weeks, but Gray is nomcommital when pressed for an opinion.

"There's a whole number of issues around this sector that need to be addressed," he says, tactfully.

But then Gray does something that seems distinctly out-of-character: he takes a swipe at the opposition - and

he doesn't hold back. The issues he refers to "should have been sorted out years ago," he claims. "Crucially, look at the 2007 promise by the SNP to replace loans with grants to eliminate student debt: what happened to that? Indeed, this was a golden pledge by the SNP during that year's election, with no sign of it being fulfilled...

"People criticise Nick Clegg that was a promise worth £800 million which he broke. Alex Salmond's promise to Scottish students, on the other hand, was worth £2 billion!"

It's interesting to see Gray taking a more directly adversarial stance, but it's not an attitude he seems particularly comfortable with. The former teacher has been criticised for a lack of public profile compared to his SNP counterpart - according to a recent Scotsman survey, less than 20 per cent of respondents in four cities could recognise his face - but it's a contest he has little patience for.

"Look, the fact that Alex Salmond is more recognisable than me is hardly surprising, when you think

that he's been the First Minister for four years, he's been in politics for 20 years, and is the leader of a party which is quite a one-man band.

"In Scotland, we don't have presidential elections. We have votes on what people want."

Gray is quietly self-effacing in his answers, and he comes across as something of a Labour traditonalist: he talks passionately about a "doorstep election", boasts of 500,000 doors knocked already and 500,000 more to be knocked before the election.

Questioned on how he's feeling about the imminent election, his wary rhetoric belies what seems like a keenly-felt desire, both in Gray and the Labour Party, not to be perceived as arrogant. "We're happy to see opinion polls showing us ahead, but we won't take anything for granted," he tells us with another jab of the hand. "We'll fight for every vote, and fight for every seat."

Interview by Jonathan Baldie and Marcus Kernohan

EUSA GRAD BALL POSTER PRESS AD.indd 1

01/04/2011 09:55

Student News 9

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

ECA graduate Clegg launches wins Marks & campaign Spencer backing against unpaid internships High street giant takes on Fashion Graduate of the Year Jett Sweeney's design

Deputy Prime Minister claims encouraging social mobility is the key edinburgh college of art

Andrew Barr

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has launched a new social mobility strategy designed to halt the growing trend of unpaid internships, stating that people should gain opportunities based on “what they know”, not who they know.

The proposed scheme will request that firms pay young people for doing work experience. Ben Lyons, co-director of Intern Aware said: “It is encouraging that politicians have finally woken up to the scandal of Britain’s unpaid intern culture. But as part of any solution, Nick Clegg must address the widespread use of unpaid interns in his own party. When Intern Aware launched an investigation into the use of interns in Parliament, the majority of exploitative MPs were Liberal Democrats. There are currently seven Liberal Democrat MPs advertising for unpaid internships.

“The government’s proposals are promising but must go further. Companies should not be allowed to offer 'reasonable expenses'. Five pounds a day for food and drink is not enough to support anyone for two months in

London. Crucially, the government should be working to end the proliferation of unpaid internships across all sectors of the economy, not just in the civil service.”

Labour Party deputy leader Harriet Harman has claimed that Mr Clegg was guilty of "betraying a generation of young people" by raising university fees for students in England.

"I'm afraid the deputy prime minister gave up the right to pontificate on social mobility," she said, "when he abolished education maintenance allowances, trebled tuition fees and betrayed a generation of young people.”

Mark Park, co-editor of Liberal Democrat Voice welcomed the strategy, stating that “far too much of people's chances in life is set by the circumstances of their birth rather than by what they try to do subsequently.

Working in public relations, I know how important intern schemes are at opening up some of those opportunities to people.”

He went on to say that “the recent auctioning of intern posts at a Conservative Party fund-raising auction shows how in too many areas internships are the preserve of the rich and the well-connected.” cabinet office

Jett Sweeney's dress design will shortly be available across the UK

Kathryn Richardson

An Edinburgh College of Art graduate will have one of her designs sold by Marks & Spencer after winning a prestigious fashion award.

Jett Sweeney, 23, was crowned Fashion Graduate of the Year 2010 at the Scottish Fashion Awards after designing an evening cocktail dress for Marks & Spencer’s ‘Limited Collection’ range.

The high street retailer, who sponsored the award, selected Ms Sweeney’s black mini dress with pleated skirt and brass detailing from the designs of four nominees. It will now be massproduced and sold in branches across the UK at the retail price of £95.

Ms Sweeney spent a month alongside Marks & Spencer’s designers in London where she was able to view the design process and gain first-hand experience with one of the UK’s largest retailers.

She told The Journal: “The most valuable part of my placement was learning how the design process works within high street design. I was primarily in charge of helping the team

research and develop new trends. It was also great to see the first samples of my dress come back from the suppliers.”

At a time when graduate unemployment is hitting a record high, the production of Ms Sweeney’s dress is a promising prospect for other students looking to break into the fashion industry.

Ms Sweeney continued: “It feels great to have my name linked to one of the British high street’s biggest retailers and I’m very grateful that I’ve had this kind of recognition for my work at such an early stage in my design career.

“I definitely think it’s a great idea to have retailers investing in new talent.

It’s great to have been given the opportunity to have my work showcased on a national scale.”

The Scottish Fashion Awards celebrated its fifth annual ceremony in Glasgow last June, where Ms Sweeney collected the award. Other attendees included Young Designer of the Year Holly Fulton, whose work recently appeared in the film Sex And The City 2.

Pop star Gabriella Cilmi and Dolce & Gabbana model David Gandy also attended the awards.

News Shorts

QMU backs out of Libya deal Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret University is one of five British universities who have pulled out of a £4 million pound deal financed by Gaddafi’s regime.

The University was part of a deal to train 300 Libyan health workers a year, alongside Manchester Metropolitan, Teeside, Liverpool John Moores and Glamorgan University.

The deal was brokered by Training Gateway, a company set up to promote the interests of British institutions abroad, and academics from the universities travelled to Libya last summer to evaluate Healthcare training. All five universities have now backed out.

The news follows revelations that 110 British universities received money from the Libyan government to educate students and comes just days after Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics, resigned for accepting money from the Libyan dictator.

Gordon Brown to give Edinburgh University lecture Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is due to give a sell-out lecture on economics at the University of Edinburgh, where he studied before going into politics.

In his lecture entitled ‘The Future of Jobs and Justice’, Mr Brown will argue that there is an alternative to the prospect of low growth and high unemployment.

The talk is part of the prestigious Gifford Lectureships, which have been running for over 100 years and are held at the universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Former lecturers include Iris Murdoch, Karl Barth and Richard Swinburne.

Mr Brown was admitted to the University of Edinburgh to study history at the age of just 16 and graduated with a first class degree.

He also completed his doctorate at the university.

The lecture will be held at McEwan Hall on 19 April. Tickets for the event, which were available to the public, sold out quickly.

UoE performs poorly in reputation league table The University of Edinburgh is poorly perceived compared with its actual performance, research by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) has revealed.

THES produced a ‘reputation league table’ based on how world universities are regarded by a panel of international experts.

Although Edinburgh was ranked at number 45, the sixth best in the UK, the position is 23 places lower than in the latest QS World Rankings, based on university performance.

The ranking comes despite the university’s continued efforts to improve its international reputation, led by the Edinburgh Global team.

By Jessica Abrahams Clegg was forced to admit that family connections got him a job

10 Local News

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Leith biomass Concert in capital for plant proposals African AIDS orphans face determined local opposition

Watoto Choir to lead effort to raise awareness of the disease Al Innes

Student Politics Editor

£600 million project stalled by local citizens and international pressure groups claiming that there are public health risks to biomass energy production Mike langridge

A new city church is preparing to sponsor a group of Ugandan orphans to enable them to perform in the city.

St Serf's Parish Church in Ferry Road is organising a Concert for Hope, which First Minister Alex Salmond has been asked to attend, on Saturday 30 April.

The Watoto Children's Choir, which includes some adults, will perform as part of a world tour. The orphans, now housed in Suubi and Bbira, are being looked after by the

relief charity Watoto, having lost their parents to HIV and AIDS. The tour is part of an effort to raise awareness of the disease and raise money for the charity. Mark Wells and Vili Vedula established the church, Breakthrough for Christ ANCF, in February of this year and have been working closely with the Watoto charity. The church is based in the Edinburgh City Mission building.

Mr Wells explained: “With us starting up a church, we were speaking about sponsoring the kids to come to Edinburgh this year. We felt it would be really good for our kids

here to find out what the kids live like over there. It gives the kids something to look forward to.”

The event will also feature African dancing and rhythms which Mr Wells believes showcases the lives of the children in an authentic manner.

“When they do the concert they will bring a bit of drama in, which shows what they live like. The girls and boys stand up and tell you what their life was like before the charity was involved”, said Mr Wells.

The Journal understands that some 300 people are expected to attend the event. Tickets for the concert are free on the door.

Old Firm Monday 'curfew' may be solution to violence Proposal would see Celtic-Rangers clashes held on Mondays Greg Bianchi

US environmental activists have lent support to local opposition

Natasha Dua

Opposition to the proposed biomass plant in Leith has attracted international attention, with environmental protests now coming from Friends of the Earth US. Members of the Edinburgh community have staunchly opposed the proposed plant, signing a petition citing the potential health risks of plant emissions and the unsustainability of biomass energy.

Advice group Planning Aid for Scotland hosted a meeting last week to give the Leith community an opportunity to learn more about the proposed plan.

Fierce opposition from the local community was met with anger from Forth Energy officials as both sides stated their claims.

Forth Energy officials refused to answer questions verbally, but promised their commitment to answer all questions on the Leith Neighborhood Partnership website.

The biomass plant was proposed by Forth Energy, a partnership between dock owners in the Forth Ports of Leith and Scottish and Southern Energy.

It would generate energy by burning millions of tonnes of wood and other organic materials. The majority of the wood would be imported from the United States.

The plant would also feature a chimney stack double the height of Edinburgh's Scott Monument. Forth Energy claims that the biomass plan will be a green initiative, despite suggestions from officials estimating that 17,500 lorry trips would be required to fulfil the plant’s wood requirements.

The plan has been met with opposition from Friends of The Earth US who oppose the biomass plan because the imported wood from North America would greatly harm ecosystems in the southeastern United States.

Kate McMahon, the biofuels campaign co-ordinator for the enviromental group explained: “The southeastern US contains some of the most biodiversity-rich ecosystems in North America and have experienced massive losses with the conversion of natural forest to industrial pine plantations.

"According to the US Forest Service Southern Forests Research Assessment, only about 182 million acres of the former 356 million acres of natural forest still remain."

Calum Wilson, managing director of Forth Energy said: “The plant represents an investment of around £600 million. During the construction phase, which will last approximately three years, an average of 450 construction workers will be employed. 45 permanent operational jobs and a further 30 permanent jobs in the Port handling the fuel will be created. The plant is designed to operate for 25 years - these are jobs for a generation.

"Further to this, the plant will be a catalyst for growth in the local economy, putting the Port of Leith at the heart of the renewable energy industry and encouraging further investment.“ Despite the heavy opposition, Forth Energy claims that 72 per cent of people in the area support its plans for the biomass plant. They hope to secure the approval of the Scottish government by the second half of this year and would ideally begin construction in 2012.

If successful, the plant will open in 2016.

The Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) has called for clashes between Celtic and Rangers to be scheduled for Monday evenings in an attempt to avoid the ugly scenes witnessed at last month’s Scottish Cup tie which resulted in over thirty arrests.

SLTA chief executive Paul Waterson explained that the scheduling of the games needs to change, not the opening hours of premises: “The problem is the vast majority of fans who are going to abuse alcohol do so at home anyway. We have become a

nation of take-home drinkers.”

Cloisters Bar, in Edinburgh's city centre does not show any sport on its premises, however they have felt the impact of football fans' excess. Duty manager Gregor Denholm explained: “We don't show any of the matches, but we are in an area where some pubs do. We still get drunken, and sometimes violent, football supporters coming in here when there are matches on during the weekend and often they have been drinking heavily elsewhere during the game.”

Baird’s Bar in the Gallowgate area of Glasgow states that the rivalry has been established in the city for “over a hundred years” and the proposed changes to move the Old Firm derby to

Monday evenings would be “no good for business”.

However, Glasgow University Union president, Chris Sibbald offered some positive words from the student population, telling The Journal: “The number of students that watch the Old Firm game tends to be quite small, whereas a Champions League tie, for example Manchester United versus Chelsea, tends to draw in a much larger crowd”.

The number of arrests made following the match in March prompted a summit, chaired by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, to create an action plan to ensure that the scenes at the end of the Old Firm clash will not be repeated. tom brogan

March's Scottish Cup tie between Rangers and Celtic led to violence, resulting in thirty arrests

Local News 11

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Edinburgh's polar bear Mercedes passes away Edinburgh Zoo's famous bear put to sleep in Highland retreat

Owners of the Botanic Gardens attribute the rise to the recent redevelopment of the John Hope Gateway

Al Innes Student Politics Editor Mercedes, the Edinburgh polar bear that was sent to Kingussie Highland Wildlife Park in October 2009, was put to sleep last Thursday following months of ill-health.

The iconic polar bear, who was 29 years old, is set to be honoured at Edinburgh Zoo. Douglas Richardson, animal collection manager at the Wildlife Park, believes a plaque or some other such honour would be a fitting tribute.

He explained: “That is something that I'm sure we will discuss in the coming couple of weeks. She spent a long time at the zoo and her arrival at the time was the biggest story in the history of the RZSS (Royal Zoological Society of Scotland) – as far as the amount of coverage and interest – and so she certainly did her bit to help the park move forward.

"I think we owe her some sort of formal commemoration.”

The bear had been on a mix of drugs in order to treat her advancing osteoarthritis, which is incurable. Her postmortem showed that she had advanced signs of the disease as well as the hardening of arteries in her brain.

Polar bears are expected to live for 20 years, and The Journal understands that Mercedes was showing potential signs of senility. Jane Harley, the Wildlife Park's local veterinary consultant,

Visitor numbers on the rise at the Botanics Marii Stoltsen

Mercedes had shown signs of age-related senility, her keepers say said that: “This has been a difficult decision for everyone, but was the right decision for a very special bear.”

Mr Richardson added that he felt Mercedes had “a very gentle attitude”.

“She holds a very special place because she was such a character and was so high profile. She's definitely been the sweetest-natured polar bear I've worked with.”

Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (RBGE) has seen visitor numbers soar in the last year despite the current economic climate.

The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) has published figures showing saw a 21 per cent boost in visitors to the Gardens in the last year, reaching 707,244 visits compared to 581,358 in 2009.

Officials attributed the rise to the opening of the new John Hope Gateway last July. The £16 million visitor centre at the West Gate of the Botanics is a landmark facility for biodiversity research and information. The new building has additional extensive catering facilities, conference rooms and an exhibition area showcasing the work and ongoing projects at the Gardens.

Leigh Equi, a frequent visitor and manager of Garden Centre, said: “The John Hope Gateway has definitely improved the Gardens. Before there was just a little information and mostly just the shop, now it’s much more educational with many interesting displays

and exhibitions. 21 per cent is a surprisingly large margin, but I’m definitely not surprised the visitor numbers have gone up.”

The Royal Botanic Gardens are one of the world’s leading botanical research establishments and a major tourist attraction. Stephen Beaumont, membership volunteer at RBGE, said that the site was “popular amongst all age groups because it does have something to see all year round. Even better, with the John Hope Gateway there is now so much more information about the work carried out here to educate visitors about conservation and sustainability among other things.”

ALVA also recorded similar trends in the visitor figures of other popular tourist destinations. Visits to the National Galleries of Scotland increased by 10.18 per cent and the National Museum of Scotland by 5 per cent. Edinburgh Castle holds the title of the most visited attraction in Scotland.

The new John Hope Gateway will be used to accommodate several events in Edinburgh. Some events taking place at the centre include the independent exhibition 'A quiet intervention' and the weekly RBGE Show and Tell event.

Scots book of local heroes A new project from the Scottish Book Trust will immortalise Scotland's family histories in print

Al Innes Student Politics Editor A campaign by the Scottish Book Trust has been encouraging Scots, from the capital and beyond, to explore the most interesting aspects of their family history.

Family Legends, a joint project between the Scottish Book Trust and BBC Radio Scotland, has just concluded its submission period for short story entries. As a project, Family Legends was designed to eternalise stories of significant relatives from every family.

Claire Stewart, the project's coordinator, told The Journal: “The idea for the theme of Family Legends came from wanting to find a topic that just about everyone could identify with and that would make for a great collection of stories. Writing about family seems to have stirred up some strong emotions; people have been writing stories to pay tribute to a family member or commemorate their life.

"The Heritage Lottery Fund have generously supported the project and this enabled us to run free writing workshops with authors all over Scotland... [which] saw hundreds of Scottish

children interviewing family members about their lives and exploring their own heritage."

“Winning stories will be chosen for their originality and distinctiveness and whether the story develops and reads well. Winning stories will engage the reader emotionally and stories to be aired on the radio should read well out loud.”

Ms Stewart commented that Family Legends is not just a competition, but also “a project that is designed to get

people writing, using their own lives as inspiration. The competition is not looking for great literary works, but for great stories which have been told well.”

Winners of the writing contest will be published in a book by Scottish Book Trust and a few stories will be selected for broadcast on Radio Scotland's Book Café. The book will be published on 1 June by Luath Press. BBC Radio Scotland will begin broadcasting stories on Tuesday 31 May.

Over 700,000 people visited the Botanic Gardens last year flickr: misssunshine

12 Academic News

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Princess Anne appointed HIV infection on the rise in the UK, UoE chancellor The Princess Royal succeeds her 90-year old father in the ceremonial role as he drastically dials back his public roles buckingham palace press office

Greg Bianchi

Princess Anne, the Princess Royal has been elected as the eighth Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh.

She takes over the role from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who held the position from 1953 until 2010 — making him the longest-serving Chancellor at the University since the position was created.

Prince Philip announced he was stepping down as Chancellor last year as he approaches his 90th birthday this June, and has drastically cut back on his public and official roles.

The Princess Royal was elected as the new Chancellor with immediate effect by the university's General Council. The news was announced on 4 April via an email to all staff and students at the university.

University of Edinburgh principal Professor Sir Timothy O’Shea released a statement on the university website expressing his support for the decision.

“I am delighted that the Princess Royal is to become our new Chancellor and I welcome her to this important role at the heart of University life.”

The Princess Royal is also a patron of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Science at the University of Edinburgh.

The chancellorship has been an important position within the university since 1859 when it was first held by

says HPA

Health Protection Agency claims that there are now almost 90,000 sufferers in the UK, and encourage regular testing

Sophie Marion de Procé

Princess Anne is the first female Chancellor of the University Baron Brougham and Vaux.

The role of the Chancellor includes duties such as chairing the General Council and nominating an assessor in the University Court.

Dr Alan Brown, convener of the General Council’s Business Committee, also released a statement on the University website stating: “I am certain that the

appointment of HRH the Princess Royal as Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh will be welcomed enthusiastically by all General Council members, and it will be of immense benefit to the whole University community.”

In the past the post has also been held by three Barons, a Lord and an Earl.

86,500 people live with HIV in the UK — including 6,613 in Scotland — and a quarter of those people are not aware of their infection, according to data released by the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

The number of new HIV cases in the UK nearly doubled between 2001 and 2010, reaching 3,784 in 2010. Of those newly diagnosed in 2009, 1,130 probably acquired their infection heterosexually within the UK. New diagnoses among men who have sex with men (MSM) was still disproportinately high in 2009 meaning they remain the group most at risk of becoming infected with HIV. There are more than 30,000 MSM living with HIV in the UK, a third of which may currently be undiagnosed and unaware of their infection.

Another high-risk group is the black African community living in England, with more than 2,000 cases diagnosed in 2009, representing one-third of all new diagnoses in the UK. This prompted the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to offer new guidelines for

prevention in the most affected groups.

NICE encourages doctors to offer HIV testing routinely to all adults in highprevalence areas or in areas with a large community of MSM. Hospital doctors should follow similar advice for any men admitted to their hospital and NICE also calls for universal HIV testing for all attendees of STI clinics.

Some 95 per cent of all pregnant women now receive an HIV test as a standard part of their antenatal care and many feel that this should be extended to the wider population.

Many people are reluctant to be tested, possibly due to a lack of awareness or fear of the diagnosis. But with the progress in HIV care leading to increased life expectancy, it is beneficial to be diagnosed as early as possible.

The long-term impact of prevention through widespread regular HIV testing and safe-sex practices could prove invaluable to control the spread of HIV. Overall, the total rate of new HIV infections worldwide is declining. A total of 6,630 people worldwide were newly diagnosed as HIV-infected in 2009. This represents the fourth yearon-year decline, due to fewer diagnoses among people infected abroad, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Teenage pregnancy rates finally on the decline Figures show teenage pregnancies at their lowest ebb since 1980s Greg Bianchi

Teenage pregnancy rates across the UK have decreased leaving them at the lowest level since the early 1980s.

However, the number of teenage girls choosing to abort unwanted pregnancies has risen over the past decade.

Julie Bentley, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, said: “The success brought about by today’s figures revealing we’re seeing the lowest teenage pregnancy in England and Wales for 30 years is down to a dedicated strategy in England with a tried and tested formula of sex and relationships education, contraception and information services and local services working together."

Their campaign was helped by

Labour's £280 million 10-year strategy that aimed to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancies in the UK. The strategy was formulated in response to the news that the UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Western Europe.

In Scotland the rate of under-18s falling pregnant has fallen by two per cent. In England and Wales rates fell by nearly six per cent.

The children’s minister Sarah

Teather welcomed the news but emphasised the need to drive the rates down further as they are still higher than the government would like.

The Scottish Government previously set a target that aimed to reduce the rate of girls under the age of 16 falling pregnant by 20 per cent by 2010. However, although rates were reduced, the target was not reached.

However, the recent statistics are seen as a step in the right direction

Celebrate in style at michelin starred 21212 What better way to reward yourself or a loved one for the fantastic achievement of graduating than to treat yourselves to a special three course lunch from £26 at our exquisite restaurant with rooms – 21212? Or choose to come for dinner and we will start off your celebrations with a complimentary glass of Prosecco before your five courses priced at £67.

At this exciting time of year for new graduates, in addition to our normal opening hours, the restaurant will open on Monday 27 June and Monday 4 July to accommodate the graduation celebrations taking place and with special bedroom rates available for those visiting from afar it makes the perfect choice.

for the sexual health programme which plans to achieve a “vision for a sexually healthy Scotland: a more open, equal and respectful society that values sex and sexual health.”

Ms Teather also pointed out the potential dangers of teenage pregnancy. She said: “Teenage parents and their children are more likely to suffer from poor health, unemployment and poor achievement at school than their peers.”

21212, 3 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, EH7 5AB Tel: 0845 22 21212 www.21212restaurant.co.uk

Academic News 13

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Edinburgh University and ECA merger officially approved ECA will become part of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Arts, Culture and Environment on 1 August

Jenny Kassner

Following final approval from the Scottish Parliament, the merger between the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) will officially take effect on 1 August 2011.

As the merger approaches, The Journal talked to EUSA president Liz Rawlings about her feelings about the merger: “The merger between the University and the Edinburgh College of Art has a huge range of opportunities for students at both institutions. Edinburgh students are generally excited by the chance to take outside courses in a multitude of creative disciplines.”

When asked how the merger would affect the structure of the two student unions she commented: “Student representation and welfare is a priority for both ECA SU and EUSA. “EUSA and the ECA SU have been consulted at every stage of the process and continue to work together to

prioritise improving the student experience for both sets of students in light of the merger in August.”

Ms Rawlings also pointed out that both unions are “undertaking due diligence with regards on the merger”. This process is being supported by an academic focus group that is made up of representatives of both unions.

Another group was set up, consisting of key members of academic staff of both universities, to make the academic transition for current students as easy and smooth as possible.

The merger, which was first proposed in September 2010, intends to combine ECA with Edinburgh University’s School of Arts, Culture and Environment to create a new ECA within Edinburgh University. The newly formed department will then offer courses in art, design, music, history of art, architecture and landscape architecture.

Current principal of ECA, Professor Ian Howard, will be retiring from his position on 31 July 2011, a day before the merger officially takes effect.

Details remain unclear about what representative structure will be put in place for ECA students

Research 'super-institute' launched in Scotland Centres in Aberdeen and Dundee join to form the new James Hutton Institute, which will focus on sustainable development henry raeburn

Imogen Block

Scotland’s new ‘super’ institute for scientific research was launched at the Royal Society of Edinburgh last week.

The James Hutton Institute will be a major centre of research for a wide range of scientific disciplines, from environmental science to social economics and computer science.

It is named after the founder of modern geology James Hutton, a University of Edinburgh graduate who became a key figure in the 18th century Enlightenment.

The institute brings together two existing Scottish institutions, the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) near Dundee and the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen.

The SCRI specializes in potato and soft fruit breeding, pest and disease control, food quality and genetics. The Macaulay centre focuses on land use and sustainable development.

The new ‘super’ institute is the first body of its type in Europe, with the potential to become a world-leader in agricultural and environmental science. Its projects will include improving crop yields, developing sustaining farming methods and creating a lowcarbon economy.

Professor Bill McKelvey, chief executive and principal of the Scottish

Autistic brains "organised differently" People with autism often have extraordinary abilities when it comes to visual information Lily Panamsky Academic News Editor

A portrait of James Hutton, for whom the institute is named Agricultural College, told The Journal: “The Institute will bring a renewed focus in Scotland to the scientific challenges that must be answered if we are to properly feed the burgeoning world population in a sustainable manner.

“The Institute will work alongside the existing family of land-based research organisations in Scotland… to provide direct policy advice to government and scientific solutions to a number of problems.”

The SCRI and Macaulay centre formerly employed 300 staff between them , and had a combined income of £33 million. The James Hutton Institute

will employ around 600 scientists along with research and support staff.

The SCRI has international development links in Africa and trade links with China and the Macaulay centre is active in 40 countries.

A spokesperson for the James Hutton Institute told The Journal: “Macaulay and SCRI fit together very well. Due to the different areas of research there isn’t much overlap.

“There are not many applied research institutes of this kind in Europe thus in coming together it gives the institute a European and global footing.”

Autistic brains are organised differently to others — explaining why people with autism often have extraordinary abilities when dealing with visual information, a new study has revealed.

The study, run by scientists at the University of Montreal, found that the areas that process visual information are highly developed in autistic brains.

The extra development in these areas is why austistic people can draw very detailed pictures and recall specific information that others cannot.

However, this means that there is less space for, and less development of the brain areas that deal with decision-making and planning, which negatively affects the social aspects of their lives.

The study has recently been published in the journal Human Brain Mapping, and brings together over a decade of work on autism.

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects people’s abilities to communicate effectively and interact socially.

Dr Laurent Mottron, who participated in the study, explained: “The natural tendency is to think that autism is a form of disorganization. Here what we see is a reorganization of the brain."

The study highlights the fact that autism is not just a behavioural disorder, but that it is also linked to specific skills not found in others. The researchers hope that the findings, which offer a clearer picture of autism, will help to improve the lives of people living with the disorder.

There are over half a million people living with autism in the UK. Autism is found within the Autism Spectrum Disorder, which includes a wide range of disorders associated with social problems and specific behaviours. Asperger’s Syndrome is also a spectrum disorder.

Last month, a study run at the University of North Carolina linked autism spectrum disorders to a single protein.

When tested on mice, it was found that the protein Shank3 stopped effective communication between the brain cells and resulted in behaviours associated with autism. There is hope that this study will help lead to drug treatments of the disorder.

14 Student & National Politics

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011 flickr: alister

Scottish unis have highest drop-out rate, worst record on fair access Danielle Fallon

Recent figures released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) suggest that Scottish universities have the worst record for fair access and the highest drop-out rates out of all academic institutions in the United Kingdom.

The report looked at first time entrants enrolled in full-time degree courses from state school backgrounds.

Only 86.8 per cent of entrants in the academic year of 2009/2010 came from state schools in Scotland. This figure is particularly low when compared with Northern Ireland's 99.2 per cent and the overall UK average 88.8 per cent.

Liam Burns, president-elect of NUS, said: “For Scotland to be the worst in the UK on fair access and on drop-out rates is nothing less than shameful.

These statistics show that even with fees rightly off the table, the lack of adequate financial support is slamming the door shut on many of our most talented people.”

HESA examined the rate of noncontinuation for first year students in higher education. Their statistics project that only 75.4 per cent of first-time entrants who begin a degree course in Scotland are expected to qualify with any type of award.

The report also indicates that 13.9 per cent of students who drop-out of higher education in Scotland will neither obtain an award nor transfer onto another academic course or university.

Martyn Young, a former Napier student, told The Journal: "The main reason I had to drop out of university was finance really, it just got far too expensive both in terms of travelling and accommodation.

“Due to the fact that I had already received funding for a previous college course I was unable to receive funding to pay for tuition fees so this made my position at university rather untenable.

The course I was doing in journalism is very limited in terms of job opportunities so I had to leave university in favour of full time work in a supermarket.”

Speaking about the latest statistics, an Edinburgh Napier spokesperson said: “We have changed the structure of our academic year and curriculum to deliver improved induction, support and choice, and we assign a personal development tutor to every student. We also run special programmes for students from college to help them make the transition to higher education.

“We are seeing the impact of all these measures in steadily improving student retention, with our drop-out rate having fallen last year by over two percentage points and reduced further still this year.”

david a. selby

HESA data suggests only 75% of first-time students will graduate

One student was hospitalised during the eviction, leading to allegations of police brutality

Glasgow Uni occupation briefly ended by police 80 officers mobilised to evict students from 'Free Hetherington' Danielle Fallon

A seven-week student occupation of a mothballed University of Glasgow building was temporarily brought to a close by a major police operation.

Strathclyde Police mobilised up to 80 officers, 18 police vehicles and 1 helicopter to remove 15 students from the building.

However, the students quickly returned to the building mere days after the eviction, and the occupation continues.

For several weeks prior to the raid, students had taken up residence in the former Hetherington Research Club, shuttered and unattended since its closure. The eviction operation on Tuesday 22 March saw students from the ‘Free Hetherington’ protest movement forcibly removed by Strathclyde Police and

University security guards.

In the confrontation between police and protestors, one student was injured and had to be taken to the nearest hospital via ambulance.

The activists had reopened the centre as "an open, friendly, community space for staff, students and supporters" without permission after the university elected to close it last year.

The Students’ Representative Council (SRC) for Glasgow University condemned the scenes at Hetherington.

Tommy Gore, president of the SRC said: “What we saw outside the Hetherington Research Club today, with a presence of 80 officers on Universityowned property is unacceptable.

“Whilst we support the University’s goal of turning the previously empty building into learning and teaching space, we cannot, in any way, see the justification for allowing such a disproportionately large amount of police at

our University campus.”

Responding to allegations made regarding the measures which were taken by the police, Superintendent Nelson Telfer defended the force: “In the strongest terms, I would say allegations of police brutality are absolute nonsense”.

Patrick Harvie, a Green Party MSP from Glasgow has denounced the eviction and endorsed the occupation: “I whole-heartedly support the actions of Glasgow University students who have taken part in a peaceful occupation of the Free Hetherington," he said.

"Glasgow should be proud of its citizens who choose to take peaceful action to demand protection for our education, our health services, our libraries, and every aspect of our lives that is under threat from this new drive to privatise.”

An investigation into the events at the Hetherington on 22 March is ongoing.

SNP determined on minimum alcohol pricing In leaders' TV debate, First Minister indicates a second Parliamentary bout on the previously-defeated policy Jenny Kassner

Scotland’s party leaders clashed in a heated debate about the minimum pricing for alcohol on BBC Scotland’s Politics Show leader’s debate.

In the countdown to the Scottish Parliamentary elections, Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray, Scottish Conservatives

leader Annabel Goldie, SNP leader Alex Salmond, and Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott all appeared on the programme.

Topics up for debate included the length of prison sentences for knifecarriers and the minimum pricing for alcohol.

Opinions were divided over issues concerning the recent proposal for minimum pricing for alcohol in Scotland.

While the SNP is supporting a proposal for the introduction of minimum pricing, the Labour and Conservative parties and the Liberal Democrats rejected the proposal in the last parliament as it was deemed “probably illegal under European Competition Law." Ms Goldie stated that minimum pricing would be unfair to responsible drinkers: “The proposal has to target the problem drinks and the problem

drinkers, not penalise people.”

Mr Scott claimed that existing regulation to tackle the problem of alcohol was not used to its full potential and that there had not yet been enough prosecutions under the licensing law.

Mr Gray said he would be willing to discuss minimum pricing, but stressed that the SNP must be willing to accept alternatives.

Mr Salmond pointed out that

minimum pricing was in fact not illegal, as it would not have been introduced to the parliament in the first place if this was the case.

He concluded by stressing his conviction about the success of the proposal: “We’ll be introducing minimum pricing for alcohol and I do hope we can get the support that the doctors and police and society in Scotland demand from their politicians.”

Student Politics 15

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Exclusive: 'Joke job' QMU president Blain Murphy takes his final bow The ousted QMUSU president and the vice-president who had him sacked talk publicly for the first time stuart caie

Facebook page. Mr Murphy defended his actions, saying: “It was my thoughts.

Hannah Raine

“I've had enough of QMU for three life times”, former Queen Margaret University Students' Union president Blain Murphy told The Journal last week, speaking publicly for the first time since his dismissal.

In March, The Journal reported that after a complaint was filed by vice president Christie McMonagle against the current president, a vote of no-confidence was passed against Mr Murphy and he was removed from office.

Prior to this, Mr Murphy was called in for a disciplinary meeting in December. He now claims that he was given just a day and a half to gather his case. Mr Murphy said he approached Neil Rolland, QMUSU's general nanager, who told him that he was unable to give evidence for Mr Murphy as he “needed to stay neutral”. Mr Murphy was then shocked to find the same general manager “at the disciplinary meeting being a witness for Christie.”

It was revealed during the extraordinary meeting of Student Parliament the following February where Mr Murphy was removed from office, that communications had deteriorated between Mr Murphy and Ms McMonagle. Mr Murphy told The Journal that Ms McMonagle moved her desk to the reception area in November. Ms McMonagle did not speak to the expresident for five months.

“I felt that any issues could have been resolved in a face-to-face meeting or an informal chat, but instead Christie put a complaint through. It could from the outside of things look like a petty way to get me removed from

“It could from the outside of things look like a petty way to get me removed from office without actually trying solve problems”

Mr Murphy claims the QMUSU general manager gave evidence against him, despite claiming neutrality office without actually trying to solve problems”, said Mr Murphy.

Speaking to The Journal, Ms McMonagle said: “Several discussions about his actions were had with Blain before the formal complaint however he would not listen and I felt the formal complaint was the best way for him to understand the seriousness of the issue”.

Ms McMonagle added that Mr Murphy “seemed unable to take responsibility for his actions and treated the

role of Student President as a joke”.

In his blog, posted on 18 January, Mr Murphy wrote: “This job is, well it’s just plain awful. The people I work with are grand and all, but some take it too seriously”.

Mr Murphy added that he believed that the position - which had a salary of £15,779 - was a “fun joke job”.

The complaint against Mr Murphy was filed on the grounds of not fulfilling his core hours of work, his timekeeping and his absence at meetings

One-horse president race as candidate withdraws

without sending apologies. Mr Murphy told The Journal that in the 8 months in which he had held office “I failed to send two apologies, which only happened due to an illness".

“As for my time management, being a student still I’m set in my ways of leaving things until a day or two before the deadline, but I’d still make sure that they were done”.

It was revealed at the meeting that negative comments had been made against the NUS by Mr Murphy on his

I don’t see why this was used as evidence, in my opinion it was petty people clutching at straws and trying to use anything and everything against me.”

An email was sent to the student body by the student union informing them that Blain Murphy has been removed from office.

Mr Murphy told The Journal that it was “hurtful” after working there for 8 months. When asked why he was not given the opportunity to write his own statement the union claimed “it was never thought about”.

Mr Murphy also revealed that following this he did write a statement.

However, it was never released.

Mr Murphy claimed that that he doesn’t regret running, however: “In honesty, I wish I could say that I wouldn’t have ran, but I’m glad I did."

“I’m glad that I got to see how petty some people can be when things don’t go their way. I had a wonderful time with the students and that’s the only good thing I’m going to take away from the whole experience.”

michael breckenridge

Michael Breckenridge elected at QMUSU after Ektor Ttatsoulis' exit Hannah Raine

A candidate in the Queen Margaret University’s Student Union (QMUSU) election withdrew from the presidential race 24 hours before the polls opened.

Ektor Tsatsoulis expressed concerns in his resignation letter regarding the maturity of the university’s student body. Mr Tsatsoulis claimed that "unethical behaviours, immature threats and personal insults" were among the reasons for his withdrawal.

Mr Tsatsoulis also gave up his position as Marketing and Communication Officer, his membership of Student Parliament and involvement with other

university committees.

Michael Breckenridge was subsequently elected president.

Mr Tsatsoulis wished the newly elected president "best wishes for his really difficult task of changing the Union and dealing with these kinds of issues".

After the sacking of current president Blain Murphy, QMUSU were constitutionally obliged to hold a by-election to elect someone to the position until the new president takes office.

However, a statement from the union confirmed that no candidates were standing.

The union specified that only students who were not in full time education would be eligible to stand for

the interim presidency, to serve until Michael Breckenridge takes up office on 10 June.

Speaking to The Journal this week, vice-president Christie McMonagle said: "I am not surprised at the results of the by-elections since for someone to have become president they would have to not be a full time student, for a student to drop out of their course at this stage to be in position until June would have been unexpected."

A spokesperson for QMUSU said: "The Student’s Union will continue to function without a President until President Elect Michael Breckenridge takes up office on 10 June. We are confident that there will be little disruption to our services."

Michael Breckenridge was the only candidate for president

16 Editorial

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Letters EDINBURGH’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

ISSUE XLVI

Higher education funding

Vittorio Arrigoni murder

Fool me once...

In the last month, The Journal has interviewed the leaders of all five major Scottish political parties. We begin today with Alex Salmond and Iain Gray, respectively the leaders of the SNP and Scottish Labour. One of these men, it is generally accepted, will be First Minister on 6 May — and yet neither could give a clear answer to one of the most pressing questions in the present political discourse: what is to be done about higher education?

As we go to press, all of the major parties, with the decidedly unsurprising exception of the Scottish Conservative Party, have confirmed that they will not support the introduction of tuition fees in Scotland through the course of the next parliament. We applaud them for making this pledge, but at the risk of seeming cynical we must question their ability to see the promise through. It is a similar promise to one we received little more than a year ago — one that was not kept.

There are hundreds of thousands of students in Scotland. It is likely that turnout in the coming will be higher among this demographic than most

others. So why are the candidates giving the impression that students are a section of society they do not take seriously? To believe that students will vote based on vagaries and reassuring euphemisms is patronising and politically unwise.

NUS president-elect Liam Burns calls in these pages today for a united student movement to hold the parties to account before, during and after the general election. In this, he is correct.

Students must question their constituency candidates and the parties they represent, and they must be ruthless about doing so. Answers are needed, and none are being given.

The best-case scenario is that tuition fees are not introduced to Scotland by the next government. But if that is to be the case, what is to be done about the funding gap — estimates of which range from £96 million to £200 million — that Scottish universities will then face? No new revenue stream forthcoming, the likelihood is that the quality of education offered at Scottish universities will be drastically diluted by savage spending cuts at

Why all the surprise at the killing of the Italian pro-Palestinian activist by a Palestinian militant group in Gaza? those institutions.

Both Mr Salmond and Mr Gray told The Journal in interview that their parties are independently exploring the possibility of increasing fees for English, Welsh, Northern Irish and European Union students studying at Scottish universities in order to allow Scottish students to continue studying for free. This is likely to prove an unpopular policy with many student voters — and rightly so, because it is academic protectionism that will harm the diversity of Scottish campuses — but it is a bold move, and boldness is badly needed now.

That politicians have returned so soon to making ambitious promises they may prove unable or unwilling to keep is disturbing. It is very likely that the current Scottish funding model will prove unsustainable. That being so, changes will need to be made. But we cannot once again go to the polls on the basis of flimsy promises. We need an open and honest debate before the ballots are counted, not misleading pledges and sweeping reforms presented as faits accompli after the fact.

Unpaid internships

Clegg's redemption?

Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 April, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg valiantly took up the cause of the 'informal intern', condemning employers who exploit them and arguing that unpaid internships are a barrier to social mobility because they tend to be vastly more accessible to the wealthy and well-connected than to most other members of society. Obtaining the best internships, claims Mr Clegg, requires connections, and sustaining an unpaid position for any length of time is generally difficult unless heavily subsidised by parents.

On the face of it, Mr Clegg's stance is a compassionate and credit-worthy

one. But before we praise him too readily, we must question his integrity.

Among political parties, the Liberal Democrats are some of the worst offenders when it comes to using unpaid interns to strengthen their ranks. Not only that, but Mr Clegg has donned the guise of a crusader for social mobility before, declaring his intention to abolish tuition fees — only to join a government which then trebled them.

If Clegg's position is genuine this time, he should lead by example, first ensuring that his party pays their own interns their due. Then he should propose a legislative amendment to clarify

the legal status of an intern.

The reforms need not be too radical: the fundamental concept of an internship is a good one. As a means of providing a few months of vocational education for a profession, it makes ample sense. But all too often the position is distored by employers keen to use interns in lieu of paid employees. The introduction of a minimum apprenticeship wage or the enforcement of current minimum wage laws would make excellent starting points.

Once again, Mr Clegg finds himself the banner-bearer for a noble cause.

Hopefully this time will be less of a disappointment than the last.

QMUSU

Our attention turns once again to the ongoing drama at the top of Queen Margaret University Students' Union. We have previously called from these pages for more transparency from the union on the circumstances surrounding the sacking in February of president Blain Murphy.

We have now spoken to both Mr Murphy and vice-president Christie McMonagle — who, we revealed in our previous edition, initiated the disciplinary action that ended with Mr Murphy's dismissal.

The picture that has emerged from our conversations with both party is a caricature of student politics. From what we now know, the entire affair was driven by a major failure in communication between two people, and a personal grievance

that was aired far too publicly, and which has reflected poorly on everyone involved.

Student politicians should not necessarily be held to the same personal standards to which we would hold our nationally-elected representatives. But they play an important role in campus life: they are the public face of the student body to the university administration, to policymakers, and to the public. With those responsibilities to bear, we would hope for some maturity. None of the problems which developed between Mr Murphy and Ms McMonagle, as far as we can fathom, could not have been resolved by a frank — and private — conversation between the two. But there is no lasting record of such a conversation taking place:

only of a great deal of bad blood and embarrassment for everyone.

Yes, it seems that Mr Murphy did not take his job as president very seriously. Indeed, he has repeatedly referred to it as a "joke job". But equally, Ms McMonagle chose the nuclear option when she submitted a motion of no-confidence before QMU's Student Parliament.

And to what end? QMUSU is now lacking a president, Ms McMonagle and Mr Murphy have made themselves look as foolish as one another, and QMU students have been left to wonder what on earth is going on at their union. The whole silly soap opera leaves us wondering: while all this infighting was going on, who was left representing the students of QMU?

- Michelle Moshelian, Israel Equal time

Many activities conducted by the Palestinians go against their apparent best interests. For example, the rocket fire into Israel: If Israel is half as bad as the Palestinians make out, why on earth do they continually attack Israel, trying to provoke Israel to react? Clearly they have something to gain.

Israel ended the occupation of Gaza in 2005, and the Palestinians have invested far more heavily in trying to get Israel to come back than building a prosperous future for themselves something one would imagine is in their own best interests.

As a long time supporter of women's liberation, I have always considered that female criminals deserve equal treatment in the criminal courts to their male colleagues.

Recent reports that more women are being gaoled under the Scottish criminal justice system may indicate that this aspiration is being achieved.

- John Eoin Douglas, Edinburgh

T

STAFF BOX Publisher Devon Walshe Editor-in-chief Marcus Kernohan Design Team Dorothy Butchard Aimee Wachtel News Deputy Editor (News) Megan Taylor General News Amanda Svensson Falk National Politics Jonathan Baldie Academic News Lily Panamsky Student News Jessica Abrahams Student Politics Al Innes Comment & Features Deputy Editor (Comment & Features) Richard Martyn-Hemphill

Behind closed doors

Little is as it appears at first glance in the Middle East.

Comment Joe Coward Features Alexa Caldecott Interview/Profile Robbie Marwick

Theatre Amy Taylor Art Matthew Macaulay Comedy Emily Carson Clubs Rebecca Monks Food & Drink Ben Kendall Music Saskia Rothstein-Longaretti Fashion Jessica Heggie Sport Deputy Editors (Sport) Jamie Timson Sean Gibson Mark Simpson Production Picture Editor David Selby Chief subeditor Jen Owen Subeditors Jenny Kassner Leighton Craig Kirsten Waller Production Manager Bethany Ridley-Moran

Arts & Entertainment Deputy Editor (Arts & Entertainment) João Abbott-Gribben

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visit www.journal-online.co.uk/get_involved or email us to find out more.

Comment 17

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Comment Discussion&Debate

Now more than ever, we need a united student movement The NUS president-elect sets out his road-map for the continuing fight against unjust higher education reform

Liam Burns NUS presidentelext

You would be forgiven for thinking that I’d be terrified at the prospect of taking on the role of national president of NUS UK after the year my predecessor has had, but I’m really excited at the prospect. Excited because I’ve really enjoyed my experiences as president of NUS Scotland, and because these experiences have shown me what our students’ associations are capable of, and what we can achieve when we are united.

This need to work together; this need for a united student movement, is exactly what made me run for the position.

People might imagine that the NUS UK job will be a shock for me, coming from Scotland where the campuses are supposedly paved with gold and no one has to pay for anything, but that’s not the case – we see every day that fees or no fees, students in Scotland are struggling financially or are being priced out of education.

Others may think the fees fight here in Scotland is over, given that most of the mainstream political parties have said no to tuition fees being introduced in the next parliament. But this is also not the case – let’s not so quickly forget what happened with party promises after the votes had been counted last May. At the last election we were told by politicians across the country that they would oppose any fee hike – and yet we ended up with English fees effectively trebled. Even as our conference closed in Gateshead on Thursday, the nearby University of Newcastle became the latest in a long line of institutions to charge £9,000 fees from next year. We cannot allow the same post-election U-turn here in Scotland.

A real concern now is the ongoing political football of the socalled funding gap between English and Scottish universities. University bosses and others are inflating the figures for their own selfinterest and political motives, but the more this funding situation is placed into doubt, the greater the risk that when the next government takes their seats they’ll decide a

Students attend the recent NUS Scotland 'Reclaim Your Voice' demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh fee-free Scotland is unaffordable.

That’s why these next three weeks until Election Day are so critical – and the weeks after even more so.

We need to be out there across the country in the run up to 5 May, making sure we have cast-iron commitments from candidates across the parties: no fees, better student support, and protected college places and graduate numbers.

We need to get out the student vote to show the candidates and their parties that we do make our voices heard at the ballot box and we cannot be ignored – and then, if they are elected to represent us in Holyrood, we need to hold them to their promises from 6 May. This is what NUS Scotland’s Reclaim Your Voice campaign is about and the response so far has been amazing.

But we must step up the fight: check out the website for more details and ask your students’ association how you can get involved in their work up to Election Day.

We need to be out there across the country in the run up to 5 May, making sure we have cast-iron commitments from candidates across the parties: no fees, better student support, and protected college places and graduate numbers.

I’m excited about the prospect of taking up the position of NUS UK president because I also care about what happens beyond 5 May, and because in the longer term I’d like to work for a further and higher education system for the whole of the UK where who your parents are, your background and your bank balance no longer governs your prospects for the future or your opportunities to continue in education beyond school.

In my time as president of NUS Scotland, improving student support has been the key focus of everything we’ve done, because a lack of income whilst studying is the key barrier to education, and the key factor when students are forced to drop out early.

The goal must still be a student support system where students are not forced to live below the poverty line, where students from poorer backgrounds are not forced to work 30 hours a week during study or put off study altogether by insufficient

support.

I’d like to see the next government look at how this can be done with public funds, and to look to businesses to see how they can give something back to the colleges and universities that deliver so much for them.

The student support system in Scotland and the tuition fees regime in England are key obstacles to making our education system a force for true social mobility and a means for every individual to fulfil their potential.

Reforming one system and dismantling the other may seem like daunting tasks now, but I stand alongside a now-united student movement, and I know what we propose we can win.

Liam Burns is the president of NUS Scotland, and the president-elect of NUS UK. www.reclaimyourvoice.co.uk

18 Comment

Against

Debate

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Proposed EUSA boycott of Israeli goods

Foolish and counter-productive A boycott would not help Palestinians, and would serve only to encourage further hatred

Daniel Clinkman Postgrad rep, EUSA Student Council

For

Last month the EUSA annual general meeting voted to ban all Israeli products in EUSA shops and to lobby the University to take part in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The motion passed by a 9-to-1 margin. Fortunately, because the meeting was inquorate, the motion was non-binding and the EUSA executive is not bound to enact it. Unfortunately, the overwhelming support for the motion shows an alarming degree of anti-Israeli bias on campus. The motion, which could be proposed again at next year’s AGM, is objectionable on seven grounds: 1) It is anti-Israeli, not pro-Palestinian: The motion is only nominally linked to Palestinian welfare. It includes condemnation of Israel’s occupation and colonization of the Golan Heights, which is a bilateral matter between Israel and Syria. Meanwhile the motion is silent on the deplorable conditions of Palestinians in other Arab countries.

2) It requires Israel’s unconditional surrender: The BDS campaign would have Israel surrender control of its borders and territory, without recognizing Israel’s right to exist within its 1967 borders. The intended reach of the BDS therefore must include Israel’s core territory, which would be its end as an independent nation-state.

3) It misunderstands the purpose of boycotts: Successful boycotts in the United States, South Africa and India have been

At a recent EUSA general meeting, students voted 9-1 to support a union boycott of Israeli goods linked to the cause of civil rights, not the condemnation of an entire nation’s right to exist.

4) It is indiscriminate: The motion would boycott all goods carrying an Israeli barcode. This includes Palestinian products from the West Bank exported through Israel. It would also harm Israeli Arab and Israeli Jewish producers not involved in the occupation, and would impede academic

exchanges with Israeli universities.

5) It is insensitive to individual rights: An unimpeded right to return would violate the individual rights of Israelis. If all Palestinian refugees and their descendants returned to Israel, they would necessarily displace the current occupants, the vast majority of whom had no role in the original 1947 diaspora. The demand for a right of return elevates the welfare of a national

group’s historical grievance above that of individuals living in the present day exactly the charge made against the Israeli colonization of Arab land in the West Bank.

6) It discourages negotiation: The absolutist terms of the BDS motion preclude any effort at negotiation because they leave no room for Israel's right to exist. It adopts a stance closer to the position of Hamas than to the Palestine Liberation Organization.

7) It foments misunderstanding and hatred: The biased language of the resolution, its disregard for individual rights and its call for a boycott against all Israelis blurs the line between political action and national identity. It creates a climate in which criticism of Israeli policies has turned into indiscriminate anti-Israeli venom, which may in turn evolve into full anti-Semitism.The demagogic nature of the 'debate' at the EUSA general meeting, during which some members of the audience complained of intimidation against opponents of the measure, further indicates the danger of this irresponsible approach.

There is plenty of room for criticism of Israel but a boycott must uphold the values that it claims to stand for. This means that it must recognize Israel’s right to exist, and that its provisions must discriminate between oppressors and innocent bystanders. Furthermore, it should be aimed specifically at improving the civil rights of Palestinians, not eliminating an independent Israel. Finally, the organizers of such a boycott must condemn the demagogues within their movement and combat the anti-Israeli bigotry on display at the AGM. At present, the BDS campaign on campus does none of these things. The nonbinding passage of the BDS motion is an embarrassment. Were it to pass a quorum and become EUSA policy it would reflect discreditably upon EUSA and the University and impede their operations. Organizers of the BDS on campus should think twice before offering such a resolution at next year’s AGM, and representatives should oppose it if introduced in the EUSA Student Council.

A timely measure against injustice Action is needed to prevent Israel from continuing to deny fundamental rights to the Palestinian people

Liam O'Hare

Students for Justice in Palestine It was 5am on the morning of 2 August 2009 when the eviction happened. I was sleeping in the home of the Hannoun family in Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem, knowing that at any moment the police could arrive. Israeli forces commenced the eviction by throwing a brick through the window, before masked special police broke down the doors, attacked the family and activists inside the house and threw us out onto the street. Overnight, the Hannoun family were made refugees for the second time, having first been displaced during the ‘Nakba’ in 1948, as Zionist paramilitaries

massacred and ethnically cleansed the indigenous Palestinian population from their land.

In 1956, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) built homes in Sheikh Jarrah for the Hannouns and 28 other refugee families. Israel is now claiming Sheikh Jarrah as its own, and is slowly evicting the families in the neighbourhood one by one. Thus far four families have been evicted, and now living in the families’ houses are extreme ideological settlers who have immigrated from Russia and the United States.

The story of Sheikh Jarrah is relevant as it’s a microcosm of what the state of Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Apartheid is not a word that should be used lightly. However, when one considers the ongoing ethnic cleansing, the official state segregation, the two-tier legal system, and the racially discriminatory laws

- it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that Israel is an apartheid state.

Despite widespread condemnation, and attempts at “constructive engagement”, Israel continues to act with impunity by denying Palestinians their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination.

That is why, in 2005, a mass coalition of Palestinian civil society came together to call for people of conscience all over the world to initiate campaigns of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it abides by international law. The call for BDS demands an end to the occupation and colonisation of Arab lands taken in 1967, full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the protection and promotion of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Since the call was made, the BDS movement has grown at a rapid pace.

Companies involved in the occupation have lost billions of pounds worth of contracts and in the last six months alone, signatories to the BDS call have included Gil Scott-Heron, Roger Waters and Pete Seeger. Signatories also include dozens of Jewish and Israeli groups who stand courageously on the right side of history and say that the actions of the Israeli state are not done in their name. In addition, in a wonderful show of solidarity with the Palestinians, over 90 per cent of students at the recent EUSA General Meeting voted for a boycott of Israeli goods.

There are those who claim that Israel is unfairly singled out for criticism. It is true that many other countries commit grave atrocities too and must be challenged. However the argument that we must not act for justice in Palestine

because “other countries do bad stuff too” is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Israel singles itself out through its racist and colonial policies. It is singled out by the United States with $8.3 million dollars of military funding each day, and by other Western governments which allow it to act with impunity.

The international civil society movement towards a true just peace in Palestine is growing. As students, we have a massive role to play in this. Students for Justice in Palestine is compromised of people from all faiths and none, who have come together to fight injustice and stand in solidarity with the occupied and displaced Palestinian people. As Desmond Tutu said, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you take the side of the oppressor”. We stand with the oppressed and will continue to do so until Palestine is free.

Comment 19

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

The unintended lessons from Jamie's 'Dream School' Jamie Oliver's latest crusade to sort out schooling is noble hearted, but his solution leaves a lot to be desired

Rachel Cloughton Editor, LINE Magazine

When well-known historian David Starkey burst into a dramatic, prime-time monologue on ‘failure’, cruelly targeted at the class of 20 underachievers parked in front of him, he proved himself to be as stuck in the past as the Anglo-Saxon ‘gear’ he brought with him.

Perhaps that’s not surprising considering Starkey is a historian and has made a life’s work out of relishing time-gone-by. But, if there was anything Channel 4’s latest reality TV exploit, ‘Jamie’s Dream School’ should be looking to, it’s the future not just of the students enrolled at the ‘Dream School’ - but for the greater mass they represent.

To assert, like tough-loving Starkey, that “attention deficit disorder is a description of a whole generation,” is to spout a view as archaic as it is lazy. The generation in question has grown up in the most stimulating age known to man. Attention is continually fought for by the screeching aesthetics of visual culture, teaching its most captive (and vulnerable) audience - children - to look around, not sit up straight and face the front. In a world of instantaneous information

and accessibility, it’s not students that are beyond hope, but the static, educational paradigms that continue to prevail.

Speaking at a TEDglobal conference, Sir Ken Robinson, an advisor on educational policy, likened the current schooling system to a factory. Faced with the question of whether schools kill creativity, Robinson asserts that the institution is a site driven by the interests of industrialism and in the image of it. It’s a pertinent analogy.

We keep children in age groups, as if their ‘manufacture date’ is their most crucial, unitary aspect. These batches need to atomised and reassembled to unify individuals with those who share qualities beyond a birth date.

Standardised testing must give way to collaborative learning. In short, the system needs complete reform.

Explaining the reason why he founded the Dream School in its opening episode, Jamie Oliver reiterated in sensationalised cockney what a Demos educational survey recently uncovered in factual terms; only 57% of students are achieving 5 GCSES between A* - C. So the education system is clearly going wrong and Jamie’s here to fix it. How? Not

by Robinson’s revolution, but by taking the exact pedagogical models that are actually failing and inserting high-profile celebs where there was once a frazzled teacher. It’s the

institutional equivalent to a plaster over a bullet-wound.

A true ‘Dream School’ would be one that educated the whole society, teaching us to re-evaluate our attitudes towards intelligence, achievement and human capacity. Ultimately, every child is born with the same ability to learn. This is not merely the idealistic theory of early 19th Century thinkers such as Joseph Jacotot who famously claimed all men have equal intelligence; it’s backed up by rigorous Divergent Thinking tests carried out by the Aptitude Research Project over the past 50 years.

We need to accept too, that the term academic is simply one of many prefixes we can assign to ‘talent’. If a child is disengaged in academic subjects, why are they not encouraged to do something that employs a different skill set? Why are we forcing them to endure something when it evidently has counter-productive repercussions? Even Jamie, the rags-to-riches poster boy of the campaign heralds cooking as his salvation. The legacy of such elitist snobbery is simply capitalist hierarchies presented as a natural order and the repercussions of Labour, intent on pushing half of the population towards a further education, whether it was their predilection or not.

As any one who has watched the programme knows, Starkey managed

When did TV chefs become educational experts? to overcome strife. But, for a man so clearly marked by his own struggles it’s surprising how little empathy he has for anyone else. The Dream School is filled with children who are bearing crosses, ones that represent the troubles of a nation at large; teenage pregnancy, bullying, illness - and that’s all on top of a failing system.

Students should not be made to

feel ashamed for sharing a statistic with 43% of their peers, nor should they be labeled as failures. They should feel angry that the current state of education is not accommodating their needs, keeping up with the times and treating them as individuals. If there’s one thing Jamie’s Dream School teaches us, it’s that they are.

The ascent of the Syrian kingbreakers After weeks of demonstrations in Syria the president everyone thought was too popular to take down is in a precarious position Khalid Hafiz

The relentless honking of car horns sounding through Damascus no longer represents wedding celebrations or sport-victories. Cars draped with Syrian flags and pictures of the president express what many see as staged support for a ruling elite which has failed to understand both the plight of its people, and how to solve the ongoing crisis.

After three weeks of popular protests against the Syrian government - where a number of people have been killed by security forces loyal to the regime - there remains little doubt that this unrest represents the most serious threat Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, has faced in his 11-year tenure.

Unlike his predecessor and late father, Hafez al-Assad — infamous for an extremely violent crackdown on protests in the city of Hama in 1982 — the current Assad has enjoyed a great level of popularity with the Syrian people, and up until a week ago the calls we now hear for his resignation from demonstrators would have been hard to imagine.

Commentators initially quoted

Assad’s popularity as the main reason why conflict in the region was unlikely to spread to Syria. But after a televised speech where he took a vague stance on reform and blamed the state’s violence against protestors on ‘armed gangs’, a tangible sense of disappointment and tension has spread through the country. With Assad’s popularity dwindling, the door is ajar for conflict to creep in.

Even the power of Assad’s regime no longer appears so absolute. By failing to commit to a path of credible reforms and plausible solutions, he has exposed himself to criticism: dodging genuine reforms with halfhearted platitudes in a bid to rally support will do little to bolster Syrians behind his government at this point.

And Assad has made another costly blunder to worsen the situation. In an attempt to curry favour with the large Kurdish community in the north, the government offered them Syrian nationality after five decades of discrimination. This is yet another example of the regime’s inability to use sincere reform and legislation instead of mafiosa favouritism to stabilise the situation. And worryingly for the government, the many ethnic groups in

the country now stand together to demand greater political freedoms from the regime.

Assad’s prestige has been battered by the Kurds’ subsequent rejection of his offer, and a cacaphony of rallying calls for a 'non-violent move towards democracy' shows how much support he has lost. The government seems unaware that halfhearted and weak political solutions are useless if its security force is bent on keeping protestors in check with machine guns and murder.

The crucial problem the government must grapple with to ensure its own survival is the issue of the emergency laws, which since 1963 have made the arbitrary arrest of individuals completely legal. These laws oppress a people tired of having no real influence on lawmaking, and preserve a style of government which is utterly out of touch.

Recent events in Cairo, Tunis and Tripoli are proof that the time when regimes such as Assad’s are given a licence to rule as they please is coming to an end. Without the recognition of Assad’s Baath party that the demands of the people are legitimate, the scent of the Jasmine revolution could soon be drifting onto Syrian shores.

Too soon to tell whether Assad will be the next Arab leader to fall

20 Feature

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Wearing thin: will the Euro zone survive the ongoing monetary crisis?

Richard MartinHemphill

Keeping the euro may well be unpalatable...

But its dismantling or its contraction would be disastrous.

Comment & Features Editor

O

n the eve of John F. Kennedy’s presidency, fifty years ago, the prolific economist J.K Galbraith wrote a cautionary letter to the idealistic young president. He warned him that “politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.” Euro zone policy makers - currently having to gulp down a noxious brew of sovereign debt, fiscal imbalance and financial instability - may also be tempted to take this cynical view.

And the situation is getting worse for the common currency. What began as a Greek tragedy is starting to look like the ‘Rape of Europa’: the Greek structural deficit will be even harder than predicted to rein in; the Irish banks are still starved for capital after a ‚ €70 billion bail out; Spain is suffering under strict austerity measures with twenty per cent unemployment; and Portugal - stunned after the resignation of prime minister, Jose Socrates -is under pressure to go for a bail out despite its protestations that this is not necessary.

Nor is the contagion confined to the periphery of the Euro zone: the Italian economy is labouring under a burdensome debt worth 115.8 per cent of its GDP, and further handicapped by weak political leadership from its gallivanting prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

The French economy is hardly faring much better, still straitjacketed by state regulations and powerful worker’s unions. Even the evergreen German economy has stalled -- withering from a diminishing global demand for German exports and now facing increasing domestic political problems. Such a sustained bout of economic malaise in the Euro zone brings up an uncomfortable question: could the Euro zone make a sturdier recovery if it ousted some of its deficit ridden members, or even ditched the common currency itself?

Certainly the argument for an expulsion mechanism appears seductive at a first glance. Casting out troubled economies could feasibly be beneficial to the expellers and the expelled.

For the well-run core members of the Euro zone, it would be a blessing to no

longer have to rummage in their taxpayers pockets to pay the price for the mismanagement of other governments.

And for the troubled states of the Euro zone, expulsion‚ —temporarily or permanently— would give a struggling state like Greece an excellent means for recovery that the Euro zone denies: the ability to tailor its exchange rate to fit its fiscal policy. This chance to devalue its currency could lower the cost of the nation’s workforce, making its exports more competitive in international markets and stimulating growth. Since they have no control over the exchange rates in the Euro zone they have to turn to other ways of restoring competitiveness to the workforce like slashing workers wages and pensions. All of these remedies actually reduce the flow of consumer spending, leading to an even worse economic condition.

But beneath this alluring facade, expelling or suspending member states from the Euro zone is an ugly policy.

Besides the tremendous technical and bureaucratic difficulties that changing currencies would entail, there are

no clear criteria for what would constitute fair grounds for punishment.

Even if the exile was a voluntary one, it would be hugely destabilising for the financial markets if the Euro zone operated like a buffet where countries could come to take what they want and leave once they are glutted. And once nations realized that they were being undercut by those opting for lower valued currencies, they would follow suit. A race to the bottom would ensue, ending in a mass exodus from the Euro currency.

With both the Sovereign debt crisis and the banking crisis submerging individual Euro zone states, a chorus of commentators has argued that it might be better to dive off the ship before it sinks. Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, has noted that because the monetary union is not “politically integrated enough” to have “the institutional capacity needed to manage the crisis”, the Euro zone may well have reached the point where “an amicable divorce is a better option than years of economic decline and political acrimony.”

There is only one country that could make that executive decision: Germany.

It is the leading economy in the Euro zone and as long as Germany remains interested, the Euro show must go on.

However, if Germany were to decide that its economy was being held back by flagging peripheral states like Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain, and decided to revert to the D-Mark of the 1990’s, the euro would crumble.

But the notion that Germany would benefit from leaving the Euro zone is an illogical one. Speaking at the Kennedy School of Governance, Lionel Barber, the editor of the Financial Times, makes the point that the “D-mark would go through the roof” resulting in a loss of international competitiveness that would mean “Germany’s exportled economy would suffer, with corresponding soaring unemployment.” Germany traditionally supports the single currency because it brings financial stability and is a cap on inflation - key German concerns, even now. Also, many German banks have heavily invested in operations in peripheral member states and would have a lot to lose if the euro

failed. So a German evacuation from the Euro zone would be unwise to say the least.

Keeping the euro may well be unpalatable: over twelve years it has created huge imbalances, allowed waves of irresponsible lending to peripheral countries and left nations ill-equipped to stomach global financial recessions.

But its dismantling or its contraction would be disastrous. And one would be fickle indeed to presume that trust in the Euro creed had evaporated because of an unforeseen global economic downturn. As Martin Wolf observes, “Economic self-interest and political will would combine to preserve the common currency, in spite of the difficulties.”

The task is now to face those difficulties to make sure the Eurozone does not just survive as an underperforming currency divided between the debtors and the creditors, but realizes its vast potential.

From my lens the crisis could actually be a veiled gift because of its capacity to generate innovation.

We have seen the rapid expansion of the Euro zone’s European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) by €440 billion, a move towards more efficient restructuring of tax, and revamped forms of surveillance to guard against excessive borrowing. These are essential palliatives to anaesthetise sickly economies while real cures are concocted. To really reinvigorate the Euro zone, money must be injected into the banking system to encourage lending; strong political leadership must focus on intra-European infrastructure like smart electricity grids, broadband connections and high speed rail. The Euro zone will certainly survive, but if it adapts in this way, it will also thrive.

Arts & Entertainment 21

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

The Journal On the horizon

Feature

Theatre

Acting Gay

1st May

Royale Open Mic Night

The Tron Tightlaced Theatre presents Royale Open Mic Night, a lighthearted celebration of a certain wedding. Join other well-wishers to celebrate, mock, complain and comment on the event in everyway possible!

13 May - 4 June

Dunsinane

Royal Lyceum Theatre The National Theatre of Scotland present the world premiere of David Greig’s sequel to Macbeth, starring Siobhan Redmond.

19 April - 7 May

Pandas

Traverse Theatre Rona Munro’s much anticipated new romantic comedy comes to Edinburgh and then jets off to China...maybe.

20 - 23 April

Scottish Ballet: Alice

Festival Theatre Scottish Ballet and the creative team behind Cinderella and The Nutcracker present Alice, an extraordinary adventure into the depths of imagination.

Art Until 3 July

Jeff Koons

The Queens Gallery, £5 (student) An exhibition celebrating the work of Marcus Adams, who depicted generations of royal children overturning the long established tradition of formal royal portraiture.

Until 30 April

Rosemarie Trockel: ‘Drawings, Collages and Book Drafts’

Talbot Rice, Free This is the largest display of works on paper to date by the internationally renowned artist, Rosemarie Trockel.

Comedy 20/04/11

Benefit in Aid of Macmillan Cancer Support

The Stand (£10) A local allstar cast lead this fundraising efffort for cancer research, headed by GQ ‘comedian of the week’ Jo Caulfield, backed by Bruce Devlin, Stu Murphy & Garry Dobson and Vladmir McTavish 28/05/11

Boothby Graffoe

The Pleasance (£13) Expect a night of music fuelled surreality from Boothby Graffoe, with Nick Pynn on hand for musical support,

Clubs 20/04/11

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Free Jeff Koons is one of the world’s most commercially successful artists, but does that necessarily mean his art is any good?

You can decide.

Po na na £3 before midnight £4 after New night of chart music, featuring dubstep, indie and electro

Until 10 July

22/04/11

Artist Rooms: August Sander

Dean Gallery, Free August Sander has dedicated his life to photographing the German people, and his work forms a fascinating social document. Well worth more than a look.

Until 1 May

French Drawings: Poussin to Seurat

Red Basil

Wonky

Bongo. £8 in advance £10 on the door.

Trouble and Wolfjazz team up for a night of hip-hop 24/04/11

Passa Passa Reggae

Wee Red Bar, price TBC Reggae music from P Selector

Music 25/04/11

Metronomy

National Gallery Complex, Free From its first showing at the Wallace Collection in London an eclectic exhibition of French drawing comes to Edinburgh.

Cabaret Voltaire (£10) Promoting their new album ‘The English Riviera’ which adds a sunnier mood to their glitchy and romantic electro-pop

Until 17 July

22/04/11

Ruth Maclennan Anarcadia Stills, Free New film and series of photographs made among the desert expanses of Kazakhstan.

Until Sunday 5 June

Marcus Adams: Royal Photographer

Does it pay to be openly gay in Hollywood? Matthew Macaulay argues that even with the increased inclusion of gay characters in mainstream films homosexual actors still face discrimination

Bonobo Live (Ninja Tune), Hidden Orchestra

HMV Picturehouse £15 (early bird) With both Hidden Orchestra and Bonobo expounding intricately bass driven music, the live band show should be a stomper.

Caption

Matthew Macaulay Art Editor In April 2010 a journalist called Ramin Setoodeh wrote an article magazine which for Newsweek caused considerable controversy.

In it he argued that openly gay actors, namely Promises Promises co-star Sean Hayes and Glee’s Jonathan Groff, fail to make convincing straight male leads in romantic storylines. Setoodeh’s generalisation, implying that gay thespians regardless of their acting abilities would never be able to make the enormous leap required to play heterosexuals was illogical and made all the more bewildering by the fact that he himself is gay. He claimed that an actor’s background influences how we see his or her performance. This is not without foundation, but great acting is about transformation; we may see a film featuring Leonardo DiCaprio but his skill as an actor is such that we forget the latest bit of celebrity gossip about him and embrace the character he has created for our viewing delectation. Thus a talented gay actor, for example Neil Patrick Harris, is more than capable of portraying a straight character on the TV show How I Met Your Mother, in the same way that a straight actor such as James Franco can give a convincing performance as the gay poet Alan Ginsberg in the biopic Howl.

Setoodeh’s comments were illconsidered but they serve as a catalyst for positive discussion; focusing attention on the difficulties faced by gay actors trying to make it big in Hollywood. In the last couple of decades attitudes towards homosexuality have changed dramatically and Hollywood reflects this bourgeoning liberality. It is increasingly common for gay characters to appear in mainstream successful films where previously they were relegated to low budget independent movies lest they upset middlebrow America. Blockbusters such as

Brokeback Mountain, A Single Man, and The Kids Are All Right have proved that movies which centre on realistic non-mincing portrayals of

...it’s about time the studios stopped patronising the viewing public and realised that we judge an actor not on their sexual orientation but on their acting ability. gay people can attract the masses and make money. However, upon closer inspection Hollywood’s progressive attitude is something of a veneer, distracting attention from the homophobia that still exists in Tinseltown. The successful ‘gay’ films mentioned earlier may be progressive in their subject matter, but not in their casting; all of the homosexual characters featured in them are played by straight actors.

There is of course nothing wrong with straight actors playing gay roles providing that the reverse is possible, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. The film industry has double standards. As Colin Firth who plays the homosexual professor, George Falconer in Tom Ford’s visual masterpiece, A Single Man, put it: “If you’re known as a straight guy, playing a gay role, you get rewarded for that. If you’re a gay man and you want to play a straight

role, you don’t get cast – and if a gay man wants to play a gay role now, you don’t get cast.”

Playing gay has become a rite of passage for straight male actors in Hollywood looking to make it big.

In 1993 Tom Hanks established this trend, taking on the role of Andrew Beckett, a lawyer who contracts and eventually dies of AIDS, in the groundbreaking film Philadelphia.

Hanks won two Golden Globes for his emotionally charged performance and the film grossed $206 million, demonstrating that taking on a gay role was far from a stigmatising career move and could be extremely lucrative. Hanks opened the floodgates and the nineties were littered with actors who jumped at the chance to play gay, from bastions of masculinity such as Russell Crowe and Patrick Swayze to teenage heartthrobs like Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Why then, given that Europe and America seem to have embraced sexual diversity, do gay actors face what Firth refers to as the “invisible boundaries” in Hollywood? British actor Rupert Everett testified to this in late 2009 when he told the Guardian that being openly gay had seriously damaged his career, and advised young gay actors to stay in the closet. There is a false perception in film marketing, echoed in Setoodeh’s article, that somehow the public won’t accept a gay actor in a romantic scene with a woman. Similarly unenlightened is the notion perpetuated by many Hollywood studios that having a straight actor play a gay role is more palatable to a straight audience than a gay actor playing a gay role. God forbid a homosexual actor should actually draw on his or her wealth of personal experience and play a gay! Hollywood is driven by market forces and will always be conservative, but it’s about time the film studios stopped patronising the viewing public and realised that we judge an actor not on their sexual orientation but on their acting ability.

22 Arts & Entertainment

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Art

Theatre

Art

An Informed Energy: Lithography and Tamarind

Flawless: Chase the Dream

Third Year Painting and Photography

Somewhere between 'small time' and 'world class'

Lara Flannigan

Venue: Edinburgh Printmakers Dates: Until: 21 May Price: Free

The exhibition consists of two rooms of lithographic prints from the Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Although described in the accompanying pamphlet as a ‘world-class exhibition’ celebrating the ‘diversity of the medium’, it comes across as a small and very eclectic mix. Some prints imitate charcoal or pencil drawings, such as the ‘Bird in Hand’ series by Kiki Smith, comprising 5 sketch-like prints showing a hand holding a bird. The awkward rendering connotes of clumsy studies drawn in the first art classes of high school.

A more successful attempt comes from Jim Dine’s works, ‘Diana with Poem’ and ‘Tools for Earth’. Both incorporate the expressive abilities of charcoal as well as ink splashes highlighting the unpredictability of printmaking. More colourful prints such as the work of P Shelton and Luke Dorman are reminiscent of newspaper cartoons. Others bring to mind the ‘primitive’ cultures of Africa, India or the Native Americans.

There are also abstract lithographs which range from ‘Untitled I’

by Leif Kalaf, a greyscale piece dominated by different-sized black dots, to Julie Evans’ work ‘Radialspores’ a green and pink print evoking ideas of the cosmos or the human form.

Another notable abstract work is ‘Mort Bleu I’ by Dirk De Bruycker. In ‘Mort Bleu II’, the prominent shape recalls both a Rorschach ink-blot and a violet, the form emphasised by a blurred grey background. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the exhibition is actually the window looking out onto the Edinburgh Printmaker’s workshop. The view shows artists of both genders from a wide age range working on various areas of printmaking such as screen-printing, etching or lithography. Although the exhibition highlights distinct styles in the broad area of printmaking, the scene framed by the window encapsulates a far more diverse representation of the medium than An Informed Energy manages to achieve.

The former Britain's Got Talent runnersup are still alive and kicking Alexandra Wingate

The auditorium is buzzing as the lights dim on the UK tour of Flawless: Chase the Dream. All at once, hundreds of kids with multicoloured flashing gloves and teenagers in ultra flat, oversized baseball caps begin screaming and whooping as their idols appear on stage. The gig kicks off with an extended version of the dance which shot Flawless to fame on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 – the same year that saw dance group Diversity pip Susan Boyle to the post to become series champions.

Remarkably for an act that neither won nor were runners up, Flawless seem to be going from strength to strength. Almost immediately we are given an introduction to each of the dancers, with a voice-over of their mantra as they strike a pose. It’s cheesy but a great marketing tool; if there’s any kids out there who didn’t yet have a favourite, they sure will now.

No doubt stemming from a feeling that theatre must always equal narrative, the first half is mostly made up of a thuggish story involving a homeless man being chased for a mysterious bag. It’s a disappointing start, and feels as if Flawless don’t

have the confidence to rely purely on what they’re good at – dancing. The second half is a huge improvement, which has the audience following a dance routine with their hands and screaming which prop the next dancer should choose at the top of their lungs. The energy is electric, and as hundreds of screaming girls shout ‘off off off’ at the first sign that one of the dancers might just take his top off, it quickly becomes obvious that you’re never too young to appreciate a ripped torso.

Each prop introduces a new scenario, from The Mask to The Matrix and, without the pressure of following a weak plot, this is where the troupe really come into their own. There’s rather a lot of Michael Jackson in this production which is unsurprising given his legendary status and iconic dance moves. The only danger is that it begins to feel more like a tribute act, instead of a confident forging of ‘the one and only Flawless’. But as children bust some cool hip-hop moves to their encouraging parents in the foyer at the end, it would appear that Flawless have the potential to be as inspiring to these kids as Jackson was to them.

Venue: Festival Theatre Dates: Fri 1 - Sat 2 April, 7:30pm Price: £22.00

Accomplished work poorly displayed Jemma Craig

The infinite variety on display at this exhibition is nothing short of a banquet for the eyes. Here, artistic freedom speaks louder than the pressure to produce a ‘complete’ work. Following from this freedom, the artistic influences upon individuals are clear. The work of Justine Hedley resembles Georgia O’Keeffe’s synthesised abstraction; Hedley presents crisp contours replete with subtle tonal transitions. Reminiscent of Andy Warhol, Alyssa Flegg has produced a repetitive print, with earthy greys and greens replacing Warhol’s colourful pop palette.

A highlight is the work of Margaret Smolenska. Her wooden canvases hang in harmony: one rectangle and two squares. The muted colours cast heavenly connotations, whilst the skillful application of paint is controlled to create varying textures.

Although not distracting from the excellent standard of work, there is a slight impracticality in the layout of the show. While most works adorn the walls of the central space, two deceiving corridors lead from it.

Guided by masking-tape arrows, the doors are locked – denying access to the other artists exhibiting. These ‘wings’ of the exhibition physically detach the works they contain, separating them from the main exhibition space.

It is clear that the art students exhibited here are encouraged to explore; creating a process that invites experimentation with open arms. Each artist’s work is different from the next and this variation makes the exhibit fresh and exciting whilst demonstrating the immense versatility of the medium of painting.

Venue: Edinburgh College of Art Dates: Price: Free

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Arts & Entertainment 23

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Art

Music

Art

Jeff Koons

Frightened Rabbit

White Knight

Market-driven art with an artificial and unfulfilling outcome

A record store day treat at Avalanch Venue: Avalanche Records

Kate McAllan

Dates: 16 April 2011 Price: Free

Edinburgh’s beloved Avalanche Records opened its doors for Record Store Day on Saturday, its round-the-corner queue at 9am a testament to the fact that even in a Spotify generation, people will still wait for great music. Alongside new releases such as Radiohead and the Arctic Monkeys, the hot deal of the day came in the shape of a limited edition Frightened Rabbit/ Twilight Sad compilation tape, with the band treating fans to a crowded free instore gig at 1pm.

As crown princes of the new Scottish Indie sound, front man Scott Hutchison jokingly commented “You’ll need to buy an old car to play this in. Then maybe drive to the edge of a cliff. What you choose to do there is up to you.” Such is the nature of the wistful sound Frabbit and their contemporaries project.

Their 2008 album ‘Midnight Organ Flight’, chronicled a difficult breakup in a distinctly Scottish manner, its lyrics allegedly provoking grown men to weep into pint glasses.

Their music evokes a masculine

vulnerability, with influences farreaching and difficult to pinpoint.

“What’s the blues, when you’ve got the greys?”, opens Hutchison as an audience spanning from 30-something Indie types, to skinny-jeaned kids and their dads all sing back his lyrics.

A Bruce Springsteen cover gives way to a rather subdued version of ‘My Backwards Walk’, an anthem for the hopeless. However new release ‘Living In Colour’ invites foot-stomping cheers. The rest of the band sit out to allow Hutchison a heart-wrenching rendition of crowd favourite ‘Poke’, inviting sighs of appreciation from the audience.

As if a free gig wasn’t enough, Hutchison cements his place as one of the nicest men in music, happily sticking around to sign and chat to everyone after the gig. There’s a gleam in his eye, suggesting he knows that as a group they’re at the top of their game; but that even at this stage we haven’t seen everything just yet.

Theatre

Caged Sarah Gunn

Jeff Koonsí special brand of kitsch, reproduced to an immaculately mechanical finish, inhabits the ëArtist Roomsí of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The pieces are mostly stretched across long and narrow rooms, resulting in what feels closer to a walkway than a space for contemplation.

No matter though, as the stunning disparity between the intellectual and aesthetic content of Koons'work demonstrates; once itís been seen itís been understood. All of the pieces are incredibly slick, and some are undeniably beautiful - his series of animal-shaped multicoloured-mirrors are particularly resounding testaments to the giddy heights of Koonsí finish. It sometimes seems a waste then, when the search for meaning leaves one eyeing a vertiginous abyss.

Like most products on the

shelves of designer stores or pound shops, the energy is invested in making something that will sell, be it on the merit of its looks or its price tag (in the case of Koons, it is both). In his practice, Koons faithfully reflects these industries by prioritising the above concerns over the artistic creation of something that is intellectually, socially or spiritually concerned. Despite Koonsí own myopia on matters of concept, it is still possible to infer important realities extant beyond the works themselves.

Namely, that in a market-driven art world where an artist’s success is determined primarily by the price their works fetch at auction (as opposed to whether they are emotionally or intellectually stimulating) vacuous artists like Jeff Koons are inevitable.

Venue: Scottish National Gallery

of Modern Art

Dates: Until: 3 July Price: Free

www.journal-online.co.uk

Catherine Wheels' new adapatation of Beauty & the Beast Venue: Traverse Theatre

Keith D

Dates: 31st March, 1st April Price: £14.00 (£10.00/£6,00)

Tale as old as time it may be, but Scottish childrenís theatre company Catherine Wheels’ captivating and tender take on the Beauty & The Beast story feels refreshingly new. Written

by Rob Evans and directed by Gill Robertson, Caged displays all the company’s trademark wit, charm and high production values.

Looking for a way to pay off her beloved fatherís debts, young Beauty (Rosalind Sydney) accepts a year’s contract as housekeeper of the mysterious “Mr Hunter” (Andy Manley), a recluse who lives in a vast forbidding castle. Her initial trepidation and fear - as Mr Hunter is revealed to be the Beast - is slowly replaced by wonder and compassion as the seemingly mismatched pair start to forge a common bond.

Sydney is likeable as Beauty; she captures the character’s youthful emotions well via a delightfully expressive performance which steers well clear of precociousness. Manley

has the right amount of brooding presence to portray the Beast: animal-like movement and noises giving way to the true and more compassionate nature of the man within.

Karen Tennent’s design is beautifully simple, shards of mirrored glass and dusty staircases evoking the faded gothic grandeur of the Beast’s castle and grounds. Excellent atmospheric lighting from Lizzie Powell adds magic and mystery to the scene; whilst the mixture of music and effects from David Paul Jones’ sound design heightens the emotion and drama of every scene.

Evans shies away from schmaltz and overuse of humour: there is no singing and dancing furniture here; and the telling is more Grimm than Disney. There are also some clever references to other fairy tales which help place Caged firmly within the pages of a classic storybook, where its touching and well-staged tale rightfully belongs.

Moments of brilliance but an overall lack of cohesion Jennifer Owen

White Knight is presented outof-sequence. The viewerís reticence to cross the rough stones of Communal Area, or to approach Casa Sesemann and endure the gaze of the gallery staff beyond, are intriguing first impressions.

Whilst these discomforting sensations soon fade, it is only when one views Farbenlehre hidden away in Gallery Two, that one begins to comprehend White Knightís thematic ambitions.

The work, Colour is not object bound comprised of an arch made out of leaves, tentatively suggests a theme ñ the formulaic applied to nature ñ but this is not entirely compatible with the other sculptures. Furthermore, the scruffy podium does the piece no favours.

Farbenlehre, on the other hand, is a compelling study of the people involved in one project, naturally supplying the viewer with multiple angles from which to contemplate this exhibition. The notions of a ëcommunal project, colour formally and informally applied, as well as humanityís relationship to architectural contexts, overrule the disparate sensations of viewing the opening sculptures, but one does wonder why it is not presented first.

Full Firearms Workshop is something of a coda, featuring actors within a claustrophobic space, which again widens the application of this exhibitionís focus on context and architecture. Unfortunately, the placement before a window is unforgivable, unnecessarily distorting the film.

In summation White Knightís interventions, though seeking to challenge the white cube space, would be little without the context of the two films, which are regrettably presented almost as an afterthought. Therefore, the viewer’s experience feels interrupted, while numerous programme mistakes and sloppy presentation further undermine the exhibitionís aspirations.

Venue: Collective Gallery Dates: Until: 3 April Price: Free

24 Arts & Entertainment

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Theatre

Theatre

Intermezzo

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

Richard Strauss' infamous opera brings out the very best of Scottish opera

The infamous drag and ballet make a triumphant return to Edinburgh Sean Watson

“We are a comedy dance company, doing a comedy dance show” stresses Tory Dobrin, Artistic Director of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, following the company’s triumphant return to Edinburgh. Indeed, this is primarily a comedy dance show, but Dobrin’s unpretentious approach inadvertently downplays the most important aspect of this company; their enormous technical prowess, as demonstrated in tonight’s repertory performance.

Affectionately known as ‘The Trocks’, the company emerged out of the New York underground drag scene of the 1970s and quickly gained cult status. Today they are one of the most popular international dance companies touring. Opening with their signature piece, Le Lac Des Cygnes, a playful parody of Swan Lake, The Trocks have tonight’s full house

Jonathan Goat

that was in vogue during The Trock’s genesis. The stark, minimalist style of the era is gloriously ribbed; plain costume, slow deliberate walks across the stage, smug glances at the audience.

There are however, long periods where the dancers dazzle with technical ability alone. The pointe work of the corps de ballet is invariably excellent, and again the piece flows wonderfully. Katerina Bychkova (Joshua Grant) particularly displays a grace uncommon to most company ballerinas. Through exceptional technical skill and a characteristically unpretentious attitude Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo achieve something remarkable and unique.

Undermining the lofty gender politics by their sheer brilliance, and by paying homage to the classics, they have created a genre which far outstretches the bounds of both drag and comedy; they continue to be one of the most refreshing companies around.

Venue: Festival Theatre Dates: Thu 7 Sat 9 April, 6pm

Last week the Edinburgh Festival Theatre saw what will undoubtedly prove to be the highlight of Scottish Operaís 2010/11 season: Richard Straussís oddball comedy, Intermezzo. This is an opera unlike any other. Strauss forces the heroic melodies of Wagnerian melodrama onto the course of everyday life, uncovering the staggering joys and pains beneath the progression of ordinary domesticity. In doing so he creates a beautiful argument for the mythic importance of aspects of our lives which we may take for granted.

The mixture of lightly-comic verismo with a fiercely dramatic score makes for a singular theatrical experience.

One remains buoyed up throughout, bubbling with laughter at the genuinely funny comedy, whilst frequently being hit with a wide range of intense emotions from Straussí exceptional handling of the late romantic idiom. A particularly affecting moment occurs in the final scene, where husband and wife share a piece of toast together, and the orchestra pours out the most joyous, earth-shattering music imaginable, as though the world itself had been saved, rather than a single marriage.

In the operaís most distinctive features, the intermezzi, the orchestra of Scottish Opera were able to

firmly in their grasp from the off.

Perhaps the most joyous aspect of the company’s comic power is their obvious devotion to and love of classical ballet. Villain Von Rothbart (Raffaele Morra), prances exaggeratedly around the stage in excellent mock-Russian dramatic style and Swan Queen Odette (Robert Carter) marvellously plays up the Prima Donna Ballerina, frequently cueing her willing audience for lengthy applause. Feathers fly and the dancers squawk and peck to the audience’s delight. The visual gags delight, but it’s the exceptional skill of the dancers underpinning the slick production which bewitches. Subverting expectations, the dancers gel in a manner only the most renowned classical ballet ensembles can hope for.

Act Two is a stunning blend of wit and technique, even more powerful than the former for its comparative subtlety. Go For Barocco satirises Ballenchine’s neo-classical aestheticism

Price: £15.50 - £63.50

show off their extraordinary capabilities. The playing had energy and a true sense of dramatic immediacy that isnít often heard. One got the feeling they really believed in and cared about this music. The descriptive elements of Straussí score in particular took on a clear lucidity, and one could almost see the foreshadowed action played out in visions above the pit. Francesco Corti was unafraid to overcook the brass to the maximum when required, whilst also ensuring a sense of restraint and fragility in the moments of tender realism.

The small cast were exceptional.

Anita Bader and Roland Wood shone as the husband and wife, giving truly impressive vocal performances as well as highly engaging dramatic accounts of the two characters. Nicky Spence did a great job of hamming up the part of Baron Lummer, ensuring the operaís all-important comic edge.

The decision to include this piece in their programme seems a statement of intent: this is not an easy pill to swallow, and will by no means ensure audiences flocking to fill the auditorium; neither is it a particularly easy work to pull off. However, the performances last week were our reward for their daring decision, as Scottish Opera brought this remarkable work vividly to life.

Art

Deadly and Brutal: Film Posters from Ghana Matthew Macaulay Art Editor

The last thing I expected to see in Munichís ultramodern Pinakothek der Moderne was an exhibition of garish Ghanaian film posters, but there it was, a fabulously incongruent beacon of kitsch in an otherwise sterile whitewashed environment. Deadly and Brutal: Film Posters from Ghana is what it says on the tin; an exposition of handpainted posters from West Africa, showing an eclectic mix of action films from home-grown low-budget movies to Hollywood blockbusters. Ever since the 1980s, hand-painted posters have

advertised Nollywood and locallymade action movies or family dramas in Ghana, not to mention the Hollywood blockbusters and martial arts films from the Far East.

In Europe weíre used to seeing shiny mass produced film posters in which the actors featured have been photoshopped to within an inch of their lives. The graphic works on display here are somewhat more rustic though infinitely more compelling and innovative; fusing elements of Western culture with local myths and religious dogmas. The images, inspired by the occult, magic and the eternal conflict between good and evil, are immensely vivid and radiate drama, whetting the visual appetites of potential movie theatre customers. A poster advertising ëLand of Men 2í depicts a crazed man with white light shooting from

his eyes and blood dripping from his mouth, while the woman to his right clutches her child in terror; a portrayal of modern man worthy of Germaine Greer.

This exhibition is nothing short of fascinating, offering an illuminating insight into the integration of American and Asian films with African visual tradition. These individually designed ëone offí creations painted on the back of old flower sacks are skilfully crafted and shamelessly entertaining, oscillating between the sublime and the ridiculous.

Venue: Pinakothek der Moderne,

Munich

Dates: Until: 26 June Price: €7

Arts & Entertainment 25

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Theatre

Theatre

Edinburgh Gilbert and Sullivan Society - The Mikado

Around the World in 80 Days

Edinburgh's own Gilbert and Sullivan Society are let down by bad timing and poor projection

Keith D Venue: Traverse Theatre Dates: 6th - 7th April

Alexandra Wingate

Price: £14.00 (£10.00/£6.00)

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Venue: King's Theatre Dates: 22ND - 26th March

moments later we’re on a train speeding through the Wild West. Nicola Tuxworth’s newspaper seller at The Reform Club helps glue things together from a narrative perspective however, and Tait’s Fogg provides some clarity via a strong and binding performance.

Happily, by the time the journey is over, and the entire 23-strong cast are assembled onstage for the final celebrations, Around The World In 80 Days proves, despite being something of a whistle-stop tour through Verne’s original, to be populated by a likeable and watchable cast, and represents another success for Lung Ha’s Theatre Company.

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Lung Ha’s have achieved critical acclaim in the past for their improvised and scripted works, most recently in Chekhov Shorts. Featuring a company of performers with learning disabilities, they use theatre to challenge prejudice and perception; but also - as in Around The World In 80 Days - to provide enjoyable and charming entertainment.

Phileas Fogg (Stephan Tait) and Passepartout (Mark Howie) are in a race against the clock in Lung Ha’s amicable and breakneck production of Bengt Ahlfors’ Around The World In 80 Days, adapted by Douglas Maxwell and directed by Maria Oller. Condensed into a quick hour and played out against Becky Minto’s giant and evocative papercraft-style set, the

piece follows Fogg and his faithful manservant as they set out from London’s Reform Club to circumnavigate the globe in their alloted eighty days.

In the course of their journey, they find adventure, intrigue and romance as the hours, minutes and seconds tick by. The mood is light-hearted and there are several moments of inspired comedy, aided by the tight direction and some good timing from the cast.

Howie in particular is enjoyable as Passepartout; getting the biggest laughs from his turn as the bemusedyet-stoical manservant. However, things get a little rushed and confusing in places and the fact that this is an abridged work is obvious. One moment we are in a court in Calcutta, the next we’re joining Fogg, Passepartout and Mrs Aouda (Lindsay King) onboard a ship crossing the Pacific;

Price: £12.00 - £19.00

The Edinburgh Gilbert and Sullivan Society are an amateur dramatics group that have been in existence since 1924, with the sole aim of performing and appreciating the works of W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. For their annual performance this year, weíre transported across the world to Japan in The Mikado, one of Gilbert and Sullivanís most popular operas. Set in the fictional Japanese town of Titipu, poor musician Nanki-Poo (Scott Barron) has arrived in search of his love, Yum-Yum (Gillian Robertson), who is scheduled to marry her ward and Titipuís Lord High Executioner, Ko-Ko (Geoff Lee).

When the Mikado (Ian Lawson) decrees that there have not been enough executions in Titipu, NankiPoo agrees to let Ko-Ko behead him if he can marry Yum-Yum. As Ko-Ko proves to be unable to execute anyone, the people of Titpu conspire to trick the Mikado into believing that Nanki-Poo was executed, unaware that Nanki-Poo is in fact the Mikadoís long lost son. Full of recognisable classics such as ‘Three Little Maids From School Are We’, the choral singing is good but many of the soloists lack the projection required for such roles. Robertson is the stand-out performer of the show,

with a beautiful sweetness of tone and plenty of vocal strength. The allround acting is better, with Matthew Stanhope playing a wonderfully pompous Pooh-Bah, and Lee a convincingly snivelling Ko-Ko.The group choreography is simple but effective, if a little overly busy at times with performers coming on and off the stage for no apparent reason.

Gilbert and Sullivanís comedy feels rather outdated and appears to have become simplistic as time has passed. The opera was originally written as a mechanism to criticise contemporary British politics, so a few modern alternatives have been included to give the piece a little more relevance. However, these snippets are rare and light, and a braver attempt to flood the piece with political remarks and parodies might help bring the comedy and the piece more into the present. In theatre, and especially comedy, timing is everything. In light of Japanís recent and on-going multiple disasters, the play seems very trivial in comparison.

Although of course this couldn’t be helped, the playful stereotypes and light-hearted scenarios lack the enthusiastic welcome from the audience they may have received in kinder circumstances.

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Food & Drink 27

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

The Outsider

Clubs

Rendezvous Art Department rendezvous at The Lane

Eating

Sophisticated innovation at one of Edinburgh's finest yet reticent culinary institutions

Ben Kendall Food & Drink Editor The Outsider's façade, paradoxically, tells you everything you need to know by conveying absolutely nothing.

It is dark, reticent, bedecked in grainy grey tones like the smoky gauze of a Parisian widow. Inside, it is unequivocally composed, sophisticated and refined; chic, not showy. This vestige of self-conscious refinement extends to the service: the staff are impeccably turned out but don't demand your attention; wine is not poured, but smiles are sprinkled with abandon. We both begin with little slabs of slowroasted pork belly and tender scallops, dotted here and there with dainty fronds of watercress (£6.40).

They say that the perfect marriage is one founded upon compromise.

These people clearly have not dined at The Outsider. This dish – atypical of

its run-of-the-mill surf-and-turf cousins – is unbridled, uncompromising perfection. The pork was grainy and firm, compact but richly flavoured; the scallops, having merely flirted with the pan, were yieldingly soft and sweet, pliant pearlescent beauties. The utopia of man and woman elegantly embodied in eatables. Venison is a stately meat and receives appositely fine treatment here. The cut itself – fillet – was cooked to a jewel-coloured brilliance, like a hunter's boot spattered with blood; it abdicated to the bite with such tender civility I almost blushed.

Tradition, as should now be quite obvious, is not The Outsider's strong point, for innovation is the name of the game. This game in particular was bedded with two fat chunks of celery and enrobed in a silkily dark meatjuice-rich vanilla jus and – lo – what perfect bedmates they made! Nestled upon a wide cushion of nutty, sweet root-vegetable mash, the cut was richly

endowed with the finest trappings.

The theme of perfect innovative marriages shifted seamlessly into pudding. Chocolate and coffee pavé with molasses ice cream was the doyen of the dessert table. This was a neat slab of the smoothest, most potent chocolate mousse, spiked with the darkest coffee, but foiled by the smoky creaminess of molasses icecream.This inspired touch lifted the dish from regular French patisserie fare to dinner-table elegance: the dark depth of the molasses echoed the bitter obsidian of the cocoa-coffee convection, but cut it with intense sweetness and the mollifying calm of ice-cream.

The playful, almost sensuous artistry of texture and flavour is sublime at The Outsider. Witticisms of taste combination and jokes on one's expectations abound – venison and vanilla, really? – a perfectly entertaining evening on all counts.

James Corlett

Last month, Suave House's night Rendezvous celebrated their first birthday at Queensferry Street's The Lane with a truly special set from Canadian duo, Art Department. Rendezvous creates a house party atmosphere with an ethos centered on having a good time to great music rather than ostentatious posing. The Lane, with its sleek interiors, cushy bar areas and intimate vibe ticks all the right boxes for this sort of night. It also makes the world of difference having the artist within touching distance of the dance floor, as opposed to being perched on stage and isolated from the crowd.

The music policy is second to none.

Previous guests, Lee Foss and Robert James in particular are at the forefront of the Deep House renaissance and to have brought acts of such ilk to Edinburgh is mightily impressive considering their current demand.

Formed in 2009, Jonny White and Kenny Glasgow have released their Art Department output on labels Hot Creations and Crosstown Rebels. The latter will release their debut album, The Drawing Board on April 23rd which will build on the huge success of the anthemic 'Without You', 'ICU', and the entertaining collaboration with Seth Troxler, 'Vampire Nightclub'. Assuming control of the main room after twelve, the pair reciprocated the enthusiastic

reaction of the dance floor, interacting affably with the crowd all night.

Their set comprised an exhibition of cutting-edge House ranging from Maya Jane Coles, Shonky, Ryan Crosson and Benoit and Sergio that was seamlessly interspersed with their signature moody, vocal groove that is so indelibly a part of their own productions. All of this was done with a smile, and in the age of the superstar DJ that was refreshing to see.

The combination of an up-forit and in-the-know crowd, along with a blend of superb guests and resident DJs make Rendezvous an unmissable monthly night for house music connoisseurs. I haven't been to Wolf+Lamb's Marcy Hotel night in New York, but without a shadow of a doubt, Rendezvous, of all the nights in Edinburgh, emulates this vibe best.

Future Rendezvous events will be held at Hawke & Hunter.

Eating

Pigeon soup in Cairo A food blogger explores Egypt's everyday answer to Britain's high-end pigeon-based cuisine Tal Wells

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Before Egypt was thrown into revolution, I was there making my way around as much of the country as I could in just under two weeks.

My first morning in Cairo was spent slowly wandering round the Egyptian Museum at the edge of Tahrir Square now famous as the symbolic centre of the revolution which forced President Hosni Mubarak from power. Staring at mummies and walking from one of Tutankhamun’s treasures to the next was hungry work, and after leaving I quickly made my way to Emara Hati al-Geish, a kebab shop that has been open since the 1920s. Back then it was apparently called Hati al-Malek (the King’s kebab restaurant) but after the 1052 revolution the name changed to ‘the Army’s...’

I was served some excellent grilled lamb chops, and a plate of stuffed vine leaves, but the most unusual element was the complimentary pigeon soup I received as a starter. I had noticed this as the cheapest item on the menu when deciding what to order, and wondered what it would be like. It was hard to imagine wild pigeon being used, yet it was also difficult to get the idea of street birds out

of my mind - especially when still trying to adjust to breathing the black smog of Egypt’s capital.

The soup was essentially a very lemony stock; a nice appetizer to a meaty meal. It reminded me of the Greek ‘avgolemono’ which is made with chicken instead. After forgetting the idea of any old dirty pigeon being chucked into a pan, I found pigeon featured on many menus - especially stuffed with rice and herbs - and in fact saw them being sold in markets.

It was interesting to see how a bird which to us in Britain is often only found in high-end restaurants as a result of traditional shooting practices at particular times of year, is here practically a staple. http://thesaltwell.blogspot.com

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Bruntsfield Bruntsfield Place £2100, 5, 1S 4D G O, 0844 635 9322 Upper Gilmore Place £1850, 5, 5D G Z, 0844 635 9322 Bruntsfield Place £1600, 4, 4D -1B -1T Z, 0844 635 9314 Merchiston Place £1580, 4, CG, 0844 635 9308 Forbes Road £1440, 4, 4D W CG O, 0844 635 9362 Rochester Terrace £1440, 4, 4D G CG, 0844 635 9362 Gillespie Crescent £1400, 4, 4D G, 0844 635 9326 Polwarth Crescent £1400, 4, 1S 3D G PG Z, 0844 635 6450 Rochester Terrace £1400, 4, 4D G PG, 0844 635 9424 Gillespie Street £1300, 4, 4D G O, 0844 635 9322 Bruntsfield Place £1250, 3, 3D 1B G CG Z, 0844 635 9324 Montpelier Terrace £1175, 3, 3D G CG O, 0844 635 9558 Montpelier Terrace £1100, 3, 3D G O, 0844 635 4820 Montpelier Park £1050, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 9334 Viewforth Square £1050, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 9334 Bruntsfield Place £1000, 3, 3D -1B -1T O, 0844 635 9314 Forbes Road £1000, 3, 3D 1B G, 0844 635 9245 Polwarth Crescent £945, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 6450 Viewforth Terrace £895, 3, -1S -1D -1B -1T, 0844 635 9596 Gillespie Street £885, 3, 3S G O, 0844 635 9322 Bruntsfield Avenue £800, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Viewforth Gardens £750, 2, 2D G CG O, 0844 635 3931 Bruntsfield Place £710, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 8696 Thistle Place £550, 2, , 0844 635 9338

City Centre Lothian Road £2000, 5, 5D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Union Street £1700, 4, Z, 0844 635 9352 Forrest Road £1600, 4, CG Z, 0844 635 9352 Simpson Loan £1500, 2, CG P, 0844 635 9308 Simpson Loan £1500, 2, P, 0844 635 9308 Lothian Road £1450, 5, 5D -1B -1T Z, 0844 635 9314 Morrison Street £1450, 4, 4D G CG Z, 0844 635 9334 Randolph Crescent £1250, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 4820 St David's Place £1200, 3, 3D G CG P, 0844 635 4820 Castle Terrace £1100, 3, 2D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Mcdonald Road £1000, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 9446 Royal Mile Mansions £950, 2, 2S -1B -1T E, 0844 635 9332 Mayfield Road £900, 2, 2D G CG Z, 0844 635 9478 Broughton Street £850, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Broughton Street £850, 2, Z, 0844 635 9352 Oxford Terrace £795, 2, Z, 0844 635 9308 Hopetoun Street £775, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 9390 Sunbury Place £750, 3, 2S 1D E Z, 0844 635 9390 East London Street £750, 2, 1S 1D G P, 0844 635 9300 Grindlay Street £750, 2, 2D -1B -1T Z, 0844 635 9314 Lothian Street £750, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 9460 York Place £750, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 4820 Great King Street £750, 1, 1D G Z, 0844 635 9390 Cornwall Street £725, 2, PG Z, 0844 635 9352 High Riggs £720, 2, P, 0844 635 9308 High Riggs £700, 2, 2D P, 0844 635 4820

High Street £675, 1, 1D E, 0844 635 8696 Webster's Land £625, 1, 1D E, 0844 635 4820 Blandfield £600, 2, 2D W P, 0844 635 9448 Dumbiedykes Road £600, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 2418 Forth Street £595, 1, Z, 0844 635 9352 Morrison Street £575, 1, 1D G CG Z, 0844 635 9474 Young Street £575, 1, 1D G Z, 0844 635 9320 Bread Street £550, 1, Z, 0844 635 9308 Newton Street £475, 1, 1D G CG, 0844 635 2418 Rutland Square £450, 1, Z, 0844 635 9390 Salmond Place £450, 1, 1D G PG O, 0844 635 9390

Dalry Dalry Road £1500, 4, 4D G CG Z, 0844 635 9478 Dalry Road £930, 3, 3D W CG Z, 0844 635 9688 Caledonian Road £875, 3, 1S 2D G Z, 0844 635 3876 Springwell Place £800, 3, , 0844 635 9338 Caledonian Place £725, 2, 2D 1B G CG O, 0844 635 2627 Dalry Road £650, 2, 2D G CG, 0844 635 9316 Easter Dalry Drive £625, 1, 1D G P, 0844 635 4820 Murieston Terrace £600, 2, 1S 1D G Z, 0844 635 9302 Dalry Road £595, 1, , 0844 635 9338 Angle Park Terrace £575, 2, 1S 1D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Downfield Place £550, 1, 1D G, 0844 635 3330 Murieston Crescent £515, 1, 1D, 0844 635 1312 Springwell Place £510, 1, 1D E, 0844 635 3330 Caledonian Road £500, 1, 1D G CG Z, 0844 635 4820 Downfield Place £495, 1, 1D -1B -1T G, 0844 635 9332 Orwell Place £495, 1, 1D G CG O, 0844 635 8696 Orwell Terrace £495, 1, 1D G CG Z, 0844 635 9334

Easter Road Brunswick Place £1280, 4, 2S 2D, 0844 635 3700 Hawkhill Close £850, 2, 2D P, 0844 635 4820 Hawkhill Close £750, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 4820 Brunswick Road £750, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820 Hawkhill Close £700, 2, G P, 0844 635 4820 Albion Gardens £675, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 4820 Hawkhill Close £675, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820 Hawkhill Close £675, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820 Easter Road £675, 1, , 0844 635 9456 Albion Gardens £650, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820 Hawkhill Close £650, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 6450 Easter Road £600, 2, 1S 1D E P, 0844 635 9340 Rossie Place £600, 2, 2D E O, 0844 635 9330 Hawkhill Close £550, 1, CG P, 0844 635 9308 Easter Road £495, 1, 1D E O, 0844 635 9679 Elgin Terrace £495, 1, 1D -1B -1T, 0844 635 9332 Albion Place £475, 1, 1D E CG O, 0844 635 9460

Gorgie Westfield Road £1280, 4, 4D G P, 0844 635 9302 Gorgie Road £1150, 4, 4D G, 0844 635 9560 Gorgie Road £890, 3, G CG P, 0844 635 1312 Westfield Court £850, 3, 1S 2D G O, 0844 635 9560 Sinclair Place £675, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 9592 Gorgie Road £650, 2, 2D G O, 0844 635 6450 Gorgie Road £625, 2, 2D, 0844 635 9488 Gorgie Road £595, 2, 2D G CG, 0844 635 1312 Watson Crescent £595, 2, 2D G CG O, 0844 635 1312 Gorgie Road £575, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 9560 Stewart Terrace £575, 1, 1D G, 0844 635 3330 Ardmillan Terrace £570, 2, 2D, 0844 635 4820 Newton Street £550, 1, 1D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Gorgie Road £525, 2, O, 0844 635 9308 Gorgie Road £525, 1, 1D 1B G CG O, 0844 635 9328 Wardlaw Place £495, 1, 1D G CG O, 0844 635 9234 Wardlaw Street £485, 1, 1D G CG O, 0844 635 9302

Wheatfield Street £485, 1, G, 0844 635 9560 Mcleod Street £475, 1, 1D, 0844 635 9560 Smithfield Street £475, 1, 1D E O, 0844 635 9560 Wardlaw Terrace £475, 1, , 0844 635 1312 Wheatfield Place £475, 1, CG O, 0844 635 9352 Stewart Terrace £470, 1, 1D W, 0844 635 9560 Wardlaw Street £450, 1, 1D E CG O, 0844 635 2152 Westfield Road £450, 1, 1D 1B W CG O, 0844 635 9245 Wheatfield Street £450, 1, , 0844 635 9338 Wheatfield Place £445, 1, 1D W PG O, 0844 635 9234 Gorgie Road £440, 1, 1D G Z, 0844 635 9560 Wardlaw Place £425, 1, 1B PG O, 0844 635 9234 Wardlaw Place £425, 1, G CG O, 0844 635 6604

How to use tHe listings Meadows

Area Agent phone number

Buccleuch Street, 750, 2, 2D W CG Z, 0870 062 9434

Bedrooms Monthly Rent Location

Bedrooms: Heating: Garden: Parking: Furniture:

S Single D Double T Twin B Box G Gas Central W White Meter E Electric PG Private CG Communal Z Zone O On-Street P Private UF Unfurnished

Haymarket Eglinton Crescent £2250, 6, 6D G Z, 0844 635 9334 West Maitland Street £1650, 5, 5D G Z, 0844 635 9322 Morrison Street £1000, 3, 1S 2D G, 0844 635 9234 Caledonian Road £950, 3, 1S 2D G Z, 0844 635 3332 Upper Grove Place £700, 2, 1S 1D, 0844 635 3700 Duff Street £650, 2, , 0844 635 9338 Caledonian Road £650, 1, , 0844 635 3332 Orwell Terrace £525, 1, CG Z, 0844 635 9352

Leith Western Harbour Place £1195, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 0020 Leith Walk £930, 3, 3D -1B -1T O, 0844 635 9314 Chancelot Terrace £900, 3, 3D, 0844 635 3700 Great Junction Street £880, 3, 3D, 0844 635 3700 North Junction Street £875, 3, 1S 2D G CG O, 0844 635 9245 Western Harbour Brkwater £850, 2, 2D -1B -1T P, 0844 635 9314 Hawkhill £800, 3, 3D G O, 0844 635 9592 Western Harbour Way £800, 2, 2D G CG P, 0844 635 4820 Portland Row £750, 2, , 0844 635 9308 Coburg Wharf £725, 2, -1S -1D -1B -1T G O, 0844 635 9596 Fox Street £725, 2, 2D W P, 0844 635 9422 Portland Gardens £725, 2, 2D -1B -1T P, 0844 635 9314 Western Harbour Brkwater £725, 2, 2D G CG P, 0844 635 9330 Giles Street £695, 2, 2D E CG P, 0844 635 9558 Bethlehem Way £650, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820 Dalmeny Street £650, 2, 2D 1B G O, 0844 635 9238 Dickson Street £650, 2, 2D E CG O, 0844 635 4820 Great Junction Street £650, 2, O, 0844 635 9308 Pilrig Street £635, 2, 2D G CG O, 0844 635 9422 Bonnington Road £625, 2, 2D W P, 0844 635 4820 Edina Place £625, 2, 2D G CG O, 0844 635 1312 Henderson Street £625, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 3330 North Junction Street £625, 2, 2D E O, 0844 635 1614 Bethlehem Way £600, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820 Giles Street £600, 2, 2D G CG O, 0844 635 1312 Great Junction Street £600, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 9384 Merchant House £600, 2, 2D, 0844 635 4820 Mitchell Street £600, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 3920 Hawkhill Close £595, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 9384 Duke Street £585, 2, 1S 1D G CG O, 0844 635 9330 Bonnington Road £580, 2, 1S 1D 1B P, 0844 635 4820 Lindsay Road £575, 1, 1D G O, 0844 635 9446 Bonnington Road £550, 2, 1S 1D 1B E P, 0844 635 4820 Fox Street £550, 2, 2D -1B -1T W, 0844 635 9332 Yardheads £550, 2, 2D W, 0844 635 4820 Albert Street £525, 1, 1D G CG O, 0844 635 9558 Bonnington Road £525, 1, 2D W P, 0844 635 4820 Murano Place £525, 1, , 0844 635 9338 Murano Place £520, 1, 1D W, 0844 635 9560 Balfour Street £515, 1, 1D -1B -1T G, 0844 635 9332 Ferry Road £500, 1, 1D, 0844 635 3700

Balfour Street £495, 1, 1D CG O, 0844 635 9320 Admiralty Street £450, 1, 1D CG O, 0844 635 9326

Leith Walk Kirk Street £1700, 5, 5D G O, 0844 635 9460 Leith Walk £1500, 5, 5D, 0844 635 3700 Leith Walk £1450, 5, 5D, 0844 635 9384 Elm Row £1350, 4, 4D G CG O, 0844 635 9340 Leith Walk £1150, 4, 4D G O, 0844 635 9460 Haddington Place £900, 4, 1S 2D 1B G CG O, 0844 635 9688 Dryden Gait £900, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 9460 Leith Walk £750, 2, 2D, 0844 635 3700 Brunswick Road £695, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 2154 Croall Place £675, 2, 2D 1B G Z, 0844 635 9312 Dicksonfield £650, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820 Leith Walk £600, 2, 2D W CG O, 0844 635 9594 Allanfield £575, 2, 1S 1D -1B -1T W CG P, 0844 635 9314 Elliot Street £575, 2, 2D E Z, 0844 635 9326 Leith Walk £575, 2, 2D E, 0844 635 9560 Balfour Street £550, 1, 1D G O, 0844 635 4820 Albert Street £500, 1, 1D G O, 0844 635 4820 Albert Street £500, 1, 1D G CG, 0844 635 9594 Brunswick Road £500, 1, 1D G Z, 0844 635 9390 Brunswick Street £480, 1, 1D W CG O, 0844 635 9478 Buchanan Street £475, 1, 1D G O, 0844 635 9320

Marchmont Spottiswoode Street £1950, 5, 5D G CG Z, 0844 635 9322 Strathearn Road £1850, 4, 4D G CG Z, 0844 635 2418 Thirlestane Road £1775, 5, 5D G CG Z, 0844 635 9390 Warrender Park Terrace £1680, 4, 4D G Z, 0844 635 9362 Marchmont Road £1600, 5, 5D G, 0844 635 9326 Thirlestane Road £1600, 4, 4D 2B G O, 0844 635 4820 Marchmont Road £1500, 4, 2S 2D G CG O, 0844 635 9322 Warrender Park Road £1500, 4, 4D G CG Z, 0844 635 9312 Arden Street £1300, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Marchmont Road £1295, 4, 2S 2D G O, 0844 635 9384 Strathearn Road £1280, 4, 4D G CG Z, 0844 635 9322 Livingstone Place £1200, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 9322 Livingstone Place £1200, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 9322 Strathearn Road £1200, 3, CG, 0844 635 9308 Marchmont Crescent £1200, 2, , 0844 635 9338 Spottiswoode Road £1150, 2, 2D 1B G CG Z, 0844 635 4820 Marchmont Crescent £1100, 3, 1S 2D 1B G Z, 0844 635 4820 Marchmont Street £1100, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 9324 Gladstone Terrace £1100, 2, 2D G PG Z, 0844 635 9390 Thirlestane Road £1095, 3, 3D G CG O, 0844 635 9322 Warrender Park Terrace £1095, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 9578 Spottiswoode Road £1075, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 9334 Arden Street £1050, 3, 3D G CG O, 0844 635 9438

Marchmont Road, Edinburgh £1050, 3, 3D G CG O, 0844 635 9322 Warrender Park Road £1050, 3, 3D W Z, 0844 635 3876 Arden Street £1050, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 9390 Sylvan Place £1020, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 9322 Montpelier Park £990, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 9424 Spottiswoode Street £990, 3, 1S 2D G CG Z, 0844 635 9322 Livingstone Place £975, 3, 3S G CG Z, 0844 635 9334 Gladstone Terrace £800, 2, 2D G CG Z, 0844 635 9558 Marchmont Crescent £800, 2, 2D, 0844 635 3700 Spottiswoode Road £775, 1, 2D 1B G CG Z, 0844 635 9578

Meadowbank Dalgety Road £950, 3, 3D G CG P, 0844 635 2418 Portobello Road £650, 3, G, 0844 635 4820 Wolseley Terrace £650, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 3330 Piershill Place £625, 3, 3D E O, 0844 635 4820 / Moray Park Terrace £625, 2, 2D -1B -1T P, 0844 635 9314 Moray Park Terrace £625, 2, 2D -1B -1T G, 0844 635 9332 Loaning Mills £615, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 9460 Abbey Lane £595, 2, 1S 1D G O, 0844 635 9560 Dalgety Street £565, 2, 2D -1B -1T G, 0844 635 9332 Meadowbank Avenue £550, 1, 1D 1B G CG O, 0844 635 9422 Northfield Heights £550, 1, 1D G P, 0844 635 9318 Meadowbank £525, 1, 1D G CG O, 0844 635 4820 Dalgety Road £475, 1, 1D G O, 0844 635 9456

Meadows Lutton Place £2100, 5, 5D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Lauriston Gardens £1900, 5, 2S 3D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Buccleuch Terrace £1000, 3, 3D G, 0844 635 9594 Simpson Loan £800, 1, 1D G CG, 0844 635 4820 Sciennes £550, 1, 1D 1B G CG Z, 0844 635 9326 Boroughloch Square £510, 1, 1D G P, 0844 635 9434

Morningside Morningside Road £1650, 5, 2S 3D, 0844 635 3700 Morningside Road £1440, 4, 4D G Z, 0844 635 9560 Morningside Road £1400, 4, 4D G CG O, 0844 635 9324 Morningside Road £1380, 4, 4D, 0844 635 3700 Morningside Road £1300, 4, 4D W Z, 0844 635 9424 Falcon Avenue £1195, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 2418 Steel's Place £1125, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 9478 Syme Rigg £1100, 3, P, 0844 635 9308 Morningside Road £1095, 3, 3D, 0844 635 3700 Woodburn Terrace £1050, 3, 3D W CG Z, 0844 635 9424 Comiston Gardens £1020, 3, 3D G PG O, 0844 635 9330 Balcarres Street £1015, 3, 3D G CG O, 0844 635 9330 Morningside Drive £1000, 2, 2D G PG O, 0844 635 9362 Falcon Avenue £995, 3, 1S 2D -1B -1T O, 0844 635 9314 Falcon Gardens £990, 3, CG O, 0844 635 9308 Egypt Mews £975, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820

Morningside Road £800, 2, 2D G CG O, 0844 635 4820 Craighouse Gardens £795, 3, 3D E P, 0844 635 3337 Comiston Road £795, 2, CG Z, 0844 635 9352 Woodburn Terrace £790, 2, 2D G CG, 0844 635 2418 Balcarres Court £650, 2, 2D W P, 0844 635 9424 Canaan Lane £650, 2, 1S 1D G CG Z, 0844 635 9478 Comiston Road £595, 1, 1D G CG Z, 0844 635 2418 Springvalley Terrace £525, 1, 1D 1B, 0844 635 9318 Balcarres Street £500, 1, 1D G CG O, 0844 635 3768 Balcarres Street £500, 1, 1D G O, 0844 635 4820 Springvalley Gardens £500, 1, 1D G, 0844 635 9318

New Town Great King Street £2400, 5, 5D G O, 0844 635 9326 Moray Place £2200, 3, 3D G PG Z, 0844 635 4820 Hanover Street £1800, 4, 4D E Z, 0844 635 9320 Howe Street £1750, 4, 4D G Z, 0844 635 9464 Antigua Street £1600, 4, 4D G Z, 0844 635 9362 Heriot Row £1600, 2, 2D G PG P, 0844 635 4820 St Vincent Street £1440, 3, , 0844 635 9308 Howe Street £1320, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 9362 Great King Street £1300, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Dundas Street £1275, 3, , 0844 635 9308 Circus Lane £1250, 2, 2D G, 0844 635 4820 Dundonald Street £1200, 3, 3D 3B E Z, 0844 635 9464 Fettes Row £1195, 3, 1S 2D G P, 0844 635 6604 Drummond Place £1170, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 4830 Royal Crescent £1100, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Dublin Street £1100, 2, 2D G CG Z, 0844 635 9390 Northumberland Place £1100, 2, 2D G CG O, 0844 635 1614 Royal Crescent £1100, 2, CG Z, 0844 635 9308 Great King Street £1100, 1, 1D G, 0844 635 4820 East London Street £1050, 3, Z, 0844 635 9308 Gloucester Lane £1050, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Logan Street £1050, 3, 3D -1B -1T O, 0844 635 9314 Mansfield Place £1015, 3, 3D -1B -1T Z, 0844 635 9314 Brunswick Street £1000, 3, 3D, 0844 635 9316 Eyre Crescent £1000, 3, 1S 2D G Z, 0844 635 4820 North West Circus Place £1000, 3, CG, 0844 635 9308 Forth Street £1000, 2, 2D G PG O, 0844 635 9300 East Claremont Street £900, 2, CG O, 0844 635 9352 Barony Street £890, 3, 1S 2D W CG Z, 0844 635 9688 Henderson Row £875, 2, CG O, 0844 635 9308 Fettes Row £840, 2, 1S 1D G P, 0844 635 4820 India Street £825, 1, Z, 0844 635 9308 Cumberland Street Ne Lane £800, 2, PG Z, 0844 635 9308 Northumberland Street £800, 2, Z, 0844 635 9308 Drummond Place £795, 2, 2D -1B -1T Z, 0844 635 9314 Fettes Row £790, 2, 2D P, 0844 635 4820 Huntingdon Place £790, 2, 2D P, 0844 635 4820

East London Street £775, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 4820 Hart Street £775, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Northumberland St Lane Nw £740, 2, Z, 0844 635 9308 Cumberland Street £725, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 9448 Shaws Square £695, 1, G Z, 0844 635 9300 Dublin Street Lane South £675, 1, 1D E, 0844 635 4820 Howe Street £675, 1, 1D, 0844 635 4820 Cumberland Street £625, 1, 1D E Z, 0844 635 9446 Queen Street £625, 1, 1D E Z, 0844 635 9578 St Stephen Street £575, 1, 1D E Z, 0844 635 4820 Eyre Place £495, 1, 1D, 0844 635 1312

Newington Newington Road £3555, 9, 4S 5D G Z, 0844 635 9424 Hope Park Terrace £2050, 5, 2S 3D, 0844 635 3700 South Clerk Street £2050, 5, 5D G Z, 0844 635 9478 Nicolson Street £1875, 5, 5D G Z, 0844 635 9592 Montague Street £1460, 4, CG Z, 0844 635 9308 Dalkeith Road £1400, 4, 4D G O, 0844 635 9340 Dalkeith Road £1400, 4, 4D G, 0844 635 9340 West Savile Terrace £1400, 4, 4D G Z, 0844 635 9362 Dalkeith Road £1290, 4, 1S 3D G CG, 0844 635 9330 Mayfield Terrace £1200, 3, 3D CG Z, 0844 635 9478 Clerk Street £1145, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 9316 Brown Street £1050, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 9302 Hope Park Crescent £1050, 3, 3D W Z, 0844 635 3876 Brown Street £1020, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 9302 Brown Street £1020, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 9302 Brown Street £1020, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 9302 Brown Street £1020, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 9302 Oxford Street £1005, 3, 3D G CG Z, 0844 635 9330 Summerhall Place £1005, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 9316 West Savile Gardens £990, 3, 3D G CG P, 0844 635 9438 Nicolson Street £975, 3, 3D G Z, 0844 635 9592 Dalkeith Road £950, 3, 1S 2D -1B -1T Z, 0844 635 9314 East Mayfield £950, 3, -1S -1D -1B -1T G, 0844 635 9596 Mayfield Road £950, 3, 1S 2D G CG O, 0844 635 9334 Mayfield Road £895, 3, 3D G CG, 0844 635 2418 Clerk Street £850, 2, 2D G CG Z, 0844 635 9679 Upper Gray Street £850, 2, 2D, 0844 635 3700 Buccleuch Street £800, 2, 2D Z, 0844 635 9679 Montague Street £800, 2, 2D G CG Z, 0844 635 9679 Nicolson Street £800, 2, 2D E Z, 0844 635 9679 West Powburn £795, 3, 3D G CG P, 0844 635 9438 Grange Court £750, 2, 2D G CG Z, 0844 635 9558 Nicolson Square £750, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 9592 Nicolson Street £695, 2, 2D, 0844 635 9316 Causewayside £650, 2, 2D Z, 0844 635 9422 East Parkside £650, 2, , 0844 635 9338 Nether Liberton Court £650, 2, 1S 1D W CG P, 0844 635 2418

Rankin Avenue £650, 2, 2D G PG P, 0844 635 2627 Duncan Street £625, 2, 1S 1D G P, 0844 635 9320 Parkside Terrace £600, 2, 1S 1D E P, 0844 635 9320 Parkside Terrace £595, 2, 1S 1D -1B -1T E CG P, 0844 635 9314 Causewayside £575, 1, 1D W P, 0844 635 9424 Boroughloch Square £560, 1, 1D E P, 0844 635 9434 St. Leonards Street £500, 1, 1D G CG Z, 0844 635 9679 St. Leonards Street £475, 1, 1D G, 0844 635 9245 Causewayside £460, 1, 1D E CG Z, 0844 635 9688

Old Town South Bridge £1050, 3, 3D, 0844 635 3931 Niddry Street £795, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 9464 South Bridge £760, 2, 2D E, 0844 635 3931 Old Tolbooth Wynd £750, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 9320 Blair Street £725, 2, 2D W Z, 0844 635 9390 Bells Wynd £720, 2, 2D, 0844 635 9316 Brighton Street £600, 2, 2D G Z, 0844 635 4820 Blackfriars Street £585, 1, 1D 1B G CG, 0844 635 3780 Canongate £540, 1, 1D G Z, 0844 635 9320 Jeffrey Street £525, 1, 1D G, 0844 635 9245 Websters Land £525, 1, 1D, 0844 635 4820

Stockbridge St Stephen Street £1600, 4, 4D -1B -1T Z, 0844 635 9314 Learmonth Terrace £1450, 3, 1S 2D G Z, 0844 635 4820 St Stephen Street £1275, 3, CG Z, 0844 635 9308 Learmonth Court £1050, 3, 3D E CG Z, 0844 635 9679 Raeburn Street £1050, 3, CG Z, 0844 635 9308 Saunders Street £1050, 3, 3D G O, 0844 635 0085 St Bernards Crescent £1050, 3, 3D -1B -1T E Z, 0844 635 9314 Ettrickdale Place £1040, 4, , 0844 635 9308 St. Stephen Street £1000, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 9320 Danube Street £995, 1, Z, 0844 635 9308 Henderson Row £850, 2, 2D G CG O, 0844 635 3780 St. Stephen Street £850, 2, 2D G P, 0844 635 9320 St. Stephen Street £850, 1, 2D G CG Z, 0844 635 9464 Raeburn Place £775, 2, 2D 1B G, 0844 635 4830 Raeburn Place £775, 2, 1S 1D W Z, 0844 635 9324 Raeburn Place £625, 1, 1D -1B -1T Z, 0844 635 9314 Bedford Court £575, 2, 2D E, 0844 635 9326 Howard Place £475, 1, G, 0844 635 9326 St Stephen Street £475, 1, , 0844 635 9338 Platinum Point £1185, 3, 3D G P, 0844 635 9330

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Fashion 29

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

ECFS 2011: (D)evolved powers A night of philanthropic glitz and glamour at Mansfield Traquair

The 18 March 2011 heralded the opening night of Edinburgh Charity Fashion Show 2011, which gave fashion fanatics front-row seats to this year's top trends and up-and-coming designers. This year’s fashion show focused around the theme [D]evolution, named to reflect the interests and aesthetics of the students involved. The amazing venue, Mansfield Traquair, was full to capacity with fashion enthusiasts alongside some of Edinburgh’s most stylish. Everyone was excited about what turned out to be a truly amazing event.

Some of Edinburgh’s most glamorous students graced the runway clothed in designer collections including All Saints, Pringle, Totty Rocks, Hannah Ellis, Katie Barret, Pinko and Walker Slater to name a few. Edinburgh’s Charity Fashion Show clearly takes fashion seriously and this was apparent in the calibre of designers and standard of clothing featured on the runway. A key trend to take away from this year's show was the tweed suit, making an appearance in Walker Slater’s collection. The Mac coat was

Edmund Fraser & www.lightsoutcollective.com

Anna Warren

also extremely popular on this year's ECFS runway, recurring throughout a number of lines with All Saints, Thomas Miller and Pringle each sporting this season's top trend.

Lady Gaga's impact on fashion was also visible in the trends of big shoulders, spikes and androgynousinspired clothing by Is Not Dead Paris, Andrea Rubio and Bernice Miller. In keeping with the theme of [D]evolution we saw make-up and clothes that took matters back-tobasics with earthy tones in addition to loose shapes and feathers.

ECFS chose to support Breakthrough Breast Cancer this year, a Scottish charity dedicated to detecting and treating breast cancer, and the support for such a cause was clearly reflected by the buzz in the crowd.

Such events are extremely important: with one in three women receiving a cancer diagnosis and one in eight of these diagnoses being breast cancer, it's hoped that as a result of such fundraising many more women will survive the disease. The money raised at ECFS will go towards ensuring that every woman in Edinburgh knows how to detect breast cancer, and that every woman diagnosed can receive the best treatment possible.

Edmund Fraser & www.lightsoutcollective.com

Backstage Diary Jessica Heggie Fashion Editor Having dragged myself out of bed at 7:30 am, it had already been a very long day and the show was only just beginning. The beautiful Mansfield Traquair was starting to fill up and the buzz from front stage was infectious.

There was a frenetic, and perhaps even manic atmosphere back stage, but it

was simultaneously extremely focused and surprisingly measured. I could finally see all the hours of preparation beginning to materialise.

During the months leading up to the ECFS, a committee of over 30 students worked incredibly hard contacting various companies. These included designers, sponsors and technicians - all vital in order to pull off the incredible night that the Edinburgh Charity Fashion Show is renowned for. Weeks of meetings and

talking about what the show would look like were finally coming together.

The show started and the reverberation from the speakers just added to the buzz. Naked men and women floating around everywhere became the norm.

This was the weirdest thing about backstage: I became so involved with the show, getting everything right and the clothes looking just so, that I barely noticed the naked (and it must be noted beautiful) limbs flying around backstage.

My job was to call the models onto the stage at the right time and in the right order. Doesn't sound too stressful but I had managed to shout at almost every single person backstage by the time the show was over, losing my voice in the process.

Best bit? Definitely the adrenaline rush (perhaps fueled by excessive amounts of Red Bull). Worst bit? The notso-stylish headset and microphone I had to wear so I knew what was happening

front stage!

The night was incredible backstage, and I was still buzzing at 3 in the morning. All our hard work paid off, the show ran so smoothly and I couldn’t have wished for a better night. Most importantly we raised about £15k for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. If you didn’t manage to get hold of a ticket for ECFS 2011, be sure to look out for ECFS 2012.

Definitely two of the best nights of 2011 so far.

30 Sport

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

Formula One: Pedal to the Vettel Now is no time for the reigning world champ to get complacent — it's all up for grabs

Sean Gibson Sport Editor On the face of it, little has changed over the winter; Sebastian Vettel has been serene out front, Jenson Button is still Mr. Consistency, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton have reinforced their frosty relationship with a high speed collision and Felipe Massa has already allowed Fernando Alonso to pass him once. Oh, and Michael Schumacher is still parking his Mercedes in eleventh place on the grid.

However, more technically, we have seen the introduction of the DRS (Drag Reduction System) and also the reintroduction of the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), first pioneered several years ago, in a raft of regulation changes wrought by the FIA (no more acronyms now, I promise).

These systems will surely shake up the sport - but this would require them to actually start working. If we disregard the Hispania team (as most in the paddock, not least the Hispania crew themselves, seem intent on doing) - who never even tried to design a car which could accommodate KERS - we see problems throughout the

field. Not even reigning champions Red Bull are immune; they deliberately disabled KERS in Australia and then in Malaysia suffered major problems on both of their cars.

One major and unquestionable change has been to the tyres. Pirelli have stepped in as sole supplier this season and have certainly not shirked their mandate to create less durable tyres. The manufacturer has been widely praised so far for giving the drivers a greater challenge, although it is a wonder how Lewis Hamilton - who has so often in the past complained of a lack of grip in his tyres - is going to last the season without blowing a gasket, if his post-race interview in Malaysia is any guide.

Ultimately, the new tyres have been a shot in the arm to the spectacle of Formula 1 and the sport just cannot seem to get enough of those.

The BBC has also done its bit to improve the spectacle of Formula 1, as its viewers are no longer subjected to Jonathan Legard’s peculiarly antagonistic brand of commentary. Now just another grunt on Match of the Day, the prospect of Legard being inflicted upon the nation’s football supporters brings an unashamedly wicked smile

Alex Comerford

to the face.

With such widespread technological difficulties, the door is open for any front-running team to steal a march on the rest and bag a strong sequence of results before they are

caught up. Vettel might have form on his side, and no small degree of talent, but he hasn’t got the chasing pack beaten just yet. The statistics might say that it’s business as usual in Formula 1 but 2011 has plenty of

potential for radical change. Webber, Alonso, Hamilton and Button are all as fired up as ever and we should not discount the likes of Massa and Rosberg. Even Michael Schumacher is still talking the talk.

Must be a choke After Rory McIlroy’s implosion in Augusta The Journal looks at the curse of the choke Jamie Timson Sport Editor Roberto Baggio, Jimmy White and Jana Novotna: three legends of sport whose legacies are dominated by a sporting psychological phenomenon that on Sunday 10 April took another victim - the choke. It is hard to think of a more poignant example of choking than Rory McIlroy’s ugly breakdown at the Augusta Masters two weeks ago.

Considered one of golf’s hot prospects, the 21-year-old shot to prominence last year at the Open Championship in St Andrews when he recorded an astounding 63 - the lowest first-round score in the tournament’s 150-year history. The next day he scored an appalling 80.

However, this time around onlookers had described the Northern Irishman’s golf at Augusta as “fun” and “relaxed’. But despite a positive start, still leading with just 9 holes to go, McIlroy contrived to score a nightmare

43 and ended up in joint 15th place some 10 shots adrift of the winner, Charl Schwartzel. The choke had taken hold.

Reasons for choking are manifold, however they all derive from the nerves involved in high-pressure sport.

Hitting a stationary ball in any sport requires steadfast mental focus, which can easily be disrupted by the enormity of the event. A sportsman who knows this all to well is Roberto Baggio. In the 1994 Fifa World Cup, Baggio hauled Italy to the final, scoring the winner in every knockout round. By this point considered the world’s best player, he went into the final against Brazil with extraordinary expectation on his shoulders. Despite forcing a magnificent save in extra time, Baggio couldn’t find a goal and it went to penalties.

Inevitably, it fell to their talisman to keep Italy in the competition and as with McIlroy at Augusta, the nerves set in. Baggio’s kick sailed over the bar, and a career was blighted.

Perhaps the biggest choke of recent

years happened to Jana Novotna, the Czech tennis star poised for victory in the her first Wimbledon final against Steffi Graf in 1993. Leading 4-1 in the final set, Novotna needed only one point on her serve to move 5-1 up and just one game away from the championship. However, nerves took hold and a double fault led to what she described as the “worst 10 minutes of her life”, as Graf turned the game around and took the set 6-4, and the championship.

One of British sports best-loved characters, Jimmy White, is perhaps best-known for his choke in the 1992 Snooker world championship. It was claimed this was The Whirlwind’s best chance to win his sport’s greatest honour and he certainly started like a champion elect, becoming only the second player ever to make a 147-break in the world championships. At one stage, White held a 14-8 lead over his opponent Stephen Hendry, but a succession of chokes meant White failed to win another frame and Hendry thundered to the title eventually winning 18-14.

Andy Simonds

White would never win a world championship, however, it was this choke that would garner sympathy from the British public and earn him the nickname “The People’s Champion”.

Choking gains not just sympathy but empathy, too. As sports fans, we are drawn to chokers because they remind us of the humans inside the hugely talented professionals. Most of us know

what it is like to fall at the final hurdle, so it is comforting and strangely alluring to see the greatest performers do it on the biggest stages. Exhibiting imperfection can be the greatest bonding exercise between sports superstars and their public. Of course this will be of little consolation to Rory McIlroy as he is condemned to the annals of the what-might-have-been history books.

Sport 31

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

The 'Rooness Theory' Only when enraged can Rooney perform, claims Sky Sports commentator

By Jamie Timson

Americanista de Chiapas

Tom Timmins

Anyone that stayed tuned to Sky Sports following Manchester United’s quarter-final victory over Chelsea last week will have heard Graeme Souness insist that England’s former golden boy Wayne Rooney “has to be angry to play at his best”.

Currently serving a two-match ban, this comes at a time when Rooney’s behaviour has been called into question; however this is not a new phenomenon. In fact, since his World Cup nightmare Rooney seems never to be out of the tabloids. Whether it be his transfer request u-turn, his poor goalscoring form, escape from punishment for an elbow against Wigan or swearing down the cameras, Rooney is in black and white for all the wrong reasons.

Souness’ comment was quickly disregarded by the rest of the panel, yet the former Liverpool man has a point. Take for instance Rooney’s latest incident. Following a first-half scare at Upton Park the United hitman inspired a 4-2 comeback with an emphatic hat-trick before grabbing the nearest camera and swearing down its throat. Much has been said about the incident, yet even before this Rooney seemed noticeably wound-up - fuming whenever he gave possession away and risking a few challenges right under the referee’s nose. Another much earlier example came in Rooney’s debut season at United against Newcastle in 2005. A furious Wayne Rooney was screaming at the referee before spinning round and lashing a thunderous strike into the Newcastle goal. This, he admits, is

Scottish and FA cup finals decided On a feisty weekend for football, Manchester City and Stoke booked their places in the FA cup final.

While north of the border, perennial finalists Celtic will meet a Motherwell side taking part in their first Scottish cup final for 20 years. In a bad tempered encounter at Wembley on Saturday, Manchester United’s treble trail was derailed by their near neighbours thanks to a Yaya Toure finish, capitalising on Michael Carrick’s mistake. Stoke showed impressive finishing in their semi-final against a Bolton team who looked far from familiar with one another. Celtic routed a ten man Aberdeen side, while Motherwell showed similar ruthlessness against a struggling St Johnstone team.

Nadal enters his nadir as Murray mounts challenge ahead of Roland Garros

his favourite goal and for many sums the striker up in one; anger plus raw ability.

Prior to the West Ham game, the 25-year-old’s performances had appeared more mature: holding the ball up when necessary, spreading

the play and encouraging his teammates. He admits he has adopted a new position allowing him to receive more of the ball and dictate the play, which has seen the players around him thrive, most notably Javier Hernandez. This was epitomized in his

most recent display, easing his team into the semi-finals of the Champions League. However, in this role there is no doubt that he is not at his goalscoring best, which would seem to add further support to the 'Rooness Theory’.

Fan ownership: not so cool Why Arsenal shouldn't always follow Barca's lead Iulian Urso

Jamie Timson Sport Editor Stan Kroenke is at the time of writing hoping to add his name to the list of foreign owners in the Premier League now numbering nearly 50% - by taking control of Arsenal. However, the Board of Directors’ decision to recommend the offer has caused uproar among the club’s supporters. They argue that by approving the offer, the board have recommended that fans be excluded from the ownership structure. It has been suggested that they have implicitly recommended the end of Arsenal Fanshare - the scheme set up in which the Arsenal Supporters Trust own 3 per cent of the club’s equity and are encouraged to purchase more - and in one fell swoop are recommending that the club be owned by just one man. Although it remains to be seen if Kroenke will gain full control (Arsenal’s second-largest shareholder Alexander Usmanov has confirmed his intention to reject the offer), the news

has sparked a debate about the merits of supporter ownership.

Real Madrid and Barcelona are often held as the bastions of democratic ownership. Barca’s 170,000 members own the club and elect the president.

However, beneath the surface of this democratic façade the truth is not quite so rosy. Unlike Britain, as broadcasting rights are negotiated on an individual club basis in Spain, the big two demand the lion’s share of all TV revenue - 55%.

Furthermore, supporter ownership doesn’t mean economically well-run clubs: Barca’s debts are somewhere in the region of £300 million, while Real’s reach a staggering £600 million. These debts are sustained by regional patronage. In 2001, the city council wiped out Madrid’s debt by buying the club’s training ground, while Galatico president Florentino Perez persuaded two local banks to loan Real £150 million.

It seems even with fan ownership the real power remains with the investors. It might be worth Arsenal supporters selling out to Kroenke, as a seat at

Rafael Nadal remained unbeaten on clay since 2009 after a 6-4 7-5 win over David Ferrer gave him his seventh Monte Carlo Masters title. He extended his winning run in tournament matches to 37 despite a lackluster performance in the final. Nadal was at his imperial best in his semi-final defeat of Andy Murray. Murray though could take plenty of encouragement from a high-quality display in the second semi-final, especially as his participation was in doubt because of an elbow injury, and that might have played a part as Nadal proved much the stronger in the final set. Nadal however, remains overwhelming favourite for the French Open next month.

Rocket Ronnie reaches for the selfdestruct button Never short of controversy, Ronnie O’Sullivan has revealed he tried to pullout of this week’s Snooker World Championship in Sheffield.

O’Sullivan has not won a competitive snooker match since November and following his first round defeat last month in the Chinese Open he dropped his strongest hint yet of his plans to retire. As a three time World Champion and widely seen as the most naturally gifted player in Snooker history, O’Sullivan’s retirement would be a dark day for the sport. Having changed his mind “Rocket” Ronnie begins his campaign against Dominic Dale and will be eyeing the opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory at the Crucible.

the top table would only be an symbolic position of power and could potentially block a vital injection of cash; which

would stop a certain German pensioner from being needed in goal for the foreseeable future.

32 Sport

The Journal Wednesday 20 April 2011

SPORT

Russell Endean

Petrol-powered Varsity

Hacker: Pedal to the Vettel

» 30

Edinburgh motor through to top the podium and take home the shield Sean Gibson Sport Edior Away from the playing fields on Varsity Day, a two-hour endurance race at the recently-opened Newbridge kart track saw Edinburgh ultimately take the spoils with a comfortable points margin - but only after an almighty scrap.

The competition was stoked by a friendly rivalry which has developed this year in the British Universities Karting Championship. However, Heriot-Watt were at a disadvantage even before a wheel was turned as they could only muster enough drivers to fill three of the stipulated five teams. With the overall result based on points, it was essentially win or bust for Heriot-Watt.

Qualifying saw them stand up to be counted though, as Edinburgh had to fight to keep them at bay. Edinburgh C took pole and somewhat surprisingly Edinburgh A found themselves down in third. Heriot-Watt were poised to strike from second, fourth and sixth.

hout incident. However, at the end of the first lap Heriot-Watt got the break they were looking for as Edinburgh A’s Calum Hughes, driving a cold

kart, dropped to seventh after being hung out to dry in the final corner.

Hughes was soon right back up to speed but unfortunately was stuck behind team-mate Sean Gibson of Edinburgh D. Some extremely stout defensive driving rebuffed Hughes for the better part of ten laps and no amount of elaborate signalling from the pits could alert Gibson to any team strategy. Either through unwillingness or plain ignorance, Edinburgh’s leading team had lost nearly a lap to the leaders, Heriot-Watt A. An early pit-stop and a hastily redrawn plan were the beginnings of the fightback. First Yati Durant and then Richard Crozier put in the hot laps to bring Edinburgh A back into contention. At the front, Edinburgh B were keeping Heriot Watt A honest, whilst Heriot-Watt C’s original pace waned with driver changes and they fell behind Edinburgh’s lower order.

The race wore on and was blown wide open in a volatile final fifteen minutes, as Heriot-Watt rolled the dice one final time. With Crozier leading comfortably for Edinburgh A - a lap ahead of the sparring Edinburgh C and Heriot-Watt A teams - Neil Halliwell of last-placed Heriot-Watt C began driving well within his limits. Crozier came

League Tables FOOTBALL BUCS Scottish Conference Men’s 1A P W D L F A GD Pts Edinburgh 1st

8 6 0 2 19 4 15 18

Heriot-Watt 1st 8 3 4 1 15 8 Glasgow 1st

round to lap Halliwell but found it impossible to pass; within minutes all eight karts were queueing behind and the tension began to rise.

Halliwell’s canny defence drove Crozier to hopeful punts and his impatience eventually cost him a penalty pit-stop and enforced driver-change.

The race was now well and truly on and Halliwell succeeded then in bringing similar punishment to bear on Edinburgh B, promoting his A-team’s chances but also those of his B-team who were now in a position to strike.

However, he was becoming increasingly desperate and the illegality of his driving went from debatable to unquestionable as the karts bumped more fiercely and the track-route was clearly altered.

It was left to Nick Roberts of Edinburgh D to emerge from the melee and execute an undeniable manoeuvre to overtake Halliwell and breach the floodgates. The race finished moments later and Heriot-Watt had only managed to secure second and fourth places in the chaos. It was a thrilling end to a tight race and judging from the heated postrace exchanges in the pits, neither side can wait for a rematch.

7 13

8 3 2 3 15 16 -1 11

Edinburgh 2nd

8 2 3 3 7 9 -2

Strathclyde 1st

8 1 1 6 5 24 -19 4

9

RUGBY BUCS Scottish Conference Men’s 1A P WDL F

A

GD Pts

Edinburgh 1st

10 9 0 1 387 93 294 27

Aberdeen 1st

9 7 0 2 356 161 195 21

St Andrews 1st 10 6 0 4 350 260 90 18 Stirling 1st

9 4 0 5 234 322 -88 12

Heriot-Watt 1st 9 1 0 8 136 290 -154 3 RESULTS 1. Edinburgh A – 242 laps – 25 pts 2.

Heriot-Watt B – 241 laps – 18 pts 3. Edinburgh C – 241 laps – 15 pts 4. Heriot-Watt A – 241 laps – 12 pts 5. Edinburgh B – 238 laps – 10 pts 6. Edinburgh D – 236 laps – 8 pts 7. Edinburgh E – 233 laps – 6 pts 8. Heriot-Watt C – 231 laps – 4 pts 9. Heriot-Watt D – DNS – 2 pts 10.

Robert Gordon 1st 9 1 0 8 68 405 -337 3

HOCKEY BUCS Scottish Conference Women’s 1A P W D L F A GD Pts

SPORT

JOnathan Davey

Varsity roundup Edinburgh and Heriot Watt do battle once more Elise P A Jackson

2011’s annual Varsity Day was held on Wednesday 16 March, and with 18 teams competting across 13 sports, was set to be the biggest Varsity to date.

With good weather and confirmation that all outdoor sports at Peffermill were set to go ahead, it was shaping up to be a big afternoon of sport!

The Varsity Quaich, which the two Edinburgh Universities fight over every year, is awarded over the results of the five traditional sports: Men’s Football, Men’s and Women’s Hockey, and Men’s Rugby and Rowing and has been a permanent fixture in Edinburgh University’s trophy cabinet for the past 3 years.

The day kicked off at the CSE with Netball and mixed results. Edinburgh Uni 1st's dominated Heriot Watt 50-25, while it was a close match between Edinburgh Uni 5th's and Heriot Watt 2nd's, with Heriot Watt managing to hold a 30-27 lead.

Other CSE fixtures were hotly contested, with Heriot Watt forcing a win in Squash when time was short, and Edinburgh controlling the Basketball match with a final score of 77-45. Edinburgh Men’s team also came through in a tense Volleyball match to win in 5 sets.

Down at Peffermill, the Women’s Hockey was well underway with a frustrating first half for Edinburgh University, unable to capitalise on numerous chances. Heriot Watt bucked up in the second half to win 1-0. Both football fixtures were more positive, with Edinburgh University winning both men’s and women’s games: 3-0 between the men’s 1st teams, Heriot Watt 2nd's losing 4-3 to Edinburgh Uni 3rd's on penalties after a full time score of 1-1, and the Edinburgh ladies dominating their football match 11-3.

With the the fog setting in, Edinburgh succumbed to pressure in the Men’s Rugby, losing 25-5. At this point, Heriot Watt were on course to win the Quaich, with a score of 2-1 in

Edinburgh 1st

8 8 0 0 25 5 20 24

St. Andrews 1st

8 4 1 3 16 13 3

13

Glasgow 1st

7 4 0 3 15 14 1

9*

Edinburgh 2nd

8 1 2 5 12 25 -13 5

Caledonian 1st

7 0 1 6 3 14 -11 4*

BUCS Scottish Conference Men’s 1A Matthew Hauke

P W D L F A GD Pts Heriot-Watt 1st

7 6 0 1 25 6 19 21*

Edinburgh 1st

8 7 0 1 25 7 18 21

Glasgow 1st

8 3 0 5 16 24 -8

Dundee 1st

7 2 0 5 9 24 -15 6

Aberdeen 1st

6 0 0 6 9 23 -14 -3*

9

* = points deducted/awarded

the traditional sports, and Edinburgh knew the pressure was on for the Men’s Hockey and the final fixture of Rowing.

With Edinburgh Uni Men’s 1st's winning once and losing once to Heriot Watt in their league this year, everyone knew that it would be a close match between these huge sporting rivals.

Edinburgh rose to the occasion and, with great support from the crowds, settled into the game and took the first half 4-0. Heriot Watt’s efforts in the second half were less impressive and Edinburgh prevented Heriot Watt from touching the score-line winning the match 7-0, bringing Edinburgh up to 2-2 in the Quaich contest.

With everything resting on the Rowing, the tension mounted as the ergometers were manoeuvred onto the astro pitch for the final fixture of the day.

However, with slick changeovers and strong determination, Heriot Watt powered through to win all three races and therefore regained the Varsity Quaich after 3 years with Edinburgh University.

Well done to everyone who participated, and thank you to all the supporters who made the atmosphere electric on the day: we’re already looking forward to next year!

For highlights, see www.dartfish.tv/ edinburghvarsity2011.

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