Portsmouth Point, Change. Autumn 2014 by The Portsmouth Grammar School

Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue Tom McCarthy Has Pinyin Changed Chinese Society? Catriona Ellis Gossip, Carrot, Apple and the Yarragh Mark Richardson

Fiji: Trouble in Paradise William Bates

Homophobia Dodo Charles

Changing Awareness towards Asperger’s Syndrome Charlotte Perry-Evans Change Charlotte Pascoe

Religion: Society’s Nokia Jadon Buckeridge

Does Religion Cause Conflict? Sian Latham

How Warfare Has Changed in the Modern Age William Hall

Has Money Changed Football For the Better? Will Pearson

The Formula One Revolution Tim Bustin

Puppeteer or Puppet? Isabel Stark

Changing Attitudes To Comics Caleb Barron

Many Roads, Same Destination Henry Ling and Kelvin Shiu

Recipes For A Change Lauren Robson-Skeete

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Changing Responses to Nick Drake Emma Bell and Lottie Kent

Why Has UKIP Risen? Will Dry

UKIP? Really? Alex McKirgan

Climate Change and Human Development Alice MacBain

Can a Butterfly Cause a Hurricane? Holly Govey

Conserving the Mary Rose Alex Todd

Lincoln: The Transformative President David Danso-Amoako Ferguson: Nothing’s Changed Ayesha Gyening

Gender Inequality Tanya Thekkekkara

Guyliner, Lead-poisoning and the Feudal System Sophie Parekh

How the Digital Age Has Changed Our Ownership Rights Nicholas Graham 46

Editorial Team (Magazine and Blog) Charlie Albuery * Julia Alsop * Marley Andrews * Dom Baker * William Bates * Rosie Bell * Ben Brooks * Jadon Buckeridge * Dodo Charles * Nathaniel Charles * Reetobrata Chatterjee * Oliver Clark * David Danso-Amoako * Ciara Dossett * Jack Dry * Will Dry * Zoe Dukoff-Gordon * Catriona Ellis * Eloise Flippance * Filippa Furniss * Holly Govey * Nicholas Graham * Katie Green * Ayesha Gyening * Will Hall * Hattie Hammans * Siena Hocking * Hope Hopkinson * Fenella Johnson * Lottie Kent * Sian Latham * Henry Ling * Nina Luckmann * Alice MacBain * Alex McKirgan * Robert Merriam * Sophie Parekh * Eloise Peabody-Rolf * Will Pearson * Charlotte Perry-Evans * Charlotte Povey * Frederike Rademacher * Pete Rapp * Lauren Robson-Skeete * Anna Sykes * Kelvin Shiu * Tanya Thekkekkara * Emily Tandy * Phoebe Warren * Isabelle Welch * Sophie Whitehead Photography Editors: Charlotte Pascoe and Leon Tu Video Editor: Caleb Barron Social Media Director: Georgina Buckle Magazine Designer: Clara Feltham (The Graphic Design House) Editor: James Burkinshaw

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uman beings seem pre-programmed to seek order in a world characterised by flux. We ourselves are constantly changing, as Charlotte Pascoe and Leon Tu demonstrate in the evocative photographs they have selected and developed on the cover and within the magazine. Alice MacBain explains how our entire species is a product of environmental change and wonders what further evolution will take place in the coming centuries, while Catriona Ellis notes that human language itself is constantly evolving (particularly one as complex as Mandarin). Meanwhile, Holly Govey investigates the ways in which the smallest changes (the fluttering of a butterfly) might have the most far-reaching consequences (a devastating hurricane). The technological revolution of the past half century has only heightened this sense of ceaseless transformation. Nicholas Graham examines the ways in which technology can threaten ownership rights, while Alex Todd explores the ways in which modern science can help us preserve the past (specifically, The Mary Rose). Will Hall reminds us how lethal warfare has become over the last century due to modern technology, while Sian Latham bemoans the unchanging human capacity for conflict and considers the role played by religion. While, in the sphere of sport, Tim Bustin sees technology as a force for good in Formula One, Will Pearson is more sceptical about the changes that have taken place in football in recent decades. The United States defines itself through its faith in the future, in change, an optimism chronicled in David Danso-Amoako’s profile of Abraham Lincoln; however, Ayesha Gyening argues that recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, show that, on the contrary, nothing has changed. Change can be exhilarating but also frightening – Will Dry and Alex McKirgan examine the UKIP phenomenon – the paradoxical way in which it is transforming the UK’s political landscape whilst predicated upon resistance to change. Jadon Buckeridge argues that organised religion will be doomed by its inability to adapt, while Dodo Charles and Charlotte Perry-Evans explore the ways in which public attitudes to issues ranging from homosexuality to Aspergers Syndrome have been transformed in recent years. Great writers such as Virgil are reinterpreted by each new generation (Tom McCarthy offers his new translation of ‘The Fourth Eclogue’ in this issue) as are the works of singer-songwriters such as Nick Drake (discussed by Emma Bell and Lottie Kent) and Van Morrison (to whom Mark Richardson pays tribute). Isabel Stark explains what happens when the work of a film director (Joe Wright) falls out of step with the expectations of his audience, while Caleb Barron marvels at the way in which the work of graphic artist Stan Lee (creator of Iron Man) has been rehabilitated in recent years. Finally, Lauren Robson-Skeete offers some mouth-watering recipes that will make a very nice change – particularly over the Christmas season. Many thanks to all those who have contributed articles to this ‘Change’ issue of Portsmouth Point, to PGS’ Head of Photography, Mr Stone, and to our gifted magazine designer, Clara Feltham. Christmas and New Year is a season of change, reflecting upon the past and looking forward to the future. Over the holiday season, do continue to visit the Portsmouth Point blog at www.portsmouthpoint.blogspot.co.uk which is constantly changing with new articles and features by PGS pupils appearing every day.

Editorial TEAM

Cover design: Charlotte Pascoe and Leon Tu

The Editors December 2014 Po r t s m o u t h

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Virgil’s

FOURTH ECLOGUE Political, Oracular or Messianic: changes of Interpretation Tom McCarthy

irgil’s Fourth Eclogue is dedicated to Gaius Asinius Pollio and that gives us the clue to the poem’s purpose. In 40 BC, Pollio as Consul brought about the reconciliation between Octavian, later the Emperor Augustus, and Mark Antony at the Treaty of Brindisi. One of the Treaty’s conditions was that Antony should marry Octavia, Octavian’s sister. Such a marriage gave promise of peace after years of civil war. In the same year of his sister’s marriage, Octavian married Scribonia and some commentators see in that marriage the purpose and promise of the poem. A possible understanding of the Fourth Eclogue is this: as the man who brought about the Treaty of Brindisi, Pollio is the “forerunner” and the “stains of old sin” (line14) refer to the years of civil war before the assassination of Caesar and after. The son (lines 7-8) to be born will be the bringer of peace

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after the reconciliation between the competing heirs of Caesar. This peace will bring about a return of the Golden Age and the poet describes this in allegorical/millenarian language when all creation rejoices (lines 20-33 and 39-48). Ironically, no son was born to Octavia. After the birth of two daughters, both named Antonia, she was divorced and Antony returned to Cleopatra; Scribonia gave birth to a daughter, the wayward and tragic Julia, before she, too, was divorced. Virgil, however, names no names. Some see the child as the personification of the new age, the age of Augustus. Octavian, as Augustus, ruled Italy from 31 BC to 14 BC, bringing stability and peace. Thus for hundreds of years the Eclogues and, in particular, the Fourth Eclogue, were seen as the oracular and lyrical Ara Pacis of the Augustan Age. It is not surprising that when Christians were free to practice their religion after Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 AD a new interpretation of this Eclogue was possible. The reference to the Virgin (line 7) was seen to echo Isaiah 7, v. 14 and 9, v.6: “Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel”; “...For unto us a child is born and to us

Virgil's:

FOURTH ECLOGUE

sees Virgil as a Messianic prophet: “These things the poet foretold according to the verses of the Cumaean Sibyl”. The most dramatic Messianic interpretation of the Fourth Eclogue is in Dante’s Divine Comedy, (1308-1321). Virgil is not only the “glory and light of other poets”; he is guide and protector as Dante makes his slow and painful way through Inferno and Purgatorio. In Cantos 21 and 22 of Purgatorio, there is a wonderful encounter between three poets: Virgil of the century before Christ; Statius born in the century of Christ’s birth and Dante of the fourteenth century after Christ. Statius, who died in 96 AD, was a prominent Roman poet. An admirer of Virgil, he wrote two epics, Thebaid and Achilleid (unfinished). In Purgatorio 22, he tells Virgil of his conversion to Christianity during Domitian’s persecutions of Christians in 90 AD. In the second tercet (below) he paraphrases lines 6-8 from the Fourth Eclogue: “You were the first to guide Me to Parnassus to imbibe its springs; The first to light for me the way to God. ... Virgil a son is given and the government will be upon his shoulder”. The Gospel of Matthew (1. v 23) identifies Jesus as that son and Mary as that Virgin. Lines 24-25 were seen to recall Isaiah 11, v 6): “The wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the kid and a calf and a fatling together and a young child will lead them”. In the Christian liturgy for Advent leading to Christmas Isaiah provides most of the Old Testament readings. The references to the “old sin” (14) and the “serpent” (27) were seen as recalling the Fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis, Chapter 3. (I shall look at three Christian interpretations of this Eclogue , one in the 4th century, one in the 14th century and one in the 18th century.) The first Christian writer to give a Messianic interpretation was Lucius Caecilius Lactantius, born in Cirta, Numidia (modern Algeria) in about 250 AD. He became tutor to Constantine’s son, Crispus, and in his Divine Institutes (c. 308-9) he proposes to show that Christianity deserves toleration. In Book 7, Chapter 24, he describes the glorious world after Christ’s Second Coming: “The earth will open its fruitfulness...of its own accord...lions and calves shall stand together “at the manger...” Then he quotes lines 24-5 and 42-49 of the Eclogue and clearly

When you declared ‘The world begins again; Justice returns and the first human era. A heaven-sent new-born’, You made me poet, made me Christian.” Dante’s epic had and has a profound influence on Western culture and that simple and powerful line (“per te poeta fui, per te cristiano”) gives Virgil, even today, heroic and spiritual status. Alexander Pope’s Messiah “A Sacred Eclogue in Imitation of Virgil’s Pollio” (1712) continues the Messianic theme, as the title suggests. In his Preface, Pope says: “In reading several passages of the Prophet Isaiah, which foretell of the coming of Christ and the felicities attending it, I could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of his thoughts, and those of Pollio” In footnotes to his poem, Pope sets out the lines from the Eclogue that show that parity with I saiah. He sets lines 6-10 of the Eclogue above the verses fromIsaiah, Chapters 7 and 9 (already quoted above). He does the same with lines 21-4 set above the verses (already quoted) from Isaiah, Chapter 11. In fact in the whole 108 lines of Messiah Pope finds almost thirty parities between Virgil and the Old Testament prophet.

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How well does Pope harmonise the grandeur of the Hebrew prophet, the quiet beauty of Virgil’s language and the studied diction of his own time? Here are his lines on Isaiah, Chapter 7, v 14 and lines 6-10 of the Eclogue: “Rapt into future times, the Bard begun: A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a son! From Jesse’s root behold a branch arise, Whose sacred flow’r with fragrance fills the skies: Th’Aetherial spirit o’er its leaves shall move, And on its top descends the mystic Dove. Ye Heav’ns! From high the dewy nectar pour And in soft silence shed the kindly show’r!” A thorough overview of the Messianic theme in Virgil, from Lactantius in the 4th century to John Keble in the 19th, can be found in an essay by Ella Bourne at wwwjstor.org/ stable/3287925. The modern classical writers listed below, of course, set aside such a view. E.V. Rieu’s words on the matter seem to me, however, to be the most balanced: “The Fourth Eclogue is a lyrical rhapsody. It is a Roman oracle too. It is also a vision,conditioned by its date, but influenced none the less by those mysterious forces which, even as Virgil wrote, were gathering strength in Palestine to shape the future of mankind”.

Bibliography: E.V. Rieu The Pastoral Poems; Guy Williams The Eclogues; R.D Willliams The Eclogues and Georgics; Peter Levi Virgil. The Divine Comedy translated by J.G. Nichols.

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Fourth Eclogue of Virgil Muses of Sicily, speed our lofty song Away from hedges and low scraggy shrubs. We’ll sing of woods indeed but noble woods Worthy enough to suit a Consul’s state. Cumean Sibyl’s words have come to pass And Time turns back to mankind’s first of days. Look, as Saturn nears, the Virgin comes; The first-born of this Age will walk with us. Blest Lucina, smile at this baby’s birth. The Iron Age will go. This golden lad 10 Will win the world and sing as poets sang. With Pollio as Consul the glory starts: The count-down of the heavy months begins. With him as forerunner, stains of old sin Will wash away; our fearful world be freed From ceaseless fear. The boy will be divine And see the men of old consorting With gods and he with them. A child of peace, His father’s son, he’ll show us paths of peace. 20 Nature, unprompted, will bring forth its store: Free-roving ivy, foxgloves , acanthus smiling With Egyptian lily are its child-like gifts to you, Our new-born boy. Goats on their own, with udders Full of milk, will make for home. Free from fear, The gentle ox will with the lion sleep. A cradle full of flowers will be your rest. The serpent will be repulsed and his poison die While perfumes of Assyria fill the air.

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30 Then when you’ve read the praises of the great And of your father’s deeds, you’ll be a man. Waves of golden corn will bow before the wind; Red grapes will ripen on the bleakest thorn And honey sweat from oaks as hard as flint. Traces of that primal lie will linger Still. Men will attack by sea. Encircle Cities. Dig trenches deep. Wage wars again: A second Jason grabs the Golden Fleece; A new Achilles sent to batter Troy.

60 I long to live and celebrate your deeds In song. I’d better Orpheus, son of Calliope, From Thrace; I’d vanquish Linus and Apollo For all his music. If Pan himself challenged me With Arcady as judge, great Pan himself With Arcady as judge would give the palm to me. Begin now, small boy, to greet your mother With smiles after her weary months of waiting. Gods and goddesses shun a son who never At his mother smiles. Begin now, small boy.

40 But later when the years have strengthened you, Nature of its own will bring forth abundance; No bartering then from shaky ships of pine. No need for tillage, none. No hoe will bruise The fertile earth, no pruning hook the vine. The hardy ploughman will let loose his bulls. No dyes be needed then to stain the wool: In his own fold the ram will change his fleece To royal purple or to saffron’s shade; In glorious scarlet, lambs will safely graze. 50 ‘Speed on those years’, Destiny demands Harmonious with Fate’s stern decrees. The time is near. Now enter in, you son Divine, offspring of great Jove himself, while The world is shaken on its daily round: The firm-set land, far seas and deep set skies Creation dances for the Age to come.” "Eclogue IV: Thy Very Cradle Quickens" (1876).by Samuel Palmer

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HAS PINYIN CHANGED CHINESE SOCIETY? Catriona Ellis YEAR 12

ritten Mandarin Chinese is complex and intricate. The system of characters adopted by the Chinese (commonly called “Hanzi”) is a method of written communication containing many tens of thousands of different characters, although it is often said that many of these are tiny variants found in historical texts. Even so, it is estimated that “functional literacy in written Chinese requires the knowledge of between three and four thousand characters” and it is widely acknowledged as one of the hardest written languages to learn, especially once it is considered that not only would you have to learn the order of the brush strokes for each character, but also which tone sound (out of the four used in Mandarin Chinese) to adopt for each word. This is why the introduction of Pinyin has revolutionised both the teaching and learning of Mandarin. Pinyin is defined as “The official phonetic system for transcribing the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet in the People’s Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan) and Singapore.” Essentially it is a way of writing Chinese characters using the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet and since its official introduction in 1958 it is now used in schools to allow children to learn the sounds of words and their meanings via the phonetic Roman alphabet, for adults who never learnt written Chinese but wish to continue their studies into adulthood, for foreign people wanting to learn Mandarin but unfamiliar with the character system, and within technology to allow Mandarin to be written with a standard Western keyboard. However, Pinyin was created only roughly fifty years ago and can owe its creation not to the Western world but to Mao Zedong and the communist revolution in China. In the 1930s, the leaders of the Communist Party of China established a phonetic alphabet, called Sin Wenz, using Roman letters. Curiously, this system was developed in Moscow, because at the time there was a large population of Chinese immigrants living in the eastern region of the USSR with whom the government could not communicate. Sin Wenz was created in order to educate and make literate these people. Thus the motive behind the first romanisation of a language was to aid teaching,

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the same purpose as the creation of Pinyin many years later. Sin Wenz was far more linguistically sophisticated than previous alphabets, although its one major drawback was that it did not indicate tone sounds. However, it was highly successful in the USSR and proved that a phonetic method of teaching was beneficial in the learning of a language that used characters. It soon spread to China. The Sin Wenz movement reached a climax in 1940, when Mao Zedong’s Border Regional Government in China declared that “Sin Wenz had the same legal status as traditional characters in government and public documents”, and many academics suggested that one day traditional Chinese characters would be altogether replaced and Sin Wenz would be used universally. However, it became apparent that Sin Wenz was ill suited for writing regional dialects because of the absence of tone markings and so the majority of Chinese citizens still had to learn Mandarin in order to use Sin Wenz. Therefore, the aim of the creation of a phonetic alphabet (to educate the illiterate) had not been fulfilled and it was clear that a different system would need to be developed if any change was to be seen within Chinese society. When the communist revolution took place in China in 1949, Mao Zedong discovered that less than 20% of the population could read and it became more urgent that another phonetic alphabet was established in order to educate the majority of the population. A Chinese government project was therefore set up, with Zhou Youguang leading a committee to develop a romanisation of written Chinese. The Hanyu Pinyin system was created by looking at several preexisting systems, (Gwoyeu Romatzyh of 1928, Sin Weng of 1931, and the diacritic markings from zhuyin) and studying which aspects of which systems had been most successful before combining them into Hanyu Pinyin. “Hanyu” means “the spoken language of the Han people” and “pinyin” literally translates as “spelled-out sounds”. The system was almost immediately successful, revolutionising the teaching of Mandarin in Chinese schools and increasing the literacy rates by 60% in fifty years. Today, about 80% of the population of Beijing can read the daily newspapers, which creates a far less elitist society because the majority of the population has access to the same information.

This starts with teaching the youngest generation to read so that they can grow up with access to news and written communication. This could not have been possible without the use of Pinyin in schools to teach children to interpret and create Chinese characters; in schools, the textbooks usually contain both the Chinese character and Pinyin forms of the words with markings not dissimilar to Western accents above the Pinyin which indicate what tone sound the word should be pronounced with. Pupils are able to listen to the word pronounced by the teacher whilst looking at both the phonetic word and the character, thus learning to recognise the Chinese characters much more quickly. This system is also used to teach foreigners the Mandarin pronunciations using an alphabet they understand. This way, “Westerners” can learn to speak Mandarin without necessarily having to learn the exceptionally complex written language as well, and, using Pinyin, it is possible to learn Chinese grammar effectively and relatively quickly, again without the requirement to master thousands of Chinese characters. Thus, Pinyin has allowed Mandarin Chinese to become more accessible on a global scale and has increased diplomatic potential with China because the Western world can more easily communicate with the Eastern. Zhou Youguang is hailed by many as “the father of Pinyin”; however, he often says, "I’m not the father of Pinyin, I’m the son of Pinyin. It’s [the result of] a long tradition from the later years of the Qing dynasty down to today. But we restudied the problem and revisited it and made it more perfect." Zhou also emphasises the importance of literacy within a modern China, declaring in an interview with Stephen Fry for his programme Fry’s Planet Word: “If we want a modern country we must have literacy. Education is very important.” Zhou clearly understood how essential knowledge of written language was in order to create a more unbiased society and empower the population, a feat that is becoming more attainable all the time in China. Furthermore, Pinyin has greatly influenced the way Mandarin Chinese speakers use technology. A traditional Chinese typewriter has over 2000 characters and is cumbersome and time-consuming to use, but with Pinyin the Roman alphabet can be used on smart phones and computers. The user simply types the word

desired phonetically using Pinyin and a Western keyboard, into the phone or computer and all the related Chinese characters appear (like spell-checked words appear for a Western user.) The preferred character can then be selected and will appear in the text, email or document as desired. Without Pinyin, Mandarin Chinese speakers who only know Chinese characters could not use technology like smartphones or use any kind of word processor today. Consequently, these Chinese citizens would not be able to interact with those outside of China who didn’t speak their own language and cultural development would be slow or potentially non-existent. Technology allows humans to become more intelligent, inquisitive and communicative and, without the invention of Pinyin within Chinese society, it is highly unlikely that Mandarin Chinese speakers would be able to access these traits. For example, if a Chinese person could not use a phonetic keyboard would it ever be possible for them to “Google” anything? If the Chinese language could not fit its whole alphabet onto an iPhone screen would Apple ever have had customers in China? These questions, along with the question of whether literacy rates in China would have ever risen after the communist revolution without the invention of Pinyin or whether Pinyin would even have been created without the Communist Party of China, suggest that, had this phonetic system never been adopted, China would be far behind the rest of the world economically, culturally and technologically.

Bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters www.dailymotion.com/video/xqbuni_frys-planet-word-4_shortfilms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

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GOSSIP, CARROT, APPLE and the YARRAGH Mr Mark Richardson

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

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gossip, carrot, apple

AND THE YARRAGH

Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson onstage in 1976

ot having read the other articles in this edition of Portsmouth Point, I am unable to use them as examples, but it seems possible to think of change from two distinct points of view. One embraces the experience of change, welcoming it as an opportunity for freshness, for future life, for innovation, for progress, for the unexpectedness of serendipity, for the smile that results from witnessing something for which one can never be fully prepared. The other sees it as unwelcome, an erosion of established identity, a betrayal of the past where things were done properly, an affront to one's sense of wellbeing, a grimace and a wince and a sour sense of a death of the world that made sense. Even if you don't think like that, you'll find plenty of people who behave exactly as if they thought it. Some will bend with the wind, while others will stand steadfast, heedless of the fickle shift from one direction to another, a description of behaviour in others that will certainly be attractive to those of the first viewpoint. Some will, instead, find themselves surrounded by those who are hide-bound to convention, narrow in their understanding and insistent on imposing that narrowness on everyone else. Or that's how they will view it. And the worst of it is that each of us can find ourselves occupying exactly the same positions and then, without realising it, exactly the opposite ones too, sometimes in a heartbeat. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just others, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s us. One of the challenges for us all is that our understanding of the world is perceived as a series of states of being, as if the moment we are in is all that the world is and can ever be or ever have been. However, our actual perception of the world is entirely created by sensory organs that are triggered by changes in our environment. Everything we sense about our environment is made possible by our organs of touch, sight, taste and so on, and they transmit information to the brain for it to deal with further. But the brain would be overloaded with information unless there was a way of littering the information, so the brain is not provided by a ceaseless flow of data from constantly switched-on sense receptors. No, the receptors donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fire information back unless they sense a change in the data flow they are receiving. Listen to a loud and constant noise for long enough, and that noise will cease to become apparent. Until, that is, it ceases, and the sudden silence is deafening. Same story in the eyes: if you could stare at a non-moving scene and not blink or move a muscle, then the receptors will begin to switch off and, eventually, you would see nothing but darkness, no

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Van Morrison and Bob Dylan

matter how bright the scene. But your body won't allow it, and one slight movement is all it would take for it all to come back again, even though it had never been away. So, change is built into our access to the world around us, and is thus our very identity. We just also have a desire to create a permanence out of what we see. “Persistence of vision”. And it's a strong desire to see permanence when in fact it is just very slow change. Language, for instance, is often treated as a permanent object, despite all of the evidence around us to the contrary. It is common for audiences to expect and even demand a British accent from a Shakespearean actor, and to be dismissive of an American one as being inauthentic, but whatever accent it was that might have been heard on stage at the Globe in 1600, we can be sure that it was much more like an American accent than any “British” accent. Language changes over time, not just in accents but in vocabulary, grammar and meaning. Take the word ‘gossip’, for instance. It has strong negative overtones. Describe a statement as gossip and you are indicating that it is likely to be untrue. Describe someone as a gossip and you are implying that he or she, and more probably she than he, is untrustworthy at best and malicious at worst. But go back a thousand years or so, and in Anglo Saxon a “god sib” would be a literal translation of a “good neighbour”, and you would be proud to be called a gossip. The word has shifted, changed, even warped so much as to become its opposite without, I’d suggest, anyone ever noticing. Language is also likely to show all the hallmarks of being used by ordinary people for all sorts of different purposes and often not having had any training in it at all. So they make mistakes. Look at an orange, what do you

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see? You see the colour orange, I hope. And if you guessed that the name of the colour comes from the word for the fruit, then you'd be right. But why the word orange in the first place? It's because the fruit was traded here from Spain and the word ‘naranja’ quickly got mangled by English speakers into ‘norringe’ or something very like it. And this was fine, as long as people just spoke the word. But in writing something happened: the ’n’ disappeared from its opening. Why? Because in English we use the word “a” quite happily to indicate ‘one’ of something, unless we use it with a word that begins with a vowel, and then we use ‘an’. Simple. True, but if you write the sound ‘anorringe’ onto paper, where do you put the gap? Between the a and the n or the n and the o? It should be after the a, but someone guessed differently and over time that version of the spelling became the only one. A mistake, perhaps, but the change became reality and still stands today. And that’s partly the point at issue here: change ceases to be recognised for what it was because the consequence of change becomes familiar and then becomes the established norm, and no longer change at all. As someone who first came into contact with an Apple computer in 1986, having been used to command line interface computers such as the BBC B computer or the Amstrad, I discovered a new world, but one of which hardly anyone else had any knowledge: a new world of mice, of icons, of cursors. Then Microsoft came up with Excel and then Word, both for the Mac before any PC version existed: and then, just a few years later, the Windows world dominates so much it becomes synonymous with personal computing, so that PC might mean a personal computer but it also means one that is running Windows,

gossip, carrot, apple

AND THE YARRAGH

while Apple was on the road to nowhere. Now, though, Apple is the giant, and the whole business about PC and Mac seems almost quaint, because the real focus has changed to the mobile world, one which one company embraced and prospered from, while the other couldn't because its revenue came from desktop computing. But way back in 1986, computer experts were at odds about using this icon business rather than good old typing commands on a screen, and Apple was largely dismissed as expensive and unproductive: and you will hear exactly the same divisions still going on, as no-one it seems has learnt much at all. Keep to the same ideas, don't change them, stick to what you know, don't listen to any other point of view, you'll be OK. And if the world changes, well that’s ok, roll with it, and you can still maintain the same point of view, so you don't have to change very much if at all. It’s a neat survival trick in the face of change: ignore it and carry on regardless and you will probably be OK. Not with music, though. That’s where change is everything, and where the best of music embraces and celebrates change. Bob Dylan’s line in ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ sums up his philosophy concerning change: ‘He not busy being born is busy dying’. If you don’t keep embracing change, you are just getting ready to die. Music is full of change, of course: changes in style, in acceptability, using different modes from familiar ones, different instruments, different structures. But music does much more than just employ change. At its best, it creates change, whilst also containing it. Take the ‘yarragh’ of the title. It comes from an Irish classical singer at the beginning of the century, and is used by music writer Greil Marcus in a book on Van Morrison. In an interview he described it thus: “It starts out with this great Irish tenor John McCormack, who said that the really good voice has a yarragh in it, a kind of guttural spirit. I took that as a kind of aesthetic principle and not just a sound, where we break through ordinary communication by making a sound people aren’t going to expect and aren’t going to understand immediately, but they’re going to respond to.” Marcus’s book, Listening to Van Morrison, explores this much more, in considering how the singer comes to inhabit his own music, and how in turn it is listened to by others. Van Morrison is something of a force of nature. In a business dominated by impressive and often beautiful performers, he is dumpy, scowling and difficult, but his music is something

else entirely. His album Astral Weeks, released in 1968, is magnificent and game-changing, and if you have never listened to any of his work, stop reading right now and go check it out. But if you are still with me here, then I want to explore an album that first appeared in 1974. If the title of Astral Weeks seemed rather outlandish and trippy, it also is very much of its hippyinfused time, with the hints of astral planes, of otherworldly philosophy that might offer a way out from the buttoned-down world of the here and now. But the title of the album in 1974 was a very different affair: Veedon Fleece. Say what? Well, don't ask Morrison. When someone did ask, he replied, “It doesn't mean anything, I made it up myself.” Thanks for that. But when you hear him singing, something changes with the words: they twist, they shift, they echo other ideas (grail, loss, enlightenment), they become something that is impossible to translate but, nevertheless, mean something, this time beyond words while still being in words. The album is a label-defying mixture: jazz, Gaelic, folk, pop, soul are all there, and then some. The first side contains four songs that are transformative: as you listen to them, the songs change and you, the listener, change too. This is the power of a man who is embarrassingly underregarded: iTunes contains nothing, nor does Spotify, and if Amazon is your thing, then it appears you’re in luck, but only at a cost: no digital version of many of his albums are available, including (sorry) Veedon Fleece itself. But ‘Fair Play’, ‘The Streets of Arklow’ (with its sinuous flute solo actually longer than the song itself), ‘Linden Arlen Stole the Highlights’ and the last song on the first side of the vinyl original whose title is almost as long as the nine minutes plus of the music itself, ‘You Don’t Pull No Punches, But You Don’t Push the River’. The word ‘song’ doesn’t really do justice: they are experiences, ones that transcend, envelop and change. They change you. You, the listener. And then all over again as you drift back into them. Morrison’s voice becomes a noise, a sound, one that reminds you of yourself and then remakes you into another self. The ‘yarragh’. Music changes, not only itself, but, at its best, you. And then it does it all over again. And again. And again. Enjoy.

MUSIC CHANGES NOT ONLY ITSELF BUT, AT ITS BEST, YOU

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Changing responses to

NICK DRAKE Mrs Emma Bell

DEPUTY HEAD OF ENGLISH

Lottie Kent YEAR 13

EB How did you get into Nick Drake? LK Well, I’d heard ‘Northern Sky’ before, but it was really at my uncle’s wedding five years ago, when my cousin stood up and sang it a capella as my auntie came down the aisle that I thought, “Wow! This is really beautiful music” It made me really sit up and listen to the lyrics because they were so poignant in context. EB And it is one of his most cheerful songs. LK Really uplifting - my uncle has always loved Nick Drake. What got you into his music? EB It’s funny but about five years ago I found some old exercise books at my Mum’s house. I used to listen to a show on Radio1 with Annie Nightingale (just before John Peel came on at 11) and I had written down “River Man - Nick Drake”, so it obviously had a real effect. But in those days, you couldn’t just download it or Shazam to find out who it was if you heard a song; and certainly none of the local record shops in our town centre stocked Nick Drake albums - it was all chart stuff - so it was a very long time before found him again, by accident, when ten years ago or so a CD was reissued with a Best Of compilation of his music; something rang a bell and I rediscovered him all over again. I feel, like you, that the music is so intricate, so complex but that the lyrics are so heartfelt, with interesting shades of Blake and Keats. LK ... and Yeats, too. I think, also, that the tragedy of his life makes his work all the more intriguing. Not being well received in his lifetime added to his cult. EB Yes, just three albums of 90 minutes each: an hour and a half of complete listening for his entire career. He himself found it dispiriting that so few seemed to appreciate his work during his lifetime. However, he was a complicated man and a very reticent man; he wouldn’t go out on tour or attempt to entertain an audience; he slipped into a terrible depression. LK His sister says he receded into himself, that he enjoyed less and less the act of performing, but that he of course still wanted people to appreciate his music. There was a tragic disconnect there. When you look at a lot of artists today, even independent artists, they are not just makers of music but brands; they have got to have a way of selling what they do.

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EB That seems a difference between then and now. In the 70s, an artist put their faith in a manager who made record deals, publicised you; it was out of your hands. Now, perhaps, you need to be more brash. I worry for those shy, reticent artists who don’t have that showing-off vibe, who are reticent like Nick Drake. John Martyn wrote a song about him called ‘Solid Air’; he was just solid air. LK You mentioned some of the unreleased works – of course, every few years, now, they seem to put out another album. Recently, there was a family one – with his mum singing on it; I find Molly Drake absolutely haunting. EB Yes, it’s very eerie how that genetic link has produced the same harmonic tone. LK And not just tone and sound but the way she phrases things. There is even one song with his sister, Gabrielle, a duet – just beautiful. She clearly understood him and identified with his life. Most of the things I have read about him, intimate biographical aspects, come from her. EB I have been to his grave, which is near the Drake family home in Warwickshire, near where I come from. They were a substantial, well-to-do family. Nick was sent to boarding school. Perhaps he felt that this was not the right sort of background for a musical artist. And that troubled him. But, clearly, his mother was a gifted musician – and his sister became a successful actress. LK He didn’t really know what he wanted to do. He read English Lit at Cambridge but dropped out and said all he wanted to do was music. EB Yes, he lived in the South of France and Morocco. I think, however, that the marijuana culture only served to increase his inertia and his paranoia. LK Yes, I think it only added to his introversion and his sense of agitation. It is that fragility, really, the crack you hear some times, which just rings true somewhere in me and makes me understand him all the more. The tone is so raw and exposed, it feels as if all of his creative energy is going into his work. It is just palpable that something is, or could, break somewhere. EB Warwickshire has a very mystical quality for me – that patch

IT IS THAT FRAGILITY, REALLY, THE CRACK YOU HEAR SOMETIMES, WHICH JUST RINGS TRUE Nick Drake

of Midlands earth trodden by Shakespeare, Elgar and Housman, that sense of trees and sky, of human life very symbiotic with nature. Many of his lyrics are about the passing of seasons and of a man’s life; they are unbearably poignant in their evocation of life’s fragility: that we are from seed, will grow, then wither and return to the earth. Perhaps that sense of recurring nature makes it all positive in the end. LK Yes, you get a sense of the fragility in one existence, but also the idea of regeneration that inspires you to feel he retained a sense of positivity or hope. I think it is still uncertain whether his death was suicidal or a mere accident. I know that the whole basis of New Criticism is that we should not take into account the context of the work, but with Nick Drake it seems somehow crucial to know how much he wanted to die. EB Anyone is capable of wanting that at one moment, but whether they still want it the next morning is the question. When

you are fragile, giving out music with heartfelt lyrics, then you will be vulnerable. You have shaped it and crafted it so earnestly and it must be crushing to feel that people are indifferent to it. LK Do you feel that he had sense of how talented he was? Often the vulnerability of an artist often comes from ignorance of their own artistic brilliance, but I think that in his case it came from the frustration of feeling others did not respect work that deserved appreciation. What do you think the reception would be if he was alive – looking at the current music industry? EB Maybe he’d have gone down the Ed Sheeran path – but, equally, there would be people around him offering to do his Myspace, web page, twitter account, etc, so he could get on with the music and ignore the promotion, so perhaps the difference might be now that more people would be willing to get on board to help him get known. Social media might have made all the difference – made him a huge star.

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WHY HAS

UKIP RISEN AND WHAT WILL BE THE LASTING DAMAGE OF FARAGE’S EARTHQUAKE? Will Dry

YEAR 12

lot has changed in Britain over the last thirty years: Manchester City are good at football, people no longer make jokes about Gary Barlow’s waistline, students don’t need to borrow a book to write an essay. But some things are quite similar: Pompey are in the 4th division – as they were in 1979 - people still laugh at the French, and, perhaps the most imperative similarity – depending on how seriously you take your football or music - is the presence of a protest party causing significant tremors in the halls of Westminster. The lavish tea sets which sit pompously on the mahogany tables are once again quivering. While their proprietors once surreptitiously slipped a dash of whiskey into their morning Earl Greys - to numb their fear that the end was looming nigh - today, the tea bags are less than surreptitiously left gathering dust in the cabinets, envious of the bottle of whiskey that is in regular use. In Parliament, this is the calm before the storm. On 26th March 1981, four senior Labour MPs, aggrieved with the left wing direction the Labour party was taking, founded a new party: the Social Democratic Party. They sold themselves as a happy medium between the perceived cruelties which Thatcherism perpetuated and the incompetent ideological

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Labour MPs who were not fit for governing. The new political baby of British politics was silently born right under the noses of the Westminster elite; knowledge of the audacious announcement was a closely guarded secret until the very moment that ‘Gang of Four’ began the press conference that would go on to shape the future of British politics. 28 disgruntled Labour MPs, and one disillusioned Tory, defected. Ultimately, fatal decisions were made by devoted left wingers that would condemn Labour to the barren lands of the opposition benches for years. The Alliance peaked at 50% in the polls in 1981, double the support of the partisan parties at the time, consistently dropping the jaws of the incumbent politicians. As the election drew near, the faith Margaret Thatcher held in herself and her policies was justified, and subsequently recognised nationwide after a series of successes, the most remarkable being the victory in the Falklands War. A Conservative landslide was evident as early as the end of 1982. This did not stop the SDP battling on until election day, winning 25.4% of the vote – a fraction behind Labour’s 27.6%; however, the unjust First-Past-the-Post electoral system protected Labour, which ended up with 209 MPs compared to a mere 23 for the Alliance. The SDP later merged with the floundering Liberals in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats. While the Lib Dems have undoubtedly had a profound effect on British politics, it should

why has

UKIP RISEN?

not be overestimated: all but one of the governments since their creation have been majority governments led by Labour or the Conservatives. UKIP was founded not in a flash press conference but in a cramped office of a history professor at LSE in 1993 by a bunch of academics. Their aim, rather self-explanatory after reading their name, was to get the UK out of the European Union. The story goes that Alan Sked, the official founder of UKIP, was appalled by the ‘crazed’ Eurocrats who went to LSE for various conventions, where they distributed their prophecy – eyewitnesses have suggested that their tongues may have been alight – that the birth of the United States of Europe was nearing. Sked had little faith in the European project, so he, and his band of merry professors, gave the British people a gift on the 3rd September 1993 – the ability to say ‘No’; back then, it was a ‘no’ primarily to the notion of a European super-state, but not much else. Persistent infighting and clashes between gargantuan egos acted as a strait jacket; the party could never seize any opportunity. Sked’s present never really made it to the voters for 15 years: Santa was stuck in the chimney. Only after a pint was generously left under the stockings of an electorate who were fed up with the status quo did a middle-aged man named Nigel Farage climb down from the rooftops and give out the present that Sked had wrapped up years ago. Farage joined UKIP in 1993; he had a minor role in the early years before becoming one of their most successful activists in the early 2000s, but he did not want to take a major role in the running of UKIP before he was 40 – feeling it not right to lead a political party with relatively few life experiences. On the 5th November 2010, coincidentally the anniversary of Guy Fawkes’ infamous revolt against the establishment, Nigel Farage was elected the leader of UKIP. He was well into his forties, there was a Conservative leader who was clearly detached from his core right-wing voters, bountiful quantities of Liberal Democrat voters who could no longer justify voting for them as a protest now that they were in government and a Labour leader who looked out of place in a working men’s club. The red, blue, and yellow sea had parted. Even as early as 2010, Farage could visualise a picture of Westminster which involved him sauntering to the gates of Westminster smugly wielding the balance of power. Not so long ago, if a UKIP activist had shared their vision of a utopian Westminster, any political commentator

would have chuckled; the vision would have justified Cameron’s description of them as ‘loonies’, ‘fruitcakes’ and ‘closet racists.’ Well, now up to 25% of the electorate can be deemed ‘loonies’, with each and every one of them enjoying Farage’s fruitcake. But they are enjoying even more watching Mr Cameron wolf down his humble pie in a desperate attempt to find the voters he left behind in Farage’s pub. There is no denying, despite the overriding difference across the political spectrum, that strong parallels exist in the two tales of each respective party challenging the status quo: the picking up of the protest vote – and engaging a previously disinterested portion of the electorate when doing so, benefiting from an antiestablishment mood, and, finally, achieving a rapid rise in support. he SDP had achieved 7 million voters at general elections from 1983-1987, UKIP went from less than 1.5% of the vote in the GE of 2010 to being the first party to beat both the Conservatives and Labour in a national election in over 100 years just four years later. The reasons behind the surge in popularity for the SDP are comprehensive; the party was set up from within Westminster – four political veterans who had the experience to ran successful media campaigns, capable of projecting a positive vision of Britain and able to capitalise on the ‘the main parties don’t represent me’ feeling were bound to succeed. UKIP, however, achieved their surge after 20 years exiled to the barren lands of mockery, humiliation and nothingness, fleetingly reappearing once every four years in the European Elections but never posing a threat to the walls of Westminster. So, how is it that there is a purple painted battering ram that is edging closer to the gates of the citadel as we speak? Today, many Ukippers would be insulted at the suggestion that their vote is a protest vote, the thought that they are merely having a temper tantrum at the Conservative leadership for chumming up with Europe excessively. As I will elucidate later, this notion is wrong – but it has not always been. Up until 2004, the very leaders of UKIP, such as the founder Alan Sked, tried to forge a Conservative-UKIP alliance in elections. This was opposed by other party members who did not want to be seen as the quirky offshoot of the Tories; but the short-sighted Sked rebutted their views: he argued that UKIP’s very purpose was not to cause a revolt against the established parties, but to convert the Tories back to hard Euroscepticism. After failing to secure any type of deal, UKIP were seen as the estranged cousin that the Conservatives themselves did not wish to talk to – a taboo at

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family conventions. Their support consisted almost entirely of disgruntled ex-Tories living comfortably in various quaint towns in the South; only one of their top ten performing regions was outside of the South-West and South-East. Sked had failed – and was ousted. This triggered a metamorphosis, the party left its cocoon where it had been an undeveloped single-issue party and what emerged was a power vacuum. That vacuum sucked up all the pieces of dust, the leaders with the public appeal of dead human skin. It was a dark day for UKIP. A few dark days turned into a few dark months, and so on. UKIP, following the orbit of Steve Brookstein, had faded into irrelevance. On the topic of talent shows, it was Robert Kilroy Silk, an ex-Labour MP turned chat show host, who recognised that UKIP had a certain X Factor in its message. With Kilroy’s fame came donations from his connections, and unprecedented levels of media attention – but most importantly it gave UKIP a fully body makeover. The new image was found to be especially attractive by a new demographic of voter for the party. According to Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin, two academics who have extensively studied the rise of UKIP, the entrance of Kilroy marked the first instance when the UKIP was found appealing to, what they dub, ‘left behind ’ voters: generally older, blue collar voters, citizens with fewer qualifications, whites and men. The established parties once had engaged these voters; the last party leader to understand them was arguably Margaret Thatcher – a leader who had a large working class following due to her strong stance on immigration and the assertive nationalism that she perpetuated. Before then, Old Labour’s desire for social justice, and their emphasis on protecting and upholding the rights of ordinary workers had appealed to these blue collar voters. But in the 20-30 years since then, there has been a convergence between the main parties which has created, as Farage is keen to point out, a system of ‘spot the difference’ politics; where the main parties unanimously agree on almost every major issue. The main parties battled over the centre ground, desperately trying to win over the expanding middle class. The margins, where the once-loyal troops of each party had been deserted, packed up their kit and wandered off. Their leaders, and the leaders they were supposedly fighting against, looked the same, sounded the same and gave them the same amount of attention: zilch. These ordinary working class voters saw a government that was not protecting but threatening their way of life, they were sceptical of the effects of mass immigration that had been allowed to occur and were angry they had not been consulted about it. Some of these voters slowly dissipated from the electoral map; the turnout in 1997 was only 59.7% - the lowest ever recorded in British politics, and has never truly recovered. Some of these voters begrudgingly turned up on Election Day, motivated primarily not by any enthusiastic vision of Blair’s Britain but the repulsion which came with the idea of a Tory government. Alarmingly, a segment of these disengaged voters turned to extreme solutions: the BNP, an openly racist party,

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had a successful period in the early 2000s - beating UKIP in local council elections more often than not. The first signs that UKIP were capable of appealing to these voters came in 2004, when they came third in the European elections. UKIP began to be recognised as an outlet for the anger of the ‘left behind’ voters and, as a result of this, potential UKIP strongholds appeared in the Midlands and Yorkshire. More often than not, during the first decade of the 2000s, the party squandered this opportunity to build momentum. Kilroy took a very public run at the leadership and lost. Fuming, he disappeared in a puff of his own vanity – and so did the generous donors and media attention. While the party were returned to what seemed to be their natural habitat, the wilderness, UKIP’s relationship with Kilroy, flirtatious at first - before ending in tears - had shown the party a glimpse of their true potential. While in electoral exile, UKIP became a more professional party: they weeded out all members who had any affiliation with the extreme right; senior members who were willing to fragment the party to fulfil their own ambition were singled out and forced to quit and the party began to understand the importance of galvanising strongholds – rather than trying to appeal nationally. The first blow UKIP landed on the status quo of British politics came in the 2009 European elections. Less than one month before polling day, The Daily Telegraph published a damning report on the expenses used by Labour cabinet. This was followed by further leaks regarding the expenses of MPs

why has

UKIP RISEN?

UKIP leader Nigel Farage with Conservative defectors Mark Reckless and Douglas Carswell

from both sets of benches. From the farcical story of buying a luxury bed while having an affair to the outright outrageous behaviour of hiring someone to clean your personal moat, the expenses scandal lit a flame under the electorate! Here was the public going through the worst recession in living memory, while their representatives were using their taxes to disgracefully fund their lavish lifestyle. A snapshot poll after the scandal suggested that 84% of the public wanted any MPs involved in the scandal expelled from Parliament immediately. UKIP, the obvious outlet for this populist anger, jumped from 7% to 16% in a matter of days. They came second in a national election – beating the incumbent Labour party, winning 13 MEPs, and gaining a much-needed boost in morale. They continued making inroads in the Labour heartlands. They won seats in local authorities in northern, working class, areas such as Hartlepool, Newcastleunder-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent. Paul Nuttall, a rising star of UKIP, understood these voters more than anyone. Nuttall realised that these voters did not merely demand action on immigration or the frequent meddling by Brussels on British democracy, they had an appetite to complain about domestic issues also; UKIP needed a coherent set of policies that covered everything from the NHS to a more simple tax system. New Labour’s policies on human rights and climate change bored voters. These policies did not interest the ‘left behind’ voters, who were too busy making ends meet. When working class voters were asked what demographic the

current Labour government was helping the most, the two demographics that recurred most frequently were immigrants and the middle class. UKIP rode this momentum into the 2014 elections, winning the European Elections and achieving tremendous gains in council seats up and down the country. Since taking control, Farage has rallied and organised his rabble into an organised force capable of, well, what? This rebellion has repeatedly confounded the Westminster elite, like it has the political analysts of the mainstream media. The group that they left behind has caught up – energised by finally finding a means of articulating their electoral emotions through supporting UKIP. This is an uprising that Westminster has found, and will continue to find, hard to defeat: as these voters have been forgotten, ironically, it is hard to know how powerful they are and could become. Results from the Continuous Monitoring Survey shows that 30% of the electorate are both Eurosceptic and anti-immigration – the two key ingredients necessary to make a purple voter. The recent £1.7 billion tax imposed on Britain by the EU, solely on the basis that it has a successful economy, and the upcoming immigration figures regarding the influx of Romanians, coupled with the perceived ‘out of touch’ness of Cameron and the oddness of Ed, may be enough to switch many more to Team Nigel. UKIP are not alone. The SNP benefitted from an antiestablishment mood, with Scots having grown tired of Labour taking them for granted. The Greens are also mounting a charge among students. In a poll by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, just 11% of 18-to-24 year olds would vote Tory, as opposed to 12% for UKIP and nearly 20% for the Greens. In Europe, the revolt is stronger: in Portugal a party formed in January is now topping the polls, in Greece a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi party is the third largest. Democracy as we have known it may be consigned to the history books. The sick patient that signed in under the alias Mr Status Quo grows sicker and less functional each year, its malaises ranging from self-inflicted wounds such as the MPs’ expenses scandal to the ever-growing cancerous tumours of the smaller parties. In the next twenty years, little can be confidently predicted – although Pompey will probably still be in the 4th division. It is clear that our democracy, however, will not be the same. On the current paths that the established parties are journeying it is very hard to picture that the Conservatives and Labour will still be happily alternating periods of stable majorities. The voters, tired of the main parties panting, unfit to meet their concerns, may leave them behind.

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UKIP? Alex McKirgan

really?

YEAR 12

he defining English political development of this decade looks like it will be the rise of UKIP.hether you view this as a good or bad thing, it is clearly going to have a major effect on how this country is run. The big question for the next election is"Will UKIP hurt the Tories more than the SNP hurt Labour?' The chance of any single party forming a majority after the election next year is receding every day. The real reason for this development is not to be found in the shopping list of grievances that usually get listed by UKIP supporters: (1) Control Immigration, (2) EU Exit and (3) 'I want my country back!' Let's take these one at a time. The recent Clacton by-election was a resounding win for Douglas Carswell and UKIP so let's assume it contains many typical UKIP supporters. UKIP voters constantly complain about uncontrolled immigration from poorer EU countries. They worry about Bulgarians and Romanians coming to the UK, putting pressure on scarce housing and public services while claiming benefits to support their families back home. So what are the biggest communities of EU immigrants in Clacton? Romanians? Nope. Bulgarians? Nope? How about Poles? Nope. The biggest groups of EU immigrants in Clacton are..........Irish and Germans. Hmmm. So while EU immigration is claimed to be a major issue in Clacton, the objective truth is that Clacton voters have not really been affected by it. OK, where are there decent-sized communities of EU immigrants? The answer is London. How does UKIP do in these areas? Very poorly. This is reflected across the country. There is a negative correlation between support for UKIP and constituencies that have high EU immigration. The people who complain the most about the impact of EU immigration are not the ones who have to deal with it. The people who have direct experience of EU immigration seem to be relaxed about it, presumably because they see the benefits these groups bring. Immigration is a PERCEIVED, rather than actual problem. EU immigration is less than 50% of total UK immigration and the non-EU piece is already tightly controlled. UKIP talk

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endlessly about a points system for immigration but the countries that have these systems (Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc) all have higher levels of immigration than the UK. The number of EU citizens claiming Job Seekers Allowance in the UK is 60,000. YouGov recently conducted a survey and asked people to estimate the numbers in various immigration categories. Asked the question above (to which the answer is 60,000) the median answer was 300,000 (5 times the correct answer) and the median answer amongst UKIP supporters was 500,000. So, if immigration is not the problem its critics believe, why do people feel this way? UKIP supporters are often those who have lost out from Globalisation and who are experiencing declining real living standards as wages stagnate, zero-hours contracts proliferate and prices rise. This is not an imagined grievance. The other major plank of UKIP's platform is immediate exit from the EU. UKIP either maliciously or recklessly exaggerates the perceived costs to the UK of EU membership. They state the cost of membership as the gross amount paid in to the EU and ignore all the benefits; they overstate by ten times the percentage of UK laws made in Brussels and last year claimed millions of Romanians were about to enter the UK (it hasn't happened). UKIP often talk about following the example of Norway, a country in the European Economic Area but outside the EU. But if Britain left the EU and was just a member of the EEA, would we be better off? The EEA agreement, signed in 1994, extends the EU internal market to the EEA countries. The price they pay for this access? They accept complete freedom of movement of labour from all 30 EEA countries. The Norwegian Government website even includes the following testimonial: "The large number of labour immigrants that have arrived in Norway from other EEA countries in recent years illustrates the importance and mutual benefit of a common labour market within the EEA". They go on to say that they recognise the importance of developing the European internal market as an important tool for stimulating new economic growth in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Norway, Lichtenstein and Iceland have also contributed â&#x201A;Ź4bn to EU social programs to "reduce social and economic

THERE IS NO FUTURE, IN ENGLAND'S DREAMING...

The prophetic Johnny Rotten

inequalities in EU countries". They also seek to coordinate social and workers' rights between EU and EEA countries. Doesn't sound at all like Farage's utopia. This is what you have to do if you want access to one of the biggest markets in the world. One final point on the EU. UKIP spokespeople claim that if Britain were outside the EU, it could trade with faster-growing emerging markets. This is disingenuous. Britain not only trades with these countries today, it trades under a trade treaty negotiated with these countries by one of the largest trading blocs in the world. For Britain to be better off after EU exit you would have to believe that Britain on its own could negotiate better terms with these countries than the much larger EU. Unlikely. The winning entry for the Brexit Prize (a competition to describe how Britain might exit from the EU) estimated that the effect on the UK economy of EU exit would between -6 and +2% of GDP. Think about that. The most eloquent proponent of EU exit thinks Britain's economy MIGHT grow by 2% but also might DECLINE by 6%. Will this really transform the lives of the voters in Clacton? I think not. How about the 'I want my country back' voters? There has always been a conservative group in this country that believes the country was better in some bygone age. They resent progress and want to go back. I know these people believe this to be true but on any measure, Britain is better off, healthier, more open and more accepting than any period in the past. Progress is about making improvements to move a country forward. There has never been an example of a country improving itself by trying to go back. So, what do we have? A large percentage of the population thinks that the country's economy is not working for them. They feel they are losing out economically and find the promises made by an anti-establishment party with a charismatic leader that blames 'outsiders' for their situation, an attractive choice. Sadly, we have seen this movie before. Demagogues playing on people's fears and prejudices can be successful and can win a large amount of support... it just rarely ends well. Have we learned nothing? The UKIP solutions are nonsense. The reasons large numbers of voters feel unhappy and disenchanted with conventional

politics are obvious. The post-war economic model, where living standards would rise, and each successive generation would be better off and better educated, is broken. As I said, these are not made-up grievances, it's just that stopping EU immigration and leaving the EU will not fix this problem. Britain needs immigrants to pay for the increasing pension bill and needs to be more integrated with the Global economy, not less. Immigrants from the 10 newer EU countries (the ones UKIP claim are such a drain drain on resources) contribute over ÂŁ5bn more in taxes than they consume in services, even after charging them a share of fixed cost like defence. One of the more honest comments from Farage was where he recognised that his policies might make Britain's economy worse off but he would accept that if it become more culturally homogenous. I didn't hear much of that in the Clacton campaign. 'Vote UKIP and we'll make you worse off! ... but don't worry, there will be fewer foreigners!' UKIP like to say that 'political correctness' means we never talk about immigration but for the last year we've talked about nothing else. I've just come back from the school trip to China where our hosts were working in school for 12 hours a day, then doing homework until midnight then doing school clinics on the weekend. What can we do in this country to develop highskill jobs that will provide growing living standards against this competition? How can we dramatically increase the number of new, affordable homes to start solving the housing crisis? Kicking out a relatively small number of immigrants and retreating back to Little England will not cut it. Solving these problems is the big issue facing our country. Parties like UKIP always flourish in times of economic hardship but when living standards start to rise, they melt away like spring snow. There is something disreputable about a party that unfairly demonises a group of outsiders to gain support from people with economic grievances. Politics should be better than this...we should be better than this. Let's get back to coming up with real solutions to the problems we face. As the great Johnny Rotten said 'There is no future, in England's dreaming...' UKIP is a destructive dead-end that won't solve our problems. Enough is enough.

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Lincoln:

the transformative President David Danso-Amoako YEAR 9

braham Lincoln remains the most important president in the history of the United States. He would grow to lead the US in the Civil War, one of the bloodiest wars in US history. His ascension to the White House would usher in new rules to end slavery, including the addition of three new amendments to deal with the everchanging USA. The second child of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, Abraham was born on February 12, 1809, in a one- room log cabin in Kentucky. He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, who first came to the USA from Norfolk. When he was about 11 years old, he started working for the family when they moved to Indiana. He then became known for his hard work. This would put him in a good position for his future. Lincoln, because he could not get the chance to go to school, was taught by itinerant teachers, but, after that, he became self-taught. He read the Bible multiple times to educate himself as well as other well-known classic novels like Aesop’s Fables, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson Crusoe and Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. This reading helped him to become a great writer as well as a great President. Lincoln’s first love was Ann Rutledge. Unfortunately, she

died, at the age of 22, most likely of typhoid fever on August 25th, 1835. In 1840, Lincoln was engaged to Mary Todd, who was from a slave-holding family in Kentucky. The couple were married and then moved in to Springfield where they had four children. Lincoln’s first job to gain money was to go from New Salem to New Orleans to deliver goods, where he first observed slavery. Then he served in the brief Black Hawk War in 1832, after which he started his political career. He lost his first two attempts for the Illinois General Assembly. But after this second failed attempt, Lincoln decided to try the Illinois House of Representatives. After two shots at election, he was there four terms (eight years). He mainly learned law from books by himself. Lincoln then went on to become the sixteenth President of the United States of America, as a Republican, from 1861 to 1865. When Lincoln was elected, some of the states didn’t want him to be president because Lincoln had declared his opposition to slavery. Those states that seceded from the Union, forming the “Confederate States of America” (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas) were politically dominated by slave-owners. President Lincoln and former president James Buchanan said this was against the US Constitution, but the Confederate States

LINCOLN HELPED AMERICA TO LIVE UP TO ITS OWN IDEALS BY ABOLISHING SLAVERY

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carried on and declared war on what remained of the Union. The Civil War had begun and would last until Lincoln’s presidency ended, with assassination, in 1865. When the war began, Lincoln took major steps by announcing himself commander in chief. As well as military strategy, he tried the diplomatic approach in order for the war to end quickly so that, at the end of the war, there might be reconciliation between North and South. When the war was over and the Union army, under Lincoln’s leadership, had won, he decided that it was time to change the US constitution, adding amendments that introduced new rules not only that slavery in the USA would be abolished but also that the freed black slaves could vote. He saved the Union, reconciled victors and vanquished and helped the Union to reconstruct its former (pre-War) glory, including helping to stabilize the economy battered after the Civil War. When Lincoln was assassinated by an embittered former Confederate, John Wilkes Booth, in 1865, he left a great legacy behind. He improved America’s relationship with other countries and helped it live up to its own ideals by abolishing slavery, while still “knitting the old union back together” once again to keep the United States of America united. Because of his own personal integrity he was remembered afterwards as “Honest Abe”. Abraham Lincoln is still remembered today as one of the greatest leaders in history.

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Ferguson:

NOTHING’S CHANGED Ayesha Gyening

n the ninth of August, Michael Brown, an unarmed eighteen-year-old teenager, was shot six times by police officer Darren Wilson. His body was left in plain view, for four hours, in the sweltering heat while his distraught family could only look on. There has been much dispute about the events leading up to Michael Brown’s death, with many eyewitness testimonies that support Dorian Johnson’s account of his murder. Both Brown and Johnson were jaywalking when policeman Darren Wilson told them to ‘Get the f*** on the pavement.’ They told him they were less than a minute away from their destination and he drove away. A few seconds later, upon seeing that they were still walking in the middle of the road, the policeman reversed, almost hitting them, and grabbed Michael around the neck, pulling him into the car through the window. Michael struggled to get away. Darren Wilson then shot Michael twice before he managed to escape. After feeling a bullet graze his arm, Michael put his hands up and cried out ‘I don’t have a gun, stop shooting!’ He was then shot four more times. Two bullets hit him in the head, killing him immediately. Darren Wilson’s testimony, parts of which have been leaked, contradicts most eyewitness accounts, claiming that the teenager charged at him after the initial struggle in the car in an attempt to grab his gun, and never raised his arms in surrender. Although this may be the truth, it leaves one wondering what person in

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YEAR 12

their right mind would try to a grab policeman’s gun and charge at an officer when they had already been shot. Secondly, Michael Brown was unarmed and thus unlikely to have presented a serious threat to the life of the police officer. Moreover it also conveniently doesn’t mention the second round of shots fired, four of which hit Michael, nor does Darren Wilson talk about why he aimed for Michael’s head, if it wasn’t with the intention to kill. Surely if he really was being attacked he would shoot Michael in the leg to prevent being attacked any more, instead of the head, when he knew it would kill him immediately. The response of the police to protests about Michael Brown’s death, which were initially peaceful, and are ongoing, show their disregard for the law and the people they are meant to protect. They shot tear gas and stun grenades at innocent and unarmed protesters, even children as young as eight, many of whom were marching with their arms up or carrying posters that read ‘Don’t shoot’. The policemen also used excessive force to control and disperse protesters, firing wooden and rubber bullets at them, which broke the skin, leaving deep bruises up to five inches wide. One hundred and seventy two arrests were made with 132 of these being innocent protesters who were arrested for refusing to disperse. Nineteen reporters were also arrested for documenting what was going on, and others were physically threatened, which was against the law. In one particularly disturbing video, you can see a police officer pointing his gun at some journalists and threatening to kill them. This is just a snippet of the disgusting

Ferguson:

NOTHING'S CHANGED

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behavior from the Ferguson police, who were equipped with military gear and were walking around pointing their guns at peaceful protesters, something the military are specifically told not to do as it only causes the situation to escalate. Amnesty International, which had sent a team to monitor what was going on in Ferguson, called it an abuse of basic human rights. Margaret Huang, their deputy director of campaigns and programs said she had never seen anything like it. The protests soon spread across America to large cities such as New York, and many striking photos used create a parallel between the Ferguson protests and those led by Martin Luther King of the civil rights movement, leading me to question what has really changed. The shooting of Michael Brown reinforced the amount of racial profiling and discrimination black people still experience in the United States, including unjustified stops and searches, ill treatment and excessive use of force from figures of authority. Multiple videos emerged from the protests in Ferguson, and other large cities, of the police targeting innocent black citizens, for seemingly no reason other than to exert power over others. Although black people are legally equal to others, they still have many more obstacles to overcome in their life. Another example of racial profiling is that of foster child Deshawn Currie which happened last month. After Deshawn returned home from school, a neighbour, believing him to be a robber even though he had entered with a key, called the police to the home, who then assaulted him, spraying pepper spray at him after saying he didn’t belong in the white household. Furthermore, on the sixth of August a white man in San Diego, who had been waving his gun around at children and others nearby, was pleaded with for half an hour by police to drop his gun. Eventually he did, after he was shot in the leg

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and was then taken to hospital. This clearly demonstrates the difference between how black and white people are treated by the police. When John Crawford was approached by police in Wal-Mart after picking up a toy BB gun that they were selling, officers didn’t even bother to check whether the gun was real, speak to him or give him chance to put the gun down (which wasn’t even aimed at the police), before firing the shots that killed him. Why is it that, even with a black president, black lives don’t seem to matter? Why is it that white mass-killers, such as James Eagan Holmes, who killed twelve people and injured 70 others after opening fire in a movie theater, are escorted into the back of a police van unharmed but unarmed black men are gunned down in the street? What gives a policeman the right to decide whether someone lives or dies? What allows them to enforce capital punishment on innocent victims? And why is it that people paid to protect and serve are the ones who are killing us? In mainstream media, black victims of police brutality are portrayed as worse than white criminals. Michael Brown, who was due to start college a week after he was murdered and who had no previous police record, was labeled a thug by many in the media. Instead of using a picture of him graduating high school, they chose to use a photo that allowed him to be seen in a negative light to undermine the value of his life and to make him appear to be a criminal. However, a killer such as Jaylen Fryberg, who shot at multiple people, killing

Ferguson:

NOTHING'S CHANGED

POST-VERDICT

three and seriously injuring many others, has been portrayed as a homecoming king by the media and described as ‘a good kid and well respected in the community’ by CNN. Similarly, when Elliot Rodger shot dead six people because girls didn’t pay any attention to him, he was labeled as mentally ill, and people were sympathetic; but, when unarmed black teenagers are shot, they are labeled as thugs and criminalized even when they are victims. Instead of mourning the death of a teenage boy, much of the media has demonized Michael Brown and already labeled him as guilty. This isn’t new, as we have already seen this happen with Trayvon Martin and other black people slain at the hands of the people meant to protect us and then blamed for his own death. The discrimination, obstacles and prejudice black people have to face every day, no matter what their economic standing or what they are wearing, leads me to question whether much has changed. This isn’t about one man killed in one town. It’s about how people of colour, no matter their socio-economic standing, face discrimination. Ferguson isn't merely reacting to the shooting of Michael Brown; it's reacting to the shooting of Michael Brown by someone who represents an institution of power that's supposed to protect the public. In Ferguson and other cities throughout the United States, the police are perpetrating the humiliation, degradation, and murdering of black dignity, souls and people.

lthough in 2010 (the most recent year for which we have data) U.S. lawyers declined to return an indictment in only 11 of 162,000 federal cases, the Grand Jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson comes as no surprise. Only 3 of the 12 members were black, compared with 9 white members, and only nine votes were needed to decide whether or not he should be indicted. Robert McCulloch, the prosecutor, may as well have been the defence lawyer. He was clearly biased, as his father was killed in an incident involving a black man and members of his family have worked for St Louis Police Department. Not once did he question why Darren Wilson felt the need to shoot an unarmed boy at least four more times, when had already been shot twice and was running away. Moreover, Wilson’s claims that he shot defenceless Michael Brown in fear of his life after his ‘attack’ are completely refuted by recently released pictures of his ‘injuries’ which look like he cut himself whilst shaving. Not only does the verdict reinforce white supremacy but it emphasizes the complete disregard for black lives in America, when a white man is able to murder an 18 year old boy in cold blood and walk free with it not even being considered a crime (whilst being on paid leave throughout). Who will protect black people when the police set the law and the justice system is a sham that only perpetuates white supremacy? It is important to remember that history has not been made, only repeated. In the fifty years since the civil rights movement, what has changed? The same men and women who marched with Martin Luther King are marching with their grandchildren for the same reason. This is the country where at least two unarmed black men have been shot every week between 2006 and 2012 by a police officer in what some are calling a genocide. Is this a modern-day lynching? Only last week a twelve-year-old child, Tamir Rice, was shot and killed for holding a toy bb gun whilst in a park. This was in Ohio, a state where it is legal to carry guns. Trayvvon Martin was shot for wearing a hoodie, and in September, policemen killed a fourteen-year-old honour roll student when he opened his front door. Since Michael Brown was gunned down, four more black people have been murdered at the hands of the police in Ferguson alone. How many more black lives have to be taken before change occurs? When will it be understood that being black is not a crime? At what age should black children be told that they are a threat? The anger, rage, hopelessness and despair felt by peaceful protestors and black people in America is completely justified. This is a national tragedy, a miscarriage of justice and a moral disgrace. It is not just about Mike Brown, but the thousands of black lives lost at the hands of those who are paid to protect them and failed by a sham justice system that only caters to the needs of white people.

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GENDER INEQUALITY

fighting for change Tanya Thekkekkara

YEAR 11

ndia is one of the fastest-developing economies in the world, with the likes of Barack Obama describing the country as “not just a rising power” but one that has “already risen.” Yet this optimism is greatly overshadowed by the fact that it still remains weak socially because of its social disparities, distinctly gender inequality. Sexual violence against women in India is widespread throughout the country. Against the multitude of cases reported, the Delhi gang rape case stands out the most. The sheer gruesome nature of the event highlighted the severe attitude towards women. This was India’s urgent wake-up call for change. India’s population went into a frenzy. Tens of thousands of protesters who marched in several cities and signed online petitions, were acting not just in response to this incident but also to express their anger at the way women in India are treated more generally. They criticised the apathy of the state in the face of rape and the severe deficiencies in the implementation of law and order. It soon became evident to people: India has a “woman problem.” Eventually, On September 13, 2013, a Delhi court sentenced to death four of the six men accused of the gang rape and murder of the victim. Although it provided some closure for the family, objectively it seemed that it was designed to please the public, without actually dealing with the complex socio-political factors behind the crime in the first place. Not only is there the aspect of sexual violence, but also a

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strong “son preference” throughout a society that notoriously has high rates of female infanticide. According to the activist Rita Banerjee, within a span of three generations, India has systematically targeted and annihilated more than 50 million women from its population. One illustration of this is the distorted sex ratio: the 2011 census found that there are 940 women for every 1000 men in some states of India. This is due to popular belief that having sons is more economically beneficial towards the family as dowry won’t be needed. The underlying problem The underlying root of this problem is India’s brand of religiosity and the doctrine of the “honour of women” making it increasingly difficult to change the perspective of both genders in today’s society to address violence against women. This traditional mind-set originates from old Hindu beliefs that girls should be brought up to be good daughters and later obedient wives. The docility is a prized characteristic for Indian women. If in any circumstances a female deviates from social norms, they are considered to bring shame not only upon themselves but also upon their family and community who reciprocate by stigmatising and punishing the deviant, often by violence. This is further reinforced by the survey carried out by India’s National Commission for Women stating that 88.9% of the honour killings are perpetrated by family members. It is this concept of the social role of women that prevents India from achieving equality.

Change What can be done in order to tackle the problem? How can we achieve change? There is currently a social revolution to reform the traditional mind-set held deep within the Indian culture. For now, it appears that the government has taken notice. In the days following the New Delhi gang rape, a fast-track court was created to try the accused and a panel was set up to analyse India’s rape laws; it has already submitted its recommendations, some of which made their way into an ordinance signed by the president. Also, when the central government’s budget was announced last month, much

emphasis was given to women’s security and empowerment. This has resulted in many women being in professional careers such as IT or Medicine, thus becoming more self-efficient and empowered. However, such progress can’t be achieved simply through courtrooms and protest rallies. It will only be achieved by instilling particular values in boys and girls in every aspect of life from home to school and therefore ultimately enabling both to live in a society where a female and male can be seen as equals. I am a proud British Indian, who will carry on seeking justice, continuing a journey towards changing the inherited prejudices of a collective society.

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FIJI:

paradise trouble in William Bates YEAR 12

When many people think of the Pacific island of Fiji they think of a tropical holiday paradise. However, the reality of Fiji is something that is both shocking and surprising.

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or years Fiji has been divided between two major ethnic groups: the native Fijians consisting of 56.8% of the population and the Indo-Fijians who make up 37.5% of the population. For years Fiji has been a deeply divided country characterised by ethnic attacks and violent military coups. The former dictator of Fiji, Commodore Frank Bainimarama , decided to call an election after introducing a new constitution, which offered something no Fijian government before it had been able to do by abolishing race-based Fijian laws on the election of the government. President Bainimarama said that the new system would be a system of “One Vote One Value “. Until now the system in Fiji was such that so called ‘Indo-Fijians’ were effectively second-class citizens without the right to an equal vote. These changes meant that the Pacific strongman got a very large amount of support from Indo-Fijian voters. The big losers in the changes to the system were the traditional chiefs in Fiji, who lost their ‘upper house’ role (similar to that fulfilled by the UK House of Lords). In 1970, Fiji gained independence and, since then, has been plagued by four coups d’état and two constitutional crises. This has severely damaged the economy, social cohesion and international standing of Fiji. In many ways, its situation is comparable to that of countries such as Rwanda in that one ethnic group has had the monopoly on all the power for a long period of time. The country has been beset by discriminatory ethnic laws, which took place under the shadow of the 1977 elections in which, for the first time, neither the Indo-Fijian parties nor the Fijian parties were able to form a government. When Colonel Rabuka took power, following a military coup d’etat, he removed the Queen as head of state and proclaimed the Republic of Fiji. Rabuka institutionalised ethnic discrimination against Indo-Fijians. In 1999 Mahendra Choudry sensationally became the first-ever Indo-Fijian Prime Minister . One year later, he was removed in a

coup d’état by a native Fijian politician, George Speight, who was then removed in a counter-coup by Commodore Bainimarama who headed up an ‘Interim Military Government’ for a few months in 2000. He subsequently handed power to President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who proceeded to suspend the constitution; this, in turn, led to Fiji being suspended by the Commonwealth of Nations and the Pacific Island Forum with disastrous consequences for the Fijian economy and significant changes to the population; an estimated 75,000 Fijians fled persecution, a very large proportion of these migrants being skilled workers badly needed during the economic lull caused by the coups d’état. Yet another coup took place just six years later in which the Fijian military took control with Commodore Bainimarama ‘reluctantly’ taking the powers of the Presidency in December 2006 after being displeased by the leniency shown to those involved in the Speight coup of 1999. A few days later, he restored Iloilo to the Presidency and himself became Interim Prime Minster, effectively holding much of the power, until 2009. The courts then ruled that Bainimarama had become Prime Minster illegally. He immediately stepped down. President Iloilo then moved to abolish the constitution and ‘removed’ the judiciary, reappointing Bainimarama as Prime Minister. Bainimarama was subject to a travel ban to Australia until he announced Commodore Bainimarama that he would hold a new election and published his new constitution. Under his iron rule, Fiji had been dubbed a ‘Bainimarama Republic’. Frank Bainimarama stood in an election in 2014 for his new political party, Fiji First. In order to register a political party he had to collect 50,000 signatures. He proceeded to hire a bus to travel round Fiji, collecting over 400,000 signtaures. Fiji First triumphed at the polls, winning the election with a total 32 of the 50 MPs in the Fijian Parliament in an election which was fair in terms of the electoral mechanics although the press was decidedly biased in favour of the former dictator. With his exciting new constitution and electoral mandate, the despot of the Pacific appears to have changed the way he works. However whether the new government will deliver its big promises and stick to democratic principles perhaps remain to be seen.

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Gay rights protesters being arrested by Moscow police

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H O M O P H O B I A Dodo Charles YEAR 12

e are all affected by the shattering destruction that falls out of our mouths in words and skitters around our actions. We are all affected by the devastating blow suffered by those who face the abhorrent hand of the perpetrator. We are all affected by the need to make a change in the society that we are living in today, so that the future of others isn’t scarred and bruised by moral injustice. “You know nothing”. The silent words of the victim as the slow walls of water begin to crush their very existence. The crimes committed against them are unspeakable as they struggle to speak out and make a difference. As they struggle to come to terms with why they have been struck out from society into the disparate depths of their nightmares. As they struggle to comprehend why they had to be different, why they couldn’t just be considered normal. These battles are fought every day; by brave soldiers, who don’t feel like they have the right to live their lives, without the agony of a shot fired. But they are wrong. You do know something. You know that what they are experiencing is not okay. You know that you can make a difference. I could say so much more about the hatred towards others in this situation. I personally have experienced the harsh negativity towards the gay community, the harsh negativity towards us. Because when it comes down to it, we all experience negativity and we all know what it feels like to be made a victim of something that is out of your control. So next time you think about shouting out a derogatory comment of “that’s so gay”, don’t. Stop. Think about what you are saying and realise that you are hurting people. Why? Why are we being brought up in a society where it is considered normal to hurl out such destructive comments without anyone considering it wrong? Why do mere children have to conceal their true identities and feelings, because otherwise they will be bullied and hurt by the coiled talons of verbal abuse? Why should they have to succumb to our poor attitudes and morals? How can we grow up in a society where our children are terrified of coming out, because of the vicious

bite of homophobia; where our children are considering taking their lives because of the constant attack they receive from us? The answer is simple; we were programmed that way. In 1988 a bill was passed that meant the promotion of homosexuality in schools and other areas was forbidden. This led to a generation being brought up in a society, which was constantly telling them that being gay was wrong. That generation is our parents, and we are the result. A generation that doesn’t know how to react to the constant jibes and homophobic language. That doesn’t understand the consequence of their words. A generation that doesn’t understand that being gay does not and should not make you any different to anyone else. But, change is being made. The aforementioned Section 28 was repealed in 2003, a start to making a difference to the tide washed lives of those in the LGBT community. Within schools, communities are being set up to make change and promote equality, and the attendance of Gay pride meetings are increasing yearly, with new prides being set up every year. We are starting to make a difference; we are starting to change our attitudes. And remember, anything is possible if you just believe. With your help we can start to promote healthy understanding of sexuality. We can start to educate our future with the knowledge that they need, so as to help others. We can educate them that being gay is not wrong. We can show them that they do not need to be afraid, that we are all the same flesh and bone and that someone who is gay can’t just “turn it off and on again” to try and fix them. They cannot be changed, and should not be changed, and we need to embrace that we are all equal and we all deserve to live, so that no more children or adults feel worthless in their own skins. So that someone doesn’t take their own precious life. We will not rest until our children can grow up in a society without being ostracised for being a “faggot”. Until your children, be they gay or straight can play hand in hand with someone who is straight without being accused or bullied, without having to explain their behaviour. The tides of change are rolling in. Join and play a part in our righteous ascent into freedom of sexuality, because equality is coming.

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Changing awareness towards

ASPERGER’S SYNDROME Charlotte Perry-Evans

YEAR 12

sperger’s Syndrome is a form of autism, which is a lifelong condition that affects how a person makes sense of the world, processes information and relates to other people. People with the condition have difficulties in three main areas: social communication, social interaction and social imagination. People diagnosed with this syndrome find it very difficult to recognise different facial expressions. This difficulty to know how someone is feeling can lead to high levels of anxiety and confusion in social situations. Slightly less common characteristics include restricted and often repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests. While there are similarities with autism, people with Asperger’s Syndrome have fewer problems with speaking and are of average or above average intelligence. They do not usually have the accompanying learning disabilities associated with autism, but they may have specific learning difficulties. These may include dyslexia and dyspraxia or other conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and epilepsy. There are over half a million people in the UK with an autism spectrum disorder – that’s around 1 in 100. The condition can affect anyone from any race, nationality, social background or religion. However, it appears to be more common in males than females; the

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reason for this is unknown. The exact cause of Asperger’s Syndrome is still being investigated; however, research suggests that a combination of factors – genetic and environmental – may account for changes in brain development. No one really knows quite how different the brains of Aspergic people actually are because Asperger’s Syndrome can affect different people in different ways. Autism is often described as a ‘spectrum disorder’ because the condition affects people in many different ways and to varying degrees. Some people suffer with a very mild form of the syndrome whereas others have a much more serious form. Some psychologists reckon that the brains of people diagnosed with Asperger’s function at an age which is about three years below their actual age. You may be wondering why I decided to choose such an odd topic to write about. I do not think people properly understand the seriousness of this syndrome and this is a subject I feel very passionately about. My younger sister was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome about four years ago and the reason I want to bring greater awareness to this area is because people know the name of the syndrome but they are not aware of the effects it has on the lives of those who are diagnosed with it. This was demonstrated to me when I was recently in a café and I overheard a couple of teenagers talking about someone, they said “he’s so retarded, it’s like he has

Asperger’s or something”. Asperger’s Syndrome may be on the Autistic Spectrum however, it is different from other types of autism. Asperger’s Syndrome is mostly a ‘hidden disability’. This means that you can’t tell that someone has the condition from their outward appearance. For example if you were meeting my sister for the first time you would not think she was autistic at all because she looks normal and she goes to a mainstream school. However, what is going on inside her head is very different to what goes on inside yours or my head. Although discrimination in the workplace is illegal, it occurs quite frequently. A survey by the National Autistic Society (NAS) has revealed that more than a third of adults with autism have experienced discrimination or bullying in the workplace. 43% of people who took part in the survey said they have left or lost a job because of their condition and only 19% said they had no experience of bullying, unfairness or lack of support at work. Even though my sister is only 14, she is very aware of the difficulty she will have in about four years’ time when she is trying to get a place at university purely because she has been

diagnosed with this condition. There is nothing in her power that she can do to change the fact that she now has this label and it will be with her for the rest of her life. Even at the age that my sister is, she has experienced discrimination and bullying which has lowered her self-esteem. There are three different types of people in the world when it comes to Asperger’s Syndrome. Those who understand what it is and the effects it has on the lives of the people diagnosed with it, those who know about it but don’t fully understand what it is. And then there are those who are completely ignorant of it but know the label and so use it as an insult when they have no idea as to what they are actually saying. I hope that, after reading this, no one will ever use Asperger’s Syndrome as an insult again because it is a very serious condition which affects the lives of those who are diagnosed with it and those who live with them. People with the condition are able to go on and lead healthy, independent lives but, if attitudes don’t change towards this syndrome, then it will remain difficult for Aspergic people to get a job of their own.

OVER A THIRD OF ADULTS WITH AUTISM HAVE EXPERIENCED DISCRIMINATION OR BULLYING IN THE WORK PLACE

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Change Charlotte Pascoe YEAR 13

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Queen Nefertiti, c. 1345 BCE

Guyliner, lead-poisoning and the feudal system Sophie Parekh

YEAR 12

n article on body image. It’s not exactly the most original or innovative subject matter. However, body image, or the way we see ourselves, is still a massively controversial topic that has been relevant since pretty much the dawn of civilisation. The articles that are usually written on this topic generally focus on our current perception of ourselves or psychological disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. But, in this article, we shall be traversing back through the murky sludge of time and uncovering what the

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ancients thought of body image and how this has influenced us as to why we care so much about the way we look. In the beginning, long before the Life of Brian, there was caveman. Now, caveman wasn’t too fussed about the way he looked. He was all about hunting, eating, sleeping and, let’s face it, mating. However, like the males in other species of animal, he would have cared if he wanted to attract the attention of a potential mate. Presumably, the females would go for a more muscular/athletic male, because the offspring are likely to be muscular, hence better at hunting, so more likely to survive to

adulthood. It’s the survival of the fittest, so for our caveman, being muscular means he is more likely to reproduce. So why is it now that the female has to attract the attention of the man? Perhaps the answer lies in the next thousand years… The beginnings of civilisation! South America, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia and other corners of the globe began to develop into communities, like mould on some cheese. Farming seems to be the accepted definition of when humans really separated themselves from animals, and, in addition, trading also developed, bringing with it the Bronze Age. It’s all very dramatic isn’t it? The fashions of ancient Egypt were no less dramatic. Both men and women used to wear eyeliner and paint their eyelids green or blue. The rich could afford jewellery made of gold and precious stones, but that didn’t mean the poor didn’t wear any, they used clay to make beads. Admittedly, all this jazz was to honour the gods, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive. So, as well as caring what mortals thought of them, they had to worry what the gods thought and they probably had some pretty high expectations. Not to mention putting on makeup every day is a massive inconvenience. Trust me, I speak from experience. Anyhow, we must move on… to the Middle Ages. Specifically, Europe between 450 and 1500 AD-ish. Here, we find another example of religion impacting on fashion; from the middle to the end of this period, the church decreed that the showing of hair was unseemly and disrespectful so women always had their heads covered. All the time. Not just in church. One can only imagine the hat hair. They also were really into layering. They wore an under dress, an overdress, a cloak and, if it was really cold, another cloak-type item, securing it with various brooches and other things. Men used to wear tunics over leggings or short trousers with a cloak made of animal fur or wool secured with a brooch. Although the men were still into gold and shiny things, they’d started to draw back from the elaborate, labour-intensive approach to style. In Britain, there was even a law dictating what the lower classes could and couldn’t wear. Laws included: only wives and daughters of wealthy men could wear velvet or satin, wives of yeomen and handicraftsmen might not wear any veil or kerchief made of silk and no serving man was to use 2½ yards in a short gown or 3 in a long one. It seems bizarre to us now, looking back, but to them, it was important to distinguish between the classes for the feudal system to work. And what better way to do it than

to change the way people look; it all seems a bit cruel, if I’m honest. Definitely the Measly Middle Ages. Onwards and upwards, to the 17th and the 18th centuries, where the dresses got more flamboyant, the wigs got bigger (for both sexes) and the faces got paler thanks to a lead/mercurybased powder which lead to scarring and ultimately lead poisoning (see what I did there? Lead and lead? Oh forget it). Being pale was a sign that you didn’t work outside in the fields, so class was still influencing fashion. The poor didn’t have a chance to wear fine garments as they were very expensive, so continued to wear clothing styles from the previous centuries. The clothing for the rich was available in any number of colours, from orange to olive green, and often adorned with pearls and other precious stones. The women had a bit of a thing for curls - little Bo Peep springs to mind. However, by the 1800s, everyone had calmed down a bit and had started using their own hair again, although lead poisoning was still rife. The dresses gradually became less outrageous, although they did use crinoline cages under the skirt for shaping, and in the Victorian era used a heck of a lot of frills. The male fashions receded even more; they were reduced to wearing black, brown or dark blue suits with unnecessarily high top hats. After the death of dear old Queen Vic, fashion became even more volatile, changing from decade to decade. You’ve got the slender, lacy numbers from the 1910s accompanied by hats comparable in size to space-ships, the shorter, Gatsby-esque dresses from the 20s, and the tailored, suit-like garments from the 30s which are not dissimilar to the shorter dresses of the 40s. Whilst all this was happening, men seemed to settle on suits and ties of varying colours and materials. “But what’s all that got to do with the price of Tia Maria?” I hear you cry (not in those exact words of course, because no one says that). Well, I shall tell you. It means that human beings are programmed to spend two hours in front of the mirror every day. It means that it’s in our nature to spend our last twenty quid on a pair of ridiculous jeans that will be abandoned at the back of our wardrobe with those shoes you haven’t got round to wearing yet. It means that it’s only logical that we have whole industries based on making us look pretty, because it is what it means to be human to be conscious of how we are perceived by other people. Essentially, it took me 1,123 words to say body image is part of being human, so let’s embrace it.

HUMAN BEINGS ARE PROGRAMMED TO SPEND TWO HOURS IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR EVERY DAY

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Climate change and

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Alice MacBain

rofessor Brian Cox made a fascinating observation in his first episode of Human Universe. He described how the Earth is not a perfect sphere, and so the gravitational pull from the Sun, Moon and other planets such as Jupiter cause it to wobble slightly, and, once every 27,000 years, it will “precess” and trace out a circle in the sky. This change causes a slight change in the orbit making it more elliptical, which has a knock-on effect on the point when summer and winter occur, thus affecting the climate. One place that experienced these severe fluctuations in climate is the Great Rift Valley in Africa. It had periods of intense rainfall, and great lakes would form. Then, the rain Omo I, c. 200,000 years old would cease and the lakes would dry up leaving parched land. “It’s thought that this rapidly changing environment drove our transformation from ape to man.” The proof for this can be found in the skulls of our ancestors. Starting with our early ancestors, the Homonym species Australopithecus had a brain volume of around 400cc, and was closer to ape than man. Then, they evolved into Homo erectus, whose brain volume was double that of Australopithecus. Homo heidelbergensis increased the brain size again until we reach Omo II, with a brain size similar to that of ours now. Cox states that it is one of the first skulls we could

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call a modern human. This evolution, or change in human intelligence coincided with the periods of the Earth’s past during which the orbit was the most elliptical, and the climate the most unstable. The theory, then, is that our intelligence stemmed from extreme fluctuations on the Earth’s orbit, which in itself is determined by its placement in the solar system. “The precise geography of our corner of the universe made us who we are.” What if we were not so close to Jupiter, or we were different distances from the sun and the moon? Would there have been no change in human intelligence? Or would there have been faster and more advanced changes? And, if there is going to be another change whilst humans still roam the earth, where can our intelligence go? We have reached such a pinnacle in our knowledge and understanding: we have walked on the moon; we have developed chips that hold thousands of times their size in data; we have discovered resources for energy from the fruits of the earth. And so, I wonder whether perhaps we have developed too fast and left no space for our successors. Change, I believe, is essential. Change in climate can mean change and development in human intelligence and that in itself is extraordinary, if not a little terrifying. And yet, too much change does not allow us to enjoy what we have: we are always looking for something more when perhaps what we have right now is good enough. Our world is too focused on an inconceivable future to wonder at the remarkable now. Why don't we slow this change, because, in a few thousand years, the Earth will take charge and change for us.

“The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it”- Patrick Young This quotation is both oxymoronic and highly relevant. It perfectly fits the seemingly juxtaposed relationship between our meteorological department and nature itself. However, this unpredictable behaviour can be explained by the advocates of “chaos theory”, people who subscribe to the beliefs which contradict the apparent laws of logic upon which much of western science and philosophy are based. They call into question the human ability to comprehend the operations behind reality, maintaining instead that any “natural system” is both random and determined, and thus inexplicably complicated. They would argue that the world is constantly shifting around us, responding to minute, imperceptible changes which alter the course of our reality. These forces cannot be comprehended, controlled or explained; however, one thing is certain: the root cause of any event is ultimately unknowable and impossible to predict. But do we really have so little control over the direction our lives take? While the Chinese word for “chaos” contains the root word meaning “opportunity”, most people would associate it with its Greek origin of “khaos” meaning “gaping void” and would relate it to a state of mess, possibly cross referenced with the condition of their calendar or the state of their wardrobe. However, the essence of “Chaos” for a physicist is linked to

Can a butterfly cause a hurricane? Holly Govey

YEAR 13

unpredictable and random behaviour, and a state of transition somewhere between order and disorder. That being said, most of us like to assume with some certainty that the decisions we make are our own and that in this way we shape our own identity. While spontaneity serves to increase the variety within our lives, it is comforting to be reassured by the fact that most events and occurrences are planned, structured or else controlled in some way. Likewise, although personal decisions may seem overly important and life-determining at some points in our lives, ultimately we are willing to accept the insignificance of our existence in the grand scheme of things and we assume that our any changes in our actions are relatively inconsequential. But what if they aren’t? What if every action or event is intrinsically linked, the effects of which manifest themselves in ways imperceptible to the human eye, leading to uncontrollable alterations which drastically change the course of history. The idea that a small change in conditions, such as whether or not a butterfly flaps its wings, is enough to result in drastic changes within a system, e.g. to cause a hurricane to develop, seems implausible, if not impossible. Albeit this “butterfly effect” is in fact an indirect consequence, when we investigate the lineage of cause and effect, the truly confounding point is that such a small change in conditions could have any influence at all. Yet, chaotic behaviour can be seen across multiple areas of life, from traffic flow to weather patterns, demonstrating how seemingly insignificant changes in initial conditions can be amplified to result in completely different outcomes. First coined by Edward Lorenz, the notion of the “Butterfly Effect” has been around since 1972. Since then, it has succeeded in manifesting itself in our culture, with particular reference to the American science fantasy thriller of the same name, which depicts the dangers of attempting to rewrite the past. As a young child, the main character, Evan, suffers many psychological traumas including accidently murdering a mother and her infant daughter while playing with dynamite with his friends. Seven years later, he realizes that, when he reads from his adolescent journals, he can travel back in time and is able to change parts of his past. His time travelling episodes account for the frequent blackouts he experienced as a child. However, there are consequences to his revised choices of early actions that propagate forward in time to his present life and his attempts to alter the past end up harming those around him. The film, therefore, presents us with an example of the ways in which tiny alterations to our actions can lead to devastatingly different results.

In everyday life, chaos theory can be applied to avalanches being provoked by unpredictable loud noises, or bursts of wind, which result in large amounts of energy being released. Furthermore, as a literary device, the concept of the Butterfly Effect suggests that our present conditions can be dramatically altered by the most insignificant changes, for example in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which the death of Hamlet’s father results, ultimately, in the collapse of the entire kingdom of Denmark and the death of nearly every major character in the play. The entire world in which Hamlet lives, his entire reality, is depicted as being radically shifted by the death of a single human being. The science of chaos can also be applied as a way to analyse the current and future action of the stock market, as it doesn’t depend on constructing a template from the past and applying it to the future. Rather, it concentrates on the current market behaviour, which can be altered by small chaotic changes by individuals. Similarly, chaos theory can be applied to human biological rhythms, such as the beating heart, the circadian rhythms of sleeping and the saccadic movements of the eye that allow us to focus and process images. None of these dynamic systems are perfect all the time, and periods of chaotic behaviour can occur, for example causing brief fluctuations in the heart. Many historical events can likewise be traced back to discrete changes in conditions, which lead to radical courses of action to be instigated. An example of this can be seen through the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, by Gavrilo Princip, which led Austria-Hungary to issue an ultimatum against Serbia, which was rejected, resulting in the outbreak of the First World War. The political objective of the assassination had not been to start a war, however, the consequences of this action led to a series of subsequent unpredicted reactions, which were amplified over time. Ultimately, the presence of chaotic systems in nature seems to place a limit on our ability to apply deterministic physical laws to predict motion with any degree of certainty. The discovery of chaos seems to imply that randomness lurks at the core of any deterministic model of the universe. The natural world has always had a chaotic way about it, making our environment fairly unpredictable. Chaos theory, therefore, provides us with a new way of thinking, through looking at the universe in an entirely different way. The seemingly insignificant changes we make to our own lives may, in fact, result in completely different outcomes for the future. Understanding chaos is understanding life as we know it.

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Conserving the

Mary T Rose

Alex Todd

YEAR 13

he Mary Rose was a Tudor warship. It was launched in 1510, and sank in the Solent in 1545. The cause of the sinking is still disputed, but the current theory is that it was due to the crew leaving the gun ports open during a turn for unknown reasons, causing seawater to flood in. Almost all of the 400 crew onboard died in the sinking, and their bones lay with the ship and its contents, nearly undisturbed for the next 400 years, becoming partially buried in the silt of the seabed. The ship was rediscovered in Victorian times by diver John Deane, who raised several artefacts, many of which were destroyed due to poor preservation techniques. Interest in the ship soon diminished however, and the wreck was lost once more, until 1965, when diver Alexander McKee began searching for it. In 1971, the timbers of the ship were positively identified,

THE MAIN THREATS TO THE SHIP DURING ITS TIME ON THE SEA FLOOR WERE BIOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL

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conserving the MARY ROSE

and over the next decade, thousands of artefacts were raised from the seabed. In 1982, the remains of the ship itself were raised above the water, an unprecedented operation, giving the age and condition of the wreck. In total, over 19,000 artefacts have been recovered from the wreck, and are now displayed in a dedicated museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. The majority of these artefacts were damaged to some extent by the time they spent on the seabed, so before they could be displayed, they had to undergo a series of conservation processes. Both the damage an object endured and the method used to conserve the artefacts depended on the nature of the particular item, particularly the material from which it was made. The artefacts recovered from the Mary Rose were made of a wide variety of materials, both organic, e.g. wood, bone, leather, and textiles, and inorganic, e.g. stone, glass, ceramics, and a variety of metals, such as iron, copper alloy, lead, pewter, silver, gold and bronze. This meant that the extent and nature of the damage they had sustained, and thus the conservation they required, varied widely. In this essay, I aim to explore some of the different conservation techniques required to preserve the artefacts. I am going to start by exploring the decay and preservation of the ship’s hull, which is made of wood. The main threats to the ship during its time on the seafloor were biological and physical. The primary physical threat to the ship was the effect of the undersea currents on the exposed part of the ship. These currents caused stresses on the timbers of the ship, and, due to the fact that they contained tiny particles of silt, quickly eroded the exposed parts of the hull. This damage meant that much of the ship was destroyed; meaning that only the starboard side of the ship remained. This part was preserved because it became buried under the seabed by the movement of silt, thus protecting it from the damaging effects of the currents. This layer of silt also had the consequence of greatly slowing the damage endured by the hull from biological action. Before this layer of silt formed, the ship rapidly became both a habitat and a food source for many marine organisms. These included macro-organisms including several members of the genus Limnoria (Jones, 2003: 18), which bored holes into the wood, and micro-organisms, which broke down the cellulose and hemicelluloses in the wood into glucose, which they needed for respiration. The wood was made especially attractive to these organisms by the tendency of the hydroxyl groups in cellulose to hydrogen bond to water molecules, causing the wood to swell and weaken (RSC 2004: 32). When the layer of silt formed over the wreck, the oxygen supply to the wood was removed, meaning that the aerobic organisms that had been feeding on the wood became unable to survive. As the majority of organisms are aerobic, the rate of decay of the wood was reduced dramatically. However, some anaerobic bacteria still survived in the timbers. These bacteria slowly degraded the wood over the centuries for which it was buried (RSC 2004: 33). They turned the cellulose and sulfates in the wood into hydrogen sulfide in the reaction (CH2O)n + n/2SO42 - ➡ n/2H2S (aq) + nHCO3- (Capellas and

The Mary Rose after conservation

Cornuéjols, n.d.). This period of anaerobic decay ended when the ship was discovered and raised. Before, during, and after the raising of the ship, the conservators involved in the project undertook a thorough analysis of the condition of the timbers. During this process, they found that the outer layer of wood was almost completely destroyed, the only parts remaining being a thin skeleton of lignin. This was due to the attack of the wood by microorganisms before it became buried. These microbes had broken down the rest of the wood, leaving only the lignin, which is much harder to digest. Due to the removal of the oxygen supply, they had only decayed the outer 10mm of the wood. Below this, the wood was sound (Evans, 2014). They also measured the water content of the timbers, using an instrument known as a pilodyn which fired a pin into the wood. The further the pin penetrated into the wood, the more waterlogged the wood was. Using this method, the scientists found that most of the ships timbers were heavily waterlogged (Pearson, 2013). Because of this, one of the main aims of the conservators was to dry the ship out. However, if wood is dried too quickly, it warps and cracks as the water evaporates, causing irreversible damage to both the structure and appearance of the artefact (Evans, 2014). Due to this, the conservators resolved to keep the ship under ‘passive storage’ until they could find an appropriate method of drying the ship. Passive storage is a set of conditions which an artefact is kept under to prevent decay. It does not necessarily improve the condition of the object; it merely prevents it worsening (Mary Rose Trust, n.d.). These conditions had to keep the timbers saturated with water, to prevent the ship drying and cracking, and also prevent the growth of both micro- and macro-organisms. Macro-organisms that attacked the ship after raising included the death watch beetle and the wharf borer beetle, both of which were found to have bored into the wood (RSC, 2004: 26). The method of passive storage eventually decided on was to store the ship in a dry-dock in Portsmouth Dockyard. In the dock (known as the ‘ship hall’) the ship was constantly sprayed with water for twelve years. This was to ensure that there was always a 1mm thick layer of water on the surface of the ship, preventing the timbers drying. To avoid the biological attack of the timbers, the water was sterilized, and kept at a temperature of 2-5⁰C, slowing the growth of microorganisms (RSC, 2004: 28). During this period of passive storage, the water was only turned off for a maximum of four one-hour slots each day, to allow for maintenance and analysis. Over the years that this process was occurring, the hull was manually cleaned, to remove the build-up of silt and weed that had occurred. The method of conservation eventually decided on by the conservators was to use polyethylene glycol, or PEG, to replace the water in the timbers of the ship. For ten years, between 1994 and 2004, a mixture of water and PEG with an MR of

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Left: Iron and stone shot from the Mary Rose (image credit Wikipedia) Below left: Bronze cannon, as displayed in the museum (image credit Evans 2014) Below right: Iron shot after conservation (image credit: the telegraph online)

200, HOCH2CH2(CH2OCH2)2CH2CH2OH, was sprayed onto the ship. The PEG solution soaked into the timbers of the ship, and replaced the water in the cells of the wood, preventing the cells from becoming hollow and collapsing when dried. However, PEG 200 is liquid at room temperature, and is not strong enough to provide structural support to the outer cells of the ship, which are weaker due to their increased level of decay. It also leaves a tacky feeling on the wood. For these reasons, a second grade of PEG, PEG 2000, HOCH2CH2(CH2OCH2)43CH2CH2OH, replaced PEG 200 in the mixture from 2004-2013. PEG 2000 is unable to penetrate to the innermost cells, and is a solid at room temperature. This means that it can provide the strength needed by the timbers. PEG is successful at replacing the water because it can hydrogen bond to cellulose in the same way that water can, using the hydroxyl group on the end of the chain (RSC, 2004: 36). PEG 200 replaces the water bound to the cellulose fibres in the sound wood, whilst PEG 2000 fills the empty lumens of the damaged cells. Once the water in the wood had mostly been replaced, the conservators were able to begin the drying process. They began to dry the ship by running warm air ducts along the length of it. They maintained a temperature of 18-20⁰C and a relative humidity of 55%. This causes the water to evaporate very gradually, so as to avoid any damage that could occur by faster drying. This should be completed by 2016. However, a serious threat has been identified relatively recently. It is a chemical threat, and stems from the large quantities of hydrogen sulfide that accumulated in the wood due to the activity of the anaerobic bacteria. This H2S has reacted with the iron ions that have leached into the wood from corroded fittings,

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forming iron sulfide. Iron sulfide is unstable when exposed to oxygen, so is reacting to form sulfurous compounds, including sulfuric acid, in the reaction FeS2 (s) + 7/2 O2 + (n+1) H2O ➡ FeSO4.n (H2O) (s) +H2SO4 (aq) (Capellas and Cornuéjols, n.d.). The values of ‘n’ vary, but melanterite (n=7) and rozenite (n=4) are most common. To prevent this, chelating agents have been used to remove much of the iron in the ship’s timbers. A more final solution that is being investigated is to spray the hull with strontium carbonate nanoparticles, which would react with the sulfur to form strontium sulfate, which does not oxidise, and will not, therefore, produce sulfuric acid (Evans, 2014). The threat was observed when a yellow deposit was observed on the timbers, apparently dissolving them, and then identified using synchrotron light to find out what the compounds were (White, n.d.). Other wooden artefacts bore similar damage to the hull, but were able to be conserved using several simpler methods due to their smaller size. During the passive conservation stage, they were either submerged in a tank of water or wrapped in polyethylene to keep the water in. This prevented them drying out too quickly (Jones, 2003: 37). Many of the artefacts were raised in situ, i.e. with the sediment they were buried in, to prevent disruption to the object as it rose. They were immediately stored in water to prevent desiccation. Most objects were cleaned on arrival at the surface, by manually washing in fresh water. Around half of wooden artefacts were stained with iron compounds, which were cleaned by soaking the object in ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid (Jones, 2003: 36). To prevent decay during the passive conservation process, the artefacts were often treated with pesticides, and were then kept in dark, temperature controlled conditions, which inhibited the growth of pests (Jones, 2003: 37). Pond snails were also used to keep pest numbers down in some cases, as it was found that they fed on the pests without damaging the wood (Mary Rose Trust, n.d.). During the active conservation phase, a variety of methods were used. These included freeze drying, where an object is soaked in PEG 200 for up to six months, before being rapidly cooled, to freeze the remaining water in it, and then warmed, so that the water sublimes out of it without damaging the wood’s structure (Evans, 2014). A long term method of preventing decay was to sterilize the artefacts using gamma radiation. Artefacts that underwent this process remained sterile for up to ten years, although only small objects can be treated, because it is necessary to transport them to a facility with the necessary equipment (Jones, 2003). The next major category of artefacts is those made of metal. Different metals corrode in different ways, so require different treatments. The metal artefacts found on the Mary Rose

conserving the MARY ROSE

can be divided into several groups based on their chemical composition. The first of these groups is ferrous metals. Iron can oxidise into soluble Fe2+ ions when five conditions are met. These conditions are that there are two connected electrodes, one of which is a reactive metal, and that they are immersed in an electrolyte, which contains a substance that will consume the electrons produced (Watson, 2007: 5). In this case, the metals are iron and either graphite impurities or another metal, such as copper. The electrolyte is seawater, and the cathode reactant is dissolved oxygen. Corrosion occurs due to the following series of reactions. At the anode, iron dissolves in the process Fe(s)→ Fe2+(aq+2e- The electrons move to the cathode, where they react with oxygen in solution, in the reaction O2+ 2H2O+4e- ➡ 4OH(Watson, 2007: 5). Usually, the Fe2+ and OH- ions would react together to form rust (FeO). However, seawater contains many dissolved ions, including Ca2+ and HCO3-. These ions reacted with the OH- ions in the reaction Ca2+(aq)+ HCO3-(aq) + OH-(aq) → CaCO3(s) + H2O(l). The calcium carbonate precipitates out to form a hard covering, or concretion, over the object. On some objects, especially iron ones, these concretions could become extremely thick, as much of the object corroded (Watson, 2007: 6). Marine creatures then built their homes on the concretion, and when they died, the calcium carbonate from their shells was added to the concretion. In most cases, this concretion was removed manually during conservation, allowing the metal underneath to be preserved (Watson, 2007: 7). The concretion was sometimes x-rayed first, so that the conservators could see what metal was contained inside, allowing them to remove the concretion without damaging the artefact. The main threat to iron objects after raising came from chlorides which had become ingrained into the metal over time. These chlorides corroded the metal directly, and also reacted with moisture to form hydrochloric acid, which was a more serious threat to the metal. Damage was prevented during passive storage by keeping the artefacts in alkaline conditions to neutralize them. The quickest and most efficient method of removing these chlorides is to use a hydrogen reduction furnace, which heats artefacts to 850ºC in a hydrogen atmosphere, removing the chlorides in the reaction 2FeCl3(s)+ 3H2(g) ➡ 2Fe(s) + 6HCl(g). (RSC, 2004: 42) This method is controversial, however, because it changes the structure of the metal, thus destroying possible clues to its manufacture. For this reason, other, slower methods have been used for unique artefacts, such as electrolysis, alkyl sulfide processes, and dissolving the chlorides in a solvent, such as water (Evans, 2014). Submerging in water for prolonged periods would usually corrode artefacts, so the pH is altered to prevent this occurring. After treatment, iron artefacts are treated with resin to help them maintain their shape and prevent them from crumbling (Watson, 2007: 8). Another type of metal found onboard the Mary Rose is bronze. Bronze objects do not corrode as much as those made of iron, because the tin in them forms an insoluble layer of SnO2 across the surface, preventing corrosion. Biological concretion does not form on this, because copper compounds are toxic to marine

organisms. In areas where the tin content is lower, however, the copper corrodes, forming layers of corrosion products. In anaerobic conditions, the process stops here. When exposed to moist air, however, the outer layer of Cu2O cracks, allowing water to reach the layer of CuCl below. This chloride dissolves, and more copper chloride is formed on the surface of the metal. A corrosion cell forms and mounds of green copper chloride are formed, in a phenomenon known as bronze disease. To avoid this occurring, bronze artefacts must be kept in conditions of less than 35% relative humidity. The light concretions that have formed are removed manually, and the artefact is made the cathode in a cell to remove the chlorides it contains (Jones, 2003: 86). A third metal found onboard is brass. Brass artefacts often suffered from dezincification. This is when zinc is lost from the surface of the metal, leaving a soft layer of copper which is easily damaged. Only light concretions were present, again due to the toxicity of copper, and these were removed manually. Some of the worst corroded brass was that which was embedded in wood. This is because the exposed section was in a much more oxygen rich environment, so a corrosion cell set up between the two halves, causing the hidden section to corrode (Watson, 2007: 11). As in many of the other metal artefacts, chlorides were a threat, because they could cause bronze disease. These were removed by soaking the artefact in benzotriazole (BTA) for up to 24 hours. BTA prevents corrosion by stifling anodic and cathodic reactions on the surface, and covering the artefact in a polymer coating, preventing water accessing it. The artefacts were then coated in silicone oil or a BTA-containing acrylic lacquer (Jones, 2003: 88). Lead artefacts were usually covered in a thin coating of corrosion products. This is because they formed lead carbonate (PbCO3) and calcium carbonate (CaCO3), which are insoluble, and thus provided a protective layer for the artefacts. These concretions were removed by soaking the artefacts in hydrochloric acid, which dissolved the CaCO3, thereby also causing the PbCO3 to become dislodged. The HCl also reacted with the surface of the lead to form PbCl, which provided a protective layer for the artefacts. The artefacts were then thoroughly cleaned to prevent any HCl remaining and corroding them. Lead is particularly vulnerable to damage from organic acids, so is stored in specially made cases to avoid them (Jones, 2003: 90). Perhaps the easiest metal to conserve was gold. Due to its unreactive nature, it did not corrode, and merely required washing (Watson, 2007: 15). One other material found on the Mary Rose is glass. Glass cannot be oxidised due to its naturally high oxygen content (RSC, 2004: 22), making it resistant to chemical attack, but is brittle, so is prone to physical damage. To conserve glass artefacts, the conservators desalinated them (Mary Rose Trust, n.d.) by immersing them in progressively more dilute salt solutions to draw out the salt, which would otherwise crystallise, damaging the artefacts’ surface, and then dried the objects by gentle heating (Evans, 2014).

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how the

digital I

age

has changed our ownership rights Nicholas Graham YEAR 12

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n just over a decade, the concept of how we own our entertainment, such as games, films and music, has changed dramatically. Previously, when you bought a book, you bought the story or content which was printed on paper. When you bought a film, it was on a DVD. When you bought a game, it was either a game with physical parts or it was on a CD. When you bought music, it was on a CD. Now, a new form of ownership has risen: digital. You can buy your music or films on iTunes. You can buy books on iTunes or from Amazon for a Kindle (or other EReader). Many computer games can be downloaded and played without the need for a disc. Many classic board games, from Monopoly to Risk, can be bought as apps. All of our entertainment can simply be stored on a phone, tablet or laptop. Many people argue that this is a good thing. But this move towards digital ownership has some very serious implications. Firstly, as more and more people choose to buy their books, DVDs, music and computer games in a digital format straight from internet sites, the high street shops such as Waterstones and HMV suffer. Soon we may only be able to buy our music, books and other entertainment in a digital format, and this will cause a major change in our ownership rights, because what we actually own will be strings of code, as opposed to hard products such as books, discs and board games. In a way, it could be argued that we don’t ‘own’ the music, game, etc, that we only ‘own’ the data and content that it is made up of. One of the main rights issues with digital ownership is that, because everything is merely data on electrical devices that operate on networks, it an be accessed remotely. In July 2009, two books by George Orwell (‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’) were released on Amazon for Kindle. Then, due to issues with the publisher, Amazon not only withdrew the books from its catalogue, it erased all of the copies of the book already downloaded onto people’s Kindles. It did refund all of the customers, but the point is that Amazon was able to go into all of the Kindles and erase the book in the first place, and then that it actually did so. This seems to directly contravene Amazon’s terms of service which says that the customer, having bought the license for the eBook, has "the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use." Amazon has since said that it will not erase books that have already been downloaded, and just take them out of the catalogue if necessary. But one thing that needs to be noted, is that when you ‘buy’ a digital book from any company for any type of eReader, you are not actually buying the book. What you are actually purchasing is a license for the digital copy of the book. This a major difference, and reveals the reasonable grounds for Amazon’s actions: you have not bought the book, and therefore you do not actually own it.

When you buy the license for a digital product you are effectively renting. There are two reasons that many people believe that they have actually bought the book or other digital product. First, the companies selling the licenses do not go out of their way to explain that you are buying a license as opposed to buying the book keeping it in the small print, although technically not deceiving the customer. Second, when you buy the license for a digital book, the book stays on your device, with no date by which you must return it. This is what causes the most confusion, as everyone expects their copy to be the same as a physical book. However, it raises an interesting question as to what any company selling digital products, or the license to use a specific digital product, is allowed to or able to do in terms of withdrawing said products or editing their content. For example, if a hard copy of a book is sold by a shop on the high street, and then there is a problem that means that the shop cannot sell the book anymore; they would obviously take the book off the shelves and stop selling it, but they would not chase down every person who bought the book and take the book back in exchange for a refund. The same goes with every other product that is recalled, whatever the reason. If you borrowed a DVD or a book, it would be impractical to do this, but when it comes to digital products, which are downloaded through a network that has regular or constant access to the recipient’s device it becomes much easier to take it back without user consent. This is the really disturbing and thought-provoking issue: as we purchase the licenses for more and more of our entertainment in a purely digital format, what happens to our rights regarding these products? The issue is that, despite us “buying” the product, the license, and therefore the ability to use this product, could be taken away at any time. Now companies selling these products would prefer to avoid this, and would definitely not act without giving all the customers a refund, but what if someone hacks your account or a third party chooses to ‘censor’ the product? They may be able to erase the content, and they most certainly would not give a refund. And then the main problem with this: given the fact that you do not own the product, merely a license to use it, the person who did this might not technically be stealing or destroying your property. How would this be resolved? This is something that the law needs to think about as we move our entertainment into digital formats and only buy the licenses for the use of these entertainment products. There is another worrying issue. If you read the fine print, the sellers are not actually selling the book to you, but rather selling you a license to use the book in certain ways. It allows you to read the book an unlimited number of times, but, unlike a hard copy of a book, you are not able to lend it to others without lending the entire eReader, and you cannot even sell the book to another person. However they don’t actually announce any of this to you in a noticeable way: you are left to work it out yourself or read

through all of the fine print in order to find it. Users generally only find out about these restrictions when they try to do something that the fine print says they can’t. One of the other issues over ownership that is surfacing at this moment is that of the ownership rights of the people who make the music, make the games and write the books. As people buy more of their entertainment in a digital format, some people in these industries will find it much harder to make money. For example, in a recent survey the majority of people under the age of 25 believed that one should not have to pay to download music. Now, this will affect the performers, but they can still make money through live performances and by using their status to get jobs starring in adverts. The people it has a massive effect on are the people behind the scenes of these industries. The sound editors and other people who deal with the technological issues of recording the music might have little reason to try hard in their job, because they only work on the music that is sold to listen to at home, in the form of CDs or iTunes. If all of the music that they work on is downloaded for free from the internet then what mechanism will exist to recompense them for the value they added to the product or will the music industry change out of all recognition? Will there be virtually no incentive to make albums or release music for people to listen to in their own time? And if the music should be free to download, then why shouldn’t the lyrics and all of the musical scores? This would mean that anyone can produce any piece of music without having to pay to use the lyrics, backings, etc. This means that composers might not be able to make any money. The same would happen for authors, because if all music should be free to download, then why not all digital books? You can see where this is going. If we followed up on the results of that survey, then it would mean that the people producing these entertainment products would have virtually no ownership rights, because all of their products must be able to be downloaded for free from the internet. The other way in which the students are denying the music producers their ownership rights is through the violation of copyright laws. According to copyright law, the person or persons who created and copyrighted the product can do what they wish with it, and anyone who wants to use it has to have their permission. If all music must be able to be downloaded free, then this surely breaks copyright law and the ownership rights of the producers. In conclusion, as we move our entertainment into a digital format, we will see major changes in what our ownership rights are, and whether we are entitled to them in the first place, if we have only bought the license to use these products. And if all your content is stored on the ‘cloud’ then where will that lead? Copyright law and performing rights regulations are notoriously slow to keep up with technology. The time for a new paradigm is here – but will those responsible be able to craft a new solution?

AS WE PURCHASE MORE OF OUR ENTERTAINMENT IN DIGITAL FORM, WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR RIGHTS?

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RELIGION:

SOCIETY’S NOKIA Jadon Buckeridge YEAR 12

very religion is built on the foundation of admirable principles; every stream begins with the purity of its spring. But the purity of a stream never survives the pollution of a morally disjointed society. Like a Nokia, religion still lays claim to a place in the hearts of many, and is held fast as a fundamental of tradition. But no phone chills hearts in the way religion has done. Religion conjures more of the love, but a phone evokes none of the hate. Religion is a Nokia, but not for its ability to encompass tradition, define an era, or change the lives of many; rather for its lack of ability to evolve, and its failure to keep pace with the sprints of modern life. Religion is not defying the test of time, or the trials of an ever-changing society. Faith is no longer for the perceptive or those yearning for the moral high ground. If religion has a place in the world today, it requires change - rapid change. Because everything’s exposed to the wrath of evolution, and, as it stands, religion won’t survive it. It’s a sad fact that religion is being squeezed out of modern society, but a fact nonetheless. In the ten years between the censuses of 2001 and 2011, the proportion of the UK population who stated belief in the Christian faith fell by over 12%. If you’re an advocate for religion, this was a painful period. In the same

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ten years, the numbers in the ‘Non-religious’ category grew by 10%, while support for the ‘Jedi Knight’ faith - a novel, up-andcoming religious movement- escalated to 390,000. A Star Wars knock-off became the fourth largest ‘religion’ in the UK. This faith-migration into the field of science fiction correlates with rapidly diminishing attendances in parish churches. Places of worship around the country are being forced to contemplate closure resulting from a lack of funding - not surprising given that congregation sizes have halved nationally over the last 45 years. The message here, though, has nothing to do with atheists, Star Wars, or even Jedi Knights: religion, the national institution that has defined our culture for centuries, has come under fire, its troops are staging a revolt, and the dictatorial regimes at its heart are losing power and potency. It’s one thing to conduct surveys to demonstrate religious disengagement amongst the nation’s youth - the Mail reported that only a third of children could identify the origin of the nativity story, for example- but far more worrying is the issuance of an ultimatum by the man at the top. To quote a source whose credibility might marginally exceed that of the Mail: the Christian faith in our nation is ‘one generation from extinction’. The source is the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the threat to religion is imminent.

Religion:

SOCIETY'S NOKIA

Unfortunately, religion has increasing difficulty in justifying its place in our culture. Its strength lay in its simplicity: the ideas of morality, community, protection, and belief. But the ideals at the heart of religion have been corrupted by power, and today’s circumstances dictate that religion comes plagued with problems, casting dark shadows over the light which should prevail. One of religion’s major faults lies in wait like a mine, threatening to shatter the structure of society: each religion represents conflicting ideologies, and given the power of a faith over its followers, vehemence is an inevitability when ideologies collide. With a rise in multiculturalism, the relationships between different religious groups are tense and increasingly uncomfortable. While the problem, though only thinly masked, is supressed at present, there is an imminent danger threatening to upset the stomach of our society. Different religions have existed for centuries, but separation has proved the recipe for harmony. Peace is undoubtedly the aim of any religion; no faith encourages a violent rhetoric: yet history tells us that the geographical convergence of faiths

inevitably results in a segregated society. The chronology of religious tensions paints a bleak picture: Christianity itself is born out of brutal religious violence and the legacy is profound. But far more relevant are recent religious conflicts and clashes: the genocide which saw the slaughter of over 6 million Jews; the tensions between Israel and Palestine, which stand accountable for the bombing of civilians – the bombing of innocent school children; even ISIS – not that their ideology should be conflated with the beliefs of the rest of the Islamic community – is an organisation that professes to draw its brutal beliefs from the holy book of the world’s second largest religion. These clashes rise out of hatred, flared up between only two religions or ideologies, so how do we expect to maintain peace in society in the midst of today’s rising multiculturalism? If two faiths have historically failed to integrate without violence, why should we anticipate a culture of amity, comprised multiple faiths – many more than ever before? In short, we shouldn’t. It would be naïve.

THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IN OUR NATION IS "ONE GENERATION FROM EXTINCTION"

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Above: anti-Palestinian graffiti, Israel 2012 Right: anti-Semitic graffiti, Germany 2010

Opposing ideologies, in geographical proximity, is a recipe for disaster, and growing ethnic integration across Europe is already cooking up a storm. The Guardian reported only two months ago that anti-Semitism in Europe was brewing to its highest level since the Nazi era. This year, eight different French synagogues were attacked in one week, while protesters reportedly brandished banners sporting provocative slogans such as ‘Death to Jews’. The rhetoric may be shocking, but we shouldn’t be shocked. There are growing concerns that the issues surrounding the conflict in Israel and Palestine may be catalysing an anti-Semitic movement across Europe. France, Germany and Italy all report the same trends in this form of discrimination, and even in the UK -though prejudice hasn’t yet surfaced amongst the population - Westminster’s decision to recognise Palestine as a state is simultaneously an expression of support for the Arabic population and a condemnation of the Israeli state. There should be no illusion. We, as a nation, despite not plunging into the dark depths of an anti-Semitic mentality, are not entirely exempt. As far as discrimination and failing ethnic integration are concerned, the British government cannot eschew responsibility. We have failed to create stable relations between Christians and non-Christians. For example, some Muslims have not integrated with mainstream culture, but rather have created their own culture in parallel. Perhaps this alienation explains why Britain has become the second largest centre of recruitment for ISI in the whole of Europe. I don’t reach the conclusion that religion should be banished

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from a multicultural society to prevent inevitable conflict, but I would argue that religion needs to change its role, remove itself from the controversy of being at the forefront of society and take a back seat. Many of the problems it causes in all aspects of society could be resolved if it took a step down from centre stage. Schools are, if you like, a microcosm for society as a whole, so recent religious controversies in the field of education give an indication of the problems that might arise in society as a whole, as conflicting faiths begin to clash nationwide. In Birmingham, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the UK, Islamic hardliners took it upon themselves to impose their own beliefs in some schools. The problem is, in a multicultural society, it’s impossible to provide separate education for separate religions, but equally, it’s impossible to cater adequately for each religion in a system of universal education. Our school is no exception. We lumber lifelessly into the monotony of cathedral services, dreading the prospect of a cold, cramping, hour long examination of a stone pillar, and the problem confronts us; we file, like robots, barely awake, into the dull formality of the DRT, and again, the problem confronts us. As a school comprised of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Atheists, we stand in ‘God’s home’, out of obligation rather than choice, singing to a theological concept

Religion:

SOCIETY'S NOKIA

that only the minority believe in. If I were a Hindu, I’d rather be singing songs from Hanuman Chalisa than Christian hymns taken from the Bible, and as an atheist, I’d rather not be singing at all. It’s hard to avoid scenarios like these in schools which adopt a religious policy that fails to represent the beliefs of the majority of their students. Faiths cannot exist by oppressing their alternatives. It’s time active religious practices were excluded from school life, leaving individuals practice their beliefs freely in the private sphere of society. I’ve outlined the ways in which religion as a whole needs to adjust its level of involvement in society to adapt to a changing culture. But religion itself, in its current form, has no place in our society at all. The problems stretch out far beyond the arches of PGS and stack far higher than they should. Imagine an institution: it fights against equality for homosexuals; it condemns raped women for aborting resulting pregnancies; it opposes a means to tackle overpopulation, reduce poverty, and eliminate food shortages in the developing world (contraception); under its rhetoric of discrimination, women are forbidden from holding the positions of the highest influence, which instead, are reserved only for men; it even waits until 1965 to allow its teachings to be translated into a language spoken anywhere in the modern world. This institution lacks rational policy, lacks compassion, and leaves behind a sickening odour of antiquated morality. Sadly, though, it’s one of the largest religious organisations in the UK: the Catholic Church. The problems don’t lie in one faith alone: ultimately, religion doesn’t exist for politics, power or profit, and yet it repeatedly involves itself in matters beyond the fields of its concern. A vast level of influence comes as part of the package for a prestigious religious leader, but this power over people should not be abused. By expressing their opinion, religious leaders have the ability to change the opinion of millions, so when faith leaders choose to interfere in political or economic matters, they do so irresponsibly. For example, 27 Bishops wrote in protest to Westminster recently, condemning the reorganisation of welfare and the slashing of certain benefits. Why? They are not economists, politicians, or experts in the welfare state. Nor are they qualified to make reasonable judgements about the direction of government spending. I’m struggling to find their justification

for influencing the opinion of others without fully understanding an issue themselves, especially concerning a matter of such great importance. Religion also suffers dented pride in the financial sector. MPs in Westminster have spent years frightened like rabbits in the headlights as the expenses scandal washed over them, sinking careers and reputations as it went. But there might just have been a tidal wave if MPs had claimed £27,000 for expenses which included frequent chauffer-driven cars, as the Bishop of Chester did just a few years ago. In my opinion, such extravagant claims at the time of a global financial depression don’t reflect kindly on the morality of the Bishop in question. The church has also come under fire regarding its dubious and poorly considered investment strategy. The first incredible statistic is the wealth of the Church of England: it owns £5.8 billion of investments. Is this really a necessity? Poverty is a problem nationwide in the UK, and thousands lie homeless on the streets: surely money is better spent on the poor and vulnerable, rather than investing in the giants of the corporate world. The Church of England is also a drain on the tax payer: while its investment team splashes the cash on Payday Lenders, helping them squeeze the poorest into financial breakdown, it takes £42 million a year of taxpayer’s money for the restoration of ‘listed places of worship’. You might give the organisation the benefit of the doubt if its finances were trimmed by the silver lining of an ethical investment strategy, but unfortunately they’re not. Without venturing into too many specifics, the church targets investments with revenues tied up in anything from pornography to tobacco, but the icing on the cake was the recent Wonga saga: the church, which has a duty of care to its people, was providing capital to a company that specialised in driving the poorest into a spiral of debt. A painful paradox. Eventually religion will gaze painfully into the mirror, realise the ethical blemishes tarnishing the face of its modern establishments and change. Nowadays, the government makes the rules, charities help the poor, and international communities aim to keep the peace. We have clubs for community, schools for education, and friends for advice. Religion is no longer the picture of innocence it once was: perhaps it’s time for a resurrection.

RELIGION IN ITS CURRENT FORM HAS NO PLACE IN OUR SOCIETY AT ALL

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DOES RELIGION CAUSE CONFLICT? Sian Latham

YEAR 12

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Does religion

CAUSE CONFLICT?

ince the beginning of documentation of human history, war and conflict have been an ever-present occurrence on every page. Though it may not have a key place in every war, religion is something that occupies the minds of soldiers and rulers across centuries: whether a single prayer by a wife for the return of her husband or the prayer by a soldier to escape death. In this way, religion is inexplicably involved. However, the interesting aspect to observe and note, is how religion’s influence on the cause of war and conflict has changed over the years. This piece is not designed as a rant against religion by a narrow-minded atheist nor as a false claim for religion’s innocence by a believer, merely as an observation of where it stood and stands in relation to the human obsession with war. Holy Wars, by their mere name, suggest the best place to start observing the relationship between religion and war. By definition, a holy war is declared or waged in support of a religious cause and consists of three defined elements: they are designed to achieve a religious goal, are authorised by a religious leader and there is a spiritual reward promised to the participants. Historically, there are five causes of holy wars: spreading the faith, the desire to retrieve countries that used to be of the same faith, to rescue religious groups in countries that used to be of the same faith, recover and purify consecrated places and/or avenge blasphemous acts or cruelties against someone of their faith. From the first Holy War conflict of 312 CE, we have evidence of religion being the full driving force and reason behind conflict across the globe and involving many religions. From our part of the world, The Crusades (10651291 CE) are the most notorious of the holy wars. They fit the frame as they were authorized by Pope Urban II and were

intended to retrieve the sacred places in the Holy Land that were then occupied by Muslims. Just by the pure definition of a holy war and its causes and characteristics, we have irrefutable evidence that religion has had a heavy hand in conflict. Over the years since the beginning of human civilisation, we have seen the development, expansion and collapse of multiple empires, each of which held their own views and religious beliefs they wished to spread. The Roman Empire provides a good example of religious conflicts, in this case, the Jewish-Roman wars of which there are three: the first Jewish-Roman war (66-67 CE), the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE) and the Kitos War of 115-117 CE (though some sources do not include the last). The constant revolts and war with the Jews against Roman rule and control resulted in the idea that Judaism was the force behind the unrest, leading the Romans to ban the Hebrew calendar, the Torah and attempt to erase Judaism from memory. Judea was renamed Syria Palestinea and the Jews were forced from their country and spread throughout the world. Though the conflict may have been an initial revolt against foreign control, it became a battle of religious ideas with the losing religion suffering the fate of destruction and desecration. Despite this, there has been a change in the hand religion played in the holy wars since this conflict of the Roman Empire. Here we see that religion developed to play a crucial role, unlike later when religion would be the cause, overseer and the executioner. Even in the early years of civilisation, religion had a clearly shifting place in the world’s state of conflict and war, yet how will it continue to change in the future? After the Roman Empire fell, Europe fell into the ‘Dark Ages’ and the medieval era, which saw famous conflicts such as the Hundred Years’ war (1337-1453 CE) between England and France over a dynastic argument over who was the true King of France. At the time both countries were Catholic and, though the individual may have prayed to God in a plea to escape harm, there is no clear evidence of religious conflict. This was followed by the Wars of the Roses (or War of the Cousins) (1455-1487) that led to internal conflict within England that was again a question of inheriting the throne of England and the strongest

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claim. The fight was based between families, not religious groups. I include these two famous conflicts to ensure that you, the reader, do not misinterpret my question as a claim that I hold religion to be responsible, or play a part, in every single conflict in human history. I do not. Only, I wish to see how its place has changed and how it still finds itself inevitably involved today. However, the medieval era did not pass with no religious conflict to be found. One such case was the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), a group under the control of the Spanish monarchy intended to, initially, ensure the orthodoxy of the people who converted to Christianity from Judaism and Islam. They also gained the power to confiscate and profit from the property of heretics, to expel the Jews and repress ‘conversos’ (people who had converted). This was a conflict between a government organisation against its own citizens who held a belief other than the official one of the state, a direct conflict of faith. Again a change has occurred as, instead of invading the land of another because they felt it their right, here religion is used to discriminate against a minority that follow a religion that conflicts with the people in power. Rather than the conflict being aimed at the spread of religion, here it is based on the removal of religious opposition by a small group, the eliminating of other beliefs from its own country. In 1558, Queen Elizabeth I succeeded Queen Mary to the throne of England with the backing of Philip II, King of Spain. Though he lent her his favour and support to be the next ruler, the countries fell into conflict by 1585, which was strongly to do with the religious differences between the two monarchs and their kingdoms. Philip, being Spanish, was a firm believer in Catholicism while Elizabeth had been brought up a Protestant and could only become Queen if she reverted England to Protestant Christianity after the end of Mary's Catholic reign. Once more, religious conflict was to ignite hostility between two countries, as Elizabeth refused to acknowledge his part in her accession to the throne as well as the conflict of their religious beliefs. Of course, the most famous event of this conflict was the attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588. England proved victor but the conflict remained for the duration of the two monarchs' reigns, Philip dying five years before Elizabeth. There were a few similarities to holy war as in the desire to return a country to following a religion it previously had, avenging cruelty against people of a fellow religion, yet the conflict was not authorized or

constructed by the Pope (though it was by Elizabeth who was head of the Church of England) so fails to truly be termed such. Perhaps the next key conflict to look at is one that falls under the term of modern warfare and reminders of which still remain around us today: the world wars of the twentieth century. While World War One did have a religious aspect to the conflict, with countries of opposing religious beliefs fighting one another, the main driving force behind the conflict was power, defence and greed. Instead, it’s World War Two that gives us another way in which religion was present in the conflict. The religious conflict in this war began before the large-scale fighting began and continued during, but wasn’t truly part of the ‘world’ war. Instead, the Nazi party raged an internal war as well as an external one. The Holocaust is infamous for its horrific death rates and the treatment of the Jewish people, as well as other minorities, yet it only became so late into the conflict and after. It’s an interesting conflict to look at as it gives a fairly unique perspective on the involvement of religion. Most countries remained unaware of the extent of the persecution of the Jewish people under Nazi rule; in fact, it wasn’t a true driving force behind the external war as some people mistakenly believe today. It is sometimes forgotten that what we know now, and what we hold to be key facts and events, were unknown or hidden from the world at the time that they happened. Here, the true conflict of religion was carried out by few against the millions, a corrupt and fascist government’s vendetta against a whole religious population (Jews) for reasons either superficial or non-existent. It does not fit into the outline of a holy war: it began with similarities to the Spanish Inquisition but quickly developed into a much darker place and was not a war. However, has religion’s place within the conflict actually changed or is it in fact the type of warfare that gives this conflict, the Second World War, its unique structure? It is still a conflict between two religious groups, it is still one waging war on another and it is still the idea that one is better than the other. What is truly different is the tactics and the method of killing. The War on Terror officially began after the world watched the World Trade Centre in New York City fall to the ground on September 11th, 2001. This global conflict, in which religion plays a part and drives the act of terrorism, is yet to end. This is not a piece in which I want to brand all Muslims with one

RELIGION AND SOCIETY HAVE CHANGED DRAMATICALLY OVER THE YEARS

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Does religion

CAUSE CONFLICT?

Religion does not have a monopoly on war

brush, yet it is what the Western world has fallen victim to doing on a regular basis. Yes, we could argue that in the actual conflict, religion’s place has still changed very little. One side holds one belief, the other another and they wish to annihilate each other to avenge acts of cruelty by the other towards ones of their own beliefs. We could argue that, much like World War II, the true difference is the way in which the war is being fought, the introduction of terrorist tactics. This is all true. Within the direct conflict, religion plays much the same part as it always has. However, it’s the other part that religion plays that should provide serious reason for worry. Wars nowadays last for longer times and people are able to continue with their lives unaffected. Well, I don’t believe that religion’s place in this conflict leaves us as unaffected as we all wish to believe. It has caused a lack of tolerance towards people of religious beliefs that the terrorists claim to hold themselves, even though people of the religion they claim to follow do not consider them to be of the same belief system. Yet, we and the media constantly use ‘Muslim’ as a blanket term for those who follow Islam. We use the term ‘Muslim countries’ and, by doing so, brand Turkey and Saudi Arabia as countries with the exact same principles. They do not. Turkey has had a female leader, Tansu Çiller (the same number as the UK and more

than America) while Saudi Arabia has not. Well, if we argue that America hasn't either, then what about the fact that Saudi Arabia decapitated 19 people between the 4th and 20th of August this year? The War on Terror has produced a very radical change to how religion plays a part in the conflict. It may not affect the basis of war but it has begun to change global tolerance and true understanding of other societies and religion. Religion, people and society have changed dramatically over the years and yet we still remain heavily locked in war and conflict today - quite often over similar issues. Though religion is not a part of every war and conflict on this Earth, it does play its part and, when it does, there are a few different ways that it can, and of those ways they seem to change little. It is more due to how the world has changed that seems to change the part religion plays. However, the most severe and worrying change is happening now and continues to do so. Will we ever live in a time where religion can truly be something of peace and community? Maybe, if there can be a day when humanity can find a way to live together without the need to fight anyone who believes or says differently. Though religion plays a part and can have drastic effects, it is, in the end, humanity that must take the full force of the blame for the conflict that threatens to consume our attention for centuries to come.

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how

warfare has changed Tank, 1916

Missile, 1950

Drone, 2012

IN THE MODERN AGE

O 56

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William Hall YEAR 11

ver the last century, both the tactics and technology involved in large-scale wars have changed drastically. As the centenary of the First World War was held in August of this year, I thought it would be fitting to discuss how modern warfare has changed since the outbreak of World War One, in 1914, to the current military situation in the Middle East, including the attacks carried out against the so called ‘Islamic State’ in 2014. The vast majority of the First World War was fought on foot, with limited uses of aircraft and tanks, but battleships, and the first use of submarine warfare played a large part. The First World War also brought about civilian attacks, although only on a very small scale compared to the Second World War. Most of the fighting was fought in very close proximity to the enemy, within shelling distance, and unfortunately the method of attrition (i.e. throwing as many men as you can at the enemy until they’re on their knees) was used instinctively, as the new, mechanised aspect to war was unknown to all the high- ranking generals and very high losses were sustained. Currently, if even 50 British

troops were killed in one week in Afghanistan there would be a great upset, but during World War One, that would have been a tiny fraction of the weekly casualties: for example, over 19,000 British soldiers died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July, 1916. The technology involved was very limited compared to contemporary weaponry. All of the rifles with which soldiers were armed were single-shot, so you could only fire one shot at a time (now, soldiers are armed with rifles that can automatically take down a single target without needing any skilled marksman to operate them). The machine guns were far too heavy to carry and had to be cooled by a huge cooling system. The artillery had a small range, and were very unreliable, mainly due to the quality of the shells. Aircraft were made from wood and fabric, and only really had a machine gun strapped to the front, and maybe a few small bombs that a pilot would have to throw over the side of the plane. Modern aircraft have changed completely from their predecessors. The development of the jet engine in the Second World War, and the ME262 effectively created the building blocks for all modern jets, which today include those with vertical take-off, planes that can fly in the outer layers of the atmosphere and that can supposedly fly at over Mach 3. It’s interesting how numerous speed-related records are broken each year, yet the air speed record has been held since 1976 by the infamous SR71 ‘Blackbird’, an aircraft whose tactic for avoiding surface-to-air missiles was to accelerate and outfly a missile. We went from 6 mph from the very first flight in 1903 to over 2,000 mph in 1976. The first-ever tanks driven on to the battlefield during the Battle of the Somme in September 1916 weren’t exactly a storming success, although, as the Germans had no idea what they were and had no weapons to combat them, the tanks rolled through, although at a very low speed: you could outpace one of these tanks by walking at a normal speed. Also, because of the ground’s poor conditions, many of the tanks got stuck and were abandoned. Obviously, the 2014 equivalents are very, very different in almost every way you can think of. Two of the biggest changes in warfare, the way it is conducted and the technology behind it, have both come a very long way in what is (relatively speaking) a very short time. In 1914, you would have to be within sight of the enemy to be able to kill them, but now, you don’t even need to be on the same planet. The risk involved for the soldier has now been greatly reduced. There will always be a need to have boots on the ground, but being able to sit in a military base in England and fly a drone into a war zone without risking your life gives a huge strategic advantage. However, the less economically developed countries

clearly don’t have these weapons at their disposal. In the fight against terror, assuming we’re taking the moral high ground, this technology can be extremely useful, partly because of the rapid response and the little amount of risk involved. Say a group of armed enemy combatants were spotted a hundred of years ago, an army would have had to organise a squad of men to go and fight them, whereas now someone can click a few buttons on a computer and simultaneously a missile can be launched from under the sea and in a couple of minutes the target will have been completely annihilated with zero risk to the armed forces attacking. However, the evolution of modern warfare doesn’t necessarily make it any safer for those involved in hostilities – particularly those on the “home front”. During the First World War, civilians in Britain were fairly safe, with very minor air raids when compared to World War Two. Germany isn’t exactly very far away and that was pushing the distance that they could reach. But, with the development of the V1 and V2 rockets in World War Two, the idea of attacking civilians with an unmanned rocket became a reality. Today, we have missiles and warheads with a blast radius of an unprecedented size, which is probably much larger than we would hazard a guess at, but is for security reasons classified. These systems don’t require much setting up as many are designed to work in rapid response to another nation’s detonation of nuclear warheads. It is not exactly how we see it in James Bond films, for example, where an evil villain hacks into a warheads launch system; in reality it just takes an order to allow for a weapon of mass destruction to be launched. The consequences of such an event would be colossal numbers of civilian casualties, resting on the push of a big red button in a submarine. But then again, as all powerful nations have these WMD’s, surely we need to have our own to protect ourselves. In Britain, we have at least one submarine armed with nuclear warheads out at sea at any time, in response to an attack that could bring down our land-based warheads such as an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a weapon that can disable all electronics temporarily in a given area. As essentially all of our defences and weaponry rely on electronics in some way or another, suffering from an EMP blast could be disastrous, but is so easily at the disposal of powerful nations. War has undoubtedly changed in several aspects, but the scale of it all is one of the biggest and most dangerous prospects for the future. When I look back at how much warfare has really changed in the last century, there is one thing that preoccupies me: if we have such a capacity to cause so much destruction with our current weapons, then imagine the chaos we will have the capacity to cause one hundred years from now.

IN WORLD WAR I, YOU COULD OUTPACE A TANK AT WALKING SPEED

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HAS MONEY CHANGED

FOOTBALL FOR THE BETTER?

Will Pearson

YEAR 12

he sport of football has changed beyond recognition in its long history. What began as a sport played on Sundays by local men between villages has become a global fascination, with millions watching each game from hundreds of different countries. Players are seen as megastars, and are loved or hated by billions of people, depending on how well they kick a ball around a field on a rainy day in Stoke. The change came when Sky bought the TV rights to the Premier League when it was first set up, giving the top-flight teams far more money to pay players and make transfers. But has this evolution of the beautiful game been for the better? Currently, the highest paid footballer in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo, is taking home £45.5 million each year, and it is wages like this that cause such controversy. Is it fair that footballers are earning more money than they could ever need while others are struggling to survive? Another point to mention is that increased wages mean players can lose passion for the sport, taking large pay packages rather than staying at a club which helped them develop as a player. Furthermore, as global megastars, players should be good role models for young people. However, with more money and fame, many are failing at doing this, and show arrogance and disregard for the law. Something that has come up recently is the outrageous rise in ticket prices, as owners look to exploit fans. In fact, ticket prices have risen at several times the rate of inflation, causing

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an outcry from supporters at Barclays Premier League games. A banner flown at Anfield this weekend read: ‘Supporters not Customers’, perhaps summarising perfectly what football has become. In 1990, fans watched Alex Ferguson's Manchester United play the very top clubs for a cheapest price of £3.50. With cumulative inflation of 77.1% since, according to the Bank of England, United supporters who stood on the Stretford End or United Road terraces then would now pay an equivalent £6.20 to watch the team play. But the cheapest ticket at all-seat Old Trafford this season is £28, lower than at other top clubs yet still representing inflation of 700%. The effect of this is that fans are being forced out of the game, unable to attend matches, and unable to watch the games from home without paying for Sky or BT Sport. This shows a very negative change in football. With fans being the core of all football clubs, they are still not exempt from exploitation by shady businessmen with little interest in the sport. Advertising and sponsorship have become a very large part of football during the past 40 years, and have had an adverse effect on the sport. For example, TV broadcast deals now dictate the time of Barclays Premier League games, with bigger teams playing on a Sunday to suit the timings of Sky Sports. As well as this, team jerseys are now covered in logos and brands, all aimed at promoting each company’s products. This is not only for on the pitch, but when a supporter pays £60 for a flimsy shirt, and wears it in public places the logos are proudly displayed to all. Something that has caused much controversy is the changing of stadium names to that of a sponsor. For example, Newcastle United’s traditional stadium ‘St. James’s Park’ has been given the unfortunate title of ‘The Sports Direct Arena’ causing

outrage amongst fans, and the owners were criticised heavily over their intentions for the club. On the other hand, an increase in the amount of money within football has had positive effects. For example, with channels such as Sky being able to broadcast globally, football has been brought to billions of people worldwide who would otherwise have no knowledge of the sport. There are plenty of stories of footballers who have started life as poverty-stricken children struggling to survive in a third-world country but who through football have been able to fund their families and villages. One of the most incredible stories of this nature is Didier Drogba, who grew up in Ivory Coast and has since become the face of the country with his image on almost every street corner. After a successful World Cup qualifier in October 2005, Ivory Coast went through to the Finals in Germany the next year. Having led his team to victory, Drogba was the hero back in his home country once more, despite there being a violent civil war taking place at the time. In the dressing room, live on television, Drogba dropped to his knees and begged the two warring factions to lay down their weapons to keep the civilians safe. Within a week, his wish was granted. This shows that money in football can have very positive effects. Had the game not been shown in Ivory Coast via an international broadcaster, the war could have still been going on, resulting in thousands of deaths. Development of stadia is another good thing to have come from increased amounts of money in football. Up to the late 1980s, people were crammed into stands with no seats and the stadia themselves were crumbling around them. However, as clubs gain more money, more can be invested in building new, safe stadia, especially after the horrors of Hillsborough in 1989. It can also be mentioned that stadium development allows more fans to watch the game, but it is just more opportunity for the club owners to make money. In conclusion, money in football has brought both negatives and positives, but it is clear that the game is probably worse off for it overall. The buying of TV rights by Sky has given clubs far more money to pay players, and even instigated the breakaway of the Barclays Premier League from the old Division system of the football league, resulting in the sport becoming far more commercialised and less about passion and support. The fact that players are now able to demand a wage increase with the threat of leaving the club means that the situation is only going to get worse.

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THE

FORMULA ONE

REVOLUTION Tim Bustin

a year of change

OLD PORTMUTHIAN

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Formula One

REVOLUTION

Hamilton and Rosberg battle in Bahrain

efore delving into the deep end on the revolutionising technical changes this year has brought, let’s take a minute to appreciate how immensely exciting this year’s championship campaign has been. It has been utterly staggering. The Red Bull/Sebastian Vettel duo of dominance has been quashed into second best by the mighty silver arrows – team Mercedes AMG. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, lifelong friends and old karting buddies, have together used their superbly quick cars and world class talent to battle for race wins and the honour of being crowned World Champion in epic style – the night-time thriller in Bahrain, where Hamilton (leading but on dying tyres) aggressively yet ingeniously kept Rosberg behind for so long that it was dubbed by some the “Race of the Century”. Nearly every race this year has been nail biting to watch. As the year went on, this two horse race for victory turned the two from friends last year, to bitter rivals in this. There were ups, downs, bad luck and mistakes for both drivers, and arguably both deserved the title – but in the end, Britain’s Lewis Hamilton stole the crown, with 11 race wins to Rosberg’s 5, storming to victory in the controversial Abu Dhabi double points showdown. Now, on to the changes. First we will look at this year, where the entire sport has changed, evolved. Most notably, the iconic noisy V8 engines have been ousted for a combination of more eco-friendly V6s and a “power unit” in each car. Then we will briefly look at potentially exciting changes for next year. I have divided this article into sections, in order to make easier reading. 2014 changes: Dominance: Shifting from Red Bull/Vettel to Mercedes Only really if you enjoy the squalor of caves might it have escaped you that a certain drinks company and their young German driver have taken the absolute mick in the last four years, by constantly winning F1. With his aerodynamically brilliant car, Sebastian Vettel managed to become the youngest ever F1 world champion (beating Hamilton’s record), win four sequential titles and annoy fans worldwide. His more lovable teammate, Australian Mark Webber, was unfortunately getting a little old to properly challenge, so many races became Vettel processions and the hunt for second place. And we didn’t like this. Until everything changed.

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Mercedes have been developing their 2014 car ever since the new regulations were announced back in 2010 and they have done brilliantly, winning all but three races and one pole position - and even winning the prestigious Dewar trophy. Their engine is totally superior, but every other aspect has also been crafted to near-perfection. And unlike Red Bull we had two teammates able (and permitted) to challenge and fight the other for wins. Proper racing at the front returned – even if it is only a battle between two. Having said that, it is worth mentioning a new kid on the block: Vettel’s brand spanking new Australian teammate, Daniel Riccardo. The young Aussie got promoted from Red Bull’s sister F1 team, Toro Rosso (yes, that is Spanish for “Red Bull”) and managed to outshine the supposedly great Vettel, winning three races in great style. For drivers, one last person needs mentioning. Although Susie Wolff only ran in two Free Practice sessions, she was the first woman to take part in an F1 weekend for decades. We can only hope she sets the path for more female drivers to find their way into Formula 1. The “Power Unit” Now for some technical thingies. As I’ve mentioned above, Formula 1 is a much quieter affair this year, as the horrendously loud V8 engines have been replaced with an intricate system called a power unit, which comprises a: 1) V6 internal combustion engine 2) Turbocharger 3) Motor Generator Unit (MGU) – Kinetic 4) MGU – Heat The engine is 1.6l and limited to 15000 rpm. It works with the turbocharger, which uses exhaust gases to drive a compressor to push more air, hence more oxygen, into the engine. Together with high-pressure direct-fuel injection, this makes combustion more efficient, so more power using less fuel. It’s the first time turbo has been used since the late 1980s, and, whilst fuel is now limited to 100kg per race, this year’s system are well designed and the need for fuel-saving driving is small. The two motor generator units make up the ERS (Energy Recovery System). The MGU-K is connected to the breaking system and recovers kinetic energy that would otherwise be lost, delivering 160 horsepower for 33 seconds per lap, to be deployed by the driver when needed (e.g. in overtaking or defending). The second unit, the MGU-H, harvests the turbo energy, converting heat energy from the exhaust gases into electrical energy. It can either spin up the compressor to eliminate turbo lag or send energy directly to the MGU-K and vice-versa for maximum efficiency. However, the main job for ERS is to deliver energy to the lithium ion batteries. Overall the new power unit is 30% more energy efficient. Rule and other car changes Overall, downforce has been reduced this year, with a narrower front wing and reduced rear wing (with the beam wing removed). There is only one exhaust tailpipe, and its central position and lack of surrounding bodywork means it dramatically reduces

downforce generated by the exhaust gases. Downforce helps push the car's tyres onto the track and improves cornering forces. Drivers now have one extra gear to play with, the blown diffuser (creates downforce) has been removed, and sidepods have increased for greater engine cooling. In terms of rules, drivers have to survive on five complete power units for the season, as opposed to eight engines last year – a sixth means grid penalties. Drivers now pick a permanent racing number, between 2 and 99 – the reigning world champion however can use the number 1. In Free Practice 1 and Qualifying, all drivers now have an extra set of tyres, to encourage running rather than tyre-saving for the race. In penalties, a minor “5 second stop and go” can now be used by the stewards – it can be taken at pit stops or added onto their final race time. Penalty points have also been introduced – 12 in a season means a driver misses a race. Controversially, the season finale was a double points race. This has been dubbed “artificial”, and is unpopular amongst fans and drivers alike. There is now also the Pole Position Trophy, won this year by Rosberg, awarded to the driver with the most poles in a year. Changes for the future: N.B. Some information may be out of date by the time of publication Teams – 3 cars each? Enormous costs of this year’s power units have had awful consequences for backmarker teams Marussia and Caterham, who have both gone into administration. They have to survive on much lower budgets than established teams like McLaren or Ferrari. Unequal distribution of the prize money has been blamed, and this could potentially change next year, as ideas for a budget cap for teams was scrapped. Marussia are currently 9th (out of 11) in the leaderboard, due to star driver Jules Bianchi scoring them their first points in Monaco, so were more enticing to potential buyers, due to the prize money they are set to win – unfortunately, it is looking too late for them, though Caterham are currently limping on. F1 chief, Bernie Eccelstone, has warned we could lose 2 more teams this year. Backmarker teams are stepping stones for inexperienced drivers and indeed engineers, and are a necessary part of the sport. Interestingly, there is a clause in the contract of the frontrunning teams that, if the number of cars on the field lowers to a certain level, they are obliged to run a third car. It has been suggested that this car could play as experience builders for upcoming drivers and may be exempt from scoring points – however, “three cars” has been talked about often in the past and has always come to nothing. Safety – closed cockpits? A terrible accident at the Japanese Grand Prix threatened to change F1’s non-fatal safety record that has stood since Senna’s death nearly 20 years ago. When Jules Bianchi’s car aquaplaned in torrential rain, he lost control and crashed, high speed, into a recovery vehicle on track. F1 cars are designed to protect

A FASCINATING AND THRILLING SEASON

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Formula One

REVOLUTION

drivers from any on track collision, but this was a freak accident. Bianchi was taken to hospital, in a coma, though at the time of writing he is out of this coma, though still in a poor state. An investigation and committee has been set up to discuss how this sort of collision could be avoided. One idea is closed cockpits for drivers, but the favoured solution so far is a “Virtual Safety Car” – i.e. in dangerous conditions, instead of waving blue flags to tell drivers to slow down (as present), race control could activate a device in all cars that automatically caps their top speed, taking it out of the driver’s hands. Unfortunately it normally takes accidents, and often fatalities, to provoke a change in the current system – but the hope is always that the sport learns and evolves from tragic events to ensure they are never repeated in future. Who’s going where in 2015 – big news, big changes? Red Bull: Big news broke late in the season – Vettel has decided to up and leave Red Bull, heading to Ferrari. Daniel Riccardo will pair with young Russian Daniil Kvyat. Ferrari: To many he’s F1’s best driver (though Hamilton has certainly a good claim after this year) – Fernando Alonso has lost faith in Ferrari and is likely moving to McLaren, who are hoping to bounce back with new Honda engines. Kimi Räikkönen is looking set to team with Vettel. McLaren: at the time of writing both Jenson Button’s and his rookie teammate Kevin Magnussen’s futures are being threatened by Alonso replacing one of them. Mercedes: this will be Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, and will likely still be for many years to come. Williams: with talented young Finn Valtteri Bottas and experienced Felipe Massa, Williams have come back strong this year – same line up in 2015. Toro Rosso: the youngest ever F1 driver, 17 year old Max

Verstappen, will make his debut in this team next year, though who will partner him is unpredictable. Force India: talented Nico Hülkenberg and Mexican Sergio Pérez. Lotus: likely to be well-funded Pastor Maldonado and Roman Grosjean, though a clause in his contract means Grosjean could go elsewhere. Sauber: ex-Caterham driver Marcus Ericsson will partner rookie Felipe Nasr. Marussia: Unfortunately, it’s looking as though Marussia is beyond saving – and even if they still exist next year, Bianchi is still recovering. Brit Max Chilton would team him. Caterham: currently with experienced and much loved Kamui Kobayashi, they will likely dump him for better sponsored drivers, assuming they survive to next year. Summary Whatever your opinion on any of the changes, it is undeniable that this has been a fascinating and thrilling season to watch. I remember being at Silverstone, the British Grand Prix, on my birthday weekend, where Hamilton, who’d started sixth, was catching Rosberg, lap by lap, inching closer, as thousands upon thousands of passionate fans cheered every time his Silver Arrow swept past. Hamilton has had a great year – twice getting on the podium after having to start at the back of the grid; thrice making up near 30-point deficits on Rosberg; 11 times a race winner, making him Britain’s most successful driver (33 career wins). It has been a great year to be a British F1 fan, and though there have been many changes, from revolutionary engines to regulation envisages, from British teams bouncing back to fantastic racing at every track, the best change, I think we can all agree, was instead of yet another German winning the title, a British driver rose mightily above the rest and made claim to the 2014 Formula One World Championship.

Closed cockpit F1 car

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Joe Wright PUPPETEER OR PUPPET?

Isabel Stark

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

YEAR 13

oe Wright is cool. Effortlessly cool. Wright was once the epitome of the label “indie” director, all due to the culmination of events within his hip infancy. His sophisticated childhood love affair with his Super 8, the dyslexia which led to Wright leaving school with no GCSEs but instead embarking on a swag down a creative, graffitied backstreet alleyway of education with an Art Foundation at Camberwell College and then the Mecca of Art, Central St Martins, studying the holy grail of courses, aka Fine Art and Film. Not to mention his obsession with the retro world of theatre and puppets. His parents owned their own puppet company, which would be a solid inspiration for his work. Joe Wright seemed very ‘i-D magazine’. The beauty of his early filmography, from the golden

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hour wide shots of Pride and Prejudice bathing in richness to the cloudy soft interiors of Atonement, with stockings placed over camera lenses to haze any harsh lines, is cinematic genius - and independent. However (dare I write this?), Joe Wright is a show off. The praise gained and success from his initial works has pushed him to explore his creativity and shot composition to the limit, whilst, all the time, simultaneously striving towards the Hollywood blockbuster films he was once above in a desperate attempt to un-cage himself from the gentle romanticism his early work displayed. Wright has entered a period of poor judgement – if not about his film choices then for abruptly calling off his marriage to former Bond girl Rosamond Pike. I am unsure about his future.

Directing Anna Karenina (2012)

In this ever-growing, mass-marketed global world, the invention of a fresh, new, beautifully crafted, individual stylish film is a rarity. Year 3, aged 8, vividly I remember being greeted by my mother after a long day at school; she had just seen Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice. She was so very enraptured. A few months later, I get in the car and I’m told my sister and I have been bought a treat. I, in my innocence, thought it was a Nintendo DS Lite, in the hip and cutting shade of white. Alas, it was a DVD- still a screen based element. Nevertheless, it has provided more joy and more of a sense of culture and education then any Mario Cart race. It is Pride and Prejudice. This relatively small film launched Joe Wright’s career as well as that of his muse, Keira Knightley. The shots were wide and palette refined. This was one of the first films to truly impact me. Due to a film-loving older sister with mature taste, I grew up watching anything Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart: Houseboat, To Catch a Thief and Rear Window all classic films which I cherished. Wright’s work was the first ‘modern’ piece, which seemed just as special alongside these great works. His indie films and stylist quality have only ever really been matched by two other great directors in the modern world of cinema. They are Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. Anderson is a greater match to Wright. Wes Anderson’s trade-marks are long tracking shots, which add an energy and dynamism to the films. He stated he “loved seeing the actors play out the scenes much like theatre . . . I’ve always loved theatre”. This is just like Joe Wright, who will always have at least one 5-minute uncut scene in his film and also last year made his theatrical debut with A Season in the Congo at the Young Vic. Both have many recurring collaborators which all adds to the familiarity and unique style created. Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums was flat in composition. Rectilinear. With obsessive symmetry. Patterned. This is very much his style. A

style which would fit into the French world of cinema better than that of America. However, despite his success he has stuck to his own way. The Grand Budapest Hotel, his most recent film, couldn’t be more Wes Anderson. The limited colour palette, patterns and symmetry reaches madness. Tarantino after Pulp Fiction didn’t modify his style for Kill Bill. Joe Wright, unfortunately, hasn’t learnt from the precedent set by Anderson and Tarantino. He went on to direct Hanna, yes; when Hanna is seen to escape visually there has been a lot of thought put into it but it doesn’t work with a poor, generic story. Wright tried to be too clever and what would have made a good 40-second commercial made a terrible feature film. And this was all too true for Anna Karenina. Joe picked style over any substance. He tried to be too clever. The harking back to his puppeteer ways all set inside a theatre would have been a genius idea for the young Joe Wright with a limited budget, but he was not in his predicament. And instead of fully committing to this shocking idea randomly there were many of those wide outdoor shots he used so often from his earlier days creeping in. Perhaps a warning he should do what he naturally is inclined to do. Wright’s upcoming film Pan, based on Peter Pan, looks set to be his most commercial film, with the likes of Hugh Jackman and Amanda Seyfried cast in an attempt to wow the world of Hollywood. He may just be too acclimatised to creating commercial highbrow adverts for the likes of Chanel. Ironically, his big successes within the world of Hollywood and the Academy, earning him the most respect were Pride and Prejudice and Atonement with a total of 11 Oscar nominations between them. Joe Wright could once control an audience and shape cinema. Atonement is consistently ranked within the top most modern influential films. He was a cinematic puppeteer. However success has somewhat blinded him and he has become a puppet of the fame and fortune surrounding Hollywood.

Po r t s m o u t h

Po i n t

www.pgs.org.uk

Caleb Barron

YEAR 11

CHANGING ATTITUDES TO

COMICS

his summer, I am proud to say, I bought my first-ever comic book. Considering my love for superheroes (especially the recent Avengers film series by MARVEL), it is somewhat surprising that I only own one real superhero comic. The comic was the 105th-ever issue of THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN and it was printed in December 1977. When first published, it was sold for a total of 12p so I obviously saw it as a bargain at a price of ÂŁ5. Whilst reading this 32-page, all-colour comic, soaking up the original artwork and comical adverts, I came to two definitive conclusions. It was total rubbishâ&#x20AC;Ś but I loved it.

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So I pondered on this. How can a short story consisting of pictures and speech bubbles that would have cost me twelve pence thirty-seven years ago evolve into a three-featurelength-movie series (not including Avengers Assemble) with a combined budget for the three movies of $520 million and a combined box office grossing a little over $2.4 billion? Avenger Assemble itself (of course being the second best MARVEL Avengers movie so far) had a budget of $220 million and a huge box office, grossing $1.518 billion, placing it third on the list of highest-grossing movies of all time. Quite clearly there is now a lot of money to be made from superheroes and I would argue that although superheroes have been around for years

Left: Marvel’s The Avengers app, 2012 Below: Issue 105 of The Invincible Iron Man, 1977

and years, it’s only now that they are becoming as truly ‘mainstream’ as they’ve always deserved to be. And it’s not just MARVEL who are turning the storylines that they were selling for nothing into huge moneymaking blockbusters. The recent Batman: Dark Knight Trilogy from DC made almost $2.5 billion at box office worldwide and it is suggested that Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice will be making a similar amount of income to Avengers Assemble. MARVEL has recently announced the next eleven films to be released up to the end of 2019, all of them bound to make around $1 billion at box office. Admittedly MARVEL’s fan base has never been small (not unexpectedly). Their first-ever comic, starring the Human Torch, published in October 1939, sold 900,000 copies. It is clear to see that MARVEL has since then grown and grown and, although they’ve had their fair share of bankruptcies and rebrands and mergers with other companies (notably the most recent merger with Disney finally giving MARVEL the ability to create movies without selling off characters), they’ve always been extremely popular - now more than ever. So what has created this recent change in comic book, graphic novel and superhero fandom? One might say that the alwayspopular storyline of an ordinary man (or woman) becoming extraordinary through some freak accident or experiment and saving the world with their new-found powers is timelessly appealing and, in a post 9/11 world, the thought of a superhero saving our major cities is comforting and helps us to feel safe. The advances in CGI and special effects technology are also responsible.

The bringing to life of these stories into an explosive action film with awesome fight sequences and realistic explosions, aliens and even whole other worlds that we can watch in our own home, is something to marvel at. Overall, though, I think the main reason superheroes have suddenly stopped just being a conversation-point for nerds and have, instead, become billiondollar franchises is because they have become relatable and funny with witty and sharp scripts making the loveable characters even easier to sympathise with. I have huge respect for those who write comics, who draw for graphic novels but, more importantly, those who have scripted the genius Avengers series. They are the people who have brought me and millions of others out to see movies based on characters with up to 70 years of history and shown us the amazing universe in which these superheroes reside like never before. When Martin Goodman set up Timely Publications, hiring Stan Lee to help run the company and have input on the comics, and when, in 1977, children went and bought the 105th issue of THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, excited to see what was to become of the protagonist as the story developed, I can guarantee that they had no idea of the vast fantastical universe that would be created and made accessible to millions of people. They had no idea that that 12p, 32page all-colour comic would inspire generations to come to continue the fine work in the ever-changing, evergrowing, ever-evolving comic book/ graphic novel/ superhero industry. And then I decided I’d pondered on it a little too much and reread the comic to clear my head.

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MANY ROADS, SAME DESTINATION Henry Ling and Kelvin Shiu YEAR 12

British Antarctic Survey

Karate Black Belt

hen looking at change, we came to the conclusion that one of the most significant changes is that which occurs for each of us in our lifetime. Most pupils haven’t yet gone through a lot of changes, although the progression from Junior School to Middle School, and then up into the Sixth Form are ones to note. However, we decided that some of the teachers at our School might have been through a fair few changes. So, in this light, we asked some of them a few questions, as follows (where they left a particular question unanswered, we have noted the answer as n/a):

Mr Thomas 1. Fighter pilot. 2. Kept changing, but Physics eventually. 3. Physics, Pure and Applied Maths, Geology 4. I don’t think I have yet… 5. Bridge testing technician; Ocean wave modelling scientist; Remote sensing scientist; British Antarctic Survey. 6. To do something interesting and have a girlfriend. 7. Becoming a parent 8. Becoming a parent 9. Stick things out- don’t keep trying to change! (and, don’t worry – you WILL get a girlfriend eventually)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Mrs Morgan 1. Growing up, I always wanted to be an actress. I thought I was destined for the stage. I played lots of exciting characters but my favourite was when I played 'Death'. 2. Other than Drama, my favourite subject was RE hence my enduring nickname 'Pilgrim Jo'. 3. My A Levels were Theatre Studies (which I ended up hating!), Sociology and Psychology. 4. It took me a long time to realise that I wanted to become a teacher. In fact, I distinctly remember saying it was the last job I'd ever do! However, when I realised I wasn't going to become a famous actress (sob!) and when I decided I was bored with Psychology (my first time at uni) I got a job at City Boys' School as a learning and behaviour assistant. It

What did you want to be when you were younger? What was your favourite subject in school? What A Levels did you do? When did you realise you wanted to be a teacher? What previous jobs have you had? What were you aspirations as a teenager? What’s the biggest change you have undertaken in your life? 8. What are you most proud of in your life? 9. What would you have told yourself at the age of 16 if you could turn the clock back?

Industrial Research Chemist

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6. 7.

8. 9.

was there that I realised that teaching was the job for me. I wasn't sure what to teach, though, so I thought back to my own experiences and the inspirational RE teacher I'd had. She'd engaged me like no other teacher before with topics that I cared about. She'd taught me how to debate and how to channel my passion. When it came down to it, Philosophy and RE seemed the only subjects likely to keep me stimulated and challenged for an entire career. I had many, many casual jobs before teaching, mainly because I developed quite a talent for being fired from them in my teenage years! I've worked in pretty much every bar and restaurant in Southsea, Burger King, a launderette and I worked in the offices of Estée Lauder, most of which helped me save up to go travelling. Teaching was the first job that I ever cared about. As a teenager I aspired to be rich and famous! I've undertaken many challenges in my life. The scariest involved karate. Having to fight (and I mean really fight) to get my black belt was pretty scary as was winning the London Open fighting competition. Stepping into a ring with someone who wants to knock you out is definitely a challenge. The hardest challenge of all, though, has to be having children. It is the most amazing but challenging thing I've ever done. My most proud moment has to be coming top in my year at university. Collecting the certificate on graduation day with my family looking on with pride was a pretty amazing feeling. Nothing, I'd never have listened!

Dr Howson 1. A scientist 2. Maths and Chemistry 3. Maths, Chemistry, Physics 4. About 40! 5. Industrial Research Chemist – testing new products on oil platforms, blue sky stuff to chemical plant development. But also worked in a toy factory and petrol station. 6. To come top in my class to make the world a better place 7. Research chemist to teacher, probably 8. Don’t know yet! 9. Take more risks!

Miss Giles 1. A geography teacher2. Geography 3. Geography, Geology, Economics, Pure Maths with Statistics, General Studies. 4. Age 14/15 5. Casual work on a market, bar work, cleaning and cooking in hospitals 6. To be the first in the family to go to university. 7. Personal relationships 8. Living life on my terms 9. Be more confident in trying new things and talking to other people Miss Burden 1. n/a 2. English! 3. n/a 4. I desperately tried to avoid going into teaching- both my parents are teachers and I grew up living in a boarding school- but I think it was inevitable! My youngest sibling is disabled and I “taught” him from a very young age 5. Barmaid; Secretarial work; Assistant Librarian 6. n/a 7. I suppose teaching abroad in Sri Lanka and in Kenya 8. n/a 9. Not to work so hard. Mr Crénel 1. An English teacher in France 2. English 3. n/a 4. When taught my favourite subject by a teacher who inspired me in Yr 7 5. n/a 6. Be happy and have a job I liked. 7. Moving out of my home country and having my own family. 8. Being brave enough to make life-changing decisions. (For the better!) 9. Adopt a healthier lifestyle and follow my parents’ advice. So, in conclusion, our teachers have all had different experiences and have undergone many different changes, yet after all that, they are all working here at PGS. And personally we would like to thank these and all the other teacher’s for making the decisions to come here and better our lives. The job of being a teacher is sometimes a hard task, not just for keeping a rowdy class quite but for sacrificing their lives to help others achieve their dreams and aspirations.

Teaching in Sri Lanka

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R E C I P E S Lauren Robson-Skeete YEAR 12

for a change

Pesto “pasta”

Sweet potato brownies This recipe is a twist on the classic that is pesto pasta; by replacing the pasta with ‘courgetti’ it dramatically reduces the amount of calories and also tastes very similar whilst being packed with nutritional benefits. The kale, spinach and basil are high in vitamins A and C, and kale is filled with antioxidants.

Ingredients: For the pesto sauce: • 1 squeezed lemon • Handful of spinach, kale, and basil leaves • 50g pine nuts • 50g pistachios • 1 tbsp olive oil • Salt and pepper to taste • 10 cherry tomatoes For the “pasta”: • 2 courgettes • Parmesan shavings Method: 1. Cut the courgettes lengthways into quarters and, using a vegetable peeler, peel long strips of courgette to create a tagliatelle or spaghetti pasta effect and leave to one side. 2. Either using a pestle and mortar or a food processer, combine all the ingredients for the pesto sauce except the tomatoes and blend to create a smooth paste. 3. Cut the tomatoes into halves and season with salt and pepper. 4. In a pan on a medium heat, combine the courgette pasta and pesto sauce and heat for a few minutes. Stir in the tomatoes. 5. Finally, grate some Parmesan to serve or add some grilled chicken to ‘bulk’ up the meal.

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It may appear to be a weird combination - sweet potato and chocolate – however, it truly works! The sweet potato coupled with the treacle-like date paste makes for the perfect substitute to sugar. Moreover, the raw cacao powder (unrefined cocoa powder) is a super food and is simply cocoa powder but with all the vitamins and antioxidants still remaining in the powder. Although unique, once you taste these brownies you won’t be able to tell that they are actually good for you! Ingredients: • 600g sweet potato (or two large sweet potatoes) • 80g ground almonds • 100g brown rice flour • 20 medjool pitted dates • 4 tbsp raw cacao powder • 1 bar milk chocolate • 1 tbsp pure maple syrup • Pinch of salt Method: 1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. 2. Either peel the sweet potatoes and cut into small cubes and place in a pan and boil for 20 minutes, or simply cut in half and microwave for 10-15 minutes until soft. 3. Once they have been softened, scoop out the flesh from the skins and put into a food processor. Add the medjool dates and blend until it forms a smooth paste. 4. Mix in the almonds, flour, salt, cacao powder and maple syrup. 5. Using a bain-marie, melt the chocolate and pour into the mixture until fully combined. 6. Pour the mixture into a lined baking tray and bake for 20 minutes. 7. Serve warm with frozen yoghurt and mixed berries!

Guilt-free pizza

Raw peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake You will never have to feel bad about eating a whole pizza again with this recipe as the base is completely wheat and gluten free and has fewer calories than a normal pizza.

Ingredients: For the base: • 250g gram (chickpea) flour • 250g brown rice flour • 250ml lukewarm water • 1 ½ tbsp dry active yeast • 2 tbsp olive oil • ½ tsp sea swalt For the tomato sauce: • 4 large tomatoes • 1 red pepper • 2 garlic cloves • Handful of basil leaves • ½ squeezed lime • 1 tbsp olive oil • Dried mixed herbs • Salt and pepper to taste Suggested toppings: • Parma ham • Sundried tomatoes • Reduced fat shredded mozzarella • Rocket

Method: 1. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and combine the yeast and water before pouring in. Mix until it begins to turn into dough. 2. On a floured surface, knead the dough for five minutes and then leave to rest for 30 minutes in a warm place until it doubles in size. 3. Whilst waiting for the dough, begin to prepare the sauce by chopping the tomatoes and pepper into small chunks and crush the garlic cloves. 4. In a pan, add the olive oil, salt, pepper, lime, tomatoes and pepper and cook for 15 minutes. Add the basil leaves in at the end. 5. In a food processor, blend the sauce ingredients until smooth. 6. Once the dough has increased in size roll out thinly and place on a pizza tray. Spread the sauce evenly over the base and then add your toppings. 7. Cook in the oven at 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes and sprinkle the rocket over the cooked pizza to garnish.

This decadent dessert requires absolutely no cooking and is probably the healthiest cheesecake you will ever come across. The avocado and banana provide the creamy texture to the cheesecake without detracting from the sweetness coming from the date paste and peanut butter. The cacao powder and pistachios create the perfect crunchy base you would expect from a cheesecake and the coconut oil surcharges the health benefits and can actually lower your cholesterol. With all these benefits, sometimes less isn’t always more. Ingredients: For the crust: • 1 ½ cup oats • 1 cup pitted medjool dates • ½ cup cashews • 3 tbsp cacao powder For the peanut butter layer: • 1 cup peanut butter • 1 tbsp coconut oil • 1 cup almond milk • 1/3 cup pitted medjool dates For the chocolate layer: • 1 ripe avocado • 1 banana • 4 tbsp melted coconut oil • 1/3 cup pitted medjool dates • 1/3 cup cacao powder *NB: 1 cup is roughly equal to 230g

Method: 1. Firstly, to make the crust, in a food processor blend the cacao, cashews and oats until it forms a crumby mixture, pour into a bowl and set aside. 2. Then put the dates and a tbsp of water into the processor and blend to create a smooth date paste. 3. Mix the date paste and crumb mixture together until it fully combines. Spread evenly in a spring form cake tin and place in the fridge. 4. For the peanut butter layer, simply blend all the ingredients together and spread over the crust and put into the freezer to harden quicker. 5. Finally, for the chocolate layer, peel the avocado and banana, and put all the ingredients into the food processer and blend until smooth. Spread over the peanut butter layer and put in the freezer for an hour. 6. Garnish with peanuts and serve thawed.

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