The Mancunion 3/10/11 by The Mancunion

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Serving the students of Greater Manchester since 1973

Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

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Medics receive iPads to ‘enhance remote P02 learning’

Labour would cut tuition fees by a third, says P05 Miliband

Bigger bursaries do not attract poorer P03 applicants

Sex attacks on the rise in Manchester’s student areas Reports of attacks have doubled in three years

More victims coming forward may be a factor

Society Spotlight:

Which party political society is the one to watch?

Politics & Analysis Enoch Powell: A new perspective

Business & Finance:

Photo: Joe Sheffer

The fierce competition for internships

Features:

Can a website break down ignorance and prejudice? Rusholme: Reports of sex attacks against students on the rise

Joshua Carroll News Editor

Arts & Culture:

Enter our photo competition

Lifestyle: The return of Blind Date

Exclusive The number of students reporting rape and sexual assault in Fallowfield and Rusholme has risen, The Mancunion can reveal. More students were victims of sex attacks in the areas last year than at any point since 2000 and reports nearly doubled

between 2008 and 2010. This comes as rapist Asim Javed, described by police as carrying out “horrendous” attacks on students in south Manchester, receives an indefinite prison sentence. A source described the conviction as a “coup” for Greater Manchester Police. Of 250 victims who were attacked in Fallowfield and Rusholme last year, 61 were students. In 2003, as in 2004, 57 victims approached the police, the highest number before last year.

Fallowfield and Rusholme are heavily populated with undergraduates and home to Manchester University’s largest hall of residence, Owens Park. The Manchester-based St Mary's Sexual Assault Referral Centre offers medical attention and counselling for victims of sexual assault, including those who do not wish to go to the police. Centre manager Bernie Ryan said, "It can be difficult to interpret statistics, but this increase could reflect a growing confidence in

students reporting sexual assaults and rape to the police. "We would encourage anyone who has experienced rape or sexual assault to access the services at St Mary's and gain the help they need.” Just over a quarter of reported sex attacks in Greater Manchester lead to a suspect being charged. Police admitted it was more difficult to charge someone with rape or sexual assault More oncrimes. page 9 than with other Police have been slightly more successful in charging sex attackers in Greater

Manchester in the last two years. But in Fallowfield the percentage of suspects being charged has fallen. Three years ago just under half of suspects were charged; last year only a fifth. Overall in Greater Manchester, the number of victims of sexual violence, including non-students, fell between 2003 and 2008, but has since begun to rise again. Detective Chief Superintendent Mary Doyle,

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News OurTeam The www.mancunion.com

Editor: Nick Renaud-Komiya editor@mancunion.com Postal address: Univerity of Manchester Students’ Union, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR News Editors: Josh Carroll, Joe Sandler Clarke, Umar Rauf & Ruth Wildman news@mancunion.com Phone (0161) 275 2933 Arts & Culture Editors: Phoebe Chambre & Dani Middleton arts@macunion.com Beauty Editor: Isabelle Dann beauty@mancunion.com Business & Finance Editors: Emily Bunting & Scott McEwan finance@mancunion.com Chief Sub-Editor: Emma Bean chiefsub@mancunion.com Columnist: Ben Moore ben@mancunion.com Columnist: Lloyd Henning lloyd@mancunion.com Comment & Debate Editors: Paul Haslam & Ben Green comment@mancunion.com Fashion Editors: Claudia Canavan & Roisin Dervish-O’Kane fashion@mancunion.com Features Editor: Richard Crook features@mancunion.com Film Editors: Bill Knowles & Patrick Cowling film@mancunion.com Food & Drink Editor: Emily Clark foodanddrink@mancunion.com Lifestyle Editors: Lily Howes & Naila Missous lifestyle@mancunion.com Literature Editor: Steve Jones literature@mancunion.com Music Editors: Tom Geddes, Tom Hickman & Joe Smart music@mancunion.com Photo Editor: Jonny Whiting photography@mancunion.com Politics & Analysis Editors: Andrew Williams & Oliver Johnstone politics@mancunion.com Science & Technology Editors: Leah Wong & Aryan Safavi scienceandtech@mancunion.com Societies Editor: Ceri Wills societyspotlight@mancunion.com Sport Editors: Jack Burke & Patrick Madden sport@mancunion.com Theatre Editor: Andrew Campbell theatre@mancunion.com Web Editor: Lloyd Henning webed@mancunion.com Advertising John Conway Email studentdirect@salford.ac.uk Tel 0161 351 5402 Address Student Direct, University House The Crescent, Salford M5 4W

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Manchester medics to get free iPads Ruth Wildman, Khalil Secker and Emily Cant

Exclusive Medics and dentists at Manchester University will receive iPads to help with their studies as part of a pilot scheme starting in December. 712 students will get the tablet computers whilst they are on clinical placements throughout the North West. Prices for the tablets start from around £350, and can be as high around £650, depending on the specifications. The scheme is the first in the UK to trial the use of iPads during clinical education. If successful, similar trials are likely to be rolled out at other UK institutions. The University says the findings of the trial will be “widely shared”. Professors hope the Wi-Fi only computers will reduce the faculty’s carbon footprint, improve feedback and give students easier access to online resources. The Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences will “loan” the tablets to students, who will then have the option of buying them for a “very small nominal fee” when they graduate. The scheme will include fourth year medics, third, fourth and fifth year dentistry students and second and third year BSc Oral Health students. They have been selected for the scheme because they will spend more time off campus on clinical placements. Some have criticised the scheme as a quick attempt to raise student satisfaction. Manchester’s medical school has one of the lowest satisfaction rates in the country, at 69 per cent.

Medical and dental students at Manchester University are the first to receive iPads to assist them with their clinical training.

Ed#3 Nick RenaudKomiya Editor

The sad facts It is with great trepidation that I sit down to write this week. A tragic coincidence that our front-page news should come out just as the Union’s Women’s Week begins; it is www.mancunion.com

April Buazon, a fourth year medical student, will get an iPad as part of the scheme. She said, “It’s transparent that they’re just trying to buy student satisfaction. I’d rather the money was spent on extra teaching staff." Other students raised concerns about the cost of the scheme at a time when the higher education budget is being slashed. Professor Ian Jacobs, Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences and VicePresident of the University said, “The pilot project, which is due to start towards the end of the year, has generated widespread interest and a lively debate on the value of electronic tablets in clinical education and training, which is welcomed. “The fact that we are leading on this groundbreaking initiative in the UK is just one example of our determination to provide the highest quality education and training at the University of Manchester. “Most students and staff understand the importance of undertaking a careful evaluation before investing in new technologies on a large scale.” The University of Manchester is the first in the UK to use iPads during clinical education. But similar schemes have proved popular in the US where iPads have been given to students at many leading medical schools including Yale, Stanford and Harvard. Amazon recently announced it will release a new version of the Kindle which will rival the iPad. The Kindle will be significantly cheaper. Meanwhile a property development company in Salford has handed out 50 free iPads to students in its halls of residence. Jamie Pickles, 18, said, “It will be quite helpful in lectures because I haven’t got a word processor on my computer.”

times like these that we reflect on the treatment that many women and particularly female students can face. With such sensitive issues as sexual assault, the media, and particularly student media, have a responsibility to cover these stories in a mature and considered way. I sincerely believe that we have carried out this role well. Nobody benefits from sensationalised stories that do nothing more than scaremonger. Our talented, dedicated student journalists have been working tirelessly to make sure the student body is aware

Jailed: the fast food As The Mancunion reveals that students are increasingly being targeted by sex attackers, rapist Asim Javed faces an indeterminate prison sentence for attacking two women in Fallowfield and Didsbury. Joshua Carroll, Catriona Gray, Duncan Jaycock and Hannah Tosh report. A fast-food worker who brutally raped two students in south Manchester has been jailed indefinitely and will serve a minimum of eight years. Asim Javed, who worked at Dixy Chicken in Fallowfield, pleaded guilty to two counts of rape at Manchester Crown Court in July, and was sentenced at the end of last month. Javed used his job at the takeaway to identify victims. The detective who helped catch Javed said the attacks were “some of the worst” he had ever investigated. The Students’ Union (UMSU) offered self-defence classes and gave out free rape alarms in the wake of the attacks. Javed committed the rapes in December 2009 and September 2010. In both cases he targeted young women walking home alone late at night and used his car to stalk potential victims. Javed was caught on CCTV stalking his first victim in Didsbury. He passed by her several times in his car before pulling up and offering her a lift home. He spoke to the girl’s father on the phone to assure him she was safe, before parking nearby and raping her. During the second attack, Javed forced a student into the back of his car and threatened her with a weapon, believed to be a knitting needle, and forced her to perform a sex act on him. He has been jailed indeterminately and will be on the sex offenders’ register for life.

of what is happening around campus and in the local area. If you have any issues about our coverage, not just about the news this week, but any article that appears in any issue of The Mancunion, please don’t hesitate to let us know. With the introduction of our letters section (Page 10) there is now the perfect forum for finding out what you as a student body think of the paper. To send us your messages, no matter how long or short, write to letters@mancunion.com. On a completely different note this week, let’s take a

Police used cutting edge “evo-fit” technology to catch Javed

It took a team of thirty officers, cutting-edge photo-fit technology and DNA profiling, which proved both attacks were by the same man, to catch Javed. Police received scores of calls from members of the public who recognised Javed from the “evo-fit” image released earlier this year. The technology is more accurate than traditional e-fits; witnesses are asked to choose the six most likely faces from a number of options. This in turn produces dozens of other faces, from which the witness chooses six more faces with the closest likeness. The process is repeated until a close likeness of the suspect has ‘evolved’. Older technologies used components of faces to compose an image of the suspect. Student Sam Falk used to live in Owens Park, close to where Javed stalked his victims. He said, “It’s important for everyone in a student area to feel safe. Bringing people like this to justice is all part of achieving that feeling of security”. Sentencing at Liverpool Crown Court, Judge Clement Goldstone QC told Javed, “The circumstances of these offences make you out as a

look at what else is in store. Back by popular demand, this issue sees the return of Blind Date (Page 27). If you’d like to take part in this running feature or know somebody else who would, get in touch with our lovely Lifestyle Editors, whose contact details can be found on the left hand side of the page. Elsewhere, Politics & Analysis Editor Oliver Johnstone mounts an impassioned defence of the controversial politician Enoch Powell, in a new feature entitled ‘My Political Hero’

highly dangerous young man. I have a duty to protect the public until such time as it is safe for you to be released.” Detective Chief Inspector Peter Marsh praised the victims for contacting the police. He said, “Javed used his job in the heart of Fallowfield to identify potential victims then used his car to essentially stalk them. "I have to pay tribute to both victims for having the courage to contact police and then fully helping us with our investigation. "I know these attacks caused a lot of concern in Fallowfield and among students at the time. I hope this sentence acts as some reassurance that we will not stop until we bring the perpetrators to justice." Figures obtained by The Mancunion reveal that out of 2062 rapes and sexual assaults in Greater Manchester last year, only 600 resulted in suspects being charged.

Online now: Detailed data on sex attack in Manchester mancunion.com/news

(Page 11). I for one was intrigued to find that Mr Powell was one of the earliest advocates of gay rights. For those of you more creatively inclined, Arts & Culture this week has not one but two competitions running. This is the perfect occasion for you to get those creative juices flowing and appear in these very pages. As always, we are a paper run by students, for students. So don’t be shy, get involved! Editor@mancunion.com

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Society Spotlight

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Union Corner

Purple Page

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd September 2011

worker who stalked and raped students Comment

We need to stop blaming women for their attacker’s crimes Sylvia Barnett UMSU Women’s Officer Following a series of sexual assaults in Fallowfield late in 2010, female students were advised to stay in at night, and only leave the house in groups. Early this year a Toronto police officer, Constable Michael Sanguinetti, said "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized". The culture of victimblaming permeates much of the media coverage of, and the advice provided on, issues of sexual harassment and objectification. Yes, we have to accept that attacks occur and we have to take measures to protect ourselves, but this language of victim blaming is far, far more prevalent in instances of sexual assault than it is in cases of, for example, murder. No one would blame someone who was forcibly drowned, and suggest that they shouldn’t

have stood so close to the water. Why then do we tell a woman not to walk around in a short skirt if she doesn’t want to be sexually assaulted? A rapist will attack you regardless of what you are wearing. Stranger rape (that is, an attack initiated by someone you don’t know) happens, in many cases, in order to intimidate and assert power, not because the victim is dressing or acting provocatively. But either way, no matter what the reason for the assault, women within our society are subjected to an impossible dichotomy. On the one hand, we are conditioned to make ourselves attractive and sexually available, yet on the other we are blamed when we are subjected to sexual intimidation. We need to break down this paradoxical situation we are stuck in and stop blaming survivors of sexual assault for their own victimisation.

Asim Javed used his job as at a takeaway to identify potential victims

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of GMP, said, "There has not been a year-on-year increase in the number of reported rape and sexual assault cases in Fallowfield and Rusholme, but

we have to accept that there are a small number of predatory offenders who specifically target students with all types of criminal behaviour, not just rape and sexual assault. "For this reason there is a policing operation underway ... aimed at the student population to ensure they understand the dangers and know how to keep

themselves and their property safe. "The figures for Greater Manchester as a whole show that many people have confidence in reporting rapes to either the police or a support organisation. She said GMP had made “massive improvements” to the way they investigate and deal

Number of rapes and sexual assaults in Fallowfield by year Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011*

Reported sex attacks 20 21 22 31 23 14 5 13 21 29 25 11

Source: Greater Manchester Police *Up to May

Student victims 4 6 4 8 6 1 1 3 6 11 11 7

with sex offences “to ensure that we provide the best possible service to victims and bring the offenders to justice.” Ms Doyle added that many sex offences go unreported: “We have worked hard to encourage people not to suffer in silence and give people the confidence to come forward.” Prosecuting a suspect is not always the most

appropriate or desirable route for the victim, she said. She added that GMP hope the recent conviction of rapist Asim Javed would “act as some reassurance that we will not stop until we bring perpetrators to justice.” The figures were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

More than half of city’s police front desks to close Jemma Gibson and Umar Rauf

More than half of the police station front desks in Manchester will be closed this year, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have announced. 33 of the 55 police station front desks are set to close, including those in Chorlton and Didsbury. Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said that the cuts were necessary given the current financial climate. "What we want to do is provide the very best access to our services in a way that are fit for the future and consider the current financial situation.” Shewan went on to say that neighbourhood policing would play an important role in the GMP’s future crime fighting strategy. "Neighbourhood policing remains at the heart of what we do and we will continue to provide contact locally with officers at neighbourhood meetings and surgeries, arranging appointments and getting in touch by telephone, email or through social networks," he said. Officers will continue to work in the affected stations, but the public will not be allowed to enter and speak to a member of staff. Instead members of the public will have to use telephones to contact a remote call centre. GMP’s figures show the number of visits to stations to have almost halved since 2009, pushing the average cost per visitor making an enquiry up to £14.11. Bootle Street will be the only front desk to remain open 24 hours a day. The closest front desk to the student areas in South Manchester will now be in Longsight. The closures are expected to save £1.5m as the force looks to make a total saving of £134m over the next four years. Managers are now entering a 90-day consultation period with unions and staff members.

Bigger bursaries fail to attract poorer applicants Ellen Conlon

Bigger bursaries from prestigious universities and colleges are not attracting large numbers of underprivileged students, a new report has found. The report, published by the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), has found that institutions including the University of Oxford, The University of Cambridge and Imperial College London offered poorer students bursaries of over £2000 in 2009/10. Only one in four students at these universities were eligible for bursaries, compared to over 90 per cent of students at the University of

Northumbria. A total of £395 million was spent on scholarships or bursaries from all institutions in the same year, however 23 universities and 21 further education colleges failed to reach target levels for recruiting students from low-income families. Sally Hunt, the General Secretary of the University and College Union (UCU) says it is “over simplistic to suggest that it is the size of bursaries alone that determine where students study,” and encouraged all institutions to provide better support for students from poorer backgrounds. This support will be harder to provide next year under the new fees system, Hunt said: “Universities will

struggle to offer enhanced packages as extra revenue will be used to plug funding gaps following government cuts.” Wendy Piatt, the director general of the Russell Group of prestigious universities defended their record of offering generous levels of financial support, “Not only are our bursaries bigger, but our universities spend more in total than others.” Around one in three Russell Group students receive a bursary or scholarship. English universities and colleges currently spend a quarter of their additional fee income on attracting and supporting lower income and under represented students, with 75 percent of it spent on students from the very poorest backgrounds.

04 Four out of five burglars use Facebook or Twitter for crime Stevie Spiegl Burglars are using social media to gather information about their targets, a survey by security firm Friedland has revealed. Sites like Facebook and Twitter, which encourage users to let their friends know ‘what’s on [their] mind’, generate a wealth of personal information – such as recent purchases and holidays – which four out of five criminals admit are used to plan break-ins. “We’re living in the age of the digital criminal” said convicted burglar, Richard Thompson, “We’ll tell them even when we're going away on holidays. We will let them know that we’re not in. We’re inviting them round to our house.” The risk is particularly acute for students, many of whom publish their addresses for parties, while also leaving their houses vacant for much of the year. Jonathan Lim, an expert at Friedland, suggests preventative measures such as installing alarms and cutting back trees and shrubs to remove hiding places.

Woman spared jail for drunken night-bus assault Solomon Radley A woman who viciously assaulted a night-bus passenger while drunk has avoided prison. Danielle Barkey, 22, punched one man repeatedly in the face, threatened to hit another with her stiletto, and tore out a clump of a woman’s hair. Ms Barkey had been talking with one of her victims when she became violent. At the time of the attack she had shared three bottles of wine and ‘copious’ amounts of brandy with a friend. The defendant was so embarrassed by her behaviour that when officers showed her CCTV footage of the incident she begged them to turn it off. Deputy District Judge Huw Edwards told Barkey her behaviour was appalling, but said, “I believe you are genuinely remorseful and that allows me to take the course I do.” As well as receiving a 12week suspended sentence, she was ordered to pay £100 to each victim and to attend a women’s rehabilitation programme.

Man who died chasing thief: suspect found Anthony Organ

A man has been arrested on suspicion of stealing a mobile phone from a student moments before a bus hit the victim. David Schofield was knocked down and killed on Oxford Road while chasing a thief who stole his mobile phone. The suspected thief was arrested after one of Mr Schofield’s friends noticed she had been deleted from his BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) contacts. She sent a message to the phone asking to be added as a friend. The friend request was acknowledged

and the person sent a picture and the name "Berry". After sending a response detailing Mr Schofield’s death and the theft of the phone, she was deleted again and her number blocked. The suspect appears to have handed himself in: police said he walked into Longsight police station on 21st September and was arrested on suspicion of theft. They questioned him and released him on bail. Mr Schofield died the day after being knocked down. Over 220 people attended a vigil a week after his death at the scene of the accident. Two women told the bus driver that Mr Schofield had been the victim of a theft shortly before the collision. Police have been unable to find the women. CCTV footage shows Mr Schofield chasing a man on a bicycle.

A man has been arrested for theft after David Schofield died chasing a mobile phone thief.

Student arrested after ‘hate Clegg’ protest Katie Burgess

Formula milk banned in Manchester hospital Solomon Radley

A hospital has stopped offering free formula milk in a bid to encourage new mothers to breastfeed instead. Saint Mary’s hospital, which has the largest maternity ward in Greater Manchester, will introduce the policy on November 1st. Powdered formula milk will also be banned from all wards for health and safety reasons. Leaflets explaining the new rules are being handed out to pregnant women in clinics ahead of the new policies. They state that, “Breast milk is the healthiest milk to feed your baby. Breastfeeding also benefits mothers by reducing the risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and osteoporosis.” Hospital chiefs deny that the move has been implemented to cut costs, saying that they were still in favour of giving mothers

an informed choice about how to feed their children. A spokesman for Saint Mary’s said that “[we] are still providing formula for all babies and mothers whose medical needs mean that breast feeding is not appropriate. We are continuing to provide bottles and teats, and we give daily demonstrations about the safe preparation and use of formula to support new mums.” Similar policies on formula milk have already been introduced in Bolton, Tameside and Salford. Wythenshawe and Pennine Acute, which runs hospitals in Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and North Manchester, said they had no plans to scrap free milk. Helen Thompson, the head of midwifery at Wythenshawe, said that although the company supports the initiation of breastfeeding with all new babies, they recognise that some mums prefer to bottle feed their babies, and believe that is their maternal choice.

An officer at The Birmingham Guild of Students has been arrested after unfurling a banner during the Liberal Democrat party conference. Edward Bauer, who holds the elected position of Vice President of Education, was charged with causing danger to road users while protesting against the Lib Dem conference in Birmingham last month. Mr Bauer, 22, and two others scaled a bridge to hang a banner reading “Traitors not welcome – hate Clegg love NCAFC (National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts)”, causing debris to fall onto the road below. The three men were held in custody, and over the weekend they faced magistrates and pleaded not guilty to the charges. The prosecution accepted that no damage or injury was caused during the incident and consequently the

other two protesters were released on bail. Mr Bauer was remanded in custody until a hearing last Monday, in which he was granted bail before his trial in late October. This is, according to his Twitter account, Mr Bauer’s second arrest in the space of six months, and his position as Vice President of Education is under scrutiny. News of Mr Bauer’s release was greeted with cheers by about 80 demonstrators who had gathered outside Birmingham Magistrates Court to protest his innocence. “It seems outrageous that the police and courts can have Ed remanded in custody for unfurling a banner, they will do anything to try and suppress protests,” said Alice Swift, a 2nd year Politics and International Relations student at Birmingham University. “Students voted for Ed to have a voice in the debate surrounding the attack on our

education. It would be a disgrace if University management were to sack an elected student representative,” she continued. The Guild of Students has been quick to distance itself from Mr Bauer’s actions. A spokesperson said, “This protest was not organised or endorsed by the University of Birmingham or its Guild of Students”. The guild’s constitution is apolitical. The President of the Liberal Democrats Society at the University said that Mr Bauer’s actions “show his contempt for democracy and free association and bring the guild into disrepute”. However, Alice Swift, a student who saw Mr Bauer’s protest said, In light of Mr Bauer’s position within the Guild, questions remains over whether his behaviour was excessive, or whether he was acting on a mandate given to him by the student body when they elected him.

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Labour would cut fees by a third, says Miliband Joe Sandler Clarke News Editor

The maximum university fee would be cut by a third to £6,000 under a Labour government, Ed Miliband has announced. The policy, announced at the start of the Labour party conference in Liverpool last week, would be paid for by reversing tax cuts for banks and asking highearning graduates to pay more interest on their loans. The move is part of a broader strategy to encourage both parents and students, angered by the coalition government’s decision to raise tuition to £9,000, to vote Labour at the next election. Recent polls have shown that student support for the Liberal Democrats went from a high of 50 percent during the 2010 elections, to just 15 per cent in November last year and the Labour Party are desperate to appeal to these disaffected voters. Speaking to journalists last week, Ed Miliband accused the coalition government of doing great harm to the next generation with their higher education policy. “We can’t build a successful economy if our young people come out of university burdened by £50,000 of debt” he said. Miliband’s aides, however, stopped short of promising that the policy would be part of their manifesto for the next election; which is set to be held in 2015. “This is what we do now. But in three and a half years time we might be able to do more,” said an official.

Comment

Labour, the Slightly-LessNasty-Party Gareth Lewis

Ed Miliband, Labour leader, said the party would cap tuition fees at £6,000 Meanwhile, people from both sides of the political spectrum have criticised the Labour leader’s plan. David Willets, the universities minister, and Liam Burns, president of the National Union of Students (NUS), stated that the policy would do nothing to encourage poorer students to apply for university: as Ed Miliband had claimed.

Charles Kennedy launches attack on Lib Dems Solomon Radley

Nick Clegg’s decisions in government are damaging the party’s image, the former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has said in a scathing film to be aired on the BBC. In the five minute film Mr Kennedy outlines what he sees as the party’s key difficulties in government – their failure to prevent a rise in tuition fees, the AV referendum defeat, electoral decline in Scotland and England, David Laws’s resignation, Chris Huhne’s indiscretions and the UK riots “In the words of the song ‘If I could turn back time’”, he says. “Well, in the Lib Dems we can’t. We’ve had twelve months of real grind in

government and with it policy splits at the top, electoral setbacks – some of them very severe – the loss of the AV referendum, and more recently and disturbingly the riots on the streets.” He fails to mention a single Liberal Democrat achievement in government, before concluding, “Although I take the view that former leaders should be seen occasionally and not heard too often, if I did have one wee word of advice for Nick Clegg, it would be this: at the moment there is a sense that we are trying to fight on too many fronts at the same time.” The film suggests that the Liberal Democrats would have been better off now if they had not formed a coalition with the Conservatives and implies that Nick Clegg has made too many empty promises, which has

“Will graduates enjoy lower monthly repayments under your proposals? As you do not appear to be planning any changes to the repayment terms, it seems that monthly repayments will remain the same” said Willets, in a letter to Labour MP John Denham. "Moreover, there will be no benefit to the lowest-earning graduates because their entire

damaged the party’s image. Speaking to The Mancunion, Liberal Democrat MP for Withington John Leech stated that Mr Kennedy had probably been misrepresented by the press and defended his party’s record in government. “There are plenty of achievements – re-linking pensions to earnings, taking a million of the poorest paid out of paying tax, the setting up of the green deal and the green investment bank, scrapping ID cards to name but a few,” he said. Mr Kennedy failed to make an appearance at the Lib Dem party conference earlier this month despite being booked to attend a number of events. His aides cite a family illness as the reason for his nonattendance, but the film clearly shows his dissatisfaction with the party and with Nick Clegg. Meanwhile at the conference last month, president of the Lib Dems, Tim Farron, attacked the Conservatives in his speech while remaining supportive of the current leadership.

outstanding debt is written off after 30 years, irrespective of its size. So your proposal jeopardises the funding of universities without reducing the monthly repayments paid by graduates." Others in the political world have accused the Labour leader of a uturn, as the plan seems to signal the end of his support for a graduate tax.

A right to education, regardless of ability to pay used to be a mantra of the Labour party. This weekend Ed Miliband’s proposal of a £6,000 cap on fees left that tradition in tatters. It seems the student’s favourite for leader last year now not only has abandoned his graduate tax proposal, but in fact supports higher tuition fees. Mr Miliband claims that the cap will make a university education more affordable than the current £9,000 ceiling and Labour have positioned the policy as ‘an alternative available to this government.” If Labour propose to simply double tuition fees rather than treble them, it is not clear what sort of an alternative this presents. We have received no news yet on changes to rates of repayment. As such, we should be forced to assume that Mr Miliband’s proposal would operate under the same system as the forthcoming Coalition arrangement. Indeed, it will make no material difference for the thousands of students who will never pay back their full loan. As the Universities Minister David Willetts has so rightly pointed out, Labour’s proposal

will not change a thing for the lowest earning graduates. Those earning under £35,000 a year will not have repaid a substantial portion of their student debt by the time it is expunged in 30 years. It will in fact mean richer students are able to repay their debt faster. It’s not clear how Miliband intends to side with any majority, let alone the ‘decent majority’, if he seriously intends to put such an unfair proposal into action. Why then have the Labour leadership championed this pale imitation of the existing Tory policy? It belies a wider policy change within the party. With Ed Balls’ apology for economic failings, the idea of denial has become dirty. Mr. Balls’ dogged line of “too far, too fast” is part of this. It appears Labour’s alternative is to be the SlightlyLess-Nasty-Party. What is more, a Tory lead in the most recent ComRes poll shows that the electorate doesn’t care for this approach. Ed Miliband must recognise now that doing just a little less than the Tory government will not win the debate, or an election. If we are to expect a Labour party who won’t lead, who won’t set out a real challenge to Conservative policy, who refuse to bring their own ideas on how to confront the future, a bleak four years await us all.

Engineers first to study drone design Stevie Spiegl

Engineers at Southampton University are to teach students how to design drones, starting this month. The master’s course is the first of its kind to teach the design of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones. According to the prospectus, students who take the masters in Unmanned Vehicle Systems Design ‘will be able to design and build a sophisticated unmanned system in the course of their studies.’ The course currently has 12 students enrolled, but expects to expand to 20 in a few years. Despite drones having gained notoriety in recent years for their use in the ‘War on Terror’, the university insists that UAVs have other, more peaceful, applications. ‘We are studying non-military applications and that's where the big growth will be,’ said Prof. Jim Scanlan, one

Students will study non-military uses for drones

of the course directors, who compared the drones to GPS technology, which were developed for the military but which gains most of its revenue from satellite navigation systems. The planes’ autopilot allows inexperienced pilots to control them and this has created

interest in several fields. Apart from their usefulness for aerial photography and scientific research, their near-silent ‘cruise mode’ makes the planes ideal for wildlife filming, and the university has even been contacted by a Namibian gaming park looking to track its cheetahs.

As the Tory conference descends on Manchester, we find out from our party political societies why they’re the ones to watch this week.

Ellen Daniels

With the Conservative Party Conference here in Manchester next week, it will be time to review the effect of the party's policies over the past 16 months in Government, and look ahead to what will be done in the future. The Conservatives have been righting 13 years of Labour's wrongs. The deficit reduction strategy proposed by the Conservatives has been praised by the IMF as significantly reducing the risk of a sovereign debt crisis, a clear rejection of Labour's plan for bankruptcy. We have also seen the creation of over half a million new companies with the Conservatives keeping their promise to support business start-ups. This growth encouraged the creation of 11 new enterprise zones, and will produce over 30,000 new jobs in these areas by 2015. The economy IS growing. There was much debate when the increase in tuition fees was announced, however, these higher education reforms will see a much more efficient system, with no payment upfront, as well as less being paid back per month. No one will have to pay back a penny of their loan until they have to, once they have a salary of over £21,000 per year. From all that has happened in the past 16 months, the end of tax breaks for bankers, increased NHS spending, creation of thousands of new jobs, harsher punishments for criminals, a cap on immigration, and the establishment of Free schools, the coalition government has done more than Labour did in 13 years. We are sorting out Labour's mess, and with the growth and fantastic reforms seen in the past year, the Conservatives are definitely the ones to watch.

The new Societies section is looking for societies to feature, event listings and contributors. If you're in a society and would like to be featured, contact me at societyspotlight@mancunion.com. You will also be able to find me at 11am in the Students' union bar every Wednesday.

Event

Listings MONDAY 3rd

Women’s Week It’s Women’s Week all this week at the University of Manchester, so keep an eye out for events.

Francophone Society Film night in Meeting room 2, from 7pm. We are showing ‘Paris,’ apparently the better version of ‘Paris, je t’aime’! Come along and enjoy German Society First Stammtisch of the year, from 8pm in Squirrel’s bar, Oak house. All abilities welcome.

WEDNESDAY 5th

UMSU Book Fair Cheap course textbooks available in the Council Chambers from 10am to 4pm.

Israel Palestine forum Introductory session from 5pm in meeting room 1. A safe place for debate and understanding, beginning with an analysis of the consequences of the Palestinian UN bid

LGBTQ Come along for a coffee in Contact Theatre, just behind Academy 1. We’ll be having a weekly hang out from 1pm onwards.

Other Sounds Mixtape Swap at Trof, Fallowfield, from 6pm. Make a compilation CD of anything you want and bring it along.

UMSU Book Fair Cheap course textbooks available in the Council Chambers from 10am to 4pm.

TUESDAY 4th

Liberal Youth Drinks in the Old Cock pub, Didsbury, from 8pm.

UMSU Book Fair Cheap course textbooks available in the Council Chambers from 10am to 4pm. Comedy Society Shadow SXS Malarky autumn debut at Platt Chapel, meet at the Students’ Union at 5.30pm. Get some food from the Curry Mile on the way and then go and watch the show, only £5. Role Playing Society Meet 6pm at the Council Chambers in the Barnes Wallis building, Altrincham Street. We will meet every Tuesday.

THURSDAY 6th

SUNDAY 9th

Hiking Club Capel Curig trip, to sign up visit us Mon-Fri 12.30-13.30 in the Student Activities office, Students’ Union. Manchester Against Fees and Cuts London march Block the Bill. A free coach to join the march, requiring a returnable £5 deposit. Email manchesteragainstfeesandcuts@gm ail.com. To include your event here please email a short description including time, date and venue to societyspotlight@mancunion.com

Sarah Harding

Thomas Grandjouan

Conservative Future

Ceri Wills Societies Editor

Labour Students

Liberal Youth

This year’s Labour Party conference will hold something very special indeed. This week, a rested and refreshed Ed Miliband takes centre stage with a speech that will set Labour on a radical new direction: tearing away from New Labour’s technocratic establishment mentality and replacing it with a massive challenge to shatter neo-liberal consensus politics. So, while smiling Tories in Manchester pat each other on the back for the ‘tough’ decisions they’ve undertaken to lead this country back into austerity, while Lib Dems in Birmingham sit on their hands gritting their teeth, hopelessly contemplating the fateful hand they’ve been dealt, the Labour Party assembled in Liverpool, will be setting forward a plan to win back power through the biggest change in Labour thinking since the words ‘New Labour’ were first uttered. What exactly could this new mentality be? Well, it was exemplified this summer during the hacking scandal, when Miliband came forward and called for Rebekah Brooks’ resignation from News International the sort of challenge that cripples Prime Ministers and backbenchers alike with a paralytic fear of forever tarnishing their electability. This is a mentality where we address vested interests and no longer round off conversations with phrases like ‘well they’re too big to fail’ or ‘that’s how it’s always been done’. According to his aides, Miliband doesn’t just want ‘to shake things up’, he’s looking for an irreversible progressive revolution that will explode the political settlement that has left us with a squeezed middle class and young adults with diminishing opportunity and responsibility; in his own words “I’m ripping up the rule book”. No matter what your politics are, this is not a conference to ignore.

Who are the only party campaigning for scrapping tuition fees? Who are the only party ensuring adequate maintenance loans and grants? Who are the only party making sure landlords properly insulate their houses and protect the environment? The Liberal Democrats are. We believe in drug policy reform, ending the blood ban on men who have sex with men and scrapping tuition fees. We represent students and what they care about. We’ve campaigned for electoral reform, for equal marriage and a more humane asylum system. We consistently stand up for freedom, for fairness and for equality whilst arguing for evidence based policies and transparency. Liberal Youth does during conference season what no other party youth group can even dream of. This year we wrote and proposed three of the 11 motions on the conference floor, spoke on four amendments and hosted nine fringe events. We offer our members the chance to turn an idea at the back of your mind into a policy accepted by a party of government. We also host our own conference twice a year. The next Liberal Youth conference will be held in Colchester on 21st-23rd October and we’ll be debating child poverty, listening to Liam Burns, the president of the NUS, Evan Harris of the Hacked Off campaign and being trained on how to campaign more efficiently. Current Lib Dem policy is to remove tuition fees, but our voice is only as strong as our membership and our voters. Liberal Youth are the only party political youth wing to oppose fees completely; we need your support. Hate us? Love us? Don’t have a clue about us? Get in touch and share your views.

Society Spotlight:

MUGSS Chris Price

Explaining what the Manchester University Gilbert and Sullivan Society (MUGSS) does should be easy, we put on one of Gilbert and Sullivan's musical comedies every year, but that's only part of the story. A lot goes into putting on a successful show. To perform in a professional 600 seat Opera Theatre, we book it over a year in advance. Directors and lead production roles are interviewed and appointed before the summer, with budgets assigned to each aspect of the show. While other students enjoy a well-earned break, feverish preparations continue, to ensure that, come Welcome Week, they're ready to hit the ground running. Then it all begins in earnest. Weeks of rehearsals, sewing costumes, building set, practising with their 20 piece orchestra and of course selling tickets; over 3,000 of them (that's almost one an hour from welcome week to the opening night!), but boy is it worth it. Standing on stage with a cheering audience is a feeling like no other!

And it's great experience too. In recent years their members have gone on to be in West End musicals, work for top fashion houses, direct TV shows and even star in Dr Who! Some of them also run two venues at the Edinburgh fringe and every year give opportunities to see and participate in the biggest arts festival in the world on a student budget. As you’d expect from a society that has been running for over six decades, this is a well-oiled machine, but their members aren't just those interested in drama or studying for a singing degree either; there are no auditions for the chorus, only the main roles, and the sheer number of activities that are involved require people from all disciplines, even those with no desire to appear on stage. Like fashion? They need people to design and make the costumes. Electrical engineer? This year's

Photo: Drew Forsyth

Societies Get involved!

Why is your party the one to watch?

director wants an animatronic cat. Not sure? There's bound to be a part of their show that can use your skills. Nobody expects any of this to be easy. They work hard - you have to to produce a quality show - but they also know how to enjoy themselves, socialising after every Wednesday rehearsal and crew session, holding legendary house parties, a huge Christmas dance and a classy formal summer ball. It’s not all Gilbert and Sullivan though; we also produce an annual 24-hour show. This year's is a bite-size musical we've written ourselves to give everyone a chance to get involved straight away, whether they've been on stage before on not. Turn up this

Friday night at 6pm to the Council Chambers in the Students’ Union to find out what it is and work through the night to rehearse and perform it 24 hours later. For those who prefer watching, just come along to the Council Chambers at 7pm on Saturday evening to see a hilarious show for the price of a pint. If you’ve ever wanted to be in the limelight, design clothes, choreograph dance routines, manage a website, direct, write a script, or build a 6m tall replica of the Tower of London, there’s a place in MUGSS for you, all whilst having a non-stop social life. Who told you 19th century light opera couldn’t be fun?

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Ben Moore Columnist A very important and understated liberation campaign commences this week- Women’s Week. Sexism in our society is rife and spreads right up to the top employers in our country. Today, women account for half the population and yet only 10 percent of board members in Europe’s big firms are female. The prejudice women face in the workplace is nothing short of a disgrace. As my mother constantly reminds me, at GCSE level, females generally achieve better across the board than their male counterparts. Yet, UK national earnings do not reflect this; in 2009, the Government estimated that women earn 21 percent less than men. This gender disparity has to be corrected. Women are no less hardworking, intelligent or deserving of the wages men get. Employers often cite the uncertainty they face when employing women; it is feared that the woman might become pregnant and therefore require a long period off work – a situation ironically exacerbated in some cases by leave becoming a legal entitlement. This fear is no secret in the industry, with even (Lord) Alan Sugar claiming it should be legal for an employer to ask a woman if she is pregnant, or planning to have a family, prior to appointing her. What is fair about asking women to choose between their family and their career? No one chooses which set of chromosomes they are born with and neither gender should be discriminated as a result. Long gone are the days when the stay alone

In 2009, women working in the City were being paid as much as 60 percent less than their male counterparts mother was deemed integral to the moral foundations of society. Such ideas are outmoded, a throwback to Victorian patriarchy. The modern welfare state should support women who choose to work and those who don’t, and the recent coalition documents leaked suggest frontloading child benefit to assist mothers struggling with childcare and lost earnings in their children's first years. It is important the coalition does not ignore women’s issues during the headline-grabbing turmoil of the recession and this is a good scheme- employers aren’t disincentivised from employing women. Allowing a woman to continue her career after the birth of her child seems like a great use of taxpayer’s money, and would go some way to reducing the disparity between male and female earnings. Another proposal, which builds on the Equality Act, suggests the need for complete

transparency, so that women can anonymously compare their wages with males in the same industry. This will ensure discrimination against women can’t be hidden – and what do employers have to hide anyway: we all want gender equality, right? Some may suggest that these issues are ‘market issues’ (rather than, say, moral or ethical ones that transcend ‘the market’), saying that companies should be allowed to employ whom they want, and that those who employ women will inevitably benefit from increased profits as a result of the female employee’s work. Unfortunately, whilst this may be true, the market does not account for human prejudice; women may indeed bolster profits, but unless they play football with three balls, they may still not be employed. ‘The market’ in any event should not be seen as the moral compass of our society. Indeed, the ‘market’ justified slavery for generations; without the Cotton Farm Act children might still be working for even less reward than we give our women. The market alone cannot solve this problem; if we can legislate against injustices caused by the market, why should we refrain from doing so in the case of gender disparity? Women aren’t being paid less because they are incompetent. Women should be in the same highly paid jobs as men, so it is appalling that in 2009, women working in the City were being paid as much as 60 percent less than their male counterparts. Having women in positions of power dismisses the myth that women are less able to manage people and make important decisions than is popularised in

male mythologies of female “scattiness”, whilst providing girls across the country with important new role models. By taking positive action now, we may be able to change social norms too. In the House of Commons, women account for 22 percent of MPs. True, you don’t have to be a woman to legislate favourably for women, but this misses the point completely; even at the highest level of our legislative process, women are immensely underrepresented. The idea of a meritocracy is often used to justify the gender imbalance, but surely there are females who are as adequate, some might argue rather better than, the current crop of (extremely mediocre) MPs. Unfortunately, even our legislative system is hugely dominated by males. The onus is very much on party leaders to encourage women to stand up and break the Boys Club attitude. Unfortunately, the delight and mirth with which David Cameron’s recent ‘she’s frustrated’ comment about Nadine Dorries in the Commons was greeted by at least one side of the house indicates the continuing extent of a problem that runs from grass roots right up to front bench politics. This is why Women’s Week is so vital- in raising awareness of the plight faced by women, in encouraging 50 percent of the population to have self belief, to assure them they won’t be subjugated, and to let everyone know that an effort is being made to rectify the archaic pay differences between men and women. When my children are at University, hopefully there will be no need for a ‘Women’s Week’.

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Working towards women’s equality

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The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Ben Green Comment & Debate Editor What does this phrase ‘Arab-Israeli conflict’ actually mean? It is necessary first of all to understand the geography of the region. There is currently no state of Palestine, and there never has been. The area of contention encompasses four regions: Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the ancient city of Jerusalem. The conflict itself stems from violence between the Jews of Israel and the Palestinian Arabs who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (there are also a large number of Israeli Muslims, but these tend to contribute little to the conflict). Some Palestinians do not recognise Israel’s right to exist, especially the militant wing Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, and so launch terrorist attacks – suicide bombings and rocket fire – into Israel, whilst Israel retaliates with military operations and arrests of leading terrorists. So, where did all of this come from? After the collapse of the Byzantine Empire (the successor to the eastern Roman Empire), the east was taken over by

the Ottoman Empire under the Turks, which finally fell apart in 1922. In 1920, the San Reno Peace Conference divided up the eastern parts of the Turkish empire among the great imperial powers. Arising from this came the British Mandate, a large swathe of land, including modern-day Israel, which was granted to the British Empire. In 1917 the Balfour Declaration had outlined British policy to support Zionists ( Jews who sought a return to their biblical homeland of Israel). The British Mandate made up a large area of the Middle East containing Arabs and an increasing number of Jews, with no recognised state-boundaries within it. However, it was not until after the Holocaust that Western powers truly

started to take calls for a Jewish homeland seriously. After the Second World War the UN Partition Plan came into effect in 1947, which created the state of Israel, granting a home for any Jewish person who wished to migrate there. The Arabs who lived in the Middle East were bitter at the creation of a Jewish state in what they perceived to be Muslim territory, albeit large tracts of land were given to Arab populations—the nations of Jordan and Syria were formed out of the imperial abandonment of the Middle East. In a way the partition was simply a way out for the British who for years had been struggling to keep a lid on Arab-Israeli violence. The UN Partition Plan created a small Jewish state with an adjoined Arabic state for

those Arabs living within the area. Even before the plan came into effect, the surrounding Arab nations made clear that they would refuse to recognise Israel’s right to exist. True to their word, as soon as the British pulled out of Israel, no fewer than seven Arab nations joined the Palestinians in attacking Israel. Syria, Transjordan (now Jordan), Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and even Yemen sent troops to try and destroy the fledgling Jewish country. Despite the sheer odds stacked against it, the nascent Israeli Defence Force was victorious and by the end of what was later termed the Israeli War of Independence, were in a strong bargaining position to bring the war to a close with favourable terms. The 1949 armistice lines set out modern Israel. These same nations attacked Israel twice more in later years - in 1967 during the Six-Day War and once again in 1973 in what was dubbed the Yom Kippur War. This is the origin of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the background for the recent Palestinian bid for statehood which has been the latest cause for controversy.

Palestine reaches for The time for false statehood, but is it ready? mediation is over Ben Green Comment & Debate Editor On 23 September Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and head of the Palestinian Authority, officially submitted a bid to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for Palestine to be recognised as a state and granted full membership of the United Nations. This bid has precisely a zero percent chance of succeeding. In order to achieve recognised statehood Mr Abbas needs to sway a majority of the 15 member Security Council and then two thirds (129) of the 193 member General Assembly, the gathering of all UN member states. However, five Security Council members have a veto power which allows them to unilaterally stonewall any Resolution – USA, UK, France, Russia and China. The USA has shown itself to be the stumbling block as Barack Obama has made clear his intention of vetoing any Resolution which would allow the Palestinian Authority to join the UN as a member state. It is galling in the extreme that, should the Palestinian cause be successful in a democratic vote - and there is good reason to think that it could be, the US (or any of the other four permanent Security Council nations) is capable of single-handedly shutting down the whole process. Nevertheless, is the US perhaps right in this instance; is Palestine really ready for statehood? The nightmare for Israel is a rerun of their experiment with self-rule in the Gaza strip. In 2005 the Israeli Defence Force withdrew from Gaza, leaving the Hamas movement in charge, who swiftly proceeded to denounce Israel whilst their paramilitary wing set about launching rockets into their neighbour’s territory. In 2009 the IDF was forced to re-occupy the strip in order to prevent the attacks. Were the West Bank to obtain recognition as a Palestinian state, it would increase the pressure for Israel to withdraw from the territory and would even grant Mr Abbas’ administration access to the

International Criminal Court at The Hague to seek indictments against Israeli leaders on the basis of the occupation. If the IDF were to withdraw in response, many in Israel and amongst Israel’s supporters fear a similar reaction. Yet possibly the best reason to oppose Palestinian statehood is that they have been offered exactly that in negotiations with the Israeli government twice, including all of the concessions which they asked for – East Jerusalem as a capital, a retreat to pre-1967 borders and a removal of Jewish settlement from the West Bank – by Prime Ministers Ehud Barak in 2000 and Ehud Olmert as recently as 2008. The only sticking point was the issue of refugees. The Arab-Israeli War of 1946 – 48 created a large number of displaced Palestinians; approximately five million according to the UN Relief and Works Agency. The PLO asserts that these people should have the right to settle in Israel under any peace deal and will not budge on the issue; it was on this basis that the Israeli offers of 2000 and 2008 were rejected. The entire current population of Israel stands at around 7.7 million; the return of five million Palestinian refugees would demographically destroy Israel, effectively ending its status as a Jewish state. The Palestinians are asking them to throw away their very existence and everything that they have fought for since 1946. The issue of refugees has been played as a bargaining chip and has secured serious concessions, but the PLO is intent on Israel accepting the unacceptable. Although the high-handed way in which the US has pronounced it will veto the Palestinian bid if necessary certainly rankles, it can only be the correct move here. Mr Abbas and the Palestinian Authority at large have failed to demonstrate that they are ready for statehood and the responsibilities that entails. Disagree? @mancunion debate / comment@mancunion.com

Fahim Sachedina

“With our souls, with our blood, we will defend Palestine,” cry those for whom Western rhetoric has become a rare beacon of hope in the ongoing battle for Palestinian statehood. Tired of the empty rhetoric of Barack Obama and others, and determined to bring an end to this most enduring of conflicts, President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas has now made a formal application for Palestine to be admitted to the United Nations Security Council as a full member. Despite President Obama’s repeated declarations of love for the Arab world, his supposed affection is clearly false – as proven by the impudent tone taken by him at recent summits in Istanbul and Cairo. Old habits die hard, especially for US presidents. While the virtues of hope, pragmatism and cooperation have been extolled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his controversial government, the Palestinian Diaspora have suffered unjustly – not only through the expansion of Israeli settlements across what is clearly Palestinian territory, but as a result of the introduction of a segregated system to the West Bank and Jerusalem that in essence ended the option of a two-state solution. Western leaders, seemingly eager to advocate the Wilsonian liberal principles of self-determination and justice – but only when and where they see fit – have neglected the Palestinian peoples’ fundamental right to statehood. Throughout the past two decades, countless fruitless negotiations have taken place between Israel and the PA. Obama’s promises for a settlement freeze (Cairo, 2009) were unsurprisingly hollow; the 44th President is seen by many as a mere puppet in the negotiation process, to the point where one Republican Congressman reportedly commented that, “Netanyahu has more credibility in this Congress than Obama”. Meanwhile, the Palestinian people are confronted with the harsh reality of brutal

military occupation on the ground and Israeli intransigence at the negotiating table. Whilst the Oslo agreement set out to restore equal rights and an independent state to the Palestinian people, further negotiations proved to be frustrating and ineffective. President Obama is guilty of a shameful hypocrisy. How can one be an ardent supporter of the Arab Spring and simultaneously allow the Palestinian nightmare to continue? For a man of such highly principled ideals, Obama has shown categorically that he is far more concerned about his ailing bid for re-election than the future of the Middle East. Siding with the Palestinian cause would cause uproar amongst the omnipotent Israeli lobby in the United States, thus alienating millions of potential voters; to change course now would simply not make political sense for an already under-fire President who needs every vote he can get. This courageous call for statehood will not only be a significant point in history for the Middle East, but could potentially tear apart Western alliances. France and Germany seem to have a difference of opinion on the issue, with the Germans siding with Israel and the French apparently sickened by the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel. When it comes to taking sides, Britain is unlikely to follow the French lead – instead, David Cameron has urged the UN to “show a united front”. But with President Obama stuck between a rock and a hard place, it is left to our European leaders to fight for the ideals whose names have been flung around so freely since January, when Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in a move that kick-started the Arab Spring. The time for false mediation is over; radical action is needed and, whilst Cameron is right to advocate a united front in the face of adversity, our politicians cannot afford to abstain from an historic opportunity to revolutionize the Middle East forever. Disagree? @mancunion debate / comment@mancunion.com

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Women’s week!

Behind the headline

This week (3rd-7th October) is the Union Women’s week, so keep your eyes peeled for lots of exciting events to celebrate the women’s liberation movement here in Manchester! On Tuesday we’ll be running a series of workshops on consent and body image from 3pm-5pm in the Khaled Said room, followed by ‘How the cuts affect women’, in Room 6 from 5pm-6pm. On Wednesday there’s a free (women only) self-defence workshop from 12:30pm2pm, in the Khaled Said room. Come along to learn how to assert and defend yourself in intimidating or threatening situations. On Thursday come and visit the Pankhurst centre, and find out about the history of the women’s suffrage movement in Manchester. Meet outside the Union at 1:30pm. In the evening, from 5:30pm-7pm we’ll be holding a ‘bring a friend’ Riveters’ meeting! On Friday, the Philosophy society will be running a feminist book group on a chapter from ‘the Second Sex’. You can find out more by visiting ‘The University of Manchester Philosophy Society’ group on Facebook, or come and ask the women’s officer. Finally, on Friday evening we’ll be running a ‘Reclaim the Parks’ event, to make a stand against street harassment and sexual assault. Meet at Owens Park gates at 8:30pm, and bring warm clothes and food if you can! We’ll be heading down to Platt Fields Park for a night-time picnic, to assert our right to go wherever we choose without fear! Why do we need a women’s movement? Women are still severely disadvantaged within so many spheres of society, but this

Dear Mancunion,

discrimination is quite often the result of social conditioning and the expectations we hold with regards to ourselves and others, so it can often go unnoticed. So yes, we have won the vote. What more could we possibly want? Well... It’s still the case that one in seven women students are subject to serious physical or sexual assault during their time at uni. It’s still the case that the majority of postgraduate and research students are men. It’s still the case that an overwhelming majority of student parents are women, meaning they have to juggle study, work and childcare commitments. It’s still the case that women will bear the brunt of the government’s austerity measures. It’s still the case that women are paid an average of 17% less than men. It’s still the case that only 22 percent of MPs are women. So while we might have removed the concrete barriers to women’s liberation, we’ve still got a long way to go! That’s why the women’s campaign is still important: we still need to remove these ingrained social barriers which hold women back. This doesn’t mean we have to stop wearing make-up and shaving; it doesn’t mean we have to give up baking cakes and raising children! It just means we have to do these things because we want to, and not because we feel obliged to. Come along to the Riveters every Thursday at 5:30pm in the Students’ Union, to meet new people and get campaigning!

I write in relation to last week's headline story ("The worst university in the Russell Group"). This headline will no doubt have come as a huge let-down to many students, especially our new first years, whom this letter is particularly directed at. I expect many of you will have felt a sense of regret at coming to Manchester having read that headline, and questioned whether you really made the right decision to come here. Certainly in my view, and I know this sounds like a cliché, but you really couldn't have made a better decision. What the headline didn't tell you was the many subject areas that were some of the highest in the country for overall student satisfaction. It didn't tell you either about

some of the world's finest minds (including four Nobel Prize winners) who walk the same corridors you do. Nor did it tell you about the people- academics, flatmates/coursemates, people in UMSU societies- who will change your life forever. Was Manchester my first choice? I must admit it wasn't. But would I have it any other way? Absolutely not! Manchester is one place where you're guaranteed to get much more than just a good education. Looking back at my two years at Manchester, if coming here was the wrong decision, then I certainly don't want to be right. Much love, Mo Saqib, UMSU Academic Affairs Officer

Did you love an article so much that you want to tell our readers how great it was? Did a writer make you want to choke on your cornflakes in disgust? Let us know. The letters section is now here so send your messages to letters@mancunion.com and watch them appear on this page before your very eyes.

Sylvia Barnett, UMSU Women’s Officer

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Enoch Powell Oliver Johnstone, Politics & Analysis Editor, challenges the anti-Powell orthodoxy As is customary at this time of year, the party faithful are herded into conference halls up and down the country for the ritual standing ovations, over-rehearsed puns and stage-managed spontaneity that typify the British political party conference season. Today’s politician is more of a caricature of the party he or she stands for or the leader they support rather than a character in their own right, with independence of mind and principles of genuine conviction. Here our minds turn to publicity-seeking Labour MP Chuka Umunna, the supposed ‘British Obama’, or Tory MP Louise Mensch, the undisputed queen of the career-driven yet utterly uninspiring and puppet-like intake of MPs from the 2010 general election. And to top it all off, we have the unrelentingly and sickeningly spineless Liberal Democrats. It is in this climate of pessimism and cynicism that one appreciates the figures that have truly stood out in British politics for believing in something greater than personal success or popularity. No one fits this description better than Enoch Powell. Initially, the notion that anyone could even defend Enoch Powell, let alone advocate him as their political hero, might seem bizarre or even abhorrent. We should not condemn those that are abhorred; many years of the media and the liberal political elite reinforcing this message have hindered a sensible and reasoned approach to understanding Powell and any concept of Powellism. Here we must first break down the misgivings and flawed interpretations of Powell, and then shed light on the real Enoch Powell and the great British statesman that he was. Powell was a man of conviction and, like all men of conviction, struggled to stay silent when he saw problems or issues that needed tackling. The motivation behind Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech is not precisely known, with Powell rarely discussing the topics of immigration prior to April 1968. Whilst it must be said the tone of speech and the arguably emotive language was misguided on Powell’s part, it is important to remember that much of the supposedly ‘racial’ elements of the speech were in fact quotes from a conversation the MP for Wolverhampton South West had with a constituent. Powell never displayed any tendencies towards racism or racially discriminatory beliefs at any point in his life; indeed his conceptions of nationalism and patriotism were civic, rather than racial. In a letter to a local newspaper he emphatically declared, “I have and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on the grounds of his origins”. Enoch Powell paid a heavy price for his honesty and for wanting to repeat his constituents’ concerns. Rejected from the political mainstream and sacked as Shadow Defence Secretary, Powell remained defiant and won support from all sides for his lack of desire for personal gain. Powell’s memory is best served by remembering that there was more to him than those utterances from 20th April 1968. Powell staunchly championed civic nationalism and was one of the first advocates of the free-market neo-liberal reforms that revolutionised Britain in the 1980s. He became a vocal and early supporter of gay rights and resolutely opposed nuclear weapons and the death penalty. So why should we regard Powell as a hero and not as a villain? Quite simply, he was the greatest British Prime Minister who never was. Powell was a man who believed in humanity and not discrimination, who believed in freedom, not state control but most importantly, believed in British national pride from a civic perspective not a racial one. He sacrificed his political as well as his personal life in a ruthlessly tragic manner in order to stand up for his principles and conviction – the qualities of a true British statesman.

Labour of love Politics & Analysis Editor Andrew Williams explains why his love affair with the Labour Party is over – for now For the young politics enthusiast, joining a political party for the first time is like buying your first album – only you hope that it’s the only album you ever need to buy. Voting for the same party once every four or five years is one thing, but making the cognisant decision to commit to one party means something more tangible. It is saying quite clearly “this is what I believe in”; it is, to some extent, part of your identity. So when it came to making such an important decision, why did I choose the Labour Party? The reasons were manifold. Firstly, in the early days of my AS Politics classes I realised pretty quickly that I am, instinctively, a social democrat. I’m certainly no socialist, but injustice and inequality have always rankled with me and I struggle to identify with many of the values espoused by those on the right. The Liberal Democrats didn’t do it for me, either; perhaps prophetically, Nick Clegg struck me as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Secondly, I was frustrated by the fact that many of my peers knew absolutely nothing of politics beyond the fact that their parents

voted Conservative, usually because the Tories would tax Daddy less than those meanspirited Lefties. It may seem crazy now but the final reason is that, in late 2007, Labour were enjoying something of a renaissance under newlyappointed Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Our leader was full of exciting policy ideas, all of which would ultimately be shelved when the financial crisis hit with the full force of its fury just a year later. Throughout even the most testing days of the Brown government, which we now know heralded the decline of New Labour, I remained steadfast in my loyalty to the party. I genuinely believed – and continue to believe – that the country would have been better off had Labour won the general election in May 2010. So why, just over one year on, is my love affair with Labour over? To say that I have limited confidence in the ability of our hapless leader Ed Miliband is true, but it is also too simplistic an explanation. Labour itself has lost a sense of what it stands for.

The party has failed to move on from the Blair-Brown era, and there is now a vacuum at the very highest level which was, until recently, occupied by some of the greatest political operators of any generation. Where there once a definitive ideology underpinning every policy formulated by the Labour government, the current leadership seems to lack clarity and direction. Perhaps most worryingly, the younger Miliband has failed to inspire the confidence of the vast majority of the electorate and, although we are less than halfway through this Parliament, I simply cannot imagine him being elected to the very highest office. According to the latest YouGov poll, less than 10 percent of people believe that he is a natural leader, good in a crisis or decisive. That makes for grim reading. For all of the in-fighting, backstabbing and vitriol, the last 12 months have left me hankering for the vision and optimism that was so pervasive when Tony Blair swaggered into 10 Downing Street in 1997. There has been little in the way of concrete policy in recent times, and the few announcements that were made at last week’s party conference were woefully inadequate. I suspect that I am not the only Labour Party member who feels that he can no longer identify with the lacklustre assortment of soundbites that we have to settle for instead. I certainly won’t be joining another party, but when my membership comes up for renewal in November I intend to politely decline the invitation. The love affair is over – for now.

Cut the rate of unemployment, not the price of politics Kevin Bennett September saw the publication of the biggest plan to reduce the number of MPs in Parliament since Guy Fawkes placed several suspicious-looking kegs underneath the Palace of Westminster. In these bleak economic times, the Prime Minister is eager to “cut the price of politics”, and plans to save £12m per year by axing 50 MPs from the House of Commons at the next general election. The reduction is unprecedented. It appears that the main effect of the changes will be to increase the exclusivity of what is already a thoroughly unrepresentative Parliament. The current plans for changes to constituency boundaries open up the government to accusations of gerrymandering. Of the 31 English MPs facing the chop, a third will disappear from traditional Labour strongholds including Manchester, Newcastle and Sunderland – whilst only one MP will be cut from the Tory heartland of the South East. However, the current electoral

system favours the Labour Party, so it seems unfair to suggest cynical electioneering – any electoral benefit afforded to the Conservative Party will simply redress the balance. At the 2010 general election, the Tories won 36 percent of the popular vote to win just 40 percent of the seats; in 2005, Labour won 55 percent of the seats with the same share of the vote. Though it is argued that the primary benefit of our current electoral system is its’ propensity to produce stable governments, first-past-the-post appears to be producing strong Labour majorities and weak Conservative governments, if the results of elections from 1992 onwards are anything to go by. But with 53 percent of votes at the last election ‘wasted’ on candidates who failed to win, a cut in the number MPs will only increase this worrying trend of making the House of Commons less representative. Perhaps the insidious aspect of this plan lies in its’ attempt to further perpetuate the Tory myth that “we're all in this together”. Many of the MPs who

lose their constituencies in 2015 will be found a new, well-paid job with their party, with lobby groups or consultancy firms. It’s a shame that the same can't be said for the one million young people who currently find themselves without work. If the government were really serious about reducing the cost of politics, David Cameron would cut the burgeoning ranks of ministers and special advisors that clog the corridors of power. According to a Parliamentary Select Committee, the high number of ministers is “bad for the quality of government... and the independence of the legislature”. A ministerial cull would be a brave move by a coalition government with some tough votes ahead in the coming months. The awe-inspiring Arab Spring, a movement of genuine importance, proves that democracy is not measured in pounds and pence, but in freedom and liberty – so, when Cameron argues that “we need to cut the price of politics”, where will it end?

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Clubs depend on students for both work and play Scott McEwan Business & Finance Editor Fresher’s week 2011 was seven days of first impressions, not only for students and their future friends for life, but also for those nightclubs who depend on the student population’s propensity to spend an evening at their establishments. Every year the nightclubs in proximity to the university and local student hives swell their promotional presence and compete fiercely with each other to try and capture the lucrative student market. The importance of particularly student-festive periods can not be underestimated for clubs which experience business cycles so closely linked to the student calendar. Luminar Entertainment, a nightclub operator which has been

experiencing net losses for the past two years, recently made pleas to its debtors to stave off considerations forced administration until after fresher’s week. It’s a familiar story for Manchester clubs. “Fresher’s week is our most important week,” said Matthew Iceton, advertising manger for 5th Avenue nightclub. “It’s like our new year:

Fierce competition for finance internships Emily Bunting Business & Finance Editor With applications now open for internships in the financial services, the scramble begins. Thousands of students across the UK and the world will be seeking to snap up one of those all important summer internships. While recruitment levels are steadily rising, competition is still fierce. Investment banks can receive over 200 applicants for every place. Students often only think to look into internships in second year and sometimes even third year. Andrew Whitmore of the University Careers Service commented: ‘As internships are very competitive, we advise to aim for good academic results starting in the first year (employers do look at grades) and become active in student societies so that you have more skills to offer an employer’. After numerous surveys, around a third of penultimate year students are thought to have attended some form of summer internship programme, which often go on to offer them graduate positions.

Investment banks can receive over 200 applicants for every place’ Jan Klincker, chairman of the Manchester University Trading and Investment Society (MUTIS), recently completed a summer internship on the trading floor of a major investment bank this summer and proceeded to receive an offer of a graduate position with them. He commented: ‘The key to securing a graduate internship is to understand the rules of the game. Know the deadlines, know what employers expect and most importantly stay on top of financial news’. The fact of the matter is, when it comes to a career, especially in the financial services, making an impression (and a good one at that!) is paramount. The managing

everything changes- including our club night advertising and artwork,” he added. Sophie Robson, bar manager of Joshua Brooks, said 80 percent of the club’s clientele are students and feels a promotional spotlight on fresher’s week is paramount for rousing repeat custom. “New students coming into Manchester don’t know where to go and so first impressions mean a lot...If they have good first impressions they’re more likely to come back.” By operating in sync with the student calendar, which begins with fresher’s week and is dotted with exam periods, nightclubs make appropriate marketing manoeuvres to attract the most students when demand for nightlife activity is high. Clubs don’t tend to compete on pricethough discount entry for students is essential- but in promotional muscle, posting more of their marketing team on

the steps of the Union and pushing more leaflets into the hands of students. Students are valuable to clubs in more ways than one. Venues experiencing declining trade in pre-exam and summer periods require a flexible workforce which is able to work fewer hours when needed. Students seeking part-time work with the option to leave for home in the summer are positively sought after by such clubs. Joshua Brooks hosts club nights throughout the week during term but over the summer months club nights are limited to Fridays and Saturdays. Therefore, the convenience of shedding employees over quieter periods of the year is a necessity and explains why almost of all their employees are students on parttime hours. It’s a long-standing two-way relationship that’s been for the benefit of both parties.

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Business News In Brief UBS Head resigns The CEO of UBS, Oswald Gruebel has stepped down from his position after he ‘assumed responsibility for the recent unauthorised trading incident’. Originally brought out of retirement to reform UBS after the financial crisis, the chief executive has sited the recent £1.5bn rogue trading loss of computer science graduate Kweku Adoboli as the reason why he resigned.

Nike shows sturdy profits Despite increasing commodity prices and thus raw material costs, Nike has proved there is still a global demand for their products despite consumers’ wallets being squeezed. The US sportswear giant saw its shares rise up more than 5 percent as revenues rose 18 percent to $6.1bn seeing profits meet market expectations.

Buffett wants himself to be taxed more

Society Spotlight

BA Econ Jennifer Sernat BA-Econ Vice-President BA Econ Society is the largest course-based society in Europe set up for everyone studying BA Econ. This doesn’t mean we’re only for people studying economics. We cover the range of social sciences, from accounting and finance to social anthropology. We offer infamous socials, career events to develop your potential, a trip abroad, the finest summer ball, charity events, sports opportunities and more. In the past we’ve held workshops conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers – from psychometric testing and risk assurance tasters to general ‘what we’re about sessions’socials from Fallowfield to Amsterdam and a lecture from his Excellency Dr. Federico Alberto Cuello Camilo, the Dominican Republic’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York City and more. This year will prove to be just as exciting. There will be a business game workshop for members from Mercer in October and a talk from Rt Hons Hazel Blears MP this semester to name a few of the events happening this academic year. Anyone interested in a career in an economics /business/politics related field, developing their commercial awareness or joining our massive socials is welcome to join. Membership is available for a one-off fee of £15. Join the ‘BA Econ Society’ group on Facebook and look out for messages on opportunities to get involved Website: www.groupspaces.com/BAEconSociety E-mail: Jennifer.sernat@student.manchester.ac.uk

director of High Fliers, Martin Birchall, commented: ‘The recession has meant that many fewer organisations are prepared to hire university leavers who have not had any work experience. Internships and vacation work are no longer things that students just do to see what kind of job they might be suited to – they have become an essential part of securing a well-paid graduate job’. With thousands of students entering the graduate job market every year, is this really surprising? Many have the

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same grades, the same degree course, the same desire to obtain a high-flying career. Having some form of work experience therefore enables you to get a foot in the door. Furthermore, with internships in the financial services being the highest paid positions (students can earn £1,000 a week), companies are quite evidently investing in their future recruits. To get ahead of the game therefore, start looking into job opportunities, as when it comes to third year you will want career concerns to be last on your mind.

81-year-old billionaire investor Warren Buffett has confirmed his interest in what is now being dubbed as the ‘Buffett Rule’ by offering his brand to be used in conjunction with the new tax policy. The tax policy would see the wealthiest Americans tax levels increased to ensure the highest earners cannot get round the system and end up paying less than middle income families. Oliver Harman

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Events PricewaterhouseCoopers autumn careers presentation evening Date/time: Monday 3rd/1830 Location: Whitworth Gallery Finding internships, placements and work experience Date/time: Monday 3rd/1200 Location: Blackett Lecture Theatre, Schuster Building Application Form skills session, led by the Cooperative Group Date/time: Tuesday 4th/1300 Location: 5.004 Crawford House Deloitte careers presentation Date/time: Tuesday 4th/1830 Location: Hilton Hotel Psychometric Testing led by PWC Date/time:Wednesday5th/1330 Location: 5.004 Crawford House

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Which mobile operating system? Debating the merits of the latest iPhone over the Blackberry or arguing that the green Android monster makes buying the whole phone worth it are commonplace around campus (unless I’m the only one who loves the green Android). With 24 month contracts being signed ever more frequently, how do we know which handset is best suited to our needs? With the highest market share, handsets running the Android operating system are clearly a popular choice. Many manufacturers making many handsets mean there is more choice from the low end basic smart phones to the high end handsets which are more powerful than the average laptop. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S2 boasts a dual core processor. The 8 megapixel camera combined with the sharp 4.3 inch display can hardly hurt either. It also claims a longer talk time than most other smart phones at over 11 hours. Removable SD cards mean Android phones can accommodate as many pictures/contacts/drunken videos as you want.

NASA five-tonne satellite crashes off US west coast Aryan Safavi Science & Tech Editor It is easy to sensationalise the fall from grace of a five tonne NASA satellite crashing into the Earth, yet the terror induced by NASA’s oblivious claim that the satellite “could land anywhere” was not realised as it is believed to have harmlessly crashed off the US Pacific coast around 04:16 GMT on the 24th September. The UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) was the largest NASA satellite to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere uncontrolled for 30 years. Most of the satellite was believed to have burned up on re-entry, with models indicating that 500kg of the expensive shrapnel could have survived to rain down over an 800km area on the earth’s surface. NASA estimated the threat to life posed by the UARS as being just one in 3,200, a figure which is higher than the one in 10,000 risk

Fundamental physics law broken Leah Wong Science & Tech Editor

Blackberry has traditionally been seen as the phone for business. Features such as Microsoft Office and PDF viewers make this a popular choice for people who need the office in their hand. Whilst the iconic style of handset has been copied by many manufacturers using the Android operating system, Blackberry are now releasing phones with touchscreens. One of these, the Blackberry Torch 9800, has a slide out QWERTY keyboard, five megapixel camera and the slightly shorter talk time of five and a half hours. Space for a memory card means Blackberry phones can also have plenty of space for storage. It could be said that nothing will ever compare to the Apple iPhone. Seen frequently as a status symbol, the iPhone has long been the “must have” phone. There is little choice in handsets, but having the largest app store means phones running this operating system can still be personalised. The latest iPhone 4 comes with either a 16GB or 32GB hard drive. Even the cheapest 16GB model has more internal storage as standard than both the Samsung and Blackberry models above but this amount of memory cannot be changed. At seven hours talk time, the battery life is between the Blackberry and Samsung. The five megapixel camera and high definition video recording make this phone perfect for those planning on recording their friends on a night to use as leverage at an opportune moment. Leah Wong Science & Tech Editor

limit NASA aims for. It was expected to land anywhere between 57° north and 57° south of the equator, a broad and hence rather unhelpful calculation encompassing most of the populated world between the UK and southern tip of South America. The 20 year old UARS was launched in 1991 from the space shuttle. This multi-instrument equipped satellite set a precedent in measuring numerous chemical constituents of the atmosphere with the aim of better understanding the chemistry in the atmosphere. The UARS provided valuable information regarding the depletion of the

protective stratospheric ozone, proving especially useful at illuminating concerns over the Antarctic ozone hole and the effects of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption on the atmosphere. In 2005 the satellite reached the end of its productive science life when it ran out of fuel. Wiith the days of glorious recognition of its seminal contribution to atmospheric science long in the past, the UARS had been orbiting the earth in despondent redundancy for six years. NASA assured reporters at a press conference before impact that nobody had ever been injured by objects re-entering from space, and the US government will pay for all damage as they did in 1979 when the Skylab satellite crashed into Western Australia. However awestruck one may be from finding a piece of space technology close by, opportunistic eBay sellers must remember that unfortunately the artefacts are still property of the US government.

One of the unbreakable laws of Physics may have just been broken at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light but scientists may have just recorded a speed faster than this supposed limit. The team at CERN still believe this could have been caused by an error in the results as such a discovery as this would rock the world of science. They have asked the international scientific community to help explain the results.

CERN researchers sent a single beam of particles, known as neutrinos, through rock in the Earth to a lab in Italy. The neutrinos arrived in Italy 60 billionths of a second earlier than expected after taking a period of 0.0024 seconds to arrive. The equipment is extremely sensitive but to ensure the results weren’t a mistake, beams of particles were sent 16,000 times with the same results appearing every time. Scientists are still looking for the potential mistake which could have caused this ground breaking result. If no error is found, the implications for science would be huge. To make something travel faster than light requires an infinite amount of energy. It is the highest speed

limit in the universe. Exceeding this limit could make time travel possible. In 2007, a similar experiment at Fermilab in America also found evidence of neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. This experiment is similar in that it sends neutrinos through the Earth but the measurements aren’t precise enough to tell if the apparent speed of neutrinos was an error or evidence of neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. Until the results are proved one way or another, science will have to wait to find out if Einstein’s greatest mistake had nothing to do with the expansion of the universe as he thought, but is actually his most famous theory.

Urbee, the world’s most futuristically manufactured car Aryan Safavi Science & Tech Editor A momentous and seminal engineering wonder has gone on display in Canada: a car that has been partly manufactured layer by layer using 3D printing. The Urbee is an environmentally friendly hybrid car, using electric motors and a backup alcohol-powered engine to achieve 200 miles per gallon. However it is the car’s body shell that has caused the excitement over a new transformation in manufacturing to rival that of the industrial revolution centuries ago. For decades this “rapid prototyping” has been used for making one-off prototypes but as the manufacturing technology

develops, 3D printing is being considered as a near future viable and economic replacement to the mass-production techniques ubiquitous in the past century. 3D printing works by material flowing out a computer controlled nozzle, building layer by layer, just like a conventional printer uses ink, but in three dimensions instead of two. Jim Kor, the project leader of Kor EcoLogic, who designed Urbee, described the manufacturing as "an additive process, building the part essentially one 'molecule' of material at a time, ultimately with no waste”. Traditional subtractive manufacturing involves shaving away or moulding blocks of raw metal to make engineered components, thus a process removing this waste is

economically desirable. Also stockpiling components and then transporting them across seas may prove far less cost effective than using a 3D printer to simply print the part required as the designs are stored in virtual computer warehouses. The eminent designers of this distinctive project insist that it is not just an experiment, as they intend the car to go on sale 2014. With extremely low fuel consumption and an estimated £10,000-£33,000 price tag, providing that the engineers assault the challenging development of the mass manufacturing process with sufficient intellectual vigour and investor backing, the Urbee car can revolutionise the automotive industry.

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Broadening minds at the click of a mouse Sometimes, we have questions we’re too afraid to ask. Completely innocent, but taken the wrong way they could lead to offence. This is where liberate yourself.co.uk comes in. Liberateyourself is an innovative new website designed by the UMSU to address the prejudice and ignorance prevalent in British society today. The site is divided into specific sections that address the different walks of life that experience discrimination. Speaking to Hannah Paterson, the Welfare Officer and the brains behind the idea, she told

The Mancunion about the mission of the website. “We want it to be a safe environment where you can explore issues you may never thought about before. It’s to fight ignorance and stigma but in a way that is really open. These issues are often talked about but in a way that makes people angry and it just turns into a heated debate. We want to remove the ignorance by answering questions some people might be afraid to ask in an open and frank way” The website is divided into five sections. They are categorized as: LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer); Women; Disabled; Mental Health

and Black. Each section has much to explore and offer personal stories, links and resources for support groups, opportunities to get involved and a candid FAQs page. But who are the contributors? “Each section is taken by people who self-identify with that group. They’re mainly people who are heavily involved with campaigning and can provide an experienced voice,” Hannah says. So, if you ask why some Muslim women where a burka and others a hijab, the response you will get will be from somebody who can offer a first hand response. All questions are anonymous and can be sent either through the website or to the

section editor via e-mail. The personal experiences are genuine and thought provoking. Some detail problems with friends while others discuss the often-casual nature of discrimination. They’re completely anonymous, but offer a personal perspective and many really bring home the brutal effects of prejudice on people’s lives. A sixth section also is available to friends and relatives of those that suffer from bigotry or ignorance. Perhaps your best friend has come out to you and you want to know the best way to be supportive. Or maybe you’re nephew has been born with a disability that you don’t know much about. “We were getting stories that relate to people’s friends having problems and felt this needed a space. On the website there is really good support not just for those suffering, but for those wanting to help.” While still in progress, site creator Hannah is hopeful of the website continuing to evolve as more contributors come forward and more questions are asked. “You can get involved really easily. Either look at our Facebook group or you can find details on the homepage.” Though most of us would never consider ourselves bigots, this website, which is still in its early days, certainly educates its readers on the controversial debates surrounding discrimination in this country.

Here is a selection of anonymous testimonials from the site itself: “Knowing M.E., Knowing You (aha)” (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)

“Should I tell them I was gay and face chaos?” (LGBTQ)

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

I have M.E. Also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), it’s a much-misunderstood and much-maligned condition. I have good days and I have bad days, and today was a mediocre day. What I couldn’t do however was move without pain, or do any normal task without feeling extremely drained at the end of it. By normal tasks, I include having a shower, reading and paying a credit card bill, and making a sandwich.

When I first started uni at Manchester, I never ever considered joining the LGBT Society here. I was never fully out back home and found the idea of joining a bit intimidating. Instead, I quite happily sailed along through first year, but I still wasn’t very out about my sexuality. I never really thought about the gay village or the LGBT community at all. But that all changed when I went home for summer. My homophobic Mum and Dad sat me down and told me that they had started to think about arranging my marriage. My whole world fell apart!

I started my course in September 2010 after taking a gap year. I’ve suffered with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for about 10 years.

On a bad day, I can’t move from bed. I’m in constant pain: ever get that feeling the day after the gym when you haven’t been for a while? Imagine that times ten, without the satisfying feeling you get from knowing it’s done you good. I lose the ability to form articulate sentences as I’ve forgotten the words and I’m completely unable to read.

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I’ve learnt over the past nine months to a year that M.E. isn’t just something you can ignore that flares up occasionally: it requires significant changes to your lifestyle to manage a normal life. I’m normally in bed by 10 every night for example, because I know that if I stay up later I will feel extremely tired and start to get pain and brain fog the next day. And I can manage the physical exertion now, for the most part. Mental exertion has to be planned or compensated for. But I count myself lucky that I still can have a normal life with this kind of planning. I know people much worse off than me who simply can’t hold down a job or full-time study, which makes it even sadder that much of society considers their condition to be either trivial or invented.

I felt so scared and alienated. I was confused about what to do. It was all I could think about. I finally bit the bullet and told my tutors everything. Their response was fantastic. They were so supportive and understanding. They knew I couldn’t come out to my parents yet, so instead they helped me persuade my parents that I was too busy with my education to think about marriage.

Coming to university was particularly hard at first. Not only did the obsessive thoughts and rituals that I have to go through become much more important to my everyday life, but I felt that I had to hide that side of my personality away from my flatmates and new friends in order to avoid being labelled a ‘freak’ After a while (and after my flatmates remarked on some odd habits I had), I found the courage to discuss it with them. They’ve been really understanding and done their best to help where they can. It’s not easy by any means, but helps a lot. I think the advice I would give is to not hide away completely. Find someone you can trust to talk things over with and see if they can help.

It was at this point that a friend suggested I go join the LGBT Society. I was a bit hesitant to begin with, but I finally took the plunge and went to a social at a local pub. It was so relaxed and had a great vibe. I met some incredible people, had a great laugh and even won second prize in the quiz! Over the year I got more and more involved. Thanks to these guys, I’ve never felt so proud and so assured to tell them exactly who I am.

If you have a question that you would like answered, click on the ‘Ask any question’ tab and get typing.

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Fashion & Beauty Anyone interested in getting involved and joining The Mancunion's fashion writing team can contact editors Claudia Canavan and Roisín Dervish-O'Kane by email on fashion@mancunion.co.uk or join our facebook group by searching for "The Mancunion: Fashion and Beauty 2011-2012". We are really excited about the fashion and beauty pages this year and would love to get as many enthusiastic and talented writers on board as possible. Roisín and Claudia

Fashion Alphabet

is for: Boudoir

The picture of success? Roisin Dervish-O’Kane Fashion Editor Whilst flicking idly through the deceptively bulky September issue of Vogue, I stopped and stared, utterly transfixed at an advert for French haute-high street brand Sandro’s Autumn/Winter 2011 collection. It shows a beautiful, laughing woman, clad in a cosy duffle coat, mini skirt and knee-high socks, sitting in front of a large doorway. Sat beside her is an effortlessly charming man whose equally as attractive features are crinkled into a warm open smile: an image of the perfectly natural and beautiful couple- as effortless in their love as they are in their wardrobes. The image was rendered even more sickeningly perfect by the two adorable, elfin children that sat between them. I simply stared and my mind began to wander. Where were they? I’d imagined Paris, naturally, or maybe somewhere in Italy? How on earth did she get her figure back so quickly? I’d have to be very brave or simply deluded to wear a mini and kneehigh socks and I’m only twenty years old and childless, God that’s depressing. A mini panic then ensued: What if no-one ever wants to move to Paris to make beautiful children with me? What if I die alone, never knowing the joys of having legs perfect enough to wear knee-high socks? I was soon distracted from my semi-psychotic tirade and I began to ponder about the palpable effect that one piece of fashion advertising had on me. Never before had an image in a glossy sent me in to such an irrational, panicked day-dream. Naturally, one is accustomed to feeling overweight, under-dressed and poverty-stricken after perusing through page after page of highfashion advertising, but what was it that made Sandro’s Autumn/Winter campaign so utterly compelling? The difference is that in a single two-page spread, the clever advertising execs at Sandro are unashamedly thrusting the perfect partnership and perfect family life in your face, along with the promise of a slender body and an achievement of the perfect chic/casual balance in your wardrobe. Of course, I’d already imagined that this was a relaxed Sunday morning and

It seems that Sandro’s A/W campaign is intended to be the modern fairytale, aimed at the modern woman, whose aspirations are saturated with the contemporary ‘feminist’ adage of ‘having it all’

that during the week, mother worked for a successful, niche interior design company whilst Daddy wrote for a liberal national news publication. It seems that Sandro’s Autumn/Winter campaign is indeed intended to be the modern fairytale, aimed at the modern woman, whose aspirations are saturated with the contemporary ‘feminist’ adage of ‘having it all’. Coming to this conclusion was in one way depressing, yet at the same time pretty liberating. Just because we know what we want and see no reason why we should be refused it, we by no means have to aspire to society’s, and indeed the fashion industry’s pre-made, pre-formulated ideals of what successful womanhood should equate to. Was this our inheritance from the modern feminist movement? I was after all, moping over an image which, with a few styling alterations, could have come straight out of a cleaning catalogue aimed at the housewives of 1950’s American suburbia. By internalizing these images of a supposed feminine perfection, without acknowledging that much of what we see is indeed a fabricated fantasy, we risk losing all the fun and frivolity of fashion amidst the inadequacy we inevitably feel when comparing our own real lives with what is in reality a perfectly painted and primped veneer. Fashion is the ultimate fairytale, and fairytales are there to be imagined, enjoyed, and retold; most certainly not to be used as a point of comparison with one’s own existence. The scene may be perfect, but it is simply a onedimensional image used to evoke our desire to put ourselves within the picture of success, and thus propelling ourselves into a fit of consumerist lust. Equating a brand with the most enduring wishes shared by the majority of women is a shameless and powerful advertising tool, and one which in order to retain our consummate sanity, we must learn to combat with some good, old fashioned common sense. Staking out one’s own path in life, guided only by ourselves and the principles that have steered us this far is undoubtedly a much more sensible approach to our aspirations than pinning our hopes and dreams on a pretty, yet ultimately vapid facade.

The fashion world’s obsession with all things fetish quite literally dominated the A/W runways but for those of you who prefer a subtler, more flirtatious approach to seduction, boudoir dressing is a much less intimidating alternative. Look to Dior’s frothy, sheer organza gowns, or Lanvin’s super-girly sugary blush tones for your inspiration. If this is all a little too saccharine for your tastes , draw inspiration from Commes Des Garcons pretty blush camisoles and bloomers which were toughened up with chunky leather shoes. Embracing this ultrafeminine bedroom-chic couldn’t be easier: try a tantalizing sheer camisole, revealing just a glimpse of a black, lacy lingerie, for a wearable nod to the trend.

Don’t Cry for me, Christopher Kane Claudia Canavan Fashion Editor The immense power wielded by the fashion industry is perhaps best exemplified by the mass hysteria it is capable of generating. Hard graft may be put in to join the frenzy - putting oneself on a waiting list to spend thousands of pounds on a Hermes Birkin bag, for example; or networking with admirable zeal to gain an invite to an exclusive event. Slightly strange behaviour to the non- fashion enthusiast, perhaps, but certainly easily dismissed as an odd idiosyncrasy or a slight perversion of priorities- certainly nothing terribly detrimental to our collective social psyche. At what point, however, does a harmless love of the fashion circus and a devotion to designers transcend healthy interest to become, quite frankly, ever so slightly daft? This week, Vogue.com reported that certain (unnamed) audience members at the Christopher Kane Spring/ Summer 2011 show wept at the sheer beauty of his creations. Undoubtedly the collection was sublime- shimmering shift dresses adorned with fine gold embellishment provided breathtaking viewing, and Mr

Loving & Loathing

Loving: Gap’s new collection Keen to shed its image as a high street store good for denim and not much else, Gap showcased a charming new collection at New York fashion week. A general formula of bright trousers and loose fitting tops in neutral tones revealed a young, casually chic aesthetic, whilst a strong favouring of bold, chunky stripes for both male and female models prevented the look from straying into staid territory.

Loathing: Cheryl Cole as a footwear designer The nation’s dubious sweetheart has recently come out of hiding in order to ‘design’ a capsule, limited edition shoe collection with Stylistpick. Set to launch in December, the range is set to be accessible and affordable to your average avid consumer of all thing’s CC related. Whilst we’re feeling somewhat cynical about the extent to which the ex- X Factor judge will have been actively involved in the process, judgement shall be withheld until we get our hands on photographic evidence. Innocent until proven guilty, after all.

The Student Sartorialist Who is she? Katie Fitzgerald Where is she from? Manchester What does she study? Fashion at University of Central Lancashire Where did we find her? Outside M&S in Manchester City Centre What do we love? Katie’s vibrant choice of daytime lip colour and her meticulous attention to detail: especially evident in her patterned ankle socks and the ribbed trimmings on her simple, oversized parka. What does she love? Classic tailoring and this season’s structured aesthetic Who inspires her look? Kurt Cobain

The immense power wielded by the fashion industry is perhaps best exemplified by the mass hysteria it is capable of generating Kane should certainly be lauded for his undeniable design talent. But surely crying over his creations should be saved for those personally connected to the designer, as opposed to those for whom his gift simply means a stunning new piece of clothing to be gushed over at a glittering social soiree? Now, by no means am I claiming some sort of immunity from a clothes related weep fest- a recent fight with the washing machine that left a favourite cable knit jumper unwearable resulted in the

shedding of (a very few) tears. That minor disaster, however, occurred in the privacy of my own home and was a genuine expression of grief for a much loved item- not a somewhat over-the-top expression of an appreciation of beautiful garments in a room full of fellow fashion fanatics. It is hyped- up responses to events such as these which arguably purport a negative stereotype of those who chose to create a career in the arena of fashion. An over inflated sense of self importance must be significantly reigned in if one wishes to maintain the respect of society at large whilst working in a world which is based largely on aesthetics- selfawareness is key. And so, I can’t help but believe, it is perhaps time to reconnect with fashion in all of its frivolous glory- to embrace our love of clothes and dressing as a thoroughly enjoyable respite from the mundane monotonies of daily lifesomething to salivate, rather than stress, over. Our experiences with fashion should bring us unbridled joy which does not require an abundance of emotion to prove our love to whomever happens to be watching; rather it should be something we indulge and engage in for nothing other than our own pleasure.

Beauty

The unavoidable economic power of beauty Isabelle Dann Beauty Editor According to recent research, good-looking men and women earn on average five percent more than their average-looking counterparts, who in turn earn 10 percent more than the arguably unattractive. By the calculations of Daniel Hamermesh, an economist at the University of Texas, this means that better-looking individuals can earn up to a lifetime total of $230,000 more than their most plain peers – certainly no minor effect. Hamermesh has long written about “pulchronomics”, i.e. the relationship between economics and beauty. In his new book Beauty Pays, he endeavours to expose how much better off the better-looking are financially and determines what should be done about it. He begins by dispelling the notion that beauty is subjective, writing, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but most beholders view beauty similarly”. Hamermesh also brings up certain long-established research that suggests firstly that more people are considered physically attractive than unattractive, and secondly that female beauty is more contentious than male handsomeness. In light of the aforementioned statistics, Hamermesh argues that a physically plain individual is “disadvantaged” in a manner similar to an individual who is disabled or lacking intelligence, and therefore vulnerable to discrimination. He then proceeds to argue in favour of legal protection for the less attractive regarding potential loss of earnings, such as during a period of recession, where – he argues – attractive people will stand a better chance at maintaining or finding a job and securing loans than their unattractive equals. He states: “A market for looks-based lawsuits is waiting to be born”. In examining the case for legal protection for the unattractive, Hamermesh has been influenced by the writings of Deborah Rhode, a professor of law at Stanford University and author of The Beauty Bias. Upon reading the book, it is evident that Rhode struggles to comprehend why any woman would voluntarily embrace fashion – especially high heels – and is outraged that a majority of women consider their physical appearance as key to their self-image. Additionally, Rhodes recognises that any antidiscrimination laws would be most difficult to maintain considering the complexity of defining physical beauty versus race or sex, yet at the same time believes that such obstacles can be overcome. Washington DC, for example, legally prohibits employment decisions based on outward

appearance, i.e. facial attractiveness combined with personal style rather than merely height and weight, and is relatively successful in its implementation of such law in that it has not provoked a flurry of frivolous cases as one might have cynically albeit reasonably suspected. On the other end of the spectrum, Catherine Hakim chooses to embrace this inequality in Honey Money, declaring fervently that both men and women should maximise their “erotic capital”. However, the focus of her book is on women maximising such – excuse the pun – assets, as Hakim believes in what she terms “the male sex-deficit” (the argument that men want more sex than women), the result of which is that women are able to exploit men more successfully with their erotic capital than the reverse. Unsurprisingly, Hakim has provoked much antipathy, and renowned Guardian columnist Zoe Williams describes one point of their interview encounter thus: “She starts to speak very slowly. I believe she’s attempting to convey that I am the stupidest person she’s ever met”. In the case of Hakim, it’s not so much her message that provokes controversy but rather the patronising and hostile manner in which it is written, such as when she declares: “Feminists have been so brainwashed by patriarchal ideology that they have been quite unable to understand how sexuality and erotic capital can be sources of female power”. A potential earning difference of 15% is by no means fair, and a change in the law is something to think about, especially considering the power of law to influence societal attitudes on a permanent basis. For example, it’s been proven that customers are more likely to purchase items from attractive-looking sales assistants, but perhaps a strong legal focus on this inequality would help abate such issues. At the same time, simply making the best of oneself should not be condemned by any means considering that such practice is an immediately obvious sign of respect – you wouldn’t turn up to an interview straight from a pungent festival – and an enjoyable method self-expression.

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Fashion Alphabet

is for: Boudoir

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Feature

Munchables Dani Middleton Arts & Culture Editor Yonder ARTS logo is the product of a caffeine addiction and a sweet tooth, thus the contents of my cupboards. We, your Arts and Culture Editors at The Mancunion, thought a naff logo of mine would be a lovely way to inspire some of the artists in our readership to create a logo of your own that could appear in a future week’s issue. This is part of our effort to make the Arts & Culture section what art is to you, rather than what galleries and museums might tell you it is. So we’ve devised a new creative output for those of you who want to be involved in the section but not necessarily to write, email us, and get designing. Once I had created my wee masterpiece, and was happily chomping on wine gums swigging a coffee, I did some reading on other artists like myself who have used food in their art. Some of it’s pretty nasty that I wouldn’t recommend recreating. Jason Mecier, a mosaic artist, has made a few celebrities heads into delicacies using cookies, chips, beans and hamburgers to depict, Rosie O’Donnell and Jerry Seinfeld, while Jim Victor holes himself up for hours on end in freezers, chiselling at mammoth size food sculptures. Victor’s sculptures are incredibly

Staite’s depiction of the Pope made with enough pizza dough to make 500 pizzas is a tad disturbing detailed figures of cows, buildings and horses using butter, chocolate, cheese and mounds of fruit and veg, truly impressive work. Prior to Victor, artist Dieter Roth experimented with organic materials including chocolate and butter to create sculptures, back in the 1960’s. Roth smeared chocolate and banana on canvases, and sealed slices of sausages between glass with the intention to let it decay and see what the work would evolve into. Lovely. Carl Warner uses traditional landscapes with an edible-ish twist. A few dyed lettuce leaves for sea, salmon to represent a glittering lake

in the midday sun, baguette mountains, red onion hot air balloons, and potato rocks, his foodscapes are so well done that it’s not until the different foods are made obvious that you can even see they’re there. Song Dong, aka the biscuit tower master, has got Legoland beaten with his Biscuit City complete with a stadium and a church, using an estimated 72,000 biscuits. Sculptress Prudence Emma Staite was her audience to appreciate her art using all of their senses. Staite’s depiction of the Pope made with enough pizza dough to make 500 pizzas is a tad disturbing, he looks like he’s melting poor bloke, whereas her construction of the Coliseum made in the same medium is phenomenal. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know that cake has become a huge part of the world of sculpture over recent years. Cake, yummy to the taste and can make a marvellously convincing life-size sewing machine should you visit Zhanna Bakery in St Petersburg, Russia. Their creations are outstanding, from treasure chests crammed with edible jewellery to the aforementioned sewing machine, the outfit demonstrate beautifully how yummy art can be.

Competition

WOW. New photography competition Phoebe Chambre Arts & Culture Editor

Arts & Cultre Meetings at 5pm, Tuesdays in Bikos café. arts@mancunion.com

Comment & Debate

A picture is not worth a thousand words. Now I know this is only an arbitrary and personal view, perhaps even a wrong one. But a thousand? That’s going to take you a fair while to read; about as long as it will take to read this article. A picture, why, you can ingest a whole picture in the time it takes to snap one. And a photographic picture, well, you can glean first impressions, a deeper perhaps contradictory understanding of its character, and disable it down to constituent parts in the blink of a shutterscreen. A photograph is the melt-in-themouth candy floss of the picture world. A picture can’t present two sides of the argument; it can’t change your mind, or divulge new facts, or sting you with a twist in the tale like a 1000 words can. A thousand words unraveled an entire denouement and wrapped it neatly with a bow at the end of Harry Potter. A thousand words can wrestle a subject (maybe just a small one) over a barrel and once there sodomise it with intent, in the right hands; say an Oscar Wilde or a Norman Mailer. A thousand words written by David Foster Wallace can quietly stun you with wit and home truths, until it has your hands pinned behind your back and your eyes peeled open, unblinking. Can a picture do that?

A photo can tell a story. Not a tale with a shocking twist or any form of denouement, but a story nonetheless. A photo stares you down, brazen faced with its story of blackand-white solidity Not unless you use it as scrap paper. Now I know what you’re going to say. I didn’t want it to come to this, but yes, I concede, a photo can do some things. A photograph can tell a story. Not a tale with a shocking twist or any form of denouement, but a story nonetheless. A

photo stares you down, brazen faced with its story of black-and-white solidity. What’s more this story is conveyed to the reader in a matter of seconds – no longer than the satisfying snap on a Kodak disposable. And this optical information: fast-paced, accessible, instant, often emotes a good gracious supersize-me helping of ‘feeling’ as well. Now, this candy floss may taste great, it may make you feel like you’re coming head to head with the very face of humanity, it may even make you want more of it. But know this: it has not a patch on a long afternoon of neck ache hunched over a dusty, old book. Call me old-fashioned but I prefer a nice healthy fibrous bowl of bran flakes, to the scintillating vibrant fizzle of a wad of the sweet stuff on my tongue. Even if the photo in question evokes a paralyzing nostalgia for a time I didn’t know and can’t remember, just for that split second. Like a scene from CartierBresson’s breath-stealing stills does. Or privies an intimate, private, thought-laden moment right out there into the public for my consumption. As in Vivian Maier’s stolen snapshots of street life in Chicago. (She was a nanny for 40 years and took hundreds of thousands of non-words that were only discovered once she died) A photo affords a window into a distant, different place, one that I would never get to see out of my own bedroom pane. Like the late Tim Hethrington’s

photojournalism of war-torn locales, whose photos’ spiced, heated breeze circumvents the page and fans you. I simply remind myself that it is a story, one I am not part of. I may stare at the photo, transfixed; I may keep flicking back to it as if to a line I can’t shake in one of those books, and it may flash up out of my subconscious at inopportune moments – but only before lowering my head back to the tome I am currently drooping tired eyes towards. Cornell Capa said of his pictures, ‘they ‘are the ‘words’, which make sentences, which in turn make up the story’. A photograph can capture one story, one moment with word-defying presence. Of course, word-replacement capacity subject to size and quality, terms and conditions. But let’s say, for academic purposes only, that a picture can equal a proportionally representative number of words. And this Capa fellow was brother of the inimitable Robert Capa, who himself hangs among the stratospheric high lights of 20th century photography – so he’s got a pretty good pedigree. Maybe some of the Capas’ photos put together, with captions obviously, could constitute a few sentences. A small paragraph at most. And Dorothy Bohm, the iconic aluminium lady, who learnt her trade here in the North West and whose vivacious and searing prints were on show in the Manchester Art Gallery last year.

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She must have a few paragraphs to string together, what with her large and long output (she’s still going strong, go Dorothy). So maybe if yield combined, Capas and Bohm, you’ve got a solid few hundred words worth of concentrated reading-time on your hands. But not a thousand words. I mean, really? One whole thousand. That’s got to be a humdinger of an optical illusion. But our attention has already been (briefly, fleetingly) diverted by photographic pretenders such as these.

And we’re medium to fairly confident that amongst the many of you, there could be cause to put down the book for a moment or two more: a picture worth a thousand words. So, I really hope you’ve managed to postpone your sugar buzz and read to the end of this actual thousand words (no picture necessary) because now is the time for audience participation. So set down your sorrows and get snapping that bubblegum. You’ve got some humdingers to create. Send us your thousand words.

Send us your (photographic) entries to arts@mancunion.com, for the chance for your photo to be printed in this very paper. Photo of the week will be printed in the paper, but the best of the rest will go up on our website. This week’s theme: 1000 words. Caption, optional Also get in touch with (and join) the Photography Society for use of their magnificent dark room.

Theatre

Now give three cheers Andrew Campbell Theatre Editor

It has been 140 years since the first collaboration between librettist W.S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan premiered in London but their works, including comic operas The Mikado, H.M.S Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, are still regularly performed up and down the UK and around the world. From Cole Porter to Family Guy, Gilbert and Sullivan’s work has had a significant cultural impact on satire, musical theatre and popular music and in 2001, three out of five nominees for the Outstanding Musical Production Olivier Award were productions of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. Of particularly interest is the dedication that Gilbert and Sullivan inspire from amateur performers. In the UK there are over 100 amateur societies dedicated to performing Gilbert and Sullivan’s work. You can’t say this of Shakespeare, Sondheim or any other writers of drama, opera or musical theatre. The Mancunion met up with Paul O’Neil and Ian Field from Manchester Universities Gilbert and Sullivan Society (MUGGS) to talk about the enduring popularity of Gilbert and Sullivan and the kind of things that they get up to as

MUGSS performing Utopia Limited

a student society performing to students and the public here in Manchester. Paul, the society’s publicity manager who directed the MUGGS production Yeoman of the Guard last term, admits that Gilbert and Sullivan do have something of image problem, associated with “drafty church halls and creaky sets” and that “sometimes music and drama students don’t take what we do seriously, which is a shame”. Ian, who is the MUGGS social secretary, adds, “there are G&S traditionalists but MUGGS enjoys staging different interpretations, we staged a Bollywood version of The Mikado with authentic Bollywood dancing. The dramatic content is much stronger than people give it credit for”. The malleability of Gilbert and Sullivan’s work appears to be one of the keys to its success; Paul mentions that “In G&S it’s traditional to change comments about Victorian Politics to contemporary ones. In H.M.S Pinafore a lawyer becomes the head of the Royal Navy. Today we have someone with no experience of working in a hospital as Health Secretary and a doctor running the Ministry of Defence. Some things in England haven’t changed”. The society was founded in 1951. Paul says that, “The French Society wanted to welcome students and they thought,

what is more English than putting on The Mikado?” They ascribe the popularity to a couple of factors. Firstly, Ian says that “the copyright on G&S works ran out in the 1960’s and that makes putting on productions far more affordable. A few years ago we staged Bugsy Malone, one of only a handful of times in MUGGS history that we have staged a non-G&S show, and we had to pay nearly £1000 for the rights”. MUGGS has been able to stage nearly all of Gilbert and Sullivan’s full-length comic operas over its history, having no copyright and licensing issues to consider gives groups full control over how and when the shows are staged. Secondly, one of the appeals of G&S is that there are no barriers to getting involved, though MUGGS do use professional musicians they don’t audition for their chorus. Paul says that society attracts people who “might feel intimidated by drama societies” and that there is an emphasis on creating a “fraternal atmosphere”. “We have a 50/50 male/female split in the society and a lot of heterosexual men who like football but also like prancing around on stage in costume”. MUGGS will be rehearsing and performing a show in 24-hours from 6pm on Friday 7th October in UMSU Council Chambers.

Tom Chambers in Top Hat at The Lowry

Top hat, white tie and tails Andrew Campbell Theatre Editor

Stopping at The Lowry on a tour of the UK, Top Hat is a new musical based on the 1935 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film of the same name. Tom Chambers and Summer Strallen star as the glamorous Jerry Travers and Dale Tremont, who, by a series of misunderstandings and mistaken identities, end up singing, dancing and exchange witticisms across Europe. This production leaves you astonished that this is its first time on stage. In its favour, the production is slick and flows remarkably well. The story hasn’t been plastered arbitrarily around the songs. The original film only contains five Berlin songs and ten others from the songs-writer’s repertoire have been added but wellknown tunes such as Lets Face the music and Dance and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes don’t feel out place. The farce is well constructed and entertaining if entirely conventional. The dancing is impressive and similarly the singing. There is nothing particularly modern about Top Hat, the characters; golddigger wife, charismatic American, eccentric butler are rehashes of familiar characters but the cast play them with flair. The character Alberto Beddini, in the form he appears in the stage show, was apparently created through a workshop process. It is difficult to believe that this could have taken long;

Top Hat The Lowry Until Saturday 8th October Tickets are available from £19 for students.

the character is a stock flustered Italian who mispronounces his English but clichés are obviously difficult to do well. The actor Ricardo Afonso plays the role without any detectable irony but is an invaluable addition as the farce reaches its climax. At 171 minutes, the running time possibly reflects a desire for audiences to feel that they are getting their money’s worth and more than any artistic considerations. Nostalgia is clearly part of Top Hat’s appeal, the average age of audience members was unusually high, and maybe the appeal to younger audiences isn’t immediately obvious but this type of well-made escapism clearly isn’t going out of fashion. For a new musical to nearly pack out The Lowry’s Lyric Theatre on a Tuesday evening, with an, at times, over-zealous audience, is no mean feat. Expect Top Hat to be a very popular success.

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Music ”

Do you love collaborations or would you rather bands kept to themselves? Reckon Lou Reed still has a shelf life? To spout your opinions, judge the worth of a band and even get on the odd guestlist, email us at music@mancunion.com and join our Facebook group The Mancunion: Music Section.

The Academy this week... Cage The Elephant – Monday 3rd – Academy 2 The deep-south rockers prove that chicken isn’t the only thing to come out of Kentucky as they continue their extensive tour off the back of second album Thank You, Happy Birthday. Fenech Soler – Thursday 6th – Academy 2 Dance-infused indie foursome, perhaps most famous for the track ‘Stop and Stare’ – why not go along and see if they actually have any other songs?

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Albums

Sungrazer Shine

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@iamMarkRonson: For the record, Zane Lowe f*****in loves Beyoncé. I've seen him rock doubles of "crazy in love" (good) & do the "single ladies" dance (bad) @literallyjamie: Bono + electrical equipment + rain. Science - don't fail me now. @simon_price01: Noah & The Whale suck shit from a dead dog's arse. Dear The Upper Classes, haven't you got some bits of the Welfare State to be destroying? @domjolly: Pretended I was at Glastonbury last night, covered myself in mud and and threw piss around my living room while watching Coldplay.

Up & Coming Secret Pilot Manchester-based quartet Secret Pilot have been making waves recently in the melting pot of new music that is brewing in the North West. Providing an eclectic mix of guitar-driven indie songs with a rhythm section that could make a set of old age pensioners shake their hips, these four University of Manchester students should surely be kept on the radar of any young music lover. A strong following across the UK’s live music capital has garnered attention from national radio stations and record companies. Their first single, ‘Lucy’, is to be released on Monday 3rd October on iTunes followed by a single launch party at Joshua Brooks on Tuesday 4th October with support from Naymedici, and fellow students Domino Sugar. This talented bunch are not to be missed in the coming months.

Europe, at least for the last three or four years, has been the place to go for fuzzy, psychedelic, underground riffs. Small bands, such as Colour Haze, Graveyard, Asteroid and Kamchatka, have flown the flag for the genre over recent years, but in Mirador, Sungrazer have stepped up to challenge all comers. Heading up their first full length, ‘Wild Goose’ is a confident jaunt between swaggering, semi-distorted riffs and calm, seemingly endless jams, setting up a real feel for where the album is taking us. What follows is a succession of jam like tunes with long instrumental parts, leading up to crushing choruses, all helped along the way with the odd pedal effect. Trippy parts are scarcely few and far between either, with title track’ Mirador’ an easy song

Sungrazer Mirador Label: Electrohasch

to get lost in, even through some of the more crunching parts. Worth noting also is that this is an ‘album’ album; rather, it is not just a collection of songs with no common thread. From start to end, Mirador travels in a seamless direction, washing over you all the more effortlessly in the knowledge that this is, for all intents and purposes, one solid

piece of music. The real testament to this album however is the effect small, seemingly inconsequential flurries, hidden away among instrumental sections, can have. On the second spin, you may find yourself awaiting a three second long progression of simple chords, all because of the hypnotic effects and mixing of the album. With the acclaim many critics gave to Sungrazer’s self titled EP last year, it was interesting to see how their debut full length would match up to the merits of the former. The answer is easily. Mirador is an album that is, as ludicrous as it may seem, simultaneously relaxing and exciting. Simply amazing.

Tom Geddes, Music Editor

Justice Done? Remember Justice? Yeah? Well you’re in for a treat then, sort of. The French duo that took electronic music by storm with their first, and critically acclaimed album † have returned with another album that is set to follow the same formula and change the face the of dance music again. Or is it? After listening to Audio, Video, Disco, it’s clear much has changed. After the power-hitter that is Justice’s new single ‘Civilization’, the album fades. Too many songs just come and go without any real consequence: in fact, at least a third of the album sounds like it could be backing music for a poor remake of Crystal Maze. For those of you looking for another ‘Phantom Pt. 2’, a song that stood out amongst the other stellar

Justice Audio, Video, Disco Label: Edbanger Records

tracks on the first album, you’re out of luck. The duo have cited Queen, The Who and Black Sabbath as influences on this LP, and whilst it’s clear that a homage to these artists exists in some of the tunes – especially the 80s guitar riffs in ‘Parade’ and ‘Newlands’ – it’s unclear as to

whether it actually works for them. It often sounds confused. It seems too far removed from what made their first album great towering drums, haunting, deep base – replaced with MGMT-style vocals and too many faceless instrumentals. It appears to be an altogether more inoffensive listen, which is sad, really. You certainly won’t find a ‘Stress’ on this record. It will work for some, but not for me. For those who want to hear the Justice of old, avoid this album. If you simply can’t go without listening, brace yourself to be under-whelmed and slightly gutted.

Joe Smart, Music Editor

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Nope, you’re not drunk. The Mancunion and Sankeys have teamed up to offer you the chance to win yourself a SEASON TICKET to the greatest club in Manchester. And if you thought that was great, we’ve actually got TWO to give away, and they both come with a plus one. Excited, aren’t you? Catering to the likes of Grandmaster Flash and Jaguar Skills in the coming weeks, Sankeys has set the standard for nightlife in the North, topping DJ Mag’s coveted Top 100 Clubs list in 2010 – phwoar. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning of these babies is answer the painfully simple question below:

On which island did Sankeys open a new club this summer? E-mail your answers with your name and number to music@mancunion.com See? Piece of piss. Competition closes on 10.10.2011 For more on Sankeys visit www.sankeys.info

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Live

Column

Kill It Kid Donning the stage at Manchester's Deaf Institute on Wednesday evening were Kill It Kid, one of Britain’s fastest-rising bands. Promoting their second album Feet Fall Heavy whose new single 'Heart Rested With You' has been labeled as Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe's "Next Hype", they had to compete

with the sparkling clubs and party busses of Welcome Week. So while they didn't attract a crowd that filled the venue, the music succeeded in creating an atmosphere that more than compensated for it and would not have been out of place on a far bigger stage.

Kill It Kid Deaf Institute 21st September

K.I.K.'s style has been compared to the Black Keys, but although they are of the same ilk, their sound seems heavier and less polished. The raw, impassioned vocals of Chris Turpin and Steph Ward give their music originality and drama. Altogether, their style is a mesh of grimey, bluesy, Americana, heavy country rock. This is Bath's musical version of home-brewed moonshine. The band has come a long way since the release of their first, self-titled album in 2009. Despite it being highly acclaimed by magazines

such as NME, some tracks sounded poorly structured and their style was unclear. Now, two years on, Kill It Kid have found an overall more bluesy, bassy collective voice. Live performance allowed bassist, Dom Kozubik, and drummer, Marc Jones, to be heard more prominently in the music, giving the bluesy beat and soulful sound more weight. Unfortunately this is lost somewhere during the recording process and their music does not always translate well onto disc. However, their captivating live performance placed Kill It Kid much higher in my estimation; this is a band best seen live. They have massive potential and I can't wait to hear more from them. Kill It Kid are returning to Manchester in February, so check them out for yourself.

Katie Hodgson

Metronomy After endlessly touring the continent’s finest festivals for what seems like an age, Metronomy tonight revealed what a well-oiled machine they are. The band finally gained the recognition they deserve via their nomination for this year’s Mercury Prize and The English Riviera was showcased in all its definitive glory. A strong candidate for album of the year, the entry riff from every track is greeted by a chorus of cheers, while lead tracks ‘The Bay’ and ‘The Look’ nearly bring the house down. What’s more, the group’s notorious light show has moved on from what were somewhat humble beginnings to now being an integral part of the performance. Having sold out Academy 3 within days of tickets going on sale, this gig was sure to be moved to it’s larger neighbour, and Academy 2 proved to be an ideal location. With the place full to bursting, the foursome provide a show with enough

Metronomy Academy 2 26th September

energy to power a small country. Nevertheless, Metronomy are dressed to the hilt and an air of cool emanates from them throughout the entire evening. The constant ‘80s pop shuffle of the crowd is only broken by a mass of bodies storming towards the stage upon the playing of first album classic ‘You Could Easily Have Me’. My only gripe could possibly be that this was indeed the only offering from Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 That You Owe). But that does not detract in any way from the overall spectacle, instantly danceable numbers from Nights Out litter the setlist,

and the evening is drawn to a close perfectly by an energetic rendition of ‘Radio Ladio’. It is true; Glastonbury exposed the south-coast crooners to possibly not be the desired material for the Pyramid Stage, so obviously questions could persist about their ability to fill larger venues. Nevertheless, after tonight the only issues that come to my mind are:

Are Metronomy the most tightknit performers around? Is ‘Heartbreaker’ the most perfectly layered pop song? Is bassist Gbenga Adelekan the coolest man on the planet? By the way, the answer to all the questions above is yes. Bloody brilliant.

emotions. Fish keeps the mood light, fumbling with the drum machine and introducing ‘Real Life’ as a song about contemplating a threesome. A highlight was ‘Homerton Baby’, the liveliest track off the album that makes you want to wave your arms around and sing to your heart’s content. Proving how comfortable he is with the less than enthusiastic audience, he casually jumps off stage and dances with an unsuspecting spectator, who cracks a wide smile and self-consciously joins in. ‘Solar Plexus of the World’ was brought to life in a wave of warm and beautiful harmonies. It’s a track so outrageously

seductive that you are transported from the hollow music hall to an exotic, fantasy world. Tonight he gives us the impression he has been on a painful, personal journey and come out on the other side undefeated and ready to share his story. He was wholly undeterred by the poor turnout and you have to admire him for giving us his all regardless. The crowd was tonight’s only disappointment and had there been more people, it would have felt like a real celebration.

Tom Hickman, Music Editor

Kai Fish and the Lights You may know him as the bassist from the Mystery Jets, but performing with his own eponymous band, Kai Fish makes the perfect front man. Wearing a fantastic gold jacket, he has mastered the necessary balance of talent and charisma. Where many performers may have been put off by the almost non-existent crowd, Fish is instantly at ease. He kicks off with ‘Erasing the Young’, the opening track from his debut album, Life in Monochrome, establishing melancholy themes of despair and acceptance of heartbreak. From this description you might imagine a doom and gloom drone, but on the contrary; his

Kai Fish and the Lights Deaf Institute 24th September

open, honest voice combined with the sometimes melodramatic keyboard and guitars creates an unshakeable optimism. His set veers from heartbreak to hope and excitement to untameable joy. But it’s not all heightened

Hannah Mead

Loutallica Tom Geddes Music Editor Collaborations between bands have always been a bit of a dodgy area. Granted, the odd few seem to work, despite your conscience screaming that it’s wrong (see Aerosmith teaming up with RunD.M.C. and smashing the original ‘Walk This Way’ to pieces), but the vast majority just sound shit and ultimately are shit (see the endless stream of trash Fred Durst popped up on in the noughties.) But over the course of last summer, one such coming together was announced that greatly distressed me; Metallica and Lou Reed. If you are sane, the first question you ask when you see this isn’t the usual, “Hmmm, I wonder what that will sound like?”, but rather “Who is this album being made for?” Are there vast numbers of Velvet Underground fans out there screaming for a bit more stadium metal behind Lou Reed’s voice? Are there Metallica fans who feel deprived having just one set of croaky vocals, a decade or two past their prime? Of course, there are neither; the only reason for these strange bedfellows to unite lies in pure ego and selfindulgence. Reed wants to seem more extreme than he now is and yet, his attempts ultimately liken him to a balding, middle-aged man who just bought a leather jacket and a motorbike. Metallica are also having their own little midlife crisis. Desperate to undo nearly thirty years of rebellious, beer swigging attitude and be seen as credible, they’ve decided to enlist one of the greatest vocalists in living memory, with the ironic side-effect of sapping the credibility out of all involved. Let me be honest with you now. Every judgement I made on this car crash of an album, I made before seeing any details, hearing any songs, reading any interviews or observing the artwork, but in turn, nothing I’ve seen in the slow reveal since has changed my mind at all. In fact, every time I hear a new detail about the album or hear an extended sample, I do so getting steadily more depressed about the impending result. The most distressing detail about the whole album is the concept; yes, it’s a concept album by the way. The album is called Lulu, and

Desperate to be seen as credible, they’ve ironically sapped the credibility out of all involved charts the story of a dancer and her relationships. If that didn’t interest you enough, it also involves Jack the Ripper. If that still doesn’t interest you, it’s worth noting that, ultimately, this is the score for a failed reworking of a century old German play Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. Whilst this is the exact quirky territory you may expect Reed to cover, I really wonder what Metallica were thinking. When they played together at their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, did they really see this as the logical next step? If so why? Surely inspiration cannot be so dried up that, not only must they recruit an outsider, they do so bringing no ideas and perhaps more importantly not shooting down ridiculous ones Reed gives them. This week, ‘The View’, a number in which Reed talks over plodding riffs, was released to near universal groans, seemingly proving every sceptical comment thrown Lulu’s way to be correct; which brings this rant to the point I wanted to make. Sometimes it is just better to focus on what your fans want. Now, I’m not saying that Reed or Metallica should pander to the masses and put out what they feel is a terrible album, but surely, they want to keep in the favour of long term supporters. By putting out Lulu, not only have they put out a potential flop, but they’ve also pissed in the face of fans waiting patiently for a real new album and that shows just how out of touch with their audiences both are: collaborating with somebody your fans probably don’t like, on an album they didn’t ask for, in turn delaying the album they want.

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Big screen review

Sibling rivalry Patrick Cowling Film Editor Two grown men in a cage beating seven shades of shit out of each other. This is by no means the only thing that Warrior has to offer, but is probably the reason why many people will go to watch this film – and those people will not be disappointed. Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton play the estranged brothers that enter an MMA (that’s Mixed Martial Arts for anyone as clueless as I was before entering the cinema to see this film) competition with the biggest prize money in the history of the sport, although for very different reasons. The

hard-as-nails promotional poster you see plastered on buses and billboards make it look like another mindless fight film, but the depth of emotion that ran throughout the story lets it develop into a compelling and multi-layered drama. Hard to say that without sounding like a dick. The film’s strong plot is complemented by some incredible performances. There are some really quite moving scenes between Edgerton and Hardy rejecting the apologies of their freshly sober father (Nick Nolte) that might take anyone who is in the cinema just to see the fights by surprise. So don’t say I didn’t warn you when you let out an embarrassing little sniffle or sob in the silent cinema.

All the soppy crap aside – the fights are incredible. Hardy apparently gained 28 pounds of muscle for the part, which explains why he looks like a Killer Whale that’s been on steroids for a year in the film. His character in the film rips the door off a tank and knocks a bunch of people out with the singular ‘wonderbang’. Edgerton on the other hand gets beating after beating and then somehow manages to get his opponents in holds

Warrior Director: Gavin O’Connor

that look like he is folding them up ready to package in IKEA. Warrior will do for MMA what Ong Bak did for Muay Thai. The fights are sensational and the details of the training and ringside instructions leave the viewer feeling included and not isolated by the technicalities of something they don’t understand. Whilst the story line as far as the competition and Edgerton’s ‘familym a n - o n - h a rd - t i m e s - c o m i n g- ou t - o fretirement-to-feed-his-family’ thing are standard and predictable, the skill in the filming for building suspense and creating compassion for the brothers makes the predictability fade next to everything that makes this film so good.

Starring: Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte

Movie Heroines

Women are often lumbered with an unfair lot in the film world. It’s important, then, to celebrate the heroines that appear on screen. Here are my top 5. 5. Jean Louise "Scout" Finch – To Kill a Mockingbird Every bit Atticus’ daughter, Scout Finch is clever, independent and compassionate. In her racist hometown, she proves herself to be more mature than many of the vicious and unthinking adults around her. 4. Annie – Annie Hall Woody Allen’s romantic lead shows us that being ditzy is in no way synonymous with a lack of intelligence, as she breaks his heart and runs away with the film. 3. Marge, Police Chief – Fargo In sub-zero conditions and a state of advanced pregnancy, Police Chief Marge barely breaks a sweat solving a series of homicides in her quiet country town. 2. Rose Sayer – The African Queen Katherine Hepburn’s Methodist missionary is shot at by German soldiers, contends with white water rapids and proves that she’s more than a match for Humphrey Bogart’s moody verbal sparring in John Huston’s classic movie. 1. Mattie Ross – True Grit She’s the hardest 14 yearold ever. True Grit’s lead role beats a professional lawyer at his own game, convinces Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger and Jeff Bridges’ U.S Marshall to help her track down her father’s killers and shoots a guy in the face with a rifle. Sinead Fish

The brothers playing nicely

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Don’t watch that, watch this...

The 55th London BFI Film Festival 12th - 27th October 2011 George Nichols When people talk about an event an international of cultural importance in London these days, they’re almost certainly referring to the 2012 Olympics. An event which should bring our country together, not just England but the home nations too, with a sense of cultural understanding and a message relevant to our times - some damned good entertainment, too. But for those of you who that this does not thrill, maybe you should look to the London BFI Film Festival. This year’s festival says it ‘comes at a time when national news and international events suggest that film has never been more needed – whether to help

us make sense of our lives or to offer us temporary escape’. Well this bold statement certainly defines the role of British film in 2011 as well. Whether Colonel Gaddafi’s looting a shop in London or Boris Johnson’s compound is being bombed, cinema is needed more than ever, not only as escapism, but also as an inspiration to (not to mention analysis of ) our modern society. Tinge Krishnan’s first feature length film, Junkehearts, is being tipped as the one to watch this festival, his previous short triumphing at the BAFTAs. Junkehearts deals with big contemporary problems such as drugs, alcoholism and homelessness, and follows three people’s attempts to find some redemption. It confronts a vision of life in the 21st century

(and, in fact, life in general) that is wracked with horrific truths, and is billed as ‘sophisticated’. If you’re looking for something a bit more avantgarde, and even humorous, to escape the increasing feeling of dread and disgust you have to deal with every day, then watch out for the films of Gabriel Brante (and collaborators). They explore conventional issues through unconventional methods, and the results are quite often very interesting. But whatever your cup of tea, there is sure to be something here to suit you, and if you, like me, are too devoid of money, time and proximity to London in the next few months to go, then watch out for their imminent DVD releases. So forget about the Olympics, get a gold medal in watching films.

A Bronx Tale I’ve always hated being asked, “What’s your favourite film?” It’s such a bastard of a question for someone like me with an unhealthy obsession with cinema, but seems to be a staple of the icebreaker questions beginners’ pack every fresher seems to have got before arriving. It vexes me so much I generally end up head-butting the poor stranger to ease the indecision within. I have recently decided on an answer to this question however, mainly to avoid a custodial sentence, but also because I realised that when push comes to shove, I have a genuine answer – A Bronx Tale. Written by Chaz Palminteri, and directed by De Niro, it brings to life the sounds, atmosphere and people of the neighbourhoods of the Bronx in the 60’s in a way I have yet to see matched. The plot is unlike any gangster film that I have ever seen, and I have seen far too many because I’m a middle class boy from the suburbs in denial. Nine-year-old Calogero Anello witnesses the local mafia chief, Sonny, kill a man in front of his house, but keeps silent when the police arrive. From this day on, Sonny takes Calogero under his wing; advising and looking out for him, but always firm in keeping him away from the criminal lifestyle. Calogero’s father – hard working bus driver Lorenzo, resents this influence on his young son, and the film follows the battle between the two men over the growing youth. Complimented by a great soundtrack, and showing the racial tensions of the era with stunning realism, A Bronx Tale is without a doubt one of the best films you will ever see. Toby Goodge

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Original vs Remake

Scarface Patrick Cowling Film Editor Original (1932) Arguably the iconic ‘30s Gangster film, the original Scarface charts the rise of Tony Camonte during prohibition. For anyone that hasn’t seen it, it’s worth a look if only for the fact that it contains every single cliché that you would expect from a ‘30s black and white film. Tony’s sidekick flicks a quarter in his hand all day long, and the whole film is full of that amazing old dialogue; ‘This is my town see!’ Of course Scarface is a great film for much better reasons than simply laughing at the dialogue. There are some great cinematic devices in Scarface. It’s little touches like the way Tony whistles the Sextet from Donizetti’s ‘Lucia di

Lammermoor’ before he kills people, and how the letter ‘X’ appears somewhere in every scene of someone being murdered that makes this film such a classic. The film lacks the bite of the remake, but then considering the huge difference in censorship between 1932 and 1983, the original is relatively violent for its era. Directors Hawks and Rosson had to release the film with the subtitle “The Shame of a Nation” to appease the Studios. The reason for Tony’s eventual breakdown and capitulation after the shootout is that the morals of the mass media in the ‘30s meant that crime had to be seen to pay; hence why Tony Camonte is shot running away from the police and Tony Montana dies fighting.

Remake (1983) One of those rare cases of a

remake far outshining the original and becoming an iconic film in it’s own right. Now whilst the story line is essentially the same, the setting has changed from prohibition Italian mafia gangsters to Cuban and Colombian drug dealers in Miami. The change is what makes the film such a success. It takes the best aspects of the original and adds an entire new slant to the story that brings in the Colombians and the money laundering. Paccino’s performance as Tony Montana is one of his finest and best remembered in his career. His deranged and psychotic character is everything that the Paul Muni’s Tony Camonte was and more – he dips his face into mountains of cocaine and fights about a million Colombian hit men with just his massive cojones and his massive gun.

Quote of the week

”

“Either this man is dead or my Groucho Marx – A Day at the Races watch has stopped” Photo: Ben Page

Big screen preview

Kitty litter Bill Knowles Film Editor The trailer for this film makes me sad. Puss in Boots swaggers towards the camera to the sound of crap music, and all I can think is ‘why? Why, Dreamworks? Wasn’t it enough to just kill Shrek. That barrage of sequels was horrible. It was brutal, like something out of American History X. It gave me nightmares for years.’ And you know what? On top of all that, Puss in Boots was always a crap character anyway. The problem is that the original Shrek was so excellent. Too excellent. Dreamworks found itself a winning formula: concealing ice-dry wit and clever pop-culture references in a children’s film, meaning that parents wanted to see the film almost as much as their children. It was immensely entertaining to everyone. But Shrek started something it couldn’t control. It split the atom of kids’ entertainment. Dreamworks started using the Shrek formula whenever it could. Churning out film after film with the same tired references and recycled scripts. Before long, the world of children’s animation had become a more artistically barren place than it was before. It’s sad, and the same thing that happens in the music world all the time; remember when The Arctic Monkeys first appeared, then ten seconds later the lead singer of band sounded like they grew up in Sheffield.

Puss in Boots Director: Chris Miller Starring: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifinakis Released: 26th October

Maybe this film will save itself. Maybe it’s the point at which the Shrek franchise gets back on track. But it looks, at the moment, as though it’s just another marker for Dreamworks’ gradual decline into creative homogeneity. I’m just glad we’ve got Aardman and Pixar. Because you know what, they might just help me avoid animation’s winter. Right now, I’ll just stick to Toy Story. And it’s sequels.

Courtesy of Cornerhouse, Manchester’?

Your arts cinema The Odeon doesn’t love you. It says it does, but don’t be fooled. If you were stumbling home through the Printworks after a night out it’d probably pretend not to know you. It hangs out with Pure, Chiquitos, Lloyds Bar – and you know what they’re like. Pretty, maybe, with all those bright lights. Vacuous too. Every night, spewing more meaningless noise than a preppy fresher at pre-drinks. Don’t get me wrong, the Odeon can work for you. Just make sure to keep a healthy level of scepticism. When it says the hot dogs are delicious, 3D is worth it, Avatar is a masterpiece, just raise an eyebrow and ask the question. “Really?” Cornerhouse sits near the end of Oxford road, by Oxford Road Train Station. It grew up as an adult cinema, before repentance and a Dog the Bounty Hunteresque conversion turned it into Manchester’s premier art house cinema. These days it’s a fantastic place to go, with contemporary art galleries, a wide selection of specialist books and magazines and, of course, the most interesting selection of cinematic releases in town. On top of that, it has a classic a film matinee and every March it also plays hosts the excellent ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American film festival. The point about Cornerhouse is it’s yours. And like your libraries and your community centres it’s criminally underused, but so important. Don’t believe the stereotype - you don’t have to be a pretentious dickhead to go there, just curious. If you’re bored of trashy TV, Facebook and the Odeon, why not give it a chance. It’s your arts cinema after all. Ask for your student discount. You never know, you might just fall in love with the place.

Bill Knowles Film Editor

Literature

Book Club Steve Jones Literature Editor This week, Steve Jones learns absolutely nothing about Joseph Conrad from Film Editor Bill Knowles. What are you reading, who’s it by and what’s it about? The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad. It’s about anarchists, communists, policemen and a man called Verloc. Have you read anything else by this author? Never.

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Tailor made for students A peek at the labyrinthian mind of Haruki Murakami Steve Jones Literature Editor

Steve Jones Literature Editor

Get involved! Want to write for Literature? It’s incredibly easy! You don’t have to do a Literature degree (I don’t), you only have to enjoy reading and have a bit of a hand for writing. E-mail me at literature@man cunion.com and I’ll put you on the mailing list. Details of a meeting place and time to follow.

Sometimes, that copy of Crime and Punishment or your untranslated stack of Ovid can look a bit daunting at university. Whiskey and music will be waiting downstairs, taunting and laughing at you as you read the same sentence on page three for the 100th time in five hours. It’s only a matter of time before you snap. You’ll scream, rip the book to shreds and down a keg of gin and tonic while your housemates sit in their pants, play Scalextric and half-arsedly egg you on. Then you’ll wake up the next morning feeling terrible that you didn’t, as you had promised yourself, get to that bit where Achilles kills Hektor. Or something. Just as bad would be to give in and read some wholly vacuous trash that you can skim through in the same amount of time it takes to watch the Jennifer Aniston film it’s based on. So where, where can you find a wonderful middle ground? A book which is a riot to read but which you wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen leafing through in public? Well, of course, there are loads. But no other author seems to write books as tailor made for students as Haruki Murakami. Murakami is a highly original Japanese author, whose novels often utilise magic realism and dark, looping narratives. Paradoxically, his books are as utterly baffling as they are

Murakami’s books are as utterly baffling as they are completely accessible completely accessible. If you’re a fan of predictable plots and tiedup ends, steer well clear of this one. His novels don’t follow any formula I can think of. Constant, bewildering madness hits you at every page, until you’re almost physically reacting to it. Truckloads of apparent nonsense whirl around in no particular order, acres and acres of it, like a swirling vortex of incomprehension. You have absolutely no idea what is going on most of the time, but are still incurably gripped. Their unconventional, bounding plots and unexplained occurrences and symbolism make them almost poetic, but also wholly un-putdownable. If you’re not gasping and wincing and laughing and crying in confusion (which you usually are, simultaneously and all the time) then you’re reading an incredibly explicit sex scene. You’ll always think there’s some context or reason for it

happening, but there isn’t. In fact, sometimes you don’t know if it even is happening, or if it’s just the imagination of the main character. That’s the case in Kafka on the Shore, a 600 page monster but which you will get through in two days purely by its incredibly gripping, lucid writing style. And maybe, if you’re not reading excruciatingly descriptive sex scenes, you’re reading scenes of unimaginable horror that will keep you awake for two weeks after you read it. There’s a section I still think about and shudder in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I won’t give it away, but it involves skinning. None of what I have said fits the description of Norwegian Wood, which is Murakami’s most famous and most popular novel for some reason. That one is an almost completely by-the-books tragic love story. It’s the sort of book you’ll tilt your head at once you’ve read the last page and generously give a B+. Something mad like 60% of the Japanese population has read Norwegian Wood and there’s recently been a predictably ‘kind-of-alright’ film based on it, released in the coutry to mind-bending box office success. Their love of that novel over his other more surrealist works is almost as confusing as the plots of those books themselves. The prior mentioned Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle are the ones to look out for. If you liked them, pick up a copy of After Dark, and maybe Dance Dance Dance and Sputnik Sweetheart. He has recently released a novel called 1984. Don’t know if anyone told him that that title is taken already. A lot of the time the characters in Murakami novels are students at university, flitting between doing student things and being manipulated by the labyrinthian maze that is Murakami’s mind. So there you are. If you want a real contemporary page-turner, which is also semi-relatable and genuinely good literature, look no further than this sparkling gem of an author.

If you left this book on the bus, how much would you care? Not at all. It’s a horrible edition, with a shiny yellow cover and a stupid picture. I could go out and buy a pretty little oxford classics one if I left it on the 142. Which character do you imagine to be the best-looking? I don’t want to cast dispersions about anarchists, communists and policemen, but, um. Well. Next question please.

Has it got an annoyingly long prologue? No. Does it have a laughably twee Harry Potter style epilogue? Haven’t finished it yet. I thought that was the point. Have you thought these questions through? Are you even paying attention? Is there any description of food in this book? Does it make you want to eat that food? No, but there’s a description of a man who was blown up. I haven’t been able to eat spaghetti bolognaise since. Has it been made into a film, TV series or set of trading cards? Do I have to bother reading it? What am I? Wikipedia? Would you recommend this book to students? I mean, would you honestly buy it for one of your friends as a Christmas present and be able to keep a straight face? I stick with vouchers and book tokens generally. That way I can rate my friends by approximate monetary value.

The Dreaded D-word Jack Sullivan If you’re a third year English Literature student the odds are that you’re nervous of what’s ahead, but that you know you can do it. You got 65 for second year without even reading a book! Let’s imagine that first lecture. You’ve chosen what looks like an interesting module with plenty of big canonical 900-pager texts that now frown at you from your bookshelf. And you’ve read them! You congratulate yourself whole-heartedly. And then it happens. “Saussure …” Your palms go clammy. “Structural analysis…” There’s an audible snapping of pencil nibs right across the room. “Foucault’s History of Sexuality says…” Mouths start to hang open. “A Marxian analysis is …” Your friend turns to you in disbelief. And then there’s

the dreaded D-word. “And Derrida is of course central to this module.” Someone shrieks. Well of course Derrida is central to the module, you think, shaking in terror. And I’m expected to understand him? Unfortunately, yes. This series of short, explanatory paragraphs intends to assuage your fear of these big names and concepts in English Lit by outlining each week their main ideas, relationship with other thinkers, recommended further reading and how the concept can be applied to a text. This is not only for third years: first and second years, what they are teaching you about Freud and Marx in those introductory modules they expect you to remember, so hopefully this may be of some help too, by making everything as simple as possible. Good luck!

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Food & Drink

Pick of the Manchester Food and Drink Festival Jack Harrison As an avid cook I love spending time exploring the stranger side of food, whether that be snooping round a Chinese supermarket or searching for offal in a butcher’s window. However, I appreciate this isn’t how my flatmates want to spend their weekends. Luckily for us there is the Manchester Food and Drink Festival, which is hosting events aimed at foodies as well as those just wanting to grab a kebab and cheesy chips. The Food and Drink Festival has

been running for over 14 years; this year’s being held from October 7-17th. The main part of the food extravaganza is the Big Festival Hub held in Albert Square, just off Princess Street. The Hub is a collection of stands and events such as the Veltins Oktoberfest where it is possible to get the full Oktoberfest experience - drinking authentic German beer and chowing down on some sauerkraut and sausage to the soundtrack of Bavarian bands. However, if that isn’t your cup of tee mit milch, the Chilli Lovers Fair tempts with treats of chilli toffee

The full Oktoberfest experience drinking authentic German beer and chowing down on some sauerkraut and sausage and a selection of salsas. You could even risk entering the second annual chilli-eating contest on the 7th. Even if you don’t, head over to enjoy the sight of those who are willing to sweat under the hot, hot heat. There are many more events, so check foodanddrinkfestival.com to see what takes your fancy.

Drinks Corner

Taste: Welcome to the column which takes a hedonistic voyage into the world of wine within the average student's meagre budget. This week I'm reviewing Sainsbury's Basics Red Table Wine, which has the slightly ironic tag-line of ‘for the table, not the cellar’, suggesting that someone inside Sainsbury's marketing department has a sense of humour. I began drinking this wine in my first Welcome Week - too much was consumed and drinking it now brings back memories that are best forgotten. These days it comes in a plastic bottle, is 11% abv instead of 13% and tragically costs £3.20 rather than £2.29; there are now cheaper and classier ways to predrink. Another problem I have with this wine is that it has no date, making it impossible to know whether it comes from a vintage year. However, I suspect it wasn't. On inspection, the colour of the wine is a deep, murky purple. Wine connoisseurs know that young wines tend to have a darker hue because with age the pigments degrade. [Good knowledge! –Ed] Judging by the colour, this wine was probably brewed in someone's boot about a week ago. On the nose (smelling), the wine was underwhelming. After a vigorous swirl in the glass, the only aromas I was able to distinguish were raisins, turpentine and red dye - a sumptuous bouquet it was not.

Below I have picked a few of the best to tantalise the taste buds. One I will definitely be attending is the Whiskey Festival at the Lowry Hotel. For £20 plus a small booking fee you get the chance to sample whiskeys (in a free tasting glass) from across the globe including a new and critically acclaimed Taiwanese whiskey. Hurry though, as the late session running from 4pm has already sold out. Treating someone special to a first date? Impress by taking them to the award winning River Bar and Restaurant which is putting on a special menu for just under £20 per person. Sample the best of British food including a heavenly sounding desert - caramelised

Recipe

Oliver Bruce Taylor

Write about your food and drink experiences by emailing foodanddrink @mancunion.com or ‘like’ the Facebook page The Mancunion: Food and Drink

Business & Finance

Event

For the table, not the cellar

Got a great recipe or a burning passion for Turkey Twizzlers?

Politics & Analysis

Value: Hangover factor:

With reluctance, I tasted. Although light and vinegary there were some undistinguishable red fruits smuggled inside the otherwise bland palate. Whilst not entirely unpleasant, the finish was long, bitter and headache inducing. In its defence it's better than Lambrusco or Superboss and it’s great to serve at a dinner party if you openly dislike your guests. To conclude, the main problem with this wine - other than its taste - is that there's no reason to buy it. If you're a cheap bastard you can buy three bottles of Gaffs' Special for less or pay £1 more and get something quaffable. I think the only acceptable moment to drink this wine is with a reduced Sainsbury's steak that's crying out for liquid accompaniment. Or perhaps when drunk out of a paper bag while lying on top of some bins in an alleyway, wondering what happened to your life.

How to cook good naked This group of nudist vegans based in Manchester have been blogging about their naked cooking antics for three months and have already stormed the internet world. They believe in “tasty food and positive body image” and organise mass nudist art exhibitions which have been covered by both Channel 4 and Manchester Evening News. Check out their website nakedvegancooking.com if you’re interested in finding out more, meanwhile, here is one of their recipes:

Falafel Makes 20 Falafel balls

Ingredients 1 can of chickpeas 3 cloves of garlic 1 cup of flour (soy/chickpea/wheat) 1 handful of parsley, finely chopped 3 tsps Tahini Vegetable oil for deep frying

Method Mash the soft chickpeas in a bowl with the tahini to make a paste. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Wet hands and create smallish balls and shallow fry in the oil. Coat the balls in oil and remove from the pan when they are brown and crispy.

chocolate mousse cappuccino guaranteed to get you a second date. If you happen to have a lot of spare cash lying around, there is a secret Tudor dinner ran by Robert Owen Brown, head chef of the Mark Addy pub in Salford. This spectacular includes unlimited food and drink with an assortment of nine meats and evening-long Tudor themed entertainment. It sounds fantastic, but at £110 pounds it really stretches the student budget. I hope that I have managed to tempt you into getting involved with the festival, even if it is just to grab some street food from the Festival Hub - it is too great an opportunity to miss!

Fashion & Beauty

Arts & Culture

Music

Film

Food & Drink

Lifestyle

Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

What were your first impressions? Smiley and pretty. What did you talk about? General plonk, (course, home etc.) Also my rubbish car and our mutual learning difficulties.

Date

It’s back! Lifestyle’s infamous Blind date has returned this semester with our first couple. We’re offering you the chance to meet that special someone on our very own campus. We’ll fix you up with a date at the Deaf Institute with complimentary meal and drinks, and the rest? Well you’ll have to join in and see... Naila Missous and Lily Howes

The happy couple

Photo: Lionel Ho

Best thing about them? Interesting and very easy to talk to. Oh and her sexy knees.

Blind

What did you eat? Bangers and mash. I was bloody hungry. It was good, really good. Their 'mash of the day' was fantastic I think they might have put white wine in it. Would definitely have again. Can I get the number of the restaurant?

Grainne, Second year, History What were your first impressions? He looked like a nice guy. What did you talk about? Everything- university, where we come from, nights out etc. Best thing about them? Really talkative and good sense of humour. What did you eat? Bacon, brie and cranberry ciabatta with chunky chips – very nice! Any awkwardness? No not really. How did you part ways? Haha just a friendly hug. Out of 10? 8.

Any awkwardness? Err no I don't think so. Apart from when the guy from the paper was taking our picture. It'll be awful if she now says there was loads.

Would you see them again? Yeah, probably just as friends though.

How did you part ways? Can't remember really, probably a hug. Out of 10? Would've given an 8.5 but I'm worried she's going to undercut me.

For the chance to meet your soul mate or just to get some free grub sign up by emailing your full name, year of study, course and phone number to lifestyle@mancunion.com with ‘blind date’ as the subject header.

Would you see them again? Yeah she was a nice girl. Can't see any future dates or anything but would definitely hang out.

I met my…

Baby, let’s try something new... Natalie Clark

We’ve asked students how they met their partners and found that sometimes, the best way to find love is when you’re not even looking for it.

...girlfriend in Fifth Ave when I was dressed up as an OAP for my housemate’s 21st. Tweed jacket on, hair sprayed silver and bow tie fastened, it wasn’t my best look but maybe she has a thing for pensioners because she didn’t seem to be too put off. Elliot ... ex-"boyfriend" (I use the term loosely) when I made him participate in an impromptu photoshoot I drunkenly decided to organise in the smoking area of a club. A text from an unknown number the following morning asking me out for a drink and a rapid memory-jog from my trusty camera and sober best friend led to a whirlwind three months together, ending when we went our separate ways, him to London, me to America. Emily

He was outside smoking and for the next 20 minutes endured my pathetic spiel. Yet amidst my babbling I somehow learnt some things about him too. Amused, he offered me my first cigarette. At that moment, I made the decision that I was cool. I took a drag, and promptly threw up in the nearest bog with him on hand to hold my hair back. He handed me over to my friends and I didn’t see him again for a couple of weeks. If your first encounter was love at first sight, well, congratulations. If not, well done for being a member of the real world. Elizabeth

a relationship NOT to be exclusive, having (and promoting) the choice of seeing other people. Sex with other people is, obviously, an option, but not an invitation to bed anything with a pulse. More and more couples these days are throwing the traditionally sacred monogamy out of the window and embracing this new take on 'love'. Jada Pinkett Smith and the Fresh Prince have, allegedly, supported this lifestyle, and their family unit seems to be working great, hair-whipping, kung-fu fighting kids and all. Now these new-fangled relationships have various subcategories: open and honest or quiet and discreet? Which is more suitable? Would you prefer to know exactly what your partner is getting up to? Who he dates, who he kisses, who he sleeps with? Or would you rather not know what she is getting up to, avoid the pain and turn that oh so famous blind-eye? Rapper Pitbull has been in an open relationship for nine years, and lives by the words, 'Ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente,' which loosely translates to "What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't feel," he says. Is Pitbull right though? What ever happened to, honesty is the best policy? Well, I think, as young as we are, it would be too complicated, time-consuming and heartrendering to know of each other's antics, as the point of this is to help our relationship, not burden it. Time will tell. Time will tell.

Lifestyle at The Mancunion has teamed up with Deaf Institute to bring you blind date. Thanks for the guys down on Grosvenor Street for getting involved. To check out Deaf Institute’s extensive menu for a bit to eat, have a look at their gig listings or what club nights they have coming up then go to www.thedeafinst itute.co.uk Photo: Lionel Ho

...boyfriend in an extremely non-fairytale-esque fashion. Romance was severely lacking. It was Welcome Week and I was loving my new found freedom but was undeniably homesick. So, to overcome this emotional conflict, I bought a bottle of Malibu with the sole intention of drinking myself stupid. Which I succeeded in and right in front of my soon to be boyfriend.

As I lay in bed, avoiding the summer work piled high, my mind wandered to the situation I had managed to get myself into. I played out hundreds of different scenarios in my head as to what my life could potentially be like over the next year. I had somehow entered into, unknowingly, the infamous 'open relationship.' "You actually think this will work?" "You really think you're not going to torture yourself thinking who he's with?" "Are you really happy about this?" All the questions that I have been bombarded with since I informed our friends that this was our next move had caused me to step back and really consider what I was about to embark on. Open relationships. Can they ever really work? I hadn't really noticed that this was what John and I had become. A trial period. An experiment. Perhaps even a desperate last attempt to try and fix what was crumbling apart. After an awkward and what seemed necessary 'talk', we found ourselves agreeing on having 'more wiggle room'. I evaluated, at the time, that this was a perfect plan. I had John in my life, as well as my rekindled love form flirting, dancing with and meeting new boys, no strings attached. Yet, on this day, as I refused to leave the proximity of my duvet until I had come to a solution, I found myself moving further and further away from an answer. An open relationship allows for

Open relationships. Can they ever really work? Photo: Abee

...boyfriend, Phil, in a club in Leeds; he was 24 at the time, I however was only 16 but not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I was underage I told him I was 18. Unfortunately I was not expecting things to progress between us but 8 weeks on the lie was still in tact. I even celebrated my birthday with him thinking I was turning 19. Eventually it all got a bit too much and I phoned him to come clean but clearly my good looks and charm were enough for him to forgive me for my white lie and we’re still together now. Lucy

Lifestyle

Adam, Third year, Archaeology & Anthropology

Column Get lv invo ed!

Absolutely appalled by the patently illinformed and foolishly brash opinions of Student Eye? Send your heavily worded emails to lloyd@mancunio n.com

Student Eye

Cycling,

Photo: Peter Sutton

28 The scourge of the highways

Proper

transport for us pricks

I hereby decree that all good people of the University of Manchester, should make their way about these lands with their builder's bums placed firmly on the seat of a bicycle. Lloyd Henning Columnist Now, before you make a mess in your eco-friendly, thatched straw pants at the idea of an article praising all things pedalled, I in no way give a duck's left tail feather about cycling to save Gaea. Forget the environment, there is only one reason that going en vélo is the bee's bollocks and it's because it is a socially accepted way of being a complete arsehole. In many other groups of vehicle enthusiasts you will find a great deal of respect shared between them. Motorcyclists give each other the nod as they pass in the street before they go for a Sunday ride, resting their beer bellies on their horrendously unnecessary "hog". Even car drivers will be courteous - sometimes making themselves feel like better humans by giving way to each other if at a difficult junction. But us cyclists have none of that childish camaraderie. We don't bother ourselves with acknowledging each other. The feelings shared between two cyclists is bordering on hatred. Out there it's just you and your bike, every other self-powered two wheeler on the road is either

It is our gear-given right to knock over a few grannies snailing along in the way or being a nauseating show off as they peddle past. Of course we are also tossers to everyone else as well. Nothing is more exhilarating than coming up the blindside of a Magic Bus and then acting outraged as they cut you off whilst pulling in to a stop. And red lights, what a joke completely optional. They are very clearly designed to allow all cyclists past and block off other less desirable traffic. There may certainly be times when they slow you down as traffic cuts across, but you can just cut across back! Butt your front wheel out and watch those cumbersome motor vehicles screech to a halt, you won't be

able to hear the drivers cursing at you with your headphones safely in place playing Born to be wild. It should be noted that cyclists are in no way merely bound to the road. We blend the line between tarmac and pavement as we skip across the curb. However, for some reason everyone else on the pavement seems alarmed by our presence. If it's faster to go on the pavement then obviously it is our gear-given right to knock over a few grannies. In rare occasions we may choose to use the designated

lanes for bicycles, but almost every cheesing time there is some pedestrian galumphing along on the cycle path. You cycle up behind them hoping they move out the way and when they eventually notice you, they perform some sporadic movement only further endangering both parties. You brake. They stop. And you look at each other and both simultaneously say "sorry" (but both simultaneously think "wanker"). All of this foolery is of course done with no lights and no

helmet - just remember not to crash! And if you do get caught up beneath some wheels, it's obvious that the less protection you have, the quicker the end will be. You can just leave your brains on the road and your death on the driver's conscience hassle free. Who cares if we would save money, reduce congestion or clean up pollution; if everyone else cycled, it would mean that I wouldn't be the only one soaked in sweat and panting like chihuahua in heat as I stumble into the lecture theatre.

feel ill.”

Fuse FM is YOUR

Meet The Committee

student radio station.

With show proposals swamping the studio and scheduling in full swing the Fuse team are eagerly awaiting getting back on the airwaves on the 9th October when we’ll be broadcasting for ten weeks. We’re going to be training all week, so if you’ve been lucky enough to bag yourself a show prepare to be amazed. Hattie Pearson

Fuse FM is more than just a radio station. Did you know Fuse has its very own club night? Fuse has partnered with Revolution Fallowfield to bring you FUSE PRESENTS once a month. If you’re a member of Fuse (membership is only a fiver) you can get

yourself discount and cheap drinks at the popular student bar any time you fancy some good food or a cheeky cocktail. Each month we’ll be putting on our very own Fuse DJs who will be bringing you the best of the music you love. “Fuse has an incredible wealth of untapped DJ talent and Fuse Presents gives them

Clifford Fleming

A band we should all be keeping our eyes on: “Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - if you like that sort of Indie, Electro stuff. I adore them, but they don't have a proper, full album out yet only EPs.” Favourite radio station (apart from Fuse):“BBC 6music.” Most hated radio presenter and why: “Vernon Kay - he irritates me A LOT and chats too much, plays too little music and the stuff he talks about is so dull and uninteresting.”

a platform to play their music to a live crowd, whilst giving the students of Manchester a taste of what Fuse has to offer,” said Ryan Charafeddine, head of events. Charafeddine continues: “For the first time we’re bringing you Fuse Presents from Revs and that gives us a blank canvas to do whatever we want which means we can put on a variety of music to appeal to a variety of different people, so no matter what kind of thing you’re into there’s something for everyone. This semester our DJs will be playing you a mixture of hip-hop, commercial tunes as well as some more specialist genres

including drum and bass and funk.” Leanne Fata, former Head of Promotions set up Fuse Presents back in March: “Doing all the the on air stuff is so much fun but what we really wanted was to have a means to be more interactive between members and listeners as well as show case Fuse FM talent. What better way to combine all this by putting on a night whilst getting our name out there.” Fuse Presents will be held on the second Monday of every month at Vodka Revolution Fallowfield. Join us on the 10th October for our start of semester party!

Course and year: “Management and Marketing, second year.” Where are you from?: “Originally I'm from Sussex, in a tiny little town called Arundel. It has a castle and a cathedral and is very English, ha.” Committee position: “Head of Marketing” What does your role entail?: “Leading the street team, advertising and generally making people aware of Fuse.” How can members get involved in your area?: “I'd absolutely love people to get involved! It would look brilliant on your CV and will be loads of fun. Drop me an email marketing@fusefm.co.uk.” I love Fuse FM because....: “It's a brilliant way to gain confidence and as a presenter you have the opportunity to make radio that you'd love to listen to.” What's your favourite cheese?: “Cathedral City Cheddar or Red LeicesterI can't stand cream cheese, it makes me

One top tip on being 'good' at radio: “Play more music than you talk - even if you have a talk show. People listen to radio for music and it can sound quite dry with long periods of speaking.” If you could be a celebrity for a day who would you be: Without a doubt Lady Gaga. Your earliest Fuse memory: Going on a virtual safari through Africa with my co-host Ingrid and pretending to run away from an Elephant on my first show. Have you ever had a show on Fuse FM - how did you feel it went?:I've had two shows: Around The World in Eight Hours - a travel show and What Would Einstein Do? - a show about the quirkyside of science. Favourite place on campus to sleep: I've been a good boy and not fallen asleep in a lecture yet. Thankfully. The last gig you went to in Manchester: Explosions In The Sky at The Academy. They were really good and I'm glad my co-host dragged me along.

28 News

01-05

Society Spotlight

Column

Union Corner

Purple Page

Sport

31-32

Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

All you need to know So, applications are open right now for elected positions, isn’t that exciting! We want to encourage anyone that thinks that they may have something to contribute to stand. You will get to bring the voice of thousands of students to Union Council, or maybe to the nation at NUS Conference if you win, and there will be plenty of help and support along the way from our trained staff and Executive team. There’s even a handy and informative chat, from 3-5pm in Club Academy in the lower ground floor of the Steve Biko Building, so you need not enter into the process without all the support you need. Elections are always more fun, and the winners produce much more positive results for students, if many people run for positions. If you think you can make a positive impact at University and in the Union, then please don’t hesitate to check out the website at www.tinyurl.com/UMSUelectio ns , email communications@umsu.manch ester.ac.uk, and check the key dates here for more information about events and deadlines.

Union News

In Brief

Jeremy Buck Communications Officer

Executive meet with Nancy Rothwell In a meeting with the President of The University of Manchester, the Students’ Union Executive raised key concerns relating to the University’s poor performance in National Student Survey (NSS) and other league tables, and how the institution might look to make improvements over the coming months. The Executive Officers met with Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Manchester, and other members of the University’s Senior Management Team, including the Registrar and Secretary, Director of Student Experience, Director of Teaching,

Council elects a Chair and makes historic move The Union Council, a body of student representatives that includes the Executive team, usually meets once every three weeks on, as dictated by the Constitution, a Tuesday at 6 pm. Societies Secretary Dominic Hardwick raised issue with this, stating that many societies, including those that have active members on Council, have meetings and events at this time, and that it should be moved. Disabled Students’ Secretary Sam O’Connor suggested that a rolling date would be the most advantageous, and Council agreed, making the next

Learning and Students, and the Head of Student Support and Services. After raising the negative NSS results, reported on in last week’s edition of The Mancunion, which one member had handily brought along with them, Nancy and her colleagues stressed the importance of the balance between teaching and research at Manchester, and that research commitments should not be used as an excuse by academics for prioritising research over teaching. They also spoke of the value of a partnership between the University and the students, and that dialogue and involvement were key to progress. In her own words, Nancy said that, “Students are the highest priority”.

meeting on Wednesday 19th October at 6 pm. As a part of the first meeting, the Chair for 20011/12 was elected. Cory Bernard, who has been an active member of many societies and has volunteered as a Student Rep, returns as Chair of Council for another year. You can see Cory also chairing the Big Ideas: Have your say event, on Thursday 13th October at 5 pm in Academy 1. Also appointed were 3 members of Council to sit on the University Senate, the highest academic body in the institution. Congratulations to Sahibzada Yousaf, Letty Newton and Luke Newton, who will be taking the student voice to the University Senate.

Union Corner

Union Elections:

Last year the University of Manchester Students’ Union mandated The Mancunion to feature the stories of students at Al-Najah University, which our students’ union is twinned with. Al-Najah is based in Nablus, in the West Bank. The aim of this is to show the everyday experiences of students in the Palestinian territories. Here is the first of a two-part account given by student Sa’ed Abu Ayash

Stories from the West Bank: A Curfew Day in the Camp (Part 1) One morning while the rest of the family was sleeping except for my mother, I went to the kitchen to help her make breakfast. We joked around for a while and my father was woken by my laugh, but before he told me to be quiet we heard gunshots. Then there was silence, and we heard a voice coming from an Israeli loudspeaker announcing a curfew in broken Arabic. This curfew was during the “Ejtyah” invasion, of the West Bank in 2002 during the second Intifada (20002005). In the Intifada and the years directly following, the Israelis reinvaded the West Bank, killed more than 4,500 Palestinians, and damaged houses, mosques, churches and many other historical buildings. They also arrested more than 35,000 Palestinians including women and

children. That year I was in the eighth grade and missed more than four months of class because of school closures during the invasions. Soon, another voice called for a lamah-- an order for the men in the camp of a certain age to gather in a designated place. The soldiers were looking for several wanted men. Fortunately, the age required, between sixteen and forty, was neither mine nor my father’s. This was the only lamah that occurred in the second intifada in our camp, but in the first intifada (19871993) such lamahs were more common. My father had experienced the lamahs and told us what suffering the men faced, how they were beaten and humiliated. I wanted to go to the lamah to see what would happen to the men, but I

was not old enough. Still, I seized the chance while my mother prayed and my father went back to bed, for there was nothing else to do, because the electricity had been cut by the Israelis. I left my siblings eating breakfast and took my boots as quickly as I could so no one could stop me. On my way to the lamah I saw some friends throwing stones at an Israeli jeep and two tanks. They called me to join them, but I didn’t because I did not consider throwing stones as a kind of patriotism as others did, but instead as a way we could vent our frustration from the oppression and violence we encountered on a daily basis due to the occupation. But I wonder if this would be the terrorism the world talks about.

Continued in Issue 5

Purple Page

Club Showcase

Women’s Football Nuria Bonet

Not only is women’s football the fastest growing sport in the country, The University of Manchester Women’s Football Club boasts as being the biggest university club in the country for the discipline. Facilitating four teams of varying abilities, the club also runs a beginners course for those looking to try something new. Weekly socials showcase enthusiastic fancy dress acts as a dress rehearsal for the frivolities of an annual Tour held in Easter. This club has something to offer to everyone, well, provided you're a woman. Led by Nuria Bonet, this season the club committee have great things in store for the club so let me introduce you to the University of Manchester Women's Football Club! Our three competitive teams play week in week out, competing in BUCS league. After a challenging season last year, a new coach has arrived to set the ladies teams on the path to victory. The first team is aiming for nothing less than promotion this season. The second team meanwhile are confident coming off the back of a successful season that saw them reach the quarterfinals of the cup, beating two higher-league teams in the process and only just missing out on the semi-finals on penalties! The third team also had a promising

Feature

Where are they now? Titi Camara Jack Burke Sports Editor

Titi Camera was a man who will be remembered fondly by Liverpool fans for his one season spell at the club. The striker arrived from Marseille for a fee of £2.5 million in 1999 and wasted no time in making an impression, netting the winner against Sheffield Wednesday on his debut. He was soon wooing the red faithful with extraordinary skills. Sadly he counter balanced this flair with an unhappy knack of making mistakes when presented with the simplest of goal scoring opportunities. Yet despite this unpredictable streak, Titi’s loveable nature led to a great relationship with the Liverpool faithful. Perhaps

Titi’s lovable nature led to a great relationship with the Liverpool faithful the most emotional moment was probably when he played the same day that his father had died, the Guinean insisted on playing since he was the only fit striker. He of course scored two goals that day, breaking down in tears

UMWFC will be like your second family and the pitch will be your home

campaign, going from a casual social team to competing for promotion in just one year. UMWFC is the club to watch out for on the football pitch this year! We are always looking for new players and supporters so why not come to our next friendly, this Wednesday 5th October at 2 pm on the Armitage Site when our three teams will be playing against Sheffield University. What makes this club special then? The football girls pride themselves in being the most purple club around, never missing out on a chance to wear the university colours, be it on the pitch or in fancy dress. Even competing in the Athletic Union’s Quidditch

in front of the famous Kop end, which stood to salute their new hero. Yet sadly Titi was not to spend much longer at A n f i e l d , e v e n t u a l l y handing in a transfer request after falling out with manager Gerard Houllier. He joined West Ham in December 2000, yet struggled at Upton Park, playing just 14 times across three seasons without scoring. He eventually moved to the Middle East, joining Qatar’s Al Silliya. Camara retired in 2006. Late last year however he turned his attention to politics, taking up the position of sports minister at the request of newly elected president Alpha Conde. It is rumoured that the flamboyant Guinean got his new position thanks to a £32,000 donation to Conde’s election campaign. Camara has already set his first target, which is host to make Guinea the hosts of the 2017 African Cup of Nations.

tournament last year and coming a deserved 2nd. The club attends all Athletics Union Socials going and would be at a loss at how to occupy their Wednesday evenings otherwise! “Is there anything else to do on a Wednesday night?” So if you see bunch of girls on a magic bus dressed as anything ranging from a Pritt-stick to a rowdy pack of Spartans, you know the football girls are being purple and proud. UMWFC will be like your second family and the pitch will be your home. We welcome everyone warmly and the friendships go further than the pitch, many of us stay friends long after graduating. In fact, some of us were so reluctant to leave that they created an alumni team that achieved promotion and won the league cup last season! Even if you have no experience of playing football we are looking to get you involved. Our Beginners Course starts on the 4th of October

and is on every Tuesday at 5-6.30 pm on the Armitage Astro turf. Our own players will teach you how to play and hopefully get you to a competitive level or good enough to enjoy your 5-a-side games between mates. We repeat the course every term due to popular demand and every year beginners

make it into our other teams! The only thing left to say for me is: come down to training, watch our matches and join us on our legendary socials! For more information on the team and the beginners sessions check out our website: www.muwfc.co.uk or email us at info@muwfc.co.uk.

AU Club Facts Cycling club Returned from the summer holiday period, with 4 members boasting 5 casts between them, including a double wrist break! Squash club: Members boast squash as being “the healthiest sport”, a cardio workout like no other, apparently. Netball club: Athletic Union Club of the year 2010/11 Korfball. club: The only competitive mixed sport in the AU

Introducing the most boring sportsman on twitter

The Mancunion

Tweekly

@chris_kammy - Cusk) j xxxLo?x h A coded message from Kammy to his ardent followers… …@chris_kammy - I am only kidding I have no idea what all that was about!! my phone has automatic lock on it. Twitter Virus I think (achoo) (achoo) – Unbelievable! @swannyg66 - Tevez had every right refusing to play tonight.Apparently his iPod playlist was refused on the bus. Without a pre match macarena he is pants… …@swannyg66 - Similar things happen in cricket. If Straussy turns my erasure cd off I lock myself in the loo and then later on pee in his boots…. Swanny with a typically biting assessment of Carlos Tevez’s misdemeanours… @Joey7Barton - Who wants to play me on #FIFA12 at Loftus Rd on Thu? Winner gets #FIFA 12 before out too. Reply with #playjoeyonfifa why I should pick you – No thanks Joey, I’d prefer to keep my

cranium intact and eyeballs cigar-free… @themichaelowen - Does X-Factor and Big Brother annoy anybody else or is it only me that's a miserable so and so? – Not at all, The Mancunion prefers to watch recorded VHS’ of Michael Owen’s soccer school…. @TheBigSam - Mancini meekly says Tevez won't play again after refusing to come on as a sub. Big Sam murders one of his lads after a last-minute defeat. Big Sam, yet again, setting the managerial pace. – Big Sam takes no prisoners.

28 News

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Society Spotlight

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Union Corner

Purple Page

Sport

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Manchester Edition: Monday 3rd October 2011

Tennis

Everton -

A Resurgence

a sinking ship?

in British tennis?

Ciaran Milner

Can Oliver Golding’s Junior US Open victory offer new hope for British men’s Tennis? Jack Mollart-Solity

The recent US Open junior success of Britain’s Oliver Golding has renewed the hopes of British tennis fans striving for a new star to challenge Andy Murray as Britain’s number one. Golding became only the second British winner of the tournament, after Murray’s 2004 triumph. It was a thoroughly encouraging tournament from a British perspective with two of the four semi-finalists – alongside Golding – home grown prospects. Coupled with a convincing victory over Hungary in the Davis Cup it could be suggested that male British tennis is finally gaining some momentum. However, despite his victory, a successful senior career is far from assured for Golding – a litany of past winners have failed to make the transition into the man’s game. Since the junior tournament was inaugurated in 1973 there have been 38 winners. Of the 38, only three have managed to convert that success into grand slams at senior level – Andy Roddick, Stefan Edberg and Pat Cash – all

Golding became only the second British winner of the tournament, after Murray’s 2004 triumph. with one slam apiece. The tournament fails to produce a significant amount of world number ones as well, with only Roddick and Edberg reaching that level. Whilst it must be considered that nine US Open junior champions have reached the top

Football

Money begins to talk outside of Premier League Thomas McMahon

A £38m Argentinean summer signing, under the guidance of a Serie A legend, fires a team in blue to the top of their domestic league after years of underachievement. Please, don’t leave, it’s not more precious column inches devoted to Manchester City’s ongoing assault on the Premier League summit but a look at how nouveau riche Paris Saint-Germain are faring under Leonardo. Indeed, the Brazilian director of football appears to have galvanised the capital city outfit, who sit joint-top of Ligue 1 after just one defeat in eight games. The money pumped into the club by the Qatar Investment Authority has been well invested by Leonardo and first-team coach Antoine Kambouare, with the new signings settling into life at the Parc des Princes quickly. The marquee arrival, Argentinean international Javier Pastore, has lived up to his

startling transfer fee, scoring four times and turning in virtuoso performances as an attacking midfielder. While not as well known as “el flaco”, Kevin Gameiro has also performed well after arriving from Lorient in a £10m deal, with the diminutive striker helping himself to five goals. PSG’s fine start has only been matched by that of Olympique Lyonnais, with the Rhone-Alpes outfit beginning to show form reminiscent of their 2002-09 title years under the management of Remi Garde. While few new signings have arrived, OL have enjoyed the spectacular form of top scorer Bafétimbi Gomis and Brazilian winger Michel Bastos. Last year’s surprise champions Lille, meanwhile, have developed the nasty habit of conceding late goals at home and as such lie in sixth. While PSG look well placed to qualify for the Champions League and even challenge for the French title, in Spain another team bankrolled by oil money are showing they can mount a push for

Is this boy the next Andy Murray? 10, 18 former champions failed to reach even the top 50 of the men’s game. The significance of junior tennis seems further diminished when you consider that the current numbers one and two - Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal – are without any of the four junior grand slam titles to their name, and so are Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, two of the game’s legends. Recent British female junior grand slam winners Laura Robson, who won at Wimbledon in 2008, and Heather Watson who clinched the US Open in 2009, have both struggled to make waves in the senior tour with current rankings of 148 and 99 respectively. However high hopes are held for both, and at such tender ages there remains plenty of time for senior success.

For Golding however, it is not all doom and gloom. There are numerous high profile players that did win at junior level at either the French Open or Wimbledon – Roger Federer, Bjorn Bjorg, Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe to name but an illustrious few. Clearly Golding, through hard work and good luck, can go on to a successful career in the men’s game. However, it is important that too much pressure is not placed at him at the young age of 18. He has shown an ability to win under pressure and defeat higher ranked players – his final defeat against world number one Jiri Vesely a testament to this. The danger remains, however, that he could eventually be lost to the history books like so many of his fellow junior open champions.

Javier Pastore, the Argentine flyer who turned down Chelsea for the Parisian dream.

continental qualification. Malaga, who were recently bought by another Qatari investor, sit in sixth despite being just one point short of second-placed Barcelona. The Andalusians were relegation strugglers at this point last season but a raft of big-money signings have left Manuel Pellegrini’s side looking to challenge the likes of Villarreal and Valencia for the “best of the rest” title in La Liga. Winger Santi Cazorla, a regular in the Spanish national side, has been particularly impressive since his move from Villarreal, scoring four times in just five games. Former Ajax centre half Joris Mathijsen, meanwhile, has formed a formidable partnership at the back with Argentina’s Martin Demichelis. The promising results from these two ambitious clubs, combined with a Manchester City side beginning to look increasingly threatening both

Earlier this month, Everton chairman Bill Kenwright offered to refund fans who had bought shirts bearing the names of Mikel Arteta or Jermaine Beckford following their deadline day transfers. Yet, however apologetic the gesture, it does nothing to properly address the serious financial problems that have left Everton fans significantly frustrated. The Blue Union, a supporters group, has organised protests in recent weeks in an effort to see their demands for investment met. They fear the club has stagnated, and want to follow in the footsteps of rivals Liverpool by becoming the subject of a third party takeover. It is easy to see why fan frustrations have emerged. Traditionally one of the bigger clubs in the country Everton have the most season appearances in the top flight with a record 102, as well as nine league championships the fourth highest. Yet, since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, they have failed to live up to the high standards of their successful past - their most recent victory being an FA Cup win in 1995. It is clear to see why fans feel their club is treading water. Yet the perilous financial situation at the club highlights how well they have done to maintain their relatively stable premier league position in recent years. Kenwright states the club’s debt is currently around £45m. However, this one off figure simplifies the situation. Since 2005, Everton’s revenue has increased by 32 percent, yet in the same period expenditure has skyrocketed

by 61 percent, forcing them to become a selling club. Over the past six years Everton have made £59m from player sales - funds which have helped stave off the ominous spectre of administration. To retain any hope of breaking even in 2011 they must replicate the player sales of 2010, which brought in approximately £20m. This is in evidence already, with the departures of Arteta, Beckford, Steven Pienaar and Aiyegbeni Yakubu. Despite these losses the club has only been able to bring in Dutch misfit Royson Drenthe and Argentinian unknown Denis Stracqualursi on loan. Given this unstable financial situation and reliance on selling, manager David Moyes has worked miracles to help Everton sustain a healthy Premier League position. In his ten seasons in charge, Everton have finished in the top ten seven times, finished fifth twice and managed a memorable Champions League qualification in 2005. Moyes’ considerable acumen in the transfer market has contributed significantly to this success, with Beckford, Arteta, Pienaar, Phil Jagielka and Tim Cahill costing less than £10m in total. The situation is clearly volatile. The club cannot rely on making £20m a year from player sales to stay afloat; nor can they rely on Moyes consistently sniffing out bargain deals in the transfer market if they are to retain their Premier League position. Without investment, the future looks perilous for Everton. Yet, it is for this reason that their Premier League history should perhaps be revered as a success, not looked back upon with frustration. It could be about to get a lot worse.

Please, don’t leave, its not more precious column inches devoted to Manchester City domestically and continentally, suggest that the power map of European football could be about to undergo dramatic shifts.

Despite financial constraints, under Moyes guidance Everton have competed in the Premier League.

Sport

Fly Half Owen Waldin Looks on as the local rivals pack down for a tenacious scrum.

Photo: Patrycja Marczewska

Sport in Brief • Europe’s ladies reclaimed the Solheim Cup from their American counterparts last week in Ireland for the first time since 2003. World number 2 Suzann Petterson was the star with a last gasp victory over Michelle Wie to secure the trophy.

• Sebastian Vettel won the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend. This leaves the Red Bull driver requiring just one point from five races to secure the Formula One Drivers Championship. Mclaren’s Jenson Button finished second.

• Mark Cavendish became Britian’s first male world road race champion in 46 years when he crossed the line in first place in Denmark. The cyclist is now targeting two gold medals at next years London Olympics.

Report

University Of Manchester

triumph in Varsity encounter University Of Manchester Men’s 1st XV – 29 Manchester Metropolitan University – 11 University of Manchester Women’s – 57 University of Salford Women’s – 19 Cai Reaich

Get involved! To contact Jack and Paddy please email sport@mancunio n.com and also join the Facebook group www.facebook.c om/groups/Man cunionsport/ We’re always on the lookout for writers.

The University of Manchester rugby teams came through bruising encounters to achieve victory at the Ernst & Young Varsity Match at Sale FC’s Heywood Road on Wednesday 28th September. The men’s 1st XV endured a torrid first half against rivals Manchester Metropolitan. Despite taking an early lead with the boot, Manchester’s early momentum did not last. The Man Met pack dominated set pieces and started to control the pace of the game, constantly pinning Manchester back, completely starving them of possession. The pre-match underdogs looked increasingly dangerous coming close to crossing the try line on several occasions, with only excellent

defensive work keeping them out. Fly half James Sargent eventually brought the scores level after infringements at the breakdown by Manchester’s under pressure pack. Man Met then stormed into the lead after a loose pass in the backline went to ground allowing Richard Broadley to hack forward, the winger’s committed chase was rewarded as a lucky bounce saw him able to gather and crash over the line. Half time was called with the score at 8-3 to Man Met. Manchester looked shell-shocked. The start of the second half heralded little change as another cheap penalty handed Man Met another penalty opportunity, which they duly took to build on their lead. This seemed to finally bring the Manchester team into life. Aided by the arrival of Martinez, Murray and Cross as

Both games provided great entertainment for the large crowd watching from the stands replacements, the Manchester pack restored some parity to the forward battle. They began to pressurize the Man Met line and scored soon after with Martinez touching down following an

impressive line out and maul, full back Kohler added the conversion. The try proved to be the turning point in the game. Manchester were now in the ascendancy with the backs finally showing some flair in the form of an intelligent chip by replacement stand-off Oli Lancaster which wasn’t dealt with by the Man Met back three, allowing Kohler to release Liam Nicol to score in the right corner. Kohler failed to add the extras however. Manchester’s forwards were now on top as the Man Met pack tired, winning constant penalties to drive their team up field, one such penalty was taken quickly just outside the opposition 22 catching Man Met off-guard as scrum half Allison offloaded to the strong running Rob Saltrick to go in under the posts, Kohler converted. With the score at 22-11 the game degenerated into a scrappy affair until Manchester produced a moment of magic to finish with Kohler scoring in the corner after more good work from Lancaster saw Manchester get behind the Man Met defensive line. The successful conversion marked the end of what was a gritty comeback in a game where the 29-11 score line was not entirely reflective of the two sides performances. The women’s game earlier in the day against The University of Salford was a relatively onesided affair with Manchester dominating from the off. Strong

running and offloading from the tackle helped Manchester take a 26-0 lead into the end of the first third. Notable contributions came from the front row who had the beating of their opposition from the off at the scrum. In the backs meanwhile, centre Suzanne Broadhurst marked an excellent display with an excellent solo try from deep inside her own half. The half back pairing of Claire Knapp and Harriet Smith also had excellent games, with constant forays into Salford territory. Credit however must go to Salford who agreed to the game at very short notice. Despite being comfortably beaten, they never gave up. Their impressive full back Susan Bagnall proved to be a constant thorn in Manchester’s side with some storming runs which saw her complete a magnificent hat trick, nevertheless Manchester continued to run riot scoring a further 31 points to win the match 57-19. Both games provided great entertainment for the large crowd that watched from the stands. While the Ladies were clearly happy with their display, the men’s team despite victory has much work to do in the pack, although they will take heart from their recovery in the 2nd half. The backs, starved of ball for so much of the match, finally started to look like the destructive force they can be in the games latter stages.