jarvis cocker - The Cambridge Student

JARVIS COCKER
PAGE 18
The
CambridgeStudent
International Monetary Fund
Thursday, 23rd February 2012
Lent Issue Six
No way, DSK: CUSU Women's Campaign call for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be disinvited from the Union Society
CUSU campaign to disinvite DSK
Judith Welikala & Alice Gormley
Co-Editors
The CUSU Women’s Campaign
has launched a petition calling for
Dominique Strauss Kahn to be disinvited from speaking at the Cambridge Union Society in March.
An open letter addressed to the
Cambridge Union Society Committee affirms that its “decision to
invite Dominique Strauss-Kahn
to speak this term displays, when
interpreted most charitably, a callous desire to exploit gender crime
allegations in the service of controversy. At worst, the invitation
betrays an abhorrent disregard for
the many survivors of sexual violence amongst the student body.”
Yesterday, the former leader of
the International Monetary Fund
was released after spending a night
in questioning by police in Lille.
On Tuesday, Strauss-Kahn volunteered himself for questioning by
police over his alleged involvement in a prostitution ring. He
is to appear before investigating
magistrates in on 28th March.
Strauss-Kahn detained for 32hrs
on charges of “abetting aggravated
pimping by an organised gang”
and “misuse of company funds”.
The first charge carries a sentence
of 20 years and the second 5 years
and a fine. Fabrice Paszkowski –
medical equipment tycoon with
ties to DSK’s Socialist Party – and
David Roquet –former director of
a local subsidiary of building giant
BTP Eiffage – have been charged
and are alleged to have links to a
network of French and Belgian
prostitutes centred on a Carlton
Hotel in Lille, a well-known meeting place of the local business and
political elite in a city run by the
Socialist Party. Strauss-Kahn was
linked to the ring by escorts during an investigation into the Franco-Belgian ring.
In May last year, chambermaid
Nafissatou Diallo alleged that she
was the victim of a brutal sexual
assault by Strauss-Kahn in his hotel
suite. The case was later dismissed.
When the allegations were made
Strauss-Kahn was still head of the
IMF and considered a strong contender in the 2012 French Presidential election.
Journalist Tristine Banon has
since claimed that Strauss-Kahn
attempted to rape her in 2003. Due
to a three year statute on crimes of
this kind in March in France, he
could not be prosecuted.
Speaking to The Cambridge Student, CUSU Women’s Officer Ruth
Graham expressed her concern
ahead of the talk. “Women who report rape are no more likely to lie
than reporters of any other crime,
yet legal systems consistently fail
them. The evidence of this lies in
the painfully low rape conviction
rates across the world.
“To choose to give this man an
opportunity to speak trivializes the
experience of women who bravely
come forward and report rape
and sexual assault and reinforces
the institutional sexism that faces
women who do so.”
She added: “DSK’s latest arrest
further underlines his deeply misogynistic attitudes towards women and serves as a helpful reminder
of why he should never have been
invited in the first place.”
Union President Katie Lam did
not wish to comment on the petition until it had been delivered,
but stressed: “The Union prides
itself on being a neutral forum for
free speech. As such, we believe
that anybody should be allowed to
express their views at the Society,
regardless of their ideology, background, or past actions.
“The only criterion the Union
operates in its invitation process
continued on page 5
IN THE NEWS
Disabled student assaulted
Controversy over King's JCR
perks
Fitz Director in demand from
LA museum
Private schools fear "social engineering" from Fair Access “Tsar”
Analysis: women raise your
hands
Clare College student Beu
Burcombe Filer was assaulted by
a homeless man in daylight on
Tuesday afternoon outside Market
Square Starbucks.
Page 3
An attempt to widen participation
in JCR elections at King’s by
offering perks to committee
members has resulted in
widespread student disagreement.
Page 4
Dr Timothy Potts, Director of
the Fitzwilliam Museum, has
accepted a prestigious position at
the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los
Angeles.
Page 5
Official appointment of Les Ebdon
as head of Offa has fuelled fears that
positive discrimination will disadvantage private students.
Ruth Graham tackles the ongoing
issue of the under-representation
of women in CUSU, nationwide
student politics and beyond.
Page 6
Page 8
The
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
02| Editorial
THE CAMBRIDGE STUDENT
THE TEAM
Editors in Chief: Alice Gormley & Judith Welikala - editor@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Design Editor: Abi See - design@tcs.cam.ac.uk; ; Photography Editor: Devon
Buchanan - photography@tcs.cam.ac.uk; News Editor: Emily Loud - news@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Associate News Editor: Michael Yoganayagam; Deputy News Editors:
Connie Fisher, Alice Moore, Laurence Tidy & Nicholas Tufnell - deputynews@tcs.cam.ac.uk; International Co-Editors: Adam Clark & Morwenna Jones international@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Interviews Editor: Iravati Guha - interviews@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Comment Editor: Jeremy Evans - comment@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Features
Editor: Martha Henriques - features@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Deputy Features Editors: Arjun Sajip & Florence Smith-Nicholls; Music Co-Editors: Tristram Fane Saunders
& Zoe Holder - music@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Film & TV Co-Editors: Lizzy Donnelly & Jess Stewart - film@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Theatre Co-Editors: Davina Moss & Laura
Peatman - theatre@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Listings Editor: Hattie Peachey; Sports Co-Editors: Ollie Guest & Olivia Lee - sports@tcs.cam.ac.uk; Illustrator: Clémentine
Beauvais; Sub-Editors: Louise Ashwell, Matthew Benton, Izzy Bowen, Amy Gregg, Anna Hollingsworth, Gwen Jing, Anthie Karavaggelis, Chris McKeon, Aron
Penczu, James Redburn, Ben Richardson, Loughlin Sweeney; Web Editor: Mark Curtis; Board of Directors: Alastair Cliff, Mark Curtis (Business), Dan Green,
Harriet Flower, Zoah Hedges-Stocks (Co-Chair), Michael Yoganayagam (Co-Chair), Alice Gormley & Judith Welikala directors@tcs.cam.ac.uk.
The Cambridge Student believes
that the Cambridge Union Society’s
invitation to Dominique StraussKahn should stand, despite the
petition from the CUSU Women’s
Campaign which has been based on
misconception and hyperbole.
The Women’s Campaign contests
that the invitation displays, at best,
‘a callous desire to exploit gender
crime allegations in the service of
controversy.’ This is quite simply
not the case. The Union has been
inviting DSK to speak for years –
presumably because, as head of the
EDITORIAL
IMF, he had a unique insight into
the economic situation during the
biggest global economic crisis since
the Depression.
These facts have been largely
overlooked by the Women’s
Campaign as they paint the Union
(President: Katie Lam) as a group
of unreconstructed misogynists
who regard rape as a minor issue.
Nevermind the IMF business, he
is currently most famous for being
accused of sex crimes and so, of
course, this must be the reason for
his invitation.
NEWS BULLETIN
News in Brief
Willetts warns to keep a close eye
on Ebdon
Students lose battle against tuition
fee hikes
Universities minister David Willetts has promised that the new head
of the Office of Fair Access will be
closely monitored by a select committee. Ebdon’s appointment has
caused a political storm; leading
Conservatives remain wary of his
dramatic policies to widen access
and drastically fine universities not
meeting targets. Willetts has endorsed Ebdon’s appointment, despite
calling his financial powers “draconian” and hinting that it is unlikely
they will be used.
Two sixth form students have lost
their high court fight against the
government to reverse the tuition
fee rises, on the basis that its policy
to triple tuition fees to £9,000 per
annum breaches human rights and
equality laws. The two were told
by judges last Friday that reversing
these policies would “not be appropriate” because there has been “very
substantial compliance”. The two
students are said to be “disappointed” with the decision of the court
not to reverse the regulations.
City foots expensive CCTV bill
Cambridge takes on Oxford in
wine tasting showdown
According to Campaign group Big
Brother Watch have revealed that the
cost of running CCTV over the last
4 years in Cambridge has amounted
to roughly £41.52 per person. With
one CCTV camera for every 850
residents, the bill is the seventh highest in the UK – only three cities,
including Birmingham, and three
London boroughs spent more than
Cambridge. Yet the data has been
disputed by the City Council, who
claimed it had spent £3.4 million
over the same period, as opposed
to Big Brother Watch’s £4.97 million
calculation.
The Union – just like most of
society – could do more to raise
understanding of rape, but disinviting
DSK will not help, just inviting
him cannot be said to be an
endorsement of his lifestyle. Indeed,
if they were to disinvite him on
these grounds it would imply an
endorsement of other guests – a
dangerous precedent.
Equally, by choosing to fight
this battle – and fighting it
on a misconception – the Women’s
Campaign undermines its own
good work in an important
cause. Alienating people (not just
men) is not the way to go about
things.
The Union is probably not
populated by people who think that
rape is a minor crime and wish to
exploit it for their own gain, nor is
the Women’s Campaign a group of
violently militant feminists looking
to take offence at every turn.
The Women’s Campaign are, in
this instance, simply mistaken and
the Union are looking for people
with interesting points to make. That
is all.
Fit for King’s
by Alice-Andrea Ewing
THIS WEEK
INTERNATIONAL
Hugo Schmidt sees
Islamic fundamentalism
behind the Arab Spring
conflict
p.10
COMMENT
Ben Gliniecki questions
the solution for student
protestors
p.14
FEATURES
Kirsty MacLeod gazes
into the crystal ball
p.16
The Cambridge University Blind
Wine Tasting team matched up
against their Oxford rivals for the
59th consecutive year of the Pol
Roger Varsity Blind Wine Tasting
Competition in London on Monday.
A strong Oxford side snatched the
victory, winning a reported 530
points to Cambridge’s 470 and
putting an end to Cambridge’s threeyear winning streak. Cambridge
team captain Hannah Price told
TCS that “our teams were evenly
matched, but Oxford just had a few
better rounds.”
INTERVIEW
Students in uproar over King’s JCR perks, p.5
NEWSPAPERS
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The Cambridge Student is published by Cambridge University Students’ Union. All copyright is the exclusive property of the Cambridge University Students’ Union. Although The Cambridge Student is affiliated to the University Students’ Union we are editorially independent and financially selfsufficient. No part of this publication is to be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system or submitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the publisher.
Tristram Fane Saunders
quizzes Jarvis Cocker
p.18
The
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
CambridgeStudent
Questions raised over Willetts
no confidence vote
Emily Loud
News Editor
seen some of the documentation
from the count itself, we can see
that counting procedures were
pretty scrappy. It looks as though
only after a recount (which had
produced a different number to
the first count) were the relevant
mailboxes checked, and these added
onto the tally. This does not look
like good electoral practice, and so
it seems as though we were right
to request a recount. Hopefully the
administration and the relevant
organs of scrutiny will finally see
fit to make an investigation into the
matter.”
bisgovuk
New information concerning
the vote of no confidence in
David Willetts has revealed
inconsistencies in method of vote
counting. The vote (technically
known as a Grace) ended in a tie
with 681 votes for and 681 against
which caused it to fail.
Initial qualms about the validity
of the vote were raised by Dr Ben
Etherington, Research Fellow at the
Faculty of English; he was informed
by Susan Bowring (University
Draftsman), who counted the votes
by hand, that the outcome had
effectively rested upon four ballot
slips. Two of these were rejected
as spoiled, and the other two were
accepted though described as
“doubtful”.
However, the response to a
Freedom of Information request
submitted by Dr Oppitz-Trotman,
of St John’s College, has revealed
that the four ballot papers in
question were “found” in unusual
circumstance. Notes from the
University Draftsman detail that
three votes were “from shelf in
post room” and one was found “in
intray to Registrary in plain white
envelope”. Before these votes were
“found” the Grace was 678 votes in
favour and 680 votes against.
This was the fourth time such a
request had been submitted since
the ballot took place at Regent
House (the governing body of the
University) in June 2011.
Dr Oppitz-Trotman told The
Cambridge Student, “This was
a vote of national political
importance:
given
the
extraordinary nature of the result
I found it decidedly strange that
the University administration had
blocked conscientious enquiry into
the nature of counting procedures.”
“Although I think it important
that Dr Etherington’s enquiries and
some of the University’s responses
are now on the public record, by
far the most significant of the
documents returned to me is the
sheet of working notes produced
by the Presiding Officer during the
count. This document suggests that
the democratic procedures of this
University are seriously deficient.
Of most immediate concern is the
validity of the final, decisive vote.
“The decisive vote seems to
have been discovered in a blank
white envelope in the Registrary’s
office after the second count had
been concluded. I do not know why
this vote was deemed legitimate
given that there was no way to
ascertain its providence.”
Etherington himself also told The
Cambridge Student, “Having finally
Poor turnout
at women’s rep
election
Emily Loud
News Editor
A tiny number of votes were
cast last week in the election for
the National Union of Students’
Women’s Conference Delegates.
Only 14 of 19,540 eligible students
voted in the three candidates, Ruth
Graham (current CUSU women’s
officer), Clare Walker Gore, and
Susy Langsdale, into their three
positions. Graham received 12
of the 14 votes, the other two
candidates receiving only one vote
each.
CUSU is affiliated with the NUS
and the delegates will represent
female students at the NUS
Women’s Conference in March.
They will have full speaking and
voting rights on various motions,
such as those concerning the
representation of women in
university governance . Another
important aspect of the conference
is that the voting often determines
the motions which will be put to
the Women’s Officer of the National
Union of Students, so they are
potentially very wide ranging.
All
candidates
launched
Facebook pages to promote their
election, though interest seemed
minimal. Such a low turnout may
bode ill for election of CUSU
sabbatical officers on 5th March.
However, Ruth Graham explained
the low turnout in terms of the
novelty of the election, she told
The Cambridge Student.
“The motivation for the CUSU
Women’s Campaign putting the
NUS Women’s Conference election
online was simply that we wanted
to give an opportunity to Women’s
Officers to vote that could not
attend the Women’s Forum
wherethe paper ballot took place,
and allow women in colleges who
do not have a Women’s Officer an
opportunity to have a say in who
their delegates are - there are 17
JCR Women’s Officers and 18 MCR
Women’s Officers.
“Last year delegates were chosen
on an informal basis, so giving
Women’s Officers and other
women the opportunity to vote is a
positive, democratic development.
However, it was simply a trial in
how we elect our representatives,
and if women would prefer to have
these election take place at the
same time as sabbatical posts and
NUS Conference elections, that
is certainly something the CUSU
Women’s Campaign could do for
next year.”
News |03
Student
attacked by
homeless man
Emily Loud
News Editor
Ben Burcombe Filer, a student at
Clare College, was assaulted on Tuesday by a homeless man at 3.15 pm
outside Starbucks on Market Street.
He reported being followed and
physically hassled for money before
attracting the attention of Starbucks
staff, who called the police. The man
was later arrested.
Burcombe Filer told The Cambridge Student, “I feel it gives homeless people a bad name and those
looking for large quantities of money
and doing so through going for
obviously vulnerable (I have cerebral
palsy) targets should be cracked
down on.”
Last term Burcombe Filer was also
mugged for £20 in Senate House Passage. He reflected, “both attacks have
reminded me of the limitations imposed on me by my disability which
creates its own issues for me beyond
the (still very frightening) attacks.”
While he praised the support of his
College, he was unimpressed with
the police response to his first attack,
which was “unwillingness to find
the offender and advice that I should
be more assertive and strong in the
way I deal with homeless people to
prevent it from happening again.”
He subsequently made a formal
complaint against the police.
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The
04| News
News in Brief
Backs trees axed
Tree surgeons got to work last week
to remove more than thirty trees
from The Backs in a mission to
preserve one of Cambridge’s famous
beauty spots. The 32 alders on Clare
Hall Piece, the area of land adjacent
to Queen’s Road, were planted in
the 1970s and 1980s in an attempt
to keep the Piece’s ancient oak trees
growing straight. The alders have
recently become a problem due to
overcrowding and so will be replaced
with around 35 hawthorn and
chequers trees, more native species
which will allow the view of King’s
College to be opened up.
Government’s obligation to aid
Greece revealed at Emma lecture
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Students in uproar over King’s JCR perks
Alice Moore
Deputy News Editor
The annual lecture of the
Humanitarian Centre at Emmanuel
College last Wednesday revealed
that the Government is obliged to
provide humanitarian aid to Greece
if its economic condition worsens.
Chris Austin from the Department
for International Development
announced that, under the terms of
the Lisbon Treaty, the Government
“will have to aid Greece”. In answer
to a query from the audience, Austin
said that no definite date could be Robert Young
given but that “aid arrangements News Reporter
are already there”.
New figures revealed to MPs last
week reveal that one Liverpool
region had “five or fewer” applicants
to Oxbridge through UCAS
A life of crime is bad for your last year. The precise number of
health
applicants from Liverpool Walton
is slightly disputed as officials have
After examining the data from a refused to clarify the actual figure,
Cambridge study in Delinquent but publication of a list in the
Development, Cardiff University House of Commons Library later
has concluded that, whilst young this month will reveal the details.
This is the latest episode in a
criminals are predominantly fit and
strong, a continued life of crime will long series of arguments related to
ultimately lead to poor health. The
data, which followed a random sample of 411 eight-year-old boys from
white, working class backgrounds
in the south of London for 40 years,
showed that “health impacts of an Laurence Tidy
antisocial lifestyle were only apparent Deputy News Editor
in those men who carried on offendThe campaign group Cambridge
ing after adolescence.”
Defend Education has condemned
the actions of the University of
Birmingham in response to its
treatment of Simon Furse, a secondGreen engineering post created
year student.
Furse was called to a misconduct
The
Cambridge
Department committee hearing on Wednesday
of Chemical Engineering and 15th February and faces disciplinary
Biotechnology will be appointing action aftet taking part in a student
a professor for sustainable reaction occupation that took place last
engineering to allow the department November. It is alleged that the
to extend its eco-friendly mission. president of the Birmingham Guild
A spokesman said: “The creation of Students, Mark Harrop, “colluded”
of sustainable processes that allow with the University to bring about
scientists and industry to meet
society’s needs without damaging
the environment is an immensely
complex and urgent challenge.” It
is hoped the department’s worldleading expertise will contribute
to the development of new
technologies for reducing energy
demand and carbon production.
Jimmy Appleton
A motion to introduce perks for
the King’s JCR (KCSU) executive
committee has proved controversial among students at the college.
The motion, presented at an open
meeting on Saturday, was intended
to introduce a system of accountability and encourage more participation in KCSU after some of the
positions, including the Presidency,
were uncontested at the last elections.
During Saturday’s meeting the
proposal drew staunch opposition
from the floor. Ben Abrams, a thirdyear Politics student, doubted the
effectiveness of perks as a method
of ensuring that executive committee members did their job, saying,
“it’s not so much a carrot and stick
approach as carrot and absence of
carrot”.
Third-year Philosopher, Chris
Perry, took issue with the motion
on the grounds that it would separate the KCSU executive committee
from the rest of the student body.
He said that he felt proud to belong
to a JCR that could truly represent
students, as the executive committee had the same experience as
other students.
Many other JCR committees enjoy considerable privileges. Caius,
Christ’s, Magdalene, and Pembroke
all have particularly nice rooms set
aside for their JCR President, for
example, and the Murray Edwards
and Queen’s Presidents automatically get the top position in their
room ballots. The Magdalene JCR
President, Secretary, and Treasurer
get to eat at high table twice a term
and the Robinson committee have
a committee dinner paid for by
alumni.
The motion’s proposer, and
KCSU Chair, Patrick Kane argued
that while “the number one perk of
an elected position is doing a good
job,” the motion aims to “address
the democratic deficit that many
believe exists within our union”.
“It’s far from a perfect system,” he
continued “but I think it strikes the
balance between practicalities and
effectiveness.”
The proposal was to allow committee members to reserve two
formal tickets per term, which they
would still have to pay for. Competition for King’s formal tickets is
fierce so this aspect was particularly
contested and KCSU is now trying
to find an alternative.
Liverpool areas show poor Oxbridge application figures
same chance of being accepted to
study at Cambridge as students
from anywhere else in the UK”.
Moreover, Silke Mentchen, the
Admissions Tutor at Magdalene
College, Cambridge, who assists the
Liverpool area, said: “the college has
a range of events in place to reach
out to prospective applicants”, and
added that the college, “is serious
about making our University’s
education accessible to all
students”.
Keerthi Das, a prospective
university student from Liverpool
has said that Liverpudlians “are
Oxbridge access and social mobility.
These have come to the forefront
of debate in recent weeks with the
Government’s decision to axe the
£78 million Aim Higher scheme,
as well as the appointment of the
new Access “Tsar” Les Ebdon, who
has urged Oxbridge to buck the
trend and increase state-school
participation or face “nuclear”
consequences.
A
spokesperson
for
the
University of Cambridge told The
Cambridge Student: “students from
Merseyside who apply with suitable
qualifications and grades have the
looking for more than just prestige:
these are tough economic times
for the people of Liverpool, and
Oxbridge for most, is another
world away.” The statistics are
not completely representative of
Liverpool’s Oxbridge applications,
as there were 27 applicants from
Liverpool Wavertree and 24 from
Liverpool West Derby last year.
However, these figures will no
doubt continue to place pressure on
Oxbridge Access, especially in light
of the rise in tuition fees starting
this autumn.
CamDefendEd condemns Birmingham University
the hearing.
However, the hearing was called
off by the University due to student
protests on campus, which escalated
from a march on Mermaid Square to
the occupation of Staff House.
According to Redbrick, the
University’s student newspaper, a
splinter group began to “hammer
on the windows of several buildings
including security services where
chants of ‘you say cut back we say
fight back’ could be heard.”
The ‘Protest the Protest Ban’,
also labelled the ‘Take Back Your
Campus’ demonstration, aimed to
raise awareness of the University’s
injunction,
which
currently
Devon Buchanan
prohibits students from remaining
on the campus for the purposes of
occupational protest unless written
consent from the University is
obtained beforehand. Granted
by Judge David Grant on 25th
November, the injunction has been
condemned by human rights groups,
including Amnesty International.
David Eastwood, the University’s
Vice-Chancellor, has also been the
object of protest. Redbrick revealed
last December that Eastwood’s
pay had risen by £27,000 a year to
£419,000 in 2010/11.
Cambridge Defend Education,
established in October 2010 “as a
response to the cuts to education
funding and fee increases”, gave
its support to the ‘Take Back Your
Campus’ demonstration and sent its
“full solidarity to Simon Furse”.
Liam McNulty, member of
CDE, told The Cambridge Student:
“Cambridge Defend Education
is fully behind the campaign in
Birmingham for campus and student
union democracy, and against the
draconian anti-protest injunction”.
He added: “we also call on the
University of Birmingham to stop its
victimization of Simon Furse. If the
University’s management really had
the interests of its staff and students
at heart then it would applaud rather
than punish Simon for standing
up to the government’s attacks on
higher education”.
Speaking exclusively to TCS,
Simon Furse
commented that
“Birmingham comes down stupidly
hard on occupations they are
now referenced across the sector
as repressive. With both the
injunction and the disciplinary,
the University management are
trying to create a climate of fear
among students to try and supress
dissent. They run the university like
a company and have no conception
whatsoever that staff or student
voices are important outside their
narrow roles as consumers and
employees.”
He described the University as
“out of touch”, adding: “It should
probably start listening to criticism
from its students.”
The
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
CambridgeStudent
News |05
University dons to vet A-level exam papers
Louise Ashwell
News Reporter
boards, we worked closely with
other Departments and Faculties
here in a series of Colloquia
designed to explore the possibilities
of such engagement. These proved
immensely helpful in producing the
policy paper we sent to Government
which recommends both that HE
helps design A-Levels and then
guards their standards through a
Post-Session process.”
The potential of education reform
has been welcomed by students.
Gloria Young, a first-year Natural
Sciences student at Trinity Hall, said:
“after having an exam paper featuring
mistakes myself, I would welcome
any change.” However, she remained
unconvinced that the interaction of
university academics was the only
answer, adding: “a total overhaul of
the system would be best.”
comedy_nose
University academics from the UK’s
leading institutions are collaborating
with the exam board OCR to design
new “gold standard” A-Level
syllabuses and exam papers, it was
announced this week.
Universities involved in the
scheme include Cambridge, Oxford,
Manchester,
Nottingham
and
University College London, and
so far the programme spans nine
subject areas, including Maths,
History and the sciences.
The change comes in advance
of reforms by Michael Gove, the
Education Secretary, to transform an
A-Level system which has recently
attracted much criticism. These
range from accusations of grade
inflation, to revelations last year that
exam boards were coaching teachers
in how to get their pupils to pass.
Gove has announced in response
that “nothing is off the table” on
exam reform.
Simon Lebus, the Chief Executive
of Cambridge Assessment, the
company which owns OCR, has
argued that the involvement of
university lecturers would help
restore trust in the A-Level system.
“We need academics and experts
from learned societies to review
papers and provide a critique of
content,” he stated.
A spokesman for Cambridge
Assessment told The Cambridge
Student that much planning had
gone into the new programme.
“Before launching our consultation
on re-engaging HE and exam
Fitzwilliam Museum Director accepts LA position
Anthie Karavaggelis
News Reporter
Dr Timothy Potts, the Director of
the Fitzwilliam Museum, has been
appointed the new Director of the
prestigious J. Paul Getty Museum in
Los Angeles to start on the 1st September.
Since Potts became Director of
the Fitzwilliam in 2008, he has dramatically expanded and upgraded
continued from page 1
“The only criterion the Union operates in its invitation process for
speakers is whether or not they will
be interesting for our members. Inviting a speaker does not imply any
kind of endorsement, or indeed disapproval, from the Union.”
The Facebook page for the petition
has seen fierce debate, with responses to the petition ranging from supportive to antagonistic. Homerton
student Justin Kempley said: “I don’t
understand how obstructing free
discussion, on any topic, is anything
to be proud of. I personally find DSK
a distasteful character, at best. But
what right do you have to take away
my one opportunity to question him
at the Union?” Several students defended Strauss-Kahn’s right to innocence until proven guilty.
By contrast, King’s student Tobias
Phibbs argued that: “If you actually read the description you’d see he
managed to evade court so there will
be no trial, so presuming innocence
would be in the case be indefinite. So
it would amount to presuming he–
the rich, white man- is right, and the
women are lying.” Other students
reacted more strongly. Faith Taylor,
an MPhil Gender Studies student
at King’s left a post saying: “Can the
rape-apologist
privilege-denying
men making lofty statements about
the law please fuck off ”. She continued to write: “all of you have luckily
not been raped, sexually harrassed,
or abused by DSK. Have the fucking
decency to sympathise with those
that have, and take a moment to wonder where the fuck their platform is,
you self-congratulatory symptoms
of privilege-hugging ignorance”.
MPhil Historian Thomas Lalevée
the exhibition programme leading
to an increase in new funding of
over £12 million and record attendances.
“I have greatly enjoyed
working at the
Fitzwilliam”
Notable exhibitions include Endwarned: “The Union might as well
disinvite him, because even if he does
come, we won’t let him speak. So either way DSK will be shut down...
Willets, take two.” The minister for
Universities and Science David Willets’ talk was heckled by protesters
last November, while Secretary of
State Eric Pickles’ speech in May
2011 at the Union was disrupted by
anti-cuts demonstrators. However,
one Union speaker whose talk was
not heckled was Wikileaks founder
Julian Assange, who faces sexual assault charges in Sweden.
There are doubts as to the veracity of the figures cited in the open
letter. CUSU Women’s Campaign
state that “rape and sexual assault
are among the least well understood,
treated and - most pertinently - convicted crimes, in either law or public
opinion” and claim that “This is particularly true in Britain, which has
the lowest rape conviction rate in
Europe, at 6%.” However, this figure
was confuted in a Telegraph article
from 2010, as being “without explanation, analysis or context” since
“nearly 60% of rape cases brought to
court result in conviction”.
Similarly, the results of a recent
NUS report cited by the open letter,
revealing “14% of females having
suffered serious sexual assault” represents only a handful of students,
leading some to question its validity.
Yet Ruth Graham warned: “If the
Cambridge Union does not listen to
the hundreds of students, many of
which are Union members, who ask
that they disinvite him, the Women’s
Campaign will have to consider what
further action to take.”
Strauss-Kahn is scheduled to speak
on the 9th March at the Union.
less Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural
Science and the Visual Arts, which
was named Exhibition of the Year
by Apollo Magazine, and Vermeer’s
Women: Secrets and Silence, which
set a new attendance record of
150,000 visitors and received international critical acclaim.
A specialist in ancient art and archaeology with a doctorate from the
University of Oxford, he also oversaw
the complete refurbishment of the
Greek and Roman Galleries and introduced new programmes designed
specifically to engage students.
His previous posts include Director of Kimbell Art Museum in Fort
Worth, Texas, and Director of the
National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
Dr Timothy Potts commented: “I
have greatly enjoyed working at the
Fitzwilliam...the Museum’s future is
secure and I feel confident that the
next Director of the Fitzwilliam will
inherit a robust and dynamic institution, driven by its extremely able and
committed staff.
“By the time I do leave I will have
been here nearly five years, which I
consider a great privilege.”
He will oversee the Fitzwilliam’s
next major exhibition entitled, The
Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China, which opens on
5th May.
The
06| News
News in Brief
Cambridge doctors trial new cancer drug
Scientists are hoping a new drug
designed to fight pancreatic cancer
may provide effective treatment for
the disease, which is the fifth most
common cause of UK cancer death.
Early trials carried out on mice have
produced promising results, showing
that the experimental drug MRK003
assists the chemotherapy agent in ultimately killing cancer cells. Cancer
Research UK says it is prioritising research into pancreatic cancer because
only 16% of patients survive the disease beyond a year after diagnosis.
Around 60 patients with advanced
cancer will take part in the first clinical trial.
Student declared not ‘British’ for
student finance
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Appointment of ‘Fair access Tsar’
leads to fears of discrimination
Connie Fisher
Deputy News Editor
Professor Les Ebdon has been
confirmed this week as the new
head of the Office for Fair Access
(OFFA), following political controversy and strong opposition
from the Conservatives. The current Vice-Chancellor of Bedfordshire University, Ebdon has radical new ideas for widening access
to Britain’s universities, which are
causing private schools to fear for
the future of their students.
Brought up on a north London
council estate, Ebdon has declared it his personal mission to
assist working-class students into
universities and make top institutions more socially diverse.
Often criticising the ‘Oxbridge
obsession’, he has transformed
Bedfordshire University into an
institution which takes students
from the poorest backgrounds,
as well as those with low exam
results, or even no A-levels at all.
Although his work has been admired, there are fears Ebdon will
try to remake other universities
in Bedfordshire’s image, thus reducing the intellectual standard
of university students and unfairly disadvantaging students from
richer backgrounds.
Currently, many university
applicants provide information
regarding their economic sta-
tus, the education level of their
parents and the kind of school
they have attended during the
application process. It has been
predicted that almost two-thirds
of universities this year will be
taking this “contextual data” into
account as they decide which
students to accept, exercising
positive discrimination to benefit
students from under-privileged
backgrounds by lowering their
entry requirements.
Independent schools fear that
an increase in this positive discrimination, as well as Ebdon’s
threats of financial penalties
for universities failing to meet
fair access targets, will lead to
top private-school students being rejected in favour of lowerachieving state-educated pupils
with the “right” background on
the basis of their “potential”. Alan
Smithers, Professor of Education
at Buckinghamshire University,
described this process as “potentially disastrous for the leading
universities”.
He added that
the “admission of less-qualified
students by the back door” will
make it more difficult for top universities to “guarantee academic
excellence and compete in the
world league.”
A spokesperson for the University of Cambridge said: “The
University seeks the ablest and
best-qualified students with the
Bedforshire University
Aberystwyth astro-physics student
Larry Parkes has been denied student
finance because of his French parentage. Parkes, born and raised in Stokeon-Trent, is ineligible for the British
passport he needs because his mother is French and his parents never
married. After starting his course
without funding, after applying last
May, Parkes’ application has only just
been declined and Aberystwyth has
blocked his internet access as a result.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” he commented, “if I have to leave the university I
have no idea what I will do.”
CambridgeStudent
greatest potential from every
background. Admissions decisions are based on students’ academic ability and their commitment to, and potential for, their
chosen course.” They added:
“Our own monitoring shows
our admissions decisions are
objective and fair: students
from different educational backgrounds perform equally well at
Cambridge.”
Thea Hawlin, state-educated
English student at Cambridge,
said: “I think it will be a long
time, if at all, before private education becomes a disadvantage to
students applying for a course.
Ultimately it is determination
that gets you where you want to
go: you can’t buy genuine passion
for a subject no matter where you
are from.”
Gove allows ‘anti-gay’ teaching in
faith schools
Plan to punish early student loan repayments abandoned
The Education Secretary has come
under fire from the Trade Union
Congress for refusing to monitor religious teaching material used in faith
schools. The TUC have complained
that some schools are legally obliged
to condemn homophobic discrimination, but still permitted to use religious material in lessons which encourages anti-gay attitudes, such as a
booklet which was distributed in Roman Catholic Schools claiming “the
homosexual act is disordered, much
like contraceptive sex between heterosexuals.” These recent accusations
have brought Gove to the centre of an
escalating row over the discussion of
homosexuality in faith schools.
Timur Cetin
News Reporter
UCL plane bomber jailed for life
Ex-UCL student Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab has been jailed for
attempting to blow up an international flight using a bomb hidden
in his underwear. Abdulmutallab,
25, studied engineering at the university, and was the president of
the Islamic society. He attempted
to detonate the bomb on a flight
travelling from Amsterdam to Detroit in the name of al-Qaeda, but
the device failed and burned him.
Described as showing no remorse
in court, Abdulmutallab called the
day “a day of victory” for his god,
as he was sentenced to life in prison
with no parole.
A government plan to fine
students who pay back university
loans early has been abandoned,
apparently as part of a coalition
deal that has enabled the business secretary, Vince Cable, to
appoint his preferred candidate
as Head of the Office for Fair Access (see above).
The original plan was to
impose annual charges of around
5% on excess repayments to stop
wealthier graduates escaping
interest charges over a longer
period.
As
tuition
fees
increase to up to £9,000,
students will have the possibility of
borrowing loans to cover the annual bill for their course and for
living costs. Loans are paid back
once students earn more than
£21,000 a year.
The MP for Cambridge, Dr
Julian Huppert, told The Cambridge Student: “I am totally opposed to the whole system of
charging students tuition fees
which is why I voted against
them.
“I believe education should be
based on ability and not the abil-
ity to pay.”
Stressing that to impose further
penalties was wrong, he also said:
“It was also clear from analysis
that those most likely to try to
pay off their student debts would
be people on modest incomes
who don’t feel comfortable owing
money rather than those from affluent backgrounds.”
CUSU Access Officer Taz
Rasul, while underlining the difficulty of predicting the effects of
a fine on debt-averse students,
said that “tinkering around the
edges with these ‘principled’
little frills is ignoring the blazing
fact that tuition fees have trebled,
and this is what’ll make the prospect of tuition fees for people applying seem much, much worse.
“It’s the trebling that’s happened
right under our noses, and now
the dust has settled, Government
has the gall to make early repayment penalties the main issue.
“This is not the main issue at
all, and the NUS has called for
all English universities to remind people of that, through the
Week of Action in March. This is
on the agenda for students and
their JCR and MCR Presidents to
discuss very soon.”
Oxford survey reveals graduate pay gaps galore
Nicholas Tufnell
Deputy News Editor
For the first time in its history, Oxford
University has published a survey
which reveals its students’ occupations six months after graduation. It
covers 80 per cent of UK undergraduate and postgraduate students, 65 per
cent of EU students and 35 per cent of
international students who graduated
from Oxford in 2009 and 2010. Out
of the 3500 students represented in
the study, almost 200 were working in
non-graduate employment, such as
bar staff or as sales assistants.
Some colleges had higher unemployment rates than others, with
Mansfield at just over 10 per cent and
Pembroke at 9 per cent.
Furthermore, certain subjects fared
worse than others, with a fifth of
Classical Archaeology and Ancient
History graduates claiming to be
unemployed six months after graduation, whilst 15 per cent of Classics
and Modern Languages graduates
were also unemployed.
The highest paid students,
earning on average over £36000 a
year within six months of graduating, went to Keble, one of the larger
Oxford colleges. Male undergraduates
earned an average of £45000, whilst
females earned an average £26000,
revealing a gender pay gap, a trend
mimicked across most departments
and colleges.
Wadham, well known for being a liberal college with a large intake of state school students, had
the lowest paid of all the graduates, with an average of £26000.
Postgraduates
from
Christ
Church, a college with a large intake
of private-school students, showed an
average earning of £57000.
200 out of 3500
students working in
non-graduate
employment
English faculty graduates were
the worst paid, earning just under
£19000 a year, whilst Material Science graduates were amongst the
most well paid, earning an average
of £35000 a year. The most popular
professions of the 3500 students
included GPs, financial analysts, registrars, researchers, teachers, management consultants and marketing
executives.
A spokesman for the University said: “We believe it is important for our current and prospective
students to be as fully informed
of actual destinations so they can
make good career decisions. We have,
therefore, put the destination data in
the public domain.”
The
08| News
News in Brief
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Union discusses “phenomenon” of London riots
A Facebook meme page for the
University of Central Lancashire
described as “a celebration about
UCLan and Preston’s quirks,” has
been removed after University authorities deemed posts to have “got
out of hand”. A University spokesperson told the Lancashire Evening
Post that: “Material which is homophobic, discriminatory or which is
disrespectful to named members
of the UCLan community is, in our
view, unacceptable.” The first-year
believed to have set up the page faced
disciplinary officers last Thursday. Olivia Lee
News Reporter
The causes of the London riots
Facebook student hacker jailed were discussed in the Wilberforce
society’s forum on Monday at the
Glenn Mangham, a software de- Cambridge Union Society.
Speakers in attendance were the
velopment student from York, has
been jailed for what has been de- MP for Tottenham, the Rt Hon.
scribed as “the most extensive and David Lammy, Metropolitan Pograve incident of social media hack- lice Superintendent Leroy Logan
ing”, involving him breaking into a MBE, and Alvin Carpio, the organFacebook employee’s account from iser and co-author of the London
his bedroom and downloading Citizens’ Inquiry into the Tottenconfidential information. Mang- ham Riots. Also present was Dr.
ham, who suffers from a mild form Phillip Blond, author of ‘Red Tory:
of autism, told the court that he was How Left and Right have Broken
trying to identify the vulnerabilities Britain and How we can Fix It.’
Sparked by the death of Mark
of the Facebook system and show
employees, who should be “grate- Duggan, a 29-year-old man
ful” to him, how to fix the problems. who was shot dead by police in
After a case which cost Facebook Tottenham on August 4th last
$200,000, the court sentenced Man- year, the riots have become a subgham to eight months in prison. ject of sociological scrutiny over
the past months. The Guardian
have published extensive research
Slang words such as ‘hiya’, ‘cheers’,
and ‘ta’ are detrimental to a job
seeker’s chances of becoming employed, according to Sheffield
Springs academy. The school requests that all students use Standard
English when on campus, encouraging their pupils to follow their
ethos that, “the street stops at the
gate.” Kathy August, deputy chief
executive of The United Learning
Trust, a charity that runs the school
said “We want to make sure that
our youngsters have a whole range
of employability skills.”
Unruly Durham rugby social under investigation
The St. Cuthbert Society rugby
club are facing punishment by the
college as a result of drunken behaviour at a “hermit” social on
30th January. The evening, which
involved the club splitting into
small groups and photographing
themselves performing the funniest drunken antics possible before
reconvening to compare later on,
saw two members of the rugby
club stripping naked and urinating
off the balcony above their college
bar. The students have been banned
from the bar, and the college Senior
Tutor is currently investigating the
matter before deciding on disciplinary action.
into the issue, which has seemingly
thrown up, amongst various societal problems, an overriding theme
to the events, which is “a pervading
sense of injustice.”
A similar message came across
in the Union forum. “We know
that these people have already been
failed by our society,” said Dr Blond,
commenting that 66% of those who
have already been charged were
described as having educational
needs.
Attitude towards police featured
heavily in the discussion, with Supt.
Logan outlining the viewpoint that
has been expressed to him by 1415 year olds: “They said that from
their point of view, from watching police over their informative
years, what they’ve seen other people going through, what
they’ve seen on Youtube and
other media outlets, that they felt a
sense of over-policing as potential
suspects and under-protected as
victims.”
But as far as Blond is concerned,
the riots have been a long time
coming, and are down to much
more than police-citizen relations.
According to him, the liberalism of
our governments since the 1940s
has resulted in the de-institutionalisation of society, with local ties
consistently being removed over
time and one-way entitlement
rights replacing community governance.
As a result, citizens feel they can
have rights without responsibilities,
and have instilled in them a deep
sense of individualism. In this kind
of society, “some individuals will
win and everyone else will lose”
said Blond.
“Make no mistake, these riots
were completely new,” he said. “We
haven’t had their like before. This
wasn’t a class-based riot. It wasn’t
a race-based riot. This was a new
phenomenon.”
So what next? For Blond, it’s a
case of rebuilding society in a more
inclusive and community-based
way.
“We start to create institutions that foster relationships. We
start to create institutions that create something other than autonomy
and self-assertive will. We start to
create institutions that we hold in
common.”
For Lammy, the more immediate
is: for the police force to be more
representative of the multicultural society they seek to protect:
“Police are struggling with multiethnic and multi-cultural and reality,” he said.
Ultimately, when it came to the
question of what needs to be done,
no real practicalities were outlined
in detail. But there was a focus
on encouraging the younger generation to do something active to
resolve the issues by getting involved with policy and with the
communities themselves. The message seemed to be ‘it’s up to you
guys now.’
Analysis: where are all the women?
Ruth Graham
News Reporter
As an English student, Amnesty
campaigner, and Christ’s undergraduate, my perception of the
problem of women’s political representation was wildly skewed. The
faculty reps were both women; all
three Amnesty committees I’ve
seen come and go have been dominated by women, and although
Christ’s was dominated by men in
student numbers when I arrived,
three women were elected as JCR
Presidents over my three years. This
paints a pretty happy picture.
Yet as a CUSU Sabbatical Officer
this year, I’ve come to understand
that this picture is wildly inaccurate.
It is easy to have a false sense of
the picture, which is why it is so important to make known the severity of the problem. When a woman
called out in a CUSU Council at
the end of last term, ‘Can you just
let some women speak?’, several
people in the room expressed outrage and said that just as many
women as men had been speaking. I then spent a fun afternoon on
December 22nd going through all
of the minutes and statistics, and
sadly, though it might have felt like
that to some, the impression is false.
Around 72% of the people who
spoke at that meeting were men.
Those individuals are not to blame:
it’s because of the institutional sexism that pervades Cambridge University at every level. 72% of JCR
Presidents are men (as of October
2011). 90% of CUSU Presidents are
men (over the last ten years). I’m
willing to bet quite a lot of money
that the stats for the Cambridge
Union Society Presidents are similar. Without the CUSU Women’s
Officer ensuring that women are
represented on the sabbatical team,
the average team would be 62%
male, though with 90% of Presidents being men and 70% Deputy
Presidents, within those teams – no
matter how non-hierarchical their
ethos – the formal power often lies
with men to a greater extent than
that statistic expresses.
Representation is based on the
premise that people that belong to a
certain group will have a better understanding, and will be more likely
to act in the interests, of that group.
This is especially true for groups
that have historically been severely
disadvantaged and marginalized.
It is crucial to the progression of
gender equality that women are
equally represented in positions of
power, and if the under-representation of women in student politics
remains as severe as is at present,
not just in Cambridge, but across
the country (where 79% of SU
Presidents are men), we have little
chance of changing the picture at a
national level, where 78% of MPs
are male.
The good news must be that
we are finally recognising internal problems and attempting to
tackle them. From Cambridge Colleges like Christ’s, to countries like
Sweden (women make up 45% of
parliament), institutional sexism
can be combated, and women’s
representation can improve. The
trick is working out how, and institutionalising those methods so we
don’t get ‘patches’ of improvement
followed by another nine years of
under-representation.
The CUSU Women’s Campaign
ran a workshop for women on how
to win elections and get into posi-
tions of power in January, which
was extremely well attended, and
the Cambridge Universities Labour
Club is running a similar event
on March 3rd (Chetwynd room,
King’s, 12 – 2): hopefully these
events will become regular features
of Cambridge terms.
I don’t pretend to have all the
answers, but I will end on a positive
note: out of all of those stats, the
one to remember is that although
only 30% of candidates in the last
ten years’ of CUSU elections have
been women, they have been more
electable than the men standing, with 38% elected.* So if you
were even remotely considering
standing in the election, just
do it! The student movement must
lead if we are ever to achieve change
at a national level.
Cambridge University Students’ Union
Should students avoid slang to
make them more employable?
wikimedia commons
Homophobic UCLan meme page
shut down
THE GUIDE TO EXCELLENCE 2012 EDITION
A NEW PUBLICATION BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ UNION
& ST JAMES’S HOUSE
In an exciting venture for 2012, the Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU) has
collaborated with publisher St James’s House to develop The Guide to Excellence.
Alongside news on CUSU and the university colleges, this publication explores educational
excellence at home and abroad. It also promotes best practice in academic and professional
spheres, highlighting selected institutions and employers globally. As such, the guide is ideal
for anyone interested in the university, global education and career opportunities in 2012/13.
Copies of The Guide to Excellence are available on a complimentary basis to students, staff
and alumni of the university, with distribution beginning in March 2012. To reserve your free
copy of this limited edition, hardback publication, please email pr@stjamess.org with your
name, telephone number, association with the university, and full postal address.
www.stjamess.org
The
The World this Week
Greece receives bailout
Greece has been granted
another bailout, this one worth
£110 billion . In exchange the
Greek government assented to
reducing its debt from 160% of
GDP to 120% of GDP by 2020 as
well as the permanent presence
of Eurozone observers. While
the Greek Finance Minister
claimed the bailout had averted
a ‘nightmare’ and were the most
important negotiations in postwar Greek history, political
parties on the left and right
accused the government of
betraying the people of Greece.
Violence in Yemen elections
At least eight soldiers have been
killed while manning ballot
stations in south Yemen. Elections
are being held to replace outgoing
leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, who
faced an uprising in 2011. Only
one candidate is standing, VicePresident Adrabbuh Mansour
Hardi and rebels in the south and
north of the country have called
for a boycott of the elctions.
Nato commander apologises
for Koran burning
US general and Nato commander
General John Allen has
apologised over reports of copies
of the Koran being burned in
Afghanistan. The allegations were
met with angry protests at Nato
bases in Afghanistan. Apparently
the Korans had made their
way into waste disposal where
they were accidentally burned.
Attacks on Syrian rebels in
Homs intensify
The rebel stronghold of Homs
in Syria has been subjected to
weeks of heavy bombing by
government troops. Rebels
report a death toll of at least 30,
including children. Thousands
have so far died in the civil
strife of Syria. The Red Cross
is attempting to broker a
peacefire so they can provide
medical aid to the injured in
Homs, in a rare move by the
charity.
Reports from the
field claim that government
shelling hit a field hospital.
Swedish
without
months
man
survives
food for two
A Swedish man who was
trapped in his snowed in car
for two months is recovering
in hospital. His car was
found in a forest path by
snowmobilers who believed
it to be a wreck. The human
body can normally survive
roughly four weeks without
food but the intensely low
temperatures (reaching -30°
C) may have helped to keep
the man alive. He ate melted
snow for water but had no food
and huddled in a sleeping bag.
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
International
Comment: One year on, Libya can hope
Sarang Shah
A year on from the start of the Libyan
revolution, Sarang Shah looks at the
progress of the revolution and its
possible future.
Last week marked the first
anniversary of the beginning of the
Libyan revolution and was greeted
with widespread celebration.
The Libyan people have had their
vengeance upon their oppressor.
Muammar Gaddafi was captured
and summarily killed in an attempt
to flee Sirte on 20 October, 2011.
Three days later, the National
Transitional Council — the
recognized governing authority of
the Libyan rebels — declared an end
to the war. On 31 October, NATO
announced an end to its military
campaign to maintain a no-fly zone
over Libya, ending a remarkable
series of events that started over
a year ago on 15 February with
protests in Benghazi.
With Gaddafi dead and most of
the country under NTC control,
it seemed that the war was over
and that Libya would now see a
democratic future alongside its
neighbours, Egypt and Tunisia.
Yet, on 10 November, the Libyan
civil war seemed to erupt again in
the coastal city of Zawiya. Longsimmering
disputes
between
Zawiyans and the Warshefana tribe
in the desert surrounding the city
led to a 4-day long conflict leaving
13 dead. Tensions ROCKED Libya
from mid-November into lateJanuary of this year.
Militias of former rebels and
local tribes roam the country
claiming the mantle of “Guardians
Alfred Weidinger
10| International
CambridgeStudent
of the Revolution” while refusing to
disarm at the behest of the NTC.
Internecine militia-led conflict
reached its peak when, on the 23rd
of January, local militias of the
Warfalla tribe captured the Gaddafi
stronghold of Bani Walid in the
Misrata district. The militia leaders
set up a local council of elders that
has now been recognized by the
NTC (after much fighting) as the
local authority of Bani Walid. The
escalating level of conflict in Tripoli,
Gharyan, and Asbi’a come alongside
a newly approved election law that
schedules elections for 23 June.
Will we see more of these intertribal conflicts in post-Gaddafi
Libya? Will these low-level conflicts
renew the Libyan civil war?
Libya has long been divided by
various geographical, ethnic, and
tribal partitions, going as far back
as the division of Libya into the
western province of Tripolitania and
the eastern province of Cyrenaica
under the Roman Empire. We can
add to the east-west division the
largely nomadic desert province of
Fezzan in the south.
Libya has always boasted a
tribal culture where loyalties lie
with families and place of origin.
Gaddafi used this tribal dynamic
to pit tribes against each other for
his own gain (periodically elevating
one tribe over another).
It would seem that Gaddafi’s
rule would heighten inter-tribal
resentment, but it has actually
managed to unite many Libyans in
their opposition to him. Libya was
heavily urbanized under Gaddafi:
tribal identities were replaced by a
Libyan identity, and tribal values
replaced by cosmopolitanism. Libya
also benefits from the authority of
the NTC - while in some areas its
control is purely notional, it has
garnered widespread international
recognition, and consequently
international accountability.
Libya’s relatively small population
also stands to reap a windfall from
a more equitable distribution of oil
returns and high per-capita GDP.
For these reasons it seems unlikely
that Libya will descend into a civil
war like the one currently engulfing
Syria. After a year Libya has not
descended into full scale violencce
- it has the potential to make a
peaceful transition.
Comment: Fundamentalists, not freedom fighters
Hugo Schmidt
Hugo Scmidt examines the history of
the Middle East and concludes that
behind the Arab Spring lurks Islamic
fundamentalism
Watching our Union solemnly
debate whether or not the
revolutions in the Middle East
herald an end of “stability” made
me laugh. Of course it’s an end of
stability. By definition a revolt is
against the status quo. The only
question is whether that is a good
or a bad thing.
In general, the end of ‘stability’
in this part of the world is to be
welcomed. The writer Mark Steyn
often paraphrases Ronald Reagan:
“‘Stability’ is Arabic for ‘The mess
they’re in’”. The stability of the
Middle East is the stability of tyrants
of various stripes. There has been
a longstanding neoconservative
statement of the obvious, that this
status quo is neither moral nor
durable. But what will follow it?
The sparkplug firing these
revolutions was the removal of
the worst of the tyrants, Saddam
Hussein. That’s no secret, and
attested to by people such as SaadEddin Ibrahim, the progenitor
of Egypt’s democracy movement
and Walid Jumblat, the leader
of the Lebanese Socialist party.
As someone who supported the
removal of Saddam, and would do
so again, I had a distinctly sinking
feeling watching the kind of people
who wanted the Ba’ath party to
remain in power, and when that
failed, wanted Iraq thrown to Al
Qaeda, get sentimental over the
rise of groups like the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt.
The Middle Eastern despots
have ensured that the only outlet
for discontent has been Islamic
fanaticism and anti-Semitisim,
because it ensured that the
alternative to their rule looked even
worse. I find it astonishing to see
how many people can convince
themselves that groups like the
Muslim Brotherhood – whose credo
is “God is our objective; the Quran is
our constitution; the Prophet is our
leader; Jihad is our way; and death
for the sake of God is the highest of
our aspiration – as anything other
than movements of the pathological
ultra-right. There are already some
very nasty signs. In Egypt, attacks
on Christians are escalating,
with 100,000 having already fled
the country. The situation for
Jews may be summarized by the
demonstrators outside the Israeli
embassy chanting ‘the Gas chambers
are ready.’
Historical parallels
sometimes forgo subtlety.
The situation is not much better
in Libya, with the new government
welcoming
Sudan’s
genocidal
leader. Revolutions always have the
possibility of going horribly wrong,
and this is particularly the case
when no structures to secure liberty.
The French Revolution, fought at
the height of the Enlightenment,
ended in the Terror and Bonaparte.
It seems difficult to see how
revolutions in pre-Enlightenment
cultures can do much better.
The one exception is Iraq. The
divided nature of the country
requires a form of federalism, and
the distribution of oil ensures that
each faction has its own powersource. Furthermore, having seen
the horror of religious violence
up close, its people are inoculated
against such a temptation. The New
York Times ran a piece on religious
disillusionment amongst young
Iraqis; one young lady who had
formerly cheered the 9/11 attacks,
now says “I hate Islam”.
This shows a hopeful possibility.
As the pus of Islamic reaction rises
to the surface, it can be lanced.
Those who believe the Muslim
Brotherhood’s reductive slogan,
“Islam is the answer”, will find the
converse to be true: that no society
can ever be run out of a holy
book, and that leaving stone-age
superstition behind is the price for
modernity that all societies must
pay.
The
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
CambridgeStudent
International |11
News: Worst prison fire ever- hundreds die in Honduras
Samuel Nadeem
Just before midnight on Tuesday
the 14th, the deadliest prison fire in
recorded history unleashed hell on
the overcrowded Granja Prison of
Comayagua, some 100km north of
the capital Tegucigalpa.
Over 350 people were killed and
dozens “burned beyond recognition”, while others were reported
missing, officials said.
Most victims choked to death
in their cells, awaiting rescue that
took some 40 minutes to arrive and
another hour to control the flames,
with “scorched bodies carried out
piece by piece” as relatives rushed
to the area in desperation.
The dead amounted to almost
half of the prison’s official population (856), among which were also
the spouses of inmates on conjugal
visits.
Comayagua firefighters’ spokesman Josue Garcia told reporters
‘we couldn’t get them [the inmates]
out because we didn’t have the keys
and couldn’t find the guards who
had them’.
Those who survived escaped by
‘breaking the roof apart so we could
go out from above’, one prisoner
told reporters. ‘We started ripping
apart the ceiling above us.’
As inmates attempted to climb
the prison walls to escape the
flames, guards opened fire on them
to avoid prison breaks.
Relatives and friends of inmates
clashed with the police as they tried
to make their way into the prison
compund.
Current accounts on what caused
the accident are divided between an
electrical flaw and a prison riot.
The incident has put prison conditions in the country in the limelight once again, as Granja Prison,
with 856 prisoners, is capable of
housing only 500.
As inmates
attempted to
climb the prison
walls to escape
the flames, guards
opened fire on
them.
Seo2
Furthermore, the facility lacked
any medical healthcare, and allowed less than US$1 per day for
each prisoner’s meals.
‘The tragic deaths of hundreds
of inmates […] are ultimately the
result of overcrowding and poor
prison conditions, two longstanding problems in Honduras,’ said
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.
Honduras has the worst murder
rate in the world and prisons are
noted for both their overcrowding
and the presence of gang members.
Much scandal arose from an internal government report released
by The Associated Press and referenced by the Guardian, according
to which more than half of the dead
inmates had not yet been convicted, much less appeared at a court
of law.
President Porfírio Lobo has
vowed a full inquiry into the matter, promising to ‘find those responsible’, but failed to address the conditions under which these inmates
were being held.
Since the fire relatives have broken into the morgue to find their
loved ones bodies, though they
were forced away by the police after
having opened six body bags.
The event raises serious questions in Honduras, one of the most
violent and unstable nations in the
region. The country is infested by
Mexican drug cartels and urban
slums are rife.
Political unrest engulfed the nation in 2009 when the lefwing regime of Manuel Zalaya was overthrown. Subsequently Lobo has
gained international legitimacy, via
a relationship with the US focused
on anti narcotics.
The government denies that
Honduras is spinning out of control
but this prison fire has damaged
the government’s legitimacy and
aroused discontent amongst the
poor who make up the majority of
inmates in prisons. President Lobo
will have to move to restore faith.
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The
12| Comment
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Comment
Foreign Secretary William Hague meeting the
Archbishop of Canterbury, September 2010
Yes: The State should
represent all its citizens’
views proportionally, says
Suzanne Duffy
To argue, as David Cameron did
recently, that Britain is a Christian
country may at first seem reasonable.
72% of people identified themselves as
Christian in the 2001 census, making
it statistically the largest religion in
Britain. However, Cameron did not
just say that Britain is a Christian
country, but that ‘‘the Bible has
helped to give Britain a set of values
and morals which make Britain
what it is today.’’ I wonder when our
revered PM last read Numbers 25
where Moses, on the orders of God,
slaughters all those who worship
‘false gods’. Whether this and other
stories of atrocities committed in the
name of the Christian God in the Old
Testament are to be taken literally or
figuratively, they are still shocking.
The problem in mixing
religion with politics
is the assumption that
religion is the basis for
modern morality
Perhaps this judgement is unfair,
since in linking Christianity and
the Bible Cameron was probably
referring to the New Testament. Even
if we confine ourselves only to this,
Romans 1 makes clear, for example,
that homosexuality is unacceptable
and that ‘‘they which commit such
things are worthy of death.’’ Maybe
I’m just being pedantic, but this
seems slightly at odds with Cameron’s
pre-election statement: ‘‘we are
totally committed to the fight for gay
rights and there will be absolutely no
going back on equality legislation’’;
it seems here he misplaces his faith
in the Bible. This demonstrates that
the basic problem in mixing religion
with politics is the assumption that
religion, in particular Christianity,
is the basis for modern morality. In
reality, if you read the Bible, this is
revealed as simply untrue.
I am certainly not suggesting that
every Christian is a fundamentalist,
and a belief in Christianity is a
perfectly reasonable choice to make
by an adult who balances their
personal faith with the values of
our modern society. However, it is
a very dangerous thing to suggest
that the State needs a connection
with the Church, and will be morally
wayward without one, not only for
the reasons outlined above, but also
because religions are so diverse. The
‘Christian country’ we live in still
has 18% of people who are either of
different religious belief or are nonbelievers, and for the government
to allow religion to affect policy
would discriminate against them. In
fact, this discrimination is already
active considering that the Church
of England has a presence in the UK
Parliament.
Another danger presented by the
mingling of Church and State is
evident in education. One third of
UK state schools are faith schools.
However, the schools are not based
on the faith of the children; how can
a child of four or five possibly make
such a complex decision about their
core beliefs or non-beliefs? Rather,
the faiths are those of the children’s
parents, who in sending them to a
faith school, divide their children
from those of other faiths. Not only
does the child have no choice in this
to begin with, but it is then assumed
in Religious Studies lessons that God
exists. While I strongly believe that
children should be as fully informed
about as many faiths as possible, I
also think that no single one should
be taught as the ‘truth’, especially not
by schools funded by the state, since
faith, or a lack of it, is a personal
decision which should not be dictated
by a government directive.
Religion is a private issue and
the State has no right to elevate
one religion over another, or over
non-belief. Of course I believe
that politicians should act in a
morally upright way, but this has
no connection to religion; as I have
demonstrated, Christianity has little
connection with our modern views
on equality and justice. If we are to be
a tolerant and open society then the
Church has no place in our State.
Suzanne Duffy is a first-year English
student at Girton
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
CambridgeStudent
Should the Church be
separated from the State?
Much of our legal system reflects neutrality and non-bias with regard to
religion. Examples include the recent controversial ruling that banned
Bideford town council, in Devon, from including prayers in meeting
agendas. The National Secular Society called the ruling “an important
victory for everyone who wants a society that neither advantages nor
disadvantages people because of their religion or lack of it”. However, David Cameron has said the UK is a Christian country “and we
should not be afraid to say so”, reflecting the Church’s prominence in
the government and the monarchy. Should Britain officially embrace
its Christian tradition or would this be an undemocratic bias?
“Many of the
values of a
Christian country
are shared by
people of all faiths
and indeed by
people of no faith
at all.”
Prime Minister David
Cameron
72%
United
Kingdom
Census,
2001
/
43%
British
Social
Attitudes
survey, 2010
Proportion of UK
citizens who describe
themselves as
Christian, according
to two contrasting
sources
“While we agree
that there should
be some common
values to live by,
there cannot be a
religious hierarchy
that discounts the
feelings of those
who don’t share in
that faith.”
Terry Sanderson, President of
the National Secular Society
No: The separation of
the Church and the State
would be a backward step,
argues Sean Canty
On the desk in front of me is a leaflet.
In this leaflet, the National Secular
Society (NSS) outline their goals:
disestablishment of the Church from
the State; reform of the House of Lords
to remove the rights of unelected
Bishops to seats in parliament; the
protection of the freedom of religious
expression; and the end of state
funding for schools curriculated by
individual faiths.
I find the idea of disestablishment
unlikely to improve the moral fabric of
the UK. In a way, the Anglican Church,
by nature, will always be the nation’s
official Church, whether recognised
by the government or not - it carries
its own authority. Anglicanism is
the Government’s official ‘go-to’
religious authority. As the previously
unknown but outspoken economic
expert Archbishop Rowan Williams
proved in 2011, religious authority
can voice critical opinion against
the Government. The Anglican
Church and British Government do
not take turns to do the dishes. They
do not agree on everything, and the
resulting enrichment of political
debate is good. Knowledgeable of the
various world faiths, the Archbishop
of Canterbury preaches an ethic
of tolerance and inclusivity in the
ethnic and religious fabric of Britain,
recognising the value of intellectual
engagement in the reconciliation of
faith-related-issues: good news for
multicultural Britain.
The NSS and their campaign to
remove the ‘lords spiritual’ from
the House of Lords in a huge
parliamentary reform tells a different
story. Actually, Iran is the only other
nation ruled over by unelected clergy,
and Iran is a bad place. However,
fuelled by immigration, material
concerns, or whatever, religion is
not on the decline, and informed
religious opinion is as valid as ever
in the ruling of the British people.
The employment of Sharia law,
the religious slaughter of animals
against EU meat regulations, faith
schools, sectarianism in Scotland
and Northern Ireland: religion causes
problems everywhere. There is no way
that complete ignorance of educated
clerical judgements on matters which
clearly regard the Church and other
faiths will be a constructive response.
A more worthwhile campaign might
be to remove the hereditary seats in
the House of Lords, something not
on the NSS agenda.
Protection of freedom of expression
and freedom of religion are worthy
causes. Today, the ancient blasphemy
laws in this country are being revised
by Islamic scholars to prosecute
those who offend their faith in the
name of freedom of expression. It is
a worrying state of affairs. The plain
fact is that the blasphemy laws have
never posed a problem to freedom
of expression in modern Britain; the
debate here is lively and positive, and
while Islamic scholars are ready to
take those who offend them to court,
it is inspirational to people of other
faiths throughout the world that, in
reality, Britain is a platform for real
freedom of expression; we are not
subdued by the irrational strictures
of other nations of the world.
Faith schools in many localities are
outperforming standard state-funded
schools. This is not really a counterargument. It is only proof that the
issue is probably more complicated
than the NSS believe it to be. Perhaps
there would be no faith schools in an
ideal Britain, but I still maintain that
religious practice will not disappear;
therefore if we want good religious
practice, people need to be aware of
their religious tradition and identity,
and of the boundaries of respect
between themselves and others.
It all comes down to the removal
of religion from the public into
the private spheres, and it is up to
you whether or not that is a good
thing. Philosopher Charles Taylor
recognised the mistake many make
when he pointed out that NSS’
secularisation – indifference of state
to religion – and laïcité – separation
of the Church and state – are two
different things; the former is the end
and the latter is the means. In Britain,
we already have what was granted to
the French people in the Revolution:
freedom of expression and positive
intellectual debate; separation of
Church and state is a backward step.
Sean Canty is a first-year Theologian
at Corpus Christi
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
The
CambridgeStudent
Comment |13
The internet: it’s downhill from here
Ben Richardson
Have we gone too far from the world of terrestrial and VHS?
marketing tactic: lure a wide
following with a great free service,
wait long enough until users come
to rely on it, and then make them
pay. Last week, Wolfram Alpha
went the same way with its muchhyped Pro version, trying to charge
$3 a month for tedious calculations
it would have happily done the
previous week for nothing.
The arguments as to whether
content providers are right to fence
themselves into ‘walled gardens’, or
services to infinitely inflate their
prices, are not ones to be made
here. But I think it is fair to say that
the current trend towards internet
monetisation is inexorable.
The web of the future will be
more closed, with more payment
barriers and increasingly intrusive
and targeted advertising (for proof
of this, sit through a few YouTube
videos). In short, we are going to
be forced to pay with either our
money, our time, or, increasingly,
our personal data.
I suppose what I’m saying is that
the golden age of the internet is
dying. Enjoy its final throes.
Ben Richardson is a third-year
astrophysicist at Christ’s
Steve Tolcher
Picture yourself as a producer in the
1970s, when televisions were cubic
and terrestrial was all the rage. With
only five channels, life was easy.
Produce average content and you
got one fifth of the viewers; great
content might win you them all.
To the benefit of those wielding the
remote controls, the introduction of
VHS and cable in the 1980s started
to make producers jobs a whole lot
harder. VHS meant that viewers
could now tape stuff, allowing
them to indulge in pesky activities
like watching things more than
once and fast-forwarding through
the adverts. And by offering more
channels, cable meant far more
choice in what they could watch.
The net effect was better and
more varied TV for people like
us, but the dilution of viewing
figures, increased competition and
suppressed advertising revenues for
those who made it.
If VHS and cable improved the
viewing experience, the internet,
with its almost infinite capacity to
do the same things – reproduce and
offer choice – has revolutionised it.
The best part is that nearly all of it
is free. We take it for granted that
we can sample music before we buy
it, which was difficult ten years ago.
Even the most obscure opinions
are available to us should we want
to read them and we now have a
potentially global audience for our
own.
So far, so great, but I worry
whether the internet will always be
like this or whether we are enjoying
the heady, transitory period before
the web-based services we have
come to rely on work out how to
monetise themselves better. The
truth is that for-profit companies
are instrumental in taking the
internet from what would be a
bit of a mess and turning it into
something we all value. But they are
also extraordinarily bad at taking
our money. Facebook makes only a
few dollars of revenue per user per
year, despite each of us spending a
cumulative 300 hours on the site.
YouTube only started turning a
profit a year ago.
This means that websites are
having to monetise themselves
more aggressively, and examples
are not hard to find. Three or four
years ago, newspaper websites used
to be free versions of their printed
counterparts. Fast-forward and
newspapers are now increasingly
gated affairs. Both The Times and
The Financial Times now charge
users before letting them read any
of their online content, and many
others (The New York Times, for
example) grant free access to only a
limited number of articles. Spotify is
perhaps symbolic of a now infamous
The
14| Comment
Spoiling
the Ballot
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
A sideways look at the
CUSU elections with the
TCS Eagle of Truth
and Justice...
are words in this sentence.
So things aren’t looking
that great for the main CUSU
elections – nominations close
on Monday 27th, and voting
is scheduled for March 5th to
March 7th. When the expected
two dozen voters do turn up,
they look likely to be faced with
a choice over CUSU President
between CUSU Black Students’
Campaign President Akilah
Jeffers, CUSU Membership
Engagement Officer Rosalyn
Old, and former Selwyn JCR
President Ben Gliniecki.
Akilah Jeffers’ election could
herald the establishment of a
long-awaited CUSU foreign
policy, judging by her support
of NUS Black Students’ Officer
Kanja Ibrahim Sesay for NUS
President, who has called for
the NUS to demand that the
government withdraw troops
from Afghanistan and “end the
illegal and immoral siege on
Gaza”. That’s the spirit – after
the government persistently
ignores you over tuition fees,
higher education reforms and
pretty much everything else
within your remit, why not set
your sights abroad? In Easter
Term 2010, Jeffers also seconded
a motion at CUSU Council
proposing twinning CUSU with
the students’ union of the Islamic
University of Gaza, a university
with very close links to terrorist
group Hamas.
Ben Gliniecki called last term
for students to walk out of lectures
to support lecturers striking
over pensions - conflating endof-term laziness with a genuine
labour dispute in a display of
incoherence remarkable even
by the standards of student
politics.
Meanwhile, in a display of
competence that must be an
outlier, Rosalyn Old successfully
kept Robinson part of CUSU
during the affiliation storm
earlier this term. See Spoiling the
Ballot next week for news of her
inevitable fall from grace.
Views and comments expressed
are the opinions of individuals
and not necessarily the opinions
of Cambridge University Students’
Union or The Cambridge Student
Newspaper. Any views of potential
candidates expressed in this
column are not necessarily the
views they would hold if elected.
In all cases, elected candidates
would respect due process in the
totality of their interactions with
staff.
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The infamous student protests of November 2010
SUARTS
Flying over Cambridge this
week, one thing is very clear to
me, small non-beaked members
of Cambridge – election fever
is upon us. Gripped by the
giddy excitement that only the
imminent arrival of a new team
of CUSU sabbatical officers can
bring, students run hither and
thither, barely able to speak in
coherent sentences. Cambridge
bladder control is at an all-time
low.
OK, so I might be exaggerating
slightly / a lot / completely.
Nominations for the 2012-2013
CUSU Sabbs team and GU
President opened on Monday to
not so much a fanfare as someone
dropping a kazoo in a puddle.
In an ominous sign of election
apathy to come, consider last
week’s election of Cambridge
delegates for the NUS Women’s
Conference in March (which of
course you’ve all already heard
about). Out of a total of 19,540
students registered and eligible to
vote between 9am on Thursday
and 5pm on Saturday, the total
number of votes cast was a mindblowing, eye-popping, hairraising... 14. That’s a turnout of
0.07%. Or exactly 1 vote every 4
hours. Fewer votes were cast in
last week’s election than there
CambridgeStudent
Education: we’re not
out of the woods yet
Ben Gliniecki
From the “indignants” in
Spain and Greece to the #occupy
movements in the USA and
elsewhere, students and other
young people have consistently
been at the forefront of mass
movements against the global
policy of austerity implemented
by the ruling class.
The crisis of capitalism has
flung the living standards of
ordinary people back countless
years. Yet while the 99% are
suffering, the bonuses of the
1% remain unchanged. In this
context, and with all talk of
“the green shoots of recovery”
having disappeared, the mass of
workers and youth are beginning
to realise that it is only through
the organisation and political
struggle of all layers of society
that we can hope to provide a
real alternative to this austerity.
It is this realisation which
is beginning to unsettle the
Coalition in Britain and rulers
across the world.
Earlier this year, the coalition
government decided to abandon
its Higher Education White
Paper. The HE White Paper
sought to open universities
up to privatisation while
simultaneously cutting funding.
It presented the closure of entire
universities as a clear possibility,
and also painted a bleak picture
of university students as
consumers of a commoditised
education. The scrapping of the
HE White Paper may have been a
cynical attempt by the Coalition
ministers to avoid a repeat of
the tens of thousands strong
protests in the winter of 2010. If
that was the plan, it appears to
have backfired.
Having seen their attempts
to drastically alter the NHS
and other public services stall
in the face of mass opposition,
the Coalition is clearly afraid
of any public debate over their
policies. They are unwilling to
risk a vote on their reforms in
Parliament; instead the Coalition
is attempting to continue its
privatisation of higher education
by the back door, in ways
which do not require a vote in
Parliament. Unsurprisingly, this
has not been well received and
the National Union of Students
(NUS) has called for a week of
action from 12th to 16th March,
including a mass walkout of
lectures on the 14th March.
As a Union committed to
free education, fair access and
quality of education, CUSU
must support, publicise and
encourage participation in this
week of action and the mass
walkout of lectures. This is a
golden opportunity to continue
its campaigning work: it must
not shy away from tough or
controversial battles. It is the
tough, political battles which are
most relevant to students, and as
long as politics affects the lives of
Cambridge students, CUSU will
be a political Union–whether we
like it or not.
It is also important however, for
CUSU to realise that the student
struggle is one part of a wider
struggle against austerity by
workers and youth everywhere,
who are being made to pay for
a crisis they did not cause. In
order to prop up the failing
capitalist system, the Coalition
and their friends in the City are
demanding deep cuts wherever
they can. If we want to stop any
single cut we must stop them
all.
In this respect, the plans of
the NUS do not go far enough.
Our call has to be for university
students to link up with working
people and school students to
fight all the cuts and attacks, not
just those to higher education. It
is the responsibility of CUSU to
contact Cambridgeshire trades’
council and the UCU branches
in Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin
universities, to organise and coordinate mass action between
students, lecturers, and other
university staff. Teachers in the
NUT and other teaching unions
should be approached, and
CUSU should encourage school
students in Cambridge to call
mass meetings and leaflet their
classes to raise the possibility
of a school student strike.
Mass action through the mass
organisations is the only way
in which we can hope to mount
effective resistance. As our
student union, this role must be
filled by CUSU.
Ben Gliniecki is a third-year
lawyer at Selwyn
bridge
magazine
Fortune Telling,
p16
The
features
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Want to get involved in Features?
Email features@tcs.cam.ac.uk.
Tell me what
you see...
determined by some higher order
a thing of the past, and few people
would admit to believing in destiny,
which seems more and more the stuff
of whimsical Disney movies, and
not reality. Nevertheless, astrology
remains a booming business,
and New Age pastimes such as
Tarot and horoscope reading have
become, while not yet mainstream,
more common hobbies. So why
the continued drive to know what
the future holds? Does the big,
bad world of the last century bring
out a desire for reassurance, or at
least preparedness, that religion no
longer provides?
“Most people that come to me are
either at a crossroads in their lives
or they are stuck in some way,” says
Paul The Seer, a Cambridge-based
professional clairvoyant. With a
family history of psychic ability,
Paul initially served as a Medium in
Spiritualist Churches before turning
to private crystal ball and tarot
readings, which he conducts from
Enarsha New Age shop at Hope
Street Yard. “The biggest area is
obviously love and relationships but
lately I am seeing more and more
people who are concerned about
their future career prospects.”
Illustration by Clementine Beauvais
Few people admit to
believing in destiny, it
seems like the stuff of
Disney movies
M
y first experience
of fortune-telling
was in a sweaty
tent at a local fête.
The rural smell of
cowpats and wet grass somewhat
detracted from the otherworldly
atmosphere, but aged thirteen
and desperate to know what my
future held (even if just so I knew
which subjects to take for my
GCSE equivalents) I fixed my gaze
intently at the crystal ball, which in
retrospect looked suspiciously like a
John Lewis paperweight. Predictions
of meeting a tall dark stranger didn’t
then seem so clichéd as to make me
smell a rat – though my confidence
was dented the next day when I
discovered that my fortune-teller
was in fact my classmate’s mum. No
tall dark stranger - pocket money
wasted.
“There’s a gypsy down on Bleecker
Street,” sang Joni Mitchell in 1976:
16| Features
by Kirsty MacLeod
“She lit a candle for my love luck,
and eighteen bucks went up in
smoke.” Whether it’s horoscopes
in the dailies, or dalliances with
mythology and magic, the ancient
arts of divination remain embedded
in the tapestry of modern western
culture. Although fortune-telling is
now regarded by many as the hobby
of hippies and the occult, historically
those with the power of ‘seeing’
were held in high social esteem,
and in many cultures often had
positions of extreme power. Native
American shamans were believed
to have direct spiritual connections
with the Creator, Great Spirit, and
were ranked as highly as chiefs in
tribes. Similarly, the position of
African traditional healers and seers
is still rated high in tribal life even
in Westernised countries like South
Africa. Despite a history of social
significance, the rise of modern,
secular science has in many cultures
replaced spiritualism with hard
fact.
However, science and superstition
have not always been so divorced.
Pythagoras, the Greek father of
geometrical theory, had an obsession
with numbers that went far beyond
triangles; his beliefs, in line with
ancient Greek and Hebrew cultures,
were that numbers were the basis of
all nature, and the key to all wisdom.
The practise of numerology, of
which he was an adherent, predicts
your life path and character based on
numbers. The letters in your name
are given numerical value; these
are totted up, and then added until
they are reduced to one number.
Your whole name gives you your
personality number, the vowels your
heart number, while your birthdate
added up and reduced gives you a
destiny number.
Giving it a go myself, I felt
unlikely to be convinced. My
personality number of 2 apparently
is characterised by eagerness to
make people feel good about
themselves, which straight away
had me checking my arithmetic –
but I was a little startled when my
heart number predicted correctly
and specifically that my greatest
desire was to write a novel. My
scepticism weakening, a table of
compatibility between people of
different personality numbers had
me doing furtive calculations and
wondering what an “ambitious,
settled” relationship would look
like. When my destiny number
told me I was a born traveller with
excellent communicative skills, wit,
charm, and a sense of adventure, I
was definitely willing to throw my
lot in with numerology. After all,
the man who invented angles could
hardly have been wrong.
A general increase in secularism
has made the idea of a path pre-
Paul says that he enjoys helping
people to overcome difficulties
in life and to find happiness. The
purpose of his readings, he explains,
is not to tell people where they will
end up, but to provide them with a
tool to use in their decision-making.
“In the Yogic Eastern tradition
there is a teaching called Dharma
which roughly translates to ‘soul’s
purpose’. It teaches that we all have
a certain path to tread and that
certain aspects of that path are predetermined - who we will meet, and
so on. Now on the way through life
- let’s call the starting point A and
the finishing point Z - much can
happen. Why? Because we have free
will, and by using it we set in motion
new events that can change or alter
our outcomes. When it comes to
reading, this is what I see - those
variations between points A and Z.
To me a good reading will not sort
out our problems, but enable us to
perhaps identify how to overcome
them and give us an insight into the
other options we have.”
Paul’s analysis of using predictions
to help you make your own choices
all sounds very positive to me,
so I decide to give my horoscope
one more go. After all, I’m a
Capricorn: I’m supposed to like
being prepared for the future, right?
Dailyhoroscopes.com tells me that
today getting the facts right will
make all the difference – pretty
important given that I’m writing
this article. It ends by saying that
romance is possible this evening.
Maybe my friend’s mum was right
about that tall dark stranger after
all.
The
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
CambridgeStudent
features
Behind the Shades of
CELEBRITY
Tian Zhong considers the mystique, psychology and pitfalls behind the phenomenon of celebrity culture
With Whitney Houston’s
recent
death,
Amy
Winehouse’s not long
before her and Michael
Jackson’s in 2009, we
have been shocked by
tragedies hitting our
idols. However, why
would we respond
so
emotionally
to someone with
whom
we’ve
never
actually
interacted? If our
relationship with
the stars resides
only in our own
minds,
why
do we idolise
and attach real
emotions
to
them in the first
place?
“Someday
each of us will
be famous for
fifteen minutes”. No
prizes for guessing
who said that! With
this prediction, Andy
Warhol captured the
bizarre nature of celebrity
culture,
something
which is still prevalent
today. Celebrities in the 21st
century seem to have excited
disproportionate public interest. On
the one hand, some stars have no
significant achievement except the
attraction of public attention. On
the other, the private life of those
in the public eye can become much
more appealing for its ambiguity.
The emergence of celebrity dates
back to 18th-century Britain, when
the first group of artists rose to fame
outside their hometown. London,
known as the first consumer society
at the time, created opportunities
for artists to develop their public
persona as a profitable asset. For
example, Handel, though from a
long line of musicians, was the first
to become famous and rich in his
era.
While both innate quality and
public promotion contribute to the
birth of celebrity, the latter clearly
plays a more important role in
modern society. This change results
from the images popularised by
technology at the beginning of the
20th century in the American film
industry. Now, the celebrity obsession
has become an object of publicity
in such a pervasive way that there
are even contests held in shopping
malls looking for pre-teen Britney
Spears look-alikes. However, this
development further complicates
the phenomenon of celebrity. Is it
a pure product of advertising and
promotion? Does the celebrity still
need
a
different and extraordinary innate
quality? Why would commercial
activities add value to the celebrity?
To find out the answers, we need
to look at why people care about
celebrities.
One of the driving forces behind
the consumption of celebrity
culture is loneliness. Think about
how different the world has become
compared to it was one hundred years
ago. Not only is it more fast-paced,
it has become more fragmented in
terms of social structure, such as the
decline in organized religion. In a
society where about 50 percent of
the population confesses to feelings
of isolation, many people turn to
celebrity culture to compensate for
the loss of ‘real’ social interaction.
A celebrity could be part of our
community and even closer to us
than most of our friends, thanks
to the paparazzi and tabloids. The
details of stars’ personal lives,
such as marriage, friendships and
dress-sense, are made accessible to
everyone these days. Psychologically,
we may even interact with them
similarly to the way we do with our
family members. That is why we are
so shocked at their death.
Celebrity culture is pretty much
synonymous with idle gossip. But
in fact, gossip can be seen as a
form of discussion through which
relationships, identity, and social
and cultural norms are debated,
evaluated and shared. Therefore, we
have to acknowledge that gossiping
has its productive side. All this can
be done without the cost of talking
about friends behind their backs.
This is no doubt a cheap way of
sharing. Besides, as stars represent
typical ways of behaving, feeling and
thinking in contemporary society,
we are actually forming our own
cultural identity, through admiring,
revering, deriding and resenting
these public figures. Thus, celebrity
can function as a ‘mirror’ for us to
reflect on ourselves and the world.
It seems that we find ourselves
gossiping on negative news rather
than on positive stories. It could be
that the misery of others makes us
feel better about our own lives. This
is particularly true when a scandal
befalls the rich and powerful,
serving the interests of ‘justice in a
corrupt world’. In this way, gossiping
serves as moral judgment.
Twitter,
tabloids,
Women’s
weeklies… media-content has
become increasingly focused on
celebrities’ personal lives these days.
It is criticised as a dumbing-down of
media culture, as ‘informative’ news
is replaced by trivial speculation.
However, each new shift in
fashion is considered as the end
of civilization in the elitists’ eyes.
Academic Dr. John Hartley has
attacked this “class-based binarism
that places information against
entertainment, hard news against
soft news, the public sphere against
private lifestyles and public service
media against the commercial
media.” Instead, he insists, the
new celebrity culture offers a more
democratic way of participation, as
the once marginalised voices are
now being heard from the media.
The contestants in Big Brother
and YouTube celebrities are great
examples of this new freedom.
The danger of celebrity culture
can no longer be ignored
after so many deaths driven
by public pressure. If you
search for ‘actors who
have committed suicide’
in Wikipedia, you’ll
find 306 examples in
total, not including
recent additions. It
seems as though
there are too many
expectations for
these ‘ordinary’
people to meet;
managers and
third-party
industries
all
contribute
to
this. Idolisation
also poses some
danger to the
audience.
As
mentioned before,
interaction with
stars is a potential
substitute for other
kinds of social
p a r t i c i p at i o n ,
thus sowing the
seeds for unhealthy
obsession.
Since the celebrity
public persona became
a commercial asset, a new
industry gradually formed in
order to enhance and profit from
the commercial value. For example,
if record companies can make
listeners fall in love with a recording
artist, fans will be more likely to
buy not only their next album, but
concert tickets, DVDs, books and
posters. However, despite their huge
influence behind celebrity culture,
the managers prefer to stay behind
the curtain in order to produce a
more ‘real’ image of our idols.
The cult of celebrity may seem
shallow, but it arguably serves
numerous purposes in our society.
Whether the advent of celebrity
culture should be lamented is open
to debate. Just remember this: “Glory
is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”
Napoleon knew what he was talking
about – and we remember him.
Student Ambassadors required to
help promote an Electronic Arts
SIMS comedy night @ CAMBRIDGE
Bar Nusha on Wed 29th Feb.
8hrs for £96.00 before tax.
Please email CV to:
kath.norris@circleagency.co.uk
Features |17
The
interview
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
JARVIS COCKER
confesses his darkest fears
to Tristram Fane Saunders
Visiting Professor of Poetry John
Kinsella has certainly been busy.
After arranging for Thurston Moore
(of Sonic Youth) to give a poetry
reading in the English Faculty last
term, this term he convinced Jarvis
Cocker to visit Cambridge and
deliver - well, certainly not a poetry
reading, but...
through the book, apologizing to the
audience (“I don’t know… maybe…
well, it depends what mood you’re
in, doesn’t it?”) before settling on
Wickerman as today’s “favourite,”
and revealing that the song’s surreal
river-journey out of Sheffield
actually happened (“I took a dinghy,
and made it as far as Rotherham”).
“A recital? That sounds a bit odd,
doesn’t it?”
“Pudgy fifteen-year
olds addicted to coffee
whitener”
Walking onstage with the delicately
unbalanced saunter that has
become his trademark, Jarvis is
met with a lively response by the
crowd filling the Lady Mitchell Hall.
Tonight’s “event” is not a poetry
recital, as Cocker is quick to point
out. Jarvis remains adamant that
Mother Brother Lover (his new
book of selected lyrics, published
by Faber) is not a poetry book,
despite Kinsella’s attempts to argue
otherwise. Tonight, Jarvis tells us,
he will not be reading or talking
about poetry.
“Words don’t matter.”
What he does talk about is far better.
Combining a slideshow-based
history of pop lyrics (including a
look at the FBI’s 2-year investigation
of the “indecipherable” Louie Louie)
with a retrospective of his own
thirty-year lyrical career, Jarvis is
charming, modest and constantly
surprising. The development of
Cocker’s writing voice is fascinating.
As he explains, his lyrics are “the
closest thing I have to a diary.” We
watch him progress from reluctant
pop writer at his local comprehensive
(“I had this ‘aww…do I really have
to?’ approach to writing, but I was
the band’s singer, so I had to make
the words”), through misguided
early efforts (like the unintentionally
funny Life is a Circle, unfortunately
never recorded), to the poignant,
seedy narratives loved by fans.
Though a couple of well-known Pulp
tracks make an appearance (Sorted
For E’s and Whizz is accompanied
by unsettling silent footage of pilledup ravers), the evening’s highlights
come from Jarvis’ more obscure
work: Wickerman’s portrait of love
and burnt nougat in Sheffield’s
underground river network earns
the best audience response of the
night. One audience member asks
Jarvis which of his songs is his
“favourite.” Remarkably, he doesn’t
dismiss the question. Instead, he
tries to make an earnest decision,
flicking desperately back and forth
18|Interview
Questions from the public produced
some of the evening’s most
interesting moments. One spectator
asked, “What kind of thing do you
write about now?”
JC: The little things that stick in
your mind. It’s always been like
that, but with time the bits that stick
in are different. The things that are
worth writing about, most of them
are eternal. If you’ve covered those,
or covered your thoughts on them,
you don’t won’t to repeat yourself.
You do end up going back to them,
but have to wait until you’ve moved
to a different angle. It’s all about
angle, that’s the thing. You have to
look at the same thing all the time,
but you have to contort yourself into
different positions and viewpoints.
Time will do that very well. It’s not
always a pretty sight, but time will do
it… It’s like a form of conversation
with yourself.
Other audience questions were less
enlightening. One overconfident
inquiry: “In Common People, there
are backward lyrics. What exactly
are they, and why were they put
there?”
JC: [Utter bafflement] Lyrics...
backwards? Like some kind of...
satanic message? [laughs] Wait... I
think I know the bit you mean. If
I remember correctly – I’m kind of
loath to tell you this – I was playing
the guitar, and I couldn’t hear what
I was doing, so I went [imitates his
own voice – honestly] “Oi! Turn
the... turn up t’guitar! I can’t...” and
the producer thought it sounded
really good.
Audience Member: That’s really
scary, because when you play it
backwards...
Sadly, laughter drowned out the rest
of this revelation, and so I am unable
to inform our readers of precisely
what does happen when Common
People is played backwards.
“Part of the point of writing
something is that the process of
writing it makes you understand
something. If you understood it
before you wrote it, you wouldn’t go
through that process. It might not
be until a few years down the line
that you find out what it’s about.”
Later on in the lecture theatre’s
basement, TCS caught up with a
rather tired looking Jarvis. Luckily,
there is one phrase always likely to
revitalize him.
TCS: On this day…
[The
trivia-obsessed
Jarvis
immediately looks more alert –
every week on his radio show for
BBC 6music, he rattles off a list of
important events that took place ‘on
this day’]
TCS: On this day 100 years ago, the
last surviving members of Captain
Scott’s polar expedition finally made
it back safely. You’ve spent some
time in the Arctic yourself – what’s
it like?
JC: Well, it was cold. [laughs] I
went about 3 years ago, with Cape
Farewell – they take creative types
to the arctic, in the hope that they’ll
produce some work out of that
experience. My only knowledge of
the Arctic was Pingu – and, yes, I
know that’s the Antarctic. One of
the most impressive things is that
the water moves in this really weird,
viscous way. It seems to move like
treacle or something. You’re in a
very alien landscape. It’s a very
funny feeling, being on top of the
world. Someone pointed out that
everybody else on the planet is far
south of you... and then I did cry, a
bit. In a weird way. Not like “oh my
god, the icecap is meeelllltingg...” –
though that is sad - but there was
some kind of instinctive realisation
that if these things weren’t there
any more it would be really bad. A
feeling that something you couldn’t
quite put your finger on had gone
wrong. Maybe it’s that there’s no
sign of humans... there’s something
very beautiful about it.
TCS: When you interviewed
Leonard Cohen a couple of weeks
ago, you did it by ‘firing his lyrics
back at him’, so we thought we’d do
the same with you. Whenever you
play F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.
V.E. live, you ask the audience what
frightens them. What frightens you,
Jarvis?
JC: Umm.
TCS: [I realise that this was a
terrible question] What’s frightened
you this week?
JC: It hasn’t been that frightening this
week. But last week was terrifying.
[I realise that this was an amazing
question] I was in my apartment in
Paris. I was working at night, trying
to type something. I saw something
move out of the corner of my eye,
and it was just looking at me. Dead
silent. I made a noise, it went away.
I looked 10 minutes later, it was
there again... it was observing me,
writing.... I still don’t know if it was
a mouse or a rat. Maybe a small
mouse. Or a large rat.
Anyway, I thought, I can’t do this – I
went to bed and carried on working.
I’d been working in bed for about five
minutes, and it was there again. It’d
moved to underneath the bedroom
window. I was a nervous wreck for
about four days after. I kept seeing
things move everywhere I went. I’d
see a sweet wrapper blow across
the pavement and think it was a
mouse, coming to get me. I had to
go and sleep in the spare room. I
mean, I hire a cleaner, it’s not a dirty
apartment, but there’s... [he lowers
his voice] an infestation.
He flashes a smile – half awkward,
half conspiratorial – and our
interview finishes. Jarvis may not
be a poet, but whatever he is, he’s
something special.
‘Mother Brother Lover’ is out now
www.pwc.com/uk/careers
Opportunity.
It’s staring
you in the face
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The
CambridgeStudent
music
reviews
One Hit
Wonders
PAul MCCArtneY
kiSSeS on The
boTToM
(hear Music, 2012)
Remember those old summer anthems? The songs you used to
hear played everywhere you went, from your favourite highstreet store to the place you got your hair and nails done?
Played through rolled-down car windows by nodding men
draped in gold chains, while their woman screamed at them
in the background? Those songs. They’re everywhere, then
disappear. But what happens to the people behind them?
Let’s start with the ones that are still reasonably active
(according to their websites) and supposedly not checking out
items in a grocery store.
1.
Samuel bouriah, or ‘Le Petit Sam’, or ‘Porno DJ’, or
better still, DJ SAMMY. any bells ringing? he brought us
the infectious summer banger, Heaven – a bryan adams
rehash that went straight to #1 in 2002 and featured vocals
from Dutch singer and songwriter Do. nowadays, Sammy is
partying permanently in ibiza and has an annoying website
which plays his latest ‘tunes,’ including Animal and Everybody
Hurts. his peeps insist that he is still ‘‘totally and uniquely
Sammy!’’ great.
2.
Electric 6 (the guys behind ThaT video). Their
Danger! High Voltage soared to a very respectable number
#2 in 2003. They then put out some sort of noise about a
‘gay bar’ in the same year. This was the modern equivalent
of the ‘get on your nerves song’. Their mainstream success
ended soon after. apparently they are in the ‘‘second half of
their existence’’ and their ‘‘engines are revving’’ to put out
a new live album in this autumn. They’ve since released
eight (rather less successful) albums, and they start touring
canada next month, so i guess things could be worse.
3. The fabulous Nizlopi (named after a hungarian girl
that their vocalist had a thing for at school) made history in
2005 when JCB Song – an endearing single about childhood,
dads, and Jcbs – jumped from #160 to #1. not too keen
on fame, nizlopi declined recording contracts with Sony
and eMi. after taking a break in 2009 to work on separate
projects and go globetrotting, they amicably split in 2010 and
remain the best of friends – according to their website and
blog.
4.
The loud and proud Baha Men who asked us to find
out Who Let the Dogs Out in the summer of 2000. They
achieved great, yet short-lived, mainstream success with this
obnoxious party anthem – it even became a regular tune at
uS sporting events. but they quickly fell out of the spotlight
and their current website is a fail. ‘nuff said.
5.
Finally, the most mysterious success of all, 3 of a Kind.
They gave us Baby Cakes in 2004. it smashed everything in its
way (including Can’t Stand me Now by The Libertines!) and
shot straight to number 1. They came out of nowhere , and
now they seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. Finding
information about them is very difficult. rumour has it that
Baby Cakes was dedicated to a loved one who passed away
in 2001. apparently there were plans for a follow-up entitled
Wink One Eye but nothing was ever released. if you try to
find them on Facebook, a ‘blues / rock / Funk’ band from
Lancaster, nY pop up and moan about their unsuccessful
‘career’.
So there we have it. now for old times’ sake, i suggest you
go home, YouTube these, and get raving today.
20| Music
★☆☆☆☆
Download: My Valentine
if the title hasn’t made you vomit all over this crisp and
clean copy of TcS, the horrific overdose of sugar that this
record hits you with will certainly do the trick. That is, of
course, if you’re perverted enough to subject yourself to
our dear Paul’s 16th studio effort. i listened to the whole
thing in one go: it was like being trapped in the garish
entertainment lounge of a cruise ship, with some delusional
has-been crooning away relentlessly in front of me.
almost entirely composed of covers of those american
pre-war jazz-folk-pop songs that somehow enter everyone’s
consciousness (Inchworm, that kind of thing - The Glory of
Love also makes an appearance), the album only sees two
Mccartney originals, inconspicuously smuggled in. Some
tracks are, in fairness, less horrendous than others. My
Valentine – an original – has a pretty interesting musical
structure, and features some nice lazy Spanish guitar from
eric clapton. it’s almost enough to distract you from the
smoochy schmaltz - but not quite. The cover art’s a real gem
too: perhaps Paul’s been caught unawares whilst keeping up
with his giant-flower arranging hobby. it’s something we
can all relate to, i’m sure. This is an hour of non-music, so
easy-listening it barely even qualifies as muzak. if you’re a
sane human being, run away. Michael Thorne
Want to get involved in Music?
Email music@tcs.cam.ac.uk
AnAïS MitChell
Young Man in
aMerica
(Wilderland records, 2012)
★★★☆☆
Download: Young
Man in America
2010’s Hadestown may be the most stunning album of the
last few years, for its sheer scope and ambition. it offered
the public an overdue introduction to anaïs Mitchell, who
it seems has no intention of fading back into the shadows.
With this, her 5th album, Mitchell compresses all that was
great about Hadestown into a tighter format. although
without such a well-defined storyline, various characters
crop up repeatedly. The haunting call and response of
Wilderland introduces Mother the “shelterer” and Father
the “shepherd”, who feature again on the fantastic title
track which follows their “young man” from birth to
death, and the heart-wrenching Shepherd, where Father
tragically loses both his mother and unborn child.
Piano-led ballad Coming Down is an equally devastating
depiction of a character plunged into despair, while the
catchy Venus supplies one of the album’s sunnier moments.
Young Man In America is not another Hadestown, but it is
equally ambitious, and equally impressive, right through
to the closing swell of Ships. Mitchell is a great lyricist
and storyteller, with vocals and backing to match, and has
proven here that she can be just as captivating on her own
as in an ensemble. on this form, she could quickly become
an american folk great. Joseph Hooton
On the road with Jann Klose
Tristram Fane Saunders asks Jann about grease, gigging, and the Kora
What was the first gig you went to?
a performance of a South-african musical called ipi ntombi
(aka ‘The Warrior’) in Johannesburg.
healthy Food for Thought was a concept album about the
importance of a balanced diet. But do you practice what you
preach? Or do you find yourself lured in by the greasy excesses
of fried food on tour?
i try to avoid bad food at all costs, literally! one thing i won’t
save money on is a decent meal.
You’ve lived on three continents, you’ve been known to play
100 gigs a year, and you’re constantly on the move. So, out of
all the cities you’ve visited, which do you hate most and why?
honestly, i can’t think of a place i actually had hatred for…
there have been shows that i was glad to be done with but it
had more to do with the other artists or crew that were there
rather than the city itself.
Cambridge is a pretty student-heavy town - how do you feel
about student audiences? Any different to an ordinary gig?
i love meeting people after the show, you never know who
will be there and who you’re going to meet. Travelling is such
a big part of my life and part of the reason i’m a musician.
Last time i played cambridge i ended up going to a local pub
with some of the folks that turned up at the show and had a
blast!
Where is the oddest place you’ve ever played?
a tie-dye store in Western Pennsylvania!
You use a lot of unusual instrumentation in your music (i had
to google a ‘Kora’ to find out what one is). Where does that
come from? how did you find out about these instruments and
why do you use them?
chris Marolf – who plays bass in my band – is a fan of trying
new instruments; he saw someone play the kora in the subway
Julie Mardin
“Where are they now?”asks Siana Bangura
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
station here in new York city and then ended up buying one
on ebay! he did some modifications on the instrument and
we’ve used it many times on the road.
You’re working with David Bendeth (famous rock producer)
on your new album. Will your new album have more of a
“rock” feel to it than your previous work?
David’s great, the new stuff definitely has more of an edge i
think - he’ll take a song and totally deconstruct it then slowly
piece it back together thereby eliminating anything that
distracts from the melody. i’ve learned a lot from him.
Jann Klose plays the CB2 Cafe on Saturday 3rd March
The
film
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Want to get involved in Film & TV?
Email film@tcs.cam.ac.uk
A recipe for success
Here we are in Week 6, either
careering or lumbering towards
the end of term, depending on how
bad your carb-induced lethargy is
after the obligatory Pancake Day
gorge. For many, at least a couple
of hours of Shrove Tuesday will
have been spent peeling errant
crêpes off ceilings or cupboards,
and then scrubbing away at pans
and sudsy batter in bottomless
tubs of foam. In this part of the
world, it isn’t one of the more
fashionable festivals.
Whilst you were busy messing up
the kitchen, I wonder if you were
reminded of that fabulous scene
from Danny DeVito’s Matilda.
You know the one – Roald Dahl’s
wunderkind, aged four, whips up
a breakfast of American pancakes
with a slick efficiency that would
certainly make my cack-handed,
crêpe-cooking cohorts green with
envy. Released in 1996, when
many of us were still wee bairns,
Matilda became a cinematic
bastion of culinary joy for kids.
Who doesn’t still get goose pimples
thinking about Bruce Bogtrotter’s
stupendous, chocolatey triumph
with that cake deemed “much too
good for children”?
These sugary-sweet memories
have got me thinking. If we
consider Matilda, or the 1970s’
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory, it’s clear that the prospect
of a never-ending supply of
chocolate, or a toddler with Delia
Smith-skills, simply enhances the
overall excitement of these stories.
They are movies which taught us
early in life that food can have an
important, and sometimes fun,
role in cinema - but mostly as a
complement. Like sex, death and
violence, food is a key part of life.
However, although meals and
mastication might feature just as
regularly in film as the other three
elements, it’s not so common
to have a movie centre entirely
around grub. Usually, it’s a prop,
or an interesting addition to a
scene - rarely a principal theme.
It’s a shame. Any person,
anywhere, can relate to food.
Everyone has, to varying degrees,
known hunger, indigestion, foodinduced disappointment and
kitchen-blunder hilarity. Film can
project personal memories of food
back at every single one of us in a
way that it can’t, necessarily, with
mental illness, grief, or violence.
The strife of America’s Civil War
is well depicted in Gone with the
Wind, but it’s not until Vivien
Leigh’s starving Scarlett stands
against the bloodied, Georgia
sunset and cries “As God is my
witness, I’ll never be hungry again”
that an idea of universal suffering
transcending era and culture is
created. For a brief moment in The
Silence of the Lambs, cannibalism
doesn’t seem all that bad when
you hear that Hannibal’s meat was
accompanied by “fava beans and
a nice chianti”. And who could
forget Lynne Ramsay’s remarkably
visceral depictions of food in We
Need to Talk About Kevin, from
the oozing, white lychee eyeball
to constant, vivid reminders of
bloodshed in viscous jam or the
Tomatina’s crimson rivers of
slime.
Those film-makers who have
chosen food as a key theme have
done exceptionally well in the
past. You need hardly imagine
the painful lust Pedro and Tita
feel for each other in Like Water
for Chocolate when she likens
the heat of her skin to drops of
sizzling oil on a hot plate (ouch);
and it’s hardly surprising that
Ratatouille
Ratatouille’s culinary antics were
loved by both adults and children
(although God knows why anyone
thought it a good idea to teach
youngsters that a kitchen rat is
cause for celebration). One of my
favourites is, without doubt, Bigas
Luna’s use of typical Spanish food
in his outrageous Jamón, Jamón,
as Castilian virility is mocked to
within an inch of its life whilst
Javier Bardem clubs his opponent
with a massive ham hock.
More film directors may, one
day, start picking up on the food
idea; members of the public
certainly are. We now have the
Getty Images
Lizzy Donnelly on the mouth-watering combination of food and film
Screen Bites Festival in Dorset,
and the Kingussie Food on Film
festival. Meanwhile, New York and
Chicago have started celebrating
an annual Food Film Fest, where
food-related cinematic gems are
shown as the audience is served
the morsels appearing on screen.
Now that is a cinema experience
which must surely have all the
women (and perhaps some
men) screaming with orgasmic
enthusiasm like Sally in that
famous delicatessen scene. I’m
sure you know what I’m talking
about.
Stephen Daldry
12A
129 mins
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
is vindication for all of those who
are sceptical of getting contemporary
fiction any way other than through the
★★★★☆
big screen. Director Stephen Daldry’s
treatment of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel carries over
just enough excruciating angelic wit to remind viewers that
psychologically dramatic prose is best when told with a
sober rather than saccharine voice. The leading lights of new
literature, such as Foer, don’t follow this creed as much as they
should.
The novel had a polarised reception. Some loved it, while
others thought it an abuse of the impact of a national tragedy in
an attempt to attract a national audience. This might indirectly
explain why the film has been shortlisted for Best Picture at
the Academy Awards. It ditches the grating dialogue of Foer’s
novel and gets to the point, telling the most honest story about
the impact of the worst day in 21st -century American history,
which has yet to be told by a major motion picture.
This story does not have any political or social subtext.
It simply focuses on Oskar, a 9 year-old whose father (Tom
Hanks) was killed in the World Trade Centre attacks, and the
closure and strength he and his mother (Sandra Bullock) find
in trying to solve the city-wide scavenger hunt Oskar’s father
assembled for him before he perished. This premise may
sound a bit too cute, but the acting and editing give gravity
to Oskar’s attempt to move on from the inconceivabl trauma
of personal loss. It is a story which may prove awkward for
some in a British audience. However, as someone hailing from
San Francisco, I can say with certainty that this is a film that
millions of Americans have been waiting to see, even if they
don’t know it yet. Ross Moody
22| Film
David Cronenberg
15
99 mins
David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous
Method had enormous potential.
Portrayals of Freud and his theories are
largely uncharted cinematic territory,
★★☆☆☆
so a movie about psychoanalysis
could have been remarkably engaging with such a talented
cast. Disappointingly, however, it falls flat on its face.
Michael Fassbender plays Carl Jung, a young, happily
married psychoanalyst. When he takes on new patient
Sabina Spielrein (a deranged, twitchy Keira Knightley), he is
immediately struck by the intriguing nature of her case. As their
relationship intensifies, Sabina and Jung begin a passionate,
violent affair in which Jung provides her with her most basic
desire – “punishment”. Meanwhile, his idealisation of fatherfigure Freud (Viggo Mortensen) slowly disintegrates, as he
realises that Freud is ignoring vital fields of psychoanalytic
theory due to concerns about his reputation.
The plot is a rich one, and the potentially dry topic of
psychoanalysis has been centred around what should be
an engaging, dramatic love affair. Here, however, lies the
problem. The sexual tension between Fassbender and Knightly
amounts to exactly zero. We never really understand why
Jung cheats on his gorgeous, kind-hearted wife to indulge in a
masochistic affair with such a vapid, dislikeable woman with
an unbearable attempt at a Russian accent. It doesn’t work.
Jung and Freud’s scenes are far more intriguing, and carefully
depicted. Their conversations about psychoanalysis create the
richest material in the film. If only Cronenberg hadn’t centred
the whole thing around a vacuous and unbelievable love
story, we may have had a much stronger, intelligent film on
our hands. As it is, no amount of spanking or nudity can save
it from its serious lack of excitement. Jessica Stewart
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
Mark Neveldine,
Brian Taylor
12A
95 mins
Somy Pictures
A Dangerous Method
CBS Films
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Getty Images
reviews
After the first film met with rough
reception from critics and audiences
in 2007, it seemed that the story of
demon-possessed daredevil Johnny
Blaze would get a full makeover.
★☆☆☆☆
However, directors Mark Neveldine
and Brian Taylor make one wonder who exactly was meant to
enjoy this jarring experience. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
moves the action to Eastern Europe, where sinister forces are
trying to capture 13-year-old Danny (Fergus Riordan) for use
in the fulfilment of a dark prophecy. The child and his mother
are being chased by a group of mercenaries, who have been
hired to bring the boy to become the new vessel for Roarke
(Ciaran Hinds), the living embodiment of Satan. Meanwhile,
an alcoholic French priest recruits Johnny Blaze (Nicolas
Cage) to help save the pair using his Ghost Riderly powers
with the promise of curing him of the curse.
Doused in low-budget pyrotechnics and car chases, this
second Ghost Rider instalment is riddled with cheesy punch
lines, whilst Nicolas Cage’s performance leaves us nostalgic
of the days of Wild at Heart. It’s astounding that the two
directors don’t seem to have had the intelligence to moderate
each other. Such is the mediocrity of this film.
The 3D experience here is often pointless. Some shots do
not even have any depth in the image. Self-indulgent camera
angles will have you leaving the theatre with your head in your
hands, your faith in cinema six feet under. This pyromanic
film gives us a blazing sequence of cheap digital effects and
loses its hero as well as the viewer in the midst of Hell’s flames,
where the film itself should have burnt. Time has come “for
this rider to head off into the sunset”.
Emerik Derian
The
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
CambridgeStudent
television
Being Human: Stretched too far?
TV watch
Emily Newton wonders about the future of Toby Whithouse’s supernatural drama
Inside Men – Drama series
about three men working in the
security business who use their
knowledge for an attempted heist
Being Human – All new
fourth series of kooky supernatural drama
MasterChef - Catch up on
Series 8 for all those mouthwatering delights
4oD:
Daddy Daycare – New series
following three fathers getting
intense child-care experience at a
nursery. Laughs guaranteed
you that conclusion is a fundamental
part of story-telling; why, then, is it so
often neglected in television? NBC’s
Heroes, for instance, was finally
cancelled in 2010, after struggling
with falling viewing figures and an
increasingly frustrating plot. But
quite frankly, more irritating was its
failure to reward viewers with the
closure of an ending, hampered by
its determination to outlive its own
strength. Heroes died a shameful
death.
By contrast, Spooks recently
concluded in exemplary fashion,
with the emotional enigma of Harry
Pierce finally given the limelight he
deserved after ten series. Sadly, it
seems to be one of only a handful of
shows that respect the dedication of
its audience with a finite ending.
I don’t wish to prematurely
judge the fourth series – in fact, I
desperately want it to be brilliant.
But it takes very strong vision and
format for a show to survive beyond
the appeal of its original characters. I
do think Being Human will manage
to regain its momentum, and that it
has much more to offer. However,
when the moment comes, I hope
that rather than wait for the show to
fizzle out, Whithouse will have the
courage to end on a high.
The Bank Job – Game show
set in a real bank, incase the title
had you wondering
Kirstie’s Handmade Britain
- Celebrity homemaker Kirstie
Allsopp travels around the country, entering artisan fair competitions. Each to their own
Channel 4
BBC Pictures
For the uninitiated among you, Being
Human follows a werewolf, a ghost,
and a vampire who share a flat,
trying to live a normal life. Be not
deceived: this is as far from Twilight
as it is possible to get, striking the
balance between horror and comedy.
However, it is hardly a secret that the
show recently dispatched three of
its four principal characters in and
around the last series’ finale. Given
this mass cull, can the programme
realistically continue?
Without dismissing it too soon,
the current plot seems to have too
much bombast to accommodate a
score of new characters, about whom
we know too little: Being Human
has always thrived on finding basic
human drama in the supernatural,
magnifying the importance of
personal struggle, whether it be
conquering blood lust or making
a decent cup of tea. Clearing the
character decks and radically raising
the stakes is something of a gamble.
With recommissioning often
occurring mid-series based on
viewing figures, television clearly
has to capitalise on success like
any other business. However, for
those of us at the receiving end, it is
emotional investment that usually
drives long-term viewing of dramas.
Any primary school child could tell
BBC iPlayer:
The
theatre
The Priory
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Want to get involved in Theatre?
Email theatre@tcs.cam.ac.uk
ADC Mainshow, 7.45pm
until Sat 25th Feb
★★★☆☆
For Rhian Lewis, strong acting wrestling with weak direction results in a mixed
A
Julia Fischel
ADC Mainshow for this Olivier Award-winning play
Pilot
Corpus Lateshow, 9.30pm
until Sat 25th Feb
It’s been a good term for original
student productions and it’s now
the turn of the distinctly low-brow
Pilot, by writer and director Ben
Rowse. I mean ‘low-brow’ in the
nicest sense of the word. Its tagline
reads “a cockpit cock-up”, yet
fortunately it never becomes simply
a string of worn avian innuendoes.
Farce is a tricky form: lines like
“Why the hell is there a giant kidney
bean in the sky?” don’t always
come easily. Happily, they come
naturally enough to Rowse. The
mindless optimism of its three-tosix characters (see below) and some
crackling one-liners (“an astronaut’s
just a shit alien, isn’t it?”) mean the
laughs keep coming and the whole
shebang flies along nicely.
The
play
was
cunningly
advertised via an excerpt at the
Footlights Smoker last week,
and it certainly drew me in then.
Adam Lawrence as Captain James
Marshall – or ‘Captain Sexy James
Marshall’ – leaps around the stage
with frenetic energy as he imagines
himself as a British hero fighting
some wonderfully absurdly-named
villains. ‘Mc McGrunter’ is a
great pastiche of the stereotypical
American, skirting cliché by
dropping in epithets that begin
with “cowboy, thanksgiving” and
end with “childhood obesity gun
crime”. Similarly, Blonde Long Hair
was outrageously vapid and slutty
24| Theatre
★★★★☆
enough to keep the little feminist in
me amused. It’s amazing how a tall
ginger-haired boy can transform
into a large-breasted minx if the
imaginary hair-flipping is vigorous
enough.
Arnold Portcullis and Harry
Potter (no, that is not a misprint),
played by Ben Pope and Dominic
Biddle respectively, shored up the
rest of the play well. Pope grew
proportionally better as he relaxed
into the role and his gurning
increased. Biddle’s manner could
perhaps have been developed a
bit more into caricature, and HQ’s
dialogue could also have done with
tightening up. Luckily, any looseness
is saved by an onslaught of brilliant
lines and knowingly terrible puns:
“I am furious. Fuhrer-ious!”
They say that when something
proceeds badly, ‘it descends into
farce’. Pilot, despite the riskiness of
its form, generally manages to soar,
treading the boundary between
the farcical and the overwrought
pretty well, and maintaining its
pace effectively. The action perhaps
gets too frenetic towards the end,
and the dénouement is not quite
as satisfying as the standard of
the rest of the play demands,
yet nevertheless this is a shining
example of what student writing
can achieve.
Freya Berry
s the audience walk in
to the tune of 90s pop, a
radio DJ croons about
New Years Eve. It is
the 31st December. In
a big country house. With ‘all the old
gang back together’. If that sounds like
a cliché, it’s because it is.
My main problem was really with
the play itself. I think it was a brave
choice: The Priory is a new play which
won the Olivier Award for Best New
Comedy, and there were parts where
the risk really did pay off. There
were golden moments of awkward
humour, carried by stand-out
performances from Mary Galloway as
the catty over-achiever Rebecca, and
Genevieve Gaunt as Laura. The latter
really stole the show. I must admit
that at first I was sceptical when I saw
that the director, Charlie Parham,
had described this as no ordinary
farce, where the characters are more
than just one dimensional stereotypes.
However, in the case of Laura, this was
certainly true. Gaunt persistently kept
the audience laughing, whilst subtly
building up a sense of underlying
vulnerability. Ned Carpenter, in the
role of Ben, gave a very energised
performance, particularly in his
emotionally-charged final scene.
Tension was, for the most part, built
and sustained between the characters
on stage, meaning that each new
revelation came as a complete shock.
There were golden
moments of
awkward humour,
carried by stand-out
performances from
Mary Galloway and
Genevieve Gaunt,
who really stole the
show
But it was Just. Too. Long. This
was a case of a play that really needed
to be cut down dramatically. The
opening sequence fell flat. All of the
disappearing in and out of doors
may have been a deliberate nod to
the farce tradition, but it needed to be
shortened; it did, however, show how
well-designed the set was.
Elsewhere, there were some very
moving moments. The cast and
direction really excelled when humour
was suddenly undercut with pathos, or
shock juxtaposed with the urbane. But
there were just too many of these highs
and lows in quick succession. There
aren’t many audiences that can sustain
that level of emotional intensity over
such a prolonged period of time. The
first half should have been shortened
to at least give us a chance.
There were also points where the
dialogue seemed very stilted. And I
have no idea what was supposed to
happen during the interval: the first
half ended in poignancy, but when
the lights went up on the second, each
character was in fancy dress. I don’t
think that the effect was supposed
to be surreal, but the audience were
certainly confused. It seemed to be
played for a cheap laugh and then
promptly forgotten about.
All in all, there was a lot of promise
in The Priory, but it was let down by a
slow beginning, lack of abridgement,
and some dodgy direction.
Les Justes
ADC Mainshow, 7.45pm
until Sat 25th Feb
Camus’ 1949 play about Russian
Socialist revolutionaries has never
been performed in Cambridge
before – and you can see why. It is a
hard piece to pull off, as while there
are interesting and provocative
themes of justice, love and murder,
it takes an audience with a decent
attention span and a cast who can
sustain it. The GADS’ attempt at
the Corpus Playroom was a mixed
bag. There were some beautiful and
brilliant moments and also some
flawed elements, caused by weak
acting and directorial decisions
that were well-intentioned, but
failed to deliver.
Some beautiful and
brilliant moments,
but flawed elements
The play, inspired by true events,
depicts the story of the efforts –
and eventual success – of a Socialist
terrorist cell plotting to kill the
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich
in 1905. The opening scene
introduces each character by turn
as they arrive at the apartment;
this structure becomes rather
stilted and formulaic. However,
things were noticeably eased by the
appearance of Charlie Merriman
as the central protagonist, Ivan
(or, “Yanek”). Merriman seems
★★★☆☆
completely at home onstage, and
his natural delivery and ease of
interaction with the rest of the
cast was a pleasure to watch. He
successfully dealt with the shifting
passions and dilemmas of the
character to give an emotionallycharged and nuanced performance
which carried the whole show.
If there is a criticism to make
of Merriman’s accomplishment,
it is that it regrettably showed up
in greater relief the weaknesses
of other cast members. Max
Thoma’s Stepan lacked that degree
of subtlety, his blustering and
shouting, although presumably
aimed at showing the bitter and
bullish nature of the character,
in fact rendered him devoid of
emotion: more variety was needed
to give greater depth. Instead of
disillusioned, temperamental and
unpredictable, as the programme
promised, he was simply annoying.
Furthermore, I have no idea if his
“scars”, revealed to Dora at the
emotional climax, were made-up
subtly or merely imaginary– if there
was anything to be shocked by, we
on the left side of the Playroom
missed it.
Another source of irritation came
in the form of Vainius Udra’s Boris,
whose role as leader of the cell
was undermined by Udra’s lack of
enunciation and pace, which meant
that many lines got lost. Similarly,
Matt Clayton as Skouratov failed to
become an effective force, as he was
presented in a sardonic and comic
manner which seemed totally out
of place with the rest of the play.
However, there is also much to be
praised here, and not just the star
turn of Merriman. Georgia Wagstaff
gave a superbly understated and
touching performance as Dora, her
fragile beauty and nervous anxiety
hiding a determined strength
which burst through at the perfect
moments. Alexander Thompson as
Alexis and Maria Montague as the
Grand Duchess ably supported the
principals, as did Robbie Haylett as
Foka, in a strangely disturbing yet
charming performance, if a little
too laid-back at times.
Overall this felt like a fractured
play. After gathering momentum
in the first half and producing
some admirable work, it faltered
after the interval: the change of
scene and characters appeared to
throw the director and the cast, and
the ending – rewritten by director
Fred Ward and involving echoing
voiceovers and stylised lighting –
sadly lost its effect by becoming
overdone and simply too long.
Yet there is much potential here,
and Merriman’s Yanek is certainly
worth seeing: a valiant attempt at a
difficult work.
Laura Peatman
The
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
CambridgeStudent
theatre
Preview: Die Fledermaus
West Road Concert Hall,
8pm, until Sat 25th Feb.
£16 adults, £10 concessions
With more than a hundred students gearing up for Cambridge University Opera Society’s biggest show of the year, Davina Moss gets
a sneak preview of this surprisingly relevant operetta and learns of some unusual influences on the creative team...
us “the vision of myself and our
designer places Die Fledermaus in
modern-day British society because
the nuances of the comedy are best
appreciated if it is easy to relate to.
With the success of The Hills, and
more recently Made in Chelsea,
we’re so conscious of this world of
rich twenty-something socialites.
The fact that this concept changes
very little about how the characters
are portrayed in the original
nineteenth century libretto shows
how fitting it is.
“Falke and Gabriel von Eisenstein
simply become young ‘rah’
Londoners, with too much money
and time. Rosalinde Eisenstein is a
young woman of similar pedigree;
her disenchantment with her
marriage early on is not difficult to
believe in this day and age. Alfred
remains an opera singer; his clichéd
opera references allowing him to
be portrayed as a ‘popular’ classical
singer, like a male Katherine
Jenkins. Adele is completely taken
with the celebrity culture which she
often glimpses through her master
and mistress; her desperation to
become a performer is fuelled by
talent shows like X Factor.”
Write-Offs
★★★★☆
Christ’s Yusuf Hamied Theatre,
9.30pm, until Fri 24th Feb
How does one represent limbo on
the stage? Manually transporting the
audience to the afterlife is labourintensive and mildly illegal, and just
putting a pole between two chairs
is definitely cheating. In Write-Offs,
limbo is a floor strewn with crumpled paper, discarded cigarette boxes
and the occasional comedian, with
our two writers (Robert Thomas
and Phil Liebman) tapping their feet
as they wait for the perfect sketch
to fall into their laps. As they work,
the stage behind them comes alive
and players cavort through the text,
and occasionally liberate themselves
from it.
The writers themselves interject
between sketches to provide a charming rapport of inane observations
and piercing revelations. Between
them they create a cohesive story,
praise-worthy when compared to
the sketch shows that flit around like
attention-deficit hummingbirds. It’s
a shame that the sketches don’t mirror this progression, and when the
actors and writers do intermingle it
feels as if the writers’ plight is playing catch-up with their work, and
never the other way around.
The sketches themselves vary, but
laughter comes in peals and some
moments easily elicit almighty roars.
Highlights include the running
jokes, such as the Victorians inventing the lesbian, as well as pockets of
delightful surrealism that pervade
almost all the sketches. Many lack
a strong punchline, a fact which the
writers happily acknowledge, but
seem to think this excuses it.
The story allows the play to gain
momentum and weight. Although it
starts slowly, the writers soon progress from simply going through old
work, to reviling each other, and
then to fearing for their existential
credentials. The titular ‘write-off ’,
where the two throw skit after skit
at each other, sadly fails to captivate.
However it’s quickly forgotten as the
actors delightful moments such as
an intermission where the audience
is reviewed by the players, and when
two raconteurs struggle to escape
the stage due to a fire started by one
of their earlier jokes.
It’s difficult not to feel drawn in to
this comedic purgatory. As jokes become increasingly impromptu it can
seem like you are indeed watching
sketches being penned, not just performed. Unfortunately, like many of
the sketches, the play itself feels like
it lacks a punchline, and the promise of a good yarn falls short of the
mark. That said, the sketches hold up
on their own, the writing is glib and
refreshingly imaginative. At its best,
the play sits you comfortably in that
murky grey area between a writer’s
ears, where mismatched puns and
the witty one-liners that came just
too late roam free.
Zephyr Penoyre
“The social world we are
portraying in our production of Die
Fledermaus has existed for some
time, having been documented in
magazines like Tatler for decades.
It is the production’s wide appeal
that remains one of the reasons
Fledermaus has been chosen for
the CUOS Mainshow – we are
incredibly passionate about sharing
opera with new audiences and
Strauss is a perfect introduction.”
When asked to sum up opera,
Made in Chelsea’s Spencer Matthews
claimed “Mate, it’s exhilarating; I
reckon you might like it.”
From what we’ve heard about Die
Fledermaus, we reckon so too.
Edward Quekett
T
he wait is over – this
year’s CUOS Mainshow
Die Fledermaus opens
tonight, and with
more than a hundred
Cambridge students involved in the
show, it sounds pretty spectacular.
The production team told us “we’ve
been building the set for two weeks
now, and the gilded double bridal
staircase for our Act II masked ball is
almost complete”, and the gorgeous
production photos suggest that this
may be one of the most visually
exciting pieces to grace West Road
Concert Hall in recent years.
When The Cambridge Student
asked the team about their choice of
opera, they noted that Fledermaus
has only been staged by CUOS once
before, in 1981. Director Laurie
Stevens reckons it’s surprising, as
it’s such “a popular, appealing and
accessible work” and says “with the
traditional position of the CUOS
Mainshow halfway through Lent
term, a musical comedy is welcome
relief from the Week Five Blues”. A
German operetta nearly 150 years
old may not sound the most likely
remedy for essay crises, but Stevens
is adamant it’s relevant. She told
The
columns
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Damsel in distress
By Miranda Pottinger
I sometimes think that being too
sociable will be my downfall.
Not when it comes to my degree,
although the too-hungover-to-getout-of-bed scenario is a student
standard for a reason. In fact, when
I first arrived, my DoS actively
encouraged us fresher Englings to
go for coffee together and talk about
books – not exactly a hardship.
English is one of the loneliest
degrees: some days I feel swallowed
by the library and have to remind
myself how face-to-face contact
works after seven solid hours of
sitting in the ivory (brick) tower
that is the UL. To avoid this feeling,
I go for a lot of coffee with friends.
I spend so much time in Starbucks
at home that I have befriended
the baristas, and ended up at the
manager’s 30th birthday party.
When I do leave the library, I
spend much of my time making
new friends. In week -1, I got into
conversation with two Italian boys in
a coffee shop, and set them up with
the Polish girls on the next table: a
successful bout of matchmaking. I
came to university hoping to meet
all sorts of people. My hometown
is the smallest city in England
after the City of London – if you
think Cambridge is a bubble, visit
charmingly rural Wells. As h2g2
put it, “if you want a quiet place to
live, move to Wells.” My friendliness
is born of my desire not to miss
out on meeting someone different
and interesting: I’m open to new
friendships because, chances are, I
really haven’t met anyone quite like
you before.
But my openness to striking up
conversations also gets me into
some odd situations. We will all be
familiar with the street fundraisers
who collar you for a donation to
whichever charity is out in force –
all great causes, but I don’t always
have the time to stop and chat,
nor to join in a sing-a-long to Ed
Sheeran’s ‘A Team’ outside Boots,
as happened this week. Before
Christmas, I promised to attend
a Mormon singles night, because
I simply couldn’t explain that I
was friendly rather than truly
interested in converting (I never
did turn up...). And, until recently, I
thought it was normal to have what
I half-seriously call my “stalkers”
– occasional men who pursue me
incredibly persistently, without
encouragement.
This is the dilemma: at what
point does openness to all that
life has to offer invite unwelcome
attention? In my efforts to balance
the loneliness of the English degree
that takes up roughly 70% of my
time (slacker), I also allow myself
to get into conversation with some
pretty weird types. While I may
court the attention of my
newest friend, I don’t want
them to follow me home.
The night I was forced to
build a den out of cushions
in Fez and hide there until
closing time to avoid a
particularly keen man
was the unfortunate end
of a fledgling friendship.
Such a reaction is a
lifestyle hazard.
As Lana Del Rey
sings, “it’s you, it’s
you, it’s all for you, everything I do.”
Well, maybe I should broaden my
perspective. Rather than balance
the loneliness of my degree with
the conversation of strangers,
it’s about time I put more effort
into strengthening my current
relationships and even
learn to enjoy my own
company more. A
stranger may well be
a friend I haven’t met
yet, but it is worth
bearing in mind that
a friend I meet in a
club is unlikely to
be my soul-mate –
something I’ll be
reminding myself
from under the
cushions next time.
Insanitabridgians by Clementine Beauvais
How feminism got its knickers in a twist, part 2
By Alice Gormley
I can list the number of women
that make me laugh on one hand.
The last time a female genuinely
split my sides was in 2009 when
Margaret Thatcher fell down the
stairs. Our pants are in a pickle.
The entertainment factor of
many comedienne’s acts
too frequently wavers
between surprising and
disappointing;
female
comedy is sliding, and not
on a banana skin.
Wollstonecraft once
lambasted Rousseau
for assuming women
had
inherent
characteristics, and
in this sense I
am anti-JeanJacques; girls
weren’t born
dull.
Girls
26| Columns
aren’t bred merely to pinch the
crusts on the pies baked freshly for
clown’s faces. From Victoria Wood
to Miranda Hart, women, with
that inimitable empathetic wit only
girls can harness, have made
us laugh. But still they
disappoint. Far too
often, women resort
to a form of humour
that is ugly, dumb and
ultimately apologetic.
They don’t need to.
I like Sarah Millican.
In one act, she
diffuses the complex
and touchy issues of
relationships and body
image in that lovable
South Shields squeak.
Then, in what can
only be described as
a collision of the souls
of Joan Rivers and the McCain™
brothers, we find ourselves on
the topic of potato-printing our
genitals. Recounting how she shared
a discussion with a friend wherein
labial anxieties were aired, the act
slid into a less tickling vulgarity.
What a waste of potato. Not that
you’d still want that Shepherd’s
Pie. Thank goodness Tracey Emin
doesn’t work in catering.
“our pants are in
a pickle”
This assumed bravery is invariably
misguided. Comediennes, feminist
or otherwise, like to wield the
c-word. I hate the c-word. It was
the only point on which Caitlin
Moran disappointed me in her
recent publication How To Be a
Woman. I think I can follow the
logic: it’s a powerful word for an oftstigmatised body part, and should
be ours to shout at 400 decibels.
I disagree. It doesn’t belong to
feminism; it belongs to linguistics.
Saying a rude word for your front
bottom is not funny, and it is not
empowering. I didn’t hear Hillary
Clinton use it once in her 2008
Presidential Campaign.
Crudity is a shame. Women feel
queasy, men feel queasy, and no
one has packed a punch for the
Pankhursts. But idiocy is worse.
The recently aired series New
Girl features a shallow Zooey
Deschanel socially incongruous
and problem-laden enough to be
at once funny and relatable. Oh,
4oD. If Frankenstein had graduated
from Anglia Ruskin boasting a
Hairdressing with Eugenics degree,
then I would understand how this
monster had come to roam our
streets. Sarah Silverman is another
culprit. There she stands, giggling
at her own intellectual paucity,
approaching jokes with the sort of
timidity that the first enfranchised
woman approached the ballot box.
Like humour is a woman’s right still
foetal, its existence still contingent.
It is not only my stomach and
sensibilities these truths upset. The
reason women speak so aggressively
on matters most controversial is
because they are sunk in residual
guilt. And when not under the
illusion of courage, they play dumb.
Shock tactics are often ways of
saying sorry for something one
doesn’t completely understand,
and airheadedness? I’ve heard that’s
biological.
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Thu
23
Fri
24
Sat
25
Sun
26
Mon
Hugo at St. John’s Films 21.00 £3
Hugo is the astonishing adventure of a wily and resourceful boy whose quest to unlock a secret left to him
by his father will transform Hugo and all those around
him, and reveal a safe and loving place he can call home.
The
CambridgeStudent
listings
Die Fledermaus at the West Road Concert Hall
20.00 £16, £10
Diane Abbott at the Latimer Room, Clare
College 20.30
Cambridge University Opera Society
presents the operatic highlight of the year
- Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, bubbling with
infectious energy.
Diane Abbott MP, the first black woman to
be elected to the House of Commons.
In 2010, Abbott became Shadow
Public Health Minister after unsuc-
Marina and the Diamonds at the Junction 19.00 £17
The opening night of Cambridge’s student film festival
at Downing College. 2012 promises to be a big year for
Watersprite and the festival keeps going from strength to
strength.
Speaking out in Sudan in Latimer
Room, Clare College 19.30
The Cambridge Hub and Aegis Trust present Dr. Mukesh
Kapila discussing injustice in Sudan. This will be a great
talk for anyone interested in human rights or international development as well as anyone who is looking to have a
career in this sector.
The Priory at the ADC 19.45 £8
Barry Lyndon at Arts Picturehouse 19.00
The final night of this sharp, biting comedy comes to the
ADC fresh from its London premiere at the Royal Court
Theatre, where it won the Laurence Olivier Award for
‘Best New Comedy’.
We will be screening an overlooked masterpiece: Stanley
Kubrick’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Thackeray’s literary classic, Barry Lyndon. This breathtaking epic follows
the picaresque adventures of its roguish hero as he cuts a
swathe through 18th century society.
Breaking & Entry – Paths into Film & TV at Lecture Theatre, Queen’s Building, Emmanuel College 11.15
Watersprite Opening 2012 at the Howard Building, Downing College 20.15
The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Christ’s
Films 21.00 £3
Audience participation is a must at
our annual showing from costumes
to pelvic thrusting.
Sunday Coffee Concerts at Kettle’s Yard 12.00 £7/£4
Orlando Gough’s ‘Flam’, performed by Rebecca
Askew and Melanie Pappenheim: a light, musical
sketch, for a welcome midday break (from work,
more than likely). Come along for coffee and a
laugh.
The 25 year old Greek/Welsh singer-songwriter has
been very busy over the past few months working on
the much-awaited follow up to her critically-acclaimed
debut album The Family Jewels. She’s also been touring
the USA.
This session is a rare and precious opportunity to quiz
accomplished and experienced speakers about how to
break into the TV and film industries.
Pub Quiz at The Mitre, Bridge Street 20.30
The Quiz Society brings you a night of trivia,
drinks and healthy competition. There are
prizes to be drunk and reputations to be
won.
Hatch is a showcase of the best new writing from
students in Cambridge. Following packed-out shows in
2011, the event returns for one night only. Expect an invigorating collection of short plays, monologues, poems,
works in progress, each under 10 minutes long.
Bryony Kimmings & Friends: Art Crush at Junction J3
20.00 £6
Bryony Kimmings (Associate Artist) and Kate Madden
at The Junction love art, and what’s more they love you!
What better way to celebrate their favourite things than
to programme a rip-roaring, sparkletastic performance
evening, with silly chat, fun tunes and dancing about!
Wine Auction and Tasting at Old
Library, Emmanuel College 19.00 £8
Tue
Footlights Spring Revue: Donors at the ADC 19.45 £8
The Kids Are All Right at the Arts Picturehouse 18.15
Unconditional at Pembroke New Cellars
The Footlights’ Spring Revue 2012 brings you a comedy
sketch show that’s “so funny it’s inaccurate”, say The Association of British Neurologists. ‘Donors’ promises to
flood your brain with laughter-induced endorphins.
A moving and funny family drama that’s both an intimate character study and a comedy of errors. Annette
Bening, and Julianne Moore star as Nic and Jules, a lesbian couple with two beautiful children, Joni and Laser.
As a married couple prepare for a rare night alone, a
simple mistake provokes a confession that threatens to
devastate their family. Forced to face up to an uncomfortable reality, accusations and apologies are exchanged
as the pair desperately try to understand the truth.
Wed
The Mikado at Mumford Theatre, Anglia Ruskin 19.30 £8
Jimeoin at the Corn Exchange 20.00 £14.50
Ian Collins addresses Entrepeneurs on the Move 18.00
A man is about to be executed. He has committed an
atrocity so terrible that he faces the most severe punishment the town can throw at him. Koko, a lowly tailor,
has been caught flirting. This is Gilbert and Sullivan’s
comic masterpiece.
The internationally recognized stand-up, and occasional actor, had his own TV show in Australia and frequently performs at the Endiburg Fringe. In Cambridge
for one night only!
Register online to get involved: Collins has a history
of tech start-ups and is currently director of Advisory
Ltd., a venture firm, as well as a trustee of Cambridge
Carbon footprint.
27
28
29
Hatch at Corpus Playroom 21.30 £5
A variety of donated lots from the
cellars of Cambridge colleges will be
auctioned off to raise money in aid of
Cambridge RAG.
ACROSS
1. Small fry sells belongings and pockets
bottom dollar (6)
4. Boring places where cat scratches bottom
and returns to Orson, say (3,5)
9. Confused tale following record warning
of auto-intuition (1-5)
10. English stage incorporating barrel and
all-around glassware (4,4)
12. Island gives us energy at sea (8)
13. Whig politician making a comback
after doctor diagnoses timber problem
(3-3)
15. May this be your example: choose to
be energetic, abandoning conservative
attitude (8,4)
19. Darwin’s work reportedly produces
discord on an island? (7,2,3)
22. Bawdy piece of tribal drama (6)
23. Warning of Communists? (3,5)
26. Likely to lie in court? Vigorously jeer
and purr (8)
27. Cycling endlessly coming to island and
then another (6)
28. Company joins a church and heads of
marketing agency nitpicking chief whip,
perhaps? (8)
29. Terribly sore, having bagged two
centuries in American sport, as we hear (6)
19.00 £5
DOWN
1. Sounds like parrot received absorbing
introduction to languages thus making it
one? (8)
2. Troubles even affect the manliest! (8)
3/11. Absent churchgoer is out of
commission? (3,2,7)
5. Regularly raised calendric concept (4)
6. Engineer mostly opposed to royal sport
but makes up another (5,4)
7. Assortment of uniform Rublev edgings
and Leo’s Mona Lisa here (6)
8. Lute’s playing hard to detect (6)
11. See 3
14. Remanded, having lost head, and
changed for the better? (7)
16. Star group produces punk, accepting
help with arrangement (3,6)
17. Mensa mixed account bringing in one
who can’t keep lids shut (8)
18. More problematic than Gordius,
perhaps? (8)
20. Subject picks up first of receivers and
gets one of those hotlines (6)
21. Beginning from Northern region, drop
South to get to this pennisula (6)
24. “An acidic type?” the setter asks
himself, “absolutely not!” (5)
25. Technophobe tactically bottled this
type of test? (4)
set by Jon Mackenzie
Bridge cover (p.15): Chi King
Listings |27
Last week’s answers
ACROSS: 1 Gorbachev, 6 apres, 9 mugwump, 10 aquinas, 11 trio, 12 ode, 13 balaam, 16 pah, 17 airsickness, 19
inquisition, 21 bay, 22 climax, 24 ski, 25 xmas, 29 tequila, 30 realism, 31 needs, 32 despinoza. DOWN: 1 gamut,
2 roguish, 3 aqua, 4 hypodermic, 5 viae, 6 ahura, 7 rentage, 8 sesamesoy, 14 magi, 15 miniskirts, 16 princeton, 18
kant, 20 quinque, 21 bambino, 23 arius, 26 summa, 27 rand, 28 taxi
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30/01/2012 14:51
SPORT
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
The
CambridgeStudent
Nic Redhead
Comment: Subcontinent cricket, past and present
Harry McNeill-Adams
A cautious optimism is developing
about
England’s
One-Day
Side. Alastair Cook and Kevin
Pietersen’s centuries, coupled
with a brace of supporting fifties
by Ravi Bopara, have led to an
emphatic series whitewash victory.
England have won convincingly
against opposition from the
subcontinent, on pitches which
closely resembled those found in
India, Pakistan or Bangladesh.
Excluding
matches
against
Bangladesh, England has achieved
this feat twice in the forty year history
of One-Day Internationals. Surely
we should proclaim the new dawn
of the One-Day team, particularly
given the humiliating thrashing
the Test side received against
largely the same group of players?
Although KP has performed
superbly, England’s ODI success has
been aided by poor Pakistan play.
No, actually; despite some superb
individual performances, we need
to look a bit more closely as to
why England won, and whether
this is a team capable of repeating
such
performances
regularly
and against different opposition.
The first issue is that this
Pakistan side is not actually that
good. In Afridi, Ajmal and Gul,
they possess three world class
One-Day performers, but Gul’s
form has been extremely poor and
Ajmal much less threatening than
in the Tests without the pressure
exerted by men around the bat.
To give them their dues, they have
been let down by the wicket keeping
of Umar Akmal, who has brought to
this series the shocking revelation
that Kamran isn’t the least talented
wicketkeeper in the Akmal family.
There is no worse judgement that
can be made upon a wicketkeeper
in any form or level of cricket.
Nevertheless, the major problem
lies in their batting, especially in the
middle order. Good players though
they undoubtedly are, Pakistan’s
Azhar Ali, Younis Khan and Misbah
Ul Haq are not quick scorers by
modern One-Day standards. The
real test for England’s bowling attack
will be when bowling at Sehwag, de
Villiers or Warner on a flat pitch.
Of course, England can only beat
who is put in front of them, but
the manner of their victories has
not inspired confidence that the
traditional faults of English OneDay batting - namely an inability to
score quickly in the final overs of an
innings - have been entirely rectified.
Ravi Bopara is not the man for
the job. Important though his
contributions were to the first two
victories, his career strike rate of 75
suggests that he cannot be regarded
as a viable finisher when England set
targets. On recent form, Jonathan
Trott has a marginally better
claim to the number three spot,
which is where Bopara’s long term
future should lie. Of the current
side only Eoin Morgan has shown
that he can consistently find the
boundary at the end of an innings
although Craig Kieswetter and
Jos Buttler have shown promise.
We should be cautiously
optimistic about this group of
players, but it is still debatable
whether, in the end, they have
the ability to win a World Cup.
Kit Holden
Last Thursday, Indian Society
members were treated to an
hour long charm offensive from
one of the sub-continent’s most
charismatic cricketing figures. In
a talk entitled “The Lighter Side
of Cricket”, Farokh Engineer,
the former Indian wicketkeeper and opening batsman
recanted some of the fonder
memories of his notable career.
Engineer - who, with opening
partner Sunil Gavaskar, became
symbolic of India’s rise to power
in the global game - belongs to
a different era. An era in which
modelling for Brylcreem was the
height of celebrity success. An era
in which India’s Test representatives
were paid a mere 50 rupees per
game. An era dominated by the
white elitist forces of England
and Australia, and the fearsome
aggression of the West Indies.
In terms of amiability, Engineer
is to Ricky Ponting what David
Dimbleby is to Stalin. Upon his
arrival at the drinks reception,
he made a point of shaking the
hand of every person in the
room. His repeated words of
thanks to the audience which
had turned up to welcome him
betrayed not an ounce of false
modesty, but rather a delightful
and all too rare partiality to charm.
As for the stories themselves, it
is clear that the eccentric grace of
his cricket is yet to disappear from
his personality. As unforgiving
as Geoffrey Boycott (who he
mischievously described as a
typically backward Yorkshireman),
but with none of the obnoxious self
importance, Engineer launched
into a catalogue of anecdotes and
opinions on every topic in the
book. Sachin Tendulkar would
get his hundredth hundred,
the DRS system is a fantastic
development, and Mahendra
Singh Dhoni is “a lucky bitch”.
The comic touch was perfect
as he ironically bemoaned the
advantages of the modern bat,
gently ridiculed Gavaskar, and
even got away with a somewhat
dated joke about West Indian
close fielders. But Engineer’s
cricketing brain remains sharp,
and there were some damning
condemnations
of
Duncan
Fletcher’s management and the
dangers of not selecting youth.
It is unfortunate that Engineer,
with all his graceful flare, both in
cricketing and personal terms,
found himself in an era which
preceded the glamorous glory
years of the One-Day game. But
his love for progress was evident.
The evening culminated with a
raffle to win a bat signed by the
Indian team, the proceeds of which
would go to Engineer’s charity
to raise funds for disadvantaged
children across India. It was the
perfect end to an evening with a
man who is truly an ambassador
for the lighter side of cricket.
Forget Murray, this is real tennis
Ollie Guest
Sports Co-Editor
David Hardeman
What’s the oldest racquet sport game
in the world? I’ll give you a clue: it’s
a game where to become a professional you have to be able to “make
your own balls and string a racquet.”
Another hint: all the racquets in
the world are made by “four people
in a shed”, not far from Cambridge.
Just four men make the wooden
apparatus for over 10,000 players.
Real tennis is a fascinating game.
First played in streets by people in
the 13th century, originally you participated with your hands and a soft
leather ball. Now you use wooden
racquets and much harder balls.
Speaking with James Watson,
the men’s captain of the University Real Tennis Club, I learnt
a great deal about a game reliant on strength, stamina and a
great tactical nous. A hybrid of
squash and lawn tennis, there
are many nuances to appreciate.
For instance, he explains about
the racquet: “The first thing you
notice is that it’s bent, it’s wonky. It’s designed like your hand.
They’re wooden because if they
were carbon fibre the balls would
fly too fast; you just wouldn’t
have time to get out of the way.”
It’s easy enough to imagine how
dodging a whizzing baseball in a
caged atmosphere would not be
everyone’s cup of tea. The court
itself is crazy: a net in the centre seems normal enough but
the high, imposing walls on one
side are contrasted to the sloping,
penthouse style wall on the other.
In order to serve you must hit the
ball off this sloping wall and make
it land on the opponent’s side. With
such angles involved, there are endless possibilities for how to use the
serve, meaning there are hundreds of
styles. But then there’s another twist.
“There’s no standard size of
court. For instance, the angle of
the sloped penthouses can change
but the biggest thing is the roughness of the walls. The rougher they
are, the more spin there may be.
Also, the thicker the wall the better the bounce,” explains Watson.
Consequently, your pre-tournament preparation involves hours
of deciding how to manipulate the
environment to your advantage.
In few other sports does playing
at home give you such an edge.
So what of the rules? Scoring is
the same as in lawn tennis, but there
are peculiarities. You automatically
win the point if you hit two particular areas of the court. If the returner
hits a band of netting behind the
server they win the point outright.
Equally, if the server hits a box to
the right of the returner, about
head height, the point is theirs.
Simple, right? Now it gets more
complicated. “One guy in theory
could serve the entire match.” Serving changes by ‘laying a chase’. Essentially, there are markings on
the server’s floor. If the returner
hits the ball within these markings and it bounces twice, then a
‘chase’ has been laid. If two chases
are laid, or if one chase is laid and
there is only one point in the game
– such as 40-30 - then the players
switch sides and the server changes.
The player who laid the chase
is now serving. The person who
is now returning must hit the ball
further than the chase mark. So,
if the mark was ‘four’ this may
mean four yards from the back
wall. Hence the returner has to hit
their shot so that it will land within
four feet or less of the back wall.
If they don’t, they lose the point.
Confusing. Critically, in theory “a
player may only have six inches to
aim at” making it harder for them
to win the rally although the chase
only lasts for one or two points.
With England boasting the most
courts in the world - approximately thirty - real tennis may not
be overly popular but you evidently become hooked. The Cambridge club, open to students and
townsfolk alike, boasts members
from “as young as seven or eight
to some well into their eighties.”
This weekend the team travel to
Lord’s for Varsity. “We’re stronger
at the top end and weaker at the
bottom so the singles will probably
be level. It’s all about the doubles,”
concludes Watson, who is hopeful that the men can build on last
year’s success to bring further glory.
The
CambridgeStudent
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
30| Sport
Wet weekend of Varsity clashes Pythons knock
Falcons off perch
Tamsin Owen and Dan Woolcott
Tony Owen
Yet Cambridge refused to be
beaten as Di Pietro, Davies and
Matijan drew the game level.
However, Oxford snatched another
to give them an 8-7 advantage.
But Cambridge were not to be
undone at the end as the magnificent
Crichton wrestled possession to
strike a majestic one two. From the
restart, Kupavari stole and Di Pietro
fed Davies who finished brilliantly.
An outstanding last minute save
from man-of-the-match Bruno
Frederico gave Cambridge their
first win at Oxford in a decade.
In the women’s swimming, Dillon
and Pickard took the top spots in
the 200m individual Medley to
give Cambridge a positive start.
However, in the second round
the Dark Blues highlighted their
strength by taking first place
in every event. Heading into
the relays the ladies knew the
scores were against them and
the Dark Blues took the victory.
The men fared little better despite
valiant performances, especially by
Corley and Carpenter. Corely was
outstanding in winning both the
200m and 400m freestyle events.
A particularly controversial
moment came in the 100m
freestyle when Dale Waterhouse
was harshly judged to have finished
fractionally slower that the Oxford
President. This result deflated
Cambridge’s morale as the Dark
Blues clinched the remaining
relays and the trophy with it.
Thomas Piachaud
The Light Blues enjoyed some mixed
results in the water-based Varsity
fixtures in Oxford last weekend.
While the squad celebrated double
delight in the waterpolo, both the
men and women succumbed to
defeat in the swimming.
The women’s waterpolo team
earned a dominant 11-5 victory.
The day’s top scorer, Anna Sutcliffe,
opened the Light Blues’ account
when the first of her six expertly
directed shots helped the team to
a 3-1 lead after the initial quarter.
Although Oxford tried to up the
tempo, the Light Blues comfortably
saw out the danger, controlling
the match to suit their own pace.
Soon, Cambridge exploited
the diminishing work ethic
of
their
opponents
with
goals courtesy of Hulbert,
Brandon, Owen and Faulkner.
Cambridge’s tireless energy saw
them secure a justified victory.
The men’s waterpolo was an
equally riveting affair as Cambridge
showed unequalled spirit to secure
a dramatic last minute victory.
Oxford took the first quarter
3-2 but Cambridge’s passion kept
them motivated even though
the clinical finishing of Oxford
gave them the momentum.
With their team 6-4 ahead as
they entered the final quarter,
the home crowd’s enthusiasm
reaching a crescendo when a
screamer of a goal extended their
lead with five minutes remaining.
Cambridge
22
Kent
20
Thomas Piachaud
The Pythons travelled to take
on the #8 ranked Kent Falcons.
QB Joe Yarwood unleashed a
pass to the fade, to find WR Steve
Kinnersely for a 72 yard connection. Some hard running followed,
with Nick Roope pounding the
ball in for the score and putting
Cambridge on top 8-0. Just before
half-time the Falcons scored with
successful 2pt conversion, making
the score 8-8. Kent were the first
to strike in the second half, putting
the score at 14-8 in the 3rd quarter.
Cambridge struck back, Nick
Roope finding his way into the
end zone on an inside run; with
the successful 2pt the score stood
16-14 to the Pythons. The Falcons scored again and were ahead
20-16 with 3 minutes left to go.
Sticking to the ground game, RB
Lajos Torok broke a huge 40yd run,
to set the Pythons up in the end zone.
Cambridge pounded the ball up the
middle and Nick Roope found an
opening, giving the Pythons a 22-20
lead. The 35 seconds that remained
wasn’t enough for the Falcons to
claw their way back in front and the
Pythons brought home the victory.
Sport-in-Brief
Volleyball
Despite a horrendous journey to
the venue where some of the team
were involved in a car crash, the ladies volleyball team earned a second place finish in the Volleyball
England Student Cup earlier this
month. After a quarter-final win
over Northumbria and a semi-final victory against Bath, the team
fought spectacularly in a closely
fought final. In the end, they just
lost to University of London.
Lacrosse - women
Lacrosse - men
The men ran out of luck in the
BUCS Cup semi-final, losing 7-1
to Cardiff. After going down 4-1
in the first quarter, Cambridge
managed to hold them to draws
in the second and third quarters,
but couldn’t match the energy of
the 17-strong squad. Both the
men and women will face Oxford
this weekend in their Varsity fixtures.
Christine Hart
A 10-9 victory over Bristol saw the
Lacrosse Women secure a place
in the BUCS Championship final.
Laura Plant showed her lethal
touch with a hat-trick in what was
a tense affair. The lead switched
hands a number of times, with
the Light Blues having to rely on
stout defending to keep in contention. When the game entered
overtime, Alana Livsey dramtically secured glory for the women with the match winning goal.
Football
Sunday’s trip to London saw
the Blues cruise to a 4-1 victory
against Union of London Universities, with goals from Rutt,
May and Childs and a ULU own
goal. In yesterday’s game against
the Southern Amateur League,
the Cambridge side made some
changes to their starting line up
and deserved more than the 3-2
loss suggests. Totten and Kerrigan scored the goals, with Innes
and Childs hitting the woodwork late in the second half
Women’s Rugby
The girls lost 30-0 to Lakenham
Hewett in Norwich on Sunday.
Against a much more experienced side, the Blues kept their
best efforts up, but were unable to
convert their chances into points.
Archery
At the BUCS indoors competition, the Experienced team managed to place sixth out of 44 teams,
a result made more inpressive by
the small margin between fourth,
fifth and sixth places. The Novice
team placed 10th out of 36 teams.
American Football
Captain Thomas Piachaud has
made it to the second round of trials for the GB squad. He is joined
by fellow Python Nick Roope.
The
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
CambridgeStudent
College Sport: round-up
Rugby
Downing overcame Robinson
14-0, whilst Caius caused an upset against Trinity, unconverted tries from Jamie Hepburn,
Ed Phillips and Sam Alderton
taking them to a 15-7 victory.
Sport |31
Green Lions roar back
to defeat Brookes
Cambridge
Telford
2
Cambridge
Bedford
Tigers 40
Netball
Cambridge
Queens’ redeemed themselves after
last term’s defeat to Murray Edwards,
beating them 23-15, whilst Catz
lost to Downing 26-15. Newnham
were also beaten 25-10 by Jesus.
Chris McKeon
Olivia Lee
Homerton made the journey to Girton and were two goals up after 10
minutes through an own goal and a
fine Steve Pates finish. Despite moments of complacency, Homerton
ended the game victorious at 2-0.
Steve Wildman
A hard fought second round Cuppers game saw Downing take on
Selwyn. Failing to produce the
quality they have recently displayed
in the League, Selwyn fell 1-0 down
before half-time. A close second
half ended up going in Downing’s
favour as they added a second
and third, eventually winning 3-0.
Dave Hawes
Christs stunned Caius to win 1-0
and earn themselves a place in the
Cuppers quarter final. The winning
goal came as the ball emerged from
the midfield for Christ’s striker,
who pinged it into the corner of
the net. Unable to find an equalizer, Caius were left to contemplate another poor run in the Cup.
Martin Iacoponi
Cambridge United struggle
to FA Trophy quarter final
Cambridge
1
Guiseley
0
Brendan Shepherd
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Cambridge United progressed
sluggishly to the Fourth Round
of the FA Trophy, as Luke Berry’s
well-taken goal proved enough to
see off the part-timers of Guiseley.
After a slow start, Cambridge
soon found their stride against their
Conference North opponents. Ryan
Jackson made his home debut, and
looked like a pacy and tricky addition to the United squad. His direct
running provided a constant thorn
in the side of the Guiseley defence.
Despite an early chance for
Boshell, Guiseley struggled to create much, with Danny Naisbitt in
the United goal enjoying a quiet
first half. In contrast, Berry soon
drew a good save from former
Cambridge ‘keeper Steve Drench in
the Guiseley goal, and Dunk showing his usual pace down the left.
Cambridge looked the far stronger outfit and the goal soon came
when the impressive Jackson beat
his man to pull his cross back to
the edge of the area, where Berry
pounced to drill a low shot past
the ‘keeper. The clinical nature of
this finish was the high point of an
otherwise forgettable encounter.
Some pressure late in the
half by Guiseley nearly bore
fruit, but in the most part Cambridge
seemed
untroubled.
The loss of Gash to injury after
a defensive goalmouth scramble
saw United lose yet more attacking
potency as his replacement Liam
Hughes struggled to hold the ball up.
What had been a poor game in
the first half got no better in the
second, Guiseley having sporadic
attacks without ever really worrying
the Cambridge faithful.
The introduction of Rossi Jarvis
after an hour saw Cambridge have
the chance to bury the tie, yet the
industrious midfielder conspired
to put both a shot and a header
wide in the space of a few minutes.
It was to be Guiseley who finished
the game exerting pressure, albeit
without success as Cambridge progressed to the FA Trophy Quarter
Finals where they will play Wealdstone on Saturday. Although the U’s
will be disappointed with the level
of performance in this encounter,
the chance to continue their hunt
for some silverware will no doubt
please the Abbey Stadium masses.
At the weekend, Cambridge’s
push for promotion suffered a blow
due to a 1-0 defeat away at leaders Fleetwood Town. An early goal
from Andy Mangan was enough to
separate the sides and leave Cambridge in tenth place in the Blue
Square Bet Premier, now six points
off the play-off places.
Having failed to convert an early
domination of Eastern Conference side Bedford Tigers into
a victory at the weekend, the
Green Lions exacted some revenge for previous defeats with a
30-20 defeat of Oxford Brookes
A in the BUCS cup competition.
With Brookes giving away a
penalty with their first tackle,
Cambridge camped within the
visitors’ half, eventually converting pressure into points as Greg
Cushing offloaded to free Tom
Elton to score under the posts.
Cambridge were dominant for
much of the game, although a lack
of substitutes due to injuries meant
that, towards the end, tiredness began to tell, allowing Brookes a few
easy tries. This made the scoreline a
little less representative Cambridge’s
dominance. Still, a win is a win and
the side is looking strong for Varsity.
Olivia Lee
Jesus took on Fitz and dominated
possession in the first half. Will
Sheldon drove into the box for first
goal on the stroke of half-time. The
second goal came from a slick passing move as Jordan Nadian made a
run to provide the perfect cross for
O’Loughlin to head home. A third
swiftly followed, the ball dropping
to Alex Azizi who smashed it into
the top corner. The final goal came
as Harry Roocroft nodded home
from close range to make it 4-0.
Justin Maini
cambrid
Football
30
Oxford Brookes A 20
Hockey
Friday evening saw Catz take on
Murray Edwards in a hotly contested semi-final Cuppers game. Both
teams started strong, but it was Catz
who managed to find the back of
the goal first with an excellent deflection by one of the starting forwards. The first half ended 2-0, but
Murray Edwards fought hard and
Captain Jo Leeper scored, sneaking
the ball past the Catz keeper in a
one-on-one head. The final whistle
blew with the final score 4-2 to Catz.
Georgie Ward
24
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American
Football p.30
The
CambridgeStudent
SPORT
College
Sport p.31
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Young blood gives Blues a boost
Cambridge
19
Spoon A-A
14
Olivia Lee
Sports Co-Editor
Number 15 Tom Kanuros ramped
up the pressure with a weaving run
before eventually being brought
down by Jonathan Parkingson.
A forward pass from Spoons lost
them their momentum and a fantastic
right-wing run from Murdoch
looked hopeful, as he handed off the
Spoons threats that came his way. He
was brought down near the posts, but
Cambridge took the initiative and
kept the pressure up until Paul Louden
crossed the line. Stephen converted
to take Cambridge to a 19-0 lead.
Spoons put in a good effort to
try and claw some points back, but
they were blocked in every attempt,
until, after 30 minutes, Welch
managed to make a clean break,
with Sam Mullarky converting. It
wasn’t long before the opposition
struck lucky again, closing the gap
to 19-14 with five minutes to play.
Fortunately, the Cambridge squad
were able to avoid any further
concessions and came off the pitch
victorious for the first time this year.
David Hardeman
After a month’s hiatus, the Blues made
their way back onto the pitch last night
against the invitational Spoon A-A XV.
Robbed of Tom O’Toole and
Don Blake by the England Students
squad, who will be playing against
Wales on Friday, many of the squad’s
junior members made their debut
for the Blues. The absence of O’Toole
also resulted in a reshuffle, with
Rob Stephen filling in at Fullback.
Determined
to
put
past
disappointments behind them,
Cambridge bounded out in front
within the first 20 seconds, a try from
Andy Murdoch and a conversion from
Steve Townend putting them 7-0 up.
Keen to put themselves back
in the game, Spoons fought back
with gusto, not quite making it to
the tryline but at least putting the
confident Blues under some pressure.
Cambridge
broke
through
again with Paul Louden looking
dangerous, but a pass went astray
and the momentum was lost. Spoons
managed to turn it around with
a push forward of their own but
once again they were held at bay.
Max Mather, making his debut,
managed to steal a Spoons lineout to put Cambridge back on the
offensive but a great catch from
Spoons on a high ball levelled
the playing field once again.
Finally, a nicely put together
set of passes gave Cambridge
the opportunity to push for the
second try and Rob Stephen finally
got the ball over the line in the
left hand corner, making it 12-0.
Spoons responded with a great
run of their own, Taylor Welch
breaking down the left wing.
Full-back Stephen was there to
collect the ball and steer it away.
Malaney went down with an
injury, bringing the game to a halt
just as Spoons were closing in on
the tryline. Despite persistence
from the opposition, Cambridge
managed to hold firm, Will Briggs
at Number 8 proving an obstacle
for the visitors. The whistle blew
without any further action,
Cambridge still out in front at 12-0.
There was no repeat of Cambridge’s
early surge in the second half. Spoons
came out looking the more offensive
side in the first few minutes, and
Hockey girls leave Loughborough in the dust
Cambridge
8
Loughborough 0
Olivia Lee
Sports Co-Editor
After a poor start to the second half
of the season, the Women’s hockey
Blues are going from strength to
strength. They put on an imposing display against Loughborough 2nds yesterday, taking an
8-0 victory at Wilberforce Road.
It was only ever going to go one
way, with the Cambridge side 5-0
up by half-time thanks to a hattrick from Suzie Stott and additional goals from Abby Gibb and Izzy
Smith. Possession was firmly in the
home side’s grasp for the entirety.
The second half started much
the same as the first, with Abby
Gibb putting away another strike
within the first couple of minutes.
From there Becca Naylor took it
to 7-0 and Mel Addy rounded off
the scoring with a lovely flick that
foxed the Loughborough defence.
The game ended in a less inspiring
manner, the Blues allowing their concentration and decisiveness to slip and
failing to score in the last 20 mintues.
Loughborough were gifted one
break forward, forcing a run from
keeper Harika Iridag, but the defence
were in place to deflect the strike.
Coach Chris Marriott says the
girls’ recent form has improved.
“I think we’ve been playing really well,” he said. “What we’ve not
been able to do is put all that great
work we’ve been doing D-to-D
and midfield and so on into getting
some outcomes and scoring goals.
“Saturday’s game against Seven
Oaks 2nds was a really important
game for us from that prospective
because we were able to convert all of
that pressure and good play into scor-
ing some goals and won the match. It
was the result that we needed and it
was a performance I was really pleased
with. It was absolutely the right time
for it to happen with Varsity coming.”
He admits that the weather has
been a hindrance, with the girls losing
momentum thanks to missing games,
but adds that they have continued to
train as hard as ever and it’s paying off:
“We’ve been doing well in BUCS,
things are coming together in the
league and I’m hoping that will stand
us in good stead for March 11th.”
Last year the Blues drew in the
Varsity match, so the girls are looking
forward to edging in front in this
year’s encounter. Beyond Varsity,
winning their next two encounters against Warwick and Birmingham 2nds will see them
heading to the play-offs for promotion into the Premier league.
The Men’s Blues were also on
form yesterday with a 5-1 win
over Nottingham Trent 2nds in
the BUCS Cup quarter-finals.
There was disappointment for the
2nd and 3rd teams in their Varsity
match last weekend, as the men’s 2nds
drew 3-3 and the thirds drew 2-2.
Both of the women’s sides
were defeated, Oxford beating
the 2nds 3-1 and the 3rds 1-0.
Olivia Lee