Forbidden Fruit Where the Art is Blasphemy, Why Cambridge Bestiality suffers from a lack of and Art opportunities for artists

No. 628, Friday November 18, 2005 The Independent Cambridge Student Newspaper since 1947 CHANGING FACE OF THE UNION As the Cambridge Union celebrates 3 successive female Presidents, how much has really changed? Unrestricted Number of Price of a pint in Current level of Amount spent Amount spent Number of THE funds uncontested the Union bar undergraduate on the upkeep on the bar in Heads of State (in Pounds) Presidents in (in Pounds) membership of the library this past 3 years visiting NUMBERS past two years year (in Pounds) (in Pounds) this term Cambridge 1.8 Union million 3>240% 16k <1k 0 Oxford 0.3 Union million 0170% 650k 30k 3

fought. The Union has been between a steelworks and a have not chosen to undergo given much attention over the brothel, the speakers for the any kind of significant build- LEADER past three years for the con- last few years have been dis- ing renovations in recent his- Feature troversies surrounding its tinctly underwhelming, and tory. Jenni Scott, current he Cambridge and elections. But no regard has the whole place is presided Cambridge Union President, TOxford Unions are been given to its withering over by an ambience of explained that the Oxford Cambridge’s unique institutions. state as an institution, to its treachery and backstabbing.” Union have managed their Independent, wealthy, presti- serious dearth of high-profile The Oxford Union, in com- funds “a hell of a lot better kings in gious, historically significant speakers, its relatively modest parison, appears to be thriv- than us” in the past. and armed with unparalleled membership figures, its decay- ing. Seventy percent of Four separate ex-Cambridge their international reputations, ing, underused building that is Undergraduates join the Union Presidents admitted to they both aim to provide now overrun by a sixth form Oxford Union, which holds a Varsity that the Union “serious- castles. opportunities to students that college, its lack of funding ini- termly ball for over 1000 peo- ly needs to learn how to run are simply unavailable else- tiatives, and most importantly, ple. The building houses its itself as a business.” A former We find where. the marginal role that it plays own nightclub (free to mem- President said of the current On Wednesday night, the within University life. bers), the largest lending committee that they hold “a the 190-year-old institution cele- Many of this year’s new library in Oxford and a DVD totally unrealistic view of all brated the election of its third members have expressed their library. The bar charges £1 per things financial.” Books are best successive female president “bitter disappointment” with pint and serves hot food at even being sold from the well- with the highest election what the Union has been able lunchtimes. £650,000 was stocked Cambridge Union student turnout in recent memory. to offer them since joining. recently spent renovating the Library in order to raise money Despite accusations of elec- President of the CU Liberal library and £30,000 on the for its preservations. Only £75 rooms toral malpractice, it was gen- Democrat Club Seth Thevoz bar. has been raised so far. >>page 9 erally recognised that the con- stated that “the building is Despite funds of over £2.8 test was on the whole fairly crumbling, the bar is a cross million, the Cambridge Union >>continued on page 13 www.varsity.co.uk Irrational behaviour features >10 Adam McNestrie is a scholar >11 Mark Lawrenson sport >27 2 Varsity News 18.11.05

news in brief Bicycle crackdown

Dr Fry of Anglia Ruskin Anglia Ruskin University is Students fined under new measures presenting Stephen Fry with an honoury doctarate. The Jamie Munk actor, writer and comedian, a CUSU Elections graduate of Queens’ College, Police in Cambridge have started will receive his honoury of the position in response to the to caution and fine cyclists up to degree at the Graduation Amy Hoggart and Alice Whitwham resignation of Martin Arrowsmith £40 for “dangerous cycling”. This ceremony next Tuesday at from the post earlier this term. includes riding the wrong way the Cambridge Corn Wednesday's CUSU Council Other issues covered earlier in down one-way roads, riding Exchange. Also, as part of meeting at Gonville and Caius the meeting included a failed without lights, and on pave- this week’s graduation cere- included elections for the coun- attempt at instigating a boycott of ments. monies, murdered ARU stu- cil’s new part-time executives. Coca-Cola products within the In the past four days, 37 fixed dent Sally Geeson was The first competed position was university, and a rejection by penalty notices and 20 court awarded a post-humous for Anti-Racism Officer, fought by Council of a motion brought by summonses have been issued to degree in Forensic Science. Nadia Syed and Jenni Woolf. Syed Selwyn's Adam Colligan attempt- cyclists. The officer in charge of Her mother collected the stated she was inspired by her ing to ensure policy passed by the operation estimates 30% of degree on her behalf on own sense of “being different.” Council is legal. those charged are students. She told Varsity that as a The motion seemed pertinent Robert Hodgkinson, 2nd year Thursday. Londoner, it was difficult to adjust because of persistent concerns from Trinity Hall, received an to an environment within which that CUSU is passing policy in official caution 10 days ago for Yes to pay changes she felt socially marginalised. clear contravention of Charities riding the wrong way up Trinity The trade union of By many accounts, Woolf’s law. However, members of Street. He now faces the Cambridge Association of emphasis on action won her Council will now continue to be prospect of further charges for a University Teachers (CAUT) favour with voters. She claimed to advised not to concern them- repeat offence, “It’s pretty ridicu- is calling for a "yes" vote on be “committed, experienced, and selves with possible legal implica- lous really – I’ve been crimi- promised pay structures but 120,000 percent passionate,” and tions of their decisions, leaving nalised for something everyone will insist on changes to gained 21 of the 30 votes cast. the CUSU board of trustees to do does and it’s a waste of police ensure "transparency and Standing for HIV and Sexual so ex post facto. resources.” fairness" in the way they are Health Officer were Julie Watson Keen to speak against The new powers have been implemented. Senior staff at and Edward Williams. Referring Colligan's motion was Robinson's implemented in response to the University are voting later to herself as a “listening ear”, Mark Ferguson, who later went complaints about dangerous Cycle route Cambridge street cycle map this month at Regent House to Watson promised more support on to baffle many by attempting cycling in the traditionally ‘bike- Cycle path showing the permitted routes for anyone with sexual health to amend sections of the Coca- friendly’ town. Clare Rankin, for bicycles around the city restructure pay as part of a Bus & Cycle Lane problems. She also plans to create Cola motion because he believed the City Council’s Cycling and national pay modernisation. the ‘Sexual Health Awareness them to be "illegal". Walking Officer, said she has Cycling prohibited at all times CAUT ran a survey across Group’ (S.H.A.G). Also on the agenda was the received “a significant amount of their membership and the When the issue of the avail- returning ‘No Platform’ policy, complaints from pedestrians - a The presence of officers has light, as well as stepping up oper- result was 97% in favour of ability of contraception in col- contentious in recent years. Woolf lot of which are related to the been noticeably greater in town ations against the thieves them- a yes vote, but to support leges was raised, Williams argued that allowing extremist flouting of the one-way system.” in the past few weeks. On selves. Although only two weeks other amendments. CAUT is blamed a lack of education political groups to speak in This comes only two months Sunday afternoon, many cyclists into the operation, a police advising its members rather than an absence of con- Cambridge would increase racial after the ban on cycling in the were stopped along Trinity spokeswoman told Varsity “we to vote against the dom machines for high levels of hatred and harm minority groups. pedestrian zone around the mar- Street, receiving lengthy warn- are very pleased with how it is University's Council's own unplanned pregnancy. Woolf was supported by Laura ket place was lifted for an 18- ings from the police for cycling working”. The officers now proposals. This led to further debate over Walsh, CUSU President, who was month experiment. She added, offences. All week student patrolling the pedestrian zone are the free provision of condoms. also anxious to prevent “it is in cyclists’ own interests” to cyclists have been warned of rid- primarily there to catch out cycle Cambridge regrets Vicki Mann, CUSU Welfare and Cambridge from being seen to ride safely, in the light of “con- ing the wrong way along Sidney thieves, but ensuring safe cycling Roaming mobile units will be Graduates Officer, argued that the offer any kind of credibility to siderable pressure on the County Street but most did not face is a secondary concern for them. collecting regrets from the budget simply could not provide such groups. Council to re-install the ban.” fines. She added that, alongside cyclists, public of Cambridge until for more, remarking “there are Their arguments were coun- Student cyclists saw little The police were eager to stress motorists are now being targeted 18,000 students here, and we tered by Dave Smith of King's cheer in prospect of the new that the fines were only a small for offences such as speaking on November 20. The “public have a lot of sex.” and Robinson's Jacob Bard- ‘crack down’ with some seeing it part of their activities involving mobile phones and not wearing conceptual artwork” entitled Last to hust was Jacob Head, Rosenberg, who held that giv- as a waste of everyone’s time. “If cycling and roads in and around seatbelts. “regrets” is the collection running for Education Officer. ing radical groups platforms it’s that crowded then you won’t Cambridge. ‘Operation Cyclone’, With one in ten road casual- and display of anonymous His plans included campaigns to would create an important be going that fast anyway”, one which aims to bring down bike ties in Cambridgeshire being regrets from the public in reduce photocopying costs and "opportunity for discourse" in second year economist told Var- theft in the city, was launched on cyclists and almost 50% of these order to make up a “socio- library fines, as well as the intro- which their offensive beliefs sity. In his view “the police have October 31. The police have been in Cambridge itself, the police logical database of time and duction of anonymous supervi- could be disputed. better things to be doing with marking bikes, both at colleges hope that the new fines will site-specific sentiment in the sion feedback forms. Head was The motion eventually passed their time” than catching out and in town, with indelible ink, result in safer attitudes to riding community.” On November keen to emphasise the relevance by a majority of 36 votes. cyclists. which shows up under infrared in the town centre in future. 19 the animated regrets will be publicly projected onto Windfarm appeal delayed Paxman slights media career gery and cancer care or manufacturing. He Big Brotherly Love the wall of the Guildhall and An appeal against a failed application for a In the new Cambridge and Oxford Careers denounced television as “dominated by Big Brother contestant Nichola Holt was Ladbrokes, Market Square. windfarm near Cambridge has been handbook ex-Varsity editor Jeremy Paxman production companies set up by superan- revealed by the News of the World this The archive can also be visit- slowed down. Your Energy lodged an rubbished a career in the media as “under- nuated Marxists and kept afloat by young week to be a £140-a-trick vice girl ed online. So far the regrets appeal against the decision to the paid, oversubscribed” with having people willing to work for no pay”. He advertising in the Cambridge Evening include “getting married too Planning Inspectorate but have been absolutely no “longevity in it at all.” He added “some household name newspapers News. The Series One fame-seeker young”,“I wish I had more asked for more information. Your Energy said that he saw “absolutely no point” in a are no better.” The editors of Careers describes herself as an “adorable blonde, sexual partners when I was hope to build 16 100m high wind tur- handbook which gave media careers any handbook approached Paxman asking him blue-eyed angel escort” called Francesca. younger” and “not having bines on land between Connigton and kind of prominence. He encouraged to contribute a profile and in response Her main concern as someone who flossed regularly” . Add your Boxwoth. However, they face strong Oxbridge students to steer clear of the received a frosty, disparaging email, which works from home is ensuring that her own at http://regrets.org.uk. opposition from local residents. industry and instead think about brain sur- they have used as the guide’s Foreword. mother doesn’t find out.

Foster granted bail Alathea Foster has now been >>page 8 granted bail until her court Controversy over licensing laws appearance on December on style 16. Foster is charged with The much-debated late licensing laws come into effect next Thursday, allowing attempted murder of Lucy some pubs and clubs to sell alcohol for up to 24 hours a day. Eric Barrett-Payton, Anna Sui Cavendish student Julie Conservative member of Cambridge city council, explains his reservations Simpson. talks to Benj While I believe that people should of consumption over a longer peri- the less self disciplined patrons of unreasonable. be treated as adults and be less od would, theoretically, contribute pubs and clubs. This is distressing There are many concerns about Ohad Seidler constrained by arbitrary rules, I to less drunkenness. to all those who suffer from the some of the details of this new leg- listen am not convinced that the new However, it is very much more adverse consequences and danger- islation, where there is insufficient licensing laws will not lead to likely that there will be an overall ous to the health of all concerned, opportunity to take intoaccount more problems which would off- increase in alcohol consumption, including the drinkers themselves. the local knowledge of the elected You can hear set some of the intended advan- otherwise it would be completely It also causes unnecessary and representatives of the people. For tages. uneconomical to staff longer avoidable expense and waste of example, there should be more Varsity on the I can appreciate that the opening hours. Then there would time and manpower resources for power to refuse applications, or radio on increased flexibility should con- probably be more antisocial conse- those who have to clear up after- withdraw licences, where there is tribute to less concentration of quences from the irresponsible wards. a record of regular public disorder, Mondays at drinkers leaving licensed premises and thoughtless minority, which Cambridge residents should be particularly in residential areas. 7pm. at similar times, which could be an would be detrimental to the entitled to peaceful enjoyment of I am in favour of less regulation improvement. There might also be majority of the community. their homes and should be spared wherever safe and practical, but CUR 1350 a reduction in the phenomenon of Noise, litter, inappropriate disturbance at unreasonable times rights must always be accompa- customers attempting to drink as behaviour and violence are just of night or at weekends. There nied by responsibility. Our free- much as possible before closing some of the more obvious mani- will, of course, be considerable doms require constant vigilance. our policy time. Spreading the same quantity festations of excessive drinking by debate about the definition of >> Letters page 13 The VARSITY IS DEDICATED TO BRINGING YOU THE MOST RELEVANT AND INTRIGUING NEWS AS AND WHEN IT HAPPENS. Week In THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN OUR CONTENT ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBU- Weather TORS, AND NOT NECESSARILY OF VARSITY PUB- FRI SAT SUN MON TUE WED THUR LICATIONS LIMITED. 18.11.05 News Varsity 3 Getting cold to reveal it’s getting warmer Students spell out the dangers of climate change in campaign launch AI MARLAND JAMIE from increasing temperatures Jude Townend on earth. William Connelly, Climate A colourful demonstration out- Scientist at the British Antarctic side King’s College marked society, expressed his concern NUS’s Campaign for Climate for the city as, “Cambridge is a Change yesterday. 20 very small area in terms of cli- Cambridge students bravely mate modelling. Predictions are donned beachwear and spelled very uncertain, East Anglia will out “Climate Change Matters” certainly become drier.” Dylan on giant placards in order to Banks, from the Young Greens raise awareness of the ever- described how a “united stut- increasing threat the world faces dent voice is essential for the from destabilisation of global cli- campaign. I encourage every- mate. A steel band accompa- one to stand up and make that nied the alphabetical display, as difference which will protect part of the bid to recruit stu- our world from the damages, dents to go on the national induced by irresponsible gov- Climate March in London on ernments and industrialisation.” December 3. Nick Hutton, from Campaign for A passing Danish tourist Climate Change urged students asked “is this what Cambridge to lobby, examine their own students do?!” whilst Ben lifestyle, get involved in local Morany from Trinity Hall admit- politics, join the big Ask and get ted “I’m a lot more concerned on demonstration to London. than I was this morning.” CUSU Green Officer Matt Stalls were manned at Sims said, “I’m really thrilled Sidgewick, Downing and New with the way the day has gone. Museums site by voulunteers I just hope students are inspired signing students up to the “The to join us on the Climate march Big Ask”, the Friends of the - it promises to be a day in Earth Campaign to force the which we can really make a dif- government to cut their carbon ference.” emissions by 3 per cent per Will Page of the NUS stated, annum. “The NUS environmental and Friends of the Earth are also ethical campaign agree with running a campaign to force the Friends of the Earth that the UK US Government to recognise Government must show real that “warmer seas are producing leadership to match their brave more killer storms”. words on the need to tackle cli- In the evening, speakers from mate change, and that it's clear Friends of the Earth, British that voluntary action alone will Antarctic Survey, Green Party not be sufficient.” and the Campaign Against Climate Change gathered to unanimously speak out of the “real threat” the world faces www.nusonline.co.uk Students spell out the dangers of climate change to passersby on King’s Parade Pubs anti-smoke ban New platform for shuttle

smoking is allowed other restric- "We have to put money in the till Meanwhile, in the south of the the private sector. Joanna Trigg tions will apply such as a ban on and if the money doesn't go in the Steve Elliott city, Addenbrooke's Hospital is There are also plans to allow smoking at the bar, or smoking till because people can't smoke, reckoned to generate19,000 car generous space for bicycles on Government plans for a partial being restricted to sealed rooms. we will have to capitalise on food Cambridge's train station could journeys daily - a station has trains. Although commuters ban on smoking in pubs have Landlords are concerned that trade. People won't be able to gain an extra platform as part of long been proposed andcould be appear satisfied with this devel- been labelled “half-baked” and trade will suffer and, with over 20 have a pie, pint and cigarette, and a rail shuttle service between realised as part of the RLW plan. opment, some are blaming sta- “anti-competitive” by Cambridge pubs in Cambridge city centre, are so we'll need the brewery's help to Addenbrooke's and Waterbeach, Cambridge's single 366m tion officials and compiling peti- landlords. worried that an already competi- increase food trade." according to plans made by a (1200ft) platform, commonly tions as they are often told to Under the Government’s tive market will become harder to Yet Paul Wells, managing direc- consortium including St. John's believed to be England's longest wait in the rain for a seat on Health Bill all pubs serving food thrive in. tor of brewers Charles Wells, College. (though that title in fact belongs early morning trains to King's must impose a ban on smoking by John Halsey, landlord of The anticipates a 25-30 per cent reduc- RLW Estates, a group formed to the platform at Gloucester), Cross while carriages are cou- the summer of 2007. Even where Castle Inn in Castle Street said, tion in trade if the ban goes ahead. by St. John's, together with an could be complemented by an pled. He said "The proposal to ban insurance group and a local "island" platform. This will However, this inconvenience smoking has been attributed to a developer, is planning a devel- effectively add two places for does not seem to match that concern for health. But with opment in Waterbeach, 6 miles trains to stop, potentially dou- imposed by the Railway Act of exemptions allowed in private north of the city centre. This bling the capacity of the station, 1844, which gave the members' clubs and pubs that do would be complemented by an at a cost of £17.7 million. This University powers over any use not serve food it's obvious that increase in trains running from cost will be largely met by the of the trains by its members, and health is not a central factor.” Waterbeach to Cambridge. Government, with help from prohibited arrivals on Sundays. HANNAH FLETCHER Dan Lacey, manager of the Fort FLETCHER HANNAH St George Pub on Midsummer Common, believes that such a ban could actually have negative implications for people’s health. He said: "By having a smoking ban we will be going back to the dark ages, with smoky bars just selling drinks - that will be even more unhealthy than it is now.” There are approximately 13 million adult smokers in the UK and Cambridgeshire GP Paul Sackin believes that "A lot of smokers welcome a total ban because most of them want to stop and they find it very, very diffi- cult". Yet one student smoker said “I always have a cigarette when I drink. I don’t think I would go if I couldn’t smoke - it would be too antisocial to stand outside”. But Adam Ward, co-owner of the Fountain Inn on Regent Street, remains optimistic. He told Varsity that “To be honest, on a busy night most people go outside to have a fag anyway”, and believes that the ban “would make it better for the food”. MPs are expected to discuss the proposals this month. The Castle Inn on Castle Street Cambridge Rail station: will soon run a new shuttle service to Waterbeach. 4 Varsity News 18.11.05 JAMIE

On Campus Discontent with MARLAND RAG Update China Debate travellers’ site The Big RAG Blag has got off Cambridge University Hong to a promising start. RAG Kong and China Affairs newspapers have been filled with President Simon Sprague told Society's annual debate Rebecca Lester and stories of drunken behaviour and Varsity that one student has against Oxford will take place Deborah Deighan girls intimidated by groups of already managed to secure a this Sunday. The debate will Residents of Cottenham have male travellers since their arrival bike and another had swapped start at 2pm and is being held voiced concerns about travellers’ in 2003. The most serious accu- a pen for a bottle of cham- in the McCrum lecture theatre, plans to expand their settlement sation made by the villagers was pagne. Sprague said that he the motion being 'This House close to the village centre. responsibility for the death of was very pleased with the believes that China will be a The travellers currently occu- Peter Stone, a local postman, on result, adding that "for the first world superpower in 30 years." py a 20 acre site on Smithy Fen December 1 2003. The police week of the first year this is a and are planning to expand have yet to charge anyone for good result". All of the onto an adjacent 18 acres. This the murder. All the travellers at "blagged" items will be auc- Poet Laureate in Cambridge would make it the largest trav- the scene cooperated with the tioned off at the Union on The travellers’ current site at Smithy Fen, near Cottenham village Andrew Motion read the T. S eller settlement in England. police in giving DNA, but the November 28th. Eliot poem 'Little Gidding' at Residents threatened to block- widespread consensus in the vil- will go on and on”. On the con- to force travellers off the land, Clare College last night in ade the roads after a contractor lage remains that members of the trary, the CRA have been work- but they want the development Sock success support of the local village of commissioned by the travellers travelling community were ing towards the integration of the of Smithy Fen to be strictly limit- King's College student John the same name. He joined five started to erect a fence on the involved in the killing. travellers into the local commu- ed to the 38 existing legitimate Syfret felt the need to other eminent poets and writ- land last week in preparation for Yet Mr Bristow assured Varsity nity. Local residents, however, plots. The CRA proposed a “land- announce to his entire college ers in an evening of literature further work. that from 2004 relations between feel that the village does not have swap” scheme, which would that the sock he had found in and music to raise funds for In February 2003, 800 Irish the villagers and the travellers the resource capacity to cope involve the South his washing had now "been the local church and commu- travellers moved to Smithy Fen, have been relatively harmo- with an influx of up to 800 new Cambridgeshire District Council reunited with its true father". In nity. Little Gidding, which is allegedly displacing the previous nious, despite some “hiccups travellers. providing alternative sites for the an email, sent to all King's near Huntingdon, has been English settlers. Travellers have around St. Patrick’s Day”. In rela- The villagers have voiced travellers away from Smithy Fen. undergraduates, he described the site of a Christian commu- been in the area since the mid- tion to the events of the recent grievances over the failure of the The council have rejected this as how he "grew somewhat nity for more than 300 years. 1930s, originally arriving to work weeks Parish Councillor Tony travellers to get planning permis- a solution, but have placed an attached to the little fellow - It was founded by a fellow of in agriculture. According to Rick Nicholas declared that “we are sion for the Smithy Fen site prior injunction on any further devel- his cheeky smile as I walked Clare College and became Bristow, a local farmer and for- not traveller bashers, but the fear to making permanent improve- opment of the site. Renewal of into my room, the little songs widely known when T.S. Eliot mer chairman of Cottenham factor is that it could all return ments to their plot. The CRAs the injunction will be considered he would sing to himself when visited in 1941 and was Residents’ Association, the local again and that a repeat of 2003 maintains it is not their intention on December 31. he thought I couldn't hear." inspired to write about it in the Rare discovery of fourth part of his "Four JAMIE MARLAND early farmers Quartets". Cambridge University scien- Laptop Theft tists have successfully extract- Child abuse study A major study by Professor ed and analysed 7500-year-old Michael Lamb, of Cambridge stealing a laptop from accommo- DNA from skeletons of the first University has revealed new dation in Jesus Lane. European farmers. The team evidence in child abuse. Lamb Dr Stephen Siklos, senior tutor sampled 24 skeletons from and the team of Israeli at Jesus College, insisted laptop Germany, Austria and researchers who joined him theft “was not a major problem” Hungary, from the so-called JAMIE MARLAND have looked into the factors in and “less than ten a year are offi- Linear Pottery culture of cen- disclosue of abuse to inves- cially reported stolen to the col- tral Europe. Cambridge tigative authorities. The study, lege”. He also stated that such geneticist Dr. Peter Forster based in Israel has looked to a incidences don’t usually occur said “In the currently available variety of factors including within college grounds and that worldwide database of 35,000 age, gender and relationship those living in accommodation modern DNA samples, less between victim and abuser. Students targeted in laptop theft outside the college are the ones than 50 Europeans today have The study is the first of its kind most at risk. these ancient farmer DNA to use a National data set of all Sidika Ulker A spokeswoman at Cambridge types.” child abuse cases in the last Police Station cited the ”Bluetooth five years in Israel, over On November 9 Richard Fuller, craze“ as one of the latest prob- 26,000. 26, pleaded guilty to burglary and lems. She stated “if Bluetooth on was sentenced to three years your laptop is left switched on imprisonment for the crimes. when not being used, someone Fuller was caught after one stu- with ‘Bluetooth’ on their phone Cross Campus dent woke to find Fuller poking can identify it from outside”. his arm through the window and Last week a laptop was stolen carrying away a £1,300 laptop. from Newnham accomodation, emphasised that Durham The student reported the registra- which the police are currently Harvard orgasms “wasn’t just bumping up its tion number on Fuller’s car and investigating. The loss is particu- Radcliffe Union of Students, state school admissions” to he was later arrested by police. larly distressing to the student as Harvard, played host to a improve statistics. Slightly Fuller also confessed to having the laptop contains several years CUSU’s campaign to light up Parker’s Piece continued on Thursday Female Orgasm Seminar last more than half of Durham’s broken into another student’s of work. An MP3 player and a evening with Cambridge students uniting by candlelight to illuminate week aimed at exploring offers now go to state school room the previous day and to digital camera were also stolen. the dangers of the unlit area and canvass for petition signatures. female sexuality. The seminar pupils. included a talk from the in the winter. their daylight character. But owner of a local erotic bou- A Jail Break too far? This seems very encouraging. sometimes they become your best tique who with, vagina pup- Two Warwick students, com- incidentally... Everyone treats insomnia with friends. You share a common bat- pet in hand, claimed that the peting in Warwick’s RAG jail- this broad and dramatic term as if tle against the anti- nocturnal type of condoms freely dis- break competition, managed by zoe organ there is something inherently movement, the students who ring tributed on Harvard’s Campus to stow-away to Brussels. wrong with it, as if it is not, at the porters when they hear the were unsafe. After “rigorous Unfortunately shortly after ere, by night, hundreds of times, a privilege. Of course the tread of night runners on the testing” Radcliffe have arriving in Brussels they had otherwise normal people sick nervous pre-exam species of gravel outside their window, the approved the condoms as their passports stolen and Hseem to walk around. In it can be hell on earth, but at “others” who like to think of a safe. were forced to turn them- most other cities, these would be, other times, people should calm clean reposing sports field lying selves in at the British to use a mother’s terms, kebab down about the fact that they down under the moon, or who Imperial dressing Embassy and ask for help to guzzling hooligans, strangers haven’t slept and just enjoy it. don’t feel the same relief when Imperial College, London, has get home. Amused staff at the liable to offer you more than Recently there seems to be a sort they wake up to someone doing introduced a dress code for Embassy kindly put them on a sweets, people not to be of spiritualist craze for keeping late night woodland flute practice. students and staff. Garments train back to Britain. The win- approached when in one’s pyja- oneself caffeine free and ready for (Possibly fair enough.) that obscure the face, such ning team were already in mas. Here, there is a civilised and bed all day. Little books are sold But they miss so much. There is as hooded tops, scarves and Egypt by this point. refined nocturnal community. If that tell you how to make your something so relaxing about slip- veils have been banned and you walk along the water bed into a “pure sleeping space.” ping into a night life, for week students are required to carry between 3 and 6am, you will find Hundreds of students go to bed five, say. In this parallel world so their identity cards at all Disgusting state at earnest photographers with little with bloated tummies full of near, there are no lectures, no times. This is a result of the St John’s glowing umbrellas, thrusting their camomile and valerian, and terri- sense of targets to be met before Cleaning staff at St John’s “security threat” since the College, Oxford, were cameras towards the river like ele- fy themselves with adult lullabies lunch, no terrible feeling of every- summer. The enforcement of shocked to discover faeces phant’s trunks that suck up the before lying awake in bed. What a one hasting around at library this policy was called into and urine in the college’s light. As well as these, there are waste of consciousness. On the rush-hour, making you feel guilty. question when one Security table tennis room at the the cake-eating, slipper-wearing nights before some of my A-level You can think. You can’t hear the Office let slip that he didn’t weekend. There were pools of ghosts that seem to haunt the UL exams I had drunk a whole jar of motorway; it is as if you were stop students with hoods urine on the floor, faeces in by day, who apparently retire to honey, the insomniac’s thick here five hundred years ago. You “because he was scared of the bin and a trail leading out march up and down the backs in wine. That was when I lived at can enjoy the warped and illogical them”. of the door into the rest of the the same grey suits. The students home, and didn’t have the chance satisfaction of being infinitely college. The Senior Dean condemned the actions as around are not just the maniac to discover ‘the nightwalk.’ more productive than the other Durham not just for “disgusting”, although admit- insomniacs, or the post nightclub Sometimes it does feel like the people around you. (Just set your public school kids ted that catching the culprits loiterers, there are also those people you meet at night are alarm clock for an occasional Durham University has her- could be problematic as there who can’t find enough time to do unreal: when you see them in supervision.) As the winter draws alded a 9 percent rise in is no CCTV and all college everything they have to in the hall a few days later, sometimes near, the black, star studded sky applicants from state schools members have open access day, and so spend from 3-6 doing they seem like dream people, or becomes so much more appealing as clear evidence that it is to the room. The college are laundry, posting letters, taking sometimes there is this silent than the half hearted day light quickly losing its “public employing an industrial out the rubbish with a fag in acknowledgement that you know smog- so- if you can’t sleep, find cleaning company after school reputation”. Head of deciding that it was slightly their mouth- as if it was just a them from the night, that you are some similarly challenged friends, Undergraduate Admissions, beyond the duty of their staff. normal early morning when the yet to meet them by day and make a flask of tea and go and Richard Emborg, strongly sky had turned black, or Russia make no presumptions about meet the rest. 18.11.05 News Varsity 5

Varsity asks: does fancying your supervisor help your studies?

Pat Sikes, an education lecturer at the Sheffield University, has written a paper in defence of pupil-teacher affairs, arguing that it is > A study to be released later this year wrong to always view the students as victims when they can often claims that sexual attraction can help you in be the instigators of the affairs. Sikes also suggests that about your studies: we ask Cambridge students 1500 pupil teacher affairs develop every year. According to Sikes, about their past experiences and whether "erotic charge" can be an aid to teaching. Her paper, entitled “Scandalous stories and dangerous liaisons: when female pupils sexual attraction can improve teaching and and male teachers fall in love" was inspired by her own experience: learning?... at 14 she fell in love with her then 22 year old teacher, now her hus- band. Dr Sikes says: "Expressions of sexuality provide a major cur- rency and resource in the everyday exchanges of school life ... and nowhere more so, perhaps, than in the seductive nature and 'erot- ic charge'often characteristic of 'good' teaching which provokes a positive and exciting response." Her paper cites case studies in weekdays schools, provoking moral outrage from child protection groups nationwide. Whilst not illegal for anyone over 18 to have affairs with their academic supervisors; students in Cambridge are divided as PETER FOX to whether a teacher-pupil relationship would be beneficial. UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN One anonymous student tells us her story: “As others shunned the dry dusty pages of Borkowzki's textbook of Roman law, I was captivated. I saw myself being fed grapes by a lusty, bronzed, toga-clad man. Who was this vision in the night? He was no other than my Monday supervisor. I was inspired. Instead of that dull dread before a supervision, Meeting with the Director of the Computing Service to dis- I felt a tingle of anticipation. As others willed the hour to pass, I prayed that cuss joint projects such as the DSpace repository that we time, like the subject to hand, would remain unchanging. So, is a liason of “I fancied my supervisor last year, she’s a fifth year medic. I think are developing to store and make accessible digital informa- this kind a smart move? Raise your temperature, It will. Raise your inter- sexual attraction is dentrimental – it can be distracting… especially if tion created in the University. This already contains data est, most probably. But raise your grades, it will not. Affairs of this kind cut it’s reciprocated. In my case, it was allegedly reciprocated… but it created by research groups and digital images from the UL’s too far into the precious time spent with the diligent law student's true fated went no further!” manuscripts. We are constantly adding new material and lover, the library. But if you chose to dabble, volenti not fit iniuria!” 3rd Year, Medicine are planning for the day when theses can be submitted electronically. “Relationships with people who you work with are bound for trou- “I fancied the pants off mine and spent hours looking at his pictures ble. Whilst its not illegal to have an affair with your supervisor, as on his website and then got paranoid he’d somehow be able to see would be the case at school, I can see it could lead to some compli- how many times and who had been viewing his site. I’ve always Tuesday cated scenarios. The supervisor / student relationship would surely fantasised about an affair with a supervisor, but no luck as of yet!” To the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew with some of our cause some problems in the long-term. I’d certainly feel inferior if 2nd Year, Theology manuscripts for a fundraising event hosted jointly by the we’d started out in those roles.” UL and Kew. Much of my time is spent raising money to 1st year, English “I worked harder last term because I fancied mine: until he had left augment what we get from the University. Without it the his boxers out to dry and I was completely distracted. It was so Library would not be able to do many of the things that are "I've never been attracted to a supervisor at Cambridge, but I'd quite obvious what I was looking at - so embarrassing. I think that sexu- expected of us, nor would we have had the extensions that like to have one I did fancy - I think it would make me work a lot al attraction does not necessarily have to be avoided but it is diffi- are essential to allow us to accommodate the constantly harder. My mum actually married one of her teachers from school, cult to see how it can be anything but distracting” growing collections. Don’t let anyone try to tell you that so I'm no stranger to teacher-pupil romance." 2nd Year, History the book is dead! 2nd Year, Law Wednesday In London again all day for a meeting at the Department watching University Challenge Early last Friday morning an ine- for Culture, Media and Sport. I represent the universities of therein – if they could “put on a briated reprobate known to the Cambridge and Oxford on the Legal Deposit Advisory film.” They then proceeded to police as "Mr Blue" was arrested at Panel, which advises the Minister on the regulations need- insert a cassette, upon which a “ his room in John's. The Bishop ed to bring electronic publications under legal deposit. It is bizarre ethnographic film was SHE ENTERED gained exclusive access to CCTV a joint group of librarians, publishers and ‘independents’ taped. The perturbed TV watchers THE LECTURE HALL footage taken in Bridge Street and, so far, is working with great unity of purpose. left in boredom. The shocker came COMPLETELY NAKED, which shows Blue stumbling crab- when one unsuspecting member APART FROM A like into view, bouncing painfully of the University Challenge SERIES OF FETCHING off walls and a pillar-box. On Thursday watchers returned to get his bag, sighting a shiny BMW parked Chaired a meeting of the Information Strategy Task Force, which he had left in the room. It SWEAT-BANDS innocently on the curb, Blue hesi- which is looking at ways to streamline the creation and turned out that the ethnographic ON EVERY LIMB tates swayingly, deliberates and management of information within the University. Then film was merely a decoy. What the then runs full-pelt over the car. lunch with the directors of Library Services and Computing As the actress group of students had actually Landing painfully flat on his face from Imperial College London, who want to pick our brains intended to watch was now dis- the drunkard struggles to his feet about DSpace (see Monday), as Cambridge now has the said to the played in all its foul glory: ‘No and lurches on out of shot. Blue largest installation in the world. Lube Anal Fisting 4’. was traced by CCTV to his door Bishop of Ely... ”with the words “the only bush I and removed minutes later by the It has come to light that an trust is my own,” and promptly police. He was reprimanded next Friday A group of graduate students at a American graduate student decid- shook hands with the flustered morning for laughing at his own A day of meetings. Things covered include approval of prominent Cambridge college ed to spice up a Part II Maths lec- and patently tumescent fellow at CCTV cameo. It is suspected the designs for the next exhibition poster (Dante, opening in were last week implicated in a ture. She entered the hall com- the lectern. The (again predomi- anarchic antic was a last-ditch imi- January), our strategy for digitising more parts of the col- rather hardcore scandal. Our pletely naked, apart from a series nantly male) University proctors tation of his accomplice, known to lections and making them accessible on the web, an source in the MCR can reveal that of fetching sweatbands on every issued a statement saying that police as "The Brazilian Job" who approach to getting donations from external users of the the graduates in question invaded limb. She then approached the they will not shirk from the oner- apparantely prefers defecating on Library, and a potential gift of manuscripts. In between I catch the common room and asked its front of the hall, greeted the pre- ous task of a series of rigorous affluent bonnets to running over up on paperwork and email. denizens – who were listlessly dominantly male group of geeks identity parades. them.'

or a moment she hung in DA SOPHIE sweetest. the doorway, skin a sickly “Thas’ just as well” she said, yellow in the streetlamp crumpling onto a stool at the

F VIS light beyond. From the wild counter, legs flailing, arms fold- rolling of her eyes in her head ed out and pressed against the and the effortless grace with glass for grip. Hunched forward which she stumbled in and col- and growling like a sleeping lided with my table I could see lion, she fumbled in her bag for she was more than a little tight. cigarettes. She began to swear A cigarette hung loosely from softly under her breath and her lip as she picked herself off after a few tense moments pro- the floor, fixing me with those duced a fresh cigarette and wide, opal eyes. lighter. “‘Scuse me” she said,through Brushing her hair away from a sputtering cloud of ash, “your her face, she leant close to the table appears to be in my way” flame, failing each time to catch Sophie, my beautiful Sophie. light to her cigarette. I had imagined this moment In an instant, something clothes…are you lookin’ t’arres’ Suddenly something caught a hundred times before, but turned in her addled brain, me?” her attention, and she spun never in my dreams had she recognition shone through her There was something won- around to face me. held my gaze as she did now: expression. derfully childlike about the The chrome lighter flew from Nick Gerrard continues from last week. one hand planted firmly in my “I know you” she said, slip- slurred words that slipped her hand and hit me in the eye. spaghetti, the other squeezing ping up to her elbow in my between her lips. I wanted to Next week, you can. the last gasp from the Gauloise pulverised plate of pasta, “I see hold her and nurse her back to Email your 400 words to [email protected] planted between her rosy red you…here…eatin’ on your sobriety, wrap her in cotton lips. own. You a special?” wool and take her away for by 6pm on Monday 21st She was a classy girl, no I shook my head, confused. ever. and if we think your continuation is the best doubt. She had my rapt atten- “A what?” “I can assure you I ‘m not” I then we’ll print it here. tion. “A special, vice squad, plain told her, smiling my very 6 Varsity Features 18.11.05

I know this is a little early but I’ve decided that if I am to make it to the Trinity may ball this year I am going to need to put in some serious planning time. So far I’ve come up with Plan A, Plan B ROOMS WITH and Plan C. Would you care to enlighten me?

Certainly. Plan A is beautiful in its simplicity; using your advice from last week I am going to use Facebook.com

to attempt to make friends A VIEW with everyone who goes to ...AND A WIDESCREEN TV. AND A GRAND PIANO. AND HAND-PAINTED

Trinity. Particularly the ladies – they have a soft spot for me. FRESCOES. JOE SCHUTZER-WEISSMANN AND ROSIE IBBOTSON Not that I doubt your abilities ” with the ladies but perhaps it GO IN SEARCH OF SOME OF THE BEST ROOMS IN CAMBRIDGE would be wise to run through Plan B? he holy curious of organised and tidy. We have not juggle work, play, dissertations his. As is noted of Douglas enquiry,” as Einstein ascertained whether this orderli- and hangovers if your surround- Adams, the very room you occu- This is where you come in. “Tcalls it, is surely a good ness was the result our intimi- ings are more capacious and py as an undergraduate can I’ve heard that if you don’t reason for being at University. dating investigation, or a natural beautiful than the average ter- promise a brilliant and prosper-

go to Trinity a certain Another is to have, often for the component of such stunning LORD BYRON raced house. All of our room- ous future. We envy these lucky number of tickets are made first time, “a room of one’s rooms. We strongly suspect the owners confirmed this. And it is undergraduates their present. available on a first come own.” And the natural product latter - it is surely much easier to KEPT A LIVE in rooms like these that great The results of our university-

first served basis. The only of their sum is the desire most of spend time arranging bowls of things occur. Stephen Fry wide survey have been carefully problem is that they don’t us harbour to poke our noses fruit and doing the washing up if BEAR IN befriended Hugh Laurie over narrowed down to what we tell you where to get them into other peoples’ rooms, to you live in a fifteenth century chess matches in his Queens’ believe to be the very best rooms from until the last minute. I compare, admire or lament their palace. Likewise the demeanour HIS TRINITY“ room, Wittgenstein attacked in Cambridge. The criteria run need a quick way to get lot. Ever at your investigative of our room-owners seemed Popper in a King’s suite, and in not only to the size of the rooms, directions to anywhere in journalistic service, now Varsity universally relaxed, their friends ROOMS his John’s “nook” Wordsworth but to their history, unique fea- Cambridge. welcomes you back to the best were always popping in and out was kept awake by the “College tures, views and location. Getting directions online has rooms in Cambridge. like an American sitcom and kitchens [which] made/A hum- Character is considered para- been possible for many years We were amazed in our inves- third-year stress was nowhere to ming sound, less tuneable than mount. The four rooms show- from sites like www.theaa.com tigations to find rooms so well be seen. Apparently it is easier to bees”. Byron kept a live bear in cased here have it in spades. and www.mapquest.com. The quality of written directions has grown steadily to become quite reliable but the interfaces have traditionally MAGDALENE been quite clumsy to use. In the last year Google and Yahoo have entered the fray with fancy new ways to THE TAPESTRY interact with maps online. Both services let you drag the map within the browser ROOM window and zoom in and out very quickly to different places A startling surprise behind century Laurence on the route. an unassuming door: the Llewellyn-Bowen. walls of this modestly sized So which one should I use? room are frescoed with Where: Thompson’s Lane I would recommend Google mock tapestries and Envied for: its frescoed maps. The Yahoo service is friezes. The accomplished walls preserved behind only just out of a testing paintings are preserved bendy sheets of Perspex. phase and can operate a little behind huge sheets of Ideally suited to: The sluggishly at times. Google Perspex whose distorted Humanist scholar also has another card up its reflections are sleeve: if you click on the complemented by mirrored Claire Anholt loves her “Hybrid” button in the top alcoves beneath carved little-known secret, is Hand-painted Italianate frescoes right hand corner of the map a wooden canopies. The curious about its satellite image will be history of this room varies mysterious history and displayed with road names from one occupant to the enjoys its faded Italianate RATINGS and your route overlaid. This next. Current theories grandeur. She sums up the Functionality: 6 can help you get a picture in hold that a tortured room as being “Kitsch-in- Character: 10 your mind of what the area student did the daubing, a-cool-way, distinctive-in- Location: 6 your aiming for looks like. but we suspect it is the a-mad-way, confusing- work of an eighteenth- when-drunk!” Overall: 7 Ahh… This might also be useful for Plan C. Claire’s meticulous decoration mirrors the fine hand-painted walls Oh really, what’s Plan C? Truly, this is a ground- Where: Queens’ Old Court Full aerial assault. THE TIMBERED floor period piece of Envied for: Its beautiful, It’s funny that you thought of a QUEENS’ stained oak fantasy. half-timbered Medieval military style operation as Ancient beams frame a great hall Google have got into trouble ROOM spacious ground-floor Ideally suited to: The gen- along these lines before. room in the heart of trified rock star South Korea were horrified to Queens’. Unfortunately find that some of the locations there are no en-suite facil- Guy Aitchison Cornish and layouts of their sensitive ities, and the bedroom is clearly loves this room’s military installations appeared only big enough to swing antique armoires, laments on Google Earth for all the the very smallest of cats, the lack of an en-suite world to see. Google Earth is but under the Harry facilities and is even now a downloadable program that Potter-esque spell of these getting quite used to feel- allows you to browse around a ancient timbers, such mug- ing like little more than globe constructed out of gle concerns seem magi- the backdrop to Japanese satellite images. The interface cally to vanish. We were tourists’ snaps. is very slick and has the also highly impressed by advantage of recently being the fine array of antique updated with high quality furniture, which perfectly imagery for Cambridge that complements this venera- has not yet made the Google ble relic. Maps site.

http://www.theaa.com/ RATINGS http://www.mapquest.com/ http://maps.google.co.uk/ Functionality: 6 http://earth.google.com/ Character: 10 http://maps.yahoo.net/ Location: 8 Overall: 8 Doug McMahon Guy finds the Playstation the perfect modern prop in this medieval playground. 18.11.05 Features Varsity 7

THE TRIPLE BEST OF ST. JOHN’S SET THE These three very lucky live up there were the true being “fun, wonky and spa- Johnians share this not-so- jeunesse doree; they had no cious - basically opulent!” REST humble abode, featuring a spots, spoke in complete sen- Later, Jack asked us to omit to vast, panelled living room, tences, wore their sunglasses mention the fact that he had which leading on to a family- on the top of their heads with- described the room as ‘opu- sized kitchen. A private stair- out them slipping off, never lent,’ for fear that it might case also leads to bedrooms ever spilled beer on their seem “arrogant”. Yes it might, and a capacious bathroom. trousers, walked out with girls Jackie my lad, but you’re at Ideal for parties, dinners, film from Newnham with long John’s - isn’t that what you’re showings and general living of shiny hair and firsts in Part I here for? Anyway, we feel that the high life. Classics, and were destined for Jack’s descriptions - see also “It serious jobs in the City or the is the best undergrad room in Where: Old Court media. They would amass John’s, potentially in Envied for: being “too good huge fortunes, and years later Oxbridge” are something of an for students” repay their debt to the College understatement - this is the Ideally suited to: the Johnian with a discreet but hefty stuff of Cantabrian Frat Boy Lord of the manor- and this oak-panelled place is just a bedroom. (or Douglas Adams) endowment, while the rest of dreams. us could only ponder how life The 2005 St. John’s College could have been so different magazine notes that had we lived in there…” RATINGS KING’S “[Douglas] Adams spent his Functionality: 9 With a picture postcard for a third year in that Versailles of Jack Brewster, Jack Westwood Character: 8 view, we feel the interior of SJC rooms, the magnificent and Alex Groot, the room’s this room in Bodley’s is ‘triple set,’ which we all occu- current occupants, are (slight- Location: 8 inconsequential. Then again, pied in our wildest fantasies. ly) more reserved, describing Overall: 8 the fact that there was run- The guys who actually got to their two-storey palace as ning water and electricity came as a welcome surprise to this lucky King’s student.

A mini-bar and lava lamp - could this be a more student room?

ST. CATHARINE’S This machine for living per- fectly suits the modern man. A mezzanine floor sensibly separates working from living space, and both are amply lit by a functional strip window. For once, Ikea lighting actu- ally looked appropriate.

The triplets take a break as they try to fill out “possibly the best accommodation in Oxbridge” Widescreen, surround sound and DVD: the bare necessities, really GONVILLE & CAIUS THE TURRET ROOM The highest room in Cambridge is reached by a tight spiral stair. Once nego- RATINGS tiated the room reveals a SELWYN spectacular panorama down The Golf Course - a barn- Functionality: 5 King’s Parade to King’s like arrangement of beams Character: 8 Chapel and the other way and trusses roofs this room. Location: 10 over the quads and spires of Nick Devlin says that “Being John’s and Trinity. Once able to play golf in one’s Overall: 8 again, living the high life room is surely a must.” comes with its disadvan- Luckily for him he can putt Cambridge as you’ve never seen it - and probably never will. tages, most noticably the from his living-room into an stairs. But here too, the alcove-bedroom. spectacular assets of the room far outweigh such lowly concerns. Brideshead Revisited’s Anthony Blanche would weep with envy. Where: Tree Court Envied as: The crow’s nest of Cambridge Ideally suited to: The voyeur

Jonathan Todd feels himself intimately part of Cambridge, relishes his CORPUS CHRISTI unique view, enjoys sunsets Putting your oar in your room and people-watching and suggests, alongside serious muses on the possibilities of dedication, a very large room. water-bombs and Senate House leaping. He regularly Note the rather masculine welcomes back alumni keen tone here, offset by the view to show off their old room through large Medieval win- to incredulous grandchil- dows and a good selection of Jonathan’s room viewed from prayer-flags and fruit. Living the high life - Cambridge opens out beneath the Caius eyrie for Jonathan Todd Great St. Mary’s Church dren. 8 Varsity Features 18.11.05 FASHION NEVER SMELT SO SUI BENJ OHAD SEIDLER takes a trip with New York design queen ANNA SUI tepping from the elevator everything involved has had ry poetry, David Bailey’s photo- work: movies, travel, exhibi- Skirts’ exhibition, is one that is schools, you learn these things into the Anna Sui offices more loving thought and late graphs of swinging London, tions, music, the flea market. bound to cause further specula- on your first job. That is why it Sis like diving into a sea of morning dreaming poured into Bertolucci’s politics, Visconti’s The research is the fun part.” tion: “I always like my men to is often a good idea to get an purple. A long corridor lined it than a third year dissertation. romanticism and more tradi- That is not to say that Sui’s look like Keith Richards,” Sui internship at a company while with enormous perfume adverts In what the designer calls ‘the tional fashion references like research is sober, as she contin- says, and leaves it at that. still in school (often unpaid, but boasting pretty girls and prettier genius files’, Sui stashes pictures Chanel and Poiret get mixed ues, “I'm not really thinking But why did Sui choose to great experience and good for products compete with the mapping her thoughts. Dating and matched every season to about politics when I'm design- expand into a beauty line when your resume). There are many sparkle of many Tiffany lamps. from her idyllic childhood in create a gesture that is entirely ing. The world is so harsh, I everything is so unique? Was ways to become (or to be) a To your right is the studio. 1960s’ Michigan and her college fresh. It may be only Sui, think it's important to propose a there hesitation about making a fashion designer. Designers Crossing the threshold from days at Parsons School of Design Stefano Pilati and Miuccia Prada little optimism, a little glamour.” quirky brand so massly avail- work in all sorts of ways, some the commercial to the creative, in New York in the heady 1970s, who start their process with aca- After working for various able? “Not at all, I hope every- don't even know how to draw at white light strikes you like a ‘the genius files’ are the glori- demic – as opposed to conceptu- sportswear companies and one will feel it is accessible to all (though, the more you devel- scene change in a Fellini film. ously coloured threads from al or commercial – thought. styling for her friend, Vogue pho- them. If a dress is out of your op your skills the easier it is to Lithe young things drape them- which Sui wove her tapestry. “I feel so lucky,” explains Sui, tographer Steven Meisel, Sui range, how about a tube of lip- express your ideas to others).” selves over the most sumptuous The joie de vivre of Florine “that I am able to use whatever blasted onto the fashion scene stick?” Through her success For public appearances, Sui fabrics and delicate line charts. Strettheimer’s turn of the centu- currently interests me in my with a starburst of ‘rainbow almost always chooses her own Lace trim and ribbons trail from grunge’ and a concoction of designs, although she is also the desk of a researcher, who baby-doll dresses and men in prone to wearing creations by looks up with porcelain eyes skirts that was adopted by “I'VE ALWAYS BEEN her friend Marc Jacobs. If she and a ruby pout. Courtney Love to illustrate an were to shop with a Cambridge A whirlwind of images sur- era. Sui believes she “was defi- INTERESTED IN student, would Sui suggest rounds you, densely wallpa- nitely at the right place at the spending money on one luxury pered over immensely high right time. I've always been ROCK MUSIC AND item, or buying a lot of fun stuff walls. A rack of lace dresses interested in rock music and vin- VINTAGE DRESSES, from charity shops? “I'm a shop- emerges from the pinned up tage dresses, I think you can see a-holic, so I'd rather buy ‘lots of print samples and a mysterious that influence in my work.” I THINK YOU CAN fun stuff’. Buy a pair of tall boots black door seems to sink further Having won the CFDA Perry Ellis to tuck your jeans into for a and further away to the back of Award for new fashion talent in SEE THAT Russian Folkloric look” , on the the room. A desk appears and 1993, Sui’s contribution to the INFLUENCE IN MY pulse of the trend without sprouts baroque legs that curl look of the ‘90s may prove to be meaning to be, as usual. and twirl towards you, as the her most important contribution WORK When it comes to laments on tabletop swells with magazines, to fashion. Now Sui is seen as an how expensive clothes can be, fancy-lettered invitations and established doyenne of New York Sui is resigned to the fact that drawings. fashion with an established style some people will never get it. Your gaze is drawn upwards that includes precious ethereal ”with her licensing, Sui has “It's an old complaint,” she rea- as a library sprawls, book by dresses and artful prints, styled in proved that bohemian spirit can sons, “I don't think people can book, below a window framing a way that is provoking but still indeed live beside the mind of a really imagine how much it a New York skyline. The spines accessible. Where other designers shrewd businesswoman. costs to make a piece of clothing, cry to you with the words are criticised for being nostalgic All Sui’s work is the product especially on a small scale and ‘Halston!’ in neon blue, and and using vintage references, Sui of a restless, eager mind. Her particularly if you’re trying to ‘Schiaparelli!’ in shocking pink. is lauded. She was doing it before deep pensive eyes betray any make a quality garment.” Sui Next, a fragrance of cedarwood, it was a trend but, more impor- attempt to disguise this. Sui’s ultimately succeeds because of jasmine and roses swims in the tantly, when Sui does it there’s a biographies always mention her understanding that good air and she appears. meaning. Parsons, but they seldom clothes must, above all, have Raven, ruler-straight hair Known in Europe primarily include the fact that she left the quality and longevity as well as frames a flawless white face and for her six successful perfumes, course before graduation. Sui charming whimsy. a heart shape of red lips curl into news about a possible mens’ fra- believes that fashion can’t be a smile. grance sounded exciting and characterised as a field where The Anna Sui All that you have experienced lucrative. But there is actually you learn your profession in a collection is available in London at has been meticulously no such fragrance planned. classroom and go on to just do Fenwicks on 63 New Bond Street researched. Sui’s environment is Anna Sui’s image of men, exhib- it. “Most of the actual things you in London. More information is like any one of her collections – ited in the V&A in their ‘Men in need to know are not taught in available on www.annasui.com

isms that seems to define the first last of his whisky. of British prime ministers than cohort – a purposeful delivery, a “The biggest compliment for the inevitability of the relation- All the definite conviction in his senti- Tony Blair,” he declares, “is that ship. Hugh Grant in Love Actually ment, an unalienable belief in the Tories now want to be him.” they are not. Answers the project. But there’s some- Diplomatically, he says he There is no denying Gould’s thing strangely reassuring, some- admires Gordon Brown too, political acumen. It might in fact thing affable about him. He’s not although he clearly doesn’t foster be an idea to put some bets as polished as Blair; he looks a the same dizzy adulation for the down on some of his predictions. little dishevelled in his suit and Chancellor. He is a “prodigious” Despite the fact that he joined has a habit of stretching his arms politician and the transition from the Labour Party at the age of high above his head when he Blair to Brown will be a “very sixteen and his screen saver at answers a question. smooth” one. the last election read ‘Another Philip He’s less arrogant than Not many people in the seat won, another Tory beaten’, Campbell or his cockiness is at Westminster loop are saying that even the Conservative Party are least diluted by a personable at the moment and this state- seeking his advice. Michael Gould demeanour and a rather silly ment underlines Gould’s projec- Howard handed out copies of his sense of humour. Whenever he tion of optimism. The new New book at the last election as the by calls on a question he says Labour intake (David Miliband, printed, political equivalent of “hello” in a funny voice, and Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Pat the crumbs that led Hansel and Natalie once remarks that someone looks McFadden) are “all tremendous.” Gretel out of the forest. Gould is “a lot like Alan Milburn actual- Moreover, “David Cameron both rueful and mischievous ly”. (For the record, the person will never become the prime about this, “The answer to 1997 Whitty he was referring to was just a minister of Britain. Tony Blair is in that book. I wrote it to normal bloke and this was an will do at least another two years wrong foot the Tories for a few undeserved slur on his appear- and Gordon Brown will serve years.” ance. Gould is just that little bit At least outwardly, Gould unrestrained). doesn’t fit the authoritarian, f you told Tony Blair he This abandon doesn’t, howev- Westminster-centric stereotype was a stupid fucking bas- er, stretch to being controversial. into which Blair’s advisers are “Itard, he’d say ‘okay’ and You’d say he was ‘on message’, often cast. He speaks passionately move on. If something happens, apart from the fact that he him- “ about the need to reconnect MPs he lets it go.” self clearly plays a huge role in ‘NEW LABOUR’ with their constituents. Philip Gould would know. He’s defining the form and content of IS PROBABLY A Parliament should “sit all over been immersed in the adventure the Government’s message: “The the country,” the people should of New Labour from it’s moment nature of politics has changed. LEGITIMATE have “genuine involvement” and of conception – his book The We have to fight the next elec- ADJECTIVE BY “constant contact.” Unfinished Revolution is virtually a tion with respect for that change, Philip Gould speaks frankly aboutly New Labour This approach is undoubtedly manual for the process of mod- and the Prime Minister knows NOW THAT CAN related to the most striking aspect ernisation. His strategic poll that.” BE EQUALLY eight. Labour’s majority will paigns, he is often called into the of Philip Gould’s style of politics: advice has informed the policy The Prime Minister, it seems, increase at the next election and Democrat headquarters to give his dogged commitment to the and the presentation of the knows everything; Gould is lav- APPLIED TO the Lib Dems will lose twenty advice. project of modernisation. This Labour Party for nearly two ish and unrelenting in his praise GOULD AS TO seats. Hilary Clinton will be the He nonetheless regards Blair’s desire for ‘progress’ extends to decades. he was appointed to the for Blair. He describes him as next president of the United relationship with Bush as having everything. As he leaves he says House of Lords in 2004 and he “brilliantly strategic”, “boundless- GUACAMOLE, States.” been a necessary one: “It’s to do conspiratorially, “it’s a bit fusty holidays with Alistair Campbell. ly optimistic” and “incredibly ISLINGTON AND Gould is particularly adamant with the last war. America and here, isn’t it? Not really built for ‘New Labour’ is probably a brave”. Someone suggests that HOME TUTORS on this point; Bush’s replacement Britain have just got to stay interaction.” I can see his mind legitimate adjective by now that his association with him might at will not be a Republican. He has together. Any British prime min- working. How might he ‘New can be equally applied to Gould some points have made him feel something of a vested interest in ister would have done the same.” Labour’ Trinity Hall? It’s a legiti- as to guacamole, Islington and embarrassed or ashamed, “Nope. saying so: as well as informing I imagine he is right, but this mate verb as well, and Gould is home tutors. He has the manner- I love him”, he says, downing the ” New Labour’s election cam- might say more about the calibre one of the best at doing it. 18.11.05 Features Varsity 9

Mirror, Mirror 08. Eye-dolise Me

“The soul that can speak through the Tip three: Colour me beautiful eyes, can also kiss with a gaze.” The Although you should let your lips do way in which the eyes are highlighted the talking, a little colour on the eyes can define a person and a look. can add to a look. If your lip colour is Brigitte Bardot’s eyeliner has become a deep red then try a subtle but her identity, her image and her signa- warm shade, like a light gold shim- ture. So if the Spring/Summer 2006 mer dusted along the upper lashes. collections emphasised sensuous If there’s a hint of purple, then a lips, how can we also have eyes that dash of silver under the bottom eye- seem to kiss wherever they fall? lashes will give your eyes irides- cence. The MAC “pearlizers” are perfect for this.

Tip one: Focus focus focus! But only on one feature. This season Tip four: Trend setter there’s dramatic colour on the lips, so Fashion is ephemeral, style isn’t. If the eyes must be completely under- you’re self-conscious about your lips, stated. This doesn’t necessarily or your eyes are by far your most mean nude and boring. For the day- striking feature, then don’t worry time, a slick of Vaseline makes eyes about following trends. Experiment sparkly and bright. with different looks, if only because when you return to your usual make- up it will look fresh and exciting.

Tip two: Define me The look now is so natural that there’s Tip five: Finishing touches no need for eyeliner, so keep eyes With mascara, again steer clear of looking bare. If you’re a lady who really dark colours. Overloading your can’t do without eyeliner though, try face with a bright lipstick and dark to go for a softer, subtler shade, like eyes as well means you’ll be sacrific- grey or blue as opposed to a harsh ing the understated glamour of all the black line. Clinique’s “quickliner” in Valentino models in his Spring blue-grey is a double-ended stick Summer collection. Val’s gals were with eyeliner at one end and powder dramatically pale with a splash of at the other for softening and smudg- deep red on the lips. ing hard lines (£11 at Clinique). Fiona Walker Doyle

quick recipe CHRISTIE NAOMI

Salad of lightly smoked duck, orange and watercress with balsamic dressingI This quick and easy recipe is ideal for a lazy Sunday brunch. Beware however: it produces a lot of smoke. You may want to disable the nearest smoke alarm before attempting it, or the local fire brigade will be profoundly unimpressed.

I Ingredients I Instructions 0 - 5 mins - press 1 tbsp rock 2 large duck breasts (no fat) salt on the duck. Mix watercress 100g watercress and orange in a bowl with sea- 1 orange (or 2 clementines) soning and oil. Olive oil 5 - 7 mins - heat a little oil in Balsamic vinegar pan; sear duck 1 min each side. Rock salt, pepper 8-15 mins - cover duck with tin foil. Try to prevent any smoke escaping. I You will need 16 - 17 mins - Take duck out of the pan. Add some water to pan 1 large frying pan and let reduce; add a table- 1 bowl spoon of vinegar. When starts to Tin foil bubble, add watercress and orange and stir. Slice duck breasts relatively I Serve With thinly, and add any juice that runs off to the watercress. Crusty bread Good wine To Serve Photographed and styles by Quentin Jones. Louisa wears T-shirt by YMC, £40, Pants by H&M, £6, stockings by Japer Conran, £12 I Place watercress/orange/dress- ing on a plate and cover with slices of duck. Top with any A gleaming shape she floated by, remaining juice or dressing.

Dead-pale between the houses high David Norwell-Smith 10 Varsity Features 18.11.05 IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOUR ZOE SMEATON ponders the origins of our faith in all things scientific rancis Bacon (1561-1626), a modern world. This idealistic pic- the premises. And Hume’s argu- our beliefs that events are causally Trinity undergraduate at the ture of scientific progress however ment is centred around the fact related are merely the result of a age of twelve, was the first is not accurate, and what histori- that in our everyday lives we use custom or habit acquired through

JON LOPEZ F person to identify the role of sci- ans and philosophers of science inductive arguments to make pre- experience of events being related ence in society. He claimed “the always bear in mind is that science dictions about what we expect to in the past. He concluded: “All true and legitimate goal of the sci- is a social phenomenon, and, as happen. For example, whilst we inferences from experience, there- ences is to endow human life with such, is subject to human inter- would conclude that the sun will fore, are effects of custom, not of new discoveries and resources.” vention and interaction. The rise tomorrow morning because it reasoning.” So that “Custom, And it is not a light social picture I now have of science is far has done every day in the past, then, is the great guide of human responsibility that the sciences less clear, and the idea of a linear this is not necessarily the case life.” have to bear, for whatever your progression leading from one dis- unless we know for certain that If Hume is correct, he appears to favourite scientific discovery, be it covery to the next has been nature is uniform – something we have shown us that from a strictly penicillin, computers or our justifiably blemished.” cannot definitively prove. intellectual point of view, there is understanding of the origins of So what’s wrong with the scien- And as well as applying to most no rational justification for our use mankind, science is clearly impor- tists’ methodology? For the of our everyday reasoning, the of induction. In the cases of both tant to all of us and plays a crucial majority of scientists, a normal issue also extends to scientific rea- common-sense and scientific rea- role in maintaining life as we working life consists of proposing soning, in which scientists move soning, our beliefs that the future know it. from discussing a limited number will resemble the past are based on Widely considered to be the of instances, observed in experi- a fundamental conviction organised and rational academic ments, to an infinite number (custom) and therefore cannot be discipline, science is an attempt to encompassed by a theory. justified by any rational argument. understand, explain and predict “PHILOSOPHY OF Hume argues that this process Even Einstein once admitted: “The objectively the World around us, SCIENCE IS of induction cannot be rationally whole of science is nothing more and can be defined as ‘any area of justified. He says that when we see than a refinement of everyday knowledge obtained using, or ABOUT AS USEFUL a constant conjunction between thinking.” arranged according to, formal TO SCIENTISTS AS two events, such as morning arriv- But many philosophers of sci- principles.’ And it is generally ORNITHOLOGY IS ing and the sun rising, we are led ence are still trying to resolve recognised that the reasoning and TO BIRDS to expect them to follow each these problems so that science organised experimentation central other in the same way in the might be described as a rational to science are largely responsible future. But he argues that as it is process. for its success stories. impossible for us to experience the Perhaps we shouldn’t be worry- But is all the knowledge-gain- causal connection between the ing about all of this too much ing going on in laboratories across ”hypotheses and then ‘testing’ two events, there is no rational anyway though? Science is clear- the world really as rational as the them, through experimentation, reason for us to expect these ly successful in improving our scientists like to make out? A in order to prove or to falsify events to continue to occur everyday lives, and as Hume says, quick delve into the philosophy them. But even for the most rig- together in the future. we should not fear this philosophy behind it would suggest the con- orous of scientists there are He said: “When we look about which “while it endeavours to trary. One science undergraduate problems as far as the rationality of us towards external objects, and limit our enquiries to common who chose to study History and science is concerned. Perhaps the consider the operation of causes, life, should never undermine the Philosophy of Science in his final most well-known of these is the we are never able, in a single reasonings of common life, and year told me that studying this Problem of Induction, famously instance, to discover any power or carry its doubts so far as to destroy course had proved enlightening. described by David Hume in An necessary connexion; any quality, all action.” He said: “The image of science I Enquiry into Human Understanding which binds the effect to the Or in the words of Nobel prize- grew up with was one of a linear back in 1748. cause, and renders the one an winning physicist Richard progression from the earlier more An inductive argument is infallible consequence of the Feynman: “Philosophy of science basic discoveries, right up to the simply one in which the conclu- other.” is about as useful to scientists as cutting edge questions in the sion is not necessarily entailed by According to Hume then, all ornithology is to birds.” CHEZ trop cher Malt Teasers Chez Gerard: Review by Anthony Marlowe and Joe Schutzer-Weissmann George Orwell in his somewhat due no doubt to the mixed her- Conran, with blue, white and narcissistic stint as a plongeur in itage, is that they don’t do a lot shining metal. There are too a Parisian kitchen wrote that the else right, apart from the snails, many mirrors; real frogs avoid experience “destroyed one of my which they do better than the mirrors for reasons of historical illusions; namely the idea that French. humiliation. Here they create an nown in Gaelic as “Uisge evaporating spirit. as a rule there tends to less Frenchmen know good food We took them up on their uncomfortable backdrop to the beatha” (The Water of Puzzlingly (at first) many similarities between the differ- when they see it.” Orwell was Francophilic promise. The snails food which tends to be served KLife), whisky is no longer major distilleries are found on ent distilleries here, the archetypal champagne com- truly were excellent, the French with a rustic flair, i.e. on wooden seen as a drink for your grand- remote islands where the trans- Glenmorangie and Dalwhinnie dad alone. It is a drink with a port in of raw materials and being two of my favourites. munist whose echo was onion soup was more onion than carving boards. Unlike those of history almost as intriguing and shipping out of the product are The lowlands, where produc- overheard in King’s bar between soup giving rise to an intriguing its Parisian precedent the staff are complex as a good glass of hard at the best of times, and tion has always been legal two members of the King’s fork or spoon debate. Joe gave delightful and efficient, let down Islay. impossible the rest of the year. (hence there being fewer distill- College Communist Party into tradition and used his only by the speed of their kitchen Whisky is made from either However, this is because cus- eries here), produces very light arranging drinks: spoon, but it wasn’t easy going. And the wine list has an exten- grain or malt. The latter is the toms and excise men, rather malts, both in colour and Comrade One: Moscow mule or sive range of French classics. We connoisseur’s choice. It is pro- like college porters, are unlikely flavour. The adjectives often bloody mary? had a light but powerful red duced from malted barley to investigate activities if said used here to describe whisky Comrade Two: definitely the Burgundy which lived up to our which has been dried over peat investigation requires serious from here are ‘vanilla’ and bloody mary, the colour’s perfect. “YOU CAN’T DENY high expectations. fires, hence the distinctive taste inconvenience on their part! For ‘floral’; personally I find all found in many Malts. This malt this reason the origins of many except the genuinely vintage It’s good to see they deal with If Chez Gerard were a movie it THEY DO A GOOD is ground up and mixed with of the great Scottish malts tend lowland malts pretty dull. The the issues. It’s odd how some STEAK, BUT FOR would be the big Hollywood, hot water in a mash tun. The to be somewhat shrouded in most prolific region of malt pro- things end up gentrified: Tom Cruise running away from liquid that results is called wort mystery and tall tales, largely duction by far is the Speyside Communism, tanning, Notting SEVENTEEN QUID aliens, three star rating-type. It and is drained off to be fer- because most of them operat- area surrounding Dufftown. Hill, cigars, Kabbala, Jazz and….. YOU WOULD looks good, it’s got a simple but mented, a little like beer. The ed illegally in order to avoid Malts from here specialise in French brasseries. In George EXPECT THAT slightly confused and convoluted fermented wort is double dis- duties. This has however been very smooth and well-balanced Orwell’s day and sometimes in plot, and you’ve seen it all tilled in tall copper stills, a good fortune for whisky flavours including caramel and ours you can get a steak-frites before. Ultimately, you’ll enjoy process requiring great drinkers the over as the spirit mild coffee. Distilleries of note and drunk for about a fiver. it-but it’s not quite worth the patience and expertise in resulting from maturation in all include The Glenlivet and selecting which part of the dis- these differing conditions Cragganmore. Steak-frites in France is predom- The steaks are goo: the fillet was cash you’ll fork out for it. ” tillate to keep. The first develops quite distinct flavours. This is an incredibly brief inantly a plastic mat, plastic tender and perfectly cook and In a nutshell distillation gives raw spirit to On the islands to the West, summary of Scotch whisky menu, angry waitress staple. You the T-bone likewise. The sauces, feed the second which is where Islay, Skye and Jura, the malts alone and high quality whiskies don’t go to impress a first date. however, instead of comple- Where: Bridge Street. matters get complex. In the tend to have very earthy and from America and Ireland Chez Gerard harbours an unhap- menting the steaks as they When: Restaurant stops serv- second distillation, the distiller smoky peat characters, and are require description in them- py hybrid between a trendy should, let them down miserably. ing at 10pm. examines the spirit flowing from in fact generally known for selves. Finally, I am of the belief London wine bar and a side And miserable is the best word to Prices: £5 - £19. the still and keeps the middle being some of the most power- that reading about food and street bistro. It claims the “Best describe them: both the pepper- Food Highlights: Snails and cut whilst leaving the ‘foreshot’ ful malts, Talisker and Lagavulin drink is a poor substitute for steak frites this side of Paris,” its corn and the béarnaise were Steak and ‘feints’ to be redistilled with being prime examples. In the enjoying it – why not venture the next batch. Finally this raw highlands the malt tends to down to Cambridge Wine menu is certainly French made competently, but they Wine: Excellent Mercurey and fine Petit-Chablis spirit is put into oak casks for take on the smoother, less dra- Merchants and explore what inspired, but it fails to under- tasted a few days old. Béarnaise time to work its magic and the matic notes of heather, caramel whisky has to offer? stand the nature of its own beast. should never see a fridge because Ratings Food 7/10 angels to take their share of the and a light smokiness, although You can’t deny they do a good it splits, as ours had. Value 4/10 steak, but for seventeen quid you The décor certainly isn’t that of Atmosphere 5/10 Aidan Taylor would expect that. The problem, a French brasserie. It’s all very 18.11.05 Comment Varsity 11

ELECTION No One Likes A Scholar WEEK CAMBRIDGE UNION Jenni The start of a revolution from above PRESIDENT Scott

nits of alcohol: 10. Adam McNestrie Cigarettes: 20. Number Uof caffeine units: hun- dreds. Times been to am a Senior Scholar of MOORE JO accept the Scholars, what pur- Starbucks/Caffe Nero in the Trinity College. If you take pose do they serve? past week: oh, thousands. Inothing else away from this Trinity isn’t content with This is the typical diary of one article, I would like you to bestowing privilege; it wishes running in a Cambridge Union take that. Perhaps you’re a to celebrate it as well with an election. These are the times Scholar as well (I hope you’re absurd white tie ceremony in when you go out for coffee not) but if you aren’t, then I its chapel. The whole thing is with far more people than pride myself on being your a gross ritual of self-congratu- you’d meet on a Wednesday university-acknowledged supe- lation where the excluded night in Cindies in order to sell rior. 2:1ists and sub-2:1ists are them one thing – why you’re I am an egg with a Lion invited to press their noses up the best person for the top job. mark; a British egg to your against the glass and peer in at It involves weeks spent Romanian; a Fabergé to your our achievement. The College comparing how many farmyard. I am heaped high Council has failed terribly if Facebook friends you have in with emoluments, privileges the division of our community comparison to your opposing and status but it’s not enough; made manifest in this half- candidate, and months spent I deserve more. I want druidi- assed ritual escapes the atten- preparing for the big day. cal torch-bearing street parades tion of any member of College. This term saw two candi- in my honour, I want odes The College wants us to adver- dates running for the top post written (and not by that tal- tise our scholarships to prevent of President – Alyson entless Laureate, Motion), us hiding them like the shame- Thompson, the current Senior national holidays declared, col- ful secrets they are. Perhaps Officer, and Zahra Khan, the leges named in my honour, they're out to make us flounce current Entertainments proskynesis: the abasement of around Hall in our academical Officer. It was the third con- all before my tectonic Einstein- bands or maybe it would be secutive set of contested elec- dwarfing genius. They enno- better if the contemptible tions at the Union, beginning bled our Master, Sir Martin lumpen undergraduatariat with the hotly-fought Rees, for less significant were forced to display a sym- Swersky-Scott election in Lent, achievements, where the fuck bol of their relative tripos when I won the Michaelmas is my peerage? The mediocre ineptitude: a Star of David per- presidency by just 3 small egalitarianism of this place dis- haps or, less controversially, a votes. Last term saw Sarah gusts me; they treat me almost dunce’s hat. Pobereskin battle it out with as if I’m the same as everyone As I’m sure that you’ve Rupert Myers and Laurie else. How is a £500 prize noticed already, I’m a hyp- Fitzjohn-Sykes in another befitting of my achievement or ocrite - a venal, mercenary closely-run competition. This commensurate with my cav- hypocrite. I admit it. I turned term followed suit. All of these ernous, King’s College chapel- up at the ceremony dressed elections to date have passed, sized ego? So what if I’m like a twat, I shook the to a greater degree, without a allowed to walk on the Master’s hand, I banked the hitch, and could be seen to sig- Scholar’s lawn, I should be cheque. I am poor and weak nal a more merit-based atmos- borne aloft by my myrmidons so I sold my principles for five phere rather than slander and and carried across it on a hundred quid and an uproari- back-stabbing, which may throne. ous, opulent banquet. If I’d have existed in the past. I came here thinking that had the bollocks I would have In the Union’s illustrious Cambridge was the last refuge Where are my vassals, my College-appointed pulled a Brando and sent an history, I am the twentieth of hierarchy, that it gave due “ sycophants, those whom I can slap American Indian to decline the female president, and by the place to distinctions of status award on my behalf. end of this academic year, after however, the levelling, non- Eccentricity and American having female presidents in discriminating sameness of the around the face and call sirrah? Indians, that would have been Michaelmas, Lent and Easter, place is a damned disgrace. the way. If his headdress had one seventh of all female pres- Where are my vassals, my the institution of scholarships is an ideal like equality before they’re functional. ”I accept the been sufficiently elaborate and idents will have served their College-appointed sycophants, strikes me as tending towards the law where college and uni- salaried Fellows with their his name sufficiently ludicrous, term in one 190th of the my subalterns, those whom I the creation of such perverse versity authorities treat and wood-panelled rooms and I might even have made it into Union’s history. can slap around the face and characters. For me the ideal of esteem us without discrimina- haughty eating dais. I accept the trite, narrow canon of Although I would refrain call sirrah? the Cambridge college is one of tion; one with no insiders and the Master ensconced in his Trinity punting lore. For fuck’s from any deep comments on Alright, I actually think just a community of equals in outsiders. I can allow distinc- stately pleasure dome like a sake abolish the scholarships. society / Cambridge / girl about the opposite of that, but power, esteem and position. It tions of hierarchy when debauched potentate. I do not Don’t tempt weak men with power etc, I think it is an interesting point worth men- tioning, and should send a clear message to all those who hold an archaic view of the Union based on ill-conceived You, the UL, and Everyone We Know preconceptions. Getting involved provides you with much more of an Its time to explore some books, nooks and crannies education than any university degree ever could. It teaches you diplomacy, tolerance, organisation, management – Rebecca Heselton many of the tacit skills that n the surface, us third years get you’ve ever written. third years on the back and saying: Frank from the South Wing Three is equip those who get involved a pretty shitty deal. Our beauti- Then there’s the gargantuan matter “hey, you’re doing ok?” secretly shagging Linda in the tea for any future path they Oful, garden view, double rooms of one’s love life. Older Depressed by a perpetual singledom, room. Though not, obviously, in the choose to follow. cost roughly twice as much as a semi- boyfriends/girlfriends have buggered girls invariably purchase exciting tea room. Well actually… Elections can only be detached in Wimbledon and are still off to earn money, occasionally texting clothes and drape themselves sugges- And the latter group? If you thought described as character-build- not big enough for a self-respecting you with hilarious anecdotes involving tively around College, awaiting admir- dry humping in Cindy’s was bad, then ing, and that last wait in the dinner party. The exams looming at the Piccadilly line, and your initial ers. This tactic can sometimes backfire; the UL is positively pornographic. Union bar whilst the votes are the end of the year actually matter to foray into the fresher market leaves my cute pyjama loitering was only Robbed of the usual dating aides - counted is one no presidential some considerable extent and all of a you with stained sheets or a burning appreciated by ‘Special Jen’, the dys- mobiles and Hermes - we resort to candidate will ever forget. sudden whimsical whims from May sensation when you pee. Are there praxic, fascist and autistic lesbian. Not actual conversation with the objects of When I ran for president, Week return to haunt us in unexpect- any benefits of being a third year? quite the target audience but then I’m our desire. Witticisms are no longer we all sat in the bar, bottle of ed and frankly disagreeable ways. Well, at least as we sit in our rooms at Newnham so the plan was a bit of a the product of pennying but calculated bubbly on ice for whoever Take, for example, your end of term scribbling furiously away we know nonstarter. This is where the UL comes retorts based upon what he/she is won or lost, chatting until DOS meeting. Reclining on a velvet that we only have to endure the in. I’m not suggesting we start skulk- reading. Totally inadvertent sub-table about 3am. The jukebox was chaise-longue, somewhat the worse ridiculous one-way pedestrian system ing around the rare books room in hot foot jostling is suddenly charged with on a nineties megamix, and for wear, you outline a mess of a dis- for another eight months, and that pants, but I'm not above exploiting the an immense sexual chemistry that can although the air was heavy sertation proposal, determined entire- come next April we’ll never again sense of communality that is felt by only be satisfied by a coffee and quick with nerves, it was good fun - ly by the fact that you happen to have to drink bottles of £1.97 wine. those passing through the magical fag on the steps. In truth, the library opposing candidates were sit- fancy your future supervisor. Over the Unless we really want to. We can revolving doors. staff are actually encouraging intertex- ting together and chatting four month break this mutates into a smugly whip the last copy of the most There are two types of people in the tual sex in the UL. The book reserva- about their “day of hell” and it hideous gin-induced disaster in which sought-after book in the entire depart- UL: those who are there to work and tion slips handily positioned on each was a great atmosphere. you are lumped with an incomprehen- ment out from under the noses of the those who are there to get laid. The table can be used to arrange illusive So whatever the outcome, sible subject, and a second choice losers in the reading room and March former camp consists of people who meeting places for potential lovers. It all the cigarettes, alcohol and tutor who happens to look like John Right Out of the Library. Because WE have been utterly deluded by the is a well known fact that the bell coffee, as well as the stress and Prescott. The resultant prose, you can borrow books from the University career prospects associated with get- sounds fifteen minutes before stacks adrenaline are worth it, and realise in a sobering moment, has to Library. Hang on a minute. Isn’t the ting a First, very old professors, and, close to give everyone enough time to (for most) it’s a once in a life- be the best bloody 10,000 words UL Cambridge’s way of gently patting obviously, the staff. Having said that, put their clothes back on. time experience. 12 Varsity Comment 18.11.05 O KINGSLEY TOM

veryone’s a critic. Except for cartographers. They make Emaps. Critics spend a lot of time criticising things like art or music or theatre – things which are generally quite worthwhile. I think their time would be better spent criticising things like war or crime. Let’s point some critics at war, and watch them smash it apart with their tongues of steel and pens of con- tempt. After the scathing two out of five stars, we’ll never have a war again. Though the criticism would probably not amount so much to ‘war causes unimaginable loss of life’ and more “War is growing increasingly pedestrian. Yawn.” There are, of course, two types of critic. There’s the critics who write large books about books, which are more important than the books they’re about. They invent long words and either think they can save the world, or that they’re book is probably better than the world anyway. Then there’s the kind of critic we read day to day Under the gavel: Nearing extinction, the lesser-spotted hackosaurs resort to desperate measures. Do we hear £1? Any takers? who tells us what music to listen to and what films to see. He controls us with as many as five stars or as little as none – the number generally bear- ing no correlation to the words he The importance of knowing our enemy writes. He is a magic man. A magic man who knows what he’s talking Fascists can’t hang themselves if they don’t have a platform about.

Why do we do what these critics espite seeming to last for about seven promise to keep that ‘significant evidence’ prospect of tearing to shreds the lies and Jon say? It’s probably because we don’t minutes, this term’s end will soon be quiet when speaking here, that’s okay. sophistry of these bigots, if ever they cross trust our friends. We need some Dupon us. And with it, home, and Obviously it’s not, and therein lies an our paths? By most accounts, all Jean-Marie advice, and as all the people we’ve those easily forgotten while being thrown inherent problem - discretion over speakers’ Le Pen achieved by speaking at the Union in met have seemed a bit stupid, we’ll from day to day takes priority. You didn’t acceptability is placed at the whim not even 2003 was a firm message that Cambridge chance it on those we’ve never ever call, or e-mail. How was your term, they’ll of a government or judiciary, but of a small finds his views repugnant. Laws and their met. ask. You’ll mutter about essay crises, or the group of other students. Those banned - the police are there if anything sufficiently seri- If you point a critic at a tree he’ll say scant excuse for a social life you managed to BNP, for example - are forced underground ous is said or done to warrant intervention. “You’re predictable and you lack the have and as if by magic, their eyes will glaze in their recruitment, and we’re surprised As those neglected loved ones are also human touch.” over. If they don’t say it, they’re thinking it: when a government report suddenly informs fond of teasing, being at university means Swaine If you point a critic at a forest he’ll ‘you don’t know how lucky you are’. us there are active student fascist elements in that we’re lucky enough to have a good shot say “You’re predictable and you lack They’ll be right, and it’s a truth worth our midst. at some influential careers after we graduate. the human touch and you’re repeti- being reminded of on various occasions. But it seems doubtful that any potential tive.” Perhaps it holds even regarding the debate leaders amongst us can be expected to effec- If you point a critic at a human, he’ll that has ingloriously wriggled its way back tively confront the problems of hate in socie- say: “You haven’t got any hair” and onto our agenda: whether we should contin- “It might be a good ty if they have been led to believe it can be the human will say “Yes I have” and ue to actively campaign against extremists dealt with by sticking fingers in their ears. the critic goes “worth mentioning.” being offered a ‘platform’ at Cambridge. idea to get used They need to know exactly what they’re Touché. It seems that this will be the Never-Ending going to be fighting against.

If you point a critic at a wooden Story of our time: interesting at first, but to some of the ‘Abhorrent beliefs can arise amongst indi- stool he’ll say “I preferred your earlier with good reason for subsequent resurrec- viduals who are supposedly educated and

work when you were a tree.” tions going straight to TV - there’s nothing ways of the real intelligent,’ claimed a recent Cambridge col- If you point 2 critics at each other, much new to say. ‘Don’t give them the cred- world, dangerous umn, predictably citing BNP leader Nick the insults just bounce back and forth ibility of speaking here!’ goes the CUSU cry; Griffin’s time at Downing as proof for some like tennis. It starts with the hair, then ‘That Voltaire quote about fighting for your and “ problematic kind of revelation that not just unwashed moves on to political integrity and right to say something I don’t like!’ the angry masses can be duped by demagoguery. dress sense, then ethics and hygiene, reply. As it won’t go away, perhaps all we as they may be It seems mildly bizarre that this one and finally shoes and socks. It carries can hope for is some balance. exception should be seen as more pertinent on ricocheting for a few days like Lucky, then, that you’re not at Middlesex, than the general rule of decent people - pong. After about the fourth day, one whose union president recently sought to some of them politicians - that Oxbridge has critic breaks down crying. continue denying the BNP a platform whilst Meanwhile, those groups who do slip produced. But citing it as justification for “Why are you crying?” says the actively providing one for the anti-semitic, through are given a gloss of assumed legiti- guarding us all from extreme ideology verges other critic pro-9/11 thugs of Hizb ut-Tahrir - aptly macy. Not for us the worry that what we’re on the ridiculous. “Because I’ve realised I’m exactly recognised as a foul bunch by our own being told might be disagreeable, or the Student welfare in Cambridge is a very like you and you’re everything I hate.” union. Lucky that the latest incarnation of speaker a racist - our pre-emptive policy will serious issue, just like human welfare every- Then this critic realises he too is CUSU’s policy is liberal with its illiberalism, it save us all the effort of thinking. where else. We do our best to avoid threats exactly like this man he hates, and he could be said. This just isn’t so in the real world. Seeing to it, and place our trust in the authorities to cries too. After a brief weeping stand But where can their line be drawn? Upon as we’re all going to be in it soon, it might be punish anyone who carries them - or incite- off, they sheepishly hug to comfort there being ‘significant evidence’ to suggest a a good idea to get used to some of its ways, ments to them - out. But if distasteful groups each other. It probably turns slightly speaker ‘is very likely to incite hatred on the dangerous and problematic as they may be. are determined to do so, they will find ways sexual just for a moment, but they grounds of religion, race, [or] sexuality,’ Of course, we should work to protect our- of ’offering’ their beliefs to students, possibly quickly forget about that and skip off according to CUSU. Then is it not at all trou- selves from racists, homophobes and threat- violently. The targeted e-mails sent by the together to take the piss out of books. bling that their own Higher Education ening prejudice of all kinds. But it sometimes BNP to minority groups that restarted this This column has been awarded two Funding Officer runs the Cambridge student seems that in working out how best to do debate are proof of this - we should not kid out of five stars. The Times called it branch of Respect, a national coalition this, that problem of reluctance to appreciate ourselves that No Platform will prevent simi- “selfish,” TCS called it “endearingly financed by and welcoming organisations of ‘how lucky we are’ bites again. lar incidents. mystic” and Kerrang!! put it really near anti-semites and homophobes? Whose lead- We’re supposed to be some of the more Trying to deny students the right to decide the top of the ‘banging-rockyrock- ers gleefully petition with Holocaust deniers intelligent young people in the country. between good and bad - and driving these grrrometer,’ beaten only by a man for the release from jail of Saddam’s deputy- We’re surrounded by a lot of the more intel- threats further into the shadows - really is beating his house over the head with in-genocide Tariq Aziz? Presumably, if they ligent older people. Shouldn’t we relish the not going to make us any safer or wiser. an electric keyboard switched to the guitar sound. Praise indeed. See all those people down in the box below? They’re all leaving. It’s rather sad. But you can take their place! See page 22

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Photographer Jamie Marland, Hannah Fletcher [email protected] Chief Sub-editors David Marusza, Louise Williamson Sub-editors Rosalind Mr Tim Moreton, Mr Tom Wilkie, Mr Ifti © Varsity Publications Ltd, 2005. Earis, Rebecca Greig, Tom Aizlewood Graphics Adam Welch, Tom Kingsley, Tom Windley [email protected] Qurashi, Mr James Dacre, Mr Tom 11-12 Trumpington St.,Cambridge CB2 2PH. Walters and Mr Jon Hewer Tel: (01223) 353422 Fax: (01223) 352913 18.11.05 Comment Varsity 13 Correspondence email us: [email protected] Continued from Front Page... Varsity accepts that the Union has done a huge amount to change its image and boost its profile. A great deal of or write to: Varsity, 11-12 Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1QA effort went in to abolishing the “hacking” atmosphere in the bar and demystifying elections. But this isn’t enough. Not when it is thought Letters that the Union building functions foremost as a school building for the Pseudo elitism, Drugs: the truth agenda, I suggest avoiding sixth form college CATS (Cambridge Arts and Sciences) and secondly as meta debate such sloppy research in future. the Cambridge Union. The gradual takeover of the building by this A very real war Dear Sir, Jonathan Hobbs sixth-form college has been kept quiet from Union members. Four sep- Dear Sir, Downing College arate Union Presidents agreed that they held “serious reservations,” Dear Sir, about CATS’ presence within the building. Alyson Thompson, elected While your recent front page last night to serve in Michaelmas 2006, admitted that ideally she would Mr Barret, whose gleefully elitist article (Varsity News, 11 Drugs: who cares? like the Union “to have the full use of its own property”. defence of cliqueism and privi- November) was, in all other Last week, Olaf Henricson-Bell lege appeared in last week's respects, an excellent piece of made the highly inaccurate The Oxford Union has four full time office staff, seven full time Dear Sir, librarians and three full time bar staff. The two part time members of Varsity (Varsity Letters, 11 Novem- journalism, there is nothing to statement that the current con- Cambridge Union staff have been described by dozens of students as ber), might have been more excuse printing wild inaccura- flict in Iraq "doesn't count" as a “offensive,” “a nightmare,” “incompetent,” “aloof,” “unhelpful,” and intelligible had he written cies regarding MDMA ("ecsta- So you can get drugs in "real war" (Varsity Comment, 11 as generally having a very negative impact upon the Union’s image. “pseudo-values” instead of the sy"). Cambridge. Big deal. We should November). This comment is Whilst dozens of students work at a “constantly lively” Oxford Union printed ''meta-values (‘right to The claim that "drinking probably be more concerned both wrong and incredibly bar, a week of daily evening visits to the Cambridge Union bar saw it opportunity', etc)''. more than a pint of water an about the News Team's bur- offensive, especially given the almost entirely deserted. In the debating hall, The Oxford Union has I can well see how “right to hour can be fatal" grossly exag- geoning 'Talk To Frank' addic- context of Remembrance Day. hosted three Heads of State this term. The Cambridge Union has hosted opportunity” might be con- gerates the truth and is just as tion. Ninety-seven British soldiers three former Big Brother contestants. Varsity can reveal that it costs more strued as a pseudo-value, but true even if no MDMA has been I was particularly glad to see have died, along with over two to entertain a Big Brother contestant at the Union than it does to pay for meta (Greek: with, across or consumed. my personal favourite of all drug thousand troops from the the “personal service” of notorious ex- Big Brother contestant Nichola after), implying “beyond value”, Preposterously, your news nicknames: “horse”. United States, Britain's great- Holt, now working as an escort in Cambridge. Prestige is linked with doesn't make sense. team perpetuates the myth that Keep up the high standard est ally, and tens of thousands financial problems in an ineluctable cycle; the Union must be able to None of these should, of MDMA tablets sometimes con- of investigative journalism, and of Iraqis. If this does not quali- attract big-name speakers in order to draw big-name sponsorship. The course, be confused with tain heroin - even the most cur- if any of you care to drop round fy the conflict as a war, let him Oxford Union is currently sponsored by Mitsubishi for around £70,000 a “Hypervalue”, which, I believe, sory investigation reveals that sometime, perhaps we could visit the families of these year, and is subsequently able to offer speakers perks such as chauffeured is a chain store. this assertion has no basis in fact share some ”wacky baccy”. casaulties and say so. cars and luxury accommodation. Speakers visiting Cambridge are, one whatsoever. David Marusza Majeed Neky Michael P Gallen Committee member lamented, “lucky if they get a first-class train ticket”. If your paper has any inter- Corpus Christi College Emmanuel College St John's College Sponsorship of the Cambridge Union is organised on an ad hoc basis by est in the harm-reduction which companies sponsor one-off events. Succesive treasurers have Dear Sir, failed to escape this cycle. near my home in Hertfordshire park of the store. The beauty Members running for election to Officer positions often also cite the are already open to midnight of the law is, we applied for a need to forge relationships with alumni in their manifestos. It is hoped By the end of next week, pubs, or 1am. The statistic that 70% 24 hour licence, and it was this would lead to a system of endowment from non-resident members. clubs, bars and supermarkets are extending their licences is rejected. However their manifestoes uniformly neglect to mention the reason why will be permitted to sell alco- misleading because by far the The reality is, you probably the Union has proved incapable of launching a funding drive. A merge of hol for up to 24 hours a day. majority are extending only by won’t even notice the law has records with the University Development Office prior to 1995 went “hor- Due to a massive accumula- 1 or 2 hours, and this will changed. The binge-drinking ribly wrong”, according to one ex-Officer. The University is now refusing tion of debts, I spent the sum- bring them into line with culture is going to take years to to let the Union access the records because of the requirements of the mer as a temporary office many town centre pubs any- change. Hopefully one day Data Protection Act, and are, admits Jenni Scott, “probably within their worker in the licensing depart- way. we’ll all be able to drink like rights to do so.” This means that it is virtually inconceivable to look ment of a leading UK super- Sure, the police on the the continentals, hit clubs at towards alumni to solve the long-term financial problem. The Union market chain. At this crucial ground are concerned about midnight and not have to be Committee was specifically told by the Director of Development not to stage in the application process the new law. But this is lead- anywhere near Cindy’s at contact alumni, “because we’d screwed it up so comprehensively before.” I was dealing with the licence ing them to make some very 9pm, but let’s face it, until they Three Presidents have stood for election unopposed over the past two conversions for over 1400 stringent and sensible CCTV move your 9am lectures, years. Previous Presidents Alasdair Ross and Jaffar Khan were not even stores. This meant a lot of con- and security demands. you’re probably going to be in required to present a manifesto for their respective elections. The Union tact with local authorities and (Although it has also led to bed by two anyway. remains the only society in Cambridge in which there is not a ballot local police; the governmental some other more questionable Nigel Purves paper option to “Re-Open Nominations.” But this recent election has people in the front line, not demands; one ambitious police Queens’ College been a well-contested one and Varsity hopes the new wave of candidates concerned with political strug- constable suggested to us that will be able to capitalise on this good feeling that does exist, because the Letter of the gles or ideologies, but with we should buy a retired police past is considerably less impressive. In Oxford, the Senior Committee who should be allowed an car for the car park of one Letters may be edited for spends the entirety of their holidays at their Union preparing for a forth- Week extended licence, and how supermarket, and move it style or space coming term. This is certainly not the case in Cambridge. The Oxford they’re going to enforce it all. around every day to present Union President’s position is a sabbatical one – allowing the President “to There is belief in Whitehall, the illusion of a constant police Letter of the achieve real, rather than just momentary changes,” during his tenure. backed up by some evidence, presence). Jenni Scott described how “frustrating it is how little long-term change that a significant amount of Even some supermarket Week wins a can be managed in this time.” Presidents are so occupied with ensuring drunken street violence is managers I spoke to were con- specially select- that their term in office is a success that they are unable and often caused by pubs and clubs cerned. One, in the Derby ed bottle from unwilling to devote their efforts to resolving the wider financial and throwing hundreds of people area, had had repeated inci- structural issues. The Oxford Union believes that their comparative suc- out onto the streets at about dents of drink-related theft our friends at cess lies in this sabbatical position and “as a result of their outstanding the same times. and occasional assaults on Cambridge Wine reputation for professionalism amongst the worlds leaders.” They aim to Nice idea, but they’ve been staff; the manager even told Merchants, provide the right environment for the best speakers, whilst many recent relaxing the laws in town cen- me his car had been written off Cambridge Union guests, including Godfrey Bloom, George Galloway, Licentious tres over the past two years by some drunk local youths King's Parade Simon Heffer, and Alan Sugar, are alleged to have been unhappy about behaviour anyway. Most bars and pubs while it was parked in the car the way in which they were treated by Union Officers over their visits. Bobby Friedman, former President explained that “Sadly, a lot of people tend to think it’s elitist and not forward-looking enough. Obviously, that’s something we need to change.” Jenni Scott agreed that “Freshers often “Most Americans are unaware that we are in Iraq at all” join looking for Brideshead Revisited.” At present there are 1054 members of the union at Trinity College, compared to around 150 at King’s. Such The Last Word figures work to perpetuate the idea that the Union is a public school con- clave. Tim Stanley, notorious ex-Presidential candidate said, “Those who end up dining with real cabinet ministers feel bound for greatness, superior This Week: Our man in New York to other students, endowed with passionless political potential.” The Cambridge Union was heralded last year for housing a hugely hanks to Sir roll the geopolitical dice: was the United States’ most Yasseen Gailani popular Burlesque show (The Cardinal Club), many plays and The Christopher Meyer, America might be a force for steadfast ally in the War on Student Art Exhibition. Yet none of these artistic successes can be attrib- Her Britannic good in the world, but only as Terror was in the George W uted to the Union itself, for in every case the celebrated events simply Majesty’s ex- long as we Brits are there to Bush store in Crawford in Texas, That he scared me was not used the building as a venue. In each case, the students responsible for Ambassador to the supply the good. home of George Bush’s simply because he was obvious- TUnited States, we learnt recent- The only people that thank us “Western White House”. ly a little crazy. It was because I these events conveyed to Varsity the great frustrations that they encoun- tered in working with members of the Union committee. Yet many pre- ly that George Bush found a in the United States for what I had popped in a day before realised that it’s people like that vious Ents officers describe being undervalued and ignored. Zahra Khan great deal to admire in the we’re doing in Iraq are, as I like Cindy Sheehan arrived to paint who really shape policy in the described her role as being “totally sidelined.” Another previous Ents manly bulge of Tony Blair’s to say, a few raisins short of a the “town” (it’s actually just a United States under this admin- officer described his contemporaries as “idiots,” and a further former cojones through a pair of exces- fruit cake. Most are seemingly cross-roads) blue. Whilst paying istration. Ents officer warned her successor that she should “just do stuff and ask sively tight-fitting trousers unaware (some actually are) for my “Freedom Isn’t Free” It’s people like that shop- for permission to do so after.” whilst the latter was visiting that we are still involved in Iraq bumper sticker, the owner quot- owner who form the bedrock of Seth Thevoz is pessimistic about the Union’s future; “the Cambridge Camp David in 2002. at all. Britain is a complete irrel- ed some scripture at me, and ultra-conservatism which has Union has become irrelevant, unlike the Oxford Union, which is actual- Sir Christopher argues that evance in the news agenda. then proceeded to ask if I knew been the basis of this President’s ly a proper society with the clout, name recognition and organisational Blair ought to have made more When raised in discussion, how he could send a massive political support. Those forming skills to consistently attract big-name guests. Vainly maintaining the fic- of the considerable leverage Britain is mentioned only in statue of an angel he had erect- detailed policy are hopefully tion that it is still a breeding-ground for future politicians, the Union is those bulges gave him over the parody: bad teeth, Austin ed outside his store in the wake slightly more qualified to do so, closer to a convention of management consultants.” Varsity ultimately Leader of the Free World in the Powers, the House of Lords, the of the 7/7 bombings to Tony but are similar in their ideologi- rejects this view. We believe that if serious, talented, capable and pro- run up to the invasion of Iraq. Prince of Wales. Those who Blair. cal and religious fervour. Britain gressive individuals continue to win elections to the senior hierarchy of But levity aside, this notion think we have any influence I will never forget the fire of only mattered in the run-up to our Union, the institution can change enough to regain its past glory rests on a premise that is pro- whatsoever on policy formation religious, judgmental intensity war to the extent that our par- and once again rival Oxford. Instead of revelling in the somewhat arbi- foundly mistaken. That premise in Washington are deluded and that burned in his gaze, and nor ticipation meant Bush could rely trary achievement of being the “world’s oldest”, we believe that is that Britain has influence – irresponsible. will I forget just how profound- on Blair’s rhetoric to burnish the Cambridge should deliver for its members today, so we can challenge indeed, a great deal of influence The United States of Freedom ly disturbing it was to see a trail- Administration’s sense of self- our counterpart’s position as the “world’s most famous debating society”. – in the corridors of power in has been my home for about er parked outside his store, on righteousness at home. 190 years ago, three college groups did something amazing by founding Washington. four months now. But despite which two faux-stone tablets, Blair got to strut his stuff on a university debating society where free speech would reign and ambi- It is a premise which comfort- extensive travelling, the only each bearing five of the famous the world stage, but very little tion flourish. Today, that same debating society can still achieve those ably bolsters our feeling that, as place I have ever met anyone Commandments, flanked a life- else. Any other take on it is sim- same heights. But it hasn’t now, and it has a very long way to go. a once-great power, we can still who seemed to care that Britain sized replica of the Liberty Bell. ply… well, you know. 14 Varsity Arts 18.11.05 18.11.05 Arts Varsity 15 Best of the IS SILENCE EVER GOLDEN? Banned Marfa, Texas: the only town in the world to be Varsity investigates the pearls and perils of artistic freedom named after a char- acter from estroying a theatre government's Racial and temptible mockery of our granted an 18 certificate by WINDLEY TOM CHRISTIANITY AND Dostoevsky’s The is like destroying a Religious Hatred Bill in June Saviour has never been the British Board of Film THE BIRTH OF A NATION Brothers Karamazov. Classification because it was CENSORSHIP (1915): D.W. Griffith's highly “D temple. Without of this year, artists and arts staged in a West End theatre, It was also the set- controversial silent film our culture, we are nothing". organisations across the UK let alone broadcast on televi- deemed to show sex for the portrayed a post-Civil War Such was the reaction of have seen such measures as a sion" had Lee in hysterics sake of something other than ting for James Dean’s America with the Ku Klux writer Hanif Kureishi to the threat to the creation of and ecstasies. Though to sex, yet it's hard to reconcile Mark Hopkins last film, The Giant, Klan as its national saviours. riots that followed the stag- thought-provoking and con- what extent is the issue a the BBFC's judgement with a and in the 1970’s Banned in some American ing of Gurpreet Kaur Bahtti's troversial art. As Kureishi laughing matter? As liberal dvd sleeve that brags of noth- sculptor Donald Judd cities, Nation has been held drama, Behzti (Dishonour), at points out, to many, art is as members of a democratic ing but. The film is a wel- hatever is pure, whatever science, try a few prize winning bought several of the responsible for the the Birmingham Repertory reverenced a terrain as reli- society, we are quick to speak come testament to the liberty “Wis lovely… think about novels from the last ten years. renaissance of the Ku Klux town’s abandoned Theatre in December, 2004. our minds, but when the of artistic expression, but these things”, says the apostle Paul Censors, so the argument goes, Klan that occurred in the year in the Bible. As a Christian study- curtail our freedom to revel in buildings and turned The play, which depicted mouthpiece of opinion paradoxically, it says only of its release, but has also ing English, I can’t help thinking other people’s expression. They them into art installa- been credited for securing both murder and rape in a becomes merely a tool of succeeds in saying nothing at that my lecturers weren’t overly insult our intelligence by suggest- tions the future of the feature film. Sikh temple, outraged mem- shock, is there not a danger all. concerned with these things when ing that we can’t control our own bers of the Sikh community, of sensationalising the arts The hazard of censorship they wrote my reading list. My desires; that we are going to be in and provoked a violence of “THE simply because we can? lies in its power to moralise. supervisor seemed quite surprised some way affected by what we protest that echoed the fatwa The sleeve of Michael It can work as a didactic, eth- when I objected to studying an watch. As if to imply that watch- promising execution that was HAZARD OF Winterbottom's 9 Songs ical agent, and upon whom extract from Alan Hollinghurst’s ing scenes of domestic violence issued against Salman boasts of the film's status at should we bestow such The Folding Star, graphically depict- might cause us to be more vio- CENSORSHIP ing a teacher having sex with a lent, or reading about paedophiles Rushdie after the publication the most explicit work in authority? But much like youth, his pupil. “But it won the might actually affect how we ‘Reckless of The Satanic Verses in 1989. LIES IN ITS British cinema history. Only Stewart Lee, filmmakers like Booker Prize!” relate to children. Only a month after the thirty years earlier, a court in Winterbottom seem only to use of the POWER TO Nowadays, if it’s good canon- You’re probably thinking I’m a term A CLOCKWORK ORANGE Birmingham riots, in January Bologna banned Bernado revel in their ability to scan- ised literature it’s worthy of study. boring old prude, who doesn’t 2005, the evangelical group Bertolucci's Last Tango in dalise. As audiences become The more sweat, blood and tears watch 18 rated films or listen to “Britpop”’: (1971): While not actually MORALISE the next best route banned by the government, ‘Christian Voice’ waged its Paris, because the film increasingly de-sensitized to the better, which is probably why anything but cheesy pop music the film was pulled from own artistic protest against included "Obscene content the shock tactics of the con- no student would dare write aca- marketed at 10 year old girls. to teenage self- distribution until 2000 by the broadcast of the contro- offensive to public decency... temporary arts, the will to demically about something Well, you’d be right in that. But destruction after director Kubrick himself after innocuous like Harry Potter. It’s a that wasn’t why I objected to drink, drugs, sex versial musical, Jerry Springer: presented with obsessive self- shock grows stronger, and win-win formula; if you want to reading Hollinghurst. That was its release initiated copycat The Opera, on BBC 2, and indulgence, catering to the the concept of free expres- etc. (see TCS letters crimes across the UK. see something which offends large because I know, as a Christian, successfully petitioned for ”gion, and it won't go down lowest instincts of the libido, sion so worthy of Kureishi's numbers of people and goes out that I am sinner. I think the page last week) Arts Council funding of the without a fight. dominated by the idea of stir- veneration only becomes of its way to appear outrageous, wrong things, visit the wrong show's regional tour to be This week, Varsity arts ring unchecked appetites for exploited. It was Voltaire just claim, like good old Jerry web-sites, and need to pray for axed after condemning it as interviews Stewart Lee sexual pleasure, permeated who declared, "I disapprove Springer, that it’s got “artistic God’s help to censor myself every Bella Union: blasphemous. In response, (below), a man with a vested by scurrilous of what you say, but I will merit”. day, because I know no one else this record theatres across Britain united interest in the struggle. Co- language...accompanied off - defend to the death your Censorship is only relevant for will do this. Often, I’m secretly label, founded under 18s, which means people grateful that a government in defiance against the threat writer of Jerry Springer: The screen by sounds, sighs and right to say it." And he was who are short or who haven’t got banned and removed an obscene by the Cocteau of prosecution initiated by Opera, stand up comic and shrieks of climax pleasure." right - in the 18th century, a driving license. Don’t worry, internet site that I persisted on vis- Twins, has given us the challenges of ‘Christian self-confessed Christian Anyone who has seen when his books were burned though, if the only film you man- iting. I’m glad that there are right Dirty Three, Voice’ to save the national baiter, he has notoriously Bertolucci's masterpiece will and he was exiled from aged to get into this season was and wrong things to see. Explosions LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972): tour, and as a result Jerry expressed delight at having a breathe a sigh of relief that France for praising the reli- Pride and Prejudice; you can always I personally believe it would be Banned in Italy for its scene Springer: The Opera will reach hand in the creation of the we are no longer quartered gious and political freedom of rent the latest bloodbath when it better for the world if Jerry in the Sky, of sodomy - all copies of the the Cambridge Corn most complained-about pro- in an age of artistic and moral England. Now, a little bit of comes out on video, or better still, Springer: The Opera had not been and Laura film were destroyed - the film Exchange in April 2006. Yet gramme in British television repression. Anyone who has silence could go a very long read a book. Shakespeare will written, or the Texas Chainsaw Mas- Veirs (left) has since been hailed as a always be on hand if it’s gouged sacre filmed, though I’m not going modern masterpiece. it isn't easy to efface history. One would assume, seen Winterbottom's work way. out eyes and severed heads you’re to wave a placard outside the Kureishi's words from the then, that ‘Christian Voice's’ will wish that we were. 9 Emma Paterson into, and if the idea of buying a Corn Exchange about it. It’s your mind. With the passing of the declaration that "a more con- Songs was passed uncut and porn mag gives you pangs of con- choice; you be your own censor.

Firefly: if you enjoyed awesome HEROISM, BLASPHEMY, AND THE FUTURE OF COMEDY recent cowboys-in- space film Serenity, TEXAS CHAINSAW MAS- you can buy every SACRE (1974): Banned by James Ferman, director of Luke Roberts speaks to co-writer of Jerry Springer: The Opera, Stewart Lee episode of the sadly- the BBFC at the time, and cancelled series it notorious for his reactionary tewart Lee’s timing on stage is immaculate. His Morning With Richard Not Judy - which was axed. Zealand’. In conversation, Lee is quick to dismiss it as proposed tour, and whose threats have severely limited Thomas on three new operas for the BBC. One is about a was based on, by censorship. It has, however, Buffy the Vampire been passed uncut since delivery and material have been honed to such a He co-founded the great ‘nearly’ of the last decade of just something he scribbled down after a gig - “not an the number of venues for the tour which is now going prehistoric community who discover language, but then 1999. Sdegree that he can release sentences in three- comedy, the comedy nerds’ equivalent of The La’s’ sec- article” - but it seems to me that tucked away in this ahead. Was he surprised by this reaction? “Yes, it was one of them writes a play which is attacked as blasphe- Slayer cre- word segments and build up rolling laughs for each one. ond album: Club Zarathustra. He describes it to me: “[It] shady corner of the internet, there is a beautiful, melan- surprising,” says Lee. “First, it was surprising that the mous, so they decide not to use language anymore. Then ator Joss On stage he is calm, knowing and confident to the point was the idea of Simon Munnery, who is generally choly manifesto for comedy. In it, Lee talks of being media took ‘Christian Voice’ seriously. I mean, on their there’s one about the new licensing laws, whereby Whedon, of arrogance. On the phone, he is just as eloquent, but accepted as the best comedian of the last twenty years. heckled by a group of English rugby supporters, who “IT WAS SURPRISING website now, they are talking about the hurricane in Nottingham gets flooded with vomit. The final one is a par- for twenty surprisingly diffident. The idea was that anything was fine except for stand- didn’t understand this comedian who was “trying to New Orleans as God’s punishment. And the show was ody of the recent documentary March of the Penguins, which quid For about two decades Stewart Lee has been one of up. Simon would compere as this sort of overlord char- offer an audience something different.” After the gig, he THAT THE MEDIA thoughtful.” It’s apparent that the ordeal was a tiring was used as propaganda by the American bible belt, who comedy’s most exciting prospects. And he managed acter. We performed it in London for a while, then at contemplates how to deal with these audiences. The one – his current tour (which was at The Junction last saw great Christian virtues in the penguins. Lee and both to fulfil this potential, and pick up enough fail- the Edinburgh Fringe for about three or four years. conclusion he reaches is to create a “fiercely strange TOOK ‘CHRISTIAN week) focusses on it, going through personal accounts Thomas searched for the least Christian species they could ure along the way to become a kind of heroic loser. Then in 1998, I think we made a pilot for Channel 4. comedy that will scare them away.” Perhaps it scared VOICE’ SERIOUSLY. of his one wellbeing during the year (via the London find, and are consequently writing an opera documentary His career was kick-started when he supported the I’ve just watched it again, and I think it was the last away the fiercely mundane Root as well. bombings) and ending with a triumphant confrontation which will be about Mallards who mate through gang the roof of NATURAL BORN KILLERS celebrated Jerry Sadowitz on tour at the age of twen- chance Channel 4 had to be good, before it turned into But given that he, with Richard Thomas, created the THEY TALK ABOUT of the critics with an extended routine more blasphe- rape; engage in homosexual sex; and are the only species Borders: (1994): Considered by the ty-one, taking part in the then prestigious Comedy a lads’ mag. It was like the more experimental stuff from popular, and undoubtedly questioning Jerry Springer: mous and obscene than Jerry ever was. Speaking to Lee, known to regularly practice necrophilia. we don’t know BBFC for six months before THE HURRICANE IN Zone in the Edinburgh Festival, before forming a dou- the 1980s.” And any hope for the other TV channels at The Opera, is there a part of him that does not want to though, triumph doesn’t seem the right word. “It gets to It’s depressing talking to Stewart Lee about his career. how to get there but being granted a theatrical ble act with his Oxford Revue contemporary Richard the moment? “Well, I haven’t got cable.” drive ‘them’ away, but wants to educate them? “After the point where, you’ve always thought good work is Here’s someone who’s tried to use comedy as a tool to ask release, Oliver Stone's tale of NEW ORLEANS apparently it’s amaz- Herring. After writing for On the Hour, Chris Morris’ In 2001, Lee teamed up with Munnery as The League Jerry I wouldn’t want be involved with something that it’s own reward, but you’ve got to be realistic,” he tells questions, and to take an audience somewhere genuinely sex, violence and the cult of AS GOD’S ing celebrity was blamed for the and Armando Iannucci’s first collaboration, Lee and Against Tedium, his Zarathustra compere in Attention Scum popular again. It started as a small Fringe thing, and me. “Maybe younger comics can try and make some- different, a hugely talented comedian - but someone who, murders committed by Herring were dropped when it jumped to television’s for the BBC. It received a nomination for the Golden then I was taken along with it. But it was such a PUNISHMENT thing mainstream and good. But I’m thirty-eight now.” thanks to schedulers and right-wing Christians, seems to teenage lovers, Ben Darras The Day Today. The old radio shows were reedited to Rose of Montreux. It was axed by Jane Root. depressing process, and we all lost a substantial He names Josie Long, who joined him on tour last year, have given up on the mainstream entirely. He speaks of and Sarah Edmondson, in cut out the sketches they had written – even proper So why didn’t Jane Root get it? What did The Naked amount of money.” and Stephen Carlin, who’s supporting him this year, as only needing seven thousand fans to earn a comfortable 1995, who claimed that they nouns they’d created elsewhere were changed. But Chef and Ground Force have that two brilliant comic The depressing process, of course, was Jerry’s treat- the top comics of the new generation. living. It’s sad that there aren’t more. Leastways, it’s sad had watched the film on loop the pair went on to success on BBC 2, with Fist of Fun, minds didn’t? There’s a little piece of writing by Stewart ment at the hands of right-wing fundamentalist group The future hopefully holds more from Stewart Lee, that he doesn’t think there are. just hours before the crimes. which was dropped despite huge success, and This Lee on his website, entitled ‘English Heckler’s in New ‘Christian Voice,’ whose protests managed to stop a ” though. At the moment he’s collaborating with Richard 16 Varsity Arts 18.11.05 BRING BACK STUDENT ART Jessica Crawford searches for Vanessa Hodgkinson, Artist in Residence at Christ’s College, is Cambridge’s artistic talent underwhelmed by the opportunities for artists in the University E WEA BEN n a university with such a had attracted. "Art is a team hilst the recent British diverse range of extra-cur- sport" he says, adding that ‘artistocracy’ alumni of

Iricular activities, it sur- contributors came from sub- WCambridge University VER prised me that the visual arts jects as varied as Natural might include the likes of “ scene in Cambridge often Sciences and Modern Gormley, Caro and Quinn, one appears "unseen". Eclipsed by Languages. Indeed, the organ- has to wonder where they ONE IS AT drama, music and sport, arts isation of the event has looked for creative support and societies and student exhibi- revealed a variety of highly facilities during their time here. A LOSS AS tions do not attract the inter- individual talents amongst As any long-suffering student est or publicity they deserve. those involved. The music for with a penchant for painting or TO HOW THE A group at King's will be the event is to be provided by sculpture will tell you, it may be attempting to remedy the sit- the electro funk -inspired DJ a privilege to be in one of the VISUAL ARTS uation during week seven Special Needs whilst Ollie most academically advanced CAME TO with the launch of Tricycle: a Wainwright, a student artist institutions in the world, but three-day multimedia arts who last year "turfed" parts of when it comes to being able to BE SO event. the city centre, is amongst the create within this environment, The exhibition, which fea- organisers. one is at a loss as to how the NEGLECTED tures dance, poetry and film, So, will "Tricycle" be visual arts came to be so neg- as well as a permanent dis- Cambridge's answer to White lected. The sister arts of music play of student art, was the Cube? With a prestigious and drama thrive and are fund- brainchild of five students artistic alumni in the ed and housed in various splen- who met during the 48hr Film University’s recent history, it did incarnations. Sport abounds. ” Fest and Life Art squashes at is up to student organisations But a university-wide space for the beginning of term. As to ensure that the next Young students to create and display As an undergraduate at There are certain colleges where students could work on a funding for the arts is so diffi- British Artist, or indeed Great their artistic talents? That is Cambridge, I was deeply frus- where such facilities are provid- part time basis. There will cult to obtain from colleges, British Artist, doesn't slip always ‘in the pipeline’. trated by the lack of support or ed for students, but it seems always be questions of where the team secured a private through the net. Hopefully There does exist a series of opportunity to paint. I was no there is very little encourage- and how much to contend with grant for "artistic endeavour". this event will give talented societies that maintain a spo- sportswoman nor musician, but ment or interaction between and it is these questions that They will be using some of undergraduates a chance to radic interest in this field, but I had a passion to make things these pockets to bring them generally stop any movement the money for materials, hop- exhibit innovative visual arts they tend to be passive; enter- and share that experience with together and build a strong before it has even really begun. ing to entice promising stu- and, indeed, a variety of skills taining lecturers in the field others in a world that existed artistic community. In such a But I fundamentally believe dent artists into producing that are often only displayed (and when they talk, how far outside of my study area. I field of expression, support is a that to create such a space new work for the exhibition. behind closed doors. we feel from the creative life would have given anything to key factor and support comes in where creativity could meet Richard Braude, co-ordina- they purport to represent!) or have a corner of studio space so many forms. learning head on, it is entirely tor of the event, said he was Tricycle, King's College art the annual art exhibition, which that I could go to every now Then, as now, I am aware of necessary and would only serve "surprised and pleased" by rooms, Friday 25th - Sunday for all its qualities, is usually full and then and work on an ongo- the many difficulties that face to bring out yet another aston- the amount of interdiscipli- 27th November. of A-level projects to show that ing piece; a balance to my life in any progress towards a perma- ishing side to this already illus- nary interest the exhibition we were once genuinely active. the library. nent communal studio space trious student community.

ernist architectural experiment and hot in summer. Many The History by Sir Hugh Casson, architect have criticised the building on of the Festival of Britain and more philosophical grounds, Faculty, devoted follower of Le comparing the radiating library Corbusier, immediately after with its central librarian’s desk Sidgwick the war. Stirling’s monumental that can see into every book structure departed from the stack to Bentham’s panopticon Site fussy modernism of Casson’s prison, or worse, the architec- 1956 Raised Faculty Building. ture of the Soviet Politburo. The huge building is construct- Indeed, the fantastic steel Sir James ed with a concrete frame cov- structure that supports the ered with steel and glass. Red open glass corridors and ceil- Stirling engineering brick forms an ing suggest the more exuber-

ound arresting and angry contrast at ant designs of the Russian 1968 the floor levels. The whole architect Vladamir Tatlin. The building, designed as an open seven-storey building is con- book, contains the Seeley sidered by some to be a mas- History library on the ground terpiece of British “brutalism” ir James Stirling’s History floor, and an L-shaped tower of and the building is now listed. Faculty is one of the teaching facilities. Whether you love it or hate it, Smost controversial build- After the original design, it Stirling’s work is a skilled ings in Cambridge. If you’re a was discovered that a part of monument to Sixties design. history student you probably the intended site was unavail- hate it, if you study architec- able to the University and the Each week we highlight an ture you probably love it. The building was turned ninety object of aesthetic interest in faculty was commissioned in degrees to fit the restricted Cambridge. 1963 and completed in 1968. It space. The glass-roofed library, Send suggestions to forms part of the Sidgwick Site, thus faces south-east making it which was started as a mod- exceptionally cold in winter [email protected] Art Ar Cambridge

Salman Shaheen reviews Reza Aslan’s novel, shortlisted No God but God for the Guardian First Book Award O KINGSLEY TOM slan tells a story. This is of without a hint of the prejudices This is dangerous territory, but it is well developed and linked Islam, from pre-Islamic which have so tragically tainted Aslan is not afraid to enter it solidly with the themes dis- AArabia through the life and Muslim history books. His with the courage of his convic- cussed. Likening this conflict to teachings of Muhammad to the acceptance of Sufism as a valid tions. In the opening pages of the those within Christianity during present day, and visions of the form of Islam itself shows his book he states quite clearly, the Reformation, he shows that future. Born in Iran, Aslan fled remarkable consideration in this "There are those who will call it two radically different interpreta- to America following Khomeini's historical account. apostasy, but that is not trou- tions of Islam, reformist and reac- rise to power. As a liberal, pro- This is not, however, a history bling. No one speaks for God - tionary, are locked in battle with gressive, but unapologetic of events, and it is quite clear that not even the prophets (who one another. Crucially, the next Muslim, who denounces the Aslan has a voice and a message. speak about God)." The book is chapter on the history of Islam, twin tyrannies of religious “fun- Aslan denounces Shariah law and not a renouncement of his faith. will be written by the victor. damentalism” and Western the repression of women which, It is, however, a declaration of No God but God is at once a Imperialism, he is able to bridge a he argues, have no basis in the which side of the ideological history, a narrative, a defence of seemingly insurmountable gulf of Quran, but rather in the perver- struggle Aslan stands on. Islam and a call for the victory of understanding. With great clarity sions of leaders seeking to solidify This struggle, Aslan argues, is liberalising democratising voices he shows Islam to the average their own power. In the closing not the clash of civilisations within the religion. This Western reader, stripping away chapters, Aslan launches attacks between Islam and the West. It is extremely well written book has the myths and the barriers to on the dominant Islamic theolo- not even the "clash of so much to offer to so many peo- understanding. gians who advocate a literal, static monotheisms." What literally ple, from theologians to His sensitivity is one of the and conservative interpretation of exploded into our consciousness theocrats, from sympathetic ears defining characteristics of this the Quran, the corrupt and deca- with the destruction of the Twin to the harshest of Islam's wonderful book: he gives so dent rule of the Saudi Royal Towers represents an internal Western critics. If the pen can much of himself to it. He traces Family, the Iranian theocracy and conflict within Islam, to which prove mightier than the sword, I the history and practices of the reactionary ideologies of al the West is but an observer. This am truly glad that Reza Aslan Sunni, Shi'ah and Sufi Islam Qaeda and the Taliban. may seem a radical proposal, but wields one. Thousands of pilgrims flock to Mecca every year 18.11.05 Listings Varsity 17

Cambridge Arts Theatre, various times and Geography of a Horse Ghosts prices, Tuesday 22nd until Saturday 26th Powerful tragedy by Henrik Ibsen. November Dreamer Pembroke New Cellars, 7.30pm, £5, Tuesday A man capable of predicting the 22nd until Saturday 26th November races is kidnapped by gangsters. Syringa Tree ADC, 11pm, £3-5, Tuesday 22nd November Clare Comedy Deeply personal story of an abid- A selection of student acts and a ing love between two racially The Cherry Orchard top London headliner. divided families Chekhov’s searching social drama Clare Cellars, 9pm, £2, Sunday 20th November The Junction, 8pm, £8/£6, Friday 18th and and affectionate family portrait. Saturday 19th November Corpus Christi Playroom, 7pm, £5.50/4, until Impromime Saturday 19th November Fully improvised pantomime The Good Doctor Peterhouse Theatre, 8pm, £6/4, until Saturday Comic, chemically fuelled explosion stage The Goat 19th November by two recent Cambridge graduates Edward Albee's daring and Pembroke New Cellars, 11pm, Thursday 24th Our Town/Confusions provocative play. What the Butler Saw until Saturday 26th November This year’s ADC Freshers’ Plays. Corpus Christi Playroom, 9pm, £5/4, until Joe Orton's classic farce Dave King ADC, 7.45pm/11pm, £3-£8, until Saturday 19th Saturday 19th November Queen’s Fitzpatrick Hall Theatre, 7.30pm, November £6/4, Tuesday 22nd until Saturday 26th November Six Characters in Top Girls Search of an Author Anyone who reads these Spartacus Five women’s stories question what Grease: The Musical Emmanuel Fresher’s show. weekly ramblings may remem- The Footlights/ADC Pantomime. it is to be a woman in a man’s world. Sex, dance and Rock ‘n’ Roll in Emmanuel College Queen’s Building, 7.30pm, ber that a couple of weeks ADC, 7.45pm, £6-£9, Tuesday 22nd November Corpus Christi Playroom, 7pm, this classic musical until Saturday 19th November until Saturday 3rd December (except 27th) £5.50/£4,Tuesday 22nd until Saturday 26th Nov. Robinson College Auditorium, 7.45pm, £7/5, ago I mentioned that Sunday Tuesday 22nd until Saturday 26th November The Government night was becoming the best Sweethearts Lost for Words Inspector night of the week. This week A bittersweet and poignant drama The reflections of a defected writer. Falstaff and Alcina Verdi and Handel’s operatic mas- Nikolai Gogol’s classic the Sunday Times Style maga- set in a Victorian garden. Corpus Christi Playroom, 9.30pm, £5/4, Queen’s Fitzpatrick Hall Theatre, 11pm, Tuesday 22nd until Saturday 26th November terpieces zine said the same thing. So ADC, 11pm, £3-£5, Wednesday 23rd until Tuesday 22nd until Thursday 24th November Saturday 26th November there you go, national trends started here! Unfortunately this week the only big event on Sunday is Motorhead, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (12A): Silver Screen 13:30, Silver if you think that’s unmissable Arts Picturehouse Saturday 19 November: (12A): 13:30, 17:15, 20:30 Screen 17:15, 20:30 Factotum (15): 13:00, 18:30, 20:45 Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (PG): 20:15 Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (15): 18:45, 21:00 you have undoubtedly got a Friday 18 November Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (15): 16:30, 18:45 The Night of Truth (18): 16:10, 20:40 screw loose. There is a good Factotum (right) (15): (12A): 12:15, 15:30, 18:45, 22:00 Maria Full of Grace (15): 13:30 14:00, 16:15, 18:30, 20:45 Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (15): The Beat That My Heart Skipped (15): range of world music inspired Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 13:45, 18:15, 20:30 16:20 St John’s nights on this week though. (below) (12A): 12:15, 15:30, 18:45, 22:00 Lost in Translation (15): 22:40 Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (15): The Beat That My Heart Skipped (15): Kingdom of Heaven: 20th Nov, On Friday last years’ Student 13:45, 18:15, 20:30 16:00 7pm & 10pm Band of the Year Emunah will Lost in Translation (15): 22:40 The Precipice (18): 15:00 The Beat That My Heart Skipped (15): The Secret Garden (U): 11:00 be bringing their unique fusion 16:00 Wolf Creek (18): 22:50 Christ’s of d’ n’ b’, reggae, klezmer Wolf Creek (18): 22:50 Sunday 20 November: American History X: 13th Nov, and hip hop to the Cambridge A False Student (18): 15:00 8pm & 10.30pm, £2 Union. The live violin solos Factotum (15): 13:00, 16:45, 19:00, 21:15 Dial ‘M’ for Murder: 24th Nov, 10pm. over dirty beats should satisfy Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire anyone who feels to get their (12A): 13:30, 17:15, 20:30 screen Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (15): Robinson groove on. If you fancy some- 14:15, 18:45, 21:00 thing more refined, the Persona (15): 12:00 Sin City (below): 20th Nov, 4pm & 9pm The Beat That My Heart Skipped (15): Wednesday 23 November: Kazakhstani string ensemble 16:20 Factotum (15): Kamerata will be playing 11:00, 14:15, 19:00, 21:15 Monday 21 November: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Central Asian folk at Fitz. On Factotum (15): 4:15, 16:30, 19:00, 21:15 (12A): 13:30, 17:15, 20:30 Wednesday the Junction Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (15): (12A): 13:30, 17:15, 20:30 11:00, 18:45, 21:00 hosts World Music Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (15): 18:45, 21:00 The Beat That My Heart Skipped (15): Directions 3 with artists from The Beat That My Heart Skipped (15): 16:20 14:00, 16:20 South America, Africa and the Thursday 24 November: Middle East. Tuesday 22 November: Factotum (15): 14:15, 19:00, 21:15 Factotum (15): 14:15, 21:15 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire On Saturday the energetic may want to check out Churchill’s own DJ Paul Higgins who is running a night Ways of Living Coveney: Island in 1910-1914. with CUSU at Ministry of Contemporary sculpture from four Identity in the Fens Scott Polar Research Institute, free entry, 1st Sound in London. Closer to internationally renowned artists. September until 31st March 2006 home, grime MC Lethal Each exhibit explores the relation- and Currency in Africa Bizzle will be trying to make ship between art and life (below). Two of several small exhibitions in Life, ritual and Cambridge feel ‘urban’ at Kettle’s Yard, free entry, 1st October until 20th the Andrews exhibition gallery that immortality: Eating November explore the extensive reserve col- Queens. The grizzled old lections of the museum. and Drinking in China ‘modfather’ Paul Weller is Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Special display of Chinese bronze, dragging his ageing carcass free entry, 19th September Until 1st December jade and ceramic vessels used for to the Corn Exchange. For a rituals and daily life more contemporary event, The Real Madagascar Fitzwilliam Museum, 4th October - 3rd January catch up-and-coming British An exploration of the flora and 2006, free entry bands the Chalets and the fauna of the strange island of Young Knives at the Soul Tree Madagascar, from pre-history to Drawn to Africa the present day. Workshops including African (Wednesday). The strangest Museum of Zoology, free entry, 19th July until fabric painting, Sona sand draw- event of the week must surely Cambridge 24th December ing, Kente cloths and African be the break-dancing-on- Illuminations Indigo dye drawing (below). crutches show of Bill The Antarctic Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Shannon, followed by jungle The largest and most comprehen- selected dates throughout October and November, sive exhibition of illuminated Photographs of free legend LTJ Bukem for manuscripts including ten cen- Warning, both at the Junction turies’ worth from Cambridge Herbert Ponting on Thursday. collections (right). Photographs taken from the origi- exhibitions nal negatives of the intrepid Fitzwilliam Museum, free entry, 26th July until photographer who accompanied 11th December Scott's expedition to the Antarctic

Chocolate Jacques Paul Weller Motorhead The Proclaimers The Calling World Music LTJ Bukem angular indie with once collaborated with Lemmy claims to have political Scots 80’s, industrial, gothic Directions 3 has gone from jungle Matty and his hench- Death In Vegas bedded 2,000 women, 7:30pm £18.50 9:30-2 £3 with Rita Ray, Fantazia, pioneer to producer of men, from London club 7:30pm sold out and was originally in a The Junction Kambar Daphna Sadeh and the atrocious jazzy d’n’b night White Heat The Corn Exchange band called the Rockin’ Voyagers, and Rio for wine bars 9-12:30 £4 Vicars Rick Astley Truant Platenses 10-2 £9 Clare Live Wire 7:30pm sold out hits by Sinatra, UK hip hop 7:30pm £9 The Junction with Lethal Bizzle, pro- The Corn Exchange Bacharach etc. 9-2 £3 The Junction Emunah ducer of grime anthem 7:30pm £22.50 The Soul Tree Tantra nu-klezmer the Forward Riddim Sunday Roast The Corn Exchange Club Goo support from Charlie 9pm free for members 9-1 £6 the weekend stops Top Banana with the Chalets and Moor Four The Cambridge Union Queens’ here, and so does your Fat Poppadaddy’s CUSU’s weekly the Young Knives 8pm £6 dignity the ‘alternative’ alter- fruit-market 9-2 £4 The Portland Arms DJ Rip and DJ Sketchy Electrosleaze 9-1 £4 native 9-2 £4 NUS The Soul Tree hip hop and grime electro and post-punk Life 8-2 £2 Ballare Raw Strings 9-1 £2 9-1 £2 The Fez Club Hell with Warmed Up Cold King’s Cellars King’s Cellars Acoustic open mic Unique with Adequate 7 7pm £2 questionable International Students LBG night 8pm £6 The Man on the Moon Kamerata CMFC 9pm free Night 9:30-1 The Portland Arms chamber strings from with Evolution and CB2 pohjanmaan kautta! £4 Abenlied Kazakhstan General Lee 9:30-2 £5 Blindsite Theory with the University 8pm £5 8pm £4 Life support from AR Chamber Choir Fitzwilliam The Man on the Moon 8pm £4 8pm £3 The Man on the Moon Jesus College Chapel fri sat sun mon tue wed thu YOUR WEEKLY GUIDE TO GOING OUT IN CAMBRIDGE 18 Varsity Advertisement 18.11.05

MAYSfourteen

Now inviting applications for: Now inviting submissions of: Editorial Short Stories, Poetry, Committee Non-Fiction & Marketing Manager & cover design artwork Deadline for applications: 21st November, 5pm Deadline for submissions: 26th January, 5pm

THE MAYS is Varsity’s annual anthology of new writing by students from universities in Cambridge & Oxford, sold nationwide and distributed to every major literary agent. The editorial committee reads and shortlists submitted work before finally deciding which pieces should be published in this prestigious anthology.

To apply, submit work for consideration or for more info, please contact [email protected] 18.11.05 Arts Varsity 19

Tess Riley reviews Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at the Playroom Theatrical Cherry Picking

Kate Laycock and Rebecca domesticity creates – helped story. There are hints of rela- was excellent much of the

REDS Leigh’s The Cherry Orchard bril- by the very good interweaving tionships between several of time and Thomas Yarrow’s liantly portrays just how of audience space and stage – the characters but there was Gayev was very funny. The set destructive it is never being does not mean that we sympa- no sense that they actually was unimaginative and would able to forget. thise with these characters. really bothered; what emotion have got a thumbs down from The characters reveal how They are deliberately aloof, was there was false and slight- me had part of the fairy lights caught up they are in their denying us the ability to pity ly crude. The cuts from the not fallen accidentally down memories as we see the old even the mother who lost her original script remove one just at the scene when the aristocratic class values crum- young son, or the man whose character who creates an world of the cherry orchard is ble under regime changes brutal peasant upbringing for- interesting and poignant love destroying itself; a perfect har- going on around them in late ever haunts him. triangle in Chekhov’s own mony between stage and act- nineteenth century Russia. However, Firs, the ancient work that is therefore missing ing. So The Cherry Orchard does This production very much butler played very well by here. not just bring the house down, focuses on the domestic Isobel Marshall, provides a While the focus on the play it brings the lights down too. sphere, without much look poignant contrast to this; his need not dwell on romantic Perfect. beyond the cherry orchard peaceful tragic outcome comes love, I think this would have walls, which gives extra force to stand for all the “beautiful” drawn the characters together Corpus Christi Playroom, to the haunting sound of the values that are destroyed for more as a whole, since a sense 7pm, until Saturday 19th broken string since it cuts into good along with the cherry of unification among the November, £5.50/4 the suffocating world from the orchard. group as a whole was some- outside with force. What this production lacked times lacking. The insights that the was a better portrayal of a love Having said that the play www.reds.org.uk The tension mounts in Chekhov’s classic Billy Goat Bestiality at the Playroom Alex Adams reviews the amateur debut of Edward Albee’s latest play The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia?

The Goat is good, very good, sympathetic, forgetful, abstract- as Billy, the sensitive homosexu- JAMIE goat-fuckingly good I might say. ed; modulating his voice from al son, whose performance quite I never thought I’d like a play the softest of pianissimos to a made one forget the incongruity MARLAND about goat-fucking; chicken roar and a bellow, a complex, of having a father only a year or sodomizing, horse rubbing, convoluted, kaleidoscopic char- two older than one’s self, and maybe, but goat-fucking? The acter, vividly and sympathetical- who played his part disarmingly, tension was perfect, the half- ly realized. When Stevie (Amy tenderly, and caught precisely pedantic confluent word-play; Noble), his wife, says to him that the mode of the child between chimerical and alchemical. And she did not fall into love with his parents, half into adulthood, the cast (you see, I told you), him, but rose into love with man and boy. delivered it with a studied, flu- him, you buy it, it’s real. Noble’s The directors should be con- ent, native perfection. The hard- acting was marvelous, her gratulated for their unobtrusive est challenge in theatre is inhab- piteous whimpers moved, her staging, the naturalism of the iting a role, possessing it with an rapier wit and electric delivery performances they provoked, air of familiarity, moving wounded, and her violence and so for crafting that piece beyond the bit part in the high shook to the quick, a pitch-per- that it seemed as it if arose of its school production of Oliver! and fect realization. own accord, and was not the making something: a person: an James Banton as Ross, the product of a doubtless long and idea: live. friend, the ‘Judas’ of the piece, arduous maieutic process. What Luke Roberts as Martin, the was plausible and confident, and are you waiting for? central character, was magnetic: positively delighted in the vul- Go see! he captured every nuance as garity and squalor of his charac- ideally as one could imagine, at ter’s hypocrisy, with the finest Corpus Christi Playroom, one moment bullying, another American accent of the cast to 9.30pm, until Saturday 19th vulnerable, wounded, infinitely boot. That leaves only Osh Jones November, £5/4 Luke Roberts discusses marriage with Amy Noble

The Brothers Grimm ##### Taxing times for British films

hese are important times for towards assuring the industry the memory, the popularity of the British film industry. that films that have a difficulty Argentine movies is at an all-time TWaves of anxiety have been demonstrating clear commercial high. The conclusion was that the reverberating through the film potential will actually get made. combination of screen quotas, world after proposals were dis- The contention being that these government subsidies and co- cussed last month concerning films may still be culturally signifi- productions with Spanish com- reforms of tax incentives for cant. The implication seems to be panies sustained national cinema movies made in the UK. that a film is only “culturally in the wake of the crisis. This, The problem is this: the gener- British” if it can assure a commer- they argue, helped to maintain ous tax scheme initiated by the cial return. screen culture as a symbol of treasury in 1997, due to evidence Beneath its ostensible gesture identification and resistance to of considerable abuse, is set to of supporting local cinema, the what was , time of unprecedent- be re-designed. Films will now recent reforms are characteristic ed decrease in living standards. It have to pass a ‘cultural test’ in an of the failure of the existing sys- implied that this series of initia- attempt by the treasury to close tem to breathe fresh air into a sti- tives could serve as a model of the loop-holes in the previous fled industry and create the right how to successfully negotiate the he Brothers Grimm, the makes. Matt Damon and Heath pletely succeeds in this, The system. This, we are assured, will conditions for the nurturing of real requirements of commercial inter- much-awaited new film Ledger seem to thoroughly rel- Brothers Grimm is nonetheless “promote the sustainable pro- creativity. The press has been national success and still make T from Terry Gilliam, ish their roles and give stead- a two hour romp with a whirl of duction of culturally British films.” quick to look abroad for exam- culturally important films. revolves around the misadven- fast performances, even if they rich texture and true Terry However, many fear these ples of how things can be differ- With the number and quality of tures of Wilhelm (Matt Damon) do ham it up on occasion, giv- Gilliam flamboyance in which reforms could have serious con- ent. A recent episode of ITV’s independent British films in and Jacob (Heath Ledger) ing the impression of trans- the audience is transported sequences. One being that US The South Bank Show, dedicated steady decline, the government Grimm, who travel across portation to a pantomime in back into their youth and wit- producers, previously attracted to the Argentine film industry, and Film Council would do well to Germany purporting to free vil- Brighton rather than a German nesses a fast-forwarding of by the tax incentives, will decide showed that even with the eco- take these lessons on board. lages from witches, ghouls and village in the 19th century. childhood bed-time stories. to shoot their films in low labour nomic crisis of 2002 still fresh in Ed King ghosts but in reality pocketing Jonathan Pryce and Peter This may have been an effort to cost countries in Eastern Europe. the money from their fake exor- Stormare (as Delatombe’s appease true Grimm brother But perhaps more importantly the cisms. Finally caught out by the henchman, Cavaldi) deserve fans or give the movie an ele- production of independent hilarious Delatombe (Jonathan mention for providing much of ment of authenticity but home-grown movies could be Pyrce), they are sent to the vil- the comedy throughout, yet as throughout the real Grimm fairy hindered even further. lage of Marbaden, where young the heroine Anglika, Lena tales - Hansel and Gretal, Underlying these debates girls are mysteriously disap- Headley is perhaps the movie’s Cinderella, Rupunzel and Little about tax reforms there seems to pearing into the forest. Here the major weakness. While Red Riding Hood to name a be a crucial question; what role majority of the action takes undoubtedly gorgeous, her few - are interwoven with the should the government play in place with the usual motifs of performance is as wooden as story. Above all The Brothers the financing and promotion of brotherly solidarity, good tri- the surrounding forest. Grimm is fantasy tale incorpo- home-gown cinema here in the umphing over evil and a love The film’s odd juxtaposition rating elements of the histori- UK? The discussion centres triangle with a cold, yet beauti- of black humour and slapstick cal, magical and just down around the definition of “culturally ful, leading lady. comedy is suggestive of an right bizarre but in true Gilliam British” movies elaborated in the The plot, although pre- attempt to move away from the style each scene is elegantly treasury document published in dictable, still manages to enter- ‘happy ever after’ of children’s composed, and most impor- July. In its emphasis on location tain – even if it is simply to stories while still trying to main- tantly keeps the audience cap- shooting and quotas on UK film laugh at the preposterous tain the watchability factor. I’m tivated throughout. crews, it is a concern that this twists and turns the story still not entirely sure it com- Robyn Hill “cultural test” goes no way John Maybury’s The Jacket (2005), an American production shot in Scotland 20 Varsity Arts 18.11.05 Don’t Rock the Boat Carly Farthing sees Starsailor at the Corn Exchange album reviews Rammstein Rosenrot ##### WESTERBERG I’ll admit it, I love Rammstein. They make me is a hilarious mariachi KEVIN tingle in my German place (I know its wrong, inspired Spanish sung trib- but I can’t help it). However, Rosenrot is a bit ute to South American ladies of the night. of an odd album. Coming only a year after the Much of this album is great, but then comes hugely successful Reise Reise this work is ‘Stirb nicht vor mir’, a duet with Charlene made up of tracks recorded during the Reise Spiteri of Texas fame. The very idea made me Reise sessions and newly recorded songs and feel slightly ill, and the outcome was much the outcome ranges from some of the German worse. Rosenrot is almost ruined by the inclu- industrial kings’ best work, to genuinely one sion of something so terribly terrible, a ballad of the worst songs ever recorded. Mann so bland, Texas themselves could have written gegen Mann is a thrusting and brutish ode to it. Minus this one horror, this album would man on man action, and is Rammstein at their deserve four stars; unfortunately I can’t bring best: noisy, homoerotic and provocative. Title myself to be that nice. track ‘Rosenrot’ and ‘Wo bist du?’ are stirring James, Stel, Barry and Ben make up the band Starsailor metal anthems, and ‘Te quiero Lambeth puta!’ Alex or me, Starsailor are much man, as obviously appreciated by any attempt to acquire a mod- Flike stag beetles. I can’t quite the smitten fans (although you icum of ‘edge’ seems doomed to www.rammstein.com work out their purpose on couldn’t help feeling that the failure. earth, and their activities hold no woman who yelled out “you’ve Ultimately though, the major great interest for me, but I don’t got gorgeous eyes” hadn’t quite flaw of Starsailor’s set was their begrudge them their existence got those ‘Alcoholic’ lyrics down). failing to pay heed to the golden and am quite happy for them to Walsh’s desire that ‘Four to the tour rule – never, ever choose a Jeffrey and Jack Lewis inoffensively get on with whatev- Floor’ turn the Corn Exchange support act that packs more talent er it is they do. A trip down the into “one big disco” was perhaps a into fifteen minutes than the City and Eastern Songs ##### Corn Exchange for the Cambridge little ambitious, but with the headliners can manage in an leg of their 2005 tour proved, enthusiasm of the crowd, it near- hour. It was the sublime David Have you heard the one about Will Oldham a beautifully broken voice, with accompanying however, just how much of a ly got there. ‘Alcoholic’ itself was Ford that ruled the Corn beating up a bloke on the train? The latest acoustic guitar and occasional banjo - but minority I represent. The gen- ruined by virtue of being shame- Exchange that night, with his offering from the singer songwriter Jeffrey Lewis’ collaboration with his brother Jack uinely rapturous crowd greeted fully overplayed for the crowd, furiously impassioned perform- lewis tells tales of the delightful and slightly injects some tracks on the album with a every intro with a roar of recogni- but the low point of the evening ance of new single State of the disturbing in his distinctive comic realist style. punchy punk, reminiscent of ‘Presidents of the tion, and waved their hands in was undoubtedly Walsh’s toe- Union showing Walsh et al exact- A profound contributor to the New York USA’ or maybe ‘The Dandy Warhols’ that con- the air like they just didn’t care. curlingly overwrought rendition ly how agitpop should be done. ‘Antifolk’ scene Lewis’ extensive and trasts interestingly to Jeffs own more wistful Had their soulful singer James of ‘Get Out While You Can’: writ- Unfortunately, Starsailor’s safe ingeneous lyricism is conveyed well through narratives. You can drift off to the fantastical Walsh suddenly been smote with ten, we were informed, with the and inoffensive music couldn’t the rolling lilting melodies and Americana ‘Singing Tree’, and then spin out to ‘Time laryngitis, the audience could Northern Ireland “situation” in help but seem something of a dis- influence. Also a comic book artist, you can Machine’ or ‘Art Land’. have sung every word for him. mind. “It could just as easily apply appointment after Ford’s multi- sense in the songs a certain influence of art in The lyrical density and cyclical melodies In no sense was Starsailor’s a to what’s going on in France right instrumental virtuosity, and it was the snapshots they present: the neurotic may not be for everyone, but City and Eastern ‘bad’ gig. Their musical capabili- now,” Walsh added hopefully in a his songs that were looping in my artist; mistaken encounters on trains; the Songs shows change and variation from ties were evident, with technical- bid for topicality, but who cares - head on my way out. Someone experience of moving house. Lewis’ first album The Last Time I did Acid I ly perfect renditions of crowd- whatever this particular politi- should really say something. But wait! We haven’t just got dynamic went Insane (2002) without losing any of the pleasers such as ‘Poor Misguided dirge was really about, it was Dylanesque epics in inventiveness. Fool’, ‘Silence is Easy’ and ‘I Don’t bloody awful. This perhaps encap- Truly Johnston Know’. The charismatic Walsh – sulates Starsailor’s problem – their whose voice was on excellent popularity rests on their pleasing www.starsailor.net form - makes an engaging front yet slightly anodyne songs, and 18.11.05 Arts Varsity 21 Venue Guide: the essential events of the next seven days Clare Cellars

Where is it? Clare College: by a cloud of smoke. But crucial- tucked away behind Senate ly, the music they put on is in a House, squashed between class of its own. King’s Cathedral and Trinity Hall. What goes on? Clare’s reputa- The Cellars are directly beneath tion rests on its ability to pull in the college chapel, so on your exciting names from the worlds way in, you get the impression of hip-hop, drum and bass, jazz, the thumping bass is coming and comedy. The first Friday of theatre Spartacus Ghosts from the stained-glass tinted the month is Def Fly & Real, the Kicking off the Henrik Ibsen’s shocking room of worship. best UK Hip-hop night in the city Pantomime season, the and powerful tragedy Why Clare Cellars? Because it by a long way. Sunday nights are What the Butler consistently has the best student given over to jazz or comedy. Footlights present this portraying the tortured run music events that Cambridge Every couple of weeks they run a Saw exciting new comedy, fate of a woman denied has to offer. The low ceilings and Fat Poppadaddys night, indie Rampant libidos, mistak- following Spartacus’ any chance of fulfilment cryptic setting of the cellars dance from Fez. Get to the en identities, undressing “journey from zero to in a male-dominated make the place atmospheric, Cellars before 10.30 if you don’t and cross-dressing in hero, from slavery to world. dirty, dark, and when people are want to queue, and don’t forget Orton’s comedy. dancing sweat drips off the that Clare is about getting bravery”. Queen’s Fitzpatrick Hall ADC, 7.45pm, Tuesday 22nd Pembroke New Cellars, walls.They’ve got a shooter bar trashed and dancing yourself Theatre, 7.30pm, Tuesday 22nd 7.30pm, Tuesday 22nd until Satur- and plenty of places to lounge into the ground to the best DJ’s until Saturday 3rd December until Saturday 26th November, (except 27th), £6-9 day 26th November, £5 around looking cool, surrounded and MC’s you will see. £6/4 book now: of the

film & music Factotum Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham Adaptation of the semi- Nick Cave Festen CU Philharmonic autobiographical Nick Cave used to go out with Coming through Cambridge Or ‘Happiness and PJ Harvey. Imagine that: ‘I on the way to Broadway, this Orchestra Bukowski novel about Tears’. Rerun of the 2001 hate you.’ ‘I hate you too.’ award-winning play, based on dead-end jobs, drinking, Bollywood rom-com- ‘Kiss me!’ the Dogme film, follows a Programme of Ravel, gambling and the drive to musical centring on the Schumann and Brahms Danish family torn apart when write. Stars Matt Dillon. conflict between family the son reveals a dark secret life and love. over dinner. Written and directed by a West Road Concert Hall, guy called Bent Hamer. 7.30pm, Sunday 20th November, Corn Exchange Cambridge Arts Theatre Arts Picturehouse, from Friday Arts Picturehouse, 8.15pm, Tuesday 31st January 2006 £4 Tuesday 22nd November 17th - 22nd April Pick Week Martha & When I was 21 Siobhan Davis Mathilda Contemporary Dancer and Choreographer In what year were you 21 and what were so fresh and so clean you doing? 1971. I was a young dancer in the London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Fresh from its birthday celebra- tives, finally taking up the man- runs through a series of acts as less experienced than a lot of the other tions when the ADC dusts off its tle of the narrative with their the audience are invited to a dancers. It was a company just beginning spyglass to the past giants of its marriage, and their transition peepshow of fragmented lives. to have a very energetic artistic force. boards, in bow the new dwarves from child to parent, from inno- No character appears more than performing on their shoulders. cence to tragedy. On balance once, each telling its own small What was your favourite outfit? We had a A fresher spectacle of acrobatic this large cast is talented and, for but perfectly formed story. finesse. This week at the ADC, a play which flirts with the Again this cast deftly manage a lot of fun going to Biba. I can remember a the Freshers bound onto the overtly meta-theatrical and the plethora of characters that, very feathery coat that I liked. Most things stage like giddy lambs in Spring highly naturalistic, they hold although not hugely varied in fell apart quite quickly, and the best part was with Thornton Wilder’s Our the stage with impressive confi- their portrayal, are still empa- sitting on the sofas and trying on everything Town and Alan Ayckbourn’s Con- dence and poise. The repeating thetic and believable, contribut- that you couldn’t afford to buy and then well. Wanting to be a better dancer than I fusions (main and late shows lives of the characters are paral- ing the sense of the everyday leaving. could be and getting exhausted in the effort. respectively). A pretty good leled in the effective simplicity which is central to Ayckbourn’s innings. of Clare Butcher’s stylised set observational drama. Certain What were your illegal activities? Sadly I What did you eat? A ridiculously small Directors Ed Blain and Isabel which makes good use of the actors were really able to carry don’t think I was illegal as I could have been. Quinzanos have made good space, creating an important the cadences of the writing; amount. I was tall and thought that I need- with Our Town, the theatrical sense of perspective although mention must go to Sam When we went on tour in the countryside, ed to keep pretty refined, so I would eat little outing of a cosy little hamlet in elements of the “Dogville” Hinton, who was an endearing we went off to see if we could find magic bits of anything. Cheese and crackers and New Hampshire. A meta-the- design felt unnecessary in what and genuinely funny presence mushrooms. salad. Ridiculous. I would not recommend atrical outing in fact, as the was otherwise creative staging. throughout and Catherine that diet to a young dancer. sharply dressed and cocksure The lighting of this show was Oborne, playing the 34 year old What were you afraid of? Lack of sleep. stage manager, played with very impressive: Rob Mills per- teacher who, pregnant by a man There were endless times on one’s own What was the most rebellious thing you striking confidence and emo- fectly echoes and theatrically she “doesn’t really care for”, has being unable to sleep knowing that the next did? I became a dancer, which at that time tional range by Lizzie Crarer. enhances the soft shifts in finally grown up, gives a truth- day was going to be a lot of hard work. The actors rotate constantly and mood, making beautiful use of ful and generous performance. had no future. I think I was incredibly obsti- nate rather than rebellious. All of us were consistently with each new set- colour without garishness and Directors Amy Gwilliam and Jeff What did you believe in? I ting of the scene enabling a real without detracting from the James have constructed a cohe- believed in the amongst a group of people that didn’t have achievement of the ensemble, realism of the imagined land- sive whole which, although not Arts as a way of being, it was the best edu- to rebel because we were doing as much of great comic potential and scape. This show was impres- strikingly innovative, makes a cation, but also as a brilliant way of bringing what we wanted as we possibly could. moments of surprising poignan- sive – it felt professional and charming piece of theatre out of people together. I don’t have religious cy particularly from Owen assured from start to finish, a what could be dislocated sketch- beliefs. What was your most political action? I Holland and Cat Gerrard. real triumph for this infant crew es. The production is buoyed up was horribly unpolitical. But I demonstrated Thorough and fluid characteri- and cast alike. So solid. by a lovely soundtrack designed Where did you spend most of your against Vietnam. There was a young sation provide a clarity which is And now for something a lit- by Richard Stuart which creates evenings? We didn’t finish work until seven, American at that time in the dance compa- testament to careful direction, tle later. The set of Ayckbourn’s a smiling canopy over the acts and were exhausted by then, so in London it something evident throughout Confusions immediately leaps off and encourages the audience to ny who had dodged a draft by coming to this production which continu- the stage and into the eye – a really sympathise with those was a question of having a drink, eating at England, so there was a lot of debate ally balances dramatic energy feast of schoolyard colour which confused. each others’ houses and then doing the because one of us was in that immediate with clean stagecraft. The audi- really adds to the mood of the We take our old hats off to laundry. On foreign tour, you’d be taken to dilemma. ence follow George Gibbs and play. Confusions is a sort of mid- you. something far more glamorous than you Emily Webb (played variously dle aged Freshers’ Week. could ever afford in England. What did you hope to be? A dancer. But I by Owen Holland, Oli Rose, Exactly what it says on the tin; a Our Town, ADC, 7.45pm, £5-£8, had just started to choreograph. I made my Nina Flitman, Catherine Scott diffusion of people, a tangle of until Saturday 19th November What made you cry? My parents not being first (appalling) piece and it fascinated me. and Belinda Sherlock) grow crossed wires and their net- Confusions, ADC, 11pm, £3-£5, through their parents’ perspec- worked relationships. The play until Saturday 19th November Emily Stokes 22 Varsity Be a part of it... 18.11.05

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"QQMZ POMJOF CZ  /PWFNCFS  BU XXXNFSDFSNDDPNKPJOMPOEPO 26 Varsity Sport 18.11.05 Caius halt John’s title march Despite leading twice league leaders drop their first points of the season

intent from Caius, they would have MICHAEL Adam Bracey been better served by using the break to organise themselves defensively, as DERRINGER John’s went back in front shortly after CAIUS 2 the whistle. James Verdon scored with a ST. JOHN’S 2 low right-footed shot from the centre of A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF the penalty area. Seemingly on a mis- sion to win the match all by himself, SEBASTIAN SCHULTE Caius put an end to St. John’s impressive Verdon gave a fine captain’s display, UNIVERSITY ROWING start to the league campaign, coming powerfully defending corners inside his from behind twice to deny the leaders own penalty box, creating opportunities three points. St. John’s will rue the loss with intelligent and incisive passing, and sunday of two valuable points, which offers causing Caius major discomfort in his Fly to Germany to compete in national hope to a number of other college sides. new role as centre-forward. With key team trial. It’s fun to meet all the guys Without a fine individual performance player Graham Bates unable to domi- from the national team, but they seem to from their captain James Verdon, they nate the match for Caius and Jamie be a bit scared of losing to ‘the might even have slipped to their first loss Corby causing more trouble to the refer- Englishmen’. Without any special prac- of the season against the fiercely com- ee than to the John’s backline, the away petitive home side. team appeared on course for victory, but tice in the small boat, we finished 2nd. Verdon opted to play himself in the they failed to convert their possession centre forward position alongside first- into a greater lead. They were duly pun- monday year Ben Gibson, and it was the skipper ished midway through the second half All my bones and muscles hurt from the who put his side ahead early on, sweep- when Bates popped up unmarked at a competition, so I am letting myself sleep ing home a penalty after a desperate corner kick to direct a powerful header in. After the flight, it feels good to be challenge by Caius goalkeeper Matt high into the John’s net. back in Cambridge. Thomas. Caius were competing as well Caius showed an indomitable spirit as any of John’s opponents in the league in coming from behind twice against this season, but they might well have the league leaders and might be a team Caius match St John’s in midfield and take a point from the league favourites tuesday fallen further behind, as John’s went to keep an eye on if the top two slip up Back to the daily routine. I’m meeting close from a number of set-pieces. The in the second half of the season. For MEN’S RUGBY DIVISION 1 MEN’S FOOTBALL DIVISION 1 the guys at 6.30 in the gym for a left-sided Ash Simpson was the source of John’s this frustrating will be viewed the Caius concern, as his dangerous as two points dropped rather than one P W D L F A PD PTS P W D L F A GD PTS weightlifting session. After practice I head off to Caius breakfast, choosing series of deliveries threatened to put gained. Man of the match Verdon ST JOHN’S 5 5 0 0 141 25 116 20 JESUS 4 3 1 0 8 1 7 10 John’s in total command. Twice Simpson explained his decision to play upfront, the full range including four eggs to fill had Thomas scrambling across his goal while remaining upbeat about his GIRTON 5 3 0 2 74 67 7 14 ST JOHN’S 4 3 1 0 9 5 4 10 up the energy stores. Meet at Goldie with long-range efforts, but Caius side’s chances. “I thought we’d looked JESUS 5 2 0 3 52 93 -41 11 CHURCHILL 4 2 1 1 5 3 2 7 boathouse and go for a 25km row. weathered that particular storm, and a little lightweight up front in recent promptly equalised on the stroke of half- weeks, and I just thought that the DOWNING 4 2 0 2 61 44 17 10 CAIUS 4 2 1 1 6 6 0 7 wednesday time with a penalty of their own. Jamie combination of my presence alongside MAGDALENE 4 2 0 2 37 42 -5 10 HOMERTON 4 2 0 2 6 5 1 6 Bad news - Tom, the president, is Corby was manhandled inside the Ben (Gibson) would work well, and it injured and may not be able to row in PEMBROKE 5 0 0 5 37 131 -94 5 CHRIST’S 4 1 1 2 4 5 -1 4 penalty area, and he scored easily from certainly did today. The 100% record the four. This is quite a shock for us, ST CATZ 3 1 0 2 3 4 -1 3 the resulting kick to bring his side level. has gone, but we’re scoring lots of Football Results: because we are really confident to win Caius were made to wait at the start goals, something which no-one else in Darwin 1 - 4 Jesus, Churchill 0 - 0 DARWIN 3 1 0 2 3 7 -4 3 the Fours Head on Saturday. I work until of the second half, as Verdon led his side the league is doing at the moment. The 10pm in the Judge Institute, again. Fitzwilliam, Cauis 2 - 2 St. John’s, FITZ 3 0 1 2 2 5 -3 1 out for the kick-off a good five minutes league is still in our hands and we’re Christ’s 1 - 3 Homerton after their hosts. Despite this signal of determined to do well.” TRINITY 3 0 0 3 3 9 -6 0 thursday I work on a presentation for Friday at which I’ll meet with some guys on the British Accounting Standards Board. The Oxford narrowly win Four’s Head afternoon row was very disappointing, but the important thing is that all of us JET row fast on April 2nd against Oxford!

the tideway looking to build on the the pressure, the four, stroked by PHOTOGRAPHIC Russ Glenn success of last year. In the coxless Pembroke graduate fresher Jasper fours, Cambridge’s top crew, stroked Hasell, with rookies Sam Pearson friday by British Olympian and twice-blue (Jesus) and Don Wyper (St. I get to sleep-in till 7.30! I take the Last weekend saw the first light-blue Tom James (Trinity Hall), laid down a Edmunds), and Goldie ’04, ’05 veter- train to London, have my meeting and dark-blue rowing clash of the year, as blistering pace, falling to Oxford by an Edward Sherwood backing him meet the squad in Putney. As we Oxford and Cambridge competed only 2.3 seconds over the 19-minute up, put together a gutsy race, push- feared, Tom won’t row this weekend, against each other in the Four’s Head race. The other two Cambridge cox- ing the pace early and running hard so the crew order has to change. Regatta in London. The race is four less boats also managed to struggle to the line. Though more used to and a quarter miles from Mortlake to through the week’s difficulties, com- steering the other direction, Pete saturday Putney, over the reverse of the Boat ing in at 3rd and 7th in their event. Rudge (Blue Boat ’05, Hughes Hall) The race was awful for our four. We Race course, run in a processional Of note, pre boat-race tensions ran coxed the crew to a strong third place Cambridge coxless four in action never found our basic rhythm, which time-trial format. Thanks to last high as the seventh place four, – only nine seconds back on the made the whole 4 miles painful, Oxford year’s stellar performance, the CUBC stroked by Cambridge newcomer Tim British elite, and a scant one-second will be beatable on the day, and I’m went into the event defending the ‘Perko’ Perkins (Jesus), swapped behind the top dark blues. Also in Cambridge returns from the week- looking forward to it! After a really enjoy- top coxless four spot, and only nar- paint with the top Oxford four short- the coxed four, the cinematically end having bloodied the opposition. able recovery row on the Thames in the rowly lost the spot to the top Oxford ly after the start thanks to question- titled ‘Team America’ boat of Ian Despite the close loss to the top crew. able dark-blue steering. Coveny (Hughes Hall), Carl Dietz (St. Oxford four, Cambridge showed sunset we enjoyed some beers in the Cambridge entered five boats in The coxed fours racing was no less Catharines), Spencer Hunsberger great depth and team strength by local pubs and took the opportunity to the grueling event, three of which exciting. The CUBC’s top coxed four (Robinson), Kenrick Turner (Clare) fighting through the difficulties of relax and not think about rowing too were coxless, two coxed. found itself in the interesting posi- and Joe Ghory (St. Edmunds) raced the previous week and still “defeat- much! Unfortunately, the run up to the race tion of chasing the top Oxford coxed to top place in the senior 2 event ing the other place” in the majority was plagued with injury and illness, boat, and being chased by an elite despite having to steer around a flag- of races. Next week is another leading to some last-minute lineup British four containing three world ging Oxford crew ahead of them. chance at victory, as both squads changes. Cambridge put aside such and/or Olympic champions, includ- Though not quite the dark-blue travel to the British Indoor Rowing distractions however, and went to ing James Cracknell. Thriving under scuttling that had been hoped, Championships in Birmingham.

Win one of three copies of ‘John THE LOW-DOWN Thompson’s Red Hot Poker’. John sport in brief Thompson’s Red Hot Poker is avail- able to buy on DVD from on 14th : November 2005 from Pathe Rugby Union Distribution Ltd. www.fox.co.uk Kung Fu On Monday night the Blues played their second game in four days when they entertained a Leicester

Development XV at Grange Road. LES >>Name: awareness, balance and coordination. The visitors came out 37-15 winners S P D Cambridge University Kung Fu Club Taking it further, there are termly with fly-half Ross Broadfoot looking >>Where: opportunities for grading seminars like a star of the future. On V E T YER Christ’s College New Court Theatre and intensive courses with one of Wednesday the annual prelude to ROKIAB >>When: Britain’s top instructors. Other classes the Varsity match takes place at N E G A U P Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, for more advanced students are also Grange Road with the Steele-Bodger from 5-6pm available. match. Kick-off is at 3pm and tickets DOR >Who: >>History: cost £3 each. ER Anyone at all - no previous martial WingTsun is the version of WingChun BAR M arts experience required! created by Leung Ting, who was one Hockey: >Aim: Yip Man's students alongside Bruce Lee The University Wanderers lost 3-2 We learn WingTsun kung fu, a practi- >>Contact: against Norwich last weekend in an TAR © Adam Edelshain cal and highly efficient form of self- Email [email protected] or see the enthralling encounter at Wilberforce Re-arrange the letters by rotating the defence, in a relaxed and fun atmos- website at www.whatakick.com Road. discs to create six separate six-letter phere. Brute strength is not impor- words leading in to the centre. tant - WingTsun aims to develop body Email your answer to: [email protected] 18.11.05 Sport Varsity 27 Football focussed at heart BBC Match of the Day football pundit Mark Lawrenson talks to Joe Speight

Every football fan does it. You spend the caps for the Republic of Ireland. He even BBC afternoon playing or watching a match in tried his hand at management with a the college football leagues, meet up with short stint in charge of Oxford United a few mates in the evening and vividly which he describes as a “fantastic but dif- reconstruct every moment of drama and ficult experience.” Channel Hopper tension – the bone-crunching tackle, the But in 1997 Lawrenson joined BBC twenty-five yard screamer and the con- Sport as a member of their football pun- y now, you and I, we’ve formed troversial last minute penalty which shat- ditry team, working for both television on a bond. This weekly 500- tered dreams of a title-winning campaign. Football Focus and Match of the Day, and Bworder is important for the Yet for the Match of the Day team, this on Radio Five Live. He cites the Spain vs both of us, in ways it’s difficult to actually constitutes their job description. Yugoslavia encounter at Euro 2000 define. Now, as for what it means to The only difference being however that where the Spaniards scored twice in stop- me, that’s none of your business. (We millions of people across the country are page time to win 4-3 as the best match he haven’t even had breakfast together eavesdropping on their conversation, has commentated on, closely followed by yet, so don’t go getting any ideas lambasting the pundits for each criticism Liverpool’s 5-4 victory over Alaves in the about keeping a toothbrush in my of their favoured team and praying that 2001 UEFA Cup Final and the Anfield bathroom. This is just a bit of fun.) the experts’ predictions of relegation and outfit’s win in the Champions League On the other hand, I can see why you another season of mid-table mediocrity final this year, which was “like nothing I might feel like you don’t know where don’t come true. have ever experienced in my life”. you stand. You need some clarity. All This Saturday night ritual has become a right, then. Think of it like this. You’re at part of our national culture, and Mark “We are all a digibox cocktail party. It’s stuffed with Lawrenson has been a part of it for the wankers, and you don’t know a soul, best part of a decade. Having begun his constantly taking and you’re worried you’re overdressed. career with his local club Preston North But - wait – there’s a friendly face! It’s End, a spell which he describe as the the mickey out of the Hopperalooza, dressed up to the “highlight of my career” and then nines, bringing you a glass of bubbly. Brighton and Hove Albion, Bob Paisley each other” How warm the smile, how twinkly the paid £900,000 in 1981 to take him to eye! You feel all tingly. It may be that Liverpool. He went on to play over 300 So when we all settle down in the col- later in the evening you’ll end up in a games for the Merseyside club before an lege JCR at 10.30pm on a Saturday night, drunken clinch in the back of a cab, Achilles injury prematurely ended his what has been going on at Television makeup smeared over both your career at the age of 30. Despite this the Centre in London to enable us to sit back faces; at the moment, though, the defender highly regarded for his pace and and enjoy our weekly fix of goals and inevitable sexual tension is merely an timing in the tackle managed to win five analysis? “We arrive at the studio at undercurrent. For now, content your- league championships, three League 10am, with the highlight of the day being self with the knowledge that the Cups, the FA Cup and the European Cup, the morning bacon rolls and coffee. We’ll Hopperalissimus knows the people in in addition to winning 39 international then read the newspapers and prepare for this room all too well, and is here as Football Focus. I then pop upstairs and do Ex-Liverpool and Ireland defender turned pundit Mark Lawrenson your intimate guide. a programme for an Irish radio station Like, that fellow over there chatting fact file between 2 and 3pm, before watching all He is quick to point out that he is still lag- Ham going down but I think I’m going to with the Babecast girls, that’s Pat the games throughout the afternoon. We ging behind his former Liverpool defen- be wrong on two counts. Portsmouth look Robertson, multimillionaire right- Name: Mark Lawrenson get told which match we are going to sive colleague turned sofa-sharer Hansen to be doomed and Sunderland will obvi- wing televangelist and presenter and Born: 1957, Preston analyse for Match of the Day so I go off in the blunder stakes though. “We’ve all ously go, and then probably West lead pulpit-thumper on The 700 Age: 48 and record my piece for the programme, made numerous mistakes like wrongly Bromwich Albion.”Whether or not Club, and I know there are a lot of Nickname: Lawro then we hang around for the show which predicting teams to go down, but I’ve these predictions turn out to be accurate, strange fruit here, but he’s maybe Career: Preston North End, goes out live at 10.30pm. So it’s a four- never had anything on the level of Lawrenson is modest regarding the quali- the kumquatiest of them all. The Brighton and Hove Albion, teen hour day and the main thing is deal- [Hansen’s] “you’ll never win anything ty of the BBC football coverage. “Some show’s most recent claim to fame is Liverpool (332 appearances, 17 ing with the concentration levels.” with kids.” people probably think we’re good and Robertson’s robust message to the goals) The on-screen camaraderie between And as regards more contemporary some probably think we’re crap, but we citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania, who International: 39 caps for the team of Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen, matters, can anyone halt Chelsea’s march are still here so we must be doing some- recently voted advocates of cre- Republic of Ireland Lawrenson and more recent additions to the Premiership title in Lawro’s eyes? thing right.” And despite his foray into ationism off the school board: “Don't Honours: European Cup, 5 League such as Graeme Le Saux and Lee Dixon is “No, quite simply. They can change four management and coaching, it is certainly turn to God, because you just reject- Championships, FA Cup, 3 League clearly evident, and Lawro admits “we are or five players without weakening their something he wants to continue doing. ed Him... don't wonder why He has- Cups all at it as much as each other and there is team, and none of the other contenders “This is me now I think. I really enjoy n't helped you when problems begin, Broadcasting: BBC football pundit a lot of mickey taking which goes on. If can do that.” And the battle for survival at what I do – I get to see lots of live match- if they begin. I'm not saying they will, for Match of the Day, Football you do anything wrong you get slaugh- the other end of the table? “I was con- es and visit lots of different cities, and I’ll but if they do." This guy isn’t mess- Focus and BBC Radio Five Live tered and Le Saux’s in trouble at the vinced at the start of the season that it just ride the wave for however long it lasts ing around, the Hopperalamarama moment as he turned up late last week.” would be Wigan, Sunderland and West and then just disappear into the sunset. whispers in your ear, as Pat makes an audacious play for the last mini 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Across peking duck wrap. Town vs. Down Your tinkling, silvery giggle suggests 8 you want to know more. So, top three 4. Prisoners got time after con- 1. Sailor points to church on leave 700 Club Pat Robertson quotes, in Gown 10 9 suming mushroom for ideas (8) (7) ascending order. There are a lot more 8. Speak against article (6) 2. Break down and undo writing of where these came from. Bubbling Boxing 10 9. Conjuror's supernatural scots- music? (9) under at three is the jaw-dropping man (8) 3. Keyless confused national not in 12 13 11 1998 warning to Disney that hosting 10. Formally accuse dolt carrying (6) a Gay Pride weekend would bring Match one backwards (8) 4. Return to reality by parachute? 12 16 17 about “hurricanes, tornadoes, earth- 11. Skill in writing story books (6) (4,4,2,5) quakes, terrorist bombs” and “possi- Brian Magee 18 13 14 12. Components of a coal cup put 5. State, for example, in denial (8) bly a meteor”; at two, only kept off together in resort (8) 6. Shine as a spreadsheet creator (5) the top spot because it was his good Saturday 19th November 19 15 13. Carpentry said to be likely to 7. Coach's running shoe (7) friend Jerry Falwell who said it, will see a monumental clash succeed (8) 14. Atmospheric conditions journal- Robertson’s response being a mere 16 17 22 18 of power, as members of 16. Red wine pet found outside ist survived (9) “I absolutely concur,” is the incisive Cambridge University Swiss capital (8) 15. Churchman finds God first in 23 19 20 post 9/11 observation that “pagans, Amateur Boxing Club don 19. Upend open vessel (8) canal debacle (8) abortionists, feminists, gays, les- their gloves to bring pain 21. Coil lips back around artist (6) 17. After snake, I call endlessly for 21 22 26 bians, the American Civil Liberties and suffering to a wide selec- 23. Bill made out in charge for painkiller (7) Union… you made this happen”; and tion of “townies” at the 25 26 23 scholar (8) 18. Judge a terrible mess without at number 1, as potty as they come, Town vs Gown boxing 24. Maker of pure cord (8) the Spanish (7) is Robbo’s recent analysis of femi- match. This is the perfect 24 25. Spit with hesitation after side- 20. Slip back, lose head, and slip by nism as being not about equality but opportunity to experience a ways movement (6) (6) 31 25 about encouraging women to “leave piece of mafia-style Las 26. Fix firmly in French ditch (8) 22. Horseman's extra clause (5) their husbands, kill their children, Vegas. Think long-standing, 26 practice witchcraft, destroy capital- deep-set grudge match, with © Mathmo ism, and become lesbians”. a touch of old-fashioned So much more good stuff about Pat, glamour. Blood and bruising like his run for president in 1988 when for the boys and bulging he proposed to disband the depart- biceps for the girls. All with- POT BLACK ment of education, and his plea for in the beautiful setting of the charitable donations to a company of Instructions: Cambridge Guildhall. his which turned out to be airlifting Come along and support Complete the questions in order from red to black. The answer to each ball is integral to the following question. not Rwandan refugees but diamond your local Cambridge mining equipment. But I’d better University brawlers, as they Who scored Argentina’s first against England last weekend? save the rest for pillow talk. Let’s get dish out some jabs and out of here, sweetheart, and make upper-cuts to our townie From which Italian club did InterMilan sign ‘Redball’? beautiful digital TV love ’til the overex- neighbours. Grab a ticket tended metaphor comes up. quickly and impress your In which year did Sven Goran Eriksson leave ‘Yellowball’? mates with a deceptively dif- Who won the Wembley FA Cup final in ‘Greenball’? The 700 Club, 8pm nightly, channel 247 fernet Saturday night out. Tickets are priced at £10 Who sponsored ‘Brownball’ last season? For answers to the crossword and Pot each and are available from Which club’s stadium will ‘Blueball’ sponsor next season? Ryder and Amies. You’d be a Black, contact: fool to miss it. ‘Pinkball’ are currently managed by which Frenchman? [email protected] Varsity 18.11.05 MEN’S FOOTBALL MEN’S RUGBY COLLEGE FOOTBALL ROWING

Cambridge 1-3 Birmingham Cambridge 9-22 Samoa Caius 2-2 St. John’s Light Blues fall short sport Rich Payne scores but Blues Battling win as Cambridge John’s lose the league top Cambridge finish a close 2nd concede three to Birmingham continue Varsity preparations spot after twice going ahead to Oxford at the Four’s Head AI MARLAND JAMIE Captain’s Corner

CLAIRE HOLLINGSWORTH

Women’s Football Captain

Last season was very successful for CUWAFC. The first team came 5th in our league and we got to the semi finals of both the County and League cups. We also played in a 2 day summer tournament in Cheshire where we were the highest placed University finishing 18th out of 128 teams, playing in the company of teams such as Everton, Chelsea and Leeds United and coming up against numerous England players. On top of all that was our impressive 4-0 victo- ry over Oxford. Our first team currently play in the Eastern Region Premier division. This is not a University league so allows us to compete at a higher level, play- ing against teams of the calibre of Cambridge United and Norwich City. We play every Sunday between the end of August and the beginning of April, so we are already well into our season. The disadvantage of this is that we have a period between our graduates leaving and our freshers arriving in which we have to play matches, and this as always, resulted “I FEEL PRIVILEGED TO CAPTAIN SUCH A GREAT GROUP OF PLAYERS” Inspired Akinluyi can’t stop Samoa in a slightly shaky start, but since our Jamie Brockbank Spirited performance but international side just too strong trials and the integration of our new team members we have lost only one erful centre to bore his way through the Samoan first-half pressure were bol- duly hashed his 3rd simple conversion game and I have high hopes that clutches of the Blues’ midfield with a stered after the restart as hooker Jo attempt to the heckling crowd’s delight. things are only going to keep improv- CAMBRIDGE 9 leg-pumping carry. Quick-witted support Clark’s precise throwing found again the Cambridge finally responded with ing. Our second team is almost SAMOA 22 play on the runner’s shoulder allowed soaring former Auckland Blues jumper, Ufton’s second penalty conversion in unrecognisable this year, consisting lock Daniel Leo to open the scoring John Blaikie. Another thunderous catch the 53rd minute, but Samoa immedi- almost entirely of fresh talent, and Despite succumbing 22-9 to the touring under the posts, although the extra and drive sent the pack within yards of ately struck back with their 4th try to they have entered BUSA for the first Samoan internationals, the Blues will points were squandered after a farcical the Samoan line, the Blues winning a extend the lead to a seemingly unas- time and have made a very promising take consolation from their determined drop-kick conversion attempt. penalty on the resulting scrum after a sailable 22-6. Skipper Ed Carter, start. As a squad we have improved performance in front of a full-house at The Blues retaliated with a rare five blatant offside infringement from the looking far happier restored from full- enormously from last year and the Grange Road last Friday evening. A minute period of pressure on the Samoan blindside flanker. back to last season’s inside-centre team is rightly aiming high. We are crowd of over 2000 braved the wet and Samoan line, after gaining a much- However Ufton hooked his attempt berth, earned the Blues a penalty already looking forward to February wintry conditions and long turnstile needed territorial platform thanks to wide of the uprights to signal a reversal under the posts which they negatively 25th when we take on Oxford - queues to witness the South Sea Christ’s winger Dave Akinluyi’s first pul- in momentum. A breakaway Samoan took 3 points from: a strange decision having lost just 4 of our last 20 islanders’ famous brand of free-flowing sating touchline break of the evening. counter-offensive was only narrowly considering the need for a try with Varsity matches and with our squad physical rugby. The tourists’ young The forwards’ lineout catch and drive thwarted as Akinluyi doggedly galloped just 13 minutes remaining. looking stronger than ever, we feel development side did not disappoint, was blunted, but the Blues patiently back the length of the field to knock his Despite a spirited Blues finale and confident that we can keep up our showing-off considerable flair to run in went through several phases before opposite number into touch by the more forceful straight-running out-wide dominance. four tries. earning Ufton a 26th minute placekick Blues’ corner flag, in a mirror image of from the lightning-quick Akinluyi, the I feel privileged to be captain of The Samoans’ opening quarter to pull the score back to 3-5, which it his heroics against Wasps. Such dedica- Samoans held firm to notch a 22-9 victo- such a great group of players and I onslaught threatened to overwhelm the remained until a half-time. However, tion went in vain as the resulting ry. Blues head coach Tony Rodgers am really excited about what the rest students in its sheer physicality, but the just before the interval, Ufton’s scissors line-out ball sent the Samoan midfield declared himself pleased with the result, of this season holds, but for now we Blues held firm in their own 22 through move was well-read resulting in a piling over for an ungainly try in the and particularly this season’s consistent will take it one week at a time and solid defence and Jonny Ufton’s long crunching tackle on promising outside- 45th minute. A third try followed min- good form of man-of-the-match Dave hope for a victory this weekend clearances. Manu Samoa eventually centre Joe Ansbro, who was utes later after fly-half Fuimaono-Sapolu Akinluyi, who surely won’t be unlucky against Barton Rovers to allow us to capitalised on their sustained territorial subsequently replaced by Paul Magee. sold the flagging Blues defence a slick again this year with selection for the rap- continue our climb up the league advantage in the 20th minute, as the The Blues faint hopes of causing an dummy to earn himself an unopposed idly approaching 124th Varsity Match at table. slippery ball was spun out for their pow- upset after having weathered the run-in. The score remained 15-3 as he Twickenham on 6 December.

1 6 5 Next Week Quick Kakuro   Quick Sudoku Very Hard  Easy 5 7 2 6     2 8 4 Bad experience:  3 6 9 1 Was your   7 1 Cambridge Fill the grid so that each run of  squares adds up to the total in   1 6 9 4 interview a the box above or to the left. Use  The object is to insert the num- only numbers 1-9, and never use  bers in the boxes to satisfy only 5 3 9 nightmare? a number more than once per one condition: each row, column run (a number may reoccur in the and 3x3 box must contain the 9 1 4 5  Email: [email protected] same row in a separate run). digits 1 through 9 exactly once. 6 8 1 Solution and solving aids at www.dokakuro.com What could be simpler? © www.dokakuro.com © Daily Sudoku Ltd 2005