Convicted - The Cambridge Student

Transcription

01/11/07 Michaelmas term
Volume 10 Issue 6
ACCESS
Convicted
St John’s:
Sidney Sussex bursary
manager found guilty of
£56,000 theft
Catherine Watts
Jonathan Laurence
A high-ranking college official
who stole £56,000 from the student bar has escaped jail. Robert
Page, former bursary manager
at Sidney Sussex College, was
handed a suspended sentence
after he admitted charges of theft
and false accounting.
Page, 62, had worked at Sidney
for more than 40 years. He joined
the college office after moving
through the ranks from his first
job as a part-time waiter.
From the senior position of
bursary manager he siphoned
off student bar takings and manipulated accounts to cover his
tracks.
Cambridge Crown Court
heard that the thefts had been
going on since 2001. But they had
only come to light in 2006 when
an inspection discovered a shortfall in bar accounts.
Page told The Cambridge
Student (TCS) that he voluntarily admitted to his wrong-doing
before a college investigation
could confront him with evidence of the offences.
Even when college dismissed
him he was still allowed to keep
his full pension. Despite using
his £34,000 pension funds to pay
back what he stole, the college
were still left more than £22,000
short.
In court, Judge Jonathan
Haworth told Page, “You thought
you could borrow the money
and pay it back...It reached the
point, I suspect, that you had no
idea of the total you had taken.
You were under the impression
it was £34,000, but it was nearer
£56,000 in total.”
Page pleaded guilty to one
charge of theft and nine counts
of false accounting. But he requested 38 other charges relating to the case to be taken into
consideration.
Melanie Benn, defence counsel, said: “Mr Page had personal medical issues, his wife
and mother were both ill, he had
trouble coming to terms with
the death of his nephew and
he was in debt. He has shown a
great deal of remorse over what
has happened.”
Page had run up massive debts
by using credit cards to pay for
renovation work to his house.
Prior to the case, he had expressed a wish to donate the
house to Sidney Sussex College,
but now believes that this donation may no longer be
appropriate.
Because of his previous good
record and concerns over the
care of his wife, his 12-month
prison sentence was suspended
for 18 months.
He also received an 18-month
supervision order and was instructed to complete 120 hours
of unpaid work.
When contacted by TCS, he
said that he wanted to re-iterate
how sorry he was, but declined
to provide further comment.
A Sidney Sussex spokesman
told Cambridge Evening News:
“Mr Page had been a senior figure in the college administration
for many years and was trusted.
“We are dismayed that that
trust was abused and notified
police as soon as the thefts were
discovered.
“The authorities decided
to take court action and it is
good that the matter is now
finally closed.”
NIED
E
D
SS
ACCE
pg. 3
INTERVIEW
Iain Duncan
Smith
pg. 6
IMPACT
HALLOWEEN
around the
WORLD
pg. 12
SPORT
Queens’ Ergs
Robert Page had worked at Sidney Sussex College for over 40 years Cambridge Newpapers Ltd
Q1: MATHEMATICS
What is the cube root squared of Ticketmaster’s phone number 0870 902 0000?
Oxford and Cambridge go Head to Head at Twickenham on Thursday Dec 6. KO 4pm. Get tickets and test your mental agility at varsitymatch.org
pg. 31
22
IMPACT
The Cambridge Student 01/11/07
Listings
Theatre
Film
Music
Other stuff
Shock and awe in the black comedy
triumph ‘Mr Kolpert’, at the ADC
until Saturday
All of the film times below are for
the Arts Picturehouse, St. Andrew’s
Street, unless stated otherwise
We would zhoosh our riah, powder
our eeks, climb into our bona new
drag, don our batts and troll off.
Don’t miss the fireworks on
Midsummer Common next Monday
1
Thu
James and the Giant Peach
ADC Theatre, 19:00, £5/£6
Mr Kolpert ADC Theatre, 21:00,
£4/£5
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Tulip Touch 19:00 and
Cigarettes and Chocolate 21:30
Corpus Playroom
Eastern Promises (★★) 12:00,
14:10, 18:30, 20:40
Once 12:15, 21:20
The Counterfeiters16:20
The Return 17:00
Sicko (★★★★) 13:40, 16:10, 18:40,
21:10
The Witnesses (★★★) 14:15, 19:00
28 Weeks Later 21:00 (John’s)
Beverley Knight
Corn Exchange, 7:30pm, £22.50
Watching birds
Kettle’s Yard, 13:10, free. A lunchtime
talk.
2
Fri
£5/£6
Corpus Playroom
3
Sat
ADC Theatre, 14:30/19:00, £6/£7
£5/£6
Corpus Playroom
Sicko (★★★★) 16:30, 21:00
Once 12:00, 14:00, 19:00
18:50, 21:10
Drawing Restraint 9 14:15
Elizabeth: The Golden Age 13:00,
15:30, 18:00, 20:30
A History of Violence 23:20
Sicko (★★★★) 16:30, 21:15
Once 12:00, 14:00, 19:15
18:50, 21:10
15:30, 18:00, 20:30
Not One Less 20:00 (Newnham)
A History of Violence 23:20
The Memory Thief 17:00
Sicko (★★★★) 16:30, 21:00
Once 14:00, 19:00
18:50, 21:10
15:30, 18:00, 20:30
Simpsons Movie 19:00, 22:00 (John’s)
Faro 17:00
Red Road 12:00
4
Sun
Sicko (★★★★) 16:00, 21:00
Once 12:00, 14:00, 17:00
18:50, 21:10
15:30, 18:00, 20:30
5
Mon
6
Tue
An Inspector Calls Fitzpatrick
Theatre, 19:30
Waiting for Godot Mumford
Theatre 19:30, £8/£9.50
Fame ADC Theatre 19:45 £6/£8
Smoker ADC Theatre, 23:00, £5/£6
7
Wed
An Inspector Calls Fitzpatrick
Theatre, 19:30
Waiting for Godot Mumford
Theatre 19:30, £8/£9.50
Fame ADC Theatre,19:45, £6/£8
The Zoo Story ADC Theatre 23:00,
£4/£5
The Collection Fitzpatrick Hall,
23:00
Sicko (★★★★) 16:30, 21:00
Once 12:00, 14:00, 19:00
18:50, 21:10
Matthew Barney: No Restraint 12:00
15:30, 18:00, 20:30
The Great Dictator 13:30
Sicko (★★★★) 16:30, 21:00
Once 14:00, 19:00
18:50, 21:10
Matthew Barney: No Restraint 12:00,
15:00
15:30, 18:00, 20:30
So bona to vada
Oh you
Your lovely eek and
Your lovely riah
Shy Child / The Whip
Soul Tree, 7pm, £6
Exchanging palare
You wouldn’t understand
Good sons like you never do
Jools Holland and his Rhythm &
Blues Orchestra with Lulu
Corn Exchange, 7:30pm, Sold Out
Unlucky Ducky
So why do you smile when you think
about Earl’s Court ?
But you cry when you think of all?
Southside Johnny and
the Asbury Jukes
The Junction, 6pm, £20
Trevor Price
Intimacy and Ecstasy, Cambridge
Contemporary Art, Nov 2-25.
Bird-making Workshop
Kettle’s Yard, 13:00-15:30, £10 (£6
conc)
Wax and Gold Writing Workshop,
The Fitzwilliam Museum, 13:30-16:30,
£10 (£8 conc)
Naked Stage
A performance of new Cambridge
stage writing, CB2 Cafe, 19:30, £3
On the rack I was
Easy meat
and a reasonably good buy
A reasonably good buy
The Cheekbones
Anastasia House, 3am, Tenners
And me, I’m just a dilly boy
Fresh flower pressed Piccadilly boy
Hands on hips,
Pout on lips
Make Model
Barfly (Graduate), 7:30pm, £5
The Piccadilly Palare
was just silly slang
Between me
and the boys in my gang
Ruby Muse and Bernard Hoskin
CB2, 9pm, £4
‘cause in a belted coat
Oh, I secretly knew
That I hadn’t a clue
Funfair and Fireworks
Midsummer Common, 18:00-22:00
(Fireworks at 19:30), free
The Multiverse
Ultimate Causation and God, a talk by
Prof. George Ellis, Queen’s Building
Lecture Theatre, Emmanuel College,
17:30
Richard Mabey
Hartington Grove Friends’ Meeting
House, 19:30, £3
Art in context
Ethiopian encounters: explorers and
collectors, The Fitzwilliam Museum,
13:15, free
Lord Levy
The Cambridge Union, 19:30
2 NEWS
Waiter, there’s a
fly in my coffee
NEWS IN BRIEF
SRCF hacked
The SRCF, who provides
computing and networking
services for staff, students and
the Cambridge societies, has
been hacked into. This breech
of security was the result of
a hacker exploiting access to
a user account. SRCF claims
that the problem is now
under control. Still it asks all
member to reset passwords
and check recent activity
summaries.
Stephen Brothwell
Donovan uni to teach
meditation Gene C Feldman
An invincible
university?
An unlikely alliance between
the singer Donovan and film
director David Lynch has
resulted in plans for a new
university. The ‘Invincible
Donovan University’ is due
to be built in Edinburgh
or Glasgow and will teach
traditional academic
subjects alongside courses in
transcendental meditation. “I
know it sounds like an airyfairy hippy dream to go on
about ‘60s peace and love,”
said Donovan, “but the world
is ready for this now, it is clear
this is the time.”
Watson resigns
from post
Dr James Watson, the exCambridge scientist heavily
criticised for allegedly racist
remarks, has resigned from his
position at the US Cold Spring
Harbor Laboratory. He said,
“the circumstances in which
this transfer is occurring are
not those which I could ever
have anticipated or desired”.
Closed for business: Starbucks is temporarily shut due to a fly infestation
The Market Street Starbucks has
shut its doors because of an infestation of fruit flies.
Health and Safety officers inspected the café following a tip
off from some disgruntled customers appalled by the number
of flies in the serving area.
In response, Starbucks Coffee
Company told The Cambridge
Student that “we took the decision to temporarily close the
Cambridge Market Street store.
“The store is currently undergoing remedial work including a
deep clean, internal painting and
a rearrangement of the back of
house area.
“Starbucks would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience this may cause and we
hope to open the store as soon as
possible.”
This has left one customer unsatisfied. A second year from
Robinson College told TCS that
she noticed the problem two
weeks before any action was
taken. “I was disgusted when I
noticed that the sign above the
counter was crawling with flies,
and then I saw them around the
sugar and spoons. It was gross.
“I made a mental note not to
return because I was concerned
about the cleanliness and condition of my food.”
Flies are feared by the hospitality trade as they can bite customers, contaminate foodstuffs and
even spread diseases.
Each fly is capable of carrying
over one hundred pathogens and
they reproduce quickly, making
them hard to expel.
“I was disgusted.
I saw flies around
the sugar and
spoons”
The issue has been taken seriously by the City Council, whose
investigations remain ongoing.
A spokesman for the city’s
Environmental Health Office
said they were “happy with the
approach my staff have taken
and Starbucks’ response so far”.
Although they declined to make
any specific comment they did
say that infestations of this type
were more common in the summer months.
He was keen to remind all
Cambridge residents that if they
had any similar food hygiene concerns they should contact the council. .
Peterhouse blue Fee Controversy
College will not hold a May Ball in 2008
Alex Coke-Woods
Peterhouse May Ball “has not
been cancelled,” according to
the college’s JCR President, Ben
Fisher – it just won’t be going
ahead this year.
The next May Ball at the college will now take place in Easter
Term 2009, following a decision
made by Peterhouse’s Governing
Body to hold the event once every
three years rather than biennially,
as it has been in the past.
College authorities are said to
have been concerned about the
effects of organising a ball on the
college’s academic performance,
preferring to limit any potential
Image: Craig Brooks-Rooney`
strain on the league tables to a
once-in-an-undergraduate-lifetime experience.
And according to Ben Fisher,
any student resistance to the decision is almost certainly doomed
to failure. Despite JCR efforts to
have the ball reinstated in 2008,
“there will be no changing of
minds,” he said.
“Peterhouse is the smallest
college with only 250 undergraduates, and a committee of
16 constitutes 6% of that population”, Fisher continued. “If
the exam results of all these people were to suffer because of a
Ball, that would be a big blow to
the college’s overall academic
performance.”
Peer proposes lifting of top-up fee cap
Will Wearden
Owen Kennedy
A former top civil servant has
sparked controversy by calling
for the lifting of the cap on topup fees. Lord Butler, cabinet secretary from 1988 to 1998, now
master of University College Oxford, has claimed that affluent
university students should bear
more of the financial burden of
their education.
Butler, writing in the Oxford
Magazine, said that the proposed
fee-hike was “clearly in the public interest”, and urged that there
be a “gradual” increase of the current limit. The maximum £3000 a
year that publicly funded universities can charge at present is due
for review in 2009.
Cambridge Education Not for
Sale (ENS) supporters responded
to calls for higher fees by picketing the Senate House and the Old
Schools (university offices) yesterday morning. ENS states that it
is committed to fighting for “universal, free, publicly funded…
education”.
Ed Maltby from Cambridge
ENS told TCS that he believes
“There is enough money in
the country to give a free university education to everyone
that wants to go to university”.
He said the worst case scenario
was that students “could end up
paying the full market price for
a degree which is well over the
£26,000 often quoted”.
AspokesmanfortheUniversity
of Cambridge said:
“We believe that the
review to be held
in 2009 must first
examine the impact of current
fee rates.”
He added:
“The University
of Cambridge’s
system of one-to-one
and small group supervision and its collegiate
basis, which are among
its key strengths, are
by their nature expensive to maintain.
No prospective UK
student should be
deterred from applying to Cambridge for
Image: Decca Muldowney
financial reasons.”
NEWS 3
01/11/07 The Cambridge Student
Admission figures from 2006 suggest that certain types of school are under-represented at Cambridge
Admissions: access all areas?
Most Cambridge colleges still failing to attract enough state school pupils
Huge college access discrepancies in 2006
Oxford don blames pupils for problems
University working to meet targets
Alex Coke-Woods
Tamara Young
While Cambridge University
continues to fight against its
image as an institution for the rich
and privileged, new figures reveal
that in terms of admissions, some
colleges are definitely still more
equal than others.
Statistics giving a college-bycollege breakdown for applications in 2006 reveal a startling
difference in the social make-up
of colleges across the University
and show that many still have a
long way to go before access targets are reached.
Christ’s was the worst offender
for attracting students from a
comprehensive school background, with less than one in
six (14.3%) of successful applicants at the college coming from
a comprehensive school in 2006.
By contrast, almost half (47.1%)
of new students at the same college had attended independent schools before arriving in
Cambridge. The remainder were
drawn from sixth form colleges
and grammar schools, which the
survey considered separately.
King’s, which enjoys a reputation for egalitarianism, appeared
to be the most socially diverse of
the University’s 25 undergraduate colleges. Almost one in three
(29.9%) of successful applicants
at King’s came from comprehensive schools, while 30.7%
tCs soAp BoX
Helen
Oxenham
2nd year History,
King’s
I found out after I arrived that
King’s had this reputation, and
it terrified me because I‘m from
an independent school, but everything‘s been fine.
Nikolaus Krall
2nd year
Biological Nat
Sci, St John’s
John’s appears to be a very open
college to me. I think that John’s
is an environment with equal
opportunities for people coming from all different school
backgrounds.
were drawn from independent
schools, the figures showed.
But according to Dr Geoff
Parks, Director of Admissions for
the Cambridge Colleges, the fact
that some colleges are considered
to be more ‘posh’ than others is itself a part of the access problem,
leading to colleges receiving disproportionate numbers of applications from one particular type
of school.
“Many colleges have reputations for being independent or
state-school-friendly and these
reputations become self-fulfilling prophecies,” he explained.
Dr Parks also suggested that
application statistics were skewed
by college access partnerships
with individual Local Education
Authorities (LEAs), some of
which contained more comprehensive schools than others.
“Different local authorities have
different schooling models,” he
stated.
Yet no college saw their number
of comprehensive school admissions reach even as high as a third,
while three colleges (Girton,
Trinity and St John’s) drew half
or more of their undergraduate
applications from independent
schools over the same period.
Cambridge
University
Students’ Union (CUSU) Access
Officer, Charlotte Richer, interpreted the figures as a failure on
the part of the University to attract
sufficient numbers of applicants
from state school backgrounds.
“CUSU is aware of the low
level of applications from comprehensive school students, and
this data highlights the ongoing
need for access schemes,” she
commented.
But Professor Alan Ryan of
New College, Oxford, has hit
back at allegations that Oxbridge
is not doing enough to attract
state school pupils.
Writing in the Times’ Higher
Education Supplement, Ryan said
that it “takes no research at all” to
see that Oxbridge will continue
to miss their targets of admitting
62% state school pupils by 2012
“for the foreseeable future.”
But Ryan shifted the blamed
for access failures onto the educational system in general, rather
than finding fault with the universities themselves.
“So what is the bias in the system?” he asked. “It is simple. It
is called money. It purchases advantage for your children, from
antenatal health through to quality of early years’ social interaction and ending with a choice of
schooling.”
Ryan’s comments follow hard
on the heels of warnings from
Universities Secretary John
Denham about class bias within
the higher education system.
The Institute for Public Policy
Research has also recently called
for Oxford to work harder at attracting students from state
schools.
Professor Ryan has stood up
for University access schemes,
claiming that they do seek out
“just about every plausible” state
and private school pupil.
The blame lay with state school
pupils themselves, he claimed,
adding that until a higher proportion of state school applicants
achieved the necessary grades in
traditional A-level subjects, there
would be no change in the social
make-up of Oxbridge student
bodies.
In a statement, Cambridge
University said: “It is true that the
University of Cambridge set itself some challenging milestones
in terms of admissions.”
“It is by no means a foregone
conclusion that the University
will miss these milestones,” it
concluded, adding that staff and
students remain committed to
broadening access.
independent
Comprehensive
top
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
St John’s
Trinity
Girton
Christ’s
Downing
Newnham
Queens’
St Catharine’s
Magdalene
Selwyn
% of successful applicants
57.8
29.9
1 King’s
Corpus
Christi
53.1
26.7
2
50
26.4
3 Trinity Hall
Clare
47.1
26
4
46.8
25.9
5 Homerton
Robinson
44
24.6
6
42.9
24.5
7 Jesus
Gonville
&
Caius
41.9
24.2
8
41.7
24.1
9 Pembroke
Selwyn
41.6
22.8
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Homerton
King’s
Trinity Hall
Robinson
Corpus Christi
New Hall
Clare
Sidney Sussex
Jesus
Fitzwilliam
25.9
30.7
34
35.1
35.8
36.6
36.6
36.9
37.1
37.7
Bottom
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Meet us on November 6th at 7pm in
De Vere University Arms, Regent Street
www.mars.com/ultimategrads
Christ’s
Trinity
Magdalene
Girton
Sidney Sussex
St John’s
Peterhouse
New Hall
Newnham
Downing
14.3
15.3
16.5
16.7
17
17.3
17.8
18.3
19
19.2
4 NEWS
Diversity post
to be left vacant
Showunmi - soon to leave her
position
Lottie Young
The University’s current Head of
Equality and Diversity is to step
down this month, leaving the
post vacant.
Victoria Showunmi told The
Cambridge Student that no interviews had been held to find a replacement. The position had not
even been advertised as vacant,
despite her making University
authorities aware of the fact that
she would not be staying on after
her 6-month contract ended.
The rigorous selection procedure for a sensitive post of
this kind means that it could remain unfilled for as long as three
months.
This comes in the wake of
two recent race controversies at
Cambridge. Last week TCS reported on a medical student who
alleged he suffered racial discrimination in his application to clinical school.
He has launched legal proceedings against the clinical
school, and has the backing of
the Commission for Equality and
Human Rights.
This in turn followed the publishing of a survey a month ago
revealing that 12% of ethnic minority University staff have faced
racial discrimination.
Black Students’ Campaign
Officer Junior Penge Juma and
Women’s Officer Elly Shepherd
expressed concern at Showunmi’s
departure, and praised her for the
help she had provided to both the
Black Students’ and the Women’s
Campaign.
“She supports Elly and myself
in our campaigns. They should fill
the post as soon as possible” Juma
said, while Shepherd called her
appointment “a breakthrough
for equality and diversity at
the university”.
Students, staff and activists joined to discuss pressing environmental issues Cat Hylton
Cam students to get green
Catherine Watts
Students demanded that Cambridge University takes a tougher
stance on climate change at the
launch event of CUSU’S “Go
Greener!” campaign on Monday
night.
The event featured high-profile speakers from such organisations as Friends of the Earth
and Campaign Against Climate
Change. They joined students,
staff and fellows to focus on what
action the university must take
in order to play a leading global
role in confronting crucial green
issues.
The campaign aims to make the
most of Cambridge’s internationally-renowned profile by turning
it into a model of low-carbon development and environmental
responsibility. It also calls for an
increased academic contribution
to sustainability.
Even though Cambridge
University is already committed
to a 10% reduction in emissions
within the next few years, CUSU’s
Ethical Affairs officers, Christine
Berry and Dan Chandler, have
judged that the university’s cur-
rent efforts are inadequate to the
immediacy and size of the issue.
The campaign has also called
for a massive 30% emissions cut
by 2020, to bring the university
into line with key government
strategy.
The CUSU officers stress the
need for the University and
Colleges to make formal commitments at the top level, and suggest
that action must be taken in such
diverse areas as estates management and teaching and research.
One of the campaign’s proposals calls on the university to
commit to cutting down the en-
vironmental impact of university-related air travel, and colleges
are asked to individually sign the
Cambridge Climate Change
Charter. It also suggests that the
University should bring faculties
and colleges together in a steering
group, in order to coordinate environmental strategies and share
key resources.
Dan Chandler said: “As
Cambridge University approaches its 800th anniversary it
has an opportunity to celebrate its
remarkable history and to make
itself relevant to the most pressing
issue of the twenty-first century.”
Careers Service Careers Evening
Working in Arts & Heritage
Tuesday 6 November, 6.30 – 8.30 pm
Mill Lane Lecture Rooms
For undergraduates and postgraduates of any degree discipline – all years welcome
A chance to ﬁnd out about opportunities in this multi-faceted ﬁeld from a range of people involved in it.
Real-life accounts of getting in and getting on will help you to decide if it’s for you:
Lucy Armstrong – Assistant Curator, National Trust
Anita Crowe – Director of Artist Development, Aldeburgh Music
Maurice Davies – Deputy Director, Museums Association
Lousie Lamont – Literary Agent’s Assistant, AP Watt
Charlotte Paradise – Freelance PR for national art galleries
Dr Sophie Pickford – Junior Research Fellow in Art History, Cambridge
Julia Potts – Group Head of Education, Ambassador Theatre Group
George Unsworth – Manager, West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge
Short talks, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms, 6.30-8.00pm followed by discussion, drinks & snacks at the Careers Service next door
No need to sign up but come on time – prompt start
www.careers.cam.ac.uk
NEWS 5
Tesco shopped to the OFT
Alice Bloch
A Cambridge Councillor has reported Tesco to the Office of Fair
Trading (OFT), calling for an investigation into the supermarket’s plans to build a store on Mill
Road.
4,000
signatures in the
anti-Tesco petition
The supermarket giant, which
has a massive 30% share of the
UK grocery market, already has
three supermarkets and three
Express stores in Cambridge.
Campaigners hope that a fourth
is not on its way.
Local opposition to the new
store has been strong, as 4000
people have signed a petition
to prevent Tesco from preying
on this diverse area of the city.
Councillors have joined citizens
in their strident struggle against
the multi-national corporation.
Last month, Liberal Democrat
Councillor Alice Douglas told
The Cambridge Student (TCS)
that “opening a Tesco store could
put some of these stores out of
business and change Mill Road
for the worse”. Now, the head
of Cambridge City Council, Ian
Nimmo-Smith, has demanded
that the plans for a new Tesco be
scrutinised by the Competition
Commission.
Controversy has surrounded
the Tesco application since the
summer. Nimmo-Smith has
claimed that the proposed supermarket will threaten the area’s “diverse but fragile range
of local independent shops and
services”.
He urged the OFT to act before
the council rules on Tesco’s planning application next month.
In his letter to the OFT,
Nimmo-Smith stated that the
new Sustainable Communities
Bill - supported by the Council
- would “place a renewed responsibility on Government
in resisting the spread of Ghost
Town Britain”.
Richard Rippin, media coordinator for the ‘No Mill Road
Tesco’ group, welcomed the
move. He told the Cambridge
Evening News: “We are delighted
we have cross party support at the
Editor-in-Chief
city council and that Councillor
Nimmo-Smith has taken the
step of referring this matter to the
OFT.
“The incredibly strong feeling
among local people and local politicians gives us confidence that
together we can keep Tesco out
and keep Mill Road special.”
“Together we can
keep Tesco out
and keep Mill Road
special”
Rippin also commented on
the progress of Tesco’s negotiations with the council. He
claimed to TCS that “Tesco are
trying to butter up the council”.
But, in Rippin’s opinion the application should be rejected - “in
fact, it’s really hard to see how it
won’t be”.
According to Rippin, “student
representation was near zero”
at the last planning meeting. He
encourages students to spread
the word. The campaign group
is organising a week of action
starting on November 17th, including a benefit gig, a march on
Mill Road, and a speaker event at
the Guildhall.
Deputy Editor
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6 INTERVIEW
Iain Duncan Smith
Betony Lloyd and Dan Heap speak to the former Conservative leader
F
ollowing the annual Vote of No Confidence
debate at the Cambridge Union we were
privileged to be granted an exclusive interview with the former leader of the Conservative
Party – the Rt. Hon Iain Duncan Smith, MP.
A heated debate was highlighted by Quentin
Davies being challenged by a Fitzwilliam student
and constituent to defend his decision not to call a
by-election after defecting from the Conservatives
to Labour this summer. The proposition attacked
the government for allowing personal debt to rise
to unsustainable levels, and there were a number
of colourful floor speeches from the audience. An
American student ridiculed his own government,
claiming we should be grateful that our politicians
can “string a sentence together”. The opposition’s
rosy description of improvements made during
their tenure was met a the cry of “tell that to the dead
Iraqis!”.
lies in the lack of applications from underprivileged
pupils, especially to Oxbridge.
Duncan Smith is not concerned about the purported devaluation of degrees but warned of the
dangers of the current government’s overemphasis
on university education.
“The be all and end all of life is not to go to university - I know that might be difficult for this government to swallow. Lots of people out there are not
academic and they don’t want to follow an academic
life.”
He points out the government treats those who
do not opt for an academic path as if they are “subhuman”, and that this is “not fair and not true”. He
stressed his belief in the equal value of a vocational
education, adding that “it takes two different groups
of people to make society work”.
When pressed on David Cameron’s progress in
ending Britain’s style of ‘Punch-and-Judy politics’,
Duncan Smith suggested that it was a “long term
process” and that “no solution will be achieved over
night”, whilst admitting that the current state of politics is the fault of both the media and politicians.
Questioned on the government’s plans to reform
the constitution, the MP welcomed moves to restore
the power and influence Parliament has lost in recent years. “It is time now”, he said, “to make a big
change”.
Duncan Smith also defended the ‘quiet man’ approach he adopted during his time as Tory leader.
“The people who get things done in society are invariably the ones who don’t talk about it: they are the
ones who do it”, he told TCS.
“This is a world of quiet people who you never really hear from…but on whom the whole of society
rests….politicians spend a lot of time talking while
the rest of Britain gets on and does”.
“The people who get things
done in society are
invariably the ones who don’t
talk about it”
At points, the debate descended into petty squabbling, with speakers, notably Nick Herbert, interrupting and shouting each other down. This
behaviour was criticised by Union speaker Will
Redfearn who rebuked the politicians: “you’re not
in the Commons now”.
There were long queues to go through the “aye”
door, as the New Labour government was defeated
for the first time ever, 302 to 95.
After meeting students in the Union bar the former
Tory leader declined the use of the President’s room,
and kicked off his interview in the main chamber by
welcoming the government’s defeat (whilst admitting the result was not an expression of confidence
in his own party).
The issue of higher education arose as a matter of
personal as well as political importance for Duncan
Smith as his own children are now of university
age.
The MP told The Cambridge Student (TCS) that
he had “never been a supporter of top up fees” and
whilst his Party is “in a slightly different position”
than it was under his leadership, his “personal views”
remain unchanged.
“There’s got to be a better way than just plunging people into massive amounts of debt”, he continued. “If it was easier for people to get work while
they were here then that might be a different case but
I think sometimes it’s very difficult for people to get
work in the area where they go to university.”
When asked to comment on the recent coverage
of the appointment of Lord Triesman as minister
for students (‘Yes (student) Minister’ Vl.10 issue 5
25/10/07), the former leader revealed his scepticism
about “constantly appointing people”, describing it
as “cosmetic”.
Duncan Smith was also cynical about the government’s system of quotas and targets for widening access to universities. “If it was going to work it would
have worked by now”, he said.
“The government’s been bullying universities
for the last seven or eight years to get more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds into
university.”
He believes university authorities have been making great efforts to widen access yet accepts that it
is imperative that standards aren’t lowered in the
process.
He identified that the root of the problem actually
“The be all and end all of life
is not to go to university. Lots
of people out there are not
academic”
He insisted that quiet determination was a better approach to politics than spin, but jokingly suggested that John Wayne’s film ‘The Quiet Man’,
which was re-released following his notorious Party
conference speech, may have profited from his approach more than he did.
Like a true politician, Duncan Smith wisely
dodged the question when asked if he was planning
to attend the Oxford Union
the quiet man
turns up
the volume
The former Tory leader talks to The Cambridge Student Matt Doughty
DUNCaN SMITH’S CV
1954: Born in Edinburgh
1975: Joined Scots guard
1979: Is “profoundly affected” by Mrs
Thatcher’s victory.
1981: Joined Tory Party
1987: Contested Bradford West
1992: Elected as MP for Chingford
1997: Ran John Redwood’s leadership
campaign
1997-9: Shadow Social Security Secretary
1999-2001: Shadow Defence Secretary
2001-3: Tory Party leader
2005: Appointed Chairman of the Social
Justice Policy Group
8
COMMENT
Hard left: stop your hypocritical moaning
The NUS answers those who criticise reforms that they claim will bring democracy and financial stability
In these pages last week, Ed Maltby attacked the proposed NUS reforms. This week the NUS answers back.
Wes Streeting
F
or as long as I can remember, people have
been calling for reform of the NUS. During my time as President, CUSU was at the
forefront of those unions calling for our National
Union to change and modernise. Two years later,
as NUS Vice President, I believe we are finally in a
position to do what many said was impossible: to
look seriously and sensibly at our governance and
our democratic structures and make the changes
necessary to transform our National Union into
the effective campaigning organisation that we all
want and need it to be.
At the NUS annual conference earlier this year,
delegates from students unions all over the country
voted overwhelmingly for a comprehensive review
of NUS governance. They did so for a number of reasons. For years NUS has been beset by financial crisis. Bad management, poor scrutiny and oversight
had led to uncontrolled expenditure and annual deficits between £250,000 and more than £1 million.
Ineffective policy structures have led to a dangerous
disconnection between the policies and priorities of
NUS and the needs and concerns of the students we
represent.
During the past year, NUS leadership have taken
proactive measures to address the internal problems.
We have made £500,000 of cuts to our expenditure
through a detailed restructure. We have appointed a
new senior management team. We have also sought
the support and guidance of an Improvement Board,
comprised of external members from the public and
voluntary sectors to guide us through the process.
And these changes were not just about cutting costs;
they were needed for our success.
But this process of change will come to nothing
unless we address the central problem stifling our
potential as a campaigning organisation: our governance. Which is why, following an extensive consultation process involving students’ unions and
The central problem stifling
NUS campaigns is our
governance
national student organisations from across the
country, the National Executive Committee has set
out radical plans to transform the way our National
Union is governed to make it more democratic,
more representative and more relevant. They include plans for a new policy making process, making it easier for students’ unions to determine the
policies and priorities of NUS. There will be a new
Senate, to ensure demographic and political diver-
sity at the highest levels of political leadership of
NUS, and a new Board, comprised of both students
and external members, appointed by the sovereign
Annual Congress, to ensure that the financial mismanagement and administrative incompetence of
recent years can never happen again.
For so-called radicals, the response of those on
the hard left has been deeply and predictably conservative. From the Trotskyites of the Alliance for
Workers’ Liberty to the Socialist Workers of Student
Respect, this diverse bunch of unrepresentative,
Pythonesque revolutionaries have been crying foul
play, accusing the leadership of NUS of stitch-ups
and attacks on democracy.
But don’t be fooled by their attempts to paint their
self-serving concerns for self-preservation as an apparent concern for the democratic process. These
are the people who thrive on a low turnout in NUS
delegate elections in order to maintain disproportionate power and influence within NUS, to the detriment of the moderate majority.
When they talk about political diversity, just remember that there are more revolutionary socialists on the current NUS NEC than there are Liberal
Democrats and Conservatives combined. When
they talk about the need for a campaigning NUS,
remember that they’re defending the status quo in
which we spend more money on making decisions
than we do on campaigning. And when they talk
about saving the NUS, remember that these groups
have been the roadblock to reform since the 1970s,
content to fiddle while Rome burns.
This is why the overwhelming majority of delegates voted in favour of a governance review in
the first place. It’s why the overwhelming majority
of National Executive members have accepted its
findings and it’s why over 300 student officers from
across the country have already joined the call for
reform.
We are calling for an NUS
that is more democratic,
more representative, more
relevant
Unless something has changed dramatically since
I left, Cambridge is not a place that is prone to revolutionary socialist tendencies. The leadership of the
NUS, including myself, are the true radicals. We are
calling for an NUS that is more democratic, more
representative, and more relevant to the student
body. CUSU should be the champions of NUS reform once more. This time we can do it.
Wes Streeting is Vice-President (Education) of the
National Union of Students. He was CUSU President from 2004-2005
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www.whitecase.com/trainee
COMMENT
9
Proud to be Christian
Ed Corke
When it comes to religious debate in Cambridge,
it can be hard to look on the bright side of life.
Infinitely complex issues are swatted away by amateur philosophers with a “God? Oh pur-leese”,
when the situation is clearly about as black and white
as James Watson’s list of favourite intellectuals. But
to see the urgent need for progress, just recall the recent Union debate where Douglas Murray silenced
the chamber by directly insulting Muhammad. No
boos or hisses, no opposing points- just silence, as if
Murray had committed the unpardonable sin. How
can a subject become immune from insult in the
Cambridge Union? So here’s my take, born mostly
out of frustration at being either insulted or misrepresented for my beliefs.
Let’s first expose a harmful myth, bounded around
all too often by both aloof Anglicans and atheists:
this is not a ‘Christian country’. Aside from obvious
objections, this notion makes Christianity no more
than a set of outdated morals. Even a cursory reading of the gospels reveals that passing legislation to
restrict abortion rights was as much Jesus’ goal as
was gaining political office. He aimed for the individual soul, not the courts.
I’m not saying that the two never meet- I don’t
want a watered down, nervous parody of faith. The
recent oppression of Christian Unions in the UK
was frightening and unacceptable- but unacceptable
politically, not religiously. Scholars and politicians
should logically have been fighting the CUs’ corner as much as church leaders. I’m saying modernity tends to see faith as merely a moral worldview
that is imposed on others through ‘conservatism’.
Ironically, this is why I, a devout Christian, sympathise with those who scaremonger about the
American Christian Right. The same liberalism that
Let’s have faith in religion Mel & John Kots
allows abortions is also what allows for freedom of
religion. In any case, forcing someone to have a child
isn’t going to change their spiritual beliefs. But the
more I talk to Christians smarter than the average
Dubya, the more I find this view gaining popularity,
even amongst “fundamentalists”.
So now to the self-appointed ‘Brights’ (although
considering the amount of schoolboy theological errors in ‘The God Delusion’, I’d suggest a misnomer).
I’m afraid you too need a good talking to. Dawkins’
stance achieves little because, as Cambridge demonstrates, however much derision or argument
is fired at its followers, faith will never perish. The
doomsayers of atheism’s 1960s heyday were as myopic as those who still talk of Darwin’s deathbed
conversion or the religion of pre-Enlightenment
scientists as if they verify claims of faith. Even if the
Darwin myth were true (it isn’t), evolution would remain an unaffected challenge. Newton and Galileo
had no choice. But if these simple facts are to be affirmed, then so too must the fact that modern intellectual giants like Francis Collins, Alistair McGrath
and our very own John Polkinghorne deserve more
than atheists’ snivelling contempt.
So what, you might ask, do I suggest? The first
thing, before we all spontaneously combust with
frustration, is to stop whining. Stop whining about
the Muhammad cartoons. If a Muslim told me to
stop drinking alcohol or to pray five times a day, I
would laugh. Our moral spheres are our own. Stop
whining about Jerry Springer- God has bigger fish to
fry. And atheists, you are by no means immune. Stop
whining about someone giving you a gospel during
CICCU mission week. Cambridge is a bastion of
free speech in the UK, and if we are so insecure in our
convictions that we respond angrily to someone giving us a Bible or a copy of ‘The God Delusion’, perhaps we need to reconsider our certainties.
Apart from that, whining is annoying and useless. Atheists, faith isn’t going to go away, however
much you throw churlish insults. Christians, this
isn’t a theocracy but a liberal country that allows us
to practice our faith freely and tell others about it.
Pressuring for laws that force people to conform to
our principles won’t populate Heaven, it will create
more people who are ‘sort of Christian’, in that they
believe things were “much better in the good old
days”. Remember Gladstone’s classic speech to the
Commons on behalf of Bradlaugh, the first atheist
MP- he reminded Christians that the critical danger
to faith wasn’t atheism, but “tepid theism”. So readers, whistle along with me if you know it: “Always
look on the bright side of life”, and I’ll cut out the
whining if you will too. Then maybe Dawkins might
have a reason to be a little less depressing.
We need a ‘European’ identity
Mike Kielty
‘W
e shall put it to the British people in
a referendum, and campaign wholeheartedly for a yes vote.” The firm
words of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair in 2005
when asked about the new EU Constitution, the
document that was to set out the moral and political values on which ‘Europe’ will stand in the
future, the document that should define just what
it means to be ‘European’.
Brown signed this country up to that treaty without a referendum last week, asserting that a set of
British ‘opt-out’ measures had rendered a vote unnecessary. Yet few can seriously deny that the Prime
Minister’s argument is not tinged with hypocrisy.
Just because this new treaty has been tinkered with,
the promise of a referendum apparently now no
longer applies. Even Brown supporters might see
more than a coincidence in the fact that both documents just happen to be 63,000 words long.
Without getting too involved in the diplomatic
paper-pushing, it is clear that political Europe is not
in party mood right now. The community is ill-tempered and uncertain of its future direction and the
same could be said of its citizens. After the ‘no’ votes
against European reform in Holland and France in
2005, our leaders seem to have decided that Europe’s
voters cannot be allowed to upset any further that
most overbearing of institutions, the European
Union. The EU president, Jose Manuel Barroso,
was quoted at the time as saying, “They must go on
voting until they get it right”. Barroso’s denial of democracy may seem extreme enough, but Brown’s
actions have now extended this to actually stopping
Europeans from making their opinions known at
the ballot box.
Europe has started the new century at its undem-
ocratic worst, rather than celebrating the triumphs
that all Europeans, whether we live in Cambridge or
Krakow, appreciate every day. The fact that students
can ridicule (and of course admire) the scrawled graffiti of wartime American serviceman while downing
pints in ‘The Eagle’ should not sideline the fact that
we have not required such foreign military aid since
1945. The sixty years since the Union started have
been the most peaceful in this continent’s history.
Now comprising nations from beyond the old Iron
Curtain and with nations on its borders desperate
to join up, the EU is arguably the most successful
example of peaceful regime change that history can
offer us.
Most individual Europeans live better than before, but collectively we still regard both the Union
and the idea of ever calling ourselves ‘European’ with
suspicion, even ridicule. In all the British debates regarding Europe, the loudest voices are invariably to
be heard from the ‘Bowler hat and Union Jack’ brigade, which now might even be taken to include the
Prime Minister, whose assertion of ‘British values’ is
an oily phrase that appears to be a stalking horse for a
new intolerance. The idea of European unity, surely
one of the towering achievements of the twentieth
century, is disintegrating in the twenty-first due to
the disillusionment of its citizens and the inadequacies of its politicians.
What Europe lacks is an inspiring vision of just
what it means to be a ‘European’ in 2007, but this
is the one thing that no modern politician – be they
British or otherwise – seems willing to give. In fact,
the one group that have attempted to frame ‘Europe’
as a dynamic, democratic forum has not been the
political elite, but rather the ordinary voters through
the assertion of their views at the ballot box. Whether
those voters have been calling for more European
integration or less, they have shared the desire for a
better definition of our collective identity. The fact
Your letters
[email protected]
Dear Sir,
We are grateful for the coverage of CUR1350’s
nominations success in the Cambridge Student
‘CUR1350 smashes award record’ (vl.4 issue 2
18/10/07), but we are writing to request an important correction in the next issue of TCS:
You reported that we had received six nominations, when we did in fact receive nine, although the
misunderstanding may have arisen as these nine
nominations were received across six categories.
The differentiation is important for us, not only because we value all of these nominations highly, but
also because the nine nominations together made
us the most nominated student radio station in the
country! We would therefore be grateful if you could
print this correction, along with the complete list of
nine nominations, so as to eradicate any confusion
for your readers.
The nominations are:
Best Student Radio Station
Best Female Presenter – Katherine Godfrey
Best Female Presenter – Jaine Sykes
Newcomer of the Year – Jaine Sykes
Best Specialist Music Programming – ‘Volume
11’ – Tobias Bown
Best Entertainment Programming – ‘Weekend
Breakfast’ – Charles Lyons et al
Best Entertainment Programming – ‘Rock
Paper Scissors’ – Jaine Sykes
Best Entertainment Programming – ‘Morning
Glory’ – Alex-James Painter & Ella Belsham
Best Technical Innovation
The awards ceremony will be taking place on
Thursday 15th November, after which we will hopefully be contacting you again with the good news of
how many of these nominations have been converted to awards!
Kind Regards,
The CUR1350 Committee
Corrections & clarifications
The Cambridge Student endeavours to be as
accurate as possible in its reporting. It is possible for inadvertent errors to creep in and we are
very happy to issue corrections. Please e-mail
us at [email protected].
Europe is more than just a flag MoehAF
that politicians are now denying us the right to vote
should only underline the need for us to take the lead
in this debate that is so crucial to our future.
As Europeans we clearly know how to talk honestly;
now we must recognise our common links. Holiday
jaunts to Provence, a chat with your favourite Polish
bedder or watching Champions League football on
TV may seem like trivial points of connection between nationalities, but they imply a common culture and history that transcends the diversity in
language and custom. If we continue to emphasise the false differences, to hide our own identity
as ‘Europeans’, then we put at risk not just the overstretched ‘European Union’, but also the prosperity
that we now take for granted.
In last week’s issue we reported a student’s claim
of discrimination. We stated that the University
had declined to comment on the grounds that
the claim was ongoing. In fact, the University had
informed us that a claim had been served on the
University but that it had not subsequently been
pursued. We apologise for any confusion.”
10 EDITORIAL
Editorial
The Cambridge Student
01/11/07
[email protected]
Editor [email protected]
Beth Ashbridge
Deputy Editor
Ryan Roark
Robert Palmer
7
% of the nation’s children attended independent schools. Yet for Cambridge undergraduates the figure is 40.3%. Those who
are involved in the University’s access campaigns
say that this reflects the disproportionately low
number of state school students who actually apply to Cambridge, rather than an anti-state school
bias in acceptances.
As a Christ’s College spokesperson commented,
“we cannot admit people if they do not apply”.
The University argues that it spends large amounts
of money and time trying to encourage more people from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply.
Outreach programmes exist in all colleges and access initiatives are taken very seriously.
However, the University argues that certain Alevel subjects do not provide adequate preparation
for a Cambridge degree. (Though The Cambridge
Student knows of at least one silver-tongued applicant who managed to persuade an admissions tutor
to take theatre studies seriously.)
However, the full disparity between the access
figures for independent schools and comphrensive
ones is rarely brought to light.
Usually the University is able to hide behind the
more inclusive category of ‘maintained’ or state
schools. This includes state grammer schools, many
of which are as good or better than their private
equivalents. However, The Cambridge Student has
managed to get hold of a more detailed breakdown.
The figures reveal a dramatic disparity between
Cambridge colleges. In 2006 29.9% of the students
that King’s admitted were from comprehensive
schools. For Christ’s it was 14.3%.
This is an unacceptable difference. It shows how
much work some of the colleges have to do in order
to attract those from less advantaged backgrounds.
If somewhere rather traditional like Corpus Christi
can admit 26.7% of its students from comprehensive schools, then why can’t the equally traditional
Christ’s.
“We cannot admit people if
they do not apply”
Sven Palys [email protected]
Subeditor
Owen Kennedy
News [email protected]
Amy Blackburn, editor
Jonathan Laurence
Alex Coke-Woods
Catherine Watts
Josh Hardie
Stephen Brothwell
Photo [email protected]
Cat Hylton, editor
Matt Doughty
Comment [email protected]
Dana Livne
Thomas Lalevée
Puzzles
Richard Harris
We are not suggesting that colleges are biased
against students from comprehensive schools in the
interviewing and admissions process. But instead
such students are put off from applying in the first
place.
The government has to improve the quality of
comprehensive school education. Too often the
blame is laid unfairly at the door of Oxbridge.
But this does not absolve the University, and more
specifically the colleges, from working to reduce the
internal disparity.
The Cambridge Student Crossword
Features [email protected]
Nina Chang, editor
Molly St John
Sam Brett
Interviews [email protected]
Cally Squires
Science [email protected]
Simona Giunta
7
9
14
15
17
20
21
24
25
26,16
DOWN
Character with poorly heart is hot stuff (6)
Doctor Donny in Casualty can relieve pain (7)
Hollow I make like a canine, say (9)
See 27
Saw lead strangling dog? (7)
Rounder sound to ear under first horn in our brass
band (7)
4 do this sacrificing First in Engineering Tripos (5)
Magazine with latest story in W boson developments (4,3)
4 boaties? (5,4)
Pain, head to foot, taking on university 4 (7)
Disheartened Greenland rebuilt and spread (8)
Dream of Ireland rising up after Ian Paisley’s calling (7)
Importance of sex in the brown stuff (7)
Party for unknowns with lots of stars (6)
Shoot bird (5)
4 starting day 29 (5,4)
Solutions to this week’s chess puzzle
1. … Rg8+ 2. Kh6 Qxh2+ 3. Rh5
Qd2+ 4. Qxd2 Rg6 mat
Solution to last
week’s Crossword
1
2
3
4
5
6
Fashion [email protected]
Erika Blomerus
Lili Sarnyai
Food & Drink [email protected]
Gabriel Byng
Stephen Kosmin
Film [email protected]
Rebecca Hawketts
Shane Murray
Music [email protected]
James Garner
Matt Cottingham
Theatre [email protected]
Hannah Fair, editor
Marsha Vinogradova
Sport [email protected]
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Sud Murugesu
Board of directors
[email protected]
Alice Palmer (Chair)
Simon Burdus (Business)
Adam Colligan (Services)
Robert Palmer
Catherine Watts
Sven Palys
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Old Examination Hall, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF. 01223 761 685
Chess Challenge
Set by Byzantine
ACROSS
8 Prince Philip’s post with opportunity to roll about
with Queen Elizabeth II, say (14)
10 Looked at entries for Great Lakes in dictionary (5)
11 Form of 4 inside centre an obstacle (6,3)
12 Ask for 29 of this and you’ll get poisoned (8)
13 British weather is source of inspiration (5)
16 See 26
18 Old boat first sailed to Greek island (5)
19 Mischievous chief (4)
22 Change 4 with 29 (5)
23 Song on Capital cut short by girl (8)
27,4 Sketch birds - use one warbling fancily (9,5)
28 Slave away at work (5)
29 Revelation, say, that might convert sinner to
phones? (10,4)
Arts & Literature [email protected]
Ivanka-Lazarevic, European Ladies’ Championship, 1972
Black to play
Here White is a rook up, but Black can immediately win it back and this is what indeed happened
in the game. However, there was a much better
option, leading to a wonderful mate. Can you find
it?
IMPACT
01/11/07
Halloween around theWorld
Classic horror stories: Five of the best 16
Features
12
IMPACT
Halloween around
theWorld
China
Ireland
The Celtic festival of Samhain, in
which the worlds of the living and
the dead were said to collide, can
be traced back to 5 BC. When the
Catholic Church reinvented this
pagan holiday as All Saint's Day,
October 31st became known as
All Hallows’ Eve, now abbreviated
to Halloween. From its humble
Irish roots, this fiendish festival is
now celebrated throughout the
world.
Whilst China does have a
Halloween festival named Teng
Chieh, the more famous Feast of
the Hungry Ghosts, in the seventh
lunar month, sees China invaded
by hoards of lonely spirits seeking
affection and care. Those who
feel neglected threaten to turn
against the living, and so they are
placated with offers of food, joss
sticks and gifts. The paper gifts
represent domestic objects from
their earthly existence in order to
make them feel at home. Paper
money is burnt to pay off their
post-life expenses and fires lit to
guide their way. Worshippers
in Buddhist temples construct
paper 'boats of law', which are
then burned. This is thought to
free the spirits of the drowned
so that they might ascend to
heaven.
Italy
IntheSouth,familieslayoutagenerous spread before heading out
to church. If the food isn’t all gone
by the time they return, it means
the spirits are unhappy and
will plague the family in the months to
come. Cakes in
the shapes of
beans are also
baked and
consumed the so-called
‘Beans of the
Dead’.Sounds
like a good horror movie to me.
Jack O’Lantern
Apple bobbing
Relates to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack,
who duped the devil into climbing a tree
and trapped him there by carving a cross
into its trunk. When Stingy Jack died, he
was denied entrance to both heaven and
hell because of his wicked ways. Instead,
he was doomed to perpetually wander the
earth by night - but the devil did give him
a single ember to light his way. This being
an Irish myth, the ember was originally
supposed to have been placed inside a
hollow turnip. Pumpkins began to be used
only when Irish settlers in America found
them to be more abundant than turnips.
The Celts and Romans viewed the apple
as a sign of fertility, for it was the symbol
of a goddess of agriculture, Pomona,
whose festival was celebrated at the end
of October. This popular game is also
connected with witch-hunts; in later times
it was common to throw apples, oranges
and other fruits into lakes to lure witches,
who apparently suffered an eternal craving
for vitamin C, to a watery grave…
Many Mexicans consider
Halloween to be the most joyous and important event on the
calendar. Not only is it traditional
to parade a live person
through the streets
in an open coffin,
but the graveside family picnic held on
November
2nd may
even include tequila and
a mariachi
band. El día de
los muertos (The
Day of the Dead) is
dedicated to the spirits of
dead children, ‘los angelitos’, who
get a head start before the arrival
the next day of the grown-ups.
Halloween is generally viewed as another
commercialised American festival. But it
is an autumnal tradition observed in many
countries and celebrated in diverse cultures
across the continents.
Japan
The Japanese celebrate the festival ‘O-Bon’, so named after the
Sanskrit word for ‘hanging upside down’, after a meditating
Buddhist monk was able to see
his dead mother hanging upside
down in hell - a punishment for
eating meat - and then to buy
her back with a portion of his
own goodness. On the second
day of O-Bon, spirit altars are created with cucumbers carved as
horses, in case the spirits need a
ride. In the evening, paper lanterns are set to float on rivers or
the sea to guide the spirits back
to the shore of the dead.
Spain
Pastries shaped like a skull, called
‘Bones of the Holy’, are consumed on Hallowe’en Day. It is
also traditional for families to remain by the graves of their relatives throughout the night. In
March, the Spanish celebrate
‘Las Fallas’ with the burning of
human-shaped papier-mache
effigies stuffed with
fireworks. Jolly.
Trick-or-treating
Some other superstitions…
Originated with the ninth-century European
custom of souling. On All Souls’ Day, early
Christians would walk from village to village
begging for ‘soul cakes’ (essentially bread
with currants). The more soul cakes they
received, the more prayers they would
promise to say on behalf of the donors’ dead
relatives. What a shame it isn’t quite such a
two-way process these days…
Black cats were traditionally thought to
be possessed by evil spirits, and a sign of
bad luck.
If a bat flies round your house - or maybe
even college - three times, watch out. It’s
supposed to mean death is soon to come.
If an unmarried girl keeps a sixpence and
a sprig of rosemary under her pillow on
Halloween night, she is supposed to dream
of her future husband.
13
Features
Mexico
IMPACT
Features
14
IMPACT
Dead Sexy
I
t was shortly after I’d formulated a new
plan to ensnare my latest object of desire
that it struck. So far, fate had favoured me.
His plans for the weekend had fallen through,
leaving a big open space for me to sidle on in.
I’d even recruited my mother to assist with
the scheme. Then, two days before “Operation London” was set for take-off, I sneezed.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the end
of my love life.
Within hours I had morphed into a duvetwearing snufflemonster, trailing the fairly pungent ‘aroma of strepsil’. (To be frank it doesn’t
take much to make me exchange proper clothes
for a duvet at the best of times, but this was taking it to new heights.) A search through my
handbag would unearth embarrassing quantities of scrunched up tissues and empty pill packets. My face was puffy and sallow, and my body
seemed to have forgotten all notions of posture,
or even that it ever had a waist. I even bought
new pyjamas instead of doing laundry, having
relinquished all other items of clothing.
There was no compensatory husky throatiness to win ‘em over for me, just a rather nasal
note which made me sound (not in a good way,
if there is a good way?) like one of the characters
from Winnie the Pooh. I have enough trouble
trying to produce an attractive, non-hee-hawing laugh at the best of times, but it really is the
pits when a giggle turns into a gurgle which
in turn becomes a spasm which sounds like a
grumpy alien trying to force its way out of my
lungs. Yep, super-shmexy.
I was doomed. There was no way anyone in
possession of their senses or faculties was going
to come anywhere near me. Rapid consumption of industrial quantities of jaffa cakes followed – for the vitamin C, obviously. By Friday
night, desperation had driven me to my last resort: the vodka treatment. As they say, kill or
cure. Remarkably, I at once began to feel much
much better. Clearly, the Russians know what
they’re doing drinking vodka all winter. The
morning rolled around and my joy at having
self-healed was complete. ‘The years I’ve been
wasting being ill when I could’ve been drinking vodka!’ I thought happily, ‘I’ll never feel sick
again!’
This last was proved oh-so-very-wrong
within about five minutes. Turned out vodka
wasn’t cure, it was most definitely kill. What’s
more, gazing blearily about me, a nasty feeling
began to niggle at my brain. Hazy memories of
being somewhere I shouldn’t have been, with
someone I shouldn’t have seen, these seeped in
as my life-force flooded out and as I nervously
checked for evidence, my suspicions were confirmed. Ah yes, there they were - half last night’s
clothes still stuffed in my handbag.
This is the fatal influence of the flu. Too ill
to pursue my true object, but nevertheless in
dire and urgent need of a hug, my poorly self
had wandered drunkenly, perhaps even deliriously... into old and perilous territory.
Needless to say, I never made it to London. In
fact I rarely make it anywhere these days, resembling as I still do a pneumonia-riddled guinea
pig – fat, squeaky and sick. I guess I’ll never
know if my vodka-fuelled nocturnal misadventures of that Friday made me worse, but one
thing’s for sure - I must get better, and sharpish.
Because “Operation London: Take 2” is coming up this weekend, and this time it’s make or
break...
There is one note of consolation here. Share a
kiss, share a cold, as old wives should have said.
Just earlier, I heard a certain someone echo a familiar cough of mine. I’ve begun to feel better
already.
When Jack O’Lantern meets Cupid...
S
o, the long-eyelashed object of your
affections, long swooned over in lectures or flirted with over formal during the opening weeks of term, has finally
sashayed over to you and asked you out…
Or perhaps, complacently coupled-up,
you’ve neglected your beloved over the last
few weeks in favour of essays, rowing, frolicking in theatres, procrastinating and the
like, and need to arrange a special evening
in order to put the spark back into the relationship… But your eyes fly to your calendar
– now is the season of Hallowe’en, the time
for ghosties, ghoulies, long-leggedy beasties,
turnip lanterns, small children dressing up in
white sheets and so on – surely the antithesis of romance? How can a date be arranged
in such witchily unamorous circumstances?
Well, of course, one obvious way round this
would be to loftily ignore your calendar, and
make your romantic plans as though it were
an entirely unremarkable time of year – the
middle of March, say. But surely it would be
much more fun to embrace the spooky season in all its black and orange delights, and
plan your love life accordingly?
Say you fancy a drink... Although the bar formerly known as the Vaults on Trinity Street recently changed its name to the altogether less
mysterious-sounding, Depot, its series of interconnecting cellar rooms and its spindly
wrought iron chairs still have a suitably gothic
feel to them. Obvious drinks to order are a
Bloody Mary, a Black Magic (vodka, blackberry
Sambuca), or the charmingly named Frog in a
Blender (crushed ice, vodka, cranberry juice and
partially-blended lime wheels). Admittedly, ordering this last for your beloved would not be
an excessively romantic gesture. However, if
homemade cocktail-making is more your style
(or if you’re particularly good at charming bartenders into making bizarre concoctions), you
could try flirting over the following: a Dracula’s
Kiss (black cherry vodka, grenadine, coke and
maraschino cherries), a Corpse Reviver (apple
brandy, cognac, sweet vermouth) or Jack O’Tini
(vodka, pumpkin juice, orange juice and lemon
juice, all served inside a baby pumpkin).
However, should you prefer your dates to incorporate food in some variety, try cooking a
seasonal meal – not only will this earn you many
brownie points from the recipient of your culinary efforts (assuming that what you have
cooked is, in fact, edible – although alternatively
you could argue, I suppose, that you were going
for an authentically hellish-tasting experience),
but there are many delectable Hallowe’en-centric delights to be served up – toad-in-the-hole,
for example, followed by pumpkin pie. The autumn-bright pumpkin-shaped cakes currently
sitting plumply in the window at Fitzbillies
would make for a particularly scrumptious finishing touch. Served by candlelight and gar-
nished with ghost stories told over dinner, all
your ghoulish, romantic and greedy impulses
should thus be satisfied.
Sadly, for those wishing to encourage their
sweethearts to leap squealingly into the air in a
cinema auditorium, there seems to be rather a
dearth of horror flicks out at the moment. The
slightly ludicrous-sounding ‘30 Days of Night’,
which contains Josh Hartnett and vampires,
seems the main thing the Cambridge cinemas
have to offer. But when curling up with a suitably spine-chilling DVD, the potential for romantic interaction is high – in particular, the
burying of one’s face in a lover’s shoulder in
lieu of hiding behind cushions (though done
to whimpering, excess this may be considered
slightly anaphrodisiac), which conveniently allows a strong, comforting arm to be put around
one. Hallowe’en, Scream, Dawn of the Dead,
Event Horizon (which I have not seen, but has
become enshrined in my mind as the scariest
film ever after a particularly tough, black-beltin-Judo friend of mine revealed that he was too
scared to go downstairs by himself after seeing
it) are all good choices – just bring popcorn, ice
cream and a particularly enticing shoulder.
Finally, the great outdoors. Broadly speaking, walking through graveyards late at night
has all the advantages outlined above, although
with less ice cream. Hiding around corners and
jumping out at your beloved, however, is very
silly indeed and contains no romance whatsoever. Alternatively, the Cambridge ghost
walk is a suitably spine-chilling way to spend
an evening. Held every Friday at 6pm, the tour
leads participants around Cambridge’s most
haunted places, from the archway outside
Peterhouse (exorcised twice) to the Rainbow
Café (who knew?). Not so high on the romance
stakes, perhaps, but spookily informative. And
there’s nothing like the thought of a malign supernatural presence to make you lean just that
little bit closer to each other on the way home…
Elizabeth Dearnley
Harry P*tt*r and the Embarrassing Epilogue
Adult Harry (who I’m not going to describe –
use the MAGIC of your imagination) strode
through the crowds of Platform nine and three
quarters over to his bumbling sidekick, Adult
Ron.
‘Bloody hell Daniel!’ , Adult Ron exclaimed,
hyperactively
‘Ron, I wish you’d stop saying that every time
we talk,’ Adult Harry replied, ‘And it’s Harry,
not Daniel…So how’s Neville? I’m sorry I
missed the wedding.’
Adult Ron shrugged, quizzically. Harry had
been at the Japanese premiere of the fifth film
when Ron and Neville announced their engagement. Everyone had been surprised, not least
Hermione. ‘I suppose Dumbledore would have
approved’, she had said, philosophically.
Harry would never forget Dumbledore’s last
words to him, as he lay there prostrate, on top
of that CGI astronomy tower. He still had the
occasional flashback. It distracted the audience,
whenever the dialogue got too slow.
‘Harry…, Dumbledore croaked, I’ve got
something to tell you
‘Yes professor?’
‘I’m g…’he hesitated.
Professor?’
‘I’m g…oing to be played by Patrick Stewart
in the last film.’
‘Oh…right.’
‘What’s that in your pocket Harry?’ Ron
jerked him out of his reverie by gesturing to a
long, thin wooden object sticking out of Harry’s
trouser pocket, obscenely.
‘Is it a new wand?’
‘No.’
Harry pulled it out. It was a riding crop.
‘Bloody hell Harry! I didn’t know you had a
horse!’ Said Ron, frenetically.
‘What’s so funny about me owning a horse?’
Harry retorted, defensively
‘Oh…er, nothing…’ Ron mumbled something about The Daily Prophet. Bitchily.
Harry coughed. The cough sounded strangely
like ‘Thunderpants.’ Ron coughed in return. His
sounded like ‘gorsemucker’…or something.
Adult Hermione came bounding
up.
‘Bad luck about Cambridge Hermione,’ said
Ron, Dick Dastardly.
‘But I got in.’ She replied.
‘Yeah but it’s still St Jo-hey, that hurt Harry!’
Harry elbowed him in the ribs. There was a
silence.
‘Are you ok Harry?’ Hermione, peered at
Harry, anxiously.
‘Yeah, it just…well…it still haunts me
sometimes.’
‘You Know Who?’
‘No, Ginny running off with Alan Rickman
like that. I mean, I have a sexy voice too…don’t
I?’
‘I dunno mate, you are feeling a little horse.’
Said Ron, punningly
‘You mean, sounding a little hoarse, surely?’
Replied Hermione.
‘I know what I said Hermione,’ retorted Ron,
gingerly.
‘Hi guys!’ It was Adult Neville.
‘How are the ‘plants’ Neville?’ Harry asked
cryptically. Being professor of herbology at
Hogwarts certainly had its advantages.
‘You, know, I’ve been thinking,’ said Neville,
ignoring the none-too-subtle drug reference.
‘What have you been thinking Nev?’ Asked
Ron, antidisestablishmentarianismly.
‘There should be a sequel to this one.’
‘What?’ Everyone looked puzzled.
‘As in book number eight.’
‘Have you been smoking mandrake leaves
again Neville?’ Said an unspecified character.
‘It would be a psychological study of an angry
young man. Now that You Know Who’s dead
he’s lost his purpose in life. “Harry Potter and
the Gritty Realism” it’d be called…’
‘Would there be a film?’ Asked Harry.
‘I s’pose.’
‘In that case, count me in.’
The assembled characters congratulated one
another on their self-conscious fictionality.
‘Hey, does anyone hear a ticking sound?’
Will Hensher
IMPACT
Fiona Roberts explores the dark side of Hallowe’en
O
ur obsession with Halloween has always bemused me. It’s bad enough
that I could walk into Next in August
and be confronted by an array of Christmas
cards and wrapping paper, but it’s somehow
even weirder that by that point I also couldn’t
take two steps in Sainsbury’s without being
accosted by a fake spider or something – anything – orange. It’s everywhere: the Magic
Joke Shop has had disturbing trails of spiderwebs across its window since the beginning
of term, Sainsbury’s have had Covent Garden
halloween soup on offer for what feels like an
eternity and even M&S sells special Trick
or Treat sweets. And for what? An Americanised, irrelevant day that has the misfortune to fall somewhere between the end of the
supermarket barbecue season and the beginning of mince pie mania.
Ironically, I’m neither a massive anti-commercialist or a Christian who thinks that the
whole bright orange and black circus is dangerous paganism. I can even see the benefit of
having a national day of soon-to-be-reduced
themed food (after all, Christmas is virtually
that) to brighten up the dark evenings between
now and December. Perhaps it releases something in the national psyche, a bizarre kind of
catharsis so that everyone can return safely to
work knowing that they’ve laid their latent desire to don a bright green wart-ridden mask and
black cape safely to rest for another year. But I
can’t believe that we really have to run round
scaring harmless old ladies and looking even
odder than at a bop to make our lecture rooms
a wart-free zone (eccentric lecturers apart).
Admittedly, I risk sounding like both a killjoy and, perhaps more worryingly at the tender
age of twenty, my mother, but the idea of what
amounts to legalised bribery of the elderly really is a bit sinister. I thought that threatening to
throw something disgusting at a woman at least
four times your age in return for sweets was restricted to the under-fives, but it appears that my
basic understanding of child development was
wrong. Maybe I should blame AS Psychology.
Call me Scrooge, but I fail to see how for one day
of the year anyone wearing a bit of face paint is
suddenly granted license to ask for freebies at
any house they want to. It’s not as if it’s only anxiously shepherded eight-year-olds who do it: a
group of fifteen-year olds bearing paint, eggs
and a bottle of White Lightning really can’t play
the cute card. Before I turn into the Daily Mail,
though, it needs to be pointed out that I’m not
on some kind of anti-‘thug’ (read, anyone under
the age of thirty who ventures out after 9pm)
crusade; I just don’t understand how scaring
other people’s grandparents can temporarily
turn into a national sport
However, vanity, Age Concern and the usual
gentle dose of anti-Americanism aside, I must
confess that the main reason I’ll be staying safely
inside this Halloween is slightly different. I just
don’t like being scared. I can count the number
of horror films I’ve seen on one hand, and
even those were watched with my face buried
safely in my popcorn as a laughing friend told
me when it was safe to look. The Ring gave me
nightmares for a fortnight, The Village seemed
terrifying (I’m reliably informed that to normal
people it’s not), and I deliberately fell asleep
Features
A trick, or a treat?
15
Illustrations: Anna Trench
during Saw. I’ve even been known to hide behind a cushion in Doctor Who. So a night when
the whole country is full of DIY ghosts, witches
and vampires is never going to be a personal favourite. I have a sneaking suspicion, however,
that I’m not the only one. Under all that green
facepaint, buried somewhere beneath the pile
of orange-and-black foil chocolate, everyone’s
a little bit worried that it just might be real.
There’s surely a dissertation in the fact that as
society becomes increasingly secular, we find
ever more inventive ways to safely disguise our
lingering superstitions with a mixture of commercialisation and chocolate. So go ahead, buy
that witch’s hat, carve a wonky face on a pumpkin. But make sure you look behind you when
it gets dark. And, please, leave the sweet-snatching to the eight-year-olds.
l
l
i
h
C
g
i
B
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T
Come and find new ways to Chill in Cambridge.....
Chetwynd Room, King’s College
10:30am - 4pm
Sunday 4th November 2007
IMPACT
IMPACT
What if Isaac Newton practiced
alchemy? Alex Bateman enjoys a
good conspiracy theory
Rebecca Stott
Ghostwalk
★★★★☆
A
Horror Classics
Ryan Roark recommends five classic ghost stories to give you
a fright—or at least a good giggle
I
Illustrations by Emily Vermont
n preparation for Halloween, I recently
sat down and read a bunch of “classic”
ghost stories, expecting to have my bones
chilled by forgotten ancient horrors. However, I soon realized that most ghost stories
just don’t stand the test of time, at least not
as ghost stories. Perhaps the reason for this
is that the fearsome unknown has largely become old hat. In Victorian times, spiritualism was mainstream; communion with the
dead was largely taken for granted, even in
scientific circles. Victorians at home were terrified of natives in the colonies and what their
practices implied about human nature. They
were scared of what would happen to them
if they subdued the natives, and they were
scared of what would happen if they didn’t.
As more and more advances were being made
in science, it was feared that man would go
too far to bend the laws of nature. Stories
about snakes charming people, like Ambrose
Bierce’s “The Man and the Snake” (1891), or
about alchemists regretting their eternal life
concoctions, like Mary Shelley’s “The Mortal Immortal” (1910), while fun reading, have
lost their ability to shock and horrify.
Another problem for the modern reader with
nineteenth-century horror stories, is that they
too often play by the rules. In particular, they
often play by the formula that the characters are
warned something bad will happen if they do x, y
or z, the characters ignore the warning and then
something bad happens. Sometimes the characters are sympathetic and didn’t mean to do
anything wrong, but sometimes they just really
have it coming. Take Robert Louis Stevenson’s
“The Body-Snatcher” (1884)—I’m sorry, but if
you’re killing people to dissect in medical school
and snatching bodies from graves, you might as
well say goodbye to your right not to be haunted
by something pretty awful.
Maybe we are simply desensitised to good
old-fashioned horror these days. It’s hard to
shock in this age of visual media and train-wreck
culture. In fact, it doesn’t seem fair to judge hundred year-old stories for horror, when seeing
the trailer for one of the Saw films can cost me
several nights of sleep. And that’s only fiction—
the nightly news these days is more shocking
than most Victorian horrors.
Still, not all classic ghost stories have lost their
currency. Here are five stories that may still send
a shiver up your spine:
1
“The Picture in the House” (1919)
by H P Lovecraft
Lovecraft is a master of setting. He was fascinated by decrepit, apparently uninhabited
houses in the backwoods of New England at
the turn of the century. The houses in his stories have the feel of varying levels of underworld. As the artist Pickman says of his subject
matter in Lovecraft’s story “Pickman’s Model”,
“I want human ghosts—the ghosts of beings
highly organized enough to have looked on
hell and known the meaning of what they saw”.
“The Picture in the House” is the story of a genealogical researcher who enters a dilapidated
old house to have a look around and finds it inhabited by an ancient man with a penchant for
depravity.
The nightly
news these
days is more
shocking
than most
Victorian
horrors
2
“The Judge’s House” (1914)
by Bram Stoker
A mathematician seeking seclusion to study
for the Tripos rents a long uninhabited house
which the locals all believe to be cursed. The last
resident was an evil judge who loved hanging
people. Now the house is overrun by possibly
demonic rats, but even as they begin to torment
the student, he is determined to be rational and
not to be frightened. This story does fall a bit
into the should-have-known-better category,
but it’s still pretty creepy, and the imagery is
top-notch. You’ll never look at rats the same
way again.
3
“The Monkey’s Paw” (1902)
by W W Jacobs
An isolated family of three receives a visit from a
sergeant-major who carries a cursed monkey’s
paw. When the father asks him about it, he explains that it can grant three wishes to three different men: “It had a spell put on it by an old
fakir [who] wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with
it did so to their own sorrow”. The first owner
chose to end his life with his third wish, and the
sergeant-major evidently regrets his own three
wishes. He reluctantly gives the paw over to the
father, who later makes a wish, partly in jest, that
sends the family into a tragic spiral. Some might
find this story formulaic or the theme of tempting fate hokey, but any way you look at it, it is
a classic.
4
“The Masque of the Red Death” (1842)
by Edgar Allan Poe
Poe is often a bit too over-the-top for me. In
many of his most celebrated stories, such as
“The Cask of Amontillado” or “The Tell-Tale
Heart”, there just isn’t enough there apart from
his trademark florid language to make them engaging enough to be horrific. “The Masque of
the Red Death”, on the other hand, has the context and imagery to complement Poe’s gothic
atmosphere. While the peasantry is being wiped
out by a plague known as the Red Death, Prince
Prospero decides to throw a masquerade ball
for his classy aristocrat friends. He builds an
elaborate ballroom inside a fortress, aiming
to keep out the pestilential masses. During the
masquerade, an unwanted guest arrives and
wreaks havoc.
5
“The Friends of the Friends” (1896)
by Henry James
This is a ghost story, though not really a horror story. Henry James’s interest in spiritualism led him to write many stories about ghosts,
and this one in particular is written in an understated way that makes the writer’s belief in
its plausibility especially convincing. The story
centres on a man who saw his mother’s ghost at
the moment of her death and a woman who saw
his father’s ghost at the moment of his death.
The principal narrator is a mutual friend who
wants them to meet, but circumstances conspire to keep them apart, until they are united
by their ability to transcend the barrier between
life and death.
drowned academic, a half-blind psychic and a mutilated cat named Pepys
are just a few of the oddities that make
up Rebecca Stott’s first novel. If this makes it
sound a bit like a bad episode of Midsomer
Murders, don’t be misled. Ghostwalk is an elegant and captivating read that centres on a
highly original conspiracy theory.
Like all good thrillers, Ghostwalk begins
with a suspicious death. Elizabeth Vogelsang,
a Cambridge academic, is found floating
Ophelia-like in the Cam. Her untimely death
leaves her masterwork—a study of Isaac
Newton’s work in alchemy, named simply Alchemist—unfinished. Elizabeth’s son,
Cameron Brown, decides to hire a ghost writer
to complete it. Unwilling to consign his mother’s book to just anyone, Cameron turns to
Lydia Brooke: a friend of his mother’s and his
own former lover. In a curiously oedipal twist,
Lydia moves into Elizabeth’s house, resumes
her affair with the married Cameron and succumbs to the same Newton-obsession that
haunted Elizabeth’s last years.
The obsession is well founded. Alchemist is
no ordinary scholarly study. In her investigation of Newton’s love affair with the dark art
of alchemy, Elizabeth has ventured ‘where angels and sceptical biographers had previously
feared to tread’. The book is, as Lydia puts it, a
‘hand-grenade,’ destined to cause controversy
in academic circles. But Alchemist is also more
than that. As Lydia sifts through Elizabeth’s
research she begins to experience a series of
eerie coincidences. The possibility of an occult connection between Elizabeth’s drown-
ing and the suspicious deaths of
five of Newton’s contemporaries
impresses itself upon Lydia with
growing urgency. Meanwhile
Cameron—a top neuroscientist at a controversial laboratory—is being threatened by
violent animal-rights activists. As
Lydia’s amateur detective work
progresses, she begins to wonder
whether this seemingly separate crisis might not also have its genesis in the
seventeenth century.
Part romance, part historical novel, part
murder mystery, Ghostwalk treads the fine line
between fiction and fact with admirable delicacy. Like a true academic (Stott is a Professor
at Anglia Ruskin University) Stott even includes a historical timeline at the back of the
book to help you distinguish between the two.
Admittedly, Stott’s scholarly background leaves
a few rather off-putting blots on her prose. Not
content to entertain, Stott can’t help trying to
educate you. Reading Ghostwalk sometimes
A Cambridge
academic is
found floating
Ophelia-like
in the Cam
feels
like being
spoken to by a
wise but dreamy
supervisor intent
on imparting wholly
irrelevant (albeit interesting) information:
Tennyson’s penchant for
the Fens, Wallace Stevens’s
poetry and even Virginia
Woolf’s suicide all come in for a
mention. But a touch of fusty academicism is a small price to pay for a truly
erudite historical novel, and Ghostwalk is
certainly that.
Stott’s may not be the most believable of
tales, but what it lacks in plausibility it more
than makes up for in intricacy. The various
threads of her multilayered plot have been
woven together with scrupulous care to form
a complex web which it is a pleasure to unravel.
If you like your mystery novels with a bit more
intellectual bite than Dan Brown can offer,
then this is the thriller for you.
A Ghastly Portrait
Max Compton finds bad writing pretty scary
Susan Hill
The Man in the Picture
★☆☆☆☆
J
ust as ignorance is not a valid plea in
a court of law, incompetence is not a
valid plea in literature. The publishers of The Man in the Picture, a ghost story by Susan Hill, appear to have considered
this defence their best bet nevertheless, and
it cannot be denied that they make the case
sympathetically. This, at least, is the only way
I can explain the decision to include on the
back cover an excerpt from the novella which
features the following: “His face, caught in
the flicker of the firelight, had an expression
so serious—I would almost say deathly serious—that I was startled.” But as I suggest, this
exhibition of cliché at its crudest—I would
almost say its deathly crudest—is only a defence, not the offence itself. That consists in
a prose so devoid of expression and emotion—upon which any involvement of the
reader in the narrator’s reactions relies, an
involvement on which the genre depends—
that such rare stabs at ‘horror’ style, howev-
er hackneyed, are almost welcome. But not
quite—so the publishers’ decision to produce “deathly serious” as witness for the defence would, were incompetence a valid plea,
somewhat extenuate the general absence of
any attempt at linguistic artistry.
The novella consists in a sequence of concentrically embedded narratives, one level of which
takes place in a Cambridge college. Perhaps in
emulation of Dante’s descent through the tiers
The picture
dives off
its walls
in pathetic
attempts at
malevolence
of Hell (but probably not), these carry the reader
progressively deeper into the supposed horror.
And this might indeed be an effective storytelling technique—but it falls flat because between
each alternating narrator there is no discernible difference in style. That a Mediaeval English
graduate should differ so little in tone from his
Mediaeval English professor that one has constantly to remind oneself whose narrative one
is reading, is forgivable. But when neither of
these is significantly distinguishable from
those of an afflicted geriatric Countess or a
“beautiful, accomplished, fun” female barrister, one despairs.
A ghost story requires empathy; and empathy requires convincingly delineated characters to empathise with—not a generic narrative
mouthpiece. Capping the sense that Hill has
overstretched herself with the Wuthering
Heights-esque embedded storytelling technique is a number of chronological and factual
inconsistencies between the various levels.
Even setting all issues with the writing aside,
the actual vehicle of the story’s horror is hopelessly feeble: not only is this story not scary because simply telling the reader “This is scary”
with no evocation of actual fear, is not enough,
but the haunted picture that gives the book its
title just isn’t
the slightest
bit unnerving. It ends up
being the most
sympathetic ‘character’ in the story: at key moments it dives off its
wall in desperate, pathetic attempts at malevolence, and as it lies face-down, inert and helpless
on the carpet, the reader is left pitying instead
of fearing it.
17
Arts & Literature
Murder on the River Cam
Arts & Literature
16
01/11/07
IMPACT
19
Model
Helen Fickling
Article and styling:
Lili Sarnyai
Below and left:
Wine slip, £35, Ann Summers
Fake fur gillet, £35, Dixie’s Market Stall
Tights, £6, Topshop
Jewellery, £3- £5, Dixie’s Market Stall
Uggs, £130, Office
Teddy bears, stylist’s own
Pot Noodles, approx. 87p
Below and left:
Raw silk ball gown, £20,
Dixie’s Market Stall
Converse trainers,
£29.99, Office
Necklace, stylist’s own
Below:
Vintage Betsy Johnson
dress, £200, Dixie’s Market
Stall
White gloves, £4, Dixie’s
Market Stall
Necklace, stylist’s own
Dress yourself
in
fantasy...
A
ccording to the old adage, “today is
not a dress rehearsal” – try your best,
be your best, and look your best, always. Be that as it may, there is definitely
something to be said for the joys of dressing
up, for experimenting with often deliberately ostentatious costumes. Creating a whole
new persona from nothing but the folds of
a dress and the clicking of six-inch vintage
heels is as au courant as ever. And what better
time to celebrate the intricacies and promised
fairylands of costume? With Halloween, that
rather vulgar yet somehow eternally appealing excuse for donning the most outlandish
getups just behind us, and the traditional European season of masked balls about to commence, a brief acknowledgement of the power of imaginative character dressing seems to
be of the essence.
What we can loosely refer to as “costumes”
have been worn throughout the ages for a variety of purposes, from Greek theatre to Roman
victory parades, from medieval jousting tournaments to frivolous Renaissance courtly pursuits; think of the sultry-eyed, golden-hued
look favored by Cleopatra of Egypt, or the out-
rageously expensive, pathologically fashionable outfits commissioned for Marie Antoinette.
Looking at such extravagance, some may wonder if it’s worth going to all the trouble of securing such extraordinary garments, when you can
very happily live and thrive in the quotidienne
with nothing but the basics? Why sacrifice precious time, effort and possibly large amounts of
money in the pursuit of a fleeting, fictitious vision of individuality and excitement?
Well, for anyone who has ever worn a costume or purposefully selected an outfit that
would hide their usual selves behind a veneer of
daring couture, the answer should seem simple.
Fancy dress (or shall we say “deliberately fancy
attire”, since the former tends to induce visions
of hideous Disney costumes worn to a fifth
birthday party) is unique in its ability to evoke
the appearance of a new personality, masking
any imperfections, diverting attention away
from the ordinary and towards the imagined
and intangible. It allows you to become someone else - or perhaps merely a slightly different,
version of yourself - for a few precious hours.
It allows you to recreate that childhood fantasy
world of heroes and heroines, witches and fair-
ies; it lets you become utterly unique and free of
all inhibitions, hiding any doubts, fears or insecurities behind a modish mask.
Yet “dressing up” has a wider significance in
our society. It is more than just little girls twirling around in Jasmine outfits, blissfully oblivious to the outside world, imagining themselves
perched on a magical flying carpet soaring
through the starry Arabian night. It can be seen
in the glamour, glitz and pure pretension that
characterize such celebrity-laden ceremonies as
the Oscars, where a single outfit has the power
to make or break an actress’ career. Costumes
also play a central yet arguably less glittery role
in establishing the credibility of theatre productions of the West End. From the drab minimalism of an absurdist piece, through the lace and
pomp of a period drama, to the harsh splendor
and often-vaudevillian atmosphere of a grand
musical, these carefully selected, painstakingly
manufactured garments not only hold the key
to a visual feast of colour, form and texture, but
through their authenticity ensure a successful
suspension of disbelief.
To dismiss the concept of “costumes” as belonging to the realm of children’s fantasy is both
preposterous and self-limiting.
Dressing up is à la mode. The evidence is all
around, permeating a consumer society like
the drizzling Cambridge rain in November,
albeit with far more pleasing results. So you
may choose to stubbornly disregard others’ attempts at achieving a certain level of originality
of dress. You may resolutely cross your arms in
your high street jumper, objectively avoiding all
purveyors of “unique” clothing, anxiously debating whether to go for the gray or the black
skinny jeans , but remember this: Whatever
you do to blend in, there will always be those
who want to stand out, who are ready to embrace intrepid self-adornment in the name of
fashion forward and self-confidence. Whilst no
one will force you to let your mainstream guard
down once in a while and revel in the delights of
assuming a whole new persona purely through
the power of dress, it is worth just considering
the following: Had Cinderella opted for a simple frock from the local market for that all-important ball, would she really have been such
a success? It seems suspiciously plausible that
no ball gown might just have meant no Prince
Charming…
Fashion
Photos :
Erika
Careers Service
Autumn Careers Event 2007
7th & 8th November, 1pm to 6pm
University Centre Mill Lane
www.careers.cam.ac.uk
01/11/07The Cambridge Student
IMPACT
Mary, Queen of Cambridge
Chaos theory: A butterfly flaps its wings in Cambridge... A Storybook Life
A
butterfly flaps its wings in Cambridge
and there is an earthquake in San
Francisco. This is a common interpretation of the popular phenomenon known
as the Butterfly Effect, but the mathematics of
this chaos theory is far more complex. These
complexities emerged in part from the equations of Dame Mary Cartwright, an eminent
twentieth-century mathematician and an educator of women at the University of Cambridge.
Born in Northamptonshire in 1900,
Cartwright enjoyed history as a child but
elected to pursue a degree in mathematics, gaining a place at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. After
graduating with a first class degree, she accepted
a short-term teaching post before returning to
Oxford to complete her Masters studies. At
Oxford, Cartwright’s enthusiasm for mathematics grew so much so that she decided to pursue a career in academia.
Cartwright was encouraged to apply for
a fellowship because of her outstanding intellectual promise. She successfully won the
prize and so began a lifetime association with
Girton College, which included a lengthy ten-
ure as Mistress, saw her most productive years
of research, and also established Cartwright as
a leader and advocate of female achievement
both at Cambridge and in the male-dominated
field of mathematics.
While her early work at Cambridge received
justified credit for its innovation, Cartwright’s
collaboration with an equally renowned mathematician, J.E. Littlewood, produced her most
famous results. Together, they described the
phenomena that form the basis for chaos theory,
a system whose behaviour shows a great sensitivity to the initial conditions. Conceptually,
this system is analogous to a ball resting on the
top of a mountain. A ball at rest on the arbitrarily small peak is given a gentle push, causing it to
roll down the slope and stop (after a little rolling)
at the base of the mountain. However, if a second ball, also at rest on the same peak, is given
a gentle push in a slightly different direction, it
will come to rest at a much larger distance from
the first ball. Chaos theory simply demonstrates
that minor changes in the initial conditions result in major variations in the outcome
The ball-on-a-mountain example illustrates
this Butterfly Effect without pages of complicated equations. But why is this valuable in
our everyday life? Chaos theory can in fact be
used to explain real world phenomena, such as,
what causes earthquakes. A result for many that
could be the difference between life and death.
Despite her contributions to mathematics, and to one of the twentieth century’s most
powerful theories, Mary Cartwright is remembered in equal measures for her contributions
to Cambridge and for her prominent leadership as a woman in academia. These commitments to the University and its students saw
Cartwright gradually reduce her research output. Nevertheless, the quality and importance of
her mathematics continued to win Cartwright
numerous accolades as the consequences of her
findings resonated through more than just the
field of mathematics.
As the only woman to date to preside over
the London Mathematics Society, Cartwright
also served as a role model for female academics
while personifying the ever-growing contributions of women to science and mathematics.
Upon her retirement in 1969 Cartwright
was made Dame Commander of the British
Empire. This honour recognised not only her
groundbreaking mathematics, but also her passionate devotion to Cambridge and her college.
Over several decades she encouraged, oversaw
and directly led the education and training of
new generations of women equipped to tackle
problems in so many fields outside the.
The tireless efforts of Dame Mary Cartwright
on behalf of her students and fellow female academics eclipsed the long-term impact that even
her equations aimed to predict.
Minor changes
in the initial
conditions
result in major
changes in the
outcome
WHERE DID CHAOS ORIGINATE?
The original definition of chaos, derived from the Ancient Greek, was not “disorder”. In fact, its
true meaning was “primal emptiness or space”, compare chasm. However, a misunderstanding
of the early Christian use of the word, meant that it changed and now we use it to refer to
unpredictably or a lack of order.
The first true experimenter in chaos was the famous meteorologist Edward Lorenz. In 1960, he
was researching how to predict weather patterns using computational modelling. One day, to
save time, he repeated a calculation in the middle of the data set, instead of from the beginning.
He entered the number off a printout he had for the particular experiment into the computer
program and left it to run.
When he came back an hour later, the sequence had evolved differently. Instead of the same
pattern as before, it diverged from the pattern, ending up vastly different from the original.
After much checking and rechecking he realised what had happened. In an effort to save paper,
he had only printed out the data point to three decimal places as opposed to the original sixfigure number. This slight change in initial condition had meant that the result was widely
different from the previous run.
...causing an earthquake in
San Francisco GISuser.com
And so began the investigation into chaos.
Science
James Kelly takes us into the complex world of Dame Mary Cartwright
21
FOOD AND DRINK 23
Chicken Soup for the Cambridge Soul
An unappetising collection of ‘inspirational’ prose goes up against Maimonides’
mother’s medicine in Food and Drink’s most daunting investigation to date
Sarah Restarick
A
Chicken lickin’ Gabriel Byng
h, chicken soup! A miracle cure for all
that ails ye, seemingly with powers to
rival penicillin. Its healing powers were
apparently first noted by the Ancient Egyptians
and later recorded in the 12th century by the
Jewish sage Maimonides who raved of its
“virtue in rectifying corrupted humours” (of
course we all know that Maimonides must have
nicked this matzah ball of wisdom from his mum,
because surely Jewish mothers have known of The
Soup since time began and Abraham caught his
first sniffle). Not that we need science to back us up
here, but merely because everybody likes a good
fact, lets not forget that in 2000 Dr Stephen Rennard and chums published a study in the journal
Chest which found chicken soup had a potential
anti-inflammatory effect by reducing the activity
of certain white blood cells. So there; not just a
placebo effect after all!
My own mother is sadly lacking in Jewish
heritage, but schooldays in north London taught me
that chicken soup was always the way to go when
those autumn colds began to kick in.
A nice big bowl or even mug of steaming liquid was just the thing, sometimes with the added delicacy of slippery
noodles for that extra amusement we all need when
breathing through your nose brings only a humorous squealing noise rather than any actual passage
of oxygen. Whether freshly made, Covent Garden
Soup Company packaged or in the humble and
much maligned form of cup-a-soup, chicken soup
is the shizzle.
My own recipe for chicken-flavoured cold relief
normally involves plenty of garlic, lemon juice, rice
noodles and a hideous quantity of bird eye chillies
(it has been branded ‘the soup of death’). But alas
and alack, with Fresher’s flu descending late in the
term it came upon me all at once that…I no longer
had a hob with which to produce my miraculous
concoction, my college having fallen foul of the
dreaded Cambridge County Council Fire Safety
inspections. Could the same elixir of health really be
produced in the so-called ‘combination oven’? Or
was there another way?
The literary version of Jewish
penicillin, perhaps?
Thinking back to my schooldays again I realised
that perhaps there was. My headmistress had held
an unhealthy fascination with the Chicken Soup for
the Soul series of books, and over my seven years at
the school I had sat through a surprising number of
assembly readings drawn from her favourite source.
According to their wikipedia blurb these books,
which now number over 105 titles including such
gems as Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul, Chicken
Soup for the NASCAR Soul and Sopa de Pollo para
el Alma de los Padres, comprise ‘a collection of
short, inspirational stories and motivational essays’.
And so my cold-addled mind considered whether
perhaps Mrs. Hyde had had a point with her endless repetitions of the story about the frog trapped
in the dairy or the man throwing the starfish back
in the sea.
Maybe I could heal myself with the words of Jack
Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen instead: the
literary version of Jewish penicillin perhaps?
And so, dear readers, I carried out an experiment.
Some may have it called it madness, others, brilliance; yet more may simply see it as the product of a
bored undergrad with a looming essay deadline on
a wet October afternoon. The necessary equipment
for my dabblings in domestic science consisted
of: one bowl of chicken noodle soup bought from
Sainsbury’s and warmed in the aforementioned
combination-oven; also, one book, Chicken Soup
for the Soul, acquired from the magical library van
that appears in the Market Square.
My cold and I sat down to the table, book and
bowl poised in front of me, and the experimentation
began. A few spoonfuls of soup were taken – good,
nourishing, throat felt soothed. A random page was
chosen and the story read – courageous child with
cancer, dying wish: to be a fireman, fire officer smiles
down at little Billy the hero, end of tale. My heart is
slightly lifted, but unfortunately stomach now feels
nauseated and nose is still bunged up. The experiment continues, with the bowl of soup ending well
beyond the 304 pages of the increasingly saccharine
book. Sadly, I just can’t stomach any more.
The conclusion I drew was thus: motivational
essays, schmotivational essays. When fifth week
comes around and the inevitable cold with it, I’ll
definitely be with Maimonides on this one and
grappling with the microwave to produce the beautiful goop that is chicken soup.
Drinking under the influence
Amusing without presumption: wine for the mature drinker
James Wallis
T
he perplexing American novelist Henry
Miller, once said: “The aim of life is to live,
and to live means to be aware, joyously,
drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” Well put.
Disappointingly the drunkenness is supposed to
be metaphorical, but I think there are plenty of
us out there who, of an animated evening, or a
lazy sunny afternoon with bugger all else to do,
would prefer a more literal interpretation of Miller’s aphorism. How worthy drinking seems to become when ennobled by Miller’s judgement as a
means of life’s great fulfilment, yet how ignoble we
feel the morning after. And in its advanced stages,
I think there is a pretty strong case to doubt the
awareness-boosting properties of drunkenness.
But it still makes for a pretty phrase.
Mankind’s relationships with fluids are generally
fairly uncomplicated. We obviously like to drink
them. We also enjoy floating on them, swimming
in them, and blowing bubbles in them. Occasionally
we are forced by circumstances entirely beyond our
control into creating spontaneous street art with
them. It is prudent, sometimes, to guiltily wipe
them away from the scene of some shame or other.
Anybody who enjoys a sporting life will know the
profound and desperate pleasure afforded by a gulp
of cold water during intensive exercise.
Our cosiest relationship with any liquid though, is
withsociety’sfavouritepoison–booze.Forthetongue-
tied British in particular, alcohol is a prime social
lubricant, a squirt of WD40 on the powdery gears of
new acquaintances. If the conversation flags, take a
sip of your pint, or better still drop a penny in some
poor bugger’s full glass of red. It’s a grand facilitator
for all kinds of enterprises, as any devoted veteran
of the formal circuit will tell you. I heard a convincing rationale for the government’s extension of
licensing laws recently. Apparently it’s to deal with
our aging population. Up the birth rate.
Mankind’s relationships with
fluids are uncomplicated
For the 16-24s, alcohol is the overriding lifestyle
choice. Broadly speaking, no matter how devoted
we are to our studies or our sports or our health, we
do our level best to store drinking away in a separate
mental compartment, well away from our serious
and worthy pursuits that it can so badly prejudice.
Unfortunately, being a clever bunch, we can’t do this
very effectively. We can’t even convince ourselves
– hence the ‘cycle of shame’. Not a Cantabrigian
alternative to the famous ‘walk’, but the process
of binge-guilt-health…binge. For some of us, the
cycle takes but a matter of hours, and for some of us
a few days, but it goes round again so that, pining for
relaxed and meaningful social interaction, and
just because it makes us feel so good, we damage
ourselves (so very pleasurably) once more.
As we grow older we are advised to some-
times enjoy our booze ‘in moderation’.
Obviously it’s much less fun that way, but it’s
probably for the best, and it can pave new avenues of pleasure when it comes to ‘tastings’,
and good booze. I never believed in it myself
until I was cornered by the father of a friend
of mine who, newly enthused by the great
tapestry of fermented grape juice available to
sophisticates, forced me into an amateurish,
blundering crash course in wine tasting.
Thisturnedouttobeagreatdealoffun,andnotjust
because we got catastrophically pissed at it. The
‘nosing’andwhathaveyouofwinetastingisn’tactually
complete bollocks and stupid – it actually is revealing,
enthusing and exciting. Suddenly there actually are
gooseberries detectable in what normally just smells
like wine. It’s good stuff, and you’ll enjoy it. The same
goes for whisky. Have a go at a nice, peaty, twelveyear old single malt. Don’t mix it with Coke. You
might find that you like it.
The thing is that nice wines, and even worse, nice
whiskies, are fairly pricey, so this activity becomes
kind of self-limiting (in the same way that your
overdraft is limited). I probably wouldn’t advocate
making this the priority approach to booze just yet,
and don’t bother bringing a nice Grand Cru to
formal, because some idiot will penny
it. But be aware that there is another way. When we all have jobs as
bankers, and grinding, empty, unsatisfying lives,
maybe it’ll help shine a ray of awareness onto it all.
That’s what it’s all about, apparently.
Cheeky Andre Karwath
24 THEATRE
Theatrical threesome
Hannah Fair, Marsha Vinogradova and Richard Power Sayeed install
themselves at the ADC for an evening of insects, incest and intensity
ADC Theatre
October 30 - November 3, 19:00 (Sat mat 14:30)
(£5/£6, £6/£7)
★☆☆☆☆
I
Magical show misses a trick Oliver Jordan
ADC Theatre
Mr Kolpert
October 30 - November 3, 21:00
(£4/£5, £5/£6)
★★★★★
I
magine what you don’t want to see happen to
people on stage. Imagine the sublime pleasure of watching the unwatchable; a voyeuristic orgy of pain, degradation and social deceit.
And imagine it in the heart of the bourgeois home.
That may not give much of an indication of what
Mr Kolpert is about, yet Mr Kolpert is a difficult
play to write about. If the plot is revealed then the
instability you feel throughout, as an audience
member, is sabotaged. If moments of the production are described, the sense of trepidation,
shock and disgust will be lost. In fact now we’ve
gone and mentioned shock, that’s what you’ll be
expecting, which defeats the purpose. But the review must go on…
First performed at the Royal Court in 2000,
t is undeniably a challenge to bring Roald
Dahl’s much loved story, James and the Giant Peach, to the stage. Featuring anthropomorphic insects, transatlantic adventure and not
too mention a very large peach, this tale certainly
takes some magic and ingenuity in the telling.
Director Oli Robinson clearly took an energetic if
incoherent approach to this play, with the production helter-skeltering between different modes of
performance: self-conscious story-telling, poorly
performed puppetry, live action, direct audience
participation and rather naff mime. Sadly, unlike
the peach in question, the production never took off.
The play was ripe with good intentions and dynamic
German playwright David Gieselmann’s black comedy is a fantastic piece; imagine Tarantino meets
Pinter, with a more sadomasochistic edge. And Jeff
James’ production is shattering; an indefinable melange of mind tricks, philosophy, weakness and liberation. Beneath the civilised façade, man’s life is
You’ll be surprised at your
level of voyeurism
revealed to be nasty, brutish and short. The action
starts as a dinner party, goes violently beyond the
realm of social faux pax, and ends on… Actually, it’s
better if you find out for yourself. Each time it seems
the play reaches a climax and the audience, its victims, are saturated with discomfort, it confidently
strides further for another “in your face” twist.
The performance is not without fault. Some of the
acting is patchy - Molly Goyer-Gorman, as ‘Edith’
steals the show, showing remarkable transformation whilst Heidi Homes’ ‘Sarah’ fails to procure
much strong reaction. Patrick Kingsley as ‘Ralph’
seems uninteresting at first but his consistency pro-
ADC Theatre
The Fall of the House of
Usher
October 30 - November 3, 23:00
(£4/£5, £5/£6)
★★★☆☆
J
Visually sumptuous Mick Audsley
“
ournalist Paul Arendt once remarked that
“nobody does Berkoff except for students and
Berkoff.” It’s pretty obvious what attracts student theatre to Berkoff’s work: the provocatively
abstract, the physically impressive and the conceitedly adventurous. A director may feel that a
Berkoff play allows for infinite stylistic exploration
and ingenuity. And director Marieke Audsley certainly cashes in on the opportunity, incorporating
impressive physical theatre in what is a visually
demanding show. This adaptation of a short story
by Edgar Allan Poe is a demented gothic horror
full of anguish, smoke and cravats.
ideas, yet sadly most of these never bore fruit. The
fluid multi-rolling worked admirably, as did the integration of music throughout. However the shabby
design and poor operation of the puppets threw that
conceit out of the window. Suspension of disbelief
also faltered when faced with the laughably unpopulated ‘flock’ of seagull puppets.
Visually, stylistically and technically the play was
a mess: Robinson failed to bring coherence to the
Unlike the peach, the production never took off
piece, and sadly often potentially exciting symbolic
techniques flopped. Much of the action was unclear,
and was certainly not aided by a burst of deafening
feedback and the inexplicable decision to repeatedly
throw the stage into near-darkness, while lighting
the audience. The majority of the acting was equally
unfocused, presenting the audience with little more
vides the backbone of the play. Some of the detail
is messy and the set is unstimulating, with a wonky
oversized trunk as its central piece.
However such details are inconsequential, given
the importance of Mr Kolpert as a theatrical experience. Its main merit is that this experience is so
individual. Preparing this review, we had trouble
consolidating three completely different impressions. There is no way to decide whether it’s realism
or absurd, whether characters are evil, demented
or simply confused. The audience reacts strongly,
but very differently – the row behind gasps to see
violence against a woman, whilst the row in front
chuckles; to the right someone cringes to see vomiting and to the left heads shake disappointedly because there’s not enough of it. Everyone has their
own personal relationship with Mr Kolpert.
We’ve given the play five stars not because it is
perfect, but because it is immensely important. As
you watch Mr Kolpert you find out a lot about yourself, what you are comfortable with and what makes
you cringe; you’ll be surprised at your level of voyeurism and at your own intolerance. Go and see Mr
Kolpert – it’s short, sharp and unmissable.
There is no way any reviewer can deny HATS
the credit they deserve. Immaculately executed,
this production was a sensual feast. Almas Daud
and Katie Nairne’s picturesque and interactive set,
beautiful lighting from Ben Sehovic and some great
original music by David Isaacs all contributed to a
commendable technical achievement. Controlled
and perfectly focused performances from the entire cast are hard to come by in student theatre, yet
made this production the slickest this term. Special
mention is due for David Brown, who throws himself with formidable force into the role of tormented
Roderick Usher.
But there’s a reason that Berkoff is such student
bait. If you’ve ever seen Greek, East, West or anything else for that matter, you will find little here that
you haven’t encountered before. The terrible truth
is that you can’t do Berkoff without tense physical
contortions, incest and a white sheet – all present
and correct in this production. There is little of value
in this material. There’s not much plot, and that
which there is moves slowly and predictably. The
novelty of the fancy dialogue wears off very quickly
than a troupe of grotesque and patronising Blue
Peter presenters.
However, Thomas Edwards as the melancholic
‘Earthworm’ helped this production crawl out of
the mire of mediocrity. Though playing merely a
blind and limbless annelid, Edwards demonstrated
a multitude of talents. At ease with the text and conscious of his own physicality, Edwards proved himself a masterful comic, musician and puppeteer,
capable of irony and of producing fantastic underwater noises. Edwards was well supported by Rob
Frimston as ‘James’, who gave a solid performance and brought a degree of professionalism to the
show, while sporting his boyish shorts, remarkably
familiar from Narnia days.
While ‘James’ and his insect mates may have had
their dreams come true, many in the audience were
disappointed at the sight of the static, patchy cardboard peach. So much more could have been done
with this show, and so many great ideas could have
been followed through. Tempting as this production may look, I wouldn’t risk taking another bite.
Violently grotesque Tim Checkley
and becomes pretentious. You come to realise that
the dramaturge is stretching and straining so that
each second of the work is effective. Consequently
the performance attempts ultimate visual effectiveness, but it doesn’t really make you feel anything.
And more importantly, fairly early on, the innova-
“Nobody does Berkoff
except for students
and Berkoff.”
tive effects are exhausted and start to be simply repeated: carrying around catatonic bodies or playing
with empty picture frames is exciting the first time,
but dull by the seventeenth.
If you’re a big Berkoff buff, you will love this perfectly executed production. If you’ve never seen a
Berkoff play staged, you’ll be impressed for the first
twenty minutes. If you are neither – prepare to be
embarrassed at finding yourself as bored stiff as
Madelaine’s cataleptic body, despite the fact that this
is a very accomplished production.
A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great
drama critic also perceives what is not happening.
”
Kenneth Tynan
THEATRE 25
Theatrical
Thoughts
Absurdism
provokes
reality check
T
Ionesco’s absurdist ‘Rhinoceros’ at The Royal Court Keith Pattison
David Ralfe
T
here’s a curiously fine line between righteous indignation and weary apathy. Some
people can’t get off their soap boxes; others never bother to find one. Most of us are stuck
somewhere in between. We’ll accept that “If you
don’t vote, you can’t complain”, but is there any
point voting or complaining these days? Does it
make any difference?
The Theatre of the Absurd is a loosely defined
school of theatre which encompasses Samuel
Beckett, Tom Stoppard’s earlier plays and this year’s
ADC Freshers’ Mainshow The Visit, by Friedrich
Durrenmatt. Typically they portray a godless world
in which humans can’t do much more than make a
mess of things. It’s famously avant-garde and surreally chaotic, reveling in the absurdities of life, which
are by turns hilarious, terrifying or both. And it suddenly feels uncomfortably relevant.
In absurdist drama the individual can rarely effect any change. In Beckett this is taken to extremes:
the protagonist of Happy Days is buried in mud, and
in Endgame two characters sit in bins throughout
the play. Do we feel similarly incapable of effecting
change today? The perceived erosion of democracy
is one of the bitterest after-tastes of the Blair years.
Another absurdist aim is to expose the idiocies
and trivialities of modern life. Continental playwright Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Prima Donna
(staged wonderfully at the Playroom last year) features a tedious middle-class nonsense. Ionesco’s
inspiration was an English phrase book, whose collection of “useful phrases” was so utterly vapid that
we English came across as rather dull. I wonder,
if we compiled our most common conversational
topics, would Facebook and Heat magazine recur
embarrassingly frequently? We might be a more affluent society than ever before, but has this just given
us more time to devote to the utterly inane?
Perhaps such relevance explains the sudden recent interest in absurdist drama. The Donmar recently staged Absurdia, by N.F Simpson and Michael
Frayn. This summer, the RSC produced Ionesco’s
parodic Macbett. Ionesco’s Rhinoceros is showing
at the Royal Court right now. And in two weeks,
Durrenmatt’s The Visit will grace the ADC.
Absurdist drama doesn’t tread a line between
comedy and tragedy, it consciously erodes it. The
idiocies of life can easily be comic, but when they’re
all you’re left with, it’s easy to get depressed. That’s
when the weary apathy hits you. But although
Rhinoceros and The Visit are absurdist, they don’t
want you to give up yet.
Romanian-born Ionesco saw his homeland conquered by Soviets, before moving to France which
was promptly invaded by Germany. Ionesco was
appalled at the speed with which people capitulated and were persuaded that the invasions weren’t
so bad after all. The Swiss Durrenmatt was equally
embarrassed by his country’s wartime neutrality.
Both plays examine political conformity and capitulation. In The Visit a bankrupt town is visited by a
millionairess, who promises the town money to rebuild itself, in return for one man’s life. At first the
town is shocked, then less so… Both plays beg their
audiences to be better than this. They expose life’s
absurdities and pitfalls so that we can guard against
them. They’re there to galvanise you, to tell you that
although it’s easy to feel helpless we mustn’t give up.
They’re there to get you back on your soap box.
The Visit
ADC Theatre
November 13 - 17, 19:45
(£6/£8, £7/£9)
heatre, as a form of artifice, can be understood as a well crafted mixture of deception
and illusion. However this week there’s
even more to Cambridge drama than meets the
eye. Just take a peek in the Corpus Playroom at the
sinister tale of The Tulip Touch which explores
the dark undercurrents of girlhood friendship.
We strongly recommend you put off all your responsibilities and spend the evening tat the ADC this
week, taking in a whopping three consecutive plays.
Plunge yourself into the gothic abyss of The Fall of
the House of Usher or let your imagination run riot
with space-hoppers and papier-mâché in James
and the Giant Peach. Finally, if you dare, sample an
evening in the home of Ralf Droht and Sarah Kenner
in Mr Kolpert, where you’ll definitely get more than
you ever expected from a selection of takeaway pizzas, a game of Botticelli and an innocuous looking
cupboard.
Check out the website this week!
TCS welcomes back the Corpus Playroom
as it kicks off its season with Cigarettes and
Chocolate and The Tulip Touch.
Plus we check out the Footlights Bar Smoker
COMING NEXT WEEK
Still not enough?
Musical mayhem with Fame
Pinter pleasures from The Collection
Albee animals in The Zoo Story
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26 FILM
Bigmouth Strikes Again
Michael Moore actually becomes slightly less annoying
Sicko
★★★★☆
M
ichael Moore, enemy of corporations,
gun-owners and anything generally
right-wing, has found a new bugbear
for his latest film. Surprisingly, his attack on the
American health system (or lack thereof) is probably his best film yet. Despite the fact that it contains pretty much all the political ingredients (the
wrongs of the Republicans and corporations, people in Flint, Michigan being screwed) that made
all his previous films into irritating polemics,
Sicko is a remarkably mature and well-grounded
documentary.
The main reason for this is most evident in the first
half, which focuses purely on the way that healthcare is distributed in America. Moore tells us at
the very beginning that he’s not even going to talk
about people without health insurance – we already
know their story. Instead he talks about the people
who should be covered by the system and sets out
to expose this system as being fundamentally unfair
and immoral. While Moore could have quite easily
messed this up by turning the issue into a mawkish polemic, he makes the very wise, if utterly unexpected, choice of letting his subjects speak for
themselves. The first half of Sicko is remarkable because of the conspicuous absence of its maker – it’s
probably the first film made by Michael Moore
that isn’t about himself.
The story that is set out is powerful and shocking, and Moore deserves credit for crafting it so
brilliantly. Anecdotes of insurance companies attempting to make their customers pay for ambulance rides and try to get of any type
of operation are utterly compelling in themselves.
Moore utterly destroys the myth that
America has the
world’s best health
system for those
with insurance.
Rather than a
fully modern
system that provides patients with
all the treatment
they need, we hear of
people being denied
operations because a
brain tumour isn’t “lifethreatening”, or because
bone marrow replacement
is an
“experimental” treatment for cancer. In both of the
cases mentioned, the patients died. By allowing the
relatives and survivors to tell their stories, Moore
compiles a formidable and moving body of evidence. Crucially, it’s a systematic piece of film-making as well, in that he avoids the stunts and playful
graphics that made it difficult to take his other films
seriously. Probably the greatest praise that can be
given to the first part is that you will admire it
even if you don’t agree with Moore’s political principles.
That, unfortunately, cannot really be
said for the second half, which lets the
film down a little bit. While Moore’s comparison of the NHS with America is illuminating, he overdoes things a bit
and perhaps exaggerates his own ignorance. In particular, his feigned disbelief at the fact that no-one is paying
for treatment is a little bit over the top,
although having lots of British people
laugh at him when he asks where to pay is
quite amusing. You will enjoy the comparison between America and
Britain and France a
lot if, like me,
you think
that the
The first half of Sicko is
remarkable because of the
conspicuous absence of its
maker
It’s the very last section that really spoilt things for
me though. Pretending that the NHS and the French
government are perfect I can handle, but talking
up Cuba’s healthcare is a step too far. It is true that
Cuba’s public health system is fairer and better than
America’s, but it’s also true that Cuba shoots dissidents. Something just tells me that those two facts
have to be placed alongside each other. Moore’s
final stunt here, taking Ground Zero rescue workers to Cuba for treatment, strikes one as a little exploitative and adds nothing to the film, except an
extra slice of controversy. Without it, Sicko would
probably make less of a ripple at the box office and
in American politics, but if Moore could only have
resisted his worse impulses, he would have made a
great, rather than merely good, film.
Shane Murray
What I Like Most About You...
The Witnesses
★★★☆☆
I
Life’s a beach, until you get AIDS image.net
NHS is much better than most people think and
you agree with Moore’s broad principles. If not,
you might find his unqualified praise, particularly
of France, a little grating. On the other hand, it is a
neat comparison that he makes and this section also
has an appearance from Tony Benn, who is always
entertaining.
n three sentences time this review contains
a sentence that will fill 95% of cinema goers
with horror, but I urge you to read beyond it.
Please believe me that there are riches awaiting
you if you can get past this. Are you ready?
The Witnesses is a subtitled French drama set in
the mid 1980’s portraying the impact of an AIDS
outbreak on a close-knit group of friends. Not a recipe for a fun-filled two hours in the cinema I grant
you, but there is enough interesting material and
spectacular cinematography to make this a rewarding experience.
The first half of the film is entitled “Happy Days”
but we are a long way from the wholesomeness of
Ron Howard and The Fonz. The film centres on a
Parisian tale of unrequited love between Adrien, a
spectacularly bald, middle-aged doctor and Manu,
a narcissistic, young gay man. Manu is seen happily enjoying the last few months of the free love era
whilst Adrien, brilliantly played by Michel Blanc,
broods longingly.
The pair meet Sarah and Mehdi, a young couple
with a newborn child. Sarah is suffering from postnatal depression whilst Mehdi is to all outward appearances, a devoted father.
In one of the film’s few misjudged sequences the
fit and healthy Manu goes swimming, after a while
he complains of feeling tired and then without further exposition loses the ability to stay afloat. Luckily
Mehdi is on hand to resuscitate the drowning boy
and the two bond. This eventually leads to a torrid
affair aided by Mehdi’s very open marriage.
Manu flees Paris to continue his affair with
Mehdi, away from the crushing presence of Adrien.
However, unrequited lovers in cinema are rarely that
easily defeated and this is no exception. There follows a drunken confrontation during which Adrien
notices that the boy has some skin lesions. He proceeds to gives Manu a quick physical and adopts a
grave expression. Manu is unconcerned insisting
“it’s not like I have the plague is it?”. By this point of
course, the audience knows differently.
The second part of the film, entitled “The War”,
powerfully shows hows Manu’s fight with AIDS affects those around him. Thankfully it does this without resorting to the clichés that normally surround
this story (there are no annoyingly ill-informed
characters worried about the cleanliness of toilet
seats for example) and even manages to raise a few
smiles along the way.
The most compelling reason to see this film is the
stylish photography of Julien Hirsch. The domestic
scenes are given a bleached-out palette which vastly
contrasts with the rich, vibrant colours used whenever the characters are allowed to venture outside.
Please don’t be fooled, this film is no masterpiece.
Occasionally the plot seems quite theatrical, with
characters crossing each other’s path in increasingly
coincidental ways and there are one or two superfluous sub-plots. On the whole though, The Witnesses
is well executed, providing an emotionally taut and
claustrophobic experience that you are unlikely to
find in anything emanating from Hollywood.
Pete Simmonds
FuTuRESHORTS
A short review for some short
but sweet films...
Not fixing the light in the caravan you share
with your pregnant girlfriend can have disastrous consequences. This nugget of information is just one of the many lessons
we learnt from the latest offerings of short
film talent at this month’s Futureshorts festival.
We also learnt that you shouldn’t scare
your girlfriend with a humourous rubber
spider when she is driving. This will result
in you being stabbed in the eye by a paramedic with a painfully large syringe.
Yes, the theme this month seemed very
much to be focused around ideas of fatalism and consequence.
The highlight of the evening, however,
came in the form of the simple and amusing Romanian film, The Tube With A Hat, in
which we follow a father and son as they
travel across country to get their television
set fixed.
Each month Futureshorts serves up a
mixed bag of the latest in innovative shorts.
If you missed this month’s then you did miss
out. Catch the next selection of short films
on November 23rd when Futureshorts returns to Cambridge.
FILM 27
“Forget any of this happened”
There’s no escape from ridiculous Russian clichés in Cronenberg’s latest
Eastern Promises
★★☆☆☆
W
illiam Friedkin once referred to his
film, The French Connection, as a
“crude poem” to New York City. David Cronenberg’s latest film, Eastern Promises, is
anything but poetic though crude is quite apt. The
genius of The French Connection is that it distils
the shabbiness of New York circa 1971 onto celluloid, poeticising the dirt and turning the city into a
character in the drama. Eastern Promises does no
such thing at a time when critics are championing
foreign director’s portrayals of London over British filmmaker’s attempts. When British directors
come out with Basic Instinct 2, and Agent Cody
Banks 2 then perhaps the critics have a point, but
faced with films such as Match Point and Eastern
Promises, Sight and Sound should possibly rethink their latest cover: ‘Cronenberg’s London’.
For Cronenberg’s is a film guilty of Match Point’s
failings and more. Apart from an exhilarating ride
across London Bridge (exhilarating for people
who have never sat upstairs on the number 21) we
get nothing of our London location. The Russian
Restaurant, which is supposedly the headquarters of
a huge eastern crime family, is where the film’s most
interesting scenes occur. Cronenberg focuses lovingly on the red velvet table cloths and the Russian
feasts laid out on them. The characters, like the restaurant, are painted with bold, colourful strokes.
Yet behind this there is a resounding hollowness.
The cast do not work as an ensemble, and only Viggo
Mortenson seems to realise that less is more. At the
other end of the spectrum, Vincent Cassel tries to
cover up the vacuity of his character by rushing
around making flamboyant Russian gestures, a poor
imitation of his excellent work in La Haine.
Of course none of this is helped by Steven Knight’s
screenplay. Although it improves as the movie goes
on, the dialogue in the early scenes is dire, like a cat
retching up hairballs of exposition. Naomi Watts
drops some clangers in the name of profundity (my
favourite was a completely straight faced: “sometimes birth and death go together”). Despite some
improvement in this department, the second half of
the screenplay has at least one completely nonsensical double crossing, and a revelation that has no
shock factor whatsoever. Not because we could see
it coming, but because it is essentially meaningless,
and lands in the film as if by parachute.
In the recent documentary Sicko, we sit up when
Michael Moore praises the NHS, whilst in Eastern
Promises we sit up when Naomi Watts tells us that
her house isn’t far from Central London (“just across
the park”) and we end up in Balham. This would be
excusable if the characters were anything more than
vaguely racist clichés, spouting clunking dialogue in
a film that has so much potential that it hurts.
This, ultimately, is Eastern Promises’ most frustrating failure. It has the semblance of a good plot,
and it has the foundations of a fascinating location.
Ultimately, Cronenberg doesn’t rise to the challenge. London, perhaps, is a city harder to portray
than New York. It has layers of history and memory
which other more modern cities lack, which only a
local could hope to convey. One scene in Eastern
Promises has someone get stabbed in the eye. The
film wasn’t that bad, and this was confirmed by the
audience’s reaction to the spurting blood. No shock,
no fear. Just repressed laughter at a film that should
have been much better.
Fred Rowson
Conspiratorial whispers in Eastern Promises image.net
Matthew Barney: hypertrophy and vaseline
T
omorrow, a film going by the rather peculiar title of Drawing Restraint 9 will open
at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. The
film itself is far more peculiar than its title. It is
a 135 minute fantasy of japonism and obscure
organic metaphors, including an enormous
Vaseline sculpture, ritualised cannibalism of an
Icelandic pop-diva, and the metamorphoses of
its protagonists from human to cetacean form. I
should perhaps add that it is largely serious. It is
the work of Matthew Barney, a star of contemporary art with the divisive powers of Marmite:
infamously laurelled ‘the most important artist of
his generation’ by a New York Times art critic, he
is also routinely trashed as a vacuous charlatan,
too fashionable for his own good. He appears to
work in every conceivable medium, bar pottery:
his current, apocryphal Drawing Restraint exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery incorporates
sculpture, photography, video, drawing, rotting
prawns, and monstrous quantities of petroleum
jelly. He is, however, most famous for his cinematic ejaculations, especially the five puzzling
episodes of his Cremaster Cycle, named after the
muscle that raises and lowers the testicles.
In high-school, the story goes, he played quarterback for the school’s championship-winning
American football squad; he then became a pre-med
at Yale, aiming to become a cosmetic surgeon; to pay
his way, he modelled, featuring in advertisements
for J Crew and Ralph Lauren. He switched majors
to art. Athlete, model, pre-med, and potential plastic surgeon, his core artistic themes of bodily cultivation, discipline, and transformation appear to follow
all too readily by virtue of biographical logic.
The crux of these themes is the artist’s fascination
with hypertrophy, the process by which weight-lifting builds muscle: imposed stresses tear away muscle tissue, causing the body to overcompensate by
producing more than originally existed. Barney’s
earliest performance pieces, Drawing Restraints
one to six, sought to apply hypertrophy to artistic
creativity, and involved the artist crawling around
his studio, attempting to draw things on the wall or
ceiling, struggling against weights and other impediments. An intimately related fascination for Barney
has been with the build-up and discharge of potential energy via the imposition of constraint and discipline, a process metaphorically associated with
digestion.
These clues help somewhat when confronting
Drawing Restraint 9. The film does not have much
by way of story, its peculiar events being harnessed
for symbolic potential rather than narrative impetus. The film is set aboard the Japanese whaling
vessel Nisshin Maru, where an enormous mould
is inexplicably filled with gradually solidifying liquid Vaseline. Meanwhile, two ‘Occidental guests’,
Barney and his partner Björk, arrive separately and
enact a bastardized Shinto marriage ritual, culminating in a scene of nauseating cannibalistic beauty,
in which they stoically turn one another into sushi.
Somehow becoming whales, they leave the ship as
it enters the Arctic circle. It is all deeply fascinating even without cryptographic goggles, but it is
also certainly enriched through an awareness of the
omnipresent motifs of hypertrophy, digestion, and
metamorphosis. Stripping and tearing away of outer
layering, for example, occurs constantly, alluding to
the destruction of tissue in hypertrophy; the continuous enactment of Japanese rituals, with their comical restraints on behaviour and movement, alludes
to the transformative potentials of self-imposed
constraint.
Ultimately, of course, the film is not for all; its
hypnotic pacing will deter those of the short attention-span, and its mythopoeic pretensions will put
off all who flee at the faint suspicion of highfalutin
shenanigans. If one has the stomach for it, however,
this labyrinth of speculative symbols should prove
seductive and fascinating; most of it may not make
sense, but the film is every bit as visually compelling
as it is lacking in conventional logic. For the right
palate, I should say that Drawing Restraint 9 is quite
compulsory.
Andreas Mogensen
This week @ Club Class BBC Radio 1Xtras Manny Norte!
Entry £3 before 11pm/ £4 After
28 MUSIC
“Almost nauseating intensity”
Mardean Isaac is overwhelmed by Animal Collective’s latest
horrific aspect: an excess of sensory delight yielding disgust. In tapping into and letting loose the
impulses of nostalgia and naïvetè, Animal Collective are prepared equally for the wonder and
the madness of opening the experiential and mnemonic floodgates.
The vertiginous, almost nauseating, intensity of
the psychic journey Strawberry Jam means it should
be listened to at full volume, with either your narcotic or religious text of preference in hand (or pipe).
There is a remarkable sense of uncertainty about
what is coming next on this album, even after multiple listens. There are few abrupt changes in time signature or key, but the basic element of Strawberry
Jam’s universe is disorientation.
The album begins with a flurry of oscillatory electronic noise on Peacebone, a whimsical, bouncy
number, and ineluctably the first single from the
album. No. 1 begins with a rapidly descending re-
Album:
Animal Collective
The basic element of
Strawberry Jam’s universe is
disorientation
Strawberry Jam
Domino Records
★★★★☆
B
eauty, Rilke said, is the onset of terror
we’re still just able to bear. The cover of
Animal Collective’s latest record looks like
the most beautiful dessert you’ve never had. The
closer you look, though, the more the overflow of
syrupy saccharine sweetness begins to take on a
peated keyboard motif, fleetingly overlaid with
aching, wobbly vocals. Chores and the marvellous
Unsolved Mysteries open in startling fashion, bursting with exaltation and tumultuous rhythms. For
Reverend Green is a distillation of the best of virtually
every major movement in pop music during the last
three odd decades: a vocal of heroic force and vital-
I
Nonetheless it was by no means
the outstanding new track. That
honour goes to Counters, a song
with lyrics pitched somewhere
between Ray Davies and Patrick
McGoohan that oscillated between what were essentially three
choruses. Forthcoming single Up
All Night was almost too catchy
and swiftly become irritating, not
least because of its ‘fame-is-a-sinister-game’ lyrics.
The gig was that of a band in
the sort of transition Blur went
through between Modern Life is
Rubbish and Parklife. The Young
Knives have re-emerged with
more radio friendly material but
some of their subtleties have been
lost in the powerchords. It was
not until the encore that we had
a hint of the melodic melancholy
that marked their debut album
when they played Loughborough
Suicide. At least they don’t need
to worry about losing their indie
credentials by “doing a Blur.”
They’re far too ugly for that.
James Garner
vocals through have an impressive range, from the
ethereal to the visceral, from the anguished to the
melancholy.
There is a remarkable sense
of uncertainty about what is
coming next on this album
For an album of significant range, though,
Strawberry Jam is suffused with coherence and singularity of vision. In the way of all accomplished albums, the variety featured does not compromise
a sense of wholeness. Songs are both individually
distinct and emblems of a holistic musical conception. Even light, infectious numbers like Winter
Wonderland and Derek (the calypso-tinged Panda
Bear closer), so different in intent and tone from the
more ‘serious’ tracks, are linked to them by the similar emphases the production makes.
Let’s temper my (and no doubt, faithful, tasteful reader, soon to be your) enthusiasm. Purists
will doubt the audacity and variety of Animal
Collective’s experimentation and emphasize their
more conventional aspects. They are, indeed, a pop
band. But eschewing the pointless value judgment
this semantic tyranny places them under, it is legitimate to claim on Strawberry Jam they have managed to organically fuse the most vital dimensions of
both the experimental and the traditional. They do
so with staggering imaginative prowess.
Mardean Isaac
In the pipeline:
Musings on
the most notable of
releases
Concert:
CUCO
West Road Concert Hall
Coates, Beethoven
and Ravel
Gig:
The Young Knives
Barfly
f you haven’t already realised, this is going to be one
of those gigs where we play
new material you don’t know
yet. You’ll like it more than the
old stuff but not until you’ve
heard it four or five times on
television programmes.” This
typically tongue-in-cheek pronouncement by lead singer
Henry Dartnall felt like the harbinger for a less than inspiring
evening. Nobody has ever requested a band play “some song
I don’t know.”
The Young Knives managed
to rescue things in a most underhanded way. First they spend
months writing some of the most
immediate songs you’ll ever hear
and then they play them live.
Although it was the first date
of this tour the band were tight
throughout. Although given that
they’re a three-piece containing
two brothers, how hard can it be?
Current single Terra Firma was
warmly greeted by the crowd by
way of a suitably madcap stomp.
ity - half screamed, half beautifully sung - plays over
jagged guitars, a heartbreaking melody, thunderous
drums, and enchanting background vocals. It is perhaps Animal Collective’s finest moment.
What makes it so difficult to hear Strawberry
Jam as a pop record is not the song structures, which
are largely conventional, but the production and instrumentation. That the record is produced by the
same man who worked on Neon Bible is strange,
for Strawberry Jam possesses none of the crispness
and sonic capaciousness of that record. It is an all
out assault on the senses: a musical rendition of the
cluttered and dazzling richness on its cover. As in
paintings with no vanishing points, where the eye
cannot rest on any focus in the picture, the ear cannot hear the song through the noise of this record.
There is no way to excavate the melodies from the
animated fervour of the instruments, mixed at the
same volume as the vocals, bathing the skeleton of
the music in lush, dizzying, sludge-thick sound.
There is no great lyrical revelation on this record,
but the songs do employ, in the melody, words, and
in particular, the vocal delivery, a more sophisticated
emotional and expressive palette. Strawberry Jam
will do little to convert those who deride the band’s
lyrical abilities, but for those who avoid reading the
words on the page (unfortunately transcribed in the
linear notes), they will arrive suffused with tremendous potency and brio of delivery.
The evolution made in terms of vocal delivery
from early records like Spirit They’ve Gone is extraordinary. Animal collective have learned to manipulate their vocals and the effects they put the
G
loria Coates’ Third
Symphony is difficult
to describe. Unfortunately, it’s even tougher to recommend . Performed by CUCO
in the presence of the composer,
it utilises only the strings, which
employ some less than traditional sound effects to depict
an incident of abuse. Sweeping
glissandi were consistently well
executed, imitating a screaming
victim, but what was the point
of the cellists and bassists slapping their doubtless expensive
instruments? At least Coates
provides some virtuoso material for the solo violinist.
Given the subject matter,
CUCO played in a suitably demonic manner, supplying
coarse tones when required.
Nonetheless, applause had to be
prompted by the conductor, who
seemed to breathe a large sigh of
relief at the work’s conclusion
and they were less than enthusiastic in their appreciation for
the composer when she came on
stage. Not a favourite here then,
and certainly not a work that we’ll
hear regularly in the future.
Beethoven’s Fourth Piano
Concerto therefore provided
very welcome relief. Soloist Luis
Parés had his faults, but his monumental first movement cadenza
showed off an obvious technical
prowess, whilst his tender slow
movement was juxtaposed with
a joyful finale. CUCO provided
sympathetic yet telling accompaniment, excelling in the opening
stabs of the second movement.
Concluding a concert that
lasted a lengthy two and a half
hours was Ravel’s ballet Ma MËre
l’Oye. CUCO took wing, allowing
the composer’s beautiful orchestration to shine through, though
the soaring violins were ever so
slightly let down by the woodwind ensemble. Passionately conducted by Neil Thomson, this was,
however, a real success. A good
start to the year for CUCO, then
– just no more Coates please.
David Allen
F
irst on the agenda this
week is the DVD release
by “purveyors of ice-cool
indie rock” The Fratellis. Entitled “Edgy in Brixton” as a
reference to the original unlicensed club nights (simply
called “Edgy”) they organised
in Glasgow, it contains an entire
set recorded in Brixton last year.
It also features all the videos to
their singles, a punishment I’m
not sure even the most stalwart
Frattelis fan could survive,
yet alone enjoy. I’d be a liar if
I didn’t admit succumbing to
their retro rock fanboy musings
once in a while, though.
In other news, the tragic McFly
have a greatest hits album released next week. A little premature? Certainly not. According
to the press release, frontman
Tom Fletcher has written no less
than ten number one songs.
Sounded impressive, until it transpired three of the songs were cowritten with and performed by
Busted. In order to not fall foul
of McFly or any of their 14 year
old fans, I will now insist the following: their release, earlier this
month, of rock ballad “The Heart
that Never Lies” was a first for
McFly and is (wait for it) a testimony to the continual development of the band. I would quote
some lyrics but, really, that would
be crossing the line.
Moving on, it has come to my
attention that the next two weeks
will be one of boyband immersion. The legendary kings of pop
Westlife are releasing their new
album after 2007’s Take Thatchasing tour. According to Shane,
the new record is “very Westlife”.
And who am I to argue? We
haven’t even been sent a copy.
As if this were not enough,
Take That are releasing
“Beautiful World: Tour Souvenir
Edition” in support of their
hugely successful reunion tour which includes rare
new editions and, apparently,
an exclusive band interview.
Matt Cottingham
MUSIC 29
Table tennis defeat
FINAL RESULT
Cambridge 1
Oxford
4
Ali Jaffer
Following two previous losses
to strong Warwick and Loughborough sides (4-1 and 5-0 respectively) sides the Ladies Blues
were again put to the sword, this
time by the old rivals in the national BUSA (British Universities
Sports Association) table-tennis championships at Fenners on
Wednesday.
Oxford arrived leading the
league table, and it wasn’t hard
to see why. All three players
were nothing short of technically
gifted and frustratingly for the
Cambridge team nearly always
succeeded in finding the most potent mix of defence and attack.
Mai Nguyen, making her Blues
debut, struggled early on in losing her first game 3-0, but found
more of a rhythm as the match
progressed and the same scoreline in her second match was
attributable more to her counterpart’s brilliance than any shortcomings in her own game.
Trang To, the captain, battled
courageously at the start as her
Oxford opponent struggled to
deal with a series of heavy topspin backhands which should
have afforded her the early advantage in the opening two sets.
Unfortunately for To, she faltered at the crucial moments and
allowed her adversary to re-establish a foothold in the game and
eventually go on to win by three
Kinki
Freshers compete in varsity pentathlon
Cat Wilson
sets to one.
Thankfully for Cambridge,
To made no such mistakes in the This weekend saw the budsubsequent game, and her abil- ding pentathletes of Cambridge
ity to wrong-foot, push wide and and Oxford go head to head in
then complete the point with suc- the novice varsity modern pencessive blistering smashes pro- tathlon match. This competivoked a contented ovation from tion gives novices a chance to try
the small but partisan gallery. To their hand at pentathlon, with the
pressed home her advantage and added bonus of competing for
put Cambridge’s point on the their university.
The first event was shooting
board before the final match.
Disappointingly for the home which can be a nerve wracking Novices in a first fencing fight Victoria Bradley
side, the doubles pair (To and experience, however Cambridge
Sophie Yang) were stunted by a managed to keep their cool and proved to be as exciting as the and Laura Sutcliffe took joint 3rd
solid Oxford duo whose unforced some impressive scores were run. Abilities in the pool range place, only one hit behind. The
errors were few and far between. produced, most notably by Becca from those who enjoy swimming mens’ competition was equally
Their steadiness and reliabil- Riser and Hanah Darcy, who won as much as a cat loves water, to closely fought with Hugh Burling
ity were simply too effective and the Ladies’ section, and the light those who seem to have been triumphing on a strong pentathCambridge can have few com- blue Nick Brown who took the born there. Those of the feline lon score of 1030 points.
lead in the mens’.
variety dug deep and impressed
plaints about the score-line.
The eagerly awaited results
Next stop was Wilberforce us with their grit needed to com- showed what a closely fought
On the whole, dealing with
Oxford’s consistency proved road track for the run. The boys plete the 200m sprint, while the competition this had been
problematic throughout the en- set off at a cracking pace and after heats were completed with a well in all four events. The strong
counter – and despite flashes of digging deep Hugh Burling and fought battle between Gareth Cambridge side were the evenbrilliance from To the Blues will Gareth Keeves made it comforta- Keves of Cambridge and Henry tual victors with a higher averbly home in 2nd and 3rd place and Pettit of Oxford, swimming age score of 2300.8 pentathlon
be more than a little frustrated.
The team is of the opinion that Daniel Housley and ERASMUS 200m in 2:23mins and 2:20mins points per competitor compared
results can improve in the league Zu- Ermgassen pulled in close respectively, both achieving the to Oxford’s 2223.3.
BOE1211
ad6th. 25/10/07
17:09score
Page
1 1000
behindCambridge
to take 5th and
pentathlon
of over
and more importantly a repetiCongratulations to every comThe Ladies’ race was equally points.
tion of last year’s Varisty triumph
petitor for their excellent perFencing, in the last event, was formances and enthusiasm. add
is well within their ability and po- well fought, with Hannah Darcy
tential. Whilst I am am inclined coming in first after taking and smoothly presided over by Chris further strength to the growing
to agree, it will require a more maintaining an early comforta- Greensides and Jonathon Wright. modern pentathlon squad.
measured, calculated and consid- ble lead, with the others running The Ladies’ competition was well
See what modern
fought with Darcy strongly winered approach – the Oxford team not far behind.
penthalon involves on
With many weary legs and re- ning 2nd place one hit behind
will be just as hard, if not harder
page 29
fuelled after lunch, swimming the Oxford victor; Becca Riser
to beat.
The operations of the Bank of England underpin
the stability of the UK’s economy and financial
system. Working here, your activities will have
an impact on important aspects of the economic
and financial life of the UK. From interest rates
and inflation to banking and financial markets,
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The opportunities within the Bank are broad –
not everyone is an economist – but everyone
contributes to the Bank’s influence on the
economy. With exceptional training and
support, this is the launch pad for a range of
outstanding careers.
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Come dressed as your
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Put yourself at the centre.
At the centre
Girton Spring Ball Launch!
Visit the VIP room to get all the info
on Girtons Spring Ball!
Get Kinki Every
Tuesday @ Ballare
9pm - 2am
£3 b4 10pm £4 after (NUS)
£4 b4 10pm £5 after (other)
Tickets sold in advance from
Kinki Reps
Graduate Careers Presentation – Cambridge
Date: Monday 12th November 2007
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Orchard Suite, Crowne Plaza Hotel
Sign up: [email protected]
Careers at the
Bank of England
www.bankofengland.co.uk/jobs
30 SPORT
Women’s sport in Cambridge
Anya Perry interviews the president of
idea how we can support them.
I’ve just come from a captain’s
event which we held in the clubhouse, so the new team captains
could put a face to the committee and so we could meet all those
running sport in Cambridge this
year. We wanted to do this to let
the captains know about the support and services that we offer as a
committee and through the clubhouse. It was nice to meet them
all and really useful to get some
feedback!
What do you see as the committee’s main functions?
Lindsey Mehrer: Osprey’s captain Anya Perry
This year’s head of the Ospreys
society, Lindsey Mehrer, joins me
for a chat about the state of women’s sport in Cambridge.
It must be great to be back; have
the Ospreys committee decided
to make any changes this year?
Yes it’s really exciting to be back.
This year we’ve made a conscious
effort to personalise the society
so our members have more of an
SPORTS SPOTLIGHT
Noel Cochrane is men’s captain of the university modern
pentathlon club
Explain a little about modern
pentathlon
Modern pentathlon is a multidisciplinary sport consisting of
cross country running (2 miles),
freestyle swimming (200m),
epee fencing, pistol shooting
and showjumping. The sport is
described as producing an “ultimate”
athlete by combining a variety
of physical and
mental skills in
one competition.
How did
you first
become
involved
and
what attracted
you to
that par-
Well, the Ospreys are a sporting and social club for university
sportswomen with over a thousand members, both current students and alumni, so we have a
very large network of women
across the country.
We provide both support
for both teams and individuals
through various bursaries (apply
for these in November!) and also
as a link between the University
and the teams. This is really im-
MOdern
pentathLOn
ticular sport?
After a childhood of riding,
pentathlon offered a great mix
of new sports for me to master,
whilst still loosely holding onto
my riding roots.
How long have you been playing? And did you play before
you came to Cambridge?
I joined CUMPC in my first year
and have never looked back.
Apart from riding I could run
and do breaststroke, but have
since learnt to fence, shoot and
vastly improve my swim time.
Pentathlon is about having a
hardcore attitude not a natural ability, so if you are willing
to put the effort in you will gain
the rewards.
What is the best moment
you’ve had?
At the last Varsity match, my
best moment was earning my
Blue, but in the girls match
they also set an all time Varsity record. Captaining the club
was extremely exciting and I
look forward to taking my team
around the country competing
this year hoping to break the all
time Men’s Varsity record with
my ever strengthening, experienced team. After a successful
season last year, the club and I
were invited to the Irish international trial, which I was eligible
thanks to my Irish heritage.
How can others get involved?
I urge people to learn from my
non-Pentathlon background
and give the sport a go. We provide training for the widest possible abilities and our expertise
is illustrated in starting Stephanie Cooke’s pentathlon career
before she went on to Olympic
gold!
Contact: Noel Cochrane:
[email protected]
or ladies captain: Lucy Greenwood [email protected]
portant, as we have no real central
sports facilities in Cambridge.
As the biggest women’s society in
the university, we also get a lot of
interest from sponsors, who are
very keen on recruiting us! So another of our functions is holding events with these companies,
similar to that of the careers service, but with much more of a focus
on the skills gained from playing
high level sport that transfer to
the business world.
From a sporting
perspective,
socialising with
team-mates encourages team
bonding
On the social side of things, we
have a new clubhouse on Jesus
Lane that’s available for all the
teams to use for socials or team
meetings. The events we’ve been
holding there recently have been
really successful, especially as
it’s one of the cheapest places to
drink in Cambridge!
Is it important to encourage the
social side of sport?
Definitely yes, especially in Cambridge where you can be so busy
with sport and your degree that
you don’t find time to relax and
enjoy yourself. From a more
sporting perspective, socialising with team mates encourages
team bonding, which will lead to
a good team atmosphere, higher
levels of trust and everyone playing better when they get on the
pitch.
Should there be a joint committee so that we have more continuity in the way decisions are
made?
Although we have the same criteria for membership as the Hawks
Club, as a women’s society, the
Ospreys have different aims and
goals; it is important to reflect the
fact that men and women compete on different planes and so
RESULTS
Men’S dIVISIOn 1
team
have different needs.
Eligibility for the Ospreys, and
Hawks, is essentially governed
by the Blues Committees which
are also separate for the women
and the men as they decide which
sports qualify for blues. This separation of the committees results
in some discrepancies between
the sports receiving full or half
blue status between the women
and men.
The women’s criteria for full
blue status is national student
level performance in a major
women’s sport, and here you
can immediately see the reason
the committees should be separate as although nowadays most
sports are played by both sexes,
the ‘major’ women’s sports are
often different from the men’s.
Obviously, some continuity is essential, and the two committees
do stay in close contact.
If you’d like any more information concerning the Ospreys
please visit the website at:
www.sport.cam.ac.uk/ospreys
FOOtBaLL
pL W d
L
GF Ga Gd ptS
Jesus
3
2
1
0
4
2
2
7
St. Catharine’s
3
2
0
1
10
2
8
6
Christ’s
3
2
0
1
8
4
4
6
arU
2
2
0
0
6
3
3
6
trinity
3
2
0
1
5
2
3
6
Fitzwilliam
3
1
1
1
2
3
-1
4
St. John’s
2
1
0
1
4
5
-1
3
darwin
2
0
0
2
0
3
-3
0
Caius
3
0
0
3
2
7
-5
0
Churchill
2
0
0
2
2
12
-10
0
pL W d
L
Men’S dIVISIOn 2
team
GF Ga Gd ptS
downing
3
3
0
0
12
2
10
9
Girton
3
2
0
1
9
4
5
6
King’s
3
1
2
0
8
5
3
5
Selwyn
2
1
1
0
4
2
2
4
trinity hall
2
1
0
1
4
3
1
3
homerton
3
1
0
2
5
7
-2
3
Churchill II
3
1
0
2
2
12
-10
3
pembroke
2
0
1
1
2
6
-4
1
Long road
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Sidney Sussex
3
0
0
3
7
12
-5
0
SPORT 31
Jesus dominate the first test
Queens’ Ergs sets the standard for this term’s novice rowing
Sud Murugesu
Tuesday night was the first event
of the novice rowing calendar Queens’ ergs. The event saw crews
of eight novice rowers thrashing
out 500 metres on a rowing machine, one after another. Queens’
put on a good show with a DJ
pumping out sporting classics,
and a compere who could rattle
off almost every commentating
cliché.
Both balconies in the hall
were filled with hoards of spectators, some writhing in time to
the music, leading to nothing less
than a gladiatorial atmosphere
when the competitors walked in.
The event is notoriously difficult to predict, seeing as there
is no previous form, but the big
rowing colleges were expected
to perform on both the men’s
and women’s sides. Rumours
spread via clubs’ lower boat captains suggested that on the men’
side, Wolfson, St John’s and Jesus
were going to be strong. CCAT,
the boat club for Anglia Ruskin,
were an unknown quantity, but
their international contingent of
older graduate students looked
likely to pose a threat.
On the women’s side, Jesus
were expected to put up a strong
defence of their title from last
year, with old rivals St John’s,
Queens’ and Pembroke also predicted to challenge.
The early rounds went
smoothly and it was clear that
at every level crews were going
all-out to hurt themselves. Even
in the marshalling queue for the
men’s second boat races which
was full of third and fourth boats,
coaches were giving inspirational
speeches that rivalled Martin
Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’.
Quality stuff, and everyone was
taking it seriously.
St. John’s and Jesus featured in
the men’s second division, with
the St John’s third crew just pipping the Jesus third boat by 0.54s
on average time. A close call and
the St John’s crew seemed to enjoy
their well earned prize of a crate of
beer afterwards.
In the women’s second division, the Downing second boat
was the only crew to go under
two minutes for their average
500m time, deservedly winning
the second division. Notable performances were also seen from
Pembroke women’s second boat
in second position, and also in
third place Sidney Sussex, a third
boat who managed to beat a
number of college second boats.
The first division finals were
Jesus M1 hit it hard in the final Matt Doughty
worth the anticipation. The technical team managed to tease the
crowd when the big screen with
all the crew information failed, so
a half an hour wait ensued whilst
they fixed it.
The women’s final saw
Newnham and Queens’ going out
hard as expected. The screen with
a boat representing each crew
showed them leading the chasing
pack by a length by half way. At
this point, Trinity and Pembroke
started to show, the latter squeezing a length on the field with two
rowers to go.
The floor was a scene with
coaches screaming in support,
rowers falling off the machines
when they were finished and the
noise from the crowd and music
thronging in the air. With the last
rowers getting on, Queens’ had
faded and Pembroke were ex-
tending their lead to a length and a
half. Crossing the line, Pembroke
came in first, followed by Trinity
and then Newnham. These three
will be the ones to watch later this
term.
The last race of the evening was
by far the most intense. St. John’s
went out hard, trying to establish
an early lead and force everyone
to chase them. The rest followed
in the chasing pack, with Wolfson
putting a huge push at the third
man, cutting into St. John’s lead.
The fourth man was the key
point. Four of the electronic
streams from the rowing machines failed and so their representative boats on the big screen
failed. The commentator didn’t
realise for a while and was convinced that Jesus’ second boat
was beating their first boat. This
stopped St. John’s and Wolfson
from seeing how Jesus, who were
third at that point, were doing.
Over the next three men, it was
clear from the timing of changeovers that Jesus were in the lead
over St.John’s. Jesus finished first
and duly went crazy as did their
huge group of supporters on the
balcony. St. John’s came in second with CCAT claiming third
place.
The event was a massive success, and the levels of support
were unprecedented. Jesus men’s
lower boats captains Danny
White and Chris Blaum were
elated afterwards, stating: ‘It was
a fantastic effort by every Jesus
crew. Everyone really pushed
themselves. We’re now looking
forward to the other events this
term.’ Clearly, the Jesus boys are
currently the crew to beat. The
real test will come when we see
thecrews on the water.
Blues lose out to Coventry
Football football football Steph Hampshire
FINAL RESULT
Coventry
3
Cambridge 1
Anya Perry
After a disappointing and unexpected draw to Coventry at the
beginning of the season, Cambridge were ready for a challenging rematch with the dark blues
of Coventry. Despite important
players missing through injury
such as Matt Stock who scored
4 goals in his previous 3 games
for the Blues, Cambridge still felt
themselves well matched.
Within ten minutes of starting, Coventry had managed to
get one ahead of Cambridge as
another accurate ball into the box
from the right wing was headed
forcefully into the top left hand
corner by the Coventry centre
forward as he beat his light blue
opponent in mid-air.
With quarter of an hour gone,
Jamie Rutt and Michael Johnson
showed some lovely movement
and passing down the left wing,
resulting in a fast ball in across
the goal face that although did not
make it into the back netting, was
forced for a Cambridge corner.
All too often free kicks would
only find rival players, or would
come to rest in the hands of the
opposing keeper and in the scrabble for possession in the middle of
the pitch the referee made hard
work of the game.
Five minutes from half time,
the Coventry number 6 was
eventually booked, in an attempt
by the referee to calm the game
down. Towards half time James
Dean was forced to make a save
from a long high ball on the edge
of the twelve yard box, as the defence tried to keep tight against an
aggressive Coventry side. Just before the break another Coventry
player was booked, this time for
dissent and after a dark blue attacker was impeded by the light
blue defence on his run through,
the ref awarded an indirect free
kick, which Coventry shot past
the wall and straight into the
hands of the Cambridge keeper.
Cambridge started the second
half positively, with a good ball
into Will Laland in the box, who
didn’t quite manage to get his
foot through it before being dispossessed by the fierce Coventry
defence. Contentious midfield play continued as did the
discontinuity.
Minutes later, at the same end
of the pitch, a collision between
the Coventry number 11 and
the Cambridge keeper allowed
Coventry to get the first foot to
the ball which once again found
the back of the Cambridge net.
Antony Murphy then miraculously turned a corner into a stunning goal, out-jumping numerous
players surrounding him to send
the ball flying into the Coventry
net.In a last attempt to win the
game Cambridge made a tactical
substitution, changing their formation to 3-4-3 and bringing on
Chris Gotch up front.
Coventry cleverly exploited the
gap created in defence by playing
a long ball over the top which ultimately found its way into the
back netting, making the final
score 3-1.

Convicted - The Cambridge Student

Transcription

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