Uni2know art & stuff by Simon Jacobs

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Welcome Simon Jacobs Director: I u sed to l ove a rt - u n t i l I to o k i t f o r G C SE . We wer e tol d tha t our wor k wa sn’t good en oug h u n l es s w e co u l d show w he r e w e g ot our ‘i nsp i r a ti on’. We ha d to r esea r ch i nto othe r a rt is t s ; i t wa s b o r i n g a n d k i l l e d my c rea ti v i ty. T he f i na l str aw wa s when we wer e dr ag g ed to t h e Ta te M o d e r n , t he e x hi b i t i o n on tha t d ay wa s somethi ng wi shy- wa shy, to do w i t h text a n d f o n t . I saw a p i e c e o f wo r k tha t wa s ti tl ed ‘Oh no’. I t wa s q ui te l i ter a l l y just ‘O h n o’ t y ped i n co m i c sa n s o n n o r m a l of f i ce p a p er, f r a med a nd hung on the wa l l . I t was pri c ed a t £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 . In thi s edit ion w e t r y to q u e l l t he p r e te n t i o us r ed ta p e tha t goes wi th mod er n a r t a nd br ing i t ba ck to t he si m p l e l ove o f p r e t t y p i c tur es. T her e a r e, of cour se, a l so the sta nd a r d Un i2 a rt i c l es a bou t b o n d a g e , m i l d l y a n n oyi ng your f l a tma tes a nd Sl ob b i ng tha t you’ve come to expect . We o f f i c i a l l y f e e l r e a d y to ca l l our sel ves cul tur ed . Daniel Fine Head Editor: Ar t ha s b e co m e a n e g a t i ve ter m. To b e a r ty i s to b e p r etenti ous a nd a b i t of a wanke r. We d o n’t t hi n k i t sho u l d be, a r t shoul d n’t b e excl usi ve, i t shoul d n’t b e el i ti s t and it s h o u l d n’t b e p r e te n t i o u s. So to wr estl e a r t b a ck i nto the ha nd s of the common man, the t he m e o f t hi s i ssu e i s a r t a nd stuf f (sa i d wi th a shr ug). Ra ther tha n a p hoto- sh o o t this ed i t i o n w e have m o r e o f a n ex hi b i ti on cel eb r a ti ng the cr ea ti v i ty of stud ent a r tists and pho to g r a p he r s. A s w e l l a s t h i s we’ve got l oa d s of gr ea t content; mor e f r om our fantastic co l u m n i st s, n u m e r o u s i n te r v i ews wi th b a nd s a nd our b r a nd sp a nk i ng new f a shi on se c tio n – w hi c h i n c l u d e s m e g e t t i n g styl ed . Enj oy a nd vote Johnny L awr ence! If yo u w a n t to j o i n t he w r i t ing tea m ema i l me a t: dani e l @u ni 2know.com Tw i t te r : @ D a n ie lFin e 4 Ned Wilson Head Designer: I see w e m eet a g a i n . An d t hi s t i m e r o u n d w e’r e ta ck l i ng the on- goi ng eni gma of a r t , b e i t ceiling m u ra l s i n a m o n a ste r y o r r u b b i n g d o l l a r b i l l s on your tup p ence. T hr oughout thi s issue w e h ave com p i l e d a p l e t ho r a o f v i su al sti mul i , r a ngi ng f r om k ni twea r to mov i ng imager y . Ou r in ten t i on i s to d i sp l ay wo r k f r o m yo u n g l oca l a r ti sts wi th no a r tsy sti gma a tta ched so it ca n be a ppre c i a te d by a ny To m , d i c k o r cunt . ‘ T h e p ur p os e of a r t is w a s h in g t h e d u s t o f d a i ly l i fe off ou r sou l s.’ – Pa b l o P i ca sso I just h ope y ou enj oy l o o k i n g f o r a f e w m i nutes. I f you wa nt to j oi n the d esi gni ng tea m em ail m e: des i gne r@ u n i2 k n ow.co m

Allie -Ma y Redmond Fashion and Beauty Editor: He y, I ’m a t hi r d ye a r Fa shi on Ma r keti ng & B r a nd i ng Stud ent a t Notti ngha m Tr ent and I run my ow n f a shi o n , b e a u t y & l i f estyl e b l og. I n the new a nd i mp r oved f a shi on & be auty s e c t i o n o f t he m a g a z i n e you’l l see a r ti cl es f ea tur i ng some of the l a test tr ends, o utfit i n sp i r a t i o n s a n d b e a u t y t i p s a nd tr i ck s. I n f utur e ed i ti ons I ’l l a l so b e ta k i ng charge o f t h e p ho to - sho o t s. I f yo u e ver wa nt to wr i te a nythi ng f or us or get i nvol ved wi th pho to s ho o t s, e m a i l m e a t fa s h io n @u ni 2know.com. Yo u c a n f i n d Al l i e ’s b l o g a t : t he fri dayg i rl .co.u k

Contributors Artists:

Writers:

Illustration/Design:

In k S o u p : inksoupp.tumblr.com @Ink_Soup

L a ur a Reynol d s Na tha n Ja cob s Mi l a B ud ev a Na ta l i e Kel ter Esme L awr ence Ta ni a B r own Johnny L awr ence Sa p hi a Kha r a z Pol l ya nna Wa r d Ol i v i a Jecel Ha nna h Nor r i s C ha r l otte Tayl or A l ex Kni ght G e or gi a - May Col l i ngs Suz i Col l i ns Ma l col m Remed i os Eve T homp son Lyd i a Scott Z a ck Fox Ka ti e B i r d Vi ctor i a Ea r l s Fr a n Jenson Gemma B r own

C ha r l i e Gr een

Anna Milada: behance.net/dvorakova Drawings and That: drawingsandthat.com drawingsandthat@hotmail.com Tilly Mint: cargocollective.com/tillymint Ruth Porter: facebook.com/RuthPorter.Illustration A s h Ker i n s: facebook.com/AshKerins ashleykerins.wix.com/artwork ashleykerins.tumblr.com ashleykerins.deviantart.com Neil Ka te s: keepingitneilphotography.com Cover Ar t : Alex Esden

C a i r o H a ml i ton L i sa H a r p er : facebook.com/LisaRoseIllustration Na ta l i e Kel ter : natalie-kelter.tumblr.com A nna Mi l a d a : behance.net/dvorakova Ni ck Wa l ker : knico.tumblr.com Ned W i l son: whimsywoods.tumblr.com

M e d i a Te a m : A l ex Esd en: Design & Photography Ol i v i a Na i smi th: Editing & Writing

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Student Experiences The New Yorkers - 31 The Graduate - 54 The Inner Child - 58 Taking the plunge - 96

Music Interviews & Reviews You me at Six - 12 Reel Big Fish - 26 Less Than Jake - 27 Union J - 66 Findlay - 80 Har Mar Superstar - 94 Student Lifestyle &Culture The library is not your bedroom - 14 Oh Mandy - 16 Bringing sexy back - 17 Slobs 4 life - 18 All is fair in love and housing - 20 Perks of being an International student - 25

Art and Stuff Nottingham art galleries - 36 Ink Soup - 38 Ash Kerins - 40 Ruth Porter - 42 Neil Kates - 43 Nottingham graffiti - 46 Tilly Mint - 48 Drawings and That - 49 Anna Milada - 50

Food & Drink How to make a damn fine cocktail - 30 The night of the kebab - 82 Cheats chicken biryani - 92 Home made stomach liners - 93

Columnists The Graduate - 54 The Philosopher -56 The Inner Child - 58 Aunty E - 60

Entertainment Theatre Royal - 28 The real Oscars - 86 The evil truth of gameshows - 88 Sex and Realtionships Fashion Pimp my Fine - 69 Tokyo style - 72 Everyday make up - 74 What to wear Friday night - 75 Sport

The Philosopher - 56 Aunty E - 60 Beginnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide to bondage - 78 Satire Continuing Disappointment - 63 The Third Knipple - 99

The joys of Non-League football - 84 Drinking games from around the world - 98

Childhood Drawings Since this is the Art and Stuff edition, the Uni2 team got our parents to dig through cupboards, attics and drawers to find the drawings we did as kids. They may not all be the works of childhood prodigies, but at least now we can say we've had our art published.

SIMON JACOBS DIRECTOR AGE 8

DANIEL FINE HEAD EDITOR AGE 4

NED WILSON HEAD DESIGNER AGE 10

EDWARD HENDERSON DIRECTOR AGE 7

FRANCOIS KEON LETTINGS MANAGER AGE 11

OLIVIA NAISMITH INTERN AGE 6 ZAC PICKIN INTERN AGE 4

JESS WHITING ADMIN ASSISTANT AGE 7

ALEX ESDEN INTERN AGE 7

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Uni2Know interviews...

YOU ME You me at Six are a hugely popular five piece boy band from Surrey. Before their fourth album was released, we spoke to guitarist Matt Helyer, to get the lowdown. Where are you talking to us from right now? I just bought a house, and my friend is helping me take down a ceiling. I forgot we were doing these phone interviews, so I’m dressed in builder’s clothes in a dusty room with half a ceiling ripped down. Not very glamorous then? No, not very rock and roll today, it’s a bit of a lad’s man job. How did the band meet? We all met each other in Weybridge at a college called Brooklands College - and we all loved music, so we all got together through that. Your single Fresh Start Fever’ from your new album ‘Caviar Youth’, has a very serious tone, compared to your previous work. Is this something that is consistent throughout the whole album? Definitely, the whole thing is going to sound a lot more professional - a lot better produced. The whole album is a more rounded, better piece really. Neal Avron [the band’s new producer] has worked with Yellowcard, All Time Low, New Found Glory, Alice in Chains, and other massive rock bands. We’ve worked on a few tracks and everything that comes out, sounds great. We’ve put our trust in him and we’re really stoked about how the album sounded.

Is there anything you did differently to get this new sound, other than working with your new producer? Yeah there were loads of different things we did guitar wise, different things we did production wise – Neal was really good on the keyboard so he was helping us out with the weird like string effects and weird guitar effects that he’s used before. We couldn’t have done it without him really, he was the brains behind the operation. Not only has your music changed, but your whole band image has as well. Is your past image something you want to leave behind completely? I think it’s just a case of us growing up. You probably don’t still wear the same clothes that you wore when you were sixteen years old. You’re older, so instead of wearing this extra small t-shirt and these girl’s jeans, let’s wear some nice jeans, with some boots and like a jacket. It’s something, I feel like, anyone does - we’re all twenty four, coming up to twenty five now. I don’t think we can really dress in hoodies any more, we’d look stupid. Out of personal curiosity, why didn’t you play one of your most famous songs, ‘Save it for the bedroom’, at Leeds festival 2012? When we come up with a set, we have to think about what people wanna hear, how long we have and what songs we need to play. I mean, it doesn’t really fit anymore into how good half the songs

that we play now are. Especially when Caviar Youth comes out, a lot less old songs will be played - they’ll just be filler tracks - and then hopefully we’ll just be able to play our singles that have been played on Radio 1 and stuff. I’m really excited to play a kind of ‘hit’ set.

Who is the biggest star you’ve met to date? Well, I’d probably say Jared [Leto] from 30 Seconds to Mars, or Hayley [Williams] from Paramore, they’re maybe the two. Oh and I’ve met Dave Grohl. There’s loads of people in the music scene that we’ve met but yeah, maybe Dave Grohl actually – and he’s such a nice dude. What’s been your best memory as a band? I’d say my best memory of being in the band, is when we were younger - just travelling the UK in a van, playing to thirty/forty people a night. When we were like seventeen and eighteen, just getting smashed in a van with our mate driving us around. Most days we’d be like we need to be a bigger band, but those were the glory days. When you have absolutely no worries in the world, you don’t care, your gig sounds like shit, but everyone loves it. It was a lot of fun, it was one of the best times I’ve ever had. Do you still enjoy it as much? Ohh yeah, I still bloody love it! But there’s a lot more pressure now, when you’re playing shows you have to be good. Although I could probably not even play bass and everyone is still gonna love it... but it has got an air of professionalism around it now that we never had before, which is great. But now it’s a job and we’re actually making

AT SIX

money from it, as opposed to working part time in Sainsbury’s and spending your last twenty quid on a snickers bar in Scotland.

do that, and you’re just like ohhh god. I don’t know if people are just getting our scribbles tattooed on their body, that’s kind of weird isn’t it?

What’s the strangest request you’ve had from a fan?

Yeah, that’s pretty strange, especially their finger, it’s such a strange place... you mustn’t be rock and roll enough to sign people’s boobs.

Recently, quite a few people have asked me to sign their finger. And you’re like OK why? And you just do it anyway. Then they’re like I’m gonna get that tattooed tomorrow, and you’re like oh fucking hell don’t! Don’t get it tattooed, for me, promise me you won’t get it tattooed, and they’re like I’m not gonna

Ohhh I’ve signed some boobs, I’ve signed some arses, we’ve done the rock and roll signing. Hopefully they haven’t tattooed them there too.

And finally, where do you go from here? What’s the plan after the album release? Well, we’re gonna hopefully tour the world with it. Obviously the UK is still our oyster -and we love it - we think it’s the best place in the entire world. We wanna get bigger in the UK and play some big shows, get a few more fans and keep You Me at Six getting bigger with each album. Natalie Kelter

The librar y is n o t yo ur bedr o o m ! Tot up the amount of time you’ve spent in your university library. Feel a bit sick? Now, ask yourself how much of that time was productive? Students often spend hours in the library, simply to feel as if they’ve done work. However, many will get too comfortable, spending so much time there that they forget it’s a public space. Here, Uni2 outlines what is acceptable in the library, and when you should go home:

Onesie Nightmares You’re in a onesie, you aren’t being ironic and you haven’t washed since at least the day before yesterday. Get out of the library. You are a risk to humankind and yourself! You’re probably in a onesie because you arrived at the library at about 10 or 11 the night before. Yes, those brave souls embarking on all-nighters need comfort, but this is no excuse, just stick some trackies on with a comfy hoody. Do not stoop as low as the onesie. Onesies should be worn for fancy dress as a joke, or kept on the confines of the sofa, behind closed doors. Worse still, you’ve brought your slippers with you and you’re getting far too cushty.

Personal Hygiene & Makeup The library is not a holiday destination. This is not a mini-break. If you are keeping a wash-bag with you, packed with shaving gel, razors, face wipes, the lot. Then just go home. As much as it may seem like you do, you do not live in the library. If you’re doing your makeup or trimming your beard (or both - it can happen, I’ve seen it) in the library, it’s gone too far. The sign that you’re doing this is that your trim probably isn’t even and you’ve got too much blusher on, because it’s been applied under those harsh library strip lights.

Party Dress If you’re wearing your going-out outfit, this could mean one of two things. Either you’re wearing it ready to go out once you’ve finished your essay, or you went post-club because you had an incredible eureka moment and needed to type that gold dust down. If it’s the former, chances are you’ll distracted thinking of your night out and so not working to the best of your ability. If it’s the latter, then Oh dear Lord, someone needs to find you, wrap you up in one of those silver warmth blankets and get you home. These are desperate times.

People won’t sit by you You’ve started to acquire a smell best described as less than pleasant, your hair is a greasy mess and your clothes are more sweat patch than fabric. Word has got round that you’ve been there too long and people are avoiding sitting next to you. A sure sign of this is the library getting increasingly crowded while the seats around you remain empty. Until some unlucky individuals see the free seat next to you, do a lap around the room to confirm that this is the only free spot, before sighing exasperatedly and sitting down next to you. This is a short but not so sweet sign that you’ve moved into the library and it might be time to leave. Sort it out!

Sleeping At some point during your time at university. You’re guaranteed to be in the library at gone midnight, to be greeted by someone sound asleep at their desk. The Library at night can be a depressing, tiring place and as the sky darkens and the library empties, you may be tempted to join them for a quick kip. Don’t! You’ll wake up two hours later, feeling worse than before you fell asleep, worrying that someone might have seen you.

You’ve spent hours on YouTube You went with the best intentions, you had all your equipment; rulers, compass, protractor, large can of ‘Monster’ and your copious notes. You got up all the important tabs for your research, then got up YouTube and have started watching ‘things related to your course’. Look at the bottom right corner of your screen. If the time reads any later than 01:00 and your internet history is nothing but videos of dancing penguins and people falling over, then you’re just wasting a valuable library computer.

The chair remembers your arse

The Cleaners Most University libraries will send the cleaners round in one big sweep at 6/7 am. If you find yourself still slouched in front of your computer, desperately hoping that the words you’ve been typing for the past hour have managed to form themselves into coherent sentences, then the cleaners will be forced to clean around you. From experience, there are few things that make you feel more like an inadequate human being, than seeing the cleaner’s hoover circle you. People are preparing for the day while you’ve been sat in the same seat for 11 straight hours. At this point it’s more of an exercise in self-punishment than an attempt to get work done.

GO HOME! This one was a team effort

When you go to the toilet to splash your face and have a little cry, if you return to find a perfectly sculpted arse groove on the chair; that should serve as a reminder that you’re wasting your life. It’s definitely home time.

“OH MANDY...YOU CAME AND YOU GAVE ME ANXIETY” Nottingham is well-known for its regular dance and house nights, especially in the club Stealtha favourite among the techno lovers. The club celebrates the best in underground music and is favoured by many established DJ’s and producers. But these nights often go hand in hand with drugs. They introduced me to a whole different world, where getting into dodgy looking cars to score became the norm, and “You dropping tonight?” was asked instead of “what are you drinking tonight?” Once you’ve delved into the world of drugs, it’s hard to leave. MDMA – a class A drug, that’s popular among young people produces feelings of mental stimulation, empathy toward others, and a general sense of wellbeing. Any negative thoughts are gone and - let’s face it – with the stress of uni work, lack of money and dire career prospects, we could all do with this every once in a while. But what comes up must come down, and the aftereffects of MD are far from glamorous. Amy* a second year student at Trent shared her experiences: “The first time I dapped in the drug, I slept for eleven hours straight and couldn’t eat or really move for the rest of the weekend. A night of continuous dancing and being on a constant high is an exhilirating experience, but coming home at 6am looking at myself in the mirror and seeing a swinging jaw and dilated eyes is a horrible feeling. I often think ‘what would my parents do if they saw me like this?’”

LONG TERM CONSEQUENCES MDMA has been available for fifty years. Despite this, there hasn’t been much research into its long-term effects. Drugs education service FRANK claims that, ‘long-term users can suffer memory problems and may develop depression and anxiety’, and that ‘using the drug has been linked to liver, kidney and heart problems.’ David Nutt of Imperial College disagrees. A recent study he headed found evidence suggesting that MD could be used to combat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by helping “people access negative memories without being overwhelmed by them”. Nutt was formerly an advisor to the government on drugs policy, but was dismissed in 2009 for arguing that the drug classification isn’t scientific and that taking MDMA “is no more dangerous than riding a horse”. As well as this, psychiatrists testing 99% pure MDMA - produced in a university lab - have found things like dizziness, impaired balance and anxiety, to be the only side effects. But as detailed by FRANK: ‘A big problem with ecstasy is that it’s rarely pure. You can’t be sure what’s in it and you can’t predict how you’ll react. Sometimes, there is no MDMA at all.’ Whatever the experts say, the law is unlikely to change in the next few years, and neither will people stop taking the drug. It seems that MDMA is here to stay and so in time we may well find out whether the long-term effects are devastating or, as David Nutt claimed, are far less dangerous than alcohol, tobacco and horse-riding.

‘‘BRINGING SEXY BACK?’’ Don't deny it now, you guys and girls LOVE a saucy music video and in recent months, there has certainly been no lack of them. So much so that - in early January - the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) stated that it wants an age-rating system for online videos introduced ASAP! This was in response to concerned parents complaining that music videos were “just porn”. Oops; naughty, naughty celebs.

So let’s take a little look at who may have caused this absolute outrage:

MILEY CYRUS Ok, so it's not all down to this little one but she's definitely played her part. The queen of controversy surprised us all with her raunchy return back in June with ‘We Can't Stop’, obviously wanting to get as far away from her Hannah Montana image as possible. Along with her haircut came grinding, lots and lots of grinding. And then came ‘Wrecking Ball’. The star upped her "sex appeal", if you can call it that, by swinging on a wrecking ball, completely naked (of course) and licking a hammer. Because why the hell not? Now she’s released ‘Adore You’, where she writhes around provocatively under her bed sheets, wearing only underwear… for four minutes.

RIHANNA Rihanna has always been a dare to bare kind of girl but it's her recent ‘Pour It Up’ video that has taken sexed up to a new level. It features strippers, twerking and lots of money being thrown around. HitFix.com described it as "a dimly lit video equivalent of a Playboy photo spread that is meant to serve the very same purpose for the boys and men who view it." And her joint video with Shakira for the song ‘Can’t Remember to forget you’ – released at the end of January, serves the same purpose. The video taps into every man’s fantasy, by featuring the two women caressing on a bed, canoodling topless and having a really weird grind-off against a wall while wearing lingerie. Well, no bloody wonder the BBFC are throwing their weight around.

BEYONCÉ Next up we have Beyoncé - who gave birth to baby Blue Ivy - went missing for a little while, and came back hotter and saucier than ever. Along with a surprise new album entitled BEYONCE which was released in December, came 17 music videos. The singer said "I wanted to show that you can have a child and you can work hard and you can get your body back." Well, she definitely shows off her hard work, baring pretty much every inch of her skin to all. And yes, that is a rope between her bum cheeks.

ROBIN THICKE As much as we’d like to, we can’t leave ‘Blurred Lines’ out of this. Robin Thicke didn’t bare all, thank god. But the girls did. The standard video was quite tame, but to prove he's an absolute LAD, an X-Rated version was also made with naked women bouncing around for the entirety of the song. The song and video caused a lot of controversy, with people accusing it of being sexist (shockingly) and there were calls for boycotts across SUs up and down the country. Although it has to be said, the brunette has a blooming great body.

So if you haven’t already, I'm sure you lot are now off to check them out for yourselves. The BBFC have yet to announce a date that age ratings will come into force. Thankfully though, you guys are at uni, so can carry on watching whatever online naughtiness you like... oh behave, I'm still talking about music videos. Saphia Kharaz17

s lob s 4 life

The perfect food guide for the 2nd year Humanities Student One of the biggest anxieties in a slob’s life is figuring out where the next meal is coming from. To achieve the state of enlightenment that only true slobs can experience, you must first overcome this anxiety and master the technique known as the ‘Fatkins’ diet. To help you with this, I’ll first walk you through the average day for the master slob: It’s 1.13pm. You’ve just woken up, you’re starving, and the fridge is miles away. Oh, wait! You got a Dominos last night and you didn’t manage to finish it…. Victory fist pump! Reach under the bed, devour those two slices; regret nothing. Now slowly sit up, rub your face, brush your teeth (optional) and prepare for a long day of online streaming. Head to the kitchen and look through the cupboards, even though you’re more likely to find a gateway to Narnia than anything worth eating. So, just like yesterday, resort to the stale cereal that’s been sitting on the side for three weeks. Unfortunately, the milk you bought with the cereal isn’t as usable, just sprinkle a bit of Nesquik in and you won’t know the difference (ignore the chunks). Look at that dirty bowl in the sink, the one with the furry looking cheese that’s been left in it for over a week. Think about cleaning it, proclaim ‘fuck the bowl I’ll just use my hands.’ About an hour later, during the break of the second episode of HIMYM, you realise that you are famished. What could provide a slob the sustenance it needs? It’s too early to venture out-

side. You’ve still only been awake for a couple hours, so find something in the house. Whether it’s a pack of strangely flavored crisps which have been stuffed at the back of the cupboard in case of ‘emergencies’ or, more likely, a couple bars of Nutrigrain.

Get your big coat on, a spray of Febreeze and you’re ready to tackle to world. Now time for that meal deal.

The clock’s struck 4pm. At this point, you’ll start to receive texts from course mates asking why you weren’t in your lectures. Ignore them and plan your next course of action. Hunger has struck again. There’s a Tesco’s express downstairs and a meal deal is just what you need. But there’s no way you can show your face looking like this.

The slob’s meal deal: Two sandwich-

The typical meal deal: A sandwich, a tiny drink and a miniscule pack of crisps.

es, a litre bottle of coke, a pack of twenty brownies and a sharing pack of Doritos. With this carefully laid out guide, it’s time that you change your youthful, peppy and eager attitude to become sluggish, lazy and dull. It’s the only way to live.

WRONG! Illustration by Ned Wilson

The Slob’s Guide to Food Shopping You’re starving but after analysing your cupboards, fridge, under-bed space and the side of your couch, you’ve deduced that you’ve got no food, what a to-do! During your panic hunt you didn’t come across a single edible thing, you did however find a handsome tenner. Time for a desperate, depressing and deluded shop! Time for some ‘hate yourself food’.

•Grab the pot of fruit. Don’t fret, we are in no way encouraging healthy eating! This is simple economics, when a lot of food is on offer for less than a pound you must purchase it, sure it will rot away at the back of your fridge, but you’ll know you got that for a meager 69p.

Enter your local generic supermarket, scurry over to the ‘reduced’ section and survey the ‘almost out of date’ foods. As the joyous beaming light of refrigeration shines in your face you can find some absolute gems:

turkey; chicken; this is the best opportunity to get some protein for your active and strenuous lifestyle.

•The beef sandwich floats around the £1- 1.49 price range. A solid choice for the hungry slob.

cheap meat in the reduced section - be it beef; salami;

•There’s always

•Cracked cans of beer. The student equivalent of broken biscuits, these are vital parts of the slob’s diet. No meal, snack, bite or chew is complete without a sip of beer from one of these beautiful chalices of nectar and now it’ll cost you only one pound. Huzar!

•Multipacks which are missing items. These often hold host to some right golden nuggets. Mini Babybels are a regular feature in this area, often a bel has escaped the pack or it’s a day off its sell-by date – this basically just means that you have to consume 10 balls of cheese in one day. Let the games begin. •Ever wanted to try a Scooby sandwich? Well, now you can and now you should! Get that pack of bread that’s about to get binned, combine the newly bought old meat and drizzle on some mustard or ketchup and you’ve got yourself a disgusting excuse for a sandwich. Now fly my repulsive pretties.

10 Ways to miLdLy annoy your housemate Choosing housemates is a tricky business. Make the wrong choice and you could get stuck with an absolute wanker of a flatmate. This was the mistake my past housemates made when they chose to live with me. I don’t aim to cause all out wars with my housemates, simply make them swear under their breath at my irritating habits. I’m not an evil person per say. I was once described as “the most mildly annoying housemate in existence” and these tips can help you become the same: Leaving the lounge door open just slightly. This is a lovely little touch that will really grind on them. You know that this will let in a bit of a draft, enough that it will irritate your housemates until they undoubtedly have to stand up and close it properly.

‘Washing’ your plates and cutlery ‘incorrectly’. You know you should scrub and get rid of every bit of dirt, but a few seconds under a scolding hot tap should be just as good. Pop it in the draw, out of sight, out of mind.

Lie all your open bottles flat in the fridge, make sure their lids are put on just a little insecurely. You don’t want them to spill everywhere, just dribble over their shelf making everything a little sticky.

4 5 6

Use all of their freezer draw space for frozen veg, continue to eat ready meals every night. Turn the heating on for two hours, half an hour before leaving for Uni.

Place your half-eaten microwave meal on top of the already full bin and leave it there until it starts to congeal.

Finish the toilet roll, discover that there aren’t any more in the bathroom. Think about getting some more for the next user then… don’t.

Finished using the washing machine? Great! Leave your washing in there for a couple days, then return to it and put the machine back on. Tell your housemates this is because your clothes smelt damp. Then, instead of drying your clothes on the radiator, put your clothes in the tumble dryer for hours. When questioned by your housemates reply “I don’t like how the radiator makes my clothes feel” before promptly dropping your clothes in a pile on the floor. Make sure your phone vibrates every time your second cousin posts a status about her cat. It MUST vibrate at every opportunity. Then place it on the living room table and don’t touch it for a few hours while your housemate gets more and more exasperated leading to a ‘snarky’ comment like ‘you not going to answer that?’.

Invite two friends round that your housemate doesn’t know and get them to awkwardly ‘host’ while you go do something inane in your room for an hour.

How to deal with bad housemates Choosing who you live with can feel like tr ying to pluck angels out of hell. You all group hug outside your house and promise to have the best time ever because you are all destined to be the characters from Friends. This is until three days in and suddenly you discover the males leave the toilet seat up and the women never take the bins out. Living with messy housemates can make everything a process. What should be a simple evening of cooking, starts by attempting to navigate the fridge and freezer. This would have been simple when you first moved in, it was all wonderful as everyone agreed to share the fridge door and were allocated a freezer drawer each. At some stage, this is all going to go to hell! You’ll open your drawer and find someone’s frozen meatballs cosying up to your salmon fillets and a carton of milk horizontal in the fridge leaking onto your precious lettuce gems. Some people seem to think they can buy food to freeze for weeks on end and that they can just marry up their peas up with someone’s fish fingers. In my house they find their peas removed, defrosted and sat on the side as soggy, inedible balls. As for spillages in the fridge due to poor logistics, they result in bacteria and I swear to god if I open the fridge to a small ecosystem, I will drunk cook and burn all of your food.

walls and condensation. But there is no need to heat four walls and an empty bed. Set the timer for the morning and evening, peak times of student activity within the house, and let that be it. If you’re cold, get working those layers. You will encounter some pretty grim and irritating habits whilst living in shared housing and it may well cause your blood to boil. A good way to deal with troubling housemates is to post incessantly in a house Facebook group. This gives the impression of addressing a shared house issue in a non-invasive way, instead of targeting the nuisance individual head-on by dropping their box of Weetabix repeatedly. You will hopefully reach an agreement that prevents a drunk argument from breaking out after stumbling in at 4am. But if not, house-hunting season is upon us so I would suggest you start looking elsewhere for your housemate dream team. Pollyanna Ward

After the cooking, comes the washing up. This is a part of the process that many people choose to avoid. Far too many times I’ve walked in to find the kitchen utensils stacked like Jenga in the sink. Despite it taking only five minutes to wash up, there are always plates covered with congealed gravy festering in the kitchen. Then come the arguments about heating. Two of you want it on all the time, one doesn’t really give a shit because daddy pays the bills and the other will take every opportunity to press the ‘off’ button on the timer. They will likely also follow the ‘if it’s yellow let it mellow’ policy in a bid to lower the water bill. Heating is a necessity, particularly if you want to avoid mouldy

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If you want to be unique, you need to be different

Home becomes a five-star hotel

Being a foreigner definitely makes you different but not necessarily the odd one out. On the contrary, it provides you with your signature. For example, mine is the accent. It has become my distinctive feature. Some of the greatest film villains have it. It gets me unconventional compliments about sounding genuinely evil without even making an effort. Whatever your source of uniqueness, it’s a great ice-breaker and provokes people to find out more about you.

Distance does make the heart grow fonder. When I return home my parents try to spoil me in every possible way. No chores, no curfew. I’m endowed with a wide range of my favourite food and full monopoly on the remote control. Even my cat gives me the best seat on the sofa. However, these privileges do not last very long. Once the parents get used to having me back, I’m quickly back to my former life as a powerless inhabitant of the house. The cat does not seem to care anymore and I quickly appreciate the freedom offered by independent uni life.

The Perks of Being an International Student

Free drinks and food Homesickness is like rainy days- unexpected and uncontrollable. But this always comes hand in hand with sympathy. There is always at least one friend who will drag you out of your room to help you forget your nationality through the mighty means of alcohol. If you refuse to go drinking, you’ll instead be fed a cocktail of the unhealthiest food, after which you’re bound to spend the following week crying over your weight rather than missing your hometown. Whether you choose pizza and chocolate or shots of tequila is up to you, but the friends who come with are the true remedy. And the supply of free food and drinks is international. My friends at home are always so eager to see me when I’m back, they compete to take me out.

Studying abroad is a big challenge even for the most adventurous souls. But no matter how difficult it may seem at times, it definitely has its perks.

More reasons to celebrate

You get rich

Every country has its tradition of celebrating. Being an international student adds more holidays to your calendar. You feel like a child on her first Christmas- everything is new and exciting. Celebrating my first Halloween and Bonfire night was unforgettable and helped me embrace the new culture. There is no reason not to celebrate your national holidays as well. Sharing the traditions you have grown up with keeps you connected to your roots, and tells your friends more about you. It contributes to their party agenda and leaves fewer work days for all of you.

Ultimately, you feel richer. Not necessarily moneywise. We are all students and have all relied on someone else’s food supply at some point. However, one day you’ll realise what you’ve gained. Maybe it strikes on your birthday, when you get cards and calls from two opposite ends of the world. Or maybe on the day you look in the right direction before crossing the road you’ll understand how much you have learned and gained from taking this journey. Mila Budeva

Up Close and Personal With...

Reel Big Fish Reel Big Fish are a six-piece American ska-punk band, who formed in 1992 and have had numerous hit singles over their two decades in the music industry. Before their co-headlined gig with Less Than Jake at Rock City. We sat down with bass player Derek Gibbs – who joined in 2005, and trumpet player John Christianson, who was otherwise occupied when we started the interview (he was on the toilet), to find out more. What’s the reason behind this tour? J: Well playing shows is fun, that’s how we make a living and we want to keep doing it. We finally had schedules that allowed us to be on the same tour as Less Than Jake, because it’s been a few years. In the song ‘Everyone Else is an Asshole’ who are you referring to, are you excluded from that? J: Well, Aaron kind of wrote that with our old trombone player in mind, Dan. Because Dan would sometimes get in these moods where he would be like ‘GOD EVERYONE’S AN ASSHOLE’, and it’s just making a joke of it. What’s the strangest request you’ve got from a fan? D: For some reason people keep giving us prosthetic legs to sign… Once one was thrown on stage and we all signed it, which was kind of weird. (Laughs) J: Then after that, the guy whose leg it was, got thrown up too and he was a little drunk so he just sat on the stage and watched the rest of the show from there. Then one time in Atlanta, we were out by the bus and somebody had brought us their dead grandmother’s prosthetic leg for us to sign. D: I remember we were in a Best Buy in Denver, doing autographs, and this girl came in with her samurai sword. Not a toy, like it probably would have cut you. There we were, signing a sword in the store. Have you ever been fishing and what’s the biggest fish you’ve ever caught? D: Yes, I’ve been deep-sea fishing, but I don’t think I ever caught anything that we were planning on keeping. I think I caught a sand bass or something. If you were a chair who would you want to sit on you? D: (laughs) Can I say my girlfriend? That’s probably a safe option. (Laughs) Who is the most attractive member of Less Than Jake? Who would win in a fight between Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake? D: Oh man! Chris is a big guy, but then one of us might be crazy enough to overcome his strength, given the right 26push! (Laughs)

J: I think it would be a draw, I don’t think we’d end up killing each other. Wait we have one more member than they do. D: That’s right we have 6 and they have 5 and Buddy has a bad knee so…

J: Wow. Vinny! He’s got such a great beard, we love facial hair!

Uni2 Interview…

Less Than Jake

Less than Jake are a six piece band from Florida. Described as ska music – think punk rock with saxophones – they’ve had numerous hits since they formed in 1992, and before their recent RockCity show, co-headlined with Reel Big Fish, Alex Esden sat down with trombonist Buddy Schaub, to get his story on twenty years of Less than Jake: Why Less Than Jake? When Vinnie was growing up, his parents had a dog named Jake. It was one of those big, slobbering, humps-your-leg bulldogs. Everything in the house revolved around Jake; Vinnie’s parents would go to the steak house and bring the dog back leftovers, while Vinnie had to make his own microwave mac and cheese. And when Chris and Vinnie were in high school, they were going over some song ideas in the back room, but the dog was getting upset, so they had to quit practising. So they were “Less than Jake”. What’s the craziest thing you guys have done on tour? We did a whole tour with Bon Jovi, and the entire thing was crazy. Because of the production value they would play a day then take a day off, so we booked our own tour every other day. It was such a mind fuck, because the doors would open at 7 for Bon Jovi and we’d go on at 7.30. But sometimes the doors would get pushed back, so people were still walking in at 7.15 and we’d be playing to 30 people out there. But then we’d go to our own show the next day, and it was like 2000 people screaming and whatever. It was fun to go between them. Almost schizophrenic. Who would win in a fight between Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish? The only reason they may win is because there’s more of them. We only have two horn players, so they would have an extra guy. They also have much younger dudes in the band, because some people left the band and got replaced, and we’ve had the same guys for the last 14 years, so we’re all getting older and a bit sluggish. Maybe we’re getting a bit beefier too though, so I reckon we could take a punch better. Vinnie in his day probably had a fight or two, he used to hang out with skinheads and stuff.

What are LTJ’s plans for the future? We’re going to finish this tour, and then fly to Australia for Soundwave Festival, which is going to be awesome. Tours like those are fun. You play with bands you wouldn’t usually tour with. After that we go home for a little while and then there’s nothing set in stone We may be coming back to Europe, possibly South America in October, but we’ll see. For both full interviews go to our website:

www.uni-2.co.uk Less than Jakes album “See the Light” is out now on Fat Wreck Chords.

We interviewed them and asked the same question. Oh yeah? They said that they’d win. Well we’re gonna find out later tonight then, aren’t we? Who is the most attractive member of RBF? I’m gonna go with Matt Appleton They said Vinnie… They like the rugged man? They were wrong, the obvious choice of our band is me.

Review: Propellor’s Shakespeare

IDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM

‘Roll up, roll up!’ I half expected the first actor to state as he strolled onto the simple set covered in face paint and make up. But this was no circus, despite the all-male cast. The play began and within minutes the scene was set, the characters started to become relatable and the laughter quickly spread throughout the audience. This production of the Shakespearean comedy classic, incorporates music, dance and song, making for an upbeat and lively performance which kept us bobbing in our seats as each act fluidly dissolved into the next. This lively atmosphere was even maintained in the interval as the cast sang and danced through the stalls and into the foyer as the audience made their way to the bar. It almost felt like we are at a pantomime with plenty of audience participation in terms of clapping along to the songs, and laughing with the characters on stage. An hour in and we even forgot that the women were played by men, so it was a real surprise when I recognised Hermia as the Lion later on.

The performance really makes use of the whole stage, with characters appearing from a trapdoor, whilst others crawl around on chairs placed high up the walls. It is incredibly well-choreographed, in one instance we were distracted by a comical fight between some of the characters downstage, meanwhile another scene was being prepared behind them. This is not some boring, drawn-out reading of the play, which English students are dragged to; Propeller’s adaptation makes watching Shakespeare a true delight, a two hour riot with fights, arguments, jokes and humorous costumes! It doesn’t matter if you have no interest in Shakespeare. There are bottom jokes, the bursting of inflatable boobs and sassiness from the female characters that will keep you roaring in your seat right up until the final curtain falls. Pollyanna Ward

OMEDY OF ERRORS

Propeller’s recent production of the Shakespearean absurdist comedy ‘The Comedy of Errors’ certainly lived up to the play’s reputation of being “not just like going to see any other play”. When I first entered the theatre, I was struck by a vivid contrast: in the audience was a collection of the most dainty and elegant old ladies; on stage was a Mexican Mariachi band dressed in football jerseys. A policeman in leather pants was sweeping through the audience - carrying with him the dangerous air of someone who is about to strip. I feared for several heart attacks. However, judging by the outbreaks of roaring laughter around me, in every old lady slumbers the potential to thoroughly enjoy slapstick humor, cartoon violence, and outrageous racism. The comedy, surrounding the events linked to the mistaken identity of two sets of identical twins, was skillfully underlined by the atmosphere of a cheesy Spanish holiday village, drag queens, 80s hits, and boobs so large they threatened to pop out of tiny dresses.

Yet, miraculously, the poetry of Shakespeare survives this production of exaggeration and way-out-of-the box imagination: the outrageous plot is

skillfully colored in with universal human emotions. Amidst Baptist preachers and high-heeled nuns, the audience found intense jealousy, confusion and honesty in the characters portrayals. All in all, this production is surely one to be loved by one and hated by the other; this is no place for the politically correct. For those who enjoyed it: perhaps we are terrible people. Or, perhaps -if we want to feel better about ourselves - we may say that the production skillfully crossed the point of outrageousness to such an extent that it became impossible to take offense. . In any case, it is not farfetched to imagine the audience members asking themselves Antipholus of Ephesus´ question: “Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?” For more upcoming productions, check out the Theatre Royal’s website: w w w.t rch.co.uk Olivia Jecel

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN Released in 1952, Singin’ in the Rain was only a modest hit at the time but has since become one of the most highly regarded musicals ever, and Gene Kelly’s rendition of the titular song is now an iconic moment in cinema history.

Adapting such beloved material can often be tricky, but thankfully the Stage Entertainment production which ventured to the Theatre Royal a couple weeks ago – is a hugely enjoyable rendition of the famous film. Set in the 1920s, Singin’ in the Rain tells the story of Don Lockwood played with great swagger and charm by Matthew Malthouse - a popular silent movie actor whose confidence is shaken by a chance encounter with Kathy Selden, an instantly likable Amy Ellen Richardson, and the emergence of ‘talking pictures’. Along with Don’s best friend Cosmo Brown – Stephane Anelli channelling Robin Williams brilliantly – they must contend with Don’s meddling

co-star Lina Lockwood, played by Faye Tozer - formerly of Steps fame - who absolutely steals the show with her brilliant comedic timing and whiny American accent. The show includes a variety of show tunes, which were all fantastically produced and choreographed. At many points throughout the show the audience was left amazed at the set changes and dance numbers, especially in the titular scene where over 12,000 litres of water were used to transform the stage into a soaked Hollywood street. All in all, a very entertaining production and a very worthy adaptation of the classic movie. I left the theatre tapping my feet, replaying the tunes in my head, which is just what you want from a musical. Highly recommended. DF

The music of John Barry

by Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Last month, the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra visited Nottingham Concert Hall to honour the musical life of John Barry, best known for his contribution to Hollywood film scores, especially Bond films like ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘Diamonds are Forever’. As two poor and over-worked university students, a night at the Orchestra doesn’t usually feature on our list of Notts nights out. So we were really excited to get dressed up. To labour the point, we wore plimsolls and socks for our walk from Lenton, popped on our heels in a pretty dodgy looking alleyway and voilà the transformation from impoverished students to highbrow concert goers was complete! The performance was conducted by Nicholas Dodd and presented by radio personality Margherita Taylor, who told us from the outset that the concert had ‘all the ingredients for an incredible night’, and she wasn’t wrong. Opening with ‘Goldfinger’, the auditorium was immediately transfixed; even the few people who slipped in late couldn’t disrupt the charged atmosphere. What followed was a night of contrasts between subtle and romantic melodies like the melancholy ‘Midnight Cowboy in a Moment’, and anthems like the epic ‘Zulu’ soundtrack.

Experiencing a full orchestra perform the James Bond Theme, exactly how Barry intended, was breath-taking. What made a real impact was how visual and physical the performance was, with each musician bringing a unique energy. Two stand-out solos deserve a special mention: the achingly beautiful piano solo in ‘Somewhere in Time’ and the sensual saxophone solo from the film ‘Body Heat’, both of which transported the audience to the golden age of cinema. As the concert came to a close we both realised how familiar Barry’s music was to us without even realising, defining films like ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ and ‘Dances with Wolves’. The fact that we hadn’t attended an orchestral concert before also had no effect on our enjoyment and by the end we felt like regulars. One of John Barry’s favourite quotes was from Fred Astaire: ‘Whatever you do, do it big, do it right and do it with style’. And this summed up the night perfectly. To see upcoming plays, check out the Theatre Royal’s website: w w w.t rc h.co.uk Hannah Norris and Charlotte Taylor

How To MakeA Damn INF US IN G Fine Cocktail: S PIRIT S Infusing spirits in cocktails is done to mask the impurities and give the drink a taste that’s actually palatable (and if you have the misfortune of being stuck with a bottle of Glen’s vodka, then I don’t blame you). Skittle vodka is a pretty common drink amongst students, and whilst that’s pretty easy and simple, if a little bit more time is invested a much nicer mix can be

made. I’ve made some great concoctions but before we deal with them, it’s worth laughing over those that I’ll admit were just appalling. To start - Bacon. Lovely on its own; lovely with chocolate; lovely cooked in many forms, but not in vodka. The taste is horrible, and the only way to get a significant flavour is by using

fake bacon. Just avoid it. At all costs! Another infusion that’s usually tricky to get right is chocolate. It sounds like it should be easy, but if you use even a little too much chocolate it can get awfully sickly and if you decide it’s not done well, the whole bar of chocolate has been wasted!

On to infusions that actually worked! Cranberry Vodka 250g cranberries 700ml vodka 1 cup of sugar This is very simple to make. Find or purchase an airtight bottle, pierce the cranberries using a needle or pin, and then put as many as possible in the bottle (if not bottles). Add the sugar and vodka. Shake the bottle to diffuse the sugar into the vodka. You’ll need to leave it in a dark area and shake/stir it every 2 days. This recipe takes about 2 weeks to properly infuse, and in order to easily filter the liquid you’ll need a pair of high thread count tights. Yes, I did just say tights. Stretch one pair over a container to filter the drink into, this will insure that the cocktail is clear with no bits. The end result will be a deep red liquid, that (depending on how much sugar you put in) gives a really wonderful smell and bittersweet taste. It’s worth experimenting how you drink it, from simply having it neat to shaking with sugar, lemon juice and egg white.

Christmas pudding vodka Half a nutmeg, finely grated 2 cinnamon sticks 75 g caster sugar 6 cloves 1 orange, zester 1 lemon, zester 700ml vodka. 2 tsp ground spice 300g Dried fruit (sultanas, raisins and figs) All you have to do to make this cocktail is literally put all the ingredients into a bottle, but you have to be very precise with infusing the vodka, as it only takes a short amount of time. This is because the dried fruit soak up the water in the vodka, with the sultanas/raisins eventually resembling…grapes. So once the sugar is diffused into the rest of the liquid leave it no longer than overnight and then filter with high-thread count tights. The mixed spice will ruin the part of the tights used, so you will have to use multiple areas to get the most Christmas pudding vodka possible. This cocktail can be drunk all year round, but naturally it tastes best during the cold winter.

The spirit you use in these infusions isn’t too much of an issue. In personal experience, as long as enough sugar is used (and it’s been chilled enough), pretty much any vodka works. So regardless of how much money you spend, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a good result. The recipes listed don’t take a huge amount of time, so it’s perfect for students. Everything’s up to experimentation, swapping ingredients whenever desired is encouraged at all times, and if you’re ever worried that the mixture isn’t going to turn out right, add more sugar, it’s surprising how much difference it will make.

Alex Knight

The New Yorkers: Extract TWO Olivia and her boyfriend, Lucas, moved to New York last year. They returned with a whole host of stories about some of the weirdest experiences you could imagine. When last we left her, Olivia Jecel had just landed a job at a film production company, but this was soon disrupted by Hurricane Sandy. Here she recounts how they weathered the storm.

At t h e t i m e Hurricane Sandy hurtled towards the East Coast I was living in an old lady’s apartment in exchange for taking care of her even older cat. Apart from financing my all-day weekend coffeehouse visits, the “job” came with Luigi - a friendly doorman with a seemingly unlimited supply of cigarettes -, a four-bedroom apartment, and an assortment of wildly unnecessary kitchenware. Well, “easy come, easy go” they say, and they say this for a reason: when, one afternoon, Lucas expressed his desire to “speak to the cat in person”, the shortlegged bastard was nowhere to be found. Conspiracy theories were thrown back and forth: the cat can fly, the cat morphs into a conventional frying pan when one is not looking, we must have imagined the cat altogether. At a loss for further ideas, a desperate search across the entire Upper East Side was conducted. Two days and an old lady’s near heart attack later, Lucas came home to find it curled up on our bed. No, I hold no answers to this, and any possible explanations endanger drawing attention to the achievement of a possibly recordbreaking level of stupidity displayed by the fact that the cat had, in fact, never left the apartment. Needless to say, the old lady fired me, and I was back to working weekend catering jobs for million-dollar Bar Mitzvahs. Anyway- when Sandy struck, a panic-fueled mother forced both girl and cat to evacuate the apartment and take my boss’s offer to stay with his family in Brooklyn. Apparently, said mother had adopted the general New Yorkers´ opinion that nothing off the island of Manhattan really belonged to New York – she saw my removal to Brooklyn as leaving the danger-zone of perhaps the State of New York itself. Meanwhile Lucas, a pile of books, and several whisky bottles had shut themselves into our soon-to-be apartment near Columbus Circle. The last sign of life was a gleeful text message: “You´re making a most colossal mistake. I´m delighted”. He had never been more right. In a nutshell - I spent 3 days without electricity, heating, or a functioning toilet – which wouldn’t have been an issue if it had not been my boss’s toilet I had to leave unflushed. Oh, the embarrassment. I swore to myself to consider whose poop I would be staring at the next time I picked my Hurricane survival location. Yet despite this, Brooklyn provided a glorious (if I may call it so) view of Sandy: exploding wires and circuits, falling trees, flashing lights, and a wind so loud that - at times - we couldn’t hear one another speak. It was pretty exhilarating – up until the second day, when the storm forced us to barricade ourselves in by nailing planks over the skylights and windows. No daylight. Still no toilet. On the third day, salvation: Family friends from Europe. Apparently they were in Manhattan and wanted to see me “right now, darling, there´s no better time than now. Do let us send for a car…”

I had a choice: face the storm (and, yes, leave the cat behind) - or wave goodbye to my already departing sanity. And so, an hour later, I found myself in a limousine gliding towards the deafening silence of Manhattan. What I found was far from sanity. Manhattan was eerily empty. Imagine fallen trees, burnt-down houses, and flooded subway stations (to clear up worldwide rumors: yes, they sent divers down there). There wasn´t a soul on the streets – apart from, of course, the occasional round blue dots of police officers, pretending to do something important; chest-out, badge shining, donut in one hand, gun in the other. Of course. Now, in the midst of all this, picture the only open restaurant on the island: and know that they have found it. And not only have they found it, they appear to have ordered everything on the menu. When I stumbled in, they had long crossed the line usually drawn between socially acceptable tipsiness and roaringly drunk. They spotted me, and promptly broke into song. Ten minutes later, I gave in (what else was there to do?), and soon I found myself drunkenly swaying back and forth between them, the perfect victim to their perverse oasis of wealth. We were - it seemed - the only moving point in a frozen city. God knows how many hours we spent there, but when we left, the city had taken on a coloring otherwise unknown to New Yorkers: pitch-black. No streetlights, just pure unadulterated darkness. As we were leaving, Kätzi – one of my mother’s friends - took an uncertain step forward, spun around, and leant on me. Then, grip slipping, falling back into a near horizontal: “Well, do you have somewhere to go from here?” I didn´t. “Have you ever been to a real Halloween party?” I felt that I hadn´t. To me, any party that went hand in hand with an inhumane effort to dress oneself and for which such a large amount of money had to be spent was bound to disappoint. (Or, to quote Zelda Fitzgerald, “the trouble is that I always put on my finest underwear and then nothing happens”). Again: “You stay with us tonight -if you wish - yes?” She looked as if she was full of unguarded secrets and restraining herself only with a most apparent difficulty. Drawn in, I let myself slide into their world… Read the third (and probably final) extract from Olivia’s time in New York, in the next issue of Uni2Know.

! n o o S g n i m o C pp -

Uni 2 A

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Each user of the app with have a unique profile. This will display a picture along with your university, course and year. Your profile also houses the news feed, which will show you what your friends are up to; discounts they’ve used, events they are going to, and jobs they’ve applied for. You can join in with your connection’s activity; see a discount you like…add it to your calendar!

Calendar The calendar will be your hub for everything ‘uni’. Allowing you to sync all your other calendars – be it for uni, phone or exams - together into one, easy to use and convenient portal. On the calendar you’ll also be able to check daily deals, events, open houses and much, much more.

Save The Save category of the app will be populated with exclusive discounts from both local and national companies. Our extensive offers include money off entry into Oceana and Just the Tonic comedy club, discounts at clothing stores such as Ann Summers and deals for restaurants including Hooters, Bella Italia and Toby Carvery. You’ll be offered new discounts on a daily basis, which you can send onto friends.

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Work We’ve teamed up with the graduate recruitment site Milkround to bring you some incredible job opportunities. This section will list; part time, full time, internships, summer jobs and graduate jobs. Simply look through the listings and apply, this makes finding a job during and after uni a really simply and easy process. 35

Art Galleries

in Nottingham Bonnington Gallery

This gallery, which is housed in Nottingham Trent’s Bonnigton building, currently houses the exhibition “Since 1843: In the making” which features a collection of over 90 works from their alumni. The exhibition is illustrated almost like a timeline documenting the progression, impact and influence their graduates have held creatively on an international level. Exhibitors include Simon Starling - an international artist and Turner Prize winner who graduated with a BA (Hons) in 1990. Starling is showcasing a seven minute long projection of 38 images which tell the adventure of a three hour voyage taken by himself and a boiler man in a 22 foot long steamboat on the waters of Scotland’s Loch Long. “Since 1843: In the making” is both colourful and cultural, presenting a variety of hand painted works with hands-on interactive works. One striking piece invites people to interact with the digital starfish projected onto a table which shrinks and grows in size, dependant on how they move their hands. Other artists to look out for include Lucy Orta who specialises in sculptural illustrations and is better known for her Antarctica project.

Amongst the bars, clubs and restaurants Nottingham has to offer sometimes a break from the norm is needed and that is exactly what can be found within the city’s art scene. There are numerous art galleries within the city, which are free to enter and well worth a visit.

The Contemporary

The Contemporary, located just a stone’s throw from the Lace Market Tram Stop is one of the largest contemporary art centres in the UK - with up to four galleries. Their latest exhibitions by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and Tala Madani kicked off with an evening of live music from rock dance orchestra Chrome Hoof and Aja Ireland. In Galleries 1 and 2 the paintings of Tala Madani can be found featuring both her current and old works. Her style avoids direct interpretation, reflecting on masculinity, group dynamics, sexuality and power play. Each painting carries a little story and makes the viewer consider the contradictions within power dynamics. Galleries 3 and 4 are dedicated to the work of Marvin Gaye Chetwynd which offers a range of sculptures and installations that explore contemporary moral issues such as personal debt. As her first solo exhibition at a public gallery in Britain, her work is not only thought provoking, but stimulating with some fully staged performances. Her works at the Contemporary include Brain Bug where performances will take place on Saturday 1st and 15th of both February and March at 2pm.

The Lakeside Gallery Finally, located on the University of Nottingham campus, The Lakeside gallery currently offers numerous exhibitions for visitors to choose from, at the beginning of the month the Djanogly Art Gallery housed the Pop Art to Britart: Modern Masters from the David Ross Collection. Though David Ross is the co-founder of The Carphone Warehouse, very little know about his passion for art or that he is a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery as well as chasing his appetite for the arts, sports and education through the David Ross Foundation. The exhibition is rich in colour and vibrancy and includes work from artists commonly associated with the Pop Art movement including: Derek Boshier, Gilbert & George, Bridget Riley, and Joe Tilson. This will be replaced by the Landscapes of Space exhibition from the beginning of March. The Qing Imperial Cityscapes showcase, which explores the work of the architectural dynasty Yangshi Lei who took charge of most of the Qing Emperors’ construction projects during the last empire of China (1644 – 1911), is also recommended. Georgia-May Collings

Ink Soup came into existence as a depraved comics anthology based at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. Once its main contributors and editors graduated in 2013, they decided to adopt the name for their illustration collective. All had an interest in narratives, freaky-looking things and a penchant for working in black & white, so naturally they decided to join forces and attempt world domination.

Since its rebirth as a collective, Ink Soup has taken part in comic book fairs, live events, created murals, zines, and BECAME members of the Nottingham based Mimm Collective.

Previous editions are still available at: inksoup.bigcartel.com

photography by Lazy pineapple

photography by angelo panzera

Catch us doing live art at the mimm 3rd birthday event at the irish centre nottingham may 4th!

Edition #7 coming soon....! 39

'BryndĂs': This was a a birthday present for a friend, where I tried to replicate the sort of retro sci-fi style that she likes, but somehow it turned out looking really fairytale-ish.

The dragons and the grumpy old wizard at his local post office all reside within the same fantasy world, designed for my first university final major project. My aim was to take a fantasy story, which originally was very typical in its design and turn it into something more realistic, expanding on a theme of society vs magic. With the dragons, I tried to steer them away from the horned, winged creatures that come to mind and develop them into the highest predator of their environments, relying on teeth, muscle and agility more than fire power.

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Die Forelleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, describes the sheer force of nature and at the same time, peace of solitude within it. The dead mermaid attempts to reflect the rawness of a moment in time where the temperament of nature is realised and you become aware of how you have no control over it.

Ruth Porter

Illustration & Design Ruth is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Birmingham. Her work begins its life on paper as a sketch or doodle inspired by conversations and observations. Depending on the content or brief they are then worked upon using traditional methods creating detail with ink and fine liners, or scanned into Illustrator to create a clean and crisp vector piece. She is also a prolific doodler, and always has a sketch book to hand to experiment and jot down ideas. Much of her work is character based, adding little details that spark a narrative. She also enjoys bringing her characters to life using vinyl toys, with hopes to develop her own in the future and is always on the look out for collaborations and commissions. For processes and regular updates check out the links below. www.ruthporterillustration.wordpress.com RuthPorter.Illustration

The Photographer: An Unexpected Journey This issue we decided to give our extremely talented photographer (he made me write that), Neil Kates a bit of a break. The last photo -shoot tired him out, bless him, so he went on a photography trip to rejuvenate and have some time photograph ing for himself. Here, he details his trip and overleaf are some of the fantastic pictures he took. The last ‘Revolution’ edition was time-consuming and complex to organise, therefore, upon its completion I decided to call up my good mate and fellow professional photographer (Matt Selby, of SLB Photography), packed up our camera gear and drive three hours north on an EPIC photography adventure…

The Location: Matt and I decided to go up to the North East, to a place called Holy Island. Holy Island is famed for its landscapes and seascapes – perfect! The island is off the coast and only accessible at low tide. This means that at night, there would be few visitors to ruin shots. The island also has very low light pollution which means that, on a clear night, the stars and even the Milky Way are visible.

the journey begins

The night before Matt, his girlfriend and my fiancée and I went for some cheeky drinks, in what felt like our fair damsels’ sending us off on a medieval quest. I picked Matt up at 5am the next morning, I was feeling great, while Matt was a little worse for wear. He complained during the whole journey and we needed to make 5 stops along the way so he could empty his bladder. We knew that the tide that night would go out at 10:30 pm after which the road which leads to the island completely submerges until 5am, so after arriving we drove to Holy Island to scope out locations to photograph that night, to make sure we wouldn’t be stuck in the dark with no decent foreground subjects for our night pictures. We then returned an hour before the tide was due to come in. We stopped in the middle of the road to the island at 9:30 and parked in a lay by, which is there to allow cars to turn around and rush quickly to safety if the water is rising unexpectedly. We found a really cool hut, raised on stilts in the middle of the road, which shelters passers-by if the water is coming over the road. We decided to photograph it with the Milky Way in the background, yet little did we know, the tide times were not exactly accurate, and the water started to come in fast. I wanted to get this shot badly, but my car, which is lowered to about 1inch from the ground, began to have water creeping up to the bottom of the tires. I got my shot - didn’t even check it on the camera - and ran to my car. Matt almost didn’t have enough time to buckle his seatbelt, before I peeled out of there and drove onto the island. We made it safe, dry and, importantly, still with a car. We walked onto the main part of the island, in front of us, a gorgeous castle, the ruins of an ancient Friary, and numerous boat huts. The stars were distinct, more than a million strong, and the Milky Way looked close and bright enough to touch. Bliss. We spent the next 7 hours taking hundreds of shots, exploring, trying out new photography techniques, and having a laugh.

the journey home We woke up at 5 am a day later to shoot the sunrise over Bamburgh Castle. I got soaked by the tide once again, yet managed to get some epic landscape shots of the castle. Matt and I were exhausted, cold, and still had to make the three hour trip home. The trip was perfect in every way, if you are a photographer, take my advice. Leave the studio behind once in a while, go on a journey with your camera into the unknown, and shoot for yourself.

How to shoot the Milky Way ISO film speed – 3400 or higher Aperture – As wide as possible to let in lots of light, I used f2.8 Shutter Speed – Around 20 seconds, I wouldn’t go above 25 seconds, as star streaking can occur Other technique – Take two shots, one of the foreground subject in focus at f.10, then one shot at around f.2.8 (for stars), merge shots in Photoshop Equipment – Sturdy Tripod, remote shutter release, coffee

Neil Kates www.keepingitneilphotography.com

Graffiti:Nottingham

TILLY MINT My work derives from a fascination with the organic interrelationships between natural forms. Influenced by science and spirituality, my work acts as both a meditation and an exploration into naturally occurring phenomena.

Using materials associated with painting, I have developed unique reactions that appear cosmic.

I consider my practice as an on-going exploration of the world I live in.

cargocollective.com/tillymint

Drawingsandthat, or Drawingz n dat depending on how ghetto you are, is a Birmingham based illustrator. Part of the After Hour Authors collective his work is inspired by traditional tattooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, the cosmos, cartoons, animals and the skeletons that live inside all of us. The content of his work floats in the layer between earth and space, aggressive animals and skulls scream to shed light on the patterns that surround them. Third eye shit.

Working in a wide range of mediums from the humble pen and ink to spray paint, digital illustration, paste ups and stickers, along with a heavy emphasis on the print medium, especially the art of screenprint. w w w.drawingsandthat .com drawingsandthat@hotmail.com

fashion student_ Wannabe Illustrator

Anna Milada_

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W h e n S u z i C o l l i n s g r a d u a t e d f r o m U n i v e r s i t y l a s t J u l y s h e h a d n o i d e a w h a t s h e w a n te d t o d o . A t f i r s t s h e w o r ke d i n a h o s t e l i n H o l l a n d b e f o r e b e c o m i n g a n A u P a i r i n S p a i n - i n t h i s c o l u m n s h e ’ l l s h a r e h e r e x p e r i e n c e s d u r i n g h e r f i r s t y e a r o f p o s t- U n i l i f e . O, Maturity Where Art Thou? I’m not exactly sure what I expected to happen once I graduated. I guess I had images of prancing about an office in a suit and using my free time to drink wine responsibly. And, like, stop eating KFC. I definitely didn’t expect to be doing exactly the same things I did as a student, only in a slightly more formal work setting. Well, kind of formal work setting- I spend most of my time covered in baby dribble and/or chasing a half-naked toddler around the house (Au-pair life 2014). When the student loan people sent me a letter saying ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING WE WANT YOUR MONEY, BITCH’ I had to write back saying, ‘Dudes, I earn like 3000 euros a year and a kid just stabbed me in the head with a crayon. LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.’

Pee-Eyes I had assumed that a job would provide some sort of regularity and SOMETHING, but nope. Instead of passing my time reading The Financial Times (as much as I hate to admit it, The Daily Mail is my 7th most viewed website on Chrome), I instead spend my days yelling ‘DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT PEEING YOURSELF RIGHT NOW’ whilst watching in horror as a kid makes pee-eyes at me. I guess I kind of assumed that I’d suddenly grow up and be all MATURE and SORTED once I graduated and got a job, but alas, ‘twas not the way my cookie crumbled. Though having a fulltime job that pays me real money makes me feel a little grownup, I’m finding that I spend my free time doing exactly the same things I did when I was a student. That is, I completely waste every available second and then complain because I never get anything useful/important done.

Biscuits, Buzzfeed and Bradley Cooper I still spend hours messing about on the internet, convincing myself that reading Buzzfeed articles and listening to Ace of Base on repeat, counts as ‘research’ for… things… and stuff. I still binge-watch TV shows and live in constant fear that, one day, I’ll run out of things to watch and have to read a book or something. I still nap to pass the time. Or rather I sleep for up to 4 hours during the day, wonder why I can’t get to sleep at night and then wake up in the morning completely exhausted. Thus the cycle continues. I do not learn from my mistakes. One morning when I had 10 minutes free time, instead of changing the sheets on my bed or, I don’t know, DOING SOMETHING WITH MY LIFE, I instead ate 5 biscuits while googling pictures of Bradley Cooper.

No Hablo Spanish The only remotely productive thing I’ve done since graduating is that I’ve started taking Spanish classes, despite swearing off any form of education the minute I handed in my last essay. And that’s only because - seeing as I’m living in Spain for 8 months - I figured it might be kind of necessary. But the minute I get out of class I jump into bed and resume my other full-time job as a professional time-waster. In fact, I just do my best to avoid contact with Spanish speakers because then I don’t have to speak Spanish. This means that if I go into a shop and one of the assistants comes up to me and says something, I just turn around and leave and never return. I will only go into shops where I am ignored at all times. This means that I spend a disproportionate amount of time in supermarkets. I’ve been buying a lot of ham.

The Future: Burmese Black Wood or African Olive Wood? Seriously though, at what point are you meant to grow up and start doing proper, grown up things? Most people my age seem to be stuck in the same rut as me, but then I know some people in their mid-20s who know what a mortgage is and have like savings accounts with actual money in them. I know I shouldn’t be complaining about being able to potter around and do nothing because I’m sure it’s some great privilege that other people can only dream off. But I can’t help but feel a dreadful sense of foreboding, like maturity is just around the corner and all of a sudden BAM. No more Buzzfeed. And 70% of my conversation topics are based off stuff I’ve read on Buzzfeed. I’ll have to start having interests. So when I’m rolling around on the floor pretending to be a crocodile with a 3 year old, or losing my shoe on the metro because I didn’t ‘Mind the Gap’, maybe I should be embracing the fact that I’m able to do these kinds of things, because one day the most interesting thing I’ll do in a week is compare wood samples in B&Q.

THE PHILOSOPHER The world is a weird and senseless place. Johnny Lawrence often finds himself be mused by the stupidity of society and in this column, he shines a light on the daily idiocies that make up our lives, stares modern society in the face. And tells it to go fuck itself.

“There is no philosophy involved, this person is simply ranting about random stuff” – One reader - who didn’t get it

A Bad Pornstar blames their tools

What we can learn from Porn? I was asked to talk about Art. But I don’t get Art. I do get porn though and they are pretty much the same thing so… Porn clearly has much to teach us. Shaved pubic hair has come from porn, and look how well that worked out. There’s a genital alopecia epidemic! Normally when people talk about porn they focus on negatives, about how it makes women ‘sex objects’. ‘Sex’ just means ‘intercourse’ and ‘object’ means ‘material thing’. So porn is making woman material things you can have sex with? I’m a material thing you can have sex with, I’m a sex object. Unless you are asexual or a nun then - by definition – you’re a sex object. I don’t understand why people are offended by it - it’s just a triviality.

Furthermore, some people just give porn a bad name. It’s like anything in life, anyone thinks they can do it and some people are shit at it. It’s like photography. I think very lowly of photography because anyone with a £500 SLR can snap a couple of pics of some emos and then say they are a photographer. It’s the same with porn. All these people going into porn, who might be slightly unhinged and not the best looking of the bunch, then state: “Ooo the porn ruined me”. No, you were already ruined and then you got into porn and it made things worse. And that just affects the quality of porn - I don’t want to see some fat, poor, crying woman doing porn. That just makes me feel bad, that makes my penis feel bad, and it even makes the cameraman feel bad. People always say the acting is really bad in porn but the acting isn’t in the foreplay - “Ooo I’m a plumber and I plumb suck my cock” - the acting is in the sex and that’s how you can tell good porn from bad porn. These trainwreck pornstars are giving it a bad rap. They aren’t doing it for the glamorous porn life, they are doing it for a cheap buck and they think it’s going be easy, but it isn’t.

A case in point is Jynx Maze. Now I wasn’t always into anal sex, it wasn’t really getting me going. But Jynx Maze just loves it in the arse. She just loves it. I don’t know if she’s acting or not, but she really powers back on that cock like there’s no tomorrow. If she’s really enjoying it, then I’m really enjoying it.

Let’s all do the Pile-Driver

Tubes of Pig

Another common complaint is that porn gives people the wrong idea about sex. What are the right ideas about sex? It’s just a thing you do. I mean, if you aren’t having a kid you have the wrong idea about sex. If you’re just going to be bonking away at each other, then let’s bring it closer to the edge. Take the pile-driver:

We become so desensitised to meat because we rename it. We eat bacon and sausages, not pig tubes and pig slices. If I ate those things I’d grow a conscience and get so disturbed, I would become a vegetarian instantly. But phew it’s fine, because I’m not eating a pig, I’m eating sausages and bacon.

“When a woman is lying on her neck, hips up and a dude is standing up squatting and thrusting into her. Most porn stars can't do the pile driver for long because they pass out when too much blood rushes to their head.” (www.urbandictionary.com)

Also children’s ham is the work of a psychopath. Ham that has been pulped down and turned into; a smiley face, or a dinosaur, or people playing football. Imagine if a human did that to their pets. Pulped them down and turned their flesh into a flat disc of a smiley face. I’d be like “WOAH” and the rest of the world would be like “not cool”. It’s fine if you do it to a pig - but not if you do it to a cat.

It doesn’t look or sound enjoyable. But maybe I try it, and it’s fantastic, and then everyone you take home just preps for a pile-driver. Just like with the shaved pubes, could it be a winner? It’s not about porn viewers having altered expectations, it’s about having fun sex. All I’m saying is that maybe that fun could involve pile-driving.

Porn, penis, sausages… VEGETARIANISM. (They aren’t so far apart…)

fetching slippers and newspapers and licking peanut butter off their owner’s balls (which is apparently a thing people do) and then let’s see if we’re still happy to eat them. Johnny Lawrence BA (hons) Philosophy

Now, I’m not saying we should start pulping everything - it’s the hypocrisy I don’t like. Either pulp both the pigs and the cats, or pulp neither. It’s not that I really want to see cat on the menu, but I wouldn’t be annoyed if I did - but most people would be, and I’m not sure why. If we aren’t going to start putting pets on the menu then let’s start seeing domesticated cows around the house,

I hate people who aren’t vegetarians but suddenly start caring about animal rights as soon as a cat gets sexually abused. They get all up in arms about animal rights, and then go home and eat sausages. Blissfully unaware of the thousands of cows and pigs that are bred to be slaughtered, which makes the anger over the horsemeat scandal even more ludicrous. We were buying something that might as well have been brown meat discs from Lidl. As a consumer, I knew from the price that it wasn’t beef, that probably nothing in there was beef. I entered into the agreement to eat the horse way before I actually knew it was horse. And then after the scandal they took those burgers away. They were really cheap and really delicious. Just keep grinding up the horse and churning out my burgers. There are far worse things in those burgers than horse anyway.

The

inner child

You know that ‘inner child’ that everyone has? If that concept was to be personified, it would probably act a lot like Malcolm Remedios. An English student who’s in his element at university, where superhero costumes and pillow forts experience a resurgence among students with too much time on their hands. In this column he’ll walk us through his childish experiences and encourage you to embrace your inner child.

A Childhood of Fancy Dress I spent a considerable amount of my childhood running around the house in a mask and cape. I had a tendency to go all out on fancy dress occasions and I've always had a penchant for obscure costumes. So for my Year 4 Fancy Dress

sponsored walk, I went as the titular superhero from The Adventures of Soupy Boy. As a baby, Soupy Boy was accidentally dropped into a radioactive vat of Tomato soup, only to discover he had developed various soup-based superpowers… and that he resembled a giant can of soup. My ridiculously impractical costume consisted of a cylindrical head to ankle foil/ cardboard outfit, with slots cut out for my arms and legs. On the run several Year 6s attempted to take advantage of my inability to look downwards (it was a very restrictive costume) and tried to roll me down a hill. But I still won best costume so screw those guys, I had a £10 WHSmith voucher. Then I started attending high school. Fancy dress parties were now viewed as kitsch and childish, instead I had to make do with boring Pizza Hut dinners and monotonous trips to the bowling alley. And what was worse, I had to suffer through these "parties" in normal clothes. It was a hard time for me.

The Avengers on a Budget Thankfully that all changed when I arrived at University. Suddenly fancy dress is not only acceptable but inescapable. Something I’ve made the most of - mostly by channelling my childhood obsession with superheroes. At last year's Seven Legged bar Crawl my friends and I dressed up as The Avengers. However, having only decided to go as the superhero team on the day, we didn’t exactly look the part. "Captain America" consisted of a blue morph suit, some red gloves and a paper plate; "Iron Man" just wore a helmet and a Black Sabbath shirt; and "Thor" simply had a Viking helmet and a toy rattle. But as we became drunker it ceased to matter, as we started to act like our characters. Having never read the comics or seen the movie, our "Thor" channelled the Norse God's fish out of water confusion when he answered "I'm not sure" to the question, "Are you Spider-Man?" As “The Hulk” walked into Ocean for the very first time, he turned to us with a look of disgust and asked “What’s that smell?” Before growing increasingly aggravated as the music became progressively cheesier. And at the end of the night, “Hawkeye” sprinted out of the kebab shop declaring he had to“scout the area”, before leaping outside and

pointing his nerfbow at two bemused hobos, before I –dressed as “Nick Fury” - told him to stand down. So despite the low budget costumes, it was a pretty good night.

LastMinuteBane.com However, haphazardly throwing together costumes isn’t always the best plan. Once, an hour before another superhero-themed party all I had was a Hannibal Lecter mask. I dashed to the nearest DIY store hoping to piece together a Bane costume. Although I was able to find some screws and duct tape to customize the mask, I still needed some acrylic paint and the shop owner was only able to offer me an alternative - Ronseal Fast-drying Fence Paint. Already pressed for time I took the paint, and borrowing a bald cap and a duffle coat, I assembled my makeshift Bane costume.

Racist Raccoon

Futuristic Strip Club

Thankfully, the spotlight from my own fancy dress mishap was redirected by my friend who dressed up as "Rocket Raccoon" (from Marvel’s The Guardians of the Galaxy). An anthropomorphic gun-toting racoon, all my mate needed for his costume was some face paint, animal ears, a tail and a toy gun. Unfortunately, with a few minutes to go before the party started (clearly a recurring theme) he soon discovered that he didn't have enough white face paint to complete the costume. This left him with brown paint over his face and black paint on his nose - he had accidently blacked up. After a mild panic, we managed to convince him to come out and started to walk to pre-drinks. On the way my highly self-conscious mate freaked out after spotting several policemen, having convinced himself that he would be arrested for a hate crime if they saw him. This led to a five minute debate on how we could disguise his face without looking suspicious and whether we should hide his shotgun sized nerf gun under my coat (we decided that hiding a large gun shaped object from a group of policemen was probably a bad idea). Through the use of an Ant Man helmet we managed to evade the police. But he couldn’t evade our friends, and spent most of the night being called “Racist Raccoon” - the name’s stuck ever since.

Yet, both "Racist Raccoon" and my own disastrous efforts were outdone by "Captain America's" Halloween costume. Having been unable to think of any other uses for his blue morph-suit (we later suggested Dr Manhattan and Beast from the X-Men), my friend additionally donned a cape and a gas mask and claimed to be a "dystopian sewage worker". To this day I’m still not sure what that is. Unfortunately, the "dystopian sewage worker" costume was worn sans any underwear and it soon became clear just how tightfitting the morph-suit was. This went unnoticed by my mate and, as the party was winding down, the now pissed "dystopian sewage worker" could no longer control his urge to dance and commandeered the playlist and put on some Duran Duran. For the onlookers, it was like being part of some horrible futuristic strip club, as he drunkenly gyrated solo in the middle of the room. I still get flashbacks whenever I hear the words "hungry like the wolf".

Student life gives us the opportunity to embrace our childish nature by dressing up in ridiculous costumes, and if you avoid poisonous paint and always wear underwear beneath a morph suit, you’ll be guaranteed a great night.

On arriving at the party we realised that we had pretty much the entire cast of The Dark Knight Rises covered by our fancy dress costumes. This left us with only one option: re-enact The Dark Knight Rises. Relocating to Nottingham City Hall, we restaged the climactic battle from the film (admittedly taking some liberties - our Catwoman was really a 5’’10 Indian guy in a wig and a black, skin-tight PVC suit). Although I hadn't drunk anything, after the battle I was starting to feel slightly out of it. As it turned out, the store owner had failed to mention that the paint fumes would be fairly toxic, which meant it wasn't a good idea to breathe the fumes in through the mask. I subsequently spent the rest of the night dancing on my own to an imaginary version of Gangnam style… Or so I’m told.

Aunty E… Treacherous Tinder! Hello boys and girls, the time has come again for me to share the horrors and delights of these past few weeks. We managed to survive Valentine’s Day creeping up and stabbing us in the back. For the singletons whose only company this Valentine’s was their smartphone, Tinder is like a gift from Venus herself. For those of you who’ve spent the last few months on a different planet, or you know, actually living a full and exciting life, Tinder is a dating app that took the student scene by storm a few months ago. Flick left

Aunty E, 21

for a no, flick right for yes. Tinder has started to die out, but post-Valentine’s will almost certainly see a resurgence, with individuals desperate for human interaction other than the awkward chat with the girl you ‘know’ from first year. Unfortunately, most of the people using Tinder in August have now either found a significant other, or simply got bored of the app. Leaving lots of desperate souls still lurking actively on Tinder who need to be avoided.

Match

And while it can be very gratifying to reject said Jeremy Kyle fodder or a nude Robin Hood enthusiast, there are still some diamonds in the rough active on Tinder. So if you want to keep using Tinder, you’ll need to know how to differentiate the ones to avoid from the rare eligible bachelor. With this in mind, here are a few must read tips to keep you safe from the terrors of Tinder!

Tip 1: Check Location If in his bio, he is a gold toothed, weed selling, bare cash, ‘playa’ who is 3 kilometres away, I’d advise you stay clear. There’s an 80% percent chance he’s a Meadows or Saint Ann’s boy, and would picture your first date at the Frog & Onion in Forest Fields. ‘Less than a kilometre away’ is also dangerous territory. Avoiding a match who lives around the corner can make even the most mundane journeys terrifying, forcing you to scan passers-by in the street, hoping you won’t bump into them.

Match

Tip 2: Weirdowatch The biography often tends to be vague so trust your instincts and go off aesthetics. After matching, there are some tell-tale signs that they should be ignored. Girls, anyone that starts conversation by congratulating you on getting through his selection process, is scientifically proven to be 70% more likely to give you Chlamydia. Also be aware that you will come across mathematical sex poetry, nude archers and knife wielding clowns. Guys, if she’s asking you to sign the FREE BIEBER campaign and wants your opinion on the musical talents of One Direction, common sense should tell you to RUN FOR THE HILLS! They may be 24 years old but that doesn’t mean they don’t take their care bear to bed every night.

Tip 3: As little in Common as possible I advise the golden rule of zero mutual friends. But if you just can’t say ‘NOPE’ to that Grecian god/goddess, then study who the shared friends are. Nine times out of ten Uni pages or Dollop are responsible, the green light is on for those. However. if they have four to five genuine real life mutual friends, YOU CANNOT LIE ABOUT HOW YOU MET! You two will forever be whispered about as the ‘couple who met online’. Can you imagine the best man’s speech on your wedding day? I’m already cringing for you.

Tip 4: In case of an accidental/drunk like

BLOCK THEM, BLOCK THEM and did I mention BLOCK THEM!

Match

Tip 5: No pictures with children… or your penis If they’re in their mid to late 20s and the first picture consists of them with a toddler, alarm bells should start ringing. How old are they really? Should you start worrying about Operation Yew tree? The best case scenario here involves a first date in a soft play area, or a trip to Mothercare followed by a stop off at the baby change unit. Steer clear. This one’s mainly for the guys, but showing your genitals will get you nowhere! It’s repulsive - mainly because the streets of Nottingham are better maintained than most groins on show and will make us question if the gent in question is lying about his age. The only thing us ladies are likely to do with said picture is screenshot it and get it trending on #awkwardtinder.

So there is the top five tips to surviving Tinder in the aftermath of V day. Remember Valentine’s is short for one thing and one thing alone; happily unimaginative, consumerist-orientated, completely arbitrary, manipulatively shallow, interpretations of romance. I’ve learnt it this year folks and these mistakes will not be repeated in 2015. Next year let’s all just get pissed!

The Continuing Disappointment: Hard-Hitting-Plagiarism Silver spoon found in David Cameron's rectum The continuing disappointment can exclusively reveal that the Prime Minister has been rushed to hospital in the early hours of this morning complaining of severe stomach pains. Cameron, who had previously been attending a whitetie dinner to raise money for bankers struck by bonus cutbacks, began to suffer serious discomfort just a few hours after the dinner. After confirming that no other guests reported similar symptoms, doctors in the privately run hospital St. Midas's in Central London discovered the cause of the pain to be an object in the Prime Minister’s rectum. Whilst senior surgeons were unable to comment, an anonymous source from the hospital was able to reveal the following; "from the X-rays and investigations so far it would appear that the object found is made out of some kind of metal, and is most probably a form of cutlery. It is widely known that Cameron has a particular fondness of silver spoons, and although we are yet to remove the foreign object from the prime minister, it appears extremely likely that the prime minister may have become a little too enamoured with a silver spoon placed in his mouth, and subsequently swallowed it". Number 10 has yet to officially comment on the matter.

Students Unions to use Facebook as election decider A recent survey carried out at the University of Birmingham revealed that 70% of voters had absolutely no idea who they’d voted for just 12 hours after their Student’s Union elections. The survey found that the two most popular reasons for voting for candidates were "it's a friend of my friend" and "they gave me sweeties". Since this survey, universities across the land

have decided to tackle the issue head on by embracing the popularity contest. The national board of university chancellors has dictated that all student’s union elections must now take place on Facebook to harness the full potential of the popularity contest. A statement released from the body commented, "With the use of Facebook students will be able to use their

friendship links to their full potential". Whilst some have commented on the worrying lack of any manifesto or policy substance in this form of election, this criticism seems to have fallen on deaf ears, with the head of the board of chancellors gleefully commenting "no one reads that shit anyway".

Labour for Ed

outlines plans Balls currency

Ed MIliband has revealed that, should Labour win the next election, they will introduce a new form of currency. The new form of currency - designed by shadow chancellor Ed Balls - will be made in a ball shape, which Balls claims, is a much more ergonomic shape for the cupped human hand. When asked specifically what situations this currency may be used in, Balls appeared slightly flustered. "We are currently in talks with trade unions concerning a specific use for these balls in the nationalised industries" Balls revealed "although we would not like to deprive privately run firms from using my balls, we feel the opportunity to use my balls should be given first to the unions." He also reiterated that the new currency would not affect UK business in any way shape or form, "whilst we are a left leaning party we continue to form our policies concentrating on how we may allow all the big businesses to flourish to their full capacity"

90% of Americans believe all swans are born in Swansea In a recent poll carried out across the United States of America it has emerged that the vast majority of Americans believe that all swans originate in Swansea. The somewhat baffling results are apparently a result of the similarity in the name of the

species and the city, in addition to Americans being unaware of the geographical location of Swansea. One participant of the survey commented, "On my visit to London I saw the most swans next to a large lake. I'm sure this must be the swan sea where all those swans come from". How the swans managed to migrate from such a "sea" to the rest of the country remained a

further point of contention. A significant proportion of those questioned believe that there are dedicated swan runways to ensure an effective spread of swans throughout the country. As a response, the RSPB is to create and distribute a children's book entitled; "Sally swan from LONDON", in the hope to educate younger bird fans in America.

Channel 5 commissions Celebrity "fight to the death" Channel 5 have announced a brand new television series that will see the world’s most irritating celebrities fight to the death. Following the channel’s most recent series of Celebrity Big Brother, more than 2000 emails were sent to the television station clearly stating that viewers find the vast majority of television celebrities to be incredibly irritating, with many stipulating a wish to never see the celebrities walk the earth again - much less in public view. In a last ditch plea to appease these viewers Channel 5 has decided to make their own real-life version of the late 90s show “Celebrity Deathmatch”. The initial pilot will see the "Go compare" man face teenage superstar Justin Bieber in a series of combat rounds. The celebrities will gain points for (amongst other things) creativity with their use of weapons and the severity of injuries, the ultimate goal being the death of the other contestant. The pilot will air on 14th February next year, polled as one of the most irritating days of the year. Lydia Scott

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Us lot at Uni2Know were lucky enough to chat with Union J’s very own George Shelley ahead of the band’s show in Plymouth, one of the many stops on their ‘Magazines and TV Screens’ tour. Loaded with questions from the ‘JCat’ fans, we covered everything from superpowers to pizza toppings, here’s what the Union J heartthrob had to say… How’s the tour going so far? Really good, it’s so much fun; it’s nothing like we were expecting. We didn’t really know what was going to happen on it, because we’ve only been in the recording studio and we haven’t been on the road since the X Factor tour. So it’s completely different because we’re all standing here as just Union J and not for like Rylan or James Arthur, so it’s completely different but we’re absolutely having fun with our lives.

What advice would you give to bands like Rough Copy on how to continue after the X Factor?

How do you feel about featuring in ‘Kick Ass 2’? Are you a fan of the films? That was crazy! I went to the cinema to watch ‘Carrie’, which has got Chloë Grace acting in it. It’s weird watching a film with a star in it like Chloë and then to think that we’ve been in the same film as her and she knows who we are, that’s really weird. On the topic of superheroes, if you could have any superpower what would it be?

Cardiff Arena because it was our first sell-out arena. It makes your realise and see what it’s all for and what all our hard work has paid off to be.

Smile a lot and be polite to everyone you meet as you don’t know who you are talking to, it could be a big person from a record label or something that is spying on you. Just be polite like the JLS boys who made it - they would walk into a room and remember everyone’s name on the spot. And keep your feet on the ground.

Is there a song which really goes down well with the crowd when you perform it live?

If you were going to start from scratch and do the X Factor again, what song would you audition with?

Good obviously!

‘Amaze Me’ or ‘Skyscraper’ would be the ones that stand out for the crowd because in ‘Amaze Me’ we get to bring four girls up on stage with us from the audience. It’s nice to be able to have

Oh that’s a good question! Erm, I think I’d go for something like ‘I Won’t Give Up’ by Jason Mraz.

Has there been a gig that’s really stood out?

fans up on stage and to sing to them personally, it’s really cute. Then on ‘Skyscraper’ obviously that would have been our winner’s single if we’d won the show last year, which is emotional and brings a few tears from the audience.

I would be a shape shifter, so I could change into any other superhero. Would you use it for good or for evil?

We’ve been bombarded with tweets and questions from your fans, how are you coping with your new found fame and all the female attention? We saw it a lot for X Factor and the tour. When we were in the recording

studio, we’d see a group of London fans that come everywhere we go, but we didn’t get to see our full fanbase. But now we’re on tour we get to see all the different fans. It’s nice to see the diverse range of characters, they’re all really funny and they’re kind of like us, a bit crazy and a bit weird! We came out of a show the other day and the whole bus was surrounded by fans. We couldn’t get on it, it was pretty hectic but it was really cute. We’ve asked for questions from the fans and had some bizarre responses… One of the best is: do you prefer your carrots cooked or raw? Oh! Par-cooked, like hard-boiled but half-cooked. And which member of the band can twerk the best? JJ’s twerking now so it has to be JJ. What is your favourite cheese? That’s a really strange question! Halloumi! Yes we have some weird ones: If you were a chair, who would you want to sit on you?

It would probably be when we performed at the O2 in Dublin. It was wet on stage and I slipped on something, fell onto Jaymi and pulled his trousers down. So not only did I slip, I pulled his trousers down and his phone went flying out of his pocket. It was like a domino effect. It was hilarious though. What do you prefer: Space hopper, pogo stick or push scooter? Space hopper! Space hoppers are cool; they’re like a chair as well so you can relax too. We received a lot of Harry Potter related questions: if you were in Hogwarts what house would you be in? I think it has to be Gryffindor. And who would win the Triwizard tournament out of the four of you? I think it would be Jaymi. Because JJ would be too silly and get hit by something and Josh would probably hide in a bush the whole time. I think Jaymi has the most organisation and clever planning skills.

Do you have any superstitions before you perform? Yeah, we all have hugs before we go on stage. We make a circle and have a hug and a kiss, it’s really camp. But we did it once and the show was amazing, and then we didn’t do it the next day - we just kinda’ punched each other and then in the show we messed up loads of times, so we were like “oh it’s because we didn’t do our ritual”. So it’s all very emotional before you go on stage. Yeah and very manly. Well we will leave you to go off and hug the guys before you head on stage. Thanks for answering all your fans’ questions and good luck with the tour! Thank you! Katie Bird

Someone with a big cushiony bum. Like Kim Kardashian maybe? Someone who wouldn’t hurt me when they sat on me. Maybe someone like Nicki Minaj, she’s got a big bum. What’s the most ridiculous thing on your tour bus? We have a juicer and next to it we have a crate of carrots (laughs). So we make carrot juice and apple juice to keep us healthy. What’s the best prank you’ve pulled on tour? Erm, I don’t know - I sleep through most of the pranks. But I have a padlock on my suitcase, and the boys padlocked it together, took the key and hid it. So I couldn’t get into my clothes for like a whole day and had to walk around with no boxers on, had to go commando! You didn’t have to go on stage without them!? No, luckily I managed to break into it, but I had to spend the whole morning with no boxers, I was like ‘ahhhh!’ What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you since being in the band?

Pimp My Fine Simon: Our editor, while being an incredibly brilliant writer, has not been blessed with good dress sense. No, I’m being nice, it was dire. He was in need of some major help and so we called in the big guns: AllieMay Redmond, our new fashion and beauty editor, a final year Fashion, Marketing and Branding student at Nottingham Trent who has styled at both Bristol and Reading fashion weeks, and runs her own personal fashion blog “The Friday Girl” which has received 72,000 unique hits so far. Allie: I received the SOS from Simon while shopping for new season trends and knew instantly my help was desperately needed. I came to meet Dan and it’s not to say that he dresses horrendously, but he wouldn’t turn heads in the street. He was wearing a hoody that was a little too big, an anorak and jeans. Not horribly offensive but I knew there was room for improvement and that I could make him turn heads because of his style. Dan obviously didn’t have a clue, walking into clothes shops looking like a lost toddler in Tesco, so I knew I was going to have to drag him through shirts, blazers and accessories kicking and screaming.

Allie-May Redmond 5 Tyle Lane TF10 QR SO Style HQ Dear Allice,

favour to writing to you today as I have a My name is Simon Jacobs, I am a dress sense that is quite frankly senseask, our editor: Daniel Fine hast me or enters the office in his drab, overly less. Every time he walks paswant to find the nearest corner and cry myself comfortable and dull ‘style’ I fitting and mishmashed, pitiful. to sleep. His clothes are ill mbling with about that, I’m quite literally tre I am write to you today (sorrylooking at Dan’s dangerously brown jumper). I frustration at the moment justyour wisdom and your excellent, strict rules for write to youtoday knowing of a man’s dress and style. editor Dan Fine. Please,please style my unstylish

Dan: I didn’t agree to any of this, I didn’t know why it was happening. I just wanted to go home, lock myself in and play Fifa.

Your humble servant Simon Jacobs xx 69 69

ARK Allie: I thought we’d ease him in to it with an outfit for something he’d be used to – a night out. Dan said he didn’t really like to wear anything expensive on nights out, so I picked out a few smarter shirts to see what we thought. I stuck him, nearly literally, in a pair of skinny jeans with Dan’s little odd socks poking out. We tried out a few shirts, my favourite was the Farah pink and white striped one. At £64.99, it was a little pricey for a student budget, but I wanted to show him some quality. We actually agreed on this shirt, so I thought the day had got off to a good start. Then Dan kicked off about the skinny jeans and wouldn’t stop complaining. He also decided he was all over a girl’s bowler hat that he’d fallen in love with. I didn’t ask, I just quietly took it off him and gave him a look that all blokes understand. Dan: Allie shoved some skinny jeans and a couple shirts at me and ordered me to go try them on. I started to put on the jeans, pulled them up… and my balls went into my stomach. Tight was an understatement, I could hardly breathe in them. It remains unclear to me why anyone would choose to submit themselves to this form of torture, I’m fairly sure by making me wear this Allie violated several articles of the Geneva Convention. She brushed off my complaints and ignored the brilliant hat I picked out. Having said that the shirts she picked out were great and I could see myself wearing them out… although she kept yelling at me for wearing them wrong.

COW Dan: Allie told me that next we were going to a ‘vintage store’, which I assumed meant it would full of vinyl records and old furniture. Turns out I was wrong, Cow was much more my style than Ark. Allie gave me a jazzy gold shirt to try on and it was beautiful! But unfortunately it was four sizes too large, which meant it looked a bit ridiculous - shame. I then tried on a lumberjack shirt and, overcoming my lifelong confusion toward dungarees, put a pair over the top. I looked like an extra from Brokeback Mountain… it felt right.

Allie: After Daniel’s incessant bickering, I decided to take him into Cow - the vintage shop - to loosen him up a bit. It appears though, that Dan doesn’t know what dungarees are, or how to put them on. “How do these things work?” he cried from the changing room. I paired them with some wonderful vintage shirts, to show him the gems Cow can produce. A lumberjack shirt, would have looked pretty good, if it wasn’t about 4 sizes too big, and a crazy pale green and gold silk shirt paired with an oversized denim jacket. I just wanted Dan to realise that the next outfits I was about to find for him were actually a huge improvement.

ZARA

Allie: After that detour, I thought we should get down to business and actually get Dan some great outfits that were stylish and wearable. I think a lot of men are scared of ‘style’ because they think they’ll have to totally overhaul their wardrobes and wear cravats every day. This isn’t the case; just a few key pieces, good quality garments and well-fitting clothes can make you look ten times better. This was the aim with Dan, just to get him into something he wouldn’t have picked up before. In Zara I chose two outfits, a smart date-night or casual office look and a more cosy look for the winter months. For the more casual and cosy look I gave him some mustardy camel coloured chinos, a denim shirt one of my person favourites for men - and a chunky, if a little big, cardigan. I chose some military style boots for this look to toughen it up.

For the smarter look, I chose some well-fitting dark jeans, brown smart shoes, a good quality white shirt, a cosy cable knit navy sweater and a great blazer. We had to roll up the legs of the jeans for these photos but I’d recommend Dan, or anyone else who has to roll up their jeans more than once, to get them taken up professionally. This was my favourite outfit, Dan looked really smart especially with the cheeky little man-clutch I gave him, to keep all his important little editor papers in. I felt like proud mum watching my little boy go off to school in his too-big school uniform!

Dan: Zara is a shop I had actually heard of, I pass it on the way to Waterstones. I think I will shop there more often though, Allie picked out a couple of great outfits, and I especially liked the blazer/jumper combo, although Allie cooing “he looks sooo cute” was less well received. To be fair to her though, I would definitely wear these outfits every day, and I made my first purchases of the day, buying the blazer and jeans from the first outfit. Allie: When I first met Dan he was a mess. Style-deficient, seemingly allergic to good clothes and he recoiled from anything smart. In just the short span of a couple hours and three shops, I managed to greatly improve his wardrobe and make him look decent for the outside world. I didn’t force him to buy anything, that’s not what I’m about, I just wanted to show him how a few key pieces would improve his wardrobe. When we finished, after a few short hours, he had decided on the blazer and the jeans from Zara which are a great choice.

I think you’ll agree that there was a definite improvement in his style. If you would like a style consultation and transformation like Dan’s then contact Allie via email: allie@thefridaygirl.co.uk from £15 per session. You can also find her blog at www.thefridaygirl. co.uk and her on Twitter @alliemaay

Tokyo Style: The truth about Japanese fashion 東京スタイル：日本のファッションについての真実

Our intrepid fashion and beauty editor Allie-May Redmond recently went to Tokyo with her course to find out about the trends and styles from a part of the world that often appears a little crazy to outside viewers. She heard from marketing and consumer experts working within the Japanese fashion industry and discovered some amazing insights into the Japanese market. For instance, there are over 100 different magazines for women and girls in Japan. Here, Allie tells us more: Here in Britain, we often have very stereotypical ideas of Japanese fashion. Many people assume that the Japanese dress like the Harajuku girls (Gwen Stefani’s backup dancers); in crazy colours, platform shoes and a trillion cutesy bows. The reality is that, while you may see these eccentrically dressed girls walking around the shopping areas of Tokyo (Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuyu) you won’t in the rest of Japan. Shinjuku is the home to Bunka Fashion Graduate University, the first fashion-based and dress-making university in Japan, so you’d expect some fashionistas to be milling about.

Harajuku and Shibuyu have some fabulous shopping malls that are jam packed with outrageous clothes. All the stores are open plan and have sales assistants shouting repetitive phrases, competing to get the customers in. It’s all very surreal; loud, bright and slightly irritating, but the Harajuku girls - all aged around 14-18 - love the lifestyle and will dress that way till they join the workforce. But these girls are seen as different - the word used by the experts was ‘freaks’ – in Japan. While they culturally celebrate cute or ‘kawaii’ things, the Harajuku girls are seen by many as taking it a step too far. Gyaru is actually the main style that most Japanese women adopt. This is a more stylish and sexy version of ‘kawaii’. Street Style and a slightly tougher look with lighter hair is also really popular in Japanese fashion. Magazines like Elle Girl - the younger sister of Elle magazine - is one of the main advocates of street style..

「ラベルはによって購入されている高校生から専門的に誰もが女性。” 72

Status Handbags

Men’s Fashion

Designer labels are absolutely huge in Japan - especially in the Aoyama and Omotesando Hills areas, where many of the designer brands have flagship stores. Labels are viewed differently in Japan, they are bought by everyone, from high school students to professional women. Designer handbags are also seen as status symbols, and some people will even form an emotional attachment to them.

The male fashion market in Japan is nowhere as big as in the UK. The stereotype is that only men under 22 will buy and wear fashionable clothes, whereas men over 22 just wear suits, as that is when they officially enter the workplace.

The Japanese don’t differentiate between brands. So in Europe and the US, we can see that Chanel represents class and sophistication and Tommy Hilfiger represents the all-American lifestyle. In Japan, consumers simply see a designer dress and can’t distinguish between them in anything other than the style.

We often think that the Japanese are very brave and original in their style. But in reality many of them have an inferiority complex, so they try and fit into a specific group or style, in order to gain an identity. Once girls and women are old enough to try and get a job, they dye their hair the traditional and natural Japanese colour of black and start wearing more conservative clothes. There are even magazines that tell them exactly how to get this style right. So at first glance, the Japanese style can appear wild and outrageous, but the reality is much more mundane.

By Allie-May Redmond

“Labels are bought by everyone, from high school students to professional women.”

makeup for

e v e r y day Getting ready for Uni is stressful enough without having to worry about makeup, so Victoria Earls gives you a guide to some easy to use products, perfect for everyday use. A light foundation or a BB cream is great for uni as thicker foundations can oxidise and you don’t want to look like you’re wearing make-up for a night-out in a lecture. I use the Bourjois Happy Light because it’s great for all skin types and keeps the skin hydrated, something you need in a uni lecture hall where the lights and lack of fresh air can dry up your face. Powder wise I think the Maybelline FIT Me is a winner. It’s finely milled, doesn’t cake up and lasts a good few hours. The palest it goes is 110 which is nearly translucent so perfect, if you want a small bit of coverage with this powder then they go up a scale with slightly more pigment in them, depending on your skin tone and colouring.

I think keeping a soft neutral eye with a cat eye liner is best for daytime uni - classic and chic, yet not too showy. The Maybelline Colour Tattoo is a perfect shade on its own or with another shadow. These L’Oreal super liners are fantastic and so simple to use, and they last all day too. I haven’t included a bronzer or highlight but the Colour Wheel from NYC is gorgeous. It is a pink/brown shade so it’s fresh on the cheeks. I would personally put this in the crease of my eye lid to soften the brown shadow. Gives the eye look some warmth and definition.

Finally, the lip products. I love a bold lip so I included this new Revlon Colourburst Matte Balm, it’s so gorgeous. Think MACs Ruby Woo red. Dark, cool toned and suits everyone. I was shocked at how long these last on the lips but it will transfer slightly when eating and drinking. If you’re less bold then these Nivea lip butters are gorgeous. They make your lips so soft and it stays that way even when the butter is off your lips.

Friday Night. University is over for another week and what better way to reward yourself than with some shopping treats! So whether you are having a girlie night in with your housemates or you are out painting the town red, there is something for everyone to feel good and look good. Here are some of my fashion inspirations to get you in the mood.

Cath Kidson Bunnies and Star Vest + Short Set £32 Accessorize Space Dye Cable Boots £10.00

River Island Red Enamel Heart Stud Earrings £2.00 Gossard Retrolution Plunge Bra £42

Gossard Retrolution Brief £16.00 Topshop Lips Pillow Talk £8.00

Topshop Cross Bust Chiﬀon Dress By Wal G £34.00

Oasis Check Pencil Skirt £40.00

New Look Black Block Heel Ankle Strap Sandals £19.99 River Island Large Envelope Clutch Bag £25.00

Topshop Quilted Corset £30.00 Smashbox Be Legendary £15.50 Accessorize Ava Lace String £5.00

Schuh We Are Young Heels Sale: £24.99 75

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Bondage The Beginner’s Guide To

(And Other SexperimentatioN)

After the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ phenomenon of 2012, bondage and kinky fetishes have become a much discussed topic. However, the book misses out the plethora of possible embarrassing, awkward and troublesome situations that your new sexual freedom can get you into - take it from someone who knows. So here I’ve put together a handy guide to allow you an embarrassmentfree dabble into the weird world of sexperimention.

Research thoroughly

Assuming you’re not brave enough to walk into your local Ann Summer’s and ask the sales assistant which restraints chafe the least, always do plenty of research when purchasing things online. Find out all the information you can by checking sizes, materials and reading reviews. When I made the silly mistake of not thoroughly researching the ‘innocent beginner’s sex toy’ I ordered, I ended up with something that – due to its ten inch size – more closely resembled a medieval weapon.

Keep things well hidden

Once you’ve received your exciting new items, find a safe and well hidden spot to keep them in. I thought the bottom of my wardrobe was somewhere no one meddled, until my sixteen year old brother came down the stairs in my newly purchased maid’s outfit - complete with feather duster - and started dusting the living room in front of both of my parents. It was the most mortifying moment of my life. Even worse, he then pulled out under-bust lingerie and asked ‘how this very small skirt works’.

The same goes at uni. When my flatmates just ‘happened’ to come across my collection, rather than being scared and freaked out - as I imagined - they were extremely (even overly) inquisitive and started trying the outfits on. I walked into my room to find my self-titled Geordie ‘lad’ of a flatmate, wearing what turned out to be a quite tight-fitting red latex corset, and my other flatmate tied to my bed using under mattress restraints. Don’t ever let slip that you have a sex tape! I told my flatmates and they got ready with the popcorn, wanting to be entertained by all the gory details of my sex sessions, but they didn’t realise that after they’d seen my vagina, they’d never be able to look at me in quite the same way.

Travel Safely

And if you ever travel with your items, make sure to remove the batteries. Not something that I thought to do, until I stood in the middle of the queue in Tesco wondering what kind of phone vibrates that consistently… judging from their facial expressions, I don’t think the people around me were quite so naïve.

Be cautious when exploring the great outdoors

Sex outside might seem like an exciting and naughty thing to do - especially when you’re drunk - but remember that it is illegal… and more importantly it’s mortifying when you get caught. Maybe you can laugh it off when you’re caught in the act by one of your friends, in an alley near Rock City. But it’s a bit awkward if you take it further and do what I did, and get locked in a multi-storey car park doing the dirty. The police found us about to try and jump out of a 5 metre high window -the lowest one that wasn’t barred

– our excuse that ‘We were in there sheltering from the rain’, didn’t seem to convince them and they had one hell of a view when they checked the CCTV footage.

Sext with care

Compared to the above, sexting may seem a bit tame but do be careful. Once you’ve sent that picture, it could end up anywhere. I had a very intelligent boyfriend who cleverly set a picture of my breasts as my caller ID. One day he lost his phone and so I called it to find it, only for it to be picked up by my Geordie flatmate… I still haven’t lived it down. And if you have a software, such as iPhoto, which backs up all the images you’ve imported from your camera make sure to delete them from there. I didn’t, and one day, while trying to show my photography tutor my most recent work, I accidentally flicked to a picture of me in my underwear. Hopefully these warnings will help you on your way to becoming bondage experts with as little embarrassment as possible, and if not, don’t worry, I’m sure whatever happens, I’ve probably done worse! Someone has to.

Penny Tration

A l l Un i2KN OW a b ou t

Natalie Findlay is a rock singer from Stockport. Her first single ‘Greasy Love’ was very well received, and with an EP released at the beginning of the year and an album on the way, you’re going to be hearing a lot more from her. During her tour she played in Nottingham at Spanky Van Dykes and before the show, I sat down with her and talked all things music, Manchester and coach surfing. When did you start singing? Ermm, I didn’t really take singing seriously until I picked up a guitar and started writing my own stuff, and trying to, like, develop my own vocal style. When did you develop your own style? I think it’s still developing now, and I don’t think I will ever stop. Your influences are constantly changing and developing. I’ll find a great singer and kind of mimic them for a while, and I think that’s how you learn to get your own style. I’d mimic Regina Specter and like other female singers that I really liked. I think doing that you develop your own voice, and your own flare kind of comes out at the same time. You’re from Manchester, a city with a really vibrant music scene, has that influenced your music? Yeah, definitely! You can’t come from a musical city and not be influenced by its heritage. It’d be like growing up in Liverpool and never listening to the Beatles, it just wouldn’t happen. Going to the pub in Manchester, it’s always like The Joy Division and The Smiths on the jukeboxes. It must be engrained deep somewhere in my psyche. You’re living in London now? I hear you’re couch surfing at the moment. (Laughs) Yeah, how did you find that out? Google Okay. Yeah, I split up with my ex a couple of months ago and then I’ve been on tour and just trying to work my own shit out. But I’m moving into a new place soon. It’s actually been quite liberating. I don’t mind living out of a suitcase and like, it’s been a real laugh.

When you’re touring do you get to experience the night-life of the different cities?

It depends what city we are in the next day. If we’ve got to drive for like 5 hours you’ve got to try and get your head down. But no, we probably get pissed every night to be honest. We went out a lot when we were in Europe just because you’ve got to do it, you’ve got to take advantage of being

in those cool cities. We didn’t go out in like Birmingham or anything like that. (laughs) The night-life in Birmingham is one you’ve got to see. I think I saw enough (laughs). I saw enough.

You’ve supported a lot of big names like Jake Bugg and Tom Odell, what was that like? It’s nice when bigger acts take you under their wing and ask you to come on tour. It’s a nice feeling to know that your music is liked and appreciated by your peers as well as like, the knobheads you hang around with at the pub (laughs). You just released your Greasy Love EP is that a precursor to an album? The album should be coming out around like summer time, but I’ve got another EP and a single coming out in March. I’m still trying to figure out what songs I want on the record and I’m trying to knock off the songs I’ve got and replace them with better ones. So I’m just going to keep working towards it until the label goes like ‘Okay, you’ve got to start getting into the studio and record this shit.’

What’s the strangest question you’ve been asked in an interview? Probably that question! Erm, I did a really awkward interview where they asked me, whether I greasy loved or greasy loathed loads of stuff. It was just fucking stupid; I hate stupid questions that don’t mean anything, sometimes it’s funny and sometimes when the interviewer is just a prick, it gets boring really quickly! I’m not saying you’re a prick or anything. (Awkward laughter) Ok, I’ll only ask serious questions from now on then. Space Hopper, Pogo Stick or push scooter? I fucking hate when people ride scooters around London, they look like massive twats. Space Hopper all the way! If you had any super powers what would it be?

Greasy love has been played in a few adverts recently, what did it feel like seeing them? I got told it was going to be on the Misfits advert when I was temporarily homeless. I was staying at my mate’s and we were just getting stoned, making a brew, and then we heard it, and we were like running, trying to Snapchat it to everyone. So it’s a bit of a weird one, hearing your music on TV. I’ve never seen my music video on TV or anything, so I’m looking forward to maybe seeing that. What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you since you’ve started performing? Embarrassing stuff happens to me on a daily basis so I can’t really pinpoint… Oh, I fell down a flight of stairs in Switzerland in front of all the other bands that were playing. Full on smashed my knees in; that was pretty fucking embarrassing. I forgot the fucking lyrics to my own song, that’s the killer for me, when you have to fucking mumble your way through your own song. I think I was just really nervous and sometimes when you overthink about fucking up, you do fuck up. Whereas if you just go with the flow it’s fine.

I’d like to fly, I think that would be really cool. I wish I could fly, but I am scared of heights. Would you use it for good or evil? I don’t know how you could use flying for evil, I’m sure I could find a way. It would be purely for lazy, selfish reasons. I’d just fly around like shitting on people. That sounds evil! (Laughs) Yeah okay, I’d definitely use it for evil. What would you say the highlight of your music career has been so far? Selling out the hundred club in London. We supported Jake there a year and a half ago and I remember thinking ‘Holy shit, if one day I could sell this place out it’d feel fucking amazing’. And then I did and it was such a buzz. I really fucking loved it! DF

ThE NIGHT OF THE KEBAB

After a night out we’ve all stuffed our faces with a doner from the local kebab shop - the one that failed every health and safety test - that leaves you feeling even more queasy. However, on one fateful night, Laura Reynolds found the best kebab in Nottingham. Before promptly forgetting where it was… It had been one of the best nights out of first year. We were celebrating a friend’s birthday, and after a lengthy pre-drinks which resulted in the breaking of several chairs and a fluorescent light (to this day no-one has taken responsibility), we made our way to Coco Tang. Being the freshers that we were, with a newly filled bank balance and an air of naivety, we all had a few cocktails. And by a few, I mean no-one can remember past the first Dirty Cinderella. After what felt like a long night – but was more like an hour and half – we decided to treat ourselves to a McDonalds. But it was a Wednesday night and much to our horror, McDonalds was packed with half-naked ocean goers. After waiting impatiently for a few minutes and getting nowhere, we decided to try another McDonalds, only to find that the next restaurant was worse.

That’s how I stumbled across ‘The Kebab’. A hand made pitta bread, crisp at the edges but soft and chewy underneath, a mass of freshly cooked chicken breast spiced with an unknown, mouth-watering flavouring and topped with loads of salad. Now, I know when we’re drunk we inhale food as if we’ve been stranded on a desert island, but this was different. This was better than a Chicken Legend. Unfortunately, this is where the story turns sour. None of us, not one of the 12 who ate at the kebab shop could remember where it was. Fast-forward two years, to a well-deserved night out after handing in my dissertation

Illustration by Nick Walker

But tonight, we’ve stayed until the bitter end and we want a proper hot, stodgy meal. I was with the same group, so we knew what we were looking for; we couldn’t remember where the shop was, but I did remember laughing at the human-sized chicken inside. To say that we were walking around for a while is an understatement - we turned down 8 taxis, stopped one domestic, and found a fiver on the floor (result). By 4am we’d given up.

"I looked below the glass counter and set my eyes upon the master piece from two years before"

Although my desire for a Chicken legend was overwhelming, we accepted defeat and started the long walk back, painfully aware that the only thing waiting for us was some measly marmite on toast. On the way, we passed a kebab shop and decided to try our luck.

proposal. We’re back at Coco Tang and have learnt nothing from two years earlier.

We started the walk back from Broadmarsh and, went into a kebab shop. I ordered some chips and my friend a chicken kebab. We spoke to the owner while he prepared our food, and he mentioned a brawl which resulted in their mascot being decapitated and removed from the window. And the pieces fell into place. I hadn’t been able to find The Kebab Shop because it had lost the only part of it I remembered – the human sized chicken. I looked below the glass counter, and set my eyes upon the masterpiece from two years before. That freshly cooked, chewy bread that perfectly cooked chicken breast, and that mountain of salad. We’d found it, and to my huge relief it was as delicious as I remembered. Spicy, warming and inexpensive. Now I could tell you where to find this magnificent kebab, but I’m not going to. It’s taken me two years to find, so I won’t be handing out its location to the drunk masses. But I will give you a hint - look out for the neon pink phone number and the barber shop next door. And if you do find it, keep quiet please. Let’s keep the queues to McDonalds. By Laura Reynolds

22 ST. JAMES STREET

The Joys of Non-League

Football

Every Monday discussion with my friends in the morning lecture quickly turns to the weekend’s Premier League action. Arguably the best league in the world, in which millions are wasted by clubs every year, and the overdramatic build-up surrounding games on Super Sunday is - quite frankly - absurd. Sometimes breaking away from the ridiculous hype and media attention surrounding the Premier League can bring fans closer to the grassroots of football. Where the robust nature of the game lives on and teams function on a shoestring budget, if that. I am, of course, talk-

ing about Non-League football - the multitude of leagues that exist below League Two of the English football pyramid. As my grandparents live in the area, Harrogate Town are my favourite Non-League side. When I first saw their name pop up on Soccer Saturday many years ago, I was shocked to discover Harrogate even had a football club, but I knew I had found my second team. My big first step into the unknown world of Non-League football came, during February 2006, when I attended the game against Workington Town, as both Towns played out an uneventful 1-1 draw. Since then my love of the Non-League game has blossomed and I have gone to see Town many times, home and away. I’ve also been to

see my local team, Salford City, who are currently labouring in the 8th tier of English football. For these Non-League sides there is no trophy more valuable than the FA Cup. The lower leagues battle it out during the early rounds, in order to face a big-hitter from the Football League. Success stories for these minnows are few and far between, which only makes the rare cup-sets even more special. For example, last season - for the first time in 25 years - a team from the Non-League beat a Premier League club. To make matters even more impressive, Luton Town were playing away on Norwich’s home turf. The unbridled joy at the end of the match was there for all to see. Stories of these giant killings are part and parcel of the FA Cup’s longstanding tradition. In 1972, Hereford United came through a 2-2 draw at St. James’ Park and then defeated Newcastle United 2-1 in a hard fought replay. This game saw one of the

greatest FA Cup goals ever, scored by the part-time carpenter Ronnie Radford. The crazy pitch invasion which followed set the precedent for heroics in the FA Cup. Wrexham supporters followed this example after beating League Champions Arsenal 2-1 in 1992. Despite these miraculous victories, neither Luton nor Wrexham won another game for over a month. But those brief and magic moments are when supporting a Non-League team makes perfect sense. It’s still a great day if you lose because of the occasion, and it’s an uncontainable, inexhaustible joy following victory. Supporting a Non-League club takes you on a roller-coaster ride of emotions, where the ups and downs change every day, from financial struggles to last minute winners. Some exceptional footballers have made the jump from Non-League football to the Premier League. Chris Smalling was plying his trade at Maidstone United in the Isthmian League Premier Division, before being snapped up by Fulham in 2008 and then Manchester United two years later. Imagine going from playing in front of around 350 people, to playing before crowds 200 times the size in one of the most famous stadiums in the world. There have been other world class footballers to come through the Non-League game. John Barnes started played for Sudbury Court before becoming a Liverpool legend; winning 2 Premier League trophies, 2 FA Cups and 1 League cup. Ian Wright became Arsenal’s record goal-scorer ten years after playing for Greenwich Borough in the Kent League. That’s another reason that Non-League is so exciting; you just don’t know what future star is bubbling in the background. There’s something innately wonderful about the Non-League. It’s football of the purest kind, untainted by the big business of the top leagues. The quality of football may not be as high, but it only costs an inch of supporting a Premier League team. There’s a much more personal nature to following a Non-League side, you feel like a crucial cog in the working nature of the team - like a part of a family. My advice is; find a Non-League team, preferably a local one, and get supporting. You won’t regret it. Nathan Jacobs

The Real Oscars

Nobody likes the Oscars. They’re institutionalised. They don’t celebrate what was truly great in the cinematic year, only what the illuminati, economic-elite , aka The Man, wants us to think was great. The Oscars are part of the greater bastardisation of society along the slippery slope to 1984 Big Brotherhood. So, comrades, it’s time to fight the power! It’s time to throw down these shackles of ‘legitimate meaningful drama’ and embrace our freedom as savvy cinematic consumers. Here’s how the Oscars should’ve turned out:

Best Visual Effects - Sharknado Yeah, Ray Harryhausen might have made special effects a thing. And James Cameron may have re-made the wheel when he birthed Avatar over us all. But did they ever think about ramming sharks and tornadoes together in a blasphemous declaration against

nature? Sharknado did. Sharknado looked at a shark and thought “yeah, it’s cool and everything, but not windy enough” and through pure genius brought to life something previously thought impossible: A tornado. Of sharks. Plus, a guy totally chainsaws

a flying shark and then climbs in the shark and pulls out a women who wasn’t hurt or anything even though she was eaten and then he becomes King of the Wind Sharks and you’ll completely (not at all) believe it.

Best Screenplay - Pacific Rim “Today, we are cancelling the Oscars!” Bellows Idris Elba as he sprints on stage in a whirlwind of testosterone-fuelled rage and pure awesome. Pacific Rim is many things, but it’s principally a subtly composed treatise on the essence of what it means to be human. Chock full of heart wrenching and inspiring metaphors – what are Jaegers if not the cold defensive shell of democracy, blinding us to the evils of the outside world? And what are Kaijus if not the natural world in rebellion against its destruction at the cold, callous hands of man? Pacific Rim is a screenplay for the ages.

Best Actor - James Franco as James Franco in This is the End Anybody can act as another person. You just have to lie over and over again until the director tells you to stop. Big deal. It takes real balls of steel to act as yourself. James Franco must have

(wrecking) balls of steel. Not only did he play himself in the wonderfully complex and intimately touching This is the End, he played ‘a heightened version’ of himself. That’s like a selfier

self, and is therefore inherently superior acting. Put some acting sauce on top of your acting burger and you might get a flirtatious whiff of James Franco.

Best Director - Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight Travesty! Injustice! We’re fighting the good fight here, comrades. The good Oscar fight. And none of us can rest until Christopher Nolan wins an award for something. And since he’ll never make anything better than The Dark Knight let’s stick to that. The

Academy loves steadfast ignorance and determination; it’s why anything more technologically advanced than a cassette player makes them fill up their colostomy bags. So we might have a chance here. A chance for justice. It’s what Batman would’ve wanted.

Best Film: Diana Oh, what’s that? You wanted relatable characters, an engrossing narrative and the film not to make you feel dirty and violated? What are you, an idiot? Only idiots can’t see that Diana is not only the best film of the year, but the best film of the century. And

not in the ‘yeah but the century is only 13 years old’ kind of way, I mean in the full on ‘one hundred bastard years’ way. All of that action, all that adrenal excitement – will she go for a jog? Where did she get those teddies? OH HOLIEST OF SHITS WILL SHE GET

HER HAIR DONE ON TIME?!? – It’s truly cinematic perfection. Other films might ‘look better’ or ‘be more enjoyable,’ but that’s what the Oscars want you to think you like. No. Diana is a post-modern lobotomy through the arsehole. It is …Oscar.

Bonus Round (the awards Oscar should dish out but are too ‘system’ to do so) Best Nepotistic Orgy – After Earth You! Yeah, you! You will never be as good as any of the Smiths. Ever. Only Smiths are good enough to appear in Smith movies, and Smith movies are the best because of reasons. Will Smith was cool once 20 years ago and has

Best Use of the Colour Blue – Star Trek Into Darkness

What do you remember about Star Trek Into Darkness? Don’t worry I’ll tell you: all the blue. Scenes are blue, bras are blue, the lighting is blue, costumes are blue, walls are blue, and spaceships are blue. And you. You are blue. As in sad knowing you can never love blue as much as Star Trek does. Have a special commemorative blue Oscar on us, Star Trek.

no shame flagellating his remaining cred in a desperate attempt to ram his son so far down our throats we crap out perfect little nuggets of Jaden Smith diamond. And we’ll be thankful because Jaden Smith tastes delicious.

Because he’s a Smith. After Earth is therefore the actual best film of the year, but is too good for any old Oscar. It instead earns the Smithscar award. Bow peons.

Best Role for Arnold Schwarzenegger That He Didn’t Take – Jay Gatsby, The Great Gatsby The man is a party animal. Have you seen that face? That sagging, upsetting, like boiled leather stretched across a lawnmower face? It’s a sign of a life well lived, partying it up night after night. Arnie would’ve owned this role. And the post-party scenes would’ve been far more entertaining, as Arnie Gatsby (as he’d insist on being called) forces each of his guests into a

survivor-esque competition to sweat out their hangovers. In a bonus ending Toby Maguire’s Nick Carroway gets a hernia.

Zack Fox 87

WWWW

The Evil Truth of Game Shows If you’re a student - or injured - you’ll be well acquainted with daytime TV. That vast no-man’s land of destitute time stretching from noon till the evening. Where television debases into mind-numbing ‘chat’ shows, trash hunts and old men watching trees, all led by a glistening, gurning David Dickinson. There are also game shows. A lot of game shows. In fact, there are so many game shows on British television that they can’t all be herded into the same singular daytime slot like mangy sheep, instead proliferating across our noble TV schedule like a plague of destructive dreams. After all, there’s no premise so addictive as the prospect of free and easy money in return for limited skill. But what if game shows are darker than that? Here we present the truth behind the leading game shows. This ‘knowledge’ will make watching them far more interesting. By Zack Fox & Dan Fine DEAL OR NO DEAL IS PURGATORY If you do a Google search for Noel Edmunds the first suggested result, outside of his majestic name, is ‘Noel Edmunds Death.’ Now of course this isn’t because the owner of the glorious goatee is dead. At least…that’s what they want you to think. But what if this is a truth hidden in plain sight? What if *GASP* Noel Edmunds is indeed dead, and is in fact a weirdly benevolent ghost with a fetish for red cubes and tight jeans? Suddenly Deal or No Deal seems somewhat… creepier. Think about it: a group of complete strangers are gathered, they live together for an indeterminable period of time, and the only way of leaving – or ‘winning’ – is by being selected by the omnipotent spirit of Noel Edmunds, to compete for a glorious (red boxes) or miserable (blue boxes) future. Deal or No Deal is a form of flashy purgatory where unsettled spirits are imprisoned in Edmunds’ ethereal plain of semi-existence to compete for ascension to either heaven or hell. And the Banker? God obviously, he’s the one who makes the deals...and by ‘deal’ I mean ‘contract for eternal after-life.’

THE CUBE IS A SECRET MILITARY TRAINING PROGRAMME The Cube is that weird programme where the divinely-haired Phillip Scofield grins at a conveyor belt of flapping fools as they perform a series of remedial memory/spatial awareness tasks for money. It seems like another pointless game show, but it’s not. In the face of extensive budget cuts to the armed forces, the military devised a more cost-effective way of secretly vetting candidates. They are given an invitation to take part in The Cube. A game show that tests everything. As well as your memory and spatial awareness, it also tests speed, dexterity…erm… how well you can bWounce a thing in to another thing. And all of these things are key skills for the army. Those who get to £20,000 are sent to a secret military camp, where their fitness and strength are tested. Those who get to £50,000 are automatically enlisted into the SAS and those who get to £100,000 or higher are immediately dropped into a hostile country and told to “Fuck shit up”. In any future wars Britain gets involved in, it will be contestants of The Cube on the frontline.

POIN T L E S S I S A P H I LO S OP H Y E X P ER I M EN T Pointless is like a QI derivative that makes sense, testing obscure knowledge but with an actual score system. In effect, it prioritises the wonderful people of the world who compulsively read IMDB trivia pages or are fans of the ‘random article’ button on Wikipedia. It’s also a sinister philosophy experiment. What if Pointless is pointless? You compete against others answering questions, aiming for pointless answers to win a pointless trophy. In the game of Pointless, you are also pointless. The only way to win the often not-worth-the-effort prize money, is to be the most pointless couple amongst all of your pointless adversaries. Even Richard Osman’s laptop is pointless as it’s famously never on. There’s only one conclusion to draw from these dramatic insights: Pointless is an experiment into the attraction of nihilism. It shows its contestants how wonderful life is when everything means nothing, possibly as part of a wider Machiavellian plot to turn Britain into a society of apathetic anarchists. Maybe.

DICKINSON’S REAL DEAL IS DAVID DICKINSON’S PARANOID FANTASY There’s no doubt in my entirely rational mind that David Dickinson has suffered some serious trauma somewhere along the line. He’s one of the most alarming TV personalities still in the business: that hair; that skin; that smile; those suits…he’s like Beetlejuice by way of the monarchy and the sun itself. But enough Dickinson bashing, bottom line is that the man is clearly insane and his hit show Dickinson’s Real Deal is his personal form of therapy. He roves about the country, hunting down the contents of people’s attics, where he proceeds to just sort of touch stuff, smile to himself and be generally unhelpful to everyone. Then, when innocent souls turn up to actually make a bit of money, he brazenly swaggers into shot offering advice like the raving, lost, madman he is. Here’s betting he’s never once worked in antiques and his psychiatrists don’t know what to do with him anymore. Maybe they’re just hoping he gets lost.

CELEBRITY JUICE IS CONTROLLING THE COUNTRY Celebrity Juice is the ridiculous panel show hosted by ‘Keith Lemon’, along with Holly ‘Willoubooby’ and Fearne Cotton. Every week there are a new selection of celebrity guests, all competing in a silly activities-based game show. It seems senseless and irreverent, and that’s just the point. Keith Lemon and his sidekicks are actually in control of the country. With their vast wealth they have the government in their pocket and every policy, whether domestic or international, goes through them. Reports even suggest that David Cameron has to call Lemon, to request to go to bed. With ultimate power in his grasp, Lemon needed a hobby, and so he created Celebrity Juice. He defaces himself in public, and people around the country watch it and think him an idiot. When in reality he’s one of the smartest, most ruthless businessmen alive, and could conscript us all into the army. It’s his way of giving us the middle finger. Fellow TV viewers, it is a matter of time before Lemon gets bored and decides to play with the British public in a much more vicious way. We must rise up and make a stand against his tyrannical rule… after I’m A Celebrity… and Take me Out… Oh, and apparently Big Brother is good again.

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Cheats Chicken Biryani

It’s Sunday night, you’re exhausted after a long day of being hungover and all you want is a takeaway. But you spent far too much of your student loan last night and a £10 Indian is looking unlikely. If this sounds familiar, this recipe is for you. It only uses one saucepan and you can make it faster than any take-away would arrive! There may be a few ingredients that your average student cupboard won’t stock, but the £5 you’ll spend on spices here will make well over 50 curries - a huge money saver.

Ingredients: Ser ves 4 - 300g basmati rice - 1 large onion, finely sliced - 25g butter - 1 tbsp olive oil - 3 cardamom pods - 1 bay leaf - 1 tsp turmeric - 4 skinless chicken breasts, cut into large chunks - 4 tbsp curry paste, strength to taste - 85g raisins - 850ml chicken stock - chopped coriander and toasted flaked almonds to serve

Instructions: 1. Rinse the rice in a sieve with cold water. In a saucepan, melt the butter and oil and fry the onion with the bay leaf, cardamom pods and turmeric on a low heat for ten minutes. 2. Add the chicken and curry paste and cook through. 3. Stir the rice into the pan with the raisins and add the stock. Place the lid on the pan, or put a plate on top if you don’t have a lid to fit. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer cooking the rice for another 5 minutes. Check the seasoning for salt and pepper if needed. 4. Turn off the heat and leave covered for 10 minutes to let the rice soak up the remaining stock and finishing cooking through. 5. Stir well, mixing through half the coriander. To serve, scatter over the remaining coriander and almonds. Laura Reynolds

Homemade Stomach Liners Nights-Out are treacherous territory. Drink on an empty stomach and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be lucky if you last till 12, eat too much beforehand and you may well be throwing up all too soon. A delicate balance is required â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which is where Laura Reynolds comes in - offering a list of easy meals to settle the stomach. Whether you're just heading out for a 'few drinks' at the SU on a Thursday night or you've got a big night out planned that won't see you get to a kebab shop before 4am, you're going to need to eat something substantial to stop you falling short at the first bar. Generally speaking, carbohydrates are the go-to food. Here are five quick meals that you can fit in before getting ready, that should keep your stomach settled and free from hunger until your well deserved cheesy chips. All these recipes feed one but can easily be doubled up or more. ULTIMATE MACARONI CHEESE

HOMEMADE BAKED BEANS

This is a very simple recipe and one you can leave to cook while deliberating over pre-drinks in Tesco. Start by boiling 100g macaroni pasta in salted water. In a small frying pan, chop up and cook 2 bacon rashes. While that's cooking, make your cheese sauce. Melt 15g butter in a saucepan and add 15g plain flour. Using a wooden spoon, beat the mixture over the heat for a minute until it turns into a dough and the flour cooks a little. Add 350ml milk a bit at a time. Season with salt and pepper, and add 50g cheddar cheese. Drain the pasta, mix in with the sauce and pour into an oven-proof dish. Mix in some chopped cherry tomatoes and the fried bacon bits. Top with some more grated cheese and bake for 20-25 mins at 180 degrees.

Use the same recipe as the tomato soup and make into some proper home-made baked beans. Add 1 tin cannelloni bean, 2 tsp paprika, 2 tsp Worchester sauce and 1tsp chilli flakes. Place in an oven proof dish and bake for 25 minutes at 170 degrees. Remove, crack 1 egg on top and place back in the oven for 5 minutes for a runny yoke. Serve with crusty bread double carbs for the hungry.

FISH CAKES

EASY TOMATO SOUP WITH CRUSTY BREAD Probably the easiest recipe you'll ever come across. Fry 1/2 red onion finely chopped on a low heat until softened. Empty 1 tin of chopped tomatoes into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer, add 2 tsp sugar, salt and pepper to taste, and cook for 10 minutes. Add the onion, and finish by stirring through some torn basil leaves. Serve straight away with as much warm crusty bread as you can eat, you'll need it to soak up the alcohol.

Potatoes are a great carbohydrate for slow released energy and won't make you feel so full that drinking seems unbearable. Boil 2 large potatoes until tender. Drain and lightly mash. Add 1 tin tuna, 2 sliced spring onions and salt and pepper to taste. Mould into two large fish cakes and fry on a low heat until golden brown on each side. Serve with a side salad, a lemon wedge and mayonnaise.

THE MAN, THE LEGEND

Har mar superstar Sean Matthew Tillman is an R&B star like no other. Tillman - who is often said to look like a chubby Ron Jeremy – performs under the persona of Har Mar Superstar and will often play gigs while doing headstands and stripping almost completely. Uni2 sat down with the man himself, to find out more. WHY HAR MAR SUPERSTAR? I don’t know, it was just the name of a project. It’s the name of a mall in Minneapolis which is where I’m from, so I was always there and it just sort of rolls off the tongue. I was doing all this R&B stuff and I thought naming myself after a mall was cool. (Laughs) WHEN DID YOU DISCOVER YOU WERE IRRESISTIBLE? Man, I don’t know. I don’t really know whether I’ve discovered that yet, I’ve definitely been resisted (laughs). I’ve felt irresistible many times, but that’s just every time I get drunk, so I suppose that’s every night. Here we go, time to drink the irresistible juice. DID YOU ENJOY FILMING FOR PITCH PERFECT?

Oh yeah, it was super fun. I was dragged in for a day. We got there and me, John, Jason had to meet Elizabeth Banks and the director and then go and sing this

T Pain song. We were the only ones who actually sung for it, the others were lip synching. We really showed them up and then we were told we could leave. They didn’t want us there for that long apparently. WHAT’S THE WEIRDEST QUESTION YOU’VE BEEN ASKED IN AN INTERVIEW? Oh, I don’t know really. Probably something like ‘why aren’t more people at your show?’ They aren’t particularly weird, more insulting! It’s weird and harsh and they expected an answer. I don’t know how to answer that, I was like ‘I don’t know, why do people hate you?’ The unanswerable questions are weird. FOR THE VIDEO ‘TALL BOY’, YOU WERE DRENCHED IN MILK, HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU HAVE TO SHOOT THIS SCENE? It had to happen twice and I needed to be cleaned up both times. People questioned it, I just shouted at them ‘you just threw a gallon of milk at me!’ I had to hose myself off in the parking lot and then redo. We did it within half an hour. We hired a special camera for the day and it costs a tonne so we wanted to get stuff done as quickly as possible.

HOW DID YOU PERSUADE EVA MENDES INTO DOING THE VIDEO? Well you’d be surprised, but she’s a massive fan of Har Mar so it wasn’t that difficult. I can’t remember how we met, must have just been at one of the LA parties when I was feeling irresistible. WHICH HAS BEEN YOUR FAVORITE VIDEO TO SHOOT? I think ‘DUI’ was, just because of the knee slide. We just knocked that out overnight in a random pet store.

DO YOU EVER USE CHAT UP LINES? Nope, I don’t really like talking, I just like pointing and mouthing – you… YOU’VE GOT QUITE A BOLD FASHION SENSE, WHERE DO YOU SHOP? Shit just ends up on me. I like to go to Top Shop and go to the random racks, you know the ones with the crazy shit on them - the ugly stuff. I call it the Har Mar rack. WHERE DO YOU LOOK FOR INSPIRATION WHEN WRITING SONGS? Well, the weather inspires me. When it’s shitty and stuff, I just tend to hideout and go into a cave and just write.

THERE’S A YOUTUBE CLIP OF YOU THROWING A PLATE OF SOMETHING AT A WOMAN IN THE CROWD DURING A GIG. WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT? Oh, yeh! I saw these tator tots (hash browns) on the edge of the stage, I was just playing a gig at a friend’s bar and I thought I’d make it ‘rain’ tator tots. I thought it was a sturdy plate but it was just a paper plate and it ‘malfunctioned’ on me. They just ended up on this one woman at the front, they went all over her. I was really embarrassed after that, but I was more embarrassed for her. She was having such a good time, but you’ve just got to take the show to the next level sometimes. SJ

HAVE YOU EVER MET RON JEREMY? Yeh, he came to present something at a show I was at, and I thought I have to meet this guy and get a picture with him. I went over to him and he was actually holding a picture of me, so I asked him “looking for me?” He kinda forgot about that and I met him at another weird premiere party for some TV show and we chatted about movies for hours, he’s really intelligent - he used to be like a science professor before becoming a porn star. It was funny though, before we‘re-met’, I just followed him round and shouted “Dad, dad, dad, pay attention to me dad!” ON STAGE YOU TEND TO BE TOPLESS, IS THERE A SPECIFIC SONG YOU TAKE IT OFF FOR? No, not really. I just get hot. I like to mix it up though, I’ve started a show pretty much naked before and then gradually just got more and more clothed. I’ve come on with just an umbrella as well there’s no real programme. I tend to just take the shirt off because it becomes too sweaty, it’s awful. I’m just saving tops. People expect it now, they come for the weirdness of the show.

e g n u l P Taking the

Bungee Jumping

Last A pril , my boy f r i e n d g ave m e a n ' E xperi en c e Day f o r Two' w i t h t he c hoi ce of thr ee a ct iv it ies ; zo r b i n g , Se g w ay to u r s o r b ungee j ump i ng. Unwr a p p i ng i t , my eyes f licke d over t h e a c t i v i t i e s a n d a n “o o t ha n k you” ca me out a s I i ma gi ned hur tl i ng d own a hi l l i n a zo rb ball. M u c h to my d i sm ay , my b oyf r i e n d l aughed a nd tol d me tha t we wer e goi ng b ungee jumping. Af ter pu t t in g off b o o k i n g f o r a b o u t f o u r m o nths, I f i na l l y d eci d ed to ta ke the p l unge. I r a ng up UK Bunge e Club - vou ch er i n h a n d . I w a s to l d t ha t , a s i t w a s comi ng to the end of the yea r, i t wa s a l r ea d y q ui te b oo ke d up. I crossed my fingers and hoped there wouldn't be any more places available… Then he said: “Oh wait , we have a slot av a i l a bl e t h i s Su n d ay i n B i r m i n g ha m . ” G r e a t , so i n f our d ays I wa s goi ng to thr ow mysel f of f a 160ft c rane .

THE DAY On the morning of the bungee jump I woke up a bundle of nerves, eating was out of the question. My breakfast consisted of one spoonful of Weetabix before I felt too sick to eat anymore. Lunch was much the same - the sick feeling in my stomach would not go away.

that are fastened extremely tightly around your angles. With only about 10cm between them, it meant I either had to waddle or jump two footed towards the cage – all dignity out the window. A harness was then put round my waist which was attached to the backup bungee cord.

As we pulled up to Tamworth Water-ski Centre amongst the beautiful lakes and scenery, all I could look at was the giant crane. That was the first time of many that I said, “I can't do this.” At the check in tent, we saw loads of really excited couples and families waiting to do the bungee jump. My emotions and my boyfriend’s went the complete opposite way; his excitement grew as did my dread and fear.

THE JUMP

Being practically pushed in to the tent, I reluctantly signed the form and read the safety brief. I stood on the weighing scales so they could determine which bungee cord would be the most suitable for me. We walked out of the tent and sat down with the other eight people allocated for that time. The first person had their ankle straps put on and the bungee cord attached, before getting into the cage and being hoisted up. After watched eight other people jump my nerves had slightly settled, as each person came down with smiles on their faces ecstatically expressing how good it was. My ankle straps were put on. They are essentially material handcuffs

The journey up was tense. The cage lifted off the ground and I knew there was no going back. I needed reassuring so I asked the two staff members, “Have you done this before?” hoping they'd tell me how much they loved it. The response was: “No way. It looks terrifying.” Not the answer I was looking for. The crane slowly lifted the cage and I said to myself, “Don't look down.” We got to the top and I instantly looked down. People looked like ants, and trees were the size of toothpicks. I was absolutely terrified. The little door in the cage opened and I could feel the cage rocking in the wind as I moved to the edge. I was asked to stand with my toes over the edge and hold onto either side. My face drained of colour, and I felt myself gulp as the realisation of what I was about to do kicked in. I was told that they would count down from three and then I had to jump but nothing in my body was telling me that purposefully throwing myself off a 160ft crane was a good idea.

I heard “three, two, one, bungee” and amazingly I did it! It's incredible how fast I fell. Before I knew it the ground was a lot closer than it was three seconds ago. I could feel my heart racing until the bungee cord kicked in and the ground receded again as I bounced back up. Screaming as I fell the second time, I found that it was a bit slower and more enjoyable this time. Bungee jumping is definitely a once in a lifetime experience and although it's probably the most terrifying thing I've ever done, it's also one of the most exhilarating. Gemma Brown

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Drinking Games from Around the World...

beer This is the third entry in this series, we’ve covered drinking games from Germany and America, so now it’s time to turn to the home of the vodka… Russia. This should fill you with dread, Russians are renowned for their drinking prowess, a country which has been invaded numerous times throughout history, but always repelled, and whose citizens drink the cheapest, strongest vodka to combat the long, cold winters. As a result Russians are much hardier than us Brits, who start to feel a bit queasy after a couple glasses of Pimms in the summer sunshine or need to lie down after a couple shots of Baileys after one of Britain’s very mild winter days that we complained was ‘bitterly cold’.

vodka To play this game all you will need is: One large beer mug

refill the vodka with beer. The mug then continues to go round until all the players have either passed out or their livers have corroded.

Lots of Beer Vodka Get a group of people together (five is recommended) and fill the mug up to the top with beer. Then simply pass the mug around, each person takes a sip of beer. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Well, now comes the bad part. After drinking each person refills the mug with – you guessed it – vodka. The game continues until the beer is finished and the mug is completely filled with vodka. At which point, the sequence is repeated but players

So if you’re bored of tame games of Ring of Fire and Higher or Lower at pre-drinks and want something even more intense… I can’t recommend Bear Paw even slightly, but I’m sure some of you will play it anyway (idiots). *Please try not to kill yourself

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JOEL RANKOFF Students’ have long been apathetic toward the student’s union as a political institution. This paper believes that only Joel Rankoff can restore students’ belief in the system and convince them to reengage with the political process. Mr. Rankoff comes from an aggressively middle class background. Born on the tough streets of Ilford, Essex, Joel saw the impoverishment of his local community and vowed to do something about it. So he decided to study accounting at University, and is now in the fourth year of a three year course. The financial expertise he has picked up, has helped him devise the most in-depth fiscal policy in the history of the university. A tent-pole aspect of this is to aggressively slash the budget for education and facilities, in order to purchase a new university mascot – a parrot named Ian. Ian will be housed in the library, where she will act as moral support for struggling students during their energy drink, fuelled all-nighters. At a recent campaign fundraiser, Mr. Rankoff stated his increasing concern regarding the “growing segregation” between British and international students. He believes that “the wide variety of accents are a barrier to communication”, which results in foreign students being “increasingly isolated” when they first move to the UK. In order to smooth this transition, he will introduce a ‘Say Jif’ policy to international nights whereby students must correctly pronounce the word ‘Jif’ on the door. Any who fail will be denied entry. Despite this, he reiterated his “continued commitment” towards Diversity… who he has seen live five times. At the same meeting, when questioned about the SU’s proposed policy of introducing quangos (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations) to oversee the work done by democratically elected members of the Union, Mr. Rankoff replied: “Having quangos in the office would really help boost team moral. I especially like the brown-feathered ones, and I wholly condemn the Australians for their culling of the creatures”.

Mr. Rankoff also feels very strongly about the “encroaching nepotism” within the union. To purge this preferential treatment and ensure all appointments are decided purely on the basis of meritocracy, Mr. Rankoff plans to commission an independent enquiry - to produce a report on measures to increase the transparency of the union’s recruitment procedures. The commission will be headed by Mr. Rankoff’s girlfriend, on a full salary, who will also be employing her sister – “to help with paperwork”. Mr. Rankoff’s dangerously ‘on the fence’ approach to the politics, makes him the perfect representative for a student body that doesn’t give a shit about SU elections, and his well-thought out, ingenious policies are sure to see the SU to move in a completely different direction from before.

THETHIRD

KNIPPLE

Use your imagination

and * Rankoff vote

Pork Pie, Sausage Roll, Come on Trent, Vote for Joel

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