The Student 25/10/2011

Tuesday October 25 2011 | Week 6

C U LT U R E

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BANNED BOOKS

Music» p18

C U LT U R E

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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

Criticism of sports funding changes

Stuck in a rut . . .

University of Edinburgh study reveals Scottish deer are picky when it comes to sex >> News P7

Martyn baker

Lewis Macdonald

Edinburgh Uni refuses to bow to pressure over fees “ Edinburgh stands firm as English universities consider U-turn over £9000 limit Alasdair Drennan THE UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh has refused to bow to increasing pressure to reassess their rest-of-UK (RUK) fees for next year in spite of possible reductions in fees in England.

University fees in England for the next academic year could be set to fall following an announcement by the Government that 20,000 university places will only be made available to institutions charging less that £7,500 per year.

This means that the University of Edinburgh’s RUK fees, which are al-

ready the highest in the UK, will look even higher in comparison if English institutions agree to reduce their fee proposals.

A spokesperson for the University told The Student, “We are awaiting the outcome of discussions in the Scottish Parliament on Higher Education funding. As things stand, there are no plans to change RUK fees.”

Robin Parker, president of the National Union of Students (NUS) Scotland stressed that any reduction in English fees should place pressure on Scottish institutions to follow suit.

He said, “Fundamentally, it’s wrong for anyone to be paying for their education. The Scottish Government are right to have protected Scottish-domiciled students from the uncertainty and ravages of the market, but they were wrong to give the university principals so much liberty to set fees for students studying in Scotland from the rest-ofthe-UK. “Edinburgh and St Andrews universities must be looking at the situation

We are awaiting the outcome of discussions in the Scottish Parliament. As things stand, there are no plans to change RUK fees.”

Spokesperson, University of Edinburgh

down south with ever more concern, as their £36,000 degrees look all the more out on a limb. If the average fee does indeed come down in England, the more expensive degree cost in Scotland will only look even more out of place.”

The move to reduce fees has caused confusion for those currently applying for courses beginning next year. The UCAS deadline for applications to Oxford, Cambridge and for medicine and veterinary medicine has already passed.

The Government announced changes to the allocation of places in July even though Universities had set

out the structure for their fees in April.

The process for applying for places was announced by the Higher Education Funding Council early last week.

The Office for Fair Access (OFFA) announced that 28 universities in England have expressed in interest in reducing their proposed average fees to below £7,500 and eight have already taken steps to do so.

OFFA has laid out a process for universities that desire to revise their fees and new proposals must me submitted before 4 November.

Universities wishing to revise their fee structure for next year must contact all students who have already applied and inform them of the changes being made and give all students who have applied already the opportunity to choose between the new funding structure or stay with the package that was on offer when they made their application.

Continued on page three»

An investigation by The Student has revealed concern over changes to funding of the university’s sports clubs by Edinburgh University Sports Union (EUSU), following cuts to the funding they can distribute.

Some clubs expressed concerns that funding seemed to have decreased compared to past years, making them increasingly reliant on contributions from their members and placing limits on the activities that it would be possible for their clubs to take part in.

Countering these claims, other clubs said that any increases to their membership fees and reductions in subsidies were down to inflation and increased fuel prices. They also stated that EUSU contributions to club budgets, while a small proportion of the total, were a welcome cushion to their costs throughout the year.

For certain sports clubs, a concern that emerged was access to the Centre for Sport and Exercise (CSE)’s fleet of minibuses, cuts to which means that the fleet has been downsized. The cuts have affected those sports clubs whose activities take place outside Edinburgh. Liyen Nhuyen, treasurer of Edinburgh University Mountaineering Club (EUMC), told The Student that as a result “we had to resort to hiring cars from Enterprise, which implies higher costs for us.”

Marcus Horgan, former treasurer of the club, said, “We have had a fair amount of wrangling with the SU over the past 12 months and a main problem is the zero transparency available, decisions are made, clubs notified and it is very difficult to raise problems to a level above that of the SU board.”

The CSE’s budget lies outside the remit of EUSU, which does negotiate for subsidised prices for CSE facilities for students and sports clubs. Responding to this issue, Tom Redpath, treasurer of EUSU told The Student that there “is a constant negotiation between ourselves and the CSE on all costings” and that “we do pursue and fight on behalf of the clubs to ensure their voice is heard”.

Continued on page two»

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.”

Tuesday January 27 2009 | Week 3

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Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

News 33

‘Sorry, you can’t down that pint’

EUSA bar service manager tells student that she would “not permit” downing of drinks in union bars after staff confiscate pint with mayonnaise in it Calum Leslie AN EDINBURGH student has been told that bar staff acted correctly after he was accused of “adulterating” a pint of lager with mayonnaise in the Pleasance Bar. Second year economics student Daniel Swain complained after Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) bar staff took a pint off him and his friends that had been bought to be used in dare.

After complaining, Swain was told

by EUSA bar service manager Rachel Dyas via email that she would “not permit” downing of a pint in a bar she was working on, Swain told The Student, “Me and my friends were competing at the Pleasance Pub Quiz, as we do every Monday. Towards the end of the quiz, one of our friends expressed the notion that she could down a pint with mayonnaise in it.

“Wanting to see this some of us chipped in and bought her a pint and added mayonnaise left over from some curly fries purchased earlier.

“Then, a barman came over and inexplicably removed the pint from our table. When we went to the bar to ask him why, having merely been blanked when he initially took it away, he offered the excuse that ‘dirty pints’ are not allowed in Union bars.

“We explained that this doesn’t meet the criteria of a dirty pint, and he vaguely mentioned licensing laws before refusing us a refund and retreat-

ing to the back. No one was drunk or anything.”

In an emailed response to his complaint from Dyas, seen by The Student, Swain was told, “I believe the member of staff did in fact act accordingly and properly.”

Dyas goes on, “I expect my staff to maintain a level of adult behaviour in our bars and I do not feel that adulterating a pint with mayonnaise meets that level of behaviour.”

of pint downing with mayonnaise in it is the issue and not a level of behaviour we would expect or permit.

“I would not permit pint downing, particularly with mayonnaise in it, had I been on shift myself.”

This approach is in contrast with bars close to the university.

When asked by The Student if they had any policy on downing drinks, staff at The Brass Monkey said they had no policy “unless it gets daft” and had no concersn about pint downing; Holyrood 9A staff said they had, “no concern over pint downing or adding condiments” and that the issue was drunkeness; while bar staff at Biblos said while they do not actively encourage the downing of drinks, they would permit it.

When contacted by The Student, EUSA vice president for services Philippa Faulkner backed the decision of EUSA bar staff and the stance of Dyas, claiming the students in question had been acting in a ‘boisterous’ and ‘irresponsible’ manner.

She said, “I can confirm that an incident took place in one of our venues, in which a member of EUSA staff took a drink from a student who was acting in a boistrous and irresponsible manner.

The Student recently wrote about the importance of responsible drinking, which EUSA totally agrees with.”

She added, “In light of this, it is perfectly within the rights of any establishment to judge what is unnacceptable behaviour and to act accordingly, which I feel our staff did.”

“

I do not feel that adulterating a pint with mayonnaise meets that level of [adult] behaviour . . . I would not permit pint downing, particularly with mayonnaise in it, had I been on shift.”

Rachel Dyas, EUSA bar service manager Despite Swain claiming EUSA bar staff were unhappy with the students’ ‘dirty pint’ - even though he says the glass did not contain more than one alcoholic drink - Dyas said, “I do not intend to enter into a discussion over the legality of dirty pints and so on but there is legislation to prevent irresponsible drinking which would include pint downing. However in this instance I feel that the behaviour

University of Edinburgh remains defiant in face of English fees climb down

EDINBURGH UNI: Fees will not be lowered for RUK students.

blue funnies

Continued from page one

Students will be able to change the universities to which they have applied following any changes before the 15 January UCAS deadline for most courses.

OFFA is responsible for approving the ‘access agreements’ proposed by universities wishing to charge tuition fees of more than £6,000. These agreements include outreach programmes and financial support.

Director for Fair Access Sir Martin Harris reassured applicants wishing to change the courses they have applied for making it clear that their applications must be treated “without prejudice”.

He also said, “Guidance makes it clear that applicants must continue to receive the same overall level of financial support and must receive sufficient warning of any revised package to enable them to change their university choices.”

A representative for OFFA could not confirm to The Student which universities were looking to reduce their fees.

The National Union of Students (NUS) criticised the changes, saying the announcement allowed universities to renegotiate their access agreements which may result in reductions to upfront support such as scholarships and bursaries which will be replaced by partial fee wavers. This would result in

restricted access.

The union also warned that the changes would cause “confusion and disruption” to current applicants.

Last year, more than 70,000 applications had already been submitted by this point in the application cycle.

NUS vice president Toni Pearce said, “Tens of thousands of applicants now face an anxious wait at an already stressful time.

“Students looking to assess and compare what support will be available to them face weeks of uncertainty and many will find that vital bursaries have been replaced by tokenistic fee waivers.”

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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4 News

EU student numbers in UK increase by a third in last decade

Vicki Madden

THE NUMBER of EU students admitted to UK higher education institutions has increased by a third in the last ten years.

An annual report published by Universities UK has shown that 2010 saw a record 125,000 students from EU member states claiming places at UK universities, an increase of about 35,000 compared with a decade ago.

Figures show that this spike greatly outweighs the rise in admissions among students from the UK where the number of applicants has increased by only one fifth.

In January, it was reported that Scottish ministers feared EU students were exploiting Scotland’s free university system in a bid to avoid paying rising fees at home.

Admissions figures showed the number of European students taking up places at universities in Scotland had nearly doubled within the last decade. Whilst the number of EU students admitted to English universities experienced a rise of six per cent, the number of students given places at Scottish universities rose by 17 per cent in the 2009/10 academic year.

Scotland's education secretary Mike Russell earlier this year held meetings

with the EU over laws that mean EU students must be offered free tuition in Scotland, arguing this was quickly becoming no longer tenable.

Like Scottish students, undergraduates from the EU are subsidised using the Scottish taxpayer’s money and are entitled to the same low-interest government loans available to UK students. They also compete directly with UK applicants for capped university places.

There has also been a considerably greater rise in the number of non-EU students studying in the UK compared to the increase in number of EU students, however, non-EU students do not count towards the strict cap on university places and are liable to pay much higher fees that are not subsidised by taxpayers.

Surveys have revealed that the largest portion of EU students in Scotland is made up of Irish, French, and German students. Edinburgh University is currently host to around 270 Irish students, nearly 350 German students, and over 320 students from Greece.

Other countries with a large number of students in attendance include Switzerland, Sweden and Russia.

Orestis Tsaposas, a computer science student originally from Greece, told The Student why he chose to study at Edinburgh University.

He said, “I came here because of the course's reputation. I also came here because I had been to Edinburgh before and I really liked the city. ” The report, however, highlighted that EU students still only account for one-in-twenty of the total number of places at UK universities.

“

EU students: Why did you decide to study at Edinburgh?

Have your say

Figures in Scotland show EU student numbers nearly doubled in ten years

joseph walsh classics, from ireland

“I came here because the teaching quality is high. I also came here because I wanted a change of city and it is cheaper to live here than at home.”

Matt kuzdub Sports science, from poland

“I came here becuase the course is unique and there is not another one like it in Europe.”

Alexandra Taylor

RUNNERS SIGNING up for the 2012 Meadows Marathon have been promised a bigger and better event this year by organisers.

For the first time, Edinburgh’s largest student-organised running event, will feature a full marathon along with the usual half marathon and 5.6km fun run.

The 26-mile marathon will only be open to participants who are predicting sub-four hour times.

Race entertainment will also be bigger than ever, with a concert in Bristo Square to kick-start proceedings.

Organisers have also taken steps to ensure that none of the registration glitches of the last event, which affected sign-up procedures, will be repeated by implementing a new streamlined registration system.

They have also partnered with local clothing company, to encourage runners to raise awareness by wearing race

hoodies and t-shirts.

This year they are aiming to raise at least £50,000 and are predicting a turnout of approximately 2000 runners on race day.

Last year, 800 participants worked up an impressive £40,000 in donations for selected charities.

“

Taking part in the Meadows Marathon is a great way to challenge yourself if you've never done a serious run before.”

Ben Simmons, Meadows Marathon project manager

Ben Simmons, Project Manager for the Meadows Marathon 2012 told The Student, “Taking part in the Meadows Marathon is a great way to challenge

yourself if you’ve never done a serious run before. We’re much cheaper than other runs of the same distance because our lap format keeps our costs down, and we keep it interesting with live music, hundreds of spectators, and our excellent commentators.

“You don’t have to raise money to take part, but we’ve made it easy to create a fundraising page once you’ve signed up. ” He added, “Even if you only raise a little, if enough of you do it, it quickly adds up into a lot. We work with lots of great charities, people can see who they are and learn about them from our website: www.meadowsmarathon.org. uk.”

The Meadows Marathon first was established by two Edinburgh University students in 2008 and has since raised over £100,000 for various charities.

This year’s race will take place on March 4, 2012 and costs £25 to enter the marathon or £15 for the half-marathon and fun run.

ON YOUR MARKS: The Meadows Marathon is now in its fifth year.

sally hutchby

Organisers promise even bigger and better Meadows Marathon

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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6 News

AN EDINBURGH pilot scheme allowing students to nominate their favourite lecturers for teaching awards will now be rolled out across the country following successful trials in Edinburgh.

The Student-Led Teaching Awards project was jointly devised by the Scottish branches of the National Union of Students (NUS) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) in 2009, and has since been trialled in 13 institutions, drawing over 11,000 nominations in categories including ‘Outstanding Communicator’ and ‘Best Director of Studies’.

Helen Thomas, Head of Teacher Excellence at the HEA, said to The Guardian the awards would benefit students as well as lecturers, “The demand for good teaching is on the political and student agenda.

“These awards help students to recognise what good teaching is so they know what to ask for and…know that teaching is felt to be important because it is being rewarded.”

The Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA), organiser of the awards at the University of Edinburgh, said the project was as much about improving the standard of less popular lecturers as it was about rewarding those who were already a success, “Students often tell us that the teaching that they receive is far from world-class.

“The awards aim to demonstrate to the University the importance that students place on the educational experience that they receive in their time here, and to highlight to academic staff the value of the time and effort put into their teaching. It is hoped that, in the long term, the awards will promote more recognition of the value and importance of teaching within the University.”

While generally receiving praise and support, some students have questioned whether the awards will be able to achieve the goal of improving teaching across the board.

Talking to The Student, one third year History student at the University of Edinburgh mused, “Obviously it’s great that good lecturers are being rewarded, but I don’t know if it’s going to have a big impact on the lecturers who aren’t so good. I mean, maybe I’m just being too cynical, but…there are loads of lecturers who are only really interested in doing research, so they might not be that bothered about whether or not they get an award for teaching.”

But Elizabeth Bomberg, a University of Edinburgh lecturer and the first winner of the ‘Overall High Performer’ award, insisted that the awards would be mutually beneficial.

Speaking to The Guardian, she said, “Students like feedback, but so do staff. To receive that constructive feedback – there’s nothing to match that in terms of encouraging good teaching.

“Sometimes in the rush to deliver our teaching and get work done we forget that it’s really about interaction with students.”

Alistair Grant

THE OCCUPATION of St Andrew Square in the New Town area of Edinburgh, reported in last week’s edition of The Student, is continuing amid growing media attention.

The occupation, which began on Saturday 15 October at approximately 1pm, saw numbers of around 500 protestors occupy the area over the weekend.

Taking the occupy Wall Street movement in New York as their inspiration, the Edinburgh occupation is part of a growing worldwide movement against the workings of the financial system and social injustice.

According to the protest website, a Daily General Assembly is held everyday at 6pm to achieve consensus for the occupation, and provides newcomers with an opportunity to get involved.

The website states that, “We represent all ethical nationalities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, disabilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

“We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.”

Max Crema, an economics student at Edinburgh told The Student “We are getting new people every day.

“I’m on the outreach group, stand-

ing out here talking to people as they walk past, and we’re getting people who have never voted in their life coming up and saying, you know, you guys are right, I do feel really alienated by the system, I don’t feel like I can vote for anyone - so why should I care? We’re here to fight against that.”

He added, “You really do feel like you’re part of something much bigger – that, and the amount of support we are getting from people who have jobs and who don’t have time to sit in the square all day, because we appreciate not everybody does.

“Almost everybody here is just someone from Edinburgh’s community who has decided they want to get involved. We’re going to be here for a while.”

A City of Edinburgh Council spokesperson told The Student: “The Council works jointly with its partners to facilitate peaceful and lawful protests. St Andrew Square is managed by Essential Edinburgh - we are liaising closely with both them and Lothian and Borders Police to ensure that the current action taking place there remains good natured.”

Essential Edinburgh also explained to The Student that they were “working closely with the police and following their advice.”

Despite visible police presence in front of the banks around the square, and accusations made by numerous protestors, both the RBS and the Bank of Scotland branches on the square have denied seeking to have

PARTY TIME: Spirits remain high at the occupation

CAMPING OUT: There are over 30 people occupying overnight the protestors removed.

The occupation, which currently numbers around 30 permanent occupiers, is part of a growing worldwide movement that has seen the involvement of some 85 countries.

George Square in central Glasgow was also brought under occupation,

with a rally held this Saturday to heighten publicity and involvement.

Activist and fourth year politics student at the University of Glasgow, Megan Cowie, told The Student, “A forced eviction may be the only thing that stops this kind of social movement.”

EUSA endorses second wave of national education protests

Union to provide bus for students wishing to join London protest Sarah Mitchell

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY Students’ Association (EUSA) will support a national demonstration over student fees, following an emergency Student Council meeting held last Tuesday.

The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) has called for a national demonstration in London on the 9 November, similar to the protests which took place last year, against £9000 fees; UK cuts to education funding; what some have branded privatisation of education; and to demand better student support; and the reintroduction of the Education Maintenance Allowance, scrapped in England and Wales in January.

The NCAFC Facebook page states, “Last year the Tory-Lib Dem government scrapped EMA and raised university tuition fees to £9000, betraying election pledges and effectively pricing many of us out of education.

“Now the government is attempting to push through a wave of privatisation that threatens to make universities about profit and management, not about students or social justice.”

The National Union of Students (NUS) will also support the dem-

onstrations and have voiced their willingness to provide resources and financial help in support of EUSA’s involvement in this demonstration.

EUSA will provide a coach for Edinburgh students wishing to protest against the funding changes being introduced in the next academic year, as happened last year when students protested against fees in London.

A motion proposed by James McAsh, and seconded by Philippa Faulkner, Mike Williamson and Mike Shaw was introduced to the Student Council. It was entitled “Putting students at the heart of the system: mobilising against the white paper.” The now notorious higher education white paper, which many academics have labelled as threatening to the fundamental objective of the University as an educational institution.

McAsh, who is campaign coordinator for EUSA, told The Student, “It’s great that EUSA are on board with the fight against tuition fees, education cuts and privatisation.

NCAFC organised the National Demo because we need to remind the government that trebling tuition fees was a terrible idea in 2010, and it’s a terrible idea now.

“Last year we fought alongside

English universities when we didn’t know the implications in Scotland.

Now Edinburgh is the most expensive university in the UK, so there is even more reason to have our voices heard.”

“

The government is attempting to push through a wave of privatisation that threatens to make universities about profit and management.”

NCAFC Facebook page

The motion’s main aims are to reaffirm their stance against fees and cuts, to support other local campaigns with similar objectives and to ultimately encourage as many students as possible to become active in the protest movement.

The motion maintained that education should be paid for through progressive taxation rather than fees, as education is a public good and should be provided for by the state.

It is hoped that lecturers, trade

unions and NUS Scotland will assist in funding this event and their transport to London. Originally the motion called for a budget of £3225, which would allow for two buses.

Amendments were made which reduced this figure to £1500.

As a result, at the moment there will only be one bus travelling to London instead of two, and there will be no funding allocated to printed publicity for the event.

The seats on the bus will be allocated by a randomly drawn ballot system, rather than on a first come first serve basis, which was previously proposed.

However, this has caused tension amongst students who consider it unfair for those who fail to gain a place but still wish to attend, as it makes it much more costly to arrange alternative transportation and to reorganise plans at short notice.

Mike Shaw, Mathematical physics student at Edinburgh, told The Student, “People are particularly unhappy about the ballot system as it makes it much more costly should you fail to get a place but still wish to attend, and have to arrange transport at short notice.”

Alasdair Drennan

Leo Michelmore

Edinburgh remains occupied

Alasdair Drennan

EUSA Teaching Awards go national

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Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

News 7

Deer won't settle for any old bit of rough

IN

Brief

University supports MRSA battle.

Edinburgh researchers find that deer are picky when it comes to the birds and the bees

AN EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY study has discovered a toxin which could help in the fight against hospital superbugs.

The toxin – SIEX – is released by almost all strains of MRSA and causes the body’s immune system to go into overdrive and start to kill healthy cells.

Dr Ross Fitzgerald from the Roslin Institute explained how important the finding was stating, “If we can find ways to target this toxin, we can stop it from triggering an overreaction of the body’s immune system and prevent severe infections.”

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Nina Seale

Oxford funding cluster bombs HEY GIRL: Just thinkin' about Judith Butler's theory of performative gender and gettin' my groove on deer can be individually recognised by identification tags or appearance.

The study concluded that roaming of a female is definitely linked with her being in estrus, but they could not find evidence that they are seeking out preferred males on the basis of their harem size, age or roaring ability.

The autumn rut arrives and the stags begin their fight over the harems of females. This is begun by ‘parallel walking’, a gentlemanly dance where the males walk slowly alongside each other then stop, face away from each other and roar.

If after this sizing-up ceremony the smaller male admits defeat, no blood is shed. However, occasionally an overconfident male will not concede victory and they will lock antlers, pushing against each other in a masculine

“

We thought the excursions were due to female choice, so they would go toward older males... but we couldn't find evidence of that kind of selection, so one idea is that they are trying to avoid sexual harrassment from the males that chase them.”

display of strength and virility. Mortal combat is very rare, but is known to occur in these testosterone-fuelled battles.

Advantages of female rut excursions have been identified. Although male competition is designed to promote genes of strong, healthy deer in the next generation, an older stag that has been mating with a large harem for years will actually decrease genetic diversity within the population.

So the female’s quest to slip away from the dominant male and mate with an outsider from her harem promotes ‘out-breeding’, which gives the red deer a genetic advantage in terms of variation and diversity.

Katie Stopher, Ediinburgh Uni researcher

Ancient grave of unknown Viking chief discovered on remote highland peninsula First burial-ship ever found on Scottish mainland by team of archaeologists Sam Bradley A RARE and unprecedented archaeological discovery has been made in the Scottish Highlands; a 1,000 year-old Viking burial site, the resting place of an unknown chieftain, has been uncovered in Ardnamurchan, a peninsula jutting out from the west coast of Scotland.

Nearly all other so-called ‘ship burials’ have been found on the Scottish islands, meaning the location of this find is a first. This particular site is thought to be from the tenth century, and includes the body of a high-status Norseman – buried with his axe, sword and spear.

Professor Ian Ralston, Head of

Archaeology and Professor of Later European Prehistory in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Edinburgh University, told The Student, “It was excavated this summer just passed by a team from a variety of organizations including Manchester University and CFA Archaeology.

“Burials in seacraft of a variety of sizes are not unknown in Viking Scotland, although most are rather smaller than the word ‘ship’ might suggest. All are, with, I think, one slightly debatable example from Caithnes, from the islands – and the best excavated and published example until now came from the back of the beach at Scar on Sanday, Orkney.

“The Ardnamurchan example thus changes the geography by being from the Scottish mainland, albeit the most westerly promontory thereof. Such inhumations within ships belong to the pagan Norse period from the tail end of the eighth century to the tenth, and most, but not all, their associations are male – weaponry in particular.”

Despite being characterised by Vic-

KATHRYN LLOYD

New research from the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge has shown that female red deer play hard to get when looking for sex.

The work, observing red deer on the Isle of Rum, has shown that 43 per cent of females then wander off in ‘rut excursions’ away from the harem their stag has fought so hard for, in the only 24 hours of the year where she will be responsive to mating.

Katie Stopher, researcher from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Biological Sciences, told The Student, “We thought [the excursions] were due to female choice, so they would go towards older males or males with larger harems.

“But we couldn’t find evidence of that kind of selection, so one idea is that they are trying to avoid sexual harassment or ‘chivvying’ from the males that chase them around and bother them when in estrus – they might flee to these other males for protection.

“The other thought I’ve had is that females might return to a male they’ve mated with previously. Its only 24 hours before they’re back with their harem so it’s definitely not linked with food or weather. We’re not sure what it is yet.”

Of the 43 per cent of females that stray from their usual range, two thirds will travel more than two miles and almost half will mate with other stags while they are away.

The study used data from forty years worth of research into the red deer populations on the Isle of Rum, a National Nature Reserve managed

by Scottish Natural Heritage. All the

torian historians as capricious heathen savages, the Vikings were in fact highly technologically advanced for their time, making advances in seafaring, trade and farming that allowed them to establish a short-lived empire. Conclusive evidence has shown that Vikings penetrated as far east as Istanbul and as far west as Newfoundland.

“

Burials in seacraft of a variety of sizes are not unknown in Viking Scotland, although most are rather smaller."

Professor Ian Ralston, Head of Archaeology at Edinburgh University

Hannah Cobb, co-director of the investigation and an archaeologist from the University of Manchester told The Guardian, “Such burials were reserved for high status individuals. He may have been a chieftain, a famous

navigator, or renowned for his wisdom, but this man was clearly special to his people.”

“Building a lasting monument to the dead for the living may well be an important factor, and also rooting people in with landscape traditions, given the proximity to the neolithic and bronze age cairns. We don’t think the association with the older monuments can be a coincidence – this was a place which was very important to people over an extraordinarily long period of time.”

Before Christianisation in the twelfth century, the Vikings had a complex and well-documented mythological pantheon. The Norse raiders plundered the coast of the British Isles roughly between eighth and eleventh centuries – starting with the infamous sacking of the Lindisfarne monastery, and ending when Harold Godwinson defeated the invading Harald Hardrada at the battle of Stamford Bridge.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY has invested £630,000 in a US arms manufacturer which manufacturers cluster bombs.

A Freedom of Information request made by the Oxford Anti-War Action group revealed the university had invested over £2 million in defence companies.

Part of this was an investment in Lockheed Martin which has outstanding contracts to supply cluster bombs to the US military, in spite of international condemnation of their use.

Britain is one of over 100 nations that have signed the Cluster Munitions Convention banning the production or use of the destructive weapons.

The university denied any wrongdoing.

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Olympic torch pays early visit to Edinburgh

THE OLYMPIC torch visited Edinburgh yesterday afternoon.

People were allowed to hold the torch in Bristo Square yesterday afternoon.

There were opportunities to have photos taken with the torch ahead of its 70 day journey around Britain which commences in May next year.

The lit torch will return to Edinburgh on 13 June next year as part of the Olympic Torch Relay ahead of next year’s Olympic Games.

AD

Half of A-Level students consider going abroad for uni

A new survey has found that nearly 10 per cent of A-Level students are put off applying to university because of the tuition fee rises, with nearly half of that number saying they might apply to study abroad.

The BBC Inside Out/ComRes also showed that two-thirds of the potential applicants surveyed woudl consider an apprenticeship as an alternative to a degree. Over half of respondents said they would attend a local university to save money.

SB

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Send your letters to: editors@studentnewspaper.org

8 Editorial

Editorial

The Student thinks Halloween is great – but c'mon, let's diversify

Join us!

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

No experience necessary!

If you're interested, here’s how to track us down: » In person: Meetings every Tuesday in the Cabaret Bar, Pleasance at 1.15pm.

Socials: Tuesdays in The Counting House at 8.30pm. » By email: editors@studentnewspaper.org » On Facebook: tinyurl.com/StudentFacebook » On Twitter: twitter.com/TheStudentPaper A quick history lesson...

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.

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.

Editors Anna Feintuck/Eloise Kohler

News Sam Bradley/Alasdair Drennan/Calum Leslie Comment Becky Chan/Nick Dowson/Lewis MacDonald Features Nina Bicket/Hannah Clark/Debbie Hicks Lifestyle Sophie Craik/Lilidh Kendrick Tech Tom Hasler/Thom Louis Herring Max Johnson/Guy Rughani/Ben Scally Culture Zoe Blah/Michael Mackenzie Music Joshua Angrave/Tom Kinney Film Tess Malone/Ali Quaile TV Dan Heap/Daniel Swain Commission Kathryn Lloyd Sport Davie Heaton/Chris Waugh Copy editors Daniel Davies/Carl O’Gorman

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Multimedia Luke Healey Web editor Lewis Dunne Illustration commissioner Cat O'Neil President Sean Douglass

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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

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With Halloween fast approaching and parties galore being broadcast, we started to wonder what all the fuss was about. Halloween originally arose out of a variety of historical festivals, the most typically linked holiday being the festival of Samhain - a celtic holiday marking the end of harvest and a celebration of the beginning of the “darker half ” of the year. Nowadays the point of Halloween appears to be to, as Anna’s friend so aptly put it, “dress as anything, just slutty.” Excessive alcohol consumption and scaring your fainthearted flatmates also seem to be an essential component of the All Hallow’s Eve experience. This depreciation of such an originally genuine holiday led to us wondering about some more creative anniversaries that should perhaps be acknowledged instead.

If, like us, you’re jaded by Halloween, then make like the Mexicans and observe Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) on November 1. The celebrations can be traced back to indigenous cultures and stem from the belief that communication exists between the living and the dead on this one day.

The most common customs include elaborate altars to welcome departed spirits home, and the placing of candles and flowers on graves to guide the souls back. It is not traditionally a mournful celebration, but a beautiful and colourful occasion to commemorate lost loved

ones and happy memories.

With such a diverse community of students at the University of Edinburgh, International Mother Language Day on 21 February would be a fabulous occasion to listen to other students’ native tongue. Proclaimed by the United Nations in 1999, it is a wonderful opportunity to promote and preserve languages from all over the globe. Languages are one of our most powerful instruments to protect our heritage, so use this day to practice your Spanish or maybe even to pick up a a few phrases of something more obscure – Lojban, anyone?

The same month also brings you the more silly Public Sleeping Day on February 28. As previously mentioned we here at The Student are lacking serious nap time, so anything that involves some quality sleep is going to score points with us. This innovative holiday can be celebrated with a casual doze in your lecture or some more serious shut-eye at a party. Just so long as it is in public.

For the more literary amongst you, June 16 marks Bloomsday. This is an opportunity to commemorate James Joyce’s Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904.

The day involves a variety of cultural activities including Ulysses readings, dramatizations and pub crawls, with enthusiasts dressing up in Edwardian costume to honour the event. Other

cultured individuals will enjoy World Literary Day on November 17 - yes, the day at school when chosen books from your favourite authors used to be £1 - and International Museum Day on May 18, an occasion to highlight how integral museums are to the development of society.

If this selection isn’t quite enough for you, we decided to fabricate a few of our own that we’d like to see acknowledged.

This week, The Student has been marred with multiple network and computer failures (which, when you only have two working computers to start with, is pretty disastrous), so we would like to introduce a National Appreciate the Tech Geeks Day: we would be nothing without them. Other thoughts include Only Wear Woolen Day (numerous knicker conversations ensued); Hug a Humanities/Science/etc. Student on their Deadline Day, and It’s-sociallyacceptable-to-help-yourself-to-morethan-two-servings-of-food Day - if only.

It's the time of year when the midterm blues hit hard and, if you're feeling a little bogged down, we hope these holiday suggestions will help. We're pretty sure you can never have too many holidays, so if all else fails, just make one up.

Your editors, Anna and Eloise.

At The Student we take dressing up for Halloween very seriously...

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Comment 9 �

Time to cut the red tape A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the registry sent to all Tier 4 visa holders (read: all [non EU] international students) outlining the implementation of new requirements for the visa. I skimmed the first few lines, quickly got bored and forgot about the email. A week later, I took another shot at tacking points 1 through 6.2. What I found, buried deep amongst the phrases ‘UKBA statutory requirements’ this and ‘Highly Trusted Sponsor status’ that, was a whole new set of hoops for international students to jump through - or else be kicked out of the university and ultimately the country.

“

I can't help but get the impression that these new regulations are meant to remind us that we're forever skating on thin ice."

Last year, the UK Home Office made some fundamental changes to the conditions of the visa, and those of us who have managed to wade through the endless red tape in order to acquire it are now starting to notice the difference, in the form of a so-called "census".

So, what does this entail? No-

holds-barred monitoring. Our attendance must be recorded (lectures, tutorials, what have you), and schools must report students who have missed ‘ten contact points’. In addition, Tier 4 students must report to a designated place and time each semester on the off-chance that class attendance sheets weren’t adequate in showing that we do, in fact, exist and turn up to class, and even study and hand in assessments. The email reads like a taunting from the school bully – “You think you deserve to be here? Prove it. Again.”

It’s no secret that the UK Home Office are trying to discourage the intake of foreign students. In December last year they were inundated with emails and phone calls after their blatantly xenophobic tweet: “Contribute your views to our consultation into how we can best reduce the number of students who come to the UK”.

The international students that do eventually make it here can’t expect any decisions to be made with them in mind. Pollock Halls charge extra for students to stay over the Easter break, justified under the assumption that the students that can afford to stay will, and the ones that can’t will suffer a day of inconvenience packing up their stuff and going home to their parents. International students? Tough. You have to pay. And of course you can afford to, as you already pay £13,000 a year and what’s a few extra (hundred) quid?

It seems that in every respect there

is a case of double standards where international students are concerned.

Home students’ fees are constant from the year they commence their studies because it is considered unfair to increase them after students have planned for the original figure. This claim apparently holds no water for international students – my fees were raised significantly this year with no warning, and I am told to expect this to happen every year. What reaction would there be if the university decided that all home students, current and new, would have to pay £9000 as of next academic year?

I can’t help but get the impression that these new regulations and constant check-ins with the university and visa authorities are meant to remind us that we’re forever skating on thin ice.

Put just one toe out of line and it’s a one-way ticket home. It’s no wonder that international students just shut up and take it .

In light of recent attacks on students by the ConDem government it is understandable that student activists have had their hands full. However, I feel it is time for international students to make a good, proper fuss, and that home students should (and I believe would) stand side by side with us in our struggle just as we have with theirs.

We worked hard to obtain the right grades and to chase up references and paperwork. We attended interviews and had our pictures and fingerprints

JUMP, FOREIGNER, JUMP!: Visa regulations are notoriously demanding. taken. We pay thirteen, fourteen or fifteen thousand pounds per year, upfront and are active in university events, in

A history of resistance

zining cui

The new Tier 4 visa requirements are the latest in a string of obstacles for non-EU students, argues Ebony Ruggero

societies, in university life. What more do we need to do to prove we belong here?

Tim Gee compares the current climate of protest to that of the anti-poll tax campaign and asks: what can we learn from the past?

For younger people,campaigning has sometimes seemed a like a fruitless activity. Many of us marched against the Iraq war, against top-up fees, against climate change. And still the government didn’t seem to listen. Furthermore, ours is the generation carrying the burden of the war debt, student debt, and climate debt, because of the wrong decisions of our elders. It is unsurprising then, that more and more of us are turning to civil disobedience to assert our voice.

But not all of our elders are to blame, and we don’t need to look far into history to see examples of resistance we can learn from. Indeed we only need look back to the last time that a neo-liberal Conservative Government was in charge. One of the key planks of Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 election manifesto in the UK was the ‘Community Charge’ – a regressive, flat-rate local tax. It was calculated that the Thatcher family would save £2,300 per year while an average family in Suffolk would pay an extra £640. It soon became known as the poll tax - a refer-

ence to an unpopular tax per head that had helped spark the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.

“

We can learn from the campaign against the poll tax that enough people actively resisting an unjust practice can lead to it being abandoned."

Nowadays the word "riots" is almost synonymous with the word "poll tax". But there was another more long standing track to the campaign: nonpayment. Following the 1987 general election, radicals in Scotland called on the Labour Party to support a nonpayment campaign. When the support was not forthcoming the campaigners decided to fight on regardless. Anti-Poll

Tax Leagues emerged across Scotland, with non-payment their preferred method. Thanks to public meetings, mass door-knocking campaigns and pledge-signing the support for nonpayment became widespread.

As the date for the extension of the poll tax to England and Wales approached, so the anti-poll tax organisations spread there too. As local council after local council set their poll tax rates, mass protests took place on town hall steps right across the country. Campaigners worked out that that if just 1 in every 37 people eligible to pay refused to do so the court system would be clogged up for 17 years. Campaigners found ways of elongating court procedure by representing themselves and making procedural points. On the first day that non-payers faced the judge, 1,800 summonses were thrown out.

People also joined together in solidarity to resist bailiffs from entering houses. In Glasgow and London, tax collectors themselves protested at their

orders to collect the unjust tax. In some areas the police declared that following up all of the defaulters would be physically impossible. However some were not so lucky. Amongst those imprisoned was the Labour MP Terry Fields, who spent 60 days in prison for refusal to pay his £373 poll tax bill.

Despite the eventual victory against the poll tax, Thatcher’s Conservatives still did great damage. They implemented a neo-liberal programme mirrored abroad and continued by New Labour which gave more and more power to big business. By 1999 a majority of the 100 largest economies in the world were corporations rather than countries. In the years between 1983 and 1999, profits at the biggest 200 corporations increased by 362.4 per cent. Since then the trend has only continued in the same direction. It has come at a cost to the poor - through mass privatization, reductions in funding for public services, the restriction of trade unions and the watering down of regulations protecting

consumers and the environment.

So now we have Conservatives in government again, and it would seem that they are continuing the neo-liberal project where they left off. This time the call of the movement is calling not for the withholding of tax, but for major companies to pay their share; a logical call in a society where the corporation is the dominant institution. We can learn from the campaign against the poll tax that enough people actively resisting an unjust practice can lead to it being abandoned. We also need to learn that it isn’t enough to only change policy, or even governments. We need to challenge the neo-liberal project as a whole.

Tim Gee was Vice President of EUSA from 2005-6, and has recently written a history of campaigning movements called ‘Counterpower: Making Change Happen’.

He will be speaking as a guest of People and Planet in the Edinburgh University Chaplaincy on Monday 31 October at 7pm.

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Comment 10

�

Our collective responsibility The dissemination of images of Gaddafi's death was down to more than decisions made in newsrooms, argues Dan Heap hours after the event, but both miss what for me what was unique about that day. First, as Mark Lawson argued in The Guardian, everybody – no matter what they have done – deserves dignity in death and the media’s reporting of Thursday’s events violated some basic tenets of human decency. While I agree with Lawson on his first point, blaming it on the media conflates the actual act of Gaddafi being beaten and dragged through the streets with the media representation of the event. The freedom fighters were the ones that robbed Gaddafi of his dignity by treating him that way and by photographing it and videoing it on their phones. Once the media then started broadcasting those images, the deed had been done: whether the events had been seen by

A NEW ERA: Gaddafi was killed by rebels in Sirte on Thursday.

FLICKR: SSOOSAY

Like many others, I hoped that when Gaddafi was eventually captured he would be made to stand trial for the crimes he committed against the people of his country. It would have been a powerful symbol of the birth of a new democracy for it to judge him guilty by the rule of law and the due process that he denied to others under his regime.

Instead, those that captured him chose to drag him, badly injured and bleeding, through the streets – the shocking images of which were subsequently spread across the internet and thence onto our TV news bulletins and the newspaper front pages. Justice, perhaps, but not of the sort many would have been hoping for.

Two broad criticisms surrounding the images were identifiable in the

only a few hundred people in Sirte or by billions around the world, the effect on Gaddaffi is the same.

The second main criticism of the media for the way they exposed the public to what was effectively a live murder in the way that it had never done before. The backlash against the decision to display the images was swift: the BBC was soon challenged for its decision to broadcast them, and complaints about the press coverage the next day flooded in when people couldn’t walk into a newsagent’s without seeing the grim pictures on most of the front pages. Whether people had the right to see those images is arguable, but they certainly had the right not to see them, and that the reasonable middle way – to print the images but not on the front page – didn’t occur to any of national newspaper editors says a lot about their priorities.

There is no doubt there was some fierce debate going on in newsrooms on Thursday afternoon surrounding the decision whether to broadcast and to print the images. I’m sure most producers and editors would have thought twice about where the line was between giving their audiences a sense for what was going on in Sirte and being deliberately shocking. All this, however, again misses the point of what was significant about that day in terms of how news is now created and disseminated. The fact that it was the rebels themselves and not TV camera crews that recorded the video of Gaddafi being dragged through the streets is significant, as is the fact that the scenes were almost instantly available through social media.

Genuine though I’m sure many of those newsroom debates would have been, they would have discussed the ethics of distributing or distributing those images knowing full well that audiences could have been able to access them regardless of whatever decision they themselves made, and that inevitably would have influenced the decision of most of them to go ahead and show the pictures. Editors would not have taken the unprecedented step and considerable risk in displaying those disturbing images if they had not already had been so greedily consumed and so eagerly exchanged elsewhere.

“

There is no doubt there was some fierce debate going on in newsrooms surrounding the decision whether to broadcast and print the images."

Thursday was a supreme demonstration of the fact that the power to create and then spread a representation of a critical event now lies much more in the hands of every one of us than has been the case in the past. Millions of people retweeted, e-mailed and Facebooked links to websites containing the images and in doing so played their part in the way they radiated out so quickly and so uncontrollably from just

a few battered mobiles to the screens of billions around the world. With so many of us shaping the news via social networks, we are no longer just consumers of media, but creators of it; and not just witnesses to events, but independent and increasingly powerful actors in shaping them.

With that power, though, must come responsibility. We need to live up to the fact that we have an increasingly powerful influence on what gets reported and how, and as such we should exercise an according amount of restraint in the way we participate in sharing the emerging news of events like the capture of Gaddafi. All professional journalists go through formal instruction in journalistic ethics (though, given a number of events this year, one wonders how much weight is given to it) and given that there has been such a merging of the formal and social media spheres, it is time that those who share media subject themselves to a similar ethic of responsible journalism. Before we decide to pass on this type of news, we need to consider much more carefully what effect it has on others and what we are saying about the circumstances in which it was created when we do so.

It is no longer adequate, as many did on Thursday and Friday, to simply blame editors, producers and regulators for failing to stem the flow of disturbing images: it is much less in their hands and much more in our than in the past, and we must start acting – or rather, tweeting, Facebooking and blogging – like it.

Not playing ball at all Last week one of the SNP’s flagship policies received yet another stinging shot across her bows, this time from one of the most unexpected of quarters. Since the end of the previous football season Alex Salmond has been attempting to push the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill through Holyrood in an avowed bid to tackle sectarianism in Scotland. The bill, which at first looked set to sweep through Parliament in record time thanks to a wave of public disgust at the Old Firm’s antics, has since stalled.

Badly.

One organisation after another has lined up to blow holes through the proposed legislation, with critics describing it as “heavy-handed” and “unnecessary.” It isn’t just the political parties and football fans either, but church bodies, numerous NGOs and also high profile academics, among them former acting-head of the University of Edinburgh's School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Tom Devine. Surely the cruelest blow for Salmond came last week, however, when avowed anti-sectarian group Nil by Mouth joined the ranks of the opposition.

Nil by Mouth is Scotland’s lead-

ing anti-sectarian non-governmental organisation. It claims to have found evidence of sectarianism “in schools, communities and workplaces across Scotland.”

“

Does Salmond's legislative drive stray into the murky territory of repression of freedom of speech?"

Since the introduction of anti-sectarian legislation in 2000, Nil by Mouth has assisted in putting thousands of bigots behind bars. And yet last week it came out saying that it wanted “less grandstanding and more understanding” from Alex Salmond’s administration. With support in Parliament ebbing rapidly it seems the First Minister will be forced to rely upon his own party’s majority vote alone to see the bill through.

All of this has important implications for Edinburgh. Nil by Mouth’s official stance comes barely a month after eleven Hibernian fans were lifted from their Edinburgh homes in a dra-

matic dawn raid on charges of sectarian aggravation at a recent football fixture.

This would seem to support the claim being made by opponents of the bill that current legislation is enough to tackle the bigots.

And yet Edinburgh has also made the case for the counter-argument – it was at Tynecastle, after all, that Hearts fan John Wilson mounted his assault on Celtic's manager Neil Lennon, the action that gave the right tide for the SNP’s policy ship to set sail. Wilson has since been cleared of the more serious charges, a fact that has enraged many Celtic fans.

Edinburgh is not free from sectarianism, indeed far from it. Take a walk down Lothian Road and it won’t take you long to find sectarian graffiti scrawled on a few walls. Of course the capital’s problems pale in comparison to Glasgow’s, but that’s no reason to disregard it. If anything Edinburgh’s recent record has been worse that the Glasgow area’s. What we find ourselves asking is, will Salmond’s legislative drive really improve matters, or does it stray into the murky territory of repression of free speech? Its critics seem to think so, yet the First Minister isn’t likely to drop it any time soon.

BALL: It is clear that some people need to re-learn the rules

FLICKR: BEEFY_N1

Robbie MacNiven scrutinises the SNP's anti-sectarian behaviour bill and the response of its critics

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Comment 11

Reptilian rhetoric

Lisa Parr discusses the role of political satire in the public's relationship with the media

important that this doesn’t get lost in Chivers’ catch-all, boys-will-be-boys, if-you-can’t-take-the-heat-get-out-ofthe-kitchen justification for bigotry.

“

IN COLD BLOOD: Cameron and cabinet watch the sacrifice of another impudent satirist Last week something of a spat broke out between Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker and the Daily Telegraph’s comment crew over Brooker’s depiction of David Cameron as a “reptilian demon”. The initial venom was released by Brooker in a preamble to a piece on BBC budget waste. Graeme Archer of the Telegraph responded with a broad attack on the rhetoric of the political left in its “anti-arithmetical counter-reality”, prefacing his assertions with the fact that he was tired and had recently seen a poor woman in the street.

Brooker responded with a Twitter campaign reaffirming Cameron’s lizard-hood. At this point Tom Chivers, a more senior Telegraph commentator, waded in with a sycophantic repost,

conflating Brooker’s lizard-mongering with a range of contemporary and historical political insults; some similarly ludicrous, some funny, and some that are really quite disgusting - most notably, Jeremy Clarkson’s remark calling Gordon Brown a “one-eyed Scottish idiot”. It’s unfair to put Brooker’s lizard shtick in the same category.

Chivers goes on to tell us that “you don’t read [Brooker’s] columns for considered political debate: you read them for well-crafted insults”, and here he misses the point. While Brooker’s lizard campaign doesn’t tell us much about David Cameron, or indeed the state of right-wing politics, it does tell us something about the way we process what we see in the media. Calling David Cameron a lizard is not a well-crafted

Dennis MOJADO

While Brooker's lizard campaign doesn't tell us much about Cameron, it does tell us about the way we consume and process what we see in the media."

insult, it’s a deliberately poorly-crafted insult.

When I read the initial article, I thought that Cameron calling BBC cuts “delicious” was an indulgence of Brooker’s poetic license. I looked it up and I learnt something. It made me think more about Cameron’s rhetoric, and this is where the value lies in the satirical blurring of fact and fiction.

It does what good comment pieces should do: make us question what we know, check our sources, and challenge prevalent opinions.

Calling Cameron a lizard is an abstraction whose heightened absurdity makes us question the absurdity of other rhetorical figures that the media presents us with. This has always been the role of political satire, and it’s

While I didn’t find Brooker’s initial article very funny, it doesn’t change the way I view David Cameron because it has very little to say about David Cameron. It’s actually more at the expense of David Icke, propagator of the Babylonian Brotherhood theory of reptilian world domination, than David Cameron. In fact, the headline was promptly taken up by the pitiable Icke and posted on his website.

Chivers’ argument echoes many an anti-PC commentator, saying: if you don’t like it don’t read it, but don’t try to limit my freedom of speech. This is the line taken by Jeremy Clarkson himself, and was bandied around a lot at the time of his “one-eyed Scottish idiot” witticism. Again, this misses the point, which is not that Jeremy Clarkson should be prevented from expressing his opinion, but that when he does, he sounds like a cunt.

However, as Chivers tells us, “offensiveness is in the eye of the beholder”.

What I personally found most offensive in the whole exchange was Graeme Archer choosing the verb “schlep” to describe a woman walking in a predominantly Jewish area.

Marriage – a divisive topic?

Tom French on the importance of the continued fight for the legalisation of same-sex marriage Anyone reading the national newspapers in recent weeks will have found it difficult to avoid the countless headlines dedicated to diatribes of ultraconservative lobbyists in their personal crusade against proposals to lift the ban on gay marriage in Scotland.

In an effort to deter the Scottish Government from providing same-sex couples with equality under the law, and in the theatrical style that only gay marriage opponents are capable of, we have been warned that it would be a “grotesque subversion”, an “act of cultural vandalism” that would “shame Scotland in the eyes of the world”.

Those politicians who support equal marriage are pandering to the “gay rights lobby” that espouse “whatever happens to be the secular moral vogue of the day”.

Civil partnerships have been described as a novelty, while same-sex marriage has been compared to incest and bestiality. To give their argument more punch, senior Catholic bishops have threatened the Scottish Government with the electoral wrath of 800,000 Catholic voters.

Putting aside the damage done to their own cause by their rhetoric, opponents of gay marriage are significantly over-playing their influence. We know that a majority of the public support lift-

ing the ban on same-sex marriage. The respected Scottish Social Attitudes Survey has shown that support has been increasing for over two decades.

In 2010, 79 per cent of people said they supported, or did not oppose, samesex marriage. This included a majority of those from all the major faith groups and political parties, including 57 per cent of Scottish Catholics.

Equal marriage is popular among the public because the case for change is clear. The principle of equality under the law is rightly valued in Scotland.

This makes the current segregated system of family law all the more unacceptable. A system whereby mixed-sex couples can enter into the socially and religiously significant institution of marriage, while same-sex couples are offered the separate and symbolically different institution of civil partnership, cannot be described as equality.

The status quo also restricts religious freedom, another principle Scotland holds in esteem. Currently the state bans faith groups from making up their own minds on whether to solemnise same-sex marriage. They are simply not allowed, regardless of their beliefs. For same-sex couples of faith, and groups like the Unitarians,

the Quakers, liberal Jews, Buddhists, and the Humanists, who perform more marriages in Scotland than the Catholic Church, this is an infringement on their desire to solemnise same-sex marriages.

“

Scotland's students have always been at the helm of progressive movements for change."

So, with a strong case and the support of a majority of the public, what are equal marriage proponents concerned about?

Surely the Scottish Parliament will pass legislation to lift the ban on same-sex marriage as a matter of course? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Gay marriage opponents have pledged an organised and well-resourced campaign. The Catholic Church is distributing 100,000 campaign postcards to urge negative responses to the Scottish Government’s same-sex marriage consultation, and petitions are - literally - being pushed around church pews in an effort to drum up opposition.

The worry is that the progressive majority in Scotland, assuming legislation will be passed, will not bother to respond

to the consultation. This could result in marriage equality being kicked into the long grass, and could have a devastating impact on Scottish social policy for years to come. If progressives want Scotland’s politicians to lift the ban on gay marriage they must speak out.

Students will be key to deciding the outcome of the consultation. Scotland’s students have always been at the helm of progressive movements for change.

During the 1980s it was the student movement that led campaigns against the apartheid in South Africa; more recently, it has been students leading calls for greater action to tackle climate change. If the voice of the majority is to be heard it will require students, one of the most progressive and politically active groups in Scottish society, to speak up. That’s why the Equal Marriage campaign is calling on all students to respond to the Scottish Government’s consultation before 9 December deadline. If you believe in equality it’s time to let it be known.

Tom French is the Policy Coordinator of the Equality Network. If you would like to respond to the Scottish Government same-sex marriage consultation visit: www.equalmarriage.org.uk.

The People Speak In Tongues If Newsjack’s crystal ball, powered by parliamentary arithmetic, is correct, Monday will have seen a Cameron egg-faced not so much by having had to give his MPs a threeline whip against a petition’s call for a referendum on EU membership, but by the unlikely circumstance of being outflanked on the right by both his MPs and the over 100,000 public signatories. “Golly gosh, they want a referendum on Europe? My word George, Europe will be my decision! And it is awfully good if my ‘deputy’ thinks we’re leaving him a few scraps..”

Belated governmental support for the EU is unlikely to promote much gratitude from the muchmaligned union. The European Commision is demanding a BBC apology after Jeremy Paxman failed to stop the commentator Peter Oborne on Newsnight repeatedly calling its spokesman “that idiot in Brussels”. Meanwhile the UK mission to the UN has thrown away a temper tantrum and is blocking joint EU statements – more than 70 so far – on the grounds that they should be presented “on behalf of the EU and its member states” rather than just on behalf of the EU. The usefulness of this ‘policy’ is unknown to all but Hague and Cameron, who have dictated it from London, but with crisis in Greece and the Eurozone it seems no-one in Whitehall has come up with any better way of spending Britain’s political capital. Maybe cabinet will soon decide in the interests of pedantry to use their UN veto to block Security Council statements until the UN refers to itself as the "Not-Always-SoUnited Nations". While they're at it, maybe they can find an alternative to the "United-Unless-Salmond-HasHis-Way Kingdom".

Meanwhile the reverberations of Number 10’s experiment with direct democracy will rumble on, as they will now consider for (nonbinding) parliamentary debate any petition with more than 100,000 signatures. Topping the e-petitions list with almost 250,000 signatories is a call that “Convicted London rioters should loose [sic] all benefits”.

Creative interpretation of this would be interesting – letting convicted rioters out on the streets with wads of cash to distribute to claimants may be risky, though perhaps not more risky than using benefits assessors Asos, whose decisions are so unreliable that up to 70 per cent of them are being overturned on appeal.

Politicians who months ago gleefully proclaimed a petition might ‘force’ them to debate a return of the death penalty will be disappointed however – a petition to retain the ban on capital punishment is outrunning it by over 10,000 votes.

Nick Dowson

Let's hear it!: features@studennewspaper.org

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

13 Features

Rage against the scheme Too cool for corporate? Órla Meadhbh Murray ��������� adopts a “do ������� it yourself �������� ”�� attitude ���������������������������� to graduate careers

As a fourth year student, particularly one who has just finished reading One Day, I constantly seem to be asking myself where the golden years as an undergraduate have gone - and what on earth lies ahead.

As I reminisce about the last three years I ask myself: where did the time go? Those carefree Freshers’ days of “ring of fire” and sleeping through 4pm lectures. The weeknight second year flat parties and first Hogmanay celebrations. Those third year study abroad experiences followed by Fringe fun.

For final year students only two major events seem to lurk on the near horizon: dissertation trauma and graduate unemployment.

The former, a 10,000 word research paper on a topic of our own choosing, is manageable – in the sense that it can and will be conquered.

The second, however, is a terrifying spectre that looms behind every innocent poster for a careers fair, and jumps out at each parental enquiry about post-graduate life.

Whilst it is far from a new phenomenon for undergraduate students unsure of their future career, the current economic climate makes employment queries all the more distressing.

With the media reporting graduate unemployment rates this year to be at their highest for over a decade, and massive increases in university fees all over the UK, there is an almost noticeable air of panic amongst students and young people who are unsure what to do next.

This panic was never more palpable than during last week’s two day Career Fair in Adam House. Overall the event seemed pretty terrifying and uncomfortable for everyone involved, whether you are a final year student stressing out about your future or a Shell employee trying to ignore the student protests going on metres in front of your stall.

When asking fourth year students to comment on the current lack of graduate options, the overwhelming response was one of doubt. Amy Doffegnies, an International Relations student, describes herself as “a bit worried – however, I’m trying to just concentrate on my fourth year studies at the moment”. For some, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Matt Hurst

“

For final year students only two major events seem to lurk on the near horizon: dissertation trauma and graduate unemployment."

Alana Apfel, a Social Anthropologist, takes an alternative stance to the lack of graduate job prospects: “I’m running away to South America!”

Whilst many are still unsure and trying to put off the decision, plenty more students are worried about the lack of positions in their particular field. Janina Wrobel, who studies Music, expressed her interest in working as a music therapist - but is considering all her options as she is unsure whether or not there are enough jobs in that speciality.

However, as grim and apparently ethically dubious much of the graduate job market is, there are always other options for those willing to step outside their comfort zone. Entrepreneurship - as glamorised by Sir Alan and his trusty sidekicks, Margaret, Nick, and Karren - is a route that many students seem to automatically discount, viewing it as a dauntingly unknown field for which they are unsuited.

When speaking to another fourth year student, this wariness of enterprise seemed to be a common theme; when asked about potentially starting her own business, Grace Sims, a fourth year English Literature stu-

dent, stated: “Yes, I would seriously consider it if I had the right provision and advice, but am unsure about what is available.”

As daunting and unfamiliar as it might sound, starting your own business or social enterprise is a viable alternative to the “final-year-fear”, and appears to be increasingly well funded and a relatively flexible option, particularly in comparison to cripplingly expensive postgraduate qualifications, numerous underpaid internships and going full-time at your part-time job until you realise three years have passed and you’ve forgotten why you did a degree in the first place.

What with banks being encouraged to make small business loans to new start-up companies in order to boost the UK economy, and the numerous business support networks being given additional funding to ensure that economic growth is stimulated at all levels, it couldn’t be a better time to seek help with a new venture. Whilst it may seem off-putting to see larger companies going bust left, right, and centre, it can also create space for new smaller businesses to provide cheaper or more ethical alternatives.

So if you want to start your gradu-

ate life working your own hours, being your own boss, and creating a venture that is as ethical and inoffensive (or as lucrative and deeply inhumane if you are that way inclined) as you want, then perhaps starting a business or a social enterprise is the way to go.

“

As daunting and unfamiliar as it might sound, starting your own business or social enterprise is a viable alternative to the final year fear" Obviously there are a number of pitfalls to this graduate option – where to find start-up capital, how to negotiate legal issues, and most importantly, where to find the ever-elusive great idea. Thankfully, as a student both in Scotland and at the University of Edinburgh you have a wealth of support networks and opportunities, that leave little excuse for those curious entrepreneurs.

There are two main support net-

works on campus for new entrepreneurs, both of whom are almost fighting to give you help and advice and lead you to a lucrative and exciting business future.

The University-specific organisation, LAUNCH (http://www.launch. ed.ac.uk/) are a great place to start, with their Business Ideas Competition currently running until the end of October, and their ongoing legal workshops, business advisory meetings, and networking or information events.

Brian Baillie, the Student Business Advisor with LAUNCH, sees enterprise as a great option for students, “Whether you are an undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate from Edinburgh, we have the help and advice you need to start a successful venture, even if you don’t yet have an idea. Student businesses can be a great way to fund your studies and many in previous years have now become prosperous career paths.”

LAUNCH provide support for all students at the University and for former students up to two years after their graduation.

Another incredibly useful organisation to get involved with is the Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE), who are a national charity that promotes and supports enterprise and entrepreneurs at Scottish Universities (http://www.sie.ac.uk/). They are currently running a “���� ����� New Ventures�� ����������” competition for those student businesses that are already up and running, with the possibility to win up to £5000 worth of business support and a lot of advice and support.

They are also helping recruit teams for Micro-Tyco, a competition run by Scottish charity Wildhearts (http:// www.wildheartsinaction.org/), which asks teams of 5 to use £1 seed capital to generate as much money as possible to provide micro-loans to some of the world’s poorest people, whilst following two simple rules: transactions must be legal and cannot include gambling.

SIE are also helping to host a Regional Enterprise Day in the Business School on Wednesday 16th November, appropriately timed during Global Entrepreneurship Week, to bring together all the enterpriserelated societies and support services for a day-long welcome to potential student entrepreneurs.

So if you are currently deciding what to do with your life post-graduation, try to look past the lucrative banking sector graduate schemes.

Sure, you could can sell your soul for a £40,000 starting salary plus resettlement expenses and a “������������ ������������� golden handshake������������������������������� ”������������������������������ , but there are other equally lucrative and rewarding options available – and starting your own business or social enterprise is a very attractive alternative.

Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on Facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper �������� Tuesday �������� October ��� 25 ����� 2011 features@studentnewspaper.org

��������������������� studentnewspaper.org

Features 13

Hip hip hooray

Keeping 'abreast' of things What happens at 23? Well, if you’re lucky, seeing a bit of the world, boozing with mates and a whole load of carefree fun. Maybe even nabbing a job that pays real money.

But not everyone is so lucky. In 2009, 23-year-old Kris Hallenga discovered she had stage four breast cancer that had spread to her spine.

Straight away, Kris was thrown into a routine of radiotherapy, five months of chemotherapy, and yet more radiotherapy. So long, carefree fun. So long, travelling.

So long, career. So long, boobs. So long, hair. So long, normal twentysomething life.

Last year around 47,700 women and 300 men were diagnosed with breast cancer – and around 8,000 of those were under 50. As October is national breast cancer awareness month we thought we’d give you a refresher in keeping your lady lumps and manly moobs – sorry, we mean perfectly defined pectorials – in tip-top shape. You should be looking for:

Seamus McGuigan examines the ever growing trend of hipster counter-culture

“

They are a new young bourgeoisie that resembles more of a disaffected Carlton Banks than a revolutionary John Lennon."

The problem in the case of the hipster movement is one that has its roots in the very nature of the culture itself.

It is individual, unfocused and unwritten. Despite their seemingly uniform appearance, they have no constitution or written set of rules that we can examine in a feeble attempt to extract some sense. Like an ancient cosmic explosion, its results are disparate, ever-changing, and it is only by going back in time that the source can be discovered.

In this case, the elements came together as far back as the 1960s, in the urban and rural fields of a changing America. In New York City, the smoky hues of the Greenwich coffee houses were split with the revolutionary, enchanting and dangerous poetry and prose of Ginsburg and Kerouac. On the

-Nipple discharge -Swelling around the armpit -Changes in skin texture -Changes in breast size or shape -Nipple inversion -Nipple changing direction -Nipple rash or crusting -Pain in the breast or armpit -Lumps or tissue thickening

nelson piedra and j y e

If you weren’t lying in (hopefully your own) bed comatose on Monday after what was no doubt conceived as a "sensible night in", you would have noticed that it was raining that special, apocalyptic, wrath-of-God kind of rain that Scotland seems to have as an inbuilt mechanism to keep over-confident Englishmen on their toes.

Well it was in that storm, in George Square at around three o’clock - between the bouncing raindrops and the sound of leaves flapping like unfurled sails - that I saw her. She was coming round the corner, with white printed chrysanthemums growing up bright pink leggings and a green vintage coat held over her head in the desperate hope of finding shelter. She was soaked to the skin, water flowing from her dipdyed hair and splashing off her plastic camera onto the cobblestones below as she slipped around in soiled plimsolls.

This girl is massively important.

And no, it’s not because I wish I had plucked up the courage to run over with my best Ryan Reynolds face and offered her shelter in the nearest ethnic food outlet or poetry cafe of her choice. The reason that she is important - whoever she was - is because she represents an entire counter-culture; one that runs seemingly divergent to the ‘normals’ in their zipped up North Face and Jack Wills gilets.

They go by many labels: the 'hipsters', 'indie kids', 'douchebags', 'posers', or their preferred 'man, labels are just so mainstream.' But regardless of what you want to call them, or of how damp they may be, pay attention - their culture and what they represent might just be about to take over the world.

And by the world, hipsters, I mean more than just second-hand clothing stores.

When telling the story of such an eclectic selection of individuals, it is often important to start where my sixth year English teacher would have told me to: definition. However, there is a problem.

nation’s radiowaves and in the Woodstock air unheard music and messages were being shared by Dylan, Credence and Baez. All of these things captured the hearts and souls of a youthful generation yearning for change.

Yet it is all too easy to assume that the George Square hipster was born directly out of the hippie – they were not. Hippies were from all classes and backgrounds: some came from the steel mill, others from Wall Street.

Hipsters, on the other hand, are almost exclusively from the urban elite.

They are a new, young bourgeoisie that resemble more of a disaffected Carlton Banks than a revolutionary John Lennon; more of an anthropological than a historical phenomenon.

While the idea of counter-culture was forced squarely into the disapproving glare of mainstream society by the hippies of the 1960s, it really only escaped from the pages of Beat poetry and the greenhouses of communes in the 1980s. A conservative revolution was a lightning rod for western society, and while many people, most of whom had once danced to the sounds of the 1960s, embraced their leaders and their policies as a chance for prosperity, the youth yearned to break out against it.

And so came the revolution in the suburbs, initially expressed through films, art, and song, it became dissent against a consumerist culture that seemed to pervade every nation. These kids, while unwilling to voice it through protest, showed their dissatisfaction by

rebelling against the 'yuppies' and the tacky consumption that they represented through their clothes and their culture.

Despite a lull in the 1990s, this is largely the strain of hipster-dom that we see today. The nature of modern hipsters is, however, unclear. Some would argue that it is simply a reaction to contemporary disaffection with society, while economic anthropologists would argue that it is entirely based on a false social construct created by corporations to exploit the lucrative middle-income youth. Yet, regardless of what motivates it today, you only need to look outside or turn on the television to see that hipster-dom is growing fast.

So where does this leave us today?

With hundreds of unwashed teenagers roaming rain-battered streets with shameless glee? The answer is quite simple: it leaves us questioning ourselves. These days we live in a world that seems to pursue universal sameness.

We accept those who do not make a scene, and those who are willing to sacrifice their inner hipster, nerd or other social outcast for the sake of being like us, while we look down on hipsters and other distinct social groups.

Anthropologically, perhaps, we do this not because they cause harm, but because they cause havoc in our social order. They do not represent the way things should be, and that scares us.

But herein lies the paradox: hipsters may have a crippling desire to be dis-

similar, but so do the figures that we ‘normals’ worship.

Witness the mainstream success of people who made a name for themselves by striving to be different, outlandish or provocative, such as Lady Gaga, Madonna or David Bowie. In fact, if we peer through the stormy lens of history, those who have changed things, those whose names stand the test of time, are those who have spoken out against the status quo and those who were of a different system of beliefs. Really, even Jesus was a hipster (he did have an awesome hipster haircut).

It is a valid point to say that I am romanticising too much, that I am turning what is essentially a group based around old clothes and strange music, not politics, into contemporary revolutionaries. This is a fact that I cannot escape, but this does not mean that counter-culture holds no value.

Forget hipsters; forget their annoying unwashed jumpers or their pretentious lyrics, and remember what they represent: a different path.

In a world where it seems as though every road is blocked by the storms of our troubled times, this alternative way of life offers at least a flicker of hope. You might not believe that dipdyed hair alone can change the world, but remember that through the driving rain and the endless wind it was her, with pink leggings and a vintage jacket, that caught my eye.

Knowing precisely how your breasts look and feel could save your life – it’s certainly how Kris found out. Whether you’re on a bus, climbing a mountain or in the shower, cop a feel. If you notice anything unusual, have your GP take a look. There really is no bad time for boob time.

In fact, Kris went on to create a charity based entirely on just that.

CoppaFeel! aims to get young people everywhere to keep hold of their wonderful, carefree lives by helping to know their boobs – and to appreciate the fact that, shit as it may be, breast cancer can affect anyone.

Second-year Geography student Flossie Parrack and fourth-year English Language student Harriet Cameron Little are the ambassadors for the CoppaFeel! campaign at Edinburgh University. “Having a family history of breast cancer, it made me realise that it is something that more young people need to be made aware of ” says Flossie, head of the new "Hello Boobs!" campaign that encourages people to name their breasts. “Whether it’s Flossie’s Wills and Kate, or Harriet’s traditional tits Bubble and Squeak, the whole point is to check your chebs!”

Students can now sign up to CoppaFeel!’s SMS reminder service – a free message to your phone once a month reminding you to check your breasts. To set yourself up now, text BOOB04 [boob name] and [boob name] to 70300.

On 2 November, CoppaFeel! will be attending Candyboxx at GHQ, so why not pop down to have your photo with the Boob Team girls in their giant boobs.

Harriet Cameron Little

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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14 12 Features

Digitally Darwinian

From Beanz to Buzz, Nina Seale traverses the fine line between internet boom and bust

In the story of boom-and-bust internet sensations, it can be the small details which mark out that fine line between success and epic fail. Seemingly pointless sites with little to distinguish them, epitomised by the generic wholesaler Pets.com (they sell pet supplies online), can take off through the simplest of means - in this case a talking sock puppet mascot which captured the hearts of Americans.

Following the history of busted million dollar enterprises, credit should really be given to those that try, but never seem to catch the investors’ eyes, or to take off. One example of these is Monoface - a site which seamlessly meshes together the faces of 15 individuals making funny faces.

The entertainment is intense, but lasts about 30 seconds.

“

factoryjoe

As you read this, the next generation of computing geniuses are holed up in university halls, hatching the next billion-dollar web takeover"

Kozmo? Flooz and Beenz?

Yadayada? Pseudo? Ritmoteca? Do any of these words mean anything to you, except possibly remind you of a baby mimicking its parents for the first time? These are all internet gambles that flushed millions of investors’ dollars into the World Wide Web’s toilet bowl. With the death of Google Buzz (Google what?) looming, The Student takes a look at the weird, the wonderful and the woeful of website ventures.

A website by the name of mostpopularwebsites.net tells us that the most visited websites today are, starting at tenth place and moving up: Qq.com (Chinese MSN), Twitter, Wikipedia, Hotmail, Blogspot, Baidu (Chinese Google), Yahoo, YouTube and Facebook with the top spot unsurprisingly won by Google.

Most of these names are very familiar. On any given day the average person spends their time online moving between them, even when you should be doing something else, such as reading up for a tutorial. We tweet about it, google the topic, read the Wikipedia page, log onto Hotmail to email someone who actually did the reading, get distracted by a funny YouTube link in your inbox, while all the while chatting to three friends on Facebook. But what has made these websites so popular?

From a biological perspective, one can look at the internet market as a Darwinian struggle for survival, the most successful web-beasts being those which are best adapted to capture the attention of the general public. The

supreme predator atop the food chain would definitely be Google.

Google made itself the world’s portal into the internet, and since discovering this niche it has dominated the way everyone uses the web.

Google’s original name (back when it was a search engine for Stanford) was BackRub- which accurately describes its role as supporting the rest of the players in its virtual world.

“

From a biological perspective, one can look at the internet market as a Darwinian struggle for survival, the most successful web-beasts being those which are best adapted to capture attention" Both Facebook and Twitter display an unusually amicable internet relationship, wherein many people are members of both. Twitter took and trimmed Facebook’s idea of status updates, allowing people to 'follow' any number of members- whether they be well-known celebrities, old friends or beautiful strangers.

Despite some cynics like comedian Sean Lock saying that Twitter, “should

just be called Drivel...Twitter was invented for people who can’t shut the fuck up, even when they’re on their own,” it seems to be an addiction for many. Political tweets have become part of the evening news, along with today’s papers, and sometimes even make news: such as when 75,000 Twitter posts broke through Ryan Giggs’ super injunction earlier this year.

We've had Friendster, we've had Bebo, we've had MySpace, but ultimately Facebook came up trumps in the survival of the social networking fittest. Whilst MySpace had a couple of month’s headstart on Facebook, it took six years of rivalry before it was clear that MySpace had surrendered to its younger brother by adopting Facebook’s login and social tools.

Originally a site to bring people together through their music tastes and to allow musicians to interact with fans, the MySpace founders discovered the attractive prospect of social networking which had the potential to bring in millions in revenue. But although MySpace recognised the vacancy, they didn’t know how to fill the spot. They left designing profiles up to users, leading to a myriad of messy and mismatched pages without enough imaginative organisation to hold the site together.

This is where Facebook revealed its golden gene. It recognised that internet anarchy hadn’t worked for MySpace, so Mark Zuckerberg’s baby displayed its many features and applications in a polished and uniform manner. The

ease of updating your page, uploading, reading messages, and chatting instantly gave it the advantages of MySpace with a Google-esque interface, the combination of which caused MySpace users to gravitate towards it, away from their origins. Facebook clarified that simple is always best.

But will Facebook become an immortal player in the internet game like Google? That is up for debate. As you read this, the next generation of computing geniuses are holed up in university halls, hatching the next billiondollar web takeover. The intelligence of the founders of MySpace, Facebook and Google was not in their programming, but in their ability to see what was missing from the internet.

Plenty of people have tried and failed. Kozmo.com’s idea was actually brilliant - a delivery service that would drop off small goods, from DVDs to snacks, to your door within the hour with no transport charges. But its main selling point became its Achilles’ heel: miracle delivery systems don’t exist, because they are too expensive to function.

Flooz.com and Beenz.com both had the same idea - to create an online currency that would supersede credit cards, buying Flooz and then spending it in participating websites. Not so genius: credit cards were already online currency, so why should people invest in a third party before buying their goods? No reason. But that didn’t stop investors piling $35 million in investments onto their ship before it sank.

And if you love a good story, conspiracybomb.com should be the site for you. With an A to Z on conspiracies, including the standard A for Alien Encounters and K for Kennedy, to the more creative X for Mr X (the man who had a threesome with two Tory politians currently in the cabinet) and Y for Yazuka (haven’t you heard of the Japanese mafia that run the world?).

You know the stereotype of the girl everyone hated in school? The one with all the followers, whose only power lay in her long, blonde hair and ability to apply make-up? It seems to be her who is behind this one: beautifulpeople. com. Created to bring together gorgeous people to make attractive babies, you can only get in if the organisers approve your looks. But don’t worry, if you didn’t make the cut; you can just be a 'regular' member and 'follow' the beautiful people's interactions.

One step up from this was the wor ldsmoste xc lusive website. com, a website with ten pages which consisted of photos of doors with increasing ‘exclusivity’. The idea is that the more Twitter followers you have the further through the doors you can get. The first door (the back entrance to a club) could be entered on having a verified Twitter account, the second door if you have 5000 or more followers, then 25,000, and so on.

So what does this tour of the rich men, poor men and beggar men of the web tell us? We are in a rapidly evolving period of history, perhaps a time which could accurately be called the Technological Revolution. The money which could potentially be snapped up in this new world is being hotly contested for by millions of people, designing their weird and wonderful websites in the hope that they will stumble across the secret to the next big online payout.

Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on Facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper ������� ��� ��� �������� ����������������� ��� ��� ��������� ��� ����������������������������������� lifestyle.studentnewspaper@gmail.com ���������������������������������������

�������� Tuesday October 25 2011 �������� ��� ���� studentnewspaper.org ��������������������

Lifestyle 15

lifestyle

Forget about the price tag

The Regular Guy's Guide to Style WHAT'S IN A NAME?

That's what Jessie J tells us anyway, but as Catriona Sharp discovers, it's not always that easy poorly thought out: simply refusing to participate in the economy of such nations will deprive these people of jobs.

It seems that high street stores such as Primark need to work to help improve the working conditions of workers across the world, not just their own public reputation.

“

It appears that we feel more confident that the clothes we buy have been manufactured ethically if they cost more.”

What of Primark’s high street counterparts? Research carried out by The Student suggested that student favourite Topshop is considered to be an ethical brand in comparison with Primark. The question of public perception of price is key here. As one second year student put it “People just seem to base ethics on a hunch – largely to do with how much things cost.” It appears that we feel more confident that the clothes we buy have been manufactured ethically if they cost more, and that what makes Primark stands out is it’s ‘high on style, low on price’ philosophy.

A scratch beneath the surface reveals that the comparatively expensive

CHEAP AND CHEERFUL: But does this come at a greater cost? brand Topshop has more questionable ethics than one might expect when paying £30 for a top. Topshop’s parent company Arcadia has been criticized for buying clothing from a Cambodian factory judged to have some of the worst working conditions in the world, with as many as 600 workers working with chemicals in unventilated rooms.

Topman was found to have been using Uzbekistani cotton harvested by young children enslaved by the government during the cotton picking season. In recent years Topshop has developed a fair-trade range, however I can’t help but wonder if this is just to distract con-

sumers from the horrendous conditions for workers producing their main line products. All of this adds up to an increasingly depressing picture of a retail market with little conscience, whatever end of the price range you choose.

When students can have so little confidence in high street brands, can we be blamed for flocking to one that offers us such affordability? It seems that for students, not only in Edinburgh but across the UK, the only way to avoid capitalist vacuum of the high street may be to start doing it ourselves.

Knitting class anyone?

Maybe she's born with it

Or maybe dishevelled chic takes longer than you think, states Kate Pasola served for days in which I have heard Prince Harry is visiting the university.

Should the moment arrive that I get out of bed on time, the depressing thought is that there will still always be someone who looks cooler, and more put together – and she’ll tell you she just threw that outfit on. I’m very happy for these girls, and although I envy the final result of their work, I am the first to complement such masterpieces. Really though, I don’t know how us mortals are to believe their magnificently coiffured ‘messy bun’ happened on its own, or that you didn’t notice your tights happened to be so rebelliously ripped. When you’re forced to examine someone's recent ‘totally random discovery’ of a biker jacket at a ‘charity shop’, which was obviously

UNDERSTATED: Maybe this is a little too far for Appleton at 9am

widerbergs

I enjoy a late evening. I’m never one to be in bed before midnight, so not to miss out - even if the only thing I’d be missing would be the perpetually musky smell in my pantry, a re-run of The Big Bang Theory, or the incessant Mac tapping from the boy down the corridor.

Consequently, every morning I bitterly stab ‘dismiss’ on the Blackberry alarm before I throw myself down the ladder of my bunkbed (thanks for that one, Accommodation Services) and land in a pile of clothes which hopefully equate to a slightly sane outfit.

This is on a good day; on a fabulous day, I might put a little more thought into a mildly attractive outfit or straightening my fringe, but that is a rare occasion and usually only re-

bought brand new at triple the price mentioned, at least we are comforted that we, aforementioned mortals, mantain the upper hand. If we too chose to spend the effort, hours and money on effortlessly cool resources, we could also achieve this image of accidental splendour. We don’t, because we buy too many bagels, spend too much time in bed, and would rather plough energies into Facebook.

The sorry truth is, however, that there exists the creature which really does, in fact, spend very little time contemplating their appearance, and for this exact reason they finish up, after fifteen minutes looking amazing. How do they manage it? After bugging my most accidently stylish acquaintances, it became clear they all had the same tool – staples. My obliviously polished friend Liv told me “I just buy one-offs that I really love and I know will go with clothes I already have. I’m also surprised when people compliment me on clothes as it’s sometimes something I’ve kept for years - I hate throwing things out.

They usually seem to work!”. Another, Kath, added “I just dress for myself. I don’t think too much about the effects of my outfits but how they make me feel – what I wear always reflects my personality, and usually my mood too”.

It strikes me that a laid-back attitude to buying new pieces, and buying timeless beauties on gut instinct is key to owning the wardrobe which does the running for you. These girls seemed to

have cracked a way of cathartic speeddressing – and the consequences are outstanding.

For the rest of you, it’s time to tell the truth. Of course you deserve credit for your art, ladies. The fact you find the time to express your taste through refined and conscious self-presentation is admirable - just don’t tell me it happened by accident. We all know that if it really did you’d be sporting the ‘effortlessly dishevelled’ look with your eyelashes attached to your eyebrows and your zip stuck in your tights, just like the rest of us.

Tips from a Topshop stylist How to look gloriously bedraggled

Make-up: Apply liquid eyeliner to the outer edges of the eye, then smudge outwards with a cotton bud and finish with several coats of mascara - a glamourously hungover look even if you’ve had your eight hours.

Hair: Backcomb hair and run your fingers through to tame. Secure around a doughnut before pulling pieces out and securing them with bobby-pins. For an extra touch, add coloured feathers.

Wardrobe best friends: Bandeau tops to go under ripped t-shirts, patterned tights to renew your summer wardrobe and printed scarves to accessorise thrown together-outfits.

edinburgh spotlight

With the cost of living rising and government support for students receding, many of us are now facing a difficult dilemma on the high street: ethics versus affordability. For years now, Edinburgh has been lacking in budget alternatives to student-focused brands such as Topshop and Urban Outfitters.

With a new branch of Primark set to open on Princes Street at the beginning of December, the issue of finding cheap clothes will be replaced with the question of whether or not we should buy them.

The rise of Primark has been welldocumented in recent years. The media have been quick to criticize the ethics of the high street giant which now takes £1 of every £10 spent on clothes in the UK. The BBC alone has produced several documentaries exposing conditions which are markedly different from those described on Primark’s ethical trading website. Have the media been too quick to condemn Primark and too slow to investigate other brands?

After the award-winning Panorama documentary Primark: On the Rack, which showed forced child labour in the company’s suppliers in India, was aired, the BBC was forced to apologise after it was decided that images of child workers had been fabricated.

In response to the documentary, Primark ceased all trading with their Indian suppliers despite the allegations regarding the authenticity if the footage. Even this measure seems

When I was eight years old, my mother bought me a body warmer. I refused to wear it because I thought it looked silly.

She told me it was practical and that it would keep me warm. This made me want to wear it even less, as the “practical” argument always has a detrimental effect on my opinions. This is the first fashion based decision I remember making independently. An eight year old boy, happy to wear sandals and socks, making a stand against a bright orange body warmer on the basis of the potential implication it may have on my style...

Eleven years later, I came to Edinburgh to find a city full of them. Due to multiculturalism, however - or maybe our pretentious culture - these armless heat-containers had been transformed into gilets. I would like to apologise to anyone who owns a gilet: if you are one of those who, unlike my eight year old self, have decided to wear a gilet for purely practical reasons (as I’ve heard they are actually quite warm), I have no argument with you.

When you live in a city where snow is predicted in October, you can be expected to do everything you can to avoid the bite. However, for those who popped into Jack Wills to update your wardrobe, and thought that the bright orange £98 gilet would boost your fashion credentials, I take polite issue with you.

It’s not that gilets are hideously ugly or offensive to the eye. I just can’t understand how they have become a staple in the student wardrobe. Whilst most jumpers have individual features which make them look different from each other, to me, all gilets look the same, making me assume that all gilet-bearers are the same. To give them some credit, Jack Wills have attempted to distinguish themselves from the rest by adding a fur-lined hood. By adding a hood – which is in fact detachable – they are significantly increasing its practicality, thus increasing my problem with it.

What annoys me most is the name 'gilet'. Foreign words are commonplace in popular British parlance (see what I did there?): we use ‘chaise-longue’ because ‘long chair’ wouldn’t appropriately describe the glamorous furniture, we use ‘deja-vu’ to add a bit of enigma to ‘seen before’, but what we are discussing here is body warmers. They are neither glamorous nor enigmatic; they are down jackets adapted so that you can move your arms. Whoever managed to change the word to gilet deserves applause: they have managed to transform an awkwardly useful item of clothing into an exotic must-have.

I'm not judging those who want or own a body warmer. Instead I ask you to question their inflated status, and urge you to avoid their pretentious name – it's just not practical.

Daniel Kraemer

live

Tuesdays Weekly

TERM TIME TUESDAYS 7:30PM The Pleasance Cabaret Bar £5 | £4 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 EUSALIVE A3 Posters Sept 2011.indd 4

09/09/2011 12:01

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oliver ninnis

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Spaceport takes off BRANDING: Must be important considering the spacecraft isn't finished may pave the way for practical and affordable space travel for the masses.

Scaled Composites are already working on a new vehicle which will provide point to point space travel, getting passengers from London to Sydney in two hours.

NASA, who recently retired their only manned spacecraft this year, have also charted flights for research purposes. Right now, the only method of reaching the International Space Station is by leasing rockets from the Russians, who charge NASA a premium for the service. As such, NASA has been seeking support from private companies in the US that can provide

a taxi service for their astronauts, as their own space exploration vehicle has unfortunately been shelved.

While it is questionable that Spaceport America was paid for by local government rather than the company, it cannot be doubted that private space travel is something to get excited about. Even if, in its current incarnation, it only serves as a joyride for Branson’s drinking buddies. Almost every new form of transport is initially reserved for the wealthy. Branson should be applauded for building a business out of space travel and turning what most of us consider science fiction into a reality.

Ghouls and games

There’s only a few video games that could scare Peter Bishop this Halloween

Those looking to play a horror game this Halloween will find themselves spoiled for choice if all they are seeking is an homage to horror cinema. Games like Left 4 Dead and Dead Space derive their themes from well known horror films and are of course great fun to play, and are great for those looking for an entertaining way to spend an evening. Unfortunately, there is one problem with these games – they aren’t scary.

The issue you’ll find with games in the horror genre is that they are typically adapted from action games.

These create an emphasis on killing large volumes of enemies which both empowers players and eliminates the threatening aspects of the supposedly terrifying monsters. Another major flaw of these games is the tendency to accommodate lenient death penalties which rob the player of any sense of mortal danger. Death simply means a minor inconvenience which inspires frustration rather than terror.

The most widely applied methodologies for scaring players in games comes from the survival horror genre.

Classic examples of this are the earlier instalments Silent Hill series. One of the easiest ways to create tension,

or even panic in players, is to give them an extremely limited pool of resources. Rather than fearing death, players fear losing precious ammo or health. Another common feature is deliberately cumbersome controls; while navigating your environment is still relatively intuitive, as soon as you have to dispatch a menacing fiend the controls turn on you as you fumble and struggle to defend yourself.

Modern survival horror games seem to only retain these systems a trivial way, in order to remain consistent with their contemporaries, but they are not applied in a way which fulfils their original intent.

Resources are plentiful and controls, while still cumbersome, rarely affect combat – which now mostly consists of the tiresome choreographed button mashing sessions also known as quick time events.

Today there are few truly terrifying games being released, mostly coming from the independent developers and rarely receiving mass attention.

One such indie developer would be Friction Games, who have been single handedly redefining the genre though their Penumbra and its better known successor Amnesia: The Dark Decent.

Rather than adapting action games built around combat, Friction built their games around the adventure genre, where players must explore to progress. This makes much more sense for a horror game, as players must force themselves to enter what they know is a hostile environment in order to progress. Amnesia robs players of any capacity to dispatch monsters, forcing them to run and hide instead and even this exercise is a struggle. This overall design can easily be replicated, expanded and applied to any number of settings. It’s a shame that there has been almost no response from the wider development community, despite the universal acclaim these games have enjoyed.

In fact, the widest criticism levied at these games is that they are too scary to finish, leaving players robbed of the full game.

When you’re dealing with horror in video games, you can’t simply attach scary looking art work, or the scare tactics employed in cinema, in order to inspire fear. The game needs to be designed from the ground up

to psychologically effect the player.

Ironically, games that adopt this rule are often far more scary and memorable than a film ever could be, as they can exploit human behaviour to subconsciously inspire panic and tension in the player and create an immersive experience that will rob them of sleep for weeks.

Last Friday Batman: Arkham City hit store shelves to almost universal acclaim and promises to be one of the biggest game successes of the year. This is only one of multiple superhero releases this year and I can assure you that this will be the only one that makes a difference.

Currently, I can’t help but feel that superhero games, much like the majority of their film counterparts, are in a rather difficult situation. Not to say that every superhero game is bad. On the contrary, both Arkham Asylum and Spiderman 2 are among my favourite games. The problem is that the genre itself has become tired and overused. The first reason for this is the frequency of superhero film releases. Every film has an inevitable tie-in game and almost every single one is terrible. One brief session playing the recent Thor game is enough to make you want to snap your controller with frustration. The rushed creation of these projects to meet with the release of their films is punishing development teams and damages the potential that superpowers can give games.

However, film tie-ins are not the only blockade to improving superhero games. It is also easy to succumb to fan service when creating a game where the official canon is so established. It is arduous to create something based on a comic-book without the loyalists going crazy at tiny details that don’t match up with their interpretation of the canon. On the other hand, if developers attempt to rectify this, the game can come across as mere fan service, rather than a legitimate effort in its own right.

This week I have played two superhero games: both Arkham City and the recently released X-Men Destiny. The difference between the two is frankly staggering.

Rocksteady, the developers behind Arkham City, have looked at Batman in almost every medium and have created something stunning. X-Men Destiny, on the other hand, has stuck itself adamantly in the canon. This makes the whole game insular and loses you as a result, unless you have read X-Men #204, in which case you might be able to comprehend some of it.

These games have almost limitless potential; super-powers are gaming’s bread and butter. They allow a player to take control and immerse themselves in a world that is impossible. But, unless these games follow the example of Arkham City and break away from the exclusivity of comic books and the speedy release of films, they will be continually fobbed off as poorly constructed or sycophantic fan service, not to mention shameless cash-ins.

Popcap

as much if the whole exercise was self funded. However, the shiny new spaceport was built by the New Mexico government, costing its taxpayers a hefty $209 million – money that could have been spent on schools and roads has instead been spent on a building that almost none of the residents of New Mexico will ever use. Considering that Virgin’s spacecraft takes off on a conventional runway rather than a launchpad, it doesn’t seem necessary to build a dedicated facility for the service.

With the protests on Wall Street and various copycat protest taking place around the world, one might not think now was the best time to launch a business that caters solely to the upper class. In fact there has never been a better time. The current stigma attached to the rich means that bankers and executives are desperately seeking ways to escape the ruckus and enjoy some personal time. Where better to escape the plebs than low earth orbit?

Virgin Galactic shouldn’t be completely ashamed of their business.

While ultimately an exercise of decadence, Virgin Galactic is still making a sustainable business out of manned space flight; over 400 individuals have already booked flights and many more will sign up once the first flights have taken place. Branson’s latest venture

wikipedia

In 2004 the world’s first private space flight took place. The event was a milestone in space exploration as well as a triumph of innovation. Around that time, the company responsible for this achievement - Scaled Composites - signed a deal with Richard Branson, who wanted to use the technology to set up a space tourism company called Virgin Galactic. Last week Richard Branson held an opening ceremony for his newly built Spaceport America in New Mexico. In typical Branson style, the tycoon abseiled down the wall of the new hanger, swigging champagne whilst surrounded by an entourage of performers. While the technology behind Virgin Galactic is certainly admirable, the Virgin Galactic business is perhaps better represented by Branson’s antics: the company provides little more than an indulgence for the super rich.

For $200000 passengers get a three and a half hour flight in the spacecraft which includes 6 minutes of weightlessness. While certainly cool, it’s also a colossal waste of money that serves no purpose other than an expensive roller-coaster ride for the wealthy; at least a Ferrari makes some sense as an investment, given that it functions perfectly well as a form of transportation.

This perhaps wouldn’t sting quite

oliver ninnis

Tom Hasler won't be losing his space travel virginity anytime soon

Thom Louis

Tuesday 25 October 2011 studentnewspaper.org

No one reads these bits anyway herring.studentnewspaper@gmail.com

18 Herring

Mystic Brian dresses up like a

toddler and flies up into the solar system every week so that you can get some much-needed help living your life. As if that isn't enough, he engages in mortal combat with his nemesis, Clairvoyant Cecil, every time he goes up. Blimey!

Aries

You feel there is something missing in your life - you call up Adam Werity to ask what that might be.

Taurus

Don’t be afraid to do something risky this week. Unless you don’t like board games.

Gemini

This week you buy a massive mushroom and try and sit on it. It crumbles - life is not a fairytale and you, my friend, are not a pixie.

Cancer

This week you are the McEwan Hall. You feel neglected and sad that people rarely venture inside your fine wooden doors. You throw a massive hissy fit and everyone feels a bit awkward.

Leo

You buy a bar of Dove soap and are overcome by the spirit of peace, you wear white and solve people's problems by cooing at them.

Virgo

This week, you realise just how great your ex-boyfriend Max was. You run back to him and he graciously takes you back into his arms.

News in Numbers

Libra

In an unglamorous turn of events, you begin a sordid affair with your DoS. It would be more romantic if they actually replied to your goddamn e-mails in a timely fashion.

Scorpio

This week you wallow in liberal shame, helpless to stop the ravages of capitalism. You console yourself by crying whilst masturbating over a copy of the Guardian – take that Rusbridger!

Sagittarius

This week you sing your name whenever anyone says hello. If Jason Derulo can do it so can you. You alienate all of your friends and family. Even the bloke from Nightline thinks you’re a twat.

Capricorn

You're disgusting! I'm not that sort of psychic.

Aquarius

This week you buy a 'revision dictaphone.' Who needs friends?

Pisces

This week you write everything in Helvetica because you’re one top typographical motherfucker. All hail the new leader of the serif free world!

4

The world is rejoicing this week as the tyrannical auditory oppressor, Colonel Lionel Richie was captured in his faux leather limousine in his hometown of Sirte.

Until last year, Col Richie was extremely popular across the Arab World. However, over the last few months, the instigation of his strict 1980s dress code has led to major unrest, as the youth of the country have refused to grow large moustaches and wear turtlenecks.

“

We found him in the afternoon... fondling his chest wig" “I couldn’t bring myself to squeeze into it [the turtleneck],” said Mijhaal Jackson. “Gloves and PVC are fine, but turtlenecks - it’s sick.”

The youth attempted to organise themselves using social media like Bebo and MSN, before realising that no one checks them anymore.

However, despite the false start, even the badly organised rebellion was leading to a deterioration in Col Richie’s health.

“His songs were getting extremely bad" said captive and former friend, Diana Ross. “We all thought after the re-release of ‘All Night Long,’ he’d

really lost it. I mean, who re-releases songs when they’ve lost every scrap of once promising creative talent?”

Then earlier this week the breakthrough came. One plucky Rebel set up a facebook account and added lots of friends to an event, hilariously named ‘Coming Home’ after Lionel’s 2006 hit album.

And come home he did.

“We found him in the afternoon just outside Sirte, lying fondling his chest wig in the back of his pink limo,” said Rebel Mijhaal Jackson. “He took it really well, and greeted us with: ‘Hello, Is it me you’re looking for.’”

News in Brief

Intelligent girl has one night stand “I know exactly what came over me!” says ludicrously intelligent and now sexually awakened Psychology student.

Anonymous inside report that “everone in the Tory cabinet is an arsehole” considered too obvious to make the news The contents of this article were considered too obvious to make the news.

Yah says ‘nah’ to Hizbollah Bonefide Yah, Tarquin Riddle-Widdle-Humpington-Dumpty declined Hizbollah's request to buy one of the barrels of his name to add prestige to their organisation.

Aztec Gold discovered during fourth floor library refurbishment University court holds crisis meeting over decision whether to hand treasure over to living-dead pirates or risk Davy Jones’ Locker. The University court was considering employing the services of the most pierced lady in Edinburgh as magical protection, but they realised she wasn’t a character from Pirates of the Caribbean.

ECA in turmoil as sonar invented for those lacking artistic vision “My friends used to subtly hint that pottery should just be a hobby rather than my primary source of income. But now that I have incredible artistic vision, they’ve brought my old art school pieces that I gave them as unwanted gifts out of their attics and have started showing them off. What they used to refer to behind my back as ‘crocks of shit,’ they’re now telling their friends are early Daisy Salisburys,” said Daisy Salisbury, a hopelessly untalented potter from Daisy, Salisbury, who graduated last month from ECA. Her latest piece Claymores/mankind has now been installed in the U.N. headquarters and inspired the recent resolution of all wars.

Intellectual artists everywhere are bitterly complaining that they had to go to art school and work for years

The number of swipes of your library card in the library turnstiles before it ceases to be a "loveable defect of the library" and becomes the shittest thing ever. I mean seriously, those things look like they cost money [ed - I’m cutting the rest of your rant out, sorry]

55

LIONEL'S SULTRY GAZE: A symbol of fear for the Libyan people

FLICKR

Freshers soon regret signing up to OTC weekend social

Joy as Col Richie Captured

The percentage of BNP and EDL members who think ‘Al-Jazeera’ is an Islamist terrorist group.

to achieve appallingly low annual incomes, whereas ungifted morons can now instantly earn as much as £11,000 per year as artists.

Art schools everywhere are suffering a decline in UCAS admissions.

ECA, which last year merged with the University of Edinburgh, is no exception. Academics and publishers are complaining that because artistic vision can be purchased, no one gives a shit anymore about buying their books of pretentious wank so they can pretend their work has “meaning.”

A new academic discipline termed Art Future has been invented and its entire works already written, they consist of a single line of text: “Everything’s going to be great.”

With flawless artistic vision, the great, most frequently debated works of

5 2

ECA: Obsolete

ECA website

Alternative headline of the week

the past can now be entirely explained by anyone with sonar. We asked a passing artistic genius to explain the Mona Lisa’s ambiguous facial expression to us: “She’s definitely pissed. It’s because she wishes she had eyebrows,” he told us.

The number of Celtic and Scottish Studies students who can do a really shit-hot paddy-ba.

The number of films entitled Snatch: one directed by Guy Ritchie and the other a three-hour long real-time documentary about a woman who catches criminals with her genitals.

rEVIEW COMMISSION #7: justine king

Justine King is a 4th year BA Drawing and Painting student whose work involves large-scale drawings, devised by re-constructing memories and symbolic images. King likes to create drawings which can be altered in some way as she embraces the process of drawing itself. She often spends the majority of her time drawing vast surrounding spaces which seem endless. She chooses objects which interest her and have a human presence without necessarily being figurative. With this in mind, she started work on a series of drawings of teeth, which she found in a jar. Through her drawing, King explores their history, thinking about who they may have belonged to. While drawing the teeth, King became interested in the facial expressions she could create by arranging them decidedly on the page. In her own words: “I found it was a beneficial way to relate something to its past, such as a smile which has become objectified and contained.”

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on Facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper culture.thestudent@gmail.com

20 Culture

The power to print

Jenni Ajderian� explores censored material at the Banned Books exhibition in the National Library of Scotland

L

ining one corridor of the National Library are hundreds of books which censors did not want you to see. From The Song of Songs to The Satanic Verses, Lord of the Flies to Lady Chatterley’s Lover, these books appalled, challenged and enticed the societies of their times and were all deemed unfit to be seen by the public.

The exhibition aims primarily to spark debate – to make us question these books, the legislation under which they were banned, and the societies that banned them.

solutely out of the question in children’s literature, while the memoir of a pornstar entitled Inside Linda Lovelace was deemed unlikely to “corrupt those who were likely to read it”.

Finally, the Obscene Publications Act pardons works that have literary merit, which seems to be key as to why the list of banned books is so long and so highly populated by books now considered classics.

“

Perhaps predictably, books that display any kind of anti-clerical leanings make up a large part of the library’s collection, and indeed were the first kind of literature to be cautioned at all. From David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, these books were seen to glorify paganism, ••••••••••• ••• misrepresent biblical verse or simply question common belief.

Such a need to curtail what is read and what is believed surely goes to show the incredible power of the written word. It is easy to point fingers across the oceans to show societies in which texts critical of the ruling bodies are banned - in China, Bangladesh or the US - but

THE BOOK CLUB

ross fraser mclean: patria o muerte Such and Such Studio Run Ended



T

he title of this cockle-warming exhibition, translated as Homeland or Death, is a phrase that echoes through Ross Fraser McLean’s photographs of Cuba. Taken during a month-long foray in 2009, the images

THE BOOK CLUB

THE BOOK CLUB WRITERS' WALL OF FAME: Censored authors at the Banned Books exhibition in the National Library the NLS’s emphasis on banned books in the UK brings these issues home.

We see it in works such as George Buchanan’s philosophical texts, which, hundreds of years ago, were banned •• ••• for criticising Mary Queen of Scots, as well as in far more recent pieces of the collection. The infamous Dodgy Dossier, produced by the British government shortly before the Iraq war, made unsubstantiated claims that the country had weapons of mass destruction, and was never intended to be seen by the public. The document, released under come together as an eclectic collection that feels vibrant and carefree as if they were sights seen from the open window of a 1950s Soviet Lada.

The presence of classic American cars in the collection is just one of the ways in which it inspires a sense of nostalgia: for the Cubans who find themselves the subject of the works, and for us, looking at these candid tableaux from a far-flung paradise.

The contrasting themes of youth and mortality, individuals and community are evident in the series with empty cemeteries beside playing chil-

peace, love and petrol bombs AK Press £8.99

danielle malinen



THE BOOK CLUB

A

nti-corporate fiction is surprisingly hard to create. Despite widespread unease with globalised capitalism, it’s difficult to criticise it in a way that captures the public’s satisfaction.

But in Peace, Love and Petrol Bombs, debut novelist and “recent(ish)” Edinburgh graduate D. D. Johnston has a bloody good go. The vehicle for his attempt is Wayne, a Scottish burgerchain worker caught up almost accidentally in the street marches and derelict squats of the anti-globalisation movement.

zining cui

“

The exhibition aims primarily to spark debate – to make us question these books . . . and the societies THE BOOKthem."

CLUB that banned

Have those books which have appalled, challenged and enticed us all done so because they are so thought-provoking that they simply cannot be ignored?"

Whether studies of detestable character types like those of Lolita or American Psycho, or whistleblowers for political change, like Animal Farm or Of Mice and Men, these books are the foreground of a part of the world normally kept under wraps.

Are the best books all on this list?

Have those books which have appalled, challenged and enticed us all done so because they are so good, so well-written, so thought-provoking that they simply cannot be ignored?

Printed in large red letters on one wall of the exhibition is a quote from a Mr Oscar Wilde, who certainly seemed to hold this view, “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all”.

the Freedom of Information legislation five years after its original production, is one of many texts considered dangerous because they offer more information than ruling bodies are comfortable with •••• handing out.

Elsewhere, Madonna’s Erotica sex book is placed alongside the Americanmade What’s Happening To My Body Book, and the ever-scandalous Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The juxtaposition of such texts begs the question; what, exactly, makes a book obscene? Sex spawns all kinds of literature, including

biology textbooks, novels and porn, and often the line between them is blurred.

The Obscene Publications Act of 1959 goes some way to address this, specifying that sexual content in a book may be overlooked if it is “justified as being for the public good”, so our textbooks are safe (though some are still banned in the US) and other publications are pardoned if they are found not to “deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences”.

This means that sexual content is ab-

dren, beside sweeping landscapes and chains of blocky houses.

talgia in its presentation as well; the walls are collaged with mismatched frames of all sizes and one or two mixed-media pieces that add texture and a scrapbook quality.

The largest prints are often portraits - a particularly stunning shot of an individual Cuban man is the most striking - but there is a secretive hidden gem quality to the post-it sized street scenes.

Though there is nothing innovative or surprising within the collection, I would say it was still worth a visit for anyone even vaguely interested in pho-

tography or Cuba.

The (very) small studio has a fresh and friendly atmosphere that feels just right for this familial, album-like display. Certainly many of the other visitors on opening night seemed delighted as they peered into the frames and made their own discoveries.

The collection is only on display for a short while, so you’ll have to be quick to feel the warming effects of this pocket of Latin sun and colour in the middle of a bleak Edinburgh autumn.

Rebecca Parker

showing, rather than telling, his political beliefs. The sections actually set in major protests prove this; they affectionately parody disaffected anarchists, while providing a sterner critique of the corporations which they oppose.

grim dialogue. The distorted chronology, shuttling us back and forth through Wayne’s life, is executed with panache.

So for all its ragged edges, Peace, Love and Petrol Bombs is well worth pulling off a bookshelf, whatever your political stance. If you don’t find yourself feeling enlightened, you will at least be entertained.

THE BOOK CLUB

“

The exhibition embodies nostalgia in its presentation as well; the walls are collaged with mismatched frames"

THE The BOOK CLUB exhibition, housed in the cosy

Such and Such Studio, embodies nos-

As a Scottish author fond of colloquialisms and sharp-witted down-andouts, Johnston will inevitably attract comparisons to Irvine Welsh.

But when the razor-edged prose of Peace, Love and Petrol Bombs works - and at times it doesn’t - a truer simile would be Chuck Palahniuk. Like Palahniuk, Johnston writes hard, fast, urban poetry. Keen observations of life’s mundanities are mixed with black humour soaked in profanity, and the story rattles past at a tremendous rate.

The sections in the burger joint, in particular, would sit happily in Fight Club.

There are weaker moments. The section parodying university lectures is little more than a parade of stereotypes.

Equally unfortunate are the articulate leftist critiques inserted into Wayne’s internal monologue.

They aren’t strictly out of charac-

THE BOOK CLUB

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••• ••• ••••• ••• •••••••

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••• •••••••••••••• ••••••• •• ••••••• ••••••••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••• • ••••••••••• ••••• •••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••••• ter, but Johnston is far stronger when stuffed with sex, scandal and sublimely

“

Keen observations of life's mundanities are mixed with black humour soaked in profanity, and the story rattles past at a tremendous rate" He is never preachy, however. Perhaps the greatest strength of this as a political novel is that it rarely feels like one. The plot is a full-on page-turner,

Aran Ward Sell

Our next Book Club read will Our next Book Club read will be Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs by be The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey D.D. Johnston.

Eugenides.

If you have any thoughts on it,Ifor on The Art of Fielding, email you have any thoughts on it, or culture.thestudent@gmail.com Peace, Love and Petrol Bombs, email and let us know! culture.thestudent@gmail.com and let us know!

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

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Culture 21 21 Star Rating Bad-ass deportation Suspended from University Thrown out of Potterrow Kicked out of your flat Asked to leave a book reading

A breath of fresh air

ROYGBIV This week's cultural spectrum.

Troy Holmes takes a look at Edinburgh's emerging artists at the Collective Gallery

S

ining the Horizon is a Collective exhibition commissioned by the New Work Scotland Programme, bringing together Gordon Schmidt, Rhianna Turnbull and Amelia Bywater & Christian Newby. All the works centre on the idea of groups, collections and collaboration.

Small yet interesting, the Collective gallery only features seven pieces, making it somewhat bare and sterile.

The first room contains a large print of a room covered in notes, drawings, scribbles and posters set at a forty-five degree angle to the wall, which gives the space some dynamism but doesn’t quite fill the room.

In the next room the viewer finds three wall mounted collages and a film playing from a television on the floor. The collaged images have been carefully plucked from old newspaper supplements. Models stare out with huge eyes and inviting lips, whilst disembodied legs hang in the air, questioning the representation of women.

They are further objectified by leaving them stark on the page with photos of scaffolding and builders. It’s claimed in the exhibition guide that Turnball presents “seductive and teasing fantasied wealth”, but these images simply leave the viewer cold.

Her film goes on to show several women driving calmly as they chew gum, listen to the radio and casually change gear. Perhaps a feminist comment, the film is both voyeuristic and

STEPHEN SUTCLIFFE: RUNAWAY, SUCCESS Stills Gallery Until 30th October



A

n inescapable buzzing and dizzying landscape pierced to the bone when I entered Stills Gallery and found myself confronted with flickering lights and obnoxious TV screens. The exhibition Runaway, Success displays video installations by Stephen Sutcliffe. In his works the Glaswegian artist deals with the representation of high culture in film and

CHILLING WITH TED : One panal of Rhianna Turnbull's tryptych Early 90's West End at Night (2011)

collective gallery

M

intentionally banal.

The final room is the most exciting.

Three projections on three walls immerse the viewer, whilst trees buffeted by the wind in autumn light are shown next to lively Glaswegians telling their stories of their memories of a Stone Roses gig on Glasgow Green in the summer of 1990. At first the thick

accents make even the most Scottish savvy Sassenach slightly baffled, but once adapted to this the viewer discovers a shared experience. Schmidt archives the cultural context of the time: Thatcher, depression, unhappiness and a moment of togetherness that provides hope.

Whilst only the last piece is truly

captivating, the initiative itself should be applauded. In today’s financial climate the New Work Scotland Programme’s support can change the paths of young artists and give them the space they need to experiment and develop.

television.

Eight pedestalled television screens are placed in the middle of the room, none of them apparently functional. All of a sudden a screen powers up and displays a fashion show, the camera panning the audience’s feet.

The TV goes off and another comes on, portraying the gaze of a viewer containing detailed close-up shots of a painting accompanied by piercing choral music.

Watching the channels change, I kept wondering if there was something more profound to come. Apparently not: another zap forces the visitor to watch a split screen film with the spectator included, but soon

the lively channel-hop demonstration made me feel dizzy.

and beaming smiles that wouldn’t be out of place in a toothpaste advert.

Next up, moustache graffiti, black and white photographs and a film montage showing water drops wobbling in the air to the rhythms of classical music.

After all this humming and rustling my head kept spinning. The portrayal of high culture involved a lot of bling, quasi-celebrities and some classical music, as you’d expect.

Television might be trivial, but lumping together bits and pieces to form an emblematic medley appears rather more pretentiously arty than artful.

Kristina Kirova

“

I kept wondering if there was something more profound to come. Apparently not."

Leaving the screens in the rear, you pass some gigantic thought bubbles on the wall, crossed out, and turn round the corner to encounter an 18-minute video work titled Despair.

It features a slide-projection of high society calling cards. The socialites’ chopped off heads reveal radiant faces

THE ART DOCTOR with Anna Feintuck This week: warm up chilly days by putting fried food on your body

I'm so cold! I wake up cold; my breakfast is normally cold; then it’s cold outside; nobody thinks it would be kind to inject a little warmth into George Square lecture theatre. The library is warm, but there isn’t any space to do work in there so I can’t warm up in there. It is only October so I refuse to put the heating on.

I go home, stay cold and go to bed... cold.

Please help.

T

his is a pretty all consuming problem, undoubtedly shared by most of the student population, but I think we should deal with its various aspects one by one. So, first: waking up cold. I suspect this could be solved in a practi-

cal sense by purchasing some better pyjamas (thermals aren't sexy, but neither are goosebumps). But maybe you're also suffering from metaphysical coldness.

I suggest investing in a print imbued with warmth and putting it near your bed – seeing something sunny upon waking will hopefully set your internal temperature for the day. I'm a fan of Monet, but if you want something more offbeat, try something like Ben Nicholson's lovely May 1959 (Porta San Jacopo, San Gimignano), on show in the National Gallery of Modern Art. Next: cold breakfast. This one's simple – alternate between porridge and scrambled eggs. Or even just have toast. Art-wise, there's that Sarah Lucas self-portrait with the fried eggs,

but, um... well, think about it.

And oh, the library. If I said I could solve this one, I'd be lying. You're just going to have to stop sobbing into that manky shared desk on the fourth floor and get on with your work. Either that or get up at 6AM and, fired up with porridge/eggs, nab a second floor desk with a window view.

So, to wrap up (ha, ha) – long johns, gruel, and early starts. All sounding a bit old-fashioned? Just be glad you don't have to put a hot brick in your bed.

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

teven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s new biography Van Gogh: The Life has shocked the art world through its assertion that Van Gogh may not have committed suicide in a wheat field close to his home, but was instead mortally wounded by two teenagers.

Drawing on forensic evidence and records they stress that “[it is] very clear to us that he did not go into the wheat fields with the intention of shooting himself.” They propose that Van Gogh’s own admission to having attempted suicide was instead a means to “cover for the boys he knew quite well.”

Following this story I am led to question two things: why has this crazy story led the rest of the world to totally re-evaluate his work and why does everyone feel it matters so much?

Not being an art student, but rather someone who happens to visit art galleries, I will happily admit I am no expert on the way artists work and whether they do or don’t recreate every minute detail of their lives within their art, but surely I’d be giving them more credit as artists by thinking they can separate at least part of their life experience from a fraction of their work? Not everything can be found in allegory on canvas!

For me there is nothing more enjoyable than going to a gallery and looking at something I have no personal investment in, no preconceptions, no prejudices, nothing. I love the fact that I can sit there, staring at something I’ve never seen and just think: about how it makes me feel, about what I think of it, but most of all whether I even like the thing.

The most important part is that it has absolutely no bearing on my life; I’m just free to spend as much time as I want thinking and forgetting about everything else that’s going on.

Sometimes that’s just what you need.

Irrespective of how much it’s worth, or who made it, the fact that they took the time to bother at all makes them good in my books!

Why is it that we feel we need to know every detail of what happened in someone’s life to be able to fully understand their work? Is it not better to appreciate a piece of art for its sheer beauty (or ugliness for that matter) rather than because the bloke that painted it may or may not have died in a way we hadn’t originally imagined?

For me at least I can honestly say, suicide or murder, Van Gogh’s paintings will remain timeless examples of genius in my eyes.

Emma Ainsworth

Look oot for... sarah findley

Dear Art Doctor,

Oh my Gogh

Theatre-wise, check out 27 at the Lyceum Theatre (until 12 November) and Twelfth Night, which is playing at Bedlam Theatre 25 to 29 October.

For arty souls, we'll be covering the Elizabeth Blackadder exhibition at the National Gallery.

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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22 Film

Hallow-wimps, read on

toutlecine

Tess Malone finds Halloween films that even the most timid of scaredy-cats can enjoy on this usually horrific holiday

EARLY CHRISTMAS: Only Jamie Oliver's latest cookbook could create this level of excitement ike the household that gave out L apples instead of candy for trick or treating, Halloween can be a pola-

so quintessentially emo that they were just the right people to commune with ghosts, witches, zombies or, even scarier, hormonal teenage boys. So grab some fun-size Cadbury and pop one of these campy classics in.

The only thing that’s scary about Tim Burton these days is how bloated his budget is, but back in the 1980s he was the master of cult comedy-horror films. Burton knew that picturesque New England towns could only be so quaint without harbouring a ghost or three, and this seems to be a common

trope of most of the films on this list.

He started the trend with 1984’s Frankenweenie, about a kid so obsessed with his dog Sparky that he resurrects the pup Frankenstein-style after it gets hit by a car. Sparky isn’t your average pet and Frankenweenie was not Disney’s average film, therefore they fired Burton, claiming a zombie pitbull was too scary for its audience. Ironically, this film now plays on the Disney channel, and the company is even remaking it as a feature-length stop-motion animation. If you can’t wait until 2012,

paranormal activity 3

are young sisters living a normal life, yet to be marked by darkness. Cue cobwebs and ghost sounds. The process for the series remains unchanged, with a slow pace that malevolently drives you to cling onto anything for a bit of comfort. In short, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (both of Catfish fame), succeed in delivering what you expect from another link in a chain of Paranormal Activity flicks that may one day outnumber Final Destination or Saw sequels.

However, the concept feels lazy now. The first film cost $15,000 to make, whereas the third jumped up to a reported $5M with no notable increase in production value. Despite the lack of innovation, an old-hat concept does

not mean an old-hat review. So, in honour of trying something a bit different, grab your favorite alcohol and prepare for Paranormal Drinking Activities 3.

The rules are simple: drink three sips each time one of the following happens. First, as this is a period film, drink every time you are reminded that it’s 1988; especially when you see the original cordless phone. Second, drink whenever there’s text on screen (you’ll probably want something to do during those parts anyway). Finally, drink any time you jump or are freaked out. All but the very bravest should be well on their way after that.

From that point onwards havoc ensues, as a lavish host of Hollywood names correspond across the globe, from Marion Cotillard as the doctor from the World Health Organization in Switzerland, to Matt Damon as the widower in Minnesota. These interlinking stories are certainly not baffling, and various scenes illustrate a harsh portrayal of the realities of a global outbreak as Soderburgh manages to restrain itself from presenting the formulaic images of the President being deported and a hero who finds the vaccine and immediately saves all.

The film capably balances the search for a cure with the effects of the mass devastation incurred from such a catastrophe. Soderburgh also ingeniously uses global settings to probe the tenuous political organizations in place for such an event.

The vast plethora of popular actors

on offer would imply that the acting would be top notch. Unfortunately, however, they are all distinctly boring. On further thought, each actor simply plays themselves: Jude Law is obnoxious and exasperating; Gwyneth Paltrow is flimsy and flirtatious; Kate Winslet is ballsy and heartbreaking.

The storylines are straightforward, and in an attempt to utilise all the famous names, a fair few are gratuitous, including a frankly bizarre turn of events which leads to Cotillard’s abduction by a Chinese villager.

Contagion is let down by the inessential storylines, melodramatic dialogue, and insipid actors. Rather than an alternative, courageous look at the threat of an epidemic to human civilisation, it is merely a fairly impressive advert for antibacterial hand-wash.

Directed by H. Joost & A. Schulman  ost people have met someone M who uses the same joke over and over again, effectively killing it. Fortu-

nately, for the folks behind Paranormal Activity 3, the franchise formula for terror keeps your heart rate up in a third installment. It may not break new ground, but this glimpse into the past offers something to the series that only an evil imaginary friend could hope to.

Back in 1988, Katie and Kristi, from the first and second films respectively,

contagion Directed by steven soderbergh 

Y

ou’re the girl holding a boy’s hand for the first time; you’re pushed past a feverish man on the bus; you’re sitting across from the annoying girl coughing oh-so-loudly in the library.

In Contagion, a film exploring the effects of a biological pandemic, any of these activities are enough to pass on the lethal disease, and so leave the viewer shuffling on the edge of their seat, nervously edging away from the hand of the person next to them.

Contagion is a fast-paced thriller.

Within minutes (in a Scream-style twist), one of the main names attached to the project has been terminated.

are enough ridiculous scenes, however, such as Pullman singing “Jailhouse Rock”, that make up for the cartoonish computer animation. '

“

The Halloween films of our childhood managed to be spooky even if they didn't give us nightmares" Halloween shenanigans wouldn’t be complete without the campiest and craziest of them all, Hocus Pocus. Set in Salem, Massachusetts, it’s as clichéd as a cauldron – three witches are resurrected from the dead by a foolish teenager trying to impress his crush on Halloween. We always knew hormones were dangerous. The film has a surprising amount of sexual innuendo, as Sarah Jessica Parker’s dumb blonde witch wants to mount more than just a broom. Even if a recent viewing isn’t as innocent as the virgin that is needed to restore the witches to their beauty and immortality, this is what makes it the ultimate Halloween cult classic. The talking black cat is what you remember loving as a kid, whereas head witch Bette Midler’s bawdy rendition of “I’ll Put a Spell on You” is what makes it well-worth viewing as an adult.

Maybe these films aren’t frightening, but they are certainly funnier than the hangover you have after Halloween.

Zack O'Leary

Eloise Kohler

ciontagionmovietrailer

rising holiday if you don’t like horror films. Having to cover up your eyes in the cinema whenever a slasher flick trailer comes on makes you feel like a little kid again. This isn’t such a bad thing though: Halloween was better when we were kids. The Halloween films of our childhood managed to be spooky, even if they didn’t give us nightmares. They featured all of our favourite angsty teen stars who were

don’t worry, the original can be found in its entirety on YouTube.

Burton made his reputation from his interpretation of the Halloween genre, but how many films contain a calypso lip-sync? That’s right, we’re talking about the infamously named Beetlejuice (just don’t say his name three times). Michael Keaton’s over-thetop exorcist of the living is the rogue ghost helping the recently deceased Maitland family haunt out the yuppies that remodelled their Victorian home.

They quickly make friends with new tenant Lydia (Burton’s muse Winona Ryder), the chicest goth ever, who can see them because she is “strange and unusual” too. The most frightening thing about Beetlejuice is how attractive Alec Baldwin (as Adam Maitland) used to be, but that doesn’t stop the film from being a kooky Halloween romp that will get your toe tapping.

Speaking of spectres and melodramatic teenagers, don’t look right through Casper, even if the namesake of the film is a friendly ghost. We’re not talking about the version that Hilary Duff ruined, but the original featuring Bill Pullman as a paranormal ‘therapist’ and his acerbic daughter Christina Ricci. After moving into a haunted mansion in Maine (by the end of this feature, you should be convinced to never move to New England), they meet the Three Stooges of ghosts and ther nephew, the cute Casper. The odd romance that forms between Ricci’s Kat and Casper never quite works, because, as Kat bluntly puts, Caspar lacks something her high school crush doesn’t - “A pulse.” There

UNTRENDY: Jude was unaware just how ridiculous he looked

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Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Film 23 21 We need to talk about kevin

In the world of erotic cinema there is a very fine line between art and sleaze . . . Leigh turns this story into an enormously captivating piece of cinema. "

e Need to Talk about Kevin is W an unsettling and emotionally intense experience from start to fin-

Sleeping beauty Directed by Julia leigh  Leigh’s erotic drama Sleeping Jine,ulia Beauty opens with a shot of our heroLucy (Emily Browning), having a

tube forced down her throat for medical experimentation. Within these first few seconds, it is clear that we are worlds away from Disney.

Struggling student Lucy is taking on this experiment for money, and it soon becomes clear that she will do almost anything for some extra cash.

Our heroine thinks she has struck gold when she finds a part time job that pays more than she has ever dreamed of.

The job, however, turns into a nightmare, as under the watchful eye of the menacing Clara (Rachael Blake), Lucy finds herself thrown into a dark world of wealth and desire in which she is paid to be drugged into a deep sleep as a series of old and increasingly sinister men have their way with her.

In the world of erotic cinema there is a very fine line between art and sleaze, and in the wrong hands this plot could have been made into an extremely seedy and unpleasant film.

Leigh, however, turns this story into an enormously captivating and hauntingly beautiful piece of cinema. For a first-time director, Leigh is extremely accomplished, and she manages to give the film a hypnotic and dreamlike quality, while also creating a relentless

“

Another reason for the film’s success is Browning, who is bewitching as Lucy. There are many scenes in which Browning doesn’t say a word and yet still manages to convey a wealth of emotion solely through her body language and facial expressions.

The film is quite difficult to watch in places, and there are a few scenes in which the unpleasantness on screen is dragged out for a little too long.

Overall, however, Sleeping Beauty is an accomplished film that portrays a powerful picture of the darker side of desire.

Sally Pugh

All films were reviewed at Cineworld

Directed by lynnE ramsay



ish. Through the perspective of Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton), the film depicts the events that lead up to, and follow, her son Kevin’s (Ezra Miller) massacre of the teachers and students at an American high school.

A harrowed Swinton must live with the loathing of the other parents and the possibility that her upbringing of Kevin led to his actions.

A seamless collage of the preceding events of the flashbacks and killing presents the audience with the pieces of the puzzle which mesh to create the complete, horrifying story of the massacre. Kevin is cold, distant and spiteful in every stage of his life and the actors, despite their youth, present his sinister demeanor beautifully. Miller delivers a particularly chilling performance of the fully-fledged sociopath. He is truly captivating to watch and utterly convincing in his detachment. Swinton is similarly phenomenal in presenting an incredible emotive depth to her performance.

Together their relationship is jarring, creating an almost hypnotic effect; often troubling to watch ,but nevertheless impossible to look away.

The use of sound throughout creates a profound effect, and perhaps

paradoxically, enhances the extended silences, which are used masterfully to strengthen the discomfort between Swinton and Miller. Part of the power of the film resides in its implicit nature. The audience is presented with fragments of information and must interpret these so that an image of how truly horrific Kevin becomes is created.

It therefore gains its emotional gravity by aligning the audience with Swinton, as both parties attempt to understand Kevin.

We Need to Talk about Kevin is a sin-

cinemasonline

tone of foreboding through her very bold and emotionally-cold script. She lulls the audience into a false sense of security with slow, near silent scenes, only to then shock us with a sudden scene of almost unwatchable tension.

ister psychological portrait of the difficulties of parenthood. There is an overwhelming sense of inevitability, which makes Swinton’s guilt increasingly unnerving. However, the most poignant aspect of this film is its depiction of a coarse reality, in which atrocities like these actually occur. The film resonates long after the credits, as it engenders a penetrating, emotive response and involvement; nothing more than this could be desired from a film.

Dan Scott Lintott

LIES: Andy Warhol pictures are supposed to use Campbells soup

The birth of horror

Ali Quaile delves into the films that marked the beginnings of a controversial genre

acceptability and enjoyment. As films become ever more violent and grotesque, it is arguable that something fundamental has been lost in a much loved and artistic form of cinema. The pioneers of this lucrative art form are regularly cited in top film lists, creating box office hits that have shaped the history of cinema. So, what has changed to make this a genre that is no longer taken seriously?

The first horror films focused predominately on the ideas and characters established in the Gothic literature of the nineteenth century.

Initially depicted in shorts, such as Georges Méliès 1896 Le Manoir du Diable, that sought to amuse through pantomime, feature length horror films weren’t produced until the 1920s. A field dominated by German expressionism, films such as Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari went on to influence directors such as Orson Welles and Tim Burton, whilst F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu marked the first vampire-themed feature.

Hollywood didn’t make an impact until the second half of the 1920s when the first horror star Lon Chaney gained precedence. Known as the man of 1000 faces, he famously did his own makeup- creating grotesque and deeply disturbing characters. Films such as The Phantom of the Opera (1925), with its classic shocking reveal, were as much a case of evil spectacle as a claustrophobic horror picture.

The 1930s brought the arrival of sound with Tod Browning’s Dracula

opheliafictionp

recent years horror has become Ihasntheincreasingly subject of taboo; a genre that tested the limits of

PHOTOBOMB: Count Orlok forgot to get a manicure and toupee before the photoshoot.

(1931) being the first horror to be a box office hit. Actors such as the Hungarian Béla Lugosi and British Boris Karloff became overnight stars after years of minimal success in Hollywood. Frankenstein (1931), which starred Karloff as the monster, illustrated a being that was initially childlike and gentle, only later being guided into violence. Creating empathy for a horrible creation allowed horror to become a fantastically interesting genre. Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 production of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde showcased a dazzling

single-shot transformation sequence.

Heightened by a subjective camera that enabled the viewer to experience the change through Jekyll’s eyes, it was achieved through rotating a filter on the camera which revealed layers of different coloured makeup. It was this sequence that helped its star Frederic March receive the best actor Oscar in 1932.

It was Warner Brothers who broke away from the Gothic tradition, bringing horror into a contemporary setting. James Whales’ Old Dark House (1932) illustrated the first use

of an isolated residence visited by strangers seeking shelter, opening up a Pandora’s box of nightmarish events. At the same time, Browning’s 1932 tale of sexual manipulation and revenge, Freaks, blurred the line between reality and fiction. Starring actual carnival performers, many of whom had physical deformities, it bombed at the box office due to its shocking and controversial content (which resulted in a 30 year ban in the UK). Since then, however, it has made a huge comeback and become something of a cult phenomenon.

The 1940s brought producers such as RKO’s Val Lewton into the limelight. Although restricted by a low budget, his 1942 film Cat People terrified audiences by proving that less can be more. For the first time in horror history, monsters didn’t have to be seen, just suggested. This slow build up to a sudden non-threatening jolt became known as a Lewton Bus and is an integral feature of modern horror.

However, by the end of the 1940s, horror had become virtually extinct, and was to remain so until the mid1950s and the birth of Hammer Films in the UK. This period also saw the rise of British horror star Christopher Lee, who at 6ft 5in retains a very demanding presence. Evidently, horror had taken a new direction, but proved that it was anything but dead.

In subsequent years it was to see the arrival of visionary greats such as George Romero, Alfred Hitchcock’s exciting turn to horror, and the birth of slasher cinema. It is undoubted that in their own right they are brilliant films, but are arguably indebted to techniques pioneered decades earlier. In a somewhat unfortunate turn of events, most people now associate horror with either the current cult phenomenon of budget B-list films, or with later greats such as The Exorcist (1973), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Halloween (1978).

However, it was films in the first half of the twentieth century that set the standard. Unappreciated and, to many, unknown, it’s the perfect place to start if you are looking for something fun to do on Halloween.

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

����� Love ������ film? ������� Let us ������ know! ��������������������� Follow us on twitter ����������������������� @TheStudentPaper or on ������������ Facebook at �������������������������������� facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper ������������������������������� film.studentnewspaper@gmail.com

24 Film

Classic Cult

other woman’s husband; a "vamp", a femme fatale, embroiled in a morality story of deadly sexuality. Whilst it wasn’t until Friedrich Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) that the undeadguy-craving-human-blood became the defining feature of the horror sub-genre, the winning combination of lust and death formed the basis of almost all vampire films from then on.

Due to the small issue that vampires aren’t real (right?!), their very nature has differed over the years. Max Schreck and, later, Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog’s deliciously chilling 1979 remake, portray Nosferatu as a rodent-like, repulsive loner. Other films based on Bram Stoker’s novel,the most famous being Bela Lugosi’s 1931 Universal Pictures production,depict the Count as commanding, hypnotic and frankly terrifying.

Lugosi’s Dracula is iconic; even now, eighty years later, watching him is absolutely mesmerising. It is well known that Lugosi was typecast for the rest of his career thanks to this one role- watch it again and you’ll understand why. Christopher Lee does a more than decent job in the British Hammer Horror series, but by that time we’re into slightly camp, kitschy territory - if you want the real deal, it’s Bela you must go to.

For you nitpickers, the 1931 version is also more faithful to the novel as Dracula cannot be destroyed by sunlight, merely weakened by it; only a stake will do.

For a bunch of sun-shy Peter Pans who sleep in the basement, it’s remarkable how on-trend vampires can be. The mythology of vampires came to represent a widespread fear of openly expressed promiscuous sexuality in Victorian society. In recent incarnations, stories centering around the feisty undead can also be construed as interpretations of malaise within modern society. The Lost Boys (1987) for example is, yes, essentially a slightly spooky teen comedy, but it’s also a commentary on adolescent disengagement and the desire to belong; even if only to a gang of peer-pressuring vampires led by Kiefer Sutherland on a bad hair day. If you want a glimpse of what eternal youth really means, watch Interview with the Vampire (1994) based on the Anne Rice novel, to see Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst’s doomed relationship, a murky mix of paternal and romantic love.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, it’s a film column but there is the shockingly bad 1992 movie, so technically we’re not breaking any rules here) is a feminist media student’s dream.

It’s a kick-ass shock to genre and gender conventions, with Buffy’s male friend Xander doing all the whimpering sidekick stuff, whilst Buffy and the (mostly) good witch, Willow, are generally being awesome and staking tons of bad guys.

Then there’s the Twilight Saga: saccharine star-crossed lovers mush, barely veiling a Mormon abstinence agenda, with just enough(!) eyecandy to keep the tweens shelling out their pocket money. See, there’s something for everyone in the vampire section.

Kirsty Wareing

ktrailer

he first vampire film wasn’t acT tually about bloodsuckers, but a woman who tries to seduce an-

DISGUSTING: Mia and Henry couldn't believe there was was a man dropping his trousers only metres awayfrom them

restless Directed by gus van sant  us Van Sant’s latest film Restless G is a bittersweet romance about Enoch (Harry Hopper), who has an

obsession with death, and Annabel (Mia Wasikowska), who is dying of cancer. Enoch’s hobbies include drawing chalk outlines of himself while lying on the road and attending other people’s funerals, and it is at funerals that he meets Annabel.

Death permeates Restless and is

yellow sea Directed by hong-jin na  he latest Korean thriller to make T the international leap is quite an event. Weighing in at a respectable 140

minutes (still 17 minutes shorter than the Korean version) The Yellow Sea is filled to the brim with as much grit as anyone could wish for.

From the opening voiceover, it’s clear that we are not in for a barrel of laughs. The cold monotone relating the tale of a childhood pet dog that died of rabies sets the tone for the uncompromisingly grim two-and-a-bit hours to follow.

“

The Yellow Sea is filled to the brim with as much grit as anyone could wish for" The story follows Gu-Nam, a taxidriver struggling in a hole of debt in a province between Korea and China.

His wife has moved away to earn money but hasn’t made contact. Then a shady individual known as Myun offers him a way out. He has to go to Korea and kill someone there, hopefully find-

continually referenced, with varying effects. At times it can be heavy handed. Annabel, despite her condition, provides the respite; she is beautifully alive, perhaps unrealistically so.

Wasikowska’s performance is by far the best in the film, and she steals most of the scenes, notably when Annabel and Enoch visit the woods on Halloween. Their relationship at this point is strong, existing in a cinematic pseudoreality, which works because it cannot last forever.

Unfortunately, they deviate from the plan and there is conflict before Annabel even has the chance to die.

There is nothing insincere about the ing his wife in the process. The ruthless and unflappable Myun will, of course, kill his family if he fails.

Not, you might think, a terribly original plot idea but there are a number of qualities which make it rather special. First, the setting; South Korea’s major cities provide a wonderfully bleak backdrop to the action and much of this is rather beautifully showcased by director Hong-Jin Na. More than this, the film gives an insight into aspects of Korean culture never normally seen by the Western world, particularly the discrimination against the region Gu-Nam is from.

However, the film’s defining feature must be its sheer, visceral grit.

Everything, including our desperate protagonist feels human, real and dirty.

The bloody fight scenes are utterly devoid of glamour and deliberately so.

Sadly however, this also robbed them of much of the charm found in wellchoreographed fight scenes.

This is a trend continued throughout the film. The story, though fairly linear, is complicated by a plethora of characters and the audience is given little to nothing in the way of tantalising hints to lead us through. Essentially, Na has gone out of his way to produce as brutal and harsh a film as he could and, in the process, sacrificed a great deal of potential enjoyment.

Lewis McLellan

romance, which makes the forced drama more frustrating. The film is undoubtedly at its best when it is kept simple. But it jerks and twists around until the audience inevitably lose patience with it. Enoch is unfortunately childish, and while it is understandable that he struggles to come to terms with the impending death of his new-found love, the way he reacts to it makes it difficult to sympathise with.

The minor characters are underused; the touching relationship between Annabel and her sister, Elizabeth (Schuyler Fisk), is never allowed to fully develop. The best scene in the film is dedicated to it, but little else.

Claire denis Film Scores 1996-2009: Live  laire Denis is well known for her C thought provoking films which contain little dialogue, instead focusing

on individual themes portrayed through long drawn out shots, sounds and textures. Often abandoning a conventional approach to narrative, she lets actions and music do the talking, creating powerfully absorbing films.

This has in part been made possible through her long term collaboration with Nottingham based indie band Tindersticks. Crafting soundtracks during the creative process, as opposed to being added in the later stages of production, their songs have been made with the direct intention of capturing the various ideas at work in each scene.

“

As a live experience, this is undeniably innovative" A celebration of the ongoing work between Denis and Tindersticks, the Usher Hall put on an evening of live scores played to images of Denis’ films.

The result is an original and altogether captivating experience.

One character who is developed, to a point of perhaps unsurprising irritation, is a kamikaze ghost, Hiroshi (Ryo Kase). He is curiously intrusive for a ghost, particularly towards the end, and, like a lot of ghosts, he is inconsistently tangible.

The ending sums up the film’s major problems. It has the chance to delve back into the relationship at its heart and give it a meaningful swansong, but it feebly dodges the climax it has been crying out for. At the very end, it has nothing at all to say.

Rob Dickie

Following a few minor technical problems, the band opt to open with one of their own songs "Bearsuit" from their 1997 album Curtains, before breaking in to the emotive title sequence from Nénette et Boni. With ethereal piano and whimsical glockenspiel set against images of Alice Houri floating fully clothed in a swimming pool, the result is enrapturing. It is amazing how the combination of video and sound can make the Usher Hall feel inescapably cavernous; meaningful even outside of the context of the film.

As the set progresses, notable moments are recreated live: the beautiful train scene from 35 Shots of Rum, with its touching acoustic guitar and melodica; the opening scene of Trouble Every Day, which features one of the few additions of Stuart Staples’ impassioned vocals; and the haunting scene from The Intruder, where a single distorted note resonates as two men carry a body dripping with blood over the crisp white snow.

As a live experience, this is undeniably innovative, however a second half featuring songs almost entirely from their own albums reduce it somewhat to a mere music gig. Although arguably their music easily stands on its own, unaided by Denis’ visuals, there is a definite feeling that more emphasis could have been placed on the cinematic element of the performance.

Ali Quaile

Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on Facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper �������� Tuesday �������� October ��� 25 ����� 2011� music@studentnewspaper.org �������������������� studentnewspaper.org

Music 25

Their time is now akron/family

Ger Ellis meets the up and coming Clock Opera ahead of their support slot for Chapel Club at Cabaret Voltaire

he sparsely populated Cabaret VolT taire is almost entirely comprised of Chapel Club fans. Tonight’s headliners, the veritable merchants of melancholy, have brought along their minions, miserably sporting their uniforms of big hair, long coats, and gloomy expressions.

They’re here to sulkily drink the overpriced beer and nod appreciatively to funeral dirges. They are not here to dance.

The silence which greets the first support band, an abrasive half-naked punk unit, confirms this. The awkwardness is palpable and painfully uncomfortable, with the literal ten metre gap between the caustic crowd and the squirming band providing an ominous metaphor.

For chief support act, reckless electronic samplers and discotheque dreamers Clock Opera, this could be a difficult evening’s work.

Twenty minutes beforehand, the mood is somewhat less tense. Drummer Che, guitarist Andy and vocalist Guy all huddle around beers and cigarettes on a particularly squalid spiral staircase, and, after some initial bonding over the plethora of passing ghost tours, we begin by casually reflecting on Clock Opera’s humble and often solitary beginnings.

Guy rubs his beard and hesitantly muses. “Well, I started in my bedroom, kind of chopping bits of music that I’d made, then putting them back into samples, which then made songs. Then we started playing together and defining the live sound, refining those songs over a period of time.”

Defining that sound certainly seems to be the problematic thing with Clock Opera; no-one has yet been able to give a neat description. As Guy mentions the “distinctive, electronic, home-made chopping element” to their tracks, I mention the words of a critic who called them “chop-pop”, suggesting it doesn’t quite encapsulate their very intricate and precisely-crafted approach. “That’s what we felt. It sums up some aspects, but not all of them”. The band nod, focused on Guy. Is he the lead conductor of the Opera then, or is it a collaborative effort?

There’s a pause, and the band look to

quite a lot.

Being interactive does seem important to Clock Opera though, with a plethora of artwork, remixes and free releases all going out to fans. I ask if they enjoy pursuing these distractions.

“Well, Andy does the artwork...”. “And Guy does all the remixes!” The finishing of each other’s sentences takes everyone by surprise, and a lot of roaring and highfiving ensues. “We passed that telekinetically, our mouths didn’t move!”

It’s an impressive act which we all agree can’t be surpassed, so we halt official proceedings there. It’s time for the band to begin the various necessary stretches and prayers prior to taking to the stage. I wish them luck, go back in, and become very nervous for them.

“ BLUE DA BA DEE DA BA DIE: Clock Opera get on the property ladder with Eiffel 65 one another. “I guess as things went on there was more and more... yeah, it was a whole band thing”. As though to prove a point, Andy suddenly jumps in: “we’re all very different in terms of individual tastes. It’s quite nice having those perspectives and creating something completely different”.

“

We're all very different in terms of individual tastes.”

Andy West, Clock Opera

Seeing as it’s so hard to define the band, I ask how they feel about the frequent comparisons they are attributed, particularly with their deep and personal lyrical style. The band looks instinctively at Guy again.

Singles

“The lyrics are important, but more important are how the songs affect people. Critics often talk about techniques first and foremost, but if they’re not songs which affect anyone or make people join in there’s no point.”

Such a considered monologue is punctuated by Chapel Club's thunderous soundcheck. The interview reconvenes at a pub doorway down the road, and whilst Andy reflects on how playing live “tickles a different part of their brains”, Che darkly mutters how after only two days on tour Chapel Club and Clock Opera “already want to kill each other”. Is it all about stealing their fans? “Absolutely.

You can’t share”. Che’s attempts to be deadpan are rather ruined by elusive keyboardist Dan, who runs past shouting “Clock Opera are fucking shite!” resulting in rapturous laughter.

There’s no doubt the band are happy to be touring, but I wonder whether they’re

toddla t Streets So Warm NINJA TUNE

lana del rey



Video Games INTERSCOPE

having difficulty connecting with audiences after the release of only one single, “Lesson No. 7”. Guy grins. “Last night in Manchester there were a few people who knew the lyrics, which is great”. Andy has adopted a slightly different mentality. “I always assume no-one knows anything, that they just kind of sing along because it’s occurred to them to do so”.

Suddenly Guy speaks at a million miles an hour: “Yeah, there’s always a moment where the audience seems to suddenly catch on, start singing along.

It’s this communal experience rather than them just listening. I mean, people’s brains are quite fast. With one aged member of my family, she does this thing where she mouths words you say at the same time”. It’s a beautifully endearing thought; perhaps the incredibly personal lyrics to tracks like “Belongings” are already hidden somewhere in your head.

Che, unconvinced, has started to laugh

Turns out I needn’t have panicked.

From almost the first sample of “White Noise”, rich with its infectiously danceable Hawaiian beat, the crowd pours into the room. Guy’s voice soars over delicate keys, and then dives as tracks explode with thrashing guitar, hurricane drums and the occasional use of kettles and tincans for percussion. The surging harmonies of the poignant “Belongings” inspire the big-haired masses into handclaps and sing-alongs. During the dreamy “Once and for All” rows of leather shoes can be seen dancing beneath long coats. It’s a short set, but one which bubbles with promise for a stunning debut album.

Closing tracks “A Piece of String” and “Lesson No. 7” leave one of the sternest audiences I’ve ever seen in as close a state of delirium as anyone could’ve dreamed.

Quite simply, forget this evening’s hosts; it’s Clock Opera who do the converting.

alex clare

LUcy rose



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Up All Night ISLAND

Scar FAUNA RECORDS

ashing electro, grime and danceapidly becoming the soundtrack to traight off the back of accompanyM hall, Toddla T’s latest release Rlonely evenings spent in the micro S ing Bombay Bicycle Club on their rattles your conscience with dirty bass, to labs is Alex Clare’s “Up All Night”, al- latest UK tour, Warwickshire-born

 he comment section on YouTube T makes for fantastical reading, with almost every video attached to a sea of

incoherent musings from twinkle-typing internet addicts who insist on sensationalist conspiracy theory after sensationalist conspiracy theory.

But it’s precisely because of these suspicions that Lana Del Rey has the status she does, as the elusive heir to the crown of female pop sensation. Her YouTube smash, and debut single “Video Games” is a daunting and haunting piano led ballad about the mundane side of love - undercut by a current of tragedy - and met with ageless vocal, making this a minimalist and arty addition to the woeful ‘Top 40’.

It’s an interesting, angled look on slower pop but the reason it blew up so big is mainly because people on YouTube

Being interactive does seem important to Clock Opera with a plethora of artwork and remixes going out to fans”

have been shouting: “How can she write quite good, sorta sad pop music and still be pretty? She must be fake” However the rest of us rational beings have been trying to explain that you don’t have to roll in your own shit or wake up looking like a bawlbag in drag to know heartache; you can have smokey eyes and thick lips and a swooshing head of hair.

Jack Murray

highlight the ugly shadow still cast over the streets of UK. Legendary dancehall DJ Wayne Marshall supplies the vocals to chant the troubles surrounding British youth crime, a message made all the more prevalent following the August riots. Computer glitch samples akin to Crystal Castles provide a fresh contrast to the warmth of the Jamaican vocals. The heavy bass line drives the song with aplomb, emphasizing the bounce to the irresistibly catchy afro-beat rhythm.

The Steel City-born DJ has yet again succeeded in harmonizing sincerity and energy, to pen a track charged with fervor and conviction. Expect remix upon remix to this number, as clubbers beg for the work of Toddla T to bring the noise.

Joseff Morgan

though I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about writing his dissertation. Picture a West Country farmer dropped into a sweaty Jamaican dance hall and you’ve got the essence of this 25-year-old Londoner. With his flat cap, beardy ginger face and husky soulful voice, you might be surprised to learn that the track was produced by Major Lazer duo Diplo & Switch.

Smashing together a dancehall beat and heavy rock guitar, strumming in a way that makes it hard to determine whether what you’re hearing is blues, metal, soul or reggae. Nevertheless, it works. Crooning “sun is up while I’m walking home / oh my days what have I done”, Clare has concocted a modern day lament with a delicious supply of hefty bassline.

Felicity Martin

singer/songwriter Lucy Rose gives us her latest offering in the form of "Scar".

The track is the heart wrenching account of the dilemma faced in the final stages of a disintegrating relationship: “Something deep inside of me is telling me to leave/ But I don’t want to have to let you go”.

The simply layered musical arrangement in the verses allows Rose’s dainty vocals to shine through, before the slightly elevated chorus, which comprises of stunning vocal harmonies chaperoned by a lucid beat takes off. This, along with the quaint nature of Rose’s painfully sincere lyrics, makes for an altogether charming track.

Max Sanderson

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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

26 Music

Albums flashguns

Passions of a Different Kind ROUGH TRADE



L

ondon indie hopefuls Flashguns have been at it for a good few years now, bringing their undeniably catchy melodies and snappy hooks to the UK’s smaller venues since 2007, steadily building up buzz with high-profile support slots, culminating in a deal with influential Rough Trade records, and the release of Passions of a Different Kind: an album loaded with the kinds of choruses that stick with the listener for days, but, tied in with seriously forgettable lyrics and some truly awful song titles (Exhibit (A) being inexplicably-named closer "Racing Race").

“Sounds of the Forest” (yes, really) begins proceedings with the kind of intense, fast-paced guitar and drum barrage everyone’s heard, and jumped around to countless times before, while the upbeat synth lines of lead single, "Come See The Lights" definitely serves as one of the album’s highlights.

Similarly, the title track’s classic howl-along stadium-sized bridge,

and Johnny Marr inspired guitars are far more listenable than any number of flimsy Wombats singles. The record is harmless fun, but the kind of indieby-numbers churned out here may not suffice when there are guitar bands like WU LYF out there, and it being a good nine years since Up The Bracket. While Flashguns may not be the most interesting, they’re definitely enjoyable.

Regrettably, it’s hard to ignore the fact that at several moments on the album, it all sounds a bit too much like Feeder. This, coupled with frontman Sam Johnston’s unfortunate vocal similarity to Bono, makes for a cripplingly unambitious record, albeit one with a bunch of hummable melodies. While Passions of a Different Kind isn’t going to change the musical landscape, this almost certainly won’t be the last we hear of Flashguns, saved by their knack for a hook. Nobody’s to say they can’t come out with an expectation-defying second album, like those of London landfillescapists The Maccabees or Bombay Bicycle Club. Some of the greatest British guitar bands like Radiohead, Blur and Primal Scream certainly aren’t remembered for their first album, and Flashguns definitely have the scope to have a lasting and exciting career.

Emmett Cruddas

katherine jenkins Daydream WARNER BROS.

 atherine Jenkins, otherwise known K as that hot Welsh soprano, is somewhat of an institution – her new release

Daydream is her eight studio album, and it’s rather like her last effort, 2009’s Believe.

In the spirit of her continuing effort to justify her label as a ‘crossover’ artist, this album includes two obligatory pop tracks, "Break it to My Heart" and "Can’t Slow Down", with the remaining eleven songs coming from a range of traditional and classical orientations – dominated by hymns and opera.

The result is rather like any other Katherine Jenkins album, she sings beautiful songs beautifully. The album is defined by emotional but equally settling numbers such as "Black is the Colour", but occasionally Jenkins aims for something more stirring, such as the somewhat rousing and Latin "L’Alba Verra".

However, as philistine an observation as this is, many of the songs just sound the same, and they sound deeply similar

Five finger death punch

American Capitalist PROSPECT PARK



ive Finger Death Punch are onto F their difficult third album, although with the way the music industry is to-

EARLY RISERS: Flashguns shotgun the park benches on time

mayer hawthorne How Do You Do UNIVERSAL REPUBLIC

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M

ayer Hawthorne seems to be onto a winning formula. From his first album A Strange Arrangement, and his EP of covers, Impressions, it was clear that he had an infatuation with the past.

This second album is another along these lines, in that it also combines elements of disco, R&B, and soul, to form a record, which with all its golden harmonies and sun-drenched arrangements, harks back to the golden age of Motown. Despite not altering his recording process too much, Hawthorne’s style has developed, and How Do You Do feels notably better balanced and more relaxed.

“

No Mayer Hawthorne release would be complete without some kind of bitter breakup song" The references to other artists are plentiful and varied, making it difficult to separate each song from its many influences. In a style somewhere in-between that of The Beatles and Electric Light Orchestra, "Dreaming" is one of the less

soul-inspired tracks. On the other end of the spectrum we have "A Long Time" in which Hawthorne pays homage to his hometown Detroit’s rich musical history.

The album is not simply a nostalgic tribute to Hawthorne’s favourite music.

Similarly to in A Strange Arrangement there is an equal blend of new and old.

The lyrics manage to be wry and contemporary, for example in the Snoop Dogg duet "Can’t Stop", yet still fit with the retro feel of the music, and although the arrangements are distinctly vintage, the production is decidedly modern.

No Mayer Hawthorne release would be complete without some kind of bitter breakup song, and this is no exception.

This time its "The Walk", the album’s first single, which is blessed with sunny Smokey Robinson-esque vocals, and a light, up-beat tempo, coupled with deliciously virulent lyrics, referencing his ex-lover’s “shitty fucking attitude”. We get another hint of this in "The News", another breakup song with a deceptively jaunty melody, this time accompanied by mischievous horns and the sparkly tinkling of a toy piano.

The only criticism for the album is that some tracks, like the upbeat "Hooked", would be more satisfying with stronger, more resonant vocals, and Hawthorne’s feeble falsetto sticks out in "Stick Around". Other than this, the album is a flawless, feel-good modern classic.

Helen Stride

day every albums a difficult one. With two well received albums under their belt however this is the one that will either propel them to the next level or could see them slipping away.

American Capitalist opens with the title track which sees Death Punch sticking to their signature sound of huge guitars and cleanly sung choruses. The sound that’s not exact done them any harm, as it saw them hit number 7 in the US Billboard 200 with last album War is the Answer.

ALL SMILES: 50 per cent off at Cardiff 's DFS. to her old material. Jenkin’s pop songs have lyrics which encroach on asinine and sound like an X-Factor winner’s Bsides.

Despite this slight weakness, the classical pieces are absolutely sublime: her version of "I Dreamed a Dream", sung in French, can only really be described as lovely. Indeed, the flow of the album is smooth except for the pop tracks, which feel like amateurish intrusions on an oth-

erwise glorious offering.

What does work is the careful blend of varying classical styles, and that’s really the draw and point of this album. No one wants to hear what out-dated pop songs Jenkins churns out – collectively, we can just be impressed she’s still bothering with this crossover malarkey. But there’s only so much this can detract from the album – she still has that voice.

Daniel Swain

There are songs here that are basically made for arenas. Listening to "Coming Down" you can almost hear a few thousand people screaming along with it. In fact it is these huge ballad like songs that are probably the best part of the album, Five Finger Death Punch show that that you can write emotional songs while still being a heavy metal band.

taken up by the slightly alternative section of the mainstream and heavy enough that it won’t be rejected by heavy metal fans.

This album’s very much set up as a middle finger to their doubters who just see them as another want to be Pantera rip off. With the message coming across clearly in "Under and Over It" with lead singer Ivan Moody growling at you: “Fist in the air and a finger to the sky. Do I care if you hate me? Do you wanna know the truth?

C’est la vie, adios, good riddance, fuck you!”

It is American radio friendly metal done very well. It’s not going to trigger a revolution or change the world but it will sit nicely in the CD collections of fans of bands like 36 Crazyfists, Disturbed, Devildriver and so on.

“

Five Finger Death Punch show that you can write emotional songs while still being a heavy metal band."

If found by the right people and promoted in the right way there’s nothing to stop this album going global. It’s commercial enough to be

Stuart Iversen

james blake Enough Thunder ATLAS

 series of unashamedly introspecA tive EP releases, followed by a debut album release in February, drew

considerable critical acclaim to the work of James Blake. The Mercury Prize nominee’s most recent body of work, however, lacks "Enough Thunder" to commend the arrival of yet another storm.

The EP opens with arguably its strongest offering. The vocals are laid bare, the melody beautifully arranged to the progression of the despondent piano echoing in the distance. Haunting electronic samples provide a disjointed contrast to the organic songwriting, however Blake succeeds in integrating both pieces to create an evocative and distressing composition.

"We Might Feel Unsound" reinforces this melancholy atmosphere, with stripped-down piano chords providing a rough silhouette for the vocals to complete. It is evident that the musician is most comfortable whilst at the piano.

Justin Vernon guest vocals are included in "Fall Creek Boys Choir". It is at this stage however that the EP begins to lose focus and impact. The erratic use of electronica against an R’n’B struc-

MINIMALIST TO THE CORE: No furniture for James ture and whispery vocals, provides an uncomfortable uncertainty to the song pattern. Blake fails to harmonize these, consequently killing the disquiet mood.

The auto-tune addition is a further disappointment where digital input and raw energy fail to connect.

The London-based producer reverts to the purity of vocals and piano for his Joni Mitchell cover "A Case of You".

The soul leverage paired with the beautiful ebb and flow of force makes for a captivating rhythm. Yet again however, a lack of focus results in an incomplete narrative.

"Not Long Now" reflects elements of the shadowy imagery of the earlier tracks, with vocals pitched beautifully against an uncluttered, and often incidental musical arrangement. The development of per-

cussion towards the latter half of the song injects a refreshing pace and dynamism.

The title track tconfirms Blake’s immense songwriting capabilities. It nevertheless also represents the overall disappointment of the EP with insufficient structure to its latter half. Without a common thread tying the elements together, the song frays and disappoints.

Much commendation must be made to the originality and elegance Blake achieves in his music. This haunting and abstract musical representation demonstrates sophisticated and textured songwriting ability. The disappointment on this occasion however is the failure to consistently channel and orchestrate such raw beauty in order to attain overall fulfillment.

Joseff Morgan

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

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

Music 27

Geared up for success Pierce Higgins chats to Bombay Bicycle Club before their performance at Glasgow's Barrowland aving been together for the best H part of six years, it’s easy to forget that Bombay Bicycle Club are still

only in their early twenties. “We’re still in that mentality that we are just a bunch of kids” lead singer Jack Steadman explains. Yet with the recent release of their third studio album, the rise to prominence has been swift for the north-Londoners.

With three albums of bravely differing styles, the band possesses an admirable diversity that belies their young age. “We want to try something new every time and do something different next time as well. I guess we are just trying to show that a song can be in a number of different styles as long as at its core, it’s a good song, and then it doesn’t matter.” It’s this refreshing philosophy and modesty of Jack which has undoubtedly established Bombay Bicycle Club as one of the leading lights on the indie scene. It must be reassuring for a band to know that they can release an acoustic album with people still wanting to buy it and liking it.

“

We're still in that mentality that we are just a bunch of kids” Jack Steadman, Bombay Bicycle Club

There’s a slightly different outlook for the band tonight at Barrowland, with the addition of singer-songwriter Lucy Rose, who features on both of their last two albums. Speaking before the gig, there’s a clear rapport between Jack and Lucy. “Lucy’s singing on it makes a big difference, there’s more

singing, more vocals from everyone so it’s not just me. There’s a lot more harmonies too which adds another texture to it and there’s a lot more sampled sounds rather than just guitars and bass.”

“

Bombay Bicycle Club have the unique ability to lull you with acoustic ballads or bombard you with fearsomely loud riffs" Interestingly, Jack also spoke about a probable side project between the two: “we’re looking at doing a side project and thinking of doing an album together with her singing.”

A number of Jack’s own house and hip-hop inspired productions seem to be have paved the way for a different style with this new album. “I think it’s because I started making these side project productions that just naturally found its way on the album. It felt like it was always going to happen and the fact that the rest of the band liked it as well meant we were happy to combine the two elements.”

Striding out to a hyped up crowd, there’s an instant charisma to the band as the they open with the brilliant "Shuffle", the first single from A Different Kind Of Fix. The looping jazz piano sample combines superbly with Ed Nash’s bass while Steadman’s distinctive vocals complete the groove.

With a decorated back catalogue of tunes now at their disposal, Bombay Bicycle Club have the unique ability to

TAKING A BREAK: Pedal pushing to Glasgow makes for hard work lull you with acoustic ballads or bombard you with fearsomely loud riffs.

Pedalling out track after track, the band play an eclectic mix of mostly their first and last album, with a few tracks from Flaws scattered about the set, most notably the melancholic "Ivy & Gold", while the thunderous "Emergency Contraception Blues" flows excellently into the lifting guitar melody of “How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep”. Jack & co. don’t hold back either whilst on stage as

Albums

they throw themselves around whilst the heavy distorted riffs of "Take The Right One" and "Cancel On Me" ring out through the venue. Old favourites "Magnet" and "Dust on the Ground" are also particular highlights, when in truth there is no real bad track on the night.

Bombay Bicycle Club’s new sound has been achieved in part with the help of Ben Allen, who produced most of the LP and worked on Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. “He

M83 Hurry Up, We're Dreaming NAIVE

bjork

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Biophilia POLYDOR

ost people would doubt that a chilM dren’s story about frogs could provide the lyrics for any song, never mind

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B

jörk has made the art of balancing a successful career with artistic respect look remarkably easy over her twenty odd year reign – rising like an Icelandic volcanic artefact, discovered and celebrated for its idiosyncratic dignity. Her latest venture, Biophilia once again tries to topple her previous works, only this time with a technological twist. The album has come out as a suite of iPad and iPhone apps, and is the very first to do so. The app itself is something quite extraordinarily Björk (in its elaborate and innovative way) and even required the services of Apple, National Geographic and David Attenborough to make it.

The app has also been described as “a semi-educational project for children using sound, texts and visuals”, which covers some topics such as plate tectonics, human biorhythm and genetics.

After trying out a couple of the tracks’ apps (as there is one for each song), your brain cannot help to wonder the scope of how an album can be utilised to its fullest using visualisations, which can only be a good thing relative to music as a whole.

At the same time, because of the depth of thought used to create this, a part of you does feel that the album itself is slightly

APP SHOT: One of the many app suites accompanying the album outfought by the finger tap of the touchscreens and the song essays.

The music itself slithers along in a similar fashion to her previous work, with world/folk styles being mixed with futuristic dark electronica. Some new musical instruments were used on this album, which shows how much Björk is striving to be as modern and daring as possible.

Sombre tones pervade with tracks like "Dark Matter" and "Virus" melting you into the unique world Björk has created successfully with Biophilia. "Mutual Core" and "Crystalline" show the Aphex Twin side of Björk’s mind, with short sharp twists of savage drum and bass, and mangled electronica. What’s impressive about this body of work is how it manages to simultaneously show a vast range

of musical intensity (and instruments), an inferred message of appreciation for science, while being the very first of its kind to succeed as a multimedia event.

While Björk has succeeding in captivating and inspiring her audience in a completely new way, the whole experience has also been forgettable. It is not a specific bone that one can pick, but in general, Biophilia does not have the same unnerving power as, say, Fever Ray or Portishead’s seminal works. Subjective as it sounds, for the creative benefit of others, the app together with the album has the potential to inspire and show, how in this highly open technological age, a musician can still enthral the mind and push the album format to its fullest.

Rory Johnson

one for synth-pop band M83, whose music consistently exudes effortless Gallic cool. However, this is just one of the many things that Anthony Gonzalez, M83’s sole member, has achieved in his album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. This dizzyingly ambitious double album is full of dreamscape imagery, sweeping synths and the idea of wide-eyed childhood innocence: only someone as daring as Gonzalez could have pulled it off.

Gonzalez explores the ups and downs of dreams brilliantly; packing in electro-pop anthems, introspective instrumental tracks, and sombre ballads. One of the album’s strengths is Gonzalez’s decision

was great” says Jack. “He’d be like ‘what do you want it to feel like?’ and I’d say something like ‘imagine a music video from the 80s where there’s a woman on the beach and it’s like slow motion and I want that to be the vibe of the track.’”

On tonight’s evidence, whatever vibe they’re going for, it seems to be working.

The stylistic dexterity of Steadman and company ensures a finely constructed performance as Bombay Bicycle Club continue to traverse the tricky path of musical experimentation.

to put his voice centre-stage; it soars above the slap bass in album highlight "Claudia Lewis", and shines against the explosive drums of "Steve McQueen".

The quirky "Raconte-moi une histoire", about frogs, somehow fits in amongst the dream pop. However, it is the first single, "Midnight City" that really displays Gonzalez’s ambition and success; a dance floor filling melody, thumping beats, and a sax solo, combine to make this one of the best throwbacks to ‘80s pop in recent years.

Despite this, some of Gonzalez’s finest moments are on the slower acoustic tracks. The haunting build up of "Wait", and the orchestral composition of, "Soon, My Friend", stop the album becoming an exhausting string of club hits. The short instrumental tracks allow the album to become a more introspective exploration of dreams, than the club anthems may lead you to believe; the instrumental, "Where the Boats Go" M83 are named after a a spiral galaxy; the new album lives up to that cosmic name more than any other. So maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise that lyrics about frogs could be so exciting.

Oliver Giles

Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

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28 TV

Three: a magic number?

threesome Comedy Central UK Mondays, 9.30pm

Threesome is socially progressive but is it all that funny? Dan Heap investigates

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aving been content for years to repeat old shows that had reached the end of their life on terresterial TV, digital and Sky channels seem to have a new-found desire to produce their own original comedies. Sky One started the ball rolling this summer with its popular Trollied and Mount Pleasant, and now Comedy Central UK is continuing the trend with Threesome.

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COMEDY CENTRAL

It is encouraging to see mainstream comedy...finally latching onto the fact that the nuclear family is now a relic of history."

DOLL FACE: Can we resist a "whose acting is best?" joke? Um, no.

BBC 2 Thursdays, 11.55pm

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ate night TV is full of mysteries. Why men would pay £3.50 a minute to watch a manicurist from Doncaster waggling her tits about in a studio the size of a kitchen cupboard is one, and another is what motivated BBC bosses to pluck French sketch show Vous Les Femmes! from continental obscurity and run it as its last offering on BBC 2 before it gives up and switches to News 24.

Written by its stars, Judith Siboni and Olivia Cote, it's a collection of surrealist mini sketches - often no more than twenty seconds - in quickfire succession. This is both its key strength and its critical weakness: there's so many gags that you're bound to find some of them funny, but none of them are on screen long enough for them to be built up into anything of much substance.

For those who failed their GCSE French there are English subtitles, but most of the sketches are either so childishly simple that they aren't needed or so unfathomable that they don't help.

Despite one or two gems - Cote as a fashionista wearing a dress so tight that she has to walk round with an oxygen bottle and as a woman resorting to rubbing herself with an overprotected child when she runs out of suncream - most of the humour falls horribly flat.

Those of a more charitable nature might put it down to cultural disconnect, but is France different to the extent that a woman wearing a squid for a hat is considered the height of humour? I doubt it.

Dan Heap

Driving on the other side Alistair Grant hits a few bumps as he test drives the American version of Top Gear TOP GEAR USA BBC 3 Fridays, 7pm

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op Gear USA has had a troubled history. Having been shuffled from the Discovery Channel to NBC in 2008, it moved again to its present home, History, in late 2010 over concerns aired

by NBC about the predicted success of a predominantly car-based TV show. So, was the wait for an American version worth it?

Well, yes and no. The first thing to say is that this is pretty much the same show as the original BBC version – an understandable decision by the producers, perhaps, given the phenomenal success of the BBC series. The studio, the laddish banter and the frequently ridiculous stunts are all the same. This is a good decision in some ways – after all, why change a winning formula? In others, however, the similarity between the two shows merely highlights the weaknesses of the US version.

One major weakness is the lack of genuine humour and chemistry between the hosts. As hard as it is to admit, the absence of Clarkson, Hammond and May is a hard thing to get used to. The original Top Gear draws much of its success from the relationship between its three presenters, and this is something which the US remake hasn’t quite achieved yet.

Despite saying this, presenters Tanner Foust, Adam Ferrara and Rutledge Wood do a fairly good job of keeping things moving along. The expertise of Foust and Wood shines through, with Foust (a professional racing and stunt driver) particularly impressive in one of the opening stunts of the series: a showdown between a Dodge Viper SRT and a Cobra helicopter.

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The similarity between the two shows merely highlights the weaknesses of the US version."

Some Americanisms may jar on the British viewer, such as the renaming of the "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment to a dumbed-down "Big Star, Small Car": a change which seems to miss the humour of the original title.

It is perhaps unfair to watch Top Gear USA while constantly comparing it to its British counterpart, however inevitable such comparisons are. The US version is entertaining enough, with impressively stupid stunts, plenty of car porn and bigname celebrity guests to boot. It’s Top Gear for an American audience, and as such does exactly what it says on the tin – a ‘Clarksonism’ if ever there was one.

Alistair Grant

BBC

WOMEN!

Lovers Alice (Irish actress Amy Huberman) and Mitch (Stephen Wright) and their gay best friend Richie (Edinburgh-born Emun Elliot) live a hedonistic life, spending most of their time out getting wasted or in getting high. One such night of excess results in an awkward ménage à trois, leaving Alice pregnant. Having convinced each other what shit parents they would be, the pair decide to abort the baby, but reconsider when they find out that Mitch is infertile (cue his sacking from his 'job' as a sperm donor) and that the baby is actually Richie's, the only character who seems to actually have a real job and show any

sign of being a proper adult.

While precociously talented young writer Tom MacRae (Doctor Who, Mile High) is tied down in the first episode by the need to set up the show's premise, it is evident from the start that this is a warm, sensitive but nonethless often very funny show that may well become a minor hit, all the more impressive given that this is the channel's first ever attempt at producing its own show.

The gags come thick and fast, although a few are a little too smugly self-satisified and nowhere near as funny as MacRae thinks they are. Mitch refers to Richie - who has slept with five different nationalities in a week - as a "randy Ban Ki Moon" and in riposte Alice asks him to take her "up my Boutros Boutros-Ghali." You're left unsure what was supposed to be funny about it and whether two wasters would really know who the UN Secretary General was, let alone who had the job 20 years ago.

Wright is exccessively annoying as the unreliable, immature one of the trio and if the clips from the next few episodes are anything to go by, it doesn't look like the prospect of co-fatherhood is going to shock him into growing up much.Thankfully, though, the others take the edge off: Huberman gives a solid performance as the party girl reacting with dignity to the prospect of becoming a mum whilst Elliot is even better as the free spirit willing to give it all up for love of his friends.

It is encouraging to see mainstream comedy hitherto so dominated by overly neat representations of family life (2.4 Children, My Family) finally latching onto the fact that the nuclear family is now a relic of history and that millions of people now live happily in a diverse range of familial forms, including the one MacRae has brought to life in Threesome.

MISTAKE: Telling a 'Yo mama' joke to the Defense Secretary was unwise

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Tuesday October 25 2011 studentnewspaper.org

TV 29

Out of this world? Not quite

LOST

&

FOUND

US sci-fi series Alphas is unoriginal but impressive nonetheless, Alistair Grant argues ALPHAS

5* Tuesdays, 10pm

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Alphas (created by Zak Penn and Michael Karnow) is one such copy-cat programme. The whole pilot episode plays like a case of déjà vu: a mishmash of other well-used ideas (X-Men, Heroes) blended together in one big smoothiecome-television show.

BRAVE NEW WORLD WITH STEPHEN HAWKING Channel 4 Mondays, 8pm

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cience is on the brink of changing your life… Prepare to see your future", an unmistakable computer-generated voice beckons at the beginning of Channel 4’s new documentary about the inventions that are about to change our lives.

Whilst the first part of that may well be true, Brave New World with Stephen Hawking only allows its viewers to just glimpse something

HellSING Fuji TV (2001) TVlinks.com

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OFF MESSAGE: The girl in the pink top hadn't got the 'look brooding and menacing in the PR shot' memo The series follows the exploits of a group of ‘Alphas’ - humans with superhuman capabilities - led by an enigmatic doctor, as they solve crimes committed by other Alphas.

The pilot episode has at its centre a locked room murder and the reappearance of the shadowy Red Flag organisation, a group of extremist Alphas now seemingly using mind control as a means of obtaining what they want.

While it may be unoriginal, this doesn’t necessarily mean Alphas is not entertaining. The first episode sets an impressive pace, with the storyline well thought out and the action scenes engrossing. The fight scenes are particu-

larly impressive, with the superhuman power of Warren Christie’s character Cameron Hicks - enhanced motor skills leading to flawless aim and perfect balance - resulting in some particularly enjoyable stunts. The mind control element of the episode also leads to some tense moments and impressive twists.

The writing is snappy and the dialogue, while clunky in parts, shows flashes of wit and doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously. Most of the humour comes from the interaction between the autistic Gary (Ryan Cartwright, previously of Bones and Mad Men) and the rest of the team, and there are some genuinely funny moments. Team leader

Dr. Lee Rosen (David Strathairn) adds an element of calm to proceedings, and while his endless psycho-babble grates at times, his professorial demenour is largely played for laughs.

Indeed, the characters compliment one another even if they themselves are a little contrived: as well as an awkward, autistic character and a nutty professor, we have a man with anger issues (Malik Yoba as Bill Harken) and a dangerous, feisty femme fatale (Nina Theroux, played by Laura Mennell).

Alphas may not rewrite the rule book (rather, it sits down and studies the rule book, making notes), but it does entertain and may yet come into its own.

incredible, with that amazing new future remaining largely unexplored.

While the amount of care put into visual presentation is admirable, the lack of enjoyable presence amongst the new generation of TV scientists that share hosting duty is depressing.

They boil down their obvious expertise to such simplicities that Channel 4 could just as well have dragged in a random selection of strangers from the street to present.

Worse still is the use of Stephen Hawking. Even though he is listed as the narrator of the show, he is often forgotten and rarely provided only a few notable soundbites, his inclusion merely an afterthought to pull in more viewers. It seems that the show’s developers are afraid to

show his face, which simply becomes embarrassing as the program continues.

Brave New World could have been an important influence on the public understanding of science and technology, the sort of show that bridges the gap between experts and laity. It could have buffeted viewers with images that instil a sense of awe, the sort of images that generations once felt when they first watched Star Trek. Instead, we’re stuck with semi-famous science folks pretending to be normal people for the sake of accessibility. This ends up being a pop science documentary for YouTube attention spans, and it’s a real shame.

at one point, Rick Mayall literally screaming "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" without any context or great one-liners to break up the confusion meant that the programme risked turning into a warped, television version of a Terry Gilliam film, which proved a worrying opening.

However, the show settled into a bit of a rhythm: Blair thowing an aging trade unionist (Ross Noble) out of a train in order to make a meeting with George W Bush was the first critique of his politics which was not rammed down the viewers’ throats.

After that, the parody becomes much clearer, with a bumbling Blair (Steven Mangan) digging himself into an ever deeper hole filled with the corpses of nearly everyone he encounters as he becomes increasingly desperate to cling on to power, hunted all the while by straight-faced policeman Robbie Coltraine, aided by Nigel Planer’s impressively simpering ‘squealer’, Peter Mandelson.

Whilst it could have been even better with a stronger script, this is an intelligent piece of satire offering plenty for a viewer with a knowledge of British politics, Blair's murder of Robin Cook and the sex scene with Thatcher ( Jennifer Saunders) playing creatively on the left's critique of Blair – that he betrayed basic socialist principles and threw his lot in with the Thatcherite agenda.

Zack O'Leary

Comic strip: the hunt FOR TONY BLAIR Channel 4 4OD

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Channel 4

SYFY/FIVE

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The whole pilot episode plays like a case of déja vu: a mishmash of other well-used ideas (XMen, Heroes) blended together in one big smoothie-cometelevision show."

IFuji Televsion

epeats and reruns are standard fare on television, but these days even new shows seem to be treading well-worn paths. Trends come and go, and when one lucky programme captures the zeitgeist it’s a virtual certainty that any number of copy-cat programmes will soon follow, eagerly capitalising on its success.

FACE FUCKED: A botox injection too far for Anne Robinson

here has not been a huge amount of high quality political satire on British television lately with determinedly uncreative Ian Hislop types dominating the genre from behind panel show desks, so the transplanting of recent political history into a 1950s noir-crime setting in Comic Strip's The Hunt for Tony Blair was a welcome innovation.

The first ten minutes, however, were not inspirational: ambiguous references to remonitions and,

Gregor Cubin

L

ost and Found sees Britain through foreign eyes this week.

The modern vampire fad seems to pride itself on reinventing the bloodsuckers, divorcing them from their old stereotype of dark, collared cloak-wearing fiends, chuckling menacingly about wanting to suck blood. However a Japanese anime from 2001 was well ahead of the curve. Vampires in Hellsing (Herushingu in Japanese) are British, super-strong, nigh invincible and generally quite angry or racist.

Hellsing tells the story of the titular organisation, in their mission to protect Britain from a range of supernatural threats – werewolves, vampires, ghouls of the Nazi variety and papist vampire-killers. Hellsing focuses its narrative around three main characters, Sir Integra Hellsing (actually a woman, probably a nuance lost in translation); the commander of Hellsing, Seras Victoria, a female police officer, turned vampire and Hellsing operative; and Alucard, a mysterious, ancient and powerful vampire in Hellsing’s service.

The action of the series is provided by the three-way power struggle between the Hellsing organisation, the Vatican’s vampire-hunting Section XIII and the Neo-Nazi vampire group Millennium for control of the night. At times the rivalries seem overly banal and under-developed given the complexities the show is willing to go into in the less important aspects of the story. For example – Section XIII want to destroy Hellsing simply because they control and use vampires, despite the far more pressing issues at hand. But at the same time the show describes the complex political situation in Britain, where the royalty and aristocracy still rule the country behind closed doors.

The plot is interesting, if lacking depth in certain places. But the principal appeal is the visuals. The bizarre dark and red colour scheme in which the entire show is cast provides an adequately absurd setting for the bizarre events of the show. The action scenes are trippy, especially when combined with Alucard’s dialogue; littered with sinister laughs and arrogant smirks.

Probably one of the only animes ever set in Britain, one of the few about vampires and a comparatively short one at only thirteen episodes – Hellsing comes recommended.

Daniel Swain

NEEDS YOU! reporters. reviewers. illustrators. photographers. copy editors weekly meetings, pleasance CABARET BAR, tuesdays 1.15pm WEEKLY SOCIALS, COUNTING HOUSE, TUESDAYS 8.30pm

NAIRN MCWILLIAMS

Edinburgh run away with the prize

Got your eye on the ball? Email sport@studentnewspaper.org

Tuesday October January 25 18 2011 Tuesday studentnewspaper.org

Sport 27 31

Murrayfield standing to support Edinburgh Rugby welcome Heineken Cup holders Leinster to Murrayfield on Friday 28 October, looking to continue their good recent home form. The Gunners will be buoyed by the return of their international players from the World Cup who will help to bolster a squad that is beginning to turn Murrayfield Stadium into a fortress.

Although Edinburgh lost their first outing of the season in the RaboDirect PRO12 League at home to Cardiff Blues 15-38, they have since recovered with victories over Connacht and Munster. Against Connacht, Edinburgh battled hard to win a tight game 19-14, but more impressively they beat defending champions Munster 29-14 after a terrific display.

Unfortunately, Edinburgh’s form outside of the Scottish capital has been somewhat disappointing with the team having failed to secure a victory on the road so far this season. Losses to Ospreys, Aironi and Llanelli Scarlets have meant that the Scottish club find themselves eleventh in the table after six games. Yet victory against Leinster could propel Edinburgh to as high as fifth, such is the competitive nature of the PRO12 League, where anyone is capable of winning on any given week.

The growing student support base at home games may help to explain why Edinburgh’s recent record at Murrayfield has been so good. Half price student tickets to the Munster match, which allowed students to attend an elite rugby fixture for as little as £5, ensured that a bumper crowd were present to cheer Edinburgh to victory.

The much celebrated ‘Beer and Burger’ promotions (as they have come to be known) have helped to attract students and ensure that they have an enjoyable evening. These promotions have arisen after the reintroduction of standing around the sides of the pitch, meaning that supporters are closer to the action, and can have a drink and a snack from the refreshment stalls that are also placed inside the stadium, ensuring they need not miss any of the action if they would like another beer midway through the second half.

There is a real belief around the club that, with this renewed support, Edinburgh can kick on and begin to challenge further up the table. They have been given a further boost by the return of eight international players, seven of whom represented Scotland and one who represented Fiji at the World Cup.

RVgalloway

Chris Waugh previews Edinburgh's home clash with European champions Leinster

“

The growing student support base at home games may help to explain why Edinburgh's recent record at Murrayfield has been so good."

Any squad that has been without Chris Paterson, Scotland’s record points-scorer and most capped player, and Mike Blair, a British and Irish Lion, will feel their absence. Before they even take to the pitch for the 7.35pm

ADDED CLASS: Returning internationals strengthen Edinburgh kick-off, Edinburgh will be psychologically lifted by the presence of their established stars on the team sheet.

The Scottish front-row that started against Argentina and Romania in the World Cup will also be back in action at Murrayfield. Hooker Ross Ford and props Allan Jacobsen and Geoff Cross are back in head coach Michael Bradley’s selection thoughts and will hope to be in the starting XV that will face Leinster. Nick de Luca and Ross Rennie were also away with the Scotland national team and, alongside Fijian Netani Talei, they have now returned from New Zealand and will be keen to get back into the Edinburgh set-up.

In an interview with www.edinburghrugby.org, Bradley explained that the club is “now moving into a very exciting second period of the season and

we’ve welcomed the national boys back into the squad. They’re experienced, quality, international players so we expect them to take leadership roles in the next two RaboDirect Pro12 matches.”

He continued: “Our first match is at home against Leinster and the World Cup players will undoubtedly come into contention for selection as we can’t ignore their quality but these next two weeks will be a test for them to see how they integrate into the squad.”

Bradley and Edinburgh Rugby will hope to take their second Irish scalp in successive home fixtures against Leinster on Friday evening. Paterson, Blair and Co. return to the fold, and will be keen to impress for their club side and to push Edinburgh back into contention for the play-offs with victory over the European champions.

Mike Ashley or Mike Cashley?

Phil Smith evaluates whether or not the Newcastle United owner deserves his reputation fourth in the Premier League, having accumulated nineteen points from nine matches. Perhaps then, it is only fair to reassess the work of their owner Ashley.

Ashley’s reign had, until this season, seemed like a complete debacle: the spectacular failure that was King Keegan’s second coming, “Volcano” Joe Kinnear, the disastrous tenure of Dennis Wise as Director of Football, the renaming of Newcastle's iconic home ground of St. Jame's Park as "sportsdirect.com@stjamespark", and of course the appointment of Alan Shearer in a doomed attempt to save the club from relegation. The list goes on and on.

In adversity, however, Ashley regrouped, and after a successful championship campaign under the tenure of the softly-spoken Chris Hughton

CHAMPIONSHIP GLORY: Ashley's reign has seen ups and downs

MIKEbrown59

So that’s it for another disappointing qualification campaign. It is the start of the Tyne-Wear derby, and chants of “One Mike Ashley” are ringing around the Stadium of Light. The Toon Army, concentrated in the far corner of the ground, are unusually quiet. Nothing gets their back up like a mention of their much loathed owner; and everyone knows it.

The feeling is that the Black and White Army are on the slide, dragged kicking and screaming by their insensitive and seemingly clueless owner. 90 minutes later and the mood has changed completely. The Magpies have fought their way to a 1-0 victory and almost two months later, they are still unbeaten.

Continuously grinding out results, the Toon Army are showing serious spirit.

Newcastle United currently sit

and a squad of players that were seemingly reborn, such as Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and Fabricio Coloccini, stability seemed to finally be instilled.

Then, in true Ashley style, the wheels came flying off and chaos ensued. Hughton was sacked for a manager who had just left a League 1 club; Barton, Enrique, Nolan and Carroll were sold. Pundits were speculating that they would be relegated again. Two months later, however, they are sitting pretty in a Champions League spot. So, does the possibility arise that Mr. Ashley may just know what he is doing?

The appointment of Pardew reinforced hostility towards the “Cockney Mafia” that had infiltrated Newcastle.

Pardew’s track record in recent years was poor; Hughton’s time had been an unqualified success. Pardew, however, seems to have fit seamlessly into the hierarchical structure at the club – a structure that had caused so many problems in previous managerial reigns. Long gone are boardroom disputes, whilst transfer disasters synonymous with the club, such as Xisco, have been replaced by successes such as Cheick Tiote, Yohan Cabaye and Demba Ba, who have formed the spine of the team.

When the mercurial Ben Arfa returns from injury and replaces the pacey but generally talentless Gabriel Obertan, they will truly be a force to be reckoned with.

Speculation that the squad would fall into discord without the presence of the inspirational Barton and Nolan have truly been put to bed. Pardew is clearly not just a sound tactician, but a supreme motivator. His appointment looks less like a moment of madness with every passing day.

As Sunderland and Bolton fans will tell you, maintaining form like Newcastle’s for a full season is almost impossible. Their squad still looks a little thin, and an injury to the skilful but erratic and injury prone Demba Ba would leave them very exposed up front. It certainly seems unlikely that they will maintain a challenge for the top four, but Europe is still an outside possibility.

“

Alan Pardew seems to have fit seamlessly into the hierarchical structure at the club; a structure that had caused so many problems in previous managerial reigns."

Nevertheless, it is only right that Ashley and his managing director Derek Llambias, having endured endless abuse, are given serious credit. Older players inflicting damage on the wage bill are being replaced by talented youngsters from the continent. Although the supporters will understandably crave a big name to supplement the new wave, Ashley will not dig into his wallet. If they find the next Ben Arfa or Cabaye, though, few will complain.

Whisper it quietly, but the Toon Army is on the rise again, and Ashley is the unlikely man leading the revolution.

Injury Time

takes A WRY look at the world of sport Steve Bruce’s recent paddy at those in the media who were so unfair as to suggest that Sunderland were a bit rubbish is the latest in a long history of managers speaking absolute balls in press conferences.

Take last season. ‘Arry “’ack you up with an ‘atchet if you call me a fackin’ wheeler dealer” Redknapp has threatened, on TV, never to speak to TV again if the FA punished him for speaking out against the “farce” that was Manchester United’s perfectly legitimate goal against Spurs the previous weekend. “I’m the last person to criticise referees” he said, “but I’m gonna cut you slags up if I’m not allowed to do it every week”.

‘Atchet ‘Arry was speaking ahead of his team’s 3-1 win over Inter Milan, whose own manager was then quick to stake his claim for comedy quote of the week with an equally confusing message for his Liverpool successor Roy Hodgson. “We have a saying in Spain; it says that people some people cannot see a priest on a mountain of sugar, no?” queried Rafa Benitez who, for a man who only likes to talk about “facts” and not “mind games”, has a surprising penchant for the cryptic. You know what else they say in Spain? “White liquid in a bottle must be milk”, apparently.

This season’s ground seems less fertile for televised manegerial melt-downs. Perhaps Blackpool’s relegation has something to do with that – Ian Holloway’s tirade at the “absolute person” that came up with the Bosman Ruling will certainly be hard to top. “Who is this person? Sort yer luyf out” ranted the Blackpool manager, adding to an impressively unorthodox interview portfolio that includes likening ugly wins to ugly conquests and extolling the virtues of his home-made chicken coops over more expensive manufactured ones.

Arsene Wenger has thus far kept quiet over any wacky ideas he might have about imposing a head-height rule or deciding results by style council rather than goals. But Sam Allardyce, often quick to accuse the Arsenal boss of living in a dream world, has dished up some delicious irony with his musings on where he belongs in the footballing world. “I would be more suited to Inter Milan or Real Madrid. It wouldn’t be a problem for me to manage those clubs because I’d win the double or the league every time.” What do you reckon, Newcastle fans?

Still, somewhere in the hypocrisy of ‘Atchet ‘Arry’s tantrum there was a modicum of sense. If managers are to be expected to answer questions immediately after a game, they should be allowed to do so honestly, and if that means saying something controversial then they shouldn’t be penalised by the FA’s thought police. Let’s stamp down on players’ infantile, boring haranguing of referees on the field, and give the managers freedom to entertain by making fools of themselves off it.

Davie Heaton

Sport

studentnewspaper.org

Tuesday October 25 2011

Stand-up to support Edinburgh Rugby

Chris Waugh looks ahead to Edinburgh's home clash with Leinster and their new standing zone P31

No upsets on derby day

Davie Heaton sees the men's hockey 3rds put the 4ths firmly in their place Men's Hockey Eastern District League 1

Edinburgh University 3s 3 Edinburgh University 4s 0 Three second half goals were enough to secure bragging rights for the men’s hockey 3rds as they bagged a comfortable win over their club rivals.

The 4ths put up a fight in the first period but goals from Ben Tracey, Blair Paul and James Toogood after the break gave the favourites momentum in the race for the Eastern District League 1.

With the hockey club currently leading the way for Edinburgh in the overall British Universities Championships (BUCs) standings there was a good feeling about the meeting – but both teams gave everything in an entertaining match.

The 3rds enjoyed the better of the early play. Tom Nicolson was forced to react well in the ninth minute to deny Hamish Tate from close range, before Rob Hill’s short corner strike whistled just wide of the keeper’s right-hand post.

The 4ths responded well though

– a neat one-two between Ben Brooks and Mark Potnell sent the latter clear of the defence before his return pass took keeper Andrew Scubie out of the game, only for Brooks to fire into the side netting from a tight angle.

“

Belief appeared to ebb away from the 4ths, who lost possession regularly in their desperation to get back into the game.

Brooks was in the action again ten minutes later, this time smashing high over the bar after popping up on the left. And it almost proved costly three minutes later – Nicolson made the first of two good saves in as many minutes when Loren Kock nipped in at the near post from a driven cross. The 4ths failed to clear properly and Nicolson soon found himself called upon again from the resulting short corner, pulling off a superb low save from Mark Douglas.

Despite another close call from a short corner - this time Ben Walker firing just wide - the 4ths went into the interval level and much encouragement by their first-half display. And they almost took the lead immediately after the restart when Vijay Trivday drifted in from the left, only to be smothered bravely by the outrushing Scubie.

The 4ths were growing in confidence and when Ed Pollicott twisted and turned his way past several defenders on his way into the box it was only the right boot of Scubie that stopped them from taking an unlikely lead.

But any hopes of causing an upset were dashed with three well-executed goals in twenty minutes by the 3rds.

The first, on 45 minutes, came after a period of pressure that saw Adam Hunter denied from point blank range

by Nicolson – only for the ball to hit a defending foot in the scramble that followed. This time the short corner was dispatched, well worked to the left byline and driven across goal low for Tracey to tap home.

The belief appeared to ebb away from the 4ths, who lost possession regularly in their desperation to get back into the game. Paul applied the finish

from a swift break after a 4ths attack broke down to let Tim Bodeker race down the right – running the curve before pulling back for Paul to slot home in the 55th minute.

And Toogood sealed the points five minutes from time, again after a quick break left the 3rds defence hopelessly outnumbered at the back.

Eastern District League 1

P Falkirk GHG 2 4 Erskine S.M 3 4 Kinross 3 Edinburgh 3 3 Reivers 3 Edinburgh 4 2 Alloa 3 Carnegie 3 1 Grange 5 2 Grange Dev 3

W 4 3 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0

D 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0

L 0 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 3

Pts 12 9 7 6 3 3 1 0 0 0

Overall BUCs Standings 8th Manchester 9th Edinburgh 10th Oxford

829 743 658

Edinburgh BUCs Points 1st Hockey 2nd Lacross 3rd Rugby Union 4th Football 5th Netball 6th Tennis

113 92 91 89 86 71

Sat 22nd October Results Aberdeen 4th 7-58 Edinburgh 4th (Women's Netball) Wed 19th October Results Edinburgh 2nd 47-20 Glasgow C 1st (Women's Basketball) Glasgow C 1st 7-3 Edinburgh 3rd (Men's Rugby Union) Heriot-Watt 1st 2-8 Edinburgh 1st (Women's Football) Edinburgh 2nd 1-1 Glasgow 1st (Women's Hockey) Glasgow C 1st 1-9 Edinburgh 2nd (Men's Hockey) Edinburgh 1st 8-1 Glasgow 1st (Men's Hockey) Edinburgh 4th 0-15 Strathclyde 1st (Men's Football)

London 2012 comes to Edinburgh University Chris Waugh visits Bristo Square to see students gather to obtain a picture with the Olympic torch rational torchbearers - chosen by way of nomination from the people of Britain - will carry the torch from community to community in order to raise excitement and awareness of the Games.

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The University of Edinburgh can be proud that it was able to play a part - albeit a small one - in the build-up to the London Olympics."

The Olympic Flame commemorates Prometheus’ theft of fire from the Greek god Zeus. In ancient Greece, a fire was kept burning throughout the whole of the original form of the Olympics and it is from this that the current tradition is drawn.

Despite the modern form of the Olympics having first taken place in 1896, when the IOC hosted the event at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens, the Flame was not reintroduced until the 1928 Amsterdam Games.

Interestingly, the “relay” that occurs

transporting the torch from Greece to the host country of the next Games has only become a tradition since the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which, as well as allowing Jesse Owens to become a legend of athletics, began this ritual. Carl Diem, Secretary General of the Organising Committee of the Berlin Olympic Games, decided that the Olympic Flame should preside on a tour across Europe in order to ensure that the ’36 Games would be truly memorable, yet it has been recreated every four years since.

The most recent form of the torch will be ignited next year at the site of the ancient Olympics in Olympia, Greece.

11 women, representing the Vestal Virgins, will perform a ceremony whereby the torch will be kindled by the light of the sun (by the use of a parabolic mirror to concentrate the rays onto the torch).

BarberOsgerby studio (run by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby) created the latest design of the torch that will appear for the London Games and, despite the cynical public response to the logo and mascots of the 2012 Olympics, the torch design seems to have been well received both in Britain and internationally. The torch is a three-sided golden cone that will allow the flame to

burn through its perforated shell and, although it is made from aluminium alloy, it is light enough to be carried by young people (who will make up some of the 8,000 torchbearers).

The University of Edinburgh can be proud that it was able to be a part of the 2012 Olympic Games, even if it was only to present an opportunity for stu-

JamES cadogan

According to legend, the Olympic Flame has burned continuously since the first Olympic Games. The mythical torch which bears the Flame was displayed - unlit, unfortunately - in its most recent form to university students this week, just nine months before the start of the summer Games.

The Olympic torch arrived in Edinburgh as a precursor to its tour of Britain in preparation for London 2012.

The Flame will take a 70-day “relay” around the country, beginning on18 May next year, but the torch’s latest stop was in Bristo Square at the University of Edinburgh.

Many students gathered to get their picture taken with the torch in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Travelling within an hour of 95 per cent of the people in the UK, Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, next year’s tour is designed to offer local communities the opportunity to feel part of the London Olympics.

The Games are designed to be representative of the whole country and if Britons are able to see and hold the torch then it allows them to feel included in this huge sporting event, despite the fact that it is being held in the East End of London. 8,000 inspi-

dents to have their photo taken with the torch before it has been ignited. London 2012 will be an historic event and many Edinburgh University students have ensured that they themselves have become a part - even if it may just be a fraction - of the long and prestigious history of the Olympic Games.

EDINBURGH BOUND: The Olympic Torch comes to Scotland