The Student 03/04/2012

Tuesday April 3 2012 | Week 11

LIFESTYLE - P15

S I N C E 1887

T H E U K ' S O LD E S T S T U D EN T N EW S PA P ER

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

Uni drop out rate highest in Scotland

JOSH MELTZ

Stephen Maughan

Sunny Days

Students bask in early arrival of summer >> News P5

DROPOUT RATES for undergraduates have soared in the past year, according to a report from the the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

Scottish universities in particular have shown a considerable decrease in the number of students completing their degrees.

Current estimates suggest that, at some under-performing universities, more than one in five undergraduates choose not to complete their first year and some four out of ten students will fail to finish their courses, either dropping out or transferring to a different institution.

The overall drop-out rate has risen above 30,000 for the first time since records began in 1992, with the total number of students dropping out increasing from 28,210 to 31,755 – a rise of nearly 13 per cent.

In Scotland, the drop-out rate was 9.4 per cent compared with nine per cent in Wales, 8.4 per cent in England and 8.3 per cent in Northern Ireland.

Despite efforts made by Scottish universities to discourage students from abandoning their degrees, little progress has been made.

At the University of the Highlands and Islands, drop-out rates exceeded a third of students and only 48.6 per cent of students are expected to graduate. A quarter of students at the University of West Scotland were rebuild more affordable self catered ported to have dropped out. accommodation instead of the In addition, more than one in seven expensive halls that the University students at the universities of Bolton, has built in recent times.”

West London, London Metropolitan, Swansea Metropolitan, Middlesex, University Campus Suffolk and SalStudent halls ford left before graduating.

The worst results were those of the should be used for University of Bolton, where an estistudents first and as mated 45 per cent of students opted not to complete their degree at some hotels if they can't be point during their university career. filled.

This rise in drop-out rates comes Peter McColl, University of despite the £1 billion initiatives introEdinburgh Rector duced by the Government designed to encourage students to continue their degree through to graduation.

Similarly, McColl told The Liz Smith, the Scottish ConservaStudent, “Accommodation Services tive Spokeswoman for Education, argue that it would be unfair to said, “[The statistics] tell us that much allow students to stay in Masson more has to be done to tackle the House at self-catered rates, but the problem of higher drop-out rates in impact of sending students to live in some Scottish universities compared Musselburgh is much more unfair.” with elsewhere in the UK.” “Part of what makes Edinburgh The president of the National University great is being able to Union of Students Scotland, Robin enjoy the city itself.

Parker said, “It’s simply unacceptable for Scotland’s universities to be worst Continued on page four» in the whole of the UK for drop-out.”

University defends Masson profits University’s profit from conversion of Masson House to a hotel revealed Alasdair Drennan

THE UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh is forecast to make £216,000 profit from Masson House this year, The Student has learned.

Last year, the conversion of the halls of residence into a hotel brought in £81,000 profit.

The University has faced criticism over closing Masson House whilst some students have been placed in accommodation at Queen Margaret University in Musselburgh because of a self catered accommodation shortage.

However, as it was located in Pollock Halls, Masson House only offered catered accommodation.

Masson House is operated as a

hotel by University of Edinburgh Accommodation Ltd, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh and all profits of this enterprise are giftaided back to the University.

“

The decision to convert Masson House to a hotel was made due to the falling demand for catered accommodation."

Assistant Director of Accommodation Services In the response to the freedom of information request made on behalf of The Student, the Assistant Director of Accommodation Services said, “The decision to convert Masson House to a hotel was made due to the falling demand for catered accommodation for students.”

They also said that the conversion

brought a number of benefits to accommodation provision at the University.

They said that operating Masson House as a hotel made it easier to “accommodate both visiting part year undergraduate students and provide temporary accommodation for any student arriving in Edinburgh with no accommodation.”

They continued, “Thus we are able to provide a secure and supportive environment whilst we help non-guaranteed students find accommodation via our Advice Centre.”

Both the new Rector of the University, Peter McColl, and the president-elect of the Edinburgh University Students’ Association, James McAsh, were critical of the University’s decision to close Masson House to students.

McAsh told The Student, “It is no surprise that demand for catered housing has fallen given the rents charged.”

“A better response to this change in demand would have been to

“

"

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

What’s in this issue

»

NEWS »p1-5

KUNG-FU PANDA p5

MISTAKES ON A PLANE p 7

Imogen Michel thinks we should deplane on airport expansion.

FEATURES »p9-11

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING? p9 Maria Kheyfets fumes over the rebellious nature of teenagers.

INTO THE WILD p11

Melissa Geere adds up the best ways to travel on a budget.

SCIENCE &ENVIRONMENT » p12-13

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND p12 Maithili Mehta examines how memories could be erased. Or does she? I don't remember.

LIFESTYLE »p15

GUY WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO p15 Alistair Grant tells you about the tattoo on his arse.

CULTURE »p18-19

(500) FESTIVALS OF SUMMER p18

The Student previews summer festivals to blow your money on.

FILM »p22-23

DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA BATMAN! p22 Robert Dickie looks forward to sitting in a darkened room to see the summer's blockbusters.

SPORT »p27-28

LOOKING FOR ERIC'S MANAGER p27

Phil Smith searches for England's football manager messiah.

SPACE: Scientists in Edinburgh and Cambridge will be able to examine the Milky Way in greater detail.

Nina Seale AN IMAGE that combines over ten thousand infrared photographs has put the Milky Way into perspective for astronomers at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge.

The project has taken scientists from all over the world ten years to complete. One of the telescopes was located in Chile, the GPS data was processed by British institutions and many more astronomers from Europe and South America worked together to produce this image.

The image shows the Milky Way, which has been described as having “the shape of two fried eggs placed back to back” and will be published online with an interactive zoom.

90 per cent of the images used came from the UK Infrared Telescope in the northern hemisphere and ten per cent from the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) in the southern hemisphere.

Dr Nicholas Cross of the Univer-

sity of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy explained to The Student how this image will allow future astronomers to carry out their research. He said, “The image itself allows astronomers to see extended structures in the disk and bulge of the Milky Way. “These include stellar clusters, nebulae and light echoes from supernovae.

These can be difficult to pick out of the catalogues using existing algorithms, but are easy to pick out by eye.

“It is much easier to use this zoomable image than to hunt through thousands of individual images to find objects, which may indeed be spread across multiple images.

“The science ranges from finding the lowest mass stars, which do not get hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium, to the most distant quasars, and understanding galaxy evolution and star formation at different stages in the lifespan of the universe.”

The information stored in the image will help scientists understand how the Milky Way formed and

evolved, which will shed light on what could have happened at the birth of the universe.

The image comprises over 150 billion pixels and can be viewed at three levels of zoom, the smallest of which still contains more than 10,000 stars.

Each image uses three different filters to create a coloured image.

The University’s Wide-Field Astronomy unit (WFAU) collaborated with the Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU) to create the VISTA Data Flow System (VDFS).

CASU controlled the data processing and WFAU archived the data into products that could be published in the astronomy community.

The image was presented at the UK-German National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester. At the event, Professor Jim Emerson of the Queen Mary University of London, leader of the VDFS development project, said, “Processing and publishing the tens of terabytes of data from modern sky surveys is a demanding and specialised job.”

ECA student has design published

Varvara Bashkirova

A SECOND year illustration student from Edinburgh College of Art will have her design used as the cover of a debut novel by author Gisela Hoyle.

Camilla Botterell won the opportunity to have her work featured on the cover of When the Turaco Calls in a competition organised by Fledgling Press, the book’s publishers, as well as winning a £200 prize.

Clare Cain, CEO of Fledgling Press, told The Student, “Camilla’s entry stood out because it was a very simple design which managed to capture the essence of some of the themes of the book for which the cover was designed.”

The book is to be published in June and is set during South African apartheid. All the contestants were given a month to familiarise themselves with the novel prior to creating a cover design.

Camilla said, “I was particularly motivated as the prize - a published book cover - is something I have, as an illustration student, aimed my direction of study towards.

“I hope this experience will allow me to work to a higher professional standard when I leave university.

“This project made me think more

SUCCESS: The design “managed to capture the essence ... of the book” about the graphic design of my illustrations; in addition it is the commercial application of my designed response that I find most rewarding so I’m looking forward to seeing it all come together later on in the year.”

The cover design contest was set up in 2011 by Fledgling Press in collaboration with the ECA School of Illustration. Last year, two winning designs were selected for Viking Gold and Sex, Love and Sweet Suicide.

Cain said, “The idea of a cover

design competition came about from our wish to work with new talent in the Scottish arts world, not only debut authors which is the main focus of our business, but illustrators and students keen to become involved in the publishing business in some way.

“I approached Jonathan Gibbs, Head of Illustration at ECA and he thought it awas a great idea.

“It gives students a taster of the working world - how to interpret a design brief and to work to deadlines.”

FLEDGLING PRESS

COMMENT »p7-8

NASA

Nina Seale writes about pandas AGAIN!

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News 3

McAsh elected EUSA president

PRESIDENT: James McAsh

VPSA: Hazel Marzetti

VICTORY: McAsh and his campaign team celebrate winning the election “But it was decisive and I’m very happy with it.”

Following the announcement of McAsh’s election victory his JAMES MCASH has been elected supporters formed a conga line and president of the Edinburgh Univer- sang ‘the Internationale.’ sity Students’ Association (EUSA) The celebrating crowd were following a closely fought election. reminded on a number of occasions to Successes for other anti-cuts respect EUSA’s safe space policy which campaigners also emerged when the is designed to prevent intimidating results were announced in Pleasance behaviour.

Theatre last Thursday.

This was McAsh’s second campaign McAsh will be joined in the EUSA for the EUSA presidency, having been sabbatical team by Max Crema defeated by current president Matt who was elected vice president of McPherson at last year’s elections. services (VPS); Andrew Burnie, McAsh said, “[I feel] happier elected as vice president of academic tonight than I did a year ago, but that affairs (VPAA) and Hazel Marzetti probably goes without saying. I think elected vice president of societies and I’ve learned a lot in the past year, activities (VPSA). losing definitely teaches you a lot. I think my campaign was better but I think I’m a better candidate than I think I've learned also I was this time last year as well.”

McPherson congratulated McAsh a lot in the past year. I and the other new sabbatical officers think my campaign was on their victory but he also expressed better but I also think concern that McAsh’s determination campaign for national education I'm a better candidate to reform may mean that specific than I was this time last Edinburgh issues are forgotten.

He told The Student, “James year."

Wood brought a lot of new people James McAsh, EUSA president- into EUSA who hadn’t been involved elect before and that’s a wonderful thing.

“Hugh Murdoch and James McAsh ran very good campaigns; I think all Talking to The Student after the three candidates should be very proud results McAsh said, “It’s all a massive of themselves tonight. I’m very proud blur. I’ve been told since that I had to be part of an organisation that had quite a sizeable lead and it narrowed them standing for president.” a bit, which is interesting.

Sam Bradley, Alasdair Drennan and Leo Michelmore

“

VPS: Max Crema

SMILES ALL ROUND: McAsh said the campaign had been a “massive blur” However, he said he was “personally disappointed at the result.”

He explained, “I fear we may become a union which is increasingly narrow at a time in which we need to be most broad.

“

I fear we may become a union which is increasingly narrow at a time in which we need to be most broad."

Matt McPherson, EUSA President “I hope that discussions for our vision for higher education around the world do not swamp and drown issues which are important to students on the ground who care about their courses, feedback and service provision to them.”

Defeated presidential candidate, Hugh Murdoch, told The Student, “I lost the election, but actually there were thousands of people who voted for me. Our campaign, my campaign, was about an idea and we won that idea with those thousands of people and that feels fantastic. So, I’m happy.”

Asked what he planned next, he replied “Fourth year.”

Burnie spoke to The Student after his victory, saying, “I’m really excited; this year’s going to be a really exciting year. There’s so much we can change,

we can get so many more students involved and that’s an amazing thing.

There’s a lot of work to be done … but we can do it.”

Marzetti defeated Kate Harris in a two-way race for VPSA. She said, “I didn’t expect to win so I really didn’t prepare anything. [I’m] really really surprised, really shocked, but really happy.”

Crema’s election as VPS made Thursday night a double victory for anti-cuts campaigners. He told The Student, “[I feel] pretty ecstatic actually, that was fantastic. But I wouldn’t recommend the elections to anybody, they’re the least accessible thing in our university. They’re just painful to do really.

“I think we really need to take what we got from this and learn from it [to] change the election process. I think we need more hustings, less door knocking – which is something that pisses of campaigners and students.

“My first hundred days in office are going to be a lot of work but I’m really excited about it.”

Josh Jones who also ran for the VPS position said, “I obviously don’t feel very good but I had a really good time campaigning.

“What I said to my campaign [team] after we were done was that we ran well and that there wasn’t really much more we could do.

“I think Max has a lot of good ideas and I wish him all the best of luck for the future.”

Jacob Bloomfield, whose manifesto

included a plan to turn Bristo Square’s Informatics Building into an otter petting zoo, said, “It’s a little bit upsetting that people just didn’t want otters this year but I think it’ll be a fad coming up. I think I’ll be on the ground floor of a fad that’s upcoming so it’s alright.

“

It's possible that I'll make a comeback - the third movie in a trilogy is always the best. It's the sophomore slump."

Jacob Bloomfield, VPS Candidate “It’s possible that I’ll make a comeback – the third movie in a trilogy is always the best. It’s the sophomore slump. So if you think Return of the Jedi – Ewoks. Everyone loves Ewoks.

So maybe I’ll come back with Ewoks next year.”

Robin Parker, president of NUS Scotland, was also present at the results. He told The Student, “It’s always good to see lots of people voting. [It’s] always good to see really big numbers of students getting involved in student politics.

“We had three really good candidates running for this. I don’t think Edinburgh students could lose, they made their choice and I’m really looking forward to working with McAsh next year.”

EMILY JARRETT

VPAA: Andrew Burnie

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FOLLOWING THURSDAY’S EUSA elections, defeated VPS candidates Josh Jones and Jacob Bloomfield have declared that they will stand for the position again next year.

It is expected that they will run as one candidate, duct-taped together, which a loophole in EUSA policy makes possible.

The duo announced their plans late on Thursday night, Bloomfield leaping into Jones’s arms in evident jubilation. Outgoing EUSA President Matt McPherson declined to comment on the matter.

Emma Meehan, VPSA 201011, will presumably be delighted by the news, having previously expressed to The Student her disappointment regarding Jones’s defeat.

AF

Mumps in the night at Pollock POLLOCK HALLS has sent out notices to its residents warning them about the recent increase of mumps patients in the local area.

The Department of Health recommends that any young person aged between 16 and 25 who has not had two mumps vaccinations should contact their GP. Students living in halls have a higher risk of catching mumps, though the Department of Health estimates that most students will come into contact with the virus.

The symptoms of mumps are painful swellings in the side of the face, as well as headache, joint pain, feeling sick or tired and loss of appetite. Students worried that they could have mumps should contact their GP. There is no current cure for mumps, but the infection should pass within two weeks.

NS

Moped set on fire near library THE POLICE and fire services

were dispatched to the meadows midday Tuesday after a moped was set alight near the footpath behind the library.

The incident occurred in broad daylight during the warmest day of the week, which saw hundreds stationed on the grass with picnic blankets and barbecues. The fire and accompanying plume of dark smoke were visible from a significant distance.

The fire service had the blaze under control minutes after arriving at the scene. A spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders Police said she could not comment on the incident.

TS

Stephen Maughan

A STUDENT who sustained serious injuries during the London anti-fees protests of December 2010 is being tried for his violent disorder at the demonstration.

Alfie Meadows, 21, a former philosophy student at Middlesex University, was treated for suspected brain damage following a confrontation with the police.

He is now to stand trial at Kingston Crown Court, accused of ‘sustained violence’ as part of a larger group on December 9 2010 and plans to plead not guilty.

Meadows was hospitalised following the demonstration when he was allegedly struck over the head with a police truncheon prompting an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission which confirmed Meadows’s allegations.

The charges brought against him, in addition to his treatment at the hands of the Metropolitan Police have proved controversial.

The trial of Meadows and four others accused of violent disorder attracted over two hundred trade unionists, students and campaigners rallying on the steps of the court to show solidarity with the protesters.

The rally was organised by Defend the Right to Protest Campaign.

One of the protesters, Stephen Granville, a spokesperson from the CWU post workers’ union said he was at the court to support Meadows because he had witnessed police violence on the day.

PROTEST MARCH: Alfie Meadows was injured in the 2010 anti-tuition fees protests Outside the court people chanted “we are all Alfie Meadows” between speeches by campaigners.

President of the National Union of Students Liam Burns also opposes the charges levelled against Meadows.

Speaking to The Guardian, Burns said, “The charges against Alfie must be dropped and an urgent investigation into his assault launched.

“Students across the UK today will be saying ‘we are all Alfie Meadows'.”

Meadows’s mother, Susan, an English lecturer at Roehampton University and his father, Matthew, a writer and artist, have said they feel the alleged behaviour of the Metropolitan Police was “disturbing”.

The lawyer representing Meadows and numerous other accused young people from the anti-fees protests

MIKE SHAW

Bested candidates vow to run again

Injured protest student tried in court

said, “Alfie Meadows is one of a large number of young student protesters of good character charged with violent disorder.

“This seems to be a blanket policy by the police and prosecution - to deal with protesters with one of the most serious offences available.”

Should Meadows be found guilty, he could be facing a maximum sentence of five years.

University participation stalls Sam Bradley

THE YEARONYEAR growth of young people participating in higher education has stalled, a new study from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has found.

The BIS said, “The provisional HEIPR for 2010/11 was 47 per cent, showing no change from the final figure for 2009/10.

“This marks the first time in recent years that the HEIPR [Higher Education Initial Participation Rate] measure hasn’t had a year-on-

year increase.”

Mike Williamson, Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) Vice President for Academic Affairs told The Student, “The figures show how out of touch the UK government is with the needs of young people and the UK’s economy.

“At a time of recession and record youth unemployment, the government should be investing in young people by widening participation in higher education. Instead, it is dissuading students from studying by raising tuition fees.”

In previous years, the number of people engaging with higher educa-

tion in any form had increased.

“

At a time of recession and record youth unemployment ... the figures show how out of touch the UK government is."

Mike Williamson, EUSA VPAA HEIPR has been published by the BIS since 2004 and tracks the number of English 17 to 30 year olds

involved in higher education in the United Kingdom.

In 2010, the government created another ten thousand university places, but over 25 times that number of young people submitted applications to UK universities.

Pam Tatlow, chief executive of the Million+ group of newer universities, said, “The fact that participation in higher education among 17 to 30 year olds remained static, compared with 2009-10, was not because of a lack of interest from students but reflects the failure of the government to significantly increase the number of funded student places available.”

McColl slams accommodation policy >> From front page

"That will be much more difficult if you are sent to Musselburgh.

“There are plenty of other places where Accommodation Services can run hotels if they wish to, but there is no way for a student to make up for his or her experience being damaged.

“Student halls should be used for students first and as hotels if they can’t be filled.”

McColl has set out to campaign for improved accommodation at the University in his three-year term in

office.

Students housed in the Queen Margaret University campus were charged the same rate as those staying in self-catered accommodation in the city centre and have been supported by a member of the university’s residence life team on site.

The University has also paid for the additional transport costs incurred by students staying at the Queen Margaret campus travelling into Edinburgh.

CONTENTIOUS: Masson House has been converted into a hotel

NINA SEALE

IN

Brief

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News 5

Theft of credibility rocks Edinburgh

THE UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh’s credibility was stolen from Old College last week, a few hours after the end of the EUSA elections.

CCTV footage shows what appears to be two men shepherding the credibility – a six-legged, feathered elephant about three feet tall – into a van parked on Chambers Street at quarter past three on the morning of 30 March.

All degrees issued by the University of Edinburgh are backed up by the university’s possession of the credibility. With the credibility’s theft Edinburgh degrees are, in effect, worthless.

The Student was conducted around the network of passages that run underneath the college, known as the Old College Labyrinth, and viewed the credibility’s pen, now sadly empty.

The credibility was kept in luxurious style, with a gold-encrusted bouncy castle, a chocolate fountain and a team of masseurs on-call 24 hours a day.

The police warned other universities and colleges in Edinburgh to keep their own credibilities under

lock-down, in case of further thefts.

“We cannot guarantee if this is the first in a string of attempted credibility-nappings from Edinburgh institutions,” a police spokesman said.

Evidence for the case is scarce.

“Currently, we are investigating the possibility that the thieves might have posed as university staff in order to effect entry to the Old College Labyrinth. We also must consider whether any staff knew of the theft and aided the perpetrators,” the spokesman concluded.

Students have expressed anger at what they regard as the University’s irresponsibility in allowing their degrees to lose all their value in a single night.

Fourth year history student Tarquin McConnell, who submitted his dissertation on Friday morning, told The Student, “I spent months writing my dissertation on the development and deployment of the caltrop [a sharp implement designed to disable horses on the battlefield] in the Scottish Wars of Independence.

“The thought that all those hours of hard work and painstaking recreations of the caltrop’s use will go to waste is extremely upsetting.”

The international black market for the credibilities of further and

higher institutions, though still small, has expanded greatly in the last few decades.

One of the most memorable cases in recent years was in 2007, when Jeffrey Myers University, a small college in rural Arkansas, was found to have bought the stolen credibility of the University of Chester for over eight million dollars.

Sharon Baker, one of the three Keepers of the Credibility, spoke to The Student describing her utter desolation at the theft, “I used to feed him peanuts and take him on walks on his lead around the Labyrinth.

Sometimes we’d go for miles and miles, and hear the shrieks of the ghosts of the Graduating Class of 1957 and the snorting of the Mintotaur.”

“He kept me strong while my marriage was disintegrating.

Sometimes he would trumpet Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ when I was at my lowest ebb. I would be an even bigger mess than I am now without him. He is my rock.”

University management declined to comment on the issue.

The investigation continues.

Lewis Macdonald is tearfully taking his leave from both the News section and The Student after this week.

w

THE LABYRINTH: The photographer was later found half-eaten

Students celebrate Scottish spring Hopes raised for that feels more like summer panda procreation

EMILY JARRETT

Nina Seale

SUMMER NIGHTS: Students basked in the sunshine all last week

Melissa Geere RECORD TEMPERATURES in Edinburgh last week saw students taking to the Meadows to make the most of the sunshine.

The record for the highest temperature in Scotland for March was broken three days in a row, with the national high being 23.6C in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire on Tuesday, 27 March.

This was warmer than Athens, Bermuda, Cairo, Lisbon and Rome.

The average for the UK in March is 10 degrees Celsius.

While most students enjoyed the warm weather, concerns were raised

by Edinburgh City Council about

the damage caused to the grass by barbecues.

The Council installed paved barbecue areas in 2010, but many students remains unaware of their existence, with those using them claiming there aren’t enough.

Roslyn Elliot, a University of Edinburgh student and Marchmont resident, said, “I don’t think most students know the [barbecue] sites are there … maybe they should be better signposted.”

Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links, a society whose aim is to protect Edinburgh’s green space, said, “Anyone is allowed access to the parks for recreational purposes, which includes having a barbecue.

However, the law says that the right of

access must be exercised responsibly, and no damage must be done.

“So anyone burning the grass with a barbecue is breaking the law.”

Damage to the grass can be limited by buying disposable barbecues with a stand, which keeps the heat about two inches away from the ground.

The high temperatures were caused by a rare area of high pressure over the UK that gave rise to clear skies and reduced winds.

The high pressure contained warm, dry air from North Africa which arrived from the west, after being driven clockwise across the Mediterranean.

Scotland is expected to return to normal this week, with rain and sleet being forecast throughout April.

EXCITEMENT LEVELS at Edinburgh Zoo are running high as female panda Tian Tian’s behaviour and hormone levels indicate that she will reach her fertility window early this week.

Female pandas are only in a receptive ‘oestrus state’ for mating for 72 hours, with a ‘fertility window’ of 24-48 hours.

The zoo has been monitoring both pandas carefully for the last fortnight, as Tian Tian’s oestrus state has previously occurred during late March to early April when living in her home in China.

Samples of the pandas’ urine have been sent to the UK’s top endocrinologist early every morning for analysis, with results indicating that Tian Tian will probably go into her oestrus Monday or Tuesday this week.

Her behaviour has been alerting staff at the zoo that her body is preparing for the hormone changes.

She has been taking plunges in her private pool, going up to the grate between the enclosures (dubbed 'the love tunnel’) and calling out to the male panda Yang Guang.

Iain Valentine, director of research and conservation, said, “Yang Guang is eating like a champion, going through twice as much bamboo each day as normal. Male pandas often do this to bulk up for the breeding season and get themselves in the best possible condition.

“His scent marking has greatly increased and Yang Guang is doing panda handstands to reach as high up as possible with his secretions to show Tian Tian how fit and virile he

LEWIS MACDONALD

Lewis Macdonald

is. It’s very entertaining to watch.”

As pandas are solitary animals, Yang Guang and Tian Tian have been kept apart until now, when the zoo plans to take them away from the eyes of the public and allow them to finally meet each other.

Their first encounter will be monitored by expert keepers, as both pandas are strong and dangerous animals that could hurt each other if “the sparks fly just a little too much”, according to Valentine.

They will be introduced up to three times on the first day. If the zookeeper security is not required, they will be able to see each other on day two as well.

Breeding pandas is notoriously difficult. In the wild, solitary pandas are scarce so even meeting during the oestrus period is unlikely, hence the excessive scent-marking by way of panda handstands (the higher the scent is marked on a tree, the further the wind will take it to a receptive female.)

Panda males also have very short penises and have to mate in a very specific position to impregnate the females. In captivity, male pandas seem to be unaware of this position.

If natural breeding does not occur, Valentine has stated that the zoo will consider artificial insemination. This has been successful in Chinese panda breeding projects, but they are confident that this will not be necessary.

Detecting panda pregnancy is also very difficult, but if Tian Tian does produce panda cubs, the zoo will consider streaming the birth live on the internet.

Given the success of a Youtube video of a baby panda sneezing, this might bring Edinburgh Zoo huge publicity.

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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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.

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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 Tess Malone/Ali Quaile

News Sam Bradley/Alasdair Drennan/Lewis MacDonald/Leo Michelmore Comment Daniel Kraemer/Joel Sharples/Daniel Swain Features Nina Bicket/Cameron Taylor/Alice McGurran Lifestyle Lilidh Kendrick/Marissa Trew Science & Environment Zoe Blah/Rebecca Chan/Nina Seale Tech Tom Hasler/Alasdair MacLeod Horoscopes Max Johnson/Guy Rughani/Ben Scally Crosswords John Wakely Culture Troy Holmes/Thom Louis/Michael Mackenzie Music Joshua Angrave/Anna Feintuck/Tom Kinney Film Robert Dickie/Sally Pugh/Dan Scott Lintott/Kirsty Wareing TV Alistair GrantCommission Kathryn Lloyd Sport Davie Heaton/Chris Waugh Assistant editor for production James Gilchrist

Head copy editor Melissa Geere Copy editors Sophia Cosby/John Hewitt Jones/ Alasdair MacLeod/ Katy Sheen Head of marketing Matt McDonald

Photo editor Emily Jarrett Multimedia Thomas Ware Web editors Lewis Dunne/Mayumi IharaQuinones Illustration Commissioner Cat O'Neil President Lewis Dunne Secretary Varvara Bashkirova Treasurer Helen Stride  Student Newspaper, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ  editors@studentnewspaper.org

Student Newspaper, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ. Tel: 0131 650 9189. The Student lists links to third party websites, but does not endorse them or guarantee their authenticity or accuracy. © Student Newspaper Society. All rights reserved. No section in whole or part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmited in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. The Student is published by the Student Newspaper Society, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ. Distributed by Lothian Couriers, 3 John Muir Place, Dunbar EH42 1GD. Tel: 01368 860115. Printed by Cumbrian Newsprint (part of the CN Group), Carlisle Print Centre, Newspaper House, Dalston Road, Cumbria CA2 5UA, on Monday April 2 2012. Tel: 01228 612600. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.

Solutions to Dual Crossword No. 13 Across 1 BRIEF 2 definitions 4 DOLPHIN (in, P, hold)* 8 SEPPUKU (EP + p) in (UK + US) (rev) 9 TAROT ta + rot 10 INTERFERE Inter (Milan) + free* 12 FIN f + in 13 GERMAN MEASLES (Marge, salesmen)* 16 CAD C + ad 17 HUCKSTERS stuck* in Her (t) s 19 BANTU ban + TU

20 ITALIAN 1 + TA + nail (rev) 22 TESSERA Tess + era 23 EXTRA contained Wessex Transport Down 1 BUSSING Bus + sing (inform on) 2 INPUT in + put (‘site’ = verb) 3 FLU Ulf* 4 DEUS EX MACHINA (US-Mexican head)* 5 LUTHERANS L + Uther + ans

6 HARMFUL lau(g)h round (RM + F) 7 NOT ON palindrome 11 ROADHOUSE road (= anchorage) on (the) house (‘free?’)

14 RODENTS [(grai) N, stored]* 15 SUSANNA Susa(n) round Ann 16 CUBIT cub + IT 18 EDICT cited* 21 ACE ac + e (log to the base e)

* = anagram of the preceding material (rev) = reverse the preceding material

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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Comment 7

No plane, no gain?

AS SOMEONE who has grown up in London and been involved as a volunteer with several environmental campaigning organisations over the last few years, I joined with many of my friends in breathing a huge sigh of relief when the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government announced it was scrapping plans for a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport back in 2010. An idea that was fundamentally ridiculous on so many levels, it seemed as though the politicians had seen sense for once and we could move forward to petition on other issues.

The campaign against the third runway had united local residents in the towns of Sipson and Harmondsworth, who faced the destruction of their homes and communities by the planned runway, with seasoned campaigners and politicians across the political spectrum. It had encompassed a wide range of different tactics: the purchase of an area of land on the site of the planned runway (which was then distributed to thousands of beneficial owners in an attempt to put up legal obstacles to a third runway) and the construction of a squatted community garden designed to build resilience to the expansion plans, which is still in existence today. It was creative, it had mass support and it was effective.

However, this week it has been suggested that leading Conservative politicians are considering doing a

U-turn over the decision. Whilst it is impossible to say exactly what plans may be considered for this in secret, it is important to remember why so much opposition was raised to the idea of a third runway in the first place and why enough support was given to the campaign for it to be scrapped completely just two years ago.

Economics are the main justification for bringing the third runway back. It is argued that to keep up with other nations, we need to expand the capacity of the south-east of England as an aviation hub. Sometimes it seems that the economic crisis is rolled out as a reason for any unpopular decision that the coalition government wants to make; much as a fear of terrorism was used by New Labour to bring out sweeping curtailments of human rights and civil liberties over the previous decade.

The idea that a third runway at Heathrow would benefit the economy is not a universally accepted position among economists or within the aviation industry. British Airways former chief executive Bob Ayling wrote in The Sunday Times that ‘[a] third runway at Heathrow is against Britain’s economic interests’. The Economist and respected economic agency CE Delft have both come out against a third runway.

Additionally, ever since the Stern report was released in 2006, it has been clear that the economic costs of trying to adapt to and recover

GRASSROOTS: There has been fierce local opposition to plans for a third runway at Heathrow from man-made climate change will vastly outstrip the costs of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions now.

Rather than investing more money into the most environmentally destructive mode of transport available, we should be looking at improving the alternatives to ensure our longterm interests. Aviation is the fastest-growing cause of climate change and to expand Heathrow now would

massively undermine efforts to curb global warming before it is too late.

Although I no longer live in the south-east of England, I will, along with many other activist friends, be ready to take up the fight again should the Tories decide they do want to do a one-eighty over the planned third runway at Heathrow. We don’t want it, Britain doesn’t need it and the environmental damage it would cause is

GOOGLE IMAGES: TRANSITION HEATHROW

Imogen Michel argues a government U-turn on airport expansion would be environmentally disastrous and economically unjustified

simply unacceptable.

Imogen Michel is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh researching oral histories of peace and environmental activists in the UK. She has been involved in various campaigning organisations, including Greenpeace and Plane Stupid, since 2006.

Forget about the price tag

History lecturer Dr Tom Webster challenges the assumptions of last week's article on the public cost of Occupy Edinburgh

LAST WEEK The Student reported on the cost of Occupy Edinburgh to the taxpayer, providing a figure of £61,412.

I felt that this piece required a response to assist readers with their appraisal.

The piece was curious and rather contradictory. The headline, ‘The public cost of Occupy Edinburgh’, encourages the reader to begin with a disapproving sense of waste, furthered by the opening sentence with the cost assigned to ‘the taxpayer’. Implicit in this is a suggestion that the two groups, Occupy Edinburgh and ‘the taxpayer’ are mutually exclusive. This is the first misapprehension to be addressed: many of those involved in Occupy are taxpayers. They are employees using their spare time to spread the word that the limited parameters of current political discourse fail to address alternatives to the social iniquities, economic injustices and environmental degradation that are either approved or silently ignored by the dominant media and political system.

The tactic of employing the rhetoric of idlers, hippies and drunks is familiar

from the Scotsman, but it is a disappointment to see it employed, even to a lesser degree, by The Student. Furthermore, I presume the writer of the article would not see taxpaying as a requisite for the expression of political opinions, as that would silence substantial portions of society due to their material conditions rather than the merit or otherwise of their opinions. Equally important is the way in which many of the comments from diverse backgrounds run contrary to the tone of the headline: with sympathies towards the movement being expressed by a student and by the Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links, as well as the recognition by Lothian and Borders Police that relations with Occupy were mainly very good.

In addition, it is worth digging a little deeper into critical analysis.

The expense for the police is given as £48,258, but the police make it plain that the costs were met from existing budgets. Because this cost is not measured in terms of ‘normal’ policing costs, it is not clear what the extra costs

created by the occupation itself were.

Furthermore, laudable police concerns for ‘public safety’ are expressed without making it clear the exact nature of these concerns. Without suggesting that the occupiers are all saints, one of the consequences of our political and social system is a homeless community with related social problems. Some homeless people were drawn to the camp by the possibility of better sleeping conditions than usual and one of the tasks taken on by the camp was to work with organisations to assist such people: organisations that are suffering from funding cuts imposed by the current political regime. Everyone knows that a police presence is always necessary at night at St Andrew’s Square, due to drunk and disorderly behaviour on a regular basis.

While a quote is provided from the Council opposing camping in public parks, this is only part of the story. A motion was accepted within the council expressing sympathy with the movement as a whole. As the occupation continued and concerns were expressed

about space for seasonal stages and so forth, there were mature, lengthy and productive discussions with the council, making space for all interests.

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I suggest that it would be worth addressing the costs to the taxpayer of rescuing RBS et al."

At the very end of the article, Essential Edinburgh is introduced as the prime force behind the eviction. It is disappointing that this is done without making clear the nature of the organisation. This is a group whose objective is to market the city centre as a worldclass business and retail district with board members from Harvey Nichols, RBS, the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and such like. While individuals within the organisation could, and did, find common ground with Oc-

cupy Edinburgh, their actions were, of course, limited by the interests of their corporate patrons.

I would suggest that it would be worth addressing the costs to the taxpayer of rescuing RBS et al from the consequences of their irresponsible banking, the environmental costs of the investment of banks in tar sands or the gendered costs of the free-market assault on the welfare state.

The attention of the mainstream media is distracted from the deeper issues of deregulated banking by gestures such as the structurally meaningless removal of Fred Goodwin’s knighthood and has minimal interest in the mistreatment of claimants of Disability Benefit. Therefore, financial cost is a poor criterion with which to measure active attempts to prevent the social cost to individuals and society by alternative means. Such questions might assist in understanding why many people from different backgrounds in different ways are making such efforts to challenge the givens of our political discourse.

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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8 Comment

Democracy amid instability Divide and conga TO ANY first-time candidate or spectator, the results night for last week’s EUSA elections must have been watched in mixture of hilarity and horror. At the climax of the night after James McAsh was named president, the front half of the room was flooded by centre-left alcoholand-defeat-induced tears, whilst the far left contingent further back in the Pleasance Theatre finished off a rendition of the “Internationale” with a triumphant conga line. Caught in the middle was the tweed-clad ‘apolitical’ group, which has become synonymous for right-wing in a political arena where the Labour Party is regarded as being as far-right as it gets.

This is not a typical Newsjack exaggeration, but an accurate portrayal of the middle-class tribal warfare that is Edinburgh student politics.

Thursday’s results night was the glamorous summit at the end of a glamourless couple of weeks. Campaigners learned to deal with the feeling of rejection when occupants of Chancellor’s Court muted their MacBooks as soon as they heard political footsteps from the corridor.

These teams are currently partaking in group therapy sessions to repair their conversation skills, so that they can start a conversation without saying, “so sorry to bother you, I’m here to talk about the EUSA elections” and thrusting a flyer in the face of the target. Door-knocking knuckles are being bandaged, shoes are being deodoured and sleep is being had by the self-sacrificing champions of student politics. The post-traumatic stress disorder has been aggravated by the realisation that whilst these heroes were nobly interacting with interested students, lectures and tutorials were on-going as if life was normal.

If one thing has been proved by this election, it is that there is still a large pool of politically apathetic students to be tapped into. This year’s candidates did their best to widen the appeal of the elections, whether it was through travelling musical bands, flooding the Big Cheese with tiger onesies or dance-offs between Jacob ‘otter-petting’ Bloomfield and Max ‘wholesale-hater’ Crema. However, more can be done. It has been suggested that turnout could have been doubled if candidates had agreed to partake in weekly street brawls between factions or by sending an electric shock through the keyboards of those who logout of MyEd without voting. With the consent of the newly elected executive, Newsjack would be more than happy to help organise such democracy enhancers for next year.

Daniel Kraemer

THIS WEEK Senegal witnessed something that has been hailed as a beacon of hope for African democracy. After a turbulent presidential run up, incumbent president Abdoulaye Wade has peacefully stepped down after losing in a landslide vote to his opponent, Macky Sall. Sall, once one of Wade’s right hand men and a former prime minister,has recently become the main challenger to the legitimacy of government.

The new president, along with thousands of Senegalese citizens, flocked to the capital’s streets at the beginning of the year, after a court hearing cleared Wade's bid for a third term in office.

The extension of his time in power, hitherto restricted to two terms, cast an uncomfortable shadow over a country otherwise prized for its commitment to leadership and democracy. Currently standing as the only West African country not blighted by civil war or military coups since its independence, the 85-year-old president’s refusal to let his power go has struck uncomfortable parallels with many of Senegal’s neighbouring countries, all of which have faced violent protests, civil war and military coups.

Thankfully, the voting process proved unproblematic and the former president, upon realising his defeat, rang to congratulate his successor.

Amidst fears of vote rigging and refusal to step down, the Senegalese people have breathed a notable sigh of relief.

Criticised for “living in an ivory tower”, the former leader appeared out of touch with the everyday struggle of many of his citizens. Although the country’s infrastructure undoubtedly improved during his presidency, with the building of much-needed roads and a new city airport, the quality of life for many has

GOOGLE IMAGES: PRWATCH

Francesca Larcombe questions whether Senegalese democracy will spread to its neighbours

SENEGAL: Flying the flag for democracy in West Africa

been greatly compromised. Wade’s time in power saw food prices rocket and youth unemployment reach an all-time high; many feared that with him still as president, things would never improve.

Within the same week as the Senegalese election, however, the neighbouring Malian coup d’etat began. Ending 20 years of democratic rule, renegade Malian soldiers attacked many locations within the country’s capital, including the presidential palace and state television. They publicly declared that they had overthrown Amadou Toumani Toure’s government, forcing him into hiding. Since the fall of Gaddafi, a once small minority of Tuareg soldiers fighting for Azawad’s independence in the north of the country managed to acquire large quantities of guns and machinery from the Libyan civil war. Such an unexpected influx took the government by

surprise and soldiers were sent to fight for the country’s unity at a time when many are not even able to get enough to eat. With a newly elected democratic government in place, peace is looking to be restored as soon as possible, it is said.

With the international community withdrawing non-humanitarian aid to the country, however, only time will tell how long the unrest will continue.

Such stories have blighted the recent history of West Africa. In fact, it is often hard to find a country in this region not recently affected by violence. The Ivory Coast, for example, saw the death of over 3,000 citizens during ongoing protests last year, rallying for the president to step down from power; a battle they eventually won. Compare this to Senegal’s situation, however, where only six died, protest was generally peaceful and leadership was smoothly handed over.

Such examples of people power, thankfully, do seem to spread. One only has to look to the north of the continent, where the Arab Spring saw millions of people, aided by social media and a fervent drive for change, take to the streets and alter their political situations. Some 17 countries were affected by uprisings started by a handful of men, with many implementing new governments and seeing significant social and political change.

There was a cost to this fight, however, with thousands of predominantly young people losing their lives. In a time of such uncertainty for its neighbouring countries, one can only hope that the Senegalese democratic spirit will spread in a similarly manner, hopefully peacefully. In this case, at least it seems the ballot has proved better than the bomb.

No country is an island?

Daniel Swain analyses the hypocrisy in the arguments against secession by Orkney and Shetland

THE RECENT declaration by the MSP for Orkney and Shetland of the possibility of those islands staying within the union in the event of Scottish independence has been met with a nationalist rebuttal. The argument that ‘Orkney and Shetland are not nations’ or that in seceding, Orkney and Shetland are breaking up some sacred or ‘organic’ unit that ought to be preserved, is spurious, at best.

It not only exposes the ultimately irrational arguments that underline Scottish nationalism, but also fails to provide any sort of coherent argument against secession for Orkney and Shetland – which, for those islands, makes perfect economic sense.

The notion that Orkney and Shetland should be disallowed from secession based on some odd nationalistic idea could probably be applied to Scotland itself. Is Britain not a ‘nation’ whose integrity would be broken up by Scottish secession? In fact, Britain’s very existence as a ‘nation’ is much more troubled by Scottish independence than Scotland’s is by the secession of a couple of islands.

This little side track is missing the main point. There are no such things as nations; they are invented concepts with no grounding in reality. Last week, it was noted that the islands have been part of the UK for longer than they were part of the Kingdom of Scotland. Nationalism has only existed since the early 19th cen-

tury – over a hundred years after the first Act of Union was signed.

The fictitious, romantic concept of a nation should not be a guiding idea to justify policy. The only principle that should guide Scotland’s situation within the union, and indeed thankfully the only idea that can, is democracy. For whatever policy implications, the future of Scotland should be decided democratically, even though there are obvious temporal conflicts there.

Following this principle, pending a super-majority of Scotland’s population voting to secede, only the parts of Scotland that wish to secede should comprise the new state. This would quite probably result in Edinburgh remaining in the

UK, along with the Borders - which would also lead, due to the way maritime law works, to a loss of at least some of ‘Scotland’s share of the North Sea Oil reserve.

Finally, the notion that this discussion is a non-issue and that first the question should be addressed as to whether or not Scotland goes independence is nonsensical. The specifics of independence should be ironed out before a genuine, intelligent debate can be had on Scotland’s future. Until then, as some nationalists probably want, the public will be saddled with a debate characterised by novelties, anecdotes and cries for Culloden.

The Comment Section receives a letter in response to last week's article on Gaelic.

To: The Student As a Gaelic-speaking student at the University of Edinburgh I felt very sad to read Melissa Geere’s negative article on the University of Edinburgh's Gaelic Plan in particular and on Gaelic in general; sad because I had hoped that universities were still about knowldege, thoughts, ideas and creativity, for which every language acts as a unique prism. I also felt angry. This is a Scottish uni-

versity in the city that is the capital of Scotland, and Gaelic is an important historical and cultural strand in the fabric of Scotland - why would that heritage not be a visible element within and around the university?

If Ms Greere has a problem with the current SNP government and its policies, she should take that up with the party, and not take it out on Gaelic.

There is much in the article that does not make a lot of sense, including

the photograph and its caption, but I would suggest that the reference to ‘a long-forgotten minority’ is at best inaccurate and at worst offensive, particularly in a newspaper which on other pages promotes equality and diversity. le meas, Priscilla Scott.

If you wish to respond to anything you have read in The Student, email the relevent section editors with your thoughts.

The Comment section would like to apologise to Francesca Larcombe. Last week, we attributed her article on the Health and Social Care Bill and its implications for British democracy to Yasmin Morgan-Griffiths.

It was a silly mistake resulting from having such a great spread of talented writers.

Apologies to both writers for any distress and upset caused.

We'll try not to do it again.

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

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Features 9

Suck it and see ‘DROITS DES Non-Fumeurs’, a French anti-smoking organisation, has recently created a provocative advertisement campaign depicting young adults in subservient poses suggesting fellatio with a cigarette. The accompanying slogan reads: “Smoking means being a slave to tobacco.” The organisation claimed that these unconventional posters are supposed to generate a shock effect on young smokers who view cigarettes as symbols of emancipation and rebellion, when in reality tobacco causes dependency and submission. Nevertheless, the advertisement has caused uproar in France, with critics arguing that the campaign trivialises sexual abuse and distracts from real health issues. As aptly pointed out by Antoinette Fouque in Le Parisien, “Practicing fellatio doesn’t cause cancer.” The larger subject that this controversial advertisement ultimately raises concerns the psychology of young people. Are we really less concerned with health problems and more with the idea of not wanting to be submissive? Was the French advertisement a bizarre hyperbolic comparison or a thoughtful, psychologically cognisant move targeting the intrinsically rebellious nature of adolescents?

What seems prominent in the psychological mindset of most people- and not only adolescents- is that we don’t take potential health risks like cancer in all their seriousness unless we ourselves, or somebody close to us, actually become a victim of them. Perhaps this is a slightly more prominent trait in young people, many of whom like to flirt with danger and consider themselves invincible. However, if this is the argument upon which the overtly sexual French advertisement relies, then their campaign is contradictory. The reason for this is that sex is considered by young people an equal, if not greater act of emancipation than smoking. This advertisement is not only likely to fail to shock the young viewer, but also makes a clearly poor parallel that will by no means deter the targeted audience from smoking because it is a transgression “equivalent to submissive sex.”

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Ultimately, therefore, young adults will only truly learn from their own blunders" Despite this, the statement that young people are less concerned with health issues than with not wanting to appear submissive barely grazes the surface of the actual situation. It is true that teenagers don’t like to be told what to do or to have their independence restricted by any means. This type of ‘submission’ is the one they strive to

DROITS DES NON FUMEURS

Maria Kheyfets debates whether the only thing we really rebel against is our own compliant nature

SMOKING: Being a slave to tobacco? resist. This is an innate part of adolescent nature that will not be tamed by various unconventional advertisements or threats. Ultimately, therefore, young adults will only truly learn from their own blunders. This is what makes the job of targeting young people so difficult. In this respect, then, we may say that young people are indeed very concerned with retaining their autonomy at virtually any cost.

But let us consider, for example, the young women that strive to be unhealthily thin in order to conform to the highly unrealistic body image promoted by the mass media. It is now widely known that photos of various models are ‘photoshopped’ to an absurd extent before being placed in magazines or other advertisements. Despite this, our society maintains a constantly rising trend of eating disorders and of a generally underweight body being considered the ideal to strive towards. Is the way in which many young women strive to be extremely thin not in itself an act of submission to the unrealistic ideals we are exposed to by the media?

Beyond this, there are countless teenagers that engage in excessive alcohol consumption, drug use and sex in order to ‘fit in’- effectively showing themselves to be completely submissive to peer pressure. Surely these young people must realise that even if they aren’t obeying, for example, their parents, they are in fact conforming entirely to the media and their peers while risking their health. Do these entities serve as larger authority figures to young people than their own parents, or does teen nature inherently contain an element of hypocrisy? In the example scenarios, young people are in fact risking their health in order to be, in a way, submissive.

Is the reality therefore that nothing apart from personal experience will truly teach rebellious teens about what should and should not be done, or should we try to come up with ways that will deter them from engaging in behaviours that are really not worth the risk? If this is to be achieved, then not only psychological analysis but also some thorough cultural examination is required. It is in fact quite curious that obedience is so hard to achieve in children and teenagers of recent generations. Surely it hasn’t always been this way.

Obedience has historically been regarded as a virtue in many traditional cultures. Beyond everybody being obedient to God, children were always expected to be obedient to their elders.

In some Christian weddings, obedience was formally included along with honour and love as part of a conventional bride’s wedding vow. Naturally, this eventually came under attack with women’s suffrage and the feminist movement. As the middle classes gained political influence, the power of authority has been progressively eroded, with the introduction of democracy serving as a major turning point in general attitudes to obedience and authority. Furthermore, since the genocides of the First and Second World War periods, obedience has come to be regarded as a significantly less desirable quality in Western Cultures. The civil rights and protest movements in the second half of the 20th century displayed a remarkable reduction in respect for authority, and greater respect for individual ethical judgment as a basis for moral decisions.

As respect for obedience has been declining, the quality and potential of healthcare has been steadily progress-

ing. Is it this cultural trend that has led to adolescents who would rather sacrifice their health than obey authority? What must be taken into account, though, is that there is nevertheless an element of hypocrisy in teen psychology when it comes to submissiveness, namely, that they will disobey their parents while simultaneously complying with mass media and teen trends.

Clearly, young adults do necessitate some form of security. Perhaps natural obedience is an intrinsic trait of human nature, and all of our recent protests to governments and authority figures -including teen rebellion- are just unnatural means of defying our own innately compliant constitution.

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These unconventional posters are supposed to generate a shock effect on young smokers who view cigarettes as symbols of emancipation and rebellion, when in reality tobacco causes dependancy and submission."

In One of the most famous series of psychological experiments, Milgram (1963-74) demonstrated that most participants would give a helpless victim a fatal electric shock when ordered to. In one study over

85 per cent of the subjects administered what they were told would be a lethal electric shock to the victim. While this classic experiment suggests that situational variables have a stronger sway than personality factors in determining obedience, other psychologists argue that obedience is heavily influenced by both external and internal factors, such as personal beliefs and overall temperament.

Evidently, some form of obedience seems to be a part of human nature.

But can we really criticise teenagers for not being entirely submissive to their parents and other authority figures?

First of all, this analysis has so far excluded the case of young adults that don’t follow ‘trends’, as well as those that are genuinely serious and aware of the enormous risk to health that certain popular behaviours pose. Secondly, is a slavishly obedient teen really likely to grow into a successful, independentminded adult?

Surely an independent, serious minded person should be aware of the dangers of excess or recklessness when it comes to certain behaviours. But in order to become independent-minded, adolescents must be given a fair amount of space to explore life on their own, to learn from their mistakes and to develop individual values. It is indeed very common for teenagers that have been strictly disciplined and controlled by their parents throughout their lives at home, to ‘break free’ and rebel to a highly excessive extent once their independent life is launched at university.

Awareness and independence of mind must be given room to develop naturally in a young adult, and hopefully this way we will be able to avoid teen behaviour that too often leads to less than desirable consequences.

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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10 Features

My art will go on

SAM BRADLEY

Sam Bradley reflects on the current state of Edinburgh's grassroots art movement

THE WEE RED BAR: Star Wheel Press (left) and Maydays (right) perform at the ECA based venue EDINBURGH’S ARTS scene is like a ghost: for one month of the year it howls louder than anyone else, a cultural poltergeist ready to raise hell. The rest of the time it tends to hide in the shadows, haunting periodically, but generally elusive and impossible to pin down.

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, it took a threat like blanket licensing to bring Edinburgh’s arts community out into the harsh light of the national media.

The campaign lobbying City of Edinburgh Council to ensure grassroots cultural events would not require Public Entertainment Licences was entirely successful in its aims. The council has decided to try and manoeuvre around the problem stemming from the blunt legislation over the course of an ongoing 28-day consultation.

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Sadly, spaces dedicated to the promotion and development of underground acts are declining in Edinburgh" It could have been a close call. The Criminal Justice and Licensing Act 2010 (Scotland) was actually passed in late 2010; April 1 was simply the deadline for local councils to update their policies. A poorly organised campaign, without the whirlwind of publicity and public indignation, might have let the chance go by – and we would be looking at a vastly depleted cultural landscape in Edinburgh.

As it stands, we could treat the campaign to stop the Public Entertainment Licence as a model of local activism – the public meeting held at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Leith, back on March 9 turned out to be an extraordinary event. It was perhaps the only time

you could have seen local record label producers, a cappella musicians, poetry night organisers, arts critics and popup gallery owners together in the same room, and that served as a reminder of what was at stake. Every person who attended that meeting had something to lose from the Public Entertainment Licence, whether they were an artist, an organiser or a punter.

I spoke to Luke Healey, a postgraduate student at Edinburgh, about his experiences with Edinburgh’s grassroots arts community. “I don’t think I’d have been able to make the early steps towards becoming involved in producing exhibitions and promoting artists who deserve public attention that I have done had it not been for the grassroots scene. ‘Private views’ tend to be – paradoxically – open to anyone who’s interested, but openings at places like Fruitmarket and Ingleby can be pretty intimidating for somebody who doesn’t already have an ‘in’.

“It’s much easier to talk to artists at the smaller spaces, particularly if they lack the financial clout to avoid invigilating their own exhibitions.

And talking leads to ideas, which lead to projects, which in the end ensure a viable future for cultural producers of every ilk.”

Much of the advertising for gigs, theatre or other cultural activity is conducted on blogs, across Twitter and Facebook or by word of mouth. This is economically indicative of grassroots culture; posters and fliers are a costly expense that such promoters simply can’t cope with. Small events like gigs or plays run on tight budgets and tighter profit margins, limited by the low entry prices audiences expect to pay, the cost of a venue, the fee for the band or company and any other overheads. In fact, if you see posters for an EP launch around campus it is a sure sign that at least one of the band members is an Edinburgh student, because we have access to cheap printing. The introduction of the Public Entertain-

ment Licence, with its prohibitive application costs, would have blighted Edinburgh’s culture scene.

“

As any seasoned concert-goer will tell you, every gig is a gamble, and your entrance fee is your stake" As students, it can be hard to get under the skin of Edinburgh’s arts community. The Fringe is probably the only time when marketing of any real scale is undertaken by promoters and acts, and it’s the only time when ‘big names’ show up in our city. It can be doubly hard in the first year of university if you’re limited by the geography of halls, or your friends don’t want to break out of the standard clubbing circuit. Most students will take the safe bet, the cheap bet, of diving in and out of drinking holes – for an unknown band in a venue that seats fifty people.

If you are finding the Big Cheese no longer satisfies, however, it’s not as difficult as it looks to find alternatives.

There are scores of blogs dedicated to the music and theatre scenes in Edinburgh, not to mention the dozens of online ‘zines focused on Edinburgh’s art landscape. If you can’t be bothered trawling through the blogosphere, then a different approach is to simply check out the calendars of venues – apart from the smallest bars, they all have websites with that night’s bill up to date.

As any seasoned concert-goer will tell you, every gig is a gamble, and your entry fee is your stake. Having to work to find the gig, research the act or to even learn about it in the first place, is all part of the package. Regardless of the quality of the acts, as you navigate Edinburgh’s cultural underground, you’ll find a few standout venues, like Sneaky Pete’s, tucked away in the un-

savoury end of the Cowgate – or The Caves, built into the foundations of the South Bridge on Niddry Street.

Most students will have visited Bedlam Theatre at one point during their time at Edinburgh, but few know about the Wee Red Bar – which is housed inside the grounds of Edinburgh College of Art and plays host to many of Edinburgh’s up-and-coming bands.

Sadly, spaces dedicated to the promotion and development of underground acts are declining in Edinburgh.

The Public Entertainment Licence would have mortally wounded many acts and artists but it’s downfall hides further decay. In the last two years several venues have closed and at least two more are to follow. In 2010, the Roxy Art House, a converted church that held a bar and concert hall, closed. The Forest ‘Free’ Café, funded by the Edinburgh University Settlement, is now closed, following a lengthy campaign launched by activists who wanted to buy the building.

Anna Feintuck, a fourth year History student at the University of Edinburgh, told me that, “Edinburgh’s grassroots scene has taken a bit of a beating recently. The loss of Forest was a real shame and other galleries have suffered too – Embassy being the notable example. I think it’s fair to say, though, that we’ve still got plenty going on.

“The Sculpture Workshop down towards Newhaven has some pretty exciting stuff and supports grassroots artists. And, of course, we’ve got Collective on Cockburn Street. Their central idea is to allow artists to direct the gallery – the clue is in the name. We’re lucky to have what we do, but recent losses should serve to remind us how fragile this scene can be. It really does seem to be a case of use it or lose it. I know which of those I’d pick.”

By September, the Bongo Club – a centre not just for dancing and dance music, but for poetry readings, theatre and art – will have closed altogether,

because the University of Edinburgh, who rent the space used by Bongo, have decided to end the lease. And Cabaret Voltaire, perhaps the only other dedicated dance music club, is to repackage and remarket. Edinburgh’s well of purpose-built, culturally-driven space is drying up.

“We’re seeing a trend right now that people are saying it’s okay that we’re losing free arts spaces and seeing them replaced by commercial spaces,” said Max Crema, organiser of the Save Bongo Club campaign. “I don’t think they’re an adequate replacement. We’re losing that vital link between the fringe artistic community and the commercial one – that link between artists starting up in free spaces and then moving up to bigger, commercial venues.”

Whilst venue closures hardly constitute a cultural apocalypse, it is not hard to imagine that in the future there will be fewer venues in the city than there were when you started your degree.

“

A gig or performance could be anywhere – in the living room of a friend, in a parish rooms or the park" What defines grassroots culture and what makes it so special is that a gig or performance could be anywhere – in the living room of a friend, in parish rooms or the park. Grassroots cultural events are custom-fitted for students’ hectic schedules and shallow wallets; they kick off at all times of the night, cost less to get in and – whisper it – the drinks are cheaper.

Edinburgh is not a cultural desert for the eleven months of the year that the Fringe is not present, and there is a wealth of unique, fulfilling cultural experiences to be had by students.

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

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Features 11

Not so lonely planet

With summer planning in full swing, Melissa Geere looks at how to travel without getting out your wallet

This outdoor pursuit is increasingly popular on the West coast and islands of Scotland during the summer months, with long sunny days to enjoy and warm(er) sea to swim in. Don't forget the midge spray!

SCENIC: Smell the fresh air

Couch surfing

As of this year, surf-able couches are registered in 80,000 towns and cities in 250 states and territories all across the world.

Surfers should always check out their host beforehand to avoid a Jack Nicholson in The Shining-esque host.

COUCH POTATO: Having a nap users in 246 countries and territories, so in theory you never need book a hostel again.

Creating a profile does not take long, but you will have to build up your good name with positive feedback to increase your chances of offers. Meeting a fellow couchsurfer in your own town or hosting others can be a good way to get your first positive feedback, making you look legit to other members, though you are under no obligation to become a host yourself.

Crian Shields has experienced being both host and ‘surfer’:“I think that couchsurfing can be an excellent way to travel, but it depends a little bit on what you are after. You get a free place to stay, although it might not be as

commodation sorted, but what if you’re looking for a more meaningful project for your summer? Rather than paying an unnatural and extortionate fee to volunteer with some huge organisation, venture into the recesses of the web and you will find bulletin boards where you can get directly in touch with people around the world who need your help on all manner of intriguing projects in exchange for bed and board.

On these sites, you can browse without paying anything. If you start to salivate over the opportunities you find (making coconut oil in Fiji?

Working on husky safaris in Finland?), you can buy a year’s membership for £6-20, depending on the site. This will enable you to contact hosts and start organising. Projects vary widely in nature, some will have additional costs and others won’t; always find out as much as you can before committing to anything.

Three of the main players are wwoof. org.uk, WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms or WWOOF (though their scope is wider than the name suggests), workaway.info, “the site for travel, language and work exchange”, and the7interchange.com, a “social and environmental volunteer exchange network”.

Freya Pryce is a serial WWOOFer: “WWOOFing and other ways to stay with people for free (like couchsurfing) are amazing. Last summer I helped build a cob building in Spain and visited a housing co-op in Leicester.

This summer I plan to go couchsurfing around Europe and hopefully more WWOOFing too.

“It’s something you can do with friends or alone. I met some lovely, inspiring people, had lots of fun and memorable, exciting learning experiences. I definitely felt safe, had good food and it’s brilliant that all I had to pay for was the transport!”

They say that strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet. Hundreds of people are now travelling the world by the grace of human kindness.

Though putting your trust in the unknown can be nerve-racking, once you see how far it can take you, it can be rewarding, unpredictable, and ultimately addictive.

Volunteering

MOUNT RAINIER NPS

emissions, creating thousands of friendships and, they allege, ten marriages.

Known by the evocative name of ‘boondocking’ in North America, wild camping is legal in many countries, including Scotland, and tolerated in plenty of others. You get that satisfaction of asserting your natural right to access and enjoy beautiful land, and you don’t pay a penny. All you have to do is pick an out of the way spot and start unravelling your guy ropes.

Common sense is necessary - always ask permission if there seems an obvious place to do so and don’t draw attention to yourself with noise and rubbish. Also, be prepared for the small possibility that you’ll have to move along in the middle of the night if someone does take offence.

In Scotland, you are within your rights as long as you don’t damage the land and stay 100m from any roads.

Most wilder areas of England and Wales are tolerant of small parties. The situation is generally the same across Europe, though it depends on the country. Why not journey to Bulgaria, where activists for the legalisation of wild camping inhabit the shores of the Black Sea all summer. They often take their clothes off too, if that’s your idea of an adventure.

Laura Cress found that there are plenty of wild times to be had camping in Scotland: “I went wild camping along the West Highland Way. The best bit was of course the scenery, we managed to camp right on the side of a

central as a hostel, and you also get some guaranteed company, which can be excellent. If you are lucky, you will also get a free tour guide, and be introduced to some unusual places.

“You can meet some great people, though you can also meet some people you don’t really click with. Taking your time with it and reading profiles, instead of just spamming out random messages, goes a long way to ensure that you meet your type of people. This is also a good way to ensure safety. I have never once felt unsafe, and I am very careful with who I host and request hosting from.”

Charlotte Ibbotson couchsurfed across Spain with another female friend: “I can’t speak for all, but certainly most couchsurfers are just a bunch of like-minded people from all over the world, who are willing to and are enthusiastic about sharing new experiences and culture.

“In my eyes it is safe as long as you stay with people that have full profiles and good reviews, you have plenty of contact with each host before you stay with them. I can’t describe how incredible my month in Spain was, just totally awesome, couchsurfing really shows you that there are genuine and lovely people out there who just want to be friendly and share a part of their lives with you. I got so used to thinking that everyone was wonderful that it took me a while to adjust back to normal life again! I was totally astounded by the absolute generosity of people!”

So you’ve got your travel and ac-

Wild camping

LORI

OPEN ROAD: But no cars in sight AS THE long months of summer stretch out ahead, many will find their thoughts turn inescapably to dreams of adventuring. Now therefore, is the perfect time to be reminded that seeing the world does not have to cost the earth. Putting your faith in strangers can carry you anywhere. The Student finds out how, talking to adventurers who have taken the leap and lived to tell the tale.

Hitchhiking is a time-tested way of getting from A to B. To start with, if you’ve got a thumb, you need not pay for transport to your destination of choice. Simply stand by the roadside and stick it out. People all over the world are doing it, and pooling their knowledge at hitchwiki.org, an invaluable resource for location information and general techniques. The entry for Edinburgh tells you how to escape to the north, south, east or west, so you can be sure you’ll get on the road to somewhere eventually.

On the plus side, hitchhiking is free (though carry sweets to offer drivers), you get the thrill of progressing nearer and nearer to your goal and you are certain to meet interesting people and forge friendships. Yet bear in mind that it takes as long as it takes - you have to be flexible about time and destination. Lifts always come eventually, but be prepared to spend a night in a service station. Though hitching has a bad reputation, remind your mother that with mobile phones it is a lot safer now than in its more popular bygone days.

Stuart Iversen hitchhiked in the Appalachians in North America and had a positive experience: “The best thing about it was the interaction with the people who picked us up, people I’d never have met otherwise. The worst thing about it probably comes from the worry you won’t be picked up … I never felt unsafe and don’t see why you should do if you’re sensible and travelling in a group.”

If you prefer a little more rigidity, or want a little more security, try out carpooling.com, where you can find or request international lifts at the time you need, and just pay a small fee towards petrol (usually a fraction of what a train ticket would cost you). This remarkable website claims responsibility for saving 772,000 tons of carbon

loch and we found some logs so started a camp fire and told ghost stories.

“The bad bits are the long stretches of walking up never ending hills and the insects; particularly for wild camping a lot of the terrain is bumpy which didn’t make for a comfortable night's sleep. But all in all we were very lucky with the weather and had a great time!

And there are some great little spots to discover along the way.”

If you prefer a comfy bed to a night with the insects, there is still no reason why you should have to pay for it. Couchsurfing.org is an online community which puts travellers in touch with hosts willing to put you up, take you out or feed you according to their means. It has more than three million

The trend initially started during the Great Depression in 1930s America, when not everyone could afford petrol or, indeed, a car. Famous hitchhikers include Che Guevara, Jim Morrison and Jack Kerouac.

NICK BRAMHALL

VICKI WATKINS

Hitchhiking

HAPPY CHAPPYS: All eager to help

Bound to give you that warm, fuzzy feeling inside that comes from being selfless, volunteering is a great way to travel to far flung corners of the world to lend a hand and come back with the mandatory ethnic beads.

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

LISA LANGE AND REBECCA CHAN

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Memories of mice and men

Maithili Mehta asks whether the science that manipulates memories in mice will ever be used on humans different colour and smell, injected with the drug that induced recall of the first box, and then given an electric shock. In normal circumstances, the mouse would be conditioned to fear the box that it was in at the moment the shock was administered, that is the second box. But because the mouse was in the second box under the influence of a drug that caused it to strongly remember the first, it was observed that it developed a mixed fear of both boxes – in effect, an imaginary environment.

LOOKING LOST: Scientists are currently researching various ways of manipulating memories no longer freeze when administered a shock.

It sounds a little silly to say that a mouse without a few brain cells would be unable to freeze and consequently would scuttle around all the time. Herein is the key: the mouse would probably still be able to freeze, if the shock were administered in a different way or under a different set of conditions. This is because the same stimulus activates one set of neurones in one environment, but a different set of neurones in another, making the response context specific.

Further experiments showed that activating a small, specific population

of brain cells associated with a memory is enough to induce memory recall. So we could, in principle, apply the same concept to human brains. Imagine being able to extract from your thoughts any detail, at any time you desire. Such technology would be revolutionary, and have far reaching impacts, both in the socioeconomic sphere (higher working capacity and a better economy) and the therapeutic sector (inducing basic memory recall in patients with memory loss).

The potential could be limitless, but we need to be careful about how much of it we unleash. A study conducted at

MARY MCGUIRE

AS A student, one is all too familiar with that sinking sentiment of walking into an end of term exam feeling like one remembers nothing of last night’s revision. What if there was an easier way to recall? What if you could simply shock the cells in your brain into remembering and regenerating certain relevant bits of information?

Turns out it isn’t impossible, in theory at least. In experiments on genetically engineered mice, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that by stimulating a certain group of neurones (brain cells) involved in the formation of a memory in a given environment, it is possible to revive that memory, and therefore to elicit a response to the memory, in a different environment.

In order to understand how to manipulate a memory, it is essential to understand how it is created in the first place.

Recent studies indicate that distinct populations of neurones correspond to a particular memory trace. For instance, a small group of neurones in an area of the brain called the hippocampus are associated with memory of fear. That is to say these neurones selectively fire impulses when stimulated by a fearful situation, a brief electric shock for example. The response for mice is characteristic freezing behaviour. It is hypothesised that if this neuronal population is selectively removed, the fear memory response can be erased; in other words, the mice would

the Scripps Research institute in San Diego, California, exposed a somewhat mixed implication of such memory recall in mice. The experiment used mice that were genetically engineered so that the neurones in their brain responded to a drug. The mice were individually put in boxes, each with a specific colour and smell, for long enough that a group of neurones formed a memory of those conditions. Because the neurones fired during memory-making, injection of the drug, which caused these cells to re-fire, could produce an involuntarily induced memory of that box. The mice were then put into a different box, with a

“

The potential could be limitless, but we need to be careful about how much of it we unleash. " Results from such experiments elucidate a more uncertain and perhaps a more dangerous side to interfering with natural thought processes. A number of questions remain unanswered: How do we get around information overlap?

Wouldn’t it be practically impossible to monitor and label the neurones involved in every memory that we form? Most importantly, would inducing memory recall allow us to live in what we call 'reality', or would we all begin to respond to imaginary environments like the lab mice?

More oomph for your ovum

Egg-meddling or life-saving? Kornelija Suveizdyte explains the debate around new reproductive technologies ETHICS AND scientific progress, ever under each other’s toes, have found a new battleground. The question of whether we should interfere with embryos has long been the focus of debate, but with new research showing that such interference has the capacity to prevent the transmission of certain genetic diseases, the question seems to come down to: why not?

The stars of the show are mitochondria, cellular ‘power plants’, which exist to convert our food into energy.

Generating large amounts of the molecule ATP, they allow us to perform our everyday tasks as well as maintain all our usual processes within the body.

Mitochondria also contain a small amount of DNA, which we inherit solely from our mother’s egg. This can become problematic when mutations in mitochondrial DNA are passed on to offspring. Mutations in mitochondria can lead to multi-organ diseases, such as myoclonic epilepsy, progressive brain-stem disorder, deafness and retinitis pigmentosa, which can result in incurable blindness, diabetes and muscle weakness.

Yet there are two techniques that

could help to prevent ‘bad’ mitochondria from being passed on to offspring.

The first is maternal spindle transfer, which is basically a transfer of the nucleus (genetic information) from an unfertilised mother egg to a donor egg which has had its nucleus removed.

“

Is it acceptable to 'play God' if you also have the opportunity to protect your children from disease?"

This new, modified egg is fertilised in vitro (in the lab) and develops to form an embryo. Another method is pronuclear transfer. This time, the mother egg is fertilised in vitro and a resulting nucleus is removed from the cell to a healthy donor egg. Both methods overcome the inheritance of mitochondria from the mother – problem solved!

Well, in a way.

These methods have sparked ethi-

cal debates as some people argue that pronuclear transfer is, technically, the destruction of a fertilised egg. This, combined with the concept of using science to create the kind of offspring you want, seems to go against a law of nature.

But what do Edinburgh students think of it? A third year Biology student commented that there are “other ways to reduce the risk of transmission of such diseases, why do we need to go to such extremes?” Indeed, alteration of mitochondrial DNA to produce a baby is not currently permitted – it is illegal according to the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. In the case of alteration, a baby would have genetic information from both parents, as well as from a third party, the donor of the mitochondria. This has implications for understanding the social role of the donor. However, as such issues are already being faced concerning reproductive technologies such as IVF and surrogacy, what makes mitochondrial donation so different?

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Association (HFEA) is an independent regulator for IVF

treatment, artificial insemination and human embryo research as well as the storage of gametes and embryos in the country. It was earlier asked to review the methods by which the passing of mitochondrial diseases to children would be minimised.

In April 2011 it announced a summary of methods such as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to reduce the risk of babies inheriting mitochondrial diseases. As they only reduce risks, after this procedure some mutant mitochondria might still be present in the mother's eggs. In response to this, the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills have jointly asked HFEA to find out what the public thinks of the idea of research into procedures such as maternal spindle transfer and pronuclear transfer going clinical.

On January 19 HFEA announced the start of public consultations in order to obtain public views on using such techniques to completely prevent the transmission of mitochondrial disease.

It is a start towards the legalisation of genetic therapy. While there are ethical implications in deciding to what extent

it should be legalised, discussion is essential – it is a first step.

So what would students say if asked whether such research should go clinical? Ieva, a first year student in Modern European Languages considers it to be “playing God”. Laura, also a first year Modern European Languages student argued, “Well, it is playing God, but why not when parents have a possibility to protect their child? Of course, we would not accept genetic manipulation in order to ‘get’ a pretty, strong, fast child, but this is for a good cause.”

Second year Astrophysics student Ilona agreed, under the condition that procedures would not be “too dangerous, and if scientists are sure that a child would develop normally”.

HFEA are due to announce the results of a more detailed public consultation later this spring. There are plenty of questions to mull over while we wait.

How would a genetically modified person feel about the way they were created?

What could such research contribute to the eternal nature vs. nature debate?

And is it acceptable to 'play God' if you also have the opportunity to protect your children from disease?

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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Science & Environment 13

Welcome to the wonders of science The Student science editors pick their favourite events of the Edinburgh International Science Festival

THE SKY'S DARK LABYRINTH

TUES 3 APRIL SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE 8pm £6

When Kepler first translated the planetary movements into mathematical laws, he thought his understanding was due to divine intervention. Fellow scientist Galileo Galilei tried to use Kepler’s success for his Catholic Church, but soon both men found themselves trying to continue their research as the sinister waters of religious cynicism rose. Stuart Clark’s fictional retelling of his novel The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth delves into the war between the church and science at the height of the scientific revolution of the 17th century.

SAT 7 - SUN 8 APRIL WEST PRINCES STREET GARDENS 3pm £20

Firewalking may seem like an unnecessary skill. However, just think of how stupid you’d feel if you found yourself having to walk across hot coal, but you hadn't gone to this event so didn't know how to.

Save yourself future pain by joining psychologist Richard Wiseman and Science Festival director Simon Gage as they ask whether it is the supernatural at work or the power of physics in the art of firewalking. Go on, we dare you to give it a go (waivers must be signed before joining this event).

X MARKS THE SPOT TUES 3 APRIL GHILLIE DHU 8pm £10

A feminist of the University of Edinburgh once said that the reason the clitoris has a reputation for being difficult to find is because no one has the guts to say, “Here is my clitoris.

Touch my clitoris.”

True as this might be, it turns out that until relatively recently, even anatomists were unsure as to where exactly the maybe-mythical, everelusive clitoris resided.

Viv Parry offers up the life story of this part of the female anatomy, from the tale of its evolution to the saga of its social history.

DERREN BROWN: TRICKS OF THE TRADE

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FESTIVAL

Simon Pampena, Australia’s leading stand-up mathematician, won’t be telling jokes like “Dear Algebra, Stop asking us to find your X.. She’s not coming back” when he talks about the biggest event in the mathematical calendar - the Maths Olympics.

Don’t worry though, it looks set to be a fantastic show. Pampena is coming to the festival after sell-out seasons at Melbourne Comedy Festival and Adelaide Fringe, delivering a winning formula that’s not to be missed.

FIREWALKING

SAT 21 APRIL PLEASANCE 2pm £15

What question would you ask Derren Brown, given the chance?

Come to the Pleasance Theatre to hear magicians-turned-skeptics Derren Brown and Richard Wiseman discuss Derren’s thoughts about mind control, hypnosis and the paranormal. No smoky card tricks and the audience member with the best question wins… a bag of peanuts.

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FESTIVAL

WED 11 APRIL JAM HOUSE 5.30pm £10/8

FUTURE HUMAN SERIES FRI 13 - SUN 15 APRIL FILMHOUSE

Love a bit of sci-fi? Wish that raygun chic would hurry up and hit the high street already? Or perhaps hovercars are an idea you can really... get on board with?

If so, you can go elsewhere for your tacky glitz, you philistine. This event asks the big question: what does it mean to be human? Screening films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and A Scanner Darkly, the series explores how science intertwines with humanity, with scientific, ethical and philosophical discussions following each showing. Not to be missed!

COURTESY TM ENTERTAINMENT

THE MATHS OLYMPICS

Why are you so popular?

Katerina Gospodinova looks at the link between having large prefrontal cortexes and lots of friends HAVE YOU ever wondered why some of your classmates seem to be more sociable than you, with a natural knack for making lots of new friends? A few days ago British scientists from the Universities of Oxford, Liverpool and Edinburgh have revealed the mystery behind being popular.

A new study, published earlier this year, suggests a link between the size of the orbital prefrontal cortex region in your brain, and the number of friends you have. The research, carried out as a part of the British Academy Centenary ‘Lucy to Language’ project, has shown that this brain region is bigger in people who tend to form a larger number of friendships than the average.

This phenomenon can be explained by our status as a highly sociable species who

have to employ a whole set of cognitive skills in order to maintain a particular number of friendships, not just acquaintances. This set of skills, scientifically referred to as ‘mentalising’ or ‘mind-reading’, includes the crucial ability to understand what someone else is thinking, to a certain extent, in order to be able to hold a normal conversation. This study is the first one that links these personal social skills with the size of key brain areas, and especially the frontal lobe.

The size of the prefrontal cortex, involved in high-level thinking, of forty volunteers was measured by taking anatomical Magnetic Resonance images of their brains. The participants were also asked to list all the people they had contact with over the previous seven days, as well as to take a test, designed to deter-

mine their ‘mind-reading’ abilities.

“

The ability to read other people's minds turns out to be a crucial factor for determining one's social network size."

The results showed that people who had more friends tended to do better on the mind-reading tasks and to have a greater volume of a particular section of the forebrain, located above the eyes.

The supposed relationship between an individual’s brain size and the number

of friends he or she has even explains the mechanism by which humans have developed bigger brains compared to other primates. What is more, the frontal lobe of the human brain has evolved dramatically between generations probably due to the increasing need for more social contacts.

According to Dr Joanne Powell, from the University of Liverpool, the most important aspect of the study is the finding that brain size determines an individual’s social skills, essential for making and maintaining friendships. Of course, many other factors such as amount of spare time, gender and personality are also significant, but the ability to read other people’s minds turns out to be a crucial factor for determining one’s social network size.

A WORLD WITHOUT MOSQUITOES YOU’RE SITTING in your room and suddenly you become aware of a squealing buzz bothering the corner of your ear. You can’t spot it anywhere, but you know that somewhere in your room, a mosquito is lurking. This villainous insect is right up there with spiders and wasps, and your heart sinks when you realise the sunny weather has also brought back these tiny, elusive vampires.

What would the world be like without them? The Anopheles genus of mosquito can carry the Plasmodium parasite, known to most of us because it is responsible for the disease malaria, which infects over 247 million people each year, and that’s not all. Mosquitos can also carry yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya virus and West Nile virus.

Their pest status goes well beyond the annoyingly itchy bites; these diseases all contribute to huge medical and financial costs.

But would it be fair to condemn all mosquitoes? And what would the potential impact be if they were to start disappearing like bumblebees? There are about 3,500 species of mosquito, and only a few bother humans. An ecosystem is intricately bound to all of its members, from mosquitoes to huge forests, it is impossible to measure all the effects one species has on all the others and predict the results of meddling.

It has gone horribly wrong before.

You may remember from high school Biology the story of the Cane Toad in Australia. Once upon a time farmers in Australia were having a real problem with two local beetles eating all the sugarcane crops. To solve the problem they decided to release the cane toads to eat the beetles. But the cane toads were not interested in these beetles and instead consumed all kinds of local insect life, bred rapidly and spread south and west.

Tipping the balance of an ecosystem that has been carefully evolving long before we started to tamper with it can have terrible effects.

Spring in northern Canada and Russia brings huge swarms of mosquitoes that hatch when the ice melts. There is a strong biological debate as to what could happen should this huge biomass of mosquitoes disappear. Removing such a huge source of food could cause the population of nesting migratory birds to fall by half, or their niche could be easily replaced by midges. The same problem goes to the debate whether their water-living larvae, who feed on dead plants and organic matter, would be easily replaced by other filter feeders or whether detritus would build up and poison water sources.

It is impossible to measure, and so far no one knows how to contact the Pied Piper of Mosquitoes, but I would say nature is better left alone when you don’t have the research to predict the consequences.

Nina Seale

Graduation Ball 2012 Get £5 off with our early bird offer.

Valid until 6th April *Tickets £60 (dinner) & £30 (evening only) without discount

Graduation Lunches Available

Friday 22 June (12noon – 3pm) Monday 24 – Saturday 30 June (12noon – 3pm) Served in The Dining Room

OLIVER NINNIS

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Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Anti-social networking FACEBOOK IS a marvellous website; it helps distant friends keep in touch, it offers a chance to rekindle friendships, it is very much the modern day forum. Alas, there is something missing - the dislike button.

Your profile mentions what you are interested in and which groups you support, but everything in Facebook is assumed to be positive.

Now fair play to the pranksters and cyber bullies, they’ve done their best to add an antagonistic air to the social network but nothing quite captures the directness of a dislike button.

Sensing this imbalance of inclination, Professor Dean Terry, with a few students, created the app EnemyGraph.

With this app, users can explicitly designate groups or people as enemies. It of course lacks the symmetrical grace of a dislike tag but it makes up for it by having much more conviction.

Indeed why shouldn’t we have the option of defining ourselves by our dis-

pleasures as well as our interests? We’re defined by what we hate just as much as what we love. The creators even try to harness this negative energy with the dissonance feature, whereby the app compares your enemies with a friend's and then prompts the two of you to have a good old bitch about your common foe.

The app also provides a window for you to explain exactly why you have declared your animosity. You don’t have to supply a reason but it’s a nice way of airing your particular grievances and provides the external audience with the context of your feud. If inane comments have to bombard the main wall then it only seems fair that the gossip is served too.

There is also a running chart of Facebook’s most popular enemies, just in case you’re looking for something new to resent in life. Incidentally, at the time of writing, Justin Bieber claims not only the top spot but several other positions in the rankings.

There is even the capacity to nominate archenemies. An intriguing result of this feature is that by having such a grandiose title, declaring someone with it actually seems to detract from the intended emnity. Tagging someone you didn’t like at school as an enemy may be petty but at least such a relationship seems plausible. Marking them an archenemy seems much more pantomime. The most entertaining aspect of this is the time spent considering who your archenemy would be; going through your mental archive, trying to recollect any stand out transgressor.

Obviously an app like this screams out for controversy. There have been claims that this will just intensify cyber bullying and that it does nothing but add a touch of malice to an already spiteful world. Professor Terry defended his work by saying, “We're misusing the word ‘enemy’ the same way that Facebook misuses the word ‘friend’.” His point seems sound; no one takes an online friendship seri-

SAD BUT TRUE: Not everyone wants to be your friend on Facebook ously so why should an online enmity be any different?

So if you want to indulge in a little ill will, give EnemyGraph a go. Of course

MIDEAGU.COM

Alex Duncan investgates the controversial Facebook app Enemy Graph

you may despise the very concept in which case I can suggest the perfect place to formalise your displeasure.

Six degrees of segregation

Wolfgang Seder takes a look at the latest round of anti-piracy legislation THE RECORDING Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the same groups that brought you the controversial internet bills SOPA and PIPA, have convinced America’s largest internet service providers (ISPs) to agree to a new anti-piracy program.

The agreement itself creates a graduated response program, whereby people suspected of illegally downloading items from the internet would be contacted in six escalating phases by their internet service provider. In stage one and two the user is contacted and told that their account has been linked

to illegal activities and that they should stop. These stages also see the ISP provide the user with some charming educational materials extolling the merits of buying things lawfully. In stages three and four the user is shown some form of alert that once again reminds the user that illegal activity is being conducted from their computer.

This alert must be accepted before the user can access the internet. Stage five lets the ISP start using measures such as throttling, which slow down an internet user’s connection speed, in order to try and encourage them to stop downloading things illegally. What actually happens in stage six remains

uncertain, but can vary from the ISP suspending the user’s internet access to the copyright holder taking legal action against the copyright infringer.

The repercussions this will have for internet users are simultaneously little and large. The fact that it’s a six stage warning program is quite lenient and the program is much more appealing than being randomly sent a letter from the copyright holder telling you that you can possibly expect further legal action. Copyright holders know that the majority of internet users won’t be scared off piracy by the possibility of a lawsuit that will never come, but might be persuaded to think again when

they’ve actually been caught.

The alerts, although sent by the ISP, are issued based solely on allegations made by the copyright holders that aren't independently verified. Users are only given ten days to challenge, and only in one of six ways. Furthermore challenging the alerts costs $35 for administrative fees, although these are refunded if you are proven correct.

Ultimately, for an agreement penned by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, this agreement is on the whole surprisingly lenient. With the recent defeat of SOPA and PIPA, the RIAA and

MPAA are no doubt looking for ways to enforce better anti-piracy measures without having to risk potential defeat in congress. The problem this agreement creates is that it allows copyright holders to request throttling and other measures be used against internet users based on nothing more than allegations. Just as SOPA and PIPA were defeated by mass action, drawing attention to this recent anti-piracy agreement might stop it, especially if users threaten en masse to move to another internet service provider if their current ISP signs up to the program.

One thing is certain – this argument is definitely one to watch.

Falling in love with Tumblr

Alasdair MacLeod takes a Tumbl through the internet's less serious side

EXAM SEASON means two things for students - revision and procrastination. The first is mostly up to you, but Single-Serving Tumblrs (SSTs) provide the second in plenty. An SST is a Tumblr microblog dedicated to variations on a strict and rarely serious theme. Some are photo collections, like the plenitude of ‘planking’ Tumblrs.

Some are wonderful works of short fiction, like ‘Yelping With Cormac [McCarthy]’. Some are needlessly elaborate exercises in photoshopping, like manipulating pictures of celebrities to have ‘One Tiny Hand’.

These sites are simultaneously testament to the sheer mind-numbing

3. ‘Out of Context Science’ features quotes pulled from various academic publications, mercilessly and hilariously out of context.

creativity of the online community, and equally to its tendency to resort to mindlessly following trends. While each individual entry in an SST is pure copycat derivativery, each individual Tumblr often represents something

brand new, exciting and original. In no particular order, here are five of the best.

1. ‘Maddie on Things’ follows a Coonhound on her adorable quest to stand on increasingly precarious things.

4. ‘People Talking on Bananas’ is an homage to the simple pleasure of holding a banana to your ear and - even if only for a passing moment - pretending it’s a mobile telephone. Genius.

2. Psychedelic, spaceborne felines in stark contrast with starry backgrounds.

Staring at the pulsating field of .gifs on ‘Omg Cats in Space’ is like being forcefed skittles through your eyes.

5. The internet has always had a thing for cats. In ‘CashCats.biz’, these cats are perched haughtily on extraordinary amounts of money and, occasionally, firearms.

Send us your stories on fashion, beauty and health lifestyle.studentnewspaper@gmail.com

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Spring fling

JOANNA LISIOVEC

Lifestyle 17

BE DARING: Don't be afraid to clash your colours and prints SITTING AT my desk staring at the blank document that is my midterm while enjoying colouring in the borderline traumatising revision time-

EXAMINER

Betsy Chadbourn reveals the trends that can help us pass our exams in style this Spring

table, I suddenly realised its potential to ruin my life for the next month. At this point, I shoved it under my bed, attempting to pretend that exams

are not going to happen. And then I decided that I was genuinely going to pretend that exams are not going to happen because discussing Spring fashion would be a lot more interesting, stimulating, relevant, joyous, ‘insert positive adjective here’.

We might as well claw our way through the stress-eating, panic attacks, black ink leakages all over the lining of our favourite bag (true story) and consistently infuriating wobbly desks, in style – am I right?

Banish these nightmarish montages from your mind and think: Spring.

Ice-cream pastels in bitter lemon, cool mint and candyfloss pink; crisp white dresses in elegant structure or girlish lace; sporty separates with a chic edge in scuba silhouettes; and boho paisley, reminiscent of picnic days in the sun on Arthur’s Seat. Clash your florals, don your pyjamas in the daytime and play safari in animal prints. There is no trend that doesn’t scream WOW this season.

Although I become almost comatose with excitement at the thought of any of the current fashions, it's probably best to dial down my enthusiasm and cover just a couple of my favourites.

Let’s talk pastels and brights. Now when I say pastels, this is not an excuse to stroll around George Square in horrendous peach and lilac shades that belong in a bridesmaid boutique.

This season, it’s sharp. Frosted colours that pop with a grown-up, flirtatious feel. Get your inspiration from Luca’s

ice-cream cabinet in Morningside: coral, sherbet and Parma violet. As for brights – anything goes, but neon and block colours are certainly preferable. The golden rule for this endless supply of rainbow brilliance? Clash.

Clash like you’ve never clashed before, you want to look like a walking advert for Baskin & Robbins.

My picks: coloured skinnies or chinos, a slubby crochet knit and a pair of ‘flatforms’. The Student recommends: Primark Skinny Chinos (in neon coral, £12.00), ASOS VENICE Lace Up flatforms (in multi, £30.00), New Look Twisted Yarn Jumper (in pastel pink, £22.99) and River Island Skinny Jeans (in mint green, £20.00) to look candy-corn chic this April.

Now, it wouldn’t be Spring without prints galore. Florals are always a crowd-pleaser, but there’s little reason to crack out the old, tiresome sundress. Oh no. If you’re going to go floral, make your roses bold, your peonies plastic and your arboretum tantalisingly tropical. As seen at Christopher Kane and Mary Katrantzou, you should be customising with embellishments or mixing and matching your items for a bouquet to boast about.

I’m concentrating on animal print this season. Whether it’s giant leopard spots in the form of a rainbow bright t-shirt dress or figure-hugging snakeskin leggings, you want to channel safari with a playful twist. See DSquared2 and Burberry Prorsum for inspiration.

What were you inking?

My picks: try an animal print chiffon tee, some clashing heeled ankle boots, a crisp floral suit or a statement floral headband. The Student recommends: ASOS Woven T-Shirt with Ombre Animal Stripe (in multi, £30.00), eBay ‘Shoe Guru’ Ladies Faux Fur Animal Print Boots (in leopard, £19.99), Her Curious Nature Deep Velvet Flower Ribbon (in multi, £28.00) and ASOS Floral Blazer and Cropped Trousers (in multi, £105.00 for both) to play printed princess around town.

I know it’s cruel to do this to myself, and to you, too, but I had to include a wish list item that I discovered this week whilst trawling through endless internet boutiques. In fact, I screamed out loud when I saw them – my flatmates are witnesses. Jeffrey Campbell’s LITA Heeled Ankle Boots in silver glitter leather (RRP: £150 at Zalando), deserve a medal for their beauty. Pricey (I did warn you), but totally worth it to add a little Gatsby-esque glamour to the WhyNot dance floor.

Whether you’re hunched over a pile of books in the library (socialising in the library cafe), pulling out your hair in front of an essay (watching New Girl the moment it’s aired) or planning your revision timetable (decorating a sheet of paper with glitter and felt tip), you can feel like there’s a silver-lining as you kick up your pastel heels and head to Prince’s Street with this month’s finance. Yes, Spring is finally here.

The tall tales of tattoos: Alistair Grant explores the dangers of tattooing while under the influence frequent inspections required here by law are somewhat less eagerly upheld.

Earlier this year, an Australian tourist was reported to have contracted HIV after getting a tattoo on the popular island of Bali, Indonesia. Ensuring the equipment is clean and new is vital and the needle should come from an unopened packet.

More serious health risks aside, there is the crucial, party-pooping risk of regret. Many people simply seem to forget the permanence of tattoos. If you change your mind, getting rid of it requires expensive and painful procedures like laser removal with risks of scarring. Prices range from £50 - £300 a session and with multiple sessions required that amounts to a sizeable chunk of your student loan.

But holiday tattoos don’t always have to lead to regret. James Copeland, a third year physics student at Edinburgh University, has had no second thoughts over his holiday-ink.

He told The Student, “Although admittedly under the influence when I got my tattoo, over a year later I have not yet regretted it. It was an idea I’d had for a couple of years, a few beers

and a bit of adrenaline spurred me on to make it happen.”

Fourth year psychology student Jessica Donnelly voiced a similar opinion, “I still really like my tattoo and can’t see myself regretting it in the future because the way I see it, every time I look at it I’ll just think about having an amazing time in Thailand when I was 21.”

So is it all just a bit of fun? I feel marginally qualified to write about this issue as a victim of the impulsive holiday tattoo myself. To be fair, the far-flung location was London – hardly the same as a tribal tat from Indonesia or a pills-and-thrills memento of Ibiza- but the point still stands. I have a smiley-face on my right arse cheek that will be with me for life (it seemed like a great idea at the time). At least it’s something to tell the kids.

While I don’t regret my decision as such due to the privacy of its location (although bringing comedy into the bedroom apparently isn’t generally a great idea), I definitely sympathise with those who get more visible spur of the moment tattoos and then live to regret them in the future.

If you get a tattoo this summer, the best advice I can give is to make sure you genuinely want what you are getting and – importantly – consider about how you might feel towards it in the future. Who you are now isn’t necessarily who you will be in ten years. Life may be too short to have

any major regrets over a tattoo chosen in your late youth, but, at the same time, a bit of thought never does any harm. It sounds cheesy, but it really does boil down to staying safe, having fun and not getting anything too outrageous.

NEEDLES AND PAINT: Not your average souvenir

INKAH

WITH DEADLINES zooming past and exams looming ominously on the horizon, the end of term can be a stressful, dreary time. For many students, only one thing keeps them going: summer plans and the thought of future holidays in foreign, sunscorched areas of the globe far, far away from the bloody library. And whether it’s a lad’s holiday to Shagaluf or a genteel trot around medieval Europe, many young people will be tempted to embody the good memories with an everlasting souvenir - the ubiquitous holiday tattoo.

Tattoos have become increasingly popular in recent years and the holiday or backpacking trip is seen by many students as the perfect opportunity to justify the expenditure and ensure the tattoo remains ‘meaningful’ for life.

However, important things should be considered before going under the needle.

Firstly, there are the obvious health concerns: while instances of HIV and Hepatitis B being spread in tattoo parlours through unclean or reused equipment may be rare in the UK, in many countries further afield, the stringent hygiene rules and

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Contact: editors.studentnewspaper@gmail.com

18 Crossword & Horoscopes

S E P

O

Oliver ninnis

C S O OR

H Herring Out.

As this is the last week in which we will be predicting the future for you, we would like to make the humble prediction that THE WORLD WILL END ON 3 APRIL! So wrap up warm and don't tell Barry. Goodbye from the Herring Boys. And that's how for now.

Aries

In the next 28 days, it will be your birthday – that’s quality psychic material right there.

Taurus

You discover you are the star of a sex tape Jupiter filmed on a grainy Nokia 3310 that doesn’t flatter your complexion or your external genitalia. You post a video on Youtube explaining to your close family how you and your long-term emotional partner, who none of them have ever met, got shit faced and had sex in the Big Cheese toilets and never saw each other again.

Gemini

Midway through formulating your post-grad plans, you are visited on a stormy night by a girl you bedded in Freshers Week. She slaps you, spits on your external genitalia and leaves you with your now three-year-old son, Cuthbert. There goes the gap yah.

Cancer

This week you decide to make The Meadows the new Ibiza. You strut out wearing nothing but body glitter (to conceal your external genitalia). This backfires, however, as you blind three people and don’t even get a tan.

Leo

Although in previous weeks Venus has not been on your side, as Easter approaches, she will shave her legs and crawl back to your intergalactic bonquette. Greet her with a wink and a creepy lick of your lips. “Hello,” she will say. “What a conventional start,” you will think. She will then begin to lactate. Don’t panic - this is all part of being Venus. Politely leave the bonquette and busy yourself by plumping the cushions, awaiting the arrival of the infinitely less intimidating Pluto.

Virgo

Someone tells you your voice sounds like a whispering elm after dark. You don’t have a fucking clue what they’re on about.

Libra

After years of waiting, you finally hear back from Cilla Black. Her letter is full of subtle innuendo: “penetrate my studio” she writes, “give my late 80s/ early 90s game a bash” and “come all over Blind Date”. You’ve always wanted to be on Blind Date, but her letter disgusts you. You politely decline.

Scorpio

EUSA election results are out and to your disappointment, your first attempt to ascend the greasy pole of politics has failed. Fear not, because Jupiter is big this week and, inspired by the ‘Bradford Spring,’ you decide the best way to get your career back on track is to crawl around on the floor dressed as a cat on reality TV. Or you could try for Rector of the University.

Sagittarius

This week you lose your title of 17th Best Amateur Rodeo and Pastry Chef champion in Leith to a small child hailed as the next Best Amateur Rodeo and Pastry Chef champion since the last Best Amateur Rodeo and Pastry Chef champion.

Capricorn

Mars adles your dentist’s brain this week and instead of giving you a root canal gives you a Suez canal, which is a crisis. While he is jubilant that this has opened up The Red Sea and Indian Ocean to European penetration, you find it really fucking hurts.

Aquarius

Orion has an intergalactic mare this week as a star on his belt burns out.

His trousers fall down revealing, well, nothing but a dark black void, which is embarrassing to say the least.

Pisces

When you tell George IV you think the monarchy is dead and needs a fitty commoner to wangle her way into the Royal Family to rekindle interest, he starts to cry. “Build a bridge (get over it),” you say. He takes you extremely literally.

Dual Crossword No. 13

CRYPTIC CLUES

For solutions to this week's puzzle see page 6.

Across

1 Short barrister (5) 4 Break in with prince and hold aquatic mammal (7) 8 Hara-kiri record quietly retained by UK and US, on reflection (7) 9 Prophetic card ? Thank you, that’s nonsense ! (5) 10 The other Milan team, free to run wild and cause obstruction (9) 12 Fishy guide, feminine and fashionable (3) 13 Marge and salesmen mingle, and become a little rash (6, 7) 16 Charlie gets promotion, the blackguard (3) 17 Pedlars are badly stuck in Hertfordshire, losing time (9) 19 African tribal group veto workers’ association (5) 20 One volunteers to arrest backtracking European (7) 22 Tess takes a long time to find a tiny part of the picture (7) 23 Perk secured by some in Wessex Transport (5)

Down

1 Kissing playfully in public transport on grass (7) 2 Popular site for computer data (5) 3 Ulf ‘s new disposition - or indisposition (3) 4 US-Mexican head in difficulties, but I resolve everything dramatically (4, 2, 7) 5 Early protestants left with Pendragon’s answer (9) 6 Wild laugh (lacking gravity) about jolly fellow, may be wounding …. (7) 7 …. either way it’s unacceptable (3, 2) 11 Wayside inn has anchorage facility - for free ? (9) 14 In the end grain stored incorrectly brings rats (and such) (7) 15 A girl almost embraces another - and another (7) 16 Young buck relies on computer technology - and length (5) 18 Order cited in error (5) 21 Brilliant account on the base of natural logarithms (3)

1

A bit about cryptic clues

IN previous articles, we touched on when crosswords first appeared, why Cryptic clues developed and some of the clue types (Kebabs, Anagrams, Double definitions, Contained clues and Cryptic Definitions).

To compensate for having to supply all that extra information as well as a definition, compilers tend to devise clues where the surface or superficial meaning (“overt sense”) disguises the underlying structure.

Solvers soon learn to ignore all that and look for the Definition, usually at the start or the end of the clue.

(Beware of word pairs such as ‘Tax return’. The definition may well be ‘Tax’ on its own.)

3

4

5

8

13

16

6

7

9

10

11

12

14

15

17

19

18

20

22

21

23

CONCISE CLUES (same answers) Across 1 Short (5) 4 Swimming mammal (7) 8 Hara-kiri (7) 9 Fortune teller’s card (5) 10 Meddle (9) 12 Flipper (3) 13 Rubella (6, 7) 16 Rotter (3) 17 Pedlars (9) 19 African tribal group (5) 20 Romance language (7) 22 Mosaic tile (7) 23 Wide, No Ball etc (5)

Solutions to Dual Crossword No. 12 Across 1 HINDRANCE hind + ran + CE 6 HUM 2 definitions 8 INSIGHT in sight / insight 9 RODIN R (take) + Odin 10 TIREE contained strai t I re-entered 12 NOGGINS (egg) Nog + gins 13 CAMPANOLOGIST (a loon)* between camp and gist 15 TRAILER retrial* 17 SLOTH S (ilvio) + loth 19 PLANT 2 definitions 20 INFIDEL in + Fidel (Castro)

2

BY PICUS

Down 1 Kissing (7) 2 Data provided (5) 3 A common disease (3) 4 Theatrical god appearing in the last Act (4, 2, 7) 5 Protestants (9) 6 Toxic, damaging (7) 7 In poor taste (3, 2) 11 Wayside inn (9) 14 Rats, squirrels etc (7) 15 She didn’t obey her (OT) elders (7) 16 Old measure of length (5) 18 Decree (5) 21 Fantastic ! (3)

The Chambers Dictionary (2008) is recommended Comments, questions, complaints etc can reach the compiler via the editors

22 WOE contained Allow Oedipus 23 EXECUTRIX (River) Exe+ “ cue tricks ” Down 1 HEIST HE + is + (eigh) T 2 NOSTRUM (most run)* 3 RAG 2 definitions 4 NOT ON YOUR LIFE (Yule on tin roof )* 5 EGREGIOUS eggers* round IOU 6 HADJI jihad*

Abbreviations are very common.

There are hundreds of them.

Experientia docent.

Where to go for suitable cryptic puzzles? The Observer’s Everyman puzzle would be ideal, but has no solutions. The Telegraph and Independent have straightforward, orthodox clues.

The Times is more difficult, some unorthodox clues. The Guardian has too many unorthodox clues for beginners.

The Scotsman and The Herald (alas) have too many clues that are just plain bad, rather than unorthodox - so not recommended.

The Sun and The Star both have Dual Crosswords (very good for beginners), but the standard of clue is a bit patchy.

7 MINDSET mind (Scots) + set 11 EPAULETTE E + Paulette ‘sat’ = sitting (P Goddard 1905 - 90) 13 CATS-PAW 2 definitions 14 IN ORDER in + order (religious) 16 ADAGE age after AD 18 HELIX contained Irish elixir 21 FOU fou (l)

* = anagram of the preceding material

“ …. “ the word in the clue and the word in the answer are homophones

All these papers should have Crossword Archives on their websites.

A few final tips:Don’t expect to complete your first puzzle.

Do know when to stop for the day.

But then come back the next day and re-examine unsolved clues (with the answers).

Use a good dictionary.

Collins is probably best to begin with.

Chambers later on.

And most important of all Crosswords are meant to be fun.

rEVIEW rEVIEW

COMMISSION #24: sarah boulton and luke healey

The Foundation for Ararinological Research is a collaborative project by Sarah Boulton, a fourth-year Intermedia student at Edinburgh College of Art, whose sound pieces are dedicated to revealing the marvellous within the everyday; and Luke Healey, an Art History MSc student at the University of Edinburgh, who has a particular research interest in time and the lived moment. In The Foundation for Ararinological Research, they have assigned themselves the role of ‘interns’ in a research organisation dedicated to a discipline of their own invention. For more information and to contribute to the project, visit ararinology.tumblr.com

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

Tuesday April 32012 studentnewspaper.org

HOLLY JAMESON

20Culture 1

And the livin’ is easy

A host of writers give you more than one good reason to stay in Edinburgh this summer t’s massive, it’s mad, it’s more performance than you can handle; that’s right, it’s the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In August, Edinburgh is filled with tourists, performers, journalists and everything in between. Every University building becomes multiple spaces for comedy, theatre or often something weirder; every back space of your favourite pubs will host some free late night improv. Oh and there is a giant purple cow in Bristo Square, did I forget to mention that? The world’s largest arts festival descends on Edinburgh in a month of fun and forgotten nights. Beg, steal or borrow a place to sleep for at least a week to grab a slice of the drama.

Thom Louis 3 - 27 August Various locations

R

unning alongside the festivities throughout the summer, the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) showcases some of the best in international cinema. In recent years it has noticeably been host to premieres of The Hurt Locker, Man on Wire and Knocked Up. If that marvellously eclectic mix of movies hasn’t motivated you into buying tickets immediately, then some of this year’s entries should. The EIFF is hosting four newly commissioned 2012 Olympic Films, including films from Mike Leigh and Lynne Ramsey, director of We Need to Talk About Kevin. There is truly something for everyone.

Dan Scott Lintott 20 July - 1 June Various locations

P

enetrate the underside of Edinburgh and you may come across something a little more stimulating than your average family-friendly summer festival. The Festival of Erotic Arts, completely “sleaze-free” and “sex-positive”, straddles the city centre throughout June and should have something to tickle just about anyone’s pickle. The erotic arts are as flexible as their practitioners and range from poetry and spoken word to kinky burlesque and, yes, even live

ALISON TURNBULL & JAMES CUMMING Talbot Rice Gallery 'til 5 May



T

he current exhibition at the Talbot Rice Gallery features the work of two Scottish painters, James Cumming and Alison Turnbull. Turnbull’s exhibit is a selection of old and new works, inspired by pre-existing media. The main gallery space features work derived from star charts, including observatory and architectural lighthouse plans. As

performance. Those of the inclination can indulge in workshops or hear talks from sex bloggers and a shady invite-only “intimate clubbing” night promises to end the weekend with a bang.

Jenni Ajderian 22 - 24 June Various locations

W

ith a growing resurgence of drawing amongst contemporary artists, A Parliament of Lines will be an enlightening exhibition.

It showcases 15 contemporary Scottish artists who use drawing as a primary component in their practice. From the beautifully surreal drawings of Charles Avery to the photo-realistic works of Paul Chiappe, there is a great range in styles that comply with major themes: the body, architecture and landscape, minimal abstraction, reproduction and sculptural investigation. There is a great wealth of Scottish talent on show and more exhibitions like this will hopefully dispel the myth that contemporary artists ‘can’t draw’.

City Art Centre 5 May - 8 July Free

Ed Compson

“

Something to tickle just about anyone's pickle."

T

his summer provides a rare opportunity to see a collection of the works of Philip Guston. A painter originally renowned for his abstract expressionism, this exhibition showcases his later return to representational art with a strong cartoonish feel. Those who prefer his abstract works may not enjoy these cartoons, with their strong graphic design character, but expect the weird and wonderful and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Fran Allain 25 July - 7 Oct Inverleith House Free

the viewer moves through the exhibition, the complex array of abstract forms creates a paradoxical sense of order, an omnipresent feature in all of Turnbull’s pieces.

“

There are harmonious parallels between the two artists and a natural progressive feel as one walks around the gallery space; no piece outshines the next."

The highlight of the Turnbull experience is the site-specific instal-

EXTREME CROWD SURFING: The crowds soak up the atmosphere at the Edinburgh Fringe

“

Fancy a nibble to tantalise your tastebuds?"

F

ancy a nibble to tantalise yourtaste-buds this summer? Well, the Taste festival is here for you.

Gathering the restaurants from the Edinburgh area and putting them in one enclosure in the Meadows is a recipe for success, as well as some gratuitously good grub. Alongside the morsels on sale are exhibitors of the best of Scottish produce and enough drink to make your head spin, literally, if you’re feeling decadent and have the cash to afford it. On that note, be careful what you spend; the onsite currency, the crown, is more expensive than you think it is and you could easily leave with a much lighter pocket, despite having a much fuller stomach.

Thom Louis 6 - 8 July The Meadows £14 (£12)

lation found in the Round Room, “Various-Coloured Snapdragon”. The piece finds parallel beauty between the shape of the room and the circular design painted on the wall.

What looks like a design derived from a map is in fact inspired by Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, which was produced in Edinburgh in 1814, adding a pleasant personal touch to the show. Colours on the wall are matched with Werner’s colour chart found in the book, which is unfortunately kept under a cloth to protect from light damage.

It would have been nice to see this better showcased, it being such a fundamental part of the work more generally. The book is displayed alongside



I

f March’s premature burst of summer cheer has interrupted your slow adjustment from the winter blues, then fear not; GOMA’s upcoming exhibition of Edvard Munch’s graphic works will take you straight back to the age of anxiety.

Celebrated as a painter, but less famously appreciated for his outstanding contribution to printmaking, this show exhibits versions of the Norwegian master's most lauded works including “The Scream”. It’s unlikely to be a stroll through the Meadows, but the subject matter of Munch’s work resonates with everyone who calls themselves human. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see his work in the UK and be put at malaise by the artist who sought to ‘dissect souls’ in his paintings.

Daisy Lafarge Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 7 April - 23 Sept £7 (£2) the mineral specimens it’s based on, as well as miniature painted circles of pigment matching up with the natural colours of the minerals.

“

The complex array of abstract forms creates a paradoxical sense of order."

James Cumming’s exhibition, although technically separate, creates an enjoyable continuation of the sense of order in abstract that is present in Turnbull’s work. The show is extremely diverse in its sense of style, illustrating the large time span that



TONY CAVANAGH

I

E

dinburgh International Festival exists “to provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit”, according to Sir John Falconer, one of its founders. This year, the lineup will include a world class selection of 11 plays, eight operas, 13 dance pieces and 51 concerts, as well as visual art exhibitions, talks and workshops. In honour of the Olympics, themes of peacefulness and sharing underpin the programme. The highlight is sure to be NVA’s Speed of Light, teams of endurance runners in light-emitting suits illuminating Arthur’s Seat every night of the festival: a free show for all.

Melissa Amy Geere 9 Aug - 2 Sept Various locations Edinburgh's a really exciting place to be in the summer, so don't simply move home once your exams are over. If you are in doubt, we ask you one simple question: can you really afford to miss The Erotic Arts Festival?

Cumming was artistically active.

Included are paintings from every decade of his career, as well as his intense sketchbooks and preliminary research materials. Cumming’s work resembles scientific forms, as seen in "Chromosomes (I)", in which abstraction is derived from nature.

The exhibition is curated very well. There are harmonious parallels between the two artists and a natural progressive feel as one walks around the gallery space; no piece outshines the next. However, the Round Room “Various-Coloured Snapdragon” installation is the star of the show and the number one piece to see.

Olivia Stoddart

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Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Culture 21

STAR RATING Lewd-icrously good Titillating Come hither and dither Amatuerly amatory Limp

This is the modern way

ROYGBIV

This week's cultural spectrum.

A

Lene Korseberg is wowed by the pick of the new crop at RSA's New Contemporaries Royal Scottish Academy 'til 11 April

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R

SA New Contemporaries is an annual exhibition that highlights Scotland’s finest emerging artists and architects. Set in the magnificent Royal Scottish Academy and consisting of works from 62 graduate students from all over the country, the exhibition aims to present the leading individuals working in contemporary art in Scotland.

THAT'S YOUR BREAKFAST RUINED: A video still from one of the many pieces from the RSA

RSA:NC is comprised of a wide variety of works including painting, sculpture, film making, photography, printmaking, architecture and installation. It is a massive undertaking and the artists live up to these high expectations in an impressive manner. From the moment you enter the first of the 12 RSA galleries, you are led through a labyrinth of magnificent and thought-provoking work. The extremely high level of technique is present in every piece.

The photos by Jonathon Cottrell and

Joanna Lyczko and Seila Susberg stood out from the other work. In very different ways, they manage to convey intense emotion, leaving the viewer both shaken and impressed. Secondly, Clare Flatley’s “The Black Gates” deserves praise for the way the majestic black sculpture plays with associations and emotions. In addition, the beauty of Eva Ullrich’s oil paintings and the lithographs by Daniel Cook leave no viewer untouched. Finally, Aelfred De Sigley cannot be lauded enough for his amazingly cool images.

ROSAS DE SANGRE Riddle's Court Run Ended

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S

et on a well-to-do ranch during the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1929, Rosas de Sangre focuses every drop of creative energy on evoking this period and setting in the hearts of the audience.

Dashing revolutionary Santiago de la Varga falls for Rosa, the passionate daughter of the wealthy Fuentes family. Unfortunately, he is betrothed to her older sister. Allowing tradition to win out, Santiago unhappily marries the uptight Maria and promptly departs off to

war, leaving a family with more repressed underlying tension than a mariachi’s guitar string. Thus the stage is set for an immersive evening of tragedy, melodrama and hearty ranch food.

The avant-garde aspects of the play were its strongest elements, as one would expect from experimental company Theatre Paradok. Most noteworthy was the way that each time the characters sat down to eat, matching food was served to the audience. Thus we not only saw and heard, but tasted the action on stage. Bitter revolutionary ideals were swallowed with bitter lemon; a family reunion was served up with hot chocolate, but the sweetness was ominously undercut by the

Not only are the photocopies beautifully made, but they also explore the concept of light in an original and insightful way.

“

In very different ways they manage to convey intense emotion."

For an exhibition consisting of such a large variety of works and techniques, kick of spicy chili. Helping the food go down, Latin jazz band Tequila Mocking-Bird contributed to the setting.

Their smouldering accompaniment went splendidly with the well executed Latino dance sequences, which left the audience in no doubt as to the true relations between characters.

Unfortunately, the production was lacking in fundamentals. When not dancing wildly together or indulging in passionate feasting, the cast had difficulty sustaining interest in the thoroughly unoriginal story. Every plot progression was predictable and the characters tended to fall into rather flat stereotypes. We have all seen the passionate lover, the idealistic revolu-

ROSE HENDRY

“

The first of the 12 RSA galleries, you are led through a labyrinth of magnificent and thought-provoking work."

it is interesting to see how the artists complement each other so well. In particular, I am impressed by how well the architectural works are incorporated into the exhibition. The artists have managed to convey beautiful and inspiring art, without losing the necessary focus on technique and detail.

This year’s RSA New Contemporaries is in all ways a magnificent exhibition. The viewer is left with nothing but optimism about the future of contemporary art in Scotland.

tionary, the stoic single mother and the loving mentor housemaid a hundred times before and they weren’t up to anything new here. In addition, some over-zealous puppeteering irritated and distracted the audience during key scenes.

Rosas de Sangre was an unimaginative play brought to life by imaginative flights of experimentation; every time the family sat down to dine together, the music, tastes and emotions came to the surface. In other words, the indulgent side-orders were done well, but the story’s bread and butter was neglected

.

Melissa Amy Geere

THE ART DOCTOR with Anna Feintuck

This week: The end of an era, free time and remembering there is always something worse I’m coming to the end of a project I’ve enjoyed a lot. Although it’s been quite a time commitment, I feel like I’m going to really miss it. What should I fill my life with once it’s done?

First of all, how wonderful to have enjoyed something so much. Most of the time, commitments at university seem to be all too easily perceived as a drag.

Make sure you remember it as positively as you’re speaking about it now. I probably don’t need to say that, as humans generally tend be nostalgic regardless of hardship, but allow me to reinforce it nonetheless with some charming prints.

I want you to take a look at a photo in the National Gallery’s online collection called “Three Young Men Horsing Around”(1870). The subjects’ lives would not have been as fun as they’re depicted

as being here. This age was noted for its industrialism, choking pollution, poverty and poor nutrition. Yet when nostalgia kicks in, it all becomes Kodak moments by boats.

I wonder if it’s emptiness you’re scared of, or change or a bit of both. I wouldn’t worry – I’m confident that you’ll find something to fill your time with. This seems to be the way of these things. You feel like you’ll miss it more than anything and then somehow, mysteriously, you’re just as busy as ever. Think of all the things you’ve neglected while you’ve been working on your project. Now you can finally do your laundry, talk to your friends, eat ice cream in the Meadows and maybe even go to see some art.

And even if you do have moments of feeling empty, I think it’s possible to embrace them. The work of Gerrit Rietveld, for example, shows that what we might think of as emptiness can actually equate

to clarity. No peripheral fuss, no intrusions, just what matters in the here and now. Tempting as it might be to fill your time up with meaningless activities, doing so really just equates to accumulating mental clutter. Have a look at Sir Eduardo Paolozzi’s studio in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. He might be thought of as a genius sculptor, but I know that I’d prefer my brain to look like Rietveld’s 1924 Schroeder House, one of the first domestic buildings to feature no ornamental decoration. Emptiness means that space exists for ideas to ferment. We mere mortals would lose any good thoughts in a moment in Paolozzi’s studio.

I’m graduating and, consequently, this will be the last Art Doctor. Thanks to anyone who has ever had a problem. I’ve quite possibly adapted and used it, whether or not

you e-mailed me. I would like to offer overdue apologies for the sometimes grotesque nature of the content of my so-called artistic prescriptions. Please do remember, however, that Goya’s “This is Worse” represents an eternal cure. Look at it. He’s always right.

JAMES ALBAN

Dear Art Doctor,

Long John semicolon

s this is the last issue of The Student I’ll be editing, I want to make a confession: I like sloppy editing. Or to be more exact, badly punctuated, incorrectly spelled and clumsy writing have a certain appeal for me.

My favourite author, Robert Louis Stevenson, had manuscripts that were notoriously infuriating to edit and he’s the perfect example of my enjoyment of imperfection. His editor ,Sidney Colvin, frequently complained in letters that Stevenson had a terrible weakness in orthography. He insisted on adhering to the i before e rule – “nieghbour,” “niether,” “Lieth” – and would often be plain inconsistent – “redcoats,” “red coats,” “red-coats”.

Do these examples look hideous to you? Do you feel like scoring them out and re-writing them? There’s something I enjoy about these deviations from standard English, if only because they show to some extent the workings of Stevenon’s mind; those errors he continued to make and remake.

On the other hand, they may not be errors at all. In Weir of Hermiston Adam Weir’s broad Scottish accent is emphasised with additional vowels, as in “caapital punishment,” being sentenced to be “haangit” or when such a suggestion is just plain “noansense.” Perhaps the inconsistencies in the word “redcoats” is a difference in pronunciation; who knows?

Stevenson tended to put semicolons and commas in apparently arbitrary positions; whenever he paused for thought. In Kidnapped, for example, Davie Balfour tells us:,“I was too glad to have stopped walking, to mind about a dirk.” If anything the comma confuses the sense; there is a pause before the idea is complete, with a jarring emphasis on the word “too”.

Nevertheless, you can imagine just the sort of cadences that went into the pronunciation of the sentence.

In a lot of the first editions of Stevenson’s works these errors were edited out, but to spell and punctuate according to the sound of a word or sentence is a radical and liberating act for a nineteenth-century author. Since Johnson’s dictionary standardised English orthography, there has been an opportunity to patronise those who write ‘incorrectly’. The more you deviate from the fixed norm the less power you have over what is said.

With spellings like “Lieth” and “nieghbour”, Stevenson points out the hypocrisy of our language with its extensive list of exceptions that prove the rules. It seems as though the array of odd English spellings and rules that need memorising are only in place to legitimate the power of those in control of language.

But maybe it’s not as serious as all that. Spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors can undermine standardised language if the ‘mistakes’ are pervasive enough in a text; but it’s also just quirkily pleasant to read Stevenson’s nonsensically punctuated sentences for the pleasure of their sounds and flows.

Editing is important, of course, but sometimes it is refreshing and funny to read something straight from the author’s fingertips. I guess I’m suggesting we’re all tyrants and elitists here at The Student. Thank goodness this is my last issue.

Michael Mackenzie

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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JOANNA LISOWIEC

1 Film

Sun, sand and sci-fi Robert Dickie looks ahead to the most anticipated releases of summer 2012

given for thinking it was summertime already. But the most anticipated films of the year have yet to be released. While we will have to wait until Christmas for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, the summer of 2012 has enough on offer to make sure you will want to spend at least a few days in a darkened room.

The biggest draws will be The Dark Knight Rises, the final instalment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and Prometheus. In the latter, Ridley Scott returns to the Alien universe, although precise details are being kept tightly under wraps.

The Dark Knight Rises is one of many comic book films coming out this summer. A list which also includes The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield, and all-star superhero film Avengers Assemble, which will build on an already established cast of characters.

It is virtually guaranteed that Nolan’s film will be a cut above the others; he has transformed Batman into the perfect vehicle to demonstrate his talent for visuals, action and storytelling. While Heath Ledger’s Joker will be sorely missed, Inception stars Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard have been added to the stellar cast, along with Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.

Alien is another one of cinema’s sacred cows and Scott will be under pressure to match the visceral quality of what remains the best sci-fi horror film ever made. It won’t do for Prometheus to be merely good, but reproducing the feel

BATMAN HAS A HARD LIFE: He puts up with a lot of bats**t. of something made over 30 years ago is a difficult task. Fans are already grumbling about studio interference and questioning whether it will be released in the form they and Scott would like, rather than being turned into something more family (read financially) friendly. However, the recent trailer looks intriguing - less industrial and more high tech than the original, but with the same sense of claustrophobic horror and events spiralling out of control. There may not be any Aliens with a capital A, but the crew of

Prometheus will have more than enough trouble on their hands.

Trouble of a very different kind can be found in another sci-fi revival. Men in Black III sees Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones return as Agents J and K, but, in a time-travelling twist, it looks like Josh Brolin will get his share of the action as a younger version of K. Judging by the trailer, he plays a straight-faced, hard-nosed Cold War type – K evidently didn’t lose his sense of humour over time.

The film’s success will depend on how

THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS

well it plays on the 1960s vibe, although the usual slapstick comedy, weird-looking (even for aliens) aliens and memory wiping gags are all back to keep fans of the series happy.

The summer isn’t just about blockbusters though, and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom looks set to be one of the low-key highlights. It will premiere as the opening film at Cannes in May, before being released in the UK later that month. The story follows two young lovers who run away from home and the

INTO THE ABYSS DIRECTED BY WERNER HERZOG 

DIRECTED BY PETER LORD 

n October 2001, 19-year-olds Michael Ikilled Perry and Jason Burkett shot and three people in order to steal a car.

BRISTOL BUSINESS

Wallace and Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit set an exceedingly high standard; it was a brave man who decided to direct Aardman’s next animation featurefilm. Peter Lord has unfortunately come up short of heightened expectations.

The meandering plot follows the adventures of ‘Pirate Captain’ and his motley crew. The captain is determined to win the much coveted prize of ‘pirate of the year’, but faces stiff competition from his (mostly) bearded fellows. However, it seems an irresistible opportunity to claim victory.

The problem is that, where most Aardman features cater successfully for both adults and children alike, this seems to only aim at entertaining the youngest audience members. There is a distinct lack of substance beneath the uproarious, absurd surface. Occasionally, a one-liner induces a chuckle from a weary parent, yet – perhaps rather tellingly – they seem so eager to escape by the end that they are leaving before the credits begin to roll. In fact, the film seems to struggle to induce much excitement or laughter at all, re-

MOVIE BLOG BUSTER

ith the beautiful weather and W stream of blockbusters coming out in recent weeks, you might be for-

AHOY: Perhaps Aardman should abandon ship with this franchise gardless of age. Throughout the screening the cinema seems dead and uninterested.

The stop-motion animation is as endearing as ever and occasionally the attention to little details, that usually make Aardman animations such a joy, shines through – for example, the rather imaginative use of London pub names in the background. Furthermore, the voice-acting is of as high a standard as one might expect from a cast boasting names such as Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Imelda Staunton and Lenny Henry. David Tenant’s role as a rather unfortunate Charles Darwin is also a

notable glimpse of positivity and source of humour.

Unfortunately, however, despite its flashy, boisterous exterior and occasional flickers of humour, Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! is a bit of a damp squib. The fact that the source material – a series of comic novels by Gideon Defoe – is, to say the least, extensive, is a rather depressing thought. One can only hope Aardman cut their losses and don’t waste any more time on this franchise.

Jonathan Drake Reviewed at Cineworld

Burkett was given a life sentence, whilst Perry was sent to death row. In this documentary, Werner Herzog interviews him eight days before his execution, as well as his victims’ families, and those who work in Texas's judicial system.

Into the Abyss: A tale of Death, A Tale of Life, is just that. As with much of Herzog’s work, it explores the darkness and mystery that characterises human life and the dreadful consequences that our actions can have. As one might guess from the subject matter, it is deeply disturbing at times. Herzog maintains an air of calm sincerity throughout, his distinctive voice asking these people – who are responsible for so much destruction - just what they make of their situation. It is likely you will find their answers lacking a sense of culpability, or even remorse: “I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Yet Herzog persists in questioning whether this justifies an eye for an eye.

One person, perhaps, provides the answer he is waiting for: a man who has killed approximately 120 people, on

pursuing search party made up of a local sheriff, concerned family members and a troop of boy scouts. Like all Anderson’s films, it has a strong cast, promises plenty of irreverent comedy and, if it lives up to its potential, might end up being the most charming film you will see all year.

Closer to home is Pixar’s latest offering, Brave, a medieval fairy tale adventure set in Scotland starring Kelly Macdonald, who has established herself as one the country’s leading actresses since her breakthrough role in Trainspotting.

Brave stars several Scottish favourites, including Billy Connolly and Robbie Coltrane, but it remains to be seen whether it can become one of Pixar’s big successes. The story looks fairly basic and some of the more obvious jokes might appeal more to an American audience than to those who have heard them all before. But it will be worth watching for Pixar’s rendition of the Scottish scenery, which should look incredible on the big screen.

The summer, lying beyond the mire of exams and dissertations, might seem a distant prospect, but there is one mustsee film out later this month that will certainly allow you to switch off for a few hours. The most baffling thing about Iron Sky – and there are many – is that it isn’t called Nazis from Space, which would have stripped all ambiguity from the title and surely drawn in the crowds.

A B-movie with a decent budget, it stars the legendary Udo Keir as Wolfgang Kortzfleisch, who leads a Nazi invasion from the dark side of the moon. Iron Sky has the potential to be the cult hit of the year and a perfect distraction from the more serious matters of life. behalf of the state of Texas. A former prison captain, who eventually came to be repulsed by what he was doing (and by quitting his job, lost his pension), talks in something that sounds like awe, about providing them with their last meals and administering the lethal injections.

Moved to tears at the thought of what he has done, he says simply, “Nobody has the right to kill someone.”Whilst the pro-death penalty argument seems to be based on it being a deterrent, it seems that its main consequence is creating more killers.

For those unfamiliar with Herzog, his level of non-judgment towards the prisoners could be enraging – for others, it may be commendable. The film is lacking in direction, with interviews that seem to be going nowhere taking up too much time. Herzog edited eight hours of footage down to 90 minutes, which makes this all the more baffling. Frankly, there are superior documentaries about the death penalty out there (like The Thin Blue Line (1988)); ones that don’t rely too much on the shock value of bloody crime scenes, or the director’s reputation.

As part of Herzog’s more extensive TV series on the death penalty, it might make better sense. On its own, the specificity of the case in question is over-stretched to be feature length, so that, worryingly, you may find yourself getting a little bored.

Kirsty Wareing

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Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Film 23

STAR RATING Black Swan Dirty Dancing Strictly BallroomStep UpHoney

STREETDANCE 2 DIRECTED BY MAX GIWA AND DANIA PASQUINI  struggling dancer pulls a group of A gifted misfits together to take on the reigning street dance crew, coming up

with the ‘never before seen’ idea to mix street dance with salsa and have your hero fall in love with his dance partner. Sound vaguely familiar? Yes, StreetDance 2 has reused the worn-out dance film storyline and has added… absolutely nothing. It’s in 3D, but that isn’t even worth the cost of the glasses.

The plotline neglects the poverty and struggle of street dancers, ignoring the history and culture most dance films at least touch on. Instead the two main characters spend the first ten minutes jetting around Europe, although neither of them appear to have a job.

Newcomer Sofia Boutella, a brilliant Latin dancer, steals the screen in some electric Latin scenes, but overall the acting falls short. George Sampson, who won our hearts in 2008’s Britain’s Got Talent, should definitely stick to dancing. He tries and fails to be the quirky sidekick, a Donkey to Falk Hentschel’s

Shrek, but his delivery is wooden and we barely see his famous moves. The main character, played by Hentschel, is incredibly annoying, fails to inspire his crew, let alone the audience, and just doesn’t have the dancing talent to star in a big screen dance movie. Plus, he lacks the handsome charm of previous dancemovie stars, like Antonio Banderas and Channing Tatum that could redeem him.

The makers of the two StreetDance films are clearly trying to get a share of the success seen by the Step Up franchise, but taking the bones of the Step Up storyline and nailing them to a wooden script with some half-rate actors is not going to light up cinema screens.

Dance films are the shining path for up-and-coming dance talents, taking pop-and-lockers into the eyes of the public, but StreetDance 2 does not give the back-up dancers enough credit by devoting too much screen time to the shoddy plotline that circles around Hentschel’s poor lead performance.

Street dance, like all styles of dance, is based on a culture and the distinct class of people who began it, but StreetDance 2 ignores this and does its title no credit at all.

Nina Seale Reviewed at Cineworld

BELOW ZERO DIRECTED BY JUSTIN THOMAS OSTENSEN  eatured as part of Scotland’s annual F international horror film festival, Dead by Dawn, Signe Olynyk’s psy-

chological thriller Below Zero is a breath of fresh air within the horror industry.

Based loosely (we hope) on Olynyk’s own experience, Below Zero is about Jack (Edward Furlong), a screenwriter with writer’s block and a looming deadline. In an effort to help him, his agent has the bright idea to lock Jack in a meat freezer in a disused slaughterhouse for five days until he has a script.

Olynyk herself spent five days physically locked inside a meat freezer to combat her paralysing writer’s block. In the rapidly dropping temperatures of the meat freezer, Jack comes up with the idea of a guy accidentally locked in a meat freezer with a serial killer. In other words, Below Zero is brilliant twisty story, within a story, within Olynyk’s real life story. It takes the audience on a hell of a ride as the two stories weave in and out of each other, making it difficult to tell

which is reality and which is fiction.

Below Zero is the horror industry’s answer to Inception.

In an industry where slasher flicks dominate the box office and what counts is the amount of blood and guts spilt by the end of the film, Below Zero is a brilliantly intelligent masterpiece that focuses more on the story than the number of ways in which you can kill off a character. With severed limbs turned into sausages, horror legend Michael Barryman hunting the protagonist down with a meat cleaver and all the stuff of nightmares thrown in, Below Zero is both an intelligent metafictional reflection on how horror films come to be without losing any of the gore and terror.

Turning a dingy, disused slaughterhouse into an interesting visual experience is no easy feat. With absolutely stunning cinematography that makes the setting as beautifully bleak and nightmarish as possible, one must really applaud cinematographer Norm Li. Wonderfully clever and downright terrifying, Below Zero is one film that will stay with its audience long after the credits have rolled.

Scoring at the cinema

Andrea Yew Reviewed at Filmhouse

ELEC-TRON-IC MUSIC: Daft Punk produced a very modern film score for TRON:Legacy. the days of silent films, music was Iated.nnecessarily obvious and exaggerNowadays, film scorers have the

difficult task of assisting the narrative, setting the scene and, of course, writing good music; all of which must go largely unheard by the audience, at least not consciously. Like the lighting or special effects, the music must be effective, but subtle.

The subconscious effect music has on us while watching a film is extraordinary. Would we squirm quite so much before we even set eyes on the shark in Jaws without the duuh duh...duuh duh?

Would the steady-cam shot in Atonement be quite so harsh without the soldiers’ chorus and string accompaniment? And wouldn’t Jack Sparrow’s... well, Jack Sparowness be somewhat weakened without his drunken cellos?

The fact is, music can set a mood with more accuracy and immediacy

than almost any other medium and film would be a very different thing without it. A good score should be able to fully immerse you into the world the filmmakers have created without making any sort of fuss about it. As composer Aaron Copland said, “I [get] the impression that music is like a small flame put under the screen to help warm it.”

With so many different styles of filmmaking, it stands to reason that there are various styles of film scores.

There’s the orchestral score, which started in the early days of sound cinema, with Max Steiner’s 1933 score to King Kong spearheading a new style of composing. The music was often bold, heroic and had a certain preference for strings – other instruments like woodwind and brass tended to obscure the voice too much – hence the classic ‘sweeping strings’ we associate with the Hollywood studio period. Many

FMTACCESS

Sarah Rundell explores film music's evolution from the silent era to the modern day

composers had an upbringing in the Romantic era of music (Max Steiner had Strauss as a godfather and was taught by both Brahms and Mahler), so many of the symphonic principles became paramount in film scores, namely the Wagnerian leitmotif – a musical theme that represented a certain character, place or object that would follow its on-screen counterpart’s development. This is a technique still used in orchestral film scores, though perhaps not so obviously, and can be useful in giving the audience subconscious information. For example in Alexandre Desplat’s score to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, “Lily’s Theme” – probably the main theme of the movie – actually uses the same notes as John Williams’s famous Hedwig’s Theme, thus connecting the characters of Snape, Lily and Harry. Desplat takes this a step further by turning the theme

into a kind of funeral march later on in the movie.

Many modern films use popular artists for their scores. Such as in the cases of Daft Punk (TRON: Legacy), Trent Reznor (The Social Network) and Jònsi (We Bought a Zoo), they can score the entire film or else write a contributing song for the soundtrack. The latter can be a risky move since a recognisable song can easily pull the audience out of the film and can also seem like a guest list of celebrity singers crow-barred in to give a film some extra glamour. It also runs the risk of being inconsistent if there are different styles and artists vying for attention. If you end up really listening to the music in a film, then the chances are that the film isn’t very good; either you’ve lost interest or the music it too overbearing, obvious and noticeable. It’s the reason lots of fantastic music is kept for the credits because it can’t have any place within the film itself.

Of course, the technique is often used very effectively. (500) Days of Summer and Kick Ass are examples of recent films with effective soundtracks compiled of popular songs that have been carefully chosen to match the scene at hand.

Some films use pre-existing classical scores; Alain Corneau’s Fear and Trembling has a score comprising of nothing but the music of J.S. Bach, which works surprisingly well against an office backdrop.

Film music is likely to change and adapt along with the films themselves, and it’s the mark of a good composer or film-maker to move with these changes.

Take John Williams, widely regarded as the king of film music, who recently turned 80 and whose last score, War Horse, is perfect. Although very different from his early work, it still has that classic Williams sound, just as the film itself is very Spielberg-esque yet still a long way from the likes of, say, Jaws.

Like Williams and Spielberg, music and film have shared a long and happy relationship that looks set to last.

Classic Cult ark, thrilling, highly stylish, D yet always perfectly shot, David Fincher’s impressive portfolio

of films never fails to disappoint.

Known for twisting tales and oftentwisted characters, he has directed three detective thrillers, but all of his films have a shadowy thread running through them. Even his instant remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo manages to enhance the macabre tone of the original, if that’s actually possible.

At the heart of Fincher’s films are fundamentally gripping and intense stories, which are done justice to every time by the direction and cast.

One of his first major successes was the 1995 crime thriller Se7en, featuring both Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as a dynamic detective duo.

A chilling Kevin Spacey brings to life a serial killer who commits gruesome murders in the style of each of the seven deadly sins. The horrifying crime scenes show Fincher’s willingness to use uncomfortable material to ask serious moral questions. The dark and dingy feel of the film culminates in a staggering and shocking twist by the end, which captures his mastery of storytelling.

The film-with-a-twist is a subtle creature that Fincher has managed to perfect in Se7en and in Fight Club.

Using excellent source material from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the film once again shows one of the director’s specialties. Starting the film with shots from its ending sets up the film somewhat enigmatically, but when the threads are finally woven together at the film’s denouement it gives you a breathtaking finale. Originally recieving a poor critical reception, the film’s intense look into consumerism and existential crisis has now developed a huge cult following; Edward Norton’s iconic interior monologue is quoted all over the blogs of cinephiles.

More recently, Fincher continued with the theme of detective thrillers about serial killers with Zodiac. A step up from Se7en, the film is an adaptation of the saga of a real serial killer who went by the name ‘The Zodiac Killer’. The killer was at his peak in the 1970s and would call in to newspapers and have them print a code that, if cracked, would reveal the details of his next crime. A cleverly twisted premise, Fincher’s eyes must have lit up when he discovered the story. The material is perfect for the psychological battle between a cartoonist at one of the papers, whose entire existence becomes consumed with the killer, and his codes.

To this day, the killer has never been apprehended, so his or her identity is still ambiguous, making the film all the more intense.

Taking a brief break from the shocking and unnerving mass-murderer genre in 2010, Fincher directed The Social Network, an adaptation of the inception of Facebook and the rivalries behind it. Showing his mastery of filmmaking, a divergence from his usual type of movie managed to expose an intimate and revealing, if a bit factually dubious, story of the success behind the world’s biggest social networking site. As with all his work, the film brings to life an already fascinating story, with a dash, as ever, of shades of darkness.

Dan Scott Lintott

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Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Live TINDERBOX ORCHESTRA Teviot Debating Hall 25 March

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L

ast summer, I was able to visit the lobby of the Casa da Musica in Porto, where rows of gleaming Macs sit at neatly arranged desks accompanied by sequencers, keyboards and all manner of musical gadgetry. The Centre regularly holds workshops and classes, free of charge, to bring any Portuguese who fancies themself up to speed with contemporary production technology and to allow them to then harness this knowledge in creating their own electronic compositions. I recall doubting whether such a thing could ever exist in Britain: not that we don’t have our own firmly established, and ceaselessly innovative, electronic music tradition, but it seems peculiar to imagine a major institution providing for it. Hope may exist, however – if the techno-utopia described above is your idea of hope – in

COMMUNITY YOUTH ORCHESTRA: Looped live electronics, experimental collaborative tracks and tightly-rhythmic instrumentals the Tinderbox Orchestra, who packed out Teviot Debating Hall in what was their first gig outside the festival circuit (besides the occasional flash mob).

This gig was the culmination of a ten-week long course aimed at getting young people (the Orchestra is open to players between the ages of 13 and 22) actively involved in producing contemporary music. The course is rooted in Edinburgh’s music scene, with tutors drawn from stalwart bands like Black Cat and Orkestra del Sol. So too does it reach out into scenes beyond the

capital – for this show, Tinderbox collaborated with London’s Anchorsong and Glasgow’s Conquering Animal Sound, both of whom also provided compelling sets of looped live electronics.

The sense of boundless possibility presented by the idea of a community youth orchestra working with more established acts on the experimental electronic circuit was dampened only by the fact that two seemed far too few a sample. The collaborative tracks were undoubtedly the richest, most

nuanced moments of the night. But the Orchestra itself is something of a many-headed beast, with all compositions penned in-house by a large team of tutors and players. If the collaborations were the subtlest part of the Orchestra’s set, then the track that was announced as an original work by the youngsters themselves was the most energetic. It evoked groups like North Sea Radio Orchestra and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, while retaining a sense of openness that went beyond the influence of both.

Openness was the keyword of the night, in fact: what Tinderbox’s nowfreeform, now-tightly-rhythmic instrumentals demonstrated more than anything was an unfettered sense of becoming, a sense that the frosty classical repertoires typically ascribed to large orchestral groups was being thawed out before our eyes in order to open up a whole range of new possibilities. In a musical culture that is obsessed with retro and revivalism, the Tinderbox Orchestra is dedicated to the future.

Luke Healey

Interview AFRIKAN BOY

I

was 14 when Jamal Edwards launched SB.TV with nothing more than a hand held camera and a YouTube account from his computer in West London. As a native of the high streets of Kilburn and the markets of Ladbroke Grove, Grime music was a soundtrack to my teens. If you trawl the videos on Edwards’s site long enough, you’ll come across some grainy images of my classmates spittin’ bars to a Blackberry behind the gym: fast, passionate rhythms in Boy Better Know t-shirts. It was a prerequisite that all of our brick-like, prototype MP3 phones were jammed with Wiley, Dizzee and JME, and even more so that your ring tone (if you really wanted to show how cool you were) would be the track that Afrikan Boy must be sick of – “One Day I Went To Lidl”. On Thursday at the Caves, No Globe are hosting the man himself and just to get you excited, here is a quick interview: What are you up to now?

Today (Wednesday 26 March) is my birthday, so I’m at home right now typing this then I’m going out for dinner. I’m 23! Woop!

What is happening in the world of Afrikan Boy? Next month I’ve got brand new singles coming out, along with live shows and new dance moves – lol. There is a lot happening with me and my team at the moment.

How do you think the depiction of African music in the British media can be problematic?

The problems come from whoever writes the article. The negative or stereotypical reports are obviously unhelpful to the way the genre wants to be perceived, but at the moment I’m only seeing good things about African music.

Do you still have strong connections to the grime scene?

Of course – Grime is London, so I see grime artists everywhere I go. There is still a big connection between me and the scene, and I’m always going to feel a part of it regardless.

How has your music changed across your career and what has influenced this?

I started off as a very typical grime artist, particularly if you listen to my underground hits, like Lidl and Lagos. Over time I’ve continued to develop and I’m now able to create music in other genres and at tempos other than 140bpm.

What do you think about the label ‘world music’?

To be honest, I don’t have a problem with it. I believe that I make music for the world to listen to, so I don’t care if someone labels my afro grime track as world music – just anything but country. (I’m joking...)

What music did you listen to as a kid?

African music and grime! The Nigerian legends, like Fela Kuti and Shina Peters. In London I listened to a lot of grime on the pirate stations, which became the soundtrack to my childhood.

What music are you listening to at the moment?

I’m still listenin to Fela Kuti, but also artists like Drake, Wiz Kid and Dbanj. At the moment it’s very much about Afro beats, with a dash of hiphop for me, and obviously still grime.

What are your plans, musically, for the future?

Loads more visuals, mixtapes and to give you guys another album by the end of the year!

Alice Randal

REPPIN' THE CROSS-ATLANTIC GRIME : Purchase your No Globe tickets in advance for reduced rates

Singles

SILVERSUN PICKUPS

ALL THE YOUNG The Horizon WARNER BROS

M.I.A

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ll The Young’s fourth single is more confident, more individual and just better than their previous releases. It lulls you into a dreamlike state and then snaps you back to the real world like waves on the seashore with its soothing yet crashing guitar riffs.

Vocalist Ryan Dooley’s distinctive voice makes what can only be described as unremarkable lyrics feel interesting and heartfelt. All The Young don’t sound like carbon copy indie, although clearly heavily influenced by Oasis (but what’s wrong with deliciously nasal northern tones and wired yet wistful instrumentals?)

All The Young are developing a great sound, and though coming at you from far away, the song is catchy.

It is chilled out, but not sleepy; one for warm, grassy evenings.

Melissa Amy Geere

Bloody Mary DANGERBIRD

A

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fter the release of Carnavas, Silversun Pickups were hailed as the acolytes of fuzz-rock gods My Bloody Valentine. The tracks on Carnavas were ethereal gems, whose mantle of fuzzy, distorted sound, managed not to mute, but to highlight the band’s pop aesthetics. But with their second album Swoon and “Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings)”, the first single off their third album, their sound is starting to age pretty quickly.

“Bloody Mary” doesn’t have the same inspired punch as “Melatonin” and “Little Lover’s So Polite”. It is just drenched in guitar reverb and haunting atmospherics, rather than thoughtfully layered. Some critics consider My Bloody Valentine’s seminal work, Loveless, a kind of one-off spectacle—a flash in the pan—and it’s starting to look as if Carnavas might be a little something of the same.

Taylor Coe

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Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Music 25

STAR RATING Blur Gorillaz The Good, the Bad & the Queen Rocket Juice & the MoonOasis

Albums BLOOD RED SHOES In Time to Voices V2

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rom the initial heavily reverbed guitar and almost whispery vocals of “In Time to Voices”, the eponymous and opening track of the Brighton duo’s third album, the comparisons at first seem obvious. “Wow, don’t they just rip off the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?” Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Although this is a rather bland beginning to a stellar album, the musical palate of Blood Red Shoes goes much

GRAHAM COXON A+E PARLOPHONE

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s well as being probably the best English guitarist alive today and reuniting his old gang Blur for some massive shows this summer, Graham Coxon has come back with the latest instalment of his solo career. Having traversed mod-punk and acoustic folk (on 2009’s masterpiece The Spinning Top), A+E sees Coxon return to the genre that defined his work on later Blur albums and on early solo releases.

From the album cover shot of a pair of bloody knees to song titles that pun Pavement's, this album reestablishes Coxon as a master of lo-fi recording and songwriting.

deeper and heavier than the average cool-kid indie band. “Je Ne Perds” is a short and sweet blast of pure hardcorepunk, with the vocals akin to noiserock pioneers Atari Teenage Riot.

“Down Here in the Dark” is a scuzzy stomp-and-sing-along beast of a tune that manages to sound equally huge and stripped back at the same time.

Some feat, considering there’s only one guitar and one set of drums for most of these songs.

As refreshing as it is to hear a band unafraid to simply plug in and make some noise, Blood Red Shoes are not the proverbial one-trick pony. In a recent press release, the band claimed to throw out their own rulebook in an attempt to push themselves beyond the limitations of their live set-up. Such ambition shines on tracks like “Night

Light”, a gentle acoustic number whose refrain of “it’s the ghost you made of me” is made haunting by the drones of electric guitar and piano chords.

The real highlights though are “Cold” and “Lost Kids”. The former is the album’s lead single, starting with a wild tempest of drums, building up into a grungy pop-rock master-piece and finishing with just Laura-Mary Carter’s guitar and vocals seeing us out into the cold night. “Lost Kids” proves to be the album’s true anthem (don’t be surprised if this is their next single), with the chorus being one of the best you’ll hear all summer. The lines “I can’t find my way/Already buried anyway” are insanely catchy and strangely at odds with the band’s new sense of focus and ambition.

Kieran Johnson

Opening with “Advice”, a classic Coxon tribute to Billy Childish that packs the most insistent riff he’s deployed in years and abrasive vocals, the tone for the album is set pretty clearly. However, the next track is one of the most experimental, with “City Hall” including sparse, repeated lyrics, synthesised motorik drums and a seriously unsettling guitar solo. Lead single “What’ll It Take” expands upon the Neu!-isms of the previous track, while featuring some new-wave synths and a very catchy verse-chorus repeated structure, after which the album goes into much darker sounding territory.

“Running for Your Life” is the instant winner here, with some furious riffs and lyrics addressing gang violence. Coxon’s voice sounds more from Essex than it ever has. “The Truth” is a churning, atmospheric centrepiece to the album that sees Coxon’s guitar go

from grunge to art-rock while noise and effects envelop his voice. This song demonstrates Coxon’s most impressive command of the lo-fi sound. However, there are moments when the production gets the better of him: most notably on the penultimate “Knife In The Cast”, a song that doesn’t go far in six minutes and “...Pollinate”, which only takes off in the last 30 seconds with some light brass coming through behind the rumbling drums.

A+E is a very good record, revisiting and updating a sound Coxon has worked with for over a decade. With some snappy songwriting as well as more experimental tracks, Coxon has made some interesting choices on this record that keeps him one of the most important forces in British music.

Festival guide 2012 part three: Germany G

ermany. Land of lederhosen, Luther’s theses, Bavarian bratwurst, admiral attitudes to efficiency and enough music festivals to occupy an entire summer. Erase any misconceptions, the home of Kraftwerk, Bach and Boney M. has inexpensive and inspired line-ups.

ROCK AM RING/ ROCK AM PARK

well-kept secret, offering those willing to travel the first glimpse of bands set to erupt onto the British summertime festival scene. The Cure, Blink 182 and The Stone Roses aside, the line-up buzzes with crowd pleasers: Justice, Beirut and Mumford and Sons are all present and correct. Swing by either Hamburg or Bremen on the way for the full clout of culture.

MELT! FESTIVAL

1 - 3 June £145 Revolving a line-up much like our beloved Reading and Leeds Festival, at first glance it’s a hard-rock haven boasting the likes of Metallica, Motorhead and Linkin Park. However, Rock... is utterly all-encompassing: Tinie Tempah, A$AP Rocky, Chase & Status and Skrillex all bring serious electronic diversity. Move quickly, tickets will evaporate very soon.

HURRICANE 22-24 June £112

13-15 July £91 For enthusiasts of music, museums and machinery, there's Melt! Festival.

Ferropolis, a Gräfenhainichen graveyard of hulking skeletons of industrial machinery, hosts a plethora of eclectic music, including Bloc Party, Caribou, M83 and Lana Del Ray. Serious about all things mechanised, the minds at Melt! have even chartered a Euro Express train to hurtle festival-goers to the gig, complete with a DJ compartment. Perfect for those who prefer treading far beyond the beaten track.

Despite being established as a German festival, Hurricane remains a

Ger Ellis

Emmett Cruddas

ROCKET JUICE & THE MOON

Rocketjuice & The Moon HONEST JON'S

D

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amon Albarn is back with a new super group. This time teaming up with Flea of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Tony Allen on drums and joined by various guests including Erykah Badu, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and M.anifest. This is essentially a jam album with an afrofunk spin on it and while it is an interesting concept it falls flat for the majority of the album, which is a shame. The album seemed to have so much promise, especially considering Albarn’s 2002 album Mali Music and the eclectic selection of guests.

The album starts off well with “Hey, Shooter” and “Lolo”, which are the stand out tracks of the album, both featuring the distinctive sounds of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. After that the album seems to lose its way. Flea’s bass lines seem repetitive for too many tracks and the drumming also seems to be lacking. The album’s occasional lyrics are also poor for the most part, with

3 INCHES OF BLOOD Long Live Heavy Metal CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS

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anadian band 3 Inches of Blood have suffered in the past from the idea that they were somehow poking fun at heavy metal, an idea not helped by them being signed to the same label as the similarly accused The Darkness.

However, much like The Darkness, this has never actually been the case.

Instead they appear to be a band that revel in the history of heavy metal and genuinely love the music they make.

Long Live Heavy Metal is their latest

MELT: A festival on an island with lights. What's not to like?

Live INSPIRAL CARPETS 02 Academy, Glasgow 23 March

ANOTHER ONE?: Damon Albarn just loves super groups.

M.anifest’s lyrics especially lacking any kind of coherent statement and seem to be rather random phrases strung together. This is also disappointing when some lines do make you think such as, “In my time there’s been iPods and iPads/ In his time will there be saucers and flying cabs?” it seems to make this album a case of what could have been.

The lyrics do not get any better when

Albarn takes over the vocals. His big moment on the album, “Poison”, seems to overdo on the effects and lyrics seem too downbeat on what you would expect on a funk/jam album. While other worthy tracks like “Follow-Fashion” and “Chop Up” show the potential the group have, a lack of a strict hand at the controls means the album is ultimately disappointing.

Niall Carville

attempt to show this. Opening with “Metal Women”, it becomes clear that Long Live Heavy Metal is exactly what you would expect it to be: an old school heavy metal album that doffs its cap to a new wave of British heavy metal bands.

Even the slowed down instrumental “Chief and the Blade” and it’s folky acoustic sound makes it clear that 3 Inches of Blood subscribe to the Dungeons and Dragons style of heavy metal imagery. While “Look Out”, which is probably a tribute to the late Ronnie James Dio with its chorus of “He slayed the dragon each and every night, it was his right”, is a stomping effort that will have crowds across the world punching the air in delight. Justin Hagberg and

Shane Clark’s guitar work brings the thundering riffs you would expect and Cam Pipes's vocals have matured to the point where comparing him to the likes of Bruce Dickinson doesn’t seem such a stretch anymore. All of this comes together in the epic penultimate song “Worthless”, which will leave any heavy metal fan grinning.

While everyone around them seems to be attempting to push heavy metal in weird and wonderful directions, 3 Inches of Blood have stepped back and created one of the best old school albums in a long time. It’s over the top and ridiculous, but at the same time terrifically good fun, just like it should be.

Kieran Johnson

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I

n their first gig in Glasgow after almost a ten year break and three decades since their formation, Inspiral Carpets began their set with “Commercial Reign”. Holt’s rehearsed vocals sung through the rumble of mooing from the crowd. Not booing – mooing. Mooing to the point where the crowd became middle-aged cattle in a somewhat uncomfortable display of affection for the band. A continuously unexpected rupture of moos - as opposed to cheers - echoed off the walls in honour of the band’s first official album release, “Cow”.

By the time I had worked my way out of the middle-aged attempt at a mosh-pit of balding men, I could appreciate the retro value of the quintet, the synthetic keyboard notes of “This Is How It Feels” fully underway. “So this is how it feels to be lonely / This is how it feels to be small / This is how it feels when your word means nothing at all” resounded within the crowd, being disjointedly hummed long after the lights had come up after having a hypnotic effect on stage.

With a name like Clint Boon, it was no wonder Boon posed himself as the front-man of the band (his keyboard sided with beer instead of water). Holt’s original vocals were so experienced they seemed effortless. The synths were left rightly to the backing tracks to prove they really do have talent and can harmonise unsupported.

However, it must be said, the use of their own PowerPoint slides as backing videos – whilst creative and humorous with photos from their younger successes – took away from the overall psychedelic atmosphere of a colourful lights display and energetic performance (especially by the bassist) when Boon clumsily swapped shows.

“

The use of their own PowerPoint slides as backing videos took away from the overall psychedelic atmosphere" With new songs, “Changes” proving they still have true style amongst the old classics, Inspiral Carpets delivered an impressive performance. The 10pm finish was somewhat early, but maybe that just proves the nights of the 80s are gone, replaced with families and a few more grey hairs.

Katie Walker

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Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

STAR RATING A luxury cruise linerA yachtA small fishing vesselA rowing boatA door... WHICH THERE IS TOTALLY PLENTY OF ROOM ON, ROSE.

Sink or swim?

LOST

&

FOUND

Imogen Lloyd drowns under the mediocrity of Julian Fellowes's take on the famous ocean-based tragedy

BBC1 (1991) TV-links.com

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s television formats go, a show focussing on an aging Scottish actor travelling around Scotland fishing in any bit of water he can cast a rod into is hardly the most exciting, breathless concept to ever hit our screens.

Fishing is, after all, quite a stationary, solitary sport, involving a lot of standing around, talking about maggots and getting bitten by hordes of midges. As an idea on which to base an entire TV series, it is pretty questionable; you might as well film paint drying and have someone commentate on the progress of the blue paint over the yellow.

And yet, against all odds, Hooked on Scotland and its later STV incarnation Hooked on Scottish make for entertaining and endlessly charming television.

The series is fronted by the lovable Paul Young, perhaps best known these days through his role as Shug in comedy hit Still Game. He is an excellent host, enthusiastic and passionate about fishing, with a reassuring, gentle quality that seeps into the viewer like a nice cup of milky tea.

In fact, the whole show is reminiscent of a nice cup of milky tea, with its folksy good manners and gentle, ebbing pace. If you happened to switch channels from watching something like the X Factor and accidentally landed on Hooked on Scotland the sheer shock of the monumental change in pace would probably cause a life-threatening fit from which you would likely never recover.

Meandering all over Scotland, we are delicately nudged on a journey from Loch Ness to Speyside to the Western Isles, taking in the landscape with all the hurry your gran usually reserves for getting out her favourite chair. The landscape in question is frequently stunning, and fishing is the perfect base from which to appreciate it.

The characters we meet along the way, meanwhile, are delightfully wholesome, making for some of the most unthreatening, inoffensive television since Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin first started chucking sticks in a river and racing them.

All in all, Hooked on Scotland is classic family friendly, nostalgia inducing television. Interestingly, watching it now highlights the fact that Paul Young is actually a bit of a forward-thinking fashion icon too, rocking the elbow patch and country-garb look long before the privately educated hipsters wandered into the philosophy section of Edinburgh University Library. There is literally nothing to dislike here, but plenty to love and treasure.

Alistair Grant

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A

fter months of hysterical anticipation and reports of competitive series linking in the home counties, Julian Fellowes’s four part drama Titanic has arrived.

The images involved in creating such hype - black tie dress in tear stained life jackets - long for comparison with the original. By original, do not refer to the 1912 event, nor to Jean Negulesco’s 1953 film, but the 1997 blockbuster; the

himself our national ambassador for class dissection, this is something of a disappointment. The Downton template has been cut and pasted aboard; once again the plucky, posh, pretty feminist exchanges ominous winks with wholly unsuitable foreigners. Meanwhile, her slightly less foreign, but not altogether English mother strings herself so highly that her well meaning and unavoidably blue-blooded husband can do little but deliver each line through furrowed brows.

However, whilst Fellowes’s sudden rise to household name may not have granted him the ability to deliver anything other than the absurd or the tedious, it has meant his

ITV DRAMA BLUEPRINT: Throw on a costume. Insert rousing music and ye olde social issues.

MAD MEN

Sky Atlantic Tuesdays, 9pm



D

on Draper is happy. Spending more time in the bedroom than the boardroom, the season five premiere isn’t Don’s episode, but Megan’s. Yes, Don really did marry his secretary and promote her to copywriter, but the cliches stop there. There’s been enough witchy wives in this series that creator Matthew Weiner needed to do something different and Megan is not just Don’s next wife, but the next generation.

“

Yes, Don really did marry his secretary and promote her to copy-writer, but the cliches stop there."

Megan is 25 to Don’s 40 and throws him a surprise party for the big birthday, complete with a sexy cabaret number.

She confidently coos French hit “Zou Bisou Bisou” in front of the entire office in the most controversial scene- while Jessica Paré owns the number, it’s a

bit painful to watch given the context.

However, she successfully breaks up Don’s adulterous rut and for that we should be grateful.

Megan isn’t the only progressive woman. Joan is desperate to return to work after having her baby. Although anachronistic, this makes her more sympathetic than usual. Peggy continues to ball bust and date radical journalist Abe Drexler for a nice dose of counterculture. It’s surprising Betty makes no appearance in the unnecessarily long opener. Does she have a role in a society with working mothers and burlesque birthdays? We wouldn't mind. However, these women contrast with how backwards the men are.

Pete has moved to the suburbs and a pants size up. He starts a silly (and boring to watch) pissing contest for Rodger’s office, but the tiff shows how redundant Rodger is. Rodger has always been a jerk, but now it’s harder to forgive and accolades must be given to John Slattery for bravely casting off an affable character. Lane may be filling his role though. In an endearingly awkward phone sex scene, he shirks his stiff upper lip for a rare kinky side. It’s a welcome change, making Lane the most relatable he has ever been. The Civil Rights movement bookends the episode and racist remarks are heard from the mad

men in between. It has taken a while, but at last Weiner introduced it.

Although slow to start and full of moments that will make you blush, the premiere defies expectations for the best.

If you preferred brooding secrecy, it’s in the past. Racial tension and Megan’s

name now attracts quality. People are gagging to get involved with the man who gets them tickets to the White House. What saves Titanic from disaster is the characterisation brought to screen by the actors, rather than the script.

“

Where Cameron gave us 12A sex with that iconic steamy hand, Fellowes delivers a script that is determinedly asexual."

Sophie Winkelman brings the perennial charm of Big Suze to a 20s American actress and it works; she beats the men at poker whilst oozing gentle glamour. Celia Imrie’s expressions ignite by themselves, but when combined with brassy attire and a bolshy northern attitude, they are a joy to behold. Similarly, Toby Jones’s nervous scampering between his mysteriously furious wife and his upper class intentions are prickly and infectious.

Clever casting has rescued this from catastrophe, which was never much on the cards anyway because the iceberg was only on the screen for about three seconds and even then was TINY.

scarily large lingerie are the future.

There isn’t much advertising in the episode (consequently, Don’s boring), but “A Little Kiss” is an advert for the new direction of the show and we’re definitely buying it.

Tess Malone

MEGAN: She sure knows how to make the men go mad...

SKY

HOOKED ON SCOTLAND

ITV1 Sundays, 9pm

real deal. Unfortunately for ITV, the comparison does it no favours; it pits itself, somewhat pitifully, against the high grossing heavyweight and falls at each hurdle - perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the comparative budgets.

Where Cameron gave us 12A sex with that iconic steamy hand, Fellowes delivers a script that is determinedly asexual; the dialogue seemingly lifted from young love in a Jacqueline Wilson novel. Where Cameron gave us Irish raves below stairs and huge jewels on naked aristocracy above, the upstairs downstairs dynamic is barely visible in this anniversary edition. Given that Fellowes appears to have elected

ITV

BBC YOUTUBE

TITANIC

Tuesday April 3 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Sport fan? Write for us! sport@studentnewspaper.org

Sport 27

Edinburgh Rugby ready for Toulouse

MURRAYFIELD: Over 25,000 tickets have already been sold Heineken Cup Rugby Edinburgh vs Toulouse

Michael Bradley sees the match against Toulouse as a chance for Edinburgh’s Scotland internationals to show their quality.

Speaking after the victory over the Scarlets, Bradley said, “It’s an opportunity [for the internationalists] to say ‘we are very good players and we can take our club to the semi finals of a European competition.'"

Although Bradley rejected the notion of the game as a form of ‘redemption’ for the players, he emphasised that it was a chance to right a few wrongs.

“Scotland played better than the results show,” he added.

“They played an awful lot of good rugby and just haven’t got the results they

Murrayfield, Sat April 7th EDINBURGH RUGBY do not make the most likely Heineken Cup quarter finalists. With their league form leaving them one spot off bottom, with a narrow victory at the weekend helping them to avoid setting a new club record for successive losses, their European form has been this season's saving grace.

In fact with the RBS 6 Nations bringing nothing but further woe to Scottish rugby fans despite glimpses of improvement, Edinburgh Rugby has the chance to strike a blow for Scotland. Head Coach

JAMIE BELL

Alan Ross previews the weekend's Heineken Cup quarter-final clash at Murrayfield would have desired.”

It has been a long road back to the quarter-finals of a European competition for Edinburgh – eight years, which has seen a change in name for the club, disputes with the national governing body along with several managerial changes.

Five players remain from the squad that faced the same opponents in 2004 and Edinburgh will be hoping for a victory this time rather than a repeat of the defeat dished out by their French counterparts.

Flying high in the Top 14 in France, Toulouse go into the game as favourites thanks to their rich pedigree in the competition. With a squad packed full of internationals and a trophy cabinet stuffed with eighteen league championships and four Heineken Cup titles - the latest coming in 2010 - Edinburgh face a huge challenge.

Bradley understands what lies ahead.

“We’re in as good a shape as we can be going into this,” he said.

“The boys aren’t under any illusions as to the task we face next week. It’s a special day, with thirty odd thousand people here [at Murrayfield] with Edinburgh colours on against one of the top sides in Europe.”

The Jekyll and Hyde nature of Edinburgh’s performance in the league and Europe remains unexplained but the ‘Edinburgh Rugby way’ that has seen them reach this stage leaves Bradley optimistic as he looks ahead, “It will be an exciting day but we have plenty of confidence coming into the game.”

Toulouse, though, are known for their devastating running rugby that will test an Edinburgh defence that has this sea-

son been both very leaky and incredibly tenacious. The once in a lifetime comeback against Racing Metro in the pool stages, which saw Edinburgh set a record for the biggest comeback in Heineken Cup history, was a prime example.

After racing ahead Edinburgh proceeded to allow Racing back into the game letting them build up what looked like an insurmountable lead. The stunning fight back saw Edinburgh score 24 points in under 20 minutes at the end of the game to steal the victory by a single point.

“

The boys aren't under any illusions as to the task we face."

Edinburgh coach Michael Bradley

This spirit emerged again on Friday as Edinburgh squeaked home against the Scarlets. Stout defensive work held the opposition to just two penalties in the first half, while Edinburgh racked up 20 points. But a second half rally saw the Welsh side score 14 points to draw level before a late penalty secured the game for Edinburgh.

Coach Bradley knows there is work to be done. “The character is there and we just need to get the composure for as much of the eighty minutes as we can against Toulouse on Saturday.” With the game set to become the biggest in Scottish rugby history, with upwards of 25,000 tickets already sold, Edinburgh will hope to do the fans proud by continuing their remarkable European form.

Mike Bassett: England manager?

Phil Smith assesses the dearth of English talent as the FA search for a home-grown manager

IN THE FRAME: Redknapp

JAMES LAKER

ENGLAND, IT would seem, are on the hunt for their very own Mike Bassett. A good, old-fashioned bloke who in the nation’s hour of dire need, will restore the beautiful game to its traditional principles. Mirroring Ricky Tomlinson’s incarnation, the new manager will write his team on the back of a fag packet and bellow, “England will be playing four-four-fucking-two” when his tactics are questioned.

No stone is being left unturned in this search for the Messiah, with even the enigmatic Glenn Hoddle in the frame on the back of an underwhelming defeat to Argentina in France 98.

Apparently these are the glory years England needs to return to after years of failure under foreign hands. To use Terry Venables' infallible logic, we didn’t use generals from the axis powers in the war, so why should we use them as our footballer manager?

Bring in Hoddle, Redknapp or such a character and we will bring the heart of English football back to the fore.

In fact, why don’t we right the wrongs of 98; bring Stuart Pearce out from his under-21 management nadir, install him at the heart of our defence and watch him instate some much needed fight and passion to a European competition filled with that passing, skilful, dribbling nonsense.

Apparently, those Owen and Beckham boys are still kicking around, maybe they can bring the glory days back? In fact, where is Gazza? Put down your fishing rod and your chicken son, your country needs you!

What is so deeply frustrating about all this is that this was exactly what the sacking of Fabio Capello was meant to avoid. After a deeply disappointing tenure, characterised by a stubborn refusal to move from 4-4-2 and a tendency to lump the ball up to an average target man, from the loveable Emile Heskey right through to the downright bewildering Bobby Zamora, English football seemed to have accepted it was time to fall into line with the promise shown on the continent.

More fluid formations and a more fluid playing style were needed, whilst youngsters needed to be blooded. A new generation, one with distinct technical ability, seen in the likes of Tom Cleverley, Danny Welbeck and Daniel Sturridge, needed to be given the chance to shine. Finally, there was

an acceptance that England no longer sat at the top table of international football; a time for development was needed.

The noises emanating from the English footballing elite in recent weeks seem to have distinctly derailed this. Premier league chairman Sir Dave Richards went on a rant about how football has been ‘stolen’ from the English, whilst heir apparent Harry Redknapp has sounded out the possibility of bringing the ginger prince Paul Scholes out of retirement and frequently talked up the merits of the old guard, such as Frank ‘Lamps’ Lampard.

“

The new manager will write his team on the back of a fag packet and bellow 'England will play four-four-fuckingtwo.'"

Put simply, England will not win anything this way. Whilst sending out 11 untried youngsters against Europe’s elite would be suicide, there is little to achieve by sending out a bunch of players who’ve seen it all before and rarely got past the first hurdle.

Ultimately, Redknapp would prob-

ably do a decent job. His Tottenham side is so much more than a traditional 4-4-2 team, one with a gorgeous passing game and no shortage of flair. Its cornerstone, however, is an attacking mentality and blistering pace, characteristics loved across this footballing island. It is cruel too, to stereotype Redknapp as good old Uncle ‘Arry, the wheeler dealer with little tactical nous.

After all, he was the mastermind of some stunning tactical victories over Inter and AC in the Champions league just a year ago.

Nevertheless, English football must resist wrapping itself in Italia 90, Gazza, World in Motion nostalgia; no matter how happy the memories.

Whilst there is something enduringly poignant about Bassett, an endearing ode to the English game, it is time to leave the era of 4-4-2, writing teams on the back of fag packets and English fans chucking chairs at foreign riot police behind.

In the words of Bassett’s favourite poem, “If ” by Rudyard Kipling, FA chiefs David Bernstein and Sir Trevor Brooking must “keep their head when all around them are losing theirs,” remember why Capello left in the first place and appoint a manager who is committed to breeding a new style of England team that can compete with the likes of Spain in the long term. If he is English, all the better.

Being English, however, is not a solution in itself.

Injury Time

TAKES A WRY LOOK AT THE WORLD OF SPORT KING KENNY has regularly graced our Injury Time column this year and this week shall once again feature Liverpool’s manager as he discusses the merits of his £35m acquisition of Andy Carroll from Newcastle United 14 months ago. “£35 million?” I hear you say.

“Now that seems like an awful lot of money for a crap footballer.”

But no, Kenny keeps telling us.

It is not about the price tag. Take Fernando Torres for example, whose £50m transfer sparked Carroll’s move to Merseyside. Despite having failed to score in over 25 hours of football, Torres bagged a brace against midChampionship side Leicester City and, by Kenny’s logic, must now once again be considered one of the most feared strikers in Europe.

“We were delighted to get him [last year],” Dalglish said of Carroll this week. Undoubtedly, this is true – they did not want to look like a selling club and they spent a ridiculous sum of money on the flavour of the month. The next sentence came through gritted teeth: “We’re still pleased to have him...”

To most this will seem crazy, but given that Dalglish is just as pleased to have Luis Suarez, despite the FA having found him guilty of using racially offensive language, unsurprising.

For most Liverpool fans, however, the sight of Ian Rush being pushed out in a wheelchair or John Barnes rolling his increasingly hefty arse from the ESPN commentary box and into the Liverpool starting line-up, is a more attractive proposition than Andy Carroll standing upfront waiting for Jordan Henderson to learn how to kick a football into the air, rather than at Carroll’s clumsy legs.

Dalglish sticks by these so called ‘flops’ because that’s the sort of guy he is; he’s the noble King. Woy Hodgson would not have been afforded £35m for Carroll and £16m for Henderson, but then again Woy does not hold the affection of the Anfield faithful.

“In Kenny we trust,” they cry, whilst Dalglish pisses some more of John W. Henry’s money away on a young English player who has shown at least some fleeting glimpses of adequacy.

King Kenny has already delivered silverware, the prestigious Beer Cup, and he could yet bring the FA Cup to Liverpool too. The Premier League is not his priority you see – in fact, seventh would be ideal. Spend shitloads of money, win two small cup competitions, do crap in the leagueeveryone is happy. But the problem is they’re not – only the Scotsman in charge is.

In fairness to Kenny, the chances of Carroll settling on Merseyside should have been high – after all he loves a good drink and the odd minor ‘scrape’ [i.e. bottling someone in the face in Newcastle’s infamous Bigg Market] – and yet he has been unable to do so.

Yet Liverpool fans have no fear – Kenny remains adamant that all of this “doesn’t make any difference really.” The King has spoken once again and as has happened so many times this season, the respect that football fans have for him and his singleminded ways continues to ebb away.

Chris Waugh

Tuesday April 3 2012

Sport

studentnewspaper.org

Edinburgh to take on tradition against Toulouse

Alan Ross previews the Heineken Cup quater-final where Murrayfield will welcome the illustrious French side p 27

Smylie turned upside down fight.’’

The Lochend team celebrate further success in the 64kg division as Lewis Benson beat Steven Rae 37-31 by countback after the judges' scores were level at the end of three rounds.

And light-heavyweight Brian Forsyth of the Holyrood gym beat James Cunningham (Dennistoun McNair) in a close bout 15-14.

There was a strong crowd in attendance at the Meadowbank Gym, with most fighters bringing with them vocal and passionate support.

This spurred the boxers on to produce some excellent performances – none more so than Renfewshire pug Joe Harn’s ferocious second round stoppage of Greame Munro (Highland Boxing Academy) in the 56kg division.

In the opening bout Stephanie Kernachan (Newarthill) beat Sandra Stepniak (Granite City) 11-7 at 51kg before Derek Skinner (Kilsyth Golden Gloves) suffered a 23-18 defeat at the hands of Renfewshire’s Stuart Burt at 69kg.

And there was a double win for Springhill with Kieren Smith overcoming Darin Reid (Alloa) 12-6 at 75kg and Ross Henderson winning by walkover against Granite City’s Patryk Bartkiewicz in the over 91kg division.

CHAMPION: Pushkar Singh from Edinburgh's Lochend gym took 52kg crown against Martin Beveridge

Squash skipper leads from the front

Davie Heaton sees Tom Metcalf complete an unbeaten league campaign and captain the men to promotion from the second division 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th

Edinburgh Sports Club Edinburgh University 1 Linlithgow 1 Abercorn 1 David Lloyd Newhaven Edinburgh University 2 Linlithgow 2 Deer Park Grange 2 Waverley 2

282 280 275 272 231 217 187 178 133 121

P RO M O T I O N W I N N I N G EDINBURGH University Squash Club are celebrating a successful 2011/12 season.

The men’s first team recorded 15 league wins out of a possible 18 to secure a return to the East of Scotland Division One, scoring the maximum 18 points available in

half of their games.

Captain Tom Meltcalf achieved the remarkable feat of remaining unbeaten throughout the entire league campaign, backed up by solid contributions from Nick Roberts, Nigel Anthony, Chris Thompson and Alex Iveson.

The side last claimed the first division title back in 2008/2009 and Iveson, who was recently elected club president for next year, believes they are in a position to challenge once again.

“With a full-strength team out every week, and hopefully some strong freshers to bolster the squad next year, a top four finish in the first division is a definite possibility,” he said.

“We managed to field a fullstrength side week-in, week-out this year – excellent commitment from all the first team players.

“All the team players showed great commitment this year, with people always willing to play in other players' absences at the last minute.”

There were also some BUCS successes, as the team beat Leeds Metropolitan, Bristol, the University of Wales and rivals Napier.

The second team, captained by Mahmoud Moaz, made the final of the Scottish Universities Squash (SUS) tournament in Aberdeen before losing out narrowly to Napier 3-2.

They also had a solid league season winning half of their matches and avoiding relegation from the second division; Richard McClay would have completed an unbeaten season of his own but succumbed to Metcalf when the first and second teams met.

The women took the winners

medal at the SUS tournament, and won three of their four BUCS matches this season.

Iveson added, “Hopefully we can emulate the successes of this year across all the teams and continue to challenge for the league, BUCS and SUS trophies.”

Overall BUCS Standings 5th Birmingham 6th Edinburgh 7th Exeter

2279.5 1961.5 1956.5

Edinburgh BUCS Points 1st Swimming 2nd Fencing 3rd Hockey 4th Squash 5th Table Tennis 6th Basketball

297 164 131 127 116 112

Sat 24th March Results G'gow Cali 1st 42-14 Edinburgh 4th (Women's Netball)

PROMOTED: Men's squash

Sun 25th March Results Stirling 1st 0-3 Edinburgh 2nd (Women's Volleyball) Stirling 1st 1-3 Edinburgh 2nd (Men's Volleyball) EUSU

East of Scotland Division 2

ALEX BURGESS

HEAVILY TOUTED favourite and Edinburgh student David Smylie slipped to defeat at the Scottish Amateur Boxing Championship finals on Friday.

The heavyweight, already with University, Intermediate and Eastern titles to his name this year, lost 9-6 on points against Steven Lavelle from Renfewshire.

But there was success in the other weight divisions for Edinburghbased boxers. Bantamweight Pushkar Singh, from the Lochend gym, beat Martin Beveridge 11-8 – with both receiving their medals from 2010 Commonwealth Games silver medallist Josh Taylor.

GB Olympic hopeful Katy Aktin won by walkover after her opponent failed to show up, but fellow Meadowbank lightweight Lewis Paulin was unable to make history by narrowly losing 11-10 to favourite Charlie Flynn (Newarthill). Had the southpaw won it would have been the first time one club had held both the male and female Scottish titles at the same weight, but Paulin was full of praise for his opponent.

“Flynn is already a Commonwealth Games silver medallist and British champion,” he said.

“Form-wise I was on fire coming into the fight and I was confident so it’s disappointing, but it was a close

EUSU

Davie Heaton reviews the action from the senior Scottish Amateur Boxing Championships at Meadowbank