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MARLAND Trinity Parcel

JAMIE Recipient released on bail as police say drug was GHB

Trinity Senior Tutor Dr Jamie Munk Douglas Kennedy said “Trinity takes the welfare of all its stu- LAST WEEK, Varsity exclusive- dents very seriously. We are ly revealed that an illegal drug looking into the matter and will had been delivered to Trinity be co-operating fully with the College on Wednesday January police enquiries.” Dean of 25, intended for delivery to a College, Prof. Michael Proctor, college student. This student refused to respond to Varsity on has since been arrested on sus- the question of GHB itself; “I picion of possession with intent haven’t spoken to the police to supply the drug gamma about that”. But Proctor hydroxybutyric acid. stressed “we’re very concerned The drug, commonly known if anything in the college is as GHB, can be used recreation- injurious to the welfare of our ally and is sometimes called students”. “liquid ecstasy”. In small doses GHB was classified as a class it has a euphoric effect, but in C controlled drug in the Misuse larger quantities it acts as a of Drugs Act 2003. The maxi- sedative and there is evidence it mum sentence for supplying has been used to assist in sexu- the drug, the offence for which al assaults. It was the acidic the student was arrested, is 14 properties of the drug that years. Possession can result in caused it to burn the hand of two years in prison. A Home the porter handling it when it Office spokesperson said “The leaked from its package. government is aware that these Cambridgeshire police told drugs are misused recreational- Varsity "a 22 year-old man from ly and there is some evidence Cambridge has been arrested that they have been used to on suspicion of possession of assist in sexual assaults.” drugs with the intent to sup- Michelle Nuttall, CUSU ply”. The student has been Women’s Officer, was keen not bailed without charge until to worry students unnecessari- February 27, when he will ly. “There is every possibility Walsh scrapes through either be charged or released. that this was intended for They added “the information recreational use”, she told Varsi- we’ve been given is that it is ty. “There isn’t anything to sug- GHB”. gest it would be used for sinis- CUSU President survives ‘no confidence’ motion The student in question ter purposes.” Last week, a wishes to remain anonymous, CUSU Welfare email was sent anger towards the two motions highlight- Walsh is adamant that CUSU must but informed Varsity that “it to JCRs warning of recent cases Raj Bavishi ed by Varsity last week and widespread move forward together. At last night’s was certainly not an illegal sub- of drink spiking. However, frustration with Walsh’s failures during Executive meeting, she said she would stance”. Mr Paul Simm, the Nuttall reassured that “people CRISIS WAS AVERTED at Wednesday’s Michaelmas. apologise to all students and accept Junior Bursar at Trinity added shouldn’t be afraid, they just CUSU Council when an emergency The motions entailed the restructuring responsibility for her mistakes. “my understanding is that it is need to be aware.” motion of no confidence in President of the CUSU Executive including the pos- In a further sign that tensions have sub- some kind of cleaning chemi- Laura Walsh fell by twenty-six votes to sible abolition of the Women’s Officer as a sided, the CUSU Executive will issue their cal”, corroborating the view of twenty-eight, with ten Council members sabbatical position, on which referenda own statement stressing that they are keen an anonymous Trinity fourth abstaining. would be held. This last motion was origi- to move forward in unity. Two days ago, year, who said “it was com- After the vote, a relieved Walsh com- nally proposed by Walsh and both motions many of them had favoured the call for no puter cleaning fluid”. mented, “obviously I’m glad that the were withdrawn by their proposers before confidence, but have now chosen to fully Gamma butyrolactone motion did not get the two-thirds major- Council. support Walsh’s narrow endorsement by (GBL) is a legal solvent ity it required, but that it actually fell Other smaller failings include the poor Council. chemically similar to GHB, proves that Council think I should handling of the late arrival of NUS cards as The President was upbeat about the and can be used as a remain as President. I genuinely believe it well as perceived flaws in her style of lead- Union’s future, “it will be hard at first, but cleaning fluid. It is readily is right for me to continue; if I thought ership and relations with Executive mem- I am confident the Sabb team can and will available to buy on the otherwise I would have resigned before bers. work together.” When asked if the recent internet and is used for a Council.” Council members were also angry at the turmoil would affect nominations for the variety of purposes, including Having brought the emergency motion, fact that Walsh had erroneously withheld upcoming CUSU elections, she said, removing nail polish and strip- Vicki Mann, CUSU Welfare and Graduates the document requesting central funding “there are enough people in Cambridge ping paint. But, when taken Officer, declined to comment on the vote. for CUSU, which Varsity made public last who fancy themselves as a President and internally it can have similar Mann brought the motion as a result of week. >> continued on page 2 effects to GHB.

No. 632, 3rd February, 2006 www.varsity.co.uk Feature Interview It’s sew easy >> Yesterday two Cambridge Renowned poet Seamus Lifestyle drinks to customised chic musicians released a song Heaney delivered the about the Facebook. annual Clark Lecture to a Despite being rubbish it packed Lady Mitchell Hall. Pedal Pushing >> seems to have taken the In an exclusive Varsity Confessions of an organ scholar Facebook world by storm. interview he talks about We meet the creators and his past, his new work pit them against their and still feeling like a State of the arts American rivals. >> page 7 beginner. >> page 10 Varsity asks whether there’s cause for concern >> 2 Varsity News 03.02.06

>>continued from front page and it is not clear with whom Man cleared of in some ways the situation responsibility would ultimately raping student could prove to be a good thing - lie. Cambridge cadet combats people are more aware of CUSU By Walsh’s own admission, The man accused of forcing and many of its problems. What “it is likely no-one would have a 21 year-old Anglia Ruskin we really need now is to draw a stood in a by-election and so terrorism at US Conference University student to have line under everything that has the job would have been sex in an alleyway has been happened, ensure it doesn’t offered to the two losing candi- cleared of rape. Throughout happen again and move on.” dates in last March’s presiden- his trial Mohammed Idris A lengthy, emotional debate tial elections - Tom Dye and maintained that the woman, had preceded the vote which Robin Sivapalan.” Referring who was described as being was held in the Long Room at specifically to Sivapalan, a “very drunk,” had gone New Hall, with strong opinions number of JCR officers willingly to a passageway on voiced by critics and supporters expressed concern that the Market Street and was of the motion alike. Presidency could be offered to enthusiastic for sex. The Adam Colligan, Selwyn JCR someone who had received woman, who broke down in Vice-President, called the only 515 votes. the witness box while giving motion a “personal and petty” Sivapalan told Varsity, “I evidence, claimed that Idris attack on Walsh. He stated, wouldn’t have accepted the had led her to the alleyway “while the President is not position even if I was offered it. and raped her after offering blameless, to blame this disaster I’d hope that there were people to help find her a taxi home. solely on Laura is like blaming who were still students who felt She was distraught at his the sinking of the Titanic on the strong enough about their acquittal and refused to rudder.” Union to run for President.” comment. Tim Lewis made an impas- While Council voted on sioned speech, declaring “I have Walsh’s future, Downing JCR always been unhappy with the voted overwhelmingly to Police charge two politicisation of CUSU Council, remain affiliated to CUSU. But teens with Cam but have always been later this term the benefits of Trinity Hall historian Richard Kimmens in his roles as conference speaker and officer cadet impressed with how much the Union will come under fur- grad’s murder [Laura] was willing to do for the ther scrutiny when St John’s the Netherlands’ Defence just encourage more people to Two teenagers have been Union.” JCR hold a referendum on dis- Jamie Munk College, also attended, with turn against us”. charged with the murder of But one of Walsh’s Exec affiliation. speakers coming from Canada, “Before I went I was really a Cambridge graduate Tom members criticised her manage- Yesterday, Michelle Nuttall, RICHARD KIMMENS, a sec- Australia, France and Greece. worried, because the talk was- ap Rhys Pryce, who was ment, arguing “last term there CUSU Women’s Officer, sum- ond-year at Trinity Hall, The themes for this year’s dis- n’t particularly pro-American”, stabbed to death in January. were a lot of problems, many marised the feeling in Council, addressed senior military offi- cussions were “Military admitted Kimmens. The 31 year-old London specifically with leadership.” “Things have to get better cials, academics and NGOs at a Education and Moral Fortunately it transpired that lawyer, was attacked in the Kate Ward asked Walsh, “Did because the next six months conference in America last Development” and “Citizen “the Americans are keen to road where he lived as he you not think at any point that cannot be like the last week.” week. The historian and officer Responsibility and National learn what other people think walked home late at night. it would have been productive She added, “I’m willing to for- cadet became the first British Defense”. of their policies and of America Donnel Marcus Carty, 19, to email all students to say that give and forget but that doesn’t undergraduate to present a Kimmens and two members in general”. “What interested and an unnamed 17 year- despite the situation, CUSU is mean we will be shoving things paper at the Joint Services of New York’s West Point mili- me most was the fact that West old will appear before West ticking over and not falling under the carpet.” Conference on Professional tary academy were the only Point and Canadian cadets all London magistrates apart?” >>editorial, page 13 Ethics in Washington DC. He students who were invited to came to ask me what the charged with robbery and During the debate, Walsh spoke on the subject of legal speak. He lectured briefly on British thought of the murder. A third youth was defended herself, “I believe constraints in combating global “Playing by the rules: must state Americans. Their media doesn’t bailed by police pending fur- everything I proposed was for terrorism. actors constrain themselves to tell them what’s going on in the ther enquiries. the benefit of students and as JSCOPE has run annually operate within the law when rest of the world.”

soon as I realised that I had BEN JONES since 1979 and attracts a range countering terrorism?” before The Commanding Officer of gone about them the wrong of military and academic answering a range of questions. Cambridge University’s Officers Violent police raid way I withdrew my motion.” experts from across the United Kimmens told Varsity that he Training Corps, Lt. Col. Darren to capture hostage The motion of no confidence States. This year’s keynote chose the subject of interna- Bowyer told Varsity “The [OTC] has raised wider issues that speaker was Dr Sarah Sewall, tional terrorism as “it’s highly exists to communicate to stu- gang have concerned many Council an advisor to the Clinton relevant, with the amount of dents the values and ethos of More than 150 armed police members. administration from the Carr political and media attention it the British Army, so it seems to officers raided a travellers’ If Walsh had been voted out Center for Human Rights at currently receives”. In his me entirely appropriate to site in Cambridgeshire yes- or resigned, the responsibilities Harvard. Other papers were be paper, Kimmens stated that afford this opportunity for one terday morning. The raid of the President would have delivered by political scientists, “using the law is the only pro- of our members to participate.” took place following an been shared between the military thinkers and senior tection we have from becoming Kimmens has been invited to aggrivated burglary during remaining Sabbatical Officers, members of the US armed terrorists ourselves; arbitrary write another paper for JSCOPE which a family in until a by-election could be forces. Many international justice is not the answer in the next year, and also intends to Cambridge were held held. This eventuality is not Voting at Council on organisations, including Oslo’s War on Terror” and he believed submit one for an upcoming hostage in their own home. foreseen by CUSU’s constitution Wednesday night Peace Research Institute and “if we act outside of the law, we Dutch military conference. During the attack a ten- year-old girl as held at knife- point for several hours, and Flying without wings Carol Vorderman to Students believe they “get what they pay for” a 16-year-old was hit in the Scientists at Cambridge have published research suggesting snails open science fair According to a UNITE Student Experience Report, published last face with a pickaxe. Police ride thousands of miles between Atlantic islands on migratory birds. Carol Vorderman will be open- Tuesday, two-thirds of students are in debt. The good news is that have arrested three men, Published in Nature last week, Dr Richard Preece’s study on the ing the 2006 Cambridge for the first time in six years the amount of debt has stabilised and aged 30, 26 and 19. snails' DNA indicates that snails on islands in the Azores and on the Science Festival, and delivering 89 per cent of students believe the money they spend on their Tristan de Cunha islands, which lie between South Africa and South an inaugural talk on Saturday, education is a good investment for their future. Most respondents America 9000 kilometres away, share a common ancestor. He dis- March 18. The Cambridge said they would turn to their family for help if they got into Oxford don counted human activity alone; “These islands were only settled by Science Festival is the UK’s financial difficulties. 85 percent receive some kind of financial murdered humans in 1816, so it’s impossible that so much variation could largest free science festival and help from their parents without being obliged to repay the have taken place since then.” Certain species of flightless insect are will be held March 15-25 2006 amount, with many parents giving more than £1,500 per term to Dr Barbara Johnston, a also found dispersed across oceans. in and around the University. their children. medical researcher at Oxford University, was found mur- dered in her flat in the north of the city last Thursday. The “In short, CUSU needs to go pro” 55 year-old woman was >page 11 strangled with a jumper and Peter Parkes, former Emmanuel JCR President, on this week’s events stabbed 49 times. Detectives “Communications have broken no-one cares. mounted accordingly. But it is rect, but if you do it without Tom have charged a 42 year-old down” - not something you’d I could discuss at length the not the political crisis that has inviting any criticism, you erode man with her murder. Dr want to admit at a public meet- possible approaches to solving prompted the complete disarray not only the trust of your con- Kingsley Johnston had only returned ing. I’d certainly have phrased it these problems, many of which we see now; the events of the stituents but also the tenability to Britain in September after differently. The statement con- I tried myself - with varying past week were instead precipi- of your own position. a total crane living in New Zealand for 23 veys only one of the problems degrees of success - as a JCR tated by attitudes prevalent in In short, CUSU needs to go years. CUSU faces. I could talk about president, but it would hardly student politics at every level. pro. To imagine employees of a in the neck the challenge of effective com- be useful in terms of concrete CUSU must improve in two private enterprise or even a munication; after all, how do suggestions. Unfortunately, stu- ways. Firstly, it must learn to public sector organisation dis- the CUSU Exec make sure stu- dent organisations will have to convey information much more playing the same degree of nig- Listen dents are kept informed of poli- cope with the simultaneous efficiently. Why invest time and gling incompetence or blinkered cy developments, or indeed the problems of apathy and igno- effort co-ordinating schools’ vis- dogmatism that we see in stu- myriad of services on offer? The rance for some time. its if you give JCR access officers dent organisations is inconceiv- You can hear truth is they do neither very What student bodies can do, only a few days to find volun- able. If executives were just a Varsity on the often, nor very well. is smarten up their act. teers? Why organise a societies little bit more methodical and radio, on This is a problem faced not Recently, we’ve heard allega- fair if you don’t inform JCR comprehensive in their organi- only by CUSU, but by JCR and tions of conspiracy and wilful presidents or colleges of a sation, and just a little bit more Mondays at MCR committees across misconduct within CUSU, and change of date? open and consultative in their 7pm Cambridge. Inevitably a small have endured countless ver- Secondly, members of the representation, then I think we group will enthusiastically set sions of events, all different, Exec need to remind them- would be more inclined to trust CUR 1350 about organising or campaign- many from the same people. selves of the constraints on their them. We need a more profes- ing, only to be faced with the Questions have been answered activities. It's all very well pur- sional CUSU Exec. After all, usual result: no-one turns up or sloppily and frustration has suing a policy you believe is cor- we pay their wages. our policy

VARSITY IS DEDICATED TO BRINGING YOU THE The MOST RELEVANT AND INTRIGUING NEWS AS AND WHEN IT HAPPENS. Week In THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN OUR CONTENT ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBU- Weather FRI SAT SUN MON TUE WED THUR TORS, AND NOT NECESSARILY OF VARSITY PUBLICATIONS LIMITED. 03.02.06 News Varsity 3 Pricey pottery shattered at the Fitz • Shoelaces blamed as visitor trips and falls into priceless vases • Museum staff “determined to put the pieces back together” STEVE period have sold for up to $5 ate them. I’m a regular visi- Steve Elliott million at auction. tor to the Fitz but I’ve got no BAXTER But the staff’s first concern idea who was responsible, all A VISITOR to the Fitzwilliam was for the welfare of their I can say is that it certainly Museum broke three price- shocked visitor, not for the wasn’t me!” less Chinese vases after trip- shards of delicate porcelain The Fitzwilliam’s policy of ping on his untied shoelaces underfoot. They called an minimising barriers to last Wednesday. ambulance and after receiv- exhibits is now under The man stumbled on his ing first-aid the unnamed review. A spokesperson stat- laces and crashed into the visitor left on foot. “It was a ed that one of the things that Qing dynasty vases, which most unfortunate and regret- the museum was most proud were displayed on a win- table accident, but we are of was that objects were dis- dowsill at the foot of a stair- glad that the visitor involved played “almost within case. was able to leave the reach.” The museum do not Onlookers said the man lay Museum unharmed,” said want this “freakish accident” among the vases’ fragments Robinson. to change that although they for several minutes, before Attention then turned to will carry out further risk sitting up and pointing to the the remains, which took a assessments of where the loose shoelace exclaiming, further two days to count, objects are placed. “There it is! That's the cul- package and document. The Museum declined to prit!” “They are in very, very small say if the pieces were Bystander Steve Baxter pieces,” admitted assistant insured, or to name the told Channel 4 News, “We director Margaret Greeves, clumsy visitor, who will not heard this enormous crash, “but we are determined to be expected to pay for the so I rushed to the stairs and put them back together." damage. there was a chap sprawled Staff are optimistic that The museum has an illus- there, down below. I could- restoration could make the trious history founded in n't believe what a compre- vases appear unscathed, as 1816 by the bequest of the hensive job he’d done of the the British Museum in VIIth Viscount Fitzwilliam of vases.” London has successfully Merrion and contains mag- “It’s a nightmare”, restored similar items. nificent collections of works Museum director Duncan Piecing together Cambridge's of art and antiquities of Robinson lamented, “I have thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle international importance. been here for 40 years and using black and white photo- According to its website, now that nightmare has hap- graphs will take several “the Fitzwilliam Museum is pened.” The enamelled and months. one of the greatest glories of gilded artworks from the late Henry Ryder, a Downing the University of Cambridge. 17th century had been in the third year who often fre- Like the University itself, the collection since 1948 and quents the museum, told Museum is part of the were among the Fitzwilliam’s Varsity “I’d been looking at national heritage, but, much most recognisable exhibits. the three vases just the day more, it is part of a living Although the museum before and they were pretty and continuing culture would not put a value on the awesome. I was perhaps one which it is our statutory duty vases, pieces from the same of the last people to appreci- to transmit.” The unnamed man, lying amidst the ruined vases he smashed after falling down the stairs Arts Picturehouse cinema Oxons contracted to learn and The Regal pub at war • Cambridge VC “unaware” of changes could find themselves in court court. The contract only com- Rachel Cooper if they do not attend lectures. mits a college to "make such them so that they could still efit of the people of The legally-binding agree- teaching provision for under- Rebecca Greig provide music and entertain- Cambridge. We should be OXFORD UNIVERSITY ments could make attending graduate students as it reason- ment, and we could still able to go ahead with the announced this week that as of tutorials, classes and lectures ably decides is necessary for THE ARTS Picturehouse cin- screen films.” He believes this licence and iron out any October, it may require stu- compulsory. The contracts their courses of study", but ema and the Cambridge will be impossible should the problems in the mean time.” dents to sign contracts obliging have been under discussion for later adds, "Given the variation branch of Wetherspoons, The licence be granted, given that After the meeting, the them to attend lectures and five years and were recently in courses of study, it is not Regal, have clashed over the the sound system would be council will review the issue tutorials. approved by the Conference of possible to specify a minimum latter’s application for a located so closely to one of and a final decision will be This move follows fears that Colleges - a university-wide amount of teaching for under- music licence. made in around two weeks. the introduction of top-up fees body. If the proposals are graduates in all subjects."

Tony Stevens, The MARLAND JAMIE The Picturehouse is deter- could prompt an increase in passed by colleges, students Oxford University said the con- Picturehouse’s general man- mined to defeat the applica- student litigation. Universities tract will codify measures that ager, told Varsity he only dis- tion, Stevens informing Varsi- are concerned that increased MARLAND JAMIE are already in place - a claim covered that the application ty that legal action would be fees could cause a rise in the backed up by Michael Scholar, had been made when The taken if the licence was number of complaints by stu- current Chairman of the Regal, with whom they share granted. dents who demand better Conference: "The intention a building, closed for three The Picturehouse have value for money, and increase was to set down in an orderly days to carry out major work drummed up support from the risk that students who do way a contract which already on the venue. local students. As the only badly could sue them. existed informally." A DJ booth was installed, cinema in Cambridge dedi- Despite the proposed con- But Oxford JCR Presidents as well as a dance floor and cated to screening independ- tracts being widely reported in have reacted angrily. One told powerful sound system. ent, foreign and art-house the national media on January student newspaper The Oxford Stevens described the deci- films, they enjoy a strong 31, Cambridge University’s Student, "We can understand sion to introduce music with- student clientele. Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard the colleges wanting to sign an out warning as “astounding One Churchill student has claimed to have “no knowl- agreement, but this threat to to say the least”. He went on already started a petition in edge” of Oxford’s proposals use the legal system to enforce to say, “we share the same opposition to the application, when questioned at a public these contracts smacks of premises, and our biggest and Cambridge council have lecture that evening. Professor heavy-handedness and unnec- screen is directly above one their screens. “The very received a huge number of Richard asked whether it was essary intimidation." Emma of the main seating sections nature of a cinema is to pro- complaints. certain these proposals were Norris, President of the Oxford of the pub. Despite the vide a totally neutral envi- Theo Bard, a Jesus second going to happen, and later con- University Students' Union license having not actually ronment to watch a film. year, told Varsity “The tacted Varsity to apologise for indicated to Varsity that she been granted yet, The Regal Who is going to want to Picturehouse is a really her inability to comment on had real concerns about the went ahead with changes to watch a film at our cinema amazing and unique place the proposition, saying it had contracts and was particularly the venue.” now when you can't even where students and non-stu- been a “very busy day and Cambridge VC Alison Richard uneasy about the one-sided Stevens went on to stress hear it? We will not take this dents alike can appreciate a [she] hadn’t had time to look nature of the contract. Norris that although “every effort” lightly or go without a fight. wide variety of cultural at the papers.” Varsity subse- matriculating this October will expressed anger that current had been made by the The very survival of our busi- events. The café is also a quently received a series of have to sign a document, students have not been con- Picturehouse to discuss the ness is at risk here.” great place to hang out. It phone calls from the University which states they must "pur- sulted on the proposals despite situation with the pub’s man- Steve Strange, The Regal’s would be a real shame if it Press Office who issued the fol- sue such studies as are promises in November 2004 agement and their operating manager, will meet with was forced to close.” lowing statement on behalf of required of you by any tutor, that any graduate and under- company,Wetherspoons, council environmental and Professor Richard, “This is an fellow, or lecturer, or other graduate contract would be their calls had not been health representatives today The final deadline for complaints internal matter for the qualified person assigned by shown to OUSU before being returned: “all it would have to discuss potential problems, is 5pm today. To voice your con- University of Oxford. the college to teach you." implemented. She acknowl- taken on part of The Regal although Strange remains cerns email env.health@cam- Cambridge has no plans to Undergraduates will be told edged that many colleges had was simple communication. optimistic that the licence bridge.gov.uk introduce a similar scheme.” they risk breaching the con- agreed to co-operate with Had they spoken to us early, will be granted: “In the long The proposed contracts tract, if they fail to fulfil these OUSU in order to negotiate the we would have worked with run, the music is for the ben- >>editorial, page 13 mean that Oxford students obligations and could end up in terms of the contract. 4 Varsity News 03.02.06 ALAN

On Campus Animal rights group: GOODWIN New Fellowship for Wolfson only to African students serve Halal chicken “students are targets” Clare Hall and the Wolfson College have decided students, investors, partners, Schlumberger Foundation are to serve only halal chicken in Rachel Cooper supporters and anyone that introducing a year-long visit- their kitchen. The animals dares to deal in any part of the ing science fellowship for have their throats ritually slit ANIMAL RIGHTS activists University in any way.” African students. The fellow- and bleed to death, causing it opposed to the construction of A University spokeswoman ship is open to African to be classed by many animal an animal research facility in said, “It is of great concern that nationals at African universi- rights groups as torture. Oxford entered the grounds of a small minority is willing to use ties in the early stages of their Wolfson told Varsity they were St Anne’s College on Saturday. intimidation, harassment and academic career. It is contin- anxious to provide catering Protestors with placards threats of violence as part of gent on their return to Africa that best meet the needs of its entered the college at 4.35pm, their campaign. It is totally afterwards, so the natal aca- diverse student body. The pro- before being escorted off the unacceptable that individuals demic community can benefit posal to offer only Halal chick- premises by porters a few min- and companies engaged in from their expertise. en is currently under review utes later. The incident follows entirely lawful activities are and the college said, “we will renewed threats against univer- being attacked and threatened Students Support of course take into account sity staff and students. in this way.” Street Kids any concerns raised by our Martin Jackson, St Anne’s The University has been sub- St Anne’s College, Oxford, upon which protests have centred members”. Bursar, said there was “no tar- jected to threats to staff and stu- The Cambridge branch of geting any particular individual. dents since 2004 and has taken would involve rodents and the In 2004 SPEAC, the precur- Students Supporting Street Nobel Prizewinner It was a muted protest,” adding out injunctions to protect them. remainder fish, ferrets and pri- sor to SPEAK, caused Kids (SSSK) was launched “we live in a free society and Jackson said that members of mates. Cambridge to shelve plans for a last weekend with a cham- gives talk at Law this is perhaps part of the price the ALF might have been Animal rights pressure group, primate laboratory, when the pagne breakfast at Jesus. faculty we have to pay”. involved in the St Anne’s SPEAK said, “We are not going university decided that security SSSK is a project based in Animal Liberation Front sup- protest, but “there was no way to let that lab on South Parks measures needed to protect the South America offering Nobel Prizewinner and former porters were urged to “fight of confirming whether this was Road be built” and declared its facility from protestors would meals, entertainment, intro- World Bank chief economist against the university on a max- true.” Robin Webb, ALF Press intention to “battle on the make it uneconomic. ductory education and regu- Professor Joseph E Stiglitz imum impact scale” by a recent Officer denied involvement, streets of Oxford”. Last month, An Oxford University lar health checks to the large gave a lecture on fair trade at posting on their ‘Bite Back’ saying “ALF, by its very nature over 400 protestors marched spokesperson said, “The population of orphans and the Law Faculty last Tuesday. website. The radical campaign undertakes unlawful activities through the city in a demon- University of Oxford remains homeless children. 40 people The lecture was the first in group want to stop the con- such as burglary and arson stration organised by SPEAK. fully committed to the comple- attended the breakfast raising new series of on Economics struction of an £18m building therefore it wouldn’t participate Their website claims that fur- tion of a new biomedical £132 for the charity. and Public Policy aimed at attached to the Department of in identifiable protest.” ther protests, including surprise research facility, which will encouraging synergy between Psychiatry. Their website pro- Oxford University has experi- demonstrations, can be expect- allow us to continue to conduct business and academia. An claims, “We must target their enced a number of protests fol- ed. A representative of SPEAK vital research directed at the HIV babies been unexpectedly high turnout construction companies and the lowing the resumption of work denied any knowledge of the alleviation of human suffering, given chance of life meant that many students did university’s current and future on the laboratory site in incident at St Anne’s and could whilst ensuring the highest pos- not get to see the lecture. building projects. We must tar- November last year. All but two not confirm whether their sible standards of animal care Cambridge scientist Dr Helen get professors, teachers, heads, percent of the facility’s work activists had been involved. and housing.” Lee and her team have devel- Professor passes oped the first low-cost test to away diagnose whether a baby is HIV positive. The test analy- Professor Sir Nicholas ses a pinprick of blood and Shackleton has died at the age Journals in jeopardy Drugs op success gives results instantly. of 68. An Emeritus Professor Immediate treatment gives at the Department of Earth newborns a 50 per cent Sciences, Professor seized the important mobile greater chance of living Shackleton specialised in the Jo Trigg phone. In Cambridge Crown beyond the age of 5. study of the Earth’s climate. Court last week ,Akwabeng FIVE PEOPLE have been pleaded guilty to conspiring convicted of supplying Class to supply Class A drugs and A drugs on Cambridge was sentenced to ten years’ streets following a six- imprisonment. Kasumba month undercover police will face three years in jail Cross Campus operation. and five-year sentences Operation Spinney were given to his runners, Skeletons at Christ leges. The university reject- smashed the notorious Michael Chalkley and Gary ed the criticism, arguing ‘Magic’ cartel by catching its Barratt. The two Church that, “under our federal sys- London ringleader Clement Cambridgeshire men, both Last Wednesday, 11 skele- tem the Colleges and other Akwabeng, 26, and his part- in their 30s, used dealing to tons were dug up by mainte- constituent elements of the ner Eva Kasumba, 24. The pay for their own heroin nance workers in Tom Quad University have an individ- pair supplied large amounts addictions. at Christ Church in Oxford. ual and collective responsi- of crack cocaine and heroin Detective Chief Inspector The remains are the bodies bility for maintaining and destined for Cambridge Tony Ixer said, “Much of our of three adults, six children guaranteeing the quality and from Akwabeng’s London proactive work is a result of and two babies. The bone standards of the University base. information provided by the have been removed from the of London degree”. University Librarian Peter Fox The drug-dealer arranged community and Operation college for further inspec- sales on his ‘Magic’ mobile Spinney was our reaction to tion. Drenching for Boris University Libraries are the number and instructed run- community concerns and Gabriel Byng most sceptical about the ners to meet the addicts in information about criminals Sail the high seas in Edinburgh Reserve and seem unwilling public locations across the from elsewhere selling hard aboard the Scholar Boris Johnson had his pint A NATIONAL ARCHIVE of to give up any volumes Cambridge, including Harris drugs in Cambridge.” poured over him last week academic works could pre- acquired through the Legal Road, Perse Way and the St Another key player in a Ship while out campaigning for vent a 280-mile shelving Deposit Act. Peter Fox, Alban’s Road recreation different Cambridge drugs The Scholar Ship, a semes- the position of Rector at deficit. University Librarian, told ground. Undercover officers organisation was also jailed. ter-long academic pro- Edinburgh University. The Consortium of Varsity, “one copy is not met the suppliers 17 times Londoner Daniel Quarry gramme on board a luxury Johnson was posing for a Research Libraries in the enough. A disaster, natural between October 2004 and was sentenced to six-and-a- cruise ship, will set sail on its photo when a member of British Isles proposed a or otherwise, could destroy March 2005. They were told half years for five counts of maiden voyage in January the university’s Scottish National Research Reserve it, and we can’t take that a single dealer could make supplying heroin and crack 2007. Students from around Socialist Society emptied the to avoid the feared gridlock risk.” An alternative would £4,500 from 40 deals a day cocaine in Cambridge. the world will be able to MP's pint glass over his in the stacks in the next be for the nation’s six ‘copy- and the organisation used Detective Chief Inspector spend a semester on the head. Although some stu- decade. The report pub- right libraries’ to specialise, supermarket style ‘buy one Tony Ixer commended the ship, studying a range of dents greeted Johnson with lished, in December, outlines so fewer duplicates would be get one free’ offers to fuel Drug Squad’s work, subjects intended to signs reading “Bog Off that the Reserve would hold held in each. their customers’ addictions. “Today's jailing is yet anoth- “enhance their personal and Boris”, his supporters vocif- one copy of ever British aca- But other libraries, at or The two traffickers were er victory for the police and professional development”. erously dedicate themselves demic journal and book, near full capacity, support arrested at their home in the community, and is good The experience will not be a to his cause. Elections for with another complete col- the idea. Helen Hayes, Chair south London on June 28 example of the hard edge of cheap one, costing just the position are set to take lection housed in the British of the Steering Group, said, last year, where police neighbourhood policing”. under $20,000. place on February 15 and Library. This would allow “we think about half of 16. university librarians to research libraries will want University of destroy their own copies and in”. London criticised Imperial lifts ban free shelf-space. Researchers would be able on hoodies Although shelf-space is a to read journals electronical- for degree award- costly issue, some librarians ly or, unlike the British ing Under pressure from its stu- worry that the planned Library, request them to be dent union, Imperial College changes would increase the delivered to a local library. The higher education watch- has lifted its ban on wearing risks to research. A. C. The report suggests that the dog, the QAA, has criticised of hoodies and scarves on Harper, a sub-librarian at the costs, including the con- the way in which the campus. The measures were UL warned, “if [the Reserve] struction of the archive, University of London awards introduced in November due burns down, then at a stroke would be outweighed by degrees in report published to worries about safety at you’ve lost half the nation’s savings on extensions to this week. The QAA places the London college. But the copies.” existing libraries. The “only limited confidence ... ban on wearing the Muslim The UL recently spent £6 Reserve would probably be in the soundness of the pres- hijab, passed at the same million on an extension to built on British Library ent and likely future man- time, was not lifted, which house for ten years’ worth of premises in Boston Spa. agement by the University” has caused “extreme con- publications and another £7 A steering group will in awarding degrees on cern” from the Federation of million project is planned. develop the plans and issue a behalf of its constituent col- Student Islamic Societies. Oxford and Cambridge report in May. 03.02.06 News Varsity 5 Tensions at King’s resurface Students express discontent at evidence of private schools push

denied this was the case, “There Rachel Cooper is no question of us targeting certain types of school with a WHILST KING’S students have view to raising ‘academic stan- voted to repaint their bar soviet dards’ - and indeed there is little red, Varsity has obtained evi- evidence that any such target- dence that the college has been ing would have that effect.” courting independent school “We remain proud of our weekdays applicants. record on access for students Under the Freedom of from non-traditional back- AWEL HWIEDACZ Information Act, Varsity has grounds and are completely P C MANAGER seen figures which show that committed to sustaining this TRAILER OF LIFE during the 2004-05 academic record”, she added. year, the King’s Schools Liaison At the moment, 74 percent of team under the auspices of Dr undergraduates at King’s are James Laidlaw visited top inde- state-educated. Dr Zeeman pendent schools including commented, “Although I have Radley, Fettes and Eton. not yet compiled statistics on Monday Over 20 indepedent schools this year’s Admissions I have no DAY OFF visited King’s under the liaison doubt that they will, as in other Went to Ballare, Fez and Club scheme. The figures confirm recent years, reveal our contin- 22 with friends. what a number of King’s stu- ued commitment to students dents suspected. Liz Bradshaw, from the state sector and non- KCSU Access Officer said, “it is traditional backgrounds.” The bar wall is adorned with the hammer and sickle, Varsity, January 17 2003 Tuesday widely known and deeply She continued, “we also try I really like Tuesdays because resented that King’s have been to retain cordial relations with vate school pupils and it is good “fabulous and opulent” party at around 2am we get all the targeting private schools. A lot the independent sector: we are that they have an equal policy.” on the death of Margaret people in fancy dress from the more work needs to be done in proud to consider for entry any But he quickly added that “it Thatcher. Flashpoints gay night at club 22. They are encouraging people from less suitably skilled and qualified goes against what the college But the motion may be short- very nice, and sing us songs. advantaged backgrounds to student with the potential to stands for and in the past, peo- lived. A small group of King’s • In 1999, a rent strike was A girl complained about apply.” make the most of what ple who got into King’s might students are proposing to over- called in King’s in response customer service in the van, She admitted that the college Cambridge has to offer.” not have got into any other col- turn the decision. to plans to raise room but this is very rare. All the had been quite open about their Dr Laidlaw, who is no longer lege.” Fresher Tom Deacon said, rents. Over 70 per cent of other students we have desire to improve relations with senior tutor, endorsed Dr Bradshaw agreed that King’s “the joke was in incredibly bad undergrads witheld their spoken to seem more than independent schools but stu- Zeeman’s comments. should continue to open up to taste. My main objection is that college bills. happy. dents did not know what initia- A King’s student said that “in state schools. it is immoral to celebrate some- • In 2002, four students tives were in place. some ways it is a good thing King’s’ radical spirit was in one’s death in any form.” Onur were rusticated for Dr Laidlaw, who was Senior that they are seeking to change evidence again this week when Teymur, who tabled the allegedly participating in a Wednesday Tutor during the academic year their reputation amongst pri- a motion was passed to hold a motion, responded that it was squat. Today was very busy in the 2004-05, demonstrated his unfortunate that people had • King’s most recent provost, burger van, which we didn’t commitment to rebuilding the got their priorities confused Dame Judith Mayhew left expect. We didn’t have time to college’s relationship with pri- when more important motions in 2005, leaving behind a chat to people like we usually vate schools when he addressed had also passed. wave of controversy. Her do, but everyone seemed to senior members of the The response to the Thatcher resignation was surround- understand. Headmaster’s Conference, motion and the courting of ed by rumours that she Early in the evening a which represents leading public independent schools has may have been forced out. group of students brought half schools. exposed tensions within King’s. a chair into the van and took It has been suggested that Bradshaw remarked that “the lege in a corporate direction, pictures of it stood on top of Laidlaw was courting inde- college and the student body symbolised by the repainting of the fryer. pendent schools in a bid to are out of sync”. Tensions have the college bar with an assum- boost King’s position in the been evident since the contro- ing shade of beige. Tompkins table. The college’s versial appointment of Dame Bradshaw pointed out that Thursday position has fluctuated between Judith Mayhew as Provost. She “a lot of people are saying we During the day I cleaned the 20th and 10th place over the resigned in the summer of 2005 need someone to lead the col- burger van, so it is nice and past five years. at the end of a two-year tenure. lege who understands and shiny. We also changed the Dr Nicolette Zeeman, Dame Mayhew was perceived respects what King’s stands tyres and had the van Admissions Tutor at King’s The ‘airport lounge’ style bar - its most recent guise as attempting to move the col- for.” serviced. It wasn’t so busy this evening so I had a chat with some Politics students. The RAG Blind Date jeopardised by Facebook great thing about working here is that you meet such a charities including Link Africa years this did not cause a prob- nential growth in the number until the big day. The reps diverse group of people- any Lucy McKeon and Cancer Research UK. Last lem, because Facebook’s mem- of users over the last year could added, “we do think Facebook question you have can be year 3,000 students took part in bership was smaller. But expo- spell disaster for the ambiance does have some great advan- answered by a Cambridge THE BLIND date: the words the fun, which will again offer of the event.“The fact that you tages - mainly the fact it student. conjure up images of the glitter- cheap drinks and the chance of can search for your date when encourages bribing!” The ing highs of Saturday-night tele- romance - or at the very least you get their information does ‘bribery’ of the fundraisers, vision and the lonely lows of finding someone to hold your pose some problems,” admitted who - in return for a larger Friday singledom. But this stalwart of hair back for you in Ballare. DERRINGER Homerton RAG reps Charlotte donation - are happy to make I didn’t sleep, then decided to British romantic life must now Thousands of students looking Whitaker and Sophie Bennett, arrangements for you to be go to London for an fend-off a new enemy - for love will meet in bars all “especially if people don’t like paired up with that mysterious adventure at around 5am. I Facebook. Cambridge’s RAG over the city, but the most MICHAEL the look of what they see for stranger you have been poking came back around 12, and Blind Date returns on Tuesday, exciting part of the date - the whatever reason.” The RAG all term, is a worthy price for started getting ready for the with organisers promising "the anticipation of what their part- team claim to have taken this the opportunity to turn a last student night of the week. Cambridge cupids will find your ners look like - is threatened by into account, by requesting metaphorical poke into some- Cambridge students are really match". RAG are seeking to top the American peer-networking those taking part to restrict thing more physical. friendly but they are always the £8,000 raised last year for website, Facebook. In previous access to their profile or photo Features, page 7 >> drunk! I was a student once too, but I didn’t drink half as much as they do. been knocked over by a mess into our champion of In another case of this ram- only speculate, I am ressentiment-filled-ex-minor- the cyclist’s face, and followed pant trend, an alarming inci- afraid…but his old squeeze public-school Johns rugby with a right hook, which dent occurred outside the and the frisky Fellow were Saturday player, when he was con- floored the public spirited other trailer, given the hope- clearly involved in some sort I sold my car at 6am. Other fronted by his petit-bourgeois Celt. The assailant was identi- ful moniker by its proprietors: of sordid coke fuelled sex than that it was a normal nemesis: “Why are you pick- fied when he boasted about “Night Life Van” – or “Death,” binge). Our somewhat timor- Saturday dealing with drunk ing up those bikes?” The the occurrence in Magdalene as more style the sobriquet. A ous anti-hero tried to ease the people. we normally serve almost-albino character Bar, and the authorities were seemingly innocuous com- situation with dialogue around 1500 people throughout replied, “Because you, my notified. A cogent defence ment made by a graduate stu- cribbed from an Alan Sillitoe the evening, and it can be pretty man, are knocking them was mounted, hinging on the dent about the effect on the novel, in a bungled attempt at hectic because the locals are out. down.” The upper-lower-mid- undeniable fact that the price of cocaine rendered by class solidarity. Sadly, four They are very rowdy and dle-class yob/hooray Henry aforementioned burger/fist recent drug busts, both local and a half years at Cambridge argumentative, and seem to be A recent phenomenon which then responded in fine fettle. combo was the most sus- and nationwide, elicited a had smoothed his accent, and unable to politely buy food like has trickled down through the tained piece of quick thinking furious response by a man the cuckolded commoner was the students. If they are communion wine grape vine is Ecclesiastical ever exhibited by the defen- with some chips. Claiming to having none of it. The situa- particularly rude we just send an alarming trend for fast food dant. All we can advise from be a “bouncer” – although tion was only saved by a them round to Uncle Franks. fights. One incident featuring a offerings from our the pulpit is that parents real- closer inspection of his ear female friend of this misguid- famously debauched blond- man in the pulpit ly should not waste money piece proved it to be an elec- ed grad geek, who spilt the haired Eagle regular (previous- educating people like this; or, tronic tagging device – this man’s chips with the excla- Sunday ly noted for his exclamation to as a friend of ours remarked rather more echt-ASBO-case mation, “Oh look at your The quietest and nicest day of a mild-mannered grad upon In his left hand was a burger, when asked by his public pushed the poor chap up French fries,” causing him to the week. We only have nice entering a party: “I’d like to one of Life’s finest (as his old school for a donation: “Fuck against the van, exclaiming flee to the safety of his Escort chatty students and regulars. I come on your face”) was par- school song would have it); off, you’re the reason there “fucking students” and mut- minivan, where no more love this day after a hard week ticularly salient. Our hero was his right formed a fist. He are so many stupid people in tering about his ex wife and comestible deprivation could in the burger van! picking up bikes which had shoved the coagulated cow- Cambridge.” the Dean of a College (we can occur. 6 Varsity Features 03.02.06 THE BEST MEDICINE Varsity asks: What has LAURENCE HUNT and OLIVER JARDINE look at laughter made you laugh recently? MULTIPLE LOVES f we may believe our logi- stupid. But, far more, laughter they are feeling playful, rats tion. It’s therefore pretty clear “Icians, man is distinguished serves as a force for social emit a 50kHz chirping when that most of our laughter is for Picture this: A Golden from all other creatures by bonding, not climbing. tickled. He describes this as ‘rat communication, rather than Laetitia Eich marriage anniversary, yet the the faculty of laughter.” So Some behavioural biologists laughter’. Panksepp also for our own benefit. Human Homerton devoted husband is claimed Joseph Addison, poet have started to suggest that the managed to induce the chirp- laughter may, similar to the canoodling with the au-pair and founder of the Spectator, in key to this distinguishing ing by chemical stimulation of rats’ chirping, have evolved as girl, whilst the wife is lusting 1712. Few would disagree. the dopamine reward system a way of quickly and clearly after the body guard. Laughter is universal – it is one (a system shared with addic- expressing one’s emotional “I was on a train and Expressions of love are of the most common things we tive drugs). Similar traits are assessment of a situation. This dropped my iPod down the certainly diverse. In a society humans do; a behaviour that known to exist in great apes, would help avoid unnecessary toilet, which opened out onto where long-term relationships transcends cultural bound- “ and to some extent dogs. conflict, which might harm the tracks. Tragic but funny.” and fleeting affairs are not aries. Children begin to laugh IT IS DIFFICULT The idea is that nature might your ability to pass on your mutually exclusive, is it at two to three months old, use these noises as an “OK genes to the next generation. possible that a confused love- which is at least twelve months TO signal”. Even though the rats It’s easy to get carried away life is a reflection of multiple earlier than they begin to UNDERSTAND are being touched in vulnera- with such ideas, and they must Alex Haberis loves? I couldn’t help but speak. Even deaf and blind ble parts of their body, their be heavily scrutinised for flip- Queens’ wonder, is it just greed or are children, with no way of learn- WHY WE EMIT A ‘laughter’ indicates that they pant anthropomorphism. The our brains wired to love more ing from the behaviour of are at play, and there is no existence of many emotions in than one person at a time? others, will laugh when tick- STACATTO, actual danger. It is therefore a animals has long been recog- Dr Fisher believes that love led. method for animals to commu- nised, and was documented by “I went to a dinner party and comes in three forms: lust, This suggests that laughter, HYENA-LIKE nicate without the need for Darwin in “The Expression of was served half a boiled romantic love and long-term like many of our other behav- PANTING language, so that other animals the Emotions in Man and onion with grated Parmesan attachment. She also argues iours, must be hard-wired in involved can interpret their Animals.” But it must be as the main course.” that they are independent, some way in our genetic SEVERAL behaviour as playful, not mali- appreciated that these controlled by distinct make-up. But unlike most of cious. This converges neatly ‘emotions’ are simply the driv- molecules in discrete brain our other hard-wired behav- HUNDRED with evidence suggesting that ing force for animal behaviour, areas and that they have iours, laughter is unusual in “ circuits for laughter in the and are very much different Ilana Berjsagel evolved for different reasons. that it serves no obvious TIMES A DAY brain pre-date those for from the emotional feelings Clare Lust is the craving for sex, purpose. Evolutionary language. that we humans experience. and is driven by the hormone psychologists have had great How does this theory trans- Nevertheless, Panksepp’s testosterone in both men and difficulty explaining why it is late to humans? We laugh provocative theories have by women. The higher the blood that natural selection has around thirty times more no means been dismissed by “A certain person who didn’t testosterone concentration, chosen to make us tense up ‘human’ trait might, surpris- frequently when with other the scientific community. It appreciate my cooking the stronger the libido, our facial muscles and emit a ingly, be found in animals. people than when alone, and may be that, despite what ended up with the noodles although depending on age stacatto, hyena-like panting Jaak Panksepp, JP Scott Centre most of this laughter is not at Addison believed, the animals down their trousers instead.” and time of the month, these several hundred times a day. for Neuroscience, Ohio ‘jokes’, but as part of conversa- will have the last laugh. levels tend to rise and fall. As the alien Spock in Star Trek demonstrated that, so long as Sexual desire for men peaks observed (in one of his many Varsity asks Footlights: in the early twenties and for critiques of the human race): Why did humans evolve women during ovulation, when “Humour – it is a difficult with the ability to laugh? testosterone levels are most concept. It is not logical”. elevated. So, if it is so Intriguingly, dopamine, the strongly conserved, addictive romantic love- what possible role Simon Bird molecule (see last week’s could laughter play President column) stimulates the release in our lives? Freud of testosterone, and vice believed that the versa. In other words, telling of jokes produced ‘romance triggers lust’ and a build-up of psychic “I don't believe that man has ‘lust triggers romance’. This tension, and laughter was evolved with the ability to explains why casual sex might a safe way of releasing this laugh. I don't believe that not always remain so. energy when the punchline man has evolved. I believe Frequent intercourse results in was delivered. Like many of we were created by God increased testosterone, which Freud’s theories, this has exactly as we are now. leads to more dopamine strong intrinsic appeal, Laughter is simply the spirit release, and before you realise but is hard to justify you might find yourself in love. when examined under of God moving through us Long-term attachment, by the joint spotlights of and out of our faces." contrast, is characterised by a experimental psychol- sense of security and ogy and neuroscience. emotional union with a long- Other theorists have term partner. It is associated suggested that laughing is Raph Shirley with oxytocin and vasopressin. nature’s idea of a put-down: Ex-President Referred to as the ‘cuddle a way of expressing superiori- chemicals’, they are secreted ty, and advertising this to by the brain during stimulation potential mates. This is true in TOM of the genitals and during some cases: Americans, one “Laughter is the most orgasm and promote the study suggests, are one of the KINGSLEY advanced social mechanism feeling of union and few cultures in the world in the animal kingdom. To attachment experienced after whose favourite jokes tend to laugh at someone shows you sex with a beloved. The theory involve someone else looking accept them and welcome goes that the more sex a them or that you see yourself couple has, the deeper their bond will be. above them. The differences Dr Fisher envisages that ANDY TURLEY tries to get serious about LAUGHING GAS between these two and its these independent love-states plethora of other uses is a represent mating strategies, or most people laughing along with a distinct sense of finding increasing appeal. smooth cream bubbles upon massive subtlety." which have evolved to ensure gas is synonymous with elation. In the years that Following in the footsteps of release. Inhalation direct from our DNA is successfully Fthe dentist’s chair. The followed many chemists Davy, today’s thrill-seekers are the dispenser can cause freez- passed on to future chemical has enjoyed wide- discovered they could make a turning to laughing gas as a ing of the mouth and throat generations. Lust evolved to spread usage as an anaesthetic, profitable living offering pleasant, affordable alternative leading to suffocation due to Tom Sharpe motivate sexual reproduction, where it was quite common for nitrous hits to paying to conventional drugs. It has the extreme pressure of the gas. Committee romantic love to single out an patients to experience its curi- customers. The drug would be found popularity at summer The effects of prolonged usage eligible partner to have ous side-effects. Today laughing administered in shows, where festivals and some clubs are can be considerable. children with, and long-term gas, or nitrous oxide, has large- people would pay to breathe rumoured to sell balloons of Deprivation of oxygen can lead attachment to stay with that ly been supplanted by more the gas whilst the crowd jeered the gas for less than the price to anaemia and other problems “Laughter started with a person for a sufficient amount effective anaesthetics, but it at the hilarty that ensued. It of a drink. The compound associated with vitamin B12 neanderthal choking on a of time to successfully raise remains part of everyday life was during one such show that works as a dissociative: it blocks deficiency and the central nerv- dinosaur bone. He exagger- the offspring together. thanks to one or two more the dentist Dr Horace Wells signals to the conscious mind ous system. An overdose can be ated to gain sympathy. The So the problem arises. surprising applications. In observed the compound’s from certain parts of the brain, fatal as the inhalant literally others thought it was ridicu- Neurologically we are adapted particular the very first use of painkilling qualities. The usually those that deal with suffocates due to the low lous. So they copied him. to love more than one person nitrous oxide, that of a recre- subject of the demonstration sensation. This manifests itself oxygen environment. What is That was the death of at a time. Jealousy, adultery ational drug, is experiencing a injured his leg whilst ‘under as a feeling of extreme eupho- attracting users in such high and divorce often result. This rapid return to popular culture. the influence’, but it was not ria that often results in levels and causing those in the sympathy and the birth of ain’t easy, but understanding Laughing gas was first until the effects began to wear uncontrollable fits of laughter. medical profession considerable humour. It serves no practi- the evolutionary reasons of synthesised by the English off that he noticed the injury. The hit is almost instantaneous concern is the apparent legality cal use except as the why we stray helps stave off chemist Joseph Priestley. It Wells tested the drug by but lasts only a few minutes. As of the chemical. It is a trivial equivalent of a skunk's fart.” cynicism. Dr Fisher’s words wasn’t until the 1790’s when a breathing the gas and then well as medical grade gas, cans matter to obtain the gas and ring true: ‘We were not built to young Humphrey Davy was having a tooth extracted, with of whipped cream are also equipment needed, although be happy, but to reproduce’. sufficiently unhinged to test it positive results. sources. The gas functions as an anyone selling nitrous oxide to Christina Geijer upon himself that he discov- It is the compound’s use as a aerosol, its high fat permeabili- someone who intends to inhale for more on laughter go to ered its analgesic qualities recreational drug that is now ty allowing it to generate it faces prosecution. www.varsity.co.uk 03.02.06 Features Varsity 7 DERRINGER AND HANNAH FLETCHER MICHAEL

Ed Bainton, Pete Foggitt and Tommy Hewitt-Jones poking

But what they didn’t realise was that there are other Facebook songs. There’s a crap one (www.facebooksong.com) and a rap one (just google Nsami Facebook song). FACEBOOK We set them upon each other. ROUND ONE it 3 times a day Cam song on Crap song Varsity says: hmm is that Ed, Pete and Tommy crowd normal? round the computer dherrmanator says: yeah Ed: Not sure about the Varsity says: do most production values. students in america do that? Tommy: Quite a nice dherrmanator says: OFF overdrive sound. deffiantly He turns down the volume. Varsity says: so how many Pete runs over to the piano friends do you have? “FACEBOOK! Everyone together in one PLACEBOOK! Adding friends till I’ve got no more SPACEBOOK!” Yeah. Pete: You can add dherrmanator says: let me harmony! check... HANNAH The lyrics are completely dherrmanator says: one Yesterday saw the launch of the Facebook song. inaudible sec Pete: Mm. That’s really Four minutes later: FLETCHER and TOM KINGSLEY bop along with its creators profound. Next! dherrmanator says: 363 Ed: So what do you think? dherrmanator says: total et’s get this clear first. The aren’t any similarities apart website - 68% of which were song from breaking down into a Pete: ...Every song’s a child Varsity says: wow. that's a song is shit. It really is shit. from the general mood.” from Cambridge. Tommy and stream-of-consciousness: “you of its time. lot We went over to Tommy’s Lucky that. Because Hewitt- Pete have already been stopped and me and you and me and dherrmanator says: I L ROUND TWO recording studio – his room – Jones and Foggit are definitely in the street by their fans, who you and me and you and me on would say that I know on Tuesday night. We didn’t prepared for fame. At 5pm yes- point at them, and shout the facebook facebook facebook Crap song on Cam song about 290 of them know what to expect, but we terday, On The Facebook “Facebook” adoringly. One of facebook ooooh oh ho facebook On MSN to the_dherrmanator Bit more rubbish banter. Then: were excited. A song about exploded onto the Oxford, them said it made his day. Bless. facebook facebook”. @yahoo.com (creator of the Varsity says: this cambridge Facebook! Brilliant! Let’s hear Cambridge and Harvard Facebook is even bigger in Couldn’t they have done any limp rock Facebook effort) song it. We hear it. Facebooks with a barrage of America – and Americans just better? “The problem is every- Varsity says: hi daran Varsity says: what do you “Yeah, it just… sort of… fades banner adverts and cryptic wall love our crazy British humour. one likes the Facebook,” sighs dherrmanator says: think? out there… at the end…” said postings warning that “some- The song’s already spread from Pete, “Standard, heavy Hey...what's up...is this dherrmanator says: Tommy Hewitt-Jones (169 thing is going to happen this Harvard, and randoms from Cambridge irony just isn’t suit- Hannah? well...its different Cambridge friends), a third year Friday on Facebook. WATCH random colleges in random able.” Varsity says: yep dherrmanator says: a little organ scholar at Caius, trying to OUT...” Both the song and the states have sent fanmail to “I’ll tell you what is ironic,” Varsity says: this is weird...but a good weird fill the silence. We were under- video (Yes, there’s a video. their new English heroes. Part adds Ed ironically. “We all hannah dherrmanator says: I whelmed. Pete Foggitt (247 More on that later.) will be of the appeal is that Tommy waste time on Facebook, so we dherrmanator says: cool really like it though. It made Cambridge friends) a music available for download. After and Pete have, cunningly, been decided to waste time writing a After half an hour of rubbish me laugh quite a bit finalist at King’s and the other Ed Bainton (298) did the initial very open about the fact that song about wasting time on banter: dherrmanator says: half of the composing team, mix, they sent the recording to the song was written in Facebook, which people are Varsity says: anyway, this but...is it an old guy and reassured us that not all the a professional mixer in London Cambridge. The video starts now going to waste more time song older girl singing the song? instrumental tracks were there, who reworks “proper pop with a tricky bit of singing on listening to.” Varsity says: your website Varsity says: no, they're and the vocals hadn’t been music like Britney Spears” so it top of King’s Chapel before The song’s too enthusiastic to says you’re working on a both music students properly recorded yet. Sure. will sound good on car stereos. moving on to a tramp madly be hateable, and Tommy, Ed final version? Varsity says: quite posh “It’s in A major,” says Tommy. Their enthusiasm just might strumming the song on his gui- and Pete are so endearingly dherrmanator says: I just dherrmanator says: “It’s got relatively complex har- be worth it. After all, the song is tar and throwing things at excited about the whole thing threw it up quickly... posh? I don't know what monics,” adds Pete. marketed at people who are innocent pedestrians, before that you’d feel bad to be cruel haven't done much to it that means Tommy and Pete’s Facebook members of the Facebook, and finishing with a bit of midnight about all their hard work. And dherrmanator says: but dherrmanator says: song, ‘On the Facebook’, started thus have no taste, and it’s mar- singing in Gardies. They’ve yes, we feel bad. we are going to do some popular? life as a joke in a bar. “For about keted at people who are actual- encoded the mp3 file so that The creators are undeniably stuff with it Varsity says: no five minutes”, says Tommy, ly online, and therefore bored, it’s small enough to be emailed. talented. Pete has composed Varsity says: yeah? like dherrmanator says: and because then he decided they and therefore likely to be enter- It could end up with every music for the last two what? say “no worries mate” should actually make the song. tained by anything. Even this. member of the Facebook world Footlights Pantomimes and dherrmanator says: well, Varsity says: no “I’ve got a bad habit of doing Six hours after going online, within a week. Would they like completed Mozart’s Requiem first we plan on recording dherrmanator says: I am that.” He’d written some lines they had 3500 hits on their that? “Well, apparently the guy (thank God), while Tommy has the song professionally and going to send it to all my in choir practice earlier: “When who made the Crazy Frog song written for the Proms and was then I am going to make a facebook people...that way I’m bored and lonely / I want really regrets it,” says Tommy last year’s principal composer cool website with a forum everyone can hear it here someone to bone me”. They breezily, as if he wouldn’t mind for the NYO. They point out and such scrapped that, and had new regretting anything. Still, we that they’re very much classical Varsity says: so it's been ROUND THREE lyrics and music by the end of can’t help thinking that the composers, not pop people. popular with everyone Cam song on Rap song the night. “I had the sound of Crazy Frog’s an uncomfortably “We’ve been standing in the there? Ed, Pete and Tommy crowded the song in my head”, says “ good analogy. corner of discos for the last ten dherrmanator says: round the computer, jiving Hewitt-Jones. “’A’ major.” EVERYONE But then, something as awful years,” says Pete, “and so you yeah...everyone has really Ed: That’s just a straight “Which is the same as ‘The Way LIKES THE as the Facebook sort of kind of just absorb it.” Tommy liked it... copy of Justin Timberlake! to Amarillo’,” adds Foggitt. demands an awful song. It’s not says that when they go to the Varsity says: wow Pete: They’re quite clearly “And it’s exactly the same FACEBOOK. meant to be good. It’s probably cinema, they find the plot sec- dherrmanator says: it semi-serious. speed.” Tommy pauses to think. ironic, or, at least, a bit of cheesy ondary to music. They both started as just a joke, you Ed: They got rhythmn, “No no, Amarillo’s in… 168 . . . STANDARD, fun. It’s catchy, it’s got ridicu- share a scary sense of perfect know, making fun of the man. I think we’re in 170, maybe lous pastiches of 70s and 80s pitch – they share jokes about site and the people that are Tommy: I can imagine 171.” We nod. Yes. HEAVY cheese – tinny orchestra hits key changes. We have no idea crazy chilling out to this. Oh “The point is, we’re faster. every time someone says what they’re giggling about. dherrmanator says: yeah! Our pulse is racing a bit faster CAMBRIDGE “Facebook”, and demented Maybe the joke about the (which is kinda us) He does the hand flick than Tony Christie’s.” They piano flourishes before the cho- Facebook song is lost on us too. Varsity says: so you guys Tommy: I is living rough admit it has got some similari- IRONY rus kicks in. Tim Dickinson It’s not amazingly bad, sure, but are big facebook fans? on the Facebook! ties with ‘The Way to Amarillo’, (202) does the vocals. A bril- then that means that it can’t be dherrmanator says: ohh Pete: You can’t fault it. but nothing that would get JUST ISN’T liant singer let down by his so bad that it’s good. We prom- yeah...I probably log on 5- Well, you can. them into copyright trouble if material. He’s got a nice bit ised we’d plug it though, so go 10 times a day Tommy: What they really they become famous. “We’ve SUITABLE about poking someone, getting listen for yourself. dherrmanator says: even need is English cadence... lined the two tracks up, and messaged back, and then sleep- when I was on vaction Ed: Shut up! I knew you gone through them very care- ing with her “cause it seemed skiing...I probably checked were going to say that! fully with a lawyer in case of like the right thing to doooooo”. copyright infringement. There ” But even Tim can’t save the www.fbsong.com 8 Varsity Features 03.02.06

Ollie Haydon-Mulligan asks How are you, ULTeaRoom Sunder Katwala? SK: My wife’s due to give birth in nothing to say to people who go the next couple of days, so we’re and queue outside the Queen SEEN just sitting around and waiting for Mother’s funeral. It’s a rejection Monday things to happen [evidently a lit- of the people for whom the ‘old tle distracted]. story’ still has some resonance. So you need to say, how can we Illustration Abi Millar OHM: The Fabian Society con- tell the new, more inclusive story ference was on January 21. but not leave out the majority of Words Luke Roberts 3.50pm Gordon Brown’s speech the population, or have their sto- received the most attention. ries taken away from them? Does it bother you it was more of a platform for Brown than OHM: Can socialism be popu- for the Fabians? lar? SK: No. We decided to hold a SK: When you want to make a conference on Britishness, and major social advance you‘ve got were able to set the agenda. to subject your arguments to the There’s a very strong link test of democracy. There’s no between what we were doing the viable non-democratic ‘left’ out whole day and what Gordon there; none that I’d want to be a Brown was doing. Think tanks part of. When you get smashed are there to frame debates, to to bits as the left did by Thatcher make sure the right questions are you’ve got to go back and look being asked. at it and say: “why did we lose the argument?” I think the OHM: So why is Britishness Labour movement overreached important? throughout the 70s: it was the SK: The ‘British’ debate is about author of its own misfortune. It’s three or four big identity ques- not because the tools of capital- tions, identity crises in post-war ism manipulated public opinion Britain: Europe, the four nations against it. in Britain, immigration and the public role of religion. Post July 7 OHM: How conscious are you there’s a lot more public space of the Fabian Society’s history? for this debate, but I think that [Thinly veiled subtext: Do you July 7th and terrorism are actual- feel a responsibility to it?] ly the worst starting points. If you SK: It gives you a prestige. And it start from there you won’t ask gives you a gravitas. But I also the question, “where do we need think it’s fantastically important to be in terms of Britain’s Muslim that we don’t get trapped in that communities in ten year’s time?” history. What’s important about It’s very much a battle for hearts the Fabian society in 1884 or the and minds: you need ‘British Fabian Society in 1950 is that Muslim’ to be a perfectly accept- they were challenging precon- able dual identity. [Thinks] ceptions of what the ‘art of the Britishness is something that possible’ in politics was. They makes the democracy work - the were always very forward look- rules of the game that are ing. And that’s the spirit you take agreed. from the past. There’s no sense in turning into a historic appreci- OHM: If Britishness is going to ation society. accommodate a variety of dif- ferent identities, what is it that OHM: Do you reconcile Blair’s unites us? Third Way with pure socialist SK: It’s up to us as a democracy, ambitions? as citizens, to define that. I’m not here to make a case for Britishness was always a plural, Blair’s position on the third way - political identity, but what gave it – okay then, with the moderni- meaning in the 18th century sation of the left in general? won’t give it meaning today: its What I’ll make the case for is a content needs to come in every Labour Party that had lost four generation from negotiation. consecutive elections and that stopped saying “no compro- OHM: And how will people mise” to the electorate. I think engage in that debate? lots of the things the Labour SK: It’s a really difficult question. Government has done are defen- There is a role for political leader- sible. After losing in 1992 it was ship; if Gordon Brown makes a important to overcome the popu- speech it’s very useful because lar sense of how bloody useless we start to have the debate in Labour were gonna be, the public. But if politicians sit in a sense that the economy would room somewhere and come up collapse and you’d never bury with the new democracy and say the dead. But having had a to people, “we’ve worked it all decade in power you now need out, here it is” - well, we’re not to sit back and say, right, what engaged. You need to have can we build on? loads of people in a room with the people they never usually talk Sunder Katwala is General to…[Trails off and apologises as Secretary of the Fabian he stops the interview to check Society, the Labour-affiliated on his wife]. think tank founded in 1884. It has remained at the heart of OHM: So can these feelings of British social democratic unity correspond with a thirst thought: members have for social justice? I’m thinking included Sidney and Beatrice of Thatcher’s mix of national- Webb, Clem Attlee, Anthony ism and distaste for welfare. Crosland, Tony Benn – and SK: It’s true that Thatcher used Tony Blair and much of the national symbols, but her politics New Labour Cabinet. Sunder was a politics of helping our peo- joined the Society while at ple; it used symbols to have a University and became project of inequality legitimised General Secretary in October by the ‘otherisation’ of the peo- 2003, aged only 29. ple who were losing out. The cricket test [Lord Tebbit’s con- fused statement: “I am British because I support the England cricket team”] was about saying we can all feel part of something by looking at other citizens who support other people at cricket. It made it harder for people to feel British. It made it harder for me to feel British. Blair tried to tell a more inclusive story, but the Blair story itself, a) ended up with the Millennium Dome, and b) has 03.02.06 Features Varsity 9 TE PHOTOGRAPHY A QUIETLY UPLIFTING THINGS VID LAMBERT/T DA

CHRIS OFILI takes EMILY STOKES into a darkened room to talk about style, elephant dung and the power of painting

t is nine-thirty, and Tate family of monkeys had been towards the final, golden mon- rhesus monkeys of the Upper thinks we should leave so as Britain hasn’t opened yet. split up and sold to different key who sits, as if at head of the Room have subtly cheeky not to disturb them. We sit in IChris Ofili and I are sitting buyers. But once the Tate had table, at the end of The Upper expressions and hold their the café and talk about his past inside The Upper Room, a cycle expressed an interest in acquir- Room. Somehow each monkey chalices with pride, Captain work: the book Black (Imprint of thirteen paintings of (rather ing this work in its entirety, he developed a secret identity as a Shit and the Legend of the in 93, 2000) that gathered dandified) rhesus monkeys, was determined to make it disciple (he’s still not quite sure Black Stars of 1997 has a huge together newspaper reports of each painted in a different happen; he likes it being shown which one is which, although afro and funny lapels, Ofili’s crimes described as ‘black’, his colour scheme and delicately in a place where everyone can he knows who Judas is, and is watercolours depict women Shit Sale of Elephant dung in balanced on two sturdy lumps see it for free. The controversy keeping it a secret.) The secret with big earrings, lots of lipstick 1993. We talk about his experi- of elephant dung. over the Tate buying this work identity of each monkey, and and men with long beards and ences of racism, about films, Chris Ofili is explaining the while Ofili was an artist trustee not knowing who Judas is (I bulging foreheads. But they are about William Blake, about his process of combining apparently made him sad and annoyed. tried to persuade him to tell me, not Pop Art; they are made future projects (so far he has disparate ideas to make a work “Unfortunately people have a but no) “is a celebration of mys- with sensitive and loving devo- the title, The margin: the gap of art. (He is master of the anal- way of remembering contro- tery and imminent betrayal.” (I tion to the craft of painting. between ourselves and laughs at ogy, and at one point compares versial things rather than still want to know.) In some ways, this work may my mystified expression.) the concentrated simplicity of quietly uplifting things.” The room itself is like a seem less socially conscious I ask him about the develop- Matisse’s Vence Chapel to “a Ofili’s interest in quietly chapel, and was designed by than his other works, which ment of his style, and he glass of water”.) “When I work, uplifting things is evident as he Ofili and his friend the architect refer more directly to black cul- corrects me with another of his I have lots of different ideas and sits in The Upper Room – a calm, David Adjaye, who he met at ture. The Upper Room feels perfect analogies. “Style is a somehow in my mind I put delicate space. He seems at the Royal College of Art. It’s not almost visionary, and seems funny word. Because I see it as them into one big pot and they home in here, and talks about an “installation”, Ofili explains, more closely related to the work – as things unfolding. If you see become something. But, as I put his monkeys in almost the same but a controlled setting where of William Blake (whom Ofili yourself as one big crumpled up the bits in, I’m not actually try- way he talks about his new you forget all other work greatly admires) than it does to piece of paper, you can careful- ing to cook something.” (He puppies. His first monkey was around you. In this quiet, his other points of reference: hip ly unfold facets of yourself. In looks at me, firmly). “I’m not the red one. Then he made the slightly chilly room, panelled hop, jazz, blaxploitation films, time it spreads out and becomes like: ‘now I’m going to make a green one and the black one. “I with dark, refined, walnut magazines. When I ask him flatter.” And how crumpled is risotto.’” He enacts picking out lived with three, and they were wood, you’re never going to be about his favourite works of art, he? “I’ve no idea. I would hope ingredients from the air with his my red, black and green mon- distracted by an incongruous he remembers a painting in the that I’m still quite crumpled and fingers as he talks. “I just put in keys,” he says, factually. juxtaposition with work by Tate called ‘The Fairy Feller’s that there’s more to see.” This anything that I consider to be He thought that they would another artist or by someone Master Stroke’ by Richard quiet faith that he will continue interesting and relevant – and I be in the same line of paintings working their way through the Dadd: “It’s like a wood scene. to develop, but in his own time, trust in instinct and trust in time as his red, green and black collection with a Tate audio- And there’s a wizard with a big is very characteristic of Ofili. He that it will produce something paintings – like the flags he sub- guide. The corridor leading to hat. And central to the painting often uses his own work as that I think is worth committing sequently made for his the room is lit only by spotlights is a nut or an acorn and there’s inspiratthe next, and his calm- myself to.” exhibition in the British Pavilion at floor level, and the quietness a man with a big hammer, and ness and trust in himself could The Upper Room represents a at the Venice Biennale in 2003. in the room makes me want to he’s just about to crack the nut.” make you think of him as huge act of commitment. But then he made another whisper. The room itself is dim I am at first a bit puzzled as to methodical. But I get the feeling Making sure all these paintings monkey, and then another, but each painting is brilliantly why Ofili might like this sort of that he is still amazed by the stayed together after their first until he decided that he would lit by a carefully focused spot- painting; there seems some- power of The Upper Room, as if showing at the Victoria Miro need twelve, and that the mon- light. The light bounces off the thing rather incongruous in this it has taken him by surprise. We gallery in 2002 has been a keys would be the disciples of surface of the paintings, casting young and decidedly twenty- say goodbye, and he joins the tough job; it would have been The Last Supper, all holding colourful projections onto the first century artist talking about trickle of silent viewers to visit it easier for Ofili – and undoubt- their chalices (with elephant walls and floor, so that the fairy fellers. But I go to see the again to spend just a bit more edly more profitable – if the dung “host” floating above) up paintings look as if they them- painting later, and see why Ofili time in quiet contemplation. selves are the source of light, likes it. It is folky, but very alive, like stained glass windows. tiny, immaculately crafted, a If you peer into the paintings concentrated rectangle of paint, A life in pictures rather than looking at them, interwoven imagery and stories. 1968: Born in Manchester “ you can just see a web of tiny And perhaps this interest in 1987-1988: Thameside delicate lines drawn in pencil or the magical or visionary does College of Technology IT’S A WAY OF pen under the first wash of have a social relevance to it. (Foundation Course) colour, and trapped below the Ofili is very aware of the way in 1988-91: Chelsea School of BUILDING UP glittering resin surface. Ofili which black artists are limited Art, London (BA Fine Art) A REAL talks about painting as if it is by being defined as “Other” or, 1991-3: Royal College of Art, part of his nature. Each of his as he said a few years ago, as London (MA Fine Art) INTIMACY tiny pencil marks is like a fin- “the voodoo king, the voodoo 1993: Shit Sale, Brick Lane, gerprint. “I just found it queen, the witch doctor, the London WITH THE important to do something that drug dealer, the magicien de la 1996: Afrodizzia,Victoria is so quiet and gentle and can terre, the exotic.” Rather than Miro Gallery, London CANVAS. AND be lost. It’s a way of building up trying to reject this stereotypi- 1997: Sensation, Royal a real intimacy with the canvas. cal labelling, he decided to Academy of Arts, London ALSO LIKE And also like putting two fin- embrace it, to make the exotic 1998-9: Awarded Turner gers up at time, and saying ‘I’ll “part of my palette.” This is Prize, Tate Britain, London PUTTING TWO do this forever if need be.’” You most emphatically expressed in 1998: Pimpin' ain't easy but can feel that the artwork has his signature use of elephant it sure is fun, Serpentine FINGERS UP been a product of long hours of dung, which he decorates with Gallery, London concentration; the sense of it coloured map-pins and sprin- 2002: Freedom One Day, AT TIMES, AND pervades the room. kles with glitter like a child’s Victoria Miro Gallery, London He suits his work. He is out- careful scrapbook. But it would 2003: Within Reach, British SAYING ‘I’LL wardly almost flamboyant and be missing an important part of Pavilion, Venice Biennale DO THIS fantastically well-dressed in a his work not to see that, in 1995-2005: Afromuses, The crisp yellow shirt under a bright depicting the black man with a Studio Museum Harlem, FOREVER IF green jumper, yet he is simulta- huge afro and a snazzy suit, he New York neously refined, and supremely is deliberately provoking us to 2005: The Blue Rider, NEED BE’ gentle, with a quiet northern recognise the stereotypes we Contemporary Fine Arts, accent and unfailing attentive- have constructed. Berlin ness. The motifs and images in The Tate opens its doors and 2006: The Upper Room,Tate all of his work are as bold as two members of the public Britain, London © GEORGE IKONOMOPOULOS/ TO VIMA ” Pop Art images. The twelve walk into The Upper Room. Ofili 10 Varsity Features 03.02.06 SPILLED ROMANTICISM FLETCHER HANNAH Lucy McSherry talks to Seamus Heaney about the old and new eamus Heaney is wearing Heaney is at ease. poetry as a high art form.” The tion to the book was mistaken, a blue woollen knitted Coming from Northern post-war era in which he grew but I would add that I was the Stie. For a while I can’t Ireland and having studied up gave him a wider range of cause of it because, before the prise my eyes away from it. Heaney’s poems from an early opportunities than previous book came out, I was relating Later I will think how his age, I feel close to the settings generations. He won a scholar- the oddity of these poems to choice of tie reflects his person- and politics that have defined ship to boarding school and the prevalent conditions too ality: quirky, homely and not him. He nods at me knowingly subsequently moved to explicitly, and making out they without a sense of irony. and uses phrases like, “as we Queen’s Belfast to read English. had something to say.” But did- Heaney is about to deliver would say in Northern He graduated with a First and a n’t they have something to say? the annual Clark Lecture (past Ireland.” But it seems that the few years later found himself “They had but – in a strange speakers include T.S. Eliot and themes of Northern Ireland no back there, teaching students sort of way.” He sighs. “They Ted Hughes). He describes his longer inspire him to write. “I no more than five years weren’t prescriptions, and they lectures and his critical pieces as think with poetry you are wait- younger than him. “I was a BA weren’t explanations.” Has he “poetry with spin-offs”, and ing for something to excite you, when I went to teach in any regrets about the actual says they were initially done something slightly different.” Queens. Most had PhDs and poems? “I am very fond of out of “a sense of obligation” to He has written “wee bits of MAs – I had that insecurity.” them. They are completely Queen’s University, Belfast, and prose in the newspapers” about Despite being eager to down- strange. I think they’ve held up then as “an ongoing sense of the political situation – the play the impact of the Troubles well. I like them still. I have no discovery, adventure and Omagh bombings, the ceasefire on his life, Heaney could not unease about them.” standing up for poetry.” But ignore the political situation. When I arrive at the Lady poetry remains his starting- He even gained a reputation as Mitchell Hall, the auditorium is point. “Any entitlement I have a political writer. He reflects, “it packed. When Heaney begins comes from poems and I would took a while to align whatever to talk there is tangible sense of see myself first, as a poet.” “ I wrote to what was happening. reverence from the audience. I Heany tells me about his new TED [HUGHES] The poem ‘Punishment’, from didn’t hear as much as a cough collection, District and Line, and his 1975 collection North, deals during the entire lecture. describes the process of dream- USED TO SAY, with paramilitary castigation: Heaney called his Clark lecture ing up new poem, ‘Polish ‘A WRITER HAS I who have stood dumb ‘Stance and Distance’, joking Sleeper’. He sets the scene in when your betraying sisters, that he felt it was an “appropri- his garden in elegiac tones: “I TO ESCAPE HIS cauled in tar, ately Cambridgey title”. His wept by the railings, was getting a bit of land fixed, OWN SECRET who would connive new poem ‘The Blackbird of and the landscape gardener in civilised outrage Glenmore’ echoes the ideas said, ‘you should put in railway POLICE’ yet understand the exact that appeared in one of his first sleepers.’ And then what was and tribal, intimate revenge poems, ‘Mid-Term Break’, in supplied were these Polish This collection was lauded in which he remembers the death sleepers, and they were very England, but greeted with sus- of his younger brother. The black, you know, and menacing ” picion in Northern Ireland. poem does not simply take a and you think – my God – of – but this this type of political Belfast poet Ciaran Carson backward look at an older trains in Poland in the second commentary is not what called Heaney “the laureate of topic. Rather, it revisits the World War, of Auschwitz and Heaney’s wants his writing to violence - a mythmaker - an memories that the older poem so on. You’re in the garden and be about. “Ted [Hughes] used anthropologist of ritual killing.” explored with the heightened the pastoral level has changed. to say, ‘a writer has to escape When I refer to North, Heaney awareness that a few decades It’s less pleasurable.” his own secret police.’” He nods with the confidence of have given him. Heaney’s awareness of his laughs. “Anyway, I don’t feel as someone sure of the answer Seamus Heaney’s new surroundings remains sensitive I did in the 1980s, that ‘Jesus, before they hear the question. poems are due for publication and lyrical. He admits that his something has to be done.’ I Was he surprised by the reac- in May. The ones he read on poetry is “spilled don’t feel that.” tion in Ireland? “I was surprised Wednesday suggest a fresh and Romanticism.” He pauses for a Heaney comes from a farm- but I wasn’t daunted by it.” He emotional revisiting of familiar second. “When a poem is good ing family. “It was by no means thinks for a second, then says territory. So how have they you are animated – brought to an illiterate family but there emphatically, “I think I was changed? “It’s hard to say – I life.” Talking about poetry, would have been a shyness of mistaken. I think that the reac- still feel like a beginner.”

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THATCHER La Belle Crane Sans Merci PARTY KCSU Stuart It’s big, it’s rusty and it hath me in thrall SECRETARY Smith he recently passed KCSU motion to hold “a fabu- Tom Kingsley Tlous and opulent party”

IO CALDER SIMON upon the eventual death of ome people find elec- hammer Emmanuel. On the former Prime Minister tricity pylons quite ugly. one hand a tragic loss etc etc, Margaret Thatcher has gener- SBut I say, if you imag- but on the other – it would ated much controversy within ine them as friendly metal look smashing to have a King’s this week. stick-children tied together in fallen crane in the middle of In one corner, many feel a long line on a school trip, your main court and the that the gathering of students you’ll find them innocent, if roofs of all the adjacent build- to ‘celebrate’ the life of our not rather loveable. Because ings. Some kind of conceptual dear Baroness, while wearing with a bit of imagination, you statement about modernity, bandanas sporting the slogan can come to like anything. and destruction and power. ‘Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk And that’s why I love those Everyone will want one. Snatcher,’ is a deeply amusing cranes in the middle of Still, my suggestion that and rather gratifying prospect, Cambridge. the cranes would fall over is in the best traditions of left- None of your tacky red or without foundation because wing protest. In the other, yellow cranes, these ones. By the cranes are with founda- many consider that whatever night, they’re lit up in crisp tions. They’re firmly opinion one may hold of shining Persil white, like a concreted into the ground. Margaret, a party to celebrate frost pattern on a window. Technically, they’re not build- her death is in rather bad And by day, grey against the ing, they’re buildings. And taste, even offensive. There is grey that passes for sky in what’s more, they’re greater the additional worry that Cambridge, the cranes are than the buildings they’re what started out as a student like cranes. Bird-like, long- building. Compare the joke may be construed as legged, flapping in the wind. simplicity in purpose and being extremely distasteful by They’re visible from absolute- design of the cranes to their a wider field of opinion, and ly everywhere in Cambridge creation, the pompous could cause King’s to be seen and probably in “Grand Arcade” with its “52 in a less than favourable light. Cambridgeshire. They’re inspiring shops”. “52 inspiring Certainly if our dear Mrs probably the tallest things in shops”. Shut up. Thatcher were a genocidal the county. I say we should keep the dictator, there might be Ideally, there’d be some building site as it is, with the grounds to say that her pass- kind of website where some- floodlights and the rubble, ing would legitimately call for one would take a picture of and the way the surrounding immediate festivities. the cranes every two hours, houses end abruptly with However, given that Margaret so those unlucky enough not hastily-tacked black plastic can only really be described to have a view of the cranes covers. Maybe open it up to as a mildly odious figure from their window would be the public as an apocalyptic whose social policies were able to see what new abstract garden, with pony rides and a rather disagreeable, it is surely shape they’d swung into. The pond with little model boats going too far to say that her cranes are so improbably “ in it. We’d keep the cranes death should be officially close to each other that they Suddenly four tons of metal 80 metres up in there, obviously. In fact, for a celebrated in the way interact like some giant sculp- pound a time, you could proposed, at the expense of ture. They can’t be anything the air swings into action. With that power climb up the ladder to the the normal decency which more practical than a sculp- top of the biggest crane, sit in accompanies anyone’s pass- ture, because the four cranes rush, you’d feel like a God. the cockpit and press the little ing. The promise of Garibaldi are so cosy with each other plastic button. biscuits and lemon squash at that if they swung their arms The God of Cranes Suddenly four tons of the party, although tempting, by very much, they’d collide, metal 80 metres up in the air does little to mitigate this like a slow light-sabre battle swings into action. With that feeling. between two geriatric Jedi. power rush, you’d feel like Even so, the facts of the And since cranes exist to lift truck. majesty of a super tanker feel sure I suffer from” reverse God. The God of Cranes. And matter are that this motion things high up in the air over So they’re not there as mowing down a dinghy in a vertigo, whereby looking up for an extra pound, you’d be was passed democratically at obstacles, it’s puzzling as to useful engineering tools, but shipping lane. I try not to at tall buildings is scarier than allowed to lower the hook a scheduled open meeting, to why, on that flat and barren as art. From afar, the cranes look up at them as I cycle looking down from them. and pluck people from the which all undergraduates building site, there’s anything seem gracefully flimsy, until past for several reasons. Looking up at a crane streets below, like one of were invited, the agenda of for them to do which could- you cycle underneath them, Partly because I feel like the swaying in the breeze makes those dodgy arcade games which was publicised well in n’t be more easily when their hulking fuck-off- dinghy, partly because I might me particularly nervous. If with the dangling claw and advance. It was neither accomplished by a large ness gives them the awesome fall off, and partly because I that big arm fell off, it could the pit of toys. Amazing. proposed nor decided by any members of the Union execu- tive. Those who objected to the motion should have been more willing to share their The Foul Stationery Shop of the Heart views, as well as ensuring that they were present at the meeting to vote the motion Buying our identities on the high-street down. And it is difficult to argue that such a motion may be offensive when nine- tenths of the undergraduate Adam Swersky population did not even attend the meeting at which o it turns out that Ryman Next time you go into willed preferences for products with for laws to stop this rot in its it was being proposed. offers a student discount. Cool. Sainsbury’s, check out the products jazzy advertising and supposedly mouldy tracks. Apathy about student SOf course, as a store, they are on sale. More likely than not, at discounted price tags. But nay.I do not. Because in our Union activity is a huge prob- probably pricier than almost any least one central stand will be filled One more example before I come society, the things we buy represent lem, even in a traditionally other stationery shop in Cambridge. with discount wine. That’s because to the long-awaited twist that will more than just their functionality. politically active college such But flash them a blue card and wine is one of the most sensitive make your heart stop, your mind They reflect our character, our as King’s. The KCSU execu- they’ ll flash you back a smile like products in the supermarket to buzz and your time spent reading desires, our hopes and dreams. tive is continually making you’ve never seen, press their magic marketing promotions. Cut the worthwhile. Cars. A car is a great From the food we eat, to the efforts to engage students in button and – my God – the thrill of price, shove it in people’s faces and thing, especially if it takes you from clothes we wear to even the the activities of their Union. pocketing a receipt with a minus watch the shelves clear. A to B in safety and relative stationery we buy, we make our But as long as students stay sign. You have to feel it to under- It’s not that you believe you’re comfort. But do we buy cars on that purchases as the people we want to away, and do not engage, stand. getting some great deal just because basis? Oh no. be. motions like this may contin- Ryman is not the only way to get someone stuck a whopping “Save Rather more important is In choosing a car, the ideal that ue to be passed. Those who that freebie pleasure. Marks & Save Save” label out front. But whether it’s been endorsed (or car represents for us is just as valu- did not attend have no right Sparks, that well known discount dammit if you just can’t help ignor- perhaps, unendorsed) by Michael able as its ability to take us to work to complain. supermarket, offers racks upon racks ing everything your head tells you. Winner, used in a classic Bond film in the morning. In selecting Perhaps we could view the of glorious plastic cutlery. All free. You rip that Chablis off the rack like high speed chase, or – if neither of discount wine and, indeed, Ritz proposed party in a different Tutto gratis.A pint of milk for £2.50 a contestant on Supermarket Sweep. the above – just how closely it crackers, we buy into the image of way; not as a macabre cele- (prices quoted may be hopelessly It’s not just wine and, bizarrely, comes to resembling a phallus. A ourselves as cost-conscious, success- bration of a death, but as the exaggerated for effect) and you too Ritz crackers that appear to defy the big dollop of obvious impracticality ful bargain-hunters with one-up on nostalgic commemoration of a could be stirring it into to your Gold rationality economists like me is another positive feature, as any the fat cat chief execs who, ironical- distinguished political life. I Blend tea with an M&S teaspoon. assume in Homo Economici like you owner of a (two-seat) sports car will ly, benefit from our decision. am sure that as Cambridge Pardon me – a free M&S teaspoon. (I, for one, have reached so sublime tell you. It’s not a bad thing. It may students, our overflowing It’s hardly a new tale. Discounts, a level of rationality I wouldn’t buy And so, you may think, do I involve self-deception and a bit of levels of sophistication and freebies, Buy One Get One Free a fig without performing differential conclude by decrying the advertising foolish pride but, as John Locke ‘ironic’ postmodern cultural offers and the like are the most calculus on my utility function). executives with their slicked-back pointed out, property is an exten- awareness will allow us to do basic of marketing techniques. The multi-billion dollar marketing hair and Gucci suits, slamming their sion of self. Marketing just makes it so. Even if we didn’t get free Basic, but effective. industry survives on our weak- irresponsible attitudes and calling all the more meaningful. milk at school. 12 Varsity Comment 03.02.06 O KINGSLEY TOM

and

Israel chips

MEMBERS OF THE BLOG COMMU- NITY ATTACK EACH OTHER WITH THE NAMES OF NATIONS

Just wanted to say, how ironic, given all the time we hear America spouting on about politics, that Hamas - a political party - should win the election. Just too, too perfect: a good chance for us Brits to have the last laugh for a change! browser

Tell me about it - I think I’m still pissed this morning! Magic - makes all the bad times worthwhile east_londoner

America knew the Palestinians were Muslims, and it did nothing. Now it’s too late: they’ve elected a Muslim party. Party at King’s: Hammer and Sickle, Ham and Pickle, and only herbal tea – because proper tea is theft We’d better hope China doesn’t get the internet: maybe they’ll research democ- racy, and then maybe they’ll elect Hamas as well Doxy Where Ignorant Hamsters Clash By Night China don’t want democracy? Hey, leave them to it. Bring our Google boys home. I don’t want another death When thoughtless laughter corrodes our moral codes Southern_californian Ned hat rhymes with hamster?” and sometimes they use them and ‘But you’ve got to admit it’s fucking Happy to leave you to your dreams, sometimes they don’t. We use them to funny!’ Which is an attitude that cloud-eyes ;) This is the real world “W decide what we think about political drinking society members deliberately Elephant Tensions were running high in the Var- issues like capital punishment and per- help to cultivate because they know sity office. sonal issues like eating meat. But the otherwise they’ll get run out of If China gets the internet it won’t make “Gangster?” rest of the time we ignore them. Most Cambridge. any difference. Same old story with Iraq. “‘Hamster Wrapped’. Like gangsta rap.” of what we do, we like to think, isn’t If you don’t believe me, look at the They spent all that time searching and “You can’t trivialise it like that,” said wrong, but it’s also not right, in the calculatedly jokey and over-the-top Beauman looking like idiots. The U.N. shouldn’t be the editor. sense that it’s not commendable or answers they gave to Varsity’s questions using Google “‘Hamster Rap’. As in “rap on the noble. We just do it and it doesn’t mat- in the drinking-society run-down a few internal_combusion_engine knuckles’.” ter. That’s why it’s so startling when pages on from the hamster article. The “Genius.” you see headlines in the Guardian like ability to laugh at yourself is supposed In fact, China had had the internet entire- “You’re still trivialising it. It’s not to be one of those great British assets, ly, given the technology at least five funny,” said the editor. but it’s also one of the great British months previously to the initial memo. “‘Tragic Hamster Atrocity’.” ways of getting out of trouble. Ridicule Just thought I should clarify this “Then people will think we’re being is not the same as condemnation.If tech_help sarcastic.” “ someone mocks you, then you just “‘Gotter-hamster-ung’,” I suggested. I LAUGHTER have to learn to take it until they get Yo Southern Californian. I’d be worried was ignored, as usual. bored and move on, and you end up about taking what you said seriously if I “‘Grave Hamster Incident’?” ANAESTHETISES with a reputation as a good sport, and hadn’t realised you were from Southern “No one will read that.” nothing changes. When you ridicule

California. I’m fed up with bumping into “It’s just that hamsters are intrinsically OUR MORAL something, you take pleasure in it, and you moon-shaped leaf-eaters who think funny.We wouldn’t have this problem FACULTIES BETTER that makes you complicit. Applying they own Avalon. Nothing changes - I if it had happened to more serious ani- your moral faculties, cold and hard and should have known you were a tent-peg mal, like a vole.” THAN ANYTHING serious, is the only way to change any- east_londoner Ladies and gentleman, this is jour- “ thing. (‘It’s all consensual,’ says Mr nalism. We were trying to find a head- EXCEPT LUST Drinking Society. ‘Yes, well, so’s prosti- We’ve all been elected by Hamas at line for the news article about the two tution,’ say the rest of us. ‘What’s your some random stage! It’s the 21st centu- Cambridge students who drunkenly point?’ says Mr Drinking Society.) ry! I don’t even know where my shoes sent a live hamster in the post as some This is also why racist and sexist are! p.s. I collect pin-badges! Anybody kind of lunatic act of revenge on an jokes are so harmful, even if - especial- got any? oatcake unknown enemy for an unknown ‘Is it all right to drink orange juice?’, ly if - no one is in earshot who’ll be insult. We knew we weren’t meant to because it simply doesn’t ever occur to offended, and even if they’re ‘ironic’ in I know a great pin badge website! Check laugh, but we couldn’t help it. I was you that drinking orange juice is a the mode of Jimmy Carr. There are it out - it’s seriously fun www.pinbadge- against fox-hunting; I don’t like moral issue. It’s not right or wrong, it’s some things you just have to take seri- junkie.com. p.s I hope you don’t mind I defenceless animals being tortured for just with-bits or without-bits. ously. Laughter anaesthetises our typed your name into Google to make fun; I hated what those students had Same goes for the hamsters. Because moral faculties better than anything sure you’re not part of China - I think it’s done; but I laughed anyway. hamsters, with their little fluffy twitchy except lust. terrible that Google won the election And that’s the problem. When we’re noses, really are intrinsically funny. When someone drunk does some- when some of their websites continue to kids, we have the following value sys- Which means you can do awful things thing brutish, there’s no need to go out call for the destruction of Israel. It’s okay tem: if our friends laugh at something, to them and, at least until someone of your way to give them a talking-to. - it’s all clear! (for now!) Damsel it’s right. If they don’t, it’s wrong. points out the inconsistency, no one You just need to withhold your laugh- Hence murder by happy-slapping. will bother to wonder whether it’s ter. Because then, for once, the ques- There’s no point in typing anything into When we’re older, we know better - right or wrong, they’ll just laugh. tion ‘Are you proud of what you’ve Google at the moment because it’s on unless we’ve gone to public school, in And this happens all the time in done?’ won’t be drowned out by gig- vacation in China. The message you which case we’re fairly likely to stay Cambridge. Look at drinking societies. gles. read would have been an automatic mail like that for the rest of our lives - but Nobody thinks that bullying new initi- So you might be thinking, ‘Oh, he’s delivery relating to the destruction of we still sometimes get lazy. It’s like we ates into drinking a bottle of port out just got no sense of humour.’ But look Israel somehow. If you’re interested in have three boxes to tick on the survey: of a used condom is right - they’d back at the beginning of this article. the destruction of Israel you need to use ‘Right’, ‘Wrong’, or ‘N/A’. And the never do it themselves. But they don’t The bit about the hamster. Could Google.com, not Google.cn tech_help power of laughter is to keep things think it’s wrong, either. There may be someone with no sense of humour ‘N/A’. a token moment of ‘God, that’s dis- have mined that ingot of comedy gold? Human beings have moral intuitions, gusting,’ but it’s always followed by No. The answer is no.

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Varsity is proud to be the holder [email protected] of numerous student media awards and a vast number of alumni now working in Business Manager Chris Adams [email protected] Production Manager Michael Derringer [email protected] Company Secretary No part of this publication is to be reproduced, Patricia Dalby [email protected] international media. Varsity also publishes BlueSci magazine, The Mays, and an stored on a retrieval system or submitted in News Editors Rachel Cooper, Rebecca Greig, Sophie Hauptfuhrer, Amardeep Lidder, Jamie Munk [email protected] Interviews Editors Emily online edition at www.varsity.co.uk, and any form or by any means, without prior per- Stokes & Natalie Whitty [email protected] Science and Technology Editors Rubika Balendra & Dhara Thakerar [email protected] Debate broadcasts weekly on CUR1350. mission of the publisher. Editor Laura Dixon [email protected] Comment Editor Adam McNestrie [email protected] Opinion & Correspondence Editor Tom Board of Directors: Dr. Michael Franklin Williams [email protected] Satire Editor Joe Thomas [email protected] Food & Restaurants Editors Jackson Boxer & Quentin Jones (Chair), Prof. Peter Robinson, Mr Tim [email protected] Fashion Editors Fiona Walker Doyle, Allegra Kurer and Susannah Wharfe [email protected] Lifestyle Columnist Jenny Harris, Ms Katy Long, Mr Tim Moreton, © Varsity Publications Ltd, 2006. Stocks Classical Editor Francis Letschka [email protected] Literature Editor Salman Shaheen [email protected] Music Editors Liz Mr Tom Wilkie, Mr Ifti Qurashi, Mr James Bradshaw, Sarah Pope & Jacqui Tedd [email protected] Theatre Editors Ed Blain & Natalie Woolman [email protected] Visual Arts Estella Dacre (Varsoc President), Mr Tom 11-12 Trumpington St.,Cambridge CB2 1QA Shardlow [email protected] Screen Editors Harriet Clark & Jonny Ensall [email protected] Walters, Ms Amy Goodwin, Mr Jon Chief Sub-editor Joseph Heaven Sub-editors Catherine Hall, Matthew Kay Graphics Adam Welch, Tom Kingsley [email protected] Swaine and Mr Jon Hewer Tel: (01223) 353422 Fax: (01223) 352913 03.02.06 Editorial Varsity 13 Correspondence email us: [email protected] or write to: Varsity, 11-12 Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1QA Walsh’s Week? The Perfect January), Laura Walsh, Science outlets. Blend Jennifer Cooper (absent due For All Approved by a majority of two, CUSU Council’s sparing of to illness at CUSU Council on Yours faithfully, Laura Walsh was anything but a ringing endorsement of Dear Sir, Wednesday) and Drew Dear Sir, her presidency thus far. Indeed, criticisms made by many Livingston (resigned from his Nicola Buckley speakers present on Wednesday night brought to the fore The column on Neighbours post on the Development and In response to Jamie Horder's Co-ordinator several deserved condemnations of her tenure. (Varsity, 27th January) is the Planning Committee at CUSU article regarding the Cambridge Science Festival Our Union has often seemed lacking in leadership and best piece of student journal- Council on Wednesday), Cambridge Science Festival, I direction, allowed to dwindle into struggles over politicisa- ism I have ever read. Finally without consulting the CUSU thought I would clarify a few The Shelves tion led by those voices who happened to shout loudest. a student newspaper that is executive, tabled a paper points. The Festival is the Are Weeping offering students the range of under CUSU’s name to the UK’s largest free science festi- But Varsity believes that at such a stage in this executive’s news and commentary that Standing Advisory val, and aims to encourage Dear Sir, life, the loss of its President would have been an even fur- we are interested in. There Committee on Student children to study science, as ther hindrance, bringing chaos at such a sensitive moment must be thousands of Matters requesting that well as to engage the adult I am for the second week jus- in its history. Talk of disaffiliation and reality of referenda Cambridge students who CUSU be centrally funded. public on issues of scientific tifiably swollen with ire and has not been so widespread in years. watch Neighbours on a daily Laura Walsh commented: concern. It is an important wrath following my discovery However, the quite overwhelming decision to remain basis and who have a wide “we didn’t think the part of the University’s out- that whoever stole the copy affiliated by Downing JCR, CUSU’s most troublesome in range of opinions on the pro- University would accept our reach programme, attracting of Erasmus’ Ciceronianus from recent years, offers further cause for optimism. Varsity wel- gramme. proposals and so didn’t both- those who may not normally the North Wing of the comes the choice of their majority, and implores the stu- I hope Varsity will continue er consulting. Had they be interested in the research University Library has been the column and perhaps passed our request for here. at his/her nefarious pilfering dents of Trinity Students’ Union to seriously consider the widen its scope so as to offer central funding, we would The Festival includes yet again. This week, benefits of ‘staying in’ as they go to the polls. students a forum for dis- have been acting outside of events for all ages in depart- Tyndale’s New Testament Welfare and Graduates Officer Vicki Mann insisted on cussing this awesome pro- our remit.” ments from Astronomy to appears to have been the necessity of the No Confidence motion against her gramme. Good on ya,Varsity. Ignoring the fact that she Zoology. Such initiatives are swagged from the reverend friend because she could no longer work under her. It is has (openly) acted unconsti- vital at a time when the shelves of the English Faculty perhaps strange, then, that there has been no suggestion Yours faithfully, tutionally and has consistent- number of pupils taking A- Library. whatsoever that her position may no longer be tenable. ly failed to clarify exactly level Physics dropped by 34% Where will this end? Why Hopefully, enough reconciliation can take place for such Catherine David what she did, there remains between 1991 and 2000, and must this person concentrate important work to continue. Trinity College the fact that until now Laura the decline in numbers tak- their cleptomaniacal tenden- Walsh has considered her ing Maths over the same cies upon Henrician theologi- Finally, praise must go to those members of the position tenable, even period was 22%. cal controversy? The culprit, Executive who have quite clearly held their committee CUSU though she commands only a In the newspapers, you when found, should be together over the course of the past week. Thanks in part Under Fire minority of support from will find significant scientific clapped in irons. to their endeavours, CUSU has a future to look forward to. CUSU Council (28 out of 64). research covered by journal- Dear Sir, How is this reconcilable ists with science degrees. Yours faithfully, with her pledge to be Beyond these outlets, science Laura Walsh’s personal accountable? journalism often favours Incandescent Houses, Picture and Public pledge when she stood for health issues, and I would Corpus Christi the presidency of CUSU was Yours faithfully, encourage scientists to come The apparent threat posed to the Arts Picturehouse cinema to run an “accountable, visi- up with creative ways to by the development of its sprawling superpub neighbour ble, and sensible” Union. As Ranald Lawrence communicate scientific Letters may be edited for throws into relief some traditionally difficult issues. reported (Varsity News, 27th Jesus College research in more populist space and style Perhaps clichéd Cambridge battles between town and gown, and beery lad versus weepy student aesthete, are more perpetuated in the minds of their respective sides than The Tightrope rorism’.” national politics in Varsity grounded in reality. But few situations in recent memory Of Terrorism This is not “enlightening”; ought entail a really disinter- this is not “amazing”: this is a ested approach, rather than a have seemed genuinely to threaten real polarisation along Dear Sir, naive and illogical analysis, purely superficial show of such lines as this. Peaceful co-existence should be the ideal and could lead to a serious balance, in future. way forward, but peace - rather important to the enjoyment Natalie Whitty describes an misapprehension of a com- of cinema - is not easy to come by in close proximity to a interesting discussion with plex problem. Terrorism in Yours faithfully, mega woofer and a will to inflict Cheese Party 2006 ad Tony Benn (Varsity Features, the forms the West has expe- infinitum. 27th January). However,I rienced over the last years is The Arts Picturehouse is apparently under-used out of cannot agree that the follow- evil and cannot be excused David Marusza Term. And, Cambridge is not known for its numerous ing analogy proposed by on socio-economic grounds. Corpus Christi nightspots. As such, it is understandable that Wetherspoons Benn is “one of the best Death is death and maiming metaphors...ever heard” or is maiming. might feel justified in taking advantage of the greater flexi- “enlightening”: “...the human Deprivation is also wrong, bility made possible by new licensing legislation. race are like survivors in a but it does not negate the But scarcer still, in Cambridge and across the UK, are lifeboat after a shipwreck horrific nature of murder on Letter of the independent cinemas - wonderful places, where challeng- with one loaf of bread. There the scale of New York, Bali, Week wins ing works of art can flourish amongst multi-million dollar are three ways to distribute Madrid, or London. Just a specially blockbusters, and its devotees can meet to pay homage. And it. You’ll sell the bread so the because Benn is a ‘kindly old selected bottle nervously take first dates, because there’s nowhere else. rich get it, you fight for the gentleman’ and elder states- The entire building now housing The Regal and the Arts bread so the strong get it, or man of the left is no reason from our Picturehouse was once a temple to film. Varsity believes it you share the bread. I think to overlook and condone his, friends at Letter of that’s the reality. And if you frankly, irresponsible views. Cambridge Wine would be a tragedy if its last remaining corner were don’t share it then the people I recognise the contingent drowned in sound, and as such will be voicing our concerns who haven’t got it fight for it. nature of my opinions, but I Merchants, before 5pm today. the Week Now that’s what we call ‘ter- do feel that pieces on inter- King’s Parade Do you have a passion for writing, taking photographs, designing, “The hypocrisy was mind-bending” illustrating or producing publica- The Anonymous Student tions? Do you want to show your work to 18,000 readers across This Week: The Cynicism of the Cambridge Audience

Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin bout half way through circles around their drinks. doesn’t feel listened to, and behind those who are doing Universities every Friday? last term, there was an Worse, at the end of every therefore scrutinised, then they something with potential, and Ainteresting sounding poem, they turned to face the don’t improve, at least not on a then interrogating those per- night on at the Union. Some poor person they’d just been public level. With a healthy, formers so as to help them bands were playing, and some talking through, and applauded secure audience, you have the hone their art. Varsity is always looking for poets were reading. condescendingly. makings of an artistic, critical A lack of honesty and trust, new contributors. The team’s The bands played, and it The hypocrisy was mind- community and, dare I say it, coupled with a misunderstand- would appear that people lis- bending; perhaps the man who scene. ing of the creative process contact details are on the left. tened - you don’t tend to get shouted ‘wank’ deserves more Every week an article crops blinds the Cambridge audience. much choice with 300 watts credit. But not really. What we up in Varsity or TCS wondering, In its cynicism, it negates the Email the relevant section editors coming at you from either side have here is not a single inci- in what would appear to be necessary pretext of an artistic - but the poets were ignored or dent, but one example of a per- genuine puzzlement, why there community; that the person today and get involved - no prior heckled. The scene in the union vasive complacency and small- have been no famous student who presents something to an experience is necessary. was offensive. mindedness that drags cobwebs bands from Cambridge. The audience does so because he or Whilst the short poems were across this small town. answer is that it’s down to a she believes it contains some read, the polite audience did This is not just an issue of lack of proper places to practice objective worth. that Cambridge audience thing: politeness; it's one which radi- and gig, but it’s equally down to When you put a Cambridge MAYS 14 DEADLINE IS a painfully self-conscious look cally affects the creative health a lack of audience. audience in front of something of I’m-only-here-because-I- and prosperity of any institu- The town has an audience, as delicate as one person read- TODAY! normally-am, and a refusal to tion or community. and as a result has a pretty ing a poem you quickly see engage with what's being put If people don’t listen, then healthy music scene, but here what kind of organism you are Submit your prose & poetry by before them. They lolled at the performers don’t feel listened in the university there aren’t dealing with; and it ain’t a pret- midnight to [email protected] bar, and talked in concentric to, and if a performer or writer enough people willing to get ty one. 14 Varsity Lifestyle 03.02.06 03.02.06 Lifestyle Varsity 15

e may all think that we want tudent style has always verged on love at first sight, but look how the eclectic. Now it’s become Wwell it turned out for Romeo and Ssocially conscious. With an ever- Juliet. Feuding families, dead cousins increasing proportion of Cambridge stu- and suicide are not my idea of a pleasant dents buying fair-trade and carefully term at Cambridge. To make it easier for putting those blue plastic boxes out on us to keep all the balls in the air, maybe recycling day, fashion has started to we should try to come up with a DIY reflect this new ethos. relationship. Think of your potential Cambridge’s Oxfam stores have long relationship as a pair of jeans: you gener- realised that retro ranges grab in stu- ally narrow down your search to a par- dent customers desperate to add a bit of ticular size and style, so why not do this personality to their Topshop head-to- when looking for your Cambridge liai- toe ensemble, but now there’s a new son? direction to this more obscure branch of Step One: Pick a College. This is the the Cambridge fashion scene. Some stu- size of your jeans, and you need a good fit. In a relationship context, this means dents, myself among them, have been that you don’t want a college too close or working on a new customisation range too far away, just for sanity and conve- Bridsehead Revisited for the Burleigh Street Oxfam shop, The barefoot nience’s sake. Fancy being close to your Oxbridge chic has had near the Grafton centre. Both tops thing is as over- favorite restaurant or to your faculty for its day. Now that it’s worn by Quentin in this week’s shoot hackneyed as an extra fifteen minutes in bed? Long for been whored on the have been borrowed from this range. Strokes- the spires of King’s, a Trinity Ball ticket or Milan catwalks, An anonymous white t-shirt from Zara wannabe-pins on Sidney’s proximity to Sainsbury’s? Think what’s the point? now has pearl beads and cute spring- lapels. The label of it as choosing a second college but What IS the point? like flowers splashed across it. without the daunting admissions proce- on everyone’s lips Best leave the Fashion doesn’t have to be superfi- dure. is Fisher Price. Strap them onto your brogues in the dress- cial, through it you can support good Step Two: Pick a Subject. This is the cut Converse and roll on to lectures over- ing room until you causes in more imaginative ways than of your jeans and it is very important that taking the jealous masses on their bikes. degrade and can wear by wearing a charity wristband. As with they are right for you. Date someone You’d be crazy not to do it. them for their ironic the Emmeline Childe range at Oxford who has a first in your subject and see value. Customisation is not just Street’s Topshop, which utilises recycled your grades soar as you treat dinners as a fashion thing. In some fabrics and then transfers the profits extra supervisions. It is also possible to The upcoming sea- cases, words can be as back to the Salvation Army, new ways tailor other subjects to your advantage. sons have preached Broken laptop? Find a lovely CompSci important as buttons. of supporting the eco-friendly lifestyle subtlety in makeup boyfriend who is eager to help. In trou- matters. Choose a Why not scatter your are currently emerging which also pro- ble with the police? Take a lawyer out to sentences with Yiddish vide you with a fashion fix. feature and high- dinner to discuss the intricacies of crimi- light it and it alone. words for a phrasing It’s the ultimate relaxation exercise. nal law. that’s truly you. It’s so You walk into Oxfam, pick up some Let’s see the girl Step Three: Finishing Touches. Once behind the geisha. bshert! clothes you fancy experimenting with, you have a pair of jeans that you are transform them from highstreet has- comfortable with, you can start cus- Lace has officially beens to Cinderella couture, and drop tomizing with his extra-curricular activi- The Cambridge shed all granny con- them off again to be sold for Oxfam ties. A rugby player is most suited to car- thesp scene used to notations. A lace col- profits. Use the opportunity to check rying you back after a drunken from for- be all about beauty, out what others have done (last time, I mal hall. Avoid rowers – besides the early now its supposedly lar placed over a tank mornings, will you truly be able to sym- top can smoothly take found the most gorgeous vintage hand- about talent. At bag for £8) and feel virtuous. So next pathise when he is upset about having least the Union is you from day to caught a crab when you learn it is not the evening and speaks of time you’re cackling with the girls over sticking to its guns. a steaming cup, why not get creative sexually transmitted kind? Actors may a new generation’s be well spoken and charming, but if he formalwear dear to with pretty ribbon, colourful beads and huge ‘statement’ buttons? Oxfam are can act well, chances are he can lie well our hearts. too. looking for more aspiring fashion In the end, though, you have to go designers, so take some time out from with your instincts. If he finds it endear- your UL exertions and settle down for a ing that you occasionally cry when you sew and scandal session over your after- drink too much, he might be worth noon tea. keeping. Like a good pair of jeans, if a man can make you feel good about your- self, does anything else really matter?

Fiona Walker Doyle Jenny Stocks

site: Cambridge University Botanical Gardens, hair: Reeds, stylist: Fiona Walker Doyle Quentin wears white t-shirt, £4, Oxfam customized range; white skirt £39.99, Cult; white jacket, £59.99, Cult; cardigan, £39.99, Cult Jackson wears white shirt, £65, Reeves; grey trousers, £50, Reeves; jumper, £60, Reeves answer is simply no. But To bead or not to bead, that to find out why the is the question. Owning the delish is the only gastro- Dior-I-Y latest pair of Seven Jeans or the nomical delight that comes classic Mulberry Roxanne handbag close, start with 10 crushed no longer tops the wish lists of the digestive biscuits in a medium Hollywood A-listers. If it hasn’t been customised especially for Recipe sized bowl. them, they don’t want to know. Why settle for, dare I say it, ‘off the Next, add one and a half table- rack’ Juicy Couture when they could be sporting a tracksuit with their for delishes spoons of cocoa, and the same amount very own name plastered across the back in jewel encrusted diamantes? of dessicated coconut, and mix well. Why conform when they can create? Moisten the crumbly mixture with 150 But please refrain from letting rip with the scissors quite yet. Many an grams of melted butter, before adding 3 attempt to customise with lace has ended up looking less like an elegant tablespoons of condensed milk, and work- Proenza Schouler gown and more like an old tablecloth. Sometimes buttons From their humble origins in my very first ing it in until you have before you a tex- and bows will make you look like a pimped up present rather than a stylish home economics class at the age of eight, to tured mound that is malleable, but not wet. trendsetter. their long overdue immortalisation on the If you find you have an oozing, pourable Look to the Spring/Summer 2006 catwalk for guidance. Ruffle like Cavalli pages of this newspaper, the decadently mixture on your hands, give up - it’s too Review: Auntie's Tea Shop, 1 St Mary's Passage but keep it slinky like Balenciaga. Crochet like Chanel (pictured) but stay away titled ‘delish’ has come to encapsulate the late. But do start again, because it’s worth from Kenzo’s tea cosy chic. Combine Alexander McQueen’s penchant for pleats titillating sensations of food. it. Separate the mixture into ten ping here are few things quite like afternoon Perhaps you already understand how pleas- brewed. If tea itself does not appeal, there is with Dolce and Gabbana’s delicate trimmings for a soft, youthful effect. ‘Is chocolate better than pong-sized balls by rolling them in your tea. Having tea out is the perfect occasion ant it is to come across a quaint little tea house, other tea-time fare, such as good fresh orange Customisation could not be easier for those domesticated goddesses who can sex?’ the pre-menstrual hands, then place them in the fridge Tto catch up with old friends, while avoid- which seats and serves you with an old-school and apple juice, and coffee if you must. The manoeuvre a needle and thread with poise and agility. But the female overnight to set. ing the overly casual coffee break. It is essential English charm. Auntie's Tea Shop, somewhat scones are delicious, but let down a little by the rest of us who don’t even know how to sew on a button should pon- And that’s it; eat (them all, proba- to find a home from home, a place where one of a Cambridge institution, is the perfect place non-clotted (and dare I say aerosol can) cream. not despair. Simple touches, such as delicately wrapping organ- ders. bly), drink (tea, perhaps?), and can customise the experience and relax in the to meet for afternoon tea. From the outside the However, the shortbread and decadent choco- za or a string of pearls through the hair, are often the most The chew, don’t gulp, because it’s all in ritual. One must be cautious not be seduced by dollhouse-like interior is warm and inviting, late choux bun more than made up for this. sophisticated. Boys should think belts, buckles and brooches to the consistency. the pseudo-Italian charm of the coffee chains. and once inside the experience does not disap- There is also a choice of sandwiches, ranging embellish an ensemble. Innovative male design- Remember that once the ten minute queue for point. The tables are lace covered, the cabinets from the traditional mini crust-less variety, to ers have recently been spotted with colourful your over-priced coffee is complete, you have filled with china, and the waitress's uniform the heftier baguette. silk handkerchiefs tied around each wrist to the problem of where to sit: do you enter the matronly. A wide range of cakes and scones are Let this be the year of the tea break. We show that this trend is not only one for the fog filled attic of smoking tourists, or do you available, and a satisfying selection of teas. The must take the time to be English and turn our ladies. Emma Paterson squish in between non-smoking yuppies and die-hard tea drinkers may be upset to hear that backs on coffee culture. their offspring. the tea comes in bag form, rather than loosely Quentin Jones Allegra Kurer 16 Varsity Arts 03.02.06 Arts Theatre Classical Screen Interviews Ranjit Bolt on how to lose Organ Scholars drink pints Giant gorillas may be India Knight warns of the your virginity in too (or do they prefer real destroying art in the dangers of ‘faffing about’ at Hampstead ale?) twenty-first century Cambridge

>>page 17 >>page 18 >>page 21 >>page 21 buildings HODGKINSON VANESSA BY BLUE” IN “PAINITNG ILLUSTRATION: in the sky

Estella Shardlow and Olly Wainwright look at the future of visual arts and architecture in Cambridge and ask: are they taken seriously enough?

Cambridge Department of ter specialists, while mystical of the exhibition, featuring the arts and give students an Architecture’ has become a cor- poetic theorists confront urban essays by all the usual gurus opportunity to “exhibit new porate-oriented appeal-driven economists. James Mason and on what an architectural work”. Olly Wainwright window on the school - what Lord Snowdon both grace the school means – and, of course, Estella Shardlow Each term a broad theme is you might expect from a list, as do a handful of vicars. why Cambridge is so great. selected as a starting point, on Architecture Russell Group University sales It’s a messy but vital mélange, The work explores the heady on Art leading to a showcase of what ast week, Cambridge pitch. typical of a discipline that world of research and its slip- istory of Art graduate the motley crew of dancers, Architecture went to The exhibition takes the negates conventional classifica- pery relationship to both Vanessa Hodgkinson is writers, musicians and LLondon in celebration of form of models, videos and a tion and doesn’t really fit in. practise and studio life, Hcurrently artist-in-res- painters have come up with. the fact that it still exists. Like a big book of studio work, sur- But, however enthralling, this addressing many of the diffi- idence at Christ’s College Last term saw students show- small-town highschool enter- rounded by four enveloping wall represents as enormous cult issues that brought on the studio. The Levy Plumb casing their collaborations on ing the national spelling bee, black walls inscribed with an exercise in name-dropping, a threat of closure and continue scheme grants her the fund- the concept of ‘Golden the department has been bub- endless list of names - a taxon- literal explication of the old to confound the University ing and space to focus on Sections.’ Poetry workshops bling with talk of the omy of teachers and alumni to boys’ network – surely some- today. Occupying an impure creating her own work for a have been arranged in the metropolitan outing for weeks. date. With its dim lighting and thing the University is trying position between academic nine-month period. She studio, with the first sched- The exhibition started life as sober atmosphere, it’s dis- desperately hard to escape. inquiry and practical appren- laments the poor provisions uled for February 8th. a student initiative, an attempt turbingly reminiscent of a war Addressing more weighty ticeship, refusing to adapt to for students who wished to The artist herself works in to wow London with the cre- memorial. In honour, perhaps, matters, the question of what research assessment criteria paint or draw when she was the studio below producing ativity latent in our strange of those who fell in Cambridge we actually do in Architecture and attempting to span politi- a student at Emmanuel- intricate patterned paintings village of punts and spires. Architecture, 1912 – 2005. But is tackled, if slightly obliquely, cal, cultural, social, technical especially when compared to inspired by the beautiful Following the raw urban model designer Tom Holbrook winces in an artistic film of various stu- and economic spheres, the active sports or drama Islamic tiles she encountered of designersblock and other at this suggestion, preferring to dio activities, a series of Architecture is a difficult ani- scenes - reflecting “there’s on her gap year in Kuwait. East London warehouse shows, think of the wall as a Japanese recorded conversations (pre- mal for Cambridge, as it found no equivalent of the ADC for She describes them as “struc- it was to assert a place for our garden, maintaining “the sented on monitors in quaint to its cost last year. us-no forum, no centre for tures in which I can place my much-maligned provincial names are like the gravel, plywood boxes) and in further But perhaps the most diffi- it”. It is no surprise then, thoughts”, again highlighting ghetto amongst the established punctuated by the ‘rocks’ of essays in the accompanying cult thing of all - so troubling, that she has been so proac- the therapeutic effect art can metropolitan schools – proving photos which create thematic catalogue. Intended as a win- in fact, that the exhibition prac- tive in establishing new offer, as Vanessa muses “I’d that Cambridge Architecture islands.” This is a novel way to dow on debate around such tically denies its existence - is opportunities for students to have been a much healthier had risen like a deconstructivist describe what is essentially a issues as cities, sustainability the is the student body itself. practice art. In addition to student if I’d had an outlet”. phoenix from closure’s threat- big illustrated list stuck on a and disaster relief, the conver- With the growing emphasis on the weekly life-drawing Studying in Cambridge can ening flames. wall. sations fall short of their research, the department is classes that provide a con- certainly pressurise one into The idea was taken on by the But he has a point. It’s an potentially provocative agenda. soon to be remodelled, seeing structive workshop jumping on the career ladder department, only to be recon- ambitious graphic project, The school is home to many all undergraduate studios environment, Vanessa has as soon as possible, conse- figured into a fundraising incorporating various layers divergent opinions - this was a downsized and symbolically established a separate studio quently forgetting that there initiative addressed primarily at and scales of text and image to missed opportunity to have relocated to a single shed in the space which “any student are “so many avenues, not deep-pocketed alumni, a retro- allow multiple readings and them thrashed out in public. back garden. from any college” can utilise. just one route out”. So spective ‘Where Are They imply the cross-fertilization Some talking heads are inform- As with the exhibition, there It is free of charge and one is whether you’re contemplat- Now?’ catalogue of those asso- that the school fosters. The ative, but reminiscent of dating has been no consultation. able to store any work pro- ing a career as an artist, or ciated with the school. walls cope with vast quantities videos, researchers desperately Holbrook isn’t concerned, jok- duced in the spacious simply want to splash some Sterilised, smartened up and of information, synthesising trying to make their work ing that research is “this year’s facility: all she asks is that paint around as a release now politely occupying the biographic details, work by sound worthy of endowment black.” But when will the students purchase their own after cramming for yet gallery of the Royal Institute of practices new and old, plus and sources of funding. department realise that today’s materials and “don’t have a another essay, it’s definitely British Architects on examples of current research, Conforming to the expecta- students are next year’s black - party up there!” Another worth your while to check Kensington’s embassy-lined creating unlikely juxtapositions tion of academia, the and the very people that will event in the pipeline is out the exciting creative Portland Place, ‘Compendium: from drastically different fields. accompanying catalogue is soon furnish the self-indulgent C.L.A.E, a project intending prospects going on at The Work of the University of Filmmakers sit alongside shel- perhaps the greatest strength wall of names. to unite various elements of Christ’s. 03.02.06 Arts Varsity 17 Hot Tickets Writers of two of next week’s most anticipated shows talk to Varsity. First, Matt Knott talks to Julian Mitchell, writer of Another Country... hat film about gay emotions at work behind educated poet and commu- cowboys”: how such a total betrayal. Every nist who died in battle in the “Tmany of us have member of the Cambridge Spanish civil war aged 21. In heard or read that some- spy ring had been to tradi- the play, Judd finds a natu- where in recent weeks? tional public schools before ral ally in Bennett, the thin- When a film, or play Cambridge, as had Mitchell ly disguised Guy Burgess becomes attached to a par- himself 20 years later, and (right) character. The ten- ticularly striking label, it can he was convinced this was a sions between them are be a mixed blessing. Another significant factor. those of any two friends Country is never far from the Mitchell attended whose lives begin to head in ‘Cambridge spies’ tag. But its Winchester college in the different directions. But the importance as a play is based 1950s and in the writing of knowledge of their destinies on far more than that scan- his play had clearly engaged makes their relationship dalous association. with his own experiences in more compelling. The play imagines the neither sentimental nor sen- “Don’t you think you’re school days of Guy Burgess, sationalist fashion. He better than everyone else?” a key member of the remembers being aware at Mitchell asked me provoca- Cambridge spy ring, and the time of terrible cruelty, tively. He was referring to speculates as to just how recalling one practice where the tendency of elite aca- formative his school experi- the boys had to walk in demic institutions to instil in ences may have been. twos, and there being one their pupils a feeling of Mitchell was moved to boy who nobody would ever superiority. It is a reality that write the play after Sir walk with. probably affects more of us Antony Blunt, Art advisor to He still remembers think- than we’d ever admit, and ...while Vivienne Storry asks Ranjit Bolt the royal family, was ing how sad that boy must Mitchell believes it is one of unmasked as another mem- have been, and believes that the key factors in under- ber of the spy ring in 1979. this could help explain why standing the lost potential of why he wrote a fairytale about sex “I felt that lots of people the play was such a hit with the boys in his play. hat inspires a man to A Man for All Seasons. On leav- brilliant rhymes such as a were simply getting it audiences; at the heart of When, in that case, the write a book about a ing university he became a description of Baroque Venice wrong” explained Mitchell. whatever social and political consequences are so devas- Wgirl trying to lose her stockbroker but was constantly “Where Casanova in a gondola “At the time, people seemed implications it contains, is tating, it is a sobering virginity, and whose attempts bored and wrote the begin- / Would woo a girl and stroke to accept that these men the tragedy of the destruc- thought to consider just how include meetings with a time nings of novels and plays under and fondle her”. But Bolt states becoming spies was some- tion and neglect of young similar we are to the charac- travelling witch, Dick Turpin, his desk. Despairing at the that “Verse writing is simply a thing that was entirely minds. ters of Another Country. Casanova and Julius Caesar? quality of translations of knack. If one has the knack understandable in the Take the central friendship What inspires him to put it in French verse drama into then, at the risk of seeming 1930s.” Mitchell, however, of Judd and Bennett. Judd’s Another Country is on at the rhyming couplets? English, he decided to do it boastful, the writing process was convinced that there character is based on John ADC theatre Tues 7th - Sat 11th Ranjit Bolt’s Losing It is a himself. Jonathan Miller, then isn’t that tough”. Bolt certainly must have been stronger Cornford, a public-school February at 7.45 poem about beautiful young artistic director of the Old Vic, doesn’t seem to struggle: he Lucy who “was at eighteen – chose to perform Bolt’s versions completed the first draft in a don’t be shocked at this /as vir- and thus began his career as a fortnight. ginal as Artemis”. In an attempt writer. To actors it is a gift to work to speed up her deflowering Bolt claims his inspiration for with and we hope that the she goes to stay with her Great Losing It was “perhaps Byron’s audience enjoy it as much as Aunt Alicia in Hampstead and Don Juan, of which I am a huge we have done devising it. Bolt along the way encounters fan. Verse is my ‘thing’ and I says, “I find the idea intriguing. (with a bit of magical help) an wanted to write something in I’m looking forward to seeing amazing array of characters, all verse that, unlike the transla- the result”. If you would like to played by five actors in less tions, was entirely my own”. see it too, go along to the than 90 minutes. Bolt’s ability to create a novel Corpus Playroom next week. Ranjit Bolt is a fascinating in short rhyming couplets is character who is the nephew of extraordinary. Not only is Los- Losing It is at the Corpus Play- the playwright and screen- ing It very clever, it also has room Tuesday 7th - Saturday 11th writer Robert Bolt, who wrote some hilarious moments and February at 9.30

Cambridge’s main playhouses in a disorganised, lacklustre Sado-Maratism but in the English Faculty. production which quickly saw Fiona Shaw On Tragedy not the show grinding to a frus- View only delighted with breathtak- tratingly slow pace. It is partic- Marat/Sade whips Ben Hadley into submission ing performances of ularly damning of this produc- from the Shakespeare but raised some tion that we managed to stay s a guy who enjoys a from the ceiling. The area implications of the play go no intriguing points about the gripped to Bush’s State of the good spanking, belonging to the inmates is further than a bunch of gods nature of Cambridge drama. In Union Address until four in AMarat/Sade is my kind of presented as a cage, masterful- endearing patients embarrass- the mind of one of our greatest the morning after an epic post play. It is at once disgusting, ly lit by ADC lighting legend ing the director of the asylum actresses, eight weeks of smoker ADC bar session and beautiful, harrowing, hilari- Tom White, who alternates in which they are interned. rehearsal is the minimum yet Henry IV couldn’t coax me ous, violent and uplifting. In between sickly greenish hues This impression - if partly rec- required for a truly successful to stay awake for the duration. the words of the eponymous and shafts of pale, white light tified by the pathos and belea- production. In our world, Of all the plays Marat/Sade Marquis, “take to bits great which focus the audience's guered ranting of Marat (a where we produce essays in a is particularly challenging, propositions and their oppo- attention on relevant areas. strong performance by James lunch break or plays in a fort- making exceptional demands site”. This in mind, my regret The scene is set for onstage Smoker) and of his exchanges night, this seems an inordi- on director and cast. Such an with regards to the production anarchy, the battleground for with the Marquis de Sade nately large commitment but intellectually and politically at hand was that I wasn’t get- the extreme ideologies of (Harry Adamson). However, the shows we saw this week motivated play requires those ting it rough enough, like I’d whilst the latter dominates the suffered from a lack of involved to possess an under- spent money on a dominatrix stage marvellously during his rehearsal time. standing of the historical and who’d then recounted bed- speeches and is gifted with an Overhearing an audience social context. In order to keep time stories for two hours. impressive stage presence, he member leaving Ismene her audience focussed director The plot is simple: the “THE SCENE does not give a sense of the exclaim ‘Theatre just shat on Victoria Scopes has created a Marquis de Sade, committed IS SET FOR issues at stake. Instead, it my face’, we approached the stimulating production, but to the Asylum at Charenton, seems he is merely engaging in auditorium with apprehension too often the various quirks has written a play about the ONSTAGE an exercise in rhetoric and The Varsity Elect the next evening. The first and twitches of the inmates assassination of French revo- showmanship which, though minutes of this performance became distracting. Which lutionary Jean-Paul Marat, to ANARCHY at times captivating, is not Pass Judgement produced one of the most brings us to the songs... The be performed by the inmates. faithful to the tortured charac- with Miriam Foster visually arresting pieces of the- musical numbers were, with They act out the story under ter ceated by Weiss. atre seen this year, but the one exception, out of tune and the eyes of the bumbling - yet Overall, the production is & Tabitha Becker- overall experience failed to live out of time. With more self-righteous - asylum direc- ”Marat and Sade. However, no too much of a tease and not Khan up to the promise of the open- rehearsal, this might not have tor (captured perfectly by Alex such mayhem is forthcoming. enough all-out S&M, suffering ing scene. Particularly surpris- been such a struggle. Dawson). A philosophical bat- Instead, the audience might occasionally from a lack of n excitingly ambitious ing given the consistently So to the Smoker: funny as tle waged between Marat and wonder why they have been pace and skewed priorities. theatrical programme strong cast and the brilliance ever with all the usual faces. Sade about the nature of the physically separated in such a There was much promise in Awas mounted this week: of Stacey Gregg’s script. After being left feeling slightly French revolution is then way from inmates who, for the performances and their a combination of new writing, Henry IV at the Corpus uncomfortable by this week’s interspersed with songs about the most part, appear to be staging, but the production controversial drama and com- Playroom offered some theatrical endeavours it decapitation and copulation. slightly kooky, but basically ultimately failed to deliver edy, striking varying degrees of moments of light relief to an proved just how crucial it is for As a ‘play inside a play’ the harmless. Surely the moral of through being too tame and success. Yet the most impres- initially enthusiastic audience. a production of any genre to production does well: the very the play cannot be that we inadequately expressing the sive performance of the week Yet moments of comic poten- have the time for cast and front of the stage (where the needn’t be afraid of those play’s key thoughts and ideas. was not found at any of tial were disappointingly lost crew to evolve. asylum director is seated) is quaintly off-the-wall? separated from the main area The problem is, the audi- Marat / Sade is on at the ADC of action by wires descending ence is led to believe that the until Saturday at 7.45 for first night reviews go to www.varsity.co.uk 18 Varsity Arts 03.02.06 Not the same old Soviet Chic Alex Nice listens to Evgeny Pasternak, son of Doctor Zhivago author Boris ast weekend offered a Hamlet was a particular Pasternak. glimpse into the inner favourite of Pasternak. He submitted Zhivago with Arthur and George ##### Lworld of great Russian Translating Hamlet became a hopes of acceptance since, as poet Boris Pasternak. The lifetime preoccupation and its his son pointed out, there was Rhona Brown reviews Julian Barnes’ ‘Weekend With Pasternak,’ influence is strongly felt in Doc- nothing explicitly anti-Soviet in presented by the Russian tor Zhivago, the novel which the novel, only a truthful latest, newly released in paperback STREET BEATS Speaking Society, offered two won him international fame. depiction of the horror of civil Doyle, and the real-life miscar- LUTAIN MILLI ILLUSTRATION: talks by the poet’s son, Evgeny Pasternak wrote his prose mas- war. No publisher would touch riage of justice against a DJ SKETCHY & DJ RIP Pasternak, on his father’s life, terpiece in his second period of it. According to Pasternak’s son, part-Indian solicitor named work and his relationship with self-imposed silence after the the reason behind the novel’s George Edalji which Sir Arthur Welcome to our fortnightly the composers Shostakovich war. According to his son, rejection lay in the writer’s took it upon himself to over- offering of news, views and and Scriabin. defence of fellow poet turn. Despite this, as usual, he reviews on all things urban. There was much to tell, but it Mandelstam, arrested in 1934 creates a surprisingly com- was perhaps the simplicity of and later died in the gulag. pelling work that begs many

This term was set to startMACDONALD with a couple of big nights. the son’s account that was most Desperate to see his work pub- questions, not least about what The promise of DJ Semtex, appealing. There is a tendency lished, Pasternak took the constitutes a novel. 1Xtra “big dog”, filled out to turn the lives of all Soviet fateful decision to send his The plot works its way back Clare Cellars, but he disap- writers into political thrillers, manuscript abroad. The and forth between the lives of pointed with an unexplained presenting them as martyrs to authorities were quick to take the two ‘characters’. Suspense no-show. Déjà vu all over art and truth. Pasternak’s life revenge for this act of betrayal, is built up and knocked down again – he also managed to was not short of drama. Like all launching a slanderous and both in the individuals’ double book on Urbanite public figures he lived in fear of threatening campaign against predicaments and in the narra- last term. The night was res- being purged through much of the poet. In 1958 Pasternak tive as a whole, as we are cued by the wordplay of the the thirties and forties, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize, ripped in and out of Arthur Word Association. was unable to publish for long but in the face of increasing As I pulled Arthur and George by and George’s lives at their most Last week saw Roll Deep periods. Along with tales of lit- persecution and threat of exile Julian Barnes out of my intriguing moments. hit the Junction and deliver erary and political intrigue, Pasternak officially declined the Christmas stocking, I hoped it The reader becomes compas- the goods…it’s just a shame however, Evgeny Pasternak award. Thus Zhivago played a wouldn’t be one of those pres- sionately involved in the quiet, that their enigmatic top-boy, was able to give a rare sense of double role in Pasternak’s liter- ents you wished you could methodical mind of George, as Wiley, never seems that the writer’s private world. ary life, winning him give back. I wasn’t disappoint- his fate unfolds like a train bothered, despite being one His talk also featured read- worldwide fame but finally ed. crash. On a more voyeuristic of the most talented MCs ings of Pasternak’s poetry as Evgeny Pasternak this week destroying his career at home. If you’ve read Barnes and note, we are given genuinely that the UK has seen. well as some expert English As his son stressed in his talk, enjoyed it, you’ll likely find surprising details on the life of As for new releases, the translations. Translation was a Pasternak attempted to earn Pasternak walked by himself this to your taste. If you have the household name that is True Tiger record label has very important part of enough through translation in throughout his life. He avoided not, you’ll probably find it Conan Doyle. been making some serious Pasternak’s literary work. One two months to sustain himself artistic schools; his battle was refreshing. Even if you don’t Arthur and George - the charac- waves in the grime scene of the curious by-products of and his family, so that he could not with literary movements or like his work, you might be ters and the novel - are over the past few months, censorship in Russia has been devote the rest of the year to the state, but for truth. When pleasantly surprised. It’s proba- preoccupied with identity. and their mixtape, Eye of an extremely strong tradition his novel. By the time it was he could speak the truth as he bly not like other novels you Consequently, as well as pro- the Tiger Vol. 1, is without a in literary translation. As the finished ten years later, Stalin saw it, he spoke; when it was might have read over viding readers with a truly doubt the best grime compli- state increased its efforts to sub- had died. Along with physically impossible for him to Christmas. touching narrative, they also ation we have heard. With ordinate literature to Party Akhmatova, Pasternak was the speak the truth, he was silent. Barnes has a unique and require the constant posing of the brains behind the opera- purposes during the thirties, only major poet to live through In a revolutionary age versatile ability to take subject larger questions, such as what tion, Scandalous Unlimited, Pasternak, like so many writers, the Stalin period in the USSR. Pasternak looked beyond the matter that might seem an comprises ‘Britishness’, dignity producing some of the most found himself forced into digni- He could now hope for a return immediate struggles to what unusual choice for a novel. and honour – three concepts professional and upfront fied silence and reliant on to publishing. The post-Stalin was really important in the This is true in this biography both these fascinating charac- grime-y beats yet seen, and translation to make a living. thaw, however, was not kind to world. (of sorts) of Sir Arthur Conan ters based their lives on. bigshot artists such as Wiley, Dizzee, Skepta and Plan B also featuring, no Avery...I repeated the name, in my mind, and something I sounds clamoured for attention- one by the name of A. C. wonder BBC Radio 1xtra feeling my lips contort as I had heard in the restaurant led I could hardly feel my own Smitson. Avery, could Avery be and others have been back- uttered it, and once more the me to think of that ghastly breathing between the slams of that initial? Or was it her real ing this so hard. tenant, that unrelenting and estate agent who led me to this doors, and raised voices and the name. It was so hazy, but the Hip-hop wise, we can't mysterious impression of the occasional uncategorisable clues seemed to be forming as I recommend enough the new tenant kept on seeping back thumps emanating from my trudged across the room in my Bless mixtape by into my sleep-addled brain. I neighbours walls. I digress: old slippers- Ah, the old com- Shameless (out now on Dat glanced back at the bill, another that's the trouble with living forts of home. Sound). A relatively unknown It’s a bloody mess. A story bloody bill. I slid it along the here. I can't think, I'm driven to There were facts, ones that I Irish MC with a passionate that started so simply has corner of my desk, into the rap- distraction- the only thing that cannot change. One being that I delivery - and with guest turned nasty at the cruel idly growing heap and slumped makes sense is Sophie. Luscious, have just moved here amidst a spots from the likes of Plan hands of Cambridge stu- back onto my haunches, hiding red lipped Sophie. mountain of chaos, and another B, Foreign Beggars and DJ dents. Rhiannon Adam tries from the harsh light that Something she muttered that the past resident haunts Mentat, he's onto a good to bring some sense back to entered through the moth eaten seemed to make sense though, me. Yet the last fact, and the thing. I guarantee we'll hear it all. If you have a creative net curtains. something about this place. She most disturbing one, is that my a lot more from this kid. streak send us the next 400 The name was still puzzling. I had been watching me, just as I memory seems to exclude me. Our r'n'b pick this week has words to couldn't remember who or grim corner on this grim street. had been watching her, and she Paranoia and self-obsession are got to be Ne-Yo, with his [email protected] by what Avery was...but some link Even in daylight the place knew where I lived. And, she taking over, and I panic. It forthcoming single So Sick. February 8th and see it print- between the name and my lodg- reeked of last night’s drunken knew about the mounting pile seems as though everything After helping write one of last ed here. ing was beginning to crystallise brawls, kebabs and the street of mail that belonged to some- hinges on this Avery. year's biggest r'n'b tunes - Mario's Let Me Love You, he starts the new year with his second single. ‘Smooth and sexy’ RnB borders on farce sometimes - as embarrass- A Day in the Life of an Organ Scholar ing as it is to admit liking this sort of slowjam, we can’t help it. What do these superhuman musos actually get up to? Francis Letschka finds out There are a few exciting events happening over the next couple of weeks. The 08:10 – 09:10 13:20 – 14:00 weeks off to prepare for the live Léon and myself will share the Bollywood themed Churchill David Hill, Léon and myself St John’s Music society meet- radio broadcast of our Advent playing and conducting, Spring Ball (10th Feb) has take the boys' rehearsal at St ing. Both Organ Scholars are Carol Service. though it is more usual for done well to secure “Desi John’s School. Normally Léon members of the committee for David to conduct. David Beats” DJs Bobby Friction and myself will train the proba- the Music Society, and we play 16:00 – 17:15 encourages us to conduct – if and Nihal from Radio 1. tioners (trainees) in a large part in planning con- This is usually when I do my there is a piece that one of us Rawganics returns to the sight-reading and other skills, certs and recitals, and playing organ practice, practicing both really wants to rehearse and Junction on Thursday 16th but if David is away, we will and accompanying for them. the music I am accompanying conduct he will be only too February (it really isn't that take the full practice. The boys the choir for and also the organ happy to let us. far people!). Headliner Sway are usually well-behaved – 14:00 – 16:00 voluntaries – pieces before and is one to watch at the they really enjoy what they're Supervisions. My supervisors after the service just played by 19:40 – 21:00 moment, with hype sur- doing. We aim for a more fem- are very understanding when it the organist. I rehearse the St John’s Singers, rounding him now reaching inine sound when training comes to getting work done. which is a mixed non-audition the mainstream media, and them, not the 'angelic sound' They acknowledge that 17:15 – 18:15 choir, something that I really his latest release, Little which King’s has- in many although in theory my first pri- The choir rehearse. Both the enjoy doing. They are a great Derek, receiving some seri- Paul Provost is Senior Organ ways our top line does not ority is my academic work, in gents and the boys are fantastic choir and it is a fantastic experi- ous airtime. Scholar at John’s. He is in his sound that much different from practice it rarely works that musicians and sight-readers so ence to conduct non-liturgical third year reading music. His a mixed choir. Boy trebles are way. We have services every not much rehearsal is neces- music, whether sacred or secu- Catch Sketchy & Rip at duties as Organ Scholar consist part of a fantastic tradition and day and have to be thoroughly sary. lar. Urbanite every Thursday @ of playing, conducting, and it keeps boys singing; they are prepared for them – whether it The Soul Tree, Fri 3rd Feb rehearsing for choir services. our future altos, tenors and is learning the organ parts or 18:30 – 19:30 21:00 - Last orders at The Union, Fri 10th Feb He is assisted by a Junior Organ basses. preparing the music for con- Evensong. We sing evensong Drinks with the gents in the @ Churchill Ball and Sat Scholar, Léon Charles, and ducting. Sometimes it becomes every day except on Monday. Maypole – not all organists 11th Feb @ Queens’ works alongside Dr David Hill, 10:00– 12:00 impossible to get all the work On a Sunday we also sing spend all their life in organ lofts the Director of Music at St Lectures in the Music faculty. done – like last term, for exam- Eucharist at 10:00am with a – some try to have a social life John’s. ple, when I had to take two rehearsal beforehand. David, too! 03.02.06 Arts Varsity 19 Too Many Kooks spoil the broth for Lowri Jenkins

n the week when Arctic Automatic are taut and ener- lows. The Kooks look and BLATHERWICK Monkeys’ over-hyped and getic. Their sound recalls Bloc sound like the worst parts of LUTAIN MILLI ILLUSTRATION: Iunder-written debut album Party’s guitars, with a hard- Britpop: frontman Luke has For those that missed NME’s became Britain’s fastest seller ness more reminiscent of early the face of Cast’s John Power ‘shock and awe’ top 100 of all time, it seems appropri- hardcore, and a synth-driven and the unjustified arrogance British albums last week, ate to be reviewing two newer danceability. of Liam Gallagher. His strum- they declared after only two bands gracing the career- It’s easy to see why their ming and swearing highlights days of release that the accelerating pages of NME: career is accelerating: they are their lack of originality: the Arctic Monkeys’ album was The Automatic and The a ‘now’ band, with a ‘now’ stage show is studied but soul- the best of this decade MACDONALD and Kooks. sound, dangerously suscepti- less. He seems to think that nicely distilled the 00’s into First off tonight, though, is ble to the clawing hands of the acting like a rock star will indie, Dizzee Rascal and Oxford band Dive Dive. I music industry hype-drive. make him one; and, worrying- The Streets. Whatever the detest ridiculous Oxbridge But the reason I wish their ly, judging by the crowd’s joy- shocking omissions from the rivalry, so it is with clear judg- career would slow down is the ous reaction to every song, whole list (Loveless? Metal ment and bias-free heart that I same reason that it is speeding this might yet be true. Mellow Box?) the albums chosen can declare them absolutely tracks are exposed as under- from the past six years nice- shit. Even the hint of a tune written and songs like ‘Eddie’s ly sums up the mainstream would have been lost beneath Gun’, passable on record, turn view of the world; moaning the shouted vocals and dron- into bland indie pap, as The guitar-pop white guys always ing guitar. “THE MUSIC’S NOT Kooks spend more time trying gain more cred. It’s the only After this, there is no OFFENSIVELY to look the part than play their explanation I can find as to chance that Cowbridge four- parts. why, for example, piece The Automatic can look BAD, IT’S The music is not offensively Goldfrapp’s Black Cherry poor. The band has enjoyed a OFFENSIVELY bad: it’s offensively average. isn’t present, whilst two dizzyingly successful year, The guitars melt into each Coldplay albums and an signing to independent giants AVERAGE other, and their ‘best songs’ abominable Kaiser Chiefs’ b-unique after only a few (‘Sofa Song’, ‘You Don’t Love album are. Check them out months of gigging. Me’) fade unnoticed into the at the Corn Exchange on They put out debut single rest of set, lacking strong Saturday. Tickets are scarce, ‘Revolver’ on limited release enough melodies and strong so if you’re left short, why not in November, and recently ”up: this band has real poten- enough live execution. The nip across to ARU and see completed recording their tial. Debut single ‘Revolver,’ underwhelming performance Mew (£8.50)? They’re huge album. As the premature suc- pulsing standout ‘Monster,’ has a similar effect to Dive in Denmark, but don’t expect cess of Arctic Monkeys with its insistent chorus, and Dive’s set: it serves to make Aqua; they’re more on some The Kooks and The Automatic demonstrates, in a culture newie ‘Raul,’ which exploits The Automatic look good. kind of indie-prog-rock trip. where internet, magazines the band’s vocal interplay, are Tonight is an odd lesson in the ARU 26th January Relatively listenable though, and fans are ever hungry for confident, creative and rhyth- power of music media and the which isn’t really where the newest name to drop, it’s mically crisp. powerful hold the NME has on Portland’s Yellow Swans easy for a band’s potential to The Automatic won’t a captive audience, but after come from. Doing the “I’m result as still-born. change the world, but they are such a night of varied per- not quite sure what to make To read our interview with Kooks drummer Paul Garred, But, despite their limited more inventive and tighter formances, should we really see www.varsity.co.uk of this” style reasonably well, live experience, tonight The than the tired indie which fol- believe what we read? they’ve decorated their web- site with eyeballs. They’ll be down at CB2 tonight with Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra - Stark local legend Um in support West Road Concert Hall,Saturday 28th January, 8pm (£5). The Feeling hit ARU CUCO Coup next Thursday (£5), fresh from being called the third chönberg’s Verklärte Nacht is music which, parts (with unembarrassed conviction) and to con- Several themes spanned the interval, preceding hottest new act in the world when presented to the fertile adolescent mind, duct their own internal discourse, enabling him to which was Berg’s Kammerkonzert. Stark’s remark- by BBC News. Quite enthu- Soccasions something akin to a sexual awaken- mould the tempi, both imparting a palpable sense of able conducting here was as relaxed as in the siastic pronouncements of ing: it realizes long-sought harmonic fantasies, the rhythmic propulsion (lacking in some Cambridge Schönberg, despite the multiplied complexities; and resurrecting middle-of-the- palpitating rhythmic urges of teenage improvisa- Wagner playing), and allowing the music to breathe: the wind instruments were just as resourceful as the road soft rock sound scarier tion, and the youthful yearnings for the ideal silences in the performance, however momentary, strings, shifting from the ethereal to the grotesque than Pete Burns’ plastic sur- melodic curve. All these nascent impulses were just as dramatic as the fullest orchestrations. as befit the various bubbles and sinking wells of gery. Perhaps that’s the Schönberg seems to have embraced, distilled, and Perhaps the more homophonous passages, which sound (although the melodic capacity of the contra- intention. On the cellar- then expounded on a large scale which simultane- were carried through by a structured Brucknerian bassoon has still to be proven, I think). Athletic and scene, King’s will be having ously relieves and fulfils – even inducing a degree of breadth of the tone, with the first cellos pre-emi- cantabile pianism and violin-playing from the an electrorock night on shame, at the intoxicating headiness of the experi- nent to announce their exculpation, best exempli- Japanese soloists provided welcome respite in Friday (£1 King’s £2 Non- ence. fied the shocking maturity of the performance. Of obscurer expanses of the work. King’s) followed by the free Age naturally brings a finer psychological insight course, some phrases were a little brittle, intonation The challenges of the whole evening though were launch night for the June such that the lynchpin of the Chamber Orchestra’s was occasionally misjudged, the early demonic viola met with unimagined bravura, and one waits with affair on Saturday. Clare has phenomenal success in bringing off this work was pizzicati could have been meatier, but the musicians’ even keener anticipation for when Stark guest-con- d’n’b from DJ Liquid on the direction of Peter Stark. Revelatory in his con- belief in this music (and in their conductor), playing ducts CUMS I with Sacre later this term. Friday night (£4) and Queen’s sistently limpid lack of tension, Stark had justified – not as if – but because their souls depended on it, has bhangra, dub and hip faith in the individual players to shape their own was universally overwhelming. James Drinkwater hop on Saturday night (£4).

Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins Belle and Sebastian Helene Grimaud Rabbit Fur Coat ##### The Life Pursuit ##### Reflection #####

makes for absorbing vocal har- permanent state of annoy- passion reveals in their monies that warm up and mel- ance. uniqueness’, her playing is low out the record. To quickly assign yourself much better than her syntax. The song writing is strong into one of the above cate- The performance of the and confident. The instrumen- gories without listening to The much-hackneyed Schumann tation is full of niches and turns, Life Pursuit, is to unfairly write concerto is revelatory, as is making every song stand out as off B&S. There is the usual her Brahms Rhapsodies. a winner for that mix tape Belle and Sebastian trade- Highlights must be the you've been meaning to make mark of 'let’s see how many Brahms ‘cello sonata with for the new year. Sixties in times we can mention a gir’ls Truls Mørk, both artists scal- If you don't know who Jenny sound, modern in feel, the pro- For a band who have gallantly name and get the word 'she' Any release describing itself ing ecstatic peaks, and Lewis is already, you soon will. duction swells with the glory of pushed past the likes of into a song', they combine this as a ‘compelling journey’ is above all else, the lieder From her humble beginnings in digital clarity yet the predomi- Idlewild and The Proclaimers with a touch of funk, big band likely to provoke a response Clara Schumann sung by a Jell-O advert, the sweet faced nantly folk influences maintains to swiftly take gold in the race brass, snappy drumming and of indignant irritation, sug- Anne Sofie von Otter. These Miss Lewis of LA became a an ear-friendly, old world com- to be Scotland's most adored synths. If you were a fan gesting an album devoted to are as good as anything her child actress, and as she pro- passion. band, a surprisingly large col- already, this is a record that pseudish gimmickry rather husband composed – take gressed into womanhood soon Despite a rather theatrical lective of individuals actually will warm the cockles of your than serious music-making. the turbulent ‘Am Strande’ left the acting behind and intro and final reprise, this could hate Belle and Sebastian. acoustic-fuelled soul. For Grimaud, though, confounds for Dichterliebe-resonances formed a band with a couple of be a record you grab from your There are those, from the elite those of you who weren't pre- such cynical thoughts; her and apposite word-painting. actor friends. parents' vinyl collection of 'indie cool', who regard viously keen on the band, don programme is a reflection on A stunning release then; The product was the won- because of its beautiful, eerie them as too feeble to warrant a pair of brown corduroy the love that Robert and supremely performed by derful Rilo Kiley, Lewis was the cover, and for a moment you any kind of credibility. Others flares, adopt the persona of Clara Schumann and stellar artists, well-chosen quintessential member of the think that all the good music see the band as being far too your nearest and dearest gui- Johannes Brahms felt for repertoire and a heart- band, and now with a solo was made long before you were trite to sweep enigmatically tar strumming friend and I each other and expressed in wrenching inner core. As album on Rough Trade she has born. But thankfully this wasn't into the realms of true pop, assure you that at some point their music. Whether one Valentine’s Day approaches, come into her own with grace made back then. It's now, it's and finally, for some, their this album will get you tapping would agree with Grimaud, this is the perfect gift for that and splendour. The album is fresh and it's magical. albums exude an abundance your feet. At the very least. that love is ‘a dynamic muso in your life. co-attributed to The Watson of musical vibes that have between a “you and a “me”, Twins, whose matching blood Richard Braude driven many a listener into a Jacqui Tedd between two beings that Francis Lestchka 20 Varsity Advertisement 03.02.06

a Cambridge University Careers Service event Thursday 9th February 2006 1pm-5:30pm New Museums Site, Pembroke Street

BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR CAREER

th th Poster kindly sponsored by in conjunction with One World Week 4 -12 February 2006 03.02.06 Arts Varsity 21

DVD: Lost Film: the art of the future? ##### Simone Westermann and Jonny Ensall on what the market is doing to cinema

e’ve reached a point Bazin claimed that the idea of now to see technology role in defining our post- ‘Cinema Has Not Yet Been when technology cinema had existed long padding out the ‘myth’ of film modern culture makes Invented: Film as the Art of Wseems to be seriously before the medium actually in the art gallery than the Christie’s lecture series an the Future’ continues on changing the cinematic expe- appeared and that the devel- movie theatre. Film has quick- important intellectual mile- Tuesday with ‘Competing ew series have captured rience. Walk into a modern opment of cinematic ly become the favourite stone. His lectures are Avant Gardes’ 7pm. Mill the public consciousness multiplex and you’ll get pop- technology ‘little by little medium of both the estab- engaging even for Film Study Lane Lecture Rooms. Fso completely as J. J. corn, a cola and a comfy seat, made a reality out of the orig- lished artist and the aspiring layman due to their Abrams’ Lost. With a wafer-thin but you’ll be paying through inal 'myth'. At its first art student with galleries and chronological structure high concept stretched across the nose for the privilege to conception, film was an edgy degree shows everywhere and are peppered with 25 episodes – plane crash sur- watch a giant, lovesick, CGI- new art form, longed for by now awash with video instal- entertaining film vivors try to escape island – the animated Gorilla ape about on many modernists, rejected by lations. The digitalisation of extracts. Also, not to series has proven itself any- a big screen. Alternatively, traditionalists and full of the film-making process has be missed are the thing but lightweight. For both you can borrow your mate’s potential. However, the initial made it easy for anyone to complementary avid followers and those La Haine DVD and then spend promise of the cinematic make a film, and talented films at the Arts dwelling under a large rock for an equally enjoyable (and less ‘indie’ film-makers with Picturehouse the past year, the release of the culturally dubious) hour-and- handy-cams are increasingly every Wednesday first season on DVD is some- a-half sitting in front of the entering the arthouse con- at 1pm. They are thing to be excited about. luminescent glow of your sciousness. Moreover, the free, there are no Boasting a huge, but well- laptop with a bowl of corn- cheapness of digital projection gorillas and defined character roster, each flakes. “ compared to expensive cellu- you’ll get a big episode is partially devoted to a DOES THE FILM Technology is giving the loid reels means cinemas can screen, a cola flashback from a character in film-watcher as well as the INDUSTRY now afford to show more films and a comfy their pre-plane crash civilian filmmaker a whole series of RECKLESSLY other than ubiquitous, crowd- seat. life, allowing the series to both new options. As digital tech- pulling blockbusters. have its cake and eat it. The nology looks set to replace PLUNDER ITS Christie argues that in the flashbacks show our heroes in celluloid in the movie theatre OWN CULTURAL beginning, film was never various real-world situations, and Steven Soderbergh releas- really considered serious but there is still time to explore es his new film Bubble HERITAGE? ‘art’. The crudeness of the island, where the charac- simultaneously on DVD, cable the first mechani- ters interact with each other. TV and in cinemas, it’s clear cal processes The second hook - and the that the ways in which we afforded little series’ potential problem - is watch and make films will room for sub- that nothing is quite what it never be the same again. So ”avant-garde has been steadily tlety. But now seems. As with Abrams’ other how far have we come from curbed by Hollywood’s domi- technology – series, Alias, what at first seems the starting point of cinema? nation of the art form. Now although grounded in reality soon And how close are we now to cinema has reached its popu- bringing us reveals itself to be something a acheiving the aspiratons of the lar height with blockbusters a variety of little more ‘out there’. This is first cinematic pioneers? cashing in on reclaimed and giant, fine, and for those that buy into Answering these questions rehashed ideas from the cine- unsubtle, the central mystery of it all the is Ian Christie, Professor of matic past to make computer- constant guessing can easily Film and Media History at phenomenal amounts of generated make watching addictive. The Birkbeck College and the first money. Has the film industry monsters – problem is that the drip feed of film historian to deliver the become, as Christie asks, ‘the is also let- revelations is just far too slow. prestigious annual Slade lec- enemy of art in the 20th cen- ting the This aside, the series is rarely ture series. He takes André tury’, recklessly plundering human ele- anything less than highly Bazin’s theory of ‘The Myth its own cultural heritage? ment into entertaining. of Total Cinema’ as the start- To an extent, the real devel- cinema. Stuart Smith ing point for his reflections on opment of cinema has shifted Film’s ‘Film as the art of the future’. venues. You’re more likely essential for a full review, see www.varsity.co.uk

What was your favourite remember.I got arrested for Munich ##### outfit? Anything black and cycling the wrong way down When I was Lycra – also quite Eighties. A Trinity Street, which seemed knows a Frenchman - Louis - meditations on the Middle East stripy blue and white T-shirt. petty in the extreme. I didn’t who, for a fee, is able to tell crisis and how to solve it: this And I had a floor-length (fake) turn up to one of my Finals, Avner the whereabouts of all film barely gets beyond the fur coat that I was rather fond either, though this wasn’t so eleven Palestinian assassination level of apportioning equal of. In retrospect, I suspect it much rebellion as extreme las- targets. And for the next two blame to both sides and sug- made me look like a drag situde. hours we are treated to the gesting the futility of violence, 21 queen. What are you ashamed of rather unexciting prospect of as if we couldn’t have worked What were your illegal activi- having done? I was quite watching Avner and his group out those old chestnuts on our ties? I didn’t really have any – bitchy there for a while. And tediously and repetitively plot own. I’d done the druggy thing by cliquey. I regret not having and carry out assassination Particularly annoying, India Knight the time I got to Cambridge, if been kinder or more tolerant. I after assassination. though, is Spielberg’s conscious that’s what you mean. And the worked for a magazine called For each killing, of course, decision to recreate 1970s style youthful shoplifting, too. But Broadsheet for a bit, and once something rather predictably filmmaking, so we get plenty of like I said, we did drink an we printed a cut-out-and-keep goes wrong at the last minute, pan-and-scan and zoom lens awful lot. badge of some poor man we presumably in a bid to add a shots, shots of men standing on What made you angry? didn’t like, with the caption touch of suspense and keep street corners looking sinister, ‘Am I grotesque?’. We wore it Margaret Thatcher. She made our interest (it doesn’t). One and outdoor meetings over on our coats, thinking it hilari- me practically levitate with particularly patronising exam- coffee in the cafes of ous. ple is the introduction of a little Paris/Rome/Amsterdam. The rage. What was your most political girl who almost gets caught up direction is so self-consciously What were you afraid of? I action? Marching for the poor in the bloodshed (a clichéd slick and ‘retro’ that at times I was afraid that I’d end up job- old miners. In my fur coat and technique plundered from his felt like I could be watching less – everyone was doing the vintage stillettoes. Nice look. Oceans Twelve, except with milkround, applying to hideous or a film which has stirred assassinations instead of bank merchant banks and the like, What made you cry? such controversy, Steven heists. The direction, then, cre- which was never going to be Boredom. It made me sob. Spielberg’s latest - about ates a highly inappropriate, an option for me. And then I’d F What did you hope to be? A the Israeli government’s “DON’T EXPECT almost flippant tone that just get anxious that I’d wasted writer. And lo! It came to pass. response to the murder of ANY NEW doesn’t fit with the film’s seri- India Knight is a columnist for the three years at university read- eleven Israeli athletes by ous intentions. Sunday Times, an author and a ing Proust and lolling about on What do you wish you had Palestinian terrorists at the MEDITATIONS There are some wonderfully shopping guru. the Backs when I could have known then that you know 1972 Munich Olympics - is ON THE MIDDLE subtle moments though: we get been making the tea on a now? That it’s not a terrific surprisingly underwhelming. a character singing “Papa was a In what year were you 21 newspaper and worked my idea to waste the incredible The opening, showing the EAST CRISIS rolling stone” just before a and what were you doing? way up instead. privilege of being at hostage-taking and murder of murder, perhaps to remind us Cambridge by faffing about. 1986. I was at Cambridge Who were your heroes? The the athletes, is superb. For the that the rolling stone gathers That intellectual laziness isn’t (Trinity), in my third year, read- embarrassing but true answer first fifteen minutes or so, it’s no moss. something you ever look back ing Languages and drinking to that is Madonna and Nelson hard to pull your eyes away The film’s final scene bril- on fondly. That I had an amaz- too much. I wonder whether Mandela. In that order. from events. But after the ”otherwise excellent Schindler’s liantly reinforces the everyrone still drinks as much ing opportunity to go to tragedy, we are introduced to List. Yes, the girl in this film is stubbornness at the heart of as we did – we were practical- Who were you in love with? lectures in subjects other than the film’s main characters - a also wearing red.) Predictably the Israeli-Palestinian dispute ly alcoholics. Some bloke at King’s. mine, and I should have taken secret team of Mossad agents, this serves to make the charac- and the opening and closing it. That Cambridge is actually What did you eat? Pasta with headed by Avner (Eric Bana), ters question the morality of fifteen minutes are richly Where did you live? New heaven and that patience is a tomato sauce. Every single sent to Europe to hunt down their actions - as if they and engrossing and absorbing. It’s Court, in rather nice rooms, virtue - by my third year I was day. And occasional hideous and assassinate the Palestinian the audience can only realise just a shame the rest of the film next to a boy who became a feeling really claustrophobic takeaways from a place in perpetrators - and the film the magnitude of this if a child is so plodding, clichéd, unsub- spy. and itching to get to Rose Crescent called The begins to unravel. might get hurt - which they do tle, simplistic, patronising and London…. I was in too much How did you celebrate your Oasis. Taking artistic licence to new on a fairly regular but irritat- unengaging. 21st birthday? I had a dinner of a rush for everything. heights, Avner meets an ‘old ingly superficial and simplistic What was the most rebel- at Langan’s in London. How Emily Stokes friend,’ who, conveniently, basis. Don’t expect any new Tom Hannan Eighties is that? lious thing you did? Can’t 22 Varsity Advertisement 03.02.06 03.02.06 Arts Varsity 23 Pick of the Week The essential events of the next seven days... and the best of the rest

Losing it A Woman Alone Bash Amnesty SVAW Napoleon Elbow A dramatisation of an By Dario Fo & Franca A three-play cycle written Campaign Dynamite Book now to claim your by award-winning play- adult fairy tale about a girl Rame. Four women pres- The official launch event It might be like, so last year slice of miserabilist wright Neil LaBute. A set trying to lose her virginity ent four pieces of drama- for Stop Violence Against - but this hilarious yet melancholia. At least of superficially uncon- in London. Written in comic, grotesque and Women (SVAW) an nigh-on plotless comedy it’ll be better than nected stories linked by watching another emo rhyming couplets tragic explorations of evening of comedy from manages to elicit both the horror of witnessing uneasy squirming and band cry all over their sparkling with wit, it also female sexuality and indi- Footlights comedians Tom seemingly sane people Sharpe, Oli Robinson and gales of slightly fascist amps and electrocute pertains to be a modern viduality. Laughter and commit horrific actions. more - headlined by BBC laughter. Coming across themselves (I wish). day ‘Rape of the Lock’. despair, with the empha- Simple, brutal and shock- like a ‘nerd’ study directed Swooping, maudlin New Comedy Awards by ameandering (and cru- And just look at that pub- sis on the latter. ing, the theatrical equiva- 2005 Finalist Luke indie and the smell of licity photo. lent of a kick to the balls. eller) Wes Anderson - this Roberts. is hilarious. rotting oak. Probably.

Corpus Playroom Stage, 9.30pm, ADC, 11.00pm, £3 / £4, Tue 7th - ADC, 11.00pm, £3 / £4, Wed 8th Michaelhouse Cafe, Trinity Arts Picturehouse, 10.50pm at Fri The Corn Exchange, Thu 16th £5.50 / £4, Tue 7th - Sat 11th Feb Sat 11th Feb Feb - Sat 11th Feb Street, 6.45pm, entry free, bank 3rd Feb and Sat 4th Feb January, 7.30pm, £13 open and serving drinks (!)

Arts Picturehouse Tuesday 7th February A Taste of Honey Translations A Cock and Bull Story Fabian Society Talk The Antarctic By Shelagh Delaney. In a By Brian Friel. Friday 3rd February (15): 12:00, 14:00 David Zeichner, UNISON Photographs of squalid bedsit in the North, Students at an Irish A Cock and Bull Story (15): Familia Rodante (15): 13:30 Labour Link National Policy Herbert Ponting 17 year old Jo is forced into school speak Latin & 12:00, 14:00, 20:20 Hidden (Cache) (15): 16:00, and Campaigns Officer, will Atash (Thirst) (15): 16:00, 18:10 21:00 Taken from the original premature adulthood by her Greek- but not English. Then Hidden (Cache) (15): Memoirs of a Geisha (12A): be discussing whether there negatives of the intrepid alcoholic mother and an English soldiers give every- 12:30, 15:00, 17:30, 20:00 12:15, 18:00 is a future for the trade photographer that accompa- Memoirs of a Geisha (12A): Screaming Masterpiece (12A): union movement in a talk unwanted pregnancy. An thing English names with 15:15, 20:50 16:30, 18:45 nied Scott’s expedition to the uncompromising 1950s humorous consequences. An Napoleon Dynamite (PG): 22:50 Small Faces (15): 21:15 held by the Cambridge Antarctic in 1910-1914. study of teenage pregnancy, eye-opener injustice in 19th The Beat That My Heart Skipped The Constant Gardener (15): Student’s Fabian Society. Scott-Polar Research Institute, racial prejudice and homo- century Ireland. (15): 23:00 15:15, 20:50 Linnett Room, Robinson free entry, running till 31st March The Constant Gardener (15): College, 7.30pm, free entry, sexuality. Robinson College Auditorium 12:15, 18:15 Wednesday 8th February Wed 8th Feb Corpus Playroom 7pm, £5.50 / £4, 7.30pm, £4, Tue 31st Jan - Sat 4th Feb A Cock and Bull Story (15): CICCU talks on ‘Identity’ Tue 7th - Sat 11th Feb Saturday 4th February 14:20, 20:40 Improbable Fiction A Cock and Bull Story (15): Hidden (Cache) (15): A series of talks aiming to 12:30, 20:20 11:00, 16:00, 18:30, 21:00 Art for Mailing: Wildlife discuss important important Another Country By Alan Ayckbourn., direct- Memoirs of a Geisha (12A): ing his new comedy about Atash (Thirst) (15): 16:00, 18:10 Stamp Designs by Ian issues of identity and the By Julian Mitchell. Another Corpse Bride (PG): 11:00 12:15, 18:00 Loe Christian faith- organised by country is a fictional version unfettered ambition in a Hidden (Cache) (15): The Beat That My Heart Skipped 15:00, 17:30, 20:00 (15): 11:00 From sketchbook to the the Cambridge Inter- of the school days of infa- poetry circle. The Constant Gardener (15): Cambridge Arts Theatre, 7.45pm, Memoirs of a Geisha (12A): postbox this exhibition Collegiate Christian Union mous Cambridge spy Guy 15:15, 20:50 15:15, 20:50 £10-£20, Mon 6th - Sat 11th February charts the detailed and (CICCU over 3 luncthime Burgess. Aside from being a Napoleon Dynamite (PG): 22:50 The Beat That My Heart Skipped Thursday 9th February exacting process of and 3 evening talks. An fascinating re-evaluation of (15): 23:00 A Cock and Bull Story (15): Songs from the Musicals 12:00, 14:00, 20:40 researching, designing and opportunity for an intelli- a controversial figure, this The Constant Gardener (15): creating postage stamps. gent investigation into the will also be an intimate, Numbers from hit West End 12:15, 18:15 Hidden (Cache) (15): and Broadway shows per- 12:00, 14:30, 19:00, 21:20 Fitzwilliam Museum, free claims of Christianity. See (read: homoerotic?) vision Sunday 5th February Memoirs of a Geisha (12A): entry, 26th January - 23rd April www.ciccu.org.uk for more. of male adolescence. formed by CUMTS - looks A Cock and Bull Story (15): 12:15, 18:00 Holy Trinity Church (opposite great 13:10, 20:20 Screaming Masterpiece (12A): ADC 11.00pm, £3 / £4, Tue 7th - Sat 16:30, 18:45 Borders), free entry, Mon 6th - 11th Feb Cambridge Arts Theatre, 7.45pm, Atash (Thirst) (15): 16:00, 18:10 Slade Lectures on Film Wed 11th Feb, 1.10-2pm and 8- Good Night, And Good Luck. (PG): The Constant Gardener (15): 9pm £10-£20, Mon 6th - Sat 11th Feb Free Screening 11:00 15:15, 20:50 (featured on page 21) Oleanna Hidden (Cache) (15): A Cambridge first: film his- 15:00, 17:30, 20:00 College Films torian Prof. Ian Christie CU Islamic Society and A university professor tries Memoirs of a Geisha (12A): to help a struggling student- 15:15, 20:50 St. John’s presents a free annual art CU Hindu Cultural she complains of sexual The Beat That My Heart Skipped Corpse Bride (PG) lecture series surveying Society jointly present (15): 12:00 Sun 5 Feb, 19.00, 22.00 ideas about film as the art of Vande Mataram: The haraassment. An excoriating The Constant Gardener (15): 18:15 Touching the Void critique of politically correct Thu 9 Feb 21.00 the future. Under the pleas- Life and Story of India’s Monday 6th February ingly dramatic title of The National Song culture. Robinson ADC 11pm, £3 / £4, Wed 1st - Sat A Cock and Bull Story (15): Cinema has not yet been Speaker is Julius Lipner,, 12:00, 14:00, 20:40 Enter the Dragon 4th Feb Hidden (Cache) (15): Sun 5 Feb, 18.00, 21.00 invented. Professor of Comparative City of God Eight week lecture series - every 13:00, 16:00, 18:30, 21:00 Tuesday at 5pm in Mill Lane Study of Religon and Memoirs of a Geisha (12A): Thu 9 Feb, 21.00 Lecture Rooms - next one Thu Hinduism 15:15, 20:50 9th Feb Lecture Theatre LG 18, The Screaming Masterpiece (12A): Christ’s Law Faculty, free entry, Mon 16:30, 18:45 The Constant Gardener 6th Feb , 6.30pm The Constant Gardener (15): 12:15, Sun 5 Feb, 20.00. 22.30 18:15 King Kong Thu 9 Feb, 22.00 stage screen events

Newnham Comedy Mew + The Sunday Roast Fat Poppadaddys Captain Everything The Ivories + New International ‘Down the Avenue’ Perishers the weekend stops eclectic...again? Boys with guitars Rhodes + Rotating Student Night 8.30, free entry Excellent swoon rock here and so does your 9-3 £3/4 8pm £4 Leslie at Club Goo na zdravje! Newnham Bar 8pm, £8 adv/£10 door, dignity The Fez Club The Portland Arms indie band + DJs 9-2 £4 The Academy @ ARU 9-2 £4 8-2 £5 Ballare Fez Fridays Life International Unique The Soul Tree eclectic... Soul Power Student Night LBG Night Urbanite 9-3 £6 or £5 with flyer Dynamic live musicians Songs in the Dark pohjanmaan kautta! 9.30-2 £4 Rumboogie is killing Cambridge The Fez Club - soul, funk and beats Music, poetry, love (the 9.30-2 £5 Life OH GOD 9-3 £3 9-4 £8 last is unlikely) Life 9.00-2 £4/5 The Soul Tree Fat Poppaddys The Soul Tree 8.00 free F.I.S.T. Ballare ...eclectic too Clowns Cafe The Violets + The gabba/noise/jungle and 9-1 £4 King’s Affair Fucks + The Vichy none the nicer for it Clare Cellars Launch Party Songs in the Dark Government +The 7.30-12 £2 Boozey booze Music, poetry, comedy, Resistance The Geldart Express Yourself 9-12.45 free entry love (the last is unlikely) Band named after ‘freestyle dance King’s Bar + Cellars 8.00 free cuss. Golly gosh! competition’ Clowns Cafe 8.00 £4 9-11.30 £1 The Portland Arms The Soul Tree Acoustic open mic dubious 9.00 free CB2 fri sat sun mon tue wed thu 24 Varsity Box Ads & Opportunities 03.02.06

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Join a stimulating, home-based grafton centre • cambridge plan for our 11-year old, mildy Film Times from Friday Friday 3rd February – Thursday 9th February autistic daughter, based on the ADVANCE PREVUE SCREENINGS! SATURDAY 4TH & Interested in working at SUNDAY 5TH FEBRUARY 2006 son-rise programme. WALT DISNEY’S CHICKEN LITTLE (U) (1h40) (NFT) St John’s May Ball 2006? Sat/Sun Only 9.30 10.00 11.30 12.30 13.45 14.45 16.00 17.00 18.15 Opens Applications to Direct its We would like to ask you to THIS WEEK’S BIG NEW RELEASES The Committee is currently recruiting WALK THE LINE (12a) (2h35) (NFT) Daily 11.50 14.40 work for 17.30 20.30 Fri/Sat Late 23.30 general staff and security workers for DERAILED (15) (2h10) (NFT) Daily 11.00 (Not Sat/Sun) 2-4 hours a week (for six 13.30 (Not Sat/Sun) 16.10 18.40 (Not Tues) 21.10 Fri/Sat MAY WEEK SHOW months). the 20th and 21st June. To apply online, Late 23.40 or simply find out more, visit MUNICH, FUN WITH DICK & JANE, RUMOUR HAS IT, No experience needed; JARHEAD, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN CALL FOR TIMES Send applications to www.stjohnsmayball.com Zara Tempest-Walters at Queens full training given. £5 an hour. book now on 08712 240 240 or online at www.myvue.com For more info click Drama from Make the call: Tel: 01223 visit the all-new www.quns.cam.ac.uk 248622 Deadline: Midnight Sun 12th Feb 06 Make a difference! .co.uk

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Buy any take- away pizza at for2 the Pizza Hut on the left on Monday to Thursday and get two DVDs for the price CAMBRIDGE LEISURE PARK 1 of one at Tel:(01223) 414488 CHOICES rental on the Have a great NIGHT in Leisure Park ON US! 03.02.06 Advertisement Varsity 25

8F BSF OPX BDDFQUJOH BQQMJDBUJPOT GPS 4VNNFS "OBMZTU QPTJUJPOT "QQMZ POMJOF BU XXXNFSDFSNDDPNKPJOMPOEPO CZ  'FCSVBSZ  5 0 Bracey glance at the bottom end of glance at the bottom Here they had brushed their Here they had brushed CCSS made a game of it in ard Brendan Threlfall struck ough. But inevitably, Threlfall ough. But inevitably, orm Studies are a college of nly 170 pupils, and their foot- ome hope of salvaging some- ome hope of salvaging he first of Fitz’s four first-half he first of Fitz’s FITZ FIND FITZ IN RELIEF RUN CUP FITZWILLIAM CCSS for a full match report, see www.varsity.co.uk A that Fitz the league table shows this have had their problems them season, but Cuppers offers s thing from a poor season. half-time opponents aside by and their total could easily have reached double-figures. Cambridge Centre for Sixth F o ball team is made up of 16-18 An away win would year-olds. therefore have been a serious shock, and the Sixth Formers were on level terms here for no more than a minute. Blues for- w t goals. the second half, with good per- formaces from full-back Mark Leaford, midfielder Sam Mbunya and forward Will G had the final word, completing the scoring with his fourth goal of the match. The men's divi- sion resumes next weekend, and Fitz, minus the Blues man, will go in search of their first league win. Adam The scheme was only estab- ary goal is to win Gold at the niversity are, however, a niversity are, however, evelopment squad. Their pri- isors to play during the height isors to play during the re already progressing to re very much at student age ontinued support of the ished in 2004, but its alumni eter, has had to negotiate spe- eter, super- cial permission from his v fencer of the season. For is the Greensides, Michaelmas when most pressured time, feature “all-nighters tend to In a world where heavily.” risk, burning out is a long-term at the qualifications gained U Cutts welcome fall-back. [TASS] stresses “the message can do broadcasts – that you sport at a very high level and still get a degree – is fantastic.” l a sporting stardom. Since leav- TASS ing Cambridge last year, graduates Rachel Howe and Gemma Farrell are now train- ing full-time with the British sailing team and Olympic d m 2012 Olympics. London 2012 is a recurring theme for TASS athletes; their burning desire to succeed will be tested by this, the ultimate milestone. As Pearce says, “athletes for 2012 a so it is a very valuable now, is scheme for them.” But TASS ultimately in the hands of the government and when asked about its future, her response is only that “with politics it is the very hard to predict.” With c scheme, there is no knowing the heights of achievement student athletes at Cambridge could reach. Perhaps we’ll find out in 2012.

SOPHIE PICKFORD er England U18 player finds hilst not jeopardising their ense of the term, and the del- scholar-athletes’ in the true scholar-athletes’ ‘ s icate balance between sport and work is an issue that fre- quently rears its head. Pearce stresses that the main goal of the is “to give athletes TASS chance to go to University w sporting chances by doing so,” but maintaining their dual lives is a constant struggle, which requires them to be “very determined and focussed.” Richard Timms, professional cricketer and for- m balancing his commitments “very tough in the summer” when he is “often away for three days at a time playing.” Savill, another pro crick- Tom co.uk hampionships, says his men- utrition, lifestyle and sports venting team, points to “the hance to meet other people e c on the scheme, and discuss ways around our similar major time problems” as a particular bonus. This opportunity comes twice a term, when there are workshops on issues including n A mentor is also psychology. assigned to each athlete. Chris Greensides, a fencer who has won the National Championships four times and represented Britain in the Junior European C tor “is particularly useful in helping me out if I’m having problems with the old sport/work conflict.” The stu- dents on the scheme are Equestrian Sam Cutts in action at last May’s Saumur CCI*** Equestrian Sam Cutts in action at last May’s in 2005, th for the Southern Volvo Some of the benefits of the ave time out of sailing to earn ducation and Manager of the ducation and Manager vents “without the need to ailor who has just been select- hat financial concerns won’t hat financial concerns “TASS’s alumni are already to progressing sporting stardom” strengths. Karen Pearce, strengths. Karen Physical Assistant Director of E has scheme in Cambridge, on £3000 annually to spend is each athlete. This money serv- spread between different to condi- ices, from coaching costs to tioning, competition idea is training expenses; the t progress. impede athletes’ with a Mary Cohen, a fencer British ranking of 6 scheme are less tangible, though no less important. Sam Cutts, short-listed last year for the British U21 European emphasises how “the money takes a massive load of stress off us.” Bethan Carden, a s ed Keelboat Squad, sees another of the major advantages as her top-of-the-range kit, “so I get cold in the middle of don’t snow- the channel or when it’s ing.” She is also able to attend e h the money back.” 3.02.06 0 port S Pickford

Varsity

he list of achievements to our National broadsheets as our National broadsheets The material benefits of T small percentage of the forty- ate by Cambridge’s TASS ath- TASS ate by Cambridge’s ight different disciplines cur- TASS), a government-led ini- a government-led TASS), iative that aims to bridge the evel. Each has been individu- TASS are one of its greatest TASS d letes is truly impressive. The majority have represented either England or Great Britain in their chosen sport, and some have already had consid- erable success at International l ally nominated by their This National Governing Body. year nine athletes are spread across six sports: sailing, fenc- ing, equestrian, triathlon, golf and cricket, representing only a e rently accepted by the scheme (of which fourteen are disabil- ity sports). Ever heard of Chris Ever heard of Mary Greensides? How about Cutts? Cohen or Samantha little reason why you There’s few years should have, but in a names (six to be precise) their pages may well grace the front of London heroes of the three Olympics. They are just women of nine sportsmen and at Cambridge awarded places on the much-prized ‘Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme’ ( t gaping hole in funding for elite athletes while they are stu- dents, normally during the transitional phase between Junior and Senior International level. The initiative that allows tomorrow’s cream to ponder 2012 Olympic glory 2012 Olympic to ponder cream tomorrow’s allows that The initiative ‘TASS’ boosting stars of the future the of stars boosting ‘TASS’ 26 Sophie 03.02.06 Sport Varsity 27 Blues display packs its usual punch Russ Glenn reports on a night of enthralling boxing at The Union NYSIMS ANDY

CAMBRIDGE 4 MET POLICE 2

If some crook steals your laptop while you’re at lectures, you might be better off calling the Cambridge University Amateur Boxing Club (CUABC) than Erinsborough the police. On Wednesday evening at the Union, the Cambridge boxers Ethics showed great pluck and fantastic fit- he residents of Ramsay Street ness in defeating the London have had a long and successful Metropolitan Police by four bouts to Trelationship with Neptune, the two. The police and Cambridge, as god of the sea. They occasionally sac- well as guest contenders from rifice the lesser members of the cast Coventry University, the Iceni Boxing to sate his raging appetite for human Club, and the Royal Air Force, put on flesh. David, Liljana and Serena an aggressive, crowd-pleasing show. Bishop are the most recent victims; Cambridge ex-captain Tom Britton Marlene (who went on a three-month set the tone for the evening in the cruise and never returned) was one of premier bout, forcing welterweight the strangest. In return, Neptune has a police brawler Jon Ainsworth into the habit of delivering numerous corner with well-aimed flurries of Neighbours from the clutches of the hooks. Britton’s superior conditioning deep and onto dry land, though those showed as the fight wore on, allowing people that he saves have often him to keep Ainsworth on his heels, undergone a change in character as a and he scored a unanimous decision furious assault in the next two mous decision of the night, and policeman Andrew Garvey in the result of their aquatic dramatics. for Cambridge. rounds, forcing the referee to stop the securing the honour of ‘best boxer of middleweight division. It was a truly Harold Bishop was washed up alive, but with no memory, and had to start Looking to avenge his comrade, match in favour of Cambridge. the night’ in the process. gutsy, fast-paced match, with both his life from scratch. Dylan Timmins, Steve Lawrence of the Met. came out In one of the evening’s most excit- In the night’s fifth bout, boxers unleashing quick punches the sleeveless wonder, was washed punching in the first round of the ing bouts, Cambridge’s Jana ‘The Cambridge’s Konrad Andreyczyk and from the bell. Garvey’s experience up alive, but temporarily decided to second fight, but Cambridge boxer Tattooed Terror’ Diemberger put her local Iceni boxer Louis Byrnes went won through in the latter part of the allow his family to think he had died. George Vardulakis showed his expe- southpaw police opponent Anna punch for punch through the first fight, earning him a unanimous deci- Still, with the help of Connor, Dylan rience in countering his opponent’s two rounds. Byrnes responded by sion in favour of the police. made it back to Erinsborough in time frenzied attacks with a series of quick attacking aggressively in the third, The night was rounded off with a for his own memorial service, much to left jabs in the first two rounds. “Britton’s superior and narrowly bested Konrad with a couple of frenzied RAF v. Police the surprise of, well, everyone. Though packing a wicked wound- majority decision. fights, and a Cambridge match in As we have come to expect from up left, Lawrence was unable to keep conditioning On the heels of the first round, which Seb Lambert soundly defeated Neighbours, there is an underlying Vardakulis’s hand out of his face, Cambridge’s Ed Andrews, fresh off Richard Baker of Coventry University intellectualism to this storyline. Dylan’s which allowed George to snap his showed as the the university rugby pitch, next with a stoppage in the first round. return home, and his family’s subse- opponent’s head back in the second, matched Met. Police boxer James Cambridge coach David Byrne quent reaction, served to demonstrate scoring a standing count. A ferocious fight wore on” Barry. Andrews mounted a devastat- summed up the evening well by not- the fragility of the relationship third-round assault from Vardakulis ing offense in the first round, bloody- ing that he was “proud to see his box- between epistemology and ontology. led to Cambridge’s second unani- Neocleous under pressure early, with ing Barry early. James responded ers hold their own with a fluid and We have a tendency to think that mous decision in the welterweight a ferocious double attack in the first ably with a series of doubles. Both dynamic style that is a problem to whatever we believe about the world is really true. People who believe in class. and second rounds. She pushed the boxers showed fantastic heart in the most” The CUABC has a tough God believe he really exists. People In the light-heavyweight division, attack in the first half of the third, final minutes, tiring each other with month ahead, as they prepare to who believe in ghosts believe they Paul Phillips of the police came out knocking the policewoman to the quick jabs to the face. Despite his defend their unique 9-0 victory over really exist. And Janelle really believed strongly against Cambridge’s Simon ground. Neocleous showed her val- defeat, the match bodes well for Oxford last year in this season’s that Dylan had died; it had been too Lehnis. After a brief stoppage in the our by responding seconds later with super-heavyweight Andrews, who Varsity match, at Oxford, on March 6. long without news, the search had first round, Lehnis finished the round a quick one-two that felled Jana in Varsity is confident will represent Judging by the excellent fights and found no trace of him, and she’d had strongly. The second saw him blood- turn. Despite the passionate come- Cambridge in fine style in the near superior fitness exhibited on that weird vision of him making a ied by a sneaky left hook from back, the Cambridge novice jumped future. Wednesday evening, the police sandwich in the kitchen. But there is a Phillips out of a clinch, but the right back up and pushed Anna back, The final Cambridge-Police bout of would do well to prepare better for gulf between what we believe and Cambridge man retaliated with a scoring the University’s third unani- the night paired Rich Spandl and next year’s encounter. what really is, and sometimes this gulf is exposed. Janelle was wrong. Despite all evidence to the contrary, 1 2345 Across Down Dylan was very much alive. His return WARWICK 3 1. Mythical foot, say, on a trainline (9) 2. Command hundred caught in ebb- to Ramsay Street wasn’t only motivat- 6 7 CAMBRIDGE 1 8. Early measure to prevent gaps in tide (5) ed by a desire to see Stingray freed calendar? (1,6,2,4) 3. Imprinted in wet Cheddar (6) from custody, but also a desire to 8 show Janelle that allowing her episte- 11. Trace out reply (5) 4. Club chauffeur (6) 9 10 mology (what she thought she knew) On Saturday, Cambridge’s 12. I dance with glee around 5. Badger later destroyed (5) to shape her ontology (what really was Blues made the journey to servant (5) 6. One country used mules to make a 11 12 the case) had led her into error. When Warwick in search of crucial 13. Fuss and bother about love (5) killing (13) the two of them saw each other for BUSA points. On paper, little 13 14 15 16. Rib-like article lost from 7. Praetorian guards in yards? (8,5) the first time since the plane crash, separated the two sides, so it seaside (6) 9. Zero-tolerance approach to drug Janelle slapped Dylan. Then she was unsurprising that the game 16 17 17. City's incentive to recycle and drink (9) embraced him. It was almost as if she began at a high tempo. A discarded tin (6) 10. Accused fended off worker (9) 18 was, at first, angry at having to dynamic break ended in a 18. Free solo performed with 13. Let saint be decapitated (5) reassess her ontology, but then Warwick player turning 19 20 energy (5) 14. Smell of cod our house contains (5) accepted that she must do so in the Brendan Threlfall’s cross into 19. Don may recreate device for 15. Each really heartless girl goes on light of new evidence. his own goal. 21 22 23 producing electricity (6) top (5) That was the whole point of 20. Objected bitterly right before 22. Compensate for postponed games Thursday’s episode. We believe cer- The Blues began to exert a 24 25 26 greater degree of control, with chef's return (6) (6) tain things, and most of the time we’re Coleman, Mills and Mugan 21. Bent over gold in concern (5) 23. Vain queen slipped in gorge (6) right. Chairs and tables probably real- showing a range of passing and 24. Elementary compound? (5) 25. Pure senselessness about foreign ly do exist; ghosts and vampires prob- ably don’t. But on those occasions set-piece delivery which 27 26. German article in Chinese currency (5) when we come to realise that a stretched the home side fur- province (5) 26. Language used in North Indian deeply-held and cherished belief is ther. But Warwick struck from 27. Kind, firm friend harbours states (5) wrong, it’s how we react that shows nowhere on the stroke of half- 28 powerful emotion (13) our true character. Do we stubbornly time. An inswinging corner 28. Cite as the new type of beauty (9) © Mathmo refuse to change our minds, thinking bobbled around and eventually that we simply must be right? Or do fell to a white shirt, and the ball Re-arrange the letters by rotating the discs to create we accept that we got it wrong, give was poked in by the post from a six separate six-letter Scribble pad ourselves a slap, and move on?

yard. words leading in to the The sea plays a crucial role in The second period saw a TNS centre. Neighbours. It can take away our

WEE resurgent Warwick beat at the M Email your answer to: favourite characters or it can bring door of the staunch Cambridge [email protected] them back. Are we sure David Bishop

is dead? Will Marlene’s cruise ever defence. Warwick moved CU

S I R end? Is it possible that Dee, Toadie’s ahead thanks to an unfortunate BRACLE © Adam Edelshain

error from Blues’ goalkeeper GOTDES ex-wife, might have remained afloat CP on two airbags? Whatever the James Dean. The Blues TLO responded though, haring after answers to these questions, the sea

reminds us that we can never be sure the ball and piling pressure on IB

the Warwick defence for the VL R what will happen next in Ramsay UL Street; we constantly have to chal- first time in the half, with lenge our beliefs and adopt new ones. Mugan and Adams going close. That’s one reason to keep watching However, as the away side Neighbours. One Good Reason. pressed forward, Warwick stole a third goal to seal the win. Student Membership still available from £35.50 per month Call: (01223) 305060 or drop round for a viewing - on Thompson’s Lane, off Bridge Street. BEN JONES 2005 Ltd Sudoku Daily © - 8 5 9 3 3 6 4 2 9 5 5 7 9 6 4 1 4 5 3 8 4 somewhat muted second-half 2 4 6 OLLEGE FOOTBALL OLLEGE itz on track for Cuppers’ From the resulting scrum, But it was McInroy who ensured A wickenham try-count, tight-head FITZ 5-0 CCSS F home win success afer easy C began with the ball punted aimlessly backwards and forwards between opposing full-backs, before Ian McInroy seized the initiative by feinting to kick before embarking with searing pace on a solo length-of-the-field effort that was thwarted only yards short. Blaikie bagged his second try of the evening and despite vocal touch line support from their travelling contingent, the RAF seemed to be running on empty as the Blues rang the changes to bring on more youngsters. Whilst loose-head prop Rudi Bosch moonlighted on the left wing in a bid to add to his T Martin burst replacement Tom through under the posts in the sixty-sixth minute. that the RAF truly had their wings clipped with his hand in the final two tries, the first as the veteran fly-half horrendously miscued a close-range drop-goal attempt to allow winger Jono Murray to gratefully pounce ahead of a bemused defence, and the second as he himself cut back inside the drifting defence to score under the posts to make it an emphatic 41-6. corner. corner. 9 5 1 8 . Hard half-break But more s . s, and it was no surprise neat touchline show and s ophie Pickford looks at a ophie Pickford The RAF had not given up the But the bulk of the possession Following a successful 30-yard EATURE ‘TASS’ SCHOLARSHIPS ‘TASS’ S scheme that help athletes scheme that help

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Quick Sudoku The object is to insert the numbers in the boxes to satisfy only one condition: each row, column and 3x3 box must 9 contain the digits 1 through exactly once. What could be simpler? through the middle created the space for the ball to be thrown wide for Magee to score in the fight though, overzealously shown by some of the punches thrown in mauls by their loose-head prop, and a well-worked decoy move in the centres gifted them a two-on- one overlap in the corner that was squandered with a reckless final pass. and territory remained Cambridge’ when the Blues extended their lead to 17-6 on the stroke of half- time when Thomas’ go to earn the Blues second try rampaging picking and driving from the Blues forwards in the loose created the platform for Steff Thomas’ ball out left and grubber-kicked but into space in the far corner, Magee made amends with a superb cover tackle in his opposite corner to deny the chasers. placekick in front of the posts in the twelfth minute, the RAF demonstrated their long-range strike capability with another three points, this time from the half-way line, to nudge 6-5 ahead at the end of the first quarter www.dokakuro.com © s - - open-  s mission begins with comprehensive success mission begins with comprehensive s     task of regenerat  s     former under-21s captain former under-21s  , -weight RAF pack and driv   Moments later though, a lovely rror proves costly as Blues proves rror LUES In the lively opening encounters,  WARWICK 3-1 CAMBRIDGEWARWICK E Midlands slip to defeat in the B show of the ball and sidestep on the half-way line saw the RAF’ seemingly jet-propelled right winger leave stand-in number 11 Paul Magee in his slipstream. Brought down yards short of the the RAF spun the right corner-flag, ing try with a close-range effort in the eighth minute. Desmond and the like moving on the Lent term fixtures next year, mark the process of breaking up the old team and blooding fresh talent. Blaikie’ ing the side is an unenviable one. Many of the finest coaches in sport have discovered first hand that sustaining success it is a delicate balancing act. The Blues opted to retain a core of experience in the front-row with Bosch and Kirkman, full debuts were granted to Ryan Harper at blindside flanker ing deep into their opponents’ 22. Relentless forward pressure in the corner allowed Blaikie to lead by example to score the game’ Andrew Stevenson at outside centre and Andy Davidson at full back. the Blues forwards set the tone for the evening by dominating the lighter New captain’   , - - s - s 41 6 Hard www.dokakuro.com But with the old cancelled due to . , towering Kiwi lock , Brockbank lues edge out police in grip- lues edge out police OXING number more than once per number more frozen pitch, had actually been For Cambridge and newly-elect Despite the light-hearted banter arsity match has begun already, CAMBRIDGE 4-2 MET. CAMBRIDGE 4-2 ping fixture at The Union at The ping fixture B B Quick Kakuro guard of Ufton, Alberts, Akinluyi, ed skipper bling a new side to retain the V less than a couple of months after Ed the euphoria of Twickenham. Carter and his victorious team enjoyed a last hurrah together as they beat Durham by five tries to four in the traditional Captain’ Match in January John Blaikie, the task of assem Fill the grid so that each run of adds up to the total in squares the box above or to the left. Use only numbers 1-9, and never use a in the run (a number may reoccur in a separate run). same row Solution and solving aids at Jamie Before kick-off, the wag on the system had Grange Road Tannoy jibed that the last home game against the Army Blaikie enjoys winning home start Blaikie enjoys winning CAMBRIDGE RAF a called off because it was too chilly for troops used to spending their days in the warmer climes of Southern Iraq. posed 7 tries on a bitterly cold and evening’ murky Wednesday rugby. the RAF were forced to stoically concede in their programme notes that their squad had been depleted by operational pressures, a factor that showed as the Blues had little difficulty in running in an unop - - wo legs , my who has invited , love-in on the water and head IP MCDANIEL

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:08 again, down to a science – and sport no longer work. wiches and dreams of girls named that Clare at Life/Twenty-Two night. Sunday Sunday brings with it two more training sessions. The only things that gets me through the ordeal are thoughts of Chicken Stuffing sand Saturday On Saturday morning we drive to in London, where the the Tideway Boat Race will be held. T sessions and 45 km later Friday Friday is a relatively light day – just one workout (weights and a light erg) and one class. Thursday The routine is broken by a visit to the Bishop of Ely 6 down to Goldie once more. After lunch, its back to Goldie and then where we do some racing Ely, between the two boats. After a cold shower with 18 naked men, it’ Wednesday Wednesday back to Cambridge, where I return to my room to finish a portfolio management project. I’m in bed by I love sleeping more ten – frankly, than finance. Tuesday start to the is the true Tuesday week for me. Up at exactly 6:08, I cycle to Goldie Boathouse. After the 30-minute ergometer test we do 25 km testing. Monday day is CUBC’s thankfully, Monday, erg test the with an off. However, next morning, most of the day is spent relaxing, preparing, and worrying. Later I head to the boat- house to do a light session meant to the team for tea. I pray that he doesn’ early bedtime. faith. Followed by some tremen dous finger foods and a brief side-trip to ‘USA Chicken’.