The Student 27/09/2011

Tuesday September 27 2011 | Week 2

c u lt u r e

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COMPETITION Music» p18

CULTURE

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S i n c e 1887 T h e U K ' s O ld e st S T u d en t N ews pa p er

S cott ish S t udent Ne wspaper of the Year 2010

Holyrood reverses cuts to university funding

Swinney's spending review adds on £75 million to universities' budget

Inflated egos are beneficial, claims uni research Randy Lin

Colleges suffer along with other departments but commitment to EMA is maintained

Images_of-money

Sam Bradley THE SCOTTISH government has announced a fresh round of investment into the nation’s universities with the publication of its annual spending review. The Scottish Spending Review details, announced last week

by Finance Secretary John Swinney, reversed last year’s 8 per cent budget cut to Scotttish higher education institutions. The influx of £75 million will raise the overall Higher Education budget to around £2 billion.

Despite the provision of over 25,000 extra Modern Apprenticeship places, the review included cuts to further education institutions. The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) will have its FE budget cut from £544.7 million to £470.7million between 2011 and 2014, representing a 13.6 per cent decrease in funding.

The review promised to maintain the number of university and college places, as well as the continuation of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme. The EMA, which was discontinued by the UK coalition government in England and Wales, costs £31.6 million.

The Scottish government said in the review, “By supporting students, funding Scotland’s universities and colleges, and investing in our research base, we will produce the highly skilled workforce of the future that is capable of creating new knowledge.

“The scale of the total reduction in the Scottish government’s budget for

Selfdelusion produces winners

GO STRAIGHT TO FREE PARKING: Universities are set for a funding increase, despite cuts

“

The budget confirms the Scottish Government have listened to students in Scotland . . . these proposals are a major step in the right direction towards making access to education in Scotland fairer." this Spending Review has required tough decisions to be taken about expenditure across government and careful consideration of pressures and priorities in all portfolios. There will be a variety of demands on the portfolio’s resources throughout the Spending

Review period.

“In order to reduce the level of spending across the portfolio, we have taken a number of difficult decisions.

We will accommodate these through savings realised through our review of post-16 learning.”

Robin Parker, president of NUS Scotland, said of the new investment: “At the last election the Scottish Government committed to increase student support, protect places at college and university, and to rule out tuition fees.

This budget confirms that the Scottish Government have listened to students in Scotland, with proposals for a £7000 minimum income for the poorest students, the protection of the EMA for young students and pupils, and the confirmation of plans to keep education free of tuition fees and to increase funds for universities to match funding

with universities in England.

“Taken together these proposals are a major step in right direction towards making access to education in Scotland fairer. However, we are very worried by the proposed cuts to colleges over the coming years, and particularly next year. Colleges serve some of the most deprived communities in Scotland, offering an educational lifeline and local access to education to some of the most excluded in our society.”

Matt McPherson, President of Edinburgh University Student’s Association told The Student that “EUSA would call on the Scottish government to recognise that investment in Scotland’s universities and educational institutions is the best long-term solution to the current economic crisis, and that it is essential to maintain the investment they are providing.”

HAVING AN over-inflated sense of self belief is beneficial when facing new challenges, researchers from the University of Edinburgh have found.

The findings produced in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, San Diego suggest that over confidence is often a more effective strategy than level headedness in business, sport and even war.

The study, published in the journal Nature, used a mathematical model to predict the probability of success between different levels of confidence.

The experiment set two individuals of varying confidences against each other in a competition for resources.

The results concluded that “holding incorrect beliefs about one’s own capability” often yielded optimal results as long as the reward of the conflict seemed worthy of the challenge.

Over confidence is advantageous, the study claims, because “it encourages individuals to claim resources they could not otherwise win if it came to a conflict and it keeps them from walking away from conflicts they would surely win.”

The study also suggests that humans can acquire overconfident qualities through trial and error and imitation and learning.

However, the researchers do warn that over confidence carries a degree of risk and point to the 2008 financial crisis and 2003 Iraq war, in which over confident populations contributed, to demonstrate this point.

Doctor Dominic Johnson said: “The question now is how to channel human overconfidence so we can exploit its benefits while avoiding occasional disasters.”

INSIDE: The value of science in schools p3 Uni researchers work on 'Voice Bank' p4

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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2 News

EU STUDENT INCREASE p4 Dramatic rise in numbers of EU students in Scotland EUSA PROTEST ENDORSEMENT p6 Bus service to second wave of national protest provided DEER SEX p7 New study reveals picky habits amongst deer population

comment >>p9-11

INTERNATIONAL BARRIERS p9 Ebony Ruggero reveals the legislative pressure on non-EU international students MEDIA CONSUMPTION p10 Dan Heap on the use of the images of Gadaffi's death

FEATURES >>p12-14 WHAT TO DO? p12 Órla Meadhbh Murray explores graduate options TECHNOLOGIC p14 Nina Seale wonders what makes certain websites popular

Reviews >>p19-29 EXPLICIT MATERIAL p20 Jenni Ajderian visits the National Library's latest exhibit CLOCKING OFF p25 Ger Ellis is impressed by Clock Opera THREE'S A CROWD p28 Dan Heap on Comedy Central's latest comedic offering

Sport >>p31-32 BEER AND BURGERS p31 Chris Waugh on the Edinburgh Gunners' season

AN ALTERNATIVE to costly degrees has been offered by Coventry University College who have revealed plans to introduce a “no frills”, cut price degree.

The degree courses available focus primarily on professional subjects including Law, Accounting and I.T. and will cost a full time degree student just £4,800 a year.

This means an undergraduate degree at the university will cost just £14,400 compared to an average fee in England of over £25,000 when increased tuition fees are introduced later this year.

Ian Dunn, a pro-vice chancellor at Coventry University from which University College is an offshoot, remarked to the BBC that the introduction of this new, flexible, low cost degree was “about fitting their [the students’] education around their lifestyle”.

Lectures will run seven days a week, forty two weeks of the year and in “breakfast slots” and late night slots.

This is designed to work around any work, caring or social commitments students may have and gives the course great appeal to both individuals who wish to “earn and learn” and those already in work and looking to gain an extra qualification.

In spite of the perceived benefits,

RESTRICTED: Students cannot access key university services

Ailsa Wright

NEWS >>p2-7

Madeleine Ash

Dunn recognizes this degree “will just be about learning and teaching” the other aspects of University life will not be offered to students on this “no frills” course.

For example, students will not have access to Coventry University Library, its IT facilities or its sports facilities; nor will they be involved in the social side of student life to the same degree.

Further to this students will not experience the traditional structuring of terms and long holidays, instead the year will be divided into seven teaching blocks each lasting 6 weeks with ten weeks holiday spread throughout the year.

The pay off then for the saving is

the sacrificing of the “University Experience” which calls into question to what extent University is attended for the physical acquisition of the degree, and the extent to which it is attended for the experience, lifestyle and social aspects.

The weighting potential students put on these different aspects remains to be seen, but with such financial savings to be made Dunn anticipates Coventry University College’s option being popular.

When recruiting begins next week 1100 places will be available with plans to increase this to 3500 over the next four years.

Robinson told The Student, “The offer is £150 but is paid out over a year so is £3 a week, which is miniscule in comparison with people’s salary.

“This pay increase is worth 0.5 per cent on average but with inflation well over 12 per cent it's actually a pay cut, losing about 11 per cent over three years.”

Pay increases due to inflation have been proportional in recent years.

Robinson said, “Our members are saying enough is enough as far as they’re concerned and have voted in a recent consultative ballot to reject the offer by a four to one majority.

“The strike would definitely affect Edinburgh University. We negotiated with the Imperial College of London and our members have just had an ac-

cepted offer of £500 or 2 per cent, so I don’t see why people in Edinburgh should be offered £150 when employers in London have been offered £500. Edinburgh is an expensive city to live in.”

The ballot will open on 28 October and close on 17 November, being open to the academic and non-academic staff who are members of Unite.

A spokesperson for the union said, “Unite has members in more than 60 UK universities. Most of the Unite members are in the older Russell group-style research intensive universities which have substantial cash reserves and easily able to improve on the existing offer. Unite has exhausted the disputes procedure.”

Universities threatened with industrial action Nina Seale

UNIVERSITY STAFF across the country will be balloted on strike action regarding staff pay.

Trade union Unite says that if the ballot goes through, the strike will definitely impact teaching and services at the University of Edinburgh.

A lump sum of £150 has been offered in pay talks to trade unions by university staff employers nationwide to subsidise the losses due to inflation.

Unite has been the first union to oppose this lump sum, which their national officer for education Mike Robinson has described as “derisory”.

Claims of inequality in EUSU funding <<Continued from page one

Another criticism that emerged was the perceived lack of transparency on the part of EUSU’s funding estimates.

Several societies’ treasurers queried the amounts they had been allocated; Rupert Lee, Treasurer of Edinburgh University Snow Sports Club (EUSSC), told The Student that EUSSC had received “less than half the funding of smaller but more traditional clubs like hockey and rugby.” The treasurers of the Edinburgh University Athletics Club (EUAC) and the Edinburgh University Hare and Hounds Running Club, however, both expressed their contentment with the funding EUSU had provided them in a tough economic situation.

President of EUSU Sam Trett released a statement to The Student saying that the union had faced challenges

UNFAIR?: Funds are not distributed based on membership with regards to funding, reiterating that “our aim is to ensure sport is accessible to all whilst continuing to provide assistance to our top competitors.” He

Eugene hopkinson

The Student Newspaper | 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ Email: editors@studentnewspaper.org

Cut price courses defy fees

also stated that the union “genuinely [believes] that all clubs under our wing receive top quality support both financial and on the admin side.”

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Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

News 33

Racially motivated attack on Clerk Street George Square

emily jarrett

Clerk Street CENTRAL ROUTE: The attack took place on a road to the University highly frequented by students

Appeal for info made after Chinese man is assaulted near uni Kirsty MacSween LOTHIAN AND Borders Police have issued an appeal for a taxi driver to come forward following a racially motivated assault in Clerk Street close to the university.

On Saturday 10 September between one and two in the morning, a 34-year-old Chinese man, who has

not been named, was repeatedly forced to the ground and subjected to racial abuse.

A police spokesman has said: “We are continuing with our enquiries into this racially motivated assault and believe the taxi driver may have information that can assist with our investigation.”

The taxi driver picked up the victim from Minto Street after the assault had taken place.

Police are looking for two suspects in connection with the assault. The first is described as a white male with medium-length blond hair, about 17 to

“

We are continuing with our enquiries into this racially motivated assault and believe the taxi driver may have information that can assist with our investigation.”

Police spokesperson

18 years old with a Scottish accent, who was wearing a green top and grey tracksuit bottoms.

The second suspect is a white female, around 17 years old with medium length brown hair, who was wearing pink top and light-coloured jeans at the time of the incident.

The victim lost his expensive Tag Hueur watch during the attack, although this has since been found and returned to the owner.

The street is close to the university

and surrounded by extenisve student housing, as well as being the main route from Pollock Halls, one of the main sites of student accomodation run by the university, to the central campus at George Square and Old College.

It is regualrly frequented by students in the evening, and is a hub of pubs and activity, particularly at weekends.

Anyone who holds information they think would be valuable is urged to contact Lothian and Borders police on 0131 311 31 31.

Top scientist blasts UK schools for failing to prepare students for science at university President of Royal Society maintains need for "high quality professionals" in the classroom Alasdair Drennan SCHOOL PUPILS are not properly served by secondary school science courses, leaving them poorly equipped at university or in employment, according to one of the UK’s leading cosmologists.

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, claimed UK schools are failing to capture the interest of young people at school and encourage them to study science. He argued in The Guardian that children weren’t receiving an adequate grounding in science whilst at school.

He said, “University tutors are dismayed that so many young people aren’t sufficiently prepared by schools to qualify for the most challenging courses. Businesses find that many aren’t qualified for apprenticeships.”

Rees stated that, whilst in many cases it was helpful, new technology, “can never eliminate the need for high-quality professionals in the classroom.” He also suggested that pupils were distanced from the science and technology around them, having no

understanding of how new technologies work.

Less than one in three primary schools have a teacher with a university qualification in a scientific discipline.

Furthermore, a study by King’s College London showed that primary school teachers were less confident in teaching Science than they were about English or Maths.

“

University tutors are dismayed that so many young people aren't sufficiently prepared by schools to qualify for the most challenging courses.”

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society The Student spoke to several students at the university who agreed with Rees, saying school left them poorly equipped to study at university, and that there was a large learning curve involved.

Third year medic Neil McIntyre said that his school did not offer the best courses to prepare him for study at University. He said, “My school didn’t do Human Biology, just Biology - I think that might have prepared me better.”

Third year Biomedical Science stu-

dent Carmel Lawson said, “In primary school, there was more emphasis on painting stained glass windows than on anything to do with science. In high school, the means to study the sciences were there but very little was done to inspire passion about the subject.”

Cameron Dean, studying physics, told The Student: “There is no training at school on how to properly organise and record results. I noticed this across my whole year, which includes many international students.

“Many of the most important parts of theory are simply missed out when explained in school.”

When asked about the importance of studying science, he said, “It enables us to learn about the world.

“The answers are already there and science allows us to find them and the findings can benefit the entire world in an applicable way. The scientist who cures cancer doesn’t just benefit themselves.”

However, the perceived lack of preparation does not seem to have a wholly negative effect on students’ studies.

Professor Colin Pulham, Director of Teaching in the School of Chemistry told The Student that he found new students at Edinburgh to be motivated and prepared for their further study.

He said: “Students arrive inspired and ready to tackle chemistry and other related and challenging subjects.

The university does a lot to reach out to schools nationally and encourage them to aspire to achieve their highest potential.”

From the archives: The Student assesses the value of science at the University of Edinburgh “Research scientists from the University of Edinburgh have contributed towards a major breakthrough in the treatment of malaria.

Using new genetic identification technology, they identified the gene that has allowed malaria to evolve and become immune to certain remedies used to combat the disease.

While this development is not a cure in itself, it is hoped that the progress will assist the development of new malaria treatment.”

Malaria drug development, The Student, October 2010 “A popular drug used in the treatment of various forms of cancer is set to become cheaper and more widely available thanks to findings gathered from research carried out by the University of Edinburgh.

Extracted from the bark of yew trees, Paclitaxel can treat forms of lung, ovarian, breast, head and neck cancer, but up until now has been highly expensive and environmentally damaging to produce.

Now scientists at Edinburgh have found the drug can be produced cheaply on an industrial scale by using stem cells of yew trees."

Cancer drug availability, The Student, October 2010 Edinburgh based scientists have identified a possible defence against the deadly tropical disease bilharzia. Researchers discovered that an enzyme has the potential to act as a barrier against the parasitic disease, also known as snail fever. It is hoped that treatments that could act to stimulate the enzyme would help challenge the disease that infects up to 200 million people across Africa and Asia.

Potential Bilharzia vaccine, The Student, November 2010

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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4 News

Sam Bradley

THE STUDENT understands that Edinburgh University Student Association (EUSA) is close to deciding upon legislation that would grant all of its employees a living wage.

The Board of Trustees is due to meet on Wednesday, to vote on whether to pass the annual Strategic Plan. Including the Living Wage in the plan will make the measure formally part of EUSA policy.

However, sources close to the board have claimed that whilst the Sabbatical Officers of EUSA support the policy, members of senior management are exhibiting “definite resistance”, and are encouraging trustees – who are students of the University – to vote against the Living Wage’s inclusion in the Strategic Plan.

Introducing the Living Wage – estimated to be around £7.15 per hour in the United Kingdom – is the focus of a nationwide campaign spearheaded by student activists.

Stephen Donnelly, who is running the Winning the Living Wage campaign in Edinburgh told The Student: “EUSA is an organisation governed by its values, and I think it’s time that these are put into practice. Whether it’s student staff working late bar shifts to afford their education, or full-time staff struggling to support a family, these people are the beating heart of EUSA, and they deserve the dignity of a Living Wage.

“I imagine that there is some caution amongst senior management, which is perfectly understandable given the large financial commitment that

a living wage represents, and it is also important that trustees vote with the welfare of the whole organisation, and not just a political campaign, in mind.

However, what we’re pushing for is a commitment to medium-term (rather than immediate) implementation of a Living Wage- a perfectly attainable goal and one which EUSA would be cavalier to cast aside.”

The news that Edinburgh University pays all but five of its staff above or equal to the Living Wage will add further impetus to the local campaign for EUSA to do the same. Those five that are paid below £7.15 an hour, are listed as “trade apprentices” on the University’s employment records. The information was revealed by Movement for Change, a grassroots organisation supporting the nationwide pro-Living Wage campaign, through a Freedom of Information Request submitted to the university.

EUSA president Matt McPherson, who included the introduction of the Living Wage in his election manifesto in May, told The Student: “We’re a business and we’re also a charity - but right now we’re not in a in a position to make the change to the living wage. We simply don’t have the money to achieve that this year - but that doesn’t change our ambition to have it.

“The sabbatical officers and I are absolutely committed to putting EUSA in a position to adopt the living wage, and we’re delighted that the University of Edinburgh does so. We want to put EUSA in a place where it can act as an example to other student unions across the country.”

Asked about the apparent resistance by the senior executives of EUSA, he

Matt mcpherson

EUSA hopes to soon pay staff a living wage

MATT MCPHERSON: Promised Living Wage for staff in his manifesto

said “there’s certainly some reluctance to endorse it in the near future from Senior Management.

"However, all of EUSA still has total commitment to implementing the living wage at some point in the future.

I will be the president to put EUSA on track to follow the University of Edinburgh in paying the Living Wage to all of our employees. Our staff are the backbone of EUSA.”

Even if the Board of Trustees passes definitive, binding wording in the Strategic Plan to implement the Living Wage, students plan to continue with their campaign to make sure that EUSA keeps its promises after the current sabbatical officers have finished their one-year terms.

“We plan an on-going lobbying campaign to make sure the Living Wage happens,” said Donelly.

Donate your voice in aid of Motor Neuron Disease

Melody McIndoe THOUSANDS OF people every year depend upon the generosity of organ donors to help them overcome life-threatening illnesses - however, some organs, like those that allow us

to speak, cannot be replaced.

Now a team at the University of Edinburgh hopes that they can help people who have lost the use of their vocal organs, by finding volunteers willing to donate their voices.

The Voice Bank is a project that is

being conducted by the Euan Macdonald Centre – a team dedicated to the research of Motor Neurone Disease.

MND is a degenerative disease that affects the cells responsible for the control of voluntary muscle activity, thus selectively damaging the sufferer’s ability to speak, walk and swallow, among others. It generally strikes at random and is often fatal within a few years.

An appeal from the Centre explained: “Many individuals with Motor Neurone Disease and other devastating conditions such as strokes, MS and Parkinson’s disease lose their voice. Not being able to speak in one’s own voice leaves many patients feeling frustrated and isolated. Current provision of communication aids is not ideal as patients complain about the impersonal and robotic nature of such devices.”

To solve this problem, speech experts hope to record the voices of 150 volunteers of all ages and add them to a bank. These sounds could then be com-

bined to create a voice which is as close as possible to the patient’s own.

“We do this by using specialised in-house software that mixes many different voices including any available from the patient to create an individual natural voice” the appeal continues.

“Using our technology no two voices are ever the same and therefore your voice remains exclusive to you.”

Euan Macdonald was diagnosed with MND in 2003 and has since been devoted to research into the disease.

“The research is still quite early days, so we want to see how we can use this to create voices with healthy volunteers before we can look at applying this to patients.” Tara Womersley, a PR spokesperson for the project, told The Student, “Volunteer voice recording takes around an hour at our studios in George Square.”

For more information on how to make an appointment to volunteer at the Centre, email info@smart-mnd. org.

Meningitis warning for students across UK Sian Williams

In a bid to reduce outbreaks of meningitis on university campuses, health officials are to alert students across the UK about the dangers of this potentially deadly disease.

At the start of the academic year, the government’s health protection agency aims to alert Britain’s two million students about the risks of catching meningitis.

Plans have been announced to launch a leaflet offering various pieces of advice including how to minimise the risks of catching the disease. According to the leaflet, students are placed in a high-risk category with the typical student lifestyle of drinking, sexual activity and other forms of close personal contact such as clubbing allowing for meningitis to spread quickly.

One in four UK students carry the bacteria that cause meningitis at the back of their throats, the Meningitis Trust says. The figure is one in ten for other adults.

Dr. Mary Ramsay, head of the agency’s immunization department had stated that: “University bars and campuses where lots of students are in close proximity is an ideal place for bacteria and viruses to spread which is why we may see more outbreaks of these infections in this environment.”

Figures from Meningitis UK suggest that 3,000 people are affected each year by all types of bacterial meningitis with a further 500,000 having had viral or bacterial meningitis. Research has also shown that one in ten victims will die and that one in seven survivors will suffer from some sort of permanent disability such as the loss of limbs, blindness, deafness or brain damage.

Several UK universities had highprofile outbreaks of meningitis C in the 1990s, the largest of which was in 1997 at Southampton University where three students died with a further 3 contracting the disease.

Although scientists now consider another outbreak of meningitis C in the UK to be very unlikely, outbreaks of the most common strain, meningitis B, are still possible.

At the moment there is no vaccination for meningitis B but the HPA leaflet also gives information of what characterizes meningitis.

The classic symptoms for meningitis include headaches, muscle stiffness and an aversion to bright lights as well as vomiting, diarrhoea and fevers.

The tumbler test is also advised for those who rapidly fall ill. The test, which looks to identify the meningococcal septicaemia rash, states that to identify they rash press a class tumbler against it and if it does not fade to seek immediate medical advice.����������� On ���������� darker skin, people are advised to check for the rash on lighter areas of the body such as the fingertips where the rash will be most prominent.

The majority of people with this strain of the disease develop a rash of pink spots that can rapidly develop into purple bruising.

Students are being urged to ensure that their vaccinations are up to date including the MMR and the MenC jab that protects against the C strain.

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Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

News 5

Online referenda to become norm with new EUSA constitution

“

We want the new EUSA to better represent what students want, and there is no better way of ensuring this than asking students how EUSA should be run" Matt McPherson, EUSA President

One second year student, who asked not to be named, told The Student, “I’m not really interested. If people want to go into politics in the future then EUSA is good practice, I guess, but it doesn’t affect me that much, so to be honest I don’t see why I’d get involved.”

Exchange student attacked on Royal Mile Sam Bradley

AN AMERICAN exchange student was attacked on Saturday night after attempting to stop a man urinating on St Giles’ Cathedral. The 20-year old student – who had only recently arrived in Scotland - was on a night out with friends, when he was assaulted near the Cathedral, which sits on the Royal Mile.

The older male, who Lothian & Borders Police are currently seeking information about, punched the student repeatedly in the face after being challenged about his behaviour. He continued punching the student after he fell to the ground, shocking passers-by, before running from the scene by way of Anchor Close.

The suspect has been described as white, around 25 years old with short blonde hair. He was wearing a black leather jacket, blue jeans and spoke with a Scottish accent.

The victim lost three teeth in the attack. A police spokesperson said

"The victim has suffered some painful injuries to his face and will need dental work to replace his teeth. Given the time this incident happened, there were potentially a number of people leaving the various pubs and establishments in the area.

“Anyone who witnessed the assault or has information that can assist in identifying the suspect is asked to contact police immediately.”

The Very Reverend Gilleasbuig Macmillan told the Edinburgh Evening News that “It is a very unfortunate incident, but one should be careful before taking the law into one’s own hands.”

Anyone with any information can contact Lothian and Borders Police on 0131 311 3131, or the charity Crimestoppers in confidence and anonymity on 0800 555 111.

FORTY WINKS: EUSA's democratic events are often used as alternative remedies for insomnia

Fully aware that this sentiment is shared by much of the student body, EUSA hope that the changes will mean that, “[students] can get involved, be better represented, and . . . EUSA can better meet the needs of Edinburgh students.”

The review comes 18 months after

“

Have your say

A NEW constitution will be presented to students next month in an attempt to make Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) more transparent, accessible, and representative.

The proposals would see a fundamental change in how students engage in student politics, and it is hoped that opening up the decision making process will encourage increased engagement from Edinburgh students, with the stated goal of the review being, “[maximising] opportunities for direct involvement by as many students as possible,” and making it easier “for students to get involved in discussion and decision-making about the issues that matter”.

The proposals would see online referenda replacing the current system of general meetings, with three new councils being created to tackle academic, welfare, and external issues, along with smaller "task groups" to tackle individual problems that may arise.

Details were released outlining the proposed restructure late last August, and EUSA has since invited students to give their opinion on the draft constitution, with open meetings held on Monday and Wednesday last week reportedly proving productive.

Matt McPherson, EUSA presi-

dent, quoted "We want the new EUSA to better represent what students want, and there is no better way of ensuring this than asking students how EUSA should be run.

“We want to make sure that as many students as possible get a chance to have their say on how the association is run.”

However, despite the drive to improve the experience of student democracy with EUSA, there remains a distinct sense of disinterest among many members of the student body.

Julia sanchez

Leo Michelmore

a much-debated motion was passed at the 2010 Annual General Meeting which enabled voting on referenda to take place online, a move that was very much in the same vein of encouraging broader participation in student democracy.

At the time, the then Vice President

for Services elect, Sam Hansford, labelled the motion a “real, historic, change” and even drew comparisons with U.S. President Barack Obama’s campaign for healthcare reform.

The referendum will take place on the 12, 13, and 14 October.

ggf

"What do you think of the university’s decision to move the counselling service to the third floor of the library?"

Gordon Birse, 3rd year, politics “I didn’t know it was there, so I don’t think the move has been advertised enough. I think putting it in the middle of the library will put people off.”

Wenting Cai, postgrad, operational research “I think moving it there will encourage people to use it. However, as a student at King’s Buildings, I don’t think KB students use it as much anyway because it’s in a different place, so the fact it’s moved won’t really make a difference to us.”

Hannah Standring, 3rd year, history “I don’t think it’s a good idea. If you go in, everyone will see. It is more convenient though.”

Jenny Wu, postgrad, finance and investment “It’s easier to know where it is, because people will see it when they use the library. I think this will make people use it more. I don’t think it will make people uncomfortable because it is in a private room, even though it is in the middle of the library”.

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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6 News

Students hold candelit vigil for death row inmate outside US Consulate Nina Seale

AROUND SIXTY Edinburgh students and human rights activists held a candlelit vigil outside the US Consulate on Regent Terrace in protest at Troy Davis’ scheduled execution on Wednesday night.

The vigil took place in the hours leading up to the execution and was held in support of the Too much Doubt Campaign, organised by Amnesty International.

The protesters handed out candles and held signs adorned with personal messages about Davis’ execution.

The police arrived to ask them to move away from the entrance of the Consulate and the crowd remained outside until the news of the reprieve, when they believed he would be granted another stay of execution.

Three hours later, however, the Supreme Court denied the stay of execution and Troy Davis was executed by lethal injection.

The vigil in Edinburgh was one of several held around the world for Davis who was arrested and convicted for the 1989 murder of Mark MacPhail, after witnesses positively identified him as the man who shot the police officer twice with a 38 calibre pistol.

Davis pled non-guilty in his trial where a grand jury convicted him for murder on the ballistics evidence and the statement of four eyewitness testimonies and five consequential witnesses.

In the two decades following his conviction Davis exhausted the appeal system of the Georgia Supreme Court, continuing to insist his inno-

“

The U.S. judicial system provides an exhaustive set of protections to ensure that the death penalty is not applied in an arbitrary, capricious or discriminatory manner"

U.S. Embassy, London

cence. During this time, seven of the witnesses recanted the statements that convicted him, claiming they had been pressurised by the police.

No physical or forensic evidence was retrieved from the scene except the bullets and shell-casings, which were used to form the ballistics report against Davis by linking him to another shooting that occurred earlier the same night.

The only forensic evidence was barred from the prosecution as the judge ruled that the pair of shorts taken from Davis’ home had been obtained without a search warrant and Davis’ mother had been forced to allow the police into her home.

The prosecution alleged that Davis had quarrelled with and shot Michael Cooper, assaulted homeless man Larry Young, before fatally

shooting MacPhail. Cooper could not positively identify Davis as his shooter, though admitted to having argued with him.

The US Embassy in London defended the execution. A spokesperson said: “The U.S. Consulate General Edinburgh is aware that a vigil led

by Amnesty International took place on September 21. In the U.S., elected governments at the federal and state levels have the power to make decisions regarding the use of the death penalty. The U.S. judicial system provides an exhaustive set of protections to ensure that the death penalty is not applied in an arbitrary, capricious or discriminatory manner.”

Ethan DeWitt

THE COST of buying lunch or an evening pint for students has risen this semester, after Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA) approved price rises across it’s shops and venues.

Following years of stable prices, the cost of food and alcohol at student run venues in Edinburgh has risen, as part of an effort by the association to combat past deficits and balance expenses.

Many menu items in Teviot, Potterow and the Library Cafe are more expensive than they were this time last year, with an average price increase of ten per cent. Drinks at the Library Bar are 30 pence pricier and coffee in the New Amphion costs 20 pence more.

Meal items have similarly increased.

The price rises were approved and enacted by EUSA Vice President of Services Philippa Faulkner, who asserted that they were necessary in order to ensure the financial solvency of the student union. While the menu prices have remained stable in the last few years, the EUSA balance sheets have not, she explained.

Faulkner said: “We have been losing

money in the last few years, I represent the students of Edinburgh, but I also represent the business end of EUSA, and when the business is running a deficit these measures are necessary.”

Faulkner attributed the budget shortfalls to rising supplier costs, which in turn are products of surging food prices worldwide. The recent increase of the VAT in the UK has also put strain on EUSA finances and additional expenses incurred from attempts in the past year to increase service quality, including hiring new chefs, expanding the Library Bar kitchen and opening the Dome Café have also taken their toll.

The response to the price increase has been mixed. Last week Faulkner received several emails protesting at the £2 price of Coca-Cola, prompting the items’ cost to be lowered to £1.60.

However, third year Luke Mead told The Student: “Teviot is convenient for me—I don’t even really notice the prices.”

Second year student Lucy Ellis added: “The allure of Teviot isn’t the food anyway. It’s the student events, societies and attractions that bring me here.”

ON THE RISE: Student union prices are set to increase - there goes your student loan

One in five UK universities are in debt Katie Cunningham

A STUDY of the education sector’s finances suggests that one in five of UK universities and higher education centres are in debt.

Carried out by accountants at Grant Thornton, the report studied the situation between 2009-10, before the recent funding reforms.

Half of the institutions have below the suggested surplus minimum, and while there was improvement for most institutions’ finances, 26 have suffered deterioration in their financial position.

The report has also predicted that

the UK government’s White Paper on funding changes for 2013-14 will create a middle group of universities with an 11 per cent income cut.

This will, according to Grant Thornton partner David Barnes, make a “two-tiered structure” based on the policy of letting high-ranking universities expand and accept more students.

The study comes after warnings from the UK Business Secretary Vince Cable that the UK government cannot continue to prop up institutions haemorrhaging money.

“We already have a lot of universities that are effectively broke. If they were in the private sector they would

have been filing for bankruptcy. Various arrangements have been cobbled together to keep them going, and we can’t continue to do that.”

The survey did show an overall improvement in the financial state of higher education; a surplus rise of £345 million to £811 million. Highranking Russell Group universities have enjoyed particularly strong financial growth.

However, the Universities and Colleges Union general secretary Sally Hunt insisted there were dangers in the development of a potential two-tiered system.

She said, “While there may be a handful of winners under the new

system, many institutions will struggle to cope financially with a new untested regime.”

“If the government is happy for some to fail then it should at least be brave enough to spell out which institutions it doesn’t believe are worth saving.”

It is expected that the research-focused universities of the 1994 Group will be particularly affected, with the lowest proportion of surpluses, and only 2.2% income.

David Barnes elaborated “The current policy of allowing universities to recruit as many AAB grade students as they can will inevitably lead to some polarisation. A key

EMILY JARETT

Student union bar prices set to rise

question will be how the less favoured universities are able to maintain their student numbers in the future, particularly if the number of students applying to universities declines.”

Responding to this, The Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) said that there are “strong cash balances and healthy reserve levels” for higher education institutions.

They added, “The sector is in good financial health. No institution is currently at risk of insolvency. Our expectation is that overall performance will remain robust over the next few years.”

Send your letters to:

������������������ Tuesday September 27 2011 ��� ���� editors@studentnewspaper.org �������������������� studentnewspaper.org

Editorial 7

Editorial

The Student hopes CERN's discovery will incite inquisitiveness For anyone who has not watched the news, scanned the papers or listened to the radio, this week concluded with a discovery hitherto thought impossible. The speed of light was previously regarded as the ultimate velocity, yet neutrinos have been found to travel faster by a fraction of 20 parts per million. For the uninformed this may seem the teeniest of amounts, but the constancy of the speed of light forms the cornerstone of our understanding of time, space and essentially the universe as a whole. This one theorem (proposed

by Einstein in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905) leads to startling consequences. It has been utilized to work out, basically, everything: from the age of universe to whether there is any immediate danger from astrological objects – if it is shown to be flawed, virtually all of modern physics would have to be rethought.

Whilst this news proved alarming for at least one of us (her physics degree might be ever so useless now), the discovery also presents a new opportunity for scientists to present their own grand theory to elucidate the universe, and maybe other subjects might benefit from a similar reversal of ideas. So in light of this, we began to wonder which other commonly accepted ideas we’d like to see thrown into question.

Here’s what we came up with: Why do we read from left to right?

Quite simply, it’s to do with smudging.

Where a culture’s written tradition begins with stone inscriptions – we’re thinking of the multi-lingual Persian inscriptions at Bisitun, for example – it is common for their writings still to be read from left to right. The Greeks began writing with ink, and because the majority of people are – and have been – right-handed, it is simply less messy to do it this way. In a world where less and less ink is spilt, this is becoming less of a reasoned choice and more of a case of “because we always have.” Is it time for this to change?

Why do we have a “type”?

Magazines abound with so-called scientific theories about facial symmetry and contrary ideas about attraction to opposites versus attraction to similarlooking folk. The point is, however, that we do tend to go for certain types of people. Here at The Student editors’ desk we are, for example, fans of darkhaired, kind-eyed boys and a quick survey of friends confirms that the notion of “the type” definitely exists (although when we cornered our assistant editor, he muttered “Dunno, not really fussed”). Regardless, it’s time to

turn all this on its head. Your mission for this week: chat up someone you wouldn’t normally go for.

Why do we need to sleep?

From experience, we’re inclined to answer “because otherwise we would go mad”, but maybe that’s more to do with endless copy-editing than actual lack of sleep. There are a handful of proposed explanations for sleep that not many scientists can agree upon, but, pleasingly, literature’s take on the matter is illuminating: try Jonathan Coe’s The House of Sleep for size.

When will there be good news?

A good one, this. After hearing our News editor say “Someone has lost their job? Now that’s a story” we felt rather morose about the state of the world.

Like it or not, the media has a tendency to focus on the negative: there is an assumption that cheerful news cannot be serious news. While we by no means advocate a head in the sand approach, our job would be more pleasant if the world would only be a little nicer. So do something great, and who knows, in our search for a happy story you might just end up in The Student.

Join us!

The Student is always looking for budding reporters, reviewers, illustrators, photographers, and designers to join our team.

No experience necessary!

“See if I'm quoting someone, what do I call them?”

“Their... name...?”

If you're interested, here’s how to track us down: » In person: Meetings every Tuesday at 1.15pm in the Pleasance Cabaret Bar. Socials every Tuesday from 8.30pm in the Counting House. » By email: editors@studentnewspaper.org » On Facebook: tinyurl.com/StudentFacebook » On Twitter: twitter.com/TheStudentPaper

“I can't possibly sub in sequins”

A quick history lesson...

Your editors, Anna & Eloise.

It's not all doom and gloom in the newsroom.

Overheard in the office this week: Tom, Tech editor, and Eloise get to grips with basics.

Anna may have had a little too much free wine at an art opening.

“Is it going to be like time travel though, or, you know, just seeing stuff?”

CERN's discovery is a really big deal for Music editor Tom.

“I just think it's slightly graphic and unnecessary to tear a lamb limb from limb”

The Student was launched by Scottish novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson in 1887 as an independent voice for Edinburgh's literati. It is Britain's oldest student newspaper and is an independent publication, reaching more than 10,000 University of Edinburgh students every week.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Kitchener, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill are a few of the famous people who have been associated with the paper. In the early 1970s, Gordon Brown worked as a news editor and diary columnist, working alongside Robin Cook who at the time was in charge of film and concert reviews.

News editor Calum is too sensitive for zoo stories.

“What has the monkey done? Just been born?”

Zoo chat continues. Tom doesn't think it's newsworthy stuff.

“Right, I'm going to look into your eyes and you're going to see me die. I hope that goes to the grave with you.”

Disclaimer

The Student welcomes letters for publication. The editors, however, reserve the right to edit or modify letters for clarity. Anonymous letters will not be printed but names will be witheld on request. The letters printed are the opinions of individuals outwith The Student and do not represent the views of the editors or the paper as a whole.

And then:

“Is drowning peaceful? No.”

Our assistant editor Gregor is the master of cheerful conversation.

“I think he's going to be a little cross that we made him a girl” Always the tactful sub-editor, eh, Eloise?

Editors Anna Feintuck/Eloise Kohler

News Sam Bradley/Calum Leslie/Gillian McPherson Comment Becky Chan/Lewis MacDonald Features Nina Bicket/Hannah Clark/Debbie Hicks Lifestyle Sophie Craik Tech Tom Hasler/Thom Louis Culture Zoe Blah/Michael Mackenzie Music Joshua Angrave/Tom Kinney Film Tess Malone/Ali Quaile TV Dan Heap Commission Kathryn Lloyd Sport Davie Heaton/Chris Waugh Copy editors Kirsty Mills/Zoe Pruce Assistant Editor for Production Gregor Donaldson Multimedia Luke Healey

Photo Editor Emily Jarrett

Website designed by Jack Schofield

“Why are you so insistent on having an ABBA pun?”

Gregor is baffled by News editor Sam.

“Cunt is not a viable headline”

But it's the perfect way to finish off the editorial page, isn't it, Anna?

President Sean Douglass  0131 650 9189

 Student Newspaper, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ  editors@studentnewspaper.org

Student Newspaper, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ. Tel: 0131 650 9189. The Student lists links to third party websites, but does not endorse them or guarantee their authenticity or accuracy. © Student Newspaper Society. All rights reserved. No section in whole or part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmited in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. The Student is published by the Student Newspaper Society, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ. Distributed by Lothian Couriers, 3 John Muir Place, Dunbar EH42 1GD. Tel: 01368 860115. Printed

by Cumbrian Newsprint (part of the CN Group), Carlisle Print Centre, Newspaper House, Dalston Road, Cumbria CA2 5UA, on Monday

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

8 Comment

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�

Substance or spin?

At first glance, it’s hard to take Vince Cable’s recent comments at the Lib Dem party conference, pledging to crack down on top executive pay, very seriously. ����� He’s been notably bad at sticking to his word; despite publicly floating the slightly ludicrous idea of abstaining on his own tuition fee policy, he, along with many Lib Dems, went explicitly against his preelection pledge not to raise tuition fees.

Bonuses are one of those issues on which the public is accustomed to seeing government talking the talk rather than walking the walk. At the height of public anger against inflated bonuses from bailed-out banks, ex-chancellor Alistair Darling levied a one-off windfall tax – but bankers and top executives seem to have been so far exempt from the coalition government's “no pain, no gain” approach to cutting the deficit.

“

Seeing workers on remuneration committees would be a good start in moving company structures towards democratic 21st century values."

Could Cable’s comments be the start of something new? He has announced ideas about giving shareholders the option to vote on pay in advance, new rules requiring companies to disclose more information about executive compensa-

tion, and also giving employees seats on remuneration committees. These all seem like necessary steps, but nothing which would fundamentally tackle the problem of excessive pay at the top – though seeing workers on remuneration committees, if implemented well, would be a good start in moving company structures towards something in line with democratic 21st century values.

Given that the coalition has no problem taking drastic measures which threaten to throw out the baby without the bathwater– taking an approach to socalled NHS reform which many in the health service think will take it towards the US’s disastrously regressive health insurance model – why not take the same approach to the bonus culture? Punitive levels of tax on high bonuses would send a signal that these executives are also a part of our society – and that Chancellor Osborne’s bitter medicine of deficit reduction applies to them too.

None of this is going to happen while Cable’s Tory coalition partners are scheming to abolish the 50p tax on high earners – which applies to only 1 per cent of Britons – but which a group of economists recently claimed was “doing lasting damage to the UK economy”. They gave no evidence for this assertion, which seems to bear as much resemblance to reality as the government’s hope that private sector growth will counter public sector cuts. Cable this weekend described the idea of dropping the 50p tax as “childish fantasy”. He went on to say: “I think their reasoning is this - all those British billionaires who demonstrate their pa-

SLIGHTLY TRAITOROUS: Vince Cable with Financial Times editor Lionel Barber triotism by hiding from the taxman in Monaco or some Caribbean bolt-hole will rush back to pay more tax but at a lower rate...Pull the other one."

He’s right – but on Monday he also claimed he’d be happy to see the 50p tax rate phased out, if replaced by a high tax on those with properties worth more than £2 million. He should stick to his guns; a mansion tax would be a step towards tackling the injustice which leaves many locked out of the property market

in Britain; but it is no replacement for a tax on excessively high incomes.

According to the thinktank One Society, pay ratios in Britain’s biggest companies range from around 656:1 at M&S to 48:1 at Capital Shopping Centres.

Vince Cable has said himself that “The performance of [British] companies has not demonstrably improved, yet people are being paid an awful lot more. There’s something happening that isn’t right.”

The problem will be solved by actions,

Love will tear us apart

not words – and it’s his actions which, once the Lib Dem party conference recedes into memory, Cable will be judged on. If it’s ideas he’s after, the independent High Pay Commission will certainly have some advice they'd be more than happy to share. Top executives will squeal over anything that really threatens their high incomes – the Business Secretary should hold his nerve, and take their inevitable protests as encouragement. It is a sign he is on the right track.

Susannah Compton assesses Lib Dem actions and discusses what the future holds for the coalition When I exited the polling booth in Tollcross two years ago, happy in the knowledge that I’d nailed my fledgling political colours to the Lib Dems’ mast, the current reality was not what I imagined.

Nick Clegg, in what to him must now seem the good old days, was a British Obama, a “game-changer”, the most exciting politician in a generation. Two years on: the media taunts and vilifies him by turns, his party’s popularity is scraping along at 13%, and 58% of the optimists who checked the box next to the little yellow bird in 2010 would not do so again at the next general election.

Indeed, I have taunted and vilified with the best of them. A generation of students will not forgive the Lib Dems their disgraceful and hugely damaging climb-down over tuition fees; a generation of people will not forgive them their support for the swiftest, deepest cuts to welfare and social spending in British history. Humiliatingly rejected at the polls over long-cherished voting reform and simultaneously pum-

meled in local government elections, they Telling, however, are the Conservawatched as Cameron absorbed the credit tive backbench grumbles of the Lib Dem for Lib Dem ideas such as low-earner tax leash holding them back. As Clegg said cuts. in his closing speech at the recent Liberal Democrat party conference, their role is to “anchor the government in the ground”. Indeed, it is generally The crisis narrative centre acknowledged that they are a useful liberal dominating media counter-weight to baser Tory impulses. It must be acknowledged too that the outand government put of the coalition has been sometimes encourages radical surprising for a Conservative-dominated action: the last thing government. On issues of abortion, school grants, crime and justice, energy policy, the either party wishes to NHS and Europe, Lib Dem influences be labeled is soft" are clear.

Problematically for much of their For those of us smarting at the actions electorate, the Liberal Democrats remain of a coalition nobody voted for, it is all too united with their Conservative partners easy to criticize. Very little of the Con- over the planned elimination of the deficit servative’s policy has been surprising. As by 2015, and in support for spending cuts the cuts bite and the economy continues as a means to that end. It has to be noted, to wallow, it is their junior coalition part- however, that the crisis narrative dominatners, the liberals, somehow overseeing this ing media and government throughout conservative agenda, who take the fall.

Europe and the US is a powerful motive

“

for radical action: the last thing either party wishes to be labeled as is ‘soft’.

The fact remains that the Lib Dems like being in government. Despite the ideological heartache their coalition partners cause, the prevailing conviction within the party that they are a force for good is steady. Public disagreements between Clegg and Cameron have become more frequent; in recent months the riots, the Human Rights Act and the Conservatives’ cherished free schools programme have been flashpoints between Liberal and Tory opinion.

There have been many failings too: the public’s favourite, Vince Cable, has proved remarkably unable to shore up his attacks on profligate spending, executive pay and bonuses in the City. The Lib Dems had nothing to say about the recent military action in Libya, nor very much about Afghanistan.

At their recent conference, Clegg promised delegates that they would “fight for greater fairness, even in the headwinds

financial times

Nick Dowson discusses whether Business Secretary Vince Cable's comments on executive pay withstand any scrutiny

of an economic slowdown”. He demanded that liberals refuse to apologise for the “difficult things we have to do”, and restated his commitment to his principles and to government, referencing recent BBC research which showed 75% of their manifesto has either been implemented or is in the process of being implemented..

For all his bullishness, the major problem of how to better communicate their achievements remains unaddressed. The party president Tim Farron has publicly acknowledged that the coalition “will end in divorce” and his party faces political annihilation at the next general election unless it can become a catalyst for, rather than a obstacle to, change. Their stoicism is commendable, but to quote Simon Jenkins in the Guardian, “for all the rumblings at the Birmingham conference, like Cathars an Montségur, the Lib Dems face death with discipline”.

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Comment 9

Business as usual

Joe Pilkington trusts the American public to respond to the Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal with tolerance

“

Like the British public, the majority of the American population can place tolerance as one of their best attributes" Our view of American politics always has the tendency to be tinged by viewing such issues through the prism of an American mass media by default. The notion that cable news, editorial pieces and talk radio represent a majority opinion in the United States is an unfortunate consequence of our unfamiliarity with normal American life. It is also a product of our openness to accepting the opinions shown by a lucrative media market that often caters to the vocal minority that

such a market exists to feed.

An example of this could be seen in the debate for Republican presidential candidates on Thursday evening. In an event sponsored by respectable corporations, television audiences were treated to a studio audience enthusiastically booing a video question regarding DADT from an openly gay soldier. To witness an American audience disgustingly jeer an active service member is an occurrence few will ever experience.

Patriotism, respect, appreciation and deference to active servicemen and women as well as veterans is a commendable staple of American life one will find in abundance in any of the fifty states, yet the global reach of News Corporation and Google will result in an international audience seeing such impertinence as a typical sample of American public sentiment.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Polling in December 2010, when Congress approved the legislation to repeal the discriminatory policy of discharging openly gay personnel, showed that 67 per cent of Americans approved the action. Like the British public, the majority of the American population can place tolerance of alternative nationality, lifestyle, sexuality and, yes, even race, as one of their best attributes. While American minority, (and often controversial) opinions perhaps have a more effective platform than their European counterparts, we must not be diverted from the fact that the United States, for all its sociological inadequacies and faults that plague many nations, remains a country that prides itself on acceptance and patriotism.

Critics may point to the opinions of legislators such as John McCain who have voiced their disapproval for the repeal. While the Arizona Senator has experience of the Armed Forces few can

Track record

REPEALED: 20th September 2011 marked the end of the DADT policy challenge when it comes to resilience and endeavour, his changes in opinion over the recent electoral cycle on the topic DADT unfortunately make him one whose motives for opining such scepticism can be linked to the perils of securing party nomination. It would seem logical to turn to senior staff in the Pentagon for judgement on the impact of repealing DADT, and as has been seen throughout

A measly serving

monewshorizon

With the sunrises over US military installations across the world last Tuesday came the advent of a new period of cultural acceptance and transparency for the homosexual community within the American military. In the cultural maelstrom that is the debate surrounding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), however, it is imperative to remember the argument of the Air Force Staff Sergeant who, upon the repeal of the policy, told ABC News that “we haven’t just popped up today; we’ve been here all along.”

What do we make of the repeal? Is it an action of the Obama administration to fulfil a campaign promise to satisfy the liberal base of his support? Or does this in fact indicate a greater tolerance among the American population that is often missed in the great chaos of liberal versus conservative, as which much of American politics is crudely caricatured?

this process, most of them believe it will be slender at most.

As Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week, “it’s the right thing to do. It’s done. We need to move on.” I would place good money on the military machinery of the world’s superpower moving on in these coming weeks, months and years with business as usual.

The early release of expenses-fiddling MPs leaves the justice system looking deficient, argues Rebecca Parker Elliot Morley, former Labour environment minister, was released from an open prison on Tuesday 20th September, despite being only a quarter of a way into his 16 month sentence. He was found guilty of making fraudulent expenses claims of around £30,000 in May of this year, after the widespread revelations of similarly distressing trickery amongst MPs astounded the country. Is this justice adequately served, or really the kick in the teeth it may feel like?

Despite everyone’s moral outrage being given a thorough work-out a couple of years back as a result of the expenses scandal, there was still a palpable sense of “Wait, what?” from both the public and MPs when it was decided that the most serious offenders would face trial for their false claims. It turned out that at least some of them still had to answer to the judicial system. The news that Morley and others would be spending time in prison following these trials provoked at least a few air-punches: a small consolation in the face of what felt like such an enormous betrayal for many.

However, those air-punches are

quietly being withdrawn now, if they have not been already. After all, Morley is by no means the first of the sentenced MPs to be released early. Three former Labour and two Conservative MPs have already had their time in prison cut short, though the figure for Morley’s false expenses – which he claimed as payments on houses for which the mortgages had already been paid in full – is significantly higher than those of David Chaytor, Eric Illsley, Jim Devine, Lord Taylor and Lord Hanningfield.

“

The convictions that once felt like a minor retribution now look more like Kodak moments for the apparent impartiality of the justice system" Though it is easy to look upon the decision to release these MPs early as yet another perfidy, and indeed the MPs themselves as villains of panto-

mime proportions, what is perhaps more important to note is that the expenses scandal had a cast that included far more than those who were trialled and sentenced. In fact, Eric Illsley mentioned, upon his release in May, that there were “many others who [had] walked free,” and, though true, it was simply hard to hear him over all the booing.

More objectively, perhaps the prevalent issue here is the early release of prisoners in general, in which context one bespectacled MP’s premature return to freedom seems to wither in importance. When compared with the contentious subject of others appealing for early release – those convicted of GBH or sexual assault for instance – Morley’s case may well appear less significant. The home detention curfew scheme (HDC) for low-risk prisoners allows Morley to return to his home and his life (if not his career) and could perhaps be seen as fair: he is not considered a dangerous criminal. Yet, somehow, it feels off-beam to base a prisoner’s candidacy for early release on the relativity of their crime. These factors should be taken into account

during sentencing, so that the justice system does not undermine its position as an institution dedicated not only to making fair judgments but also to enforcing their consequences.

There is another question to be considered as well: would anyone else who committed fraud to the tune of £30,000 be granted similar leeway? It seems unlikely. It seems instead that Morley is enjoying the more pleasant side of the double-edged sword one is forced to carry as a public figure. However much the public may enjoy seeing scandalous politicians squirm under a particular shade of limelight, the perks of special treatment are a part of the deal that also have to be accepted.

Without declaring Morley a menace to society - he cannot reasonably be called that - allowing him to walk away from his prison sentence so prematurely will cause many to ask what it was all for. The convictions that once felt like a minor retribution now look more like Kodak moments for the apparent impartiality of the justice system. Even if full-blown outrage isn’t justified, I feel no air-punches or victory dances forthcoming in light of Morley’s jail-break.

This week, train operators will be called up, hopefully to a firing squad, to reveal their next five-year spending plan, after being warned that the current level of government support they receive is unsustainable. With this announcement, a moral quandary has emerged.

On the one hand, plagiarism is an abhorrent practice and so unintentionally, yet inevitably, paraphrasing David Mitchell’s soapbox rant on the shitness of trains would be terrible. On the other hand, being continually bent over by the train “service” has become rather bothersome, and any opportunity to voice this bother should be gratefully accepted.

Train travel in the UK has developed the remarkable ability to make you feel like a piece in a Monopoly game, where every time fate cruelly puts you in the path of the railway company you find yourself out of pocket and having to sell your house.

The train companies are probably the ballsiest thugs out therethey have the audacity to charge you, straight-faced, £108 for the privilege of standing next to a bin for five hours on your single journey down the country, whilst making you feel like it’s your own fault, of course, for not having the foresight to book your trip a month in advance. The experience of crowding in with your fellow fools, sharing a cocktail of fury, resentment and shame, is one that is truly unique to the British rail network.

They also have the audacity to hire a soulless, beady-eyed conductor to inform you of your obligation to pay the fare in its entirety again, due to the fact that you’re on the 11 o’clock “service” instead of the 10 o’clock, like you’re supposed to be, you absolute, bloody idiot.

What makes the situation worse is what makes the situation possible at all. The companies can charge you whatever they like, because you don’t have any other choice.

Don’t like it? Well, you can get off at the next stop. There are plenty of other passengers who’ll pay the extortionate fees, because they, like you, need to get to work and make a living.

With the kind of thievery that takes place every day as a matter of business for the train companies, the concept of them needing to make any savings is a difficult one to grasp. However, when the spending plan announces, as it inevitably will, that the subsidisers of these savings will be the fare-payers themselves, everything will suddenly make sense after all.

Rebecca Chan

�

Got an idea for a feature? Let's hear it!: features@studennewspaper.org

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

13 Features

Bullies on campus

spduchamp

Adults do it too: Francesca Mitchell draws back the curtain on the hushed-up world of bullying at university

Bullying - it’s juvenile, immature and oh-so high school, something we left at the school gates with our battered textbooks and overly-signed school shirt, right? Coming to university, students are given the chance to reinvent themselves - new people, a new place, a clean slate.

The days of bitchy girls whispering in the common room and infantile schoolboy wedgie banter are behind us. Or so we might have thought. Sadly, current statistics indicate otherwise, with everincreasing reports of bullying and harassment occurring at university. It seems that we were wrong: bullying didn’t end on the playground.

According to a recent government survey, instances of bullying occur every seven minutes in the UK. It happens in schools, from nursery to sixth form, in the workplace, within families and friendship groups – and university is no exception.

A survey conducted earlier this year by UK-based charity Beatbullying found that one in three young people has experienced abuse at the hands of their peers.

Such abuse can be verbal, physical, psychological, and at university is most commonly thought to be on racial, sexual, or intellectual grounds, although

conditions vary from case to case. Indeed, bullying could be constituted as anything from severe physical abuse to the torment of “that guy” who is singled out as a scapegoat for “harmless” banter.

“

The unwillingness of students to discuss - or indeed, report - university bullying is one of its most worrying facets."

Psychologist Dr Pauline RenniePeyton claims that “all bullying is about impact, not intention; if someone is upset by it, it is not a joke.”The effect that bullying and harassment have on people varies, but in addition to reported instances of students dropping out of university due to such maltreatment, there also appear to be more long-term effects in terms of mental health.

Professor Helen Cowie, a psychologist at the Roehampton Institute has explained that “longer term effects of bullying can be very negative on the selfesteem and self-worth. In some places,

people can become clinically depressed.”

Whilst extensive research has been carried out concerning bullying in schools and the workplace, investigations into the frequency and effects of bullying amongst university students have only been taken up comparatively recently. Nevertheless, many students are affected by bullying during their time at university, and there are certain aspects of university life which are conducive to this sort of behaviour.

For some, university entails a social struggle, not unlike that experienced at secondary school, as many individuals compete for popularity, especially in small, close-knit campus communities.

This is especially the case given the way in which many new students are living in new towns, new circumstances and have their own insecurities to deal with in a period of such dramatic change in their lives.

This period of change, termed by one student counsellor as “destabilising”, makes for both potential bullies and potential victims of bullying, as individuals try to find ways to assert and explore their own identities.

Moreover, given the technological inclinations of the current student demographic, another form of harassment

is noted to have come to the fore: cyber bullying. The constant use of smartphones, laptops, the internet and social networking sites has provided a whole new outlet for inter-student aggression.

From abusive text messages and emails to the use of websites such as Facebook with updates and “frapes’”increasingly becoming the order of the day.

According to charity campaigners, this kind bullying is escalating at a worrying rate with around half a million young people currently experiencing significant cyber bullying.

“

The days of bitchy girls whispering in the common room and infantile school-boy wedgie “banter” are behind us. Or so we might have thought."

Furthermore, a study conducted at a Midwestern American university found that 38% of students knew someone who had been cyber-bullied, 21.9% indicated

they had been subject to cyber bullying, and 8.6% admitted having being cyber-bullies at some point in their time at university. Concerns about this technological aggression are growing, especially after the suicide of a homosexual Rutgers University student, who killed himself after being “outed” on Facebook via his roommate posting photos and videos onto the social networking site.

However, the unwillingness of students to discuss - or indeed report - university bullying is one of its most worrying facets. Many hope for the situation to just blow over, or figure that since we are adults now, we should just deal with it. For many, it seems that gone are the days of schoolroom justice, where informing a teacher or parent of the problem signalled light at the end of the tunnel.

At university, there can be an apparent loss of close or consistent contact with members of staff, and a feeling that, as one student articulates, “the university as an establishment doesn’t care”. Despite the duty that those in charge have to care and look after students, there appears to be what Dr Rennie-Peyton described as “a lack of confidence in the system”.

Dr. Rennie-Peyton advocates the idea of student bullying victims taking initiatives in helping themselves in other ways, especially if they feel that their University is either doing nothing or unlikely to help. “Don’t keep it to yourself,” she said. “Keep a diary of the events; when, where, who were the witnesses, what time it happened, the impact it had on you and then take it further to members of staff – and if they’re not prepared to do anything about it, take it to the principal.”

However, one third-year student comments, “It would just feel so petty and useless to make a complaint. I’d be scared of sounding whiny or pathetic, and I don’t really see what difference the establishment could make. What would be the point? The only thing you can do is stand up to a bully.”

Indeed, it is a commonly-accepted theory that often the most effective way of dealing with a bully is to confront them. This is much easier said than done, though. It is important for students to be aware of the support networks that are in place to help them, even if just as an anonymous encouragement. Nightline and other such organisations are very noteworthy in this respect: they offer completely anonymous and nonjudgmental services. The university may also be able to help arrange counselling or self-help sessions for those who need them.

It is clear that student bullying is not an issue that can or should be ignored any longer. In schools and workplaces, there are much more formal proceedings against bullies and harassers, but this should not mean that the topic of bullying at university is taboo. Silent suffering has gone on long enough.

Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on Facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper �������� Tuesday ���������� September ��� 27 ���� 2011 features@studentnewspaper.org �������������������� studentnewspaper.org

Features 11

Five stages of Freshers

Fresh as a daisy? Or fresh out of juice? The Student analyses the best - and worst - week of your life The bunting is down, the societies have retired to their obscure corners of the Pleasance and fewer rabbles of dazed teens are trudging up and down Nicholson Street dressed in old tea cosies. As yet another Freshers’ Week oozes to a close, we thought we'd take a closer look at the tumbling descent from fresh-faced first year to grumpy graduate. Kübler-Ross would be proud.

Freshers’ week was immense. The mood was set by the greatest club night known to manBIG CHEESE. It so lived up to the hype! Dancing all night to The Spice Girls and S Club 7’s greatest hit was the best way to kick off what I know will be the best four years of my life.

My flatmates and I really bonded as we lost ourselves in the familiar sensations of The Macarena.

Nursing a wicked Strongbow and Sambuca hangover, the next afternoon I made my way over to the poster sale to pick up some awesome new decorations for my walls.

I managed to nab a super chill Bob Marley poster, which I’ll bet no one else has.

I also joined 17 societies, and while I know that fitting all of their meetings into my schedule will be a challenge, I’m really committed to all of them and have paid membership in full.

The week was rounded off by a fancy-dress pub crawl. I wore my old school uniform, only sexier, but oddly a large number of people seemed to have had the same idea!

They took us to some of the greatest pubs like Medina and Rush, and then everything got a bit hazy.

Although I still can’t find my school tie or campus map, Freshers’ was by far the most amazing experience of my life, and I know I’ll never forget it!

Frannie Fresher

Stage Two: Crippling Illness I’m spending the start of second year at University in the same way I spent the start of first year – being very, very ill. Fresher’s Flu, “the Sickness”, or just “FF” is, like stale pizza or high-priced alcohol, the age-old enemy of the student.

During Freshers’ Week I brashly declaimed to my fellow studentsin-arms that I looked forward to contracting the infamous lurgy, believing it to be a badge of honour and a proud symbol of seven day’s partying. How I wish I could retract those foolish words.

The causes of fresher’s flu can be boiled down to a sanitarian’s nightmare. Thousands upon thousands of people, who have never before met, sourced from every corner of the globe, are abruptly packed together in clubs, pubs and halls, and then deprived of sleep for seven days. This is combined with bad city air, bad city water and repeated

liber

Stage One: Delusion

hangovers. All it takes is one sneeze and a whole flat will be out of action for weeks to come. Nobody is safe; from fresher to post-grad all must run the risk.

Of course there is an upside to being quarantined in my room like a freshly-infect zombie – I have all the time in the world to start my coursework readings. Oh joy.

Robert MacNiven

Stage Three: The Munchies As an incoming Fresher student, I had my first prandial experience at The Mosque Kitchen this week. Not being of a religious bent, but having heard much talk of this institution (not to mention its cameo role in the Freshers’ week improvised musical show Showstopper), I was a little apprehensive as to what I would find at this Nicolson Street gaff.

But poking my head through the restaurant door in a ravenous postlecture stupor soon allayed my fears, as an array of delicious fumes issuing from a curry counter canteen set-up assaulted me. A jolly bunch of staff were dolloping food onto plastic plates with lightening efficiency, and the queue soon moved swiftly through.

A quick look at the menu revealed a decent selection of dishes at the counter. Being a sandal-wearing, Guardian-reading vegetarian I went for the lentil Dahl curry, which came splodged aloft a satisfyingly deep-dished portion of rice. If you’re looking for value for money, this place is evidently a hard act to

follow.

A sizeable veggie curry and naan will set you back all of four quid. A fellow diner-in-crime went for the lamb option, which I’ve been assured was filling, albeit at a slightly pricier £4.50. All the meat served is Halal, if that’s your particular primordial bag.

For a first-timer it should be noted that just another cheap restaurant this ain’t. Although the whole set-up looks a cushtie little number for the owners, it’s run by a group of fifty volunteers and the profits from the organisation go to charity. The philosophy of this eatery seems pretty desirable; payment for food can be discretionary.

If people look as if they are in need of help, they can expect to be served for free three times.

The Mosque Kitchen seems a pretty chic amalgamation of the commercial and the charitable. And it doesn’t necessarily require backing from a religious organisation to make it work; in my Utopian world I envisage this style of Dickensian soup kitchen up and down the land.

Perhaps - God forbid - posing a challenge to the atherosclerosisinducing Greggs regime.

John Hewitt-Jones

too much. I entered this new experience feeling slightly angry and a bit grumpy, but came away happy as I had got everything I needed to settle in to Uni life - and it was free!

A Free Shop is a giveaway; for a chosen donation to the organising charity People and Planet, you are allowed to enter the room at Potterrow where mountains of clothes, books, shoes, furniture and assorted paraphernalia await. Most of it was left behind in vacated flats from the year before, apparently by people who don’t need their (perfectly good) stuff. This is a great way to raise money and the scheme fully deserves its growing success.

In its beginnings the queue was short, composed mainly of Freshers clasping shoulder bags for taking home ��������������������������������� “�������������������������������� something little for the flat��� ”��.

This year, having carefully checked the time, date and location, we waited for an hour, surrounded by muscular fourth years and armed with IKEA sacks while the line stretched to Teviot. The Free Shop deserves to become an annual part of Freshers’ Week. Fun, cheap and for charity, it’s the perfect student experience.

Katie Cunningham

Stage Four: Free Shit

Stage Five: Acceptance

Discovering Free Shopping was the best thing to come out of my Freshers’ Week after six days of feeling lost, a little lonely, awkward and skint from spending

Whenever I hear a student speak about Freshers’ week, no matter which university they went to and in which part of the world, their account often finishes with

the typical cliché: it was the best week of my life.

Speaking now as a third year whose memories of Freshers’ Week are hazy (eroded by the alcohol consumed at the time, or perhaps by the coping mechanism that refuses to let me remember those awkward conversations I had with anyone about how many brothers they have and where, exactly, their house can be found on Google Maps), I can safely say that Freshers' was not the best week of my life – and thank goodness. ��������������������������������� That’s not to say that Freshers’ Week wasn’t a great experience: it was. I bounced with excitement at my proximity to the holy-grail of freedom: being able to drink as much as I like, eat what I wanted and wander home at 3am without a crabby parent making some none-too-subtle remark about my inability to fit a key in a lock without waking up the whole house. I saw some great acts (a friend being hypnotised and made to see everyone naked was a particularly awkward, hilarious highlight) and I eagerly signed up to mailing lists of societies that, two years later, I’ve still never attended. Salsa society?

I’ve always liked dancing. Ultimate Frisbee team? Why not?

But a couple of years down the line, most of those friendships I desperately forged in that first week have simmered to nothing more than a name on a Facebook page and a drunken picture outside Big Cheese, from which I’ve long since removed the dreaded tag.

There’s too much pressure put on freshers to have a perfect first week experience. There are those who deem a night not spent drunk having “the best time of your life” is considered a failure and believe that you end the week with a ton of new friends that will last a lifetime.

With Facebook and Twitter, the freshers experience has become an inescapable public statement – a signal of how well you’re doing at uni and (most importantly) of how you’re having a better time than all your friends who chose elsewhere.

The pressure to present evidence of such a perfect week has detracted from what Freshers' should really be about: a fun, light-hearted week of settling in to your new environment and finding out what’s there for you to get involved in.

Of all the people I met at Freshers', I keep in touch with only a handful now. And I’ve had better nights, too. Edinburgh is slow to reveal itself to you, but once it does you discover all the hidden gems that will give you those nights you’ll never forget simply because they were so great you still talk about them a year later. Suddenly Freshers’ week becomes nothing more than a fond but distant memory.

So do not despair if Freshers' wasn’t all you expected it to be, because the four years you’ve got ahead of you in Edinburgh will be so much more.

Gillian Connell

ScholarShipS and Student Funding ServiceS

Money worries getting in the way of your studies?

the university of edinburgh administers funds to assist students struggling with their finances for More inforMation go to: www.ed.ac.uk.student-funding/ financial-assistance

Supporting Students and Changing Lives The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

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Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Lifestyle 13

lifestyle

No room at the inn

The Regular Guy's Guide to Style One: The Trouble With Tees

It's the peril of all Edinburgh-dwellers: Melissa Geere lets us in on the secret of happy Festival hostessing

couple of weeks ago, Topman A was at the centre of controversy over their new misogynist

and so we muddled through.

The last hanger-on finally departed at the beginning of September, and I was left with a flat littered with greasy nacho trays and empty bottles, as well as a carpet of flyers and ticket stubs. Plates had been smashed, the whiteboard in the hall was covered with obscenities, Mariokart had gone missing, and nothing was in its rightful cupboard.

“

I was left with a flat littered with greasy nacho trays and empy bottles, as well as a carpet of flyers."

BALANCING ACT: Sleeping arrangements reach ridiculous levels legends about the history of Edinburgh, based on only a modicum of fact. You have to accept, however, that you can’t please everyone. When I had a guest on one side asking if we can do shots and go to the Hive, and another tugging my sleeve wanting to get up at 7am and go for a run round the Meadows, sacrifices had to be made...and if these sacrifices affect my long-term fitness, so be it.

You also have to understand the inconvenience that will be caused to your flatmates. I could only apologise when my flatmate came home for the week-

DIAMOND GEYSER

Since moving to Edinburgh for University, I have noticed a curious phenomenon among my wider social group. Every August, when the festival comes to town, I suddenly become incredibly popular. Am I a more attractive person in the summertime? No - I own a flat in the city that becomes the centre of the cultural universe, and my freeloading friends want sofa space.

This year, I decided to embrace the extra popularity, and threw my home open to anyone who had the gall to ask. I had fifteen visitors who stayed for an average of seven nights, though the longest stuck around for thirty-two days. I was often seen leading hordes through Bristo Square, being mistaken by some for a tour guide. As hosting is a role most students inevitably have to play, I would like to share a few home truths gained from my experience.

Guests are such a responsibility - no stopping off anywhere on the way home in case they’re crying outside your door in the rain, waiting for you to let them in. They get really panicky if you tell them they can make their train in half an hour, and then you get held up on the Royal Mile by clusters of raincoat-wearing tourists watching street performers - don’t they know there’s a Fringe on?

As a host, you have a duty of care, but guests have a duty too. They have a duty not to cut their toenails on their host’s living room carpet. Or to make a vodka watermelon and leave it rotting on the kitchen counter for two weeks, thus wasting an entire bottle of vodka and a watermelon.

I did everything I could for my guests. I improvised shot glasses out of cocktail stick containers and vitamin bottles (like a Bear Grylls of hostessing), and I even made up impressive

end to find one of my guests asleep in her bed. We shouldn’t then have rolled home at 5am, put on loud music and proceeded to cook and eat her frozen parsnips, mistaking them for oven chips.

Thankfully I found a way to soothe everyone’s ragged nerves and keep the peace: if that month taught me anything, it’s that nacho feasts will patch over any tricky situation. With a carefully planned feeding schedule, I was able to keep guests, flatmates and myself at a reasonable level of cooperation,

I expected to feel relieved, yet there was an emptiness in my soul. There had always been readily scroungeable food, someone offering to buy me a drink, music and laughter and plans being made, friendships being forged over takeaways. What I missed was the feeling of being in the midst of so many people’s good times, knowing you’re creating enjoyment for others. That’s the real fun of hostessing, and it really hits home when they’ve all gone back to their boring normal lives, yet still message each other on Facebook with the jokes that they shared thanks to your hospitality.

Whether you have guests who stay for a cup of tea or attempt to move in, it’s the same feeling, and I would unhesitatingly recommend throwing open your doors, because at the end of it, you’ll be the one who benefits the most.

Things that go squeak in the night It might not just be flatmates stealing your food - Lilidh Kendrick looks into the problem of undesirable visitors of products claiming to get rid of them. Snap traps and glue traps can be bought for as little as fifty pence (though just how humane they are is questionable). Call me soft, but I just can’t bring myself to set a trap that glues mice down and leaves them to die slowly of stress and starvation.

I’m not suggesting we should adopt them, knit them waistcoats or give them cute names, but torture should not be the solution.

“

I'm not suggesting we should adopt them, knit them waistcoats or give them cute names, but torture should not be the solution" A quick browse on the internet suggests some bizarre remedies, from peppermint and cayenne pepper to fox urine. Full marks for ingenuity but in all honesty I think I’d rather keep the mice than have my flat smelling of fox pee. The Council’s advice is to

A SERIOUS PROBLEM?: It's not all fun and games with mice simply make sure we are not giving mice a reason to be in our homes in the first place. My flatmates and I are starting off the semester firmly resolved to keep our flat clutter-free, our food properly stored and our bins frequently emptied to encourage our mice to pack their bags and patter off in search of a new home.

We’ve even come up with something we call the “poop patrol”. Once a week one of us takes on the task of patrolling the flat in search of mouse evidence – paw prints, droppings, teeth marks and holes in the walls.

Not the most glamorous job in the world but it’s definitely helping to get straight to the source of the problem.

Mice have collapsible skulls meaning they can squeeze through the smallest of cracks, even as small as a pen, and so to make sure they don’t return use steel wool to patch up holes to ensure that once they’re out they stay out.

So, if you’d prefer not to wake up in the middle of the night to find a family of mice partying on your leftover Domino’s, grab the steel wool and get poop patrolling!

ATLNAV

As many of us are settling into our new flats, it is an unnerving discovery to find that you are sharing your home with some unwanted squatters – mice.

We all have our own opinions on them; some say cute and others say vermin, but no-one likes the idea of sharing their home, and their cornflakes, with the far too common house mouse. According to Edinburgh Council’s pest control department, reports of mice infestations have risen over recent years. More than half of the students I talked to have mouse problems – and many more of you may just not know it yet! Although mice are a problem in many urban areas, Edinburgh’s dense population, historical buildings and underground vaults make it particularly mouse friendly.

There is a lot to consider when deciding how to tackle an infestation.

Firstly, there are cost issues. Professional extermination companies are certainly an effective way to get rid of mice, however, at a cost of around £87.50 to hire out this hit squad, I can definitely think of better ways to spend my student loan.

Of course there are cheaper methods available. Walk into any bargain shop and you’ll see an array

t-shirt designs. In case you haven’t seen, one of them carries the line: “Nice new girlfriend. What breed is she?”. There was public outrage and the store were eventually forced to take them off their shelves. This complete lack of judgement and taste by designers at one of the most popular men’s clothes retailers is part of a wider trend in men’s fashion to come up with the most provocative and outrageous designs for t-shirts which has been developing for years. Personally, I don’t see the attraction in buying a perfectly nice t-shirt emblazoned with a so-called joke.

It’s not just the sexist ones which make me cringe. Another example (also part of the Topman range) is “This is what perfection looks like.” Presumably, those purchasing such tops somehow think that by wearing a hilariously arrogant slogan they automatically gain comedic credit and are therefore miraculously more attractive.

Maybe it’s common knowledge that by wearing a top which says “FUH Q” you are guaranteed at least one reaction along the lines of “OMG, that is a hilarious play on phonetics; an outrageous yet subtle public display of outrage… fancy a quickie?”

I suppose it depends where you go out, but surely it is more likely that such a t-shirt would probably do the opposite, and in fact show that due to lack of character or conversation skills the wearer feels the need to provide a prompt for anyone who is crazy enough to approach them in a social situation. Sadly, their continued feature in shop-fronts suggests that this prospect hasn’t put off the so-called witty lads looking for a laugh.

My animosity towards printed t-shirts isn’t without boundaries.

I would, for example, consider buying a t-shirt with my favourite album cover or lyric on it. At least then there is some personal connection between you and the design your chest is proudly flaunting. Sometimes I do find myself laughing at the very tshirts of which I am here despairing, because - whisper it - some of them are actually funny. Then I slap myself out of it and remind myself that there are thousands of others wearing exactly the same thing, which brings me on to my final point: buying these t-shirts is a risky business. Most of us know how embarrassing it is to turn up to a club, take off your jumper, and realise that the guy next to you is wearing the same t-shirt. Well, imagine the same situation, but instead of the mild embarrassment of the guy next to you wearing the a matching bogstandard grey t-shirt, you are both letting the surrounding audience know that you are “Also available in sober *excluding weekends.”

Does it get any worse?

Daniel Kraemer

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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14 Technology

Rockstar’s L.A. Noire was a brilliant idea well executed. The adventure and puzzle game ideals that it brought back into modern games were vital progressions of what gaming can and should be; and you get to chase down baddies in awesome 40’s cars. Unfortunately, although there was enough drama and suspense to fill a cheesy horror movie, L.A Noire never felt like a cop game to me.

As a Brit, I am not used to seeing police officers gun people down.

In fact, even when armed citizens do get involved and half a city is on fire, the police still won’t touch their firearms (see the England riots for examples). In L.A Noire, on the other hand, Cole Phelps, the hero, will brandish and fire his weapon at the slightest sign of danger or wrongdoing. In the U.S this is a sign of constant and vigilant law enforcement; in Europe this is police brutality that would end in a 4 year long court case and a hearing in front of a police complaints commission.

This dangerous policing is only made worse by the fact that it is impossible not to kill the criminals that you are shooting. As Phelps, I would often go out of my way to try and find a method that you could use to dispatch criminals without killing them; shooting them in the legs, hitting their weapon hands; trying to go up close and simply knock the perpetrators out. None work. In fact, you are punished for attempting to play in a non-lethal way as the longer the baddies stay alive, the more likely it is that they will kill you. Every time I saw the coroner's van at the end of a nasty fire-fight, I felt more ashamed than proud. This idea works well with L.A Noire’s 1940’s portrayal of law enforcement running free and unchecked but does not go along, at least in a European mindset, with Phelps’ unyielding dedication to justice and the letter of the law.

These problems are made even worse by the only times that the game allows you to take criminals alive. These are occasions when Phelps wants information or a conviction. This isn’t justified policing; this is a loose canon, crazed and dangerous law work. Rockstar could have easily introduced a non-lethal system that would have followed on with the ideas created by Red Dead Redemption which rewarded you far more generously if the outlaws you caught were alive and thus you could serve justice, rather than leaving them dead in the dust. It seems peculiar that a cowboy assassin in the frontier west can deliver more law enforcement then a badge holding 1940’s detective.

As a consequence of all this, L.A. Noire feels more like one of Rockstar’s older gangster games than it does an eye-opening look at the American police-force. This does not damage the game but rather pushes a European player in a direction I’m not sure the developers ever thought of. It doesn’t hurt the game completely however. A British cop game would have involved the boys in blue lending out their hats to pregnant ladies.

Thom Louis

Wrench in the Gears

Tom Hasler revisits the past, re-battling the same monsters in Gears of War 3 gears of war 3 EPIC GAMES XBOX 360 £40

 The Gears of War series has not aged gracefully. In comparison to the seminal first instalment released in 2007, Gears of War 3 feels like a tired retread of old territory. Many of the features that made Gears of War stand out from the crowd four years ago are now abundant in, if not exhausted by, other games. As a consequence, Gears of War 3 can often feel underwhelming and many of the series’ weakest elements are brought under tighter scrutiny.

At its core, Gears is still focused on cover based combat, embellished with extravagant violence. Those who pick up the game will find a refined shooter that rewards teamwork and tactics. It’s certainly well designed and entertaining, and between the various solo, team based and competitive modes there is a lot of content to enjoy for your money. The vast majority of it, however, is rehashed from previous games, with only a handful of new maps and weapons to sate series veterans. The only exception to this mass recycling effort is the new Beast game which places players in the shoes of the monsters that would normally be on the receiving end of their chainsaws.

This kind of role reversal has been done before in games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Dead Space 2. Yet those versions weren’t particularly well designed or the characters well implemented and it just felt like a gimmick to sell more

games. Beast mode, while still a gimmick, is certainly well implemented and designed, combining escalating challenge with a currency system as well as a gradually expanding selection of weird and wonderful fiends to control.

“

Gears 3 ups the dramatics, depicting a desperate assortment of sob scenes, plot twists and vendettas."

The game’s setting and story also feel redundant. Having been something of a bandwagon, even before the first Gears of War, the post apocalyptic setting is fast becoming a cliché that

inspires moans of discontent from those who have seen ruined cities and desert wastes countless times before.

The setting is saved from mediocrity

by Epic’s penchant for stylised visuals, which result in some gorgeous environments. There is no saving grace for the story, however, which has continued its decline from earlier titles.

The first game’s plot was average but potential laden. The second’s backstory could be described as confusing at best. Gears 3 ups the dramatics, depicting a desperate assortment of sob scenes, plot twists and vendettas.

The characters are at their best when they are acting distant, snarky and professional, while the attempt to add emotional gravitas falls flat on its face.

If anything, the game is far worse with said drama present as it denies players

the opportunity to enjoy the game as simple, shallow fun. Forcing judgement of the plot based on raw merit which is frankly lacking.

Ultimately, the Gears series was never built on sure foundations.

Essentially being a well realised execution of exiting ideas, Gears of War was a masterclass in solid design and presentation. It didn’t hurt that the game looked comparitively amazing back in 2007 either. This initial lack of innovation has injured the current instalment’s "wow factor". It’s still great fun to play; newcomers and veterans alike will still find entertainment in Gears 3, but it’s totally missable and a disappointment for those expecting a significantly improved experience. It even fails to provide an ending to the story that John Grisham wouldn’t use for loo roll.

SHOCKING: A woman is present on the battlefield - blonde and busty no doubt

A positive vibe?

Hannah Douglas examines Facebook's newest rival: Google+

KUTCHER: There are only 26 people he cares about on G+ Originally opened with an invitation only policy, back in June 2011, Google+ is now available to all. Of course, the invite only policy has been wearing thin the past couple of months. The invited community was so large that chances are if you wanted an invite, someone you knew could give you one. Functionally, Google+ feels very similar to

Facebook, but has a handful of features that set it apart from the networking behemoth.

The most significant new feature is circles; analogous to real world social circles, circles are essentially groups of people you want to keep contact with. The default circles that Google+ provides are Friends, Family and Acquaintances along with

a circle for celebrities you want to follow. On top of that, you can create custom circles for other social groups you may be a part of. The great thing about circles is that being added to someone’s circle doesn’t obligate you to add them to the same circle. They will also never know which circle you added them to. So if your boss adds you as a friend you can choose to add him as an acquaintance or work friend and all he’ll know is that you added him. It also means that if you share drinking anecdotes with your university friends your family members won’t see it, avoiding those awkward jokes your parents make because they saw your post about the novelty of glow in the dark condoms. Ultimately, it makes you feel better about adding that weird guy you knew from school, knowing you won’t then be inundated with his weekly breakfast menu or someone else’s racist commentary on US politics.

This new concept isn’t seen as a Facebook killer by those who have tried it. “Google Plus is awesome, if only for the fact that it's driving Facebook to massively update its interface,” reports Edinburgh gradu-

ate Simon Vansintjan. Google+ also has to contend with the current controversy regarding how social networks handle your information, as explained by The Student's former Technology editor, Alan Williamson. “I don’t need to try Google+ to know I don’t need another advertising company harvesting my details, especially one as sinister as Google.”

Of course, Facebook is saved mostly by people's existing dependency on the network, whist Google+ lacks any features significant enough to justify theoretically doubling the exposure of your personal life to faceless corporations.

It’s hard to say that Google+ is already dead on arrival; its circles feature may see many using it as a compliment to Facebook, in the same way Twitter is often used.

Nicely, news feeds can be sorted into categories that fit your mood.

Widespread use probably won’t happen for months so there is certainly no hurry. In fact, when asking how many people at the paper - surely a technology-conscious bunch - have tried Google+, no one, besides yours truly, raised their hand.

coutesy of epic games

Techin' the Micky

rEVIEW

COMMISSION #3: rachael cloughton

Rachael Cloughton is a final year MA Fine Art student who is currently working on a series of fantasy proposals which deal with contemporary political subject matter and both the possibilities and limitations of artwork in handling such topics. This proposal is the first in the series: Nearly two thousand ice sculptures, moulded carefully to replicate the figures of refugees and asylum seekers who have died whilst trying to reach Europe from North Africa are due to be installed within George Square this week. The artist Rachael Cloughton is responsible for the large-scale project, which is determined to draw attention to the plight of these people and challenge their invisibility. In Edinburgh they will emerge in ice-form and then disappear again, as the works are predicted to melt in a matter of day. Humanitarian aid workers are sending photographs of as many of the deceased, displaced people along with their measurements so that each individual will be uniquely captured.

The work will appear as a huge refugee camp, with water seeping into the soil and burying the original images permanently into the grass. It intends to tackle the explicit political matter poetically. “This is not a project built on sensationalism, or to provide subordinated imagery to news coverage, it is a space to reflect on the nature of displacement and citizenship at large” says Cloughton.

This landmark installation will be part-funded by Create Scotland and a number of private benefactors. Altogether, the project will cost over £1million since private sculptors will be drafted in to complete the work. At a time when the budgets of arts organisations are being slashed, this substantial sum of money has been called into question: “Funding should be directed towards sustainable structures that are entirely beneficial to the Scottish people, not work that will literally melt to the ground in a matter of days” said Scottish politician Alex Salmon. The intricacies of capturing a likeness of these people will be lost in a few hours as the forms start to loose their shape.

However, Cloughton is confident that the work will have a much longer life span than the few days the ice-sculptures will physically endure. She also believes it will aid the desperate people who are currently fleeing North Africa: “The work will draw attention to a group of people who need our attention,” she said. “The sculpture’s displacement in Edinburgh (in both context and form) is symptomatic of the displaced nature of refugees. Invisibility is ameliorative effect to the plight of those denied the political and cultural designation of citizenship.”

Earlier this year Amnesty International issued a statement criticizing the EU’s action towards North African refugees: “The EU and its Member States have a responsibility to protect the rights of refugees and migrants and to come to their rescue when their lives are at risk. People across North Africa and the Middle East have shown the courage to stand up for themselves - often at great personal risk. Europe must honour their bravery by the small act of living up to the ideal of human rights protection for all.”

In Cloughton’s project and through the medium that drowned them, they finally settle on European soil, but whether this symbolic act can prevent future deaths remains another contested issue.

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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16 Culture

Time to turn over a new leaf?

This week's battle-of-the-books sees Anna Feintuck and Michael Mackenzie discuss the future of the printed word

Isn’t the real thing better than electronic equipment?THE BOOK CLUB

ANNA: Well, yes, it is. As appealing as the Kindle’s smooth curves may be to some, plastic will never replace the feel of paper against my fingers. I love the physical aspects of reading: seeing my progress through the book, folding pages down to mark my place, writing my name in the front. Holding a book, I feel calm: I just••••••••••• need to••• read the words, and turn the pages, and let the story unfold. I don’t want to press a power switch and I don’t want to watch the e-ink redistribute every time I click to the next page.

Tactile pleasures aside, there is also an issue of ownership. A physical book is mine: just as I hold it in my hands, it belongs to me, and I can lend it to a friend or keep it all to myself. There is something spookily temporal about an e-book, like it is being lent to us by the commercial gods. And how will shy literary girls ever get talking to shy literary boys if not through the age-old book swap date?

THE BOOK CLUB

MICHAEL: No. I’m sorry to say it, but reading on a Kindle is in many ways better than reading a paper book; they’ve been practically designed with the reader in mind. If you’ve ever tried reading, say, Charles Dickens in paperback, you’ll know that some books are too large to be comfortably held in one hand, leaving a reader no choice but to change

THE BOOK CLUB

danielle malinen

THE BOOK CLUB

Welcome to Culture's new Book Club!

Each month, we'll be reviewing a book and would love to know if you agree with our opinions on it. Get in touch: culture.thestudent@gmail.com Next month, we'll be reviewing The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Who said reading was a solitary activity, anyway? Enjoy!

seating positions slightly as they move from one page to the next. In short, it is more comfortable to read on an e-reader that flicks between pages at the touch of a finger - and you don’t even have to hold it.

As well as not having to own forearms of steel to read Dickens, you don’t have to have an impressive vocabulary either. With its built-in dictionary, which can be searched by hovering over a word without interrupting the reading process, a reader can comfortably read the classics without feeling intimidated by an author’s use of language.

And without using paper, less trees are cut down. You’ll never have to feel guilty about reading that waste-of-paper-tv-personality’s autobiography again. And where you may have lost or damaged a paper book, even if your Kindle is stolen or damaged, your library is saved by Amazon online.

The latest reading technology is a more durable, useful and comfortable way of reading books.

How will change?

THE BOOK CLUB

“

•• •••

THE PAPERBACK: Obsolete or eternal?

••••

to be drawn here between the written word and the printed word.

As much as I love the printed word, I can see that its future is uncertain. But in a world of electronic publishing, it seems writers will have the opportunity to become even more prolific. Of course there are issues of authors’ earnings, but given that it is in no one’s interests for the written word to die, the onus falls on publishers, both electronic and physical, and authors to work together to find a solution.

I think there’s no real threat to books and/or authorship from the rise of the kindle, ebook, book app, etc." THE BOOK CLUB Greg Walker, Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature

Will writers stop writing?

ANNA: In The End of Books?, writer Ewan Morrison said that “we need to leave behind the romantic notion of the author in the garret.

Books could not work without the economic framework that supports artists, and that economic framework is changing.”

This is undoubtedly true, but the fact is that writers will always write.

Their economic situation is set to change, certainly. By no means, however, does this mean that the written word is in danger. A distinction needs

MICHAEL: ���������������������� No. “The Writer” as a profession will no longer exist because without a stable income supporting an author’s work, even the best known authors will become something like freelance authors, flitting from publishing house to publishing house hoping that someone will take on their latest book.

But if a writer writes regardless of who reads, couldn’t an author just get a day job and write in their spare time?

Of course, and if writing is a compulsion, they will - but I can’t help think-

THE BOOK CLUB

the sense of an ending: julian barnes Jonathan Cape £12.99

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I

protagonist’s school years, focusing on his book-hungry clique as they discover new ideas and experiment with old taboos. Through the narrative, Barnes succeeds in creating a disquieting sense of nostalgia, exploring the character’s insecurities and his inability to move forward.

THE BOOK CLUB

t’s not often that a book leaves a reader with the feeling that they’ve run an emotional marathon. But this is the effect that Julian Barnes’ new novel The Sense of An Ending elicits.

Even more remarkable is the short space in which this is achieved. It seems perverse that people should be complaining about whether or not it is long enough for the Booker shortlist: this is really one of its strengths.

Here are 150 bleak, cathartic pages, packed with the struggle of the disturbingly ordinary Tony Webster. The novel begins with an explanation of the

“

This is an intensely clever book. It is as fast-paced as a pageturning thriller, and as emotionally demanding as a German romantic novel."

The second part of the book follows Webster’s student years as he confronts experiences with women, sex, and

the

form

ANNA: Speakers at The End of Books? suggested that the likely future for physical publishing would be one of special, limited edition hardbacks, to embrace and promote the industry’s natural advantage: the tactile and aesthetic pleasures that books bring.

This seems a reasonable expectation, and although I would be sad to see the demise of paperbacks, it does seem to be the most probable longterm outcome.

I suppose I am going to have to come to terms with the era of the tattered paperback coming to an end.

With it, we lose a lot. We will have to bid goodbye to the days of feeling an affinity with strangers based on spotting a familiar front cover poking out of their bag, or knowing what they’re reading on the train. Bookshelves full of beautiful hardbacks will be stylistically pleasing but lacking in personality. Bookmarks will become obsolete. Future generations might never know the smell of a secondhand bookshop.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• MICHAEL: In terms of the elec•••••••••••••• ••• tronic book, as was discussed at The End of Books?, the internet has cre••••• ••• ated a generation of people with very short attention spans, and if we are to become a culture of ‘dabble’ read••••••• ers who cannot even fathom reading

ing that coming home from a long day of work to labour through an unfinished novel is not the most productive way to get things done. Authors would soon become burned out, producing post-modern streams of conscious narratives by pressing the keyboard with their faces, fast asleep.

As much as authors may pretend they write for art’s sake and no other purpose, the economic factor is one that always lingers in the background of art’s existence. Without bookshops selecting what we read we will be able to read many more new and exciting authors; but soon these authors will stop writing in order to eat.

an entire novel, electronic literature will have to be shorter, punchier, with a continually changing style to keep our attention.

What electronic literature can do to make up for the loss of the tactility of the novel is to include video clips, music clips, other voices speaking non-written text... The possibilities are endless.

It would be a shame if the paper book became obsolete, but perhaps we should let go of our nostalgic attachments and embrace the future of literature. It may be scary, but progress is better than being left behind in an empty library.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••• •••••••••••••• ••••••• •• The question is not ••••••••••••••••••• whether••••••• books have a future, but what is the•••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••• next form that the book will take.•"••••••••••• ••••• •••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••

“

Bill Bell, Director of the Centre of the History of the Book

his own disillusionment, the former eventually coming to jeopardise both friendships and life. Barnes makes the reader work to decipher the conclusion, which is reached towards the end of the final section focusing on the character’s brutally directionless retirement. Tony Webster’s past relationships and tragic inadequacies return with cataclysmic effect.

The constant stream of 1960s language might become a little wearing after a while, but this is an intensely clever book. It is as fast-paced as a page-turning thriller, and as emotionally demanding as a German romantic novel. Don’t be fooled by the length. If you look for value for money in your books, this is thirteen pounds well spent.

John Hewitt-Jones

jonathan cape publishers

his August, the Edinburgh Internional Book Festival hosted a debate called The End of Books? in which the speakers pointed out that with the rise of the e-book has come a fall in author advances from publishers; that the days of publishing an author rather than a book are over.

As authors are no longer being offered a living wage, having to depend upon future book sales, are we witnessing the end of the book as we know it? Anna and Michael offer their opinions.

EMILY CARLIN

T

Theatre buff? Review it! Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on Facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper culture.thestudent@gmail.com

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Culture 17 Star Rating Mesmerising Can't put it down Trashy novel A boring read Bin it

Culture Competition

gra

Solve the riddle to win a Golden Ticket for the King's and Festival Theatres

T

festival city theatres trust

Terms, conditions and exemptions apply. Offer valid with student ID or Young Scot Card. *Excluding the Scottish Opera Shows, Micky Flannigan, Joe McElderry and Dorothy Paul.

So here comes the fun part. We're going to test your skills of deduction and rhyme with a riddle and limerick competition.

Answer the riddle, and come up with a limerick, and whoever has the right answer and best limerick wins.

Simple!

WHO AM I? I used to study in the same place as you; Crocodiles tick me off; As does my small stature; My imagination flies away with my inner child; If you still can't find me, look to the second star on the right.

Send your answer to culture.thestudent@ gmail.com

Lyceum Theatre Until 15 October

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A

ccording to JM Barrie, the Scots have a romantic secret. Once every day, they lean against the nearest object and think of Mary Queen of Scots. After seeing the Dundee Rep Ensemble’s production of Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, I can’t help but think it should be so. Mary led a dramatic and inspiring life that features little in popular culture, unlike her cousin Elizabeth I. Ruling Scotland for twenty-four years, she was constantly accused of not being Catholic enough, or being too Catholic, of not being allied enough to England, or being too close to England, and always, always, of being too female for the job. In London, her cousin Elizabeth confronted similar prejudice.

Yet despite being kindred spirits, Elizabeth and Mary were bound by volatile politics to be rivals, and despite having fates that were intertwined, were destined never to meet.

Liz Lochhead explores this tension in a play which endeavours to reach through the detritus of ages and connect the audience’s soul to the souls of the two historical women before them. The stage is littered with props from all ages: a crucifix abandoned in a skip, a 1950s car hung with a Union Jack, a Victorian schooldesk: all create a non-immersive lens through which we view history, burdened with the hindsight of all that has passed since. Thus

we realise that current issues like Scottish nationhood, feminism and religion form a debate that has been raging for centuries. Nor does the play take sides in this debate- food for thought is thrown at us, we are left to interpret it ourselves.

The first half of the show could be better paced. Its rather hastily enacted exposition of political manoeuvring required my utmost concentration, not least because of my unfamiliarity with the strong Scots spoken by the cast. However, in the second half, when all the murders began, I was carried away by the thrill of events shown by a myriad of dramatic techniques - a deliberately contemporary take on what happened.

“

Packed with cultural references, witty one-liners, beautiful poetry and powerful monologues, it will make your evening worthwhile."

mystics or rationalists?

Ingleby Gallery Until 22 October

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S

ol LeWitt’s quote informs me in the gallery guide: “Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach”. Mystics or Rationalists?, a remnant of the 2011 Edinburgh Art Festival, showcases nine artists, giving each ample space on the gallery’s two puristric, lightflooded floors.

The exhibition promises “a sense of the magical” and “an inclination to subvert the ordinary” to turn it into “objects of rarefied contemplation”. It spans a range of media – among them photography, visual installation, sculpture and an array

of light bulbs designed to simulate moonlight for an average human lifespan. This, I’m told, is “a poignant reminder that in the end all we add up to is a crate of 289 bulbs”.

Statements like this illustrate the issue I have with a lot of modern art. Especially in galleries where, after all, you are being encouraged to buy, it often comes with briefings intended to install a sense of deeper meaning. Just as often, this fails.

While I appreciate information about creative process, I refuse to be told what to think about a piece of art. My life will never be contained in a crate of light bulbs.

Are conceptual artists mystics or rationalists? The press release has that figured out, too: “perhaps, in the end, a little bit of both”. I believe the question is flawed. To me, conceptual art is not about the artist’s personality, idea or message.

It is as much, if not more, about the observer experiencing it, interact-

mark hamilton

Men Should Weep

ing with it, making sense of it. It’s not about getting it right or wrong, but about whether you can connect with a piece of art. It’s like getting someone’s humour, being on the same wavelength. Any comment I make is likely to reveal more about myself than the artist, and reviewing an exhibition like this can become a surprisingly personal affair.

Out of all the pieces on show, only one really caught my attention – Simon Starling’s Autoxylopyrocycloboros. In a darkened room, a never ending slideshow tracks the passing of the wooden steam ship Dignity, sailing in circles on Loch Long while being gradually sawed to pieces and fed, bit by bit, into its own wood-burning boiler. Eventually, it will sink itself and drift to the bottom of the lake, to disintegrate.

To me, that is a beautiful metaphor.

I encourage you to disagree.

Alva Träbert

This could not have been achieved so eloquently without the beauty of Lochhead’s script. Packed with cultural references, witty one-liners, beautiful poetry and powerful monologues, it will make your evening worthwhile. Whether you are Scottish, English, or neither, this play is likely to get you leaning against the nearest object and lending a thought to that fascinating Queen of Scots.

Melissa Geere

CENTRAL HEATING NIGHTMARE: Mytics or Rationalists? installation view, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh

JOHN MCKENZIE

mary queen of scots got her head chopped off

Dr Marigold & Mr Chops

festival theatre

One Man, Two Guv'nors

phil fisk

holly jameson

he Student, in associaton with Festival City Theatres Trust, have got something exciting on offer.

You can win a Golden Ticket to the King's and Festival Theatres, which will give you two free tickets to all of their shows.* This includes One Man, Two Guv'nors with James Corden, Dr Marigold & Mr Chops with Simon Callow and the Scottish classic Men Should Weep.

But don't worry - if you don't win there's still the Student Standby Deal: £10 tickets when you book in person at the Festival Theatre Box office from midday on the day of the performance.

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

�������������� Theatre buff? ������� Review ����� it! ������� Follow ��� us ��� on �������� twitter ����������������� @TheStudentPaper ��� or ��� on ��������� Facebook ��� at ���������������������������������� facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper ���������������������������� culture.thestudent@gmail.com

18 Culture

ROYGBIV

This week's cultural spectrum.

Winner of LitSoc's poetry slam

Stephen In Waitrose In the supermarket, Stephen is alarmingly changed.

His usual long and sexy stride is cut to a shuffle, bafflement breaking over him like waves.

Dreaming in the strip-lit aisles he skates from Bakery to Salad Bar and back, then back again -imagines the basket in his hand is my heart, a delicate vessel for him to fill. The pressure of this is fit to kill him.

Stephen believes that lists are for the weak.

The fingers of his free, left hand are always at his lips, or else he’s touching fruit or squeezing bread as if to test their force. In the super market Stephen talks to everything-the grapes, the cheese -- especially herbs, the dill and thyme a riddle he must tease out on his tongue.

The avocados cower in fear of him, for none is left unpinched.

He shoves into the kitchen flushed, eyes wide, arms stuffed with bags -- it seems he has been gone for hours.

He unpacks, crushes, chops and cooks, stopping momentarily to tell me things.

Like once: he said if I were food, I’d be a cauliflower floret.

I’ve taken time, digested this -decided Stephen is an artichoke.

His brilliant shell.

His delicate, edible heart.

Claire Askew

Claire Askew’s work has appeared in numerous major publications including The Guardian, The Edinburgh Review and Poetry Scotland. In 2008 she won the Grierson Verse Prize, the Lewis Edwards Award for Poetry and the Sloan Prize for Writing in Lowland Scots Vernacular, all from the University of Edinburgh. The University also awarded her the William Sharpe Hunter Memorial Scholarship for her work on their MSc in Creative Writing. She is now in the final year of her PhD in Creative Writing, and works as a tutor at the University and a lecturer in Literature and Communication at Edinburgh’s Telford College.

Mind your head

Zoë Blah talks theatre, production difficulties and power-mad Queens with Scotland's Makar

S Mary Queen of Scots Got Her

cotland's Makar (the Scottish poet laureate) Liz Lochhead's play Head Chopped Off is currently showing in a new production at Edinburgh's Lyceum theatre. Speaking to Culture, she reflects upon the theatrical process in general as well as providing insight into the play itself.

Have you made any changes to the current production compared to how it was f irst performed?

It has certainly had changes over the years, but none at all in the script for this production. When Nick Hern Books re-published the play two and a half years ago at the time of NTS’s smallscale touring production, it was time to get the text polished and as perfect as I could make it.

The first production twenty-four years ago (with the brilliant director of Communicado, Gerry Mulgrew) was a helter-skelter voyage just to get shown at all. It proved a big hit, but had a hole in it dramatically after Elizabeth, tricked, signed the death

ingrid calame ingrid calame Fruitmarket Gallery Until 9th October

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ngrid Calame’s current exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery prompts thorough reconsideration of the ground we walk on. A collection of drawings and paintings, Calame’s artwork offers an illuminating perspective of the world around us.

The artistic process behind Calame’s work is an essential part of the exhibition. Tracings of cracks, spills and marks from certain areas of ground are then used to create all sorts of layered and complex “constellations”, as Calame refers to them, in the form of paintings and

warrant. This was pointed out to me forcefully before the next major production several years later by the director of that one, David McVicar.

I fixed it for that production with a scene that filled the hole, but too elaborately, and, yes, it ruined the pace of the race to the ending... I, later, for my own satisfaction, wrote the current, short-but-feels-right scene, with Mary and her maid, Bessie, in her palace-prison the night before her death. It’s been used in as many productions as I knew about thereafter.

new play. You and the director, ideally, tend to talk and consult before rehearsals. But when the play has had a few productions it does, of course, happen that there are productions you just see once they are on, if even then. I’ve often had very nice surprises, as well as a few shockers!

How involved are you in the creative process?

It varies. Nice to be consulted on the casting, but it’s up to the director in the end. In this case, Tony Cownie and I did do a lot of putting our heads together on the casting and were in one-hundred-percent agreement.

These actors are just brilliant!

You tell me if it's feminist. I'd prefer it to be female, deeply humane. In no way is it a girl's night out."

What is the most rewarding part of putting on a play?

For me, the first read-through in the rehearsal room on day one. If it works and the story makes sense and there isn’t a huge casting mistake everybody now has to live with... That said, I’ve been to a read-through where everybody had a lot of fun, including the producers, and the whole thing – play included – was, to my shame, a total turkey, a dead dog with fleas, when faced with an audience.

“

Do Scottish audiences react to it in a specif ic way?

Well, as Scottish audiences, they “own” this story in a way that audiences in, say, Manchester or Italy don’t. These other audiences really went for it though, as a great big bit of European theatre.

Did you write it deliberately aware that it’s portraying two strong female historical characters? Is there a feminist side to the play?

Yes, I did kind of notice that it was about “Twa queens on the one green island”! You tell me if it’s feminist. I’d prefer it to be deeply female, deeply humane. In no way is it a “girl’s night out.”

How diff icult is it to hand over the f inished script to the director and cast?

That’s not usually how it is with a

drawings. The works largely feature organic forms, as well as numbers, graffiti tags, and other man-made imprints.

Walking into the exhibition the viewer meets the impressive sspspss…UM biddle BOP (1997) which stretches across the ground and up the wall. A work of pale green paint on trace Mylar paper, it offers a helpful introduction to Calame’s work. It starts on the floor echoing her process of tracing the ground and then continues upwards, placing it on the gallery wall.

Moving around the gallery, it’s hard not to try and decipher the shapes of each composition. Similarly, titles such as Vu-eyp? Vu-eyp?

Vueyp? Vu-eyp? (2002) provoke the brain. Soon enough, however, the

unique visual language and thought behind these works prevails and the mind soon enters Calame’s world.

“

Calame's work is refreshing and creates a thoughtful and visually enjoyable exhibition" Some pieces name specific sites, such as #346 Drawing (Tracing from the Perry Street Projects Wading Pool, Buffalo, NY ) (2011), reminding that these works stem from real places.

Many of these feel like they’re telling an unknown story, as these areas of ground are focused on with an intensity unlikely done before.

Any advice to future playwrights?

Stick in. Get it on. Somehow. Rewrite it, or, better, get on with the next. Get it on again, better.

The highlight is a work commissioned by the Fruitmarket. L.A. River at Clearwater Street, 2006-8 (2011) occupies a whole wall from floor to ceiling and was made through “pouncing”; a process where Calame pounded bags of pigment onto the gallery wall through small holes made in a large transfer drawing. It is quite beautiful: intricate, light and fluid, it looks like a wonderful, colourful map – which in many ways it is.

Even if some works start to become a little samey, Calame’s work is refreshing and creates a thoughtful and visually enjoyable exhibition.

As her first solo show in Scotland, this offers an opportunity to explore Calame’s intriguing artwork.

Catherine Johnson

THE ART DOCTOR with Anna Feintuck

This week: literature to soothe the loneliest of hearts Dear Art Doctor,

Only a week into third year it has become clear that this is going to be a very boring one. My once party-loving flatmates have already taken to staying in their rooms doing their reading, or worse, replacing nights out with nights in the library. I'm not feeling the pressure like they seem to be, but I'm hardly going to go out alone, am I? How do I get my social life back?

Look oot for...

Poyekhali! at the Scotland-Russia Institute depicting the first ever journey into space by Yuri Gagarin, providing a unique insight into space travel.

Claire ferguson

Art-Language at Edinburgh Printmakers looks back at some radical and polemic prints from history, presented alongside some commissioned prints.

Rock 'n' Roll Heaven at the Festival Theatre from 27th September - 1st October.

gra

I've always been a big believer in the curative power of the written word, so this week, given Culture's focus on literature, I've decided to give you some bookish suggestions to solve your woes.

First, I'd like to persuade you that the party lifestyle is not always a desirable one: any F. Scott Fitzgerald will do for this, but most pertinent is The Beautiful and The Damned. If tales of burnt out jazz age babes aren't

enough to convince you to get ahead on your essays, nothing will be. I suppose there's a risk that you might fall prey to the romantic notion of a debauched lifestyle, but I implore you to just live vicariously through Anthony and Gloria – their exploits may seem glamorous, but in the long-term, you'd be much wiser to just catch up on your reading.

Next, you need to use literature to find comfort in solitude. What better than sad young literary man Jonathan Franzen's stunningly erudite collection of essays, How to be Alone? This is one of the few pieces of work I can genuinely say changed my life. It is audaciously smart, yet beautifully accessible. Maybe we can all be as clever as Franzen, if we concentrate on our degrees...

Got a problem? The Art Doctor can cure you! All problems will be treated confidentially. And ever so seriously. Email artdoctor.thestudent@gmail.com.

We are proud to be a Fairtrade University.

We hope you will be proud of us too. For more information visit our website www.ed.ac.uk/about/sustainability/fairtrade.

Choose products with this Mark www.fairtrade.org.uk

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Don't go anywhere without your iPod? music.studentnewspaper@gmail.com

20 Music

Part of the Club

Ger Ellis descends into the depths of Cabaret Voltaire to witness an enchanting Slow Club performance

DISAPPOINTING: Slow Club were left shamed and stupified at the low turnout of their first gig in Edinburgh s Cabaret Voltaire slowly fills, A rumours are abounding that none other than winter-voiced-mercurialScots-bard King Creosote has graced us with his quiet presence. In combination with the perfectly chosen support act, the whimsical Welsh minstrel Sweet Baboo, there’s a very British feel to proceedings, even before Sheffield sweethearts Slow Club take to the stage.

And there’s no argument that Rebecca Taylor and Charles Watson do create something distinctly British;

their devastatingly polite and romantically yearning rockabilly-folk-duo debut Yeah So delightfully chronicled the heartbeat highs and lows of young love, as though providing the mixtape for a generation of forlorn youngsters.

Yet tonight the duo has returned with just a little more confidence, two more members on bass and percussion and a clutch of new material from new album Paradise, and instantly the live experience becomes more than a series of quiet love-letters and sentimental songs. Frantic opener “Where

Singles

I’m Waking” sees Taylor, bristling with newfound allure, coolly tempting “You’ve got the brains, I’ve got the body”, whilst Watson adds snarl and unexpected walls of sounds. Slow Club have altogether grown up, and don’t fancy taking no for an answer.

Fortunately, that doesn’t mean the gentle skiffling romance that made their live shows so stunningly poignant has been abandoned; “Never Look Back”, “Hackney Marsh” and “Horses Jumping” all build and crescendo with melancholic blues and soaring harmo-

You me at SIX

nicola roberts Lucky Day POLYDOR

tracks like leading single “Two Cousins”; every lyric is willingly roared back, wild and whirling dancing ensues.

Slow Club’s evolution is just what it should be, and it’s a pleasure to be at a gig where the boy-girl-duo seems to be finding their feet so firmly.

Slow Club is still the band you’d write your love-letters to. They’re still gentle, polite and unashamedly romantic, but now with a little more eccentricity and conviction. All of which makes the experience that little bit more special.

Loverboy VIRGIN

dappy

No Regrets ISLAND RECORDS

Emmy the great

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Paper Forest CLOSE HARBOUR

his latest release from British band appy is probably best known for t’s a sad fact that heartbreak can T You Me at Six sees them grow into D being the lop-sided-hat wearI make music truly affecting, and a more clean-cut, consistent and fuller ing tiny jester from mediocre hip-pop for Emma-Lee Moss (aka Emmy the

 dmin out the way. She’s the ginger A one from Girls Aloud, boys that’s the fifth member, and girls she’s the

quirky one. And now it would seem she’s trying her hand at the popstar thing, all on her own; doing a Cheryl, or a Nadine, or a Sarah, or a...the other one.

“Lucky Day” is the second single from her debut album which continues where first single “Beat Of My Drum” left off, settling in somewhere between 80’s girl pop and modern dance groups, like Justice in leg warmers, or Cyndi Lauper with an iPad. In continuing to stand on her own a) away from her Girls, and b) without any middle-8 rapping hunk, “Lucky Day” marks a magnificent moment for Nicola, and more importantly for Brit-

nies. They’re not perfect renditions – a little too much distortion, a couple of restarts, some off-kilter vocals – but it seems a little unnecessary to get hung up on. Slow Club are having a whale of a time, all chatter and apologies, and the diminutive mistakes just add to the sense of joyous abandon and juvenile adoration they so brilliantly encapsulate.

Slowly the crowd favourites emerge, and it’s a smile-inducing testament to the band that the old ode “Come on Youth” curls up so well alongside new

SOLO: Move over Cheryl ish female pop. It’s all sizzling, snarling attitude and dainty, bratty innocence.

But most of all its proof that cool girls will always win in the end, and no matter how many footballers you bonk, or showers you model under, there’s nothing really like a Kylie-esque "Oohh-Ayyy" Jack Murray

sound than anything we’ve previously heard from the Surrey boys.

With a punchy bass track and a catchy lilt to the verses that leads into an upbeat chorus, “Loverboy” is perfectly moulded for that strut down the street in the last of the summer sun; a brilliant transitional tune.

Whilst the lyrics lack depth, if it’s a care-free track you’re after with some great rhymes - “This is your night with arms wide open, I’m the option you shouldn’t have chosen” - get listening!

Although “Loverboy” isn’t quite as intense as previous single “Stay with Me”, you must be warned: listening before 11am should definitely be taken with caution, especially if you’re suffering from the night before.

Katie Walker

group N-Dubz. "No Regrets", his debut solo effort, is an attempt to change all that.

The song is somber in tone as Dappy attempts to be taken seriously. This is the main problem with the track. There is a confusing mix of angst (“when I look in the mirror I don’t even recognise myself ”) and inane jokes as he tries to be both profound and witty.

The lyrics are as infectious as they are ridiculous and the tune is certainly catchy, complete with gospel chorus, (frankly unnecessary) piano solo and an abrupt key change to really crank up the emotion. My eyes may instinctively roll as I listen to the track but I can’t pretend I haven’t had it on repeat for the past hour Helen Stride

Great) this was precisely the case. In between debut album First Love and Virtue, Moss was abandoned by her fiancé. The ensuing pain helped fuel the greater depth of expression heard on Virtue. This sense of the bittersweet is recognisable in the album’s new release “Paper Forest (In The Afterglow of Rapture)”, whose heart-wrenching chorus openly rejoices in having loved and lost, rather than never at all.

“Paper Forest” demonstrates this shift away from the witty, pretty melodies, to a more melancholic sound, and the gravity is heightened by the painfully intimate scope of her lyrics.

Emmy herself may have suffered a knockback but in her music she seems one step closer to greatness.

Meg Pruce

Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentPaper music.studentnewspaper@gmail.com

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Music 21

Albums the Rifles Freedom Run ATC MANAGEMENT

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O

ne of Britain’s most perennially underrated bands have done it again. A little pearl of an album, packed with jaunty guitars and tracks that are relaxing and yet at the same time always uplifting. Close friends Lee Burgess and Kenton Shin join the London band for their third offering, clearly giving the band a new injection of enthusiasm and comfort which really show in the record. This is a band that sound completely at ease with themselves, each other, their sound and their ever adoring fan base.

The record’s key tracks “Long Walk Back” and “Tangled up with Love” should finally ensure they lose the lazy and unfair tag of “Mod Copycats.” The latter track is a pop masterpiece; their Jam-esque guitar is fused with Elbow style violins to create the stuff of dreams for radio DJ’s everywhere. Whilst it is true that this isn’t a record which offers radical experimentation, it would be completely unfair to accuse The Rifles of being predictable.

Slow(ish) burners “Eveline”, “Falling” and “Nothing Matters” give the record a completely unexpected

texture, “Nothing Matters” opens with a gorgeous piece of piano work.

The band are undoubtedly maturing, but maintaining the aspects of their sound that have gained them something of a cult following. “Dreamer”, “Sweetest Thing” and “Cry Baby” are the kind of tracks built to see out the summer, their laid back nature complimenting the album’s livelier numbers such as the aforementioned “Tangled up with Love” and “Long Walk Back” perfectly.

“

The band are undoubtedly maturing, but maintaining the aspects of their sound that have gained them something of a cult following" Whether this is the album that sees The Rifles finally make their big breakthrough remains to be seen, its “more of the same” feel will probably draw derision from many quarters of the music world, and is unlikely to go down in history as a classic. In short, don’t expect this record to be making any major award short lists but frankly, when it sounds as sweet as it does, who cares?

Phil Smith

LIGHTEN UP: The Rifles are a cheery bunch

DUke spirit Bruiser YOU ARE HERE

 hey’ve finally got it! They’ve been T plugging at this hole in the market for over seven years now and they’ve

only finally gone and done it! Now, for those of you who don’t know the London list of commandments to writing an album and general band ethos, I’ll give you a quick rundown.

Thou shalt always look exceptionally fit - not just the fashion-imbibed front woman Leila Moss, who is cut-off your-arm hot, but also the four music men standing behind her, all of whom are exceptionally well turned out in their various styles of attire. Thou shalt leave an age between albums – always leave the fans wanting more right guys?

How about leaving it so long that only the most diehard fan could discern you from the Duke of York? There’s been three and a half years between this album and last, then the same again between that and their debut.

THE WEEK'S LISTINGS eek two of term begins, and W with it comes a whole host of live music to satisfy the most

HELLO?: Always turn your phones off for press shots

the silver seas Chateau Revenge THE SILVER SEAS

 pecial editions of albums are ubiqS uitous at the moment. Often they seem like cynical attempts to get fans

to pay again for music they’ve already bought. Because of this I was wary when approaching this acoustic release of The Silver Seas’ 2010 album Chateau Revenge.

To be clear, the original version of Chateau Revenge was a fantastic album.

Described by Danny Baker as “the best band in the world”, The Silver Seas play a kind of shimmering pop that washes over the listener with effortless charm.

Legions of indie bands from the past thirty years have tried to recapture the sound of classic ‘60s pop, but I’d find it hard to name one that has managed quite so successfully as The Silver Seas.

With layered Motown guitars, uptempo drums and backing vocals that demand to be sang along with, you can almost smell the vinyl on every track.

What made Chateau Revenge quite so remarkable was that this sound was applied to a set of incredibly catchy and well written songs. What is perhaps more remarkable is that the acoustic edition of Chateau Revenge throws this sound out the window.

The songs have been rhythmically and harmonically restructured and almost none of the memorable riffs

have been replicated. The big sound of the first edition is replaced with much sparser instrumentation. While singer/songwriter Daniel Tashian’s understated vocals previously provided an interesting contrast, here listeners may find them a little dry.

“

The acoustic arrangements feel far more melancholic with the intimate atmosphere highlighting contemplative lyrics about former lovers" Yet although some of the immediate charms of the first edition are gone, this acoustic album does better justice to the songs. Songs about heartbreak just sounded like standard pop fare on the Red Edition, but the acoustic arrangements feel far more melancholic with the intimate atmosphere highlighting the contemplative lyrics about former lovers struggling to forgive them. This gives the more subtle songs such as “Those Days” the prominence they deserve. While these recordings may not be as catchy as before, the album is in the end a worthwhile project. I would recommend first getting a copy of the Red Edition, but as a second purchase, this complements it perfectly.

Aaron Peters

Thou shalt add two moments of thrashing energy for every dash of wrenching emotion - this, of course, is just giving the people what they want.

HARD FI: ABC Glasgow Tuesday 27th September JACQUES GREENE (DJ Set): Sneaky Pete’s Wednesday 28th September ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN: Concert Hall Glasgow Wednesday 28th September LES MCKEOWN’s BAY CITY ROLL ERS: Corn Exchange Friday 30th Septemeber THE KOOKS: Barrowland, Glasgow Friday 30th September

“

This album is eons better than its predecessors: it cuts a candle to many of its rivals in the female indie game ... even, dare I say it, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Show Your Bones"

This album is eons better than its predecessors: it even cuts a candle to many of its rivals in the female indie game; The Long Blondes’ Someone to Drive you Home, Metric’s Live It Out, and perhaps even, dare I say it, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Show your Bones. At last the hole in the market has been filled.

Shame it’s seven years too late...

Very hi-fi compared with their previous bites at the Indie Apple, the calibre of song really has stepped up a notch. Lead single “Surrender” grows

varied of tastes! Later on in the week there’s no lack of choice for the clubbers amongst you, with Friday providing all you could ever want in UK Garage and 2 step, with 90’s don Zed Bias at Departure Lounge’s eighth Birthday at the Caves, alongside the more emerging talents on the scene with Lucky Me presenting Oneman at Sneaky Pete’s, and SBTRKT at Cabaret Voltaire for Sugarbeat. What’s more, the Annie Mac presents tour returns to Edinburgh this Saturday, which is always a sure fire winner, and with Fake Blood bringing up the bill, this could turn out to be very special indeed.

Amongst all these great nights are a fair few gigs for those less intent on missing their 9’oclocks, which sees Golden oldies Echo and the Bunnymen play Glasgow’s Concert Hall, and national treasure Les McKeown rock up the Corn Exchange on 30th, with his very own reformed Bay City Rollers. And for those of a younger generation, to close the week Bombay Bicycle Club will be up for their Scottish end of the tour, at the Barrowland on Sunday.

SBTRKT (DJ Set) and C.R.S.T : Cabaret Voltaire Friday 30th September ONEMAN: Sneaky Pete’s Friday 30th September ZED BIAS: The Caves Friday 30th September

ODD ONE OUT: Can you guess who it is? on you so much each time you hear it it's almost weed-like. Track three “Villain” will make you want to take up smoking just so you have a lighter at hand to sway slowly when the song comes on.

I feel bad for this album if truth be told. It’s like the kid who turns up an hour late to a party with their arms in

the air and pointy hat jauntily angled, shouting “Sorry I’m late guys, but never fear I’m here now and the fun can begin”, only to be told by the cleaner “you’ve just missed ‘em mate”. This album deserves to have a good time, it deserves to be listened to, but it’s just too late for the party.

Stewart Nutting

ANNIE MAC / FAKE BLOOD: Liquid Room Saturday 1st October BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB: Barrowland, Glasgow Sunday 2nd October Joshua Angrave

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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22 Film

Finally, a screenwriter who cares University in Rome and a career which began in human rights law, his transition to film is one that began after he witnessed countless atrocities whilst working in Nicaragua during the civil war. As he recalls, “I got sick and tired of writing human rights reports, talking to delegations, and in my innocence, I thought perhaps I’d like to try and right a fictional story informed by what I had seen.”

The following result was Carla's Song which marked the beginning of his long-term friendship with director Ken Loach.

“

You could have the most interesting landscape in the world and make a boring story out of it, and then other people can make shopping interesting if they're skilful enough."

Looking through Laverty's filmography, much of what he has written illuminates various social and political issues by exploring real life incidents from a fictional point of view. Yet despite the powerful backdrop at which he sets many of his films, he is keen to mention, “Good issues don't necessarily make for good films, but good stories do...You could have the most

jurassic park Directed by Steven Spielberg  ou may have heard, at least in Y passing, about a certain family adventure movie that swept the

nation. Statisticians may have noticed that palaeontology programs finally received a long-needed boost in enrolment numbers after its release. If you experienced the original theatrical release you’re getting old, and if you didn’t, you have an opportunity to fix it. They’ve gone and rereleased Jurassic Park (directed by Steven Spielberg).

A team of doctors (Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum) visit an island where something amazing has happened. Millionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) and his team have managed to clone dinosaurs! The next logical step, of course, is to make them attractions at a theme park. All of the necessary precautions are taken in order to safely house our favourite ancient beasts, from brontosaurus to raptors, but anytime you put together a millionaire’s grandkids, a few zany doctors, and Samuel L. Jackson: “Hold on to your butts.”

Frankly, though, the rerelease of Jurassic Park isn’t so much for anyone who needs to read a synopsis or could have this film spoiled. It’s old enough to be at university. It’s for everyone who held their parents hand, ate a few bites of popcorn, and covered their eyes while a T-Rex chased down and flipped a car like it was a toy.

The various contributors have all

interesting landscape in the world and make a boring story out of it, and then other people can make shopping interesting if they're skilful enough. It really depends on the skill of the story teller, but great issues in themselves don't make for great stories. You have to find great stories.” Although he does mention, “if drama is well done, it has a great capacity to illuminate, raise questions, and to look at contradictions.”

A patron of the Take One Action Film Festival, which saw the UK première of his latest film Even the Rain last week, it is clear that Laverty recognises the importance of giving films that don't necessarily appeal to the commercial market a voice. As he notes,“unfortunately the distribution of film is generally a capitalist endeavour where they want to make lots of money. Many of the films being shown at this festival would never get a screening in public if it wasn't for organisations like this. People get a chance to see complex, difficult, and more controversial films that will not be shown on the commercial circuit and which are not just about special effects or sentimental love stories.”

With their ninth feature film The Angel's Share currently in the editing process and a number of award winning films under their belts, it is clear that Laverty and Loach have a unique bond which is rarely seen within the film industry. “We are very close friends,” says Laverty. “We share some sort of similar sensibility and also have very different skills. I write, Ken directs, and hopefully we meet in the middle as film-makers. It's marvellous gone their separate ways in the 15 years since the film's release. Sadly Michael Crichton, who wrote the original novel and the adapted screenplay, passed away five years ago. Steven Spielberg, on the other hand, is still in the spotlight. He’s been attached to half the television series and films worth watching since the Cold War ended.

“

If you experienced the original theatrical release you are getting old, and if you didn't, you have the opportunity to fix it."

What makes Jurassic Park worth rereleasing is not the glamour of its cast, but the sheer beauty of its visual magnificence. While Avatar may be the new big thing, it is much more synthetic and artificial. Despite its age, Jurassic Park realistically portrayed a slew of dinosaurs using various robotics, duct tape, and other technologies of the day, that still has not been improved upon.

It may be dark and gritty, and you may see some strings or gears at some point, but whether on the big or little screen it will still succeed in mesmerizing.

PAUL LAVERTY: "Drama has a great capacity to illuminate" fun working with Ken, he's a very demanding partner but also a very generous one .”

Laverty's latest film, which sees him working with his wife, esteemed Spanish director Íciar Bollaín for the first time, has proven to be a particularly hard project to bring to life. “This has been a 10 year obsession,” says

Drive

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn  rive will seem familiar to many D people. You may even think you have seen it before. As you watch, you think of all the movies it reminds you of: American Psycho, Taxi Driver, Collateral or even Drive Angry (ick). Let’s not get too technical here though.

The film isn’t about getting technical, even though Ryan Gosling spends a few scenes tinkering with engines in an unconvincing fashion. Rather than depending on the pesky coherentnarrative-technique, director Nicolas Winding Refn has created a series of impressions making up what is prob-

Laverty. “It's been a very very difficult film to make and it's a miracle how it actually ever got made because it is not commercial in any general sense and doesn't fall into any particular genre.”

Following an idealistic director (Gael García Bernal) who is in Bolivia trying to make a film exposing Christopher Columbus as an impeably the best film you will see this year.

Based on the 2006 novel by James Sallis, Drive is most like Camus’ The Outsider onscreen, but set in presentday Los Angeles. A man (Gosling) comes from nowhere and begins a new life driving stunt cars in movies and moonlighting as a getaway driver . He has no name, but he is by no means an everyman. He experiences life along a membrane, in much the same way as we experience the film. No matter how graphic the violence or how tense the car chase as one of his after hours jobs goes wrong, when it’s over, all we are left with is Gosling’s impassive, chiselled face and a California sunset. The music, by French electro house artist Kavinsky, mutes the action, but never distils it.

Motivations and reasons for the driver recede into the background,

rialist who exploited and destroyed the indigenous population of South America, Even the Rain originally had a very different intention. Initially it was a historical drama that focused purely on the Columbus story but this concept never took off and so Laverty needed to change his idea considerably if the project was to succeed. “Many years later I decided to re-conceptualise it, and see if I could mix it with something much more modern and combine two time periods, modern and historical.”

He became fascinated by the Bolivian water wars in the year 2000 and so used the contemporary crisis as a backdrop to capture a parallel that can be seen between Columbus and the Cochabamban authorities. “You see the same indigenous communities with their own indigenous languages.

It's sticks and stones up against a modern army. 500 years ago they are fighting about gold and 500 years later they are having water being taken from them.”

A writer who seems drawn to the way humans interact and treat each other, often with no regard for the negative consequences that can follow, Laverty is not one to cite particular influences that have affected the way he creates a script as a whole. Yet he closes with a sentiment which is applicable to anyone regardless of their profession.

“We are obviously creatures. We are like magpies I think, stealing and robbing from whatever source: from what we see, from what we imagine, and even subconsciously I think.”

done so on purpose by Refn and the screenwriter Hossein Amini, who left out much of the driver’s back story which is present in the novel. What is clear, though, is that everyone is an outsider. Carey Mulligan as a young mother is an anomaly among the Hispanic community into which she marries, Ron Perlman’s ridiculous, vulgar con man is a Jew in the Italian Mafia, and Gosling belongs nowhere. They all come together for a few days, then disappear into the ether. But, Drive is not a waste of time. Refn’s experiments with light and mirrors coupled with excellently short performances from Joan Holloway and Oscar Isaac give the film the texture and contradiction it needs to assure its longevity as a tentative modern masterpiece.

Caroline Bottger

Zack O'Leary

All films were reviewed at Cineworld

OH NO: Did I forget to take the groceries off of the roof of the car?

theoracleonline

aul Laverty isn't your convenP tional screenwriter. With a degree in philosophy from the Gregorian

takeoneaction

Ali Quaile talks to Paul Laverty about his new film Even the Rain, and using cinema as a way to explore social and political issues

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Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Film 23

Directed by glen ficarra & John Requa 

UNFAIR: The tree was clearly winning in the who's tallest contest

Even the rain Directed by Íciar Bollaín  iven that the film industry has G a seemingly infinite supply of empty-headed blockbusters and

pointless sequels in store, it could be argued that these days cinema lacks depth. Thank goodness then, for films like Even the Rain, which manage to combine a clever narrative with serious social messages that linger once you’ve left your seat. These qualities made the film a fitting choice to open the Take One Action Film Festival, currently taking place in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The organisers’ overall aim is to promote taking action against global issues such as poverty and exploitation, and the festival aims to remind us of the impact that thoughtful filmmaking can produce.

Even the Rain successfully demonstrates how art can be directly linked to taking practical social action. It manages to effectively combine fiction with reality through its multiple narrative strands. The main focus is on an ambitious feature film of Christopher Columbus’ new world conquest being made in Bolivia by director Sebastián

tomboy Directed by céline sciamma 

T

omboy succeeds in its apparent aim of providing a subtle exploration of the reality of gender disillusion. The subtlety however, is also this film’s downfall. Tomboy attempts to provide a light-hearted, yet conservative analysis of gender confusion/discontentment. However, this is far too controversial and complicated an issue to be treated as softly and ambiguously as it is here.

“

In greeting her neighbours, she declares herself to be a boy of the name Mikael."

The film follows the lives of a bourgeois French family, who have moved into a new and thus, daunting country neighbourhood, with their two daughters, Laure and Jeanne. The former and oldest of the pair has ‘issues’. She frequently assesses her body in a grimly self-deprecating, anxious manner. To complicate matters further, in greeting her neighbours, she declares herself to be a boy of the name Mikael. Why?

berkeleyside

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(Gael García Bernal) and executive producer Costa (Luis Tosar). The restraints of a tight budget mean the filmmakers are often forced to cut corners, particularly with the wages of local extras. This creative challenge is set against the real-life backdrop of the Bolivian water wars in spring 2000, when mass public protests were held against the privatisation of the national water supply.

The film draws parallels between colonial history and the capitalist exploitation which is still in evidence today. Sebastián and Costa are initially set up as good versus bad guy in their moral positions, and one of the film’s strengths is its subtle blurring of the lines as the pressure rises and emotional ties develop. The key transition is seen in Costa’s tense relationship with native man Daniel, whose charismatic presence lands him not only a role in their film, but also in prison for his political activism. Daniel’s dedication to the most basic of human rights is humbling for the Spanish filmmakers, as he reminds Costa that after all, “water is life”. Even the Rain’s exploration into the often warped priorities of filmmaking ultimately achieves its desired purpose, by motivating audiences to consider the facts beyond its fiction.

Meg Pruce This is a question for which we never receive an answer like many other parts of the film.

Laure attempts to fit in with her new-found peers, with a masculine, "macho" façade that works a charm with the isolated, single female of the local youths, Lisa. She is immediately affected by Laure. Their increasingly passionate relationship is over-looked by the others, who are convinced by the latter’s faux confidence, as a boyish boy, who is more than capable of scoring penalties in soccer and pushing bullies in the water. Inevitably, everything gets complicated when Jeanne gets involved. She is eager to help Laure, warming to the idea of a strong, protective brother who is intimidating to his peers, but affectionate with "sis". The consequences are inevitably noxious.

The fraud of Mikael is quickly, regrettably revealed. And so the film ends.

Director Céline Sciamma creates a decisively mild tone in her concluding scene: Lisa’s calm acquaintance of Laure’s true gender identity. Lacking bias, the film sits on the fence, allowing for viewer interpretation of the moral issues raised.

It is easy to leave Tomboy thinking that you have witnessed the absence of a film. You don’t know what Sciamma’s point is; if she has no point, then what was the sense of the film being made in the first place? Moreover then, what is the point of watching the film?

Joe Smith

razy, Stupid, Love is the story of forlorn husband Cal (Steve Carell) as he struggles to come to terms with the abrupt news of his wife wanting a divorce. While Cal is taken under the wing of ladies man Jacob (Ryan Gosling), the film also follows several other parallel, or seemingly random, love stories, including Cal’s love-sick teenage son, and Hannah (Emma Stone), a play-it-safe law student, who begins the film by turning Jacob down at a bar.

The film thus feels disconnected for the first half of the film; the characters meet in random, accidental circumstances, and that’s only if they meet at all. The audience spends a good part of the film struggling to find some sort of link, which, when it does come around, proves horribly convenient.

By also jumping straight into the story, presumably to mimic Cal’s shock at his wife’s sudden revelation, we get very little back-story. Similarly, Jacob’s

warrior Directed by gavin O'Connor  t seems Tom Hardy’s career has Ibreakout nowhere to go but up. After his performances in Bronson

and Inception, he has become extremely hot property. In Warrior, Hardy plays Tommy Riordan, an exmarine who returns to his recovering alcoholic father in Pittsburgh after 14 years. He seeks his help in training for the upcoming MMA (mixed martial arts) tournament Sparta, for reasons unknown to the viewer.

“

The fight scenes in this film are superb, with raw, all-body bouts proving to be extremely entertaining and enthralling to watch."

Starring opposite Hardy is Joel Edgerton (of Animal Kingdom fame) who plays Tommy’s estranged brother, Brendan Conlon, a high school teacher who has ended up in a lot of debt.

Brendan fights on the side, and later enters Sparta, to support his family.

With a tortured history between the

Classic Cult

desire to help Cal seems to spring from nowhere; rather than provide mystery, it just adds to the confusion and prevents full identification with the characters.

The audience must then try and make do with some laughs to compensate for this frustrating structure.

While the film is at points funny, the audience is never quite sure how funny it is meant to be. For instance, when a drawn out shot of Jacob eating in slow motion is accompanied by ‘epic’ music, the audience is unsure if this is meant to be ironic, and, if it isn’t, why it then makes the viewer want to laugh.

Evidently, Crazy, Stupid, Love seems to mimic the likes of Love Actually in its attempt to weave a web of stories, but the characters are neither numerous enough nor fully developed enough to hold this together. With all these stories colliding, the film involves a lot of false conclusions, making the audience spend the last half of the film waiting to leave. Nothing really stands in their way, save perhaps Ryan Gosling’s torso.

ult and comedy aren't two words C you'd be especially expecting to see in the same sentence. Cult flicks

Roisin O'Brien brothers and their parents, they prepare to fight.

Warrior is dark in both lighting and tone, enhanced by the director’s use of the shaky cam. This could have backfired, but coupled with the realistic screenplay, we see great extended scenes of dialogue that show off the acting skills of both leads. For quite a simple plot, it is surprising to see how gripping the film is, and how well it plays out onscreen.

So, what about the action? The fight scenes in this film are superb, with raw, all-body bouts proving to be extremely entertaining and enthralling to watch, and crafted with excellent precision.

The passion from the director and the cast clearly shines through.

However, it does have a number of weaknesses. Hardy’s character feels slightly undercooked. The silent protagonist type suits him well at the beginning, but it wears rather thin towards the end. While Hardy and Edgerton have great screen presence, especially with Edgerton excelling as the emotional heart of the movie, the chemistry is never quite there. Nick Nolte’s turn as the abusive dad just about ticks all the boxes, yet this role definitely demands a stronger performance.

In spite of all of this, Warrior is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a terrific fighting film that will be very hard to top in the entertainment stakes this year.

Ben McCusker

WISE: Taking one look at Tom, playing dead seemed the best idea

whoisthemarchking

crazy, stupid, love

are famed for their trashiness, outlandish plots and unconventional happenings. Kooky? Yes. Intentionally funny? No. Yet if you google the topic, countless comedic gems materialise. Some of them gaining their notoriety in the "so bad, it's good" category, but the majority for their alternative exploration of a different realm of humour.

The Big Lebowski is regarded as "The Dude" of cult comedies. A noir whoddunit featuring Jeff Bridges as the unlikely hero in an increasingly labyrinthine story, it is choc-a-block with mistaken identity, disorder, and enough unprintable four-letter words to last a whole two plus minutes when strung together. Initially met with a lukewarm reception (as is frequently the case with cult films), upon successive midnight screenings and due to the esoteric nature of the jokes, The Big Lebowski has spawned a cult following of unnerving proportions.

Its cultishness is demonstrated via Lebowski Fests peopled by dressing-gown-wearing fans sipping White Russians and spouting popular quotes. The film has even triggered a religion called Dudeism, which preaches the "Take it easy" manifesto of the film's chilled protagonist.

Other cult comedies have used humour to examine something more significant. Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove is the only comedy he managed to complete and yet was originally a dramatic glimpse at communism.

Apparently this all changed when the director found out how easy it was to set off an atomic bomb and Kubrick developed a savvy political satire very much ahead of its time. Other cult favourites which have utilised paradoxical absurdities to explore more meaningful topics include The Rules of the Game, a film satirizing the French upper class, and Reefer Madness, a sensationalist propaganda film released to highlight the dangers of marijuana.

Airplane!, has also attained a cult status as the spoof that started all spoofs. Mocking the various airport films released the decade before Airplane!'s debut, it cunningly used famously serious actors to utter stupidly outrageous lines.

For a more British response to cult comedies, nothing is as blatantly ridiculous (and stomach crampingly enjoyable) as the Monty Python series. From the chorus clicking coconut shells together because the production couldn't afford horses, to crucified Brian breaking into a hearty rendition of "Always look on the bright side of life", Monty Python is a surreal mixture of the absurd and the sublime. Watching The Life of Brian was even deemed a sin by The Catholic Film monitoring office and banned in various Christian countries, so you get to rebel against society as you watch it - a clear cult favourite.

There is no secret formula for concocting a cult comedy, but cult is regarded as such because it goes against the norm. The heroes are chosen because of their unconventionality, the humour is zany and unexpected, and there is some outlandish feature for the fans to emulate to the midnight showings, whether this be a beard, a bike or a bathrobe.

Eloise Kohler

Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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24 TV

Slinking off into the night

The wait is over, Spooks is back! Yet Lewis MacDonald is left feeling distinctly unimpressed with the new cast BBC 1 Sundays, 9pm

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wo of British television’s heavyweights now go head to head at 9pm every Sunday night: ITV’s popular period drama Downton Abbey, and the BBC’s perennial espionage thriller Spooks. Now in its tenth series, Spooks is still broadly reflecting contemporary British politics and foreign relations, with a dash of style and intrigue. So what’s new in the shadowy world of Section D? Since the death of traitor Lucas North (Richard Armitage) in the previous series, gruff section head Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) is facing a tribunal for improper conduct when he is temporarily reinstated to the office chair where he has spent so many hours brooding over threats to national security.

At his side is trusty Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker) who presents a welcome air of continuity for long-time viewers, in an office almost entirely staffed by newbies. This is no surprise: Spooks suffers somewhat from being a revolving door for British actors in their late-twenties and mid-thirties, demanding they deliver dialogue in a breathy undertone while triangulating the point of origin of a mobile phone signal or pistol-whipping a terrorist.

Speaking of breathy undertones, new girl Erin Watts (Lara Pulver) looks a little too fresh-from-the-manicurists compared with her rough-andready predecessors. Alongside her is wise-cracking Calum Reed (Geoffrey Streatfeild), who annoys more than he entertains. Also on the grid are Dimitri Levendis (Max Brown) and Tariq Masood (Shazad Latif ), strug-

gling to have the same impact as their incarnations in previous series.

And what, I hear you ask, is the over-arching and meticulously detailed plot, without which any Spooks series would be naught? With the special relationship rapidly cooling, the British government is turning towards Moscow to create a new bilateral partnership, reigniting Harry’s suspicions of his old Cold War adversaries.

“

Spooks suffers somewhat from being a revolving door for British actors in their late-twenties and midthirties" One of them, ex-KGB operative turned Russian cabinet minister Ilya Gavrik ( Jonathan Hyde) is in London with his glamorous wife Elena (Alice Krige, who might be recognisable as the Borg queen from Star Trek). Harry must temper his distrust of Ilya to protect him from an assassination attempt, while trying not to let on about his past escapades with Elena – which, by the way, provide a twist ending that you’ll spot a mile off.

The writing remains sharp, but is unevenly distributed – Harry, Ruth and Elena get the best lines, while Ilya compensates by injecting a little bit of Dracula in his Slavic intonation. By contrast, the younger actors have little with which to distinguish themselves.

Hopefully they will have the opportunity in the coming episodes; however, I doubt they will get quite the same scripting as Elena, who discusses the finer points of her champagne cocktail while her life is imperilled.

BBC

SPOOKS SERIES 10

THE COAT: A dazzling invention that makes a man look twice as big and ten times manlier

Downton revisited DOWNTON ABBEY SERIES2 ITV Sundays, 9pm

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ereft without some cutting dialogue delivered by Maggie Smith? All at sea without the comforting presence of a raft of servants?

It’s alright, because Downton Abbey has returned.

We’re whipped straight into the perilous battlefields of WWI where we encounter the (surprisingly dishy) heir to Downton and all its assets, middle-class Mancunian lawyer Matthew Crawley, who (obviously, because that’s definitely the typical soldier’s experience) is almost immediately on leave. Off he swans back to Downton, where he dons a nifty red jacket and introduces his sickly-sweet new fiancée to his almost-betrothed previous love, Lady Mary.

Maggie Smith is – as ever – on great form as the Dowager Duchess, back to her acerbic best, verbally

sparring with every other member of the cast. It’s these magnificently cutting lines, as she glances at said fiancée and sniffs with a raking glare, “Well, looks aren’t everything”, that provide moments of light relief from the well-crafted but sometimes slightly bland script.

Whilst anodyne versions of romance and passion play out upstairs, the really gripping drama, as usual, takes place in the kitchen. The big shocker was the return of Bates, the manservant's lying, blackmailing, Irish wife (because there’s nothing like a bit of casual stereotyping) who forced him to break the heart of poor Anna, the head housemaid.

Downton is always much better at pitching its characters somewhere between recognisable and caricature, avoiding the pitfalls that other costume dramas fall into. Yet this season opener saw it slide dangerously close to the edge before it recovered itself by limiting Mrs. Bates’ screen time.

Fortunately there’s also Hugh Bonneville’s more nuanced portrayal of the Earl – hurt and betrayed by

his silent valet’s “desertion”, then subsequently privately ashamed but honoured when enlightened of the reasons behind the departure.

Amongst the delights of the sumptuously shot countryside scenes, the reminders of the war were overpowering and worked well to counterbalance the tendency towards fluff.

To a much greater extent than in the first series, how the world is changing beyond Downton is reflected in the lives of those living there. Sibyl’s cooking lessons and nurse training, as well as Edith’s driving, are an important reminder of aristocratic women’s reality and the feminist movement in WWI. The Dowager's eventually unsuccessful attempts to have the house’s manservants excluded from military service was moving, and gave a good hint of how the war will bring an end to some of those members of the hitherto happy in the Downton idyll.

For now, though, just enjoy the well put-together nature of some luxurious and delightfully twee Sunday night telly.

HATS: A poor subsitution for brakes on a train

ITV

Sophie Clarke joins the upstairs and downstairs of Downton Abbey as they go to war

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Tuesday September 27 2011 studentnewspaper.org

TV 25

A breath of fresh air

LOST

&

FOUND

Dan Heap was just about able to look past his undying love for Campus and enjoy new university-based sitcom, Fresh Meat FRESH MEAT Channel 4 Wednesdays, 9pm

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ITV

fter years of commissioners overlooking the comedic potential of student life, there has recently been a scramble to produce university-based sitcoms. The BBC got there first in 2009 with Off the Hook, following the adaption of three freshers to life at a polytechnic university. Four then countered with frathouse-based US import Glory Daze and Campus, a homegrown effort from the makers of Green Wing.

tHEnEW sTATESMAN ITV (1987-92) ovguide.com

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Whatever I thought about it, Campus wasn't a hit with audiences and looks to have been axed for the more mainstream offering that is Fresh Meat, in which Joe Thomas (Simon from The Inbetweeners as more or less the same character), Jack Whitehall and a range of highly talented lesser knowns are a group of misfit University of Manchester students thrown together in a run-down student flat after they missed out on living in halls.

Opening on one of the characters cooking a raw duck with a hairdryer, you might initially be fooled into

bbc CHANNEL 4

“

A pleasingly and sometimes depressingly accurate portrayal of the occasional highs and frequent lows of student life."

GITS: Grant Management has screwed them over again. thinking that Fresh Meat is a zany, offbeat look at the fabled madness of the lives of student living, but it soon turns into a pleasingly and sometimes depressingly accurate portrayal of the occasional highs and frequent lows of student life.

Replete with the stilted first conversations (“So, what A Levels did you do?”) and cringingly bad first-time sex that are so redolent of Freshers Week, Fresh Meat is clearly carrying on in the embarassing realism tradition championed by The Inbetweeners, instead of trying to make out that we're all implausibly well-toned, ever-shagging partay

animals, a la Skins.

Stereotypes though most of the characters are – lippy working class girl Vod (Zawe Ashton), Josie (Kimberley Nixon), a small town girl eager to spread her wings, and arrogant public schoolboy JP (Whitehall) – they all show a hint of hidden depth that the writers ( Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain – Peep Show, The Thick of It) hopefully will open up as the series progresses.

Whitehall is the biggest surprise of the first episode: massively overhyped stand-up though he may be, he is perfectly cast as JP. He gets most of the show's spectacularly crude lines

In at the deep end

(“I'm a vagina miner, baby”, “I don't need flavoured condoms. My cock tastes amazing...I imagine”), but still manages to make the character well-rounded – a deeply insecure guy who hides beyond the macho facade that his public schooling has taught him to build.

The show is much of the same: on the surface of it, this is a crass, mildly amusing romp through first year at university but it could well be very much more: a long overdue look at the pressures and pains of being a student, with some cock jokes thrown in for good measure. Only time will tell.

Georgina Lamrock watched Jo Brand get wet and was not impressed by the drippy results Dave Thursdays, 9pm

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efore I begin, I must admit a bias: I’m not a fan of Jo Brand’s comedy.

Yet I was determined to go into Jo Brand’s Big Splash, part of Dave's new drive for original programming, with an open mind. My enthusiasm was short-lived to say the least.The basic premise of the show is to investigate Britain’s relationship with water via Jo Brand – a concept that is stretched to its limit (see part 4, Jo Brand picking golf balls out of a pond.)

The first foray into the world of water sees Jo diving with an Olympic champion; cue the inevitable Speedo jokes and awkward laughter (from both us and the diver, who clearly wondered if he was being paid enough). The initial shock of seeing Jo Brand in a swimming costume is quickly replaced by near-constant cringing and eventual horror. Even the appearance of fellow comedian Sean Lock did little to rescue proceedings. When asked what

he thought of Jo, he replied “Pathetic is kind.” Frankly, this could easily be applied to the show as a whole.

It goes from bad to worse. Having started out as a programme supposedly about water, the show progresses from diving, to a mud race, to the sewers of

London and finally concludes on a golf course. If there is logic in this, it escapes me. Jo Brand’s comedy only gets cruder as the show continues (possibly to match the increasingly dirty locales, but this is applying too much thought) and eventually takes the plank walk

WILLPOWER: To not push her in...

uktv

JO BRAND'S BIG SPLASH

into all-out toilet humour – which makes this rather like watching an overgrown eight year old boy. One scene actually sees her rolling about in the mud in a style reminiscent of a beached whale, an image that will stick with you.

Aside from all these problems with execution, the very essence of the show is grimly disappointing.

It would be assumed you could at least derive enjoyment from Jo’s willingness to get involved and splash around. However this was not the case - she complains almost constantly and shows an overall lack of interest with what's actually happening, preferring instead to make an endless stream of jokes about various unsavoury topics.

Jo Brand’s Big Splash is clearly intended to be an irreverent, humorous show about a slightly eccentric subject matter. Unfortunately, that’s not how it pans out. It lacks depth, humour and any clear purpose. Dave, stick to reruns of Top Gear, please.

aving a Tory government has a handful of merits, and one of them is that the vast amount of material on the Tory party from the Thatcher era becomes somewhat relevant again.

The New Statesman was a late 80s/early 90s ITV comedy which followed the many misdeeds of Alan B’stard MP, played by Rik Mayall, Conservative representative for Haltemprice, purporting to be the most right wing member of the House of Commons.

As B’stard’s name would suggest, the show’s humour was incredibly crude and shallow. The political satire was generally simplistic, merely a vehicle for more irreverent humour. B’stard was the archetypal, straw-man Conservative MP: sleazy, corrupt and totally self-interested. He was written totally as an anti-hero; thoroughly unlikable but surrounded with equally if not more unlikable characters that were largely shallow projections as well – corrupt judges and reactionary peers even more despicable than B’stard.

Though Mayall has a tendency to outshine all others, B'stard was provided with some well-written comic foils: sidekick Piers ��������������� FletcherDervish (Michael Troughton) � – simple-minded and posh but simultaneously a bumbling figure of conscience – and traditional Churchill Tory Chief Whip Sir Stephen Baxter ( John Nettleton).

Unlike its much better known (and largely superior) counterpart Yes Minister, The New Statesman didn’t engage in sophisticated political commentary. Its best writing was reserved for character interactions, where cut-and-thrust banter was the order of the day, but the satire was generally wonderfully absurd, in the vein of Mayall’s other works – Bottom and The Young Ones.

Stereotypes were used mercilessly – there are scenes with high ranking Conservatives chatting in the foyer of a brothel, dressed only in towels, and an entire episode based around filling an old coal mine in B'stard's Yorkshire constituency with nuclear waste.

Whilst lacking truly engaging satire, The New Statesman was highly entertaining and is worth a watch for a couple of reasons: firstly because it provides an insight into what many people thought of the Conservative party in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and secondly because it’s what a lot of people still think about the Tories now.

Daniel Swain

live

Live Music

FRI 30 SEPT 8PM Potterrow £10|£8 students Tickets available from Teviot, Potterrow* & Pleasance* box offices, or on 0131 650 4673. Online bookings can be made through:

www.eusalive.co.uk your student association – your live events – your social life

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Tuesday January27 182011 2011 Tuesday September studentnewspaper.org

Sport 27 27

Running out of excuses

Freddie Mills analyses why Fernando Torres is not living up to his extortionate price tag

from the wings and the midfield. There is no denying that Frank Lampard, usually the heartbeat of the Chelsea midfield, has had his best years. Struggling to make the Chelsea and England side, the future is bleak for the team’s vice captain. Drogba, the Premier League’s top scorer prior to Torres’ arrival, has been unable to flourish alongside the Spaniard. Body language experts comment on the bitter rivalry between them - they don’t talk to, communicate with, or even look at each other throughout matches.

Florent Malouda is no longer the creative spark he once was, Michael Essien has been blighted by long term injuries and Saloman Kalou appears very much out of favour. Perhaps Torres’ comments about the Chelsea team being too slow for him are justified.

“

Torres is losing his reputation as a fan favourite. He needs to start repaying the fans for their faith in him, and quickly."

james layton

A dire start for the most expensive signing in British football.

When Chelsea signed Spanish superstar Fernando Torres, there were whispers that they would now win the league. Four days later, title rivals Arsenal astonishingly gave away a four goal lead at St James’ Park and United were stunned later that evening with a 2-1 defeat at Wolves. Chelsea then found themselves seven points behind leaders United but with a game in hand, two fixtures against the Red Devils remaining and a new £50m signing. They faced Torres’ former club Liverpool the following day, and with manager Carlo Ancelotti slotting his new forward into a three man attack with established strikers Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, it was believed they could form a partnership to rival the unstoppable Villa, Messi and Pedro. How wrong we were. Torres was highly unimpressive from the start, embarrassingly subbed in the second half as Chelsea were beaten 1-0. The Spaniard has since managed to score a mere two goals in 24 appearances for his new club.

The most obvious reason for Torres’ downfall is a lack of confidence.

His last 18 months at Liverpool were underwhelming, despite showing moments of magic. He was no longer regarded as one of the greatest in the world and struggled to make the Spanish starting lineup. For Chelsea to then arrive on the scene offering a staggering £50m, huge pressure was put on an out-of-form player. He looked shaky and nervous throughout last season and the open goal sitter that he fluffed against United showed how the weight of expectation is overwhelming him.

The critics are quick to bombard him and opposition fans chant “what a waste of money” at every available opportunity - the poor man's confidence has gradually deteriorated and this has prevented him from reaching the top of his game. The Chelsea fans initially remained faithful to their record signing - the reception when his name was read out by the stadium announcer was rivaled only by Frank Lampard

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: But Torres has struggled so far at Chelsea and John Terry. The “Fernando Torres is Chelsea’s number 9” chant echoed around Stamford Bridge throughout matches. However, in more recent weeks, this has changed and Torres is losing his reputation as a fan favourite.

He needs to start repaying the fans for their belief in him, and quickly.

Torres’ fitness has also stopped him hitting his best. The Spaniard made a name for himself due to exceptional performances, for example the night when he tore apart the Madrid defence at Anfield and was described as being “a golden bullet”. The new Tor-

res is almost unrecognizable. Sluggish and off the pace, the darting runs that threatened opposition have almost completely disappeared. One reason for this is that he played in tournaments for Spain for the past four summers prior to his arrival at Chelsea. A lack of rest causes exhaustion and this lead to many injuries during his time at Liverpool. He appeared revitalized after the summer break and perhaps the rest will help resurrect his stalling career.

Another plausible explanation for his disappointing start is the service

EUSU is keen to disagree with. They stress that this is actually the case.

The FSA usually run two teams in the intramural football leagues but McVicar claims that due to the hike in prices they are “struggling” to do

so this year and he believes that “a lot of leagues will be cut and more teams will drop out”. Despite the rising prices the FSA does remain committed to the intramural league and would like a costing list to be issued in future to help clarify the situation.

A differing perspective is offered by Adam Dudzinski, Captain of the History Boys intramural rugby team. Along with a couple of other senior members in his team Adam was forced to pay a substantial proportion of the money himself in order to enter the team into the league due to the tight deadline. Rugby prices have risen to £370 this year and he has taken a big risk in paying so much money with no guarantee of a return.

He said: “I understand why the prices have risen and I even understand why they are higher than football due to insurance costs but even despite the rise in pitch hire it is still an awful lot of money to fork out at once.”

Accepting that the costs were unavoidable Adam also made a plea to the Sports Union urging them “to make sure the rise in prices for playing fields were justified – all teams should play an equal amount of matches

However, with the arrivals of Juan Mata and Raul Meireles, the return of Daniel Sturridge and the emergence of Ramires, all players with flair able to give Torres a killer pass, improvements should be on the way. He has looked sharper this campaign, managing more shots and carving out a couple of assists. The new-look Chelsea is far better suited to him and excuses are now running out.

Despite Torres’ woeful start, his performances against Manchester United and Stoke this season were his best in a Chelsea shirt. There have been rumors linking him elsewhere as Andre Villas Boas appears to be getting fed up with him but the service he’s been given in midfield has been excellent. Chelsea fans should keep faith with him as it won't be long before he begins to justify his troublesome price tag.

Nevertheless Alan McVicar of the Football Supporters Association (FSA) does believe the increase in prices to be “scandalous”. He does not accept that the price of pitch hire can have gone up by 50%, something that

PRICE HIKE: Pitch hire has contributed to intramural costs

Jack penny

Continued from page 28 on the better facilities because we only played at Peffermill twice last season which does not seem fair.”

“

EUSU cannot afford to cover the rise in Peffermill, CSE and Council prices due to budget cuts."

The importance of intramural rugby to many students has ensured that the rise in prices has become quite the topic of debate but due to budget cuts and facility providers increasing their costs it is seemingly been unavoidable. EUSU has done its best to limit the rise in prices and has even increased its subsidisation allowing for the leagues to remain.

Let’s just hope the weather serves all intramural teams better than it did last season so that they – and the Sports Union – can get their money’s worth and play out a full schedule of games.

Injury Time

takes A WRY look at the world of sport For you, my friend, Fernando It was around 5.31pm, a few Sundays ago, that Fernando Torres scooped and skewed himself into my Unofficial Football Glossary. Now, just before P for Penalties, in the entry marked O for Open Goal is a picture of a head-in-hands Spanish striker, who, whilst dressed in blue and feeling bluer, managed to epitomise the majesty and misery of missing a gaping net.

However, poor Fernando is not alone in his ineptitude, he is just the latest mistake in an evergrowing list of sitter-missers. He joins Ronnie Rosenthal, Ryan Giggs and Yakubu as a banana booted berk; a gang of players with 7.32 metres to aim at, who still somehow manage to bobble or balloon their way into history.

There is another person to add to that list though: me.

So, I’m 14. My team are beating a rag-bag club of skinheads and lowlifes 7-1. It’s a pre-season friendly and we’re cruising. So, in his infinite wisdom, my manager throws me up front, a chance for a left-back to get a goal and go home pretending he’s not Denis Irwin but Ronaldo. Rounding the goalkeeper and skipping past an onrushing defender, I only need to place the ball between a familiar off-white structure. I hit the bar and wildly miss the returning ball. I don’t feel like Ronaldo, I feel like Ronald McDonald.

However, I think I’m nearly over it and I believe that any victim of an open-goal miss can conquer their demons with one of my three Post Traumatic Miss Tips. These are for you, Fernando: 1. Make friends with the net.

Once everyone has left, hang around, make it coffee, tell it jokes, share a Crunchie together, buy it Net’s Weekly and swoon over tightly strung hockey nets.

Let it know you’re its friend, its sweet-toothed friend.

2. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Not scoring goals, but your postmiss faking an injury/blamingthe ground face. Hold your knee and grimace or throw tufts of grass in the air; anything to make it look less like your fault.

3. Pack a bag, move country, get a new citizenship and start again as a writer for a University newspaper.

This is my personal choice. The freedom of writing for a backpage column might just mean you dream of something other than a hellish net cackling at your pathetic efforts at goalscoring. Night after night after night after night.

At least that's what I hope, anyway.

Jack Murray

Sport

studentnewspaper.org

Tuesday September 27 2011

For you, my dear, Fernando

Jack Murray offers some consolation to an under-pressure Spaniard P27

Edinburgh kicked out of Scottish Cup

Emily Jarrett

Davie Heaton reports on the University's disappointing defeat in the first round at Peffermill

DOWN AND OUT: Uni suffer defeat in the Scottish Cup Men's Football Scottish Cup First Round Edinburgh University 0 Whithill Welfare 3 Edinburgh captain Daniel Main was sent off as the University were knocked out of the Scottish Cup

by Whitehill Welfare on Saturday.

Main endured a torrid afternoon, first giving away a penalty to give the visitors a two-goal lead and then seeing red for a handball in the second half.

Wayne Sproule opened the scoring early and grabbed a second after the break to secure Whithill’s passage to the second round – and compound

a frustrating afternoon for Dougie Samuel.

The manager believes luck was not with his side, although he knows there is much to improve on before the teams meet again in the East of Scotland Premier league.

“The officials had too bigger bearing on the game,” he said. “Whilst I don’t dispute that they were the better side over the 90 minutes I think nothing went our way.

“The killer was the penalty just before half-time when their player has come back from an offside position, and the red card was very harsh.

“I think it’s case of an inexperienced ref who was probably being assessed on the day and felt he had to go by the let-

ter of the law – Danny was shocked to be given a straight red.”

The hosts were behind inside ten minutes. Wayne MacIntosh’s deflected cross reached Sproule on the volley, allowing the striker to calmly slot home low to keeper Mark Tait’s left from twelve yards.

Tait was soon in action again, saving low from Andrew Kidd's 22-yard curler before British Universities' midfielder James Craigen cleared a deflected MacIntosh strike off the line.

Whitehall were getting closer – Aaron Somerville ratting the crossbar from the edge of the box – and in the 43rd minute they grabbed the two-goal lead their play deserved.

Sproule appeared to come back from an offside position before racing in behind the retreating Main, who was lured into a mistimed lunge which sent the forward tumbling. Skipper Jim Young stepped up to slot the penalty into Tait’s bottom left corner.

Another save from Tait on the stroke of half time, this time from close range as Sproule raced clear, meant that Dougie Samuel's men emerged from the break with some hope. But their fate was sealed when Main was dismissed on the hour.

Sproule once again looked to have broken beyond the defence until his flick was intercepted by the hand of last-man Main – referee Graeme Stewart had no hesitation in producing the red card.

Olli Vakalla and Craigen responded with decent efforts from a range, but the visitors continued to dominate and sealed their passage into the second

round fifteen minutes from time.

Sommerville came in from his flank and unleashed a deflected drive which Tait spilled into the path of Sproule, who completed a deserved brace from ten yards.

“

With hindsight I think I picked the wrong side - but we'll learn from that."

Edinburgh Coach Dougie Samuel

Despite being dissatisfied with his side’s performance, Samuel is upbeat about his team’s potential for improvement.

He quoted: “We were extremely disappointing in the first half hour – I don’t think we settled, we couldn’t get our foot on the ball and the first goal knocked us a bit.

“It’s about how we bounce back now and I’m sure we’ll pick ourselves up and be better prepared next time we play them, when certain players will be fitter and sharper.

“We were undercooked today and with hindsight I think I picked the wrong side – but we’ll learn from that.

“I’m very optimistic for the season ahead. We’ve picked up one or two players from the Freshers' trials so we have options and we have two or three exceptional players on their way back from injury and once they’re back this side can go on to have another successful season.”

Edinburgh University

0

Whitehill Welfare

3

Sproule, 10, 75 Young, 43

Star Man: W Sproule The Whitehill striker was lively throughout, inducing errors with his quick and intellegent running.

He was involved in every major incident - winning his side a penalty, forcing the handball that lead to Main's sending off, and scoring twice.

Referee: G Stewart 6/10 Edinburgh: Tait 6, Irvine 5 (Moosavi 45, 6), Gair 6, Cathcart 6 (Chattergee 73, 6), Main (c) 4, McMaster 6, Rawlinson 5, Vakalla 6, Gray 6, Craigen 6, Beacher 5.

Booked: Irvine 33, Vakalla 73.

Sent Off: Main 61.

Whithill: Walker 6, Young 7, Thom 6, Hall 7, Kidd 6, Sproule 9 (Robertson 83, 6), Herd 6 (Moffat 78, 6), Manson 6, MacIntosh 7, Somerville 7, Bruce 6.

Booked: Sent Off: -

Intramural prices on the up Chris Waugh investigates why it has cost captains such a lot more to enter sports teams this year Intramural sports captains returned to the University of Edinburgh Sports Fair this year to discover that prices had risen by up to 50 per cent across the board and that for the first time teams had to be registered on the Friday of Freshers' Week rather than the following Monday.

Football prices have risen £117 from last year and rugby prices by a similar margin – but the rise has not only affected these two core sports, but also all other intramural leagues.

The main reason for the rise is due to Peffermill, the CSE and Edinburgh City Council raising their pitch hire costs by at least 50% and EUSU (the Edinburgh University Sports Union)

being unable to afford covering the full rise in prices due to budget cuts.

The official sports teams within the university are important and they provide an opportunity for elite athletes who wish to dedicate time to their sports to do so, but the significance of intramural sport to many students should not be underplayed.

The intramural leagues offer a great opportunity for students who enjoy their sport but do not want the full commitment of joining an actual university side the chance to play and socialise with others.

Another reason why many students choose to join intramural teams ahead of university teams is

the cost. Often university teams ask for at least a £100 contribution to the year (which does not include many other costs that could arise) and some sport-lovers simply cannot afford this. This makes the rise in intramural prices all the more damaging but Sam Trett, President of EUSU, has insisted the rise was unavoidable.

“My hands are tied”, Sam explained.

“EUSU is committed to continuing to support intramural sport, but the problem is that budgets are getting tighter.”

It seems that the same problem that is affecting so many areas of our lives and society at the moment – that

of cost-cutting in difficult economic times – has also struck the Sports Union and in particular, intramural sport.

In spite of the price rises, Sam has assured intramural captains that EUSU “are still heavily subsidising intramural sport” and that “the budget for intramural sport has actually increased but the prices have risen so high that we could not afford to write-off all of the increase.”

What is more worrying is that the pitch hire prices that have been agreed are still considerably lower than the figures that the CSE and Edinburgh City Council wanted.

The EUSU President has moved to

protect intramural sport by keeping the costs as low as possible and he has said that “prices should not increase next year” and that he will fight to ensure they do not. However, no guarantees can be made due to the drastic reduction of budgets.

EUSU also made it clear that they cover all insurance costs because they feel it is their “legal obligation” to do so. Rugby in particular commands quite hefty insurance costs and as these are covered by the Sports Union the intramural prices have not increased as considerably as they could feasibly have done.

Continued on page 27