e gag reflex: - The Cambridge Student

Transcription

Film
Isabella Nicholson at
the premiere of Great
Expectations
The
Books
Comment
Alice Gormley
on Will Self 's
dejected umbrella
DEBATE: is the
University watching your
every cyberspace move?
CambridgeStudent
The gag
reflex:
Thursday, 25th October, 2012
Michaelmas Issue Five
UKhairdressers.
How national student
unions censor newspapers
Louise Ashwell
Deputy News Editor
Student newspapers across the
country have been placed under
restrictions by their unions which
prevent them from publishing articles union officers deem unsuitable. From Central Lancashire
to Leeds, Sheffield and SOAS in
London, the start of a new term
has seen a surge in these gagging
orders.
The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) has been the focus of most coverage this week after the editorial team of its student
newspaper ‘Pluto’ were presented
with a new code of conduct by its
union forbidding its journalists
from speaking to members of the
public without first going obtaining express written permission
from the student union’s media
officer, Sophie Bennett. It also instructed media groups, including
the university’s radio and TV stations, not to comment or report
on any UCLan members of staff,
unless thought to be in the public
interest. Once again, however, the
final decision over the legitimacy
of the public interest justification
lies with the union media officer.
The decision to issue these new
guidelines came after the newspaper printed an article exposing jokes made on Twitter by the
union’s Education Officer, Joey
Guy, concerning April Jones and
Jimmy Savile, for which he was
suspended. The measures taken
by the union have attracted fury
from students at the paper who
say their editorial independence
has been seriously compromised.
Nor are UCLan student jour-
nalists alone in experiencing such
treatment from the bodies supposed to represent their interests.
Leeds University student union it
was reported last week allegedly
threatened legal action against its
own newspaper, whose editor is
voted in by the student body, to
prevent them from fully reporting on a police investigation into
irregularities in the union’s financial accounts. Despite agreeing
to an interview with newspaper
reporters where he admitted the
allegations, Chief Executive for
the student union Aidan Gills, in
an embarrassing turn of events, is
afterwards said to have contacted
the newspaper to demand that
they withdraw the article completely.
Public outcry after intrusion
by university unions has sometimes been so heated as to force
a U-turn. This was the case recently at the University of Sheffield where an edition of its student newspaper, Forge Press, was
retracted altogether for its cover
story exposing the use of a legal
loophole by the university to pay
its workers less; protests by students forced the union to re-print
it after all. At SOAS, however, the
editor of its official newspaper
was driven to resign after its union
removed their article about potential corruption over possibly missing charity money.
When approached for comment
by The Cambridge Student, UCLan
Media Officer Sophie Bennett insisted "There has been no attempt
by me personally, or my team, to
stifle any debate on this issue."
continued on page 3...
Skyfall actress Naomie Harris has spoken out against her time at Pembroke college and its
posh milleu. (page 7)
Skyfalls on Pembroke
Bond-girl star Naomie Harris has
described her time at Cambridge as
a “huge culture shock”.
Harris, former SPS student at
Pembroke College, has recently criticised the life-style at Cambridge,
adding to former comments made
about the people who “used to drink
until they threw up all over the college grounds” - “Where's the fun in
that? It was one of the worst periods
of my life”.
In an interview this week with the
Mirror, the 36-year-old actress stated
that during her time at Cambridge
she “was very unhappy and cried
every day” ... “I come from a very
working-class background, so Cam-
bridge was a huge culture shock…
The people there were so different
to me and I couldn’t connect with
them on any level. They talked about
Eton and skiing and here was I, this
black girl from North London.” Harris, who will play Miss Moneypenny
(pseudonym ‘Eve’) in the twentythird Bond film Skyfall, graduated
in 1998 with a 2:1 in PPS.
...continued on page 7
Laurence Tidy
Co-Editor
IN THE NEWS
'Play Me, I'm Yours' pianos come to
Cambridge
Cambridge dons condemn arrest
of Italian scientists
Anglia Ruskin admissions on the
rise
Oxbridge academics criticise BBC
documentary on Grammar schools
Oxford Union ends contract with
Oxford Conservative Association
The project by British artist Luke
Jerrum has delighted many Cantabs,
despite the theft of one piano on the
night of their arrival.
Six Italian seismologists were
given a 6-year sentence given for
failing to predict an earthquake
which killed 300 in 2009.
Admissions to the ARU are up
8.3%, while the national rate
declines
A letter was written to the BBC arguing that the programme is too
favourable towards the grammar school system.
The OU will no longer rent a
room free of charge to the society
following successive charges against
OCA of racism and sexism.
Page 2
Page 3
Page 8
Page 6
Page 8
The
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, October 25th, 2012
02| Editorial
THE CAMBRIDGE STUDENT
Editors in Chief: Nicholas Tufnell & Laurence Tidy - [email protected]; News Editor: Ben Richardson - [email protected]; Associate News Editor:
Michael Yoganayagam; Deputy News Editors: Louise Ashwell, Jenni Reid, Tristram Fane Saunders & Gwen Jing- [email protected]; International CoEditors: Jack Tunmore & Michael Campbell - [email protected]; Interviews Editor: Iravati Guha - [email protected]; Comment Co-Editors:
Florence Smith-Nicholls & Arjun Sajip - [email protected]; Features Editor: Loughlin Sweeney - [email protected]; Deputy Features Editor: Anna
Hollingsworth; Music Co-Editors: Rosalind Peters & James Redburn - [email protected]; Film Editor: Calum Mulderrig - [email protected]; Books Editor
- Alice Gormley; Theatre Editor: Louise Ashwell - [email protected]; Listings Editor: Lisa-Marie Cahill & Rebecca Thomas; Sports Co-Editors: Kit Holden
& Gianpero Roscelli - [email protected]; Illustrator: Clémentine Beauvais; Chief-Photographer: David Hurley; Sub-Editors: Hazel Shearing, Timur Cetin,
Rebecca Thomas, Jenny Buckley, Ellen Halliday, Rachel Fletcher, Madeleine Bell; Web Editor: Mark Curtis; Board of Directors: Alistair Cliff, Mark Curtis
(Business), Dom Weldon, Dan Green, Alice Gormley (Co-Chair), Judith Welikala (Co-Chair), Nicholas Tufnell & Laurence Tidy [email protected].
EDITORIAL
THIS WEEK
COMMENT
Facebook: can 1 billion
people be right? p13
MUSIC
To whom it may concern,
In sympathy with those who have had their editorial independence suppressed.
The Cambridge Student
Cambridge Piano Project launches amid thefts
Fifteen pianos have been placed in locations including Senate
House, Garrett Hostel Lane and Silver Street (above)
Jenni Reid and Olivia Morgan
Deputy News Editor / News Reporter
By now most people are unlikely to
have missed the fifteen pianos which
have been dotted around Cambridge
as part of the city’s ‘Festival of Ideas’.
Making their way to cities around
the world since 2008, the pianos are
part of a project founded by British
artist Luke Jerram.
The concept is simple – pianos,
decorated by local artists, are placed
in strategic points around the city
with just one instruction: ‘Play Me,
I’m Yours’.
The pianos are left unsupervised
during their stay, in the hope that
they will inspire creativity rather
than vandalism. However, whilst
this has largely been the case, on
the first night the pianos arrived in
Cambridge one was stolen, dragged
across Midsummer Common and
abandoned with its wheels broken
off. A music outreach officer at
Cambridge stated that, “We have
picked up the piano and will be repairing it and replacing the tarpaulin that covered it. These pianos are
for everybody to enjoy”. The stolen
piano was decorated by FLACK, a
city charity for the homeless.
When the project debuted in Birmingham in 2008, a piano was
smashed to pieces on the first night.
In Bristol similar problems occurred, where one piano that had
been dragged along the ground was
ultimately traced to student accommodation.
NEWS BULLETIN News in Brief
Aside from these instances of vandalism, the response to the pianos
has been overwhelmingly positive.
George Johnson, a second year Natsci, said: “I love playing piano but
I rarely get the chance to, so having some for public use is great! It’s
quite bizarre to find yourself playing in the open air in the middle of
a city.”
Most of the pianos in Cambridge
were donated by the University’s
Faculty of Music, although others
were rescued from the scrapheap.
Following their appearance in
Cambridge, the pianos will head to
Hangzhou in China.
Oxford JCRs to vote on funding
union demos
Cambridge University helps improve A-level maths
Applications to UK universities recover in numbers.
Churchill College pays tribute to
war hero
Students attending the NUS protest
#demo2012: Educate, Employ, Empower on the 21st November, will
have their travel costs funded by
their colleges. Keble’s JCR and the
SU of Wadham have agreed to support their students who are participating in the demonstration against
the recent austerity measures, higher
fees and fears of rising student debt.
Opinion at Keble was far from united
as the JCR voted against allowing its
OUSU members from voting to express their support of a motion in favour of the NUS protest at a council
meeting in the next few weeks.
Cambridge University has received
£2.8 million from the Department
of Education for developing a more
rigorous maths A-level system. A
new ‘Maths Education Program’ will
be launched in order to provide resources and support to both teachers and students. It will also seek to
incorporate new understanding of
maths into the mathematics currently studied at A-level. However, the
university denied reports it will also
be setting exam papers for the new
system. The project aims to improve
standards and raise knowledge on
teaching post-16 mathematics.
UCAS has seen an increase by 600 applications for courses starting in 2013.
The statistics refer to all applications
since the beginning of September,
including medical courses as well as
those to Oxford and Cambridge. English students and those from Northern
Ireland are applying in greater numbers, but applications from Scotland
have fallen 1% and from Wales by
3.9%. Applications from students outside the EU are up by a considerable
5.1%. The rise is, however, misleading,
as students rushed to avoid the fee rise
last year and so applications for 2013
are still down on 2010 and 2011.
A staircase in Churchill College has
been named after a former chaplain,
rowing cox, coach and war hero.
Canon Noel Duckworth lived in the
same staircase in North Court during
his 13 years as chaplain from 1961.
He died in 1980 at the age of 68. The
ceremony was held on the same day
as the launch of Canon Duckworth’s
first biography, written by Churchill
alumnus Michael Smyth. A plaque
was unveiled and the staircase renamed Duckworth Staircase in honor
of the former chaplain, who is said to
have played an integral part in the
college’s early years.
NEWSPAPERS
SUPPORT
RECYCLING
Recycled paper made up
80.6% of the raw material for
UK newspapers in 2006
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.
Thea Hawlin on the industry’s
sexualisation of women, p21
BOOKS
Why Hilary Mantel deserved
the Booker ... again , p23
THEATRE
Ben Redwood reviews a
confident group of virgins, p25
SPORT
Rebecca Thomas chats to the
stars of London 2012, p31
The
CambridgeStudent
03|
News |03
Cambridge dons slam earthquake ruling
University academics are among critics of a 6-year sentence given to Italian seismologists for failing to predict disaster
Frengo2.0
More than three hundred people died in when an earthquake (Richter 5.8) struck the Medieval town
of l’Aquila, Italy, in 2009. Six scientists have been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Jennifer Bloomfield and Gwen
Jing
News Reporter / Deputy News
Editor
Cambridge experts have expressed dismay at the imprisonment of six Italian scientists and
one former government official
for issuing “inexact, incomplete
and contradictory information”
regarding the 2009 L’ Aquila
earthquake.
The Italian experts were sentenced to six years in prison on
multiple charges of manslaughter
by Judge Marco Billi on Monday
afternoon.
In an interview with The Cambridge Student, Professor James
Jackson, Head of the Department
of Earth Sciences at Cambridge
University, criticised the grounds
on which the scientists were
sentenced. “Nobody can predict
earthquakes, in the sense of specifying their exact time, place and
size in advance”, he said.
“A complication in this case
was that a non-scientist on the
committee said something that
no scientists agreed with; namely
that the small earthquakes’ continual release of energy reduced
the chances of a bigger earthquake. Furthermore, he said this
before the scientists had met and
contradicted it.
“This apparently rational,
though incorrect, statement was
immediately picked up by the
local population and media and
taken as reassurance.
Afterwards, the advice was described
as “inexact, incomplete, and contradictory”, but nobody can be
exact and complete in these circumstances.
“In this case, none of the scientists said anything that I or most
seismologists would disagree
with: but the prosecutor lumped
all the committee together, failing to distinguish their different
roles in the announcements that
were made.
“In the end, L’Aquila was always
known to be in the most dangerous earthquake zone in Italy and
sooner or later a big earthquake
was bound to occur, as many
had there in the past. The really
important advice is that people
should try and live in safe buildings in a place like L’Aquila”, Professor Jackson said.
Professor Priestley of the Earth
Sciences Department explains
that because the earthquake cycle is long, it has not been well
observed, so “at the present time
knowledge of the earthquake cycle for all regions is inexact and
incomplete”. This makes it impossible to say for certain whether a
series of small tremors precedes a
major earthquake.
Professor David Spiegelhalter of
Cambridge University claims that
there is a lesson to be learnt from
the ruling. “This bizarre verdict
will chill anyone who gives scientific advice, and I hope they are
freed on appeal,” he said. “The
lesson for me is that scientific advisors must try and retain control
over how their work is communicated, and are properly trained to
engage with the public.”
Professor Priestley warns of the
same: “If seismologists are held
responsible for “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information”, most seismologists will
not comment because they know
there is no exact, complete and
certain information regarding
earthquake prediction.”
...continued from page 1:
The UCLan code of conduct reads as follows:
1) Individual members of the media groups shall not hold themselves out to speak
on behalf of their group by reference to their position title or otherwise without the
express written permission of the media officer, or their chosen representative.
2) Media groups will not comment or report on UCLan and UCLAN SU members
of staff unless it is in the public interest, in which case the public interest reason will
be formerly recorded and logged with the media officer.
3) When researching potential articles/news stories media groups will be sensitive
to making use of information gained via social media.
A final thought: Sophie Bennett is acting both as student union Media Officer and
Editor-in-Chief of Pluto. One must question why such a blatant conflict of interest
has been allowed to take place?
UclanSU
Graduate Open Evening
Wednesday 7 November 2012
Online booking is essential:
The UCLan Student Union: supposed to represent their university
community, but in reality censoring its members
lse.ac.uk/Cambridge
The
CambridgeStudent
04| News
News in Brief Varsity ski trip under fire
The 25 worst passwords of 2012
The software firm SplashData, has
recently released its annual compilation of the worst passwords
that are used by people online.
The top three most common offenders are unsurprisingly, “password,” “123456,” and “12345678”
which have remained unchanged
from previous years. However a
number of dubious newcomers
have been included in the 2012
list, including catchy terms like
“ninja,” “iloveyou” and “jesus.”
Tech bloggers are also becoming
more aware of the simplicity of
passwords so the website advocates adding interspersed random
characters for additional security.
Facebook stocks rise by selling
mobile ads
Facebook stocks on Wednesday 23 October rose 21% to finish at $23.57, their best one-day
performance since the company
debuted on the stock market
in May. The Wall Street Journal
said that investors were elated
by the news that Facebook had
made $150 million in revenue
from selling mobile ads in the
third quarter, after a disappointing second quarter which saw
the lowest ever closing price of
just $17.73 on 4 September. The
results came amid intense investor scrutiny of Facebook’s growth,
and suggest that the company
is making headway selling ads
on mobile devices, an area seen
as a driver of its future success.
-
Gwen Jing
Deputy News Editor
Oxbridge’s annual Varsity ski trip,
a common recipient of negative
press criticising the “outrageous
behaviour” and “debauchery” of
Oxbridge students on the trip, has
been brought under scrutiny again,
this time by Oxford University
itself.
Following the announcement
in January of a sponsor that it
was to pull out of sponsoring the
trip, Oxford University Proctors
have now announced restrictions
on students going on the annual
Varsity ski trip, stipulating that
students are not allowed to leave
College until the end of full term
without the permission of their
Senior Tutors.
The University Proctors stated
in a message to Senior Tutors
that Varsity trip students require
permission from Tutors, Senior
Tutors and Proctors if they want to
leave for the trip before the end of
Full Term.
The Senior Tutor of Teddy Hall
wrote in an e-mail to students that:
“This large and heavily promoted
trip has caused problems in previous
years, not only in St Edmund Hall
but also in the University at large.
“I am writing to let you know
in good time that nobody from St
Edmund Hall is permitted to go
on this trip without the explicit
permission of both their subject
tutors and the Senior Tutor.”
Oxford Freshers slate Varsity organisers
for ticket release “cock up”
Cambridge underground bicycle
trade
Gwen Jing
Deputy News Editor
A man has been brought before
Cambridge magistrates court for
buying stolen bikes in a local park.
Joshua Peck of Lapwings Close,
Teversham, has received a oneyear community service order
after being charged with two accounts of handling stolen goods.
Peck bought the bikes for £50
each from a drug dealer he met at
Pulley Park. He did not know the
man that he bought the bikes from,
but purchased them on account
of their good quality. The police
discovered the bikes after a raid at
Peck’s house. He was also ordered
to pay £85 towards legal costs.
Oxford students were thrown into
chaos in trying to book tickets
for the Varsity ski trip this year
and matriculate at the same time.
Booking opened on the same
morning as hundreds of first
year students were scheduled to
matriculate.
Oxford first year students have
voiced outrage at the unfavourable
bias for Freshers in this year’s
Eton Gangnam parody goes viral
A ‘Gangnam Style’ video made
by four prefects at Eton College
has become a YouTube sensation after being watched by over
1.6 million people. Joining the
Gangnam craze which originated
in South Korea, the boys replaced
the lyrics and can be seen dancing around their Berkshire school
grounds (along with a teacher!)
and pretending to ride an imaginary horse. Headteacher Tony
Little has admitted to watching
the video and had no criticisms
to make. “It’s a self-deprecating
piece of fun by some boys who are
parodying themselves.”
Students at Oxford have voiced
anger at these precautions,
describing the proctors’ decision as
“unnecessary bureaucracy”.
Edward Higson, who is member
of the Oxford university skiing
team and due to race against
Cambridge University at Varsity,
said these new rules are “a waste
of time for everyone involved”.
He claims: “The whole university
system is set up around students
being independent and personally
responsible for their own work, so
it seems strange that they feel the
need to force us to jump through
hoops.”
Cambridge University has not
imposed any similar restrictions
on students going on the Varsity
trip. Cambridge second year
student Matt Kuber, who is going
on the Varsity trip this year after a
good experience last year, thinks
the organisers should delay the
trip. “It’s a shame that the trip is
organised so that it begins before
Full Term ends at Oxford, but that’s
no fault of the students.
“The University should not let
rumours from the past ruin current
and prospective students’ chances
of one of the best weeks they’ll have
during their time at university.”
“Students
across
both
universities would benefit if the
trip could be delayed by a day or
two as a compromise, allowing
time to empty rooms, pack for the
trip and for students at Oxford to
complete term.”
booking procedures, who usually
make up a fair third of Varsity’s
intake.
The trip is known for selling
out in record time and sold 2000
tickets in just 90 minutes this year,
and the rush to obtain tickets
while preparing for matriculation
led Oxford students to describe
the booking affair as “the most
stressful part of my time at Oxford
so far” and “a total cock-up”.
Another first year student
studying Philosophy said: “The
Varsity Trip
Oxford students need permission from Senior Tutors to leave for Varsity
trip before Full Term ends
process could have been made a
lot less stressful had the Varsity
organisers realised that this was
Matriculation day at Oxford, and
was a busy day for all freshers.
My morning could have been a
great deal less stressful if Varsity
booking had been on another
day.”
This year’s bookings scandal
follows on from a Varsity server
system failure crash for bookings
last year. Even this year the system
triggered complaints among
students, who expressed confusion
about the estimated booking time
system on the website, which
inaccurately predicted the time
bookers would require to obtain
a ticket. “The numbers seemed
randomly chosen and were
useless for scheduling my
day”, a first year student
complained.
However, Varsity trip tour
organiser NUCO maintains that
this year’s booking process was
“a huge success” with “minimal
technical issues”. Rohan Sakhrani,
VP of the Varsity Trip Committee,
said: “We have more freshers
from Oxford going this year
than ever before so it seems that
Matriculation didn’t get in the way
of those students that wanted a
place on the trip.”
quality teaching, Lord Rees argues
it “would give a second chance to
people who were not so successful at
their secondary school”.
During his talk at Politeia on
Friday, Lord Rees encouraged all
Russell Group universities, whose
intake is dominated by students
from middle-class backgrounds, to
hold places for talented, low-income
students who want to transfer after
two years.
When asked about Lord Rees’
proposals, a spokesman for the
University of Cambridge told TCS
that the “greatest factor influencing
entry to highly selective universities
is prior attainment.”
However, he also added:
“Significant differences between
the US and UK higher education
systems mean that, while transfers
between institutions are possible
in the UK, they must be evaluated
on a case-by-case basis by both
universities involved.”
Jamie Ladbrooke, a secondyear Biology student at Trinity,
claimed that “there would be quite
a difference in terms of the material
covered if they switched after two
years.”
Stefano Novello, in his second
year of mathematics, added: “If we
accept this system, there will quickly
be a massive gap between the Russell
Group and lower-level universities,
as all talented students will move to
top institutions”.
Lord Rees’ suggestion is part of
a radical plan outlining the effects
of government policy on the UK’s
universities, published as part of
Politeia’s study ‘University Diversity:
Freedom, Excellence and Funding
for a Global Future’.
Let gifted students switch universities, says Lord Rees
Sofia Christensen
News Reporter
Talented
students
from
disadvantaged
backgrounds
should be allowed to switch to a
Russell Group university halfway
through their degree, says
leading scientist Lord Martin
Rees.
The Emeritus
Professor of Cosmology
and Astrophysics at
Cambridge, and former
Master of Trinity
College,
published
his suggestion in a
pamphlet released on
Monday by think-tank
Politeia.
The idea is based on a successful
system run by the University
of California, which allows
disadvantaged students a second
chance to get into a top university.
“A substantial fraction of those
who attend the ‘elite’ universities
in the system such as Berkeley and
UCLA have come not directly from
high school but via a ‘lower tier
institution”, said Lord Rees.
He added that: “For those who
initially did not gain entry to
a Russell Group university
because of disadvantaged
schooling, it could
become a common
practice to transfer after
one or two years at a less
selective institution.”
In
this
system,
students
studying
at
lower-level institutions are
assigned ‘credits’ that could then
be transferred to a new degree.
Although this would not solve the
problem of failing schools and low-
The
CambridgeStudent
News |05
Oxford Union distances itself from Oxford
Conservative Association
The Oxford Union will no longer afford OCA the privileges it has done for almost a decade
Jenni Reid
Deputy News Editor
The Oxford Union has informed
the Oxford Conservative Association (OCA) that it will not renew
a contract which allows OCA to
hold its weekly meeting in the
Union building free of charge.
Since 1994 OCA has held its ‘Port
& Policy’ sessions every Sunday
evening in the Union’s Macmillan Room. From now on, it will be
charged £550 per night if it wishes
to remain in the venue.
John Lee, president of the Oxford Union, has claimed it is a
move towards dispelling a widely
perceived association between the
Union and the Conservatives. A
statement on the Oxford Union’s
website reads, “Unlike other student unions, the Oxford Union
holds no political views. Instead,
the Union is a forum for debate
and the discussion of controversial issues.” However Lee clarified,
“they are still very welcome to hire
out Union rooms at the same rate
as any other organisation, political or not”.
Student-run OCA, whose pa-
tron is Baroness Thatcher and
honorary President is William
Hague, is one of the oldest and
largest youth political organisations in the country, with more
than 650 members. However in
the past few years it has faced repeated accusations of racism and
sexism, which has led to the national Conservative party distancing itself from it. In 2000, four
“Hustings for the OCA
elections required
candidates to tell the
most racist joke they
knew.”
members were expelled for making Nazi-style salutes, and in 2010
the association was involved in a
sexism row after a female speaker
reported being told to “go back to
washing the dishes”.
In February this year, following
a five month enquiry into its behaviour and administration, the
society was denied affiliation with
Oxford University for the current
academic year. OCA is therefore
unable to currently use the word
‘University’ in its title. It was also
disaffiliated in 2009 following an
incident involving racism during
hustings for the society’s elections, which required candidates
to tell the most racist joke they
knew. This led to the suspension
of two members of the society
from the national Conservative
party, whilst the President of the
Oxford University Students’ Union at the time, Lewis Iwu, called
for the Oxford Union to question
whether or not it should continue
to rent a room to OCA.
Jiameng Gao, a member of the
Cambridge Union, claimed, “It’s
good to see that the Oxford Union
is finally treating societies equally. Regardless, I can’t understand
why a debating union society that
advocates free speech would ever
have given preferential treatment
to societies and people belonging
to only one side of the political
spectrum, especially one with discriminatory practices”.
When asked whether the Cambridge Union had any similar
longstanding arrangements with
student political groups, Austin
Mahler, President of the Cambridge Union Society, told TCS:
“The Cambridge Union Society
has no connection with any political parties; it works with all
Cambridge societies and political
parties on an equal footing. For
the institution, the priority is to
remain neutral”.
The Oxford Union itself, or rather its speakers, have not avoided
controversy of late. Last week
Dominic Grieve, Attorney Gen-
Project1_Layout 1 25/09/2012 14:23 Page 1
eral of England and Wales, was
criticised for saying in an annual
Union debate that, “being a practising homosexual” is “thought to
be a little bit weird by large numbers of people”. There were also
protests outside the Union during
MP George Galloway’s speech on
Tuesday, following Mr Galloway’s
decision to sue the National Union of Students for defamation
due to their labelling of him as a
“rape-denier”, an accusation he
vehemently denied.
Cambridge crime follows
national decline
Liam Finn
News Reporter
Crime has fallen for a seventeenth
consecutive
year,
according to new figures.
The Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW), widely
recognised as the most authoritative study and whose data is
sourced from interviews with
victims, suggests that recorded
crimes against adults have declined by 6% over the year.
Cambridge City West, which
holds most of the University’s
colleges and faculties, has seen a
largely static crime rate compared
to last year. Antisocial behaviour and violent offences are the
most frequent crimes committed
in the area, though criticts highlight that raw figures do not distinguish between the severity of
the offence or the harm caused.
The apparent reduction is in
stark contrast to the public’s
perception of the level of crime,
with the Prison Reform Trust
claiming that only 4% of people
believe that national crime had
gone down over the past year.
Professor Lawrence Sherman,
Wolfson Professor at the Cambridge Institute of Criminology,
told TCS, “The latest statistics provide a strong indication that England is, on average, one of the saf-
est places on earth in which to live.
“Today’s BBC radio coverage of
New York City as one of the safest
cities in the world was astonishing in its omission of any mention
of how much safer London is than
New York. With about the same
population, but about four times
as many murders, New York is far
more dangerous than London – if
you value your life. Yet the current
mood of “patriaphobia” in this
country seems to drive the media
into stressing the bad news in the
UK rather than the good news.”
Criminologists have noted that
reductions in crime can be attributed to factors such as an ageing
population, the formation of new
relationships and friendships, desistance from alcohol and drug
abuse and even religion. Despite
David Cameron’s speech on Monday pledging to make “prisons
work”, academics claim that there
is scant evidence to support the
theory that severe sentences have
a deterrent effect. This criticism is
supported by Ministry of Justice
figures which state that 56.8% of
those released from prison reoffend within a year. In contrast,
MoJ research suggests that those
who participate in restorative justice conferences – where an offender meets with a victim of the crime
– commit 27% fewer offences
than non-participating offenders.
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The
06| News
News in Brief
A Land Rover built for Winston
Churchill’s 80th birthday has been
sold at auction for £129,000 - more
than twice its estimated value.
The Rover was used to chauffeur
Churchill around his 300-acre estate
in Kent, Chartwell. It was designed
especially for him, boasting a
padded armrest, a foot well heater
and an extra-wide passenger seat
amongst other luxuries. It was sold
for a mere £160 after the Prime
Minister’s death in 1965, and was
not expected to fetch more than
£60,000. It was sold with the original
logbook to a bidder wishing to
remain anonymous.
Trenton Oldfield, the man who
swam between the boats during
the Oxford and Cambridge boat
race earlier this year, has been
sentenced to 6 months in prison.
The 36-year-old was convicted at
Isleworth Crown Court of public
nuisance and ordered to pay £750
costs.
His presence forced the annual
contest to be stopped for thirtyone minutes on 7 April, during
its 158th year. Oldfield, who
admitted swimming in front of
the crews, said he had decided to
demonstrate after hearing about
the government’s public spending
cuts, which he said were “worse
than in Dickens’ time.” He claimed
to be fighting elitism and chose to
target the Blues Boat Race because
“70% of the government pushing
through very significant cuts are
Oxford or Cambridge graduates.”
‘Fire risk’ flowers given council
award
Tara White, a resident of Cambridge,
has received a commendation from
the city council in the Cambridge
in Bloom competition, despite
previous complaints by the same
body that her display was a fire risk.
Despite requests to the council for
a communal garden, Ms White
is forced to plant her flowers
outside the door of her first-floor
flat, which the council claims
could block her exit. A response
from the council clarified that all
entries to the competition receive a
commendation, and in this case it
was given for her hanging baskets,
rather than the contentious pots.
Cambridge
jailed
axe-threat
According to The Crown
Prosecution
Service,
‘Public
Nuisance’ is defined as an unlawful
act or omission that endangers or
interferes with the lives, comfort,
property, or common rights of
the public. However the law has
no specific sentencing guidelines
and therefore the outcome is
dependent on the facts of each
individual case.
Many have
questioned the
severity of the sentence and
Oldfield himself is said to have
appeared surprised at the verdict.
The non-violent nature of the
crime (he says on his pre-written
Swimmers manifesto that “This
is a peaceful process, I have
no weapons, don’t shoot!”) has
led to questions about whether
the sentence is linked to the
‘establishment’
having
been
offended.
Social
networking
sites
especially
have
expressed
incredulity with some even
comparing his punishment to that
of jailed Russian punk band Pussy
Riot, who are regarded by many as
political prisoners, and victims of
an establishment where a few elite
determine the rules.
The sentence seems especially
severe when only a four-month jail
term was handed down to Aaron
Cawley, the Leeds’ supporter
who launched a drunken pitch
attack on Sheffield Wednesday’s
goalkeeper, Chris Kirkland on
19 October. Although it is yet
unknown whether the attack was
premeditated, the violent intent
has left many bewildered as to
how the sentences have worked
out this way round. It has even
been argued that rowing, as a
sport often associated with public
schools, has more powerful and
elitist supporters than football,
which is sometimes referred to as
‘the working man’s game.’
The news also calls into question
a number of issues such as the
role of protest in sport. At the
Cambridge Union Society on
Monday night, a panel of Olympic
athletes were asked about whether
protest has any role in sport.
Cycling Paralympian Dan Gordon
acknowledged that “national
interest and the huge presence of
the media can provide an attractive
opportunity to someone wishing
to cause a scene.” However, he
strongly believes that it is not
appropriate to bring politics inot
sporting events.
Last year’s Blues squad were
unavailable to comment, however,
George Nash, the Olympic Bronze
medalist who has twice won the
race while in the Light Blues boat,
believes the punishment is fair.
“The rowers spent six months of
their lives preparing intensely for
this race, but Oldfield chose to
ignore everything they and their
supporters had put into this. I
hope this sentence is a deterrent
for the future.”
Oldfield has a history of
promoting civil disobedience
and had used his blog to plan his
premeditated protest, using ‘‘key
guerrilla tactics.’’ It is yet unknown
whether he will appeal his sentence
but his partner, Deepa Naik,
issued a statement reassuring his
supporters that “Trenton would
not be deterred from protesting
again.”
Oxbridge academics criticise BBC for
grammar school broadcast
robber
Yesterday, Cambridge Crown
Court jailed a teenage robber who
threatened to behead his victim
on Christ’s pieces in an attack on
August 3rd. Ian Bullivant, who is
18 years old, has previously been
caught with a machete and has
12 convictions for 31 offences
including burglary and battery.
Bullivant’s lawyer claimed that her
client had no recollection of the
incident in which he used an axe
to rob a male victim of an iPod and
e-book, threatening “I’m going to
chop your head off ” as he had taken
cocaine and smoked cannabis.
Dan Kitwood
Madeleine Bell
News Reporter
A flood caused by a leak of
clean water from a hot water
pipe caused flooding at
Addenbrookes yesterday afternoon,
and prompted the hospital to ask
all but the critically injured or
severely ill to stay away in the face
of a “major incident”. The leak,
which occurred in an assessment
area of the accident and emergency
has limited the capacity that the
department can handle, leading
to ambulances being diverted
elsewhere. The department is still
open, and a hospital spokesman has
reassured the public that damage is
being assessed and repairs will be
undertaken.
Boat Race protester jailed for 6 months
Winston Churchill Land Rover
sold for £129,000
“Major incident” as Addenbrookes
floods
CambridgeStudent
Megan McPherson
News Reporter
The BBC has received a formal
letter of complaint from
fifteen Oxbridge academics
which criticises its programme
‘Grammar Schools: a Secret
History’. The programme, which
first aired in January and again
last week, offers a history of
the British grammar school
system based largely on personal
interviews with ex-grammar
school pupils. The academics
feel that the programme presents
too favourable an image of the
grammar school system and
are of the opinion that attitude
is particularly dangerous at a
time of heated debate about the
current educational system in
Britain.
The letter complains that the
programme used “manipulative
rhetoric” and “emotive and valueladen language …accompanied
by romantic piano music” in
order to present an idyllic picture
of the grammar school system.
The programme opens with
the line “This is the story of a
dream; the dream of giving the
very best education to Britain’s
brightest children, however
humble
their
background”
and features interviews with
successful ex-grammar school
pupils David Attenborough
and Joan Bakewell. Though it
mentions the difficulties children
faced at the 11+, the academics
believe the negative side of the
grammar school was not fully
represented.
Diane Reay, Professor of
Education at Cambridge, and
one of the signatories, told The
Cambridge Student that in the
BBC programme “scant concern
was paid to those who were
failed by the selective system”.
Professor Reay, herself a working
class student who succeeded
in the grammar school system,
admits that she was an exception
as “most working class students
ended up either in secondary
modern schools or the bottom
sets in grammar schools” and
that the “elitist hierarchical
system”
wasted
“working
class potential”. She and the
other signatories argue that
only grammar school success
stories are portrayed in this
programme.
However, Nick Shearman, the
BBC’s knowledge commissioning
executive, responded to the initial
complaint by defending the
documentary as “an insightful
and even-handed history of the
grammar school”.
Grammar school pupils who
have made it to Cambridge
express satisfaction with their
schooling experience. Alissa
Lamb, a second year Natural
Science student at Trinity
Hall said: “I had a really good
experience and didn’t find it
elitist. Lots of people in my
school, for whom a private
education would have been
impossible, received a really
good education.”
However, Lily Fritz a second
year MML student at Trinity
Hall, said that “I don’t agree
with the concept of grammar
schools but for me I think it
was a positive thing as the other
comprehensive schools nearby
were in a very bad condition”.
The grammar school problem is
a particularly important one due
to the rise in tuition fees and the
concomitant fears about social
mobility though education.
Alan Milburn, the government’s
‘social mobility tsar’, spoke last
Thursday of the need to close the
gap between state and private
schools. With grammar schools
potentially helping to close that
gap, the grammar-school debate
is likely to become a heated one.
The
CambridgeStudent
News |07
New Bond girl hated Cambridge life
Naomie Harris claims that her fellow students had ‘a distorted sense of reality’
Laurence Tidy
Co-Editor
...continued from page 1
This is not the only time Harris has reflected on her difficult
relationship with Cambridge.
Speaking to The Telegraph in
August last year, she confessed
that socially she “stuck out like
a sore thumb at Cambridge and
I came home most weekends as
I found it hard to adjust.” She
voiced similar concerns in an
interview with the Daily Mail in
2008, when she described Cambridge as “the weirdest culture”.
“Everyone pretended they
didn’t do any work, yet it was so
competitive. I went there because
I loved my subject, sociology,
and I thought, ‘I’m going to find
like-minded people and we’ll sit
up until two in the morning and
talk about the meaning of life’.
My expectations were too high.”
In the same interview, the British actress described “the people” at Cambridge as “so different to me”, so much so she “felt
so lonely. There was only one
other black person in my year;
I was very unhappy and cried
every day.”
The Undergraduate Admissions Statistics for the 2011 cycle
show that out of a total 174 ap-
plicants to Cambridge who come
under the Black Caribbean, Black
African or Black Other ethnicity
categories, 26 were accepted; a
14.9% success rate. The success
rate for applicants across the
University, however, was 21.3%.
Harris, who has also starred
in 28 Days Later, Miami Vice,
The First Grader and Pirates of
the Caribbean, found a conflict
of interests during her time at
Pembroke.
“It’s not OK to start
your career thousands
of pounds in debt.
University was free
when I went.”
“At
Cambridge
everyone
was fascinated by boys and I
wasn’t…Everyone was interested in smoking, drinking or taking drugs and I don’t do those
things.” She states that “Kenyan
children aren’t like British children. They’ve got an immense
respect for the power of education. In The First Grader I had
to teach a class of 80 pupils aged
from five to 21 and they simply
didn’t misbehave. When you ask
them to be quiet they are instantly silent.”
Nevertheless, she “loved the
challenge” of her degree.
“I’m glad I stuck at university.
I wanted to act from a young age
and I had no intention of following a different career path, but
I knew I’d reap the benefits of
higher education.”
“As an actor you need to analyse your character’s formation,
and my course in Social and
Political Science examined society’s effects on the individual.
Every day I still put into practice
things I learnt there.”
But Harris confessed in Monday’s Mirror interview that her
Mum “was right” to warn her
she “wouldn’t fit in”.
“I was from a working-class
family,” Harris stated in the
Daily Mail interview. “I went to
a comprehensive and suddenly I
was mixing with public school
people. I didn’t realise how hard
it would be to fit in - or that class
would make such a difference.
“I felt sorry for them. They
had a distorted sense of reality.
Whereas I’d had so many life experiences.”
Of the recent tripling of university tuition fees, Harris
claimed, “It’s not OK to start
your career thousands of pounds
in debt. University was free when
I went — my mum wouldn’t have
been able to afford to send me.
It worries me that young people
are being saddled with £27,000
of debt before they’ve even done
their first day’s study.”
Cambridge named super-economic city
Jennifer Buckley
News Reporter
Cambridge has been named as a
key city in helping to drag the UK
out of the recession. The city has
been named a ‘high-tech hub’ by
HSBC Commercial Banking, who
identified Cambridge as having
some of the UK’s leading business
centres.
The identification of super-cities
is part of the Growth Report which
highlights how the UK is trading their way out of the recession.
Alongside Manchester, Birmingham, and Aberdeen, Cambridge
has been identified as an emerging
super-city, joining the previously
named Bristol, London, Liverpool,
and Newcastle.
With traditional approaches to
economics in flux, the cities named
in this report have been identified
as hot-spots of creativity and centres for next-generation industry.
Cambridge has been identified as
pivotal in stem cell research, an
industry which is becoming ever
more significant as a result of the
aging population. The other key
business in Cambridge is nanotechnology; as biotech/ pharmacology and software are the two
industries which set Cambridge
apart, according to HSBC. The
university itself is also contributing
to the economy, as TCS recently
reported, with the rating agency
Moody’s awarding the University
an AAA credit rating.
So why is Cambridge a supercity when Oxford is not? Professor Ross Anderson, a fellow at the
Computer Laboratory told TCS,
“Let’s not be complacent! But
there are a lot of good firms along
the M4/M40.” Yet he also said that
the Cambridge technology industry is only a hub within the UK;
places like Bangalore, and Accra
have much lower wages and more
space for expansion.
The relationship between the
country and its economy is interrelated, said Leo Impett, Secretary
of the Cambridge Communist
Society, as he described the global
economy as a chess board. “The
chess board influences the players,
and the players influence the chess
board, which influences the game
played by the players.”
Whilst the identification of
super-cities is potentially helpful for the resurgence of the UK
economy, Anderson’s last words reflect the dilemma of playing chess
with the UK economy: “The HSBC
marketing is waffle, by the way. In
the software industry you have to
think globally, not nationally.”
Grow Further.
WANTED: PROBLEM
SOLVERS
When is a lion lying?
Alice is walking through the forest of forgetfulness and comes across
a lion and a unicorn. The Lion begins “Everything I say on Monday,
Tuesday and Wednesday is a lie. On all other days I speak the truth”.
The Unicorn continues “I, on the other hand, lie on Thursday, Friday
and Saturday. But on all other days I speak the truth”
“So”, the Lion says with a big grin, “yesterday I was lying”
“So was I”, says the Unicorn.
On which day had Alice gone for her walk?
If you want to know the answer or find out more about working at BCG,
then visit puzzle.bcglondon.com
Please register your interest in future events on cambridge.bcg.com
The
08| News
News in Brief
Cambridge CompSci launches
social app
Steve Marsh, 24, a PhD student in
computer science at Cambridge,
has launched an app which
automatically alerts you when
your friends are nearby. ‘Collide’
also suggests cafés, pubs and
restaurants in the vicinity and
carries money-off vouchers from
the venues mentioned. Marsh
is involved with Cambridge
University
Entrepreneurs,
and won this year’s Young
Entrepreneur of the Year award.
McDonald’s employee sacked
for McFlurry generosity
A Welsh McDonald’s crew
member who was asked by a
colleague to prepare a McFlurry
ice-cream for them has been
sacked for putting too many
chocolate flakes on the dessert.
Nineteen year-old Sarah Finch,
who was otherwise regarded as
an “exceptional” employee, was
accused of giving away food
without payment – a claim that
she refutes. In her letter to the
application tribunal in which
she is claiming unfair dismissal,
Ms Finch emphasised that there
is no standard measurement for
distributing chocolate flakes and
so when asked to “make a nice
one” she erred on the side of
caution.
-
CambridgeStudent
ARU admissions on the rise despite national drop
Rebecca Thomas
News Reporter
Anglia Ruskin University has
witnessed an increase of 8.3% in
their admissions for 2012-13, with
the number of undergraduates
enrolling increasing by 471 from
the last academic year. This news
comes as UCAS predicts a fall of
54,000 in admissions nation-wide,
dropping 7.4% since 2011-12.
Anglia Ruskin was not amongst
the 64 Universities to hit the
maximum £9,000 tuition fees,
charging instead an annual £8,300.
However the most popular degree
course was a vocational one, with
law admissions up 64% since last
year, proving that students are
more wary of where their fees are
going.
Sandra Hollis, Pro Vice
Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin
University expressed delight
at the recent figures, citing
the
University’s
excellent
employability rate, but also
funding and investment. In a
statement to TCS she commented:
“The investment in new facilities
on our campuses - £81 million
has been invested in the last five
years, with a further £124 million
planned over the next five years
- and our areas of world leading
research are reasons why more
people than ever are studying at
Anglia Ruskin.”
The Anglia Ruskin University
Student’s Union also cited
employability rates, along with
the wide variety of courses
offered across the four campuses.
Speaking to the TCS Francesca
Rust, president of the ARU
student’s union commented on
the value of the experience gained
at the University and the benefits
of entering higher education.
“Entering into higher education
Abandoned bicycle turned into
college artwork
Staff and students at Murray
Edwards College knitted colourful
squares to decorate a longabandoned bike. The artist, known
as “The Willow Wanderer” is
known for decorating lampposts
and bike racks with knitting.
“It’s about turning the dreary
urban landscape into something
colourful and creative,” she told the
BBC. The knitted bike was the idea
of college gardener Peter Kirkham.
This was a wider-community
project, as his friends also took
part in the knitting. The ‘candystripe’ artwork was the centrepiece
for the college’s Apple Day which
took place on Saturday.
Lancashire SU officer apologises
for Twitter joke
Joey Guy, Education Officer at the
University of Central Lancashire
Student Union, has been forced
to apologise after he made a
joke on social networking site
Twitter about April Jones, the
five-year-old Welsh girl who has
been missing for over a week.
The comment was made on his
personal Twitter account, and
although the tweet was removed
within minutes and an immediate
apology was issued, Mr Guy
had already been ‘retweeted’,
preserving the message. The
Student Union has claimed the
matter will go through its internal
disciplinary procedures.
can be a daunting prospect but
it has many advantages. Higher
education exposes you to unique
experiences, be it through peer to
peer learning, becoming a member
of a club or society, participating
in volunteering or getting
involved with the Students’ Union
which, in itself, has a vast array of
opportunities to add value to your
degree”.
However she also expressed
concern at what these rising
figures would mean for the future
of the University. She commented:
“Increased admissions may result
in pressure on existing resources
and facilities, which is why it is
more important than ever for our
University to support, and work
collaboratively with, the Students’
Union making sure our students’
experience is the best it can be
both on and off campus”
The University wasn’t the only
one to buck the trend, with an
increase of 2% in applications
to Cambridge. However the
statistics were mixed across the
Russell Group, with admissions
to Southampton University down
600 this year.
These figures have been hailed
as a success as Anglia Ruskin
University show a rise far greater
than the rest of the UK. However,
when contacted the University
were unable to expand upon
the figures given. TCS hoped to
obtain figures for post-graduate
courses, in an attempt to better
understand the impact of funding.
More updates to follow.
UK Universities are under-invested, claims
Russell Group chairman
Emily Handley
News Reporter
UK universities fear that their
high performance in global
league tables will suffer due to
underinvestment, the Russell
Group chairman, Professor David
Eastwood. has told an education
forum in the United States.
Professor Eastwood told the
‘Driving Development: Higher
Education in the New Economic
Order’ conference that a lack
of economic investment in the
United Kingdom would “blur the
public/private divide for public
universities”. He added that public
investment in the US system in
relation to its gross domestic
product “is greater than that in the
UK, despite the very substantial
private investment in US higher
education”.
This was confirmed in figures
released last month from the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which
show that UK public spending
on higher education in 2009 was
0.6% of gross domestic product,
compared with 1% in North
America.
Eastwood mentioned in his
speech that, despite these figures,
the UK “trails only the US in
research impact, research output,
international recruitment and
the effectiveness of universities as
motors of economic development”.
The conference took place two
weeks after the Times Higher
Education
World
University
Rankings 2012 showed that several
UK universities’ rankings had
fallen as their Asian counterparts
had risen in prominence.
Worries about underinvestment in
higher education institutions across
the UK have been ongoing, as they
were also addressed in the Russell
Group’s submission to the Browne
Review in January 2010. The report
stated that: “Past under-investment
left Russell Group universities with
a significant backlog in capital
investment. Income from variable
fees and dedicated capital funding
has helped to redress this, but
more investment will be needed
if research-intensive universities
are to continue providing an
internationally excellent learning
environment.”
Dr. Wendy Piatt, the Russell
Group’s Director General, told
TCS: “While our universities are
experiencing cuts in public funding,
other nations are pumping billions
into their education systems, so we
must aim to bring our investment
in higher education much closer
to that of our major competitors,
as it is crucial to improve the UK’s
growth and prosperity for the
future.”
The
10| International
The World This Week...
Fidel Castro Fights Back
The 86 year-old revolutionary
Fidel Castro, who led a coup in
Cuba in the 1950’s, has attacked
critics claiming that he is on his
death bed. In a strongly worded
article, the former President called
the allegations “lies”, publishing
photos of himself looking healthy.
Castro’s long reign saw him outlive
10 American administrations.
The Libyan town of Bani Walid,
an ex-stronghold of the Gaddafi
regime, has seen intense fighting
over recent days, leaving 22 dead.
A Libyan news agency claims that
a further 200 have been injured
in fighting between government
troops and local gunmen, perhaps
still loyal to the old regime.
Gun battle in Guinea-Bissau
Six people have been killed after
a group of gunmen attacked an
army barracks. Those killed were
branded by the army as “rebels”.
The battle took place in a nation
rocked by a coup in April and
where the cocaine industry is a
major economic player.
South Korea blocks leaflet
launch to the North
Defectors from North Korea
now living in South Korea have
been prevented by police from
launching propaganda leaflets
over the border via balloons. The
South Korean government reacted
to a threat by the North Korean
government that in the event of
such a launch they would open fire
on South Korean installations.
Basque victory in Spanish
local elections
Regional elections in the Spanish
Basque region have seen the
victory of the conservative Basque
Nationalist Party, prompting
some to speculate about a move
towards independence for the
region. In Galicia, Prime Minister
Rajoy maintained his party’s
dominance.
Qatar’s emir visits Gaza
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa alThani visited Hamas Prime
Minister Ismail Haniya in Gaza
this week, pledging £250 million
to support building work. Qatar
has replaced Syria in recent
months as an important source of
income for Hamas.
Attacks in Baghdad ahead of
Eid al-Adha
Eight people were killed on
Tuesday in Shia districts of
Baghdad in a car bomb and mortar
attacks. Violence has decreased
in the region since the height of
the insurgency but attacks still
frequently plague the region.
Comment: Germany fight Nazi right
Jack Tunmore
International Co-Editor
In response to growing political
pressure to ban the National
Democratic Party of Germany
(NPD) – the far-right German
nationalist party – the authorities
have compiled a dossier of over
1,000 pages in an attempt to prove
that the party is undemocratic.
That the NPD’s membership
base is almost entirely made up of
neo-Nazis who oppose democracy
in Germany is clear from their
rallies. Open proclamations of antiSemitism, as well as their affinity
to Hitler is demonstrated by their
representatives in local government
and state parliaments.
The threat from the far-right in
Germany is very real. The murders
of eight Turkish shop owners and
one Greek man across Germany
between 2000 and 2006 were
viewed by the police as the work of
local gangsters, but were actually
committed by a neo-Nazi trio,
the self-styled National Socialist
Underground, with clear links to
members of the NPD.
The current move to ban the NPD
has consequently received support
from across the political spectrum,
from the conservative CDU/CSU
to the Green Party, the SPD and Die
This week in the
US election...
Following a well-received debate
performance last week President
Obama went on the offensive this
week, accusing his Republican
opponent of having “Romnesia”
for apparently shifting policy
positions during the campaign.
Speaking at a rally in Florida, Mitt
Romney told supporters that the
President had “no agenda” for
a second term, saying his reelection campaign had been
“reduced to petty attacks and silly
word games”.
The President did receive one key
endorsement on Sunday however,
as the Obama for America
campaign team announced that
Bruce Springsteen would be
playing live at a rally for supporters
and volunteers in Charlottesville,
Virginia on Tuesday.
With just two weeks left of the
campaign for the White House,
the race still remains too close to
call. A Real Clear Politics average
of polls suggests that the national
race is tied, while pundits this
week asked whether Romney could
win the popular vote, but lose the
Electoral College, as President
Obama continues to perform
better in key battleground
states.While one Gallup poll on
Sunday put the GOP nominee six
points ahead nationally, polling
shows that Obama is still ahead
in key states including Ohio and
Michigan, where Mitt Romney’s
father was Governor.
Justin Kempley
Linke on the left.
Given the fact that the party also
receives millions of Euros in
government funding every year,
its tradition of holocaust denial
and opposition to Germany’s
Grundgesetz – the German
constitution which, ironically,
currently protect the NPD from
being banned – are particularly
galling.
Whilst a ban would be popular,
however, it may well not only fail but
be deeply counter-productive. An
attempt to make the NPD illegal in
2003 was thrown out of the Federal
Constitutional Court because such
a large number of government
informants were involved at the
top levels of the party that the court
could not differentiate between
which documents were written by
genuine NPD members, and which
were the creation of government
employees. The NPD was buoyed
by this decision, and went on to
win two parliamentary seats at a
state level. Another failed attempt
to ban the party would not only
serve to legitimise the NPD in the
eyes of sections of the electorate,
but could also create an image
of the government as desperate
and unable to deal with extremist
threats.
Marek Peters
22 killed in attack on Gaddafi
stronghold
CambridgeStudent
Even if the government’s attempt
were to succeed in the court, it
may not succeed in reversing
the worrying rise of the right in
Germany. The far-right would
lose a great deal of government
funding, and the removal of the
official structure of the NPD
would indeed be a further blow. It
would do little, however, to address
Germany’s broader problem with
right-wing extremism, and to limit
the campaigns of thousands of neoNazi activists spread over hundreds
of groups, who could now rally
against what may be presented as an
attack on their freedom of speech.
Such a complex problem warrants
not a potentially clumsy attempt to
ban one political party, but rather
a real debate about right-wing
extremism in Germany. How can
it be, in a country which appears
to do so much to commemorate
the horrors of the past, that 21% of
Germans aged 18 to 30 have never
heard of Auschwitz, according
to a survey carried out earlier
this year? Is it really the case that
a rise in the popularity of the
right is linked solely with the
current economic crisis, or are
there communities in Germany
which need serious investment to
tackle social segregation and foster
mutual understanding? The debate
surrounding the NPD has created
an opportunity to address the
Analysis: Obama and Romney fail to inspire
Jenny Steinitz
Only a few weeks ago, the
third US Presidential Debate on
foreign policy was expected to be
an informal crowning ceremony
for Obama. Here was a President
who was leading the polls with
a comfortable advantage, had
ended an unpopular war in Iraq,
intervened to overthrow a hated
tyrant in Libya and done in two
years what his predecessor had
failed to do in eight: kill Osama Bin
Laden. This President was facing
an opponent with no foreign policy
experience, who had in the last
few months committed a series of
foreign policy gaffes that had made
even the staunchest of Romney
supporters
cringe
(including
offending the US’ closest ally by
criticising the handling of the
London Olympics and calling Russia
the largest geopolitical threat facing
the US today). And yet, following a
lacklustre performance by Obama
in the first presidential debate and
weeks of turmoil in the Middle
East, the two candidates went into
this week’s debate neck and neck.
Both had a lot to prove, but neither
rose to the challenge.
Both men wasted the foreign
policy debate by talking mostly
about domestic issues, rather than
setting out any genuine foreign
policy vision for the world. Perhaps
they could do nothing else when
extensive polling suggests that the
economy is the most important
aspect of the campaign. Even when
staying on topic, the majority of the
debate centred on the Middle East
and China. The Euro Crisis got only
a passing mention, and the drug
wars of Latin America were left
untouched.
To be sure, the debate included
some memorable moments. Obama’s
zinger “the 1980s are calling to have
their foreign policy back” is likely to
be one of the most memorable lines of
the night, if not the entire campaign.
But if anyone tuned into this week’s
debate hoping to get a more detailed
account of the challenger’s foreign
policy or to hear distinctive strategies
for the US in global politics, they were
to be sadly disappointed. Romney
was on the defensive throughout the
debate, agreeing with the President
on Iran and Al-Qaeda, and only
warily criticising what he saw as
too soft a position on China and a
communications strategy gone awry
following the attack on US diplomats
in Libya.
The President seized the
advantage, and
used the
opportunity to expose the flipflopping of Governor Romney and
harp on about past successes, rather
than set out a new global strategy
for the next four years.
Obama ‘won’ the debate
according to most snap polls, but
it is unlikely that the performance
will see any major swings in voting
intentions given that neither
candidate brought anything more
than semantic attacks on their
opponent’s past record to the table.
It was perhaps naïve of us to hope
for any real content in the last of
this year’s presidential debates,
when style over substance has too
often been characteristic of US
presidential debates and elections
since the 1960s. November 6th will
prove to be a tight race, but in terms
of foreign policy the outcome either
way seems predictable: a reactive
rather than proactive US approach
to global politics.
The
CambridgeStudent
International
|11
Analysis: Early elections in Israel
News: West Bank speaks
Stephanie Taic
Michael Campbell
International Co-Editor
On 9 October 2012 Israel’s Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
called for early elections to be
held early in the new year after
unsuccessfully attempting to bind
his coalition partners to pass
an austere ‘‘responsible budget’’.
Despite its delay, the economic
‘domino effect’ of the global
recession has reached the shores of
his country during the past year.
Mr. Netanyahu has a lot to
gain politically from the early
elections. As widely predicted by
many political commentators, Mr.
Netanyahu is likely to return to
claim his seat as Prime Minister
at the beginning of 2013 (instead
of November 2013), in a stronger
position within the coalition
government. It will enable him not
only to pass the budget, but also
meet his self-assigned deadline of
summer 2013 for action against
the advancement of Iran’s nuclear
capacities.
This is his signature issue, which
he recently voiced in his address
to the United Nations General
centre and weakened by its recent
unsuccessful years as head of the
opposition, is the Kadima party,
currently led by Shaul Mofaz. It
is looking forward to the possible
return to politics of former Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert who may
even pose a challenge to Mr.
Netanyahu’s leadership. Mr. Olmert
stepped down from power in 2009
amidst allegations of corruption,
resulting in a suspended sentence.
The world will watch with
interest as Mr. Netanyahu
determines which of these
disparate opposition forces would
best suit his political agenda in
the coming years. Will it be the
‘natural-choice’ of right-wing and
religious partners or will he favour
the more centrist Kadima party or
Local elections in the West Bank
have been ‘‘marked by a lack of political pluralism and limited competition’’ claimed the US monitor
The Carter Center. Though admitting the elections were well-administered, the organisation was
disturbed by the lack of credible
alternatives to a ballot dominated
by Fatah after a boycott by the rival
movement Hamas.
Turnout was much lower than
on previous occasions, at only 55%,
and there were no elections in over
half the municipalities due to a lack
of candidates. Fatah claimed the
results showed a huge amount of
support for their policies, but this
has been contested both by Hamas
and former Fatah members, many
of whom ran successfully as rebel
independents.
Many see the elections as simply revealing that Fatah is out of
touch with the population, despite
wining two fifths of the seats contested. The were protests last month
against the party due to a freeze on
civil servants’ salaries and a rise in
fuel prices. In their findings, The
Carter Center concluded that the
polls were a “positive but limited
step towards the realisation of democratisation in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
More International at
TCS online...
Joseph Ataman on the Gazabound ship intercepted by Israel.
Sammy Nanneh on the bombing
in Beirut.
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ISM Palestine
Netanyahu has a lot to
gain politically from
the early elections
Assembly and which he is certain
to place at the core of his current
campaign. Moreover, these early
elections will not be affected by
any possible worsening of Mr.
Netanyahu’s political relations with
a second-term Obama. On the
other hand, an inauguration of Mitt
Romney might encourage voters
to capitalise on the political and
personal warmth already known to
exist between the potentially newly
elected President and incumbent
Prime Minister.
With respect to other political
parties, Likud’s religious coalition
partner Shas has suspended the
appointment of the head of its party
by its spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadya
Yosef. The ‘race’ is split between
the current leader of the party and
Minister of Internal Affairs in Israel,
Eli Yishai, and the largely popular
politician Aryeh Deri, who was
convicted of corruption thirteen
years ago. On the other side of the
political spectrum, many support
the newly established party Yesh
Atid - There is a future - of Yair
Lapid, the son of a very respected
late politician and himself a former
nationally favoured journalist.
His party aspires challenge the
already weak left-wing parties,
Meretz and the Labour party led
by Shelly Yachimovich, also a
former journalist and a champion
of socialist principles. At the
The
12| Comment
Comment
CambridgeStudent
Should the University of Cambridge be
monitoring its students’ Internet activity?
As TCS reported last week, the University of Leeds’ controversial decision to suspend the Internet usage of three of its students, after they posted negative
comments about the University’s lecturers on Twitter, has raised serious questions about the ability of the University to track our every cyberspace move.
We ask: Should students have the right to privacy, or should the University be able to track its network’s activity for our safety?
Yes: University surveillance
of the internet, which is
hardly a private forum, is for
our own good, claims Xavier
Hetherington
No: There isn’t enough
justification for the
University monitoring
our activities so
closely, argues Ben
Phillips
In light of the recent controversy
over the University of Leeds punishing students with an Internet ban for
slandering the university on Twitter,
we find ourselves asking whether
our university should monitor its
students’ network use. Those who
rush to oppose the idea that Cambridge is well within its rights to
monitor Internet use, and cite again
the words of Orwell to help us see
that the world really is going to the
dogs, may have forgotten three essential truths: firstly, that all our actions on the Internet are observable
anyway; secondly, that no-one in
the Cambridge IT department really cares about (or looks too closely
at) what we’re up to on the Internet;
and thirdly, that the University has
responsibilities to the users of its
network, which necessarily involve
monitoring online activity.
The furore over the University of
Leeds’ punishment of three students
who used the University network
to criticise lecturers on Twitter has
raised uncomfortable and difficult
questions closer to home.
How much of our Internet usage is monitored by the University?
And how would it respond under the
same circumstances? These are surely issues of great concern to many
students here in Cambridge. After a
laboured search, I found this passage
right at the bottom of my own college’s Data Protection policy. It allows
members of the IT department to:
“…have day-to-day access to the
College’s electronic databases for
various purposes, [including] security and other legitimate College
purposes, for example, monitoring
email/internet and network session
information in accordance with College policies.”
Although there is no centralised
University policy as such, we are,
without a doubt, being watched.
I would argue that the burden is
on those who claim the University
should have access to our Internet
activity to explain why this should be
the case. There seems to be no clear
justification. The University understandably wants to have some degree
of control over the network, but a
very strong principle is required to
justify the level of monitoring it asserts.
The Internet has changed our conception of privacy. Take Facebook.
This website, now used by one seventh of the world’s population, creates an expectation – marked by the
“What’s on your mind?” prompt in
the status box – that you share your
thoughts with however many hundreds of ‘friends’ you have, telling
them precisely how you feel. Conversations, for the large part, take
place in a public forum and are often
shaped to amuse potential third parties. If we assume, which we safely
can, that the vast majority of Cambridge students use Facebook, writing statuses and wall posts, it seems
odd that they should be concerned
about the monitoring of their Internet activity when they willingly
broadcast conversations and images
and thoughts which would have, before the Internet, been considered
private. Furthermore, they broadcast
this information to interested parties, who know the writer personally
and can pass on what they have seen
to other acquaintances, and use it as
“A very solid
justification
is needed for
authorities to look
into one’s private
business”
“The University has
an obligation to
protect its students’
network”
The chief conflict here is between
practicality and principle. Whilst it
is unsavoury to think that we are being watched, the fact the University
of Cambridge is the watcher should
be comforting. But if you really can’t
stand it, just use mobile internet instead, and let the Telecom companies spy on you.
All this raises a wider societal issue: the insidious erosion of free
speech and the channels through
which it can be asserted is something
we should all be concerned about.
Take the example of the three unfortunate students at Leeds. They undoubtedly behaved in an unpleasant
manner, and raising their grievances
through the proper channels would
Xavier Hetherington is a first-year
Classicist at St. John’s
While overall Internet usage is steadily rising, a recent Ofcom report has revealed that only 1 in 5 Britons
are worried by online insecurity, while only 8% of Britons are seriously concerned about their online privacy
Image: gizmodo
“The Internet
has changed our
conception of
privacy”
they wish.
This leads to the second point,
which is that that the people in the
University of Cambridge’s IT office
do not know you and are not really
going to care about what you are doing on the Internet, unless that activity is potentially damaging to the
reputation on which the University’s
existence and continued success
in large part relies. In any case, the
University has no right to share the
information it gathers. Whilst the
idea of being observed is not pleasant, in reality it makes very little
difference to the life of the average
person. Monitoring by the University is not for the purpose of reading
your emails to find out whether you
are a subversive or not. If you were
to express discontent about the University in an email, that email might
possibly be seen, but no one would
care. The factor that made the Leeds
case special was the extent and public nature of the denouncement, the
discovery of which was hardly the
result of covert monitoring; anyone
could go on Twitter and see it.
Finally, the University of Cambridge has an obligation to the users of its network to protect their
Internet and their work. Necessarily, therefore, the various authorities
are obliged to monitor the use of
the Cambridge University network
to ensure that sites which might infect a computer and the network by
proxy are appropriately filtered.
have been a better option for all involved. However, it appears entirely
bizarre to me that the authorities of
the University of Leeds regarded the
removal of their Internet services as a
proportionate response. As Dr. Tom
Simpson, a research fellow at Sidney
Sussex working in Internet ethics,
put it: “[it is] akin to banning someone from eating because they were
involved in a food fight.”
Stop and ask yourself if you know
for sure that our own university
would not respond in the same way
if such a situation arose. Whether or
not you would act in a brazen manner similar to these three students is
irrelevant. There may well come a
day when you would be justified in
raising a concern about university
policy or practice, and when that day
comes you should not have to fear
repercussions because your online
activity is being monitored.
“Such vast
information in the
hands of so few is
something of which
we should be wary”
Some would say that unless you
are hell-bent on causing harm to the
University, or on breaking a law, you
have nothing to fear. But one does
not have to be doing anything wrong
to believe that there should be a solid
justification for authorities of any
kind looking into one’s private business. This point is an important one
to impress in the debate as a whole.
It’s perfectly reasonable to fear what
such total information regarding
your Internet activity may be used
for; we already see targeted adverts
based on browsing history from sites
such as Google and Facebook. What
may the next few years hold? Such
vast information (and, by extension,
power) concentrated in the hands
of so few is something of which we
should all be very wary indeed.
Ben Phillips is a second-year Philosopher at Downing
Internet censorship occurs in countries we may not
have suspected - France and Germany filter sites that
deny the Holocaust, while countries such as Syria and
the UAE get their censoring technology from the USA
The
CambridgeStudent
Comment |13
: pitfalls and practicalities
With a billion people now on Facebook, it is clear that the advantages of the social network cannot be denied
Tara Cummings
The practicality of a platform for
communicating with the general
audience of one’s social circle
is underestimated by some; the
ease of organising group events
seems more to strengthen reallife friendships than to separate
them with a computer screen. This
mass-approach serves many of
the same purposes as forums and
town squares used to, offering an
open venue for all to pursue their
social lives. Facebook’s home page
could be seen as a room full of
people engaged in their own niche
conversations, but with the added
benefit of allowing these casual
interactions to take place between
individuals separated by hundreds
of miles.
It’s these spontaneous exchanges
that make Facebook uniquely
successful. Being able to simply
log on and find your entire social
network on the screen makes
Facebook a natural extension,
rather than replacement, of our
friendships: an extension that
the brevity of Twitter and the
inconvenience of ‘Skype dates’
cannot match.
Tara Cummings is a first-year
English student at Girton College
Sinking: Mark Zuckerberg is estimated to have lost nearly
$9 billion since May - but he’s still worth $10.2 billion
"Kids live in a
technical world
– I’m helping
t hem to make
sense o f it "
Gopal Rao, ‘09
Engineering
Studied: Manufact uring
Now: Founder of TarGetMore
(a social enterprise)
CHANGE THEIR LIVES
AND CHANGE YOURS
Teach First Employer Presentation
Wednesday 31 October, 1pm-2pm
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street,
Cambridge CB2 1RP
Guest speakers: Brett Wigdortz Founder and CEO of
Teach First and Catriona Maclay, Cambridge alumni,
Teach First ambassador and founder of Hackney Pirates.
To sign up and find out about the 2013 Leadership
Development Programme, please email Charlotte
Edwards: charlotte.edwards@teachfirst.org.uk
www.teachfirst.org.uk
Teach First is a registered charity, no:1098294
Images: marcopako ï£¿;; Guillaume Paumier
That I use Facebook goes without
saying. If you fall in to the 18-25
year old procrastinator category,
I assume you do too. Facebook’s
recent announcement of its billionth
user reveals that 1 in 7 people on
the planet has a presence on the
social network, with Freshers’
Week’s photo-tagging and friendadding chaos suggesting that I’ve
met a decent proportion of these
since arriving in Cambridge.
Yet away from the brilliance
(or relief) of clarifying socialising
blurs into lists of names and faces,
a prolonged and widespread
attachment
to
Facebook
occasionally threatens to spill
into undesired territories. The
introduction of the ‘timeline’ –
attempting to map every ‘life event’
from birth until, presumably,
death – presented the questionable
extent to which this networking
tool intends to run as a parallel
existence. Indeed, registering
your date of birth as its starting
point rather than when you joined
Facebook depicts it claiming
information of areas one would
consider inherently closed off from
a virtual networks: your life before
you had even signed up. Retaining
its members’ details when they have
cancelled their account – dormant,
rather than destroyed. in hope for
their return – hints at Facebook’s
bewildering grip on our personal
information.
Furthermore, the cumulative
effect of the network leads to an
unnaturally prolonged connection
to phases or people which would
have otherwise been forgotten.
More than just new friends’ ability
to discover your horrendous
Year 10 fringe, Facebook forces
an uncomfortable proximity to,
essentially, strangers. People I
haven’t seen since primary school
announcing break-ups leaves me
feeling awkwardly voyeuristic,
being clearly not the intended
audience. The social minefield of
adding and unfriending makes
severing
these
connections
complex to the point of evasion
– some feeling that deletion is for
people you rarely see, others that it
constitutes a callous final resort to
an argument.
However, despite the unnerving
way Facebook has rewritten
elements of our real-life social
conduct, the sheer volume of its
user figures argues its value as an
enrichment of our relationships.
interview
Julian Huppert talks to Iravati Guha about the future
of the Liberal Democrats
debating style, where you win by
showing that the other side doesn’t
know what they’re talking about
and you do. Model United Nations
by contrast is about finding a
resolution that brings everybody
together, and that has informed
my interest in politics, and the way
I try to go about solving issues.
You were involved with the
student Lib Dems - so you knew
you were a Lib Dem back then?
I knew I was a Lib Dem when I was
about seventeen. I always knew
I was left of centre, my politics
awareness was around the Tories
being in government and the
problems of that time. I still have a
gut dislike of Margaret Thatcher. I
couldn’t make myself go and see the
movie about her - I saw the trailer
but hearing that voice, I couldn’t do
it. I found that I agreed with the Lib
Dem spokesperson on most issues,
and I know that I am a gut liberal.
Martin Gammon
Dr. Julian Huppert is a Liberal Democrat politician,
and the current Member of Parliament for Cambridge. Having
lived in Cambridge since he was a child, Huppert studied
Natural Sciences at Trinity College before going on to do a
PhD in biological chemistry and later becoming a fellow of
Clare College. Huppert worked as the County Councillor for
East Chesterton for eight years, and in 2010, was elected MP.
You moved straight from
academia
to
politics
–
how do the two compare?
to admit when they’ve made
mistakes, or even say, ‘I don’t know’.
They’re
completely
different
worlds, in a number of ways, and it’s
actually been quite disappointing
to see how different they are.
In academics, or in any form of
research, you come up with an idea,
you try it out, and you can be happy
to say, “well, it didn’t work”. But the
problem with politics is that people
never admit when they’ve made a
mistake - it’s considered very, very
harmful. Nick [Clegg] apologised
for doing something wrong - he’s
about the first politician to have
done that for a very long time.
It’s not accepted in general, and
so people go ahead with things,
even though it should be possible
to say, “I thought about this idea,
I spoke to some people, and now
I’m not doing it”. That’s better than
just going ahead regardless. I was
one of the million that marched
against the Iraq war, but the
politicians were just not going to
change their minds about that. So
I wish we could just move into a
world where people are prepared
Tell us a bit about your time
as a student at Cambridge:
were you actively involved
in
politics
even
then?
14
Interview
Yeah, I did quite a lot of things. I
was a Natsci at Trinity and I really
enjoyed it. I was involved with the
student Lib Dems then. I was also
involved with something called
Model United Nations - I set up
the Model United Nations (MUN)
society and we ran the World
Conference here in Cambridge
in 1999. One of the things that is
interesting about MUN compared
to debating - I did a little bit
of debating - is that MUN is a
simulation of the work of the UN.
You represent different countries,
and the aim is to produce
something which can be agreed by
most people. You’re trying to bring
people on board, whereas debating
is traditionally about showing how
the other side don’t understand
it as well as you do. Traditionally,
politics has been more of the
Interestingly, until 1950, the
University of Cambridge was
directly represented by an MP.
Since this is no longer the case, as
the member for Cambridge, do
you feel a special duty to represent
the interests of the university, and
students and higher education
in general, in parliament?
Yes, you’re right – in fact Isaac
Newton was an MP for Cambridge
University (although rather a better
scientist than an MP). Cambridge
is a fascinating seat because it
is so varied. I do have a role in
representing the three universities
that we have in Cambridge - the
University of Cambridge, Anglia
Ruskin University, and the Open
University, that has a branch
here. Students are a large part
of my constituency. I go to the
Fresher’s Fair and speak quite
regularly with CUSU. But students
aren’t of course all that there is
in Cambridge - I’ve just come
from the one year celebration for
the Flack magazine, which is a
magazine produced by homeless
and ex-homeless people. That is
a different part of Cambridge,
but a very important part as well.
Do you feel betrayed by the
coalition? Looking back, would
you say that the coalition was
a bad idea for the Lib Dems?
I thought that at the time when
the election happened, and it all
happened very quickly. Somebody
had to form the government. I
was quite keen that we looked
at talking to the Tories as well as
Labour. Part of the problem of
course was that the numbers didn’t
add up. All the Lib Dems, plus all
of Labour, didn’t add up to half the
seats. It’s also the case that Labour
weren’t in a place where they could
do it. They had requirements that
included increasing fees, a third
runway at Heathrow, and massive
environmental damage. They also
refused to go ahead with many of
the things that we wanted to do,
like lifting poorly paid people out
of income tax. So we just couldn’t
make it work. The only option left
was the Tories - either letting them
form a minority government, or
forming a coalition. The former
would give the Tories the power
to do a large number of things
without us having a say. They
would have done incredibly
damaging things, I think. We’ve
stopped them from doing some
of these, like the proposal they
want which says that under-25s
can’t have housing benefits. So
that really left us just with the
option of a coalition. I wouldn’t
have chosen our first experience
in government to be a coalition,
and one with the Tories, but it
was the only option at the time.
What does being a Liberal
Democrat mean in 2012? What
do you see as the core values
of your party, given that on
electoral reform and tuition
fees, to name just two key issues,
your party has had to U-turn?
The core values haven’t changed. I
actually think they’re best summed
up by the pre-amble to our party
constitution, I think it’s beautiful:
‘The Liberal Democrats exist to
build and safeguard a free, fair and
open society, in which no one shall
be enslaved by poverty, ignorance
or conformity’. So it’s about freeing
people. Poverty isn’t about what
your bank balance is - it’s about what
it stops you from doing. Education
is important not because it means
you’ll earn more money later, but
because it frees you to do what
you want to do. The reason why
we’re socially a very liberal party
is because we want to free people
so that they aren’t constrained by
their ethnicity, gender, sexuality,
whatever it might be. I think that’s
actually more important than the
detailed policies. But in terms of
the detailed policies, there’s actually
a lot we’re doing: for one, tax
fairness, lifting poorly paid people
out of income tax, that was our
number one promise during the
election. I also think that nobody
should pay any income tax on the
minimum wage. I want to couple
that with more taxation at the top
end. We’ve got extra resources to
clamp down on tax evasion and
problematic avoidance, and we’ve
increased capital tax gains. The
last government cut capital gains
tax, so that if you were a banker
and you got paid dividends, the
tax you paid was less than your
cleaner did. So that was the wrong
way around, and we changed
that - all the evidence shows that
taxation is now more progressive.
Are you optimistic about the
future of the Liberal Democrats?
Always. This will be a tough
time. Being in government is
always harder than not being in
government, because making
decisions is tough. We’re in a
position where there was no money.
Whoever was in power now would
have to be making cuts. It’s much
nicer to be in government at a time
when there’s lots of spare money
and the economy’s going really
well. But I think we’ve learnt a lot
from it. People used to say to us, I
would vote for you, but you won’t
actually be in government. So
hopefully we’ll get over that and we
will be able to show all of the things
that we have done - the People
Premium, lifting people out of
income tax, screening investment
banks, the green deal, getting rid of
identity cards, reducing DNA data.
There is a huge number of things
that I’m very proud we’ve done. I
hope we’ll be able to tell people,
“Look, you voted for us, we got
9% of the MPs and we managed
to do all of this. Give us 20% of
the MPs and we’ll be able to do
more”. It will be tough to get that
message out and things like the
national issue with tuition fees will
be a problem. But I think it won’t
be as tough as some people say, I
think we have a strong message to
show off what we’ve actually done.
Dry Stone Walling 'Hands On' taster day.
Saturday 3rd Nov: 10am - 4pm
Cost: £45 per person
Booking required
Limited ten spaces
Mepal Outdoor Centre, Ely CB6 2AZ
Require: packed lunch, suitable clothing, shoes
Trainer: John Holt 07749032680
www.londonschoolofdsw.co.uk
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The
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CambridgeStudent
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Email [email protected].
Hallow... what?
Eun-Young Park explores the increasingly global reach of Halloween, and how Cambridge’s celebrations measure up
A
s an international student,
my image of Halloween has
always been vague. Sure, I
knew about the Jack-O-Lantern
and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, but that was
the limit of my knowledge.
Friends in America are already
posting their costumes on Fa-
cebook and Halloween spirit can be
found in the peaceful city of Cambridge as well – there are pumpkins
in Market Square and spider-shaped
candies in Sainsbury’s. Apart from
that, however, the city of Cambridge
seems oddly spiritless as we approach
the night of spirits.
Halloween, a contraction of All
Hallows’ Eve, evokes fantasy for
those who have never experienced
it, and fond memories for those who
remember their trick-or-treating.
However, many international students have come to expect what they
have seen in American movies and
books and seem to be confused over
what to expect in Cambridge.
“I knew Halloween celebration
was more of a U.S. thing, but did
not know that it was so small in the
UK,” commented Ryu, a Linguistics
fresher at Girton College, who graduated from international school in
Singapore.
“Even back in Singapore we celebrated it big and huge, had fun
and prepared for it for weeks - went
trick-or-treating, decorated walls,
wore costumes - and it’s in Asia!”,
she added.
Nghiem, a fresher at St John’s College from France, is quite familiar
with Halloween and the world-fa-
mous pastime of trick-or-treating.
She brought disguises and costumes
just in case, but admitted that she
does not really have the clearest idea
how it all works in the UK. Whether
she decides to celebrate or not will
just have to “[depend] on whether
I have time and what other people
will do”.
A graduate student from Hong
Kong also mentioned the “Yue
Lan”, (translated as the ‘party of the
starving dead’, but also known as
the hungry ghosts’ festival), which
involves offering food to the spirits
of the deceased in order to prevent
them from wandering the Earth,
cursing people with bad luck. “I like
the Hong Kong version, all right,”
she said, “but I really want to experience what Halloween is going to be
like here – after all, it is a western
tradition.”
Although Cambridge itself may
seem quieter than it should be for
Halloween, there are more things to
do than go to Sainsbury’s and buy
candies, or look at ridiculous costumes - although that in itself can be
fun. For students who have not had
the time to explore the city’s Halloween attractions, the information
centre is imbuing their usual walking and punting tour with a sense of
spookiness. Lasting about 90 minutes, this unfamiliar story of our
familiar University might be a good
experience for those new to Halloween. For a mere £6.00, would you
pass up a chance to see Cromwell’s
ghost?
Cambridge University Rambling
Club is holding a Halloween Night
Hike in Brandon on 28th, for all
students except the ‘faint of heart’. If
roaming around in the cold does not
suit, students can always try something with their college friends.
Christ’s College is holding a Pumpkin Carving Competition on Monday 29. For students who just want
some party spirit, Anglia Ruskin
University’s Halloween Horror Ball
is being hosted by HouseOlogy on
the 29th. For rockers, the Halloween Rock ‘N’ Roll Carnival sideshow
awaits - Man on The Moon is going
to bring rock and Halloween together. For clubbers the Halloween Horror Ball All Nighter is taking place at
Fez on the 29th.
‘Enjoyment’ may be a strange
word for first-timers to reconcile
themselves to a festival about
ghosts and witches – yet with the
right spirit, it looks like Cambridge
students can scream along with the
rest of the world. Image credit: Eduardo Pavon
his art collection to the University
of Cambridge. Beyond the house
and the gallery, talks by curators,
artists and graduate students of the
University as well as various musical
events turn Kettle’s Yard into a vivid
cultural centre in Cambridge.
Ede’s first-class art collection,
containing
works by highlyregarded artists such as Joan Miró,
Henry Moore, Constantin Brancusi
and others, is exhibited throughout
the house alongside his furniture
and other personal items. All of
these are set up according to very
specific guidelines that Ede made
during his lifetime.
The really unique and fascinating
aspect of this display is that equal
importance is given to both the
actual artworks and the aesthetic
aspect of everyday objects such
as the shape of plant leaves or
the shadow play of the afternoon
sun. This constitutes a rather new
approach in the common practice
of exhibition set-up.
It clearly breaks down the classical
hierarchy of artwork over everyday
object, but does so in a way that
favours the amateur visitor as it
invites a contemplation of the general
aesthetic appearance of the artworks
displayed, instead of privileging
a strictly academic approach.
This is also underlined by the
fact that all displayed objects
lack an identification label. This
allows for the possibility that
the unenlightened visitor may
unknowingly cold-shoulder a Miró
to examine instead a less-known
local artist.
All this makes Kettle’s Yard a
vibrant and fascinating cultural
institution and a great place to visit
for students, tourists and simply artlovers alike.
A museum with
mass appeal
Nicole Kanne visits a University attraction
not to be missed
The typical visit to a museum is often
associated with aching legs and a sort
of desperate incomprehension due
abundance of food and kitchenware
often arouses a yearning for the
museum’s tea room, and the most
popular pictures tend to be the funny
postcards that can so often be found
in museums’ gift shops.
This is actually particularly
unfortunate, given the fact that a
work of art can have so many positive
effects upon those who experience it,
be it through the information it holds
on a different time or culture, or the
joy it provides through its aesthetic
appearance.
Kettle’s Yard, the home of
Harold Stanley “Jim” Ede (18951990), an English art collector and
former curator at the Tate Gallery
in London, offers a refreshing
alternative to this. Located on Castle
Street, in close proximity to the city
centre, Kettle’s Yard consists of Jim
Ede’s house and a small gallery for
temporary exhibitions. The current
contemporary exhibition is Winifred
Nicholson – Music of Colour and will
be on display until 21st December.
In 1966, Ede gave the house and
Images: Kettle’s Yard Paul Allitt
16| Features
to long hours of standing in front of
an artwork one quite simply doesn’t
understand. The contemplation
of a Dutch still life displaying an
The
CambridgeStudent
features
International Cambridge
Coming to university can be unnerving - so can moving to a new country.
B
Hilary Samuels finds out what it’s like to do both by talking to Cambridge’s international freshers
eing a fresher in Cambridge
is undeniably quite a scary
experience. On top of the usual
university worries about living alone,
making friends as quickly as possible,
and learning to cook, the intimidation
factor of the work at Cambridge
presents a unique challenge in itself.
Everyone here has been at least slightly
anxious about a lecture that went
completely over their head, or an essay
that simply won’t get off the ground.
For the 1,200 international students
currently studying at Cambridge
these troubles are amplified by the
ever-present knowledge that they can’t
escape ‘the bubble’ for the weekend
whenever they choose. If anything
goes wrong, a Skype conference with
mum (carefully scheduled to work
around the time difference) is the
only option, complete with pixelated
images and often a poor internet
connection.
While everyone else is going to
Cindies, international students are
in meetings with banks, dealing
with visas and shopping for climateappropriate clothing. On top of the
tribulations of settling in at university,
international students have to deal
with the additional hassle of settling
into a new country.
On the other hand, perhaps being
an international student has its
advantages. There is arguably a sense
of solidarity within the international
student community (which makes up
7% of our total student population),
which certainly helped me; allowed
me to properly enjoy fresher’s week!
I am British and a ‘home student’
but have lived overseas in the AsiaPacific region for almost my entire
life. I’ve had an amazing time as
a freshers so far, and having an
interesting back-story does at least
provide a good conversation starter.
However, there have undeniably
been a few culture shocks: to someone
used to temperatures in excess of
30 degrees who has never owned a
decent coat, finding myself facing the
blasting winds of Kings Parade was a
genuine challenge! I am still confused
as to how a public school is actually
entirely the opposite of its name and
I missed out on all the British kids’
TV shows which everyone seems
to spend so much time reminiscing
about. Even something as simple as
buying a coffee is a strangely jarring
experience, when you’re confronted
with a completely alien set of coins.
However, having been to a British
school and with family in the UK, I
wasn’t completely new to the British
way of life, so I spoke to some ‘real’
international students.
The first question I wanted to ask
an international student is ‘Why
Cambridge?’ Looking at some
university league tables gives one
obvious answer, but more often
than not, there is more to it than
that. An international student has
had the opportunity to apply to
any university in the world and has
narrowed it down to the UK, and
then to Cambridge. We know it isn’t
the weather that attracted them here,
but Cambridge’s reputation, mythos,
and proximity to London certainly
helps.
Interestingly enough, however,
most international students mention
summer camps or trips to Cambridge
where they attended taster lectures as
the reason why they decided to apply.
For these students this may have
involved a long-haul flight and gives
an indication of the commitment
and level of thought that goes into
the decision. “I actually attended a
summer school in Oxford, and fell
in love with it,” said one student from
Switzerland, studying History, “but in
the end I chose Cambridge because I
wanted to be taught by the professors
here. It was a decision based equally
on my heart and my head.”
One of the main problems that
came up frequently when speaking
to international students was the
administration and bureaucracy
they have to contend with. Colleges
do a great deal to help international
freshers wade through the paperwork
of visas and finance, but Pia Salter
from Puerto Rico, studying Classics,
even said that the banks ‘made me
jump through hoops like a trained
tiger to get a bank account!’
“To someone used
to temperatures of
30 degrees... the
blasting winds of
King’s Parade are a
challenge”
To add to this, mobile phone
companies require your bank
statements to set up a contract! Many
end up in the awkward situation of
asking their new acquaintances to
shell out to text them on their foreign
mobile - oddly enough, this proves
not to be the best way of making
friends! Understandably, banks
require adequate proof of residence
in the UK, but sorting all of this
out during freshers week can be a
nightmare.
In addition, Patricia PerezSimpson, an English student from
Belgium, told me how meeting
students
during
international
freshers week meant she bonded
with international students before
everyone else, and hence found
it more difficult to make friends
with the home students. Of course,
it is not necessarily a bad thing to
make good friends who understand
your experiences, but there is the
danger that home students will be
apprehensive about going up to an
already close-knit group of friends
to introduce themselves. This can be
especially problematic for students
whose first language is not English;
the temptation to stick with those
speaking their own language is very
strong.
Even foreign language speakers
whose impressive grasp of English
allows them to express themselves
fluently can occasionally find
themselves puzzled. A lot of British
slang is fairly bizarre, and can come
across as completely illogical at times.
This was supported by the students
I spoke to; Pia mentioned that the
use of the word ‘pants’ to mean
underwear has been confusing, as in
America it means trousers! Another
student told me she had been caught
out by the phrase ‘whack it to me’;
rather than understanding it to mean
‘throw it to me’, she took it to mean
‘hit me with it’, with obvious results.
In addition to this, the difference
between words like ‘wreath’ and
‘wrath’ can be confusing, and it must
be slightly unnerving to come to a
new country and hear phrases like
‘don’t get your knickers in a twist’,
and explaining the word ‘chav’ to
an international student can be very
entertaining. Even the word ‘uni’
is unusual for some international
students, whose understanding of
‘university’ as opposed to ‘college’ is
informed by American English.
However, the overall impressions
international students have of
Cambridge from their first two weeks
has been positive. The inclusive
nature of Cambridge appears to have
ensured that most have enjoyed their
first experiences of this university.
Although one student described the
English accents as ‘weird’, this did not
stop her from having a good time.
Ironically, Patricia Perez-Simpson
said that she did not miss her family
more for their being in another
country, showing how the issue of
homesickness is oftentimes more
personal than geographical. That said,
there is clearly a significant difference
between having family a train ride
away and plane flight away, and this
does give rise to some anxiety about
emergency situations. According to
one international student, “the most
worrying moment is when you first
arrive and don’t know where to go standing in front of those imposing
college gates, my instinct was to run
back to Heathrow and fly home!
Things become easier as you settle
in.”
To conclude, it appears to me that the
experience of being an international
fresher in Cambridge is difficult - the
traditional anxieties of beginning
university are compounded by the
additional hindrances of distance,
language, and cultural difference.
However, this does not mean the
experience is any less fun than being
a home student. There are obvious
obstacles to overcome, but in most
cases these do not seem to impact
on international students’ ability to
enjoy Cambridge life.
Image credit: perpetualplum
Features |17
The
CambridgeStudent
film
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On the red carpet
Be sure to check out TCS’
review of Skyfall next week, with a
special feature on Bond films
Great Expectations
Mike Newell
(12A)
128 mins
Not only did
Newell (director
of Harry Potter
★★★★★ and the Goblet
of Fire, and Four
Weddings and a Funeral) close
the Festival in style, he honoured
the bicentenary anniversary of
Dickens’ birth with a modern and
glorious take on a literary classic.
Great Expectations was a visually
inspiring and emotionally-centred
masterpiece, brought together
with stand-out performances
from some of the best in British
cinema. While it may not include
Dickens’ entire story, it focuses on
the points which best bring out
the main themes: revenge, social
mobility and the capacity to love.
Pip (Toby and Jeremy Irvine)
is a young orphan who becomes
a gentleman of society with the
help of an anonymous benefactor.
Pip encounters many influences
along the way, notably Miss
Havisham (Bonham Carter) and
Magwitch (Ralph Fiennes). The
most important discovery in his
coming-of age is Estella (Holliday
Grainger), who captivates his
‘every thought’ until the very end.
Newell places a strong emphasis
on the setting from the start opening the film with sweeping
camera shots of the misty Kent
countryside and claustrophobic
shots of the inner streets of
London. Bonham Carter combines
Havisham’s wide-eyed madness
with calm reservation, making
her an unusually compassionate
character. The Irvine brothers
successfully offset Pip’s fish-out-
of-water awkwardness with fiery
ambition as he comes of age.
Great Expectations was a
fantastic choice to close the
festival. If Newell’s aim was to
make a formidable adaptation of
the novel, he achieved this with
one that places characterisation
and setting in the foreground. If
he aimed to remind the audience
of Dickens’ contribution to
literature, the fact that I now
desperately want to read the book
speaks for itself.
It was the perfect end to
an amazing evening. If you
ever get the chance to go
to a premiere, it will only
affirm your love of film and
why the industry in Britain will
continue to flourish and entertain
for decades to come.
Arts Picturehouse
“Ladies and Gentleman, Helena
Bonham Carter!” the tannoy
blared, and there she was, just
feet away as I walked past (she is
even more stunning in the flesh).
Luckily for me the screen in the
theatre recorded all of the stars
arriving on the carpet, saving me
the awkward task of asking for a
picture with them.
The theatre was grand to the
highest degree: with royal circles
and an accordion playing, I felt
like I had been transported back
to the 1930s. I sat down to find
a complementary water bottle
and a bar of Green & Blacks
chocolate (I could get used to this,
I thought). I hardly had time to
take in my surroundings when
Amanda Nevill, the Festival’s
artistic director, stepped onto the
stage to say a few words, perfectly
summing up what the Festival
really contributes to British
cinema: “it reaffirms our eternal
belief that people in this country
are passionate about film”.
review
Arts Picturehouse
I got to live every film-lover’s
dream on Sunday evening. I got to
walk down the red carpet, and not
just a plain carpet that happened
to be red. That’s right, I went to
a film premiere: the closing gala
of the 56th annual London Film
Festival to be exact.
With over 228 films and 570 filmmakers involved, it is the biggest
event in the British film calendar.
With a bit of luck and a lot of
pressing the refresh button on my
keyboard, I managed to get tickets
to see Mike Newell’s adaptation
of Charles Dickens’ novel, Great
Expectations. Before talking about
the film itself, I thought I would
share with you my unforgettable
red-carpet experience.
I arrived at Leicester Square
to find a multitude of umbrellas
shielding the fans from the
spitting rain. My sister and I
waited eagerly as the guards
opened the gates leading to the
red carpet. Fans thronged to
the left of me, reporters and
photographers to the right. The
mood was electrifying, but I could
only stand still in amazement
until the guards ushered us along
the red carpet to avoid traffic.
Arts Picturehouse
Isabella Nicholson is let loose at the London Film Festival and reviews Mike Newell’s adaptation of Great Expectations
Liberal Arts
Josh Radnor
12A
97 mins
Jesse (writerdirector Josh
Radnor)
yearns
for
his college days, when anything
seemed possible. So when his
old professor (an impeccable
Richard Jenkins) invites him to
a retirement dinner, Jesse heads
back to his alma mater. Here he
falls for Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen),
who is beautiful, intelligent –
and 16 years his junior.
What follows is honest,
thought-provoking and often
laugh-out-loud funny. Clearly
pitching for the title of this
generation’s Woody Allen,
Radnor eschews modernity to
embrace Romance with a capital
R; that means hand-written
letters, classical mix-tapes and
intellectual reflections on the
literary value of the Twilight
books.
Such films can blur the line
between irony and earnestness,
and in the first half the
script nearly spills over into
unrestrained
wistfulness.
Fortunately,
Liberal
Arts
gets better as it goes along.
A particular treat is the
straightforward yet hilarious
visual gag of Jesse calculating
his and Zibby’s age difference
(when he’s 87 and she’s 71 it
won’t be so bad …). The film
reaches its dramatic peak with a
painful confrontation between
the would-be lovers; the premise
risks cliché, but thanks to the
calibre of the performances it
rings true.
The subplots are a mixed bag:
tortured Dean (John Magaro)
is a sympathetic creation,
while a bizarre turn from Zac
Efron threatens to derail the
film altogether. Otherwise,
this is essential viewing
for us young adults. It may
conclude with an enviable
tidiness, but along the way
Liberal Arts will treat you to a
rewarding meditation on the
pursuit of maturity.
Jackson Caines
Film |19
The
CambridgeStudent
music
Want to get involved in Music?
reviews
Jake bugg
anberlin
JAKE BUGG
With the weight of Bob
Dylan comparisons on
his young shoulders,
Jake Bugg has some
high expectations to
meet. Penning this
year’s catchiest chorus,
Two Fingers wasn’t a bad
start – but is this young
pretender the victim of
hype or the real thing?
Well, the boy’s sure got
talent. His voice can
move from sensitive
quiver to Liam Gallagher-esque wail (a compliment or insult
depending on whose side you’re on), showcasing his wide
range of influences from blues icon Robert Johnson to the
Arctic Monkeys. And, next to the talent-show monopoly
of today’s charts, Bugg’s journey from working-class
Nottingham roots to the iTunes Store is a welcome dose of
authenticity. But while there is much to like on this debut
effort, it isn’t the perfectly-formed gem the NME would have
you believe: Broken suffers from sickly-sweet production,
while the central claim of Seen It All seems hard to swallow
given his tender 18 years. More problematically, Bugg’s
musical style is basically derivative; haven’t Richard Hawley,
The Coral et al. been peddling retro-soaked ballads for over
a decade now? Precocious though he may be, Bugg won’t be
rivalling his illustrious heroes just yet. Jackson Caines
★★★☆☆
Download: lighning bolt
viTAL
★★★☆☆
Download:
little tyrants
if you like the kind of hard alternative
rock that a sixteen-year-old angsty Jesus
would listen to then Anberlin’s sixth
album, ‘vital’, is probably worth a listen.
The catchy melodies and reflective lyrics
underscored by intricate guitar riffs and
rousing, chant-like backing vocals hit
the right buttons, and the pacey guitar
solos are at home in the genre. However,
the album doesn’t really form a cohesive
whole as many of the tracks sound like
it’s starting again. No one song matches
the energy of past hits like The Feel Good
Drag but it is consistent with the Anbelin
feel and meets the expectations set by
previous releases. Ciaran Chillingworth
bat for laSheS
THE HAUNTED
MAN
★★☆☆☆
Download:
oh Yeah
Bat For Lashes’ soft ethereal sound
floats around the room; dark and
sweet. in ‘The Haunted Man’, her
beautiful voice is diluted and made
into an artificial component of her
homogenous selection of sounds and
synth. The album’s pleasant to listen to
and, at a few points, she experiments
with the rhythm to create some new
sounds. However, it gets a little lost
when the same floating vocals overlay
it. Ultimately the album doesn’t seem
to have a purpose. it lacks tune;
lacks drama. ‘The Haunted Man’ will
occasionally haunt the soundwaves of
cafes and Radio6. But, like most ghosts,
it will pass by largely unnoticed.
Adam Thelwall
martha wainwright
CoME HoME
To MAMA
★★☆☆☆
Download:
Proserpina
bellowheaD
“We’re a party band… with serious
intellectual pretensions.” This tells you all
you need to know about Bellowhead and,
if it was true in 2010, it most certainly
is now with the release of their fourth
studio album ‘Broadside’. Proclaimed one
of the best live acts in Britain, the motley
collective manages to encapsulate their
trademark live eccentricity, energy and
madness on record with Old
BRoADSiDE downright
Dun Cow, Roll the Woodpile Down and
★★★★☆
Lillibulero being brash and brilliant in
equal measure. intricately blending 200Download:
year-old tunes with a funky horn section in
their own original way, it’s folk like you’ve
roll The
heard it before. Apart from on their
woodpile Down never
last three albums. Rachel Cullum
gig:
thE proclaiMErs supported by
bluEflint
@ thE king’s lynn
corn ExchangE
James Cridland
24 HOUR
DELIVERY
Eclectic, experimental and recorded in NYC,
the influence of Sean Lennon and Japanese
surrealist Honda Yuku on Wainwright’s third
album is palpable. it’s a mixed bag, including
Kate Bush-esque yodelling on Some People,
excessive flirtation with tempo and time
signatures on Radio Star, and the bewildering
swagger of I Wanna Make An Arrest.
Meanwhile, Proserpina is touching, although
perhaps more in context rather than content
(Wainwright’s mother wrote the track before
sadly passing away). often here in fact, context
supersedes content: real life shines through
every sinew. ‘Come Home…’ is candid, gritty
and probably not everyone’s cup of tea – but
it’s something different. Chris Ronalds
David Tennant is, as many know, an
ex-Dr Who, housewives’ favourite,
serious actor and a Scottish man. in
short, his opinions are to be trusted.
He said of the Proclaimers: “they are
my favourite band of all time... with
big-hearted, uncynical, passionate
songs”. So, whilst my knowledge
of them was limited to troubling
memories of my dad dancing at
weddings, faint hints of the rude little
bear from Bo-Selecta and a charity
single, i thought it worth a shot.
Three decades in the business
meant the two twins from Fife
delivered
well-honed
songs,
appreciative but almost immune to
the occasional woops of lust from
the middle-aged audience. The pair
Limited delivery area available late night ask for details.
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Call
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20| Music
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17/10/2012 10:31
guided the tentative crowd expertly,
even pointing inconspicuously to
the roof when it was time to give
a falsetto note a go. As a heavily
bespectacled Charlie modestly
introduced 500 Miles, the audience
rose and the atmosphere warmed.
Scottish tones shone through in
each syllable, particularly in the
passionately performed encore of
Then I Met You.
By strategically planning to miss
the warm-up acts, i instead managed
to miss half of the show. Things are
different in Kings Lynn. Ending a
couple of minutes shy of 10pm, it
wasn’t exactly sex, drugs and rock ‘n’
roll – not half bad, though.
Chris Ronalds
The
CambridgeStudent
more content online at www.tcs.cam.ac.uk:
Lucy Rose live @ the Junction, TCS interviews Canadian rockers Japandroids & more
Bearing All
interview: Lucy Rose
born this way’ clad in nothing but her
underwear. Khan endorses this ‘it’s
her choice so it’s okay’ frame of mind,
happily stating, ‘It was my idea to be
naked’. Publicity stunt or not, in Khan’s
view the nude body becomes a way of
establishing herself as a ‘real woman’
in her own right, one in control of her
own sexuality and its image.
But is this exposure really needed
to make her point? Without the
constraints of a bone corset or
underwear, dressing up as men,
women are experimenting with their
presentation, free in that they don’t
have to exploit their bodies in order
to be heard, artists in their own right
without their sexual appeal being the
main concern of their audience. Think
of the powerful female vocals we’ve
had recently. Yes, we’ve had the likes of
Katy Perry who only became famous
after donning a hammed-up sexual
façade that dared to flaunt sexuality
(‘I kissed a girl’ - how...naughty?), but
we’ve also had Florence Welch, Adele
and Grimes; striking in their rebuttal
of conventional allure.
Ultimately what is all the fuss
about? Yes, Khan is a woman, yes,
she’s naked, but it’s nothing we haven’t
seen before. The man on the cover is
also naked, draped over her shoulders
like a dead piece of meat—has this
stirred feelings about misandry or the
sexualisation of men in the music
industry? Maybe that’s the real
question: why the double standard?
One only has to think of the
stir if the image had been the other
way round.
Ladies, we’ve got a long way to go.
Pasunautre
Jack Tunmore chats with the singer-songwriter
before her gig at The Junction
Your debut album is called
‘Like I Used To’ – is it an album
about how much your life has
changed, or a particular phase
of your life?
It is definitely a nostalgic album,
about things that were really
important to me when I was living in London in my early 20s,
trying everything and finding things out. I wouldn’t write
those songs now, but they’re still
important to me as a part of my
life.
How have you found the reviews? Do you try and completely avoid them?
I never read them. I’m the sort
of person who would always
focus on some small criticism,
which will be there because
that’s how reviews work. It’s like
someone criticising something
you love – like someone saying
that your mum’s ugly. You don’t
want to hear it and you don’t
care, because you love them as
they are.
If you hadn’t gone into music
what do you think you would
have done?
Well, I had a place to study Geography at UCL, and I was real-
Annainaustin
Thea Hawlin looks at the sexualisation of women in the music industry
Music. Even in medieval times it
was used to woo... From the gyrating
hips of Elvis to the heaving booty of
Beyoncé, let’s face it, the vast majority
of songs are about love, and often sex.
As in literature, the sexualisation
of women in the music industry has
always been seen in simple terms:
either sinful seductresses used and
abused by men or innocent angels
doomed, like Taylor Swift, to be sexless
but sweet. In a culture where sex has
become more and more explicit in
everyday life it is unsurprising that
it has manifested itself in the music
industry. Records need to sell, and in
an industry dominated by men, it’s
clear: sex sells.
Some women defy this: despite
appearing naked on the cover of her
new album, Bat for Lashes insists her
stance defies mainstream sexualisation
of women. ‘I don’t want to hide’, Khan
declares. Ironically many outlets have
censored the image, bizarre given its
mildness compared to what’s on view
every day. As Khan notes: ‘It’s weird
that when a naked body appears
that isn’t being overtly sexual, it’s
considered shocking. It says a lot
about society, and you have to wonder
how we’ve arrived at this point’.
One could argue that the
sexualisation of oneself can be a
confirmation of power: Lady Gaga
screaming out to the world ‘I was
music
ly into rocks and stuff so maybe
I would have been a Geologist.
Or an accountant like my Dad
and sister.
Two days before coming to
Cambridge you were at The
Other Place…were they an awful bunch?
Oh so Cambridge and Oxford
have a real rivalry right? Well
there was a party over the road
from where the gig was, some
sort of freshers’ thing or maybe
a hen do… anyway it made me
glad that I hadn’t been a student,
it looked terrible! The people
I met at the gig were lovely
though, I just felt bad that they’d
had to queue in the rain.
Need advice?...
Have a problem?...
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would like to discuss something that is
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We can discuss your concerns with you,
explore what options are available to
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primary role is providing advice to all
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This service is provided by: Cambridge University Students’ Union, Old Examination Hall, New Museums Site, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RF.
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The
CambridgeStudent
tech & media
Want to get involved in Tech & Media?
How would you like to use your computer?
Giles Barton-Owen talks about casual computing, tablets, voice control and intuitive interfaces
The whole attitude
of computing is
changing
Tablets, in my view, are
changing computing more than
the last 10 years of innovation
has. No longer are you worried
about using a menu to get to a
program to search the web, you
pick up a slate of electronics
while sitting on the sofa and just
start browsing, “facebooking”
or chatting. They have started
to blur the boundaries of digital
information
and
everyday
offline life in really large way,
even more than the invention of
the real smart phone (seeded by
Apple I will concede) did.
They make interfaces easy, they
use real life sensor data, cameras
and blistering performance to
deliver a much more intuitive and
less intrusive way of experiencing
technology. Intuitive interfaces
have long been the aim of all
interface designers, and this
has come on leaps and bounds
(although still has a long way
to go) with the introduction of
such technologies.
Voice control has traditionally
failed - perhaps Siri will help
this trend - however it needs to
be on tap all the time, the same
with movement control. What’s
the point in having voice control
when you have to touch the thing
to actually get to that mode? This
must include the whole system
working
wherever
you are, not just by
your device. To really
see the SciFi dream
of computing come
true, computers have
to be everywhere,
talking to each other,
not just in hot spots;
which is something
which
will
take
c omp an i e s
talking to each
other,
sharing
protocols
and
ideas: a far more
outrageous idea
(apparently)
than that of the
technology
I
discuss.
So what of the
future?
Perhaps
the trend of tablets
from phones will
continue,
leading
to the long sought after desk
computers, rather than desktop.
An interconnected area where
everything is accessible from
your coffee table, including
Apple
I’m sure I’m not the only person
seeing the slow and long awaited
rise of the concept I would call
causal computing, the move away
from the omnipresent mouse,
track pad and keyboard which
has been our main interface
with computers for decades.
Touch screens coming to more
and more devices is not the
main change I’m talking about:
The whole attitude of computing
is changing. Browsing has long
been a bit of a “time wasting”
activity but is more and more
becoming a leisure activity,
commonly done while notwatching-but-kind-of-watching
a film or some-such, to the point
where new devices have come
out pretty much just to fulfil this
one function.
playing huge games with your
friends, or writing a research
paper.
Computing is on a
consumer friendly
course
The future is impossible to
accurately predict, but what I
am sure of, is that computing is
on a consumer friendly course.
Whether through voice control,
movement control or just the
plain touchscreen, something
is going to change pretty
dramatically in the humancomputer interfaces, and has
already started.
Want to write for Tech &
Media? Pitch us your ideas at
[email protected]
R.I.P BBC Ceefax 1974 -2012
Nicholas Tufnell says goodbye to an old friend
As a boy I would stare at the
television screen in a state of
subdued perplexity. The dark blue,
the bright yellow, the turquoise,
the white, the black; it all made
for a jarring colour scheme, akin
to the emetic discharge of a child
who had hastily
eaten half a packet
of jumbo Crayolas.
The muzak that
played
perpetually
in the background
was so harmless, so
unforgettably gentle
and, in a sense nonmusical, that it might
as well not have been
there; it was the sort
of music that hardly
happened.
The information
provided was slow
and on a constant
loop - if you missed
what you were trying
to read the first time around, then
you’d better have a spare 5 minutes
to wait for it to appear again. Even
as I grew older, I never really
understood exactly what it was for;
rather like the shipping forecast, it
was something that always existed,
and furthermore it shared that
same peculiarity with the Met
Office in the sense that it had a
nasty way of creeping up on you
on particularly lonely nights. One
minute you’re pottering around in
the early evening with the TV on in
the background, the next it’s 4am
and Ceefax has been on for hours
without you ever noticing.
As I got older and appreciated
the more practical uses, I would
patiently check the weather - page
401 - before going outside. Hot
pink. 20 degrees. Dry. Sunny Spells.
Lovely.
Yet, despite its flaws and despite
that, next to the speed and efficiency
of the internet it seems laughably
slow and inefficient, like an elderly
turtle on barbiturates, I shall miss
Ceefax. There’s a certain charm to
its awful design and its slowly-doesit approach to providing you with
22| Tech & Media
whatever information you happen
to be seeking, be it TV listings,
news, sport, etc.
As the world’s first teletext
information service - put to use in
1974, with the initial idea formulated
in the early 1960s - it’s something
we should talk of
with the pride and
respect it deserves,
it’s one of our great
British
exports,
right up there with
the pork pie, the
flushing toilet and
hooliganism. The
‘red button’, Ceefax’s
understudy, is all
well and good if you
happen to be a big
girl’s blouse, but us
men and women
who grew up with
analogue will be able
to tell our children
with pride that there
was once a day when the television
actually stopped broadcasting stuff,
that live subtitles used to be even
more bonkers than they are today
and that 8 colours are enough.
So here’s to 38 years of
unprecedented service. Ceefax, you
confused me when I was younger,
you frustrated me when I was older
and you kept me company on the
long, lonely nights. You will be
missed.
Image credit: BBC
Vacancy: Mail Service Coordinator
Cambridge University Students' Union (CUSU) is recruiting
for a Mail Service Coordinator to coordinate student and
commercial mail throughout the University of Cambridge
and its Colleges for the CUSU Mail Service.
This role is a fixed term, temporary post until 30th
November 2012 after which the post and the Service's
staffing needs will be reviewed. Though based at CUSU's
offices, the role involves travelling by bicycle across
Cambridge visiting Colleges daily to deliver and collect
student mail, distribute commercial flyers and distribute
commercial posters. The Mail Service Coordinator will be
friendly, approachable, and hard-working.
Salary: £300 per week
Contract: Fixed term, temporary post until 30th November
2012
Working hours: Part-time, six hours per day, Monday to
Friday.
For more information and an application pack visit:
www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/vacancies
Applications should be submitted no later than 5pm on
30th October 2012.
CUSU has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.
The
CambridgeStudent
Want to get involved in Books?
The whole imbroglio is crap
Mantel’s well-deserved win
Emily Newton on the Man Booker Prize
Alice Gormley on why Will Self is little more than a sore loser
winner’s appeal
as a writer to self-improve and to
maintain perspective on her own
literary achievements. Regardless of
the quality of the book, ultimately
Mantel would not have achieved a
second Booker Prize if Bring up the
Bodies had been a timid reproduction
of Wolf Hall. The most noticeable
difference is the severe reduction in
person markers and guidance for
the reader; the text instead swerves
between Cromwell’s internal and the
court’s external voices, giving a much
stronger sense of his tangible paranoia
and the disorienting speed of events.
Indeed, the skill and immediacy
of her writing is demonstrated in
overcoming the dramatic inevitability
that comes with historical fiction as
a genre. Indeed, Sir Peter Stothard,
chairman of Judges concurred as
he justified the decision, ‘It is welltrodden territory with a well-known
outcome, and yet she is able to bring
it to life as though for the first time.’
Yet, given her success, she remains
charmingly unassuming. In an
interview with The Telegraph last
week Mantel admitted that she felt
the weight of expectation more
sharply than before, especially in
the wake of her success, a factor that
has clearly driven her to allow her
writing to evolve. ‘I feel that people’s
expectations are high…. I feel an
obligation to give it everything I’m
capable of’. She is also strikingly
humble about the ground won by her
achievements, confessing she hadn’t
yet given the implications of the
award much thought. Mantel added,
‘I don’t think that women even now
are at such a great disadvantage
in the whole literary
process any more. The
year Wolf Hall won,
A.S. Byatt may
well have won for
The
Children’s
Book…. I’m just
glad one of us has
done it.’
It’s been a week since Will Self failed to
secure the Man Booker Prize, despite a
widespread expectation he would. I’ve
only just finished taking the bunting
down, but his wife, Deborah Orr, hasn’t
got over it yet. Writing in The Guardian
earlier this week she protested ‘Will’s
fiction is always in some way a rejection
of conventional literary narrative, none
more so than this novel. Umbrella
winning the Booker would have been
weird, a category error, like a goat
winning Best Sheep’.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe what’s
happened here isn’t that Umbrella wasn’t
as good as Bring Up The Bodies, but that
its dizzying transcendence of identifiable
hallmarks of good literature against
which it could possibly be measured
resulted in its heroic disqualification
from the race. Never mind that Man
Booker judge Amanda Foreman recently
clarified this in a Telegraph article, saying
‘Were we choosing the most ambitious
novel of the year, the most original, the
most accomplished, or simply the best?
The wording of the Man Booker is
unequivocal in that regard: it is the best’ Orr has seen through it all.
Bollocks. That would be like Tom
Daly falling off a diving board and
saying he’s totally above gravity. It’s
churlish, it’s arrogant and it’s infantile.
It’s audacious, it’s ungracious. It’s puffed
up, and its pretentious. Just look at
him. Photographed with winner
Hilary Mantel and the competitions
shortlisted contenders, Self wields
Tyler J Clemens VIII
In winning the Man Booker Prize
for her historical novel, Bring up
the Bodies, Hilary Mantel has made
literary history. Several times over.
Having previously been awarded the
prize for the book’s prequel Wolf Hall
in2009,MantelisthefirstlivingBritish
author to win the prestigious literary
prize twice; she is the first woman to
achieve the double, her predecessors
being JM Coetzee and Peter Carey;
perhaps most importantly, Mantel is
the first author ever to win the prize
twice for a direct sequel. Regardless
of your literary tastes, whether or
not you disagree with the judgement
or indeed have no intention to open
the book at all, Mantel’s achievement
deserves a moment of recognition
and explanation.
The second of a trilogy that follows
the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell,
Bring up the Bodies follows the
downfall and execution of Anne
Boleyn in 1536. It cultivates the
contradictoryandstrikingpersonality
of Cromwell, taking the fictional
leap to explore his development and
degeneration from valued adviser
to political liability. Mantel’s almost
encyclopaedic knowledge of the
Tudor era is borne from years of
extensive, painstaking research that
clearly shows in the minute detail of
her portrayal. Whether the salty tang
of heated flesh, the smoky sweetness
of burning skin, the raw stench of
ordure or bodily decomposition, the
Tudor Court is almost completely
stripped of whatever glamour
popular imagination had previously
bestowed. The book is bloody, and it
is this uncompromising fierceness
that captures the extreme
tension of the condensed
three weeks between
Anne’s
alleged
infidelity and Anne’s
execution.
C ommendable
as this may be,
Mantel’s
real
achievement is her
versatility and drive
books
Umbrella like a child in Year 3 that’s
desperate his teacher can see he knows
the answer. The other contenders are
captured in amused appreciation of
this, but they’re really thinking he’s a
tosser, and don’t want to embarrass
him by letting it show in their faces that
they think that. Hilary Mantel can’t see
him doing this, because he’s standing
behind her, being tall, the wanker.
I don’t care if he knows some words. I
don’t care that he dismantles typewriters
for fun, which is a pompous urination of
time with no intelligible or remarkable
trajectory – there are simply no excuses
for such unabated, deluded, sullenly
exultant nobbery, and everybody knows
it. He might have a formidable intellect,
he might smoke a pipe when he’s writing
Cock and Bullshit and Sour Grapes,
or whatever else he’s been straining to
defecate, and he might bum Kafka, but
it’s too late for that. The Arsehole Has
Landed, bang smack on the underside of
integrity, and the whole nation is deeply
sceptical it ever touched down at all.
But it’s fine. Will Self didn’t want to
win a prize. His loss was a victory, or
somesuch wankery. It would be the
worst thing ever if someone actually
liked his books, because he ‘doesn’t
write for readers’: he wanks for wankers,
and any sense of cultural camaraderie
the Man Booker has harnessed he has
well and truly wanked upon, and until
‘wankability’ is a Man Booker criterion,
the wanker will be wanking alone.
Dallassnews
The
theatre
CambridgeStudent
Want to get involved in Theatre?
Pop Not Broth
Corpus Mainshow, 9:30pm
until Sat 27th Oct
T
here is an excellent
chance I could be
mistaken, but Pop
Not Broth is a name
that heralds from
Alan Partridge’s legendary MidMorning Matters radio show
(“music and chat for the (North)
Norfolk generation”). For those of
you that don’t know, the story goes
like this: Partridge, on interviewing
a childhood obesity activist, makes
the link between his name (Jim
Jones) and that of the infamous
leader of the Peoples Temple cult
and mass murderer (Reverend Jim
Jones). In short, both are called Jim
Jones. I should have been clearer.
Alan sets about describing
the history of the Jonestown
massacre to his audience and in
so doing, falsely attributes blame
for the tragedy to poisoned broth.
Realising his mistake, he corrects
himself: “Earlier on, I said broth
- it was in fact grape-flavoured
Kool-Aid that the Reverend Jim
Jones used, laced with cyanide…
so that’s pop not broth, pop-notbroth”. Following a solemn but
fleeting pause, Partridge innocently
enquires of his guest: ‘do you ever
have dark thoughts?’
‘...set against a
backdrop of inept
drug dealing,
abundant murder
and brazen proposals
from ‘next door’
Steve Coogan, there: as famous
for his acting, writing and
producing as his candour at
Leveson, antagonism of the
Murdochs and disdain for Piers
Morgan. A hero, really. If dark
subject matter is good enough
for him, it’s good enough for
everybody else. Pop Not Broth
itself then – described rather
accurately by those charged with
surmising it as an ‘unrelenting
farce’ – is set against a backdrop
of inept drug dealing, abundant
murder and brazen proposals from
‘next door’. The show, seemingly
at home in the Corpus Playroom,
chugs steadily at first but ends with
some big laughs.
Whilst the whole ensemble
undoubtedly deserves praise, there
are several performances that
really steal the show. Ryan Ammar
manages to capture the concept
of a new-age hostage negotiator
– complete with a comprehensive
background in psychoanalysis –
very well. With a near faultless
American twang and a perpetually
faulty moustache, he gets some of
the biggest laughs of the night.
So too does Ben Pope who, as
ever, appears incredibly at home
on the stage and exploits waffling
upper
middle-class
tones
and
the
associated
fluster
perfectly. Pope seems to be
a master of understatement:
when a pistol is aimed squarely
in his face, his response of ‘well,
that always comes as a bit of a
shock, doesn’t it?’ is a popular one.
Singling Messrs Ammar and Pope
out however, should not detract
from the others: Tabs Sherwood
in particular plays a sassy widow
(a phrase I’ve only used once
before and never again) and more
than deserves her fair share of
chuckles.
Additionally
the
introduction of Mr. Rumpff, a
Kenneth Williams-esque (and
terrifically
named)
character
played by Sam Twells, helps set the
show in motion early on.
Whilst the plot is maybe a little
convoluted, perhaps relying on
sesquipedalianism to excess at
times, Pop… is nonetheless a
good show with some great
performances. (To be fair, I had
to look up ‘ses-quipe-blah-blahblah’ – it pertains to the use of
long words and can helpfully
be characterised as polysyllabic
holophrastic verbalism). Anyway,
to the four of you that spent
three minutes reading this tosh,
and others too: go and see Pop...
It’s well worth an hour of your
time.
Madame Bovary: Breakfast with Emma
A play with room for improvement, but an intriguing premise, says Kay Dent
Fergus Blair
Madame Bovary is the story of
an immensely complex woman
who simultaneously seizes your
attention and repulses your logic;
if staged effectively, you might
feel almost sickened, but certainly
addicted. Emma Waldon’s script
adaption of such a legendary
story innovatively restructures the
narrative into a breakfast-table
drama punctuated by a series of
flashbacks, making it theatrically
plausible without sacrificing the
main plot points.
Yet the Pembroke Players
undoubtedly faced problems
with this script, considering
the potential awkwardness of
flashbacks and the static quality a
Breakfast with Emma concept can
bring. It is impressive, however,
that despite Nailya Shamgunova’s
directorial
inexperience,
she
generally maintained pace and
minimised awkward transitions.
The one logistic that must be
faulted is the voice-overs: whether
by making us uncomfortable,
or inadvertently amused, they
detracted from the serious drama
of the onstage action.
Madame Bovary herself (Audrey
Tudose) was brilliantly captured in
all her conflicting qualities. Yes, we
were shocked when Tudose shrieks
pitilessly at her maid; but we also
believed unreservedly in her inner
turmoil and desperate desire for
a true love that the banal Charles
(Rebecca Hare) could never be
expected to supply. Tudose proved
to be a master of detail, whether
it be playing with her extravagant
rings or a subtle repositioning
as Emma fluctuates between self
control and emotional instability.
Yet in a cast of three, every actor
can be the making or detriment of
a show. Luckily or unluckily, Hare
and the multi-rolling Sheepshanks
were neither. Frankly, the casting
could have been better; having a
woman play the leading man may
have been, as the director’s notes
suggest, a feminist comment for
a proto-feminist play, but surely
Charles’ sexism would have been
more powerful from distinctly
masculine lips? This is not to say
that either of these two fresher
actresses did not make an attempt
at masculinity, but Hare lacked
male authority to give weight
to misogynistic insults. Tudose
and Octavia Sheepshanks were
also unable to recreate the sexual
tension between Emma and her
lovers that the play so needs: the
sexual tension that we need to fully
grasp her emotional journey.
One further element that begs
comment is the set. Beautifully
designed
(with
only
one
suspiciously
Cambridge-esque
crest-covered chair...) it both
worked
practically and had
fantastic detail. The stage design
was split, each side reflecting
the ill-suited personalities of the
characters, Emma’s decadent
vanity table an unsettling contrast
to what they can really afford:
Charles’ basic armchair and lamp.
Overall, the realisation of the
director’s vision wasn’t perfect;
there were definite slips and we
weren’t always inclined to believe
or identify with the characters.
However, considering that twothirds of the cast were freshers
working in a new, more pressurised
time scheme than they will have
encountered previously, along
with the relative inexperience of
the crew, the Pembroke Players
have done well.
Tudose was
undoubtedly the star, but who
knows; this might be the first step
for some more rising stars of the
Cambridge theatre scene.
Pembroke New Cellars,
9:30pm
until Sat 27th Oct
Check out The Cambridge Student website for student reviews of When the Rain Stops Falling,
What? World, The Bloody Chamber and all-new Cambridge comedy at Jesus Smoker
24| Theatre
Corpus Playroom
Chris Ronalds enjoys a production from the Fletcher Players offering originality and excellent performances in equal measure
The
CambridgeStudent
WHAT’S SO MAGIC ABOUT MAGIC REALISM?
theatre
“That magic place, the fairy
castle whose walls were made
of foam...the faery solitude of
the place, with its turrets of
misty blue...that castle, at home
neither on the land nor on the
water, a mysterious, amphibious
place.”
In the opening pages of Angela
Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, the
young, unnamed heroine travels
from Paris aboard a train into ‘the
unguessable country of marriage’.
She is nervous, alone, and
innocence determines her every
move. She then arrives at a castle
of an improbable, impossible
nature, and the reader is tempted
to pass off this incongruity as a
symptom of the heroine’s juvenile
imagination. That is, until her
husband turns out to have a
chamber of murdered wives, and
suddenly they’re not so sure.
The inspirations for The Bloody
Chamber and Carter’s other
gothic short stories are often
cited in the traditional fairy tales
– dark, gruesome, unsanitised of the pre-Victorian era. Carter
adds a feminist twist, reinventing
the stories, but also pulls them
back from the land of fantasy and
imbues them with a new realism.
The manner in which this is done,
however, weaves the magical with
the realistic almost without the
reader noticing; it takes a moment
to realise that the rules that were
in play have changed.
Magic realism is an aesthetic
style in which magical elements
blend surreptitiously with aspects
belonging to the real world. Most
common to prose, these elements
are presented straightforwardly,
as real occurrences. Although
the origins of the genre lie in
South
American
literature
(Gabriel Garcia Márquez is
considered the seminal author),
it has precedents in mythological
writing, where the fantastical
is ever-present besides the
mundane. In art, Rob Gonsalves’
and M.C. Escher’s magic realist
impressions challenge perception
as the ordinary transforms into
the fantastical. In film, Tim
Burton’s Edward Scissorhands
blends two surreal worlds (one
psychedelic,
one
vampireesque); Woody Allen’s Midnight
in Paris slips through time
streams. The anchoring in reality,
Footlights Virgin Smoker
They came, we saw, they comedied:
the most exciting of the Footlights’
smokers, the Virgin Smoker, hit the
stage last night, bringing with it
a plethora of talent and potential.
Yes, it’s the first-time for many, and
at times a nervous tension pervaded
the auditorium; and yet the evening
marks the surest way to catch that
hallowed first glimpse of the chosen
ones, who may well be destined for
comedic greatness.
Indeed, part of the charm of the
smoker format is the inevitable
imperfection. The haste it demands
in assembling a set often places a
greater emphasis on the comedian’s
charisma to carry them through
any unseen blips in the script. The
evening’s highlight, Kieran, was a
strong example of this sort of pure,
yet unrefined, talent: the genius of
his stand-up dwelt in his delivery,
pushing a bureaucratic deadpan
to the very limits of absurdity.
Unfortunately, transferring this dry,
almost infantile charisma of his into
sketch form didn’t work at all, but
with a little honing could lead to
great things.
Overall the standup was of a
very high quality: Jonathon, the
confident opening act, came across
as very Alan Carr, which, while not
entirely refreshing, was certainly
polished. Milo’s current-affairs
based act was perhaps a little too
detached and sarcastic, and could
use more expression, but the wit was
definitely there, while the Australian
girl’s set, verging regularly into the
“shocking”, still had the audience in
fits with her fluent delivery.
While the sketches were mostly of
high quality, many were prone to a
little over-acting, and the majority
were unfortunately weakened by
sudden, needlessly bathetic endings.
The French “therapist” - overall
masterfully acted, cleverly written
and with a dynamic structure was perhaps the most unfortunate
victim to this sudden death, spoiling
an otherwise incredible début. The
London Olympics sketch, however,
was a fantastic example of humour
founded in an awkward situation
that pushed all the right buttons,
and the final act, while slightly
erratic, certainly possessed some
moments of brilliance.
There were two acts that I felt
were under-appreciated. The first
was the bird appreciation meeting
– the first half relied a great deal
upon the character alone, which
wasn’t transmitted with the utmost
confidence. This unsettled the
audience at the beginning of the act,
until they were finally drawn in with
its witty second half. The second
was the advert for washing tablets:
it was surreal, absurd – aggressively
so, even – but the delivery was too
erratic and overall hard to relate to.
While it ultimately failed to hook a
decent guffaw, the spunky writing
definitely coaxed a giggle or two
afterwards.
The evening was a success – of
course it was. Yes, it’s raw, it’s edgy,
there’s less of a safety net: but that’s
part of what’s so exciting about it.
Ultimately, the Virgin Smoker is
a show of first impressions – and
indeed, they say you never forget
your first time.
Ben Redwood
Spiderbite Boutique
As Angela Carter’s magic realist play ‘The Bloody Chamber’ makes its Cambridge stage debut, Izzy Bowen fills us in on
everything we need to know about the genre
subversely, allows freedom to the
imagination;
new,
puzzling
and exciting possibilities open
themselves up. Realism and
fantasy follow sets of rules
according to their genres; in magic
realism, there are no rules, and
no limitations. The boundaries
between the real and the unreal
blur. This is especially important
for Carter, in whose work we are
encouraged to understand that
the sadistic horrors found in the
magic foam castle are just one
step, or one turn of phrase, from
the reality we know every day.
Magic realism is predominantly
a descriptive technique, and
therefore poses difficulties in
its transference onto the stage.
Similes and metaphor, for
example, cornerstones of prosaic
description, are fundamentally
linguistic devices which use
language to compare an actual
object to one perceived, drawing
the attributes of the latter onto
the former. On stage (and indeed
film) the actual and perceived
objects must both be materialised.
A character may be described in
prose as ‘like a wolf ’. On stage the
character can be portrayed with a
wolfish appearance and behaviour,
but without the linguistic clue, it
is difficult to establish whether
the character is in fact half-wolf,
or simply a human with wolfish
characteristics. Symbolism can
be equally difficult to engineer.
American playwright Tennessee
Williams used light and framing
devices to illuminate symbols
against the backdrop of his plays,
to expose the running themes of
his works. How to use the visual
to replace prosaic description is a
challenge for all directors of magic
realistic plays.
Yet theatre has its own unique
perspective on the real and
unreal which suggests that,
with necessary adaptations, it
can bring something quite new
to the magic realist genre. It
is the only medium in which
the audience is truly required
to suspend its disbelief, as the
mechanisms of fantasy are
evident. It offers a different
aesthetic, as in the recent
productions of War Horse or The
Lion King musical, in which
animals must be mechanically
produced. At the same time
the audience is positioned
in the world of the play, and
so the fantastical illusion of
reality is strengthened. In
theatre the real holds up the
fantastical; magic realism is
therefore given a whole new stage
on which to shine.
The
columns
CambridgeStudent
Hidden Cambridge
Zoah Hedges-Stocks ruminates on port, a mystery college, and why we mispronounce Magdalene...
Make a cup of tea, or mix yourself
a drink. Sit down. Brace yourself.
I’m about to destroy the most basic
thing you thought you knew about
Cambridge. Place names can be
fascinating. From Fingringhoe
in Essex, to Elephant & Castle in
London, many places have names
that hint at a story behind them.
Cambridge isn’t one of those place
names. It’s pretty bleeding obvious:
Cambridge, named for the bridge
over the River Cam. Except that’s
completely wrong. The town isn’t
named after the river. The river is
named after the town.
The foundations of your world
have just been rocked, right? It’s
okay. I’ll explain. Stop crying.
Everything is going to be fine.
You’ve heard of the Granta, whether
that makes you think of the pub, the
magazine and publishing house, or
the river.
It makes sense that the part of
the river flowing into Grantchester
is called the Granta, butoriginally
‘Granta’ referred to the whole
river, and so the Saxons knew the
town as Grantabrycge. Over time
this became Cantabrigia, which
is where cantabrigiensis, and the
suffix Cantab come from.
By 1607, the name Cambridge was
in use, with dispute over whether
the river should be called the Cam
or the Granta. Eventually people
agreed that it was silly for the river
to not be called the Cam, given that
the town was called Cambridge,
and things settled down into the
modern usage.
Right, enough wittering on about
etymology. It’s part of this column’s
remit that I should actually give you
something to visit, should you be
so inclined. Well, I have an obscure
piece of artwork for you! Last
week’s column began with a needy
cry for information. Could anyone
reveal to me the secret behind
the mysterious metal footprints
on the Downing Site? The very
day that the paper came out, one
Angus Knights got in touch to
quell my intrigue. The feet belong
to a sculpture by Antony Gormley,
called Earthbound Plant. Like many
of Gormley’s human sculptures,
this was cast from a cast of his own
body. Confusingly, whilst some
sources describe Earthbound Plant
as being eight feet tall, others say it
is a life-sized sculpture of Gormley.
Enquiries as to whether or not Mr
Gormley is a giant has so far proved
inconclusive. After going to all that
trouble to make a sculpture of his
own body, Gormley decided to bury
it underground so that only the
soles of its feet are visible. Attempts
to contact Mr Gormley’s therapist
to ask if he has deep-rooted issues
about his physical appearance were
rejected on the basis of doctorpatient confidentiality. Gormley’s
other projects included his One &
Other installation on Trafalgar’s
Fourth Plinth, where a different
person occupied the plinth every
hour, twenty-four hours a day, for a
hundred days, and the impossibleto-ignore Angel Of The North. He
is no stranger to publicity, so his
decision to create a sculpture that is
almost entirely hidden from view,
and has no information, not even a
name posted anywhere near it, is an
interesting one.
Finally, this Sunday marks the
day that horsedrawn trams began
operating in Cambridge in 1880.
Unfortunately, by the first week
of November, most of the horses
had fallen ill with bad colds. Poor
horsies. The horsedrawn trams ran
until 1914, when propsals for an
electrified tramway were rejected
by an outraged University, who felt
the overhead lines would spoil the
town.
You can get a drink
i n
the old stables,
which are now
the
Tram
Depot pub,
on Dover
Street.
Insanitabrigians by Clementine Beauvais
The Graduate
Sophie Clarke thinks that she might, at last, be finding her feet as a graduate in Cambridge...
I’ve broken my graduation
present. The kindle I got for my
BA graduation in 2011 has died
a death; the screen is showing a
panoply of lines and blank
white space and it won’t
turn on. I think I might
have sat on it while it was
in my rucksack but I’m not
sure; all I know is it really
messed with my plans to do
work while I was away over
the weekend.
Luckily I’m a secret
Luddite and never
travel anywhere
without a few
printed paper
books so I was
26| Columns
sorted. Still, I feel like I’ve severed
a link to my previous Cambridge
life, even if it was a symbol of the
highly unsatisfactory end of
it.
Maybe it’s a sign of my
complete assimilation
to the grad lifestyle. I
had to undergo a reinitiation into my
sports club which
was perhaps a sign
that I might
cling
on
to some
undergraduate tendencies a
little bit longer, as I succeeded in
completely stacking it on Jesus
Green, getting locked in a phone
box and waking up the next day
to row an outing completely
off my face. Still, the loss of my
graduation gift and subsequent
phone call to the insurance to
get a replacement made me
feel unerringly grown-up, as
did going to the bank to get my
overdraft extended – time was I
would have just lived off rice and
peas for two weeks.
I even know people now. I
eat dinner in hall with friends.
The Grad is back, people. I am
back in the college zone. Maybe
that makes this column sort of
redundant? I don’t think so. My
jarring sense of dislocation recurs
at the oddest of times - the other
day I walked across Clare Bridge
and burst into tears just because
I was back and so happy and sad
to be here.
I played on a sports team with
someone born in 1994. 1994! I
was beginning my unending run
of education in that year! I have
rarely felt such an aged twentytwo year old (apart from when I
made myself ill by going out five
nights in a row last week). There’s
nothing to remind you more of
how much of a non-fresher you
are than when you’re making
your kindle read to you as you
suffer from Freshers’ flu and are
too dizzy to hold it.
Thankfully it turns out my
kindle replacement will be posted
back to me, solving my problems
of illness-weakened reading
and book-burdened travel for
the foreseeable future. It seems
slightly fitting that I should have
managed to ruin it and get it
replaced even before the halfway
mark of this new term. My
graduation present has turned
into my matriculation update.
Got to love the poeticism in that.
The
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SATURDAY 27th - Last
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the Moon 19.00: Something
Wicked This Way Comes...a
Halloween Rock’n’Roll
Zombie Ball featuring
rockin’ bands, circus
sideshow performances,
kick-ass punk, psycho and
rockabilly DJs.
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FRIDAY 26th - Halloween
Punting & Ghost Tour hosted
by Scudamore’s Punting
Company 18.00: A 90 minute
journey into the depths
of Cambridge’s horrifying
history. A 45 minute guided
punt tour followed by a 45
minute walking tour.
Across
Down
1. Rotten finishing at golf is distracting
(3-7)
6. Family member who’s said to be a star
(3)
7. Cain was this in the Bible, and he is
this now (5, 6)
10. Writer using comparatively few
characters? (7)
11. Initially soggy cereal brings
contempt (5)
12. Averts spinning around fast (6)
14. Tin’s not hard, it’s said, for one of
seven miners (6)
16. Doctor’s personal sink (5)
17. Sick, I, lacking energy, quote criminal
(7)
19. I should have realised that in Korea,
a hot dog is __________ – nothing, in
fact! (3, 1, 7)
21. Sheep enamour Welshmen
everywhere, to begin with (3)
22. Vegetable recalls Rowan Atkinson’s
role in the opening ceremony? (6, 4)
1. The tills in a supermarket are like this,
becoming obsolete (2, 3, 3, 3)
2. It’s reported as being without strength, a
fake attack (5)
3. They hang below cows, or hang below
ships with captain deserting (6)
4. Senator unravelled plotting against the
king (7)
5. It’s sticky section at the start of
Goodwood (3)
6. Thousand wandering around with us
where the maps changed recently (5, 5)
8. Result of fire that could hide those firing?
(11)
9. Tennant, say, cast in ‘Bad Society’ (5, 5)
13. Is nothing held by mathematician in
game? (7)
15. Drink regular samples of fluid up – our
queen gets into it (6)
18. Abandon some Seattle avenues (5)
20. In Toledo, armour and blade (3)
Last week’s answers:
Across: 1 Toaster 5 Sum up 8 Lobbied 9 Folio 10 Set-to 11 Essence 12 Euclid 14 Object 17 Panache 19 Light
22 Nears 23 Urinate 24 Ernie 25 En masse.
Down: 1 Tales 2 Abbot 3 Tripoli 4 Red Sea 5 Safes 6 Melange 7 Protect 12 Expunge 13 Contain 15 Belgium
16 Secure 18 Caste 20 Gears 21 Theme
Set by vegetable
The
CambridgeStudent
30| Sport
SPORT
Want to get involved in Sport?
Cambridge take a beating against Brunel Comment: Sport
CUARLFC
28
Brunel Uni
RL
42
Aidan Devane
Reporting from Grange Road
managed to pull out two more very
much individual tries to finish the
match with a 42-28 victory. The
relief on the faces of the Brunel
team clearly demonstrated the
strong effort the boys in green had
put in.
All in all it was a strong effort from
Cambridge against potentially
the best team they’ll encounter all
season. If improvements continue
to be made, this year’s varsity is set
to be a cracker.
Flourishes When
Despotism Steps
Aside
Chris Ronalds
Aidan Devane
Brunel arrived in Cambridge with
a squad boasting five contracted
London Broncos academy players
and plenty more players eager to
impress. This mix of talent perhaps
explained how they dispatched
Essex RL 98-0 and Middlesex RL
80-16. Cambridge, on the other
hand, had disappointed in the first
half against Essex last week and,
although eventually winning, were
keen to make amends.
Brunel started strongly, putting
in a big hit on CUARLFC stalwart
Freddie Bromley and managed
to open their account with two
early tries. Cambridge could
have easily lost focus and let the
game slip, but, with an excellent
controlling performance at hooker
from debutant James Henderson,
managed to crawl back into things,
scoring a try under the posts
through David Sparkhall. For the
rest of the first have the two sides
were very even, trading a few scores,
leading to a halftime score of 24-16
in favour of the Londoners.
Clearly having anticipated another
heavy win Brunel seemed slightly
flustered at the start of the second
half, whilst Cambridge came out
all guns blazing with fantastic
defensive effort all round. Tries
from Pete Taylor, Andy Winfield
and James Henderson kept the
Green Lions in the game for the
majority of the second half, with
the score coming to 30-28 to
the opposition. Brunel however,
Recent weeks have demonstrated
yet again that few regimes are as
despotic or callous as the Taliban.
Undoubtedly a complex entity, the
Taliban emerged in Afghanistan in
1994 and were ‘toppled’ in 2001.
The ability of its leaders to puppeteer and destabilise the country
from across the border in Pakistan
is profound. Today, loosely linked
fractions and a residual ideology
persist.
Earlier this year, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the Taliban’s
own name for their movement –
launched a Q&A section on their
website. Prominent amongst the
issues raised was, almost bizarrely,
cricket.
“If the regime returned to power”,
spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid
was asked, “will the Taliban allow
the game?” “There will not be any
problems” came the reply, “all
sport that is not against religion is
acceptable”.
“The Taliban say any
sport which does not
go against religion is
acceptable”
flickr Creative Commons, isafmedia
It was an answer laden with
ambiguity, and to be dismissed as
rhetoric. Sport was often banned
under Taliban rule, with draconian
regulations imposed for men and
especially women.
In 1999, the IOC banned
Afghanistan from subsequent
Olympic Games, largely citing the
regime’s stance towards women.
The Ghazi Sports Stadium in Kabul
– indeed, the football pitch itself
– perversely doubled as a site for
public mutilations and executions.
Over a decade later, at the close
of 2011, Ghazi Stadium re-opened
for a game of football. This rapid
renaissance saw men and women
both playing and watching.
The following summer, Tahmina
Kohistani stood in the Olympic
Stadium in Stratford to compete
in the 100m heats. Aged just 23,
Kohistani was the only female
athlete to represent Afghanistan,
but she demonstrated an as yet
insatiated appetite for sport.Very
much in the spirit of de Coubertin’s
maxim of “not winning, but taking
part… not conquering, but fighting
well”, it mattered little where she
finished. She was there.
For
Kohistani’s
Olympic
preparations, the issue was not
domineering political force, but
rather misogynistic heckling from
local men at the trackside. Today
then, it is less a case of politics
driving the people but rather people
driving the politics. Afghanistan’s
leaders acknowledge this, keen for
progress on participation of girls in
sport but wary of moving too fast.
Things are improving slowly.
Some girls can now play cricket
at school; previously deserted
volleyball courts now attract
crowds. The legacy of the London
games has catalysed efforts by
the UK Government, Unicef and
Comic Relief to ameliorate things
further.
At London 2012, I briefly met
Elie Manirarora, number two in
the Rwandan Paralympic coaching
hierarchy. Manirarora would have
been a young boy when living
through genocidal turmoil, but
there he stood in Stratford, grinning
ear to ear.
It is an axiom to say that when
despotism is moved aside, the
people flourish. It is a pleasure to
say that this often manifests itself
through sport.
The
CambridgeStudent
Exclusive: Olympians interviewed
Sport |31
Rebecca Thomas talks to Mark Cavendish, George Nash and Dan Gordon
mixed. Tim Baillie expressed
optimism regarding the impact
of the games on his sport. He
discussed his own astonishment at
the dramatic increase in the number
of children showing an interest in
his canoe slalom at his old training
ground of Nottingham and also
expressed satisfaction at the value
of the experience on offer. He
commented that himself and his
team mate are “ accessible…If you
come down to training for a few
weeks, you’ll probably get to meet
a gold medallist.”
However, veteran Dan Gordon
was not so sure. Despite noting a
change for the better in people’s
attitude towards the Paralympics,
he described the government’s
legacy plans as “woolly”. In an
exclusive interview with The
flickr Creative Commons, Ben Bradshaw
The 2012 Olympics may be
officially over but the results were
still on display at the Cambridge
Union on Monday evening.
Members were treated to a panel
discussion on just about everything
by Olympic Canoe Slalom gold
medallist Tim Baillie, cycling Tour
de France legend Mark Cavendish,
Paralympic discus F51 Champion
Josie Pearson, Cambridge’s own
bronze medallist rower George
Nash and 2004 Paralympic cycling
champion Dan Gordon.
There
was
unanimous
appreciation of the home games,
with Tim Baillie citing the
“amazing venue” as the highlight
and Josie Pearson saying that the
crowd “spurred you on”.
The comments on the Olympic
legacy were however somewhat
Cambridge Student he expanded
on his worries: “The Olympic
Legacy… the issue is that there are
two strands. The first strand is what
we have seen tonight: the general
feeling of goodwill - an obvious
passion for the sport. However
the second strand is that this needs
to be supported. It can only be
supported if you’ve got financial
backing and a cultural shift. It’s
what we would call the playground
to podium issue. You have to get
kids interested in the sport and you
have to keep the momentum going,
but you have to back it up with
funding. On this the government’s
been a bit woolly, they say that leap
funding is covered for four years,
but they don’t say much about
anything else.” With a new Culture
Secretary on the block, Dan Gordon
RR Jazz Student Ad copy.pdf
Defeat for Hockey Blues
Cambridge
2
Bedford Town
3
Jamie Bristow
Sports Reporter
Coming off the back of a poor
performance
the
previous
weekend, the Cambridge squad
was highly motivated and started
well, putting pressure on a highscoring Bedford side that are
always near the top end of the
East Premier. Hard work in the
press kept the ball in the Bedford
half, and it soon paid off - a Felix
Styles’ drag flick forcing a good
save from their keeper. As the away
side settled into the game, they
started to become more dominant;
penetrating the Cambridge half
and winning several short corners
in a row.
The Bedford flicker finally
broke the deadlock, sending one
flying into the top left past keeper
Graeme Morrison. Galvanised
after conceding, some slick
skills from Dave McLean on the
top of the D won Cambridge a
second short corner, which Dave
Harrison clinically converted to
put Cambridge back on level terms
going into half time.
After the break, the Blues
continued to threaten, especially
down the right through right-half
Dan Balding and midfield maestro
McLean.
A vintage Balding drive down
the sideline sparked a crisp
passing sequence that found new
signing Sachin Jivanji unmarked
on the top of the D in acres of
space. He duly fired home past the
Bedford keeper’s near post, putting
Cambridge 2-1 up. Tenacious
work ensued all over the pitch, and
it was looking like it was going to
be the Blues’ day, until in quick
succession Bedford’s Balotelli
lookalike deflected two in on the
far post, both from swiftly-led
counter-attacks.
The Blues continued to work
hard in search of an equaliser,
man-of-the-match Jivanji looking
particularly
dangerous,
but
desperate attempts to recover
a point in the last few minutes
proved fruitless.
Although the Blues trudged off
the pitch thoroughly disappointed
with the loss, it was a solid
performance that just lacked the
full 70-minute composure that
will come as the team continues to
mature. Going into a double-header
weekend v. Bishops Stortford and
Peterborough in the third round of
the English Cup, they will be eager
to begin claiming the points that
their performances deserve.
made it clear that the book is far
from closed on the Olympic legacy
question.
An interesting addition to the
panel was Cambridge student and
bronze medallist George Nash,
of St Catherine’s College, who
described his Engineering degree
as “damage limitation”.
Speaking to TCS he spoke of
the challenge that he faced with
juggling a degree and Olympic
glory “Its been really hard trying
to find the right compromise,
especially working hard enough
over the winter so that the exams
go well enough in the summer.”
He praised Cambridge University
for their flexibility, enabling him
to retain his place whilst working
to achieve his dream: “Cambridge
has been really supportive, there
was no guarantee that I was going
to make it to the Olympics team
but they were very happy with me
trying for it. I certainly can’t speak
highly enough of the University.”
Cambridge rowing hasn’t been
without its controversy however,
and he reflected on the recent
outrage at Trenton Oldfield’s
protest against elitism at the 2012
boat race and his recent six month
sentence: “With regard to the boat
race, the decision to sentence the
offender for six months was fair, it
sends out a strong statement about
how the public react to that sort
of show. Hopefully it will act as a
deterrent.”
A panellist who’s best friends with
1controversy
10/10/2012 is 09:39
Mark Cavendish. He
used the evening to reflect on his
failure at the Olympics, pointing
the finger at other teams’ lack of
commitment to the race, and
also sharing his thoughts on his
recent departure from Team Sky.
On leaving the team that brought
Wiggins to Tour de France glory
he commented that he “should
have won another two stages,
but the directors didn’t want to
detriment our chances of winning
the yellow jersey, it was at that
point that I decided that we had
to part ways”. On the issue of
Armstrong and doping he was
very frank. Cycling is not in
danger: “It’s not the sport, it’s the
individuals, you’re always going to
get dickheads in life”.
Speaking exclusively to TCS he
was reluctant to commit to the next
Olympics: “The next Olympics are
four years away, but I have got 400
hundred other races before then.”
His concentration on the road
for the upcoming Tour de France
therefore appears certain, and
joining new team Omega Pharma
- Quick-Step, exciting times lie
ahead for the 2011-12 Road Race
Champion.
Speaking to TCS Cavendish
was satisfied with the way the
panel discussion unfolded: “It
was a great evening, I was a
bit nervous before I spoke.” Perhaps
not as nervous as before cycling
around Box Hill nine times in front
of a million people however.
The
CambridgeStudent
SPORT
Emphatic victory for Cambridge over War wick
Felix de Grey
Sports Reporter
relish the role, working typically
hard in the channels to the great
benefit of the team, and the oftbedraggled right back, Blevins.
The only blemish on an
otherwise comfortable first 45
minutes was the sight of powerful
forward Haitham Sherif limping
off. His replacement, Danny
Kerrigan, is a very different sort
of player, and should have given
notice of his own merits seconds
after coming on
The second half began with
Warwick trying to force their
way into the game with a more
insistent tempo. Before too long
though, Cambridge were able
to re-establish their own rhythm,
and with it, their superiority.
Forde, naturally right footed,
was understandably more prone
to cutting inside than Totten on
the other flank, but this created
its own set of problems for the
opposition defence.
Indeed, his brace of goals
owed much to such incursions.
In the first period, the winger
had arrived late in the box to
meet a cross. His header hit
the post. However, Warwick
clearly did not take heed, and,
deserting his flank again in the
55th minute, Forde met a pull
back from Ben Tsuda to thump
home Cambridge’s second. He
was to add further gloss to the
score-line twenty minutes later
when, again stationed centrally,
he showed quick feet in the box
when fine interplay unleashed
Smith who beat three defenders
and somehow managed to stay
on his feet to touch down under
the posts.
Seb Tullie continued his good
form by slotting the conversion
and with Cambridge becoming
ever more dominant a further
penalty made it 22-3 at the
interval.
The resumption after the
break changed little as the
Blues continued to dominate
both possession and territory.
After several neat passes the
beleaguered Blackheath defence
subsided and Matt Steele crossed
for the fourth try. This was
followed by another soon after
when Dugal Bain capitalised after
being setup by a beautiful reverse
pass. When Cambridge opted to
kick for the corner instead of
an easy penalty attempt it was
obvious that the game was over
as a meaningful contest.
Even with the Blues a man
down after Scott Annett’s sinbinning, Blackheath were unable
to capitalise and were thwarted
by a try-saving tackle by the
constantly impressive Seb Foster.
Cambridge underlined their
domination of the breakdown
with a penalty try soon after and
Tully’s conversion took them
over the 40 points barrier.
Yet
despite
several
of
their players suffering from
cramp and general fatigue
Blackheath refused to subside
and managed a consolation try
through Phil Ellis in the last play
of the game. However it did not
disguise a crushing win for the
Blues, and although admitting
to being slightly disappointed at
conceding a late try, Coach James
Shanahan was delighted with the
overall performance.
“We outclassed a very good
team by five tries” he said. “Our
defence won us the game last
week against Ealing but tonight
the back-line were superb. They
have suffered with injuries and
other problems but they are
beginning to gel really well.”
Will Smith was also singled out
for special praise and the winger
was delighted with his work:
“I’m making a habit of scoring
two tries but not getting a third,
but I’m really pleased. To score
41 points against a National
David Hardeman
The Cambridge Blues yesterday
showed complete disregard
for the anticipated rigours
of a tougher division by
overwhelming the University of
Warwick 3-0 in their opening
fixture of BUCS Division One.
Two goals from Daniel Forde,
and one from Ant Childs saw
them easily home.
The side appear to have
overcome
their pre-season
inconsistencies, with the defence
untroubled throughout. This
solidity may be from abandoning
the previous year’s 4-4-2
formation, in favour of a 4-5-1.
Last term, playing in a division
in which they were expected to
win the majority of their games,
an additional forward added
an extra threat around the box.
Now however, the going is a
little tougher, and dominating
the midfield has rightly become
more of a priority. In addition,
coach Che Wilson has quietly retuned the Blues’ style of play, to
reflect the realities of the higher
division.
Here was a team who were as
happy to hit a direct, early ball
as they were to play it out of
defence. This might go some
way to explaining some of the
less than exemplary passing
that characterised passages of
both halves, but it also negated
much of Warwick’s threat. Such
variation will be needed when
the Blues face regional titans,
like Loughborough, on a more
regular basis.
Taking an early lead certainly
helped matters; it no doubt
calmed any lingering nerves
or
pre-existing
inferiority
complexes too. The early going
was all Cambridge, with a series
of crosses and corners rapidly
intensifying the pressure on
the visiting defence. It had all
become too much by the sixth
minute, when a Rick Totten run
in the right channel bought a
throw-in. The ball was launched
long into the penalty area by
American full-back Roderick
Blevins, and, having only been
cleared as far as the edge, was
rammed into the back of the
net by Ant Childs on the halfvolley. Childs, a full back for the
majority of last year, appeared to
be enjoying his promotion to the
centre of midfield. It is testament
to his all-round performance
that he did not look out of place
in the prestigious number ten
shirt. On either side of him, the
widemen demonstrated their
potency around the opposition
penalty box, but were also no
strangers to working deep in
their own half. Both Forde on
the left and Totten on the right
came to the aid of the Blues fullbacks on numerous occasions.
Totten, in particular, seemed to
before clipping the ball wide of
the ‘keeper and into the bottom
corner. With the opposition so
toothless up front, the Blues’
midfield appeared happy to
scrap out the rest of the game for
a clean sheet.
The positive signs were there
for all to see. Cambridge are
third in the league. However,
too many passes were sent awry
or received uncomfortably at
shin height, too many tackles
were undercooked and too
many contested balls lost. To
win so comfortably in spite of
such inconsistencies is evidence
of both the talent and good
coaching that the side possesses.
Division One side is fantastic
and our best performance of the
season so far.”
The Blackheath side provided
a limited test but Cambridge
could only beat what was in
front of them and they did that
comfortably and with occasional
glimpses of brilliance.
The scrum, lineout and set
pieces continue to function well
but the backs offered most the
best show. With Oxford far from
flourishing this performance
laid down the gauntlet ahead of
the showdown at Twickenham
- as Coach Shanahan insisted.
“We need to enter that match
with a team of players who
are comfortable with playing
together and we are beginning to
create that.”
Cambridge triumph over Blackheath RFC
Cambridge
41
Blackheath
RFC
8
Nick Butler
Sports Reporter
David Hardeman
The home side’s superiority
was evident in the opening
exchanges,
when
Andrew
Abraham skipped clear to
score after taking advantage
of some lacklustre Blackheath
defending. The game settled
down thereafter with both sides
enjoying plenty of possession.
However - with the exception
of one missed opportunity
following a Cambridge knock-on
- the visitors posed little threat
and were limited to a speculative
penalty attempt from the half
way line.
The Blues looked lively and
determined and after sustained
pressure winger Smith dived
over to score from close range.
A penalty from Steve McNamara
opened Blackheath’s account but
a moment of magic soon followed

e gag reflex: - The Cambridge Student

Transcription

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