An interview Fashionp21 Fashion with Palestinian disaster? terrorist leader Jonny and Munir Luciana Al-Maqdah will make Features you look p22 Meet the Foals fabulous Music p25 Issue No 660 Friday October 5 2007 varsity.co.uk e Independent CambridgeStudent Newspaper since 1947 Students for Sale Clients liked the fact that I was a Cambridge “student, and so did the agency. They liked having “ a classier girl there. It was good for business. Cambridge student, 21, former prostitute LIZZIE ROBINSON The student, who has since given vertise escorting services, charging pany, but said he could make up to Katherine faulkner up the practice, said that she would anywere up to £300 for a single date. £200 per week. “If someone’s stupid News Editor get calls out to students “maybe The company pride themselves on enough to buy essays on the inter- Lindsey Kennedy once or twice a fortnight.” their selection of “elite dates”, a net, then I don’t really care about A Varsity investigation into Cam- Another cash-strapped under- status reserved for Oxbridge and their economic future,” he said. Work: bridge student jobs has uncovered graduate travelled to a northern ‘Ivy League’ educated escorts. Some Cambridge graduate stu- undergraduates working as pros- city on weekends to strip for clients But they claim that despite the dents are even on “scholarships” curse of titutes and strippers during term in return for up to £100 per dance. high prices and suggestive profi les of up to £10,000 per year, which time, as well as a plethora of students “It can be so degrading,” she the website “has always been and they pay back to the company by the selling essays and dates for cash. admits, “but, when I’m home, I’m always will be strictly a dinner date writing briefs. student One Cambridge student has ad- not going to stack shelves at Mor- service”, and that “inappropriate The university’s board of grad- mitted to spending her fi rst under- rison’s for £5.50 an hour when I behaviour will not be tolerated”. uate studies is looking to modify classes graduate year working as a call girl, could do this. Even more widespread was the its existing plagiarism clause in charging £50 per hour. Unbeknown “There are the moments I re- completion of work for the Ox- order to prohibit this, calling the to her friends, the fi nalist slept with ally don’t want to do it, but it is bridge Essays service, a practice scheme “an attempt to deliberate- p1 between 40 and 50 men for money certainly character building. My which the university has con- ly degrade the academic integrity over two months, and once with worst fear is dancing up there in demned as “cheating, or complicit of the university.” seven men in a single night. front of someone I know, but eve- with cheating.” John Foster, head “That’s a fairly ludicrous and ill- Letters 10 “I did have a day job at the same ryone has to do it.” of sales at Oxbridge Essays, es- considered statement,” said Foster. time, but it just wasn’t paying Takemetodinner.com claim that timates that the company has “at “The fact is that most people just Comment 12 enough,” she told Varsity. “I met 450 Cambridge students and alum- least 500” Cambridge students and can’t get that money elsewhere. other students who did it too. Once ni are members of their escorting alumni on their books. They face a stark choice between you’ve done it, it is tempting. If you site, which was formerly known as One student claimed to have made getting some funding and not doing Idler 13 need quick, easy money, it’s there.” Oxbridge Escorts. Of these, 342 ad- £2,000 by selling essays to the com- postgraduate study at all.” Reviews 28 » Special Investigation pages 4-5 The Anorak 38 Got a news story? Friday October 5 2007 2 NEWS [email protected] varsity.co.uk/news In Brief Flasher strikes again Cambridge police have recieved two reports of a fl asher in the last week. The fi rst incident occured in the grounds of Robinson College, whilst on Monday the man exposed himself again on Madingly Road. The fl asher is said to be a White male of a medium build in his mid- twenties. When seen he was wear- ing casual clothes and black or dark grey baseball cap. Police believe this may be the same fl asher who was active in May to June. They have asked that any students who encounter this male report him im- mediately to the police. Katherine Faulkner Police chief blames immigrants for crime increase The amount of immigration into Cambridge has placed some strain on the limited police force in the city. Chief Constable Julie Spence has requested a further £2 mil- lion pounds from the Home Offi ce. Local politicians readily agreed with the demands, and Jim Paice DYAN SPENCER-DAVIDSON MP commended Spence’s “courage for raising the issue”. Others have DYLAN SPENCER-DAVIDSON called the statement infl ammatory Foaming fresh and xenophobic. A response from Wednesday October 3. Freshers’ Week 2007. The cleanest crowd Ballare has ever seen enjoy their bubbles well into the morning. the home secretary is expected shortly. Alex Glasner Queens’ to sober up ‘Doomsday is not nigh’ Top schools embrace Queens’ has become the latest college to restrict the availabil- » Environment sceptic visits Union ity of wine at formal halls. Under new ‘Pre-U’ Exam new rules, guests will no longer be allowed to bring wine to for- Emma Inkester pected that the top band will allow mal, while Queens’ students will Senior Reporter for an extra grade which measures be limited to one bottle each. No achievment higher than the new student deemed inebriated will be A* mark at A level. permitted entry to hall. The mo- A handful of leading public schools The development follows outcry tion introducing the new rules was have this week confi rmed their de- last week over a new report by the passed unanimously by the col- cision to road test a a new alterna- Sutton Trust which revealed that lege’s governing body. One student tive to A levels that has been de- a student who attended one of the commented, “I feel it’s a shame as veloped in Cambridge, beginning top thirty independent schools is it is quite a patronising rule, but in the next academic year. twice as likely to go to Oxbridge it is understandable on the part of Winchester, Eton and Rugby join than one who attended one of the the college given some students’ a number of colleges in piloting the top thirty grammar schools, even if alcohol-induced misbehaviour at Cambridge Pre-U examinations they have the same A level results. formals.” Brad Norman from September 2008. The move However, Cambridge University refl ects growing concern over the admissions have issued positive potential of A levels to challenge comments on the proposed syl- and distinguish the most able stu- labi, stating that the “emphasis on Emma tree gets own book dents. The Cambridge Pre-U ex- open-ended, challenging, synoptic amination is an attempt by Cam- assessment” is welcomed, but the An oriental plane whose seeds are bridge International Examinations Pre-U examination will not receive thought to have been brought from to respond to the complaints of funding in the maintained sector Thermopylae to Emmanuel by a leading schools that modular ex- until approved by the Qualifi ca- group of Cambridge scholars has aminations and unlimited resits tions and Curriculum Authority, fi nally received due recognition. have led to a focus on exam success leading to concerns that the new Beneath one such “canopy where a rather than rounded education. system will serve to increase the shadow of Eden still exists” (Luis Dr Kevin Stannard, CIE Direc- divide in university admissions. RICHARD GARDNER Cernuda), Hippocrates once taught Lomborg addresses the Cambridge Union tor of International Curriculum This week CIE attended the early medics on Kos; Emmanuel’s Development, said that by offering Headmasters’ and Headmistress- own plane has now been celebrated He maintained that environmen- the Pre-U schools “will be making es’ Conference in Bournemouth to in a work by Dr Ronald Gray, one of Katy Lee talists ought to recognise “the posi- a strong statement about the val- persuade principles of the benefi ts the college’s most eminent scholars.. tives as well as negatives” of global ue of learning over testing. Cam- of the Pre-U. The response to the Alex Glasner Speaking at the Cambridge Union warming. He claimed that by 2050, bridge Pre-U has been designed as scheme from schools has so far on Wednesday night, controversial 20,000 fewer people will be dying a coherent two-year programme. been mixed. academic and self-styled “sceptical from cold in the UK than the cur- Candidates who take the exams Keith Pusey, Director of Studies enviromentalist” Bjørn Lomborg rent annual fi gure. The extra deaths after two years of study will have at Winchester, told Varsity that his condemned the Kyoto Protocol as from very high temperatures will additional levels of maturity and school was “very happy” to be tak- an ineffective mechanism for deal- total approximately 2000. understanding, and will have a real ing part in the trial examinations. ing with climate change, and called Lomborg explained that address- sense of how it all hangs together. “Many of our heads of department for governments to focus resourc- ing global problems such as the Instead of a ‘learn it, forget it’ cul- are interested in the specifi cations 52 Trumpington Street Cambridge CB2 1RG es on more immediate concerns spread of disease would give us bet- ture, Cambridge Pre-U offers edu- and in some cases they have been such as Malaria and HIV/AIDS.