Friday March 6th 2009 e Independent Cambridge Student Newspaper since 1947 Issue no 693 | varsity.co.uk »p17 Features »Centrefold Special pull-out »p18 Fashion We speak to Pomegranate: exclusive Hats off for the Oliver Letwin four-page preview issue inside return of hats

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MICHAEL DERRINGER report attacks One in ten takes state education Beth Staton State school students are failing to get drugs to study in to top universities simply because they don’t get good enough grades, Survey reveals extent of students’ medication usage according to research by Cambridge Assessment. Prescription-only drugs readily available online Social mobility in education will struggle to improve until “the perni- Natasha Lennard da nil for the  rst time. All of the  ve cious link between deprivation and ed- reported increased alertness on the ucational attainment is broken,” Cam- Ten per cent of Cambridge students have day of taking the drug, with four of the bridge’s admissions chiefs have said. admitted to taking medication without  ve stating that their ability to concen- “State school students are not, by and prescription to help them work. trate on work improved. large, being deprived of places at lead- A Varsity survey, completed by Two students reported that they ing universities by their choice of A- 1,000 students, has revealed that one also felt more motivated. Further- level subjects. e critical obstacle for in ten Cambridge students has taken more, none of the five students try- them is achieving the highest grades,” drugs such as Moda nil, Ritalin and ing the drug reported detrimental Geo Parks, the University’s director Adderall. side effects. of undergraduate recruitment, and Ri- Meanwhile one third of respondents One third-year Sidney student, who chard Partington, the chair of the Cam admitted that, given the opportunity, has taken a 100mg Moda nil tablet outreach steering group, said in a joint they would take concentration-en- every day for a number of weeks, did statement. hancing medication. report a feeling of “despondency” in e study, carried out by Cambridge Modafinil has been the focus of the evenings. “Although Moda nil has Assessment at the request of the Uni- media attention, including a BBC undoubtedly aided my concentration, versity, examined the educational back- documentary, in recent months, as a er a Moda nil-fuelled library day I grounds of students achieving three or off-prescription use of the drug is  nd it very hard to engage with people more A grades at A-level. growing in popularity. socially,” she said. e  ndings reveal that state school e possession of prescription-only e stimulant, prescribed by doctors pupils make up only 64 per cent of medication without a prescription is to treat patients with chronic sleep dis- those achieving three A grades at A- “a serious criminal o ence” according orders such as narcolepsy, has a broad level, despite constituting 86 per cent of to the Home O ce. It is, however, easy non-medical use. Shi -workers, the the A-level candidacy. to obtain prescription-only drugs, like military, pilots and nurses have been Furthermore, 17 per cent of the Moda nil, via online pharmacies based prescribed the drug to prevent tired- highest achievers attended grammar outside the UK. ness and enhance alertness. schools, meaning just 47 per cent Varsity spoke to  ve Cambridge Students can obtain generic versions of pupils achieving AAA were from students who have recently tried Mo- of the drug from the Internet, which comprehensives. are sold under brand names Modapro The report also discredited com- and Modalert. e drug is o cially mon claims that choice of subject manufactured under the brand names often disqualified state school pupils Provigil and Alertec. from the best universities, further 10% Under both the generic and brand highlighting the grades themselves as The percentage of students who names, the content of the drug should the problem. have admitted to taking academic be the same: Moda nil. Generic ver- Of the 24,580 AAA students, only performance enhancing drugs sions of the drug are not subject to reg- 1,011 took combinations including ulations, however, and concerns have more than one of the 20 less traditional been raised about their purity. subjects which Cambridge believes On one online pharmacy, 30 pills, Something to build on provide “less e ective preparation” for 90 manufactured by Cephalon under the the University’s academic courses. 224 The amount in pence each pill costs brand name Provigil, are sold for £17 New sabbatical team celebrate their victories of these 1011 were students at inde- when buying a batch of 30 with a £10 with an additional £10 shipping charge. pendent schools. shipping charge Continued on page 5 in this week’s CUSU elections » p3 Continued on page 8 Government cuts funding for Cambridge research Caedmon Tunstall-Behrens government study into the quality of Research funding, however, has only the amount of funding that Cambridge e Russell Group has warned that university research, carried out in De- increased by 1.89 per cent from last receives continues to be the highest in the funding announcement is unsat- Cambridge research faces a funding cember last year. year to £113.7m. is level is below the the country. “ e funding was in the isfactory for many universities. “ is cut next year, the government an- e results, published by the Higher current rate of in ation of 3 per cent, band that was expected, so all research settlement does not go far enough for nounced yesterday. Education Funding Council for Eng- resulting in a cut in real terms. e in- planning for the next year has already many of our leading research-intensive e allocation of £1.6bn of funding land, reveal that the total recurrent grant crease in Oxford’s research funding was taken that into account. Oxford has universities to meet these tough [eco- to universities is based on the  ndings received by the University has increased 4.7 per cent. more funding as there are more re- nomic] challenges,” the group said in of the Research Assessment Exercise, a by 3.1 per cent to just under £181.3m. A University spokesperson said that searchers there,” she said. a statement. Something to say? [email protected] Friday March 6th 2009 2 Editorial Call the Editors directly on 01223 761541 varsity.co.uk

A special preview issue of Pomegranate, an online poetry magazine, can be found inside the centrefold. It is the fifth in a series of magazine previews in Varsity.

Contents Modafinil: be careful he growing use of Modafinil and other cognitive-enhancing drugs is a worrying trend. They are new technology, and as Twith any new innovation, great care should be taken in their application. Modafinil’s long-term effects are completely News »p1-8 unknown; just because they appear safe in the short term, we cannot assume that such a powerful drug is truly harmless. Beyond those concerns, there are also ethical implications for the use of Modafinil. Its use has been compared to the use The rise of Modafinil » p4-5 of anabolic steroids in sport, and it is undeniable that it gives users a great advantage in their ability to revise and process An in-depth look at the growing information. This advantage is not available to everyone, not only because some are unwilling to risk their health, but also because it is relatively difficult to obtain. It is unfair that those who are less careful with their bodies should be able to get popularity of cognitive-enhancing drugs ahead academically. among Cambridge students. This is not to say that the University should explicitly ban the use of Modafinil and related substances, except insofar as their legality is dubious. We are all adults, and should be able to grasp the implications of our actions. However, all of us Varsity Profile » p6 should think very carefully before taking the plunge with a drug of which so little is known. We speak to soon-to-be-former-CUSU- President Mark Fletcher. Cambridge Spies » p8 Chigbo has work to do The only part of Varsity anyone cares about. ongratulations to Tom Chigbo and the other new sabbatical officers. CUSU is not the most exciting place in the world, but it has important jobs to do, and it was heartening to see students recognise that by coming out to vote. The election’s Conline presence was well overdue, but it had the desired effect. Comment »p9-11 The new team’s priorities must be to lobby the University over the construction of a new sports centre, and to sort out the perennial mess that is CUSU Ents. Those ents are often so low-profile that it could damage CUSU’s reputation; Chigbo and The Essay » p9 friends should not regard them as simply a cash cow, and should not be afraid to scrap any that threaten to embarrass the organisation. Matthew Kramer on why an Finally, congratulations also to Mark Fletcher and the outgoing sabbs. Despite some troubled times, they have kept a atheist would spend years writing a steady ship, and CUSU has rarely looked anything other than a stable and well-functioning union. commentary on the Bible. Morality’s back » p10 It was dead, now it’s back. Bad news for baddies. Edit this newspaper Magazine »p13-30 Applications are currently open to edit Varsity in May Week or in the Michaelmas term, and to become a section editor in Michaelmas. For more information see p31 Food & Drink » p14 Pig out, it’s the end of term! or visit www.varsity.co.uk/jobs Mega.

Submit your letter for the chance to win a bottle of wine from the Cambridge Wine Merchants. The Varsity Week » p16 [email protected] All letters may be edited for space and style. Bored? Lonely? Our listings page Orwell’s OK the author’s own desire to show off his A Churchill correction will set you right. vocabulary more than to communicate Dear Sirs, with readers. There is a place for inten- Dear Sirs, Howard Jacobson » p21 sity of language, but Orwell’s brilliance Watch out: he’s angry and he’s got a beard. Ben Slingo’s use of the words “jejune” is in his ability to convey such powerful In ‘Great Works of Art in Cambridge’ and “cachet” in one sentence highlight ideas with the crisp precision that allows #25, Churchill College was not only their speedy and accessible dissemina- unflatteringly portrayed aesthetically, but Don’t believe the hype » p24 tion. Because, after all, isn’t the Daily also inaccurately said to have been origi- How so-called ‘psychics’ are Mail – circulation 2.2 million – far more nally “a women’s College”. The College exploiting people’s loss and fascinating as a concept of communica- was the first men’s institution to admit tion than anything more high-brow? women, but has never excluded men. gullibility exactly why he doesn’t like Orwell [Issue 692, March 27th]. The essayist fails to Yours faithfully, Yours faithfully, Great Works of Art » p16 note that while complexity can be beau- Discover Bryan Pearce. tiful, used unnecessarily it is little more Dan Barker Laura Andrews than intellectual masturbation, serving Downing College Churchill College Sport »p32-36 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. Cooney’s Marathon » p33 Editors Hugo “nautical-themed pashmina afghan” Gye & Michael “big blue watery road” Stothard [email protected] Associate Editors NiB Lauren goes to the physio. Dowley [email protected] & Abolition of the Corn Laws [email protected] News Editors Bisto Bellis & *SACKED* [email protected] Comment Editor Orgy Stagg [email protected] Sport Editors Guten Morgan & Jamie Ptaszynski [email protected] Features Editor The Deer Hunter [email protected] Arts Editor Empire Mustard [email protected] Theatre EditorJ-Mass [email protected] Reviews & Listings Jolly boating weather » p34 Editor Laura Dylan [email protected] Fashion Editors Stemway Yokel, A. Inane-Lech-Swollen & Kinky Tag [email protected] We preview the Boat Race and Senior Reporters Χριστος Λαφιδας, Dr Leung, Train Station & Busy Filer (of copy) [email protected] Science Correspondents talk to Olympian Tom James. Rose Baden-Powell-Tuck & Arthur Turret [email protected] Food & Drink Editors Michael Franklin & Michael Palin [email protected] Theatre Critics Victoria May Ball, Nicholas Beck’s, Charlie Brooker, David Laurenson & Livvy Potts [email protected] Music Critics Lucy Bryant Adams & Paul Smith (from Maximo Park) [email protected] Film Critics Tizzy Pinkle & Morris Minor [email protected] Sticking it to Oxford » p35-6 Visual Arts Critic Laurie 3man [email protected] Classical Music Critics Allen Sugar & Robert Browning [email protected] Mixed results in the lacrosse Literary Critic Colette Sensible [email protected] Editor-at-large The [email protected] Sub-editors Colm Flanagan, Sheli Levenson, Isobel Palmer & Charlie Pearson [email protected] Photographers Patrick Garety, James Graveston, Tim Varsity Matches. Johns, Sean Jones, Tom Moriarty, Lizzie Robinson, Charlotte Runcie, Dhaneesha Senaratne & Zing Tsjeng [email protected] Illustrators Alice Edgerley, Sallie Godwin, Jane Hall, Giles Smith, Katherine Spence, Christiana Spens, Claudia Stocker, Anna Trench & Sarah Woolley [email protected] Business & Advertising Manager Corporate Derro [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), Mr Thomas Bird, Mr George Grist, Mr Patrick Kingsley, Miss Natasha Lennard, Miss Anna Trench, Mr Hugo Gye & Mr Michael Stothard

Get involved 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 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 E-mail [email protected] to find out more. 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 Office. ISSN 1758-4442 NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT RECYCLING Friday March 6th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 3

In Brief MICHAEL STOTHARD

New mistress for Girton Girton has announced its choice of a new Mistress, Professor Susan J. Smith, to replace the College’s retir- ing head, Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern. Professor Smith, cur- rently Professor of Geography and a Director of the Institute of Ad- vanced Study at the University of Durham, will assume the position in October this year, the most re- cent achievement in an illustrious academic career which began with a degree in Geography at St Anne’s College, Oxford. Her work ad- dresses issues of inequality, taking into consideration concerns such as residential segregation, housing for health and fear of crime. Cambridge celebrates run Last weekend saw the 60th anniver- sary of the Cambridge Boundary Run, the traditional University run held by members of the Hare and Hounds group since 1949. e start line for this year’s race was the David Lloyd gym Sam Wakeford (Education); Clare Tyson (Co-ordinator); Joe Farish (Access); Tom Chigbo (President); Natalie Szarek (Women’s O cer); and Amiya Bhatia (Welfare) o Coldham’s Lane, and the  nishing line at Coton Countryside Reserve. e Hare and Hounds’ senior treas- urer Nick Mather said, “Most people think of Cambridge as being really small – you can go for a short run and Chigbo’s slate in clean sweep as  nd yourself in the countryside – but when you run around the boundary of the city it’s really quite long.” One of the  rst students ever to run the race, Old Petrean James Hasler, explained his own association with the race: “My Wakeford & Bhatia elected running partner and I discovered that in 1924 three men and a dog had run » Chigbo elected CUSU President a er highest election turnout in recent years round the borough boundary. It was perfectly obvious to us that the run » Farish wins battle for Access; Wakeford elected as Education O cer had to be done again.”

Andrew Bellis two-thirds majority needed to be valid. ingful for next year,” he said. participated in [it] because I want to is year’s election saw one of the “I think students want to get in- let more people see the hustings and Congestion scheme rejected Tom Chigbo pledged yesterday to highest turnouts in recent years, with volved, which is good, and that’s to make the election more interesting,” achieve “something really meaningful” 21.2 per cent of eligible electors voting shown by the high turnout and the he said. South Cambridgeshire District in his term of o ce, a er being elected either online or in College. e compa- high number who voted for us.” Li also pulled out of last year’s presi- Council last week formally opposed CUSU President on Wednesday. rable  gure for last year’s elections was Li, a second-year mathematician dential election a er he breached the plans to implement a congestion Joe Farish’s election as Access O cer 17.1 per cent. from Churchill, withdrew from the rules by failing to seek tutorial permis- charging scheme in Cambridge. A and Clare Tyson’s uncontested election Chigbo, whose only opponent, Guo- presidential race late on Monday night sion to take a year out if elected. special commission has been set as Co-ordinator meant that the Chigbo long Li, pulled out earlier this week a er he made controversial comments Chigbo was quick to welcome to up by the county’s transport chief slate of ‘Vision, Ideas and Experience’ amid accusations of homophobia, will relating to the LBGT autonomous cam- high turnout. “We had really good at- to consider the proposed scheme won all three of the posts it contested. take over the presidency in July, though paign. In hustings at Caius on Saturday, tendance at all the hustings, which was and the  nal pitch involves a £3-£5 In a closely-fought race, Sam Wake- he insists that the task of getting to which were streamed live on the in- really good. Most candidates appeared charge between 7.30 am and 9.30 ford was elected Education O cer, nar- grips with his job starts now. ternet by Varsity, Li was asked for his at most of the hustings, which was very am on weekdays. If enacted, the rowly beating his nearest contender, Ed Given that he was unopposed, policies related to the LBGT campaign. di erent from last year, where many scheme would constitute an attempt Maltby. Although Maltby was ahead af- Chigbo told Varsity yesterday that he He replied: “I think it’s more important candidates just did their 25 per cent at “demand management” and ter  rst preference votes were counted, was “not surprised but de nitely very that we provide help to them, to per- quota [required by CUSU], and that would thus enable the council to bid he fell behind Wake eld as other pref- pleased” by the result. suade them to be normal, to no longer showed a real desire to engage with the for £500 million of the government’s erences were taken into account. “ e coverage so far from the elec- be LBGT – to change them.” student body, which is promising for “Transport Innovation Fund” – a Amiya Bhatia was elected Welfare tions has been really positive and I Over 500 students joined a Face- next year.” ten-fold increase on the county’s O cer while, in an uncontested sab- think people – not just us, but students book group expressing concern over Commenting on the election rule current transport budget. Criticisms batical race, Natalie Szarek was elected in general – are a lot more excited about his comments. Li subsequently an- change allowing candidates to use Face- of the scheme are mostly economic, Women’s O cer. CUSU than they have been for a long nounced that he was pulling out of the book, Tyson said, “It’s quite a simple thing with councillors stating that the fee A referendum on creating a sabbati- time, and I think we can use that op- race for President. “I never thought but it meant that it got the elections out would lead to a loss of employment. cal Ethical A airs O cer reached the portunity to do something really mean- that I could win in the election, but I there to the wider student body.” Avantika Chilkoti ETHICAL AFFAIRS PRESIDENT ACCESS OFFICER EDUCATION OFFICER REFERENDUM

52 Trumpington Street Cambridge CB2 1RG

FREE CHELSEA BUN With every purchase over £2.00 in the shop OR FREE MORNING COFFEE/TEA (9am-12pm) With any cake or pastry in the restaurant

on presentation of this voucher CHIGBO / RON FARISH / McGOWAN / OTHER WAKEFORD / MALTBY / OTHER YES / NO / VOID and proof of student status News Editors: Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens Friday March 6th 2009 4 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk

In Brief drugs survey

Nappies away Varsity speaks to Modafinil Users Police were puzzled earlier this week by the theft of forty pallets of nappies from an unattended lorry just outside Jacob, Trinity Lucy, Fitzwilliam Cambridge. En route to Portugal, the little pop of the pill in the morning cabbage and curly fries medley I had vehicle’s driver had pulled into the will put me on tip top form to deal had at Buttery though. Bar Hill layby on the A14 for a nap with the day ahead. After an hour, and in the library, the when thieves cut three holes in the It hasn’t only helped my enthusiasm pill had kicked in full-throttle and I parked trailer’s curtain, clambered for academic life but also keeps my worked there for about four hours – four in and made off with the nappies, mood high. There’s no more nodding times my usual attention span. A group leaving only six out of forty pallets off in lectures for me and I look and of people sniggering at the other end of of Huggies Superdry behind. Having feel great. the library began to get on my nerves: unloaded the pallets of their extra- As for my sexual endeavours, well strange, because usually I’m one of them. absorbent cargo, the thieves stacked let’s just say: Modafinil keeps you During an hour’s break friends kindly the empty pallets on their sides in up at night but my girlfriend doesn’t observed that I wouldn’t shut up and the rear of the trailer to make room seem to mind. Yes it makes my blad- that my facial expressions were verging as they worked. Police believe the der control a little weak (fortunately on manic. We looked up Modafinil on offenders did not completely clear my bedder is pretty understanding), the internet and discovered that it usu- the lorry of its load during the raid, ’m so glad I’ve discovered Modafinil. but it’s a small price to pay to ensure ifteen minutes in and I set off to my ally wears off within 12 hours – I had which took place between the hours It’s the best discovery I’ve made here, an awesome social life and top aca- College library. I looked up the sub- taken it at 7pm. My boyfriend tactfully of 7am and 7pm on Wednesday, be- theI elixir of life, and it is always the demic results. Fject of my essay in the indexes of all the suggested that we spend the night apart. cause they ran out of room in their first thing on my shopping list when I don’t take it every day, but it’s books I’d taken out, noted the page ref- Back in my room, I worked roboti- packed vehicle. my allowance arrives each month. a slippery slope and some of my erences and returned to my room. cally until 3am, ploughing through Gone are the days of lethargic wal- more ethically-minded friends have So far, so good. pages and pages of notes. Stinking mess lowing and procrastinating in the UL. expressed concern. But I just tell them Half an hour in and I began to feel Then I ran out of work, but sleep Now I’m free to party into the early they’re silly not to try it – once you a bit odd. I think this may have had was still not an option – I watched The dispute over ongoing sewer re- hours whilst feeling reassured that a pop you’ll never want to stop. something to do with the spring roll, 5am come and go. pairs in King Street and Jesus Lane continued this week as a council- lor declared himself “disgusted” and Christopher, Emmanuel Isobel, Trinity Hall businesses began calling for compen- sation for lost trade. The repairs to when I started to focus on a particular lowed myself to go back to sleep. the King Street sewers have now been task, I noticed that I found it very easy In the first hour after popping the completed, but work is still being to concentrate. pill, I managed to read four pages of a carried out in Jesus Lane, prompt- I felt really motivated about my work fairly basic history book, and despite ing Councillor Colin Rosenstiel to and spent the afternoon in the library staying in the library all night I only criticise Anglian Water, the company working, only checking Facebook once. managed to read and note one forty- responsible for the repairs. “This is I felt no need to have a break, check my page article. causing major disruption to the busi- e-mails, or even look out the window. I took more notes than usual, but I ness district of the city,” he said. “An- I didn’t work any quicker than usual, still kept checking Facebook repeatedly. glian Water have not got the message. and I wasn’t writing better arguments, On the upside, even though and They should do these jobs as emer- but I just felt so much less inclination to should have been upset at my inef- gencies and get out. I’m disgusted.” stop working. I finished one 1500-word ficiency, I felt really happy the whole He suggested Anglian Water’s con- essay at 9pm and immediately started time. tractors should have worked longer another one, pushing through a tired- I’d never normally do an all-nighter hours. Sara Rowland, of Anglian was initially sceptical, but taking ness barrier at about 1am. odafinil lulled me into a false unless it was essential, but this was Water, said the company is trying to IModafinil really did help me concen- The only downside was that I couldn’t Msense of security – because I easy and I didn’t have to bribe myself do the “vital repairs” as “quickly and trate. It didn’t make me more cogent or get to sleep until 6am and I ended up thought I’d be working really hard, I with bars of chocolate. safely as we can”, but pointed out that anything like that, but it did give me singing songs to keep me occupied. I didn’t make any effort to stop myself To sum up, Modafinil didn’t make the company must take into account more stamina and I was only ever dis- was very pleased with the experience; being distracted. me concentrate more, work faster, or working hours directives and noise tracted by obvious diversions, like my I never do 14 hours of solid work in a When my alarm went off on the any cleverer. It did slightly mess with pollution. Several King Street shop phone ringing, or hunger. day. I know there are probably ethical morning I was planning to take the my stomach. Wikipedia said it could owners have stated their intention to I took the tablet at 11am and didn’t problems with taking it but, to be hon- pill, I figured I’d be working twice as lead to weight loss. Excellent. Except it claim compensation for the disrup- feel particularly different at first, but est, it’s just like drinking coffee. Isn’t it? fast as normal on Modafinil, so I al- seems to include a lot of pooing. tion to trade. Thomas, Corpus Christi Christie not Christie’s have always had trouble concentrat- to a couple of hours each morning. friend and then finished a book. A selection of Agatha Christie’s fur- ing, particularly in the afternoons. At times I wondered if the drug was I worried that my use of Modafinil niture and writing implements is to NeitherI power naps nor Pro Plus working: after the first three hours - a would detract from my ability to go on sale in Cambridge later this solved the problem. Modafinil did. 200mg pill is thought to last for up to concentrate without the drug. But it month. Personal effects, includ- Last week I took the psycho- 16 – I felt like I wanted to keep taking seems instead to extend and to guar- ing the writing desk at which she stimulant for the first time. I found notes, but it seemed a genuine schol- antee my natural alertness. It enhanc- penned some of her most famous the effects to be fairly subtle: my arly appetite. The absence of jitters and es what is already there and induces a murder mystery novels, a black lac- work seemed to be more interesting, tension, which caffeine tends to induce, work ethic that is not unfamiliar. quer breakfast table, chairs, pictures my awareness of the passage of time made me suspect a placebo at work. If I get up in the morning after a good and an address book are due to go decreased, and I didn’t get tired. It After a day spent in the library night’s sleep and don’t take the drug, my under the hammer at Cheffins auc- was not a new experience; rather an with only a short lunch break, during concentration level is much the same for tioneers on March 25th and 26th. induced experience of alertness and which I was eager to return to my the first few hours than if I had popped a The items come from the London diligence that my brain usually rations desk, I spent the evening chatting to a pill. I will be taking Modafinil again. mews home the writer shared with her husband, the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, before she died in what the scientists say 1979. The travels which formed Arthur Turrell when Modafinil is taken chemicals far is that the process of Modafinil’s a prescription drug and, like many a major part of their married life from a group called monoamines action on the brain is synergistic; prescription drugs, there are a range of were key influences on her novelis- Modafinil belongs to a class of drugs are released in the brain, includ- the effects produced come from a possible side effects. tic career, which spanned over half known as stimulants, the most famous ing dopamine and noradrenaline. combination of factors working in The most alarming of these is a a century and involved the writing of which are amphetamines. Noradrenaline affects the part of the union. As the exact way this happens severe skin reaction requiring admis- of around 80 novels in total. Other It was developed in France in the brain that controls alertness and so is not understood, the reactions of sion to hospital, although this has only items up for auction include a Wil- 70s as a treatment for narcolepsy, may account for the ability of people Modafinil in combination with other happened in a handful of cases. liam IV library table, Christie’s desk and this is what it is mostly pre- who take the drug to concentrate for drugs are not understood either. The other, more common, side blotter and a copy of the Golden scribed for today. many hours. It is always wise to avoid mix- effects of the drug are headaches, Fleece by Robert Graves, signed Unlike amphetamines, which have As well as releasing chemicals the ing drugs and with Modafinil this is nausea and anxiety as well as elevated “love from Robert, 1944.” Lisa been comprehensively studied, little is drug blocks the uptake of some com- especially true; there is evidence that blood pressure, a feature common to Freeman-Bassett, of Cheffins, said, known about the exact way in which pounds related to sleep, allowing users combining Modafinil with oral contra- most stimulants that has many other “From a tea pot to Agatha’s desk, es- Modafinil works. to stay awake for long periods of time. ceptives can make them less effective. risks associated with it including timates range from £100 to £4,000.” Recent studies have determined that The main conclusion of research so In the UK it is only available as heart disease. Friday March 6th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 5 drugs survey From the Archives Michael derrin g er

Week 8: November 9th 1979 Stop Press with Varsity reveals a Cambridge dons’ drugs ring

everal dons are heavily implicated in a ring supplying hard drugs to Sundergraduates, according to well- informed sources in the University. Both the Cambridge police and, we understand, an unofficial group of concerned University representatives are investigating the affair. The activities of the ring have claimed a number of victims over the last three years at least. It is alleged that students are first drawn into a tightly knit circle, and then initiated into the use of dangerous drugs, pre- dominantly Cocaine, Amphetamines and LSD. In more than one case this process has led to nervous collapse, and admission to either the Adden- brooke’s Hospital Drug Rehabilitation Unit, or Fulborn Mental Hospital. One don in particular, it is believed, began his contact with potential users via seduction, creating a pattern of emotional dependence that then took on a material aspect. One student, with “a brilliant academic future” be- fore him when he entered his college is now permanently confined in a psychiatric institution. Another, who was involved in both supply and con- Students turn to drugs to sumption, suffered a nervous break- down and dropped out of her Part 2 course. These cases, and others under re- view, point to a distinctive pattern of abuse centred on two individual cope with academic pressure colleges. We understand that one man » Experts warn that full effects of academic stimulants may not yet be known connected with those involved was arrested earlier this year, but was re- » University says students should seek official support rather than taking medication leased later. Also under investigation Continued from front page “It would seem that for a number of “It’s not clear what sort of drug testing matic differences in the use of stimu- are suggestions of political links. It’s The long-term risks of taking Mo- students, however, risks to their bank process would have to be put in place. lants between students in different sub- not clear how far the network extends, dafinil are not fully known, since doc- account and potential long term health Can you imagine the proctors walking jects. Results did, however, show that but one source confirmed that ‘a very tors are unsure of exactly how it acts on risks are of little concern when it comes around exam halls with urine samples?” students taking essay-based subjects senior’ University man was warned the brain. However, it reportedly lacks to getting a possible extra edge in Tri- The University has not commented on were marginally more likely to take the by police that unless he desisted from the agitation, irritability, nausea and pos,” she concluded. whether taking concentration enhancing medication. 16 per cent of respondents trafficking in hard drugs they would comedown associated with ampheta- Ant Bagshaw, CUSU Education Of- medication could be considered a form studying Philosophy admitted to hav- be forced to charge him. He stopped. mines such as Ritalin. ficer and member of the Board of Ex- of cheating. In response to the results of ing taken either one of Modafinil, Rita- We put one set of allegations to a William Shanahan, Consultant Psy- aminations, said, “I am surprised that the Varsity survey, Rob Wallach, the Sec- lin or Adderall, as did 15 per cent of SPS don, said to have supplied drugs to his chiatrist and Medical Director of the so many people have taken such drugs. retary of the Senior Tutor’s Committee, respondents and 14 per cent of lawyers undergraduate pupils. “These stories Capio Nightingale Hospital in London, The use of concentration-enhancing offered the following comment: responding. Meanwhile, only five per are completely untrue, and the result, told Varsity that “there is a risk of addic- drugs is not really something I’ve come “The use of prescription drugs with- cent of the NatScis who took the sur- I should think, of malicious rumours”, tion” that comes with taking Modafinil. across before.” out the approval of a qualified medical vey, and four per cent of the engineers, he said, “if you print this I shall be Lisa Halpern, a Senior Counsellor When asked what he thought about practitioner is not to be recommended had taken a prescription stimulant. forced to sue”. with the University Counselling Serv- the use of drugs like Modafinil in exams, under any circumstance as unforeseen Disparities between uses of the drugs Now, however, allegations are be- ice, said that no students or colleagues Bagshaw responded: “In principle, I am side effects can be serious. Hence we in different Colleges were starker. ginning to surface against people have approached her with questions against it. I think students should do would advise any student to take ap- Christ’s, Corpus Christi, Homerton and still supplying drugs, who hold posi- about the use of Modafinil. Regarding everything possible to perform as well propriate medical advice before con- Peterhouse all had 18 per cent of their tions of responsibility, some in the the safety of taking the drug, she com- as they can in exams, but this should be sidering taking any prescription drugs, respondents admit to having taken Mo- English faculty. Some sources claim mented: “Drugs like Modafinil are rela- limited to operating within legal means.” including those such as Modafinil, Ri- dafinil, Ritalin or Adderall. Only three that inquiries into previous genera- tively new, so we cannot, as of yet, judge Were the possession of Modafinil with- talin, or Adderall. per cent of King’s students, and four per tions of students at one city college the long term risks.” out a prescription legal, however, Bag- “More generally, we would encourage cent of Magdalene students who took demonstrate a horrifying sequence of She added: “Modafinil is not listed in shaw admits that he would reserve students to talk to their supervisors, Tu- the survey admitted to taking the drugs. disturbance traceable to one don who, the Misuse of Drugs Act, hence doctors judgement until it could be proven that tor, Director of Studies or Senior Tutor The way in which the drug is com- according to our informant, “enjoys can prescribe it widely to patients with- taking the drug would put a student at if they’re having difficulties with their monly distributed amongst students breaking people”. As attempts to trace out medical sleep conditions, whose an unfair advantage. studies for any reason. By sharing any may explain the inter-College dis- those involved continue, it is clear that jobs require they stay awake and alert “There is a rule in the University stat- problems, they together should be able parities. A third-year Corpus student Cambridge may be on the brink of a for prolonged periods. The drug is, utes relating to unfair means. Taking to develop improved academic good told Varsity: “One person will order major scandal, which seems to have however, a banned substance in sport. notes into an exam, getting someone to practice and appropriate confidence. Modafinil in bulk from the internet, been ignored or covered up by college It was added to the list of prohibited take the exam for you and plagiarism are These should do away with any per- and will sell it on to their friends and authorities. substances in 2004, and a number of all disallowed under this rule,” he said. ceived need for performance enhancers acquaintances. Many people are un- The allegations were never proved, high profile athletes, including Dwain The “biggest problem” Bagshaw finds of any type other than those developed happy to give over their bank details to and a subsequent police investiga- Chambers, have since tested positive with applying the same rule to taking a through expertise and academic study.” a potentially dodgy website, and would tion was dropped. for Modafinil use. drug like Modafinil is a practical one: The Varsity survey did not show dra- rather buy from another student.” News Editors: Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens Friday March 6th 2009 6 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk Varsity Profile Mi c h ae l D e rri n g r »Week 8: Mark Fletcher, outgoing CUSU President

With the CUSU elections in full swing, “You know what you are letting your- you might expect Mark Fletcher to be self in for if you apply for this job”, and on the verge of a frantic meltdown. This Fletcher seems to enjoy being accessi- however, is far from true. Any stress or ble to the student body. “It is difficult chaos that may exist is well hidden by to switch off,” he says, but he quite likes his immediately engaging and friendly the unpredictability, and “the buzz”. 2 introduction when I meet him in the Ultimately “you are a representative of, number of terms Fletcher has served CUSU office. and paid for, by the student body: you at CUSU Fletcher has presided over the Cam- owe it to them.” bidge University Students’ Union for the In the little spare time that he does past two years. Having risen through get, Fletcher – an Arsenal fan – avidly the JCR ranks at Jesus, starting as wel- follows football. He is also passionate fare officer and becoming president of about music, and spends time with his the JCR in his second year, Fletcher is boyfriend, an aspect of his life which he passionate about student politics. His feels has been somewhat neglected dur- 1 ability and desire to listen to the views ing his time as president. number of CUSU hoodies Fletcher of students has gained him consider- “I don’t think there is a balance,” he owns able popularity both within CUSU and remarks of the job that has him in the the college JCRs. office at all hours, balancing numerous He reflects that representing student tasks whilst being consistently cheery views “seemed natural” to him, he felt and motivational. However, he sees this he could “do a good job as CUSU Presi- challenge and pressure as the most pro- dent”. This certainly seems illustrated by ductive aspect of his work: “Something the changes seen in CUSU since 2007. has to be challenging and uncomfort- Fletcher recognises that some students able, otherwise it’s not fun.” 35 see CUSU as irrelevant; however, he sees It is this enjoyment of pressure and number of hate mail letters Fletcher this as “quite a naive view” that fails to organising people that Fletcher hopes has received as during his career recognise the importance of CUSU in to carry on in his post-CUSU life. “I influencing the direction of the academ- would like to be involved in politics at ic, extra-curricular and social aspects of some stage,” he says, but this is not the the University as a whole. next step: “I need something totally dif- The eternal political conundrum of ferent to do first.” the public/private life balance affects For a successful and busy person he is not only John Prescott and croquet, but surprisingly modest and is careful to con- 6 is a constant problem for those such as stantly attribute successes to his team. You number of May Balls Fletcher has Fletcher, who essentially “give them- cannot help but feel that this president attended selves up” to student politics. will be a hard act to follow. Lizzy Tyler

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TF1577 Varsity 170x270 advert 1 5/3/09 15:58:50 Friday March 6th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 7 SIR RANULPH FIENNES

e scene of the stabbing, the Five Bells pub in Cherry Hinton Dispute ‘over £40’ ends in violent murder Paul Coles lar man, whose family have described him as “the life and soul of the party”. A man died last Sunday evening as a result Police have launched a murder inquiry, of injuries sustained in an attack outside a and have already made four arrests in Cambridge pub. connection with the case. Two unnamed e exact nature of the attack remains women, aged 22 and 48, and two men, unclear, although the incident took place aged 21 and 25, will return on police bail early on Friday evening, at around 7pm. on March 31st and April 14th respectively. e victim was rushed from the carpark All of the arrested are from the local area. of the Five Bells pub in Cherry Hinton to On Tuesday, police said that an unpaid Addenbrooke’s hospital, where he later debt of just £40 could have been the mo- died. tive for the fatal attack. It is similarly unknown whether the Detective Superintendent Tom ousands of polar photographs put online assailants were armed, although a post- MacKinnon has appealed for information mortem examination has con rmed head about the incident. He would especially ambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute this week made 20,000 images freely accessible online as part of a £420,000 project injuries as the cause of death. like to hear from anyone witness to “a car to digitise its huge photo library. e project, which began in 2007, will continue until the entire archive, containing more e victim has been identi ed named driving o at high speed from the Five thanC 100,000 images, has been published. Sir Ranulph Fiennes, one of Britain’s greatest polar explorers, said: “ is is an extraor- as Paul ‘Monty’ Mans eld, 39, an electri- Bells pub on Friday evening at around dinary collection  lled with remarkable images.” e picture above, which has been published as part of the collection, was taken cian from the local area and a regular at 7pm”. ose in possession of any relevant by Sir Ranulph on his three-year journey around the globe from 1979 to 1982. All of the images from the archive can be seen the pub. Flowers have been placed at the information have been asked to contact online for free at www.freezeframe.ac.uk. scene of the crime in tribute to the popu- Parkside Police Station. Heroin dealer jailed a er hiding wraps in Kinder eggs Two dealers jailed after unconnected trials this week 44-year-old sentenced to three years after stashing drugs in confectionery convicted of possession with intent to with intent to supply. Anna Harper supply of crack cocaine in 1992, she When interviewed, Abijide said that Two Cambridge drug dealers have been had since been dealt with solely in rela- he was “a crack and heroin addict who locked up following appearances at the tion to possession. supplied to feed his habit”. city’s Crown Court this week in uncon- Judge Jonathan Haworth told Lupton: A er his arrest, he admitted to have nected trials. “You were caught fairly and squarely dealt  ve wraps, keeping one for him- e  rst, 44-year-old Ann Lupton, red-handed dealing class A drugs for self, a er obtaining his drugs from elaborately stashed heroin wraps inside cash.” Lupton was sentenced to three London. chocolate Kinder eggs. She was spotted years in prison, and must take part in a Sally Hobson, mitigating in in the street by police, who suspected drugs rehabilitation programme. Cambridge Crown Court, said: she might be about to embark on a Also sentenced this week “ e defendant has had drugs deal. Sara Walker, prosecuting, was Adekun Abajide, a re- a signi cant problem told Cambridge Crown Court how nowned drug dealer on with drugs. Since he Lupton had tried to run o but was the streets of Cambridge. has been in custody “rugby tackled” by the o cers. During November and he has shown his During the fray, Lupton dropped a December last year, intentions not to Kinder egg containing 11 wraps of her- Abajide sold wraps be a user when oin. O cers also seized a mobile phone of heroin to an un- he is released and £60 cash, and another four wraps of dercover o cer and to move heroin were found in a nearby vehicle. several times for away from When her home in St Peter’s Road was £20 each. On the lifestyle We are the leading supplier to colleges, May Balls and searched in March, empty Kinder eggs, December 9th, he has been student socs and parties. Party wines from £2.99, over 200 scales, cash and heroin were found. he was arrested leading.” single malts, Port, Madeira, Claret, Absinthe, cans of lager. If When arrested and interviewed, and found in Haworth Lupton said that the 11 wraps found possession of sentenced you can drink it, we sell it. in her possession belonged to her. She heroin and Abijide to Free glass loan, free delivery, generous discounts, wholesale claimed she had purchased 30 wraps crack cocaine. four years for £70 and had passed on and per- Abajide impris- accounts available for all CU bodies, socs, clubs etc. sonally consumed some of them, but had previously onment, Double-or-Quits your student discount with our Trivial swallowed others when the o cers pleaded guilty describing approached her. Walker told the court to 11 o ences in- the defend- Pursuit challenge. No conferring, bickering or face-pulling. that the street value of the drugs was cluding one count ant as “a man believed to be in the region of £10 a of being connected dealing regu- Branches at King’s Parade, Magdalene Bridge and Mill wrap. with supplying class larly and repeat- Road. Edinburgh too. Steven Gray, speaking for the defence, A controlled drugs, edly on the streets described Lupton as “a long-standing eight counts of supplying of Cambridge” with www.cambridgewine.com heroin addict” of more than 20 years. class A controlled drugs and “eyes wide open, dealing Although Lupton has previously been two counts of possessing class A drugs for cash”. News Editors: Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens Friday March 6th 2009 8 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Cambridge Cambridge report highlights state sector failings Spies Admissions bosses attack link between ‘deprivation and educational attainment’ Continued from front page the 111 state sector A-Level students of the local authority,” they said. have a lot of misconceptions about  e  ndings also exposed vast in- got AAA. More strikingly, a report last “Social mobility through education universities and especially Cambridge. equalities between di erent local au- year revealed that, of nearly 30,000 in the United Kingdom will continue Many people don’t realise that you thorities. Although those which retain students achieving AAA in 2007, only to struggle to improve until the per- don’t pay any of your tuition up front grammar schools tend to dominate the 176, or just over half a per cent, re- nicious link between deprivation and or that there are grants and bursaries top of the league tables, clear exceptions ceived free school meals. educational attainment is broken. available. do exist, including Cambridgeshire it-  e study by Cambridge Assessment “ is Cambridge Assessment study “We need to work with organisations self, where good sixth-form colleges was commissioned by the University’s of A-level achievement provides evi- such as Aim Higher and Teach First to contribute to high grades.  e results outreach steering committee. dence of the symptoms at age 18; the reach out to schools in deprived areas have suggested that, rather than state Parks and Partington emphasised cure has to lie in much earlier educa- in order to challenge perceptions and school organisation being the main fac- that “the real reasons for the di erences tional interventions in our young peo- raise aspirations. tor, success in A-levels is closely related are almost certainly social and eco- ple’s lives.” “If young people are going to suc- to the a uence of a particular area. nomic rather than educational. Joe Farish, who was elected CUSU’s ceed at A-level they need to have a Reading, for example, topping the “ e proportion of maintained- Access O cer this week, told Varsity: goal and we need to ensure that they tables with 27 per cent AAA pupils, sector students achieving top A-level “We really need to look at how we can know that university is within their represents a much more a uent catch- grades is patently closely correlated raise aspirations. reach, that it is achievable and that it ment than Southwark, where none of with the socio-economic demographic “A big problem is that parents o en is realistic.”

Homerton Pom-pom sandwich Editors quit in racism row Man found dead in Cam A group of boys from the far- ung recipients. Christos Lavidas Gemma Oke outskirts of the city met for a night “We understand that satire can of merriment with the prancing The editors of Oxford’s independent be misconstrued, and as this term's  e body of a missing man has been re- cheerleaders this week, an evening student newspaper were forced to editors of Cherwell we apologise for covered from the River Cam. of golf on the cards for the night. quit last week after an offensive spoof any offence which might have been Michael Ian Roper, 45, had been MASONS NEWS SERVICE But the 9th hole proved rather too edition of the paper was leaked. caused, and have now resigned. reported missing by a friend from the much of an endurance test for the The fake issue of Cherwell was A statement from the newspaper’s Downham Market area of Norfolk in gaggle of girls, who felt the need to produced at the end of last term publishers said: “This week, a spoof January. relieve themselves of their loads in and around 50 copies of the edition, of Cherwell has been released into His body was spotted by members various splatterings across the pave- called Lecher, were distributed during the public domain. This document of the public trapped among buoys in ment. Two rather more heavyweight an editorial team meal. was not produced by Oxford Student the lock and weir next to Jesus Green, members of the posse then took it One extract from the edition ap- Publications Ltd; we deplore its con- Cambridge, on Wednesday morning. upon themselves to continue the parently read: “KILL ALL THE tents and condemn it in the strongest Speaking at the scene of the body’s entertainment for one  ne fellow BLACKS… Can’t they just stay in possible terms. discovery, Detective Inspector Adam back in their bedchamber. One can their own communities? They have “We have held the editors of Cher- Gallop said that police had not ruled only hope they were able to stom- sex with monkeys, don’t they? We well accountable for this document out suspicious circumstances. He shock among eyewitnesses. Speaking ach things slightly more successfully can’t have stuff like that in a white and they deeply regret any offence said, “We are not ruling anything out to the Cambridge News, one onlooker during their ménage à trois... upper-class male commune like Cher- caused. In light of these develop- at this stage. said, “It’s shocking and quite frighten- well.” ments, we have asked for and received “We received three separate calls ing, and also very sad. It’s such a peace- Jesus One photograph showed one of the their resignation.” from members of the public who saw ful spot where people feed the ducks. paper’s ex-editors dressed in the style Lewis Iwu, president of Oxford’s the body at around 9am [on Wednes- It’s the horror of it all”. Porn again of the Klu Klux Klan, giving a Nazi students’ union, said: “The abhor- day morning].” Another witness, whose boat was salute. rent humour portrayed in the Lecher  e area where Roper was found was moored yards from the body, described  is most red-blooded of males, Sian Cox-Brooker and Michael is in no way representative of student cordoned o to allow specialist divers the tragedy as “a bit eerie and a murky having successfully lured the Bennett, Cherwell’s editors, were opinion in Oxford. to recover the body, and as a mark of business. We didn’t notice it until all the evening’s target back to his abode, forced to resign despite only taking “As a black student I believe that respect for the deceased. police came”. was shocked to  nd that he was not over the reins at the beginning of this Oxford is a tolerant, vibrant and wel-  e body broke free of the buoys be- Norfolk Constabulary formally aroused by her nymphomaniac be- term. coming place.” fore becoming lodged in the lock wall con rmed the identity of Roper on haviour. Flag still at half-mast, our In a statement, the editors said: Cherwell, like Varsity, is one of a at around 11am, before specialist divers  ursday.  e death is being treated as prey soon tired of his inactivity “The tone and content of Lecher was very small number of student news- from the Spartan Rescue team pulled it unexplained, while a post-mortem ex- and fell into a solemn slumber. Not clearly intended to be satirical, and papers which are independent from out of the river nearly 20 minutes later. amination will be held on Friday March wanting to end the night as it was, was received as such by its intended their university’s students’ union.  e incident provoked sadness and 5th to establish the cause of death. the scoundrel tapped in his favour- ite adult site into the World Wide Web and promptly found himself standing to attention. Rousing his bedmate, she was soon squealing EDINBURGH FESTIVAL 2009 in ecstasy, but as things drew to a Bene’t’s Cafés  nale, she was turfed out into the Festival Flats have a large number of good properties cold to make her own way home to 20 King’s Parade available in the heart of Edinburgh, all within walking allow him  ne form for his work the o f K et ing Stre next day. ’s Pa ne’t 4 Bene’t Street rade and Be distance of the various venues Christ’s Please call Carole or Elaine on 01620 810620 if you Future aspirations would like us to help fi nd the perfect fl at for you. This ungentlemanly fresher has E-mail: festfl [email protected] or festfl [email protected] been signing his guests into formal 20% off every Wednesday hall under the most unsavoury of titles. His entries in the past have Ciabattas - Wraps - Sandwiches certainly raised eyebrows in the past, including “John’s Gash 1”. But his latest outing, sporting his Loyalty Cards for Students wanted for research study date, “Future Rape Victim”, on Toasted Ciabattas his arm, provoked a lecture from Students who are clinically diagnosed with an Autism the Senior Tutor before the start Award winning Norfolk Icecream Spectrum Condition are invited to take part in a computer- of the meal about unacceptable based visual perception experiment in the Department of behaviour. The authorities ask- Cappuccino, Espresso ing for a “Miss fishy fingers” to Experimental Psychology. The task involves identi cation please stand up would perhaps Bene’t’s Chocolate Indulgence of modi ed images and participants receive £15 for two transcend the boundary between Try our Homemade Cakes hours. Please contact Clare on [email protected] if you suggestive humour and crassness, are interested in taking part. especially as they seem to repre- sent his hopes for the end of the Bene’t’s of King’s Parade open till 8pm evening. Thank you! Friday March 6th 2009 Get it off your chest: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Comment 9 e Essay

An Atheist’s Bible Matthew Kramer Why would a long-standing atheist want to write a commentary on the Bible? Matthew Kramer has spent twenty-six years doing so, despite not believing in God. Here, he explains what the Scriptures have to o er to non-believers.

became an atheist at the age of eight. uate, I recognized that I could not fully enhances one’s understanding of honesty cannot fail to be aware of its to believers who suggest that moral IA er one of my Hebrew school- understand many of the premier texts Western culture more broadly. While many shortcomings, some of which are principles are in need of God and the teachers devoted a 90-minute class to of the Western philosophical tradition the Bible has heavily in uenced many egregious. Bible as their foundations. Even if the recounting her experiences in a Nazi without an excellent knowledge of the philosophers, it has likewise heavily One’s awareness of those shortcom- correct basic principles of morality concentration camp during the Second Bible. in uenced countless artists and writers ings can temper one’s criticism of other were somehow in need of foundations, World War, I went home and read a I began to study the Bible systemati- and composers (among others). Some religions. Consider, for example, the the Bible would be too nefarious for lengthy encyclopaedia article on Nazi cally (for two to three hours every day) of the richness of Western art and current propensity of Muslim extrem- the purpose.  ose principles would Germany. Within four hours of read- during my  rst year as a postgraduate. literature and music is lost on anyone ists in various parts of the world to not be strengthened by being associ- ing that article, I had irretrievably lost I had acquired a pretty good knowl- who does not possess a good knowl- engage in murderous mayhem. On the ated with the genocidal directives of my belief in God. Over the years, my edge of the Hebrew Scriptures as a boy, edge of the Bible. one hand, the claim that their evil acts the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, or disbelief in God has become even more but now I was setting out to read both A further bene t of Biblical study of carnage have nothing to do with with the scurrilous fulminations of robust than my disbelief in Santa Claus the Hebrew Scriptures and the New lies in the literary magni cence of Islam is simplistic at best. Anyone who Christ against his opponents, or with and the Tooth Fairy. Testament with the eye of a philoso- many parts of the Bible.  e exquisite has perused the Koran with intellectual the Stalin-like gloating of the God of However, unlike some atheists and pher. During the  rst eighteen months, story of Joseph and his brothers in honesty will be aware of the hideous the New Testament at the thought that most agnostics, I am hardly uninter- I read the Bible from cover to cover the  nal quarter of Genesis is itself passages on which the Islamist fanatics everyone who has not been su ciently ested in God and religion. For one three times without writing anything su cient to ensure the can and do seize in order to “justify” deferential toward Him will su er thing, my attitude toward God is not beyond marginal annotations.  ere- Bible a place among their terrorism. torture for all eternity. one of indi erence; rather, it is one of a er, however, I began to compose a the greatest On the other hand, the percep- Lest the foregoing paragraph may revulsion.  at attitude stems partly passage-by-passage commentary to tion of a basic divide between the seem too glum, I’ll conclude with a from my systematic study of the Bible make sense of the text as I went along. Koran and the Bible in this relatively light-hearted reason for for the past 26 years.  e commentary – which for the  rst respect is likewise simplistic. studying the Bible. A perusal of the Although my main areas of scholarly several years was handwritten – has  e Bible teems with as Biblical texts reveals a host of common expertise are political, legal and moral now grown to approximately 3,000 many ghastly passages sayings that have taken on mean- philosophy – rather than theology or pages. I’ve written it purely for my as the Koran. It ings very di erent from their original the philosophy of religion – my prin- own edi cation, but over the years lends itself to meanings. cipal avocation since the early 1980s I’ve gradually polished it into some- being cited in Hence, a knowledge of the Bible is has been the writing of a commentary thing that might eventually be suitable support of invaluable for anyone inclined to be on the Bible. Why would an atheist for publication. iniqui- pedantic. I could o er more than twen- engage in such an endeavour? At very few junctures in my com- ties ty examples of the sayings that I have I began to read the Bible systemati- mentary does my atheism become ap- just as in mind, but I have space here for only cally in early 1982 because I wished parent. Poking holes in Biblical claims works read- one. In Deuteronomy 8:3 and in Mat- to enhance my understanding of phi- about God is far too easy and is thus of world ily as thew’s and Luke’s gospels (with Christ’s losophy. From the mediaeval period uninteresting. Instead, my commen- litera- does the response to the  rst temptation), we through to the early twentieth century, tary seeks to understand those claims ture, yet a Koran. encounter the aphorism “Man does not virtually every Western philosopher from the perspectives of the people number of Hence, given live by bread alone.” In the present day, of any consequence presupposed that who advanced them. I’m continu- other Biblical that there are no that maxim is almost universally taken his readers were intimately acquainted ally asking why the writer of some narratives are at grounds for thinking that to mean that bread is necessary but not with the Bible. book of the Bible would think that the almost that same the sacred texts of Christianity su cient for human  ourishing. While studying Philosophy as an ascription to God of a certain quality level of supreme and Judaism are indissolubly linked to In its original Biblical context, by undergraduate, I was particularly or command or action or accomplish- excellence. Much of the terrorism, there are no grounds for any contrast, the maxim means that bread struck by the fact that nearly all the ment is so important. Bible’s poetry (in Job, quite a few of corresponding accusation against the is su cient but not necessary for hu- great  gures of the early modern My original aim of improving my the Psalms, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, sacred texts of Islam. An acquaintance man  ourishing. (In Deuteronomy, era –  omas Hobbes, John Locke, understanding of Western philoso- Micah, and so forth) is among the with the Bible enables one to recognise bread was unnecessary because God Baruch Spinoza, George Berkeley, and phy has been realised.  ough I don’t  nest produced in any language.  us, this point clearly. sent manna instead; in the gospels, so forth – were thoroughly grounded write on theology or the philosophy although long stretches of the Bible  e abundance of rebarbative pas- bread was unnecessary because Christ in the Scriptures.  eir philosophical of religion, my study of the Bible has are tedious or repellent or ba ing, a sages in the Bible is another reason for was able to survive on purely spiritual works invoke Biblical passages and signi cantly shaped my thinking about student of the Bible encounters many atheists to familiarise themselves with sustenance.) characters with easy familiarity. Even a number of issues in the areas of phi- literary jewels as well. it. Although my commentary seldom In sum, I recommend Biblical the fervid atheist Friedrich Nietzsche losophy on which I do write. Familiarity with the Bible broadens gives voice to the atheistic repugnance study not only for the serious reasons in the nineteenth century displayed Over the years, however, that origi- one’s mind in a number of respects. that I feel toward God, my system- recounted above, but also because it an impressive knowledge of the Bible. nal aim has come to be supplemented Coming to grips with cosmological atic study of the Bible has made me is a wonderful basis for pedantic one- (Nietzsche’s e Antichrist is a tour de by other reasons for my avocation as a assumptions and ethical assumptions thoroughly familiar with the numerous upmanship! force of Biblical exposition, however Biblical scholar. Such an avocation not very di erent from one’s own is an discreditable aspects of the Biblical Matthew Kramer is Professor of Legal far-fetched some of it may be.) only improves one’s understanding of edifying venture. Moreover, anyone texts. and Political Philosophy and a Fellow  us, while I was still an undergrad- Western philosophy, but also greatly who peruses the Bible with intellectual  us, I can retort knowledgeably of Churchill College. Comment Editor: Robert Stagg Friday March 6th 2009 10 Comment [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Foreign Charlotte Correspondence Runcie e Patois of the Privileged Cambridge language is archaic, repulsive and sort of necessary Cambridge goes all over the world in a riot of semi-imperialist journalism n a recent issue of Varsity, Dan here is rooted in odd, obsolete tradi- just thrilling to get our rst taste cringe slightly every time I say ‘bop’ IHitchens discussed the problem tion – and we drink it in. It’s part of of the privilege embodied in that that sums up how I feel when I go of vagueness in language. My issue the Cambridge package, and we accept strange linguistic overworld operating to one and dance, inevitably, to ‘ e is that, in Cambridge at least, the it as a quirk. I suspect a signi cant between Eton and Oxbridge, beyond Final Countdown’. As you say it your language we use is actually far too proportion of current undergraduates the radar of the OED. It’s epidemic. By mouth takes on the same shape as it particular. When we talk to each other came here just as much to behave like day two of Freshers’ Week, teenagers does just before you vomit which, for about uni life, we use a range of ultra- a Victorian dandy as they did to invest from inner-city comprehensives have many revellers, is how bop night is exclusive slang terms, an extension of in a future of academia. started talking like Prince Charles. brought to a close anyway. public schoolboy terminology impen- We want to speak the Cambridge is weird.  is everyday argot pales to a tint etrable to anyone outside the bub- language spoken by You can’t describe rather than a blot on Cambridge’s ble. Is it any wonder that Cambridge the famous before it without using character when you consider the University is still seen as a bastion of they were the words it archaic, elitist dialects of its secret superiority when the way we talk is so famous; the has invented societies: its Adonians, its Pitt Club, Week 8: Cuba insular? successful for itself. its Freemasons. Cambridge has a long It’s over halfway through the alumni When we way to go before it can claim to be in- he Castro succession trundles academic year now, and most of us ‘hit’ arrive – clusive and open to everyone. Straight Ton in Cuba. Raul has removed freshers have comfortably settled into parade of sorry, talking is a start, but these fruity little some of Fidel’s favourite ministers. a new town, pinned up our Tournée everyone & ‘come clubs (as South Park would call them) du Chat Noir posters, and spent many from ~ up’ – act as refuges that keep jargon and Fidel, like his revolution, is dying on his feet. Fidel then endorses a night tripping happily between Cin- Hans # we’re snootiness alive, despite our best ef- dies and the College bar. Blix to * planted forts to modernise the University and Raul’s political movements a few days later, either by accident or un-  e mysterious lingo of these the Monty some- make it more accessible. der compulsion. (It seems unlikely parts has already burrowed deep into Python where we At Cambridge, slang and snobbery our vocabulary, and we have gone team. And @ don’t yet are wrapped up in one another, and as that he is compos mentis enough to from haltingly ordering a baguette if we start to ! have the tools long as we use one, we perpetuate the make such decisions or procloma- ? tions himself.) and describing our best friend in talk like they to explain, so other. Let’s go back to a term I used  e geriatric nature of events is Cantabrigese to sustaining a lengthy once did, we we grab onto the earlier: the ‘gyp room’.  is was origi- entirely unsurprising. Cuba is not debate about the current ADC show might just slang and that has to do. nally the room where your ‘gyp’, or an exciting place anymore. It is with  awless grammar. become like Before I got here I never thought manservant, used to sit and await your an old country, dense with decay. But what about when we head home them in other ways. Maybe I’d use the word ‘bop’ seriously and instructions.  e word ‘gyp’ comes When I visited there last year, I for the summer? If I don’t drop the Monty Python’s surreal humour even yet, every Friday night in Queens’ bar, from ‘gippo’, or ‘scullion’ – an abusive expected somewhere rumbus- Cam slang sharpish, my sister will has its roots in the oddities of Cam- I nd my mouth closing ineluctably nickname for a menial worker. tious and entertaining, with people only stare at me in dumb revulsion bridge slang. Maybe Milton needed around that terrible word. So it’s not just that using a language dancing in the streets and singing when I tell her about that fateful night those years of exposure to Cambridge But how else can you describe a that is unintelligible to the outside gloriously. I was anticipating seeing I burnt the pasta in my gyp room a er vernacular to inform his diction in bop? It is categorically not a club night world keeps Cambridge exclusive. It’s the world-class healthcare system getting o with a Tit Hall Mathmo at Paradise Lost: or a party, and even ‘disco’ can’t quite that the language itself embodies the and a state where the spoils of the super-hall. (Anecdote may have been “Of man’s rst disobedience, and convey its distinctive sense of cheesi- Oxbridge elitism that refuses to die. economy are shared between all. In falsi ed for illustrative purposes.) the plodge…” ness and disappointment.  ere’s Remember that next time you’re chat- short, I was clinically naïve. Everything about the way we speak Nevertheless, for many of us it’s something about the way I have to ting about your bedder in the buttery. Instead, I found a society shrivelled up into itself. People walk with a stoop; prostitutes (female and male) are every- where; licentious behaviour is Rob expressed quietly and with a gentle sneer. Pictures and murals Peal Bring Back Morality of Fidel and Raul are encountered every now and again. They have an odd effect on the tourist, and Good values, proudly declared, are essential to a healthy society on Cubans. They confer a sort of benevolent glow on everything, a fatherly and patriarchal sort of sensation. n a recent trip to London I was leaf- Similarly, Gladstone, who did so much next time you see your right-on friend for authority.  is forgets values such as But they also inspire a silent mal- ing through the news and read that to advance the causes of democracy snorting cocaine ask them how they feel consideration for others and toleration content. One senses people shi ing aO city banker in a West End club spent and Irish Home Rule, built his career about the untold damage such a habit which are crucial to the functioning of a resentfully past them as they move £35,000 on champagne in one evening. as Prime Minister on the claim that does to South American communities. social democracy. around their hometowns. Fidel Whilst overheard to say “Fuck Gordon the British working class were “morally In their reaction, you will witness the As a result, morality is now the pre- and Raul Castro are not liked. Brown: there’s no recession”, he splashed entitled to come within the pale of the extent to which respect for personal serve of the political right, taking the dis-  ey’re not hated either; but they’re out in one night signi cantly more than constitution”. As recently as 1947 Clem- responsibility has given way to respect tasteful form of tabloid hysteria against not liked. It’s rather like Gordon what the average British worker earns in ent Attlee, founder of the Welfare State, for personal freedom. paedophiles and criminals. Cameron Brown’s status in British electoral a year on jeroboams of Dom Perignon also became president of Toynbee Hall, a Our very natural human impulses has been extremely savvy in recognising politics – they call up a sort of beige and magnums of Cristal. London settlement house that epitomis- have been rebranded and renamed with this with his mantra of ‘Broken Britain’. neutrality, a boredom. But, unlike I took this alarming news back to es the Victorian spirit of philanthropy. morally neutral terms to make them pal-  is summer he captured the public the Prime Minister, they can’t be the bubble that is Cambridge, and in imagination with his claim that we have voted from o ce. Cuba is trapped outraged tones told my friends. “When become a society “where nobody will tell in ennui. did this sort of behaviour become ac- the truth any more about what is good It’s a disheartening thing. People ceptable?” I asked, before condemning “Our human impulses have been rebranded” and bad.” have no life le in them anymore, it as frivolous and morally wrong. My However, for progressives there are and yet they’re too tired to inspire lamentations fell on deaf ears. some glimpses of hope for building a themselves anew. I spoke to one It made me realise the extent to So when did this all change? Trite as it atable to the tastes of post-sixties Britain. moral code in a secular nation. One of man who told me, with hushed which the moral register of the political may sound, this paradigm shi in politi-  us, a movement against the use of the least recognised features of Obama’s frankness, that “Cuba has seen liberal-le has shrunk. In Parliament, the cal justi cations has to be located in that disrespectful and hurtful language has to whole campaign was that it shone with better days.” I asked him if things newspapers and the pub, those in Britain watershed conveniently called ‘the Sixties’. masquerade as the spurious and euphe- soaring moral rhetoric. He claimed that were worse than they seemed. who see themselves as ‘progressives’ are In this period, the philosophical dry rot mistic ‘concept’ of political correctness. the fundamental belief which makes “Not worse…but more dull.” A extremely wary of speaking in moral that is moral relativism was conveniently Similarly, consideration for the well- America work is compassion – the idea distressing thing to contemplate. terms, a habitual aversion which has wedded to the anti-authoritarian spirit of being of others has been codi ed and that “I am my brother’s keeper.” Lastly, as  at Cuba has lost its way is ac- become extremely counter-productive. social liberalisation, and a new age was transformed into the ideology of Health easy as it is to laugh at them, the radical cepted by everyone (even student  is was not always the case. For born. All of society’s moribund taboos and Safety. Paperwork has replaced con- environmentalist movement should be revolutionaries). What it needs, centuries, the landmark achieve- were rightfully torn down, but a sole sciences as the regulatory force of our admired. It is infused with a self sacri c- in a weird kind of way, is another ments in advancing social justice were taboo was regrettably put in its place: a society. Obviously, the aims of Political ing willingness to live lightly on the land upheaval. Moving to straightfor- made by people unafraid to voice the taboo against morality itself. Correctness and Health and Safety are in an age of growing global population, ward democracy won’t bring blood moral nature of their purpose. William In public discourse, respect for admirable, but it is the dehumanised way and diminishing resources. back to the country’s veins. So Wilberforce was driven towards realizing honourable and decent behaviour has in which we have to refer to them which Maybe it is woefully hopeful to expect what will? the abolition of slavery in 1807 not by been replaced by contempt for the smug makes them unappealing. these choice examples to be the begin- a belief in abstractions such as human do-gooder, and derogatory terms such as Received wisdom now states that ning of a change, but there is one thing Jack Cervantes rights, but instead a human compassion ‘righteous’ and ‘preachy’ epitomise this morality solely implies conservative about good behaviour that cannot be for the su ering of African slaves. new spirit. If you still need convincing, values such as sexual purity or respect denied – it is contagious. Friday March 6th 2009 Get it off your chest: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Comment 11

Spk yr brains

e Wit and Wisdom of the World Wide Web

Week 8: Uni Challenge

No surprise. Our whole education system is lost in technicalities and misses the point. From our politically dominated, target, exam obsessed schools, now to University Challenge. Sam Kay was a student and had expected to remain so, but things changed. So what? Bankers who deliberately cheat the public of billions get huge bonuses.

CL, Glasgow

I blame Gordon Brown and Tracey Playle for this mess.

ANNA TRENCH Gri Eric, Cam ”ignorantia juris non excusat”. Tom latin_luvva Bird So it seems that cheating has made its e drugs do work way uinto the upper echelons of soci- ety. a sad day for a country that once Banning Moda nil is denying technology’s progress owned an empire. I see Oxbridge is alive and well, though, denying basic freedoms (enshrined in magna carta) rom about 1811 to 1817, a While the case against Moda nil is In November 2002, the University Neuropsychology, states, “ is is one to the hard woking mum or dad on Fgroup of skilled English labour- o en expressed in medical lan- was proud to announce its part in the of the  rst drugs where it doesn’t seem a council estate whos struggling to ers, mostly textile workers, formed guage – “there must be long-term breakthrough: “Cambridge researchers to have abuse potential. It seems to be make ends meet as they sweep up the secret bands under the leadership of side e ects; we just can’t take the have identi ed a stimulant, Moda nil, a good enhancing agent with minimal mess from gordon “one eye” bnrowns’ ‘General Ludd’, or ‘King Ludd’ as he risk” – it disguises a preju- dice that improves mental ability without side-e ects.” I’m only trying to sweeten recession. JEREMY CLARKSON a was sometimes known. e Luddites against progress that tiredness side e ects.” the pill. true british p[atriot and 4x4 driver were neither quixotic dissidents nor is really at Since then, clinical Given that Moda nil is a safe drug (nto like these homosexual sissies champions of the simple life opposed work. trials have estab- – and no more dangerous, at any who will wimp out of an opportunity to technology for the love of nature. At the lished the safety rate, than the addictive, psychoactive to drive a car that pollutes given half Instead, members would systemati- of the drug. stimulant ca eine – it seems only fair a cjhance...!) was spot on when he cally smash the kinds of machinery It is now that people should be able to use it. said that the recession wud vreep into they saw as a threat to their cra and prescribed A ban might be justi ed if the drug all areas of british life. e number of trade. eir struggle had nothing for a wide had detrimental e ects, but the real speed cameras has DOUBLED as a to do with Romantic ideals and range of gripe opponents have with the drug is resuilt. it’s political correctness gone everything to do with self- condi- precisely that it works. ere is some mad, and where has british decency interest. e Luddites opposed tions sort of misanthropic desire for karma: gone? Down the toilet, of course. I progress because it threatened it might raise your alertness, but by hang my head in shame as I feel sick their way of life. A skill that was God they hope it sti es your creativ- to m y stomach. once the preserve of the guild ity; it might keep you working right was now available to the masses. up till midnight, but they’re praying honesttaxpayer, bedford Mind-enhancing drugs are the you’ll pay for it the next day. mechanised looms of today. Moda nil will not make Einsteins Rules are rules. they will now go to What drugs like Moda nil deliver of us all. But it might allow some to the EU court of human rights to is a level of concentration that is usu- ful l a potential frustrated by short protest, of course! ally conferred exclusively and capri- attention spans or poor short term ciously on that person who is in the memory. Whether to deprive EnglishnotBritish (or european) library all day, every day, and gets a students of the ability to take  rst at the end of the year. Alertness is the drug is a decision that will BRAVE JADE has spent her life in the a gi . And Cephalon, the pharmaceu- ultimately be taken by people who spotlight, working hard to support tical company behind the pills, wants heart did not need Moda nil to get to the her family in these di cult times. So to share that gi with the world. of the debate top. why - WHY, i ask u - are we focus- It might be that it is a gi that you is a  erce class(room) Yet when the question is raised, ing on these nobodies who’ve taken don’t want to accept. Or perhaps war. ose who profess such as as it inevitably will, as to whether part in a quiz?? Where’s the talent in you’ve found something that already to stress nurture over narcolepsy society should sanction the use of appearing on teevee and answering does the trick: “Sorry Cephalon, I’m nature – who celebrate and shi ‘smart drugs’, it is important that the questions about science? it hasn’t with Costa.” Or maybe you’re that per- an educational system that work sleep neo-Luddites are shown up for what helped jade live, has it?, and now her son who is in the library all day, every underpins a meritocracy – are disorder. Negative side ef- they are. If society is to progress – kids r going to be without a mutha. day, and who actually, come to think unwilling, on the whole, to bless fects are rare. And while Moda nil is and if equality of opportunity is not Jack Tweed is proper sexi though, so of it (and thinking comes easily to for- a drug that might yet level the playing currently available only on prescrip- reduced to a political slogan – then a i’m not 100% upset. but u got him tunate you), quite likes the advantage  eld further. But liberals should not tion in the UK, it is legal to purchase judgment must be made based on the  rst jade LOL that exclusivity entails. We’re mostly be Luddites. from foreign companies and is not evidence alone. Otherwise the blind conservative at Cambridge, and we’re Many of the legitimate concerns listed in the Misuse of Drugs Act. As will be leading the dumb, even if the cervicallover, London most conservative at the top. about these drugs are all in the head. Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Clinical latter aren’t really paying attention. CAMBRIDGE ELECTIONS UNION SOCIETY www.cus.org 9 M ARCH 2008

Julien Domercq president Andrew Chapman senior officer With WILL and DETERMINATION it is possible to achieve great things at the IDEAS...The promise of free-speech means the Union must be somewhere every Union. I spent the last four terms helping to run many events, like the visit of Boris student can find a voice. As Senior Officer I’d work to make this happen by arrang- Berezovsky, and successfully inviting Stephen Frears and Trevor Nunn. We need a ing speakers that reflect Cambridge's diversity, attracting new members and MORE INFORMAL AND ACCESSIBLE UNION. I want to insure that every re-engaging existing ones. My links with Oscar-nominated actress Imelda Staunton, member of the University can take part in Union events, regardless of their politi- Sky-Sports Directors, and politicians will bring in big names too. cal ideals or means. If elected, I will put all my energy in ensuring that the Union provides relevant, up-to-date and meaningful political debates, is accessible, and EXPERIENCE...I ran the Union’s Schools Debating-Competition this year. Our also a constant supply of fun! access programme to get more state-schools debating saw the competition’s size increase from 320 to 750 teams. Worked with large-organisations, coordinating a re-open nominations president team of 160+ volunteers, engaged under-represented groups and chased people up for nine-months.

re-open nominations senior officer

Caroline Cummins treasurer Jan-Jonathan Bock standing committee I will be devoted to bringing real results for members as Treasurer. As Director of As Officer on Standing Committee, I am going to link various fields to design a new Publicity and a Steward of the President's Committee, I have experienced what's and creative approach. One of my aims: to run THEMED WEEKS, such as AFRICA, great about the Union and what needs to change. I will be committed to creating bringing together politicians, artists, and intellectuals in debates and talks, a long-term approach to sponsorship to ensure we make the most of all opportuni- supported by music, art exhibitions and cuisine. I am going to develop an extended ties. Treasurer's Treats will be expanded and promoted widely so everyone benefits OUTREACH SCHEME for Freshers' Week, to guarantee the future of the Union - from the perks of their membership. As a member of Standing Committee, I will something both old and new members will benefit from. My experience as Presi- strive to ensure we provide prestigious political debates that fulfil the Union's dent of a major CU Society, as well as being a May Ball Employment Officer will potential as a centre for significant debate. help me implementing these plans. re-open nominations treasurer re-open nominations standing committee

External Committee Candidates Teddy Sun entertainment officer (6 positions to be elected, chosen by Single Transferrable Vote) As Ents Officer, I wish to improve the QUALITY and VARIETY of Ents on offer and use this opportunity to give back to the society. My experience as DIRECTOR OF Louise Anthony EVENT MANAGEMENT for Lent 2009 has demonstrated my competency managing events at the Union. I shall take this role forward by building on the quality of past Anna Harper - successes such as Cocktail and Jazz nights and the Christmas Party as well as improving the range of Ents on offer with CLASSICAL MUSIC RECITALS, ART EXHI- Phillip Heller BITIONS and a HALLOWEEN MURDER MYSTERY PARTY, aiming to appeal to a variety of members. Nick King re-open nominations entertainment officer Maeve O’Sullivan - David Staines Caroline Stamp-Dod Christopher Stanton James Wakely

re-open nominations Voting will take place online and will include all Union members who receive email notifications. Expect to receive an electronic ballot in your primary Union contact email some time before the election.

Online Election Date & Times: Enquries about the election, including questions about electronic voting and election practice should be Mon 9 March 10am - 9pm directed to [email protected]

Friday March 6th 2009 varsity.co.uk

THISMAGAZINE WEEK IN THE MAGAZINE: SOCIALIST NICK COHEN CRITICISES THE LEFT / OLIVER LETWIN ON TORY SOCIAL POLICY / CHEEK BY JOWL / FASHIONABLE HATS / SPURIOUS MAGICIANS / ART / SEX

Photograph of the week by Tim Johns atriona Cahill “Crehearses in the ADC eatre for Dave Brown’s pro- duction of Hamlet, the white of her costume shining out from the deep black of the stage, giving this image a somewhat ghostly feel. e slow shutter abstracts and disguises who it actually is and what is going on, leaving it to the viewer’s imagina- tion to create their own story behind it. In many ways, both photography and the theatre are art forms concerned with representation and perception, in which the eye of the beholder is all-important.”

If you have a po- tential Photograph of the week, send it to features@varsity. co.uk

SARAH WOOLLEY My week by Vanessa Urquhart, student politician* and burbles nervously. We make real made a scale map of all the Colleges, ni cant event from my school days at ba ed by my contemporaries. progress with my re-vamped hustings and sticks a little Union Jack beside Cheltenham has been horribly exagger- speech (Ronald dubs it “Churchillian”) successful hustings locations. ere ated and posted on the election blogs. ursday Wednesday and Connie has found that another was a slight problem at King’s when I I have protested that I was as surprised Victory! Barring any upsets in the I skim my favourite passage from Vol- Presidential candidate has a rather voiced distaste at the occupation of the as anyone at the discovery of anthrax vote recount, I am President of the ume Two of Margaret’s biography and unexpected fetish, which could be very Law Faculty and a dreadlocked ru an in that tapioca pudding, but regardless Cambridge University Student’s pencil an admiring note in the margin. damaging if it got out to the voting screamed “Fascist”, but luckily Ronald Felicity Davis never had the foreign Union. I pose for photographs with en, a er polishing the buttons on my public. I never even knew you could do had the foresight to hire crowd control policy knowledge to be Head Girl. Christopher, and answer questions reddest suit, I dash to a power breakfast that with Lego. Ronald also tells me I from the Blues wrestling squad, so he Luckily Ronald says the damage should from some vile hack, although the with the team. My campaign manager have to stop wearing clothes the colour was dealt with. We have a night o be limited, as “Evil is my selling point,” Telegraph has expressed interest in my is Ronald, a Yank from John’s whose of blood. Will make a note. from speech-making so I spend the and I’ve started wearing bottle-green writing them a weekly column. Walk father got Clinton re-elected. en evening with Christopher. He is stencil- suits. I calm myself by writing a vicious through Clare with Ronald as the sun there’s Connie, a Newnham political Saturday ling posters that paint me in the style of editorial in my defence and vowing is setting, and he tells me this is only ‘enthusiast’ who has been linked to the ‘Lego-Gate’, as it is has been dubbed, Lord Kitchener, and I catch up on my to keep the adolescent volumes of my the beginning. I go home and listen resignation of three JCR Presidents and has made the front page of both news- Machiavelli. I shall miss moments like political diaries better hidden. In the to the 1812 Overture on the gramo- is intimately acquainted with at least papers, and so one of my opponents this when I am in o ce. evening I am encouraged by the team phone while reading e Art of War. half of CUSU Council. Christopher, made a hasty exit from the election to visit a local ‘night club’. I sip water Long live democracy. my other half and supposed publicity scramble. Nasty business, but had to Tuesday and watch the seething mass of student chief, drops his tea when I come in be done. In other news, Ronald has Public relations disaster. An insig- humanity – sometimes I am utterly * As told to Victoria Beale

LION KING ADVENTURE (STARTS HERE): Your name is Simba, you’re a lion, and you’re running for CUSU President. Crazy shit. Speaking of which, the Presidential Hustings in imminent and you’re shitting bricks - crazy bricks. You need to up your concentration. p14 Take some Moda nil. You hear it works wonders on the concentration. p15 Sing ‘Hakuna Matata’. Food & Drink Editors: Jonathan Franklin & Amanda Palin Friday March 6th 2009 14 Food & Drink [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Editor-at-Large Ed Cumming tastes the porky delights of granmentira, honestly Ed at large the best restaurant in cambridge here’s a moment in The Thick Of It their high standards of quality and “Why would you do that?” is quite an innocent time for humans where the put-upon Conservative accuracy, not to mention their refresh- “Might be funny.” to go to the cinema, only to find that Tshadow minister expresses his disgust ingly generous stance on toilet humour “Not so much.” when they get out the mall has closed of the internet to a junior aide: “Have (see last week). “But you make up all the news.” and there is no way to escape except you ever Googled yourself?” he asks; Anyway. I had a rogueish scheme “Goodbye.” down an escalator and then down an “It’s like opening the door to a room this week, which I’m only telling you In the end, of course, I digressed alleyway where you might, if you were filled with people who hate you.” about because I haven’t actually done and went out with a friend who had so inclined, lean against a grimy wall As I have discovered this week, he it, so you’ve gotten off lightly. This been greatly moved by the University taking heroin for a fortnight before couldn’t have been more right. In addi- you were found. tion to my other duties, you see, I have If you carry on down this alleyway, been keeping a blog about Arsenal turn left at a shoeshop and carry on for called UpForGrabsNow, and have a bit, you reach an innocuous-looking come to two (2.0?) conclusions about (aren’t they all?) white building. This is the internet. not innocuous at all. For this is Gran- Firstly, the odds of someone making mentira, and it’s the best place I’ve eat- rhetorical recourse to Nazism increase en this term. I ate a pork chop which by a factor of three for every person was, well, porky, and the chum ate a who posts a ‘comment’. I say ‘com- burger, which he said was “nice”, ment’ rather than comment because I and much better than the don’t think “Fuck off” is, particularly, a burger he’d had at Gourmet commentary on anything much. Burger Kitchen, which is the Secondly, the internet proves that only restaurant outside of Gat- there are too many stupid people in wick Garfunkel’s where you can the world. Previously, if you were a pay £10 for a main course and stupid person and published some- have to go up to order it. thing stupid, you could be fairly sure The mood was only slightly let down that someone clever would come along by the service, who became agitated eventually and correct you, and the scheme, derived from a combination Challenge debacle and needed cheer- when they realised we were reviewers: world would even out again. This is no of my own poverty and a cartoonish ing up. At the back of the Cambridge “We don’t want any trouble.” longer so. You can now make up any sense of whimsy, involved inventing Grafton Centre is a bad cinema “Er, neither do we?” old twaddle, no matter how danger- a restaurant and reviewing it. This called ‘Vue’, which I think nobody “No but we don’t have a website, we ously moronic, and when you go restaurant would sell all sorts of weird would agree is a very clever name for keep a low profile.” online to check on yourself you’ll find foods and be staffed by very strange a cinema. “Don’t you want business?” an army of byte-sized acolytes, ready people, and all in all would make for a Aside from anything else there is “Look I think you should finish up to go and tell people they got pwned most diverting read. There was a pro- a problem with the cinema in that it and leave instantly.” and that they’re anti-Israeli for you. ductive editorial meeting all about it: also acts as a trap for innocent humans “Sure, but...” I suppose the point is thank good- “I think I should make up a restau- who have walked through the mall to “But no.” Then he scurried off. Prob- ness for newspapers like this one with rant this week.” get to the cinema at night-time, which ably to rearm himself, the Nazi.

nd for those of you who are fol- Because Gluttony sounds Alowing a gospel that precludes so much better in French... butter, sugar and eggs, here’s a more wholesome, slightly loaf-y, sort of La Grande Bouffe gastronomy: way, this is probably the most offensive Trifle piece of Cambridge slang. The only Vegan Carrot Cake word it could be lengthened to is gypsy, Sponge cake and judging by the state of my kitchen, Sherry or white wine 2 cups whole wheat flour (or spelt the implication is that all travellers are Tinned fruit – chopped and drained flour, if you’re so bold) encrusted with rice-milk infused oats, Custard (ready-made) 1 tsp baking powder ight weeks have stomped past; and the odd salmon chunk. An unfair Double cream 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda you’ve written the essays, gone on stereotype, I’m sure you’ll agree. Then Flaked almonds/chocolate/angelica ¼ tsp salt Ethe swaps, seen the bad plays, danced again, the only thing ‘swap’ can be 1 ¼ cups water to cheese and are just about ready to lengthened to is: “Date-rape is sociably 1. Break the cake up (a swiss roll will 1 cup dates return to Surbiton or Eaglescliffe with acceptable. We are all a bunch of dicks. do) in the bottom of a glass bowl. 1 ½ cups raisins a host of anecdotes and fond memo- Lets go and swap our bodily fluids.” 2. Pour enough booze over it to soak. Vegetable Tagine 1 tsp cinnamon ries. But before you put your bikini in And that’s not great either. 3. Layer the tinned fruit of your choice 1 tsp ground ginger your bag, you might like to think about atop the cake. 2 tbsp light olive oil, or sunflower oil ½ tsp ground cloves celebrating your Lent term achieve- 4. Spoon the custard over it. 1 large onion, chopped ½ tsp ground nutmeg ments, and what better way than with 5. Whip up the cream until it stands 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 cup carrot, grated a valedictory meal? We’ve steamed and in soft peaks, and spoon over the 2 sweet potatoes, cut into 2-inch ¾ cup walnuts, chopped roasted at Varsity Towers to find some custard. chunks ½ cup orange juice of the tastiest farewell dishes that you 6. Finish with toasted almonds, grated 1 large aubergine, similarly chunked and your friends can cook up before chocolate, or the angelica for that 1 tin chopped tomatoes 1. In a small bowl mix flour, baking you neglect each other over the ensu- 70s housewife feel. 1 tsp harissa paste (or more, depending powder, bicarbonate of soda, and ing holiday. on your capacity for chilli) salt and set aside To paraphrase Pink Flamingoes (and Tapioca Pudding A handful of dried apricots, chopped 2. Combine water, dried fruit and why not?), not only are we the filthiest Parsley to serve, roughly chopped spices in a small saucepan. Bring to people in the world, but we are also the 3 cups of milk a boil, reduce heat, and gently sim- filthiest chefs in the world. That’s why 1/3 cup of tapioca (rice-like stuff) Fry onion in a heavy saucepan, and mer for 5 minutes we’ve brought you such incongruous 2 egg yolks when it begins to soften add the cin- 3. Place grated carrots in a bowl and delights as trifle, tagine and tapioca 1/4 teaspoon of salt namon. Stir until coated and aromat- pour hot fruit mixture over them. pudding. Not strictly Lenten, being 1/3 cup sugar ic, then add the sweet potato, auber- Allow to cool completely neither seasonal nor sacrificial, but you 1 teaspoon of vanilla gine, and tinned tomatoes. Follow 4. Add the walnuts and orange juice to may notice that all our offerings are this with the harissa paste and dried carrot bowl and mix well vegetarian. Don’t panic though; this 1. Soak tapioca in milk for an hour. apricots, and mix gently. Reduce the 5. Add the dry to the wet ingredients Ethical Affair doesn’t include ‘Tofur- 2. Put everything in a bowl. heat and simmer until the vegetables and stir well to combine. Pour the key’ (a pretend turkey product, for But I digress. Get a few localised 3. Bring mixture to boil for fifteen are tender, about 40 minutes. batter into a lightly greased cake tin. those of you unfamiliar with meat-free friends, pressgang them into bringing minutes and then simmer for anoth- Serve with a cous cous cooked in 6. Bake at gas mark 6 for 45 minutes, feasting). Dietary taboos have to start a course and start a grassroots dinner er twenty. You know it’s ready when vegetable stock, and festooned with or until a toothpick inserted into the somewhere… party. Or breakfast party. There’s noth- the tapioca has become translucent. raisins and toasted almonds. Eat centre comes out clean. The recipes can be made easily in ing like being woken up to trifle and 4. Serve when warm and then be with friends (serves four) and booze, Disclaimer: this one probably won’t the most basic of ‘gyp’ rooms. By the light conversation in bed. happy because it tastes nice. and hopefully have sex afterwards. lead to sex.

Lion king Adventure (starts on page 13): Big blunder. The pill makes you concentrate, for sure, but on completely the wrong stuff: you spend the next three hours sharpening pencils. The upshot is that though you’ve got a whole load of HBs ready to rumble, you’re nevertheless massively late for the hustings. Rescue the situation. »p16 Read from the Bible. »p17 Hand out free pencils. Friday March 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Columnists 15 Bruce Almighty BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN WILL FINALLY BE HEADLINING GLASTONBURY THIS SUMMER; SUPERFAN MICKY ALEXANDER EXPLAINS WHY THE BOSS IS GOD ruce Springsteen is not the most reject it go to Hell, and those who are thought it was worth a punt. I listened Bfashionable guy to like. Unfor- never exposed to them – unbaptised to that CD over and over again, and tunately most music fans seem to be babies and the like – go to Limbo. a couple of days later I went out and stuck with the image of 80s Bruce, Well, many face the same sort of test bought Live In New York.  en, over circa Born In e USA, as a stadium on meeting me. If you love Springs- the next few weeks, I bought up every rocker who writes identikit songs teen, then welcome aboard. If you hate Springsteen CD I could  nd – all about girls, cars, cars, girls and the him, then I’m sorry, but you’re own di erent, each brilliant.  e overly- occasional motorbike. How wrong words have condemned you. If you’ve verbose lyrics of Greetings From As- Competition they are. never really heard his music, out- bury Park; the starkness of Nebraska I should state at this point side of perhaps ‘Born In  e USA’, or Darkness on the Edge of Town; the Each week we set a di erent crea- that my appreciation for Bruce I’m afraid you are in Limbo, pure rock ‘n’ roll of Born To Run; the tive writing exercise.  e person who Springsteen is not bounded relationship-wise. stadium pomp of Born In e USA; submits the winning entrance has by logic or proportion. I  at’s not even to mention the jazzy epics of e Wild, e In- their story printed in the next week’s once had an argument with the various heresies, of which nocent & e E Street Shu e; and the Varsity, and is rewarded with two free a friend over whether the most widespread must be bittersweet Tunnel of Love.  ey were tickets to an ADC  eatre show. Bruce Springsteen was the Dylanite heresy; he is a like new worlds, each one. as important to me as prophet, not the messiah.  e six best gigs I have attended Week 8: Triolets. A triolet should rhyme abaaabab. It also uses repeated lines Jesus was to him. I  en of course there are in my life have been the six times I – line 1 becomes lines 4 and 7, and line 2 is repeated as line 8. In a good trio- de nitely won. those who compare Bruce have seen Springsteen. As good as he let, the meaning of the lines should be subtly di erent when repeated: don’t be  at friend was to the likes of Billy Joel, is on the record, Springsteen live is afraid to change punctuation, etc. a Roman Catholic. herea er referred to something else. And now, he’s playing Springsteen himself is a ectionately as the Glastonbury. I don’t know how he’ll Winner: a lapsed Catholic, as Antichrist. Or maybe work at a festival, considering the A Trio of Triolets much of the imagery that should be the shortest set I’ve seen him do was two in his songs attests antiBruce...is Tom Waits and three-quarter hours, and the long- Morning Triolet - Country – listen to ‘Lost in the John the Baptist? I think est was well over four, but let’s set aside Flood’, or one of the I’ve pushed this metaphor such petty quibbles. If you get any- Da odils grow by a ruined arch, innumerable songs fea- well beyond breaking point. where near a ticket, then all I can say  at casts a dull colour over them turing a girl named Mary.  e  rst time I heard is, sell any organ you can feasibly live As it halts the sunrise. It is March; I think I can best explain Bruce I remember being without to get it. You won’t regret it. Da odils grow. By a ruined arch the impact of Springsteen distinctly surprised that Oh, and I suppose I should recom- A backpacker collapses, throat parched, upon me with recourse to he was a white guy. A mend a track for those of you who Drains his bottle and chews a grass stem. Catholic theology. Ortho- year later I saw the want to get to know Bruce better. Da odils grow by a ruined arch, dox Catholicism states that Greatest Hits  ere’s far too many to choose from,  at casts a dull colour over them. those who embrace the on sale and but how about ‘Racing In  e Streets’? teachings of the Church recognising It’s a haunting and bleak ballad about Morning Triolet – Town go to Heaven, those who the name I loss, life, and, er...girls and cars. Dishwater douses the cobbles, poured from A second- oor window, as someone shouts. A pair of tracksuit trousers bounce, legs strong. Dishwater douses the cobbles; poured from A bucket held in cold thick hands, soap-worn.  e sun has hours yet to burn through those clouds. Dishwater douses the cobbles, poured from A second story window as someone shouts. Penitent’s Triolet Somewhere under my weakness are my real wants: A prism-soul that reads its acts and comes to know  eir secret qualities. Pray: that a clean spring runs Somewhere. Under my weakness? Are my real wants MISSION: TO DELVE INTO CAMBRIDGE’S SECRET ORIFICES Where that clarity is found? Take me to the font. WEEK 8: GIRTON COLLEGE BAR Let drops beat even rhythm with my yes and no. Somewhere, under my weakness, are my real wants. y College bar closed on Tuesday. now I was more determined than ever to discovered from an ex-member of my A prism-soul: that reads, that acts, that comes to know. M e new one is opening today, pursue the seldom trodden path to this College that he’d been banned from the and it’s bigger and shinier and better, remote Mecca of debauchery. premises a er announcing that the Mis- Hugh Burling but nonetheless Tuesday night was very  e taxi pulled up outside what ap- tress was a “ t little tart” during a formal much seen as  e End, as swathes of peared to be a stately home. J and I hov- dinner, which may or may not have had Runner-up: students old and new poured into the ered, suddenly feeling very isolated and something to do with it. Regardless, I felt very limited space for a  nal nostalgic vulnerable. I was reminded of the orgy let down. In the Villain’s Lair (and doomed) attempt to secure a lock- scene in Eyes Wide Shut and wondered if We  nished our wine and called a in, and drunkenly to sing College songs I should have brought a mask. taxi to take us to Cindies. As we made Mr Bond, I presume? with misty-eyed enthusiasm and little We made our way through labyrin- to leave, however, there was a sudden Being shot is too good for you. in the way of coherent melody.  ink thine hallways and down a staircase in ux of people, establishing a highly And no grand tomb, the Pogues if half of them were actually into an underground bar which faintly satisfactory male-female ratio. Perhaps Mr Bond. English public school veterans. Oh, wait, resembled an S & M dungeon, all red we were making a mistake? Just then, two I presume yeah: think the Pogues. uplighters, tucked away booths and ex- strapping gents (previously un-clocked) you will not escape your doom? As the  nal closure approached, panic posed brick archways. We were the only blocked our path. “You can’t leave set in. What would we do for two whole people there.  e bar lady surveyed us now!” they cried, “THE SHOW’S JUST Danger is a thrill for you, days without a cheap bar at stumbling silently with a look that said, “You’re not BEGINNING!” … and proceeded to Mr Bond. I presume distance? We were fairly sure this con- from these parts...” and, fearing that our strip, rapidly, to their boxer shorts.  is being shot is too. stituted a civil rights infringement. For- hacked up bodies might one day be dis- was more like it.  e bar lady nodded tunately I had a suggestion. “I know of a covered under the charmingly unlevelled at the trousers around their ankles and Good for you place,” I said. “A bar far, far away where  ooring, we secured a bottle of wine and snapped, “pull them up or take them few students have ever ventured before.” retreated to a corner. out” with an unsurprised irritation which Philippa Steele  e others raised a sceptical eyebrow. An hour passed. I began to hallucinate suggested the scene was commonplace. “’Tis called Girton,” I said.  ere was a tumbleweed. A few people turned up, J and I began to reconsider our deci- Final competition: An exercise by John Gardner: A man is waiting at a bus hushed silence. A few of the elders shook but all seemed rather docile. Tentative sion. Cindies, however, beckoned, and stop. He has just learned that his son has died violently. Describe the setting their wizened heads. One leaned in con- enquiries revealed that the Master’s ef- unable to persuade the men in question from the man’s point of view without telling your reader what has happened. spiratorially, whispering over his ale like forts to prevent any ents being organised to accompany us, and unwilling to pass How will the street look? What are the sounds? Odours? Colours? What will an ancient sailor. “Have ye heard the tale,” has led to a general disillusionment with up our taxi to pay homage to the site of his clothes feel like? Send submissions to Colette Sensier at literary@varsity. he hissed, “of the Girton  reesome?” College socialising, and many Girtoni- the – apparently real – threesome, we co.uk by April 18th for the chance to win two tickets to the  rst ADC show of No. I hadn’t. And I didn’t believe it. But ans eschew the bar for local pubs. I later reluctantly departed. But we will be back. next term, and to see your work printed in the last regular issue of the year!

LION KING ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 13): “Hakuna Matata,” you incant. “What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna matata! Ain’t no passing craze. Hakuna matata! It means no worries, for the rest of your days.” But this does go down when with your opponent. “ at’s not a policy,” he argues. “ at’s just a line from  e Lion King. p20 Point out that this is ok because you are in fact the Lion King. p21 Change tack and talk about the Beijing Olympics. Want something listed? Friday March 6th 2009 16 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

Ongoing: Friday 6th Ongoing Exhibitions Friday 6th e Class Romeo and Juliet Jazz@Johns Party Event Fitzwilliam Museum (free): Why has the Indian State locked up Arts Picturehouse: (daily) 1pm (not Derek: e Footlights Spring Revue Fisher Building, St John’s: 9pm (£5) • ‘I turned it into a palace’: Sir Sydney the good doctor? Tues), 3.45pm (not Sat/Sun), 6pm e Chairs is term’s Party Event features Cockerell and the Fitz (until Tues Keynes Hall, King’s: 6pm (free) (Sun only), 6.30pm (not Sat/Sun) Seven Jewish Children three great bands with CU Jazz 17th) See Pick of the Week. Palme d’Or-winning  ick about the Father/Son Orchestra headlining. Promises • e Immortal Stone – Chinese jades pressures faced by teachers and pupils e Vampire to be a great place to chill out and (until May 31st) Saturday 7th in the school of a tough Parisian Cardenio relax with some jazz and a couple • Changing faces: Anthony Van Dyck Mastana neighbourhood. Sodom of drinks, but there’s also plenty of as an etcher (until May 31st) Corn Exchange: 7pm (£10-£14) Historical Fiction space for a bit of dancing! • Kachōfūgetsu – the natural world Head to Cambridge’s ‘greatest Gran Torino e Water Bears in Japanese prints (until May 17th, Asian Cultural Arts Show’ (below), Vue: (daily) 1pm, 3.40pm, 6.30pm, e Boyfriend Saturday 7th see p29) the 12th annual event hosted by the 9.10pm Read the reviews on p26-7 and at Churchill Jazz Band Kettle’s Yard (free): CU Hindu Cultural Society. e man with the most intimidating varsity.co.uk/reviews. Churchill College, Wolfson Hall: 8pm • e Roundhouse Of International voice in cinema returns to clean up (£2-£4) Spirits (until Sun 15th) the  lthy streets of suburban America. Sunday 8th Quality big band entertainment It’s Dirty Harry with lawnmowers, e Sunday Night Sketch Show including swing, funk and Latin. and Clint is out for blood. See review Keynes Hall, Kings’ College: 9.30pm Friday 6th p29. (£2) e Queen Mary Consort Sunday 8th St John’s College Chapel: 8pm (£3-£5, Sundays used to be famous for Live Modern Jazz with the Andy Bowie e International churchgoing, roast dinners and not free for TCMS members) Vue: 12.20pm (Sat/Sun only), 3pm, Quartet Specialising in contemporary works much else, but ask anyone today and Cricketers, 18 Melbourne Place: 5.50pm, 8.30pm, 11.20pm (Fri/Sat they’ll tell you that Sunday = sketch neglected by most chapel choirs, this only) 8.30pm (free) collection of Cambridge choral schol- comedy. e gig lives on! Monday 9th Clive Owen and Naomi Watts negoti- ars will be performing MacMillan, ate lots of jump-cuts while trying to Saxton, and Lukaszewski. ‘You can change the world – Tuesday 10th through prayer’ expose an evil  nancial organisation Guys and Dolls Darwin Room, Pitt Building, Trump- (boo hiss!) who secretly deal in weap- ADC: 7.45pm, Saturday matinee Saturday 7th ons and secrets. CUMS Chorus with PRIME BRASS ington Street: 7.30pm (free) 2.30pm (£7-£10) A free lecture by Lyle Young, CSB. e big Broadway musical that’s Trinity College Chapel: 8pm (£5-£15) Watchmen put a smile on the face of millions of Cambridge based professionals, Prime Arts Picturehouse: Fri/Sat, 11pm, Brass, will perform a range of 20th- Wolfson Howler theatregoers worldwide. Runs until Wolfson College Bar: 8pm (£6, £2 for 2.15pm, 5.30pm, 8.45pm; Sun- urs: Sat 21st. and 21st-century works with CUMS 1.45pm, 5pm, 8.15pm Chorus. Wolfson students) More laughs a minute than you Highly anticipated adaptation of the e Real ing Sunday 8th can throw a pun at, with Steve Hall acclaimed graphic novel. Superheroes Corpus Playroom: 7pm (£5-£6) headlining and Ed Gamble MCing. with no superpowers, a villain who See Pick of the Week. Runs until Sat CU Chinese Orchestra Society (CU- wants world peace and a blue demi- 14th. COS) Lent Term concert god who prefers Mars to Earth. Queens Building Auditorium, Em- Tuesday 10th manuel College: 4pm or 8pm, (£3-£6) Sprung! ‘09 Wednesday 11th Fitzpatrick Hall Queens’ College: e Young Victoria Barry, Pull Your Finger Out! Award-winning harmonica vir- Arts Picturehouse: (daily) 12.00 (ex- Tuesday 10th tuoso Jia-Ye He performs Chinese 8pm (£4-£5) ADC: 11pm (£4-£6) Patrick Wolf A showcase of new works in dance cept Weds), 2.40, 6.50, 9.10 is brand spanking new comic and Taiwanese folk songs and his own Emily Blunt, Paul Bettany and, e Junction 1: 8pm (£11.50 adv.) compositions. and  lm. play by Daran Johnson is the 2009 See last week’s Varsity for our inter- strangely, Princess Beatrice all make Harry Porter Winner and is not to be view with the enigmatic Mr Wolf Tuesday 10th ‘Creativity: Beyond the Self’ an appearance in the new  lm about missed. Runs until Sat 14th. (above), who brings his amazing MCR Room, Newnham College: rich dead British people and the Simon Trpceski power of love/corsets. Do say: “Oh multi-instrumentalism to Cambridge e eatre, Peterhouse: 8.30pm (£15) 7.30pm (free) Miscellaneous eatre Festival for one night and one night only. Presented by the Arts Society, my, I was quite carried away by the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio: 7pm is could be your last chance to see romance of it all.” Don’t say: “Isn’t this an incredible young talent in such an Newnham College. e interna- (free) ursday 12th tionally-acclaimed sculptor Helaine just Elizabeth with rosier cheeks?” is ridiculously exciting event intimate setting. Royal Philharmonic Soundcheck Young Artist Award-winner Trpceski Blumenfeld will be talking about features loads of new work from some Fitzwilliam College: 9pm (£6) ‘madness’ and about  nding and St. John’s Film of Cambridge’s  nest student writers. will be playing pianistic favourites by Sunday 8th: 7pm and 10pm MJ Cole and DJ Frankly Sick head the Debussy, Chopin and Proko ev. escaping the self in relation to crea- Runs until Fri 13th. bill at Fitz’s always-great Soundcheck. tive processes. Frost/Nixon

e Real ing Why has the Indian State locked up Tues 10th - Sat 14th the good doctor? Corpus Playroom: 7pm (£5-£6) Friday 6th Henry is a successful playwright trying Keynes Hall, King’s: 6pm (free) to write a play about the true nature Since May 2007, award-winning pae- of love. Does he even know what that diatrician and human rights activist is? Henry and his wife Charlotte, Binayak Sen has been held in Indian their friends Max and Annie, and a jail on false charges for attempting to jailed political activist named Brodie expose governmental corruption. is collide and their lives will never be the is a special  lm screening on Dr Sen, same. Tom Stoppard’s crackling and followed by a talk with his wife Ilina hilarious dialogue frames this deep Sen. Come and be part of a move- exploration of love, art and joy. ment to demand his release.

LION KING ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 13): You search for the bit in Ecclesiastes where God bigs up writing implements, but you’re in such a funk that you can’t  nd it. You’ll have to quote another bit instead. p24 Romans 14:2. p25 Ezekiel 25:17 Friday March 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 17

zing Tsjeng

Conservatism with a human face Is Oliver Letwin the man to cure Britain of its social ills? After speaking at the Emmanuel College Politics Society, he explained to Moya Tilly Sarner how the Conservatives can fulfil labour’s aims through different means ormer Shadow Home Secretary, ing as Chairman of the Conservative reaucratic impotency, as opposed to coming out of this review, with which able to make headway, as should Fformer Shadow Chancellor of the Policy Review, and which he hopes will Cameron’s socially mobilising climax. he did not look at all at ease. Asked those from privileged backgrounds.” Exchequer, present Chairman of the pave his party’s way from leading the Does this mark the start of a new apo- if it was not the responsibility of the A typically diplomatic response, but Conservative Research Department debate to leading the country, trans- litical era? Or does Letwin just know government, rather than that of the one that is given some substance by and Policy Review, and future Secre- forming that “intellectual ascendency” his customers? In a College where a voluntary sector, to help the under- the fact that both he and Phillips are tary of State? If the polls and Labour’s into electoral victory. May Ball entitled ‘Empire’ provoked privileged, Letwin seemed to lose trustees of the Social Mobility Foun- self-immolation are anything to go by, His analysis is certainly compelling; outrage reported in the national press, his cool. His hostile rebuke that who dation, which gives bright students Oliver Letwin will wield considerable the government’s bureaucracy locks any astute political chameleon would achieves the results is not important, from poorer households a leg-up into power in the next government of the people into dependency by treat- show off the redder items from his the old ‘what matters is what works’ their chosen career. When speaking United Kingdom. ing them as a composite of disparate wardrobe of values. Hence, no doubt, argument, was unconvincing, and that of this organisation’s achievements, Letwin is widely regarded as one of problems rather than as individuals Letwin’s crimson-coloured tie. chink in his armour of compassion Letwin’s whole demeanour lights up. the country’s most intellectual politi- in themselves. Those on benefits are So perhaps this is nothing but a momentarily revealed the entrenched His exclamation that there are “little cians – “a very damaging accusation”, constantly shunted from department rose-tinted front, I wonder, as Letwin’s division of partisan politics that is still miracles” going on all over the place, he smilingly deflects; and his top-class to department, given conflicting advice compassionate conservatism shows far from being bridged. all the time, may have been a little education at Eton and Trinity College, by assorted bodies, with no regard for occasional cracks of blue, and hints All that said, his aspirations to vomitous, but the implication that Cambridge, has lent his thought a the whole picture. What is needed, of old Tory attitudes seem to seep achieve those enlightened ends and real progress could be made if such tenor that verges dangerously on the he argues, is a consistent, cohesive, through. Criminals are referred to as his conviction in those means seem projects were given a more major role academic. How does he bridge that comprehensive approach, which treats “damaged goods”; the government genuine; and anyone with a social was a heartening one. If I didn’t leave gap, I ask, from the ivory towers, the the person as just that, so as to build must break the “cycle of deprivation”. conscience will hope he is right, shouting “Yes we can!”, I was certainly theoretical, and the books, to the prac- a humanised, personalised, procedure But these terms, on Letwin’s lips, are should he come to power. But what thinking “Perhaps we could...” tice of politics, people, and their very which brings stability and progress to imbued with empathy as opposed to of Trevor Phillips’ assertion that his But what about that favourite bis- real problems? “I don’t see academia those whom it serves. Hard to argue condemnation, and expose a proactive task as head of the Equality and Hu- cuit? “Large, home-made, rather crum- and politics as two worlds. Of course with that; as someone who likes to political architecture that aims to help man Rights Commission is “to break bly buscuits that my family bakes.” practising scholarship is different from consider herself left-wing, I found my- by providing constructive support. So the grip of white men who went to Ahah! Sounds like family values to practising politics. But serious, grown- self uncomfortably warming to what far, so lefty. public school?” How can Letwin fix me! I bet he prefers cupcakes with blue up exploration of ethical, philosophi- Letwin had to say. A Tory? Moi? Better But. Letwin claims his Policy Review that problem when he embodies it? icing too. Whatever political colours cal, historical, and anthropological ide- knock back my last glass of champagne has found the answer: decentralisation. “I agree with Trevor in that we have Letwin chooses to don or consume, as, which is the kind of academic work socialism while my internal inconsist- What a scoop, I hear you cry; a Tory to make sure that people achieve whatever school uniform he used to I was involved in, means thinking in ency will still swallow it. who believes in less interference from what their talents and efforts will wear, and whatever his favourite sweet ways which have an effect on how we But Letwin soon soothes that fear central government! But this is fairly permit, and not have a society where snack, his arguments were on the way see and do things. And similarly, seri- of all things Conservative. Deliberate- radical welfare reform. By mobilising people are locked into positions. This to convincing me that his policies ous, grown-up politics means thinking ly constructing a bipartisan backdrop the voluntary sector, giving charita- means that those who are talented would leave us with “a better society about how we ought to see and do to his policy analysis, he informs his ble organisations the money saved in and hard-working coming from less rather than a worse one at the end”. If things, and not just doing them. There audience that there is now no contrast benefits for every unemployed person privileged backgrounds should be only for his taste in biscuits. is a vital need for people who will between the aims of Cameron and they get back into work, Letwin hopes conduct the discussion that lies be- those of New Labour; both seek to to realise “two goals simultaneously”, tween scholarship and administration, reduce poverty, increase social mobil- allowing Britain to climb out of the Live and Letwin in order to connect the two, because ity, and improve public services. Both recession, and into a “better society otherwise we lose all the benefits of parties share the same progressive rather than a worse one at the end”. 1956 Born to two academics in Hampstead thought when we come to do the most objectives; the difference lies in the The only way “to achieve more without important thing we ever do, which is means by which they intend to reach vast additional spending is to change 1981 Returns to Cambridge as a Research Fellow at Darwin to organise our own society.” them. the way we do business, and to enable This blend of academic rigour and Letwin (whilst at University a people by dealing with them at a much 1983 Becomes a member of Thatcher’s Policy Unit practical politics found form during member of the Liberal Club) has more local level, on a human basis”. 1997 Becomes MP for West Dorset Letwin’s talk in his critique of New climbed into bed with the liberal But there is one fundamental breach Labour’s social policy. It is this discus- ethic, whilst maintaining that Brown’s between the goals of New Labour and 2001 Appointed Shadow Home Secretary by Iain Duncan Smith sion, amongst others, that he is direct- route will lead to spluttering, bu- of Letwin, widened by his policies

Lion King Adventure (starts on page 13): Everyone loves a gratis bit of graphite, and they show their appreciation with their feet at the elections. You win as turnout rockets to a record 12.2.%, more than any other Russell Group university in Cambridge. »p14 But it would have been more fun if you’d gone all religious. Fashion Editors: Kate Womersley, Alice Newell-Hanson & Katy King Friday March 6th 2009 Friday March 6th 2009 Contribute to Varsity Fashion: 18 Fashion [email protected] varsity.co.uk varsity.co.uk [email protected] Fashion 19 H E From left to right: Jack wears panama hat by Anthony, £47.95; Jessica wears beret by Arthur Shepherd, £7.95; Camilla wears felt hat by Topshop, £25; Kwamina wears Kosak hat by & Navy Stores,Army £35; Sarah wears straw hat by Jigsaw, £37; James wears knitted hat, Oxfam, £1 A D C

Styling by Alice Newell-Hanson & Kate Womersley A Make-up by Bobbi Brown at John Lewis

Photography by Katy King S E How the World

Creation, after a time slumming with progress, reapplied itself on a hillside where my feet were lizards flirting with the patio heat. The second day brought a valley of sundried cloth, towels fluttering a scent of shrubs and myrtle and afternoon laid out like a bronze turtle. Rain ran its fingertips round the basin’s rim, ushering scowling clouds from the mountain ridge and a smell of cheese cured three days in a ditch. Flying ants didn’t make it through the night and lay crusting on a half-diamond marble tile; all the while life waiting for them to spoil. The thought of this valley glowing under winter, with a drift of snow slumbering across the hill, is how the world became reordered in a lull. A scorpion came on the final evening in the muggy funk of a summer downpour, a jet shard twisting on the glazed tor. At twenty-five to six, light pushed out the old sky and coaxed apart the house’s stubborn, resting doors to the basking birds and cicadas’ applause. www.pomegranate.me.uk AN INTRODUCTION

The ezinePomegranate was formed in the summer of 2007, when two future Cambridge students, Charlotte Runcie and Emily Tesh, decided to fill a gap in UK poetry: a quarterly magazine publishing poems and criticism only by the under-30s. Six editions on,Pomegranate receives hundreds of submissions per issue, of which twenty or so are published on the site, www.pomegranate.me.uk. The magazine has given a plat- form to Londoners, Glaswegians and Texans; to students, schoolchildren and wage-earners; to young writers who have never been published before and to established names – including the two most acclaimed under-30s poets in the country, Luke Kennard and Frances Leviston.

This introduction collects ten of the best poems featured in Pomegranate’s first six editions. The magazine welcomes submissions (see the back page for details), especially those which, like the poems printed here, show artistry, intelligence, and imagination. In the meantime, here are some of the most interesting young voices in poetry. www.pomegranate.me.uk www.pomegranate.me.uk

Apollo’s Hyacinths Seducing the Leopard Gecko The Clinic Advice to Little Red Riding Hood

Not much of a courtship, this afterwards love. You wrap yourself in cowslip and walk The clinic brooded silently Count slowly to ten. I come by Tuesdays to the allotments’ gate to the disused allotment down the road. behind its automatic doors – trying so hard not to be white. Know that the trees, in my best coat and scarf, and watch you shove A frozen necropolis for old issues of Cosmo, though they interlace their fi ngers bulbs into the incipient soil, and wait. The sun pours honey through the leaves: suspensefully, ask for nothing. even this is essential, as is the strip leafed through by girls Always remember to breathe. We barely speak – gardening gloves, cuttings, shears - who loudly advertise that they’re bitches – Let the shadows of the forest but what you give me, I can make do with – of bark in your pocket, rubbing brittle spray on tan, metallic heels, venereal diseases. make patterns upon you; those days when the low sun warms my ears, on a needle-fi tted badge. There, hold the tender column of your spine and you bend across with your spartan kiss. I sat in the kids’ corner, as if you would grow green with leaves. between the weeds and strewn tin cans: too demure for the waiting area, Before the belly of the wolf, Come April, your cheeks are touched with triumph. a lance of gold lazes on a rock, lasers piecing together eight-spoked plastic fl owers admire the size of his teeth, Festoons lie about you, bringing the glory days undying. the intensity of his hunger, back from the underworld, and mine the ‘hmph!’ beneath a drift of woodchips. You kneel Children’s toys. your own perfect redness of being planted in the wrong place, and hold out the bark from your pocket for battle, I remembered the satisfying stiff click holes holding in your hands whilst you cherish your unrepeatable trick, like a ringbox, pin the badge, its face the fervid brightness of fl owers,

Laura Marsh the bloom in your heart that no one can pick. refl ective, above your breast pocket. from nursery school. all the things your grandmother

bECKY VARLEY-WINTER bECKY forgot to tell you about wolves. You have already reclaimed from the charity I waited for you shop the terrarium in which you both will live. but didn’t have the guts to go in myself – do a swab-test – let the rubber blue-fi nger butterfl ies in between my legs. The gecko hears your fl attery (one must use fl attery) and slips out her brass bullet You asked me if I didn’t trust doctors. of a head, tests the air with a fl ick, I would fi nd out two weeks later the baby – fi nding the musk of decayed trees, scent the dream I’d warmed somewhere below sickness, of the improbable, that mix of the erotic was dead. I bled it out. and the innocent. But you have her now, You got free condoms. palm-locked, squeezing too tightly

James midgley James this creature you dress in familiar names. I ran for the bus. aMY bLAKEMORE

Discovery Riding Northwards on the GNER to Edinburgh While you’ve called me up, I suppose you’ll be just desperate to know “Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see how I feel the subjects we dreamed up That spectacle of too much weight for me.” Small Things turned out. Well, to start with, —‘Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward’, John Donne what’s with all the mindless praise for Copernicus? His system (with There’s emptiness here that rings in your bones its Greek name enduring), These are the days That time when we turned our backs on sorrow like a tuning fork, so you need really so much the big achievement and watched time reverse with our northern passage of modern European science, These are the days collapsing like shelves of coral, through speckled meadowland and harvest crows to concentrate on small things; blades of grass had a precedent, I hope pinching to a wound, a star, a whittled tip rucking into the hayrolls, past old kirks and burges, edging through the concrete. you realise – a precedent of light. We make our homes out of pitch the walls and spans of greystone and yorkstone The wind picking out in my beloved Samos, which many thought and mortar, shavings from our mothers’ best soap, and under the cathedral arches of Newcastle station, the shivers along your skin. the centre of the universe, except songs someone hummed in the dark, rocking Berwick’s steads and scarps threshed to the skin-ridged seas, the one-and-only Aristarchus, and rocking. We are a million fl ung dewdrops herds cliff-perched and hovels plotted between course You should walk. Let your footsteps charm up although I loved the place. burning brighter than pinpricks, the cosmic handful and rocks, the lead and slate roofs fl ung an echo, the company I know you scoff at us: how easy of dust that clamps the earth and will not from centuries ago into the vales before us, of ghost feet it must have been, how pathetic let go. Salt pebbles the underside of our tongues, each spire a reformation, every hedge a land act, to claim credit for the basics and all around landmarks are scattered every colour so strong it left us like batik. and keep thinking of small things. Like the way your ten-year-olds can understand, how like broken moons. Our hands are for fashioning The nets we spread need fl ocks of gulls you ring doorbells and then run your lungs raw, the way we had our pick of subjects to advance stories, our mouths for unhooking desires. to hoist them up to beauty. while your every innovation Bridled in snow, we bear the lurch of seasons, return Every loss cuffs us to misery – you write messages in the dust was known a thousand years before, to damp earth stricken with small fi sted fl owers. the ancient hedges, the ties to the centuries old, fi lming the windows but we had to discover subjects, before ‘discovery’ And here after three days of rain when gone, leave us reduced and unrestored,

Ben davison but, through time, consoled. though there’s nobody to read them.

could even begin to be a word. TTOOULI gEORGE

the day unclenches with such a tumble of light. Sophie mackintosh sHARON WANG sHARON The Six Times My Heart Broke www.pomegranate.me.uk

The fi rst time my heart broke was in an elephant graveyard. The elephant skulls looked like urinals with tusks. ‘Why have you brought me to this elephant graveyard?’ I asked. ‘It’s not working out,’ she said. ‘You love me more than I love you. I thought the elephant carcasses made a nice backdrop.’ The second time my heart broke was in the middle of the second take of an action sequence in a heist movie. ‘That wasn’t in the script,’ I said to my co-star. ‘I know,’ she replied, and we cowered behind the car door for a series of controlled explosions.

The third time my heart broke I had my heart removed and replaced by a donor heart. I dipped my former heart into a container of liquid nitrogen and dropped it onto a paving slab where it smashed. ‘Art project,’ I explained to a pedestrian. The fourth time my heart broke was when I swept up the shards of my frozen heart and carried them in a coolbox to a nearby gallery, but while I was chatting with the gallery owner, a dog used his nose to dislodge the coolbox lid and ate the heart. ‘Maybe we could exhibit the turd,’ suggested the gallery owner. The fi fth time my heart broke was when the dog turd that was once my heart was sealed in a glass container and purchased by an elite terrorist group, exhibited as an example of Western decadence – being an especially odious example of our cultural life – and used to recruit car bombers, one of whom obliterated my penpal while he was drafting a response to my overly-critical review of his fi rst novel. The sixth time my heart broke I was working out my donor heart by swimming laps in a crater full of rainwater. ‘I have nothing to say,’ said a boy standing at the edge of the crater. ‘Or nobody wants to hear it, anyway.’ I wanted to yell and tell him not to get discouraged, but I had swallowed a duck

Luke Kennard Luke call and so could only quack. He left and never painted the triptych he was supposed to.

How the World

Creation, after a time slumming with progress, reapplied itself on a hillside where my feet were lizards fl irting with the patio heat. The second day brought a valley of sundried cloth, towels fl uttering a scent of shrubs and myrtle SUBMISSIONS and afternoon laid out like a bronze turtle. Rain ran its fi ngertips round the basin’s rim, ushering scowling clouds from the mountain ridge and a smell of cheese cured three days in a ditch. Flying ants didn’t make it through the night and lay crusting on a half-diamond marble tile; If you’re a writer under the age of thirty, we’d love you all the while life waiting for them to spoil. to submit your work. The thought of this valley glowing under winter, with a drift of snow slumbering across the hill, See http://www.pomegranate.me.uk/submissions.html is how the world became reordered in a lull. for how to send us your wordsmithery. We also welcome submissions of artwork and A scorpion came on the fi nal evening poetry-related articles. in the muggy funk of a summer downpour, a jet shard twisting on the glazed tor. At twenty-fi ve to six, light pushed out the old sky and coaxed apart the house’s stubborn, resting doors

Dai George Dai to the basking birds and cicadas’ applause.

Laura Marsh is President of the Oxford University Poetry Society. James Midgley, a winner of an Eric Gregory award, is currently studying for his Mas- ter’s degree in poetry at the UEA. He edits the poetry journal Mimesis. Ben Davison lives in Glasgow, where he works in a cash and carry. Sophie Mackin- tosh is from Pembrokeshire in Wales. She is currently studying English & Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. Becky Varley-Winter graduated from Cambridge in 2008, and currently lives in London, where she studies for an MA in English and sometimes writes non-academic things, too. Amy Blakemore is 17 years old and is doing her A-Levels. She will be featured in a forthcoming anthology from Bloodaxe, Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century. George Ttoouli is an Honorary Teaching Fellow for the Warwick Writing Programme and a freelance editor and writer. With Simon Turner he co-edits Gists and Piths, a blogzine dedicated to the discussion and publication of contemporary poetry. Sharon Wang studies at the other Cambridge (Massachusetts), and would like to live inside a whale. Luke Kennard is the youngest poet ever to be shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, for his second collection e Harbour Beyond the Movie. His third collection e Migraine Hotel is out from Salt in April. He lectures in creative writing at the University of Birmingham. Dai George splits his time between Cardi and New York. He is studying for an MFA at Columbia University. Sarah Larsen, cover artist, is a 22-year old Dane with a lot of tattoos.  is preview was put together by Dan Hitchens, Emily Tesh, Charlotte Runcie, and Sean Jones. Features Editor: Joe Hunter Friday March 6th 2009 20 Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk Left Behind ‘Nasty Nick Cohen,’ raged The Socialist Worker, after the publication of What’s Left?. Nick Cohen, a journalist who had always been one of their own, had broken away. Andy Ryan listens to the author’s side of things

here are plenty of good reasons made clear in his rather good inaugura- lot of suppressed class hatred in middle- “Tfor opposing the Iraq War and tion speech, knows very well that he’s class liberal thinking. I’ve never said people should have been going to face an Iran that wants the “There’s a lot of dislike which I think for it,” Nick Cohen begins. “But why is bomb, he’s going to face a psychopathic is quite dangerous as we go into a reces- there no support anywhere in the rich radical Islamist movement, and he’s sion. There’s going to be the most terri- world for Iraqi democrats, feminists going to face Russia and China flexing ble increase in poverty. I suspect people and socialists who want something their muscles. are going to say ‘well look, we’ve had better after 35 years of the most terrible “Not everything in the world is the twelve years of a Labour government, tyranny? Solidarity used to be the best fault of the West. It’s almost a colonial they’re meant to have done something principle of the Left. It’s not as simple as point of view, that the root cause of about all this. If people are poor now asking why wasn’t there more support everything is the West. There are totali- it’s their own fault.’ That is something for the war, it’s asking what happened to tarian movements which are just going which needs to be argued against very the best of the left-wing tradition. to be there. George Bush goes and they h ard .” “It’s far wider than Iraq. Imagine are still there.” Regarding the economic crisis, it I was to show you an article defend- Cohen is concerned that anti- is Labour’s contribution that really ing a movement, probably a radical Americanism has also driven the civil fascinates Cohen. “The great crashes of Islamist movement, that is misogynist, liberties agenda. “I’m not against people capitalism have never happened under sexist, anti-gay, that wants to abolish defending civil liberties. I’m very weary a left-of-centre government before this. democracy and impose some kind of though when the only things highlight- The great booms and busts have always authoritarianism. If I then ask you to ed are crimes from the West. If the only happened under governments that guess which kind of newspaper that’s abuse of civil liberties that you’re going were laissez-faire, like Bush in America from, you’ll say straight away that it’s a to condemn is Guantanamo Bay and or Hoover in 1929. Governments who left-wing paper. you say nothing about what’s going on essentially believed the market can “You’ve got to have some idea of the in China and Iran then you don’t really regulate itself or governments that were history of the left to see how malign believe in civil liberties. frankly corrupt. That’s what happened that is. In the 30s that would have been “You’ve got to believe in universal in Britain with the South Sea Bubble in the other way around. It was con- human rights. If not, you develop into 1720 and what happened in Japan when servative newspapers, and especially the Times, that defended Hitler. Now it’s people who think of themselves as “You’ve got to believe in universal human left-wing who do it.” Cohen started his career as a left- rights [or] you develop into a kind of wing firebrand, writing for the New Statesman for many years. Over the last liberal racist who says rights for women decade, however, his political outlook shifted, and he became almost a neo- are all very well if they’re white-skinned conservative. Following the publication of What’s Left?, his book attacking the women in Cambridge, not if they’re brown- modern left-wing movement, he has become a pariah in the circles he once skinned women in Tehran” frequented. He, however, does not see himself as a kind of liberal racist who says rights its market crashed in 1990, where there having moved away from the Left, but for women are all very well if they’re were huge scandals afterwards about rather towards it. white-skinned women in Cambridge, political corruption. “The Protestant view of the world not if they’re brown-skinned women “Labour in Britain isn’t particularly sees the individual consciousness as in Tehran, because it’s their culture to corrupt, it hasn’t been bought. Nor does supreme, a minority of one can be right. oppress women.” it believe in deregulation. If you try That’s why Protestant churches split the He believes the Left’s next move and set up a small business, they will whole time. In that sense I am left-wing should be a push to bring inequality regulate the living daylights out of you. and I haven’t changed. back to the centre of political discourse. But they don’t do the one thing you “There is an equally plausible Catho- “For good reasons in the sixties, people would expect a left-of-centre govern- lic way of looking at intellectual life. If stopped talking about class and started ment to do and regulate finance capital. the Pope and all his cardinals say that looking at the position of women, gays This is partly because they are in awe of ‘this is Catholic doctrine’, it bloody well and ethnic minorities. And that’s all it and partly because all the social pro- is Catholic doctrine. If you disagree fine. But it has become very odd that grammes they are doing, all the massive with it, you’re not a Catholic. In this the biggest cause of disadvantage in increases in public spending, are sense, if vast numbers of people who Britain, that is the absence of money, funded by taxes on the city and hous- call themselves left-wing disagree with is no longer talked about or thought ing. They’ve prostituted themselves.” me, then I’m probably not left-wing. I about seriously. Cohen believes the crisis will force think some of the stuff I’ve written in “It’s got to the stage now that the Brit- Britain to rethink its place in the global What’s Left? is the most left-wing stuff ish working class and the working class economy. “What are we going to do in of my career. However, it’s not what everywhere have become universal hate the world? If you had asked someone most people think of as left-wing so figures. They are potential fascists, they last year ‘what is it that Britain does from their perspective I’m not.” are all racists, they are all homophobes, that no other country does?’ the answer Anti-Americanism is one of Cohen’s and it isn’t true. All of this talk is a would have been that the City is the prime charges against the Left. He compensation for middle-class radicals financial centre of globalisation. Now believes Obama’s rise will change this for the failure of the working class to it’s not and that’s all fallen apart. and shift foreign policy attitudes in the do what they were expected to do. If “The message from the government process. “I think George Bush going you go back fifty years the working was ‘this was a crisis but we can get over and Barack Obama coming in is hugely class were supposed to be the vanguard it and get back to normal.’ Now they important. George Bush provided an of history, they were supposed to rise are beginning to realise normal is gone. international cartoon hate figure that up and create a new society and they This is like the fall of the Berlin Wall or united people in opposition. It almost didn’t. They are rather despised for that 9/11. It has changed the landscape and got to the stage when people thought and feared. People now think if you let we need to head off in a new direction.” ‘if he goes everything will be fine’ and them have their say they’ll bring back One suspects that Cohen will be there

david t e tt david it’s not going to be fine. Obama, as he the death penalty and all that. There’s a the whole time, sniping from all sides.

Lion King Adventure (starts on page 13): “I am in fact the Lion King anyway,” say you, “so it’s OK for me to use ‘Hakuna Matata’ as basis for presidential policy.” But, yet again, the oppo has some choice words: “What an absurd suggestion. You’re not the Lion King. I’m the Lion King. You don’t have regal status. You’re just a generically maned creature.” Who the bejesus does this chap think he is? »p22 He’s your uncle Scar. »p23 He’s lost his marbles. Friday March 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 21

Giles smith

Grouchy Club Raging against dumbing down, Harry Potter and anti-Semitism, Lauren Davidson discovers that self-confessed literary elitist Howard Jacobson is not a man afraid to speak his mind. i, welcome to The Groucho Jacobson firmly believes that chil- and got a half-blue blazer, but this just sense. “I don’t do supernatural,” he Macbeth we get to live in the mind “HClub, can I help?” smiled the dren are capable of more than society irked him more. A full-blue blazer was explains, “and I don’t pray. God is a of a murderer and entertain and bespectacled woman behind the desk. thinks, and suggests a good dose of awarded to those who rowed or played good idea; there probably isn’t one understand his mindset, but in Seven “Yeah, I’m meeting Howard Jacob- George Eliot. “Whoever has read rugby for the University, but for table but I couldn’t cope without the idea of Jewish Children there is no attempt son for an interview,” I replied. Middlemarch would never commit a tennis? Merely a half blue. And so, the one.” Religions, while they may have to do that, there are no surprises, no That is a true story, although mostly criminal act, would never commit an one activity in which Jacobson did a god in common, define themselves attempts to challenge. He also says, irrelevant to the rest of this article. unethical act and would never be a participate did nothing for his inferi- against each other; “we are who we are with a twinkle in his eye, regarding I’m not even sure if the lady wore fool,” Jacobson says. “Have you ever ority complex but strengthen it. This because we are not you.” Right now, we the collection of money for Gaza at spectacles, or, indeed, if she was a lady. read a report in the newspaper that a didn’t change when he returned as an both agree, this is particularly evident. the end of the play, that you don’t I just wanted to mention that I was in person was mugged, beaten up or at- employee of the University. Like most “Drivel. Disingenuous. Fatuous.” go out after seeing Macbeth and give the Groucho Club, a members-only tacked by someone carrying a copy of teachers, he taught and supervised, No, not God; we’ve now moved on to money to families of people killed by club for personalities in media and the Middlemarch? Never!” but unlike most, he also had a leather a topic which has been much in the Scottish dictators. The play, accord- arts, inspired by Groucho Marx’s quip He seemed very resolute on this goods stall in the market to increase limelight lately, both in and outside of ing to Jacobson, is propaganda – but “I don’t want to join a club that would issue, so I moved the conversation his income. And so, again, he muses the Cambridge bubble. Seven Jewish this is not to say it should not be accept me as a member.” along to the topic of Cambridge. that on neither of his Cambridge Children, which played at London’s performed; art has no obligation to A couple of minutes later and Jacobson, 66, studied English Litera- sojourns did he manage to rid himself Royal Court Theatre in February and is be fair and neither does this. Rather, in walked Jacobson: novelist and ture under F.R. Leavis at Downing of his complex. currently running at the ADC Larkum it is important that the audience are columnist by profession, “a Jewish Studio, pitches itself as a ten minute aware of the nature of what they are Jane Austen” by self-description and a “Have you ever read a report in the history of Israel. It calls itself a play for watching; that a dramatic sense of master of polemic debate. I was a little Gaza, and although the title refers to conflict is not being raised. “It’s not nervous at first, and rightly so, as he newspaper that a person was mugged, Jews and not Israelis, it does not see my Judaism that is offended, not at immediately launched into an attack itself as anti-Semitic, misguided or all, it’s my intellect.” on today’s society. beaten up or attacked by someone carrying one-sided. Jacobson asks me about politi- “We live in a dumbed-down age,” he Jacobson makes it very clear that cal affairs of this nature on campus, fumed. In his view, schools nowadays a copy of Middlemarch? Never!” he is quite against censorship, and and then speaks in the wise tones of place too much importance on fame would not lobby at all for the play to someone who read Henry James as an and money, and seeing as you can College in the Sixties, and returned I think we can only be thankful be removed from the stage; in fact, infant. “We should not spare Israel our achieve these things by acting dumb, as a teacher to Selwyn College some for that. Due to his self-proclaimed he feels the play should continue. His criticism, but should not wag our fin- that’s not good for the future of being years later. What may seem surpris- nature, Jacobson has created some main concern is that Seven Jewish ger at them or take a higher moral tone smart. Think of Gail Trimble, a smart ing is that he hated his time here, and literary masterpieces centred on char- Children is not art, but propaganda. He – we must be responsible citizens of a young woman, who seems to have while he blames no one but himself, acters that are irreversibly affected by paraphrases D.H. Lawrence, explain- community and be properly critical.” received more negativity than com- he puts this down to his schooling. events in their childhood and familial ing that we value art, because in art, This is hardly surprising, as Jacobson mendation from the public. Educated at a grammar school in history which lead to self-fulfilling that which you think you want to say is a self-confessed “Leavis elitist”. Criti- Jacobson puts this lack of intellec- Manchester, Jacobson claims that he trends. Jacobson has also become becomes subsumed into something cism, literary or other, is at the heart tualisation in our society down to Big was never told, unlike the Etonians a voice of intellectual and polemi- else. Art raises its own argument and of civilisation, believes Jacobson: “if Brother and Harry Potter. Reality TV and Harrovians, that the world was cal discussion for British Jewry and through it we get taken where we don’t we can’t make a judgment, we can’t say contestants can’t talk to each other; his for the taking and that he could Middle-Eastern politics. normally get to go. anything at all.” they can’t express themselves in words have everything. As a result, he lacked Recently, Jacobson hosted the open- Jacobson brings an example Well, the solution is clear. Start nor show any possession of a rich or confidence and went up to Cam- ing episode of channel four documen- here, saying that for the duration of handing out copies of Middlemarch. ethical vocabulary. He notes that the bridge laden with inferiorities. He tary ‘Christianity: A History’ talking majority of top bestsellers of last year reminisces to me of the private school about Jesus as a Jew. In this he raises were biographies and memoirs, and he boys, who walked around with the the interesting question of the origin of Howard’s End “loathes Harry Potter and everything air of ownership and seemed to all Christianity, discussing how and why about it”. But this hatred is not held know one another. When I asked if it moved away from Judaism, looking 1962 Studies English at Downing only for our favourite scarred wizard, he was a library swot, party animal or at the relationship between the two but for all children’s books. “I never extracurricular do-it-all, he replied “I religions today and delving into the 1985 Writes his first novel, Coming from Behind read kids’ books!” he assures me. A few was no kind of student, I didn’t even mystery of Jesus. 1999 Novel The Mighty Walzer wins both the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse seconds pass us by. Then, “OK, I must behave badly.” Jacobson admits to me the im- have read kids’ books, but I have this The one university activity in which portance of religion to him, in the Prize and the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize fantasy that I was reading Henry James Jacobson did involve himself was table historical and cultural sense as op- 2009 Presents an episode of Christianity: A History for Channel Four from a very early age.” tennis. He played for the University posed to the devout and practising

Lion King Adventure (starts on page 13): Honestly, this doesn’t have anything to do with anything. You’re better off banging on about Hakina Matata. »p15 No worries. Arts Editor: Emma Mustich Friday March 6th 2009 22 Arts [email protected] varsity.co.uk This Mortal Coil cambridge alumni declan donnellan and nick ormerod, founders of theatre company cheek by jowl, have impressed critics the world over with their distinctive dramatic style. emma hogan finds out what makes donnellan tick

alastair muir/cheek by jowl passing you by, that you are getting on. However, he believes it still has Renaissance scholarship; he therefore It’s a faulty time clock, and a good way a way to go. Schemes such as the grounds his actors in two principles: to fail”. Instead, we should remember National Theatre Travelex Season “learning the text and learning the how young we are, how much time are, in Donnellan’s opinion, bril- verse structure. The jazz musician we have ahead of us. Yet, although it liant, but only the beginning. “It has to learn the four beat square is comforting to hear Donnellan, who was something Nick and I had been before he can syncopate on it. It’s not reassures me with his claim, “I never asking for, for a long, long time. just anything.” Directing is “about planned a career – it’s only looking Ticket prices are, however, still far making good connections between back I found I had one,” it is hard not too high, and are probably the great- people, contacts on stage,” rather to feel that the combination of Don- est threat to theatre today. We do not than a discussion of the technicalities nellan and Ormerod in theatre was like performing in places where they of the Shakespearean stage, the gen- bound, in some ways, to be ground- charge too much for our work. It eralities of criticism rather than the breaking. It all started when Donnel- becomes a treat, going to the theatre. specifics of existence. For Donnellan, lan was sixteen, and went to see Peter Ordinary people should be able to go “great acting is always specific”. Brook’s production of A Midsummer once a week.” Cheek by Jowl’s recent It is the specific which drives us, Night’s Dream: “It sort of changed my production of Troilus and Cressida which is the basis our daily lives. life. It was fantastic. I wanted to be a in the Barbican was done in traverse, And it is the mixture of the specific part of that.” a form Donnellan loves but which, and the overwhelming in drama Theatre is, for Donnellan, “where in this credit crunch era, is probably which ensures it will, ultimately, sur- you celebrate humanity”. This spirit of too expensive at the moment to tour vive: “There is no threat to theatre. celebration runs through all of Cheek with. It is the great archetype.” Though by Jowl’s work. However, when I ask The production of Shakespeare’s there is no one archetypal Cheek by what links, in his mind at least, the notoriously difficult play was a Jowl production, there is this con- five current Cheek by Jowl produc- resounding success. Donnellan, stant drive behind them, this utter tions of Andromaque, Twelfth Night however, describes himself as having integrity and belief, which ensures (in Russian, recently celebrating its only “an instinctive basis on Shake- they shall always startle, and always 200th performance in Moscow), Boris speare”. In his opinion, the theatre is remind audiences of the importance Godunov, Three Sisters and Macbeth, far removed from the musty study of of theatre. Donnellan insists it is merely his own alastair muir/cheek by jowl personal taste: “I do the plays that I like. Ones about love, sex, allusion, politics, power, poetry.” And yet, these are all plays that place an important emphasis on the actor, the performer, rather than a gimmicky use of set or video installation. They demonstrate that “theatre is built of incremental humanity”. This emphasis on the human actor is central to Donnellan’s work. His book, The Actor and the Target, translated from Russian into English, brilliantly captures the importance of the per- former. Donnellan demonstrates how we all perform, in different ways, in our daily lives. “We get this really pris- sy sense that we have an ‘inner truth.’ And we use language from the theatre, unfortunately, to describe lying. We do just act. It doesn’t mean we are lying. It is very dangerous that we think act- ing and lying are synonymous. You’re playing at being a journalist; I go in owhere in my life has a place described as “the most anticipated and act my role as a theatre director. I been so obsessed with success theatrical event of the year”) to the act being a theatre director, but I am as“N Cambridge. Even LA.” Declan Don- Cambridge Arts Theatre. not lying. Lying is nothing to do with nellan, co-founder with Nick Ormerod Donnellan and Ormerod show acting… We don’t like the fact that of Cheek by Jowl, is coming back once that there is no one route to that we perform all the time, that there is more to Cambridge, where in the mid- elusive object, ‘success’, in drama after an element of theatre in everything. 1970s he read English and then Law at Cambridge. Though they were both in- It doesn’t mean that it is untrue. It’s Queens’. volved in the acting scene as students, very dangerous when people forget the Donnellan and Ormerod met when Donnellan admits that he “was not a importance of theatre.” they were both nineteen, playing Len- nox and the Third Murderer in Mac- “there is no threat to theatre. it is the beth. Since founding Cheek by Jowl in 1981, they have produced consistently great archetype.” striking, exciting theatre; it is hard not to talk about contemporary European star of Cambridge theatre”. However, The touring Cheek by Jowl produc- drama without mentioning Cheek by the day Donnellan qualified as a bar- tions ensure that this “importance Jowl. Their productions concentrate on rister, he gave up his work with Law, of theatre” is never lost. Donnellan the more classical, canonical texts, but and has not looked back. Donnellan describes the process of touring as breathe new life into them through a and Ormerod demonstrate, then, that “being where you are enjoyed, being mixture of deceptively simple design “the runes are not cast”. where you are welcome”. Although it by Ormerod, and Donnellan’s refresh- Speaking about Cambridge, Donnel- is in many respects a European group, ing belief that “theatre is about the lan describes how he felt “a certain sort Cheek by Jowl bases itself in the actors first and last”. Now, from the of Calvinism in the air. A certain sort Barbican, and when asked, Donnellan 25th to 28th March, they are bringing of predestination – that if you do not describes British theatre with affec- their production of Racine’s Andro- make it big in Cambridge you won’t tion, saying that it is “much better maque (which the Guardian recently out there. There is a feeling that life is than it was”.

Lion King Adventure (starts on page 13): Oui, c’est l’oncle Scar, le frere de Mufasa. “Scar, what are you doing here?” you ask, understandably. “I thought hyenas bumped you off at the end of the first film. You don’t even feature in The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride.” “How would you know?” Scar responds bitterly. “You didn’t even watch it because of your snobbish aversion to films which go straight-to-DVD.” »p29 Tactfully remind him that back in those days it was called “straight-to-video”. »p30 Bypass pedantry and ground your criticisms of The Lion King 2: Simba Pride in more precise detail. Friday March 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 23 It’s a Kinda Magic EVER SINCE THE GREAT SHOWMEN OF THE VICTORIAN ERA, THE BRITISH PUBLIC HAVE BEEN ENRAPTURED BY MEDIUMS AND MAGICIANS. JOE HUNTER EXPLORES THE TECHNIQUES USED BY THESE ‘PSYCHICS’, AND WHAT OUR WILLINGNESS TO INDULGE THEM SAYS ABOUT US

ot long ago, I correctly guessed that the operation of cold reading English celebrity psychic, who ap- of a phone interview, I went along to her on his deathbed, and that he did Nthe rst name of a girl I’d never rests upon the sorts of judgements peared at the Corn Exchange earlier her show. love her a er all. As the rst half of her met before. She was talking to a friend we make about people we don’t know this term. I was contacted by her PR Now, I don’t want to put too ne a show progressed, I stopped sneering of mine at a party and I just turned every day; many of which are correct. agent who o ered Varsity an interview point on this but Sally Morgan turned at her shabby cold reading skills, and to her and said, “Excuse me, is your My being able to guess Emily’s name before her show, along with compli- out to not only be a total fraud with started watching the people around name Emily?” It was, and Emily was is an example of my performing this mentary tickets to see the perform- regards to having psychic abilities me instead. When Sally let rip with very perturbed. I think she suspected kind of cold reading without being ance. As I have already hinted, I have (which I expected), but also turned her shotgunned names, heads bowed it was an inventive but slightly sinister properly aware of what I was doing. I a pet hate for people like Sally, who out to be an absolutely terrible FAKE together in furious consultation, des- chat-up line. It was nothing of the sort. mean, do you realise how many Emi- claim to be speaking to the dead, or to psychic. She began each reading with perate for a connection. Sally Morgan I was merely a bit drunk, and suddenly lys there are at Cambridge? And how have actual psychic abilities; conse- a process known as ‘shotgunning’, gives them what they want, I thought. felt a strong inclination that the girl many of them give o signals about quently, I relished the prospect of where she would throw out a name Perhaps it’s even what they need. standing next to me was called Emily – their background, school, and so on, grilling such a person and writing up a to the entire audience (roughly 800  en an atom bomb exploded in so I said so. It was ‘cold reading’, and I without even knowing it? It was still suitably scathing account of the inter- people), and wait for hands to go up the auditorium. It took the form of a didn’t even know it. a bloody lucky guess, no doubt about view. However, for reasons unknown, from those who could make a connec- clip from Sally’s TV show, which was Derren Brown recently made a that – but complete coincidence, the interview didn’t happen. Her agent tion with that name. If, astoundingly, shown to the audience as a means of recording for Channel 4 of one of his it was not. stopped returning my calls and no one jumped at the rst name she bringing the rst half of the show to a live shows. As per usual, his stunts Time for a confes- emails. Still holding on to said, she would modify it slightly: close. I can’t tell you how odious and were incredible, including a number sion.  is hopes e.g. ‘Bob’ would become ‘Barb’, and despicable this woman is for using of simultaneous ‘readings’ conducted article was then ‘Barbara’. When someone made this clip to promote herself as a ‘real’ on members of his audience while originally a connection for her, a minion would psychic. It was an extract from a blind- blindfolded.  e information he was meant to be an run over with a microphone, and folded cold reading in which a middle able to reveal about the participants interview with agonisingly vague cold reading would aged woman in full belly-dancing was astounding in its apparent obscu- Sally Mor- follow. One note I made in my pad garb approached, and (as the voiceo- rity and unerring accuracy, including gan, during the course of the rst half of ver dramatically intoned) “Sally was a much more impressive name-guess- an the show (I le at the interval) simply consumed by darkness.” A er correctly ing stunt than mine performed on a reads, in block capitals, “HOW MUCH identifying the woman as an ‘exotic guy who had an extremely rare name MONEY DID PAYING CUSTOM- dancer’, Sally paused uncertainly.  en, that stemmed from having mixed ERS SHELL OUT FOR THIS GAR- “Oh… I don’t want to say it… oh my (non-English) parentage.  e thing BAGE?!?” Fi een pounds a head, as it darling… you were raped, weren’t you? about Derren Brown, though, is that turned out. Times that by the number A long time ago?” he continually reinforces the message I mentioned before and, to paraphrase “Yes,” replied the woman. that he has no psychic abilities what- Jay-Z, you are looking at one rich “By more than one man, wasn’t it? soever. So what’s his secret? You can celebrity psychic. Oh dear…” be damn sure it’s not coincidence: just My suitable and self-righteous A er a bit more of this, the clip go onto 4oD and watch the show for reaction to this spectacle was some- ended, the lights came up, and Sally yourself. Derren sets out his stall at thing along the lines of, “My informed us that this reading changed the beginning of every program God, these people (i.e. her her life. Apparently it was an incred- he makes, stating that he uses a audience) are credulous,” ible experience, a vivid reading she’ll variety of techniques, all of coupled with “Oh dear, never forget.  en, we were ushered which have a strong ground- she’s exploiting their credu- out for the interval. I can’t say how ing in psychology.  e technique lity in a really awful manner.” she did it – how she guessed that this I found myself unwittingly  en, the tears started to woman had been raped – but that’s using on our friend Emily,  ow from those she was giv- what it was: a guess.  e little bells and which Brown demon- ing readings to, and I was lled and jangling bracelets gave the woman strated such a mastery of in with confusion. You see, Sally away as a belly dancer, and the feel of his show, is one of the oldest Morgan’s audience was composed her skin when Sally grasped her arm in the book. And there ARE largely of the recently must have betrayed her age; just as books, let me assure you. bereaved. Unsurpris- the accent in which she replied to the ‘Cold reading’ is an um- ing, really, when you question about her occupation must brella term for processes by think about it: she have identi ed her as middle-eastern. which ‘psychics’ can conduct claims to speak to  e rape guess, though, was the kind readings of strangers and give the dead, and they of successful ‘hit’ rare for a cold reader the impression that they are have a particular as unskilled as Sally. But, regardless of able to ‘see’ and reveal per- reason to want her accuracy of reading, to visit an area of sonal information about them. to be able to do so. a person’s past as dark as that for the  e procedure is that the  e reason I became purposes of a TV show like ‘Sally Mor- reader makes a series of high- very confused about gan, Star Psychic’, is unforgivable. probability guesses based my feelings towards I found the manipulation of such on a huge range of visual what Sally does, is because a powerful revelation (in order that and auditory signals given by I started to notice the emo- some of its impact might rub o onto the subject. Much tional turmoil etched our perception of Sally’s supposed more information across the faces of ‘powers’) so distasteful that I could about oneself is her participants. barely contain my disgust as I walked projected by mere  ese were vulnerable past her slimy agent standing by the appearance, body people.  ey had lost parents bookstall in the foyer. An escape from language, and voice to cancer, children to rare reality may be what we all need from than most of us are diseases, and friends in fatal time to time in order to deal with the prepared to accept. accidents. Sally cooed over them darkness life throws at us. However, To a skilled reader like a surrogate mother, shining her when a person exploits an episode in like Brown, a huge Star Psychic spotlight on them. And somebody’s life so dark that most of range of informa- gradually, against my better judge- us can scarcely imagine the damage it tion can reveal itself ment, I began to root for must have done to her, and does so in as a reading progresses, her. Please, Sally, tell this order that they might better sell their as each ‘hit’ provokes sunken-eyed and agonised own personal brand of escapism, that a response from the woman her husband wasn’t in person is exploiting human vulner- subject, causing them to pain when he died. Please, Mrs ability in as base a way as any I can reveal more about themselves. JANE HALL Star Psychic lady, reassure that think of.  e point I’m trying to make is teenage girl that her father forgave

LION KING ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 13): Fortunately, you know where to nd said marbles: they’re in the British Museum, as we discussed a few weeks ago in the EMPIRE ADVENTURE. Your opponent is dead chu ed about the tip-o and withdraws from the race in gratitude. Lucky you read this adventure story every week, then, isn’t it? “ anks Mr [or Mrs] Adventure Storywriter,” you say, in thanks. “No worries,” I respond. Features Editor: Joe Hunter Friday March 6th 2009 24 Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk Caught Up in the Web NYU PROFESSOR CLAY SHIRKY, AUTHOR OF A NEW BOOK ABOUT ONLINE ORGANISATION IN THE SPACE AGE, DISCUSSES THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF OUR INCREASING INTERNET SAVVY WITH COLETTE SENSIER everal weeks ago, about a hundred Power of Organizing Without Organi- new work, “revolution doesn’t happen Dean and Obama,” he explains, “is the for instance, Ross May eld, creator of Sstudents occupied the Law Faculty zations, out last month) when he saw when society adopts new technologies di erence between tactics and strategy.” Socialtext, has said that anybody from to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza. is “social networking spilling into the – it happens when society adopts new Howard Dean is commonly known as a company which has laid o 5% of protest was largely organised in the few general public”. “A book,” he says, “is a behaviours.” the  rst politician to harness the inter- its workforce can have a free wiki for days before it began, using Facebook medium that reaches people who don’t In other words, the story of the in- net, but he adopted it “as a tool, not a jobhunting. groups and e-mail to mobilise poten- care about techie stu but do care about ternet revolution has only now become management structure”. By contrast, in In the end, Shirky’s message on any tial protestors. Only a few hours a er the social and political implications.” truly signi cant, when these modern Obama’s campaign, “use of the internet question of mass participation’s impact the protestors entered the Law Faculty As he repeatedly tools have simply become an integral was baked into their assumptions from on society is the same: there’s no point building, a press release was circulated, states in his part of life. Who doesn’t e-mail their the beginning. People at the top of the in debating rights and wrongs. ese via e-mail, to local and national news friends and supervisors, buy books on organisation were comfortable with the tools are in place. All we can do is channels; a Facebook group was set Amazon, or stalk a new signi cant internet”. (Perhaps too comfortable – as decide how to use them. He’s slighting up to invite new protesters; and e-mail other on Facebook? Shirky chortles many of us will remember, Jon Favreau, of the academic disdain for Wikipedia. invites went out to the various speakers when I mention the e ect of the a senior speechwriter on Obama’s team, As a professor at New York University who would visit the occupation over the internet on one’s social life, and unthinkingly posted pictures of himself (NYU), Shirky tells me his profes- next week. Almost as quickly, inde- tells me that it “increases the net fondling the breast of a cardboard Hi- sional philosophy is; “If I forbid you pendent Facebook groups were estab- disappointment in the world lary Clinton on Facebook.) Dean used that means you’ll use it but not tell me, lished, both against the occupation and [because] if men are allowed the net to attract fundraisers; Obama so I’m operating in the dark, which for the purpose of further discussion. to fantasise, they go far o used it to organise a volunteer network. is antithetical to the principles of e remarkable thing about this the rails, and the real world Joe Trippi, a long-time campaign education.” He calls it “adopting tactics story isn’t, Clay Shirky would argue, becomes a disappoint- worker, has said that “just like which disrupt strategy – the strategy that students could co-ordinate ment”. He compares the Kennedy brought in the television of how young people learn”. He com- the protest, including notifying evolution of the internet presidency, I think we’re about to see mends the “profound” co-ordinated media and inviting speakers, from with the introduction of the the  rst wired, connected, networked group learning ability of students. a laptop in a lecture theatre. What’s telephone, which allowed presidency”. Arianna Hu ngton, “Universities existed before the remarkable is that we all took it for “people to talk directly with- editor-in-chief of e Hu ngton Post, printing press,” he says, and have granted. Shirky has been “looking at” out being chaperoned,” and has gone further to claim, “Were it not a track record of integrating new the internet for   een years, but mostly so scandalised Victorian society, for the internet, Barack Obama would technologies. In general, “the ability “teaching and working for an audience who, he laughs, would “consider not be president. Were it not for the in- of authorities to encourage things is of techies”. today a nightmare. But society He decided to write a evolves”. book (Here Comes Shirky goes on to illustrate “REVOLUTION DOESN’T HAPPEN WHEN SOCIETY Everybody: e this key di erence between tools’ existence and their widespread, ADOPTS NEW TECHNOLOGIES – IT HAPPENS WHEN integrated use, when comparing the campaign strategies SOCIETY ADOPTS NEW BEHAVIOURS” of Howard Dean and Barack Obama. ternet, Barack Obama would not have relatively high but to forbid things is “ e di er- been the nominee”. One of Shirky’s low”. As an educator, he says, banning ence between predictions for the future is the crea- online tools is “saying lie, or don’t lie. tion of a political party entirely on the If I’m educating I’d rather say don’t internet. Indeed, pressure groups and lie. Otherwise I’m asking to preserve even businesses have already started my fantasy world over reality, and will up like this. become increasingly divorced from the is kind of shi in power – where world and from students”. groups or people gain authority Shirky thanks his students in the through superior use of social tools – book’s acknowledgements, and clearly is discussed in Shirky’s book. As Shirky prizes his link to today’s youth. At for- says, there’s a vast disparity between ty- ve, he’s hardly the oldest academic the most active users on any site – he around, but he criticises his contem- cites Wikipedia as an example – and poraries’ attitude to young people and the greater mass of less active users. new technologies. “We have no way of Although Here Comes Everybody o en saying what we would have chosen,” seems to portray disorganised, or- he says, “I’m betting we would have ganic groups as producing excellence behaved the same. Part of the criticism through unity and goodwill, I saw seri- of modern social tools is embedded ous implications for traditional power envy that we didn’t grow up when this structures. Shirky hastily agreed; he’s was available.” just lectured at LSE on this subject. He Shirky is an exciting academic points out the example of the recent mind, writing with an easy style to il- Sella eld strike, in which web co- luminate internet technology’s socio- ordination, he says, “has taken over the logical and political consequences in previous union prerogative”. a way designed to appeal to all. Some As he explains, “the history of of his analysis might seem shock- democracy is a history of checks and ing to a sector of society where these balances – which groups get deferred tools are less integrated – as I’ve said, to in which circumstances”. ere is having grown with them, we o en still an important element of goodwill don’t really notice these technologies in the internet community. Shirky any more. However, this integration dismisses the idea of a negative e ect is central to Shirky’s argument; as he of recession on volunteer e orts such says, “the fusion of the internet with as Wikipeda, saying that “tools which general life is the big story”. function as interesting toys in prosper- “When we were  rst playing around ous times, in a crisis are pressed in in the early Nineties,” he reminisced, serious service,” and that “recession is “everyone assumed there would be a a moment in which people recognise separate virtual world. Now we’re at a capability they didn’t know they the end of cyberspace as a notion, and had”. He expects the charitable aspect the internet is increasingly about co- of the online community to continue: ordinating layers of society.”

LION KING ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 13): You quote: “For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.” Reception is mixed: the steak-lovers at the hustings heartily applaud this veggie-bashing, but the vegetarians themselves don’t feel herb-eating is weak, per se. You’re forced to defend vegetables in order to keep this important band of swing voters onside. But how? p26 Your grandfather is a vegetable. p27 You love tomatoes. Friday March 6th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Arts 25 Music Collage late of the pier’s ross dawson and sam potter take time out to speak with lucy bryant about teenage boredom, individuality, and lyrical gibberish

paul smith he songs, they’re not traditional “We had fuck all to do,” explains parisons made by the press. “It’s just songs are they? They’re like col- Ross. “We had all these instruments so annoying, because it’s just not true “Tlages I guess.” around us thanks to Sam’s dad, so and it’s quite obvious it’s not true Not everyone can make a state- we kind of did it. It was a really shit [that we’re like certain other bands]. ment like that about their debut school as well with a lot of uncul- It’s just lazy journalism and people record, but Ross Dawson and Sam tured ruffians and that. I don’t know. not knowing what they’re talking Potter are some of the few that can. We just didn’t really fit in.” Over about really.” Late of the Pier have had a brilliant the years they’ve tried to keep their Late of the Pier’s lyrics are a very year. Gaining a wealth of fans with shows as ‘all-age’ as possible. “When unique facet of the band’s music. extensive tours as well as a record, we started out it was mostly in indie “We get misquoted all the time.” Fantasy Black Channel, which graced clubs where there was a lot of bra- Ross tells me; “In one of our songs, many ‘Albums of the Year’ lists, Late vado, folded arms and blasé-ness, but ‘Heartbeat’, there’s a line in the cho- of the Pier finished 2008 on a high. kids never have that. The fact that rus, ‘a heartbeat, a flicker, a line’ – it Now they are back on the road, and we’d do shows and [kids would] be so got misquoted as ‘a happy African I spoke to them before their sold-out excitable, we kind of bounced off it.” lion’. So people think we’re singing show at the Junction. The band members each approach about lions in Africa being all happy. Sitting across from a band whose a live show in their own way. “Basi- That’s quite funny.” Unlike those of sound is so unusual, the first thing I cally we’d practise lots; we’d try and many other bands, Late of the Pier’s wanted to establish was who their in- play perfectly, and make it sound as lyrics don’t always have a typical fluences were. “Noah’s ark. Noah and good as we can as humans,” says Sam; structure or content, and, in fact, his ark.” After a few confused blinks “Me, myself, I just try to switch off in a they aren’t even always real words. from me, Dawson and Potter explain. strange way and give myself up to the They serve a different purpose, be- “It’s more that we can’t answer it. I c row d .” sides story-telling. “It’s supposed to think it’s the case that our influences As a band, Late of the Pier’s indi- make you feel something, not neces- are so broad, they really are. I’d say viduality is precious to them. “We sarily something in particular. We’re there are probably ten in any one do enjoy being different, we do try not trying to say anything; it’s just song. I guess that’s why our music to do things differently,” explains supposed to provoke a reaction. Of- is so hard to pin down. People are Ross, and Sam agrees: “At the minute ten it makes the songs quite personal there is something happening, you get idea. “That’s what will bring people always trying to label it, and I don’t people are just fighting against being because the lyrics don’t really mean bands like Micachu, Metronomy, even together and there’ll be a community think you can.” part of a body of people. This decade anything – each person interprets bands like Mystery Jets; they’ve all again.” Late of the Pier seem happy Late of the Pier, like so many is about poking your head out and them in their own way.” got the same kind of intention before to include themselves in this quasi- great bands before them, is prima- being yourself.” They find themselves Late of the Pier are excited about they make music. But it’s not a sound movement, almost excited. Just don’t rily a product of teenage boredom. frustrated by the endless band com- the current musical climate. “I think thing,” they explain, it’s an overarching say they sound like it. Darwinian Reverie laura freeman re-assesses darwin descendant gwen raverat’s remarkable account of her childhood in victorian Cambridge

his year marks the bicentennial of houses his papers and letters), and of eldest daughter, Gwen Raverat, grew spokes. The accompanying wood- of the dust-and-ashes of boredom and the birth of Charles Darwin, and course, in the name of Darwin College. up in The Granary, now Darwin Col- cut, of ladies, parasols, and men in misery”), and the arrival in Cambridge Tthe 150th anniversary of the publica- The last is a bit of a misnomer. Dar- lege, and went on to immortalise her striped blazers being besieged by nude, for the first time of that most modern of tion of The Origin of Species. Darwin’s win senior lived in Kent. The Darwins Victorian childhood in her Cambridge whooping youths, is a masterstroke of contraptions: the bicycle. (Ladies rode mark is still keenly felt at Cambridge, of Darwin College were Charles’s son memoir, Period Piece, published in 1952 delight and mirth. tricycles, three wheels being consid- stamped on his rooms at Christ’s Col- George, his American wife Maude de and never since out of print. Raverat cites Rembrandt and Thomas ered in some way less indecorous than lege, in the University Library (which Puys, and their four children. Their Raverat studied fine art at the Slade Bewick, the great early-nineteenth- two.) In one passage, Raverat describes and later worked prolifically as a wood- century wood engraver, as her heroes, cycling along the Backs by night in the cut artist. Period Piece is peppered with and she wonders what it would have days before gas lamps. It is a journey her neat wood-cut vignettes offering been like to be Mrs Bewick – whether fraught with the horrors of a child’s snapshots of Cambridge life at the turn her husband might have let her engrave imagination: tigers and bandits lurk of the century. a page or two. Raverat is impassioned behind every tree, and each new breeze Charles Darwin wrote, “the only evil when she talks about her artistic threatens to extinguish the hurricane at Cambridge was its being too pleas- yearnings and the difficulties of being lamp strung between her handlebars. ant;” but Cambridge as it appears un- a career-minded upper-class girl in the Raverat venerates her scientist der Raverat’s microscopic is an absurd, late 1800s. Stay-at-home propriety rears grandfather, putting him in the “same comical beast. She skewers the strange its ugly head at every turn. Raverat category as God and Father Christ- mores and fussy decorum of the late describes her family as “benevolently mas,” but is troubled by the curious Victorians: the contortions involved in philistine”, mathematicians and scien- legacy he left. At school she is indig- vaulting a stile en route to Granchester tists all, bemused and mistrustful of nant when the other girls ask if she is without revealing a scandalous glimpse artists and creative types. Despite her descended from monkeys, and she is of ankle, the horror of discovering face ambitions, Raverat is condescending vexed by her own irreligious thoughts. powder on the dressing table of an towards the Newnham girls who are She recounts that her idea of prayer otherwise respectable grande dame. always “dowdy” and without a partner was “Please God, if you will let there In one memorable passage, Raverat at dances. by chocolate pudding for lunch, I will describes a punting trip through a The Cambridge she describes is at be very good to-day.” Hers is a wholly mass of naked undergraduates bathing once alien and recognisable. She recalls convincing portrait of the contradic- in the Cam and recalls that while the the perils of walking on the grass of tions and absurdities of childhood. ladies of the party shielded their eyes Trinity Great Court, the tedium of serv- The Gwen Raverat archive is housed at with parasols, she peeked through the ices in College chapels (“the lowest layer Broughton House on King Street.

Lion King ADVENTURE (starts on page 13): “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children...” »p28 It’s quite a long verse. Theatre Editor: Joel Massey Friday March 6th 2009 26 eatre [email protected] varsity.co.uk

View from the Groundlings THEATRE

KATY KING Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Arts eatre, March 3rd-7th Dir. Charlotte Westenra; e Marlowe Society 

ccasionally, updated productions was an intricate sound design from sive. Lucy Evans was a captivating Juliet, Joel Massey tells us what’s what Oof Shakespeare can make you Soosan Lolavar; unnerving and o en drawing laughs with an unusually head- in theatrical week 7 reactionary in your theatrical taste. is beautiful original music from Jude Carl- strong determination but proving herself beautiful and richly detailed produc- ton; as well as a gorgeous and complex a magnetic tragic actress. Jack Monaghan ambridge drama is reaching tion of Romeo and Juliet is performed lighting design from Robert Mills. Con- has proved that he can do troubled ado- ejaculatory heights this week with in elaborate period costume and works sequently the heat and intrigue of Verona lescents and it works better with Romeo aC whopping 11 student plays. But it wonderfully. beat down upon the cast and audience. than with Hamlet. won’t be long now before we can all is is a tremendously professional One would expect the production to Otherwise, James Walker made a breathe a sigh of collective relief. And production delivered by a hard-working rest on the shoulders of its eponymous brilliant other-wordly Mercutio, with an what a term we’ve had. ere’s been cast totally immersed in the play, no lovers. Yet I came out extolling the electrifying delivery of his Queen Mab Shakespeare, Miller, more Shake- matter how small their character. A virtues of the chorus. is was when the speech; Catriona Cahill was the best speare, new translations of Chekhov… few technical quibbles: there are some production became something special. It nurse I have ever seen, very funny and and yet more Shakespeare. really quite pathetic pillars that wob- was a fabulous depiction of an on-stage desperately sad. e entire cast per- Speaking of the great man, his bled anytime somebody went near and world. Each member of the chorus formed with understanding and aplomb. Romeo and Juliet, on now at the Arts chunks of completely inaudible dialogue became a character with a story in their It was just that the chorus of grieving on- eatre, promises to be an absolute overwhelmed by sword- ghting. own right,  itting in and out of the ac- lookers were so ingeniously directed and stonker. ey presumably took Apart from that, the quality of this tion, o en present without speaking. well acted, that they conversely sidelined copious amounts of LSD and then production was such that absolute But is it right to come out of a Shake- rather than highlighted the tragedy of decided that this play just isn’t put on professionalism and competency can be spearean tragedy praising the chorus and Romeo and Juliet themselves. Cambridge in Cambridge enough. taken for granted. I am, then, forced to the production design the most? productions are rarely as good as this. If you’re looking for something think of other things to review. ere Well, the acting was certainly impres- Don’t miss it. Oliver Soden

more o -the-beaten-track, Ionesco’s TIM JOHNS e Chairs at the ADC may be the Derek – e Footlights Spring Revue by James Moran, Keith Akushie & Lucien Young answer. All I know about Ionesco is that his Rhinoceros is full of people ADC eatre, March 3rd-7th turning in to rhinoceroses. e imagination runs wild: maybe he Dir. James Moran & Lucien Young; Footlights always titles his plays with a noun and  then has the plot be people turning in to the aforementioned object. But atching Derek was a bit like weren’t witty enough. A man having tion to the male characters. how much dramatic juice can you Wwatching Groundhog Day. sex with a book is not clever comedy, And it all just seemed like a wasted squeeze out of turning protagonists Everything should be different be- neither is it risqué enough to shock opportunity. The writers are talented into chairs? Maybe these speculations cause it’s a different day, a different the audience into laughing. Derek guys and the Spring Revue is the are o the mark; you’ll have to watch sketch. But it’s the same. It’s the same was a pick-and-mix selection of dif- perfect forum for them to experi- it to  nd out. reliance on swear words to carry the ferent ways to make people laugh, ment. But they didn’t. This kind of Shows are o en notable for joke through, the same punchlines but it failed at all of them, simply thing has all been done before, and unexpected reasons, and this week is trailing off, the same self-satisfac- because it wasn’t quite brave enough better. And I, for one, blame Ricky no exception. One underestimated tion. There was a laziness in the per- to stick it’s neck out and take a risk. Gervais. The Office spawned a theatrical art I’d like to champion is formances – the hope that you can This is not to condemn it com- number of David Brent impersona- blurb-writing. ere are a few shows just say anything and, followed with pletely. There are a few nice scenes, tors (Ricky Gervais included) who this week actually at risk of being a smug little look to the audience, it’s slick enough, and the acting is have been riding off the success of it overshadowed by their remarkably everything will be alright. Derek is generally adequate – although the ever since. But this post-David Brent ludicrous blurbs. A  ne example is So- never embarrassingly bad, but it is, performances of the two blond males party is fast developing a hangover. dom at Queens, which claims to deal like the title character, completely were so similar that they became in- The lights have come on and you with “the base instincts which govern mediocre. terchangeable with each other. While realise that you’ve got vomit on your our governors” as seen through “the Little room was allowed for it was nice to see the gender balance clothes and have been sleeping with nihilism of a poet who  nds his only characterisation; this meant that the readdressed, the female performers the wrong person. Derek showed that reality in sexuality”. Whereas Sisters, jokes came under increasing pressure were either playing men or, worse, this type of comedy is fast in need of Such Devoted Sisters, on next week to be funny, and in Derek they just were playing women solely in rela- an aspirin. Nick Beck at the Corpus Playroom, purports to explore “the Glasgow drag scene” ZING TSJENG alongside “exploding pigeons, cars e Chairs by Eugene Ionesco through walls, ecstasy and karaoke”. Oh, and watch out for when “stilettos ADC eatre, March 3rd-7th become murder weapons and gran- Dir. Sam Pallis; CUADC nies set themselves on  re”. Is it just me, or are Neil Kinnock and Lord  Haw-Haw holed up in a crack den in ccording to Sparknotes (did I really to the world, and we see their stories and ease between tragic moments of revealed Trinity secretly writing all the blurbs just admit that?), e Chairs, which personalities emerging through their inner strife and hilarious moments of for Cambridge’s plays? premieredA in 1952, was overshadowed interaction with these invisible guests. In pure comedy. e pair have a great on- Well, almost time to say goodbye. that year by Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, the end, an orator appears to reveal the stage chemistry and impeccable comic Before I do though, I’d better get which played last month at the Corpus old man’s message, but he turns out to be timing. For a decent chunk of the play something o my chest. I’ve spent a Playroom. I will not let this happen deaf and dumb. is, my friends, is one I was in an unstoppable  t of giggles, as lot of time watching a lot of plays this again! e Chairs was undoubtedly powerful play. Soden in particular was indescribably term, and feel it’s only fair that I waste the best piece of theatre I have seen e Chairs is a seminal example of the funny in his movement around the stage some of your time in the following this term at Cambridge, and the only genre known as theatre of the absurd, and tone of voice. way. So here goes. “Ahem” (preten- lateshow where I didn’t look at my with a characteristic morbid wit and self- e Chairs is a play inundated with tious throat clearing)… “To be or watch once. conscious comic sensibility that makes meaning and infused with humour, not to be a horse, my kingdom for a Ionesco’s play portrays an elderly us laugh at the most horri c ideas. excellently performed by some of Cam- dagger, is this a dagger I see before the couple who have lived alone on an island And laugh I did. For the majority of bridge’s  nest actors. It just seemed a northern star, of whose true  xed and for seventy- ve repetitive years, and they the play there is a cast of just two actors, shame that there were even more empty resting quality there is perchance to have di culty remembering their past. and yet there was a vast amount of seats in the audience than on the stage. dream that all the world’s a stage, alas, Most of the play sees them setting up energy on stage. Ellie Massie and Oliver Become a part of the absurdity and pull poor Yorick, if music be the food of chairs and greeting invisible guests who Soden portray their characters excellent- up a chair at this week’s ADC lateshow. love, play on.” Adieu. have come to hear the old man’s message ly, and manage to move with apparent Lauren Davidson

LION KING ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 13): No joke: he is in a coma. But this wins the sympathy vote, and you win by a landslide. Friday March 6th 2009 Join our Theatre team: varsity.co.uk [email protected] eatre 27

Seven Jewish Children  e Importance of Being Earnest  e Vampire  Sodom  Context

e Water Bears  READ ALL THE REVIEWS AT VARSITY.CO.UK/REVIEWS

Father/Son by Freddy Syborn Corpus Playroom, March 3rd-7th FREDDY SYBORN Week 8: Tom Stoppard and e Dir. Freddy Syborn Real ing  o write one brilliant and very ather/Son is by Freddy Syborn. tour; in another, father comes prema- angry as your worst nightmare of a Tfunny play is an accomplish- I like him immensely. However, turely whilst son whispers, “It’s all over King’s student, at one point memo- ment. To write two or three, as Os- Fwhen I saw the script last term – now.” Call me an English student, but I rably claiming that Milton Friedman car Wilde did, is extraordinary. To friends in high places, darling – I like that sort of thing (sex and death and was worse than Hitler. Jessie Wyld is write ve or six, as George Bernard remember thinking that it had the po- mirroring, not premature ejaculation). engagingly commonsense (yet interest- Shaw did, is prodigious. tential to suck. It all hinged on whether I’m not saying it works  awlessly. Son’s ing) as Charlotte, whilst Susie Chrystal So think what that says about the play’s central (rather novel) techni- political earfucking got a bit tiresome, is charmingly sweet and bovine as son’s Tom Stoppard, who has written cal device – through which Father and for one thing. And, yes, certainly, one sounding-board. Perhaps ttingly, the eight: Rosencrantz and Guilden- Son talk SIMULTANEOUSLY to their problem with disrupting a temporal me- pick of the bunch is probably Peter stern Are Dead, e Real Inspector respective loved ones – worked. dium is that it know all which gets way Coldam – the chilling tape-recorder Hound, Jumpers, Night and Day, And it does work, mostly.  e play a you’re bit supposed confusing to and voice-over towards the end of the play e Real ing, On the Razzle, Ar- starts with father and son looking at be you don’t looking. But in a way, that combines perfectly with his stilted, cadia and e Invention of Love. each other separated by an imaginary works too: hearing two conversations at browbeaten persona onstage to make He has certainly not lacked line and an equally imaginary mirror. once means you cannot help but listen him at once sympathetic and distant recognition along the way. In the It soon becomes clear that on one side only to fragments – it says something (like everyone’s father, really). forty-three years since Rosencrantz of the divide, father has just died, whilst powerful, probably, about the lack of Ultimately, this is bold, exciting, inno- and Guildenstern Are Dead r s t on the other, son is yet to be born. Such communication between father and son. vative and very, very good new writing, appeared, he has remained a star. mirroring emphasises the parallels Or something. it’s well acted, it’s only 40 minutes long, In recent years he has won an between the two halves of the stage: in Look at me – reviewing the play, and even if I thought Freddy Syborn was Academy Award, been the only one scene, father and son hold identical not the production. Bugger. Quickly, the biggest shit alive I’d be telling you to living playwright not writing in conversations about Bob Dylan going on then: Adam Lawrence is convincingly go. So do. George Reynolds French to have his work performed at the Comédie-Française, received TOM MORIATY a knighthood, and has been the Cardenio subject of innumerable studies and biographies. Fitzpatrick Hall, Queens’ College, March 3rd-7th One of his most famous plays, Dir. Laura Hounsom; BATS e Real ing (on next week at the Corpus Playroom) was rst  produced in 1982 in the West ardenio is Shakespeare’s ‘lost play,’ here as a sort of sinister slapstick, phasise her maiden honour – appar- End, and the cast included Roger here re-imagined by Bernard Rich- which unfortunately is never quite ently addressing all her lines to a spot Rees and Felicity Kendal (who Cards. In spite of its disputed author- funny enough to overcome its inappro- on the  oor in front of her – making subsequently became Stoppard’s ship, it ts snugly into the schema of a priateness. her fraught love scenes fall rather  at. second wife). Its commercial and Shakespearean problem play: neither  e standard Jacobean approach Happily though, the play largely critical success was followed two wholly tragedy nor comedy, it dabbles to scenery, or the lack thereof, places transcends these limitations.  e story years later by a sell-out production in a little of both before its resolution, a huge pressure on the cast to hold trips along nicely, and there seems on Broadway in New York, with and this production generally strikes the attention. It’s a pressure that to be enough enjoyment drawn from Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons in that balance well.  anks for this must most buckle under; apart from the the poetry of the text, especially in the main roles.  is production go largely to Ben Blyth, who brings aforementioned excellence of Blyth’s the rhythms of the quick exchanges, was very well received and won a dark charisma to his role which rendition. Tom Barbour’s con dent to excuse a slight lack of energy.  e several Antoinette ‘Tony’ Perry achieves the necessary oscillation turn as his friend-turned-rival is staging, which attempts to be nothing Awards. between sleazy mischief and shocking impressively a ecting, but the rest are more than utilitarian, helps by making Audiences criticised Stoppard’s violence. largely unremarkable. It’s amusing, but scene changes short and keeping the early work, recognising its wit and Elsewhere, this balance is achieved also distracting, that, as a consequence whole show moving with enough mo- cleverness, but asking whether the less subtly. In an only partially success- of this imbalance in the performances, mentum that by the nal bows you’ll playwright was really able to apply ful search for laughs we are subjected the two male leads have more of a dra- feel it’s been satisfying, if not cathartic his genius to real life problems, of to a profusion of West Country accents matic rapport with one another than or hilarious.  is isn’t theatre as a feast love and passion for instance. e (somewhat inexplicable in rural Spain) they do with their lovers. Alashiya for the senses, but it’s at least a good Real ing can be seen as the play and a scene of attempted rape, played Gordes seemed a little too keen to em- square meal. James Marshall that ended such speculation while also con rming Stoppard’s reputa- HARRY BULLIVANT tion for stylistic experimentalism Historical Fiction by Jenny Boon and innovation. Nancy Chernin from the Los Pembroke New Cellars, March 3rd-7th Angeles Times sums this sentiment up well: “Passion is not usually Dir. Jenny Boon; Pembroke Players what one looks for amid the intel-  lectual and verbal gymnastics that make Tom Stoppard’s writing so izarre. I’m not quite sure I ever to come on stage. Squeezing 17 actors  ere was nothing excessively bad stimulating. But that’s what drives really understood what Histori- into the tiny Pembroke New Cellars about the play; it was just rather pecu- e Real ing: passion between a calB Fiction was aiming to be. Was it a took me back to those days where eve- liar.  e technique used for time travel man and a woman and passion of comedy? Was it a social commentary? ryone got a part in case their parents was simply the characters ducking that man for language, for nding Was it a straight play? I’m not sure wrote in and complained. behind the desk on the stage, which just the right word to express a the playwright herself knew either.  e production never attempted had about the same dramatic impact meaning.” I understand that it is very di cult anything technically or dramatically as someone dropping a stapler.  e It is perhaps for this reason it to write a full-length play, especially impressive; the acting was naturalis- staging was rather dodgy too; all of the stands out among Stoppard’s seven alongside doing a degree, but the tic which jarred somewhat with the scenes with characters sitting, either on other seminal works. For this was whole concept of the play seemed ut- stereotypical characters.  e storyline chairs or on the  oor, were completely the rst time Stoppard showed au- terly silly and pointless. is very strange; it felt like the play had missed by anyone in the audience diences he had “a heart as well as For the most part, Historical Fiction been written as a set text to explore the further back than the front row. a head”, as Sheridan Morely, of the seemed like a competent junior school key themes of an AS General Studies It is wonderful that there are so Spectator, put it. e Real ing is play: its staging was basic and the vast paper.  emes such as the ethics of many opportunities within Cambridge both a beautifully witty and clever number of set changes and props be- time travel and de ning history were for new playwrights and all budding play, and also the rst Stoppard to ing hauled onto stage became vaguely central to the plot.  e characters dis- actors, and if the cast and crew enjoyed make you stop, think, and feel. It is farcical. I felt I was stu ed into a cussed scienti c revolutions, happiness themselves, then I suppose that is well worth a look. Tim Checkley school hall waiting for my little brother and personal ful lment. something. Victoria Ball

LION KING ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 13): Massive error: tomatoes are fruits, you dingbat. e veggies, appalled by your ignorance, vote against you in numbers, and you lose the election by a whisker. Reviews Editor: Laurie Tuffrey Friday March 6th 2009 28 Reviews [email protected] varsity.co.uk iWatch Week 8: Monty Hall’s Great Escape, Sunday 9pm on BBC2, MUSIC available on BBC iPlayer

Invaders Must Die The Prodigy Cooking Vinyl, out now  he Prodigy’s new record, Invaders and bass. The Prodigy’s influence for if not their intensity? This pairing is Must Die, is an album with big spawned a whole generation of new both formidable and inspired: it gives Tshoes to fill. A favourite of students acts; had they resorted to copying their these songs an edge over the rest of and ravers alike, the Prodigy spent the protégées in an attempt to keep up? the album. Grohl should be proud; the nineties enjoying commercial success, My fears were unfounded. This drums command these tracks. ravel, ethical living, grand life critical acclaim and probably quite a is unmistakably a Prodigy record, Invaders Must Die is the musical em- changes and property renova- lot of drugs. They managed to court though while most, if not all, of bodiment of the phrase ‘if it’s not broke Ttion are four ubiquitous staples of controversy whilst still crossing over these tracks would nestle nicely on a then don’t fix it.’ The album has kept the modern television, and this new into the mainstream so successfully previous release, unfortunately they elements of the Prodigy’s sound from series manages to combine them that this reviewer remembers getting a wouldn’t stand out. previous releases (albeit slightly re- all. Monty Hall is a marine biologist sticker of Keith Flint’s face free with a Highlights of the album are the freshed and updated to avoid the whole and professional diver who last copy of Top of the Pops magazine. But collaborations with Foo Fighter (and thing sounding like it was snatched year decided to escape the urban are the great, genre-crossing tracks former Nirvana sticksman) Dave straight from the sweaty mitts of a 1994 stress of life in Bristol, drive fifteen that brought them fame and fortune Grohl on the tracks ‘Run with the bedroom DJ). Unfortunately this does hours north to Scotland’s rugged present on this album? Wolves’ and ‘Stand Up’. Although make the album a little disposable. This west coast, and start a new life in an With a subtle, slow-building intro, an unexpected combination, it’s not record doesn’t move the band forward isolated crofter’s cottage: just him the title track is a decent album surprising that it works as well as it at all and there is little they’ve done to say if you were looking for the next and his dog Reuben. opener. As good as it is however, it did does: Grohl’s drumming has added on this album that they haven’t before. ‘Firestarter’ or ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, The point at which, in this grand lead to slight concerns that this would power to any track it’s graced in the The record is definitely enjoyable, and prepare for disappointment. life-changing scheme, the television be an album of poppy, packaged drum past, and what are the Prodigy known a must for Prodigy fans. But I’m sorry Lucy Bryant crew became involved is uncertain. Was Monty on his way to Scotland when at a service station on the M1 Enemy Mine he crossed paths with a marauding camera crew who heard his story Swan Lake and started filming? Or did Monty Jagjaguwar, out March 23rd decide he wanted a life change, wander over to BBC Bristol, knock  on the door and immediately be ne of the most expensive films ever their own Enemy Mine. While the the trio who between them have made met with a positive response due to come out of Germany was Das album is certainly complex and most a few dozen albums under a myriad of to the poverty of original commis- BootO, the story of the German U-Boat definitely epic, it features significantly different names, we have come to ex- sioning at the BBC? In keeping with U-96 and some of the perilous missions fewer skirmishes on planet Fyrine IV. pect consistency in quality, and Enemy the bleary-eyed romanticism of the carried out by its crew. Most of the film However, with song titles like ‘Settle on Mine certainly doesn’t buck this trend. series, it’s probably best not to ask. is set inside the submarine, and one feels your Skin’ calling to mind Triffid-like As a trio, Dan Bejar, Carey Mercer and Cynicism aside, the first episode a realistically claustrophobic sense of exogens, and opener ‘Spanish Gold, Spencer Krug are perfectly matched, certainly has its merits. The aerial paranoia watching it, since much of it 2044’ suggesting a futuristic setting in with each artist bringing a unique shots of Scotland’s west coast are en- was filmed using a specially-designed former Hispanic colonies, perhaps we geological formation to the magma trancing, and as Monty rightly says, hand-held Steadicam which was hauled shouldn’t be so sure. chamber below the caldera of Swan “It’s a view you don’t really expect to down steel-lined hallways and had But our clarification of the album’s Lake, enough to erupt into a globe- see in the British Isles, it looks more sirens dubbed in co-ordination with the excellence comes through the faultless encircling plume of lava bomb-studded like New Zealand and Scandinavia.” red bulb flashes. After it grossed huge music. Clocking in at about 10 minutes rock dust, and to suffocate the ground He spends the whole of the spring amounts at cinemas worldwide, Wolf- shorter than the band’s impeccable with a triple-layered pyroclastic sealing. renovating a dilapidated old cottage gang Peterson, the film’s director, decid- debut Beast Moans, this, the group’s This band is terrific, as are all their which sits ten feet away from a ed to take a couple of years out, probably quest to get his son Zammis inducted second album, is perhaps slightly less songs. I’m not sure contemporary rock golden beach overlooking the Isle chilling up in Neuschwanstein, and then into the Drac Holy Council. broad-ranging in terms of musical can do much better than this, but then of Skye. With boyish enthusiasm returned with a complex science-fiction Fortunately for everyone, Cana- themes and styles, but is definitely more again Wolfgang Peterson did go and Monty builds sheep pens, roofs his epic with a similar plot line. Enemy Mine dian supergroup Swan Lake didn’t go cohesive. While consistency in style is make Air Force One. house, plants vegetables and digs charts a reptilian humanoid’s emotional and pull a Wolfgang on us in making not what we have come to expect from Andrew Spyrou a well, all to the pumping backing track of Arcade Fire – just in case you were tempted to think that Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn sustainable living is not cool. The Beethoven Ensemble; conductor: Dan Hill; soloists: Max Baillie, Matthijs Broersma, Ceri Owen A cast of local extras provide additional entertainment, as the Trinity College Chapel, Saturday February 28th grizzled highlanders look askew at  the nutty eccentric’s townie ways. He buys chickens from Donald ‘the hen’ ntuitive programming once again from sections in the first movement’s introduc- obscured by counterpoint. Nevertheless, y t o m r ia rt MacDonald, becomes friends with the Beethoven Ensemble, as Men- tion, and the move to the exposition was there was a suitably craggy air to some of Keith the pig farmer, and goes out delssohn’sI Third Symphony echoed the vigorous. The turn to the minor close to the playing, and the flickering wood- fishing with a rugged old sea-dog overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The the conclusion was magical, and the re- winds near the end were highly effective. named Snoddey. Maybe it is just latter was given a weighty performance, turn to the introduction’s themes brought Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for violin, my pathetically nostalgic tempera- with an almost deathly slow introduction out a sense of architecture rare in student cello and piano, opened with something ment, but it is reassuring to see these that imparted a surprising amount of conducting. of a festive feel. The difficulty with this people still eking out a living in such grandeur for such a small orchestra. This The second movement opened with concerto, is getting the cello to project desolation. gave way to what became an exciting brisk jollity from the first clarinet, and over both the orchestra and the other Reducing three months of work quick section, though string intonation though the chattering winds were well soloists: Broersma managed to do this into an hour of TV obviously needs could have been slightly clearer (although phrased, some of the detail was lost in well, especially in the elegiac lament with some careful editing, and this show this may simply have been the fault of the the tutti passages (though this is not which the central Largo begins. There was wise enough to make sure every acoustics). Mendelssohn’s clearest orchestration). was a precision to orchestral parts, and single scene was filled with glorious Mendelssohn’s Third, played nearly The slow Adagio opened with another the interplay between violin (Baillie) and sunshine. But who would want to three weeks after what would have been mistimed chord, but the strings displayed cello was often electric, especially in their even consider that it may have oc- the composer’s two-hundredth birthday, a wide variety of tone, from a mourn- more virtuosic sections in the finale. Yet casionally rained? TV is in the trade opened with a first chord that wasn’t en- ful huskiness to a rhapsodic purity. The the first two movements never really of selling blissful dreams, with a bit tirely together. Yet this was an enjoyable finale, however, dragged: a quicker tempo came alive, just lacking that indefinable of sneaky editing. rendition, if not as viscerally exciting as would have given a much greater sense something that makes a decent perform- Rob Peal Mendelssohn-playing can be. The violins of drama. The over-prominent brass ance great. worked well, particularly in their exposed often meant that the primary melody was David Allen lion king Adventure (starts on page 13): “...And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I shall lay my vengeance upon you.” Anyway, there’s nothing like a bit of Pulp Fiction to rally the cause, and the hustings crowd are soon swooning. The election’s yours. Friday March 6th 2009 Join our Reviews team: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Reviews 29

Take ART, FILM & LITERATURE Lent Term 2009 ily m atthews e m ily Kachōfūgetsu: The Natural World in Japanese Prints The Fitzwilliam Museum Until May 17th  he Cambridge History of Art De- Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese labouring under the misapprehen- partment has a fanatically micro- art exist only as supporting acts to sion that no one east of the Berlin Tscopic focus. With three millennia of Dürer and Leonardo. Andy Warhol and Wall had ever had the temerity Five of the Best art at its disposal across six continents Jackson Pollock might as well not have to pick up a paintbrush and that the department trains its lens almost bothered. China and India are invoked Western Art History peaked with The snow exclusively on the four big hitters: Italy, only when some enterprising merchant Raphael and has been on a down- Hey, winter arrived at last! Cue a France, Germany and Royal Britannia. from the East India Company imports hill course ever since. profusion of photographs of cheekily The Euro-supremacy of the Em- a tea-set or a sketch of an onion dome Hurrah then, for the Fitzwil- gurning snowmen in front of famous manuel May Ball Committee has got back to the salons and drawing rooms liam, which fills in the cultural Cambridge landmarks. nothing on the art history syllabus. A of Western Europe. Japan gets its big gaps. ‘Kachofugetsu: the Natural series of cartographic divisions mark break in discussions of Manet and his World in Japanese Prints’ is an 800th Anniversary the boundary lines: no further north penchant for Japanese prints before exquisitely beautiful exhibition Just as the finishing touches were be- than Edinburgh, no further south than slinking back into obscurity. Russia of prints by Hokusai (he of Wave ing put to London Bridge and Geng- Naples, nothing west of Cardiff and made its debut on the syllabus two years fame) and Kitagawa Utamaro. The And if all that foreign food leaves his Khan was conquering Turkestan, nothing east of Berlin. Oh, the freshers ago and as of next year will be replaced prints are a master class in bringing the a strange taste in your mouth, there’s 1209 saw the University found by a are palmed off with the odd token with Byzantium (two fringe courses natural world to life. Grasses sway in a an adjoining collection of painted and few migrant scholars. 800 years later, lecture on Islamic Pottery or Pacific would be excessive), so small victories breeze made tangible, turtles sink into printed studies of shells and insects by and we have 31 Colleges, 83 Nobel Art, but come Part II, it’s a steady diet are being struck in this territorial war. the shallows with a contented stream of those stalwarts of the Western canon, Laureates and Cindies. Brilliant. of bella Italia, la belle France, schönes Nevertheless, the Art Historian might bubbles, and herons watch from river Rembrandt, Hollar and van Kessel. Deutschland and England’s Gin Lane. very well graduate from Cambridge banks with steely eyes. Laura Freeman Law Faculty occupation Your views may be ambivalent, and ‘60s throwbackery may not be to Gran Torino everyone’s taste, but these students were admirably proactive and got the Dir. Clint Eastwood University talking.

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley and Bee Hill Breakfast at Night  People said: “Breakfast at Night? It’ll ran Torino is Clint Eastwood’s sto- distinctions, or, in the oh-so-Western Western hero, in both his direction and never work, it sounds as silly as ry of a Korean War veteran living sense, ‘doing the right thing’. You could his acting, is a disappointing surprise lunch at three in the morning.” But inG the midwest of America. The plot say it does all these things, but the and a far stretch from the poignancy the cynics were wrong. This Week 2 centres on Walt Kowalski and his vin- thread of connection is half-worked which Million Dollar Baby gave us. ADC Lateshow was a great example tage 1972 sports car, which becomes through, so that all the issues it attempts At first, it seemed impressive that of new writing, definitely one of the a symbol of reconciliation and ageless to address are not left wide open; they the racist insults seemed to become funniest shows this term. heroism. He lives alone, maintains are closed down and packaged in a neat less and less important, and that tenuous relationships with his children Hollywood ending. the intention behind them was well Comedy at the Junction and struggles through a life of hostile While it does contain a heart-warm- investigated and portrayed. As this Mark Watson, Josie Long and David regret for the crimes against humanity ing story of a friendship between a man racial hate is shed off, Eastwood once O’Doherty? Keep ‘em coming! he committed as a soldier. Through and a boy, both of whom were looking again becomes a man simply fighting various steps of interactive fate, Walt for their half of the father/son combo, an evil; though unconventionally, you becomes integrated into the area’s the complex issue of race is used more see, because he hates the Church. In Five of the Worst Hmong community, till he realises that as a heavy weight for a serious film. the end, this is a film which has let he has more in common with them Two thirds of the film is made up of the others such as Do the Right Thing The snow “than my own spoilt, rotten kids”. almost slapstick casual racism, though and American History X do the work Day 1: jubilation for the precipita- What doesn’t really convey is what it redeems itself swiftly in an impecca- for it. The story of the film presents tion. Every other day: ice, not nice. this film is actually about. I’m not sure bly constructed instance of reality that a triumph, but it doesn’t triumph the whether it’s about racism, or old age does resonate to some extent. However, issues it presents, which remain strictly The norovirus against youth, or gang warfare, or class Eastwood’s automatic shift back into the situational. Heather Iqbal Sidney Sussex’s two-day sick bug takes its place in the bottom five not only for the violent vomiting, but for The Socialite Manifesto spawning an army of mask-wearing Christiana Spens disinfectant-sprayers as well. First Class Teas closure Burning House, out now Your one-stop shop for parents’  Christmas presents sadly shut for hough the new book by Christiana edness gives way it’s hard to take the Spens does, however, treat us to the good this term. Spens (a current Homerton stu- heroine seriously; in advertising Ivana’s occasional flicker of insight. ‘Nose- Tdent) alternates between her own input odyssey as ‘the socialite manifesto’, the bleed in New York’ proves particularly Dodgy Alan’s Alternative Dating and space left for the reader’s, it would tone is slangy, teenage and somewhat fertile: a fragile sketch flecked with Agency be generous to think that such artistic trying. But of course the stereotyped some at least well-meant poetry, the Of course there hasn’t been just spareness invites genuine collaboration. protagonist and asinine title have piece showcases another tawny starlet, one shoddy play this term, but this Rather, in leaving half her pages un- nothing on the book’s actual content. nosebleed spraying suggestively onto looked like a shocker as soon as we marked, the author forces us to gener- Coming on like an A-level Art course- her mouth to become lipstick. The way heard the name. Tell you what, next ate the narrative interest and character work folder, The Socialite Manifesto Spens melds images of violence and time there’s a high quality piece of development her own work neglects. Of takes us on a tour of angsty drawings, glamour here is tender yet cutting, not theatre called something along the the protagonist we are told teasingly to frustrating the reader with caricatures to mention the closest she comes to lines of Dodgy Alan’s Alternative “make her [Ivana] You” since she is in so melodramatic and quips so unde- making a thought-provoking point. Dating Agency we’ll eat our hats. fact “...whoever you want her to be”, and manding on anything but our patience. Nevertheless, this highpoint is a rare yet the caveats present themselves al- Thus, a compromised model bears the one and its relevance to Ivana’s journey Easter Term 2009 most instantly: Ivana Denisovich can be pun “Let them Eat Coke”; trampling is also somewhat uncertain. With Lent Term coming to a close, whoever you want her to be, providing red stilettos are glossed as “killer heels”, In the conclusion of the Communist the inevitable exam term comes she’s a distant, 18 year old, drug-abus- while a clique of girls around a mirror Manifesto, Marx urged the workers of around. Be afraid, be very afraid. ing, sexually-charged Camdenite with a are explained away as “Boring, Boring the world that they had ‘…nothing to Actually don’t, just get through the troubled past. Solzhenitsyn’s everyman Boring…” Such blasé engagement with lose but your chains’; all Spens’s readers exams, and we’ll be in May Week war prisoner she most certainly is not. her subject matter allows for an irony have to lose, this manifesto suggests, is before you know it! Once this pretence of open-mind- which is at best limp-wristed. their £12.99. Eliot D’Silva lion king Adventure (starts on page 13): “Back in those days it was called ‘straight-to-video’,” you remind him, tactfully. »p22 Job done; back to the fray. Arts Editor: Emma Mustich Friday March 6th 2009 30 Arts [email protected] varsity.co.uk

King’s College Chapel, Cambridge was attention to the ordered stonework and Great Works Of Art In Cambridge painted after a visit by Pearce to his own window mullions. Ede saw in these Sex in the Univer- exhibition at the Bene’t Gallery on Free factual faults and flat perspective “the #26: King’s College Chapel, Cambridge by Bryan Pearce School Lane in 1966. Ede, with his mag- deep unconscious quality of his interior City pie instincts, snatched it up for his own life and his immediate contact with his Kettle’s Yard walls. The painting is based on a fleeting close friend God”. mental impression – the hazy imprint of Pearce’s vision of the chapel is in- ou’re not alone if you think this is rehabilitation through painting. Proud the gothic chasm. Much of the painting’s formed by the radiant reality of his in- the wrong column for the work of of her son’s individual style, Pearce’s visual information is just plain wrong: ner world and his spiritual aspirations. YBryan Pearce. A few of his unstarry oil mother boasted, “Bryan isn’t influenced the number of bays, the addition of a The iconic chapel has been distilled paintings grace the walls in the annexe by anyone… he’s not interested in cottage on King’s Parade, the removal of into Pearce’s own meticulous, yet naive of Kettle’s Yard. His marine portraits paintings by other artists and he doesn’t Gibbs’ and Wilkins’ screen. But Pearce’s observation of the objective world. are wholly eclipsed by the less vibrant, look at art books”. pencilled line is rendered with diligent Tristan Hambleton

but better renowned works of Alfred the estate of the late bryan pearce Wallis. These sea shanties and sailors’ ditties are well at home in the drift- wood ambience of Jim Ede’s home. Open any art dictionary and you won’t find “Pearce, Walter Bryan, painter, b St Ives, 21 July 1929; d St Ives, 11 Jan 2007” among its pages. He is Week 8: Zoophilia a relative unknown. However, during his lifetime he was the subject of seven ave you wondered why so monographs (by six different authors), many Cambridge tutors keep held over 38 one-man exhibitions, and veritableH ‘petting pens’ in their Col- was positively revered in the prodigious lege rooms? Recent research may Art Colony of St Ives, Cornwall. Ede have the answer: after farm workers was a champion of the artist, claim- of course, academics are indeed the ing that the pure simplicity of Pearce’s group most likely to be closet zoo- paintings rivalled that of works by philes – those who fall deeply and quattrocento master Fra Angelico. sexually in love with animals. Pearce suffered from the rare genetic And why not? Socially retarded disease Phenylketonuria, which severe- intellectuals often long for a lover ly stinted his learning and communica- who will let them drone on about tion skills. Nursed for most of his life their doctorate, not interrupt with by his mother Mary (d 1997), herself intelligent questions, and even al- an amateur painter, he found relief and low them a quick nuzzle afterwards. And who better than a captive pet who can only yowl faintly in bore- dom and distress? And once you start to look for it, zoophilia really is everywhere. Ten Games & puzzles minutes spent browsing on the free- ly available video website zootube. com should count towards some no. 502 kind of advanced anatomy module: Varsity Crossword Sudoku it’s an eye-watering kaleidoscope of

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The object is to insert the numbers in the boxes to satisfy only one pornographic farmyard combina- 23 Irritate speaker and he loses his condition: each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the digits 1 tions. If you’ve got a serious con- through 9 exactly once. 8 head. (5) cern about how ‘girl-on-horse-on- 25 Maid is covered in messy sperm dog-on-dwarf-on-chicken’ works,

9 10 11 and loses momentum. They’re a this is your new Wikipedia. bit wet. (8) 1 7 5 Hoping to obliterate the fuzzy 26 Golden gate cake. (6) (and furry…) footage from 28 Scarf used as cottage cheese con- 3 9 6 1 zootube, I began to leaf through a tainer. (5) 7 4 1 3 2 volume of renaissance love poetry. 12 13 29 Resistance, initially – oh, holy Almost immediately I chanced Moses! (3) 8 3 upon a striking little vignette 14 30 Circle rating in death notice. (5) depicting a rather naughty monkey 31 Neighbourly character is trouble 9 3 2 6 vigorously pleasuring a surprised 15 16 17 18 for one of London’s natives. (6,6) 4 9 (yet gratified) young lady beneath her apron. And it’s not just an aca- 19 Down 6 5 9 8 1 demic interest. A giant goat, muzzle smeared with red lipstick, flowers 20 21 22 23 2 Warm chicken? That’s ungodly! (7) 8 5 4 6 in its fur, heavy lashed come-to-bed 3 Misfortunes of lake in the lady. (8) eyes and an erotically pulsing head

9 8 2 / MADE BY G a r e th Moor www.puzzlemix.com 24 4 Worker has no victory with this currently adorns the window of the kind of service. (4) Cambridge branch of White Stuff. 25 26 5 Onion makes Santa break down in It left me wondering, does sexed up Alamo city. (3,7) Last week’s solution livestock really sell smart casuals 27 6 Petitions without even the begin- 9 5 1 3 7 6 8 2 4 these days? ning of interest in steps formed 4 8 3 2 5 9 6 1 7 Media scandals involving abuse 7 6 2 4 8 1 5 9 3 28 29 30 with nine-in-one. (6) 8 1 6 7 9 2 4 3 5 of trust and paedophilia have now 2 9 4 5 6 3 1 7 8 7 Caress gangsta chain. (5) 3 7 5 1 4 8 2 6 9 become commonplace in universi- 1 2 7 8 3 5 9 4 6 8 In a stir Henry bet Luke that this 6 4 8 9 1 7 3 5 2 ties. So how would a don found in is one for unpleasant types. (8,4) 5 3 9 6 2 4 7 8 1 a compromising clinch with the

31 9 Shredded map of Seattle fills shoes college cat fare before a univer- in one way. (6,2,4) sity tribunal? Would the feline be 14 Don in bondage – phone for one. classed as an equal or as a minor? (3,3,4) Should the university be obliged to Across 18 Users of one might refer to this tea defend the honour of the creature hoover – brash, but with love. (6) with no nouns and verbs – in fact, STAFF WANTED as one of its own? Or would the 1 My glaring confusion with NHS 13 Strike jackass in the crotch – it’s no words at all! (9) People to work in the bar incident be hushed up; too taboo is intended to perplex outsiders. instinctual. (4-4) 19 One crypt about another – get air (or not taboo enough) to warrant (7,5) 15 Wise man can make drug, I hear. conditioning in. (8) and entertainment industry. serious investigation? 9 It shortly appears that these can be (5) 21 It’s smoked crocodile penis, diced. Good rates of pay. A zoophile sex scandal seems climbed with six-in-one. (5) 16 Bull on the other place. (4) (7) No experience required. unlikely. Yet judging by the well 10 Transportation up front. (3) 17 Particular about sex. (4) 24 He doesn’t eat quicker. (6) known limerick about Johnians, 11 Poke (perhaps 17) and get honour 20 Goblin with a killer. (4) 27 Frost is up to ruler. (4) Contact: James sodomy, dons and swans, even for spin. (5) 22 This garment sounds like the 07818646814 when it comes to bestiality, Cam- 12 Nature feels this way about my hardest word. (4) Set by Hythloday bridge will give as good as it gets. Answers to last week’s crossword (no. 501) The Outside Bar Company Isabel Taylor Across: 1 One across, 6 Siege, 9 Boudoir, 10 Texting, 11 Dollars, 12 Slowest, 13 About-face, 15 Not so, 16 Tiara, 19 Taken down, 22 Lifts up, 23 Demotic, 25 Purcell, 26 Morceau, 27 Sites, 28 Two across. Down: 1 Orbed, 2 Equal to, 3 Coolant, 4 Ogres, 5 So to speak, 6 Six down, 7 Evident, 8 Eight down, 13 Antelopes, 14 Autopilot, 17 At first, 18 Answers, 20 Numeric, 21 On the go, 23 Dumbo, 24 Clues. lion king Adventure (starts on page 13): “Look Scar,” you elaborate, “it has nothing to do with my art-house predilections. It’s just that the script was shit, the songs weren’t catchy, and the voice talent was lacking.” Unfortunate- ly, several members of the hustings audience disagree vehemently: “Bollocks to that,” one says. “The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride is actually the best Disney sequel ever. Every character has depth, and all in all, it’s comparable in quality with a film like Aladdin, and that’s saying something.” Indeed, your lack of cinematic nous goes on to cost you the election. Edit this paper e Varsity Trust Applications are invited to edit Varsity in May Week Take your passion for or Michaelmas 2009, or to be a section editor. journalism further... Application forms are available for download from A major scholarship and/or bursary varsity.co.uk/jobs may be awarded to students graduating from the University e deadline for editorial applications is Monday of Cambridge or Anglia Ruskin University who are about to April 27th. e deadline for section editor undertake an approved course in journalism in the coming applications is Friday May 29th. academic year.

For further details on the Trust and to check eligibility, visit www.varsitytrust.org.uk, If you have any questions, please e-mail the or email [email protected] for an current editors, Hugo Gye & Michael Stothard, information pack. Deadline for Applications: on [email protected]. April 27th 2009.

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3-5 MillersMillers Yard, MMillill Lane,Lane, CambridgeCambridge CB2 1RQ T: 01223 360409 / 07951 572 131 www.bombaybrasserie.net OPENING HOURS Lunch: Mon - Fri 12 - 2.30pm / Sat - Sun 12 - 3pm Dinner: Sun - Thur 6 - 11.30pm / Fri - Sat 6 - 12am Sport Editors: Jenny Morgan & Jimmy Pickles Friday March 6th 2009 32 Sport [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Quick Catch-up Cambridge Craven a win College Catch-up ROWING HYPE BUT FOOTBALL HOPE. VARSITY REVEALS THE CONFIDENCE OF THE CAMBRIDGE BLUES Football Plate e 125th football Varsity Match will defence all season. Strong in the tackle On Saturday Pembroke faced Down- be played at Craven Cottage on Sun- and virtually unbeatable in the air, ing in the semi- nal of the Football day 29th March (the same day as the they are hoping he will be able to keep Michael Johnson is a Boat Race), and the Blues are feeling the Oxford attack quiet. serious injury worry Plate competition. As leaders of Div. hopeful. At the other end of the pitch, Matt 1, Downing came into the match as A er a stop-start season, somewhat Amos has been back in the squad favourites, but it was Pembroke who disrupted by copious amounts of the since Christmas and has put in some took the lead a er a corner-kick was dreaded white stu , they are now top performances, scoring some cru- headed in by Frank Gorringe. looking to get back on track in time cial goals in the process. A scorer in Downing reacted positively to the for the big match. last year’s Varsity Match, he will be early goal and soon equalised with a Captain and le winger Jamie Rutt looking to add to his tally in a few well-worked corner to the back post. is quietly con dent, regardless of the weeks’ time. Minutes later Downing’s centre mid setbacks: “A er the disruption caused A worry is that Amos’s usual part- found space outside the area, and by the snow we’ve responded well and ner up front, Jesus’ Michael Johnson, struck the ball into the bottom cor- strung some strong performances is unlikely to play in the match. Hav- ner to put them ahead. together in recent weeks. Hopefully ing sprained his ankle quite badly But Pembroke refused to release we can keep that going over the  nal against Northampton, he was forced their grip on the game and kept the few weeks. Competition for places is to watch his College team overcome de cit to just one at half time. stronger than in any year whilst I have Girton from the sidelines in the Cup- Injuries forced substitutions for been here and I know we will be more pers semi- nal on Tuesday. Pembroke, including Omar Ka- than a match for Oxford come the e team have  ve  xtures le to dhim who went on to score in the 29th.” play and will be looking to build a lit- 70th minute. 2-2 at full time and no e Cambridge squad contains a tle momentum and  nalise their team couple of key players. Ali Hakimi has choices whilst avoiding any more last- change a er a further 30 mins; the been a rock at the heart of the Blues minute injuries. game went to penalties. SOPHIE PICKFORD Pembroke calmly slotted their  rst three, then Robert France stepped up for Pembroke, beating the keeper with ease to send his team through Light Blue boxers look to throw heavy punches the  nal a er a memorable victory. CAMBRIDGE TRY TO RECLAIM THEIR CROWN IN THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE AMATEUR CALENDAR

Varsity Catch-up On Tuesday the Old Billingsgate, two boxers of their confidence. London, will host the most eagerly For sheer punching power, look Mountain Biking awaited night of boxing in the ama- to Adrian Teare and Ed Chadwick teur calendar. The running total is (middleweight), who knocked out Cambridge rode to an impressive as close as it could be; Cambridge an officer of the Metropolitan Po- victory in the Mountain Bike Var- winning by 49 to Oxford’s 48. Ox- lice force a couple of weeks ago. If sity Match on Sunday. ford have won the last three Varsity it’s tactic and technique you’re af- In the 1.5 hour cross country race Matches, using the same experienced ter, you ought to enjoy Will Rees’s held at Crowthorne Woods in Berk- squad throughout. This year, how- bout. Ieuan Marsh has impressed in shire, both the Cambridge First and ever, many of them have graduated, his first year in the squad with his Second teams  nished ahead of Ox- making room for a fresh group of aggressive hunter’s mentality inside ford’s  rst rider. More promising faces for our boys to smash around. the ring, while Chris Webb, making still, the entire  rst team consisted The Cambridge team includes two the transition from kickboxing, was of freshers. returning Blues from a nine-man the star of the show against the Town Former GB squad rider Shaun squad, and their experience will be team. Hurrell (Catz) put in an impressive needed. Form this season has been Although what they do inside the ride to take overall victory. An- Boxing training has on and off. A good win over the ring is up to themselves, it will be been intense in the Army in November gave reason for important that the boxers develop drew Nichols (Sidney Sussex) re- Varsity build-up optimism, but some lower-than-av- the same team mentality as any other covered well from an early crash to erage performances against a strong Light Blue side, if they are to make  nish in second place, with Philip town side may have stripped one or the best of the evening. Buckham-Bonnett (Selwyn) com- VIN SHEN BAN ing third. e result bodes well for the forthcoming BUCS Champs. umping win crowns rugby league season Varsity Catch-up Jenny Morgan Cambridge 20 Rugby Fives e Rugby League boys have been one of the most successful Cambridge Oxford 4 Cambridge had a very young and out ts this season. A er storming inexperienced VIII with four wins in their last seven matches, they Mistakes aplenty le the match in freshmen and one other debutant; rocked up at Twickenham Stoop last the balance in the run-up to half time. Oxford had far greater strength in night full of con dence for the Varsity A foolish penalty for interference gi - all departments. It was no surprise, encounter, which was televised on ed Cambridge another two points, to Sky Sports 3. Led by Matt Bray in his go into the tunnel 8-4 up. therefore, that Cambridge found third Varsity Match, they were out to Cambridge hit the ground running themselves well behind a er the avenge last year’s defeat. at the restart, and Oxford indisci- singles and could make no inroads A er an Oxford start, the Light pline handed them another penalty in the doubles. Blues worked their way up the pitch, to stretch the score further. Not yet e third and fourth pairs running into some crunching tack- beaten, there were several dangerous fought valiantly, and successfully, les then halted by an o side o ence. Dark Blue breaks through the mid- to amass su cient points to avoid eir next drive soon turned against dle, and the Cambridge tackling was the embarrassment of the heaviest them though as an intercepted pass hardly inspiring. defeat for Cambridge in the his- handed Oxford the chance to charge But the stream of handling errors tory of the game. e  nal result down the pitch and take the  rst from the Oxford players meant that was 298-109. points with a try for James Batstone nearly every attack was lost and the e Light Blues expect to be on ten minutes. Light Blues kept their heads to keep stronger next year but will  nd it Cambridge were soon back on the their lead. A try set up by Aaron So- di cult to match Oxford’s talent, attack, winning a scrum a er Oxford nenfeld for Ignacio Quintana con- especially with no courts in Cam- knocked on just in front of their own  rmed the win, with Joe Pitt-Rashid e Light Blues a er bridge to practise on. A heavy bur- try line. e opportunity was engi- providing the icing on the cake with their BUCS win den will fall on the new captain to neered into a try for captain Matt another. motivate and bring on his players. Bray, converted by James Hunt to take 20-4 at full time: a suitably strong Cambridge ahead. end to an epic season. Friday March 6th 2009 Write for Varsity Sport: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Sport 33

REPORTS Cooney’s Marathon Footballers fail to hold o Oxford » Mistakes in defence see women fall foul of an Oxford onslaught Lauren Cooney Jenny Morgan ing their all, Leesa Haydock in particu- once again. Cambridge 0 lar battling her way physically through Cambridge had paid the ultimate Saturday brought another big Varsity the mid eld to deliver the ball to her price for their  rst half lethargy, and occasion. And with the Cambridge forwards. But time a er time the chanc- Oxford had got lucky with their attack- crowd stood several deep at the Fenners Oxford 2 es were missed, and disbelief turned to ing chances. With the seconds having pitches, the Women’s Blues prepared to despair for the Cambridge contingent lost earlier in the day, this is a club that Week 8 perform in this the 49th Varsity con- clear o the pitch and into the crowd. both on and o the  eld. In the dying will have to pick itself up now at the frontation. Hardly inspirational football from ei- seconds, even, the ball rebounded o end of the season in order to come back In which Lauren faces the physio and comes Nervous from the start, Cambridge ther team, the  rst half ended an un- the woodwork, agonisingly o target for revenge in 2010. out laughing... found themselves on the back foot im- exciting 0-0. mediately. Danielle Gri ths and Liz- Within two minutes of the restart, zie Richardson had their work cut out excitement of the wrong kind was in- always used to be incredibly im- in defence, and Leesa Haydock was on jected as a marking error in defence Ipressed if people told me they were hand to head away a corner within the le an Oxford striker free to hoof the going for ‘Physio’. Woah, they must  rst few minutes. ere was nothing to ball over the head of the goalie to take be really bloody sporty, yeah. ‘Physio’ fault in this early defensive perform- the lead. Jolted awake, the Light Blues was a self-in icted pain, it meant that ance, and the Blues sat back and let  nally took the initiative and gave the you worked out, that you persevered, Oxford run at them, con dent in their crowd something to shout about. that you took one for the team. ability to neutralise the threat. Straight back on the attack, Cam- More than that, it meant a regular When the ball was cleared, however, bridge won  rst a free kick and then massage, which seemed very luxuri- Cambridge were lacking in front run- a series of direct shots, though frus- ous in the face of my own experience ners to get on the end of some he y, tratingly these all went wide or into of the ai sort in the ai sorta place looping passes up  eld. A couple of the waiting arms of the keeper. Mai- in ailand. is involved my mate chances went wanting for the Light sie-Rose Byrne and Kate Robinson Lucie and I on our backs on adjacent Blues, as the Oxford defence literally worked beautifully up the two wings, beach towels, whilst uncharacter- threw themselves in front and some- but the absence of options in the mid- istically humungous ai women how scrambled the ball away. Indica- dle of the park meant that the team of- twisted our legs past each other’s tive of the general messiness of the play, ten failed to convert chances into any faces. Funny. Not so relaxing. it was a full twenty minutes before the real advantage. ‘Physio’ was a new sort of massage,  rst saves of the match were made by en, almost in slow motion, Oxford a classy sort of massage, the gentle- the Oxford keeper. received the ball in attack, dribbled man’s massage. It was the sort of Messy at this end of the  eld, it was round two defenders and snuck the massage that took place on a leather however inescapable that Oxford were shot into the le corner to edge even clad chaise lounge once a week. I im- the more structured in their phase play further ahead. Cambridge might have Emma Eldridge goes down agined a glossy, but gentle- ngered, in mid eld. Cambridge were sparse had the possession, but Oxford were on the edge of the area hunk called ‘Mert’ rubbing lavender in attack and getting to the ball sec- having all the luck. oil into my feet whilst jogging on the ond every time, and the defence were e  nal quarter of an hour was tor- spot in his satin tracksuit. increasingly le with no option but to ture to watch. e Light Blues were giv- Imagine the horror when I met MICHAEL DERRINGER Jim, who managed to lose his cup of tea twice in our 90-minute session, and explained in gruesome detail, the so mound of skin he has “protrud- ing between me le thigh and me A Dark (Blue) day for Cambridge hockey perineum”. Verbatim. Jim, for all his charm, succeeded in stripping me to » Hockey girls show fighting spirit while men are humbled in shock defeat my knickers a er only  ve minutes pre-amble and then in icted SUCH pain mixed with MUCH TICKLING. Anna Stanley & Becca Langton bridge were able to enter the half-time Cambridge Men 1 Cambridge Women 1 break with the one goal advantage. I was laughing because that it is how is Tuesday saw the 109th women’s Five minutes into the second half, I deal with wanting to kick some- and men’s hockey Varsity Matches. Oxford Men 4 Oxford Women 2 Cambridge were punished as they one in the face, which di ers from Last year the women only lost out nar- looked the other way. John Fedderson the squeal I emitted three years ago rowly and were eager to prove they opened Oxford’s account and with the whilst having acupuncture. e lady were every bit as good as their Dark tage which led to a goal. Going into half brimming with talented freshers, of support su ering from the bleak rain apologised for hurting me and prom- Blue opposition, having lost to them time, the score one apiece, Cambridge whom three are internationals and one and bitingly cold winds, it seemed as ised to avoid my lower back without previously on two occasions in the clearly looked the better side. a national league player, along with a though the match might be played out realising she had actually found my BUSC South Premier League. e second half saw the Dark Blues number of seasoned Varsity partici- to the draw. g-spot. is motivation could be seen from up the pressure but Cambridge was pants, Cambridge stepped onto the Man of the Match Rupert Allison Although I restrained from kicking the o as Cambridge impressed spec- not going to give up just yet. Han- pitch anticipating the chance to even was keen to keep the pace of the game Jim I couldn’t hold my tongue, but tators with great passing and pressure, nah Rickman’s passing enabled Anna the day’s score. up, however, and while Oxford were Jim was unfazed having just returned creating a clear chance with only 37 Stanley to make some quick runs with Starting positively with searing runs quick to shut down the Light Blue at- from the All-Ireland Senior Hurling seconds played. Centre forward Jenny the ball, taking on the Oxford de- from the mid eld, Scotland-capped tack, Allison picked out keyhole spac- Championships. He had decided that Stevens managed to exploit the sleepi- fenders and trying to  nd her fellow Nick Parkes took the game into the es to thread passes through to Jonny everything, including an Irish man ness of the dark blue defence by skil- forwards in the D. Emma Goater and opposition half, and with his custom- Knight, who was unlucky not to pull yelling “You Cant”, sounded sweet. fully slipping the ball past the Oxford Mel Addy tried to press up the right ary  are Jack Yelland  nished neatly back the lead. It was only in the last At the end of the 90 minutes I asked keeper and the Cambridge Blues were but the short corners which they won to bring the light blues the advantage quarter that the game  nally found its if I would be fully recovered for the set to dominate this game. went unconverted. A ball back to the early in the  rst half. e mid eld stride and unfortunately it was in Ox- Marathon. Fighting hard for   y-  ies, Lisa injector was stopped by Oxford on were positive on the attack; David Bell ford’s favour. “By June?!” Noble did a fabulous job as centre the line and prevented the Light Blues distributed well from the centre while David Madden was inspirational at “Erm, no, by April…” mid elder, keeping Oxford captain CJ from taking the lead, but that is how vice-captain Stuart Jackson was only the back, however his best e orts were For the time being I am required under control, and helping the defence close they got. inches from stretching the lead on a not strong enough to keep out an ag- to make alphabet shapes with my feet move the ball out of the tight press. It simply was not meant to be; luck number of occasions. gressive Dark Blue attack. omas for half an hour each day, and I’ve Continuous movement by all three de nitely was not on their side. Slightly e game was inevitably a physi- Lockton took the game to 2-1 with a signed myself up for the Silverstone forwards and good passing up both disheartened by the lack of returns for cal one and fast-paced. Nevertheless masterful reverse stick strike into the half next week. If the shin splintz sides of the pitch enabled Cambridge their constant pressure, Cambridge sat Cambridge seemed to  nd it di cult to back of the net. In the last ten minutes (they get a z cos they are bad, man) to keep the pressure up. A few short back and let Oxford take charge once establish a hold on the game. Play was Alex Evans found the goal again and prove themselves, I might have to corners were won, but the Light Blues more, paying the price when a short end to end with both teams eager to Cambridge, piling forward in a last resort to running the marathon struggled with the logging Oxford corner was converted. e Light Blues press on the D. Keeper Chris Robinson ditch attempt at evening the scores, in a tutu or next pseudo-comedic keeper, who made some good saves continued to push for the equaliser was superb in goal, thwarting a number le themselves vulnerable at the back. costume to warrant an 8hr plod. I’ll and helped her team stay in the game. but in the end lost 2-1. Cambridge felt of Oxford attempts but the chance to John Fedderson rubbed salt in Cam- cross my splintz that this is not my A er a period of intense pressure, the they were the better side in this game capitalise on the lead when they were bridge’s open wounds as he scored his swan song, and divert your atten- Cambridge women sat back and were and proved they are a force to be reck- in possession passed Cambridge by. second of the match to seal the deal tion to that lovely website, hoping soon punished when a ball up the le oned with, but unfortunately for them With the mid eld clearly struggling and regain the trophy for Oxford. that you might ignore my stint in hand side was crossed into the D, where this just was not enough. to  nd their feet it was once again e  nal score was 4-1 to the Dark rehab and just throw your wallets at the Oxford forward was already wait- Having dominated Oxford for two the stalwart defence of captain David Blues, a less than ideal result and not your computer screens: http://www. ing. Cambridge were then frustrated years, the Cambridge men’s Blues Saunders and record-breaking seven- one that re ected the ability, tenacity cambridgerapecrisis.co.uk/ when the umpire took away an advan- team were con dent. With a team time Blue Jez Hansell that meant Cam- and strength of the Cambridge side. Sport Editors: Jenny Morgan & Jimmy Pickles Friday March 6th 2009 34 Sport [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Sport Feature: Boat Race Preview Blades Out VARSITY SPORT BRINGS YOU THE FACTS AND THE FORM GUIDE FOR THIS YEAR’S BOAT RACE

RICHARD HEATHCOTE/GETTY IMAGES he crews for the 155th Boat Race e Light Blues look certain to have What goes on... were announced on Wednesday their work cut out against this strong Tmorning, and Cambridge look to be Oxford crew. e Boat Race tradition was begun in for a tough time. Cambridge Head Coach, Chris in 1829, when a student from St Colin Smith and Henry Oxford are fielding five Olympic Nilsson, has  ve returning 2008 Blues John’s challenged his friend from Pelly, opposing Presidents, rowers this year including several including American Ryan Mona- Oxford to a race at Henley. A er at the crew announcement internationals. ghan, who is joined by British crew several years of disagreements the GB silver medallist and OUBC members Henry Pelly, the CUBC annual challenge  nally got un- President Colin Smith and his Team President, plus Tom Ransley, Peter derway and has continued largely GB team mate Tom Solesbury will Marsland and cox Rebecca Dowbig- unchanged to the present day. join New Zealand’s bronze medal- gin (2007 and 2008). Several years have been particu- list George Bridgewater, Croatian Pelly has rowed for the GB Quad larly dramatic. e politics of selec- Olympian Ante Kusurin and Dutch at U23 level whilst his team mates tion led to Oxford mutinies in 1959 star Sjoerd Hamburger in the start- Ransley and Marsland will all be and 1987, and more recently the ing line-up. Returning Blue Michal contending for GB international media latched onto the Livingston Plotkowiak (2007) from Poland vests this summer. It is inescapable brothers rowing in opposite boats takes up the crucial Bow position. however that all are as yet somewhat in 2003. And who could forget In fact, the line-up has been behind their Oxford counterparts in the 1978 race, when Cambridge described as just short of Olympic experience. sank on the  nal stretch, recently standard. The Oxford coach Sean Some have rowed for years. Ranley named the 79th Greatest Sporting Bowden believes that it is one of started eight years ago and Monaghan Moment. the strongest crews in years, and is took to the water at sixteen. Oth- Cambridge currently lead the quietly confident of their chances at ers are a little bit newer to the sport: overall series 79-74, with one Race taking a fourth consecutive win. Marsland only took it up three years declared a dead-heat since 1829. However there is no escaping the ago a er a series of rugby injuries. is year they will be rowing in a variable nature of this particular Coach Nilsson is up for the chal- boat recently named by His Royal race: “We have a technically strong lenge: “I’ve pushed them harder on Highness e Duke of Edinburgh, and experienced crew but we still occasions than they have been pushed ‘ e 800th’. e Race will be recognise the challenge that Cam- before. But we had to go there and screened live on ITV1, coverage bridge represent this year and we they now know what they are capable beginning at 2.30pm. are continuing to push ourselves to of. We are up against a much stronger Over the next week, Cambridge’s prepare for the Race.” boat but I still believe we can win.” race preparation is  nalised by rac- ing two top- ight rowing clubs, the Oxford Crew Cambridge Crew Molesey and Leander Boat Clubs. Both clubs are expected to select Bow - Michal Plotkowiak Bow - Rob Weitemeyer  rst-choice crews in order to test 2 - Colin Smith 2 - Henry Pelly their winter preparation in time for 3 - Alex Hearne 3 - Deaglan McEachern their forthcoming Head of the Riv- 4 - Ben Harrison 4 - Peter Marsland er Race. With World- and Olympic- 5 - Sjoerd Hamburger 5 - Ryan Monaghan level athletes in the lineups, this 6 - Tom Solesbury 6 - Hardy Cubasch will be a stern test for Cambridge in 7 - George Bridgewater 7 - Tom Ransley the run up to their big day. Stroke - Ante Kusurin Stroke - Silas Sta ord Cox - Colin Groshong Cox - Rebecca Dowbiggin FORMER PRESIDENT OF CUBC TOM JAMES TALKS TEAM TACTICS WITH JENNY MORGAN What goes in...

f anyone knows the Boat Race, it’s occasion get them into the right e extensive media coverage of damaging.” Ever wondered what it takes to Tom James, four time rowing Blue mind set. Basically you need to be the event can exacerbate these issues. e personal pressure is also im- be a boatie? Apparently an awful andI Olympic gold medalist in Beijing. con dent, strategically prepared and It doesn’t necessarily help to come in mense. e crew have fought hard to lot of pasta for one thing. Here’s e rowing star took time out this determined that you are going to get with too much con dence. “Ideally, win their place and for many the time a look at one of the guys’ average week from a skiing holiday to run everything you have put into training if you are professional enough you constraints of a degree course mean daily intakes in the build up to the through his thoughts on this year’s right on race day.” should be able to ignore the public that this could be their only or their big Varsity confrontation... race. e programme of races in the run perception, or betting odds put on last chance. A er all, the Boat Race is unlike up to the big day is put in place to you – but everyone is human and e Boat Race means everything 06:00 First breakfast: 2 pieces of any other in the rowing calendar. help the crew develop a race routine especially in the boat race where it is to the people involved. Even for Tom, toast with butter and jam, bowl of With no heats, reps, and semis to and learn how to deal with their own very much a two horse race you  nd winning in his fourth and  nal at- cereal, cup of tea, litre of water. ‘warm up’, no other crews, it’s just you personal reaction to pressure. the label of ‘favourite’ can be very tempt, when he was CUBC President, and them, no second chance. FRED DUFOUR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES is right up there with Olympic gold. 06:30 Erg/weight training: 1 litre e atmosphere is completely dif- “ ey’re both very special moments of SiS Go during training, 1 litre of ferent, explains Tom. In an interna- for me in my life; very di erent ReGo post training. tional race, “the start is very quiet, memories which I’m sure I’ll remem- the crowds are usually just at the ber equally in time to come.” 09:00 Second breakfast: eggs,  nish and really the viewing  gures With this in mind, his advice to beans, 2 pieces of toast with butter are not that large. e Boat Race, this year’s crew is to get out there and and jam, yoghurt, piece of fruit, however, is viewed by 250,000 people enjoy it. “It’s very easy to get carried co ee, croissant. on the bank, with about 70,000 people away with the hype, emotion and ex- watching the start.” pectation on the day but the best out- 12:00 Lunch: 300g pasta with It can be incredibly di cult to come will come from sticking to what tomato sauce, 2 apples, half a litre block all of that out and manage to you know best and being ruthless in of water. focus on the task in hand. Moreover executing it.” e guys have put in the the history and prestige of the occa- hours of training and pursued rigor- 13:30 Training: 1 litre SiS Go sion only add to the tension, with Old ous nutritional and lifestyle regimes; during training, 1 litre ReGo a er Blues taking an avid interest long a er the race itself is just the culmination training. their time in the boat. of months of hard work. e pressure can make or break “Keep your heads, you don’t need 18:00 Dinner: 750g of pasta with a crew. Individual rowers must deal to do anything heroic - just row your 400g of chicken and tomato with their nerves in order to ensure Tom and his team own race,” says the man who has seen sauce. top performance. “Some like to get mates in Beijing it all before. Advice that the Blues very wound up before the race and would do well to observe, even with 20:30 Snack: bowl of cereal or be very aggressive, while some like such a great burden of expectation yoghurt. to stay calm and relaxed and let the weighing on their broad shoulders. Friday March 6th 2009 Write for Varsity Sport: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Sport 35

REPORTS Quick Catch-up

Varsity Catch-up Lacklustre Lacrosse Blues Lose Varsity Indoor Athletics » Cautious Cambridge can’t match the strength of their Dark Blue counterparts Saturday saw the Varsity Field Events and Relay Varsity, and Cambridge Charlie Pearson the men intent on making something be pride at stake. had high hopes of victory. Cambridge 3 happen, while Chris Jones – when he e Dark Blues squeezed in two e men’s team were phenomenal, e men’s lacrosse Blues’ cracking wasn’t cotching in the sin bin – put in more at the start of the  nal period to winning the track 6-0 and the  eld season reached a rather humbling some inspirational hits to  atten Oxford make it 12-2, but Ed Cassels was posi- 6-2, with many promising individual Varsity climax at Parker’s Piece Oxford 13 attackmen. tively elated to hurry in Cambridge’s performances. Ben Richardson broke on Saturday as the team su ered a us Cambridge respectably drew third, a sign that the Light Blues were the individual record in the 60m hur- heavy 13-3 defeat to a strong and goals without the home side troubling the third quarter 1-1, Todd Nichols still stoically committed to the contest. dles, and the Light Blues dominated experienced Oxford band of Varsity the scorers. the deserved scorer having had a goal Oxford had the last word and  n- the throws, with wins in the discus, veterans. A competitive recovery from such disallowed in the  rst, but with Oxford ished the match 13-3; a not unexpected hammer, javelin, and shot. e Light Blues might not have an infelicitous opening sadly never still 8 goals clear, there seemed only to result perhaps, but hurtful nonetheless. A one-two in the triple jump from been hopeful of victory coming into really looked on the cards, but, to the SOPHIE PICKFORD Humphrey Waddington and Ian the match, but they trained and they team’s credit, a Cambridge capitulation Simson helped to consolidate the played with tremendous heart in the de nitely wasn’t either. team’s triumph. lead up to this game and should lose Play was much more evenly matched e Cambridge middle distance no respect for what was in the end in the remaining periods and the Blues’ squad were also on top form. e vic- quite a mettlesome display. Carl Tilbury was the  rst to bounce in a tories in the 4x800m and 4x1500m On the day, Oxford were good, goal in the second quarter. Cambridge were so comfortable that the Cam- though it turns out perhaps not as might have had another through the bridge team were practically jogging. good as Cambridge had feared. It stick of Ed Cassels who was denied by e most exciting relay of the day seems unfortunate that with a little the post from close range, and keeper had to be the men’s 4x400m. e less deference towards their op- Sam Spurrell earned the man-of-the- teams were virtually neck and neck ponents in the  rst twenty minutes, match award for his resilience in goal for the entire race with the Light Blue Cambridge could well have made a and 71 per cent save record. team just striding away in the  nal lap closer game of it than the score line Oxford were able to add two more to courtesy of Rory Graham-Watson. might suggest. the score before the end of the second Last year was a disappointment Half of the damage was done in the period, but the balance of power was for the Cambridge women, and they  rst quarter, during which the notice- visibly levelling; possibly because Daniel Pennington were keen to get revenge. eir de- ably di dent Light Blues allowed Oxford had no great need to score, but defends the crease termination paid o with an unex- Oxford all the space they needed. e equally because Cambridge continued pected draw in the  eld. visitors were clearly skilled enough to improve. e stars of the women’s show were to exploit Cambridge’s kind start and Phil Hall ran his little cotton socks o de nitely the throwers, as they man- by the  rst break had eased in seven in the mid eld and stood out as one of aged to win the hammer, discus and shot with individual wins for Clare Palmer and Laura Duke. Emma Per- kins then won the high jump. TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS IN AN EXCITING WEEK OF LENT BUMPS On the track, there were impressive displays by the 4x200m and 4x400m It was another predictably exciting teams, with the latter narrowly miss- week on the choppy Cam in the annual ing the record for the second year Lent Bumps. In the Men’s First Divi- running to prevent an Oxford clean- sion there was little change at the top, sweep. An individual win in the 60m with Trinity First & ird still reigning failed to be enough for the Light Blue supreme, and LMBC (John’s) and team, missing out on victory by only Downing just switching places. More a tenth of a second. exciting was Trinity Hall’s emphatic e Cambridge team can come elevation from 11th to 7th in a fan- away from the winter season proud tastic four days of racing. of their performances and looking Meanwhile Girton and Peterhouse forward to a bright summer season hauled themselves up out of the ahead. Second Division, claiming the scalps of Selwyn and First & Third II along the way. There was much afoot in the Varsity Catch-up Women’s First division: Emmanuel (pictured) bumped on their first Real Tennis day and then maintained the top spot over First and Third. Dramatic Cambridge were comfortably victori- rises from Queens’ and Christ’s, ous in both the men’s and the wom- but equally dramatic falls from the en’s competitions at Lord’s. Deborah unfortunate Clare, Newnham, and Jenkins was unfortunate to lose her Emma W1 bump First and ird Girton left all to row for in the mid- match 4-6, 6-1, but teammates Ju- on Wednesday to go top of Div. 1 dle of the table. les Clarke, Sarah Vigrass and Karen Selwyn and Peterhouse were the Hird, playing a little below their level, two teams able to row their way didn’t drop a game between them. e into the First Division in an equally doubles were conducted in similarly DAVID BARRACLOUGH disordered Second Division. unyielding fashion. Final score: 5-1. In the men’s doubles, Ali Hakimi and Ed Pearson struggled in the sec- Varsity Preview Varsity Preview Varsity Preview Varsity Preview ond string match losing 4-6, 0-6, 6-4, 3-6, while Rob Hird and Jamie Doug- Boxing Ice Hockey Women’s Rugby Golf lass unexpectedly lost their opening set but came back to win. In the grand surroundings of this Ice hockey has been played at Cam- e Women’s team have had an Last year’s confrontation saw Ox- Ed Pearson bullishly won his  rst 1500 capacity venue overlooking bridge since 1885 and the rivalry awesome season, having not lost a ford manage to steal the win 8-7, set in the singles 6-0 but rather shyly Tower Bridge, the Light Blue boxers is intense. is year should see an match since October last year. Hav- so Cambridge will be keen for a gave his opponent a sni in the second, will look to pummel their Oxford epic battle between the two teams, ing taken the BUCS League and comeback this time around. e eventually winning 6-4. Ali Hakimi counterparts. With seating divided it could go either way. By nature vi- currently sitting atop the RFUW  rst match between the teams took won a three set nail-biter 6-3, 5-6, 6-5, between the two sets of students olent and fast-paced, a great chance League, they are looking for a win place back in 1878 so the rivalry is and captain Rob Hird eased un appa- and covered this year by Channel to cheer on the Cambridge team on Saturday. Last year’s match was one of the longest running in the bly to a 6-1 6-4 victory. Jamie Douglas 4, the atmosphere is sure to be elec- as they (hopefully) crush the Dark a thrilling a air, with Cambridge sport. Expect high drama, in a very was con dently battering Oxford’s top tric. Only a few tickets le ... Blues. clawing back a 12-3 de cit to win civilised setting. seed before a rogue power cut plunged 13-12 in the  nal minutes. Lord’s into darkness. Oxford were of- Tues March 10th, from 6pm, Old Sat March 7th, 4.30pm, Planet Ice, Fri March 27th-Sat March 28th, fered the light, and, rather poorly, took Billingsgate, London. Milton Keynes. Sat March 7th, 2.30pm, Grange Rd. Rye Golf Club. it. Final score: 4-1. Friday March 6th 2009 varsity.co.uk/sport

Up for grabs...

Varsity Sport and Olympic rower Tom James discuss the Sport Boat Race.... p34 VARSITY MATCH RUNNING TOTAL: CAMBRIDGE 16, OXFORD 15. NEXT UP: WOMEN’S RUGBY, BOXING, BOAT RACE, FOOTBALL

View from the Lax Ladies Avenge Lads’ Loss River » Cambridge girls come up trumps in thrilling display of attacking lacrosse on Parker’s Piece Silas » Everpresent and relentlessly energetic, Ellie Walshe guides the team to Varsity victory Sta ord

SOPHIE PICKFORD Frankie Brown Having seen their male counterparts Cambridge 8 n Wednesday, the members utterly outplayed barely  een min- of the Blue Boat met with utes prior to the start of their game, Oxford 5 journalistsO and sponsors for the Cambridge put in a commanding per- Rosie Garvey keeps up the pressure on Oxford o cial announcement of the Boat formance to overcome Oxford 8-5 in scum!” echoing around Parker’s Piece, Race line-ups. We walked excitedly front of a large and vociferous crowd at Cambridge sought to keep up the mo- into a London riverside restaurant Parker’s Piece on Saturday. mentum. Oxford, however, had other with the grand backdrop of Tower  e venue turned out to be even ideas, managing to string together Bridge, bantering about ignorant more spectator-friendly than prom- some decent moves and keep the ball Americans who confuse it with ised, though the home fans were any- away from the Cambridge nets. London Bridge. thing but amicable: Cambridge sup-  e pressure began to show, and While the journalists and sponsors porters lined up armed with banners, eventually Oxford scored two goals in all greeted us warmly and invited us spoons, pans and horns as both sides quick succession to leave the support- to sit down, Oxford did not budge. took to the eld, and the game began ers feeling rather more anxious.  e air I o ered a “Hey boys” to our aloof as it was to continue throughout the grew still, the atmosphere thickened opposition. No response. Later in a ernoon. and the tension began to silence the the WC, I bumped into an Ameri- Oxford tore forward, passing accu- worried onlookers. can I know from the Oxford boat. rately and running aggressively deep  is tension soon began to show on “Hey man, what’s up?” I asked. No into Cambridge territory, only to lose the eld, as frantic passages of play saw response. It seems that the Oxford the ball and be caught out by a swi each side struggle to retain possession camp had decided to ignore our counter attack from the seemingly for any meaningful length of time. Fi- existence. No eye contact, no talking, ubiquitous Ellie Walshe. She passed nally, to the crowd’s relief, Cambridge no acknowledgement. to Morland, who continued the surge managed to grab another goal to leave Awkward interactions with our up eld, and a er some patient build- them with a strong lead of 6-3 going opposition are not infrequent.  e up around the goal the ball somehow into the nal quarter. boathouses we train out of in London found its way into the net to give Cam- With Walshe and Morland in partic- are practically next door, and yet we bridge an early lead. ular dictating the play in attack, Cam- rarely even say hello. It is striking,  e frenzied supporters grew loud- bridge refused to take their foot o the because our lives probably have more er as Cambridge stole the ball from the pedal, and Oxford’s chance appeared to in common with Oxford rowers than restart and Walshe once more charged have all but disappeared when another with anybody else on the planet. towards the goal, but now was the turn goal was scored. We both intimately know and of Oxford to counter. A er a superb A couple of consolation goals were share the weary bones and constant attacking move, the ball found its way added towards the end they threatened exhaustion, the early mornings and to an unmarked attacker hovering brie y to stage a comeback, but a nal sleep deprivation, the rushing o to near the goal, who made no mistake in emphatic goal con rmed Cambridge’s lectures a er training, as well as the slotting the ball home. victory, and the nal whistle followed faint and peculiar recognition we  is end-to-end Lacrosse continued soon a er with the score at 8-5. A re- gain from success at rowing. throughout the quarter, as each side lieved and delighted Cambridge all Some of us have been teammates played a fast and attacking game, but piled on top of each other, before gath- of Oxford rowers before now. In row- Cambridge snatched goals either side ering their composure to commend ing, exceptional bonds of friendship of the break courtesy of co-captains their opponents on a close match.  e form out of the mutual su ering Gem Gotla and Georgie Hurt to leave supporters had been treated to a fan- experienced by teammates. If the them in relative comfort at 3-1.  e tastic game, they themselves creating a Oxford rowers are our brethren onslaught continued, as Oxford were superb atmosphere, whilst the players in su ering, why are the not our pinned in their own half for much of provided a great antidote to the em- friends?  e answer is, of course, the second quarter, Cambridge adding barassment in the men’s match earlier that on March 29th they want to take another two good goals to leave Ox- in the a ernoon. something away from us which we ford with a virtual mountain to climb Player of the match: Ellie Walshe, re- have worked incredibly hard for. And a er the short half-time break. lentless in attack; all over the eld at all for that, we hate them. With loud chants of “bosh the times.