1- Frontpage.Indd

27 The award-winning student

newspaper of Imperial College . 11

“Keep The Cat Free” . 09 Issue 1,446 felix felixonline.co.uk Not a stitch in sight ThisTh week.... GigsGiG – bigger’s not always The much-awaited return of the bebetter naked centrefold, page 20

Music, Page 14

Michael Caine turns OAP vigilante

Film, Page 17

History, drugs and beaches: take a trip to Cambodia

Travel, Pages 22-23

Other good greens in Is Imperial dragging down the Amsterdam Golden Triangle? A new report by the Higher Education Policy Institute shows just how far Imperial is from taking on Oxbridge, page 3 Food, Page 24 2 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 News Editor Kadhim Shubber NEWS [email protected]

Conservatives keen to go green The world beyond Joanna Cai News Reporter

The Shadow Chancellor of the Ex- College walls chequer paid a visit to Sir Roy Ander- son and Imperial College London on Tuesday 24th November, with an aim to highlight the Conservatives’ green ideas for the UK economy. George Osborne began the evening by meeting with Sir Roy to discuss the European Union potential that science and technology re- search holds for the UK. Sir Roy spoke of the event: “It’s highly appropriate that the he European Un- Shadow Chancellor should take an in- ion elected Bel- terest in green technologies… Products gian Prime Min- and solutions developed at places like ister Herman Imperial will ensure the UK’s economic van Rompuy as competitiveness on the global stage.” Af- theT first President of the ter their discussion, Mr. Osborne gave a European Union Council, speech to academics, environmentalists and Lady Catherine Ashton and media in the Business School. This of the UK as its new High was followed by a question and answer Representative for Foreign session about the proposals made during Affairs and Security Policy. his speech. The nominations come after It is not the first time that Mr. Os- the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which establishes mandates for the two borne has visited Imperial: in February roles, but the exact distribution of power will depend significantly on how 2008, Mr. Osborne held a speech in the the roles are managed by Mr. Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton. Both politicians SAF Building which addressed the UK’s were relatively unknown, unlike other candidates who had been touted for environmental technology and in par- the job. The decision should ensure that individual nations will retain their ticular, praised Imperial College for its George Osborne spoke about his vision for a green agenda at Imperial voice on the world stage, instead of becoming subject to the European Un- investment in environmentally green ion’s will. technology. Following his selection, Mr. Van Rompuy stressed his credentials as a con- He called for more universities to fol- less money if they fail to reduce than 18 times. His speech presented the sensus politician, and indeed his 10 months as Prime Minister in Belgium low Imperial’s lead and create their own energy consumption idea of Green Investment Banks, which have been successful in bridging the gaps between the country’s linguisti- incubator model, which gives green • Creating a green trading market he claims “will help us…to decarbonise cally divided communities. He made it clear that he would fulfill the role of a technology entrepreneurs the financial • Cutting government CO2 emis- our economy”. He also spoke about the chairman rather than a ‘globe-trotting statesman’. Lady Ashton’s nomination, support and business expertise they sions by 10% in 12 months company RecycleBank which has been which is seen as a concession to the UK, has come under attack from critics – require. Mr. Osborne said: “I think we can go able to increase recycling in America she has never held a directly elected position and has served in her previous The proposals made during Mr. Os- even further in catalysing green finance “by paying the public to recycle - with- role as European Trade Commissioner for just over a year. borne’s speech on Tuesday evening came in the UK. In my speech here at Impe- out the need for any extra government as no surprise, as he had personally writ- rial last year, I proposed the creation of a spending.” ten in The Independant that morning to new green trading market...” This trading All of the proposals set by Mr. Os- announce his plans for the economy. His market, called the Environmental Op- borne, and his five other colleagues World speech therefore reiterated what he had portunities Index, currently has almost a within the same week, are clearly in already published, as well as what other hundred companies signed up. preparation for the global negotiations press had promptly reported on, which The notion of the Conservatives go- in Copenhagen next month. Given the n a report issued on Tuesday in Shanghai, the World Health Or- includes: ing green was exhausted in Mr. Os- Conservatives’ anti-EU agenda, it is diffi- ganization and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS • Paying the public to recycle borne’s article in The Independant, in cult to see how they will successfully act (UNAIDS) said that an estimated 33.4 million people worldwide • Giving government Departments which he used the word ‘green’ no less on climate change alone. were infected with HIV. This figure is slightly higher than the 33 million in 2007, and most 27 thoseI affected (an overwhelming 22.4 million) live in sub-Saharan Africa. Al- Felix, Beit Quad, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BB. Tel: 020 7594 8072. most two thirds of the new infections occurred there as well. The second . most affected region is South and South-East Asia (3.8 million), followed by Fax: 020 7594 8065. Printed by The Harmsworth Printing Ltd, 17 Brest Road, 11 Derriford, Plymouth. Registered newspaper ISSN 1040-0711. Latin America (2.0 million). Jigsaw font by typotheque.com. Introducing our new server, Nucleus. Some improvements have been made however, as the death toll from AIDS 1,446 . felix 09 Copyright © Felix 2009. has fallen by 10 percent over the past five years, largely due to greater access to anti-retroviral drugs. In sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of infection has fallen to 400,000 people in felix was brought to you by: 2008, down 15 percent from 2001. In the same time frame, new infections decreased by 25 percent in East Asia, and 10 percent in South and South-East Editor-in-Chief Deputy Editor Deputy Editor Copy Chief Asia. Dan Wan Kadhim Shubber Gilead Amit Sasha Nicoletti

News Editor Business Editor Travel Editor Puzzles Commodores ‘Mad’him’ Shubber Sina Ataherian Dyldo Lowe Sean Farris Olivia Davies Milli Begum Mexico Medic News Editor International Editor Games Editors Dina Ismail Raphael Houdmont Science Editors Sports Editors Mike Cook Brigette Atkins Mustapher Botchway exico has seen its credit rating downgraded to BBB by Fitch Assistant Editor Film Editors Nathan Ley David Wilson Feature Editor Ratings, following a fall in output from the oil sector as its Jovan Nedić Zuzanna Blaszczak Indy Leclercq Afonso Campos reserves in the Gulf of Mexico are drying up. Ed ‘Flatcap’ Knock Nightlife Editor Fitch, a rating agency, said that decreasing oil incomes, Layout Editor Charlotte Morris Arts Editors Copy Editors whichM make up a third of Mexico’s public sector revenues, have weakened Carlos Karingal Technology Editor Caz Knight Rhys Davies the country’s ability to weather financial problems. The rating was reduced Samuel Gibbs What’s On Editors Rosie Milton Alex Karapetian from BBB+ to BBB, which means that the government will now face increased Comment Editor Rachel D’oliviero Lucy Harrold Matt Colvin costs of borrowing. Ravi Pall Fashion Editor Lily Topham Lizzy Griffiths While this rating remains of ‘investment grade’, a statement from Mexico’s Kawai Wong Photography Ayyub Kamaludin Treasury Department said President Felipe Calderon has made important ad- Politics Editors: Coffee Break Editor Ben Smith Joanna Cai vances to address the structural weaknesses pointed out by Fitch and imple- James Goldsack Music Editors Charles Murdoch Alex Karapetian Jamie Beal ment reforms that can increase competitiveness and growth. Katya-yani Vyas Kadhim Shubber Richard Howard James Lees Alex Ashford Clubs and Socs Editor Catnip Editor Stefan Zeeman By Raphael Houdmont, International Editor Phillip Murray Luke Turner Alex Kendall Rhys Davies Rox Middleton felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 3 [email protected] NEWS Elevating the elite within the Golden Triangle 40.4 Number of hours per week the A report released this week by the Higher average Cambridge student studies Education Policy Institute examines the extent to which Imperial still trail Oxford and Cambridge as their main British rivals. 37.5 29.1 Editor-in-Chief Dan Wan investigates how far Number of hours per week the Number of hours per week the in front they are actually are average Oxford student studies average Imperial student studies

mperial cannot claim to be Times Higher Education Supplement generally expected to take three A Level Imperial and Oxford’s offer-to-ac- National Student Survey (NSS) during keeping up with Oxford and World Rankings 2009 ranks Imperial, courses and hence most degree streams ceptance conversion rate. Over 90% of recent years. The NSS forms part of a Cambridge as academic insti- at 5th, one place higher than Oxford. at both Oxbridge and Imperial have a students that receive an offer from Ox- quality assurance framework (QAF) I tution, says a new report pub- Subsequently, HEPI’s latest report fo- requirement for three A Levels. Oxford ford take up their place once they have supported by the Higher Education lished by the Higher Education cuses in on Imperial as a conclusively and Cambridge are notorious for issu- achieved the required grades. In stark Funding Council for England (HE- Policy Institute (HEPI). unfavourable comparison to the Ox- ing offers higher than the a standard contrast, less than half of Imperial’s FCE). The survey collates feedback on The report, Oxford and Cambridge: bridge universities. three A Level requirement. felix’s sur- offers are taken up, leading to fluctua- the satisfaction rates of students and How Different Are They? released on In a survey conducted by felix, it vey came across some current Impe- tions to the number of students admit- hence quality of their courses. 19 November, investigates a number was found that 51% of current under- rial undergraduates who had previously ted onto courses each year. The report During an interview with felix last of aspects of the higher education graduates claimed their GCSE courses been offered AAAA (480 UCAS tariff suggests that this pattern of offer- year, outgoing Rector Sir Roy Ander- sector that conclude the Universities had very little or negligible bearing on points), but for one reason or another acceptance shows that an application son claimed that one of his aims during of Oxford and Cambridge are greatly their ability to perform at their cho- didn’t not take up on the offer. holding both an Imperial and Oxford his tenure would be to dramatically in- “distinctive” from their nearest Russell sen A Level courses, whilst 21% felt offer, they are far more likely to turn crease Imperial’s poor ranking of 100th Group rivals, namely Imperial. their GCSE courses had absolutely no down Imperial’s offer than Oxford’s. out of 113th in the NSS. It has largely bearing on A Level performance and “61% of current This theory is backed up by the survey been to blame for Imperial’s inability to * hence requirement to enter Imperial. Imperial students conducted by felix. It found that 61% challenge Oxbridge for the top spots in Catching the brightest Seemingly, despite the stark contrast of current Imperial students applied to league tables which factor in the NSS, Imperial, alongside the LSE and UCL in GCSE achievement between Ox- applied to Oxford or Oxford or Cambridge as their original such as the Guardian Education Uni- are considered to be the London corner ford and Imperial, Imperial students first choice university. versity Guide, where Imperial regularly in an elite ‘Golden Triangle’ with the unaware of it (as not to influence their Cambridge as their flirt around 8th place. Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. survey answer) put little importance original first choice” * Oxford is currently 6th place and The latter two are suggested by on their GCSE grades, and prefer to be Longer hours Cambridge 2nd in the latest NSS. HEPI’s latest report to be in a league judged by their A Level grades. HEPI’s extensive report goes on to de- HEPI’s report breaks down this ranking above in terms of their ability to attract However, Oxford and Cambridge Imperial’s proportion of applicants tail the differences in teaching stand- into the 22 separate questions as part of the highest academically-achieving ap- are shown to be attracting brighter starting courses with 480 or below tar- ards and student expectations that they the survey. The Oxbridge universities plicants and also in their undergradu- students as judged by their prior aca- iff points is 35.1% compared to Cam- claim the Oxbridge universities are occupy 1st place in 7 of the 22 questions ate teaching environment. demic achievements, i.e. A Levels or bridge’s 19.1% and Oxford’s 21.7%. head and shoulders above others. alone, whilst Imperial tops none. HEPI is an independent think-tank equivalent. The study showed that the Degree streams such as Biology, Bio- Average hours of study are tabled in Despite a lesser workload, Imperial dedicated to exclusively policing and vast majority (57.2%) of Cambridge’s chemistry and Material Sciences typi- the report to point out differences of students are still far unhappier than analysing higher education in the UK. applicants had 540 UCAS tariff points cally have lower-than AAA require- working hours (both contact teaching their peers of Oxbridge. This can point Admissions data collected for this or more. This is in contrast to Impe- ments. For the incoming 2010 intake time and private study) between the to the teaching methods and standards report show that in 2008, the 58% of rial where the proportion of appli- Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnol- Oxbridge universities and specifically at Imperial being a problem, the mas- undergraduates at Oxford achieved cants with 540 tariff points or more ogy have minimum entry requirements Imperial. sively greater ability of students at Ox- eight A*s at GCSE was four times the was about equal to the proportion of of AAB (340 points). Oxford require a Oxbridge Medics students study 42.1 bridge universities to deal with heavy 14.4% proportion of undergraduates at students starting courses with less minimum AAA (360 points) across the hours a week, which is claimed to be workloads, or the apathy of Imperial Imperial that achieved the same. This than 480 points. Tariff points work as board for Bioscience courses. Hence 14.4% more than at Imperial College students not only in their studies, but in light of 72% of Imperial students felt a system to standardise and compare the students achieving over 540 points School of Medicine. The biosciences filling out the entirely optional Nation- that their GCSEs had very little or no all applicants as they apply to higher therefore are “exceptionally talented” are renowned at Imperial for being al Student Survey. It is suggested that bearing on their A Level achievement. education with a range of qualifica- students who have undertaken and courses with the least evident teaching only the students with grievances will Oxbridge however are known to still tions. A Levels, BTEC Nationals and achieved top grades in extra courses at time compared to the rest of College, fill out the online survey, whilst stu- use GCSE grades to distinguish be- International Baccalaureates are just A Level or equivalent level of study. and the study indicates Cambridge bio- dents that are content with academic tween candidates and hence still hold some of the extensive range of quali- The study also concludes that the scientists study nearly 17 more hours a life at Imperial regularly ignore both GCSEs in some level of importance, fications which UCAS tariffs cover. A university’s applicant’s average UCAS week. College and the Union’s promotion. and probably moreso than other Rus- typical student coming through the tariff points correlates to the propor- However, the most dramatic com- While the report does not implicitly sell Group universities. conventional British education system tion of independently-schooled ap- parison comes with students study- state that Imperial is inherently inferi- Over the past decade, Imperial Col- can expect to receive 120 tariff points plicants. Institutions with a “larger ing physical science courses. At Cam- or, it does assume the stance of Oxford lege has frequently been ranked 3rd or for a top grade at GCE A Level. For ex- number of independent school en- bridge, they are said to study over 50% and Cambridge superiority by stating 4th behind Oxford and Cambridge at ample, 540 points of more can be ob- trants are more likely to have a higher longer than their equivalent course- that the universities are indeed “really an interchanging 1st and 2nd place in tained by achieving As in four A Levels proportion with greater accumulation mates at Imperial. different” from “the small number of the Times Good University guide. The and a B in a fifth. A typical student is of [UCAS] tariff points.” However, Across the board, Cambridge stu- institutions with which they are some- Oxbridge only has an average of inde- dents study an average of 40%, and times compared”. There is little doubt pendently-schooled applicants which Oxford students an average 30% more that Imperial, LSE and UCL make up is 7% greater than the number of cur- than Imperial students. These figures this “small number” of universities. rent Imperial undergraduate students are likely to come as surprise to some Whichever way it is looked at, HEPI’s that have entered directly from a pri- Imperial students as they put in the report this week has greatly distanced 58% 14.4% vately-funded institution. These find- long hours at the Library. the two corners of the UK’s elite Gold- ings do little to dampen the myth that en Triangle that protrude outside the Percentage of undergraduates Percentage of undergraduates Oxbridge are still ‘socially engineering’ * M25. at Oxford with 8+ A*s at GCSE at Imperial with 8+ A*s at GCSE their student intake towards independ- Teaching quality not assured ently school students. It is a well-known fact that Imperial All statistics are quoted and calculated from the original report by HEPI HEPI also highlights a gulf between has performed extremely poorly in the Additional reporting: Afonso Campos 4 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 NEWS [email protected] Media Awards fail InterFaith success answer is simple: so that we can fin- Lizzy Griffiths News Reporter Alex Karapetian News Reporter ish our journey in university as learned and open-minded ambassadors of the After a year of being the best at some- To commemorate National Inter- world, whilst maintaining our respective thing other than research, Imperial Col- Faith Week, eight students from the identities.’’ lege is no longer home to the ‘Student InterFaith group, each representing a The event was marked a success, re- Newspaper of the Year’. Despite being religion, gathered to enlighten an au- ceiving praise from many who attended. nominated for several awards, neither fe- dience of over 300 people and spark Obadah Ghannam, a Medicine under- lix, nor Live! won anything at the Guard- discussions promoting better under- graduate remarked that witnessing these ian Student Media Awards on Wednes- standing of their religions. religions ‘’come together in such a visible day. felix was in the running again for Held on Monday evening, some 50 au- form of unity was absolutely amazing.’’ Student Newspaper of the Year but was dience members engaged in group dis- InterFaith was noted by Harsita Patel, unfortunately beaten by Leeds Student cussions following the event regarding another undergraduate studying Medi- from the University of Leeds. Dylan Lowe InterFaith and its benefits. The religions cine as being a ‘’fantastic opportunity to didn’t win Best Travel Writer either. Im- represented were Baha’i, Buddhism, promote and spread the fantastic teach- perial’s website Live! was also nominated Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, ings and morals of various religions.’’ He for Student Website of the Year but the Judaism and Sikhism. Yousef Salmasi, a plans to ‘’educate others about Hindu- University of York’s website www.nouse. co-ordinator of the event and member of ism and gain a better understanding of co.uk was apparently better. the InterFaith group which were behind other faiths, whilst getting to know and IC Radio left empty-handed too at it, explained that ‘’it’s the astonishing di- befriend a new group of people.’’ the Student Radio Awards even though versity in faiths and beliefs at Imperial InterFaith holds many dialogue events Roushan Alam had been nominated for which adds that extra element to living in an effort to apply a variety of perspec- three awards: Best Male Presenter, Best out your faith’’. tives to religions and allow the audience to Entertainment Programme, and Best Yousef, upon asked about the purpose discuss and explore cultural and other dif- Interview (with Derren Brown), which of the event, added: ‘’By having an in- ferences in depth. Former president of the were awarded to Fergus Dufton (URN), terfaith forum at imperial, and a launch Jewish Society, Yoni Weiner, is currently The Big Chewsie (RaW), and Joshua event of this nature, we can ensure that a representative of InterFaith, explaining Chambers (URY), respectively. there is more interaction, and of an ap- that ‘’InterFaith is very important for dis- This outcome was a big disappointment propriate and respectful nature, between pelling myths and misconceptions and in- for Imperial College, which will just have to different faith groups on campus. People creasing understanding and co-operation recover its credibility at next year’s awards. The sweet smell of success for Nottingham Trent University... may ask why this is importanimportant but the between different faith groups.’’

Dan Wan Editor-in-Chief

s we roll into the latter 2009 in Camden. As Student Newspa- stages of November, there per of the Year last year, a collection of A is plenty to be looking for- editors led by last year’s Editor-in-Chief ward to in the near future. Jovan Nedic went with a huge amount One date almost everyone will have of pressure and expectation on their earmarked as one to look forward to shoulders. Nominated once again for the is Christmas, and I am not the excep- night’s main category, alongside Dylan tion. The Christmas break will provide Lowe’s nomination as Travel Writer of me, like most, with the chance to catch the Year, we left North London empty- up with some sleep and termly quota handed. Despite losing our title we of distinct idleness that I have become coveted so dearly, I am still immensely accustomed to in the past two years at proud of the work done last year. The university. Guardian judges may not have thought However, before I’m content to truly it was worthy of an award to Jovan’s dis- appreciate the fuzzy sentiment of Coca appointment, but his characteristically Cola’s “The holidays are coming” adver- bullish editorial style has commanded tisements, there have been, and still will great respect amongst College and his be, some important happenings regard- peers. Truthfully, I personally value the ing felix as a newspaper, institution and opinion of the editors and readers of felix community. far more than the Guardian judges, and The first issue has been a pressing mat- I hope Jovan does too. To see someone ter for over a year now; the server that intently reading or casually enjoying essentially runs the office and is vital for the paper on a Friday morning is a great the production of every issue was dy- honour that an award ceremony once ing on its feet. Last week, I’d say it was a year will probably never emulate. A taken to within a few days of its complete nomination still means we are a top 5 failure, and in that event we would have student newspaper in the entire country, been royally screwed. Luckily for me and and that is enough to be proud of. my distinct lack of knowledge about lo- We’ve been barking about this for a cal networks and Apple products, none fair while now, but felix reaches 60 years other than Comment Editor Ravi Pall old on the 9th of December, and it’s an organised a swift and wonderfully ef- opportunity for celebration. We’ve got a fective server change this week. A per- special anniversary issue coming up, so sonal apology would go a lot further, but look out for a special issue. Pints in the I think I’ve been incredibly short with Union are on us that day. When I say ‘us’, so many people these past few weeks, I definitely ‘yourself with your own mon- a public one will have to do. So, if I’ve e y.’ Felix is already free of charge every seemed a little ratty recently, please do week, it would have cost you 9 pence in accept my almost sincere regrets. 1949. What more do you want? Drink up This week also saw the felix team go and sod off. Oh, there’s me being ratty to the Guardian Student Media Awards again. `V7Q% `V]:`VR- Q1 10VC7 VRVV@ . T  .   2QJR:7 . VRJVR:7JR $VJ `:C%1JV&%G$`:1C Q CQG:CV:C .Q`%I:C@:JR VG: V `Q` :` V`]:` 7 :!.V`QCVQ``VC1$1QJ1J*+ `:JI11QJ $QCCVH G%H@V ``QI  :JR]`V0VJ 1QJ;R &`VV/ :`G%H@ :  ]I CVH %`V .V: `V1J :  ]I !%VR:7 !.%`R:7`R &Q1 10VC7VRVV@ QI:J C:0V %H 1QJ  )*+* .VJ1QJ "1R`Q`7Q%`Q1J]V`QJ:CC:0V V7JQCR:```QI ]I `1

VR1GGQJ&`Q=VH 1QJ =%VVJ;!Q1V`1C1 %]11 .:VR1GGQJ QI:`@Q`CR+/:78 2%VVJ;%:1J``QIT ]I

%I:JVR1GGQJ V:``VR:JR=Q1J .V*%I:JVR 1GGQJ`Q`I: 1QJ`Q`:&VC16"1`R;V7V 2Q`VV :1C ].Q Q$`:].* 5Q1JQ%`&:HVGQQ@ 6`Q%]7 :C@1:7: ]I >2VR1J+I]V`1:C? I:1C7`V 1H8:H8%@ 6 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 Comment Editor Ravi Pall COMMENT [email protected] Rhys Davies reinvents kitchen science “That mammoth carcass I left near it has changed colour. Oh, it’s hot like the heat- light! Mmm, that’s new...”

he undersized room is half-science of alchemy. But they’d be ness. And there are those pioneers who you’d have to eat salad all day long. were invented. packed out with complex, wrong. What we think of as alchemy give their lives (sometimes literally) in And salad isn’t cooking – rabbits eat While it’s great to talk about science esoteric instruments. Jars was nothing more than tricks and cons the never-ending pursuit of knowledge salad and they don’t even have oppos- and cookery in these logical, rational- T of powders, preserves and to fool the rich and the stupid. Alche- and flavour. able thumbs! istic terms, there are also times when preparations, both ex- mists were certainly interested in mak- As an aside, I was once almost count- With the advent of fire, cookery and you just have to throw the scientific otic and eldritch, line the shelves. Es- ing gold but they didn’t need a fancy ed among those brave souls, following science really took off. Our primor- method to the wind and see where says and treatises by greater men and stone for that. No, science takes its a catastrophe of a pasta bake. That dial ancestors were the first to realise an open mind and dumb luck can get women, heavy with inky annotations, cues from a much purer discipline. night I stared Death in face, with my the potential of this strange dancing you. In science, you have to put more lay strewn about, covering all surfaces. Just consider the similarities be- arms tightly wrapped around the toi- light. “Ah, this heat-light I found out effort in pretending you’re a mature The air is filled with smoke, fire and tween the kitchen and the laboratory. let bowl. I thought my time had come. by the dead trees is superb! Hmm, adult but this is more acceptable in heat. All is silent as the room’s sole oc- In both, you have to carefully meas- The timely application of sliced bread but that mammoth carcass I left near cookery; I remember last term using cupant rises from a stupor. He finds ure out your reactants and set up the and a great deal of ketchup was the it has changed colour. Oh, it’s hot like raspberry jam as a substitute for pasta the result of his investigations, the necessary apparatus. Safety measures only thing that kept me in this plane. the heat-light! Mmm, that’s new...it sauce. The results were sticky but ex- fruit of countless years’ toil. Euphoric must be taken, usually involving a blast Also, fire. Fire is important. Heat, en- feels different to how Wife does it... tremely tasty – the resulting diabetic tears stain his cheeks, blackened by his screen of some kind, especially when ergy, we need these things to drive our and even though it’s been a few days, coma was a minor side-effect. Some endeavours. dangerous compounds/baked potatoes testing forward. Since the dawn (and this still tastes quite good. Maybe if I of our greatest discoveries lie in these You may think this is a description of are involved. Hypotheses are formulat- full English breakfast, presumably) of put more meat near the heat-light, I unexplored frontiers, these brave new the quarters of some mediaeval master ed, tested and refined for the next ex- man, fire has been vital to man’s sur- can make it taste better too?” Thus, worlds. Kekulé worked out the struc- of alchemy, finally realising his search periment/meal, bringing us ever closer vival and learning. Fire refines, fire re- observation and hypothesis were laid ture of benzene while high off his tits for the fabled philosopher’s stone, but to understanding the divine mysteries juvenates, fire changes! Without fire, down as the foundation, the very cor- on opium and Emperor Shennong dis- you’d be wrong. It was my kitchen of the universe/cookbook. We can read of some kind or another, you are barely nerstone, of both cookery and science, covered tea when drinking hot water last week, and I had just perfected the about the investigations others have experimenting and you are certainly by some rather well-spoken hunter- under a tree with an arboreal alopecia. boiled egg. undertaken, either in Nature or Read- not cooking. What does the science lab gatherers. And naturally, fire was a Ah, the maillard reaction has fin- Many people think that modern er’s Digest, and try them for ourselves, revolve around? The bunsen burner. brilliant way of keeping warm through ished now; I can have toast. Mm, but- chemistry arose from the mystical assessing their validity and delicious- The kitchen? The stove. Without fire, the long winter nights, before gas bills ter-topped science! Milli Begum with a retort to Mariash

“I’d like Mariash to apologise to all other females she has disgusted with her views”

LIKE ROUGH SEX TOO. Apol- of the 18 – 21 yr olds around the world! shed as time passes. That first year you. You’re not a generic “slutty female character nor any bearing on the valid- ogies for being crude, but I want It’ll always crop up, as a scientist you away, especially the first term, is when fresher”, and no-one, including anony- ity of your opinions. Holding the status to attract the same audience as will be familiar with the evolution- they will grow-up and hone their in- mous comment writers, has a right to of a virgin does not elevate you above I Mariash Notelling, the people ary concept that humans function to stincts. This worldly knowledge cannot judge what you choose to do. others. Your sexual interests and status who were made to feel like shal- the four basic F’s: fight, flight, feeding be gained however, without launching Onto the most irksome point in are completely irrelevant outside of low sluts throughout that comment and... reproduction. Of course we can yourself out there and accumulating as Mariash’s column. Why do you men- intimate personal relationships. Sure piece. What first struck me is the anger all rise above it and discourse on other much experience as you can. “La con- tion your virginity? Does it really mat- there may be some Mariash out there and venom the writer felt against other matters, but it would be futile to say naissance, c’est la transformation d’un ter? I thought it detracted from the judging you or conversely a patronis- people – I really did wonder why they that a sophisticated society should be savoir en une expérience de vie”. This power of your piece. Already border- ing wanna-be cool kid looking down were getting so worked up by other exempt of the desire to fuck. isn’t a call to sleep around as much as ing the line between being facetious or on you for your lack of experience. people’s business! Rather than attack- First years are usually fresh out of possible. What I’m trying to convey is not, that really sent it to the nutcase Ignore them: they are not worth your ing bits of last week’s column though, school. For many of them, it is the that, as first years, and throughout the pit. The concept of having not “given time. I’d like to use my couple of hundred first time that they will have been let rest of your life, you will be learning in” is particularly worrying. It sug- I’d like Mariash to apologise to all words to approach the points raised loose, out of the advisory guard of par- and doing new things, and sometimes gests that all non-virgins, including the girls she has offended. Not only the using a different view. ents and the school system. Some may – whoops! – you’ll make a mistake. those that are in loving relationships, promiscuous ones, but all the other fe- felix and the student population are choose to crash head first into a yard Don’t take shame in it. That experience are weak of mind. Clutching to your males she has disgusted by her narrow- only as obsessed with sex as say – most of ale, but it’s a phase that is normally is a small part of a book that makes virginity has neither any say in your minded views. felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 7 [email protected] COMMENT Gilead Amit reaches his final destination “You find yourself staring into the disgruntled face of a heavily pregnant woman”

ome of you may remember You board carriage A a good kilome- Dah-dum-Dah-dum-Dah-hearts-of- now been uploaded to our on-board Possibly the only thing that makes the last week. It was long, green, tre and a half ahead of the puffing in- men-Dah-dum. software. We apologise for any incon- English railway system halfway bear- and to be honest with you vestment banker running behind you. The paper is unceremoniously ripped venience caused.” able is the knowledge that things are S a little dull. I can’t claim all You scan the electric signs above the from your hands, and you find yourself You flush an unbelievably deep shade so much worse abroad. In Italy, for in- the credit for the dullness seats, looking for one that says ‘avail- staring into the disgruntled face of a of crimson, and attempt to gather to- stance, where once the trains used to myself, you understand, but I like to able’. Aha! You find one – and it’s a win- heavily pregnant woman with babies in gether all the sections of the Guardian. arrive bang on time and leave, and the think that I added to it in some small dow table seat facing in the right direc- either arm and a Hamleys bag draped You soon dismiss this task as being hu- leaders used to fall apart with alarming way. My contribution took the form tion at that – what luck! You throw your over her shoulder. Her face is flushed manly impossible, and concentrate on frequency, now it is the trains which of a piece in last week’s issue – a piece case in the overhead rack, arrange your- with an otherworldly glow and her eyes extricating yourself from the situation regularly fall apart, and the leaders who which rather naughtily bit its own self in the plaid cliff-face of seating, rip are like tungsten filaments on the point as quickly as the limited maneouvring arrive, bang on time, and never seem to nails and hung itself over a cliff before the Saturday Guardian out of its plastic of incandescence. space will allow. Some agonisingly slow leave. Not much of a joke, granted, but reaching a conclusion. Though I’m wrapper, and begin perusing the first of “You’re sitting in our seats”, she minutes later, you find yourself standing at least the timing was right. Which is sure you’d wish a similar fate to befall its 12 special supplements in perfect in- growls. in the doorway of Carriage G, trying to more than can be said for the damned me, the dramatic finale to last week’s ner peace. “But I can’t be,” you calmly point out, stop the door from giving you a comple- trains. episode is here at last. A short while later you hear, through “Look at the...” mentary circumcision whenever it arbi- In the end, of course, you get to Those of you who actually gave a your shimmering golden bubble of hap- Your breath catches in your throat as trarily sees fit to close. Often, I should your final destination. This is assum- damn last saw me rushing across Euston piness, the bustle of several thousand you see that the word ‘available’, which point out, with a large and hairy dog ing that the train is able to navigate its station, desperately trying to be the first people boarding a carriage which has previously hung over your head in the using various parts of your anatomy for way through the minefield of obstacles person to set foot on the platform... exactly forty-seven seats. You raise the manner of a protective charm, has van- target practice. which include leaves lying on the line, Because being first on the platform Business section a little higher and hum ished. It has now been replaced by that It is experiences such as these that rogue children stealing lengths of ca- means you have the crucial strategic ‘The Battle-Hymn of the Republic’ qui- most cruel and dispiriting of words: lead me to wonder what is so appeal- ble, and the force field around the M25 advantage. Most importantly, you can etly to yourself. ‘reserved.’ The writing is quite literally ing about Heaven if it involves having a which attempts to keep the good people be the first to race all the way across to “Excuse me...” on the wall. An unreasonably friendly train of seventy-two virgins for the tak- of London safe from the depredations carriage A, which is traditionally the Dah-dum-Dah-dum-Dah-trumpet. voice on the PA chooses this moment ing. God knows I’ve taken seventy-two of the North. emptiest and least popular. Ergo, you “Excuse me...” to announce: Virgin trains and I feel as though I’ve Ah, trains. You can’t live if you miss think, the best place to find a free seat. Dah-dum-Dah-dum-defeat. “The seat reservation data has only been through Hell. them, you can live if they miss you. David Stewart’s sounds of ejaculation “I’m about to come, I’m going to come! I’m coming! Oh, my God, I’ve just come!”

onitus (n. masc. fourth de- it is thrust upon you by the vagaries mates have to buy earplugs to block rather than ‘oo’ for instance). Once bin gekommen!’ clension): a sound; pl. soni- of nature. I would like to raise a bone out the din of you and a special friend you think you have a winner on your Let’s go in a bit deeper: once you’ve tus (pronounced ‘sonitoos’). of contention with this view; it sug- recreating a radio play of Abu Graib hands, why not swap mp3s with your mastered the basics in your chosen S Ejaculare (v.); to throw gests that the people who whinny like prison. Ultimately, someone is going friends on Facebook and ask for their language you can be more adventur- out, to hurl, to ejaculate; horses when they pop the weasel are to hear your S.E. and it is best that advice? If they have to listen to you ous. Instead of: ‘I’m going to come.’ try ejaculandorum (gerund, gen. plural): in no control of themselves. It implies they don’t need serious counselling af- grunt-bonanza at one in the A.M., the ‘Here comes the choo-choo.’ Instead of of (the) throwing, of (the) ejaculating. that some people are genetically pro- terwards. And if you think it’s bad for least you could do is to give them right ‘J’arrive’ try ‘J’habite à Croydon et j’ai grammed to squeal like worried guinea your mate with a wall between you and of veto over the noise that sounds like a un frère et deux soeurs’. There’s not Hence, sonitus ejaculandorum: the pigs at a church fête while they spend a your tortuous moaning, imagine what chimpanzees’ circumcision party. much time during the victory wail for sounds of ejaculating. Or, more collo- creamy penny. To say that their predic- it’s like for the girl or boy you’re evacu- One mess we must mop up is vo- much more than an extended vowel, quially, ‘cum noises’. ament is incurable is to condemn such ating: your emetic gurgling could be cabulary. Of course you may take the but for a challenge, try pus-howling After much agitation, I was torn as to people to a life of seeing their sexual doing him or her some serious mental traditional approach, viz. ‘I’m about ‘Harriet Harman!’ during the Big Bang. whether or not to write this article, not partners cringe mid-coitus every time damage. to come, I’m going to come! I’m com- To finish off you could announce: ‘I’ve least because of the ribald and licen- they start rehearsing a symphony in The first thing to do is to get stuck in ing! I’m coming! Oh, my God, I’ve just curdled your receptacle.’ With tious nature of such a sticky subject. the key of mad cow disease. and start thinking about the sort of S.E. just come!’ While dependable, this is enough practice you could even build But it’s clearly an important issue, so Call me a snivelling leftie, but I be- that you would like to hear yourself. not exactly love poetry. To spice up up to something like this: germane to human existence, that it lieve such people can and should be Watch documentaries (porn) and see if the butter, you could try it in French: ‘Ooo, ooo, eee, I’m on the 4:17 from seemed callous not to have a crack at rehabilitated. there are any S.E.s that you think you ‘Je vais arriver. Je suis sur le point Portsmouth. ooo, eee, I’ve really got it. Still, we are civilised enough that we I hope this article makes inroads into could pull off. Record some practice d’arriver. J’arrive! J’arrive! Sacré bleu, the wind up me now, aah, eee. I CAN can at least substitute ‘cum noises’ with achieving that aim. Even so, it’s worth runs on your laptop. Play back your ef- je suis arrivé!’ (N.B. Grammar: Don’t SEE THE SEA! Ooo, mmm. That’s it. its proper medical name ‘sonitus ejacu- mentioning that prevention is better forts. Does it sound like a rhinoceros say ‘j’ai arrivé’ or you will be a laughing Mmm, oh. that was good value, urgh, landorum’, henceforth ‘S.E.’. than cure. Many of you are in a postion with a giraffe stuck up its bum? Then stock.) Alternatively the German can yeah, I feel like I’ve just had the best There’s a school of thought that says to cultivate your S.E. from its infancy. it’s got to go. Experiment a bit: try carry a more punchy tone: ‘Ich werde piss ever.’ that you don’t choose your S.E., that You can act now, before your house- changing the pitch or the vowels (‘ee’ kommen! Ich komme! Ich komme! Ich I.et’s get the creative juices flowing. 8 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 FEATURED COMMENT [email protected] Raz Jabary The future of Iraq

raq is as divided as an apple pie. dangerous security situation combined in the early twentieth century. The Brit- The expression of support from to mass murder thousands of his own Arabs and Kurds make up its two with the neglect of the city’s essential in- ish were quick enough to recognize this abroad for a continuation of a united people or order the killing of his clos- main ethnic groups. A further frastructure and facilities such as water and as a result handed over power to Iraq is immense. Saudi-Arabia is fear- est relatives. The Iraqi oil sector is up I religious division puts the Arabs supply and electricity put many original Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority upon leav- ful of having an independent oil-rich and running, but this time instead of into the two main camps of Sun- Kurds from Kirkuk off from returning. ing, thus depending on an iron fist rule Shiite state to its north. Iran, Syria and its revenues going to arms and pal- nis and Shiites. Not too long ago crit- Many thousands more have permanent- to keep the country together. George Turkey – each with their own Kurdish aces for the dictator, they go to or- ics spoke of a ‘civil war’ going on in the ly settled abroad, with no intentions W. Bush failed the follow the British in minorities seeking self-rule – strongly dinary Iraqi citizens struggling on a country. Laws are vetoed, deadlines fail of going back. Now, with the tyranny his understanding of the country’s divi- oppose the creation of an independ- day-to-day basis to build up a normal to be met on parliamentary level, infil- gone and a new democratic government sions in 2003. ent Kurdish state as neighbour. The life free of violence. tration into the national police and army system, the Kurds want to incorporate Why would the international commu- U.S., already highly criticized for hav- Unfortunately, facts cannot deter- by insurgents still remains. What is to Kirkuk into their federal region, based nity not take the responsibility to call a ing gone into Iraq and widely asso- mine Iraq’s future, but instead it is be the future of such a country? As in- on a referendum in which the city’s in- stop to daily inter-ethnic and sectarian ciated with failure of its intelligence seen and approached differently by habitants of Britain, the country which habitants can decide their own future. disputes, claims of oppression and feel- and military apparatus, would be even each and every person. A divided first ruled Iraq and had a big role in the Unlike general elections here in Brit- ings of insecurity by giving in to the de- more humiliated if its initial promise Iraq, the tendency as a consequence creation of the ‘new’ Iraq, we ought to ain, those in Iraq are still very reflective mands of a great proportion of the Iraqi for a ‘free, united and democratic Iraq’ of the failure of the country ever familiarize ourselves with its future of people’s strong expression and asso- people, namely far-going federalism or would turn into an Iraq broken up into since its creation to serve its people prospects. ciation with their identity. Sunni Arabs even independence? The fact is that the different pieces as a result of the failure equally and rightfully, is a justified Nearly two weeks ago the controver- voting for their Shiite counterparts or reality on the ground is a much more in the practical implementation of the measure through many eyes. sial election law was passed, paving the the Kurds voting on either are simply complicated issue than it sounds. envisaged democratic system it sought However, as mentioned before, this way for national elections in coming unthinkable phenomena. It is the re- Inter-related marriages between to bring. would be a rather difficult and time- January. The source of the controversy sult of many decennia of oppression by Shiite and Sunni couples will lead to In case a break-up does go ahead, how consuming task and will therefore around the law was the Kirkuk gover- the subsequent Iraqi regimes targeting a new generation that will find it hard will the Kurds and Sunnis cope with not be realised anytime in the near norate in the north. Under Saddam and communities just because of who they to express a preference for one side or suddenly becoming landlocked and de- future. After decennia of fatal deci- many preceding governments ethnic are or are not. the other. I know such people and I pending upon neighbouring states for sions from outside Iraq that have Kurds making up the majority within the As a result of people’s votes being am aware of their ‘identity crises’; they essential supplies or the allowance of come to affect and cause suffering city and its surroundings were deported, mainly based on identity rather than simply term themselves as ‘Iraqi’. In an the operation of supply routes? All in for the people within it, it is fairest to in the hope of putting claim to the oil- ideology, Iraqi politics has indeed been ethnically mixed city such as Baghdad all, it is a very difficult matter indeed. conclude that any Iraqi way forward rich governorate as one being of ‘Arabic dominated by the former. There is no people of various backgrounds have Would I, born an Iraqi myself, prefer indeed should be completely in the identity’. such thing as an ‘Iraqi people’s party’. To lived there for generations, often in the to have the old regime back instead of hands of the Iraqis themselves. In 2003, after the fall of the dictator- me, this phenomenon underlines that same street or even as neighbours. How facing all these everyday problems? No, Free from foreign interference and ship, many Kurds returned back to the Iraq is already a much divided country do you divide such a place? Not only is definitely not. I strongly believe the manipulation, free from economic city with the hope of restoring their and in fact has always been so ever since it not an easy task, but it actually ap- Iraqi people are far better off without embargos and above all, free from lives. Nevertheless, the city’s relatively it was established as a British mandate proaches the extent of being impossible. the cruel dictator who did not hesitate violence. unionpage A Christmas Present from the Union available from Monday 30 November until 17 December

FOSTERS BLACKTHORN JOHN SMITH’S IMPERIAL ALE BEER OR SOFT DRINK BEEF BURGER 4 PINTS PITCHER OF FOSTERS CHICKEN BURGER BLACKTHORN +BURGER OR VEGGIE BURGER (75P LESS) OR JOHN SMITH’S PITCHER FOSTERS BLACKTHORN +LARGE PIZZA JOHN SMITH’S IMPERIAL ALE BEER OR SOFT DRINK +FISH & CHIPS AVAILABLE SATURDAY 12:00-21:00 AVAILABLE MONDAY, TUESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY 17:00-21:00

FOSTERS BLACKTHORN JOHN SMITH’S BEER OR IMPERIAL ALE LARGE BOLOGNESE +PASTA LARGE VEGGIE PASTA

AVAILABLE WEDNESDAY 17:00-21:00

University Challenge 2nd Round

Imperial take on St Hugh’s College, Oxford for a quarter fi nal place in University Challenge on the 30 November. We will be showing the contest on the big screen at the Union so come and show your support!

Imperial’s team, consisting of team leader Gilead Amit, Simon Good, Ciaran Healy, Ben Nicolson and reserve Ed Brightman will be on BBC Two from 20:00 and the Union is the best place to see it. We will also be launching our special meal and drink deals!

imperialcollegeunion.org 10 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 Science Editors Nathan Ley & Brigette Atkins SCIENCE [email protected] Placenta fluid: football’s ‘miracle’ cure A massage using fluid from horse placentas? It’s all the rage for the treatment of sport-related injuries

Shupaula Dass Science Reporter centa, for anyone who wants to use this current goes through a stick holding The treatment however does not treatment have risen. Almost as high as as a dinner date discussion is placen- the gel, which is applied to the injured seem to work for all players and there the result from the recent Spurs/Wigan tophagy. Humans who tantalise their spot.” are people who remain skeptical of it game. Yet the treatment has not been When perusing a footballer’s shopping taste buds in this activity come from There must have been something even within the sporting profession. scientifically supported, thus causing list, one would expect to find not much America, Europe, and Mexico to name in that gel. Physiotherapists predicted Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is much uproar. Dr Mariana Kovacevic out of the ordinary. Vitamins, protein a few places in the world. Animals, in- Liverpool striker Yossi Benayoun to among them claiming that sometimes has not registered her business under shakes, lean beef steaks, thongs, and cluding herbivores also eat placentas. be out for up to 5 weeks, healing from it “can be psychological for the players Serbian law which could cause prob- horse placenta. Okay, perhaps shop- Apart from placentophagy being be- a hamstring injury. After receiving to feel they can be helped. I'm not a fan, lems for her patients. Her clinic will be ping for Black Beauty’s placenta is a bit lieved to alleviate postpartum depres- the placental treatment, he was back but I'm not a doctor either. I respect shut down until she files the necessary extreme. But players can receive treat- sion, it is also used as an ingredient in within a week. On the pitch. Not only the freedom of everybody to be treated paperwork to legalise her business, ment for their injuries using equine some Chinese medicines. Medically- was he able to play, but he scored the in the way they want to be treated.” that is, if officials can find her. Van Per- placental fluid. Just when we thought speaking, the placenta contains a lipid equalising goal. Numbers of players considering this sie left for treatment but has not been these pillars of male finesse could not compound named prostaglandin. The reported to have turned up at the “offi- transcend any higher levels of bizarre- presence of the compound stimulates cial” Kovakcevic clinic. She is shady as ness, they do. Arsenal’s Van Persie is the return to normal size of the uterus. she is notorious. Rumours of her mira- the latest player to surrender the bread Oxytocin is present in small quantities, cle secret formula have spread to other and butter that is his ankle to Dr Ko- easing stress of the birth process. European teams, such as Real Madrid, vacevic for treatment. But this is not So what’s with the recent placenta who have asked the Serbian doctor to the first time the placenta has been craze? Robin Van Persie is the answer divulge her recipe. used, and indeed, is not its only use. to this. Through the sporting grape- Madness. Pure madness is the only The placenta, from the Latin word vine Van Persie heard of Dr Kovacevic’s way to describe this placental con- for ‘cake’, is unique to mammals. Con- miracle cures for injuries. Before he troversy. Sure it’s a useful organ, full necting a fetus to the uterine wall it left he commented that the doctor is of goodness, eaten for hundreds of delivers oxygen and food, taking away ‘vague about her methods but I know years. I don’t doubt that. What I ques- any fetal waste. As culture has evolved, she massages you using fluid from a tion is the mental state of ball-kicking, so has perception of it. In Nigeria, the placenta.’ thong-wearing players that represent Nibo people view the placenta as the Another treated native Serbian play- this wonderfully-conservative island. deceased twin of the baby and con- er was able to offer a more detailed Victoria Beckham…forget your knick- duct a funeral for it. Then there are explanation. “She uses a combination er drawer, worry about what’s behind people spread throughout the world of electricity and the miracle gel that David’s motivation for you popping out who eat it. The act of eating the pla- is her exclusive product. The electric Arsenal striker Robin Van Persie after a horrific challenge from a dirty Italian another one. Are revolutionary bioplastics environmentally sound?

Nuno Helder Science Reporter Not all bioplastics are biodegradable, Presently, they have 3 main draw- the packaging (e.g. trays, containers, tomotive and electronics. While their as is the case of Polyamide 11, used in backs that reduce their utilisation and bags) and automotive (interior consumption has been growing about automotive applications. We can then compared to petroplastics: manufac- trim and under-the-bonnet applica- 17 % per year, they still amount for Every time the Aerosmith song divide bioplastics into two main fields: turing difficulty, lower performance, tions) industries, followed by the elec- less than 1 % of the yearly plastic con- “Pink” springs to mind, I readapt the those that are biodegradable, with the and higher cost. So, the obvious mar- tronics (e.g. laptop and mobile casings) sumption. As they are relatively “new”, two first verses: “Pink, it’s my new ob- packaging industry being the main kets are those where products have a industry are investing more and more the science and technology involved session / Pink, it’s not even a question” consumer and those that are not bio- short life and/or are reasonably pro- in these materials. is recent, leading to a higher cost and to “Green, it’s our new obsession / degradable, mainly found in the auto- tected from certain environmental Not all bioplastics are biodegradable; some controversy regarding sustain- Green, it’s still a question”. Why is this? motive and electronics industries. conditions, and mass-produced. For they tend to be harder to manufacture ability. There is another advantage to Broadly speaking, society has been As with everything in life, everyone these reasons and together with en- and have lower performance. Due to bioplastics...some of them are edible pushing forward for a ‘green’ change in has a different definition of what is a vironmental concerns and marketing this, they are found in particular ap- and yummy. habits and technology; however, many biodegradable plastic. To address this (the ‘look-good-to-others’ factor), plications, mostly in packaging, au- Who’s up for some starch? still question the need to go green. issue, the International Organisation Also, narrowingly speaking, the issue for Standardisation (ISO) released of what’s ‘green’ or not is controverse. the standard EN13432, establishing Such is the case of bioplastics and bio- how fast and in which conditions a degradable plastics. plastic must degrade. Biopolymers have been around way The other issue that generates great before humanity, appearing, disap- discussion (mostly due to commer- pearing, mixing, dispersing, forming cial and not scientific or engineering organisms, forming more complex or- aspects) is whether bioplastics have ganisms; even more complex than the a lower environmental impact than plots of Mexican or Venezuelan soap “petroplastics”. Both sides should operas. In the same way that these not be dismissed, however, the oppo- soap operas are full of beautiful people, nents of bioplastics generally do not biopolymers are full of beautiful mol- take into account (many times, con- ecules. Look at DNA; how impressive sciously) that the technology is new is that with its long double helix shape? and that the economies of scale are And multifunctional proteins with still not as developed as in petroplas- their sensor-actuator characteristics?! tics, in spite of continuing to show a A biopolymer is a polymer (a long promising increase. Statistics vary, molecule comprised by repeated small but bioplastics consumption has molecules, the monomers) derived been growing at about 17 % per year from renewable sources (e.g. vegetable and is forecasted to reach 900 kilo- oil or starch). A bioplastic is a biopoly- metric tons in 2013. Now, it’s impor- mer with something mixed, such as tant to have in mind that this is less pigment to give colour to the mixture. than 1 % of the total yearly consump- Biodegradable is a characteristic of tion of plastic. a material being broken down into Leaving Mexican soap operas and smaller molecules or elements by liv- chemistry aside, let’s talk about the ing organisms. engineering of bioplastics. The Honda FC Sport Concept is a hydrogen fuel cell sports car with body panels made from bioplastics felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 11 Politics Editors James Goldsack, Katya-yani Vyas, James Lees and Phil Murray POLITICS [email protected] North Korea vs Human Rights Nobody’s in power Rory Fenton Five North Korean refugees were re- James Lees Politics Editor cently arrested in China after fleeing their country. They are likely to be for- cibly repatriated to face ill treatment. North Korea was officially estab- It has been a tumultuous week in ing a chairman of the council to being lished as the Democratic People’s Re- politics. Firstly the President of Eu- a chief, in much the same way as the public of Korea in 1948 and has been rope has been elected, the little known President of the US is nothing like the communist ever since. The guiding Belgian Prime minister, Herman van job laid out in the constitution origi- principle of its dictatorship is the idea Rompuy, is now set to ascend to the nally. This would mean a ‘real’ Presi- of Juche (self reliance). This has re- world stage and represent Europe to dent of Europe and that needs a ‘real’ sulted in the brutal oppression of the the world; and this appointment has country, which has to result in even country’s 24 million strong population. been causing quite some controversy. less sovereignty in each member state Democratic only in name, its people He certainly doesn’t seem to have the and as such, a lesser degree of control suffer terribly. “traffic stopping power” of other world by the people as we traipse along the Up to a million people are kept im- leaders. Frankly it will look a bit ridicu- road to a big centralised government. prisoned in North Korea. There is no lous at a press conference where he is Also in the news this week was the judicial mechanism whereby North representing Europe with other world state opening of Parliament which Koreans can be heard by an impartial leaders such as: Hu Jintao, President of peaks with the Queen’s speech. Of judge, and where allegations of wrong- China and as a result, in charge of the course the Queen’s speech is in fact doing by authorities can be answered. largest military in the world; Barack the government’s speech: all of the bills Political dissidents (such as Christians Obama, the man running the coun- that the government plans to bring and democrats) are sent to a prison try with the largest economy in the into law over the course of the year are called a Guryujang which is divided world; and Herman van Rompuy, the announced normally preceded by “My into two facilities: one for ‘preliminary man who was PM for 11 months of the government will”. Effectively, at least in examination’ and the other inside the country which... has the world’s only these situations, our monarch is a pup- camp. According to the Citizen Alli- fully lit road network? pet so frankly, I wish someone would ance for North Korean Human Rights, Still, on the other side of the argu- pull her strings to do something more most of those sent to this latter camp ment, the new position is not the lead- entertaining like the dicks, pussies and do not survive. The Government also er of a country like Jintao’s or Obama’s, assholes speech in Team America. practices the principle of guilt by as- his role is mainly to chair meetings of Unfortunately it would seem that the sociation. Without a legal basis, up to the European Council. The European government has a much more twisted three generations – grandparents, par- Council is made up of the leaders of sense of humour. Instead they made ents and children – related to the ac- the member states and it is they who her read out a list of things that are cused can also be incarcerated. have elected van Rompuy into his new simply never going to happen, which According to Amnesty International, position. The decision was made be- might also be called the Labour mani- prisoners are forced to undertake phys- hind closed doors at a dinner/meeting festo. With the Tories luckily still in ically demanding work for ten or more of the Council, where they also div- the lead for the next general election hours each day, 7 days every week. Pris- vied up the other top jobs created by and the Lib Dems saying they won’t oners are punished if suspected of “ly- the newly ratified Lisbon treaty. One of support Labour if the election ends in ing, not working fast enough or forget- these was the new high representative a hung parliament, it is extremely un- ting the words of patriotic songs”. for foreign affairs and security which likely that any bill proposed by Labour Due to the combination of forced has gone to Baroness Ashton- a British now will ever make it into law. hard labour, inadequate food, beatings, Labour peer. This brings to mind having the lack of medical care and unhygienic This decision seems to be generating Queen do something much more living conditions, many prisoners fall much more controversy, in Britain at sensible- dissolving parliament. This ill, with some having died in custody least, than the election of van Rompuy. is what King Abduallah of Jordan has or soon after release. Torture is regu- North Korea has had a troubled history for such a young nation While neither has much political clout, done this week, forcing an ineffectual larly used in interrogation facilities, at least not as of yet, van Rompuy has government to break up and go to early “sometimes to the point of disabil- been widely hailed as a success in Bel- elections. Of course nothing is ever as ity, paralysis or death”. Prisoners have are often simple efforts such as those have other “assignments” such as rais- gium. Van Rompuy has been praised black and white as that, with the oppo- also reportedly been used for medical, to secure food. ing rabbits, but also are mobilised for for the way he has held the Belgian sition saying it has been done to force chemical and biological experiments. Human Rights Watch (HRW) re- heavy labour, such as flood damage re- government together despite difficul- through proposals that couldn’t be A recent report by the organisa- ported that North Korean children covery, railway maintenance and road ties arising partially from separatist passed otherwise. In Britain though, tion Christian Solidarity Worldwide face discrimination and punishment paving. movements. I can’t see a single good reason to let (CSW) has found that pregnancy is on the basis of the status, activities, According to the ACHR, there were Baroness Ashton though, is much Labour carry on running the country not allowed in prison and testimonies opinions or beliefs of their parents, or reports of “children being sentenced to less commendable. After failing to get with the unelected Gordon Brown at show that, “should efforts by authori- other family members, and that col- death” and that authorities make the elected to the House of Commons she its head. ties to induce abortion not be success- lective punishment of a whole family watching of public executions compul- was made a life peer by Labour and A personal highlight of the propos- ful, babies alive at birth are killed... is common for political offenses. The sory, in the hope of preventing juvenile eventually became leader of the House als from the Queen’s speech for me some accounts even describe prison- Asia Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) crime. The ACHR also found reports of Lords. Then, last year, after Peter was the idea of writing into law that the ers being forced to kill their newly has found authorities evade reporting of “11 year-old children sent to forced Mandelson returned, she took on his government must cut the deficit in the born child”. Women detained for hav- on torture or abuse against children in labour camps for stealing electric job as commissioner for trade for Eu- next 4 years. Who exactly is going to go ing crossed the border have suffered prisons or by national agencies. w i r e s .” rope. So essentially she has never been to jail for that? similar treatment. They have also found that “custody With the world’s focus on North Ko- elected by the public and has no expe- More sensible ideas are being pushed According to CSW, North Korean facilities serving the purpose of pro- rea’s nuclear programme, it is essential rience with foreign affairs. by the Tories however, David Cameron defectors give testimonies of execu- tecting children without parents, or that we remember the immense suffer- Of course it’s no great surprise that has announced that if they are elected tions both inside and outside the de- those forcibly separated from their ing of the North Koreans themselves. two ‘nobodies’ have been elected into in then they will hold an emergency tention and prison system. Inside, the parents, resemble rather a detention They have no one to speak for them; the new roles. If they were to take on budget within 50 days. The Conserva- penalty has reportedly been carried facility more than a protection facility”. no natural resources or strategic po- any real power then it would take away tives are actually slipping in polls at the out for acts such as “foraging for or Children in these centres are “deprived sition that could be of real interest to control from Paris and Berlin, some- moment, with their lead now at the stealing food, attempting to escape, of education and exploited for labour”. us in London. But we must speak for thing unwanted by France or Germany. lowest point since December last year. rioting, assaulting guards, refusing to The ACHR has also found that, de- them. Suffering on this scale cannot The status quo remains- Europe won’t Some police are also threatening abandon religious beliefs and criticiz- spite the fact that the minimum work- and must not be ignored. project the views of Europe but of to quit over the Conservative plans ing the country”. ing age defined by law is 16 years old, it Organisations such as Amnesty In- France and Germany. to have elected local commissioners. It has also been used as a punish- is commonly accepted that children are ternational are doing great work in All said and done, I am in favour of Which is understandable, you can’t ment for those North Koreans, repat- mobilised for agricultural work from applying political pressure on the the appointment of a relative unknown have a Police state if it’s democratic, riated from a neighbouring country, their middle-school years (12 years country via the UN, lobbying our own for the top job. If the role had been and of course the Police aren’t legally who have had contact with South Ko- old). In the poverty-stricken North- ambassadors to intervene and getting filled by a political power-house then allowed to go on strike so they would reans or Christians. Outside the prison ern provinces, children are mobilized into the country to compile evidence the job would have evolved from be- have to quit. system, the acts subject to execution as early as 8-9 years old. Children also against the Orwellian regime. 12 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009

BusinessBusiness EditorEditor SinaSina AtaherianAtaherian BUSINESS [email protected] Scandal at top climate research centre Edward Townes reviews an email leak story that supports his speculations in last week’s edition

ast week I wrote an article that these scientists are zealots with of transparency is legally, scientifically, for felix that briefly outlined an agenda, and it is no surprise that and morally unjustifiable. why I am a ‘Climate Change’ their research practices mirror this. Another aspect of the perversion we L sceptic. In that article, I The far more shocking and disturb- find in these emails is efforts to bully tried to answer the frequent ing evidence in these emails is that of and eliminate people who may be criti- question: Do you think it is a conspir- a concerted campaign to pervert and cal of their work from the peer-review acy? I said that yes, I do think it is a undermine the peer-review process, process. Examples include efforts to conspiracy, because I do believe a few thus rendering the scientific method fire journal editors who approved pub- key individuals are being consciously virtually impotent. lication of papers that they disagreed deceptive, and that is what defines a There are many emails, for example, with, “I will be emailing the journal to conspiracy. where these scientists discuss how to tell them I’m having nothing more to Less than a day after that article was avoid transparency in their work and do with it until they rid themselves of published, my suspicions were stun- raw data. One email says “If they ever this troublesome editor.” (Philip Jones, ningly confirmed. Someone hacked hear there is a Freedom of Information Nov 2003). Efforts to undermine en- into the email database of the climate Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete tire journals that do not conform to scientists at the University of East An- the file rather than send to anyone.” their manipulation of the peer-review glia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), (Philip Jones, Feb 2005) – showing us process, “Perhaps we should encour- arguably the most important climate a willful effort to prevent other people age our colleagues in the climate re- science research center in the world, from being able to review their work. search community to no longer sub- and published 1,073 emails on the In- They seem particularly concerned mit to, or cite papers in, this journal.” ternet. Schadenfreude aside, I do not with hiding their data from people who (Michael Mann, Nov 2003), and “If the condone this transgression against may be critical, thus implying they only RMS [Royal Meteorological Society] is privacy. That being said, the work and want those who will agree with them going to require authors to make ALL correspondence of these scientists is to check their work and demonstrating data available - raw data PLUS results very much in the public interest, and laughable insecurity in their research. from all intermediate calculations - I I wish to discuss the content of those This evidence also shines new light on will not submit any further papers to emails here. instances like in August 2009 when RMS journals.” (Ben Santer, March The first observation is that there are they claimed to have “lost” all the origi- 2009). Even going so far as to make numerous instances of discussions on nal data from which they constructed statements such as, “I can’t see either how to utilise various statistical tricks their global temperature record, in re- of these papers being in the next IPCC and omissions of data to exaggerate sponse to a Freedom of Information report. Kevin and I will keep them out warming trends in their results. Many request. somehow -- even if we have to rede- commentators have pointed out that You might ask why exactly transpar- fine what the peer-review literature is!” this shows that these scientists are ency on the data is so important. The (Philip Jones, July 2004). more focused on reaching a precon- reason is simple: the data is not repeat- You may have noticed that many of ceived conclusion in their research able. Collecting data on things such as the more damning quotes came from than being objective in their judgment. global temperature is very expensive, Philip Jones. Just who is this man ex- There are many clear demonstrations and only institutions like the CRU have actly? Why, he’s only the head of the of this lack of objectivity in the emails, access to resources, given to them by CRU! I’ll leave you with the worst such as “The fact is that we can’t ac- the collective people through govern- example of this man’s hubris, “If any- count for the lack of warming at the ment, to do this. Therefore, it is im- thing, I would like to see the climate moment and it is a travesty that we possible for other scientists to produce change happen, so the science could be can’t.” (Kevin Trenberth, Oct 2008), work in this field because they selfishly proved right, regardless of the conse- However, I do not believe this is and nefariously refuse to allow anyone quences. This isn’t being political, it is Al Gore has warned against this leak distracting attention from the urgent and the big news here. We already know else to interpret their data. Their lack being selfish.” (July 2005). ongoing efforts to find Manbearpig, the biggest immidiet threat to our planet.

Campaign to audit the Fed passes first of many major hurdles

SSinaina AAtaheriantaherian Business Editor attempts to water down the bill with himself will not be voting for HR 3396 his own amendment. But this week because of the unconstitutionality of the text of HR1207 was attached in the some of the its other parts. Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill, which form of the Paul-Grayson amendment The congressman makes a good would remove restrictions on the abil- to the House Financial Services Com- point, as the bill will empower the Fed ity of the Government Accountability mittee’s upcoming financial regulatory to distort the financial sector even Office (GAO) to audited some of the reform bill. The amendment received further in the name of its mandate to most secretive activities of the Federal bipartisan support, being passed by 43 enforce price stability, of course based Reserve has passed committee. The votes to 26. on its own, ever-changing, definition. Fed has spent months arguing that this If HR 3996 now passes, blanket re- However, many of those in support of could hinder its job of protecting the strictions on GAO audits of the Fed HR1207, including 75% of the Ameri- value of the dollar, which has fallen by that have existed since 1978 will be re- can people, viewed it simply as an op- 97% during the Feds reign. It enjoyed moved. All items on the Fed’s balance portunity to get more ammunition in broad stability in the century and a half sheet will be auditable, including all the fight to end the Fed, as details of before the central bank was chartered credit facilities, all securities purchase its unacceptable dirty dealings become in its present form. programs, and all agreements with for- clearer. Congressmen who rely heavily on eign central banks. The wording of the The demise of central planning for campaign donations from special in- bill removes any remaining challenge the money markets, will also send a terests have been trying to thwart Dr that it could allow the legislature to put clear signal to the Bank of England. Paul’s efforts over the last few weeks. undue pressure on monetary policy One of its strongest lines has always They were joined by “economists” who as it leaves a 180 day period between been that central banks are neces- wrote open letters in support of the decisions being made, and those de- sary as long as all other countries have Fed. Most of these people have since cisions then being audited. With 313 them. been found to have strong undisclosed co-sponsors of HR1207, who will pre- It will be interesting to watch this links with that same institution. sumably now support HR 3396, the bill space and see what will happen with The latest measure against mon- can even pass under suspension in the this legislation, and its effects on the etary policy transparency had been likely event of an Obama veto. Ironi- continuation of central banking in Congressman Paul has spent 26 years advocating for a Fed audit, but the issue Democratic Congressman Mel Watt’s cally, in characteristic fashion, Dr Paul America and across the pond. has only gained mainstream traction after the recent recession. felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 13 CULTURE & Arts Editors Caz Knight, Rosie Milton & Lucy Harrold THE ARTS [email protected] Why I like: Sondheim Death by Lucy Harrold spearheads a new weekly feature: Why I Like... This Art week she tells us why Stephen Sondheim is so great

Caz Knight Arts Editor tephen Sondheim is possibly one of the most prolific and innovative musical theatre pologies for the signifi- my collection in the Egyptian wing. S writers ever. His works span cantly smaller arts sec- The presence of and relevance of from the ridiculous (A Funny tion this week. The half death to religion is obvious in bloody Thing Happened on The Way to the A way mark of the term realism in the Sacred Made Real at the Forum) to the melancholic (A Little has been reached which National gallery (reviewed here last Night Music). I think this is why he can means lowered energy levels and im- week by Bernard Pereira). The sculp- be classed as one of the greats; unlike pending deadlines, leaving little time tures of dead and putrefying Jesuses his contemporaries such as Andrew for writing about life’s more pleasur- bring home death’s inevitability and Lloyd Webber or Frank Wildhorn, he able distractions such as museums, art also death’s necessity, for it is through is able to turn his hand to anything. galleries, books... death that life is what it is. Sondheim has written for film, theatre I have had a ten day grace period be- Damien Hirst is a fine example of an and even TV, originally starting as a tween handing in one load of course- artist who is fascinated by death and script writer for Topper (an American works and being given the next load. one who finds beauty in it, hence the series I’ve never heard of), and going I have made use of this time not by multitude of skulls and animal corpses on to make a made-for-TV musical brushing up on the lectures covered so suspended in formaldehyde. His latest about the night time goings on in a de- far this term, but by devouring as much exhibition at the White Cube showcas- partment store. of my new book as possible: Cancer es his oil paintings, hauntingly similar The thing I admire most about Ste- Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenistyn (yes, to the nihilistic and macabre work of vie-baby is his determination to strive the arts section covers books too). This Francis Bacon and also bringing to for something new and different- a rare outstanding novel not only explores in mind the barren landscapes created in feat nowadays. great detail the unavoidable notion of the plays of Samuel Beckett. His influences are wide and var- death, but gives thorough insights into Hirst’s blue paintings are messy and ied and input directly into his own the corrupt workings of 1950s Soviet unsightly and lack the beauty of his work- who else would write a Japanese Russia. previous, more famous works. Watch Kabuki musical or a horror operetta Death: a subject which has made it- this space for the full review of the ap- about killer barbers and human meat self apparent in many forms to me this propriately named ‘Nothing Matters’ pies or even an entire show written week. Besides reading, I have had to exhibition which is spread between backwards!? Fair enough, not all of his time to nip round the British Museum, both the Mayfair and Hoxton galleries. shows have been financially successful the National Gallery and the bite-sized But for this week the content is but that has never stopped the greats White Cube, all of them teeming with cheerfully devoid of death. Arts editor in other art forms- most painters are The man himself: New York-born Stephen Sondheim the idea of mortality. A ten metre long Lucy Harrold tells us why she likes mu- not financially viable until after their horizontal cabinet filled with a life- sical theatre genius Stephen Sondheim deaths. time’s worth of pills, photographs and in a new feature:_ ‘Why I Like’. I guess part of Sondheim’s vision- Being Alive- Possibly Sondheim’s Assassins- Yes... Assassins... I like it medical records track the birth, life Got someone creative you love and ary success is due to his collaborations best ballad. Bobby has reached a mo- when Sondheim tries to be edgy. As- and death of one man; one is reminded want to rave about? Email us at with Hal Prince. Most of his artistic ment of realisation right at the end of sassins is a musical about every person again of death by the impressive mum- [email protected] and financial achievements were pro- the show and expresses this in a heart- who has tried to kill an American pres- duced and directed by Prince. Without wrenching song about how no one can ident. The show is set in a fairground someone to turn his ideas into reality, be truly alive without having someone with The Proprietor inviting the char- Sondheim would just be another pen- to look after them. acters to “come shoot a president” as niless writer with untapped potential. Sunday In The Park With Georges- each of them recounts their story of Sondheim’s Best Work: another of Sondheim’s arty-farty type fame, triumph or failure. What Sond- Company- My favourite of Sond- shows but probably his best. Remem- heim does with this less than cheery heim’s shows, Company is based on a ber doing pointillism in Art class? (Of premise is present the audience with series of short one-act plays set in the course it’s been a long time for most of an extraordinarily eclectic bunch of 1970s by George Furth. These scenar- you) ‘That’ dude Georges Seurat who people with one trait that binds them ios were combined to form a charac- spent forever painting people by a river together. These range from the almost ter study of New Yorkers. Bobby, the in a park? Yep, that’s him...well sort of. comedic Samuel Byck, dressed in a central character, is reaching his 35th The first act follows Georges as he sloppy santa outfit, who failed to kill birthday to discover he is still very endeavours to finish his painting with- Richard Nixon to John Wilkes Booth, much alone in his life despite his many out losing his girlfriend, and muse, who famously assassinated Abraham friends we encounter. The play ex- Dot. Sondheim cleverly echoes the Lincoln at a theatre. The show culmi- plores Bobby’s alienation and the truth process of pointillism in the rhythms nates in the previous assassins per- behind the rose-tinted relationships of of his songs and the characters echo suading Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot his (almost all married) friends. Sond- the people in the painting. The second John F Kennedy. Not a high-kick or heim’s musicals never try to be happy act portrays another George; this time jazz hand in sight. for the sake of being happy and Com- Seurat’s great-grandson who is also an Best Songs: pany is a prime example of this. Bobby artist but of a more abstract vein. Everybody’s Got The Right- aah, an a starts the show feeling a bit grumpy The actress who portrays Dot now rousing anthem for killing people; well about all his friends being married, becomes George’s grandmother (and not quite. This song sets the tone for journeys through cocktails, weddings, Seurat and Dot’s daughter), thus ex- the rest of the show- combining com- weed-smoking and various parties ploring a completely different relation- edy and tragedy as Sondheim does so do discover that, actually, maybe it ship but still of a man who just can’t well. doesn’t matter as much as he thinks. finish his work. Unworthy of Your Love- So why do all Company’s songs take their influences Best Songs: the best love ballads have to be about from various forms of music but are Putting It Together- an ode to lengthy something unsavoury? Like vowing all strong melodically, lyrically and in and stressful process of completing any to Charlie Manson and Jodie Foster their place in the musical. form of art. This song explores why we that you’ll kill Nixon for them? This Best Songs: make art and how the process can be is a beautiful duet which just happens Company- Sondheim cleverly took just as much a part of it as the final to include phrases like “I would crawl the “beep” tone of an answering ma- product. belly deep through hell” and “You are chine as a starting place for this song, Move On- Dot returns to question wind and devil and God Charlie, take gradually adding in more and more George’s motives and push him along my blood and my body”. There is a re- of Bobby’s friends to culminate in an his creative pathway. A beautifully me- written version without these referenc- epic wall of sound finale. It has to be lodic piece with repeating refrains to es but that would be like watching Pulp Artist, Georges, and his girlfriend/muse, Dot, in ‘Sunday with Georges’ listened to in full stereo! move on and keep creating art. Fiction without any of the swearing. 14 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009

Music Editors: Alexandra Ashford, Kadhim Shubber & Luke Turner MUSIC Online Editor: Christopher Walmsley [email protected] www.felixmusic.tk

LL Cool J trapped in 100 will always be an oven by a shark... greater than 1000 Alex Ashford Music Editor

Tom Jennings resembling Edith Piaf slashed a knife through the air towards my face at the he pop world is a harsh place, their own films, 2001’s Glitter and 2002’s previous gig as part of a French mock- just making music isn’t enough, Crossroads, respectively. Needless to say, I’ll explain. Frequenting small music cabaret act, whilst a close acquaint- you have to be a character and as they are both such vacuums of talent venues and undergoing the micro- ance of mine was being ordered to turn spread your image into differ- anyway these films crashed and burned gigging experience are infinitely more the pages of a flick book with obscene Tent facets of the media’s money-making at the box office. rewarding than seeing chart-topping words on it. This is not the kind of ex- machine according to your demograph- Some artists have managed to dab- bands in high capacity venues for the perience you forget in a hurry. ic. Once upon a time this meant mak- ble on both sides throughout their ca- following reasons: Tight budgets and creative minds ing dolls that look nothing like you and reers (and no I don’t mean Miley Cyrus). Crowd/band interaction is funda- make for an interesting array of instru- stationary sets for kids to nag their par- Where many rappers have tried, only one mental for small bands as they all need ments being ‘played’, some of which I ents to buy for them from Woolworths. has truly managed to bridge the gap be- a distinguishing feature to earn them a have seen recently include ukuleles, Nowadays, if you’re a pop band like Girls tween film and music. Mos Def started reputation. If your band name is Pink a melodica (mouth-organ keyboard), Aloud, you make a line of false eyelashes his rap career in the 90s and had already Floyd or Kings of Leon, playing a tight banjos, a handsaw, flutes, spoons, for Boots, presumably for girls who will had a role as Bill Cosby’s sidekick in a de- set of perfectly honed album mate- shoes, guitars made with planks of end up looking like Jodie Marsh in ten tective show called The Cosby Mysteries rial that everyone recognizes won’t wood, a cello with no body, a ukulele years time. (I’m not making this up!) before his rap enlighten anyone’s lives; they might made with an ice cream box, saxo- But that’s just for the throw-a-way fla- career took off. Now he’s been in every- as well stay at home and listen to the phones, a big ‘ole jar with a hole, reel to vour-of-the-months. Anyone who’s any- thing from Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, goddamn album. Gig experiences are reel tape, cowbells, flutes, a hang (type one in the music world is also... *dramatic to quirky comedy Be Kind Rewind, to made more unique if you happen to They look nothing like the silhouettes of Swiss steel pans) and a lesser-known pause* ...an actor! The latest actor to take an episode of House. Others, like Will be asked to play an instrument along instrument that I like to call the guitar. a turn on the silver screen is Jarvis Cocker Smith, Eminem and Queen Latifah, have with a band, if you bring along your Cheapness is of vital importance to who plays himself with a Banjo (a.k.a. Pe- only found huge success on one side of own instruments, if you are asked to number. If you notice a band’s bass students, and £3 on the door or free en- tey) in Wes Anderson’s latest film, Fan- the bridge (although Will Smith did give come up with a new song title, if they guitarist voraciously rubbing his cock try beats a £50 ticket planned 5 months tastic Mr. Fox. It wouldn’t be a Wes An- us “Miami” and “Summertime”). accept your inebriated bellows for song into the back of his guitar you can be in advance every time. Not only is en- derson film without characters in brown But my personal favourite has to be LL requests or just give you dance moves reassured by the fact that other bands try cheaper, but booze is cheaper and suits and cravats, suitably retro animation Cool J (that stands for Ladies Love Cool to groove away to. If the headline act are willing to throw sweets and party more varied too. Small venues often and a cameo from a suitably cool indie James, don’t you know), who stars in one walks off stage and sits at the nearest poppers at their devoted audience in- have a bar or two on site and serve a personality. This isn’t the first time Jarvis of the best films ever made: Deep Blue table you can have a chat to find out stead. Lyrics can be fairly abstract and wide variety of liquid meals, putting has graced our screens in a kid’s film, he Sea. I don’t want to say too much about who their influences are, who they’re obscure, like the tales of love based many large venues to shame with their played in the band the Weird Sisters in this film, because I encourage you all to shagging and even where the best plac- around the uselessness of Jar Jar Binks, extortionate prices and lack of choice one of the Harry Potter films, doing “the watch it, but LL Cool J stars as a chef with es to buy instruments are. and my favourite lyrics of the past week (Wembley Arena only sells two types hippogriff” for those wizard kids to get a pet parrot (which, yes, sits on his shoul- Random memorable moments are have been “You gotta pull your dick out of beer!!!!!) down to at Harry’s winter ball. der) and a super-intellegent shark man- the crux of all good nights out, and at the restaurant in front of their aunt, In every way, small venues beat large Mariah Carey and Britney Spears ages to trap him in an oven, and turn it there are very few bands that can pull and jerk off with your balls smackin venues into the ground. Now if we can somehow persuaded enough people that on. If that isn’t top quality high brow en- off an electro theme tune of The An- the windows of the Mitsubishi Galant!” only split the O2 Arena into 50 differ- it would be a good idea for them to star in tertainment for you I don’t know what is. tiques Roadshow for their opening (f.y.i. this wasn’t Coldplay). A woman ent smaller venues...

PRODIGY JAMIE T INVADERS MUST THE MAN’S FABRIC 50 DIE/THUNDER TODD MACHINE MARTYN REMIXES BIG RIPPER Reviews VIRGIN FABRICLIVE TAKE ME TO THE ROUGH TRADE EP ALBUM HOSPITAL ALBUM EP

‘The Man’s Machine’ is the kind of song The Bimonthly Fabric compilation al- Catchy electro house is the music of the This album is how modern rock should FILTHY DUKES that puts some swagger in your step. bums have reached a legendry 50 re- day, as it always has been for the Prodi- sound. Heavy guitar, distortion and vo- NONENSE IN THE DARK It’s bass-heavy with crashing cymbals leases (the clue is in the name – who gy, and this is certainly a higher quality cals matching Nirvana’s, this is a sound FICTION and rising electronic nuggets putting needs a creative album title anyway?) remix collection than I am accustomed of growling rock. Some songs sound SINGLE the icing on the cake. Lyrically he’s on and are still going strong after 8 years to from musicians (bar Fabric). Per- sluggish and painful but this is their top form telling tales of travelling with of trance-inducing techno, house, sonally I prefer the original tracks from sound. It lacks some dynamic as songs his usual dexterity “Met a matador, he electro and not forgetting drum and/ Invaders Must Die to the remixes and sometimes blur together. This debut Nonsense in the dark, a track taken said a wild woman is more, terrifying or bass. Album opener Joy Fantastic is would rather listen to them properly album gives a window to this bands po- from the Filthy Dukes album that bears than any red bull he saw”. The other a catchy glam-electro number armed in my own intoxicated rave-orgy, but tential, they don’t feel like they’re giv- the same name plods down a dreamy tracks on the EP will appeal to Jamie T with wispy falsetto vocals and I’m pret- either way you still receive that rush ing all that they’ve got. - Luke Turner synth pop road for six and a half min- fans but ‘Man Not A Monster’ is a great ty sure Elmo gets involved too at the of euphoria and the feeling that Keith utes. I assume (and hope) there’s going classic ska feet mover that few will be end. Most tracks create a chilled-out Flint could kick down your door any KING KHAN AND to be a reasonable length radio edit able to resist. - Kadhim Shubber lounge atmosphere with the inclusion moment and set fire to your lab re- THE BBQ SHOW because only one idea seems to pre- of heavy bass that makes you think ports. - Tom Jennings INVISIBLE GIRL IN THE RED vail throughout, stagnating well before your head is being slowly torn apart, RECORDS halfway. fast but light erratic drum loops and ALBUM It is a case of purely unoffensive elec- KID SISTER a variety of hand claps, bongos and RIGHT HAND HI tro with a large dose of sugary pop, other such percussions. As with many BOYZ II MEN XTRA MILE LOVE leaving it devoid of any notion of sub- SINGLE DJ mixes it is not so much a collection DECCA This album takes you back to when stance or passion. of good and bad songs as it is a hazy ALBUM guys with slicked back hair and sharp The vocals are just running through journey through a fantastic musical suits were called crooners not bank- the motions, apathetic warbling a mere This song is basically just syncopated jungle.- Tom Jennings ers. The vocals are stylish and charm- substitute for anything interesting to synth beats combined with repetitive This is the third consecutive album of ing while the melodies make you want say. I wouldn’t be surprised find its way hip-hop vocals. It’s meant to be fresh covers they’ve done and it’s so, so good. to get your friends together, dance to soundtracking a teen TV drama of but it’s bloody awful. It lacks any feel Email your reviews to You have to listen to it, it’s on spotify, around and take sepia-tinted photos. similar calibre. good factor but would probably go go... Seriously they cover Time After It’s basically been on repeat on my iPod - Christopher Walmsley down well at Tiger Tiger. - Ed Knock [email protected] Time, go now. - Kadhim Shubber for about a month. - Kadhim Shubber felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 15 [email protected] MUSIC

On the search for singer-songwriters... The felix Emilie Beauchamp seeks out Colin Hays and Billy Franks @ Bush Hall Music Charts

f given the names of the two art- tural voice to give us an insight on vari- half-Australian Colin Hay, who has voice. But he thereafter provided a 1. Animal Collective ists that have illuminated the ous facts of life. How it is to grow up transcended decades with a few, but wide array of pieces, from his new al- 2. The xx I Bush Hall last Wednesday No- in a Fulham Court council tax estate, widely known hits. Remember Men at bum American Sunshine to his first vember 11th, very few would rec- how you most often sleep better when Work’s “Down Under”? hit Down Under (assisted by his lovely ognize them. That appears to be the it rains, or how an idyllic summer in Well, Colin Hay was the lead singer wife at the back vocals and imaginary 3. David Bowie cruel fate of singers-songwriters, how- New York can turn sour. Said to have of Men at Work... While quite an ob- flute), passing by his 1990s singles and ever famous they might get at some been praised by Bono, Peter Gabriel scure persona, Hay has been re-made some of the Scrubs’ fans’ requests. Re- 4. Bloc Party point in their life. Maybe there’s too and Oasis, Franks was part of the 80s popular by his numerous appearanc- markable voice range, perfectly and many of them? Maybe they’re too mel- band The Faith Brothers before start- es in the American television series creatively produced, with striking 5. Air low to turn the beat around? I person- ing a solo career trooping around Lon- Scrubs in the past few years and thus guitar skills; the almost-duo was ex- ally blame it on the fact that too many don pubs. His lyrics are genuine and touched several generations through- tremely amusing and entertaining to 6. Grizzly Bear singer-songwriters fall indubitably into amusing, his voice is definitely charm- out his career. watch, connecting with the audience the slow romantic ballads that make ing and his scene presence flattering. Still, Hay is quite aware of his non for a short but impeccable perform- 7. Radiohead me want to... However, the guitar rhythms are of- superstar status and jokes about it ance. Colin Hay will probably remain However, with tenacity and an ad- ten quite simple, especially in compari- throughout the performance. Quite a famous but still low-key singer- 8. Kings of Leon venturous mind, you can find good son with the icon following his warmly talkative in the beginning, I was al- songwriter that would easily become ones. For example the London-born received performance. most convinced he was chatting about legend in a couple of decades. As for Billy Franks who sings his thoughts Second on stage and awaited by a Australian goats and the Scottish land- Billy Franks, it is worth trying to find 9. Coldplay with a sometimes soft, sometimes gut- fairly good audience was half-Scottish scape because he had lost his talented his next performance to see him in his element. 10. Nina Simone The latest results are in! Biffy Clyro have been blown out of the top ten and are somewhere around the tail end of the top Albums that you should know 50. In similarly good news, Animal Collective reign supreme. Hugh Crail looks at modern classics that shaped music today What I want to know is, who’s listening to Nina Simone? Email hey were forced to add the fighting. The album is relentless in us so that we can track you 1979 to their name by LCD pace and by all accounts should come down and shake your hand. Join Soundsystem leader; James off as a straight punk album, but the T Death from the group at felixmusicchart.tk, Murphey’s DFA label, which vocals sound as if they’ve been har- is funny because this album for many vested from pop songs and given Above 1979 on a side note, type ‘Daft Punk represented the antithesis of the early a course of steroids. Every song is Samples’ into youtube... 00’s dance punk scene. DFA records stripped down to its raw parts, with ‘You’re a woman, were the cool looking people with no excess fat, making it accessible to their designer drugs, whilst DFA fresh ears. I’m a machine’ 1979 represented the kids with bleed- Lyrically, as the title of the album Exclusively ing noses who start mosh pits in the suggests, it is full of chauvinistic one Vice Records trendy clubs. They even declared a liners like “You’re a woman and I know online @ “Jihad” on James Murphy, elaborat- It’s true / from the things that I have 2004 ing; “if I had the resources I would fly done to you” and angry break up rant- a plane into his skull.” It’s this kind of ing: “Now that this is over this weight is felixmusic.tk unfathomable bad taste that typifies off my shoulder/ now that this is over, I this album. love you more and more.” In any other DFA ’79’s sound is simple, compris- context these lyrics wouldn’t work, but ating a rift that would end them after loosest sense of the world, with the ing of just a heavily distorted bass the driving force of the music grounds just one album and a handful of eps. song “Let’s make Love and Listen to • Karen O & The guitar, drums and voice. Described by and empowers their meaning. Including a remix ep that drew talent Death from Above”, and all being con- Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone The ferocity of their music trans- like Justice and Erol Alkan. Brazilian sidered it’s probably the best way to Kids review Age as akin to the sound of dinosaurs lated to the band’s working lives, cre- band CSS immortalized them, in the enjoy the album. :LISTINGS::LISTINGS::LISTINGS::LISTINGS:: LISTINGS:: Friday Saturday Monday Wednesday Lily Allen :: Brixton Academy :: Motorhead :: Hammersmith Apollo Yeah Yeah Yeahs :: Brixton W.A.S.P :: Shepherds Bush Empire :: Pop :: Hard Rock Academy :: Indie Rock Heavy Metal James Morrison :: Wembley Arena The Gossip :: HMV Forum :: Indie Kid Harpoon :: Hoxton Bar & Grill :: Tori Amos :: Jazz Cafe :: Alternative :: Acoustic Rock Folk Indie The Living End :: HMV Forum :: Florence + The Machine :: The DJ Yoda :: Plan B :: Hip-Hop Melanie Pain :: Jazz Cafe :: French Psychobilly Tabernacle :: Alternative Coki/The Others :: AREA :: Dubstep Pop Goldhawks :: Barfly :: Rock The Magic Numbers :: Tapestry Sham 69 :: Borderline :: Punk Har Mar Superstar :: The Garage :: Club :: Alternative Folk Swervedriver :: The Garage :: Indie R&B Pop Thursday Chuck Berry!!! :: Hammersmith Propagandhi :: KOKO :: Punk Town Hall :: Blues Sunday Amadou & Mariam :: The Forum :: Afro-blues Jools Holland :: Royal Albert Hall :: Mos Def :: The Forum :: Hip-Hop Tuesday The Cribs :: Brixton Academy :: Indie Boogie Rhythm Rock Rock DJ Hype/Commix :: Fabric :: Drum Kasabian/JLS/La Roux & More :: Ellie Goulding :: Cargo :: Indie Marc Almond :: 100 Club :: Jazzy Pop & Bass Earls Court :: Various Deer Tick :: Borderline :: Alternative Hadouken! :: Banquet Records :: Indie Kasabian :: The O2 :: Rock London Blackmarket :: The Folk Dance Levellers :: Shepherds Bush Empire Watershed :: Soulful Gospel Punk Angela Luzi :: The Underbelly :: Jazz AutoKratz :: Cargo :: Hard Rock :: :: Punk The Vibrators :: The Underworld :: Folk Fusion Electronica Kode 9 :: Plan B :: Dubstep Punk Official Secrets Act :: Barfly :: Pop 16 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 MUSIC [email protected] Souls of Mischief back with a new album Questions for Ty Vaughn Kadhim Shubber Jamie Fraser

s Jamie and I wait in the corridor, outside Souls of A Mischief’s hotel room, Opio suddenly emerges, gives us a brief glance and heads off to who knows where. We’re then led in by their PR manager and introduced, I go for a handshake, Tajai presents his fist instead and an awkward mangle of knuckles occurs. There’s not much space so we sit on the bed and I get the feeling, as Tajai gets the measure Broadway Calls are supporting Set of us, that he’s forming as much of an Your Goals at the Islington Academy impression of us as we hope to form of on 16th December. him. “How are we doing this, recording or filming”, he asks, and I reply weakly Portland’s musical heritage: “We that I’m just going to take notes. He don’t fit with typical Portland bands, looks at my flimsy file-pad and assents, The Decemberists, The Thermals, first impressions confirmed. Tajai (far left) is the only one who loves sunlight - Montezuma’s Revenge is out 8th Feb 2010 those guys. But Oregon means a lot to Their latest album, Montezuma’s u s .” Revenge (named after the street where they recorded it, not the nasty sen- method of distribution is different but in dancehalls for ages.” but today they’re all owned by the Converting from hardcore punk to sation you get after eating a dodgy making a record is the same as it’s ever Phesto however does call out people same company and you get the same pop punk: “The hardcore scene re- burrito) was produced by the legen- been: it’s hard work”. He continues who use it to disguise a lack of tal- music on almost every channel” which ally welcomed us with open arms. I dary Prince Paul (who produced De saying that the major record labels are ent. “They don’t want to get someone ties in with his belief that the industry think the kids enjoyed having a break, La Soul’s landmark album 3 Feet High still the same: “There’s always been else to sing it, it’s narcissistic, people hasn’t changed, just the methods of something they could sing along to.” and Rising). Phesto explains that he a few artists who are innovators and will say “but you weren’t in the video” distribution. EB: I know hardcore scenes can be met him on tour and approached about 30 others that labels sign just but they’re not proud enough to just Jamie turns the conversation to closed-minded. “If anyone was closed- him. “He’s a genius, everything that because they sound the same as the say “yeah but I wrote it”, people don’t the guys themselves and what’s kept minded, it was me… I didn’t want he touches is gold, an instant classic”. innovators”. think like that anymore”. He hammers them together over 20 years. Tajai to play hardcore shows, but all our We ask him what it’s like to work with When you remember that for the last home his point with a guitar analogy responds tiredly; the day’s wearing friends were in hardcore bands and we such an influential producer, “It’s a big 20 years Souls of Mischief have been for our benefit, “If you’ve got a distor- on and they’ve been doing non-stop couldn’t get any others. I’m glad we did deal obviously, he upped our game. ignoring musical trends and hype and tion pedal but you can’t play guitar, it’s interviews for almost 6 hours, “We’re it now, though.” He’s got a vision for the record that he making the kind of music that they not going to help is it?” all friends, we’ve known each other wants you to follow, he’s not just a beat like making, it’s less surprising that I pick up on Tajai’s comment about for decades” before giving us another Influences: “Green Day were a huge maker like some other producers, he Tajai has little time for doomsday pre- albums making an impact and ask analogy for our benefit: “Friends meet influence on us… well, everything they shapes the whole song”. dictions of the music industry. him why after their classic debut 93 through soccer and even if they don’t did more than a decade ago. They’re Although the group are predictably Later in the interview, he pours cold til Infinity in 1993, Souls Of Mischief always play, they’re still going to hang still one of my favourite bands though.” full of praise for the producer (even water on the supposed death of the al- haven’t made as big of an impact on out”. It’s nearing the end of the in- calling the knobs on his mixer, Prince bum. “People don’t remember singles, the rap scene. He takes a moment, terview when Opio returns. His dark Billie Joe Armstrong’s part on sign- Paul’s ‘weapons’), they’re obviously re- when you look at the history of mu- considering the question before an- shades combined with his afro all but ing the band to his label, Adeline iterating the same stuff they’ve been sic, who talks about singles? It’s short swering. “Timing, it’s all timing and disguise his face but he’s keen to pick Records: “He didn’t. I think right be- saying all day. However when the con- stories vs novels, they both have their newness. When we released the first up the thread of the conversation, fore American Idiot he realised he versation turns to the music industry, place but ultimately it’s novels that Hieroglyphics album, people talked “We’re lucky to have the ‘job’ that we couldn’t juggle playing in a band, tour- Tajai becomes more animated. make an impact”. about that as a classic”. It’s clear that have, you can’t complain when your ing and running a record label while I ask them if they think the changes He similarly has little time for the he doesn’t waste his thoughts on how job is rapping with your homeboys”, still having time for his family.” in the music industry over the last ‘controversy’ over the use of Auto- much hype their music creates but he thinks for a moment before add- twenty years affected how they ap- tune, hailing T-Pain as a genius and Phesto adds, “A lot of the success of ing “Although people sometimes for- Basement gigs vs festival shows: “It’s proached their album and Tajai is saying that like most things, “It’s good that album came from the video for get that it’s a lot of hard work, it’s not completely different. We like both. At quick to point out a flaw in my logic. when used well and bad when used 93 til Infinity”; “Back then” Tajai in- just 1 hour on stage, it’s the other 23 Reading I saw Gallows, and that was “The industry hasn’t changed, sure the badly. It’s nothing new, it’s been used terjects, “Music channels were varied hours of the day as well, it’s not just amazing… for most of the gig most sex, drugs and rock n roll”. of the band were playing out in the crowd. They’re a great band.”

The Smiths and hardcore punk: “I didn’t get it for a long time. You’d go                   to shows and there’d be hardcore kids " #  !  %          " " &    with “The Smiths” tattooed on their    %  "     arms. But they were a great band.”

'    ())*)))%  "        %        Hardcore or post-hardcore? " ' +   "     * “Hardcore.”     %  "               *          Hip hop or drum ‘n’ bass? “Hip hop.”    ! Death metal or grindcore? “I’m not %   "&       ,  -  ./0 1)* sure I know the difference between  "  #     "          * those…” %  * "               Emo or crunk? “Emo.” ! &$!# #(!%&#$               $#  $ "#$ % %! $# %    "     Black Flag or Bad Brains? “Black %$%!#)&%&#  &%)!% Flag.”   # ("!"!# !# %!  %             Tupac or Biggie? “Tupac. Gotta keep        it west coast, you know?”                          !  " "      "    #   $    Swine flu or bird flu? “Um… I’m not    sure of the symptoms, but… bird flu.”

        Interview by Eliot Barford felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 17 Film Editors Zuzanna Blaszczak & Ed Knock FILM [email protected] A very Jewish mid-life crisis The trial of Mel Gibson

Ed Knock Film Editor

s many people were this Prosecutor: Mr. Gibson, do you not summer, I wasn’t so ex- believe your character, William Wal- cited by the impending lace, would have been insulted as his A Transformers sequel but portrayal as a peasant? more so by Inglourious Defendant: Well, more people can Basterds, the return-to-form film by identify with him if he was a commoner. Quentin Tarrantino we had all been Prosecutor: But that’s twisting the promised. However it wasn’t the mas- truth, he was a knight and therefore a terpiece we had been anticipating, noble. And why did you decide to re- with Christoph Waltz’s exquisite per- duce Scottish society from a sophisti- formance being diluted by a too ambi- cated network of Medieval towns and tious script and ‘ahem’ Eli Roth (which villages to mud huts and drab colours should distract any director from cast- more atune to the Dark Ages? Jacobs went to the headmaster’s office for a good old fashioned whipping. He came out with a creaming too. ing their friends again). But the most Defendant: Well, that’s what people interesting aspect of the film was the want to see! alternative history plot which became Prosecutor: But it’s detrimental to the Tim Davies him and turns to his religion. But student’s dad later visits Gopnik to tell apparent towards the end of the film. Scottish people as well. Primae Noc- when the Rabbis can’t offer him more him he’s going to sue him for defama- Along with bad science, Hollywood tis? Most historians agree that never than meaningless parables and empty tion. Our instinct, programmed by is notorious for its rather imaginative existed. The latest Coen brothers serving A words he becomes truly lost. It’s a pru- years of happy Disney endings, tells us versions of history and it’s inaccurate Defendant: But I needed the audience Serious Man is a dark comedy that’s dent critique on a modern society in that Gopnik will be rewarded for his portrayals of eras by-gone (especially to hate the English. light on the comedy and heavy on the which people increasingly find religion behaviour, but it just causes him more biblical and medieval). What makes In- Prosecutor: I gathered that from the darkness. incompatible with their problems. problems. It’s a refreshingly honest de- glourious Basterds different is that Tar- film. You never made it clear Edward It tells the story of Larry Gopnik, You really feel for Gopnik as he tries piction of reality. After all, bad things rantino decided to take this cliché and Longshanks was trying to end centu- a Jewish physics professor who con- to reach out to the people around him, happen to good people. run with it setting up an all-American, ries of Scottish invasions of Northern stantly tries to do the right thing and only to have them fob him off and say The film’s execution can’t be faulted, guns blazing, Dirty Dozen style climax England and secure his borders by oc- be a good man despite the fact that his things like “It’s not always easy, deci- and it feels like a labour of love that a oozing with delicious self-depreciating cupying Scotland. life seems to be falling apart around phering what God is trying to tell you”. lot of thought has gone into. It’s a film irony. Unfortunately this was lost on Defendant: I did show Wallace sack- him. Gopnik has typical middle Amer- Gopnik often tries to do the right that perhaps might slip under your some people and they left the cinema ing York. ican problems: his wife is leaving him thing, only to have it blow up in his face. radar, but still has a lot to offer. The scratching their heads; “But I thought Prosecutor: But that never happened for another man, his daughter steals At one point a student leaves a bribe in Coen’s sharp script, and their lack of Hitler shot himself!” I, on the other too. You also managed to confuse the his money and his son lives in fear of his office expecting it to improve his concession in portraying a relentlessly hand, thought it was brilliant and it got Battle of Stirling Bridge with the Bat- his marijuana dealer. His misfortune grades. However, he hasn’t reckoned honest life, means this film has a reso- me thinking how it had taken so long tle of Bannokburn, most noticeably by is unrelenting, and in his desperation by Gopnik’s excellent moral character, nance that will leave you thinking for for someone to ridicule this tradition leaving out the bridge. he follows the advice of those around and finds himself being reported. The longer than most films will. of historical butchery which is nearly as Dedendant: I wanted a big battle long as the history of Hollywood itself. scene! U-571 is the most notorious offender. Prosecutor: Why didn’t you do a film The story of a brave American sub- on Bannokburn then? marine crew capturing the German Defendant: Because Wallace wasn’t at Michael Caine plays Dirty (old man) Harry enigma machine during WWII was that battle. sure to be a big crowd pleaser but there Prosecutor: Of course, he was your was one major error - the submarine character. Do you not feel guilty turn- pensioner’s only concern is the life the hoodlums – ridiculous no? was British. There was such an uproar ing him into a paedophile? You have Stefan Zeeman of Leonard’s murderer. The film be- At the intense climax of the film, the about this insult to our veterans that him impregnating Queen Isabelle of comes more and more over-the-top police raid the estate, and cause a riot the president Bill Clinton actually of- France in the film, a girl who would Comparisons to Gran Torino aside, an as Brown’s journey continues, yet still which they cannot stop. Despite the fered an apology. have been three years old. OAP vigilante set on revenge-fuelled manages to keep momentum with sev- obvious obstructions, Brown man- The Americans love to screw with Defendant: Hello? Sophie Marceau? killing spree is an interesting idea to eral heart-stopping moments. ages to shuffle through in an attempt our history, probably because they Prosecutor: Oh Catherine McCor- say the least. Harry Brown is Direc- The estate is (somewhat unrealisti- to claim his final piece of revenge cake. have little of it themselves and there is mack wasn’t good enough for you? Her tor Daniel Barber’s first feature length cally) portrayed as a venomous, hate- Caine’s performance is powerful one man who can’t resist mixing melo- character didn’t exist either. Your ‘con- production, and a memorable one as ful place where you can be potentially enough to receive sufficient sympathy drama into antiquity. Let me introduce vincing’ Scottish accent, what part of well. stabbed at every corner. At the same while he tops a load of hoodies and public enemy No.1 - Mel Gibson. Mel Scotland does it come from? The film starts extremely poign- time, it appears to be completely im- pretty much anyone else who gets in has directed a long list of abomina- Defendant: Erm, Edinburgh? antly, following Harry Brown (Michael penetrable by any police investigation. his way. The gritty film is captured tions including The Passion (based on Prosecutor: But Wallace was born Caine) through his gloomy and bleak An earnest police detective (Emily well, with some great cinematography. medieval plays performed to incite closer to Glasgow, not in the Highlands life. Brown is an ex-marines pensioner Mortimer) is given the case. She fol- Overall, the film lacks finesse and real- anti-Semitism) and Apocalypto, which which you decided he was. who has lost it all. The passing of his lows Brown through the film, and is ism, but is still a brutally brilliant. Just confuses the Mayans with the Aztecs Defendant: But Highlanders get to wife and his daughter has left him the only person in the police force who think of Kill Bill, with less leggy blond and completely fabricates their whole wear kilts and woad paint! alone in his shabby council estate flat. believes an OAP is capable of killing and more granddad. culture. But when it comes to British Prosecutors: The Celts stopped wear- He’s a frequent witness to drugs and history, Mel is at his destructive best. I ing woad a thousand years before and violence on his estate, although the imagine him crouched over the Bayeux the tartan kilt wasn’t invented until police apparently do nothing about it. Tapestry, spray paint in hand and giddy the 19th century and probably by an After the murder of his one remaining with excitement over the prospect of Englishman! friend, Leonard (David Bradley), he is defacing King Harold and drawing pe- Defendant: Err well, it looked good... left a broken man with nothing left to nises all over William the Conqueror. and blue matches my eyes. lose. I’ll let Mel off the hook for The Patriot, Prosecutor: I rest my case. Quicker than you can say ASBO, the as he only starred in it but he must I hope now you might understand ex-marine within Brown is released- atone for Braveheart. This trial will be my wrath for every time I hear some with inevitable bloody consequences. controversial for I am going against say Braveheart was a “well good film”. Michael Caine is brilliant, and gathers the judgment of the most ‘enlightened’ It started a dangerous surge of anti- the best bits of Rambo and Columbo Academy who thought he deserved an English feeling in Scotland with sensa- to form the ruthless Harry Brown. Oscar. Charged with irreversible dam- tionalist crap whilst most Scots didn’t Brown’s first stop is to acquire a gun age to British history, will the defend- realise they were being mocked. The from some ridiculous junky drug deal- ant Mel Gibson please take to the dock: Jury’s verdict? Guilty. ers, and from then, the heart-of-gold 18 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 Games Editor Michael Cook GAMES [email protected]

Special Nintendo - Rise or Fall? Infected Rasheed Islam has something to tell you - but you may well not like it Michael Cook Games Editor intendo. A name once of Time’, was released on the N64. had attracted, the so-called ‘casual gam- synonymous with qual- Nintendo may have been the under- ers,’ are in fact, casual gamers. They ity, loyalty and persever- dogs in the past two generations of the take no notice of the artistic and techni- N ance amongst gamers consoles, but one thing they always cal talent in video games. Games are a his week, I am mostly ill. had the benefit of a basis in history, and all over the world. They had was a loyal fan base. These were minor part of their lives; it is something A cold virus is attempting many stories of World War 2 would be were a games developer who showed not the typical ‘fanboys’ that we see they do as a pastime. Whereas, true to vassalise my body like unmarketably dull had they not happened the competition that when it comes to these days, arguing that Microsoft is gamers see video games as a lifestyle, T some crazy Civilization for real. Perhaps Infinity Ward simply felt games, quality and hard work is what better than Sony and changing sides and amidst all the furore of catering for player, and I’m slowly suc- that bigger was better when it came to fic- pays off. Ever since they came into the as they please. They were true gamers these casual gamers, Nintendo have lost cumbing. This time next week my edi- tional settings, and I think that looking at home console market in 1983, they who valued and appreciated the hard their true essence. Quality is nowhere torial may just be a series of growls and the way they’ve marketed MW2 they’re have built a repertoire of well known, if work and artistic talent that the devel- to be seen in their games. Of course, at moans. And as every gamer knows, probably right. For me, this doesn’t make not legendary characters such as Link, opers invested in the games. I myself launch the Wii had some quality games nothing soothes an ailing mind like it as fun to play, because there’s no breath- Samus, Fox McCloud and officially the am one of these fans and it saddens me such as ‘The Legend of Zelda: Twilight running through a whole game in one ing space between each blistering engage- most recognised video game character to say that we are a dying species. Princess’, followed up with 2007’s ‘Su- bleary-eyed Lemsipped weekend. So ment. We’ve got an article to come that in the world, Mario. In the apocalyptic year of 2006, Nin- per Mario Galaxy’, but soon after that a last week, I played Modern Warfare 2. gives a great reason why it’s still fun - we’ll drought followed. ‘Things’ such as ‘Wii In retrospect, playing such a game try to fit that in this term. Fit’ and ‘Wii Sports Resort’ were re- through in a few long bursts is not a great Still, this week - the Dragon Age review leased that were equivalent to digitised plan. It’s such a draining experience that which never made it into last week’s issue, faeces. Whatever games were released by the end you’re completely desensitised along with a chance to win one of four on the Wii were not games, they were to the murderously intense segments that copies of the game for the Xbox 360. I gimmicks. Things that are entertaining the game is composed of, and there’s sim- may never manage to take a look at DA, for a few months, then get boring. The ply no adrenaline left in you to eke out. as I just can’t get the hang of those sprawl- ‘revolutionary’ motion controls have After a few hours, I found myself putting ing RPGs, but our handsome Mr. Roberts’ turned out to be simple ‘stick waggling’ down hostage situations with the sort of tales of his playthrough really do make it and any half decent game that has been nonchalance I’d normally afford to mak- sound like Game of the Year material. released can be played better with a con- ing toast, and I suppose that’s not entirely Finally, we’ve got a nice and inflamma- troller. It has been months since a quality the fault of the game. tory comment piece that we’ve been wait- game has come out on the console. All What I did find lacking, though, was the ing to run for some time now. Rasheed Nintendo see now is money, and they are consistency that Call of Duty 2 had. There has a bone or two to pick with Nintendo, milking that market until it goes dry. was a nice sense of peaks and troughs; a and feels quite strongly about it indeed. Sadly, the market is going dry. This campaign evolved over time and land- Reckon he’s wrong? Write and tell us why month Nintendo lowered their profit scapes slowly changed. Of course, CoD2 - [email protected] forecasts by $3bn and even their presi- Is this what we endured the Gamecube for? Two pillocks and a urine joke? dent Satoru Iwata has admitted: ‘The Wii has stalled.’ The casual gamers have abandoned the Wii as it is no longer When the Famicom was first re- tendo introduced their newest member their ‘new toy’ and the true fans are leased in Japan in 1983, Nintendo of the family, the ‘Nintendo Wii.’ Hyped shocked at the sight of what their belov- Win Dragon Age! instantly became a household name. as the most revolutionary console in ed developers have become. Worst of Within two years they broke the glo- gaming, with motion sensing technol- all, Nintendo cannot generate enough bal market and their games were in- ogy, they promised that the Wii would interest for top games developers to his week, the divine and Answers on a postcard, then scanned stant hits. Gamers loved ‘Super Mario bring gaming to a whole new audience. produce quality games because the Wii manly felix writer Tomo and attached to an email (or just typed Bros.’ for its challenge, ‘The Legend of Indeed it brought a new audience, 56 is widely perceived as a gimmick. They Roberts gives us his hard- into an email) and sent to games.felix@ Zelda’ for its depth and sense of adven- million buyers to be precise. People know that their games will not sell on T earnt verdict on Dragon imperial.ac.uk. ture and many other games which now from as young as newborn babies to the console because the owners of Age: Origins, a 2009 late- have become classics. Needless to say, as old as wrinkled grandmothers were said console cannot even differentiate comer that many are billing to be the Our deadline is next Friday 4th De- Nintendo crushed the competition. taking up gaming. It was a phenom- from a first person shooter to an action highlight of the year. cember, so we can announce the win- Through the years to come, Ninten- enon. Even though the Wii had the least adventurer. Thanks to the delightful, shiny and rars in our Christmas issue the next do released console after console, from horsepower under the bonnet, rivals Fortunately, there is still hope for generally attractive people at EA Eu- week. the ‘Super Nintendo Entertainment Microsoft and Sony were blasted away Nintendo. The names and legends of rope, we’ve got four copies of Dragon System’ (SNES) to the ‘Nintendo 64’, by its popularity. Wiis were flying off the characters that once made them the Age: Origins for the XBox 360 to give Are you reading this in the future like and even though the competition was the shelves in every continent. It was as great developers they were have been away to felix readers. a crazy person? Is the above question getting fiercer with Sega and Sony be- if the credit crunch did not even exist kept intact. As long as Nintendo can We know how much you like being too mentally taxing for someone such coming major players in the industry, for Nintendo and they even increased return to their roots and start produc- asked to sing for your supper here at fe- as yourself to answer? (Clue - the an- Nintendo persevered by churning out their forecasts for the 2008-2009 fiscal ing quality works of art as they once did, lix, so we’re going to make it as blister- swer’s B) the same high quality games that their year. they can, and will once again, win our ingly simple as possible. Bioware, the Not to worry, becuase our Christmas fans loved. The highest rated game of However, what Nintendo failed to hearts over. I just pray that someone Dragon Age developers, have a proud issue will be featuring a mass giveaway, all time, ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina realise was that the new audience they knocks some sense back into them. history of quality role-playing games. including a fifth copy of Dragon Age What Star Wars game were they in- for the 360 among other goodies in- volved in developing? cluding some of our favourite games of 2009, so there’s another chance to bag A) Star Wars Galaxies a copy then, too. B) Knights Of The Old Republic Make sure you pick up a copy in the C) Jar Jar Binks Pinball last week of term! felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 19 [email protected] GAMES Mustard with your plate of sphincter? Tom Roberts ventures to Ferelden to battle demons and dragons but gets served by bandits and skellies

This massive cretin is an ogre – the first boss you’ll encounter in Dragon Age: Origins. Just you wait and see the size of the other ones... once you’ve reassembled your bowels after facing this chap

haven’t had my arse kicked this Knights of the Old Republic series pale architecture that badly in ages. There was one in comparison to the isometric forefa- puts Oblivion and recent encounter when I down- thers they are so in debt to. Fallout 3’s copy- I loaded the demo of Ikaruga and Bioware aren’t pussy-footing around and-paste environ- my eyes began bleeding at the any more though. Dragon Age is a kick ments to shame, and sight of a million round blobs of death in the bollocks type of alarm clock. It’s out of nowhere eight occupying my craft’s personal space, not for the impatient, and it’s not for Walking Corpses will am- but that moment aside, it’s been years the gamer with an attention span the bush you, outnumbering your since a game really handed my arse to length of Marcus Fenix’s vocabulary. band two to one. With a group of me on a plate. Dragon Age: Origins is The thing with Dragon Age, however party members whose health proba- ing camp the undead scrappers, keeping them quite the deviant, however. – and the difference between it and an bly totals less than your enemies’, every compadre occupied while Alistair brings up After a few hours wandering his exercise in sadomasochism like Ikaru- fight is a battle. Combat happens in Alistair and a rather handy, unnamed the rear, for maximum backstabbing family’s castle, chatting up some tail ga – is that dying is never unfair. When real-time, though you’ll need to make mage, who we’ll call Jasper. Simply damage. Unpause. Fight, scrap, bosh. and ripping the shit out of his auntie you die in Dragon Age, it’s your fault. liberal use of the space bar - your pause charging at the undead has proved Pause. With the archers incapacitated, for not locking her pantry leading to Not the game’s, it’s yours. So, get up, key - to assign orders. Think small scale fruitless. Outnumbered and out- Jasper can go about shooting bolts of the dog chomping on whatever he dust yourself off and try again, dam- Command & Conquer, with knights gunned by some archers lurching in lightning at the Corpses now. Unpause. pleases, Backerons – my warrior’s mit. And you will if you have any ounce for infantry and a stop time button. the background, the brute force ap- Soon enough the Walking Corpses are name, obviously: take the piss at your of resilience within you. Back to Backerons, where I’ve already proach hasn’t worked. New play re- back where they belong, lying twisted peril – retires to his sleeping quarters You can be walking through a dun- had to reload three or four times. By quired. Pause. Jasper paralyses the and mauled on the cold, hard concrete. for the night. With a loud thud at the geon admiring the gloriously designed now I’ve found a few cohorts includ- archers from afar. Backerons engages Pause. Backerons, Alistair, Jaspar: de- door, noble Backerons is awoken, bolt stroy archers. Unpause. Throwing cau- upright. The castle is being overrun, tion to the wind, the remaining undead the castle’s guard is at war and Back- are scythed down in an instant. If every erons is one of a few remaing warriors fight is a battle, every boss is a war. The left to fend for his family’s life. first encounter with an ogre is a fright- Whack! Thwock! Slash! Slash! Plink! ening prospect; its name highlighted in Ugh… “Load your last save?” the game blood red to signify how in a few sec- asks after about my third or fourth en- onds your party is going to be reduced emy encounter with the minions sent to dust. to storm the castle. A baptism by fire But you’ll try again and you will it seems, but baby am I going to quell learn, which is why Dragon Age is so these flames. endearing and such a resounding suc- Dragon Age is an RPG. A pretty cess. Combat is an RPG’s most basic beardy one at that, although not in the game mechanic. Whether it’s first per- same league as its ‘spiritual’ prequels son, turn-based or real-time you’ll be Baldurs Gate 1 and 2. It’s got your usual spending tens of hours wading through good versus butt-ugly humanoids plot, hordes of monsters in an RPG, so it spells based on the elements: earth, had better get the basics right. Dragon wind, fire and ice, XP, leveling up, loot Age’s combat is compelling, varied, – gotta have the loot – and more, but challenging, requires nous, and most since Baldurs Gate 2 the difficulty in of all, is deeply satisfying. When you RPGs has dropped noticeably. To be die for the tenth time in a row, you fair, this is an issue across the entire positively want to go back and try an- gaming spectrum, not just confined to other approach. How many times have this one genre, but look towards other you had that feeling in the past decade recent mainstream Western RPGs and of gaming? they have become much easier. Oblivi- Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a on, Fallout 3, Mass Effect and even the The Hero of Ferelden. The esteemed, noble, courageous and womanising, O surely-Lord-to-be.... Backerons save game to reload. Want to get naked to publicise your club or society? Apply at [email protected] felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 21 Fashion Editor Kawai Wong FASHION [email protected] Must-have Items of Gerard Butler Autumn Winter 09 News Strip @ Imperial Gabriella Gentilcore Sales have started! Gabriella Gentilcore Fashion Reporter Kawai Wong Fashion Editor tells you what to look out for

ll my single ladies, I have accidentally run into his face. Erdem is the latest Fashion in an important bit of news While I am on the matter of heels, Motion designer at the V&A to relay to you. Imperial may I congratulate Giuseppe Zanotti, is no longer a desert to the greatest shoe sculptor that ever Erdem will follow the footsteps of Stella handsome men (or man). existed in human history, whose un- McCartney, Gareth Pugh and Giles AAt precisely 11:15am on Tuesday, prounceable name has not done him a Deacon to show a small collection at the I almost died. This beautiful man - a great deal of favour so far (ju-’sep-pee V&A on the 11th December. Greek version of Gerard Butler - was zan-’not’ti). He has been awarded shoe The V&A’s Fashion in Motion series is a queuing behind me in the SCR. You designer of the year by Footwear News, chance for those outside of the fashion know when you look at someone and a title previously held by Manolo Blah- industry to see some top catwalk shows. your jaw drops, your heart stops and nik. Giuseppe’s work does not need a Entry is free but booking is essential, your body melts? He has the curliest of red under sole or a cute name to divert The Vagina Boot phone 020 7942 2820. Booking starts all hair, brown in the shape of a bar- attention. His shoes are to buildings a Named as such due to the close prox- Monday 30th November 9am. rister’s wig. I had to pretend that I was Norman Foster’s design; to fast cars a imity that these come to the you know looking back to check my friend just Bugatti’s masterpiece and to chairs a what. Not for the faint hearted, these Sequins Legendary Parisenne boutique to catch another excessive glimpse of Ron Arad’s creation. are possibly the sexiest item to be The 80s are back and they’re every- Colette arrives in London him. As I requested my baguette to be Giuseppe’s shoes are mad creations found in the shops at the moment. If where. Connect with your inner super- toasted, he smiled at me (oh my god, of orderly details. The shoes look you cannot afford the £1000+ price star and go for all out sparkle or just Parisian boutique Colette is to open a pop-up oh my god) and said ‘maybe your sand- streamlined, the seams look perfect, tag for the real deal, many high street a subtle hint in the form of a beret or shop in the East End. This week The Cube wich will be soggy with the salad in it’. the embellishments are just right. shops do lovely copies. Wear them. Ig- a scarf. The cheapest and simplest way Store unveils Colette’s first UK pop-up shop To which I replied, totally sensibly and When the shoe paints a picture of nore the stares. to update your look for the winter. at the Old Truman Brewery. To gain entry appropriately - ‘Can I touch your hair?’. lightning, it paints it, and finishes with you must apply online or look out for Nissan He grinned (oh my god oh my god, 10 times more edginess. When the Cube cars around the city and ask the driver oh my god) and lowered his head. shoe stands as a sculpture, it stands for a membership card to admit you into the I touched it (oh my god) and he said with confidence and conveys a sense store. ‘I like people touching my hair in the of frivolous fluidity. A bit like Banksy‘s morning’ in the cutest, kindest possi- sculptures - it‘s fun and serious. Charity jewellery sale at Imperial ble way without any sarcasm. Incidently, Giuseppe Zanotti also has ‘So what course do you do?’ I might one of the best shoe ads out there. Anja The jewellery is handmade with an oriental have been playing with my hair at this Rubik has been the brand’s spokes- twist and priced between £3 to £8. All pro- point. ‘Biomedical Engineering, used woman for two seasons. The ads are ceeds from this sale will go to Shining Your to based in Mech Eng you know. And colourful, youthful, playful and are al- Life, a charity to help single mothers setting I tell people I come to London, and ways very aesthetically pleasing. up their own businesses. Visit G/F of Sherfield of all the exciting places… I work in a For Carrie Bradshaw, the woman between 1-2pm on the 30th basement.’ ‘Yes, the corridor looks like who keeps choosing the wrong man; Feathers Nov. Visit their facebook a tunnel to the death, ha-ha.’ I think I may I advice that this Man-olo may not The ultimate party finisher. Be it on group at Shining Your Life laughed harder than he did. I com- have been the best shoe choice after all. the hem of a dress, a bag, jacket or for details. mented on his hair again (another ter- Anyway, if you are going to splash head piece there is no escaping these rific joke about not having to wear a out on Boxing Day, head down to The Snood this winter. Embrace the fun and look Classic Hepburn memorabilia goes wig to a courtroom) and we went our South Kensington and knock yourself Well...because you need to keep amazing. Start small with maybe a hair under the Hammer separate ways. He said, ‘nice to meet out at Giuseppe Zanotti’s boutique at warm... And the name of it is cute? All band to instantly add a high fashion you’. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. 206 Walton Street. If you’re the hand- fails, get a huge scarf and wrap round. spin on your normal party attire. Some of Audrey Hepburn’s most My friends say ‘point him out to us some man I talked about earlier and famous dresses, designed by the likes of when you run into him next time’. My if you have any questions at all about Givenchy and Valentino, will be going friends, I can assure you, there will be what I’ve written, please phone the fe- on auction in London this week. Mostly no ‘pointing’ when I run into him. It lix office. I will be happy to attend to from the 50s and 60s, there are over 30 is likely that I will be in my heels, my your queries personally. And no... I am Skinted Minted items on sale with 50% of the proceeds height the exact level as his. And I will not crazy! So folks, until next time. Christian Topshop Louboutin going to the Audrey Hepburn Children’s ‘Priscilla’ ‘Circus’ fund, and also to UNICEF, £125 £820 Singer Leona Lewis to design her own Vegan clothing range

Leona Lewis is the latest celebrity to turn their hand to fashion design, but she was Photoshoot anyone? lucky enough to get Stella McCartney’s advice. The singer, who refuses to wear leather or any other animal by products, has launched her very own range of vegan clothing and accessories.

Young model believed to have taken ou may have seen from our involved in a photoshoot; from meeting her own life last issue that we do photo- with designers, fitting and collecting Y shoots here. The trouble is, clothes, to doing hair and make up. As Daul Kim, the beautiful 20 year old South we always need new blood well as finding shoot locations which Korean model has sadly passed away this to help out on the operational and includes nagging restaurants, museums week. She was found by her boyfriend the creative front. First and foremost, and the Royal Albert Hall alike for per- in her Paris apartment. Daul Kim has we need models! Male and female missions to shoot... we need persistent graced the runway of Chanel, Vivienne alike! If you’re not afraid to wear cat- and dedicated team players this January Westwood, Rodarte, Dries Van Noten and suits, clown outfits and cool designer for an immensely fun shoot now titled the like. She was recently featured in Vogue’s clothes... Send your headshot, full ‘Growing Up’. For now, we are look- supplementary magazine in association with body shot, your dress size and shoe ing for Outfit Organisers, Locations Kurt Geiger. Reports have suggested that the size to fashion.felix Liason, Sponsorship Manager and any- model may have committed suicide. Giuseppe Zanotti’s SS09 and AW09 ad campaign featuring Anja Rubik. There is so much preparation work body who thinks they can help. 22 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 Travel Editors Olivia Davies & Dylan Lowe TRAVEL [email protected] Cambodia: A True Smokin’ (Pol) Pot Ever wanted to get off the beaten track? Tom Culley has and ended up travelling through one of the poorest and most corrupt countries on the planet and was shocked and amazed by what he found

t might be a bit of a cliché but most people did not know how to it has to be said that Cambo- farm because they had grown up in dia is a land of contrasts. It the cities. The new government was is relatively new to the tour- attempting social engineering on a ist trail owing to a very cheq- massive scale which involved revert- Iuered history of violence and grind- ing back to a subsistence lifestyle, one ing poverty, but the stories of wild, in which class distinctions did not remote, overgrown ruins and beauti- exist. This was bad news for anyone ful beaches and a thriving city life are who had an education or access to fi- slowly making their way back to the nances, and people wearing glasses or Western world. On the one hand it is who could speak a foreign language the home to the world’s most awe-in- were executed as parasites. And all spiring temples, was once the seat of this happened only thirty years ago, the Khmer empire and is an emerging so at least half of the current popula- economy which is slowly catching up tion were directly affected by it. with Thailand and Vietnam after the My journey started by flying from SE Asian financial crisis. On the oth- Kuala Lumpur to Phnom Penh with er hand, it is littered with landmines Air Asia, Malaysia’s answer to Ryanair and Unexploded Ordinance (UXOs) but with cheap and efficient service. making much of the country unin- My first port of call was the Lakeside, habitable and it was almost destroyed where all the best guesthouses were as a result of one of the biggest social situated with awesome views across experiments in modern times. the lake. However, for some reason Now, for those of you as ignorant of the lake is being filled in with sand in Cambodian history as I was, we shall order to build hotels and casinos for need a short history lesson before I the nouveau riche of Cambodia, so if continue. you want to see it you’d better do it In the sixties and early seventies soon because by next summer it will Cambodia was heavily bombed by probably be all gone. the Americans who were fighting The most famous attractions in in Vietnam, which was followed by Phnom Penh, if you can call them a civil war until 1975. That year the such, are situated some way from the The daily commute in Cambodia back to town at sunset along the estuary in Kampot. Khmer Rouge took control of Phnom lake, so the only way to get around is Penh, and hence the country, and by putting your life in the hands of a forced everyone into the countryside. tuk-tuk driver and praying that you an initiation to help you appreciate it is likely to be jailed for life. I only them all in the eye and knowing they All the cities, industries and money don’t hit another vehicle travelling so much more. I was letting myself in found out it was happening a few days all died horrible deaths at the hands were abandoned leaving the entire the wrong way. The pilgrimage to the for one of the best, if most horrific, later so I missed an opportunity to of their peers. population to live in small communes Killing Fields and the notorious S21 days of my travels. watch a war crimes trial for myself. I had spent two hours in the school growing rice. There was no choice in detention centre are an essential part The Killing Fields was not much to The building is preserved mostly as before I had even noticed the time, the matter, regardless of the fact that of visiting the country and is almost look at other than the Memorial Pa- it was left by the withdrawing Khmer and having had enough of death for goda containing 9,000 skulls of the Rouge, with many rooms containing the day, I headed back to the lake. victims that died there. Signs signi- a simple wrought-iron bed and pho- Moving onto the rest of the coun- fying the mass graves were dotted tographs of people lying on the beds try seemed a good idea after that, so I around, although I think the Killing with their blood covering the floor. took the first bus to Sihanoukville on Tree distressed me the most. The In one room was an exhibition with the coast. For those of you that have Tree was where the children and the photos of every person that had not been to Asia, the roads are an ex- babies were tortured and executed, passed through the Centre, including perience in themselves. Road laws do mostly by having their heads bashed small children, and it was odd looking not exist and so to get around, drivers in against the trunk. It seemed a bit surreal, especially considering the school next door where the children play in the river as though nothing special had ever happened there. I am in fact more surprised by the lack of respect shown by many west- erners. Several girls were posing for photographs next to the grinning skulls, while one guy I met in Thailand told me how he had found a tooth on the ground and kept it as a souvenir, which is pretty much grave robbing as far as I’m concerned. But then again, far worse crimes have been commit- ted than stealing a tooth. The next stop was at S21, formerly the Tuol Sleng School, which was converted into a torture camp early on in the regime. Inmates were tor- tured for information or even just for fun at the whim of the camp warden, Duch, and those that were unlucky enough to survive the torture were mostly shipped off to the various kill- ing fields around the country where they were dispatched with a pickaxe or shovel to the head, to save on bul- lets. Coincidentally, Duch is currently One of the more horrific uses of a tree, just to save on bullets having his own ‘Nuremberg Trial’ and The view of Lakeside in Phnom Penh from the Happy Guesthouse felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 23 [email protected] TRAVEL

SE Asia as it was the last stronghold South Korean conglomerate who are of the almost defeated Khmer Rouge. going to build a mega-casino and Only a few years earlier, three tour- 2000-room hotel, amongst other fa- ists were kidnapped from a train by cilities, on the site of the old build- the KR and then executed when the ings, and then build a cable-car from ransom wasn’t paid. Even in light of the summit to sea level to bypass this recent history, it is one of the the road. So again, if you want to see more laid back areas, allowing several Bokor, you’d better go soon because it days of simply wandering around and won’t be there in a year’s time. soaking up the local vibes. I didn’t think it was possible, but Another essential trip I had to make the journey back to Phnom Penh may was to Bokor Mountain. The journey actually have been the worst ever. consists of a very bumpy 4WD vehi- The bus took a completely different cle trekking slowly up the mountain route to the one I was expecting, trav- along 40km of muddy, windy roads elling along small dirt roads via tiny towards the ghost town of Bokor. Old little villages, and I spent most of the houses and hotels were left to rot af- journey worried that I was being tak- ter the civil war, and even the town en to Vietnam. Most of the road was church was used as the KR strong- unsealed and the dust that was kicked hold where they planned their next up by the vehicles in front was sucked invasion. The pièce de résistance was into the ventilation and filled the bus in fact the casino, built on the edge with a thick orange cloud. However of a cliff where the rich and famous we had it nowhere near as bad as the would come to gamble away their people in the many minibuses de- fortunes in better times. The losers signed for 15 but seating 50, mostly Caption of these fortunes would then throw on the roof . themselves over the cliff. Those people clearly had a far worse The casino itself is still structur- journey than me, but then again you ally sound, although years of mould get what you pay for; I paid $6 for the growth and being open to the ele- whole journey, whereas they probably ments makes it all the more disturb- only paid 50 cents. The Memorial Pagoda contains over 9,000 skulls that have been excavated so far, but there are still an estimated 10,000 ing when the storm clouds suddenly I was glad to be back in Phnom Penh buried just in Phnom Penh. Across the country there are many more killing fields containing even more bodies. smother the entire landscape and fill and began preparing myself for the the rooms with fog. temples of Angkor Wat… simply make a lot of noise and expect many of my friends will testify. to leave the beach to walk into town However, due to the ever-resource- others to get out of their way. This par- Off to a good start then. However, as the road is a magnet for muggers ful Cambodian government, the ticular bus driver insisted on honking I thoroughly enjoyed Sihanoukville and carjackers and walking along it as entire mountain has been sold to a To be continued in next week’s felix his very loud horn at least once every once I had settled in. My guesthouse a westerner is tantamount to suicide. 6 seconds for the entire 5 hour ordeal was on the beach next to half a mile of So of course on the first night, I and once I arrived at my destina- bars on the sand. ended up in a karaoke bar halfway be- tion I was tired and pissed off. This The strange thing about this part tween the town and the beach on the was compounded by the fact that my of the country is that the chief of po- dark road. I spent most of the evening backpack had been left in the luggage lice actually owns the local marijuana wondering whether we were about to compartment next to a giant block of plantation and hence very little law is be robbed by the group of Cambodi- ice transporting fish, which then be- enforced in the area. In fact most bars ans that had dragged us there, but ap- came a smaller block of ice with the sell joints openly for $1 each. This parently they were genuine, or at least excess meltwater and fishjuice soaked lack of law enforcement unfortunate- genuinely drinking all the dirt-cheap into my bag. I have washed it several ly also attracts the bad parts of soci- beer we were buying. At the end of times but even today it still stinks, as ety. After dark it is not recommended the night we needed to get home, but none of the moto drivers wanted to go back so we had to walk, or rather run very fast and hide from oncoming ve- hicles while thinking we were about to be murdered at any moment. Having made friends with two hot Swedish guys, I finally managed to re- lax, helped by a banana shake of the happy variety, so much so that I lay on a sofa on the beach for four hours be- fore I could be bothered to go to bed. However, even amongst this laid- back touristy atmosphere you can for- get the true world that is Cambodia. Kids wander up and down the beach trying to sell you trinkets for a few dollars; and amputees beg for food and money while hobbling along on their arms. There is no social secu- rity or benefits system and education is only provided for free up to age eleven, and even then only 20% of the population can afford to take advan- tage of it. Having stuffed my face with food and knocking back the drinks with my friends, an amputee crawled past and asked for some food. He was quite persistent even though we didn’t have anything on us, and I couldn’t help wishing that he would just move on and leave us alone to have fun. As soon thought went through my head I realised I had become the stereotypi- cal western tourist that I so despised. After this startling realisation, I felt that some good deeds were in order. To see more of the real country rather than following the tourist trail I took a minibus to the town of Kam- The beach at Sihanoukville, many, many bars to choose from pot, formerly the most lawless area in 24 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 Food Editors Chris Sim & Holly Cumbers FOOD [email protected] In search of good food in Amsterdam Chris Sim embarked in a bewildering mission through Amsterdam in hope of satisfying his desire for quality grub.

aving worked and lived ditional Indonesian banquet compris- in Amsterdam for two ing up to 25 different dishes. This months, you would’ve meal will entertain you with a multi- H thought I’d have this tude of flavours, from hints of aniseed city all figured out. But to peanutty tones, with various curry no. In fact, the more I think about it, embodiments present throughout. It the more it mystifies me. Or to use a is also a cleverly constructed meal, for cricketing phrase, it bamboozles me. you are instructed to eat the dishes in The city has so many contrasts it is order of increasing chilli heat. Res- really hard to see how it all manages ervations are essential for this res- to function so well. The serenity of taurant, but before you pick up the the beautiful canals and their arched phone, please bear in mind that I had bridges lie in harmony with the sym- to spend nearly 40 euros for this in- bolic red lights of one of the world’s dulgence. If you are wondering where most famous areas for legalised pros- the cuisine of Suriname fits into the titution. Cultural marvels such as the picture, then I guess it fits in here. van Gogh museum are just a stones Heavily influenced by Indonesian throw away from parks where scores of cuisine, Surinamese food is equally people enjoy the intoxicating effects of diverse, though finding a good restau- tolerated soft drugs. With all this go- rant was, disappointingly, one gastro- ing on, the relaxed nature of the city nomic mission too far. remains uncompromised by the seem- Unfortunately for Amsterdam, the ingly dangerous cocktail of tram routes high prices of its restaurants are not and cycle lanes. Febo. Food from a machine. Surprisingly edible stuff at reasonable prices. And even faster than McDonald’s. balanced by a cheap selection of street Equally baffling to me was the food vendors. The omnipresent hot dog scene in Amsterdam. It was neither stands and frites (fries with mayon- here nor there, sometimes sublimely They specialise in home-style Dutch accompanied by an unctuously rich Popular with tourists and locals is the naise) outlets may fill your belly, but brilliant, sometimes absolutely atro- food, and, whilst I’m no expert, it risotto packed so full of sweet lobster renowned Kantjil en de Tijger, whose even they are overpriced. Just for nov- cious. Let’s start with Dutch food. didn’t really excite me. Don’t get me flavour that I could write a thesis on busyness has probably made its own- elty’s sake it is worth trying food from Simple and hearty, their cuisine can wrong, the central theme of stews it, are worth every euro cent. Also, ers forget that we’ve barely survived a Febo, a chain of fast food stores where really hit the spot if you can find and mash was OK, but for 20 euros? their lively combination of red cab- deep recession. A recommended and you can obtain your food in a vending the right restaurant. Bear in mind, Questionable. One thing that is out of bage and apple puree with a moreish far cheaper alternative to actually eat- machine-esque manner. In my opin- however, your wallet will really feel the question is trying a Hema sausage. beef hotpot add a twist to what would ing at the restaurant itself is to order ion, the city’s fast food scene is res- the pinch no matter where you go. Oily, bland and a host of nasty adjec- otherwise be a rather forgettable dish. from their takeaway menu and to en- cued by its large Turkish and Middle Moeder’s restaurant (Mother’s) is a tives come to mind when I think of If the native the food of the Neth- joy your meal beside the beauty of the Eastern communities, whose falafel charmingly relaxed little eatery where that horrifying component from their erlands doesn’t get you going, then canals, (it can be hard to find bench- and showarma eateries offer some every inch of the walls and ceiling is sausage selection dish. On the bright cuisine emanating from the coun- es, but sitting with your legs dangling satisfying nibbles. covered with pictures of, you guessed side however, New Dorrius is one try’s glorious colonial past provides over the water is equally pleasurable). To summarise, I’m not advising you it, people’s mothers – don’t worry, Dutch restaurant well worth a visit. a satisfying alternative. Indonesian The only question mark that hangs to leave your tastebuds behind when the pictures contain friendly smiles Their slogan, ‘Inspiring Fresh Dutch restaurants, whilst ubiquitous in Am- over this restaurant is its authentic- you pack your suitcase for Amsterdam, and it adds to the atmosphere, rather Food’, summarises the core ideals be- sterdam, can vary greatly in quality ity, which is made even more obvi- just to warn them that on this vacation, than making you feel like your every hind its modern approach to cookery. and price and thus discretion is well ous when you try a rijstaffel at Tempo only a hefty spend will keep them truly mouthful is under close scrutiny. Dishes like their pan-fried sea bream, advised when making your choice. Doeloe. A rijstaffel (ricetable) is a tra- happy. “London restaurants are far too expensive for students” Chris Sim has a few handy recommendations that go at least some way to dispelling the aforementioned myth

Misato, 11 Wardour Street, W1D 6PG Belgo Centraal (Beat The Clock Deal), 29 Shelton Street, WC2H 9JL sweet leek sauce. Quality, hearty stuff. Gone are the days when for the same price, a glass of beer or wine accompa- Nestled just off the main street of and that’s without mentioning that a Mt The flagship restaurant of this Belgian- nied the meal. Thanks, Mr Recession. Chinatown, this popular fast food Everest-sized scoop of rice accompanies inspired chain doesn’t strike you as the But still, either of these quality alcohol- Japanese joint is instantly recognisable them. I have previously tried to think most obvious place of gastronomic ic accompaniments should keep your with its long queues of students hud- about trying a starter or side dish, but pilgrimage for students, with its stand- bill per head at just around the ten dling outside, awaiting their turn for my bulging belly warned me that fur- ard prices easily setting you back £20 pound mark, and with a huge selection some great value grub. I don’t need to ther additions could lead to a disaster of for a good dinner. But do not despair, of quality beers on offer, well, in my mention that unless standing in a long sorts. So at £6-8, this restaurant’s value for delicious and wholesome Belgian opinion, that’s not too bad. And with line of people is your thing, I’d recom- hardly ever comes into question. I guess food can be available at a price which a unique Narnia-like interior, equally mend you turn up early. my only complaint is that the service is corresponds to, well, the time on your oddly dressed waiters whose service To squeeze every morsel of value sometimes a tad slow, or maybe it was watch. is more than adequate, an early dinner out of each and every penny, going me being sluggish, after all, a meal this Let me explain further. From Mon- at Belgo Centraal is well worth rushing for a main meal highly recommended. formidable makes for a lethargic, yet day to Friday, from 5pm until 6:30pm, off to after braving the challenges of Tempura, teriyaki chicken, katsu don pleasantly satisfied diner. you pay the price which corresponds another day at uni. (breaded pork cutlet with egg and to the time at which you ordered your rice) are just a number of flavoursome, meal. For example, order at 5:42pm able portion of robust frites. Great for hearty treats which are well worth a try. Food: 7.0 and your meal will cost you exactly this time of year, now that the cold is Food: 7.5 Personally, I am a fan of their chicken Value: 9.5 five pounds and forty two pennies. really starting to get cosy in London. If Value: 8.5 katsu curry dish, which comprises suc- Service: 6 So what do you get for this interest- sea-dwelling creatures aren’t for you, culent pieces of chicken deep fried in ingly low price? There are five choices go for their half spit-roast chicken with Service: 8 crispily light breadcrumbs, laden with a Ambience: 6.5 on the menu, with the two best being guessed it, a bowl of fries. Moist chick- Ambience: 8 slightly sweet and spicy Japanese curry Belgian classics. A pretty safe bet is a en flesh, which oozes rich juices upon sauce, accompanied by salad and a bit Overall: 7.5/10 bowl of perfectly steamed, juicy mus- incision, is enveloped by sticky, slightly Overall: 8/10 of pickled radish. These main dishes sels dressed in a light white wine, garlic caramelised skin laden with a not- on their own are considerably sizeable, and parsley sauce matched with a size- overpowering mustard and slightly felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 25 Technology Editor Samuel Gibbs TECHNOLOGY [email protected]

Cut through Google loves your data the crap, get it How much is too much & is your data safe with Google? sorted on Twitter

Feroz Salam Technology Reporter Samuel Gibbs Technology Editor

In the 21st century, there are few more valuable things than information. It’s t’s Friday, time to ditch work and me by almost 25% for no apparent rea- what drives the technology revolution, go party! But what if you’ve got son. I thought it would have just been the ability to transfer and process large something busted, some prick of a clerical error and so contacted cus- amounts of information. a Telco is over charging you, or tomer services, only to be told that the Of course, if there’s one company Iyou’ve got to make a complaint? Tra- cost of service had gone up without uniquely poised to make the most of ditionally you’d have to sit there on the notice. When I pointed out that their this, it’s Google. With roughly 24 serv- phone for god-knows how many hours website stated the price I expected to er farms containing an estimated half a calling a premium rate number just to be charged, like every previous month million servers dotted across the globe, get through to some poor bastard in a for the last two years, I was told this Google handles 6% of all internet traf- from that usage. Companies pay large Voice, a service that allows users in call centre that can neither help you was a ‘new customers only’ deal. After fic. That’s six times more than any amounts of money to show up in Goog- the US to (among other things) man- or help himself get out of that hellish screaming down the phone at them other one company, with their main le’s subtly targeted ads and in exchange age their phone calls and make cheap excuse for a job. Well, I’m here to tell ,they told me there was nothing they website being the most visited page on all Google has to do is make sure that international calls, many suspect that you that no more do you have to suffer could do. the internet. Google has invested large a large enough number of users are this could be part of a wider strategy to through the rubbish to get the decent Of course, the budding journalist amounts of money into maintaining seeing those ads. It would appear that offer free telephone calls to participat- customer service that you deserve. in me decided I wasn’t going to stand the current status quo, from their wide this is a win-win situation for everyone ing users very soon. The system allows Twitter is the way forward. for this crap and I was going to com- variety of desktop applications to un- involved. Yet as Google grows and at- Google to make use of the extensive OK, you think I’m off my rocker, what plain in the most effective way I knew, dersea optical fibre cables that main- tempts to expand into untapped mar- optical fibre networks it has invested has Twatter got to do with customer online. First port of call was Twitter, tain blazing fast response times. kets, it’s going to want more and more in while users get free telephone calls. service? Well, if you didn’t know al- which would be promptly followed by But how does Google handle the re- of your information in order to target Yet this will probably involve letting ready, everything you say on Twitter is my personal blog and every tech blog I sponsibility of being the world’s largest those ads even better and continue to Google into yet another part of your public. Everyone can see it, it’s search- write for. I was going to drag their name repository of private information? The generate large advertising profits. The life: your private phone calls. able and it stays there for quite some through the mud for this outrage. unofficial company slogan “Don’t Be need for more and more info brings me Although in reality what Google time. Companies have gotten wind that Moments after bitching about Evil” only serves as a reminder of just back to the focal point of this piece – knows is distributed across servers people like to complain on Twitter and them on Twitter I was contacted by how much evil Google could do if it how much is too much? in multiple locations, probably pro- that their reputation often takes a beat- the customer services ‘Twitter team’ wished. Thankfully, Google to this date Like 90% of the connected world, tected by complex encryption, it is ing in a very public and motivated en- who asked for a few details so they has not betrayed its user’s faith. It has I use Google for searching the inter- still owned by a single entity that can vironment. So their plan to combat all could check it out. OK, I thought, fair been fearless in going up against gov- net. I also use Google to handle all my legally be forced into handing all in- this bitching is to put customer service enough, I’ll hold fire on everything else ernments, when requested to disclose email accounts, compile and analyse formation about you to governments. representatives on the microblogging and see what they can do for me. I send user information and hasn’t had mini- website statistics, help me get around The issue isn’t really about how much service that respond to complaints them my customer details and thirty mal embarrassing data leaks that some town, chat with friends, share photos Google can be trusted, it’s about how and try and smooth over any disa- minutes later I get a phone call. Long of its competitors have suffered from. and watch videos. Google knows ex- much Google can be forced to reveal. greements you might have with them. story short, they were very apologetic All in all, Google has proved itself rela- actly which shows I enjoy watching, I’m not going to judge you for googling The thing is that the Twitter customer and sorted it out right there and then. tively responsible in dealing with sen- which political issues I find important NAMBLA (don’t) after watching that service people have to get it right first Gone was the price increase and an of- sitive user information. But how much and my views on them and the con- South Park episode, but can the same time because if they don’t, the com- fer of compensation should I feel out of are you really willing to let Google tents of letters back home. They even thing be said about a law enforcement pany’s public image gets a bashing as pocket at the end of the day. store information about your life? know where I am right now, thanks to official? Google is at the forefront of you berate them on Twitter. Therefore, Now I don’t have beef with any I decided to write down a list of Google Latitude, and where I want to the “cloud computing” wave. Their they’ve normally got a lot more power customer service representatives, I Google products that I use. The list be, thanks to Google Maps for mobile. Chrome OS (scheduled for release in than the poor sod you find on the end couldn’t do their jobs, but I feel the came up to roughly 20 of their prod- If Google were a stalker, it would be at the end of 2010) is designed to blur of the phone on the front line of the personal level of service you used to ucts, ranging from mapping services about time for me to file for a restrain- the lines between desktop and online call centre. They bend over backwards get has gone. You shouldn’t have to to webmaster tools. All of which are ing order. applications, with ever more informa- to sort out your complaint and placate go to Twitter and publicly complain free and many of which are the best That’s why it’s interesting that Goog- tion being stored in the cloud. The you as quickly as possible and in a per- just to get decent service, but this kind products offered in their markets. The le seems to be gearing up to offer te- question remains whether the flexibil- sonal manner. of personal, fast and efficient service beauty of Google’s business model lephony services. Last week, they pur- ity afforded by keeping private infor- In a recent experience with a Telco doesn’t seem to exist in modern com- is that they can offer free, quality chased a small start-up that specialised mation on someone else’s servers can that will, for reasons of journalistic in- pany strategy, it’s too costly. products to users because they make in services similar to the venerable ever replace the privacy of one’s own tegrity, remain nameless, I found out Moral of the story, got a complaint? money from the information gleaned Skype, Gizmo5. Along with Google hard drive. that they were trying to overcharge Head to Twitter and get it sorted.

Weekly Wrap-up: A quick guide to the best of the rest you might have missed

Samuel Gibbs Technology Editor and by ordering another 2,200 PS3s to IBM is set to discontinue its current offerings, Tesco Mobile might be the emerged, one that steals your ING Di- joing the 300 or so they are using al- line of PowerPC-based Cell proces- way to go for the best value iPhone tar- rect banking details and one that turns ready. Instead of practising their skills sors, the power house behind the iffs. Besides, now you can pick one up your pocket pal into a botnet zombie. Another week in Tech has come and in Modern Warfare 2, they’ve been us- PS3, amongst other things. What this whilst you’re getting your soap, toilet Brilliant! Apple’s responce? We told gone but what have we got to show for ing them for HD video processing and means for the next generation PlaySta- duck and bog roll. How glamorous. you it could happen, tough luck, don’t it? Well, we’ve got the launch of the want to boost the power of their PS3 tion is unclear. Would Sony take the jailbreak your iPhone. The worms world’s first driverless taxis at Heath- cluster. Cell chip in house? Never fear though, spread via WiFi or cellular networks row. We’ve talked about the tiny little the current gen PS3 won’t be affected. between jailbroken iPhones with SSH automated pods that transport you Retail giant, Tesco, announced this installed and default root passwords. A from the business car park into Ter- week that it’ll start selling Apple’s gold- rookie mistake not changing your root minal 5 in only five minutes before, en child, the iPhone, on its MVNO password, but if you’re not so au fait but now you too can go have a play in Tesco Mobile. It’s the fourth carrier to with the whole jailbreak process, you them. Pity they’re not in central Lon- confirm that the iPhone will be grac- might not even know that every iPhone don; maybe they would be a cheaper, ing its network, although Tesco Mobile has a default root password that basi- safer alternative to the dodgy mini- uses O2’s network so don’t think you’ll cally allows someone nefarious to do cabs on the way home from the Union. get better 3G coverage. Tesco already anything they like with your precious We’ve heard that console gaming has several relatively cheap unlimited iPhone without your knowledge. So makes you a natural-born UAV pilot, everything plans with texts, calls and Talking of iPhones, the humble rick- if you’re rocking a jailbroken iPhone but now the US Air Force is taking Talking about the PS3, I don’t know data all included. If their current price rolling iPhone worm evolved. Two new then download mobile Terminal and their love of the PS3 to the next level whether anyone’s told the USAF but, plans are mimicked on their iPhone malicious variants of the worm have change your root password pronto! 26 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 CLUBS & Clubs & Socs Editor Alex Kendall  SOCIETIES [email protected] Imperial Amnesty join Shell campaign In a show of direct action after collecting student signatures, Courtney Williams, Thorsten Stechert, Kelly Osborne and Marissa Lewis of the Imperial Amnesty club confront Shell at the Imperial graduate careers fair.

to highlight the abuses of Shell in the ways balances profits and principles.” Niger Delta. The local Shell garage the first question, naturally, was to was used and the photos of their ex- see whether employees outside public ploits were put on Google Maps. Ac- relations saw their company in a simi- tivists all over the world have been lar light. For a person drilled into re- doing the same, and people are en- cruiting graduates and thus trying to couraged to post negative comments present his company in the best light about Shell on the photos. possible, it was not surprising that To raise awareness around campus after a short delay he confirmed that Imperial Amnesty ran a stall in the Shell was in fact an ethical company. JCR on Wednesday 28th October. In- Surely in an ethical company criti- terested students were given the op- cism is met openly and problems or portunity to write messages to Shell failures are addressed with the atten- and leave fingerprints on an idyllic tion they deserve. Whilst the source photograph of unspoilt land in Ni- claimed that internal communications geria – a slightly more visual way to dealing with this exist, the detail of register protest over pollution of such them and whether they are accessible areas. Despite fears of feedback to to anyone or on a “need-to-know” ba- Shell, a well-known employer, a peti- sis remains unknown. tion asking Shell to take responsibility Next, the negative impacts of Shell’s for the damage they are doing in the operation in Nigeria were questioned. Delta garnered an extremely positive Having been to Nigeria as part of his response around campus. work for Shell, the source was the ideal After gathering 124 signatures over candidate to give a close-up perspec- lunch for the petition, several mem- tive. He claimed that the numerous oil bers of Imperial Amnesty then made spills were mostly caused by sabotage hich are more im- is lesser... some of the fish we catch, man rights abuses they have contrib- their way down to the careers fair to and that leakages in general were no portant: human when you open the stomach, it smells uted to by providing compensation, confront the Shell recruiters with the more severe than in any other region rights or oil rights? of crude oil.” – A Bodo fisherman, vic- rehabilitation, information and access situation in Nigeria. With the petition or at any other company. However W In the Niger Delta tim of oil spills in 2008 and 2009 which to justice. and the fingerprint photo in hand they Amnesty insists Shell has the respon- it seems that Shell have still not been cleaned up. One way in which Amnesty does approached Shell’s stall, fully expect- sibility to prevent leaks from occurring and other oil companies have opted for Amnesty wrote a report on their this is through raising public aware- ing to be instantly brushed off with the (whatever the source may be), and, fail- the latter, generating for themselves findings documented over the last ten ness; this includes campaigning, peti- oh-so familiar “no comment”. Much ing to do so, to at the very least clean billions of pounds yet seriously reduc- tioning and reporting events. One of to their surprise, one of the employ- up the resulting spills. ing the quality of life for the people of their new campaigns includes turning ees, who asked to remain anonymous, When asked about the dangers of the Niger Delta. To combat this, Am- ‘a petition asking Shell a Shell station into a “Hell station”. agreed to answer their questions. working in Nigeria, the source told the nesty International are currently run- This is what Imperial Amnesty did Since Shell say they “are totally com- Amnesty members that Shell tries to ning a campaign to convince Shell to to take responsibility for when they kicked off their campaign mitted to a business strategy that al- avoid areas of political unrest. clean up its act. the damage they are do- This led to the question whether Shell Oil, a multi-million pound UK- Shell had actually sown the seeds for its based company, is the region’s biggest ing in the Delta garnered current distress, which was answered oil producer, in association with the with “It depends how you assess the Nigerian Government. However, they an extremely positive re- situation.” The way that Amnesty as- have left the area in a catastrophic sesses the situation is that the often state, and Amnesty International has sponse around campus.’ blamed political turmoil, the violent exposed various ways in which Shell attacks on Shell’s property and kidnap- has violated the human rights of local pings of Shell’s employees were not in- people. years, entitled “Petroleum, Pollution evitable. When Shell moved to Nigeria Nine million barrels’-worth of crude and Poverty in the Niger Delta”. They fifty years ago, the local populace was oil have poured out of pipelines in the intended to put pressure on the new anything but militant, expecting an Niger delta region, killing fish (a major CEO of Shell, Peter Voser, and shortly economic boom in the area. Yet little source of food and income), pollut- afterwards, Shell took part in an on- of the enormous revenues made with ing rivers and destroying land so that line dialogue about the report. Over Nigerian oil seemed to reach the peo- growing crops is impossible, and leav- 445 people took part in this dialogue, ple; the average income, at $2 a day, is ing seventy five percent of the rural including representatives of Amnesty amongst the very lowest in the world. population with no access to clean wa- and Friends of the Earth (some of The interview concluded on a friend- ter. Shell and the Nigerian government whom were based in Nigeria). ly note, as both the Amnesty members have also refused to provide local peo- Amnesty is now challenging Shell’s and their interviewee are hoping that ple with basic information and consult new CEO Peter Voser to change the “in time, everything will change for the communities about the work going on. situation and right some of the wrongs better.” Whether this is true remains to “If you want to go fishing, you have caused by the company. They want be seen. Meanwhile Amnesty is upping to paddle for about four hours through Shell and the Nigerian government to the pressure on Mr. Voser to put things several rivers before you can get to clean up the Niger Delta, be transpar- right in the Niger Delta. where you can catch fish and the spill ent in their actions and remedy the hu- The Amnesty stall in the JCR, before the assult on the careers fair

Your Club or Society Here. Description of your awesome trip or event here. Want your club to be in felix? Send us a description of a trip, event, tour or social and everyone will know about it. Email [email protected] felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 27 What’s on... Clubs & Societies Calendar Editors – Lily Topham & Rachel D’oliveiro

[email protected]

Mon 30th Nov Tues 1st Dec Medsin Positively Red Week – Central Line Pub Crawl Medsin Positively Red Week – Human Red Ribbon! – 7pm start at Notting Hill Gate, fill up your collecting – Wear a red top on World Aids Day and join in our human buckets all the way to Tottenham Court Road... red ribbon formation... – Afterparty at TigerTiger, Haymarket Medsin Positively Red Week – Red Ribbon Projection ICSMSU Silent Disco – 4pm, Queen’s Tower – Tickets £5 from ICSMSU Office in SAF – See the Queen’s Tower lit up with the World AIDS Day Red Ribbon

Medsin Positively Red Week – Super Quiz – 7pm, dB’s, Union (free) – Swot up for a chance to win a prize for the top team in the HIV/AIDS quiz Thurs 3rd Dec LawSoc and Finance Society – How to get a job in the City Muslim Medics and Islamic Society – 7pm, Blackett LT1 (free) – “The Etiquettes and Social Responsibilities of a Good – Two LSE graduates currently working in the city reveal Muslim Doctor” their secrets to success with applications – 6pm, SAF G34 (free) – An insightful evening by Mufti ibn Adam. Model UN – Frost/Nixon Film Night To Do.... – 6pm, Pippard LT, Sherfield Weds 2nd Dec – Free for all, food provided! 1) Fly away.... Medsin Positively Red Week – Global Health Forum Friends of MSF – Speaker Night and Debate 2) Email whatson.felix@ – 6:30pm, Huxley Clore LT (free) – “The Role of Religion in HIV transmission and imperial.ac.uk – Joanna Knight and her colleague talk about their expe- prevention” (Club name & event, riences of running clinics for Friends of MSF – 6pm, SAF G34 (Free!) time, place, price, pics...) – Free Starbucks refreshments by end of Tues 1st Dec. Law Society – Negotiation Workshop with Allen & Overy Terry Pratchett’s “Wyrd Sisters – The Play” – 7pm, Elec Eng 403B – 7:30pm, UCH, Union – Free for all! – £5 for students, £7 for non-students – Come along to DramSoc’s Autumn play – with witch- Medsin Positively Red Week – Slave Auction! es, thumbscrews and the longest kiss in history.... – 7pm Reynolds Bar, Charing Cross Campus – Runs until Saturday 6th Dec

Terry Pratchett’s “Wyrd Sisters – The Play” – 7:30pm, UCH, Union – £5 for students, £7 for non-students Sat 5th Dec Terry Pratchett’s “Wyrd Sisters Fri 4th Dec – The Play” Medsin Positively Red Week – Krispy Kreme Sale – 7:30pm, UCH, Union – All day across the South Ken Campus – £5 for students, £7 for non-students Sun 6th Dec Terry Pratchett’s “Wyrd Sisters – The Play” Musical Theatre Society – Freshers’ Revue – 7:30pm, UCH, Union – 7:30pm, UCH, Union – £5 for students, £7 for non-students – Free (with collection for charity) – Featuring a mixture of entertaining num- bers from a variety of West End shows. 28 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009

Text in to 07832670472 CAT-NIP Email in at [email protected] Drop us a message at felixonline.co.uk

NEXT WEEK’S CATNIP QUESTION: What do you think really happened to WHAT DO YOU HATE MOST the Rector? Isn’t it obvious? I think Agent Smith finally got to Mr. Anderson ABOUT MEDICS?! Sitar Hero His position was compromised...by the manspider! LOL Anonymous

He’s given up on rectorin’ to live in the country and write a book of fairy tales for children...and talk to cows... Anonymous

Your mum happened to him. She was so fat, she crushed Drunken-mate photo of the week him. The jelly-like remains are being sent to UCL to resolidify. Your Dad Got a picture of your mate being CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE? an absolute waste EMAIL TO of oxygen? Well, [email protected] get your camera FACEBOOK out and email your it on our ‘Felix’ fan page drunken-mate TEXT US photos to catnip. on 07832670472 [email protected] AND NOW ON

The moral of this story is: don’t get drunk and crash out when your mate’s got a TWITTER! used condom and no bin. But hey, at least they used protection! Senders must have permission to use submitted photos and just tag your tweets accept full responsibility for them with @felixcatnip xkcd.com felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 29

(We’ve(We’vvee gonegoonne greengrgreeeen forffor GreenGreen Week,Week, HangmanPuttingPutti ng thethe cat outouout toto drydryry nonnotot tththataatt wewe weren’twew ren’t greengrg een before...)bbefore...) [email protected] The Beginner’s Guide to Tree Imitation You may laugh at the title, but it is a serious sport, with serious consequences if treated irresponsibly

Anonymous Hangman Editor It wasn’t so funny when he was dead! HISTORY: The sport of tree imita- the sport in 1982 when seven teams, speculate that this was the reason for tion, or ‘treeming’, was invented by including global reigning champions, her moving to East Germany and that Ronnie Beckstein in 1943 when he dis- the ‘Arboreal Augsburgers’, went miss- her song ‘Locomotion’ was released as You’ve seen them out there in the guised himself as a Sicamore to escape ing in the Black Forest. The ITA, with a protest to the banning. She had to re- fields, just standing there, and thought the the hounding German forces. Un- worldwide government support, have place ‘treeming’ with ‘locomotion’ for to yourself, ‘I could do that!’ fortunately, Ronnie was captured two started a large-scale deforestation pro- legal purposes. WELL STOP! These brash and care- months later when Goebbel’s Dachs- gram to ensure that the ‘Great treem- RULE 3: No Shrubbery imitation less thoughts could wind up with you hund pissed on his leg. ing disaster of ‘82’ does not happen dead. Unless you have the professional again. In 1998, Christians protested against training for such a dangerous sport, the sport, saying that it was actually you should leave tree imitation well Ronnie RULE 2: Avoid large uninhabited and invented by Jesus when he wore the alone. desolate areas. When the sport pre crown of thorns and attempted to imi- This child thought it would be funny tate a Gorse bush. to pretend to be a large Oak. The ITA retorted with a statement saying ‘Eye witness accounts from the bible say that the crown of thorns was placed upon Jesus’ head by soliders and not himself. If, however, it was the case that Je- After the war, the sport took off in East sus did in fact use the thorny foliage Germany, spearheaded by Beckstein’s as a tactical guise to escape, he did so son Raymond. Raymond founded the in a wreckless manner and thus failed However, if you think you’ve got the Standard Tree Imitating Code (STIC), miserably. balls it takes to be a tree, then here are which are the basic guidelines used Jesus did not just die for our sins, he some steps that will see you on the way by the International Treeming Asso- showed us the real danger of the ex- to becoming the master of disguise. ciation today. The ITA have been the treme sport that is treeming’ sport’s official governing body since miered at the 2000 Sydney Olypmics, The ITA conseqently banned the im- DISCLAIMER: HANGMAN TAKES 1954 and set the standard treeming it caused mass panic throughout the iation of shrubbery and thorny bushes NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY SE- regulations for the now professional Nation as most Australians had never in the sport. RIOUS INJURIES OR DEATHS THAT and highly-regarded sport. seen a tree before. Treeming has con- MAY OCCUR FROM FOLLOW- RULE 1: Don’t treem in a heavily sequently been banned in Australia, Hangman jokes about many things, ING THIS GUIDE. YOU ATTEMPT wooded area, you might blend in too much to the dismay of Kylie Minogue, but says this to you with all serious- TREEMING AT YOUR OWN RISK well and become lost. Tragedgy struck who was an avid Treemer. Many people ness: TREEM CAREFULLY!

Hangfan We love hearing from the fans and have TWATTER received some really warm feedback SexyOsama69 “I am an up-standing member of society. I recycle, walk to university and generally OMGZ Obie! Howz u knw wher my cave is do all that I can to reduce my carbon LOL? footprint. Your ‘Guide to being green’ was UNION STAFF IN a reckless and harmful piece of writing (if you can call it that). The most irritating Barack_attack_l33thaxor MELTDOWN part of the article was the fact that you consider this to be amusing. OUR PLANET IS DYING!!! GROW UP!! I am not prone to Google maps lol :p Last week, the Union decided that in being aggressive, but you pile of w****** union.ic.ac.uk/acc/football order to make some money to fund the are the reason our generation are seen brothel being built on the first floor as pathetic and the reason Roy resigned, I SexyOsama69 of the Union building, plastic figu- hope you’re happy ” Loves hangman so rines of all the Union Sabbs and staff much they use it as toilet paper. LOL! Ur soliders cum in and r liek ‘RA RA, put should be sold to students. Ashley and ur hands on ur hed,Ur arrested lol’ Danny (they’re important) told Hang- Come on Barbie, let’s go party (in dBs) man that the models were proving to be highly popular with the Science Fic- tion society. distinguishable plastic parts. SUPERACEGORTHEROAR87 Unfortunately, and indeed surpris- Having spent a total of £520,000 on ingly, the rest of the student body were the entire stock, the Union don’t have FFS! Does dat mean ur not playin COD tonight? not particularly receptive to the mod- any more funds to pay for heating, so els. Ashley Brown seemed highly con- half the models will be burned as fuel fused when confronted with the issue; and once melted down, the plastic will “But I come with interchangable out- be fashioned into a giant statue of Rus- SexyOsama69 fits and a pink fire engine!” sell Brand (‘cos he’s too cool...bleurgh). LOL. Soz Gor. Wel at least u can stay alive for None of the Deputy Presidents or The other half have been donated to mor dan 10 secs now! Osie I’m comin over USA Union Staff were available to com- the Chinese Army for target practice. ment, it is suspected that two of them They returned the gesture with a cer- for sum trial nw :D. Canz I crash @ urs? xxx are critically ill having swallowed in- emonial rifle with five bullets engaged. 30 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 COFFEE Coffee Break Editor Charlie Murdoch BREAK [email protected]

And to the Stuff Imperial students like:

Vomit Pit! er over my years at Imperial I have 8. Science Fiction: noticed a similar tradition running CharlieChar Murdoch Coffee Break Editor through the whole of the Sci-Fi cli- As much as it pains me to say this, entele, the longness of hair and of- apparently here at Imperial we love ten lack of shower. a good bit of Sci-Fi. We do have Eu- Now this could be due to the nev- h bollocks. I had a few com- and I came up with an idea so great that rope’s biggest Sci-Fi library. Unfor- er ending bench-pressing of huge plaints last week and I don’t we are going to Dragons’ Den with it- I tunately. But apparently we fucking novels, or because they are so keen Aknow what to do about it. shit you not. Listen in boys and girls: love a good science fiction read. to read that a shower comes pretty I have been informed that the Union needs to dig a well on the I personally don’t see why we much necessary. Whatever the rea- my personal contribution to the paper right hand lawn in the quad. This well need a whole big library for what son, there is no excuse to shag in the last week was very much below stand- can then be ceremoniously named the is essentially literature and can be west wing basement toilets is there ard, i.e. shit. I was confused as to why ‘Vomit Pit’ and I think you can guess found in any other library in the NHS specs boy? Yes we all heard this could be the case, so after glassing what it should be used for. If you’ve had land, but each to their own. Howev- you last year. Twat. the complainers I got them to confess. the dreaded one too many, the vomit pit Sci-Fi, take note. Water = women They informed that they were extreme- is there for you and it’s not just laddish ly disappointed to find that last week I behaviour that can benefit. The bulimic choose not to have an angry rant direct- and anorexic crew out there will ben- ed at 5000 largely unknown persons. I efit hugely too, they can now vomit and can only offer my most sincere apolo- be just like everyone else! ‘Ohh look at gies; I just wasn’t that angry last week. me I’m sooo drunk!’. No love, you just This week’s best of lol catz Actually that’s a lie; I did spend most of rammed two fingers down your throat last week throwing phones about, but and it’s 10am. But the best part is that that’s not my fault. If the twats on the this pit acts as an anaerobic respirator, other end are going to continue to ask as enzymes break the vomit down en- me inane questions that have no bear- ergy is harnessed and the only wasted ing on my problem then they are going product is compost to be used by ESoc. to have a phone launched at them. For- Humm, now I’ve re-read what I’ve tunately, the closest wall if often much just written it sounded considerably more appealing to me and my phone is more plausible (and normal) in the bar, unusually strong- it’s a Sony Ericsson now it just sounds silly. Finally imagine for those who are interested. you are on a packed train but in the Right. What would you say if I men- morning, everyone is silent except a tioned a Union vomit pit? Run with me couple downstairs having a domestic. on this. I was supposed to be ‘green’ The whole bus can hear quite clearly this week, but I had a little think about and halfway through the journey, the it decided ‘fuck that’. However, down male participant pipes up with the the bar this week Jov (the ex-editor) quote below. H-fucking-larious.

Bloke on the bus: “I know you don’t understand. I don’t expect you to understand. It’s because you’re a woman.” Quote of the Week Wordoku 1,446 Slitherlink 1,446

Solution 1445 I T F Solution 1445 3 13232 3 F C E R Z I B M O W A 123 2 3 O M B W E A I R Z 3 322 1 3 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 12 E F I L I W A R O Z E B M 2 2 2 2 R B W A Z O M I E H B 1 1 2 Z O M B I E W A R 3 2 2 0 3 1 23 2 2 A I E M W R B Z O I B 3 23123 3 W A O Z M I R E B 1 1 2 2 22 1 2 E A M Z I E R B A O W 232 3 B E R O A W Z M I 3 1 2 3 2 2 C L E A 3 1 2 13 h is weeks slitherlink is harder F T How to play: than normal... so have fun. Last Wordoku is identical to 2 1 2 02week’s winner was an old favorite, H C L Sudoku; we’ve just replaced Giramondo. Nice to have you back numbers with letters. lads. Rock on. Complete the puzzle and 3 2 1 Well done to The Tough Brets who won last then send the whole grid to How to play: week’s wordy game. The winning word was sudoku.felix@imperial. 2 ZOMBIEWAR, as to what one is I have no ac.uk. You will not get credit 1 1 1 It’s quite simple, all numbers are in clue, but I hoped you enjoyed it not the less. for just the word alone. It’s not a cell and must be surrounded with Tune in next week for more fun and games. an anagram. 2 1 2 0 a corresponding number of lines. 3 Lines cannot split and there can only be one continuous line. Any Scribble box 1 1 3 3 2 2 cells with no numbers can have any 3 number of lines. Look at the solu- tion above for help. felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 31 [email protected] COFFEE BREAK Intersection 1,446 FUCWIT Horizontal: Scribble box 1) Apparatus for cooking meat (8) 2) Site of final English Civil War battle (9) League Table 3) Cosmo cocktail ingredient (9) TTeams:eams: Vertical: 1) To expand on detail (9) Harry Potter Trio 64 Points 2) Scorpian, tick and spider (9) The Tough Brets 64 Points 3) Professional female performers (9) 4) Protective coating (7) I Hate Medic Wankers 9 Points 5) A welsh university (11) Individuals:Individuals:

Oh hai guyz. Lets get more entries for Matthew Colvin 62 Points this one this week- we only had two Ying Liang 27 Points entries! Right, anyway the winner was Your Mum. Very mature lads, as far Bethan Matthews 24 Points as I am aware that phrase should only Solution 1445 be used in answer to the question, “so The Felix University/College-Wide Invitational Tournament League is what you feel like doing tonight?”. You new and improved, with prizes for both the winning team and the win- can see how it works. E ning individual. R W B I How to play: R I A C So you get points for doing the puzzles and at the end of the year, the C A R B O N O F F S E T winning team and the winning individual will win an iPod nano! Solve the clues (given in order: top-to-bottom & left-to-right) and fit the R E N E W A B L E 5 points for the 1st correct answers for all puzzles on these pages, 4 answers into the grid. Only letters contributing to the horizontal answers (and B I O D E G R A D A B L E points for 2nd, 3 points for 3rd, 2 points for 4th and 1 point for 5th. Dou- blank spaces) may occupy the middle section. Not all columns contain a vertical O L Y N A O ble points will be awarded for cryptic crossword answers. answer. There are no empty rows or columns in the solution. Look at the U A N L L solution below for help. S S E L L Now then FUCWITs, answers to [email protected]. Go! S L Y Send your solutions to [email protected] S

Nonogram 1,446 2 1 1 1 1 Going Underground 5 1 1 4 3 2 4 6 2 How to play: 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 Well done to Matt Colvin who man- Each letter in the alphabet is assigned a The numbers represent the size and order of blocks in each aged to find PADDINGTON as the value, 1-26 (see table) and every word column and row. There must be at least one space between 2 missing word. Again it was a double has a value equal to sum of the values each block. See last week’s solution below for more help. wammey as HILLINGDON was also of its letters. Scan and send the Un- 5 1 accepted. However, the rules are first derground station that is hidden each correct answer in! week to [email protected] Solution 1445 2 3 I made a mistake last 5 4 5 1 1 1 1 2 1 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 1 1 week: the penultimate 5 7 10 41 2 4 2 1 1 row should have read 1 22 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 12 11 10 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 2 23 24 25 26 5 1 1 “4 1 2” but it actually 1 2 2 4 1 read “4 1”. Ah well shit 4 1 2 2 B A N K happens. Thanks to all = 28 2+1+14+11=28. Job done. 5 those who pointed it 2 1 14 11 4 1 out. We promise that 1 1 2 3 this one will not be 1 1 2 So which London tube station sums to 161? 7 1 broken. 3 1 2 Oh by the way, it was 1 4 1 4 1 (2) a third of the recycle ______symbol... it was green = 161 6 1 3 4 week!

sstrucktruck “Dinosaur seeking lovley other dino- “Hot harvey: we can’t mistake your will show you a time so great you’ll ffelixelix LLoveove saur to make lots of little dinosaurs. biology, the way that you talk, the never shag another clap free man,” I want to ravish you in a moresome way that you walk, you’re there in our Applause with a Russian, a Chinese girl and thoughts, we watch you after biology... 07726 799 424 a... Hmmm don’t know what the best We’ll be your girls aloud ;-) xXxXx “Dear Woman. Do you have a gash? adjective to describe Chloe is, you from the SAF Sirens.” I’m not picky.” choose.” Talking to boobs Need a shag Seen that special Cat Phone person? Could be “Dear intellectual PhD physicist I “U r the long haired boy studying no what we did was wong, but it felt the one? Want to physics. Is ur name polly or was it so wright! Please fall onto me again Paid £10 for this ad. molly? U sit infront of me. Mind sometime soon.” see them again? sitting on me? For ur infomation my 2nd year biochemist Needless to say, vector has a very large magnitude. struckstruck care 2 lend me a hand normalising “I have the clap yes. I do. However we’re going Dutch Text LLoveove it?” that just shows that i’m an experi- to get a free union Honky tonk enced man in the sack. And to be hon- on our first date. est out of it, around it, on it. Ladies I lunch together! 32 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 COFFEE BREAK [email protected] A quickie (crossword) 1,446

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ACROSS 8 8 Solution 1445 1 Sound of pellet dropping into 5 Parcel out (5) water (4) 6 “___-____ hot-shot - how do you R A N K OA A B I T M U C H 9 10 3 Got rid of (like old banger?) (8) spell HIV? Are you positive?” - O O O O S A A R A D S U A 9 Sound of welly stepping in mud N.M.T. Buzzcocks? (3-4) C H O P P E R O B R E S T 10 (7) 7 Sound of microwave completion - K G S D O D M T O R D P E 10 Flower (wolf-like?) (5) Blemish (on one’s motor) (4) S H E I K AR A T O N C E CH T U D A E E N A NA S A R B 11 12 11 Glacial ridge - Eater (anag.) (5) 8 Part of record, or jacket (6) 12 Begin journey - Systematically 13 Mash riff (anag.) (4,4) A G H A S T AL A S T R A L R L E F AR N R O T L E Y O display (3,3) 15 More wet (in a prissy sort of way) 13 F H A G G L E RA A R R O W 14 Not question (6) (7) S K V L H I D G R P O T H 16 Japanese exclamation (military) 17 Fix (6) C R E D O T H A V E A G O 14 15 14 16 17 (6) 18 Lung-butter/Hockle/Loogie/ U L H H S T O A E N S L L 19 Sound of puddle wading (6) Docker’s-omlette/Grem etc... (6) P R O S T A T E T S T Y E 21 Sound of struck cymbal (5) 20 Chain of cinemas (5) 16 18 18 24 Not dead (5) 22 Hispanic pal (5) 25 Gentlemanly literature - Oat 23 Sound of an explosion (4) 16 19 20 21 22 rice (anag.) (7) 26 Famous Apache warrior (8) Scribble box 23 21 22 27 Sound of F1 car -Pan in (4) PETER!!! You might be able to ask Nick Griffin questions, but... you cocked DOWN this one up. Sorry lads, I have now 24 25 castrated Mr Logg and sent him back 1 Kick bucket (4,4) to teh North. However he has tried to 24 2 Egg (5) redeem himself with this effort. De- 4 As Jamie was to Zoe, Johnny was spite this Alan Murrell and Phillippa 26 27 to Denise, Philip was to Fearne, Owens still managed to win! and Richard was to Judy (2-4) Crossword by Peter Logg

Sorrow-scopes; horoscopes, but with a tear of sadness Look, we don’t care if you find these too “far out” and “offensive”. It’s all legal and morally sound in our minds

Aquarius Taurus Leo Scorpio “I’ll eat that computer if you down that Working in the Oh, you’re a website Stop breathing my air. pint right now” you Union has dragged are you? Fuck me, you Stop eating my wedges. say as you point to you to your lowest don’t seem to be acting Stop sitting on SAF the nearest library  depths. You’re ready  like one. An update a  seats like they’re yours!  terminal. Your mate to give in and throw week? That’s almost as You have about 7 other downs the pint easily yourself off the SAC frequent as a certain campuses you could be and it looks like you’re in the shit. You start balcony leaving a bloody mess on Phil Power’s newspaper on campus. All you are is a one-stop- at. All you do is claim you’re too busy for anything, chomping away the screen, smash it and the desk below. You’ll do it, but mid-fall you realise shop for masturbating hacks as they ejaculate all hang out with yourselves, then up with wankered LCD crystals taste a bit like marmite. Shame you you’re already dead inside, and will probably over the underside of their desks at the thought of in the Reynolds and hitting police officers. All hate marmite. You spit the gunk onto the fit girl just scare poor old Phil as your torso throws incorrectly filled-in Minibus hire forms. Oh, the together now: BLOODY MEDICS. I’ll forgive you opposite, as library security tazer your fine ass. weeks of paperwork across the office. sexy lapse in security. Oh, the humanity! SPLAT. though. I’ll forgive you though, cos you’re lovely.

Pisces Gemini Virgo Sagittarius

Amongst the dingy You sleep through You’re standing It’s your birthday and lights and ‘wicked’ lectures, procrasti- there, in the middle you’re drunk. Surprise, music of Tiger Tiger nate during lunch, in- of the field, wet and surprise. But what’s you somehow find sult your best friend’s muddy as fuck. As this? You have half the  yourself with a girl.  dead aunt, go home, you see another goal hall chasing your arse You close in for a kiss, wank over the busty fly past you, you start down Exhibition Road problem is you’re so fucked on drugs you literally biologists you noticed passing SAF, do some to wonder why you even bothered turning up. because you wished to be Usain Bolt when you eat her face off. You don’t stop there though, work (wank), wank a bit more, relax (wank) The time your brain has processed this thought, blew out the candles. You breeze past Ethos and your mouth has become a gurning machine, and while your roommate pops out for a smoke, as- they’ve scored 4 more goals. Fine, it’s time to get get hit by a Gee-Whiz. Check if the driver’s still while she thinks you’re having a stroke, you’re sault the nearest medic, fall asleep, dream about out the razors you keep in your socks and turn alive, the fucking loser. He’s okay, but you’re not. busy trying to stroke her. Fail. said biologists, wake up and repeat. Wanker. them against your own wrists. I’ll 114-nil YOU. Death, makes a change. Best birthday ever.

Aries Cancer Libra Capricorn

He’s not going to Donkeys better than You’re happily sitting You’re in the Union, sleep with you, quit horses? You’re having on the tube on your and you’ve just finished the Facebook stalking a laugh. Unless it’s a fit way home when a big off your thirteen pints and stop planning the donkey, in which case fat Serbian bloke tries of John Smith’s, dirty murder of his current  I’m in for a ride too. to speak to you. He’s fucker. You stumble out girlfriend. She’s more Might as well make just plain harrassing to the quad, vomit on awesome than you and rides him like a pro. You a DVD and get some cash out of this, could get you, but in a weird way you’re getting turned on. the nearest steward and the next thing you know, need more experience. Maybe you can get some sponsored by the RSPCA too. Oh shit, PETA are The train halts and he ‘accidentally’ gets thrown you’ve woken up on top of the Huxley building. by becoming a necrophiliac. They won’t say no. after you, quick, hide in the nearest brothel. You into your lap. He breaks your pelvis as well as Not exactly what you had in mind when you Practice makes perfect. like women, yes. No donkey lovers here. your new iPhone. You get off at Oxford Circus to started sports night. Arrogant fresher. Pint? get your iPhone replaced ASAP. felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 33 [email protected] COFFEE BREAK Aunty McPickle is a bit nippy this week. No, literally.

Dear Aunty McPickle,

On a recent binge trip to Milan I decided to get my nipple pierced. It was going relatively ok until I felt a strange oozing sensation from the tip of the nipple and a white milky- rice-pudding like substance started running down my chest. I hoped it would stop after a couple of days but it hasn’t. I am now lactating and have to wear several layers to hide it. What do I do?

Joseph Sparrow You’d better let some out to relieve the pressure, Joe, otherwise you’ll look like this

Dear Joseph Dear Aunty Mc Pickle, arousing you anymore. Maybe it has Dear Aunty McPickle, Dear Michelle, Woah. less to do with the place but more to do Must have a been a right corker! Al- I have started having trouble getting with her face? In that case, you should I recently had my boyfriend over for This sounds a bit embarrassing. At though males don’t lactate under nor- aroused by my girlfriend in the nor- consider getting her a boob job and a the weekend and we decided to have least your mum didn’t see you two. I mal circumstances, when stimulated mal bed setting. paper bag for Christmas. If you don’t a steamy moment in the sauna. My would probably try to forget about the excessively (or in your case pierced) lac- A nagging desire for something think this is a problem then experi- mum had been asleep but apparent- whole episode. It must have been a very tation can be initiated. Have you been more exciting has perpetuated itself: menting is totally healthy. ly woke up and decided to walk into confusing situation for your boyfriend playing with it too much? Or perhaps the physics showers. Do you think I However, getting caught out might the bathroom fully starkers to take a but maybe watch out for him checking running current through it. It may just can get away with it? earn you a rather peculiar rep. You shower! her out or attempting footsy in the fu- be a lot of pus which needs to be let out could both try wearing the paper bags, We hid behind the wall but had to ture. That would not be cool. but either way you should defs get this Stevie Hasselhoff but if they happen to come off when face the shower to avoid being seen. If you do happen to catch him flirting, looked at. you’re discovered, you’ll earn an even My boyfriend couldn’t take his eyes cut his tiny cock off, either literally or In the meantime, however, you could weirder reputation. off of her naked body and he seemed figuratively - I’ll leave that up to you. consider investing in a pair of nipple Dear Stevie, Then again, it’s not as if everyone to have a much larger erection than Don’t feel too upset, though. He’ll know pads. Oh, and avoid strong magnets, that does physics is exactly “normal”, he has with me. It was four whole that you’ll look like her in twenty years as well as running shirtless into electric I’m pretty sure this has been done be- even for Imperial standards. inches! anyway. fences. fore; at least there are rumours of it. I Should I feel jealous? think you should maybe consider why You rs, Hope you get through this, Aunty McPickle xxx your girlfriend in particular is not AuntyMcPickle xxx Michelle Bigrod Aunty McPickle xxx RAG Charities Pt. 2: Great Ormond Street Hospital

ou may have heard about Tree, with the Main Choir, and we’ll be Barrie even donated the rights to his our upcoming carol-singing needing about 15 to 20 collectors. play and novel Peter Pan to the hos- Y events, but if you haven’t, These lovely yuletide occasions are pital, so that it recieves royalties from we’re having two upcoming for the benefit of The Great Ormond productions of the play and sales of the carol-singing events. Street Hospital for Children. Opened novel. Our first is this Friday, the 4th of De- in 1852 in Bloomsbury, this hospital Nevertheless, the hospital continually cember at Green Park Station with Im- not only has the widest range of chil- needs to pay for accommodation, not perial College Chamber Choir. We’ll be dren’s specialists out of any hospital in only for the patients, but their parents, as needing 5-7 collectors, and if you like, the country, but also conducts leading well as new equipment and their exten- you can join in the singing! research in children’s medicine. sive research into children’s medicine. Our main event on Monday, the 14th It is notable for its high-profile sup- So if you’re interested in helping out of December, however, will take place porters, which have included Queens such a worthy cause, don’t hesitate to on the main stage at Trafalgar Square, Victoria and Elizabeth, Tony Blair and contact us at [email protected] to right under the massive Christmas Victoria Beckham. In 1929, author JM join in with the Christmasness! Some patients from the Great Ormond Street Hospital website (GOSH.org) 34 felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 SPORT [email protected]

there is an excellent cafe. On this occa- sion, it was packed full of wet, muddy Cycling weather it out bikers desperately trying to find an excuse not to go back out into the howling gale and torrential rain. After fuelling up we continued on the trail; in South Wales mercifully the weather was starting to improve, and just as we were about to finish the ride several hours later, Iain Gillam Cycling storms that the news had been threat- it could even have been described as ening the day before. After making the quite nice! The afternoon was filled most of the included breakfast at the with a challenging climb, littered with Arriving at the Queen’s Tower minutes shockingly early time of 8:30 we set exhausted riders who hadn’t quite before the strict five o’clock deadline, about preparing the bikes and com- managed to make it too the top (or for I fully expected to be subjected to a menting on (Toby’s) kit choice before some people, had barely left the start!) barrage of abuse for not being on time. embarking on Afan’s longest trail, w2. All the hard effort spent in the ascen- However it turns out that quite a few of After warming up with a descent fol- sion was rewarded by the final descent us were running late. With the minibus lowed by a short climb, the general back to the lodge packed and ready to go at the slightly consensus seemed to be that riding After fully exploring Port Talbot’s later time of 5:30, the club trip to Afan all day in the slight drizzle wouldn’t night life (well, the one pub to be found forest, in the far flung corner of the UK be a problem. However, only a short there) Sunday dawned to the sound of that is South Wales, set off. while later the rain gradually built up yet more rain and very strange noises After exhausting all normal con- into a fully fledged storm, turning the escaping from everyone’s bikes. Short- versation a few hours in our thoughts trails into muddy rivers and making us ly after driving to the skyline centre, turned to the weather or more to the question who had coined the laugh- so that James and I could be robbed point how bad it was. The radio might able term “waterproof”, as no item of by the bike shop in exchange for a few have mentioned something about the clothing described as such seemed to sets of brake pads, we headed to the worst storm in the UK this year ready- fulfil its promise. Dave provided the Penhydd centre to ride the trail of the ing itself to hit south Wales on the mornings’ entertainment by mysteri- same name. Saturday. Luckily the storms hadn’t ously leaping off his bike into a bush Luckily it had stopped raining, and worked up enough force to close the to inspect the local fauna. I personally we were able to enjoy the shorter Pen- seven bridge and we arrived at our found the rest of that downhill section hydd trail even fitting in a spot of light destination, Bryn Bettws lodge, in rela- challenging, it seems the side effects reading at the top. After arriving back tively good time (six hours after setting of viewing Dave launch into said bush at the trail centre car park we packed off in the rush hour traffic). impair the bikes’ handling somewhat. up the minibus and headed back to Saturday arrived in a mildly wet We had planned to stop halfway London at the rapid pace of about and windy manner, but nothing of the round w2 at the skyline centre in which 62mph. Cycling Club partaking in a some light reading in South Wales

FIXTURES & RESULTS in association with Sports Partnership

SaturdayS d 21st NNovember Basketball Squash Monday 30th November ULU Fencing Men’s 1st 46 - 44 King’s College Medicals 1st Men’s 3rd vs University of Kent 2nd Badminton (ULU) Men’s 5s vs UCL 5s Tournament (BUCS) Men’s 4th 3 - 0 Buckinghamshire New University 1st Mixed 1s vs King’s College Medicals 1s Men’s 7s vs Goldsmiths 3s Women’s 1st 132 - 95 University of Bristol 1st Fencing Women’s 1st 4 - 0 University of Reading 1st Women’s 1st 127 - 96 Oxford University 1st Men’s 2nd 135 - 95 Brunel University 1st Basketball (ULU) Golf Women’s 1st 135 - 97 University of Cambridge 1st Men’s 3rd 97 - 131 University of London 2nd Tennis Women’s 1s vs SOAS 1s Men’s 1st vs University of Essex 1st Women’s 1st 135 - 65 Queen Mary 1st Women’s 2nd 98 - 124 UCL 1st Men’s 1st 8 - 2 King’s College 1st Challenge Cup Women’s 1st 3 - 7 University of Portsmouth 1st Men’s 2s vs SOAS 1s Hockey Football (ULU) Football Men’s 1st vs University of Portsmouth 1st Men’s 1s 1 - 4 LSE 1s Men’s 1st 3 - 2 St Mary’s University College 4th Thrusday 26th November Netball (ULU) Men’s 2nd vs Imperial College Medicals 2nd Men’s 2s 0 - 0 UCL 1s Men’s 2nd 0 - 1 RUMS 1st Volleyball (ULU) Women’s 1s vs St George’s Medical School 1s Men’s 3rd vs Middlesex University 1st Men’s 4s 0 - 2 UCL 6s Men’s 3rd 2 - 0 Imperial College Medicals 2nd Challenge Cup Women’s 3s vs Queen Mary 3s Men’s 4th vs University of Westminster 1st Men’s 5s 1 - 1 RUMS 2s Women’s 1st 0 - 5 Brunel University 2nd Mixed 1s vs UCL Mixed 1s Women’s 4s vs St George’s Medical School 4s Women’s 1st vs St Mary’s University College 1st Men’s 7s 2 - 0 RUMS 4s ULU Women’s 2nd vs Royal Holloway 2nd Vase Men’s 5s 5 - 0 Royal Holloway 4s Saturday 28th November Squash (ULU) Men’s 6s 1 - 2 Royal Veterinary College 2s Men’s 6s 4 - 0 Royal Holloway 6s Football (ULU) Challenge Cup Lacrosse Men’s 7s 1 - 7 Imperial College Medicals 3s Men’s 1s vs King’s College Medicals 1s Men’s 2s vs St Barts 1s Men’s 1st vs University of Kent 1st Men’s 2s vs RUMS 1s Reserve Cup Women’s 1st vs UCL 1st Sunday 22nd November Golf Men’s 3s vs Imperial College Medicals 1s Men’s 3s vs LSE 4s Football (ULU) Men’s 1st 3 - 3 Brunel University 1st Men’s 5s vs Imperial College 4s Men’s 4s vs UCL 2s Netball Women’s 1s 10 - 0 King’s College Medicals 2s Men’s 6s vs King’s College 5s Women’s 1st vs University of Greenwich 1st Hockey Men’s 7s vs Central School of Speech and Drama 1s Water Polo (ULU) Women’s 2nd vs Thames Valley University 1st Rugby (ULU) Men’s 1st 2 - 1University of Kent 1st Mixed 1s vs St Barts 1s Women’s 1s 17 - 30 King’s College Medicals 1s Men’s 2nd 4 - 1 Canterbury Christ Church Uni 2nd Volleyball (BUCS) Rugby Men’s 3rd 1 - 1 Brunel University 3rd Men’s 1st vs University of Essex 1st Wednesday 2nd December Men’s 1st vs Bucks New University 1st Hockey (ULU Challenge Cup) Men’s 4th 3 - 2 University of Sussex 2nd Men’s 1st vs University of Kent 1st Badminton Men’s 2nd vs King’s College 1st Women’s 1s 5 - 3 RUMS 1s Women’s 1st 12 - 0 University of Chichester 2nd Women’s 1st vs University of Portsmouth 1st Men’s 1st vs University of Hertfordshire 1st Men’s 3rd vs University of Chichester Men’s 2nd Women’s 2nd 5 - 1 Bucks New University 1st Women’s 1st vs University of Sussex 1st Men’s 2nd vs University of Surrey 1st Men’s 4th vs University Campus Suffolk 1st Women’s 1st vs University of Hertfordshire 1st Women’s 1st vs University of East London 1st Monday 23rd November Lacrosse Sunday 29th November Netball (ULU) Women’s 1st 18 - 0 University of Essex 1st Football (ULU) Basketball Squash Challenge Cup Women’s 1s vs UCL 2s Men’s 1st vs City University London 1st Men’s 2nd vs King’s College 1st Women’s 1s 24 - 46 Imperial College Medicals 1s Netball Men’s 3rd vs Queen Mary 1st Reserve Cup Women’s 1st 38 - 50 University of Hertfordshire 2nd Hockey (ULU) Fencing Men’s 4th vs Royal Holloway 2nd Women’s 2s 15 - 19 Imperial College Medicals 2s Women’s 2nd 29 - 26 Brunel University 5th Challenge Cup Men’s 2nd vs UCL 2nd Women’s 1st vs University of Sussex 1st Women’s 3rd 30 - 31 Royal Holloway 3rd Men’s 1s vs Royal Veterinary College 1s Men’s 3rd vs University of Hertfordshire Men’s 1st Reserve Cup Women’s 2nd vs Brunel 1st Table Tennis Wednesday 25th November Rugby Men’s 2s vs UCL 3s Men’s 1st vs Middlesex University 1st Badminton Men’s 1st 15 - 15 RUMS 1st Women’s 2s vs Royal School of Mines 1s Football Men’s 1st 4 - 4 University of Portsmouth 1st Men’s 2nd 17 - 19 University of Hertfordshire 1st Men’s 1st vs Brunel 4th Tennis Women’s 1st 2 - 6 UCL 1st Women’s 1st 0 - 73 UCL 1st Lacrosse (ULU) Men’s 2nd vs University of Hertfordshire 3rd Men’s 2nd vs SOAS 1st Mixed 1s vs King’s College Mixed 1s Women’s 1st vs University of Surrey 1st Women’s 1st vs UCL 1st felix FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009 35 [email protected] SPORT A fine win for ICUAFC 2nd XI IC victorious in Fencing London Derby success in Damian Phelan Football just pulled his shot wide of the post. who threw men forward in search of Quickly another chance fell to Caspar a winner. Imperial 2nds though are Cambridge from the same source, only for him to made of strong stuff this season, they Continued From Back Page IImperiiall Collllege Men’s 2ndd XI 3 agonisingly strike his shot past the post regrouped and once again began to Indy Leclercq Sports Editor again. The South Bank goal was living dominate possession, the introduction eventually Imperial made the most of Londdon Southh Bank Uni 3rd XI 1 a charmed life as Sim Anandajeyarajah of fresher and debutant Jack Lowe pro- a two-minute suspension and went and Smithy stung the keeper’s gloves viding some extra energy on the wing. ahead. Some unforced errors and hasty Imperial Fencing Women’s 1st team The 2nd XI travelled to Dulwich a and the pressure finally became too The 2nds resolve paid off as, with 15 attempts to break through UCL’s de- pulled off an impressive display of week ago last Wednesday to take on much as Moesta made a scything break minutes remaining, Damian played fence led to avoidable turnovers and fencing last weekend to settle into the South Bank 3s in a crunch BUCS cup down the right hand side before sliding a silky one-two with Sim on the edge sparked hope in our opponents, but top spot of the Southern Premiership. 2nd round clash. Imperial arrived well a cracking ball into Sim who finished of the box, glided past the centre half the Eagles could rely on their solid de- The girls travelled up to Cambridge before kick-off allowing for the usual coolly, striking the ball cleanly across and slammed a powerful shot into the fending to secure them a 1 goal advan- to take part in a tournament-style af- long-winded pre-match team talk from the face of the goal and into the bot- bottom corner. With the lead restored, tage at half-time. fair, which saw them fence their first Damian Phelan and a solid warm-up tom corner. The half time whistle blew confidence high and South Bank going The second half demonstrated a def- four matches of the season over two which included some banter between soon after and the 2nds were pleased absolutely gung-ho for an equaliser, inite lack of creativity, routine and luck intense days. Mamzi and our Colombian referee. to have provided themselves with a Imperial felt there were more goals to in attack and with only 9 goals scored Competing against Cambridge, Ox- The 2nds lined up in their now text- platform from which to go on and kill be scored. Even from right back there by Imperial in the entire match (Hand- frod, Bristol and UCL, the team was book 4-2-3-1 formation and as the the game. was a threat, as Justin surged out of de- ball scores usually exceed 20 goals for only composed of five people: Cap- match got underway immediately set However, 10 minutes into the 2nd fence and picked out Damian steaming each team); the thought of potentially tain Clare Harding; ACC sportsper- about imposing their passing game; half a key moment turned the game through the gaping hole in the South losing this fixture did cross my mind. son of the year Hannah Bryars; ICFC Mark Smith and Max Moesta control- on its head. The South Bank captain Bank back four who took one touch to Fortunately, our defending abilities president Emily Bottle and strong new ling the tempo from their deep lying attempted to make a substitution but set it away from the closing defender exceed our attacking skills and with arrivals Alice Mitchell and Outi Sup- midfield positions. Marc Hinken and the player leaving the field decided that and struck it beautifully to once again the goalkeeper on form, saving 4 pen- ponen. Lack of numbers notwithstand- Max Kindred were majestic at cen- he was too good to go off. He was not find the bottom corner of the net and alties and earning himself the title of ing, some very strong fencing coupled tre back, dominating in the air and having it. finish the game as a contest. There EHA man of the match, we were able with a deft bit of multitasking led the stroking the ball about with aplomb The captain responded with obscen- could have been even more if not for to double our advantage just before 1sts to victory in all four matches. while Phil Meier and Justin Whitehous ities and Imperial were beginning los- Damian’s shameless pursuit of a hat- the final whistle and take the 2 league Following last year’s silverware, the proved formidable opponents for the ing their focus. Finally this bizarre epi- trick but otherwise the 2nds finished points home. Fencing girls once again show they are South Bank wingers. They became sode ended as the substituted player the game strongly to kill off the game All in all it was a mildly encouraging, a major force to be reckoned with (and frustrated at their lack of possession, finally trudged his way to the changing 3-1. A fine win to guarantee progres- enthusiastic display by the Imperial have put the pressure on the men’s 1sts and Imperial began to look threaten- room. Moments later a long ball over sion to the 3rd round where LSE 3rds Eagles, which puts them in the top 3 to perform in a couple of weeks’ time ing on the attack. the top outfoxed the 2nds centre backs are waiting. A special mention for Jus- of the league. in Oxford!). Some neat interplay between Mam- and bang, a crisp half volley nestled tin who was awarded the man of the It is safe to say, however, that a team, On another note, a record number of zi Roshid and Damian Phelan sliced into the corner of the goal, 1-1. A blot match awarded for his typically strong which orders more rounds in a pub fencing novices are going up to War- open the South Bank defence creat- on an otherwise quality performance defensive display which was coupled than they score goals in a game of wick this weekend for a chance to cut ing an opportunity for our grace- for the Imperial back five. The game on this occasion with some dazzling Handball, has several issues to work their teeth at a big competition. Good ful new fresher, Caspar Paxton, who turned scrappy, favouring South Bank, attacking play. on. luck guys!

Imperial College Football Club’s 2nd XI sporting their t-shirts in support of the Kick Racism out of Football Campaign

These t-shirts were worn throughout British Council as a great example of Kick Racism Out the day and into the night and will how to use sport to promote equality. continue to be worn by football club Imperial College Football Club mperial College Football 2nd XI members to aid in spreading the Kick boasts an internationally flavoured used their BUCS cup tie against Racism Out message. The campaign membership representing all races and London South Bank 3s to pro- aims to use football as a means of chal- a variety of nations and we think it is I mote a cause which is important lenging discrimination and working important to stress that this blend has to the football club as a whole, for positive change in sport and in so- helped us to become a better club on the Kick Racism Out of Football cam- ciety as a whole. It is in its 16th year and off the pitch. This is why we have paign. The team can be seen in the now and continues to be commended decided to support the Kick Racism accompanying photograph sporting internationally by institutions such as Out campaign and are proud to pro- t-shirts in support of the the project. the European Commission and the mote the message wherever we travel. 27

Send in your sport reports: . [email protected] 11 . felixSport High resolution photos only 09 Valiant effort by Immortals

Geoffrey Chow American Football back and be competitive against the from the Immortals, including a pair rewarded with a safety, when Quirin break one final run to end the game Phantoms. of sacks by Charlie Kennedy and Ge- Grossman blocked a punt in the end 8-28. IImpep riiall Immorttalls 8 On a blustery day in Chelmsford, the offrey Chow, the Phantoms scored on zone to make the score 8-22. The of- Despite the loss the team was bu- Anglia Ruskin Phantoms 28 Immortals went behind early giving up their next two possessions, opening fense put together drives of 49 yards oyed by managing to put 265 yards of a touchdown and two point conversion up a 22-6 lead. The Immortals offense and 66 yards, including a career long total offence and forcing 2 turnovers on the Phantoms’ first series. However responded with a 30 yard drive, in- for running back Tino Millar of 35 on a team with 6 seasons experience Sunday saw the Imperial Immortals they bounced back after an explosive cluding a run of 20 yards by quarter- yards, ably supported by Dan Groszek, on them. take to the road for their first ever 52 yard kick return by Jake Murphy back Edward Fisher, but they were un- Alex Karvelas and Daniel Jones who away game, hosted by the Anglia and a 14 yard run by full-back Alex able to find the end-zone again before also contributed yardage. MVP honours were as follows: Ruskin Phantoms. After a baptism of Karvelas setting up an 11 yard touch- half-time. Despite the intense pressure the Im- Offensive - Tino Millar fire against a strong Portsmouth side down run for Tino Millar on their next After the break the Immortals con- mortals put on the Phantoms, they Defensive - Quirin Grossman to open the season, expectations were possession. trolled the 3rd quarter and strong were unable to put more points on the Offensive Line - Frederico Sanches high for the Immortals to bounce Despite some stout defensive work defence and special teams work was board and the Phantoms managed to Overall - Charles Kennedy

Eagles overcome UCL

Stefan Bauer Handball year, which gives them the advantage of having greater consistency through- IImpep riiall Collllegeg Men’’ss 9 out the seasons. University College London 7 Due to the recent restructuring of the league’s divisions Loughborough were moved to a different group and “It was probably the worst Handball have been replaced by UCL, who en- game I have ever had to see, let alone tered a Handball team for the first time be involved in!” in their history. A quote which, despite bearing nega- In spite of never having played them tivity, is needed in order for the team to before, this match was going to be in- maintain a clear conscience. tense from the moment the teams met After losing our league 2 debut to at the tube station (it was also the first Warwick University 2 weeks ago, we time the UCL players met each other), were all set to play Loughborough last since there was a lot of pride and pres- weekend. tige involved. They were a team we were able to It took a while for the game to gain beat last season, but that does not face momentum (if there was any), but the problem of having to rely on an influx of new Erasmus students each Continued on Page 35