A history of electioneering apathy

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08/03/07 Lent term
week 8 of 8
Mark Fletcher, Adam Colligan, Charlotte Richer and Peter Coulthard celebrate election success Peter Wood
Slate loses all contested positions
Mark Fletcher delighted to win CUSU Presidency on ‘organized and welfare-based campaign’
Amy Blackburn
The results of the CUSU elections
for 2007/8 have been announced,
with Mark Fletcher of Jesus College winning the CUSU Presidency.
Fletcher defeated Tom
Howard, of Girton College,
and Daniel Perrett, of Queens’
College. Fletcher’s victory was
decisive. He gained 1,405 votes,
in comparison to 896 for Perrett
and 266 for Howard. A total of
222 voters wished to re-open
nominations, and there were 465
spoiled ballots.
“I am absolutely delighted
with the result”, the victorious
Fletcher told The Cambridge
Student. “The result shows that
Cambridge students want an organised and welfare-based student union with an experienced
and moderate President…. The
challenge starts now.”
Perrett was standing as part of
the “A Little More Action, Please”
slate. Early results indicated that
the slate was largely unsuccessful in its CUSU election campaign. In addition to Perrett’s
defeat, Dan Swain lost the contested Academic Affairs position
to Peter Coulthard. Coulthard
won by a definite majority, gaining 1,600 votes to Swain’s 891,
with only 154 students opting to
RON. This means that the slate
lost both the contested races in
which it fielded candidates.
Referring to the slate,
Coulthard told TCS, “It’s something which is relatively new and
from my perspective, people responded to their ideas. But I stuck
to what I believed I could bring to
the job and hoped that was what
Cambridge students wanted.”
He continued, “In Dan (Swain)
I had a worthy opponent, and
definitely someone who brought
ideas from a different ideology
and viewpoint to me.”
Other election results were
gradually announced on
Wednesday night and Thursday
morning. The sabbatical position of Women’s Officer was
won by Elly Shepherd, with 948
votes compared to 77 votes for
RON. The new Access Officer is
Charlotte Richer, who defeated
Daniel Paine by 1,575 votes to
768.
The turnout was around 3,300
out of approximately 18,000 students. This is a notable increase
from last year’s turnout of 2,800.
This demonstrates the increased
confidence of Cambridge students in CUSU under the current executive, led by incumbent
President Mark Ferguson.
The most significant change
to the election structure this
year has been the introduction
of online voting. Paper voting
remained available, but throughout Monday and Tuesday almost
2,000 students cast their CUSU
election votes online.
“Online voting has been a
great success, and very popular
amongst students and college returning officers”, Ashley Aarons,
current CUSU Services Officer,
told TCS. “It is time now to consider if we want only online elections in the future, and how we
can help JCRs and MCRs hold
online elections using our system
and programming.”
Voters also had to decide
whether CUSU should adopt
a new constitution. A total of
1793 voters were in favour of
the reforms, with only 322 voting against. However, there were
1056 spoiled ballots, so despite
a clear majority in favour there
were not enough votes to meet
the 10% of the University required to change the constitu-
tion. The huge number of spoiled
ballots indicates that many voters
did not vote as they had no idea
what they were voting for, despite
the motion being passed unanimously at two sessions of CUSU
council.
At the time of going to press,
the winning candidates for the
sabbatical positions of Services
Officer and Welfare Officer had
not been announced. The new occupants of several part-time positions are also yet to be confirmed,
namely Mental Heath Awareness
Officer, Target Campaigns,
Open Portfolio, Green Officer
and Higher Education Funding
Officer. It is expected that the results for these positions will be
announced on Thursday.
Dossiers Sexologiques 7 Interview with the Maccabees 28 Lent Bumps 32
2 NEWS\
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
News in Brief
March celebrates forty
years of legal abortion
To mark the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act,
which legalised abortion in
Britain, hundreds of men and
women attended a rally organised by the feminist fightback team in London.
On Saturday 3rd of March
approximately 300 people attended a torch-lit evening
march through London, and
then gathered at the University
of London Union to hear
speeches from various women’s rights activists, including
Katy Clarke MP.
Muslim-Jewish Centre
creates new course
The Centre for the Study
of Muslim and Jewish
Relations (CMJR), situated in
Cambridge, has announced
that it will begin a postgraduate course entitled “Studies in
Judaism, Islam and MuslimJewish Relations”. The course
will provide tuition through
e-learning as well as on-site
in Cambridge. The CMJR
was founded and opened in
February.
Nokia and Cambridge to
partner in research
Cambridge University’s
West Cambridge Site will
house research into nanotechnologies by the corporation Nokia. An agreement
between the University and
Nokia was signed on Tuesday
in Helsinki. West Cambridge
is the University’s growing
new science and technology
campus.
Correction: Ben Blyth
In our page 3 story “Surprise
resignation of Christ’s College
JCR President” (Thursday
1st March), The Cambridge
Student stated that Ben Blyth
received 120 emails in support. In fact, he received 120
emails in support of his efforts
to keep the bar open during
Easter term.
Science funding to be cut
Government plans to drastically reduce research budgets
Sarah Smith
The government this week announced plans to make drastic
cuts to science research funding.
A total of £68 million is to
be slashed from the budgets of
eight major research councils in
order to account for shortfalls in
the budget of the Department of
Trade and Industry.
One of the biggest losses will
be felt by the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research
Council, which is set to lose £29
million in funding. They recently
received glowing praise in the
International Review of the UK
Research Base in ICT, which
stressed the need to sustain, even
increase, the amount, quality and
impact of research funded by the
EPSRC.
Other councils facing budget
reductions include the Medical
Research Council, facing a loss
of £10.7 million. The Council
recently funded pioneering re-
search into the relief of crippling
Parkinson’s Disease symptoms.
The National Environmental
Research Council will suffer £9.7 million cuts, and the
Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council’s loss
of £6.7 million means it expects to
cut the equivalent of 20 research
grants. The Arts and Humanities
Council will lose £5.3 million,
roughly a tenth of its budget.
A spokesman for the
Department of Trade and
Industry defended the decision.
“The sum amounts of less than
one per cent of nearly £10 billion awarded by the Government
to science over the current three
year spending period”, he said.
“The science budget has nearly
doubled since 1997 to £3.4 billion
a year, and continues to rise.”
It has been suggested that the
cuts will lead to scores of academics being denied research grants
and PhD students being discouraged from entering academic careers. CUSU’s Graduates Officer,
Science research is threatened by new funding cuts
Kamiar Mohaddes, condemned
the move. “The amount of people doing PhDs could fall as a result of this”, Mohaddes told The
Cambridge Student. “Any cuts in
funding directly affect postgraduates and academics in particular.
Research is one of the main driving factors behind Cambridge
University in particular.”
It has been estimated that
around 3000 UK research grants
will no longer be fundable. The
problem may not be a solely
British concern, however. The
funding of sciences in America
has also suffered as Congress
failed to pass the new budget.
NEWS 3
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
“Get that man a taxi”: Panic at the Union
Peter Wood
The results of last night’s Cambridge Union elections have yet
to be announced as TCS went
to print after the count was disrupted by electoral complaints.
A total of three electoral complaints and four accusations
of malpractice by candidates
were submitted to the Union’s
Electoral Complaints Authority.
Of these only two were upheld.
The tranquillity of the union
bar was interrupted at 10.45pm
by the sudden appearance of the
Electoral Complaints Authority,
who demanded that Churchill
College JCR President Richard
Erlank appear before them by
11pm or the electoral count
would be postponed until the
next day.
Following the announcement,
the sparsely filled bar emptied to
the cry of “Somebody call a taxi!”,
whilst candidates and supporters
immediately fanned out across
Cambridge to find the missing
student. With Erlank successfully found, the authority continued an analysis of the complaints
and appeared at 11.15pm with
their conclusions.
They announced a total of
£30 in fines. Erlank was issued a
£10 fine for sending an email reminding Churchill College members to vote in the union elections.
Luke Pearce was also fined £20
for “engaging in written canvass-
ing”. Both are banned in Union
elections.
Whilst no results were confirmed, the Union disclosed
that there had been approximately 680 votes cast for the 40
candidates running. This is despite the fact that roughly 40% of
Cambridge undergraduates are
union members.
The elections have been dominated by the competition between two opposing slates, pitting
candidates Roland Foxcroft and
Elena Narozanski against each
other for the presidency.
James Robinson has been
chosen as Vice-President by the
standing committee but this appointment has yet to be ratified
by a members’ business meeting.
Amy Hanna
The Union will be opening its doors to a new executive
Student petition to oust Oxford Don
Alys Brown
The row over academic freedom
has been reignited in Oxford, as
a group of students have tried to
remove a Don due to his political
beliefs.
A student petition has made
against Professor David Coleman,
a professor of demography at
Oxford and co-founder of the
think-tank Migration Watch UK.
The petition has been launched
by Oxford Student Action for
Refugees.
The group believes that
Professor Coleman’s involvement in the think-tank and his
fellowship of the Galton Institute,
formerly the Eugenics Society, are
reasons Oxford should “consider
the suitability of Coleman’s continued tenure as a professor of the
university”.
Colleagues at Oxford
University have risen to Professor
Coleman’s defense, calling the
petition a “student witch-hunt”
and arguing that students should
debate their views with Coleman,
not call to sack him.
Oxford University told
The Cambridge Student; “the
University has not received a petition from any student group
about Professor Coleman and so
the Press Office can not comment
on a petition it has not seen”.
However, the University has
still entered into the academic
freedom debate by issuing the
statement that “freedom of speech
is a fundamental right respected
by the University”. The statement
continued, “Academic staff have
freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom,
and to put forward new ideas and
controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves
in jeopardy of losing their jobs or
privileges.”
Professor Coleman has called
the petition “a shameful attempt,
of the most intolerant and totalitarian kind, to suppress the free-
dom of analysis and informed
comment that it is the function of
universities to cherish.” He goes
on to say that he is “ashamed that
Oxford students should behave
this way. It is the signatories who
will bring the university into disrepute, and it is they who should
reconsider their membership of
this university.”
Kieran Hutchinson Dean, who
organised the petition, said, “We
understand that not everyone is
going to agree with our position,
but we want to open a debate.”
There is support for the student position. One vocal critic
of Professor Coleman and
Migration Watch UK is anti-rac-
ism campaigner Teresa Hayter.
She claims that Migration
Watch’s statistics had “the clear
intention of stirring up racism
and hostility towards immigrants”. Hayter has also previously pulled out of an event she
was due to attend upon discovering that Professor Coleman
would also be appearing there.
She has spoken out in favour of
the student petition while talking
to The Times Higher Education,
“I support the petition. I don’t
think he should be a professor at
the university.”
With neither side backing
down, the debate looks set to continue for some time to come.
Internet used to slander lecturers
Catherine Watts
An investigation by The Times
Higher Education Supplement
has revealed students’ widespread
abuse of academics by means of
the internet.
Lecturers have been publicly
attacked on networking websites,
coming under, sometimes sexually explicit, abuse. Insults to their
professionalism and appearance
have been broadcast to a potential
audience of millions via the web,
as lecturers have been attacked
online as “useless” and “rubbish”. One has even been branded
a ‘waste-of-space bitch’.
Numerous examples of academics being filmed during their
lectures and seminars were also
discovered during an investigation of the video-sharing website YouTube. Footage has been
broadcast showing images of students sleeping in lectures, ridiculing the academics’ arguments and
disrupting lectures with stunts
such as streaking across the lecture theatre.
The joint general secretary
of the University and College
Union (UCU), Sally Hunt, was
“appalled” at the findings. She
described such student behaviour
as “bullying” and stated that “universities must do more to ensure
that staff and students are able to
work in a tolerant and intimidation-free environment”.
The Times Higher investigation comes after recent discoveries at the University of
Huddersfield concerning three
separate personal attacks on female staff. These were found on
the website MySpace, and included comments about lecturers’ personal hygiene and
speculation about an academic’s
sex life. Bryan Lowes, a senior lecturer at Bradford University, said,
“We are all still learning about the
opportunities and pitfalls that
technology brings to the lecture
theatre”, following the discovery of a video broadcasting a student asleep in his lecture. Essex
University said that the abuse of
one of its academics, which involved the lecturer being filmed
repeatedly scratching his crotch,
was “regrettable”, but added that
many positive depictions of the
university are to be found on
these sites.
Fortunately, Cambridge lecturers in the main have genuine
appreciation societies dedicated
to them, and naturally this is most
evident on Facebook. There are a
significant number of groups of
admiration for lecturers across
all subjects – but none seem to
be more popular than the Pete
Wothers appreciation society.
Dr Wothers’ chemistry lectures
have been filmed and broadcast
on YouTube, to share the joy created when he pauses lectures to
explode items ranging from rice
krispies to a nitrate-soaked cotton
wool snowman. One enthusiastic
Natsci described how his famous
snowman lecture was completely
full, with people from other years
turning up to watch the explosion,
which can be viewed on YouTube
alongside footage of rapturously
applauding students and even
a standing ovation for this “legend”. “He needs to be seen/heard
to be fully appreciated!” the student gushed. Hopefully, evidence
of such widespread appreciation
UK Masters
degrees placed
under threat
A photo from the online Pete Wothers appreciation society
will restore faith in students concerning attitudes to their lecturers. Universities UK commented
on the investigation, “Students
and staff will no doubt laugh off
much of this as long as the line is
not crossed into offensive and defamatory material”.
A European agreement named
the “Bologna process” will place
further strain on our university
system, claims the Commons
Education Select Committee.
“Bologna” aims to create a
European Higher Education
area by 2010; this will be accomplished by an agreed framework
of what different countries’ degrees should look like and how
they should be compared. This
would involve greater collaboration between universities and
ensure increased mobility of students, researchers and staff.
It has been suggested that this
could threaten the British oneyear Masters course, which currently attracts many overseas
students and is extremely lucrative. “Bologna” uses a common
template of three years for a first
degree, two years for a Masters
and three to four years for a PhD.
In a recent users’ guide, The
European Credit Transfer and
Accumulation System (ECTS)
has established a system of “credit
points” for different degrees.
ECTS claims that the maximum
number of credit points a student
can gain for a one-year Masters
degree is 75, thus creating the impression that a British Masters
was of less value than those elsewhere in the European Union.
A conference of 46 European
Education ministers will be held
in London this May, to discuss
these contentious issues. Higher
Education minister Bill Ramell
is being pressured to stand up
for UK universities. British commentators view our system as
independent of government,
flexible and high-quality, compared to their more bureaucratic
counterparts on the Continent.
Continental Masters degrees
are often viewed as controlled
by the state and unresponsive to
students.
Tyler Richards, an overseas Graduate studying for his
Masters in Cambridge, told The
Cambridge Student, “The one
year Masters scheme is great. To
change it would be a shame for
students, like me, who are drawn
to it, due to its short duration
and intense period of intellectual
growth.”
If a two-year Masters becomes
the norm throughout Europe, the
British University system may be
left behind unless it follows the
trend.
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you could do better?
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section in Michaelmas
term 2007, email
apply@tcs.cam.ac.uk
4 NEWS\
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
A history of electioneering apathy
Escaping the heat of election week, we disappear into the archives for a look at
CUSU elections past. It was interesting, we promise.
Peter Wood
The dust has yet to settle over
the election of Mark Fletcher’s
election. With the new president waiting to take the reigns
of CUSU, the past front pages of
TCS can offer some essential lessons for the running a new executive.
In previous years, no sooner
have elections ended than questions over the count begins to
mount. Questions were raised
over the vote for the 2002 Services
officer, and again in 2003 over the
appointment of the new president. In both events, the election
results stood as first announced,
but with a shaky start few would
desire. After the renewed scrutiny of the electoral committee
by Jacob Bard-Rosenberg at last
CUSU council and followed by
the immediate dismissal of his
motion, we can hope that the
matter will not resurface.
Whilst claims of unjust elections immediately make the
front page, the spectre of student apathy has long haunted the
halls of CUSU. Light hearted jabs
at CUSU highlight the less than
reverent stance taken over sabbatical posts. The handwritten
manifesto for Welfare Officer by
Tim Stanley ran simply: “This is
hand written because I was too
drunk to write a manifesto. There
is no better testament to my character”. He may have even been in
with a chance, considering past
candidates for President have
included the Churchill College
mascot, “standing for the power
of WOOF” and Dave Chaplin,
pledging to supervise the “digging
of a large hole”. Swearing to find a
new CUSU building he said: “If it
comes to it, I’ll build it myself out
of cardboard, string and strong
sellotape”. Despite the joke, the
new CUSU building has still not
been finalised, despite the plans
to move out this May. The new
Executive will be strongly judged
on their ability to finish the move,
after over 5 years of planning.
2005 saw Presidential candidate Laura Walsh proclaim “This
is going to be a Crucial year for
CUSU and I feel I’ve got the leadership ability”. In retrospect, this
year’s hustings have seen an almost universal desire to move on
from the aftermath of Walsh’s administration, and hopefully the
2007 candidates will be able to
achieve their manifesto promises
for Cambridge Students.
Of particular concern to the
new CUSU will be the lingering shadow of JCR disaffiliations. 2004 saw Downing vote on
whether to remain with CUSU,
its students calling a referendum
on whether CUSU was “too po-
litical”. The debate was triggered
by a CUSU motion warning
against racism and racist parties,
with criticism coming from those
who considered it too specifically
about the British National Party,
too political and possibly illegal. Downing college JCR president eventually suggested CUSU
should only involve itself with
issues that affect “a significant
sized group of students who…
will be materially affected,” to
the disagreement of outgoing
CUSU President Brinded, and
President-Elect Wes Streeting,
arguing that CUSU was an intrinsically political organisation.
After deep divides over the politicization of CUSU in elections
again this year, the argument
has still not disappeared and will
continue to trouble the incoming Executive. Although most
presidents have run on platforms
of making CUSU more relevant
to students, few have won on
grounds that openly promote a
more politicised CUSU.
A reminder to stay relevant to
their member’s interests came
from the Graduate Union in 2004.
Whilst Ruth Keeling was voted in
as President, apathy meant that
half of the union’s executive positions were left unfilled without
a single application for the post.
The total turnout for the presidential election was a mere 706
votes for all candidates, including
re-open nominations and spoiled
ballots.
Just over a month before,
TCS printed rumours that the
Graduate Union was considering
merging with CUSU after a build
up of financial mis-management
and non-attendance at crucial
events. Whilst the merger never
happened, it remains a reminder
of how quickly unions can loose,
or gain the trust of the student
Tom Hensby
The motion at the Union last Thursday was incendiary: ‘This House Believes that Islam is incompatible with Western Liberalism.” In the crowd sat an
unusual amount of Muslims, waiting expectantly to
see if they were ‘incompatible’ or not, and what was
going to be done about it.
First up for the proposition was Jonathan
Goldberg QC. “Sadly, my conclusion is that they are
not compatible,” he said, before going on to list with
great relish the evils of Islam.
If his central argument wasn’t too shocking,
some of his supporting points were: “Not 100% of
Muslims are terrorists,” he said, “But 100% of terrorists are Muslims.”
At this, some people applauded. In my misery, I
saw one student in the gallery – thank you that man!
– mime clawing off his own face in frustration.
But what is this? The next speaker stands up. He
has a nice quiet voice. He has a wispy beard. He has
the height and general manners of one of the peaceful tree folk from the Lord of the Rings.
It was the phantasmagorical Tim Winters,
Lecturer in Islamic Studies at our own Divinity
faculty, first speaker for the opposition team. He
picked the whole chamber up like so many agitated
little hobbits, and took them on an erudite journey
through the history and geography of Islam, set to
the sound of birdsong and oboes.
Islamic fundamentalism was set aside from mainstream Islam: Winters talked of witnessing hundreds
of Muslim scholars sign a convention advocating
peace and integration (you can see it at www.muslimsforeurope.com) but he explained how the newspapers just weren’t interested in it.
The proposition countered in the form of Sam
‘Rock-around-the-clock’ Block! A man to be described with exclamation marks! Because! That! Is
how! He spoke!
“In saying that Islam! is not compatible, we are
not! Making! A moral judgement! Their concepts
are just different!” he exploded, knocking several
TCS is now accepting
applications for the position of Investigations
Editor for Michaelmas
2007. E-mail apply@tcs.
cam.ac.uk
Illustration Tom Hensby
Union debates Islam
body. The view of one Graduate
student at Kings College is a salient point. When asked this week
if he knew whether the graduate
union was merged with CUSU,
he replied “I don’t know and
I don’t really care”. The same
view would not be hard to find
amongst undergraduates.
As all candidates have acknowledged, relevancy is essential to the running of the student
union. All have professed a desire
to fight apathy and keep the student body interested. The coming year will show how well they
can do.
people over, and blowing those who objected all the
way to Mecca.
Up next was Baron Norman Lamont of Lerwick,
ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer under John Major,
and owner of some of the most magnificent eyebrows ever seen.
He pointed out that some Islamic states are just a
decade old, and would mature into liberalism.
From the other side of the Chamber divide came
Douglas Murray, friend of NeoConservatism,
“enemy of PalaeoConservatism (i.e. Norman
Lamont).
Apart from being an author, it turns out that
Murray is a part-time hypnotist: “You want Islam
to be compatible,” he intoned, “yes, you WANT it
to be compatible…you want it to be compatible, I
KNOW that you WANT it to be compatible,” and
so on, as he appeared to grow physically larger with
each repetition “…but it can’t be.”
Having been placed in a trance by Murray, I
couldn’t draw him. I found a picture of a Roman
Emperor who looks similarly scornful on Wikipedia,
and added that in. Anti-libel note: Murray, unlike
Caracalla (186-217AD), was not wearing a toga at
the Union.
One of the delights of covering the Union debates
is watching the gestures of speakers, who, in delivering their speeches, go through many kinds of incredible mimes: buttering invisible sandwiches,
shooting people in the audience with an invisible
pistol, or (particularly in moments of pathos) weighing a really large but invisible Melon of Grief in their
hands.
Lord David Trimble was one such performance.
He was constantly laying invisible bricks on a wall
at waist height, fortifying an argument that would
eventually win his side the debate.
His concluding point was that in all of the propositions speeches, he saw no hope for the future, and
that the only hope for the future lay in throwing out
the motion.
His heartfelt speech paid off, and the motion was
finally rejected, with 128 Ayes, 249 Noes, and 98
Abstentions.
FOCUS 5
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
Where are the kidnapped Brits?
British diplomats and their family members seized in Ethiopia may be at risk
The presence of U.S. forces may further destabilize the Horn of Africa. United States Department of Defense
Tewodros B. Sile
T
ourists visit a remote region of a country,
inhabited by a fierce nomadic tribe. In a
hail of gunfire they are kidnapped and
taken over the border into a second country, an
enemy of the country from which they have been
snatched. These are no ordinary tourists, but diplomats and their relatives from a European embassy. Diplomacy kicks into gear but just in case
this fails, elite Special Forces are poised and ready
to undertake a daring rescue raid.
The above, stripped of names of countries, describes the main details of what has unfolded (and
continues to unfold) in the remote Afar region of
north-western Ethiopia, one of the world’s most
inhospitable, yet most fascinating places. Last
Thursday, the media began to receive the first details in what has become a complicated story replete
with accusations, counter-accusations and a plethora of twists. Yet we are still not closer to finding out
the exact details of what happened, who was behind
this incident, or indeed even where the missing people are.
What we do know is that, on that Thursday, a
group of European tourists, including French, British
and Italian nationals, together with their Ethiopian
guides (guides and armed escorts are advised by the
Ethiopian government) went missing in the Afar region, in an area not too far from the border of neighbouring Eritrea. The five Britons amongst the group
are all either diplomats at the British Embassy in the
Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, or their relatives.
Some suspect Eritrea are behind this incident. The
President of Ethiopia’s Afar state, Ismail Ali Sero,
said that men in Eritrean military uniform seized
the group and marched them over the border to an
Eritrean military camp. Ethiopia’s state-run news
agency has also noted that five of the Ethiopians with
the group were later found near the Eritrean border,
something more than coincidental for those who believe in Eritrea’s involvement in the incident. As of
Monday, three damaged vehicles, allegedly those of
the British party, have been found, bearing the hallmarks of damage by some sort of any explosion or
shrapnel. In an added twist to the story, the French
tourists who were reported as being kidnapped
have returned to the town of Mekele and refuted
any claims that they were kidnapped, instead saying
that their tour was undisturbed.
What might have later become the plotline for an
espionage thriller has dominated headlines in the
British news media, and the fact that it is UK diplomats and their relatives that are missing has sparked
intense diplomatic activity, with Britain sending a
ten-member crisis team to the region to help secure
their release.
Furthermore, the government has issued a
Defence Advisory (DA) notice, a formal request to
news editors to desist from publishing specific details of the case for reasons of national security, which
means that we do not have access to all the case information, such as the name of the missing Britons.
This explains why British officials have refused to
confirm media reports stating that SAS troops been
flown to the neighbouring state of Djibouti, ready
to be sent to the region in case they are needed to
mount a rescue mission.
Kidnapping tourists may be seen as
one method of bring attention to
the cause of Afar groups
The region itself is inhabited largely by the Afar
ethnic group, a nomadic group whose territory
straddles the border region between Ethiopia,
Eritrea and Djibouti. This area is a low-lying,
drought-prone and hot region studded with volcanoes, salt flats and scrubland, and is an area of intense interest for a range of visitors. Geologists come
to discover and research the breathtaking landscape,
whereas archaeologists favour it as the region provides many clues to the origins of human beings; the
world’s oldest intact hominid skeleton was discovered here in 1974 and since then many important
discoveries of hominid remains and tools have been
discovered. It is these kinds of attractions that have
made tourists eager to visit the area, and discover
more about the landscape and its Afar inhabitants.
This explains why the group would have been in the
region in the first place.
Assessing who is behind this kidnapping incident
is however not an easy task, as the truth has been
crowded out by a raft of accusations and counteraccusations between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a natural
circumstance given their fraught relationship. The
remarkable geopolitical complexity of the Horn of
Africa makes diplomatic efforts between Eritrea,
Ethiopia and the United Kingdom particularly
sensitive.
Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a two year border war
between 1998 and 2000, costing each side an estimated US$1 million a day. Although a peace agreement was signed in December 2000 which set up
a commission to demarcate the boundary, when
their decision was reported in April 2002, the agreement came unstuck as the symbolic town of Badme,
scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the war, was
awarded to Eritrea. Ethiopia, which still administers Badme, has expressed its displeasure with the
decision and has instead asked for negotiations with
Eritrea on certain contentious areas across their
shared border, for example to stop villages being
separated.
Eritrea has however refused to negotiate, citing
the “final and binding” nature of the agreement,
and the border remains undemarcated, thus posing a possibility that war could break out again.
Furthermore their hostile relationship has not been
aided by the constant trading of accusations between
the two sides and their willingness to host opposition groups from the other side.
The official Ethiopian government position has
been to keep silent, with Ethiopia’s Ambassador
to the UK telling Sky News that “we are not in the
business of finger pointing”. However this has not
stopped the President of the Afar state clearly implicating Eritrea, and in the last month alone, Eritrea
has been accused by the Ethiopian government
of being behind a plot to bomb the African Heads
of State summit held in Addis Ababa at the end of
January and being behind a plan to unleash terror
attacks in Ethiopia, using Ethiopian opposition parties as cover.
However, the Ethiopian government is not alone
in trading accusations, with the Eritrean Information
Minister Ali Abdu stating that this current incident
could be “some kind of staged drama cooked up”
by the Ethiopian government to tarnish Eritrea’s
name.
We have to also remember that the Afar region
has seen this kind of incident before, such as in 1995,
when Italian tourists were kidnapped and later released unharmed. The Horn of Africa’s divisive history has created the environment for this sort of
incident, and in this previous case the kidnapping
was a result of the actions of armed Afar groups
seeking to unite their group across the borders of
the states which bisect their land. They were especially opposed to the recent independence of Eritrea,
which they see as cutting off the Afar homeland from
access to the Red Sea. Furthermore, Djibouti has also
seen its Afar population rise against the government,
although the group fighting there has now signed a
peace deal and joined the national government.
Kidnapping tourists may be seen as one method
of bringing attention to the cause of Afar groups but
also provides a forceful reminder to Addis Ababa
that this kind of incident will not look good for the
Ethiopian tourism industry, especially in a year in
which tourist numbers are expected be higher than
usual as foreigners flock to Ethiopia to celebrate
the ushering in of the year 2000 (according to the
Julian Calendar, which is still in use in Ethiopia and
which is seven years and eight months behind the
Gregorian calendar) in September. This kind of incident does not provide the kind of publicity the
Ethiopian tourism sector was looking for, although
we have to remember that this is an isolated incident, occurring in a region where increased safety
measures are taken by tourists.
...posing a possibility that war
could break out again.
This leaves us with the question of who is actually
behind this. Is it Eritrea acting to humiliate Ethiopia?
Very unlikely, especially as kidnapping British diplomats would not help its already fraught relationship with Western countries and would spark a
diplomatic backlash against it. Is it Ethiopia acting
in order to humiliate Eritrea? It seems like an elaborate and desperate attempt to undertake just to place
blame on Eritrea, especially as this could backfire on
prospects for the tourism sector in Ethiopia.
Local Afar groups seem unlikely to have orchestrated a kidnap, for undertaking the kidnap of diplomats wouldn’t do any favours for their cause and
would isolate them from any potential supporters
in the international community. This might even be
the work of a group of bandits kidnapping for their
own personal and material gain rather than for any
reason of state. Regardless of who is behind this incident - and we may never find out - what I do know
is that the poisonous atmosphere between Ethiopia
and Eritrea is not helping efforts to find those who
are missing and that the most important thing is
their safe return, something everyone must hope
happens very soon.
TCS is now accepting applications for the
position of Focus Editor for Michaelmas
2007. If you will be in Cambridge next
year and wish to be considered for this position, please send an e-mail to apply@tcs.
cam.ac.uk to request an application form.
6 FOCUS
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
Alastair Campbell spins a good yarn
Veteran spin doctor addresses Cambridge students
Pete Wood
I
confess I didn’t want to like Alastair Campbell when he came to talk to a packed room
of Pembroke students on Monday night. I
had lived through the Blair years believing that
Campbell embodied everything objectionable in
the New Labour government: unmet targets, sexual indiscretion, dodgy dossiers and underhand
property deals. My fellow Pembrokeians seemed
to have gathered to watch with morbid fascination
a freak show in which the media’s political ‘Antichrist’ was the main attraction. He was hard to
dislike, however, betraying little to nothing of his
personality in a performance worthy of a master
spin doctor. His talk was entertaining and wellargued, he (mostly) answered questions with an
apparently refreshing frankness, and was also an
engaging presence talking to graduates at drinks
before dinner: a million miles from the politicianspeak I was expecting.
The first spin of the evening was that his talk
was not so much about his personal experiences as
Blair’s Director of Communications, but the challenges faced by politicians trying to communicate
their message to a public through a hostile press.
Campbell was open in his dislike of the media (particular venom was reserved for the Today programme)
which, he argued, now perceived its job, not as purveying news, but campaigning on political and cultural issues. He thus blamed the press for popular
disengagement from politics, which did not benefit
politicians, press, or the public: politicians became
increasingly isolated from their electors, newspaper
circulation fell, and distrust of politicians grew. The
result was the breakdown of political culture and the
growth of unhealthy political debate.
Campbell did spend some time discussing his
role in New Labour, admitting, with surprising
candour, that there had been some mistakes made
in their communications strategy. Primarily, that
they had held on to the tactics of opposition after
the accession to Number 10, which had caused tension between government and public. Nevertheless,
he claimed, the objective of his media management
strategy was to communicate directly with the electorate. Consequently, whilst it had, ultimately, been
a ‘probably bad’ thing for politics, its aim was noble
and that sticking to the strategy and tactics had been
necessary to get the message – ‘New Labour, New
Britain’ – across. His job had been to make a case for
politics and instil an optimistic view of the future
amongst electors.
He blamed the press for popular
disengagement from politics
So far, so laudable, but I have a serious reservation with Mr Campbell’s argument (along with
being told that ‘Government is not a plebiscite’,
but that awaits another column). He claimed that
democratic processes had not changed with society
and it was thus difficult for government to react to
demands made in the press. If Mr Campbell’s bête
noir is the media moving the goal posts, politicians
should redefine the rules of the game, rather than
Alastair Campbell’s legacy in British politics is contested.
submitting to journalists’ lead. It is not, therefore,
the public’s responsibility to ‘give an indication that
they want a raised level of political debate’ in order
for the media to reform its ‘endemic culture of hostility’ towards politicians. Surely, it is the politicians’
job to set the agenda for the political debate and en-
sure that the public remains engaged with politics.
If it is not, as Campbell claimed, a case of politicians
doing the ‘old stuff better than before’ in the system
we have, it must be about changing the system we
have, to match the subtle and complex relationship
that has developed between media and public.
Railway safety under the spotlight
The implications of the recent crash for rail safety
O. Glover
O
A Virgin Pendolino prepares to depart
Manchester station.
n 23 February, a Virgin Pendolino tilting train derailed over a set of points,
between Oxenholme and Penrith at the
Lake District, at 95 mph, with 120 passengers on
board. One person was killed, and several others
remain critically injured. As is normally the case,
the crash immediately became the news headline
for the next few days, and, until the Rail Accident
Investigation Board released its initial report on
Monday, speculation on the causes was rife.
This initial report has confirmed that a defective set of points was responsible for the crash. This
revelation led Network Rail to accept unequivocal
responsibility for the accident, and to issue an unreserved apology. It was also revealed that, whilst all
other routine inspections had been conducted, an
inspection the Sunday before the crash had not been
conducted.
This has led some to question Network Rail’s stewardship of the industry. Network Rail has responded
by pointing out that this has been the first passenger
fatality since November 2004, when a motorist presumably intending to commit suicide parked on a
railway near Newbury in Berkshire, and the first industry-caused crash since the May 2002 accident at
Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. Network Rail’s immediate response over the weekend was to check several
hundred sets of points in the area concerned, and a
selection of checks nationwide. No defects or problems were found.
But what has the media made of Network Rail’s
claims? Initial reactions seemed to repeat those seen
in response to Hatfield in 2000, or Potters Bar in
2002. Questions were raised about whether the pub-
lic could or should trust rail and suggestions were
made that such an accident must never be allowed
to happen again.
Yet, by Tuesday morning, the accident seemed to
have passed completely from some headlines. And
sensible questions were asked of both John Armitt
and Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin
Group, in interviews on Monday. It seemed that the
media was more willing to accept, on this occasion,
that this crash may just have been an extremely unfortunate one-off, in the context of a highly safetyconscious industry.
What might explain the somewhat more restrained media response? One explanation surely
lies in how the railway industry itself responded. In
response to the RAIB report, Network Rail immediately apologised and accepted responsibility: this
is a different approach to that which was sometimes
taken by Network Rail’s predecessor, Railtrack,
which involved making excuses and trying to
‘pass the buck’. Indeed, Richard Branson praised
Network Rail for its honesty and courage in accepting the criticism.
Secondly, whilst extremely unfortunate, fatalities
and casualties were far lower than might have been
feared, given the high speed of the derailment, and
the way the carriages so dramatically slid down the
embankment. The sturdy and safety-conscious design of the Pendolino train has been rightly praised
in reducing casualties (although claims that the
trains which preceded the Pendolino were significantly less crashworthy are exaggerated).
Most important is the fact that the railway has
seen safety improving enormously in the last 5 years,
and indeed, contrary to media portrayal, since privatisation. Passenger and workforce fatalities decline every year, and continue to do so. The average
number of fatal train accidents per year was approximately 0.9 in 2005, compared to 2.1 in 1990 and 3.8
in 1975.Perhaps the media and the public have noticed improvements to safety in recent years, particularly given the relative lack of major accidents in the
last few years, compared to the series of fatal crashes
in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Given these improving safety trends, what can
the railway industry learn from the Grayrigg derailment? Firstly, Network Rail needs to cooperate
fully with the ongoing investigation, to discover if
an oversight by local maintenance teams and management was responsible for the problems with the
points at Grayrigg, or if there are more widespread issues with that particular design of points. Following
the 2002 crash, it was suggested that this earlier system of points should be redesigned, although serious
derailments remain rare.
Secondly, debate continues as to whether seatbelts should be introduced to high-speed, long-distance trains. I think the reaction of many people
to this will be to ask whether this undermines the
whole advantage of rail travel, in terms of freedom
to move through the train, and the concept of buffet and restaurant cars. But, if lives could be saved,
without exorbitant cost, perhaps it is something the
industry could benefit from exploring and researching further.
Seatbelts or not, rail remains one of the safest forms
of transport around. In the past 5 years, there have
been fewer than 100 passenger or workforce deaths
on the railway. This compares very favourably indeed to 3,201 deaths in road accidents in 2005 alone,
and a situation where road fatalities have remained
constant over the past 10 years. It is important that,
whilst constantly striving to improve railway safety,
such statistics are not forgotten.
SCIENCE 7
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
Dossiers Sexologiques
The peculiar habits of animal lovers fill out line here fill out line here
Mico Tatalovic
I
was walking around the zoo in Pretoria, South
Africa, the other day enjoying seeing the animals on a nice sunny day. There was a man with
a small child behind me, and every now and then he
would ask me “what’s in there?” as he approached
whatever enclosure I was looking at. I was happy to
repl,y until I was caught looking in amazement at a
couple of cow-like creatures (whose name I cannot
remember) having a go at it. The female was walking slowly in a small circle, whilst the male was following her closely. He mounted her three times in
the five minutes I spent voyeuristically observing
them. She complied, even licking his genitalia at one
point. When the man with the child asked “what’s in
there?” I just quietly walked away.
Female bonobos go for lesbian sex
This observation reminded me of stories I heard
at the Kalahari Meerkat Project about some cheeky,
pleasure-seeking male meerkats, who would use
small unsuspecting pups for fellatio. Now this all
sounds quite weird – animals enjoying oral sex,
even paedophilia. Surely, one might think, animals
have sex to procreate and not to enjoy it. Oral sex
hardly has a reproductive value. It seems that some
researchers are now starting to recognize that animals not only have all sorts of sex, but also do it for
pleasure. Dr. Balcombe in Pleasurable Kingdom argues, with support from empirical studies, that most
animals have feeling and emotions. One of the chap-
ters presents some evidence that animals have sex
for pleasure rather than solely for reproduction.
The idea behind this is that if reproduction is important for animals, then doing it should be rewarding to the animal, so that it does lots of it. However,
once you enjoy having your genitalia stimulated,
then, as we see in humans, all sorts of manipulations
of the genitalia are used to get that pleasurable feeling. Oral, anal and vaginal sex, masturbation, use of
‘toys’ in masturbation…sound like a porn movie?
Well it all happens in nature apparently. A 750-page
book from 1999 explores all these behaviours, especially the sexual ones whose primary function
is not to reproduce, in greater detail (Biological
Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural
Diversity). I’ll just mention a few here.
Walruses masturbate using a flipper. I saw my
dog masturbating using his mouth. White-tailed
deer arch their back to stimulate their penis using
their own ribcage. Male manatees rub their penises
and also engage in the pleasures of the position ‘69’,
mutually fellating each other. Female bonobos go
for lesbian sex-they stimulate each-others genitals
the so called ‘gg’ rubbing (genito-genital rubbing).
They do so on average once every two hours. Talk
about nymphomaniacs! Chimpanzee females also
get involved with oral lesbian sex. Males engage in
manual, oral and anal sex with other males. They
even sometimes have sex with other species. They
do so with savannah baboons. Masturbation occurs often and some captive chimps may even fellate themselves. Male gibbons sometimes engage in
homosexual incestuous behaviour: father and son
often rub their penises together to reach orgasm.
Japanese macaque females use males’ tails to stimu-
The science of pleasure seeking. Harriet Bradshaw
late their clitoris. Bottlenose dolphins use their flippers to provide pleasure to the other individual by
slipping flipper into genital slits. They can also use
their beak to do this. They will also masturbate; they
use inanimate objects to rub their genitalia against.
Sometimes they sexually harass sea turtles and
sharks by penetrating them. Spotted dolphins also
partake in ‘genital buzzing’: they produce sound directed at another dolphin’s genital area…perhaps a
sort of ‘dirty talk’ for dolphins? Male deer, caribou
and moose can all stimulate their sensitive growing
antlers against trees to achieve erection and even
ejaculation. In these animals, antlers seem to act as
erogenous zones.
You name it, they do it. It’s wild out there. Animals
do seem to engage in a variety of non-reproductive
sexual activities that open up the possibility that they
actually have sex for fun and pleasure. Reproduction
just happens to sometimes follow. It is a by-product
of the animals’ quest for joy. If you think about it,
this is very similar to human sexual behaviour. We
don’t normally engage in sex to reproduce, but to
pleasure ourselves, bond etc. Maybe animals do so
for the same reasons.
Breakthroughs
From walking robots to the causes of early puberty
Charlotte Phillips
Treatment – Making cancer more vulnerable:
The treatment of cancers with chemotherapy is common practice, but equally common are the problems associated with this type of chemical therapy,
namely the disease’s resistance to the drugs used.
This could soon be history due to the discovery of
the mechanism by which cancers defend themselves
against chemotherapy.
Proteins belonging to the Fanconi/BRCA pathway are responsible for identifying mutations in the
body before repairing them. This is one of the body’s
modes of defence against cancerous attack. When a
tumour is being targeted by therapeutic drugs, these
proteins can actually correct for alterations brought
about by the drugs, therefore helping the tumour to
survive. Adjusting the action of these proteins could
prove an effective method for increasing the vulnerability of cancerous growths, saving lives through
the subtle enhancement of anti-cancer therapies.
Health – Drugs to stave off radiation poisoning:
Recent findings by scientists at Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, CA indicate that a particular hormone
produced by the adrenal system dramatically cuts
death rates in those exposed to radiation. The steroid, referred to as AED, boosts blood platelets, which
in turn stimulates the growth of bone-marrow cells.
The cause of death due to acute exposure to radiation is caused by the fact that radiation kills both
blood cells normally used to fight infection and the
marrow cells that would ordinarily be responsible
for replacing them.
This treatment could be used both pre-emptively,
in radiation workers to be exposed to radiation
whilst attending the scene of a nuclear incident, or
those exposed to radiation through a blast, as long
as they were treated soon enough after exposure. A
further examination of these findings by the US government is imminent.
Robo-technology – From crawling to running:
Scientists from a private research facility called Anybots, CA, have built a robot that can now walk, a
process it learned to do independently through a
process of trial and error. This development came
only two days after it learned to stand upright for
the first time.
This was achieved by the researchers recording
the robot’s movements, including the pressure on
its’ feet and the angle at which it is tilting, as it tried
to perform a particular action before feeding the information back to it. The robot then modified its’
way of moving on the basis of that information. This
is a comparative process to human ones, for example that of our inner ears signalling to us the angle
at which we are tilting in order to help us keep our
balance.
This ability to learn through its mistakes makes
this robot potentially more advanced than others currently on the market in Japan that are programmed to perform certain tasks, but cannot
adapt themselves based on their success or failure
in performing them. The application of this type of
machine to tasks, and therefore jobs currently performed by workers needing protective clothing may
not be far away.
Obesity- early onset of puberty for obese girls:
Common trends indicate that puberty in girls is ap-
pearing earlier in the general population. Recent research by Joyce Lee at the University of Michigan
has suggested that this results from increased rates
of childhood obesity. 354 girls between the ages of 3
and 12, and of varying weights, were followed. Girls
who were 10 kg overweight were 80% more likely to
start developing breasts before the age of 9, and to
start their periods by 12 years old. The average age
for menstruation onset is currently 12.7 in the west.
Early puberty is thought to be linked to a number of
health problems in the short term, and into adulthood, including teenage depression. The causal relationship is unclear, but Lee suggests that more fat
cells lead to greater release of the hormones which
trigger puberty.
Herman-Giddens of the University of North
Carolina called the falling age of female puberty to
attention in 1997. She is concerned about the worrying social consequences of this phenomenonnamely children having to deal with being “hit on”
by much older men. She has also highlighted a correlation between early puberty and early sexual activity, and also alcohol use.
A recent article in New Scientist (February 2007)
also hinted at the importance of a girl’s family environment in relation to the age of sexual development- early-onset puberty is more common in girls
who grow up without a father at home. Pesticide
chemicals, among other factors, are also thought to
play a role.
Want to edit TCS Science in
Michaelmas? Email apply@tcs.cam.ac.uk
The robot who walks and balances the same
way we do.
8 TRAVEL
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
Volunteering in India
Rebuilding communities in South India that were struck by the 2004 tsunami
Rachel Cherry
K
ariakal (300km south of Chennai in South
India) is one of the 4 districts of the Pondicherry Union which was the worst affected
by the 2004 tsunami. 453 people died in this small
district and there was massive damage to housing
and infrastructure. Today, two years after the tsunami hit, many people are still living in temporary
shelters and in some villages there are no signs of
permanent housing being built.
Founded in the early 1970’s BUILD (Bombay
Urban Industrial League for Development) works
towards the betterment of the poor and marginalized in India. BUILD arrived in Kariakal the
day after the tsunami struck to assist with the
burial of the dead, the provision of food, water
and health care and they constructed a walled
cemetery to remember the 96 people killed in the
village of Chandrapatti. Here 180 houses were
fully destroyed and BUILD are now constructing permanent houses 500m from the beach, an
impressive improvement from the original huts
that were destroyed. After winning an award for
the best design of permanent houses, BUILD have
now been asked by the government to construct
another 1000 in area.
Now BUILD have arrived they intend to stay.
Unlike most of the 460 NGOs that were registered
in Kariakal in the few months after the tsunami,
BUILD is one of the 36 that remain. They are now
establishing long term development programmes,
including health education, women empower-
ment through tailoring projects, AIDS awareness,
and assistance in orphanages, teaching in local
schools and the establishment and running of a
day- care centre for pre-school children.
While I was there teaching in the school and
pre-school, the children slowly grew to trust me
and the smiles on their beautiful faces were so rewarding. The school in which I taught had a severe shortage of teachers, large classes, poor textbooks and very basic facilities. Teaching was hard
work as the children were so active and desperate
for attention, but through stories, drawings and
blackboard games relationships were created.
The day care centre was a simple hut constructed by BUILD and was open to all castes, so many
of the children were from the lowest castes. It provides food, uniform, shoes, toys and games, thus
allowing their parents to work during the day and
encouraging the children to go on to school. I
help the children there create collages from tissue and glitter, paint with stamps, mould people
out of play dough and catch balloons. Over the
last 6 months the children have gone from shy
and scared to happy and outgoing, ready to go to
school. Soon BUILD is going to start work on the
construction of a permanent larger school building for the centre, complete with community
garden.
Tamil Nadu is a beautiful state, with palm trees
and coconuts, brightly colourful temple towers,
girls with fresh orange and white flowers in their
hair, flowing rivers and windswept beaches with
painted fishing boats. What I loved the most was
working with the children of all different ages,
Children playing at the day care centre Rachel Cherry
through playing word and picture games, painting, creating collages, playing Frisbee, or just interacting and chatting to them. Despite massive
destructive and loss of life to this area, life continues and communities are being rebuilt. The
whole experience was humbling and I enjoyed
every minute of my time in Kariakal.
Recovering from the tsunami is a slow process and now 18 months on permanent houses
are needed for many families in Tamil Nadu. It
is disheartening to see many NGOs have left the
area, leaving only fading signboards and empty
work huts. However, my time with BUILD India
demonstrated, change is occurring and things are
improving in small way. My whole trip to India
enriched my understanding of the world’s largest
democracy on many different levels, but there is
a lot more left to discover in this chaotic, multiethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural, beautiful country. I will definitely return.
Taking coffee breaks in Croatia
Café culture becomes a major part of Mediterranean life
Mico Tatalovic
C
Going for coffee is a major social activity
Jel Tovski
roatia was a real hit with the British tourists last few summers, and is a very fashionable place to be seen. With its 1,700
islands and uniquely clear blue Adriatic sea, it is
an oasis of undiscovered beauty and exotica. Rich
history results from centuries of foreign influence
(Greek, Italian, Austrian and Hungarian) and is
evident at every step.
And one of the major parts of Croatian culture
on offer to tourists nowadays are cafés (chill-out
comfy ones, cocktail bar ones or the beach ones
where you can have your ice cappuccino as you
are dabbling your feet in the sea water...).
In Croatia, there is a huge café culture. Ever
since the nineteenth century, when Rijeka was
one of the main ports for the import of coffee into
Europe, and coffee houses with live music were a
popular meeting place, coffee has played an important part in the lives of Croatians.
There was a huge boom of cafés in the nineties after the fall of socialistic Yugoslavia, and
Croatia’s independence and transition into capitalism. Vienna (famous for its coffee houses) was
always a symbol of Western Europe for Croatians,
something they strive to, so it is no wonder that
cafés are in. Today, new cafés are still opening all
the time. Every café has its own personality: there
are large, old-fashioned cafés with classical music
playing; artsy, smoky cafés where every item is on
sale (including the chairs); the modern, funky,
colourful cafés; new-millennium minimalist cafés
with see-through walls and chairs and overhead
projectors playing music videos or fashion shows
for you to watch as you’re sipping your latte, macchiato, or cappuccino.
Going for coffee is a major social activity, whether it’s a morning coffee in between lectures, lunch
time break in town, Sunday afternoon meeting
with a friend, or ever a first date: you don’t invite
girls for dinner, you invite them for a coffee, and
estimate your chances there first. If you’re walking down one of the main pedestrian streets (often called the ‘corso’) or through a town square, if
you run into someone you know, it’s an automatic
thing to invite them for coffee—and conveniently
enough, you’re never more than a few steps away
from a café, where coffee is always the cheapest
thing on the menu (60p to £1).
You can experience a lot of pleasure when walking around town with your friends, trying to decide where to go for coffee that day. Should we
go to ‘Corso’-the cafe at the very heart of ancient
city of Rijeka with the best ice-cream in town;
‘Nina’-the trendy cafe on a boat with the view of
the Adriatic, or ‘Trsat’-the new cafe within the
medieval castle on the hill overlooking the entire
city and the see today? Do we feel like a great cappuccino, breath-taking view or the best ice cream
in town?
There are three major daily newspapers in
Croatia (‘Novi list’, ‘Jutarnji list’, and ‘Večernji
list’) and most cafés have copies of them for you to
read, as part of the offer. The only food available in
Croatian cafés is usually either ice cream or cakes
and biscuits: cafés here are places for coffee, other
hot and cold drinks, cigarettes (unfortunately),
and papers, not food.
On a sunny winter or spring day the café terraces, which often have more seating space than
there is indoors, are all packed, and it is the availability of space, rather than your preference, that
often determines where you end up going for coffee: a free seat is the deciding factor. Sometimes,
you end up waiting in front of your favourite café
for twenty minutes, but once you get your seat
and place your order, you’re set. You know it was
worth it. Observing the world go by over the upper
edge of the newspaper you’re pretending to read,
you spot all the people and events that may interest and entertain you. An extra-mini skirt, your
cousin’s girlfriend, your sister skipping school, a
cute dog being chased by a four-year-old with a
water gun, all of these pass by your café on the
main square, while you enjoy the good music and
cosy atmosphere where you sit. While you can
spot many people you know, not many people can
spot you when you’re sitting in a crowded café,
so you can select whom you want to join you. Or
maybe you feel like relaxing on your own.
So, whether it’s a hot Mediterranean summer
day and you stop for an ice Nescafé frappé on
your way to the beach, or it’s a freezing December evening and the town is lit up with Christmas
lights and you escape the gloomy weather by popping into a cosy, lively café for a hot chocolate,
cafés are the way to go in Croatia!
As well as some of the best beaches in
Europe, Croatia also boasts Roman
ruins and medieval relics.
TRAVEL 9
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
Chaos, commotion, and
communal living in Nicaragua
Rowing a local fisherman’s boat to reach remote islands
famous for the use of art as a social movement
to expect that I would have a digital camera and that
she could see herself on the display. The islanders
are trying their hardest to improve the tourism infrastructure, but Solentiname is remote and it is not
unusual for it to be tourist-free. I enjoyed having the
region’s great tourism plans all to myself. I stayed in
a family’s spare room and ate meals with people who
were as curious about me and my life as I was about
them and their lives.
Ilana Raburn
T
here was chaos. And it was all because
of me, which in a strange way made me
proud. I felt a little like Helen of Troy
must have, apart from the obvious facts that we
weren’t in a Greek myth and that my stunning
beauty wasn’t really relevant. Instead, I was
sitting in a small Nicaraguan bus station and the
commotion was about how and when I was going
to leave the town. The stocky man next to me was
shouting at his wife and she was swinging a live
chicken at him. The shoeshine boy was adamant
that he knew more than everyone else, but – for
whatever reason – the person on the other end of
his mobile phone disagreed. People were literally jumping around and random passersby were
being dragged into the debate.
All I had done was ask whether it would be quicker
to wait for a direct bus to León or take an earlier one
to nearby Chinandega and change. It wasn’t obvious
from the map whether either road was paved and
the idea of a timetable has never really made sense in
Latin America. It was basically a reasonable question and it should have been answered simply. But
no. It became the subject of a station-wide debate:
about the quickest route to León and about whether
or not I ought to go to León (someone had a cousin
there, but everyone else seemed to think it was too
hot). The person to ask was clearly the old man in
the corner. Like old men the world over, he seemed
to be the source of all information bus-related, but
unfortunately he kept forgetting where it was that
I wanted to go. People became impatient; the old
man got left out of the ensuing debate and instead
fell asleep under his hat.
The stocky man next to me was
shouting at his wife and she was
swinging a live chicken at him.
It was decided that it would be “loco” (crazy) for
me to take the earlier one and change. But after
the usual five minutes of chaos that surrounds the
arrival of any bus, I found myself crammed into the
old American school-bus bound for Chinandega.
My backpack was on the roof, the chicken-waving
lady had handed me the bird to hold, and someone
was trying to sell me toothpaste. This is the nature of
travel in Nicaragua.
With journeys like this, travel to some of the more
remote places takes a while. Getting to Solentiname,
for example, took days. Solentiname is an archipelago of small and largely uninhabited islands very
much in the middle of nowhere. The nearest post
office is a twice-weekly motorboat ride away, and the
nearest ATM is that plus a 15-hour ferry boat ride.
Having made it to León (via Chinandega), I
needed to take a bus to Granada, from where the 15hour ferry leaves twice a week if the weather is not
too bad. The ferry drops you off at 6am in the filthy
city of San Carlos that boasts a post office, an archaeology museum and four different places to drink
varying strengths of instant coffee. At some point in
the late afternoon (when everyone’s ready), a public
What started out as a few
fishermen and peasants playing
around with paint has become a
world-famous school of art.
Fixing a boat at sunset in Solentiname Ilana Raburn
boat leaves for the archipelago of Solentiname. It’s
a long journey, but the islets are worlds away from
the San Carlos instant coffee and chaos of the bus
station the day before.
Solentiname is a remote and very quiet place.
There are no cars or roads, not least because there
would not be room for them. Transport to and from
the islands is by motorboat, and only twice weekly.
Until the 1960s, the inhabitants of Solentiname
lived in abject poverty. They had only hand-carved
canoes and making contact with the outside world
was hard. Travel between islets was long and exhausting, whilst travel to San Carlos – the nearest
town away from the archipelago – was almost impossible. Reaching the closest hospital just didn’t
happen and people ate only what they could grow
or fish.
But then in 1966, Ernesto Cardenal, a poet-gonepriest arrived on the islands and established a contemplative community. He taught the peasants
about the gospels in a way that they like to compare
to how that the early Christians lived. The peasants
were introduced to the idea of community sharing
and social justice, but Ernesto Cardenal’s lessons
were not limited to the bible. His teachings were
based on his belief in community and social development, to the extent that when Pope John Paul II
visited Nicaragua, he refused to meet him. The Pope
protested that he had taken the idea of liberation theology too far.
More famously, Ernesto Cardenal introduced art
as a social movement. He brought tubes of paint to
the people in the community and gave them some
instruction, with which they soon developed a naïve
art movement. The people began painting on canvas
and balsa wood carvings. What started out as a few
fishermen and peasants playing around with paint
has now become a world-famous school of bright
primitivist painting.
With the new art movement and assistance from
Ernesto Cardenal, the economy and society was
transformed. As they began to sell their work, they
received media attention and with it money enough
to bring them out of poverty. Their work has been
exhibited in countries as far away as Finand and
Australia and a few artists have gone on tour with
it. Of course, most people still live simply, but the
basic quality of life has improved dramatically. The
children can go to school and there is enough food
to go round.
When I was on Solentiname in September, I was
the only tourist in the archipelago. I was certainly not
the first tourist and far from the fist non-Nicaraguan
to be interested in the region. A little girl I met knew
The islands are all very small and it is possible to
cover them on foot. I was normally offered rides
on motorboats between islands, but once I had to
hitch a ride with a local fisherman, Alberto. His
little wooden boat was handmade and beneath
my feet I could see his catch of the day swimming
around. Alberto proudly told me that I was the first
“chelita” (Nicaraguan slang that translates roughly
as “little white girl”) to go in his boat, and then adjusted it to me being the first white person he had
spoken to. He let me have a go rowing the boat.
Rowing a handmade boat is hard; much harder than
the May Bumps course and sun was a lot stronger
than on the Cam. Before I had got in, Alberto told
me that he’d give me a ride but I would need to pay
him. That seemed fair enough to me, but after the
hour’s row in the midday sun that was supposed to
be his lunch break, he would only accept thew equivalent of 20p.
Journeys around Nicaragua might take a long
time and they might be chaotic, but then that’s half
the point in visiting Solentiname. Anyway, you’ll
probably be more than adequately looked after by
the locals in bus stations and island-hopping fishermen. This is, after all, a country where when an old
lady realised she was on the wrong local bus and did
not have enough money to go back, we all made a
diversion to take her home.
Solentiname is an archipelago of 38
islands, none of which have roads, cars
or electricity, and only four of which
have village shops. The total population
is 800 - about 90 different families.
10 EDITORIAL
Editorial
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
editor@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Hustings is no reflection on how a candidate will
perform once elected. A huge amount of the job, almost all of it in fact, can’t be anticipated and candidates list their CV points or promise to work hard
rather than forecast the actual difference between
voting for them and voting for someone else. At
hustings in 2005, Laura Walsh seemed the best candidate. When she was elected, the TCS editorial predicted she would ‘be able to bring access back into
focus’. Those of us who were here last year remember how close the shadowing scheme - the biggest
access event of the calender - came to not happening at all under her watch through the access officer’s incompetence.
It’s obvious Mark Fletcher has a big job ahead
of him - we struggle to think of any Student Union
president elect who doesn’t - but people shouldn’t
take bets on what’s going to happen next. Fletcher
won the election that happens before votes are cast
but no one knows what kind of president he’ll be.
There was one big surpise though. If people form
a group, articulate a plan of action, field candidates
for most of the positions and then try to organise
as many people as they can to vote for them, they
should do quite well. But running on ‘A little less
conversation...’ was not enough for Daniel Perrett to
beat Fletcher’s CV, nor for Dan Swain to overcome
the fact that his enemies dramatically outnumber his
allies. Maybe their candidates weren’t up to the fight
but they may have been up to the job. Regardless,
there may not be another slate in the CUSU elections for some time.
But in the Cambridge Union elections, ‘an independent presidential candidate doesn’t stand a
realistic chance against a slate’, according to Union
secretary and vice president Nicholas Hartman. The
Union has a much smaller electorate - this year’s
turnout was approximately 680 - and candidates
rely on their friends to help get the vote out. In the
Union elections, a slate demonstrates a presidential
candidate has already a body of supporters who will
help orchestrate both a campaign and potentially a
presidency.
In contrast, ‘A Little Less Conversation’ was
poorly recieved from the start. It was a bad idea.
Unless someone from your college is standing and
their supporters accordingly plaster the walls with
posters, the thousands strong electorate in the
CUSU elections is largely unexposed to the elections. Regimentation and conformity, or the impression of them, won’t induce anyone to vote who
wouldn’t have already - and those people are too interested to merely acquiesce.
So we won’t get to see what would happen if three
of the six sabbatical team werecommitted to a single agenda. We’ll hazard a guess that it would have
been pretty similar to how works anyway. The slate’s
manifesto was a series of short statements about
broad principles - how would it actually have informed President Perrett’s decisions?
Revolutionaries look better outside of power. In
office they tend to disagree, bicker and join factions.
At least that’s what they tend to do when become
leaders of a populous nation. In a Students Union,
the slate’s principles probably wouldn’t have been
strong enough to overcome a more powerful force
- business as usual.
Lucy’s Green
Tip of the Week
Don’t chuck it out
....SWAP IT!
Don’t throw away any unwanted stuff, bring it along to the Stuff Swap on Tuesday 13th
March 1–4pm in King’s College Munby Room to swap it for different more exciting stuff
from somebody else!
From Three Seas: Combat Climate Change
www.threeseas.org.uk (tess@tessriley.com)
IMPACT
Relevant and Irreverent
The Cambridge Student
iIllustration: Ivan Zhao
08/03/07
EASTER: How do you eat yours?
‘Journalism is literature in a hurry’ Matthew Arnold
The all new redesign 3 Eggs 9 Minutes with Mariella Frostrup 10
Features
02
IMPACT
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
Fancy a F**k?
Fifi Dickson pushes the boundaries on 21st
century pulling….
I
have amnesia, do I come here often? This is
just one of the many chat-up lines that we
all know don’t work. Right? But how many
of us have ever actually used one? Chat-up
lines are like age-old jokes nobody takes seriously. I asked several of my friends and they
all seemed to have an opinion. Cheesy. Embarrassing. Never actually funny. However,
there was one common consensus; none of
us had ever actually used one. Time for an
experiment.
Scouring the internet, I found thousands of
chat-up lines. They were all awful and many
tasteless. “How do you like your eggs in the
morning? Fried, scrambled or fertilised?” And
in that case, frankly, just downright cringeworthy Some of them were simply brilliant
but would be far too rude and embarrassing to
ever use (or print), others involving angels and
running through people’s minds just made me
want to throw up.
Dragging along some accomplices, I decided to try them out. Would the use of chatup lines really be as disastrous as it’s made out
to be? Or was I about to discover an updated
way to pull? I carefully selected my weapons of
choice: “What’s a slut like you doing in a place
like this?” That’s an extra special one for the fellas! Also: “you’re ugly but you intrigue me”,
“You like sleeping? Me too; we should do it together sometime” is my favourite. Plus “I lost
my teddy bear; can I sleep with you instead?”
definitely has the ‘aww’ factor. Alternatively,
beckon someone over using index finger before
saying “I made you come with one finger, imagine what I could do with my whole hand.”
A great myth is that if a girl went up to a guy
and asked for sex, the gentleman would willingly oblige. I wasn’t sure if it was that simple,
but in the name of research it seemed only fair
that I should give it a try. It was a rather daunting task- especially as I was relatively sober and
my friend had picked a good looking guy for me
to try it on. I walked up and tapped him on the
shoulder. “Hi, do you want to fuck?” I’d said it
now, there was no going back. “Erm well……
that was rather forward.” “So is that a yes or a
no”, I responded. “Erm, I dunno, that was so
forward.” He was speechless. I’m guessing this
is one of those things that people joke about say-
ing but no-one actually does. “Your loss then,”
I retorted whilst walking off. Having said this,
to my surprise, I found that one embarrassing
experience aside, the lines worked really well! I
got a couple of numbers and the guys were all
really pleased I’d gone up to speak to them. (My
guy mates have told me this is because I am a
girl, but I know it’s because of my unparalleled
charm and striking good looks.) Even more
surprising was the fact that the most successful
line of all was “you’re ugly, but you intrigue me.”
I still cannot fathom why!
You like sleeping? Me too; we
should do it together sometime
Unfortunately, my fellow male guinea-pig
did not fare so well. As you can imagine, opening any conversation with a reference to the female as a slut goes down like a tonne of bricks.
Instead of getting a kiss or a phone number, all
he managed to get was an ‘if looks could kill, I’d
be peeling your burning flesh off the floor’ type
look. He was lucky not to get a slap! Another
friend wasn’t so lucky, despite delivering the
line in a very smooth Swedish accent. When
she glared and replied “A what?” he mistakenly thought she couldn’t hear and shouted
back “a slut.” She still couldn’t hear and so he
proceeded to spell it out. Literally “A S-L-UT,” saying it loudly and very slowly - sounding
a little like Ricky Gervais talking about the lion
in Flanimals. “That’s my boyfriend over there,”
she said pointing to a large group of males. Her
boyfriend, who thought he was quite hard, for
some reason didn’t really like the fact his girlfriend had been called a slut. That was a near
miss, but perhaps gentlemen might be wise to
exercise caution using this line. (Again, there is
uncertainty over whether this is due to the fact
they have a Y chromosome or because they just
couldn’t pull them off).
Try a few yourselves! While I can’t guarantee it as a foolproof pulling technique, I know
there’s definitely some fun to be had. So, next
time you’re in Cindies and you see a hottie, you
know what to do. Smile, walk over nice and
slow, lean in close and whisper gently in their
ear….. “Fancy a fuck?”
After you...
Victoria Brudenell discusses modern etiquette
E
tiquette. Totally irrelevant? Maybe, but
in a conversation with a group of friends
I discovered something surprising; everybody is still aware of it. Whether it’s letting
someone through a doorway or using the correct fork, it still has an impact in the 21st century.
The topic was brought up over a leisurely
lunch in college, prompted by the endless cutlery surrounding our plates. We don’t have
footmen in livery standing behind every place
but Cambridge remains one of the few places
“Don’t live above
your income.
This only means
worry and
disgrace.”
The Fresher’s
Don’t A normal lunch in caff
where we have the opportunity to get a glimpse
of what living in Gosford Park must really have
been like. It’s a well-worn stereotype to portray
a lower-class person totally floundering when
faced with an array of sparkling silver and crystal glasses, an anachronistic stereotype at that,
but doesn’t everyone feel that short stab of panic
when you sit at a table with a white cloth and
you desperately try and remember what to
do? We all decided that, ultimately, the world
wasn’t going to end if we picked up the wrong
knife but we were more divided on other aspects of etiquette.
I admitted something quite odd; although
I couldn’t care less, I always notice if a man
doesn’t gesture for me to walk through a doorway before him. I’m neither a rampant feminist nor, I hope, a woman subservient to men, so
why should I subconsciously register whether
a man has made this insignificant gesture? It
seems so out of date. But at the same time, I can’t
understand why some women are offended at
men holding doors open for them; surely it has
evolved into mere politeness, and is not some
assertion of superiority?
My fellow diners also offered seemly antiquated pieces of etiquette that they adhere to.
One said that since arriving at Cambridge he is
always aware of whether he is walking gutterside of a girl. I personally had never heard of this
custom, and neither had he before coming up.
According to him, however, some of his female
friends here actively move around him to be on
the “correct” side. It is quite a charming image;
the gentleman protecting his walking partner
from the dangers of the road. Charming, that
is, if they are in Victorian clothes. And why did
he only discover this in Cambridge? I realise the
bubble is all-encompassing, but do we really go
back in time as soon as our parents drop us off?
Apparently this practice is more enduring in
mainland Europe; perhaps some girls choose
to affect an air of continental graces to make an
impact on Cambridge life.
Doesn’t everyone feel that
short stab of panic when you
sit at a table with a white cloth
and you desperately try and
remember what to do?
A more modern issue is that of dinners and
drinks. Who pays? We decided that this subject, with its many pitfalls, is a perfect example
of our society. The man worries that he’s stingy
if he doesn’t offer to pay, even if he’s broke, and
women want to appear independent. Yet I don’t
know any girls who get embarrassed if they can’t
afford to pay, whereas some men feel mortified.
On top of that, it’s not as if guys in Cambridge
have any more money than the girls. So why this
disparity between men and women? And what’s
the difference between dinner and drinks? As
far as I can tell, a woman can pay for a guy’s
drink, but not dinner, or at least certainly not on
a first date. Then there’s the added complication
of “feelings”. I know some girls who panic that
they’re giving out positive signals if they let the
guy pay for their gin and tonic, and they’re unwilling to let even their totally platonic friends
do so. Why can’t we graciously accept, knowing
that there’s no hidden motive except to spend
half an hour with a friend?
I’ve always found it interesting that in The
Thomas Crown Affair, Rene Russo steals Pierce
Brosnan’s keys by pretending to be cold, knowing full well that he will be obliged to offer her
his jacket, with the keys in the pocket. There’s
something romantic about seeing a girl wearing her boyfriend’s jacket, but it’s weird that it
is assumed that men have far better circulation
than women and don’t feel the cold as much. If
you take it as simply an act of love, being willing
to freeze for someone else, surely this demonstrates the basic purpose of etiquette? To think
of others, doing your one good deed of the day,
basically just being polite.
I have discovered an amazing pre-war booklet entitled “The Fresher’s Don’t”, a helpful guide
to how one should behave in Cambridge. We
are all now concerned with the etiquette behind a facebook poke, but the booklet helpfully
informs us, amongst other pearls of wisdom
“Don’t joke with the waiters in hall. They are
apt to grow familiar if encouraged” and “Don’t
get too familiar with your landlady’s daughter, as she is probably more clever than you”.
Whilst much of the advice is hilariously oldfashioned, some of it remains applicable today.
“Don’t join all the societies to which you may be
invited” is exactly what I was told by my college
parents, although they drew the line at “Don’t
hang around other men’s rooms for no purpose. You will get a bad name”.
Ultimately, much of etiquette has its origins
in the inequality between the sexes. Men had to
be seen to be protecting woman as well as being
courteous. It is therefore easy to understand
why some feminists have problems with etiquette, but this is where I begin to get confused.
Surely it is now a sign of respect that someone
offers to carry your bags or hold open a door,
not that they think you are weak and incapable?
I personally think we should rejoice in the modern forms of etiquette; the world would be such
a depressing place if everyone was selfish, rude
and unwilling to show even basic politeness.
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
IMPACT
The Features Team guide you
through our redesign
Designer Kate Slotover and former Editor-in-Chief Elly Shepherd discuss the redesign. Robert Palmer
I
f you’re reading this then you’ll have noticed the new look to The Cambridge Student. This week sees the launch of our new
design, and we hope it will make TCS fresher, more vibrant, more distinctive and easier
to read. Most newspaper redesigns cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and involve
teams of famous-name designers. Not having those kinds of resources, TCS had to think
of something else. Luckily, through Harriet
Bradshaw – TCS production co-ordinator –
we formed a connection with students studying graphic design at the London College of
Communication, where Harriet’s father is
Dean of the School of Graphic Design. “We’ve
got the best writers,’ Harriet told us, “we just
needed that touch of design magic. So I screwed
up my courage, went up to London and pitched
the TCS plight to a boardroom of principle-lecturers, course directors and tutors at one of the
best graphic design schools in Britain. Debate
opened up about the mammoth task ahead, but
there was general agreement that this project
would be a fantastic opportunity for their students. I’ve made a number of visits since and in
addition to the redesign we’ve received fantastic
weekly illustrations and graphics from the students at the school. The project shows how collaboration across different disciplines and between top universities in their fields can have
brilliant results.”
Tutors on the 2-year FdA graphic design
course decided to take up the opportunity, and
offer it to their students as a project. Which
is how it came about that on a cold evening
late in January Vicki Smith and Kate Slotover
arrived in Cambridge for a meeting with Harriet
and then editor-in-chief Elly Shepherd to discuss the paper. “We’d done some initial analysis
and identified problems to do with consistency;
things being done slightly differently from page
to page,” Slotover says. “There were also some
structural issues – things moved around quite a
lot, and as readers who didn’t know the paper at
all we were often confused about what we were
looking at.” In the discussion that followed, the
two designers tried hard to find out what TCS
was like; what it was that the design needed to
communicate.
We’ve got the best writers;
we just needed that touch of
design magic
Elly considered her response carefully. ‘I
think the problem we had was that TCS gave
quite a neutral impression,’ she explains. ‘You
looked at the front page and the only thing you’d
be likely to think is ‘there’s a lot of text there. It
doesn’t look like something I want to read’. And
I felt this let the paper down. So many people
put in so much effort and work to get TCS the
great content it has, and the design was letting it
down by giving off a neutral impression. I also
think we were trying too hard to be like Varsity,
when actually our big strength is that we’re different from them; we have a different ethos and
very different content. I wanted a design that
would reflect this, and be much clearer and
distinct. Most importantly I wanted a design
that would give TCS its identity, from the very
first moment the reader looks at the front
page.”
So the designers had their brief: to give TCS
an identity that would make it immediately
identifiable, distinct from Varsity, and allow the
writing to shine through without being hampered by a confusing design. Two weeks later
Elly travelled to London to see what they had
come up with. “The scarf idea that we developed
was a very obvious one”, comments Slotover,
“but also quite appealing because of its simplicity and adaptability.” The designers had decided
to create an identity for TCS with its own ‘scarf’
colours based around the classic Cambridge
blue. “To us, the scarf immediately evokes the
Cambridge student world. When we first came
here, walking around town we saw students in
these stripy college scarves, and we could see
how the idea could be used in different ways
within the paper. So the design we eventually
went with used the main scarf for the masthead,
and a system of different colour-coded stripes
inside to indicate the different sections of the
paper.” It wasn’t easy, however. “No, the masthead was a bit of a nightmare,” Slotover reveals.
“We must have looked at hundreds of papers for
inspiration. It’s really difficult with a masthead,
because what’s important is to come up with
something that’s utterly distinctive, so people
will recognize your paper as soon as they see it
on the stands. And it also has to be in keeping
with the style of the paper in general. We started
with quite a clean courier-like typewriter font,
but it was only when we came across the slightly
more ‘grungy’ version that we’re using now, that
we felt it began to look right. It had a bit more
personality to it.” They chose to incorporate the
typewriter font because of its association with
words and writing. “I know no-one really uses
typewriters any more,” acknowledges Slotover,
“but I still felt it conveyed the idea of producing
words, the literary process, and typing as an activity is certainly one that all students are more
than familiar with.”
Back in London the two designers worked on
progressing the design. They had liked the idea
of the separate Impact section, so gave it a layout that was slightly different, yet recognisably
part of the main paper, using a sans serif typeface and a different colour scheme.
How are the editorial staff enjoying the new
design? Impact Features Editor Rich Saunders
comments “the new Impact layout looks a lot
more professional and thought-out than it did
previously. It’s pretty much what we were trying
to do, but didn’t have the ability to design ourselves. Although the design is more in-line with
the rest of the paper, I like the fact that Impact
still has its own identity”.
“For me it has been an amazing experience,”
Slotover says. “For a student to get the chance
to completely redesign a real-life paper, and to
have had as much freedom as we have had has
been a fantastic opportunity. It has been a steep
learning curve. In order to set up a system of
rules for other people you have to completely
understand them yourself, so working out the
rules of newspaper design, and then writing
guides that teach people to apply them has been
a real challenge. I’ll be thrilled to see the newlook TCS when it arrives. Most of all, I wish the
TCS staff well for the future. It’s their baby now.
I hope if we have achieved anything, its to give
them a design that is easy to use, and adaptable
enough to keep the paper looking fresh and interesting for years to come.”
Designer Kate
Slotover’s newspaper
top-five
1 The Guardian
If I’ve learned anything from doing
the TCS project, it’s an appreciation
of just how well The Guardian is designed. And it’s really hard not to be influenced by what they do, because they
do it so well. We’ve tried hard to give
TCS something that is unique to them,
but there are some techniques you see
in newspapers like The Guardian, like
the use of bands of colour, that are very
useful, just because they work so well.
I met Paul Barnes, who designed The
Guardian’s typeface, & talked to him
about the TCS project. I showed him the
early designs, and he had lots of useful
advice. So the new-look TCS has actually had some unofficial input from a
Guardian designer!
Features
TCS Reloaded
03
2 The “S’indy”
The best-designed of the Sundays. The
Observer’s ok, but somehow it’s a bit
too ‘in your face’; they don’t have the
subtlety that The Guardian has. The
Independent on Sunday looks great
every week.
3 The Daily Telegraph
The Dinosaur: daily broadsheets
seem so outdated since The Times &
Independent went tabloid sized and The
Guardian adopted the smaller Berliner
shape. But The Telegraph’s great in that
they just have so much space, so they
can do really lovely things with pictures
and text. And there’s something quite
satisfying about unfolding a paper that
huge. I wonder how long they’ll keep
going with the format. They’ve carved
out a niche for themselves now as the
only daily that still does it.
4 El Pais
I came across this when I was doing
research at the beginning of the project.
At first I thought it looked really dull;
not much use of colour or pictures.
Then I realised that it is actually a beautiful model of restraint. While other
newspapers clamour for attention, El
Pais seems to be content to quietly do
its own thing. I don’t speak Spanish, so I
have no idea if the editorial matches the
design, but if I did, I think I’d probably
read it because it looks like something
you want to read. That’s the key to good
newspaper design, really.
5 Le Figaro
I lived in Paris for a while before I
started studying graphic design, and I
used to buy Le Figaro because I liked the
way it was designed. Gradually, as my
French improved, I began to be uncomfortable with its politics and switched to
Liberation, which looks dreadful but is
much less right-wing. Now I’ve forgotten all my French and have gone back to
liking it again.
Noticed these?
Yep, part of the
redesign
Features
04
IMPACT
Worth the Weight?
Melissa St. John discusses skinny models
V
enus: The Roman Goddess of beauty
and love who has captured the imaginations of artists for centuries. She is
strikingly beautiful with pure, soft skin and
sparkling eyes. She would never need botox
and her hair is always immaculate.... But she
is no size zero.
It is a well-established fact that as time passes,
things change. The world around us is constantly adapting and evolving, with new inventions and gadgets being created every second.
And yet, in the same way that mobile phones
are now almost microscopic, our women are
also shrinking at an alarming rate. Glancing
back through the centuries, it is clear to see
that as the years pass, our idea of the ideal
woman is getting smaller and smaller. First
Rubens’ decadently flabby women adorned the
walls of estates and palaces, followed by posters
of Marilyn’s curves and now the object of our
affections are women who resemble 13 year old
boys. Something, somewhere along the line,
has gone desperately wrong. Since when did
women want to look like pre-pubescent teens?
Since when was the idea of youth held in far
greater regard than the wisdom that age brings?
In our youth-obsessed culture, where looks are
everything, what really defines a woman?
It appears that the new quest for eternal youth
has caused women to seek out a slimmer silhouette…one that defies the presence of any curves
and strictly abstains from carbohydrates (two
things which seem to go hand-in-hand on the
bathroom scales). More and more women are
beginning to resemble emaciated lollipops
where their head is too big for their stick-like
frame, and the term “size-zero” is no longer foreign in Britain. The skinny model debate was
sparked a couple of years ago in America and
has since developed into a global phenomenon, causing public outcries and private purges
alike. Recently, the British Fashion Council announced that it would not impose a ban on the
catwalks of London Fashion Week as had been
done in Madrid last September but instead
merely said that those involved in the fashion industry should do their best to promote
a “healthy” body image. Understandably, the
national response was one was of outrage and
many people feel, myself included, that what is
happening on the fashion runways around the
world, is highly irresponsible. Diseases such as
anorexia have had a devastating effect on today’s youth and there can be no denying that
the fashion world and the ‘role models’ they
promote are partly to blame. We live in a celebrity-driven world. If you want to sell a car, get
a celebrity to promote it. Toothpaste, watches,
dresses - the product is immaterial; the only way
to sell anything nowadays is through the power
of celebrity, which means that fashion-obsessed
teenage girls want to be just like the models they
see on the catwalk.
The less you weigh, the better
you are
The difference between
literature and
journalism is
that journalism
is unreadable
and literature is
not read
(Oscar Wilde)
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
During the holidays I had the privilege (or
the terror depending on your level of loyalty to
the Spice Girls) of meeting Victoria Beckham
in the shop where I was working. There was no
doubt about it, on first glance she looked terrific…her skin glowed with a healthy tan, her
nails were immaculate and her hair (the infamous ‘pob’) was shining. But on closer inspec-
tion she looked downright exhausted. Both her
tan and her smile were fake….she looked fedup. Teetering on incredibly high Jimmy Choos
she looked so thin and fragile that you were
scared to sneeze for fear of knocking her sideways. I noticed that she wasn’t carrying a handbag and with good reason I expect….the weight
of the YSL Muse Bag on her tiny arm would be
enough to snap it in two. She is famously one
of the skinniest women in Britain, having shed
her baby-weight after just 2 weeks, plummeting back to her usual skeletal self. Interestingly
though, she refuses to use size-zero models to
promote her new fashion range and has instead
chosen the curvaceous Brazilian supermodel
Daniella Sarahyba to represent her brand. But
whether Ms Beckham herself will consider expanding her own tiny frame to add a bit of meat
to her sinewy limbs, remains to be seen. And
yet Posh gives aspiring size-zeros a hope. She
was once a slightly chubby dancer from Essex
with bad acne and even worse hair (although
we can forgive her for that, after all it was the
80’s) and yet she has blossomed into a glamourous mega-star, one half of the world’s favourite
celebrity brand. Perhaps the fashion industry itself hasn’t really changed but instead our
perceptions of it have shifted. In the past, catwalk models were viewed from afar, regarded
as beautiful aliens who somehow ended up at
Gucci. But today, models are celebrities in their
own right, and celebrities become models. The
boundaries have been blurred and the aspiration to live like them and to look like them has
fallen within our grasp.
Something, somewhere along
the line, has gone desperately
wrong
The desire for a perfect figure is a new extreme
version of the plastic surgery delusion, whereby
a miserably unhappy woman with an unpleasant life saves up for a nose job she doesn’t need
and is astonished to find, three weeks down the
line, that her nose may be smaller but her life
still sucks. Anyone who reads a glossy magazine has the potential to be taken in by the same
thing, to be convinced that owning the perfect
Marc Jacobs handbag, having perfect hair and
being the perfect (ie: miniscule) size would then
make their life perfect. It seems that skinniness
and success are now inseparable in the eyes of
the world….the less you weigh, the better you
are. Certain celebrities (mostly young, usually American and always stupid) have begun
to think that it is entirely necessary for them to
go through life looking as though they have just
stepped out of a magazine, fully airbrushed and
ready for anything. They employ a wide range
of people (stylists, personal trainers, managers,
drug dealers) to help them look good 24/7 and
yet although we know that life is really too short
to put make-up on for a trip to the newsagents,
we start to wonder how we too could look like
an emaciated movie-star with an all-year tan,
whether we are 14 or 40.
The endless supply of new diet books that fill
the shelves, the articles in magazines, the images of tiny celebrities on the pages of Heat,
have all helped to prompt a weight-loss initiative that has become obsessive. Anorexia is no
longer something rare and closeted that people
never talk about but has become an epidemic
She may have no arms, but she’s still more attractive than a Size Zero.
Melissa St. John
which is quickly spreading through both men
and women of all ages. Figures show that 92%
of girls aged between 15 and 17 years are so dissatisfied with their bodies that they would like
to change their appearance and unfortunately,
rather than simply getting a haircut or buying
a new top, these girls are staving themselves,
quite literally to within an inch of their life. Last
August, the size zero model Luisel Ramos died
from a heart attack provoked by her eating disorders as she stepped off the catwalk during the
Uruguayan Fashion Week and in November the
Brazilian model Carolina Reston died aged 21
due to similar health complications. However,
it is not just on the catwalks that the size-zero
woman is predominant but now highstreet
chains have added the new smaller size to their
clothes lines making it accessible to the British
public. When you have the equivalent of a size
zero on the racks, it normalises this idea of being
ultra-thin. It suggests this is something to aspire
to and even worse, it makes people think that it
is achievable. The typical waist measurement on
a size-zero skirt or dress is just 22 inches, which
is the average for an eight year old girl. It seems
that as the girls on the catwalk get younger and
thinner, the women of the country are constantly coming up with new ways to lose both
weight and wrinkles, whilst teenage girls are
refusing to embrace the curves that adulthood
brings in favour of maintaining the androgy-
nous physique that fashion now demands.
But just possibly, we could be wrong to immediately blame the fashion industry completely. Surely we need to look more closely at
the societal problems that have arisen and ask
ourselves how we have become so insecure as to
believe that starvation is an indicator of beauty.
Mothers may tell their daughters the age-old
mantra that “Beauty comes from within” but if
they don’t truly believe it themselves, what hope
does the next generation really have?
Perhaps Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and
Nicole Richie really are the new modern-day
Venuses. But no planet was named after them,
no temples built in their honour, no poems
written to describe their beauty. Maybe at the
end of the day the Greeks had it right after all:
the most beautiful woman in the world was exactly that, a woman….curves included.
What do you think? Email us:
features@tcs.cam.ac.uk
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
IMPACT
Monika Sobiecki interviews local poet Richard Burns
R
ichard Burns is an internationally acclaimed local poet. Born in London in
1943, he attended Pembroke College
and founded the international Cambridge
Poetry Festival in the 1970s. He wrote his collection of poems, The Blue Butterfly, on the
infamous Nazi massacre in Serbia during the
Second World War, that took place just outside the town of Kragujevac.
What do you do apart from your writing, day
to day?
Like most poets I don’t earn my living by writing poetry. Poetry’s an essential activity, but
I have to do a lot of other things in order to
generate an income. A lot of my time is taken
up with money-earning work: I do three or
four different things. One of them is working
with children, running creative writing workshops in schools from all ages, from little kids
to sixth formers. I do teacher training work in
that area. I also occasionally do creative writing with adults. Quite often that sort of thing
feeds into the writing, and…although it’s quite
tiring it’s also exhilarating. I also publish the occasional article here or there and occasionally
do a book review, poetry readings of course, lectures…I also travel abroad, do lectures and go
to conferences.
Do you pick up any cultural things from the
countries you have visited?
Oh yes, I’d call myself more a European poet...
In Serbia, I’m very well known. For example, I
picked up, in The Blue Butterfly, themes from
“Serbian History”, and in its sister book “In a
Time of Drought”, themes that belong to the
Serbian-Balkan folk tradition. So when that
book was launched over there, people recognised it from within their tradition. It’s happening with “The Blue Butterfly” as well: it’s going
to be made into an ‘Oratorio’, a big concert
based on this on the anniversary of the massacre. There’ll be hundreds of people, thousands.
It’s difficult to conceive of in this country, unless it was someone like Ted Hughes who could
pull such crowds.
Taking you right back, when did you start to
write poetry?
I was 13, and I won prizes for it at school. I went
on to become editor of the school magazine.
I had my first story published in the TransAtlantic Review when I was 16.
When you were at Cambridge, did you meet
anyone who’s been an influence on your
work?
There were several phases of my life in
Cambridge. I came up to Pembroke College
from 1961-4 and read English. The college
was very formative…also going on in the college and in the University there was a very rich
world of not so much poetry but drama. I have
to say that there were intellectual influences at
Cambridge…in those days, there was nowhere
in the world like it. Leavis was still around, CS
Lewis had just moved from Oxford, Steiner was
lecturing…I went to lectures with all those people…so it was very vibrant.
My second phase of living in Cambridge was
when I came back in 69 to work at what was
then CCAT (Cambridge College of Arts and
Technology). And there was a bunch of poets
at CCAT including Ezra Pound’s son, Omar
Pound and John James. And I discovered then
that there were very interesting things going on
in poetry in Cambridge. Out of my reading of
that, I set up the International Cambridge Poetry
Festival in 1975. In those years, Cambridge was
extraordinarily exciting, there was a lot going
on. My contribution was to internationalise
it…perhaps to Europeanise it.
Focusing in on the Blue Butterfly…what really triggered you to bring it out as a collection
of your selected writings?
What actually happened was that I was standing outside Šumarice museum in 1985, and
a butterfly came and sat on my finger. I photographed it. I came back to Cambridge and
a poem wrote itself out of me. That’s the title
poem. Then the second poem, Nada, came a
few days later. At the end of the poem, you have
five words for hope: Serbian, Greek, Russian,
Spanish and finally German, implying forgiveness…implying we’re all part of one unity…It
was the Germans that committed the atrocity,
I am a Jew as well. But even then I think I had
the notion that this was something big here, I
knew that this was one of those very great inspirational moments, perhaps you only get a
couple in a lifetime, maybe one. And this was
a life-changing moment. And it was that moment…that prompted me to go and live in
Serbia. I followed the butterfly. It sounds nuts
but it’s true.
So you felt somehow compelled to write the
collection?
I had this sense that the souls of these dead
men…were calling me to speak for them. So
there was a need to do that, almost a transpersonal need. When I began to live in Serbia and
talk about this, people realised that something
was going on, and some of the poems I was writing seemed to have an element that they recognised. So I was being a channel for their history
– it wasn’t just my self imposed on it or my interpretation pulled out of it.
Tell me more about the poem…
It’s one big poem. It was conceived as an elegy
– my models for a great elegy are Milton’s
‘Lycidas’, Shelley’s ‘Adonais’, Tennyson’s ‘In
Memoriam’, and Gray’s ‘Elegy in a Country
Churchyard’, about my own college, Pembroke.
Now, all of those are for individuals, apart from
Gray’s…mine is not for an individual, but for a
whole group of people. From what I understand
from those models …death through mourning,
to acceptance and affirmation. I’m not sure if
I’ve achieved that but that’s what I tried.
Why did you choose to place the fragments of
notes and photographs…historical sources
in the back of the collection?
One reason is to honour those people. The
place of elegy is to honour the dead, as well
as talk about them for the living. The other is
documentation, historical documentation.
The third is my reaction against obscurantism
in the modernist tradition. I dislike it very intensely. Pound, if you read the Cantos and you
really want to understand it, you’ve got to read
the books he read…why should you? All material is available for all of us poets but the game
that’s played of intellectual superiority is to interweave your source material in hidden ways
that aren’t open to the reader. There’s a kind of
superiority over the reader that that implies.
And I don’t like that, I’m a democrat. I want to
communicate with the reader, so I want them to
know what’s going on. The poems stand alone.
They’re not dependent on the notes, but the
notes enrich it.
Culture
In Visible Ink
05
What has the reception been to The Blue
Butterfly?
It’s won two awards, in draft it won the
Wingate-Jewish Quarterly Award, in one of
the last years that they were giving it to poetry.
It’s won the Great Lesson Prize in Serbia, but it
hasn’t yet come out...although parts of it have
been translated. James Gordon has set some
of these as songs, and he will be at the Heffers
presentation.
Do you have any projects set out for the
future?
Yes, absolutely, I’ve got so much material. I’m
64 now, I’d like to live a really long life because
I feel I’m just starting. I tend to have parallel things going on…I’ve got lots of strands in
my work, and I move from one to another. I’ve
got a sequence of sonnets…very formal, traditional. I’ll go for what the poem itself calls out
of me. There’s a sequence of metaphysical sonnets called ‘Not-ness’…that’s an anagram of
‘Sonnets’. I’m hoping to work with sculptors.
I’d love to see something done in stone or metal
as a revolving sculpture. Sometimes I cut words
up and play with them. I’m working, if you like,
from the tiny to the epic.
Richard Burns will be attending a
signing at Heffers.
Join him, along with singer/guitarist
James Gordon, on Thursday 15th
March at 6.30 p.m. at Heffers, 20 Trinity
Street, Cambridge. Tickets are free.
To RSVP phone Dan Healy on 01223
568532 or email literature@heffers.
co.uk
No Straight Lines
Camille Ebden on Maggi Hambling at the Fitzwilliam Museum
I
t is coming up to the end of term, 5th week
blues are still slightly in existence and perhaps you are just a bit fed up with Cambridge and its usual recreations. Cindy’s (Ballare), Gardies, formals and your college bar
might be just a little too familiar or perhaps,
like me, you feel you haven’t really explored
Cambridge properly. If this sounds like you
then why not pop into the Fitzwilliam Museum to the “Maggi Hambling: No Straight
Lines” exhibition.
Maggi Hambling is an esteemed if controversial painter and sculptor, who is perhaps most well known for her memorial to
Oscar Wilde in Trafalgar Square and her
notorious giant scallop shell on the beach
at Aldeburgh. She has work in the National
Gallery, the Tate and the National Portrait
gallery.
I was really excited when I heard she was
having an exhibition in the Fitzwilliam
because I am an admirer of her powerful
paintings of the sea. However, I was a little disappointed when I found that one
piece I had particularly wanted to see
and which had been used to advertise the
collection in both the “Explorer” magazine and the Fitzwilliam Museum’s own
“What’s On” magazine was not actually in
the collection.
The rest of the collection, however,
more than made up for it. Firstly, I think
this collection will appeal to many students
because whilst having plenty to absorb oneself in, it is not particularly large. With the
end of term approaching and many of us
behind on work you probably don’t want
to spend too long in a museum. Secondly, I
loved the title “No Straight Lines” and how
well it fitted in with the collection and her
weaving and dynamic style, for you won’t
find anything straight here- even the centre
piece named “Line” is meandering.
Unlike a great deal of modern art which
can be difficult to enjoy unless you are a
fan of art already and/or know a great deal
about it, this collection can be enjoyed by
everybody. One piece I would pay particular attention to is the portrait of Stephen
Fry. When you look at it really close up it
doesn’t seem to make sense and seems to be
just a collection of marks. When you look
at it from a distance, however, all the marks
merge into the context of the others and
Stephen Fry melts into view.
“Descent of a bull’s head” is excellent as Hambling manages to depict time
and movement from a charcoal drawing.
Within the one drawing you see snap shots
of different moments during a bull’s fatal
fall, giving the potent impression of seeing
the movement of the actual fall of the bull
to its death.
“Rhinoceros in Ipswich Museum”, created when she was just 17 and her portraits
of her lover, the late Henrietta Moraes,
are interesting pieces as is her newest
piece, shown for the first time, “Wave
approaching”.
So pop along if you have a free half an
hour or so. If nothing else, you can leave
the Fitzwilliam feeling smug that you have
now actually been there and can put an end
to your mother’s nagging. However, I think
you will also enjoy the exhibition and get a
great deal of pleasure out of it.
‘No Straight Lines’ is running from
Tue 6 February 2007 until Sun 29
April 2007
Octagon Gallery, Fitz Museum, Trumpington Street,
FREE Admission
If you think
you’re cutlured
enough to edit
this page (and
you probably
are), e-mail
apply@tcs.cam.
ac.uk to apply
for next term.
IMPACT
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
IMPACT
07
Fashion
‘ I was the first woman
to burn my bra – it took
the fire department four
days to put it out.’
Fashion
06
Dolly Parton
The Bra: 100 Years of B-Cup Politics
It’s been too long: it’s time to bust (chortle) some myths...
T
Words by
Hannah Nakano
Stewart
he bra first appeared in print in Vogue
magazine, 100 years ago. Since then,
it has managed to be both innocuous
and controversial; commonplace yet politicized. It’s no secret that clothing and fashions
across history have reflected implicit truths
about the attitudes of societies towards sexuality, hierarchy and gender - but is the bra
any different?
Firstly, the mythology of the bra needs to be
cleared up – even Trivial Pursuit would have you
believe that an individual called Otto Titzling
invented the bra in 1912, but lost a lawsuit
against the Frenchman Philippe de Brassiere,
whose name the garment now bears. But have
a little think – Tit-zling? The story was invented
by Wallace Reyburn in Bust Up: The Uplifting
Tale of Otto Titzling and the Development of
the Bra, but somehow got believed along the
way. In truth, the bra as distinct from the corset had been evolving from the middle of the
nineteenth century, and the invention of the
first garment resembling the modern brassiere
is credited to French feminist Herminie Cadolle
in 1889. The term ‘brassiere’ only acquired its
modern meaning in the 1920s – and there you
have a potted history of the intricate contraption that costs a bloody fortune.
Secondly, both mum and grandma
would have you believe that if you don’t
wear a bra, you’ll lie on your back and fill
your armpits in no time at all. This is severely debatable, since there’s no scientific evidence that a bra makes the breasts
any stronger, although it does help the
larger-titted with issues of maceration
and intertrigo. That’s right, big words for
‘rash’. It would be shooting the messenger somewhat to blame the bra for the
idea that the natural sagging of breasts
is somehow abnormal, but all the same,
there’s no real reason to wear a bra if you
don’t want to. No matter what Mrs Smith
said in Year 8 PHSE.
In the vein of myth-busting the bra,
there’s the infamous image of bra-burning, for many synonymous of 1960s feminism. This supposedly took place in a
protest at the 1968 Miss America pageant,
where a group of women bearing plac-
ards of ‘Let’s Judge Ourselves As People’
picketed the site. Bras, false eyelashes
and other items deemed to constrict and
objectify the female body were thrown
into the ‘freedom trash can’ – but they
were never burned. This was allegedly
because the group were unable to obtain
permission to have an open fire in public.
Nevertheless, it somehow became urban
legend that bras were burned. Up until
1992, it was assumed that this was a sexist male press attempting to ridicule the
movement, but then Lindsey van Gelder
confessed that she was responsible. As a
young reporter for the New York Post, she
had been sent to write a piece on the protest, and made a reference to a hypothetical bra-burning in an attempt to compare
the movement with the draft-card burnings of the Anti-Vietnam demonstrations.
Van Gelder maintains that she was attempting to lend the protest more credibility by doing so, but the message was
more than misconstrued along the way.
Burnt or just thrown in the trashcan, the
bra was seen by the feminists of 1968 as
another instrument of bodily torture and
oppression, similar to Chinese footbinding. In many ways, they’ve got a point. If
there’s little to no health need for a bra,
then why do we all feel obliged to wear
one? It’s not far from everything else in
fashion in this respect – the idealised female body image is a problem. Whether
it’s perky boobs as a result of the bra, a
tiny waist thanks to the corset, or lengthy
legs in painful heels, it all raises the sigh of
‘the things we do for fashion…’. It seems
a fair point, but all the same, there’s another side to this. The problem is that
Germaine Greer, for all her ‘the bra is a ludicrous invention’ statements, also emphasised the fact that to tell a woman not
to wear a bra is just the same: it’s forcing
the choice and freedom of body image
out of the power of the individual. And
isn’t this what feminism is all about?
Maybe part of the problem is that
in 1968, women may have been lumbered with contraptions not much
sexier than the Triumph Doreen, and today
we have Adriana Lima stomping down
the Victoria’s Secret catwalk in creations
so delectable that it would be a shame to
put outerwear over them. Wearing a bra,
like wearing heels, boils down to how it
makes the individual feel, and more often
than not, sexy underwear and a pair of ridiculous heels make you feel the proverbial million dollars. To turn the bra into a
symbol, with all intentions good, simply
makes generalisations about women and
dictates to the wearer how they should
feel about what they wear: it contradicts
itself.
Wear a bra, or don’t wear a bra. Burn it
if it makes you feel better. The bra has no
meaning except the one you give it, and
if that meaning is that a trip to Rigby and
Peller is good for your soul, then go forth
and prosper.
Images by
Harriet Bradshaw
Modelled by
Hannah, Ilana
and Lianne
IMPACT
The Cambridge Student 03/05/07
Food & Drink
08
Bacalhau Stewart Petty
H
aving been mugged in the dubious
streets of late night Oporto, my surf-eager friends were not too hungry following their hapless encounter. However, once
they arrived in Figueira da Foz, the invigorating sea air replenished their appetites. I was
ravenous after a challenging day of surfing at
Cabedelo beach. A slap-up meal was in order.
The young and cheery owners of our hostel (Paintshop) recommended an eatery called
‘Sporting’. On hearing this, I imagined a lagerfuelled pool hall characterised by a fug of fag
smoke and mobbish jeers from ASBO-ed
morning to witness the frenzy of Figueira’s
fish market. The fact that very few locals spoke
English here and did not care was bluntly refreshing. However, body language and a spattering of French helped me on my quest to
buy some sardinhas, a wad of sour dough and
a knobbly lemon. After a few minutes under
the grill, lunch was beautifully uncomplicated
and utterly satisfying. Bacalhau is Portugal’s
national dish. Admittedly, dried codfish did
not really arouse my salivary glands. However
as the legend goes, there are as many ways to
cook this dish as there are days in the year. So,
seating amount of the Atlantic whilst surfing,
this beverage irrigated my parched tongue
most refreshingly. Another reason to fall
in love with Portugal is the cheap beer and
friendly drunks. (I should note the sober locals were as equally affable.) One example I
can recall is where I was lethargically waiting at
Carcavelos train station after checking out the
surf. A rather sleazy and dreadlocked character
with a heavily furrowed brow approached me
on the platform. ‘Where you from my friend?’
Immediately I thought that this was another ‘hashish’ hustler. In Lisbon, dealers sell
Pride of Portugal
cannabis ostentatiously on the streets holding
out bags of the plant for all eyes to see. However,
my new amigo reached into his rucksack for
plastic cups and a large Super Bock beer. I felt
guilty for being so suspicious. He simply wanted
to share a drink. This gesture of friendship captured the essence of Portuguese friendliness.
As we sat slurping beer on a balmy Sunday afternoon, Raoul invited another stranger to join
us. Superbock had become a dear friend to my
diet over the last few days. Its smooth and yet
crisp taste accompanied by malty notes was
delicious. Costing a single euro per 330ml in
nearly every bar, it was cheaper than bottled
water. Cheers to dehydration!
Rather like the French, the Portuguese possess an unflinching penchant for less conventional cuts of meat. I can demonstrate this with
their porky predilection: it would be strange
not to see a pig trotter, ear and even face
drooping in the butcher’s window display.
Many of the restaurants zealously serve these
specialities. Something of a culinary must in
Portugal is the exquisite roasted piglet - leitão
assado. Its skin is golden and crunchy. Rabbit
is also a popular dish. It may not look too
pretty on the plate, but its rich intensity of flavour is captivating. If you are squeamish about
tripe and wish to overcome your intestinal
phobia, seek the aid of tripas à moda do Porto.
Unlike offal I have eaten before, its texture was
surprisingly addictive.
Some critics dismiss the cuisine here
as being heavy and oily. However, in my opinion, the quality of the dishes is not to be questioned. I think that the hugely generous portions
of food - often complimented with stacks of
rice or potatoes - could be to blame for this
condemnation. I’m not complaining though.
Do not feel obliged to eat everything on the
plate. The generosity of the Portuguese extends to the abundant Port producers lining
the River Douro. Offering free tours and port,
a day crawling around Oporto is sorted. I may
not have spent the healthiest time in Portugal,
what with endless portions, copious cakes and
a vulnerable lack of willpower against oneeuro Superbock. However, I was (nearly) fat
and (very) content. Fortunately, intermittent
but powerful days of surf obliterated most of
the calories.
Stewart Petty enjoys a seafood spectacular on the Iberian
peninsula, but discovers that the land is equally plentiful...
Human
vocabulary is
still not capable,
and probably
never will be
of knowing,
recognizing, and
communicating
everything that
can be humanly
experienced and
felt
José Saramago
yobs. Then I remembered that we were not in
England. Instead, the clinical but welcoming
restaurant was an understated shrine to the
football club Sporting Lisbon.
What I like about Portuguese restaurants
are the copious portions they repeatedly serve.
What is odd is the penchant to light these establishments with ASDA-style brightness. A
television tucked away in the corner is also an
inevitable feature. At Sporting, without persuasion, we chose the nominal six euro menu
offering a selection of all-you-can-eat fish…
followed by meat. Breezy Figueira da Foz nurtures a healthy fishing economy. The ‘Sporting’
menu epitomized this: sardines, horse mackerel, red snapper, red mullet, sole, chub and octopus were served with earthly majesty. This
nosh demonstrates unpretentious simplicity and dedication to what the French would
call terroir. Literally two hundred metres away
from the restaurant, the fish on our plates
would have squirmed from the fisherman’s
net earlier that morning. Baked or grilled. Saltsprinkled. Served.
Gripped by a newfound infatuation with
fruits of the sea, I awoke early the following
when prepared sensitively with a suitable accompaniment of vegetables and rice, I am convinced that it can be delicious.
I feel no shame in writing that I adopted a
two-cakes-a-day ritual during my two weeks
in Portugal. Although I am sure that their
presence was not so sugar-coated at the time,
the Portuguese can say obrigado to their early
Moorish occupiers. It was these invaders who
introduced confectionary here. In Oporto,
Lisboa and Figueira da Foz, the presentation
of all things sweet was ravishingly aesthetic.
Rows of sugary gems twinkled behind immaculately polished glass. At forty euro cents for a
pastel de nata (egg custard), you do not have
to be rich to be a fat cat. One of my favourite
treats was a chocolate pão de ló topped with
walnuts.
The party-animal Portuguese are eternally
indebted to their Brazilian cousins for the
zingy Caipirinha. For less than three euros, the
concoction on offer here is far from the feeble
excuse for a cachaça-based cocktail that is frequently inflicted upon the bar flies of blighty.
One variation of the drink in Lisbon replaced
the lime with lychee. Having swallowed a nau-
Pão de ló Stewart Petty
03/05/07 The Cambridge Student
IMPACT
Food & Drink
Debonair Drinking
Bill Brogan explores the Douro Valley; home to Portugal’s prized Port
With cheap flights now the norm, I have visited the Douro three times in the last eighteen
months. You can fly to Porto for less than £50.00
return from London Stansted. I normally stay
in the Duo Wine Region in the small village of
Parada de Gonta. This is very close to Viseu,
a very small, charming town about 40 minutes
Taylor’s Port Stewart Petty
from the University City of Coimbra. Parada de
Gonta is 75 minutes from Oporto Airport.
The wines in this region are improving after
years out in the doldrums. In fact, Quinta de
Lemos, near Viseu, is the James Bond of all
vineyards. It is the hobby of a Belgian Textile
Magnate, who lets his daughter run this new
“state of the art” estate. Grapes used in this region include reds such as Alfrocheifo, Jaen and
Aragenez. For whites one can expect Bical,
Encruzado and Malvesia Fina.
The drive to the Douro Valley is truly spectacular and the wine region itself is possibly the
most scenic that I have seen in the world.
Portugal uses its own native grapes and none
more so than in the Douro: the home of Port.
The road from the South brings you into the
steeply flanked town of Regua. Once here, you
need to find the way to Pinhao, a quaint village
situated right on the river in the centre of the
Douro.
Having crossed the river, go to the Vintage
House Hotel, a “wine hotel” . Whilst it is not
cheap, belonging to Relais and Chateaux, the
hotel is beautifully located. Other facilities it offers include a wine shop and museum.
If you are interested in getting involved in
some local oenology, they run wine courses
here: “The Wine Experience” costs from 47.50
to 62.50 euros per person or you could try “The
5 Red Wine Grapes of the Douro” for 47.50 to
62.50 euros per person.
Also on offer are port wine tastings. We
visited “Quinta de Novel” owned by Axa
Insurance Group. It was truly stunning! A lot
of investment has been ploughed into the company. Great views complimented the drinking. For red wine, visit “Quinta de Crasto”,
winner of “Red Wine of the Year” in the Wine
Magazine. This uses the main port grapes including Tourigu Nacional and Tinta Roriz. The
most widely planted grape variety is “Tourigu
Francesa”.
A vineyard that you should certainly visit
is Quinta de Ventozela. This is now Spanish
owned and some of its vines are over 100 years
old. There is a great lodge for visitors to taste
wines and from here, we travelled downstream.
The trip down to the vineyard in the 4x4’s is an
experience in itself.
Ending up in Oporto, you come across the
port lodges located by the river in the old town.
These establishments are flanked by some
outstanding restaurants, bars and quirky souvenir shops.
For more information:
Quinta dos Tres Rios, Parada de Gonta,
www.minola.co.uk
Vintage House Hotel, Pinhao
www.hotelvintagehouse.com
Brazil in a nutshell
Muireann Maguire gets us all high on selenium
Ah, Brazil - the land of fabulous things I can
never spell, like capoeira, caipirinhas and
Giselle Bundchen. Nothing could be trendier
than the Amazon rainforest - especially since
it is turning into soya bean oil almost as fast
as England’s meadows are becoming rapeseed. Since everything about Brazil is or has
been very cool indeed, it won’t be long before
Sainsbury’s is offering Taste the Difference piranha pasties or organic fair-trade tapir steaks
(hand-reared in Yorkshire piggeries to save
on air miles!) Since this column has always resisted trendiness, today I am recommending a
tropical delight that’s been under our noses all
along - the humble brazil nut. Depending on
which side of the fair trade fence you stand on,
it is responsible either for protecting the jungle
ecosystem through sustainable harvesting (as
brazil nut plantations aren’t financially viable,
all the nuts we munch are gathered in the jungle) or for keeping poor collective farmers in the
grip of big export firms. In any case, once it has
used up fifty tonnes of carbon flying over here,
we might as well appreciate it. There are plenty
of reasons why we should. The brazil nut contains more fat than any other nut (so watch your
portion sizes), but with 14% protein it makes
a good meat substitute for vegetarians. It contains enough selenium to fly you to the moon
and back, besides being a source of other good
things like magnesium and zinc. Interestingly,
it’s also exceptionally high in radium, so you can
use leftover brazil nuts for mood lighting at parties. Most recipes with brazil nuts are dessertbased (they’re delicious combined with sugar,
dried cassava, ground almonds, chopped figs
and milk and fried in pancakes) but here’s one
for Bundchen Brazil Nut Loaf - passed on to me
by our lovely Giselle’s granny…
Chop one onion and fry in a tablespoonful of olive oil until transparent. Crush a clove
of garlic, finely chop four stalks of celery, and
add to the onion. Next, grind up 150g of brazil nuts with an equal amount of cashew nuts
or almonds. Add to the pan with half a cup of
previously prepared mashed potato and 100g
of breadcrumbs. Flavour salt, pepper, thyme
and cayenne pepper. Stir in up to a glassful
of red wine to bind. Transfer half the mixture
to a greased baking tin and spread a layer of
chestnut puree on top: then add the second
half on top of the puree. Bake for 45 minutes,
or until firm and crusty on top, at 170˚C. Melt
some parmesan or taleggio on the loaf before
serving. This dish should be set off by some
dramatic in-season vegetables: a beetroot
salad, or asparagus spears, or simply buttered
spinach.
If nut loaf is too lily-livered for you, here’s
a more red-blooded variation: Battered
Brazil Nut Steaks. Pulverise your brazil nuts
and mix with a splash of milk and some
olive oil, finely chopped garlic, and herbs
and spices to taste. Take some tapir steaks
- or pork chops - and roll them in the mixture. Deep-fry and serve with brown rice
cooked in coconut milk. Perfect after a
tough session of capoeira, accompanied by
capirinha on the rocks!
09
Hans Schweitzer Amica Dall
RECIPE
Queens’ College’s Michelin-starred
Master Chef Hans Schweitzer used
to own the Barbados restaurant,
La Mer. This week, he offers The
Cambridge Student one of the
restaurant’s tropical treats.
Mango Brûlée (Serves 6)
Ingredients
Six 3-inch ramekins
1 split vanilla bean
2 ripe mangoes
7 egg yolks
Half litre of cream
75g white sugar
1 tbsp rum
Icing sugar to dust
Method
Pre-heat oven to 160 C.
Peel the mangoes, then cut four even
slices for each brûlée and put to one
side. Cut off all remaining mango and
put into a blender; blend to a smooth
puree.
Bring the cream and split vanilla bean
to boil. Whisk the egg yolk, sugar
and rum to a smooth, creamy mixture. Pour in boiling cream and whisk
briskly. Add the mango purée
ée
e and stir.
Sieve the mixture through a fine sieve
and divide into the six ramekins. Cook
slowly for 30 minutes. Take out of the
oven.
The brûléess should be firm and set but
should still have a little wobble within!
Leave to cool for 20 minutes. Then
place into a fridge and cool for several
hours.
Sprinkle the mango slices with sugar
and caramelize under a hot grill or with
a blow torch. When ready to serve, add
the caramelized mango slices to the
brûlée.. �ust with icing sugar.
Enjoy!
Giselle Bundchen
Claret is the liquor
for boys; port, for
men; but he who
aspires to be a
hero must drink
brandy
Samuel Johnson
IMPACT
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
15 Minutes With
Mariella Frostrup
Columns
10
Cally Squires talks to the broadcaster
ever met. He has opinions on everything and
theories and plans that actually make sense and
work.
What couldn’t you live without?
Only my children I think is the honest answer
to that question. Everything else only seems
important in a certain environment, which is
something that anyone who travels in the Third
World quickly realises about the material things
they hold dear. I am just as frivolous and extravagant as the next person but I know I could
do without it all.
What makes you angry
All the usual suspects. Mindless bureaucracy, call centres, excess regulation, the prospect of identity cards, the war in Iraq, the fact
that women still don’t enjoy equal pay - as illustrated this week by the furore over councils having to raise their salary bills by 4% in
order to make sure all staff are paid equally.
Why the bloody hell has it taken 37 years since
the introduction of an Act to ensure it was made
law? I am always raging about something.
Mariella is the presenter of several programmes, both on radio and television. In
addition she regularly writes for many of the
national papers and has made guest appearances on Have I Got News For You, Absolutely
Fabulous and Coupling. Born in Norway, she
now lives in London with her husband and
children.
What would your advice be to anyone wanting a career in journalism or broadcasting?
It may look easy and it can certainly be rewarding but if you are pursuing a career just for those
reasons you are unlikely to have any long-term
success. When I was a kid, fame was not something you aspired to or even thought about. I
think in many ways its pursuit is reducing us
all to lead less interesting lives. When I was a
kid, journalism was about the pursuit of truth
against the odds; and certainly against the
wishes of the establishment. Nowadays it is all
too frequently about rummaging in other peoples underwear, metaphorically of course!
What path would you have taken had you not
become presenter or writer?
When I was eight I really wanted to be an airhostess but maybe I would have gone to college
and carried on an academic career. Teaching
always seemed to me to be a really important
and satisfying job.
Sleeping is
giving in
No matter what
the time is
(Win Butler)
Where do you see yourself in ten years time?
I struggle to work out what I’ll be doing next
year. Ten years time is way too far ahead!
I am all for blogging. Everyone
deserves to have their voice
heard
What has been the most challenging moment
you have faced in your career?
My first ten years in broadcasting when the presumption was, that because I had blonde hair
and an exotic name, I was an imposter trying to
seduce my way in to a serious job with no abilities to back up my ambition. I am not the first,
or last, woman sadly who will experience that
sort of discrimination. It is just not fashionable
to talk about it anymore.
What has been the most rewarding moment
of your career or life?
Being asked to join the panel of judges for the
Booker Prize, which I know would have made
my father so proud; and did make my mother.
I am just as frivolous and
extravagant as the next
person but I know I could
do without it all.
Do you have any regrets?
Not carrying on to University is the only one
really. I don’t think when you are young you
necessarily appreciate the luxury of spending
three years just learning and discussing ideas.
Everyone is in such a rush to hit the workplace
but once you are there you are trapped forever.
College is the most important honeymoon period you could hope for and in many places in
the world, especially for women, an almost unattainable dream.
What do you know now which you wish you
had known when you were younger?
I wish I’d had a better idea of what was important and a much stronger sense of my own self
worth. In my twenties I was terribly insecure
and when I look back now I just wish I’d been
more certain of my own potential. It would
have saved me from some dreary jobs and some
terrible love affairs.
Who is the most interesting person you have
met?
You were speaking for the proposition of
the motion “This House Believes Islam is
Incompatible with Western Liberalism”.
Where do you stand on the issue of women
wearing the veil?
My husband is the most interesting man I have
I think that women have an absolute right
to wear whatever they like. That is one of the
important rights we enjoy in a liberal western
democracy that we would be denied in many
Islamic countries.
Unfortunately the proposition you were
defending was defeated in the debate on
Thursday at the Union. Did you anticipate
this?
I knew we would be defeated but I am surprised
by how terrified people are of decrying the fundamentalist voices in the Islamic world who
seem to be silencing all dissenters with a combination of rhetoric and fear.
I don’t think when you
are young you necessarily
appreciate the luxury of
spending three years just
learning and discussing ideas.
Having written for publications including
The Guardian, The Observer and Harpers
and Queen - do you see “internet blogging”
as a vehicle for free speech, or too unregulated
and unreliable?
Is it difficult balancing motherhood with a demanding career?
Yes, but it makes going home in the evening
such an exciting thing. Ultimately combining
two full time occupations (motherhood and career) is always going to be difficult, but having
my children is without question my proudest
achievement.
In my twenties I was
terribly insecure
You took part in Comic Relief this year. How
did you feel when it was revealed last week that
presenter (Terry Wogan) accepts payment to
host the show?
I hate moral blackmail of any sort. If Terry
Wogan is happy to charge for his services, and
a charity is happy to pay, then that is their business. Wogan’s presenting skills are what he
makes his living from. It is up to him what he
does with them and who he offers to perform for
free for, as it is for all of us as individuals. People in the public eye are asked to donate their
services to various charities every day. The most
important thing is to choose the causes you feel
strongly about supporting and make sure you
know where their money is going.
Love the Features Section? Think you can do better?
Applications for The Cambridge Student Editorial Team, Michaelmas 2007, are still open. Email apply@cusu.cam.ac.uk to receive an application form
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
IMPACT
Columns
International
Women’s Day
Equal rights; for men no more, for women no less
T
oday is international women’s day and
at this very moment there are literally
thousands of celebrations and events
going on all over the world. This is an occasion which, whilst it transcends national
borders, is interpreted by many groups, cultures and individuals in different ways. The
one thing these events and the people that run
them have in common is that they are feminist in the reassuring, inclusive and simple
sense of the word: they advocate equal rights
for women, in every respect. This is a fundamental principle that millions of people
advocate and hold close to their hearts, myself included. However, for me occasion also
prompts some very necessary questions about
the position and experiences of women globally, from Cambridge where I focus my energies, to Britain as a whole, to America, Denmark, Darfur, North Korea, Congo and Iraq
to name just a few locations that have crossed
my mind. Many women’s groups, councils,
museums and galleries are hosting events celebrating women’s culture including art, photography and poetry. Many others are campaigning on the issues that affect women all
over the world including reproductive rights,
stop violence against women, women against
rape and women’s healthcare.
Whether we are campaigning on these
issues or celebrating a tremendous wealth
of women’s culture, we are necessarily exploring what it means to be a woman both
in our own society and in different parts
of the world. This is a complex field that
as women we not only contend with today,
but everyday. It seems to me that the essence of women’s experience is the process
of negotiating our position, whether it is
within our society, our political standing
or within personal relationships. Some
women take their rights for granted – the
right to come home to a safe household,
the right not to suffer rape or violence, the
right to their fair share of economic resources. However, many women are not
given these rights; women own less than 1%
of the world’s property, and figures compiled by Amnesty International show that
hundreds of women across the world experience exceptional cruelty and sexual vio
lence on a daily basis.
Whilst many women are today discussing women’s rights and culture, MarieTerese Nlandu, a London based lawyer
and mother is facing execution in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo after
becoming the first woman to challenge the
election of the president. This is a story
that has made headlines, yet there are tens
of thousands more women completely unknown to us who are suffering in prison,
on the streets and in their own homes. In
Darfur, it is widely known that soldiers
use rape as a weapon of war, in order to
break down communities. Violence against
women is not something that is restricted
to far flung countries that flash unsettling
images across news screens. It exists all
over the world and is a massively under reported problem in Britain.
The statistics that pass my desk of the horrific experiences of women in this country
and across the world are so numbing that it
becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend the situation or feel any sense of sisterhood. Sometimes, in our own society,
which at least on the surface appears to promote individuality, it can even be difficult
to relate to your own neighbour. Yet today
at least, we must make every effort to do
so. How is she coping with her work load?
How is her relationship with her boyfriend?
What personal achievements has she managed this term? How well do women really
relate to one another even on our doorstep,
and, to be honest, how much are men and
women as a whole thinking about one another’s best interests? Whether you pick up
a white ribbon from one of our stalls in the
market square, read a book by a women author or think further a field about women
across the world, make sure you mark international women’s day.
Vegetarians
Rich Saunders
L
et me get one thing straight. I have nothing against Vegetarians as people. I have
nothing against the fact that they don’t
eat meat. As far as I can tell most of them are
pretty normal people in all but their eating
habits. What does get to me is the zealous vegetarians who try and convert you to the way of
the lentil at every opportunity.
Anyone who’s ever lived with a veggie
will know the old arguments inside out by
now. Yes it probably is healthier. Less fat,
less salt, less cholesterol; sounds good so
far. It is undoubtedly better for the environment. The images of swathes of Amazonian
rainforest being chopped down to make
room for herds of methane emitting cows
just so people can sink their teeth into yet
another burger are pretty compelling. And
yes, by sticking to a meat-free diet you’re
pretty safe from BSE, E. Coli, salmonella,
bird flu, microscopic parasites that want to
eat your brain, and a whole range of other
dangers that are potentially lurking within
every sausage, steak and fillet.
Ok so vegetarians probably are healthier, better for the planet and generally more
likely to get into heaven. But this does not
mean that every time someone in the vicinity eats anything vaguely meat-based that
they have the right to a) go over the reasons above in immense detail, or b) look
like they’re about to vomit, calling me a
callous murderer before running out the
room. It wasn’t me wielding the bolt-gun,
calm down…
I would love to be vegetarian, I really
would. And before you ask I have tried
it. For nearly two weeks I felt wholesome,
healthy and less guilty about the environmental destruction I was inflicting on the
planet. But I was bored. Very, very bored.
You can shape Quorn in a many ways as you
want; into burgers, fillets, even little towers,
but its still made from a fungus and it still
tastes of nothing.
And let’s be honest, most vegetarians
are brilliant hypocrites. Vegetarianism is
the “practice of not consuming the flesh of
any animal, with or without also eschewing other animal derivatives, such as dairy
products or eggs”, and yet several of my vegetarian friends eat fish. Last time I checked
a fish was an animal. Living under-water
isn’t an exemption clause. And milk, seems
to be covered as well. Dry cornflakes anyone? I think Bill Bailey has got it summed
up: “I’m a postmodern vegetarian - I eat
meat ironically”.
So yes, you can sit there across the table
looking smug behind your lentil bake, but
please let me enjoy my processed lump of
ex-animal in peace.
Anything you want to get
off your chest?
Email: features@tcs.cam.ac.uk
One of the many marches across the wold in affirmation of women’s rights. c_5
11
I sleep with my
hands across my
chest,
And I dream
of you with
someone else
(Paul Smith)
12
IMPACT
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
Listings
Theatre
Music and Clubs
If you loved ‘Woman in Black’ you’ll
enjoy this!
A plethora of musical talent awaits
Cambridge this week...
Hound of the Baskervilles
Couper-s-Lecons de Tenebre
Cambridge Arts Theatre
This production marries theatre with
cinema...people have travelled miles
to see it!
Monday 12th - Saturday 17th March
7.45pm £10-£20
Featuring the talents of Elizabeth
Heighway, Teresa Pells, Sarah
MacDonald and Mary Pells
Fitzwilliam Museum (Gallery 3)
Sunday 11th March
1.15pm
Cambridge Theatre
Smorgasboarde
Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer
Fitzpatrick Hall, Queen’s College
11pm
Wednesday 7th - Saturday 10th
March
Copenhagen by Michael Frayn
ADC Theatre
Some questions remain long after
their oweners have died?
Tuesday 6th - Saturday 10th March
7.45pm £5-£8
The Medics Revue present...
Happy Fetus
ADC Theatre
A fast-paced, sketch-based show of
slick, original comedy...just what the
doctor ordered!
Wednesday 7th - Saturday 10th
March
11pm £4-£6
‘People who like
this sort of thing
will l find this
the sort of thing
they like’
Richard Nixon
Soc-Doc-Soc
Garbage Warrior
New Tech Art: Breakspaces
St. John’s Film presents...
Three Colours Blue
The Kinki Ball
Brought to you by the director Ollie
Hodge and the producer Rachel
Wexler
Umney Theatre, Robinson College
Wednesday 14th March
5pm-7pm
Needing no introduction, this is
Harrison Ford’s first appearance as
Indiana Jones, an archaeologist and
action hero
St. John’s College
Sunday 11th March
7 & 10pm
Fitzpatrick Hall, Queen’s College
A play by on of Spain’s greatest
playwrights
Tuesday 6th - Saturday 10th March
7.30pm £4 - £7
School of Pythagaros
Ghosts is an extraordinary play...” a
masterpiece”
Tuesday 13th - Friday 16th March
8pm £4/£5
I have no idea what’s happening here.
I missed breakdancing the first time
around, whenever that was.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
directed by Stephen Spielberg
BATS presents...
Yerma by Frederick Garcia Corca
Other stuff
A complex psychological study of
emotional liberty...not for the light
hearted
The first of Kieslowski’s haunting and
poetic trilogy...every shot of feeling
and emotion
St. John’s College
Thursday 8th March
9pm
Corpus Christi Playroom
The festival celebrating the best of
Cambridge new writing...the best we
have to offer!
date
time £price (conc. price)
Lady Margaret Players
presents...
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
Film
Coinciding with Cambridge Science
Festival, artist Mark Dixon will be
leading a workshop and discussing his
use of new technology
The Junction
Wednesday 14th March
Workshop: 3pm-6pm
Presentation: 8pm
Ballare
Tuesday 13th March
Easter Ball
Club 22
Sunday 11th March
BBC Concert Orchestra
Regarded by many as ‘the English
Brahms,’ Vaughn Williams was a
master of symphony, developing the
form within his own distinct idiom. It
is a compelling style, characterised by
rich orchestral colours and sonorous
harmonies
Cambridge Corn Exchange
Thursday 8th March
7.30pm
Box Office: 01223 356851
Mastana
Handel’s Messiah
A collaboration between Christ’s
College Music Society and CU
Baroque Ensemble
Great St. Mary’s Church
Saturday 10th March
7.30pm
£8 (£4conc)
Cambridge Guitar Club
St. James Centre, Wulfstan Way
Thursday 8th March
8pm
U Roy and Junior Murnin
Fantastic Double-Header
The Junction
Thursday 8th March
7pm
£16adv/£17on door
Goo with Friendly Fires and
Futureheads DJ
Indie Bands and Disco dancing, now
with added rock
The Junction
Friday 9th March
11pm-3am
£6adv/£7on door
The largest annual Asian arts show in
East Anglia...prepare youselves for an
enchanting evening filled with some
of the most enthralling, colourful and
exotic performances to date
Cambridge Corn Exchange
Sunday 11th March
7.30pm
PUZZLES 23
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
Puzzles
Chess Challenge
White to play
Black has just picked up an important central pawn with …Nxd5.
What trap had White prepared?
Solution to Chess Challenge:
A game from the Second’s Varsity
chess match two weekends ago
against Oxford, which ended
Cambridge 8-2 Oxford. Gonville
and Caius’ Ruari Hamlin went
up a piece after 17)Rxc8+ Bxc8
18)Qxd5! Qxd5 19)Nc7+ Kf7
20)Nxd5, and converted his extra
piece advantage in the ending
without difficulty.
CU Chess Club meets every Saturday 4–6pm
in Trinity Parlour Room http://www.srcf.ucam.org/chess
Editor-in-Chief Jack Sommers
editor@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Editor at Large Elly Shepherd
editor@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Carolyn Hylton, Jimmy Appleton
photos@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Rich Saunders, Victoria
Brudenell
features@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Cally Squires
interviews@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Amy Blackburn, Peter Wood
news@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Andy Gawthorpe, Preet Majithia
focus@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Stewart Petty
eating@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Sam Brett
arts@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Nina Chang
film@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Amy Barnes, Lisa Hagan
theatre@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Jack Dentith, Luke W. Roberts,
James Garner
music@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Hannah Nakano Stewart
fashion@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Lianne Warr
science@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Tom Richardson, Chris Lillycrop
sport@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Ilana Raburn
travel@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Lisa Hagan
listings@tcs.cam.ac.uk
Leah Holroyd
tcs@cusu.cam.ac.uk (puzzles)
CUSU Business Manager
Lily Stock
business@cusu.cam.ac.uk
CUSU Services Officer
Ashley Aarons
services@cusu.cam.ac.uk
TCS Design Concept
Vicki Smith & Kate Slotover
Production
Harriet Bradshaw and Wil Mossop
Board of Directors
Alice Palmer, Elly Shepherd
Lily Stock, Ashley Aarons,
Amina Al-Yassin, Rob Palmer, Jack
Sommers
Features,
Literature,
Arts,
Politics
Out Friday
24 THEATRE
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
Chimes of bedlum or a dark love story?
‘The Changeling’ takes you into a Catholic world of blurred edges and
deepest shadows where you cannot trust that what you see is true
Lisa Hagan
S
tanding in the eerie surroundings of the
Round Church we were bewildered by the
presence of numerous jugglers…jugglers in
a churchyard?! What could these possibly have to
do with ‘The Changeling’? Well, we were soon to
find out…
Upon entering the church we were immediately
confronted by the bewildering and spooky materialisation of a man dressed in white. This immediate engagement with the performers of the play
unsettled us through their foreboding presences.
Tentatively, we made our way to the seats with actors
weaving their way in and out in what could only be
described as imaginative play…but where to sit? The
choice was hardly our own as we were directed into
church pews by male actors in white robes who continually made it their aim to direct and appeal to the
audiences interests. At times, these so called ‘clowns’
actively encouraged audience participation, and as
we sat there, we actually dreaded catching their eyes
for fear of being drawn in. The cavernous interior
of the church was transformed into a cacophony of
noise and movement as musicians, performers and
jugglers vied for our attention. Amidst this carnivalesque assault on our senses, the lights dimmed and
the air of mystery intensified, and so the play had
begun.
Director Milly Greene exploited the advantages
of the location to great effect. ‘The Changeling’- a
play which does not enable you to trust what you see;
a compendium of twists and turns, was coherently
translated through the distinct staging and spatial
arrangements of the set. Audience participation was
integral to the piece; with the production necessitating us to move from place to place in order to follow the complexities of the action. Yet surprisingly,
this constant movement and engagement with the
audience did nothing to hinder the progression of
the play or dispel the atmosphere which had been
induced. In fact, it served as a means for the audience to be constantly aware of that which was before them. The two opposing arenas of the play were
highly complimented by the productive use of lighting, all credit due to Stuart Webb.
This challenging production was complemented
by a well selected cast, giving us a plethora of theatrical talent, all of whom possessed exceptional
stage presence. The striking performances of both
Franciscus (Ed Martineau) and Antonio (James
Everest) enthralled the audience through their comedic translation of the production, not to mention
the continually engaging relationship between the
two which provided light relief in a play which was
so intense.
The evening brought to us a mysterious blend of
musicality, drama and dance; invoking emotions
of a dark and sinister kind whilst maintaining aspects of humour throughout. This play is an experience not to be missed, with an exceptional cast, an
intriguing plotline and an incomparable location…
it is a fiver well spent.
Be a star!
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apply@CUSU.cam.ac.uk
All Cooped Up
Pristinely corseted in white and positioned mere feet
from the audience, the six initial ‘cagebirds’ immediately transformed the dull Pembroke basement into
an eerie asylum-cum-aviary through their chorus of
maniacal twittering.
The room was lit with a harsh brightness leaving
the audience constantly visible: conscious voyeurs,
witnesses to the inescapable and egocentric miseries of the cage’s inhabitants: the obsessively preening Gazer (Estella Shardlow), the babbling Gossip
(Nadia Manzoor), the morosely gluttonous Guzzle (Catherine Watts), the spiteful and reactionary
Thump (Jessica Barker-Wren), the near tearfully
neurotic Twitting (Anna Hobbiss) and the hypochondriac Gloom (Alba Ziegler-Bailey). Through
the entry of the Wild One (Quin Frey) into this oppressive enclave, The Cagebirds explores the mindforged manacles of the modern world and the
potential for political resistance.
The play’s disjointed dialogue, contorted with
moments of animalistic incoherence, sudden silences and cacophonies of complaints, was severely
discomforting, yet more problematically the play’s
openly allegorical and absurd nature left little room
for significant character development or character
interaction.
Consequently the performance often lacked pace,
and perhaps could have benefited from a few radical
cuts. In spite of this, Savage-Hanford and her eightstrong cast dealt skilfully with the material at hand.
Quin Frey must be especially commended for her
ability to devise new and ingenious ways to mime
attempted door unlocking for over 20 minutes, and
also for the focus which she brought to the stage as
the voice of freedom, reality and rebellion.
Jessica Barker-Wren constantly caught my eye
due to her crazed gurning and restless and aggressive postures: her grotesque and bloodthirsty enthusiasm electrified the play. Anna Hobbiss excelled
through the unostentatious emotional subtly she
brought to her character and gave an equally engaging performance throughout.
Although David Campton’s work is heavily
handed in its didactism, Jessi Savage-Hanford’s production is thoughtful, provocative and superbly executed. Hannah Fair
Pablo and Ed gone mad. Milly Green
Come one, come all, to see
Shakespeare visit the circus!
‘For never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’ Or not, as the case may be in
this HATS production of Shakespeare’s classic tale
of love and heartbreak. With directorial assistance
from Matt Bulmer, Eberhardt has adventurously
transformed ‘Romeo and Juliet’ into a world that
blends the carnival with the circus. This made for a
pleasing and highly original aesthetic, using brightly
coloured flags and clown-like costumes to allow the
design concept to permeate through the whole of
the production. The staging, which comprised of a
raised platform, was obviously meticulously planned
out to realise the spaces’ full potential. The productions tight bond to its theme, however, meant that
the comedic elements to the play were accentuated
too much, and because of this, its essential tragedy
was lost. Even the final scene was injected with comedy, albeit subconsciously, by the fact that Romeo’s
face was obscured by a white fluffy cushion.
Waiting for Guagua
OK, how am I supposed to describe this play the in
just 150 words? Main term of description? Odd.
Rushing towards the cellars, I really hoped I wouldn’t
interrupt the more-punctual-than-me audience…
but there wasn’t one! A premonition? I think so!
Was finally joined by the other four audience
members and we sat amongst empty chairs in front
of an odd set, inclusive of makeshift, childlike signs
and props. I honestly did not follow let alone get into
the play itself for a good 15 minutes and even then….
odd. The cast? Well, interesting, but not necessarily
in a high quality thespy way. No, quite the contrary
to be honest. There are a couple of extra-odd scenes
to look out for, especially the slow motion bit which
was just epic and regular intervals of Spanish music
in the background, which was groovy. But yeah, in a
word, this play is… odd! Lyeanne Beckford-Jones
This aside, the production did show theatrical talent among its actors. Despite showing some awkwardness in their chemistry at times, Adam Drew
(Romeo) and Vivienne Sedgley (Juliet) gave sensitive performances in their roles. The audience was
also fairly receptive to the comedy given in the sound
characterisations of the Nurse (Tamara Waxman),
Capulet (Tom Ovens) and Mercutio (Marieke
Audsley), and also to Kiran Gill’s proficiency in her
multiple roles.
The original score of the play proved to be beautiful and very appropriate to the performance, in particular adding a much needed tinge of tragedy to the
final scene. If you are hoping for a classic, weepy version of perhaps Shakespeare’s best-known tragedy,
then you are likely to be disappointed. The production is, however, a work of originality and flair that
excites the senses, and one to be proud of for a first
time director. Stephanie Baxter
THEATRE 25
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
Taking our hats off for Yerma
BATS mainshow takes culture to new heights
Laura Kilbride
‘Yerma’ opens with the twang
of the lone Spanish guitar, two
dancers dark against the backlit
drapes and ends in a silent blackout, as the villagers crowd in
and the heroine screams ‘don’t
judge me!’. What unfolds in between bears witness to a highly
original and imaginative production.
Alex Moyet’s well wrought
translation of Lorca’s tragedy
draws on an equal mix of poetry
and dialect, entirely appropriate
to the story of a childless woman
driven to extremes by the insularity of her culture. The direction
does well not to distract from the
barren landscape created by the
language, keeping only a plain
stage with symmetrical furniture, effective in conveying the
increasing breach between the
couple.
The music and choreography
are also original to this production and Ed Southall’s setting of
the Spanish songs reaches across
the language barrier. Katherine
Barnes’ solo accompanying the
candlelit procession is particularly chilling, as the direction of
the second half extracts the dark
magic and ritualism of ancient
Catholic Spain.
Stephanie Bain steals the show
as Yerma in her thin mourning
dress, successfully enacting the
claim that ‘every door is closed to
us here’ in her relentless pacing,
wavering between violent frus-
tration and tenderness towards
her crushed husband, played by
Ed Rowett . There is a great deal
of warmth in the exchanges between the women characters
and the conversation and dance
of the washerwomen is particularly fun, as is Yerma’s reaction
when the Old Woman tells her
God doesn’t exist. At points the
choreography does not appear
completely in time but this rather
adds to the naturalness of the action. One of the most successful
points of the play is how each of
the secondary characters retains
a sense of earthy individuality,
touching the audience and underpinning the poetry.
A rich and atmospheric production, ‘Yerma’ is successful in
spanning the barriers of language
Real Black Comedy in
imaginary darkness
Lights out for them, lights up for us. This is the simple concept upon which the whole of ‘Black Comedy’ is founded – when a fuse blows and the lights
go down in Brindsley’s house, the stage is in fact lit
up for the audience to witness a series of both expected and unexpected guests fumbling and stumbling around in imaginary darkness.
Brindsley (a superb Rob Carter) is an artist engaged
to upper-class lisping Carol (Alice Edgerley). In the
course of the evening, he hopes to both sell some of
his work to millionaire collector Mr Bamberger and
impress his prospective father-in-law, the Colonel
(Giles Reger). Into this rather fragile equation come
two people who Brindsley would rather keep in the
dark: his fussy, camp neighbour Harold (Ali Welch),
and his ex, Clea (Nicky Goulimis), who’s popped up,
all lust and legs, in ignorance of the impending marriage. Throw in an electrician with an accent identical to Bamberger’s and a fictional cleaner called
Mrs Moussaka and the mess is complete. It’s all to-
tally silly, and utterly hilarious. We are treated to
all the usual elements of farce – people in and out
of doors, misunderstandings and confusion – but
along with the added physical comedy of watching
the actors crawl and stagger around stage, eyes staring, arms outstretched, bumping into furniture and
each other.
Rob Carter steals the show, bringing just enough
vulnerability to Brindsley so we sympathise with
him in spite of the situation being entirely of his own
making. Ali Welch also deserves praise for his comic
portrayal of the effeminate pedant, Harold. The other
characters are largely stereotypes – Carol’s repeated
‘daddypoo’ somewhat grates, as does the Colonel’s
blustering manner and Clea’s forced sexuality, and
the lines act as mere vehicles for the action. But it really doesn’t matter, this is a brief but welcome interlude of slapstick, a refreshing change from the
gravitas of so much Cambridge theatre.
Nina Chang
and culture, reaching out to the
audience whilst keeping its feet
firmly in the Navarran dust.
‘Yerma’, BATS Mainshow this week, is showing in the Fitzpatric
Hall, Queens College,
until Saturday 10th
March
Emotions run high. Dylan Spencer-Davidson
Hubble Bubble Toil and Trouble
Macbeth, now showing at the Corpus playroom,
spells the toil and trouble taken by its cast, although
the fire was not hot enough to make this production bubble.
Even though the initial scenes of the witches set
the stage for a hair-raising encounter with one of
Shakespeare’s darkest and most disturbing creations, the play disintegrated afterwards as detailed
portrayal of the principal characters were absent.
That they don’t quite deliver enough has more to do
with their difficulty in capturing the emotion in the
script rather than with matching actors to roles.
Natalie Kesterton, who plays the scheming Lady
Macbeth, was especially disappointing. Her opening soliloquies were bland and she managed to come
across as a character from the Simpsons. Her mad
scene, on the other hand, has to be one of the more
‘athletic’ examples of its kind, for she writhes and
stretches as though asked to perform an especially
demanding gymnastic feat. All in all, Natalie fails to
conjure the image of a ruthless woman and the mental agonies she subsequently undergoes when guilt
plagues her.
Sadly, neither of the principal actors gives us a
sense of a mind diseased, for no mind is open to our
inspection. What was even more interesting was the
fact that Ade O’Brien (Macbeth) had the same facial expression right throughout the play – from the
moment he was crowned king to hearing the death
of his queen.
Most of the other performances were unmemorable if not very wooden. Feargal McGuinness as
Malcolm only managed to elicit yawns from the audience. However, Mark Corbin’s Macduff does stand
out. His speech upon learning the savage slaughter
of his family strikes exactly the right note of pathos
without melodrama, horror without hyperbole.
However murky the portrayal is, the hard work
put in by the Director (Martin Noutch) is truly illuminating. Try this production of Macbeth if you
suffer from insomnia – it might prove a good remedy for your trouble!
Ragunanthan Rajagopala
Corpus Christi Playroom,
7.30pm until Saturday
The Queen is Dead (Apparently)
Drawing on the unwritten, yet strictly adhered to
commandment “Thou shall not talk to thy neighbour on the Tube” the Freshers’s play of “The Queen
is Dead” by Mike Kielty and George Reynolds attempts to use the devastating news of the monarch’s
death to break this normally sacrosanct rule. However, what the audience is offered is disappointingly
far from the “instant attractions” and “casual betrayals” promised in the programme.
Beginning with a journey on the Tube as commuters cram together on their way to work, the intimacy
of the Corpus playroom lends itself perfectly to the
claustrophobia of the Underground setting up the
audience’s hopes for a play that aims to offer a novel
and interesting perspective into the banality of city
life. However, unfortunately these hopes are soon
dashed. The constant rattle of the train in the background, although authenticating the experience of
the journey, is unnecessary loud, making it very dif-
ficult to hear the actors’s dialogues. Such aural and
technical faults also mar the rest of the play, since
not only are the scene changes clumsy, but the brief
interludes of upbeat, modern music between scenes
are entirely at odds with the sombre, pensive atmosphere that Kielty and Reynolds seem to be trying to
convey through their writing. Nevertheless, the play
is redeemed by some fine moments of acting. In her
role as the heartbroken Rebecca, Lizzy Barber epitomises the Bridget Jones generation trying to find
love in the capital. Olivia Potts also shines in her role
as Sophie, struggling to climb the corporate ladder.
The rest of the performances however are comparatively insipid, leaving the audience longing for believable reactions to the Queen’s death. Although
based on an interesting premise, the play is regrettably weak in its delivery of intense emotions and
drama that would be expected.
Sarika Thanki
Battling it out on the stage floor fails to excite Macbeth. Victoria Turnock
26 FILM
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
Love, intrigue and illusion
Victorian magic: is ‘The Illusionist’ just another ‘Prestige’?
Emma Dibdin
I
t’s an unavoidable evil of Hollywood that every once in a while, two films about roughly
the same thing are made at roughly the same
time, and it’s equally unavoidable that one will
end up playing second fiddle to the other. The
recent Infamous, following hot on the heels of
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar-winning turn
in Capote, is one such example of a film that, perhaps unfairly, never stood a chance, doomed to
endless unfavourable comparisons with its esteemed predecessor. The Illusionist might well be
seen as suffering a similar misfortune, arriving as
it is just after The Prestige, Christopher Nolan’s
masterful noir take on the deadly feud between
two nineteenth-century magicians.
The comparison, however, is a superficial one,
and once the apparent thematic similarities are
overlooked it becomes clear that the two films
actually bear very little in common. Eisenheim
(Edward Norton), a celebrated illusionist in
Vienna, becomes reunited with his childhood
love, the duchess Sophie (Jessica Biel). In the years
they have spent apart, she has become engaged to
the Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), who
doesn’t respond well to this sudden competition for her affections. Director-screenwriter
Neil Burger impressively weaves such ambitious
themes as class warfare, social repression, antiSemitism and turn-of-the-century European so-
cial upheaval throughout his opus. The scope is
at once much wider and much shallower than that
of The Prestige, which focused on deep, painfully
intimate character drama with little room or consideration for geopolitical context.
The story is often intriguing and the film itself
elegantly presented, but unlike The Prestige this is
fundamentally a romance, and the elaborate cinematography can’t disguise the essential lack of
chemistry between the leads. Norton is reliably
impressive, his quiet, pensive performance making it almost impossible to know quite what to
make of Eisenheim, and Biel is unexpectedly convincing in her somewhat limited role. But the two
create no spark on screen together and the lack
of anything new or interesting in their dynamic
means that the clichéd “star-crossed lovers” plot
becomes all the less compelling.
The real dramatic substance, what almost certainly attracted a cast of this calibre to the project, comes from the interplay and implicit power
struggle between Eisenheim, the vicious Prince
Leopold and chief inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti)
who is hired to investigate the inscrutable illusionist. The interaction between the three is consistently gripping, with all three actors on top of
their game in each other’s presence. There is no
doubt that The Illusionist’s greatest asset is its
cast, none of whom put so much as a foot wrong;
Sewell’s enjoyably villainous aristocrat provides
an excellent foil for Norton’s enigmatic protagonist, and the outstanding Giamatti lends warmth
and humanity to the frequently dispassionate
Edward Norton as the enigmatic illusionist with Jessica Biel as his childhood love
proceedings as the avuncular Uhl.
But despite its many admirable parts the film
as a whole remains flawed; Burger’s ideas are impressive but he falters in the execution, like a magician still learning his craft. The script is where
the deficiency is most obvious, with even Norton
unable to redeem such clunkers as “The only mystery I never solved was…why my heart couldn’t
let go of you.” The characters are often unconvincing, difficult to relate to or feel much of any-
thing for, and while certain moments are moving
in their own right, the overall effect of the film remains oddly cold and distancing, not passionless
so much as inaccessible.
If what you’re looking for is an entertaining,
straightforward and visually lush story that won’t
keep you up for hours afterwards pondering its
mysteries, you will have no complaints after seeing The Illusionist. If you’re looking for anything
more than this, consider sticking with Nolan.
Who you gonna call? Ghost Rider!
Yet another reincarnation of a Marvel superhero sets the screen alight...
Sam Law
‘I can help your father…for a price…’
‘Wh…wh…what price?’
(Long pause)
‘How about YOUR SOUL?’
Y
Nicholas Cage takes on the Devil...on a motorbike.
es, ladies and gentlemen, Ghost Rider really
is a very silly film. Opening with an effects
heavy 2 minute prologue about a supposed
mythical ‘ghost rider’ who sold his soul to the devil and ended up bounty hunting evil spirits in the
wild west on a phantom steed, the film proceeds to
retell this story in the present day, dragging it out
for a full effects heavy two hours, with the key difference being that the new ghost rider rides a cool
stunt bike, not a horse. Essentially if this sounds
like a good set-up to you (and it really does to me),
you’ll probably like this latest marvel comic adaptation, if not however, you’ll probably rather set
your own skull on fire rather than sit it out.
A lot of critics have already roasted Mark Steven
Johnson’s second attempt at the superhero genre,
writing it off as another nonsense popcorn flick in
the vein of his previous effort Daredevil and citing
the massively delayed production as evidence that it
was a bad idea from the outset. In all fairness, this is
just another nonsense superhero flick like Daredevil,
but that’s not such a bad thing, and the delays weren’t
due to anything other than the development of the
revolutionary new fire effects used to bring the rider
to life.
The only real complaint that can be levelled at
the movie, bearing in mind that it never sets out to
be anything more than a faithful(ly stupid) adaptation of its source material, is that it’s villains are particularly weak; Mephistopheles (original easy rider
Peter Fonda) appears completely toothless when
confronted by any sort of danger, and pseudo antichrist Blackheart (and his earth wind and water
minions) are from the very lowest order of supervillains – though the death effect when they kill someone is spookily cool.
However, what sets ‘…Rider’ apart from all of
the other shameless popcorn movies in circulation
at the moment is its star. Nicholas Cage has always
wanted to play Ghost Rider, and now that he has
finally gotten the role he would sell his soul for, he
does anything but waste it. In spite (or perhaps with
the help) of a wig seemingly taken from an oversized
set of Lego, he imbues an essentially morally skeletal character with his own characteristic kookiness,
swigging jelly beans from a martini glass and soundtracking his home life with the Carpenters. Once
again he brings the soul a blockbuster movie, never
allowing the action to become uninteresting.
So then, be warned, this is by no means a good
film, but if you leave your brain at the door and view
it all with a sense of humour you’ll still be able to
massively enjoy this high order nonsense.
FILM 27
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
Welcome to Bollywood...
A short introduction to the world’s largest film industry
Dunni Alao
W
hat better way to start this article than
to note that I am not Indian, nor am I
Hindi, and yet Bollywood films appeal
to me just as much as any Western movie would,
in some cases even more so. Bollywood is not just
for people who identify with Asian culture, but for
anyone who has a genuine interest in film in all its
diversity.
I was first introduced to Bollywood cinema late
one night when the 1957 classic Mother India aired
for what was quite probably the first time on British
terrestrial TV. Innocently flicking channels I was
suddenly intrigued by the desperate Radha played
by screen legend Nargis as she bemoaned over the
social injustices she had endured. Her husband
had left her, her son turned against her and she
was being cheated out of the fruits of her labour.
Relishing my social conscience, I was moved by this
woman’s story of betrayal and hope, and I was certainly not the first. The film was nominated for an
Academy Award and won 5 Filmfare Awards including one for best actress in 1958. For those that
didn’t know, Bollywood is far from new.
Did you know: Outside of India,
Afghanistan holds the most popular
fanbase, despite the Taliban attempts
to ban the industry’s imports in the
early nineties.
Like Hollywood, the industry began around the
start of the 20th Century with the first full length
feature film Raja Harishchandra, released in 1913.
It wasn’t until the 1930s that the industry really took
off however, with the first sound film produced in
1931. Alma Ara (The Light of The World) was directed by Ardeshir Irani who intuitively recognised
the importance sound was soon to have on cinema,
marking the birth of the filmi genre, Indian popular music written and performed for Indian cinema.
Alma Ara was to Bollywood what the Jazz Singer
was to Hollywood, with production releases increasing rapidly.
However, despite some contemporary critics’ belief that the industry has undergone Westernisation,
Bollywood is not Hollywood. Nor is it the name for
the whole of Indian cinema. Rather, it refers to the
mainly Hindi popular Mumbai based film industry.
There are very specific elements to a Bollywood film
that give it its distinction and garner its popularity.
The most important of these is of course the
filmi element. What would Bollywood be without
its song and dance? Films are not without at least
one musical number woven into the script. I must
admit, I’m big fan of the spontaneous bursts into
song, however even if you detest musicals you can’t
help but admire the vibrant and colourful choreography displayed in Bollywood cinema. Every detail
is thought out to perfection. From the synchronisation of the dance moves to the complementary
costumes, these numbers are often filmed using a
large quantity of dancers alongside the leading cast.
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something Is Happening) is a
perfect example of this, when in one musical scene
an entire student body dance around a university
campus. The random shifts in location and change
of clothing are standard features of the Bollywood
film which add to its picturesque and often visually
stunning nature.
There is quite an apparent element of cheese in
the catchy music; however these songs are fine examples of professionalism, being produced using
playback singers, electronic instrumentation, and
world-class musical composition. More often than
not actors will lip-synch to the harmonies of a professional playback singer, stars in there own right.
Lata Mangeshkar is amongst the most famous, having literally recorded thousands of songs for a number of Bollywood films. She has her own Western
following as well, with her songs being used in films
such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Amongst the most famous Bollywood stars is
Amitabh Bachchan renown for his deep voice and
intense eyes. He starred alongside Shahrukh Khan
in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… (Sometimes
A scene from ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’; a classic example of Bollywood cinema.
Happy Sometimes Sad) which won 22 awards and
received 43 nominations. The film is considered to
be the best of Bollywood and involves a typical story
about family values. Khan is quite distinguished in
his own right, having won many awards over the
years, including some for his role in Kuch Kuch Hota
Hai in which he stars alongside Rani Mukherjee
and Kajol. Both women are exceptional stars, Kajol
being listed amongst the top four Bollywood actresses of 2006, whilst Rani appeared in the closing
ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth games.
These names may not be common knowledge
in the UK; however there is little doubt that British
interest in Bollywood is on the rise, at least for the
time being. Shilpa Shetty’s appearance in Celebrity
Big Brother has drawn attention to Indian culture;
much like Aishwarya Rai (Bride and Prejudice)
has done before, whilst the popular cinema chain
Cineworld offers a small selection of the latest
Bollywood releases.
An Asian friend once informed me that her love
for Bollywood lay in its reflection of her culture
through its moral messages, an element for many
as important as the music and one that really sets
Bollywood apart from the mindless consumerism
of most mainstream cinema industries.
The Annual Cinecam Festival
Twelve short films, one great prize.
Nina Chang
C
ambridge filmmaking. For many, a little
known world, it fails to generate the same
level of university-wide interest, enthusiasm and downright high drama (excuse the pun)
as our theatrical productions. And yet, as last
weekend’s 3rd annual Cinecam festival proved,
this is in no way down to a lack of talent.
The understated, yet impressive quality of some of
the 12 short films showcased on Saturday evening’s
competition screening was testament to this. The
12 shown were competing for a range of prizes including a free place at Brighton Summer Film
School, awarded by several prestigious judges from
the wider filmmaking community. They exhibited
an extremely diverse range of style, content and
length.
First prize went to the longest of these efforts, entitled Flown by Emily Cooper. Although no judge,
I must confess to being disappointed by the panel’s choice. In spite of some clever use of special effects, the film seemed to me drawn out, sterile and,
at times, plainly bewildering. It centred around a
separated couple, portrayed by actors, who, without
dialogue, seemed to struggle to evoke any sense of
emotion, or arouse sympathy. Amongst the other
films which received prizes was The Pool, directed by
Cinecam’s own vice-president, Rob Petit. This was a
brief piece showing a child diving into a pool, down
to the unexpected table and chairs at the bottom.
Devoid of the pretension which marred Flown, it
was smoothly and skilfully constructed, making excellent use of transitions between under and above
water shots, and the beauty of simplicity.
Pieces such as Natural Selection, Hansel & Co and
The Great Fandango elicited enthusiastic audience
response with their use of largely silly, but innovative
humour, including, from the first of these, hilarious
images of a guy with a giant panda head failing in his
various attempts to commit suicide after being jilted
at the altar. Unfortunately, the comic films tended to
be shorter than their more serious, less effective rivals. After a promising start involving shots of polar
bears along with chirpy music, Cinequarium then
descended into mind-numbingly slow and condescending narration, basing its central concept on
the (rather tenuous) analogy between aquariums
and the cinema. Interestingly, the other film with
narration, was equally disappointing. And my sling
is that of David combined various shots of Havana
and Trinidad which somehow completely failed to
give any sense of the atmosphere, or character of
these places with a lengthy Spanish narration and
poorly proof-read subtitles.
Ultimately, it was simplicity which seemed to
most impress the audience, even if the judges had
differing opinions. Despite a couple of weak entries,
the films on the whole were remarkable for their
originality, quality, and successful melding of pure
entertainment value with artistic merit.
The jilted panda from ‘Natural Selection’
28 MUSIC
The Cambridge Student 08/03/07
Stop, Fopp, and Roll
A serious article with a serious band: The Maccabees
The Maccabees mid-set during their instore at Fopp, March 2nd. Onlookers report that they bought literally several Cheech and Chong DVDs. Matt Cottingham
James Garner
T
he Maccabees have been climbing the indie ladder for some time now and when
they release their debut album in May you
can expect to be hearing a lot more about them.
Talking to singer Orlando Weeks and guitarist
Felix White they make clear how slow progress
has been, with their current tag of overnight successes being three years in the making. “There was
no plan” says Orlando, “it was just to play a gig,
or then to play a gig where there was some people, to play a gig where there were some people
clapping.”
This process finally reached my attention in late
2005 when the band put out the now collectable 45
‘X-Ray.’ Today they have four singles to their name,
‘First Love’ being the first to grace the charts, swiftly
followed by ‘About Your Dress’ which has just gone
in at #33.
“Cambridge? That’s, that’s big,
they’ll know if I say anything
wrong.”
It was the stop-motion video to second single
‘Latchmere’, featured on YouTube and watched
100,000 times that really helped the band take off and
Felix explains the importance to the band of keeping control over such things. “We like to keep it localised, the art work, posters, videos … so everything
is The Maccabees,” he says. The band followed this
through with their last video, a fingerpuppet epic,
which they still made themselves despite now being
signed to a Universal imprint.
I ask the band, if given their desire for control
they were worried about losing it in the recording of
their album with experienced producer Ben Hillier
(Blur, Suede, The Horrors.) “It’s still us playing
the instruments” deadpans Felix. Orlando
adds, “Ben’s a sweetheart, I needed that, someone to
put up with me.”
Orlando explains his paranoia about the recording of the album: “Imagine trying to have to decide
if that’s the final version of that song that’s gonna
be heard…the definitive version.” Felix agrees, “you
wanna be proud of it for the rest of your life.” He then
adds “We’re still really young, we still don’t know
what the fuck we’re doing to be honest.”
Yes, he did say that. You see gentle reader, I have
been leading you on a merry dance, trying to trick
you into believing this was a serious interview, with
a serious band, conducted by a serious interviewer.
The truth, that I tried to hide from you for the best
of reasons, is that Felix wasn’t exactly on the level
and Orlando…Orlando was stoned out of his fucking mind. As soon as I arrived the state of the singer’s
pupils and speech had immediately raised my suspicions and my eyebrows.
These suspicions only increased when I told
Orlando I was from TCS and he replied “Cambridge?
That’s, that’s big, they’ll know if I say anything
wrong.” At this point, before I had been completely
convinced that the singer was on the Marrakech
Express, Felix intervened in a cover-up effort, offering to join in with the proceedings. Sadly, the guitarist was thwarted when, at that exact moment, the
rider arrived. Orlando looked at the Tesco bags. Felix
looked at Orlando with concern. Orlando joyously
cried “Food! Fooooooood!” Game, set and hash.
At first, as with this article, I vainly tried to take it
all seriously. I did the influences one (“Roald Dahl,
Richard Attenborough, David Attenborough, all the
Attenboroughs actually”), probed them about false
dichotomies (“Yeah, a bit of both”) and asked clever
questions, to one of which Orlando slurred the slow
response, “That is a clever question.” Sadly, even
in their weakened state, the boys wouldn’t take the
opportunity to slate recent tour partners
The Fratellis. “Lovely boys” says Orlando, “Charming
young men” smiles Felix, the air thick with soft
drugs and irony.
Eventually I just decide to relax, stop worrying
about not having any serious answers and enjoy
the presence of two entertaining characters. When
I point out to them that come April they will have
their own headline show at the Junction, it’s news
to them and they react with genuine delight. “The
Junction?” questions Felix, “That’s a big venue, that’s
gonna be amazing.” “It’s good man” says Orlando,
before adding “Bowling! We gotta go bowling.”
Pause. “Really? A gig at the Junction?”
That gig will be the band’s fourth in Cambridge in
six months so I ask them what they think of the city
and the interview begins to descend into surreal territory. “I think the Fitzwilliam Museum is wicked”
says Orlando, “all that Egyptian shit.” I tell them the
story of the guy who knocked over some priceless
pots there. “If it was an honest mistake, then I think
that’s fine” ponders Orlando “but if he did it to take
the piss out of art or history… history matters…I
had a badge but it got lost.” He asks me what kind
of pots and I reply that I think they were Ming. “Shit
man, not Ming!” cries the singer, “That’s a clanger…
that’s probably where the word came from.”
“We’re still really young, we still
don’t know what the fuck we’re
doing to be honest.”
I ask Orlando if he feels constrained by his swirling, crackling voice that fits his shy indie lyrics so well
but might not work with other lyrical focuses. He
sees the positives first, “You think my voice matches
my lyrics? It’s very nice of you to say, thanks.” He
goes on “I’m pigeonholing myself but at the same
time, pretty much guaranteeing that I can’t be kicked
out of the band.” Felix looks at him and asks why.
“Because my lyrics match my vocals.” Felix seems
about to argue that he that wouldn’t stop him being
thrown out, Orlando realises this and panics, thinking I might be taking this all seriously. “No one’s trying to kick me out,, it’s fine” he assures me.
The band have one cover to their name, Richard
Hawley’s ‘Just Like the Rain’ that provided a B-Side
to ‘First Love.’ It’s a great version that the man himself has given his seal of approval to. Felix starts off
the story of how it came about, “We went to see
Richard Hawley and he was unbelievable”, Orlando
interjects, “Yeah, we knocked on his tourbus window, idiot drunks, and shouted “We’re in a band!
We’re gonna cover you! He was like “oh yeah…
awright” but he liked it when it came out so that’s
OK.” They then digress into talk about cover songs,
Orlando picking Nothing Compares 2 U as his favourite before imploring me to download Prince’s
acapella version of ‘1999’.
I question if the band worry that they’ll slip
through the cracks of musical fashion, with their
brand of post-punk being overawed by the new rave
scene and pub rock revival. “There’s nothing we can
do about it” replies Orlando and Felix worries that
“if you thought about that, you’d drive yourself insane.” Orlando continues “We can’t write songs on
spec…Rob wouldn’t have a fucking cowbell (turning to me) you try and make rob play a cowbell!” I
see the band a week later playing an instore show
at Fopp. In truth they have no reason to fear about
making it. Orlando’s engaging voice, the intertwining guitars of brothers Felix and Hugo and a tight
live show mean they stand out as more than just another post-punk Gang of 2004.
Finally they somehow got on to talking about rock
and roll swagger and why they don’t large it. “This
sounds really pretentious but it’s not pretentious”
starts Orlando, “rock and roll just means to do what
you wanna do, I’ve had it bred into me to be overpolite and paranoid.” Felix goes on, “We love the bands
with that swagger like Oasis but you can’t swagger if
you don’t actually swagger.” Orlando: “One day I
saw Arctic Monkeys and they had that swagger and
I thought oooooooh, I dunno about that but then
you discover that they deserve that swagger.” Felix:
“Maybe you have to earn the swagger, when we play
the Junction we’re gonna be “Alright Cambridge!”
MUSIC 29
08/03/07 The Cambridge Student
We don’t care ’bout young folks
John Renbourn & Johnny Dickinson @ The Junction
Owen Holland
T
here are, thankfully, still some people out
there for whom guitar-playing is an artform – a craft – and not just another badge
to wear. John Renbourn is one of those people. Famous for his pioneering work in the folk-baroque
movement during the sixties, he also played in the
folk-fusion group, Pentangle, with fellow troubadour Bert Jansch. He is a living legend, using a
variety of tunings, dipping in and out of an assortment of traditional styles – Celtic, folk, blues,
even calypso-gospel – and he fingerpicks. These
are techniques and styles of which your average
strummer remains blissfully ignorant.
John played in the Shed while, next door, the
Junction’s main venue played host to NME’s latest
Next Big Thing, for which a few hundred thirteenyear olds had been queuing, having convinced their
parents to let them stay out late.
Able support was provided by Johnny Dickinson,
a delightfully self-deprecating Northumbrian slideguitarist, whose lilting intonation and deft fret-work
couldn’t fail to win over audiences from here to, well,
Northumberland.
Some high-points of Dickinson’s set included
‘Black-Jack Davy’, ‘Courting is a Pleasure’ – his
Swing adaptation of a tune widely known thanks
to Nic Jones – and finished with T-Bone Walker’s
‘I’m Still in Love With You’, accompanied on the
nose-trumpet by a particularly spirited member
of the audience. Dickinson is self-evidently an ac-
complished and confident slide-player, although
some of the more improvisational moments, whilst
charming, did seem slightly directionless at times.
Nonetheless the set was confident, relaxed and refreshingly interactive.
John’s set was, understandably, the more assured
of the two. He is a valiant time-travelling explorer of
various recondite styles, some songs in his extensive
repertoire extending way back the eleventh-century
when musical notation hadn’t even been invented.
How did he come by these tunes? Plenteous supplies
of malt whisky and laudanum.
We were given a whistle-stop tour through his eclectic (by which I actually mean eclectic) range of interests: opening with a barn-storming rendition of
‘Sweet Potato’, moving through Celtic and English
instrumental ballads, a couple of Booker-T’s blues
numbers, before finishing up with a beautiful interpretation of Dylan’s admittedly matchless ‘Buckets
of Rain’, joined by Dickinson. The old sea-shanty
‘Lord Franklin’ featured somewhere as well.
Both these players have an endearingly intimate
stage-manner which can only come from years of
experience. Renbourn’s career, it is safe to say, has
now reached a phase of venerable and much-respected dotage. He strolled on stage in his socks
complaining of creaking limbs and aching joints. I
hope to see Dickinson’s reach its peak soon.
Walking home I overheard a conversation between two of the twelve-year olds leaving the NME
gig: “that was, like, totally fucking awesome!” which
the unfortunate interlocutor proceeded to repeat
about five times, for emphasis I suppose.
Willy Mason
If the Ocean Gets
Rough
The problem with Willy Mason
is one of consistency. On the first
album, dusky country-folk gems
referencing Dostoyevsky snuggle
up alongside songs about making
sandwiches. On this album, his
sophomore effort, those peaks
and troughs have been ironed out.
It’s sad that on an album called ‘If
the Ocean Gets Rough’, there’s
so little actual passion. There’s
a tired charm to most of these
songs, but it’s a slight charm, and
on an album that feels strangely
short, it’s easy to mistake a whiskey-soaked world-weariness for
something more insipid.
Fans are desperate for him to
live-up to the “new Dylan” tag
that gets applied to many a young
man with an acoustic guitar, but
he won’t achieve it with collections like this. There are a few
moments that lift it – ‘When the
River Moves On’ has a lazy gospel feel, drifting handsomely on
by like the ol’ Mississippi herself, and ‘Riptide’, with its gentle
strings, shows what Mason can do
when he stretches himself that little bit further. The highlight of the
album is the title track’s delicate
chorus, but it’s a moment so fleeting that it makes you wish Mason
had someone – me, for example
– stood by on quality control, telling him what to keep and what to
throw away. Apparently at his last
gig he played genuinely wonderful breakthrough single ‘Oxygen’
twice – going on this lot, it’s easy
to understand why. New single
‘Save Myself’ feels limp-wristed
in comparison.
Although there are glimmerings of wonder amongst the actual tunes, his lyrics are often
what let him down – only the sublime ‘The World That I Wanted’,
about the death of someone’s father, has any emotional impact.
Conor Oberst could read a shopping list and arouse more feelings than most of these tacks, and
that’s a big problem for Mason. In
country, if you can’t do emotion,
you can’t do nothing.
Josh Farrington
Renbourn smiles the smile of a man performing without trousers.
The Horrors
Strange House
The Horrors’ blueprint is psychpunk and goth-garage, bands like
The Cramps and The Sonics who
never scored mainstream success. In keeping with these influences, the album kicks off with a
cover of Screaming Lord Sutch’s
‘Jack the Ripper.’ It begins at aptly
funereal pace before erupting in a
panicked fury of organ grinding,
anguished vocals and screams
aplenty.
A “Bonus Track” is usually some bad, tacked on studio
experiment. Not so with ‘Death
at the Chapel.’ It crackles and
whirrs into action: feedback,
riff, signature scream of Faris
Rotter. The song is based on the
idea of a deranged killer, sick of
the idea of perfect love, tracking down characters from 60s
pop classics. Yes, it’s as cool as it
sounds.
The band have become known
for their short, sharp twenty
minute long sets yet the album
outstays its welcome a little with
the last three tracks, particularly
the dull, five minute instrumental
‘Gil Sleeping.’ For an outfit who
made their name with the hundred second smash ‘Sheena is a
Parasite’ it’s an odd choice.
The best album track is ‘She Is
The New Thing’, a catchy, pulsing song driven by strident vocals and sweeping organ. It seems
to address The Horrors’ own rise
to being the new thing “through
no fault of my own.” They are the
new thing because they’re playing
sonic waves unheard of in some
time with their own signature
twist. The backlash against the
band focused on their conspicuous image and lack of originality
but this album, with its full sound
and experimental feel, proves the
original hype was justified.
Rotter asks on ‘She Is The New
Thing’, “I wonder how long it will
be/ before I am sick of her?” If The
Horrors turn out more records
as exciting as ‘Strange House’
people won’t be sick of them any
time soon.
James Alan Smithee-Garner
Arcade Fire
Neon Bible
Neon Bible is just not quite as good
as Funeral, Arcade Fire’s almost
perfect debut album. That said
this is still another great album
and a different musical direction
from the first, the crunching guitars and tempo of “Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)” and “Wake
Up” have been all but abandoned
for organs and even more orchestral navel-gazing.
Listening to the first track,
“Black Mirror”, one immediately has the feeling that this is an
album with big ambitions. But the
band have both the musical and
lyricalnoustopullthemofftospectacular effect as Neon Bible tackles
theIraqwar,evangelicalChristians
and the modern middle-class malaise of disillusionment.
While the first three tracks
are good, the fourth track,
“Intervention”, is why we got excited about this album in the first
place. When the organ kicks in,
even the most jaded hack must get
shivers down their spine. Arcade
Fire do the elegiac orchestral
thing better than everyone else,
as Win Butler decries “Working
for the Church while your family dies”. “Antichrist Television
Blues” is even better.
Butler seems to be a man on the
brink of destruction, alternately
looking to God and his daughter for salvation. “Windowsill” is
more restrained but no less powerful as Butler rejects the world
he lives in - “I don’t want to fight
in the holy war/ I don’t want the
salesman knocking at my door/
I don’t want to live in America
anymore”.
These three songs are the best
of the year so far and a blow to
the hubris of Kele Okereke or
Gerald Way. A couple in the
middle are weaker but “No Cars
Go” is a giddy pop thrill resurrected from their debut EP,
while the title track is a calm critique of Evangelicalism and
“My Body Is A Cage” swells to a
fitting end to another triumphant
work.
Shane Murray
30 SPORT
The Cambridge Student 03/05/07
Blues enjoy mixed fortunes
Women win but men fall just short in Pentathlon thrillers
The women’s team posted a record score Vicky Bradley
Results:
Cambridge Men: 24,000
Oxford Men: 26,976
Cambridge Women: 25,200
Oxford Women: 20,916
Vicky Bradley
2007 marked the 50th anniversary varsity clash in Modern
Pentathlon. The last seven years
of ladies competition and the
last ten of the gentlemen’s competition had been dominated by
Oxford, but this year things were
going to change.
Day one of the competition started with the shooting
phase. In the ladies competition
Cambridge provided a consummate exhibition of calm precision marksmanship, with Lucy
Greenwood winning individually to give the light blues a lead of
1,548 points.
Similarly in the ladies reserves,
Cambridge thoroughly out-shot
their dark blue compatriots by
348 points, with Vicky Bradley
winning the individual title.
In the men’s competition
Cambridge performed admirably with solid scores by all six athletes and personal bests for Ed
Moffet, Oli Samuelson and Noel
Cochrane. However, Oxford
pulled out some very high scoring
shoots to take a lead in the overall
competition at this stage.
In the men’s reserves competition the Cambridge boys provided
an adept display and managed to
pull into the lead after one event,
with Sam Openshaw finishing as
individual winner.
Moving onto the fencing component, the Cambridge ladies under the watchful eye of their
much adored coach Rob Shaw
- continued to turn the screw.
Solid performances by the whole
team, and an individual event win
by club president Cat Wilson, saw
the light blue lead stretch by another 760 points. Meanwhile in
the gentlemen’s competition the
boys showed some gritty yet skilful fighting to claw Oxford back
to narrow the points gap.
The last event of the day was
the swim. Strain in the dark blue
camp was already bubbling over
into open argument, and the
Cambridge ladies capitalised on
this. With Coach Humphrey
Waddington observing his
handywork, a stonking personal
best by captain Nicky Brooks to
win individually continued the
light blue domination with a further 368 points added to the lead.
The Cambridge ladies reserves
followed in their big sisters’ wake
and trounced Oxford, with an
excellent individual win by Trish
Keegan.
Next the gentlemen took to
the pool and personal bests came
from Ed Moffet, whose improvement since October has been incredible. However a dominating
Oxford team, lead out by their
GB pentathlete Richard HildickSmith, raised the bar of competi-
tion and stretched their lead by
over 2,000 points.
Finally the gentlemen’s reserves, with again some great
personal bests against a physically
much bigger side, pipped Oxford
to the win by just four points.
Day two began with the riding phase. The ladies were up first
and were led out in some style
by Varsity riding winner Emma
Kenney-Herbert with a faultless
clear round to win the individual
title. The chaps then took to the
arena. Cambridge all rode extremely well to beat Oxford in this
phase and bring themselves back
in to contention in the overall title
race. Jon “Sausage” Wright provided the round of the day going
in last place.
And so to the final phase of
the competition. The reserves
ran first. Lead by Zoe Rutterford,
personal bests for all three of the
ladies saw them in close contention. Though Oxford claimed the
run it was too little too late and
the light blue ladies reserves took
home a well-deserved victory by
over 640 points.
The men’s reserves ran their
socks off and paced by a storm-
ing run by Michael Waldron
they claimed the run phase. With
that they took the title by 576
points to continue the light blue
domination.
On to the ladies and with the
win almost in their grasp they
were now chasing prizes. Lead
out by their BUSA cross country champion Oxford managed
to scrape a phase victory in the
run. However with plucky runs
from every light blue lady they
ensured a phenomenal victory.
Beating Oxford by 25,200 points
to 20,916 they set a new Varsity
Match record for a Cambridge
team and gained themselves each
a half blue score.
In the men’s run, however,
Oxford showed that their strength
undoubtedly lies in the two more
physical events and pulled ahead
of the light blues to take the win
by over 1,500 points and seal the
overall victory.
The 50th Varsity Match saw a
much anticipated swing in fortunes for Cambridge and the
achievement was thoroughly
deserved by a squad with a great
depth of talent and an unbreakable team spirit.
Cambridge surfer makes new waves
Sarah Street makes good impression as first ever CUSA BUSA entrant
Sarah Street
On a weekend in early March when storms and tragedy hit South West England, hundreds of students
from across the country ventured into the big waves
of the Atlantic ocean at Fistral Beach in Newquay to
compete in the national BUSA Surfing Championships 2007.
The event, which is one of the largest of its kind in
the world, is made up of seventy-eight teams from
universities all across the UK. For over twenty years
the event has grown and this year four hundred and
thirty five surfers were battling it out for both university and individual titles.
Sarah Street, a final year medic from Wolfson
College, was Cambridge University’s sole and first
ever representative in the history of the contest.
Despite this, she managed to put the newly formed
Cambridge University Surfing Association (CUSA)
firmly on the surfing map.
The conditions over the weekend varied from
perfect six to eight foot surf on the first day, to some
tough onshore waves on day two. On the day of the
finals the surf was five to six foot and very ragged due
to the strong cross shore winds, and dangerous rip
tide that was pulling competitors towards the rocky
headland.
There were one hundred and thirty-four female
competitors entered and five tough rounds to con-
test. Five surfers competed at a time, battling it out
for twenty minutes. Experienced judges from the
British Surfing Association were scoring the waves
surfed based on style, technique and difficulty rating.
The highest two waves scored by each surfer were
then totaled and ranked. The top two surfers from
each round then progressed to the next round.
Sarah coped well in worsening
seas and managed to score enough
points to see her into the final
Sarah entered BUSA having never competed in
a surf contest before, but had the confidence of several years of surfing experience in North Devon and
more recently Sri Lanka during her medical elective. Undaunted by the grueling paddle out and five
foot, windswept surf that was battering the Cornish
coastline, Sarah eased through Rounds One and
Two, winning both with some high scoring waves.
The final day arrived, with slightly cleaner surf
owing to the offshore wind early in the morning and
so the ladies quarter finals were quickly underway.
Sarah again performed well in the better conditions
and won her quarter final. By the time the semi finals
were called the wind had really picked up and the
storms that had been forecast for the day had most
definitely arrived. Sarah, undeterred by this, coped
well in the worsening seas and managed to score
enough points to see her into the final.
Tragically, further round the coast in Cornwall,
two people were swept to their deaths from a harbour wall by the fierce waves. Most sensible people
would not have considered voluntarily entering the
sea at this point, but this was the final of a national
surf contest and as such getting back in the sea was
never in question.
Already feeling a little jaded from the two previous battles with the waves that day, Sarah paddled
out for the BUSA Surfing Final against four other
surfers, including both the Irish National Surfing
champion and the English National Junior Surfing
champion. The conditions were tough for everyone,
and despite paddling to a safe position for the start
of the final round, by the end of it the strong rip tide
had pulled Sarah and one other finalist dangerously
towards the jagged rocks of the headland. Trying
to paddle against it had proved futile and both girls
were tiring fast and being swept further round the
headland. The event quickly turned from a surfing
contest to a survival exercise and luckily for both, the
coastguards were in attendance and sent out a jet ski
with a rescue board to pick them up and bring them
back to safety.
Unfortunately, due to the difficult conditions
Sarah didn’t score as highly in the final as she had in
the previous four rounds and finished fourth overall; still a very respectable position for a national surf
contest. In recognition of her achievement Sarah
was awarded a BUSA medal, a crate of Cornish beer
and some surf clothes! Sarah’s points total over the
weekend was enough to put Cambridge University
in twelfth position in the Ladies Team competition
out of the forty entered.
Let’s hope that next year, with over a hundred new
members to CUSA, and many surf trips being organised both in the UK and abroad, that Cambridge
University will soon be seen as force to be reckoned
with in the world of surfing.
Sarah performed well on her debut S. Street
SPORT 31
03/05/07 The Cambridge Student
St Catharine’s triumphant
Catz claw back deficit to seize Cuppers crown
Result:
St Catharine’s: 3
Churchill: 1
Chris Lillycrop
Churchill were favourites coming into the Cuppers Final on the 12th of March, having comfortably wrapped up the league title weeks before, but
Catz, 3rd placed in the league, looked capable of
causing an upset.
In the opening minutes, Catz’ midfield dominated the game. Effective tackling, lively passing, and an impressive work-rate were securing
the vast majority of possession, and plenty of ball
for the Catz forwards. As always, Matt Stock was
Catz’ main threat up front, but he was unable to
make any clear-cut chances in the opening minutes, and the Churchill defence seemed solid.
In their league encounter earlier in the season,
Churchill captain Matt Haslett had been the key
figure in his side’s attack, but on this occasion, the
Catz defence kept him well under control. Centrebacks Joe Powell and David Clinton were strong
as always, and ensured that keeper Ed Bonner
was never tested. Frustrated, Haslett resorted to
mouthing off at his opponents and the referee,
and picked up a booking in the process.
At half-time, the game was still goalless, and
neither side had generated a genuine scoring opportunity. Having dominated the period, Catz
must have worried that they had spurned their
chance to earn a surprise win. Coming out after
the break, Churchill looked far more creative than
before. Making good use of the long ball over the
top, they repeatedly found their lone striker in
space. The Catz defence looked decidedly uncomfortable with this new tactic, and Bonner was
forced to make a number of saves.
The breakthrough came around the hour mark.
A long ball was cut out by the Catz defence, but
Matt Haslett caught the man in possession and
produced a clinical finish, flicking the ball over
the keeper and into the net. Churchill’s fans were
massively outnumbered, and had been largely
subdued until this point. But they responded to
their side’s lead by bursting into song.
Catz, meanwhile, were struggling. Their attack still looked unable to pierce the opposition
defence, and it seemed that Churchill were just
minutes away from claiming the Double. As the
remainder of the game began to ebb away, Catz’s
fans began to sense the urgency of the situation.
Led by some confident trumpeting, the army of
claret and pink supporters raised the volume and
urged their men to action. The team responded.
Pressing forward with greater urgency, Catz
won a succession of corners, and with ten minutes of the game remaining, the equaliser came.
Churchill failed to clear the ball effectively, and
David Clinton was on hand to stab the ball into
the net.
The regulation ninety ended nervously, with
neither team willing to risk conceding, and the
game moved to extra time. Once the teams came
out after the break, it was clear who had the momentum. The Churchill team seemed tired, while
Catz were discovering a new lease of life. Their
second goal was a matter of when, not if. Dave
Jones, fresh from victory in the Hockey blues
game, was on as a substitute, and it was his cool
finish with the outside of the boot that gave Catz
the lead for the first time. Shortly afterwards,
Churchill’s Chris Glover was dismissed for two
yellow cards – and the match was effectively over.
In the last few minutes, Simon Storey scored Catz’
third, and the Cup was won.
Afterwards, captain Joe Powell was understandably elated: ‘I am so proud of my team today;
they fought back when the game looked almost
over and played unbelievably in extra-time. David
Clinton was a colossus for us at the back today and
the substitutes made a huge difference. The fans
were also superb as they have been all season. We
proved today that whatever the league shows, on
our day we are the best football side in Cambridge
and I am immensely proud of that.’
Star Performer
David Clinton
(St Catharine’s)
Catz exultant. C Lillycrop
I’m an LBC, get met out of here!
As boat clubs across Cambridge prepare for elections, one boatie tells her story
Steph Hampshire
One sunny, pre-bumps afternoon in early June, a
whole horde of lycra clad boaties gather at Christ’s
boat house. The bbq is slowly smouldering and
there’s silence as hungry rowers tuck into some
much deserved post-outing grub. My stomach is
churning though.... boat club elections and I’m
standing for Women’s Lower Boat Captain. I didn’t
really understand even what this meant until the
week before, let alone exactly what it would entail.
So there I was, questions being fired left, right and
centre, but I make it through and the result is good.
Someone mutters something about it being a tough
job and I naively brush it aside telling myself it can’t
be THAT hard to organise a bunch of novices........
Four months later, and the beginning of a new
term: fresh rosey faces, fresh enthusiasm (even for
early mornings) and of course fresh blisters! There
are 30 keen beans from the freshers fair signed up to
come down to the boathouse for tubbing, erging and
a general reconnoitre of the facilities; 30 out of 45
women freshers ain’t bad. It’s all going well with the
LBCs and Kat Astley, our Boatwoman on hand, and
the women seem to be picking it up quite quickly
- one keen novice even asks if we can have six outings a week!
After about what seems like a million emails later,
where three of them can’t make wednesdays and
only five can do Saturday at 3pm, and of course sieving through all those horrible facebook tag emails
from the boat club cocktail party, finally we get
them out in eights. Better late than never as they say!
Several crabs later and several scratched barges, (enduring the wrath of the barge owners on the bank is
no mean feat!) we get the boats moving in maybe
sixes or if were lucky a few strokes of eight. “It will all
be ok”, I keep telling myself and, I keep telling them “just put the blade in the water and you’ll be fine!”
The morning outings were probably one of the
highlights - pushing off at 7.30am and racing up
from Christ’s boat house trying to get out past the
Chesterton footbridge. However most of the time
we failed to make much improvement due to the
shear volume of boat traffic and of course a little bit
of zigzagging; if you’re reading this and you aren’t a
boatie, then you ain’t seen nothing! One cold morning the first novice women managed to almost bisect
a scull with their eight leaving some poor bloke from
Caius somewhat startled and were lovingly given
the nickname ‘The Caius Killers’. I take my hat off
though - the Christ’s second novice men definitely
deserve a mention here. They get the award for managing to almost write off their boat in Clare Novices;
isn’t it funny how concrete blocks can just jump out
of nowhere and smack into you?!
The Queens’ ergs competition was a definite experience for me That sweaty hall, the cheesy music
blaring, the ergs roaring and eight people with about
two weeks rowing experience giving a gutsy pull on
an erg handle for about two minutes, or at least until
we literally pick them up and push the next person
on. Cameras are flashing and James Jones, the Vice
Women’s LBC, and I are bright red screaming our
heads off. If I was a novice, I’m sure all this commotion would have made me run a mile - they must be
a tough bunch to endure that!
Despite some trialing times, there have been
many moments of shear joy and excitement. Clare
Novices and Fairbairn’s really brought out the best
in all the novice crews and there was exponential improvement in just one week. One of the most important things that got them through it all was their
amazing crew spirit - even when they had to endure
gale force winds and torrential rain. And, the most
proud moment.... the novices becoming seniors or
at least in Cambridge terms. Growing from fluffy
novice ducklings to bright fully fledged (or almost!)
senior swans. So rather sadly, my job is over for the
most part, but maybe I’ll get a chance row in a boat
this term. Although once you’ve seen the river from
the bank for a while, it is strangely enticing not to
go back!
Training for success: Christ’s women relax post race Steph Hampshire
32 SPORT
The Cambridge Student 03/05/07
Ivan Zhao
Blues row to Boat Race victory
Cambridge win the 153rd University Boat Race by more than a length, but fail
to press home their physical and technical superiority
Tom Richardson
Cambridge Crew:
Kristopher McDaniel
Dan O’Shaughnessy
Peter Champion
Jake Cornelius
Tom James
Kieran West
Sebastian Schulte
Thorsten Engelmann
Rebecca Dowbiggin
Favourites Cambridge came from
behind to win the 153rd university boat race last month, avenging the shocking loss suffered by
the light blues the previous year.
After repelling a succession of Oxford attacks, Cambridge crossed
the finish line one and a quarter
lengths ahead of their rivals.
Cambridge were rocked by
a late change when cox Russ
Glenn was replaced by Rebecca
Dowbiggin only ten days before
Boat Race. Glenn was demoted
to Goldie after a disappointing performance in the Molesey
race a few days previously. It was
also believed that the rowers favoured Dowbiggin’s calm style.
Dowbiggin’s inclusion capped a
remarkable rise through the ranks
of Cambridge rowing. Having
never stepped into a rowing boat
before arriving at Cambridge, she
became only the thirteenth female
cox in Boat Race history.
The Thames was like a millpond as the two crews lined up
at the start, ruling out the possibility of a repeat of last year’s
waterlogging incident. Having
won the toss, Oxford president
Robin Ejsmond-Frey handed
Cambridge the Middlesex
station.
Cambridge burst out of the
blocks at a high stroke rate that
signalled their intention. Oxford
were able to maintain parity
however, displaying great technical ability at the start and then
nudging slightly ahead at Craven
Cottage.
By the milepost, the dark Blues
were half a second ahead, but
Cambridge clawed back level at
Harrods depository. A minute
later Oxford cox Nick Brodie
called for a first push, and his crew
increased their stroke rate accordingly. Oxford pulled ahead once
more, this time by half a length,
and the two crews came together.
With the crews’ blades overlapping, the umpire had to intervene to prevent a decisive clash.
Indeed, it was miraculous that it
had not already occurred.
After nine and a half minutes the race umpire again intervened, this time formally
warning Cambridge for moving
too far across. Dowbiggin looked
to be following a strong line, however, pulling the light blues level
after the Surrey bend. It was always going to be hard for Oxford
having failed to capitalise on this
advantage.
When Cambridge led by 0.3
seconds at Chiswick steps, Oxford
cox Brodie sensed that his crew
needed to make another move,
and soon. Oxford were unable to
cope with the musclepower and
fitness of their rivals, however,
and the light blues went ahead by
a length at the band stand.
Cambridge maintained a loose
and confident rhythm from there
on in, eventually crossing the line
three seconds ahead of Oxford.
As his team mates celebrated the
university’s seventy-ninth win,
Kieran West provided the enduring image of the race, standing up,
arms aloft, and lifting his head towards the perfectly blue sky.
Popular Cambridge president
Tom James, three times a Boat
Race loser, was delighted to finally come out on top: “It’s absolutely amazing. I can’t believe it.
We knew it was going to be tough
with Oxford on the Surrey side
– we just told ourselves to stay
loose to stay relaxed and trust
each other.”
The post-race consensus
seemed to be, however, that
Oxford had performed above
themselves. Cambridge, of course,
were only able to beat the Oxford
crew that turned up on the day,
and that they did. But the narrow
margin of victory did not do justice to the manifest superiority of
the Cambridge crew. Questions
raised by the light Blues’ unexpected loss in 2006 will not have
been entirely eradicated by this
year’s victory.
Cox Rebecca Dowbiggin gets a soaking C. Morris