front page - The Cambridge Student

Transcription

PAGES
16-17
The
CambridgeStudent
Clockwise from top: cambridgecollegeprogramme.org; tjriley82;Tet_Sy; ParkStreetParrot
Thursday, 16th February 2012
Lent Issue Five
"American scholars crossing the Atlantic for the best summer of their lives..." - but who is bagging the profits?
Students swindled by
shocking summer-camp scam
Alice Moore & Emily Loud
Cambridge students have been
cheated out of thousands of pounds
by the director of “The Cambridge
Colleges Programme” (CCP) Taryn
Edwards, The Cambridge Student
has learned. Edwards has still not
paid a group of 41 students for
work completed last summer and
refuses to respond to any of their
inquiries or to TCS.
Geographer Hannah Alderton
and Natural Scientist Shaun Cook,
both at Sidney Sussex, appeared
before the CUSU council on
Monday to propose a motion to
condemn the actions of Taryn
Edwards and discourage students
from applying to work for her.
Alderton noted that the
motion “intended to prevent the
exploitation of other students” as
“on the face of it, it seemed like a
very good opportunity, and was
much more flexible than trying to
find a summer job at home, and
so we are sure that if she tried to
adverstise again she would have no
problem with recruitment”.
The 41 students, owed between
£1000 and £2000 each, have
taken Edwards and CCP to an
Employment Tribunal.
Students owed
£1000-£2000 each
However, as the Tribunal
operates outside the court system
and Edwards and her business are
resident in the US, it can exert no
legal pressure to extract payment.
Students have been told through
the Tribunal that Edwards is
“experiencing financial difficulties”
and this has been given as her
reason for her evasion of CCP’s
financial obligations. Despite this,
the 2012 programme is currently
advertised online, complete with
a daily schedule and an optional
week-long “Paris Excursion”
following the academic programme
in Cambridge.
In addition to the “considerable
amount of financial pressure”
non-payment has produced for
students identified by Alderton,
the stress of the Employment
Tribunal has wasted students’
time and energy. “It has all
taken a considerable amount of
time,” Alderton commented,
“the Employment Tribunal is a
slow and frustrating process and
will
not
lead
to
an
enforceable outcome in the
US…as there are such a
substantial number of us, we
have a lot of people to consider.”
Continued on page 3
IN THE NEWS
Human wind turbine protest on
Parker's Piece green
NUS encourages mass student
protest
Oxford academic positions in
danger
Employers rely on 2:1 and 2:2
distinction
Cartoon controversy sparks
atheist rally
The rally is part of the 'Energise
Cambridge' campaign seeking to
put pressure on the University,
ahead of its energy contract renewal
in 2013
Page 3
CUSU have supported NUS plans
for a countrywide campus walkout
on 14th March in protest against
the government’s higher education
reforms.
Page 4
Government cuts are forcing
Oxford University to rely on
philanthropic donations to prevent
the loss of 75 key academic roles.
Higher education chiefs have
questioned the frequency of
employers’ use of the 2:1/2:2
distinction when deciding which
candidates to interview.
Page 6
Richard Dawkins has spoken at
a “One Law For All” campaign,
protesting against increased
censorship, as a result of dispute
over “racist” cartoons at UCL.
Page 8
Page 4
The
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
02| Editorial
THE CAMBRIDGE STUDENT
THE TEAM
Editors in Chief: Alice Gormley & Judith Welikala - [email protected]; Design Editor: Abi See - [email protected]; ; Photography Editor: Devon
Buchanan - [email protected]; News Editor: Emily Loud - [email protected]; Associate News Editor: Michael Yoganayagam; Deputy News Editors:
Connie Fisher, Alice Moore, Laurence Tidy & Nicholas Tufnell - [email protected]; International Co-Editors: Adam Clark & Morwenna Jones [email protected]; Interviews Editor: Iravati Guha - [email protected]; Comment Editor: Jeremy Evans - [email protected]; Features
Editor: Martha Henriques - [email protected]; Deputy Features Editors: Arjun Sajip & Florence Smith-Nicholls; Music Co-Editors: Tristram Fane Saunders
& Zoe Holder - [email protected]; Film & TV Co-Editors: Lizzy Donnelly & Jess Stewart - [email protected]; Theatre Co-Editors: Davina Moss & Laura
Peatman - [email protected]; Listings Editor: Hattie Peachey; Sports Co-Editors: Ollie Guest & Olivia Lee - [email protected]; Illustrator: Clémentine
Beauvais; Sub-Editors: Louise Ashwell, Matthew Benton, Izzy Bowen, Amy Gregg, Anna Hollingsworth, Gwen Jing, Anthie Karavaggelis, Chris McKeon, Aron
Penczu, James Redburn, Ben Richardson, Loughlin Sweeney; Web Editor: Mark Curtis; Board of Directors: Alastair Cliff, Mark Curtis (Business), Dan Green,
Harriet Flower, Zoah Hedges-Stocks (Co-Chair), Michael Yoganayagam (Co-Chair), Alice Gormley & Judith Welikala [email protected].
The name Cambridge University is
one to conjure with – almost literally
for those attracted to the Hogwarts
style of life.
It is redolent of ancient traditions
and learning of the highest standards,
bringing to mind images of diligent,
be-gowned
students
scuttling
through cloisters to learn from the
greatest minds in the world.
It is no surprise, therefore, that
the occasional summer school
– particularly those for non-UK
teenagers – should attempt to attach
EDITORIAL
our name to their organisation and
secure for themselves a little reflected
glory. One such example is the
Cambridge College Programme, a
scheme run by one Taryn Edwards,
offering American teenagers the
chance to absorb some of that
learning. For a price.
As our front page today reveals, Ms
Edwards’ operation does not seem to
be entirely above board, having failed
to pay the students it hired last year
and the students are now seeking the
large sums of money they are owed
through an employment tribunal.
The immediate difficulties which
this lack of payment causes will be
obvious to all. CUSU have declared
their condemnation of Ms Edwards
and CCP and expressed their concern
that the scheme appears to be going
ahead this year despite previous
allegations of financial irregularities.
What is perhaps more worrying,
however, is the attitude of the
colleges and the University as
a whole to this issue. Despite
CPP placing students in difficult
financial situations, colleges are still
happy to take the company’s cash and
for them to trade on our name.
The University ought to take
more responsibility for the use
of its name by these summer
schools and, especially in the
case of CPP, individual colleges
absolutely must not associate
themselves with organisations which
exploit their students. But for the
moment it seems, as with so many
other things for colleges, money
comes first.
SuperBaby
by Alice-Andrea Ewing
THIS WEEK
INTERNATIONAL
Michael Campbell
predicts imminent civil
war in Mali
p.10
COMMENT
A sideways look at the
CUSU elections from the
TCS Eagle
p.14
FEATURES
Plans at Yale for super-intelligent
race of post-war children, p.6
Tristram Fane-Saunders
puts Cambridge’s coffee
scene to the test
p.18
NEWS BULLETIN News in Brief
Youth unemployment continues to
rise
The number of 16 to 24-year-olds
without a job, including those in fulltime education looking for work, is
at 22.2%, the Office for National Statistics has revealed. From October to
December 2011, the national unemployment rate climbed to 8.4%, the
highest figure since 1996. In Cambridge, the number of those seeking
Jobseeker’s Allowance rose by 101 to
1,779. Though the unemployment in
the East of England is at 7%, Julian
Huppert, MP for Cambridge, commented that ‘the city’s job market
is faring better than the region [in]
general’.
NEWSPAPERS
SUPPORT
RECYCLING
Recycled paper made up
80.6% of the raw material for
UK newspapers in 2006
Downing site loses power
Students were left in the dark as
power was cut to the entire of
the University’s Downing Site on
Monday. The major lecture site,
including the Zoology Laboratory
and the Sedgwick Museum of Earth
Sciences was left without electricity
from 11am, resulting in the
cancellation of many 12am lectures.
A spokeswoman for UK Power
Networks said “Our engineers have
established the problem is on the
customer’s own equipment, rather
than the electricity network which
we own and maintain.”
Vice-Chancellor to represent the
Queen
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz has been appointed to be one of four deputies
that will assist Hugh Duberly, the
Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire.
All from the Cambridge area, the
four will be assisting the Lord Lieutenant, who acts as the Queen’s personal representative for the county.
Borysiewicz will be accompanied by
Timothy Breitmeyer, retired Grenadier Guards major; Thomas Green,
chief executive of Spearhead International Ltd; and Margaret Mair,
former Department of Health legal
adviser.
Renowned grammar textbook
author awarded MA from Cambridge
The author of an internationally renowned grammar textbook has been
awarded with an honorary MA from
Cambridge University. Raymond
Murphy, 65, saw his book English
Grammar in Use and its follow up,
Essential English Grammar in Use,
gain worldwide success, both born
out of the exercises he had created
for his students. The success of his
first book, written 27 years ago, took
him by surprise, with over 100 million learners of English having used
them since.
The Cambridge Student is published by Cambridge University Students’ Union. All copyright is the exclusive property of the Cambridge University Students’ Union. Although The Cambridge Student is affiliated to the University Students’ Union we are editorially independent and financially selfsufficient. No part of this publication is to be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system or submitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the publisher.
MUSIC
Zoe Holder pays tribute to
Whitney Houston
p.20
The
CambridgeStudent
News |03
Students put pressure on University energy policy
Laurence Tidy
Deputy News Editor
Parker’s Piece saw the arrival of a
wind turbine on Friday, in the form
of student protesters participating
in an environmental rally against
the University’s policy towards
climate change and renewable
energy.
Students from the campaign
group ‘Energise Cambridge’, run
by the Cambridge Zero Carbon
Society and Cambridge Hub, were
photographed from the University
Arms in the shape of a wind
turbine, in order to raise awareness
about environmental issues.
Speaking to The Cambridge
Student, Tim Middleton, the group’s
spokesman, commented: ‘The
University needs to be much more
ambitious in its response to climate
change. Cambridge University
ranks as the fourth highest emitter
of carbon dioxide of all UK higher
education institutions. Something
should be done about this’.
He recommended that the
University
purchase
from
companies such as Good Energy
or Ecotricity, who “have a much
greater proportion of renewables’”
and invest more in this sector of the
energy market. “Wind turbines and
solar panels on University buildings
would both be good options”, he
added.
A recent student survey,
conducted by the protest group,
found that 80.6% of those surveyed
would either ‘approve’ or ‘strongly
approve’ of the installation of a wind
turbine close to the Cambridge
township, to provide renewable
energy to the University.
90.3% of the respondents said
they would be prepared to pay an
extra £10 per year in university fees
to help fund a switch to 100% green
electricity, though only 45.3% said
they would support such a move,
even if it cost more than electricity
from fossil fuels.
‘Energise Cambridge’ published a
policy proposal last month calling
for the University to ‘commit to
a specific and ambitious carbon
intensity target to reduce the
University’s use of fossil fuels’,
to adopt a ‘cost-effective policy’
towards renewable energy, and to
‘increase the awareness of students
and staff ’ on the institution’s
policies.
Statistics in the report show that
between 1990 and 2009, ‘carbon
dioxide emissions associated with
energy use in buildings at the
University of Cambridge almost
doubled’. Currently, 97% of this
energy is bought from Scottish and
Southern Energy, whose supply is
made up of 10% renewables.
Isobel Braithwaite, one of the
writers of the proposal, told
TCS: ‘I think our single most
important message is probably that
Cambridge has an opportunity to
set a great example’ but ‘its current
environmental aims just aren’t
nearly ambitious enough to achieve
that’.
“The program is
run by an outside
company that
rents space at a
couple of colleges
and is just there to
take your money”
Participants, or “scholars” as
the programme’s website calls
them, are due to be charged $6000
in 2012, plus a non-refundable
application fee of $200. This
amount does not include airfare,
breakfast, lunch and other meals
off-campus, or entrance fees for
museum exhibitions. “Scholars”
are also required to pay an extra
$300 if they want to take part in
rowing or golf and instruction
in horseback riding or polo is
available for an extra $400. The
“Paris Excursion” will cost students
a further $2300. Consequently, the
programme might set particpants
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jatdoll
Taryn Edwards, who advertises
herself as “a former Honourary
Senior Member of Staff at
Homerton College”, also allegedly
owes money to a number
of Cambridge colleges as well
as other organisations such
as boathouses for accommodation
and services provided during
the course of the programme.
back over $10,000.
Cambridge
academic
and
Lecturer in Modern British History
on the programme since 2005, Dr
David Fowler defended Edwards: “I
don't think it's malicious – maybe
just poor organisation,” going on
to confirm that “I've always been
paid”.
However, this is not the first time
Edwards has come under scrutiny
for her business practices. There
are allegations against her for late
payment for work and services
for programmes she’s run in both
Oxford and Cambridge. A post on
the website Cambridge Confidential
in 2009 warns prospective students
against the programme: “Don't
go. I'm a Cambridge student and
know that the program is run by
an outside company that rents
space at a couple of colleges and is
just there to take your money.”
Gonville and Caius, one of the many
colleges which housed CCP “scholars”.
Energise Cambridge
Energise Cambridge
Continued from page 1.
The
04| News
News in Brief
The science of the ponytail
Clubber fined for graffiti in The Place
NUS plans national student walkout
Louise Ashwell
News Reporter
The National Union of Students has
announced plans for a countrywide
campus walkout to take place on
14th March in protest against the
government’s higher education reforms.
Thousands are expected to boycott lectures and seminars to protest against hidden course fees,
alongside what critics have termed
the “privatisation” of the higher
education sector.
This protest will occur in the same
week as occupations and town centre marches by a separate student
campaigning group, the National
Campaign Against Fees and Cuts
(NCAFC). Together, these protests
are expected to represent the greatest collective student action since
the student demonstrations of November 2010, which have since become synonymous with violence
after the ransacking of the Conservative party headquarters and
clashes with police.
Although the government last
month dropped its higher education bill, NUS President Liam Burns
A man has been fined £295 for
drawing on the walls in The Place
nightclub.
Timothy
BristowClarke, 24, was on a friend’s stag do
on January 29, when he was caught
by security defacing the walls of
the men’s toilets. He admitted to
Cambridge Magistrate’s Court that
he had been drinking since 4pm
and had taken a permanent marker
pen out with him “as he thought
it’d be a laugh”. He said: “I offered
to go back to the club and scrub Michael Yoganayagam
it off the next day. I’m extremely Associate News Editor
remorseful.”
A Cambridge astrophysicist has
been awarded almost £30,000 in
damages after being bullied out
of his previous job at Manchester
Coalition divided over university University.
access tsar
Dr Andrew Faulkner, 57, now
a Senior Research Associate in
There has been controversy amongst the Astrophysics Group at the
MPs over the Lib Dem’s choice of Les Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge,
Ebdon as the new head of the Office resigned from his job as a project
of Fair Access (Offa). Business secre- engineer at Manchester University’s
tary Vince Cable has refused to ac- Jodrell Bank observatory in
cept what he views as a Conservative Cheshire in 2008 after being
effort to reject Ebdon, after a four- subjected to “a barrage of shouting
person committee comprised solely and verbal abuse” from a senior
of Tories said they could not endorse professor. Yesterday he was
his choice and proposed a new re- awarded a total of £29,557.23 for
cruitment attempt. Ebdon has been
viewed with suspicion as a result of
his criticism of higher fees, promotion of new universities and vows to
drastically fine elite institutions for
failing to widen access.
said that the protests were necessary against fears of back-door privatisation. “The debate around the
reforms that David Willetts wants
to put in place is so opaque and so
technocratic to the general public
that no one is questioning them,”
Burns said.
The protests will also be an opportunity to condemn hidden
course fees, with students paying
extra for such necessities as printing, lab coats and field trips. These
charges, he commented, were “certainly not transparent, and it is
becoming very hard to justify why
students are having to bear that
cost…when fees are £9,000.” “You
can’t keep hammering young people like this,” he concluded.
Gerard Tully, CUSU President,
has voiced his approval of the
NUS plans. “The protests look
set to be a piece of major national
action, and we strongly support
the NUS in kick-starting student
activism at a time when it is badly
needed to fight Government reforms without accountability or
scrutiny.
“The scrapping of the HE Bill
means that huge changes – to
student finance terms and conditions, the operation of the funding
council HEFCE and other core elements of University policy – will
not be dealt with in Parliament,
but instead by shadowy ministerial
decision-making”.
Tully also called for Cambridge
students to make their opinions
known. “Whether CUSU calls for
a walkout or not will be a matter for students to decide. If students want to shape how Cambridge responds, now is the time
to be contacting your JCR/MCR:
CUSU will be deciding its position
at the next CUSU Council, and
we would encourage all students to come and make their
voices heard.”
unfair and constructive dismissal,
after an employment tribunal in
Manchester ruled in his favour
earlier this year.
Dr Faulkner had been part
of a team designing the Square
Kilometre Array, which is set to be
the world’s biggest telescope.
Faulkner had apparently raised
concerns that project leader at
Jodrell, Professor Peter Wilkinson,
was not hands-on enough, while
Prof Wilkinson and other staff
accused him of overstepping his
responsibilities.
The tribunal heard that the
situation reached breaking point
when a crisis meeting between Dr
Faulkner, his line manager and
two other professors descended
into a row in which one professor,
Prof Mohammed Missous, got
out of his chair and yelled at
Faulkner, accusing him of being a
“subordinate who had over stepped
the mark”.
Dr Faulkner later said he was
frozen out of subsequent meetings.
He then quit his £52,000 job as a
project engineer in August 2008.
An employment tribunal then
ruled in January this year: ‘“We
are satisfied that the claimant [Dr
Faulkner] was subjected to a barrage
of shouting and verbal abuse and it
was made clear to him that he was
a subordinate who had stepped
out of line”. The ruling continued:
“We do not accept the respondent’s
contention that the meeting was
an argument between mature
and passionate people which was
clumsily handled.
“On the contrary, we accept the
claimant’s evidence that it was a
completely unacceptable meeting
which wholly overstepped the
boundary of what can be considered
to be proper behaviour.’’
The case may have cost the
taxpayer
several
hundreds
of thousands of pounds in
Manchester’s legal costs.
After the case Dr Faulkner said:
“My lawyer tells me that these cases
are hard to win at tribunal, so I am
especially delighted at the result even if I have had to fight this at my
own expense. I am glad the matter
is finally resolved.’’
Devon Buchanan
Scientists from Cambridge and
Warwick claim to have devised an
equation for the shape of a pony tail,
which can be used to predict its shape.
The research, conducted by Goldstein,
Robin Ball from the University of
Warwick and their colleagues, will
demonstrate the principles of the
“Rapunzel Number”. To be presented
to the American Physical Society in
Boston on February the 28th, the
study will be useful for the computer
generated imagery industries, who
have long struggled with accurate
hair representation. This is also likely
to affect our understanding of other
materials composed of random
fibres, including wool and fur.
CambridgeStudent
Cambridge astrophysicist sues Manchester Uni
Government cuts endanger Oxford academic positions
An Oxford study has suggested
a link between a person’s brain
size and the number of friends
they have. The research, being
led by a psychology professor at
the University, demonstrated that
sociable people had a larger orbital
prefrontal cortex - the area above
the eyes. This area is important
for handling a complexity of social
relationships, including holding
conversations. The research also
claimed popularity is achieved by
“mentalising” others’ thoughts:
a form of “mind-reading” which
enables them to understand and
relate to those around them.
Vasenka
Smaller brain = fewer friends?
Anthie Karavaggelis
News Reporter
Oxford University is relying on
philanthropic donations to save
academic positions that have been
put at risk by the government
spending cuts.
The University requires £90
million in donations, to which it will
add £60 million from its publishing
operation, to save the positions.
Currently, 75 key jobs, mostly in the
humanities, are in danger.
Each post will be assigned a £2
million endowment; the income
generated from this will contribute
to the academic’s salary.
One of the jobs in danger is a
fellowship in Ancient History at St
John’s College, where Tony Blair was
a student.
So far, the post has attracted
£1.2 million from donors and the
University is providing the other
£800,000 required to keep the
position going. Edward Hocknell, a
former student and now investment
partner, was one of the donors.
Hocknell said the matter was “a big
issue for less obviously utilitarian
subjects like Classics.”
The announcement that the
government is ceasing to provide
funding for humanities subjects has
greatly exacerbated already prevalent
money problems at Oxford. Following
the government’s comprehensive
spending review which threatened
universities with 25-40% cuts, VicePresident of the University, Professor
Andrew Hamilton, said that he was
“anticipating that Oxford’s ability
to stay in its exalted position would
be under threat” without generous
charitable donations.
Hamilton said that while he was
“confident that the tradition of
educating future leaders at Oxford
would continue”, there was “no
question that the University’s preeminence in the world of Higher
Education is at risk”. He added that
philanthropy is an “increasingly
important part of life at Oxford and
its future.”
The
CambridgeStudent
News |05
Time Team trouble for
Cambridge alumna
Mary-Ann Ochota, a distinguished
alumna of Emmanuel College with
a masters degree in archaeology and
anthropology, has this week been
at the centre of controversy after
departing from the famous Channel 4 programme Time Team. She
left just a day after Professor Mick
Aston, who had been with the
programme for 19 years, left after
changes were made to the set up of
the programme.
Ochota, a former model who has
featured in campaigns for Special
K, explained her departure, on
Facebook, saying, “I was brought
in to be a co-presenter, not an
archaeologist, so that I could
ask the questions that viewers
might be asking.
I always
loved Time Team, and was
very excited to be working with
Mick — he wasn’t so keen!
The series didn’t work out quite how
I wanted it to either. Needless to say
I’m not coming back for the next
series!”
On the day of his departure,
Professor Aston gave an interview
to British Archaeology in which he
stated, “The time had come to leave.
I never made any money out of it,
but a lot of my soul went into it. I feel
really, really angry about it.”
Fans of the show were quick
to express their disappointment
with the new structure of the
show. The Time Team Facebook
page, commented that the new
set up was a “disappointing
farce”, that Mary-Ann’s role as
a co-presenter left the programme
“cramped inappropriately” but
that Ochota was not to blame
since “she could only do what
producers wanted her to.”
Many posted that they would
be lodging complaints with Channel
4. However, there may yet be
hope for fans of the earlier
series, since the programme’s
creator, Tim Taylor, stated: “You’ve
not seen the last of Mick on Time
Team.”
The Faculty said that students
are handwriting much less on a
daily basis, most typing essays
and lecture notes, which has led to
wrist strain in exams and increased
illegibility of answers. They
also said some feel an unfair
advantage is given to those
students currently allowed to type
exams for medical reasons.
If the idea was adopted, it would
take effect in the next academic
year. Students would be allowed to
use their own computers, working
on software that would shut down
access to the internet and all files
during the exam.
Students would be allowed to
choose whether they would like
to type the exam or continue to
handwrite.
Patrick Kane, a third-year
lawyer at Kings, said: “I would
back the idea to allow students to
type in exams. Over the past two
years I have suffered with hand
cramps both during exams and in the
run up to exams which present an
unnecessary problem in an already
fairly stressful period.”
He added: “If something as
simple as allowing students
to type can allow more students
to show their true capabilities and
abilities then I don’t see why we
shouldn’t present it as an option.”
Channel 4
Emily Loud
News Editor
The Time Team: Mary-Ann at the front and
Professor Aston at the back in the stripy jumper.
Law Faculty to allow computers in exams
Connie Fisher
Deputy News Editor
As part of a revision of the exam
system, the University Law
Faculty are consulting students
regarding
the
possibility
of
allowing them to type, rather than
hand-write, official examinations.
A survey was issued explaining
the proposal and requesting
student feedback regarding the
idea. The email said: “Since this
proposal represents an important
change in practice and is one that
affects students fundamentally,
the Faculty Board is anxious to
obtain the views of as many of you
as possible.”
Currently a number of US Law
Faculties have allowed students to
type their answers, but so far no
English universities have introduced
the idea.
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The
Jailed protest student allowed to return to university
A student jailed for a year for breaking
a window during the student protests
of 2010 has been granted permission
to return to his studies, following the
success of an online petition that was
signed by hundreds of his supporters.
James Heslip, 21, who began a degree
in fine art at Kingston University before his involvement in the riots, sent
a direct appeal to the University’s
Vice-Chancellor asking to be allowed
to return. The university granted his
request on the grounds of Heslip’s
previous behaviour, the nature of the
crime and responses from his former
tutors.
Boom in applications from Hong
Kong students predicted this year
A 35 to 50 per cent increase in the
number of Hong Kong students who
will be accepted to study at universities in Britain, is expected this year,
the British Council has affirmed. Nick
Gibb, British Minister of Schools, said
yesterday that British universities will
admit students who hold the new
Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary
Education. Oxford and Cambridge,
along with 45 other universities, have
acknowledged the diploma so far.
There has been an increase of 37% in
applications so far this year, while in
2011 more than 3,200 students were
accepted.
Oxford college refuses to fly LGBT
flag
Despite unanimous JCR support,
Oxford College St Anne’s will not be
flying the LGBT flag. On the 29th
of January the JCR president took
the proposal to the college council.
However, the college replied it was
against policy to fly the flag and consequently would not do so. This has
frustrated many students at St Anne’s
particularly since other colleges, such
as Wadham, which flew the flag during their annual Queer Week, have
complied with the request. St Anne’s
Principal stated that this was because College policy stated that only
the Union or College flag should be
flown.
Eton Head moves
to axe GCSEs
Connie Fisher
Deputy News Editor
The Headmaster of Eton College
has stated that compulsory national examinations for students
at 16 should be scrapped, and replaced by a “general school leavers certificate”.
Speaking at a seminar of independent schools in London,
Tony Little said the current exam
system “reflects a previous age”
and that schools should be given
more freedom to break away from
dictated exam syllabi in order to
broaden pupils’ awareness of a
wider range of issues and subjects. He said: “I’d love to be in
a position where my 16-yearolds took no public exams at all,”
adding that, as a result of the
wide range of extra-curricular
activity offered at Eton, most
of his pupils learnt more from
“what’s not happening in the
classroom.”
The comments come as an increasing number of academics
have begun to doubt the GCSE
system, and following the decision that as from next year the
minimum age young people
can leave school or training will
be raised to 17, and then to 18.
Those in favour of the idea argue
that most students go on to take
post-16 qualifications; nearly all
of Mr Little’s Eton students will
go on to study at university.
Mr Little proposed replacing GCSEs with a more general school leaving certificate,
which would allow students
and teachers more freedom of
study, but could make it difficult for those students who seek
employment without further
qualifications. Lack of GCSE
grades could also cause a problem for university admissions offices, which currently rely heavily
upon students’ GCSE grades to
help them make their decisions.
Little: “I’d love to be
in a position where
my 16-year-olds took
no public exams at
all”
A spokesperson for the University of Cambridge told The
Cambridge Student: “While GCSEs are helpful, our admissions
research shows that AS module
scores are a stronger predictor of academic success.” However, they added: “An applicant
who has taken no public examinations at the point of
application would find it difficult
to demonstrate their potential.”
Henry Pelham, ex-Etonian
now studying AMES at Fitzwil-
Eton College Headmaster Tony Little
liam College, said the school
leavers certificate should be
“tried as an experiment at least”
and consequently could “become recognised as a more
standardised series of qualifications which can be compared
objectively to GCSEs in other
schools where the resources are
not sufficient to make a similar change.” He also admitted:
“perceived Eton elitism would
be an unwanted but inevitable
secondary effect of broadening
the subject range in the place
of GCSEs.”
See page 12 for debate on GCSEs
Sub-2:1 graduates cut from interview pools
Emily Handley
News Reporter
Higher education chiefs in London last week were reviewing
the value of a 2:1 degree result,
questioning whether its frequent
use as a filter by major graduate
recruiters can be justified in the
current economic climate.
Delegates at the Graduate
AnswerTime event heard that
around three-quarters of large
graduate employers, including
Deloitte and Ernst and Young,
use the 2:1 to choose who they
will invite to interview. At a time
when around eighty graduates are
chasing after every job, meaning
Cook up Rohypnol to get laid, stu- that a significant number of applident paper jokes
cants will be cut even before the
Felix, the student newspaper of Imperial College London, published
a feature entitled “The Hangman
guide to get laid” (sic). The article then went on to joke that the
only foolproof way to ensure you
end up getting laid is to cook up
Rohypnol, “the perfect mixer for
any overpriced cocktail.” Written
anonymously for the ‘Hangman’
satire column, the article did not
actually contain information on
how to make Rohypnol. However,
many people took offence. Emma
Haslam, an online marketing expert, tweeted she was “disgusted”
by the joke. The student union has
made no comment.
interview stage, many employers
say that they have little faith in
the credibility of the classification.
“it is an unfair
procedure as each
degree requires a
different level of
effort in order to get
the desired grades ”
A survey of more than 600
students conducted by the
student employment website
Milkround found that over half of
all those who took part would
prefer for graduate employers to
stop using the 2:1 as a minimum
requirement. They want company bosses to understand that degree classification should not be
the deciding factor for a
graduate’s
job
suitability.
Many graduate employers use
an upper-second class degree as a benchmark for recruitment; unless candidates
have or are expecting a high
degree result they cannot be
considered for a role even if they
have desirable skills such as relevant experience. One respondent
even commented that a 2:1
“is arbitrary in terms of
grading as some institutions
award marks much more
liberally than others.”
Stephen Isherwood, head of
graduate recruitment at Ernst
& Young agrees, adding that
“A good degree from a respected university no longer
guarantees a job. We interview
over 3,000 graduates every year,
but only about 25% have the
all-round skill set we recruit
for.”
Tabitha Eccles, a fourth-year
student at Peterhouse, believes that there is pressure to
achieve highly, as “lots of online
applications ask you to tick that
you have gained or are expecting
a 2:1, and only then are you
allowed to proceed to the next
stage. I think it is an unfair procedure as each degree requires
a different level of effort in order
to get the desired grades.”
Plans at Yale for post-war race of super-intelligent children
Nicholas Tufnell
Deputy News Editor
Yale University has recently been
accused of trying to create a highly
intelligent race of children during
the Second World War. In order to
repopulate the country during peace
time, the university offered Oxford
and Cambridge professors the opportunity to evacuate their children
to the Connecticut-based university
in 1940.
Letters were sent out to working
academics at the universities from
the ‘Yale Faculty Committee for Receiving Oxford and Cambridge University Children’, which saw 125 Oxford children and 35 mothers taking
up the offer in response. Cambridge
rejected the offer outright, claiming
that “this might be interpreted as a
privilege for a special class.”
Juliet Hopkins, who was evacuated
at the time and arrived on SS Antonia from Liverpool to New Haven
on 8 July 1940, has concerns about
the experience. Despite claiming to
have thoroughly enjoyed her five
years, Hopkins is now worried about
whether or not Yale were trying “to
save the gene pool.”
Gaddis Smith, Emeritus Professor
of History at Yale, describes Yale’s
President at the time, James Angell, as “a fanatic eugenicist in the
worst meaning of that word.”
Furthermore the father of the
family that Hopkins stayed with,
Ellsworth Huntingdon, who also
paid for her private education out of
his own pocket, was not just the Pro-
fessor of Geography at Yale, but also
president of the American Eugenics
Society.
Yale: we were trying
to “save the gene
pool”
Whether Yale University was intentionally involved in and encouraged eugenics in the 1940s remains
unknown.
Eton College
06| News
News in Brief
CambridgeStudent
www.pwc.com/uk/careers
Opportunity.
It’s staring
you in the face
Undergraduate and Graduate Opportunities
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proud to be voted number one in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers
survey for eight years running.
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or, as the context requires, the PricewaterhouseCoopers global network or other member firms of the network, each of which is a separate legal entity.
The
08| News
News in Brief
CambridgeStudent
UCL sparks atheist freedom of speech rally
Student zombies cause havoc
Police were called to Woking town
centre in Surrey on Thursday after
passers-by said they had spotted a
man “running around with a gun”.
Roads were cornered off as police
investigated the claims, but it turned
out that the “gunman” was one of a
group of teenagers filming a zombie action film in a derelict building. A spokeswoman for Surrey police said: “The teenagers had been
given permission by the owner of a
derelict building to film there, but
as one of them kept coming in and
out armed with a fake gun, we received a lot of calls from witnesses.”
Over 100 women turned up at Clavering Primary School in Essex to see
All The Way Jay and Tommy Love
dance and gyrate in front of them
in order to raise cash for the school
and nearby Arkesden preschool.
However, the £800 event has displeased many of the parents of the
children who attend the school, with
some of them vowing to remove their
children from the school altogether.
The two men, who are from the
dance group Dream Men, also used
glow-in-the-dark body paint and
encouraged audience participation.
University mistakenly gives away
over 400 degrees
A university in the United States
(Dickinson State, North Dakota)
has mistakenly handed out over
400 degrees to students who should
have otherwise not received them.
The incident has been happening for
over 10 years. The university claims
that many of the degrees may be
revoked as they should never have
been awarded in the first place. A
recent official audit revealed that as
few as 10 people of the 410 degrees
that were handed out were entitled
to them, indicating that the confusion could have been because many
of the students did not speak English.
Gritting lorry crashes into a house
At 11.50 on Friday morning, a
gritting lorry on its way back to
the depot crashed into a house
on Toyse Lane, Burwell, after
careering through four gardens and
two parked cars. The 44 year-old
man driving the lorry and a man in
one of the cars that the lorry drove
into were taken to hospital with
minor injuries following the crash,
having both been freed from their
vehicles. However, an ambulance
spokesperson confirmed that they
did not suffered critical injuries.
As of yet, there is no known cause
of the crash.
Richard Dawkins speaking at
the freedom rally on Sunday
Hugo Schmidt
News Reporter
On Sunday, the “One Law for All”
(OLFA) campaign brought together
several hundred activists before the
House of Lords to protest against increasing censorship in Britain. The
protest was triggered by recent events
at University College London, where
the Atheist society was forced to remove a “Jesus and Mo” cartoon by
the UCL union under pressure from
the Islamic far right.
Similarly, at Queen Mary’s College,
a speech about Shariah Law was cancelled following death-threats against
the speaker, Anne Marie Waters, and
calls for disruption of the meeting
on the Islamist website Islamic
Awakening. “They called us OLFA’s
shaitanic sister group”, remarked a
representative of the society with a
rueful smile.
Richard Dawkins was one of
the keynote speakers at the rally, attacking the ideology of multiculturalism and how advantage is taken
of liberal viewpoints.
He told
the crowd, “Religious spokesmen,
and it always is men, not women,
all too often threaten mayhem
and murder if anyone breathes a
word against religion. They liter-
ally threaten to behead people for
a crime no more serious than making a drawing or writing a novel. But
the
real
problem
is
not
the religious wingnuts themselves; it
is the accommodationist, appeasing
respect that we decent, liberal, nice
people wrongly give them.”
He later summarised: “we need to
wake up to the threat that militant
faith poses to our whole civilisation,
and stop being so damned respectful!”
This was echoed by OLFA’s organizer Maryam Namzie, who said
“charges of offense and Islamophobia
are secular fatwas.”
A secondary theme was the defense of women’s rights. Baroness
Caroline Cox spoke about the bill
defending women’s rights, especially
in minority communities, that she
has been sponsoring.
The philosopher A.C. Grayling
also commented on the importance of the principles behind the
rally: “speech is a very wide concept, and if we try to shut it down,
if we try to limit it, in the end we all
suffer.
Freedom
of
expression is a great source of
health in a community and in
any society, and without it we wither,
and we die.”
Potty-train posters
put up at Swansea
Schools’ failures
could cause more riots
Anna Hollingsworth
News Reporter
Gwen Jing
News Reporter
Authorities at Swansea University
have put up signs instructing students how to use the toilets after the
messy state of the facilities sparked
a series of complaints.
The blame for the mess has fallen
on foreign students, some of who
come from areas with “squat toilets” and the instructions were subsequently produced in cooperation
with the University’s International
College Wales Swansea (ICWS).
According to a University spokeswoman, “Swansea is a multicultural
campus” and the aim of the posters
is to “help address cultural differences” that have caused “damage
and hygiene issues”. The posters appeared in key areas of both women’s
and men’s facilities and since then,
“the situation has greatly improved
in affected areas”.
The posters include text as well as
images of both correct and incorrect ways of using the toilet. They
ask students, among other things,
to “please sit on the toilet appropriately to avoid mess” and not to
“put used toilet roll or tissues on
the floor” but rather to “flush them
away”. One of the images juxtaposes
the squatting position on top of the
toilet seat with its desired alternative. A green tick accompanies the
correct pose.
However, the campaign has invoked outrage among Swansea
students. One student described
the posters as “ridiculous and quite
belittling,” while another contrasted the ability to use toilet facilities
with the high A-level grades that
Swansea requires. Some found
the posters amusing until they
realised that “it wasn’t meant as a
joke”.
Olivia Box Power, a first year
student at Corpus Christi, told
The Cambridge Student: “I don’t
see why you should blame foreign
students in particular! Although
some sort of posters aimed at all
nationalities could do some good
in our accommodation too, especially at the weekends…”
The chairman of the Prince’s Teaching Institute (PTI) has warned that
a continual stream of young people
leaving secondary education without
the skills needed to find jobs could
cause further riots.
Harvey McGrath, head of Prince
Charles’ teaching institute, said
teaching failures in schools are leaving young people illiterate and innumerate after 11 years of education
and putting the UK at risk of further
unrest akin to last year’s summer riots.
McGrath’s comments were made
after a PTI School Leadership Programme seminar at Madingley Hall
in Cambridge last Wednesday, attended by Prince Charles and Education Secretary Michael Gove. (Lent
issue 4, p.3) At the seminar, school
head teachers discussed the rationale and progress of the Leadership
Programme’s projects. The Prince’s
Teaching Institute told The Cambridge Student: “this is the first event
Hugo Schmidt
Strippers disgust parents at primary school
in a series planned for 2012, the PTI’s
10th anniversary”.
Mr McGrath said: “It is absolutely
right to be passionate about improving the quality of primary and secondary education because if what
we are doing is injecting into a very
difficult market place people who are
illiterate and innumerate, we are perpetuating a real problem.”
“I think that does lead to the kind
of ‘street activity’ which we saw back
in August,” he warned. “Clearly at a
time when the economy is not growing, these problems become more
magnified.” He argued that the disparity of outcomes for young people
becomes more and more extreme and
that leads to real problems around
social cohesion.
According to McGrath, the situation is exacerbated by government
targets, which force teachers to spend
more time on middle-ability children
and ignore those at the bottom and
at the top; and by the dumbing down
of examination papers with their
modular structure and easier questions.
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30/01/2012 14:51
The
10| International
The World this Week
Obama takes aim at the rich
Barack Obama has unveiled
his budget for the upcoming
election year, aiming to raise
an extra £950 billion in taxes.
By allowing Bush-era tax cuts
for the wealthy to expire and
introducing a ‘Buffett plan’ tax
hike, so that all households
making more than $1 million
dollars annually pay at least
30% in taxes, Obama is
aiming to make the wealthy
the biggest losers in the new
budget.
US
Republicans
are expected to block many
of the budget’s provisions.
Bomb blast in Bangkok
Bahrain marks
anniversary
protest
A year after Pro-Democracy
protests, the capital of Bahrain,
Manama, has seen clashes
between police and opposition
forces.
Police have fought
demonstrators with rubber
bullets and tear gas and have
sealed off large parts of the city,
including Pearl Roundabout,
the focus of last year’s unrest.
King Hamad has recently tried
to appease opposition, but
protestors say that reforms
have not gone far enough.
Cyclone hits Madagascar
On Tuesday, Madagascar was
hit hard by winds of speeds up
to 194km/h. Cyclone Giovanna
has killed at least two people,
with more deaths unconfirmed.
Trees and electricity pylons
have been ripped up, meaning
that businesses and schools
have had to close because of
power cuts. Communication
is also difficult due to the
geography of the island.
Much of the extent of the
damage remains unknown.
Valentine’s Day cancelled in
Uzbekistan
While the rest of the world’s
lovers sent each other a
multitude of flowers, cards
and chocolates, the people
of Uzbekistan were told to
celebrate the birthday of
former Moghul Empreror
Babur.
A
government
official said that the purpose
was to discourage the
celebration of festivals alien
to
Uzbekistani
culture.
International
News: Mali on the brink of civil war
Michael Campbell
The Saharan plains of northern Mali
are restless once more. A republic
with profound regional variation,
it has seen an increase in violence
from northern Tuareg rebels in
recent weeks.
Partly due to civil war in Libya
and partly explicable by conflicted
history, it is wholly clear that a
full-blown humanitarian crisis
approaches as the effects of last year’s
scant rainfall makes themselves felt.
Such a combination brings with it
the potential for great loss of life
and no clear solution.
Tuareg rebellions have a long
history, stretching back to the early
twentieth century at least. Strain
was more recently apparent in
the early 90s and the latter part of
the previous decade. Immensely
disparate, the rebels have yet to form
a coherent movement. The promise
and subsequent reality of greater
Tuareg governmental involvement
as a result of 1992 negotiations only
angered many as a sign of betrayal,
whilst 2008 ceasefire talks mediated
by Algeria were wholly inconclusive
when talks succeeded in convincing
only one faction.
In the last month attacks by
a group calling themselves the
MNLA have occurred in the
North, among others, inspiring
retaliation on innocent Tuaregs
in the South. What’s more, recent
estimates claim at least 20,000 have
been forced to flee their homes to
neighbouring Burkina Faso, Niger
and Mauritania, arriving at camps
with predictably poor facilities.
The impending food shortage
has led the EU to double its aid
budget to the region, but with a
population dispersed widely in
Alfred Weidinger
Three explosions in Bangkok on
Tuesday have been alleged to be
Iranian attacks. An explosion
occurred at a house rented by
three Iranians in the centre of the
Thai capital, followed by apparent
attacks from the occupants
on a taxi and police forces
investigating the explosion. One
of the bombers lost his legs while
attempting to throw an explosive
at the police and is being treated
for his wounds. The other two
suspects escaped.
CambridgeStudent
desperate conditions and all access
to northern Mali accompanied
with a serious threat of attack, the
efficacy of such gestures is yet to be
demonstrated. Of course, refugees
and warfare pose a problem for
the entirety of West Africa, not just
Mali.
Notably, many claim that these
recent attacks are more serious
in light of the rebel’s advanced
weaponry.
Colonel
Gaddafi
recruited large numbers of Tuaregs
to fight in Libya’s civil war and
those mercenaries are using leftover
weapons. Such developments have
prompted doubts as to the ability
of the Malian army to deal with
the threat. Lt. Col. Diarran Kone,
a member of the Defence Ministry,
went as far as describing the
Tuareg’s weaponry as “significant
enough to allow them to achieve
their objectives” – that objective
being the ‘liberation’ of northern
Mali.
We must be
vigilant in order to
prevent terminal
conflict
The Arab Spring has further
implications for the Republic.
Mediators in recent peace
negotiations have been either
been the Libyans or Algerians but
the turmoil kicked up from the
awakening has shifted their focus
to domestic affairs. It isn’t clear
who can fill this role. The UN is the
clearest candidate for launching a
peace keeping mission but as the
potential of the violence is still
unclear and famine looms, such
a move might be rash. A further
infiltration of Tuareg ranks by the
Maghreb faction of al-Qaeda poses
worries for the West and to Mali’s
relative stability. Neighbouring
Niger took a series of severe blows
around the time of the last Tuareg
uprising and al-Qaeda will be
glaring down these lines of sight.
Mali has stood out for its relative
regional stability. For the first time
in many years, this looks under
serious threat. We must be vigilant
in order to prevent terminal conflict
and avert a humanitarian disaster.
Comment: Genocide is a subject for history, not law
Timur Cetin
The Armenian Genocide which
took place between 1915 and 1923
is widely acknowledged as fact
among the majority of historians.
However the actions of the French
government in officially recognising the genocide raise another debate about the relationship between
history, politics, and justice.
The French National Assembly
has passed a bill that penalises denial of all genocides that are recognised by the French State. Penalties include imprisonment of up
to 12 months or a fine of €45,000.
The only two genocides that are
recognised by the French state are
the Holocaust and the Armenian
Genocide.
Politically the facts are crystal
clear: the bill is part of Sarkozy’s
election campaign designed to attract the 500,000 French-Armenian
voters. The bill has a much more
fundamental significance as two
completely different positions come
into conflict with each other. Up to
now all Turkish governments have
rejected the term ‘genocide’, and
anyone who openly challenges the
Turkish version of events is prosecuted.
In France, all those are to be prosecuted in future who deny the historic facts – in this case the Armenian Genocide. Either way, history
is subordinated to a legal judgment.
But historians are not bound to
legal statutes. Historians are not
judges who pronounce a sentence.
By subjecting historians to political guidelines and legal prosecution
scholarly research is brought closer
to judicial activity.
In the extreme case this may result in the filing of lawsuits of each
group of victims or perpetrators
which feel badly treated by histori-
ans as soon as further genocides are
legally recognised by politicians.
Every group of victims or perpetrators may endeavor to have their
memory of certain historical events
protected by law. Special interests
may guide and influence historical
research and scholarship.
Another problem is the terms
involved: according to the French
historian Pierre Nora, terms such
as “genocide” have a ‘magi aura’. He
proposes using other words which
are less ideologically, emotionally
and politically “contaminated”. It is
precisely this kind of “contamination” which lays the ground for the
sacralisation or trivialisation of historic events, he argues.
Furthermore the former French
Minister of Justice Robert Badinter
questions the constitutional responsibility of the French legislative for
a bill concerning historic events in
Armenia or the former Ottoman
Empire.
Does a state have the power to
prescribe historical truths from a
moral and political view? There can
be no doubt that victims of all past
crimes, but particularly of crimes
like the Armenian Genocide or the
Holocaust, have to be commemorated.
Any attempt, however, to address
the essential task of commemorating
by resorting to judicial declarations
is based on the faulty confusion of
the terms ‘history’ and ‘memory’.
It is a trite cliché that we cannot
choose our past and consequently
history. History refers to irreversible past events which cannot be
changed in hindsight, whereas
memory refers to subjective experiences, i.e. empathy and recognition,
criticism or contempt of descendants for their ancestors. We all have
access to our memories – so let us
make use of them.
The
12| Comment
scui3asteveo
Comment
Opinions are divided over whether the stress
of exams is fair to subject 16 year olds to
Yes: GCSEs are essential
for the accurate judging
of schools’ quality, says
Laura Fergus
GCSEs are often criticised on a
number of accounts. Only last month
there were sneers that a course in
horse care was worth the same as 4
GCSEs, and every August, without
fail, someone steals the glory of 16
year olds by claiming the exams
are “definitely getting easier.” Other
criticisms draw on bigger questions
concerning the education system,
such as the extent to which pressured
examinations teach a skill that is
useful in later life, and even whether
they produce an accurate measure of
ability.
In light of this, the merits of
the system are often overlooked.
However, in my opinion – and
I’m not necessarily unsympathetic
towards some of the critics - the
system does have its strengths, a
very important one being that GCSE
syllabuses are taught, and the exams
sat, at every school in England, Wales
and Northern Island.
Eton Headmaster, Tony Little,
who is the latest to engage in some
GCSE-bashing, does not agree.
He announced this week that he
would prefer to see GCSEs replaced
by a “more basic school-leaving
certificate” so that pupils did not have
to sit public examinations at age 16.
He points towards the advantages that
teachers would have more freedom
and pupils’ other achievements could
be better celebrated. This might not
sound like a bad idea…if you’re at
Eton, that is.
It’s probably very true that, in many
cases, giving teachers more autonomy
would lead to more enjoyable lessons
for all involved. In the absence of a
strict syllabus, teachers would be able
to make better use their specialisms
and would be free to give pupils a
broader view of academic subjects,
less constrained by course-specific
textbooks - I speak as a Geographer,
reading a subject most of you are
under the impression centres on
the different types of clouds, river
meanders and oxbow lakes. Moreover,
these improved lessons are also likely
to prepare students better for higher
education, developing independent
thinking rather than memory skills.
However, I would argue that
these benefits are already received
by some to a much greater extent
than others, depending on the type
of school attended, and I believe
this educational inequality would be
exacerbated if national exams were
to be abolished. For reasons ranging
from financial resources to teachers’
work ethic, all schools do not have the
same capacity to take advantage of a
new flexibility, and so some pupils
would be left at a disadvantage.
Objections
to
Mr
Little’s
comments have come in fast from
schools without Sixth Forms, which
therefore feel uncertain about where
the changes might leave them in the
league tables. Yet, I would argue that
a more important issue is, without
comparable examination results,
how accurately can school’s quality
can be judged, and how easy will it
be to identify those that are lagging
behind in this respect.
Consider the potential impact
of pupils’ life chances. Cambridge
admissions tutors are known to
compare applicants’ GCSE results to
their school’s average, yet abolishing
national exams would remove this
selection tool, which is designed to
go someway towards accounting for
unequal educational experiences.
Furthermore,
missing
GCSE
results would cause a problem for
the university admissions system
on a wider scale, as students and
universities would be forced to rely
only on predicted A-level grades, a
situation which is sure to result in
both under-estimations and overexpectations.
So, whilst it’s all well and good to
point out how archaic the current
system would seem to policy-makers
starting with a blank canvas, the
reality is - to continue the metaphor
- the canvas isn’t blank. There are
existing problems in the education
system which abolishing GCSEs,
in the absence of an alternative way
of co-ordinating and monitoring
schools’ standards, certainly won’t
solve and is in fact only likely to make
worse.
Laura Fergus is a second-year
Geographer at Newnham
CambridgeStudent
Should children take
national exams at 16?
Eton headteacher Tony Little called this week for the abolition
of GCSEs, a controversial proposal that has sparked opinion
from all sides. Mr Little called for an end to the “exam factory” system, claiming that “the nature of our examination
system reﬂects a previous age.” However, critics argue that
the large number of universities that currently use GCSE results as part of their admission process would be forced to rely
on predicted A-level grades. In light of universities minister
David Willetts’ call for a fresh look at university applications,
is it time for a change to secondary education as well?
“I’d love to be in a
position where my
16-year-olds took
no public exams at
all.”
Tony Little, head of Eton
College
19.4%
Proportion of white
British boys eligible
for Free School Meals
who were awarded at
least five C grades at
GCSE in 2009
Department for Children,
Schools and Families
“My students
would have no
indication of
their attainment
which would
be universally
recognised by
colleges and
employers in their
next stage of life”
Joan McVitie, head of
Woodside High, Tottenham,
on Mr Little’s proposals
No: GCSEs are a measuring
technique that is simplistic
at students’ expense, argues
Zephyr Penoyre
If asked what you enjoyed most in
your GCSE’s you might well say
physics, history or drama. However,
if you really think back, I wold
wager that each of these subjects
still involved the long slogs through
tedious fact and theory that you
associate with your less favoured
courses. Instead it’s the moments
when you recognise something
new, unexpected and fascinating in
a subject that really endear you to a
subject, unfortunately these are all
too often few and far between.
The current approach
is a “one course fits all”
bridle leaving students
champing at the bit
This is not the fault of the field,
nor the teacher, the student or even
the institution, instead the blame lies
with that most unyielding of beasts,
the fixed curriculum. It’s no great
revelation to say that different groups
will enjoy differing experiences,
one class of children might marvel
at potassium skipping and burning
wildly across the surface of water
while another might have to stifle a
yawn. One group might get little to
nothing out of Shakespeare but be
captivated by To Kill A Mockingbird.
Yet the current approach to education
is a “one course fits all” bridle which
leaves students champing at the bit
and teachers straining to keep classes
engaged.
The reason for this narrowness
of scope is simple, the performance
of students and schools is only
directly comparable when results are
standardised, but is standardisation
really what we want? Schools are in
danger of becoming manufacturing
plants for letters of higher and higher
denomination where students are
force-fed information by wrote and
skills like deduction, ingenuity and
rigour are marginalised and in their
place the ability to memorize and
repeat is celebrated and rewarded
above almost all else.
Almost everyone reading this will
have taken more public exams than
they care to remember, and hence
will have a collection of letters under
there belt which if pronounced
phonetically will most likely sound
like a man who’s only just woken
up falling off a cliff (with quite a
few footnotes), but did any of them
really give you any great satisfaction?
It’s not the letter that’s important; it’s
the knowledge of your own ability.
I’d rather have a conversation in an
actual language than be told in what
percentile I sit. In short, the grades
are not there for the benefit of the
student, who has done all the work
to achieve them, but for the ease of
school boards and politicians to map
ever improving trends.
At this point I should say, I’m not
against all public examination, or at
least I don’t have a better suggestion
of what to put in it’s place. AS and A2
levels will remain the bread and butter
of what wins or loses students their
first jobs and university places, but
with a potentially rising compulsory
education age children entering
schools now will have no choice but
to follow the curriculum through to
A-levels, negating the need for GCSEs
as proof of a students attainment if
they did choose to leave school at
16. Instead they sit in the middle of
a child’s education demanding their
full attention without ever really
rewarding any commitment in more
than a superficial way.
The question is, if A-levels
become mandatory, why spend
the precluding two years sweating
over a regimented curriculum just
for the sake of a handful of poorly
sorted alphabet spaghetti? Instead we
should allow teachers and students
to dictate the course of the learning
they want to do, allowing them to
pursue what interests them and, by
avoiding the exertion of jumping the
unnecessary hurdle that is the current
GCSE system, be better prepared
to approach A-levels and higher
education with better knowledge of
what and how they want to learn.
Zephyr Penoyre is a first-year physicist
at Trinity Hall
The
CambridgeStudent
Comment |13
For full, absolute, uncompromising free speech
Hugo Schmidt
Rwandan genocide memorial: The 1994 killing of 800,000
people has been linked in the past to issues of free speech
thing; I am defending my own right
to know what the real views of such
people are.
On Sunday I attended the One
Law For All’s protest in defence of
freedom of expression and was too
depressed for words when I heard
speakers saying that the lessons of
the Holocaust and Rwanda meant,
of course, they recognize that there
must be “limits”. The slight problem
is that such limits, in the case of
Rwanda, were used against those
warning of what was planned, and
in the case of the Nazis, they firstly
made Hitler’s cronies into martyrs,
secondly forced them to sanitize
their image to the point that they
became electable, and thirdly,
provided the weapon they used to
destroy all opposition.
So, to make this simple: I intend
to say whatever I want, no matter
what anyone else thinks. If anyone
wants to shut me up, they need to
understand that nothing short of
death will work. If they want to go
that far they are free to try, and quit
hiding behind euphemistic drivel.
Do I have responsibilities when I
exercise my rights? Of course. I have
responsibilities that my words are
not misunderstood, that they are not
used by those I hold as morally vile,
configmanager
If there’s a measuring device
for asinine fatuity, it must emit
thick and bitter smoke whenever
someone starts talking about
“necessary restriction on freedom
of expression”. Take the following
from these pages: “When people of
this latter variety [the unquestioning
believer] are offended, they don’t
mean that they dislike your views
or think that, theoretically, you
are morally in the wrong, but that
the very essence of who they are
has been shaken.” Exactly. If
someone’s “sense of identity” cannot
survive argument, then it should
be discarded. I’ve spent some time
jousting with the intellectualoids
of Europe’s neo-fascist movements,
and one thing that always comes
up is that immigration is doing
‘irretrievable damage’ to white
European identity.
There is some value here: namely
in showing the bankruptcy of
utilitarianism. Arguments of this
kidney are always full of “we” and
“us” and what “society” and “the
community” should permit, and
“how much” freedom is ‘good for
society’. Isabel Paterson rightly
wrote that this defence of freedom
is worthless, as there will always be
someone who argues that restricting
and abolishing freedom is “good for
society”. When the fatwa against
Rushdie was issued, the murderous
goons self-pitying whine was that
Rushdie had “offended” the Islamic
community. When the Shiv Sena
decided to get themselves a piece of
sectarian action and hound India’s
greatest artist, M.F. Husain, out of
the country and into hiding, they
similarly griped that the Hindu
Community was “offended”. All of
these were cases of the individual
against ‘the community’, and all of
these illustrate the truth that moral
and intellectually maturity consists
in being able to say “the community
can go hang”.
The key point about freedom of
speech is that in defending it, you
are not defending the other guy’s
right to speak, but your own right
to hear. I invite the reader to ask
themselves what person, known to
them personally, or by reputation,
living or dead, anywhere on the
surface of this orb, or throughout
the swathe of human history, would
they give the power over them to
decide what they could and could
not read, were allowed and were not
allowed to hear?
This also shows up a common
fallacy. Defending freedom of
expression, one finds oneself every
so often defending scoundrels,
and one is then confronted by
something like, “So, how do you
feel in defending the BNP?”. In
such a situation, I am doing no such
that I do not needlessly hurt anyone,
or present anything I know to be
false – the list goes on. But those are
the responsibilities of dealing with
rational being by means of reason.
Force and reason are opposites.
The only responsibility that I,
or any free-thinking member
of my species has to anyone who
wishes to use force to silence
speech, is to quote the words of
the late Oriana Fallaci: “You
go fuck yourself. I say what I
want.”
Hugo Schmidt is a postgraduate at the
Department of Biochemistry
The Grant Thornton
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24/01/2012 11:10
The
14| Comment
Spoiling
the Ballot
It’s that time of the year again. A
brand new set of lunatics are set
to take over the CUSU asylum.
And in the weeks before
nominations are announced and
indeed throughout the course
of the elections themselves, the
one question on every student’s
mind will be, “What can CUSU
do to protect us from all those
evil candidates who seek to
warp our fragile little minds?”
At least you’d think so, given the
current flurry of unadulterated
bureaucratic
election-related
activity that also underpins
virtually every other thing that
CUSU gets involved with too.
And
it
does
underpin
everything. TCS is lucky enough
to share an office with the
CUSU sabbs. If you walk into
the kitchen there were (at the
last count) sixteen separate signs
being displayed, informing of
us of various health and safety
issues and other assorted perils
– one even warns us that drips
from a hot tap “can hurt”. Clearly,
the CUSU kitchen is a dangerous
place, so that’s why most of us
in the TCS office take the safer
option of going out into the
New Museums Site car park to
drink rainwater out of a puddle.
IMP_All_Progs_CAMB_V3_Layout
1
There’s
no sign outside telling us
CambridgeStudent
A sideways look at the
CUSU elections with the
TCS Eagle of Truth
and Justice...
not to do it, so it must be okay.
Anyway, back to CUSU’s
fundamental
organising
principle - election bureaucracy.
This year you’ll all be glad to
know that you can rest easy
in your beds knowing that
CUSU President Gerard “Four
legs good, two legs bad” Tully
has kept us all safe from harm
by proposing a motion that
was passed by council to ban
election “slates” this year (for
those unaware, this is the evil
practice of two or more students
running together, sort of as a
group effort). Why bother? The
last time a large election “slate”
ran a few years ago across all
positions (it was snappily titled
“A little less conversation, a little
more action”) it was roundly
defeated at the ballot box.
However, clearly in the minds
of the CUSU cognoscenti this
time around, the electorate can’t
be relied on to merely weigh up
any given joint proposition in its
own minds and reach a decision
– so slates are banned.
The gossip currently doing the
rounds at various colleges is that
the move was actually a ploy to
stop any attempt by activist group
“Cambridge Defend Education”
26/01/2012
Page in
1 the CUSU
running 09:34
together
elections. TCS has no evidence to
back up this widespread theory,
save from the testimony given to
us by a donkey who in fairness
“could read as well as any pig”.
For any student that has
not already fully immersed
their trotters in the slurry pit
of student politics, there is a
guide called “How To Stand”
available for download from
the CUSU website. Having
very unscientifically passed
this around to a few friends for
their views, the overwhelming
opinion on this sorry document
is that the whole process is quite
baffling and merely serves as a
barrier for anyone (other than
the grimly determined and
highly motivated) to stand.
Producing information of this
poor standard helps to preserve
the status quo. It leaves the
playing field clear for those
candidates hand-picked by the
current Sabb team so they in
turn can be ‘nurtured’ through
the CUSU election process
without interference from pesky
outsider types.
Finally we come to the election
rules themselves. In fairness
to CUSU, from a three-minute
arbitrary search with Google
(that passes as “research” when
we are compiling Spoiling The
Ballot), it is clear that the eight
pages of the CUSU “Election
Rules 2012” is probably only
marginally more bizarre than
those produced by fellow student
bureaucrats up and down the
length of Britain. The rules
found for Oxford University
Students’ Union seem to have
been written by a second-year
law student having downed a
full litre of Sunny Delight laced
with crack.
That notwithstanding, special
mention needs to go to CUSU’s
default Rules Help Control Your
Fun ethos, as they take ‘a belt
and braces’ approach to rule out
what are presumably the most
dangerous election practices,
which would otherwise doubtless
infect your soul, curve your
spine and keep the country from
winning the war.
As well as restricting the
amount any given candidate
can spend on electioneering
activities to £100, how you use
your money is also regulated. A
‘points system’ is in place, so if
you wish to stand as a sabbatical
officer you get to spend 1500
virtual points (or ‘baubles of
mammon’ if you prefer)
on
your campaign. Stickers cost
three “points” – so you can piss
all your campaign spending on
500 stickers to promote your
campaign as long as you spend a
maximum of a hundred quid.
Confused? You will be - those
500 stickers have to be homemade too! Anything else would
be a world turned topsy-turvy;
and if you wanted “professionally
made”
stickers
for
your
campaign, these are worth more
- six whole points each! So you
are only allowed 250 of those.
Anything else would be a world
turned even more upside-down
than before.
Fortunately, in the event of any
argument as to what actually
constitutes an amateur sticker, as
opposed to its professional rival,
all students can be assured that
the CUSU elections committee
have a process in place that
enables them to meet up regularly
in order to determine whether
your sticker has professional or
amateur status. Phew.
Hopefully, we are thus
guaranteed that no student
anywhere in Cambridge will
get away campaigning with
251 professionally produced
stickers at a cost over a hundred
quid. Students at all colleges
can sleep soundly knowing that
Cambridge student democracy
is safe in CUSU’s hands for
another year.
Spoiling the Ballot can be read
in full on the TCS website.
Views and comments expressed
are the opinions of individuals
and not necessarily the opinions
of Cambridge University Students’
Union or The Cambridge Student
Newspaper. Any views of potential
candidates expressed in this
column are not necessarily the
views they would hold if elected.
In all cases, elected candidates
would respect due process in the
totality of their interactions with
staff.
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previously studied MPhil Economics at Cambridge University
SHAPE YOUR FUTURE
www.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/diversity
bridge
magazine
What makes us so special?
p16
The
features
CambridgeStudent
Want to get involved in Features?
Email [email protected].
What makes
Something makes us feel the human species is unique among the animal kingdom. But what does modern science have to
say about the reasons we give to back up this claim? Martha Henriques, Florence Smith Nicholls and Arjun Sajip look at
why the classic answers fail to provide a concrete boundary to separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
amoebae
use chemical
communication
systems
ants
use air conditioning
to keep their nest
fresh
dogs
appear to feel
jealousy
dolphins
wear plant-based
accessories
gibbons
understand
allegories
Source: New Scientist
tompagenet
Crow image by goingslo
16| Features
Tool-using
It may be common knowledge that
plenty of primates use sticks, rocks,
and anvils to make dinner time
easier, and some even use makeshift
umbrellas to shelter from tropical
showers. But primates are by no
means the only ones thought to show
tool-using traits once considered
unique to humans; animals ranging
from dolphins to cats are known to
make use of albeit quite simple tools.
A certain species of crow, on the
other hand, is even more talented
than chimps at designing, making,
and using devices that help them get
at those extra morsels.
New Caledonian crows are
found only on two small islands
in the southwest Pacific, and the
scarcity of food there may have led
them to rely on a diverse selection
of tools to sustain their diet. The
centrepiece of their toolkit is the
hook, usually made from leaf fronds
or strips of bark. Hooks may seem
like very simple devices, but human
children take two or three years to
get to grips with them, and even
chimps appear to be incapable of
understanding their function. New
Caledonian crows, though, not only
regularly use hooks to fish out grubs
from their hiding places, but they
also fashion hooks from almost any
material available. When presented
with a piece of wire, a material with
no natural counterpart, one crow
named Betty didn’t hesitate to make
a brand new hook when her usual
favourite was stolen by a fellow
crow.
Betty’s researchers at Oxford
University, Jackie Chappell and
Alex Kacelnik, have described
her innovative talents to the New
Scientist like those of a “flying
toddler”, determined to use her hardearned gadgets to probe electrical
sockets and fire alarms.
Farming
Fifty million years before humans got
there, ants were already pioneering
agriculture. Leaf-cutter ants still use
among the most complex farming
methods outside the human
species, as they have
done for millennia.
A
carefully
balanced system
of
fertilising,
gust of wind ensure that the
nest is kept comfortably
well-ventilated.
harvesting, and
even air conditioning
has led to successful
farming of delicate fungi
that grow nowhere
in the world except
under the careful
watch of the leafcutters.
There are several
different species
of
fungus
cultivated by
le af-c utters
and their close
relatives, but
one thing these
species
have
in common is a
firm dependency
on the ants. Like
the majority of
crops cultivated by
humans, the fungi are
susceptible to the most
devastating
diseases.
One ubiquitous mould
is capable of killing an
entire garden of fungus
in less than three days
after infection. But,
like humans, the leafcutters have devised
a solution. The ants
carry a species of
bacteria which
produces an
antibiotic
t h a t
keeps the
mould under control
without
damaging the precious fungus: an
ant equivalent of pesticide.
Another problem posed by
the fungus gardens is their high
production of carbon dioxide. If this
gas was allowed to build up in the
underground farming chambers, the
whole nest would
quickly
suffocate. The
a n t s ’
solution
is
a
n
ingenious
system of
air funnels
shaped to
catch even
the
smallest
Language
According
to
Ethnologue, there
are 6,809 recorded
human languages
spoken
in
the
world. Strangely,
it looks like we
don’t have the
monopoly
on this
global
plethora
of tongues, according to recent
research involving a parrot called
Alex.
Harvard psychology professor
Irene Pepperberg’s research into
animal cognition brought to her to
the African Grey (ex-)Parrot, Alex
– an acronym of Avian Learning
Experiment – with whom she
struck up an interesting working
relationship that has given us a
fascinating new insight
into the ability of birds
t
o
speak English. We all know the
clichés of Pretty Polly and parrots
that chatter incessantly, but these
studies blow simplistic “parroting”
out of the water: according to
Pepperberg, “we [gave] him a tray
full of objects of various shapes and
colours, and he [told] me which
[were] green and three-cornered.”
If you think that’s impressive,
he also demonstrated the mental
capacities of a small child, showing
spatial awareness and articulating
desires: when put on a chair,
he demanded, “No, wanna go
SHOULDER!” Perhaps this may
render redundant our use of the
adjective “bird-brained”.
Parrots talking in English
and showing more than just
rudimentary intelligence is weird
enough. The concept of microbial
communications is even stranger.
Nevertheless, in the last few
years, research into bacteria
somehow ‘talking’ to each
other has been ongoing.
Its aim? To demolish the
assumption that bacteria
are essentially living
robots with little
capacity
for
communication. Studies at the
University of Minnesota reveal that
two species of bacteria apparently
stake out territories when forced to
grow together.
There’s even evidence that bacteria
enjoy get-togethers. For example,
one type of bacteria that makes
fish luminesce emits a chemical to
attract other nearby members of
its species, exciting microbiologists
about the prospect of a microbial
chemo-genetic language. Clearly
humans aren’t the only ones to speak
in tongues.
The
CambridgeStudent
features
Emotion
How are you today? Possibly happy,
maybe sad – but what about animals?
Anthropomorphism is an all too
frequent phenomenon, especially
among pets and their owners,
but faunae could be more
emotionally
developed than you might expect.
Some biologists believe that animals
are capable of joy, grief, and even
love.
Primary emotions, such as the
‘fight-or-flight’ response, are clearly
an inherent part of both human
and animal nature. According to
neurobiologists, primary emotions
can be ascribed to the limbic
system of the brain, a structure
which is also found in
mammals,
birds,
reptiles and even fish. Secondary
emotions, requiring higher brain
centres in the cerebral cortex, are
also biochemically attested in other
species. The fact that rats have been
found to produce opiates during
play, a chemical which is associated
with pleasure in humans, is just one
instance of
this.
Despite what
Edgar
Allan
Poe
would have
us believe,
ravens can’t
speak, but
they can fall in
love. Biologist
Bernd Heinrich (University of
Vermont) construes that they
wouldn’t form long-term pair bonds
if there wasn’t an internal reward. In
chemical terms, birds and reptiles
produce the chemical vasotocin,
which is comparable to the elevation
of the hormone oxytocin in humans,
related to courtship and sex. On
the other side of the coin, it is also
thought that animals experience
grief. Elephants have
been known to stand
over a stillborn
baby for days.
World-famous
pr imatolog ist
Jane Goodall observed one
chimpanzee withdraw from its
group and eventually die after the
death of his mother.
Even Charles Darwin was
convinced that the “lower animals,
like man, manifestly feel pleasure
and pain, happiness and misery.”
Some of the evidence may be
contentious, but there is certainly
a case to be made for emotional
creatures. Animals have feelings
too.
tompagenet
Culture
In his famous work, The Selfish
Gene, Richard Dawkins proclaims:
“Among animals, man is uniquely
dominated by culture” – but are
we? The word “culture” may have
connotations of middle class
pastimes, but it’s actually a concept
which can be applied not only to
multitudes of Homo Sapiens, but
to members of the animal kingdom
as well. Of course, we’re dealing
less with art galleries than the
dissemination of certain types of
behaviour not biologically adapted
to the environment. Dawkins
himself coined the word “meme,”
a cultural gene, to explain this
phenomenon in humans. Animal
antics, and whale song in particular,
may yet prove him wrong.
Cetaceans (large sea mammals)
are particularly renowned for a
complex repertoire of behaviour.
We’ve all heard of whale warbling,
but it may come as a surprise that
different humpback whale groups
in different oceans have varied
songs, while specific populations
have identical croons. During the
breeding season, if a male breaks
the mould by adding a few extra
grunts or groans, the change is
disseminated among the group.
Crucially, this proves humpback
whales imitate.
Dolphins are smart; they also
accessorise. Research by Tony Martin
of the British Antarctic Survey in
Cambridge and Vera da Silva of the
National Institute of Amazonian
Research have discovered that in
isolated populations of the brainy
sea mammals, males carry objects
such as weed, a stick or a lump of
clay to attract mates. This provides
another example of social learning,
a means by which culture can be
passed on to successive generations
of organisms. Humans are just the
same: family and friends culturally
influence us throughout our lives.
Though there are still many social
scientists resisting the attribution of
culture to fauna, the complexity of
cetacean conduct is hard to ignore.
Riley and Amos
us so special?
Features |17
The
CambridgeStudent
features
Life beyond the Kettle
Want to get involved in Features?
Email [email protected].
Tristram Fane-Saunders tests the best of Cambridge’s coffee culture
FITZBILLIES, TRUMPINGTON
STREET
Regular Cappuccino/Latte: £2.40
GOOD FOR: The meek.
As a nervous fresher, it’s easy to be
lulled into docility by the twin forces
of familiarity and tradition. Fitzbillies
is 90 years old, you think. It’s an institution. It’s respectable and consistent
and you’ve been there before. Why
branch out? Stay put. Stuff yourself
with the Chelsea bun of complacency
(£2.25).
But something is not quite right
here. My cappuccino (£2.40) is reasonably strong, but the milk is far too bubbly and uneven, lacking the smooth
microfoam pillow today’s cappuccinoholics expect. I am perturbed.
When my assistant arrives, we move
from the ‘Coffee Counter’ to the kind
of featureless main seating area. I try
to order my assistant a latte from the
‘Counter,’ where there is no queue,
only to be told this is impossible as
the main area is waiter service only.
‘Can I bring my drink through?’
They say yes. ‘Can I buy one
for her and bring it through?’
They say no. Somewhere,
Kafka chuckles.
We order, and wait.
And wait. I drink as
slowly as is humanly
possible, but by the
time her (admittedly lovely) latte
arrives my cappuccino is gone,
and I am left
with a feeling of
uneasiness and
guilt. I watch her
sip. She watches
me watching her
sip. We start to
feel trapped.
But nothing
inspires intrepidness like a really good blizzard.
Peering out at the
snowfall through the
warm, womblike window of ‘Billies, I ask myself;
“What would Captain Scott
do? Would he just stay here
and have a refill?” Emboldened,
I drag my assistant away from her
unfinished latte, and we stagger off into
the unknown. As any fortune cookie
can tell you, each journey begins with a
single step. This is fortunate, as a single
step is all it takes to get to…
CRISTINES, BOTOLPH LANE
Cappuccino/Latte: Small - £1.80, Large
- £2.30
GOOD FOR: Brazilian nibbles
Sprouting from the left-hand side
of the same block as ‘Billies like some
kind of benign fungal growth (if such
growths were filled with sponge cake
and gingham), Cristine’s is as cheerful and friendly as Cristine herself,
though likely to divide opinion. The
decor is lovely, and there is a pleasant
view of the trees beside St Botolph’s,
18| Features
but there is only one table – normally
occupied. My beijinho (Portugese for
“little kiss”, made by Christine, £0.80)
looks deceptively similar to marzipan, but is made of something much
softer and sweeter, rolled in coconut
and topped with a piece of star anise. I
think it’s absolutely delicious. My assistant thinks it tastes a little odd.
The coffee is wonderfully aromatic,
a strong and spicy Brazilian blend,
but do not order a cappuccino here.
The shallow, bubbly foam seems
to mock you for being
enough of a wimp
to add milk to
your coffee.
Instead,
try a
small Americano or espresso
(both cheap at £1.30) and
savour the flavour while waiting for a
seat at the one table.
My assistant has one of Cristine’s
incredible homemade fruit-juice creations (£1.60) featuring pineapple and
mint. She thinks it is absolutely delicious. I think it tastes a little odd.
SAVINOS, EMMANUEL STREET
Regular Cappucino/Latte: £2.20
GOOD FOR: Flirtation and Flubber.
Having swapped assistants, I hit
Savino’s. Savino’s has the tastiest Italian coffee in Cambridge, served (in
my assistant’s opinion) by the tastiest Italians. The fittings (lots of vinyl/
mirrors/swivel-seats) are clearly aiming for ‘cool’ rather than ‘cosy’, which
works as part of its all-nite-espressobar aesthetic, but makes relaxation
difficult. The paninis (approx £3.70)
are defiantly good, given the presence
of Subway immediately next door but
the chocolate, ginger and cherry cake
(£2.40) is dry and disappointing. If
you fancy something sweet, ignore
the cakes and try the extra-thick Italian hot chocolate. It has a strange,
mousse-ish consistency unlike anything else on earth, and is more of an
entertainment than a beverage. My assistant described it as “chocolate flubber”, and meant this as a compliment.
Experience it yourself, if you dare.
One recent review of Savino’s described it as “an urban oasis in our
idyllic desert,” but this isn’t quite true.
If you really want to escape the beauty,
visit...
THE GRADS’ CAFE, JUNCTION
OF MILL LANE AND GRANTA
PLACE
Cappuccino/Latte: £1.80
GOOD FOR: Dunking, napping, escaping.
Come one, come all, to Cambridge’s ugliest building. The mysteriously named
“Cam-
bridge
University
Centre” is an eyesore, but
hidden away on its 3rd floor is the
surprisingly nice Grads’ Cafe. It’s simple, light and spacious with a stunning
panoramic view of the Cam, while its
location (30 seconds from the Silver
Street Bridge) makes it the perfect
place to rest your brain on the way
back from the Sidgwick. The foam
on my enormous cappuccino (£1.80)
is perfect, but the Grads’ coffees are
quite weak, made with a single shot of
relatively mild espresso which drowns
in the beautiful froth. Not the place to
go if you have a craving for caffeine.
However, if you prefer the idea of
dozing off while dipping marzipanstuffed croissants (£1.40) or large, triple-choc-chip biscuits (3 for £1) into
what is effectively warm milk, this undiscovered site is well worth a visit.
MICHAELHOUSE, ST JOHNS
STREET
Large cappuccino/latte: £2.25
GOOD FOR: Experiencing the numinous.
Also known as ‘that little church opposite Caius,’ Michaelhouse has a Tardisian spaciousness inside. The church
area is separated from the café by an almost invisible glass wall, so one seems
to flow into the other. Sadly, in the
downstairs section this spaciousness
combines with poorly chosen generic
seating to create an atmosphere not
unlike a motorway service station.
How they’ve managed this in a
church is anyone’s guess. Climb
the spiral staircase, and it’s a
suddenly a lot better; up among
the stone arches you can sit on
the leather sofas drinking reliably good Illy coffee (£2.25)
while admiring the stained
glass windows.
INDIGO
CAFE,
SAINT EDWARDS
PASSAGE
Regular cappuccino/
latte/hot chocolate:
£1.90
GOOD FOR: Missing lectures in.
Almost everyone knows Indigo,
and with good
reason. Its ground
floor is as small
as Christine’s but
packs three tables
into a space not quite
big enough for one. If
any café really captures
the beating heart of Cambridge, it’s got to be Indigo.
The walls are smothered in
flyers and posters advertising
almost event happening anywhere in the city, adding to the clutter of the decor. There is a thick layer
of stuff on every surface; hand-printed
poetry magazines, recent academic
journals and extinct foreign currency
all jostle for space.
The regular cappuccino is perfectly decent, but I opt for the man-size
triple-shot alternative (£2.70), which
(like assistant #3’s tea) is delivered in a
chunky polka-dot mug. If Indigo were
any cosier it would probably implode.
Cooked food can take a while to arrive
(especially those choose-your-ownfilling breakfast paninis, £4.85), but
haste is clearly against the ethos of
this place. Arrive early (from 10am)
to grab a table, and loiter until you can
loiter no longer.
Image by Stepheye
The
CambridgeStudent
interview
Joe Pug talks to Kalle Harberg about songwriting,
being on the road and the Eucharist
Yeah…absolutely. There’s a song that
I wrote very early on called ‘Bury
Me Far (From My Uniform)’ which
I felt very powerfully when I wrote it
and I performed it all the time. And
then my grandfather passed away a
couple of years ago. He served in the
military and we went to Arlington
cemetery to see him interred. He
was given a full military funeral and
you can imagine what a little asshole
I felt like sitting through all that,
knowing that I had written this song.
That song is a pretty heavy-handed
song that I would write in a more
nuanced way if I had the chance to
write it now. But I don’t, it’s over, it’s
done. But I don’t know that I’ll be
playing that song anymore because
I have very different feelings about
it now.
Joe Pug
How does the country you’ve seen
while touring the US compare with
the one the young man imagined
when driving to Chicago?
Joe Pug was a playwright student at the University of North Carolina. Disappointed and unhappy, he
decided to make music instead. Working as a carpenter during the day, he recorded his songs at night when a
friend snuck him into a music studio. Since the release of the Nation of Heat EP and his album Messenger, he
has been compared to Dylan, Guthrie, Springsteen and Cash. Joe Pug will perform a UK tour next week.
Before your final year at university,
you decided to move to Chicago
and become a musician instead.
Do you remember how you felt
during the car ride to the city and
your first weeks there?
Oh yeah, that was a very special
time making that decision and that
drive itself was one of the favourite
days of my life. I really look back
on it fondly. I do remember being
tempered when finally pulling into
the city and reality crashing in on
me. I had nowhere to go, no job,
no place to crash. So that was going
from a very high ‘high’ to a very low
‘low’.
Since that time, you’ve sent free
2-song sample CDs to anyone
who wants them. Tickets to your
concerts still only cost $10. These
aren’t very profitable career
choices at first glance. Why do you
do it?
Now that everyone can put out a CD
and everyone can put out an album
there’s a lot of white noise. It’s easier
to release something in the first
place but it might be a lot harder
to get noticed once you do have
something released. I figured taking
price away as one of the barriers
to getting to know my music was
ultimately going to help me, even if
it was leaving some money on the
table.
you read and what music you listen
to, because it’s going to affect your
own work.
After leaving university, you
worked as a carpenter while
recording an EP at night. You just
moved to Austin – a city known
for its great folk and country
scene. From the outside, it feels
as if you’re consciously writing
your story as an American singersongwriter. How does it feel from
the inside?
When I’m off the road, I write every
morning and I usually write with a
pen and a paper before I bring the
guitar into it. And then I spend
afternoons writing different guitar
parts completely separately. I have
a very haphazard way of sort of
marrying those two things.
I’m definitely travelling around
trying to pick up different pieces. It’s
one of the very important things as
an artist as you decide what you let
enter your field of perception, what
you allow to become grist for the
mill. You have to curate what books
Steve Earle, with whom you’ve
toured in the past, said in an
interview that your songs had the
same value and depth as literature.
Where and how do you write
them?
You’ve said somewhere that it’s
easier to believe in things when
you’re young. That true craftsmen
continue believing although their
environment will encourage them
not to. Are there songs you’ve
written that you don’t believe in
anymore?
I suppose I imagined the US to still
be a very regional country, each
state with its own type of people
and type of food and dialect. It’s
been staggeringly homogenised,
everything has. Most things
that people take as culturally
idiosyncratic in any particular
region are just that way now because
the tourism board promotes that.
Eat skyline chilli in Cincinnati, and
that’s the big deal, and eat green
chilli in New Mexico, and that’s the
big deal, and really it’s all kind of
fucking the same. You go to sleep at
a Holiday Inn and you eat at a Ruby
Tuesday. The country is much more
the same and corporatised than I
ever would have imagined it. For
people that don’t travel, it’s much
more pervasive than they could ever
imagine.
at home I have the chance to read
books, listen to music, write, explore
myself, catch up with friends. I think
my private life is still able to thrive
artistically but when I’m on the road
it just gets put into freeze-frame.
How does the relationship to
your own music change when you
perform live every night?
I’ve had enough other jobs to know
that this is still an awesome job. I
don’t complain about it but it’s
something that you have to be
prepared for as someone getting
started. I heard one of the members of
the band ‘Over the Rhine’ describe it
once. At a certain point the Catholic
Church made it not a sin for a priest
to not feel the Holy Spirit while
he was giving the Eucharist – you
know what I mean? He compared
that to what it’s like to play the same
songs every night. I think as long as
I’m still a vessel and as long as I can
still present these songs to everyone
in an audience who sees them once
a year or once every two years, they
can emotionally colour the songs
and invest in them.
You sometimes step away from
the mic and raise your guitar to a
forty-five degree angle – like you
were launching a rocket. Pure
instinct or signature move?
[Laughs.] I didn’t know that I
have many signature moves! But I
suppose maybe that would be one.
I just kind of step away…I’m usually
pretty into it at that point. Whatever
I’m feeling, I usually have to
concentrate pretty hard on shows to
get everything across and to sound
good, so I’m not very aware of what
it looks like.
Do you feel that this kind of travel
has shrunk or expanded the pool
of experiences for new songs?
Your second album The Great
Despiser will be released in April.
Can you tell us a bit more about
what’s coming?
I do the least amount of artistic
growing when I’m on the road. Being
on the road is wonderful because
you get to have this communion
with the people that like your songs
and that’s fantastic! But being on
the road…you’re driving a van for
eight hours, you sound check, you
eat dinner, you play the same songs
that you always play. You get back to
the hotel and fall asleep. When I’m
The first thing that people will notice
is there’s more instrumentation
on it. But the songs are exactly the
same, they were written in the exact
same way. I really look at all the
songs I write as part of one big body
of work. This is a continuation of
the same body of work and I think
there’s some really, really beautiful
musical colouration on it and I’m
very proud of it.
Student Ambassadors required to
help promote an Electronic Arts
SIMS comedy night @ CAMBRIDGE
Bar Nusha on Wed 29th Feb.
8hrs for £96.00 before tax.
Please email CV to:
[email protected]
The
CambridgeStudent
music
Want to get involved in Music?
Email [email protected]
reviews
gotyE
Making Mirrors
Sharon Van EttEn
TraMp
rEign of TError
(republic, 2012)
(Jagjaguwar, 2012)
(Mom+pop, 2012)
★★★☆☆
★★★★★
★★★★★
Download: Bronte
Download: Serpents
Download: Comeback
Kid
gotye! The guy from that song! With the video of the
naked people covered in paint! Yes, Somebody I Used To
Know, the video that, at last count, had over 70 million
views, and was number one in the Uk singles chart. it’s
a cracking song, with whispered verses, yelped choruses
and, most importantly, a xylophone. Xylophones are
brilliant. anyway, he’s not a new artist; Making Mirrors
is the third album from everyone’s new favourite Belgianaustralian singer-songwriter, who’s been making sampleheavy tracks since 2001. gotye is certainly obsessed with
different sounds, and he seems to be trying his hand at
everything on this record, to varying degrees of success.
Bronte is lovely, with beautiful drumming, and I Feel Better
is deliciously fun retro-soul, but State of the Art is dull
even with some nice vocoder. You won’t be easily bored,
but neither will you be spellbound by this altogether too
unfocused album. i’d tell you to download Somebody I
Used To Know, because it’s by far the best song here, but
you probably already have. By all means have a listen to
this interesting album, but don’t expect many other tracks
worthy of seventy million listens. Zoe Holder
the
cambridge
jukebox
songs about repressive or dysfunctional relationships
are nothing new. They are a favourite for any songwriter
looking to add real life grit to their music. sharon Van
Etten’s lyrics ring truer than most others, for the simple
reason that, after years of being criticised and held back by
her boyfriend, she knows what she is singing about. More
substantial that her previous albums, she loses none of the
fragility and vulnerability that had set her apart from the
crowd. Centrepiece All I Can builds from a hushed organ
to a rousing climax, as Van Etten tries to move on from
old memories. The bitterness comes to a head on Serpents,
with its biting vocals, drum attack and squalling guitars.
While most of the material here is very bleak, some light
gets through: Beirut’s Zach Condon guests as the friend,
calming Van Etten’s fears on We Are Fine, and she finds
some solace on the slowly shimmering Joke or a Lie. our
airwaves are full of heartbroken lyrics, normally backed by
a gigantic chorus and shiny production. But very few artists
can match the genuine emotion on show here. Tramp is
far from being an easy listen, but Van Etten’s music really
should be treasured. Joseph Hooton
Zoe Holder pays tribute to one of the greatest voices of our time
The only thing better than discovering a new
favourite band is helping someone else discover their
new favourite band. Each week we receive dozens
of song recommendations. The dedicated TCS Music
Team trawl through them all and list the ten best
tracks on this page. If you think you can make it into
the top ten, email us at [email protected]
Rope and Summit - Junip Martin Boden
Tickle Me Pink - Johnny Flynn Emily Handley
To Whom It May Concern - The Civil Wars Abbi
Mitchell
Psycho Candy - The Jesus and Mary Chain Cosmo
Godfree
Centerfold - J Geils Band Ben O’Malley
Redemption - Frank Turner Matthew Benton
You and I - Ingrid Michaelson Eavan Prenter
20| Music
Image: tm_10001
Nebula - Incubus Adam Drew
You Win Again - The Bee Gees Ed Taylor
Look, all right, my previous reviews may have complained
about lack of innovation, but i’d have been perfectly happy
if sleigh Bells had relistened to their terrific debut Treats
and decided to serve up 11 tracks of exactly the same thing.
But they haven’t, that’s the genius of it: sleigh Bells keep the
dedication to noise, the talent for melody, alexis krauss’s
gorgeous voice, but they diversify their style, so End of the Line
sounds like a sexier Vampire Weekend, and Demons leads
front-and-centre with a massive proto-metal guitar riff - and
then there’s lead single Comeback Kid, by turns optimistic
and wistful, but always ultimately catchy and thrilling pop.
Then there’s the angular, tense You Lost Me or the chiming
crunch of Leader of the Pack... it’s only by force of will (and
force of editors) that i can keep myself from listing every
track as a highlight. i loved Treats because it was exciting,
because every time Tell ‘Em burst out of the speakers it
sounded fresh, a clarion call demanding that music shouldn’t
lurk in the background. reign of Terror takes that ideal and
runs with it: it demands attention from start to finish. a
triumphant second album from the best active band in the
world. Frederic Heath-Renn
Whitney Houston Remembered
what are you listening to?
Take Me Over - Cut Copy Zoe Holder
SlEigh BEllS
The world was shocked and saddened last weekend to learn
of the death of the inimitable singer Whitney Houston. she
was just 48 years old. While in later years it would appear that
her massive talent took a back seat to rumours of her drug
use and troubled marriage to Bobby Brown, her incredibly
powerful voice cannot and will not be easily forgotten.
Born into a musical family in newark, new Jersey, (her
mother was the singer Cissy Houston, and aretha franklin
was her godmother), Houston’s self-titled debut album
was released in 1985, hitting the top of the Billboard 200
the following year. Her second album, ‘Whitney’, became
another massive hit in 1987, its first single, the fabulous
‘i Wanna Dance With somebody (Who Loves Me)’ going
to number one in twelve different countries. Her third
album, ‘i’m Your Baby Tonight’, sold twelve million copies
worldwide.
Most famously, in 1992, Houston co-starred with kevin
Costner in ‘The Bodyguard’, providing six songs for the
soundtrack- her cover of Dolly parton’s ‘i Will always Love
You’ becoming her all-time biggest hit, spending ten weeks
at number one in the Uk. 1998’s ‘My Love is Your Love’
saw Houston experimenting more, with more hip-hop and
contemporary r’n’B influences.
Listening in 2012, her music might not always seem
particularly exciting- unless you like a lot of ballads- but
those talented vocals still make it a treat to listen to. it’s
also worth remembering that, with the video release of the
dancefloor favourite ‘How Will i know’, Houston became
one of the first black female artists to receive hevay rotation
on the fledgling MTV, breaking down the barriers for so
many great musicians since.
Whitney Houston had one of the strongest voices in music;
if you don’t believe me, search on YouTube for the voiceonly clip of ‘How Will i know’, and mind your jaw on that
floor. ‘i Wanna Dance With somebody’ is a staple of cheesy
clubnights, so go, and dance with somebody, in memory to
a bona fide star who shouldn’t have gone so young.
slushpile:
slagging off
the singles
Again, the ‘slush’ part is surprisingly topical. There are few things as bleak,
few visions as harrowing as the sight of a batch of Valentine’s Day singles
loitering at the bottom of the mailbag on February 15th. Can they survive
on their own, without the protective blanket of organised romance and
pre-arranged passion? Read on, gentle pop-fan, and discover the answer.
For Madonna, the answer is no. Gimme All Your Luvin’ enjoyed a lot of
free press thanks to last week’s Superbowl fiasco, but the story is far more
interesting than the song behind it. It’s nearly okay, in an ooh-look-at-meI’ve-thrown-in-some-cheap-‘80s-synth-and-a-four-chord-guitar-part
kind of way, but lacks oomph. Nicki Minaj interrupts halfway through,
spitting bars that clash with the song awkwardly enough to remind you
why spitting is frowned on in public. M.I.A.’s appearance almost makes
up for it, but only almost. Paul McCartney fares better, as you’d expect.
My Valentine is one of the few self-written tracks on his new album Kisses
From The Bottom, but curiously sounds more like a cover than any song
on the record. McCartney has the same knack as Tom Waits for penning
pre-worn melodies, instantly familiar without being derivative. Mellowly
haunting, with hints of Eden Ahbez’s Nature Boy, and helped out by a
lovely bit of guitar by some Clapton chap. Snowball of the week, possibly
of the month. Casino Zone’s press release is the words “pseudo-bohemian
stink rock.” And nothing else. From this, my instincts tell me they’re gits,
but if you’re into Tom Williams & The Boat, Los Campesinos!, or any selfconsciously naval-gazy lyrically overwrought indie Here Comes Everybody
will be just your ticket. This is not a criticism. If you like that (and I do)
you will genuinely enjoy this. If not, I will personally refund you the price
of their free download. Ed Sheeran narrowly avoided being this week’s
Slush. He is as ubiquitous as he as bland, as bland as he is sentimental, and
as sentimental as he is ginger. FYI, Ed Sheeran is very, very ginger. His
gingerness pervades his music. It’s like synaesthesia, but not as fun. Listen
to his single Drunk and experience the phenomenon yourself. Or don’t.
Snow: My Valentine by Paul McCartney
Slush: Gimme All Your Luvin’ by Madonna
gig:
Ghostpoet + Alt-J
music
@ ARU, MondAy 13th febRUARy
Night and the City
Biting cold air, black ice and
puddles, obscure streets with pools
of light at play: the scene is set for
night. The atmosphere of night –
somewhere sombre, tranquil, often
menacing but always buzzing,
humming with potential – builds
up. And potential, the seeds of
night, blossoms into a gig that is
vibrant, fresh, yet not afraid to dip
into the shadows.
It is Alt-J who takes us there first.
“Dark seeks dark”, claims their lead
singer – what ensues is a collection
of songs formed by collective
vocals, lo-fi bass (‘Fitzpleasure’),
and assertive piano. Reminiscent,
but in no way imitative, of Wild
Beasts. Their sound is perhaps
immature, now and then infantile,
leaving areas unexplored: but for
the most part, they embrace the
evening and its night-time hum.
A tin drum pervades all their
tracks: a band obsessed with clinks
and clanks; songs move here, up,
down, round, back over, on again.
The plectrum is often replaced with
a castanet – a great sight, yes, but
too the source of a high-pitched
guitar riff, which lends an early
morning tinge to the set. And like
the dawn, they are fresh, and new to
Cambridge, their recently acquired
hometown.
Ghostpoet – Coventry born,
Nigerian and Dominican roots,
attired with trilby hat – opens with
‘Gaasp’, and asserts himself: ‘I’m
here to say / Let’s get relevant’. Yet,
he is never truly assertive, and that’s
his style – he sleepwalks through
the song, thinking, narrating.
And although similar in sound to
Roots Manuva, he departs from
such predecessors, in that he lends
more time to getting to grips with
everyday reality. ‘Survive It’ is
exactly this – like an early morning
walk, a contemplation: ‘Life is a
funny thing with the twists and
turns…/But as you get older you
just live and learn’. Such changes,
from an intimate nightly feel to
early thoughts at dawn, characterise
his performance.
His greatest move, though, is
the transition from the epic buildup of ‘Liines’ to the low, personal,
anxious voice of Ghostpoet as he
joins a muffled bass for ‘Us Against
Whatever Ever’. “You like the light,
I like the dark” he confesses – and
it’s very much a song of pronouns:
an intimate, lyrical first person
becomes a unified ‘Us’ in the
chorus. The charismatic rapper
capitalises on this where his album
could not: ‘us’ becomes him and the
live audience.
The devilish dub of ‘Cash and
Carry Me Home’ is his unsurprising
finish and his last-night ‘it got quite
wild’ retrospective is one of regret,
drunkenness, lonely late night blues
that leaves the set on a sombre yet
upbeat tone. But the audience’s
demand for an encore is satisfied
with a new track, ‘Life’s Tough’:
we’re moved back to a feeling of
affirmation, maybe optimism.
His set, varied and engaging,
was ultimately a space for a Poet
to entertain, to move; he embraced
the night, and looked ahead to
the day. But, like Donne, I did not
want this night to end, and I felt the
day was intruding: ‘Busy old fool,
unruly Sun, / Why dost thou thus,
/ Through windows, and through
curtains, call on us?’
Laurence Tidy
The
film
CambridgeStudent
Want to get involved in Film & TV?
Roll out the red carpet
Dan Eisenberg thinks we should attend film festivals as much as the celebrities
Taglines
Titanic:
When “I’ll never let go” actually
means “I’m letting go”
Forrest Gump:
Or: Why your life will always be
distinctly average
Withnail and I:
Don’t try this at home
Pernilla August’s Beyond
extraordinary scenario where the
entry to most of the films consisted
of an overflowing queue for gli
accrediti and two interrailing
British teenagers for il publico.
My attendance of the Venice Film
Festival allowed me to see one of
the most visceral and emotionally
unsettling films of my entire life. A
Swedish film directed by Pernilla
August and entitled Beyond
(Svinalängorna), it told the story
of the simple yet highly layered
relationship between a mother
and a daughter. It was entered for
the Critics’ Choice Award (which
means, ironically, that the audience
gets to vote for it) and won by a
landslide. Yet, it has not appeared
on the screens of even the most
venerable UK cinemas, such as
our very own Arts Picturehouse.
Not every brilliant film shown at a
film festival receives international
diffusion. In many cases, it is an
issue of marketability. If you really
care about films, then film festivals
are the place to discover some
real gems. So when the summer
plan discussion comes round this
year, keep an eye and an ear out
for Venice. Who knows, il publico
might soon resemble the queue to
Cindies on a Wednesday night.
Austin Powers:
Complete with crude
thesaurus
Psycho:
Like Premier Inn, if Lenny Henry
were...Actually, just like Premier
Inn
Troy:
No one reads The Iliad, right?
Davina Moss
Getty Images
destination of my post-A-level
interrail extravaganza. It was the
1st September (you see, already
a very manageable date), and we
were sitting in a Viennese hostel,
when we saw on the television the
flowing red carpets, the shades
and the suits and we thought:
“Oh, I didn’t know Cannes was
in September!” But when the
mellifluous tones of the Italian
language sprung from the TV, it
became clear that we were going
to be making our way to the 68th
Venice Biennale.
This particular film festival has
an entire island to itself, the Lido.
The experience of being shuttled
from the Venetian mainland (of
sorts) to this secluded haven of
cinematic excellence is one that
all should have the chance to
enjoy. Plus, it is completely open
to all members of the public
for reasonable prices (£8.50 a
ticket). The problem with all these
events is that they develop a selfperpetuating air of mystique which
only seems to attract members of
the industry (gli accrediti), whilst
warding off your average cinemagoer (il publico.) This created the
Hepp Films
Judging by cinemas, people clearly
like going to see films. Judging
by Bestival, people clearly like
going to festivals. But why do
so few think of merging these
joyful pursuits by attending a
film festival? I don’t think I’ve
heard many conversations that
run: “Hey mate, what you up to in
the summer?”, “Not much, you?”,
“Well, do you fancy coming to
Sundance with me?” Whilst this
is highly improbable repartee, if it
were to take place, any film festival
aficionado would point out that
it is totally futile. This is because
Sundance takes place in January,
(just as Lent term starts) and that
it’s in Utah. So, whilst I would like
to use this article to implore you
to go to Sundance to see some
great, edgy films, I don’t think it’s
a very realistic ambition. By that
same token you can also discount
the Berlin Berlinale, which started
at the end of last week.
For now, however, there is
one film festival which all of us
should be able to attend within
the foreseeable future. Indeed, I
went there in the summer of 2010,
rather unexpectedly, as the final
James Bobin
U
98 mins
It’s finally time, once again, to play the
music and light the lights; in which
case, the instruments probably need
to be tuned, and the bulbs replaced.
★★★★☆
Muppets From Space in 1999 was the
last time the cinematic curtain was raised on the Muppets, a
film which prompted Roger Ebert to claim: “I just don’t seem
to care much anymore.”
To its credit, The Muppets tackles the potential staleness
of the characters head-on. Jason Segel plays Gary, brother
to a Muppet named Walter. Upon finding a dilapidated and
abandoned Muppet Theatre (on the point of demolition by oil
baron Tex Richman), the brothers and Gary’s girlfriend, Mary
(Amy Adams), decide to track down Kermit the frog. Spurred
into action, Kermit assembles the long-forgotten gang to
perform a fundraiser and save the theatre.
Fox News has accused The Muppets of communist
undertones, but the laugh count suggests any Marxist influence
comes from the school of Groucho rather than Karl. There are
frequent knockabout laughs, as well as the traditional Muppets
charm. Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller have captured the
spirit of the Muppets excellently in their script. The musical
numbers, such as Oscar-nominated ‘Man or Muppet’, from
Bret McKenzie also hit the right notes throughout.
The film does have problems - sadly for Segel, he hasn’t
given himself or Adams great roles. The film stumbles when
focusing on the childish and alarmingly doe-eyed couple,
becoming something of an irritation as the film goes on.
Even so, it is still a welcome return. With none of the
smugness that has hindered many recent films aimed at the
parent/child crossover audience, The Muppets should put a
smile on the face of even the most cynical. Jim Ross
22| Film
James Watkins
12A
95 mins
It’s a tale which has scared the
bejeezus out of readers and theatregoers for almost thirty years, and
now The Woman in Black has finally
★★★☆☆
reached the silver screen. Set during
an indistinguishable time period, James Watkins’ film is a
strange concoction of rickety horse-drawn carts and guttering
candles, black-tie and telephones. In the midst of it all is young
Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), sent on business to eerie Eel
Marsh House. Quickly realising that the evil spirit said to
haunt this mansion is not a figment of the batty neighbours’
imagination, Kipps quite literally decides to ignore the writing
on the wall, and far outstays his welcome.
The Woman in Black is a worthy adaptation of Susan Hill’s
novel; Watkins takes us through all the paces of a traditional
Victorian ghost-story format. Close-up shots of mangy
stuffed monkeys or porcelain dolls are pretty creepy, but it’s
the briefest flash of black cloth in a mirror, or a face which
appears and disappears so quickly that you doubt it was ever
really there, that will make your skin crawl.
Screenwriter Jane Goldman has taken quite a few liberties
with the storyline, so that many events occur beyond the
house as well as inside it. This does serve to give the narrative
a wider sense of scope, but it detracts from the all-pervading
sense of dread. Your hands should be clammy throughout
and you should be prepared to bolt for the cinema door at
any moment, lest your heart stop beating from fear - but
this film offers too many periods of respite. It’s well-made,
but those who see The Woman in Black without any previous
encounters with the tale will probably leave wondering why it
has received three decades of such breathless hype.
Lizzy Donnelly
The Vow
Michael Sucsy
12A
104 mins
Somy Pictures
The Woman in Black
CBS Films
The Muppets
Getty Images
reviews
Based on real-life events, The Vow is
the story of Paige (Rachel McAdams)
and Leo (Channing Tatum), a
married couple whose lives are
★★☆☆☆
turned upside-down, after a car
accident leaves Paige with no memory of their relationship
together, or the life-changes which led her to him. With all
hope of regaining her memory proving lost, Leo sets out to
make his wife fall in love with him again.
McAdams has already proven her tear-inducing romantic
credentials in The Notebook and The Time Traveller’s Wife.
Whilst The Vow will certainly not inspire the cult female
following that those films have garnered, McAdams brings
her usual likeability and considerable acting talent to make
the film a fairly enjoyable watch. Tatum, on the other hand,
is terribly miscast as her free-spirited, music loving husband.
He looks as if he should be jogging past his array of kooky,
arty friends on the way to the gym rather than living in
a trendy Chicago apartment with them. But despite his
inherent unsuitability for the role, there is at least chemistry
between the two leads, and The Vow’s more intimate scenes
are genuinely believable and touching. Nor does Tatum do
badly in conveying his frustration and heartbreak, and we
do inevitably find the will for the Hollywood-happy-ending
taking over.
The Vow is a movie released for Valentine’s Day, so it is
probably quite clear to you from the plotline alone whether it
is the sort of film you would enjoy. It brings no surprises to its
formulaic genre, but at least it features some good music and
decent acting. Add an extra star to this review if it sounds like
your cup of tea. It’s really not all that bad.
Jenni Reid
The
CambridgeStudent
television
Nothing rotten in the State of Denmark
TV watch
Arvind Kumar explains why we should be eagerly anticipating new, Scandinavian dramas on the BBC
the first female prime minister of
Denmark, as she tries to manage a
coalition government. There were
worries that, since Borgen might
lack the addictive quality that
Forbrydelsen had (i.e. who is the
killer?), it would sink in the ratings.
The opposite has been proven true,
with over six hundred thousand
people tuning in every week.
So, the question then becomes:
How does Danish broadcasting
create such incredible original
programmes? Forbrydelsen and
Borgen were both produced by the
same public service broadcaster,
DR, which is funded by a license fee
of 2,260KR (£250) and has a drama
budget of approximately £20 million.
The reason why DR produces such
excellent television is quite simple –
it refuses all remakes and adaptations
and insists on original drama set in
the present day. Writers have a lot
of freedom and this has allowed an
incredibly creative atmosphere for
them to take a series in any direction
they see fit.
It seems that British viewers are
also sufficiently impressed by these
offerings from overseas. The third
and final series of Forbrydelsen
and the second series of Borgen are
eagerly anticipated. In addition,
BBC4 will broadcast the Danish-
Inspector Montalbano - Newly imported Italian detective drama: fabulous Sicilian sleuthing
Versailles: The Palace of
Pleasure - An exciting look at the
scandalous antics of King Louis
XV
Kevin Bridges: What’s the Story - The comedian takes a look at
his past to see how it influenced
his stand-up comedy
ITV Player:
Whitechapel - New episodes
in historical detective thriller series. Highly recommended!
4oD:
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding New series of popular, controversial documentary
BBC Pictures
Last January, BBC4 aired a littleknown murder mystery series. It
was in Danish. It had subtitles. It was
about the brutal murder of a teenage
girl. It was bleak and unremitting.
Yet it attracted almost five hundred
thousand people every week for ten
weeks. That series was Forbrydelsen
(The Killing), and it was the show that
sparked the acquisition of a whole
range of new Scandinavian drama
by the BBC. Forbrydelsen’s focus
shifts between the ongoing police
investigation, the grief of the parents
and the political turmoil that this
murder causes. The investigation is
led by Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl),
an obsessive single mother whose
life is taken over by the chase for the
killer. It was brilliant - the murder
mystery was addictive, the grief of
the parents heartbreaking and the
revelation of the identity of the killer
shocking.
At the end of 2011, BBC4 broadcast
the second series of Forbrydelsen in
which the murder of a lawyer brings
Sarah Lund back into the fold. The
series deals with Islamophobia,
Danish politics and the army. It is as
gripping as the first. And so this year,
BBC4 televised Borgen, a ten- part
exploration of the difficulties and
triumphs experienced by Birgitte
Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen),
BBC iPlayer:
Swedish co-production Bron (The
Bridge) about the murder of a
woman on the Denmark-Sweden
border later this year, as well as
Lilyhammer, a Norwegian comic
drama about a mobster who enters
the witness protection programme
in a sleepy town. In short, we have a
lot to look forward to.
10 O’Clock Live - Comedians
David Mitchell and Jimmy Carr
take a look at the week’s events
Channel 4
The
CambridgeStudent
theatre
The Boys in the Band
Want to get involved in Theatre?
ADC Mainshow, 7.45pm
until Sat 18th Feb
★★★★★
ADC
Vanessa Lea finds this week’s ADC Mainshow a true tour de force of gay theatre
O
nce best suited to offBroadway theatre
for not catering to
mainstream tastes,
Matt Crowley’s
1968 play has now been triumphantly
revived for the ADC’s mainshow
slot. Guy Woolf’s direction of this
groundbreaking script that once
challenged New York’s perceptions
of the gay community, is strong, wellexecuted and was rapturously received
at opening night.
The audience are flies on the wall
also on this week...
Uneasy Dreams
Corpus Lateshow, 9.30pm - until Sat 18th Feb
★★★☆☆
We have become so accustomed to the adaptation of books
into theatre that the phrase ‘page to stage’ has become
rather hackneyed. Yet it seems funny that this is a one-way
relationship. You don’t hear of books from stage to page.
Consequently, I remain rather sceptical of adaptations
of books: I don’t feel all literary works are appropriately
transferred onto the stage. In Uneasy Dreams, this was an
issue, but elements enlivened Kafka for the 21st century.
The music, similar in feel to The Nightmare before Christmas,
were well-executed but occasionally hard to discern lyrics, as
Stephen Bermingham played the keyboard beautifully, but a
little loudly. Yet the accompaniment was particularly effective
in the scene of A Country Doctor where Harry Sheehan’s
acting brought out Kafka’s farcical side, and fulfilled the
programme’s mission statement that “we wanted to capture
something of his [Kafka’s] sense of humour.”
Yet the dramatisation of The Judgement was overacted and
rather lugubrious, lacking the humour which the adaptors so
wanted to tease out. The choice of this story for adaptation
seems bizarre: it is so focused upon letters, something which
very rarely transforms well into invigorating theatre. Too much
telling, not enough showing, while the link based on The Trial
was not completely successful. Hugh Stubbins conveyed the
eerie power of the Kafkan narrator with precision, but Claire
O’Brien seemed more like she’d been denied entry to Cindies
than the angst-filled modernist caught in her own parable.
However, the one aspect of the play which perhaps improved
upon Kafka’s oft-undiscovered comedy was the staging of A
Report to an Academy. This section worked brilliantly since
the text is so theatrical. This is a first person address, allowing
Dominic Biddle to successfully embody this wonderful fusion
of ape, actor and academic. Biddle effectively interacted
with his audience and made appropriate and well-timed
‘contemporary references’, really creating a sense of the live
theatre experience. Although not consistently effective, Uneasy
Dreams is worth going to see just for this section alone.
Dan Eisenberg
24| Theatre
of Michael’s apartment where he
and Donald, a once-lover and now
best friend, are preparing to host an
evening with the rest of the ‘queens’
for Harold’s birthday party. We
begin to understand that Michael,
a confused Catholic, has recently
ceased a trajectory of heavy drinking
and has been seeking analytical help
for his neurosis. Or is it psychosis? I
don’t think we’re really ever too sure.
However, trying to make sense of
oneself is a mind-boggling endeavour
not just for Michael: it is a forthright
theme that resonates within each
of the characters and throughout
the duration of the play, but is
dynamically alleviated by each of their
hilariously charming and mischievous
personalities.
As we anticipate the arrival of
these party guests, Michael receives
an unexpected phone call from an
old pal: an uber straight-laced prig
he knows from his college days, who
invites himself over to reveal some
anguishing news. Before Alan can
arrive however, a fabulous Emory, a
suave Bernard, and a not-quite-socamp Hank, who has left his wife for
Larry, all make their grand entrances.
Michael reveals that conservative Alan
has no awareness of his gay lifestyle,
so he pleads for them to dampen
any diva-like displays of effeminacy.
His nervous disposition, superbly
manifested in Jack Mosedole’s
performance, gives the harmless and
festive proceedings a clandestine,
speakeasy feel creating the perfect
level of suspense as the boys break into
frivolous dance, a scene of side kicks,
jazz-hands, and shimmies which Alan
could unexpectedly waltz into at any
moment. This is further accentuated
by the insecure birthday boy, played
by Saul Boyer, who is as high as a kite,
being gifted a moronic prostitute James Lanaghan, beautifully clad in
cowboy dress.
Strong, wellexecuted and
rapturously received
Although there isn’t a single
actor that lets the cast down, the
most memorable performance
has to be that of Amrou Al-Kadhi
playing Emory. One of my favourite
moments capturing the extraordinary
naturalism in the cast’s performance is
when he and Paul Adeyefa, Bernard,
share a sincere and heartfelt moment
Moments
whilst dancing to Will You Still Love
Me Tomorrow?
The second act sees the tone change
slightly as insecurities rise and
tension accumulates parallel to their
consumption of alcohol. This leads to
an enticing game whereby they must
each call the love of their life. Think
embarrassing drunk texts to your ex
only worse.
Each cast member should be
commended for their finely-honed
character work which meant that
at every corner of the stage was a
delight to eye ready to be watched. I
scratch my head thinking how I can
be more critical. Perhaps a few of the
accents slipped from time to time but
character was certainly never broken.
What’s more, the boys look like they
are having a lot of fun up there. Kudos
should also be sent to the production
team who put up a fantastic set, fun
music and managed the sounds which
were perfectly delivered on cue.
This isn’t the theatrical schmaltz that
we’ve all seen a thousand times before,
this is a tough theme approached
brilliantly, a theme that is now well
and truly out of its tightly shut closet –
or is it? Well-timed for LGBT history
month, the boys are most definitely
well worth catching before their run
ends on Saturday.
Audience
Larkum Studio (ADC), 8pm - until Sat 18th Feb
Pembroke New Cellars, 7pm - until Sat 18th Feb
★★★★★
★★★☆☆
I won’t lie, when I heard about Moments, based around chance
encounters between strangers, I anticipated a soppy romance
with banal atmosphere. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Moments is brilliant and so far removed from banality that it
is indeed refreshingly, and impressively, original.
There are only two characters that we ever see. Ava (Andrea
Tudose) and Daniel (Harry Baker) speak to those around
them, without the audience hearing the other side of the
conversation. Emotional intensity appears to be the forte of
the somewhat hysterical Ava, who’s had a rough fortnight.
Tudose has a fabulous repertoire of scowls, not to mention
the distraught cries of “What!?” she makes down the phone.
By contrast, we think Daniel provides a light, funny contrast
to Ava’s seriousness. His humour is good-natured, child-like
even. He wonders why adults can’t express themselves like
children can and why dwarfs look like little boys with their
fathers’ heads on? It is this apparently open, heart-on-sleeve,
speaks-before-he-thinks nature that may lead Daniel to
eventually reveal to Ava why he frequently visits the hospital.
This presumption, much like any presumption about this
play, is blown out of the water. We learn far more about Ava’s
family, heritage and personality than we do Daniel’s His
charming humour both reveals and shields the depths of his
thoughts and the reality of his life.
This begs a multitude of questions: what do we really know
about either character? Have they told us everything? Can we
predict how their futures will pan out? The open-endedness of
the play is not frustrating, but fascinating. You will no doubt
have the themes of Moments in the back of your mind when
you next make small-talk with a stranger. Heck, you might
even share a slice of cake with them in a café, in the hope
that they will suddenly blurt out their deepest thoughts and
innermost anxieties. Moments is unflinchingly serious and
seriously funny. Its intelligent script and staging and excellent
actors (and their dubious but warm northern accents) makes
this one of the absolute, must-see plays right now.
Maariyah Syeda
Arriving at Pembroke New Cellars on Tuesday night
expecting to watch Audience, a play written by Michael
Frayn, I sat down in front of an expectant audience, holding
a programme that had the title Tumblers: A Play by Keith
Chambers. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that I
had in fact come to the right play and that the well-dressed
group of young people in front of me were indeed the actors.
Salome Wagaine’s interpretation of Frayn’s short and original
satire conveys many of the key elements of an audience at a
theatre, depicting the variety of stereotypes with good clear,
characterisation. At times I felt deeply self-conscious in the
intimate space used in Pembroke New Cellars and I suppose
in that sense, it achieved its aim. From adolescents falling in
love at first sight to a senile old man with his new partner,
most of the cast held strong performances. Marcus Martin
as the writer/director, whose convincing facial expressions
and penetrating voice was reminiscent of the evil demon in
the back of one’s mind, was simultaneously unlikeable and
effective. The staging was simple but appropriate and with the
exception of one false alarm, there were no evident slips.
However, aspects of the performance were unexpected but
still relatively unexciting: the constant insinuations that were
supposed to make me think, at times just simply made me
confused, and really detracted from the overall effectiveness
of the characterisation. There were a few laughs that were
fully deserved but perhaps not as many as the false audience
within the play were enjoying.
In other words, there was not demonstrably a great deal
missing from this performance of Audience but somehow it
still lacked a certain spark that made me come away feeling
a trifle underwhelmed. I would say that this is a play worth
the trip for a quick forty minutes of something different, but
not one that will either strike a note of compassion with its
viewers or one that will send them away in fully-formed fits
of laughter.
Sarah Sharpe
The
CambridgeStudent
theatre
Feature: Lost in Translation?
Fred Ward
French fever is hitting Cambridge theatres: with Camus’ Les Justes and Racine’s
Andromaque both coming to the stage this term, Laura Peatman catches up
with directors Fred Ward and Judith Lebiez to explore the highlights and
pitfalls of translating – or not – foreign drama to the English stage.
C
ambridge’s triennial
Greek
play
is
renowned for being
performed in the
original language.
Yet it is not just the classical texts
which are given this attention: at
the end of this term director Judith
Lebiez will make the bold move
of bringing Racine’s celebrated
tragedy, Andromaque, to Pembroke
New Cellars - in French. Fred Ward
is also joining the Gallic party with
his production of Camus’ Les Justes
at the Corpus Playroom this coming
week, yet in translation. Thinking
about the potential challenges and
thrills which both these projects
will bring, I caught up with the two
directors to find out more.
Why did you choose to put
on these plays, and how did you
choose which language would be
used?
Fred: I don’t think I’ve ever read
a more powerful or meaningful
script. The fact it’s so rarely
performed in England played a big
part (it’s actually the first time this
show has been done in Cambridge)
and in England no one’s really
heard of it before, even people who
know about Camus. I thought I’d
try to change that and show people
what a tremendous play it is. I felt
a translation would make the play
much more accessible and allow
more people to appreciate and
enjoy it.
Judith: As a French director
I’d like to let the Cambridge
audience discover one of the most
famous French playwrights. While
Molière, Beaumarchais and other
A View from the
★★★★★
Bridge
Corpus Mainshow, 7pm
until Sat 18th Feb
Whilst I admit it was an odd play for
Valentine’s Day, this was an amazing yet tremendously disturbing
show. Intense and moving, it tells
the story of Eddie and Beatrice,
an American couple who take in
a pair of illegal immigrants, their
relatives from Sicily. Relationships
are blurred and lines crossed as the
young newcomer Rodolpho (Sam
Curry), falls in love with Catherine
(Lucy Farrett), their niece. As Catherine blossoms into a young woman
and the relationship between the
pair grows, tension mounts as Eddie
(James Ellis) becomes increasingly
possessive of his niece and suspicious of Rodolpho. The plot is beautifully paced, filled with dramatic
tension and dark foreboding as it
moves towards its devastating conclusion. I am not ashamed to admit
that I cried rather heavily at the end.
The character development and
exploration are exquisite. This play
raises uncomfortable questions
about growing up, appropriate family relationships, and what happens
when a man loves the wrong person
too much. It beautifully evokes the
intense, claustrophobic atmosphere
of the immigrant Italian community
in Brooklyn, with its close bonds
and strong taboos on involving outside powers in community affairs.
The Corpus Playroom did this
play proud and the excellent acting
gave Miller’s dialogue all the depth
and richness it deserves. Even the
heavy Italian and American accents
were managed with aplomb. The
only qualm I could raise was that
some parts were occasionally overacted. Marco’s (Seb Warshaw) belligerence in the final scene was perhaps
a tad overdone, making the scene
somewhat funnier than it ought to
have been. Likewise, Rodolpho was
slightly too comic in his first scene,
making Catherine’s initial interest
in him a little unlikely. However, the
emotional intensity and complexity
in his later scenes with Catherine
certainly compensated for this.
The staging was simple but effective, coping well with the awkward L-shaped layout. The paucity
of props and scenery also handily
minimized scene changes and thus
avoided lengthy pauses in between
scenes. The only oddity was the use
of the aisles as off-stage wings where
actors awaited their cues; there was
something strangely ominous about
the costumed actors standing at the
sides staring intently at the stage.
Overall, this utterly brilliant show
has in abundance all the traits I look
for in a play, and was an intensely
engaging and emotive experience.
I would firmly recommend it to all
– unless you like a happy ending.
Martha Fromson
French playwrights can stand the
translation, Racine’s beautiful verses
just can’t: that’s why I’m going to
stage Andromaque in French which
should give the audience a fair
opportunity to value Shakespeare’s
rival!
Fred - were you familiar with Les
Justes in the original French and
how do you think it affected your
treatment of the translation?
Fred: I was, but I’m not sure an
intimate knowledge of it would be
necessary. What’s most important is
knowledge of the themes and ideas
that Camus is trying to express
– I think those can be gleaned
without being able to speak French.
I can honestly say I don’t feel my
approach would have been much
different had I not been a fluent
French speaker, whereas if I had no
knowledge of Camus’ intellectual
and political stance it might have
been completely different.
And do you think anything has
been lost – or gained! – through
translation?
Fred: I think Les Justes translates
very well but I’m afraid I’d be lying
if I said you don’t lose anything
through translation. A few powerful
and dramatic lines in French lose
some of their bite and resonance
in English. However, I’d say this
is a small price to pay because I
think using a translation gives you
a great deal of freedom. As you’ve
already broken with the original in
a linguistic sense, you feel able to
do the same with stage directions,
delivery, and characterisation.
I think translation has allowed
myself and the cast to really stamp
our own identity and personality
onto the characters and the play.
And Judith, did all your cast
already speak and understand
French?
Judith: Oh yes, all of my actors are
either French or reading French – if
not, it would just not be possible.
Racine is really hard to play, even
for French professional actors! So
for non-French-speaking ones...
What are the challenges in
presenting a French language play
to an English audience and how
are you dealing with them?
Judith: For 350 years, Andromaque
has been continually tackled by the
best-known directors. Staging it is
therefore a challenge in itself, but
staging it in England is, for me,
even more interesting as I must
make use of all possible theatrical
techniques to captivate an audience
that may not understand French.
My first and foremost goal is to
perform for such an audience,
letting them experience everything
the play has to offer. The bodies
of the actors will express violence
and desire, pleasure and pain, and
all kinds of emotions. Lighting
will be important not only for the
aesthetic dimension it brings, but
also for the support it brings to
the non-francophone audience’s
understanding, so I will be
setting a series of visual leitmotifs
throughout the play. The audience
will be able to see various insistent
or furtive evocations, which will let
them seize what is at stake even if
they do not grasp the words.
Les Justes runs from Tue 21st
- Sat 25th March on at the
Corpus Playroom at 7pm
from. Andromaque plays at
Pembroke New Cellars from
Tue 13th - Sat 17th March.
The
columns
CambridgeStudent
Damsel in distress
By Miranda Pottinger
W.H. Auden once said that “art
is born of humiliation”. By this
logic, I must be one of the most
creative types out there. My life
reads something like the cringe
confessionals of a teenage girl’s
magazine. If I have a superpower, it
is one of getting myself into sticky
and often humiliating situations. I
spend a lot of my time in the library
checking my phone for updates on
my reputation.
The things that seem like a very
good idea late at night do generally
seem to backfire. There’s the time I
pierced my nose (painful), the time
I cut my own hair in an attempt to
seem vaguely alternative (interesting
layers), the time I threw myself out
of a second-floor window because I
thought the snow would cushion my
fall (midnight trip to A&E, having
fallen into a rose-bush). I could
go on. Morning-after syndrome
isn’t restricted to that moment you
wake up, in the wrong bed, next to
the last person you want to see. My
housemates call it “The Fear”, that
nervousness following you around
all day, as you wonder what you
did last night and whether you still
have friends. There is no emergency
contraceptive for being an idiot.
“It doesn’t even
take alcohol to
embarrass myself”
It doesn’t even take alcohol
to embarrass myself. One of the
major problems of being six foot
tall means I’m a long way from the
ground and, consequently, my feet.
It is hard to find an inch of my body
which hasn’t been bruised by now
– I don’t trust myself in heels when
I fall over so regularly in flats. This
week saw me attempt to cycle to
the Faculty wearing a floor-length
cardigan, which ultimately resulted
in a wipe-out on Garrett Hostel
Lane. I can only thank the passing
man who freed me from my bike
chain by literally cutting me out
of my cardigan, and promise that I
won’t try that one again. My student
budget can’t take paying for a new
chain, front lights and cardigan
more than once a term.
While it would be nice to think
that – rom-com cliché alert – when
I fall / drop my books / spill my
life onto the pavement, there will
always be a lovely and preferably
unattached man waiting to catch
me, such an approach isn’t fool-
proof. Instead, I am coming to
the realisation that I need to save
myself. Being a modern girl at
Cambridge, intellectually I know I
can keep up with the best of them.
There is no need for the knight
in shining armour riding up in
the nick of time: I am going to
invest in a first-aid kit and
bandage up my own knees.
Humiliation is just part of
the learning curve, and
there are few spaces safer
than Cambridge in which
to screw things up. (That
is, unless one of your
classmates decides to sell
your story in ten years’
time.) Cambridge is a
bubble, after all.
So, having had
my fair share of
humiliation for the
term, I’m feeling more ready to
create art. I’m not a thirteen year
old girl reading Mizz magazine but
in my twenties, and have more of
a sense of humour when it comes
to my experiences. None of us are
perfect and we all need fine-worthy
material for swaps. We
should laugh at ourselves
a little more, and stop
taking
everything
quite so seriously –
there is plenty of time
to be mature in the
future. It is not too
late to make a New
Year’s Resolution: I
encourage you all to
follow my example
and
embarrass
yourself at least once
a day.
Insanitabridgians by Clementine Beauvais
How feminism got its knickers in a twist
By Alice Gormley
One of my better-judged gifts for
Christmas this year was a collection
of 1960s advertisements for women,
compiled for round-the-log-fire
entertainment. It’s an amusing
collection, but it’d be funnier if we
weren’t still very much in the
palm of these slimy bibles.
Call me Victorian, but
Cosmopolitan Magazine
is the New Testament;
confidently
revised,
obnoxiously
selfassured and, apparently,
authoritative.
Katie
Price is Simone de
Beauvoir Lite©. Sex is
the C21st panacea.
Men,
the
bastards, are
forever trying
to
outwit
us,
‘but
26| Columns
they won’t, because you can buy
these stilettos which seal eternal
infatuation, and if they are, this
quiz will expose them, the bastards’.
Really, Cosmopolitan? Really?
It is time we detangled our
delicates. Cosmopolitan
can’t, for all it thinks
it can, see success in
isolation of physical
attractiveness.
The
businesswoman
is
secretly
wearing
stockings, and it is
her sexuality that
intimidates her fellow
businessmen.
The
gym bunny goes to the
gym because if she dares
divorce the crosstrainer, her boyfriend
will desire her as
strongly as he would
Eric Pickles in spandex. Shami
Chakrabati was ranked fourth of
seven ‘Kick-Ass Women Changing
our World’ in the most recent issue,
lagging behind the ‘Woman that
paints our nails’ and the ‘Woman
that decides what we wear’. Cosmo
on Campus, the magazine’s tarty
little sibling drivelled uninspired
commandments: frequent parties,
indulge in frivolous expenditure,
snare that hot lecturer with the
tank top. Who wants to read boring
books anyway?
“It is time we
detangled our
delicates”
It’s stupid, but it’s also sleazy. As
if in on a secret to which it’s giving
you exclusive access, it implores
you to have more sex. To have it in
a way that’s likely to compromise
the healthy operation of your major
organs. To have it in the dishwasher.
While it’s on. To repeat until you
can’t believe its not Hugh Hefner.
The whole lark makes me feel
bloated and uptight, like the
lovechild of Nadine Dorries and
Ronald McDonald. Only Barbie
can bend that way. And remember
how upset you were as a child
when a leg fell off. Remember that
nasty acrylic ping? It’s not that I
think women should wince and
pray to God the army rolls home
safe as their partner idly satisfies a
bestial appetite, the bastard. I just
think it misses the point. A sexual
performance like Transformers on
fast-forward? That isn’t intimacy.
I bet Richard and Judy don’t do it
that way.
Cosmopolitan Magazine has
taken an orphaned Feminism
into foster care and is raising
it in a rough area. It’s hanging
out on street corners, and
not with the intelligentsia. In
terms of girl’s best friends,
diamonds
aren’t
really
all
that
different
to
Dysons.
Light fixings don’t support
copulating adults, most men,
the bastards, love their girlfriends,
and ambition, verve and brains
are moving women forward.
If there’s one thing Cosmopolitan
Magazine has taught me it’s that
in striving to create modern
women,
its
forgotten
to
make humans. That and never to
use my teeth when performing
fellatio.
The
Thu
16
Fri
17
Sat
18
Titus Andronicus at the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio
19.45
Often considered Shakespeare’s darkest play, Titus is
guaranteed to make even the most seasoned Shakespeare
audience quake in their boots. Until Saturday.
The Seventh Seal at the Coleridge Room,
Jesus 19.30 for 20.00
Ingmar Bergman’s classic film tells the
story of the knight Antonius Block
and his squire, who return from
the Crusades to find their native
Sweden ravaged by plague.
Soul Sounds at St. Johns Boys Smith Room 16.00
A chance to get together and have a lively, upbeat and
uplifting bhajan jam. Everyone is welcome to come and
encouraged to sing along or just to enjoy the vibes - get
involved and enjoy the dynamic side of our culture.
CambridgeStudent
Footlights Comedy Debate at the Union 19.30
listings
Uneasy Dreams at the Corpus Playroom 21.30
What is comedy? Have this question answered by names
such as Natalie Haynes, Lucy Montgomery, Paul Shearer,
Matt Green, John-Luke Roberts, Nadia Kamil and some
current footlights. Guests welcome but will be charged.
The Black Tie Smoker at Pembroke Old Library 21.00 £10
This smoker is easily the classiest comedy event in
Cambridge, attracting some of the funniest established and aspiring comedians in the city. Expect
champagne on reception, and a cash prize for the
comedian voted the funniest.
The Loves of Venus and Mars, Fitzwilliam College
Auditorium 20.00 £10
The world premiere of the reconstructed music for the
first ever English ballet, whose score has been lost for
centuries.
Uneasy Dreams is an adaptation of the short
stories and sketches of Kafka; his fables
turned into a fairy-tale carnival of outcasts
and grotesques.
Eastern Rhapsody at the West Road Concert Hall
20.00 £15/£10/£5
The Cambridge University Chinese Orchestra
Society warmly invites you to their annual concert
for 2012. Their talented musicians will bring you a
night of relaxing and poetic Chinese music!
Saturday Drawing at Kettle’s Yard Art Gallery 11.30
Learn to draw with artists David Kefford and Jane Waterhouse in a fortnightly class at the famous Kettle’s Yard.
With the right surroundings, right materials and the
chance to relax on a Saturday(!) it’s time to be creative.
Sun
Immortals at St. John’s Films 19.00/22.00 £3
Beauty Walk at the Fitzwilliam Museum
Pub Quiz at The Mitre, Bridge Street 20.30
The brutal and bloodthirsty King Hyperion (Mickey
Rourke) and his murderous army have scorched Greece
in search of the legendary Epirus Bow, a weapon of
unimaginable power forged in the heavens by Ares. He
who possesses the bow can unleash the Titans.
Pick up a map which leads you on a beauty walk around
the Fitzwilliam and nominate the painting or object you
find the most beautiful. This trail has been designed
in connection with the series of lectures on Beauty organised by Darwin College.
The Quiz Society brings you a night of trivia, drinks and
healthy competition. There are prizes to be drunk and
reputations to be won.
Mon
The Graham Storey Lecture: Alan Hollinghurst at Lady
Mitchell Hall 17.00
The Corpus Smoker at the Corpus Playroom 21.30
£6/£5
Roger Scruton at Pharmacology Lecture Theatre, Tennis
Court Road 19.00
The Booker Prize winning novelist will be giving the
annual Graham Storey talk on ‘Ronald Firbank After the
War’. The talk is due to finish at 18.15.
One of Cambridge’s newest and most successful comedy
nights, the Corpus Smoker is run by Footlights VicePresident Pierre Novellie. This is the last smoker of the
term so don’t miss out.
The Oxford Professor of Philosophy is one of the most
prominent and controversial Conservative philosophers.
In the 1980s he was a leading critic of Thatcher’s emphasis on economics, focusing instead on community.
19
20
Tue
21
Wed
22
Toto Le Héros at the Arts Picturehouse 14.00
‘Write-Offs’ at the YH Theatre, Christ’s College 21.30
Two baby boys, one rich, the other not, are
resuced from a burning nursery. As time
goes by, it transpires that they have been
swapped and one starts to plot revenge.
French with English subtitles.
This is a unique style of show, combining both
whimsy and drama, especially as the separation of the
writers from their writing begins to break down
during the show.
Jarvis Cocker at Lady Mitchell Hall
19.00
National icon Jarvis Cocker will read
lyrics from his songs in an informal
setting.
Designs Icons: Cambridge Innovation Festival,
Anglia Ruskin University 18.00 - 21.00
A celebration of Cambridge design talent, packing in a high profile exhibition and stacks of
design-related events.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Cambridge Arts
Theatre 19.45 £15+
The CU Marlowe Society return to the Arts Theatre using a blend of movement, mask-work and new music to
tell the story of Shakespeare’s best loved play.
Grey Matters: Graphite at the Fitzwilliam Mueseum
An exhibition highlighting the extraordinary expressive
potential of the medium of graphite through four centuries of graphite drawings from the Fitzwilliam Museum’s
holdings.
ACROSS
1. Comrade plays havoc with berg (9)
6,24. Tipsy rakes sip drinks in the Alps
(5,3)
9. Fence-sitter makes face at wife before
referee’s first half (7)
10. Eccentric saint loses time to be
inaugurated by heads of Anglican Quotas
Union as ‘Doctor Angelicus’ (7)
11. In the beginning they reposed
indivisibly one as the father, spirit and son
(4)
12. Party returns note to a Grecian urn,
perhaps (3)
13. Prophet speaking out of his ass? (6)
16. Splash regularly? Poppycock! (3)
17. Lightness in which one becomes
infected, presenting as aerial kinetosis ( 11)
19. Examination in which Latin tense is
mixed up with Greek (11)
21. Online auction bans drug to the sound
of clamour (3)
22. One hundred and fift y-one Romans
take highest pinnacle (6)
24. See 6
25. 10 mothers? Only one required for this
holiday (4)
29. Sounds like Harper Lee’s tome dropped
its impersonator for a drink (7)
30. Portuguese royal is head of Madeira that’s just the way things are! (7)
31. Requires dense editing (5)
32. Smashing doze to take in revolution
with a philosopher (2,7)
DOWN
1. Entire area essentially instigating a
mutiny ( 5 )
2. Being mischievous, I go and rush
about(7)
3. 10 cut short and lost in water (4)
4. Statement of communist taken in to
counterfeit- hard to bring it all up and it
gets under the skin
( 10)
5,20. Number of avenues in Latin Church’s
attempt to find the way to God? (4,7)
6. An unfinished building artist used to
summon mystical deity (5)
7. Agree anew to take in books for payment
(7)
8. Yosemite’s switching it for a second,
upwardly-mobile type of condiment (6,3)
14. Endless sorcery for intelligentsia (4)
15. Small cars overtaking on verge are little
bit below the belt (4-6)
16. University gets the son of a king joining
college (then beheaded) (g)
18. This scholar obtains nucleus of alkali
before empty nihilist (4)
20. See 5
21. Baby deer takes no for an answer? (7)
23. Guns returned to one American
religious dissenter (5)
26. First person is upended beneath total
work of 10 (5)
27. Author used to barter in South Africa
(4)
28. Volunteers head team in Hackney (4)
Bridge cover (p.15): Chi King
Thanks to Luisa Filby for Features illustrations in previous issue
set by Jon Mackenzie
Listings |27
Last week’s answers
ACROSS: 1 paltry. 4 suitable. 9 Romanov. 11 doyenne. 12 reed. 13 scare. 14 mace. 17 in the doghouse. 19 slap
in the face. 22 Ahab. 23 scuba. 24 rage. 27 impasto. 28 eternal. 29 Scorsese. 30 editor. DOWN: 1 portrait. 2
lambert. 3 rand. 5 under the table. 6 toys. 7 bandage. 8 eleven. 10 Victoria Cross. 15 cedar. 16 Auden. 18 jeweller.
19 shampoo. 20 against. 21 rabies. 25 Isis. 26 mead.
T-SHIRTS
HOODED SWEATS
POLOSHIRTS
RUGBY
FOOTBALL
CRICKET
SCREENPRINTING AND EMBROIDERY
R
RY
FOR YOUR CLUB OR SOCIETY
OVER
2000
GARMENTS
ONLINE!!
SPORT
The
CambridgeStudent
Comment: Lesson learnt? Fat chance
Kit Holden
Paul Blank
There was something warmly familiar about David Bernstein
promising that the FA would spend
whatever it took to get the right
man for the England job. The right
man, the small print said, was
Harry Redknapp, and the amount
of money was truly indefinite.
Spending whatever it takes on the
England manager before he’s even
done anything? Rings a bell, doesn’t
it? A bell that reminds us that the
last 18 months of the England national team’s history have been a
farce; a woefully inefficient mask
of the horrible truth that Fabio
Capello just didn’t care anymore.
That, of course, is why the Italian left. If he really cared for
his own authority, he would
have learned English. If he re-
ally thought the FA shouldn’t have
gone over his head, he should have
read his contract more carefully.
Capello used to despair of the
English media’s obsession with the
captaincy. The fact that he quit over
a reasonable decision concerning just that is testimony to the
fact that he wanted out. It was his
chance to take the money and go. A
chance he, and the FA, should have
taken after South Africa, but which
went begging due to the millions
of pounds at stake in his prematurely agreed contract extension.
And so to the indefinite amount
that the FA are willing to spend on
Capello’s replacement. The organisation has developed a knack for
repeating former mistakes. Money
is what saw the Capello era descend
into a crude joke, and money is apparently what will stop the epoch of
his successor going the same way.
As for the identity of said successor, the mob of mediocre pundits and second division managers clamouring to declare, with
astonishing imagination, that they
think Redknapp is the perfect
candidate, has already become
tedious. Redknapp is certainly a
valid choice, but to say that he is
the only sensible option is naïve.
Where is the campaign for Roy
Hodgson, who was winning titles with Halmstad and taking
Inter Milan to European finals
while ‘Arry was spending a comfortable decade in mid table with
West Ham and buying success at
Portsmouth? English football’s
memory is as short as it is insular.
Where, also, is the admission
that Redknapp is likely to continue
to put blind faith in the relics of the
impotent Golden Generation such
as his nephew Frank Lampard?
With the likes of Hart, Wilshere,
Sturridge and Jones, England have
the materials with which to follow
the example of Germany and Spain,
to achieve success by shaping a
young, fresh generation of talent.
Would it not be better to hire a
manager uncharmed by the superficial sparkle of Lampard and co? A
manager who has a definite philosophy, and a taste for youth? A manager,
perhaps, such as Brendan Rodgers?
Unforgivably he’s not English, but
the Northern Irishman’s achievements at Swansea are arguably just
as impressive as those of Redknapp.
When they hired Kevin Keegan,
the FA learned a lesson about pandering to popular demand. When
they renewed Fabio Capello’s contract, they learned a lesson about
“spending as much as it takes”. It
would be typical of this most spineless of institutions to forget both
those lessons in the blink of an eye.
Comment: Boat
race move a step in
the right direction
Steph Ware
The decision to stage the women’s
boat race on the same day as that
of the men’s from 2015 on is a longoverdue move towards equality
which will considerably raise the
profile of Cambridge’s female
sportswomen.
The women’s race is currently
held at Henley a week before the
men’s competition and is largely
ignored by the media. The move
to the same day and course as
that of the men’s iconic encounter
should see the women included
in the live television coverage.
This will not only generate much
needed revenue for the women’s boat
club, but will also serve to introduce
ladies’ rowing to a far wider
audience – a vital route to inspiring
more young women into the activity.
The boat race is not unusual
amongst sporting events in terms
of the lack of media attention
paid to the women’s branch of
the competition. As little as two
per cent of sports coverage in
today’s newspapers is devoted
to female athletes and women’s
sport, while television coverage
is
similarly
disproportionate.
Broadcasters justify this lack
of coverage by arguing that there
just isn’t demand for it, but this
seems to me to be something
of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Before university I worked as
a nanny for a 12-year-old boy
and an 11-year-old girl who both
played a lot of sport: while Thomas
adorned his bedroom with posters
of Chelsea footballers and England
cricket stars, Lucy’s walls were
festooned with images of Cheryl
Cole, Miley Cyrus and Pixie Lott.
Despite competing in netball,
swimming, cricket, and cross
country,
the
only
female
sportswoman that she could name
was Paula Radcliffe – I suspect
this was largely due to the fact that
the marathon runner had once
been plastered all over the news
for answering the call of nature.
Unlike boys, girls are simply
not provided with a great
wealth of inspirational sporting
figures in mainstream media.
Empirical evidence demonstrates
that participation in games is fairly
even between genders during
primary school years, but that
girls then drop away from sport in
huge numbers in their early teens.
As with all discussions regarding
the influence of the media, it is
impossible to ascertain that this is
directly due to a lack of role models
in the public eye: other factors
such as pressure from peers, a
lack of family support, conflicting
interests and – for some – simply
an innate disinterest all play a part.
Yet the overwhelming, dominant
focus on male sport in the
media must have some effect
towards
discouraging
female
participation, and, as such, the
introduction of the women’s boat
race to national television can
only be a positive influence on
female competitors of the future.
Hedley returns to his roots for streamline boost
Olivia Lee
Sports Co-Editor
in tackling his shape disadvantage.
Stockier than the average speed skier, he needs help with reducing the
amount of wind resistance he comes
up against. With a sport this fast,
even the smallest changes can make
a huge difference to the times. And
so he met James Richardson, the
fourth year Engineer student lucky
enough to be awarded the project.
The two have been working together using a wind resistance tunnel in the aerodynamics department in Cambridge. “Most of last
term was spent building the rig,
which was done by the rather wonderful technicians in the engineering department,” says Richardson.
After that they moved on to the
test phase, and Richardson has already had some interesting results.
“It looks like the major factor in
terms of the drag you generate going down a slope is the amount
of frontal area you project into
the oncoming wind, so it’s about
getting as tight in as possible”
The results have been revealing. The most effective position
seems to incorporate a very flat
back, and the duo has also managed to find the fastest combination of boots, suit and gloves.
James Richardson
Ben Hedley is a lunatic. That should
be made clear from the outset.
The 34-year-old speed skier,
who spent his time at Queen’s college clambering up the outer wall
to make it into his Cripps Court
room, is somehow fulfilling his
role as COO of a furniture and
upholstery company, whilst at the
same time breaking into Team
GB after only a couple of seasons in the sport. Pink-cheeked
and bouncy, he has an enthusiasm and energy that is infectious.
You’d have to have a certain level
of insanity for the sport, which consists of skiing down near-vertical
slopes as fast as possible, passing the
speed that some light aircraft would
take off at within a few seconds.
The word record is 156mph and
the sport is incredibly dangerous,
not just in extreme circumstances,
but every single time you ski: “You
have to overcome that feeling of
self-preservation,” says Hedley.
It was moving towards becoming an Olympic event, included as a
demonstration sport in the
1992 Winter Olympics in Les
Arcs, but worries increased after the death of skier Nicolas Bochatay who hit a vehicle on the
slopes on the day of the final.
A more recent death in the
sport was that of Caitlin Tovar,
the British champion who fell almost 3,000 feet after losing control
whilst preparing to ski in 2007.
Despite the danger, Hedley
thinks there is something very
special about the sport: “There’s
a certain purity to it,” he says.
“It’s the oldest form of racing.”
Hedley has found himself back in
Cambridge after seeking the help of
his old lecturer, Holger Babinsky,
The
30| Sport
Women show
table finesse
Gengshi Chen
Gengshi Chen
Pythons choke Spartan spirit
Cambridge gave their best attempt against league leaders Nottingham Trent, featuring players
of national standard. Despite the
0-5 loss, Jiang and Chen found it a
great experience to practise against
the clean shots of the opponents.
In the last match against Warwick,
all three players showed major improvements in their game compared
with earlier in the season. Recovery
from a 0-2 disadvantage by Chen
against Warwick #1 and 3-0 wins
against Warwick #2 by both Yeo and
Chen secured a Cambridge win.
Unfortunately, the wind was
against Cambridge in the last
two matches, despite some impressive shot combinations by
Jiang and Yeo, giving an overall score of 3-2 to Cambridge.
Thomas Piachaud
The Women’s Table Tennis trio
of Hong Jiang, Cheng Yong Yeo
and Gengshi Chen travelled to
Nottingham last weekend for
BUCS Midlands league matches.
The series of matches started
with a convincing 5-0 win against
Derby by Jiang and Chen. After
winning all their singles matches, Cambridge entered into the
doubles match without pressure.
The match began somewhat unsteadily with both Jiang and Chen
struggling with the illegal serves
of Derby #2. The superior experience and determination of the
Cambridge pair was nevertheless sufficient to win the game,
gaining a 5-0 overall victory.
CambridgeStudent
chunks of ice. But eventually the
game got underway with the Pythons kicking off to the Spartans.
The first series only lasted two
Spartans
18
plays as a run was stuffed and the ensuing pass was picked off by Guy PeThomas Piachaud
ters and returned to the Spartans 30.
Some hard running from Jack
With many games snowed off for a Tavener and Tom Lindsell gave the
second week around the league, the Pythons a touchdown, and a failed 2
Pythons travelled boldly to South point conversion saw the score at 6-0.
London to take on the London
Again the Pythons kicked to the
South Bank Spartans on Sunday. Spartans and forced a punt. The
Having not trained for two weeks, punt was blocked by Guy Peters
there was doubt as to whether the and a safety awarded to the Camplayers would remain on form. bridge side to put the score at 8-0.
In a new approach to pre-game The Spartans struck back with
warm ups, the Pythons were hit- some power-running for a touchting straight from the bat, bringing down, putting the score at 8-6.
up the intensity before the game.
Silly mistakes and terrible pitch
A
delayed
kick-off
meant
playconditions
marred the rest of the
 
ers were starting to get cold and half for the Pythons. A blocked
water bottles were turning into punt was returned for a touch-
Cambridge
22
down by Spartans 13 Dwain Jackson, and a fumble at the Spartans
3 yard line, returned for 60 yards,
allowed the Spartans to pass for a
touchdown just before the half. The
score stood at 18-8 to the Spartans.
The Pythons emerged from the
half with something to prove and
the defence stopped LSBU dead
in their tracks. In the 4th quarter
it was time for a comeback. With
a long run up the middle, the Pythons tacked on another score, to
make it 18-14. Needing to stop the
Spartans on offence, the Pythons
made tackle after tackle, with the
Spartans Quarterback under pressure while throwing all day long.
The offence had the ball in
their hands with under two minutes left in the game. A sweep to
the right saw the Pythons inside
the 10 yard line, and a facemask
penalty against the Spartans gave
them even better field position.
However, some excellent defence by the Spartans saw the Pythons move back 10 yards, until
finally, Nick Roope scored on a
short pass play. The ensuing 2
point conversation was successful and the scoreline was 2218 with 20 seconds remaining.
At the final whistle the Pythons
jubilantly celebrated. Most Valuable Player was named as Nick
Roope for his outstanding effots
in all areas. The Pythons travel
to Canterbury this weekend to
face the undefeated Kent Falcons.
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The
CambridgeStudent
Ladies bounce to top spot
Cambridge
55
Bedford
35
Ollie Guest
Sports Co-Editor
Ollie Guest
Superb finishing from Glyniadaki
and captain Nezich saw the ladies
basketball Blues defeat Bedford on
Saturday, a result which propels
them to the top of their division.
Cambridge started brightly as
Gylniadaki opened the scoring, exploiting her towering height well.
The Blues looked sharper than
their opponents, stretching their
lead through Costello, Navarro
and a long shot from Nezich. By
the end of the first quarter Bedford had only managed one measly score as Cambridge grasped
the ascendency with a 14-2 lead.
However, Bedford’s combination
of Davis and Onuido had threatened
occasionally, the former illustrating
her ability to weave through challenge after challenge. Cambridge
failed to heed the warnings and
as Davis exerted more of an influence on the match, Bedford clawed
their way back into contention.
In a much more even second quarter both sides took points off each
other before a last gasp long range
effort allowed Bedford to narrow the
gap to 20-14 at the half way point.
Following instructions from the
bench the Blues accelerated the
pace of the game. Further baskets
from Nezich, Glyniadaki, Merino
and Makoni extended Cambridge’s
lead but each time they were about
to pull clear, back came the away
team through Davis and Onuido.
A battle between the division’s
top outfits, tensions were unsurprisingly high at times but,
whereas the Blues maintained
control, Bedford allowed ill-discipline to mar their performance as
they committed numerous fouls.
Come the end of the third quarter the match remained delicately
poised at 39-29 to Cambridge
but in the final ten minutes the
Blues blew away their opponents.
Eight scores went unanswered until Bedford slotted a
few conciliatory baskets. The final score reflected a thoroughly
satisfying team performance.
Sport |31
Sport-in-Brief
Women’s Rugby
A hat-trick from captain Keno Omu helped Cambridge on their
way to an emphatic 32-0 victory against Leicester University yesterday. Further tries from Anna Soler, Amy Nicholson and Laura Clapham, as well as a conversion from Soler, gave the team
much to celebrate as they continue their Varsity preparations.
Sailing
The Light Blues celebrated a decent weekend’s work at Southampton where they were undefeated in all their encounters against other
university teams. Victories against Oxford, previous BUCS winners
Southampton, and Southampton Solent were the pick of the action.
Although the crew lost in their races with GBR and other national
teams, they performed well, especially given the treacherous weather.
Judo
The team competed in Sheffield on Saturday and won their first match
against Aberystwyth. They fought hard against Loughborough in the
second round but were narrowly defeated and left without silverware.
There were some strong individual performances, and the team have
reason to feel confident in the run up to Varsity next month.
Women’s Tennis
The Women’s Blues continued their successful season to beat
Bristol 10-2 yesterday. Laura Morrill, Kadi Saar and Amy Zhang
all won their singles in straight sets. In doubles, Morrill-Saar
and Emma Kudzin-Zhang gave away only a few games. This
victory ensures their position in the top 4 in the UK.
Football
The Blues earned a dominant 4-0 away win against rivals
Bedford yesterday. The Cambridge defence restricted Bedford to a single clear cut chance whilst Danny Kerrigan’s
sublime hat-rick and a superb Rick Totten finish did the damage
going forward. The win leaves the Blues four points
clear with two games left to play in the league.
Women’s Hockey
A flurry of second half goals gave Cambridge a comfortable 3-0 win
over Birmingham 3rds yesterday afternoon. After a dominant first
half, Susie Stott opened the scoring from the penalty flick spot when
the initial short corner hit a defender’s foot on the line. Becca Naylor
nailed the second goal into the bottom right corner before Hannah
Rickman converted an Izzy Smith cross to complete the victory.
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Netball
Looking to bounce back from their disappointing loss to Loughborough 3rds last week, the Blues faced an even tougher opposition in
the 2nd team from the same University. They narrowly lost, finishing the match 45-43, the scoreline remaining close thanks to standout performances from Laura Spence and Sophia Anderson. Captain
Hannah Pennicott said that, depsite the frustrating result, the tough
match was great preparation for the Varsity fixture later this month.
Rangers
Lovers of Glasgow Rangers had little to delight in on Valentine’s Day
as it was announced that the Scottish outfit would be deducted ten
points. The penalty comes as a result of Rangers entering administration for the failure to pay a £9 million debt. The team is in the midst
of a financial storm leading to serious concerns about its future. Manager Ally McCoist remains defiant, but there are darker days ahead
after calls came last night to probe Craig Whyte’s takeover of the club.
Interview:
Speed skiier
Ben Hedley p.29
The
CambridgeStudent
SPORT
Women’s table
tennis Blues
report p.30
Men humbled as women march on
Cambridge
3
Loughborough 9
Cambridge
8
Bristol
2
Ollie Guest and Jon MacKenzie
Ollie Guest
Clinical finishing from top of the
table Loughborough saw the men’s
lacrosse Blues succumb to a 9-3 defeat yesterday. However, the women
stormed to a 8-2 victory away to
Bristol to continue their outstanding
campaign.
Things started well for the men as
they came flying out of the blocks,
competing ferociously with their
illustrious opponents who had
smashed them 19-2 early this season.
Alistair Norton opened the scoring
for Cambridge before Jack Lear levelled for the away side.
Level pegging following the first
quarter, the Light Blues raced into a
3-1 lead courtesy of two finishes from
captain Carl Tilbury.
However, disaster struck when
Tilbury went down injured as he
battled to protect his goal. The team
were shaken as he hobbled off having
re-opened a deep gash to his knee.
Loughborough took full advantage
of Cambridge’s loss in concentration.
Goals from Connor Turner and Jeremy Gurran put them back on even
terms, making the score 3-3 at the
half way mark.
Without their inspirational figurehead for a period, the Blues suffered
heavily after they started the third
quarter sluggishly. Loughborough
secured a three goal cushion thanks
to a powerful effort from Bell and a
brace from Twist.
Deflated, even the return of Tilbury
did little to help Cambridge alter the
course of the encounter. Matt Haliday sought to weave his way through
at times, while goalkeeper Nick Evans bellowed encouragement but
with the final twenty minutes to play
the score remained 6-3 to Loughborough.
The fourth quarter saw much of the
same, the away side now dominating
possession. Tom Stewart finally got
his goal, having hit the post on three
separate occasions earlier on, while
Xavier Bhoyroo and another from
Lear completed the rout.
Although the team will be disappointed with their lapses in concentration, the intensity with which they
fought during the first half of the
match and the excellent goalkeeping
of Evans were two significant positives. This was a marked improvement from the humiliating result
they suffered against the same opposition last term.
Meanwhile the women continued
their stunning unbeaten season, overcoming a strong outfit from Bristol in
the South Premier League clash.
Despite running out comfortable
victors in their meeting early in the
year, Cambridge went a goal down,
with the home side scoring a surprise
long-range goal to put Cambridge
under early pressure.
However, with typical pluckiness,
the women worked hard to overcome
the deficit, Pugh and Plant reversing
the lead in favour of the Light Blues.
In goal, Cambridge’s Best proved to
be the instrumental factor differentiating between the two teams during
the first half. The recognition of her
prowess as Woman of the Match is
even more impressive by the realisation that she was covering for the
usual goalkeeper, who was away on
international duty.
Goals from Bush and Livesey gave
Cambridge a 4-1 advantage at the
interval providing the team with a
platform from which to build. In the
second half the hard work in the defence paid dividends resulting in a
high rate of turnover balls which the
midfield of Walshe and Allard lapped
up.
Livesey hammered in a secondhalf hat-trick, her lethal finishing
taking the game beyond Bristol. The
two teams will face each other again
in a week’s time when they compete
in the BUCS Championship semifinal, a game the Light Blues women
will be desperate to win as they pursue the unprecedented glory of a cup
Featured in this week’s issue
Page 29 - Kit Holden weighs up
possible Capello replacements
Page 31 - The women’s Blues
beat Bedford in basketball
Clean sheet for men’s table tennis Blues
Cambridge
15
Bath
2
David Hardeman
Bernd Linke and Wing Chan
The men’s squad of the Cambridge
University Table Tennis Club
(CUTTC) has won the BUCS
Premier South division after a
resounding
victory
yesterday.
Cambridge
defeated
Bath
University with a 15-2 final score,
ensuring at least a three-point lead
over their rivals, Imperial College and
King’s College London, the latter of
which they trounced 14-3 last week.
Back in the first away match of the
Michaelmas term, the Blues team
scored a 15-2 victory in Bath, so the
expectations were high. However,
Wing Chan, the Cambridge
team captain was not available.
And so Thierry made his debut for
the Cambridge team and concluded
the day with a 3-1 match result.
Both
Thierry
and
Bernd
unfortunately lost to Bath’s top
player, who gave a strong, if
futile, performance. His winning
streak ended against Cambridge
player Takehiro Kojima, who
once more showed his superior
skill, winning all his matches and
losing just one set out of thirteen.
Takehiro probably would be the
man of the match if it wasn’t for Nick
Leung. The Cambridge number one
was never forced to his maximum
and didn’t drop a single set.
After playing the singles,
Cambridge was already 14-2 in
front so the final double, played
by Nick and Takehiro, could be
regarded as their walk of fame.
They concluded the last game
of the season with a victory. With
this final win Cambridge finishes
first in the BUCS Premier League
South. According to Wing, the team
captain, this is the first victory for
quite some years and the Cambridge
team looks forward to the
upcoming Varsity match in March.

front page - The Cambridge Student

Transcription

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