Artsp13-14 Featuresp20-21 Sportp32 Terry Eagleton: the Skint? Here’s the ultimate cheapskate’s guide. Vaulting ambitions formidable critic talks All the fun of the fair for free. Almost. at college cuppers. about the crisis of The first sporting capitalism and the silverware of the need for realism. year is handed out.

Friday October 23rd 2009 The Independent Student Newspaper since 1947 Issue no 703 | varsity.co.uk Peterhouse Blues Geoff Robinson » JCR will hold referendum on CUSU disaffiliation in two weeks r college External Officers, Welfare Officers, wished to remain anonymous, told Gemma Oke Academic Affairs Officers, Women’s Varsity, “Tom Chigbo came to the Senior Reporter Officers, Ents Officers and Treasur- Freshers’ Squash to publicise what ers.” According to the Guide, the CUSU do for students, but I think President of CUSU also arranges it backfired. People at the back ...

TheWestminste Peterhouse JCR will hold an fortnightly meetings for Presidents were just looking at their watches.” open meeting and referendum on and External Officers. Joe Ruiz told Varsity, “I don’t November 4th on a motion to disaffil- A speech made by CUSU Presi- think realistically that there is a iate from the Cambridge University dent Tom Chigbo at the Peterhouse great danger that Peterhouse will Students’ Union (CUSU). Freshers’ Squash outlined what disaffiliate.” He confirmed that the JCR President Joe Ruiz told CUSU does and encouraged stu- stance of the JCR itself is “neutral” Varsity, “Within Peterhouse the dents to see CUSU as a useful and – neither in support or opposition of debate about affiliation began last relevant body for students. How- a move to disaffiliate. year when the JCR, for reasons now ever, Varsity understands that JCR “Any decision taken will be the resolved, didn’t have enough funds officials, keen to keep the Squash result of an open meeting of the to pay the affiliation fees. We have a ‘College’ event, were initially JCR on the November 4th where now paid those fees but it is a good reluctant to allow Chigbo to speak, all undergraduates can discuss and idea for democracy in College to still and subsequently frustrated when vote on the issue. A major issue such have a vote on the issue.” the CUSU President’s speech sub- as this would always be put to an A draft agenda for the meeting is stantially overran its allotted five open meeting.” due to be released shortly. minutes. Tom Chigbo said, “We are always “The JCR Committee ... will Varsity believes Joe Ruiz initially happy to speak to Peterhouse stu- explain the CUSU services that we refused to allow Chigbo to speak on dents about how CUSU will help do currently make use of. The aim is the grounds that the CUSU Presi- them and their JCR this year.” to let people know what we get for dent would be invited to make his The last JCR disaffiliation dispute our affiliation fees each year and let case for the College’s continued occurred in March 2006, when Trin- them decide whether it is a good use CUSU affiliation at the open meet- ity College Student Union (TCSU) of our funds.” ing on November 4th, to be followed voted by a margin of only six votes Varsity understands that there by a JCR vote. Chigbo then sought to disaffiliate itself from the Stu- have been tensions between Peter- approval for his appearance at dents’ Union. The vote came on the house and CUSU dating from the Freshers’ Squash from other same day as the CUSU General before the summer, instigated by members of the JCR Committee, Election at which Mark Ferguson the Peterhouse JCR’s initial difficul- who also refused. Finally, Chigbo was elected CUSU President. That ties in paying the £1,500-per-year approached the JCR Freshers’ election saw a memorably low voting CUSU affiliation fee and ongoing Rep, who agreed that the CUSU turnout of 16 per cent. indecision as to the fee’s value for President could speak. Perhaps TCSU reaffiliated with CUSU on Who’s gonna ride your wild horses? money. understandably, the roundabout January 28th 2007, after a referen- According to the online ver- way in which Chigbo organised his dum based on only 20 votes. hese wild konik horses are some of the first in Britain since the ldis- sion of the “Guide to CUSU”, last appearance at the Squash seems to Emmanuel, Jesus, and St John’s appearance of wild horse breeds 4,000 years ago. They have been updated in 2007, the CUSU affili- have annoyed some members of the also held referenda on CUSU dis- T imported from Holland to live in Wicken Fen, just two miles outside of ation fee funds services such as JCR committee. affiliation in 2006, but none of them Cambridge city centre. “specific training for Presidents, A Peterhouse student, who ultimately chose to disaffiliate.

Blue Bins are coming to Cambridge City Recycling households from October 26th is about to get Look out for your new recycling bin arriving soon. For more information visit our website and read the leaflet with your Blue Bin. www.cambridge.gov.uk/bluebin easier! [email protected]. 01223 458628 2 Friday October 23rd 2009 News Editors: Avantika Chilkoti, Emma Mustich and Beth Staton News www.varsity.co.uk [email protected]

tAMSyn hyAtt In Brief

Churchill’s daughter plants 50th anniversary tree On Saturday, Lady Soames, youngest and only surviving daughter of Sir Winston and Lady Clementine Churchill, visited Churchill College in celebration of the College’s 50th anniversary. Lady Soames, 87, planted a weeping mulberry tree in the College grounds. The tree-planting ceremony occurred 50 years to the day after a similar ceremony in which Sir Winston planted a tree in Churchill to mark its foundation. Churchill College is the national monument to the former Prime Minister, whose papers are kept on the premises in the Churchill Archives Centre. Watch video of the 1959 tree-planting ceremony at www.vimeo.com/7079248.

Cancer Research UK hosts charity run Members of Cambridge University Amnesty International (CUAI) campaigned last weekend for the release of Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi. Members of Sunday saw Cancer Research CUAI, some sporting paper masks with Suu Kyi’s face, occupied a wooden cage on King’s College’s front lawn continuously from 6pm on Friday 16 until 6pm on Sunday 18th . UK’s first ‘Run 10k’ event in Cambridge. The charity is organising 41 similar runs throughout the country this Cyclists riding without lights this week will face £30 fines season. Over 1,600 runners, aided by 65 volunteer marshals, and 2008. disregard for bike lights by Council, as part of the campaign. raised as much as £70,000 for Jennie Baker Cllr Howell told Varsity, “I try to Cambridge cyclists. Sergeant Gordon Morgenthaler cancer research. Cambridge’s Reporter stick up for the cyclists – but it is a Police have welcomed the Conser- of Cambridgeshire police said: “This Sarah Juggins, 41, was first to lot easier if the anti-bike lobby don’t vative Action Team’s study, claiming is not a reward for doing something cross the finish line, finishing have such obvious open goals as that combating dangerous cycling wrong, but a real step forward, the 10km run in 36 minutes. In the week approaching seeing the law on bike lights being was currently a priority. However, offering some of the most vulnerable Running lanes were marked off Cambridgeshire police’s annual widely flouted.” Cllr Howell claims: “ The police need road users expert help to improve throughout the city, including road safety campaign, a survey has Although the data was collected to tackle this problem year round, their cycling skills and reduce the in central areas such as Trinity revealed staggering results on the in one location, Cllr Howell claims not in a once a year crackdown, and risk of accidents.” Street. number of cyclists riding without that his results reflect a broader only after some good publicity.” During the 2008 campaign, police lights in the city. For the week begin- BeAtrICe rAMSAy Cambridgeshire police will launch issued over 200 tickets to cyclists, New club to open on ning Monday 26th, all cyclists riding their week-long campaign on Monday and around 170 sets of lights were Jesus Lane without bike lights will be fined £30. 26. The operation will take enforce- fitted to bikes. Shortly after this, Andrew Bower and City Cllr ment action against those failing to a independent study found that An alternative student drinking Chris Howell of the Conservative use lights, and also educate cyclists Cambridge cyclists topped national experience can now be found on Action Team conducted a survey and motorists on the importance of tables, with 80 per cent of the cyclists Jesus Lane after the opening of on the number of cyclists using having a working set for their own using lights. a new club, Hidden Rooms, last their lights on a recent Sunday and and others’ safety. Paul Griffin, Cambridge City week. The club enjoyed a hugely Monday night from 11pm on Mill Cambridge City Council is working Council’s Community Safety successful first student night, Road bridge. From their sample of in partnership with the Cambridge Strategy officer said: “Last year’s outselling other student venues 89 cyclists, 50 per cent were found to Constabulary to offer a free set campaign was very well received with specific acts playing. have both their front and back lights of bike lights to every cyclist who and made a big contribution to Student drinks deals will now on, however 43 per cent were using receives a ticket during the week. raising awareness of safe cycling in be in place every other Thurs- no lights at all. Anti-social cyclists committing Cambridge, even those receiving a day at the 200-capacity venue, According to Cambridgeshire offences like riding on the pavement fine appreciated the importance of which has a smart dress code of County Council figures, 11 cyclists will also be fined £30, but will be the project, and were happy they no hoods or trainers. The venue who were not using bike lights, offered a free lesson by the Bikeabil- were provided with lights! This year is open during the afternoon as whether at night or in conditions ity scheme, a national cycle training we will be running a similar innova- a shisha cafe before serving as a of poor visibility, were involved in project hosted in Cambridge by the tive campaign which again will be bar until midnight. accidents over the course of 2007 Road Safety Team at the County focussed on keeping people safe.”

Varsity has been Cambridge’s independent student newspaper since 1947 and distributes 10,000 free copies to every Cambridge College, to ARU and around Cambridge each week. Get involved Editors Robert Peal & Anna Trench [email protected] AssociAtE Editors Jenny Morgan [email protected] & Laurie Tuffrey [email protected] NEws Editors Avantika Chilkoti, Emma Mustich & Beth Staton [email protected] commENt Editor Dan Hitchens [email protected] sport Editors Will Caiger-Smith & Olly West [email protected] FEAturEs Editor Zing Tsjeng [email protected] Arts Editor Laura If you would like to find out how Freeman [email protected] thEAtrE Editor Lauren Cooney [email protected] rEviEws & ListiNgs Editor Paul Smith [email protected] FAshioN Editors Charlie Lyons, Joe Pitt-Rashid & Lara Prendergast to write for Varsity, come to [email protected] one of our weekly meetings at sENior rEportErs Clare Gatzen, Anna Harper, Helen Mackreath, Gemma Oke & Matthew Symington [email protected] sciENcE corrEspoNdENts Sita Dinanauth & Mingjuan Tan science@varsity. the Maypole Pub (20A Portugal co.uk Food & driNk Editors Tanya Iqbal [email protected] thEAtrE critics Nathan Brooker, Abigail Dean, Chris Kerr, Joel Massey, Jemima Middleton, George Reynolds & Alasdair Pal [email protected] Place). music critics Edward Henderson, Tom Keane & Pete Morelli [email protected] JAzz critic Jonathan Lifschutz FiLm critics James Garner & James Sharpe [email protected] visuAL Arts critic Florence Sharpe [email protected] cLAssicAL music critic Guido Martin-Brandis [email protected] LitErAry critic Eliot D’Silva [email protected] vArsitv Editors Richard Rothschild-Pearson & Fred Rowson [email protected] dEputy vArsitv Editors Phillipa Garner & Alan Young [email protected] oNLiNE Editor Max Raleigh-Reckless Smithwick News: Monday 4pm chiEF sub-Editor Colm Flanagan sub-Editors Lauren Arthur, Timothy Leung & Angela Scarsbrook [email protected] dEsigNEr Dylan Spencer-Davidson [email protected] dEsigN coNsuLtANt Michael Derringer magazine: Wednesday 5.30pm busiNEss & AdvErtisiNg mANAgEr Michael Derringer [email protected] boArd oF dirEctors Dr Michael Franklin (Chair), Prof. Peter Robinson, Dr Tim Harris, Mr Chris Wright, Mr Michael Derringer, Mr Elliot Ross, Mr Patrick Kingsley (VarSoc President), Miss Anna Trench, Mr Hugo Gye, Mr Michael Stothard, Miss Clementine Dowley, Mr Robert Peal & Mr Christopher Adriaanse Alternatively, email the relevant NEWSPAPERS section editor (right) with your SUPPORT Varsity, Old Examination Hall, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF. Tel 01223 337575. Fax 01223 760949. Varsity is published by Varsity Publications Ltd. Varsity Publications also publishes BlueSci and The Mays. RECYCLING Recycled paper made ©2009 Varsity Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise ideas. up 87.2% of the raw material for UK without prior permission of the publisher. Printed at Iliffe Print Cambridge — Winship Road, Milton, Cambridge CB24 6PP on 48gsm UPM Matt Paper. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. ISSN 1758-4442 newspapers in 2008 NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT RECYCLING News Editors: Avantika Chilkoti, Emma Mustich and Beth Staton Friday October 23rd 2009 3 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk NewsS City pub brought to court over hygeine infractions » Owners of The Eagle face charges over incidents in May 2008

being taken to Addenbrooke’s This marked a change from their Helen Mackreath hospital for salmonella and E. Coli previous ‘not guilty’ plea, made in Senior Reporter testing. The results of all tests were an earlier hearing of the case on negative. April 30th 2009. This change in plea In court, the prosecution was taken into consideration in the Brewery giant Greene King, owner highlighted that “public health was verdict. of The Eagle pub on Bene’t Street, put at risk in a well known public Greene King has been in operation was fined yesterday in a pre-trial house in a city centre”. They paid since 1799, and The Eagle is part of hearing called to investigate claims particular attention to the double a nation-wide chain of 800 Greene of lapses in food hygiene standards occurrence of hygiene lapses, on King establishments. The pub has in the pub’s kitchens. May 15th and 27th of last year, a system in place for training staff Greene King faced 15 separate and pointed out that this is not the on matters of food and hygiene. All charges relating to The Eagle’s first prosecution that Greene King staff members receive a certificate unsatisfactory hygiene arrange- has faced. They also described the of basic food and hygiene training, ments. The charges were incurred faults found within the pub’s kitch- with staff in the kitchens receiving following two separate routine ens as “serious”, with descriptions a Greene King Certificate Two, and inspections by Cambridge Council of “rancid” rotting meat. all Chefs, the Deputy Manager and in May 2008. The defendants in the case Head Manager a Greene King Certif- Charges revolve around a lack expressed their regret and empha- icate Three. Greene King were keen of “due diligence” provided by the sized that this is an “isolated” case to point out that The Eagle’s lapse company and include reports of which falls below their “ordinar- in standard is a localized failure and failure to provide soap for cleaning ily high standards”. They pointed does not represent a systematic hands, failure to fit the windows out that an unannounced inspection failure of the company. with insect-proof screens, and in March 2008 (two months before The Eagle is the most iconic failure to store raw meat in appro- the unsatisfactory findings) found pub in Cambridge, popular with priate conditions to stop its harmful “general compliance” in the hygiene students and tourists alike. Famous deterioration. system, with temperature issues, as the location where Watson and Other charges also allege that preparation, and cooking all being Crick announced they had discov- cooked sausages and lasagnes were examined. Therefore, they claimed, ered the double helix structure of left uncovered at room tempera- yesterday’s charges related to only DNA in 1953, and with the names of ture at least two hours after close of a “short period of time” in which the British and US air force servicemen serving, and that Greene King failed system had broken down. scorched onto the ceiling during the to ensure all equipment coming into Greene King pleaded guilty to the Second World War, the pub regularly contact with food was effectively charges, and were fined a total of attracts large tourist groups. The cleaned or disinfected. £10,000, including individual fines Eagle was named Bargain Food Pub In the course of the May 2008 for rotting meat in the fridge, food of the Year in 1999 by the Good Pub inspections, accusations of food left unprotected from contamination, Guide. Greene King’s IPA brand poisoning caused by the pub’s food filthy refrigerators and microwaves, was recently named shirt sponsor of were investigated, with samples and a damaged seal on the fridge. Cambridge United. Plans for Cambridge’s new Trinity Street Post Office to close in December mosque unveiled beatrice ramsay Lucy Hunter Johnston rest of the area. Reporter Concetta Scozzaro Award-winning London archi- Reporter tectural company Marks Barfield, designers of the London Eye, are due The iconic Trinity Street Post Office to submit planning schemes in 2010. has announced plans to close down Despite being home to over 4,000 It is intended that the mosque will this December due to unsustainably Muslims, Cambridge has never been be a centre for the community. For high rental rates charged by Trinity able to boast a purpose-built mosque. example, the mosque will include a College. However, designs have now been café, teachings areas and meetings Despite an upturn in trade this revealed for a brand new £13 million rooms which will cater equally for year, the Post Office, leased by mosque which will be able to accom- Muslims and non-Muslims. Signifi- James McNaughton (also owner modate over 1,000 Muslim men and cantly, this sense of unity could prove of Scudamores punting company), women. useful as a tool of integration and claims that the £20,000 per year rent education for non-Muslims regarding set by Trinity is simply too high and the nature and practises of Islam. is forcing them out of business. and confectionary will be a thing of only be expected to rise when the Dr Tim Winter, chairman of the Jack Zalewski, manager of the the past.” Trinity Street Post Office is forced Muslim Academic Trust said: “The much-loved store, claims, “they The loss of the Trinity Street Post to close on December 11th, with the new mosque will be a real neighbour- want the money and we don’t have Office will be felt all the more keenly store finally shutting its doors for hood as well as a spiritual centre, the money. It’s as simple as that.” by Cambridge residents in the wake good on Christmas Eve. easily accessible...with facilities for However, Rory Landman, Senior of the forced closure last year of formal and informal community Bursar at Trinity, notes “with disap- nearly two dozen Post Offices in the group meetings as well as a leisure pointment that the Trinity Street Cambridge area, including three in destination.” Post Office has decided to close, not the city centre. These closures are Dr Winter added that the mosque least because we make extensive illustrative of the nationwide crisis 52 Trumpington Street is to be “respectful of the neighbour- use of it ourselves. The decision was facing local Post Offices, with over Cambridge CB2 1RG The design captures elements of hood”. Indeed, it is due to be highly a surprise to the College as we had 625 already shut down this year, and both the modern and the traditional, environmentally conscious, with not been approached to discuss the plans for hundreds more to follow. FREE CHELSEA BUN with the contemporary interior plans to use only efficient and locally terms of their lease renewal when it Since 1997 the number of Post With every purchase over £2.00 in the shop being based upon “tree-like” generated energy from ground heat expires in December.” Offices nationwide has fallen from OR columns supporting high ceilings pumps and it to be lit naturally The closure of the Post Office will nearly 19,000 to just 12,000, and by FREE MORNING which will create a sense of space and throughout the year. be a blow to Cambridge students and the end of the year this figure is relaxation. However, the exterior Currently, worshippers use a residents alike. Alex Winterbotham, expected to drop as low as 11,500. COFFEE/TEA (9am-12pm) brick-work will be carefully chosen converted supermarket warehouse a student at Trinity, claims to be The closures in Cambridge have With any cake or pastry in the restaurant to match the surrounding traditional on Mawson Road, which can hold just “utterly devastated” by the closure, already caused a dramatic increase on presentation of this voucher Victorian terraced houses, in order 500 people, a mere one-eighth of all stating that “Cambridge’s finest in queuing time in the few Post and proof of student status to be in architectural unity with the the Muslims in Cambridge. selection of postcards, merchandise Offices remaining open, which can If you’ve got a competitive streak and want to test your financial smarts, enter The UBS Challenge. First, you’ll compete against first-year students from other universities in a virtual trading game. Only the top players will progress to the next round – a day of mental and physical endurance at a top-secret location.

Depending on how far you make it through The UBS Challenge, you could win a laptop and other great prizes.

Go to www.ubs.com/challengeuk Deadline: 31 October 2009

© UBS 2009. All rights reserved.

04208 UBS Challenge FP AD Varsit1 1 20/10/09 09:52:07 News Editors: Avantika Chilkoti, Emma Mustich and Beth Staton Friday October 23rd 2009 5 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk NewsS Boaties and hacks trounce boozers in Tripos » Varsity survey reveals correlation between extra-curricular activities and academic performance

college tompkinS 2009 “The results aren’t necessarily Beth Staton causative,” one third year historian Society tompkinS 2009 Ranking College Score % Firsts News Editor and student journalist commented. 1 (3) Trinity 68.83% 33.40% 2 (2) Emmanuel 66.99% 26.20% “However, student journalism does Rank Society Score % Firsts 3 (1) Selwyn 66.91% 26.80% teach you how to be succinct, clear- 1 Journalists 68.63% 22.72% Academic success will be found nei- 4 (4) Gonville & Caius 66.85% 26.30% thinking, and argumentative.” ther in the toilets of Cindies nor a 5 (11) St. Catharine’s 66.58% 27.10% 4th year rower Donald Evans was 2 Boaties 68.21% 30.77% bottle of VK, a Varsity survey can 6 (10) Pembroke 66.00% 28.10% similarly unsurprised by the results. reveal. 7 (6) Churchill 65.48% 25.40% “A lot of rowers are really hard work- 3 Actors 66.40% 24.00% 8 (5) Magdalene 65.35% 23.30% A review of 2009 exam successes 9 (15) Trinity Hall 65.03% 22.90% ers” he said. “Rowing gives you a lot 4 Choristers 64.85% 21.21% saw students in drinking societies 10 (9) Corpus Christi 64.88% 22.00% of structure during the day, and when struggling academically compared 11 (7) Jesus 64.81% 21.50% your time is taken up with rowing in 5 Female Drinking Society 63.43% 15.62% to Boaties and student journalists, 12 (16) Queens’ 64.08% 23.10% the morning and evening you’re more 6 Male Drinking Society 61.15% 15.38% who tended to excel in Tripos. 13 (8) Christ’s 63.88% 23.20% likely to be disciplined about what Inspired by the Independent’s 14 (20) St. John’s 63.51% 21.20% you’re doing at different times.” The table logged the classmarks of Tripos examinees in the choirs, drinking societies and first 15 (12) Downing 63.44% 19.70% boats of 4 colleges: Sidney, John’s, Caius and Trinity. Student journalists were represented annual academic review, Varsity’s 16 (17) Peterhouse 62.99% 23.60% Though they topped the table, by last year’s TCS and Varsity editorial teams, and actors by a selection of Cambridge’s 25 top survey is based on the same prin- 17 (19) King’s 62.24% 20.20% journalists achieved a lower pro- undergraduate actors. Five points are allocated for a First, three for a II.i, two for a II.ii and one for a ciples as the Tompkins table, but 18 (13) Clare 62.18% 19.70% portion of firsts than actors and the third. The scores are then expressed as a percentage of the average quantity of points available. ranks the academic achievements of 19 (18) Robinson 62.16% 20.10% boaties who, though a close second actors, rowers, choristers, hacks and 20 (22) Girton 61.80% 17.30% overall, achieved a 30.77 per cent drinking societies. 21 (21) Fitzwilliam 61.23% 18.30% rate of firsts. It might be specu- societies seemed more able to hold first class grade in English. 22 (14) Sidney Sussex 60.75% 14.40% Student journalists narrowly 23 (23) New Hall 60.30% 15.70% lated that subject choice plays a their drink than boys; scoring closer “There are so many factors that topped the table, beating rowers by 24 (24) Newnham 58.98% 12.20% part in this, however: 14 per cent to the fourth place Choristers than contribute to the degree that an 0.4 per cent, whilst drinking society 25 (25) Homerton 58.25% 13.10% of the boaties surveyed sat Arts or to their male counterparts, female individual achieves that it would ‘apocalads’ fulfilled their epithets 26 (26) Hughes Hall 56.30% 16.70% Social Science subjects, compared to societies easily matched the real be unfair to attribute it to one com- less appealingly by finishing last in 27 (27) Wolfson 55.03% 7.90% an overwhelming majority of 95 per Tompkins score in some colleges, mitment” said one drinking society the rankings. Actors were the third 28 (29) St Edmund’s 52.96% 9.40% cent amongst those writing for stu- whilst the men scored almost eight member. In my society last year’s 29 (28) Lucy Cavendish 52.90% 6.70% most successful group, achieving dent newspapers. per cent lower. graduates achieved an average scores close to the top five Colleges dispute the idea that that other Drinking societies contained a Not all drinking society students mark of a high 2.1, higher than the in the real Tompkins, whilst choris- commitments will have a negative higher density of Land Economy experienced the much-maligned University average. I’m sure no-one ters were the society equivalent of impact on work. Though falling students than other groups, but ‘Cindies effect’, however. One drink- would attribute their success to the 10th place Corpus Christi. short of Trinity’s winning percent- generally included a mixture of indi- ing society president gained a full drinking society, so it’s a bit unfair Though demonstrating a cor- age, rowers and journalists scored viduals from all subjects, redeeming, blue in football and a double first in to attribute their failure to it in the relation between grades and significantly better than every other perhaps, a few social prejudices law, whilst another managed to pub- same way.” extra-curricular choices, the results College. against Natscis. Strikingly, girls’ lish her third novel and achieve and MIChael DerrInger

1 2 3 4 5 6 Michael Green to replace Stephen Hawking as Lucasian Professor

Among other things, Green is and at the same time to support Rob Mindell also known for his work with John and inspire young researchers. His Reporter Schwarz of the California Institute appointment as Lucasian Professor of Technology. Together, the two continues the very distinguished discovered ‘anomaly cancellation’ tradition of that post.” The name of Professor Ste- in 1984. It was from this that other Hawking, 67, stepped down from phen Hawking’s successor as scientists took an interest in string the post on September 30th, after Lucasian Professor of Mathemat- theory and developed the concept holding the title for 30 years. Uni- ics was announced on Tuesday. The with extensive research. versity statutes dictate 67 as the post will be taken up by Professor Peter Haynes, head of the Cam- age of retirement across all Depart- Michael Green, who is currently bridge Department of Applied ments. Hawking will now work as a John Humphrey Plummer Profes- Mathematics and Theoretical Phys- director of research in the Depart- sor of Theoretical Physics. Green ics, commented, “Michael Green has ment of Applied Mathematics and will take up his new role officially on played a leading role in theoretical Theoretical Physics. November 1st 2009. physics research in the Department The Lucasian Professorship of Green, 63, is best known for his since 1993. He is internationally Mathematics, established in 1663, is extensive work relating to string- known as a pioneer in string theory one of the world’s most prestigious theory. Green was a pioneer in the which over the last 20 years has academic posts. The first Luca- theory’s early days in the 1970s, and become one of the most important and sian Professor was Isaac Barrow, has continued working on the sub- active areas of theoretical physics.” who discovered the fundamental ject until today, when it stands as a In reference to Green’s current theorem of calculus. Other past Pro- widely known, but little understood, work, Haynes stated, “In DAMTP fessors include Sir Isaac Newton model of theoretical physics which [the Department of Applied Math- (1669-1702), Charles Babbage aims to explain space and time ematics and Theoretical Physics] (1828-1839), Paul Dirac (1932-1969), through ten dimensions of vibrating Michael Green continues to make and Sir Michael James Lighthill ‘strings’ of energy. important advances in this topic (1969-1979). 6 Friday October 23rd 2009 News Editors: Avantika Chilkoti, Emma Mustich and Beth Staton NNews www.varsity.co.uk [email protected]

Politico Varsity Profile: Helen Stephens The University of Cambridge’s first female Head Porter in 800 years

Helen Stephens (right) is no stranger Things change, but there might be a to media attention. She was appointed Doubting Thomas or two out there I Head Porter at Selwyn College in suppose.” I get the impression that September but has appeared in Stephens is referring to her time at newspapers since March 2005, when Trinity College, which she mentions Round-up: CUSU Jesus College made her the first ever was “challenging”. Although keen to Council Meeting woman gate porter. Stephens, 48, stress that the College’s emphasis on Monday 19th October then became Deputy Head Porter tradition is a good thing - “nobody at Trinity College, before apply- wants a College of Cambridge ing successfully for what she calls University to change” – she tells The first meeting of term began an “absolutely fantastic” job as me that “getting used to the tradi- with a killing, shooting down the Selwyn’s Head Porter. tion was quite tricky. Selwyn is motion “Youth Fight for Jobs” Stephens is the latest woman to less ceremonial, much more relaxed which tried to promote a specific claim a piece of the ancient wall and it doesn’t have the historical demonstration and rally support built to preserve the University of complexities that Trinity has.” for workers’ unions. Usually Cambridge as a male-dominated Indeed, Stephens feels that a council toys with its left-of- institution. Cracks began to show female influence, far from disrupting centre delegation before coming with the appointment of the first College life, “enhances the Porter’s to an ineffectual compromise but female professor, Dorothy Garrod, Lodge”. The Head Porter is respon- on this occasion it dismissed the in 1939. But the wall only started sible for the security of staff, students motion without even bringing it crumbling as recently as the 1960s, and visitors and is expected to offer a to discussion. A powerful sign when all-male colleges began to open welcoming service to everyone who for the year ahead or false hope their doors to women. Stephens enters the College gates. Stephens for debate and policy actually herself finds it “surprising” that notes: “It was the case when I was relevant to student needs? her appointment has made such big at Jesus, that I had a lot of female met lots of celebrities!” something very, very awful in my life Among the manicuring of the news, with the University’s student students asking me for my advice When asked what drew her to a and I’ll always be grateful to Jesus constitution and procedural filler, gender ratio at 52 per cent male to on certain issues.” Whether this is career as a porter, she pauses. “It College. They were just brilliant, you will be delighted to hear 48 per cent female. to do with Stephens’ natural warmth was actually circumstantial more and if I have anybody to thank it’s that the council is now a ‘safe However, women still tend not to or her gender is debatable but the than anything. My long-term partner the Head Porter at Jesus. They are space’, with no nasty aggression hold many of the senior positions suggestion that porters offer more and I went our separate ways and fabulous people and they just lit the or disrespectfulness allowed in at Cambridge. “I went through to students in terms of welfare is a I found that, because I’d followed fire, and started all my interests. arguments. Surprisingly, there something similar when I joined at pertinent one. Crucially, she cites him around progressing his career, It’s because of them that I’m where was even space for a motion Jesus”, Stephens tells Varsity. “I “the people, the students” as the I didn’t actually have any career of I am today.” designed to help students. think it’s a moment in history, it’s best part of the job. my own. I didn’t really want to stay Stephens is originally from “Hypocrisy on student loans a break in the mould and making It is clear that Stephens has a in corporate life, I didn’t really want Llanelli, a town on the west coast of and fees” passed with little fuss history all at the same time.” genuine passion for her role. She to stay working with the NHS and Wales, but now lives in Huntingdon. and called on CUSU to write to Stephens finds the suggestion that has experience in areas as diverse as our split made it obvious that I could Her close family live nearby, and the government in complaint women are less suited to the tradi- account managing and massage. After decide to do something different. I are “immensely proud”. Ultimately, of its inconsistent handling of tionally-masculine job of porter working for the NHS she trained as had to come back to Cambridge to this feels like a personal as well as our student debt, choosing RPI inconceivable. “It is a very appro- a massage therapist, practising at find my feet again and I got a job a professional accomplishment for figures that suited its own needs. priate job for a woman. When I the exclusive Wentworth Golf Club working at Jesus as a gate porter. I Selwyn’s Head Porter. “I think for Sadly this will have little effect, applied to the College of Jesus, I and Spa in Surrey. “That’s got to didn’t even know what a gate porter the first time in my life I’ve actually as NUS president Wes Street- had no idea that women weren’t be one of my favourite jobs”, she was and I was lucky enough to get found somewhere that I believe I ing has publically accepted the doing these sorts of jobs. There’s enthuses. “I’d never worked with the job. Then the floodgates opened, belong. Professionally I think this government’s decision. no rhyme or reason why women my hands before, so it was a lovely as it were.” is it really. I wouldn’t want to be in The last motion, with its clear shouldn’t be in the Porters’ Lodge. time for me to be hands-on. And I “Something good came out of any other job!” claire gatzen political overtones, was the most divisive. In broad terms, the council was asked to rally around striking postal workers, warn students about the dangers of strikebreaking (scabbing) and Hi! Society: Assassins’ Guild ban the Royal Mail advertising temporary jobs to Cambridge The Cambridge University Assassins’ Guild: Life’s not a stage. It’s a battlefield. students. Despite only giving tenuous reasons why this was relevant to students, the propos- “Have you ever tried to kill someone an assassin makes a successful ‘kill’ Although it does tend to be in lectures, computer rooms and ers argued passionately and the using nothing but stealth and a fluffy they’re sent a new target – a process dominated by male scientists, the other out-of-bounds areas), one of vote was close. Ultimately, the kitten?” Your answer to this question which continues until only the winner Guild is slowly gaining popularity the main attractions of the game is council decided supporting strik- is probably no - unless you’re a is left. across a wider range of people. Coryan the potential for wacky weaponry. ing postal workers should not be member of Cambridge University Bearing witness to the finesse Wilson-Shah, the Assassins’ commu- Wilson-Shah mentions some of the a CUSU policy. Assassins’ Guild that is. With the involved in assassination, the Guild nication officer, tells that “over half of most memorable examples, like “a The president is denied a Michaelmas 2009 Game already has a complex set of rules concerning our best regular players are studying giant polystyrene ball labelled as a vote or even an obvious role in motion as of 5.00am, Wednes- issues from conduct to permissible arts subjects.” There has also been an fifty-six trillion kilogram planet” and at the council, CUSU being far day October 21st (and here we all weapons. Such rules include the prohi- ongoing rise in the number of female “a handy vac labelled ‘soul sucker’”. too democratic to allow direct thought rowers had an early start), bition of impersonating people of players in recent years. A quarter of Alexander Scott, who participated leadership. Nonetheless Chigbo Varsity decided to take a look at this authority like porters and the use of the players in Mayweek 2009 were in a game last year, told Varsity that had a clear hand in discussion vibrant society, going strong since empty bottles labelled ‘fake bomb’. female and “around half of our top being an assassin is “time consuming from the sidelines. Lent term 1993. Exceptional players are rewarded assassins are female”. but worth it”. Although the sign-up for The next council will be on The Assassins’ Guild revolves with titles such as MA (‘Master Assas- As a novel activity wedged Michaelmas 2009 has closed, there’s Monday November 2nd in around a game resembling live-action sin’) and PhD (‘Paranoia Hardened somewhere in between theatre and always the Lent and Mayweek games the Small Exams Hall, New role play. Players are given three Death-master’) and prizes are given sport, it’s no wonder the Guild had for those interested. In any case, Museums Site. Visit the CUSU targets and set out to hunt down for specific achievements, such as the over 1,000 people sign up at the if ever you spot someone standing website for further details on said targets and (mock) assassinate ‘Kenny Award’ (for dying far too many Freshers Fair. Alongside challenge outside your lecture hall holding a how to have your say. Don’t all them, all the while avoiding being times) and the ‘Girton Award’ (for the of fearing for your life on a moment- banana labelled ‘gun’, you now know rush at once. oli mcfarlane assassinated themselves. Whenever kill furthest from Cambridge). by-moment basis (apart from the reason why. Heidi aHo News Editors: Avantika Chilkoti, Emma Mustich and Beth Staton Friday October 23rd 2009 7 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk NewsS

Cambridge College Spies Churchill Watch Girton A bronze sculpture by Dame Barbara The central heating in the main building at Hepworth, located in prize position at Churchill Girton college was turned on for the fi rst College, has been returned to its spot between time this Michaelmas on Tuesday. As part of the college Buttery and North Court. ‘Four an energy-saving initiative, the college had Square (Walk-Through)’ (1966), on loan to kept the heating off and gave £300 to charity Churchill from the Fitzwilliam Museum, was for every day they saved on heating bills. The taken down on August 20th this year for repair college bursar said: “The College Council will and restoration work lasting six weeks, led by donate money to charity for every day since experts at the Fitzwilliam Museum and funded the 5th of October that the heating has been by Churchill College as well as the Hepworth off in Girton. This is to try to demonstrate that JOEL MASSEY estate. The 14 foot high the policy is not simply about saving money in piece was reassembled the short term. Although that is in parts this week, back important, saving carbon is more just in time for the 50th important and more urgent and anniversary celebra- we need to try to change expec- tions at the College tations and behaviour in the Cocks Buzz where students are longer term. The JCR and permitted to use it for MCR Presidents have Continuing this term’s fine Lucy Cavendish tradition of BBC presenters work and play. Other supported this policy.” fi nding love in Cambridge, one works by Hepworth at The heating was only tousle-haired charmer with an the University include “A woman must have money and a room of her turned on as the likeli- acerbic wit and skinny jeans ‘Ascending Form own if she is to write fi ction”, wrote Virginia hood of any more warm caused a storm last week in (Gloria)’ in the New Hall Woolf. The manuscript of A Room of One’s Own weather this season Kambar. As the evening drew to Art Collection and ‘Two is currently being exhibited at Lucy Cavendish was deemed unlikely and an end, he was sent into a spin Forms (Divided Circle)’ with other documents from the college archives. students had started to by a nubile young Johnian and at Clare College. The exhibit starts by addressing Margaret complain of the cold on took him back to his hotel room. Unfortunately, the amorous Cavendish’s desire to create a women’s college College premises. ROB PEAL twosome were accompanied by a at Cambridge and the subject is the dream of sharp-witted lady, whose visual female education, including those that opposed artistry led her to perceive a it and who wished to create a working place for third wheel was necessary to women at Cambridge. Until October 31st, from prevent any untoward happen- noon till 5pm, the exhibit will be open. ings. Accordingly, all that did pass was staying up and watch- ing Toy Story, until our hero leant over to our heroine and asked, “When will you leave? I University want to seduce your friend.” Sheffield Hallam Morehouse College Lap of Honour University Watch On their fi rst curry of term, The male-only university in Atlanta has intro- the Sidney rugby club invited Student Philip Laing (pictured right) was duced a new “Appropriate Attire Policy” a clutch of enthusiastic young arrested and charged with outraging public banning clothes usually worn by women. freshers. One of them, bad at controlling his drink and even decency after a photograph of him urinating Students who do not comply risk suspension. worse at controlling his opinions, over a war memorial was posted on The Daily It is part of a larger policy which includes unleashed a polemic against the Mail website. The incident took place during the prohibition of caps, sunglasses and jeans. hallowed Sidney institution of a pub crawl which contributed to the Carnage However, the clause banning cross-dressing has The Porcupines. Many members UK event on October 11th. John Ievers, grand- attracted international attention. Dr William of said society were present, son of a First World War veteran, described Bynum, vice president for Student Services, and informed the suggestible Laing in The Daily Mail as a “drunken idiot”. told CNN that the policy targets “about fi ve young fresher that the only Laing issued an apology saying: “I am deeply students who are living a gay lifestyle that is way of redeeming such a faux ashamed of this photograph and I am sincerely leading them to dress a way we do not expect pas was to run around the bar naked. To their astonishment, sorry...I have no recollection of the events in in Morehouse men”. Some students have come Oxford University he complied, and completed a the photograph, although I recognise that this forward applauding the attempts of the college. lap of the bar wearing nothing does not excuse my actions.” Laing will appear However, Daniel Edwards, co-president of the but his tie. So far, so embarrass- at Sheffi eld Magistrates Court on October Academic Dr Deer has accused university campus Gay-Straight Alliance, says the new ing, not to mention the fact that 22nd. professors of hacking into her Balliol College policy is discriminatory. his naked body was interrupting email account, in association with her fi ling JCR Hustings. a case for sex discrimination against her Bath University ex-supervisor Prof. Walford. She claims that University of Toulon Cantab Gone Mad Prof. Walford provided information on a sex Having bagged himself a cushty The Student Union plans to hold a ‘fruit and veg’ discrimination questionnaire that he could not France’s education minister has suspended job with Her Majesty’s Govern- fashion catwalk in aim of promoting healthy have obtained elsewhere. The case was made university president Laroussi Oueslati and ment, one huggable rogue living. The Student Union has asked students following Prof. Walford’s refusal to provide her two other administrators following an inves- just couldn’t stay away from to make and model costumes resembling a fruit a job reference. Dr Deer argues that his refusal tigation of the university concerning bribes Cambridge. Few knew he had or vegetable. The event is being supported by was a response of persecution for a previous accepted from individuals trying to ensure returned until he was found by the BBC, who have offered to provide funding sexual discrimination claim she made against admission of Chinese students. After accusa- police, in characteristic tweed for materials to create the outfi ts. As well the university, concerning her exclusion from tions of irregularities in the use of the rules suit, paraletic on the steps of a as the catwalk the Student Union promises the women’s football team. She claims that regarding admissions of foreign students in well-known bookseller. Monday morning was only to get more cooking demonstrations by chef Gizzi Erskine, comments made in the department following September, a report to the ministry on October exciting, however, as our noble this case are wrongfully being used to inhibit presenter of Channel 4’s ‘Cook Yourself Thin’, 19th accused the three in question of trying savage took a longship to showing how to cook healthy food. A fruit and her career. Judge Louise Chudleigh has said to block the enquiry with intimidation and Addenbrooke’s and, on waking, vegetable giveaway will also take place. that she think Dr Deer’s case has little chance threats. Oueslati denies the allegations and sprayed himself and the walls of success. calls the ministry’s decision unjust. JOSIE FILMER with true Viking blood. Get there faster. Start here. Oliver Wyman is a leading global management consultancy. We combine deep industry knowledge with specialised expertise in strategy, risk management, organisational transformation, and leadership development.

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20091016 Cambridge - Varsity 170h x 270w.indd 1 13/10/2009 14:14:13

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9212_Cambridge_Fellowship_Ad.indd 1 5/10/09 12:23:14 Comment Editor: Dan Hitchens Friday October 23rd 2009 9 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Comment the essay: Not Noble, Not savage

film review is not your discovery of the Americas, claiming typical opener for a UN The philosopher VAnessA neUMAnn says that Latin he unleashed the greatest genocide AGeneral Assembly speech, America’s recent history should worry us: hugo Chávez’s ever seen and drawing a direct line but then Venezuelan President between the Conquest of the Ameri- Hugo Chávez is not your typical rhetoric of liberation taps into an old eurocentric myth, cas and the Holocaust, trivializing speaker and this is not your usual and obfuscating both events. Rage film. Chávez was praising his joint and might prepare the ground for tyranny against the foreign imperialist was effort with Oliver Stone in produc- Michael lovett on every Latin American’s mind, ing South of the Border, Stone’s and Chávez was clever enough to documentary that glorifies the exploit it by positioning himself Chávez-led Bolivarian Revolution as the good native revolutionary of the past decade. But then media hero out to liberate (and purify) the presentation is Chávez’s special- natives. ity. Chávez’s one-minute television Since the checks and balances speech in February 1992 to call that would constrain the politicians down his troops from his attempted are themselves subject to revision coup made him a cult revolutionary by those in power (as we have seen hero, when he expressed regret in various re-written constitutions that his quest had failed por ahora and the new ‘media crimes’ law (‘for now’), a slogan he still uses. allowing the imprisonment of any What is most remarkable about critical journalist), the struggle Chávez’s manipulation of the for political power is a struggle for media is the extent to which he control over the rules of the political has successfully recast his populist game: a struggle for absolute power. power grab as a Bolivarian Revolu- To manipulate emotions is to tion, so named to cash in on the manipulate what we value, to image of the beloved liberator change our individual identity Simón Bolivar, who freed modern- and ideas of the good life, in turn day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, shaping our national identity and Perú and Panamá from Spanish our common public culture, both rule. In other words, Chávez and are all violently divided along socio- oligarchs there may have been had transmuted over time to a more of which are informative (if not his sympathetic heads of state economic fault lines, in ways they to be government bureaucrats or modern persona: the savior of Latin constitutive) of individual identity. (Castro in Cuba, Zelaya in Hondu- were not before the Bolivarian Brits, Americans or Dutch: the American culture. This mythic So it is important for a demagogue ras, Ortega in Nicaragua, Morales propaganda. same people who are now getting figure is disseminated through to manipulate the emotions of his in Bolivia and Correa in Ecuador) While it is true that Latin their history wrong and promoting the public media, and is highly people, for emotions shape values. are purporting to be Bolivar’s America has always had an the Bolivarian Revolution that has susceptible to misuse by political It is crucial that as informed and ideological heirs: fellow revolution- enormous class divide and a lot of brought such division and violence. elites. These myths set up a type or rational citizens we are able to aries liberating the marginalized corruption, a decade of the Bolivar- People have wanted to believe in persona, which the average person identify these politically-motivated indigenous population against a ian Revolution has not only failed the Bolivarian Revolution because who wants to be a good patriot or mythologies, lest we lapse into a foreign ravager or an oppressive to resolve these, but exacerbated it fits nicely into another regional citizen will do his best to resemble. demagogic populism that slides white oligarchy. them. In Venezuela the Gini Coeffi- paradigm of the ‘good revolution- What I find alarming and objec- down the slippery slope of tyranny. However, there are two problems cient of income inequality has ary’ that has been sanctified by its tionable is that more than half a The trend is worrying not because with this Bolivarian formulation. actually risen under Chávez and ideological inheritance dating back millennium later Latin Americans Latin America has a history of First, it misconstrues historical food is scarce and expensive, since to the Conquest: the convenient should turn this conquest ideology liberal democracies of a Rawlsian reality in the region. Second, it even staples like milk (once widely idealizations of the Europeans on on themselves, in an act of ultimate or Habermasian stripe before the relies on the cynical manipulation of available) now have to be imported. the one hand and the anger of the self-loathing. Rather than accept- recent demagogues, but rather a myth originating with the white So much for the socialist agrarian conquered on the other. ing mestizo culture as the prime because the current movement European conquistadores, which is revolution. Pope Sixtus IV’s 1481 papal bull example of cultural assimilation, points in the direction of one why contemporary Anglo-Europe- The most widely-accepted lie of Aeterni Regis argued that pagan they have based their liberation possible future amongst several: a ans are taken in by the story and the Bolivarian Revolution is that natives’ right to self-rule was rhetoric on this past shared trauma, future with a fractured society and why it is so dangerous for South it has redressed the injustices of overridden by papal responsibil- whose ability to cross generational little liberal democracy. The special Americans to believe it. a thieving and oppressive ‘oligar- ity for their souls. Bringing these lines would be doubtful, had it not problem with politically-motivated Like Mark Twain’s demise, chy’ that has absconded with the ‘noble savages’ into Christendom been so mythologized to serve myths is that they get their power stories of oppression by a white profits from natural resources would purify both the homeland political ends. Chávez and his by appealing to and motivating oligarchy have been greatly and returned power to the people. (patria) and the conquerors, who Bolivarian cronies have success- that part of us that is base and exaggerated. Almost all Latinos Venezuela’s formidable oil reserves effectively became ‘holy warriors’. fully tapped into both this anger non-rational. In that respect, they are some shade of mestizo: a brown- are a prime example: since Royal So it’s no surprise that the discov- and this perversely Eurocentric degrade us. skinned mixture of white, black Dutch Shell drilled Venezuela’s ery of the New World (Nueva mythology to turn their nations in and indigenous Indian. Perhaps very first oil well in 1914, foreign- Granada) was so wildly mytholo- on themselves in a near civil-war to Dr Vanessa Neumann is a Venezu- for this reason South America has ers lived like kings off Venezuelan gized that when Columbus landed stage a conquest from within. elan-born political philosopher, never suffered South African-style oil in sprawling Caracas mansions, in Venezuela he wrote in his diaries In 1992, when Chávez shot to currently Editor-at-Large of Diplo- apartheid or even American-style until the Venezuelan government that he had found the Garden fame as an ambitious young putsch- mat and Senior Fellow for Latin racism. Now Venezuela, Ecuador, completely nationalized the oil of Eden. The myth of the noble ist, the world reveled in condemning America Studies at the Hudson Bolivia, Nicaragua and Honduras in 1976. So whatever thieving savage has persisted and become the quincentenary of Columbus’s Institute.

campaign to ban landmines, she faddish fairytale Princess has saintly about being the consort coverage of public anguish was all Overrated remained in the wasteland of made to our culture is the advent of (you may prefer concubine) to the in terms of ‘we’. Who exactly was Week 3: Princess Diana anonymity where non-celebrities the prefix ‘celebrity’ – and the way son of a rather dubious, conspiracy- this ‘we’? It’s safe to assume it exist – yet is there anyone who in which it vicariously leads other obsessed grocer, nor is there any wasn’t the royal ‘we’ – the Queen doesn’t know that Diana, Princess people’s lives. Diana is thought moral lesson to be derived from seemed much more distressed of Wales, once spent a few days on a of as a saint because she dealt so posing on holiday for paparazzi, when HMS Britannia was sunk PR exercise in Bosnia and Angola? tenderly with HIV sufferers and whose presence you are surely months later. Since when has it Indeed, where were you when those who had been the victim of aware of, whilst being groped by a been acceptable for the media to you heard the ghastly news of her landmines, and because she did a portly playboy – though perhaps a dictate how and when you may death? Wait – don’t answer that great deal for charity. But consider degree of hypocrisy. mourn? At least the Express has question, I don’t care. It has been her position. If you were a multi- What about her death? After made its 20 pieces of silver out of 12 years since the first chapter millionairess with nothing to do all a divorce settlement that would Diana and her obsequious fanbase; of Diana: The Hagiography was day except perhaps contemplate have been breathtaking even in the rest of us now languish in the hen Jody Williams won opened and the time has arrived to extra-marital affairs you may also Beverly Hills, dear Diana left post-Diana cultural wasteland the Nobel Peace Prize on explode the myth. have thought: ‘Sod it, I’ll touch a precisely nothing to charity. The of sentimentality, celebrity and Wbehalf of the international The greatest contribution this leper.’ Remember, there is nothing Soviet-like megaphone press mediocrity. rhys Jones 10 Friday October 23rd 2009 Comment Editor: Dan Hitchens Comment and Editorial www.varsity.co.uk [email protected]

When taxpayers’ money is

Established in 1947 supporting environmental Issue No 703 Old Examination Hall, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RF disaster, it’s time to protest Telephone: 01223 337575 Fax: 01223 760949 obligations in RBS, but concluded fully participatory members of this Jessica King that its primary responsibility was to democracy, we should have a voice. manage it in a ‘commercial’ way. The Sign the petition at www.peopleand- Degrees of Separation campaigners insisted that taxpay- planet.org. This week’s Varsity survey shows that involvement in ers’ funds be spent only on projects This is also a Cambridge issue. time-consuming extra-curricular activities is not likely to affect t some point in the near that fund a ‘sustainable and ethical Trinity’s investments in the arms your Tripos mark. We embarked upon this survey in the hope of future, provided we fi nd a future’, through a formal review trade are well documented, though providing some sort of evidence to wave in the face of your DoS Ajob at all, we are going to of RBS’s portfolio. The court date they have been reduced in reaction next time they cajole you into aborting your passion for the sake of have to face the unfortunate reality has been set for this month. In the to a student petition and demonstra- results. of what adults call the ‘income lead-up to the crucial global climate tion in Lent 2007. The University A monastic lifestyle of diligent study for sixteen hours a day, tax’. What is particularly unfair talks in Copenhagen in December, as a whole has also produced a seven days a week with only short breaks for sustenance is far is that, despite being too young to this issue promises to be an embar- manifesto in support of ‘ethical’ more likely to drive you mad than drive you to succeed. Yet have had anything to do with the rassing one for the Treasury. investment, but without committing Cambridge staff still mutter disapprovingly in termly meetings current fi nancial crisis, it is our The irony is that the British it to an active policy. Information generation who are going to have government professes to be a leader on its areas of investment is still whenever you let slip that you are planning to spend time to pay for the government’s use of in world action on environmental refused on the grounds of commer- somewhere apart from library. public money to bail out the banks issues: the Department of Energy cial interest. Describing the subjects we read as ‘disciplines’ creates a very largely responsible for causing it. and Climate Change has recently CUSU’s Socially Responsible alarming idea of how we should treat them, implying we should As of October 2008, the govern- produced two plans to tackle them, Investment Policy for the Univer- abstain ourselves from all other worldly pleasures in a feat of ment owns 70% of the Royal Bank an energy effi ciency scheme and sity would prohibit investment self control. This attitude fl ies in the face of any common sense of Scotland (RBS). Nationalisation the new aim set out in the budget in companies which fail to uphold about how to lead a fulfi lling student life. Nobody, no matter how should have given the government of cutting emission levels by 34% basic human rights within their passionate about their subject they are, should dedicate every an unprecedented level of control by 2020. Also by 2020 they aim to sphere of infl uence, and proposes waking hour to it. over RBS investments. Why, then, have more than 1.2 million people the formation of a council to hold Aside from its academic reputation, the most striking aspect of have RBS since loaned an estimated in ‘green’ jobs, and around 40% of the University to account. This Cambridge must be the range and involvement in extra-curricular £10 billion to coal, oil and gas compa- electricity from low-carbon sources, proposal is not without precedent: activities. For the most part, we have the collegiate system to nies? These include Cairn Energy, an from renewables, nuclear and ‘clean’ both St Andrew’s and Oxford thank for this, as for every couple of hundred undergraduates oil company operating in previously coal. Though laudable, these aims University have SRIs as, of course, you’re likely to fi nd a drama society, a college paper and a clutch of pristine parts of Greenland’s Arctic; seem highly in confl ict with the does the Church of England, whose sports teams. Cambridge offers amazing opportunities to continue E.ON, a coal company with contro- Treasury’s management of RBS. exemplary policy has also proved to hobbies, fi nd new skills or play out future careers in miniature. versial new Europe-wide plans for The case may be a diffi cult one be extremely profi table. If you want Here, the saddest decision one can make is to give it all up in expansion; and fi nally Tullow Oil, to prove, but it sets a landmark to get involved, a number of cards pursuit of that elusive fi rst under the mistaken impression that who operate in the confl ict zone on precedent. Legal experts are specu- are circulating on which students time spent working is the sole determinant of attainment. the border between the Democratic lating as to whether existing human can register their complaints Republic of Congo and Uganda, rights legislation could be used by about Cambridge’s investment where they should be boycotting communities and nations impacted policy, which will be sent to the commercial involvement in the by climate change to take action appropriate authority; the CUSU Disaffiliation Blues region. The conclusion we draw is against large polluters. Surely it is SRI website will soon enable you that the Treasury gave approval to worth making the attempt? It is not to bombard them with protest Being part of a team is arguably the greatest aspect of Cambridge a number of highly unethical invest- just our money but our very future emails. Pester your fellow students; life, and the University works best when its Colleges do the same. ment policies inconsistent with the that is at stake, and as (prospec- petition your college bursar. CUSU loves the team ethos, and would probably like to think it government’s professed commitment tive) effective shareholders in RBS, As a heartening example of what epitomises this collaborative effort. Unsurprisingly, CUSU feels to tackle climate change and reduce and as student pressure can achieve, look gutted when a member leaves its team. So the captain tries to rally carbon emissions. And, further- to Edinburgh University. Last the troops and give a motivating talk. How dispiriting, then, when more, that they used public year, the Edinburgh Students’ that falls on deaf ears. money to do it. Association passed a motion The problem has been moaned time and time again, and the Three popular campaign for the university to use its current CUSU team are trying to change it, but the fact remains groups – World Develop- £9.2 million investments in that we know very little about what that £1,500 CUSU fee goes ment Movement (WDM), – you guessed it – RBS, to into. We see the occasional banner, we see minutes (that seem Platform, and People and pressure the bank to stop like hours) of drawn out bureaucracy. We’re sure they do good Planet – have decided the funding fossil fuel extraction. deeds, but wouldn’t it be great if it was made clearer what they Treasury has breached its If RBS has failed to withdraw were? As it stands, CUSU is like a closed door. No College is an responsibility to the electorate, its funds by the 2009 AGM, the island, we can all benefi t from working together in a team, and and in June attempted to take university is expected to sell its CUSU is a well-placed institution to ensure that collaboration. It them to court. Since then, the shares. RBS is starting to pay would just be nicer if they were a little clearer about what that government has hurried to carry the price for its abuse of the public collaboration entails. out a ‘green book’ assessment of trust. Don’t let it stop here. its environmental and human rights

constituencies changed hands; is that under PR the British National to deliver on the promises made to Letters to the Editor where the same two parties have Party would have a much better its students. However, disgruntled ruled almost continuously since chance of getting into Parliament. economists might like to note that World War Two; and where splinter Rachel Deimerrigen their situation is shared by others. or challenger movements could arise Trinity For example, the Department of James Sharpe ought to look abroad Constituency MPs still campaign at any time to shake things up with Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (Comment, 16th October). Other and are judged on local issues: in a piece of energetic electoral suicide. It is a dangerous precedent that a does not offer supervisions to any fact Germany is one of the most At least I’m not totally disenfran- man with a clean criminal record Part II students: for some of us, all federal countries in the world. chised – am I? is banned from entering a country, our teaching is done in groups of My vote will have no infl uence in Tim Waters just because of his opinions (Edito- twelve or more. This approach has my Conservative constituency. So it Emmanuel rial, 16th October). The same kind its advantages and disadvantages - will also have none nationally, where of arguments about ‘sowing discord one merely feels the need to point countries have simply adopted Cameron looks likely to win a major- James Sharpe’s piece on proportional in the community’ were used in out that economics students are not mixed-member proportional ity. But then, I will have a ‘strong representation was spot-on. In both my homeland in socialist times to uniquely downtrodden. representation to combine local- government’ to vigorously enact a Liverpool and Cambridge, where silence political opponents. Hugo Gye ity and accurate representation. programme a minority of the country I have lived, I have voted Liberal Daniel Manca Trinity A citizen has two votes: one for a voted for. And, as an absolute bottom Democrat, not out of any particular Fitzwilliam constituency representative and line, at least politics won’t be getting support for that party but because Email [email protected] by one for a party, so that if the local stale and docile in a system where at I thought their candidate was the It is disheartening to note that the Wednesday lunchtime for the chance to MP lets citizens down he loses the four of the last fi ve general elections, best for the constituency. Another Faculty of Economics has had to cut win a bottle from the Cambridge Wine constituency vote and is replaced. fewer than one in ten parliamentary reason to prefer the present system its teaching; it is unacceptable not Merchants. Letters may be edited. Comment Editor: Dan Hitchens Friday October 23rd 2009 11 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Comment

Not-Sci

Cheer up, it’s only the placebo effect

hate to bang on at The Times every other Iweek with the general demeanour of a Colin Farrell stalker, but they need to learn. After all, they are capable of producing informative and accurate pieces, like this week’s article which reported that “The Arctic will be ice-free in summer within 20 years, research says”. A reputable Cambridge professor who was present during the collection of data gave informative but sensible quotes and simple numbers to justify clear conclu- sions: “They drilled 1,500 holes and found that the average thickness of ice fl oes was 1.8m (5.9 ft). This was too thin to have survived the previous year’s summer melting.” In the same week, they included a story headlined Chummy David Cameron is a vacuous, facile “Placebo effect starts in the spine – not just the mind”, politician. The voters had better keep the receipt about a part of the brain which releases endorphins without place. And to their right, appropri- government was a hindrance, not public spending’. He might as treatment in fi fteen volunteers. Robert Stagg ately enough, were the grinning an absence, in the banking sector? well add barrels to his name and It is not clear from the article young ones daydreaming about Does he actually intend to make call himself David-Cameron-by- how they have reached their Mrs Thatcher. Silly clouds were his son’s death a test of charac- Plebiscite. Although not quite: conclusion, and they randomly pacing around the screen at the ter? It was too much. With tears like every mood music politician, quote questionable sources fter a week of writing back of the hall and everything of distress and mirth fretting he will only offer referenda he to back up the story: “The essays about Martha was white or blue. Boring music channels in my cheeks, I decided knows he will win. He is not, to his latest studies on antidepres- ANussbaum and the neces- played. Cameron bounced on stage to take it out on his face. credit, a real populist like Hitler sants suggest that at least 75 sity of pity; a week of feeling affectedly, gasping with energy. Physiognomy is back, for the or Mussolini. He will not turn the percent of the benefi t comes great swells of compassion about He was colourless and he reached next four hundred words. Like willing into executioners. He is, to from the placebo effect.” There unknown passers-by; a week the lectern. He spoke. The voice Freud, it has never been credible his discredit, a small-fry vendor of is no reference to these “latest in which politeness seemed the oozed out, slimed around the hall but it has always been useful. How slack language, slummy chummi- studies”. Perhaps they mean the virtue according to which all and blocked every exit. appropriate, for instance, that ness and generalised vacuity. I controversial study by psycholo- should live, it was refreshing to I watched. I listened. My teeth Cameron gets kneaded like dough suspect he will sell his product; gist Irving Kirsch which a turn on the television, see David grinded out an attritional dance. by ‘public opinion’ and ends up I know the public will have kept Columbia University psychia- Cameron, and feel my blood boil Then I started to gasp, astonished, with a face like a pudding. There’s their receipts. trist called “unrepresentative back to the surface. I felt like the and suck in air, vanquished. Then the fragile pastry nose hanging on If they examined the product and inconsistent with a mislead- man who fi lled in a BBC question- to his wet puffy cheeks. There’s in the fi rst place, the public might ing effect size”. If you are going naire with the words, “I do not the yolky droop to his jowls, two notice it is the same brand they to quote numbers, quote all of want to see David Cameron on the “How fitting that broken eggs abseiling in unison moaned about two years ago – them. And their source. television anymore.” I didn’t want away from the milky eyes. There’s namely, the Tony Blair 1997 Things Also: “Science: If you want to see him anywhere, anymore. he gets kneaded the gingerbread-man smile, and Can Only Get Better brand. A to stay slim and fi t, choose And I didn’t have a questionnaire there’s the hair fl opped over like prescription for public amnesia: your friends carefully”. What’s to agitate about it. like dough by the crust on a chocolate mousse. rather than politics getting more more, “happiness seems more I watched Cameron’s conference Sickly, isn’t it? At least with public, the public should get more contagious than despondency: it speech with captive dismay. In public opinion Gordon Brown, one can see hard political. This is an emancipating has a 9 per cent chance of being the background was the Shadow and has a face like work pulling down on his features. challenge, or it will be a challenge passed on, compared with 7 per Cabinet. George Osborne was at Cameron looks ever sweeter and democracy keeps losing – eventu- cent for unhappiness.” And the the front. His nervy soullessness a pudding” more facile the closer we get to an ally with fatalities. No powerful “risk of becoming obese rose seemed especially prominent. election. politician wants to tell the public by a fi fth if a friend of a friend Philip Hammond, the Shadow Someone bake him, please. Cook this, since the mood music plays became obese.” How does this Chief Secretary to the Treasury, salty tears began to fall. By the out that treacly voice. He is not nicely for now. No public wants emotional contagion work? who is already boasting about how end, I was a broken man. The going to submit to high tempera- to hear this, since the mood music Why are these unconvincing he will be ‘Britain’s most hated audience rose, hands commun- tures of his own accord. His sounds easier than any democratic statistics used? Maybe because man’, always looks blandly wicked. ing noisily, while I slumped from instincts are room temperature symphony. So we get change we without them, the article is a He kept up appearances, for my chair, a bit husky and very instincts. He has never made a can believe in, real change for real continuous ramble of theories appearances are all he has to keep incredulous. Does David Cameron brave or unpopular decision, apart people, real help now, and David with no source about what it up. To his left were Ken Clarke really believe that debt was the from those brave and unpopular Cameron’s pliable face simpering mysteriously alludes to as ‘fat and William Hague, looking sane cause, not the outcome, of the decisions that have extensive for every camera. We have never people that hang out with other and humorous and totally out of recession? Does he seriously think public support, like ‘cutting had it so perilously average. fat people.’ SITA DINANAUTH MAYS

Applications are invited to edit the 2010 Mays Anthology, the collection of the best student writing and artwork from Cambridge and Oxford. Interested candidates should email [email protected] by Sunday, November 1st.

The Mays, formerly the May Anthologies, are published annually by Varsity. Each year, an editor or editors assemble a committee of students who invite submissions from universities in Cambridge and Oxford of fiction and non-fiction writing including prose, poetry, drama and non-fiction writing. Past anthologies have also published illustration or photography. The committee also appoints a ‘guest editor’ from the literary world who helps select the final selection for publication and who writes an introduction to the collection. Past guest editors have included Ted Hughes, Philip Pullman, Patti Smith, Andrew Motion and Colm Toibin. Magazine Editor: Laurie Tuffrey Friday October 23rd 2009 13 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Vulture

Features p20-21 Arts p22 Strapped for cash? Feeling the Either it’s brilliant or it’s an annual pinch? Never fear, here’s our guide Vulture waste of money, space and carcasses. to thrifty living especially for you. Arts, Features, Reviews Let’s preview the Turner Prize!

DYLAN SPENCER-DAVIDSON

The Eagle has landed Terry Eagleton is one of the most prominent cultural critics of the last forty years, with his works on literary theory, ideology and Marxism being some of the most notable, and most controversial. Elliot Ross talks to the Trinity alumnus about Cambridge, the left and the need for realism.

ut why”, asked the cocksure been better off peering up into the Union’s arguing in Cambridge. And not for the fi rst townspeople off the pavements. At Trinity undergraduate of the Catholic draughty old rafters, whence much of his time, Cambridge was against him. almost everybody was a ‘Right Hon’, namely, “BMarxist professor, “would you argument had just whizzed, high over the It is impossible to tell how many of the of blue blood. I was from the northern ever believe in something that doesn’t exist?” heads of many in his audience. minds to have emerged from 800 years of working class – there was a tiny percent- Terry Eagleton chuckled, and eyed the His point had been straightforward Tripos have found the Cambridge of their age of us – and we always seemed to be questioner with some amusement. enough: that Dawkins’ obsession with time a thoroughly unwelcoming place. But extremely stunted beside these huge, willowy Did Eagleton search the face of his inter- counterposing the originary narratives of Eagleton, who studied English at Trinity in characters. So it was a very class-ridden rogator in the hope that there he might science and the Bible produces obvious the early 60s, is certainly one of these: place in the early 60s, and a pretty uncom- discover some traces of understanding about conclusions and a tedious debate, and that “It was an absolutely dreadful place,” fortable place to be.” the critique he had just offered of Richard such an old argument may only deal religious he recalls. “Almost entirely male. All the Dawkins’ aggressive brand of atheism? If faith the most insipid of blows. men were well over six foot and sort of (continued overleaf) so, it must have been in vain. He would have But once again, Eagleton found himself brayed rather than spoke and elbowed the Friday October 23rd 2009 Arts Editor: Laura Freeman 14 Arts www.varsity.co.uk [email protected]

The undergraduate Eagleton shrunk from categorise in terms of traditional academic No villains, then, but no heroes either. He make it look less obvious and necessary.” these bellowing giants, and set about the task divisions. It falls in the cracks between is no more enthused by Obama today than he And one senses that, however caught up of reading. He worked hard, wrote poetry them.” was by Blair in 1997. Eagleton now is in grappling with Richard for Granta and “hung around with literary It’s from these cracks that Eagleton now “As Thomas Hardy might have said, don’t Dawkins about God, he might put his types.” Like so many keen readers before discusses politics, culture and religion. He be illusioned and you won’t be disillusioned. I famously lucid discursive style to better use and since, Eagleton admits to having been speaks always from “the Left”, and willingly think the Left has made many mistakes, but on more earthly subjects. slightly unsure about the point of studying claims for himself the voice of that entire not usually that one. It hasn’t usually under- Addressing the Union, and without provok- English, but was consoled by the fact that he segment of the political spectrum. I ask him estimated the formidable power of what it’s enjoyed it and was good at it. what he thinks, and the Left gives him an up against. Despair and disillusion tend to Now well-established as one of the UK’s answer like some monolithic muse whispering come when you think it’s going to be easy and “As Thomas Hardy most prominent thinkers, Eagleton consid- into his ear. it turns out not to be. ers himself more an intellectual than an What impresses me is how Marxism has “But I don’t think optimism and pessimism might have said, don’t academic. “Intellectuals,” he says, “are become for Eagleton not just a position but are really the right terms with which to concerned with the bearing of ideas upon a a discipline of the mind. The events of the discuss this. What’s important is realism, and be illusioned and you whole culture. I began as a literary critic, day and the current cast of political players realism is very hard to achieve. Actually, to but all the most interesting work that’s going float lightly, almost inconsequentially, above try to see a situation as it really is requires won't be disillusioned. I on these days seems to me to be hard to a much deeper conception of historically a lot of labour, but if you can do that, then think the left has made constructed systems and trends. This makes your political actions tend to follow from that. So I think that’s the goal – not optimism or many mistakes, but not Terry Eagleton: pessimism.” An Introduction “Capitalism is a crisis- His philosophical and cultural convic- usually that one” tions are tough and settled, and his patience ridden phenomenon extends even to those issues which loom most ing so much as a sniff in dissent, he called 1943 Born in Salford anyway” urgently today. Gaza a “vast concentration camp”, a glaring 1961 Studies at Trinity College Asked if the financial crisis has been a symptom of the degradation endured by squandered chance to challenge capitalist Arabs at the hands of the West, without 1983 Literary Theory: An Introduction his intellectual temperament unusually diffi- orthodoxy, he admits that a stronger labour which, he said, the attack on the World Trade cult to excite and provoke, and much more 1990 The Ideology of the Aesthetic movement might have brought about more Center in 2001 might never have happened. robust. lasting change. “It wasn’t just some random and gratuitous 1992 Thomas Warton Professor of English Several times he mentions Margaret But, he insists: “The Left never overesti- act of madmen. However wicked it was – and Literature at Oxford Thatcher, seeming to blame her for condition- mated this crisis. Of course, it was a massive I think it was a moral obscenity – one has to ing the parlous state of the Left in Britain crisis of capitalism which has pushed it to the try and understand it in its political context 2003 After Theory today, and for encouraging the “acquisitive edge, but then capitalism is a crisis-ridden and if you don’t do that then you won’t defeat 2009 Reason, Faith, culture” which he insists has proved ruinous phenomenon anyway so to a certain extent your enemy. If you caricature your enemy as and Revolution: to the university experiences of careerist one accepts that. One thing it reveals is the some kind of lunatic or psychopath then, as Reflections on undergraduates – “in a sense the university lie of a so-called free-market. The state had to with the battle against the IRA, you won’t the God Debate career never really happens to them”. Does massively intervene in order to pull the situa- understand what they’re in business for and he see Thatcher, then, as the great villain of tion round. you won’t be able to come to any terms with 2010 Will deliver his time? “But I don’t think anyone on the Left was them, or beat them. To explain and to excuse his Gifford No. He just doesn’t think of people in crowing about this. When crises like these are totally different activities, but people Lecture, these terms: “There was a massive crisis come around they hurt ordinary people very don’t tend to understand that.” 'The God in the 1970s, things had to change and she much, and the Left isn’t cheered by that Perhaps it’s because Eagleton has spent Debate' oversaw the transition from classical indus- prospect. But it does show the fragility and his whole life trying to understand his own trial capitalism to a sort of consumerist, precariousness of the system to people who opponents that his remains a voice well worth post-industrial capitalism. But that happened didn’t previously realise that. When a system listening to. everywhere in the world, really.” is in crisis, one effect is to denaturalise it,

erry Eagleton’s prolific output for five intense and ongoing debate currently at fever decades, writing over forty books and Terry Eagleton: An Introduction pitch between theism and atheism, a debate Tinnumerable articles, shows no signs which often seems to resemble a particularly of abating as we enter the sixth. Although Kai Zeng and Lucinda Higgie take a retrospective look at aggressive game of ping-pong more than perhaps not England’s most respected anything else. His shift in emphasis, from the literary critic, Eagleton is certainly the Eagleton’s writings literary to the social, was first signalled by most notorious: even Prince Charles once 2007’s surprisingly sentimental The Meaning remarked on “that dreadful Terry Eagleton”. of Life. His review of Dawkins’ The God This notoriety has seen a marked increase Delusion in the London Review of Books was since his decision to wade out from cultural a publication in itself, culminating in his most and literary criticism to social and religious recent Reason, Faith, and Revolution. debate, taking on Kingsley Amis (“a racist, Here, Eagleton searches for a more anti-Semitic boor”), Martin Amis (“has nuanced position than has previously been clearly learnt more from [his father] than put forward, making an attempt to under- how to turn a shapely phrase”) and Richard mine what he views as the shallowness of Dawkins, whose views on theology he likened both Richard Dawkins' and Christopher to “someone holding forth on biology whose Hitchens' conceptions of Christianity, by only knowledge of the subject is the Book of creating a fictitious conglomeration of the two British Birds”. named 'Ditchkins' on which he bounces propo- Eagleton was not always so controversial, sitions, thus demonstrating the supposed although it was a short-lived anonymity. superficiality of both of their stances. This His early criticism of canonical authors in does, though, raise the question of whether Exiles and Émigres (1970) and Myths of Eagleton is in fact guilty of trying to destruct Power (1975) were highly theorised, but not a straw-man by framing his work around a yet theoretical. The fictional text was still Three major texts from Eagleton's forty-plus works: literary theory, post-literary theory and ideology. non-existent opponent. Eagleton questions ‘expressive’, even if what it expressed was why, after decades of apparent retirement, class consciousness, not historical events. the ultimately hopeless nature of any attempt between two very different decades”. the ‘God Debate’ has returned with such It would be 1983’s Literary Theory: An to narrowly classify the study of literature. However, Liteary Theory had come at the renewed vigour. Locating the origin in 9/11 Introduction that would catapult Eagleton to Marxism pervades the work, yet Eagleton's high-water mark of theoretical criticism and and the West’s new challenge of Radical public fame. Eagleton frames his introduction discussion is not limited by it and in his the 1990s saw Eagleton struggling, with Islamic Fundamentalism, Dawkins sees this to the book, which has since become a touch- conclusion he warns that “any reader who rather inert publications like The Illusions ‘New Atheism’ as an anachronistic hearken- stone for English Literature students making has been expectantly waiting for a Marxist of Postmodernism. The new millennium, ing back to 19th century ideals of rational their first foray into literary theory, with the theory has obviously not been reading this however, seemed to galvanise him publishing progress, led by the well-educated, metropoli- question, ‘what is literature?’ But answering book with due attention”. Perhaps further the grandiosely titled After Theory (2003), tan literati. The book’s other main focus is on that is less straightforward than it would demonstrating the struggle a reader encoun- which sought to push Theory into new and the radical political ramifications of the Chris- first appear, and in a lucid and entertaining ters in attempting to read a text without more interesting territory. tian gospel; Eagleton argued in an interview evaluation of the numerous theories on litera- bringing their own baggage to it, in his 1996 However, Eagleton's visit to the with Nathan Schneider that, in America, the ture, from Russian formalism to Freudian edition of the book, Eagleton adds an after- Cambridge Union is prompted less by his truly shocking nature of the Christian gospel analysis, Eagleton demonstrates the impos- word, describing the context of the time in role as a prominent literary theorist and has been replaced with “a very comfortable sibility of approaching a text neutrally and which he had been writing as “the watershed more by virtue of his recent entrance into the ideology for a dollar-worshipping culture”. Arts Editor: Laura Freeman Friday October 23rd 2009 15 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Arts Boy Meets Girl Over the summer, Varsity set two intrepid readers a literary challenge: to fi nd out whether the worst culprits of chick and blokelit had cross-over appeal. Alisdair Pal got intimate with diets, shopping and vampire heart-throbs, while Sarah Evans learnt what exactly it takes to be a bloke lit heroine.

he librarian shoots me a look of pity lunching at Pret. have never previously ventured far into in the SAS, is intermittently entertaining, over the top of her glasses. I stare at Freya North’s Pillow Talk, and Karen the quagmires and woody thickets of the although Ryan is far more at ease with the Tthe Popular Fiction rack as in a twist of Joy Fowler's The Jane Austen Book I bona fi de bloke’s novel. For my fi rst foray combat sequences than with characterisation. irony, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – the book Club, suffer from similar defects: shallow into enemy territory I unearth a battered I am, however, delighted to discover that at the top of my real summer reading list – characters, and plots with fl imsy premises, John Grisham paperback belonging to my Real Men Drink Tea. Every crisis which sits, rather incongruously next to Bridget all thrown together in the most arbitrary dad. Less than three chapters into legal befalls these grim SAS types is solved, at Jones’ Diary. “Wouldn’t have enjoyed it way. Will Petra and Arlo ever cure their thriller The Partner, and we’re already at least in the short term, by putting the kettle anyway”, I sniff, heading for insomnia, and be together the fi rst torture scene. Lovely. on. ‘Chestnut’ hair also appears the counter with my girly Alisdair read: at last? I don’t know. Pillow Guessing that a stiff drink may Sarah read: to be standard issue at Thriller haul. Surely there must be Talk was so terrible that be in order, and feeling that Heroine fi nishing school, along something for the discern- I couldn’t bear to fi nish it. Pinot Grigio is not quite manly with classes in Being Rescued ing Nuts reader to enjoy, Bridget Jones' Diary But I get the feeling that enough for this assignment, I The Partner and How Not To Recognise beyond the saccharine-pink HELEN FIELDING what women of a certain pop out for some whiskey and JOHN GRISHAM Impending Danger. covers and vague praise from age are looking for in a duly forget all about Patrick With the end in sight, and Grazia? Surely swathes of Secret Dreamworld of a novel is a hundred-odd page S. Lanigan for the rest of the The Damned United as a long time fan of The Lord the nation’s females aren’t Shopaholic description of the heroine’s weekend. Not a good start. DAVID PEARCE of the Rings, David Gemmell’s completely gullible? Surely I SOPHIA KINSELLA wardrobe, interspersed The Partner turns out to be Legend should be an easy last couldn’t... actually enjoy any with references to a myste- a competent, engaging thriller. The World According to read, right? Wrong. Legend of this stuff? Pillow Talk rious man – ‘him’. Even the heroine, whose sole Clarkson boasts an Atlas-worth of I may not have believed FREYA NORTH And the blood-red cherry purpose is to Be Beautiful and JEREMY CLARKSON clumsily made-up names it on that fateful afternoon atop the dismal chick lit Be Concerned, at least until (west Vagria?), a cod-Viking in the library, but Helen The Jane Austen Book Club cake? Stephanie Mayer’s The Twist, is better fl eshed out Zero Option civilisation, and the least Fielding’s magnum opus KAREN JOY FOWLER Twilight. Where to start? than many of her male chick lit CHRIS RYAN plausible romantic sub-plot is – whisper it – really Everything about Edward counterparts. Suitably invigo- since Braveheart. Fair enough, rather good. Of course, it’s Twilight Cullen is beautiful includ- rated, I pick up David Peace’s Legend boys with a penchant of quasi- full of bumf about thigh STEPHANIE MEYER ing, hilariously, his breath The Damned United, the DAVID GEMMELL historical sci-fi don’t read books measurement and capitalised and driving skills. Picking chronicle of Brian Clough’s 44 like Legend for believable, nicknames for men. But hack beyond the out horrifi c usage of the English language day stint as manager of Leeds United in 1974. well-developed romance, but it still clangs diary format, full of abbreviation and clipped would be easy, cruel and counter-productive. The stream of consciousness style sweeps awkwardly, particularly when coherent prose, there does lie an element of universal If I had to though: “He lay perfectly still in even this most lacklustre of football fans plotting has been sacrifi ced in favour of truth – overbearing mothers, miserable the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, along with it, taking me convincingly into the interminable descriptions of weapons and husbands, the relative merits of Italian and incandescent chest, his scintillating arms head of the egomaniac himself. long discussions about honour, sacrifi ce and Indian takeaway. And besides, anyone who bare” would defi nitely be a candidate. At The next book on my list is The World certain death in which characters repeat can mint the line: “Darling, do shag Mark least, on a more positive note, is does put According to Clarkson. Borrowed from a sentences back at each other. Darcy over the Turkey Curry Buffet, won’t to rest a popular misconception – vampires friend who says she feels dirty for admitting Stories stand or fall on the strength of their you? He’s very rich” has my utmost respect. don’t melt in sunlight, they glitter. Urgh. to owning it, I am prepared for garrulous character development, even genre-bound The same cannot be said for the Before I come to a rather inevitable nonsense. What I get is a surpris- books of the type I’ve been reading. A excruciating Secret Dream- conclusion, and the Women’s Union ingly funny set of essays, often strong and believable central charac- world of a Shopaholic, a bays for my head on a spike, let engaging, always comically ter can cross the supposed gender novel as empty as its me make a few concessions. exaggerated and with an divide in popular fi ction, which is protagonist. Dreamworld Putting up Helen Fielding occasional glimpse of a marketing gimmick far more follows the life of a against this bunch of hacks sense through the hyper- than an immutable law. These fi nancial journalist, and is akin to slipping Dickens bole. He certainly makes particular books are marketed is written by a former into the bloke-lit pile. Chick pertinent points about largely at men because of the fi nancial journalist. lit is a staggeringly broad bank holiday boredom, apparently ‘manly’ trappings And, in an exciting twist generalisation, perpetuated acronyms and manli- – the football and fast cars, she is, wait for it, no good by marketing teams and one ness which ready me the quad bikes and guns, with money. Har har. Without which is probably best avoided in for Chris Ryan’s Zero the swords and sorcery. Fielding’s wit, badinage about literary criticism. Saying that, I’d Option with its testos- The best among them the Whistles sale – a shop which still take the whole lot, lip-gloss terone addled blurb. could be enjoyed by at around page seven, I have come and all, over the Shakespear- This military thriller, anyone looking to escape to loathe – means that by the ean wit of Jeremy based on Ryan’s for a couple of hours. I time any semblance of Clarkson. own experiences wouldn’t rule out a a plot arrives, my return expedition mind is away to Blokeland. So down Oxford long as West Street, window Vagria isn’t on shopping and the itinerary.

KATY KING 16 Friday October 23rd 2009 Fashion Editors: Charlie Lyons, Joe Pitt-Rashid and Lara Prendergast Friday October 23rd 2009 17 Fashion www.varsity.co.uk [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Fashion

Shot in the Library at the Hotel du Vin

All Dresses by Ark Vintage Alex Wears: Suit by Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Tie by Christian Dior, White Shirt by Turnbull and Asser, Tassel Loafers by Trickers Make up by Ricky-Lee at Benefit, John Lewis 18 Friday October 23rd 2009 Features Editor: Zing Tsjeng Features www.varsity.co.uk [email protected] Seven Deadly Sins of Cambridge Week 3: Sloth

good writer always shows thought bubbles yet to tells me about the perils of legal life hopes and dreams. Simon rather than tells. 3am – I come. highs. 3:17pm– Eat pink wafer & Garfunkel’s ‘Feelin’ Groovy’ A slope up to bed, after a 1:30pm – Leave biscuit. 4:00pm– Watch plays anachronistically in the two hour conversation with blinky the UL to go to ‘The Nightmare Before background. 7:15pm– Start writing housemates about our love lives, class. Listen to M Christmas’ with other essay. Put title in bold and write the future, and the viability of People’s ‘Moving On wastrel acquaintance ‘Tragic Irony??’ 7:30pm – Go to becoming white Rastafarian. I set Up’ on my Ipod as I go living in the attic of our ADC to watch play. Feel inspired my alarm for 8, when I will embark through Market Square. house. We discuss the by the brilliance of the acting and for the University Library, and a Feel empowered, so buy decline of Tim Burton the effort that has gone into the brighter tomorrow. 8am – Press strawberry laces from and the shame of our production. Decide I can do more Snooze button. 8:10am – Press market stall. 2:00pm – gothy adolescent years. with my life. 9:03pm – Have two Snooze button. 8.20am – Switch Arrive at class. Realise I admit to owning an G&Ts, one White Russian and a off alarm. 11am – Get out of bed have forgotten to do half Emily Strange pencil case. Kinder Egg in the bar. 11:46pm – for shower. Deliberate between the reading, but contrib- He says he still thinks the Arrive home, watch Peep Show in Aussie’s Moisture Miracle and ute my tiny clutch of Nirvana Unplugged version of someone’s room. Debate whether Herbal Essences Hello Hydration. knowledge within the first ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ I would have been able to pull 12pm – Arrive at UL. 12:30pm two minutes. Spend the rest is better than the David Bowie David Mitchell while he was at – Having found all of the books on of the hour fantasising original. I feel we are bonding. I Cambridge. Agree it’s possible if my reading list, arrange them in about my supervisor, offer him a pink wafer biscuit. he was feeling a bit down. 1:00am stacks according to colour. 12:44pm who looks a lot He declines. – Sit in the kitchen eating jelly – Go for lunch in UL tea room with like Buzz Light- 6:30pm– Eat light beans while a gentle argument a friend, a workshy avoiding the year, but taller. supper of a Danish drags on about the ethics of English Faculty. While emptying 3:15pm– Go home, pastry and pint keeping questionable fish in the lots of packets of sugar onto the eat pink wafer glass of Ribena. fridge. 2:38 – Wake up after falling table, I talk loftily about the grand biscuit. Lie on Rest of the house asleep in The Dummies Guide to scale of my dissertation plans, floor of friend’s variously drifts Greek Tragedy. Curl up in bed. Set although so far they have mostly room while he into the kitchen, alarm for 8. involved writing ‘Literature?’ in blu-tacks funky making themselves Victoria beale the middle of a page, circling it and holographic prints carb heavy suppers then putting arrows leading off to to his wall and and mocking each other’s LuCY NurNBerG

Shadow Puppet Guide Micro PiGS They’re have seen an explosion of PeoPle WearinG normal pigs, but, like, smaller. skateboards. What can we SunGlaSSeS It’s A potential source of bacon? say? Frickin’ sweet. autumn, it’s chilly, there’s American Wife Swap - Not really. An excellent, a profusion of scarves. So, twice. college room-compatible The xx reMixinG why oh why, are people still pet? Oh yes. Florence A great cover acting like it’s the height of STandardS hOT of a great cover, The xx summer/we’re in a Matrix Struggling to find NOT SkaTeboardS work their lo-fi wizardry convention? love? Tired of being Despite our on Florence & The alone? Solution: lower your legions of Machine’s version of balloon boy Is it a standards. Sense of shame cyclists, Candi Staton’s bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s optional. recent ‘You’ve Got a ridiculous media stunt weeks The Love’. by a man who was on the Week 3: the Micro Pig My week by Tristan Baird, ADC Director* “I’m just not sure Samantha Monday surrounded by peasants whose idea AMATEUR. GET OFF MY SET!” Cameron-slash-Lady-Macbeth I get a serious sense of déjà vu of art is an Al Murray DVD boxset. I turn back to the lead and smile. doing her ‘out, out, damned spot’ while watching Eddie Hall’s “Sorry, what were you saying?” soliloquy in a shower while wearing production of Hamlet, as if I’ve Tuesday “Um, nothing,” he says. a white dress is such a good idea,” seen it before. Then I remember Final run before opening night. I’m “You know,” I tell him, “I really Martin ‘I’m boring and have no that I have – there were five not tense at all, just filled with the appreciate the amount of profes- original ideas, and that’s why Hamlet productions in the past joyous light of knowing my work sionalism you bring to your role.” I’m a producer’ Fitzpatrick tells term. All of them worth their own will soon be revealed to the world. me. “For one thing, that dress is artistic merit, of course. Except In that way, I feel theatre is really Wednesday pretty... sheer.” Eddie’s Hamlet is terrible. The about childbirth and the maternal As a well-noted theatre director, I I patiently explain to him set is so A Level Drama, and the instinct, and the dress rehearsal liken an opening performance to that the shower scene is a contemporary references (Hamlet is really the product of my labour, the first time a mother sees her physical manifestation of wearing Converses? WTF?) straining against the uterus that child, minus the afterbirth and all Lady Macbeth’s madness, shoehorned into the play feel as we call life (I write this thought that other gross woman stuff. A which, along with her forced as LAMBDA admitting down in my Moleskine diary). solitary, masculine tear wells up in dress, is becoming increas- a chav from Manchester on its The lead comes up to me. “Hey, my eye as the cast assembles in the ingly transparent to the outreach programme. Tristan, some of the cast are really final tableau, set to Canonball by audience. Very meta. It I run into Eddie at the ADC bar unhappy wi –” the stage manager Damien Rice (I think the military combines my two favourite later on. “Did you like it?” he asks. trips over a light. “Sorry, give me a connotations of the song’s title things: literary theory and “I loved it!” I trill. “So fresh, so second,” I laugh. juxtaposed against the tenderness CLAuDIA STOCker female objectification. modern. I particularly liked the “WHY THE FUCK ARE of the lyrics is very moving – such Friday The actress shivers onstage. part where Hamlet did his solilo- YOU WALKING ACROSS THE a Peter Hall artistic decision). I Six hour rehearsal for my latest “Could we maybe heat the water quy next to a poster of Obama!” STAGE? WHAT THE FUCK ARE bump into Eddie at the bar later. “I theatrical work. The producer beforehand?” she asks. “Seriously, Vom. Eddie still thinks Trevor YOU THINKING? NO, DON’T loved it!” he enthuses. “So fresh, so seems less than sure about my Byrony,” I tell her, “if you don’t Nunn (or Trevs, as I call him) is the TALK. I’M TALKING NOW. modern.” Damn straight. re-interpretation of Macbeth as suffer for your art now, you’ll never height of theatre. And Eddie steals BECAUSE I’M THE DIREC- David Cameron, except Scottish. get into RADA.” Pathetic. all my roll-ups. What a cretin. I’m TOR AND YOU’RE A FUCKING * As told to David Delaney Features Editor: Zing Tsjeng Friday October 23rd 2009 19 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Sex, Food and TV Food and Drink Come Fancy wining and dining with some added jazz? Rob Together Peal heads to the award winning Alimentum.

Boys who are girls who like boys to be girls who do girls like they’re boys who do boys like they’re girls... (What’s the story) morning glory? Wake up and smell the coff ee. very morning I wake up And, “We should go to Gardies.” bisexual stereotype: he follows The hard, load up the Cuisinart “It tastes different in daylight. Sartorialist and he can catch a ball. EGrind and Brew and jerk We should go to bed.” Charlie and I, bearers of the funnel, off in the shower while the coffee Right there: coy smile, bloodshot sat stagnating in the bar before steams. These kinds of habits are eyes. “Okay. Let’s.” seven pints of vomit. “Nice aim this pleasant and healthy, liable to There weren’t many clothes to year.” “We were neater.” interruption by one-night-stand, remove. He looked at his groin and Most of the initiates were long Alimentum on Hills Road. Ethical food, Jazz and or dismal hangover. Masturbation laughed. “Glitter gets everywhere.” KO’ed. Only Panzer Fresher, ogre- Jerusalem artichokes and caffeine are harmless. People And at the end he lay there spread- esque, was left standing, mauling are not. Sleep with somebody eagled and said, “I kind of see why the Fresher Bicycle at the next hen would be the worst by ordering the cheapest wine on every night for a week and the fi rst you like it. Pleasant change.” The table. “I heard he had a piece of time to get tooth ache? the menu. The butternut squash evening without is going to hurt. next day he drove back to London. your neighbour, too,” Charlie said. WHow about just before soup was, with some Blumenthal Spend a summer lusting after a Three weeks back, no recol- “Anna? I doubt it.” you go to Cambridge’s snappiest inspired theatricality, poured friend only to realise that they don’t lection. I’m not about to go all He was giggling. “Seems like she restaurant on a date with a special from a jug into a bowl specially want you and you can’t just forget redemptive on you, but I feel a thinks she can convert you... it’s a someone? It would certainly seem prepared with a fried shallot and them is also going to hurt. With little like I slept with myself. All nice gesture. Like in the movies! to be up there. parmesan foam. But it was the people it’s just a little too easy to let of the unanswered texts and the Player Does Fidelity. You’re with However, my affl iction actually main courses which won us over. habit drift to obsession. rapid escapes at a look of recogni- me on this, right?” served me rather well. Alimentum My Jerusalem artichoke fi lo pastry I’ll tell you about the time Charlie tion between the Sainsbury’s I laughed. I said, “Where the is one of those restaurants where with goat’s cheese was a beautiful and I slept together. Post-King’s aisles. There’s nothing duller than hell else would I be?” And the next the size of a portion is in inverse blend of earthy fl avours, occasion- Affair, 10am. We sat in Starbucks, unrequited love. morning, of course, I stood in the proportion to its price. In such ally complemented with the zing glittery and relatively naked, If there’s a time to say anything, shower and thought about fucking circumstances I have a tendency of a sun dried tomato. Her duck reading papers. “What a year,” he it’s post-rugby initiations. He’s him; stepped out damp to smell the to lose all self control, gobble was an ingenious dish where the kept saying. “What a fucking year.” an unusual departure from the coffee brewing. down the food in one greedy one cut of meat was cooked and burst, and then feel a crush of served in three different ways. sadness and guilt. Not so with These deceptively dinky meals emotions is also made, with the tooth ache. I had to chew with were in fact rather fi lling, so we visions providing hope for some extreme care to avoid hitting the sat back in the comfortable chairs BOXED characters and anxiety for others, offending culprit, and terrifying and listened to the live band. It like Benford’s wife Olivia (Sonya my girlfriend as my face goes is not often that a restaurant Walger), who sees herself having white, my eyes water and I let out review takes an abortive turn IN an affair with another man. These a whimper of excruciating pain. towards music review, but with visions act as clues to the greater So for the whole evening I was Alimentum’s Tuesday Jazz night The weekly guide picture and provide threads of forced to eat my food at the pace one can do just that. As our some of the main stories that will of a geriatric sloth. Fortunately, desserts arrived, Italian based to staying in and be pursued. this created the misleading jazz singer Melissa Stott accom- switching on However, being hailed as HBO’s impression that I am the kind of panied by pianist, double bassist new Lost, do we need to worry man suffi ciently cultured to distin- and drummer began an effort- lashforward is based on the that it might fall victim to the guish between a Mars bar and a lessly cool set of jazz favourites. far-fetched yet intriguing same pitfalls? It certainly offers parfait and alter my chew-rate Accompanying this, my hazelnut Fconcept of the occurrence that same densely packed continu- accordingly. parfait with baked fi gs was excel- of a global blackout. Everyone, ation of exciting discoveries and Alimentum’s head chef Mark lent, but it was the chocolate worldwide, loses consciousness misleading clues, with stories Poynton left the behemoth of bavarois served in a preserve jar for 2 minutes 17 seconds and has being incessantly reworked. Cambridge dining Midsum- which really left us smiling. A rich a vision of their lives, exactly 6 Mark’s heroic entrance, striding mer House two years ago, and combination of dark chocolate, months in the future. through the fi ery danger of an LA Alimentum’s reputation is on pistachios, honeycomb and cream Search: Amongst the chaotic aftermath freeway helping those in his path, the up, even being mentioned made a wonderfully textured end beach+ball+goal of this inexplicable event, the even seems reminiscent of Jack’s in the same breath as the Fat to the meal. fi rst episode presents us with the post-plane crash introduction in Duck. So, having been living off Alimentum may be situated ‘fl ashforwards’ of the main charac- Lost. Braga and Goyer may be pizza, cheese toasties and baked next to the unlovley Hills Road ters, including FBI agents Mark able to keep the main questions potatoes since the start of term, I multiplex, and the decor may Benford (Joseph Fiennes) and in focus, though it could just end was ready to be impressed. feel like a hotel lobby, but with Demetri Noa (John Cho), who seek up as another frustrating Lost- The service was impeccable; its impeccable food and fantastic to investigate the blackout’s cause. like case of more questions being friendly without being intrusive, music you don’t have to go far These visions display a dramati- thrown up every time we even get and not at all condescending when from the centre of Cambridge to cally different picture of the close to answering one. we confi rmed our student status feel completely transported. future, and provide intrigue in the Nonetheless, after only three gaps of the mosaic they provide. episodes having been aired It’s clear that writers/produc- on Channel 5, it’s undeniable Other options for Fine Dining in Cambridge ers Brannon Braga and David S. that we’re left with a feeling of Goyer keep back the most impor- wanting more. Can the characters Midsummer House Cotto Restaurant tant pieces of the puzzle, giving rework the events which lead up The big daddy of posh dining in Serves all things locally sourced, only hints of phenomena such to their vision or are they stuck Cambridge, it earned its second organic and green. By day Cotto as Suspect Zero, a man seen on on a fateful pathway? And what Michelin Star in 2008. Sat on the serves light lunches, and the CCTV walking around, unaffected caused the blackout in the fi rst edge of the eponymous common excellent cafe is full of goodies Liverpool, you must be gutted. by the blackout. place? We’re just going to have to next to the river, this is only for from the onsite bakery. On Thurs- Beaten once again. And all down The opening episodes’ scenes wait and see, cliff-hanger by cliff- the big spenders. The dinner days, Fridays and Saturdays to a red beach ball. Now the of an apocalypytic LA certainly hanger. JOSIE FILMER menu is a cool £65, but for the there is a three course dinner question: who’s more of an idiot, catch our attention, with slow- cheapskates, a £30 lunch time menu. the goalie, the ref, or the little motion running and startling FlashForward is on every Monday on menu is on offer. Start booking twerp who threw it on pitch? visual effects. A bid for our Channel 5 and is available at www.fi ve.tv. now for a graduation day. Friday October 23rd 2009 Features Editor: Zing Tsjeng 20 Features www.varsity.co.uk [email protected]

Staff at Cambridge Wine Merchants will guide you through their expansive collection to some dirt cheap wines, and offer GOING OUT a ten percent discount if you can correctly answer a Trivial BLAG YOUR WAY Pursuit question. You can even choose the category. One & LIVING IT more word of advice though: the edition is old, so whatever INTO ANY CLUB you do, don’t go for Entertainment. BenJaMIn HalFPenny UP Cambridge Wine Merchants at 42 Mill Road, 32 Bridge Street and 2 Kings Parade CONFIDENCE: Keep eye contact with the person on the door. Act calm, especially when walking up to them. No Did Freshers Week leave your pockets cleaned out, with Members of the Cambridge Union can work as stewards matter what they say to you, never lose your temper. no money left for drink apart from Sainsbury’s Basics during debates and special events, and every time you volun- vodka? Abruptly develop a new range of interests, includ- teer you receive £5 drinks vouchers for the bar. JUlIa RaMPen SCHMOOZING: A club night will always have a promoter, ing readings by obscure linguists, sushi-rolling workshops and since this is Cambridge, it’s more than likely that he and career talks on investment banking. Subscribe to every If you need wine glasses for a group social or if you’re just a or she is a student or ex-student who’ll be on Facebook. mailing list going and then take your pick from the inevi- social butterfly with lots of friends, Sainsbury’s is the place Get in touch with them and try to get on their guestlist. table deluge of invitations. Almost every event is attended by to go. It allows you to borrow any number of glasses in drinks and canapés. With something on most evenings, you exchange for a simple deposit, and when you DECEIT: Call up in advance, say you’re the PA or can live through the term on a diet of red wine and prawn return the glasses, you get your money manager for a band or celebrity visiting Cambridge (Lizo puff pastries. How far you take this depends on how long you back. Danae MeRCeR from Newsround doesn’t count) and your erstwhile Z-lister can feign interest in a career in management consultancy. wants to check out the nightlife. Arrive early, claim you’re ROISIn KIBeRD here to ‘scope the place out before he/ she gets here’. Do your best to blend it and make sure you avoid the people Learn how to homebrew. Starter kits cost about £50, but GETTING who let you in, lest they ask where Lizo is. when you do get up and running, ale or cider will come to about 2p per pint. Varsity has also observed that rolling a BACK BODY LANGUAGE: Don’t cross your arms and don’t look giant vat of alcohol to a party immediately makes you the Too tired to bicycle or walk home, but shifty. Never, ever stumble. If you’re drunk enough to fall most popular person there. COTTIa THOROwGOOD the-home- suspicious of meter-happy taxi drivers? When you over, you’re too drunk to blag free entry. And go straight brew-shop.co.uk get into a cab, make sure you tell the cabbie how much you to the front immediately: if you’re important enough to ‘have’ - that way, you won’t be charged any more than you’re blag, you’re definitely too important to queue. If you’re more of a spirits kind of student (after all, liquor is willing to pay. elIzaBeTH TaylOR quicker), save on expensive artificially-flavoured vodkas by THE SMOKER’S PASS: Get someone outside smoking infusing your own. There are loads of recipes on the inter- You’re too broke for a taxi, but your bicycle rides like it was with a stamp on their hand to wet it, net, and once the fruit, vegetable or packet of Skittles (yes, last fixed in the 1920s by a blind amputee. Fix your bike on so the ink runs. Then transfer really) has mellowed, you can fish it out and eat tasty vodka- the cheap. Go to any bike shop, have them look at it, ask them the print onto your hand. Dan flavoured food too. Be warned that the resulting vodka what they are going to replace, and buy the parts cheap on Delaney tastes very sweet and very strong, meaning that you will be Ebay and fix ‘em on yourself. There are plenty of how-tos on plastered on an even smaller amount. Efficient. Dan Delaney the Internet. alan yOUnG

Down and out in Cambridge without a penny to your name? THRIFTY Varsity presents our no-nonsense recipe to living life on the cheap. LIVING

FOOD HOW TO At breakfast, most college butteries often leave a jug of milk out; take an DUMPSTER DIVE empty bottle with you and leave with a free pint or two. You can do this as Food might seem like the one thing that you often as you like, although it depends can’t eliminate from your budget, but for the on how shameless you are in front of adventurous-minded, food is easy to get for free. the buttery staff. TanJIl RaSHID You might have heard of dumpster diving (or skipping) behind Sainsbury’s, but true If you can bear the distance, go to Asda (by TK Maxx) at skippers have been deserting it for newer about 11pm. Loads of the perishables will have been reduced, patches of abandoned surplus food. and they’re still good a day or two after the alleged ‘sell by Sainsbury’s these days is open until date’. Similarly, Sainsbury’s will discount prices towards midnight, meaning that employees are around closing time, although its central location means you’ll be until very late and then start again around competing with other savvy students. HaTTI wHITMan 5am, thus leaving a narrow window of opportu- Asda, Beehive Centre, Coldhams Lane nity in which someone might still be having a fag break in the crucial skipping area. Some bins McDonald’s provide free ketchup, and Wetherspoon provides are also now locked and while the locks are a whole range of various condiments – but you might want flimsy, breaking them is not recommended as to avoid nicking them on a Friday night. As always, salt and this legally constitutes trespassing. While pepper is free from your college buttery. TanJIl RaSHID skipping in itself is unlikely to lead to any McDonald’s, 9 Rose Crescent; Wetherspoon 39 St problem with the police, this probably Andrews St. will. The Co-op on Mill Road, Stranded arts students with a 2pm lecture, fear not: best accessed in you are not limited to the Sidgwick Buttery’s the dead of the night, offers extortionate prices. Nearby college Selwyn will a newer, safer alternative for serve you lunch from 12.45am – 1.30pm on skippers. For fresh produce weekdays and is a far better choice. Prices (which supermarket skips often are low, the building is atmospheric, and lack), the bins in the middle of the food ranks highly among colleges. A the stalls of Market Square are a proper meal will cost you around £3, salad bar central place to get as many turnips and Zing tsjeng is £1.40, and soup (and a bread roll) is available for under a rhubarbs as your heart desires. aRTHUR aSSeRaF pound. HeIDI aHO Features Editor: Zing Tsjeng Friday October 23rd 2009 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Features 21 ENTERTAINMENT FILM MUSIC & BOOKS Fopp have a ‘Suck it and See’ policy where you ONLINE FUN Sign up to the MML library and take films out for can exchange CDs you don’t like for new ones. free! Or go along to the Language Centre where you We’re not advocating burning those CDs onto Spotify: A music-streaming service that lets you create can watch achingly cool French Nouvelle Vague or your laptop and then exchanging them for and swap playlists online. Great for looking up that somewhat disturbing Spanish cinema. RebeCCA WALL new ones, we’re only saying... DAN DeLANeY random song at somebody’s party or listening to entire MML Faculty, Sidgwick Site; Language Centre, Downing albums without paying a penny. Site Expensive magazines tend to get dropped spotify.com off in charity shops around the end of Sidereel and all2c: Search engines that look up movies and John’s and Christ’s film societies regularly screen term. Alternatively, you can take stacks TV shows on video hosting websites (handy for getting surprisingly recent films in high-quality 35mm film and of the latest glossy periodicals up to the around the college bitTorent rules). Dolby sound: upcoming features include District 9 and Starbucks in Borders and spend Sunday sidereel.com and all2c.tv Terminator Salvation. Entry is £2.50. ZINg TsjeNg morning browsing. ROIsIN kIbeRD stjohnsfilms.org.uk and christsfilms.org.uk Oh No They Didn’t!: Get celeb gossip for free at this massive entertain- Orange offers 2-for-1 cinema tickets ment site. Updates with an average on Wednesdays. If you’re not THEATRE of 150 user-generated posts a day. on Orange, get somebody who In a bid to promote theatre-going You’ll never do another essay again. isn’t going to text in and amongst the young, Arts Council community.livejournal.com/ then forward it to you. The England has launched a scheme ohnotheydidnt deal also extends to the called ‘A Night Less Ordinary’ Hype Machine: Arts Picturehouse, so you that offers free theatre tickets to under- Mp3 and music don’t need to trek over to 26s. The Junction at Clifton Way hosts loads of experimental blog aggregator that Cineworld or Vue if you theatre and dance, and offers a limited number of free tickets collates artistes based fancy a film. ZINg TsjeNg for each performance as long as you book early. Upcoming on their level of blog hype. plays include otherwordly arctic adventure The Fahrenheit Use their search engine and find Twins, which The Guardian awarded four stars. It might be download links for everything from the a trek, but do you really want to watch A Midsummer Night’s latest indie tracks to wicked, left-field remixes. ZINg TsjeNg Dream at the ADC again? DAN COHeN hypem.com anightlessordinary.org.uk; The Junction, Clifton Way

Ingredients: Ingenuity, tight-fistedness, thriftiness, slyness, confidence, improvisational ability and shamelessness, flavoured with a hint of amorality and served with a side of smugness.

glasses and cutlery for a CLOTHES & couple of quid should be incentive enough. The finds in this large LIVING charity depot are more exciting than your A high number of charity typical supermarket shops in central Cambridge fare - we picked up a set make the city a thrift shopper’s of college china plates for haven, their rails kept well-stocked by 50p each, and that was a mix of students desperate to clear their comparatively expensive. rooms and grannies with attics full of shoulder- Be sure to hunt around padded tack. It’s enough to send you into dust-induced in the drawers for coughing fits. So how does one ensure the best second- obscure kitchen utensils hand finds? Like the quest to pull at Cindies, it’s a question and stock up on the 5p cutlery. of standards and perseverance. Don’t go in expecting mint- Stock is updated at midday and 4pm every day, but get condition Birkin bags and pristine flapper dresses. there in the morning before all the other students (AKA the Instead search strategically and frequently, keeping competition) have got out of bed for the best finds. CLAUDIA an idea in mind of what you’re looking for. Pokey shops in sTOCkeR & HATTI WHITMAN deserted parts of town (like the forlorn Save the Cats branch Sally Ann’s, 44A Mill Road far up the Mill Road) will yield wonders like old cashmere jumpers. Central shops, such as the Cancer Research on Downing Street, tend to get the newer items, so expect last TIPS & TRICKS season Topshop, and whole shelves of worn-once Atmosphere shoes. Check back constantly, in particular at the smaller Most charity shops have an end of season £1 sale where spots as they have a high turnover and you never know they try to clear out the old stock to clear space for the new when some senselessly wealthy graduate will drop off their season. Ask staff when they have one. designer wardrobe. The beauty of buying old things is that expensive items age better - leather, jewellery and fur Mondays are generally the best time for shopping, when all look miles better with time, and will usually crop up in staff put in new stock. When an item doesn’t sell in a week, charity shops between the mum jeans and felted sweaters. the price often goes down by a pound. Just don’t ask if somebody died in it. ROIsIN kIbeRD It’s often worth devoting an afternoon to a whistle-stop If all your plates and knives have mysteriously disap- tour of each charity shop to get the best finds. The more peared from the gyp-room, don’t head over to Sainsbury’s you go around, the more likely you will find what you’re or (God forbid) John Lewis. Instead, go to Sally Ann’s. OK, looking for. RAYMOND LI it’s a bit of a walk, but the prospect of buying a set of plates, 22 Friday October 23rd 2009 Arts Editor: Laura Freeman Arts www.varsity.co.uk [email protected] Turner Prize Transformed A Turner Prize without controversy? A potential winner admired by press and public alike? A traditional painter? Flo Sharp asks if the Turner Prize has finally grown up. Corvi-Mora he Turner Prize, here it is again. exhibition space with a vast mural, created The annual dogfight has resurfaced. using the traditional medieval materials of THere comes the same merciless jibing gold leaf and manuscript glue. by unforgiving journalists, eager to draw Wright has expressed an interest in reviv- blood from that national establishment, ing and revisiting art forms which have Tate Britain, which hosts the grand prix of ‘become debased’, citing decorative art as one modern art. Already The Mirror’s David of these. Although his exquisite wall paintings Lee has cast an acerbic vote, stating “The are essentially decorative, they are designed Turner Prize has been dead and rotting for with the intention to surprise, to catch the years...the prize is only kept alive in order to viewer unawares and to shift our perception satisfy the vanity of those who run it at the of a given space. Tate.” The transformations of Wright’s are rather This time round, however, the Prize is ripe more modest than the metamorphoses of for re-assessment. Three of the four nominated Roger Hiorns, the fourth of the Turner artists - Richard Wright, Lucy Skaer, Enrico Prize nominees. Hiorn’s installations are an David - use traditional methods in their work, altogether more brazen affair. He is this year’s a fact that would gall those critics combing the media darling due to the public attention he prize for anything distastefully avant-garde. has received for Seizure, a collaboration with Let us start with Lucy Skaer. Skaer has Artangel in 2008, which saw the transforma- been nominated for her solo exhibition at the tion of a derelict council flat in South London Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, and for into a sparkling crystal cavern. her Boat Used As A Vessel exhibition at the Artangel reopened Seizure this year when Kunsthalle Basel. She practises in all three the demolition of the flats was postponed, and branches of fine arts: sculpture, drawing and the crowds have kept on coming. Hiorns made painting. his name with his innovative use of crystals– The inspiration for her art comes from a kind of bio-chemical ‘found–object’, if you The copper-sulphate cystal council flat created by bookie’s favourite Roger Hiorns found images, ranging from stark views of like. The public acclaim for Seizure undoubt- prison cells–which formed the basis for her edly helped to guarantee him a place on this a fine and delicate terrain out of an object 2009, David has created, or rather staged an watercolour series Cells (2005)–to images year’s shortlist. As 11/10 bookie’s favourite, of industrial strength. The central piece is artwork, verging on the surreal, that shows of student protests taken from newspaper his dramatic approach may well secure him flanked by sculptures made variously out of images of male models plastered onto the archives. This year she has exhibited several the prize. stainless steel, plastic, and, in true Turner surfaces of papier mâché egg men, juxtaposed works; sculptures, paintings and prints which Hiorns stands out for the sheer drama of Prize fashion, bovine brain matter. with highly finished paintings of nightmar- forge a connection between media and, as the his work, and for the originality in his use of The last artist on our list is Enrico David. ish figures and childlike motifs such as the curator Lizzie Carey-Thomas puts it, between material. This year he has covered the floor of David is a favoured protégée of Charles Drummer Boy, as well as the bewildering “the mobility of an object from one state to the Tate with the modulating silvery dust of Saatchi, and in doing so, brings a touch addition of a picture of pop culture legend another.” an atomised jet engine. Untitled 2008 creates of Brit-art history to the prize this year. Kenneth Williams. The viewers are offered an The underlying current in Returning to the theme of the tradi- insight into the psyche of the artist, a strange her oeuvre is transforma- tional, David paints, as subconscious playground where figures loom tion, a theme which links well as stitches, figura- out of the dark and Humpty-Dumpty egg men her to two of her fellow tive images, though not in are the watchdogs. nominees. Richard any conventional sense. The work for which the four artists have Wright transforms His paintings of prancing been nominated may be linked by some architectural spaces carnivalesque, harlequin thematic strains, including their practice of by drawing and figures purport to refer- traditional methods, and their interests in painting directly ence graphic images transformation. However it would be ignorant onto the walls, from 1970s Italy, drawn to try and force any correspondence between and subsequently from vintage book covers. the artists, and as Jennifer Higgie, a judge erasing the painted David accompanies his on last year’s panel, and co-editor of Frieze images. Techni- paintings with sculpture, magazine asserts, “It needs to be reiterated: cally, Wright’s and light installations, the Turner Prize is not a curated group show; work is the most advertising himself as it’s four solo exhibitions.” The exhibitions that obviously tradi- a master of all trades, the artists have assembled for the prize show tional of the artists without fully explaining in fact only serve to highlight their differ- nominated. He has the links between them. ences rather than enforce a sense of their covered the back In his entry for this similarities. wall of the Tate year’s Turner Prize, For now, I’ll put my money on Hiorns to win, Absuction Cardigan and egg-man Enrico as a close runner-up. Serge HaSenböHler Serge Turner Prize nominee Lucy Skaer re-imagines Brancusi’s Bird in Space Series with her coal-dust sculptures Black Alphabet Reviews Editor: Paul Smith Friday October 23rd 2009 23 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Listings

Bloc Party Festival Of Ideas tuesday october 27th, corn until sunday november 1st, exchange, 19:00 (sold out) different venues Boardroom Remem- Pick meeting scenario: Pick ber 2004? of the of the “Gosh, so what week Remember week The should we call this Events Music ‘Helicopter’? festival, then?” Remember – “Um, I literally have no the line “As if to say he idea.” – “I know! THE doesn’t like chocolate?” FESTIVAL OF IDEAS!!!” Relive the magic. Varsity Week Music Talks Film & Nightlife Theatre Arts & Events

The Fantastic Mr Fox Friday October 23rd Ongoing Exhibitions Friday October 23rd Arts Picturehouse, Fri-sAt, Mon-thu 11.00 Newton Faulkner Fitzwilliam Museum Clothes Swap (not Mon-Wed), 13.00, 15.00, 17.00 (not the corn exchAnge, 19.30 (sold out) thurs), 19.00, 21.00, sun 12.00, 14.00, 16.30, (Free) the shoP, xViii jesus lAne, 11.45-16.00 18.30, 21.00. If James Blunt and an Orc had a (£2.50-3) child, with the worst features of Lumière - Lithographs by Odilon Be ethical and swap your clothes The latest big-screen Roald Dahl both. Redon (until January 10th). like Pokemon Cards for Cancer adaptation. With a foxy cameo from Special Display: Matthew Boulton Research and Cambridge Design Jarvis Cocker. And directed by Friday October 23rd and the Industrial Revolution Collective. Wes Anderson! Yes! Wes! Frank Turner (until March 21st). Creation the junction, 20.00 (sold out) Sculpture promenade Saturday October 24th arts Picturehouse, fri/sun/mon 18.30,sat If Newton Faulkner and an Orc (until Januray 31st). Drumming Workshop 12.00, sun 16.00 tues/ Wed 13.30 had a child, with the worst features Pitt building , truMPington street , 10.00-10.35, (Free) Darwin biopic. A sequel which of both. People’s Portraits girton college, until deceMber 1st, Banging lessons for ages five and focuses on Darwin’s little known The Madness of King (Free) above. Booking essential. ultimate frisbee career is already George Millennial Royal Society of in production. Its working title is Adc theAtre, Fri-sAt 19.30 (£6/9) Portrait Painters’ collection on Saturday October 24th Recreation. Fresh from their appearance on long-term loan to Girton, depicting Writers Workshop: Michael The Imaginarium of Dr the legendary Varsity Plinth the ordinary people from all walks of Morpurgo other week, the Mad King George life. lAdy Mitchell hAll, sidgWick site, Parnassus is still kicking up a mad little fuss 10.30-11.30, (Fully booked) Arts Picturehouse, Fri/sun-Wed 13.30 Special talk from your favourite (not tues), 16.00, 1830, 21.00, sAt 14.30, 18.20, for another mad couple of days at Beka Smith: Ego/Alter 22.15PM, thurs 12.00, 14.30, 21.00 the ADC. Ego children’s author who isn’t Roald Dahl. You’re never going to see her in FitzWilliAM college, until Fri 30th (Free) Sainsbury’s, lectures or about Red Demon Last chance to see this portraiture town. So catch Lily Cole with her Adc theAtre, Fri-sAt 22.30 (£4-6) exhibition by BP Portrait Prize travelling theatre company. 10.30pm. 10.30. What? 10.30. Oh nominated artist, best known for Saturday October 24th her portrait of Dr Charles Leslie Birdwatchers right, that’s before 11- jolly good! In The Flesh Goooo Red Demon! Wayper, Historian and Life Fellow arts Picturehouse, fri/sat 13.30, sun 11.00, mon13.00, tues/Wed, 18.30 corn exchAnge 19.30 (£19.50-23.50 AdV) of Fitzwilliam. Like Pink Floyd? Like lasers? A Streetcar Named Desire Sadly without anorak-clad RSPB Then you’ll LOVE this Pink Floyd Adc theAtre, tues-sAt 19.45 (£6/9) Stories of the Street: City twitchers in Norfolk. Instead, a Laser Spectacular. After a sell-out show at the mystical culture conflict. Typographics Donmar Warehouse, Rachel Weisz 2nd Floor, grAnd ArcAde, until sAt 31st Sunday October 25th will be gracing the ADC stage (Free) Thirst Oasis @ Fez alongside Marlon Brando and Ian Part of the Festival of Ideas Saturday October 24th Arts Picturehouse,dAily (not sun) 15.30, Fez, 22.00-03.00 (£4) programme, this exhibition is 20.50, sun 13.00 McKellen in what is set to be a organized by the Anglia Ruskin’s Wuthering Heights: An A love story for the commitment Your weekend ends here. blinding reworking of Tennessee BA Graphic Arts students, which Enduring Love Affair phobe in you. Zooey Deschanel’s Williams’ tale. Sunday October 25th explores the city through its public little hAll, sidgWick site, 15.00-16.00, Summer is fashionable and lovely, (Free) Caius Jazz typography. yet hateable to pitiable Tom R.U.R Professor Heather Glen and Dr the red rooM, gonVille & cAius , 20:30 - (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Go see. 23:30 (£3) adc theatre, Weds-sat 23.00 (£4-6) Helen Small talk Brontë (above), Political Cartoons Heathcliff and Kate Bush. Jazz, bitches and bling at Caius No joke, this has robots in it. A the MichAelchurch centre, trinity Skin College with Jazz master Louis van great opportunity to suss out how street, MondAy 26th until noVeMber 7th Sunday October 25th Arts Picturehouse, thursdAy 18.30 der Westhuizen. you feel about robots taking over (Free) Opening night of the Cambridge the world, and if you might be able Exhibition of past and present See The Light eVeryWhere, 17.14 (Free) African Film Festival. Skin is Wednesday October 28th to fancy one of these metal men. cartoons that savagely satirize Don’t be another statistic. The a throught provoking insight National Rail Disco Starring Bender from Futurama. politicians’ behaviour. police reckon you should turn your into race relations, directed by kAMbAr, 22.00-5.00 (£3-4) Monday October 26th bicycle lights on at exactly 17.14. Cambridge’s own Anthony Fabian. Last week they had Simon Amstell. Six Characters in Search Only if you’re cycling, obviously. This week Clean Bandit play live. Camerata Musica of an Author Peterhouse college, 20.30 (£5-35) Sick. We know where we’ll be. Arts theAtre, Fri-sAt 19.45, sAt 14.30 Monday October 26th (£10-£27) First concert of the 2009-10 season Wednesday October 28th Great opportunity to see fabby of the Camerata Musica series at How to Read Poems Peterhouse. The Berlin Philhar- FAculty oF english, West roAd, 18.00-19.00 Funeral For A Friend play directed by big phat up-and- (Free) monic Piano Quartet play Mozart, the junction, 19.00 (£15 AdV) coming, maybe future Artistic Finally, the answer to studying Schumann, and Brahms. Welsh emo. Dust off the MySpace, Director of the RSC, otherwise English at Cambridge. straighten the fringe, squeeze your just general big dog, Rupert Goold. fat rowing arse into those skinny Get on it. Only a couple more days. Wednesday October 28th Tuesday October 27th Saturday October 24th jeans and get down there. The Clerks The Culture and Heritage That Face trinity college chAPel, 20.00 (£10-15) The Yes Men Thursday October 29th corPus PlAyrooM, tues- sAt 19.30 (£4-7) The renowned men’s choir present of Mongolia Fisher building, st john’s, 19.45 (£2.50) The Subdance Returns Really fooked up play by Polly Qudduson: Sacred Songs of East MongoliA And inner AsiA studies unit , Followed by a technological video the Mond building , Free school lAne , kAMbAr, 22.00-03.00 (£3-4) Stenham, written when she was 19, and West, an exploration the music 16.00-19.00 (Free) link Q&A with Yes Men Andy and Lethal beats, cheap drinks and performed at the Royal Court, and of different faiths and different All you will ever need to know in Mike via Skype Conference Call. massive thrills. debuting now in Cambridge. cultures. life about Inner Asia. 24 Friday October 23rd 2009 Reviews Editor: Paul Smith Reviews www.varsity.co.uk [email protected]

music New Releases

paul smith Editors mr Hudson in this light and on this evening straight no chaser  

For their third outing, Editors have Although the production on bought a one-way ticket to Synth Straight No Chaser makes it City. Gone are the trademark guitar sound like dance music, the riffs: In This Light and On This lumpen beats and bland musical- Evening is a record littered with ity render it impossible to dance dark, brooding electronic sounds, to. Slow tempi deaden vocal and it’s a gamble that pays off lines which approximate soaring wonderfully. melodies but expose Mr Hudson’s Chief among the new toys used on thin, nasal voice. the record is an electronic drum kit, The lyrical content has a tendency which propels a surprising sense of towards thuggishness and urgency throughout the record. But misogyny. On ‘Anyone But Him’, wayne coyne of the flaming lips having a ball inside a bubble at this september’s electric picnic festival. don’t let that make you think there’s Hudson focuses on his disgust no variety – it’s here in bounds. with the man in question, ignoring The Flaming Lips jam that becomes almost hypnotic the album are a characteristic First single ‘Papillon’ is clearly this the woman who is being kissed embryonic through repeated riffs and lyrics. high point. At the 2:33 mark in era’s anthem, ‘You Don’t Know by “his filthy lips”. Hudson’s  Coyne seems fascinated with ‘The Sparrow Looks Up At The Love’ is a slice of eighties delight, emotional detachment evokes music’s potential to hypnotise on Machine’ you can hear a mobile and ‘Walk The Fleet Road’ is Bon a blokey contest for a woman Embryonic is a mad science Embryonic, coming back again phone receiving a text message in Iver with his finger in a socket. that neither party care about. experiment gone unexpectedly, and again to musical and lyrical close proximity to an active guitar ‘Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool’ Similarly, on ‘Stiff Upper Lip’, horribly right. Whatever sonic repetition in order to work up amp or pickup. On ‘I Can Be A shines, with its dirty bass and the narrator describes leaving cross-pollination of alchemy, mesmerising songs and paranoid, Frog’ Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O unashamedly poppy chorus making his girlfriend in tawdry detail astrology and trial psychology oppressive moods. Repetition provides a series of animal sounds it a shoo-in for indie club nights. but evacuates the song of any went on in the lab, it produced The also takes the form of more subtle so playful they cause quavers of And with Tom Smith crooning over emotional resonance. Flaming Lips’ best album in years. paraphrase on the album. In ‘Sagit- laughter in Coyne’s vocal. My it all like the older, more serious His proficient production skills A dangerously sprawling record tarius Silver Announcement’, the favourite Karen O animal noises brother of The Killers’ Brandon result in ‘White Lies’ and ‘Super- of eighteen tracks, it almost comes lines “Free to be slaves now | To are her Gila Monster and Jaguar Flowers, it’s an album that’s sure to nova’ but his lack of musical apart and loses its interest; but just this silver machine” get recast as interpretations. Maybe her cat too. get pulses racing. ben wheawell invention leaves the listener when it’s about to stall, it bursts “Free to be one now | With this Coyne’s affinity for the absurd unfulfilled. edward henderson forward again with renewed vigour. silver machine”. The way the initial can lead to some questionable This rough cohesion ultimately prospect of enslavement suddenly musical conduct. It’s difficult to Esbjörn svensson Trio Keith Jarrett reveals itself as a deliberate pacing becomes more a question of support his vocoded singing on retrospective paris / london: testament and process of exploration that emancipation through conformity ‘Impulse’ – why suddenly channel   reaches some startling places. is actually quite chilling, given the T-Pain? – but this is the only What sets Embryonic apart cultish atmosphere of the song. serious wrong foot on the album. sonically is the destroyed, beat-up Sharp, deceptively simple lyrics Embryonic has the feel of a record sound of the whole record, where help make Embryonic a thought- where interesting aspects will everything seems blasted and ful record as well as progressive, keep turning up, even after repeat worn out and the delicate, prettier and after the initial onslaught of listening. It’s just so damn pleasing sounds have to sparkle or float the two lead-in tracks, melancholy to hear a band go this hard for new through rawer static to get noticed. reflections on the evil of humanity, sounds and do it successfully, let’s The opening track ‘Convinced Of environmental catastrophe and hope The Flaming Lips keep up The Hex’ introduces this aesthetic nightmare spectres take over. their scientific madness. The death of Swedish Jazz Piano prodigy Keith Jarrett is with authority. It’s a heavy, bust-up The musical quirks that populate peter morelli artist Esbjörn Svensson in a one of jazz’s few luminaries to scuba-diving accident last year perform critically acclaimed wasn’t met with the same riotous classical music. Originally a Fightstar Busted) and record-label disputes. initially booked for the Corn fervour as the demise of Michael sideman of Miles Davis, he the junction, wednesday october 21st An intimate setting and the Exchange, was moved to the Jackson. Children didn’t weep in became a global superstar after   sweaty, ballsy rock should have Junction due to low ticket sales and the streets, the headlines didn’t the success of 1975 The Köln made for one momentous show. failed to leave a lasting impression. turn into one monomaniacal Concert, an impassioned master- With current album Be Human The Young Guns, the evening’s tribute and greatest-hits albums piece of extemporization that Growing up is hard. Acne-ridden charting at #20 in the UK album support, were an unsigned act weren’t rushed onto the shelves. became the best-selling solo jazz and en-braced, a mere thirteen charts, swollen, baying crowds of premier quality bursting But at last The Very Best Of album of all time. years old, the lesson was learnt were expected. But the gig, with youthful energy, angst and E.S.T. has arrived and it’s better Since then he has continued to quickly. Sitting at the back of the emotion. than any compilation from the play in small groups, and periodi- local girls’ school bus, my ear-buds By the time Fightstar took to the King of Pop. cally returns to the world’s great jammed to savage aural depths, I stage, a stagnant air had quickly Retrospective isn’t incredibly concert halls to perform impro- buried teenage everything in emo. developed. Although anthems like accessible but with its soul- vised solo recitals. Throughout Girls could not be trusted. Music ‘Deathcar’ and ‘Paint Your Target’ wrenching sophistication and the course of three CDs, Jarrett’s was the release. Dressing in black enthused the crowd, the motions sublime pacing, you won’t find playing is sublime, though the was important. Six strings, good. felt well-trodden. Success, it seems, anything more considered. Paris concert is not as outstand- G-strings, bad. Fast forward some has dampened the energetic, gutsy The gentle tripping piano in ing as London’s. years later, and I headed to the quality which made early releases ‘From Gagarin’s Point Of View’ Grunting and moaning, his Junction, ready to relive the harsh, from the band so poignant. Recent invokes a rare sense of melan- fingers weave idiosyncratic and honest nights of my youth. Fight- singles, ‘Mercury Summer’ and choly and songs like ‘Behind the timeless sounds: ecstatic folk and star were playing. ‘The English Way’ are undoubt- Yashmak’ wholly sweeps you wonky blues. Jarrett’s oral sound Their Junction show represented edly brilliant on record, but were away. effects are notoriously grating a growing up of sorts for the somehow lifelessly performed by If ten-minute instrumentals feel and there is a preponderance of London four piece: a band forced to Charlie and the lads. We were left pretentious, step away. Other- dissonance making for rewarding fight reputation problems (appar- rocked, but disappointed in black. wise, Svensson’s swan-song is music, but not for a dinner party. ently frontman Charlie Simpson, Growing up is definitely hard. delightful. duncan stibbard-hawkes jonathan lifchulz used to be in another band called is this what you go to school for? robert thomas Reviews Editor: Paul Smith Friday October 23rd 2009 25 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Reviews Arts Comment Film And ArTS Small screens and

Sarah lightman: in out of the air to add substance the past few years, not to mention Sentimentality. The memoriam to Lightman’s drawings, which, the pedigree of her artistic train- new hall art collection, october although aesthetically pleasing, do ing, that she has produced such an tragic demise of the 19th– november 14th not have the strength to stand by underwhelming exhibition here in period drama  themselves. Certainly the idea of Cambridge. Lightman completed the ‘graphic diary’ to which these a foundation year at Central Saint images pertain justifies the need Martins College of Art and Design Ben Slingo The considerable technical ability for explanatory notes, but the which she followed up with a B.A. of Sarah Lightman’s drawings, spontaneous and artless nature and M.F.A. at the Slade School of which are on show at the New Hall of diary entries is undermined by Art (one of the most reputable art his column is a lament Oxonians, more Mann-ly than Art Collection, is undermined by the contrived and hackneyed prose schools in London) where she was about the decline of televi- manly, feeding strawberries to the sentimentality of the captions that accompanies these painstak- awarded no less than four scholar- Tsion. There. That ought exotically named teddy bears. No that accompany them. A picture of ingly drawn images. ships. She is now embarking upon a to puncture your enthusiasm. longer the work of a rebarbative an empty coffee cup, which is the An exquisitely drawn image of a PhD in Autobiographical Comics at Diatribes on the corrupting wit grown hot with Catholic zeal third part of a tripartite series of salad bag is coupled with the entry The University of Glasgow. fripperies of reality TV are no but of an ageing sentimental- images, under which is narrated a “I work through a salad as I wait It seems then, what with the scarcer than the shows they ist nostalgic for undergraduate disappointing meeting through a for a rejection from a gallery”, a recent success she has enjoyed in condemn and bore just as revelry. Forget that Sebastian, the friend, is tagged by the wistful “I provocative, not to say irritating her field of practice, Sarah has little woefully. The walls of the Big golden apostate, ends up drink- long for the days of uncomplicated statement from an artist who has to complain about. Her current Brother house could be papered sodden in a Tunisian monastery; friendship,” a vacuous claim that curated four contemporary art exhibition, In Memoriam at the with the fatwas issued against it forget that ‘Arcadia’ is a pagan rests on the notion that friend- exhibitions since her graduation. New Hall Art Collection, tells a by journalists. motif ; forget, above all, that the ship is ‘uncomplicated’ in the first Indeed, it is strange given the different story. The predominant This article, however, is not whole gaudy brocade of Oxford place. Feeble clichés are plucked acclaim Lightman has received over themes of Lightman’s work are about the programmes we despise. frivolity is dismissed as mere isolation, exclusion and rejection. A Its target is worthy television, ‘English charm’, trivial beside the drawing of a packet of Oatcakes, an television that edifies, television, holy splendour of Rome. Just gape object which testifies to Lightman’s above all, that makes us weep at grandiose fountains, decadent claim that she analyses the “banal with sentimental affection for lunch parties and stunning views detritus” of the everyday, is under- the licence fee. Specifically, I am of Castle Howard. written by the mournful memory alarmed by the state of television’s The genius of the small screen, – “Oatcakes filled the silence when most sacred genre : the period never displayed more brilliantly my friends don’t call,”- a grammati- drama. Adapted from classic than in Brideshead, is to capture cally erroneous sentence which fiction, it does nothing less than a scene, to freeze everything in evokes a rather bemusing but sad vandalise literature. a tableau vivant. The viewer is image of the artist poised next to Take Jane Austen, whose engulfed with images of Regency the phone, audibly crunching her Emma is now being ponder- finery, which is what television way through a packet of crackers. ously mutilated on the BBC. This does best, but the ambiguity of the As the accompanying literature summer I visited the meagre novel is lost. explains, Lightman’s work “focuses monument to her greatness in Challenging the precepts of the on her relationship with others, Winchester Cathedral. Prostrating reader’s imaginary world is the with objects increasingly substi- myself before it I half-expected raison d’être of a great novelist. If tuting for portraits and scenes.” to find Andrew Davies already Austen’s portrayal of the conjugal The singularity of these objects stationed there, spraying it with cattle-market glistens, it does so (mainly foodstuffs) in the drawings, graffiti, doing in practice what he mainly with vitriol. Only when depicted using black pencil against has always done on television. reproduced on the screen is this a vacuous, plain white background, Austen’s limpid prose, vibrant acid diluted to sugar solution. is evocative in the way it suggests satire and irony have been buried The intricate subversion of empty space, and thus the loneli- under a mound of petticoats, Northanger Abbey, where an ness of a single woman’s ‘banal’ RADA accents and romantic senti- ostensible send-up of the Gothic domestic existence. There is an mentality. Pride and Prejudice, novel turns into an artful joke on undeniable pathos to Lightman’s a venomous social critique that those who expected one, reveals work; however the power of her offers nothing approaching final the inadequacy of television. images is ultimately disabled by redemption, is, in Davies’ hands, Other authors do flourish on the the contrivance and sentimentality traduced as a charming love small screen. Dickens and Hardy A drawing from Sarah Lightman’s exhibition. But is there substance in foodstuffs? of the captions. florence sharp story with the happiest ending in are television’s Sunday night literature. darlings. The former wouldn’t It is easy enough to decry, more recognise subtlety if it cavorted The imaginarium of whilst his adversary attempts to Hollywood talent dazzles from the difficult to explain. Perhaps Grana- in front of him like the Artful doctor Parnassus lure them inside bars, motels and edges, but it’s the director’s addled, da’s Brideshead will help. Loving, Dodger; the latter’s most fiendish arts picturehouse Russian housewives, where he can wondrous imagination that’s in the lavish and luxuriant, it is unlikely plot device was to have a letter get  blow them up. centre of the frame. The art direc- ever to be equalled. Much as World stuck under a doormat. Both suit Of course, this is in some way the tion is truly superb; Gilliam offers War I was the war to end all wars, the garish crudity of television. In spite of his top billing, to whole point of the film – the slew up a deranged Dahlian sweet-shop, so Granada’s Brideshead was By titillating our senses adapta- describe Heath Ledger as the star of both emerging and established rich with colour and style, and the adaptation to end all adapta- tions corrupt finer sensibilities. At of The Imaginarium of Doctor some genius animation that’s a tions. Our image of Brideshead least Big Brother refrained from Parnassus would be rather genuine joy to watch as it unfurls. has been unshakeably fixed by traducing whole books, content to missing the point. His tragic story Infuriatingly, and perhaps John Mortimer: one of languorous abuse a single literary phrase. is by now well-known and requires foreseeably considering Gilliam’s no laboured retelling. But rather previous catalogue, the real enemy than sunder the production after in this piece is not Tom Waits’ Ledger’s untimely death, Gilliam fantastic Devil, ever ensconced chose to film the yet-unshot in fag ash and mob jazz, but the dreamscape sequences with differ- indecipherable narrative. Spiral- ent actors. Johnny Depp, Jude ling about like an acrobat in a Law and Colin Farrell all step blender, it eventually flatlines into up with predictable aplomb and the most impenetrable and unsatis- magnificence to round off what is fying ending since Life on Mars. essentially an ensemble piece. But this is a banquet for the Christopher Plummer’s Parnas- eyes, rather than the mind, and it’s sus is a curmudgeonly inebriate, what Gilliam does best. Though the locked in a wager with the Devil for story might be a touch befuddling, the soul of his daughter, Valentina. the Imaginarium is visual splen- To save her, he must guide five dour borne of rare stock, and well it is a truth universally acknowledged that a sunday night without an austen souls through ponds of Buddhas worth enjoying. david pegg adaptation is a sunday night wasted and fields of ladders to salvation, heath ledger: a banquet for the eyes. 26 Friday October 23rd 2009 Theatre Editor: Lauren Cooney Theatre www.varsity.co.uk [email protected]

View from the TheaTre Groundlings The Madness of to treat the old chap – and they get played two different physicians. poignant, funny, tragic, frighten- George III pretty medieval on George’s ass, I Maybe someone called in sick, ing, often stunning to look at: aDc mainShow can tell you. but they weren’t really dissimilar Patrick Garety’s George III is a  So, performances? Well, I enough and the whole thing got a beautifully staged gem. Watch suppose the whole play rests fairly touch sticky and confusing. it, sirs, what what (and madams). umour has it that when they squarely on the shoulders of our So, how was it? Well, ambitious, nathan brooker made the film the produc- man George. I can safely report george woodhams Rers had to change the title then that Oliver Soden was not just to The Madness of King George good in the role, he was utterly because American audiences would magnificent. Complex, witty, have been put off by having missed Soden’s control of the character the first two films in the series. during the early glimpses of the That is almost certainly ruddy king’s madness was masterful and nonsense. What is almost certainly not just a little bit frightening. Cambridge Theatre true, however, is that Alan Bennett Then, during the more acrobatic is really a national treasure – heights of his episodes, Soden was Imagine a play that George III is a masterpiece, and a repetitive, dribbly, incoherent, combines the raw animal the chaps down at the ADC last pukey nightmare. It was very appeal of Star Wars’ R2-D2 night gave it a bloody good go. moving, really. with the visionary inter- The show kicks off with George His queen was equally impres- pretation of a play about (Oliver Soden) and his wife (Lowri sive. Played to naturalistic homoeroticism and alcoholism, Amies) at some public occasion perfection by Lowri Amies, ‘Mrs pushed into a nu-raved-up or other. Effortlessly regal and, King’ managed to remain defiant rendition of New Orleans, met well, pretty darn Georgian, the and impassioned despite the with an incestuous angst- bewigged, brightly coloured couple numerous indignities meted out to ridden look at ‘the family’, descend the central staircase, her by her husband’s indiscretions written by a 19yr old. waving and smiling at their public and by the rumours and self- Just imagine! Sadly, this whilst all the time muttering away serving advice that they have on play has not yet been written, to themselves and their aides. A tap in the royal court. but if you adhere to my recom- moment later a fruitknife-wielding Ben Kavanagh also deserves mendations of the coming madwoman tears onto the scene a mention. Playing the Prince week then the end result with designs on doing the king a of Wales as some sort of mega might feel like you saw this mischief. The king brushes her off dandy, Kavanagh donned a pretty play. For the record, this and utters: “The poor creature’s fruity waistcoat and had his collar fictional masterpiece would be mad. Do not hurt her”. There we turned-up to eleven. In fact, his called That Universal Robot’s have it, ladies and gentlemen, that feathered, blonde fringe and Face is Named Desire. is dramatic irony. bronzed cheeks put me somewhat The ADC lateshow is R.U.R. Indeed, though he’s convinced in mind of a young Judith Chalm- or Rossum’s Universal Robots. at first that his growing malady ers. Make no mistake though, According to director Ed Kiely, is nothing more than a hilarious Kavanagh’s prince was a snake. the play has suffered a range touch of the old windipops, George Subtle, kind of mysterious, he was of abuses, including being soon starts to go a little bit mad fantastic. “smashed up”. I think it is around the edges. Cue the proces- Others didn’t fare quite so well pretty clear that this show has sion of increasingly brutal doctors – I’m not sure why James Sharpe got the flavour, the bad behav- iour, as well as the rhythm and the melody, so you’d be a difficult to portray to the audience. from some respiratory malady that fool to miss it. Might feature Let Newton Be! While this problem is partly henna Night meant she ran out of oomph during corpuS pLayroom a whole cast of Austin Powers LaDy mitcheLL haLL, trinity tackled by all three Newtons her longer speeches. Fembots, or might just feature  conversing with each other at  To be fair, however, not even a a whole cast of females. strategic moments, the play lacked gallon of Tixylix could’ve solved The ADC mainshow is A laywright Craig Baxter the ability to capture the audience n paper, this sounds as the problems posed by her body Streetcar Named Desire, has tried to encapsulate in this play about an aloof mind that bloke-friendly as a lone, language. The play is already asking directed by a man who Pthe scientist’s legendary lives alone in a realm of intellect. Oused tampon floating in a for a pretty major suspension of revolutionised the way we brilliance by penning three differ- This may have been unnoticeable communal loo. It’s full of things disbelief among its audience, leaving look at American theatre ent Newtons: Isack the boy, had there been more dramatic that, like tampons, men are just fifty minutes to chart the with his Barack Obama take Newton the insular genius, and Sir tension and electric moments accom- supposed to be able to deal with, change from loathing to camarade- on the classics. Alexander de Isaac the autocrat of science. panying the exploration of genius. and in reality can’t and don’t: rie. Three cheers, then, for Stickley. Winter informs me that this While the claim made by the All three actors were convincing ex-girlfriends, possible pregnan- It feels harsh to single one person period production will feature programme that “from the start and but Paul Mcleary, who played Sir cies, and earnest feminist gabble out of a two-woman cast for praise, “eclectic modern music and in the end, the science is there to Isaac, notably embodied the sober, like “Jack’s come out of the whole but she was undeniably strong and, eye-catchingly sexy clothing”, back up the theology” is definitely serious and deep thinking image of thing rather heroically; men invari- vitally, believable as Judith, manag- and that “one member of the true, people coming to see sparks Newton we recognise. Arguments ably do.” Even the title ingeniously ing both the catty sarcasm with cast had speaking roles in two of serious intellectual tension alight between Newton and another actor sandwiches together the twin which she initially meets Ros and Star Trek episodes”. Oooo the stage will be left feeling that mimicking the heated and volatile nightmares of hairstyling and a the emotional openness as her hostil- maybe they met sexy R2-D2 although Baxter has attempted to arguments between Newton and posse of slags wearing pink cowboy ity melts. when he cameoed over from reveal Newton in this play, there his contemporaries, in particular hats. Hendry’s production is well- Star Wars. was still much left uncovered. Leibniz (Neil Jones), were particu- It’s better than that. Judith (Tilda rehearsed, but wondered if it could Finally, if you fancy a more The production was undoubtedly larly entertaining, and comedic Stickley) leaves her ex-boyfriend a ever be brilliant. It’s clumsily intimate setting, jog off to well rehearsed. Expression and timing came across effortlessly. message, threatening to kill herself. written: the pivotal scene in which the Corpus Playroom to see delivery of lines, displaying the The play had a general tempera- But – gasp – it’s not Jack who comes Ros wins Judith’s respect by That Face. Written by Polly temperament, naivety and wisdom ment of jovial playfulness. However, to her aid: it’s Jack’s new girlfriend, washing her hair nearly had me Stenham when she was only 19, of Newton at different stages of his a by-product of tightly aligning the Ros. Proving the long-untested running out the auditorium with a it tore the Royal Court apart life were often immaculately deliv- production with source material theory that there is comedy to be handful of sick. I also found it funny, when it was playing in London, ered, alongside a small and simple alone meant that, although the play found in chronic, suicidal depression. spirited, and oddly affecting. As and is debuting in Cambridge stage of basic props. The problem was enjoyable, the pitch of theat- It’s never a good thing when a for its faults, I don’t know whether next week. Director Josh lies in the fact that Let Newton Be! ricality needed was not achieved, reviewer says things go downhill to point the finger of blame at the Seymour commends this attempts to portray the life of a which would help bring to life the when the actors start talking. I felt writing or acting. I’ll just encourage ‘COOL’ , ‘funny’ and ‘painful’ man whose valuable contributions ideas and equations that have sorry for Nicola Pollard as Ros, you to make up your own mind, and evocation of family life. primarily took place in his mind, withstood over three hundred years. looking on as Judith gets most of the maybe to remember to flush next Make sure you gander to and these intellectual probings are Sita Dinanauth good lines: she was clearly suffering time, yeah? george reynoLDS the Marlowe meet and greet, today, at the Arts Theatre GuIDE TO STAR RATINGS:  Dodgy stool, what a mentalist  Pretty limp  Sound of mind  By George this is good from 5-6. Free Wine. Nuff  Absolutely Bloody Mental Said.Lauren cooney Theatre Editor: Lauren Cooney Friday October 23rd 2009 27 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Theatre

THEATRE Creative Writing Competition Red Demon Marmite, or Take That: you either behiiiiind youuu!” We get it. ADC LATESHOW love them or hate them. They The play itself is about as mixed  screech and wail their way from as a mixed bag can be, and despite a crude hags to upper class elders couple of irritations I have to hand and back to menacing local villagers it to the cast for keeping its grip on First things fi rst– there isn’t without much distinction. Apart a script that is so full of messages actually a red demon to be from when they crack out the (even Martin Luther King makes Jseen in this entire produc- standard ‘posh person’s voice,’ it is an appearance) that you’re not tion, despite its very promising hard to tell who is who. If you get quite sure whether you’re being name, but there’s a load of other over that, however, the ensemble’s told to avoid strange islands, be stuff going on at the Lateshow energy is contagious, and they keep nice to foreigners, or remember this week. Hideki Noda’s play tells the action moving brilliantly. your packed lunch so that you don’t the story of an outsider, perceived So, what of the elusive Red end up having to eat said foreigner. as a monster, who arrives on an Demon? Vaish Girish has mesmeris- Think you know the answer? Don’t island. He/she/it is feared, ridiculed ing moments, as she be too sure. JEMIMA MIDDLETON and eventually eaten by island- scampers around ers, who live in a society governed speaking in conver- Each week we set a different creative writing exercise. The people who submit the by the ‘village elders,’ and where sational Tamil, running-up and winning pieces have their work printed in the next week’s Varsity, clearly being a bit different means providing a beauti- and the winner is rewarded with two free tickets to an ADC Theatre show. you defi nitely won’t get statutory ful and effective rights, or friends, or laid. contrast to the Noda has taken a story that has ensemble’s shriek- Week 3: been told before (I kept thinking of ing. The danger the penguins in Happy Feet) and with this play Haiku turned it into something different is of over- (do you see the important moral complicating Winner: ‘Short Summers’ messages beginning to LEAP out it; the set is by Jess Booth at you?). Hats off to this cast for not unneces- going all arty and pretentious on us sarily Summer 1993 with this play– it must have been busy, as the tempting. cast only A hand grows whiter; Katie Alcock really holds it all really uses The traffi cking of skies out together, albeit with a lot of angst a table that Side; outplays the lamp and sharp, emphatic hand gestures. moonlights Mind you, I’d probably be the same as a boat, Summer 1994 if I was referred to constantly as and a few ‘That Woman’, and eventually fed broken With the hand-break: Shhh bits of a person whom I’d tried table legs. A tide - unfolding sheet - So to save. I debated over Peter Also, there are Stones slope: Ear To Ear Skidmore’s Tombi: on the one hand, enough naturally his constant jiggling did make me comic moments Summer 1995 want to yell out that maybe he to cancel out should just bloody well go to the the need for The cicatrising loo, but his wide-eyed, ‘rabbit in self-conscious Ailanthus altissima; the headlights’ narration is very pantomime: at one Such patterned eyelids effective. point somebody The ensemble is a bit like does actually say “it’s Summer 1996 CAIT CROSSE The Grano haired to substituted for frumpy, my story” claims our producer- Finesse. The church grown Pyrite. Six Characters bodywarmer-clad ‘reconstruction protagonist in a self-congratulating Crepuscule. – Pause. in Search of an actors’, the technician is replaced television interview. Soon enough by a camera-man (and plenty of the story we’re watching becomes Summer 1997 Author cameras) and the rehearsal room hers. Before too long, the notion of THE ARTS THEATRE becomes the kind of soulless piece ‘storytelling’, the thing that makes The Cigarras shift  of real estate that the script self- her who she is, falls apart amid the The piercings in the Sky critically acknowledges as ‘short crippling exposure of the illusory Hand gestures up. – Cut hand for post-modern alienation.’ falsity of ending, or ‘the end.’ n Headlong’s renovation of It is in the second half when It’s fundamentally satirical. Runner-up: Haiku Pirandello’s modernist classic, theatrical limits are pushed further Goold and his writing partner Ben by Tim Waters Ihis six characters are much than Pirandello’s wildest dreams: Power capture the language and the same, they are still in search of DVD director’s commentary, a pretensions of the media perfectly Flared form of a bird: an author, but they arrive 90 years distressing televised sequence (“We’re a fi lm making collective. Riotous shadow, roaring wings, later. The 1920s theatre manager is where the Producer leaves the It’s democratic,” they preach) It’s Tail-feather frost. re-imagined as a noughties drama- theatre, live ‘rewind’ and ‘fast- bitchy about contemporary theatre, documentary producer under forward’, a water tank (perhaps has a pop at David Tennant, Susurrus and shot pressure from her insensitive ‘cock’ Rupert Goold saw ETG). and, through the reconstruction Golden limbs beneath cracked boughs of a sushi-eating exec to create But these are not just gimmicks. actors, pokes fun at soap-opera The leaves’ wounds blood-soft tear-jerking television about child They are underpinned by a door-slamming ‘realism’ and quasi- euthanasia. profound interrogation of our Chekovian ‘naturalism.’ Of course Runner-up: Little Poem Pirandello’s leading-man and assumptions. What is real? By what it satirises us too, by providing by Rachel Dewhirst leading-lady are ingeniously do we defi ne ourselves? “This isn’t an opportunity for us to rejoice in our favourite undergraduate Watching the leaves fall meta-gobbledygook. Blindly, those fragile dancers This production is not only Step and fl atten, gone blessed with fl air, wit and a mischie- vous spirit of experiment but also the kind of questioning intellectual- Next week’s competition: ity that is often so lacking in the Monologues. Time for some prose. Write a 300 word prose monologue on a chosen theatre (not least in Cambridge.) topic, spoken by one person, for performance or otherwise. Your monologue could It’s a winning combination, and one be interior or exterior: a brooding stream of consciousness or a grand speech which the budding artistes among made to a mass audience. Good luck! Send submissions to Eliot D’Silva at liter- us should really be aspiring to, [email protected] no later than 9am on Monday, October which is why I was upset to see so 26th for the chance to win two tickets to the following week’s ADC main show, and see your work printed in our JAMES LEWIS many empty seats... next issue. MODELS MAKE A DIFFERENCE! REQUIRED Join a stimulating, home-based plan for our 15-year old, mildy For life drawing, autistic daughter, based on the £15 per hour ‘son-rise’ programme. (inexperienced models wel- We would like to come) ask you to work Contact: Mr Issam Kourbaj, for 4-6 hours Artist-in-residence, a week (for six months). Christ’s College. No experience For more information please needed; email full training given. [email protected] £6 an hour. Make the call: Tel: 01223 248622 Make a difference!

Cambridge Developing Cognition Lab is looking for playful and inquisitive 14 to 15-month-olds to take part in a study on observational learning, imitation and memory. The study takes place in our child lab on the Downing Site in the centre of town. We will reimburse your parking fees or bus fare if you use public transport to visit our lab. As a little thank you for taking part, your child will be able to choose a toy as a gift to take home at the end of the session. TUTORS WANTED Please contact Dr. Klossek by e-mail [email protected] or phone We are looking for young enthusiastic persons to spend 01223 766315 for further information and to arrange a time and time with our son who suffers from autism. date for your session. Those willing to work with him should be reliable, enthusiastic and willing to encourage him to involve in We are looking forward to hearing from you! activities and promote language at the same time.

Dr. Ulrike Klossek Hours of work are quite exible. Our son is 19 years old Cambridge Developing Cognition Lab and has been on a home education programme for the Department of Experimental Psychology Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB past 11 years. PAY UP TO £10 PER HOUR For further details please contact us by phone or email. Dr. RK Rao 01223411575 [email protected] Games & puzzles Varsity Crossword no. 511 Sudoku Kakuro

1 2 3 4 5 6 head. (9) The object is to insert the numbers in the boxes to satisfy only Fill the grid so that each run of squares adds up to the total in one condition: each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the the box above or to the left. Use only numbers 1-9, and never 23 Goddess against drug students. digits 1 through 9 exactly once. use a number more than once per run (a number may reoccur (5) in the same row in a separate run). 24 It keeps going messy i.e. train. (7) 25 Mad Othello’s not left in Africa. 7 8 9 4 8 7 9 5 2 (7) 9 9 26 Agreement arranged in electorate 1 6 5 den. (7,8) 20 15 10 11 6 2 1 8 4 17 7 5 4 6 8 9 4 13 Down 8 8 1 Keanu Thatcher is modern right- 6 12 13 14 winger. (15) 3 2 6 4 1 5 6 12 2 Strange, to sell tub of ammuni- 3 tion. (7) 8 9 4 5 1 19 ‘Strictly’ judge in old student 3 2 3 15 16 17 18 town. (9) 4 4 ‘Slap a german’ it alerts you. (5)

5 6 3 7 4 8 www.puzzlemix.com GARETH / MADE BY MOORE www.puzzlemix.com GARETH / MADE BY MOORE 5 Terrorists question Washington’s right to confl ict. (4,3) 20 21 22 23 6 John Bull lives there in his castle. (11,4) The Varsity Scribblepad 8 Knight reduces risk by thousands, Hitori turns it all around (3) Many drink fi ve less. (4) Shade in the squares so that no number occurs more 24 25 9 than once per row or column. Shaded squares may not be 14 Elvis teed off on broadcast. (9) horizontally or vertically adjacent. Unshaded squares must 16 The average guess could not be form a single area. crueler. (7)

26 18 Singer transgresses beside god. (7) 1 3 6 2 7 5 7 19 Tell me about wind. (6) Giant breast object. (5) 4 7 1 7 6 4 3 site. (5,4) 21 Across 22 Sex toy left inside irritating 12 Whisper - US/USSR ruck without 1 Boer zeppelin ace oddly is won by singer. (5) underwear is disturbed. (8) 5 2 5 4 1 6 7 President. (5,5,5) 13 Celebrity church produces carbo- 7 Squares get confused: ‘No blogs?’ hydrate. (6) 4 4 5 2 3 5 6 (7) Set by Hythloday Last issue’s solutions 15 Spanish king hangs around the 9 Great sex explosion! (3,4) 6 4 2 1 5 3 7 6 2 7 9 3 4 5 1 8 sea for cure. (6) 3 10 2 2 5 6 4 1 3 10 Poem on cinema. (5) 9 3 1 5 6 8 7 9 2 4 4 6 14 2 7 6 7 4 3 7 5 7 17 German is in gangsta weapon. (8) 3 11 9 4 8 5 2 1 7 6 3 11 Kiwi raver goes crazy at bridge 1 2 20 7 1 3 5 7 2 5 6 1 7 2 8 9 1 7 6 4 3 5 22 4 8 2 1 3 9 5 1 2 4 7 6 7 1 3 1 20 Racial policy divides scottish 3 4 9 6 13 3 6 5 6 7 3 2 4 16 1 5 3 2 4 8 6 7 9 4 12 8 1 5 2 1 2 4 5 3 6 3 Answers to last issue’s crossword (no. 510) 9 9 5 9 2 7 1 3 8 4 6 Across: 7 Radio, 8 Colourful, 10 Ampere, 11 Paranoid, 12 Accredit, 13 Exit, 15 Falsest, 17 Elected, 20 Tour, 22 Enormity, 25 Bantered, 26 Louder, 27 Chainsaws, 28 Begin. Down: 1 Karmic law, 2 Fine arts, 3 1 5 3 8 1 7 1 3 1 2 2 5 7 6 4 8 5 2 3 9 1 10

Compete, 4 Doorbell, 5 Brunei, 6 Music, 9 Head, 14 Aesthetic, 16 Surprise, 18 Computer, 19 Let down, 21 Obtain, 23 Owls, 24 Maths. 3 7 3 4 4 2 5 7 6 8 3 1 4 6 9 2 5 7 6 4 4 3 5 7 5 www.puzzlemix.com GARETH / MADE BY MOORE Sport Editors: Will Caiger-Smith and Olly West Friday October 23rd 2009 29 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Sport

John’s again set for college rugby domination Sport in Brief » Red Boys run riot against their traditionally closest rivals Women’s rugby

EMILY MATTHEWS 92-0 was the emphatic final pack, accompanied by the rally- beginning to take its toll on the score when the Ladies’ Blues ST JOHN’S ing cries of their supporters on the Jesus side, as several forced substi- rugby team met Nottingham 36 touchline. A fi ve-metre scrum was tutions were made, but there was no University. Having won the awarded, and the end was predict- let-up from their opponents. More league last year with Notting- able. Jesus were battered back tries appeared inevitable, and they ham coming second, CUWRFC JESUS 3 behind their own line and Lum duly followed, as the tiring Jesus went into the game expecting a at number 8 had the simple job of defenders began to miss crucial tough and fast match with more Frankie Brown touching the ball down. tackles. Ben Wilson rounded off an speed than their usual Sunday Senior Sports Reporter Sonenfeld missed the conversion, excellent game at scrum-half with a league RFUW games. The but it was a sign of things to come. try just before the end to leave the match began with a positive St John’s College RUFC produced John’s increasingly asserted them- scoreline an emphatic 36-3 to the kick into the back corner, with a dominant forward display to carve selves on the game and a second Red Boys. the motivation of a pint from out a convincing victory against try followed. Fly-half Mathonway Although it was a brave effort the Captain for a try in the fi rst arch-rivals Jesus on Tuesday after- Thomas scored a fi ne individual effort from a depleted Jesus side, the 10 minutes! Following a penalty noon. Despite dogged resistance, right under the posts and Sonenfeld scoreline was a fair refl ection of the score, the tries kept coming. Jesus lacked the size and power to this time made no mistake to pick up match. John’s lacked speed and pre- Special mention goes to the combat a bristling Johns pack play- the two extra points. A third try was cision in attack, but their line was two starting centres, Laura ing tight and direct rugby. added just before half-time, which rarely threatened, and such was Britton and Rachel Thompson, Jesus’ start was good, with patient left the home side with an ominous their domination in the pack that it who scored 7 of the 13 tries in play from the kick-off producing a 19-3 lead at the break. did not really matter. The forwards, total. We look for this success to penalty in front of the posts which Jesus began the second half as led by Lum and Barratt, were con- set the standard of our BUCS Ian Childs coolly slotted home. For they did the fi rst, competing well tent to keep it simple, and Jesus had league and as a great boost for the fi rst quarter their intelligent at the breakdown and recycling the no answer. the new players. kicking and effective line-out dis- ball patiently. A ten minute period It was not always pretty, but guised Johns’ overwhelming physical of sustained pressure however pro- it was highly effective, and there Rowing superiority. Gradually however the duced no points, as the John’s wall was little in the Jesus performance The Blues started tentatively Red Boys began to dominate, forc- remained firm. Then a sudden to suggest John’s will struggle to against a confident but ulti- ing turnovers as Jesus failed to fi nd breakaway and quick hands from make it ten league titles in a row. mately limited East Anglia a way through the defence. the backs saw Jesus’ hard work go Indeed, neither should they lose the team. This young team looked A line-out deep in Jesus territory up in smoke as a try was immedi- unbeaten record which all the cur- to create pressure early, but saw a driving maul of nearly twenty ately scored. rent players hold whilst wearing a the still forming chemistry metres from the determined John’s The physicality of the game was St John’s shirt. between new and returning players allowed their opponents some easy baskets and a disap- pointing 4 point defi cit after 1 quarter. However, the work rate Footballers sailing after consecutive victories improved dramatically in the next 2 quarters. The Blues took » Bad conditions at Fenners and a strong team overcome by ascendent Blues over the game, tightening up on rebounding and converting » The mast is high among the Blues crew who overturned last year’s defeat their shots. Strong 4th quarter showings from Rich Martin and Chris Haar eventually delivered Blues Eddie Burrows and Matt more colourfully phrased, things. whistle, stressing the importance the knockout blow, resulting in CAMBRIDGE 1 Stock were drafted into the team to The opposition surged forward as of them keeping a clean sheet and a 92-78 victory. Top scorer was add their experience in a perennially the half drew to a close and would adding that, “last week we played ex-Lion Milos Puzovic with 24, diffi cult game. have equalised if not for a superb brilliantly and this week we had to aided by strong rebounding ROYAL NAVY U23s It was the experience, and pace, save from Boyd diving to his left. battle and get a 1-0. It was pretty from Felix Schaaf. 0 of Stock that would eventually At half-time Hartley, relieved tough, they’re a big side but I’m separate the two teams, his neat of his officiating duties, came on pleased; we bossed the second half”. fi nish mid-way through the fi rst half to partner Burrows as Johnson The Blues did not deliver a fantastic Absolutely nothing to Vince Bennici giving Cambridge a hard fought, moved himself into attack. Despite performance; it was not pretty and do with Cambridge Sports Reporter and well deserved, 1-0 victory. Con- losing infl uential players Baxter and the football did not fl ow. Only cen- Colombian second division ditions at the Fenners ground were Stock, Johnson’s team-talk seemed tre-backs Dan Gwyther and James club Real Santander again This game may have only been a far from ideal, persistent rain coat- to have an effect, the Blues return- Day had fl awless displays. Yet tire- grabbed the global headlines friendly – an annual fi xture the Blues ing the otherwise pristine turf in a ing to the pitch a more competitive less hard work earned their victory, this week with a heart-breaking are obliged to play – but the starting layer of moisture that inhibited the outfi t. Surviving on a fragile lead the and for that reason, in many ways, 2-2 draw away to local rivals eleven who took the fi eld following Blues’ usual playing style. Against Blues slowly started to dominate this result is more encouraging than Bucaramanga followed by a 2-1 an enforced reshuffl e were evidently a Navy team which, unsurprisingly, the game. A nervy fi nal ten minutes the 4-0 thrashing last week. Over- home defeat to Carlos ‘el pibe’ determined to build last week’s great was man-for-man larger and more elapsed with Cambridge remaining coming a tough side which defeated Valderrama’s old club, Unión performance. Lars Boyd was one of physical than the Blues, sliding tack- composed, sensible possession foot- them 3-1 in the corresponding fi xture Magdalena. This was the albos’ three changes, earning his debut in les were fl ying in from the outset. ball ensuring the game ended with last year in less than ideal conditions fi rst defeat since Varsity began goal for the fi rst team after regular Despite passes going astray the the Blues’ 100% record still intact. certainly entitles the Blues players covering the hormigueros. Stuart Ferguson was unable to play. Blues’ morale and confi dence did not Skipper Johnson was upbeat to feel a certain amount of satisfac- Deco, the paper’s full-time Alongside him two fully fledged falter, absorbing spells of pressure in about the result after the final tion about their efforts. Colombian sport correspon- a scrappy contest. It was during one dent, opined on the matter. Cambridge University AFC (4-4-2) of these spells that Cambridge was “The pressure of recent suc- Goals: Stock The Anorak Subs: Hartley (Baxter) able to take the lead, Baxter start- cess is obviously getting to ing a counter-attack from his own Football: Ladies’ Hockey: the players, as coverage in the half which ended with Stock burying Division 1 international media is obviously the ball in the bottom corner. Christ’s 3 - 4 Downing Division 1 a different kettle of fi sh to play- As the half progressed the Navy Churchill 1 - 4 St Catz ing on cow fi elds, which was BOYD Pembroke 0 - 1 Girton became increasingly frustrated – St John’s 2 - 4 Emmanuel Jesus 0 - 0 Emmanuel the reality for Real until very players on the pitch and the sideline Trinity 2 - 0 Jesus Downing 0 - 0 St John’s recently. That said, the rumour berating the referee. By the end Fitzwilliam 0 - 4 Murray Edwards is that the Board are planning MARK JOHNSON GWYTHER DAY MAYNARD St Catz P – P Fitzwilliam of the fi rst half the game had lost to visit Cambridge very soon all qualities of a “friendly”; the odd Rugby: Men’s Hockey: to give thanks to the staff for RUTT BURROWS MICHAEL JOHNSON BAXTER lunge and occasional clip round the the increased publicity, as well back of the head accompanying their Division 1 Division 1 as to pick up some cakes from verbal aggression. The Navy’s coach Downing 43 - 5 St Catz Churchill 1 - 7 Robinson Fitzbillies for the players who was eventually warned by the ref- are desperate to try them after STOCK KERRIGAN Trinity 0 - 48 St John’s St John’s 1 - 6 Old Leysians eree after calling stand-in linesman Jesus 52 - 7 Girton Downing 3 - 1 Emmanuel reading the weekly advert.” Hartley a “nugget”, among other, 30 Friday October 23rd 2009 Sport Editors: Will Caiger-Smith and Olly West Sport www.varsity.co.uk [email protected] One of an endangered species? Olly West talks to former Christ’s student Steve Palmer, whose remarkable but little-known distinction is being the only Cantab to have built a professional football career since the 1970s

n the 28 July 2001. Queens Tractor Boys to the inaugural Pre- began a chant of “Walking along, programme for the 15 and 16 year suitable playing facilities, and he is Park Rangers FC, in admin- mier League. A move to Watford smoking a bong, walking in a olds at Spurs who train on day on the training field as much as he Oistration and fresh from followed in 1995 for a six-year spell Palmer wonderland”. release. Furthermore, the scholars, can. He is clearly unworried that his relegation to the third tier of Eng- in which he gained another promo- Indeed, what made Palmer so who leave school at 16, are made to remarkable achievements are not lish football for the first time since tion, then becoming the only Hornet popular wherever he went was his complete an appropriate qualifica- advertised other than by topping 1967, took the field for a pre-season to be ever-present in their sole work ethic. As one Watford fan site tion. The club also has a full-time annual “Football’s top ten clever friendly against arch-rivals Chelsea season in the top division, which raged when he was released, “As education officer on hand for those clogs” lists. with a makeshift side, the majority included a 1-0 victory at Anfield. if there could ever be a time when who do not make it to the glamorous Yet whilst he may have dealt with of whom had just met. Fellow Christ’s alumnus Maurice Steve Palmer wasn’t worth his world of professional football. Michael Owen in his day, the impor- A remarkable 3-1 victory marked Cox managed three seasons for wages, when he wouldn’t do what It has been a full cycle back to tant issue remains unsolved: could the beginning of an upturn in for- Torquay United in the late 70s but was asked of him without a murmur the classroom, at least partially, Steve Palmer make a crucial saving tunes which resulted in promotion “The Professor’s” achievements are of complaint.” Understated maybe. although Palmer’s role principally tackle facing a failing computer in after three seasons. particularly exceptional consider- Under-appreciated not so. consists of ensuring provision of an essay crisis? Yet among the sound bites of ing a footballing climate in which Yet if his attitude could be manager Ian Holloway and other players are signed by clubs before a lesson for many modern-day players dying their hair blue-and- reaching double figures. footballers, the three-time Blue’s white as demonstrations of loyalty, According to Palmer, Academy genuine pride in his academic work captain Steve Palmer dictated mat- Performance Manager at Totten- is an example too. “Looking back ters on the pitch whilst keeping a ham Hotspur since retiring from on the whole experience gives modest profile off it, and was at the MK Dons, his final club, in 2005, the me immense pride. I see it as an centre of this mini-resurgence. reason he managed it was simple. achievement.” Perhaps it is apt that Palmer’s “I had a clear desire and ambition With daily training, and always in role at the club was so understated. to be a footballer. I didn’t see it as the knowledge that a professional Having graduated from Christ’s an obstacle. Both my family and sports career may await, it is not in 1989 with a degree in software Brighton and Hove Albion, who I unreasonable to assume that other engineering, Steve is, according to was with at the time, encouraged extra-curricular leisure activities the Times, “the only professional me to carry on with my education.” were limited. Yet Steve had other footballer in the modern era to Despite his achievements, Palmer problems. “I think the engineering boast a degree from Cambridge had no delusions of grandeur. “It degree was the bigger restriction. University”, although boasting was a bit of a novelty for the media I’d do my extra training, but I’d about it is certainly not something when I started but once you cross gone there with a purpose and I he does – he was not even aware of the line into professional sport you didn’t see any point in risking that.” his unique status. are judged on nothing but your per- One obvious question arises. Before joining formance. My ambition was to gain Why, given its illustrious list of QPR, Palmer had the respect of my peers and make sporting alumni, does the Uni- signed for Ipswich 500 appearances – which I did.” versity boast so few professional Town upon gradu- I venture that his education footballers? Football is, as Steve ation, winning may have helped him become points out, not played at a profes- promotion with the calm head and great reader sional level as are rowing or rugby. the of the game that so often made Yet can this explain the disparity? up for a perceived lack of pace “I honestly think it’s a question or elegance, yet he will not of numbers. Look at how many accept such a pretence. “I people play football in the country From the Archives wouldn’t go down that line. compared to those other sports. as well attracting interest from If anything, my ability to It’s quite simply very competi- ‘Pro Palmer joins rare breed’, Cambridge United and Ipswich study was perhaps due tive.” However, Palmer “would be Varsity 10, Feb 1989 Town. Following his expected to the same attributes surprised if we didn’t see another graduation this summer, he will that allowed me to graduate make it soon”. Professionals who have graced be devoting all his energies to learn the game.” I struggle to share his optimism, the pitches of Oxbridge are an making a league career. His university but what can be said is that the even rarer breed but Christ’s “Coming here is doing my background football world is gradually becom- student Steve Palmer is aiming to football no good at all and when I only came ing aware of the need for a more stop them becoming extinct. return to Brighton the fitness is back to formalised education for tomorrow’s Palmer, the last of his three always a problem, but I’m only 20 haunt hopefuls, especially consider- Blues as captain, is currently a which gives me a good 10 years him ing a success rate which Palmer non-contract player with his local of football and I’ve always got when estimates at “under 0.5%”. His club Brighton and Hove Albion, the degree should I ever need it”, Watford current role encompasses this, and promoted to division 2 last year, Palmer remarked. fans there is a classroom and education Olly West

Welcome to French Hockey. “En Angleterre, vous avez trois expressing horror at their con- The Sporting World I had approached my forage poumons. Non?” Three lungs sumption of the complementary abroad with open-mindedness, or not, and grateful for the kind beer and peanuts as a pre-match Week 3: France yet the training session with Lille words, I am no Gebrselassie. snack. Or perhaps in the fact that Métropole HC proved too radical Catching our breath for five min- of sixteen-or-so first-team mem- ate September – first hockey equate to pain, but it works. for me. I sought an early-season utes, we were instructed to fetch bers, ten were heavy smokers. training of the year – and Imagine my surprise when, transfer and wound up at IRIS our sticks, for what I assumed The panache with which the LI’m knocking a ball across resigned to an hour of torture, Lambersart, playing in the second would be some simple passing Lambersart club members trained, the damp surface, rueing my lack the coach sets up a novel drill to tier of the French National League. drills, or a small game. Nope. One- played and enjoyed their lives and of ball control. No reason to lose treat earlyseasonitis. Player A First up, a challenging series of on-threes. Yes, as in one attacker made me a part of was surely a sleep; the habitual autumnal rusti- propels aerial ball towards goal track runs. This was more like it. versus three defenders. A veri- reflection of the wider culture into ness is Karma’s reconciliation of the from centre spot. Player B stands Considering myself out of shape, table flair factory. which I was fortunate enough to inevitable excesses of the summer on penalty spot and attempts to and suffering from a mild ailment, I would see more evidence of be assimilated for six months, the break. smash ball into goal net first time, I was surprised to be consistently this prioritisation of exuberance mode de vie lilloise (of Lille). That This is not without remedy: over-the-shoulder, on-the-volley. at the front of a group of athletes over functionality throughout the said, in hockey terms I’m yet to repetitions of basic drills usually Not encompassed by ‘basics’ any some of whom had a handful of season. It was best illustrated be convinced by this approach. So ward off symptoms quickly enough. way you look at it. Confused? As international caps. Commenting on the way to the league match for now, I think, give me Dodeca- Pyramids, Diamonds, Tens, For- was I. This is beyond the realms on my performance, a team-mate against Nice, where I was ritu- hedrons, Eighty-sevens and pasta ties – polygons or natural numbers of the University of Cambridge. offered a physiological explanation: ally mocked by team-members for salad. DAN QUARSHIE Sport Editors: Will Caiger-Smith and Olly West Friday October 23rd 2009 31 [email protected] www.varsity.co.uk Sport Saracens just have the edge over Blues » Cambridge turn up the heat after last week’s defeat and give Saracens a run for their money

executed move in the centre of the The Blues’ pack set the tone again confi dently outpaced two players improve their defence they will have CAMBRIDGE 24 park. The Saracens’ back line on with a powerful scrum followed by to bring Cambridge within eleven the same problem week after week. the other hand pounced on their a slide-over try for second row Will points of victory. Greenwood almost No matter what you do with the ball opportunities and when they took Jones but now the Saracens were pinched another on the opposite in hand it is almost impossible to win advantage of their superior kicking being tested in all areas of the park, wing when he optimistically vol- games if you let the opposition score SARACENS 35 ability and Cambridge’s weak tack- especially by Freddie Shepherd’s leyed a wayward Saracens pass and multiple tries by running through ling to run in four tries before half decision to crash the ball up with chased it to the line but it wasn’t the centre channels and that is what time it looked as if another trounc- some real force. to be and the game ended a minute must be learnt. Ed Thornton ing was on the cards. At 28-3 down The backs orchestrated two tries later with the Blues still trailing. The Hooker Pat Crossley was on the Sports Reporter at half-time, a diffi cult second half before the game was out with only home team left the fi eld the stronger sideline this week where he had was on its way. one reply from Saracens. The fi rst side to a loud reception but must not a perfect view of the problem. He Vickerman’s half time talk must came when Jamie Hood danced forget the fi rst half problems. said, “we are leaking soft tries, and The Blues undoubtedly spent last have been strong because the whole through half a dozen tackles and In a way, the score fl attered the come December we can’t do that.” week cursing the whipping they movement of the game changed. the second when James Greenwood Saracens but if the Blues do not The Blues now have two weeks to received from Northampton, but EMILY MATTHEWS improve before they host Crawshays thankfully it looks like they man- Welsh on the 4th of November. aged to squeeze in some precious hours on the training paddock too. Despite the score, Monday night’s Line-up performance against the Saracens showed huge improvement in almost Cambridge: every area of Cambridge’s game as they put up a solid fi ght against a 1: Andy Daniel (St. Edmund’s) very professional Saracens side that 2: Jamie Gilbert (St. Edmund’s) included eight fi rst-teamers. [Andy Badcock (Girton)] 3: Tom In the fi rst half the Blues more Harris (Churchill) 4: Will Jones than matched their opponents up (St. Edmund’s) 5: Dan Vicker- front and dominated the scrums, man (Hughes Hall) 6: Hayden lineouts and breakdowns. The for- Henderson (St. Edmund’s) wards were well drilled, and showed [Tom Harrington (Wolfson)] 7: an impressive physical presence that Ed White (Jesus) 8: Ben Maid- was lacking last week. ment (St. Edmunds) 9: Doug Unfortunately the Blues’ back- Rowe (Hughes Hall) 10: Jamie line, suffering without Broadfoot Hood (Hughes Hall) 11: Marc and Reid, could not match their Rosenberg (Hughes Hall) [Miles pack’s performance and the first Daley (Jesus)] 12: Freddie Shep- half was epitomised for Cambridge herd (St. Edmund’s) 13: James by a passage of play in which three Greenwood (Hughes Hall) 14: successive mauls brought the Blues Ilia Cherezov (St. John’s) 15: Will within sniffing distance of the Balfour (Queens’) line only to be wasted by a poorly More missed tackles as Saracens break Cambridge’s line Best result in seven years but still stalemate » Cambridge Ladies hockey break their Oxford hoodoo with a frustrating draw

Dark Blues in their own twenty-fi ve minutes left to play when Sophie an ending characteristic of the game will be proud of their best result CAMBRIDGE 0 as Cambridge piled on the pressure. Palmer picked up a ball on the left as a whole. This was symptomatic of against Oxford in seven years, they However, it was the penetration and post was denied by a poor umpiring the Blues’ inability to convert pres- will be disappointed at being unable fi nish which once again let the side decision and a moment of hesitation, sure into points. Whilst the Blues to take the elusive win. MICHAEL DERRINGER down. As Coach Daniel Griggs sug- OXFORD 0 gested, “the ideas are there”. It was simply the end product that lacked. Oxford looked far from danger- Bec Langton ous. Mel Addy was instrumental in Sports Reporter the back line, making tackles in cru- cial areas to disarm a quick-paced Oxford front line and redistribut- Having lost 4-0 against Bristol the ing balls down the centre, allowing previous week, Cambridge were Cambridge to once again turn play eager to earn their fi rst points in the in their favour. The Light Blues BUCs Northern Premier division were able to pressurise the Dark against their dark blue rivals. This Blues effectively, winning a number would not be an easy task; the Light of short corners, and repeatedly Blues had suffered defeat to Oxford looked menacing on the back, par- at every meeting in the past seven ticularly when the quick feet of Jess years. However, as the narrow 2-1 Hume and enthusiasm of Rachel defeat at the last Varsity match had Quick were targeted. However the shown there was every chance that two teams went into the break on an Cambridge could prove their ability even footing. and even the score. Cambridge returned for the They started well, pushing the second half with tenacity but nei- opposition into their own half, and ther side were able to break the taking play into the Oxford D. The deadlock. Alice Ferguson at left build up, was, as usual, exceptional. back injected a new level of aggres- Ruth Graham used her skill and pace sion and dynamism into the game, to open up the right side of the pitch allowing newcomer Lucie Browning and, linking with returning captain to make her mark at centre midfi eld. Charlotte Brearley, trapped the Yet the chance that arrived with ten Intense scenes at Wilberforce Road 32 Friday October 23rd 2009 Sport Editors: Will Caiger-Smith and Olly West SportS www.varsity.co.uk [email protected]

Blues improve Steve Palmer: the but lose only professional again. John’s footballer of the dominate modern era with Jesus. a Cambridge degree Rugbyp29&31 Sport Featurep30 King’s crowned at Athletics Cuppers » Catz take the women’s competition as optimistic predictions are made for Freshers Varsity

DHANEESHA SENArAtNE can be equally as useful as excel- one of the surprises was to be had. Thompson impressed in claiming lence in this format. The would-be Fitz’s John Garrity, a Goldie rower, the 100m hurdles and triple, despite gold medal was his in the discus and launched a solid throw of 34.50 to being a 400m hurdle specialist. 100m, and he claimed “silver” in the destroy the competition, though he Amanda Smolinsky proved herself long jump, 110m hurdles and shot could not transfer his talents to the a talented fresher with a win in the put. javelin as Ray Malekout of Selwyn pole vault and third place in the high Mouland’s exemplary hurdling edged out the rest of the field. jump, whilst Nicki Moss had a good display in the sprint was one of the An expected pattern of victories run in the 100m finishing just behind highlights of the day, but he also for Blues athletes offset by some Laidlow and establishing herself as achieved points in the high jump surprising new figures winning a valuable member of the women’s and pole vault amongst others. events began to emerge, but the sprint squad for the year ahead. Supported by team-mate Nate quantity of Blues-standard perfor- Confident predictions were made Sharpe, who won the pole vault with mances was exceptional by both men and women’s captains. a Blues-standard jump as well as considering the time All that remains to be seen is if competing in the 100m, 200m, 200m of year. To have so the Cuppers champions can take hurdles and long jump, it was almost many Cambridge the intense pressure of Varsity inevitable that King’s would reign. athletes at that Athletics. Last year’s champions St Catha- level already rine’s faced a strong challenge to will have Oxford their title from women’s Blues literally quiver- captain Kate Laidlow’s strong Jesus ing in their team. Yet it was not to be, Laidlow spikes. allowed greater talent to shine. herself took the 100m crown but St However, what Lucy Spray Decathlete Josh Mouland, the Catharine’s the Cuppers title. really concerns Sports Reporter King’s captain, provided the day’s However, whilst only two Colleges captains and fans outstanding performance, so it was were ever in the mix, promise was alike is the fresher- no surprise to see his team finish in shown across the board. A competi- count. On Sunday, A sunny if blustery Wilberforce first position. Following close behind tive 800m which ended in victory Christian Roberts Road was again the place to be were Selwyn, who also boasted for Emma’s Rose Penfold in a (200m hurdles for the University’s sportspeople a decathlete, Ed Moyse, adding a time of 2.24.0 demonstrated that winner), Alex to attempt to win the first bit of personal aspect to the day’s compe- CUAC women will have a selection Jackson College silverware of the academic tition and showing that versatility headache for all the right reasons in (winner of the year. In two closely fought competi- the middle distance events. Rachel high jump and tions some “athletes” were complete Kitchen and Grace Geilinger, both second place beginners at the event, whilst for Top 5s of whom narrowly missed out on in the javelin many, this day was a chance to stake Men half-Blue standard, pushed each and triple a claim for the upcoming “Freshers’ 1) King’s: 171 (points) other hard in the 1500m, whilst the jump), and 2) Selwyn: 164 Varsity”. 3) Peterhouse: 118 steeplechase of the same distance Ismail Akram, The respective men’s and women’s 4) Clare: 107 was claimed by returning Blue Polly whose impres- Blues captains would have been 5) Queens: 95 Keen. sive 12.68 pleased with the turn-out on what Women Keen’s team-mate Clare Palmer took the triple was the first occasion the programme 1) St Catharine’s: 164 too claimed victory - in the discus jump, showed had been condensed to a single day. 2) Jesus: 141 with yet another Blues-standard themselves as It seemed that the ease with which 3) Peterhouse: 78 throw, and Laura Duke also reached ones to watch for the men’s 4) Fitzwilliam: 72 college captains could gather their 5) Selwyn: 67 this standard in winning the hammer. team. teams together in the new format Yet it was the men’s hammer where For the women, Lizzie Emily mAttHEwS