Issue 93 - March / April 22 by The Magdalen

Dundee Student-Led Magazine

Journey Through the World of Words 06 “Writing begins and ends with you. You need to know the story you are writing, what fire under your belly lit the desire to do it.”

Out of Sight, Out of Mind 40 “A far cry from the often more radical SNP, a choice that seems remarkably out of touch for a party that predominantly draws votes from the middle and working sects.”

MAR/Apr 2022

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Trees, Tides and the Poor Bastards In-Between 64 “So now what? Oh, sorry. Are you expecting advice? No, the storms are already here. As are the floods, the fires and the plagues.”

www.themagdalen.co.uk @themagdalenmag The Magdalen Magazine @themagdalenmag The Magdalen Magazine

the magdalen issue 93

A message from your Editor-in-Chief:

A message from your Creative Directors:

Welcome to our penultimate issue of this academic year.

This issue has came around so fast it has made our heads spin! We are pretty proud of it though. Some really amazing illustrations and photography have been produced for this issue, so as usual, we want to thank our creative team for all their hard work!

It’s been a long journey but it does not end here. As many of you approach the end of your degrees, the questions arise: “What will I do next?”, “What’s my next step?”. Our team has decided to partake in the search for these answers, and thus, created the edition around three theme words: plans, ambitions, goals. May this issue inspire you in your search for the true self. With the best interest of our students in mind, we spent the past two months planning and creating the DUSA Media Career Days. We’ve contacted media professionals from across the UK and many have decided to visit us and share their skills with you - our readers and contributors. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who joined us and dedicated their precious time to support the next generation of media professionals. The future is yours.

We have been busy helping to organise the DUSA Media Career Days, including an art sale and exhibit event, of which 10% of all sales will be donated to Dundee Women’s Aid. So if you’re looking to support your local artists and charity, come along! We also have a whole line-up of exciting careers events (keep an eye on our social media for upcoming information) We want to give a special thanks to our new staff photographers: Ada Ung & Maria Touloupa! They have really helped a lot with the making of this issue with their beautiful photography and designs; they are really talented and it’s been a joy to work with them! We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we have all enjoyed designing for it! Phoebe & Livvie

Marcin Kielczewski

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acknowledgement

SENIOR TEAM EDITOR IN CHIEF CREATIVE DIRECTORS SENIOR DEPUTY EDITOR DEPUTY EDITOR SENIOR FEATURE EDITOR DIGITAL MANAGER

Marcin Kielczewski Olivia Baird & Phoebe Wilman Luiza Stoenescu Marleen Käsebier Sofia Rönkä Lucy Murray

CREATIVE TEAM PHOTOGRAPHY MANAGER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS ILLUSTRATION MANAGER SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS

Lottie Belrose Ada Ung & Maria Touloupa Karly Yu Militsa Ruseva & Sonia Hanke

EDITORIAL TEAM ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT CREATIVE WRITING INTERNATIONAL ON/OFF CAMPUS OPINIONS SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Mareth Burns Dani McFawns; Andrew Young Sehar Mehmood Emma Sturrock Bronte Chalmers Flora Caldwell

COPY EDITORS

SENIOR STAFF WRITERS

PUBLISHED BY COVER PHOTOGRAPHY

Niamh Alexander; Kathryn Boyle; Rhiannon Burnett; Drew Campbell; Maria Georgieva; Rachel Goodman; Pascale Lee; Cat Pritchard; Kyl Tan; Jennifer Thomson Akshay Anand; Dawid Czeczelewski; Freya Giles; Hannah Hamilton; Ryan Petrie; Georgi Zhechev Dundee University Students’ Association Ada Ung

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contents 06 10

Feature

Journey Through the World of Words

Arts & Entertainment

Review: William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) Gods of Video Game Revenue Rocky Horror: The Cult Classic that Cannot Die Art Critics Hate Him - Read Any Media with This One Weird Tip Review: The House

Creative Writing

Current Affairs

International

52 58 64

Dear Diary Unethical Ambition Bird of Ambition Stars Beyond Clouds Plans, Ambitions, Goals cards of you System Shock - Part 2 Blue Notes Sometimes We Seem Broken

The Origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Hypocrisies of Conservative Empathy Warmonger Putin

Whaling in Iceland: End of an Era Lost in Translation Media Censorship in China End of Term Blues

10 12 14 16 18

20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36

38 40 42

44 46 48 50

On/ Off Campus A Spring Stroll Society Spotlight: Socialist Society Dundee University Dance Club: The Show Must Go On

52 54 56

Opinions Young Adult Fiction is Addressing More Serious Topics Than Adult Fiction Ever Has Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard Ace of Spades

58 60 62

Science & Technology Trees, Tides and the Poor Bastards In-Between A Revolution in Assisted Suicide Technology The Beginner’s Guide to Data Analysis and Statistics The Double-Edged Sword

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64 66 68 70

Words: Ryan Petrie

Feature

Journey Through the World of Words

A child’s mind is much like a chest... the magdalen issue 93

Design & Illustration: Olivia Baird

Lost in the Language

“A child’s mind is much like a chest, I think, for when the time comes to grow up into adults, we have to put our thoughts, fantasies and stories into this chest and leave them to gather dust. But in later life, we can open it again and examine what’s inside once more.” After I published my first book, The Scarlet Petal and Other Stories, I thought I would be forever lost to the language which I had devoted thirteen years of my life to, unable to write what I wanted, struggling to say anything of worth. Now the worst of my confusion is behind me, and I have started writing again. Currently, I am at work on a long ghost story set in the Scottish West Coast, a place I remember a great deal of, as I was there often as a child. My family travelled there to take part in the rugby tournament we were involved with every year.

An Artist’s Beginning When I was very young, I used to make up stories in my head and, like any other child (don’t pretend that you didn’t too), I would act out these stories. Each had their twists and turns as well as their heroes and villains. Much of what I acted back then I now put into the stories I write. I have felt their influence all my life – especially when I write fantasy. Some shadows have a canny way of sticking with you, even after the books are written and sent out into the world. Where I lived then, in the older Ardler multis, I would run up and down the narrow corridor of our hallway, jump into my bedroom, hollering and shouting dialogue I had created in my mind, much to the annoyance of my family. A few cross words from my mum would quiet me for a moment or two, but I would soon forget the scolding and get back to the story I was devising. It was an enjoyable childish pastime. Though I had a bigger brother with whom I played, he often spent time on his own or played on the then new PlayStation 2, leaving me to myself. I also liked to play on the machine, having by then a collection of games such as The Incredibles, Scooby Doo: Night of 100 Frights, an assortment of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings games, and a Jurassic Park park builder game where I could create my own theme park filled with different dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were a special interest of mine, as were the Titanic and

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Feature

Most of my ideas get out of hand, and yet I pursue them as best I can, even to the detriment of what I actually want to say. But I have to remember the fundamentals of what it is to be a writer: the simple act of putting one word after another, then another, then another. Only then, do I feel there is power to what I have to say. The medium of words is my bread and butter, and creating stories out of these jumbled collections of letters and phrases is now my lifeline.

But being lost in language is only a small part of being a writer. Harnessing it is your real aim. Harnessing it, understanding it, and being able to write down every word that comes to mind. What might seem a difficult task, when I put it like that, is actually really simple.

It has been hard to start this piece. I have scrapped six attempts to write it.

Words: Ryan Petrie

Feature

Doctor Who. Some of these interests have fallen through the cracks. Others have remained with me. I’ve still got a good few things that interest me, now that I am older. Often it is said that everything a writer is interested in is retained for future stories, and those who say this are correct. As I got older, I created for myself, in my imagination, a chest in which I put all my stories, ideas, and fictional histories. A child’s mind is much like a chest, I think, for when the time comes to grow up into adults, we have to put our thoughts, fantasies and stories into this chest and leave them to gather dust. But in later life, we can open it again and examine what’s inside once more. It was a source of annoyance that I had to put these things away, but the chest would never really close for me. When I got older and realised that I wanted nothing more than to be a writer, I opened that box again and examined what was inside. There were times when the lid would almost slam on my fingers, not ready to divulge the secrets inside, having deemed me unready to tell the stories. Thankfully, I got enough out of it to begin writing in earnest. Preparing to Write When I said that writing is actually simple, it might have been a bit of a white lie, but a lie with an infinitesimal grain of truth. Writing is easy, because almost everyone can do it. It’s writing and imagining at the same time that’s the hard part. Usually when you write you have a clear image of the thing you want to describe, but when you are diving in with nothing behind it, you are going to land yourself in trouble.

Aspiring authors should always realise that writing out of the blue never ends well. There are different groups of writers; “Planners” plan out every little detail of the story, know exactly the things that will happen, and are familiar with their world’s details. “Pantsers” know absolutely nothing about the story they are writing, and discover things as they go. Finally, there are the “Plantsers”, like me, who plot a small amount, and once they have enough, they dive in to discover more as their story takes them on a journey. I have always had a passion for Plantsing; I have to know the structure of the story and what will happen in each of the chapters I write, so I make a sort of plan; after that, I leave my writing’s fate to the mercy of the writing gods. My usual advice to most writers is to plot and plan. Know the world and the history of where and when you are setting your story. As a fantasy writer, I like to create the worlds I write in, and even then it takes a great deal of research. (Main rule: you will always need to research for your books. It shows when you haven’t.) Writing begins and ends with you. You need to know the story you are writing, what fire under your belly lit the desire to do it. Preparing to write is often easy: all you need is a pen, a piece of paper, a laptop, a typewriter, any of these lovely things. Preparing to settle down and do it is often the hard part. Your story has to brew, it has to be mulled over. You must let it ferment. Though much of what I say pertains to my own process. Some writers like to write on an event once it occurs, after it has been discussed. I can never write like that. Mine has to germinate, grow arms and legs; it has to throw out roots that tangle themselves with other subjects I care about. When you and the story are ready, you’ll know what to do.

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Design & Illustration: Olivia Baird

Staying Motivated This is the hardest part.

“Writing begins and ends with you. You need to know the story you are writing, what fire under your belly lit the desire to do it.” Though I remain scared; if 55,000 words for my previous book could do to me what happened last year, what on earth will almost 60,000 words for the current one do? I don’t know. But I will soon find out. Motivation will come to you when you are ready. The story will tell you when it wants to be told and you will know yourself when you are strong enough to pick up the pen. Forcing the story is the worst thing you could do on a dry day for words. Some days they won’t come at all, and that’s all right. Your brain is just telling you that it needs to turn over a few things. It will let you know when the story is ready. Your characters will let you know too. It is easy to become unmotivated when the words don’t come exactly when you want them to. But don’t worry, they know what they are doing, and so do you.

Feature

Motivation, especially in these plague times, has been harder to come by. When I was hot off the tail of my first book being published, I thought I could get right into the writing of a new one. I was wrong. The year was marred by depression, lacking motivation, a stream of endless meltdowns and personal crises. I could not sit down and focus on just one story, there had to be three or four others at the same time. I was burned out and out of commission for most of the year. Only now, in 2022, do I feel I have the motivation and the mental capacity to pull off another book. A Few Last Words Everything I have said above is rather messy and totally subjective. Other people who write will do things differently, since every writer is indeed different. One important thing to remember is that there are no rules for this kind of work – only method and practice. How you write is up to you. And it is through remembering that that you see there is absolutely no limit to what you can do. So please, pick up that pen and get scribbling. It’s a wide-open world, and it’s waiting to hear what you’ve got to say.

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Words: Joanne Lam

Review: William Shakespeare’s

Romeo Juliet (1996)

Arts + Ents

eing a film adaptation comes with the expectation of faithfulness to the original. A Shakespeare adaptation is, of course, no exception to the rule. With somewhere around 400 film and television adaptations, Shakespeare’s plays have inspired filmmakers to try their hand at adapting the bard, although only a few have been so graciously remembered. Actor-directors like Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh’s works have been lauded respectively for their theatre-like and visually faithful adaptations of Shakespeare works. Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet is the favourite adaptation of revered critic Roger Ebert. However, one look at William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, it is clear Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation is going to be anything but the same. And it might not necessarily be a bad thing. When the film begins, a lone television set with a newscaster talking on it sits in the middle of the darkness, panning towards us. At first glance, nothing about this film looks remotely Shakespearean. If Baz Luhrmann or Shakespeare took out their names on the posters and in the beginning credits, the film’s aesthetics may fool audiences to think this was one of Quentin Tarantino’s productions. In fact, according to some critics, this movie is just one big “mess” of low-brow humour and gang-war violence. However, one thing these critics get wrong is the belief that this movie is for them. Instead, this seems more like Shakespeare recontextualized for the 90s audience, most of it made up of the most popular demographic: teenagers. After all, Shakespeare was for the common crowd first, before the Victorians made theatre a “high society” pastime. Trading in the Globe Theatre for the real-life filming locations of Boca del Rio, Veracruz, and Mexico City, “Verona” is repackaged into the hip, bustling city of “Verona Beach”. Instead of simply being feuding families, this city has the misfortune of housing two bitter business rivals and their crime syndicate families. With the

O.J. Simpson trial case still fresh in the public consciousness, Shakespeare’s most famous lines are reused for advertising and as media circus headlines, mirroring the sensationalist and often pulpy style of the 90s news cycle. This is Romeo and Juliet repackaged for contemporary teens’ understanding. Just like Shakespeare wrote his play for the masses of his time, Luhrmann wrote this film for the masses of his. Of course, it would be unfair to just label this film Romeo and Juliet for MTV sensibilities. Luhrmann seems to have a real love for Shakespeare, and this can be seen in the dialogue. Although mixing iambic pentameter with American accents seems unconventional, this film revels in its original dialogue. This can be seen in Luhrmann’s solution for “outdated” words. Instead of changing “swords” and “daggers” in Shakespeare’s original text, they are now the brand for this universe’s handguns. In the opening gas station scene, Luhrmann mixes it up and has the Montague boys instead of the Capulets “bite their thumb” at them. Their campy acting captures both the humour and aggressive nature of both houses and escalates the conflict further. Moreover, the casting is ingenious. With his teen heartthrob status, it is hard to imagine anyone else but Leonardo DiCaprio as the daringly romantic Romeo. With his boyish looks and tender voice, DiCaprio’s Romeo not only wins Juliet over but perhaps even leaves the audience swooning as well. The lovely Claire Danes is incandescent as Juliet. Her curious gaze brings a sense of wonder to her character and the naivety that Juliet embodies. Whether it be a matter-of-fact “madam, I am here, what is your will?”, or the outrageously flirty “good pilgrim” lines, Danes delivers them with a sharp wit and quickness only a teenager would have. Both young actors knock it out of the park in their role as Shakespeare’s ill-fated lovers.

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Another defining aspect of the film can be accredited to Kym Barrett, who does the film’s costuming. Through all the Hawaiian shirts, flamboyant Halloween costumes, and painted details, Barrett excels at tailoring Romeo + Juliet’s unique aesthetic. Arguably, nobody is better dressed than John Leguizamo’s Tybalt, devilishly cool in religious red accessories with holy motifs of Jesus painted on. The film’s use of religious iconography on guns and hot-headed characters like Tybalt further blurs the lines between the themes of violence and love. Further, Barrett and Luhrmann manage to throw in a few cheeky Shakespearean easter eggs at the Capulet Party: getting Lady Capulet to be Cleopatra from Anthony and Cleopatra, Lord Capulet as the titular Julius Caesar and having Mercutio crossdress, much like Shakespeare’s boy players in Renaissance times.

Arts + Ents

Design: Ada Ung

Perhaps one element that reflects Luhrmann’s postmodern adaptation of Romeo + Juliet is best embodied by Harold Perrineau, who plays Mercutio. While Franco Zeppffireli’s 1968 adaptation quietly suggests Mercutio’s homoerotic attachment to his best friend Romeo, Luhrmann has this Mercutio strut out in full drag. Perrineau’s performance as Mercutio is easily one of the most unpredictable and entertaining in the film, oozing sexuality and one-sided yearning for his best friend Romeo. The dynamic way Perrineau portrays this Brooklynaccented, black, and suggestively queer Mercutio emphasizes the edge and subversion of Luhrmann’s adaptation. Despite only having three significant scenes, it is heartbreaking when Mercutio inevitably dies, crying out “A plague! o’ both your houses!”. While its postmodern approach, campy acting, and gaudy violence might not impress Shakespeare elitists, Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet is a familiar, yet creative take on the Bard’s timeless tragedy. With great casting, stunning costumes, camera mastery, and fun music numbers to boot, Luhrmann has taken Shakespeare back to his original “low-brow” roots. Rest assured, the bard’s legacy is left in good, honest, hands. the magdalen issue 93

Words: Sofia RÖnkä

Gods of Video Game Revenue

Arts + Ents

“BOY!”

fter three years, the grovelling voice of Kratos blasts from the screen, as he takes on the Gods of Nordic mythology with his son, Atreus, by his side. God of War is a video game about the fluctuant but budding relationship between the godly Spartan warrior and his son who are on a mission to honour Atreus’ late mother. Developed by Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, the 2018 Game of the Year (Game Awards) has been strictly a PlayStation exclusive until it was released on PC in January 2022. Platform exclusivity is not unusual in the video game industry. Sometimes a game is only released on specific consoles, or only on PC, or only on certain game stores (e.g., Steam or Epic Games). However, it seems that most often PC gamers get the short end of the axe when it comes to some of the biggest games of the past years. There is a long list of award-winning games that are exclusive to specific consoles with no promise to ever come out on PC. For example, fans of the Dark Souls game series would need to purchase a PlayStation 4 to play Bloodborne, a game by the same developers. Personally, I would love to revisit my childhood nostalgia game LittleBigPlanet, but do not have access to a PS3 anymore. And perhaps most notoriously, Nintendo is well known for keeping its games close to its chest, with, for example, the most recent Super Mario games being only available on Nintendo Switch.

But as annoying as exclusive games can be for us gamers, there are certain reasons for their existence – the main one being the revenue. Big game companies, such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft develop and sell their own gaming consoles, and exclusive games are one of the best marketing strategies to help them stay in the competition. Throughout console generations, the winner of the console sales is usually the one with the most attention-grabbing exclusives. For example, during the seventh generation of gaming consoles, the Wii rose superior over PS3 and Xbox 360 with its wide range of innovative and family-friendly games such as Wii Sports, Super Smash Bros Brawl, and Super Mario Galaxy. In the eight generation however, Sony learned their lesson and grabbed first place with titles like God of War, Spider-Man and The Last of Us II. To give you the numbers, Sony sold over 160 million PS4 units, while Nintendo Switch is at over 100 million, and due to Microsoft’s increased preference for multiplatform releases (including on PC), Xbox One is only at around 51 million sold units. The basic benefit of releasing multiplatform games is selling more of the game itself. But there are some specific advantages to PC gaming as well. The general consensus of the age-old PC vs console debate is that while consoles are often more affordable and accessible than an extensive PC setup, PCs allow for better performance for the game, and even more stunning visuals than console graphics can offer. In addition, PC gaming comes with more customisability, including things like

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Design & Illustration by: Megan Hunter

Kratos: “Only fire when I tell you to fire.” Atreus: “I’m sorry.” Kratos: Atreus: Kratos: “Hi sorry, I’m dad.”

Take God of War for instance. It dutifully boosted the sales of PS4 back when it was released, and remained exclusive for over three years until, one day it was announced for re-release. What could have changed Sony’s mind? One could argue that it seems too perfect to be a coincidence that this happened the same year that Sony is planning to release its sequel, God of War: Ragnarök. It is admittedly quite a mischievous marketing plan; give PC gamers a taste of that Spartan Rage as well as remind the original fans how much they loved the game, and then force anyone wanting to play the sequel to buy a PS5, or yet again, wait for Odin knows how long.

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Arts + Ents

Notably, there seems to be a certain bias for game companies to avoid PC releases – that is to say, the less-seafaring version of piracy. Once a game is released on PC, tech-savvy people will get cracking, and a free download of almost any game will eventually exist on the internet for those who know where to look. Some of the common arguments regarding pirating are that if publishers put aside their greed, both made sure the games were good and sold them for cheaper, people would be willing to pay to play. But the prospect of having their game distributed without revenue could certainly explain why PC releases are often avoided by console publishers.

All in all, it does not surprise anyone that the ultimate motive behind big company game releases is the lust for gold. For all its advantages, PC gaming is still likely to be looked down on by the big console-based publishers in order for more consoles to sell and to postpone piracy. However, the PC gaming community will always have something to make console gamers envious – the God of War mod “God of Dad Jokes”.

the option to play with any type of controller or mouse and keyboard, often more available settings in the PC versions of games, and ultimately custom modifications (mods) made by the players themselves.

Arts + Ents

Words: Teigan Green

movie that initially failed nearly half a century ago has somehow ended up creating one of the largest cult followings in film and theatre to date. While visiting home, I had the opportunity of witnessing The Rocky Horror Show in theatre for the first time - a surprising fact, as I take after my family in my love for this film. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision for me to go, and although I’ve watched the movie more times than I can count, I didn’t know what to expect. The movie is getting close to its 50th anniversary and gave rise to many ultra-fans along the way - many coming in full drag to play their favourite characters. The cult following showed itself thoroughly through the audience participation. The moment the lights dimmed, the audience would not settle, and you had

to learn how to participate quickly, or you stuck out like a priest in a (not so Christian) rave. It is strange trying to explain the plot of the movie to those who have never seen it. Rocky Horror is the story of an innocent couple, Brad and Janet, who travel to an ominous castle looking to find help after their car breaks down. There they meet the transvestite ruler of the castle - Frank n Furter - and his minions, which include Riff Raff and Magenta. Once invited to Furter’s lab, they are introduced to Rocky, the scientist’s newest creation. Aliens also exist - this is crucial. Though the story is a bit ridiculous, it is constantly exhilarating, and the show at King’s Theatre in Glasgow really emphasised this through the excellent casting.

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Design: Lucas Ferguson

The sickly-sweet couple, Brad and Janet, played by Ore Oduba and Hayley Flaherty, was absolutely joyful to watch. Stephen Webb, playing Frank n Furter, completely stole the spotlight that night. Though I must admit my favourite performance was the narrator, Philip Franks, with his excellent comedic timing and modern political commentary that went down well with the audience.

Arts + Ents

Suzie McAdam, playing Magenta (my favourite character in the film), sounded as though her vocals were made for the song Science Fiction/ Double Feature. When she started, I could not believe that her rendition wasn’t what the song had always been. Due to Science Fiction/ Double Feature being the introduction to the whole musical, the casting for Magenta is extremely important to get right, which is why I think Suzie McAdam shines so perfectly in this play.

Leaving the theatre after the show ended was a very surreal experience. I was trying to comprehend what I had just watched whilst Glasgow was being flooded with dressed-up Frank n Furters and Riff Raffs. There were strange looks coming from some people driving past, but not one person from the audience cared. The freedom of expression everyone shared created a feeling of security at the show, and it felt like you could relate to everybody there. I love how that is what a cult classic story can do to an audience of strangers.

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Words: Kiva Allotey-Reidpath

Art Critics Hate Him READ any MEDIA

Arts + Ents

with this one

WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD TRICK TRICK TRICK

o, I’m a chronic over-thinker. I’m sorry that was an understatement - I don’t so much exist with my head in the clouds as defy the laws of gravity. Whilst there are many things filling me with a constant ‘light-headedness’ the things that give me the most joy are the arts: films, books, poems, tv shows, you name it. Sadly, engaging with different arts can have an entry barrier with film, paintings and literature all using their own unique terminology

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The most important thing I ever learnt about art was taught in 10th grade: making films is really expensive. Shocker I know, but this is important. Avengers’ endgame cost $355.5 million dollars to make, 155.5 million of which was used for crew and film production costs. That is an ungodly amount of money put into writing a script, moving a camera around, making a set. When all was said and done, Infinity War and Endgame had a total 900 hours of footage that needed to be edited down into 5.5 hours. Whenever you see a film, or read a book, or look at a painting you are seeing the culmination of multiple hours, or days, or years of work coming together in a single piece of media. So, it is safe to assume everything you see was put there for a reason. The reason is going to change from piece to piece so I don’t want to go too deeply into it. But put simply, art is (often) meant to turn a profit. Artists may make art for many personal reasons, but when it is shared with us it is because someone thought it would appeal. The way art appeals to us sits at the heart of all of this. We start engaging with art by feeling it (not with our hands, don’t touch stuff at museums). The next step is to ask yourself why? What is making you feel things? What isn’t making you feel things? Then you can add the idea that everything you are consuming is there for a reason. And that’s how to start thinking about composition. Bam, four syllable word, didn’t see that coming did you. Let’s take what we have explored here and apply it directly. It is easier to start with films that are trying to be overtly thought provoking, like The Matrix or anything made by Christopher Nolan. But guilty pleasure movies are good too. Liking films for their bad bits is a complicated thing and exploring that is really fun. Winter’s Tale (2014) is a personal guilty pleasure because it mixes deep philosophical ideas with all the complex feelings of love and just… fails utterly. But it tries so hard and I have a soft-spot for

overthinking and romance. There is a scene where a demon named Pearlie – played by Russel Crowe – petitions his boss Lucifer – Played by Will Smith. Lucifer denies Pearlie’s petition, causing Pearlie to lose his composure and yell at Lucifer. What follows is a monologue by Lucifer that lives in my head rent free. My first love in this scene is the acting. The way Will Smith builds in rage from his initially casual demeanour is… engrossing. Then there are his actual words. In one minute we get Lucifer’s life story, and a lecture on the fickleness of time perfectly mixed together. It makes Pearlie’s concerns seem insignificant. This insignificance is reinforced by the camera sitting next to Pearlie, looking up at the imposing figure of Lucifer, and the massive shadow he casts. The lighting throughout this scene will change from total darkness; to lighting up the whole room; to centring on Lucifer, putting Pearlie in the shadows. Every aspect of the scene reinforces the presence of Lucifer. I could go on and on about what this scene does well, but it would only reinforce what I have already said. I think this scene is really good.

"...everything you see was put there for a reason. " Hopefully you now have the fundamental tools needed to engage with any art ever. From here it is a matter of practising. First ask yourself what you are feeling at different moments you are reading or watching something. Secondly, describe to yourself what is going on. Who is talking? What is the tone? It's less important that you ask all these questions as much as you identify a few key elements that are particularly appealing. At first you may only do it sporadically, but soon you’ll be wearing berets and turtlenecks in cafés whilst discussing the death of ‘real art’. I am kidding of course, but like all things, it takes practice when starting off and then becomes very natural. One last very important thing: to practise talking about art, find someone you can practise with. Art is meant to be enjoyed by as many people as possible. If you experience it with other people, they’ll show you things you didn’t notice yourself. Discussing art is just an extension of enjoying it, so go see something, and share it.

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to describe different aspects. Although such language can be helpful, it is far from necessary. Even without the ‘right’ words the technique is still widely accessible. I’m going to show you how to look at any form of media and start seeing all the different parts that make critics use multi-syllabic words like “masterpiece” and “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.

Arts + Ents

Design: Daniel Somoghi

Words: Angus Coleman

Arts + Ents

Review: The House I

t is my opinion that stop-motion animation is one of the most tragically under-utilised visual mediums. Outside of Wallace and Gromit, some other properties owned by Aardman Animations and perhaps the animated films of Wes Anderson, films that use this style are few and far between. Perhaps this is because stop-motion isn’t as clean and sterile as the simple, squishy style of 3D computer animation favoured by many modern animation studios, and therefore mistakenly assumed to be less appealing to children. Or maybe it is simply the more labour-intensive process of animating movement in this method. Whatever the reason, it is undeniable that stopmotion is not very common in the modern animation industry. However, I believe that Netflix’s new film The House may change this, as it is a wonderful demonstration of the visual and narrative power of this style.

The House is an anthology film, dealing with three different self-contained stories separated by many years. Each story follows the relationships of various characters to the titular house. All the events of the three stories take place in and around the house, with the variety of different characters and scenarios in each segment preventing the film from becoming stale or repetitive. The house is the only element that remains largely unchanged throughout the film. Everything else - from the colour palette to the state of the world surrounding the house, to the creatures which inhabit it - changes with each section. This tying together of the three chapters is interesting, as the world of the film is so drastically different in each one that it seems impossible that they even exist in the same universe. the magdalen issue 93

Straight away, The House establishes a distinctly dark and twisted atmosphere. While the film maintains an oppressive and dreary tone across its three acts, each part also has a distinct emotional state underpinning the events that take place. Chapter one contains many horror elements, using visuals and environmental storytelling to create an effectively creepy backstory for the house. Chapter two deals with the anxious dread of a developer attempting to sell the property, and is less overtly menacing, opting instead for a subtly uneasy atmosphere for most of its duration. Finally, chapter three is sadder and more existential, and feels like a lament for the house as one of the last remnants of a dying world. While each story becomes progressively less dramatic, the more apparent scares are replaced

This film is a prime example of how well animation can be used in adult media, as well as films and shows aimed at younger audiences. In fact, I don’t think that it would work anywhere near as well if it used any other style, such as live-action or even computer animation. There is something decidedly uncanny about stop-motion, that makes it incredibly well suited to the horror genre. The ever so slight jerkiness of the character’s movements, combined with their masterful designs lends such a unique visual language to the film. The use of stop-motion in somewhat edgier, darker animated properties is nothing new, with The Nightmare Before

It’s not perfect though. For me, the second chapter lulled somewhat in quality in comparison to the first and third. After the explosive tension of part one got me really hooked, it was quite jarring to be suddenly uprooted from that story and dropped into another one. That might seem like an unfair criticism to make towards an anthology film, the magdalen issue 93

but I would also say that the second story in the collection does struggle to get the ball rolling in the same way that the first one did. I just didn’t feel like the stakes were as high following the transition, and as the second part progressed (although the fate of the protagonist in this segment was brilliantly handled). I didn’t have this gripe with the third part, as it was pretty clear when it began that it wasn’t heading in the same direction as the two that preceded it. It was quite thematically and atmospherically different. That being said, I would highly recommend The House. If, like me, you're a big fan of animation in general, but especially stopmotion, then you should have a great time with this. It’s also an engagingly unique testament to animation’s versatility as a storytelling tool for all age groups, not just children.

with a slower and quieter but more constant darkness that becomes increasingly suffocating as the film goes on.

Christmas and Coraline being good examples of this. However, neither of those films are as blatantly menacing as The House. I have to admit, certain moments really made me squirm, often simply due to the creepy imagery on display. The fact that the film is animated using real objects and materials results in a great sense of texture to the environments, objects and characters. I especially enjoyed the use of felt in the first story, but the whole thing is visually stunning.

Arts + Ents

Design: Lewis Elks

Words: Fay Rizo

Creative Writing

March

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Design: Katy Blair

I remember how he looked at me and smiled. And in that moment, I knew I was ready. So, while I can’t say he’s the first boy I’ve ever loved, I can say for certain: he’s the first I’ve ever

killed.

But can you blame me? Seeing him sitting across from me, looking at me with those beautiful, warm eyes, I had never felt like this. I knew that this time was different, it’s getting serious after all, and he knew it too. It’s been almost two months since we started seeing each other and we were both ready to take the next step to say the least. I’m sure that we both

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XOXOXO

hey say that when you meet that special someone, you know because you feel butterflies in your stomach. Well, I promise you they were lying. It’s more of an uncomfortable flutter mixed with the awkward feeling of hyper monkeys using your intestines as a trampoline. It almost made me want to puke yesterday, so I’m glad that I was wearing the dress that I was because if it wasn’t for the glaring, glittering reminder of how much it cost, I would have puked on it at least twice by the time it happened. I still can’t believe that my first time finally happened, I’m still shaking with nerves.

had different expectations of how last night would go, and I don’t know if I was his first, but he was mine, so the wait was nearl nerve-wracking for me. He must have felt it too, it was almost electric, the anticipation zapping around the air. But of course I was being stupid, he was perfect.

Creative Writing

Dear diary,

Creative Writing

Words: Hannah Hamilton

Unethical Ambition Jane was anxious. The tapping of her foot filled the room like a swarm of flies. She could not remember the last time she felt so sick. In the first phase of interviews, her nerves had been non-existent. To be nervous would be to confront a chance of failure, and Jane had been absolutely certain she would fail. Every interview went the same way: INTERVIEWER : What are your greatest strengths?

JANE : As an employee, I am motivated, punctual, organised, and a great listener. INTERVIEWER : And what would you say your greatest weakness is? JANE : Is it a weakness to love hard work too much? [JANE and INTERVIEWER laugh amiably] Then, a few days later the rejection letter would arrive. Maybe the interviewer could tell Jane wasn’t being honest

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in those conversations, she had never been very good at lying. As a friend had once told her (after a particularly gruelling streak of rejections) ‘Nothing on your CV matters if you can’t turn on the charm in an interview.’ Jane had to agree, nothing on her CV ever seemed to matter. At some point her earnest job hunt had turned into a half-hearted ritual she did only to keep her mother satisfied. Often it came to nothing anyway, so when she had

Design: Callum Valentine

Your application has been approved. We would like to invite you to an initial round of interviews on February 22nd, 15:00. Please do not bring a mobile device. Please do not be late.’ She had done a little digging after that. NEF was a strange company. They had been established only 5 years prior and had made a big splash with their ‘future forward’ home design. The project Jane would be working on, provided she was accepted, was for a new housing development that would be fully cyber integrated with every convenience. The project was called ‘E-Ville’. And their website claimed it would ‘free the world from the mundanity of daily life’. Most of her research led her to the CEO Dianne Bolical. She wore power suits and did TED talks. Jane had become fascinated with her. An excerpt from an interview with Ms. Bolical: INTERVIEWER : So, what do you think it takes for a woman to survive in business? MS. BOLICAL : The same thing it takes for anyone to survive; in business, you need tenacity. Persistence will break doors that seem otherwise impenetrable. INTERVIEWER : And what if

MS. BOLICAL : It might not look exactly how you thought it would, but there is always a way to open it. Jane had watched that interview many times. She considered it all the way through her shift at the superstore, silently pondering as she stacked shelves and smiled placidly at customers. Even after, as she sat with a friend in the bar across the road. Like every night she went drinking, she rambled on about plans for the future. These usually involved the acquisition of some land, the development of a vegetable patch, and complete isolation from the rest of humanity. It was a sweet dream that soothed her mind whenever work made her bitter. That night, however, her friend had finally gotten tired of hearing it. ‘Get real, Janey. You go on and on about the life you want to live, but you’re never going to get it. You’re a graduate who’s been doing odd jobs for three years, if you wanted to move on, you would.’ Jane thought about that as she attended the NEF interview the next day, although she wasn’t sure she could class it as an interview exactly. Applicants had been filtered into teams and asked to fulfil a ‘team work exercise’ where they had to design a recreation centre that encouraged the customers to spend as much

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money within it as possible. Jane was no expert in human psychology, but she was an event’s management graduate and (long term) part-time retail employee. Her store was constantly churning out new tricks to manipulate the money out of customers’ pockets. Jane, however unintentionally, was an expert in grabbing the customers’ attention. She was skilled at ‘upselling’, but something in her stomach twisted every time she pushed a product she knew the customer didn’t need. After the interview, she found she had scored highly among the applicants. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but it advanced her to the next round. The results had set off a growing sense of unease in the pit of her stomach. Already, she had gathered some sense of what NEF wanted from her. She wondered if she could really bring herself to give it. She might have torn up her acceptance as soon as she received it, only the garden crossed her mind. Jane could picture it in her mind. Perfect, green, and far from the rest of the world. It was all there, right behind the impenetrable door of financial freedom. As she waited to be called into the second round of interview, Jane wondered at the fairness of the world. Was she really so wrong for wanting a garden?

Creative Writing

‘Dear Miss Parker,

there is an impenetrable door?

received the invitation to the first phase of interview at NEF Areas, she had been surprised.

Bird of Ambition

Words: Sam Chesters

Ambition comes to me like a bird in my sleep, Creative Writing

Flying in through my open window and nesting inside my head so that when I wake

I am filled with drive And purpose

Morning coffee, Check the to-do list Make a note of everything I hope to achieve; my plans, my aspirations, my achievements and my works-in-progress

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Design: Belle Roach

It doesn’t matter if things aren’t going as planned Perseverance is paramount And resilience is key, Check the list once more As the day progresses, And remember to be kind to myself

Everything is doable

that everything will work out in the end, Sometimes all I need is perspective to bring that bird back to me

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deep down I know

Creative Writing

even when I’m in a rut,

Creative writing

Words: Ida Valimaki

Stars Beyond Clouds the magdalen issue 93

Design: Veronika Stifter

They are always there. Always a million miles away, always just out of reach. Taunting, calling, daring me to make a move. I see them every night, all the stars that shine up in the sky, all the dreams I have yet to achieve. The little sparkling lights, telling tales of lives yet to be lived, whispering promises of what the future might hold. Painting the sky with pictures of things I’ve been too scared to hope for. Making me hope even stronger, more often, imagining the things that could be, things I could do, if I only went out and reached for the stars.

I can’t always see them; they are far, so far, always almost too far, always annoyingly close. Always just a little bit further, just a few more branches. I don’t know which ones will hold, which ones are mist, which will break, and yet I keep climbing. Shake off the mist that creeps in my mind, covers the lights and the dreams and each branch. I have made it past the clouds, and see nothing but stars. They are always there, just a little further. The ladder keeps rising, and rising and rising, and the fog rises with me. It swirls behind my eyes, it pushes me up: grab the next branch, and the next and the next. I can’t see the ground; see how far I have come. See all I have climbed, see all the branches shattered in the mist, whirling below, see how much you can’t even see. Look up at the stars, look up and keep climbing. The fog is just vapor, it’s illusive and powerless – I will not let it pull me down. I will climb, and climb, and climb, and I will keep climbing until one day— You will find me among the stars.

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They are always there. Sometimes just barely visible through the fog and the mist, yet never truly gone. Always watching, waiting – inviting me to climb. The forest is filled with ladders to the stars. Grab on the branches, pull myself forward, trust that my dreams are strong enough to last. And the branches hold, firm or just barely, making me believe I’m not foolish for climbing. And the branches break, shatter to pieces under my feet, let me fall down, away from the stars. And the fog from my mind, the mist from the ground – they cover me in hurdles, drench my muscles and pop all my bubbles. I continue to climb, up, through the branches, past all the clouds in front of the stars.

Creative Writing

Reach for the stars, take the step towards your dreams, go out and be bold, just follow the streams the stars have carved out in the mist. Dig out my own path, out of the ground, of the fog, and into the woods growing skyward. Shake off all the doubt, the fears and the guilt – the drops from the mist that still weigh me down, that cling to my skin and never let go, that condense in my head, again and anew each second I think about climbing. They hide all the stars from my eyes.

Words: Kitty McQueen

Plans, Ambitions, Goals The destination is dubious and distant, Each discreet door a potential portal, Yet the anticipation within me warms my blood.

Creative Writing

I may turn the wrong handle and decline, I will certainly leave opportunities untouched, But what I have appears crafted with love. Possibly the end shall be solitary, Probably the perception of her will alter, As every encounter offers traits to abduct. The distance from our goal may be infinite, Or cheated time may swallow up this corridor, So open every door and savour each flaw with trust.

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Creative Writing

Design: Sonia Hanke

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Creative Writing

Words: Hannah Comrie

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Design & Photography: Maria Touloupa

DEATH a phantom of what we once were still haunts these four walls banishment of energy i can’t let go of maybe i never will understand how a love as great as ours could be cast away left to rot in the graveyard of your soul which once was mine

my heart is a crystal ball of power and i ignored the signs the stars of your eyes corrupting the compatibility i had with myself

THE HERMIT maybe i am lost damned to suffer an eternity of heartbreak what if we are all lost and the poets are the only ones with the map? you made me question myself, damaging my inner spirit

Every sign was there yet still, every full moon those three cards point to you & i still want them too

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Creative writing

KNIGHT OF SWORDS

Words: Andrew Young

Creative Writing

Part 2

‘A computer virus?’ said Dave. ‘You’re telling me that a computer virus killed this man. You’re serious?’ ‘Precisely!’ said the Professor as she continued to move the metal cylinder over the body. It whirred and beeped. ‘I knew you were insane!’ said the Superintendent as he walked into the tent. ‘The commissioner is too, mind, to send us you. A scientist,’ he added derisively. ‘Oh, yes. I am insane. But I’m also right and right now you need to listen to me,’ said the Professor, ‘your life may depend on it.’ She stood up as she said this and that expression of inquisitorial joy that Dave had seen before was replaced with a serious intensity. He couldn’t help but be drawn to her and suddenly she did not seem so silly. The commissioner walked out of the tent, shaking his head and laughing to himself. The Professor stood up and started pacing around the tent, occasionally looking at her metal device. ‘So…if this computer virus is responsible for this,’ said Dave tentatively, ‘how do we find the culprit?’

‘Ah Dave, you’re still here. Sorry I was thinking. Right, well we are looking for someone, something or some place that has the potential to create a piece of technology so sophisticated that it could be downloaded on a Comms-Device and actually kill the user,’ said the Professor. Dave thought for a moment and then said, ‘I can think of one place. The Carmex Corporation. They are the creators of the Comms-Device and trust me they are the only ones with the capability of getting into the back end of those things. No one else is stupid enough to hack into one, not after the Cyber Terrorism Act of 2087.’ ‘The Cyber Terrorism Act of 2087? What’s that?’ asked the Professor. ‘Don’t you know?’ said Dave. ‘I’m afraid I was in the Acteon Galaxy at the time. Something to do with giant spiders and crystals…’

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‘Right…’ said Dave, blinking, ‘anyway, the act was passed to ensure that Carmex got a monopoly on all technological deceives in the country. Anyone who is seen to be using anything other than a Carmex controlled device is executed.’

Creative Writing

‘What, that is monstrous…’ said the Doctor.

Design: Phoebe Wilman

Before Dave could reply the Doctor stopped and put her fingers to her lips, looking at Dave. Dave realised that the muffled voices and movements of the officers outside the tent had stopped. Both Dave and the Professor turned to the tent but before they could walk out a tall jet-black figure with a smooth metallic face walked into the tent. It pointed it palm out, revealing what looked like a laser gun. ‘Stop. Do not move or you will be destroyed.’

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Words: Rebecca Raddatz

Blue Notes this is the song of the stars I’ve been grappling with, the words on the wind picking the pear trees apart. this I’ve told no one but the deaf, dumb shower walls. they make for good therapists, their echoes ask hidden answers

Creative Writing

then words and water go dripping down the drain. here you hold this curious endangered being, the hummingbird-thing I call my soul, fluttering in your grasp touch me. Raddatz

I present you – my becoming, that ever-changing tune what shall we play today? no two are the same, are siblings rather, grow and cannot go back, cannot repeat themselves; I cannot repeat myself. can you? if you put a coin in the mould of a dead girl’s mouth, there is not telling what tales she’ll tell. it might choke her instead, the pressure of tarnished metal heavy against her numbed lips. talking is silver on her tongue and in her mercury

this is what I feel like, stripped, scrubbed of my mascara and meaningless smiles, raw under your fingertips.

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Design: Phoebe Wilman & Livvie Baird, Photography: Ada Ung

it goes like this: I scared myself in the mirror this morning & my daily beat is: the thrashing of blood, the pounding of sneakers on pavement, gnashing teeth & unbearable skin ripping apart, the relentless tango of the pain that turns addictive, the thrill of exhaustion, the ecstatic aesthetic of tiredness ambitionambitionambition

stay still, you that run with me, for I have outrun myself almost. shadowless, I wait for love, if you have a symphony of silence, sympathy & patience hidden somewhere in the summer storm of your eyes play it for me. rather than plans on the wind, I’d have your fingers pick not pears but me apart.

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Creative Writing

I am not dead yet I will tell you a tale. it will only cost you a symphony of silence and sympathy.

the heart beats steady even when the key changes. above, the melody of anxiety.

bones, melting, melting down to the ground. there is not telling what her eyes will look like when they fly open, dripping quicksilver moons and the butterfly-thing she called her soul crawls out between her lips of liquid words.

Words: Orla Davey

Sometimes We Seem Broken We built our lives out of all the broken pieces people left behind. Our foundations were built of discarded hopes, fancies flung to the wind and slipping past

Creatiev Writing

our fingers like sand, because people don’t want what they no longer care about.

What are you and I even about? Our skin, bones, even our hearts, are broken beyond repair, but maybe I don’t want to be fixed. You can leave me behind but you don’t. What’s past is past – Future spoon-feeds me plenty of hopes.

I tie them like balloons, letting these hopes pull and tug and turn me about. The language of rainbows ripples past in your voice, and reality has become broken – like us. Who cares if we’re left behind? Together tells me all I want.

It may not be castle walls, but it’s all we want. No one sees the cracks or rough edges of our hopes like the eternal cracks in stone pillars History left behind. We sew them together by heartstrings, around and about the places where we tread on broken dreams – oh so broken.

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Design: Joshua Harris

Temptation lures me through the darkened cracks gone past. I feel Reality pulling us apart into the past yet my heart leaps forward, urged by Want. It will be satisfied, stained by love, or broken. But my hands feel stained by blood, not hopes.

while Reason tells me:

it’s time to leave this dream behind

Creative Writing

The castle walls glisten crimson as blood drips about

I perch on our secret like a hollowed bird, behind feelings fluttery and afraid, tainting our past lives, leaving a resistant stain on Now. What about Future? How can you stop hearing what you don’t want to hear? I don’t need a throne, I need your skin. Hopes are fading, though.

Everything is broken

I walk about the artifacts of our love, left behind. To the relics of our past, we’ll never stop being broken. Wish for what you want. Just don’t rely on your hopes.

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Words: Angus Coleman

The Origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War

Current Affairs

CONTENT WARNING: HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

ne of the most unstable international relationships throughout history is the one between Russia and Ukraine. The two countries’ different opinions on the exact nature of this relationship have been the source of considerable turmoil and debate over the years. In December 1991 Boris Yeltsin, along with Leonid Kravchuk and Stanislav Shushkevich (the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus respectively) decided to dissolve the Soviet Union in response to economic collapse, in addition to many other factors. This came almost three months after Ukraine’s Parliament ratified the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, following an attempted coup in the Soviet Union by hard-line communists - auguring the Union’s complete collapse. However, as the first president of the Russian Federation, Yeltsin did not wish for the two countries to simply go their separate ways. He, like many other Russians, saw Ukraine as forever intertwined with Russia. The city of Kyiv was a nexus of Slavic culture due to its ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, and many ethnic Russians lived in Ukraine. Despite this, he attempted to take the reborn country in a new direction, favouring freedom as a tool of the state rather than repression, rejecting old imperialist notions of Russia’s purpose in the world, and embracing market capitalism. Conversely, his successor Vladimir Putin’s administration has seen a move back towards a more authoritarian Russia, symbolised by the re-adoption of the Soviet anthem not long after Putin came to power. Ukraine on the other hand has increasingly looked west. An election in 2004 put pro-western Viktor Yushchenko in power, following a bitterly fought campaign during which he survived a poisoning attempt. Yushchenko advocated European integration and joining NATO, as well as fighting political corruption. He also signed the Borjomi Declaration with President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, ultimately leading to the creation of the Community of Democratic Choice (CDC) - a multinational collective dedicated to promoting and upholding democracy and human rights in North, Central and Eastern European countries. Of the nine founding member states, six were formerly under Soviet occupation.

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Design: Arwin Quiachon

Ukraine’s desire for further integration with western intergovernmental organisations and other diplomatic ties has stoked Russia’s aggression. This aggression has come to a head on a few occasions in the past, such as the invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, or the backing of pro-Russian separatists in the eastern reaches of Ukraine. The cultural and strategic implications of a western-looking Ukraine are deeply distressing to Vladimir Putin, especially the closer ties the country seeks with NATO and the EU. The 2014 Crimean crisis shows the lengths that Russia is willing to go to in order to prevent this. The early months of 2022 saw tensions renewed, with troops massing at the border. Tragically, the situation soon escalated into a full scale invasion by Russia, with troops entering the country across the Russian border, as well as from Belarus and Crimea. Putin’s primary reason for invading is to contain the eastward expansion of NATO, which he regards as a significant strategic threat to Russia’s interests. Russia accuses other NATO member states of plotting to supply arms and other assistance to Ukraine in an attempt to form a united front against Russia. What Russia really wants is the total withdrawal of NATO activity from eastern European countries, including the Baltic States, Poland and Romania. Regardless of how this situation ends, it is evident that Yeltsin’s dream of a post-imperialist, democratic Russia has not yet been achieved. Putin sees Ukraine’s desire to become more outward-looking and forward thinking as an attack on the values and goals of his country, and will not easily allow such change to occur.

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Current Affairs

Relations between the European Union and Ukraine have strengthened in recent years. 2009 saw the signing of the Eastern Partnership: an initiative to encourage economic cooperation and joint efforts to uphold liberal democracy, between the EU and several non-EU eastern European nations, including Ukraine. The desire for Ukrainian membership of the EU has also flourished, with a poll in 2014 showing majority support for joining in all but the two easternmost provinces of Ukraine, Luhansk Oblast and Donetsk Oblast.

The fact of the matter is this: Putin is unable to accept Ukraine as a sovereign nation, and considers its government and people exercising this sovereignty a significant threat to his interests. Despite the efforts of Yeltsin and others who saw an opportunity for Russia to follow a different path after the fall of the USSR, Putin seems intent on once again pursuing expansionism and infringing upon the freedoms of other countries. It is important to note however that recent events do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the Russian people in general, and the invasion has been met with widespread protests by the public. As of February 27th, almost 6000 people were arrested for taking part in anti-war protests. It remains to be seen if the people will tolerate the actions of their government much longer.

“Putin sees Ukraine’s desire to become more outward-looking and forward thinking as an attack on the values and goals of his country”

Words: Harry Anderson

Current Affairs

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Hypocrisies of Conservative Empathy T

he year is 1965: the average cost of a house in Britain is around £3000 and with wages being proportionately similar to today’s, the average Brit doesn’t worry about the impossible costs of buying a house. Almost 60 years later and we face one of the steepest increases in UK living costs in recent history. Costs of living in the UK are at their highest in 30 years and while the reasons behind said rises are myriad, they are hardly new, especially in comparison to the current crisis, and instead stand as a monument to decades of inequality and incompetency. While the rising costs of living, the housing crisis and the numerous other crises are hardly new information, the politics behind said crises are far more secretive. Despite the government treating these crises as inevitabilities, the truth is that the Conservatives actions have indirectly been responsible for the lacklustre reaction to many of

these crises, with political lies and an attempt to hold onto power being the fuel that ignites these crises. With economies around the world being hit by Covid-19, the UK faces a unique situation as a result of both Brexit and of the increasing political deceptions over the past few years. Despite claims of solidarity and ‘knowing what people are going through,’ the truth is that Boris Johnson and the majority of his cabinet (two-thirds of which were privately educated) are completely out of touch with the very citizens that they claim to represent. As is seen time and time again with Conservative claims of comradery, the simple truth is that the rising living costs and other conservative legislation affect issues that directly harm the poorest

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people in the UK, certainly not the many millionaires that make up the Conservative government. Even when analysing the differences in costs between high-income and low-income households, the stark difference in spending is indicative of how little regard the government has for the lowest income families: for upper-income households, inflation will be driven by the price of expensive furniture, eating out and for recreational activities. For lower-income houses, inflation is instead driven by necessities like housing and energy costs. As of the writing of this article, millions of families across the UK are facing food shortages and life-threatening conditions. For many, it is a choice between starvation or freezing temperatures. While rising inflation can often benefit employers and others in positions of economic

Design: Phoebe Wilman

Despite the ubiquitous nationwide havoc that inflation and fuel shortages are wreaking, not all UK countries are affected equally. Scotland currently has the highest levels of fuel poverty in the UK, with almost 900,000 homes predicted to suffer from the skyrocketing energy prices. With such high rates of fuel poverty, one would expect the Scottish government to concoct a plan perfectly suited to address said Scottish issues, yet the opposite seems to have occurred. The SNP, in a bizarre turn of events, chose to mirror the English response rather than address the issue. For a government that decried the UK response as ‘wholly inadequate’, the choice to go

It’s impossible to mention political lies and Tory subterfuge without mentioning the Conservative Magnum Opus that is Brexit. It should be of no surprise to anyone that many of the grandiose promises made in support of Brexit have been revealed as blatantly untrue, with many heartfelt assurances being unfulfilled more than 5 years later. The monetary cost of Brexit has been exponentially bigger than the nonsense figures of ‘£800 million’ that the Leave campaign promised to regain. Johnson himself touted the Leave campaign as a way to ‘take back control’ and establish the UK as a more global nation, yet immigration to the UK has hardly changed and the promises of elaborate trade deals have

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been unfounded so far. Instead, the British people have been left with a declining welfare state; an underfunded NHS, despite Conservative claims to the contrary; and a general lack of empathy from our own government. Consequently, when these conditions are combined with the economic fallout from Brexit and Covid-19 have made the rising prices exponentially worse. Rather than addressing the issues, we have seen a government that continues to try and weasel its way out of admitting fault through childish insults and political distractions.

Current Affairs

“Instead, the British people have been left with a declining welfare state; an underfunded NHS, despite Conservative claims to the contrary; and a general lack of empathy from our own government.”

against anti-poverty charities and enact a response that seems underwhelming at best is an unusual one. The choice seems a far cry from the often more radical SNP, a choice that seems remarkably out of touch for a party that predominantly draws votes from the middle and working sects, classes that will be disproportionately affected by the rising costs of living.

power, it can be catastrophic for those who lack said benefits. This becomes especially evident when wages, which have stagnated in Britain since the 60s, don’t keep up with the inflation rates.

Words: Saarah Mehmood

Warmonger Putin !

CONTENT WARNING: HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Current Affairs

he world’s attention is on Russia as Putin’s war is being seen as a challenge to European security.

The Invasion As the tension in the east of Europe began to grow in late 2021, diplomats from around the world tried to reach out to Putin in an attempt to predict his plans. The warmonger and his associates played out what is now seen as an act, as many believe that diplomacy was never really an option. On February 24th, Putin launched an assault “to defend people who for eight years are suffering persecution and genocide by the Kyiv regime,” a mere excuse for the ongoing genocide. He demanded Ukraine lay down her weapons or be “responsible for bloodshed”. Ukraine, rightly so, did not comply.

Ukrainian resistance has been fierce, thwarting Russia’s bid for a rapid victory. The early stages of the invasion began with intense missile strikes, and assaults by paratroopers and special forces. The surprise for Russian troops stems from naive propaganda that the Ukrainians will meet Russian ‘liberators’ with open arms and flowers, and the Ukrainian military will lay down their arms. Instead, many brave citizens take arms and put their bodies on the line to derail Russia’s plans. President Zelensky has made a call globally welcoming anyone who wishes to come to Ukraine and join the war effort on home ground. The response of the Ukrainian people, ordinary citizens, is a testament to the value and importance of the freedoms we have. Around the world we are able to watch the superpower that is Russia halt at the sight of young people, old people, volunteers who unarmed stand in the way of tanks, sing the Ukrainian anthem in the face of their oppressors and stand in lines mile long to give all they have, as one brave act inspires another.

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Design: Arwin Quiachon

Despite all that international support, Ukrainian troops are alone on the ground. NATO made it clear that it will not send soldiers to Ukraine. As President Zelensky stated “We’re defending Ukraine alone. Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone.” Putin has triggered the biggest European defence reassessment in decades. There is a resurgence of western unity as the EU countries, dependent on Russian oil, agree to sanctions, demonstrating strength and absolute support for Ukraine. European powers are beginning to fully appreciate the dangers of their dependence on Russian oil and have started plans to shift towards other resources, placing Russia in a potentially longterm economic calamity. Russia’s allies are hiding away with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who once named Putin his best friend and continuously supported his criticisms of NATO, becoming reluctant to support his violent actions. Even some of Russia’s closest allies, namely Venezuela and Cuba, have expressed their disappointment. The continent is bleeding. No matter the outcome of this war, the Ukrainian identity and sense of pride will never be broken.

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Current Affairs

Misinformation and Propaganda The 21st century hallmarks of Russia’s invasion are her cyber operations and misinformation. This hybrid war began weeks before any troops entered the country: emailing bomb threats, sending fake texts about ATM malfunctions and, most notably, the attacks on Ukrainian Government websites with pop-ups attempting to corrupt the internet network and spread malware. Misinformation and propaganda with a 21st century flare emerged with the aim of destroying Ukrainian strength and pride. Moreover, Russia staged events designed to implicate Ukrainian armed forces and drum up Russian military aggression in the run up of the invasion. And as the conflict began, Russia started circulating news of Polish borders refusing entry to refugees and Ukrainian troops surrendering all in an attempt to diminish Ukrainian strength. Following this vein, I encourage readers to appreciate how social media is amplifying misinformation examples including fake live streams asking for donations. To follow the conflict please ensure that any sources used are verified and trusted like The Kyiv Independent or The Euromaidan Press, both outlets with roots in Ukraine. Trusted and verified charities include Savelife, Ukrainian Women’s Veteran Movement and United Help Ukraine; this comes from a list published by Yale history professor and Russia-Ukraine expert Timothy Snyder.

The World’s Response The western world has largely condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have since placed increasingly tough sanctions intending to isolate Russia and inflict damaging economic costs. The UK, EU and the US have increased pressure since the invasion, agreeing to band many Russian banks off from SWIFT, making it almost impossible for international transactions to be processed. As the violence grew, military aid has increased exponentially, with the European Union agreeing to provide 500 million euro in arms and other aid to the Ukrainian military. Even Germany in a historic shift has agreed to send arms reversing a historic policy of never sending weapons to conflict zones.

“The continent is bleeding. No matter the outcome of this war, the Ukrainian identity and sense of pride will never be broken.”

International

Words: Priyasha Bachu

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Design: Militsa Ruseva

Whaling in Iceland − The End of an Era haling - The process of hunting down whales for their meat and blubber.

Iceland, Norway and Japan - the only 3 countries in the world where commercial whaling is legal. However, this number just dropped to two as Iceland takes the initiative to end whaling by 2024. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1982 took the decision to ban commercial whaling, coming into effect during the 1985-1986 season. While many objections were brought forth by many counties, a ban on commercial whaling was still placed. Iceland, however, continued a small scientific whaling programme until 1989 before abruptly leaving the IWC in 1992, but joining again in 2002. They took out a reservation against the ban and resumed commercial whaling from 2006. And for the next 13 years, hundreds of whales were killed - especially the fin whale which is now listed as endangered. In 2016, the Icelandic Foreign Ministry released a report stating that political relations were not being damaged due to this practice and continued to allow whaling in Iceland. The government gave great importance to the idea of sustainable use of living marine resources especially whales as they believed this gave them long term success. Whaling is adored by many old people and people who live in the rural and coastal regions in Iceland. The largest revenue from whaling, however, comes from the export of its meat to Japan. Nonetheless, with awareness against whaling and its meat consumption, vegans and vegetarians have been leading protests against the hunting of these intelligent sea creatures. Sea Shepherd UK is a nonprofit run organisation and Rob Read, who leads the

branch in Iceland, got a group together to stop the Hvalur plant. They staked out the whale hunting ports and shared their findings on social media to raise the international awareness of the issue. This is, however, just one example, as for many years anti-whaling activists have tried to ban this practice, but their efforts fell to deaf ears. The anti-whaling activists point to tourism as a key factor which keeps the practice alive. Many tourists believe that eating whale meat when visiting the country is a tradition, and since this industry makes up around 10% of Iceland’s gross domestic product (GDP), it is clear to see why whaling is still practised. Icelandic commercial whaling is held up by 2 major companies – IP-Utgard and Hvalur hf, but both of them have faced a series of blows, incurring losses. At first the coronavirus regulations, which forced them to halt their whaling operations, and then the extension of no-fishing zones, meaning that boats would now have to go further offshore to collect. And finally, the export of whale meat to Japan has been drastically reduced since Japan left the IWC in 2019, after 30 years of fighting the commercial whaling bans. This gave rise to Japanese government subsidies which provide almost 46 million USD for research and whale hunting.The meat subsequently is sold at a fixed price given by the Fisheries Agency of Japan and other private owned organisations. Despite the discussed changes being dictated by economic rather than ethical reasons, they still have saved hundreds of whales from being slaughtered. While it’s hard to argue that the pandemic has any positive notion to it, it at least managed to save the lives of the whale species and may have prevented them from going extinct in the near future.

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International

CONTENT WARNING: ANIMAL CRUELTY

Words: Remus

International

Lost in Translation B

eing a native speaker of a small language has its pros and cons. One of the advantages is that in addition to selling some Estonian books, bookstores in Estonia also have a wide variety of international ones, both translations and originals, which, I would argue, gives Estonian readers a broader worldview. However, adding the translation process to a text, no matter the genre and the form is a step where things can go wrong. When it comes to translated texts people read for entertainment, I am very critical, mainly because

I read a lot for enjoyment and escapism, the experience of which a bad translation can ruin. Although I am sure it is possible to translate well between any two languages, I also believe there are languages that go together more naturally, and languages that simply do not make sense in relation to one another. Some examples. A Russian-Estonian translation makes sense because Russian culture has had a big impact on Estonian culture, and the Estonian language has over two hundred loan words from Russian. A Finnish-Estonian translation makes sense because the cultures and languages are

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However, this does not mean reading every EnglishEstonian translation is an unpleasant experience. I recently read a book called Fault Lines by Nancy Huston - I got the Estonian translation of it years ago and finally found the time to finish it a few months ago. Despite having stressed that a good translation is very important to me, I usually don’t think about it much as I get immersed in the story itself. Only when the language feels awkward and unnatural do I start paying attention to the technical aspects, frustrated that the pleasurewhich comes from reading has been ruined. While reading Fault Lines, however, I don’t remember being bothered by the translation. I didn’t even think about it as a translated text until I got to the very end of the book. On the very last pages, there was a translator’s note which explained

the translation process for this particular book, as it was something quite out of the ordinary. Apparently, Huston wrote the book originally in French and then translated it to English herself, adjusting the text to make the phrases suit the language better. During the translation process of Fault Lines, the Estonian translator had both the French and the English version at hand. I think this might be one of the reasons why it reads better than many English-Estonian translations, although the translator obviously did not have the freedom to make even slight adjustments to the text itself. Not that a French-Estonian translation would theoretically make more sense than an English-Estonian one, but I think having two different versions suited for two different cultural contexts must have contributed a lot to finding a happy medium. When it comes to my personal preference, I used to think that it is always better to read a book in its original language. This resulted in doing mostof my reading in English for a long time. In the last two years, however, I have rediscovered translations for myself, possibly because having lived in an English-speaking country for over a year now, I have realised how difficult it is to keep my Estonian in good shape, and getting lost in these translations is one of the few ways of doing that.

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similar enough. An English-Estonian translation, on the other hand, does not make sense because those two cultures and languages have never coexisted in such close quarters before, which means it is much harder to build sentences that flow naturally, yet convey the correct meaning and emotions. And there are unfortunately quite a few examples of bad English-Estonian translations indeed - while the words perhaps convey the correct meaning and emotion, the sentences often sound unnatural and English-like, which makes it impossible to enjoy the text to its fullest.

International

Design: Joshua Medcraf

Words: Erin Waldie

International

MEDIA CENSORSHIP IN CHINA

CONTENT WARNING: HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

hina has been in the news quite a lot, but not for the opening of the Winter Olympics, rather, for new censorship laws, concerning the outfits of characters in video games, LGBTQ+ content, and media that promotes ‘misbehaviour’ and ‘disobedience’. Moreover, there is also significant censorship over the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghur population by the Chinese government. This censorship is so extreme that a Chinese diplomat has stated that any athlete who speaks out against any of these issues will be punished. Censorship can be defined as “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable or a threat to security.” For example, in the UK we have a watershed on TV, which prevents young people from seeing potentially obscene content such as tragic accidents and R-rated movies. In China, it is much more thorough with it being considered a threat to human rights and has to do more with what the Chinese government consider ‘politically unacceptable’ content, such as censoring the identity of the Uyghurs who are an ethnic group in China. This started with the Olympics, in July 2021, which created a new form of TikTok, ‘OlympicTok’, which broadcasted the mundane parts of an Olympic athlete’s life, showing things like the cafeteria and the famed cardboard beds. This started with the Olympics, in July 2021, which created a new form of TikTok, ‘OlympicTok’, which broadcasted the mundane parts of an Olympic athlete’s life, showing things like the

cafeteria and the famed cardboard beds. There was concern that due to China’s censorship laws, athletes competing in Beijing Olympics would be banned from making content for ‘OlympicTok, as the majority of social media apps, such as Facebook and Twitter are banned in China and Doutin (the Chinese TikTok app) has no crossover with the international version of it. Moreover, these social media sites, and websites such as Wikipedia, Google, BBC News, etc, were banned due to censorship as the Chinese government views them as a threat to national security. The websites that have been blocked contain information about China’s human rights violations and information that the government does not want the public to know. This mass block of websites is known as ‘China’s Great Firewall’ and despite concerns about whether athletes would face this ‘Great Firewall’, it has been opened for athletes competing in China. There have been reports, however, that the app that athletes are using to report their health,especially regarding Covid-19, has encryption issues. Not only that, but athletes have to buy a new SIM card to access websites censored by the Chinese government. Nevertheless, censorship isn’t just online. It also covers other types of media such as film. The biggest and most recent example is the censorship of the cult classic film Fight Club. Currently, the film is streamed for Chinese citizens through a platform called Tencent, a giant entertainment company based in mainland China. The film for the most part is the same, except for the ending. It could be argued that it was censored

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Design: Anna McNee

It is incredibly important to be aware that while some of these methods of censorship seem simple, people and companies can be in severe danger if they do not follow them. It includes the promotion of ideas that the Chinese government wants everyone to follow, thinking that they do no wrong and are protecting Chinese civilians from what is being censored, but it goes against their right to knowledge and information about the country that they live in. While the Chinese government claims that it is a form of protection and it is for the greater good of the population, it is a form of control, dictating what everyone should see, infringing on their human rights.

International

in order to promote the Chinese police, to explicitly show that they are effective, smart and can even prevent large threats against civilians. And Fight Club isn’t even the first example of Chinese censorship which promotes the police force. There is a Hong Kong film called Naked Ambition for example, which explored the local sex industry, that was censored. It was re-edited and renamed to‘The Inescapable Snare and had Hong Kong police officers team up with Beijing’s Ministry of Public Security in order to crack down on pornography and prostitution.

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Words: Chelsea Dalscheid

End of Term Blues M

International

arch, April and June, the months many of us are looking forward to, after enduring the short and seemingly gloomier days of January and February. The days are now, slowly but surely, getting longer and waking up in the morning is easier, with more hours of sun throughout the day, which is a huge advantage for everyone’s mental health.

However, this time of year doesn’t just call for positive feelings and the beginning of sunnier days. As a student the months of March and April tend to be crucial, because you are either working day and night on researched essays, or you’re studying hard for upcoming exams, all with the aim of doing your best. In the midst of the end of term stress, one easily forgets planning what follows it. Especially for me, as an international student nearly halfway through my degree. On the one hand, I am excited about how far I have come and I am proud of what I have achieved, but on the other, there is this nervousness as I find myself wondering at how fast time has flown by. I remember feeling this way last year, despite the fact that time seemed to be more lengthy as we were all in lockdown, stuck at home.

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Now that I am halfway through, other questions emerge and decisions need to be made, particularly as an international student, there is a limit to my stay: my student ID card expires in June 2024, my bank card’s expiration date is October 2025, and my pre-settlement scheme confirms my allowance for being in the UK for five years, meaning three years and a few months are left. This seems like a long time, but knowing that I am going to grow older, the more I feel time slipping through my fingers and it’s becoming more and moreimportant to begin planning the whereabouts of my future life. Many of us, like me, are in a place where adulting tasks grow more and more prominent, just like we need to grow up as well and be responsible for our own decisions. I have started asking myself if I can imagine living in the UK once I’ve finished my degree and move on to do a masters, or if I want to pursue my university career in another country, closer to home. But it is also hard to imagine myself two to three years from now. The time you spend living on your own, in your university city, shapes you a great deal, and each day brings a new lesson which helps you grow more mature, thus I can’t possibly know how I will feel about moving to another country or staying here.

International

Design: Amy Williamson

“I feel time slipping through my fingers and it’s becoming more and more important to begin planning the whereabouts of my future life.”

Nevertheless, I still believe that things will eventually fall into place, even if I don’t have it all figured out at this moment in time, despite being at this halfway mark. I think these last two years have proven to us how unpredictable the future can be, which consequently shows that having a plan doesn’t really guarantee anything and can also lead to disappointment or stress if it doesn’t work out.

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Words: Ayanna Cullen

A Spring Stroll

On/Off Campus

pring is almost upon us. The snowdrops are poking their heads out of the ground, the days are getting longer, and there’s still a crisp chill in the air. This still lingering coldness may be a deterrent for many of you that stops you from going out and experiencing nature to its fullest, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Within the city, there lies many opportunities to get out there and shake off those winter chills. And let’s face it, hot chocolate and cake feels a lot more rewarding if you’ve had to work for it. So fill your thermos, wrap up warm and hell, bring a sandwich or two, as I lead you down the trail of the most scenic walks around Dundee that are guaranteed to get you your 10,000 steps a day.

Riverside Walk But hey, aren’t we forgetting the easiest, most accessible walk to everyone in Dundee? The Dundee Waterfront Riverside Walk. Going all the way from the V&A Museum to Invergowrie, this singular path stretches a whopping 3 miles which you can take at your leisure. It provides stunning views of the waterfront as you pass by many of Dundee’s landmarks. You start your walk at the V&A as it stands proudly next to the beautiful RRS Discovery. Along your way, you will encounter several sculptures, gifted by Dundee artists, each with their own story to tell. A bit further along and you’ll encounter the magnificent Tay Rail Bridge followed closely by the Magdalen Green Bandstand - an iconic symbol of Dundee that still to this day hosts live music during the summer months. After a short stop at the Tay Bridge Memorial, you can nip in for a hot drink at the Bridgeview Station Cafe. Of course, due to the rather linear nature of this walk, you can take as much or as little of it as you desire. The further you go, the more sights you’ll see. So go out and explore! the magdalen issue 93

Design: Ana Vich Cólogan, Photography: Ada Ung

Balgay Hill Lying 146 metres above sea level and only a 40-minute walk and 11-minute drive away from Dundee town centre, Balgay Hill is a lovely, leisurely walk with multiple paths to appeal to people of all abilities. The hill itself is covered in a network of different paths so the walk can be as long or as short as you like. Perfect for a quick run or a lengthy catch-up with your friends. Each path takes you around a different part of Balgay Hill so there’s a large range of beautiful views for you to take in. At the summit of the hill lies the Mills Observatory, which was gifted to the people of Dundee by scientist John Mills in 1935. With free entry and car accessibility, this building is now Britain’s only full-time public observatory. Leading from the base of the hill directly up to the observatory is a quaint little path known as the “Planet Trail” which offers those who walk along it a symbolic map of our solar system. Why just take a walk when you can always learn a little something? If that’s not enough to sway you then hold onto your hats, because the hill is home to not only exotic species of plants, but bats and owls too! Now, who wouldn’t want to see an owl? Seems like a right hoot. the magdalen issue 93

Standing at 174 metres, being the remains of volcanic activity over 400 million years ago, the Dundee Law is a very prominent feature of the city’s skyline. At the summit lies the Beacon which was unveiled in 1925 as a World War One and (also became a) World War Two memorial. This memorial is lit up four times a year on special remembrance days for all the city to see. There are many maps available online that will guide you through the city up to the peak of the Law however the most notable of these walks starts in the City Square. This is the most popular route as it leads you on a one-mile journey, avoiding the busiest roads, and along signposted footpaths. The view from the top is what makes the journey worth it at the end. Even on a bad day, the view from Dundee Law is stunning. Stretching across the horizon you can see right along the River Tay, over Perth, and to the Sidlaw Hills beyond. It’s my strong belief that everyone who lives here should try walking up the Law at least once and why wouldn’t you? If you get your timing right, this 40-minute walk can show you the magnificence of the sunset and sunrise over the Tay which just takes your breath away. Driving routes are also available.

On/Off Campus

Dundee Law

Words: Socialist Society

Society Spotlight:

On/Off Campus

Socialist Society

he Socialist Society attracts friendly, fair-minded, reasonable people with common sense views that make racist uncles choke at the dinner table and turn trips home for Christmas into a special episode of Eastenders set in Russia, 1917. We have variously cool, normal and sexy aesthetics (although mostly cool and sexy), and we are just bloody nice people. We are as passionate about social justice as Jimmy Carr is about avoiding being funny. Our diverse experiences and varied perspectives ensure our conversations are interesting and that we learn from each other as we work together on exquisitely delightful shenanigans. Independent in thought, unafraid to be real and to stand up against bullshit, we’re like if Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and Priti Patel were loved as children.

We explore the important questions, such as “should landlords be allowed to breathe air for free?” We are not purely a philosophical discussion group; many of us are active in the Dundee Student Renters’ Union and campaign for our rights as tenants and help students defend ourselves against the shitfuckery of landlords. This practical grounding in the day-to-day issues we face keeps us real, relatable and radical. Wanna hear a secret? We have the wildest kink! It’s called solidarity. We are passionate about workers being treated like actual human beings. We enjoy supporting workers standing up for their rights, whether its fellow students in Dundee getting underpaid in unsafe environments, or the cleaners and clerical staff who keep our university going or our lecturers who give us hope that one day we will

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Design: Livvie Baird

On/Off Campus

no longer fear 9am. We attend picket lines (extra contact hours) and engage in totally legitimate troublemaking. Well, someone’s got to!

Whatever your background, you are welcome. Perhaps you had unreasonable expectations of life like “having enough SAAS to literally not be homeless” and became radicalised; maybe you just like social justice with a cool edge; or are you the one with the radical upbringing in a pagan commune selling dope-infused bread (please join if you did). Whether you want to dip your toes into a community of engaged social justice activists, discuss left-wing theory of common or niche variety, or just wanna chill, our Society is always open to you. Nerds, athletes, library-dwellers, party animals, forest-explorers, fellow human beings: together in our quests for justice we can get some awesome experiences. See you around, alright?

Scan QR code to find out more about our society! the magdalen issue 93

Words: Olivia Laird Design: Livvie Baird

Dundee University Dance Club:

The Show Must Go On

On/Off Campus

he beauty of Dundee University Dance Club is that it draws together students from a spectrum of different degrees, year groups and experiences, uniting them all with a shared passion for dance. The standard of dancers is extremely high, with some narrowly opting to study academic courses at university over pursuing a career in dance, though the club also welcomes complete beginners. It is an extremely inclusive and diverse environment. Dance as a sport has a notorious reputation of embodying dancers with strict discipline and dedication - both valuable skills dancers often apply to other areas in life. Throughout the year, it is typical for dancers to bow out of social events or activities clashing with rehearsal schedules so sacrifice is a huge part of what it takes to be part of the club. You could ask any member, and they would say the reap of the rewards is entirely worth it. Devotion and dedication was portrayed by Dundee University Dance Club (DUDC) throughout the toughest times; the ‘Covid Year’. Reluctant to tie up their dancing shoes and admit defeat for a year during exceptional circumstances, last year DUDC continued to train. Dance classes would take place on Zoom, as we all tried to manoeuvre our way around tiny bedrooms and student halls, as well as even dancing in hats, scarfs, and gloves on tennis courts! As the saying goes in showbiz, ‘the show must go on’ and this was certainly embodied by all members of the club. However, unfortunately due to the worsening coronavirus conditions early last year, the show was cancelled, and rehearsals of all sorts had to come to an end.

different, positive aura. This year, we had the luxury of returning to dance studios and classes have been running exceptionally ever since. On far more encouraging terms, the DUDC show this year is very much going ahead, and we cannot wait to welcome you all to the theatre! After two years of resilience as a club in extremely testing times, we stayed united and upbeat, even as we dodged tennis balls, danced through the dark nights, and attended super early morning rehearsals on the Magdalen green bandstand outdoors. Our annual show will run over the weekend of 25th and 26th March 2022, taking place in the beautiful Gardyne Theatre, Broughty Ferry. It is guaranteed to be a rich night of entertainment with dance styles ranging from ballet to Michael Jackson hits, a cell block tango musical theatre piece, funky afro beat hip hop and many, many more. One of the comedy gold highlights of the night is often the ‘Sports Boys Dance’, featuring boys from a variety of university sports teams (with no dance experience whatsoever!). Tickets can be purchased via the QR code on this page. As a club, we are ambitious to sell out all performances since we unfortunately, like many other social events, had to cancel our show last year due to restrictions on socialisation. After dancing in our student flats on zoom, tennis courts and even at times on Magdalen Green, we are eager for this show to be bigger and better than ever!

As we all know, things got better! Returning to university this academic year had a completely

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Scan the QR Code for tickets to the DUDC Annual Show

Opinions

Words: Ryan Petrie

Young Adult Fiction Is Addressing More Serious Topics Than Adult Fiction Ever Has

“ Literature is as old as speech; it

grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed…the ancient commission of the writer has not changed; he is charged with exposing our grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.” (John Steinbeck, 1962)

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Design: Robyn Black

Once upon a time this used to be the case. Writers won many awards for the quality of the work they produced, and the issues they discussed in them. But writers that have written for the younger audience, for children and young adults, have been unfairly side-lined and disregarded. It is now, however, quite the reverse. Adult fiction is now far too scared to talk about the issues of the modern world, whereas young adult fiction has found a way to harness and free the minds of many of its readers, by bringing to the surface issues that need to be addressed. Topics like racism, misogyny, homophobia, all are discussed in books like Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens’ Agenda by Becky Albertalli, and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy. Each one of these stories, and many others besides, have been talking about the bigger issues more than adult writing ever has. Back in time, say the 1950s and 60s, writing had been given a real push to the foreground, by discussing issues relevant to the time. Writers like Harper Lee and John Steinbeck and James Baldwin and Audre Lorde talked about the real issues experienced first-hand. In Britain, Mary Renault was writing about the beauty of homosexual love in her Ancient Greek novels, which had won her a huge following in both Britain, America and many other countries around the world. These voices have now been supplanted by authors who write pretty words but lack real substance. If we look, for example, at Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 Booker Prize winning novel The Remains of the Day, we get a story that is relatively plotless, lacking action, full of very pretty words, but missing any form of substance to it. There is a great deal in that book that should happen but

doesn’t, and the critics and awards sing its praises and call it a melody of understated emotion. The world has had enough of understatement and closed off emotion. Adult fiction is now full of it, when the stark reality is that writing should pump the blood of readers. Though Shelley was wrong in every way about writers being perceived as unacknowledged legislators of the world, writers have a lot to say. But the writers that really have anything worth saying are coming from the young adult shelves. Each writer of young adult books has either got a story to tell, or they have something to say from the experience they share with their readers. In Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is faced with terrible decisions that are forced on her because of the tyranny of the Capitol and its undemocratic leaders, and she is witness to some of the most atrocious massacres in young adult fiction. She sees oppression and tyranny and persecution, and joins the fight to bring down the oppressive government that seeks to destroy her and any opposition, while exploring an authentic portrait of PTSD. In Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give, the reader is given a graphic depiction of a hate crime perpetrated because of the colour of someone’s skin. These books are talking about life-threatening issues, but the world of adult literary fiction is too concerned with how they can craft a pretty sentence and win an award for it. Steinbeck said in his Nobel acceptance speech in 1962, “Literature is as old as speech; it grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed…the ancient commission of the writer has not changed; he is charged with exposing our grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.” The world of adult fiction has strayed from this, and it is the voices of the young that have taken up this clarion call. I eagerly await what new voices are brought to light, and the things they have to say. As a political act, writing has become the medium of younger, more open voices. What it is they have to say the world will soon discover.

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Opinions

he world of young adult fiction has been side-lined now for the best part of three decades, being nothing more than stories about boy wizards or teenage girls struggling inevitably to win over the gorgeous young man they have their sights set on. The world of adult fiction has always been the place for serious intellectual discussion on the topics of the modern world—how people think and feel and how they react to the world around them.

Opinions

Words: Hannah Hamilton

Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard the magdalen issue 93

Design: Alexandra Heal

Teaching children that politeness is a requirement, that before all else they must make sure they remember etiquette, is potentially quite damaging to a developing child. A polite child learns to put the opinion and comfort of others above their own needs. They learn to give respect to elders, regardless of whether that person deserves to be respected or not. We all know of figures of authority that do not act in a way that should warrant our respect. Can we really tell children to respect all adults when those adults might show no respect towards children? It sets up a precedent of meekness in the face of abuse of power. Later in life, this could mean we are more likely not to stand up to an abusive boss. We might pass it off as a fact of life and never contest it. Having never been taught the importance of their own opinions, children can develop a shyness that follows them into adulthood. This lack of confidence can affect children, even in their own environments feeling as though they don’t have the confidence to express how they are feeling.

If they’re struggling with a situation, at home or at school, they will have no confidence in their ability to speak up - not if adults make them feel like they don’t want to hear it. Because of this, children continue to live in discomfort of expressing their opinions and subsequently find it hard to leave dangerous situations as an adult. This can be particularly prevalent for fear of coming across as ‘impolite’. Not necessarily in the case of being chased by an axe murderer, but more likely in the case of a date that doesn’t feel right. Often it can be hard to tell if a situation is heading towards a bad end, and, if we act with politeness at the forefront, we can allow it to develop further out of a fear of insulting the other person. It is no surprise that this hesitation happens, as the idea is reinforced heavily amongst children. The consequences are likely not intentional - surely the goal is to raise a child conscientious of those around them - but the execution can lead to more harm than good. I don’t believe that politeness itself is the villain in this instance, there are still benefits to teaching children how to act towards others with some respect, but we should try to encourage them not to sacrifice their own needs to prioritise those of others.

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Opinions

ow many times have you heard the adage? As children, we were told repeatedly to mind our manners, never speak out of turn, respect our elders, keep our elbows off the table... The rules were countless. They were also, if you ask me, ridiculous.

Words: Cat Pritchard

Ace of Spades

llosexual is one of the least discussed sexual identities. The term can be applied to anyone who experiences sexual attraction, regardless of their sexual orientation. The reason that so few have heard of this identity is because most allosexual people have never had to explain their experience of sexual attraction before. Everyone knows what it feels like to get the hots for someone, right?

Opinions

Wrong. On the other side of this coin lies the asexual spectrum, comprising a variety of identities which indicate a lack of sexual attraction. These identities aren’t commonly talked about either, as most people aren’t aware they exist. The absence of discussion can be isolating for asexual people, who often feel broken because they aren’t told that their experiences are normal.

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Design: Phoebe Wilman

Sexual attraction is a spectrum and the sooner we acknowledge this, the better. No two people express love in the same way and that’s awesome. Whether your favourite playing card is the queen of hearts or the ace of spades, I encourage you to cherish our differences and grab your shovels, let’s reinforce what connects us and bridge the gaps.

Opinions

Everyone you have ever met will have different preferences when it comes to relationships and asexual people are no different. Some asexual people have sex, some asexual people seek out romantic relationships and not all asexual people are sex repulsed. Similarly, there are allosexual people who don’t have sex, don’t want romantic relationships and/or are uncomfortable about the topic of sex.

The lack of knowledge and understanding about asexuality makes coming out difficult. After leaving the closet, asexual people are often met with awkward and invasive questions about their personal life. As someone who identifies as asexual, I have been asked things like “What sort of asexual are you?”, “But what if your partner wants to have sex with you?” and “How can you love someone if you don’t have sex?” To be clear, asexual people do not owe you an explanation for their identity. However, if you are talking to someone about their asexuality, keep their boundaries in mind. Be an active listener and make an effort to understand the information they share with you. Try to avoid asking intimate questions about their relationships and don’t bother making assumptions about how boring their life must be without sex. I can assure you that most of us don’t feel like we’re missing out on much.

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Words: Hazel Surtees

Science + Tech

Trees, Tides, and the Poor Bastards In-Between

hen Mum and I went to climb Screel, the tallest hill near home, we were struck by the scale of the destruction of Storm Malik. The mouth of the car park was blocked with walls of fallen pines-trunks half the size of me piled into walls double my height. Empty birds’ nests, used to sitting in the clouds, now sat eye-level with us, and the small stream cutting through still gushed with white foam but carried debris and mud. The hills looked as if they had been clambered on by clumsy, giant toddlers- chunks of tree cover collapsed and sunk. The hill beside had been stripped bare by forestry efforts, and the sandy, gritty soil formed ribbon-like patterns after the rainfall, curling around awkward stumps. It was dramatic and it was beautiful, but I wasn’t really marvelling at the power of nature. In fact, the whole thing made me feel a bit unsettled. It had been strange weather, hadn’t it? Sure enough, the Guardian published an article shortly after asking the same question I’d been thinking: is this all because of climate change? A pivotal paper by Fischer et al. in 2015 promised as much. Global warming didn’t just mean warming but brought with it rain and wind, hurricanes, and flooding. I was lucky I only saw the damage on the hillside. For many, these extreme weather events lead to loss of livelihood and life. So now what?

the magdalen issue 93

Design: Jenny Thomson

For more than 3.5 billion people rice is the staple food, providing 20% of their daily calories. The 2020 floods in China impacted 6 million hectares of cropland, leading to over a million hectares of total crop failure. The floods were not found to have a direct impact on food prices, with the Chinese government relying on imports and stockpiles, but as climate change worsens, it also threatens global food security.

Many are also advocating for “blue-green infrastructure”: revitalising the environment’s natural capacity to manage flooding. While the interplay between the natural environment and water systems is a complex one, analysis has found reliable benefits to restoring flood plains, increasing native tree cover, and restoring rivers to their natural paths. After all, the ribbons of gritty sand I described earlier, falling down the hill after rain, was an artefact of the deforestation, becoming loose and dry without roots. Natural habitats can play essential roles in flood defences: mangrove forests can reduce wave height by 20% per 100m of forest, frequently more effective than grey infrastructure. The ideal solution will probably draw on a complex mixture of blue-green and grey infrastructure, as found in Chen et al.’s 2021 paper on urban flood management. In our changing climate, flooding is and will continue to be inevitable, and loss of life and livelihood will result from this. Building sustainable, lasting infrastructure and societies to face the future is becoming increasingly challenging. There are solutions. New methods of flood defence - and of defence against all extreme weather scenarios - are becoming more refined and effective. So, too, are scientists developing crops to withstand their unpredictable conditions. Most of China, for example, may one day be planting rice cultivars containing the Sub1 gene - a submergencetolerant trait. I won’t call this a drop in the ocean. These innovations will save lives and be key for developing resilient agriculture, yet planting miles of mangroves, cultivating acres of floodplains, and developing indestructible crop varieties will only do so much for the rainfall, flooding, and melting ice caps. Governments must take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gases, pollution, and destruction of our natural habitats - or otherwise risk a hungry, barren, and drowning world. The tide is rising. Do you think we’ll sink or swim?

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Science + Tech

Agriculture is particularly threatened by the increase in flooding. Take, for example, China, wherein 2020, floods were estimated to have impacted 63 million people. China is also one of the most productive regions on Earth, being the largest producer of rice, wheat, and potatoes. Take a step further and you see Brazil is the only non-Asian country in the list of top-10 rice producing countries - yet Asia is the region predicted to be most at risk of severe flooding over the coming decades.

International governments are now investing heavily in flood defences - take, for example, the infamous Three Gorge Dam in China. Canals, underground pipe systems, and storage facilities are being built en masse.

Oh, sorry. Are you expecting advice? No, the storms are already here. As are the floods, the fires, the plagues but you know all of this. You know the average global temperature is already 1°C higher than a century ago, and analysis by Climate Action Tracker predicts it’ll increase up to 2.4°C greater than pre-industrial levels. You know this will bring downpours, typhoons, and floods.

Science + Tech

Words: Zara Findlay

A Revolution in Assisted Suicide Technology

CONTENT WARNING: SUICIDE

he legalisation of ‘suicide’ pods in Switzerland has recently sparked controversy and discussion about a very important topic - choosing our own death. Selfless assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942 and is taken advantage of by many people each year, in 2020 over 1300 people died by assisted suicide showing the importance people place on dying with their dignity. Welcome, Philip Nitschke, the inventor of the Sarco capsule. Unaffectionately nicknamed ‘Dr Death,’ Dr Nitschke has been an advocate for assisted suicide for decades and was the first doctor to administer

a legal, voluntary lethal injection. He is incredibly passionate about what he stands for and so he decided to make a solution to assisted death - by creating a capsule that allows people to control it themselves. The Sarco capsule is a 3D printed pod that uses liquid nitrogen to remove oxygen which causes hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and hypocapnia (lack of carbon dioxide) in the individual. It causes death within a minute and claims to be painless, other methods of assisted suicide may take minutes to come into effect, making the process potentially more stressful for the individual. The pods are also able to be

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Design: Alessia Tavacca

Dr Nitschke plans to have the pods ready for public use in 2022, surely he will face a lot of scrutiny before that point but personally, I hope the project is successful. I think when it comes to new concepts like this it’s easy to think of morbidity and inhumanity because of the pre-existing controversy. But in the current

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Science + Tech

The topic has sparked controversy for many reasons, some people hold a very personal belief that no one should ever commit suicide, however other reasons are more focussed on the fact that the inventor is making money off death. A lot of people believe the futuristiclooking pod glamourises suicide and makes it seem ‘easy’ - this is not helped by the fact that you do not have to be signed off by a medical professional to order the machine, a simple online survey determines if you are eligible. The convenient nature of the application leads people to the conclusion that this machine is taking advantage of individuals for profit.

day of increasingly reduced stigma about having control over our bodies, the pods are revolutionary. I believe that Dr Nitschke created the capsule for a good purpose and with good intention and this machine will allow people the opportunity to die on their own terms, in their own time, with dignity, providing solace to the terminally ill that they will not have to suffer.

transported anywhere the individual desires and can be detached from the engine to become a biodegradable coffin which is sustainable and convenient for the families of the individual.

Words: Priyasha Bachu

Science + Tech

The Beginner's Guide to Data Analysis and Statistics

ithout data, you're just another person with an opinion."

It’s the year 1663. John Graunt carries out the first recorded experiment in ‘demography’ - the statistical study of human populations. He observed that the urban death rate exceeded the rural rate and found that despite the male birth rate being higher than the female birth rate, it was offset by a greater mortality rate for males, equally dividing the sexes. His most important accomplishment, the life table, presents mortality in terms of survivorship. He will become known as the father of demography. We flash forward 217 years to the year 1880. The US government estimates that it will take 8 years to analyse all the data from the 1880 census and predicted the data generated by the 1890 census would take roughly 10 years to analyse, meaning the information obtained would be outdated by the time the 1900 census rolled around. However, in 1881,

a young engineer by the name of Herman Hollerith designed a punch card system - now known as the Hollerith Electric Tabulating System. This reduced the 3-year job of sitting, analysing, and recording data to just 3 months of punching holes. This punch card system was used in the 1890 US census and proved that it could handle data quickly. Following the 1890 census, we take the dive into the early 1900s. IBM. A company known to all. In 1911 four companies, including Hollerith’s, merged to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later known to be IBM. The first Bull tabulator prototype was developed - a machine designed to assist in summarising information stored on punch cards. It was a more detailed and advanced design than the Hollerith Electric Tabulating System and was a step forward in data storage and analysis. The 1950s were huge for the computing and analytic world. The first computer got started up and the unit record tabulators were migrated to computers such as the

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Design: Christian Graham

In the 1960s, SAS (statistical analysis software) and SPSS (statistical package for the social sciences) were set up. They later merged due to using similar statistical methodologies. As the years progressed, we entered the second generation of statistical software and SAS and SPSS were being set up in personal computers. The US government became heavily criticised for creating the world’s first data centre. They planned to store millions of tax returns and sets of fingerprints belonging to the American public. Change came fast over the following decades. Relational databases - a collection of items with pre-defined relationships that display information in tables - were invented by Edgar F. Codd in the 1970s and became quite popular a decade later. They allowed users to easily retrieve whatever data was required from their databases. They are very useful for maintaining data and retrieving them for further analysis. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA), developed by John Tukey in the 1970s, is an approach to summarise data sets. This is very important in modelling the data to apply for machine learning. Plotting consists of scatter plots, box plots, bar graphs etc. EDA has been used to explore data in Python, making it easier and faster

for data analysis. This encouraged the development of new programming languages especially S at Bell Laboratories which led to S-PLUS and R. R is a third-generation statistical software, widely used for theoretical and practical statistics. It was developed and beta-tested at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and released in 2000. It is currently widely used by academics around the world for statistical software and data analysis. During the mid-1990’s the internet was introduced and relational databases from the ’70s couldn’t keep up. The internet didn’t require the use of “organised” data and could translate data using other languages as well. Accounting systems were set up for networked computers using a variety of languages like COBOL or BASIC. As Windows was introduced and networking PCs became the norm, the internet became the platform for organising data. It’s fascinating what our generation of statistical software will represent. Maybe R has the potential to reach new highs in statistical innovation; or another language could sweep in and take its place. Data analytics, statistics, and big data storage are not new concepts to us, but one with a long evolution and big future ahead. They are part of our daily life, society, and the way we run businesses. At the same time, they lay the groundwork for a lot of exciting inventions in the future. If 50 years have gotten us to graphing statistical data in a minute, imagine what the future could hold.

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IBM 1401. Two programming languages, FARGO and RPG, were created to make the transition easy. RPG – still used by IBM – is a high-level programming language mostly for business applications and big data.

Science + Tech

"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion."

- E D G E D S WO R D

THE DOUBLE -

Science + Tech

Words: AditeeA

“S

ometimes we cravea momentary arrest – and it is the changes that occur in this halt that often shape the fate of our situation.”

attrition, genotoxic damage and oncogenic stress.

Although cell cycle arrest is a defining characteristic of the Let’s discuss the concept of senescent state, it comes along cell senescence, a word often with multiple other factors that associated with arrest (in the influence the cell and its immediate context of the cell cycle) – a halt environment. Apart from preventing that can make a difference the further growth of cells due to between life and death. impending risk of DNA damage like Senescent cells can be defined as in the case of replicative senescence non-dividing cells that express - wherein the cell initiates a DNA different sets of genes, because damage response and becomes of which they cause irreversible non-dividing after an average cell cycle arrest, macromolecular of 60 divisions - the cells in this damage, and experience deregulated state also have harmful effects on metabolism. At a molecular level, the surrounding tissues as they this process is regulated broadly secrete senescence-associated by two main pathways: the p16/RB secretory phenotype (SASP) which tumour suppressor pathway and influences the neighbouring cells the p53/p21 pathway. The cells that and the extracellular matrix. enter this state often experience The SASPs consist of a variety of multiple conditions like telomere cytokines, chemokines, proteases,

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and growth factors. Although these factors often act as a barrier for tumorigenesis - due to the cell cycle arrest they cause in the secreting cells and the immune response they trigger the secretion of these phenotypes contributes to ageing- associated pathologies and hence has a deteriorative impact on the body. It has been observed that chemotherapy can also promote tumour growth and metastasis by inducing the senescence of non-tumour cells - making the process of targeting cancer cells difficult. While the process of chemotherapy itself and SASPs have the potential to prevent malignancy, in some cases they become the cause of malignancy directly or indirectly. SASPs can hence be tagged as a collection of endogenous

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substances which if tipped in the right direction under ideal circumstances can make a difference between life and death. The only goal ahead lies in expanding our understanding of the nuances of cell senescence and the response that it triggers in the surrounding cells.

Science + Tech

Design: Ale Lopez

What’s on?

23rd March 25th MARCH 9th april

ART EXHIBIT & SALE EVENT 10% of all sales donated to Dundee Women's Aid. Games room - DUSA 4th floor. FUNKTION One-off featuring FLY Ibiza resident DJs. Fundraising event with all proceeds to the Brain Tumour Charity. DEECON Anime & Gaming convention held at the University of Dundee. Tickets available until the start time of the event.

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