The Student 25/09/2012

Tuesday September 25 2012 | Week 2

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

Suspended EUSA VP on full pay as confusion over future continues

CLAMPDOWN: UK students claiming dual EU citizenship will no longer be able to escape tuition fees

SNP to end EU tuition fee loophole

Rhia Lyon

NEW LEGISLATION is to be introduced by the SNP to end a dual citizenship loophole that enables Northern Irish and other EU students to avoid paying tuition fees to Scottish universities.

Currently, under the European Equality Act the Scottish government must pay the tuition fees of all EU citizens as well as Scottish students.

The Equality Act does not cover students from elsewhere in the UK, meaning that the Scottish government is still able to receive tuition fees from students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

However, earlier this year a loophole emerged whereby students with a parent or grandparent from an EU country outside the UK could claim dual citizenship

of the country.

They could then apply as an EU student from outside the UK, therefore avoiding the need to pay the recently increased tuition fees.

One instance of this is in Ireland.

Northern Irish citizens are eligible for a Republic of Ireland passport under the Good Friday Agreement.

Students applying from the Republic of Ireland, as citizens of a non-UK, EU state, do not have to pay tuition fees to Scottish universities.

Ucas has reported a 19 per cent decrease in the admittance of Northern Irish applicants, while those from the Republic of Ireland have only decreased by 6 per cent.

Furthermore, Dundee’s daily newspaper, The Courier, has reported a fifth of Northern Irish applicants to the University of Dundee intend to apply with an Irish passport.

Despite this, the 2001 census reported that 625,000 English and Welsh residents claimed Irish ethnicity, suggesting that universities have been cautious in accepting students who appear to be exploiting the system by using Irish passports.

However, a spokesperson for Universities Scotland said that, “There is no indication that Scotland’s universities have seen a rise in applicants holding an Irish passport.”

Similarly, the Scottish government initially played down the loophole, with First Minister Alex Salmond claiming, “[The] imagined calamities […] have come to naught”.

Whilst it is widely reported that as a result of this loophole all EU citizens could study for free, the finance department at the University of Edinburgh told The Student that English citizens claiming dual Irish citizenship will in fact still

be required to pay £1,820 per year to the university, rather than having their fees paid by Scottish taxpayers.

The legislation, planned to take effect next year, will attempt to prevent any exploitation of the system.

Mike Russell MSP, secretary for education and lifelong learning, stated that, “This legislation will require dualnational students to provide evidence that they have previously exercised their right of residence elsewhere and will prevent the use of dual nationality solely to benefit from free tuition”.

Applicants will need to prove they have lived in another EU country for at least three months in order to qualify for free education, once the legislation takes effect next year.

The legislation has received bipartisan support, having also been promoted

by Ruth Davidson MSP, Leader of the Scottish Conservatives.

EDINBURGHDAILYPHOTOS

Alasdair Drennan and Leo Michelmore

NEW INFORMATION has been released by the Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) this week suggesting it may be months before the future of suspended vice-president services, Max Crema, is known.

A statement released by the organisation suggested that it might not be until “the end of this semester” before a decision on Crema’s future at the organisation would be reached.

It has also been confirmed that Crema, who has not been working in his EUSA post since early July, would continue to receive full pay for the duration of his suspension.

Sabbatical officers are paid £19,000 per year and are additionally allowed up to £3,000 in expenses.

EUSA president James McAsh confirmed that suspended employees continue to receive a salary. He told The Student, “If someone is suspended it will always be a neutral act and, as such, they will continue to be paid.”

The students’ association also confirmed that the legal position was unclear, saying, “The Trustee Board has been meeting regularly to discuss the role of and regulations applied to Sabbatical Officers within EUSA. “We quickly realised that our position was not clear cut, given that we have to comply with three separate but overlapping regimes of law, namely employment law, charity law and the constitution.”

It had been hoped that a new constitution for the organisation would have been introduced before the beginning of this year clarifying the disciplinary procedure concerning a sabbatical officer.

However, this did not happen.

Under the existing constitution, EUSA have said, “The sole recourse for disciplining a sabbatical officer in their role as an elected representative is a motion for recall or motion of censure, at a general meeting.”

The statement also explained that based on the current situation, it was obvious that changes would be required to the EUSA consitiution.

“We have come to the conclusion that the processes in place for dealing with sabbatical officer conduct are insufficient.

“The Board is going to act swiftly to remedy this situation, which will include the creation of a Trustee Board Code of Conduct and a review of the constitutional status of sabbatical officers (in both constitutions), which could lead to some constitutional amendments.”

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

NEWS »p1-5

BAAAD NEWS p 4

Elizabeth Peet reports on the unexplained death of a sheep in Pilton

COMMENT »p7-9

THE PROBLEM WITH NATIONALISM p 9

Daniel Swain takes a different approach to explaining why Scottish independence would holding back the whole of Britain

FEATURES »p11-14

DISCOVERING THE HIGGS BOSON p12

City Council pays £10 million to businesses in tram compensation

Alistair Grant

BUSINESSES ADVERSELY affected by the controversial Edinburgh trams project are to be paid £10 million in compensation, City of Edinburgh Council has revealed.

The Student understands that this will mostly consist of 20 per cent cuts on their annual business rates bills.

Taxpayers will foot the bill for the compensation, which will be awarded to businesses that have lost money due to the ongoing disruption caused by the tram works.

Almost 300 individual businesses claim their profits have been harmed because of the trams, with road closures and unsightly building sites cited as the main causes of their grievances.

One area particularly affected by the tram works, Shandwick Place, is to see 60 businesses receive compensation for their loss of custom.

Ian Haxton, Duty Manager of AuBar on Shandwick Place, told The Student that the city centre bar was losing approximately £3,000 a week. “Our takings are down by almost a third, and we now get hardly any passing trade.

“Our business now mainly relies on the offices around about, which are Monday to Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are virtually non-existent. We are nowhere near as busy as we used to be.”

When asked whether AuBar was to receive any form of compensation, Haxton responded, “There is no compensation; however the council are talking about a rates reduction. But nothing has been confirmed yet.”

He added, “We have been told that although the project isn’t due to finish until 2014, the road outside will be open to traffic from early next year. No specific date, just early next year.”

Shops on Princes Street are also set to take advantage of the scheme, with around 100 businesses on the busy city

centre thoroughfare lodging claims.

Graeme Strachan, Depute Assessor for The Lothian Regional Assessor, said, “There are currently 298 appeals lodged with the Joint Board relating to tram work disruption.

“Most of these relate to properties located directly along the route of the tramway. Appeals have also been lodged from streets in close proximity to the tram works.

“All appeals currently lodged require to be dealt with by December 2013.”

The proposed tram network is no stranger to controversy. Originally due to cost £375 million, a report released in August 2011 revealed that the final cost would actually be closer to £1 billion.

Furthermore, much of the proposed line network now looks set to remain incomplete for the foreseeable future, with only part of the line, running from the airport to the city centre, due to open in the summer of 2014.

Dr Victoria Martin speaks to Eloise Kohler about the discovery of the Higgs boson's discovery

TECHNOLOGY »p16

LOTS TO CHANGE p16

Alex Shedlock discusses your gaming options

WHO NEEDS A CONDOM? p18

Katerina Gospodinova and Katy Sheen take a look at the contraceptive pill for men

MUSIC »p25-27

TOO DEXY FOR MY SHIRT p25

Dexys were at the Queen’s Hall. Fortunately, so was Jack Murray to tell us all about it

FILM »p28-29 KEEP THEM COMING? p28 Sarah O’Mahony discusses the pros and cons of sequals

SPORT »p31-32

TAKING US FOR A RYDE? p31 Alan Ross previews this year’s Ryder Cup

DISRUPTIVE: Local businesses have suffered as tram works continue

UK tuition fees highest in Europe

Sam Bradley and Lydia Wilson

A REPORT by the European Commission has found that UK tuition fees are the highest in Europe.

The report, which broke down university tuition fees from every institution in Europe, concluded that “the highest fees charged are in the UK”.

It also highlighted the nine countries within Europe that provide free higher education for students, including Sweden, Scotland and Denmark.

The findings come in the same week the Liberal Democrat party released a party political broadcast in which the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg apologised for breaking the party’s manifesto pledge not to raise tuition fees, and said that it was a “mistake” for the party to promise impractical policies.

Marco Biagi MSP, who represents Edinburgh Central commented on the report.

He said, “English students will feel rightly betrayed to be in this situation

when so many of them over recent years voted for parties that promised either to never introduce, to cap or to end tuition fees.

“

In Scotland we have a government instead that has shown that the supposedly irresistable trend towards ever higher fees is no such thing" Marco Biagi MSP, SNP representative for Edinburgh Central “In Scotland we have a government instead that has shown that the supposedly irresistible trend towards

ELENA MOGOS

SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT » p18-19

ever higher fees is no such thing. We have also responded to the calls from the National Union of Students to prioritise living cost funding for students, and from next year this will be at record levels - even in these difficult financial times.

“Funding our universities is simply a question of priorities. As with every other area where the Scottish Parliament currently has responsibility, in higher education we have delivered a system that better matches the aspirations, wishes and priorities of the public here in Scotland.”

Despite large protests, in the autumn of 2010 the coalition government controversially chose to raise the cap on tuition fees for universities across the UK. Currently, the University of Edinburgh charges £9,000 per annum for tuition. The first intake of students paying that amount started studying at the University this year.

This summer, Ucas reported that admissions to universities in England and Wales had dropped, 8.5 per cent and 9.6 per cent respectively.

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“Unionist supporters will ask us one question – why? Well, with a doubledip recession across the UK, unemployment statistics sky high and one in five Scottish children in poverty – I saw ‘why not?’”

The march attracted campaigners from across Scotland, with some coming as from as far as Inverness.

Led by 20 pipers, the march left the Meadows at 12pm and arrived at the Gardens at 1pm. After arriving at the gardens, attendees were entertained by a DJ and live bands.

Lothian and Borders Police confirmed that the rally passed peacefully.

Superintendent Craig Naylor told The Student, “Approximately 5,000 people attended the march and rally in Edinburgh today, and it passed peacefully with only two arrests for minor disorder.”

The arrests occurred when a fight broke out near the back of the protest between two men. Footage uploaded to YouTube, taken from close to the incident, shows men wearing balaclavas spreading out Union Flags on the ground, apparently in an attempt to annoy protestors at the rally.

When one man tried to remove the flags, a fight occurred and the police took action, resulting in the two confirmed arrests.

Despite the incident, Superintendent Naylor remained upbeat about the rally, saying,“It was a family friendly event involving people from all over the world who cooperated well with us.”

Rhia Lyon and Sibylla Archdale Kalid talk to Edinburgh’s independence protestors you could be. The Scottish people are different from the rest of Britain.

More flamboyant.

“We’ve lost our pride, because we’ve been constantly put down.

We need to come alive again. It’s like trying to swim when someone is constantly putting their foot on your head. You just can’t go forward.

“Once you’ve been given the wings to fly, you might be inspired. They [other countries] want what we have.”

“It won’t be a rose garden, but at least we’ll have ourselves to blame.”

When asked if he was Scottish, Kevin, from Edinburgh, responded,

MARCH: The protest drew between 5,000 and 10,000 people

RALLY: Protesters gather in Princes St. Gardens

“No, I’m British [...] you only have to look at other countries - Italy, Spain, Ireland.

“What will happen to our armed forces? I spent 12 years in the British army. What about our pensions?

“What is the benefit of being broken up? Why fix something that’s not broken?”

Jojo (name changed) from Edinburgh told The Student, “At the end of the day we’ve got to make our own choices. We’ve got to be able to look after our own.

“We feel shortchanged. BBC Scotland is a joke.”

SIBYLLA ARCHDALE KALID

THIS WEEKEND, The Student spoke to some of the demonstrators at the rally for Scottish independence.

Inverness residents Ed and Sandy Hastings, who arrived dressed as king and queen of Scotland, spoke to The Student at the rally.

They said, “We never voted to be part of the union [...] If you don’t have your own thoughts and ideas, you can’t go forward in your life. It’s like a child going from home. At first you’re going to fumble around. But you will prosper.

“It’s like a weed growing next to a flower. You can never grow into what

YES: Supporters of Scottish independence

SAM BRADLEY

THOUSANDS GATHERED in Edinburgh’s Princes St Gardens on Saturday afternoon for a rally in support of Scottish independence.

The first of a series of protests planned to take place in the capital over the next two years, the rally was estimated by Lothian & Borders Police to have comprised over 5,000 people, although organisers said the number was nearer to 10,000.

After marching from the Meadows to Princes St Gardens via the George IV Bridge, protestors gathered to hear speeches from First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond; independent MSP Margo MacDonald; Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie; the Chair of the Advisory Board for Yes Scotland, Dennis Canavan; independence activist Allan Grogan; and Jeff Duncan, the organiser of the rally.

Salmond declared to the crowd, “We believe in a Scotland that has its own voice, that makes her own contribution to the world, a Scotland that stands alongside the other nations of these isles as a free and independent nation.

“We believe that we are part of a wider coalition, and just as Scotland’s skies were lit by meteors last night, so will the campaign for independence light up Scotland over the next two years.”

“On Independence Day in 1962, John F. Kennedy said that ‘to govern is to choose’. Let’s think about the choices

which we have made, over the elements that the Scottish Parliament governs Scotland. We didn’t have to apologise for reintroducing them because we reintroduced free higher education for Scotland.

“We introduced free prescriptions within the National Health Service because it was our choice – instead of the disintegration of the NHS from Westminster – we choose a National Health Service for Scotland. We choose to face down Scotland’s social problems by raising the price of alcohol so that we can face the future as a responsible nation.

“Why should we choose austerity when we want to invest in the future?

We choose a different way to Westminster.”

In her address, MacDonald said, “This referendum is not about parties… it is about every single Scot. Our referendum is our decision to make, and I sincerely hope that Scotland finds the courage to do what it wants.”

In his speech, Canavan said, “The campaign will be a marathon, not a short walk. But if we show the stamina and courage of a long distance runner, we can make it. Our opponents will try to trip us up, but with courage and tenacity, we can win through.”

Grogan said, “We can stand here and say that the campaign for independence has officially begun. Independence is not about freeing ourselves from oppression; it’s about taking control of our own lives.

SUPPORT: Activists show their support

SIBYLLA ARCHDALE KALID

Sam Bradley

SIBYLLA ARCHDALE KALID

Thousands gather for independence rally

P p a

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Pilton perplexed at mutton murder

“

It would have been quite distressing" Councillor Steve Cardownie

Speculation is still rife as to the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Locals told The Scotsman that they suspected youngsters of playing a prank, and that the sheep came from nearby Lauriston Farm.

The council’s deputy leader, Steve Cardownie, who represents the Forth ward, where the discovery was made, also gave his views to The Scotsman, “It would have been quite distressing, particularly for young children. It begs the question of how it was dumped. I think it would have had to be brought there in a vehicle – people carrying a dead sheep wouldn’t have got very far.”

LIVING SHEEP: What are ewe looking at?

Scottish wildcats face extinction Chloe Duane

SCOTTISH WILDCATS may face extinction within months as new analysis shows the number of purebred wildcats has dropped to just 35, a tenth of previous estimates.

The Scottish Wildcat Association (SWA) said analysis of over 2,000 camera trap recordings, road kills and eyewitness reports suggests that there may be fewer than 35 felis silvestris grampia left in the wild, placing the species among the world’s most endangered wildlife. Among the greatest threats to the species is inter-breeding with domestic and feral cats as well as disease.

Steve Piper, chairman of SWA, said, “However you juggle the figures it’s hard to find anything positive. If you ignore the eyewitness sightings because they’re unreliable the numbers get even worse. The overwhelming evidence is that the wildcat is going extinct within months, anything else is blind hope.”

Last month a report by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) estimated that there were 150 breeding pairs of cats with classical wildcat pelage (fur) thought to survive. The report said that wildcats are “very rare” and present in low numbers in the Western half of Cairngorms National Park, including Badenoch and Strathspey, Highland Perthshire and possibly Glenlivet. However, the Eastern side of the national park recorded no sightings of the Scottish wildcat suggesting the threat of hybridization to be “real and continuing” with an estimated

number of 3500 hybrids.

In response to the information in this report, SNH have set up an action plan, which seeks to bring together all those interested in the conservation of this priority species. A spokesperson from SNH said, “the limited survey information available on this cryptic species provides an uncertain basis from which to state precisely how many animals may be living in the wild. This is something the action plan needs to address.”

To address the decline in population of the wildcat, possibly one of the most vicious carnivores held in British zoos with average males weighing up to 8kg, SWA have suggested controlled licensed trappings of the mammals should be conducted. This would allow researchers to obtain blood samples in order to receive a better understanding of the population dynamics.

Piper said, “If we find wildcats, it raises new issues. They will be hard to protect in an expanse like Sutherland; realistically we need to relocate them somewhere they can be protected or put a truly vast amount of money and resources into the region to keep wildcats separate from hybrids and ferals.”

The organisation went on to say that it is working closely with the University of Oxford to coordinate an investigation of the areas of Caithness and Sutherland, which have not been previously researched.

SWA suggests that the relocation of pure-bred wildcats to areas with fewer risks may benefit the population numbers in the wild.

AT-RISK-O-CATS: Scottish Wildcats are on the brink of extinction

MARTIN PETTIT

RESIDENTS IN the Pilton area of Edinburgh were surprised to discover a dead sheep dumped on a zebra crossing on Pennywell Road on Sunday 16 September.

The discovery, made at 8.20pm by a passer-by, prompted police intervention to remove the animal, and an investigation was soon opened.

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police told The Student, “Police were called to Pennywell Road on Sunday evening after a dead sheep was found in the roadway. Officers attended and the animal was removed, and enquiries are ongoing in order to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident.”

It was later confirmed that the animal was dead prior to being dumped on the crossing, ruling out the possibility that it had been hit by a vehicle.

The incident launched widespread commentary on the social networking site Twitter. @sanasus admitted that the story “did raise a giggle”, while @STV_Andy claimed that there were “shades of Father Ted to this story.”

Even Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, got involved, tweeting that, “If I was Drylaw polis I’d have every Pringle wearer in for question-

ing. Big O.T. opportunities.”

However, this generally lighthearted reaction provoked anger in some users, particularly after Deadline News published the headline “A Dead Sheep in Edinburgh? Ewe must be joking!”, to which @RMcGoverne responded, “I don’t find dead animals funny. Hateful writing.”

PETER G TRIMMING

Elizabeth Peet

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Thurston Smalley

IN A YouTube video uploaded from the official Liberal Democrats account this week, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg issued an apology for failing to live up to his original campaign promises.

In the short video, a somber Clegg looks into the camera and says that he regrets having committed in 2010 to a low cap on tuition fees, a pledge he called so expensive that it would have been unsustainable. He further promised that he would never make another pledge again unless he was absolutely certain that he could live up to it.

Reaction to the video has been almost universally negative, with the main criticism being that Clegg apologised not for breaking his promise to keep tuition fees low, but for making the promise at all.

The video of his apology has generated a flurry of activity on social networking site Twitter and has even inspired an autotuned spoof version.

The spoof went viral instantly and, on Clegg’s approval, was submitted to iTunes where it quickly entered the UK charts.

Additionally, in a recent appearance on the Andrew Marr Show, Clegg and his wife could be seen shifting in their seats, their faces betraying serious discomfort, when Marr had them watch the autotuned parody of the apology

video on camera.

Many commentators view Clegg’s apology as the most recent of many shows of political weakness on the part of the Deputy Prime Minister, and tantamount to an admission of failure to live up to his party platform.

In the wake of criticisms, Clegg has hemorrhaged support, with a recent Ipsos/Mori poll showing his approval had dropped from 31 per cent to 23 per cent over the last month.

Clegg’s growing unpopularity has engendered a serious drop in support for the Liberal Democrats. This week it emerged that the UK Independence Party had tied the Liberal Democrats in support - at just eight per cent nationally.

Twitter users were particularly relentless in their criticism of the deputy prime minister, with Jeremy Clarkson tweeting, “I’ve decided after much careful thought that Nick Clegg is a complete arse.” This was retweeted more than 2,295 times. @ukipwebmaster tweeted a photograph showing several audience members obviously dozing while Clegg spoke at a party conference. @DavidBeeson2 tweeted, “Nick Clegg would guarantee to clean your shoes, get them filthy, and apologise for making the promise in the first place.”

And @Jewtree tweeted somewhat less subtly, “Nick Clegg is made of fanny batter.”

TWO CLEGGS: The Lib Dem leader watches his video apology on last Sunday's Andrew Marr Show

BBC

Responses to Clegg’s video apology go viral whilst his poll ratings plummet

Callum Mason and Thurston Smalley

SLOWED DEMAND for student housing has led to a three per cent drop in student letting prices for the 2012/2013 academic year.

According to Commercial Property Advisors GVA, the UK’s student housing market faces a period of “rude health” with 50,000 fewer students accepting offers from UK universities than last year.

Data from EasyRoommate.co.uk showed rent for student flatshares down across many UK university towns and cities as a consequence of the slowdown in the student lettings sector.

The lowered demand for student flats is believed to be strongly linked to the drop in students entering university in the wake of significant tuition fees increases The average rent for a student flat in Edinburgh dropped to £287 from £316 per week, a decrease of 9.2 per cent, between July 2011 and July 2012. During the same period, national prices for halls-style university accommodation rose by 5.5 per cent. Despite the exist-

ing downward trends in student letting, the worst damage to the student housing market may not materialise until the next academic year or beyond.

According to Push, an independent university research group, over four fifths of students at most degreeawarding institutions live in universityowned accommodation in their first year. Therefore, the blow to property owners may not arrive until the current, smaller cohort moves into their second year and non-university owned accommodation.

Plummeting applications have affected even the strongest universities. A third of institutions in the prestigious Russell Group still had places available at the start of September when the UCAS clearing system closed for the year.

According to The Guardian, the newest member of the Russell Group, Queen Mary, University of London still had spaces on over 170 of their courses, illustrating a particularly severe failure to admit enough students to fill their beds.

A surplus of student housing may seem a foreign concept to students at

the University of Edinburgh, where many first years have not been allocated accommodation.

Jonathan Moore, director of EasyRoommate.co.uk, speculated that halls-type accommodation had seen growth in some areas because it often offers students a better deal.

“Halls of residence have many advantages and can be a great social hub when first starting out at university.

But as the cost of studying climbs ever higher, more and more students will be considering their options in order to save a few pounds.

“Demand for amenities such as wi-fi, en-suite bathrooms and doublebeds has caused halls of residence costs to grow faster than average student flatshare rents. While flatsharers don’t tend to get bills and cleaning costs included in their rent, the more people you share with the wider you can spread these expenses. And with the cost of university rising higher each year many students will be exploring every avenue they can to try and save money.”

STUDENT LETTING: A slump in demand may reduce rent prices

EMMA PLATAIS

Student rental market heading for crunch

Make sure we’re not kept in the dark.

Mandarin Intelligence Analysts London | £27,000 plus £3,000 language allowance A conversation turns from sport, to the economy, to politics.

And you’re there not just to translate it, not just to interpret it; you’re there to enable us to make the right choices to help safeguard national security. www.mi5.gov.uk/careers/mandarin

Discretion is vital. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member.

Feeling opinionated? Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on Facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper comment@studentnewspaper.org

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Comment 7 #EdUni

Giants scrapping over pebbles

Lisa Kobayashi believes that biggest danger of the Japan and China's diplomatic growling is the uncertainty it brings to Asia Firstly, not only has this dispute over the Senkaku Islands had an impact upon the already fragile Japanese economy but it is likely to have an effect on the Chinese economy as well. China is Japan’s largest trading partner, accounting for up to 21 per cent of Japan’s exports and imports in 2011. Meanwhile, Japan is China’s second biggest trading partner and represents nine per cent of China’s overall trade. Additionally, these attacks on Japanese motor and electrical companies will not only harm the companies themselves but also the Chinese citizens who in many cases own and operate the premises. Although it may seem as if Japan will suffer the most economically, “any move to punish Japan [by China] would likely prove … a double-edged sword”, according to the International Business Times. There is, after all, no such thing as unilateral economic warfare.

Secondly, with the disputes turning ugly, many political analysts have predicted the potential for armed conflict between the two countries. Hugh White (a professor of Strategic Studies at the Australia National University) long ago discussed Japan’s vulnerable political position in relation to their Chinese neighbours with their “strategic dependency on the US [becoming] more of a liability than an asset”. He encourages Japan to develop a new strategic model, however with the possibility of armed conflict and Japan having no official army (they have a national defence force), a new, independent strategic model may not be so ideal.

Additionally, igniting a conflict between the two countries will force the

US to enter the disputes, almost certainly allying themselves with Japan.

The Chinese government continue to urge Japan to “face squarely the strong resolve and determination of the Chinese government and the people to safeguard

national sovereignty and territorial integrity”, argued Qin Dang, the spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry.

Meanwhile, Japan remains calm, ignorantly stating that they “will continue to maintain that no territorial problem

exist between Japan and China. With the passage of time, we expect this issue to resolve”. At this stage, a resolution seems unlikely, and so ‘uncertainty’ within the fractured relations between these two economic giants continues.

A house divided against itself...

John Vrushi assesses this year's state of the union address and finds Barroso’s speech seminally timed THIS MONTH, as is customary on the agenda of the European Parliament, the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, gave the state of the union speech. This speech was an unequivocal display of political will to conserve the integrity of the EU and safeguard the single common currency. It laid out a clear plan for a banking union, supported by an independent European Central Bank (ECB) and further fiscal discipline and harmonization. Most importantly, Mr Barroso called for the EU to become “a federation of European Nations. Not a Superstate, a democratic federation of nation states. A union with the member states not against the member states.”

The most important aspect of this move towards further integration is that of democracy within the European Union. The weakest dimension of the

Union, much criticized by populists and nationalists, is the apparent democratic deficit and lack of accountability. This time, Mr Barroso nailed it by conveying a tangible message of commitment on making the Union more democratic.

He spelled out the Commission’s plan to achieve greater integration by avoiding the creation of more institutions which would make the EU less cohesive and more difficult for the citizens to understand. “There is one European Commission, one European Parliament,” he said. Instead he called for an increased democratisation of EU institutions by involving European Parliament parties in a more active debate. “It shouldn’t be just a discourse on that national level,” he declared. Mr Barroso stated that the EU needs to encourage the pan-European debate between European political parties. The Commission has decided that

European political parties will be able to present their candidates for the position of President of the Commission already in the 2014 European Parliament elections. At the same time, Mr Barroso guaranteed the principle of subsidiarity; the notion that member states are sovereign entities and will not be forced into any decisions they disagree with.

Last week in The Student Thomas P G Colson argued that the future of the European project is more than just about the single currency: it is also about the sense of equality and decency between the individual countries. Mr Barroso made this clear when he called upon creditor nations to stick together and show solidarity with the rest of European countries who are in need of them. The message is simple and logical; big exporting economies in the EU have more than anyone else to profit from the single cur-

rency and the market, therefore it is their moral obligation and their interest to safeguard the irreversibility of the Euro and indeed the European project.

The impact of this speech on British voters and citizens may turn out to be significant. The measures of the European Commission that Mr Barroso spelled out in the State of the Union speech will almost inevitably lead to a new treaty change to accommodate these proposals. In Britain, David Cameron has promised that his government would accept no further treaty changes without a referendum. Already, following President Barroso’s speech, the Chairman of European Conservatives and Reformists Martin Callanan MEP and the controversial demagogue Nigel Farage MEP have seized the opportunity to use the state of the union speech for their political benefit. Nigel Farage ended his

JALEN VASQUEZ

AS FRESHERS spent this past week nursing hangovers, tensions between China and Japan have perpetuated into mass anti-Japanese protests in the streets of Beijing and Shanghai. Major Japanese companies such as globally renowned car manufacturers Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Corp as well as Panasonic Corp have had to suspend operations throughout China due to attacks on their outlets by antiJapanese demonstrators.

At the centre of all these protests, paired with failing economic and diplomatic relations, is the territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands (or the Diaoyu for the Chinese). The five uninhabited islands and three barren rocks are located in the East China Sea, between Japan, China and Taiwan.

For the two countries, this is not a new debate. Claims over the islands date back to the late 19th Century, just after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, where the islands were deemed as the Sino-Japanese boundary: effectively, terra nullius.

The islands were ultimately claimed by Japan following the end of the post-war US Occupation. The islands remained uninhabited. For several years afterwards, the disputes over the islands were primarily minor debates on oil exploration and fishery.

Things took a turn for the worse when the Japanese government announced on 10th September that they were purchasing the Senkaku islands from the private ownership of the Kurihara family at a rumoured price of 2.05 billion yen (£16.4 million). What has followed is a situation of dual uncertainty.

response by saying that Mr Barroso has done nothing more than bring the referendum on EU membership in Britain a step closer. Both MEPs attacked the current European leadership and called for a more responsible political class.

This year’s state of the union speech by the European Commission President, Mr Jose Manuel Barroso, was precisely what the markets, European citizens and federalists had been waiting for. This speech was, among other things, a clear message to the markets, banks and the financial sector about the integrity of the Union and irreversibility of the single currency. In turn, this display of political will makes the market more confident, helping growth and economic stability. Any politician who undermines this message of stability for their own narrow electoral ends is immoral and unscrupulous.

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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8 Comment #EdUni

Out of options? Bleed cash Thomas Grant suggests the impact of quantitative easing will be negligible

LADIES AND Gentleman, NewsJack is proud to present a sterling opportunity south of the border; all are invited to get their grubby fingers stuck into the delicious pie of health spending!

That’s right, the British Health Service (BHS…sounds about right – Ed.), has a new custodian in the shape of Jeremy Hunt (rhymes with…punt?). You may remember the Hunt for his previous role as Rupert Murdoch’s fifth column in government; his collusion (ahem: quasi-judicial oversight – Ed.) to get News Corp’s bid for BSkyB ownership past the regulators was stopped only by the unfolding of the phone hacking scandal.

So rest assured that in his new role the Health Secretary will be unwavering in his support for business interests. And a report by corporate finance advisors Catalyst this week suggested there was a “£20 billion opportunity ahead for the private sector” in NHS contracts as a result of coalition changes to the health service.

With further reports this week that Serco, a private provider of out-of-hours GP services in Cornwall, was unstaffed to the point of being unsafe and had submitted false data to the NHS about its services not once but, er, 252 times, it is clear that the new private involvement in health will bring clear benefits for not just shareholders, but patients. NewsJack advises readers with a keen eye for business to invest quickly in this exciting new market.

However, NewsJack believes current changes must go further.

The success of private involvement in public projects has been shown recently by examples such as the G4S’s role in Olympic Security – that is, finding an excuse for British soldiers to come home to take part in the games. But moreover, the dire state of the nation’s economy means that every opportunity for profit must be seized with both hands.

That’s right, in return for healthcare, British patients’ bodies must be leased out to the highest bidder; whether this be for organ donation, medical science, or even for that oldest of professions, sexual services, we must not flinch in our removal of barriers to GDP growth. Virgin Healthcare will have a new meaning in the Brave New World!

Alas, north of the border, Salmond has not yet trashed the NHS. NewsJack is working on it.

Nick Dowson

“

Bernanke and his counterparts at the fed have done their best to instill confidence in a market that is riddled with doubt."

Quantitative easing, simple in its design, is such: the Fed uses newly printed money to purchase financial assets from banks – in this case bad mortgage securities – and thus increases its cash supply.

An excess of cash will force interest rates down and spark activity in the economy as credit will be cheaper and investment becomes more attractive. The benefits of

this surge in activity are hoped to trickle down into the real economy to school teachers, mortgage holders and college graduates.

However, there is one problem: low interest rates and excess cash reserves do not encourage banks to lend to one another and spur economic activity. Banks, like self-interested individuals, will only lend money if there is an incentive to do so, no matter how low the cost of borrowing is. In the current uncertain economic climate, banks would rather sit on their reserves and get paid the small amount of interest on those reserves by the government than risking it on the unknown.

US banks currently hold over $1.5 trillion in excess reserves. In other words, a large proportion of the cash banks are receiving from QE is sitting still and gathering interest over time rather than being used to induce investment.

Another problem with this scenario is that money does not simply trickle down the economy like water dripping down the precipice of a rock, but rather it gathers and wells at the top. QE drives up the prices of assets, particularly financial assets – convenient for those who own stock.

Consider this: the majority of Americans have invested their wealth in housing (most for about 50 per cent). However,

the top five per cent of households only have ten per cent tied into housing and roughly between a third and 40 per cent invested into financial assets. Moreover, they own 82 per cent of the individually held stocks and more than 90 per cent of the individually held bonds. As QE helps the stock market surge, the rich get richer, the middle class loses ground and the divide between the have and havenots becomes even more apparent.

“

It is a dangerous precedent for our financial system to be reliant upon the creation of new money."

Unsurprisingly, on the day of the announcement, the Standard & Poor’s 500, a stock market index, jumped 1.63 per cent. A week later it had climbed another 1.5 per cent hitting its highest close since 2007.

However, left with few other options, the Fed had to take action. With a government helplessly taken hostage by a congress that is willing to take the

A turbulent issue

country to the brink of economic ruin for political gain (if it does not lie there already), intervention, however misguided, is needed. Left with little arsenal, chairman Bernanke and his counterparts at the Fed have done their best to instill confidence in a market that is riddled with doubt over matters close to home and across the Atlantic.

Perhaps the most frightening thing to emerge from the Fed’s announcement is that, unlike its previous two rounds of QE (‘Operation Twist’ and ‘Quantitative Easing II’), QE3 has no fixed time frame. Rather, QE3 will continue to print new money indefinitely until certain economic indicators such as job creation are reached.

As the Bank of England is expected to announce their fifth round of QE in November, it is a dangerous precedent for our financial system to be reliant upon the creation of new money. QE serves as a distraction, whether for the euro crisis or the China slowdown. It is a quick fix for far more deeply ingrained problems, one that artificially buoys the market. It is not so much magic as it is a trick, a clever one indeed, but one that cannot be sustained. Therefore it must be asked: when the curtain falls and QE is withdrawn, what will the global economy have to show for it?

Stephen Maughan argues that plans for a new runway at Heathrow are economically unviable

THE COALITION has recently staged a dramatic U-turn on their aviation policy by launching an independent inquiry to review the future of British airports, in a frantic drive to boost Britain’s economic growth and ‘open Britain for business’.

Should the Conservatives win the 2015 General Election, this inquiry will likely provide political cover for the government to approve the construction of a third, £10 billion runway at Heathrow Airport, an idea which was emphatically rejected by Prime Minister David Cameron in his 2010 manifesto.

The alleged reason for such a sudden shift in aviation policy is that British businesses believe it unsustainable to seek new markets outside of the EU when Britain fails to offer direct flights to major commercial cities such as Chongqing and Chengdu in China – a stance which politicians, unions, and businesses alike have adopted.

However, there is no viable solution to this predicament due to the problems associated with every plan hitherto outlined.

As the most practical short term solution, a third runway at Heathrow is unsurprisingly the most popular option. The expansion ensures Britain remains more competitive in times of cuts and stagnating business, as well as employing vast numbers of people.

Realistically however, when the small print and long term economic ramifications are taken into account, a third runway is not such an appeal-

PROJECT RUNWAY: Doomed to crash and burn? ing prospect.

Despite the considerable emphasis placed on the problems of heightened noise pollution and increased greenhouse gas emissions created by a third runway, these setbacks are minimal in light of the future price of oil which could sink the third runway’s economic potential.

A third of Heathrow’s annual expenditure is allegedly based on oil, an essential commodity which becomes more expensive every year.

The price of oil in future years is set to skyrocket as resources become increasingly rare. In 2012 alone, the price has almost doubled.

New Economics Foundation,

PICTURES DEPOT

Jeremy goes a-Hunting

ON SEPTEMBER 6 the Federal Reserve (the American central bank, also known as the Fed) decided to start the latest round of quantitative easing, dubbed QE3. Like its predecessors, it will have little impact on the real economy. QE3, with all its good intentions, will be a boost for financial assets, as it pumps $40 billion worth of newly printed money into the economy every month.

a think-tank advising the government, has predicted that Heathrow’s oil requirement could cost anywhere between £8 billion and £20 billion as the scarcity of oil increases.

A spokesman for New Economics Foundation said, “you are talking about a highly carbon intensive piece of infrastructure that might be finished at exactly the moment when global oil production is collapsing and its price is rocketing. The government’s case is based on fantasy economics.”

This, in addition to the projected cost of the third runway’s construction, which currently stands at £10 billion, thoroughly undermines the

economic incentive to build a third runway.

The third runway is not the only option that has been haphazardly proposed recently. The public have also been inundated recently with news of plans to build a new airport at Shivering Sands in Kent, capable of handling 150 million passengers per annum, an idea behind which Mayor of London Boris Johnson has thrown his support.

Sadly, however, Boris’s charisma cannot compensate for his shoddy understanding of aviation. Many flight experts, including the chief of the National Air Traffic Service, are opposed to the idea, stating the project is unrealistic as planes from this new airport would infringe on the airspace of Heathrow, Northolt, and London City Airports.

In order for the new airport to operate at an acceptable level, it is likely that Heathrow would have to cut back significantly on international flights. Naturally,this would serve a deadly blow to an already struggling economy and counteracts exactly what the government is trying to achieve through airport expansion.

It may seem an attractive prospect, opening the doors to businesses and investors from the newly emerging commercial hothouse in the Far East. However, given the serious flaws of two main solutions that have been thus far advocated, it’s highly questionable whether that goal will ever be achieved.

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Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Comment 9 #EdUni

It’s a different world

M. M

Christopher Daley shines a cultural light upon the Afghan-Nato patrol split and its context ger, don’t rush or hurry an Afghan, don’t shame an Afghan in public.’

These five points, to name but a few, are pretty much what young recruits in the west expect from their superiors on enrolling for duty. They overcome the harsh treatment by placing it in the historical context and traditions of the armed service.

Yet to an Afghan, these slights are mortally wounding. When the west looks on with incredulity at the now self-parodying protests that accompany political Islam’s latest tantrum, we often fail to grasp the sincerity in which these fits are conducted. The burning of Qurans, the desecration of dead bodies and the most recent episode, The Innocence of Muslims, penetrate into the soul of the devout in a way we cannot comprehend. We have shamed them, and our punishment is

death.

Maybe General Allen divulged more than he should have in ascribing ‘Green on Blue’ attacks as a cultural phenomenon rather than a tactical one. It suggests that the mission was doomed from the outset, that we could no more establish western norms in Afghanistan than they could establish Sharia in Europe.

These attacks have increased in number as NATO and Afghan forces work increasingly closely together with a view to the 2014 handover. The lesson of this latest type of attack may be, ‘They weren’t killing us before - because they hadn’t gotten to know us yet’. Simply providing the training is no longer enough. Fostering a greater cultural understanding between ‘Greens’ and ‘Blues’ could help to wipe out these violent clashes between two groups who are supposedly on the same side.

AFGHANISTAN: The situation has become still more complicated following a spate of ‘Green on Blue’ attacks

One country, no nation

Daniel Swain argues that Britain’s future as a post-national state is at risk in the independence vote

T

he referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 has slightly higher stakes for those on the rational side of politics than most realise; it risks ending Britain’s chances of becoming the world’s first true post-national state, and with it the potential of moving the world towards political unity.

Britain was the world’s first truly modern country, being the first country to experience modern economic growth and possessing the world’s first modern political system; that survives to this day.

Britain, due to historical reasons, is also perfectly placed to be an innovator in another capacity; it could finally end the 200-year relationship between nation and state.

The concept of the nation was invented in the 18th century by primarily German philosophers such as Johann Fichte to justify strange ideas about culture, race, society and, sometimes, to justify the state. As a society we have moved past needing a justification for the existence of the state, any ideas of ‘race’ as a meaningful concept or of striving towards a single mono-culture. Society is now incredibly

multi-cultural and there is no desire, besides on the fringes by people who should be ignored, to change that.

Nations mean certain things to certain people; I personally refute any notion of being described as belonging or subscribing to a ‘nation’. Many other people take precisely the same attitude towards religion. Religion means a lot to some people, and less than nothing to others. Therefore as a society we have recognised the necessity of the separation of church and state, in Britain this divide is not strictly official, but in no real substantial way can the policies of the British government be seen to be driven by those of religious institutions. In fact, the British government arguably pursues more secular policies than the United States or France, model ‘secular’ states.

This separation of nation and state is an essential stage in the development of human society. The ultimate aim, ‘the dream’, as some would say, is a world with no ‘national’ or territorial boundaries. A world unified under a single state, operating for the good of humanity at every level. It’s a bit pie in the sky as far as pres-

ent realities go, but it is surely the only logical manner of organising the world; the present national boundaries and the nuances that come with them only exist for historical reasons.

Britain has the potential to help speed this process along by providing an example of a harmonious post-national state.

While the most obvious step towards global integration in Europe comes from the European Union, in real terms the EU is currently in a state of uncertainty, and while it could be drawn closer together by the current crisis, and hopefully it will, it is not ideal that it is only in crisis that a supra-national state emerges, as lovely as ‘baptisms of fire’ are. Further, the EU is presently very dependent upon national boundaries and governments for its administration, while the UK is less so.

The potential to provide an example of a fully-functioning, post-national state, where the nation is the purview of the individual and civil society, and not the government, exists with Britain.

Britain, already a country that endorses its four ‘home nations’, could go further; it could ultimately devolve power along

regional lines, overlapping between the nations, and therefore diluting the official status of ‘the nation’. Further devolution does indeed deal with most of the core complaints of Scottish nationalists which aren’t totally moronic, ie ‘FREEEEDOM!’ The nation could go the way of the parish and Great Britain could become a prototype for states across the world.

It must be realised that, in moving towards the liberal dream of one united world, Scottish nationalism is as much an obstacle as other, more right-wing forms of nationalism. The notion that people feel a certain way is not a sufficient argument for facilitating such an obtuse and unhelpful ideology; liberals do not allow people’s quite frankly incorrect ideas about the death penalty, national service, immigration and abortion to reflect actual policy or the discussion of it. In pursuing the goal of a harmonious, peaceful world, liberals should recognise that such irrational forces as nationalism are always, due to both the sentiments that underlie it and results that they produce, the opposition.

YASMIN MORGAN-GRIFFITHS

included more specific cases of cultural misunderstanding resulting in attacks, or ‘personal grievances’. Afghanistan is a deeply conservative society. Afghan soldiers feel shame and relentless embarrassment on listening to American soldiers talk publicly of sexual experiences or fantasies. American soldiers look on with amazement as Afghan men walk through the streets holding each other’s hand, a practice found in many Arabic cultures and misunderstood as effeminate.

Though many customs are about simple manners, certain cultural imperatives are much harder to follow when balanced against the methods of a western military training. Here are some ways in which one might insult an Afghan colleague. ‘Don’t tell an Afghan he is wrong even if he gives incorrect information, don’t express emotion in public, don’t wag or point your fin-

WHOA! SORRY guys. I’ve been all over this week. I had a big project due on Tuesday, and then it was Monday night, and I’d just spent all day drinking Stella. Then the rest of the week was hectic, wall-to-wall meetings and the like. It was mad; I’ll try harder next week.

The Xstrata-Glencore saga continues to drag on like a South African mining strike, although that’s another fiasco hurting other people’s shares. Right now the two companies can’t decide who’s going to be on the combined board of the newly merged company. It’s hurting share prices; it’s hurting share prices 4.19 per cent. UGH. Roman Abromovic will welcome not just performance by his pet football club Chelsea, city favourite – BLUE IS THE COLOUR! – but also by his pet mining firm Evraz, who helped lead the rally on Friday but were down over the week on their way down from the QE induced high of the last week. As ever, if you lost money on me, whoopsy! If you made money this week, buy me a pint!

THE TELEGRAPH

FIFTYONE NATO soldiers have been killed by Afghan security forces in 2012, compared with just two such deaths in 2008. Many have taken these ‘Green on Blue’ attacks to mean a paradigm shift in the Taliban’s method of insurgency, and an effective one at that, as this week NATO troops have ended all but the most pressing of joint engagements with their Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) colleagues.

This is, in no uncertain terms, a huge victory for the Taliban and gives rise to the all too familiar question – what do the allies do now?

The mission in Afghanistan has been a reductive one for quite some time. The fantasies of establishing western legal principles or ‘nation building’ have long since been abandoned. The latest definition of a ‘win’ is to train the military and leave ASAP. Now even that modest ambition is in jeopardy.

But, this is Afghanistan, a country that is continually misunderstood.

In a video conference with journalists last month, General John R. Allen, Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, stated that only 25 per cent of ‘insider attacks’ are Taliban orchestrated.

This figure, if true, has two immediate implications. The first is that the Taliban are not the formidable double agents we have credited them as being. Good news surely, as it means we don’t have to yet again redefine ever-narrowing parameters for what our mission objective is. The second consequence is that Afghan soldiers are behaving in an increasingly disturbing manner all of their own accord.

‘It may have something to do with Ramadan’ said General Allen ‘It’s a very tough time for these forces…and it fell in the middle of the fighting season’.

Reasons other than fasting have

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10 Editorial

Editorial

Join us!

The Student is always looking for budding reporters, reviewers, illustrators and photographers to join us. We’re also hunting for recruits for our production and advertising.

If you’re interested, here’s how to track us down: »Meetings every Tuesday in the Teviot Debating Hall at 1.15pm and socials every Tuesday in the Teviot Loft Bar at 8.15pm editors@studentnewspaper.org www.facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper www.twitter.com/TheStudentPaper

The Student discusses fees and apologies LAST WEEK Nick Clegg made a very public apology for his promise to abolish tuition fees before the 2010 general election. He didn’t go so far as to apologise for the £9,000 tuition fees voted for in November 2010, but he apologised for making a promise he couldn’t deliver and has vowed to, “never again make a pledge unless [the Liberal Democrats] are absolutely clear on how [they] can keep it”. Whilst this is an admirable goal, if he sticks to it he will most probably be presenting a blank manifesto in 2015 (it probably wouldn’t make a difference anyway... a comeback isn’t on the cards for Clegg and his chums at the next general election).

The decision to increase the tuition fee cap in England set the ball in motion for increases across the UK and last week the UK was branded the most expensive country in Europe

What they said:

A quick history lesson...

Alasdair and Leo

How they apologised:

“On Wednesday night I attempted “Best you learn your f**king place. to leave Downing Street via the main You don’t run this f**king govern- gate, something I have been allowed ment” to do many times before.

Conservative chief whip Andrew Mitchell

“I’m the Chief Whip and I'm “I was told that I was not allowed coming through these gates” to leave that way. While I do not accept that I used any of the words that “You’re f**king plebs” have been reported, I accept I did not treat the police with the respect they (allegedly) deserve. I have seen the supervising Sergeant and apologised” “I’m so tired of pretending my life isn’t perfect and bitching and just winning every second and I’m not perfect and bitchin’.”

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.

"The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning"

“Sorry about that. But [Sheen’s new show Anger Management’s] what’s happening now”

“I’m not Thomas Jefferson. He was a pussy.”

Editors Alasdair Drennan & Leo Michelmore

News Sam Bradley, Alistair Grant & Thurston Smalley Comment Yasmin Morgan-Griffiths & Daniel Swain Features Nina Bicket, Cameron Taylor & Francesca Mitchell Lifestyle Katherine Nugent & Marissa Trew Science & Environment Nina Seale & Katy Sheen Tech Alasdair MacLeod Horoscopes Max Johnson, Guy Rughani & Ben Scally Crosswords John Wakely Culture Troy Holmes, Madeleine Ash & Thom Louis Music Stuart Iversen, Emmett Cruddas & Geraint Lloyd Ellis Film Dan Scott Lintott & Sally Pugh TV Hannah Clapham-Clark & Jack Murray Commission Sarah Burch Sport Piers Barber & Davie Heaton

year.

In the US it is not uncommon for students (or their parents) to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a college education and many ask what all the fuss is about over here, but the fee increase will inevitably lead to students expecting more from their education. It is possible that poor quality feedback; poor access to resources and bad lecturers will no longer be tolerated. It is very easy to get lost in the dogmatic crusade against £9,000 fees but as a student body we should not miss the opportunity to expect a better quality of education as a result of the fee increase.

We recount some of the most public apologies of recent years:

thestudentpaper.tumblr.com 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.

in which to study. A four year degree at the University of Edinburgh and many other Scottish universities will cost £36,000 for tuition alone. An overall decrease in university applications has been attributed to the new cost of tuition but it has yet to be seen what other ways the fees will impact on the new generation entering higher education.

In discussions over the cost of higher education across the country, and indeed the world, it has been argued that education has a public good at its heart and therefore it should be free and accessible to all. This is a very easy argument to make when not faced with £36,000 worth of debt on graduation but the newest students from the rest of the UK students will be constantly asking whether or not their degree will be worth £9,000 per

Charlie Sheen

“[CBS] picked a fight with a warlock.”

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

Head of illustration Jalen Vasquez

“These allegations are false and I need to get back to work for the American people.”

Head copy editor Melissa Geere Copy editors Elyse Jamieson, Emily Ingram, Michael Hannan, Lindsay Thomson, Tara Ennis & Charlotte Wagenaar Production editors Ben Shmulevitch & Christopher Sladdin

“Indeed I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong ...

I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that.”

Head of advertising Matt McDonald Photo editor Elizabeth Doucette

President Anna Feintuck Secretary Rebecca O'Doherty Treasurer Katy Sheen

President Bill Clinton

Social Secretary Daniel Swain

Reportedly said:

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“Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”

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. © The 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 RJM Couriers, 3 John Muir Place, Dunbar EH42 1GD. Tel: 01368 860115. Printed

by Print and Digital Associates, 01332 896525, on Monday September 10 2012. Tel: 01228 612600. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.

Mel Gibson

“I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law-enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.”

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Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Features 13

Storm in a C-cup

THE FIRST MEDIA STORM: The Duchess is no stranger to press interest “There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now.”

It really is rare that even a couple of a man’s favourite things conspire to become relevant at once. This past week however, my trifecta: Eugene O’Neill, partial female nudity and legal controversy (notice the absence of ‘friends’ on that list) appeared in a perfect storm of grainy imaged perfection.

At first glance, it may appear that only two of those passions have any sort of relevance to the story that is currently passing around the gossip magazines like a particularly potent bout of voyeuristic influenza. Yet the embarrassment of the Duchess of Cornwall is in fact a perfect endorsement of Eugene O'Neill's great words.

In 1849, another royal consort, Prince Albert, found himself in an unfortunate position. A disgruntled manservant, who had recently come into possession of some ‘intimate family etchings’ made by the Prince, was

BEN SUTHERLAND

Séamus McGuigan on societal and legal culpability for the media’s disregard for privacy

planning to show them at an exhibition in London, where some of the most personal moments of royal life would be revealed. So, with the sacred space of his palace violated and with his family’s privacy at risk, the royal summoned the powers of England’s finest lawyers and went to court to seek an injunction preventing the exhibition from going ahead.

“

The law more and more seems like a selection of gentle guidelines rather than a looming threat to the paparazzi and gossip-mongers..."

Later that week Prince Albert emerged from the smoky, suit-andtailed Victorian courtroom with a re-

sounding victory over the aptly named Mr Strange and his accomplice, one Mr Middleton. Somewhere in heaven, Eugene O’Neill just high fived himself.

The law is, if nothing else, a creature of habit. Politicians and lawyers may come and go, mordant and metal may give way to pixels and processors, but the law has a stubborn way of pulling through in spite of change, like a stone thread of stability winding through the ages. It is because of this that it came to pass that the litigious actions of Kate Middleton’s royal forbearers became the strongest protection against the second coming of Mr Strange (at least domestically), when pictures of the future consort bathing topless in France surfaced.

Yet even Prince Albert could not help Kate when England’s old enemy across the pond got a hold of the pictures and the Parisian magazine Closer plastered her “figure merveilleuse” on their cover in all its creepy, long-lensed ingloriousness.

While to the Elgar listening, royal wedding crockery owning section of society this will seem like par for the course when it comes to the ‘sneaky French,’ the more level headed, plain white plate users in the legal world were slightly surprised by the extent to which Closer was allowed to invade the Duchess’s privacy without serious recourse.

On paper, France seems to view the right to privacy as being of at least some importance – placing it above the right to a fair trial and a full nine hundred articles before the right to own property in its civil code. But based on the fact that the only punishment Closer received was the threat of a €100,000 fine if they published the photos again, I’m starting to reconsider that Louvre heist.

Yet, if you can manage to dig deeper through the cavernous maze of the law without succumbing to the special kind of coma reserved for law students, you may be shocked by how supposedly firm our privacy laws are in contrast to how widely the privacy of celebrities seems to be violated. Looking at the European Convention of Human Rights, which is meant to guarantee absolute protection of one’s “private and home life, his home and correspondence,” while the sickening revelations of Leveson hum in the background of our social conscience, it is hard to see where the law is having an effect on curbing the excesses of the media at large.

The law more and more seems like a selection of gentle guidelines rather than a looming threat to the paparazzi and gossipmongers who manage to make the lives of celebrities (who are

people too, by the way, even Niki Minaj) a living hell. The ceaseless march of the media continues, hopelessly outpacing and out-innovating the statute books in a battle that seems to have only one foreseeable conclusion.

Yet it is here that I must turn to another great playwright, indeed, such is the severity of the situation, I must turn to the greatest playwright. In his play, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s Cassius warns Brutus that he cannot remain separate from the affairs of the world, for all things ultimately fall at the feet of the human condition. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” he declares. It is in this pearl of poetic wisdom that we come to the root cause of this growing loss of privacy; the reason why a future queen cannot feel safe to sunbathe on private property and a teen starlet feels afraid to let her hair down because of the looming spectre of public humiliation. The fault, dear readers, is not in our laws, but in ourselves.

“

Gossip columns need not be simple fodder being thrown to a discontented beast. They can reveal hypocracy, lies and abuses of power..."

We are, and always have been, a species of voyeurs; all that has changed is what we can see and how fast we can see it. Mr Strange wanted to see metal plates etched by a prince, we demand to know what Kate Middleton looks like when the digital cameras go away.

Everyone loves to know a secret, and by knowing those kept by the rich and famous, we feel as though we are part of their lives and by extension sharing in the warm glow of the fame we could not achieve.

We are all peering through the media’s lens together, searching for the information that, while damaging and humiliating for those concerned, makes us feel comforted that, although they may have glory and riches, celebrities still feel the pain that all humans encounter, from the gilded hilltops of Bel Air to the regimented suburbs of Glasgow.

We flock to buy every instalment of Jennifer Aniston’s struggle because her struggle is our struggle. She is heartbroken just as we too are heartbroken, and we want to know that we are not alone even if it means that Jen is followed by the sentient eye of the media

wherever she goes. It is a vicious cycle, and as the woes of society grow, so too the demand for information to appease our despair grows, as demonstrated by the increasing number of irrelevant celebrities made and destroyed by their audiences, all while the media sits and counts the cash as the middle-agedmummy heads down to Asda to collect her latest fix.

I am firmly of the belief that human behaviour cannot be changed. For as long as there are celebrities, there will be a need for gossip about celebrities.

Let us not pretend for one minute that society could live without its idols or that the idols could survive without society. And so that section of the media must, as it always has, live on. Yet it does not need to come at the cost of our basic dignity.

We can have laws that allow the media to function in congruence with celebrities while preventing the worst excesses that shame us all and make our fellow humans’ lives at times unbearable. It is true as well that the investigative media can provide less base benefits to our society. The gossip columns need not be simple fodder being thrown to a discontented beast. They can reveal hypocrisy, lies and abuses of power when the more timid parts of the media anatomy would have turned back in the name of undeserving privacy.

One of the great minds of Scottish legal theory, David Maxwell Walker, is a firm believer that the laws protecting the personal right to honour, privacy and reputation should be balanced with the public interest; that people have strong, enforceable rights; but that these do not protect them when they have done wrong to society; this is the path we should be taking.

The talk of Duchesses, of legal theory, of playwrights and sociology will never speak stronger than when we look in the mirror and ask these questions of ourselves. There is nothing wrong with worship of idols. It has been a practice of humanity since our eyes glowed with the first spark of flame; it gives us reference and it gives us meaning. But more than we are idol worshippers, we are human beings who have a responsibility to sustain a world that is better than its worst excesses, and that can ultimately accept its flaws but not allow them to consume us. I for one, hope that that will never change.

For there truly is no present or future – there are only human beings, their flaws and dead writers.

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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12 Features

Discovery of the decade

Eloise Kohler speaks to Dr Victoria Martin about the discovery of the Higgs boson

“Maybe not everything, but a much more inclusive theory than we already have, that probably describes everything we can think of or test experimentally, let’s say. I think that is a hundred years away, I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime.”

CERN is due to close in 2013 for an 18 month refurbishment, but Dr Martin assures us that there is still plenty more work ahead. “We’re already planning to keep it running until the end of the decade. But I really hope we keep running basically until we break it or until there is no more physics to come out of it. I want to squeeze every last iota of physics out of that collider; not just value for money but also value for people’s time and so we can really understand as much as the LHC can tell us.”

“

I really hope we keep running basically until we break it or until there is no more physics to come out of it."

MARK HILLARY

Dr Victoria Martin

THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER: Where years of hard work recently paid off with the discovery of the Higgs boson THIS SUMMER, a new particle was found at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This is not an everyday occurrence; in fact it has been a long 48 years since the particle was first proposed in 1964.

“The Higgs boson was the first part of it and there is a lot more to do,” Edinburgh particle physicist Dr Victoria Martin stresses that whilst the elusive Higgs boson has finally been found there is still a large project at hand. In this interview she shares her thoughts on the joys of discovery, Peter Higgs himself and the multiple meetings held to scrutinize whether the LHC could have initiated an apocalypse.

Dr Martin is currently a lecturer in particle physics at the University of Edinburgh, a former student of Higgs and director of a team of Edinburgh physicists based at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research). “We look after a group of about 20 people and do lots of little bits and bobs for the ATLAS experiment, but we also analyse the data that comes out, looking at the data to see if there is a Higgs boson there or not.”

The beauty of this discovery is to be appreciated. The Higgs boson was the only missing part the Standard Model Theory, which attempts to explain the symmetries and fundamental characteristics of the universe. The model explains how subatomic particles are bound together to create atoms by three of the four fundamental forces. It has success-

fully delivered a whole host of results and Dr Martin calls it “the best tested theory in science”. Yet this symmetric theory of inter-particle interactions also predicts that nature’s elementary particles should be without mass, which is clearly wrong.

“

I don't think the Large Hadron Collider can prophesise on God or an omnipresent being."

Dr Victoria Martin “If they didn’t [have mass] then atoms wouldn’t form. And if atoms didn’t form, then human beings and the universe wouldn’t form,” Dr Martin explains.

This mystery is solved by the existence of the Higgs field and the Higgs bosons.

They work to create a ‘drag’ on otherwise massless particles, thus explaining why particles have mass (a particle’s mass is a measure of how ‘quickly’ it can move through the Higgs field). It also suggests the compelling idea that a vacuum is not actually empty.

The particle is difficult to detect as it “almost immediately disintegrates into something else”. The solution was to map the decay channels and to work backwards from there. By smashing high energy protons together and simulating conditions during the first millionth of a second after the Big Bang,

they were hunting for pairs of photons or Z bosons, which is what the Higgs is most likely to decay into. This is precisely what Dr Martin’s team at ATLAS was looking at, “going through the data, searching for these particles and trying to piece it back together.”

The nickname, the ‘God particle’ has been invoked due to the significance of the discovery, which Dr Martin insists is ridiculous.

“I don’t think the LHC can prophesise on God or an omnipresent being.

It was actually a Nobel Laureate, Leon Lederman, who came up with the nickname. He was trying to call it ‘The Goddamn particle’ emphasizing how hard it is to find, but publishers wouldn’t allow it, so it became the ‘God particle’.

Higgs detests the name; he’d rather hear his name endlessly than hear it called the ‘God particle’.”

But there is no doubt that this result is the greatest scientific discovery of the past decade and has led to a certain amount of ‘Higgsteria’. It is also a vindication for the thousands of scientists who have dedicated their lives to the project.

“On the day, it was really exciting to hear the CMS (one of the other vast detectors at CERN) result, as I knew that our team, the ATLAS experiment, had seen something, but didn’t know until the 4th July as it was announced live that they had seen exactly the same thing and that confirmed it for me.

“But then it was: right, ok, done now,

we’ve found it. And it wasn’t until a bit later in the day when I sat down and thought, people have been looking for this for nearly 25 years. And I think that was it. People have been thinking and planning this for so long, people have put a lot of energy and investment and time into it and retired or even died before it came into fruition and I just thought, these people have got such foresight to be involved with a project that’s not going to come up with the results for another 20 years and put all their effort in and not be there to take their share of the glory. In fact the research paper is dedicated to all the people that passed away before they saw the outcome of their work.”

Now the question arises as to whether the recent discovery truly is the Higgs Boson, “The Higgs boson might not be the Higgs boson we thought it was. I mean we’re all calling it a Higgs boson, but we really have to take a lot more data to see if it is exactly what Peter thought it was or maybe a bit different or maybe a lot different. There are various other theories that also predict the existence of a Higgs boson, but they also forecast other particles, so we need to see if they exist too.”

Currently the Standard Model is the most encompassing theory that physicists have, but one wonders whether a sweeping theory of everything – a set of equations that describe every particle and force in the universe – will ever be found. “I think yes.” Dr Martin pauses.

Higgs is an Emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh, and attended a general interest seminar Dr Martin recently held about the latest discovery.

“He is a very nice gentleman, very polite and incredibly modest. Yet trying to explain Higgs’ work to Higgs was very daunting, but I looked at him occasionally and he was smiling and nodding and he never screwed up his face at anything.

I do remember him as a lecturer and he was quite a tough lecturer, you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.”

When asked whether there was ever any worry about the LHC sparking an end of the world scenario as predicted by apocalyptic prophets, Dr Martin confirmed that it was thought about. “Obviously it was a concern. People did sit down and calculate what the probability was, if it was going to happen, it would be some kind of physics that we didn’t know about yet and so people went off and looked at all kinds of crazy theories and sat down and worked out the probability that you’re going to destroy the whole world and it was small. I think about 10-37 (the probability of winning the lottery is about 10-12), so small that we were happy to go ahead.”

Whilst non-scientists may find it hard to understand what is so important about this elementary particle, Dr Martin maintains that this discovery is relevant to a worldwide audience. “It is not only crucial to understanding the universe…but another significance that the wider community might get is how it has brought all these people from all over the world together for such a long period of time to put a huge project together.

Tens of thousands of people and billions and billions of dollars, pounds, Swiss francs were invested in this undertaking.

And it’s brilliant that everyone can be so focused on getting this one result.”

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Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Features 13

G(Gove) C(changes) S(standardised) E(exams)

Elske Waite and Sile Maguire Conneely look at what the end of GCSEs will mean

“

Perhaps the EBacc will provide a more credible set of results where the top grade becomes a thing of greater value" There have always been doubts over the integrity of coursework, for it is understandably difficult to regulate the number of drafts or the input that teachers and over-involved parents are allowed. Certainly the lack of coursework in the Ebacc will eliminate this problem, but will it solve the deeper issues that face the education system?

Many have criticised the government’s somewhat rash actions, saying they are being deliberately bold in their changes to distract from educational failures in England. There could be a worrying amount of truth in this.

If the government is under pressure to make fundamental changes, it may be more likely to change unwisely.

Exam nerves can be a candidate’s best friend or worst enemy. While many perform best under timed conditions, for others the pressure is too great. Is it fair then to force all pupils to be examined in ways that only a portion are able to suffer well?

Surely a mediocre paper, written under the pressure of the clock by an otherwise bright student, is an inaccurate reflection of their abilities, and more importantly, will have damaging repercussions for their future. Or is the ability to prepare, revise, and perform well in exams an important skill in itself?

This, in addition to the Govern-

ment’s plan to scrap many practical courses earlier this year, could become a serious issue for pupils who don’t want to follow the increasingly academic road that the education system is building. Is the Coalition trying to squash young people into one academically shaped mould?

Arguably Gove’s statement that a modular system encourages “bite-size learning” and doesn’t allow the “deep learning” that a year’s work might foster may have some truth in it. One common critique of the current systems is that pupils can retake GCSE modules multiple times until they succeed.

Perhaps the EBacc will provide a more credible set of results where the top grade becomes a thing of greater value, but the overall issues of the education system are far from being resolved. Some fear that until some flexibility in assessment is introduced, where a diverse range of courses reflecting the diverse talents of young people are available, we can only regress into a system which echoes Victorian school values, a system which has rightly been modernised.

Michael Gove’s changes to the education system in England may be radical, but they are by no means a new idea everywhere. The Republic of Ireland, for example, has always had primarily exam-based courses. The Junior Certificate, taken at around the age of 15, takes place at the end of a three year cycle, and the Leaving Certificate, the Irish equivalent of A-levels, is taken after two years of learning and revising.

This system of examination is not dissimilar to the new English Bacca-

laureate, and thus could be very helpful in discovering whether or not Gove’s new changes will be a success or not.

As with any education system, there are pros and cons to the way in which Irish students are examined. There is a huge amount of pressure on students, not only because of the amount of courses that have to be learned and studied ( Junior Certificate students usually take ten subjects, and Leaving Certificate students take an average of between six and seven), but also because of the knowledge that all the work done over the years comes down to a two and a half hour exam in the middle of June. It also doesn’t help for students with a more nervous disposition that teachers, parents, and the media as a whole hardly ever stop talking about the exams for the entire year.

“

Michael Gove's changes to the education system in England may be radical, but they are by no means a new idea everywhere."

Most subjects don’t include any type of coursework and so there’s nothing to fall back on if everything goes wrong on the day. There is some coursework to do in subjects like History and Geography, but these don’t account for more than 20 per cent of the overall mark. All the emphasis is put on exams.

The absence of coursework does cancel out “parent participation”, but that doesn’t mean these exams give an accurate reflection of students’ abilities. Many students have essays and sample answers learned off by heart, only to regurgitate them back to the examiner, conveniently fitted to the question given. It could be argued that these exams are just tests to see how well one remembers information rather than seeing if the student really understands what they’ve been learning.

For the people who work hard in class, and study and understand, but are just not good at taking exams, the Irish examination system gives those people little chance to show how good they are, with no second chance. This isn’t a problem for the Junior Certificate, as these exams have no effect on your continuation in second level education.

With the Leaving Certificate, if you don’t do well enough to get the thirdlevel course you wanted, you’ll have to retake the year. It can be a brutal system for some, and expensive as well.

Many students will take 'grinds' classes, which are extra classes in a particular subject, to try and make sure they get the result they want first time round. Many people take grinds in almost all their subjects, which could be either a reflection of the quality of education in Ireland, or also one that shows the worry many people have of not being good enough.

There are many different approaches to education and examinations throughout the world and each has its advantages and disadvantages. When

it comes to English and Irish systems, it seems the good in one is the bad in the other.

A-level coursework gives students a chance to parade their talent, but it’s impossible to know how much of it is the student’s own work. In Ireland, there’s no doubt that it’s the student’s work, but the pressures of exam conditions are often too great to work under.

“

It could be argued that these exams are just tests to see how well one remembers information, rather than seeing if the student really understands what they've been learning."

While fewer subjects in A levels give students a chance to really understand what they’re studying, the breadth of study in Ireland gives the student a much more rounded education. It’s highly improbable that we’ll ever find a perfect solution in which everyone can shine, as unfortunately this is not a ‘one size fits all’ situation.

What is certain is that because education remains such an important and divisive issue, Gove’s plans and the EBacc will come under as much criticism as praise.

GOODBYE GCSE, HELLO EBACC: Will the greater bias towards exams at the end of a years study in the new system lead to more people cracking under pressure?

HTTP://SAMOMATIC.COM/

WITH SECRETARY of State for Education Michael Gove’s radical changes, all secondary school pupils in England will sit the English Baccalaureate (or EBacc) by 2017, making GCSEs, which have been in place since 1986, a thing of the past. Coursework will be scrapped in subjects such as English, Maths and History, with most courses being completely exam-based.

Gove insists that this is a change for the better, saying it is time to “tackle grade inflation and dumbing down” and “restore rigour to our examinations.”

Could he have a point? Currently around a third of pupils sitting GCSEs receive an A or A* grade, and many believe that the existence of multiple exam boards per subject encourages competition to produce the easiest paper in exchange for increased business.

Perhaps this new system, where only a predicted 10 per cent will be awarded a grade 1 (the A* equivalent) and with only one exam board per subject, may provide credibility to an achievement that has become questioned.

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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14 Features

The Maple Spring

“

Suddenly students were no longer the predominant demonstrators as the wider population of Quebeckers took to the streets."

The proposed increase in university fees for Quebec students, commonly

referred to as the ‘tuition hike’, stood at approximately 82 per cent over the course of five years, starting in the 2012-2013 academic year and continuing until 2016-2017. Dramatic as this might initially sound, this increase would mean that fees would only actually increase by a mere $325 (£201.05) per year until 2017, at which point the cost of a full academic year would total $3793 (£2392).

For those facing the almost 500 per cent increase in fees at Edinburgh this year such increases may seem trivial by comparison, especially since even with the proposed increase Quebec’s tuition fees would still have been the lowest in Canada. Nevertheless, the Quebecois showed massive opposition to the hikes – and later to the now infamous Bill 78 which tried to contain the strikes - resulting in what turned out to be the largest protest in Canadian history.

Whilst the demonstrations did not make UK headlines until late April, strikes and protests had been in full

SAME CLASS, SAME FIGHT: Socialist overtones marked the protests

FRANCESCA MITCHELL

WHOEVER SAID that student protest was ineffective has clearly never heard of the manifencours that has gripped the Canadian province of Quebec this year. After six months of continuous protests, some of which attracted as many as 500,000 demonstrators, the student cause has emerged victorious this week as the proposed tuition fee increase has been cancelled by the new provincial government.

“

Nightly marches also continued, often punctuated by conflict with the police, instances of tear-gassing, popular vandalism and mass arrests."

It was at this point that the protests took on a whole new dimension. Suddenly students were no longer the predominant demonstrators as the wider population of Quebeckers took to the streets. The 22nd May demonstration, which marked the 100th day of protest, saw an estimated half a million people march through the streets on Montreal.

In addition to the usual student demonstrators, babies now sat in pushchairs with the illegal red squares pinned to their clothing, parents and children waved red flags, and the elderly hobbled through the rain with placards demanding the abolition of the new law.

Later that day, a new form of protest emerged as the city’s neighbourhoods came alive with the sound of banging pots and pans. For weeks thereafter came the nightly chorus of casseroles, marking the city’s resistance to the tuition hikes and the controversial law.

From that point on, nightly marches also continued, often punctuated with conflict with the police, instances of tear-gassing, popular vandalism and mass arrests.

As the protests evolved, so did the

THE RED FLAG: The red square became the symbol of the protests demands of the demonstrators. Demands for the ousting of the Charest government became ubiquitous, and his Liberal government has this month been replaced by Pauline Marois’s Parti Québécois. Amidst the accusations of fascism leveled at Charest (extremists went so far as to compare him to Joseph Kony, which anyone must admit is going that little bit too far) came shouts for greater egalitarianism and socialism, as the omnipresent red flags soon made clear.

What began as an objection to tuition hikes – and not especially extortionate ones at that – has undeniably come to signify in Quebec something much broader and more fundamental. The movement in Quebec, now referred to tongue-in-cheek as ‘The Maple Spring’, harks back to wider trends all over the world, and notably, with all its socialist overtones, to last year’s worldwide Occupy movement.

Whilst the protests have long been about far more than fees, the success-

FRANCESCA MITCHELL

swing since 13th February. As an exchange student living in Montreal, I was a regular witness to the unrest sweeping over the city. Lecture halls progressively emptied on university and CEGEP (sixth form) campuses all over the province, as the increasingly politicised student populations voted to strike.

Even those students like myself, whose departments had voted against striking, found that their classrooms were often barricaded by picket lines.

Thousands of demonstrators appeared in the streets, swathing the city in red flags and placards crying out contre la hausse. Montreal riot police came out in force, often unable to distinguish between protestors and those simply trying to get home. The red square, the symbol of the protest, became iconic overnight; within days, it was pinned to clothes, accessories, houses, lampposts, street signs – and in the case of one particular character, his nipples.

Fourteen weeks into the protest, the government of then-Premier Jean Charest announced the introduction of an emergency in an attempt to control the escalating situation. Bill 78, more commonly referred to in the French ‘Loi 78’, was passed on 18th May. In addition to suspending classes at 11 universities and 14 colleges where large proportions of the students were striking, the law also imposed restrictions on students’ right to protest on or near university campuses, freedom of assembly and the wearing of the red square.

ful cooperation and engagements of student groups with trade unions, the broader population and wider fundamental issues clearly lie at the heart of the students’ success in their battle against the hikes.

“

Thousands of demonstrators appeared in the streats, swathing the city in red flags and placards."

Their defiance, it must be said, serves to demonstrate the comparative apathy of British students in their equivalent protests in 2010. Whilst it’s too late now to challenge the infamous £9000, and whilst I’d hate to be accused of being a revolutionary, it’s worth noting for the future that this is how it’s done.

100 DAYS OF STRIKE, 100 DAYS OF CONTEMPT: Students are still marching

FRANCESCA MITCHELL

DROVES OF DEMONSTRATORS: Despite the weather, thousands gather

FRANCESCA MITCHELL

Francesca Mitchell reports back from the successful student protests in Quebec

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

JOANNA LISIOVEC

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Street style: autumn edition

Kathryn MacPhail explores Scotland’s fashion capital

Bending the rules

KATHRYN MACPHAIL

IT SEEMS that all the magazines are refusing to believe that the summer is over, with articles entitled ‘Ibiza Special!’ or ‘Festival Fever’ splashed across their pages. Personally, I couldn’t afford a summer holiday this year so I’m keen to avoid the summer fashion buzz and embracing the autumn air. With the air becoming bitterly cold, and the leaves slowing changing colour its time to put away the fake tan and pull on the woollen tights. Gone are the days of exposed toes… you are better off investing in a pair of seriously trendy (but waterproof ) ankle boots.

Perhaps the most obvious and versatile staple of every autumn wardrobe is the humble scarf. A vital accessory that is capable of improving any outfit, whether it is a sophisticated dress or a casual t-shirt. Unfortunately with blustery winds and dropping temperatures, we can’t afford to forget the awkwardly matching gloves and hats that will always ruin our hair (a small price to pay for staying cosy). For those unwilling to sacrifice their perfectly styled locks, earmuffs are an extra adorable alternative to that chunky beanie.

Other key essentials are: a denim shirt, perfect for layering; a classic army jacket; and floral patterns to remind us that spring is just around the cornet. I would also suggest adding a splash of colour into your outfit.

In image one (far left), sisters Daisy (left) and Emily Balderstone (right) bravely brandish a bold use of colour.

Daisy’s choice of emerald green jeans combined with a lovely pair of floral loafers challenge the classic cliché of blue denim. Her floral scarf demonstrates its ability to accessorize and brighten any outfit. I also loved Emily’s red bag, a piece that draws the atten-

Interior Decorating 101

STREET STYLE: Univerity of Edinburgh autumn wear tion of anyone passing by. When asked about their wardrobe essentials this season, both agreed that a basic flat cap and anything with a floral print were fashion favourites.

In image two (centre), Becca’s (left) and Stella’s (right) boots, caught my eye. No autumn look would be complete without these extremely versatile ankle boots that can be paired with any outfit. Team them with skinny jeans, a printed dress and tights and you’re looking cool, and feeling warm.

With Scotland’s infamous summers, who is to say that you can’t wear them throughout the year?

I always love seeing men wearing woollen jumpers - but just to warn our male readers, you will probably find

Phil Cooks

that women will want to steal them for themselves. Cable knits and cashmere jumpers layered with checked shirts are a very ‘in’ look. Third year University of Edinburgh student, Graham Webster, shows us how this look is done (image three). In image four, David Selby rocks a cool winter’s coat for men, teaming it with a casual pair of chinos, proving that real men can still pull off Harris Tweed.

Ladies, this goes for you too. Though, this look carries the risks of being a little too ‘rah’. Think the Arctic Monkeys, or Alex James. Think Barbour. Think... well, you get the gist.

Of course, these are only a couple of examples of the vast Edinburgh student fashion scene. These may be things you’ve already read in the maga-

zines and I’m more than sure that there are far more fashion-savvy people out there than me. However, I think the best outfits are always the ones that you are most comfortable wearing and stay true to you. Edinburgh could surely be said to be the fashion capital of Scotland with Princes Street spoiling us for choice and the countless vintage shops to explore: Armstrong’s in the Grass Market; Herman Brown in West Port; Barnardo’s Vintage; and Godiva in West Port, to name a few. Also, definitely explore the charity shops.

Newington has the highest amount of charity shops in the city with lots of hidden treasures. Hopefully this article will have inspired you to dare to explore new ideas.

Phil Cook shares his secrets on creating simple yet sophisticated suppers your mates – my easy to follow recipes will offer something for everybody and every budget and you never know, you might just enjoy yourself!

This recipe is a personal favourite as I created it by chance whilst making lunch one day. Sea bream is a sustainable fish, that not only has the same great flavour as it’s more fashionable cousin, sea bass, but is also cheaper to buy.

Pan-fried sea bream with asparagus, broad beans and chilli dressing on

a bed of sautéed potatoes.

Ingredients: (serves one) One sea bream fillet Four asparagus spears, trimmed Four broad bean shoots Three Small potatoes Half a red chilli (diced finely) Three tbsp. sugar Splash white wine vinegar 150ml water Olive oil Method:

TASTY: Don't get a take-out

STEVE COOK

I AM a chef and food writer who is always looking to inspire and encourage people to give the takeaway a miss and get in the kitchen.

I love using amazing local British produce to come up with simple but effective dishes to ‘tantalize the taste buds’. Hearing people say ‘I can’t cook’ or ‘I’ll just phone something in; it’s easier’ drives a dagger through my heart, so I thought I’d do something about it.

Having previously studied journalism, I decided to give it up to follow my passion – food. After completing three years at catering college, I thought I would tie in both aspects of my studies and try to encourage and promote good food whilst teaching people new skills.

My friend Graham suggested blogging about it – and that’s where Phil’s Food World was born.

Whether it be a simple supper for one or a three course dinner party for

1) Par-boil the potatoes for around three minutes, remove and let cool, then slice to the approximate thickness of a two-pound coin.

2) Add the sugar, water and vinegar to a pan and whisk to dissolve. Add the chilli and gently simmer and reduce to

a good sauce-like consistency.

3) Meanwhile, heat a frying pan with a little oil and fry the potatoes until golden on both sides, remember to season.

4) In another pan place the fillet skin side down and cook for two-three minutes until crisp, flip for a further minute, then add the asparagus.

5) Remove the broad beans from the pod and shuck the green bean from the pale skin. Place the broad beans in boiling water for one minute then drain.

6) Place the potatoes in the centre of the plate with the bream on top (skin side up), place a spear of asparagus on each side of the plate and scatter the broad beans. Drizzle with the chilli sauce. www.philsfoodworld.blogspot.co.uk

WHEN THE stress of academics and the weariness of one too many nights out begins to weigh down on your spirit, the prospects of returning to a comfortable room can sometimes offer the only sanctuary. It is often more difficult to accomplish this if you live in university halls, which enforce strict rules that everyone must abide by. For those helpless souls condemned to bear the prohibition of posting posters, painting walls and lighting candles in the dorms, keep in mind that there are alternative ways to ‘legally’ bend these rules.

Many may wonder why the University would allow poster sales to all students at enticingly reasonable prices yet forbid their display on their room walls. As hypocritical as it seems, it is nevertheless understandable. Yet, there are sneaky ways for all those rebels out there to work around these rules without risking punishment.

Simply follow these guidelines: 1)Don’t like the colour of your walls? Rather than standing around fretting over the horribly ugly colour of the four walls that surround you, focus on the colours of your curtains instead. There are no rules forbidding you to change your curtains, so hit up IKEA and purchase a set of curtains that suit your taste.

2) Due to measures to protect students against fire hazards, lighting candles are not allowed in the dorms. While lighting candles are not permitted, candles ironically are. Plopping a few scented candles around your room not only serves to provide a decorative appearance, but also transforms your room to a wonderfully scented haven. To avoid accusation, simply remove the candle's wick.

3) Posters are another dilemma in which most university students living in accommodations must tolerate. If you’re willing to go through the hassle and effort, opt for gluing your posters on a piece of large cardboard and leaning the piece against your wall. Threading a piece of string at the top of your poster or cardboard and dangling it on the edges of your shelf, a doorknob or your light can also serve as an alternative solution.

Pin boards are a great substitute for posting posters on, but provide only a limited space to do so.

Therefor when putting posters on pin boards, go for variation rather than size.

Jasmine Xie

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Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Hypersp-Ace!

Alasdair MacLeod learns to appreciate those FML moments in FTL

I’VE BEEN focussing too much on the big picture. In Faster Than Light (FTL), this is an easy mistake to make.

Sure, the enemy ship has been soundly beaten, but a quick glance shows that my own is doing no better.

The alarm draws me back to 'reality'.

Someone is dying, somewhere on my ship. But who? And where? And most importantly, what’s killing them?

I scroll down through the crew complement. The engineer is reading red.

This isn’t good, but it’s nothing a trip to the medbay won't fix... assuming he can

chaotic chains of tragedy that inevitably lead to your downfall that are so wildly amusing. And this is all well and good.

You’re going to do a hell of a lot of losing.

“

Losing is fun...

And this is all well and good. You're going to do a hell of alot of losing."

In FTL, victory in a given battle does not necessarily guarantee success or even survival. The long term effects of combat are easily as deadly as its initial impacts.

Although your ship can survive catastrophic damage, the same can’t be said of your poor, fragile crew, and your ship can hardly fly itself. And death is the end.

There are no continues.

Many weapons have a chance of causing hull breaches, damaging subsystems or starting fires. More than once, I’ve fought an attacker into submission, realising only too late that oxygen production was disabled. Or that the gunnery room was on fire. Or that a rogue breaching drone was still on board, slaughtering my crew.

ANM

get there in time. Unfortunately for him, the entire starboard section, the surest route to medicine, is a blazing inferno.

And he's more than a little busy at the moment, desperately holding an enemy boarding party at bay. I pause and take stock.

If I let the fire spread, my brave crewman, not to mention the engine he's fighting to protect, will be toast. And toast isn’t exactly renowned for its ability to perform hyperspace jumps.

I could have him disengage, head to medicine on a roundabout tour of the ship. I’d save my engineer, but the boarders would have free reign to trash my most critical systems...

And then it comes to me. The perfect solution! A way to kill four birds with one stone. Even if one of those birds happens to be my own engineer... I can vent the whole section into space! Opening an airlock will create a vacuum, neatly putting out the fire and suffocating anyone left in the room with minimal risk to the rest of the ship. I silently thank my crewman for his loyal service and hit the switch.

In the proud tradition of Dwarf Fortress, another prominent management/ roguelike hybrid, Faster Than Light is a game in which “losing is fun”. It’s not so much the losing itself, but the panicked,

DAMNIT: So close, and yet so far.

As a management game, your interactions mainly involve setting objectives.

Prioritising targets, ordering crew to various parts of the ship and controlling power output. The only real, direct, physical action you can perform is the opening and closing of airlocks.

As such, this is a game that relies far less on skill and twitch than foresight and planning.

Playthroughs are relatively short, making this a great/terrible procrastination game. The finale can be reached in under an hour with plain sailing, and with bad fortune, attempts can last a tenth of that. The difficulty settings on the menu call themselves ‘easy’ and ‘normal’, but given the roguelike influence, that can

usually be translated to ‘hell’ and ‘even more hell’.

With the focus on short, sharp bursts, and given how much of the experience is randomly generated, FTL has huge scope for replayability. In addition, meeting certain challenges in a given game unlock new options for future playthroughs.

Unlike most roguelikes, one of the nice things about FTL is that there is a single realisable objective that can be met in a single session. This means that although every defeat is still a tragedy, starting your next attempt is less than an intimidating undertaking.

FTL is endlessly frustrating, it’s exhilarating and it’s well worth checking out. There’s nothing else quite like it.

TV series rather than a slightly kitsch fantasy game.

Far Cry 2. I’ll put this one bluntly: With music turned on, FC2 is an off-putting mix of melodrama and 80s action game, tense moments of stealth or travel often ruined by sudden bursts of over the top ‘interactive’ music whenever bad guys see you, that ruin any suspense.

Turn the music off, and playing FC2 is like playing the most tense and wonderful scenes of No Country for Old Men. Silent, calculated violence that you approach any way you want, with incredible cinematography.

So here are three examples: the first is the removal of a mechanic, the immersion-breaking minimap. The second is eliminating the forced, default addition of subtitles. The third is clearing music that simply detracts from the gameworld. The crux of the issue is that games are designed by developers to be played one way and one way only. The options we have to mess with them and change their rules are typically very limited, superficial. However, by mixing and editing our experience through any additional settings, we can change games for the better. I have replayed RDR in its entirety twice, once with minimap, once without. Completely

different experiences. This way we can get more out of our games: more playtime for the same gametime.

Please do adjust your settings Alex Shedlock finds that the options menus take some adjusting to

‘YOU CAN change any of these settings in the options menu’.

Here is a sentence that you will see, probably without fail, in every videogame you will ever play. When you press a joystick one way and the screen moves another? It feels weird change it under options. The screen’s too dark? Change it in options. Voices too quiet? Change it in options. Game too hard? You guessed it: options.

But what else can the ever-present options menu do for us? Well, by definition it is a menu in a game where the player has options. Options for what? Surely every game is based on ‘options’. That’s the very basis of

gameplay. Do you move left or right?

Do you kick the ball or not? This term is never clearly defined, and the variables in such menus change from game to game.

Basic categories like volume, brightness levels or subtitles are common expectations of the options screen. However, many games offer slightly more flexibility. I would argue that it’s worth, no matter the game, perusing this menu in some detail.

After fiddling with settings menus myself for many years, I have had experiences which have been game defining for me, which I would never have had without the deep exploration of the options menu. Every game needs its own tailoring of options.

Once upon a time, I was playing Grand Theft Auto IV. I got frustrated at how every single mission was basically an exercise in ‘go to the red dot on the minimap’, or ‘kill this collection of red dots on the minimap’.

Noticeably, the key term here, getting in the way of enjoying GTAIV’s sublime organic simulation was ‘The minimap’.

So I went into the options menu and killed it.

What followed was a revelation.

Without that minimap, I actually had to pay attention to the world. It wasn’t

just a collection of black and white lines forming streets on a little circle in the corner. It was a city; incredibly well designed and there for my enjoyment. Colourful and dynamic and magnificent. I took to just driving around and taking it in, watching the people do their stuff. I saw the same effect, yet more profound, in Red Dead Redemption’s Western frontier, where the wilderness and abjectly impoverished towns became a canvas of adventure unlike any other. I had to keep my ears and eyes open constantly for bandits or Mexicans or the Law. In Skyrim, I realised, as a friend once put it, that Bethesda’s hugely successful title is essentially ‘checklist and map: the game’.

Something that didn’t help was the default, omnipresent subtitles. I couldn’t help but try to remember and fact-check every phrase each character said to me. It was a chore. Another checklist. A script rolling in front of my eyes.

So I went into options and killed the subs.

Now I have to listen. This minor alteration brought me far further into the game world than even the game’s touted graphics, writing or Radiant AI. I felt genuinely immersed, like being in a Game of Thrones-calibre

“

Surely every game is based on options."

And it feels like something that developers should exploit. Difficulty settings are an option that most games have obligatorily, but few really use them as new modes. Once you’ve played Uncharted 2 on Crushing difficulty, there’s no going back. It needs more strategy, more intense cunning than any other mode. The bad guys have the best AI I’ve ever seen. Yet how many players took the plunge into the hardest mode in the game?

Very few, I’d wager.

As gamers, we should push into every option a game gives us, to tailor the experience to what we want, and more importantly: developers should take into account the effect that minor settings can have on a game, and give us the doors to open the experience fully in whatever way we want.

Screw breaking the game.

25% OFF!

WHEN YOU BUY 2 ITEMS OF CLOTHING Including sale items and redlined Kukri Sports clothing.

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LISA LANGE AND REBECCA CHAN

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Aiming for imperfection

Does nature make mistakes on purpose? Nina Seale investigates the gamblers of the microorganism community

“

Mutations by definition are random so their outcomes cannot be controlled, making this practice a gamble that only certain organisms can indulge in” But what if this isn’t just by accident, and nature has started making these mistakes on purpose? Research has shown that some organisms are more susceptible

to these DNA mutations, pushing down the accelerator to drive evolution faster in certain conditions. Dr Nick Colegrave, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, co-wrote a research paper that discussed the possibilities of “experimental evolution”, where organisms develop mechanisms to speed up their adaptability.

The paper says, “The suggestion that there are characteristics of living organisms that have evolved because they increase the rate of evolution is controversial and difficult to study.

dangerous reproductive techniques?

Experimental evolution is quite common within pathogen populations, pathogens being microorganisms that cause disease in their host, such as the HIV virus and the tuberculosis bacterium. These organisms live in a very hostile environment that is constantly battling to kill them; they have to be able to develop new weapons as fast as their host. Some bacterial genes have a high rate of mutation, suggesting that they have begun to control the levels of imperfections within their populations, only allowing mutations to prevail within areas where their effects are less likely to be hugely detrimental to the species.

“

The organisms involved in this risky business are viruses and bacteria ” “Are there characteristics of organisms that function not to increase their fitness, but instead to increase evolvability? That is, are there traits that are selected and maintained because they increase the ability of a population to respond to natural selection?”

The elevated mutation rate in many species of bacteria suggests that yes, there is a tendency for some organisms to deliberately make more mutations in order to advance more within their current environments. Of course, mutations by definition are random so their outcomes cannot be controlled, making this practice a gamble that only certain organisms can indulge in.

These organisms have to be producing huge amounts of offspring with relatively little

LEGO OF YOUR EXPECTATIONS: Nature does mess up effort for the risk of harmful mutations to balance out with the possibility of beneficial mutations. Hence why the organisms involved in this risky business are viruses and bacteria that can reproduce incredibly fast; some bacteria can divide every twenty to thirty minutes.

Mammals invest a lot more in their offspring. In elephants, for instance, there are 22 months of gestation and their young take around ten years to reach sexual ma-

turity. They have to be much more careful to control the mutation rate when copying DNA to ensure that all that effort does not go into raising offspring that will not survive to reproduce.

So the organisms gambling with experimental evolution have to be producing enough offspring that the higher levels of harmful mutations will not affect their population, but what situations do these organisms have to be facing to develop such

ROBERT SCOBLE

THE GRAND design. The world is so magnificent and perfect that it must have a designer. This is the basis for the watchmaker analogy, the argument William Paley put forward in 1802; “Suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place… There must have existed, at some point, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch].”

57 years later Darwin’s theory of natural selection was published, and threw the whole idea of a designer completely off kilter as it explained how the evolution of the design came through a random selection of beneficial genes. Every now and then, organisms make mistakes when copying DNA, and these mistakes can pave the way to a completely new species of organism through natural selection.

“

These organisms live in a very hostile environment that is constantly battling to kill them” Charles Darwin famously said that, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.

It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” So in the battle for survival, some tiny organisms have been risking everything to adapt faster to their hazardous environments. In the ominous light of the climate change issues forefront on scientists’ minds, this quality may become more important than ever as the evolution of all life species struggle to maintain a grip on their precious home.

A testicle never forgets...or does it?

Katerina Gospodinova and Katy Sheen look into the first non-hormonal birth control pill being developed for men

“OH BABY, do you have a condom?”

“Don’t worry, I’m on the pill.” Sound familiar? Not from this perspective. What if men were also able to take a birth control pill? Researchers in the US seem to have unlocked the key to an oral contraceptive for men, a small molecule called JQ1. But this new control over a man’s fertility could have mixed social implications: what will the effects be on casual sex and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases?

“

They came across BRDT, a molecule that seems to be in charge of the testicles' 'memory'” For over 50 years, condoms or a vasectomy have been the only reliable male contraception techniques, compared to the large variety of options available to women. This could be set to change, after the birth control properties of the small

molecule JQ1 were discovered during cancer treatment research at the DanaFarber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Dr James Bradner and his team observed that JQ1 has the ability to make some cells ‘forget’ to be tumour ones by blocking the production of BRD4, a molecule responsible for cancer.

They also came across BRDT, a similar molecule that seems to be in charge of the testicles’ ‘memory’, and by the same principle JQ1 could make them ‘forget’ how to make sperm.

Bradner teamed up with Dr. Martin Matzuk of Baylor College of Medicine Houston to carry out some fertility experiments on mice. They showed that JQ1 is capable of lowering the overall sperm count, as well as decreasing sperm mobility. Despite being infertile, the mice’s hormonal levels remained intact, without any side effects being observed. What’s more, when mice were no longer injected with the compound, their sperm production reached normal levels, meaning that they could have offspring again. “Mice can only report a few obvious symptoms,” Bradner said, “but we do not observe any

developmental or behavioural effects on offspring.”

“

Oral contraception provides no protection against STIs, making it a less than ideal substitute for condoms”

The gathered results have implications not only for mice, but for humans as well: “a reversible, oral male contraceptive may be possible”, according to Dr James Bradner. Such a non-hormonal option is preferred to currently available hormonal treatments as messing with male hormones could have much more severe side effects, including problems with bone formation and liver abnormalities, compared to those observed in females.

The new non-hormonal method would have no impact on testosterone levels. By contrast, “the hormonal methods work by a two-step process,”

explained Diana Blithe, a program director for contraceptive development at the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “First you use progestin, which inhibits the hormones that cause testosterone to be produced in the testes. If you reduce the testosterone in the testes to very low levels, you stop sperm production.” But here’s the drawback: the man will also be unable to have normal erections and ejaculate.

The second step is to give an exact dose of testosterone which will reverse these side effects but will be insufficient for sperm production.

With these developments into an effective non-hormonal method, the responsibility for providing contraception could be shifted further towards males in the future, raising some interesting social issues. The use of a contraceptive pill in order to have ‘safe sex’ relies on trust between partners that the pill is being taken.

The question is: would women trust men to tell the truth? Besides that, oral contraception provides no protection against sexually transmitted infections, making it a less than ideal substitute for condoms

with a new sexual partner.

Nevertheless, Dr William Bremner, an expert in fertility at the University of Washington in Seattle, described the new findings as “exciting”, providing more contraceptive, side effect-free options for men. “Men should be given additional opportunities to participate in safe contraception, both to allow them more control over their own fertility and to ease the health burden of unwanted pregnancies and contraception incurred by women,” he wrote in a commentary in the journal Cell.

“

Men should be given... more control over their own fertility” Whatever social implications a male contraceptive pill would have, Dr Martin Matzuk is optimistic about its development. “My hope is within the next 10 years, there will be a drug on the market for men.”

Amazed by atoms? Follow us on twitter @TheStudentPaper or on Facebook at facebook.com/TheStudentNewspaper science@studentnewspaper.org

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Science & Environment 19

Man and woman. Which is better?

Are we that different? Kristina Grigaityte explores the secrets brains hold in explaining the differences between men and women

“

Women are more fluent and better at grammar; they start speaking earlier, develop larger vocabularies, have a more efficient memory and are better readers” The reason for this is that opposite sexes differ not only in the anatomy of their bodies, reproductive function and their tone of voice, but in the anatomy of their brains as well. A closer look at the male and female brain can explain many of the more subtle differences between

CHARLOTTE CAPITANCHIK

WOLFGANG MOZART, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Vanessa-Mae, Ludwig van Beethoven, – which one of the names in the list does not belong to the other three? Yes, that is Vanessa-Mae. Not only because she is a woman, but she is also not one of the greatest composer of all times like the remaining men, even though she is a talented musician. The list of distinguished mathematicians or chess grandmasters would also mostly consist of male names. On the other hand, females are more fluent and better at grammar; they start speaking earlier, develop larger vocabularies, have a more efficient memory and are better readers than males.

men and women.

The human brain consists of right and left hemispheres, which are linked by a large bundle of fibres called the corpus callosum. For the vast majority of people the left hemisphere is responsible for language whereas the right hemisphere pursues the processing of visual-spatial information (such as orientating in unknown places, discriminating camouflaged images and manipulating 2D and 3D structures). Psychologists have agreed that on average females are more verbally fluent than males while males have more perceptive visual-spatial abilities than females. This leads to a conclusion that there must be some differences in the anatomy

and organization of the two hemispheres and their interconnections in males and females, and this is related to their different performances in these two areas.

There are also differences in the way men and women use their brains to perform tasks. In women the corpus callosum is wider and larger, allowing for more communication between the two different hemispheres. Therefore, women tend to use both hemispheres while performing a task and men use only one. This allows men to concentrate more intensely and prevents them from being distracted, which makes them generally more talented in such areas as mathematics, science and even in composing music and

creating art. Women, on the other hand, are better at handling emotions as well as multi-tasking with information being distributed within both hemispheres.

There has always been some speculation between males and females about which gender is more intelligent. Human intelligence researcher Richard Haier told the University of California-Irvine News, “These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behaviour.” Therefore, if someone tries to convince you that there is scientific evidence that proves men are more intelligent than women or vice versa, make a bet that he would not be able to find any officially published proof. The more correct statement would be that males and females have different strengths and weaknesses, and approach certain challenges in varied ways.

“

Either sex alone is half itself” Lord Alfred Tennyson

In a nutshell, there is no point in discussing which brain is better. They both are equally fascinating with their own advantages and drawbacks. Together these brains complete one another, making man and woman a great team, even if they get on each other nerves quite often. As British poet Lord Alfred Tennyson once said, “Either sex alone is half itself ”.

INTERVIEW WITH AN EDINBURGH SCIENTIST Nina Seale interviews Dr Richard Milne, beloved lecturer and plant biologist

Where have you done your most interesting research?

North-east Turkey, in the Artvin area totally off the tourist trail. I was out there briefly in 1994 for my PhD, collecting material of rhododendrons, and became interested in how the different species there seemed to hybridise (interbreed) with one another. For those who don’t know, hybridisation is when two species form an inter-species cross, like a mule, except plant hybrids are very often fertile.

I came across populations of thousands of hybrid plants which I felt required further investigation, and remarkably convinced a grant-giving body that I was right! That led to me spending 8 days living in a ramshackle shepherd’s hut (that would make a Scottish bothy look like a 5 star hotel) on a mountainside at 2100m above sea level, (not designed for the faint-hearted!) with me sleeping under two Turkish blankets and working 14 hour days gathering plant samples and performing cross-pollination experiments. I had to return that

autumn to gather seeds, and the autumn colours were incredible, accompanied by literally millions upon millions of white crocus flowers, you could barely walk for treading on crocuses.

So, why did you pick Turkey?

It kind of picked itself. The PhD on rhododendrons, Richard Abbott from St Andrews had come up with, and he knew me from field research the year before when he had needed someone to go and make collections on a shoestring, and I was a recent graduate so I was therefore good at travelling on not very much money. So I said “Yep, £600 and I’ll get you samples from these four countries!”

So I went through Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy hunting these plants down and had a few interesting adventures. I did get rather stupidly drunk at one point, its very, very rare, but this was the worst I’ve ever been drunk- Transylvanian champagne, don’t do it. It was a pound a bottle and I probably made the mistake of thinking that alcohol content was in some way related to price.

Because of that trip, despite the whole champagne incident, it was very successful and impressed them enough to give me my PhD place on rhododendrons. I had to visit the native locations in Spain and Portugal and Turkey. My stay in Portugal was much less eventful, although there was a rather misguided male chef who, having seen me once for about five

minutes, decided that I was the love of his life and had to be persuaded otherwise.

I had a bit of bad luck with young men falling in love with me at one point in my life…

Okay, back to your research, what is your favourite plant?

It won’t surprise biology students to learn that it’s the Bee Orchid, a plant that imitates a female solitary bee in order to be pollinated by randy males. But that’s not quite why I love it; I love it because as a child I’d been obsessed by orchids long before I ever saw one, and finding my first bee orchid on the south downs near my grandparents’ house is a shining memory from my childhood. I was spellbound.

What do you think is the most essential plant to life on this planet?

You could remove any one species and most life would go on. For human life, it’s rice, because so many of us depend on it, but there’s no plant species that everything depends on; evolution doesn’t work that way. One candidate for most essential plant is sphagnum moss, which locks up massive amounts of carbon in peat bogs, so without it the climate would be utterly different.

You do a lot of communicating the science of climate change. Why is this so important to you?

Opponents of action on climate change like to portray the issue as being about trees and polar bears. That’s non-

sense! It’s about people, and what sort of lives we want our children and grandchildren to have. I became a father for the first time in May, so this is more personal now than it used to be, but anyone who cares about people should care about climate change.

What role do plant biologists have in trying to save humanity from itself?

Far more than you’d think given how few of us there are relative to other biologists. Humanity faces two massive crises: overpopulation and climate change, both of which will create many problems of which avoiding mass starvation is just one. Basically we are needing to feed more and more people from what will soon be a steadily diminishing land area as deserts advance and oceans. The only way to do that is to develop crops - or ways of growing crops - that maximise productivity from existing land. We also need biofuels that are far more efficient than existing ones, and which ideally can grow on land not perfect for crops. We will need plants that can lock up CO2 quickly but not release it again. We’ll need forestry that’s resistant to wildfires.

None of these are beyond human ingenuity, but we need good people coming into plant science, and the funding to match, to achieve them.

For students who care about humanity, and saving lives, there is no better place to be than in plant science!

SCIENCE & ETHICS: ORGAN TRANSPLANTS THERE IS no doubt that organ transplants save lives. Between April 2011 and March 2012, 3,690 organs transplants were carried out in the UK, with 1,107 lives saved from a heart, lung, liver or combined heart/lungs, liver/kidney or liver/pancreas transplants. There are now 18,693,549 of us who have ticked the ‘Yes’ box on medical forms to donate our organs after we die.

Yet, organs continue to be in desperate need. Patients waiting for an organ often wait for months and years, often dying before a suitable organ becomes available.

With this desperate need for a supply of organs, it comes as no surprise that a black market of organ selling exists. Recently in China, an organ trafficking ring was dismantled by Chinese officials, arresting 137 people, which included 18 doctors who were performing these transplants illegally. Such black markets exist not only in China but also throughout South America, India and more recently, parts of Eastern Europe.

And many of these black markets have global connections. The movement of human organs seems to “[follow] the modern routes of capital: from South to North, from Third to First World, from poor to rich, from black to brown to white, and from female to male”, according to medical anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes.

In June, The New York Times followed the story of Pavle Mircov and other Serbians who had decided to sell their kidneys in order to financially support themselves and their families. Mircov commented, “When you need to put food on the table, selling a kidney doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice”.

However there are questions that arise from such cases: what happens if the donor, who is also the breadwinner and the main financial support of the family, gets an infection from being in an non-hygienic surgery and suddenly dies? Who will support his/her family and other members of his/her community?

Scheper-Hughes believes that “national laws and international guidelines outlining and protecting the rights of organ donors, living and dead” should be established as “organ transplantation depends on a social contract and social trust”.

Although I agree with the latter part of her argument, it will be difficult to enforce these laws and guidelines as black markets will continue to thrive on the miseries of those in desperate situations. And these vulnerable people will continue to find ways to sell a part of themselves in order to survive.

Lisa Kobayashi

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

editors@studentnewspaper.org

20 Crossword & Horoscopes

H Clairevoyant Clegg likes to

CRYPTIC CLUES

Oliver ninnis

C

OS R O

S

E OP

Dual Crossword No. 16 BY PICUS

ACROSS 1 Charlie and wee Alan fancy Posy, a beguiling witch (7) 5 Drink wallop (5) 8 Georgia has Conservative leading a long line of prancers (5) 9 Passage from a religious pamphlet on Exodus (7) 10 Georgia’s back ! With a Turkish gen- eral ! (3) 11 She goes around Indiana chasing Ganymede (say). It’s all my eye (9) 13 Special crew intersects line of worker showing manual dexterity (7, 2, 4) 15 Regular patrons see Head of Channel launching “Nile in spate” on the box (9) 17 Tailback reported in Botanical Gar- dens (3) 19 Doctor trapped in collapse of Gaul has nothing for backache (7) 21 Deconstruct nine rings at first to get one on target (5) 22 Mary’s third husband, and current love, is a wild animal (5) 23 The Men of Oz install German in rented quarters (7)

think of himself as a psychic. But in reality he is just another downtrodden face on a flip flop.

Sadly none of his predictions ever come true and he has no power to ever make them come true. Nonetheless, he pledges to divine the upcoming events in your week ahead. But be careful, he is prone to changing his mind...

Aries

You misunderstand the title of the Hares and Hounds, and take a shotgun with you to the Meadows. And thank goodness you packed your hounds when you moved to Edinburgh. Miffed by the group’s lack of horses, you attempt to ride one of their runners and get arrested for shooting squirrels before you realise that it is not in fact a hunting society as your Rugger friend, Harrison Finkleworth, said.

Taurus

This week you ignore 47 per cent of your classmates. What of it?! They’re not your responsibility. They probably don’t even pay council tax or their TV license. Shun those socialist leeches.

Gemini

This week as editor of The Student you enforce draconian style guide rules.

Well this psychic doesn’t answer to no one. Nah-uhh. Watch me drop some un hyphenated italicised non capitalised helvetica and use banal americanisms like ‘scotch’. (Ed - This admittedly has me reeling)

Cancer

Orion has lost his trousers. If you want to avoid a SERIOUS encounter with Margaret, the ethereal sorceress of the Galaxy of Snazzletoff (who is hella menopausal btw omg) this Thursday then you’ll bloody well cook her some spaghetti.

Leo

One week into lectures and you’re already bursting at the seams with knowledge. You’ve written down literally every word your lecturers have said as if the Amazon was your fuck puppy and you’ve just ordered your indigenous workforce to sow a new plantation of Pukka trees to make more of those pads you love SO much.

Virgo

This week you become a Mormon.

Libra

This week, Libras, you tip the scales.

See what I just did there? That was an example of wordplay in a horoscope.

But seriously, lose some weight.

Scorpio

This week you take the pragmatic step of consolidating all of your student debts into one affordable monthly student debt. £9,000 never seemed like such a manageable sum. Besides, when the economy fails, the only currency will be culled badgers. And you’ve already hoarded plenty of those.

Sagittarius

This week you take out a student loan and purchase a small greek island.

You are like Odysseus, a great Greek marauder. Look out for one-eyed sea monsters. And penises.

Capricorn

Barry is on the run this week. If you see him, don’t ask him why, or who, or for that matter any monosyllabic queries.

You offer him your bosom for a pillow and your knobbled knees for a duvet.

Rejuvenated, he swans off into the horizon (your knees have feathers).

Aquarius

Disgusted, Jupiter goes frickin mental when he spots you reading J.K. Rowling’s twelfth title, ‘Harry Potter and the Mortgage of Glitter’. ‘Mundane is an understatement,’ he bellows, flaring up the flames consuming the book in the process.

Pisces

This week, every day feels like a Tuesday; you just can’t shake that ole’ Tuesday feeling! You tell everyone this at the top of your voice while hanging around in the library, mistaking an incredibly dull mental shortcoming for something anyone would ever give a shit about. Whore!

CONCISE CLUES (same answers) ACROSS 1 West Indian topical song (7) 5 Suffolk plough horse (5) 8 A dance in single file (5) 9 To remove, take out (7) 10 Turkish noble (3) 11 Illegal hooch (9) 13 Legerdemain (7, 2, 4) 15 Customers collectively (9) 17 London district (3) 19 Pain in the back (7) 21 Not quite a bull (5) 22 Money (old slang) (5) 23 Australians (7)

DOWN 1 Say so (in Bow) (5) 2 Ancestry (7) 3 Mountain grouse (9) 4 A last drink (3, 3, 3, 4) 5 A hole in the ground (3) 6 Military canteen (5) 7 A tearaway (7) 12 Pain and anguish (9) 13 Not clerical (7) 14 (Look) sideways (7) 16 Poetic feet (5) 18 Units of language (5) 20 Trouble (3)

Solutions to Dual Crossword No. 15 ACROSS 5 BEETLE-CRUSHER Beetle (mallet) + crush + ‘er 8 GUM G + U + M (aster) cf minced oath “by gum” 9 TARANTULA (g) ula (g) after tar + ant 10 INTRO In + t (ipple) + Ro (me) 11 YARDIES Yes round raid* 14 ENCRYPT CERN* + y + PT 16 SITAR Sit + a + r (aga) 18 MIDSTREAM M + id + master* 20 BEN 2 definitions 21 RED-LETTER DAYS Red letters round day

A bit about cryptic clues

SO FAR we’ve said that Cryptic clues give us a definition of the answer plus “extra material” which supplies the same answer by a different route. So you don’t need to cross-check with other clues, because a Cryptic clue has its own internal confirmation.

Two examples from an earlier Puzzle: Ceremonial exit oddly observed by one in buried city (7).

The definition is “buried city”. The rest is our “extra material”. “Ceremonial” = POMP.

DOWN 1 HERMIT H + mitre* (carpentry joint) 2 GLUTTONY Tony (B) below glut 3 TURN 2 definitions 4 AREA re (‘about’) enters AA 5 BEGUINE contained Describe Guinevere 6 CAREY STREET (E stray, Crete)* 7 HOURI [ I + Horu (s) ]* 12 ROSEMARY Rosemary (Rose and Mary) 13 SHRINKS shrink + S 15 CODED Ed under cod “exit oddly” means < take the odd letters of “exit” > : E, I. “observed by” means < all this goes beside > “one” - often the letter “ I “. “in” (here) means < the answer is … >.

So: POMP + E,I + I (POMPEII).

She may be shy, romping round America - but it’s unlikely (5) Definition : “She” (a female entity of some sort). “shy” is material to use (fodder). “romping” is an anagram indicator meaning <re-arrange the letters of “shy”>.

DOWN 1 Two companies in need of a bean (5) 2 Short letter takes a long time depict ing family tree (7) 3 Grouse from woodland god about sailor and fighter (9) 4 Will it repair the potholes or land you in them ? (3, 3, 3, 4) 5 A point raised in Hell (3) 6 Service canteen plays its part in giv- ing Diana a figroll (5) 7 Impetuous youth cheated, framing Biblical ambassador (7) 12 Allowing a diminutive girl to go around arresting fellows (9) 13 Clues “Ra” inaccurately as “non- priestly” (7) 14 One has to accept South Kansas - with suspicion (7) 16 Short-tailed Ibis goes about a mile (expressed as feet) (5) 18 Flourish sword - after having these ?

(5) 20 A party causing trouble (3)

The Chambers Dictionary (2008) is recommended.

Comments, questions, complaints etc can reach the compiler via the editors.

17 TABLAS [ (rabbi) t + balsa* ] 18 MARK 2 definitions ‘wide of the mark’ : ‘mark my words’ 19 TEES “ tease “ * = anagram of the preceding material (rev) = reverse the preceding material “round” is another indicator meaning < put these re-arranged letters around what follows >, “America” = US. “but it’s unlikely” means that < this particular “She” is unlikely to be “shy” >.

So, anagram of SHY round US (HUSSY).

These are < Composite or Kebab > clues (the most frequent type), where the “extra information” provides material (fodder) to be used and indicators that tell us what to do with it. More on this next week.

rEVIEWs COMMISSION #3: Devin Wallace

Born and raised in Dunfermline, Devin Wallace is an artist living and working in Edinburgh. Devin makes work that aims to engage with a social consciousness and taps into our obsessions with popular culture, celebrity, sex, media and society.

Much of his work includes references to pop culture and aspects of everyday life to create work that has a familiarity to it making it accessible and relatable to a broad audience. Devin creates bold visual statements that are all at once provocative, shocking, humorous and entertaining with immediacy and a whip smart attitude.

With training from Edinburgh College of Art Devin works primarily in paint but also produces drawings, mono prints and mixed media works. Devin has exhibited in several shows in and around Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Tuesday September 18 2012 studentnewspaper.org

22

Paid for by the Edinburgh University Students’Association

A message from the EUSA president James McAsh explains EUSA and it’s many functions DURING FRESHERS’ Week I overheard someone ask what EUSA is. The answer given back was that they’re the people who run Teviot and Potterrow.

This is of course true; EUSA does run Teviot and Potterrow, along with KB House, Pleasance and various other outlets. However, it’s a very narrow understanding of a students’ association to define it by its buildings alone there’s something far more important and exciting going on.

At its very core, EUSA is 30,000 student members joining forces to decide how they can make changes in their lives, and the lives of others, and implementing those decisions.

Sometimes we are able to make the change ourselves directly: we think that students should have an independent source of advice on accommodation, money, and health and well being, so we run the Advice Place. We believe that it is important that we have an affordable, pleasant and safe space to hang out or have a drink, so we run the union buildings. We value the principle of people coming together to organise

on their own behalves for cultural, recreational or political aims so we support the 270 odd societies at Edinburgh with funding, promotion and rooms.

Of course, a lot of the changes that students want to see require others to agree with us. This is why it’s so important that we campaign to make even bigger changes. These can be strictly university-focused and academic, like the overnight ‘work-in’ of the Main Library in George Square, which led to dramatic increases in opening hours.

Or they could reach into the wider community like last year’s ‘Reclaim the Night’ march – which demanded safer streets and an end to gender violence for everyone, not just students. Very often we campaign alongside other students’ associations and external groups, like our ongoing campaign for a fairer education system, free for all and paid for by taxing the richest in society.

Critically, whether we are providing services or running campaigns, it all boils down to the same thing – we

as students are coming together to democratically decide on, and strive towards, changes in the university and wider society.

In practice 30,000 of us aren’t physically able to come together to debate issues and make decisions all the time. This is why we elect Sabbatical Officers and other reps and entrust them to make many of those decisions on our behalf. Elected reps, like myself, have direct mandates from our manifestos and democratic structures to make various changes.

We also sit on the Board of Trustees, along with other democratically elected members and together we form EUSA’s governing body. This is what makes EUSA so special; there is student engagement and influence at every level. The people who are ultimately accountable for EUSA and its services are elected democratically and can therefore be challenged or ultimately recalled by the student members. This gives our 30,000 student members influence over EUSA in all its forms, which takes me back to my original point

- EUSA isn’t a group of buildings or a small group of elected reps, it is 30,000 students acting collectively.

26TH SEPTEMBER

28TH NOVEMBER FREE ENTRY FOR STUDENTS EVERY WEDNESDAY, POTTERROW

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

HOLLY JAMESON

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Scream of the crop

Edvard Munch’s graphic works at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art leaves Lene Koresberg dancing with life

Scream’ and ‘Madonna’. However, focusing only on these two works would be an insult to the artist. The technical mastery of the works is apparent from beginning to end and the intense sim-

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Exhibition finished

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he artist Edvard Munch is without doubt the most internationally well-known Norwegian painter ever. Being Norwegian myself, it was not without a great deal of excitement and just a small amount of pride that I went along to the beautiful place that is the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The exhibition comprises a unique collection of fifty lithographs and woodcuts mainly owned by a private Norwegian collector, Pål Georg Gundersen. These are works never previously shown in the UK and are especially important in terms of getting an insight into Munch’s serial approach in which he would revisit subjects and images over time.

First of all, it has to be said that the exhibition itself is brilliantly laid out.

IAN HAMILTON FINLAY - TWILIGHT REMEBERS Ingleby Gallery 'til 27th Oct

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espite combining what at first seem disparate subjects, warfare and the garden, this exhibition manages to attain a sense of unexpected harmony.

It explores the role of man in the world and his attempts to control nature, history and desire. Finlay’s works have zenlike frugality and use humour to create enjoyable visual paradoxes and verbal

CRY BABY COMEDY AIRPLANE! Cameo Cinema Run ended

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ry Baby Comedy, an Edinburghbased comedy collective, launched a new series of comedy evenings at the Cameo Cinema on Leven St with a showing of the riotous classic ‘Airplane!’ and a variety selection of performers, all of them students.

Compered by the irrepressible Cat

CALM DOWN DEAR: The tortured artist Edvard Munch having one of those really bad days

GUARDIAN.CO.UK

“

These works [...] are especially important in terms of getting an insight into Munch’s serial approach in which he would revisit subjects and images."

The viewer is invited not only to take part in the emotional struggle of the artist, but also to reflect upon such feelings in themselves and in humanity in general."

Divided into four parts, “The Modern Life of the Soul”, “Anxiety of Life and Death”, “The Lonely Ones” and “Munch and Scotland”, the exhibition manages to put the works into context and give the viewer an insight into the life and methods of the artist.

Each part explores recurring themes in Munch’s production, like beauty

and love, death and decay, anxiety and alienation. He aimed to reveal “the psychological and emotional life of man”, drawing inspiration from his own experiences with love, death and depression. This balance between his personal feelings and the universal experience of man creates an atmosphere of both intimacy and grandness;

the viewer is invited not only to take part in the emotional struggle of the artist, but also to reflect upon such feelings in themselves and in humanity in general The collection includes many of Munch’s most famous images, but the highlight for many will probably be the rare, hand-painted versions of ‘The

games.

25 miles south of Edinburgh lies Little Sparta, a home with vast gardens cultivated by the artist and populated with his poems and sculptures over the course of 40 years. In the Ingleby Gallery the familiar garden paraphernalia of benches, stones and carvings are placed in a closed, interior setting, sheltered from the elements that would usually shape them. The painted green walls and portal like photos of Little Sparta lull the viewer into believing in this garden set up.

However, the confrontational aspect of the works prevents this from being fully achieved and we are glaringly

reminded that “Certain gardens are described as retreats when really they are attacks”.

through Finlay’s attempt to tame the natural beauty normally curtailed and shaped. This also serves as a microcosm of the greater conflict between man and nature. For example, three seemingly traditional carved stones featuring short nature poems ‘clear sky, autumn grass’, are actually revealed to be names of Japanese war craft.

Materials the artist uses are playfully subverted – in the short film ‘CARRIER STRIKE!’ domestic objects are used to depict war, and benches are engraved with definitions of landscape rather than names of the deceased. The artist succeeds in reducing the universal to the personal; a tombstone is laid for

Wade, the evening saw several acts perform both stand-up and sketch.

Hari Sriskantha opened the evening, and managed to score direct hits on the audience with his sharp, edgy barbs; a particular highlight being his material on racism and language barriers (“It’s okay for me to say those things – because I joined the BNP.”).

The Edinburgh Revue followed, performing their trademark quick-fire sketches with enthusiastic abandon.

Their innovative themes allowed them to operate in safer territory than the stand-ups in the show – a noteworthy skit involved a job centre interview

“

The familiar garden paraphernalia [...] are placed in a closed, interior setting, sheltered from the elements that would usually shape them."

The status of the garden in British and classical culture comes into question with Shakespearean characters – transforming Henry V from his romantic medieval ideal into a banterous lad was a smart move.

Adam Todd, both a stand-up with the Revue and a member of its sketch troupe, performed a smart set with a nervous, borderline creepy comic personality. Whilst amusing it’s fair to say that his take on the character was quite niche.

A short set of sketches from Cry Baby’s own performers was also a big hit, their homage to silent movies involving conjoined twin socialites was well in keeping with the evening’s

theme.

“

The highlight of the evening proved to be David Elms’ quasi-musical comedy, mixing hyperawkwardness with deadpan wit."

The highlight of the evening proved to be David Elms’ quasi-musical comedy, mixing hyper-awkwardness with

plicity of the images cannot help but move the viewer.

‘Anxiety’, in which Munch explores the alienation of man in meeting with the modern world is one such a work along with ‘Two Human Beings: The Lonely’, which brilliantly explores the nature of loneliness. The exhibition also includes a beautiful version of ‘The Sick Child’, portraying Munch’s dying sister Sophie, which the artist himself declared to be his most important print. The fact that several versions of the same print are included allows the viewer to gain an insight into Munch’s approach, which is well illustrated by the five different versions of ‘Two Women on the Shore’.

There are very few exhibitions on which there is absolutely nothing negative to say, however, I dare say that this is one such exhibition.

‘Man – A Passerby’ which refers to all mankind. Throughout the exhibition the viewer is provided with visual and physical pathways that can only accommodate the individual. The ominous presence of a stile leading supposedly nowhere echoes this.

For those unfamiliar with Finlay’s work the pieces can seem inaccessible in their sporadic themes and media.

There is an eloquent subtlety to the work that unveils itself slowly and a new understanding of Finlay’s philosophy is revealed upon encountering each piece.

One for leaving time to wander.

Daisy Lafarge deadpan wit. The Chortle Comedy Award finalist nailed his set and proved adept at playing off the reactions of the crowd.

Finally, the evening’s screening was augmented with ‘interactive cinema’, which mainly involved drinking games, party poppers and Rocky Horror style crowd participation. Despite the Cameo’s original reel of ‘Airplane!’ tearing half-way through the film the projectionist’s solution (glue, apparently, is the best medicine) only added to what was an enjoyable lo-fi night of original comedy.

Sam Bradley

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Theatre buff? Review it!!

24 Culture

STAR RATING

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Shrouded in Symbolism

ROYGBIV This week's cultural spectrum.

Keara Cornell takes a journey from Van Gough to Kandinsky through Symbolist landscape painting

Riddikulus!

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Scottish National Gallery 'til 14th Oct

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The depiction of light, water and shadow are so startlingly evocative that you cannot help but be drawn in" ‘Silent Cities’ and ‘Rhythms of Nature’ have an entirely different feel

GADDA GOES TO WAR TRAVERSE THEATRE Run Ended

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adda Goes to War’ is a contemporary play in Italian with English subtitles, written and performed by Fabrizio Gifuni.

Based on the memoirs of Italian writer Carlo Emilio Gadda this piece focuses on his experiences of, and thoughts on, war, specifically the First and Second World Wars, though many

ARTTATTLER.COM

an Gogh to Kandinsky is the National Gallery of Scotland’s latest big exhibition. The upper floor of the gallery has been divided into six rooms, five smaller rooms adjacent to one larger central space. Each room has its own theme and elicits a different response from the viewer.

The central room, ‘Moods of Nature’, uses natural themes of forests, fields and lakes to explore different moods. The depiction of light, water and shadow are so startlingly evocative that you cannot help but be drawn in.

Next to this room and in complete contrast is ‘Dreams and Visions’, which is vividly colourful and symbolic in a more immediately apparent way.

Gaugin’s ‘Vision of the Sermon’ highlights the 19th century fascination with dreams, psychology and art as a manifestation of the subconscious.

MAKING HAY: Van Gogh always had a problem making mountains out of molehills to them. Expressing the Symbolists’ dislike of the rapidly expanding urban environment and the dawn of a new scientific age, the works in these rooms are mostly void of people, instead treating the buildings and landscapes in an overwhelming and unsettling way.

‘Arcadia’ is another beautiful yet slightly depressing room. These works idealise Arcadia and its Utopian

qualities. The works vary from Gaugin’s Tahitian paradise to Bakst’s Aegean Coast.

As the Symbolists moved ‘Towards Abstraction’ (as the sixth room explores), artists’ styles became even more individual. The National Gallery has paired the fogginess of Whistler’s 'Nocturnes' with the bright shapes of Kandinsky. This room attempts to

demonstrate the emotional effects of colour and the links between music and painting.

Overall, this exhibition has a number of incredibly impressive works of art on loan from all over the world. The rooms are well structured and informative, and the paintings beautifully displayed.

Definitely worth taking a few hours out of your day for.

references are also relevant to modern day conflicts too.

The set was minimalist with a single chair being the only prop. This, combined with effective lighting and music, created a potent atmosphere in which Gifuni accomplished an intense performance.

The script provides an insightful exploration of the mind and personality of Gadda and his flippant, yet human personality is performed athletically.

Though difficult to follow at times, glancing between the subtitles and Gadda, the dynamism of the character comes across well.

Full of energy Gifuni dominates the

theatre moving fluidly through a vast array of emotions with animated facial expressions and movements that verge on gymnastics. So convincing was his character that when he looked at the audience the intensity was palpable, making the atmosphere unsettling and uncomfortable, but highly effective.

One issue was the speed at which the Italian was delivered. As the subtitles followed the actors delivery there were points at which they ran too quickly to read. Frustrating as this was, especially at the most dramatic parts, it is preferable to a slowing down of the performance. Instead it is better to take these moments as an opportunity to enjoy

listening to the Italian and watching Gifuni’s talented performance.

“

An insightful exploration of the mind of Gadda and his flippant, yet human personality."

‘Gadda Goes to War’ is an exciting and very different performance, full of energy and incredibly thought provoking - all credit to Gifuni.

James Taylor

THE POETRY DOCTOR with Isabella Flanders

This week: relationships, technology and textul harassment Dear Poetry Doctor, I recently met someone and though we barely know each other in person, we’ve started texting each other constantly. It feels like we have this amazing connection, but I worry it can’t be real because we’ve hardly spent any time together.

Am I deluding myself that we have a meaningful relationship?

It’s no wonder you’ve established a connection if you are talking all the time and the fact that it is not face to face with all the usual inhibitions means it can get pretty significant pretty quickly.

But when this intimacy is formed so soon it may make one doubt the sincerity of the interaction. Carol Ann Duffy worries in “Text” that channeling all conversation through one restricted

medium will lead to wrong impressions and misunderstandings, lamenting that, “The codes we send/ arrive with a broken chord.” She is obsessed with her texting partner, but is aware of the phoney nature of their communications.

Actually it’s not just when we text.

Everyday we come across breakdowns of communication, be it a mystifying voicemail or incomprehensible lecture slides, all methods are discordant in some way. Those hideous face to face conversations, in which we feel we will never understand the other person, are much less fulfilling than a perfectly formed text.

The sobering realisation that you cannot truly know another’s thoughts is the subject of Christopher P. Cranch’s “Enosis”. Though he meditates miser-

ably on this for five stanzas, eventually Cranch finds a solution.“Only when the sun of love melts the scattered stars of thought” do we feel like we transcend the petty inadequacies of human interaction. Yes, understanding and being understood is difficult, but humans are also capable of inspired moments of perfect communion with one another.

So if you feel you are pushing each others’ buttons then keep texting. Even if it’s not exactly love, there’s a lot to be said for some no-strings-attached texts.

Got a problem? We can cure you!

All problems will be treated confidentially. And ever so seriously. Email us at artdoctor.thestudent@gmail.com.

uditorium spaces are usually familiar: we are all used to cushy red chairs in purpose-built theatres, looking onto an end-on stage. It’s how theatre has grown up in this country, with a dividing line between the audience and the people on stage.

However, there is a certain set of shows that spurn a traditional theatre for something far more grandiose. I’m talking, of course, about those two words that fill critics with dread: arena tours. Last week Jesus Christ Superstar, supported by a show on ITV to select Jesus both to boost ticket sales and ironically build a massive following around the show’s star Ben Forster, began its month long, nationwide tour. Now, the show has been well received, and with a cast including Tim Minchin as Judas – definitely one of the best parts in Lloyd-Webber – why wouldn’t it be, but the space has been treated with grudging acceptance rather than excitement.

Now I know that these spaces have their drawbacks and probably suit a sweaty gig rather than something truly theatrical, but with Jesus Christ Superstar it seems to make a lot of sense; the rock opera frames Jesus as a man who causes a stir in Jerusalem with glitzy rock numbers rather than sermons. Indeed, the show started off as a recording rather than something to be performed and went on a major concert tour long before it transferred to the West End. This suggests that an arena is its perfect habitat, allowing the show to be as large as the music allows.

Similarly, Jez Butterworth’s new play ‘The River’ has been causing controversy because of its audience sizes.

Staring The Wire’s Dominic West, the show could have filled out any theatre in London, however the cast and crew decided to keep it to the Royal Court’s 85 seat studio space. This choice has left fans reeling, with people queuing overnight to get hold of a rare ticket.

However, I don’t judge them for this choice. A space can effect change in a show in the same way that a change of actor can and in the same way that a set changes a theatre. It’s a myth that any space is automatically a bad place to put on a show; it’s what you make of the space that counts.

Thom Louis

Look oot for...

The Embassy Gallery, now on Broughton Lane, are showing their Annual Member's Show until February 5.

It should be full of interesting art styles and subject matter.

Dovecot are also currently exhibiting a collection of jewellery, ceramics, glass and installment art. A big mixture of media this week!

Swallows and Amazons is showing at the Festival Theatre til February 4 if you've always fancied yourself as a bit of a pirate.

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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The old soul rebels

DEXYS, PR

Jack Murray finds Dexys in fine fettle and at full throttle in the Queen’s Hall

MIDNIGHT RUNNERS: Still on street corners, no more dungarees

merly known as Dexys Midnight Runners - has emphatically proved that pop can still have a soul. It’s a soul that shines brightly with fragile macabre and wonky charm, a soul to be held aloft as a strange and twisted artefact of truth and beauty, a burning soul that you can see through the open chest of Kevin himself.

Behind his fedora hat, patterned shirt, black nail varnish and preened and pointed facial hair, Kevin Rowland remains the tormented trapeze artist of yesteryear, balancing and bumbling through heartache and anguish in a lifetime search for something real, something precious.

Whether in this current guise with a noir-esque femme fatale to flirt with

Singles

EXAMPLE Say Nothing MINISTRY OF SOUND

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ver get the feeling that you’ve heard something before? Despite being the lead single for new album The Evolution of Man, I can’t help but think that this track sounds familiar. The part-singer, partrapper from London is back, hyping up his latest album as a huge change in direction, even claiming to have been inspired by indie rockers Kasabian. Fans eagerly awaiting this ‘new’ sound are guaranteed to be disappointed by regurgitated, in-

(the brilliant Madeleine Hyland) or in dungarees and Ivy League suits, Kevin and Dexys have resisted the lasso of saturation and produced music of intense individualism at their will and no one else’s. Through lineup changes and turbulent break ups, the same punch of Dexys and the same sting of Rowland could be heard. In Queen’s Hall that sting was lethal, that punch: fatal.

With one half of the show dedicated to the engulfing melodrama of their fourth album in twenty years, One Day I’m Going to Soar, and theatrically following the narrative arc that the record takes in its moody, encompassing entirety, the second half was an extravagant encore of embellished Dexys classics, including a rapturous, eleven minute, four encore version of “Come On Eileen”. Rowland revelled, sauntered and swaggered in the atmos-

phere of adoration: an artist whose pain provides the fulcrum of Dexys’ continued success and one who’s willing, with fists held high, to reveal it in a glorious outpouring of peerless performance.

But whilst it is Rowland who spits out his spirit in that yelping voice of blue eyed soul, the band provides the soundscape, the backdrop and the cinematic landscape onto which the twisted poetry is projected. Dexys legend ‘Big’ Jim Patterson remains the beating and booming brass warrior of the band, his trombone playing a sumptuous nod to the midnight running of the past and, as evidenced in his invigorated solo in the revamped first album opener “Tell Me When My Light Turns Green”, a masterful example of musical endurance and artistic solidity.

Lucy Morgan’s violin can be as cold and callous as it is joyous and wild,

evidenced in the haunting quiet of “Lost” and the enormous boom and blast of “Free”, two songs that now find themselves unequivocally placed in the canon of Dexys brilliance. They reveal the light and shade of a group who, despite the appearance of calm throughout the evening, have always kept a dedicated audience grasping at the now and not thinking about the future. With Dexys, there is no future, only momentary bliss and retrospective grinning.

And it makes sense for it to be like that. The reason Dexys are Dexys and still bleed the same identity is that they don’t seek adulation or inauthentic paydays: for them to plan ahead would be to undermine their aim as a group and as a project, to undermine Rowland’s reasons for existing as a performer and musician.

NIGHT TRAINS

sipid, electronic drivel.

Despite the woeful grammar of the opening line to the chorus, “You don’t have to say nothing”, it admittedly has the advantage of being annoyingly catchy, which undoubtedly and unfortunately means this track is going to be overplayed in pretty much every trashy nightclub across the country, guaranteeing a huge number of sales. In truth though, Example really should have said nothing, as in terms of originality, his latest single is severely lacking.

Amanda Fleet

No More Heroes JUNO RECORDS

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S AY NOTHING: Please S

EXAMPLE, PR

t the age of 59, Kevin Rowland, A elusive maverick, reluctant icon and enigmatic leader of Dexys - for-

orthern Soul specialists Night Trains bring us an ambitious cover; the Stranglers’ 70s hit, “No More Heroes”.

This single gives us a taste for their new album, arriving next year. The heavy beat of the cover and energetic tempo bring a soulful, jazzy edge to the new wave punk sounds of the classic. The melody is brought to a faster tempo, which could be seen to stretch the original punk edge to new forms of expression and new heights.

This is down to the brass instruments and an explosive ending. On the one hand,

Pete Williams, Dexys’ founder, co-vocalist and witty foil to Kevin’s serious angst-ridden character, asks Kevin “What’s she like?” as the lights dim and the music stops during the infamous precursor to their epic, cacophonic magnum opus “This Is What She’s Like”. The intake of breath between the question and the following musical monologue answer is a heavy breath of hope: they hope the answer is as melodic and heartbreaking as it was when the critics scoffed the first time round.

But more than that, they hope that in this moment, in this time, in this answer, Kevin bares a little bit more of his soul and continues to be the unhinged mediator of love and hate, that he still is after all these years: profoundly, perfectly Dexy.

the Stranglers’ original may be constantly echoing in your mind, alongside a desire for the lower key classic. However, a lover of the Stranglers or similar acts could also see it as a successful exploration of the original. The cover is a re-interpretation of great musical merit and interdependence, where the original’s echoes compliment the fresh new perspective.

Courtney Paynter

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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26 Music THE MACCABEES

LIANNE LA HAVES

NO DOUBT

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AYLA POLYDOR LTD.

FORGET WARNER BROS

SETTLE DOWN UNIVERSAL

that released Colour It In in 2007. The Maccabees have developed a maturity and poignancy in their work that was perhaps lacking before, clearly shown in the fourth single from said album, “Ayla”.

“Ayla” starts with a rippling, arpeggiated piano melody and a simple drumbeat that gives the track momentum right from the start. Then the vocals kick in. We are treated to a very different style from the Orlando Weeks of 2007; his voice sounds laidback and haunting, harmonies drifting effortlessly over the basic yet beautiful piano riff. A sole criticism comes in that the lyrics are somewhat uninspiring and repetitive; those looking for a deeper meaning to the hypnotising vocals may be disappointed.

This is not a ground-breaking or lifechanging track, but it’s certainly a pleasure to listen to.

bum, Is Your Love Big Enough?

This is a post break-up song full of sass and vigour. Disdainful lyrics sung to a quirky melody over a playful percussive beat is the perfect way for La Havas to show she’s moved on. Everything about the song works and her interpretations are a special highlight. She makes certain words and phrases that imply the weakness a break up imposes short and sharp while elongating the words that show the strength and confidence she has gained. “Forget – all the words that let you break my heart.”

This side of La Havas not only shows off her incredible voice, but her ability to write a cracking tune - guaranteed to be stuck in your head for a few days after you first hear it.

the reunion bandwagon. Unfortuately, new single “Settle Down” leaves you wishing they had stayed in the 90’s.

To put it simply, “Settle Down” offers up a completely no thrills pop single. The verse has you frightfully recalling the first time you heard Stefani's solo hit, “Hollaback Girl”, and begging for it to stop. The chorus offers up a standard, conventional, and frankly boring pop sequence that would fit in perfectly on the next big hit from Flo-Rida or Katy Perry.

No Doubt are certainly back, but the question remains: did anyone actually miss them? Perhaps the album will offer up another “Don’t Speak” but, based on this single, there's reason to have doubts.

Lucy Penn

Rebecca O’ Doherty

Adam Terris

Albums

NO DOUBT PR

istening to The Maccabees third orget” can lay claim to being the nless you’re a huge Gwen Stefani L album Given to the Wild, it’s hard to F best track from Lianne La Havas’ U fan, you might have missed the believe that it came from the same band Mercury Music Prize nominated al- news that No Doubt are hopping on

NO DOUBT: Back with a whimper.

THE KILLERS

SKUNK ANANSIE BLACK TRAFFIC 100%

 f you haven’t heard of them, or you Iremember recognise the name but can’t quite where from, Skunk Anan-

sie were a London based four-piece from back when you were probably wearing nappies. Most famous for their 1997 hit “Brazen (Weep)” which placed at number 11 in the charts, Skunk Anansie were recognisable for their edgy soul-rock sound, their slightly out-of-fashion Goth image and their ‘iconic’ lead singer ‘Skin’ (real name Deborah Dyer).

Their new album Black Traff ic is the third to come out since their

2009 comeback. (Did you not hear the other two?)

Skunk Anansie 2.0 does not really have a reason to exist. This album is one of the most awkward compilations of songs heard in years. Black Traff ic feels disappointing, especially to a fan of the band. It isn’t that the music itself is bad, and blimey, Skin’s voice is still just as powerful and brash as it was 20 years ago.

However, a huge sense of confusion is evident from the album’s sheer lack of direction. It feels as though Skunk Anansie just don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing any more, so have resorted to creating this entirely incoherent jumble with a mess of styles to give them something.

The record opens with “I Will Break You” - it’s pretty heavy, verging on metal. It is a fine start and the

BATTLEBORN MERCURY RECORDS

next two tracks “Sad Sad Sad” and “Spit You Out” (feat. Shaka Ponk) follow suit and show hints of the old Skunk Anansie we knew and liked.

However, this is where things all get a bit too weird. The fourth track, “I Hope You Get To Meet Your Hero”, is, to be frank, a big pile of cheese.

From here on, the mismatch continues, with odd songs and silly names like “Sticky Fingers in Your Honey.”

Skunk Anansie have passed their sell by date - they should take a step now back to ensure it doesn't get mouldy.

 ack in 2004, The Killers were makB ing a big splash on the British indie scene with Hot Fuss, the multi-platinum-

selling album that brought us the iconic “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside.” Since then, Brandon Flowers and his men have cemented themselves on the scene as a force to be reckoned with, even earning admirers like the Pet Shop Boys and Bono.

Battleborn is an album that pleases the ear from the very first track. It has a very polished feel to it but perhaps that’s to be expected from a project involving five different producers; a collection of carefully crafted songs with catchy choruses and clean guitar riffs. It’s a solid rock album, but it’s not groundbreaking.

“Flesh and Bone” sets things off with an 80’s synth-infused sound that’s freely steeped in the electronica that has been recurrent in their latest works.

Elsie Ward

WE ARE THE OCEAN MAYBE TODAY, MAYBE TOMORROW HASSLE RECORDS



SKIN: Maybe should have just stayed at home..

ALTERNA2, FLIKR

aybe Today, Maybe Tomorrow is M the first album We Are The Ocean have recorded as a quartet, following the

departure of Dan Brown, lead vocalist and ‘screamer’, earlier this year. Losing the lead singer has ended disastrously for some in the past - however, Liam Cromby brings a breath of fresh air to the band.

Maybe Today, Maybe Tomorrow is filled with catchy, energetic riffs throughout, yet the short acoustic track “Stanford Rivers” opens the album with only Cromby’s vocals and a piano. This leads the way nicely into track two, “Bleed”, the first song released from the album, which is guaranteed to be stuck in your head after one listen. The album itself resonates with themes of growing

It’s a misleading first track though, as Battleborn revels in a more mature rock sound than previous compositions. Lead single “Runaways” bears resemblances to Brandon Flowers’s “Crossfire” and has “stadium-filler” and “instant classic” written all over it. “The Way It Was” also gets you inadvertently singing along.

Flowers, who’s solo venture Flamingo debuted at number one in 2010, excels when it comes to hitting the high notes on songs like “Here With Me” and “Rising Tide.” Not easily deterred from experimenting when it comes to his vocals, observable if you compare debut album Hot Fuss’s “Andy, You’re a Star” and 2008’s Day and Age’s “Human”, Flowers finds his comfort zone on “Battleborn.”

There is also an intriguing Springsteen vibe on songs like “Deadlines and Commitments”. It seems that the Nevada desert has worked its wonders on the Killers just as New Jersey influenced the Boss.

Battleborn is a wholly satisfying return for the BRIT award-winners. It doesn’t break any boundaries, but it’s still very good. The Killers aren’t dead yet.

Laura Cain up: lyrics such as “be who you want to be” in “Story of a Modern Child” and track titles like “Young Heart” amplify this feeling, fitting the way in which the band is adapting and maturing. The fifth track, “Machine”, bears similarities to stadium rock bands such as Lostprophets, with the chorus “I will never be owned by you” climaxing at the end with backing vocals chanted from the whole band. The album comes full circle by the end, closing with the acoustic track “Chin Up, Son”: “tell me why do I worry myself/I’ll be alright/doing just fine” confirming the band’s security in themselves.

We Are The Ocean have produced an album which puts them in a solid position in the rock world, continuing on where others have failed. The album flows well from track to track and gives fans a peace of mind that despite any line-up changes, this is not the end of We Are The Ocean.

Kirsty Finlayson

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Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Music 27

STAR RATING  Come On Eileen  Hurry Up Sarah Tardy Janet  Quickly Linda Missed the Bus Sandra

VARIOUS ARTISTS Cruel Summer G.O.O.D. MUSIC



DINOSAUR JR. I Bet On Sky JAGJAGUWAR



TITLE FIGHT

Floral Green SIDEONEDUMMY



RACHEL SERMANNI

P!NK

Under Mountains MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

The Truth About Love RCA





inosaur Jr. are a seminal band: the t’s been around four years since n Cruel Summer, Kanye West tries ardcore can often get a bad press first stumbled across Rachel SerD lo-fi trio lay a formidable claim to I P!nk released her last full album, O to promote the talents of the young H for stagnation. Bands show up, I manni at the Insider Festival in the much-contested titled of Invenso she’s been off the radar for a good artists signed to his G.O.O.D. Music make a few albums of songs that sound Aviemore in 2011. At this stage, an

label by taking an unprecedented back seat to proceedings. However, good as his intentions may be, the album ultimately suffers for the lack of West’s presence as his protégés fail to step up. Whether the verse is delivered by Big Sean, 2 Chainz or CyHi the Prynce doesn’t really matter.

Each verse is littered with clichés and idiotic rhymes these new rappers don’t have the standing to pull off; Big Sean’s combination of “poo-tang” with “WuTang” is a particular low.

Their limitations contrast sharply beside the presence of more established names like Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and Jay-Z. Even if it feels like they are going through the motions somewhat, they are still far ahead of the young pretenders. Killah’s appearance at the end of “New God Flow” capitalises on one of the album’s strongest beats and rescues the song.

However, not every established name performs well here. Pusha-T’s disjointed verses seem amateurish, and only serves to highlight his decline since his career peaked with the group Clipse.

West’s recent offerings, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne, saw a number of ingenious and inventive collaborations. Here, they seem like experiments - with a variety of consequences. The worst of these poorly thought-out groupings lead to songs with bizarre directional changes in the middle. “The Morning” sees Dickens aficionado D’Banj wail a nonsense hook whilst in “Sin City”, spoken-word artist Malik Yusef painfully struggles to find six words that rhyme with ‘city’ in an unnecessary interlude.

There are a few bright spots on the record. The single “Clique” builds up nicely to become the finest tune on the album.

Opener “To the World” works well thanks to R.Kelly. However, the second half of the album falls away badly into insipid, generic R&B. Unfortunately for West, all Cruel Summer ultimately manages to do is make you realise that the most dynamic young rappers are not signed to the G.O.O.D. label.

Jack Skelton

tors of Grunge. More recently, they have pulled off an incredibly satisfying reunion, having already released two classic albums - Beyond and Farm - that stand up next to their beloved 1980s output, as well as featuring one of the most talented guitarists in rock music at the moment - J. Mascis.

Those unfamiliar to the louderthan-loud and hyper-melodic band will doubtless be impressed by the skill showcased by Mascis’ guitar work on the solos. These serve as highlights of any Dinosaur Jr. song, coupled with relentlessly hooking choruses and unique drawls of the principal songwriter – making Lou Reed sound like Antony Hegarty by comparison.

While I Bet On Sky undoubtedly has its moments, it suffers from the overwhelming sense that they can do better than this.

Album opener “Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know” features some great rhythm guitar but is compromised by very weak synth and a half-hearted solo. Similarly, “Pierce The Morning Rain” is let down by one of the most ridiculous riffs Barlow and Mascis have ever put down. This, combined with samey lyrics throughout the album makes for a far less invigorating listen than any album they’ve put out since their 1985 debut. That said, Lou Barlow’s two contributions are some of the best work he’s ever done. “Rude” is a classic slice of skate-punk while “Recognition” is a perfectly executed example of the delightful folk-rock that has made his own solo career so celebrated.

For a band whose main appeal is their consistent discography, I Bet On Sky is pretty varied in terms of quality.

The songs with a lasting appeal, such the anthemic closer “See It On Your Side” and magnificent lead single “Watch The Corners”, are of the calibre fans would expect. While the record serves as a great introduction to Dinosaur Jr.'s style and appeal, it is certainly lacking in comparison to their previous two post-reunion efforts. The cover art is hilarious, however.

Emmett Cruddas

frustratingly similar and then disappear into the abyss of a nine-to-five.

Very rarely do you see real progression in these bands, and rarer still in 2012 do they break into any sort of mainstream consciousness. Could Title Fight be the band do do exactly that?

Floral Green, the second effort from the Kingston Pennsylvania quartet in some ways picks up where it’s predecessor ( 2011’s Shed) left off. The initial riffs and drum rolls of opener “Numb, But I Still Feel It” builds a tension that you just know is going to erupt into pure aggressive passion that then resonates throughout the next few tracks. However, it takes “Head in the Ceiling Fan” with its slower pace and Pixies-esque loud-quiet guitars curling around Jamie Rohden’s lonely voice to act as a transition point on the album. It signifies that the pop-punk leanings of the band’s earlier work have finally been purged in favour of a sound more heavily influenced by the mid 90’s/early 2000’s emo they’ve always admired.

Lyrically, there is also a great deal more maturity to a band whose concern was once teenage home town boredom and bedroom isolation.

This is perhaps most beautifully illustrated on closer “In-between”, a song devoted to being in a touring band away from the stability of home whilst trying to finding your place in the world.

It shows how far Title Fight have come as a band since their inception almost a decade ago.

The enduring presence of Bassist Ned Ruskin’s rougher vocals and the odd mighty sing along moment, such as that on “Sympathy”, of course means that elements of the band’s previous selves do survive and this will surely keep older fans of the band happy. Yet it’s the newer elements of depth both musically and lyrically that highlight that this is a band that are finally finding their feet and possibly destined for bigger and better things. A truly great punk record.

EP, Black Currants, was promised to be on the way, which was enough to keep me interested until the album, Under Mountains, would be finished.

Now that it is finally released, it didn’t take long before I had listened to it on repeat for a whole day.

This new album is very much an expansion on her earlier EP. Each song tells its own story, whether about sadness and loss, heard in “Eggshells”, or the darker themes heard in “The Fog”. The folk-style acoustic set up works very well, with vocal harmonies and overlapping violins being utilised to create a variety of atmospheres throughout the album; most notably, there is a certain eerie feeling imposed through the melodies.

Some songs appear to have been written quite playfully with titles like “Ever Since the Chocolate and Marshmallow Unicorn”. Perhaps ironically, these appear to be the most intimate and personal ones.

It is very easy to connect emotionally with the album, but that is not limited to being in terms of the lyrics, as the feelings portrayed by the melodies are perhaps more obvious.

Subtle sounds of picking violins or a whisper of a harmony make the music sound almost orchestral and hypnotic.

Overall, the album is, in a good way, as expected. It flows smoothly from song to song, such that you could listen to the whole piece without realising how much time had passed. Having seen Rachel perform a number of times in a number of different settings, from music festivals with a band backing her, to alone in a record store, I am excited to see her again soon to hear how she will play these new songs with or without accompaniment. If you are looking for an interesting take on folk music or just want to listen to something slightly different, Sermanni is a safe bet.

while now. That puts a lot of pressure her latest release The Truth About Love, if she hopes for success similar to her early-2000s heyday. Stealing back the limelight from younger artists such as Rihanna and Lady Gaga and reasserting her status as a poprock veteran would be no mean feat.

Is she up to the task?

It’s hard to say. Too often, mainstream releases rely entirely on one or two singles to carry the whole album, and that certainly isn’t the case here; nothing sounds rushed or neglected on this consistent record. “(Blow Me) One Last Kiss” is the album’s main single, and it’s a good example of the punchy break-up songs that P!nk does so well, but there’s also plenty of variety here.

It is a little hit and miss – the album’s attempts at catchy anthems come across as a little shouty, but the slow, soulful songs like “Try” and “Just Give Me a Reason” are very powerful and demonstrate the variety of songwriting. As well as this, P!nk has a unique voice which the album showcases nicely, alongside the clever lyrics fans have come to expect.

The album’s main problem is that some of the basslines and rhythms are lacking in impact. Without them, parts of the album feel like they have no backbone, which is probably why The Truth About Love seems less memorable than P!nk’s previous albums - fuelled by resounding chords from strong guitars.

On the other hand, fans will probably be satisfied with this album, and there are several real gems here, but as a whole it doesn’t stand out as much it could have done. Perhaps it’s an issue of unrealistic expectations – The Truth About Love is well written and solidly produced, and it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where it falls short.

Every song is worth a listen, but this time next month you’ll probably have forgotten most of them.

Michael Todd

Lewis Brown

Joe Smith

Shields WARP RECORDS

 verything about Shields screams E ‘retro’. The more you listen, the more you feel you have been transported back

to the 70’s, with lengthy guitar strumming and clashes of sound that are oddly laid-back. With instruments varying from your typical guitar to omnichords and banjos, Grizzly Bear’s sound is certainly unique - and it's clear they’ve spent time fine-tuning the sounds of their new album.

Ed Droste’s lead vocals are stunning; steady with a slight quiver of vulnerability

that gives him an edge. He opens the album with ease. “Dreamed a long day, just wandering free”pretty much encapsulates the whole album’s aura in a single line.

Their sound, as on their previous releases, is experimental. The inventive and sometimes difficult sounds on the album mix the genres of indie rock with a hint of pop and a dash of electronica. It’s certainly something you don’t hear every day. No matter which category you decide to slot Grizzly Bear into, it certainly won’t be mainstream.

Deceptively though, their lyrics are somewhat average. “If I could I would leave it all be / No chance to move backwards and see” emerges from “Yet Again” in a hardly imaginative lull. However, when wrapped up in the impressive soundscapes, even the most mundane

drawls seem epic, the listener engulfed to the point where lyrics become secondary.

Shields must come with a warning though; after over six minutes of “A Simple Answer” and with no upbeat track to be seen, the album can become a little too much of the same. It’s okay to experiment but there is something lacking, something vital.

The highlights of the record all come at the beginning, with the tail end of the album sadly petering out a bit. However, it’s worth persisting, as “Sleeping Ute” and “Yet Again” are more than worth a listen.

Kate Walker

GRIZZLY BEAR: Bears with sore heads

THE 405, FLICKR

GRIZZLY BEAR

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

One’s company, two’s a crowd Sarah O'Mahony explores the repetitive yet compelling world of the sequel

iam Neeson is not happy. In fact, he’s L pretty mad. He was having a nice time, wandering around Istanbul when

some men had to go and spoil it all by kidnapping his wife. Now his daughter’s scared: she’s on the phone to him, crying.

Liam talks calmly, in that gravelly voice that isn’t quite Irish or American, but signals that he means business. “Listen to me carefully, Kim. Your mother is going to be taken.”

“

Wait a second, I think to myself, I’ve heard this line before, it’s very familiar. In fact, the entire scenario is very familiar: men of Albanian origin pointing guns at Liam’s head, who casually beats them all up without gaining a single flesh wound.

Then the explosions and car chases and dramatic music kicks in and I know, for sure, that I’ve definitely seen this film before.

Despite my cynicism, I know that I will buy a ticket for Taken 2 when it is released in cinemas in October this year.

The producers of the movie know this too, because when the original is a huge box office success with a rating of 7.9 on

KILLING THEM SOFTLY DIRECTED BY ANDREW DOMINIK  the wake of Bush’s America everyone is Iof noutopportunists to make a fast buck, and when a pair hit a mob-owned poker

house, they enter into a game of cat and mouse with Brad Pitt’s anti-hero hitman in Andrew Dominik’s latest crime adaptation.

We are introduced to Frankie (Scoot McNairy), an aspiring criminal entrepreneur and his junkie accomplice Russell (Ben Mendelson), who, when commenting on a recently acquired prostitute states, “You see ‘em, probably wouldn’t want to rape them, but the plumbing works fine.” This sets the tone for the ensuing 90 minutes, not a film for those of weak constitution. They’re told the poker job will pay well and that all blame will fall on its owner Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta).

Anyone familiar with Dominik’s debut film Chopper will know that this director isn’t one to flinch when blood hits the screen, but here he takes the more reserved

WEAREMOVIEGEEKS.COM

Sequels are hardly a new phenomenon in the movie industry. They have always been an opportunity for studios to make money..."

TAKE TWO : Just another day at the office for Liam Neeson IMDb, they know that fans will be coming back for more. All they have to do is change location from Paris to Istanbul.

I could be one of the few who takes the moral high ground and refuses to see it, but the chance to watch Liam defend his womenfolk a second time around is too much to resist.

Sequels are hardly a new phenomenon in the movie industry. They have always been viewed as an opportunity by studios to make money off the success of the previous film, but when times approach of his last outing The Assassination of Jesse James; violence is used sparingly but to great effect. So the weight of the film rests on its dialogue, which, though not solid gold, is carried by a stellar cast on top form. Brad Pitt’s Jackie Cogan carries an aura of calm as he methodically hunts his targets. Mafia film veterans Ray Liotta , and James Gandolfini both serve up excellent performances, but the stand out is Scoot McNairy’s man-on-the-run Frankie. In his breakthrough role after 2010’s excellent indie sci-fi Monster, McNairy’s wise guy is wide eyed, endearing and easy to root for.

Based on a 70s crime novel, the setting has been modernised to give a backdrop of the last presidential election.Obama or McCain election speeches are never far from earshot, be it from car stereo or background TV, and the mob politics have some reflections of those in Washington. However, these two aspects never successfully marry and what seems like an attempt at poignant political commentary feels more like a film riding the current election buzz.

Even if Killing Them Softly aims to be more and doesn’t quite get there, it’s still a more than accomplished crime thriller that serves up a stiff cocktail of tension and gritty retribution.

Stephen Moir

are tough and business is threatened by recession, Hollywood uses them to up its game. Hence why cinemas are currently inundated not just with sequels, but also with prequels, trilogies and quadrilogies (because apparently some girls need four films to decide whether to choose the vampire or the werewolf ). Even remakes are making a comeback.

Sequels are the way that the movie industry plays it safe in this day and age.

When a motion picture has proved to be a hit, it would be an unwise business deci-

SAVAGES DIRECTED BY OLIVER STONE  ased on Don Winslow’s novel of B the same name, Savages is the story of O (Blake Lively), a rich Californian

chick in a relationship with best friends Ben and Chon (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Taylor Kitsch respectively), who together run a successful marijuana business.

“

Savages tries to encompass a number of genres and styles...to show the complexity of life..."

The idyllic Laguna Beach love triangle is shattered when Ben and Chon piss off the boss of a powerful Mexican cartel: O is kidnapped and the two need to make a deal with the cartel and find

sion to not profit from it with a part deux that is guaranteed to be just as, if not more, fruitful. And when a stellar cast is on board they can be sure that they will be making a hefty return.

Take the case of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Even with only Johnny Depp signing up for the fourth instalment, the worldwide box office gross was $1,043,871,802: over double what The Curse of the Black Pearl brought in. Even though it is readily acknowledged, both by the franchise-lovers and the creators, millions of dollars to rescue their girlfriend.

With its many twists and turns, Oliver Stone’s movie becomes predictable in its attempts to surprise the audience. Savages ticks each cliche box one can think of: plot development, stereotypical characters and dialogue.

The blonde, on-a-diet, dependingon-men protagonist (every feminist’s nightmare), the corrupt cop, the stoner, the blood-thirsty Mexican cartel queen – Savages has them all.

“

With its many twists and turns, Oliver Stone's movie becomes predictable in its attempts to surprise the audience."

Even hairdos and moustaches are stereotypical: handlebar moustache for the Mexican, dreadlocks for the environmentalist, and so forth. Every aspect of this film is so embarrassingly predictable that one wonders if Stone wanted to make a deliberately bad

that Pirates has steadily gone downhill in quality with each film that is produced, the existence of a series means that a segment cannot go unwatched. As more publicity is generated for each movie there is consequently more interest from the public. The epitome of this cycle is news of the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean 5. Captain Jack Sparrow could be chewing his toenails for three hours and the opening night would still be sold out.

This is not to say that all sequels are terrible pieces of art that insult the paying audience’s intelligence by their complete lack of creativity and innovation.

Certainly this was the case with Mean Girls 2, but it would be grossly unfair to categorise the straight-to-DVD film with the breathtaking Godfather: Part II. Similarly, the Bourne and Batman series defied the expected decline, with each film being an incredible composition in its own right.

Rather than solely encouraging laziness, sequels also allow screenwriters, directors and producers to improve upon their previous creation. Certainly this seems to be the case with movies of the superhero genre, with the sequels of films such as Iron Man and Thor being greatly anticipated in 2013.

Sequels play that vital role of continuing the story that was begun but not, it feels, really completed. For those who thought that Liam Neeson had things too easy in Taken, they will be pleased to know that Paris was only the beginning of his troubles.

movie.

Even the most edgy features fail to hit the mark: the love triangle is neither interesting nor shocking, arguably because of the lack of depth of the characters involved. Likewise, rapes and gruesome murders come across as being in the movie only for the sake of upsetting the audience.

Savages tries to encompass a number of genres and styles (thriller, splatter, romance, etc.) to show the complexity of life, but the result is a mash-up that doesn’t quite work.

Moreover, the contrast between the gritty story and the commercial glossy photography is at its best jarring, and at its worst cringeworthy.

Perhaps there was potential in this story, but at some point things went wrong and Oliver Stone ended up filming a long commercial about the hip life of Laguna Beach and of its successful 20 year olds.

With flat characters and a plot that resembles the fantasies of a man going through a mid-life crisis, Savages is one of the most inconsequential movies released this year.

Claudia Marinaro

JOANNA LISOWIEC

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

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

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Film 29

STAR RATING  The Godfather: Part II The Bourne Supremacy  Jurassic Park 2 Meet the Fockers Means Girls 2

NOW IS GOOD DIRECTED BY OL PARKER 

D

irected by Ol Parker and based on the novel Before I Die by Jenny Downham, Now Is Good is the story of Tessa (Dakota Fanning), a wilful teenager diagnosed with a terminal illness who aims to live out her remaining months to the full.

Both the trailer and the opening credits of this film are somewhat misleading in that they seem to suggest that the story is centred around a list of things Tessa wants to do before she dies. In actual fact, the list is hardly seen at all. Most of the film shows Tessa morose and angry (with good reason) and the decisions she makes are more impulsive than planned out.

For this reason, the film's opening feels a little unstable as we’re not entirely sure where the plot is going. As Tessa herself says in an odd scene in which she and her father are being interviewed for radio, “What’s your angle going to be?

Is it the whole ‘dying girl’ thing or do you have something original planned?”

Now Is Good is far from original but that is not to say it’s not good. There are some excellent performances from Fanning (who makes a good go of an English accent), Paddy Considine and

rising star Jeremy Irvine.

The plot, by its very nature, is a tough one and there are some definite tearjerking moments. The film does make a stab at lightening the mood though, with some beautiful shots and the occasional attempt at black humour.

“

The film's opening feels a little unstable as we're not entirely sure where the plot is going."

There were some scenes however that would have been touching if it were not for the repetitive piano theme that returned every time one of the characters said something emotional, heartfelt or even mildly poetic.

One scene towards the end of the film was going particularly well, with Tessa and her boyfriend riding a motorbike through a sunlit country road, when all of a sudden a group of horses gallop past in slow motion while Fanning blinks adoringly at them.

The performances make Now Is Good a much better film than it otherwise would have been. Despite its faults it is still an engaging and emotional film that will certainly bring a lump to your throat.

Sarah Rundell

TOWER BLOCK DIRECTED BY JAMES NUNN AND RONNIE THOMPSON  ith its sinister plot and dark W setting, Tower Block is a thriller which aims to have its audience

clutched in a state of fearful anticipation for its full duration. It certainly does jumpy scenes well but the lack of variation seriously detracts from the film’s ultimate impact on the viewer.

The entirety of the action exists within the claustrophobic world of Tower Block 31, a building lined up for demolition; sitting deserted except for its top floor inhabitants. These characters, who are yet to be evicted by the council, are first introduced as they lock their doors while a boy is beaten to death in their hallway.

“

The setting succeeds in artfully creating a nauseatingly tense atmosphere of suspense and insecurity."

Three months later, Becky (Sheridan Smith) and her neighbours open their curtains to find a vindictive and seemingly omniscient sniper trying to blast their

brains out onto the walls behind them.

While some critics have described the confinement of the setting as cheap, in actual fact it succeeds in artfully creating a nauseatingly tense atmosphere of suspense and insecurity.

Unfortunately, there is nothing much else about the film that is cinematically dexterous enough to grant anyone a sense of emotional involvement or a long lasting adrenaline rush.

Essentially, Tower Block’s overwhelming defect is its lack of depth in plot.

Smith and Jack O’Connell (who plays Kurtis, the block’s aggressive resident drug dealer) should be credited for playing two dimensional ‘type’ characters with as much flair as the script allows.

For some, all of the film’s appeal will be lost after the beautiful Irish character is brutally shot near the beginning.

Generally, however, the film succeeds in maintaining a sense of intrigue as the viewer clings in hope for a deep, psychological plot twist to translate the monotony of the violent, systematic killings into something powerful and truly disturbing.

Unfortunately, this never happens.

The audience is left feeling cheated by the final revelation of the killer’s identity, an ending which is weak and implausible.

Minor injections of humour do prevent this from falling as flat as a pancake, but then that’s not really what you look for in a thriller.

Melissa Lawford

HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET DIRECTED BY MARK TONDERAI 

ark Tonderai’s latest horror M thriller stars Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) as Elissa, a young

“

The predictable approach makes the horror aspect of the film seem somewhat comedic;" The cliched approach adopted in the film verges on the ridiculous in parts; torches don’t work, girls are caught in the rain and forced to take lifts in strangers’ cars. Possibly the most inventive of the writers’ devices goes something like: lead actor walks through dark forest alone (don’t forget the twig snap - the most horrifying of snaps). This predictable and unoriginal approach makes the horror aspect of the film seem somewhat comedic; people are not scared by what they know.

Lawrence delivers a typically bland

ACESHOWBIZ.COM

woman moving with her mother (Elisabeth Shue) to a secluded small town.

This horrifying backdrop gains even more momentum with the discovery that their inexpensive new home was being sold at this price because of its proximity to the site of a grisly double murder in which a young girl killed her parents and then disappeared. This brings the viewer as much creative insight as they’d gain from boiled celery.

THE HORROR GAMES : Jennifer wonders why she ever accepted a role in this dead end movie performance in the lead, managing to roll shocked, happy, lustful and pensive emotions all up into one standard facial expression: boredom. Her apparent lack of concern over her own safety makes it difficult to feel for her plight.

Max Thieriot, portraying Ryan, the son of the murdered parents, reels in the audience’s empathy with far greater effect, producing a convincing performance as a recluse. The fact that Thieriot’s character’s only topic of conversation is the death of his parents does become wearing however, almost as if the film is trying too hard to gain sympathy for this character.

“

Elissa's lack of concern over her own safety makes it difficult to feel for her plight."

No stereotypical horror movie would be complete without an outrageous twist, and this is where the film excels, providing a genuinely surprising turn of events.

This comes at the cost of any sort of plausibility, however, and does little to redeem the film’s previously suffered wounds.

If you’re looking for a film about the teenage melodramatics of moving to a new home then this is for you. If, like most, you came searching for a scare, then you’ll find yourself more frightened by the amount of time you wasted watching the film than by the film itself.

James Wood

ALL FILMS WERE REVIEWED AT CINEWORLD

Whilst Oliver Stone’s early films impressed audiences and won him a handful of Oscars, it is worth remembering that one of his recent efforts was the disappointing Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. The original Wall Street was a hard act to follow, largely due to Michael Douglas’ career-best performance as the banker Gordon Gekko, which was the only thing the sequel had going for it.

Despite the opportunity to deliver a hard-hitting analysis of the events which led to the financial crash of 2008, Stone squandered his chance. Wall Street 2 was just more of the same, except with the unfortunate addition of Shia LaBeouf. Another problem in addition to the rehashed material, is that in spite of his virtues as a filmmaker, Stone does not do subtlety. Any political message is shouted at the audience, leaving you in no doubt as to where Stone stands on the issue: bankers bad, trade unionists good.

Perhaps this criticism is unfair; after all, the backdrop of banking does not exactly make for an exciting movie. However, one film which delivers a stinging critique of the financial world is American Psycho. Less about banking than about the inner workings of a psychopathic mind, Christian Bale delivers an astonishing performance as Patrick Bateman, a banker on Wall Street who by night expresses his madness in a series of rapes and murders.

Bateman is a completely unsympathetic character; he is obsessed with his appearance and his desire to “fit in”. As the film progresses, Bateman’s sanity slowly unravels, and the final act swaps humour for a more macabre tone. The sensationalistic style of violence leaves the viewer questioning whether the murders he commits actually occurred, or were merely in his imagination.

American Psycho delivers its critique in allowing a psychopath to occupy the same space as other supposedly sane bankers. They fail to notice his quirks and his frank admissions to insanity. Mistaken identity is a central theme of the film, which highlights the depersonalised world they inhabit. No one knows who anyone else is, as they all have identical tastes in suits and business cards.

The ending is open to interpretation and invites questioning of the film and the message behind it. Its satirical swipe at banking leaves more to dwell on than the Wall Street movies, and whilst not faultless, is worth viewing simply for Bale’s performance alone.

American Psycho captures the zeitgeist of 80s investment banking with considerable flare, and its message still resonates today.

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

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STAR RATING

 Watch immediately Pretty good It'll do Passable Complete rubbish

Elske Waite looks at the return of Downton Abbey and questions whether it has lost its charm

show generously includes such a political element in an attempt to give the episode at least an edge of seriousness, because all in all, it’s really rather silly.

DOWNTON ABBEY ITV 1 Sundays, 9pm

YOUTUBE

he X-Factor pancake has flopped out of the pan and on to the plate and it’s a flat and stodgy mess.

Poked and prodded and soaked in saccharine pizazz, it’s a begrudging snack and a gruelling chomp: a hollow bite of dud.

This year, more than any other, The X Factor audition process has felt like a flambéed fuck-up. It was once a weekly shot light-lunacy rushing into the veins of primetime television, but now is just an askew string of episodes featuring poor editing, shouting Spice Girls renditions and underwhelming acts who leave the usually reliable bag of ingredients to fizzle out in a pan of ‘meh’ as a strewn gloop of mediocrity.

Long gone are the saddo-to-superstar stories, instead it is filled with more solely-Irish-influenced crying from Louis Walsh, giving the opening episodes of your weekend’s entertainment an amateur feel.

When Simon Cowell left the panel to focus his concentration on securing dreary teenagers and actual psychopaths to judge on the American version of the show, the general consensus was that it could survive. There was enough belief in the format, and in the unyielding power of pop-on-TV, that it was broadly considered fit for purpose. So it pushed on without its blessed bastard and simply replaced him with stubbly DILF and Queencajoler, Gary Barlow.

Its brutal defeat of The Voice, essentially squashing the revolving chairs in to pathetic puny balls and pea-shooting them into oblivion, gave confirmation of its assumed dominance. But being better than The Voice is a bit like being a better human then Michael Gove - isn’t everyone?

What’s missing from this (and probably the last season) of The X Factor is not the horizontal barnet and malign-mouth of Cowell in front of the screen, but the shrieking egomaniac behind it: ensuring every angle of the Sit Next To Gary’s™’s side-boob is covered but not at the expense of the rotund dinner lady with the voice of an angel whose tears are about to fall to her penny loafers.

Simon Cowell is an exceptional television producer, a maestro and a madman. Though it’s likely he still fiddles with some buttons and adjusts the wailing of the deluded from time to time, his waning interest in the production, direction and execution of the British X Factor slides the shows lifespan into morbid decline.

Cowell perfected the emotional montage, exploited the clout of the backstory and successfully seduced a nation into Karaoke: with blubbering.

As The X-Factor now moves into boot camp and judge’s houses, it will take an almighty, Simon-sized flip on the handles of the show, to stop the simple recipe from crumbling to pieces: cruelly neglecting us of that sweet chunk of weekend entertainment, that quite frankly, we deserve.

Jack Murray

Downton shabby? 

S

ince it first glided onto our screens in 2010, Downton Abbey has seduced us with its stunning appearance and led us on a somewhat schmaltzy and reliably cliché journey through life in a socially evolving Britain.

First impressions suggest that this is the same glittering Downton that we know and love. However, as we watch, ‘subtle’ moments hint that all is not well – troubled conversations in dark corners, reproaching looks in the kitchen and the tender issue of the one-suit-only son-inlaw which Lord Grantham would like to gladly ignore.

With Matthew’s imminent marriage to the now not-so-contrary Mary, one could be forgiven for thinking everything was settled – but fear not, spectacle seekers! With Hugh Bonneville having fabulously ruined the family by carefully investing the entire family fortune in an enterprise that absolutely would not fail

TOURETTES: LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU BBC3 Mondays, 9pm



T

his three-part documentary shows the challenges that television presenter and radio DJ Reggie Yates faces as he puts together a live musical event with a twist… the six performers have Tourette Syndrome.

Documentaries about Tourettes, such as Teenage Tourettes Camp, tend to focus on the funny, rather than the serious aspects of the illness and allow for little or no focus on how the individuals feel. Let Me Entertain You, however, shows the disorder in a different light and focuses on those with uncontrollable tics whose symptoms vanish when they start to sing.

“

Reggie Yates comes across as the perfect person to try and help the sufferers" Following the group as they try to overcome issues with confidence and obsessions with Michael Buble, Reggie Yates comes across as the perfect person to try and help the sufferers, providing a shoulder to cry on and showing a willingness to laugh when comical statements are made, even if it is at his expense.

With special appearances from Ed Sheeran, Eliza Doolittle and Aloe Blacc, it is clear that the sufferers all seem to gain a boost in confidence when they meet their idols with their Tourettes

THE CRAWLEY SISTERS: Can the family survive financial ruin? (but absolutely did), what does the future hold for Downton Abbey? What’s more, how can Downton Abbey the programme continue if the titular home is lost?

Surely all hope is lost and the show must soon end...

It is strangely satisfying to see Lord Grantham suddenly worrying over the cost of his daughter’s wedding like any ordinary parent – with his wonderful withering comments on the cost of cars, the sort usually reserved for the everbrilliant Maggie Smith. In a show that becoming less apparent.

Fans of Glee may enjoy this show because it shows like Glee does, how to deal with difference in a real life context and why being different is a good thing!

It will be interesting to see what happens in the final installment next week: to see if Reggie can piece together his project and give these talented people their chance to shine.

Emily Brown

MOONE BOY Sky1 Fridays, 9pm



I

f Dave is the home of “witty banter”, and Channel 5 the home of former Big Brother contestants making questionable life choices, then Sky1 can arguably make a claim as the home of gentle family comedy.

While recent commissions such as Starlings, Mount Pleasant and Stella may not have been run away hits, the channel seems to have found its niche, and is sticking to it with new series Moone Boy. The show, however, packs a bit more bite than most of its Sky1 stable mates, opening as it does with 11 year old “idiot boy in the west of Ireland” Martin Paul Kenny Dalglish Moone (David Rawle) attempting to perform CPR on a dead chaffinch at the encouragement of his thirty-something imaginary friend (The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd, also acting as creator and co-writer), and being beaten up by the school bullies - who come complete with Grange Hill sting - for his troubles.

Those who prefer their comedy Chris Morris black may still want to look else-

seems too dreamlike to ever relate to, finally there is common ground.

What’s more, below stairs the usually mouse-like Daisy has begun spouting worker’s rights and wants a pay rise, and Carson has been forced to hire a footman who is “very tall” – God help us all.

For Downton, times are indeed changing, as confirmed even further by the controversial arrival of Mr and Mrs Branson who were absolutely unable to attend the wedding but were mysteriously aided by a secret benefactor. The where, but there’s plenty to enjoy in these opening two episodes.

The show is driven by a promising supporting cast. Steve Coogan’s cameo as Francie “Touchie” Feeley is a treat, as is Martin’s father, whose induction into the town’s club of under-appreciated parents become unexpectedly hilarious, topped off by the trio of sardonic Moone sisters who are a similar highlight.

The show isn’t without teething troubles, though. The animated forays into Martin’s mind, courtesy of Cartoon Saloon, can’t help but feel clichéd and Martin himself is relegated to a B-story in the second episode which falls a little flat. However, it’s hard to complain when the main plot gives you such delights as the word velcrocity – that being the strength of Velcro on an object (in this case, the lone campaign poster belonging to Martin’s mother’s canvassing group).

Though Father Ted’s seat at the pinnacle of Irish comedy may be safe for now, Moone Boy shows a lot of potential, and with four more episodes to come, and a second series already commissioned for next year, it certainly has the chance to prove itself. The venerable residents of Craggy Island might want to start looking over their shoulders.

Heather Davidson

VIKINGS

BBC2 Tuesdays, 9pm



T

he second episode of BBC Two’s new miniseries kicks off with presenter Neil Oliver standing amongst the remains of a Viking fortress in the Irish countryside. Unlike the previous instal-

FLICKR: EVIAN TSAI

T

JACK ON THE BOX

“

With the same indulgent costumes, opulent set design and rollercoaster script, Downtown Abbey is given a renewed sense of melodrama."

With the same indulgent costumes, opulent set design and rollercoaster script, Downtown Abbey is given a renewed sense of melodrama in the shape of the elusive goat’s-milk-drinking American grandmamma, Shirley MacLaine, bringing with her quips wry enough to rival those of Maggie Smith and retaining the great fun that makes Downtown shamefully addictive, as all good melodramas should be.

ment, which focused on the Vikings’ origins as a society, this one explores their influence over the wider world, seeing Oliver jet setting between Dublin, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Istanbul and various regional centres in England, mapping out the Vikings’ international trade links throughout Europe and the Middle East.

One of the crucial weaknesses of the episode’s first half is the absence of any real kind of narrative. No specific Viking figures, battles or other incidents are explored or even mentioned; the voiceovers describe Viking migration patterns in only the most clinical terms, intercut with scenes of Oliver gawking at skeletons, excavation sites, and trinkets in museums, which come across to the casual viewer as seen-one-seen-them-all.

Some scenes are truly revelatory, like the one where Oliver examines Viking graffiti on the balcony of Hagia Sophia, a 1,400-year-old Muslim temple in Istanbul. These moments don’t, however, make up for the fact that no story involving living, breathing people – an essential aspect of any good historical documentary – is being told.

A chain of scenes involving closeups on carvings of ancient rings, with ‘fascinating’ information about how the Vikings grew food intoning on the voiceover, is not an adequate substitute.

The pace does pick up in the second half when the focus shifts to Great Britain. The familiar story of the Viking conquest of England is recanted, beginning with the attack on Lindisfarne in 793 AD and culminating in the war with Alfred the Great, a narrative which is actually engaging and relatable.

Except by this point most of the audience will have switched over to BBC One to watch DIY SOS. Mission accomplished? Hardly.

Michael Hannan

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

Tuesday September 25 2012 studentnewspaper.org

Sport 31

Golfers hope to ryde high in Chicago

Injury Time

MEDINAH COUNTRY Club just outside of Chicago plays host to the 39th edition of the Ryder Cup this weekend, with Europe looking retain the title they won two years ago at a soggy Celtic Manor. With play delayed several times due to torrential downpours, the contest eventually finished on the Monday, when after an enthralling battle Hunter Mahan conceded to Greame McDowell on the seventeenth green, sealing the tie in favour of the Europeans.

The American team and fans, however, will be looking for a repeat of their 2008 victory, when the competition was last held in America. Home advantage allows Davis Love III, the American team captain, to set up the course to suit his team, which includes the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Zach Johnson. The competition is set to be played on Course 3 of the Medinah complex, which comes in at just over seven kilometres in total length. With the greens said to be firm and fast, Love has delivered a course that looks to suit his big hitting team.

The US team’s experienced Ryder Cup veterans, such as Jim Furyk, who has played in seven tournaments, will be joined by four rookies. Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson and Jason Dufner all qualified through the points system, while Brandt Snedecker was one of four captain’s picks. The remaining picks went on Furyk, Dustin Johnson and

BIG SHOT: Rory McIlroy is seen as key to Europe's chances Steve Sticker, who are included above the likes Hunter Mahan and Ricky Fowler thanks to their recent form.

In contrast, European captain José Maria Olazábal welcomes back eight of the victorious Celtic Manor team to his side and includes just one rookie in the rest of the line-up. Amongst the returnees are Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood and Luke Donald, all of whom are flying high in the world rankings.

Colin Montgomerie, who captained Europe to victory at Celtic Manor, believes that this means there is a “swagger about this European team.”

Big-hitting Nicolas Colsaerts becomes the first Belgian to play in

NEWSWHIP

Alan Ross previews this year’s Ryder Cup, which begins this weekend in the United States

the Ryder Cup thanks to one of two captain’s picks from Olazábal, who because of recent rule changes is restricted to just two picks this time around. The other place goes to Ian Poulter, whose penchant for flamboyant trousers will be restricted by the European team uniform.

The mind games have already started, albeit from an unexpected golfing personality, with Australian Greg Norman, a two time major winner, suggesting that world number one Rory McIlroy “really intimidates” Tiger Woods. Both parties since have played down the comment. Woods instead stated that he has enjoyed playing with McIlroy so far this

Shaking off the issue

TAKES A WRY LOOK AT THE WORLD OF SPORT

year, whilst for his part, the Northern Irishman laughed at the thought that he could intimidate the “biggest thing ever” in golf.

McIlroy though, is without doubt the player that the Americans are focussed on, with Jim Furyk describing him as a “marked man” and past American captain Paul Azinger asserting that McIlroy is the key to the Ryder Cup. Thankfully though, the championship is a team event, and eight of the European team have a winning record in Ryder Cup play, whereas the American side cannot claim a single positive record among them.

Whilst there may not be much animosity between the two teams, the fans that turn up at Medinah will no doubt be raucous in their support for the home side. The Ryder Cup has turned into the most partisan event in golf , with chanting more akin to football matches greeting players as they take to the tee. It is little wonder that Greame McDowell describes the Ryder Cup like “golf on adrenalin.”

The phenomenon of the ‘13th man’ looks set to continue as fans from the sports-mad city of Chicago head out to support Team USA on the course.

Europe need fourteen points to retain the Ryder Cup, with just another half point needed to win the cup outright. After the summer sport that has graced Britain so far, perhaps we can dare to dream once again.

KP is just nuts about IPL

Phil Smith remains bemused by how John Terry continues to get away with charges of racism age of shortcomings off the field, as he himself was quick to point out in court.

However, being a racist does not seem to be one of them. The powerful character testimonies provided by the likes of Ashley Cole and John Obi Mikel are testament to this.

We’ve all seen the video though. It is almost overwhelmingly clear, even if the context is not, that Terry used a racist phrase. Given the extraordinary strides taken by English football in the last 20 years to kick racism out of the game, to see the captain of the national side use language like he did was a great backwards step, and should not be tolerated.

8

matches

Ban recieved by Luis Suarez following his racist comments against Patrice Evra

The FA is accused, with no lack of substance to back up the claim, of dithering over the issue. The reality, however, is much starker than that. The FA is responsible for showing complete double standards. The Luiz Suarez – Patrice Evra affair provides an interesting parallel. Here, the FA responded rapidly to Evra’s claim, undertaking a thorough and sensitive investigation that eventually lead to Luiz Suarez being handed an eight match ban. The message could not have been firmer and more honourable: racist language will not be tolerated on English football pitches.

SNUB: Terry takes another hit to his handshake-completion ratio It is nothing short of a disgrace that John Terry has not been scrutinised with such intensity by an FA panel. A disciplinary hearing will take place soon, but it is already too little, too late. He must surely be banned; otherwise the FA will have brought the game into disrepute and indulged in hypocrisy of the highest order. John Terry was the number one role model as captain of England, and whilst he may be no racist, it is completely unacceptable to set the example he did in his language and behaviour that day.

The scenes at Loftus Road were pitiful but understandable. Anton Ferdinand is unlikely to want to shake the hand of a man he feels has not been brought to account for his actions; but

it seems now as if the saga has gone beyond that, into a series of embarrassing personal vendettas. One suspects that even if Terry is punished by the FA, this saga will rumble on.

Whatever happens, the FA must resist calls to drop the pre match handshake, the most basic of sporting gestures. Even Derek Chisora and David Haye touched gloves before their fight this year. If they can do it, then anyone can. It is crucial, though, that the boredom and disillusionment with this whole drama does not detract from a vitally important issue. The FA must put through John Terry through a rigorous disciplinary proceeding. Until it does, a cloud will continue to hang over the national game.

GLYNN KIRK

IT WAS the topic no one wanted to talk about. Pundits and journalists alike were almost apologetic every time they brought up the ‘will they, wont they?’ debate over John Terry and Anton Ferdinand shaking hands. As expected, prior to kickoff at the recent QPR vs. Chelsea clash, Ferdinand walked straight past a smarting John Terry. So too, curiously, did Ji Sung Park. The PFA chairman Gordon Taylor was right to rile against this “mafia feud” that has developed between the two clubs and certain groups played with them, trading cheap insults on Twitter like a bunch of 10 year olds.

It is tiresome and unsavoury viewing.

Yet pundits should make no apologies in continuing the debate. Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo highlighted how badly wires have been crossed over this issue in his Match of the Day interview. Asked how a line could be drawn under the issue, he scoffed and said the solution is for the media to stop talking about it, sentiments seemingly echoed across the footballing fraternity.

Rubbish. The only way a line can be drawn under this is to solve the initial cause: John Terry, then captain of the national side, used racist language on the field of play. Until he is punished for this, the media should bring it up every single day.

It is, of course, imperative to point out at this stage that John Terry was found not guilty in a court of law of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand. No man should be punished for something which cannot be proven. John Terry appears to be a footballer with no short-

KEVIN PIETERSEN, English cricket’s most high profile foreign signing, has recently decided he’d rather smash some young Indian bowlers for six in the IPL for bucketloads of cash than play a laborious Test series against New Zealand for his adopted ‘home’ nation.

Why, I hear you scream, would anybody want to be paid nigh-on $2 million for five weeks ‘work’ when they can stand and bat against some average Kiwis for hours on end in the middle of Birmingham? It beats me too – but then again KP has always been that little bit different.

This is the man who was offered the long-term opportunity to captain England but instead decided to sacrifice his prestigious position to prevent the evil Peter Moores, who KP perceptibly realised was hellbent on ruining the national side, from seizing power.

Having made no friends in his first four years of international cricket, he had none to lose in the Mooresgate scandal and so happily continued in his own unique KP way right through until 2012.

But then things began to change.

Pietersen, after falling on his sword to save the dwindling fortunes of the England team three years previously, soon understandably felt it was time he was rewarded for his loyal service.

ODIs were no longer something which the talismanic batsman could be arsed with. Playing five 50-over matches against Bangladesh suddenly did not seem like such an inviting prospect for a thirty-something cricketer who could easily be working for three hours a day, four days a week over in Sri Lanka or Australia.

Yet once again Pietersen honourably swallowed his pride and accepted his banishment from the one-day and Twenty20 scene, only for his teammates to commit the most cardinal of sins – follow a Twitter account that occasionally mocked the great man. How dare they, those mere mortals who were blessed to be allowed to grace the same field as KP, take the piss out of an egotistical loner only out for himself?

In response some text messages were sent to some South African players about his ever-so-posh excaptain, yielding criticisms that “KP shot Bambi.”

Like so much of KP’s time in the England side, the texts have been seriously underappreciated by his teammates. Here was Pietersen once again taking one for the team - helping to remove someone from power so as to aid the side’s future progress. If anything, England owe Kevin Pietersen – maybe about $2 million would suffice?

Chris Waugh

Sport

Tuesday September 25 2012

studentnewspaper.org

Boom baby!

Alan Ross previews this weekend's Ryder Cup in Chicago 31

Let the games begin

Piers Barber finds out what the University's sports teams are aiming for ahead of the 2012/13 season THIS WEEK sees the University of Edinburgh’s multitude of sports teams finally get their seasons underway as they attempt to better their substantial achievements of last year. A quick look through some of the university’s finest sporting successes from the past season serves as proof that the university continues to produce athletes capable of performing at the very top levels of student competition.

Hockey The University’s hockey teams enjoyed a prosperous year last term, with both 1st teams winning their Scottish 1A leagues.

The women’s 2nds came second in the same league, and also reached the last 16 in a tournament involving all British universities. The men’s 2nds, meanwhile, were last year promoted to join the 1st team in Scottish 1A. The club team, which plays against other local clubs rather than universities, also performed well, with the 1st team securing their place in the top division. 1st team captain Callum Duke won his first cap for Scotland this summer against Spain. Several Scottish internationals have joined the university this year.

LOOKING FORWARD: Fresher's flock to the Sport's Fair as clubs look to sign up new stars Football Although the 2nd team were relegated from Scottish 1A, the 1st team finished top and also reached the semi-final of the Queens Park Shield, only losing out on penalties to Stirling. Over the summer the club appointed Dorian Ogunro, a former player and coach of the under 21s side since 2006, as the first team’s new Head Coach. Ogunro replaces Douglas Samuel, who left the side this summer following 10 years in charge. Former player James Craigan signed a professional contract for Partick Thistle in the summer. Meanwhile, the women’s team finished second in their Scottish 1A league.

perform to a high standard last year, with the 1st team finishing first in the Scottish 1A league. Edinburgh 3rds consolidated their place in the 2A league and will be joined this year by the 2nds, who were relegated last year. Katherine Freeman, Clare Gaskell, Rachel Bedford, Amy Bruijstens, Laura McIntosh and Ali Tod were called up to represent Scottish University teams.

American Football The Edinburgh Predators secured a 4th place finish in the BUAFL Northern Conference, which includes teams from both North East England and Scotland.

Despite losing in the playoffs to Sheffield, who went on to win the tournament, the team finished the year with a ranking of 20th out of 73 teams. A highlight of the

Netball Edinburgh’s netball teams continued to

TOUCHING DISTANCE: Seb Vettel's F1 racer in Potterrow

SEBASTIAN VETTEL’S championship-winning Formula One car was on display in the Potterow Dome on Friday.

The racer, valued at around £4.5m, was driven to victory by the German in 2010.

The public were allowed to take photographs and quiz a member of Red Bull Racing, as well as try their hand at the F1 racing pod – with the fastest time winning a prize.

“It’s fantastic to see it up close and personal,” said student Ben Whitely, 19.

EMILY JARETT

Rowing One of the oldest and largest sports clubs within the university, the EU Boat Club again delivered some outstanding results last term. In July, Kieran Brown competed in the lightweight quad at the under-23 World Championship. The women’s team won at the Henley Regatta, and although they were ultimately beaten by Warwick, the men’s team also did extremely well to qualify for The Prince Albert Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal in June. The Edinburgh University Boat Club also performed well at the BUCS regatta, the Women’s Head of the River Race and the Scottish Indoor championships. They had a particularly good Scottish Championships, where they won gold in the women’s coxed four, the men’s eight, the men’s coxed four, the men’s under-23 single scull and the men’s intermediate coxed four.

EUSA

Rugby Edinburgh’s rugby team have high hopes for the coming year, following a successful first season in the BUCS North Prem B last year. Despite having been promoted just the previous season, the team managed to secure a fifth place finish even after having their early season disrupted by a series of injuries. A particular highlight came in the Varsity match in London against St Andrews, which Edinburgh won 39-0 in front of a crowd of 2,500. The team were also invited to participate in an international university tournament in Morocco, which they won following a great victory over a strong South Africanw side in the final. Meanwhile, Bob Cuthbertson, Calum Williams, Neil Aitken and Rory Jones represented Scottish Universities in an annual tournament against the other Home Nations in Nottingham.

this year and Danny Costello, eight time Scottish National League champion and current Scottish Universities team coach, arriving to coach the men’s 1st team.

season came on Super Bowl Sunday, when the Predators beat rivals the Edinburgh Napier Knights 28-10 in a packed Meggetland Stadium. The Varsity Cup game, one of the largest student sports events in Scotland, promises to be another highlight this year.

Basketball Both the men and women’s 1st teams were relegated from their respective Premier North leagues last season and will take up places in Scottish 1A this year. The women’s 1st team finished 4th in the 2011-12 Championship, losing to Northumbria in the 3rd place playoff, whist the men’s team went out in the last 16. Hopes are high for the coming season, with six of the Scottish women’s under-18s joining the university “You really get a glimps of how lightweight it is in a way you can’t fully appreciate on TV. “To drive that thing at such high speeds must take some serious bottle.”

Meanwhile Vettel and Red Bull took advantage of Lewis Hamilton’s gearbox failure to take Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix.

The Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka get's underway on October 5th, with Vettel trailing Ferrari's Fernando Alonso to sit second in the driver's championship standings.

Athletics The Edinburgh University Athletic Club had another successful year, finishing second at the Scottish Indoors, where they won six different events, and again at the Scottish Outdoors, where Kirsty Barr, Claire Taylor, Courtney Macguire and Julia Siart all set new championship records. The team hope to build on last year’s achievements and win at both championships in the coming season. Ray Bobrownicki won the Men’s High Jump event at the BUCS Indoors, where the team finished second. Bobrownicki and Siart also won gold at the Outdoors championships, where the team came sixth.

Cricket The 2nd team won the Scottish Conference Cup for the second year in a row, beating Glasgow by 86 runs back in June.

The club continues to send players to represent Scottish University teams.

Saturday 22nd September Result Edinbrgh 1st 58-24 Stirling (Women's Netball) Wednesday 26th September Fixtures Heriot Watt 1st vs Edinburgh 2nd (Men's Hockey) Dundee 1st vs Edinburgh 2nd (Men's Tennis) Edinburgh 1st vs Glasgow 1st (Men's Tennis) Edinburgh 2nd vs Glasgow Cal 1st (Men's Football) Edinburgh 2nd vs Stirling 1st (Women's Lacrosse)