Friday February 6th 2009 e Independent Cambridge Student Newspaper since 1947 Issue no 689 | varsity.co.uk »p11 Comment »Centrefold Special pull-out »p22 Features Is CUSU How the Geeks Built Cities: A quick look at the working? exclusive preview issue inside technology of tomorrow

Shoe-thrower student MASONS NEWS SERVICE faces criminal charge Protester will appear in court after throwing shoe at Chinese prime minister Vice-Chancellor says: ‘This University is not a place for shoe-throwing’ scribed the protest as “despicable”. University. Caedmon Tunstall-Behrens “ e Chinese side has expressed its e prime minister titled his speech A Cambridge student has been charged strong feelings against the occurrence ‘See China in the light of her develop- by police a er throwing a shoe at the of the incident,” a statement said. “ e ment’, describing China as “both young Chinese prime minister during a speech facts demonstrate that the despicable and old”, referring to the fact that China on Monday. conduct of this troublemaker will win is a “big Oriental country with a civili- e 27-year-old student, who has not no sympathy,” it continued. sation spreading stretching back several been named, will appear in court on Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor, Alison thousand years. Tuesday charged with causing fear of Richard, said: “I deeply regret that a “She is young, because the People’s violence. single member of the audience failed to Republic is just 60 years old, and the Wen Jiabao was giving a lecture at show the respect for our speaker that is country began reform and opening-up the West Road Concert Hall when a customary at Cambridge. is Univer- only 30 years ago.” loud whistle interrupted him. A student sity is a place for considered argument He concluded his address with a stood up and said: “How can the Uni- and debate, not for shoe-throwing.” hope that British-Chinese cooperation versity prostitute itself with this dicta- Last year, an Iraqi journalist famously would develop into the future. “As the tor? How can you listen to these lies?” threw both his shoes at former US pres-  rst industrialized country, Britain has e protester was heckled by much of ident George Bush during a news con- accumulated rich experience in eco- the audience, who were predominantly ference in Baghdad. nomic development and environmental Chinese. One member of the audience Hundreds of protesters gathered protection. told the protester: “You are being ex- outside the venue. Human rights cam- “We hope to learn from your experi- tremely rude.” paigners wanted to raise awareness of ence and strengthen exchanges and co- e student then took o his shoe and China’s perceived poor human rights operation with you,” he said. threw it towards the stage, but it missed record. ere was only time for two questions Mr Wen and landed a few feet away. Director of Free Tibet, Stephanie at the end of the lecture since Jiabao had Proctors and University Constables Brigden, said: “No-one attending the to leave for a  ight back to Beijing that immediately ran towards where he was Rede Lecture in Cambridge should a ernoon. seated, pushing past other attendees to be under any illusions about Premier In Alison Richard’s address of grati- reach him at the far end of the row. Wen. tude at the end of the a ernoon, she As he was being escorted out of the “He is the public face of China’s vio- commented on that fact that many arms hall by security, the student shouted: lent crackdown inside Tibet. As China’s were raised for questions that were le “Stand up and protest and get out!” second most powerful leader, it is in- unanswered. “ ere is a conversation Mr Wen seemed unfased by the en- conceivable that the orders for Chinese to be continued and an exchange to be counter, initially continuing with his troops to  re on unarmed Tibetan pro- continued. We do hope that you will re- speech on the state of the Chinese econ- testers last year could have come with- turn,” she said. omy within the global market. He bare- out his knowledge and consent.” Security at the event was tight, with ly  inched as the shoe was thrown and e ticketed event was open to all body searches on entry and a ban on responded a er the protester was re- members of the student and faculty laptops coming into the building. Scores moved from the room by saying: “ is body at Cambridge and was also at- of police were deployed to control the despicable behaviour cannot stand in tended by a number of accompanying event. Police were placed on the roofs China’s prime minister, the way of friendship between China Chinese delegates. of surrounding buildings, including the Wen Jiabao, in Cambridge and the UK.” Over 2,000 people applied for tickets English Faculty. on Monday China’s foreign ministry later de- for only 400 places, according to the Continued on page 9 Cambridge’s anniversary fundraising total hits £800m Andrew Bellis leges was £138m, li ing the total raised nomic climate and Britain’s deepening have been far exceeded thanks to their us ever closer to our campaign target so far to £801m. recession. But the campaign says it is commitment and generosity. is is all of £1 billion. However, we are keenly Cambridge has raised £800m towards In 2005, Cambridge launched a conscious of the “ nancial storms” that the more remarkable as  nancial and aware of the  nancial storms around its £1bn fundraising target, the Univer- campaign to raise £1bn to safeguard could a ect future fundraising. economic concerns mounted during us. We know that achieving our shared sity announced yesterday. the University’s  nancial future. e Vice-Chancellor, Alison Rich- the year.” goal will demand even more intense e 800th anniversary campaign’s e announcement, which re ects ard, expressed her delight at the an- e co-chairman of the campaign, commitment from all of us, as we con- annual fundraising report said that the donations up until August 2008, comes nouncement. “Our high hopes for the Sir David Walker, said: “ is mile- tinue to build a  rm  nancial base for total raised centrally and by the Col- amid growing concerns about the eco- support of our alumni and friends stone year for Cambridge has brought collegiate Cambridge.” Something to say? [email protected] Friday February 6th 2009 2 Editorial Call the Editors directly on 01223 761541 varsity.co.uk

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Contents Give sport a chance

ambridge is justly proud of much of its elite sport. Its rugby, rowing and (to some extent) cricket teams challenge the world’s best, and accordingly attract some truly world-class sportsmen. Shown on national television, they hold the at- News p1-9 Ctention of much of the country. At the grassroots, however, it is a di erent matter entirely.  e University has no sports facilities for the use of all its members.  is would be considered shameful in a primary Drinking society investigation p5 school, let alone a world-leading university; it cannot be allowed to continue. We do not have even as simple a facility as a Ever swallowed a gold sh?  e sordid swimming pool: this puts the swimming and water polo Blues at an obvious and grave disadvantage to all its rivals (includ- underbelly of Cambridge is revealed. ing Oxford), but is also highly unfortunate for the vast number of Cambridge students who would otherwise go swimming for  tness or fun. Some might very reasonably point out that this is an academic institution which must concentrate on intellectual activi- Varsity Pro le p7 ties above all else. However, the University already makes extensive provision for drama, music and even, through College We speak to Tamsin Omond, about bars, drinking. To ignore the wide popularity of sports among normal students is simply ba ing. Moreover, it may a ect ‘Rushing’ the houses of parliament. Cambridge’s academic standards in the long run, as clever students who are also sporty may prefer to try their luck at Ox- ford or another more athletically endowed university. It is surely this inadequacy of provision which has led to the desperate situation of some College sports. It is common to see Colleges needing to club together to  eld a team even in the  agship sport of rugby; this would not happen if the Comment p11-13 University cared nearly as much about the sporting needs of its whole student body as it does about the ringers it calls up for the big occasions.  e Essay p11 Cambridge has just announced that it has raised £800 million from its 800th anniversary campaign. Is it really too much Obama’s inauguration is not the to hope that some of that money will be spent on an area of University life which is valued by so many, and which has been dawning of a new era for American hitherto so neglected? foreign policy. Submit your letter for the chance to win a bottle of wine from the Cambridge Wine Merchants. [email protected] All letters may be edited for space and style. CUSU is not just red tape p12 Our student union is not as bland, Impostor in our midst? An intimidating protest had been occupied for 60 years, a claim boring or beige as we all think which again forsakes Israel’s right to Dear Sirs, Sirs, exist. I was intimidated and I would like to I felt that someone should write and In last week’s edition [Issue 688], the know whether this was their intention. inform you that there is clearly an impos- Cambridge Gaza Solidarity Occupation Magazine p15-32 tor working as a Varsity writer. Mark stated that ‘there has been nothing in- Yours faithfully, Wolfson’s argument [Issue 688, January timidating about this occupation’. With Technology of tomorrow p22-23 30th] that, essentially, non-violent protest respect, surely it is not up to them to Alex Cohen We take a look at what will change is tantamount to terrorism quite clearly decide whether it has been intimidating, St John’s College the world some day, probably. merely to state whether this was their intention. Cumming all over George I was intimidated by their refusal  e Mayfair squatters p24 to condemn Hamas, an organisation Dear Sirs, Middle-class anarchists get one up whose charter commits to kill not just on  e Man, squatting in a £22.5m cannot be the argument of a Cambridge all Israelis but all Jews. I was intimidated How unfortunate it was that George student, and therefore I can only con- by the fact that they showed solidarity Reynolds tried to be funny about London mansion. clude that a very precocious primary with other similar occupations elsewhere Scotland next to an article by Ed school pupil has somehow managed to in the country, which made statements Cumming, about the Maypole, which Gra ti Knitting p26 slip under the radar and contribute an ar- including: “From the river to the sea, was actually funny. Anyone who has A look at guerrilla knitting’s most ticle. You have to admire their spirit, but Palestine will be free”.  is insinuates read what Mr Reynolds attempts to I’m afraid it is impossible to admire their that Palestinian freedom must come at pass o as theatre reviews will have notorious gang. argument, as they have not yet mastered the cost of the destruction of Israel. been unsurprised (or bored) to see the a few very basic political concepts, and I was intimidated by the fact that apparent subject of his piece quickly seem confused by ideas such as ‘democ- they refused to condemn bloggers in slip from view, providing the subtext Sport p33-36 racy’ and ‘freedom of speech’. Perhaps a support of the occupation whose posts for yet another syntactically garbled, politics textbook might be a useful gi included ill-informed and frankly charmless appraisal of his own impor- Who won Cam-Ox basketball? p33 for this young impersonator to save him startling statements such as: “ ere’s tance. It was Oxford. Life goes on. making such a mistake again. nothing distinctive or special about the way that the Nazis slaughtered people Yours faithfully, Yours faithfully, in WWII.” I was intimidated by the fact Our terrible sports facilities p34 Helena Barton that they refused to condemn comments Elliot Ross Find out exactly how bad we have it. Newnham College on their blog which stated that Palestine St John’s College

Varsity has been Cambridge’s independent student newspaper since 1947 and distributes 10,000 free copies to every Cambridge College, to ARU and around Cambridge each week.

Editors Hugo Gye & Michael Stothard [email protected] Associate Editors Clementine Dowley [email protected] & Robert Peal Get involved [email protected] News Editors Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens [email protected] Comment Editor Robert Stagg [email protected] Sport Editors Jenny Morgan & Jamie Ptaszynski [email protected] Features Editor Joe Hunter features@varsity. Weekly meetings are held for anyone interested in co.uk Arts Editor Emma Mustich [email protected] eatre Editor Joel Massey [email protected] Reviews & Listings Editor Laurie Tu rey [email protected] Fashion Editors Kate Womersley, Alice Newell-Hanson & Katy King [email protected] writing for Varsity. Senior Reporters Christos Lavidas, Timothy Leung, Beth Staton & Lizzy Tyler [email protected] Science Correspondents Rose Powell-Tuck & Arthur Turrell [email protected] Food & Drink Editors Jono Franklin & Amanda Palin [email protected] eatre Critics Victoria Ball, Nicholas Beck, Nathan Brooker, Lauren Davidson & George Reynolds [email protected] Music Critics Lucy News Bryant & Paul Smith [email protected] Film Critics Isobel Finkel & Tom Morris [email protected] Visual Arts Critic Laura Freeman [email protected] Classical Music Critics David Allen & Andrew Browning [email protected] Literary Critic Colette Sensier Sunday, 4pm in the Maypole (Portugal Place) [email protected] Editor-at-large Ed Cumming [email protected] Sub-editors Colm Flanagan, Sheli Levenson & Charlie Pearson [email protected] Photographers Patrick Garety, Tim Johns, Sean Jones, Tom Moriarty, Magazine Lizzie Robinson, Charlotte Runcie, Dhaneesha Senaratne & Zing Tsjeng [email protected] Illustrators Alice Edgerley, Tom de Freston, Sallie Godwin, Jane Hall, Emma Lough, Giles Smith, Katherine Spence, Christiana Spens, Claudia Stocker, Anna Trench, Oliver Watson & Sarah Woolley [email protected] Wednesday, 5.30pm in the Maypole Business & Advertising Manager Michael Derringer [email protected] Board of Directors Dr Michael Franklin (Chair), Prof. Peter Robinson, Dr Tim Harris, Mr Tom Walters, Mr Chris Wright, Mr Michael Derringer, Miss Lizzie Mitchell, Mr Elliot Ross (VarSoc President), OR Mr  omas Bird, Mr George Grist, Mr Patrick Kingsley, Miss Natasha Lennard, Miss Anna Trench, Mr Hugo Gye & Mr Michael Stothard NEWSPAPERS Varsity, Old Examination Hall, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF. Tel 01223 337575. Fax 01223 760949. Varsity is published by Varsity Publications Ltd. Varsity SUPPORT RECYCLING Publications also publishes BlueSci and The Mays. ©2009 Varsity Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval E-mail [email protected] to  nd out more. Recycled paper made up 79% of the raw system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. Printed at Iliffe material for UK newspapers in 2007 Print Cambridge — Winship Road, Milton, Cambridge CB24 6PP on 48gsm UPM Matt Paper. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Offi ce. ISSN 1758-4442 NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT RECYCLING Friday February 6th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 3 Cambridge freezes a er In Brief Royal to name Blues’ boat

The Duke of Edinburgh is sched- uled to name the 2009 Blues boat heaviest snowfall in 20 years as well as a London-Cambridge train next week. The Chancel- lor of the University will attend

TIM JOHNS the boat-naming ceremony at the Cambridge University Boat Club on February 12. He will then go to the railway station to name the train to mark the 800th anniver- sary of the University. He will later attend a Civic Reception at the Guildhall before visiting various departments of the University. The Duke is then expected to make an appearance at Old Schools for a reception for the University of Cambridge Alumni before attend- ing a reception, lecture and dinner to mark the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth at Christ’s. Chicken-shaped tree Motorists have been doing a double-take when they spot a bizarre-looking tree – which is in the shape of a giant chicken. The tree, believed to be an ash or a hawthorn, is smothered in ivy so that it naturally forms the animal shape which resembles a pruned tree. It rules the roost looming by a slip road off the A10 near Mil- ton, causing many commuters to wonder if someone was playing a prank. Bob Widd, an arboricultur- alist with tree surgery firm Global Tree Solutions, of Willingham, said time and weather had formed the tree into its remarkable shape. Police to be named

A police force is set to become Students make the the first in Britain to stitch of- most of the snow at ficers’ names onto the outside of King’s this week their uniforms in a bid to improve public relations. Cambridgeshire Police plans to sew the names » 60% chance of disruption due to heavy snow across Cambridgeshire today, says Met Office of all uniformed staff onto their shoulder epaulettes alongside oth- » Transport links and hundreds of schools closed due to bad weather er rank insignia. Chief Constable Julie Spence said members of the Beth Staton markably few problems. “Everything sted were also grounded, but both are cils cannot keep up with demand,” public have a right to know the was business as usual really,” said now operating on a normal service. said Mark Kemp, the council’s direc- names of officers they are dealing e Met O ce has warned of a 60 per the secretary of the Biological Sci- The train service to King’s Cross was tor of highways. with. She said: “I think it can only cent chance of disruption due to heavy ences school. “Some of the staff from suspended again on Wednesday after More than 200 schools and colleges help if people know the names of snow across Cambridgeshire yesterday. smaller villages found it difficult to a power line failure. across the region were closed yester- police officers they are dealing e severe weather warning comes af- get into town, but everyone did even- Cambridgeshire County Council is day as authorities attempted to cope with – why shouldn’t people know ter Cambridge experienced its heaviest tually.” one of many local authorities across with the wintry conditions. who we are?” The trial scheme, snowfalls in almost two decades this Of the two teaching sessions that the country to be affected by a na- e snow has been caused by an which began last month, will now week, causing widespread disruption the Law faculty had to postpone, tional shortage of grit. The council’s area of high pressure, drawing in very be rolled out to include all 1,400 across the city and surrounding area. one was traffic-related and the other gritters, who have been dispatched cold continental air across the UK as it uniformed officers and 200 PC- With temperatures dropping sig- was caused by a back injury incurred more than 60 times this winter, have moved slowly westwards from south- SOs at Cambridgeshire Police. If nificantly at the weekend, the snow while shovelling snow. spread more than 11,000 tonnes of ern Scandinavia out into the Atlantic successful, it could be rolled out began to fall lightly on Sunday af- It was to the intense relief of eager rocksalt across the county’s roads Ocean. “ e outlook remains rather in other forces across the country. ternoon. It continued with increas- students that very few lectures were since October at a cost of more than wintry with further spells of rain, sleet ing heaviness through the night, and called off. “Frankly,” commented one £1.2m. and snow for parts of the UK on Friday students emerging from clubs in the second-year NatSci, “I wouldn’t have “These are record-breaking condi- and through the weekend,” according early hours of the morning were met known even if they were.” tions this season and nationwide it to the Met O ce. with a town transformed, covered in The poor weather has had a signif- has meant the suppliers for all coun- Additional reporting by Sufyan Khan a 5cm-thick blanket of snow. Another icant impact on transport around the inch of snow fell on Cambridge early region, with major disruption to the 52 Trumpington Street yesterday morning. London-Cambridge train route and Cambridge CB2 1RG The Met Office says the last com- Stansted Airport. PATRICK GARETY PATRICK parable snowy spell was in 1991. Police yesterday urged people not FREE CHELSEA BUN At the University, many sports to travel on some of the region’s With every purchase over £2.00 in the shop fixtures were called off and supervi- major roads unless “absolutely nec- OR sions cancelled due to transport and essary” as plunging temperatures FREE MORNING childcare difficulties. Some debates, caused dangerous icy conditions and including one on the Israel-Palestine a series of traffic accidents. COFFEE/TEA (9am-12pm) conflict, were also postponed due to For most of Monday the rail link With any cake or pastry in the restaurant flight problems. Most shops in Lion’s between Cambridge and London was Yard closed early due to staffing dif- out of action, mostly due to signalling on presentation of this voucher ficulties. problems created by heavy snow and and proof of student status The faculties, however, suffered re- reduced visibility. Planes from Stan- News Editors: Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens Friday February 6th 2009 4 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk Fee cap review delayed until a er election » Universities Minister admits decision on removing fee cap won’t be made until June 2010 » CUSU President calls announcement a “disgrace”, as admission is attacked by opposition politicians “David has answered the question want to run into an election with tui- Gemma Oke he was asked [at the conference],” a tion fees as a prominent topic. e fees e Universities Minister has admitted spokeswoman said. “An independent review should be non-binding and that a review on the tuition fee cap will review is scheduled to begin later this conducted by an independent panel, so not be completed until a er the next year to account for the new intake of there’s no reason that it shouldn’t take general election. students in the 2009-10 academic year, place in 2009, irrespective of party poli- Answering a question a er a speech as part of a long term review of higher tics or a general election.” at a higher education conference this education provision.” “David Lammy is right when he says week, David Lammy said that the gov- CUSU’s access o cer, Charlotte the review should be part of a much ernment’s tuition fee review would not Richer, said: “ e topic of tuition fees wider review of the funding of higher be concluded until June 2010. e last is politically divisive, but that doesn’t education,” she added. possible date for a general election is mean that people seeking election, In his speech, Lammy also urged May 5th 2010. particularly anyone depending on the businesses, particularly in law and e government is reviewing wheth- student vote, shouldn’t be transparent medicine, to look beyond Oxbridge er to li the cap on tuition fees, cur- about their intentions. graduates when recruiting to become rently set at £3,145 per year. Most uni- “It’s no surprise that neither party more representative of society. versities in England and Wales charge the maximum possible fees to British students. ere are fears that raising the cap Bene’t’s Cafés on tuition fees could have implications for the widening university access to disadvantaged social groups. Some 20 King’s Parade

universities are reportedly seeking to of t Kin ree g’s ’t St charge students up to £6,000 per year 4 Bene’t Street Parade and Bene for some courses. e CUSU President, Mark Fletcher, said he was “not massively surprised” by talk of postponing a review of tui- tion fees, adding that to do so was a “disgrace” given the government’s com- mitment to improving access to higher 20% off every Wednesday education. Ciabattas - Wraps - Sandwiches Shadow Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary David Willetts Loyalty Cards for criticised Lammy’s admission and Toasted Ciabattas called for the review to take place im- mediately. Award winning Norfolk Icecream “We want the fees review to start now and to be as wide-ranging as possible,” Cappuccino, Espresso the Conservative MP said. “ ere is already plenty of evidence available Bene’t’s Chocolate Indulgence which should be looked at and I see no David Lammy, the reason for there to be a delay.” Try our Homemade Cakes universities minister A spokesman for the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills de- Bene’t’s of King’s Parade open till 8pm fended the minister’s comments. Council slashes rape centre funds » Council cuts funding to £2.50 per caller amid spending reductions down to unavoidable funding restric- Beth Staton training and development. TOKYO tions. “ e community development According to the government, sexual Cambridge Rape Crisis has been al- budget has decreased this year, but violence and rape costs the state over the neon sunrise located just £683 of council funding, we’ve strived to maintain the same £76,000 per victim in loss of earnings www.springball.com despite applying for £11,000. is aver- level of funding for all the organisa- and long term health problems. Rape ages out at £2.50 for each caller to the tions which depend on us,” a spokes- Crisis condemned the city council for rape helpline. man said. failing to ful l a statutory duty, warning Churchill College Springball Adjusted for in ation, the sum “We’re pleased that we’ve managed that the city of Cambridge “will end up amounts to a cut in funding, despite to do so with Rape Crisis despite the paying the moral and economic costs if 13th February 2009 the fact that the original application very limited budgets we’re running their most vulnerable residents are le was backed by Cambridgeshire Police on,” he added. without adequate support”. and David Howarth MP. In 2007 ex- Natalie Szarek, CUSU women’s of- In light of the shortfall, the centre 80ft Ninja assault course, Sumo actly the same amount was awarded,  cer, condemned the move, calling are looking elsewhere for funding op- suits, Ball Pit, Laser Quest, live and the centre was forced to tempo- it “completely unacceptable that the portunities. “ e volunteers are work- rarily close. council can’t meet the funding request ing hard to ensure that the centre won’t Japanese gameshow, silent “We speak to hundreds of some of proportionate for this essential service. shut down like last year’ said Szarek. disco, casino, massage the most vulnerable women and chil- “Cambridge Rape crisis is the only “ e service is up and running again, parlour, unlimited dren in Cambridge who have survived source of support for many women and volunteers are looking for fund- champagne, traditional childhood sexual abuse and rape,” said and girls in who have been a ected ing from elsewhere. It is disgraceful, Susan Turner of Rape Crisis. by sexual abuse in Cambridge: it is of however, that resources are being ex- Japanese food “As sad as this setback is, we want to the greatest importance for the whole pended on searching for funding and and much, much let our callers know that we will  ght community, and a bene t to the stu- that it is not provided publicly.” Appearances more. to secure further funding and that dents who are involved with the run- Szarek was keen to stress that the our crisis line will remain open every ning of the helpline as well as those Rape Crisis was appealing to May Ball from Nine Black week,” she said. who call on it for help and support.” committees as a potential source of Alps + Foals “We are the only voice that many e centre, which can only a ord to income for the coming year, and the confi rmed Tickets of our callers have, and we will shout open two hours a week, received over centre has urged residents to pressure loudly to ensure that they have the 260 calls in 2008, 20% of which were their local councillors. £70 service they deserve.” from children. Funding is needed for e Cambridge Rape Crisis helpline Cambridge City Council says that basic costs such as o ce rental and is open every Wednesday from 7.30- the failure to meet the request was phone bills, as well as for volunteer 9.30pm on 01223 245888. Friday February 6th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 5

NEWS FEATURE

Inside Cambridge’s SARAH MOONEY drinking societies In the year after university society initiations were laid bare in the national press, Varsity has delved into the secretive world of drinking societies in Cambridge and how new members are brought on board

Caedmon Tunstall-Behrens a pig’s snout accompanied with wasabi as the lectures or the beautiful buildings.” sauce, and a pint of water with a live e Senior Tutor at Murray Edwards, o n e ’ s In October of last year the BBC exposed a gold sh swimming inside; a dish which, Dr Owen Saxon, said of the Harlots, the m o u t h , society initiation at Gloucester University, if regurgitated with said creature still College’s drinking society, “it certainly at every posting a video of students lined up with alive, exempts the diner from two of the doesn’t seem to be something that would checkpoint, plastic bags over their heads, vomiting in- following courses. do Cambridge’s reputation any favours.”  aming socks any initiated mem- termittently and being shouted at by an- eir latest initiation took place last Yet despite this o cial condemna- being placed on ber can point at other student dressed in a Nazi uniform. week and featured raw leeks, whole, un- tion, CUSU Welfare O cer Andrea male genitals, the an invited male, But it is a widespread issue within Brit- cooked squids and entire chillies. e four Walko was reluctant to condemn the consumption of or ‘Legionary’ as ish universities, Cambridge included. prospective members were then adorned initiations so strongly. sweets from various they call it, keep- Adrian Boyle, an Accident and Emer- with kippers around their necks and She said: “In terms of initiations spe- ori ces and entire ing with the Ro- gency consultant at Addenbrooke’s, told doused in treacle and  our. At the end of ci cally, I’m not sure they are as much of a teams giving each man theme, and Varsity that most of the students he sees the trial, hosted at the Punter on Pound problem here in Cambridge as other uni- other back, sack and he must then down visiting A&E come with alcohol-related Hill, they had to down four “dirty” pints versities. What I think is more of a prob- crack waxes. e win- his drink. ere is no problems, and the number of alcohol-re- in 3 minutes, each containing foods, spic- lem are the drinking societies.” ners received a trip to limit to the number of lated admittances increases substantially es and foreign liquids, spurred on by yells Ben, 21, is a member of one of the cen- Canada. times this can be done to during university term time, “because from onlookers of “down it, down it!” tral Colleges’ drinking societies, and was One student, recently any one individual, and it has been re- there is much more activity around town. In other societies  ne dining in initiated in his  rst year. “Initiation day initiated into a drinking society, told ported that many don’t make it much past “In the last 10 years, the number of classy settings is taken equally seri- was just a day out with the lads really, but Varsity that they are a way of formalising the end of the meal, if that. female students who are coming in ex- ously. Members of the Beefsteak Club, a with lots of booze” he said. “ ere’s a fair friendships. “Membership draws people Caesarian Sunday, occurring in the  rst tremely drunk and incapable has shot cross-Cambridge society, are treated to who can’t necessarily sustain such a wide Bank Holiday in Easter Term, sees the an- up. More too are being assaulted, which I a lavish seven-course dinner, each dish social group themselves together. In a nual  ght between the Girton ‘Green Gi- think is a large safety concern.” accompanied with a full bottle of wine. THE TOP FIVE sociological sense, members might feel ants’ and the Caesarians on Jesus Green. Many, if not most, undergraduates will e meal is served in a room with tar- SALACIOUS DRINKING higher up on the social ladder. It could be Legend has it that a member of the Green have been out with a society at one stage paulin covering every surface to avoid that most abuse directed at prospective Giants stole a bottle of Pimms from a or another. An average night out begins damage to the property. SOCIETY NAMES members on swaps is from those less con- member of the Caesarians. e bottle was with a couple of pints, followed by a bottle e Ferretz, an inter-collegiate drink-  dent with their social situations.” subsequently thrown at the group of Cae- of wine at dinner, followed by more pints ing society, must consume 80 units on 1. Fresh Meat Swaps at the Bombay Brasserie, a fa- sarians in a challenge to a  ght. e day back in the college bar and then three or their initiation, beginning with a bottle of 2. Coc Soc vourite haunt for many societies, present sees most college drinking societies de- four VKs at a club. Total intake on a single gin and  nishing o with a bottle of port, 3. e S.L.A.G.S opportunities for drinking games beyond scend on the Green for a day of drinking. night out will frequently match or even consumed through a condom. 4. G-Spots the standard “pennying” tradition. Break- Not all initiations involve heavy drink- exceed the 24 weekly units recommended Whilst most initiations will end in little 5. e Emmanuel Kants ing poppadums over your neighbour’s ing. Many female societies prefer to set by the Government. more than a embarrassment or a severe head is a favourite, as is dunking your the girls tasks, such as running sex sur- But if drinking societies are the lifeblood hangover the next day, some have become naan bread in curry and slapping the girl veys in town, collecting obscure items of of this culture of bingeing, their initiations tragic. One 18-year-old student at Exeter bit of shagging, but that’s only an aside to next to you with it. clothing from strangers, kissing strangers are the pressure points, where normal University died a er taking part in a golf the drinking. e Patricians, Downing’s male drink- and dressing up. undergraduate excesses are distilled into initiation ceremony in 2006, and another “ ere’s a points system for the girls ing society, are alleged to have to drink e Newnham Nuns’ ceremony, for ritualised orgies of consumption. died in 2003 following a similar initiation – it’s pretty straightforward, from pull- eight pints in two hours, followed by instance, involves eating liquorice held Some are more notorious than others. a er choking on his own vomit. ing to shagging. Maybe more for some- cocktails in one of the city’s parks. eir by a volunteering male’s teeth. e girl is e Wyverns, Magdalene’s men’s drink- A er the BBC’s exposé, the National thing special.” uniform is chinos and a blazer and mem- then expected to kiss the boy when she ing society, have an infamous method Union of Students called for a blanket Prior to initiation, potential members bers are  ned with downing their drinks if reaches his lips. Another part sees a top- for testing out their new members. e ban on initiation ceremonies in all Brit- will swap with other Colleges or drink they are not appropriately attired. less man covered in whipped cream and ordeal involves a “meal” consisting of ish universities. with existing members, o en being set Another second year girl added, “if a chocolate buttons, being cleaned by the over 15 courses, specially prepared for One second year student said, “I disa- challenging tasks to test their suitabil- guy isn’t in a society, he could be seen as girl, using only her mouth. More degrad- those to be initiated. gree with NUS’ calls for a ban because it ity for society membership. “You have socially less up there and so less attrac- ing, perhaps, is when the girls are told to Perhaps surprisingly, the  rst ten is part of the fabric of the social life at the to chop a bottle of wine before formal, t i v e”. put a condom onto a banana, again using courses are served without alcohol, and University. It may not be one that the Uni- shirtless, because vomiting is always a e Caesarians, Jesus’ inter-year drink- only their mouths. include such questionable delicacies as versity sanctions, but it’s just as important possibility. e other lads serenade you ing society, has a tradition whereby Additional reporting by Beth Staton with the society’s song,” said one stu- dent. Another well-known society’s initia- tion for female members is alleged to in- volve the member-to-be standing on a TOM FORRESTER chair, lowering her tights and an existing member dipping her  ngers in wine and simulating digital penetration. e classic culmination to the drinking society year is Suicide Sunday, when many hold garden parties. e Wyverns’ party last year ended in police involvement as a Trinity student punched a co-competitor and a security guard in a jelly wrestling competition. e event is believed to be going ahead, although in a new location. Its winter equivalent, the VT valley rally, occurring during the annual Var- A Cambridge student sity ski trip, is quickly catching up to Su- Students at the Nuns’ with jugs of vomit a er icide Sunday’s levels of debauchery. is initiation put condoms on his initiation. year activities included teabagging, the bananas with their mouths act of dangling the scrotal sack in some- News Editors: Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens Friday February 6th 2009 6 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk

In Brief Record total for Jailbreak as students Cambridge to expand its borders travel 52,000 miles for free Cambridge’s historic boundaries look set to expand following an unprecedented agreement be- tween the city’s council and the rural district that encircles it. Cambridge is one of a number MASONS NEWS SERVICE of cities in the country criticised for its tightly drawn boundaries which some say have restricted growth. Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire Dis- trict Council sent a joint letter to the Boundary Committee request- ing changes to be made to the existing border between the two authorities. Cambridge’s bound- ary would be extended to the A14 to the north and the M11 to the south. Councillor in ambulance scandal

A councillor accused of obstruct- e winning team, ing an ambulance on an emer- Magdalene students gency call is to appear before a Henry Fovargue and standards committee. The East of Annie Spencer, in Detroit England Ambulance Service com- plained tjhat Colin Rosenstiel, of Cambridge City Council, chal- lenged an ambulance trying to get into Jesus Green in June 2007. Mr Rosenstiel is due to appear before Nat Sokolova “ e kindness of some of the passen- day and set about asking for a free  ight town. e next day was spent being re- the city council’s standards com- gers was incredible. We ended up with to the speci ed destination ‘anywhere’! jected by every form of public transport mittee next week. A spokeswoman is year’s RAG Jailbreak is set to raise a about £400 which we used to book the We were kindly given a free ticket to available in Reykjavik. So Reykjavik was for the council said an investiga- record amount of money for charity, ac- two of us onto a  ight using an internet Reykjavik in Iceland by Iceland Express our  nal destination: 1,140 miles for the tion was launched following a cording to its organisers. booking site. and a er spending an incredible ten grand total of £0.00.” complaint by the East of England At 9am last Friday, almost two hun- “At a time when many people are re- hours in Stansted we eventually took o Other participants were a lot less Ambulance Service whose driver dred adventurers began trying to get as ally struggling because of the economic for Iceland,” Emily told Varsity. lucky. Matt Sutton and Andrey Pronin was trying to reach a patient with far from Cambridge as they could with- conditions, people were so generous.’’ “Having not seen any other success- from Fitzwilliam had to end their trip in a knee injury. out using any of their own money. In to- e pair arrived in Motor City, De- ful Jailbreakers in the airport and mak- London a er being stopped by the Met- tal, the students travelled 52,800 miles, troit, on Saturday night, and were given ing fast progress away from Cambridge, ropolitan Police, who stripped them of Protests against housing with the winners travelling over 3,000 complimentary return tickets to the we were pretty sure we were in the lead. all their money while they were begging miles to Detroit, Michigan. UK via New York’s La Guardia airport Landing in Iceland was an experience in on the tube. Even the RAG Jailbreak development e winning team, Magdalene stu- and Amsterdam in the Netherlands - a itself – ice caked to the runway and a se- T-shirts and letters of authenti cation dents Henry Fovargue and Annie Spen- journey that would have cost £3,000 in riously wobbly plane! didn’t help them sound credible. Students are campaigning to save a cer (above), hope to raise £1,200 for  ights, taxis and taxes. “ at was explained by the blizzard Similar was the fate of Margherita house close to Magdalene College. World Vision as the pair were promised ey  nally arrived back in the UK we found as we got o the plane... mi- Manca and Kit Fitton’s attempt to make The house, at 13 Chesterton Road, special sponsorship if they reached the on Monday morning a er their return nus 5 degrees and snow pelting down. A their way to Berlin without a train ticket: on the corner at Hertford street USA.  ight was delayed by  ve hours due to night in the airport was not an appealing in the guard’s words: “Nice fairytale for was the setting of Uncle Alan and e winners began by hitching a ride snow on the runway at Heathrow. prospect so luckily we blagged a bus into you – now get o my train!” Aunt Gwen’s house in Tom’s Mid- from Cambridge to Heathrow before Jailbreak is a charity competition or- night Garden, a children’s novel by bagging two free transatlantic  ights to ganised by Cambridge RAG, which has Philippa Pearce. The building has Detroit. been running since 2004. is year, 87 been derelict for some time and a “We started ringing around the local teams out of 102 successfully completed fire in December 2008, later con- radio stations asking if they would ask the competition, travelling more than firmed as arson, on the first floor motorists listening in to give us a li ,” 52,000 miles overall. For every mile they make it more likely the council Fovargue said. went, every border they crossed, or every will allow it to be demolisheded “Nobody picked us up but passing continent they reached, they will be able to make room for a housing devel- motorists did donate money which we to claim sponsorship from their family opment containing twelve studio used to get down to Heathrow very and friends, and this money will then be apartments and car parking. cheaply on the bus. sent to the 25 local and national charities “Once we got there we went around sponsored by RAG. Chris McKennon, Cambridge represented at all of the major airlines explaining our one of the Jailbreak reps, believes that the Grammys charitable cause and asking if any of this year’s outcome will beat last year’s them would be willing to sponsor us or £7,800 by far. give us a  ight. Emily Ahlers and Henry Hughes, Tarik O’Regan, a current Fellow Jess Nicholls and Flo of Trinity and former postgradu- “ ey were all incredibly stingy so we from Jesus, travelled to Reykjavik, Ice- decided to try and raise money in the land, a distance of 1,140 miles, placing Sharp on their way to ate at Corpus Christi, has been Ljubljana, Slovenia nominated for two categories at airport by asking passengers in the wait- them eighth overall. this year’s Grammy Awards. His ing rooms. “We got to Stansted early on in the album Threshold of Night has been shortlisted for both the ‘Best Clas- sical Album’ and ‘Best Choral Al- bum’ categories.The recording is performed by Conspirare, a twice Grammy-nominated ensemble, and conducted by Craig Hella Johnson, founder and artistic di- rector. O’Regan’s other new album, called Scattered Rhymes, is part of Robina G. Young’s ‘Producer of the Year’ portfolio. The ceremony takes place this Sunday. Friday February 6th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 7 Varsity Profile »Week 4: Tamsin Omond, Cambridge alumna and eco-warrior

amsin Omond describes her life as of her first summer free from academia, “really fierce and fun”. She is part Tamsin felt that “suddenly everything Tof the new generation of eco-warriors, was certain”. She had decided to do “this making it her mission to spread the word whole thing of falling right into the deep 2 about climate change. end of the environmental movement”. The number of times Tamsin has Meeting her dispels any preconcep- With the current recession, she sug- appeared in court tions I had from reading articles about gests, “the jobs available a few years ago her in the past. She much prefers face- just aren’t there. In the past two years, to-face interviews, and I can understand climate change has been so much further why. Her facial expressions and quicken- up on the global agenda”, something she ing speech as she explains her activities hopes will encourage more to come into and motivation really exude excitement. fighting it. 12 The number of large-scale protests Omond is not playing the role of rebel- In February 2008, Omond, along with Climate Rush is holding this year. lious granddaughter to a Baronet, she is five others, climbed to the rooftop of the truly committed to the climate change Houses of Parliament in a protest against centrating on the “privilege” of her up- cause. the lack of involvement other parties had bringing, a portrayal she wishes to knock She rolls a cigarette and tells me about in the debate on the future of Heathrow back straight away. “I think the press are Climate Rush, a group launched in spring airport aside from the shareholders. always going to want to make you intel- last year with a celebratory rush on Par- “BAA HQ was the best slogan, it captured ligible to their audience. It tends to just liament where Omond nearly faced im- the imagination of the public”, she says of choose epithets like ‘Grand-daughter of prisonment for breaking bail. The group’s the banner they draped over the main a baronet’ etc.” homepage states that they are “inspired façade of the building. “But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the actions of the suffragettes 100 years “It was ironic because Brown said that that they choose to stereotype. This is es- ago, who showed that peaceful civil diso- decisions were to be made in the House pecially so with environmentalism – it’s bedience could inspire positive change”. rather than on the roofs, but since he so much easier to present it as a fringe Omond wasn’t active at all in the en- didn’t even give the commons a vote on movement – something that ‘those’ peo- vironmental movement whilst studying the future at Heathrow, even that doesn’t ple do, rather than something everyone English at Trinity, from where she gradu- h a p p e n”. should be a part of. Instead the media di- ated in 2006. She dabbled in drama, The preparation for the protest took a vides it into boxes, am I of the Zac Gold- though found it quite exclusive. “If you’re long time. Since their first Plane Stupid smith or the Climate Camp ilk?” not on the scene, it’s probably quite diffi- action of interrupting a committee meet- But why focus on Britain, which ac- cult to get involved”, she ponders. “I sup- ing on the future of aviation in Parlia- counts for just two per cent of the world’s pose it was the usual story – hours in the ment didn’t make headlines, Omond said carbon dioxide emissions? “Someone library and then searching for a party.” they “had to think creatively about how must act first and in doing so they will Here she guiltily glances at her friend to capture the public eye and elevate the lead others.” across the table. Her friend grins back. issue”. Caedmon Tunstall-Behrens Having been convinced by a house- Omond has been the subject in an ar- If you would like to contact Tamsin email mate to attend climate camp at the end ray of media coverage, much of it con- her at [email protected].

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From the Archives Cindies in Oompa Loompa night row Willy Wonka-themed club night causes controversy for Big Fish Ents Actors with dwarfism hired to pose as Oompa Loompas with partygoers

Amber Medland A bouncer working at Ballare on the evening in question pointed out that  e organisers of a Willy Wonka- all the club’s employees are paid for themed club night at Ballare on Tues- their work, and that the men could of day caused controversy with their de- course have chosen to decline the o er cision to employ actors su ering from of work. dwar sm as part of the evening’s enter-  e night is run by Big Fish Ents as tainment. part of the Jelly Baby club night fran- Week 4: Mayweek 1952  e actors were hired to dress up chise.  e managing director of the Farsity’s account of a “survey” they as the Oompa Loompa characters fea- company, Simon Burdus, defended his didn’t carry out but thought it would tured in the  lm Charlie and the Choco- actions. be amusing to cover it all the same. late Factory, and to stand outside the “ e night was based on Willy nightclub handing out free chocolates Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.  ey had aintaining its long tradition of and having their photographs taken dwarves in the  lms, so in trying to service to the public, “Farcity” with partygoers. recreate the theme as best as possible thisM week presents the results of an Some clubbers, however, expressed we hired them. If I hadn’t used small elaborate inquiry into the plans, discomfort with the situation, suggest- actors I could have been accused of be- characters, morals, ambitions, and ing that dressing adult men up in funny ing size-ist.” achievements of those who in a costumes made light of a serious medi- He also reported that the main ac- few days will be leaving Cambridge cal condition by turning it into a side- tor, Raymond Gri ths, called the event forever. Detailed questionnaires were show novelty entertainment for a night “one of the best night I have done in a distributedto four thousand under- out. long time.” graduates who said they were expect- Some guests entering the nightclub CUSU President Mark Fletcher said, ing to go down this year, of whom were extremely entertained by the wel- “I wouldn’t expect anything less from over a thousand were third-year. come they received and happily had Big Fish Ents”. Opposite the space marked their photographs taken, exclaiming In response to Fletcher’s comment, “Name,” 64% of those who replied loudly about how “cute” the employees Burdus said, “As far as CUSU go, they put “Don’t Know,“ 32% put “Name were. should focus on their own nights which What?” and the remainding 4%, a Others appeared uncertain about aren’t doing too well and I physically rather unsavoury little man in Fitzwil- how best to react, and shu ed inside as couldn’t care any less about what they liam put, “Stevens.” Why he should quickly as possible. s ay.” have thought it necessary to resort to so clumsy a subterfuge remains ob- scure. On the line marked “Sex” 76% put “Yes, please,” 20% put “Occasion- ally,” and the remaining 4% (Uh-huh, I’m afraid so) covered the o ending word with gummed paper in an excess of inexplicable prudery. So much for the preliminary details.  e query, “What is the most precious thing you will take away Raymond Gri ths from Cambridge?” evoked far less poses with a student uniform replies: D. (“Swine”) Herd at Cindies answered “My honour,” which seemed a little abstract, while the irrepressible four-percenter mentioned above re- ANDY MARSH ANDY MARSH plied “Seven nickel-plated teaspoons stamped ‘G.W.R.,’ overprinted ‘Fit- Want to apply zwilliam House’,” which erred rather Want to apply in the opposite direction. your knowledge More varied still were the replies Students warned over your knowledge to Question No. 4 “Little man, what and improve your next?” J. Silberrad wrote: “I shall take and improve your up my abode in the wooded fastnesses ‘gag mag’ fakers employability skills of Loughton, whence I shall sally forth employability skills periodically to scourge the Union Rogue salesman claim to sell magazines for charity over the summer? Committee members and distribute over the summer? broadsheets,” while F. Champer scrib- Lizzy Tyler “anyone attempting to sell these maga- bled, “Providing the baili s do not zines and telling you that they’re from Then take on an eight-week discover my new address, I will be in  e run up to RAG Week has been Cambridge Rag is lying.” placementThen take onat ana dynamic, eight-week Cambridge for some -.” At this point troubled by people selling fake maga- “We have encountered these sellers innovativeplacement andat a growingdynamic, the forecast ceases abruptly. Many zines in Cambridge. Students have re- several times and they have been re- innovative and growing of those interrogated are evidently ported two men selling the magazines ported to Trading Standards.”. small business chosen preparing to take it on the lam rather in Market Passage in the past week.  e real RAG week magazine will not forsmall you. business chosen than on the chin: Side-bel-Abbes was Titled ‘Gag Mag’, as opposed to the be released until the 28th of February, for you. mentioned four times as a likely des- o cial ‘Rag Mags’, the magazines ap- with all proceeds going to Cambridge tination. While Devil’s Island, Beverly pear linked to the fundraising group – Council for Voluntary Services. Hills, and Samarkand appeared once until one sees the inside cover which, Students are advised to demand ID each. One funny little man, who gave according to one student says: “In fact, before buying any such magazines on his name a M. Boxer, came to outline the money was going to the person I’d the street, and that ‘Gag Mags’ have ab- his plans personally. “I don’t quite bought it from.” solutely nothing to do with RAG. know how to explain to you where  e real RAG Mags are sold to raise  e president of Cambridge RAG, I’m going,” he said, mustering up money for RAG charities and promote Catriona Armstrong, expressed her strength enough to wrinkle his tiny RAG Week, which this year runs from anger at the rogue salesmen. “My com- brow. He paused thoughtfully.”Here the Feburary 28th to March 7th. mittee gives up a lot of time and e ort let me draw you a diagram,” he went When confronted by members of to raise money for local charities in Rag on drawing a diagram out of his pock- RAG, the two men claimed they had Week and it’s disgusting that these fakes et...Well, of course, we have to take a been misheard, had never claimed a are undermining their good work,” she pretty stern view of that sort of thing; link to RAG week and that the money said. we li ed him up by his gay print fou- raised was for a “hardship loan fund for  e group of people behind the fake lard and dropped him thoughtfully students”. magazines has also carried out the out of a fourth  oor window. We lose  ese claims have been di cult to same scam in a number of other uni- a good many visitors that way. verify as there are no details of such a versity towns, a ecting other branches www.shellstep.org.uk We lose a good many readers this scheme in the magazine and no regis- of RAG. “ is is the  rst time it’s hap- Callwww.shellstep.org.uk 0844 248 8242 now way, too. tered charity number. pened in Cambridge, however,” Arm-  e RAG website warns students that strong added. Call 0844 248 8242 now

Friday February 6th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 9

Academic freedom at risk, say Cambridge fellows Cambridge Dons speak out over reforms to disciplinary procedures instead decide their case. “When putting forward a major discrimination of any kind.” Spies Beth Staton e current opportunity for dis- criticism of a held viewpoint, you im- Clark, however, perceives a very real Cambridge dons have voiced concern missed sta to appeal to the  nal re- mediately come into criticism with the danger that measures designed for the over proposed reforms of the Univer- view of seven peers would no longer be old guard. You can’t compare this with discipline of ‘bad conduct’ would in sity’s disciplinary procedures. available. standard employment law, where you be used against sta in academic con- e proposals were detailed in a Andrew Cli , pro-vice-chancellor for don’t have the right to criticise your  icts. white paper put forward by senior human resources, proposed the reforms, employer, because in academia its ab- “ e University can state that aca- members in December, and o cially which were supported by many mem- solutely essential that people can speak demic freedoms will be protected, but challenged last week. bers. “ e University’s current proce- out without fear of losing their jobs.” they can get you on other violations of ey seek to repeal the University’s dures are clumsy, potentially unfair, and Whilst declining to comment on the code of practise, such as ‘bringing Statute U, concerning discipline and can drag on interminably,” said William the likelihood of the reform, a spokes- the University into disrepute’.” dismissal, replacing it with a chapter Brown, Master of Darwin. “We must person for the University maintained He stressed that the proposed re- that brings the discipline of academics and we can reform them.” that academic freedoms would not forms made it very easy for such dis- closer to that sta and lab technicians. Mike Clark, Reader of Pathology, re- be threatened, saying: “ e proposals missals to take place. ose who face redundancy would garded the reforms as a serious threat contain exactly the same statutory pro- “A tribunal selected by heads of de- no longer have the right to a hearing to academic freedom. “ e reason why tection of academic freedom of speech partment has never, in my experience, from the Vice-Chancellor, University university sta have greater protection as does existing University Statute U, decided in favour of an appealing tribunal or appeal court, and a tribu- is that we’re expected to conduct re- augmented by a code of practice which member of sta , because individuals nal of three individuals chosen at ran- search and generate new and challeng- explicitly allows individuals to criticise are carefully selected to uphold the dom by a head of department would ing ideas,” he said. the running of the University without views of the establishment,” he said. Sidney Sussex Flashing the headlights

Saturday evening saw two inebri- Hundreds protest as Chinese PM visits ated fillies frolic into the bar after a birthday formal attired in rather Crowds gather in freezing weather to voice opposition to Chinese regime less clothing than they sported at Demonstrators urge action on perceived poor human rights record the celebratory meal. On entering the championing cheap watering- Continued from front page last summer for unfurling a protest hole, they lowered the top halves Hundreds of protesters had gath- banner during the Olympics, said she of their, already belt-like, dresses ered outside the West Road Concert was “really pleased” to hear about the to their waists and gave the oc-

Hall to voice their opposition to the shoe-throwing protest. SOPHIA FELLOWES cupants a cheeky burlesque show prime minister before he gave his Lucy, who is from Cambridge, said: before scampering out with their lecture. “It’s great to hear someone is taking a tails between their legs. I hear it It follows the death of more than stand just like against George Bush. I was a very cold night, lets hope 200 Tibetan protesters last year, in dis- say good for him. their bosoms were protected from turbances that also saw the arrest of “We have training on what con- the south-westerly wind. 6,000 people. stitutes violent and non-violent pro- Many of yesterday’s protesters lining test. I suppose shoe-throwing comes Homerton the road outside the hall were Chinese somewhere in the middle. students living in the Cambridge. “It’s important that the issues in Ti- Big boys don’t cry Free Tibet campaigner bet and the abuses over there are Lucy Fairbrother, 23, kept in the public eye.” A notorious gentlemen’s society who was arrested Padma Fielitz, 22, a half- in search of new blood was hold- in Beijing German, half-Tibetan ing an open day for potential re- student of economics at cruits last week. As events wore the School of African and on, the group’s plus-sized spokes- Oriental Studies, London, man invited those assembled to was protesting outside the extol their own merits in order to hall when the shoe-throwing seek entry to this most double- incident took place. edged of ‘elites’. Most speeches She welcomed news of the were well-received, but one orator protest: “It’s great news and a found himself shouted down fol- very brave thing to do. lowing his refusal to divulge that “We are a free country here he attended a College founded and if we see injustice we should after 1600. A thicker-skinned do something because we do Varsity ad 100x100 23/1/08 14:47 Page 1 man might have shrugged off the not have much to lose. heckles, but our hero is a sensitive “Wen Jiabao is a con- fellow, and could soon be spotted troversial man who shedding tears at his disappointing instigated lots performance. Before disappearing of crime,” into the night, his last reported she said. words were “You just don’t know how much this means to me...” Girton Looking for work Mass mangina During the weekly swap, at one this summer? of Cambridge’s highly acclaimed curry houses, of these larger University of Cambridge International than life green gentlemen, it was decided that the males around Summer Schools can offer 4 - 7 weeks the table should imitate their work for senior Cambridge female counterparts transform- ing their genital areas. The undergraduate and graduate students. men stood up one by one and performed said act, in what has £200 per week plus college been called a “mangina Mexican wave”. The girls around the table accommodation. were shocked and appalled by such behaviour and showed it by For details call network: 60850 squealing and clapping with catty glee. Whoever said that to tell or 01223 760850 that a man was a man was from or email: [email protected] the size of his feet? MASONS NEWS SERVICE We are the leading supplier to colleges, May Balls and student socs and parties. Party wines from £2.99, over 200 single malts, Port, Madeira, Claret, Absinthe, cans of lager. If you can drink it, we sell it. Free glass loan, free delivery, generous discounts, wholesale accounts available for all CU bodies, socs, clubs etc. Double-or-Quits your student discount with our Trivial Pursuit challenge. No conferring, bickering or face-pulling. Branches at King’s Parade, Magdalene Bridge and Mill Road. Edinburgh too. www.cambridgewine.com

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Working in the Media 2009.indd 1 05/01/2009 16:33:57 Friday February 6th 2009 Get it off your chest: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Comment 11 e Essay

Will Obama bring ‘the end of history’? Jamie Miller e new American President is keen to talk about ‘hope’, ‘change’ and a ‘new dawn’. Jamie Miller argues that such talk idly neglects historical precedent, and that cold national interest will govern Obama’s foreign policy.

f all the wild claims made by may a ect perceptions of priorities ally, through bribery and corruption, triumphalism (epitomised by Francis will be repelled by any means neces- Ojournalists, politicians and from the White House.  e Obama from their betrayals. Second, crippling Fukuyama’s e End of History and sary, including military force.” talking heads about the possi- phenomenon may also result in sway- sanctions were imposed on nations the Last Man) claimed to o er new Bill Clinton continued this policy bilities o ered by Barack ing some in Congress and the public that refused to partake in the “global opportunities for an even more moral with airstrikes and sanctions on Iraq Obama, the most sphere to jump on board, at least economy”, such as Cuba or post-war foreign policy freed of the constraints that led two United Nations humani- astonishing temporarily. Vietnam, leading to severe hardship. placed on US actions by rival powers. tarian co-ordinators to resign in pro- But history suggests that there has And third, the perpetual threat of vio-  is was, of course, obscene non- test at the massive human cost of the been a distinct continuity in the lence was periodically carried out to sense.  e bodies continued to pile up programmes they were supposed to be dominant US national deter others from following their lead. in defence of the same national inter- implementing. interest for at least Justi cations of threats to ‘national se- est. But this time the mist of Cold War Party a liation and rhetoric were the past   y curity’ were o en absurd, never more victory imbued the perpetrators of insigni cant in comparison to the years.  at so than with Ronald Reagan’s 1983 at- human rights abuses of past decades – durability of underlying national interest lies tack on the tiny neo-Marxist Grenada the Rumsfelds, Bushs and Holbrookes interests.  e key themes of US foreign in the pres- (population less than 100,000). of previous administrations – with a policy are not ‘hope’ or ‘change’, but ervation Many policymakers deluded sense of infallibility. ‘violence’ and ‘continuity’. And there is of prosper- themselves, and others, with the moral Sure enough, the pillars of post- no historical evidence to suggest that ity at home purposes of their actions. ‘Anti-com- Cold War foreign policies remained this encapsulation, or the underly- through the munist’ interventions in Nicaragua led much the same. George H. W. Bush’s ing interests, will change overnight. maintenance Reagan’s o cials to commit perjury invasion of Iraq was a clear extension Prepare for disappointment. of an economic and treason under domestic law, while of the Carter Doctrine expressed in the system abroad. abroad the International Court of Jus- 1980 State of the Union Address: “An Jamie Miller is a postgraduate re- has  ere is no rea- tice ruled that US policies constituted attempt by any outside force to gain searcher in the Department of History. been that he is son to think that state-sponsored terrorism. control of the Persian Gulf region will set to usher in an entirely this shibboleth President Obama is not the  rst be regarded as an assault on the vital new era in foreign policy. of international to claim a new dawn in foreign policy, interests of the In place of the Bush admin- rela- tions is about a decisive shi away from this brutal United States of istration’s ‘with us or against us’ to suddenly change. Ameri- system. In 1978, Jimmy Carter herald- America, and crusading and cavalier disregard can hegemony depends on its exist- ed the end of the nihilistic realpolitik such an assault for human rights, everyone from ence. Regardless of Obama’s ascension of the Kissinger era and excesses of the New York Times columnist  omas to the throne, the rest of the apparatus Vietnam War, claiming that henceforth Friedman to the ambitious Boris for constructing foreign policy – think human rights would be ‘the soul’ of Johnson opines that the messianic tanks, advisers and bureaucrats – are American foreign policy. Obama will provide a more responsi- old hands schooled in protecting the Obama-esque hopes were quickly ble American global presence shaped national interest.  e conductor may dashed. Under Carter, the United by an intrinsic morality and concern have changed, but the train tracks still States continued to support the for individual dignity. lead the engine in the same direction. embattled Shah in Iran, described by One really has to wonder where the  roughout the Cold War, be- Amnesty International as the worst of- evidence for such ridiculous assertions hind the ideological misdirection, a fender of human rights in the world. lies.  e op-ed community functions ma a system of international relations  e US also armed, funded and like the Serengeti wildebeest migra- reigned, predicated on the protection defended the “dirty wars” perpetrated tion: one brazen soul takes a new of  nancial interests through coercion. by Indonesia in East Timor and by tack southwards, only to be blindly  ose within the ma a family – West- military juntas in Argentina, Chile followed, and then overtaken, by a ern nations – pro ted handsomely. and Paraguay. Documents since de- million other repulsive, unthink-  ose outside it paid for others’ classi ed show that US o cials knew ing creatures.  e politicians are the prosperity, o en with their lives. A ra that their support underpinned the hyenas hoping to pick up the scraps by of  ird World nations were buried in systematic torture, murder and rape heading in the same direction. debt by US-sponsored  nancial insti- of thousands of South American Yet historical precedent suggests that tutions, earning temporary respite only civilians by security forces. But for the herd is currently delusional.  is is by o ering up pieces of  esh – an oil all the private words from ambas- largely because of the disjunct between concession here, a hydroelectric dam sadors, US support remained the media focus on personalities contract there. steadfast: the regimes responsible and the reality that foreign policy is A horrible trio of mechanisms provided “stability” from dangerous dictated – as any  rst year SPS student enforced compliance. First, local elites popular le -wing movements. can recite – by ‘interests’. were co-opted to stand over their Fi een years on from Carter’s prom- A change in presidential leadership people’s misery - and pro ted person- ises of rejuvenation, post-Cold War Comment Editor: Robert Stagg Friday February 6th 2009 12 Comment [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Foreign Adam Correspondence Colligan e System Worked The myth of CUSU bureaucracy is a scapegoat for failed ideas Cambridge goes all over the world in a riot of semi-imperialist journalism et’s start with what happened. that enjoyed widespread support and is weight of student opinion was against experiencing was actually the snowball- L On January 14th there was an now CUSU policy. them. Varsity described the di er- ing mass of true opposition being very extraordinary meeting of the CUSU Cue the occupation. In this case, the ence between this and decisions by the e ciently communicated through good Council, essentially common room and protesters demanded that all decisions protesters in terms of how exciting the representative structures. faculty representatives, to elect NUS were taken by a sort of consensus-ocracy occupation process was versus how - you So where were the CUSU sabbaticals delegates. A motion was brought about through mass participation - although guessed it - “bureaucratic” the CUSU during the emergency Council motions? 15 minutes before the meeting calling for according to one account, they ended process was. Just imagine our shame. Trying to delay them through proce- CUSU to, among other things, denounce up having a contentious consensus-led Varsity’s choice of ‘bureaucratic’ as an dural motions and red tape? Hardly. Israeli military actions. con ict about what consensus-leading appropriate antonym for ‘exciting and One had taken holiday and could be Nothing referenced in the motion consisted of. passionate’, becomes particularly amus- found in a certain faculty building. One was breaking news since the submission  e occupation itself was also an ing when one considers was taking casework, having prioritized deadline: it was entered so late solely attempt to create that people were human interaction over policy-making because the proposers took forever to what you might videotaped calling procedure. One stayed behind to answer Week 4: Zimbabwe settle on a text, and so the Chair ruled it call a libus- a democratic, questions. And the other three of us, one out as an ‘emergency’ motion. Certain tocracy: rule anti-bureaucratic of whom an occupier called a “bureau- ugabe pulled Zimbabwe apart whiners later conveniently forgot that by whoever vote on whether cratic shite-hawk”? Actually, having long ago. People wait in long, the Chair’s ruling was challenged, and seizes the to eat upstairs or received the news of the 9pm deadline, Msnaking queues for basic foodstu s. Council voted not to hear the motion  oor.  e downstairs. we were rushing to the Law Faculty and  ey wait for days. Fear of the until they had been able to consult with University But there is negotiating entry through the sealed police is ever-present. their constituents. wanted a more serious perimeter so that we could watch the In Harare, I was arrested for So at this point, the Gaza protesters them to point here. What protesters’ backs. ‘journalism’ (I had been photo- saw the demand for mass participation appoint the occupiers were  is meant ensuring that all of the graphing empty shelves). I was as a barrier to the e cient passage of negotiators condemning in their rituals of University due process were treated roughly by a man in a their views into policy, and they called and to adhere to students’ union was not being followed, rituals scorned by the smart suit, accompanied by several this ‘bureaucracy’. response deadlines, ‘bureaucracy’ in the sense of unneces- likes of the occupiers as ‘bureaucratic’ uniformed policemen, and taken  e motion would have been moot that is, to pass their sary delay or overly-elaborate procedure. when they are in the way, but which to an area behind the shop.  ough in any case, as many of its provisions, views into policy ef- A er all, the only delay came from that they cling to for dear life when they they tightly placed one handcu on including both ‘resolves’ points, would ciently. Now that roles voters themselves, and that was long are in trouble. And it will always be, as me, they le my other hand free so have been unlawful as CUSU policy. were reversed, what did the before the occupation started setting it should be, CUSU that will hold their I could thrust it into my pocket and So, did CUSU o cers hide behind occupiers blame?  at’s right, records for deliberation. ungrateful hands as they dangle over the press a small wad of US dollars into layers of decision making and appeal a University bureaucracy that wasn’t  e protesters were accusing a cli . the suited man’s hand. Still shout- structure thus ensuring action would responsive enough to their demands for debate with a format and constituen- What we witnessed from the occupi- ing, he undid the handcu and le be delayed for months? No. We worked procedural tedium. cies of being de facto soul destroying, ers, then, was neither democracy nor me free – if a little shaken. proactively with the proposers on what Meanwhile, motions were coming and highlighting their suspicion that bureaucracy but hypocrisy: rule by those Coverage of Zimbabwe details could be done and volunteered new to CUSU Council, and councillors and somewhere in the shadows Cambridge’s whose democratic principles are as  ex- its disintegration. But it survives, ideas about ways that the Students’ pollsters were getting a chance to talk student leaders are running what John ible as their yoga positions. despite the odds. Traders – mostly Union would be able to help their cause to students beforehand.  is was bad Stuart Mill described as a “vast network Adam Colligan is the sabbatical CUSU women – travel for days to neigh- within its powers.  e result? An excel- news for the occupation from the start, of administrative tyranny.” It couldn’t Co-Ordinator. e opinions expressed bouring countries to bring goods lent motion brought to the next Council as it became increasingly clear that the possibly be that the resistance they were here are entirely his own. for sale or barter: Smarties in the bottom of my bag proved more use- ful than money. ‘Wheeler-dealers’ speed by in black humvees.  e few remaining whites are Edward o en engaged in these practices. Stepping into ‘Paul’s Pest Control’, I Kiely am surprised by Dennis’ faint Irish Bland, Boring, Beige twang, and more surprised by the vast warehouse that he leads me to, full of fuel and other essentials the CUSU has covered itself in tedium and irrelevance dollar-rich can a ord.  e police intermittently cause a fuss, but only because they want their cut. ast week was a high-point for orgi- observer at the recent Council meeting as representative of the student voice as manage to sit through an entire CUSU Yet only survival is possible. For Lastic self-satisfaction in Cambridge. (if they managed not to kill themselves a drunken cowboy shooting cans with Council meeting is if they’ve got a services like health, education, em- I’m not referring to the occupation due to incredulous boredom at the opinions written on them. strong enough opinion to provide them ployment, food not from a can, free- of the Law Faculty, but to those who horrible bureaucracy of it all) would Of course, the responsibility to with sustenance against the aching, life- dom - look elsewhere.  e majority labelled the occupiers “champagne be given the impression that the views represent student opinion ultimately draining dullness of it all. of Zimbabweans can’t.  ey can only socialists” and “grubby anarchists”, who of the students of this University on rests with JCR presidents and external I don’t believe that University-wide wait: the unity government might be should “get on the rst plane to Gaza the occupation amount to absolutely o cers. But technically these people opinion on this issue was so divided as cause for hope, but like other  ashes and see how they like it”, and to the way nothing. can come along and vote even if they to result in  y percent of the students of expectation, it may fade. Much in which said people responded to the Based on the resolutions adopted by put their ngers in their ears and sing being strongly for and  y percent more real is the hope that the hateful occupation’s conclusion. “Aha!” they CUSU, Cambridge students think that loudly and obnoxiously whenever any- being strongly against the occupation. old man will soon die. crowed, faces bloated with satisfaction, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a Bad one tries to express an opinion to them. And this would not be di cult to prove. Zimbabwe is utterly remarkable. “At last, proof that direct student protest  ing, the occupation is a Don’t Know Of course, this doesn’t happen, and  ere should be a requirement that Forced to its knees, it is stay- is dead, and that the true locus of action and whether the occupiers should be presidents and external o cers do presidents and externals must actually ing there and refusing, because still is, and always will be, CUSU.” poll at least ten per cent of the students humans are humans, to lie down.  eir satisfaction stems from CUSU’s in their College, and get their signatures And despite all the death, people total unwillingness to take an active to prove it. Based on these, there would still smile, gu aw, greet you in the stance on major political issues. It “ e aching, life-draining dullness of it all” be a swing in one direction or the street, o er what hospitality they would never support the occupation. other – then a motion passed entitled can. Humour remains. One of the ( e  ipside for those in opposition, ‘We support your brave occupation’, few times I heard Mugabe’s name obviously, was that CUSU was also ‘Get out of our Law Faculty now’ or, mentioned was in a joke. Two men never going to agree to send in the riot kicked out of the Law Faculty is, again, try to be receptive and responsive to in the event of a tie, ‘We support your wait in a bread queue. Eventually police and attack dogs on the demon- a Don’t Know. student opinion. But the means at their brave occupation but get out of our Law one man storms o saying, “I’ve strators.) CUSU seems committed to Uncanny, isn’t it? A er all, there was disposal are o en poor: open meetings Faculty now’. had enough – I’m going to shoot a totally beige existence. It was even barely any strength of feeling about or email polls will only attract the most Dullness with a mandate is tolerable. Mugabe!” Soon, he returns. “What argued by one JCR representative that the occupation. It’s not as if hundreds vocal minority. As extremists o en A total unwillingness to take a stand in happened to shooting Mugabe?” He CUSU is not the forum for political de- of students joined Facebook groups bizarrely equal each other in numbers, either direction on an issue with this responds, “ e queue was longer bate – that’s the Union, apparently. Well, related to the occupation. It’s not as if this leaves presidents and externals to much student following is unaccept- than this one.” I’m not a Union member – CUSU is all 2600 people responded to an independ- perform the calculation that results in able, especially without any real attempt What they feel they can’t change, I have. If CUSU is indeed “recognised ent poll on the occupation in less than dullness. Two Trotskyites plus two Fas- to survey student opinion. Zimbabweans accept; they get on by the University as the representative 48 hours. It’s not as if, for a whole week, cists divided by two equals No Opinion. Ultimately, any stand is better than with the task of survival, stoically body of all students” (their italics), then nobody would listen if you wanted  e same problem infects CUSU none: if CUSU actively opposes my awaiting whatever the future may do my political views also not deserve to talk about Gossip Girl because the council meetings. Only the most opinion, then at least there is a platform bring. representation? occupation was all anyone everyone extreme voices are heard, and these for me to campaign against. If they Rocco Falconer If CUSU does represent the political was banging on about. Accept these inevitably balance each other out.  is refuse to say anything at all, then every- views of the students, then an outside facts and CUSU begins to look about is because the only way that anyone can one loses because nothing ever changes. Friday February 6th 2009 Get it off your chest: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Comment 13

Spk yr brains

e Wit and Wisdom of the World Wide Web

Week 4: Strikes

Brown can talk but he needs to walk. ASAP.

lolcakes

I fully support the strikers. Jobs should go to local workers. Good on yer boys, wrap up warm. Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end of the un-elected Brown who seems to want to take all our rights away. We NEED to put the Great back into Britain and hold on to what our grandparents fought so hard for.

ANNA TRENCH news-lover, Stoke on Trent If the local people are suitably qualified then yes. However, Tom it has been my experience in industry that their is a lot of the Cheshire “Red Robbo” mentality in various A Load of Balls pockets of the country. May Week themes are missing the point Geoff Lets hope this is the trigger that the majority of the British born don’t know how I endured the wait. dhist gear (N.B. get some bindis), do quite ridiculous at the same time. music instead of books and ProPlus. and bred have been waiting for, ISince the sun came up on the end of you think a Gary Glitter zone is going Now before every committee writes It’s Disneyland for burnt-out students. A general strike should be on the last May Week, I’ve been fraught with too far...?’ Fusion is, of course, a type in to complain, I know from experi- But no matter how inventive the title, cards now to force a complete questions. of cooking and can be brilliant: the ence that it’s not an easy job. I was there is no escaping the very Cantabri- withdrawal from the EU. And the Will Peterhouse be back this year? best bits of diverse cultures together in on my College’s event committee last gian nature of May Balls. All the fairy start of protecting our borders Will the recession a ect budgets? Who one place. It can also be a tasteless wok year and we came up with ‘Pangaea’, lights in the world won’t blot out the again, something clown brown can I pretend to be friends with for a of ricey goo, steam-rollering regional which is both unilluminating and hard spires and courts of your College. and his co-horts have no inten- term to get tickets to Trinity? As infor- idiosyncrasies to make it easier for to spell. It’s probably wiser to err on Nor should they. May Balls are a tion of ever doing. British jobs for mation is slowly leaked, rumours start Bluewater customers who can’t decide the side of caution too. Newnham last unique phenomenon, a fantastic night British workers!!!!!!!!!!!!! to  y. Like, apparently, U2 are playing between  ai or Chinese. year chose ‘Smoke’ as their theme and out however you de ne or decorate it. John’s. You heard it here  rst, so don’t Blander still Pembroke, with ‘Moon- it indeed went up in it: the ball was  emed fun can just get in the way. [the gorgeously named] Joyce complain to me if they actually do. light Masquerade’, clearly cancelled a er too few tick- Trinity, among others, don’t bother Crank, UK It’s like a tantalising and pro- betting that ets were sold. with one. While this is the sort of non- longed striptease, as alluring alliteration Newnham chalance that a million pound budget This is an outrage to democracy. headliners are revealed and exotic will pull clearly will bring, it lets the evening stand on How dare they come over here foodstands are unveiled.  e  rst in the its own feet, however wobbly through and steal our jobs it beggars belief negligé thrown saucily to the  oor champagne consumption those feet it really does. We all know what is the theme. Several have already may be. A bad theme can be the Achil- theyre like - they say they want to been made public.  ey’re a fairly les heel that brings down a whole ball. work but then they get a council mixed bag.  emes are necessary for the house and start banging children. It’s good to see some Colleges smaller colleges as they compete to It’s enough to make you sick it making an e ort really to do those sell tickets. Not every College can rely really is. To think we once had Oxbridge stereotypes down: Corpus on the budgets of Trinity or John’s, an Empire. Makes me sad to my o er ‘ e Grand Tour’, Peterhouse so how you present your ball makes stomach. opt simply for a ‘British’ theme, a crucial di erence.  e problem is Queens’ for ‘ e Beautiful and the emphasis placed on them.  emes honesttaxpayer, bedford Damned’ (Dress: 1920/30s), and should be a springboard for ideas, Hughes Hall host ‘Passport to Pim- punt- nothing more.  at it’s a May Ball is Well, it’s all a free market problem lico’. While the last one may take its ers. missed theme enough. really, isn’t it? No point whinging, name from the knockabout (a word Wolfson that a ball By themselves they can conjure up boys! Our Maggie would have that should provoke instant distrust) promise a title hinges on whatever image a student wants in his been out there breaking down the Ealing comedy, I fear this may rather spicier a air with the image provoked in or her head, whether it’s getting down picket lines like the lion she was. re ect the moneyed element’s view on ‘Red Hot’, but I frankly don’t the student’s mind. An evening spent and dirty to Dizzee in black tie, win- Not Gordon! He just sits there in venturing further south in the capital believe them. For the more independ- coughing, followed by a sandpaper- ing and dining in white at Magdalene his office lol! I’ve never been a fan than Victoria. ent minded consumer of May Week, throated morning explaining to your (where the jelly is for pudding, not of the EU (short for ‘gravy train’ Meanwhile Trinity Hall, my own the King’s A air is titled ‘Hedonopolis’, mother that you hadn’t had any ciga- wrestling), or walking haphazardly but if you ask me), but they’ve got it cherished alma mater, has gone for which is of course a combination of rettes, it was just really, really smoky: happily home at six the next day. We right on this one! Go Boris!!! He ‘Fusion’.  is is perhaps slightly racist. the Greek words ‘self-conscious’ and hard to see why it didn’t appeal. don’t need a theme to dictate the terms would understand and put (or It’s an umbrella term encompassing ‘posturing’, but they deserve a bit of  e point of having a theme to a on which we’ll have our fun. Just give should that be ‘pit’?) things right!! everything and anything a little bit, fun a er all that protesting. Homerton May Ball is to o er escapism, undoubt- us booze, loud music and some of the well, you know, foreign – ‘we’ll have are o ering ‘James Bond 007’ and so edly much needed a er a long term most evocative settings for a party in Sally Roberts, aka BORIS FAN some of that Japanese stu , some Bud- manage to be both unoriginal and geared exclusively to exams. Lights and the world and we’ll get on with it. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you anywhere. - Albert Einstein

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THISMAGAZINE WEEK IN THE MAGAZINE: KNITTAPLEASE WEAVE DOWN AND DIRTY / ANTHONY SELDON SPEAKS / MAYFAIR’S MIDDLE-CLASS SQUATTERS / THE TECHNOLOGY OF TOMORROW / THIS WEEK’S THEATRE

Photograph of the week by My week by Agnes Dourgrave, Emily Matthews college librarian* Monday Library but when I leapt out from behind the Passed a pleas- bookcases, all was silence. I thought I heard ant morning a mobile ringing in the History shelves but matching up the students feigned ignorance. A er three gra ti with phantom Nokia ringtones I had to go and have hand-writing a quiet lie down in my o ce. My repose was on former broken by the distant blip blip of text message Tripos papers. alerts. I have e-mailed the Master requesting Have correctly permission to cavity-search the students for identi ed “Marx concealed electronics. was a twat” on page 16 of Karl Friday Popper’s e My nerves are in shatters. Some thieving Spell of Plato as Prometheus has stolen volume eighteen of the belonging to Harry Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. I have Allbright, who removed the surviving twenty-nine volumes

graduated 1976 with SARAH WOOLLEY and have hidden them behind the photocopier. I a II.ii in History. I have have telephoned the Master’s secretary. She says written to him asking for the £20  ne to be he is a busy man and cannot be disturbed.  e paid in full. Crouched behind the photocopier Dean and Senior Tutor do not seem to under- for an hour and a half this a ernoon for a stand the gravity of the situation. I have called spot of casual espionage. Caught an ASNaC Scotland Yard.  ey have put me on hold. in the act of depositing his nostril evacuations between the pages of Beowulf. Have e-mailed Saturday the Master, Senior Tutor, and Dean about hav- Usually I take the weekend o . Spend some ing him sent down. Went to go and cheer on time with Norman, repair loose book bindings, the President of China, Mr Wen Jiabao in the and listen to Lynne Truss on Radio 4. But I a ernoon. Although instinctively distrustful fear for the library in my absence and, Norman of yellow people, I wanted to ask him for some has had to go to the vet to be wormed.  e advice on committing human rights abuses weekends see an in ux of NatScis with their with indemnity and how to further run my horrible personal habits.  ey’re the worst sort library like a totalitarian state. of sneezers, coughers and defacers of books. Show them a book on the Reproduction of Tuesday Plants and they are compelled to draw dia- Today is a red-letter day.  e library has grams in the margins and to scrawl “PHOTO- received a donation of rare books on the SYHTHESIS?!?!” across the top of the pages. herring trade in 17th-century Holland from Spent the a ernoon removing all 578 books the recently deceased Emeritus Professor of from the Natural Science shelves and stacking Piscatorial History. Have devised a new and them neatly in my o ce. byzantine class mark system to keep them safe from student hands. Hans van der Mander’s Sunday Whither the Herring? and Johannes Blout’s e To compound my already frail state, Russia Herring as Mercantile Icon will henceforth be sent over a deluge of snow.  e volatile adoles- housed in a locked cupboard under the back cents of this College went berserk, smattering stairs and appear on Newton under the elusive their library time with intermittent snowball location mark ‘stack’.  ghts in the gardens outside. Only one solu- tion; if pubs can do lock ins, so can I.  irty Wednesday six students trapped inside the library for three Spent the a ernoon con scating contraband and a half hours. Victory. items.  e haul thus far this week: eighteen Receive a call from the Senior Tutor sug- water bottles without sportscaps,  ve cans of gesting I enjoy a paid sabbatical. He tells me he Red Bull, four sandwiches mid-consumption, will be sending someone round to collect the eleven chocolate bars, and two packets of keys to my o ce. He wants to know if I can tell Hobnobs. But the students are devious about him where the Oxford Dictionary of National n Monday’s walk to lectures, snow akes urrying around me, a red utter caught my eye. hiding their victuals. Have e-mailed the Mas- Biography has been re-shelved. I use my free  e intense colour of the balloons provides a great contrast to the crisp, white surround- ter, Senior Tutor and Dean about employing a evening to make a chocolate, Red Bull and bis- “Oings, and all against a backdrop of iconic Cambridge; King’s imposing, grand chapel and two- sni er dog. No reply regarding the nose-picker. cuit cake. Norman has been keenly eyeing my wheeled locomotion. Despite the cold and the snow of February, I was reminded of happy summer complete works of Shakespeare. I have locked t i m e s a n d a n t i c i p a t i o n o f t h e r e v e l r y o f t h e M a y B a l l s w h i c h t h e b a l l o o n s w e r e b o l d l y a d v e r t i s i n g .” ursday him in the coal shed. If you have a potential Photograph of the week send it to [email protected] I hear whispers everywhere I go. I could have sworn I heard someone talking in the Law *As told to Laura Freeman HURRICANE ADVENTURE (STARTS HERE): It’s a Friday night and you’re o to Cindies, or some other sordid incarnation of hell. But, in a ji y, your plans are scuppered: a man wearing a ji y bag is yelling in your face. “Hurricane!” he shouts. “Hurricane!” Gazooks - what sort of hurricane? p16 e storm sort p17 e man the authorities came to blame. Food & Drink Editors: Jonathan Franklin & Amanda Palin Friday February 6th 2009 16 Food & Drink [email protected] varsity.co.uk

EDITOR-AT-LARGE ED CUMMING COCKS A CRITICAL SNOOP AT D’ARRY’S AND THE Ed at large RELATIVE MERITS OF ITS PUNCTUATION hat isn’t there? ‘cello, for instance, or ‘phone. ese are question should be approached with A er this glut of absences (what’s Go on – what’s not there? big, bad apostrophes, apostrophes that a certain tactful delicacy when one is (i) the collective noun for absence? ForW this column’s purposes I’m going have come out of the closet and are actually inside the restaurant, since it vacuum? disappointment?) came to help you out of your misery; what’s now running around tickling people’s only recently burned to the ground.) the things which were actually there: not there is ‘I’. Although I’m personally balls with challenging abandon. Is it even a he? It could be Arry as in a Caesar salad starter, for instance, here, obviously, despite missing my ‘A’. You might well be wondering where Harriet, or Ariadne. Perhaps the second followed by  sh and chips. e  sh Sometimes what you can’t see will be this grammar lesson came from, since apostrophe is an omission too? It could was excellent – light batter and moist ‘No’. Capiche? Good. What is there, on it’s very boring to read, but I have my be an abstract statement: ‘D’Arry is’. You haddock. e chips tasted a bit dusty the other hand, is emphatically ‘’’. reasons – in the  rst instance ‘D’Arry’s see my di culties. to me, but that might have just been e mighty apostrophe, as I need is unique in restaurants in that it has, But once you’ve (ha) gotten around nostalgic synaesthesia on my part hardly remind you, has twin powers. built into its name, apostrophes of to reading the name, and concluded caused by a childhood fondess for It is there when other things aren’t (o) both possession and omission. It is the that it sounds like a faux-sophisticate Jenga blocks. e salad also promised there, and it is there when you need reastaurant that looked at restaurant Italian place from a cartoon, you can ‘anchovies’, yet pro ered but a single something to command something. names and decided they weren’t confus- relax for a bit, and concentrate on the anchovy,  lleted cruelly lengthways to What I’ve cleverly done (ha) here is ing enough, and came up with one that things which are actually there. Or at cra the semblance of plurality. put an example of this in the third instead asks question a er perplexing least you might, were the place not so e sta , once they had stopped sentence so you can all read back. question of the unwitting diner. Name- desperately keen to remind you cosnt- being notable for their absence, My favourite examples are the apos- ly: who is D’Arry? Or perhaps, since the antly of the things which aren’t (o). were intimidating by being trophes that pop up just to remind you restaurant is ‘of him’ from the ‘D’’, who e  rst thing which wasn’t (o) there universally male, good-looking that they still have a right to be there, is Arry? Yet if it’s ‘of him’, then why the was someone to answer the phone, and and baldly muscular in a way even when they’re not strictly wanted, need for the closing possessive? Has the a er that there was usually expected of backing like a parking warden at a wedding: restaurant le him since I began read- no way to make a dancers and gigolos. Given that ing the word? Has he now got it back? reservation. When my companions were two drunk (As I discovered, this we arrived, things and reasonably ugly men, we which weren’t (o) were slightly hoping that we might be there were menus served by a small Australian girl who and sta , and we could tip heavily by way of apology, when we got the rather than by way of swinging alle- menus what giance in future bar  ghts. Oh well. In wasn’t (o) there D’Arry’s you never feel quite in control, was the speci c and if you can’t feel like that when menu advertis- you’re paying for it (a) then you might ing the other- as well leave it out altogether. wise rather  ne

MICHAEL STOTHARD 2 courses for If you fancy going ‘At Large’ with Ed £10 deal that (and maybe getting a free meal) please we’d come in write to [email protected] with your search of (ha). name,College, year and suggestion. Tasting the biscuit AMANDA PALIN PRESENTS INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM AT ITS MOST BASIC(S). Cake in a mug (yes, actually). Fitzbillies

nder UK law, the Ja a Cake is as I found when I did a simple survey. take home to meet your parents”. OK, I may just have slammed cakes, decided to do my Cantabrigian indeed, a cake. is is just one I was only asking people what their People felt that they could rely on the but this one is almost as easy-access as Iduty and  nally visit the institution Uexample of the abuses the good name favourite biscuit was, but they dithered digestive, successfully dip it in tea, and a Basics biscuit. that is Fitzbillies. I even wore a tea of e Cake sustains in this country. and swithered, and asked about other thus it came out overall winner. With- dress. Yet we were welcomed in not to e biscuit section in Sainsbury’s people’s answers before committing out wanting to be a glory supporter, I You will need: Wedgewood and chintzy doilies, but to (home to the Ja a Cake, incidentally) to anything. Biscuit choice says a lot have to agree with the result. Seriously, 4 Tablespoons  our a shabby, austere interior and a notice sits between the shiny purple ‘cake- about one’s soul, as I’m sure Freud what’s not to love? 9 Tablespoons hot chocolate mix instructing us to switch o our mobile bars’ and the green and white purity would agree. ere’s a socio-economic My last bit of investigation involved 1 Egg phones. We prepared for serious cake- packaging of the ‘rice-cakes’. Call me element, for sure (do you buy Basics,  nding out more about the particulari- 3 Tablespoons water eating. e world-famous, ludicrously the Daily Mail, but what, exactly, do Fox’s, Taste the Di erence, Duchy ties of people’s biscuit consumption. 3 Tablespoons oil expensive, and now mail-orderable rounds of pu ed rice have in common Originals even?), there are health Some claimed to be sharers; “Oh I just a mug Chelsea buns did not disappoint: with the butter/sugar/eggs/ our-based issues, and inevitably, gender issues love opening a packet of biscuits with a microwave doughiness, stickiness, spiciness and teatime treat? at stake. I’ve never seen a packet of friends as we swap hair-styling tips fruitiness were delicately swirled in de- Anyway, I ignored this nebu- pink wafers in the basket of a rugby and have a lovely time.” Yeah right. 1. Lightly grease your (preferably mas- lectable equilibrium. e sinful choco- lous world of ‘cakes’, and focussed player, for example. Indeed, some Most were more honest: “I eat them on sive) mug. late cake was a little too sinful and the on the humble biscuit. e classics boys seemed quite embarrassed about my own so that no one yoinks them 2. Put in the  our and hot chocolate apple turnover disappointingly bready, – bourbons, custard creams, diges- owning to eating biscuits at all, saying from me”, said one King’s undergradu- powder. but the apple pie was, objectively and tives – come in yellows and reds and instead that they were “hot pudding ate. What it is to yoink, I’m not sure, 3. Crack the egg in, and stir. empirically, perfect. Light, buttery light browns. But it’s not all warm men”... Anyway, the survey brought but that was only the beginning of 4. Pour in the water and the oil. pastry and crisp, moist apple  lling. and homely hues. On my research out ginger nuts, garibaldis, party rings, the perversions unearthed. e very 5. Again, STIR, so that all the ingredi- Fitzbillies may be lacking in style but trip I found pastel Pink ‘n’ Whites, Hob Nobs, and the Twix of the biscuit vocabulary of biscuit-eating is carnal. ents are thoroughly moistened. it delivers on substance: masculine garish Orange Clubs. en there are world: the caramel chocolate digestive. Turns out people suck, nibble, bite, 6. Microwave for 3 minutes. portions of traditional British cake fare the ingenious slogans: the name of Ultimately, though, it was the custard lick; they’ll basically do the same 7. Realise that this recipie is not a cruel (which also whet my appetite for the the Breakaway biscuit is preceded by cream and the milk chocolate diges- things to a biscuit that a set of love dice joke, and enjoy your cakeinamug. days of misogyny and Empire, as any “Don’t take away my…” e succeed- tive that came out on top. I acquired a might instruct them to do. (I myself good tea shop should). e food, like ing bit of wrapper-text, “with whole- packet of each with which to conduct a have been known to bite into a Kit-Kat the interior, is honest in a surprisingly meal  our”, is less exciting perhaps, head-to-head. e King’s porters were without splitting the  ngers. Two at a provincial way, and it sits satisfyingly but there’s only so much an advertising my  rst participants, calling the CCs time; and what?) Biscuits are there for in the stomach for hours a erwards. guru can do. Gazing at the Animal “scrummy”, and the MCDs “double us for better or worse (during essay Great tea, too. Fitzbillies is the place biscuits in nostalgic reverie, I sensed scrummy”. One point to McVities. crises or in times of celebration), and your granny takes you to fatten you up, some disapproving glances from fellow e King’s library-goers were no less certainly for richer or poorer (33p for where you reminisce about childhood shoppers. But then, no one looks you verbose; the CCs were “ornate”, “fun”, Basics MCDs/ £1.26 for McVities). country walks, or conduct a grade-sav- in the eye in the biscuit section, so and “the Cindies of the biscuit world”. However many sections of Sainsbury’s ing and strictly above-table romance there wasn’t much to worry about. It’s a e MCDs on the other hand “mealy”, they occupy, cakes couldn’t possibly with an elderly supervisor. personal experience, biscuit selection, “wholesome”, and “a biscuit that you’d compete. Hannah Bass

HURRICANE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): at’s right: Hurricane Humbert has arrived in Cambridge. “Hello Humbert,” you say, but Humbert doesn’t reply because he is a hurricane. And what a bizarre hurricane too! I’ll tell you why. p20 He’s literally raining cats and dogs. p21 He’s literally raining men. Literally. Friday February 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Columnists 17 Scenes of Mild Suburbia TO MARK THE RELEASE OF REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, VICTORIA BEALE PONDERS THAT VERY PARTICULAR HOLLYWOOD DISASTER MOVIE – SUBURBAN NEUROSIS. n  lms of suburban decay, no dia- bit repetitive’ and ‘insurance sales are a o en into cartoonish exaggeration that logue is needed; the cinema audi- bit dull really’. You could be forgiven for it is no surprise their conventions are enceI have only to see a quiet street of thinking that Sam Mendes’ essential for- parodied. A truly interesting  lm about detached houses with lovingly tended mula in Revolutionary Road is contract- suburbia must acknowledge the clichés lawns, and already we anticipate the mo- ing two brilliant actors, costuming them with which it plays, something best rass of self-loathing and moral turpitude in drab suit and paisley apron, rolling achieved by the now over-exposed but about to be revealed. on a cocktail party backdrop, telling nonetheless signi cant American Beauty e equation is simple: the more them to look a bit glum and hoping this (also directed by Mendes). It sums up Competition beautiful the house, the redder the roses is enough to mess with our smalltown the splendid nihilism and absurdity of in the front garden, the more likely minds and impress the Academy. the suburban mid-life crisis in a few Each week we set a di erent crea- the wife is a pill-popping alcoholic Films about suburban breakdown are brilliantly bitter lines; “Janie, today I quit tive writing exercise.  e person who with a violent streak, the husband a usually populated by a few reasonable my job. And then I told my boss to go submits the winning entrance has fantasist adulterer, and the teenage characters. We shall of course recognise fuck himself, and then I blackmailed their story printed in the next week’s child a high-school shooter. e them as kindred due to their cynical him for almost sixty thousand dollars. Varsity, and is rewarded with two free soon-to-be Oscar-laden  lm faces in school playgrounds, in grim Pass the asparagus.” tickets to an ADC  eatre show. Revolutionary Road starring Kate o ce blocks and at dinner parties, look- It is easy to attack the ubiquity of the JANE HALL Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, ing listless over the vol-au-vents. ey ‘suburban America’  lm, but there is a is only the most recent  lm to are pitted against demons of suburban reason they keep getting made. e fact Week 4: Pantoums. Pantoums are poems that work in quartets; the second present suburbia as a high- orthodoxy such as Kitty Farmer in Don- is that vast numbers of Americans (and and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the  rst and third lines of the income, low-crime form of nie Darko, the shrill PTA harpy who tries Brits) live in these amorphous hous- next.  is sequence can go on as long as you want, but the last stanza’s sec- Purgatory. to ban Graham Greene from the English ing blocks, and pretty much everyone ond and fourth lines should be the  rst and third lines of the  rst stanza. Feel Angsty suburban cinema is syllabus, and is battled against by the except the baby is hopped up on Prozac. free to let the form break in places, as long as the ‘pantoum’ spirit is retained. basically intent on smashing the eponymous Donnie and other sensitive So, going to the cinema and indulging in white picket fence and reveal- brunette adolescents. Movies from the some mawkish silver screen diversion is ing the myth of unexceptional parents’ perspective are most likely to understandable. Ultimately a good  lm Winner: middle class happiness. But blame the Man getting them down, the of this genre provides both humorous Home Sweet Homelessness are anyone’s illusions going to false optimism of the Sixties or their ignominy and high tragedy, and shows Once again you’re on the train be shattered by the suggestion spoiled teenage o spring. e older why ordinary lives are worth examining. Travelling between here and home that, actually, a er the age of generation in these  lms are confronted And so, even if it’s no American Beauty, Your life is lived just in two towns twenty  ve, life is essentially a with the horrible inevitability of death, Revolutionary Road provides temporary e journey between can only be awkward. lot of killing time, broken up consumed with existential panic and cinematic Schadenfreude, as well as a Travelling between here and home by babies and moving house? tormented by their lost youth. And so, rough approximation of the average Is the limbo between two unknowns ese  lms, if done badly, re- they have sex. Desperate, adulterous, graduate’s future. If you want a glimpse e journey between can only be awkward. veal such paradigm-smashing body-double requiring sex. of your next   y years, skip a lecture, Which town do you now call your home? truths as ‘housework gets a Depictions of suburbia in  lm tip so buy your ticket, and pass the asparagus. Is the limbo between two unknowns An enjoyable place to be? Which town do you now call your home? Being half-here and half-there, you’re fully nowhere. An enjoyable place to be Only for those of you who dare to know yourself Being half-here and half-there, you’re fully nowhere Your home becomes your constant luggage. Only for those of you who dare to know yourself Consider always your direction – the same time, both to and from home Your home becomes your constant luggage You cannot be encumbered by your own transiency Consider always your direction – the same time, both to and from home MISSION: TO DELVE INTO CAMBRIDGE’S SECRET ORIFICES Once again you’re on the train WEEK 4: THE HAWKS’ CLUB You cannot be encumbered by your own transiency You life is lived in just two towns. he Hawks’ club. Where the big  sh to say I moved with carefree noncha- “SPS” I ventured. He chuckled. Per- Jonathan Walker open their gills. An elitist group lance, but in reality a combination of haps I should have tried Land Economy. Twithin an elite university, with member- crippling nerves and inebriation meant “No mate, what do you play?” ship only for blues sportsmen, it was that I looked more like a lost puppy. Deciding that clarinet was probably Runner-up: going to be a tough nut to invade. Maybe At the bar I steeled myself and ordered not the response he was looking for, I In the Temple it was just the challenge; maybe I just my Tomahawk cocktail – apparently replied, “Badminton,” with all the con - wanted to escape my own mediocrity by the done thing in this part of the world. dence I could muster. His face lit up. visiting this sporting Olympus; probably Looking round I saw that E had already “Oh, so you know Tsing then?” Shit. ‘Ave virgo sanctissima’: Do the  xed stars twinkle and sing? I was just tricked whilst drunk. It doesn’t found some new friends and so took my Of course I didn’t know Tsing. How e voices are suspended My mind was an empty ocean matter really: the invasion is larger than phone, pretending to check the football would I know Tsing? I don’t even know In the temple, unaccompanied; From which desperate tonality the invader. scores in order to avoid attention. how to play badminton. I only chose the Nothing above, nothing below Gradually emerged It all started so well. Five minutes in I had just received my drink when a stupid sport because I’d realised on the the shadows waiting for a target; a brief huge hulk of a human being bore down way that I didn’t actually know what ko- e voices are suspended My mind was an empty ocean jog across the road – the most cardio- upon me. r all – my initial alibi – was. I resorted In a harmony of stained-glass – As a child. Awareness vascular I’d done all week – and we “Johnny” he roared, slapping me to an incoherent grunt as my response. Nothing above, nothing below Gradually emerged sneaked through the  ngerprint-control- heartily on the back with one massy “Weren’t you guys on a swap tonight?” Against a backdrop of silence Without explanation, led door just before it swung close. paw. ough I was aware that my name J continued. Double shit. Was he on to Look through the stained-glass. Like the child, appearing “ at was too easy”, I whispered as we was not Johnny, I did not want to upset me? Who swaps with the badminton Do the  xed stars twinkle and sing In the temple, unaccompanied, made our way downstairs towards the this vast creature and so simply smiled club?! is was getting silly; I needed Against a backdrop of silence? Without explanation. murmur of excited voices. back at him hoping he would realise his to get out of here before he called Tsing In which desperate tonality Ave virgo sanctissima. “You’re not a bloody spy” responded mistake and go quietly on his way to  nd over and blew my cover wide open.  omas Athorne E, my accomplice, who - being  rst more ‘Johnny’. Unfortunately, although said Pleading a toilet break, I le John and drunk and second considerably more hulk realised his mistake, he did pursue made my way rapidly towards the steps; sporting - felt fairly secure in this temple Johnny, and instead stopped for a chat. narrowly avoiding two rowers discuss- to sporting excellence. I, on the other “Oh, sorry mate.” He o ered a meaty ing their split times (“sub 1.25 mate”). hand, with my sporting pedigree being handshake, which I duly accepted with ey gave me a friendly nod – must have of the Sainsbury’s basics as opposed sympathy for the bones in my hand. “I’m thought I was a cox - but thankfully did Next week’s competition: Love sonnets. In honour of Valentine’s day, to the M&S variety, was continually J. Lacrosse captain.” not engage me in conversation. I was compose a sonnet (or two!) on the pleasures or the pains of love. Shake- reminded of my own inadequacy as we “S.” I replied, gently massaging my done invading. Eyes downcast, I contin- spearean, Spenserian, Petrarchan, or more free-form - it’s up to you. Send passed rows of portraits depicting stern crushed mitt. ere was a pause. I ued towards the exit and burst through it submissions to Colette Sensier at [email protected] by 9am on Mon- sportsmen of yesteryear. thought perhaps we were done, but no... into my world: a world full of comforting day February 9th for the chance to win two tickets to the following week’s We wandered towards the bar. I’d like “And what do you do?” mediocrity. ADC main show, and see your work printed in our next issue.

HURRICANE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): “Yes, it’s Rubin Carter, the middleweight boxer whose name you recognise from the famous song ‘Hurricane’ on the album Desire by the American folk singer Bob Dylan. And yes, he’s currently standing before you wearing nothing but a ji y bag. You have two options. p22 Ask him what the bejesus he’s doing in Cambridge. p23 Steal the ji y bag. Fashion Editors: Kate Womersley, Alice Newell-Hanson & Katy King Friday February 6th 2009 Friday February 6th 2009 Contribute to Varsity Fashion: 18 Fashion [email protected] varsity.co.uk varsity.co.uk [email protected] Fashion 19

Purple dress £18, ditzy floral dress £20, both Ark Vintage

Printed scarf £12, eBay

Red shoes £22, Ark Vintage Liberty tie £2.50, Oxfam

Brown shoes £25, Ark Vintage

Necklace £3.99, Illustration: Anna Trench Oxfam Styling: Alice Newell-Hanson & Kate Womersley Photography: Katy King Shot on location at Ark Vintage

Blue floral dress Black and white jacket £3, Sally Ann’s £26, Ark Vintage; Admiral’s jacket £6.99, Mind

Pheasant print scarf, £5, Ark Vintage Leather sports bag £2.50, Sally Ann’s London Lament London you opened up and rained on me. As I wondered in and out of your public spaces poured over me, You invisible corpses littered every quiet alleyway. Your In this grey evening, with thoughts twisted By clouds, I was lost amongst the dead, Lost amongst the living. emptied your streets for me You But still were not naked, lled me with history fi You nished. Which left my present unfi London you are a leech suck day and night. All the talent of a nation of adventurers Becomes the effort suck You Banging on your door. Everything from my sight, leave me wet, cold and Longing for home but longing to call you home. of all utility and purged Longing to write but suffocated By your brilliance, grandeur thick river of history. Your What could I say? were everything and I was nothing You eld Summer Sheffi up the park today. Went no view like it. Pissing with rain but still there’s steaming, smouldering, The city, The summer heat radiating from impatient streets ames of anticipation. Scratching the screen of air with fl house to the new and empty apartments From Ruskin’s Sprung from false utility, The stubborn weather engenders a sigh of… nothing, no-one. Where the cranes stand like rigid musicians Gripped by stage fright, History has got the better of them And the audience are too attentive, Picking up false notes easily. Sometime, the city taught itself to listen, its hearing to the wails of catastrophe, Tuned Schooled itself in melancholy bleating. And yet, one sound escapes its memory: crashing explosion The white-hot all-encompassing, deathly, That exists only from the marriage of boredom and imagination, And yet is real enough. up the park today. Went oated above the skyline My thoughts fl As the city shivered with tension.

The world’s smallest city lies near the port of Valparaiso, Chile, South America.

/The buildings within the city rest lightly, on concrete stabilised timber piles or on shallow fl exible steel foundations, in an ever shifting domain of sand dunes. It was founded by a community of architects and poets, with an aim to synthesise life and learning. Its citizens are architects, poets, sculptors, engineers, students, young children, dogs and an old woman. On an average day there are about twenty-four of them. The old woman is the closest thing the city has to a history and metropolis. She is determined to die there.

/It is a city that is also countryside. In that respect it is closer in its character to the early classical cities. It is built with a chthonic respect for ground that we only in rare cases give to the resting places of our dead. Each structure is unique and considered. All of them were built communally and as poetic rituals. from ‘Open City/Closed City

Surrounded:

(how: concrete/steel) (what: individual/community/progress/symbiosis - a relationship of mutual benefi t or dependence) (Why: tough/question ) (who: you/ ) How the Geeks Built Cities is a magazine, set up as a forum for the varied creative and intellectual output of students at Cambridge & elsewhere. It is currently published termly in a simple A4 format, with minimal editorial intervention - contributors are encouraged to experiment and format their work themselves, resulting in an eclectic mix of drawing, painting, diagrams, poetry, photography, academic articles and prose. Future contributors should send work by Friday 13th February to [email protected] or [email protected]. We also have a facebook group. Issue 3 will be out in sixth week of this term. We look forward to hearing from you... Want something listed? Friday February 6th 2009 20 Listings [email protected] varsity.co.uk THE VARSITY WEEK THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS

e a t r e Music & Nightlife Art & Classical Talks & Events Film

Friday 5th & Saturday 6th Friday 6th Ongoing Exhibitions e Curious Case of Benjamin Button Ongoing: Radar Fitzwilliam Museum (free): Arts Picturehouse: daily 1.45pm, 5pm, Road e Junction 1: 7.30pm (£5 adv.) • Sir Sydney Cockerell and the Fitz 8.15pm Feelgood See next week’s Varsity for a review (until March 17th) Loose adaptation of an F. Scott Life and Beth of this month’s Radar Club, with • Picasso Prints – Dreams and Lies Fitzgerald short story. Watch Brad 42nd Street headliners Brakes, featuring ex- (until Sun 8th) Pitt scrape away the years and the members of British Sea Power and • e Immortal Stone - Chinese stage makeup in this epic that has him Read reviews of Road, Feelgood and Electric So Parade. jades (until May 31st) land on a doorstep as a baby with the Life and Beth on p24-5. Kettle’s Yard (free): physical attributes of an 86-year old. John Gale & Sons exhibition Sunday 8th • e Roundhouse Of International Co-starring Cate Blanchett, who only Le Fil Andy Bowie Quartet Spirits (until March 15th) gets older. Fellows’ Garden, King’s College: 8pm Cricketers: 8.30pm (free) Scott Polar Research Institute Friday 6th (free) Sax-led modern jazz from El- (free): Miscellaneous eatre Festival Frost/Nixon A sharp sensory experience, inspired lington to Shorter from an ever- • John Gale & Sons (until Sat 14th) preview Arts Picturehouse: daily (not Sat and by French singer Camille’s album of expanding repertoire, in a new, • British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expe- Judith E. Wilson, English Faculty: all urs) 1pm the same name. Runs until Tues 10th. larger venue. dition, 1907-9 (until April 4th) day (free) Sat and urs: 11am Churchill College (free): With extracts from plays that will be Disgraced American President meets Tuesday 10th Monday 9th • ‘Direct Observation’: Chinese performed, and a chance to still get wholesome British talkshow host:  lm Death of a Salesman Reel Big Fish prints (until Sun 8th) involved, head to the English Faculty based on the play based on the TV ADC: 7.45pm, Saturday matinee e Junction 1: 8pm (£14 adv.) for a preview of the March 11th-13th show based on the juiciest political 2.30pm (£6-£9) ey may be best known for that festival. scandal ever seen. See Pick of the Week. cover of ‘Take On Me’, but these Friday 6th CUMC - Purcell, Rubbra, Martinu, student favourites have over seven Saturday 7th Milk Shostakovich and Brahms Footlights Smoker albums’ worth of ska-punk to treat Fitz Sessions Arts Picturehouse: Fri and Sun: 11am, West Road Concert Hall: 8pm ADC: 11pm (£5-£6) you with tonight. Fitzwilliam Bar: 8.30pm (free) 6.15pm; Sat: 3pm; Mon and Tues: (£7/£5/£3) e usual hits and misses. Book now Fitz Ents present the second in their 11.15am, 6.15pm; Weds: 6.15pm; Expect good things from this because it WILL sell out. series of acoustic and electric sets from urs: 11.15am, 2.30pm Tuesday 10th performance, being put on by past Woomble, Drever and McCusker students. Gus Van Sant’s new picture has Sean and present students of the Royal e Rivals e Junction 1: 8pm (£14 adv.) Penn playing politician Harvey Milk. Academy of Music and Cambridge Corpus Playroom: 7pm (£5/£5.50) e Junction’s double whammy of Sunday 8th Harvey Milk is gay. is is the ‘70s – alumni. Sheridan’s play (below) about Scottish folk sees this recently as- Burn A er Reading people ain’t down with that. forbidden love, deception and a sembled trio of musicians, includ- Yusuf Hamied eatre, Christ’s: 7.30pm dramatic duel - what more could ing Roddy Woomble of Idlewild Sunday 8th and 10pm (£2.50) Rachel Getting Married Cappé Quartet you want? Runs until Sat 14th. fame take to the stage in J1... A disk containing the memoirs of Vue: daily 4pm Kettle’s Yard: 12pm (free) a CIA agent ends up with a pair of Anne Hathaway is Oscar-nominated Mix classical music with modern Fence Collective hapless gym employees who foolishly for her role in this ensemble wedding art as the quartet play a programme e Junction 2: 8pm (£10 adv.) attempt to bribe the disk’s owner. movie. Go see! of contemporary music. ... while this motley crew take over J2. See Pick of the Week. Monday 9th Revolutionary Road Monday 9th Wolfson Howler Arts Picturehouse: daily (not Tues) King’s Recital Series 9/2 ‘Its A-Happening!’ Wolfson College Bar: 8pm (£6, £2 1.30pm, 4pm, 6.30pm, 9pm King’s College Keynes Hall: 9.30pm Kambar: 10pm (£3) Wolfson members) Adaptation of the Richard Yates novel (free) Kambar’s new night kicks o here, Headliner Craig Campbell. And the that received no major nominations e third concert in the King’s with all things ‘60s music-wise: usual showcase of talent from Cam- from the Academy, despite the reunion College Lent Term Recital series expect soul, funk, beat, garage and bridge and elsewhere. of Titanic stars Leonardo di Caprio features  autist Tristan Meares and psych. and Kate Winslet. is time it’s their pianist Tom Kimber. ursday 12th marriage that’s the sinking ship. Wednesday 11th Wednesday 11th A falling star - the sovereign self in Sophrosyne e Art of the Matter Wednesday 11th Otto Weininger St. John’s Films St. Catharine’s Music Society Fitzpatrick Hall, Queens’: 7.45pm CUR 1350 AM/MW: 6pm CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane: 5pm (free) Sunday 8th: 7pm and 10pm St. Catharine’s Chapel: 7.30pm (£4-£7) CUR 1350’s spoof arts show with a Louis Sass explores the post-Kantian RocknRolla Harry Winstanley and Kausikan An intriguing piece of new student cult podcast following. Listen up to theories of Weininger whose notorious Rajeshkumar present a recital of writing, about family and evil, from hear what all the fuss is about! book Sex and Character in uenced ursday 12th: 9pm Bach, Fauré, Reinecke and Doppler. Freddy Syborn. many 20th century luminaries. Hunger

Fence Collective Death of a Salesman Tuesday 10th Tuesday 10th - Saturday 14th e Junction 2: 8pm (£10 adv.) ADC: 7.45pm, Saturday matinee Claiming K.T. Tunstall as a sometime (£6-£9) member and led by rising star King Along with the release of Revo- Creosote, the Collective hail from Fife lutionary Road, the American in Scotland and combine a down-to- Dream takes a beating this week. earth work ethos with high-quality is new production aims to bring pseudonyms - expect to hear HMS Miller’s characters into our current Ginafore and Uncle Beesly. Recently economic climate, and brings a featured on the BBC’s e Culture new poignancy to the image of Show, these are ones to watch - buy Willy Loman, “riding on a smile your tickets now. and a shoeshine”.

HURRICANE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Indeed. “Woof!” barks a cat. “Miaow!” purrs a dog. Or maybe it’s the other way round. It’s not entirely clear. Anyways, there’s loads of fuckers running all over the place. Robert Peston, the BBC’s Business Editor, terms the phenomenon “a new kind of capitalism”. But what does he mean? p24 It’s a dog-eat-dog world. p25 He’s working like a dog. Friday February 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 21

TheA historian and biographer of tonyEducator Blair, Anthony Seldon is one of Britain’s leading contemporary commentators. He is also a headmaster, and as he tells Rob Peal, in his new book he will be firmly wearing his teaching hat. claudia stocker nthony Seldon’s greeting is charac- tion has always been an aspect of public but complains, “the teachers were neither Ateristically welcoming, but he soon school education, and having predomi- interested in nor very good at teach- warns me, “I’ve got everything in the nantly taught in the private sector, it ing, and philosophy was utterly boring. world to give you apart from time - it’s a would be easy to assume Seldon’s ideas Philosophy could and should have been frantic, frantic Saturday morning.” have a narrow appeal. However, Seldon magical and challenging and extraordi- This comes as no surprise. is keen to emphasise that his ideas apply nary but it wasn’t.” His ideal of an expan- For the lucky few who reach the top to “every single human being born any- sive and holistic education does not sit of their profession, it must be galling to where from Bracknell to Beijing.” This is well with the professional specialisation lay eyes on the likes of Seldon, who has not empty rhetoric; his school has been which has been fostered amongst mod- reached the top of two. He has writ- heavily involved in sponsoring the new ern academics: “I think that academics ten or edited some twenty-five books, Wellington Academy in Wiltshire which can increasingly talk to themselves and a prolific output including works on will ensure that his ideas can be equally their discourse can become very self- history, politics and education. Most applied to the state and independent regarding. They lose the connectedness recently, he has published Blair Unbound, sector alike. with the world at large or indeed with the the second volume of his definitive and He is very aware that “those advertis- lives of the students.” meticulously researched biography of the ing these views can be characterised as One only has to see Seldon speak on former prime minister. However, what cranks, or quaint, or quirky”, but in Sel- one of his many specialisations to see is remarkable is that Seldon fits this all don’s case such insults do not quite fit. As that he is a man who revels in his studies. around being headmaster of Wellington a professional teacher he is by no means Therefore, my guess is that he would be College, and one of Britain’s most icono- stuck in an ivory tower of educational shocked to see how many students at clastic and innovative commentators on theory, and he applies these ideas on a Cambridge are so burdened with stress education. day to day basis. Two years ago, Seldon that they never get round to actually Education is what he wants to talk achieved a huge amount of press interest enjoying their work. In his view, this is about today. Seldon presents the thesis of with Wellington’s classes in ‘happiness’, needless worry: “I hate to disappoint the his upcoming book Educare (the Latin taught with the help of Cambridge’s own vast majority of undergraduates, but it for educate) with the excitement and Nick Baylis and his Well Being Institute. will make next to no difference about passion of an explorer who has chanced He believes that driving for success how happy they’ll be in life, or even upon a wonderful discovery. “I feel very through education should never become indeed what jobs they get in many cases strongly about this,” he reassures me, as if dominant, and asks me, “What is life if whether they get a first or a II.i.” For a the tone of his voice did not betray it. “I it is just spent vexed and troubled to get teacher, he has an admirably sceptical think that education has gone in a wrong A-levels, and vexed and troubled to get view of the value of exam results: “What direction in Britain and in the world; a II.i, and vexed and troubled to get into does getting a first mean? It means that fundamentally, root-and-branch wrong.” The reasons for this, he claims, are “Education has gone in a wrong direction three “top-down drivers” which ma- nipulate education to their own end, and in Britain and in the world; fundamentally, prevent us from realising the original and fundamental reasons why a good educa- root-and-branch wrong.” tion is worth having. These three drivers are the “government who pays for the Linklaters or whatever?” He continues to one has a certain set of skills which align bulk of it and who wants to see an eco- tell me of all the vexations and troubles with a particular faculty which academic nomically viable and socially compliable that we have to fear through life right up discipline believes is worthy at this point work force; universities who want fodder until we are “vexed and troubled about in time, and an ability to organise oneself for their academics; and employers who whether you are going to make it into the to work hard - it means no more than want a basic set of numeric and literacy right plot at the cemetery. This is not life.” that. It doesn’t mean to say that one’s a skills.” Such rhetoric brings to mind the more highly intelligent person.” Seldon is quick to add that these clear- toe-curling aspects of Robin Williams’ Seldon has, of course, made himself ly necessary components are not intrinsi- ‘inspiring teacher’ in Dead Poets Society, famous through his highly detailed and cally bad, but are harmfully dominant. but Seldon seems too formidable to be nuanced accounts of that most enigmatic “What is missing is sufficient weight dismissed as an idealist, and I am willing figure of recent history, Tony Blair. The given to bottom-up factors by which I to suspend my cynicism. The Latin word two of them clearly share the opinion mean the development within each child educare, Seldon informs me, means that education is important, and Seldon of all the faculties that go to make them a ‘to lead out’, but the exact opposite is does praise Blair’s dedication: “I think he human being.” With the help of Harvard achieved in most educational establish- put enormous time and attention into Professor Howard Gardner, Seldon has ments. “Too much education, including education, and he ensured that more devised a theory of education based education at Cambridge, can close down money went into it than ever before.” around eight aptitudes or intelligences, minds by making people certain of what However, Seldon remains critical of which contemporary education fulfils they believe in a very narrow area, an of the way in which Blair pursued this only one or two at best. As he continues, extraordinarily narrow area of either one priority. “He will realise that the mecha- “If children and young adults do not or perhaps two of the eight intelligences. nistic measures that he put in place with have their faculties developed at school This too easily encourages the belief that the emphasis on exams and league tables and at university, then they will remain they have mastered the universe.” and tests, did not necessarily run in the dormant and underdeveloped for the rest For Seldon, Oxbridge is clearly not interests of happy and effective schools, of their lives.” an unimpeachable shrine of academic or indeed intelligent, effective and happy Such an emphasis on character forma- excellence. He studied PPE at Oxford, children. In some cases it countered that.” My lingering reservation was that his idea that education has somehow ‘gone Seldon seen kid wrong’ seems to suggest a rather retro- gressive assumption that there was a time 1981 Wins the Best First Work Prize with Churchill’s Indian Summer. in history when it was once all hunky- dory. Seldon assures me that this is not 1986 Founds the Institute of Contemporary British History. his angle: “I don’t think there has been a golden age. There have been golden cities and golden schools and golden 1997 Becomes headmaster of Brighton College. teachers.” He lands upon a summary of his views, and contentedly wraps it up by 1997 Writes the authorised biography of John Major. telling me, “The key is the opening, does education open minds or does it narrow, 2007 Publishes Blair, the first half of the biography. that is the key. One can keep on coming back to that.”

Hurricane Adventure (starts on page 15): Yes, it’s literally raining men. Literally. In fact, it’s all so literal that you fall into a puddle of them and drown. Hallelujah. Features Editor: Joe Hunter Friday February 6th 2009 22 Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk Sara h Wooll e y

Science correspondent Arthur Turrell looks to future technologies that could change our lives – or at least make them easier

Supercapacitorfragilistic ybrid cars that run on both petrol The novel feature of and electricity have been around supercapacitors is that Hfor a while now but there are still very they use a material, usually few entirely electric-powered cars on carbon, as a ‘sponge’ to soak up the road. One of the technological charged particles and this greatly problems with the electric car is their increases the surface area of the ca- batteries, which suffer from a number pacitor. Instead of the two plates there of problems: size, the time they take are two oppositely charged sponges to charge, and their degradation over of material with a separator between time. A possible solution is a type of them. Research is ongoing to try and battery called a ‘supercapacitor’ that increase the area of the sponge like cles – but works in a very different way. material with one of the most promis- superca- Most batteries in circulation today ing groups at MIT using very large pacitors can use chemical reactions to provide surface area structures called carbon be recharged electricity, but in a supercapacitor nanotubes. thousands of times electricity is stored physically as So why are supercapacitors so more before this hap- charged particles. Capacitors have much better than conventional bat- pens. Supercapacitors been around since the 16th century teries? Chemical batteries take a long have already taken over and they work by storing opposite time to charge, but capacitors can lead-acid batteries in energy charges on two conducting plates with charge almost instantly, meaning that density (the amount of energy a non-conducting layer in the middle. there is no wait if you want to drive stored per kilogram of mass) but Capacitors are used in televisions, your electric car to the shops. This will are still some way behind lithium- lasers, computers, and the flashbulb also make them energy efficient; when ion batteries. This may change soon, in a camera. The simplest version is cars break they can generate energy one company already claims to have just two metal plates with an air gap that could go straight back into the created a supercapacitor with energy between them; but they have tradition- capacitor battery. Capacitors, like con- density three times higher than lith- ally been very large as the amount of ventional batteries, suffer from degra- ium-ion batteries, and with so many charge they store is proportional to the dation – they will become less efficient other advantages it is inevitable that area of the plates and to the inverse of and stop working altogether after a supercapacitors will begin to replace the distance between the plates. number of charge and discharge cy- their slower cousins.

Children of the Sun lean, cheap energy is one of sci- their electricity in a completely differ- mass-produced cheaply, and research ence’s greatest challenges, and ‘dye ent way and have more in common teams at Cambridge are working on Csensitized’ solar cells could provide with photosynthesis. They use a dye this. Companies such as Sony and the answer. Conventional solar cells deposited on a metal crystalline struc- Toyota have also shown an interest, have one or more layers of material ture to catch light and this provides a ploughing money into research aimed that absorb particles of light, freeing surface area that is 1000 times larger at developing the technology to the up electrons and thus allowing them than a conventional flat solar cell of point at which it can be used to create to flow as electricity. The efficiency is the same size. Even better, dye sen- solar cells with a high enough energy limited because each type of material sitized solar cells will work with low conversion efficency to be profitable. can only absorb a narrow range of light sources. The government has committed to frequencies of light and the amount of They are also commercially viable, increasing the UK’s renewable energy light collected is proportional to the paying for themselves after about a generation to 20 per cent by 2020, and area of the panel. Additionally solar year – much less time than traditional solar power is going to be a huge part cells do not work in dim light, making solar cells. Although they currently of achieving that goal. Britain has a them of questionable value in places suffer from some problems – such as higher renewable mountain to climb like Britain. only absorbing certain frequencies of than some other EU member states, as Dye sensitized solar cells generate light – it is feasible that they could be its base is so low.

HURRICANE Adventure (starts on page 15): “Rubin,” you venture. “What the bejesus are you doing in Cambridge?” “Well, Latoya,” he replies, “I’m having a comeback match against Floyd Mayweather tonight at the Corn Ex- change. Only trouble is Floyd’s just been injured and we need a replacement...I say, do you fancy filling in for him?” »p28 Yes. »p29 No. Friday February 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 23 OMG! OLED! raditional incandescent light bulbs potential lies in display technology, are slowly being phased out in and OLED televisions are starting to Tthe UK, and will be gone completely appear on the market. They give rich by 2011. They are being replaced by colours and deep contrasts because low-energy fluorescent bulbs. How- they don’t require backlighting, un- ever, there is something much more like LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays). interesting happening in the lighting LCD televisions and monitors can be business: a new way of making light built thin, but OLEDs can be made that has already started to creep into far thinner. Samsung hold the cur- mobile phones, mp3 players, cameras, rent record with a display that is only and televisions. 0.05mm thin – thinner than paper. These bright stars of the future The small size of the components are called OLEDs (or Organic Light- allows displays made up of OLEDs Emitting Diodes) and they work in to be flexed and curled without dam- a similar way to the LEDs (Light- aging them. OLEDs have another Emitting Diodes) that are commonly benefit that sets them apart – it is used in bicycle lamps or on the front possible to use an inkjet printer to panel of laptops. The main differ- deposit OLEDs on a substrate so ence is that OLEDs are made up of they could be manufactured as easily polymers, long-chain molecules, and as quickly as a newspaper. which are organic semiconductors Televisions are just one of many unlike the semiconducting met- innovative products using OLEDs: als in LEDs. However OLEDs are watches that are just a strip of OLED much more useful than LEDs as they screen and super-thin mobile phones can generate a wide range of vivid that can be rolled up are also being colours and are extremely energy developed. There have even been efficient, a feature which has made plans to create OLED wall lighting them increasingly popular. panels, meaning that the reign of the Their greatest commercial fluorescent bulb could be cut short.

I am Electro Boy Fuel the World ith a multitude of modern ap- glass. Similarly the transmitter lmost everyone agrees that Wpliances taking over homes and and receiver are tuned to the same the addiction to oil must end, bedrooms it is a relief to know that in electromagnetic frequency so that Abe it for environmental or politi- the future the need for hundreds of only the antenna absorbs energy cal reasons. Unsurprisingly, not different chargers and wires will be a and not anybody standing nearby, everyone agrees how that should thing of the past. Technology devel- making the technology safe. Any be done, and the main competitor oped by scientists at the Massachusetts energy not absorbed by the an- to the electric car is the hydrogen Institute of Technology (MIT) allows tenna is reabsorbed by the emitter. fuel cell powered car. Technically energy to be transmitted wirelessly Several companies, includ- hydrogen fuel cell cars are electric from a transmitter in the home (a ing one based in Cambridge, are too; but instead of filling up with tabletop, for instance) to gadgets like already offering wireless charging electricity at a station you would laptops and mobile phones. tables, but as yet the technology fill up with hydrogen (the most The energy is emitted in the only works over relatively short dis- abundant element in the universe) mented with at form of electromagnetic waves tances with a loss in energy of 50 and generate the electricity on the moment. by the transmitter. These are then per cent over several metres - but board. The Mayor of London, Boris picked up by an antenna within the progress is being made. Eventually Fuel cells are an attractive pros- Johnson, has continued to publicly gadget. The trick to the process is transmitters could cover an entire pect because they produce only Arnold Schwarzenegger, the gov- support hydrogen buses, despite a phenomenon called resonance house, meaning you would never water as a waste product, generat- ernor of California, has promised recently cancelling an order of 60. A which may be more familiar to have to bother with cables again. ing power by combining hydrogen to build 100 hydrogen fuel stations spokesperson told journalists: “The musicians; it happens with sound from a tank with oxygen from the in his state by 2010 for the handful Mayor remains fully committed to waves when a string played on atmosphere. This means that the of hydrogen cars that are currently the development of hydrogen as a one instrument causes a string on dense clouds of smog above cities available. Scientists are busy find- cleaner, greener fuel in London.” It another to vibrate strongly. It is like Beijing, which are mostly due ing ways to circumvent the need appears that the streets of London the same phenomenon that to cars, would disappear giving for the costly platinum catalyst and may be humming to the sound of allows sopranos to smash a health benefits as well as reducing progress has been made at Wuhan hydrogen engines sooner than you wineglass with their voice: the amount of carbon dioxide in University in China, where cheaper might think; how they will compare they sing a the air. They are also more efficient nickel catalysts are being experi- to ‘bendy buses’ remains to be seen. note at than combustion engines, extract- the ing 60 per cent of the energy avail- able rather than just 20 per cent. There are major challenges to the champions of the hydrogen economy, however. The first is that most of the hydrogen used now is produced using fossil fuels with carbon dioxide as a by-product. Hydrogen can be produced in a carbon-neutral way but it is inefficient and relies on the use of renewable energy sources, which themselves have many problems. Even worse, fuel cells are extremely expensive because they use precious metals as a catalyst to make the electricity generating reaction take place. By far the most commonly used metal for this is platinum, which is only mined in five places world- wide and can be as much as twice the price of the same quantity of gold. Despite this, there are a few ‘resonant frequency’ of the hydrogen buses in London and

Hurricane Adventure (starts on page 15): Smooth move. In a trice, you make off with the makeshift sporrin and then run home to auction it on Facebook Marketplace. The bag sells for a cool £185.50. Bob Dylan later immor- talises the event with a re-release of his song, complete with updated lyrics: “That’s the story of the Hurricane / But it won’t be over till they clear his name / And give him back the jiffy bag.” Features Editor: Joe Hunter Friday February 6th 2009 24 Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Zing Tsjeng

Squat Rot The Da! Collective are a group of discerning squatters for whom only multimillion pound eighteenth century residencies will do. Middle class pseudo-bohemians or inspiring activists? Zing Tsjeng goes to London to find out. am on the phone with a squatter, turned into an art gallery under the you used to getting?” No response. pressed. The actual living quarters Iand she is giving me life advice. name of the Da! Collective. “You guys get a lot of bad press, don’t of the squatters look like any other “Don’t walk in your master’s shadow,” It’s a week and a half later when I you?” landed property in London – long, Steph Smith, 21, murmurs. “Find walk past the Ritz Hotel and down “Do we?” she stares blankly. Five narrow corridors and dirty terrace your own path.” A pause. She giggles. to what the tabloids are calling “posh minutes later, she rips up a copy of windows. Through a row of the latter, “Sorry, I’m in a really weird mood squat”. Even the broadsheets aren’t the London Paper, and cries, “Why I see a group of women in tracksuits, today.” She tells me to talk to Alex, ashamed to throw in some choice do these people keep appearing in shouting, “No! No! No!” They’re on a who told me to talk to her, who told adjectives: “middle-class bohemi- our house?” It’s not exactly your self-defence class. Then I bump into me to email the group, which I did in ans”, sniffs The Times, noting in a house, I reason in my head. Even in Alex – or rather, I ignore Alex several the first place. I’ve met porn direc- purely neutral, journalistic fashion, I my head, I sound like a nob. I stare at times because he looks nothing like tors more accessible than the group presume, the majority of the squat- the washing-up rota tacked above the how I imagined him to be. He is of squatters who, up till last Tuesday, ters’ “private school backgrounds”. sink: even middle-class bohemians balding slightly, has ruddy cheeks, a occupied a £22.5m townhouse in I’m primed to indulge in that most like a good timetable, it seems. I feel slight paunch, and is at a push at least Mayfair, London. English of hobbies: inverse snobbery. miserably like I’m back at art school, 15 years older than Steph. He is also The owners of the Grade II*-listed Are those Nike high tops my guide and still not cool enough to hang out wearing what appears to be a Goretex property, Timekeeper Ltd., only is wearing? Is it just me, or do all of with the cool kids. jacket and hiking boots. I feel imme- realized their house had been taken the people I’m talking to have that So instead, I talk to the Austral- diately at home with him, my fellow over when they spotted a festive distinctive middle-class accent of the ian girl. Australians don’t care about pleb in sensible clothing. Christmas tree in the window. Their urban and trendy London young? coolness. All Australians are chirpy, He invites me on a bike tour of solicitor, Andrew Jeffrey, was at pains Is that blonde Australian girl with even ones wearing aggressive RUN Mayfair, to check out the other to clarify that the building was not the crew-cut wearing a vintage RUN DMC sweatshirts. But she skips off abandoned buildings. It’s one of the abandoned, and was only left unoc- DMC sweatshirt ironically, or is she before I can get her name. I’m left activities listed at the Temporary cupied since 2007 as the owners were really a fan of early 80’s rap? with Steph, who instructs me to find School of Thought. Our motley crew going through a series of complicated “People are starting to have opti- Alex. It occurs to me that I am in a of five sets off as Alex bicycles up the planning applications. The court date mism again,” the blonde in question perpetual game of finding Alex. I wrong ends of streets and down pave- for the squatters was set for late Janu- enthuses, “it’s really cool.” She’s read- feel like I’m stuck in a Beckett play. ments, receiving dubious stares from ary, and they celebrated by throwing ing Adbusters, an anti-capitalist maga- I wonder what Alex will look like: a Mayfair residents with Chloe bags the house open to the public and zine for artists and writers. Predict- culmination of every single Daily Mail and fur coats. We stop periodically at setting up The Temporary School of ably, it’s got a picture of Obama on the headline on the squat. I imagine a several ramshackle properties with Thought, organizing workshops and front. It seems even anti-capitalists very tall and thin artist who looks like dusty windows; Alex rejects each one talks on topics from climate change fall for a bit of that good old “hope an unwashed hobo and wears pointy- as being unsafe or too high profile. to laughter. This wasn’t the first time and glory” patter. toed shoes: a cross between the Artful The latter doesn’t seem to be some- they’d done it, either – their previous Steph, the girl from the phone con- Dodger and Andy Warhol. thing they were so afraid of before, I residence was a £6.25m property on versation, is far cagier. I try to make I wander out the kitchen area of suggest. Occupying buildings in the upper Grosvenor Street, which they’d small talk: “So, what kind of press are the house, and feel distinctly unim- richest neighbourhoods of London

Hurricane Adventure (starts on page 15): Yes, dogs are literally eating other dogs outside The Place. Look, there’s a Dobermann Alsatian taking a chunk out of a Pointer Mastiff. And there’s a Chihuaha Shih Tzu munching on a Setter Spaniel. But what’s this? A Boxer chonking your neighbour’s St Bernard? Quelle horreur. »p28 Intervene. »p30 Pretend you’re in Sainsbury’s and avoid eye contact at all costs. Friday February 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 25 doesn’t exactly lend itself to anonym- crops to followers free of charge, ity. Alex shrugs and mentions they’re in the hope that other poor people moving soon, anyway. would follow their example. Follow- It occurs to me that the squatters ing World War II, disenfranchised weren’t even considering their profile; ex-servicemen and their families the squat has a feel of a bunch of squatted in former military bases and mates wanting to do something fun, West London luxury apartments. The who in the process wound up on the 70’s saw a wave of younger squatters, front page of newspapers. They were claiming the act as part of a revolu- definitely less than prepared for the tionary political stand. Even at their amount of vitriol hurled their way, ascendency, the Sex Pistols squatted especially on the Internet: “Take the in Hampstead – a blue plaque is now wankers home for a good old-fash- in the making. The long, complex ioned beating,” says Bones1. Rustle history of British squatting is recog- opines: “These upper class nits don’t nized in law, which states that squat- live in the real world, so what would ting is not a criminal offence if you they know of the daily struggles felt can get into an unoccupied building by genuine homeless squatters?” without forced entry. You can stay as “Actually,” Alex points out. “Most long as no damage is incurred and homeless people don’t squat.” The as long as you leave once an eviction ““Why do these people keep appearing in our house?” It’s not exactly your house, I reason in my head.” homeless tend to have less access to notice is served. Squatting as an act information about squatters’ rights, of social protest is nothing new – you and are, perhaps justifiably, slightly would think that in these troubled warier of the long arm of the law. times, more people would support They prefer to remain mobile and squatters. It seems a crime that these hardly ever linger in one place, beautiful houses are locked up and whereas squatters try to remain left to rot while their owners scrabble under the radar long enough to settle to save the last of their millions. in. Alex speaks primly of the Park Back at the house, Alex instructs Lane squatters – a group now known me to tour the part that I haven’t as “Dog Squat” in the tabloids – who seen, which the squatters don’t live have taken over two £15m houses in. I move from the cramped serv- that overlook Hyde Park. We stop ants quarters of the living space, the long enough to have a look, and corridors of which are decorated Alex is disappointed there aren’t any with life drawing sketches, and into “punks spitting and stuff”. There is, rooms of 19th century handpainted however, a very grumpy photogra- wallpaper and vaulted ceilings. There pher banging away at the door. The are about five floors of increasingly mistake of the squatters there, Alex elaborate rooms, served by beauti- informs me, is to let anybody stay. ful spiral staircases and a creaky They were soon overrun by hobos elevator. The squatters have left these with dogs and druggies coming off rooms mostly untouched, except to their weekend high. “We’re good pile up mattresses scavenged from squat, they’re bad squat,” Alex laughs, nearby hotel bins to form makeshift and pedals on. He refuses to speak cinema seats and to pull together for any of the group as to why they old tables and chairs for upcoming squat; he personally enjoys being talks, overseen today by Steph. I part of an artistic community, and attend a talk about Playful Cities – from the way he lovingly glances over which basically translates to putting every beautiful house we pass, you grand pianos in streets and flash- can tell he’s far from the type to hold mobs bursting into song – led by a a destructive rave in any of them. hyperkinetic American woman who This refusal to speak for the group went to “that Fame school – the real is characteristic; considering that one”. It sounds like a hippy-dippy the group refuses to speak to the enterprise if not for the fact the Ol- mainstream media at all, I’m lucky to ympics Committee funds her group, get a word out of Steph or Alex, who Sing London, as part of their charity are among its core members. At the outreach. In attendance are archi- beginning of their big media break, tects, newspaper managers, foreign the squatters were more than happy exchange students and a builder in to pose for photographers and read a David Bowie t-shirt. At the end of out public statements to confused the talk, she gets everybody to sing passers-by. After all, their first cover- goodbye to one another. age from Time Out spoke warmly of And you know what? Everybody their previous squat as an “artistic, does, with a smile. I even get a hug bohemian microcosm”. Nowadays, out of most of them. (The builder is if Steph’s behaviour is any indica- the best.) This is London. I’m gob- tion, they seem more guarded, less smacked. Most people would rather willing to affiliate themselves with die than touch a stranger in public. It any kind of political or artistic ethos seems like grand, ornate properties that would leave them vulnerable bring out the best in people – peo- to outside attack; more comfortable ple are walking around apprecia- to let the assorted workshops and tively, striking up conversations with talks at the Temporary School of each other. Everybody knows they Thought speak for them. And who wouldn’t ordinarily be here, that can blame them? This was before the it’s something special, even slightly Daily Mail and the Sun turned their mischievous, in how we’ve been let artistic endeavor into a story about in under the dozy eye of the law. how a bunch of unwashed public- The squatters might be long inured schoolkids-in-denial would overtake to the charm of such a grand slum, your suburban semi the minute you but their real genius was throwing it nipped away to the Co-op. open to the public and letting them Squatting has a long, illustrious make up their own minds. Crimi- history in Britain: in 1649, a Surrey- nals or artists? Mucky squatters or based group calling themselves The rescuers of beautiful, unused houses? Diggers occupied disused common Steph sits in a corner and smiles. She land, cultivating and distributing might be on to something after all.

Hurricane Adventure (starts on page 15): Entirely correct: it’s been a hard day’s night, and Peston’s been working like a dog. Which accounts for the fact that he talks like a complete Peruvian Wolfhound. Check him out at: tinyurl.com/robertpeston. Arts Editor: Emma Mustich Friday February 6th 2009 26 Arts [email protected] varsity.co.uk Thumping Good Yarns ‘Graffiti knitters’ are reinventing a traditional craft and taking the world of street art by storm. varsity correspondent roisin Kiberd talks to magda Sayeg of knittaplease, one of guerilla knitting’s most notorious gangs

raffiti has traditionally been the landmarks (she even boasts of a recent by their very nature, impermanent. founder. “I’ve done many things in my preserve of middle-class subur- request she’s received to cover an entire Indeed, like all mediums of street art, life,” says Sayeg proudly, “but nothing Gban teenagers, fuelled by a frustration Brooklyn street in yarn!). Interviewing knitted graffiti is ephemeral; not only has taken me all over the world and with their urban landscape. But ‘graffiti Sayeg on the phone, I’m in awe of her can it be removed by authorities, but given me as much attention as this. It knitting’, a recent fusion of illegal street organisation and business skills, which the yarn can also easily fall foul of rain makes me realise that life can be crazy culture with a traditionally domestic, she still manages to balance with an and winds. Sayeg remembers fondly and wonderful.” mild-mannered pursuit, bridges the infectious passion for the creative, grass- how her car antenna cozies were “so Sayeg’s work breaks down our divide between the shadowy night-time roots side of her projects. popular… but then I would get e-mails preconceptions both about knitting world of spray can-wielding tag artists “Knitta Please, when it started, was saying they’d blown off in the wind, or as a dull, domestic activity, and about and the less criminal urban creative just me,” says Sayeg. “Then it grew to someone had stolen it. We saw one piece the much-maligned graffiti artists with field. There is something simultaneously about twelve people… I didn’t even on Ebay!” She concludes, “I guess it’s the whom she empathises. “It’s important terrifying and comforting about the sight know everyone in the group. So when idea that it’s free art. That’s a part of its to break the mould - I definitely feel like of your granny’s chosen art form com- people had to leave, I just let them. Now beauty to me, the possibility that it might I’ve taken knitting and I’ve flipped it on ing out of the attic and onto the streets; that it’s just me, suddenly everything’s not be there tomorrow, so you might as its head.” Previous work in galleries left ripples of acrylic yarn, woven onto road happened. I love having the autonomy to well enjoy it today.” her dissatisfied with art world preten- signs, snaking down streetlights and do what I want with this.” Sayeg travels However, unlike normal graffiti artists, sion: “That’s what ruins art – artists trailing off of car antennae. Knitta Please, the world like a one-woman knitting Sayeg has never run into trouble with the working for the critics, who are writing a group devoted to the creation of such machine, leaving a trail of fibrous street- law. “They have stopped me to ask what for art people.” Instead, graffiti knitting humble masterpieces, is in many ways art which is then catalogued on her I was doing, but they go on their merry takes art into the open, on traffic islands partaking in a tradition shared by artists website, www.knittaplease.com. way… I’ll usually say I’m decorating and lamp-posts, accessible and visible of all mediums: the urge to celebrate the In fact, Sayeg says, internet buzz has for my friend who’s coming back from to all. ordinary, to bring attention to something played a crucial part in the rise of graffiti the war, or I’m doing a scavenger hunt Sayeg describes her plans with an en- that is otherwise ignored. knitting. “If it wasn’t for the internet with my youth group... If it’s about God thusiasm that’s nothing short of inspira- Founded four years ago, a project that success, especially in the first six months, or the war, they won’t question it.’’’ The tional. “I know people who would never, began with a solitary ‘doorknob cozy’ none of this would have happened,” authorities’ relaxed approach to her ever, do the kind of crazy shit that I’ve has since reached international propor- she admits. “People hire PR to get that daytime adventures has been oddly anti- done... Sometimes you have to be ballsy, tions, appearing both on the streets and kind of attention.” Just like an unsigned climactic: “I almost think it would be fun so that something magical can happen. in the media worldwide. Its founder, musician using Myspace, Magda used to get arrested. It would probably cause a I want this to get bigger and bigger – Magda Sayeg, spends less time knitting the website at first as a way to measure sensation.’” larger than life!” She’s eager to visit Lon- in front of The Sopranos than she does Knitta Please’s popularity. She also prof- No one could have foreseen that don and, hopefully, Cambridge, where travelling the world, promoting ‘graf- ited from the chance to create a photo- Knitta Please would gain quite so much she plans to leave her woven handiwork fiti knitting’ and tagging international catalogue of Knitta’s graffiti, which are, attention in so little time, least of all its on the trees in Fellows’ Gardens. The New Omaha Pioneers Electro-futurist rock gods The Faint may not like England or necessarily care what you think of their music, but we like them anyway. Alice Shyy over-intellectualizes the band’s modus operandi with Jacob Thiele and Joel Peterson

ow come you don’t talk with a going?” synthesizer player Jacob Thiele venue to swelling with ballistic beats and With fourteen years of innovation and to creation through creating. Jacob’s funny accent?” Joel Peterson, gripes about the day’s less than ideal entranced dancers, but the mood at the five full-length studio albums behind greatest hope is that The Faint can in- bassist“H and guitarist for electro-rock equipment load-in process. Certainly, moment is set to ‘grim’. them, The Faint cover a lot of ground spire others, for he remembers how his outfit The Faint, is the first to ask a the band’s sound skews more toward “I don’t like this country,” Joel as- in the realms of mad scientist-cum- own heroes have done him a similar question in this interview on a dismal the dystopic than the poptastic, but I serts. “You can write that down.” Joel’s retrorocker experimentation. From the favor. As for Joel: “I want to inspire London afternoon. Fitting – one listen wasn’t expecting this hardness from near-acrid honesty and droll pessimism beginning, The Faint have embraced myself,” he declared. “I’m incredibly to classic single ‘Paranoiattack’ and it’s Midwestern musicians who’ve made it ironically make his personality more the DIY ethic—they designed their selfish. As far as the creative process evident that the American quintet from on world tour. As Jacob and Joel indulge in keeping with the British cultural own graphics, built their own studio, goes, I only really care about what I Omaha, Nebraska like to do things their my queries, visual and aural grit pollutes backdrop he deprecates. Still, he’s very self-released their latest album—not only think and what my bandmates think. way. In this vein, rather than give a our dive-y, has-been alcove four storeys charming, in spite, or perhaps because, because of their punk origins, but also Success, or not, is irrelevant to me.” throw-away answer to my (admittedly over Pentonville Road in London’s La of it; when I, in the British mode, because it allows them maximum agency Luckily for Joel, success has come throw-away) first question of “How’s it Scala. The Faint would later pump the respond to his distaste for England by in crafting their art. Jacob muses, “I to The Faint, in the form of industry apologising, he pauses pensively before think it’s a better way to live life—learn- respect, a die-hard fan base, and even carefully deadpanning, “I don’t think it’s ing and having the experience of trying a couple of Omaha Entertainment your fault. I think it happened a long something new, failing at something Awards for good measure. But in time ago.” new.” Currently, the band face increas- the pulsing rush of progress, both in Endowed with a more stereotypically ing difficulties in finding new material terms of their careers and technology, American temperament, Jacob is sur- to ‘Faint-ify’. “With each consecutive they take care to look at the residue, prisingly earnest for a cooler-than-cool album it’s the process of us figuring out having found that increasingly elusive rock star. Jacob handles the Customer what is necessary and what is not neces- inspiration in everything from broken Service Department of The Faint—he sary… lyrically, sonically, dynamically,” equipment to ‘artifacts’ from the cut- manages their Myspace and Facebook explains Joel. “We have crossed a lot of ting room floor. As human executives accounts, taking care to respond to stuff off our lists already and there are of unapologetically mechanical noise, every message. (He takes special pleas- fewer avenues left to travel.” The Faint hold a double gaze on the ure in responding to hate mail.) Well- The self-professed “open-minded digital world; begoggled and lab-coat- attuned to his fans’ feelings, he later control freaks” have titled their latest donning frontman Todd Fink finds apologizes to me for the dismal start: album offering, for which they are on the steampunk movement a useful “I didn’t mean to complain about the tour, Fasciinatiion—an idiosyncratic aesthetic metaphor for trying to load-in. It’s too easy to say things are and futuristic claiming of a word that create a prehistory out of post-indus- great, so I tried to think of something is the product and promise of inspira- trialism. “It’s the best or maybe the that wasn’t great.” Apology accepted – tion. “Inspiration” is a key word for easiest way to come up with things sometimes innovation doesn’t deliver Jacob and Joel, who represent two that haven’t been done before,” says its desired effect at first, but The Faint different takes on how The Faint are Jacob. “New technologies breed new work hard to tweak it until it does. influenced by the human response ideas, and it’s exciting.”

Hurricane Adventure (starts on page 15): Look, this isn’t WWF. Once you’re down, you stay down. Y’okay? »p28 Pull the other one. Friday February 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Arts 27

Stitched Up fine cell work is an eleven-year-old initiative that teaches the art of embroidery in twenty-two british prisons. Laura Freeman talks to connie hasselgaard about the joys and difficulties of bringing delicacy into rough realms

he Old Testament rubric for crime dery. It is a time consuming occupation, much as £400. The money is divided usually have to contend with is a bit of in a birdcage of spidery stitching, while, Tand retribution warns that as you but behind bars, time is the one thing three-fold: a third to goes the charity, a bad language. Connie tends to brush in another, a pair of feet dangle over an sow so shall you reap – or, for the inmates have. Eleven years after its third covers cost, and a final third goes off any cursing with a brisk, “I’ve heard upturned chair, with the words “I can’t purposes of this article, as you sew so founding, Fine Cell Work teaches 350 to the prisoners. worse from a building site.” Volunteers take it anymore” shakily stitched below. shall you reap. I hope Fine Cell Work inmates (two-thirds of them men) in 22 Connie Hasselgaard has been a are never told about an inmate’s past, To desperate inmates, Fine Cell will forgive the pun. As their own prisons across the country, and last year volunteer for Fine Cell Work since and the philosophy they are encouraged Work represents hope, occupation, and name suggests, they are not adverse to turned over £180,000. 2002. When she isn’t teaching at HMP to adopt is, “I don’t know what they did, therapy all in one. Letters by prisoners a spot of word play. The Cell of the title The scheme has three aims: to teach Wandsworth, she is several worlds and I don’t want to know”. are testament to the redemptive power refers both to the prisons where this inmates new skills, to instil a sense of away, restoring royal tapestries at The cushions and quilts stitched by of the needle and thread. To some, the programme teaches embroidery and pride in work, and to enable its ben- Hampton Court Palace. Kind, meticu- the inmates are of exceptional quality, classes provide a semblance of family, quilting, and to each cell of canvas that eficiaries to earn money which can be lous, and unshakably patient, Connie and accordingly, Fine Cell Work sup- or a way of keeping calm, passing the prisoners dutifully stitch. The American sent home to families or put towards a began volunteering for Fine Cell Work plies the interior decoration shops of time, keeping out of fights. A letter cell-block jailbird stitching mailbags fresh start on the outside. Inmates learn because she was “tired of being a com- the Fulham Road with scatter cushions from an inmate at HMP Maidstone may be a familiar icon, but the prison- quilting and embroidery at volunteer- mittee woman. I wanted to be down in and hand-stitched rugs. William Yeo- talks of pride in helping others: “It is ers working under the Fine Cell Work run evening classes, and between each the arena with the sawdust.” scheme have transformed the humble class they stitch in their cells: cot blan- She objects fiercely to the school “Self-Esteem is a rare commodity in prison” mailbag stitch into an art form. kets, scatter cushions, tapestry rugs, and of thought (much loved by knee-jerk Fine Cell Work was founded in 1998 elaborate folk-blankets. The handiwork newspapers) that prison is a ‘holi- ward, Colefax and Fowler, and Allegra nice to be needed by other inmates who by Lady Anne Tree, with the aim of is immaculate, and cushions sell for day camp.’ Helping prisoners is not Hicks have all proudly displayed Fine are just learning, and need help from teaching prisoners the art of embroi- £90, while rugs and quilts can cost as everyone’s priority. “Their freedom Cell Work in their windows. The cur- time to time.” Fine Cell Work graduates is taken away,” she muses. “You don’t rent collection boasts cushions embroi- have found work as tailors and money have to treat them badly whilst they are dered with the Fleur de Lys, sorbet pink earned from quilts and cushions is put in there.” The guards can be hostile to carnations, and delicate tangles of vine towards suits for job interviews on the groups such as Fine Cell Work, dubbing leaves all stitched by Connie’s tough, outside. the volunteers “bloody do-gooders”. But tattooed pupils. Fine Cell Work’s best- Charities such as Fine Cell Work are hostility is most fiercely voiced by those seller is a cream cushion marked with under threat. In December last year, inmates who opt out of classes. Any a series of hatchings, crossing off the Justice Secretary Jack Straw closed sign of effeminacy or ‘faggish’ behav- days. The design is simple: eleven sets down a comedy club at Whitemoor iour is leapt upon. It takes strength of of four lines, each with a fifth crossed Prison when a press leak revealed that character to persevere in embroidery though it. On the twelfth set the four Al Qaeda terrorist Zia ul-Haq was classes in an environment where ag- lines are ringed in red, marking the end enrolled. All other drama projects gressive masculinity is key to survival. of crossed-off days – and, hopefully, a at Whitemoor were cancelled, and Connie tells me there is no ‘type’. Her better beginning. prisoners returned to their cells. The classes are full of “macho tough guys Not content with the humble cush- knee-jerk newspapers sounded victory with tattoos and rotten teeth”. What ion, Fine Cell Work have embarked on over the ‘holiday camp’ prison system. unites the class members is a desire to a series of large public commissions. Such a reaction misunderstands the change, to learn, to support their fami- The Jerwood Arts Foundation has redemptive and rehabilitative power of lies, and to reclaim some semblance of commissioned a colossal 10x10 metre art, drama, and craftsmanship. Perhaps pride. “Self-esteem,” she sighs, “is a rare wall-hanging to hang in Norman Fos- Straw should have read this letter from commodity in prison.” ter’s Sage Concert Hall in Gateshead. Jeffrey at HMP Wandsworth: “You’re There are, inevitably, issues of securi- At Wandsworth, work is underway rejected by society and you have to ty. Scissors are forbidden, and even nail on a quilt for the Victoria and Albert reflect on what you’ve done. Then you clippers are a risk. Instead of these tools, Museum’s 2010 Quilts Exhibition. need something in place so that you prisoners are provided with ‘cutters’, The theme is ‘life on the inside’, and can actually get some self-worth back. like those in a dental floss lid, to trim each inmate has produced a square With the quilting you can actually go their threads. Volunteers teach classes detailing his or her daily experiences. inside yourself, start creating things and on their own or in pairs, and guards do Some of the scenes are unbearable. feeling like you can actually belong to not attend classes. “I have a whistle, but Wandsworth is notoriously over- society.” I’ve never had to use it,” Connie tells crowded, and prisoners are confined You can lock the canary up in its me. In eleven years and across twenty- two to a cell. The recurring themes are cage, and take away its freedom, but two prisons there has never been an loneliness, suffocation, and despair. In stop it from singing, stitching, quilting incident. The worst that volunteers one square, a yellow canary is encased and you take away all hope.

HURRICANE ADVENTURE (starts on page 15): Good move. Your graciousness in defeat is applauded by such notable observers as Ezra Pound, C Day Lewis, John Dos Passos, Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, Carson McCullers, Ford Madox Ford, WB Yeats, Virginia Woolf and Thomas Hardy, and you’re soon a cornerstone of literary life in the early part of the twentieth century. You’re appointed James Joyce’s godmother. Theatre Editor: Joel Massey Friday February 6th 2009 28 eatre [email protected] varsity.co.uk Round Up THEATRE

TIM JOHNS Road by Jim Cartwright ADC eatre, February 3rd-7th Dir. Anna Marsland; Alcock Players & HATS  s soon as I entered the ADC The production was stimulating Lucien Young tells us what’s AI knew something was up. and engaging throughout, which what in theatrical week 3 Lowri Amies was whizzing about I found particularly impressive on a scooter, blocking the theatre considering how well trodden this entrance. Come on Lowri, I thought, particular path has been. The anger s Shakespeare once guratively have a bit more respect, you love this was still there in the original script, remarked: “all the world’s a place. The feeling of unease gathered and the power of it was felt by the stage,A and all the men and woman pace as I stepped into the bar. There audience. It did at times feel like a merely players.”  e ru -wearing were paper posters dotted about the bit of a museum piece, for much of idiot wasn’t aware there would walls, ones advertising pies, ones the dialogue in Cartwright’s script one day be a place where this was talking about sex toys and ones that has not aged very well. I haven’t literally true.  at place is Cam- had bizarre pictures of the Statue heard so much talk about “snogging” bridge, where there is more theatre of Liberty crying on them. It was since I was about 10. The play was than you can shake a RADA- like stepping into another world. A also too long. There should have trained stick at. When more than world vaguely redolent of the 1980s. been more cutting than there was so two Cambridge students gather Then I laughed to myself. Of course! as to sustain the audience’s attention in a room, there is a 40% chance Road! That’s set in the 1980s! Sud- throughout all those monologues. that, at some point, a production denly everything made sense. It was It is no coincidence that the most of Coriolanus will happen. It is like Life on Mars or something. engaging scene in the play, the final practically impossible to walk down This ‘timewarp’ gave me vague one, had the snappiest dialogue. The Kings’ Parade without being cast in trepidations about the play. Surely pared-down monologues at the end e Seagull. I’m not complaining: it couldn’t all be as kooky as this? I of the scene were brilliantly worked, this is a beautiful, wondrous thing. saw Blood Brothers once and, I get and all the more powerful for the However, it does make it hard to it, life is no bed of roses for those pace shown earlier in the scene. nd the golden tickets that will Northerners who happen to live But the fundamental flaw of the keep you entertained between essay below the poverty line. But I don’t production was that the ADC was deadlines. I hope this round-up of want this message to be drummed in simply too big for it. I have never mine can help. So, before you put through some patronising tale about been more aware of how much space your bums on seats, put your bum people called Barry and Linda. So there is in this theatre. What the in my hands. when ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ play screamed out for was intimacy, Kiss of the Spider Woman follows started blaring out, followed shortly for the claustrophobic environ- the adventures of a young girl, Petra after by a speech from everyone’s ment of the Corpus Playroom or the Parker, who, having been bitten by favourite national treasure, Margaret Larkum Studio. Their attempts to a radioactive spider, is transformed Thatcher, I began to start looking at create a voyeuristic atmosphere by into a web-slinging nymphoma- my watch. Thankfully, though, the incorporating the audience into the niac. Not really, but it should do, music picked up (no Damien Rice play were ill suited to the venue. The shouldn’t it?  e answer is no, this here!), and the play swiftly followed setting and props merely seemed show sounds cool enough as it is: suit. like reasons to justify the use of such a Tony Award-winning musical, There really were some excel- a big stage. featuring sex, Marxism and despair, lent performances. Oliver Soden The poignancy of the monologues all set in a brutal South American was highly impressive, if only was at times lost on the audience. prison. Unless you’re banged up through the sheer diversity of his The futility of the ADC’s endeav- yourself, you’ve no excuse not to roles. Nick Ricketts gave a thought- ours to make the venue ‘feel’ like the see it. While we’re talking musicals, provoking performance as a young 1980s became apparent while watch- 42nd Street sounds like caramelised man starving himself to death. Eve ing the play. For you can put up as fabulousness, with a cast so sexy Hedderwick-Turner was captivating many unconvincing posters as you that the producer is actively barring throughout, her characters showing like; it will not paper over the cracks me from meeting them. a touch of vulnerability which un- that arise when a well-done pro- On the dramatic front, you can’t dermined the displays of confidence duction is performed in the wrong say fairer than Death of a Salesman they attempted to present. venue. Nick Beck (spoiler warning: the salesman dies at the end). It’s a 20th-century mas- VANESSA WHYTE terpiece, and I applaud the direc- NICK MOHAMMED is a character comedian tor’s instinct in staging this searing indictment of the free market at the ADC eatre, February 3rd end of Bush’s dismal reign.  Anyone who knows me knows I’m all about oddness, which may e have to thank the Department meteorology was a “real science”. a little. be why Le Fil so catches my eye. It’s of Earth Sciences: we must get Next up was  e Sloane at Cambridge:  e show was so slick: Nick attacked a ‘sharp sensory experience’, based downW on our knees and show our enor-  icking his long white pashmina and the all-too-willing audience, presenting around an album by French song- mous gratitude that they o ered Nick describing parties as “debauched” and characters and situations at which we stress Camille. I’m game. Mohammed a place to embark upon a “ending in complete carnage,” Nick couldn’t help but laugh. Technically, the And, looking further ahead, this PhD in Seismology. Without them, this convinced us that he was an upper-class ADC lighting team did very well to cover promises to be a great term theatri- extraordinary comedian would never 19-year-old just arriving at Cambridge. the quick changes between characters. It cally. A production of Romeo and have joined Footlights and may not have  e imitation was uncanny. His Wedding was such a shame that there were quite a Juliet at the Arts  eatre excites become the man he is today. Photographer was another crowd pleaser; few empty seats (perhaps mumps and the with its stellar cast, but the Shake- Nick is not a stand-up comedian, as he advised the bride to get out of the snow prevented some people from com- speare that really intrigues me is most others on the London comedy photo, instead preferring to have all the ing).  e warm-up act, Johnny Sweet, Richard II. Richard’s a di cult play: circuit are, but a character comedian. Grade 7 and above musicians squatting ready to “gee us up”, was amusing too its dense layers of language sing on Imitating real people, he draws the audi- in the shape of their instrument.  e and got the audience going with funny the page, but will they work on the ence into his world. Last night, his show highlight of the evening was probably his cowboy slang and dry book blurbs. It did, stage? I look forward to nding out, began with  e Weatherman and he last character,  e Orchestra Conductor. however, make us realise how individual even though Shakespeare is an idiot. immediately had the crowd falling about  is sketch had to be incredibly well- Nick’s work is, especially on a live stage. Damn, I’ve nished my piece, giggling. Perfectly capturing the little idi- rehearsed to work and it most certainly He is still to nish that PhD in Seismol- and with four words to spare. Oh, osyncrasies of so many weathermen on was.  e Northern French Philosophy ogy, but everyone would agree that Nick well: Derek, Derek, Derek, Derek. television, he smiled, made big gestures professor was well acted but the audience Mohammed has found his vocation and and hoped he had persuaded us that participation and magic tricks dragged should not look back. Victoria Ball

HURRICANE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): You’re soon sparring with the Boxer. Unfortunately, he’s a southpaw and has you on the  oor within seconds. You’re down for the count. p26 Get up. p27 Stay down. Friday February 6th 2009 Join our Theatre team: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Theatre 29

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Feelgood by Alistair Beaton t im j ohns ADC Theatre, February 4th-7th Week 3: Modernising Miller Dir. Toby Jones; Downing Dramatic Society  rthur Miller is undoubtedly one of the twentieth century’s great- met a traveller from a far-off land. As the distinctly Feelbad publicity Tucker – is a monster, an inhuman, estA playwrights. Born in 1915 to Actually, that’s a lie – I didn’t. informs us: it’s party conference time. rude (and FUCKING hilarious) exam- moderately affluent Jewish-Amer- Instead,I I met a charmingly bald gay We follow PR wizards and spin kings ple of why politicians deserve their bad ican parents, Miller wrote during man in the ADC foyer who, as we were as they try to save the government press. Whilst he didn’t always live up a fascinating time in American leaving, turned to thank the ADC un- from a series of crises. Largely, the plot to the highest points of his perform- history. The Great Depression was a derlings, telling them the all the plays is irrelevant (except for a brilliantly ance, he was an electric presence that period of deprivation for many that so far this season had been great. Now, executed final twist which had the kept the show full of impetus and truly left an indelible mark on the na- I think this speaks volumes: both of audience audibly gasping). It’s all about inventive invective. tional psyche, and it is in this light the peculiar qualities of this produc- the cast, and the enthusiasm of their This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. that Death of a Salesman can be best tion and of the power of shows like it engagement with a hugely funny, but You might – whisper it quietly – not understood. to make you feel that all is right in the also very wordy, script. Alice Malin like it at all. Like a cokehead coming Moving the play from its original world. primps and poses as a self-important down from a high, it lags and crashes context by swapping the financial Perhaps fittingly for a play that press officer; Matt Kilroy bumbles into some deeply enervated low-spots, troubles of the forties for the naugh- plumbs the depths of British poli- convincingly and amusingly as a party and at an hour and a half it is crimi- ties, next week the ADC hosts a tics, this is a coke-snorting bastard dinosaur; Joshua Stamp-Simon is won- nally long for something this late. The modern interpretation of the play, of a show, painted with as broad a derfully naff as the terminally unfunny performances, for all their drive, are from director Alex Winterbotham. brush as can be. Like a drugged-up sitcom writer brought in to give the little more than caricatures. But surely Some argue that the central idea cabinet minister, it’s all energy, energy, PM some street cred. (surely?) this is what this type of show behind this play, connected with ENERGY; perhaps unfortunately, this Their collective thunder is stolen, requires, and I for one agree with my the door-to-door salesman and also makes it about as subtle as a user’s however, by Joe Bunker. His Eddie – new bald friend. Feelgood? Probably. the Darwinian nature of rampant request for a tenner for “a cup of tea.” part Alistair Campbell, part Malcolm George Reynolds capitalism, has withered with time and changing technology. Out of zing tsjeng the context of 1940s Brooklyn, then, Macbeth by William Shakespeare much of the play’s meaning is lost. Hamied Theatre, Christ’s College, January 30th-February 2nd Others, such as Kate Egerton, Presi- dent of the Arthur Miller Society, Dir. Ben Blyth, Tom de Freston & Rory Atwood; Christ’s Shakespeare Company argue otherwise.  Welcoming the news that Cam- bridge students are producing an hakespeare in Cambridge is a theatre The set was shabby, the exposed duck Nonetheless, I felt I was sitting in on up-to-date version of the play, she staple. With no rights to pay, it is to tape on the red material upstage destroy- her admirable audition pieces, and not said: “Miller was always interested Sthe drama bubble what chips are to the ing the doom it was intended to convey. polished works of drama. A lack of com- in what new stagings of his plays English stomach – cheap and popular. The costume and make-up decisions mitment to blocking plagued most of told him about the state of the world Yet rather like chips without condiments, proved no better, but were certainly the play except in the case of the witches, and he would be pleased to see ac- the Scottish play is decidedly difficult to more entertaining. Duncan’s paper who truly shone. Writhing, tumbling, tors and audiences turn to Death of pull off without dollops of dedication. crown, a gaggle of secretaries, and char- and meowing like cats one minute, and a Salesman today. Upon entry, I was immediately as- acters from The Rocky Horror Picture gnashing on a corpse like hyenas the “While Miller the social critic saulted by deafening and dramatic music, Show all graced the stage. White faces next, they fully succeeded in creeping would probably have harsh words ironically contrasted by the dazzling and black eyes were applied inexplicably out the audience. The most effective and for the bankers who got us into this halogen lighting in a theatre so new you on some characters, including Macduff creative directorial decision came in their mess, he would be more interested could smell the glue drying. Sound and the emo teen. scene at the start of the fourth act, when in those washed along in the wake lighting posed problems throughout. I The blatant problem with the produc- the prophecies were delivered by dunk- of the storm. heard absolutely nothing that was said in tion was its lack of direction. All three ing Macbeth’s head in a bucket of blood. “Salesman helped playwrights the second and third scenes due to the directors also starred in the play, includ- Although the show felt a bit like a and audiences understand the violent rain encapsulating us. No imagi- ing Ben Blyth as Macbeth. A healthy dose play in a teen flick set in a high school, dignity of the little guy, even as he’s nation was employed with the lighting. In of objective criticism would have helped those onstage were clearly having fun. drowning, and that’s not something most scenes the stars’ fires were so bright many of the actors fulfil their potential. A refreshing amateur production that we should forget any time soon.” that it was hardly surprising Macbeth Holly Olivia Braine’s Lady Macbeth was didn’t take itself very seriously, Macbeth Director Winterbotham also failed to hide his black and deep desires. engaging with impressive physicality. was awesomely bad. Laura Andrews draws parallels between the world- wide recession which prompted Miller to pen his most famous piece Life and Beth by Alan Ayckbourn and the financial turmoil of today: “Miller wrote Death of a Salesman Arts Theatre, February 2nd-7th soon after the Great Depression, when stock markets crashed and Dir. Alan Ayckbourn; Stephen Joseph Theatre & Yvonne Arnaud Theatre a worldwide recession loomed.  The economic pessimism that is n Monday, you recall, there was so ladies; exquisite bone-china tea set – you nation’s favourite gargoyle, Andrew Lloyd so prominent in the play mirrors much snow that everyone went a bit know the drill. Webber. Bizarrely, however, his character events which grip our own current sillyO and decided not to go into work and It’s Christmas and newly bereaved was even more annoying than the grin- financial climate.” instead build wee men in their gardens. widow Beth (Liza Goddard) is bom- ning theatrical impresario and I found Regardless of this assessment, Still, in Cambridge, the show must go barded with well-wishers hell-bent on myself literally dreading every whiny, there are many reasons why Death on. So I traipsed my merry way through being with her over the difficult festive nasally syllable that he took an eternity to of a Salesman is still relevant today. the melting, gritty slush to see Alan Ayck- period. The theme of the piece is obvious drag out of his mouth. Issues such as a lack of security in bourn’s Life and Beth at the Arts Theatre. from the off: Beth is absolutely fine about There were a few laughs in the piece, both our personal and professional The only thing is, I’d rather I hadn’t coping with her bereavement, thank you and its heart was definitely in the right lives can cause anyone to become bothered. very much; it’s everyone else who’s in a place, but it was pretty lightweight. The disillusioned with the present and If you hadn’t noticed, the name Life pickle. It took Ayckbourn two hours to performances were fairly good on the worried about the future. They and Beth is a very clever play on the say that last night. whole, but ultimately forgettable. were more than Willy could handle phrase ‘life and death’: you see? That is, Of course, there’s a rather sinister twist I would recommend however (how in Miller’s time, and continue to sadly, about as deep and as sharp as it got. at the end of act one when the ghost can I put this delicately?) that if you’re the be equally potent today. Perhaps The curtain rose and it was clear of Gordon, Beth’s late husband, shows sort of person that likes Murray Mints Winterbotham’s modern adaptation straightaway that we’d plunged into very up at the dinner table. Nods to Banquo or Midsomer Murders, and you smell will neatly capture this. Decide for familiar Ayckbournian waters: draw- anyone? Donning a rather unconvinc- vaguely of lavender, then Life and Beth is yourself, from Tuesday February ing room comedy; standard box set ing gingery hairpiece, Gordon (Adrain for you! If not, leave well alone. 10th. Tim Checkley decorated realistically; couple of elderly McLoughlin) looked intriguingly like the Nathan Brooker

Hurricane Adventure (starts on page 15): Fine. Be like that. »p23 But you absolutely have to steal the jiffy bag now. Reviews Editor: Laurie Tuffrey Friday February 6th 2009 30 Reviews [email protected] varsity.co.uk iWatch Week 4: Piers Morgan in... Dubai, urs 9pm, available on MUSIC ITVplayer.

Jeremy Warmsley e Portland Arms ursday January 29th  eremy Warmsley’s show last Wednes- Warmsley’s performance was impres- ibly delicate performance of one of his day was something of a homecom- sive for many reasons, but an over- best songs, ‘If He Breaks Your Heart’. A ingJ for him: “ e Portland Arms is riding, inescapable one is his amazing heartfelt promise to an unrequited love, something of a spiritual home for me, I singing voice. I rarely  nd myself think- the song is painfully cute and realistic, played my  rst ever show here”.  e ex- ing that a voice sounds better in the and Warmsley sings as if he means Churchill singer-songwriter should be  esh than on the record, but Warmsley’s every word of it, so much so that at proud; it was an exceptional return. voice is so warm, with a quality to it points it almost becomes awkward to  e show was one of those great that just can’t be captured in an mp3. It look at him.  is satisfying contrast was n an e ort to salvage his public nights when you never look at your certainly makes a welcome change from what made the night: some songs took a persona, Piers Morgan has de- watch or even realise how many songs lead singers who only seem to have serious tone, but there were elements of cidedI to make a documentary about have been played. And he looked as if become lead singers by default. wonderful poppy fun too. something even more monstrous he felt the same.  ere is nothing worse  ere were numerous little gems in I asked Warmsley about how he and vile than himself. It worked. than a bored performer, too cool for his set. His New Order cover, ‘Tempta- wanted people to feel when they’d seen When stood beside the bloated the crowd he’s playing to, but Warmsley tion’, was inspired. A great song anyway, him live. “Happy”, he answered; “I used love-letter to all that is loathsome could never be accused of such a thing; Warmsley’s take brought something to want people to go away better people about capitalism, Dubai, Piers his facial expressions are those of a man extra to it and it really came to life but now I’ve reassessed my position on comes across as a magnanimous who enjoys playing every note of his (with some assistance from a disco ball live playing, now I just want people to angel. songs (as attested to by his keyboard, spinning overhead of course). Another go away happy.” And they do. No documentary about Dubai which shook as he played). highlight of the night was an incred- Lucy Bryant could fail to be anything but gob- smacking.  e place absolutely beggars belief and even a er watch- Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion ing the show I still found it hard to accept that it really does exist. Mor- Fight Like Apes gan gets shown the country in all its Model Citizen, out now garish, diamond encrusted excess. When he goes for a tour of the  town, it’s in a private jet; when he ight Like Apes don’t throw shoes but it isn’t until ‘Jake Summers’ that the Golden Medallion isn’t entirely watches a spot of sport, it’s a chukka at world leaders, yet they still we get a real idea of what the Apes consistent though. It loses momen- of polo; and when he browses the Fknow how to cause a commotion. are about. Its pleasant introduction tum on the ridiculously titled ‘I’m shopping malls, the golden phone The Dubliners’ debut Fight Like Apes is misleading. Once the drums kick Beginning To Think You Prefer handsets cost upward of £100,000. and the Mystery of the Golden Me- in, its chorus explodes into a whirl- Beverly Hills 90210 To Me’. Sit- One of my abiding questions dallion is, as the title suggests, quite wind of pounding guitars and swirl- ting among a dynamic collection of about Dubai is who actually lives a riotous affair. ing synths, as MayKay screeches violent three-minute pop gems, its there. We are introduced to a One of the most original bands to “you’re like Kentucky Fried Chicken lilting down-tempo sounds like a collection of mostly English ex- emerge from Ireland in recent years, but without the taste”. These twisted funeral march by comparison. pats who have cashed in on the they possess a raw energy unrivalled cartoonish lyrics obviously won’t ap- Also, the collision of the wacky Dubai gold rush and now drip with in the current landfill-indie climate. peal to every listener, but FLA can’t and sentimental on current single jewels and qua champagne like Singer MayKay’s expansive tangled be discarded as a novelty band. The ‘Tie Me Up With Jackets’ doesn’t its Sainsbury’s Basics cola.  eir hair and pale Celtic complexion dark ‘Lumpy Dough’, for instance, is quite work. With lyrics like: ‘tie me whole existence seems to be centred recall Robert Smith of the Cure, but a wondrous sonic collision of moody up in jackets and fumigate my room’ around the endless cycle of furious her howling voice and warped sense bass and keyboard while album the charm begins to wear thin. Nev- wealth and conspicuous consump- of humour is incomparable. Blend- highlight ‘Lend Me Your Face’ clocks ertheless, with moments of genius tion. But wealth is all that Dubai ing Siouxie and the Banshees with in at a mere one minute and forty like ‘Do You Karate?’ Fight Like has, and showing o their wealth McClusky, whilst chucking in some per, but the results are gripping. nine seconds, but sees FLA at their Apes make up in character what they is all that concerns its inhabitants. ‘80s bedroom keyboards for good ‘Something Global’ is a radio- most visceral. lack in substance.  is is keeping up with the Jones’s, measure might sound horrific on pa- friendly and an infectious opener, Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of Paul Smith where Jones is a billionaire sheik who lives in a palace and owns a Mozart, Bruch and Beethoven football team.  e adjective one keeps coming e Beethoven Ensemble; soloists: Tom Gould and Rosie Ventris; conductor: Daniel Hill back to when thinking about this place is fake. Fake, fake, fake, fake, Saturday January 31st fake. Fake islands, fake tans, fake  faces, fake breasts, fake ski slopes, fake friends. Nothing is of organic ruch’s Double Concerto is a rarity the orchestra provided appropriately movement’s violin melody was surely origin; everything you see has been on concert programmes. On the evi- wistful, Straussian carpets of sound.  e played, but lacked light and shade, and imposed.  ey are currently plan- Bdence presented to us by  e Beethoven central Allegro moderato again showed though the  nale’s quicksilver open- ning to build a theme park with Ensemble, however, it ought to be more how well suited the soloists were to one ing and crashing full orchestral entry scale replicas (fakes) of the Houses regularly heard. another.  e  nale’s brass introduc- brought more life to proceedings, it still of Parliament, the Taj Mahal, the Tom Gould and Rosie Ventris were tion could have been cleaner and more needed extra invigoration. Pyramids and the Ei al Tower. utterly convincing exponents of the arresting, but sparks  ew as Gould and Much the same could be said of  ey even want a Las Vegas style solo parts. Beautifully matched in their Ventris turned on the virtuosity, over Beethoven’s 8th. For a symphony that gambling strip three times larger full-bodied tones, they played almost a curious mixture of orchestral pride emphasises playfulness and wit, this – yes, three times the size of the as one: Ventris’ viola was naturally the and torment, re ecting the roles of the rendition was slightly on the heavy side; American original.  is place is so more brooding of the couple, suggesting soloists.  is was a magni cent perform- indeed, it was the tumultuously serious lacking in culture and history that a more melancholy alter ego to Gould’s ance. development section of the  rst move- it makes Milton Keynes seem like piercingly pure violin.  is was re ected,  e Bruch followed an unimaginative, ment that made the greatest impression. Machu Picchu. too, in their physical movements. Gould if polished, performance of Mozart’s 31st Quiet,  ickering string passages needed Looking over this billionaires was the more histrionic, his expan- Symphony. A fairly early piece, despite a little more mystery, and the  nale playground at the end of the sive gestures contrasting well with the its numbering, this is quite obviously the would have bene ted from a less episo- program, Morgan o ers the handy dogged sobriety of Ventris. work of a master still learning his trade. dal, more cohesive account.  at said, observation “It’s almost surreal  e opening Andante began with  e  rst movement is little more than playing throughout was top-notch, and here”.  at is almost the biggest grandiose drama, giving way to still a procession of themes, and conductor these quibbles are based only on the high understatement I have ever heard. call and response sections, with the Daniel Hill didn’t quite make them any standards the Ensemble has set itself in Rob Peal viola a soothing balm to the violin. more than non-descript (rather oddly, earlier concerts. Rosie Ventris Phrases were caressingly moulded, and I was reminded of Bruckner).  e slow David Allen

HURRICANE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Excellent strategy. Years of rush-hour shopping in Sainsbury’s Cambridge has honed your ability to avoid dangerous encounters with half-acquaintances. Tonight is no exception and you’re soon out of the path of the hurricane. You survive, the Bernie doesn’t, and you later become head of the Press Complaints Commission. Friday February 6th 2009 Join our Reviews team: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Reviews 31

Take ART, FILM & LITERATURE Suburbia

The Dying Animal Various artists; The Shop, Jesus Lane Sunday February 1st  he publishing sensation du jour is exhibition inspired by Philip Roth’s The monoprints are restrained Wetlands, a novel by Charlotte Roche Dying Animal which describes a liaison responses to the theme. The Tdetailing the scatological sexual misad- between a college professor and his murky clouds of ink half- Five of the Best ventures of teenage heroine Helen. The student. A brief plot synopsis from two conceal couples engaged in book, which has sold 1.5million copies in of the exhibiting artists reveals a novel sexual contortions borrowed ‘Rockin’ The Suburbs’ (2001) Roche’s native Germany, recounts the in- that is low on charm and high on fellatio, from the Kama Sutra . The Definitely the best track celebrating timate details of Helen’s spots, menstrual misogyny and an adolescent obsession mottled ink slicks draw in the ’burbs, Ben Folds nails the con- cycle, and intimate shaving infections with breasts. the eye before unveiling the cerns of the white middle-class male and launches in British bookstores this The responses from the artists to the intertwined figures. Here with such lines as “I’m pissed off but week. text are wildly varied. Sarah Lüdemann’s is sex treated with measure I’m too polite, with people breaking Can there be any taboos left unchal- light/sound installation encourages you and nuance, with a sense of the McDonald’s line.” lenged by modern art and literature? Def- to pick up a pair of earphones through privacy rather than voyeur- ecation? Piero Manzoni busted that one which heavy, ecstatic breathing plays. ism. American Beauty (1999) in 1961 when he relieved himself into 90 Miriam Austin has taken a series of Drage’s life-drawings Sam Mendes’ directorial debut fol- small containers in the name of modern subtly-lit photos of a naked body embed- similarly couch explicit lows Lester Burnham as he works art. Abortion? Tracy Emin has been ded with wax trumpets while Fraser images in a medium that part-conceals, air-brushed images of pornography but his way out of suburban disillusion- rehashing that old chestnut since the ‘90s. Stewart’s performance piece uses four part-reveals like an elaborate Dance of exacting and even cruel reproductions of ment. Also features that rose petal Paedophilia? Step forward the Chapman bottles of spilled milk as a metaphor for the Seven Veils. These refined and intri- slack skin and wrinkles. The explicit na- scene. Brothers. Artists and writers are unde- ejaculated semen. cate drawings are gynaecologically exact, ture of the images is quieted by layerings terred and unrepentant. Sex, obscenity, a More successful are works by Tom de ten-times life-size renderings of female of paper and newsprint, which serve as a Revolutionary Road (1962) spot of boundary pushing, sell. Freston (artist in residence at Christ’s) genitalia. His use of line is refined and modest screen from viewer’s eyes. With a Mendes-directed film version The Shop are in the throes of an and Matthew Drage. De Freston’s often uncompromising. These are not the Laura Freeman just released (see our review), Rich- ard Yates’ novel perfectly captures the isolated underside of the Ameri- Revolutionary Road can Dream. Dir. Sam Mendes Desperate Housewives Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Kathy Bates We’re pretty sure that not every  suburban neighbourhood is exciting magine American Beauty, then take out everything is bound to be more fun. A I feel a bit awkward asking this, but enough to feature murderous secrets everything you liked about it. Ditch succession of very predictable set-backs was sex, well, quicker, in the 50s? The two and Eva Longoria. theI soundtrack. Throw out anything that occurs. What we end up with is a pair of scenes we see here are shorter than this made you smile, or think. Now give it a dull, angry people shouting at each other, sentence, and less erotic. ‘Metro’ versions of supermarkets plot so excruciatingly dull that you’ll be then making up, then shouting at each Kate Winslet is deservedly raking in Handy for when the bolognese is counting down the seconds until it ends. other again, for two hours. If you can pic- awards for her performance, which is missing the spaghetti or it’s film You can leave in the clever cinematogra- ture Big Brother with better production by far the best thing on show (probably night and you have a craving for phy. This is Revolutionary Road. values then you’re half way there. worth staying awake for). She manages Butterkist: we salute you, Tesco Sam Mendes is arguably the most suc- Ultimately, this film has nothing new to be both fragile and strong, and does Express/Sainsbury’s Central. cessful director to emerge from the ADC, to say. The idea of exploring what lurks her best with the character’s binary and has produced a sting of critically ac- behind the veneers of seemingly happy shout/weep storyline. Special mention claimed films since his 1999 debut. Revo- families has been done a thousand times must also go to Michael Shannon, who Five of the Worst lutionary Road sees him return to the before. The 50s setting, and all the office manages to portray a man with mental familiar territory of suburban America, scenes, are ripped straight out of Mad problems without resorting to the usual ‘Jesus Of Suburbia’ (2005) and the broken families that hide behind Men, and there’s a minor character who’s limping, lisping and lurching. Okay, America was in a bad way, white picket fences and pretty plates of crazy, but, get this, speaks the truth! As Unfortunately though, it takes more but did Green Day really think biscuits. We follow a youngish couple, soon as you see how the Paris plan ends, than a couple of good performances to that the problem would be solved played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate you know that there’s only one possible make a film worth watching. All suburbia by a nine-minute pop punk mag- Winslet, who are bored with their lives conclusion for this film, and, what a and no originality makes Sam a dull boy. num opus? and so decide to escape to Paris, where surprise, you’re right. Tom Morris Disturbia (2007) Don Paterson Whoa, we see what you’ve done with the name there! Ripping off Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College Hitchcock’s Rear Window, this killin’-in-the-suburbs shocker Tuesday January 27th just goes to show that not every-  thing Shia ‘Even Stevens’ LaBeouf Author of three previous collections, a 2004. The sequence ends with a haunting jointly by a friend’s wedding and by Bat- touches turns to gold. translation of Rilke’s Orpheus, two books poem on Zurbaràn’s St Francis in Medita- tleship Galactica, “one of the great things of aphorisms and recent winner of the tion, which investigates the relationship in Western culture”, which explores the 4x4s Forward Prize (which, he tells us, his between the saint and the abyss – “I’d say distance between us, “like specks of gold These unnecessary gas guzzlers girlfriend made him spend on a carpet) that the skull is working on him.” in the sea”. In other poems, the loveable have become as much a part of Paterson introduced the first poem of his Paterson’s humility forms a large solidity of his children, trees, a Georgian the suburban landscape as rub- as-yet-untitled collection, ‘Two Trees’, by part of both his reading style and his artist’s “VST plug-ins”, and “all the earth bish chain pubs and two-point- saying “this might be the title poem... I poetry. The second poem he read was and sky for breath and space to breathe four children. don’t know what it’s about.” The audience described as an “apology to the silence”, in” shine through natural syntax and a were then treated to an hour’s worth of a theme which he says is common in flexible, beautiful rhyme. In a Q&A ses- Mock-Tudor homes his fresh and musical poetry, delivered his work. Paterson’s poetry is tentative sion after the reading, he discussed the Hey, is that St James’s Palace? No, with great skill and understated power. and observational – Frieda Hughes has difficulty in incorporating these last two it’s a crap imitation on an estate Paterson rarely tours, and this oppor- named him “the benevolent stalker” – elements, the rigidity of modern English in Redditch. tunity to hear him read his work was a with a non-invasive viewpoint. His poem syntax necessitating the half-rhyme com- remarkable one. He seemed apprehensive on St Francis uses this lack of arrogance mon in modern verse. Neighbourhood Watch about unleashing the “grim stuff” – po- to great effect, with the eerie repetition The release of Paterson’s new collec- Screw the police, twitching ems that he claims to have written “to get “I’d say that” giving, as Paterson believes tion looks set to be something unmissa- curtains and that little yellow them out of the house”. This is sometimes the painting does, a strange power to ble; get to the bookshops come Septem- sticker in the window take prime unnerving – as in the sequence of poems uncertainty. ber and curl up with these poems. position in the world of suburban that “became an elegy” for his friend Elsewhere, our relationship to the Colette Sensier crime-fighting. Michael Donaghy, a poet who died in abyss is explored in a poem inspired

See p32 for exclusive joke!! Arts Editor: Emma Mustich Friday February 6th 2009 32 Arts [email protected] varsity.co.uk

COURTESY OF KETTLE’S YARD Great Works Of Art In Cambridge Sex in the Univer- #22: Dancer by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska City Kettle’s Yard House enri Gaudier-Brzeska’s sculptures, ingly about his death, in the First World angular drawings, and paintings War, two years after this sculpture was Hpop up everywhere in Kettle’s Yard: from made. Yet to do so (or to whisper about the tiny, abstracted ‘Toy’ next to the his relationship with older woman guest book to the huge, quite frightening Sophie Brzeska) is to miss the essential yellow-and-blue poster of Lady Macbeth quality of his work, removed from all in the modern extension. One work of autobiographical fumblings: a quality of his, however, will strike you instantly, as elusiveness, of secrecy and mystery which it did me – though it was only on a recent makes you want to go back to his pictures visit that I actually, properly, looked at and sculptures, look at them again: try it. ‘Dancer’ (1913) captures that quality and figure out why he drew himself three of really wonderful sculpture, where the times (in the attic of Kettle’s Yard), or lines between art and life, movement how he captured that moment when you and stillness have become temporar- are dancing, when you do not want to Week 4: Feel a little ily blurred. It depicts a young girl, her dance anymore. unusually long limbs stretched out in I did not know until recently that Fresher everyday gracefully awkward angles. She dances the sculpture is located in a room in with her arms thrown joyously up in the Kettle’s Yard called the ‘Dancer Room.’ t has been a while since a new year air, her foot sliding down the plinth as if Yet it makes sense. Tucked away Iof fresh blood triggered a wave of to take flight. Her swaying arms suggest behind a bookshelf full of old Penguin general hysteria across Cambridge. a freedom, a flash of carelessness and paperbacks and copies of Gwen Cries of “shotgun” rang out across lack of self-consciousness. Yet they are Raverat’s Period Piece, surrounded by the Colleges as dignity was cast also oddly heavy, weighing the sculpture paintings by Christopher Wood and aside and first dibs were made based down. She seems compelled to dance, William Congdon, ‘Dancer’ somehow almost entirely on deceptively sexy with a sternness of expression that fright- always manages to capture your at- facebook profiles. Curious second- ens as it compels, remaining, however tention. Indeed, as the grey afternoon years prowled the college bars, hard you look at her, stonily mysterious. sunlight streams through the nearby examining this terrified new species This quality – of freedom and secrecy, arched window, rippling her shadow and gnashing their teeth at the pros- of delight and danger – seems to run across the wooden table and floor, it pect of young flesh. throughout all of Gaudier-Brzeska’s work, almost seems as if she is dancing again. However, even though Fresher’s and makes it easy to mutter forebod- Emma Hogan Formals have been consigned to that hazy, inebriated collection of Michaelmas memories, inter-year liaisons have not been given up for Lent. We have heard mixed reviews of fresher trysts from both parties. Games & puzzles For second years, the potential inex- perience of your chosen fresher can lead to some uncomfortable situa- no. 498 tions. From the fresher perspective, Varsity Crossword Sudoku when making uninformed choices of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The object is to insert the numbers in the boxes to satisfy only one second-years early on, the twin foes condition: each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the digits 1 17 Mixed up paedo loses nothing with through 9 exactly once. of embarrassment and regret are but girl inside fence. (8) a sleepover away. 19 I scent Madeleine (it’s not cold, Unfortunately, the freshers are

9 10 though it is mangled) – it makes no longer blank slates – they have me forgetful. (6,8) 6 8 7 3 been fully inducted into the sexual 24 Agent has two forms of street ad- web of the College community. This dress. (1-3) 4 5 changes everything. Those hoping 26 I can wait longer than hospital for an inconsequential shag have 11 12 5 3 9 1 leaver. (10) missed the boat, as freshers have cre- 27 Good luck, it’s raining. (8) 3 8 2 9 6 7 ated their own erotic histories and 28 Ace gynaecologist a bit of a mess – lost their anonymity in the proc- but gets it done. (6) 7 5 ess. Plus, they are no longer naïve 13 14 4 6 5 3 8 9 enough to be impressed by just your Down second-year status and the size of 2 1 7 6 your Tripos. 2 Hythloday performs Vienna by But this is not to say the appeal 15 16 17 18 Ultravox? It’s a shot. (7) 5 1 has gone. For girls getting with 3 Money is composed of mostly dust. freshers, there is definite appeal to

9 3 8 4 / MADE BY G a r e th Moor www.puzzlemix.com (1,1,1) playing Mrs Robinson. You get to 4 To be crazy, arseholes take vow. act the authority figure, benevolently 19 20 21 22 23 Ace! (4,1,5,5) The Varsity Scribblepad guiding them through their sexual 5 This vessel is named Ronald, I hear. awakening. After all, Cambridge is a (7) learning institution. 6 Before coffee, not tea, see priest. (7) But beware of gossip. Discretion 24 25 26 7 Airport at Saint’s town relieves flow is not aided by omniscient College problems. (9) rags circulated indiscriminately and 8 Saddened, grind each mixture. (9) thus reaching, it has recently been 12 A Belgian town, my Lord. (5) revealed the acute embarrassment

27 28 16 First on the scene find mostly se- of us both, DoSs, tutors and fellows. men. (1,1,1) The liberation of university life clear- 18 Dance of evil within Tibetan ly compounds the situation. One leader. (7) second year estimates he has kissed Across 20 Sounds like a facial deformity – 21 people within College: “one for they’re not allowed. (2-3) every year of my life”. Another, hav- 1 Early morning hair is a trap! (6) 11 New London University used for 21 Went out with Benny Hill. (5) ing kissed a member of the catering 5 Messy cock slap causes aggressive hearing about player produces 22 Hythloday in part of church is fail- staff in Fez, couldn’t bring herself to messaging (4,4) power. (7,7) ing to comprehend. (5) attend formal the rest of the term. 9 Old American variety show: Cross- 13 Two scenes at once is negligible 23 ‘Puccini on ice’ has a sort of capital. So the freshers are no longer fresh, word solver and Crossword setter problem for turtles. (10) (5) Last week’s solution and the college population is very together in a pit. (10) 14 Express feelings against party. (4) 25 This is an almost complete mock- entangled, but really who cares. For 4 1 9 6 3 7 8 5 2 10 Former mothers hold celebration. 15 Worship the priest when he’s with- ery of a trial, the cow says. (3) 7 2 8 5 9 1 6 4 3 those still reeling from the loss of (4) out most of his make-up. (6) Set by Hythloday 6 3 5 8 4 2 9 7 1 2 5 4 7 8 6 1 3 9 parental pampering, perhaps sharing 9 7 1 2 5 3 4 6 8 is caring. Answers to last week’s crossword (no. 497) 8 6 3 4 1 9 7 2 5 1 9 2 3 6 4 5 8 7 The Salacious Sisters Across: 1 Girton, 9 Nieces, 10 Agonised, 12 Ironside, 13 Goalie, 15 Loiter around, 18 Predilection, 23 Darwin, 24 Agitator, 26 Rose bush, 27/11 Murray Edwards, 28 Disowned, 29 Staple. Down: 1/4 Gonville and Caius, 2 Rhetoric, 3 8 6 9 7 5 2 1 4 3 Oversee, 5 Nags, 6 Conjoin, 7 Itself, 8 Sidney, 14 College, 16 Gift wrap, 17 End rhyme, 19 Rainbow, 20 Catsuit, 21 Adored, 22 Crisps, 25 Isle. 5 4 7 1 2 8 3 9 6

See p31 for exclusive joke!! Friday February 6th 2009 Write for Varsity Sport: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Sport 33

REPORTS Quick Catch-up

Northampton not good enough for Cam Cuppers Football » Mixed lacrosse team stay strong in the snow Jesus 8 Magdalene 0 Jesus eased their way into the Frankie Brown As the snow began to fall, the third scored a  ne individual goal to shut the third round of the knockout tour- Cambridge 10 quarter ended with Cambridge 7-2 up. door  rmly on Northampton’s hopes, nament with a high-scoring vic- On a freezing day with predictions of  is quickly became a blizzard, and and a  nal score was added just before tory over the lowly Magdalene blizzards in the a ernoon, Cambridge Northampton 4 with snow  ying horizontally across the end of the game, to give Cambridge side on Saturday. overcame stubborn resistance from the pitch, straight into the faces of the win, 10-4. It was a convincing per- Magdalene put up a spirited Northampton to carve out a convinc- Cambridge, Northampton scored a formance, particularly having lost to defence for twenty-five minutes, ing 10-4 victory at Queens’ Fields on and Cambridge were becoming increas- couple of consolation goals in the  nal the same side last term, as Verity’s side with their crowd offering plenty Saturday. ingly exasperated. Just before the end of quarter. seek to gain in con dence and form of verbal support. Finally Michael  e game was brie y delayed due to the  rst quarter, they managed to break However, captain James Verity then ahead of the Varsity Match. Johnson opened the scoring from the late appearance of the opposition, the deadlock, with Andy Hacket-Pain SEAN JONES the penalty spot after a debatable who had little time for any prepara- scoring a  ne individual goal. decision by the referee. tion, starting virtually as soon as they Following a two-minute quarterly Centrebacks James Day and arrived. It was they, however, who break, Cambridge mounted an excel- Miceal Canavan both got on the seized the early initiative; from the lent counter-attack, which Jones clini- scoresheet, the latter after a daz- very  rst draw the right wing streaked cally  nished o , to increase the score zling run straight up the centre down the  eld to  nd an unmarked at- to 3-1.  e supremacy on the score- of the pitch. Matt Benger got two tacker with a pinpoint pass, who then sheet increasingly translated into su- and could have had a hat trick af- eluded two Cambridge defenders and periority on the  eld, with Cambridge ter coming on as a sub, but just scored a superb goal, leaving the goal- dominating both territory and posses- missed out. Left-back Patrick keeper with no chance. sion, and the Northampton defence Knight scored the goal of the day, A shell-shocked Cambridge sought began to panic. Another goal seemed a cracker from thirty yards. to establish some stability, playing inevitable, and it duly came, and was The game was not without calmly and passing the ball intelli- shortly followed by another  ne indi- physical confrontation though, gently around, but solid defensive play vidual e ort from Hacket-Pain, leav- and PK himself ended up blood- from the visitors kept them at bay. ing the score at 5-1 at the interval. ied and black-eyed after a painful Eventually, however, the pressure told, Going into the second half, Cam- collision with teammate James as a patient build-up allowed Hannah bridge would have been con dent of Day. Jones to slot the ball crisply past the stretching their lead further. A surprise Jesus will face either Catz or Caius keeper to bring the scores level. early goal from Northampton kept in the next round of matches.  e match became increasingly them on their toes, but they soon be- scrappy, as both sides strived to as- gan to string together good phases of sert themselves upon the game. With play, and two more well-worked goals many promising runs being brought were scored. Shots rained down upon Varsity Report to a halt due to the  ve-second rule the Northampton keeper, who worked Andy Hacket-Pain makes Canoeing (designed to prevent the men from tirelessly to keep the score within reach, a dash for the crease dominating) there was little  ow to hurling himself at the feet of attackers For the canoe club, Varsity is a either side’s play. and ensuring that Cambridge certainly little different. With no one sin- Inaccurate passing was also a factor, had to work hard for their goals. gle event against the old enemy, instead they take the results of five BUCS finals for the various events as a running total. And with two events down, Cam- bridge are looking good, lead- Cambridge outplayed by familiar foe ing 2-0 after the slalom and the whitewater disciplines. » Oxford now favourites for basketball Varsity Match The whitewater event on the River Washburn saw the Blues’ Pranav Sood sionally libellous support for Oxford ning of a lively fourth quarter before star Richard Hendron steal 7th Cambridge 56 throughout the quarter and, despite some slack defensive work saw the in the full length course and 5th Anticipation was running high ahead the best e orts of Cambridge point momentum shi back towards the in the sprint. Fiona Breckenridge of this Saturday a ernoon men’s bas- Oxford 81 guard Chris Blohn, the away team visitors. As the clock wore on, both was the best of the women’s sprint ketball  xture against Oxford. As led 26-15 at its end.  e beginning of teams seemed to struggle to maintain in 18th. Along with their team well as being the  nal league match the second quarter was marked by a their intensity levels and the game mates’ efforts, this was enough of the BUCS calendar, it was also opposition defence. mysterious switching of sides by the  zzled out at the close, with Oxford to put Cambridge in 10th place, the Light Blues’ last chance to gauge  e game began tentatively, with Anglia Ruskin fans, a setback which holding on to win 81-56. with Oxford trailing in 17th. the strength of their Oxonian coun- both sides attempting to dictate the Oxford took in their stride as they Despite losing this game, Cam- The slalom saw some similarly terparts ahead of this year’s Varsity pace of the play.  e Dark Blues in continued to play well, mixing strong bridge have much to be positive about strong results in difficult condi- Match. Oxford have enjoyed a far particular seemed to take a while to defence with creative o ensive play to in the run-up to the Varsity  xture. tions. The wind was so strong better season to date and currently sit get into their rhythm and it was the take a 55-24 lead into half time. Although the  rst half of the match that paddlers were being blown at the top of the division, their team home team who eventually broke Cambridge, however, resolutely was unquestionably dominated by upstream whilst waiting for the having been bolstered by the addition the deadlock.  is seemed to be the refused to roll over and excellent Oxford, tactical wizardry from coach start, but Fiona Breckenridge was of several American college players. wake-up call that Oxford needed and work from top-scorer Aralbayev Nebojsa Radic at half time meant well up again, this time taking Nevertheless, and despite a heavy as the  rst quarter progressed the and captain Drochon ensured that that Cambridge actually only lost the 26th place for the women. Cap- defeat in the corresponding away visitors grew in con dence, making the home team dominated the third second half by a single point. If the tain James Dixon led the men’s  xture, the Cambridge camp was up- increasingly frequent forays into the quarter, thereby hauling themselves Light Blues can continue in this vein effort, ending up in 13th, just beat in the build-up to the game and Cambridge half. back into contention (just about) at and even develop Radic’s game plans ahead of team mate Alex Hel- even hopeful that a fetching new kit A large group of Anglia Ruskin 46-67. Cambridge continued to show further then the Varsity Match should lawell in 17th. A joint effort in might prove the key to unlocking the supporters provided vocal and occa- encouraging initiative at the begin- be a cracking contest. the men’s team from Dixon, Hel- lawell and Ian Dumolo left them in 8th, despite suffering two una- Varsity Preview Varsity Preview voidable time penalties when the wind blew the gates out of reach. Swimming Water Polo Korfball Cambridge ended up 10th again, whilst Oxford could not even  e 106th annual Varsity swimming With recent years showing little to Popular in the lowlands, Korf- field a team for this event. gala promises to be an exciting a air, distinguish between the water polo ball is relatively unheard of, and These results are particu- this year more than ever. Last year the teams, this year’s matches are also as equally unplayed, in this country. larly impressive given the lack Light Blues saw the end of their 8-year tight as ever. Last year’s draw in the It’s a mixed sport akin to indoor of whitewater to train on in dominance in the pool, with a loss in men’s match le the Light Blues netball, which means that you’ll Cambridge. With the freestyle the men’s event and a draw in the ladies. robbed of what should have been be warm while you watch it, and up next, followed by canoe polo  is year a young Cambridge team will their win, leaving them more eager you won’t have to sit through and the marathon, both of which be  ghting to prove this to be just a mi- than ever to come out on top this a men’s and a women’s match. Cambridge won last year, the nor blemish on their score sheet. Saturday. Cambridge won last year. chances of a Varsity whitewash are looking more and more pos- Sat 7, 14.40, Kelsey Kerridge Sat 7, 18.15, Kelsey Kerridge Sat 7, 10.00, Kelsey Kerridge sible; here’s hoping. Sport Editors: Jenny Morgan & Jamie Ptaszynski Friday February 6th 2009 34 Sport [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Sport Feature: Cambridge Sports Facilities Extent of facilities and funding de cit revealed in full IS CAMBRIDGE PROVIDING FOR ITS SPORTING STUDENTS? JENNY MORGAN INVESTIGATES...

he facilities and support for in Cambridge which, with space for swimming pool, but the University ing at a non-university venue are (perhaps more importantly) the Tstudent sport at Cambridge only four players at a time, severely authorities had to refuse the dona- increasing, especially as many clubs lack of medical support. There are have been declared to be woefully limits their training possibilities and tion as there was no fundraising ac- struggle to find sponsors in tighter a number of Cambridge sportsmen inadequate for an institution of its membership intake. count at that time. Another former economic climes. The fear is that and women who competed in the size and reputation. The problem On a larger scale, the absence athlete asked his guests to donate talented students will be pushed Bejing Olympics, but they did so was highlighted by the McCrum of a University-owned swimming money to the pool project instead of out of competing through financial despite their Cambridge education, Report in 1973 and definite action pool leaves the club having to find giving wedding gifts to him and his limitations. not because of it.” was begun back in the 1990s, but £22,000 a year to fund just six hours wife, but again the money could not Andrew Baddeley, Britain’s The evidence is damning and today’s generation of students is no of training per week, around ten be used. number one middle distance runner abundant, and support for the plans better off than those of nearly forty hours off what they would need to In the mean time, students have to and an Olympic finalist in Beijing increasingly widespread amongst the years ago. enable them to compete at the high- seek help from a series of bursaries who graduated from Cambridge in student body. Cambridge obviously A CUSU motion passed ten days est level. The Varsity Match alone set up by the Blues Committees or 2004, has offered his support for falls well behind what has come to ago to tackle the issue is the latest in this Saturday will cost a further from their Colleges. The cost of subs the student-led campaign. “I have be expected of an educational insti- a series of efforts to bring Cam- £2,500 to stage. to account for the transport and experienced first hand the lack tution of its calibre. It is a situation bridge sport up to date and in line Many teams also have to travel hiring costs associated with train- of decent training facilities and that can no longer be ignored. with standards taken for granted at outside of Cambridge for their other institutions. home matches and training. The There is a general agreement that tennis teams struggle in the win- the primary problem is a lack of ter terms with no indoor court appropriate facilities for particular facilities, and end up playing sports. With no University sports matches at Huntingdon or Peter- hall, the basketball team have to fork borough. The ice hockey team, a out £3,500 on hiring a venue for University sport since 1885, can training throughout the year, which train only once a week, paying they can then only use at weekends. £300 to hire the rink at Peter- In similarly dire straits is the tram- borough and often not returning poline club, which has to find £1,500 until the early hours of the morn- a year for hall rental and has to ing. The kickboxers meanwhile limit its members due to restricted are resigned to using a church training hours and problems with hall for their practice. equipment storage. The Eton Fives The absence of floodlights is club have the use of just one court another issue for much of the year. The athletics team have a greatly limited training time in the first two terms because of this, and the hockey team have £22,000 to hire out local school pitches to cover their evening training. Annual cost of pool hire All of these issues are ad- dressed by the plans in place for the West Cambridge Site sports complex. Plans which are pre- 36 years vented from moving forward by Since problem was fi rst addressed the deficits in funding. There is currently no coherent fundraising initiative to tackle e plans for the Cambridge the problem. Cambridge alumni University sports complex - £100 have been forthcoming in their now more than 10 years old Termly individual hockey subs support: Lennard Lee swam the channel to raise £500 for the » CAMBRIDGE SPORTS STARS SPEAK OUT coaching and indoor facilities soar. spent on a single term’s pool hire charges, still on pitch bookings for those at home. Our goal is to defeat Oxford in June leaving members to cover the rest out of Training at the University pitch for the Timeline but as they galavant o to Peru for their their own pocket. club is free, but, as we don’t have  ood- annual tennis tour, highly subsidised by Subs are now set at £160/year (exclud- lights, we have to rent the Leys school for the university, we will remain in the UK ing e.g. travel expenses).  e swimming £150 once a week for four hours to allow 1973 McCrum report highlights and hope the sun shines early this year. team nds itself unable to a ord a coach, us to train in the evening. inadequacy of sports facil- putting us at a serious disadvantage  e teams also have paid coaches, ties. against Oxford. Another consequence is who attend both training sessions each the huge cost to the club of hosting the week and all Blues games. On top of that, 1995 Discussions begin for the Varsity match. And although the facilities match teas and coaching expenses have building of a new sports are adequate for water polo, they are not to be paid for. As a result, subs for the centre. Beth Ashbridge talks tennis ideal. Both pools available to us are far club are £100 per person per term. When Here at Cambridge the Blues tennis too shallow at one end, which makes the you add to this the costs of compulsory 1999 Planning permission granted squad are lucky. We enjoy some amazing game very di cult to play. team kit, new sticks and astros every year, and land acquired at West xtures against the likes of Wimbledon playing hockey is really quite expensive. Cambridge Site. and the International Club of GB which  e club has three sponsors this year, require us to be at the top of our games. but nding help is getting harder; tak- 2000 Plans halted by university. But the cost of hiring indoor facilities ers for Varsity Match sponsorship are has forced us to drop from three training considerably down on last year. Interest 2005 All science buildings and sessions a week to two this year. Nick Russell discusses swimming acquired from the sale of the club’s old housing completed. When the weather picks up we will  ere is a strong case for believing pitches a number of years ago also makes be able to train outside at Fenner’s but that CUSWPC is worst-hit by the lack up some of the funding. 2009 Lack of action on sport the consistency of indoor tennis training of sporting facilities provided by the  e worry is that some players will be centre prompts CUSU during Michaelmas and Lent is essential University. Not having a university pool put o without more support from the campaign. for us to develop a strong squad from forces us to hire another location for Anna Stanley & Clare Sibley talk hockey University and look to play for local clubs the beginning. training. Although these are perfectly ad- With six teams, CUHC is the biggest instead.  is could mean the standard of 2009 University raises £800m  e recession has meant fundraising equate facilities for our use, they come at combined club in the University. Each the team might drop as the club becomes for its anniversary. is su ering while the cost of this already a price: the entirety of the grant received week, it spends approximately £750 on more nancially elitist. Cambridge needs expensive sport will increase as prices of by the club from the Sports Syndicate is transport for its away teams, and more to act now to stop this from happening. Friday February 6th 2009 Write for Varsity Sport: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Sport 35

Charlotte Roach Cooney’s Marathon Sport Why the wait? Comment Lauren ambridge is not a university full be simply unheard of. And I’m sure is approaching its 10th and the actual in the hope that it will go some way to Cooney of workaholics with no time for OFSTED would have a  eld day at a centre is still in the prenatal stages. covering the costs. Csport.  e reality of the situation is school without a basic sports hall for  e University couldn’t really do  is is on top of the regular that Cambridge has far more sporting indoor activities: where is Cam- less to support its best athletes. Con- training, equipment and hiring of success than the interest and sup- bridge’s? gratulations on achieving a Blue, the facility costs. And God forbid that port invested by the University might It won’t be for much longer that highest university accolade! You can one should get injured. You are alone, suggest. Without a doubt this success Cambridge can rely on its prestigious now dig deeper into you pockets and there are no university-recommended Week 4 is down to the mentality and commit- title and ancient buildings to secure pay £180 for a Blues blazer (for those doctors or physiotherapists;  nding ment of the hardworking and sporty the best applicants. Surely at some credit crunched I suggest a simple a good one is an expensive and risky In which Lauren takes a break from the Cambridge student. And what success point it will reluctantly have to open sign around one’s neck: “By the way, mine eld. pounding the tarmac to chat about charity it is: ten Beijing Olympians and many Rehab is also a pot luck and ex- international caps every year cannot pensive situation, depending on your be ignored. college facilities, and the size of your o, like, yarh, it was snow day a But sport is just clearly not high ‘I’m sure OFSTED would have a eld pocket. Since anything the University few days back.  e Cambridge on the University’s agenda. Stop- has to o er is simply inadequate, streetsS were knee deep in the stu ping short of outwardly suppressing day at a school without a sports hall: queuing for a machine in Fenners and and townies and gownies forgot interest in sport in favour of academic wrestling with old women in Parkside their intellectual and demograph- activities, instead they are adding where is Cambridge’s?’ is the only if not the most e ective ical di erences to join forces in a additional time and  nancial pressure cross training. snowball  ght that would make to already stretched students. Any It has got to the stage where it is even the Varsity Rugby match sportingly inclined academic achiever its wallet and spend some money I’m good at sport”). beyond discrepancies in facilities seem to be no more than a G&T- given an inch of research would surely on the needs of its current student At many universities it is an honour and support.  e University is now inspired heckle at a Footlights go to Oxford or even to US universi- population. to represent the institution, and blatantly snubbing the needs of its virgin smoker. No mean feat. I ties where better facilities, coaching Displayed in Fenner’s (our gym you are rewarded and recognised student body. It is isolating itself from felt the spirit of the snowballs as and work-sporting life balance can be that is just about large enough to by receiving the university kit and a newer more demanding student I slipped down orgasm-bridge in achieved. ensure that Trinitarians can reach the transport to the match for which you population, as better is becoming far full crouch position and vaulted A er all, it is hardly uncommon Maths Dept) is a carefully designed have been selected. In Cambridge the easier to  nd elsewhere.  e need is that little wall outside King’s. for many schools to have their own and beautiful model of our new closest we get is the time consuming there, the money is there, the plans Dodging the snow  ring squad, it swimming pool. For a top-class sports centre. But as the University and unpredictable approach of apply- are there and the permission is there, seemed to me that I was a lot like university not to have one should reaches its 800th birthday the model ing to around twenty di erent funds and the time is ticking by… Leonardo DiCaprio at the end of e Beach when he hits virtual reality and becomes the avenging lead of a computer game assault HOW DOES CAMBRIDGE COMPARE TO OTHER TOP UNIVERSITIES? course. » I wasn’t actually out on a run. It Oxford Durham was snowy and I might have had  e I ey Road Sports Complex at the  ird-placed Durham University is an accident. I was going to make Other Place boasts an enviable array of well up when it comes to sport.  e up some impressive sounding facilities. A 400m running track with main centre with a recently refur- story in which I ran a half- adjacent athletics facilities,  oodlit bished gym and weights room also has marathon in 49 minutes, part ice- water-based astroturf pitch, eight-lane a large sports hall and squash courts. skating, part skiing, part vaulting, swimming pool and large sports hall Outside there are tennis and netball but I thought ‘hey, enough of the are the main attractions.  ere are courts, 400m synthetic athletics track, proverbial martyrdom (see last also indoor and outdoor courts for and sand and water-based hockey week’s column), hey, enough with squash, tennis, badminton, Eton Fives pitches.  e support is also fantastic: the puerile masturbation (see last and Rugby Fives. An indoor climbing Team Durham Performance provides week’s TCS), and hey, enough wall and dojo (for martial arts) are also specialist training, nutrition, and with pumping irony’... so let’s just  tted. A large gym with separate con- sports medicine advice.  eir stated jog on and talk about the task at ditioning and strength suite  nishes aim is to help their top athletes enter hand; picking which charity I’m it o . world-class clubs and teams upon going to give my hard-earned graduation. sponsorship money to. Harvard I really believed that writing Harvard’s facilities are second to none Loughborough this column would ‘raise my on both sides of the Atlantic. Not con- Loughborough is perhaps Britain’s best pro le’ and encourage a sanc- tent with just one athletics stadium, the answer to the American heavyweights. timonious  urry of charitable Gordon Indoor Track provides rainy It boasts indoor and outdoor athletics suggestions. I’d already invited day facilities for all athletes.  ere are stadiums with the most advanced indoor 160 friends to join the Facebook also eighteen tennis courts with sta- cricket facility in the world, a purpose- group, and was quietly smug dium seating, along with a further six built martial arts centre, and an Olympic- that number was sure to triple. indoor courts. Alongside this lie four- size swimming pool.  ere are three Yesterday my  atmate asked how teen international size squash courts arti cial pitches,  oodlit of course, and many were in the group. ‘Oh, I and basketball facilities.  ey boast an basketball, volleyball, handball, trampo- don’t know, about 160’, I said. eight-lane swimming pool with diving line and archery facilities to boot.  e We checked, and there are 161. area, and an ice rink for hockey. And of  tness centre and gym employs personal Which is lucky, because if you all course an enormous gym with separate trainers and has links to local GP prac- give a tenner I will now be sur- conditioning suite. tices to assist with general student use. passing my desired sum of £1600. Actually, I’d rather most of you didn’t join the Facebook group, nor o er your support. If I run the New York Marathon in November for a large charity, and e Week Ahead can raise a certain amount, they will  y me out and accommodate International University International College me for free. So perhaps hold onto your wallets till then. But if Six Nations Rugby Women’s Lacrosse England vs West Indies League Football you are part of the group, then get ready for a  urry of private England play Italy at Twicken- The Blues team take on Bath After a winter break disrupted by Jesus play Downing in a top- messages. Today’s column serves ham in what will hopefully be an in the first round of the BUCS management politics, Pietersen of-the-table clash. Jesus take as a warning that I am about to easy opening match. Meanwhile knockout tournament. Cam- looked good with the bat and some good scoring form into create one of those self-righteous O’Driscoll’s o -form Ireland bridge have been in unstoppable knocked 97 runs on the first day. the game from their recent justgiving.com accounts and am host the French and Scotland form so far and scoring freely. A Can our bowlers do what is asked Cuppers victories, but Down- pretty excited about it. I’ll prob- face Wales at Murray eld the comfortable win is predicted, but of them and keep us on top going ing have been the surprise ably change my Facebook status next day in an interesting  rst you can never be sure. into the third day? package in the league this in its honour. So for the last time, round match. season. if you’ve got an idea, give us a Wednesday 11th, Queen’s Friday 6th - Sunday 8th, Sky- shout: Lauren Cooney London Saturday 7th, BBC1 pitches, 2pm Sports 1 Sunday 8th Marathon. Friday February 6th 2009 varsity.co.uk/sport

Sports facilities scrutinised...

... we reveal the shocking Sport extent of the problem. VARSITY MATCH RUNNING TOTAL: CAMBRIDGE 0, OXFORD 2. NEXT UP: SWIMMING, WATER POLO AND KORFBALL 07/02/09

View from the River Croydon Crush Cam Silas » Fiery face-off on freezing afternoon between only two unbeaten teams in SEMLA East Division 1 Sta ord » A static Cambridge men’s team struggle to gain control against the more physical Croydon JAMES GRAVESTON Jenny Morgan Cambridge 5 here I come from, rowing is Before the white stu put paid to all not exactly a high pro le sport. reasonable attempts at sport in Cam- InW California, when I tell people that I bridge this week, the undefeated Blues Croydon 11 Co-Captain Phil Hall drives up the pitch am a rower, I am inevitably met with lacrosse team met their match in league either blank stares, or the response rivals Croydon on Saturday. As the wind contest with some good attacking ef- “Oh, you mean, like, rowing?”  is whipped across the open pitches, the forts from the Blues. As several of the response is ubiquitously accompa- men were le exposed and vulnerable in opposition took time out on the side- nied by a  ailing motion of the arms what turned out to be a gruelling physi- lines a er unnecessary physicality, meant to represent the rowing stroke. cal encounter. Cambridge looked to take their chance. At American universities, rowing Cambridge did look strong from the But some top class work from the Croy- is near the bottom of the sporting start, taking rm control in possession don keeper kept his team in the black, totem pole, surviving on historical and passing smoothly around the goal. while the attackmen added three more reputation, rich alumni, and Title 9 But it soon became clear that, far from goals to put the half time score at 8-1 to (ask your friendly neighbourhood just taking their time, they were actually the visiting team. American what this is), capturing unable to take their shots as Croydon ag- Pumped up a er the break, the Blues only the budgetary dregs of Ameri- gressively closed down the angles. Soon came out a di erent team. Intercepting can football and basketball. the visitors were able to steal the ball the ball, they showed strength and speed Let’s face it, rowing isn’t exactly and counter-attack, forcing Cambridge up the pitch and soon the play was fo- the most fun sport to watch. While keeper Sam Spurrell to make some des- cused around the Croydon crease. Todd most rowers (myself included) will perate saves.  en a erce shot from ten Nichols was on hand once more, this defend the value of participation, metres slammed into the back of the net time to set up his captain Ian Ralby for few will defend the merits of spectat- for Croydon to take the lead. the score. ing. Spectators see only a short por- A short while later, some ill discipline Let down only by their accuracy of tion of the race, the parallax between from the Cambridge men resulted in passing and ball control, Cambridge at the boats making it nearly impos- several of them forcibly taking a minute least began to look more like they want- sible to even tell who is winning. o and Croydon capitalised with a sec- ed to win, though they still had a long  ere are few surprises, as the better ond. Cambridge called for a time out to way to go. boat almost always wins. What’s regroup whilst a chanting Croydon took As the nal quarter got underway, co- more, the sport of rowing involves up battle formation for the restart. captain Phil Hall did his best to motivate only (you guessed it) rowing; there Literally  attening the defence, the his team, leading by example and set- is no dynamic athleticism, no tempo huge Croydon attackers soon found ting up Nichols to re in another goal. change and relatively little strategy. themselves back at the Cambridge But Croydon had already stretched the Imagine my surprise when I came crease and hammered home a third. But score to an excruciating 10-3, adding to Cambridge. People here actually Cambridge nally found their feet and one more to the tally with just ten min- care about rowing; how extraordi- Phil Hall came bursting out of defence utes to go. nary! It feels as if almost everyone to sprint the length of the pitch and Cambridge stood up to the brute has been out in a boat on the Cam put Cambridge back in the game. Soon force of Croydon and weaved their way at least once.  ere is something a erwards attackman Todd Nichols through the tackles to the attacking end. enchanting about rowing at Cam- was on hand to receive and engineer a But even the frenzy that followed only bridge; something special about the straight shot for himself to put the rst allowed two more goals for Ian Ralby; hierarchical shi ing of collegiate Cambridge point on the board. nowhere near enough to close the gap in dynasties moving slowly like tec- But Croydon were quick to respond, the scoreline. tonic plates in the Bumps; some- and two more goals at the end of the  is was a devastating loss for the thing compelling about the dramatic rst quarter stretched the scoreline yet Cambridge boys, so recently buoyed duel of wills that takes place on further.  e strength and precision of by their string of league successes. the  ames every year in the Boat their shooting punished any mistakes Promotion may just have to wait until Race.  e extraordinariness of the in the Cambridge defence, who looked next year. tradition and culture of rowing at shocked at such an a ront so late in Varsity Man of the Match: Ian Ralby put Cambridge may be lost on some their season. in a true captain’s performance, scoring Brits, but to me, it is incredible.  e second quarter saw a more even three goals and li ing his team.