haze of thunder - The Courier Archive

Transcription

www.thecourieronline.co.uk
Monday 24 March 2014
Issue 1290
Free
The Independent Voice of Newcastle Students
HAZE
OF
THUNDER
Rap’s foremost enigma Angel Haze
on sexuality, rivalry and frontin’ p.28
COSTA DEL MARS p.32
Est 1948
COME WITH ME p.22
Cockroach catastrophe
THE FILTH AND THE FURY: Several cockroach traps laid in Bowsden Court filled up quickly as students battled the famously nuclear resistant critters. Image: Katherine Jones
By Emily Keen
Deputy News Editor
Residents of university accommodation
at Bowsden Court have been battling a
cockroach infestation since September.
Speaking to The Courier, students of
the accommodation block criticised
the University for the way they have
handled the situation over the last six
months.
The pests were identified as German
cockroaches, a small but tenacious species, that can survive for up to five days
without food. Most commonly active at
night, the roach is know to emit an unpleasant odour when excited or frightened.
Paul Bandeen, University Flats Manager at Newcastle University, said: “Our
staff were notified of a problem with
cockroaches at a flat in Bowsden Court
on 9 December 2013 and we arranged
for our pest control officer to address
the issue the next day and visited the
property on a number of occasions.”
However, first year student Katherine
Jones from flat 14B, told The Courier
that the pests were present in September
when freshers moved in but that she’d
“never seen many cockroaches before so
wasn’t exactly sure what the pests were”.
She says “a cleaner first identified them
as cockroaches in October”.
Traps were then
set up in December throughout the
“The worst
block. The morning
thing was
after the traps had
when two
been set up Kathercrawled out ine said: “I thought
I was going to throw
of the
up, it was disgustmicrowave” ing, the traps were
all full.” Katherine
and her flatmates complained about
the state of the traps and lack of action
taken by the University to continually
tackle the problem. They were told that
over the Christmas holidays the whole
block would be sprayed by pest control
and that more traps would be set.
By January, although the rest of the
block appeared to be free of cockroach-
es, ground floor flats remained infested.
Katherine described how they returned
at the beginning of the month after the
break to find dead and pregnant cockroaches in the traps and others still running around the kitchen.
“They kept coming out of my food
cupboard, the worst thing was when two
crawled out of the microwave!” Some
traps were placed on work tops in the
kitchen that “were right next to where
we were cooking and next to the oven
so we were making food surrounded by
dead and squirming cockroaches”.
Bandeen acknowledged that “when
the students came back to the flat after
the Christmas break they found that
the pest control action had not resolved
the problem, the University offered to
move all residents to alternative accommodation while we rectified the issue”
and that this didn’t happen until “midJanuary”.
Flat 14 say they spent the January
exam period addressing the issue of
cockroaches in their flat rather than revising. Katherine told The Courier that
their repeated complaints were often
met with dissatisfactory replies of “I’ll
let some one know” and “we’ll see what
we can do”.
Andrew Crawford, a first year History student and resident of the infested block, told The Courier how,
even though his flat was clean by January, he felt sorry for fellow residents. “I
wouldn’t have liked to have lived fearing
into Leazes using the metro and paid for
multiple taxis. Katherine said: “For the
five weeks in Leazes we were stuck between two places. I didn’t really feel like
I had a home and the University were
keeping us in the dark, they didn’t keep
us updated with the Bowsden situation.”
With little warning, the uprooted
residents were told in mid-February
they had to leave Leazes within a sin-
that a cockroach could come crawling
out of a cereal box in the morning, plus
they didn’t get help with the problem for
a long time, which was unfair,” he said.
Three of the five residents of Flat 14B
moved into temporary accommodation
after the exam period in Castle Leazes. Although they were offered a van
to help them move, it turned out to be
an empty promise. The students moved
gle weekend and move back to Bowsden. They were welcomed back by
the sight of dead cockroaches on the
floor.
This story prints just days after an
NUS report into student accommodation called ‘Homes Fit for Study’. Widely
picked up by the media, it reveals that
over three quarters of students have
Continued on page 4
Traps were laid right next to the oven so we were
cooking and making food surrounded by
dead and squirming cockroaches
News
2
News Editors: Anna Templeton and James Simpson
Deputy News Editor: Sabine Kucher and Emily Keen
courier.news@ncl.ac.uk | @TheCourier_News
BREAK THE STIGMA
ROW YOUR BOAT
Newcastle coach
awarded brand new
rowing accolade
“A man with one
watch knows what
time it is; a man with
two watches is never
quite sure”
In
SU pledges to tackle
preconceptions
about mental health
9
10
SPORT
Joe Wood debates
whether the world
is all going to shit
BOYCOTT THE BOYCOTT
Lecturers threaten
to refuse marking
work- is it fair?
36
38
STRIKE A POSE
We take a look
at sport’s best
celebrations
MARCH MADNESS
The ultimate
bracket for the
Wednesday cup
A Prince Harry imposter has conned
an Austrian floor fitter out of thousands
of pounds over Facebook. The pretend
prince asked the workman to renovate the parquet floors of Buckingham
Palace and persuaded him to transfer
£23,000 to various UK bank accounts.
The floor fitter visited police on Friday
having not heard from ‘the prince’ for
more than two weeks.
- Lee Segall
COMMENT
IS THIS THE END?
Facebook fraudster
ix
5
6
Wise
words:
Technology
Crime
m
e
h
t
thecourieronline.co.uk/news
NEWS
The Courier
Beauty
Cheeky spunky
67-year-old Stella Ralfini from London
claims to have discovered the secret of
younger looking skin. She leaves a mask
of semen on her face once every two
weeks for up to 15 minutes. The protein and minerals in sperm are thought
to reduce wrinkles. Ralfini says “Your
lover’s semen is the freshest cell therapy
available on our planet. This beauty secret is worth its weight in gold, and it’s
free!”
Social Media
#nomakeupselfie
Last Tuesday a flood of ‘#nomakeupselfies’ started inundating social media
timelines along with calls to cure cancer.
The fad has been perpetuated by nominations and cropped up over 15,000
times on Twitter alone. The campaign
appears to be entirely spontaneous although many cancer charities claimed
the selfies to promote donations. It is
hoped that the nudienominations although potentially equally prolific, will
prove a safer pastime than nekandnominate and altogether more philanthropic.
Britain
Emily Keen
Politics
#Hashtank
Ukraine has been harnessing social media to raise much-needed funds for the
army. The Ministry of defence’s official
facebook page urges people to “support
the army of Ukraine with material, technical and medical supplies”. 9.9m Hryvnyas (£611,000) has been donated over
mobile phones in less than three days.
You can text 565 to contribute.
Bizarre
NUSU, King’s Walk, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8QB. Tel: 0191 239 3940
The Courier is a weekly newspaper produced
by students, for students. It’s never too late
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information.
Luffable campaign
Last Wednesday Tory MP Sir Peter Luff
mounted a heartfelt campaign to address the plight of left-handed pupils.
Left-handers, declared Sir Peter, “are
having their self-esteem eroded because
they are not being given the correct support in the classroom”. It has been suggested that a child’s scissor choice, if incorrect, could lead them to believe that
they are not good at art and design due
to “cutting out difficulties”.
Sock Horror
Sandwich chain Subway is investigating claims that store ovens have been
used to dry socks in Worcester. Jessica
Hinton spotted an image on Instagram
showing wet socks and gloves drying in
the ovens. The staff member in question
apologised in a private message to Ms
Hinton saying her boss “didn’t think it
fair (she had) wet feet for a nine-hour
shift’.”
Politics
Culture
Hide and Sheikh
Paul Stainthorp(Flickr)
Metro trains in Dubai are to be turned
into an art gallery it’s been reported.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al
Maktoum says he hopes to “inspire and
communicate with every employee on
his way to work, every student on his
way to pursuing education and every
tourist visiting Dubai”. Construction is
to start in the next few weeks.
Bizarre
Crime
Pound palava
A new pound coin billed to be the most
secure coin in the world is to be introduced in 2017 to combat counterfeits.
The coin will be modeled on the old
threepenny bit a 12-sided coin used between 1937 and 1971. Fears have been
expressed that the coin will not work
smoothly in the Robinson Library’s hot
beverage vending machines.
Food
Politics
Snap, crackle
and cock
A man from Teeside is in a stable condition after having his penis cut off last
week. Kelvin Hewitt was found on the
A66 in Middlesbrough last Thursday
and claims his penis was mutilated in
a gypsie revenge attack. The emergency services and police closed the road
for several hours but despite thorough
searches they have not managed to recover the organ.
Masha Maltsava (Flickr)
Beggar’s banquet
JD Mack(Flickr)
A 100-year-old beggar in Dubai has
died leaving behind a secret fortune.
The woman known as Eisha has been
begging since she was a child and has
collected over 3m riyals (£480,000).
When asked by friends to stop begging,
she apparently refused telling them “she
was preparing for hard times.”
Editor George Sandeman Deputy Editor Tom Nicholson Web Editor Ben Brown News Editors Anna
Templeton and James Simpson Deputy News Editors Sabine Kucher and Emily Keen Comment Editors Lydia Carroll and Joe Wood Deputy Comment Editor Victoria Armstrong Culture Editor Sam Summers Lifestyle Editors Evie O’Sullivan, Elizabeth Archer, Hazel Parnell and Katie Smith Fashion Editors
Amy O’Rourke and Frances Stephenson Deputy Fashion Editors Rebekah Finney Beauty Editors Amy
Macauley and Safiya Ahmed Arts Editors Millie Walton and Charlie Dearnley Deputy Arts Editor Laura
Wotton Film Editors Muneeb Hafiz and Jacob Crompton-Schreiber Music Editors Kate Bennett and
Ian Mason TV Editor Beth Durant Deputy TV Editor Helen Daly Science Editor Lizzie Hampson Deputy
Science Editors Peter Style and Emad Ahmed Sports Editors Nick Gabriel, Freddie Caldwell and Francesca Fitzsimmons Copy Editors Lucy Davis, Emma Broadhouse and Megan Ayres
fabio achilli (Flickr)
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Kingdom, DE3 0DA.
Established in 1948, The Courier is the fully independent
student newspaper of the Students’ Union at Newcastle
University. The Courier is published weekly during term time,
and is free of charge.
The design, text, photographs and graphics are copyright of
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newspaper may be reproduced without the prior permission
of the Editor. Any views expressed in this newspaper’s opinion pieces are those of the individual writing, and not of The
Courier, the Students’ Union or Newcastle University.
The Courier
news.3
Campus celebrates diversity day
By Charlie Dearnley
On Wednesday 19 March, the basement of Newcastle University’s Student
Union played host to 12 stalls, and performances from a variety of Newcastle
University’s cultural societies for Diversity Day 2014.
There are currently over 4000 international students from over 110 countries
studying at Newcastle University, but
the event was aimed at all students interested in exploring new cultures.
The event invited students to come
and learn about other nation’s cultures.
International officer Sophia Doan, who
co-organized the event alongside Varun
the racial equalities officer, commented
of World War 2 to promote peace and
union.
Society representative Thuy Anh divulged her own exchange experience:
“I went to Brazil for one month this
summer, it was a bit of a culture shock.
People were concerned about crime, but
everyone was so friendly.”
Alongside these stalls there were a variety of performances throughout the
day, ranging from traditional cultural
dances, to music and clothing displays.
Amidst these performances the Indonesian society performed an arrangement of John Lennon’s Imagine solely
with angklung; a traditional Indonesian
instrument made of resonant bamboo.
There was also an incredible solo Bollywood dance performance from Roma
“Some societies even needed to transport their
costumes from other cities to Newcastle.
I was very touched when listening to their stories.
I was very proud of them”
that, “we planned this event for all students to come and explore different
cultures. I contacted many societies but
only a few of them could manage to participate.”
She followed, stating, “I think the
main purpose of having a national or
cultural society is not only to bring all
students from that country or culture
together but also to present that culture
to other people.”
Entry to the society exhibition was
free throughout the day, and in the
evening food was offered from many
cultural and religious societies at the
rate of £5 for five plates.
During the day the Malaysian Society
stall was teaching people how to make
origami cranes. Visitors were then invited to write a short message upon the
model and leave it amidst the growing
pile of origami sculptures on the table.
This activity was done in acknowledgment of the current
missing Malaysian
Bizarre
Airline airplane; flight HM370, which
went missing on 8 March with 239 people on board. Conversation regarding
the flight was rife at the stand, and many
people enjoyed contributing to the origami with respectful recognition.
Upon many of the cranes was written “Pray for HM370.” The AIESEC stall
sported large number of cupcakes, each
with a different national flag. On the
back of each flag was a quiz like question, providing information and fun
facts about various countries.
AIESEC is an organization present in
over 110 countries promoting youth exchange. It was created in the aftermath
Wadke.
Sophia Doan enthused “I love all of
the performances in the event. I particularly appreciate the commitment and
enthusiasm of all students who represented their cultures in the event.”
An array of traditional clothing demonstrations from various societies took
place throughout the day, showing an
extensive assortment of style and colour
spanning many cultures.
At the Vietnamese Society stall visitors were given the opportunity to don
traditional
Vietnamese attire for a
photograph, includThe activity
ing nón lá, which
was done in roughly translates
acknowledge- as leaf hat.
Sophia Doan exment of the plained
“Some socicurrent
eties even needed to
transport their cosmissing
tumes from other
Malaysian
cities to Newcastle.
airplane,
I was very touched
flight HM370 when listening to
their stories. I am
very proud of them.”
The society representatives were extremely welcoming and conversational,
obviously incredibly keen to share all of
their own cultural differences, differences that showed all the more clearly
with other cultures readily approachable in one room.
The evening event saw food from various religions and cultures decorate the
hall. At any stand a ticket worth £1 was
exchangeable for a plate of cultural cui-
CULTURAL COMMUNITY: Stalls, performances and national cuisine were enjoyed by students. Images: Diversity Day
sine.
In reflection of Diversity Day 2014,
Sophia Doan had this to say: “Although
we did not have many societies, all
stalls, performances and food were prepared carefully and presented lively.”
“I am very pleased that all of the visi-
tors and the members from the societies had such a great time at the event. I
saw many happy pictures on Facebook
during and after the event. It was wonderful to see students in their colourful
traditional costumes and watch them
performing their traditional music. Our
efforts in 2 months were definitely paid
off.”
“I hope that next year there will
be more societies signing up for the
event… I hope our successors next year
will continue this “tradition” and organise even a better event.”
Police bid to bin Toon happy hours
By Alice Kirkland
Northumbria Police Commissioner
Vera Baird has said she is fed up with
Newcastle’s attitude towards drinking
and wants to punish irresponsible bars
and clubs that promote happy hours
and the infamous ‘3 Trebles for £5.’
On the 1 November, Newcastle was
the first city in the UK to introduce a
late night levy. This meant that bars and
clubs selling alcohol beverages between
the hours of midnight and 6am have to
pay a variable tax which is then split be-
tween the council and the police.
A report by Balance, the North East
alcohol office, showed that close to £160
million was spent by Northumbria Police on dealing with 112,545 alcoholrelated crimes.
Councillors insisted that the levy’s aim
wasn’t to reduce night-time drinking
but to recover some of the costs of these
alcohol related crimes.
Club owners had been resistant to the
tax initially however they were assured
that the money would be put back into
areas such as increased CCTV and police officers which in turn, could save
them money.
But Ms Baird wants to go further still.
She claims bars and
clubs offering deals
in
Newcastle such
“People
as 3 Trebles for £5
obviously get are irresponsible
and dangerous.
drunk but
She wants to offer
I rarely see
a ‘lose it or pay up’
anti-social
offer of a tax cut to
bars which promise
behaviour”
to scrap these deals.
“If they introduce good policies such
as not selling to people who have had
too much to drink, or not having the
likes of happy hour deals, we will see if
we can reduce the levy for them.”
When asked if she felt Newcastle’s
drinking culture had gotten out of hand,
Katie Read, a Second Year Modern Languages student said: “People obviously
get drunk but I rarely see anti-social
behaviour. I always feel safe because
there’s so many bouncers around.
“The scrapping of drink deals would
make going out more expensive for me
as a student and unaffordable.’
The news has provoked mixed reviews
in Newcastle. Although the plans ap-
pear to deal with drink related crime
and disorder, some people worry about
the economic effects, especially taking
into account tourism income.
Second Year Geography Student Natasha Hemsley told The Courier: “By taking away happy hours and drink offers,
you’re reducing the appeal of Newcastle’s nightlife which is the main source
of tourism and economic income for
Newcastle.
“The clubs are confined to Osborne
Road in Jesmond and a small part of the
city centre away from main residential
areas so it’s doing little harm.”
4.news
The Courier
Business sets out to vet landlords
By Holly Abbotson
Mark Robinson, a third year Business
student at Northumbria University, is
launching a website that aims to provide students with the information they
require to make more reliable housing
choices.
He spoke to The Courier about the
benefits the website, StudentLandlOrder.com, could bring students: “The
main aim of the website is to make the
student housing market a much better
place through providing information
on which businesses provide the best
service and which aren’t as attentive or
reliable,” he explained.
A large proportion of students experience problems with their house or their
landlord, which can often be left unresolved.
“During my second year at University
my housemates and I really struggled
with our landlord and letting agent. The
house itself was in a poor state of repair
but the letting agents didn’t care less and
made no effort at all in getting the house
into a fit state for us to live in. There was
no urgency on their part or any real sign
that they were even taking us seriously.”
Due to his negative experience with
his landlord, Mark decided to use
his business degree to his advantage,
spending a year on a placement, establishing and developing a website to
help students like himself. The website
provides a service that allows students
to review and rate their landlords and
letting agents. The website also allows
landlords and letting agents to reply to
students concerns. “This shows both
sides to the story, makes the service
fairer for all users, but still allows students to make up their own minds on
the businesses being reviewed.”
Mark believes that this type of service
will play a huge role in helping househunting students, as well as preventing
problems that can occur once students
occupy a house. “The excitement of
looking for a student house can often
get to students who start to think that all
of the good houses will be taken, leading to them jumping into deals on the
first reasonable house they come to. By
using the website students can see who
is rated highly and make their decisions
accordingly.”
Mark has had a positive response
from the launch of his website, the test
site having been “a real success” with
plenty of feedback from students that
have been using the website. With the
launch of the official website, Mark is
aiming to get more students across England and Wales to post their reviews, so
the service can progress to be even more
informative and helpful.
In the future Mark is hoping to expand this service across the rest of the
UK: “The aim is to eventually to cover
all University towns and cities within
the next two years.
“This will allow students living in
small campus towns to benefit from the
service, not simply those students who
live in the larger cities.”
ACCOUNTABILITY: The website allows students to review housing services. Image: Mark Robinson
“It is both disgusting and unacceptable that students should live in
vermin infested housing”
Continued from front page
had problems with the condition of
their home. Over half have condensation issues, almost half have mould and
a quarter has slugs, mice or other pest
infestations.
NUS Vice President of Welfare Colum
McGuire said that: “Although there’s a
commonly held perception that poor
quality student
housing is a right
of passage, it is
“The infestation both disgusting
and unacceptahas already
that students
overshadowed ble
should live in
a long period of vermin infested
housing in this
the year”
day and age”.
Since 2004, Newcastle University has
been registered to the Student Accommodation Code designed “to protect
students rights to safe, good quality accommodation”. Students living in block
B at Bowsden court pay £98.84 per week
at an annual rate of £3,755.92. This cost
will rise to £3,994.78 next year. The
University’s accommodation website
assures students that they “endeavour
to provide a comfortable living environment favourable to both study and
relaxation” and that they “take their responsibilities seriously”.
The Student Accommodation Code
states that if necessary, “urgent work
should be carried out within 24 hours”
and that “you should be given 7 days
notice for planned work”. Despite the
presence of roaches in September, the
University did not start addressing the
infestation until December and it took
six months for the accommodation to
be entirely free from cockroaches and
in a state “comfortable” to “study and
relax” in.
The students’ main concern was with
the way the University’s accommodation service dealt with the issue. Paul
Bandeen, Manager of University flats
and Henderson Hall, told The Courier:
“The unfortunate reality is that infestations of pests do happen from time to
time where large groups of people live
together and although we have a dedicated pest controller, the nature of the
problem means occasionally we do not
resolve the issue first time but we do all
we can to tackle these issues quickly and
with as little inconvenience to our students as possible.”
Katherine acknowledges that unfortunate things can happen but said, “the
way we’ve been spoken to and the way
it’s been dealt with hasn’t been right at
all”.
The students were awarded with three
weeks worth of rent in compensation.
They believe it is an inadequate sum
to cover the upheaval they have faced
since September. “I haven’t lived away
from home before and I wasn’t comfortable to call a cockroach infested kitchen
home,” she said. “It hasn’t been a great
start to university, the infestation has
already overshadowed a long period of
the year,” she added.
German cockroaches are one of the
most persistent of urban pests, it has
popularly been suggested that if humanity destroys itself in nuclear warfare, these hardy roaches will ‘inherit
the earth’. Although no cockroaches
have been found in Bowsden for nearly
one month, and the University tells residents “the situation has been sorted”,
Katherine remains sceptical: “they told
us it was sorted before Christmas and
it wasn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if they
came back.”
The Courier
news.5
LGBT Queerstion Time hits campus
By David Leighton
Newcastle LGBT society hosted a question time in the history room of the SU
on Thursday 20 March, named Queerstion Time.
The event promised to answer questions like: Have you ever had an LGBT*
related question but you were too afraid
to ask? Why do gay people feel the need
to discuss their sexuality? Can a LGBT
person have a faith? What is the difference between a transgender person and
a transexual person?
Panellists ranged from asexual,
straight, trans*, bisexual, gay, gay and of
faith and lesbian.
The LGBT society at Newcastle University is first and foremost a social and
support society that runs ‘weekly socials
plus many other events, as well as a 24/7
support, advice and guidance for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans students
at Newcaslte Uni’.
There is also the option of offers and
events for members, including trips to
larger cities, ice skating and more.
During Fresher’s a bar crawl is held, as
well as other introductory events soon
after Fresher’s week. The community is
without agenda: “We exist as a way for
lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans students
to meet each other, talk about and problems they may have and (most importantly) have a good time.”
A phone number was given to all attendees upon arrival to allow them to
text in their questions with complete
anonymity before and during the meeting, allowing for questions ranging
from ‘To what extent do you think that
a persons’ sexual orientation/identity
is a choice’, and ‘To the members of
the panel who are both LGBT and religious, do these two interests ever come
into conflict or has your religion been a
problem to your faith?’ to ‘Do you think
gay people rush into relationships too
quickly to prove their sexuality?
After the meeting I asked a member
why they joined. “I joined to meet other
LGBT students really. As a minority it’s
hard to find other like-minded people
so the society offers a great environment to do so,
whilst having fun
and getting quite
Questions
drunk,” they reasked included: plied.
Another mem“Do you think
on what they
that gay people ber,
enjoy most about
rush into
the society, said
“I suppose my
relationships
favourite aspect
too quickly
is the commuto prove their
nity of it all, plus
the nights out are
sexuality?”
brilliant – everyone just gets along.”
In terms of getting involved with the
society, either as member or to help
out, “We normally get involved in campaigns that are run, it’s completely up to
you what you help out with and what
you steer clear of!” a member of the
LGBT soc said.
“We want to ensure that all LGBT students gain the most out of their time
here at Newcastle, so please feel free to
come along to any of our socials.”
LATERS DIMBLEBOT: The society put on the Q&A to help increase understanding. Image: David Leighton
SU ready to fight mental health stigma
By Anna Templeton
News Editor
Newcastle University Students’ Union
is organising its first ever mental health
project for May 2014. The project, called
“Mind the Gap”, is aiming to promote
understanding of mental health.
“Mind the Gap” will also be working
on ways to reduce the stigma about the
topic of mental health and engage people to speak about the issues surrounding it.
The project will culminate in a mental
health conference on Saturday 3 May.
The conference will consist of different
sessions and talks from the Royal Col-
strands of engagement: diverse communities (LGBT, international and BME
students), local schools, local businesses
and GPs, and the wider student body.
Emily Waller, Welfare and Equality
officer in the Students’ Union, spoke
about the importance of the project: “I
think this is long overdue and the instant uptake and engagement we had
from students – we’ve already have over
70 students involved in planning the
project – shows how important a topic
mental health is.
“Students are under a lot of stress
throughout their University lives, from
the huge life changes of moving house
and being responsible for bills and food,
Mental health is something everyone has and is
just as, if not more, important than physical health
TAKE CARE: Students wrote down 5 things which keeps their mind happy. Image: Welfare & Equality
lege of Psychiatrists, school councillors,
well-known researchers and mental
health sufferers.
The sessions planned are designed to
be engaging and interactive. A Sensory
Room at the conference will recreate
the experience of mental illnesses such
as body dysmorphia and psychosis
through distorting the senses. A True
and False session will aim to instantly
reduce the stigma around mental health
via myth busting. A Media Room will
examine how the British media have
dealt with the topic of mental health
through the decades.
The project and conference are both
completely created and organised by
students, many who have suffered from
mental health issues.
The project is divided into four
to the stress of academic pressure and
job applications, especially in the current economic climate.
“We want as many people as possible
to come along to the conference and engage with the project, and hopefully we
can really smash the stigma and myths
attached to mental health illnesses, because they’re well outdated now and it’s
time we all started talking about these
things – not brushing them under the
carpet. Mental health is something everyone has and is just as, if not more, important than physical health.”
For more information and
to register for free tickets:
www.nusu.co.uk/mindthegap
6.news
The Courier
Rowing coach receives highest recognition
By Antonia Velikova
Newcastle University rowing coach Angelo Savarino has been presented with
the British Rowing Special Award in
recognition of his outstanding contribution to the sport and the development
of young rowing talent in the North
East and UK. Angelo, whose career in
Newcastle University began in 2005, is
the first person to be honoured with the
prestigious new award.
“I was surprised and honoured when
I heard I was to be presented with this
award,” Angelo commented. “A coach is
only as good as his athletes and the support that he has.
This award wouldn’t be possible without the commitment and dedication
from my athletes and colleagues alike. In
fact, I feel I am being rewarded for other
people believing in me.”
Since Angelo’s arrival in 2005, the boat
club has grown remarkably, from a small
team of nine senior men and five senior
women, to one of 30 and 20 seniors respectively. Angelo has also developed a
very strong coaching team who will continue to guide the rowers on the path to
their ambitions.
“We felt Angelo was absolutely the
right person to receive the first British
Rowing Special Award because of his
dedication to bringing out the very best
in his crews, who have a unique loyalty
to his programme,” said Peter Sheppard,
GB Rowing’s Chief Coach for Under
23s. “He and his athletes work incredibly
hard and their results speak for themselves. The way he develops promising
young rowers is inspirational and his
work in developing the women’s squad
has seen it grow into one of the best in
the country alongside their men’s programme.”
The GB Rowing honour is not the only
award Angelo has under his belt. The
Italian National Association of Rowing
Coaches recognised his achievements in
last year’s Under 23 World Championships and has given him the ‘Italians in
the World’ honour.
This award is presented to those who
achieve ‘prestigious results on the international stage’.
The Newcastle rowing club got gold,
silver and multiple bronze medals in
the World University Championships.
Men’s eight have won the championship’s eights race three years in a row at
BUCS Regatta, the University Rowing
Championships.
Six students went on to take part in
last year’s U23 World Championships
in Linz, Austria, which is more than
any other boat club or university in the
country.
Nicole Lamb won a silver medal in the
women’s eight and Gemma Hall won a
bronze medal in the lightweight women’s quad. Angelo also coached the men’s
coxed four at the event.
Colin Blackburn, Newcastle University’s Director of Sport said: “Angelo fully
deserves the accolades he has received.
His hard work has helped the University Boat Club become one of the best in
the country and he inspires our rowers
to do their very best every time. We‘re
incredibly proud of him and the teams
he coaches.”
OAR-SOME: Angelo Savarino has coached the Newcastle team since 2005. Image: Steve Selwood
The Courier
news.7
Student noticeboard crashes onto campus
By Maria Case
A group of students from Newcastle
University Business School have set up
a new intra-university student notice
board, G8crash, which provides everything needed for student life in one
easy app and website. Currently run by
five Newcastle students, Emma Lewis,
Penny Williams, Holly Hunter, Beth
Thomasson and Sally Williams, the site
was originally created by entrepreneur
Charlotte Howard-Jones. The girls have
already raised awareness and encouraged many sign-ups to the site; however
they are keen for
new members to
take advantage of
The girls can
what G8crash has
often be found to offer.
G8crash
has
giving out free been
designed
cakes and
to cater for all
student
needs,
sweets
providing useful
information in one app. The ‘Events’
section details what is happening near
you and can be personalised with events
from your own social calendar. Local
companies and businesses also have
the opportunity to provide special offers for students, giving discounts and
deals exclusively for G8crash members.
Under the ‘Carpool’ section, students
can organise shared journeys with other
students to help save pennies and the
‘Globetrotter’ element of the app can
help you to find other students who are
going abroad or on a placement. Students with a spare room, along with
local Landlords, can advertise their student homes to help students find private
sector University accommodation. The
G8crash website further provides much
more helpful information and features.
PR Manager, Emma Lewis, said
“G8crash provides everything students
need in one place and knowing that all
the users are verified students makes the
website entirely student-orientated and
safe. It’s run by students for students.”
The girls are eager for the membership
numbers to increase in order for the
website to reach its full potential: “we
need more students to get involved so
that G8crash can become a truly interactive and beneficial part of student
life.”
The girls believe that one of G8crash’s
strengths comes from the fact that they
do not spam their members with constant emails and notifications; the website can be used as when each individual
student wants to use it.
A monthly newsletter is a possibility
for the future of G8crash; however this
will be an optional extra for G8crash’s
members.
The girls can often be found giving out
free cakes and sweets at the Students’
Union and in the Business School for
those who register with G8crash. Sally
Williams, Finance and Budget Manager,
has been known to recruit new members by dancing and singing to attract
attention to their stand and last week,
the Business Summer Ball saw the girls
awarding a bottle of Moët as a raffle
prize for the winning G8crash member.
For more information go to the
G8crash website: www.g8crash.com
PROMO: The sites founders promote their new platform in any way they can. Image: Maria Case
8.nationalstudentnews
The Courier
NEWS STACK
Radio 1 loves election videos
BRASSED OFF: ICMuS students playing in the Hancock Museum. Image: Newcastle University
Job Title: Camp Leader/Instructor
Employer: SportNE
Closing Date: 01/07/2014
Salary: £6.67 per hour
Basic job description: SportNE require
a sports and Activity camp leader/coach to
work with children between the ages 3 and
11 at either Morpeth, Newcastle, Gosforth
or Cullercoats. The successful candidate
will be able to speak to parents in a formal
but friendly manner and possess an easy
and comfortable attitude with children.
Coaches are required throughout school
holidays - including week before Xmas and are required for October half term.
Person Requirements: CRB/DBS and
a passion for working with children are
essential! Coaching qualifications, First Aid,
Child Protection and Education training are
all desirable although support is offered
and a willingness to learn and develop is
a must!
Location: Newcastle, Gosforth, Morpeth,
Cullercoats.
Job Title: Barista/Waiting Staff
Employer: Beckleberry’s (Artisan Foods)
Salary: National Minimum Wage
Basic job description: Baristas/Waiting Staff are required to work 8-16 hours
per week at the Beckleberry’s cafe in the
Metrocentre, Gateshead. Everyday duties
include making coffee, preparing food,
working with a cash register, serving customers and general cleaning. Ideally new
staff should be available to cover Monday,
Tuesday evening shifts and weekends
when required.
Person Requirements: Ideally we are
looking for candidates with full flexibility
with regards to working hours as shifts
are often rotated. Previous experience is
favourable but a great working attitude and
providing excellent customer service are
key as training is always available.
Location: Gateshead.
Job Title: Newcastle Work Experience Adventure Travel Sales Advisor
Employer: Gap Medics
Salary: £2400 bursary
Basic job description: Gap Medics is a
young and dynamic company that provides
placements for aspiring medical students
giving them first-hand insight into the work
of hospital doctors in exciting locations, including Tanzania and Thailand. As a member of the UK sales team, the successful
candidate will be the first point of contact
for many of our students. Key responsibilities will include: responding to student
email enquiries, performing follow-up
phone call checks, inbound and outbound
calls with students and closely monitoring
our in house booking system to ensure the
information provided is accurate.
Person Requirements: We are looking
for an individual that is: highly organised
with excellent attention to detail, proficient
in the use of Microsoft Office, particularly
Word and Excel, familiar with using Mac
computer systems, outgoing, confident and
friendly.
Location: Newcastle city centre
Job Title: Catering Staff
Employer: Direct Recruitment | Newcastle
upon Tyne, Durham | £6.31 per hour
Salary: £6.31 per hour
Basic job description: Bar and Plate
Waiting Staff needed for busy events in the
Newcastle and Durham areas, especially
working over the summer months.
Person Requirements: The ideal candidate will be enthusiastic and hardworking
with excellent time keeping.
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, Durham
Job Title: Newcastle Work Experience Event Coordinator
Employer: St Oswald’s Hospice
Basic job description: St Oswald’s
Hospice provides services for both children
and adults with life limiting illnesses. We
are seeking an organised and enthusiastic
individual to support a series of events
following the launch of our ‘Life List’ campaign - activities and achievements we’d
like to complete in our lifetime. The successful candidate will primarily focus on the
‘Kaleidoscope 5k’ taking place on Sunday
6th July. You will be an integral member of
the fundraising team and will be involved
in the planning, execution and evaluation
of events.
Person Requirements: Organisation and
enthusiasm is essential. You must have
strong communication skills, drive and
creativity, and the ability to motivate and
coordinate others.
Location: Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne
Job Title: Student Tutor
Employer: Student Tutors
Salary: £10.00 per hour increasing to
£20.00
Basic job description: Interested in
becoming a Student Tutor? Tutor GCSE
and A-Level students on-line? Are you an
exceptional student or graduate looking
to pass your expertise down to students
who sat the same exams you did a couple
of years ago? Earn while you learn; teach
GCSE and A-Level students in your own
time, from your halls, using our virtual
classroom. Free training provided.
Person Requirements: Good communication skills, exceptional academic history
and a willingness to help others.
Location: Home based
Job Title: Newcastle Work Experience Games Developer
Employer: Tint Digital | Newcastle upon
Tyne | £1200 bursary
Basic job description: Tint Digital are a
digital agency specialising in the production of mobile games, apps and websites
across multiple platforms including iOS,
Android, Windows and Blackberry. We
are looking for a student to work with us to
create a brand new game. A selection of
genres and ideas will be available for the
choosing. Backed by a developer and a
designer, the lucky candidate will be able
to take the game idea and see it through to
completion.
Person Requirements: We are looking
for an enthusiastic student with a passion
for game development/design. We would
be looking for a candidate with experience
in one of the following areas: Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Autodesk 3ds Max
or Maya, Unity3D, Cocos2d or Cocos2dx, HTML5 or ImpactJS or other suitable
HTML5 game engines.
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills recently made
his mark in the Leeds Student
elections by playing the
campaign video of a
candidate live on air.
Mills
played
George Bradley’s
video in his afternoon show
last Tuesday.
He
introduced
the
video saying
“This is a guy
from Leeds
student Union
called George
running to be
Community Officer” and made a
running commentary
throughout the video.
He said of George’s video
that “the song choice is very strong”
which featured a re-worded version of
Cher Lloyd’s ‘Swagger Jagger’ and then
a transition into a re-worded version
of Beyonce’s ‘Drunk In Love’ of
which Mills said “it blew
my mind”. The video
sees George clearing
up rubbish in the
student area Hyde
Park, and dancing
provocatively in a wrestling singlet in
Leeds’ Edward
Boyle Library.
George is a
third year music student at
Leeds University and the video
credits him as producing the music
for his campaign video
himself. His manifesto
includes creating a rating and
feedback system on all Unipol properties in Leeds and to create a student
skills exchange.
Students disrupting the peace
Residents of a suburb of Loughborough
have complained about the ‘anti-social
behaviour’ that they claim is
coming from a Halls of
Residence in a residential area.
The local Neighbourhood Watch
scheme
have
kept a log of all
the incidents
that
have
taken
place
over the last
month
and
claim that the
total number of
complaints has
hit the over 100
mark.
The complaints include everything from
vomiting and urinating on
the streets, streaking and noise
disorder at inappropriate times in the
morning.
Residents claim that since the university
opened a second gate into the area they
live, they have been “terrorised”
by the “thoughtless” behaviour of students. While
relations
between
“town and gown”
in Loughborough
have
generally been quite
calm,
there
is increasing
pressure from
locals for the
university to
take firmer action on their
students.
The university has
claimed that disciplinary
measures
had been taken on over
340 students over the past
academic year, but not all of these
were in relation to anti-social behaviour
or noise complaints.
Free University in capital
A new way of studying the humanities
for fee has been proposed which involves
using the London area as a “giant
lecture hall”.
The initiative proposed
by journalist Barbara Gunnel and
musician Jonny
Mundey,
involves using
the free to access cultural
capital that
already exists in London to. They
argue that in
the teaching of
this course they
can use the vast
collection of free
to access resources
such as museums, galleries, concerts, and libraries, and also signpost participants to the
thousands of free talks and lectures that
are given by experts throughout the city
on almost every subject imaginable. To
get the course in motion and prepare
a thorough syllabus Mundey
and Gunnell say that they
would need to collate
these resources, negotiate access for paidfor events, and
provide access to
the best online
lectures by acclaimed
academics. Gunnell
and
Mundey
have launched
a fund raising
appeal and have
so far managed to
raise £7,000 from
92 backers, and once
they reach their target of
£10,000 they hope to be able
to hold an initial summer school.
May and then to begin teaching in January of next year.
Images: YouTube, Phil McIver, J.A.Alcaide (Flickr)W
Jamie Shephard
The Courier
.9
Comment
thecourieronline.co.uk/comment
Comment Editors: Joe Wood and Lydia Carroll
Deputy Comment Editor: Victoria Armstrong
courier.comment@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Comment
Is this the end? Probably
Between a broken smart phone, Osborne’s budget and an ominous prediction of the end of civilization, it might well be time we have a think about how we and our leaders behave with a good old nag
Joe Wood
T
he other day I had a troubling problem,
which at the time seemed to impair my
comfortable existence no end. It was,
as is so often the case, a technological
issue. My phone was playing up, I couldn’t call
anyone, the Internet was down; all in all it felt
like a bloody nightmare. But this was a relative
problem. It still necessitated me having in my
possession a phone that would blow the minds
of people living only a few decades past. This was
a ‘first world problem’ if ever there was one.
Now, the division between me, or whoever might
be reading this, and those who live in the less industrialised parts of the world is massive.
Yet, what have we done to change this? Well if
you’re anything like me, probably very little. It
might simply boil down to the fact that we West-
erners have become so used to the problem that
we have become desensitised and believe it to be
unchangeable.
It would be an understatement to say that in the
West, and even more so in our stoic Britannia, we
are growing dangerously complacent. Indeed, we
British may well be the world leaders of having a
nag without doing anything.
It is simply impossible to feel strongly about
politics, social injustices, or the world, when the
leaders you elect, or as with our current coalition
don’t elect, can’t seem to give a (excuse the French)
flying monkey fuck either.
Convictions seemed to die in British politics a
long time ago. Tony Benn may well have been the
last dying vestige of an idea people once shared.
The idea being that doing what you believe must
outweigh the infinitely fickle and eternally unsatisfied immediate opinion of the public.
Well we can’t expect any better from Old Etonians like Georgey and Dave. Neither can we look
with much hope at Ed Miliband, the man who puts
all other wet blankets to shame. Actually, I consider his grace more akin to a sodden duvet.
I digress. The problem is that our indifference
Is history repeating itself? Apocalypse indicators
The Ancients
- 3000 year old Egyptian civilization collapsed
through weakening of natural resources from
the Nile and foreign invasion
- Incas, Tiwanaku peoples and the Moche civilization vanished from staggering sizes to fragments of their former glory through resource
disparity
- Roman Empire crumbles within a century
from the world’s greatest super power to a shell
of its former self through the Dark Ages
- Kings and rulers ruin their nations through inability to plan ahead; Richard I, all the Louis, etc
- The death of some 50% of Europe through the
emergence of the Black Death
Modern Day
- Trade embargoes for oil, amongst dwindling
resources
- Continued climate change
- Limited resources
- Expanding populations (7bn)
- Toppling of established governments in Africa and now Europe.
- Continual economic booms and busts since
1870s
- Politicians obsessed by short term policy to
appease public; lack of foresight in policy making
- Emergence of fiercely resilient diseases, threat
of antibiotic immunity
- 5 Richest UK families = Britain’s poorest 20%
might well mean the end of Western civilization.
Or at least that’s the prediction of one group.
Who’s the group? Maybe some crazy conspiracy
theorists who claim to drink tea with the abominable snowman and go on holidays with the Loch
Ness Monster? Or those people who think the CIA
follows everything you do? Admittedly, they were
kind of right in the end.
Well, actually, it’s a resounding no to any of the
above. Who then? In fact, NASA is the answer.
Yes, the people who put man on the moon have
released a paper under the Nasa-funded Goddard
Space Flight Center, using the innovative ‘Human
And Nature DYnamical’ (HANDY) cross-discipli-
“How can
you imagine
the collapse
of civilization?”
nary model to warn of Western civilization’s eventual collapse.
The paper determines that “accumulated surplus
is not evenly distributed throughout society, but
rather has been controlled by an elite.”
“Even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites
eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the
collapse of society.”
When I read this report, the first thing that came
to mind was probably something like you. I didn’t
give it much heed. How can you imagine the collapse of civilization? I mean it was fun in 2012
when everyone was talking about the Mayans and
Armageddon, or when the LHC was going to cause
a black hole.
But this isn’t quite the same; this is real for a start.
Honestly, do you think the Romans or the Incas or
the mighty Egyptians believed that right round the
corner was their expiration date?
After some reflection, the penny started to drop.
Only history possesses true dramatic irony. The
present is a mess of incomprehensible futures that
are impossible to fully predict. This may be why
governments find it so difficult to plan ahead. It’s
just too daunting. Yet, it is imperative that they do.
Something like the Budget exemplifies this shortsightedness of politicians. Admittedly, my first
thoughts were undoubtedly a joyous huzzah! “A
whole penny off my beer? What a generous government we live under”. Of course, this was followed by a slightly less impressive increase on the
price of my beloved tobacco.
My real problem with it is that it does nothing
to reduce the disparity between Britain’s poorest
20% and its richest 5 families in Britain. Similarly,
it provides no real sense of where the UK will be in
10 or 20 years time or how we will fund research
into more efficient energy for the future generations of this century.
Our ‘professional’ politicians are too concerned
with appealing to the immediate wants of the public. Like opening a loan with Wonga or spending a
weekend on Frosty Jacks, governments can’t imagine the cold hangover and empty wallet of tomorrow.
The Budget is just another example of the frightening inability we have in creating perspective.
My dying phone seemed like such a problem the
other day and as I type this my computer’s lagging
is causing my blood to boil. Yet beyond the horizon, my future and that of probably most people
reading this could be dramatically altered by a very
different and far less comfortable Earth.
I would love for my conclusion to include a suggestion for what we do. Honestly, I haven’t a clue.
But we’re British, so let’s nag. But instead of simply
having a grumble over a cuppa or a pint, let’s make
it a proper loud one, in hope we might be heard.
Because, if life and history have taught me one
thing, leaving your shit under the rug means a
much bigger mess when you’re eventually coughing up that slobbery dust ball we call hindsight.
10.comment
SOAP
BOX
QUIZZES
The Courier
Boycott the marking boycott
After the recent series of lecturer’s strikes failed to secure an inflation based pay rise, the
UCU has proposed a marking boycott of student’s semester two work. Does this move try
to force bosses to compromise at the sake of student welfare, satisfaction and success?
Scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed in
those oft occurring moments of procrastination, I see countless offers to find out more
about your life, and who you really are. Ever
wondered which country you actually belong in? Which mythical creature you would
be? Or the question we just can’t live without
knowing: which Leonardo DiCaprio character
are you? Follow the link, answer the clearly
rigged multiple choice questions which ask
you (in varying ways and with varying pictures) to pick a food, drink, song, city, descriptive words and dog, and the clearly reliable answer is yours.
If these oh-so-reliable quizzes cause you some
level of personal gratification, then I assure
you I am happy for you. The problem is that
I just really don’t need to know. I don’t care if
you’re the triangle in the orchestra, or how unfair it is that you wouldn’t survive long in The
Hunger Games, so please stop clogging up my
newsfeed and drowning out any actual news
which may have happened in the ten minutes
since I took my last procrastination break.
Ruth Davis
MY LITTLE PONY
Grayson Bruce is a 9-year-old boy from
North Carolina who happens to love My Little Pony, so much so that he takes his books
to school in a bag shaped like his favourite
technicolour nightmare steed. While I’ve
always found MLP inherently creepy as a
concept, there was no need for what followed. Grayson was bullied for playing with
‘girls toys’, and his teachers somehow though
that the best course of action was to ban the
bag, claiming it was too ‘distracting’. Obviously the Brony community, second only to
Anonymous in terms of their power and influence, flooded the internet with complaints
until the school relented and let the poor
kid have his bag back, but we’re far past the
point at which the school should have concentrated their efforts on punishing the little
shits responsible by taking away their krazy
bones or battle conkers or whatever the hell
boys are meant to play with these days. Even
worse, force them to sit through a few dozen
episodes of My Little Pony and see if they
can stand the Lovecraftian dread of Twilight
Sparkle and her hell-born equestrian ilk.
Sam Summers
THE NME
I don’t have any idea who reads the NME
these days. Back when I did, the publication
was at the forefront of the Nu Rave scene and
the only place one could find out everything
about Brummie baggies the Twang. Now,
though, it’s gone and sold the entirety of the
front page of its website over to adverts for
the Enemy’s UK tour. Apart from the fact it
looks utterly gross, the Enemy are playing at
third-string venues and sold about 40 copies
of their last two albums put together, so they
can’t be throwing crates of gold bullion about.
It’s embarrassing that they’re having to take a
rather thin wedge of dosh from such a twobob outfit to keep going. Clearly the NME
doesn’t have much idea of who reads it these
days either: despite having relaunched twice
in the last two years, it averaged dismal weekly sales of about 18,000 in the second half of
last year, which is unsurprising for a great
many reasons - Alex Turner’s on the front
cover every six weeks, for instance, or the fact
that the writing is a ‘who can be the most selfindulgent’ wankathon. I wouldn’t welcome
the closure of the NME, but it’s pitiful to see it
stumbling toward the firing squad.
Tom Nicholson
Illustration: Victoria Kaye
A
Victoria Kaye
marking boycott by UCU (University and
College Union) will come into force on
April 28th. This will involve the markers not releasing examination results, not giving
feedback in a way in which a mark can be deduced and not attending any examination board
meetings.
From a student perspective, this is terrible. Our
fees have tripled within recent years, to the point
where it feels like we are paying for a service at a
huge mark-up (pun intended). Of course, the universities have taken it upon themselves to give us
the ultimate customer experience - by ensuring
that the administrative staff are as caring and considerate as any customer service desk ought to be.
Next thing you know, plans will be launched to replace all graduation services with automatic check
out machines.
And now to add to the financial burden – sorry, bundle - of joy, we will have to suffer delayed
marking, which for third year students means they
could graduate later than those whose lecturers are
not members of the UCU. Obviously, this will put
them at a massive disadvantage when searching for
an employer.
“It feels like we
are paying for a
lesser service at a
huge mark-up”
The other bad news is for the lecturers. Not only
will there be no leather elbow patch and corduroy
jacket allowance as part of your employment package (a travesty!) but your pay will not reflect trends
in the price of living at all. If recent figures are anything to go by, then that’s an average 13% pay drop
in the last 4 years. So it looks like your vocation
won’t be to inspire future specialists in your field
and to write works important enough to be used as
paperweights – but to live like students for the rest
of your lives and to never, ever go on holiday. But
why would you want to when you have all those
important paperweights to write?
To the credit of the lecturers they want to avoid
a marking boycott if at all possible, which is why
they have appealed for the help of the students. If
we apply our student pressure (which is at least
85% more effective than pressure from their own
peers, it seems) on the administrators then this
could kick start actual negotiations. No matter
which side of the fence you’re on, or if indeed, you
are on the fence, trying to kick start negotiations
is our best option. Well, second best - the best
would be having a university edition of Gladiators
to settle the dispute, but according to sources this
is sadly unlikely to occur. In the absence of such
a tournament, some student reps for the school of
Classics, Archaeology and History have recently
set up a petition and I would like you to sign it. It
will take two minutes of your time, it will help your
lecturers and it will help you.
If you agree, you can access the petition via:
www.facebook.com/blocktheboycott.
SPICY HOT NEWS - BUDGET SPECIAL SIDEBAR OF SHAME
Students advised to ‘be richer’
Students who have aspirations of paying off
their debts and achieving the hallmarks of
adult life - such as a mortgage - have been advised to ‘be richer’ and get ‘richer parents’, the
new Budget plans reveal.
Last week George Osborne stated, ‘under the
new plans, we’ve given young people no allowances at all. A this rate students should be sponging money off their parents and grandparents until they’re late twenties or early thirties. It’s very
unlikely they’ll ever get a mortgage, so they might
have to live at home, too. Fortunately, we’ve made
this easier than ever by allowing the wealthy tax
breaks and granting pensioners increased benefits, which they will have to use more or less
immediately to bail out their struggling children and grandchildren-’(...cont p.4)
Images: WorldEconomicForum, Tony Alter, Tax
Credits, BobPetUk
Cheese-rolling enthusiasts
‘outraged’ at Budget snub
A dedicated group of cheese-rolling enthusiasts in Gloucester have complained after the recently announced Budget ‘made no allowances
for them at all’.
The group’s coordinator, Fred le Camenbert,
complained that Osborne hadn’t given ‘a single tax
credit’ to fans of the sport. He said in a statement,
‘it’s clear that the Chancellor doesn’t give two hoots
about cheese-rolling talent.’
‘I’m a decent, hard-working taxpayer, like everyone else. A much needed tax break or cheeserolling subsidy could mean the difference between the club being able to roll a nice
Davidstow Cheddar down a hill, but now
we’re stuck with Tesco Value mild white.
But as usual, we’ve been passed over in favour of the beer-drinking Bingo fans or, as we call them, the bourgeoisie.’
‘Unlike Bingo, which involves a lot
of sitting down, cheese-rolling has
many health benefits which- (...cont
p.4)
Chic in the cold!
George Osborne
steps out in daring
plunging blue tie and
crimson bag combination as he flaunts tight
new bikini budget
Natural beauty!
Boris Johnson shows
off glowing skin in
new no make-up selfie
with gal pal
Rival Cameron take
note
Dave flaunts weight
loss in red trunks
during tropical getaway from stresses of
budget and flooding
Lost his mummy
tummy after Ed Balls’
‘small towel’ jibes
Lydia Carroll
The Courier
comment.11
The
Be mindful of mental health
Voice
of
Reason
The stigma attached to mental health can delay sufferers from seeking treatment - and it can actually
exacerbate their illness. That’s why Ruth Davis thinks that Mental Health Awareness Week is so vital
Ruth Davis
I
f a person found that they were ill, and the
illness persisted, they would have no qualms
about going to a hospital or doctor’s surgery.
They would expect to be treated with dignity
and respect, and offered treatment methods.
This would be seen as a normal and sensible reaction to illness. It would be considered foolish
if the person suffering chose to leave the illness
untreated with the hopes that it would go away.
However, if a person has a mental health problem, they would be much less likely to seek treatment from professional healthcare services. They
would often be scared of the reactions of others,
whether that is friends telling them to be more
positive and pull themselves together, or doctors
being quick to prescribe medication and cognitive behavioural therapy without trying to seek the
most suitable treatment for the specific problem.
Yet the truth is that mental illness is no different from any other form of illness. Mental illness is
the result of biochemical imbalances in the brain,
which in some situations can be bought on by
personal circumstance. Treatment and recovery is
possible, and there is no sense behind social stigma attached to it by healthcare professionals or so-
cial peers. This is the attitude which Mental Health
Awareness Week seeks to promote.
The week began in 2000, as a result of a survey which showed the stigma attached to mental
health, with 70% of participants having experienced discrimination as a result of suffering from
mental health problems. The causes of this were
“Almost half of first
year students don’t feel
comfortable talking
about mental health
with their friends ”
surprising, showing the workplace as one of the
lowest places of discrimination, but family and
friends as those who most commonly displayed attitudes of discrimination.
There was also a large number who felt discriminated against by the health care professionals to
whom they were going for help.
People suffering can also find themselves on ri-
diculously long waiting lists for treatment, or being
told complete recovery is near impossible. However, 91% of people believed this stigma could be
reduced, and as a result of this, the annual week
began, with an aim to increase awareness about
mental health in order to lessen discrimination.
The annual week aims to increased awareness
and the break of preconceptions associated with
mental health problems, with previous years tackling issues such as anger, loneliness and sleep. This
year’s theme is anxiety, which is experienced by
one in four people.
University coincides with the ages associated
with the onset of mental health difficulties, and the
change of lifestyle which it brings can also have a
triggering effect. Almost half of first year students
don’t feel comfortable talking about mental health
problems with their friends, meaning they can feel
isolated in a difficult situation. Reported cases of
anxiety amongst students have increased substantially throughout the last decade, thereby increasing the importance of raising levels of awareness.
Whilst support and treatment for mental health
problems has improved considerably over the last
decade, with issues such as eating disorders being much more openly discussed and recognised,
there is still a long way to go. Mental Health Awareness Week is an attempt to help speed up the rate of
this process, and help improve care and treatment
for many.
‘We seem to live in a society where
a woman’s natural, unmade face has
become a hidden taboo’
Image: aforiers, ClevrCat, FonnaTasha, Idhren, Janelle
Hope Morrison, Katie Holliday, Liana Skewes, Lotus
Carroll, ndanger, noisy_nisroc, patr!c!a, sofiavannek
No make-up selfies: the naked truth
The recent ‘no make-up selfie’ trend has raised over £2 million for Cancer Research.
But does it reveal a more troubling element of why women use make-up?
C
Lydia Carroll
ancer awareness is becoming a shady business. I’ve seen a spate of awareness campaigns which seems to conflate ‘knowing
and checking for the symptoms of cancer’ with
‘barely disguised tomfoolery marauding as charity’.
For instance: the group of LadsLadsLads who
went around last year motorboating female strangers with the promise of giving $20 of their own
cash ‘to cancer’ for every pair encountered, and
a further $100 for every 100,000 hits on the subsequent video. As they declared on the YouTube
video chronicling this totally not self-interested
bacchanal, ‘We love boobs – so let’s save some
boobs!’ And, um, the lives of the women inconveniently attached to them, I guess? But only if we
have to – you know, to provide a sort of life support
machine, for the boobs. Inevitably, their donations
were rejected outright by Cancer Research, who
curtly asked them not to use the charity’s name in
any of their - ahem - charity work, again (what a
burn). In a statement - e.g. on Twitter - the lads
blamed a vague faction of ‘haters’ for de-railing
their campaign.
Of course, I don’t think I need to explain how
withholding from charity the $7000 you happen to
have going spare until you feel you’ve got enough
titty-action and YouTube hits makes you a massive
plank. That’s simple - if you’re more interested in
the gimmick than the donation, then you are a bit
of a twat.
In this case, the ‘no make-up selfie’ occupies a
strange middle ground. It’s raising loads of money
for Cancer Research – brilliant! But when held up
to close analysis, the reason the campaign has been
so successful is rather more troubling. It means
that wearing no make-up – that is, literally having a female face – has become an act of bravery
worthy of donation. That just says something extremely dispiriting about society - that is, we live in
a society where a woman’s natural, unmade face is
a hidden taboo, worth £3 a pop and a clap on the
back. Not that the selfies aren’t brave, as I’ve seen
some claim – the women doing this are brave. And
that’s why it’s sad. We shouldn’t need to be brave.
Of course, there’s probably a point to be made in
the way that both examples seems to equate bits of
women’s bodies as having a ‘donation value’; £10
for a go on your breasts, £3 a pop for your monstrously natural, normal face.
That’s why my heart still sinks a little when I see
a photo uploaded to Facebook, along with an accompanying timid self-depreciating apology – ‘this
is my face, sorry guys, Gee I’m such a monster’.
Make-up is creative, expressive and fun – until it’s
a constant requirement. Raising money and symptom awareness for Cancer Research is great, too –
until it tells us something terrifying about the ways
women are made to feel ashamed.
Although one final question; I know that you’ve
donated and done something that required (sadly)
great bravery. But just how many of you who took
a selfie actually did the breast check you were encouraging?
No. 14:
The
Bingo
Budget
W
ell, woof. All an established pedigree
can do is bark disconsolately after
enduring the most prole budget ever
delivered by a Conservative government. Cuts
on bingo tax and beer duty? Are you pulling my
f*cking tail Gideon? You peasant loving, whippet racing, barm cake eating, plebeian wannabe!
I’d rather be a Korean meatball before I erect
another ruddy ‘Vote Conservative’ lawn sign at
the next election. Dearest Maggie, may she rest
in peace, would be turning in her grave if she saw
this Trotskyite scroll of shitty plebeian hogwash.
Where are the responsible policies I expect from
a Tory government? Tax breaks for millionaires,
reinstatement of a hereditary House of Lords and
where, in the name of all that is monetarist, is the
bloody tax relief on Iams treats?
If I wanted to vote for something Michael Foot
would have been proud to birth I’d buy a subscription for the Socialist Worker, invite Len McCluskey
to speak at one of my garden parties and bankroll
Diane Abbot’s leadership bid. But no, as my kennel
has for generations, I voted for this proud country’s natural party of government and instructed
my land dwellers to do the same. The good Reverend allowed me to address the congregation in
the week prior to election day and remind them
of their duty. (It was all very Francis Underwood
and House of Cards, well, the lesser Yank version
anyway.)
However, in spite of such unwavering loyalty, the
best you can give me is a Grant Shapps (or should
I say Michael Green) baked proclamation of crap.
“Cutting the bingo tax and beer duty to help
hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy,” are you f*cking serious CamBorne.
Like myself, they are both proud Oxford alumni,
members of the buller with pedigree bloodlines each respectively marrying a descendant of Charles
II and a baron is a jolly good effort - so, I ask again,
what are Gideon and his wonks playing at?
Increasing untaxed income to £10,500? That
doesn’t help me in the slightest, I spend more annually on Sandeman’s Port, Cesar’s finest, and
Hoyo de Monterrys (cigars to you plebs) what selfrespecting, landowning, pedigree canine doesn’t?
Inheritance tax waived for members of the emergency services because they give their lives in the
line of duty? What about we members of the aristocracy whose forebears gave their lives in defence
of the empire? Remember, never was so much
owed by so many to so few. What I would give for
some Churchillian leadership in this country right
now. Instead I’ve got Gideon on a prole inspired
jolly, what a f*cking liberty.
Then, as if this uppity modern history student
(can’t quite believe that’s an Oxon accredited degree) couldn’t find another way to shaft the country’s most important populous, he decides to extend taxation on residential properties owned by
companies from £2 million to £500,000.
You just couldn’t keep your grubby, hippy hands
off of my little holiday estate, could you Gideon?
Yours,
Pugs
Overheard by George Sandeman
Illustration by Flora Anderson
Pugs has got a new iPad, and
he’s been dictating tweets to his
manservant Timmons. Follow him on
Twitter at @LaVoiceofReason
12.lifestyle
The Courier
Lifestyle Editors: Evie O’Sullivan, Elizabeth Archer, Hazel Parnell and Katie Smith
The big question: Can your love
survive a long distance relationship?
Annie Lord
L
Stage fright #8
ast week at pre-drinks with my friend Sarah
and her ex-boyfriend, the ex announced
that he intended to ‘shag her and take a shit
on her new boyfriend Nick’. I laughed, because I
hate Nick, but weirdly Sarah laughed too. Which
made me think that her laughing at that joke is
just as disrespectful to Nick as kissing someone
else would have been. It seems as though when it
comes to cheating that the ‘it doesn’t count if you
don’t kiss’ rule is too blurry a line.
So what constitutes cheating? At Christmas I was
chatting to my childhood babysitter Maisy. I get really jealous of my boyfriend’ she said, ‘especially of
his sister. Just think about it, they used to take baths
together. And he’s from one of those naked hippy
families, so his mum and sister have probably seen
him naked more times than I have. They have this
unshakable bond which I can never break, or be a
part of, or even compete with. When is he going to
realise that I’m the only woman he needs! Only I
can give him blow jobs inside of the law!’
“Since when has spending
time with a sibling been
considered cheating?”
My first reaction was that Maisy is a psycho.
However when I rang my friend Ellie she just said
‘everyday I thank God that Jack’s sister is a lesbian.’
Since when has spending time with a sibling been
considered cheating? Perhaps everyone has been
watching too much Jeremy Kyle and reading too
much Pick Me Up.
It seems paranoia about cheating can work in
more than one ridiculous way. When in Zante,
having not eaten anything but Cheetos for a week,
the staff brought free food out onto the bar. A Lion
King style stampede ensued. A guy who was stood
behind my friend asked her, ‘Is that even nice? It
looks grim’ my friend Katie replied by shovelling
a forkful of Moussaka into his mouth. Thinking
nothing of it we all went back to lying like basting turkeys in the Greek sun. When I looked over
at Katie I was surprised to see her in tears, ‘What
have I done? I feel so guilty’, she said ‘What for?’
I asked ‘Is it cheating to feed another man food?’
Well maybe it would be cheating if you fed the guy
by squirting whipped cream onto your nipples and
encouraging him to lick it off, but I’m pretty sure
stuffing moussaka into a guys mouth is more reminiscent of how a mother would feed a baby.
“Despite being single, I’m
no less paranoid about
cheating than my loved-up
friends”
But who am I to talk? Despite being single, I am
no less paranoid about cheating than my loved up
friends. In fact maybe I’m worse. I get possessive
about people I’m not even in a relationship with.
Every time I see a girl chatting up a male friend
of mine I get this uncontrollable desire to assert a
sort of authority over them. Even though my brain
is screaming, ‘Annie he’s not your boyfriend, he’s
not cheating on you,’ before I can stop myself, out
of my mouth comes this rambling verbal diarrhoea where I say stuff like ‘God Tom is such a nice
guy’ ‘Yeah we’ve been friends forever’ ‘We’re like
brother and sister’. They’re just dancing in Trop
for heavens sake, I’m sure she doesn’t really want
to hear his life story, you’re not making a speech at
their wedding rehearsal dinner.
With so many psychos around it seems like anyone can be accused of cheating. You’re cheating if
you watch porn, you’re cheating if you flirt with
someone else, you’re cheating if you like another
girl’s picture on Facebook, and I wouldn’t ring 999
if I were you because if someone of the opposite sex
picks up, then you’re probably cheating too.
Oh yeah you can
The possibility of being apart from your other half for a long period
of time is daunting and it may make you want to throw in the towel
on your relationship, but there are many reasons why doing a LDR is
worth it.
You learn how to compromise: Before my boyfriend moved back home I didn’t even realise just
how important to a relationship being able to compromise is. So many arguments start because you
want to stay in but they want to go out or because
you travelled to meet all their family but they won’t
travel to meet yours. In a long distance relationship,
if you don’t compromise, you don’t last. You learn
how to work around each other’s schedules in order
to keep each other happy. What would be a massive
issue to another couple is no biggie to you, because
that’s just the way it has to be. Sometimes we just
have to be okay with not getting what we want all
the time.
Nah mate , leave it
Before I embarked on a long distance relationship, I would have told you
that it is not worth courting someone who lives outside of a 5-mile radius
from your house. After the descent of my relationship, this is a sentiment
that I still hold dear to my heart. In my bitter and experienced opinion, long distance relationships do not work.
If you were using the awful Drew Barrymore/Justin Long
Rom Com, Going the Distance as your yardstick and spiritual teacher, then like me you’ll soon find yourself wiping
away your tears, listening to Stevie Nicks songs on repeat
while shovelling a litre of Ben & Jerry’s into your mouth
faster than you can say ‘Timbuktu’.
“Spending every second weekend on
a Megabus sat next to a man with a
questionable hygiene standards will
soon become tiring”
First of all, the further you are apart, the less likely your
relationship is to survive. Trust me. Stay within the recommended 5 mile radius and you’ll be running down the aisle in
no time, step outside of the comfort zone and you’ll be heading for Splitsville, population.
More than anything, this rule of thumb is for practical reasons. Spending every second weekend sat on a Megabus next
to a man with questionable hygiene standards will soon become tiring and expensive and if your newly placed partner
comes with a time difference like mine did, then you’ll find
“Sometimes we just have to be
okay with not getting what we
want all the time”
You remember why you liked them in the first
place: It’s easy to forget when you’ve been together
a while how you felt when you first fell for your
boyfriend/girlfriend. It sounds corny but when
you’re in a LDR you start to miss all the things that
made you like them in the first place and when you
finally see them you get excited and nervous all
over again, every time.
You learn how to be an independently functional
human being: It’s scary when the person who you always spend time with, who looks after you if you’re
sick and listens to you when you want to moan is
suddenly in a different city, but, as the weeks go on
you start to realise you’re alright, you’re forced to stand
properly on your own two feet and live without your safety
blanket. It’s not nice at first but once you’ve mastered it you feel pretty great,
safe in the knowledge that even though you obviously love your significant
other, you don’t need no man or woman and if you were by yourself you’d
be fine.
It makes your relationship stronger: If you can get through an LDR
together, you can pretty much get through anything. You’ll appreciate each
other more and make the most of the time you have together when you’re
back in the same city, because you know what it’s like to be apart.
Lizzie Hampson
“Snapchats revert back to ugly,
hungover selfies”
yourself shifting your already strained timetable to fit in.
The first few months will fly by in a whirlwind of Skype dates,
morning texts and the odd sexually explicit Snapchat. However, after these initial months, conversation runs dry, Snapchats revert back to ugly, hungover selfies and morning texts
become mundane.
While apps like Facetime help to replicate, nothing beats a real
one-on-one face-to-face conversation and spending long stretches of time
without this can be draining. Although you can dabble in a bit of risqué activity on Skype, you’ll start craving the real thing and that’s when some people will
succumb to temptation. After a night out you’ll find yourself sharing your bed
with a box of cheesy chips rather than arguing about who gets to be the little
spoon with your partner and at this point you’ll realize how far you really have
fallen. Let’s just face it: distance does not make the heart grow fonder.
Josie Ayre
Textual intercourse
Wondering what your prospective beau actually meant by “See you later pal”? Allow
Charlotte Maxwell to go the full Bletchley Park
The one word text: Babe/ Baby
This is always a ‘I am seeking a degree of attention from you and I may well want
more than just your textual attention’. Guys tend to use baby when they’ve done
something wrong, or they want something from you or they’re just being plain
old cute. Girls either require more attention than you are providing or they want
something from you (probably sexual).
Kisses: What guys mean
x
xx
xxx
xxxx
1 kiss means he’s being friendly and views you as his mate or his pal, or (if
they suddenly appear) he’s becoming mildly interested. Props to you honey,
it looks like your game plan is working.
2 kisses means he’s being very, very friendly or he’s attempting to cross the
friend boundary- things are hotting up. Either that or he was rushing
and made a mistake. Soz.
3 kisses means yeah, he’s very interested, possibly a little love struck or
if they’re in capitals (XXX), he probably wants to jump your bones - if
he hasn’t done so already.
4 kisses. Oh god, now you’re in for his soppy side. Get out of there.
Just go. You would be safer on Tinder.
Kisses: What girls mean
x
1 kiss is used for general pleasantries between friends or
‘I need to establish to you that we can only be friends, no
you cannot hustle me to feel differently’ or ‘we’ve had our
awkward moments, so it may be best for us to just use one
kiss for now’
2 kisses means ‘we’re close friends so we can do two’
or ‘there’s the potential that we’re a little bit more than
friends…’
3 kisses is when things start heating up. It means ‘we
are most definitely more than friends’ or ‘we have a 2
kiss standard, but as I’m a little drunk I’ll show you
my true feelings’.
4 kisses means ‘I’m into you’ or ‘I’m obsessed with
you, I know how many minutes you spent thinking about jalapenos in Subway.’ Keen.
xx
xxx
xxxx
Charlotte Maxwell
Culture
The Courier
.13
thecourieronline.co.uk/culture
Culture Editor: Sam Summers
Sections: Lifestyle, Fashion, Beauty, Arts, Music, Film, TV and Science
courier.culture@ncl.ac.uk | @CourierOnline
Blind dateLaura Richards, 2nd Year English Language meets
Tom on Laura
Tom Nicholson, MA Media & Journalism
What do you usually look for in a girl, and did Laura fit
the bill?
The main thing is an ability to carry a conversation and
give good chat, so in that respect Laura was an absolute
dream.
Did the convo flow well?
It did, though the Peter Andre calendar in my eyeline
was extremely distracting and broke up the chat a few
times. Cheers, Pete.
“I was very nervous, to the point
of nearly getting a last-minute
haircut”
What do you think is her best feature?
Her adherence to the universal law of getting
rounds in, or possibly her ability to look and
sound genuinely interested when I was talking
about pinball machines.
Laura on Tom
Describe your first impressions of Tom in three words.
Late, nice smile.
What did you talk about?
For some reason we always ended up reverting back to Peter Andre.
Were there any funny or awkward moments at the start?
Not really
At any point in the date did you understand why he is
single?
No, he’s a post-grad so I assume he’s really busy?
What do you think is his best feature?
His sense of humour.
“He went to play on the
pinball machine and I
went off to Worldies”
And if you had to name a worst…?
He likes One Direction.
And if you had to name a worst…?
Nothing terrible came to light in the couple of
hours we were together.
At any point in the date did you understand
why she might be single?
No, though the fact that she’s from Whitley Bay
might put off some. Not me though, I love dilapidated seaside towns.
Any mentions of ex boyfs?
No, thank heavens.
What do you think your parents would make
of her?
My parents would be utterly enchanted, I’m sure.
Would your flatmates approve?
Definitely, she was a good laugh.
Would you describe her as cute, sexy or hot?
Mostly cute.
Would you describe her as clever, funny or sweet?
Laura was a combo of all of the above, with the greatest
emphasis on funny.
How did the date end, anything cheeky?
Alas, no – she had to find an off-licence which was still
open past 10pm, so naturally she was quite distracted. I
spent half an hour playing on the 24-themed pinball machine, which was cheeky insofar as it nicked a fiver off me.
Who paid?
They went dutch
What did you drink?
Lots and lots of cocktails
How did you find going on a blind date? Were you nervous?
I was very nervous actually, to the point of nearly getting a
last-minute haircut.
Describe your first impressions of Laura in three words.
Patient (I was a bit late, bloody Heaton buses); nervous
(she struggled with folding the drinks menu back up - in
Alvino’s they come in cassette tape boxes, so they’re extremely fiddly at the best of times); and sweet.
Where?
Alvinos
Would you take him
home to meet your Mum and Dad?
Yeah, why not?
Shag, marry or see-ya-bye?
These options are horrible! He’s definitely marriage
material, but just not for me.
Do you think there will be a second date?
Probably not.
Would you describe him as cute, sexy or hot?
Cute.
Would you describe him as clever, funny or
sweet?
Clever.
Do you have a usual type, and if so did Tom fit the
bill?
I only like tall lads, so not exactly – sorry.
How did the date end, anything cheeky?
Nah, just a kiss on the cheek – he went to play on the
pinball machine and I went off to Worldies.
Rate yo’ date:
6.5 – he was a lovely guy but it was like going out for a
drink with one of my friends.
Do you think you’ll see each other again?
We both live out Heaton way, so perhaps we’ll lock eyes
over the freezer cabinet in Loco one of these days.
Rate yo’ date :
7.5
Unlucky in love? The Courier is here to help
Send your details to: c2.lifestyle@ncl.ac.uk
14.lifestyle
The Courier
Lifestyle Editors: Evie O’Sullivan, Elizabeth Archer, Hazel Parnell and Katie Smith
Celebrity
BFFs
Ever wondered who A-listers
trust their secrets to or who they
go to when they need a shoulder
to cry on? Lifestyle Editor Katie
Smith lists some of Hollywood’s
best and most long-lasting
friendships
Sir Ian Mckellen and Sir Patrick
Stewart
1.
@SirPatStew
Friends for longer than I’ve been alive these two
prove that true bro-love lasts a lifetime. And that
the party doesn’t stop just because you’ve hit 70.
Some top moments include those pics of them
gallivanting around New York in matching bowler hats on their boys day out. That time Patrick
called him and Ian “the boys” in a tweet. The fact
that they call each other Sir, and when Ian officiated Patrick’s wedding ceremony. The list goes on.
and Penelope
2. Salma Hayek
Cruz
Egg-stravagent Easter eats
Creme egg melty pudding
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C/Gas
Mark 4
2. Melt 40g of the butter and use some kitchen roll to coat the inside of the mugs. Sieve
1 tbsp of cocoa powder and 1 tbsp of caster
sugar into the mugs to line them, and then
tap out any excess. Place a creme egg at the
bottom of each mug.
3. Melt the rest of the butter over a medium
heat in a small saucepan. Remove the butter
from the heat. Break the chocolate into pieces
and stir into the butter until the chocolate has
completely melted.
4. Whisk the eggs and yolks together in a
mixing bowl until pale and mousse like, incorporating the sugar a tablespoon at a time.
5. Once the butter and chocolate mix is cool,
slowly pour it into the egg mix and gently stir
in.
6. Sift the flour in mixture and gently stir it in.
7. Divide the mix between the four mugs.
8. Cook the puddings in the preheated oven
for about 15 minutes until slightly cracked on
top.
9. Once the puddings have been removed
from the oven leave them for two minutes to
cool a little before turning out. If they don’t
come out at first, run a knife around the edge
of the pudding to loosen them. The puddings
should be firm and spongy on the outside,
with a molten centre of creme eggy goodness
within.
10. Devour immediately.
Alice Fishman
Ingredients:
40g melted butter
(for greasing)
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp caster sugar
110g butter
110g dark chocolate
110g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
110g plain flour
4 Creme Eggs
Equipment:
4 mugs
1 mixing bowl
1 small saucepan
1 sieve
1 wooden spoon
If you’re fast running out of ways to
eat your creme eggs this Easter, why
not try one of these egg-citing recipes?
Creme egg brownies
Ingredients:
185g unsalted butter
185g best dark chocolate
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
100g cadburys mini
Creme Eggs
3 large eggs
275g golden caster sugar
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C/Gas Mark 4
and line a 20cm square tin with baking paper.
2. Melt the butter and dark chocolate together either in the microwave or in a bowl over
boiling water.
3. Break 3 large eggs into a large bowl and tip
in 275g golden caster sugar. With an electric
mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs
and sugar until they look thick and creamy,
like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes,
You’ll know it’s ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume.
4. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the
eggy mousse, then gently fold together with a
rubber spatula.
5. Hold a sieve over the bowl of eggy chocolate mixture and sift the cocoa and flour mixture, shaking the sieve from side to side, to
cover the top evenly. Gently fold in to the
mixture.
6. Then cut the Cadbury’s Mini Creme Eggs
in half and add them into mixture, making
sure they are evenly spread.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until fully risen.
6. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Lizzie Batchelar
I know a great little place called... The Great British Cupcakery
These two are such close friends that a this year’s
Oscars, the Academy Award’s official Twitter
mistook Penelope for Salma. Awkward? Not
for these two, they are two peas in a pod. Or,
as they call each other, ‘huevos’ (eggs). A way
of calling each other lazy, it started when Penelope wouldn’t get out of bed. The bed she often shared with Salma herself. Calm down, boys.
Kidman and Naomi
3. Nicole
Watts
In the late 80s they auditioned for the same swimsuit add in Australia and shared a taxi home. They
have since been representing Aussie talent in Hollywood, all whilst being best friends. But it’s not
always been such sunny success for these two. In
the 90s when Naomi was finding the move to LA
tough, it was Nicole’s support and encouragement
that stopped her from giving up and moving home.
DiCaprio and
4. Leonard
everyone
He may not have an Oscar and he wasn’t in the selfie, but who cares? Kate Winslet publically declared
her love for him from the Golden Globe stage. Jonah Hill regularly accompanies him on yacht trips
with bikini clad babes, reliving the Wall Street
days. And lets not forget Spiderman, A.K.A. Tobey
Maguire, Leo’s best pal for a quarter of a century.
T
ucked under the Tyne Bridge on Newcastle’s Quayside, The Great British
Cupcakery sits in one of the quieter and
prettier parts of the city. The brainchild of mother-daughter team Carole, Leoni and Naomi, the
Cupcakery was opened in May last year and has
since become a thriving business. Apparently
inspired by their grandmothers’ baking, Team
GBC say they aim to provide traditional British
home-baked goodies to conjure childhood memories of your own.
“With wide eyes glued to the
6 inch tall red velvet cake, we
sat down”
Upon first impression, the tearoom is just as cutesy and nostalgic as you would imagine, decorated
in Wedgwood blue with white painted furniture
and strategically placed jam jars filled with flowers. What immediately draws the eye however is
not the decoration, but the counter in the middle
of the room, laden with a staggering selection of
cakes, scones, tarts and brownies, with trays full of
cupcakes and macaroons underneath. So far, so appetising; with wide eyes glued to the 6 inch tall red
velvet cake, we sat down.
Photos by Instagram user @gbcupcakery
Since it was my flatmate’s 21st birthday, we had
gone all-out and booked ourselves in for afternoon tea, which at £19.95 per head is probably
more than we’d usually have spent. However, I
can safely say it was worth every penny. With
the unlimited tea flowing, we stayed for hours as
we gallantly tried to munch our way through the
generous spread of cakes and sandwiches. Served
on vintage mismatched china were scones with
strawberry jam and cream, Eton Mess cupcakes,
chocolate ‘townies’ (a cross between a tart and a
brownie) and many more delectable treats.
In the end we had to admit defeat and left
feeling spherical with boxes of leftover
goodies in hand.
Coming from a family of keen
bakers myself, I’m a harsh critic
when it comes to homemade
cakes, but I was impressed
at how fresh and tasty the
spread was, with motherly
must-feed-you-up-beforeyou-go-back-to-uni style
portions to boot. If
afternoon tea sounds
a bit pricey for an everyday treat, then The
Great British Cupcakery’s cream tea is a student friendly alternative at
just £3.95 per head, and with Mothers’ Day on the
horizon I might be back to sample the cream tea
soon.
The staff at the Cupcakery were relaxed and
friendly, making us feel instantly at home. Although perhaps they were a little too relaxed at
times, as our cakes took a while to arrive when we
first sat down. The music in the background was
also a nice touch, with a retro style playlist creating a cosy atmosphere without being too intrusive.
Overall, the Cupcakery’s combination of retro
styling and copious amounts of cake make for a
refreshing change to what thousands of
generic coffee shops offer closer to town.
And with tea and scones for under £4,
their pricing is a refreshing change
as well. I would recommend
taking a trip to the quayside
for a relaxing and slightly fattening afternoon every once
in a while; it’s good for the
soul.
NB: The Great British Cupcakery do offer
gluten-free cakes, but
it’s best to call ahead and
check availability as they
tend to sell out quickly.
Elizabeth Archer
The Courier
lifestyle.15
thecourieronline.co.uk/lifestyle
c2.lifestyle@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Life
What Easter animal are you?
Do you lick yourself?
YES
NO
Tom Tibble
Pet Hate #2:
Dodgy doggy-do
Flowchart design by Elizabeth Archer
Do you like your
roast dinner fancy or
caught yourself?
CAUGHT
S
YE
S
TER
ER
NO
Are you a grunter or a
squealer?
YES
YES
NO
If your blind date had to describe you in three words they
would be the three Cs: classic,
cute and cuddly. You are everyone’s favourite Easter animal,
a true crowd-pleaser. You hop
from garden to garden bringing cuddles and chocolate. You
are quite literally a ‘ledge’. They
say there is nothing better than
a good friend, except a good
friend with chocolate.
YE
Do you even lay, bro?
GR
UN
L
EA
Bunny
“Dog walkers out there just
want to see the eyes and nostrils of the public burn”
NO
Are you at your best
when covered in
chocolate?
Katie Smith
NO
Y
NC
FA
Does your significant
other use a lot of pet
names?
U
SQ
W
arning. This pet hate is quite graphic, but the fault lies with the anarchical dog walkers out there that
just want to see the eyes and nostrils of the
public burn.
A pet hate is anything that annoys you a bit
more than it probably should, and this tends to
be inconsequential things like those fiddly little stickers on apples or Clive Tyldesley’s comainducing football commentary.
Do you like to roll around
in your own filth, you dirty
Easter monkey?
Pig
They call you the black sheep
(pig) of Easter and many will fail
to see how you fit into this holiday. Mysterious though you are,
you sometimes don’t feel as if
you belong. A pig on the outside
but a babe on the inside, you are
often misunderstood. Like every
other unwashed. People think
you are pretentious but you are
actually pretty down to earth.
Run free this Easter little piggie,
you are The Courier’s Easter Animal 2014. Like Winston Churchill said: “I am fond of pigs. Dogs
look up to us. Cats look down
on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
The man knew his onions.
Lamb
Chick
Mary had a little lamb, its
fleece as white as snow and
everywhere that Mary went
that lamb was sure to go.
Innocent, pure, virtuous and
particularly tasty with a side of
mint sauce, you enjoy the traditions and history of Easter.
Always willing to go that extra
mile for your friends you are
loyal and lovely.
Kentucky Fried Chick’ and an
Easter Egg. Just kidding! The
resident baby of the bunch
you like to be well looked after by your pals and the centre of attention at all times.
But a true Easter baby you
are. Your entire life span is
devoted to Easter, from your
painted egg shell to the dinner table. We thank you for
making Easter so special.
And adorable.
Illustrations by Daisy Billowes
That’s where this week’s pet hate may be up
for dispute since it probably receives a sensible
dose of revulsion. But if this pet hate, despite
involving both pets and hate, doesn’t class as
one, then maybe this can act as a public service
announcement to the following - dog walkers
that do not pick up their dogs’ shit.
Don’t get me wrong, shit is a fantastic natural
compost, but not when it is smeared all over a
sports field where it’s putrid aroma and remarkable power to blind is able to exist to the best
of its havoc-wreaking ability. Picture a hulking ogre of a rugby player make a 30 yard run
only to find that having nailed a well-earned try
line belly slide, he realises that he has launched
straight through a rotten dollop of dog excrement.
And yet, what is possibly more annoying than
the formation of the dogshit itself is the dog
walker’s charade in pretending that a dogshit
has not formed at all. Often it plays out like this:
the dog walker strolls along, lost in thought as
his dog lags behind sniffing some tree or bush
or public footpath. The dog walker then finds
his walk halted by his now squatting companion and decides that ‘no Fido, you cannot shit
here, this is too public, let me take you down
some concealed route where no one will see me
not pick up your shit’ and so with a swift yank
of the lead poor Fido is elevated back into load
baring trot mode.
“Shit is a fantastic natural compost, but not when it’s smeared
over a sports field”
But not for long. The squat process soon happens again and this time Fido manages to make
a little progress, only to find his owner react
with a yet stronger yank of the lead. Since the
owner won’t let poor Fido finish in one go, the
staccato of squat walk squat walk slowly introduces the tree or grass or public footpath to a
ghastly trail of Fido’s digested breakfast. And
why must this happen? In the scenario of waiting for Fido to go in his own time, it becomes
too obvious to the on-looking public that the
owner has left Fido’s turd without ever having
the intention of picking it up. Instead the dog
owner drags his dog along under the pretence
that he has no idea what Fido is trying to do.
Shameless foul play.
Dog shit: just pick it up.
16.fashion
The Courier
Fashion Editors: Frances Stephenson and Amy O’Rourke
Deputy Fashion Editor: Bex Finney
My week
in fashion
With ball season round the corner it’s time to think about what you’re going
to wear to the biggest photo opportunity of the year. Finding ‘the’ dress can
be stressful, Rohan Kon considers some alternatives
I
Kathryn Holland
L
ast week I took a well-needed excursion
home to see my family and get some rest
and relaxation. I was (and still am, to noone’s surprise) low on funds and in need of some
parent-funded retail therapy. My mum is a firm
believer in the “sensible, comfortable shoe” so
Clarks was a particularly favourite haunt during
my school years, I yearned for the “cool” shoes
that the other kids had.
You can guess my surprise then during my trip
home she announced her admiration of trainers:
‘‘I’ve heard that they’re very fashionable at the moment!’’ According to my mother, if The Telegraph
says it’s on trend then it’s on trend. If only I’d realised this in my childhood.
It seems that my Mum and The Telegraph were
on to something. No longer resigned solely to the
gym bag or when you realise that your feet are
bleeding, the trainer is now a must-have fashion
accessory.
This spring, Karl Legerfield sent the Chanel couture line out on to the Runway accessorised with
trainers. What’s more many of the attendees of
London fashion week sported Nike, New Balance
and Adidas to name a few.
“No longer resigned solely to
the gym bag or when you realise that your feet are bleeding,
the trainer is now a must-have
fashion accessory’’
Even though the performance trainer’s popularity is on the rise there’s no shying away from the
fact that, aside from the welly, there probably isn’t
a less flattering shoe. It shortens the calf, it doesn’t
lift the bottom. Despite this, however, it seems that
fashion is a sporty place right now. The trend at the
moment is for slouchy garments that look good
with a chunky, perhaps ugly, shoe.
With my lack of money at the moment I have
been unable to attain this season’s must have footwear. Thank the Lord then that my Mum’s new
found love of the trainer arrived at such a good
time.
She was the one who picked out the pair I finally
settled on, some Nike Junior Free 5.0’s (junior because I’m lucky enough to still fit into children’s
sizes - no V.A.T so I’m not complaining). They are
super comfy and look great with my black skinny
jeans, my go to item of clothing for uni. My mum
approved, not only because they featured in The
Telegraph, but because ‘‘they have a great instep,
and are super supportive’’. Everyone was a winner
that day!
The only downfall to my new favourite shoe was,
because of how comfortable they are, my Mum recommended them to my nana. She’s now ordered a
pair…
Topshop
Nike
Prom dress alternatives
W
f finding the perfect dress isn’t a problem for
you, but what you can’t stand is the impracticality of a floor-length gown, the jumpsuit is
the sly variation for you.
Going for a flowing material with a wide fitting
leg can give the impression that you are wearing
the demur dress you’re expected to, but secretly
your legs have the freedom to dance.
If you go for a wide-leg you can get away with
wearing flats too, if heels are something that you
struggle with. The jumpsuit is also a must-have
item for your summer wardrobe, for going on
holiday, or even just going out for meals with your
friends.
The Tux
“Blocking is still in, and is
a really great opportunity to
show off your knowledge of
this season’s colours’’
Many jumpsuits are halter-neck or strapless,
and so give your look a really summery feel. Like
with the tux, there are innumerable options for the
jumpsuit.
You could of course reject the pretence of a dress,
and go for a fitted leg. This will give your body a
silhouette which can’t be achieved by a dress, and
show off the summer bod you’ve worked so hard
for! Similarly to choosing a dress, you then have
the option of wearing a block colour or a bold pattern.
hat comes to mind first, when thinking of an alternative to wearing a ball
gown, is the conventional rebellion of
wearing a tux. This subversion of gender stereotypes has been going on since the 70s (when it
usually came in the form of flared suit trousers
with a polar-neck under the jacket) as a bold
statement against the patriarchy forcing women
to wear skirts.
Suits have an air of sophistication, and are effortlessly stylish however you choose to wear them.
You can, for example, put yourself right on trend
with the androgynous look by sticking to neutral
colours, and wearing a slim fit trouser with a thin
tie and brogues.
‘‘A tux can look great with
heels too, and can give you an
opportunity to show off your
statement accessories’’
The
Jumpsuit
However, it needn’t make you look masculine if
that look isn’t for you, because finding a suit that
fits you properly will accentuate your figure, and
you could emphasise this by wearing your suit
jacket and trousers with a tight colourful top. A tux
can look great with heels too, and can in fact give
you an opportunity to show off your statement accessories.
White suits can look a bit cheesy, but a white jacket
with black trousers can create a nice contrast, and
whilst black, navy and grey are always classy, you
may find these neutral colours a bit boring.
You’ve got a trend in me
Adithya Sharanya takes her outfit to the streets and asks what the public
make of her spring, pastel combo.
Kirat
I like how the look includes many different
colours simply by using pastel shades. The
scarf really complements the pretty white border on the skirt and the fitted jumper going in
at the waist would flatter many body shapes.
Harpal
Like the colour of the top, think it blends
in well with the scarf and light colours.
I think this outfit would be more
complete with a set of skin colour
tights. The boots are also a good
match and add to the generally good flow of the clothing.
Beata
The skirt length works
on you and beige goes
with your skin tone. Love
the scarf. Loving the
recreation of the classic
white-denim look
Taz
The top is really good,
goes really well with the
scarf. Kinda classy actually The scarf is a bit
bulky, although it still
works! The skirt looks
like curtains. The shoes
are very smart! All in
all the outfit works, just
need a better skirt.
Vidhi
Shoes and top together have a very
pastel edge to them. The scarf is a
bit too bright but does the outfit
good as a whole!
Ruhi
I think the denim skirt with the white frills
is a fresh look despite the slight shade dampening of the top, the outfit works as a whole
bringing in the natural colours and binding
them to produce an outfit that brings out
natural beauty.
The Courier
fashion.17
thecourieronline.co.uk/fashion
c2.fashion@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Fashion
She’s always a woman to me
Hannah Fitton tells us how to pull off the androgynous look without being mistaken for a 12 year old boy
I
Trucker sandals Topshop
nitially, I wasn’t sure which was more difficult, being able to spell the word androgyny,
or to wear it. Whilst images of Carrie Bradshaw working the tux in Sex and the City spring
to mind, I do fear getting it wrong and ending up
looking like a well dressed guy.
These chunky shoes from Topshop are a perfect
addition to the outfit. The chunky corrugated sole
is as masculine as it can get, however the sprinkling
of glitter embedded within the sole adds that little
bit of femininity. If this shoe couldn’t get any better, it has a jelly sole, bringing back memories of
your favourite shoes aged six. Moreover, the thick
black strap and buckle look great worn with trousers turned up at the ends.
Hannah’s look
Nevertheless, androgyny does appeal to me; tailored trousers and structured shirts are key staples
in my wardrobe. Here I have taken a pair of gingham trousers from Topshop, and a simple white
shirt as a basis for the look. For those afraid of
looking too masculine opt for shirts with lace, or
intricate detailing, and trousers with patterns or a
tight fit to add femininity.
Clutch bag Whistles
Envelope style clutches are very popular this season, with Whistles spearheading this trend. However, you don’t need to stretch your budget that far
when Asos do such great copies. The unusual iridescent colour of this clutch looks beautiful when
under different lighting, so is perfect for in the
natural daylight and on a night out.
“Initially I wasn’t sure which
was more difficult; being able
to spell the word androgyny,
or to wear it...”
“Envelope style clutches are
very popular this season, with
Whistles spear heading this
trend”
Duster coat ASOS
This black duster coat from Asos is perfect for the
androgynous look. The blazer style and oversized
shape of this jacket is a definite nod to the androgynous look, however the slouchy shape makes the
coat more informal and less like your dad’s coat for
the office. A coat like this is super versatile too, and
wouldn’t have to be worn just for creating the androgynous look.
Two piece Topshop
If trousers aren’t your thing you can still create
the androgynous look just in a slightly different
way. This matching two piece jacket and short
combination is masculine due to its sharp tailored
lines, however the small details such as the sweet
dot print, small triangle cut outs and bumpy texture add a little femininity to it. Investing in a suit
like this is ideal, not only does it look great together, but both pieces can be worn alone with other
items of clothing and look perfect.
“Images of Carrie Bradshaw
working the tux in Sex and
the City spring to mind, yet I
do fear getting it wrong and
looking like a well
dressed guy”
Spend, save, splurge: sunglasses
Charlotte Davies seeks out which sunglasses to save, spend or splurge on this spring/summer
F
or just £2 who could say no to this little bargain? Yes, you
heard right, if you’re looking to save this season, look no further.
This nifty little bargain can of course be found in no other than
good ol’ Primark (though they don’t look it!). The leopard print pattern and cat eye shaping will keep you bang on trend, without even
making a dint in the bank balance. And, even if you’re looking for a
bit of a higher end product, these shades would be the perfect back
up pair for an unexpected sunny day.
S
o, if you’re looking to splash out a little more on your shades
this season, then Topshop is the place to look. The combo of
oversized hexagon with tortoise shell printing will make for the
ultimate stylish statement.
The trend oozes 1970s vintage, giving a stylish finish to any of your
spring/summer looks. The good news? This look will cost you only
£16. These sunglasses are the perfect guilt-free treat for any fashion
conscious student. Set to be a statement style this summer, you’ll
wonder how you ever did without these babies.
A
nd finally, for the ultimate splurge. Priced at £168 if these
shades are your thing, its time to get saving.
Though on the pricey side, this timelessly classic look from
Chloe screams stunning sophistication. Price tag aside, who could
deny such a gorgeous set of frames? And with their timeless look,
you’re sure to get your moneys worth. Nothing quite finishes a look
than a pair of designer shades. If you’re prepared to dig a little deeper
into your bank balance this summer then this pair will serve you well.
Ladies, I believe its time to start spoiling ourselves.
18.beauty
The Courier
Beauty Editors: Safiya Ahmed and Amy Macauley
Before, during and aftershave
Aftershave, cologne, fragrance: whatever you want to call it, Tom Tibble shares his wisdom on how to smell heaven-scent
T
here is a saying, ‘aftershave should be
found rather than announced.’ An allusion to the value of subtlety, the idea that
aftershave should not turn a room into a gas
chamber, but should instead be worn sparingly
making stumbling into a stray waft a pleasant
surprise.
“When The Lad walks into
a room he wants everyone
in it to taste his scent in
every meal they eat for the
following decade”
Well the Ladnation says sod that. When The Lad
walks into a room he wants everyone in it to taste
his scent in every meal they eat for the following
decade. The Lad wants to make a bolder impression than any Rival Males, so to supplement his
aftershave he uses beforeshave and duringshave as
well.
This use of before, during and aftershave, in combination with a hearty amount
of deodorant makes the irresistible aromatic concoction that lands Lads so much
Action. And yes, by Action
I mean when a Lad brings
a female mate back from a
night out and engages them
in a heated game of chess, or
scrabble, or on occasion hungry hippos. (A side note here:
I want to reinforce a backing
for the recently maligned
scrabble, it’s as Laddish as
any other board game and
though it receives flack in the
Ladrealm for being ‘words’
based I feel it belongs up there with the best of the
‘logic’ based games. Sure, it’s no Connect 4, but it
certainly possesses more charisma than noughts
and crosses.)
Anyway, this is how The Lad attains this night
of passion. The Lad watches television when suddenly a before, during and aftershave advert comes
on in typically cryptic fashion. The setting is a
low-lit swanky poker table and the camera cuts to
one of the players whose name looks as if it should
be something majestic like Alessandro Del Piero.
The poker player, Del Piero, looks an absolute boss
sporting a pinstripe suit and a somehow neat-butrugged beard. The camera pans to the rest of the
poker players who look weak and nervous. Then
we get the contrast, a close up of Del Piero’s confident face as he says in a raspy Italian accent, ‘I am…
unpredictable’. Then boom, we get a quick cutaway
to a jewel-plated snake coiling itself around a bottle of Paco Rabanne One Million and then boom,
back to Del Piero who is now stood and saying to
the camera, ‘I am… unexplained’. Del Piero then
pushes his poker chips across the table and firmly
declares, ‘I am… all in’. Boom, again here comes
the cutaway of the snake who slowly unfurls from
around the bottle and the watching Lad
is left wondering what on earth he
has just witnessed.
But whatever it was, it worked.
Because what The Lad does next
is he buys a bucket load of the advertised fragrance and applies it
heartily before, during and after
the shaving process. That alternative Paco Rabanne One Million
(named for how many men in
every million men wear the fragrance) advert is just one example of classic Ladvertising but do
make sure to be enticed by a variety of Ladverts to mix it up. Aftershave: it’s your call.
Tom Tibble as Alessandro Del Piero: ‘I am... unexplained’
Underneath the covers
Hannah Bullimore tells us how to achieve the looks from this month’s top mags so you can be a cover girl every of the week
F
or years the most glamorous and fashionable magazines have relied upon the effect of
one strong image to draw the attention of
readers. The cover girl offers the height of aspirational beauty so we at The Courier have decided
to help you achieve that cover star look every day.
Lea Michele for
Glamour
your fingers using a little serum to soften the curls
and prevent any frizz. Next tie the top section of
the hair back with a small, clear band then secure
slightly forward with a grip to create shape and
volume at the front of the head. This half up, half
down do is incredibly flattering.
Katie Holmes for Elle
Photo: Chad McNeeley,
Her look is sleek, sharp and modern, perfect for
this year’s spring trends. Start with a light foundation and then focus on good sculpting techniques.
Use a highlighter such as Benefit Watts Up Soft
Focus Highlighter to add definition to eyes and
cheeks bones. This slight glow will give a flattering
warmth to your skin.
Katie’s look uses the brows rather than the lashes
to draw focus to her eyes, so make sure you have a
well-defined arch and use a soft eyebrow pencil to
define eyebrows. A touch of hairspray on a brow
brush will keep eyebrows in shape and make sure
they stay defined all day and all night. A pale rose
lip balm adds a touch of colour and moisture to
lips.
The look is naturally sexy and can be carried off for
day and night – perfect for those who love to head
out straight after their last lecture.
To begin create natural, soft looking skin. Start
with a matte foundation such as Maybelline Stay
Matte Foundation. Stay clear of shiny products
such as highlighter and instead use only a light
powder blush to add a little colour, Rimmel Pink
Rose 004 Blush gives a fresh faced touch of pink.
‘‘Lea Michele’s look is
perfect for those who
head out straight after
their last lecture”
Next is eye make-up. Leah Michelle is drawing
the reader into the magazine with that powerful
gaze, but she’s not depending on heavy eye make
up to do it. Instead use a brown kohl pencil as an
alternative to black eyeliner to add delicate definition that suits all eye colours. Blend a natural pale
brown eye-shadow over the lid and finish with just
a touch of mascara.
Finally create that soft, relaxed hair by using a
curling wand to create soft waves using wide sections of hair. Then comb the hair through with
Photo: David Shankbone
‘‘The cover girl offers
the height of
aspirational beauty”
Photo: Eva Rinaldi
To achieve Katie’s hair use a high shine shampoo
and conditioner and then blow dry hair straight.
This look definitely requires freshly washed locks.
Next, use straighteners to create a straight texture
then curve the straighteners slightly at the end to
soften the look. Leave the top layers of hair just
blow dried straight to create a more modern texture.
Georgia May Jagger for
Vogue
The blonde beauty is sporting a sexy, bedhead look
on Vogue’s cover, perfect for this season’s sports
luxe trend.
To create the look, begin by towel drying hair until nearly dried. Next use a texturizing mousse and
rub in from root to ends, rubbing the hair between
your hands to create thickness and texture. Next,
rough dry with a heavy side parting using a paddle
brush. Be careful not to use too much product as
this will weigh the hair down. If you are not starting with fresh hair use a quick blast of heat from
the hairdryer and some hairspray to fix hair in a
side parting. Next use a little dry shampoo or root
boosting powder to give extra bedhead texture.
‘‘There’s a cover star in
all of us”
To achieve Georgia May’s make-up use a pale
gold eye shadow before using a smudgy black
kohl on the bottom lash line. Foundation should
be creamy to give a healthy, dewy appearance. You
could try Clarins Skin Illusion Foundation. This
look is the perfect excuse not to use blusher or
highlighters as it’s all about an undone, just rolled
out of bed kind of look. Instead, add colour with a
lip shade that is warm but not too bright. Try a long
lasting colour to take you from day to night, such
as Revlon Colour Burst Lip Laquer in Coquet, to
get Georgia May’s luscious pout.
Whichever cover girl you aspire to be, these top
tips should help you achieve a cover star look on an
everyday basis, from day to night. After all, there is
a cover star in all of us.
The Courier
beauty.19
thecourieronline.co.uk/beauty
courier.beauty@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Beauty
Daters gonna date
Ellen Dixon shares her top tips for perfect date makeup, whatever you’re up to
W
hen preparing for a first date you’re
probably going to want to look as gorgeous as you can when you step out
together. This is especially true considering the
Tinder revolution which has earned a few of my
friends at least 2 dates a week. All of our makeup bags need to be bulging with the best makeup out there - not necessarily the priciest.
Let’s be honest, for the majority of us the process
of applying makeup is either a ten minute rush before we go out or is complete 3 hours before, and
then has to be re-done anyway. With the added
pressure of having to impress a date with your killer cheekbones and luscious lips, whichever sort of
girl you are it’s always nice to have some beauty inspiration. From simple and pretty English rose lips
to sexy smoky eyes, you’re bound to make an impression (a good one) with these looks. My thanks
to my model, Kat.
All looks include :
Benefit Porefessional Primer - £24.50
Maybelline Fit Me Foundation - £7.99
Benefit It’s Potent! Eye Cream - £24.50
Rimmel Stay Matte Powder - £3.99
Rimmel Natural Bronzer - £5.99
Rimmel Lasting Finish Mono
Blush in Santa
Rose
Rimmel Day 2
Night mascara
Bobbi Brown
Long Wear Cream
Shadow in Sandy
Gold
The concert date
The drinks date
Probably the most popular kind
of date and the one that causes
the most deliberation where
your makeup is concerned. Simple yet alluring has to be the way
to go, unless your drinks are at
the Oscars or in your own flat
(weird).
Rimmel 1000 Kisses Lip Tint
and Balm in Timeless Tango
Maybelline Lasting Drama Gel
Eyeliner in Black
The daytime date
Whether going
to the cinema,
taking a day
trip to Durham or maybe
even travelling
as far as Whitley
Bay, your makeup
needs to look effortless for this date.
Glowing skin, glossy
lips and a springtime
freshness will do just
the job - after all, the sun
has been shining all week.
Think Miranda Kerr in all
of those sickeningly beautiful Instagram pictures.
Rimmel Moisture Renew Lipstick
in Coral Britannia
The Body Shop Lipgloss in Lychee
Hoola Benefit Bronzing Powder
(as blusher)
Eyeliner and mascara as above
If you apply your makeup stage-by-stage using
primers and powder, your makeup shouldn’t come
off during a sweaty gig. This is no guarantee though
if a bottle of warm, yellow looking water comes flying at your head (not to put you off a concert date
of course.) Make sure those eyes are smoky and intense enough for any mid-song eye contact.
Eyeliner and blusher as above
Rimmel HD 5 Pan Eyeshadow
Rimmel Moisture Renew Lipstick in Nude Delight
Rimmel Scandal Eyes in Retro Glam
Hairway to heaven
Rather have ten minutes more in bed than perfect hair? Us too. Luckily, Charlotte
Dickson has some hair hacks to look like you’ve spent hours styling rather than snoozing
W
hether it’s because you’ve continually
pressed the snooze button, or completely forgotten to set your alarm
altogether, we’ve all been there and slept in for
too long. With this leaving little to no time to
get ready, your bedhead may seem impossible to
tame and a bad hair day inevitable. So here are
a few tips on how to style your hair before uni
when you are short on time.
This bun purposely meant to look effortless and
messy, so if you really need to be running out the
door, this is probably the quickest style to do before
uni (you don’t even need to brush your hair!). Every girl has their own preference on how they put a
bun together, so the following steps are just one of
the many ways you can create the messy bun. First
pull back your hair into a loose ponytail, as low or
as high as you’d prefer, and don’t worry about your
hair being perfectly slicked back. Then separate the
strands in the ponytail into two sections and wrap
them in the opposite directions to create a topknot.
“Sometimes, if all else fails,
it is better to embrace your
hair’s natural messy state”
Depending on how much time you have you can
either then use another hairband to secure the bun,
or use a few pins a few centimetres into the bun,
leaving the edges to fray. If the body of the bun is
too tight gently pull it apart, and put a few pieces
around the face. This style works best with a messy
texture, and holds better when hair isn’t freshly
Jazzy distractions
There are ways in which you can disguise a messy
do, and one of these is accessorizing. Chucking on
a headband or sliding a few fancy grips into your
hair can make it look as though you spent a lot
more time doing your hair in the morning than
you actually did. A quick and easy style to do when
in a rush is pinning back the two small pieces from
either side of your parting at the front, and putting
in the slides where these meet in the middle, at the
back of the head. Keeping your hair off your face
can really help when working or making notes in
a lecture, so this style definitely has more than one
benefit to it.
The natural look
Sometimes, if all else fails or you only have time
for a quick comb/brush through your hair, it is better to embrace your hair’s natural messy state. If
your hair is frizzy or static, there are lots of products that can help tame these, whether it’s a mouse
or a good finishing cream. The two products that I
recommend and buy over again are L’Oreal’s Elvive
Extraordinary Oil and Umberto Giannini’s Perfect
Beauty Finishing Cream. Even if your hair gets
greasy easily and quickly, a little bit of oil or cream
does help the overall appearance of your hair, so
don’t feel as though these products can’t be used on
your hair-type. Additionally, a bit of oil on the ends
of hair can also calm the appearance of spilt ends
and help avoid dryness.
“Chucking on a headband
can make it look as though
you spent a lot more time
doing your hair than you
actually did”
The week in...
purple
Ever wondered how to incorporate
those cool shades of plum or lilac
into your everyday makeup looks?
Grace Beddow tells you how
P
urple elements in makeup seemed to be
a recurring theme in many of the Spring/
Summer 2014 fashion shows. The purple
trend found its way into the Prada show, as the
models wore a bright lilac shadow in a feathered
style on their eyelids, and the Rochas models
wore a beautiful (if not a little out-there) pale
Barbie lilac matte lip colour. Although a matte
light lilac lip is not the most wearable look to
be sporting in the Robbo, there are ways of incorporating the purple trend into our everyday
makeup and night out makeup looks with some
of these products.
Lilac nails
Painting nails in a trend colour is always a good
place to start for those who don’t want to fully
commit straight away. Finding pale and creamy
nail colours in effective and non-streaky formulas
seems like a near impossible task, however Essie’s
Lilacism priced at £7.99 is a choice that wins my
vote. A slightly cheaper alternative at just £2.99
is Barry M’s Berry Ice Cream, which is a slightly
darker and richer creamy lilac hue. These pale candy lilac colours look beautiful on all skin colours,
as their light pigments stand out against darker
skin tones, whilst they have a subtle and delicate
effect on more porcelain skin shades.
Soft purple eyes
Purple is known to typically bring out green eyes,
however the notion that those with certain eye
colours should wear certain eye shadow colours is
now rather outmoded, which is good news for all
those wanting to sport purple lids. The Revlon Colourstay Quad in Seductive, which consists of two
pale shimmery shades, a lilac and a deeper plum is
a good, and affordable place to begin. The benefit
of this quad is that just one shade can be used as a
sheer was over the lid for a pretty day look, however for an evening eye, the dark plum can be used
to define the crease and the shimmery shades in
the inner corners for a more dramatic appearance.
Plum blush
Using a plum shade to add a flush of colour to the
cheeks is an easy way to incorporate the purple
trend into your everyday makeup, as it is an alternative from a candy pink, but without being too
extreme. Despite the ever increasing price tags of
MAC blushers, they have a beautiful range of plum
toned blushes, such as Breath of Plum, which is a
gorgeously subtle matte pale plum shade. There are
a wide range of plum toned blushes by drugstore
brands too, however, as they are often more pigmented than the baby pink shades, a light hand is
recommended to avoid looking like you applied
Purple pout
your makeup in the dark.
The thought of purple or lilac going anywhere near
the lips is a scary prospect for most. A safe option
for summer is to wear a purple toned lip gloss, such
as Topshop’s Lip Cream in Double Take. This gloss
is non-sticky and gives a beautiful fuchsia purple
sheen to the lips, and comes with the added benefit
of its blue toned quality making teeth appear whiter. A deep hue can still look summer appropriate if
it is patted on rather than applied straight from the
bullet and if the rest of the face is kept simple with
dewy skin and very minimal eye makeup.
The Courier
24 March-27 Aprillistings.21
thecourieronline.co.uk
courier.listings@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Listings
Listings
Magical Worlds
Until 22nd June
Great North Museum: Hancock
The Hancock Museum brings you a a feast of
fantastical fairy tales and figments in this new
exhibition, featuring fancy dress for adults
Free
Jason Derulo
25th March
O2 Academy
JASON DERULO. The man himself is riding
solo all the way to the Academy. If you show him
a good time, maybe he won’t wanna go home
Tickets £32
Frank Skinner
25th March
City Hall
David Baddiel’s old sparring partner and a legendary comic in his own right, Frank Skinner
brings his Man In A Suit tour to the toon
Tickets 27.50
Susan Boyle
26th March
City Hall
Everyone’s favourite ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ interpreter until Anne Hathaway came along and destroyed everything she’d worked so hard to build
Tickets from £37.50
Franz Ferdinand
27th March
O2 Academy
Mid-’00s indie innovators who are probably indirectly responsible for a lot of the tat to follow
but who, let’s face it, have some absolute tunes
Tickets £25
The Four Tops and
The Temptations
27th March
Metro Radio Arena
Two of Motown’s biggest boybands, collectively
responsible for such all-time classics as ‘My Girl’,
‘Get Ready’ and ‘Reach Out (I’ll Be There)’
Tickets £42.50
All The World’s A
Stage
Opens 28th March
Hatton Gallery
An exhibition curated by Newcastle University
art students of works addressing celebrity and
performance. Sounds like a laugh
Free
UB40
1st April
Sage Gateshead
Immeasurably cheesy British reggae group
known for ‘Red Red Wine’ and its immeasurably
cheesy ilk. Each to his own, though
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream
19th & 20th March
Metro Radio Arena
A Shakespeare play about a donkey-headed bell
end and his fairy friends, but you already knew
that. I expect there’ll be a ‘modern’ ‘twist’
Tickets £27.50
Adam Ant
4th April
O2 Academy
Is he a pirate? Is he a highwayman? Is he even
still going? Well, the answer to that last one is a
firm ‘yes’.
Tickets £25.50
Dancing On Ice
4th April
Theatre Royal
Torville and Dean present a group of people
much worse at ice skating than they are falling
over and hurting themselves. With Joe Pasquale!
Tickets £32.50
Floating Island
5th - 21st April
BALTIC
A hands-on art project which lets punters work
with sculptors to create a giant suspended island
of art, a ‘floating island’ if you will
Free
Matt Cardle
6th April
O2 Academy
The second coming of Steve Brookstein deigns
to visit Newcastle to trot out his latest bunch of
soft-rock pap, and probably ‘When We Collide’
at the end
Goldfrapp
7th April
Sage Gateshead
The “Ooh La La” hitmakers take to the Sage to
bring you their trademark electropop, as well as
their more recent pastoral work
Harlem
Globetrotters
9th April
Metro Radio Arena
New York’s finest comedy basketball exhibitionists surface in Newcastle. Will they give the Eagles a run for their money?
Tickets from £15
Gary Barlow
12th April
Metro Radio Arena
Take That frontman, X Factor judge, and all
around nice young man Gary Barlow takes to the
arena to play a selection of the Queen’s favourites
Tickets from £35
Sophie
Ellis-Bextor
17th April
Sage Gateshead
It’ll me murder at the Sage when Sophie gets going, bringing all of her hits from ‘Groovejet’ to
whatever the hell her last hit was
Tickets £20
Catch-22
19th April
Northern Stage
Joseph Heller’s classic novel about fighter pilots
and the bureaucracy that threatens to drive them
mad (it’s a comedy) arrives at Northern Stage
22.arts
The Courier
Arts Editors: Millie Walton and Charlie Dearnley
Deputy Arts Editor: Laura Wotton
Art &
technology:
cyborgs
This week, Lauren Stafford
indulges in a cybernetic obsession, seeing what literature has to say about cyborgs
I
t’s the end of term and hours in the library
feel like they’re getting longer; more time
studying means more time procrastinating and, in attempt to avoid staring at a blank
Word document, I’ve been spending a lot of time
Googling anything and everything.
Plus, lately I’ve been thinking a lot of about cyborgs (no, seriously) and naturally this led to obsessively reading about wearable tech.; in particular a start-up called Wearable Sonar who claim to
be uncovering methods of charging smartphones
through our clothes. It’s a scary thought for the future – how long before we’re fitting iPods like pacemakers? – but maybe it’s all closer than we think.
What is a cyborg? A person (or organism) whose
physical abilities are enhanced by mechanical elements – though there’s significant academic debate
around the definition.
I rely on my contact lenses. I forgot to wear them
once and ended up in Killingworth. Does this
make me a cyborg? I sure don’t look like Arnie in
The Terminator (I hope).
Let’s turn to Literature for clarification. Here are
a few examples of our cyborgic pals.
Rat Things in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash
Cyborgs aren’t exclusively a fusion of human
and machine. Rat Things in Snow Crash can recall
their previous life as dogs – though their minds are
mostly controlled by implants. Physically they’re
part pit bull terrier, part cybernetic components
(complete with an ugly, artificial tail); also, unlikely to appear in Paris Hilton’s handbag anytime
soon.
Frankenstein’s Monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
The original meat and metal combo, Frankenstein’s Monster is a gruesome amalgam of fleshy
parts crudely stuck together then jolted into life
with a spark of electricity. And he’s got a pretty
terrible rep, the poor bastard; I mean, he doesn’t
even have a name – unless you count “Wretch” or
“Devil” – which seems a bit harsh considering all
he really wants is to find a nice lass to settle down
with. Besides, I’m not sure his wooing technique
is necessarily all that bad (he’d probably fit in at
Koosday if he was wearing VNeck and a healthy dousing of
Lynx Africa).
Yod in Marge Piercy’s
He, She, It
Yod, for all intents
and purposes, has
overtly human characteristics apart from the
odd niggling complication like the fact he
doesn’t sleep. Or eat.
When the community
find out he is an artificially intelligent creation, they must make
decisions about his welfare and rights. Blimey.
QUOTES SO SIMPLE
Thirteen curators,
one exhibition
Arts Editor Charlie Dearnley sat down with
Briony Carling, one of the thirteen strong
curatorial team for All The World’s A Stage, an
upcoming exhibition at the Hatton Gallery
C
urating is a hugely exciting prospect, providing the chance to command a gallery
space, and create a socio-cultural event.
Two exhibitions are never the same: the artwork,
the space, the imposed message or liberated interpretation of the viewer, the lighting and the
canapés differ every time. Amateur curators
and art students can only dream sweet transitory dreams of curating an exhibition for such
a renowned space as the Hatton Gallery, such a
chance is left at lofty heights beyond the reaches
of under-grads. But this fantastic opportunity is
something that has been judiciously gifted to the
team of individuals on the Gallery Studies Masters.
I had the chance to sit down and have a chat with
Briony Carling, a Gallery Studies student part of
the marketing initiative in the run up to the exhibition All The World’s A Stage. I selfishly snapped
up the interview opportunity, fascinated to explore
her curatorial approach in comparison with what I
had already encountered whilst studying Fine Art.
She began by indulging with an enthused expression that the curatorial team bureaucratically included all thirteen people on the course. All old
wives tales and suspicions aside, thirteen people is
a huge number, especially when working without
one overall project leader. Briony explained that
they had to be “quite careful in group discussions
to try and encourage everybody to have their say.”
There is an obvious concern with such a group
that discussion would descend into an apprenticeesque ego entwined power struggle, but “every-
one’s come together really well.”
The show’s title is taken from Shakespeare’s As
You Like It. All The World’s A Stage is a captivating, clever and mystifying exhibition title, and
not just that but “It looks good on a poster.” Briony’s matter of fact statement is blindingly true,
it’s something one may not initially consider when
coming up with an exhibition title, but I have to
give it to the team, it does look great.
They were given a vague theme of the celebrity
by their course instructors, and have decided to
explore how the celebrity is portrayed through art
and the media over a wide expansive time-frame.
Briony explained that, “celebrity persona displayed
through an image may not be their true self,” it
may simply be a visage. The proceeding line in the
Shakespearean monologue that the title was borrowed from reveals “all the men and women are
mere players.” The world is a stage and we are all
“What happens when you blend
together 13 curators, 2 archives
of artwork, an undisclosed
amount of free wine, and 1
exhibition”
inadvertently implicated. Some of us may find
stardom and shine brighter than others, but we are
all still playing out our own stories as part of some
grander scheme.
The depiction of the celebrity is enthralling when
considering them as mere players on the world’s
stage, and it is something that the curatorial team
has explored with access to the Llaing and the Hatton’s impressive archives. Briony disclosed that
included within the chosen artwork are portraits
of The Queen, Amy Winehouse, Sir Charles Grey,
and Billy Purvis – A clown who liked to steal people’s nap-sacs. Touching on both national and regional history I am eager to see how the chosen
artwork explores their theme of the celebrity.
Regional relevance is important to the team, and
something they even considered as a thematic
mechanism. Briony explained that whilst curating within institutions in the North East, there is a
huge amount
of regional appropriation and
pride.
These institutions are a fascinating and
often frustrating world in which to work. The implications of this environment range from having
to include certain logos on posters, to the fact that
they have to “run everything by Tyne and Wear
museum as we are effectively ambassadors for
them.”
Briony also enthusiastically believes that this is a
particularly interesting time to be embroiled in curating as so much of it is fuelled by social media. “I
was intimidated by Twitter,” she explained, something I can shamelessly relate to, but she is now
using it as a publicity vehicle. Her main concern
now is instead “how to get my hands on enough
booze for the opening.” Free alcohol… frequented
incentive for attending exhibition previews, whilst
it also furthers the exhibition as a social event, not
just a cultural phenomenon.
All The World’s A Stage opens at the Hatton Gallery with a preview on the evening of the 27th of
March. I urge you to go along to discover what
happens when you blend together 13 curators, 2
archives of artwork, an undisclosed amount of free
wine, and 1 exhibition.
Desert island books
We asked Emily Jeffrey which four books she would take with her to while away the
hours on a desert island. Here’s what she came up with
Bridget Jones’ Diary
Helen Fielding
Tragic and heroic singleton Bridget
Jones has long graced our screens
with her miniscule skirt and oversized pants. Helen Fielding’s original creation not only captures the
fast-paced lifestyle of our favourite
thirty-something but allows us a
sneak peek into her most prized
possession: her
diary.
Throw
in a variety of
hilarious misunderstandings
and a couple
of heart-throbs
(Mr Darcy, I’m
and
looking
at you) you’re
guaranteed
comedy gold.
The Curious Incident of the
Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon
Mark Haddon gives us glimpse into
the mind of Christopher Boone, a
teenage boy with Asperger’s syndrome. Obsessed with detective
stories, 15 year-old Christopher
becomes determined to solve a
mystery of his own: The murder
of Wellington, his neighbour’s dog.
Using a broken
narrative, Haddon explores
the innermost
thoughts
of
a young boy
with a much
stigmatised
disorder. There
really is nothing else like it.
The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern
With a dollop of candyfloss and a dash
of magic, Erin Morgenstern creates The
Night Circus, a feast for the senses and
a delight for the fantasy-fiction reader.
On the surface, the circus is a spectacle to behold, but behind the scenes
trouble is brewing. Could it be that the
circus itself is a façade for something
much
more
sinister? After
reading this, I
have never been
more tempted
to run away
with the circus.
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
With an ominous narrator, The Book
Thief follows Death on the eve of his
busiest hour: WW2. Death quickly
becomes intrigued by Liesel, a young
girl with a kleptomaniac tendency
to steal books at significant points
in her life. Hovering on the cusp
of history, it won’t be long before
Liesel
and
Death meet
again. Deeply touching
with breathtaking imagery, ‘The
Book Thief ’
is a haunting
tale of love
and loss.
Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike…We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now
reaping our reward. JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The Courier
arts.23
thecourieronline.co.uk/arts
c2.arts@ncl.ac.uk | @courier_arts
Pic of the Week
#nclarts
E
ach week we choose the best arty Instagram pic to feature in the paper. Whether
its taken on campus, on a night out or in
your own house, we want your snaps.
Simply hashtag #nclarts and we’ll pick a weekly
winner. Besides featuring in an award winning
paper, the winning pic is worth a delicious bag of
sweets too.
Get instagramming, folks.
This week’s winning pic is ‘Moscow Sunset’ by
Instagram user...
...thisisnotforyou...
Creativity & Coffee
This week Will Ibbott seeks out
Heaton’s Friends inspired coffee
spot, Heaton Perk
Poetry corner
Promoting the creativity and talent of Newcastle students
This week, an anonymous writer has submitted a poem entitled ‘Roots’, and
Jamie Shepherd reflects on tattered love in ‘Like Playing Radiohead at a Disco.’
‘Like playing Radiohead at a disco’
‘Roots’
My bud was ripped
Clipped
Replanted away from the roots
Unable to know
Grow
The tree is gnarled
Twisted
Stunting as the pot
Neither can flourish
Together
Apart
Roots at the heart
Scarring, tearing
Clawing into
The dead earth
Poisoned
“It’s not working” she said,
As she stuffed five months of ferocious romance
Into a tattered leather holdall.
Mine.
Desperately I find something to cling onto,
A window ledge, a memory of kindness, the nights of passion
When she first became mine.
We had reached a demilitarized zone,
Stagnant and stale.
Irrelevant and irresponsive.
I said “I can change”.
Lies.
I said I would put her on a pedestal,
Taller than any of my overcoming blues,
And higher than rising smoke.
Lies.
She looked at me with those pale emeralds,
“We’re not working” she sighed.
“We’re like playing Radiohead at a disco,
…you get me?”
Begrudgingly, I got her.
I
’d always wanted to visit the Friends-inspired
coffee shop Heaton Perk, but was always unsure exactly of its whereabouts.
It’s located rather inconspicuously a block behind
the main drag that is Heaton Road and its plethora
of eateries and cafes that tend to the neighbourhood’s dominant student/bohemia market. And
you’ll find a very similar ambience here, too.
Think of gingham tablecloth, lots of 40s/50s
American memorabilia (images of comically large
Cadillacs, sexist cigarette advertisements et al) and
a playlist in which you can guarantee you’ll hear
‘Johnny B. Goode’ by Chuck Berry more than once.
They’ve affected an endearingly idiosyncratic air in
Heaton Perk, and the café is busy throughout the
day. Decent food, nice coffee and straightforward
service. Heaton Perk gets my vote.
‘Poetry Corner’ is a new running feature in our Arts Section this semester, encouraging the hidden poets amongst you to
show off your talents to the student body.
If you too would like to contribute to this
section, don’t hesitate in emailing c2.arts@
ncl.ac.uk with your submissions. Whatever
the content, length or style, we look forward
to reading them.
Simon Bill
Get On Your Dancing Shoes
Translations
Lee Paterson: Orefield
imon Bill’s Lucky Jim exhibition currently
inhabits the phenomenal Baltic Centre; a
must see by any measure.
Do not, however, traipse across the river to be
singularly struck by Bill’s oval canvasses. The underwhelming ground floor room fails to be lit up
by its sterile exhibits. The space is as broad as his
subject, ranging from science to poetry and philosophy. The exhibition lacks a focus and conjures
no perspective. It feels meaningless. The variety
is to be applauded on one hand; the mixed media
produced across the 28 large oval canvasses incorporates spaghetti and foam, but the lack of consistency is equally frustrating.
In the smaller room, adjacent, the work seems
more profound. The microscopic element is
brought to the fore and the science museum feeling
of the project becomes an asset. Like bacteria on a
petri-dish, the textures are erratic, original and the
repeated motifs are more evident.
Perhaps the sculptural play on Wittgenstein’s
Duck/Rabbit illusion reveals a deeper meaning to
the exhibition? Or perhaps I’m a philistine of the
highest order and simply did not get ‘it’ whatsoever. Or perhaps you’ll share my view of its vacuous monotony.
Joe Tetlow
very year Newcastle’s Dance Society puts
on an end-of year show, which every member can get involved in. This year, they
performed ‘Get On Your Dancing Shoes’ at the
Northern Stage on the 14th and 15th of March.
The show was full of variety, with dances from
many different genres - contemporary, jazz, street,
tap, ballet...you name it. The performance was also
technically diverse, with choreography to suit the
varied abilities of every member of the Dance Society, from beginners to advanced.
Although I enjoyed the entirety of the show, there
were a couple of routines which really stood out:
the lyrical group performance to Sara Bareilles’
‘Gravity’, and the advanced street number. It’s not
surprising that these dances placed highly in their
most recent competition earlier this month, with a
win for lyrical and a second place for street – both
were incredibly choreographed and executed.
A huge well done to all the performers, those involved backstage and of course the Dance Society
Committee. I loved every minute of the show – the
choreography, the music, the costumes - everything. It was obvious that everyone was having an
incredible time on stage, and I will definitely be attending next year’s performance.
Jade Holroyd
ith an abundant composition of dramatic romance, comedy and tragedy,
Brian Friel’s nineteenth century-set
play resolves around the eradication of traditional Irish place names, forming the basis of
controversy within this drama.
This provides the play with a meaningful and
educationally timeless message, as the performers
physically illustrate the irate feelings of the Irish
for the loss of their etymological heritage on stage.
This March, the Sheffield Theatres & Rose Theatre Kingston theatre group have relit Brian Friel’s
spectacular play with the interspersion of dancing,
vibrant music and brilliant acting featuring the
combination of the Gaelic language, creative use of
facial expressions and theatrical staging. Featuring
dangerously complex love triangles and the battle
between Irish heritage versus English ignorance,
the fight for imperialism serves as a passionate
plot for the deeply moving performance. As the
title suggests, the difficulty between translations
and language proves vital for all of the characters,
as misinterpretation is just as misleading as badly
translated language. The romance promises to be
grippingly exciting, stealing audience attention
from the onset.
Holly Suttle
n Friday 14 March the Sage hosted an
AV festival premiere of two live sound
pieces: John Butcher and Rhodri Davis’
Roughting Linn, and Lee Paterson’s Orefield.
The room was a large dimly lit cube. Sound filled
the room, swirling and ebbing around along with
the gentle shuffling of the audience’s feet in its most
peaceful moments, and industrially crashing off
the walls in its greatest cacophony.
Roughting Linn is a sonic exploration of a section
of ancient Northumberland landscape, so named
after a small waterfall (Linn) and the bellowing
noise is produces (Roughting). John Butcher performed on Saxophone, whilst Rhodri Davis played
Harp, and sounds of the musicians performing at
the site of the waterfall was integrated electronically. The piece was haunting and engulfing at times,
and fascinating in the percussive nature of some of
the sounds the musicians achieved.
Orefield was incredible; exploring abandoned
mines in the Pennines. But all Paterson did was occasionally alter the levels on his laptop. I wanted
to move around the room with the sound but was
confined to my seat. The composition was stunning, but it’s ‘performance’ detracted from the captivating sound.
Charlie Dearnley
Drinks
Art
Vibe
Kitsch and foodie
reviews
S
Baltic
8 March - 1 June
E
Northern Stage
14 - 15 March
Northern Stage
25-31 March
W
Sage
14 March
O
24.filmfeatures
The Courier
Film Editors: Muneeb Hafiz and Jacob Crompton-Schreiber
Do you want to retry?
Editor’s
Word Michael Hicks looks at the seemingly impossible task of good video game adaptations
The Easter funnies
T
here are murmurs of disquiet of the ‘sequelisation’ that cinema has experienced
of late, but you can’t help but smile at the
thought of seeing the Incredible Parrs back on
the big screen in The Incredibles 2.
Along with that of course is the small matter of
Star Wars Episode VII eliciting vibrant speculation and frantic hope across the globe (see Lupita
Nyong’o and Adam Driver as potential castings).
The wheels are in motion for one of the most eagerly anticipated/feared releases in decades.
With deadlines looming and stress taking us
down dark roads, there’s much to look forward to
over the Easter break to anaesthetise the assignment aches and provide some escape from the
heavy textbooks and endless journal articles. Here
are just a few of the films to look out for.
Noah
A film already shrouded in controversy and development trauma, the modern take on Noah the
radical, the father, the servant, the saviour, is a biggie. Heavyweights such as Russell Crowe, Anthony
Hopkins, Jennifer Connelly, Frank Langella among
notable others, are set to feature with seasoned pro
Darren Aronofsky at the helm of the project. An
epic film which hopefully won’t be an epic fail.
Release Date: 4th April
The Raid 2: Berandal
I
won’t mince words, it’s no secret that everyone universally agrees that video game adaptations are pretty terrible. At surface level,
it’s quite hard to figure out why this is. Books
and comics have made the leap to the big screen
fairly successfully and many argue that video
games can be easily as immersing, moving and
entertaining as any other medium; so it really
does beg the question, why do movie adaptations of video games suck so badly?
Before I dive into the main reasons I believe
video games are difficult to adapt into films; it
is worth noting that there are some that, in my
opinion anyway, are fairly good adaptations.
Despite its rubbish plot, awful acting and completely and unintentionally hilarious dialogue,
1995’s Mortal Kombat is considered
by some to be one of the better
video game adaptations. Director Paul Anderson has gone on
record stating that he is a fan
of the original arcade game,
something which is clearly reflected in the film.
Character designs are
very faithful to the
source material and
the plot (which
involves a series
of expert martial
artists, three of
which are the
same ninja wearing different coloured pyjamas,
are brought to an
alternate
dimension to fight in the
most ridiculous
Transcendence
As the directorial debut of Nolanite Wally Pfister
comes the slick, sexy, techno-glossy tale of a terminally ill scientist’s attempt to download his mind
into a cyberbeing. Eagerly anticipated with some
big big names on board, this is potentially a sight
to behold and definitely one to look forward to. As
a cinematographic virtuoso, Pfister’s project will
surely be a delicious watch and Transcendence is a
date for the calendar.
“It’s no secret that everyone
universally agrees that video
game adaptations are
pretty terrible”
in one of which dinosaurs still exist. There’s also a
strange absence of a kidnapped princess to rescue.
Those video games which do have engaging and
provocative narratives simply don’t work outside of
their native medium. The Silent Hill series is one
of the more cinematic game series out there. The
player has to wander through the smoky, desolate
eponymous town; running from hordes of Eldritch
abominations due to the scarcity of weapons. The
main meat of the plot comes from the cutscenes,
which are largely based around the idea of player
choice and urgency. You are the major mover in
how the story unfolds. This was simply impossible
to recreate in film, and as a result the Silent Hill
film series is merely a fairly standard horror affair
with really intricate monster designs.
The major reason as to why video game adaptations are terrible is that writers don’t have the
time or patience to sit down and play the source
material, which results in half-hearted attempts to
capture the essence of the games. This often results
in cookie-cutter films which miss the point of the
game entirely (see Tomb Raider, Hitman and the
entirety of Uwe Boll’s resume).
Despite these reasons, the film industry has been
making baby-steps in improving the quality of video game adaptations, Prince of Persia, while nothing special, is evidence of that. With films based
on such series as Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect
on the distant horizon, only time will tell if games
finally make the jump to cinema successfully.
Just for Kickstarters
Ian Mason discusses the idea of crowd-funding, which Kickstarter has re-energised
T
After the action masterpiece of the first Raid,
hopes are high and after Sundance spirits are up at
the thought of the sequel. Expect a test of stamina,
of adrenaline levels and on-screen scraps to make
you wide-eyed and gasping for breath. With director Gareth Evans reprising his directors chair, the
intoxicating formula of good vs. evil, elbows and
knees to faces, we at The Courier are super-pumped
for this one.
tournament ever) sticks quite closely to the game’s.
It also has the best theme song ever. Despite its status, Mortal Kombat raises two initial problems as
to why video games are so hard to adapt.
Many early video game movies originated as
fighting games. Street Fighter, Double Dragon and
Mortal Kombat are games from which
entertainment derived from pure
gaming skill. The issue with this is
that there is simply no way to capture what made these games so
entertaining and transfer it to the
big screen, it would be simply too
boring without the direct involvement. This usually results in fairly
boring action movies with little to
nothing involving the original game.
The other main reason why video
games are so hard to adapt is that
early examples often had little to nothing in the way
of engaging narratives. A
textbook example of this is
the infamous Super Mario
Bros. movie. For the uninitiated, Mario games have
a paper-thin plot; stomp
on turtles, take alarming
amounts of mushrooms,
save the princess, repeat
ad nauseam. The Super
Mario Bros. movie decided to go in a completely different (and
bonkers) direction
with a plot involving a meteorite
splitting the universe into two,
he launch of the Veronica Mars movie
comes from what is surely the biggest success in picture to come from a Kickstarter
campaign thus far. Having struggled to bring together the financing to make a movie to close off
the cult television show, the cast turned to the
one body they knew they could count on, their
fans.
They looked for the fans to pledge between them
$2 million dollars to bring the movie to life, and an
astonishing ninety-one thousand backers participated, pledging an enormous $5.7 million.
But why Kickstarter, and what is it? Kickstarter
is effectively a spin on the Dragons Den television
show, but instead of ideas being
presented just to a small crop of
millionaires, anyone can get involved. If you believe in a project, you can back it. This can
be anything from kitchen appliances to movies, as we see with
Veronica Mars.
When it comes to movies, the
cut and chase is that they must
make money, or there would
be no reason for backers to
agree to fund them. Kickstarter
however changes that. It allows
cinematographers the freedom
to put their idea into the public realm and if enough people
want the movie to be made,
then realistically it can. Investors can’t lose their money, as
Kickstarter doesn’t take any until the goal is reached and therefore funds are only put in place
if the project is definitely going
to go ahead.
This summer will also see the
launch of the new movie from
Scrubs star Zach Braff, Wish
I Was Here which has also been funded by Kickstarter. Braff as many will remember wrote and
produced the movie Garden State back in 2004,
but despite it’s cult following and commercial success he hasn’t up until now followed it up. In the
campaign Braff documents his reasoning for this;
artistic merit and total control.
What many wouldn’t realize is that the director doesn’t always have control over the casting
of their movie; it may on occasion be overruled
by those funding it. Braff wasn’t happy with that,
wanting to protect the integrity of the ideas he had
for how the movie should be shot, and who should
be in it. That’s where Kickstarter came in.
“All ideas... now have that
opportunity to reach out to
those passionate [fans]”
Kickstarter’s biggest advantage is it allows those
making the movie complete creative control. It allows them to finance the movie how they see fit, and
in effect the ideas in a filmmaker’s head is what you
will see in the eventual film. One of Kickstarter’s
biggest stories has been in the world of documentaries. For instance, Foo Fighters frontman Dave
Grohl has recently launched a campaign to create a
documentary about the history of
the iconic Smart Studios in Wisconsin, a studio which produced
legendary albums such as Nirvana’s Nevermind and Smashing
Pumpkins’ Gish. A quick browse
on Kickstarter finds over thirtythousand current film campaigns,
featuring documentaries about
everything from Cosplay to Camgirls and to coffee.
These are all ideas which may
never come to light, but now have
that opportunity to reach out to
those passionate about these ideas
to bring them to life. It’s all well
and good to hype a movie on the
internet, but before now it has always needed to succeed at the box
office. With the influence of the
viewer before the movie is ever
made, it takes away the aspect of
films failing despite enormous
hype beforehand, such as in the
case of Snakes on a Plane, but far
more importantly makes films
of the niche variety all that more
possible.
The Courier
reviewsfilm.25
thecourieronline.co.uk/film
c2.film@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Film
“I feel the need... the need for speed!” Top Gun (1986)
Need for Speed
(12A)
Top
5
Weird Characters
A
5
dapting any video game in itself is a challenge, but in paying tribute to a worldwide
gaming bestseller, director Scott Waugh
has got himself in the firing line. The 20-year-old
Need For Speed series famous for its immense
modification options, its extravagant set of exotic cars and a set of spectacular environments
push the boundaries of high speed racing.
For Waugh to succeed in the perfect motion picture, Need For Speed needed to strip away any serious intentions and exploit the fast-paced world
of speed-racing in glamorous cars. Need for Speed
starts off with former drag racer Tobey Marshall
(Aaron Paul) being framed for his colleague’s death
after drag race with him and the perpetrator Dino
Brewster (Dominic Cooper). Two years later, Tobey is released from prison to seek revenge in the
ultimate speed race set up by the notorious host
Monarch (Michael Keaton) in California.
The plotline itself mainly pivots around the journey to California and how Marshall’s relationship
develops with love interest Julia Maddon (Imogen
Poots). Need For Speed features plenty of anticipated fiery explosions, drawn-out racing scenes, clichéd “will they, won’t they” scenes and ridiculous
stunts involving helicopters and police cars.
Aaron Paul’s performance is sufficient to keep
audiences entertained yet doesn’t live up to the
standards of his Breaking Bad days. Paul’s chemistry with fellow actors gradually enhances as the
plotline develops, with Poots easing off the cringeinducing British stereotype as she gradually bonds
with Paul’s character. As for the one-dimensional
Cooper, his antagonistic role as bad boy racer goes
from poor to downright uncomfortable.
Waugh, however, does replicate the Need For
Speed car racing admirably, camera angles are
applied impressively, showing the angst and exhilaration in each driver. The soundtrack is both
commendable and clichéd, with the drama-filled
scenes featuring predictable instrumentals, while
other scenes showcase fresh artists like Battle
Tapes to ol’ favourites like Linkin Park which com-
plement racing scenes seamlessly.
Many of the game series’ cars are featured, whilst
Waugh guarantees game lovers satisfaction by applying alternate terrain from the rough city, to the
fiery crimson desert to the open air green roads.
Waugh even features the racing series at the start
to tie in the series.
Overall, an admirable attempt at adapting a
remarkable gaming series. Waugh’s cast care, at
times, sub-par, but the overall camera technique,
soundtrack and vibe is impressive enough to make
the film attention-grabbing.
The Zero Theorem (15)
Veronica Mars (12A)
Under The Skin (15)
Jake the Poacher
More like this: The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Alex Gibbs
In a movie full of strong and colourful protagonists
(Withnail & I), it’s quite easy to overlook the classic
scene in the Cumbrian pub where Michael Elphick
makes the act of brandishing a slippery eel look
menacing. Just don’t ask him for anything for your
“pot” as rebuttal will most likely occur.
Lady in the Radiator
4
Nightmarish would be one description for David
Lynch’s first film (Eraserhead) and the bedlington
terrier-like Lady in the Radiator has to be one of
the weirdest bit parts in cinema. Her random musical number “In Heaven” obviously made an impression though as the Pixies covered it.
3
Mike Yanagita
I
n Terry Gilliam’s latest feature film Christopher Waltz plays Qohen Leth, a number
crunching recluse who refers to himself in
the plural yet is always alone. Living in an abandoned church the plot sees Qohen given the
task of proving the mysterious Zero Theorem, a
mathematical equation that would prove that all
is for nought.
The visual art style of the film is that of an almost
child-like vision of the future, including numerous
neon colours and roller-skates.
Yet this colourful aesthetic hides the true society in which the film takes place. With God being
replaced with ‘Management’ the film has numerous statements to make about the world we live in
today, and is largely a social commentary. Commenting and exploring themes of technology, faith,
meaning and sex which reflect back a world that is
not far away from our own. A particularly strong
scene appears with Qohen attending a party where
he is in the stark minority not engrossed in technology and social media.
Throughout his journey of self-reflection and
discovery Qohen is accompanied by three other
members of this dystopian society; Joby (David
Thewlis), Bainsley (Mélanie Thierry) and Bob (Lucas Hedges), each used to explore differing themes.
Though Waltz, and his bald cranium, are truly the
highlights of the cast. The deep meaningful sense
the film does all it sets out to achieve, however this
at the expense of the plot.
Although the movie explores some interesting
ideas, in terms of story there is no such depth. With
the events unfolding largely in the same locations,
a lack of characters (particularly non-sexualised
female ones) and characters of any depth (besides
Qohen), the film is not much for entertainment.
More like this: Brazil (1985)
H
ey there Marshmallows. How long have
you been craving the reprisal of Miss
Mars? Fast forward nine years and Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) has everything. The
perfect job opportunity, perfect boyfriend (Chris
Lowell), perfect New York apartment (you get
the picture) and then she gets the phone call she
never expected.
Ex-boyfriend Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) is
suspected for murdering his ex-girlfriend and Veronica is called to save the day and resume the job
she once had as a private investigator.
Funded by 91,585 Kickstarter donors, Veronica
Mars gives its fans everything and more. Packed
with almost all the treasured characters from Vinnie Van Lowe to Dick Casablancas; marshmallow
addicts will be kept on their toes with how each actor has aged to comical cameos (Justin Long, James
Franco), to the witty chemistry each character has
on-screen. However, the film is teaming with advertising references, to the point where you’d be
passed out cold on the floor after drinking every
time a Pepsi can or Samsung gadget popped up.
The soundtrack itself is commendable, having an
indie vibe with featured emerging talents such as
Emperor X and Typhoon.
At times, the characters seem a bit rusty warming back up into their roles, but they make up for
it by sheer brilliance in improvisation from kooky
dance moves to witty repartees. The film itself is
nonchalant, entertaining and unruffled; exactly
what the show was all about. It is the fans deserved;
playing to no other crowd. It is exactly for this reason that I adore it.
An extravagant treat for Mars fans, with a commendable cast and soundtrack; but not one that
will excite the general public anytime soon.
More like this: Brick (2005)
Daniel Lowther
M
ichel Faber’s Whitbread shortlisted
novel Under the Skin gets mutated into
a silver screen art house flick which
leaves the audience confused and terrified, and
perhaps not entirely sure why. To give a summary of the plot of this movie is hard because, as
anybody who has seen this film will understand,
I know no more than you do.
In short, Scarlett Johansson plays a femme fatale, of unknown origin (as it turns out, an alien),
prowling the streets of Glasgow for her victims.
She lures these young men into her dark lair, allowing them to be pulled into a black tar like floor
where they remain in a sort of suspension until
they are sucked dry of all their insides, leaving
only a flappy sack of skin and hair behind. As the
movie progresses, a glint of humanity, curiosity,
takes hold of Johansson and we follow her in this
exploration.
I’ve been looking forward to this film for a while
and was spectacularly excited to get the review.
What impressed me most was how ugly it was.
Unlike the glitzy Hollywood films Johansson is
typically known for, one could see its warts. The
actors were not silver screen hunks and the streets
of Glasgow are hardly the glamorous boulevards of
LA. We wander with the alien through crowds of
normal human beings, looking with confused fascination at the everyday passing of life.
Johansson’s lack of emotion is where the true horror in it comes from. She does not show the slightest bit of emotion as she watches a couple drown
leaving an infant to die, but we still, for some reason, pity her.
This film is a nightmare from which you cannot
tear yourself away from, searching for answers
that you aren’t certain are there.
More like this: Species (1995)
Alex Gibbs
George Smith
When Marge meets up with her old flame Mike
Yanagita in Fargo, what ensues is classic Coen
Brother dialogue. Hilariously awkward to watch,
at times heart-breaking, Mike is obviously a lonesome soul and when it is revealed that the wife he
claimed to have died is still alive, well...
The Satanists
2
This fast food loving duo is probably just a harmless middle aged couple, but in the cynical and
overactive minds of Enid and Rebecca, of Ghost
World, these two fast food diners are transformed
into devil worshippers of the highest degree. The
giveaway sign - they put their umbrellas up after
leaving the restaurant in the middle of the day!
1
The Hitchhiker
While it seems that most hitchhikers in films tend
to have homicidal tendencies, I doubt most of
them have a potentially golden business idea for “7
Minute Abs”. Just when you thought Ben Stiller in
There’s Something About Mary couldn’t get himself
in an even more awkward situation.
Jamie Shepherd
26.tvhighlights
The Courier
TV Editor: Beth Durant
Deputy TV Editor: Helen Daly
TVintage
T
he best British children’s TV programmes
all featured either inflatable obstacle
courses, gunge, or Dave Benson Phillips
– who became a sort of jolly surrogate uncle figure for everyone born between 1982 and 1996.
Get Your Own Back had all three elements of this
golden triumvirate, and this is why it’s one of the
greatest kids’ shows of all time.
You’d get home from school and settle in for
half an hour of DBP enthusiastically goading kids
into the ultimate act of revenge – pulling the lever that propelled your long-suffering mum, dad,
teacher or other responsible adult into a large tank
of gunge. The show became such a cultural touchstone over its twelve years of transmission that kids
up and down the country used ‘the gunk dunk’ as
a threat to their wayward parental units - “if you
make me do X/don’t do Y, I’m going to write to
CBBC and you’ll have to go on Get Your Own Back
and I’LL PUT YOU IN THE GUNGE TANK”. Or
maybe this was just my family.
It was a bit like Gladiators but
Gladiators as imagined by
Timmy Mallett after a lifetime
of psychedelic drug abuse
The adults were dragged out at the beginning of
the programme to a booing studio audience, in the
manner of a suspected paedophile being dragged
into court in front of a baying media. We’d be informed of the heinous acts of cruelty these bastards
had inflicted on the child contestants – wearing an
embarrassing jumper, perhaps, or restricting Jammy Dodger consumption to some unreasonably
low number.
The kids competed against each other in games
to win points while the adults attempted to thwart
them; these being the days before the current childhood obesity crisis started to bite, the games all involved the kids running about on large inflatables.
There was the one where they were strapped into
a bungee harness and had to run from one inflatable wall to another, depositing yellow discs while
the adult tried to steal as many as possible. There
was the one where they had to run up and down a
set of inflatable stairs with a large bucket, collecting watery gunge (the good stuff was saved for the
finale – BBC budgets, yanno) and pouring it into
a container; the adults meanwhile had to try and
scoop it out with oversized ladles, dressed in what
I can only described ‘dayglo Irish washerwomanchic’. It was a bit like Gladiators, only Gladiators as
imagined by Timmy Mallett after a lifetime of psychedelic drug abuse.
Whoever got the most points would be given
a one-question advantage in the final questions
round, with the person who first answered five
questions correctly getting to pull that magic lever
and send their grown-up headlong into the gunge
pool. It was a beautiful moment: the unfortunate
adult floundering about like a pissed manta ray,
but with the shellshocked, gulping facial expression of someone whose auntie has had too much
Bucks Fizz at a golden wedding anniversary and
accidentally told them they’re adopted. With the
tragic decline of gunge-use in children’s television
programming over the course of the last decade,
we will never see its like again.
Kate Bennett
Gogglebox
“How much is it to get in to the cinema now-adays?” “About 7,8 pounds” “They’re lucky! I’ll wait
for the DVD, get it 3 pound from the DVD woman.
DVD? DVD? 3 quid mate, I’ll wait” which is just
a perfect example of the kind of stuff I’m talking
ogglebox: the show where you can watch
members of the public getting drunk,
having arguments and generally pissing
each other off. Oh yeah, and watching telly. Who
would have thought that watching strangers
commenting on the week of television could be
so funny? According to the Channel Four website
Gogglebox is “Highly opinionated households
across Britain watching and reacting to a range
of television shows, giving sharp, passionate and
sometimes emotional critiques of the week’s TV’
It started off with a 4 episode series in series 1,
and then got elevated to bigger and better things
with a 13 episode second series. Now it is back with
12 episodes to play out each Friday night at 9pm,
and it’s lucky it’s past the watershed because Ste-
phen says fuck more than I do, and that’s saying
something.
From the upper class, to posh to trot, Stephanie
and Dominic, to the downright hilarious antics of
Sandra and Sandy, the stars of this show are completely ordinary and yet entirely extraordinary at
the same time. They are real, which is part of what
makes this show so watchable. Watchers gain far
more amusement from watching caricatures of
themselves and their families in the show, and I
know in my case, my mum and I are constantly
talking and arguing when we’re watching the telly.
The emergence of Gogglebox in early 2013 made
our television nights complete, and it’s certainly
comforting to discover we’re not the only ones who
chatter more than watch.
Just the quotes that come out of Gogglebox make
it worth the whole of the TV licence fee. This series
alone we’ve had “30% of fuck all, is fuck all” from
Steph during Dragon’s Den. “This is as pointless
as pointless can get” from Amy on Top Gear, and
the brilliant exchange between Sandy and Sandra,
Wilfred
Law and Order: UK
Joanna Lumley meets Will.i.am
Channel 4, Friday 9pm
G
BBC3,Monday, 12am
O
ne night, a man named Ryan (Elijah
Wood) decides to kill himself by overdosing on pills, he doesn’t die however. The
next day, a neighbour asks him to watch her dog,
Wilfred, for the day. Soon enough Ryan realises
that while everyone else sees Wilfred as a dog, he
sees the dog as a man in a dog costume (Jason
Gann).
Does that sound too trippy for your liking? Maybe, maybe not. Fact remains, though, that the US
interpretation of the Australian TV show has gone
completely viral for its three seasons. Even if the
FX has announced that Wilfred is now entering its
last season, the show’s pilot remains the channel’s
most-watched comedy premiere.
Fans are certain to miss the beer-guzzling, cigarette-smoking, overgrown frat boy of a dog that
is Wilfred. Jason Gann, who is, incidentally, also
one of the show’s creators was born to play the role.
He is the perfect juxtaposition of Ryan, and turns
his life upside-down. Elijah Wood, on the other
hand, offers a surprisingly balanced performance
as the exasperated everyman, a gloriously created
contrast to Gann’s Wilfred. Apparently, he is also
game to do everything with the character, the most
notable of which is leaving a prize-worthy poo in
his neighbour’s shoes. Crude in some ways and
charming in other, Wilfred is one of these titles
that fans will certainly regret saying goodbye to.
We’re hoping that the mystery of whether Wilfred
is a figment of Ryan’s imagination or a magical, immortal being will be revealed in the show’s final
season. Yet ultimately, the reason we tune in to it, is
because Wilfred is sure to make us laugh.
Antonia Velikova
ITV, Wednesday, 9pm
T
here’s something incredibly comforting
about Law and Order: UK; I think that this
can be attributed to the sight of Bradley
Walsh in his long coat, or the knowledge that our
CPS barristers are morally superior to the selfinterested bigwigs in defence.
I enjoy the standalone episodes and, whilst the
regular characters form the core of the show, attention is not overly lavished upon them. This has allowed the programme to evolve as the regular cast
members have changed, and made sure that the
show continues to focus on producing thoughtprovoking cases, rather than melodramatic farce.
Series eight opened with a new partner for DS
Ronnie Brooks and, in a deviation from the past,
newbie Sam is not a young, tough-but-sensitive
type angry at the world’s injustices but has a background in Child Protection. This is used to build
and overcome obstacles for the team in episode
one, and I hope that it will cause a subtle change in
the dynamics of the police team – I am hoping for
an equal footing between the partners, rather than
the father-son relationships that we’ve seen before.
Over on the side of ‘order’, both of the prosecutors seem slightly less self-righteous than in series
seven. This is likely to change though, so for those
who miss the furious arguments about whether the
counsel should pursue a charge of murder or manslaughter (by reason of diminished responsibility),
I am sure you need not wait long.
But at the end of it all, I think what I enjoy most
about Law and Order: UK is the reminder that the
cases don’t stop for the police or the CPS, it’s just
another day at the office.
Jonny Lusha
“Who would have thought
that watching strangers commenting on the week in TV
could be so funny?”
about.
As far as I’m concerned, Gogglebox is one of the
best shows on Channel Four at the moment, and is
the only thing I actively try to tune in for. 3 minutes of episodes 2 was devoted to Sandy and Sandra panicking that something was stuck in the sofa,
then half the participants singing the Match of the
Day theme song for another 2 minutes. Some brilliantly un-missable moments.
Sophie Baines
BBC, Friday
J
ust this title alone is a massive selling point
and amazingly, it’s not courtesy of Channel
4! I am shocked but very happy with the BBC
for pulling this out of the bag: The Voice meets
Absolutely Fabulous - what more could you need
for an hour of evening telly?
This hour-long documentary will have Joanna
jetting off to LA to visit the lovely Will on his home
ground. They’ll be heading off on a walk down
memory lane (Will’s of course) and visiting places
from his childhood. It’s most likely going to be
a very fabulous remix of This Is Your Life - sorry
Michael Asbel, and Trev and Eamon (not Holmes,
guys).
Joanna has openly said that she has always
wanted to meet Will.i.am, as his character and his
achievements fascinate her.
After being in the public eye for so many years,
Joanna was slightly perplexed as to why she had
not come across
Will in person and so jumped at this offer from
the BBC. She described him as “sweet as pie and as
dandy as a peacock”- which Will would most likely
interpret as him being ‘pretty dope’.
So why did the BBC pick Joanna? Quite simply
because she’s a fabulous and well-loved TV personality that can add a quirky twist to any factual TV
show.
There’s no doubt therefore that Will.i.am will also
give an additional quirky viewing bonus. So if you
fancy a break from The Voice and want to know
what made Will.i.am so damn dope, have iPlayer
at the ready. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride, this time
without Edina Monsoon and Fergilicious.
Charlotte Maxwell
The Courier
featurestv.27
Gherkin overtime
Everyone loves an adult-oriented animated comedy, and Bob’s Burgers is the latest to
grab plaudits. TV Editor Beth Durant takes a look at what makes it so special
B
ob’s Burgers was one of my favourite shows
of 2013, and that is saying an awful lot
when you consider that watching TV is
pretty much my job at this point. The show centres around the Belcher family, made up of Bob,
Linda, and their three kids Tina, Gene and Louise. They own a hamburger restaraunt, with all
the kids chipping in to help run it.
The family-based animated comedy is such a
tried and tested trope, yet Bob’s Burgers manages to
surpass everything that has come before it. Where
The Simpsons is perhaps often lazily cynical, Bob’s
Burgers manages to be stubbornly hopeful about
everything it portrays.
The Belchers are one of the most coherent and
believable families on television, with well-written,
nuanced characters that compliment each other.
The kids are not just their own separate characters,
but instead a product of their parents. All the jokes
are not just played for the audience, but instead
are the Belchers interacting and bouncing off each
other, telling their jokes to each other like an actual, living, breathing family. It is remarkable that
“It is the unpolished reality of the
Belchers which makes Bob’s Burgers
so endearing”
an animated comedy with such crudely designed
characters could be so intimately connected with
the audience, and it is this unpolished reality of the
Belchers, with their financial woes and struggling
business, which makes it so endearing to watch.
Tina, the eldest kid of the family, is the centrepiece and unsung hero of this coherency. Voiced
in a monotone drawl by Dan Mintz, she has an obsession with horses and butts and writes a lot of
erotic ‘friend fiction’. When she gets too overawed
with a situation, she sits (or lies on the floor) and
endlessly groans in true awkward Belcher fashion.
When Bob takes her out for her first drive in an
almost-empty parking lot, she monotonously remarks “Let’s make this kitty purr” and manages
to hit the only car parked in a 100 metre radius,
choosing to groan in panic instead of turn the
wheel.
Yet despite Tina awkwardly stumbling her way
through her teenage years, she is never made the
butt of the joke, although she loves to “touch the
butt”. A TV audience has never seen a character
grow up in such a untypical manner. Whilst she
fantasises about being prettier and bolder, she also
fantasises about talking politics with adults.
Although the title of the show leads you to be-
lieve that Bob is the reigning character, it is Tina
who remains the at heart of everything the family does, and they all want to make her happy and
unperplexed. In one episode, the plot is centred
around Tina being anxious about shaving her legs,
not wanting to “let go of her furry friends” (Truly,
some brilliant lines from Tina) but wanting to do
it anyway.
Yet this anxiety makes the family rally around,
with Gene jumping on her legs to hide them from
bullying girls in their school, Linda trying to shave
them in the tub, and Bob taking her to a waxing
appointment, in true Belcher family fashion. You
might be recoiling at some of the awkward, uncomfortable moments a show like this might afford
you, but I can only promise you that it is one of the
most honest shows you will possibly ever watch.
We’ve been waiting months for new episodes of GoT. But can too much hype ruin a
show? Christopher Addison and Deputy TV Editor Helen Daly lock horns
T
he Doctor Who Christmas episode of 2013.
The start of Sherlock Series 3. These are
just a couple examples of shows that personally let me down in terms of how excited I was
to view them. The whole problem being that they
were just completely over hyped.
It seems that in today’s society there is no way
that you can simply just have a successful TV show
and not hype it up in some way, whether that be
enticing viewers into new seasons or even just intensifying our excitement from episode to episode.
Whilst this is understandable in an age of declining viewing figures and new entertainment mediums, it more often than not simply leads to a rais-
W
No
e’ve all seen the new posters and trailers for series four of Game of Thrones
right? Aren’t we all a little excited by
them? If your answer was ‘yes’, then good: the
whole point of the hype has worked.
Hype is a fairly new concept for TV; we’re used
to seeing the build-up of films and even games, but
with the increasing popularity of certain television
shows, it has become more and more necessary to
create excitement surrounding them.
Hype can come in many different forms. Most
commonly we find ourselves ogling a teasing
poster or trailer to find any snippet of information
that will hint at what we can expect from the new
Lizzy’s Life
Lessons
Ja’mie: Private
School Girl
J
a’mie (pronounced Ju-may, definitely not
Jay-mee) King is a seventeen year old student
at Hillford Girls Grammar, a private school
in North Shore, the richest borough in Sydney,
Australia. She’s everything you wish you were in
high school. She’s an academic, teacher’s pet and
the most popular girl in the whole entire school.
Either that or she’s just 37 year old Aussie comedian Chris Lilley (of Summer Heights High fame)
kitted out in remarkably convincing drag. The
mockumentary style show follows the road to
graduation for Ja’mie and her clique.
Ja’mie: Private School Girl may have aired its final
episode on BBC Three only a few weeks ago, but
that doesn’t mean you can’t get your fix. Her internet legend lives on and this very column gives you
the only life lesson you’ll ever need to know from
Ja’mie. And that’s how to become her.
First things first, the word ‘hot’ is out and if you
The hype machine
Yes
thecourieronline.co.uk/tv
c2.tv@ncl.ac.uk | @courier_tv
ing of expectations that cannot be met.
The problem with hyping up TV shows is that it
leads to a warped view of the program in question.
Often we are treated to a range of teaser trailers
and various clips of episodes before anything is
even aired, with the number of such clips increasing every year.
This might raise interest, but it runs the risk of
revealing too much and throwing away the interesting elements of the program before things have
begun. Then of course there is the problem of when
excitement is increased for upcoming shows, the
viewer develops their own ideas about how storylines will go.
When storylines are actually revealed, they either
can’t believe things have gone that way, or they feel
deflated because the whole reveal is worse than
what they imagined, with the latter feeling being
more probable when a show has so much hype surshow or series. More frequently though, just having a popular actor or writer in the show can create more hype than any poster can. Let’s be honest,
how many of us had heard of Broadchurch before
the casting of David Tennant? Hype is not just
what the show put out themselves, it’s the advertising and coverage that comes from it.
It would be almost impossible to discuss hype
without mentioning the new fad of fandoms. More
than often, it seems that the trailer and posters are
specifically aimed at the fandoms of cult shows on
TV.
In some cases, (not naming any names, cough
SHERLOCK), you can almost hear the writers and
producers whispering ‘oh yeah, this will get them’,
and faster than you can say ‘Benedict Cumberbatch’, the internet has erupted at the thought of
potential answers and returning characters.
As I draw to the end of my hype investigation, I can
rounding it.
TV shows need to stop trying to get us so excited
and just let the actual work do its magic, because if
it worked for Beyoncé, then it will work for them.
see just how important the very notion of ‘hype’ is.
Without it, we probably wouldn’t have tuned into
Broadchurch, and Sherlock probably wouldn’t be
the massive success it is today. So does hype ruin
a show? I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t
wait for the new series of Game of Thrones. Is it
April yet?
want to be popular, you better start referring to
yourself as ‘quiche’. No, I’m not talking about the
egg-filled, crust-based pastry. ‘Quiche’ is a word
coined by Ja’mie and it basically means that you’re
hotter than hot. Ja’mie’s usage of quiche is now the
fifth search option when Googling the word and
Lindsay Lohan hashtags it on Instagram daily.
Here’s another lesson – be innovative. Strive to
change.
Alter the English Language as we know it. Ja’mie
didn’t ask to be born quiche, okay? But she was and
you dumb bitches just have to deal with that. Don’t
be jealous. Use Ja’mie as a style icon. She isn’t afraid
to mix it up.
One minute, she’s rocking a leotard and the next
she’s a rebellious, wristband-wearing indie kid.
She’s also not afraid to show a little skin. Nothing
says risqué like a cheeky flash of bra behind your
school uniform. Though bear in mind that your
aim is to look semi-slut, not full sluzza. Finally,
Ja’mie keeps her enviable figure by not eating anything for two days a week.
One thing that definitely doesn’t scare Ja’mie is
getting what she wants by any means necessary.
The best advice she can give is to work that flirty
baby voice and those innocent puppy dog eyes…
because it will make your father more likely to
buy you stuff. Being honest means being brutal. It
might hurt the first time you tell your mother she
looks like a ‘cancer patient’, but it’s about time she
learnt her place in the family! Sometimes, the claws
have to come out. ‘You know what would be embarrassing? Having your head’ Nobody fucks with
Ja’mie and gets away with it.
Last but not least, Ja’mie is all about helping the
less fortunate, because she really cares (about winning the school medal) and you should too.
She frequently reads to the poor, retarded and
black communities of Sydney. She’s sponsoring
eighty five children in a ‘povo’ country. She’s gone
as far as allowing Kwami, an African man awaiting
housing placement, to live in her family’s ‘massive
house’ for a whole month. She’s even offered him
the opportunity to see her tits on Skype. If that’s
not charitable, I don’t know what is.
Elizabeth Atkin
28.music
The Courier
Recess
Skrillex
ROUTINE
Music Editors: Kate Bennett and Ian Mason
RAGE
against
the
F
Josh Nicholson’s love is gone for
superstar DJ David Guetta
W
e all know David Guetta as that slimy
French bloke with greasy hair and a
weird nose but really, underneath this
stereotypically French façade, is potentially one
of the worst DJs in the history of music. With a
great lighting show he covers a multitude of sins,
mainly the sin that his music is shit.
Let us start with his most recent work, ‘Shot Me
Down’, feat. Skylar Grey. It should be feat. Audio
Bullys, really, because frankly it’s just the original
with a shit bassline that has no connection to the
song at all plonked in the middle. It’s this kind
of despicable DJ-ing that made people lose faith
in the charts. People like Guetta getting to Number One makes a mockery of those who actually
have some talent rather than just standing, arms
aloft, asking “are you ready to jump?” repeatedly
in Franglais. Now, I know English may not be his
native language, but if you’ve only got one saying,
don’t overuse it. If the music was up to scratch, he
wouldn’t have to talk to the crowd. It’s different
with people like Zane Lowe, for example: they’re
paid to talk so you can understand why they
would, but Guetta is paid to make ‘music’ (in the
loosest sense of the word).
“There’s evidence that he
doesn’t plug in at gigs and isn’t
actually mixing his own sets
on stage”
I heard David Guetta from my back garden last
year when he played Creamfields; I was meant to
be there but was quite grateful for being ill, having
heard the dross spilling out of the Cheshire farm
where the festival takes place. His stage lighting
and setting is quite something, being 4D and all,
but it’s just a shame it’s him who has made it work.
Fair play, I can be seen dancing around to some of
his tunes whilst absolutely muntered in the Sinners
cage, but that’s no credit to the work - it actually
shows how bad it really is. He works with top pop
stars - the likes of Kelly Rowland, Rihanna, and the
almighty Snoop Doggy Dogg - but they just end
up carrying the whole song rather than augmenting it.
There’s evidence that he doesn’t plug in at gigs
and isn’t actually mixing his own sets on stage SURPRISE SURPRISE. This might be commonplace, who knows, but it would be a bit different if
Fatboy Slim did it because he’s actually credible in
his own right whereas Guetta seems to keep stealing things from people and getting away with it behe just shoehorns a massive dance
cause
bassline in the middle. I refuse to use the word ‘drop’
simply because it’s disgusting and doesn’t sound cool
coming from anybody but
the Beastie Boys.
It’s scary to think kids
are growing up with this
horrible music these
days; a man stood behind a desk he’s
not even using, covering himself
by using
space age
technological
l i g ht i n g
shows.
rom the man who told us about his perspiration problems and that he was going
‘wild for the night’ comes something much
along the same dirty dance production line. On
first glance it was exciting to see that there was a
track featuring the immortal Fatman Scoop, who
brought us his very own bass drop in ‘Be Faithful’. However, all my dreams were slashed when
I listened to Recess, because it was only a sample
- a sample that saved my ears from bleeding, but
a mere sample nonetheless.
The weird thing about Skrillex is his illusion that
he is God’s gift to music and to Earth in general. It
all started with the aforementioned ‘Wild For The
Night’ video, featuring him walking about in the
Dominican Republic with a load of child soldiers
as if he owns the town. Bit off.
“I had to turn ‘Stranger’
off, as it genuinely started to
hurt my eardrums”
He seems intent on continuing this image in the
video for Recess’ lead single ‘Try It Out’, a stereotypical DJ ego-massage of a video with the camera
filming in a way that enhances his misguided sense
of importance (selfie alert). He goes on to kiss a
lion at a zoo, in a classic “what have I just seen?!”
moment. The track itself is pretty much what you’d
expect from him - a heavily scratchy bassline, supplemented by a lot of ‘drops’ and ending with a random deep voice yelping “OK?” By about the sixth
time I felt like screaming “YES I AM OK, ARE
YOU?”. It was either the song or the fact I’d been
in the library for near on seven hours and thought
someone wanted to talk to me.
I had to turn one song, ‘Stranger’, off, as it genu-
inely started to hurt my eardrums due to the high
pitched squealing note he places over the entire
track. I’m partially deaf at the best of times but I
imagine that Skrillex might just kill any use of my
hearing in the future.
For all these negatives, there is one little gem
in ‘Coast Is Clear’, featuring Chance the Rapper.
This track features a much more accessible dancemeets-hip hop style, and for once, I actually quite
liked it. It was a hallelujah moment, a moment
where the world feels at one again and there’s a
genuine sense of optimism that Skrillex could pull
Recess back from the brink of awfulness. Sadly, this
redemption doesn’t last long: Skrillex follows it
up with ‘Dirty Vibe’, co-destroyed by Diplo. Why
would you do that to me Skrillex? You led me on
and I can now never forgive you.
I do love The Cut on a Tuesday; as my friends will
concur I have had many a drunken night skanking
away to dirty trap music in there. However, if any
of this gets played I might cry, because with Recess,
Skrillex has broken my heart. There is a song on it
called, ‘Doompy Poomp’, which doesn’t even sound
like its ridiculous title suggests it should. Either he
had severe lack of creative thought at this point, or
he realised nobody really cares because most of his
music is mostly appreciated by pilled-up people
who are chewing on their own faces as if it were
a Fruit Pastille. All in all, Recess is a bit all over the
place; one thing is for sure, like someone who’s just
emerged from a toxic relationship, I’ll be putting a
nice clean break between Skrillex and myself.
Recommended download:
‘Coast Is Clear’
Josh Nicholson
Supermodel
Kylie Minogue
Deadmau5
For Lack Of A Better Name
I
f, unlike Josh, you love car alarm beats, reverberating basslines and Star Wars-esque
lightsabre sounds, give Deadmau5 a go.
Highlighted by the smash hit ‘Strobe’, this album
is surely the pinnacle for modern dance music.
Notice the cover art similarity, too?
Night Time,
My Time
Foster
The People
Kiss Me Once
If you like this, try ...
Sky Ferreira
S
F
T
‘I Was Gonna Cancel’
‘Pseudologia Fantastica’
‘Heavy Metal Heart’
ince Kylie’s second imperial phase petered
out after Body Language, she’s rather been
coasting while occasionally throwing out
brilliant singles. The single is Kylie’s natural habitat, and Kiss Me Once sounds like a collection
several singles from several different albums, all
of varying quality.
Sometimes it works. Kylie is joined by Pharrell
for ‘I Was Gonna Cancel’, which marries tasteful
Random Access Memories funk with bells(!) and
an opera singer(!!) to alluring effect. That said, the
opera singer’s buried so far down in the mix that
it sounds more like someone left a studio window
open while an opera singer wandered past outside.
There are flashes of most of Kylie’s various guises
throughout: while the Chic guitars on ‘Sexy Love’
are presumably drawn from Daft Punk’s last album, they’re also a straight nod to 2000 album
Light Years, ‘Spinning Around’ and the Hot Pants
Years. There’s even the traditional excursion into
badly miscalculated hard dance - witness ‘Sexercise’, a Kylie-goes-dubstep track written by Sia and
produced by ‘Swagger Jagger’ hitmakers The Monsterz & the Strangerz. As chopped and sped up vocal samples shout “SEXERCISE”, lurching sub-bass
rears its head again and again like a stoned hydra.
It’s aurally wounding.
Overall, while the highs aren’t that high, the lows
are never enough to knock away their sheen. It is
Kylie’s great gift that she can slip so easily between
whatever pop byways are being trod at whatever
point she reappears, and Kiss Me Once largely carries on the trend of Kylie’s work of the last ten years
admirably: solid, with some stand-out moments.
Tom Nicholson
rom the early writing stages, Foster The
People’s Mark Foster claimed that their
follow up to 2011’s Torches was going to be
‘very guitar-driven’ and ‘not the record that people are gonna expect’.
In some ways, Supermodel isn’t the album that I
was expecting to follow on from an album as electric and percussive as Torches, yet it still contains
some aspects that made the debut what it is. Foster’s ability to write a chorus that you’ll be whistling
for weeks on end (deriving from his career as a jingle composer) shines through in ‘Nevermind’ and
‘Pseudologia Fantastica’. ‘A Beginners Guide to The
Moon’ encompasses the departure that Foster was
aiming for when he wanted to merge guitar into his
compositions, whereas lead single ‘Coming of Age’
fails to execute this due to an extremely lacklustre
chorus.
Unlike their debut, which manages to find an
overall balance, the latter half of Supermodel nosedives with ‘Goats In Trees’ and ‘The Truth’ defining the term ‘throwaway songs’. ‘Fire Escape’ shows
Foster’s unique lyrical style making a return, and
would find its place more efficaciously by closing
the album, with the former songs removed.
Supermodel is equally as experimental as Torches,
but there isn’t an urge to flip the record back over
and start again. The main reasoning behind this
is probably because Torches’ memorable electronics and beats are now faded into the background,
creating a much more flat sound. The band wanted
this album to be a departure from Torches, which
it definitely is, but there could be a debate over
whether it is a progression.
Tom Ardron
he first time that I heard Sky Ferreira, I
was quick to write her off as another pop
starlet wannabe who would have a cataclysmic struggle to make a name for herself in
the immense landscape of the music industry.
But after a continuous series of delays and a musical and personal maturity, Ferreira has delivered to the world Night Time, My Time.
It’s a slightly psychedelic, empowering record that
finds Ferreira navigating an array of emotions over
a delectable mix of 80s synth pop and 90s grunge.
Throughout the album Ferreira comes across as
both a fragmented individual who has had to suffer
in life, and a strong, powerful young woman who
sees the world in a positive light, where everything
ahead is going to be great. Whether it is the reflection on her label issues in the form of ‘I Blame Myself ’, the youthful romanticism entwined with the
jaded output of ‘Heavy Metal Heart’, or the bold
feminism displayed in album opener ‘Boys’, Ferreira always brings a palpable sense of honesty to
her music, whilst just happening to wrap these life
truths around infectious melodies.
The record definitely benefits from the use of exclusivity in terms of co-writers and producers, creating a really cohesive body of work and a distinctive sound. The blend of genres nicely syncs the
artist’s previous pop persona with an inner rock
chick vibe and some indie sensibilities to great effect, whilst Ferreira always sounds vocally chilled
but still emotive. Night Time, My Time stands as
an album that can cater to the masses and the alternative in abundance, and shows that sometimes
the wait for both artist and fans alike is definitely
worth it.
Christopher Addison
The Courier
music.29
thecourieronline.co.uk/music
c2.music@ncl.ac.uk | @courier_music
LECTURAL
HEALING
SceNE: Venues
Each week we take a closer
look at a different spot in Newcastle’s music scene. This week:
Think Tank? @ Riverside
Will Ibbott (1st year Media,
Communications and Culture
Studies) swapped albums with Dr
Chris Haywood, Senior Lecturer in
Media and Cultural Studies; here’s
how they got on
R
iverside may be renowned for its history
as a sub-standard student club, but having been brought under the Think Tank?
banner it’s revamped itself into a really excellent
music venue.
I sampled it for the first time to see Interpol, a
band who really will test a venue for sound quality,
and I have to say it passed with flying colours. The
dance floor is well-sized and spacious, with a good
view from all locations, as well as an overhanging
walkway for the vertically-challenged who want
a better view. The high ceiling stops the echoing
reverberation many DIY venues suffer from, and
the sound travels well, holding the integrity of the
track.
Location-wise the venue is well placed on the
Quayside, with bars in all directions and an easy
route into town afterwards. With the summer
months encroaching upon us, obviously this becomes all the more picturesque and enticing.
Alcohol choices aren’t vast, which is a drawback the venue offers run-of-the-mill lagers and Strongbow along with the obvious bottles of Irish cider.
The range of alcohol choices we’ve become used
to with DIY venues means this is disappointing,
but it’s early days, but they could do with being
a bit cheaper. There are several bars dotted about
Chris on Errors’ Have Some Faith In
Magic (2012)
Had you heard the
album before? No,
this was completely new.
First impressions:
The beauty of this
album is that although I kept trying to locate it
the venue meaning despite the credible capacity,
queuing at the bar isn’t an issue. There’s also an
enclosed, heated smoking area if you’re that way
inclined, so you aren’t freezing to death between
now and the summer months, or waiting desperately until after the gig has finished.
One aspect that stood out, though it may seem
trivial, was the ventilation - believe me, for heavy
gig-goers, this is a big deal. Despite the fact the gig
was packed out, the high ceilings and air conditioning meant the place was cool and lacked the
stuffy atmosphere that leaves you gasping for
breath if battling for a place at the front. If you’ve
ever experienced coming out of a gig with your
jeans glued to your thighs, you’ll appreciate this
little perk.
There is a really good listing of upcoming gigs
at the venue too, including the just-announced
Courtney Love, as well as a nice mix of national
and local acts, so worth keeping your eyes on - and
with affordable ticket pricing its a venue worth taking the time to visit.
Directions:
Walking: Head straight down Dean Street, past
Brewdog, turn right at Chase and it’s straight in
front of you, beside Victoria 22
Buses: The green Quaylink Bus from Central Station
stops right outside
Metro: Given it’s on the Quayside, it’s pretty much
half way between Central Station and Gateshead,
take your pick, just walk down the hill to the river
from either.
Ian Mason
Every step I take, every move I make, I’ll be dissing you
Jack Nuttgens reports on the North East’s fertile, febrile, filth-flinging battle rap scene
Battle-rap is a strange beast. It has something of
a cult following; a lot of people may have seen
it in 8 Mile, or the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, without scratching the surface of
what a battle really is in the 21st century. I met
Adamzy, founder of North Eastern battle-rap
league Get Slated, to find out more.
I started off asking him how battle-rap is different
from what everyone’s seen in 8 Mile.
“I’d say it’s nothing really- well it’s a little bit like
8 Mile but they use mics and it’s mostly freestyling; in Get Slated it’s written, so that’s the difference
there.”
“Most battles are a capella,
opening battling up to
people such as poets and
stand-up comedians”
This is the biggest development in battle-rap:
nowadays, professional battlers begin preparing
and writing rounds as far as a month in advance.
Watching their opponent’s previous battles
and listening to their tracks to
make their bars (rhymes) as relevant as possible. And although
battles take place all over the world
(the most viewed battle-rap league on
YouTube is Flip Top, from the Philippines) the format is usually the same:
three rounds each, usually about 90
seconds in length. Hip-hop purists
are often scornful of written battling,
but Adamzy is positive, as it brings a
guarantee of quality: “I started liking
it because it was written, because
you could plan everything out.”
Most battles are a capella too,
moving the emphasis very
much away from the rapping
side and opening up the opportunity of battling up to
people who don’t make
tracks. Mark Grist, best
known for the viral ‘Teach-
within my own (albeit
limited) musical reference points – I’m
thinking early 90s
dance, Talking Heads,
Bowie, electropop – I
kept dismally failing.
Although I was unable to place it musically, the capacious
intricacies of the oscillating melodies carried me
into a series of vivid imaginary soundscapes. In
particular, the vibrancy and understated intensity
brought me sunsets and seas. Where edges become
softened, where colours merge and disperse across
simultaneous moments of darkening and lightening and patterns gently assemble and fall away.
And yet whilst lost in a haze of warmth and vividness, the elemental vocals tenderly haunt and searing musical phrases often provide passing rebukes
to perfectly cascading harmonies. Furthermore,
episodic openings within each of the tracks initiate flares of multiple cross rhythms that despite
their apparent random emphasis coalesce in perfect synchronism.
Marks out of 5: A host of new tracks for the chill
out playlist. Definitely 4.
Will on David Ford’s I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I’ve Caused
(2005)
Had you heard the album before? Nope, no
idea whatsoever.
er vs Student’ concept battle, is a poet first and foremost and draws on this in his performance; others
have more in common with stand-up comedians.
That said, battling is a viable platform to promote
music; Lunar C, one of the UK’s most popular
battlers, has since featured on the track ‘No
Prisoners’ on Labrinth’s Atomic EP, and Professor Green was an accomplished battler
before his first record deal.
And it happens in South Shields. Adamzy started in hip-hop as a turntablist. He
then joined a rap group and started rapping
himself - his tracks are on SoundCloud - and
in January 2012, tried out on Don’t Flop, the
most viewed battle league in the UK. He
was invited back, but when Don’t Flop
did not get back to him, he decided
to start his own league instead and
use it as a platform to give local
rappers a chance to perform, as
well as bringing some of the
UK’s premier battle rappers to
the North East. In July 2012,
Get Slated was founded, and
has since gained a steady following in South Shields; to
date, its most viewed battle,
Jack Sexton vs Triple B, has garnered 12,000 views
on YouTube. The next Get Slated event is on the
29th March, featuring UK veterans Innuendo and
Olde English as the main battle, with local rappers
on before them.
“Within battles, more or
less anything goes”
I ask Adamzy what misconceptions there are
about what he does, and he replies: “I think people judge it before they’ve even watched it and then
when they do actually watch it they’re like, this is
actually really funny, they love it because it’s just
two people standing there taking the piss out of
each other.” Within battles, more or less anything
goes (though whether or not this is a good thing is
up for debate, as some battlers get very offensive)
- jokes about physical appearance, sex, skin colour
and class abound, but what is striking is the sheer
variety of people who battle. The most viewed UK
vs UK battle to date features Mark Grist facing
off against Blizzard, a 17-year-old grime MC. The
public face of battle-rap has changed, perhaps irreversibly, since Eminem’s day, but what has emerged
has its own appeal, and it’s not going away any time
soon.
First impressions: It’s
a record that grew on
me. At first I was unsure whether I liked
it, but quickly came
to appreciate David
Ford’s knack for creating woebegone, acerbic one-liners that
counter a milder state
of
orchestral/folksy
music that marks him
out as a James Blunt
with attitude (for want
of a better description). For this reason alone, I appreciate Ford for his prowess as a
songwriter than a musician overall. It’s interesting
to notice that we’ve exchanged albums where the
one album is driven by its musical energies and the
other by its lyrical dexterity.
Marks out of 5: I’ll give it a 3.
For gig reviews, interviews
and more web features, visit
us online at
thecourieronline.co.uk/music
30.musicfeature
The Courier
Haze of thunder
Angel Haze ignited the blogosphere with a wave of controversy, personal revelation and excellent rapping. Now she sits down with Culture Editor Sam Summers to talk beefs, Bastille and braggadocio
I
meet Angel Haze in a hotel lobby following a
blistering performance opening for rockers,
Bastille. She arrives slightly dishevelled, having been boxed in by some equipment on her way
out of the O2 Academy, and having gone all out
to impress her first crowd of the tour. While she’s
hardly reached the commercial heights of her
tourmates, and she was only announced as the
support act the night before, she’s quick to point
out that it’s hardly the mismatch you might expect. “When we booked the tour both our agents
are going ‘what the fuck?’”, she tells me, “and we
were just like no, there’s a lot more in common
than you think. A lot of people think that my
crowd would be a lot more urban that it actually
is, but definitely not”.
Looking out across the crowd earlier, that certainly seemed to be the case. It turns out that your
typical group of Bastille fans is actually remarkably receptive to Haze’s swaggering, unflinchingly
lyrical brand of hip-hop. Granted, Haze had a full
band in tow, with live drums and guitars beefing
out the sparse beats of early tracks like ‘New York’,
but there was clearly a huge crossover fanbase in
attendance. I certainly wasn’t expecting to see, for
example, a 13-year-old girl in a Bad Blood tee spitting the Casper-and-castration hook of ‘Werkin’
Girls’ as her friends looked on in bemusement,
especially given the disappointing sales of Angel’s
album.
Dirty Gold sold only 857 copies in its first week
on our side of the pond, a number generally put
down to the rapper herself having leaked the album in December, allowing fans to pirate the album early and forcing her label to release it in the
notoriously quiet post-Christmas period. Looking
back on the leak, she blames her decision on battling labels. “I’m signed in the UK to a label and
I’m signed in the US to a label, and that’s one of
the worst decisions I think an artist can make. Basically, all of my time for seven months after my
album was done was spent going back and forth
with two people going ‘we wanna do this with you,
we wanna do this with you’. They can’t come to an
agreement, they can’t do anything with you. It just
so happens that I got tired of waiting and I was just
like ‘fuck it, if you guys can’t come to an agreement
I’ll give you an option, there you go.’”
“People don’t acknowledge
my sexuality. Guys meet me
and think I’m straight and
hit on me like a straight girl”
Despite speculation at the time, Haze maintains
her decision wasn’t influenced by Death Grips, who
gave away their album No Love Deep Web online a
year earlier following a conflict with their label XL.
“I just found out about Death Grips three weeks
ago” she clarifies, “and they were telling me that
they were being sued for $30 million. That’s crazy
to me, I had no idea that that could even happen”.
Her labels, Island and Republic, weren’t nearly so
aggressive in their response. “It was weird because
I thought they’d be a lot more pissed at me than
they were, and it just didn’t happen that way. They
were like ‘we get why you did it, why the fuck did
you do it, this could mean this, this could mean
that’. I was like ‘dude, the music’s out now. I could
write another album in two months if I wanted to,
it’s not a big deal to me’. I just wanted fucking music out”.
“I don’t go around going ‘I
like whatever I like’, so I’ve
had people ask if I’m asexual
because I don’t really date”
Although she’s the first to say she shies away
from confrontation, Angel is far from shy when it
comes to bearing it all on record, especially with
regard to sexuality, frequently speculated upon in
the media. “No, I’m not gay”, she raps on her cover
of Macklemore’s ‘Same Love’, “no, I’m not straight/
And I sure as hell am not bisexual/Damn it, I am
whoever I am when I am it”. It’s something that
she doesn’t feel alienates her from others in the
music industry. “People really don’t acknowledge my sexuality. It’s funny, like guys meet me
and they think I’m straight and they hit on me
like I’m a straight girl. It’s one of those things
where I don’t mind it cause I don’t really care
what you think”. Coming amid claims from
artists like T-Pain that LGBT musicians, chief
among them Frank Ocean, are ostracised by the
hip-hop community at large, Haze feels that her
gender may be behind the lack of prejudice she’s
encountered; “It could be very much that I’m a
woman because guys generally seem to think that
they can just change girls to whatever the fuck they
want with their magic stick”.
“It’s one of those things where I feel like if I don’t
acknowledge it it doesn’t exist” she tells me. Far
from being ashamed of her sexuality, she seems to
prefer to keep it at the back of her mind to avoid
becoming defined by it. “I’ve been in places where
like, people still have to sort of ask me if I’m into
whatever I’m into”, she continues, “and it’s not one
of those things that I’m overly proud of, it’s just a
part of who I am. So I don’t go around going ‘I like
whatever I like’, people just go ‘do you even like...?’
I’ve had people ask me if I was asexual because I
don’t really date. I don’t do well with it, so I’m like
one of those people who just stays off to myself.”
Haze has always distinguished herself by going
deeper into her own personal issues than most
rappers would dare, and not just in terms of sexuality; ‘Black Dahlia’ is a ‘love letter’ to her mother,
while her cover of Eminem’s ‘Cleaning Out My
Closet’ describes the sexual abuse she suffered as
a child in excruciating detail. She balances this out
with brash odes to her own prowess which, while
lyrically scorching, are far more typical of the
genre. Despite this, she often finds arrogance difficult to affect. “The personal stuff ’s easier to write,
cause it all comes spilling out like a vein was hit or
something” she confesses. “With the braggadocio
stuff I’m really, really bad, and it’s mostly due to
the fact that I’m introverted and super shy and I
don’t really feel comfortable with going like ‘I’m
so much better than you are, ha ha ha’ cause I just
think it’s mean, and it takes me a long time”.
“The personal stuff ’s easier
to write, cause it all comes
spilling out like a vein was
hit or something”
In particular she found it difficult to come up
with the acerbic boasts of her album’s lead single: “I
wrote ‘Echelon’ in eight hours, I wrote ‘Black Dahlia’ in 15 minutes, and it was one of those things
where I was sitting there like ‘ugh, I don’t wanna
say this’ scratching it out like ‘this is stupid, I don’t
wanna say that, I don’t wanna say that’. ‘Black
Dahlia’ was just like ‘here’s everything I wanna say
to you, it just happens to rhyme.’” Lyrical claims
that she’s an “undefeated bastard” whose “tongue
is the fucking rapture” aside, Haze’s modesty is her
undoing when it comes to these kinds of raps. “I’m
so in my head about who I am and how I wanna
be perceived, and what being humble means to me
as a person that I don’t really do well with those
songs. It’s one of those things where I’m really, really self conscious about it and I just... I can’t”.
As difficult as she finds writing songs based
around boasts and insults, it seems she can sometimes put them out incredibly quick given the
right motivation. Following a Twitter spat with
rival MC Azealia Banks last year, Haze wrote and
recorded two diss tracks about the rapper within
hours. However, it wasn’t all empty bravado: “To
be honest, that was
emotional, because Azealia Banks and I know each
other outside of work. It wasn’t just a Twitter feud.
It was a personal thing, and it was like ‘ok, you’re
on jokes’”. Haze soon came to regret her actions,
posting an apology video online. “It was just bad
character on my part” she continues remorsefully.
“It was like ‘ok, I thought we were friends, fuck you,
blah blah blah, whatever, move on’. I could have
been bigger, you know. I wanna be the person who
practices what they preach, not go on the internet
and say ‘bullying is wrong, don’t speak on people’s
appearances to make a point, don’t do x, y and z’
and then go around and do it. But it happened, and
the best I could do at the time was apologise, and I
did, and I left it there”.
“I feel like the only person I
compete with is myself. I do
what I do, and I can only do
‘me’ best”
With the Banks feud dead and buried as far as
she’s concerned, one thing Angel makes perfectly
clear is that she won’t be the next rapper to follow
Kendrick Lamar’s lead and challenge her contemporaries directly. “I feel like the only person I compete with is myself ” she tells me as she laughs off
the idea, citing her aversion to confrontation, “I do
what I do, and I can only do ‘me’ best. Nobody
else can compete with me in that arena”. With
her complete willingness to share herself
through her music and her refusal to bend
to the whims of the industry, that much
seems to be true of Angel Haze. Going up against such raw
a talent and unique a
mindset as hers, I’d
say she has her
work cut out for
her.
The Courier
science&technologyfeature.31
How close are we to...
Back to the Future 2?
As we edge ever closer to 21 October 2015, the date to which Marty McFly travels in Back to the Future
Part II, we take a look at how modern technology measures up to the film’s world of tomorrow
They think it’s all hover – it’s not yet
I
f you tell me that you’ve never stood barefoot
on a pillow, wiggling around, and pretending you’re driving a hoverboard, I will raise
my eyebrows and genuinely question the truthfulness of that statement. As a person with two
left feet, skateboards terrify me, however if I did
have a hoverboard, I would honestly use it to go
into uni every day. Marty McFly’s crazy chase in
Back to The Future: Part II made all scooters and
bicycles seem infinitely boring. Now, almost a
quarter of a decade later, we’re a year away from
finding out whether the real 2015 will match the
one in Zemekis’ movie. Are hoverboards more
achievable now than they were in 1989?
There are plenty of guides on the internet how to
make your own, using simple household items. To
prove this point, engineer William J. Beaty compiled a detailed step-by-step guide to making an
“amateur hovercraft”. It functions with the help of
pressurized air, powered by either a leaf blower, or
a reversible hoover, and a sheet of plastic draped
over a wooden board, which creates, according to
Beaty, a “ground-hugging skirt”. The pressure on
the air, trapped inside the “skirt”, is higher than the
air surrounding it, which leads
to the board levitating a
few inches off
the ground. Depending on the air discharge, it can
even go up to a couple of feet. If done right, it can
be a great deal of fun, and looks pretty cool, too.
“The amount of energy it
takes to lift 180 pounds into
the air is positively massive,
to hold it there even larger”
Commercial hovercrafts don’t operate that much
differently. They usually have an oval or rectangular platform, a motorized fan (to replace the
hoover/leaf blower) and a large “skirt” material
to trap the air underneath. The air cushion that
forms beneath the hovercraft, by the bottom and
the skirt material, is called the plenum chamber.
The air flowing into it will form a ring of air circulating around the base of the skirt to insulate the
air cushion from the lower pressure air outside the
skirt. This ring of pressurised air keeps the air under the craft from escaping.
This is all very great, however, Marty McFly’s
hoverboard doesn’t rely on any pressurised air.
It doesn’t have any visible engines, either. It is
literally a levitating board that can lift up to 180
pounds in the air.
Recently, the video introducing the HUVr Board
went absolutely viral on social networks, managing
to convince most of the world (myself included)
that we are indeed getting a hoverboard this December. Despite that, it took only a week to reveal
that the levitating board was nothing more than a
hoax. A very expensive hoax, indeed, with budget
enough to create a realistic hoverboard effect
and get video appearances from Tony
Hawk, Moby, Schoolboy Q, but still
undoubtedly (and sadly) a hoax.
The essential problem with the
mechanics behind the hoverboard is power. The amount of
energy it takes to lift 180 pounds
a few feet into the air is positively
massive, and the amount to hold
that mass there or move it around is
even larger. The energy and power density requirements are well beyond what’s
capable with lithium-ion batteries. Technically, it is possible that a hoverboard is powered by permanent room-temperature superconducting magnets — but even then, there’s
the problem that the magnets must have something to push against. In the case of the Japanese
hovering maglev trains, there are superconducting
rails, however, in the case of a hoverboard there
is nothing more but very nonmagnetic concrete.
The final verdict? While we are definitely trying valiantly, I don’t think we’ll be able to
traipse around on hoverboards any time
soon. And, to be fair, once discovered, the
secret of antigravity might have slightly
more significant cultural implications.
Antonia Velikova
Illustration by Rachel Templeman
Haves and have-nots
Retro ‘80s Restaurants
Self-tying shoes
We could see self-tying shoes from Nike as
early as next year but don’t they keep saying
this about hover boards?! Self-tying and potentially self-aware shoes would offer the benefit
of relieving you of a simple task for a large portion of your bank balance but what if they went
rogue and wouldn’t let you untie them…?
Holograms
Holographic technology has come a long
way since its depiction in 1989’s impression of
2015, just ask Tupac. The late rapper appeared
onstage and performed flawlessly at Coachella
2012 but sadly that doesn’t mean to say movie
posters will physically reach out and grab you
any time soon, but then as Marty McFly himself astutely put it: “the shark still looks fake.”
Flying Cars
This is probably setting the bar a little low
but it’s one of the few things on this list that
humanity didn’t feel immediately compelled
to create with the inexorable approach of 2015
just to prove that Back to the Future was right.
80s diners of the kind that Marty McFly Junior
stumbles goofily into at the start of the second movie exist in little pockets of American
obscurity all over the world. Frankie Goes To
Hollywood playing from a jukebox? Check.
Frizzy-haired waitresses and garish neon décor? Check. Civil unrest, exploding inequality
and fear of nuclear war? Errrm…
Probably the most ambitious of
any of Robert Zemeckis’ predictions
for our period of history, you don’t need
me to tell you that he was wrong. But could
we see aeronautical motorway travel in our
lifetimes? Well there’s a company in America
called Terrafugia that’s currently working on
a prototype: the TF-X with foldable wings to
allow it to transition back into a road-safe car
which is, amazingly, even scheduled for release next year. So keep watching the skies and
as early as 2015 you could take to them for the
low, low price of 25 million Dollars…
Video Conferencing
Mr Fusion
The ability to talk to someone on the other
side of the planet, face-to-face, as if they were
in the same room falls only just short of magical when you stop to think about it. In the 80s
that’s all it could have been. Future Marty McFly’s sacking via Skype reminds us however to
be careful what you wish for – just because the
world can show up in your living room doesn’t
mean you should look forward to it.
Written by Jack Marley
It probably says a great deal about mankind when we bemoan the false promise of
a levitating board but completely overlook
the premise of a machine that can instantly
convert our mountains of garbage into clean
energy. The Mr. Fusion is a blender-like tube
that sits atop the DeLorean’s fuel tank and
churns up banana skins and what looks like a
can of Special Brew into rocket fuel, allowing
the driver to go conceivably anywhere in time
and space. If ever Biff needed to steal something and bring it back to the past, it’s this.
The Weather Service
In the 30 years since Marty left his life in
1985 humanity has advanced to a state where
we’re basically our own Roman Gods of nature and consequence. A quaint government
agency controls the weather to a tightly kept
schedule so that Doc knows precisely when the
pouring rain will let up when he and Marty arrive, which is convenient if not for the fact that
such colossal overreach would likely mean a
few people in an office are now responsible for
ensuring that the entire planet’s climate system
remains artificially in balance. One slip-up and
you just levelled the whole East Coast with a
tornado-strewn hurricane hail blizzard. So roll
32.science&technology
The Courier
Science Editor: Elizabeth Hampson
Deputy Science Editors: Emad Ahmed and Peter Style
How close are we to...
colonising Mars
On the back of all the hype surrounding the ongoing physical and psychological testing to select the elite human crew that will travel and dedicate the rest of their lives to landing and living on Mars, Heather Flint
investigates just how close we really are to actually fully colonising the red planet
S
pace travel, and the idea of humans forming or nuclear rockets could cut down travel times to
civilisations on other planets, is the focus of 40 or 14 days respectively. It is safer for astronauts
many a sci-fi film. From the looks of things, to cut down their travel times, as long periods of
the reality of putting human life onto another weightlessness can cause bone and muscle deterioworld seems like fiction, but last year a Dutch ration, causing healthy bodies to behave like old,
company turned this concept upside down and tired ones, not ideal for the work involved during
sparked a worldwide push for the colonisation colonisation.
of the red planet.
The hostile Red Planet has no global magnetic
Mars One is a non-profit organisation
field and a very
thin atmosphere, which
with the aim of establishing a permanent
allows
large
amounts of ionising
human settlement on Mars.
radi at ion
down to the surface.
The company will send
This radiation can ingroups of four volunduce cancer and age the
teers to Mars every
volunteers faster. Not
two years with the inonly that, water has
tention or expanding
yet to be found on the
the ‘habitat’ they live
planet’s surface - only
in, and learning more
as a layer of underabout what it is like to
ground ice. And toplive on Mars’ surface.
ping it off, the air
There are many obstapressure at ground
cles the group must
level is greatly reovercome before this
duced
compared
sci-fi becomes nonto that on earth,
fiction.
and only contains
For starters, Mars
0.1% oxygen. This
is not just around the
is enough for some
corner. Its closest aplichens to photosynproach for more than
thesise, but not for hu50,000 years was 56 milmans to breathe.
lion kilometres, back in
Mars One’s solutions
2003. This distance fluctuates
to these problems involve
Rachel Templeman
depending on the relative posending ‘cargo units’ that
sitions of the planets in space, so
contain ‘living’ and ‘life supat the moment, our current technolport’ units. These life support units
ogy allows us to traverse the gap in around
are assembled by a pre-stationed rover,
230 days. Proposals for electromagnetic rockets
and are powered by solar panels. By send-
ing them to Mars a year ahead of the astronauts’
arrival, the life support unit can start providing
stable conditions for human survival. Water is extracted by sifting through Martian soil and boiling
off the ice particles within. Some of this water is
used to produce breathable oxygen, while nitrogen
and argon are extracted from the planets current
atmosphere and added to the mixture. By the time
the first group gets to Mars, the system would have
produced 3000 litres of water and 120 kg of Oxygen for the volunteers to live on. It will be the astronauts’ job to prepare and maintain the next set of
life support systems that arrive a year later.
There are many individuals, however, prepared
to take up the challenge of living on Mars, leaving
family and friends behind for the chance of adventure, and a permanent mark in the history books.
More than 200,000 men and women responded
to the first call for volunteers, and in subsequent
rounds applicants are chosen to move forward in
the selection process, until six teams of four are
found. These teams will be rigorously tested in hostile environments, such as the arctic deserts, and be
trained in vehicle and system maintenance. After
nine years of training, the first batch of astronauts
will be launched to begin their new life on Mars.
“Radiation on Mars can
induce cancer and rapid
ageing,. Not only that, water
has yet to be found on the
planets surface”
Alkuin
Banishing the stigma around
Autism Spectrum Disorders
A lifelong developmental disability, around 1 in 100 individuals are diagnosed with autism, but do we
really have a grasp on how this disorder works? William Ibbott discusses its meaning
Public awareness to Autism and what it entails
is comprehensive. Scientific research is surfacing all the time in order to broaden our understanding of the condition: it’s now estimated that
1 out of 100 people in the UK are afflicted with
autism, while a recent article published in The
Independent revealed a study which concluded
that females are more resilient to autism due to
a preponderance of X chromosomes which, ergo,
makes them less susceptible to ‘genetic mutations’.
“There are many grey zones
that come with a condition
such as autism, once that’s
realised we’re closer to understanding what it really is”
But in spite of all the ongoing research, how does
the umbrella term of Autism Spectrum Disorder
(ASD) still encompass so much grey area in between? We know how closely-related autism is to
similar conditions such as Asperger’s Syndrome
and ADHD. We know how broad the scale of the
spectrum is which teeters between mild symptoms
and more debilitating ones. We know of all the
stereotypes that earmark the condition (social interaction problems, limited interests and repetitive
behaviours). In spite of all the findings, which give
new dimensions to our understanding, autism remains difficult to diagnose, virtually impossible to
cure, and there’s very little evidence to show what
causes it to begin with. Not to mention the stigma
that’s often par for the course, whereby autism is
merely used as a tool for explain away an individual’s awkward nature or socially unacceptable pursuits. My verdict? Stop
distancing ourselves from it like it’s
leprosy and come to terms with
the reality that it’s much more
relative than we think.
Despite having previously mentioned the unclear causes of autism,
Drriad
discovery of this area is probably the
best means of tackling the enigma. Prolific research has cropped up in the US recently
which indicates that autism
is highly related to environmental factors during
pregnancy, such as pollution or pesticide. However,
whether this remains to
conclude anything outright
is yet to be decided. In past
years, many believed that the
MMR vaccine was a cause for
autism, but following research
on the case in a worldwide context, nothing substantial was proven. The genetics vs. environment
debate still continues, but the National Autistic Society stress that
if the cause for an individual developing autism were genetic, it
would be drawn back to multiple genetic factors as opposed
to simply one, a realisation
which stresses the complex and relative nature that
comes with the condition. They
also maintain that there is no link between an individual’s upbringing (such as emotional deprivation) and development of autism. There’s certainly
no cure, but once recognised in an individual it
can become easier to keep at bay. Sadly society’s
norms dictate that a condition such as autism is
‘abnormal’, like it dictates that taboo topics like depression, OCD or any other state of being which
challenges the human mind being infallible. There
are many grey zones that come with a condition
such as autism, and once that’s realised, we’re steps
closer to understanding autism for what it really is.
“Autism remains to be
difficult to diagnose, virtually impossible to cure and
very little evidence of an outright cause to begin with”
The Courier
science&technology.33
thecourieronline.co.uk/science
c2.science@ncl.ac.uk | @courier_science
Have I seen you before?
Theories about why so many of us experience déjà vu have been around
for centuries. However, new research is starting to shed light into why we
experience this. Meagan Mallen helps us understand the developments
H
ave you ever felt an overwhelming
sense of familiarity in a place or situation you know you’ve never been in
before? If so, it’s likely that you experienced the
mysterious cognitive phenomenon of déjà vu
(roughly translated to already seen). This feeling, although difficult to describe to those who
have not encountered it, is unmistakable and can
be triggered by sights, sounds, conversations, or
even smells.
Over the centuries, there have been countless
conjectures attempting to unearth the cause of déjà
vu, including many supernatural explanations regarding past lives or extra sensory perceptions, as
well as Freudian proposals regarding the expression of subconscious desires. Recently though,
modern science has revived an interest in understanding this occurrence and offered more plausible theories for why and how it may happen.
“Although déjà vu remains
such an elusive and complicated occurrence, scientists
are making great strides”
Most of these theories revolve around some sort
of slight malfunction in the processing that occurs
in the temporal lobe of the brain. One theory is
that déjà vu takes place when there is a delay between sensory information being received and that
information being knowingly identified.
This delay tricks the brain into a feeling
of familiarity because the surroundings
have been unconsciously processed,
but not yet consciously recognized by
the individual. The experience and
the thought process are not simultaneous, and therefore the experience appears similar to a memory.
Another hypothesis that is somewhat
related to this is named the Divided Attention, or Cell Phone Theory. This
is the idea that when we are distracted, we still subliminally observe our surroundings, but do
not consciously process
them until our attention
is undivided.
Experiences of déjà vu
are scientifically proven
to diminish with age, with
the most frequent of experiences occurring in subjects from
the ages of 15 to 25. It is thought
that the diminishment in episodes
is correlated to levels of dopamine
neurotransmitters, which peak in late
adolescence and early adulthood then
steadily decline afterwards.
Another recent development in the
research of this phenomenon is the observable connection between incidents
of déjà vu and seizure in epileptic
patients. People with medial
temporal epilepsy (which
affects the brain’s hippocampus) often experience the feeling
of déjà vu before
a seizure. This association has lead
to the formulation
of yet another viable
possibility in the déjà
A
Martin Jones gives us his take
on the highly anticipated sequel
from From Software
“Experiences of d
déjà vu
are scientifically proven
to diminish with age
age”
the individual never actually encountered before.
Although déjà vu remains such an
elusive and complicated occurrence,
W
scientists are making great strides
in their realm of understanding.
They are using their findings to
research other related occurrences, such as jamais vu (never seen),
in which an individual interprets
something or somewhere familiar
to them as foreign and unknown.
As we learn more about the intricate
processes of the human brain, we
can further demystify the eerie and
haunting experience of déjà vu.
Robyn Gallant
With the arrival of the much-anticipated reboot of the classic “Cosmos” series,
Penny Polson gives us the lowdown on presenter Neil deGrasse Tyson,
and how any scientist can become an effective communicator
bishing the Hayden Planetarium in 2000, they
wanted to “future-proof ” what they were developing, so they wouldn’t have to continually change it
for scientific developments. It was at this point
that he and his colleagues “noticed there were
more icy bodies in the outer solar system who
looked more like Pluto, than either Pluto or
they
looked like any other planet”. He
went on to note that the Kuiper belt
– a collection of icy objects beyond
Neptune – explained the presence of Pluto, and said that Pluto
was simply “grandfathered in as a
planet, but it is really puny”.
Yes, he did use the
word ‘puny’. And
maybe this is why
he is a such a popular science presenter
– he has huge depth
in knowledge, enthusiasm for the
subject, but when
he is expressing
information, he is
able to merge these
factors into speech
that feels like every
day conversations.
Sarah Elliott
Even if the listener
Dark Souls II
vu canon that mimics in healthy individuals
what occurs in epileptic subjects: the misfiring of the brain’s neurons. These neurons fire random signals that can often
prompt recall of a scene or situation that
The spacetime odyssey of a scientist
n American science presenter, Neil deGrasse Tyson is known for his ability to
deliver content in a clear, accessible
way. His fascination with the stars came
at the early age of nine, when a trip to the
Hayden Planetarium gave him the opportunity to taste the dark, mysterious world
of space. He attended the Bronx
High School of Science, and went
on to earn an undergraduate
degree in physics at Harvard
University, before a doctorate
in astrophysics at Columbia
University by 1991. After a
few years conducting postdoctoral research, Tyson returned to the Hayden Planetarium where he eventually
became Director.
His biography is inspiring so
far, but what about the claims
that he was the murderer of
the beloved cosmic underdog
Pluto, who lost its planetary
status in 2006? Sitting crosslegged on internet chat show
On The Verge, Tyson said that
he “drove the getaway car, but
did not commit the crime”. He
described how when refur-
Game Review:
has no previous knowledge about the topic, by the
end you not only understand, but share his passion
too. His knowledge is contagious, which is a sign of
a truly excellent science presenter.
So do you want to be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, Alice Roberts or even David Attenborough? Well, how do you get there? In a feature by The Guardian, BBC Commissioning Editor
of Science and Natural History Kim Shillinglaw
noted that presenters are created from a strange
and often unpredictable concoction of factors.
Presenters need to be able to make people “lean
towards the telly”, and be memorable. Both traits
Tyson has, so it’s wonderful with the UK arrival of
the TV reboot “Cosmos” that we have the opportunity to learn from the best.
ith a new world to explore and new enemies to survive, Dark Souls II once again
delivers the frustrating (yet somewhat
enjoyable) feeling of helplessness where everything is
against you. Just like its predecessor, you again take on
the role of a cursed undead character, plagued with the
task of collecting souls to becomes stronger and avoid
the hollowing.
Unaware of your goals and nearby surroundings, you
travel the land of Drangleic as you attempt to survive the
brutally unforgiving enemies who have previously failed
at the task you must now accomplish yourself. Staying
true to the series, Dark Souls II holds no punches in finding new, innovative ways to promptly show you why it
will shortly be known as “the hardest game ever”.
Other than a series of initial conversations and cutscenes to set up the story, you are open to explore as
you see fit, with the only advice being provided by messages left by other online adventures. This contrasts with
most modern games which provide overly lengthy (and
unavoidable) tutorial sections and constant reminders of
controls or story elements which can leave players feeling
watched.
Running on an entirely new engine, the game provides
a much more refined experience than the original. Although these changes aren’t massively noticeable in terms
of graphical quality, additions to character movement
and combat replace the rigid, fixed protagonist with the
lifelike movement brought in kind by motion-capture.
Gameplay elements seem relatively unchanged. Progression is largely dominated by exploration of the open
world and gruelling large-scale boss fights which provide
no easy task, often requiring the summoning of allies to
assist you in these battles. This ability to assist and be assisted by other players remains the main contribution of
online-play. However, players who prefer to remain offline can find assistance through some NPCs, specifically
in place to assist in more tough environments.
“Running on an entirely
new engine, the game
provides a much more
refined experience than
the original”
A key feature remains the vast array of character stats
within the game, allowing for multiple build paths and
play styles. Some people enjoy being a tank-like knight, an
immovable force garnished in thick armour, whilst others
may enjoy the role of a dexterous thief or seasoned mage.
Regardless of your preference, each can be achieved
through the unrestricted levelling system. This same fact
allows for further replays, allowing you to travel the world
multiple times, using multiple weapons and defeating
foes in multiple ways.
Dark Souls II is a fantastically refined game which expands greatly on previous iterations. For regulars of the
series, it’s a fantastic expansion to the series and a strongly
recommended purchase. If, however, you have never
played Dark Souls, it does not prevent you from fully
enjoying the game. All that is required to play and enjoy
Dark Souls II is a love of RPG games, a love of exploration
and unfathomable patience as you die over and over, yet
still press on.
The Courier
35.puzzles
Puzzles
There’s no quizness like show quizness, like no quizness I
know. Hand in your answers at The Courier office to have a
chance of winning drinks at MensBar
Crossword
1
2
3
4
5
Puzzles Editors: Tom Nicholson and Sam Summers
Win a
MensBar
voucher
Grandma’s Pictionary
I sat down with Grandma for a game of pictionary,
but she’s just not very good, bless her. Can you help me
figure out which common phrase she’s trying to draw?
6
7
8
10
9
11
12
14
Sudoku
13
9 6 4
1
3
16
17
18
19
20
Across
1 Human League tune which is crashing
back into the Top 40 this week due to Aberdeen’s Scottish Cup win (4, 3, 4, 2)
7 To take the wind from a ship’s sales, rendering it motionless ‘pon the high seas (6)
8 Roman god of wine and shenanigans,
A.K.A. Dionysus (7)
10 Ruddy clever bloke who invented the
phonograph and the electric hammer (6)
13 Top of a hill; bosom of a bird (5)
14 See 4 down
16 Korean car manufacturer (3)
17 An old-timey sort of shop in the same
vein as a cobbler’s, except in this shop you
buy material and sewing stuff (12)
20 1990 AC/DC single which is, bizarrely,
still at number 16 on this week’s rock singles
chart (13)
The first person to
bring the completed
puzzles to The Courier
office in the Students’
Union will be awarded
the prize and the
respect of their peers,
which let’s be honest is
priceless
8
15
Down
1 2003 Gamecube instalment of the Mario
Kart series (10)
2 Government informer on illegal drug dealing (4)
3 Affirmative (4)
4, 14 across Country with a football team
famous for conceding the most goals in an
international match ever ever ever - 31 (8, 5)
5 Work of fiction which works hard to drag
salty water from your ducts (10)
6 Swiss cheese (9)
9 One of the arm bones (4)
11, 18 down Scottish drink made of girders
(3,3)
12 Film award which looks like bald man (5)
15 Type of goat fur used for suits etc (6)
18 See 11 down
19 Get ahead; get a ___ (3)
Why didn’t
Richard
Ashcroft’s dog
dancing
troupe get
through
the opening round of
Britain’s Got
Talent?
9
8 2
6
2
2
6
4 8
6 1
7
5
7 1
9
5 4
7 9
5
Oh, Smiggsy!
Because the
pugs don’t
twerk!
36.sportfeatures
The Courier
Showboating
This week, The Courier takes a look back to the sporting celebrations
The Sprinkler
The recent ashes tour of Australia will
not be one English fans will look back
on fondly. Not only were the team humiliated in losing the series 5-0, there
were also splits in the camp which saw
talisman Kevin Pietersen effectively
fired from the national team and coach
Andy Flower resign from his post shortly after the squad returned home. Not
the obvious place to start when discussing famous sporting celebrations, however just three short years before this
debacle, the England cricket squad was
a much happier place to be.
The ashes tour of 2010/11 was special
for England, as it was the first time since
1986/87 that an English side had won
the ashes in Australia. Previous visits
had been just as tough as the most recent tour, with England often being on
the receiving end of a thumping.
But not this time. In 2010 England
travelled to Australia as favourites and
performed as such, winning the series
3-1, sparking celebrations amongst the
Barmy Army in the stands and also on
the pitch.
Cricketers are renowned for respect
and whilst they do celebrate wickets,
centuries and victories, traditionally it
is practice to remain reserved in front
of your opponents. England did not
cross this line and bring the ‘spirit of
cricket’ in to any sort of disrepute, but
the squad did show its emotion and joy
at winning the series in a slightly more
animated way that cricket fans will have
been used to seeing down the years, by
virtue of the sprinkler.
The sprinkler is in all honestly a pretty
cheesy move, normally reserved for
dark and dingy dance floors, but the
England squad brought it to the green
grass of Australia, as the entire squad
performed the routine in front of their
adoring fans upon winning the series.
Led by Swann, Pietersen and Anderson,
players with enough character and confidence to pull off such a move, the team
almost made the sprinkler look cool
and certainly made it funny.
There were of course certain members who looked entirely uncomfortable
throughout this process, such as Strauss,
Cook and Trott, but in a period when
English cricket was going from strength
to strength it was great to see the team
spirit in such abundance in a part of the
world so often associated with disaster
for our national side.
Of course, the days of the sprinkler are
long gone. Parity has been restored and
for at least the next four years English
cricket fans will go back to associating
anguish with the land of Oz, but at least
the squad have until 2017 to come up
with a move to better the sprinkler.
Will Crane
SWANN LAKE: Graeme Swann leads ‘The Sprinkler’ after winning the Ashes. Image: Getty
Robbie ‘Powder’
One of the most outrageous, albeit
darkly comic celebrations of all time
comes from Liverpool’s own folk-hero,
Robbie Fowler.
Fowler was certainly never known as
the subtlest man in football, however,
nobody could have predicted his reaction to scoring an equaliser at Goodison
Park in 1999. For a proud scouser, it
seems the mania of scoring an equalising goal against bitter local rivals, Ever-
ton, cannot be subdued. In an adrenaline fuelled Merseyside derby, Fowler
tucked away a penalty to bring the score
back to 1-1.
Fowler proceeded to get down on all
fours and “snort” the touchline, in front
of the disbelieving Everton faithful, in
response to the media insinuating he
was doing something similar off the
pitch. Seemingly, you can take the boy
out of Toxteth, but you can’t take the
Toxteth out of the boy. This shocking,
narcotics-based gag bought Fowler a
£32,000 fine and a four match ban. The
finishing touch in immortalising this
celebration was supplied by manager
Gérard Houllier, who later claimed it
was a ‘grass-eating celebration’, taught
to Fowler by Cameroonian defender
Rigobert Song. Don’t worry Gérard, we
believe you, honestly...
Ryan Hill
The Bench
Breaker
When Zinedine Zidane knocked down
Marco Materazzi in 2006, he would
have doubted himself that of all the
mindblowing moves in his repertoire,
this headbutt could become someone
else’s inspiration.
But having hung the boots a long time
ago, Zizou is maybe now enjoying another similar performance with Italian
flavour. Jacopo Violani was having a
regular day leading Riolo Terme’s attack
against Ponticelli in the lower leagues of
amateur football when he suddenly became a superstar.
achievement in pure fashion.
Whilst this resulted in both laughter
and swearing from the witnesses, the
referee kept his poker face to send Violani off for an earlier show, and gave him
the red card.
Meanwhile, the clip has been uploaded on YouTube and received 8 million
views. But as spontaneous as it might
seem, Violani had reasonable motivation for his actions after not being able
to play for 2 months due to a meniscus
injury.
“Not being able to help my teammates
As a means of celebration, he forced his head
through the plexiglass window of the subs bench
END OF THE LINE: Robbie Fowler acts out snorting a line of cocaine in his goal celebration. Image: Getty
Thanks to some poor goalkeeping,
Violani put his side in the lead 3-1 and
then decided to turn the goal into the
most memorable one of his career. After striking the ball to find the back of
the net, the 23-year-old forward was apparently running towards coaches and
teammates to embrace them.
Then, out of nowhere, he dribbled past
his allies and, in a moment of madness,
forced his head through the plexiglass
window of the bench to celebrate the
caused a mixture of anger and frustration. So when I saw the ball go in the
net, the adrenaline rushed into my head
and I acted on instinct. I felt no pain or
discomfort.” After the incident, Riolo
Terme once again missed their top scorer due to a two-match ban.
On the other hand, Violani was nicknamed “The Hard-headed” while relishing his moment of glory with a couple
of interviews.
Peter Georgiev
The Courier
intramuralsport.37
sports stars
which have made their way into the sporting Hall of Fame
Shrug it off MJ
Image:
Getty
For the most part, well remembered
sporting celebrations can be divided
into two categories. The first of these
are supposed ‘funny’ routines or preplanned actions situated within a wider
context.
The second denotes exhibitions of
pure emotion; unbridled joy in the
aftermath of achieving something remarkable.
While Michael Jordan’s ‘shrug’ celebration in Game One of the 1992 NBA
Play-Off Finals bears some similarities
with the second category in that his reaction follows the completing of something incredible, the understated nature
of his actions arguably works to distinguish his celebration from anything
that had come from before it, or has
even followed since.
The celebration occurred on the stroke
of the interval in the heavily anticipated
opener to the best-of-seven Finals between Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and the
Portland Trail Blazers, a team that had
previously passed up the chance to sign
Jordan in the 1984 Draft.
As the half-time buzzer approached,
Jordan sunk his sixth three-pointer of
the contest to take his individual points
total of the half up to a ridiculous 35
points, breaking a 30-year record for
points scored in a half of a Finals game
previously held by Elgin Baylor with 33.
NBA radio commentator Joe McConnell would later go on to call Jordan’s
performance that day as “the greatest
performance ever in a single half in the
history of the league”.
Jordan’s reaction to achieving such a
feat was astounding; a casual shake of
the head and a simple shrug in the direction of the Bulls bench, as fans, players and coaches alike lost their proverbial rag around him.
The celebration is incredible in its
simplicity and rawness. Nothing preplanned or pre-meditated. Just an exhibition of inner calm and almost sheepish embarrassment deriving from an
inexplicable sense of personal surprise
as a result of what he himself was capable of.
The feat itself whilst being incredible,
arguably pales in significance to other
accomplishments Jordan both had, and
would go on to achieve in his basketball
career.
However, whilst he would go on to
score more important points, put in
more impressive all-round performances and do more one-off disbelieving things, this reaction will long stand
the test of time as a fitting summation
of it all.
Nick Gabriel
Bolt strikes a pose
Having become a household name following his Olympic gold in the 100 metres in Beijing, Usain Bolt’s celebration
has become the trademark gesture of
athletics.
Audiences around the world witnessed Bolt’s elation as he crossed the
finish line in a record speed of 9.69 seconds, and followed it up with an equally
infamous celebration.
Bolt proceeded to strike a pose resembling a lightning bolt for the thousands
of new fans he had won over in only a
matter of seconds.
STRIKE IT LUCKY: Bolt’s lightning bolt pose after winning. Image: Getty
In the 200 metres it took Bolt under 20
seconds to run the race, and it took him
over two hours to make his way out of
the stadium tunnel - 20 metres from the
end of the track.
From the moment he crossed the finish line and pointed his arms in the air,
Bolt became a commercial necessity.
Global stars, including Prince Harry,
Richard Branson and Miss Universe
Leila Lopes, have been photographed
displaying his famous pose, which has
since been named ‘To Di World’. Since
being catapulted onto the scene five
years ago, Bolt now reportedly has a net
worth of $30 million to his name.
At the time the gesture was there to
add comedy value to the track and field
and cause a chuckle among his colleagues, but now it has become a world
renowned symbol.
After winning gold in 2012, Bolt jokingly celebrated his third Olympic medal by trading celebrations with fellow
Olympic legend Mo Farah by displaying the ‘Mobot,’ with Farah returning
the favour and displaying the lighting
bolt after his double gold in London.
In a sport associated with drug doping, bans and disqualifications, Bolt’s
humour and energy on and off the track
is what has made him such a commercial success.
The lightning bolt has well and truly
set the benchmark for sporting celebrations for years to come.
Fran Fitzsimmons
CRO-BOTICS: Peter’s infamous robot celebration. Image: Getty
The Robot
While some celebrations are extravagant, infuriating or acrobatic, this particular gem is just plain funny.
Even the most capable of dancers
would struggle to make the renowned
‘80s dance move ‘The Robot’ look credible.
When deployed by 6”7 beanpole Peter Crouch decided to try his hand at
robotics following an international goal
against Hungary.
The results were outstanding. Even Pe-
ter himself, wouldn’t have been able to
anticipate the popularity that his robot
would have on the world of football.
Putting it behind him, Crouch promised the robot would only make another
appearance if England won the World
Cup, and he stayed true to his word.
Until recently.
Now one of the most popular images
in football, Crouch’s Robot is both endearing, and timeless.
Ryan Hill
38.sportintramural
The Courier
Boca into debut cup final with
comfortable win over Toonich
Intra Mural Wednesday Cup
Boca Seniors
4
Hunter 36, Laksari-Adams 62,
McCartney 70, Crosland 75
Bayern Toonich
Armour 20 (p)
1
By Dom Oldham
in Longbenton
A solid 4-1 win saw Boca Seniors
continue their good form as they dispatched Bayern Toonich and booked a
place in the club’s first ever cup final on
Wednesday evening at Longbenton.
Both teams went into this tie high on
confidence. Seniors had assuredly seen
off 1st Division Dyslexic Untied in the
previous round in addition remaining
unbeaten in the league.
Toonich meanwhile are pushing for
promotion from Division 3 and came
into the game on the brink of a fairy tale
cup run after knocking out top division
sides in the previous two rounds.
On a blustery evening Boca started
Round One
Buckminster - 4
Kevin Kilbane - 1
Barca-Law- Na - 3
South Sandwich - 2
Medic 1sts - 2
Henderson Hall - 1
Agrics
BYE
Roman Villa - 1
Sub-Standard - 0
Brown Magic - 5
Monchenflapjack - 1
Castle Leazes
BYE
Newhist FC - 1
Aftermath - 9
Medic 2nds - 14
Geogsoc - 2
Bayern Toonich
BYE
Ecosoccer - 4
Politic Thistle - 2
Thundercats - 3
Sons of Pitches - 0
Larrikins
BYE
Boca Seniors - 2
Dyslexic Untied - 5
KFC - 1
FC Twente Bag - 0
Boca Seniors - 2
S.S. Ladzio - 0
the stronger, controlling much of the
possession and seemed the more likely
to open the scoring but it was actually Toonich who took the lead with a
well-placed finish from the penalty spot
from their skipper Johnny Armour.
A strong attack was not cleared by the
Boca defence and eventually led to
keeper Avison felling a Bayern attacker,
Oldham which was well attacked and
headed in by centre back Hunter for,
remarkably, his 10th goal in 10 games
from defence.
For the rest of the half Toonich seemed
to sit back, allowing Boca to control the
majority of possession, and attempt to
hit them on the break.
However neither side created any clear
Boca Seniors striker McCartney then came
up with a wonderful finish from the edge
of the area, going in off the bar and post, to
give his side the lead with 20 minutes to play
with the referee pointing immediately
to the spot.
However an undeterred Boca went
in search of the equaliser and with the
trickery of Greenhill and Chadwick in
the middle of the park causing problems
for Toonich it didn’t take long for them
to be level. A foul on Greenhill led to a
floated free kick to the back post from
Round Two
Buckminster - 3
chances so the game went into the break
level.
With the wind now at their backs,
Seniors took the game to their lower
league opponents at the start of the
second period, and thought they had
taken the lead when Oldham headed
in a Greenhill cross only to see the flag
raised much to the wingers surprise.
Man of the match was undoubtedly
Andrew Leyden, who put in a Yaya
Toure-esque performance over the
course of the 90 minutes.
Avison
Gascoigne
Hunter
Toal
Stalley
Chadwick
Leyden
Greenhill
Laksari-Adams
Oldham
McCartney
Armour
O’Callaghan
Wallace
Whiteaway
Saxton
Adams
Kershaw
Harwood
Dunn
Wednesday Cup Table
Quarter-Final
Semi-Final
Final
Buckminster - 1
Barca-Law-Na - 2
Medic 1sts - 2
Nonetheless, not long after that they
were ahead when the Bayern keeper
failed to deal with a whipped free kick
which saw Laksari-Adams head home
well from the rebound.
They looked to put the game safe but
were nearly pegged back when in one of
Bayern’s few dangerous second half moments they fired wide following a goal
mouth scramble when perhaps they
should have done better.
They lived to regret this as first, striker
McCartney came up with a wonderful
finish from the edge of the area, going
in off the bar and post, and then substitute Crosland’s miss hit cross inexplicably found its way in off the front post to
take the score to 4-1 and take the bite
out of a spirited Toonich performance.
From this point Boca created enough
scoring opportunities to really stretch
the score line but several spurned
chances and the woodwork denied
them.
Seniors will go into the final confident
of lifting the trophy whoever their opponents may be while Toonich are sure
to be pleased with their performance in
the competition.
Medic 1sts
Medic 1sts - 5
Agrics - 1
Medic 1sts/ Roman Villa
Roman Villa - 7
Roman Villa - 1
Brown Magic - 0
Castle Leazes - 10
Roman Villa
Aftermath - 0
Aftermath - 11
Medic 2nds - 1
Bayern Toonich - 3
Bayern Toonich - 3
Ecosoccer - 4
Bayern Toonich - 1
Ecosoccer - 2
Having now booked their
place in the final, Boca Seniors
await the winners of the other
semi-final between Medic 1sts
and Roman Villa, to be played
this Wednesday.
Whilst Medic’s peerless league
form continues to make them
the bookies’ overwhelming favourites for the competition
outright, both Villa and Boca
will be hopeful of upsetting the
odds with justifiable cause.
The final is scheduled to take
place at 2pm on Wednesday
14th May.
Thundercats - 3
Boca Seniors
Larrikins - 2
Dyslexic - 1
Dyslexic - 5
Boca Seniors - 4
KFC - 4
Boca Seniors - 5
Boca Seniors - 3
Page
Heward
The Courier
sportbucs.39
Karters conquer windy Wales
By Freddie Caldwell
in Glan Y Gors
The team: Newcastle karting A. The
destination: Glan Y Gors, North Wales.
The vehicle: KIA c apostrophe d. Cue the
music.
It was a slightly tired Newcastle team
that arrived in Glan Y Gors after a four
hour road trip but they were consoled
by the spectacular countryside and
what looked to be a very exciting kart
track.
Somewhat miraculously, and for the
first time in this year’s championship,
the weather appeared to be set fair so a
day of quick lap times lay ahead.
However, as this was a new track on
the British Universities Karting Championship calendar, very few of the participants had driven the track before
meaning that the day’s initial action
would be fairly chaotic, but at least it
put the Newcastle team on a level playing field. This was somewhat ironic
given the large undulations in the lap
that presented a unique challenge for
the karters.
Tom MacKenzie was the first to take
to the track and did well to put is kart
into a decent position after the first few
corners, despite starting on the outside
half of the grid.
However, things went from good to
bad in a split second after an incident
further up the field on the last corner of
the first lap. Several karts came together
which spun a driver from Exeter and
left him facing the wrong way in the
middle of the pit straight.
Due to the close proximity of other
karts, Tom could not see the incident
in time to react and ploughed head-on
into the stationary kart and its occupant.
Thankfully none of the drivers or karts
involved were seriously damaged and
were all able to continue. Tom recovered and set an impressive pace to eventually end up 20th, two places above his
unfortunate victim.
Next to go was stand-in team captain
Freddie Caldwell who was looking to
benefit from a 6th place grid position.
Unfortunately, this put him on the outside half of the grid and he was unable
to cut to the inside and was crowded
out onto the grass resulting in him being demoted to 23rd place.
A few laps later injury was added to
insult as he was hit from behind going
into the tricky ‘spoon’ corner which
spun him round and down into 31st.
Overtaking a few back markers provided some conciliation, but the final result
was a somewhat disappointing 28th.
Next up was A team rookie Ben Fisher
who put in a very impressive performance after being in 30th place after
the first lap. His consistent pace allowed
him to climb up to 24th by the end of
the race, only losing out on 23rd to
Loughborough A by 0.08 seconds.
Rob Langthorp was up next who was
also racing for the As for the first time.
The extra pressure did not seem to faze
him as he climbed from 26th place to
17th and was involved in some terrific
battles in the process. This was certainly the most entertaining race of the
day and Rob did well to deal with having so many drivers in close proximity
throughout.
After a break for tea and yum yums in
the clubhouse, the endurance racing got
underway with Ben and Rob up first.
They stayed out of trouble and finished
in 27th but benefitted from a few disqualifications and were eventually given
a 24th place finish.
Tom and Freddie contested the last
race of the day as the light faded and
the wind picked up to the point where
even the many sheep that surrounded
the circuit looked slightly perturbed.
The level of wind did make some of
the corners more difficult and initially
it looked like the team would struggle
after Tom found himself in 32nd place
after the first lap.
However, from that point both drivers
kept up a really good pace throughout
their stints and the pit stops went like
clockwork thanks to Rob and Ben’s help.
All of this hard work meant a 21st place
and a satisfying end to a long and physically demanding day.
The team rewarded themselves for
their efforts with a well-deserved KFC
at Charnock Richard services as they
made their way back up the M6.
They will now look forward to the
last race meeting of the season at Clay
Pigeon circuit in April where they will
be looking to move 3 places further up
the championship to better their finish
from last season, a feat that is definitely
possible on this evidence.
The intensity of the game was accompanied with vocal support from
the supporters of both teams, creating
an atmosphere fit for a fixture of this
magnitude. The game was watched by
approximately 200 spectators with current Newcastle Eagles player/coach Fab
Flourney and former Knights coach
Dave Elderkin both in attendance.
The first quarter saw both teams
nip and tuck at each other, with the
Knights opening up on a George Beard
three-pointer. Defensive lapses allowed
Northumbria to respond with their own
baskets as both teams traded blows simultaneously to end the quarter tied at
14 apiece.
The second quarter saw Northumbria go on a 9-0 run before a basket
from captain Mark Elderkin ended the
drought for the Knights. The Knights
ended the second quarter on an 8-2 run
to cut Northumbria’s lead to just 2 going
into half time.
third quarter would prove costly for the
Knights as Northumbria increased their
advantage, outscoring the Knights 2314 in the period.
goals from Chuck Duru and George
Beard saw the Knights half the deficit
into a two possession game at 60-66,
prompting Northumbria coach Marc
Steutel to call a timeout.
The Knights would outscore Northumbria 9-8 to close the game, 6 of
Northumbria’s points coming from the
line after intentional fouls to stop the
clock.
Overall, it was an outstanding effort
from the Knights who will certainly feel
hard done by the end result as well as a
number of questionable calls from the
officials going against them throughout
the game.
The Knights fate now depends on
the result of the Northumbria’s fixture
against Derby on the 2nd April at Sport
Central.
Ballers slip to play-off loss
Netball
Newcastle 1sts
69
Top Scorers : C. Duru - 18, G.
Beard – 14, M. Elderkin – 11
Northumbria 1sts
74
Top Scorers : M. Martin – 15,
S. Clifford - 12, T. Devitt – 11
By Chuck Duru
in Newcastle
In an electrifying fixture that comprehensively lived up to the pre-game hype
after the Stan Calvert fixture just two
weeks ago, the Knights came up short in
their first of two playoff games against
local rivals Northumbria.
It was an outstanding effort from the
Knights who will certainly feel hard done by
the end result as well as a number of
questionable calls from the officials
The Knights struggled offensively in
the third quarter as Northumbria were
able to convert their chances, taking an
11-2 run to open the third, with only
Jack Beresford scoring in the opening
four minutes for the home team. The
The fourth quarter saw the Knights
step up their intensity on both ends of
the floor with Coach Ian Hewitt urging
his players to put everything they had
into the final ten minutes.
With the Knights down 54-66, field
League Tables
Wednesday 11 a-side Football
Division 1
1
Division 13
Division 2
Team
Pld
W
D
L
F
A
Pts
Newcastle Medics 1
11
10
0
1
50
10
30
1
Team
Pld
W
D
L
F
A
Pts
Aftermath FC
10
6
2
2
29
16
20
Team
1
Politic Thistle
Division
After another round
of41
Salisbury found himself
ball in feet and tucked it
Pld
W
D
L
F
A
10
8
2
0
40 11
Pts
26
1 1 Sons
of Law
Pitches
Barca
Na
2
Newcastle Medics 2
11
9
1
1
38
12
28
2
Boca Seniors
7
6
0
1
21
7
19
2
Sub-Standard Liege
3
Dyslexic Untied
10
5
0
5
27
28
15
3
SS Ladzio
9
4
4
1
15
11
16
3
FC Bayern Toonich
4
Henderson Hall
12
3
4
5
22
24
13
4
Roman Villa FC
8
3
1
4
15
18
10
4
South Sandwich FC
Photogra21 43 10
17 23
phy:
Nick9
8
43
1
Gabriel
5
Brown Magic FC
9
3
1
5
16
22
10
5
Thundercats
9
in action
3The Wildcats
1
5
21
26 10
6
Castle Leazes
11
2
2
7
20
24
8
6
Newcastle Agrics FC
10
3
7
Newcastle Dynamos
8
0
3
5
9
27
3
7
Buckminster Fullerenes
10
0
5
Barca-Law-Na
11
3
1
7
6
Ecosoccer
10
2
3
5
7
Larrakins
9
0
1
8
Team
Team
12
6
3
3
33 22
21
2 2 Newhist
FC Medics 1sts
Newcastle
10
6
3
1
28 19
21
3 3 KFC
Henderson Hall
11
3
2
6
19 29
11
Dyslexic
4 4 We
need toUntied
talk about KK
5 5 FCCrayola
Twente Bag
last season.
Photography:
1
6
12 24 10 6 (R) Geogsoc
Aftermath
Andrew Beesley
2
8
8
30
2
7 (R) Borrusia
Monchenflapjack
Castle Leazes
ricochets,
with the
home to
Pld
Pld WW
DD
LL
11
12
89
21
1 2 4250 1415 26
28
F F AA
Pts
Pts
12
12
78
32
2 2 5336 2220 24
26
11
12
57
51
1 4 2841 1529 20
22
12
12
46
31
19
5 5 2332 2926 15
11
12
11
12
35
30
23
10
10
12
11
11
5 7 2518 3522 12
15
8 9 1314 5347 79
8 10 1512 3142 44
Sport
www.thecourieronline.co.uk
Issue 1290
Free
thecourieronline.co.uk/sport
Sports Editors: Nick Gabriel, Freddie Caldwell and Fran Fitzsimmons
courier.sport@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Sport
LAND OF OUR KARTERS: Motorsport in Wales p.39
BALLERS
BLOCKED
Poly edge out
Uni in nervy
play-off affair
p.39
CELEBRATE
GOOD TIMES
From the
sprinkler to
the robot
p.36
Photography: Freddie Caldwell
Uni boost survival
hopes with victory
Netball
Newcastle 1sts
54
Birmingham 1sts
31
By Sassa Hamilton
in Newcastle
Big rivals Birmingham travelled up to
Newcastle for the promotion/relegation
playoff.
If they won they took Newcastle’s
place in the Premiership, and if they lost
then Newcastle continued to play in the
top league of University Netball.
Having had their promotion hopes
crushed by narrow Newcastle wins on
several occasions in the last few years,
it was clear they wanted blood. Their
coach, who was strangely triangular,
was no match for Gilly’s lean frame, and
it was clear who would win the shouting
match today.
Anxiety levels could be felt all round
the court before the game began, as the
big match to stay in the Prem got under
way.
Newcastle flew out faster than Usain
Bolt on speed, intercepting ball after
ball in the defensive 3rd, and not giving
Birmingham a chance to find their feet.
Louisa Sorensen and Emily Whiteside
easily shot 19 goals in the first quarter,
rebounding every miss and slotting
them in on their second attempts.
Newcastle kept calm despite their excitement and played a possession game,
working the ball into the shooters safely
NUNC girls.
Newcastle upped the pressure in
defence, forcing errors and allowing
Helen Jones and Mia Archer to make
turnovers. Katie Rimmer bounded on
despite injury, majestically working the
ball around the circle edge and allowing NUNC to capitalise on the lead they
had already sustained in the 1st quarter.
Half time approached and the Newcastle girls now knew it was their game
to lose, and this match was theirs if they
had the composure and mentality to
keep the lead of 33-13.
Danger levels had been hit on the Bir-
Newcastle upped the pressure in defence,
forcing errors and allowing Mia Archer
and Helen Jones to make turnovers
and showing great teamwork in making
sure no ball was left unconverted.
As the 2nd quarter commenced Birmingham’s coach raised the vocal levels,
but the intimidation failed to affect the
mingham side of the court as steam rose
from the coach at the half time talk. All
the same, a thundering bull couldn’t
get through 5 months of S&C trained
NUNC girls. New tactics came into play
and Birmingham brought on a nippy C
who still did make life slightly more difficult for Newcastle.
Despite this NUNC brought their recent training into play. By using defence
Mia Archer and Jasmine Whitlock, they
broke the defence and continued to
increase the goal count. Centre Alice
Hagyard worked well, breaking up defensive zones to bring the ball safely to
the shooting pair.
However, Newcastle were visibly beginning to tire. Birmingham noticed
this and jumped at the opportunity to
get back in the game, only losing the 3rd
quarter by 1 goal.
Fresh legs were brought on to push
NUNC through the final quarter and
the home side pressed on.
The match finished solidly with a satisfying and convincing win of 54-31.
Birmingham yet again being denied
a Premiership shot by an unyielding
Newcastle 1st.
NUNC deservedly make their way
through to the final playoff. They will
play either the hope of maintaining
their place in the Premiership.
Photography:
Getty Images
THE FINAL
COUNTDOWN
Boca Seniors
triumph over
Bayern
Toonich
p.38

haze of thunder - The Courier Archive

Transcription

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