Friday February 13th 2009 e Independent Cambridge Student Newspaper since 1947 Issue no 690 | varsity.co.uk »p18 Fashion »Centrefold Special pull-out »p20 Features Doing it by Not Yet: exclusive four-page Tit Hall alumnus Andrew the book preview issue inside Marr talks on Darwin

SEAN JONES Mumps scare for Emma scraps John’s students Lizzy Tyler Seven students at St John’s have con- tracted suspected mumps. Although the cases have not yet been positively con rmed as mumps, College ‘Empire’ theme authorities are expecting to receive con-  rmation from laboratory tests shortly. Ball renamed after accusations of poor taste It is also believed that students at other Colleges have contracted the virus. Committee ‘unhappy’ that theme caused offence All St John’s students have been ad- vised to contact their GP if they are be- Andrew Bellis & Beth Staton sion to rename the Ball. “I think it was tween 17 and 23 years old and have not because so many people made their had the MMR vaccination. Emma’s May Ball Committee yester- views known, and so College and the Students are warned that even if they day bowed to pressure over its ‘Empire’ committee saw that the theme didn’t have had the full two doses of vaccina- theme, rebranding its Ball in the style of represent the wishes of the whole com- tion they could still be at risk, as “im- the Victorian Commonwealth. munity. It’s reassuring to know that munisation is not 100 per cent e ec- e committee had been under pres- everyone agrees that the Ball really does tive”. ey are advised “not to mix with sure from students and dons over the belong to the students,” she wrote. others once mumps is suspected” and choice of the theme, which was de- “ ey have obviously had a really to report any symptoms, which include scribed by one senior academic as “in tough time over the past few days, and swelling on the face, fever, headache, very poor taste”. Earlier this week arti- I am sorry that making this group ex- muscles ache, loss of appetite and tired- cles about the Ball’s theme were pub- acerbated it. ness, immediately to the college nurse lished by the national media, including “I think it was important to have a or their GP. the Daily Mail and the BBC. very interesting, shocking, in uential Mumps is an extremely infectious In a statement released yesterday debate on the page, and the change it airborne virus, infecting individuals morning, the committee announced has contributed to has restored a lot of from six days before to  ve days a er that the word ‘Empire’ would no longer pride in the College.” salivary glands begin to swell, whilst be used in promoting the Ball. On Monday, the Ball committee in- symptoms take two to three weeks to “We have sought neither to excuse sisted that the ‘Empire’ theme would develop. e disease can cause seri- or dismiss any historical events, nor be going ahead despite the controversy ous damage if contracted a er puberty, to support or challenge any interpre- it had caused. “ e committee con- when it can cause meningitis and per- tation now placed upon them,” the sidered the implications of the theme manent deafness. statement said. thoroughly and ensured that we had Following a 40 per cent rise in cases “It is clear, however, that some people the support of the College in making in the South West and throughout the have found our reference to the British our decision,” they said. UK, the Health Protection Agency has Empire to be distasteful. We are unhappy “Any historical theme will inevitably has taken precautions to limit further that any o ence should have been caused; have positive and negative connota- outbreaks. that was certainly not our intention.” tions, but we are neither advocating nor e illness is linked to the contro- e Ball will instead be based on a cele- condoning any point of view associated versy surrounding the MMR vaccine, bration of the Victorian Commonwealth, with the late Victorian period. which was claimed by Andrew Wake- urging students to “party like it’s 1899”. “We  rmly believe that our theme  eld in 1998 to be linked to autism, a Sir Christopher Bayly, Professor of can be handled with the sensitivity and claim which has since been discredited. Imperial and Naval History, said the maturity that it demands.” ere is, however, mounting concern theme had been “in very poor taste”. e committee said the Ball had “tak- that the repercussions of a loss of con- Noting the academic debate on the na- en inspiration from the fashion, style  dence in the vaccine could lead to an ture of the British Empire, he stressed and architecture of Victorian Britain outbreak of measles, mumps or rubella that “racism and economic exploita- and the rich and diverse cultures that in the near future. tion” were signi cant elements. were, for better or for worse, united by Chancellor celebrates Darwin’s birthday: Students are advised to remain More than 100 students joined a the British Empire”. vigilant and take special notice of any Facebook group to protest against the Tickets for the rebranded Ball, which Duke of Edinburgh unveils statue and names symptoms related to the illness, report- Ball’s name. e group’s creator, Joanna will take place on Sunday June 14th, ing any serious worries to the relevant Beaufoy, yesterday welcomed the deci- will go on sale on Sunday at 10pm. Blues boat during Cambridge visit » p8 authorities. Shoe protester bailed a er denying public order o ence Andrew Bellis researcher in the Department of Pa- shirt, and appeared to be nervous. a trainer at Wen Jiabao during a lec- “Education is the best help for a thology and a postgraduate at Dar- He has declined to comment publicly ture in the West Road Concert Hall young student. It is hoped that the The Cambridge postgraduate who win. about his conduct. “I would prefer and called him a dictator. In his let- University will give the student an threw a shoe at the Chinese prime In a ten-minute hearing on Mon- not to speak to the press before the ter, Jahnke reportedly apologises for opportunity to continue his studies minister last week has denied com- day he spoke only to confirm his case is over,” he said. failing to show the respect and cour- at the University,” he said in a state- mitting a public order offence and name and address, and to plead not Jahnke has written an apology to tesy that the guest deserved. ment released by China’s foreign will be tried next month. guilty to the charge. Jahnke was the Chinese government over his Mr Wen has publicly urged Cam- ministry. The protester is Martin Jahnke, a dressed in a black suit and blue t- protest last Monday, when he threw bridge to be lenient towards Jahnke. Continued on page 8 Something to say? [email protected] Friday February 13th 2009 2 Editorial Call the Editors directly on 01223 761541 varsity.co.uk

A special preview issue of Not Yet, a new independent zine, can be found inside the centrefold. It is the second in a series of magazine previews in Varsity.

Contents Emma Ball: well meaning but foolish

nce more, this week we have seen the unedifying spectacle of Cambridge students and even dons weighing in on a contentious political issue. In this case, the outcry has been over the Emmanuel May Ball committee’s News p1-9 Odecision to use an ‘Empire’ theme for their event. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the British Empire, those on both sides should remember that there is an ar- Ethnic minorities investigation p5 gument to be had; downright condemnation and accusations of neo-colonialism are simplistic and facile. As they We reveal the true state of ethnic have repeatedly emphasised, the committee did not mean to express any political view at all.  e choice of theme minority admissions to Cambridge. was clearly an excuse for a ‘multicultural’ Ball, with di erent areas representing di erent countries, a common way of organising these parties. It is unfortunate that their hard work has been marred by the current controversy. Some outside the University have greeted this story with glee.  ey have used it as evidence that Cambridge is Cambridge Spies p9 ‘archaic’, stuck in the past or just ‘a bunch of to s’.  is is not a cause for concern: there are many people around OMG, I can’t believe it, we’re worse the country who instinctively dislike Oxbridge, and are delighted when they  nd another reason to kick us. Cam- than Skins. Etc. bridge is capable of running its own a airs without listening to such people. What is far more worrying, on the other hand, is the strong response the ‘Empire’ theme has aroused within Cambridge, and particularly inside Emmanuel itself.  e Ball is run for the bene t of the College’s students, and Comment p11-13 anything that mars their enjoyment is a genuine shame.  e upshot of the scandal is that many Emmanuel stu- dents have now decided not to attend their own Ball, an event which should have been one of the year’s highlights.  e Essay p11 Before selecting a theme which was bound to be at least somewhat controversial, the committee should really have put more e ort into consulting students. FDR’s rst 100 days provide a salutary Hopefully, this sorry a air will now be closed.  e committee made the correct choice in dropping the ‘Empire’ lesson to Obama, according to the theme, and with any luck those students who opposed it will now realise that it was an honest mistake with no Master of Clare. intention to o end, and will perhaps reconsider any decision to stay away. We wish the Ball the best of luck.

Don’t make me angry; you wouldn’t Submit your letter for the chance to win a bottle of wine from the Cambridge Wine Merchants. like me when I’m angry p12 [email protected] All letters may be edited for space and style. What gets us hot under the collar? Don’t drag CUSU into it political issues. To turn CUSU into the librarians is a re ection of the nar- pre-eminent institution for such debate rowness of her journalistic interests. Dear Sirs, in Cambridge would simply make us Surely the hypocrisy, corruption, even more insular. It is in Westminster and mismanagement at the heart of Magazine p15-32 In response to the debate about CUSU that the change for which some students modern-day  nance and politics are in last week’s edition [Issue 689]: CUSU crave can happen, not in the Law Faculty of wider, present concern to the public  e Wire rah-rah-rah p17 is designed to protect the most vulner- and not in CUSU Council. We must start and your readership, and thus a more What’s the best TV show in the able individuals in our University, not thinking about these bigger issues on the deserving target. world? e Wire, that’s what. stage beyond Cambridge, and appreci- College librarians – contrary to ate that here we already have battles to Miss Freeman’s uninventive stere-  ght, like the fact that so many Cam- otyping – perform their jobs with a Two go back in time p22 bridge students continue to come from a conscientious professionalism essential We talk to Giles Coren and Sue narrow ethnic, social, and geographical to the functioning of this University. Perkins as they experience the to be a political forum. It provides an group. To complain that these battles are As most students and academics invaluable access scheme, academic and not interesting and not as important is value this service, so I hope they will culinary delights of the past. personal support, and helps coordinate to lay down our arms; and that would be appreciate the jejune nature of Miss university activities.  is may not be the real end of student activism. Freeman’s attempt at satire. She should LOVE/HATE p24 glamorous, and does not make many take heed of Lady Mary Wortley Mon- Valentine’s Day is really great. Or is it? headlines. Indeed, by de nition, most of Yours faithfully, tagu’s words: us will probably never have need to use “Satire shou’d, like a polish’d Razor Not really. these facilities. But that does not mean James Sharpe keen, that CUSU is pointless. If CUSU were Fitzwilliam College Wound with a Touch, that’s scarcely to divert more attention and resources felt or seen. Sport p33-36 away from these activities in order to A blunt knife  ine is an Oyster-Knife, that hacks create a political discussion forum, the and hews; Kor all review p33 most vulnerable and underprivileged Sirs,  e Rage, but not the Talent of Abuse.” We’re better at Kor all than Oxford. in our university would su er. Indeed, CUSU already concerns itself with such Satire should be directed against the Yours faithfully, debates to an unfortunate extent. vices and ills of our society.  at Six Nations round-up p34  ere are a whole host of means with- Laura Freeman prefers instead to James Freeman England won’t win. Again. in this University to engage with wider direct her aggression towards College Trinity College Library

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

Editors Hugo Gye & Michael Stothard [email protected] Associate Editors Clementine Dowley [email protected] & Robert Peal Get involved [email protected] News Editors Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens [email protected] Comment Editor Robert Stagg [email protected] Sport Editors Jenny Morgan & Jimmy Pickles [email protected] Features Editor Joe Hunter [email protected] Weekly meetings are held for anyone interested in Arts Editor Emma Mustich [email protected] eatre Editor Joel Massey [email protected] Reviews & Listings Editor Laurie Tu rey [email protected] Fashion Editors Kate Womersley, Alice Newell-Hanson & Katy King [email protected] writing for Varsity. Senior Reporters Christos Lavidas, Timothy Leung, Beth Staton & Lizzy Tyler [email protected] Science Correspondents Rose Powell-Tuck & Arthur Turrell [email protected] Food & Drink Editors Jono Franklin & Amanda Palin [email protected] eatre Critics Victoria Ball, Nicholas Beck, Nathan Brooker, Lauren Davidson & George Reynolds [email protected] Music Critics Lucy News Bryant & Paul Smith [email protected] Film Critics Isobel Finkel & Tom Morris  [email protected] Visual Arts Critic Laura Freeman [email protected] Classical Music Critics David Allen & Andrew Browning [email protected] Literary Critic Colette Sensier Sunday, 4pm in the Maypole (Portugal Place) [email protected] Editor-at-large Ed Cumming [email protected] Sub-editors Colm Flanagan, Sheli Levenson, Isobel Palmer & Charlie Pearson [email protected] Photographers Patrick Garety, James Graveston, Tim Magazine Johns, Sean Jones, Tom Moriarty, Lizzie Robinson, Charlotte Runcie, Dhaneesha Senaratne & Zing Tsjeng [email protected] Illustrators Alice Edgerley, Sallie Godwin, Jane Hall, Giles Smith, Katherine Spence, Christiana Spens, Claudia Stocker, Anna Trench & Sarah Woolley [email protected] Wednesday, 5.30pm in the Maypole Business & Advertising Manager Michael Derringer [email protected] Board of Directors Dr Michael Franklin (Chair), Prof. Peter Robinson, Dr Tim Harris, Mr Tom Walters, Mr Chris Wright, Mr Michael Derringer, Miss Lizzie Mitchell, Mr Elliot Ross (VarSoc President), OR Mr  omas Bird, Mr George Grist, Mr Patrick Kingsley, Miss Natasha Lennard, Miss Anna Trench, Mr Hugo Gye & Mr Michael Stothard NEWSPAPERS Varsity, Old Examination Hall, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF. Tel 01223 337575. Fax 01223 760949. Varsity is published by Varsity Publications Ltd. Varsity SUPPORT RECYCLING Publications also publishes BlueSci and The Mays. ©2009 Varsity Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval E-mail [email protected] to  nd out more. Recycled paper made up 79% of the raw system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. Printed at Iliffe material for UK newspapers in 2007 Print Cambridge — Winship Road, Milton, Cambridge CB24 6PP on 48gsm UPM Matt Paper. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Offi ce. ISSN 1758-4442 NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT RECYCLING Friday February 13th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 3

Dons petition University over In Brief Full steam ahead Plans for a second train station in handling of Gaza occupation Cambridge linking the north of the city to other areas in the Cambridge-  Academics write to Vice-Chancellor over ‘refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue’ with protesters shire region at an estimated cost of £22 million have been met with en- Beth Staton that the University take positive action nities’ “responsibility to lead humane thusiasm. e new station is expected in regard to the Palestinian situation debate and global transformation”, to enhance Cambridge’s public trans- Nearly 60 academics have expressed by providing academic aid, granting the letter stressed that in failing to port system, ease congestion in the their support for the students involved scholarships, and fundraising. defend the exercise of intellectual MICHAEL DERRINGER city, and, according to the Secretary of in the Law Faculty occupation. e signatories stated that the Uni- freedom the University risked com- the Fen Line Users’ Association Andy In a letter to Vice-Chancellor Alison versity could “make no more enlight- promising its own “cherished, ani- Tyler, raise employment levels. e Richard, the dons described the oc- ened or humanitarian contribution mating ideals”. proposal was one of several made for cupation as a “peaceful, digni ed and to the appalling su ering created by The letter also urged the Universi- the improvement of public transport humanitarian show of constructive this con ict”. ey also agreed with ty to use the occupation as an oppor- and major roads in Cambridgeshire solidarity with su ering civilians”. ey the protesters’ demand for divestment tunity to remind itself of its aims of over the next ten years by the East of praised both the manner in which the from the arms trade, urging greater encouraging freedom of thought and England Regional Assembly, who hope action was conducted and its demands. transparency in University invest- freedom from discrimination, and of that, overall, Government will contrib- e 56 signatories expressed disquiet ments and a constructive movement “contributing to society through the ute up to £1 billion to the project. at the University’s reaction to the occu- toward ethical investment. pursuit of education, learning, and pation and criticised its threats of ma- e Cambridge-Gaza Solidarity research at the highest international triculation sanctions and food depriva- group was “delighted” at the breadth of levels of excellence”. Primark re-fitted tion in response to peaceful protest. support the letter showed the occupa- In response, Pro-Vice Chancellor e University’s “refusal to engage in tion and its aims to have. “ e event John Rallison stressed that the Univer- Work has begun on a £1 million re- meaningful dialogue with its own stu- of the occupation is a rallying cry for sity had taken “every step to permit the  t of future site of Primark in Cam- dents” about their demands, particularly students and academics alike to be- students involved in the protest to ex- bridge. Builders will be repairing the in comparison with the actions of other gin working together for change both press their views,” and maintained that roof and facades of the Burleigh Street universities, was also condemned. within our institution and in the wider the occupation was ended without the Vice-Chancellor building, and altering its interior by e occupation, which lasted for world,” the group said. use of force a er it proved disruptive to Alison Richard removing the central staircase and six days, was conducted with the aim Highlighting intellectual commu- students’ education. replacing it with a new entrance and atrium as well as more escalators and li s. Many hope that the refurbish- ment of Primark will give surround- ing shops a much needed sales boost by attracting shoppers to the area. More gloom for class of 2009 a er City mayor Mike Dixon said, “I hope Primark’s arrival will be the start of a regeneration of the area. It’s a di cult situation in the country for all shops. Many have been forced to close, so it’s survey reveals falling vacancies good to see a major retailer opening.” e bargain retailer is expected will  Graduate recruitment tumbles by 28 per cent in financial services, as vacancies fall across the board open this autumn. Varsity News Blue-skies research ‘at risk’ A poll of employers has revealed cuts of up to 28 per cent in graduate recruit- A Cambridge scientist is one of 20 no- ment. MICHAEL DERRINGER table academics protesting at govern- e survey of 250 companies, con- ment controls that they say will bring ducted by the Association of Graduate an end to so-called blue skies research. Recruiters, showed signi cant reduc- Peter Lawrence, a fellow of the Royal tions in graduate recruitment across Society and a former head of a division the board. Banking, accountancy, con- of the Laboratory of Molecular Biol- struction and IT industries were among ogy in Cambridge, has signed a letter those worse a ected. calling for academics to rebel against Last summer employers predicted an reforms to research funding applica- 11 per cent increase in graduate vacan- tions. Writing in Times Higher Educa- cies. But the actual  gures have shown tion, the group of academics blames a 5.4 per cent decline across all sectors. research councils for subjecting re- 65 per cent of those companies forced searchers to excessive regulation and to cut their graduate recruitment levels warns that a new rule requiring scien- blamed the recession. tists to write a two-page summary of Students graduating this year will the potential  nancial or social impli- bear the brunt of the cuts, as they strug- cations of their proposed research in gle to pay their top-up fees whilst strug- funding applications is too restrictive. gling to enter the job market. “In research worthy of the name, we e President of the National Union are not aware of anyone who would be of Students Wes Streeting, a former competent at foretelling speci c future CUSU President, advised students to bene ts and therefore in complying “do their research, apply early, and be with the request,” they wrote. prepared to be  exible with their plans. “ e current economic conditions will make it more di cult for this year’s graduates to enter the job market. is will be a huge worry to students who Graduates line up in are now racking up record levels of debt Senate House Passage 52 Trumpington Street before they graduate,” he added. Cambridge CB2 1RG Li ing the cap on fees would “plunge a generation of students and graduates not working at all. If you graduate in ates. As the report points out, even this told Varsity: “I am quite worried actu- FREE CHELSEA BUN into even worse debt during a time of 2009 and don‘t get your perfect job you year there will be more vacancies in ally, I wanted to get an internship this With every purchase over £2.00 in the shop economic crisis,” he said. might do better in 2010.” areas such as engineering, public serv- summer but most companies have OR Employers recommended that grad- Gilleard also pointed out that some ices, and law,” he said. already turned me down. I hope the FREE MORNING uate students consider temporary or industries have not been so adversely He also spoke in favour of a univer- market and recruitment levels pick up even voluntary work as alternative op- a ected. Graduate job vacancies in en- sity education: “People considering by the time I graduate or I would seem COFFEE/TEA (9am-12pm) tions. gineering, for example, increased by 8 applying to university should do so. A that I’ve wasted my time here.” With any cake or pastry in the restaurant Carl Gilleard, the chief executive of per cent. degree can help not only help you to get In order to alleviate the problem, the the AGR, said, “You have to face the e Minister for Higher Education, your  rst job, but also throughout a ca- government is planning a national in- on presentation of this voucher fact that this is going to be a di cult David Lammy, was also optimistic. reer that may span up to 45 years.” ternship scheme to help graduates gain and proof of student status year. Almost any work is better than “ ere are still jobs out there for gradu- A second-year economics student work experience during the recession. News Editors: Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens Friday February 13th 2009 4 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk

In Brief Bring out the gladRAGs University Challenge

St John’s will take part in the

semi- nal of the TV quiz show OLIVIA SEDDON-DAINES University Challenge on Monday night. Cambridge’s second largest college will face other semi- nalist Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in a showdown match on BBC2, refereed by Jeremy Paxman.  e winning team of the semi- nal will go on to meet Manchester University – who  attened Lincoln College, Oxford, by 345 points to 30 in their own semi- nal, a result Paxman told the team was “fantastic” – in the nal, due to be screened later this year.

Homerton receives Grace

Homerton College has received the University’s approval by Grace to seek a Royal Charter, required in order to make Homerton a full College of the University. Formerly a teacher-training college, Homer- ton has existed since 1894, but as an Approved Society it has been gov- Awkward? A couple out erned by Trustees. Now the Col- for drinks in town. lege, the largest in Cambridge, will become self-governing and take its full place in the University. Dr Kate Caedmon Tunstall-Behrens On the female forms, the girls were Elliot, who was on an LGBT swap said with him again”. Pretty, Principal since 1991, said, asked to write where their blind date of his date, “He’s nice, but very Essex”. Lilly Hamilton, one of this year’s “ is is an exciting day for Homer- Cambridge was turned into a mass was to meet them and at what time. Many had looked up their prospec- RAG Blind Date organisers said there ton. Students have established a re- speed-dating venue on Tuesday when  e males, alternatively, were asked to tive dates on Facebook having been had been an excess of girls applying. markable sense of community. It is RAG staged its annual Blind Date divulge their “standard Gardies order”. pigeon-holed their forms earlier in the “I had to run around Cambridge like a a College to be proud of.” night. Varsity sent reporters around town week. Lucy, a fresher, claimed she “saw madman looking for extra guys, but in Over 900 couples met in bars, res- to catch up with the dates and the re- a picture of Fred climbing and he had the end everybody got a date,” she said. River ooding warnings taurants and cafés around town in the sponses ranged in enthusiasm. nice legs”.  e event will raise between £9,000 hope of nding that special person to One dater, from St Catharine’s, said “I Livvy, a Corpus student, said of her and £10,000 for various charities  e Environment Agency has is- spendwith on Valentines day. didn’t recognise him because he wasn’t Christ’s date, Simon, that she was “un- which are picked by an annual ballot, sued a  ood warning for the River Forms to be filled in by interested handsome enough.” Another said of surprised having looked him up on Fa- although the proceeds have not been Cam.  e river is considered most parties were purchased from College her date, “it was really shit.” cebook”. o cially counted.  is year the named likely to break its banks and over- RAG reps for £5. Questions included Opening lines were alleged to have All was not so negative, however, charities include Cambridge Rape Cri-  ow the surrounding areas between “when was your last kiss”, “cheesiest been “How is your womb?” and “Would with other comments including “big sis, UNICEF, Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Grantchester, through Cambridge, chat-up line”, “describe yourself in you like to go for a shower, because I split thumbs up”, “he’s a charmer”, “it was Shelter. and Upware. Meanwhile other sec- five words” and “you will recognise rivers?”, the latter referring to the Jewish initially awkward, but got better”, and Additional reporting by Richard Kirsch tions of the river have been given me because...” origin of that particular Casanova. “he’s so funny, I’ll de nitely meet up and Olivia Seddon-Daines the all clear: areas between Great Chesterford and Hauxton are con- sidered safe, as are those between Bury Brook, Kings Ripton and Ramsey. In the wider Cambridge- Addenbrooke’s worst for MRSA in East England shire area,  ood warnings have is- sued for the River Great Ouse from Varsity News “ is is signi cantly better than our superbug with seven cases more than East, a spokesperson for the Strategic Wyboston in Bedfordshire through planned reduction of 20 per cent, and their target of 58. Health Authority said: “We are con- St Neots and St Ives to Earith. Addenbrooke’s Hospital has one of the con rms our commitment to reducing A spokesperson called these gures tinuing to make significant progress highest rates of superbug infections in the number of healthcare associated in- “disappointing” but drew attention to in controlling healthcare associated the East of England. fections to the lowest possible level.” the hospital’s dedication to deep clean- infections. Numbers of Clostridium Super-express trains Research conducted by the East of Hinchingbrooke Hospital was also ing processes and close monitoring by difficle and MRSA cases seem to be- England Strategic Health Authority implicated by the Health Authority’s an infection control team. coming steady, at lower rates than A new  eet of “super-express” found the MRSA bloodstream infec- ndings, with the  h highest rate of She said that initial analysis had last year. 125mph trains will replace the tion in ve patients per 10,000 admis- MRSA infections in the area, and the linked the cases to “patients receiving “ is is a considerable achievement 20-year-old models currently serv- sions to Addenbrooke’s, one of the second highest of Clostridium di cile. antibiotic treatment for their underly- in the winter months, traditionally the ing passengers between Cambridge highest rates amongst Cambridge-  e hospital declared a C. di cile ing conditions, or as prophylactic treat- highest risk period. I hope we see this and London. Network Rail’s chief shire’s 18 surveyed hospitals. Adden- outbreak in December and is currently ment ahead of surgery”. trend continuing and that we do not see engineer, Professor Andrew Mc- brooke’s also has the highest rate of behind its reduction targets for the Commenting on figures across the a winter upturn.” Naughton, said that the new trains Clostridium di cile infections: ve

could carry 21 per cent more pas- cases in 1,000 admissions. NIAID sengers and would weigh 17 per  e hospital emphasised that its sta- cent less. “We have worked with the tus as a specialist centre means that Department for Transport to opti- large numbers of patients who are ad- mise the design of both train and mitted are already seriously ill. infrastructure to give the best ca- Addenbrooke’s also stressed that de- pacity and passenger experience,” spite these gures, the hospital is cur- he said.  e new trains, built by rently outstripping its set targets for the British-led consortium Agility reducing the overall number of cases of Trains, are expected to enter serv- superbug infection. ice in 2013, linking London with A spokesman for the hospital said: Leeds, Hull, York, Newcastle and “Addenbrooke’s is a specialist centre Edinburgh. Transport secretary for the region’s most challenging pa- Geo Hoon described the plan as tients. In spite of that, our infection the single biggest investment in control measures have had a real im- intercity trains for a generation. “It pact – we saw a 49 per cent decrease is good news for the British econ- in cases of MRSA between 2007 and omy that over 12,500 jobs will be 2008, and we are anticipating a further A magni cation of the created and safeguarded,” he said. 29 per cent reduction between 2008 MRSA virus. and 2009. Friday February 13th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 5

NEWS FEATURE In Brief

£1.2bn pledged for A14 Black students half as likely to reconditioning  e A14 is set to be reconditioned as part of a £1.2 billion scheme to improve the nation’s transport links.  e plan will see highways in East get in to Cambridge Anglia resurfaced and improved over a two year period.  is news comes in addition to the £272 mil- » New figures show black students half as likely to successfully apply to Cambridge as white students lion already set aside by the Treas- ury for general maintenance and » Director of Admissions tells Varsity widening participation agenda will be relevant for a generation repair. Speci cally highlighted for redevelopment is the stretch of the » Statistics show disparities between black students’ applications to different Colleges A14 running between Ellington, to the west of Huntingdon, and Fen Andrew Bellis not sure it will happen in my lifetime,” the grades,” he says. BLACK STUDENT APPLICATIONS Ditton, to the northeast of Cam- he said, “but we could hope it would.”  e di erences between the College BY COLLEGE, 2007 bridge. Lord Adonis, the Transport Cambridge’s Director of Admissions  is week, the University published application numbers for black students Minister responsible for major road has warned that concerns over widen- gures showing that a record number may be due to the nature of Cambridge’s Emmanuel 16 links, is reported to have given as- ing participation to the University will of ethnic minority students were ad- widening participation programme. As Jesus 12 surances that funding for the key not be satis ed in his lifetime. mitted to Cambridge in 2008. But, part of e orts to encourage students King’s 11 project will be made available until His comments come as gures pub- speaking to Varsity, Dr Parks said that from less privileged backgrounds to Christ’s 11 completion.  e plans are welcomed lished this week show that black stu- the University is not satis ed with the apply to the University, each College is Murray Edwards 11 by both commuters and safety cam- dents are half as likely to be accepted to disproportionately small number of assigned several areas of the country in Trinity 10 paigners: the A14 is a notoriously Cambridge as white applicants. black students. which to promote a Cambridge educa- Fitzwilliam 10 busy route through East Anglia and  e success rate in 2008 for the 202 “ ere are a lot of success stories in tion. Sidney 9 has been associated with heavy con- black students who declared their eth- the growing diversity of the whole body Research has shown that black stu- Girton 9 gestion and tra c incidents. nicity was 14 per cent.  e success rate of Cambridge, but... there is this issue dents traditionally underperform at Pembroke 8 Gemma Oke for white applicants was 31 per cent, – and Cambridge I think re ects the school, which explains the national Caius 7 and the overall success rate for appli- national picture – that students from trend of a disproportionately low level St Catharine’s 7 cants was 27 per cent. black backgrounds are not as repre- of applications to top universities. St Edmund’s 7 M&S to relocate Simply Geo Parks, the Director of Under- sented as one would like them to be,”  e small number of black appli- Lucy Cavendish 7 Food to avoid job cuts graduate Admissions, says that Cam- he said. cants may be related to simple prefer- Homerton 6 bridge is displaying a “serious commit- O cial gures for 2007, released un- ence over where students want to study. Trinity Hall 6 In a bid to avoid making job cuts, ment to try and get to the point when der the Freedom of Information Act, Some perceive Cambridge as “old-fash- Peterhouse 6 Marks & Spencer has announced people stop talking about it”, but con- reveal that more than a dozen Colleges ioned, rural, quiet, nightclubs [that] Downing 5 the relocation rather than clo- ceded that concerns over the make-up didn’t admit a single student who de- aren’t particularly cutting edge – all Magdalene 5 sure of its outlet in Cambridge’s of students at the University would not clared their ethnicity to be black.  e these lifestyle-related issues play into Corpus 5 Grafton centre. The company’s be fully resolved for many years. “I’m gures also show a disparity between a lot of young people’s decisions about Churchill 4 new, larger Simply Food store, in the number of self-de ning black ap- where to go to university,” Parks says. Hughes 4 the Beehive Centre off Coldham’s plicants who apply to di erent Col- “I can totally understand why stu- Queens’ 3 Lane, will not only secure the jobs leges. Emmanuel had 16, whereas both dents might choose to go to other uni- Clare 3 of all current staff but will also Newnham and Selwyn only had one. versities, which are nearly as good as St John’s 3 provide employment opportuni- Dr Parks warns that care should be Cambridge – I’m loth to say as good as Robinson 3 ties for many more. This news fol- 14% taken in drawing conclusions from the Cambridge, of course – but there are Wolfson 3 lows the firm’s announcement of Percentage of successful black gures. “It’s very hard to discern any many good universities in this coun- Newnham 1 the closure of its Huntingdon and applicants to Cambridge last year meaningful correlations and patterns try and the obsession with Oxford and Selwyn 1 Letchworth branch, which will [in the data] – everything has very large Cambridge is helpful to nobody. take place on March 12th of this error bars,” he said.  e gures do not “What we have to do in widening year. Marks & Spencer’s directors include the four per cent of applicants participation is making clear that Cam- dents, says that disadvantaged students have yet to confirm how many who did not declare their ethnicity. bridge isn’t the same as going to a uni- o en feel that Oxbridge is “not for more staff they will be recruiting 31%  e chair of CUSU’s Black Students’ versity in a major metropolitan area, t h e m”. to man the new store, but said that Percentage of successful white Campaign, which supports black un- but there are aspects about coming to “ ere’s a social class thing – the those made redundant as a result Cambridge applicants last year dergraduates in Cambridge, says that Cambridge which compensate for the middle class and upper class are as- of the closure of the Huntingdon the problem is primarily cultural and slightly less cutting-edge nightclubs or sociated with Oxford and Cambridge does not lie with the University itself. music scene or whatever, and that al- – so people’s perception of what these Soban Khawaja attributes the low though it’s not the same, Cambridge is institutions are is sometimes hard to Project in Syd’s memory number of black applicants to low a place where students from all sorts of change,” he said. aspirations within some black com- backgrounds do  ourish.” In a speech last week the Universities Plans have been unveiled for a 27% munities. “ ere’s a need to let peo- Tony Talburt, of the Black Boys Can Minister, David Lammy, highlighted new arts centre in Cambridge in Percentage of successful Cambridge ple know in the sixth-form colleges: Association, which works to raise the the problems that widening participa- memory of Cambridge-dwelling applicants overall last year Cambridge is an option if you have educational aspirations of black stu- tion attempts still faced in schools. Pink Floyd frontman Syd Bar- “I’ve known of teachers who have said rett. The musician’s struggle with that they don’t think a selective univer- mental illness inspired the arts University celebrates record number of ethnic minority students sity was the right setting for their pu- charity Escape Artists to set up pils. One school in Cambridge refused the centre which will use art to A record number of ethnic minority 20th birthday coincides with the Uni- an outreach programme from Cam- help people suffering from mental students were admitted to Cambridge versity’sOther 800th anniversary. Matthew bridge University because they didn’t health problems. Matthew Taylor, last year, 20 years a er the University’s Ryder, a law student in Cambridge think it was relevant.  at shouldn’t be director of Escape Artists, said the  agship programme to encourage ap- in the 1980s who helped establish the project would be a fitting memo- White happening,” Lammy told a higher edu- plications from ethnic minorities was group, said: “GEEMA arose out of cation conference. rial to Syd, whose experimenta- launched. Cambridge Black Students’ Caucus in More evidently needs to be done to tion with hallucinatory drugs Figures published this week show the mid-1980s.Asian total It was a unique project reduce the negative perception of Cam- has been linked to the onset of that 448 ethnic minority students who because it was the rst time black Brit- bridge in some areas. But Parks main- his mental health problems. The problems are said to have led to declared their ethnicity were admitted ish studentsBlack total: were a visible entity at tains that the University is winning the in 2008, up from 428 from 2007. Cambridge. ght. “I think we’ve had to battle these increasingly bizarre behaviour, “Our programmes to encourage “Our goal was to make the Univer- perceptions that Cambridge is less ac- which saw him leave Pink Floyd in more entrants from ethnic minori- sity more accessible and less intimi- cessible. 1968, before returning to live as a ties are being very successful,” Cam- dating to those coming behind us.  e “ e di culties we have in terms of virtual recluse in Cherry Hinton. bridge’s director of admissions, Geo improvement in numbers shows why access to students and getting messages Mr Taylor said: “The NHS is start- Parks, said. GEEMA is e ective, but there’s still across, and the nature of the messages ing to prescribe art courses, rather “ e proportion of ethnic groups work to do. Cambridge and other uni- we’re giving out, are gradually chang- than drugs, as it is very helpful for is now nearly treble what it was at the versities are always trying to attract ing, and some of the barriers which many people. Everyone has some beginning of the 1990s.” ACCEPTANCES BY ETHNICITY, 2008 the very best young minds, no matter existed ten years ago have now more or kind of artistic streak in them and ALL STUDENTS FOR WHOM ETHNICITY IS KNOWN (90%) there is lots of research which de- In 1989, the University founded WHITE / ASIAN / OTHER / BLACK what background they come from and less gone. But as David Lammy’s speech GEEMA, the Group for Encouraging GEEMA has an important part to play indicated, it’s not a solved problem. tails the positive effect of art on Ethnic Minority Applications, whose in doing that.”  ere are still pockets of resistance, you people’s wellbeing.” could say, and there are di culties.” News Editors: Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens Friday February 13th 2009 6 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk Bill and Melinda Gates to receive degrees honorary degrees from Cambridge, but spiritual leader; Baroness Williams of Andrew Bellis Gungwu, chairman of the East Asian it is certainly unusual,” a University Crosby, a former Education Secretary Institute. Bill and Melinda Gates are to receive spokesman said. and now a Liberal Democrat peer; Sir Two further nominations have honorary Cambridge degrees, the Uni- Other famous couples to receive Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the been made for the honorary de- versity announced this week. honorary degrees from Cambridge in- Queen’s Music; and Professor Amartya gree of Master of Arts, e Microso chairman and his wife clude jazz singer Cleo Laine and hus- Sen, a former Master of Trinity and No- which will be con- will be awarded Doctorates of Law in a band John Dankworth in 2004, and bel laureate in economics. ferred in July upon ceremony in June. King Juan Carlos and Queen So a of Four other academics who will re- Allan Brigham, The Gates’ charitable organisation, Spain in 1988. ceive honorary degrees are: Professor a local historian the Bill and Melinda Gates Founda- Mr and Mrs Gates are two of the Elizabeth Blackburn, a biology pro- and blue badge tion, has donated $210m to the Uni- twelve people whose names have fessor at the University of California tour guide; and Sir versity to promote access to foreign been submitted to the Regent House who was named in Time magazine’s Miles Hunt-Davis, students. for the conferment of honorary de- list of the 100 most in uential people Private Secre- e husband and wife will be a rare grees this summer. in 2007; Professor Wallace Broecker, a tary to the Duke example of honorary degrees being Among this year’s other recipients leading climate change scientist; Pro- of Edinburgh, conferred upon a couple. “ ey would are: His Highness Prince Karim Al- fessor Sir Peter Crane, an ex-director the University’s not be the  rst couple to have received Hassayni, the Aga Khan, an Islamic of Kew Gardens; and Professor Wang Chancellor. RALPH ALSWANG Workers protest against CUP job cuts Tributes pour in a er » Union criticises outsourcing of work from Cambridge

Lizzy Tyler Clare fellow dies Staff at Cambridge University Press » Renowned geneticist dies aged 54 are planning a protest this Saturday against the announced cut of 133 Caedmon Tunstall-Behrens President since 2005. print jobs. David Summers, Head of the Depart- The workers have called for a pub- Mike Majerus, a fellow at Clare, has died ment of Genetics, said: “Mike Majerus lic rally outside Guildhall this Satur- at the age of 54. was a traditional Cambridge scientist; day to “raise awareness of the redun- e world-renowned evolutionary ge- a charismatic individual for whom the dancies, and fight the decimation of neticist and keen defender of Darwinian boundaries between life and work, and the oldest university printing house evolution, made particularly celebrated teaching and research, were very hard to in the world”. research into the evolutionary ecology of discern. He was a world authority in his Employees at the 425-year-old the moths and butter ies and ladybirds.  eld, a tireless advocate of evolution and printing business were warned in His research made a signi cant con- an enthusiastic educator of graduate and October last year that there would be tribution to debate on evolution against undergraduate students.” cuts in jobs in 2009, but the extent intelligent design debate from his close Majerus suffered from a short ill- of the redundancies has caused out- study of the peppered moth. is resulted ness and passed away peacefully on rage. in him being invited to lecture at confer- January 27th. Not only will the 170-strong team ences worldwide. William Foster said of his friend and at Cambridge Printing Services be A colleague and friend of Majerus, colleague: “He was a wonderfully enthu- cut down to 37, but 25 jobs will also Remy Ware said: “Mike was my men- siastic, doughty  ghter for evolutionary go in the firm’s UK education pub- tor, and one of my closest friends. [He] biology. He really loved insects - moths, lishing business. leaves a lasting legacy in his  eld, not butter ies, ladybirds, you name it. Rather Cambridge University Press is said only in terms of the valid scienti c unusually for an academic, he was just as to be making the move in an effort to contributions he has made, but also in respected amongst amateur entomolo- cut costs, whilst outsourcing its pro- teaching and mentoring the evolution- gists as amongst professional ones, and duction of books for the foreign mar- ary biologists of tomorrow.” in fact would not have thought it worth- ket – which makes up 80 per cent of Majerus’ work on ladybirds revealed while to make such a distinction: all were its sales – to printing works abroad. that female mating preferences could be (or should be) consumed with the desire Many of the workers calling for the genetically determined, a discovery that to  nd out more about insects.” protest are members of the unions Cambridge University Press in a bid years of continuous printing in Cam- bolstered Darwin’s theory of sexual selec- Unite, Amicus, and other affiliated to “see what can be done”. bridge, outsourcing work away from tion by female choice. trade bodies. The prospect of being unable to Cambridge when it could be kept It was said of Majerus that at times it A group of the protestors have find jobs in the current recession is here and allowing a business with a was di cult to discern the boundaries been in talks with the Cambridge MP a major fear for the workers, who are unique history and heritage to be lost between his life and his work because he David Howarth who commented that calling for support from MPs and forever”. was so enthusiastic about his research. he was “very worried about the pros- members of the University at the The future of the remaining jobs is, twinned with his e ective teach- pect of these jobs being lost in Cam- protest on Saturday. There is also a has also been questioned by Mr ing skills and knowledge, made him an bridge, especially now, as a recession Facebook group inviting students to Woodcock who said that the firm inspiring individual. takes hold and finding new jobs will get involved in the rally. was “ignoring the sacrifices that have Working tirelessly for the furthering of be difficult”. Tom Woodcock, secretary of the been made by the staff over the last science, Majerus’ life was devoted to the Howarth is in contact with both Cambridge Trades Council said that five years on the understanding that Amateur Entomologists’ Society, of which the employees’ representatives and the CUP was “practically ending 425 there would be job security”. he was a member from the age of  ve and Vorderman counts down to festival

weeks of hands-on science. Aditi Rao Nicola Buckley, co-ordinator of the fes- Carol Vorderman and the scientist be- tival since 2005, feels that the “main focus hind Dolly the sheep are among the is to get children interested in science”. personalities lined up to promote this Buckley believes that giving current year’s Cambridge Science Festival. students and scientists the chance to e festival will explore “Centuries of share their enthusiasm with visitors by Science” to commemorate the 800 year o ering unique opportunities to visit anniversary of the University with a the University’s laboratories will “make wide range of lectures and workshops. science part of the nation’s culture”. Running from March 9-22, as part Other prominent  gures include of National Science and Engineering Chris Bishop, Microso ’s Chief Re- Week, the annual event promises over search Scientist, Channel 4’s Men in 160 events with experts from a wide White presenter Jem Stans eld and the range of  elds to captivate the imagina- students’ favourite, Dr Pete Wothers; tions of adults and children alike. It is whose lecture entitled ‘Just Add Wa- the country’s largest free science festi- ter’ guarantees an interesting talk on val and is expected to attract approxi- the properties of water with explosive mately 30,000 visitors of all ages for two bangs. Friday February 13th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 7 Varsity Profile »Week 5: Ali Moeen Nazawish, the student with 23 A-levels

he shortest entry in this year’s Varsity crastinate for infinite periods of time. 100, Ali Moeen Nazawish has created And not being able to consistently stick Ta media storm with his record-breaking at something. That helped with the A- 23 A-levels, 21 of which were As. And levels, doing ten minute slots of work 18 yet, he says, the only books he ever really per subject and then switching.” Ali’s age read were Harry Potter. “I know it goes On the subject of work, “Hell no!” he against people’s preconceptions, but I’m claims, “I’m not disciplined! I learned not a big fan of reading. I can’t put myself three of my A-level subjects from through it, not even textbooks!” YouTube, and for General Studies I Ali received As at A-level in Physics, looked at the Prospective Immigrants Biology, Mathematics, Computing, Ma- booklet from the UK Home Office!” rine Sciences, Applied ICT, Travel and His learning methods are unconven- 23 Tourism, Urdu Literature, Geography, tional, though evidently rather efficient, The number of A-level Ali achieved Applied Geography, Human Biology, and include the consumption of extrava- Pure Mathematics, Further Mathemat- gant quantities of energy drinks, work- ics, Sociology, Psychology, Thinking ing through the night, in the dark and, Skills, Urdu Language, Business Studies in addition, “Religion has played an im- and Critical Thinking. He also received portant role in all this. Islam encourages two As at AS-level, in General Studies us to learn, and as a Muslim, I consider 21 and English Language. Ali picked up a my education to be obligatory.” The number of A grades he achieved B in Chemistry and a C in General Fur- When I arrived in his room at Trin- in his A-level exams ther Mathematics. ity Hall approaching midnight – he had Recent media attention, sparked by that been finishing a Psychology essay – the that the project currently involves the short but sweet Varsity 100 entry, has been window was wide open, despite sub-ze- top universities of the world and some “crazy”, from Facebook stalkers to bundles ro temperatures, wind and rain, and the 150 volunteers. of fan mail from around the world. In the light was off. “I like to work in a dark, Grand ambitions aside, his aims for two hours following his BBC interview, he cold room. It makes a change from the next term are simple – to pass his ex- received over 700 friendship requests on hot sun in Pakistan.” ams. He worries that high academic Facebook, yet when I show Ali his Wiki- Aside from being on the committee of expectations have been placed on him pedia entry and Facebook fan club, he is the University Pakistani Society, playing from “this 15 minutes of fame”, but ap- genuinely surprised. “That’s amazing!” his guitar, and watching House, Heroes preciates the bright side to the recent His modesty is charming. When and Bollywood films, Ali is currently barrage of attention: “Having done asked what his best personality trait is, filling his time by creating an interna- these subjects with only the goal of per- he answers, “None… having friends tional A-level challenge website (www. sonal academic achievement in mind, it who still treat you like shit is amazing, thealevelchallenge.com). Details of this is amazing that I have inspired so many it keeps you grounded!” His greatest project are still secretively guarded, but people – that I can help people, not just weakness and, he concedes, also his are to be launched on the 21st February, in Pakistan but all over.” greatest strength, is “the ability to pro- Ali’s birthday. He does reveal, however, Anna Harper Burlesque dancers at King’s formal » Students and dons shocked after Moulin Rouge-themed Valentine’s dinner

Massi Steaker Eight burlesque dancers performed at a King’s Valentines Super-formal on Wednesday, much to the distaste of many students and dons. The dancers, who were joined by an equal number of men for the final We are the leading supplier to colleges, May Balls and dance, were paid to perform at the Moulin Rouge-themed formal by the student socs and parties. Party wines from £2.99, over 200 King’s College Students Union. KCSU single malts, Port, Madeira, Claret, Absinthe, cans of lager. If Ents Officer, Juan De Francisco, was you can drink it, we sell it. called in to see the Lay Dean yesterday to explain his actions. Free glass loan, free delivery, generous discounts, wholesale Three dances were performed, as accounts available for all CU bodies, socs, clubs etc. well as a belly-dancing show, only one of which involved the men. “The Double-or-Quits your student discount with our Trivial first dance with the girls was fairly Pursuit challenge. No conferring, bickering or face-pulling. respectable and up on the balcony. Then they went and had a few drinks Branches at King’s Parade, Magdalene Bridge and Mill at the bar, and came back with, let’s say, a tad more joie de vivre,” said one Road. Edinburgh too. King’s student. www.cambridgewine.com “They were simulating sexual acts with each other, writhing on the tables, flirting and generally being pretty full they would be back again. was going on,” said a student. on. Some people, obviously, thought it In the third dance, the eight girls Ents officer De Francisco said: “Ob- was the best thing that had ever hap- were already on the tables and were viously we got a wide range of opin- pened, but most just wanted to have lifted off by the male dancers. The girls ions. Some liked it some did not. From EDINBURGH FESTIVAL 2009 a nice meal and thought it was pretty then gave a lap dance to the men, who my perspective, the theme was Moulin weird,” continued the student. assumed a passive role. All the dancers Rouge, and so we had Moulin Rouge “I can see why people would be an- then got up and began to interact with dancers. In retrospect though, it was Festival Flats have a large number of good properties gry,” said another King’s student, “as it’s the audience. too risqué for a formal.” available in the heart of Edinburgh, all within walking Valentine’s day not prostitute day. What “I was sitting there happily munching The KCSU women’s officer Diane distance of the various venues I would say though is that there were my pudding when one of the male danc- Doliveux said: “I understand that for a just as many people enjoying it as there ers came over and started trying to tie me lot of people it would not have been an were people disapproving of it.” up. I was like, what are you doing? Leave issue, but a significant number of peo- Please call Carole or Elaine on 01620 810620 if you It was reported that the some of the fel- me alone with my damn pudding.” ple complained to me in their capacity lows left early because they felt the event to One dancer reputedly wrapped her as woman’s officer and we have to take would like us to help find the perfect flat for you. be in poor taste. Opinions, however, were legs around a girl’s face. this seriously.” E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] mixed. One don went up to the dancers “It was kind of awful. Looking at eve- “It was not appropriate for a formal. in the bar afterwards and congratulated ryone’s faces around the room, they all It was not advertised and it went a bit them on their performance, asking when looked disgusted and horrified by what far,” she said. News Editors: Andrew Bellis & Cædmon Tunstall-Behrens Friday February 13th 2009 8 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk

From the Archives mi c h ae l d e rri n g r

Week 5: February 18th 1996 Varsity’s account of a white girl being elected for the CUSU role of Anti- Racism Officer.

ambridge University Afro- Caribbean week, which started onC Monday, suffered an unexpected setback after several members of the CU Black and Asian Caucus (BAC) voiced their disapproval over recent election of a white Anti-Racism Officer.The appointment last term of Nicola Tyler from King’s College sparked off the anger of certain BAC members who claimed that the elec- tions were badly publicised, unrep- resentative and ultimately unfair. According to Martin Edwards, school liaison officer for the Group to Encourage Ethnic Minority Ap- plications (GEEMA), the criticism stems from a “lack of communica- tion and confusion over succes- sorship”. He said, “the electoral Busy morning for Prince Phillip as he names boat and train procedure needs to be modified. At present, CUSU posts are elected rince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh and Chancellor of the University, was in Cambridge yesterday morning to take part in a series of events to celebrate Cam- by two JCR members from each bridge’s 800th anniversary. He went to the Blues’ boathouse to name the boat for this year’s Boat Race. He then travelled to the railway station to name a train on college. A campus vote should be theP Cambridge-King’s Cross line, in commemoration of the University’s 800th anniversary. Following this, he unveiled a new statue of Charles Darwin at Christ’s, introduced to give the wider public, commissioned to mark the 200th birthday of the naturalist yesterday. On Wednesday evening he watched a student production of Iolanthe. especially members of the Asian and Black community, the opportunity to voice their opinions.” Sonika Nirwal, President of the Chinese dissident BAC, shares her concerns. “Many of the JCR members who voted in the Christ’s restore Darwin’s room supports protester election did not even tell the other » College opens naturalist’s room to public in 200th year of his birth members of their colleges that the vote Continued from front page was taking place,” she said/ “The post “As a Chinese saying goes, it is more is representative of a lot of students precious than gold for a young person and it would be better if, in the future, an Wyh e to turn around to redress mistakes. It is

the vote was opened up,” she added. Joh n v hoped that this student will see his mis- When asked whether it was Miss take and seek to understand a real and Tyler’s skin colour that angered the developing China,” Mr Wen added. BAC members, Mr Edwards replied The student also faces the possibility that this was not the issue. He said, of internal University discipline when “the key qualities of an anti-racist court proceedings against him have officer are creativity, new ideas and concluded. Potential penalties include social awareness. Anyone who exer- being fined, suspended or rusticated. cises these qualities can make an ef- Cambridge’s Advocate-General, law fective anti-racist officer.” professor Christopher Forsyth, will Miss Nirwal, however, admitted conduct the hearing if Jahnke’s conduct that some members of the BAC were is deemed to be sufficiently serious. unsure about approaching Miss Jahnke has been at Cambridge for sev- Tyler with any concerns or prob- eral years, supervising undergraduates lems they might have because she is and leading seminars. He is involved in not a member of an ethnic minor- research into diseases such as diabetes, ity herself. “If an anti-racism officer arthritis and multiple sclerosis. hasn’t had experience of racial abuse In an open letter to the shoe-thrower, they may find it difficult to relate to Shao Jiang, a survivor of the Tiananmen the problems of our members,” She Square massacre, praised his actions, told Varsity. Timothy Leung illustrations, including those by Wil- kept in his rooms, including a percus- saying: “I want to let you know that Miss Tyler said she could “com- liam Makepeace Thackeray, to inform sion gun, insect-swooping net, gould what you have done has greatly encour- pletely understand” such concerns. Rooms occupied by Charles Darwin their restoration. microscope, beetle collection and bird aged people in China to fight for free- However, she believes she has “some during his undergraduate years have Physical evidence in the rooms was skins. dom, democracy and human rights.” comprehension of the issues at been restored to the state that the natu- also examined to determine the interior Van Wyhe noted, “Never before has He continued: “I firmly believe that stake”, even though she has not been ralist might have found them when he features. Analysis of paints remaining it been possible to experience such a when you threw the shoe at the Chinese the victim of racial abuse herself. studied at Christ’s. on the walls allowed identification of sense of Darwin’s time as a student dictator, you were exercising the free- Miss Tyler also agreed that the elec- Since no drawings or descriptions the pigments required to reproduce the at Christ’s. His large, elegant rooms, dom of expression on behalf of those toral procedure was not ideal, but of the rooms in Darwin’s time survive, colour scheme, while a serendipitous richly furnished and complete with who have never had the chance to ex- explained that when the post was the reproduction is based on research discovery revealed the fabric that might what may be his original beetle cabi- press their despair. We cannot agree open last year, “no one else stood for conducted by John van Wyhe, Direc- have been used for the soft furnishing: net – as well as other scientific objects more when you made your famous it. Rather than see the post not filled tor of Darwin Online and Bye-Fellow Poole found that under three layers of – give it a feel of a private natural his- speech: ‘How can the University pros- I stood for it.” of Christ’s, and Jo Poole. The pair more modern seat covers, cushions tory museum.” titute itself with this dictator? How can This term, Miss Tyler has been consulted contemporary documents, were covered with a fabric contempo- The rooms will be open to the public you listen to the lies he’s telling!’” joined as Anti-Racism Officer by recollections of Darwin’s friends at rary to Darwin’s period. from February 21st as part of Christ’s At Cambridge Magistrates’ Court Sharmini Selvarajah, also from King’s. Cambridge, descriptions of student The restoration has brought together celebrations of the bicentenary of Dar- Jahnke was bailed unconditionally and life in the University at that time and other objects that Darwin might have win’s birth. will appear in court again on March 10th.

Friday February 13th 2009 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 9

For gamblers, it’s nearly winning that counts Cambridge » Cambridge research reveals that near-misses keep gamblers betting Spies named ‘Gambling Near-Misses En- with answers that problem gamblers The Economic and Social Research Christos Lavidas hance Motivation to Gamble and Re- are most likely to give. Council (ESRC) is the UK’s larg- Cambridge research has discovered cruit Win-Related Brain Circuitry’. It The study was funded by the Eco- est funding agency for research and that a near-miss when gambling causes was published in the February 12th nomic and Social Research Council postgraduate training relating to so- punters to keep betting. edition of Neuron. and the Responsibility in Gambling cial and economic issues. It supports A near-miss was described as an in- The first experiment consisted of sci- Trust, and the Behavioural and Clinical independent, high-quality research stance where the slot machine reel stops entists scanning the brains of 15 people Neuroscience Institute at the Depart- relevant to business, the public sector one position from the ‘payline’. The re- while they gambled on a computerized ment of Experimental Psychology. and voluntary organisations. sultant brain activity causes gamblers slot machine, delivering 50p when a to keep betting, although no positive win was achieved. outcome has occurred. When humans win a bet the same The team was lead by Luke Clark of areas of the brain respond as when the MRC-Wellcome Trust Behavioural they eat chocolate or consume drugs and Clinical Neuroscience Institute. He that are linked to abuse. The brain is said, “Gamblers often interpret near- excited and the chemical dopamine is misses as special events, which encour- stimulated. age them to continue to gamble. Our When one of the participants in the findings show that the brain responds study got an outcome consisting of to near-misses as if a win has been de- two cherries and an orange but not the livered, even though the result is tech- three cherries necessary for a win, they Trinity nically a loss. experienced the same levels of happi- “On games where there is some skill ness as if they had won. Activity was It takes three to tango involved, like target practice, it makes discovered in the striatum and insula sense to pay attention to near-misses. cortex of the brain. A group of shoe-making boys was However, on gambling games where In the second experiment partici- having dinner with a troupe of feline the wins are random, like slot machines pants described the near-miss events females at everyone’s favourite King or roulette, near-misses do not signal as unpleasant. However, they felt even St patisserie. The meal was drawing your future success. more compelled to continue gambling to its natural conclusion, when one “Importantly, our volunteers in this after such an event occurred. enterprising chap started making the study were not regular or problem Furthermore, not all subjects showed case for heading to Cambridge’s pre- gamblers and so these findings suggest the same level of responsiveness to near- mier ‘exotic dancing’ establishment. that the brain may naturally respond to misses. Participants that experienced a Other lads (and lasses) enthusiasti- near-misses in this way.” heightened level of activity after a near- cally agreed, and before long they The study is detailed in a paper miss also responded to a questionnaire found themselves confronted with a mass of female flesh. One floppy- haired fellow, and a girl who really should have been doing her mara- thon training, found themselves County demands more grit from government lending a sympathetic ear to one dancer’s life story; the night culmi- » Council says national shortage has prevented gritting of cycle paths nated in a performance from said buxom entertainer, who focussed Jennie Baker But both Liberal Democrat and Green blaming the national shortage for the cillor Wright maintains that the county her attentions on the girl. A jolly Party city councillors have accused the lack of grit application instead of tak- has a “culture of cycling” and that the time, in sum, was had by all. Cambridgeshire County Council has Conservative-run council of not doing ing responsibility for their own failure council should “change its priorities” in blamed its failure to grit cycleways and enough to protect the public. to supply it. Cambridge. Peterhouse footpaths on a national shortage. Sian Reid, a Liberal Democrat city Wright claims that although short- The County Council’s cabinet mem- The exceptional weather conditions councillor, called the council’s proce- ages have only become an issue in the ber for transport, Matthew Bradney, Kafkaesque? have forced the council to send out its dure for the gritting of footpaths and last few days, paths have “barely been spoke of the need to be “realistic”. He fleet of 36 gritters over sixty times al- cycleways “absolute madness”, and treated” since the cold weather began. said: “We cannot grit everywhere, and After a dinner last week aimed ready this year, costing over £1 million, claimed that the requirements for grit- She reported that in Abbey Ward, lo- as it turns out, if we had we would have squarely at those who prefer to bat double the number of last year’s out- ting “put people’s safety at risk”. Cur- cal cyclists and walkers have notified run out of grit.” He said that the coun- for the other side, two gents who had ings. rently, temperatures must be below her of “at least 40 accidents” which she cil’s priorities had to remain with those imbibed more than is strictly healthy Two of the major grit suppliers now freezing until midday for five consecu- believes could have been avoided had roads where the risk of death is high- found themselves at adjacent urinals. have no spare stocks. The council has tive days before the gritting of cycle- the paths been gritted. est. After that, what should be more nat- said, however, that it has enough grit ways and footpaths is undertaken. While many students and one third Bradney has since written to the ural than that they should start dis- left to last until the end of the difficult Margaret Wright, a Green Party city of those commuting to Cambridge Government demanding a national re- cussing business in the nearest cu- weather.Varsity ad 100x100 23/1/08 14:47councillor, Page has 1 accused the Council of make their journeys by bicycle, Coun- view of gritting procedure. bicle? Sadly, that explanation failed to hold water when they were un- expectedly joined by one of the Col- lege’s esteemed gatekeepers, who was unimpressed by their young love. He Police told to smoke secretly had them immediately hauled off to Clarke highlighted that it was “just an- one of the establishment’s BigDogs. Helen Mackreath other example of the nanny state” and Said official, however, was unable to Cambridgeshire police are now re- that “policing is a very stressful job. punish the miscreants when the por- quired to conceal their smoking habits. “In the real world many police offic- ter couldn’t bring himself to reveal In a move aimed at maintaining the ers choose to smoke and they shouldn’t exactly what they’d done wrong. Looking for work “polished image” of the police force, have to hide this fact from the public.” Cambridgeshire police officers have He also stated that “tobacco is a legal Fitzwilliam been told to cover their uniforms when product”. this summer? having a cigarette in public. This criticism has been countered by Blowing in the wind New guidelines imposed by police the views of ASH (Action on Smoking University of Cambridge International chiefs also include the requirement that and Health), a body which supports the Recent snowy weather led a fleet smoking time be deducted from paid policy. of Fitzbillys to evolve their daily Summer Schools can offer 4 - 7 weeks working hours. A spokesman for ASH said: “This activities, and it was suggested work for senior Cambridge These measures have been imposed policy is in line with the approach of they sculpt various erections from to uphold the respectable image of the a number of organisations [such as the snow, one of which resembled undergraduate and graduate students. police force. health] and emanates from the fact that an icehouse. Having met a fine Like the general 2007 smoking ban, smoking does not project a good im- specimen of the female species £200 per week plus college health concerns were a factor in the age. later one soireé, our protagonist policy, but equally important was the “Some people might argue that it’s swept her off her feet and into said accommodation. fear that smoking policemen would a bit mean to dock time, but smoking refrigerated house. Little did he display an image detrimental to the breaks taken in a day add up during the know that he was in for a night of For details call network: 60850 reputation of the force. course of a week and it is unfair to non- fellatio-themed ecstasy. Despite all Criticism of the policy comes from smokers for this disparity in work time the blowing that went on, our little or 01223 760850 FOREST, a Cambridge-based smokers’ to continue.” structure stayed standing, though or email: [email protected] campaign, an acronym for Freedom It is hoped that this move will limit time it was visibly leaning to one side Organisation for the Right to Enjoy wasted on smoking breaks, and maintain the next day... Smoking Tobacco. Spokesman Simon the public reputation of the force. CAMBRIDGE AND OXFORD'S ANNUAL LITERARY AND VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL

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Deadline 13 March 2009 Friday February 13th 2009 Get it off your chest: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Comment 11 e Essay

Obama must learn from FDR Anthony J. Badger Barack Obama is entering an economic situation unprecedented since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt. e Master of Clare argues that he must learn from the successes and mistakes of his predecessor’s  rst 100 days in o ce.

pening my email on Monday unprepared to deal with this crisis Obama, who had planned his eco- workforce was out of work. Agricul- portunity of Congress having to deal Omorning, November 17th, I which had been developing since nomic stimulus bill, expected his ture (a third of the labour force) was with the banking crisis to pass 16 found a message from CNN urgently his election four months earlier. package to pass on Day One. As I in desperate straits. Homeowners pieces of major legislation that regu- requesting a live TV interview. I was Walter Wyatt, the holdover Federal write, it has still not were losing their property at the rate lated the prices and wages in Ameri- told Barack Obama had mentioned Reserve official who drafted the passed. of a 1000 a day. There were none of can industry, paid farmers to cut reading a new book on FDR and his legislation that re-opened the banks, the stabilizers that now protect ordi- back their production to raise prices, First Hundred Days the previous remembered his astonishment that nary Americans: no unemployment re-financed home and farm mort- evening in his first major national no one in the Brain Trust had insurance and social security, no gages, launched a massive public TV interview. It was flattering that given “any thought… or any real price supports for farmers, no federal works programme, brought in fed- CNN assumed it was my book that study to the problem created by insurance of bank deposits. There eral assistance for the unemployed, he was talking about. CNN were un- this banking situation.” “They was no federal welfare system and regulated the stock market and the daunted by the fact that, as it turned had absolutely no plans”, he private charity and local and state banks and launched the TVA. out, Obama had been reading a dif- recalled. But Roosevelt acted welfare resources were exhausted. As What can the intellectually gifted ferent book, an earlier one by Jonath- decisively to put in place the a result, congressmen of both parties President Obama, himself a gifted an Alter. Anxiety increased during measures Wyatt and other of- heard desperate demands from their communicator like FDR, learn from the day as a high-tech CNN van tried ficials had previously drafted, constituents for action. Republicans the 100 Days? to make it to Cambridge. Eventu- especially for the purchase of as much as Democrats heard their That there is no alternative to bail- ally I stood in the driving rain on national preferred stock - the voters demand that they support a ing out bankers and the major indus- the steps of Memorial Court telling recapitalization of the banks. President who was willing to act. It tries, however much it rankles. But American viewers about what their Even then it was a tremendous is very different today. The Repub- that assistance has to be balanced by president-elect might be expected to gamble to re-open the banks lican senator from South Carolina appropriate regulation and assistance learn from their own history. on March 13th given how little accused Obama of trying to scare to the unemployed and threatened Two weeks later British Prime the government really knew the American people. In 1933 FDR homeowners. To create new jobs in Minister Gordon Brown recom- about which banks were sound did not have to scare anyone. Rather the private sector a lot of money has mended my book to readers of the and which were not. Seldom the reverse, what he had to persuade to be spent, probably more than it is Guardian newspaper as “a classic has a presidential speech been them was that the only thing they comfortable to contemplate. Infra- example of how a work of history can more crucial than Roo- had to fear was fear itself. structure investment works – as the illuminate the issues we’re dealing sevelt’s first fireside chat Whatever Obama’s efforts at bi- New Deal’s public works programs with today.” Brown has cited Roo- of March 12th. Or- partisanship, most Republicans showed. A president, even in crisis sevelt and the New Deal as the model dinary American in Congress do not feel situations, cannot simply dictate to for his own recovery package in the depositors under pressure from their Congress. Obama will have to work UK. Media interest and requests for were per- partisan base to support with Congress on the nuts and bolts interview came from the US, the UK, suaded the President. Cen- of legislation and to do so at a time Europe and Australia. By January by his trist Democrats in when Congressmen will not hear the 4th, the Observer asserted that the careful ex- the Senate elected same powerful messages from their book was “top of the political class’s planation from competi- constituents to back the President at reading list on both sides of the that it was tive districts are all costs that they heard in the even Atlantic at Christmas.” safer to put likewise fearful more desperate economic situation The book had, in fact, been out the money in of supporting of 1933. He can try for reforms but since June. It attracted virtually no the banks than massive govern- some, like health insurance, may attention until September 15th. The to keep it under ment spending. have to wait as social security did in financial collapse then sparked some a mattress. If they In addition, Con- 1933. modest British press interest in it. had, instead, gone gress has for the past In the 1930s a textile worker from Only after the election did the media on withdrawing their thirty years lost the art North Carolina said “Mr Roosevelt take notice. money the next day, the of legislating, and mired is the only man we ever had in the What had struck me about the 100 Roosevelt New Deal would as it has been in mean- White House who would understand Days and what might Obama and have been over before it ever spirited partisan division that my boss was a son-of-a-bitch.” Brown learn from it? started. over hot-button, symbolic issues, What President Obama also has to As in 2009, Roosevelt on March Congress passed Roosevelt’s Congressional Democratic leaders do is to persuade ordinary Ameri- 4th 1933 had to handle an immediate banking legislation that Congress have also lost the art of governing cans who are victims of the credit banking crisis. The morning he took re-assembled. The House passed the Why has he found it so difficult? with an executive of their own party. crunch that he is on their side. office, the governors of Illinois and bill in 43 minutes when there was In 1933 the United States was Democrats have controlled Congress New York had closed their banks. only one copy of the bill available. three and a half years into the worst and the Presidency for only six of the Anthony J. Badger is Master of Clare Effectively all the banks in the nation The Senate took slightly longer but depression in its history. Between a past forty years. College and Paul Mellon Professor were closed. Yet Roosevelt was totally still passed the bill in seven hours. quarter and a third of the industrial In 1933 Roosevelt took the op- of American History. Comment Editor: Robert Stagg Friday February 13th 2009 12 Comment [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Foreign Zoe Correspondence Pelter e Empire Strikes Back The Emma May Ball theme was a dangerous flirtation with history Cambridge goes all over the world in a riot of semi-imperialist journalism es, it’s true - the theme of Em- many people whose sense of decency e reality is that, as a party, this May Even if you have never le the country, manuel’s May Ball this year re- tells them not to celebrate a divisive, Ball could have done nothing but glorify modern Britain is the living legacy of Yally was ‘Empire’. is can’t have been inhumane history? the days of British Empire. Unfortu- the Empire and its people should be thought through. If they had wanted to How would the Ball have managed to nately, West Indian plantation slaves respected. do a round-the-world theme, they could avoid the obvious exploitative purposes and South African concentration camps I also  nd it di cult to understand have done…umm…well… ‘Round e of British colonial rule? How would the appear to have killed the buzz. Positive how the EMBC regarded the British World’. But Empire has a completely dif- Empire as  xed in history (and thus ferent connotation. Loosely translated, it ‘theme-worthy’) when billions of people could also be called ‘Round the world… still live with the consequences of British To Dominate, Loot and Destroy’. Just a dominion. One need only glance at the suggestion. news to see the continuing Sri Lankan In all fairness to the Emmanuel May or Northern Irish con icts to remember Ball Committee (EMBC), the idea did this. is article is not about blame. Week 5: Mumbai give them a huge variety of options. For Rather, it is simply about remembering example, when depicting the Indian past errors as mistakes, not successes. umbai, a city of dreams, sub-continent under the ‘British Raj’, If the committee wished to join in the hope and poverty, has come they could have had piles of colourful British theme of Peterhouse’s Festival of Mto the attention of the world’s spices, graceful dancers and ancient Britain, they thought wrong. One hopes media due to the recent success culture. Waiters could have pretended that there is little oppression to be recre- of Slumdog Millionaire. But its to be indentured labourers, tossing fake ated in the Liquorice Allsorts, Pimm’s problems remain. rubies and diamonds to the queue. At and Winnie the Pooh being promised On arrival at Chhatrapati Shivaji, midnight, they could have even recre- by Peterhouse. ere needs to be a Mumbai’s international airport, the ated the 1919 Amritsar Massacre under clear delineation between the celebra- heavy monsoon heat is not the only a magical haze of  reworks. e world tion of a nation and the celebration of a surprise for the less-experienced was their oyster. All too literally. regime of oppression: it is comparable summer traveller. Leaving the Enough sarcasm. You get the point to throwing a Nazi party when trying to airport is a Herculean task when – bad things happened under British celebrate German culture. Why was this met with the army of aggressive imperial rule. However, there is a dis- distinction not made by the committee? tuk-tuk or taxi drivers, vying for tinct di erence between accepting the Maybe the ticket cost was intended foreign custom. And then to the Empire as a historical fact and the overt to include the price of blindfolds. ese airport’s periphery, where clusters celebration of the Empire’s conquests. would have certainly been necessary in of silent, staring boys sit in gnarled So how did the committee plan to Ball have avoided the racist connota- portrayal of the Empire would have order to glorify the Empire in the face trees, skinny limbs protruding execute this theme? In what ways could tions of slavery when its guests were been paramount to the success of the of its realities. e Ball’s webpage stated: from grubby white vests or sleeping such a theme have been sensitively ‘travelling’ to the West Indies? How night, and logically so. However, having “ ey say that the sun never set on the in clusters, their poverty visible, portrayed in today’s multicultural, mul- would the Ball have avoided showing lived in several post-colonial countries, British Empire… but at the Empire ball, bringing new meaning to the term tiracial Britain, where millions of people the Empire’s negative role in the opium- I would  nd it di cult to make merry you’ll be wishing it never rises.” Person- ‘ground  oor’. – and many party-goers – originate induced “hedonism of nineteenth-cen- while ignoring the inconvenient truth ally, I hope that the sun of those days “In India, anything is possible”, from previously colonised regions? And tury Hong Kong”, which the May Ball that the abundance of the British Em- has set permanently, but the Emmanuel at least for the foreign visitor with how could it have been sensitive to the website so appealingly invited us to? pire was the result of terrible sacri ce. Ball almost allowed it to rise once more. a little money. And a little money goes a long way. It o en goes the wrong way: the deep, dark eyes of a crippled girl are o en part of gang-run, pro t-making slum Joe factories. Slum tours, controversial for Hunter their use of poverty as a tourist Angry Young Men attraction for Western visitors, teach how on arrival at the city’s train station, young girls are spot- Why do we get so mad? ted and pimped, while the boys are le to join gangs in order to survive. A gang leader teaches his atching Gryff Rhys Jones on I was treated to the sight of three It was the remembrance of an- relationship with one or other of new minions the ways of their WAnger on BBC2 a few months men, all of my age, LIVID with rage other incident - this time featuring the girls in the front of the car, world, from slashing pockets with ago was a revealing experience. The and straining at the metaphorical myself as the enraged perpetrator transformed into violent aggres- blades attached to  ngernails, to entire programme, with its soul- leash through the back window. The - that the answer seemed to present sion towards a male who seemed to how to avoid the police, visible at searching tone, seemed designed ghastly image of those three faces in itself. It took place at the smok- threaten the sanctity of that female countless Indian city train stations to induce inward reflection over the glass, spitting and snarling with ing area outside the ADC bar and target? Good old-fashioned excess of – Mumbai is no exception. Life incidents of excessive anger. fury, mouthing who knows what involved me shouting at a complete testosterone? Masculine insecurity is indeed hard. Yet the alterna- I was reminded of a specific occa- manner of dire threats, pointing, stranger to “FUCK OFF!” several due (again) to sexual frustration and tives are o en harder: alcohol- sion last year when I was involved in gesticulating, and… well, they prob- times. It now seems to me that the goading the sufferer to prove they ism, violence, and poverty chase an incident of road rage. I was bik- ably weren’t actually shaking their anger I’d felt at that moment was are The Man at every opportunity? children from their homes and ing across a junction, and I suppose fists at me, but you get the idea. an alien thing, of unknown origin. Or even - although this makes me their families to India’s great cities I must have obstructed the car fol- Although BBC2’s nicely pitched At the time, it felt good to embrace sound something of a snob - an in- in the  rst place, and so to the lowing close behind. I felt aggrieved nate hatred of Cambridge students slums. is is a tale told by many a by the driver’s unsympathetic behav- brought on by feelings of inadequacy tuk-tuk driver. iour, particularly as she seemed to “ e anger I’d felt was an alien thing, of (financial, social, or intellectual: e disparity of income and think my confusion might be allevi- take your pick)? Or, perhaps more wealth in India’s cities is shock- ated if she revved loudly, leant on accurately, the sense that society ing. A single night in the Oberoi the horn, encroached on the already unknown origin. It felt good to embrace it considers them to be inferior, and costs more than the average slum limited space available to me and so therefore has less use for them? dweller’s life would be valued on. I therefore decided (not wholly b r i e  y .” This sort of pop psychology is at, let alone than their average uncharacteristically I must admit) to easy when you yourself are not incomes, employed as they are in give the car the finger when it at last the target. But what about my own litter-collecting, pick-pocketing, was able to overtake me. programme encouraged the mulling it briefly, but as soon as I regained outburst? What well of discontent is prostitution or working in a call Not with venom, I should point over of such events, it didn’t offer control I was ashamed of giving way bubbling up inside me, denied ar- centre. e poor of India face a out, but as a resigned and principled any explanation as to why such out- to it. These fits of rage, dispropor- ticulation? The train wreck that was myriad of further problems, from gesture. Having done so, I was met bursts occur when we, as civilised tionate to the immediate situation, my love-life at the time, perhaps, or the corruption of o cials to the with a demonstration of shocking human beings in the twenty-first are fundamentally a problem of something else writhing beneath the lack of clearly de ned property rage. The driver, a girl in her mid- century, believe we are in control articulacy. surface? rights. Despite the awareness twenties, and the passenger, also fe- of the more animalistic elements of The three furious faces in the back I don’t know, and don’t want to raised by the  lm, solutions to male, leant towards me as they drove our natures. Aren’t we? And if we’re of that car were in the throes of an know. I take comfort in only one the ingrained problems of India’s past, shrieking obscenities through not, shouldn’t anger serve some kind animal emotion. It wasn’t inspired thing about that fit of rage: the cities remain complicated and far the open window with their middle of meaningful purpose? Or at least by my inconsiderate cycling, it was touch-paper that set the thing off, from achieved. fingers extended. Further unbri- occur in proportion to its stimu- caused by… shall we run through however indirectly, was… John Anna Harper dled aggression came from the rear lus? What about that car of furious a few possibilities? Sexual frustra- Keats. As an English student, I feel seats. After the car had passed me, chavs? tion over some kind of convoluted strangely proud of that. Friday February 13th 2009 Get it off your chest: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Comment 13

Spk yr brains

e Wit and Wisdom of the World Wide Web

Week 5: Emma’s Empire

So, we are re-writing history now, are we? When will the book burn- ing commence?

Dave Pickup, Tarragona, Spain

Excellent, but it is just  ddling while Rome burns.

Ian Millard, Exeter, UK

Oh please!!!! It’s History.....English history!!! Be proud of it! ese pc correct people are now going too far!

Gerri, Lincolnshire

ANNA TRENCH Joanne baufoy [Joanna Beaufoy, creator of the Facebook group ‘Emma Against e Empire’] Ben has no understanding of cultural integrity, and our culture WAS Slingo superior in many ways. And let e Stripping of the Altars us not forget the 100,000 south- ern english women and children Today’s Tory Party has vandalised conservatism dragged from their homes by the Moors and sold into slavery in North Africa. Didnt know that Joanne? Well get a book and at the avid Cameron is economically exhumation of that most wormeaten of irony, this transformation does not tell would this pillar of the Scottish enlight- same time some humility and a Dilliterate. e policy he advocates political corpses, nationalisation. the whole story. When Mr. Cameron enment make of the banshee shrieks sense of humour is crude and sanctimonious. Despite his Mr Cameron’s blustering refusal to thunders against the pro igacy of the that emanate daily from the pages of the collection of an honours degree in PPE countenance such measures, and his Government, his tone is not the blasé Daily Mail, the holy book of right-wing Jonny B, stortford, UK from the University of Oxford, the chief penchant for ranting about the country’s intransigence of a libertarian. moral hysteria? in uence on his thought appears to be (unusually low) public debt, may seem ere is a moralistic streak running It is a question Tories would do well It is about time that we celebrated that least dazzling of economic miracle perplexing. Yet the corruption of con- through his fulminations, the same seam to ask themselves as they prepare for a the greatness of Empire.It is too workers, Herbert Hoover. servatism makes them comprehensible. present in what Denis Healey described return to government. Given the bound- sad to think that the labour party ese are bald statements, espe- For nothing has been more central to as “the economics of a petit-bourgeois less unwisdom of the British electorate, gave way all that our fore fathers cially from one more than willing to this debasement than the Right’s em- housewife” as practised by the Iron Lady their brand of ideological silliness and worked so hard to establish.It is sip CUCA’s port and munch its cheese brace of free-market capitalism and the from Grantham. Hence the current  re and brimstone morality is due to be satisfying to know that our young whenever they are lavished upon him. ideology of freedom invoked to justify it. Tory leader’s pieties about “living within rewarded at just the time it will be most intelligentsia have recognised that ey might also seem rather super uous Tories used to be de ned by their our means” and eschewing embarrassing. we need to keep alive the spirit of ones. suspicion of change and their decent the temptation to “spend, If to expect instant political Empire when we, a small white na- e controversy surrounding the respect for time-honoured institutions. spend, spend” rather demarche is a fraction ambi- tion ruled a quarter of the earths present economic crisis rages in news- Nowadays, like begrimed, trouser- than “save, save, tious, I would be satis ed population with an iron  st and papers even more exalted than this one, clad barbarians rampaging through s a v e”. with this: a tentative a kindly heart. e blacks under- and the Keynesian critique of Mr Cam- the smouldering streets of Rome, they is sancti- recognition that, just stood who was master then.Our eron’s priggish strictures can be found in wallow in what Schumpeter called the monious outlook, occasionally, there might armies and navy ruled the land countless articles more eloquent than the ‘creative destruction’ of capitalism. more than a little be a query to which the and sea and enabled us to become one in front of you – even, for the reader ey used to cherish ancient institu- tinged with para- correct answer does not wealthy and strong.Our industries with a strong stomach, in the speeches tions. More recently, Margaret atcher noia, is the second culminate in the words grew out of this and enabled our of Gordon Brown. us, if it is to have beat her iron  rst against just such hal- disease with which “cut taxes” barked in the people to be fully employed and to any purpose other than insulting the lowed edi ces, including this University. modern conserva- dulcet tones of Nor- expand our industry. standard of economics instruction at the ey used to admire the State as the tism has become man Tebbit, or “save, Other Place, a new tirade on the subject guardian of order in a world of primal infected. At its best save, save” bellowed honesttaxpayer, bedford must add something more. violence and original sin. Talking to Toryism was always in the manner of an ankfully, that something is crying many Cambridge Tories today one could sardonic, cynical, even Alabaman Baptist e Empire was a fact of life, get out for discussion. For the Tories’ fatu- be forgiven for thinking it was the insti- rather mischievous: preacher. used to it, shut up and get on with ous response to the recession is not just tutional embodiment of Satan. no one could accuse your sorry life. a belated con rmation of John Stuart Great Conservatives like Disraeli and Disraeli, with his glittering Mill’s jibe about the “stupid party”. It Salisbury spent their lives resisting clas- sarcasm and his malicious George, London captures one of the most important and sical liberalism; sometimes Mrs T was delight in baiting a priggish dispiriting trends of recent decades. is simply Gladstone in a wig. Most of all, Gladstone, of holier-than-thou self- Sounds like a good party - the fact development is the perversion of con- Tories used to be practical. ey would righteousness. Still less the suave it’s been derided as being “white,” servatism, and it is exempli ed by the cultivate a feline disdain, or at least a David Hume, who seemed to the word presumably spat out with Right’s paralysis in the face of economic blu distrust, for ideology and dogma. regard ‘enthusi- supposed connotations of being disaster. Now, as their newly adopted creed asm’ as faintly evil, nasty and horrible tells you Any sane treatment of our malaise crashes about them, zeal for liberty and unhygienic, not all you need to know. must involve state interference in the the market seems to pulse through their to mention form of public spending, subsidies no longer blue-blooded veins. rather dan- Steve Jacks, London to struggling industries and even the Yet for all its horror, and all its lurid gerous. What The Varsity Trust ombay Brasserie offers an exciting fusion Take your passion for of sumptuous Indian food, friendly service Band a vibrant atmosphere. 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3-5 MillersMillers Yard, MMillill Lane,Lane, CambridgeCambridge CB2 1RQ T: 01223 360409 / 07951 572 131 www.bombaybrasserie.net The Varsity Trust offers funding to students planning to undertake journalism courses in 2008-2009. OPENING HOURS Registered Charity No. 1012847 Lunch: Mon - Fri 12 - 2.30pm / Sat - Sun 12 - 3pm Dinner: Sun - Thur 6 - 11.30pm / Fri - Sat 6 - 12am Friday February 13th 2009 varsity.co.uk

THISMAGAZINE WEEK IN THE MAGAZINE: ANDREW MARR USED TO BE A SOCIALIST / GILES COREN ON FOOD, SEX AND THE 1920S / ANTONIO CARLUCCIO / STUDENT WEBZINE POMEGRANATE / SEX COLUMN

Photograph of the week by Patrick Davies his photo was “Ttaken on the path through King’s, close to Queen’s Road. e spring  owers are just budding through the previous day’s snow in the early morning sunlight, with the warm spring colours in the foreground contrasting with the blue-tinged snow and sky in a dramatic fashion. King’s College Chapel and Clare College can be seen in the background, with snow covering the lawns and meadows. e background of the image is out of fo- cus, which makes the clarity of the  owers all the more startling”

If you have a potential Photo- graph of the week, send it (along with a brief descrip- tion) to features@ varsity.co.uk

My week by Debbie, American tourist* did manage to get an Oxford sweater guys passed right by this one cop. He just Hogwarts students passed by. I knew presence – always a nice reassurance for Brendy at the market. gave them a smile and wished them good I’d read that Harry Potter lived here! in these Asian eateries – but then the SARAH WOOLLEY day. Two men holding hands! If only Father Willis was right, though: those female navy arrived. Oh God, the hell Wednesday ursday Ron had had his shotgun. ose British wizards are the devil’s children. ey that descended. Screaming and singing Tiny sandwiches on the trains here. Up early and ready to go on the big col- batons couldn’t break Bambi’s ass. were carrying a bottle of wine each, all and straddling each other before the ey call it Cambridge station, but lege tour. I think the tour guy was a few wearing satanic cloaks and muttering poppadoms had arrived. I was just that walk to the hotel was the longest beers short of a six pack. He said that Friday curses. “Metallurgy.” No kidding, that’s about ready to demand six free curries, I’ve done since the jeep died in ‘99 and Charles Darwin came here. at crazy Worst day of the trip so far. Brendy’s what one of them said. but Ron stopped me. Kids, he said. we were all out of mayo. Such a cute screwball who talked about the goril- arm is broken in two places. He I worry. I think he was just enjoying little town. All of the bikes and dorky las. And I thought this was a brainiac dodged one cyclist and crashed into Sunday perky hooters in uniform. kids everywhere! Ron went crazy over university. We passed Queens’, where the another. ese bikers should be out- Time for a quiet meal. Went to a little the hotel receptionist. I did the smile queers go, and this cute little diner, e lawed; I might write to the Governor Indian restaurant o -the-beaten-track, Sunday therapy Oprah recommended and we Eagle. ey made the  rst DNA there. of Cambridge in protest. Cyclist still hoping for some romance. All started Time to  y back to the ranch. Ron found Subway for lunch. Brendan Brendan’s sweater got real hostile looks critical in E.R. But it’s like I told the well at Bombay Brasserie, but then booked a cab to the station, thank the needs his daily footlong. Spent all all day. ere’s something wrong with the paramedics: in Alabama the sidewalks the strangest thing happened: a group Lord. We never did  nd Oxford College. a ernoon looking for Oxford College. cops in this town. We were in the middle belong to the pedestrian. We’d just of naval o cers marched in. Ron We couldn’t  nd it anywhere, but we of the market place when two embracing got back to the hotel when a group of was happy to see a healthy military *As told to Abigail Dean

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS HERE): “BOOM-CHKa-BOOM-CHKa-BOOM: DJ Cecil Rhodes indahouse; DJ Slave indahouse; MC Ian Smith indahouse; DJ Stains indahouse; MC White Minority Rule indahouse; DJ Institutional- ised Racism indahouse. DJ East India Company indahouse. DJ Boer War indahouse. BOOM-CHKa-BOOM-CHKa-BOOM.” p17 You’re partying like it’s 1899. p16 You’ve lost your marbles. Food & Drink Editors: Jonathan Franklin & Amanda Palin Friday February 13th 2009 16 Food & Drink [email protected] varsity.co.uk

AMIDST THE FURY AT EMMA’S EMPIRE, EDITOR- AT-LARGE ED CUMMING CASTS A TASTEFUL Ed at large EYE AT CAMBRIDGE’S ORIENTAL SCENE friend of mine reading MML, who things I’m aware of – for instance, for glutinous gloop. Teri-Aki and Aki- in case the people you’ve never met Ahas a somewhat foxlike demean- years I believed in the Captain Pug- Teri, so bad that they named them but have been forced to pay to sit next our, believed until he was fourteen that wash characters being secretly obscene twice and hoped that nobody would to, like at the hairdressers, try to steal Asian women had sideways vaginas. thing, despite this being disproven by notice the di erence because they’d your chicken ramen, (£8). Before you get all uppity and in my even the most  eeting of glances at one be so unhappy about paying £10 for a You might well think, given Waga- face about it, certain things about of the books. bowl of rice.  e Ugly Duckling, where mama and Teri-Aki-Teri’s lead, that this statement are obvious. In the rst And in other areas I’m convinced nobody (least of all me) has ever eaten all Asian restaurants had sideways instance, the astute reader will have I’m correct in my factually unveri- thanks to its proximity to St. John’s. seating plans. Indeed I thought so realised instantly that this is straight ed views, particularly when it  e Flying Wok is good, but too until I sat inside Dojo for the from the little book of kamikaze comes to restaurants in then it doesn’t physically rst time the other day, whereupon column openings, which given the Cambridge. By way exist except for when I discovered that the design in fact circumstances one might consider a of example, I’m you mysteriously requires you to rub up, arse to arse, pretty risky description in itself. convinced that order it, so it’s with a complete stranger, who in the  is astute reader, and by now his Edwinn’s is kind of exempt case of the poor girl sat behind me slower friend too, is reading on either either a front from these involves gradually submitting your out of pity or a kind of engrossed hor- for drug other con- lumbar to overwhelming force. As ror, either of which are ne by me, and dealers or an siderations. if to emphasise the (admittedly what’s more, this two-pronged appeal eatery for And a humorous) consequences of to other humans’ interests, an ap- ghosts who special this arrangement, once you are proach I have rather drolly christened come in the word on seated (if the term is appro- the ‘twin piques’, has served me well in small hours. Waga- priate), the restaurant plays the dating arena so far.  ese are mama. I a terrible joke on you. First it  e second obvious thing to say the only pos- admire the leads you into a false sense of is that this opening begs far more sible explana- comic intent security by charging half as much questions than it answers. Why did he tions for its in warning as Wagamama, and then it serves you think this? And how did he nd out it eerie practise of your customers double the amount of food. It sees wasn’t true a er all, the cunning lin- leaving its lights that the service your legitimate student need for a kilo- guist? Did he hold racist presumptions on and its tables will be terrible, I re- gram of MSG and raises you a much about other peoples’ anatomies? Does immaculately made up ally do. ‘We bring our more philosophical enquiry about the he still? But more than that, it sug- through the night. Who are food in the order it’s ready,’ nature of hunger and value.  ough gests worrying things about one’s own they expecting would be disap- being their own way of announcing o -key, it slots neatly into a gap in the prejudices: what misapprehensions do pointed by the alternative?  e Queen the fact, some might say obvious to Cambridge market, and we would be I haul with me whenever I leave the passing through? Lynne Truss hoping even the budding chef, that di erent thinner, but less wise, without it. room? I have used my poor friend’s for a midnight snack? foods cook at di erent speeds. But it mishaps here as the beginning of a res- Onto this ill-informed pile I would takes the fortune cookie when they If you fancy going ‘At Large’ with Ed taurant review, but what if, somewhere also  ing my general perception of start to draw on your table, as if to re- (and maybe getting a free meal) please else, my own mistakes are being hung Asian restaurants in Cambridge as mind you what you’ve ordered in case write to [email protected] with your out to dry in public?  ere are some specialising in piles of overpriced you try to lie about it later, or perhaps name,College, year and suggestion.

OUR GLOBAL GOURMAND RICHARD DORRELL EXPLORES THE DELIGHTS Seoul Food AND SUPRISES OF KOREAN CUISINE orean cuisine combines force with up nicely, and an array of animals, plain rice, noodles, a more elaborate nesse, using a small number of vegetables and minerals can be used chige (fermented bean stew), or even Bibimbap J-Restaraunt K avours – sesame, soy, chilli, garlic, to in lieu of cabbage: white radish, the fast-food favourite and Hanson brassica – to create something sweet, beansprout, mustard leaf, various sh. chart-smasher, bibimbap (rice hotpot), ibimbap means ‘stirred rice’: aybe it’s the emphasis on carbs spicy, pungent and intense. Appropriate However, the actual manipulation of and intersperses it with mouthfuls of the ingredients are layered over or the enthusiastic service but for these dark, sleeting times, it appeals the product is more changeable. Vary- di erent banchan, constantly challeng- Brice, and the diner then mixes them ‘J-Restaurant’M o ers enjoyable meals to the remote, windswept regions of ing air ow, vessel, temperature and ing the palate. Alongside, one might together with a swirl of the chopsticks. (the waiter’s words, on checking back the mouth; wuthering heights of taste humidity, the fermentation process can nd a number of other delicacies, such Assemble the following: for the forty-eighth time).  e music where one is not entirely certain of the as ddeobokgi (pasta stir-fry) or even Steamed rice: to steam rice, soak choice and decor looked like they ingredients.  is is not consuming but kimbab (sweet sushi), although these overnight in warm water, wrap in a might have been taken from a Cindies feeling. Korean food strides boldly in may equally be served on their own clean handkerchief, leaving plenty Oriental night. Yet the similarities end where Wagamama fears to go, removing as an amuse bouche. For dessert, one of room to expand, and steam over a there for, instead of a scowling nod, we its hobnailed boots, hammering down a would either have one of the multitude large saucepan for thirty minutes. were adopted on entry.  e manager, bivouac, and opening a jar of kimchi. of fruits traditionally cultivated in Ko- Namul: vegetables (e.g. carrot, who reminded me of my mother, if Kimchi is a hard sell to somebody rea – there are records of pear farming cucumber, beansprout, white rad- my mother made sure that I publicised who has not tried it before, so allow me extending to the rst century – or one ish, broccoli) sliced into thin strips, her 10 per cent student discounts, was to play salesman: 1.6 million tonnes of the numerous sweet combinations of steamed or stir-fried lightly if desired, interested in our sexual proclivities and of it are consumed per year in South rice, red bean, fruit and sesame integral and dressed with sesame oil and rice our academic progression. Korea alone; it accompanied the rst to East Asian patisserie. wine vinegar. Under her maternal gaze, my com- Korean astronaut to the International So: where to go to experience this Eggs: fried, poached, raw, or even panion and I guzzled our way through Space Station; less appealingly, several unchartered cuisine?  ere’s no need made into an omelette with grated their set menu (brilliant value at £8.80 species of bacteria found in kimchi to book a  ight to North Korea, for ginger and garlic. for three courses, and don’t forget your juice are completely unlike anything the Korean community in Cambridge Fried garlic, ginger, peanuts, chilli. 10 per cent student discount), enjoy- that has been isolated elsewhere. It is is rapidly growing, and there are ac- Tofu, meat, aduki beans, chestnuts, ing green bean stir-fry tofu, passable Korean Kimchi ubiquitous and unique, and central to cordingly a number of places to whet or other toppings of choice. vegetable spring rolls and well-cooked in a jar... grim experiencing Korean cuisine.  e com- one’s appetite. Two supermarkets on Kimchi and then the condiments, tempura.  e ingredients tasted sur- position? For the rst two thousand Mill Road stock Korean food: Cho purchasable from your local Korean prisingly fresh, and the portions were or so years of its recorded history (it’s be subtly manipulated to produce an Mee, the intimidatingly excellent pan- supermarket: enormous, my companion happily pro- spawned more exegesis than the Bible), extraordinarily broad array of  avours. Asian at the far end, and the somewhat Gochujang (red chilli paste, al- viding a hoovering service. We nished kimchi was just cabbage, salted water, Speaking as both a gourmand and a self-explanatory Seoul Plaza, one of though one can bastardise with red with the puzzlingly named ‘smiling and patience. Much like sauerkraut, microbiologist, I assure you that kimchi a small chain in Britain and (intrigu- chillies mashed with garlic, sugar and cookies’, which were balls of half- the ingredients are compacted into an is su cient to give one Aero-pants. ingly) Slovakia, which even has its own soy). cooked sesame dough.  e chef obvi- earthenware jar, communal to an entire Kimchi is the star of a number of delicatessen, wherein one can stock up Doenjang (fermented soy paste, for ously has a strange sense of humour. A village, and le to ferment.  e arrival dishes classi ed as banchan, steamed, on chestnut sweets, kimchi, and red those with major chilli issues). Chinese takeaway won’t be winning any of chilli, one of the more immediate grilled and raw side dishes that bean buns. If even that seems a little Distribute bowls of rice, and allow Michelin stars, but as Mother reminds products of European contact (along constitute the leitmotif of the Korean too much work, there is a small restau- everybody to assemble their own pre- me, with 10 per cent o the ve-course with Christianity, Kit-Kats and Missy meal. Typically, one takes a small por- rant on the corner of Regent Street and ferred combination of toppings. Top Valentine’s Day Feast this weekend, it Elliott) served to spice the sauerkraut tion of the main dish, whether it be Lens eld Road. with pastes, and mix through. might be winning some hearts.

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Don’t fret, they’re in the British Museum. You can pick them up a er lectures. p15 Or you can continue with the adventure! Friday February 13th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Columnists 17 Best in Show. Ever. ADULATION FOR HBO’S THE WIRE JUST KEEPS GETTING LOUDER. FOR THOSE STILL UNCONVINCED, LUCIEN YOUNG SAYS YOU SHOULD BELIEVE THE HYPE know what you’re thinking; “here’s In addition to e Wire’s panoply of there’s the brooding, enigmatic drug- another tedious fuckwit bleating on gangsta slang and police jargon, it has lord Stringer Bell, who attends night aboutI an American drama”. First of all, a huge and diverse ensemble cast, who classes in Economics. But perhaps the watch your language. Secondly, I feel we must get to know before the show most fascinating character is Omar your pain.  ere are few things as gall- makes any semblance of sense.  ere Little (pictured), played by Michael ing as some televisual evangelical, try- are also few cli -hangers, as each series K. Williams. Omar is a cold, passion- ing to convert you to the Church of Six unfolds with the stately pace of a novel. ate, violent, principled, homosexual Feet Under, or make you join the cult If I’m making it sound as dry as stick-up artist, who prides himself in Competition of Sopranology. But, once in a lifetime, Ancient Greek geometry, it’s not. It’s only ever robbing drug dealers. You a show so special comes along that you a programme full of action, suspense may also have seen Williams in the R. Each week we set a di erent crea- have to proselytize. HBO’s e Wire is and humour. Above all, you will be Kelly Hip-Hopera Trapped in the Closet, tive writing exercise.  e person who that show. So I apologise in advance enthralled by the characters, of whom playing a cop who discovers his wife submits the winning entrance has if this article ends up looking like an I’ll name but a few.  ere’s McNulty, has been having an a air with a midget. their story printed in the next week’s explosion at the superlative factory. who, at rst glance, It’s safe to say that his work on e Wire Varsity, and is rewarded with two free So what is e Wire? Well, it centres appears to be that somewhat eclipses this. tickets to an ADC  eatre show. on the war on drugs carried out by the stock character It is also one of the most profoundly Baltimore Police Department, but to in the police moral pieces of art I have ever experi- call it a cop show would be about as ac- procedural: enced. No-one is beneath contempt or Week 5: Love sonnets. In honour of Valentine’s day, compose a curate as describing Hamlet as a shoot- the maverick above reproach. No-one is undeserving sonnet (or two!) on the pleasures or the pains of love. Shake- ‘em-up. It eschews any easy designation cop that doesn’t of our attention. And no-one can es- spearean, Spenserian, Petrarchan, or more free-form - it’s up of cops as heroes or dealers as villains, work by the cape from the bonds of society, be they to you. focussing instead on the similarities book, but god- a cop, a drug dealer, a heroin addict, a Winner: between the two institutions. As the dammit, he politician, a dock worker, or, indeed, an Miss-Adventure lines between good and evil are blurred, gets results. undergraduate at Cambridge. To call With your rough ngers grazing the so skin and the hypocrisies which underlie Except he it the best television programme ever Under jagged wool my bones are exposed society exposed, I guarantee that you’ll doesn’t get would do it a disservice: It is a bleak, You look at me with eyes pretty as sin be hooked. results. beautiful masterpiece that ranks with But you’re too close and we’re too close to home- I can also guarantee that, for the rst  e n the highest art ever produced. Please, In company on threadbare velvet seats three episodes, you’ll be watching with please watch it – I am kneeling as I  e clink of glasses mu es our glances a mixture of incomprehension and rage, type this.  e din and dim light heightens and retreats like a cow trying to solve a Rubik’s However, be warned: don’t start As our hands make their silent advances. Cube. It is a show that makes so a boxed set during term time, or We never walk together, going home few allowances for its audience, it your degree will pay the price. I walk with others, talk of starry skies might as well be in Latin. And only  e show is about heroin, and is And even though we know everyone knows shown on the summit of Everest. only marginally less addictive. We savour opportunities to lie. Tomorrow I will utter not a word Of kisses I’ve stolen, or heartbeats heard. Shani Cadwallender Runners-up: Sonnet Although there is still only one of us, Although the day is as it was before, And although I walk the same Friday route,  e air is lighter but I’m thinking that Your brown paper parcel in my bag now Makes it heavier, yes, it. gives. it. weight. And although it is not your presence, MISSION: TO DELVE INTO CAMBRIDGE’S SECRET ORIFICES I think it is still the presence of you. Let them say all they want on computers WEEK 5: NEWNHAM COLLEGE BAR And send as many emails as they like, But just that you held it and I do too hen Fenwick suggested we in. A couple of pigeonholing chicks  e chick behind the bar didn’t bat an Makes touching possible from a distance. invade Newnham College Bar, ignored us. I told Longman to keep it eyelid. No  irtatious smile, no quick IW was suddenly astonished at my own together, not to get complacent. glance of desire, not an eyelid. Noth-  at’s defence enough for postal service, lack of initiative. I’d spent two years We reached the bar. No resistance ing from the girls on the couch either,  ose magical portholes of transference. here but had never yet ventured into yet, but its name sent shivers crawl- or the four chicks huddled round a Zeljka Marosevic this vaginal fortress. For a cool cat ing over my skin: ‘ e Boilerhouse’. table in the corner. We sat along the like me this was an omission, and I Innocent enough, perhaps; but what side of the bar, maintaining our cool Constellation  e heat of summer’s rippling, so caress leapt at the opportunity to rectify it. did they boil down here? Longman and immunity. It could still turn one Is nothing to the smoulder of your eyes; It promised to be big. I’d voyaged said he thought he heard the muf- way or the other. Your smile could make a dreamer acquiesce the asphalt seas of this great land  ed cries of a dude. An uneasy, alien  en a couple of dudes came in. To paint our passion’s bold strokes on the skies. of the wasted before now, and seen atmosphere hung over the room. I One kissed the chick behind the bar,  en love would make a constellation: sights worthy of such a landscape; knew it would be di erent from any and the other, a dude I knew from From our rst kiss, a sprinkling of stars, but here was an untouched civilisa- place I’d ever been, but nothing could college, plays the cello, greeted the To lust’s most wild embrace, the ery sun – tion, a completely alien culture – and have prepared us for this. No beer chicks at the table with a degree of Commodities in heaven’s weird bazaars. if anyone could in ltrate its inner on tap, a pool table but no balls (a familiarity. Change for the vending And a er all the light had drained away bowels, it was me. It wasn’t all cool distrurbing metaphor, I was sure), an machine, he said. Visiting a friend, From our bright romance, and we turned to dust, though: I noted a slight uneasiness unmarked dart board, walls decked in he said. Our comfort would be drawn, not from the day, in Fenwick’s tone.  ere could be a pink, a poster of Hendrix, again pink, My Invader persona came crash- But from the jewels of night’s eternal trust. lot of cute chicks behind those huge two chicks underneath a blanket on ing to the  oor, I put down my copy front gates, but also there might be an unstained couch watching a movie. of Richard Farina’s ‘Been Down So  en might your eyes’ heat the world in ame, tough defences, lines of man-hating, What movie? I shuddered. e Devil Long It Seems Like Up To Me’, and Our purest passion nightly to proclaim. chastity-belt wearing, well-read femi- Wears Prada. We wouldn’t be able to remembered that I was an anal, self- Anonymous nists ready to hurl their copies of e go unnoticed for long. deprecating and awkward English Female Eunuch at me. But there were also a couple of nalist, who was about as cool as a “Hey baby”, I shouted to Long- hot chicks in there. Maybe we’d be lump of coal. I wasn’t cut out for this Next week’s competition: For this exercise, update a myth. Classical, man, and his patent leather burgundy welcomed with open, slender, long invasion, and Newnham’s hymen was Nordic, Aztec – it doesn’t matter. Put your myth into a new time or place, shoes; “You dig going to Newnham?” deserted arms? No chick on earth far from intact.  ese girls had seen or allow a di erent character’s voice to predominate. Carol Ann Du y He dug it immediately. So there we could fend o the collective charms of men before - they neither wanted to has written an entire book ( e World’s Wife) in this style. Your myth can were: me, Fenwick and Longman, Fenwick, Longman, and myself. With kill us nor make love to us. be poetry or short  ction, and should be no longer than 600 words. Send slipping and sliding along the icy this more encouraging thought in We drank our San Miguels and le . submissions to Colette Sensier at [email protected] by 9am on Mon- backs. mind we strode in. I made a joke to the barmaid on the day February 16th for the chance to win two tickets to the following week’s We arrived, and walked straight Fenwick ordered a couple of bottles. way out. I don’t think she heard. ADC main show, and see your work printed in our next issue.

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Quite. But more importantly, it’s snowing and you’re donning your sunglasses. Why? p20 Because you’re in Kambar. p21 Because the sun never sets on the British Empire Fashion Editors: Kate Womersley, Alice Newell-Hanson & Katy King Friday February 13th 2009 Friday February 13th 2009 Contribute to Varsity Fashion: 18 Fashion [email protected] varsity.co.uk varsity.co.uk [email protected] Fashion 19

Anna wears dress, Miu Miu, £460; boots, stylist’s own; glasses, J Conran. Jordan wears waistcoat, Etro, £157; shirt, Acne, £75; trousers, American Apparel, £55; satchel, Mulberry, £485.

Anna wears red dress, Moschino Cheap and Chic, £325; anorak, See by Chloe, £360. Jordan wears sweater, Paul Smith, £50; trousers as before.

DOING IT BY THE BOOK Love in a Cold Climate

Styling by Kate Womersley & Alice Newell-Hanson Photography by Katy King; shot on location at G. David bookshop Makeup by Bobbi Brown at John Lewis All clothes from Giulio

Want something listed? Friday February 13th 2009 20 Listings [email protected] varsity.co.uk THE VARSITY WEEK THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS

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

Friday 13th & Saturday 14th Saturday 14th Ongoing Exhibitions e Curious Case of Benjamin Button Ongoing: Moishe’s Bagel Fitzwilliam Museum (free): Arts Picturehouse: daily 1.45pm (ex- Death of a Salesman e Junction 2: 8pm (£12 adv.-£14) • ‘I turned it into a palace’: Sir Syd- cept Tues), 5pm, 8.15pm Kiss of the Spiderwoman Scotland’s Moishe’s Bagel combine ney Cockerell and the Fitz (until Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett tick all e Rivals klezmer with Balkan dance music March 17th) the Oscar boxes in the story of a man Dodgy Alan’s Alternative Dating and Middle Eastern rhythms for • e Immortal Stone - Chinese who ages in reverse. See review on Agency a global mix of sounds combined jades (until May 31st) (see review, p31. Iolanthe with jazz improvisation. p31) e Immortal Stone Sophrosyne • Changing faces: Anthony Van Doubt Film Night Sunday 15th Dyck as an etcher (until May 31st) Sunday 15th Vue: daily 6.40pm (until Tues) See p28-9 for reviews. Cambridge Ukulele Club • Kachōfūgetsu – the natural world Clare Comedy Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour e Portland Arms: 2pm (free) in Japanese prints Clare Cellars: 8.45 (£3) Ho man duke it out over allegations e King’s Jest Free ukulele action? Need we say Kettle’s Yard (free): Five-minute student acts, followed by of child molestation at a Catholic Keynes Hall, King’s College: Friday only, more... • e Roundhouse Of International a headline set from Andrew O’Neill. school in ‘60s New York. e poster 9.30pm (free) Spirits (until March 15th) Matt Kirshen, star of America’s Last uses the same font as ere Will Be Two TV aerials get married, the wed- Tuesday 17th Scott Polar Research Institute (free): Comic Standing, comperes. Blood, so it must therefore be excel- ding is dull, but the reception is excel- Flower-Corsano Duo • John Gale & Sons (until Sat 14th) lent. If you’re feeling cash-strapped lent. Expect to hear MUCH BETTER e Portland Arms: 8pm (£6 adv.) • British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expe- Monday 16th then the trailer is a  lm in itself. jokes at the  rst ever King’s Jest. A must-see: a collaboration dition, 1907-9 (until April 4th) China: the Challenges of Development between a kinetic drummer and Bateman Auditorium, Caius: 8pm Tuesday 17th a shaahi baaja (Japanese banjo) (free) ree Sisters player, whose music “can rum- Friday 13th Sir Christopher Hum KCMG, Master Messiaen, Dutilleux and Chopin ADC: 7.45pm (£6-£9) ble like a looming thunderstorm of Caius, and previously Ambassador Kettle’s Yard: 1.10pm (free) See Pick Of e Week. but contains exquisite raindrop to China, explores the challenges fac- Lunchtime piano concert from touches”. ing China as it seeks to deal with its James Sherlock, one of the rising Waiting for Godot rapid economic growth. musical stars of Cambridge. Corpus Playroom: 7pm (£4.50-£5-.50) ursday 19th See Pick Of e Week. e View Setting e People Free: Innovations e Junction 1: 8pm (£13 adv.) Saturday 14th in Self Government Oxonium Cantabrigium RAG Stand-Up Comedy Competition In another week of Scottish music Emmanuel College: 7.30pm (free) Revolutionary Road Trinity College Chapel: 8pm (£5/£8) 2009 Final for the Junction, e View return Hosted by e Forum, Hilary Wain- Arts Picturehouse: Fri/Sat 1pm, e choirs of Girton and Queens’, ADC: 11pm (£4-£5) to Cambridge in support of new wright, prominent British feminist 4.45pm, 9pm; Sun 3pm, 8.30pm; Mon Oxford come together for one night Find out who will be crowned the album Which Bitch?. Hopefully and socialist and editor of Red Pep- 1pm, 9pm; Tues- urs 3.40pm, 9pm at Trinity to perform Clemens, 2009 champion at this annual charity no longer wearing the same jeans, per, and Tony Curzon Price, Editor- Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet Bruckner, Tavener and more. event. de nitely still as ugly. in-Chief of openDemocracy, discuss shout at each other and make up, then how to spread decision-making and shout at each other and make up. For Ray LaMontagne Tuesday 17th political participation. two hours. Wednesday 18th Britten Sinfonia at Lunch 3 Suits of Solemn Black Corn Exchange: 7.30pm (£19.50 West Road Concert Hall: 1pm ADC Larkum Studio: 10pm (£4-£6) adv.) Tuesday 17th Vicky Cristina Barcelona (£3/£7) Exciting new writing from Adam Gru of voice and heavy of beard, e Politicisation of Irish Literature Arts Picturehouse: daily 12.30pm (not Cedric Tiberghien performs omas Hollingworth. Runs until Sat 21st. the man who brought you Trouble Mill Lane lecture rooms: 5pm (free) Weds), 2.40pm, 7pm, 9.10pm; Tues- Ads’s ‘Court Studies’, as well as has just released his third album. As part of Trinity’s prestigious Clark Weds 4.50pm Debussy, Faur and new work from e Big Book for Girls Don your checked shirt and head Lectures, Prof. Roy Foster begins his Penelope Cruz (clutching a BAFTA), Richard Harrold. ADC: 11pm (£4-£6) to the Corn Exchange for some me- run of  ve talks on literature, na- Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem Joe Richards’ cult pastiche of a ‘30’s lodic singer-songwriter melancholy. tionalism and politics in nineteenth- star in Woody Allen’s latest movie, set girls’ boarding school. Runs until Sat ursday 19th century Ireland. in Barcelona “because the government Schubert and Brahms 21st. e Priory featuring Billy Nasty o ered to pay for it”. Lubbock eatre, Peterhouse: 8.30pm Fez: 10pm (£6 before 11pm/£7 a er) ursday 19th (£15) e infamous Billy Nasty comes e Empire of ings: Furniture, Mo- St. John’s Films ursday 19th Christopher Maltman, former win- Eugene Onegin to Fez to provide you with a tasty dernity, and the Early Bengali Novel Sunday 15th: 7pm and 10pm ner of the Lieder Prize at the Cardi West Road Concert Hall: 7.45pm serving of no-nonsense techno/ CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane: 5pm (free) Pineapple Express Singer of the World Competition, (£6-£15) electro/minimal to keep you smil- An exploration of the way modern performs Schubert and Brahms as Tchaikovsky’s best-known opera. ing and dancing through these cold Bengali  ction responded to ideas of ursday 19th: 9pm part of the Kohn Concerts. Runs until Sat 21st. winter months! modernity and materialism. Withnail and I

Waiting For Godot ree Sisters Tuesday 17th-Saturday 21st Tuesday 17th-Saturday 21st Corpus Christi Playroom: 7pm ADC: 7.45pm (£6-£9) (£4.50-£5.50) Chekhov’s play is about the titular is is a great chance to catch an sisters, Olga, Masha and Irina, who intelligent interpretation of Beckett’s all want things, but are all talk and masterpiece, once described as a play no action. is is the premiere of an in which “nothing happens, twice” invigorating translation by Footlights (but don’t confuse it with Chekhov Vice President and award-winning – this one has humour). It’s unlikely playwright Rory Mullarkey, adding that you’ll see the Playroom’s L-shape a fresh perspective to the playwright’s better employed, so it’s the perfect masterpiece of boredom, existence time to venture outside the ADC. and love.

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Yes, you’re planning a modern production of King Lear which you want to stage in Cambridge’s premier indie nightclub. e launch party will be at e Soul Tree, Act I will be in the foyer, Act II on the stairs, Act III in the bar and Act V on the dance oor itself. But where are you going to put Act IV? p22 e urinals. p23 You’re actually cutting Act IV. Friday February 13th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 21 Marr’s Attack TO MARK THE BICENTENARY OF THE FOURTH GREATEST BRITON, ROB PEAL TALKS TO ANDREW MARR ABOUT HIS HERO CHARLES DARWIN, DISCUSSING POLITICS, JOURNALISM AND THE PICKEREL INN ALONG THE WAY.

ndrew Marr is an example of that aware of; the fragility of natural habitats. given the time to understand Darwin’s per journalism to the BBC had strong “lots of very happy times with all night Aincreasingly rare species – a great “I’ve taken a personal decision that I ideas, the persistent refusal of some to implications; “working for the BBC you parties and general wild behaviour, polymath. Although he studied English will never go back, having seen them at least acknowledge evolution is clearly really can’t have or express any strong I wasn’t that studious I have to say. I and went into political journalism via once and marvelled at them. I think as frustrating; “I think David Attenbor- views or opinions about anything, and spent a lot of time on student politics, being a business reporter, he now writes many people who have ough said there is vastly more evidence having spent most of my journalistic relationships, drinking, and reading. I history books which sell in the hun- a strong interest for Darwinism than there is to believe life expressing strong views to take that was lucky enough to get a  rst none- dreds of thousands, and will shortly be in evolution that William the Conqueror won vow of silence was not particularly easy. theless.” Actually, that sounds like a presenting a BBC documentary about and biology the battle of Hastings.  e more  ere are plenty of issues and argu- particularly annoying friend to have. Darwin. and nature you look at it, the more detail ments that in the past I would have On the subject of politics, Marr “I always felt as an adult slightly should get you go into, the truer it seems to weighed into with great enthusiasm, hopes that some of the importance and guilty and worried about my lack of a chance to be. I think of the great ideas of and I just have to keep away from that.” passion which has waned since his stu- understanding of science”, he tells me. see them, Victorian times, it’s the last one Marr’s own political stance is far less dent days may return as a result of the Maybe that is the secret to being a but once standing.” However, American perceivable now than it was during recession. “A lot of people shrugged o polymath; where most people just feel you’ve schools still insist on teach- his Cambridge days as ‘Red Andy’, the politics during the long John Major and indi erent towards subjects they do not seen ing evolution as a ‘theory’ on  rebrand socialist. He stammers and New Labour boom, we could laugh at know much about, the likes of Marr them a par with that other ‘theory’, explains this away with the tone of a politicians and we could get outraged at feel guilt. “I was lucky in the fact that you Intelligent Design.  is suggests criminal excusing his own previous con- fundraising issues and scandals, and in there was a huge slew of great popular probably evolution still has some way to science books coming out over the last should go, and Marr agrees, “You look at twenty or thirty years, and I educated not return; last week’s papers and a poll claims “THERE IS VASTLY MORE EVIDENCE FOR myself... It became obvious that the big they are far too that half the population of Britain intellectual importance of our times is fragile.” believes in creationism. So this is DARWINISM THAN THERE IS TO BELIEVE THAT in science.” For those not a done deal, it’s not a won One gets the impression that if it who have argument yet.” WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR WON THE BATTLE OF has words, Marr will read it. He is an It is good to hear avid bibliophile, something he believes such honest outspo- HASTINGS. THE MORE YOU LOOK AT IT, THE MORE was moulded whilst reading English kenness, but this is at Trinity Hall. “We read pretty a habit of Marr’s DETAIL YOU GO INTO, THE TRUER IT SEEMS TO BE.” ferociously and I think it gave me which he has what I have still got, which is an had to curtail viction. “You know, it was the late seven- a way it was not a serious as it feels now. ability to read very fast and ab- in recent ties, early eighties and politics seemed to I think most of my time as political sorb information very fast.” In years.  e be very, very exciting and critical and so editor for the BBC was spent standing his career as the BBC’s chosen crossover on. It certainly engaged people emotion- outside Number 10 talking about the specialist in any given topic, this from ally in a way that seems unimaginable foxhunting ban, and you know we have skill is clearly of use. “I’ve got the news- now.” As well as writing for Stop Press rather more urgent matters about the Andrew Marr Show, I’ve got Start pa- (a precursor to Varsity), Marr was a country in front of us at the moment.” the Week and I’ve got my  lms, member of the Cambridge Labour Party, And how urgent does he think these so I could not survive doing what was elected to a body called the Broad matters are? “I think if you look at what I’m doing, without the training Le , and reportedly sold the Socialist the City is saying, if you look at what I received at Cambridge.” With Organiser. “I think to be honest with the leaders of industry are saying, if you all this in mind, I should have you looking back it was as much social look at all of the medium range fore- realised it would not be wise to ask inadequacy as it was ideological casts, we are in for one heck of a hard him what newspaper he takes; “It’s a fervour. I was quite young when I got few years. I mean look at the scale of very boring question because most of to Cambridge, I was just eighteen, public debt and look at what it means for them is the answer.” and I found dealing with the hyper- taxation, look at the really quite pressing Seven years ago, Andrew Marr pre- con dent London day school kids, danger despite what Obama says about sented an episode on Charles Darwin never mind the public school ones, very protectionism. Never mind all these for the BBC series Greatest Britons, di cult. I probably spent far too much environmental challenges ahead; I think and his advocacy secured the great time drinking and hanging around with it’s going to be pretty rocky.” naturalist forth place in the national slightly seedy political types.” However, Marr is no doom-monger. poll (Princess Diana was third). For the Drinking clearly  gured highly, and He tells me that journalism and politics two hundredth anniversary of Darwin’s at this point the interview descends into have much to gain out of the crisis.  e birth, Marr will be returning to his hero a discussion of the best pubs in Cam- appetite for serious news will increase, for a three-part documentary on BBC2. bridge. “I spent quite a lot of time in… and the best graduates will no longer “It’s going to be called, I think, Darwin’s is there one called the Perch, opposite be lured away from public service by Dangerous Idea.”  e show will trace Magdalene?” the prospect of merchant banks and the impact that Darwin’s theories have GILES PARK, COURTESY OF THE BBC “ e Pickerel Inn?” I suggest. Christmas bonuses. With admirable had on modern history, something “ e Pickerel, the Pickerel!” Marr optimism, he concludes that “the talent which has been both dismally destruc- shouts with enthusiasm. “I spent quite a pool is a bit shallow at the moment, tive and hugely inspiring. “You can lot of time there, too much time there.” but those things can self-correct quite always argue that Darwinism misun- He goes on to regale me with stories quickly; I think politics is going to get derstood was one of the most disastrous of the ritual King Street run, still going more serious, more interesting and ideas in politics during the twentieth strong in his day. “I think there were certainly more important.” century. But paradoxically now because 11 pubs on King Street and you had to Having reached the top of both print of the environmental crisis we need have a pint in each one in under two and television journalism, Marr has more Darwinism in our politics not hours.” o en voiced concerns about the future less, because of his other work on the Life and Marr’s “Did you manage to complete it?” I of newspapers, and their ability to keep web of life and so on.” ask. both quality and sales high. I end the An abiding memory of the Greatest 1981 Graduates in English from Cambridge and joins e Scotsman. “Oh absolutely”, comes the rather interview by asking him about this. Britons series was seeing Marr, who nor- indignant reply, insulted I suppose Marr admits that now he personally mally stood at Downing Street with an 1995 Wins Columnist of the Year at the British Press Awards. with the suggestion that I would have reads more online than on paper, but umbrella and microphone, instead clam- thought otherwise. “I was a relatively remains reassuring. “I’m probably a bering over the Galapagos Islands,  ail- 1996 Becomes Editor of the Independent. tubby and enthusiastic drinker,” he reas- withered old romantic about the these ing his limbs with excitement at the sight sures me; “William Hague with a red things, but something about being in of one of Darwin’s Finches. However, 2000 Becomes Political Editor of the BBC. beard and di erent political views.” a co ee bar with a steaming mug of Marr will not be returning to the Islands One gets the impression that Marr co ee and a newspaper in front of me is for this series, and the reason is some- 2002 Presents Charles Darwin as the ‘Greatest Briton’ for BBC poll. would have been rather fun company enormously appealing… although I’m thing which Darwin  rst made mankind as a student. He remembers his days as not allowed a cigarette anymore.” EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Correct: the earth has stopped spinning on its axis and most parts of the Raj and Rhodesia now su er from permanent daytime. Bloody sunlight. Anyway, as President of your May Ball, it’s your job to  nd a solution. p24  emed solution. p25 Two-state solution. Arts Editor: Emma Mustich Friday February 13th 2009 22 Arts [email protected] varsity.co.uk Period Living

As Giles Coren and Sue Perkins prepare for the second season of their time-travelling tv series, Lauren Davidson is amused by Sue and seduced by the devilishly charming Giles

ow far would you go to hang periods are hard to differentiate; for “will they, won’t they” sex element, riod, Versailles, on her exuberant and also says that there won’t be television Hout with Giles Coren and Sue example, the 20s are post-Edwardian “because, you know, they clearly lavish Marie Antoinette outfit – “sexy by then, claiming that the telly would Perkins all day in a swanky flat in and pre-War, so trying to find the won’t.” They keep each other in line: clothes, sexy hair, sexy waist”. It’s all be the last thing you would reinvent Highgate, London? If my answer was element on which to focus can get for example, each called the other about the hair for Coren too, declar- after a nuclear Armageddon. Once anything less than two and a half confusing. As Coren explains to me, during their time as Elizabethans to ing that he would like it if they would we’ve established that the question is hours on a train, endless London Un- “it’s all quite austere as we come out check that no caffeine (much loved by structure the whole thing around his in every respect hypothetical, Coren derground delays and a wade through of World War One rationing, then both) was being ingested, since, in the facial hair. He’s gone Victorian han- muses that they would be amazed at several inches of snow up a very it gets exciting with Bright Young sixteenth century, it did not yet exist dlebar moustache plus mutton chops, how much meat we eat, alcohol would steep hill, then I would not be writing Things, followed by the Depression.” in England. Perkins is adamant that grown impressive sideburns for have gone the same way as cigarettes this article now. Despite the cries of The garrulous duo talk me through she remains “herself” while filming, Regency and sported a flicky beard as people would have realised that anguish from station personnel that their highs and lows of filming. Due giving yourself temporary brain they could not guarantee my safe to his “abhorrence of processed food”, “I only do this to be sexy, the only reason to go damage and a headache the next return to Cambridge due to adverse Coren was not a fan of the Findus morning is actually undesirable, and weather conditions, I elbowed my crispy pancake he was subjected on TV is to make girls want to fuck you” bottled water would be a thing of the way through throngs of confused pas- to in the 70s, nor did he enjoy the past - future generations will laugh sengers and dived onto the 10.26 to sheep’s eyes. Although, he adds as but she does try to live the lifestyle just on the tip of his chin as a Tudor. at the concept of spending an hour’s Liverpool Street. It’s even better if you an afterthought, it was Sue who ate of the period as much as possible. Of However, he refused to go clean wages on a bottle of water, seeing as imagine it in slow motion. the sheep’s eye. Perkins on the whole course, she cannot remain healthy shaven for the 20s. As he explains, it comes out the tap for free. Perkins Coren, Times columnist and seemed to appreciate the weird and on a mere 500 calories a day, so she TV is a vanity medium. “I only do agrees that our descendents will be restaurant critic, and Perkins, comic wonderful grub more than Coren, admits to modern snacking between this to be sexy, the only reason to go appalled by today’s diet, in particular media personality and ex-Footlights explaining that she has no right to historic meals. It seems apt that Per- on TV is to make girls want to fuck our levels of imports and the fact that president, are filming the second be picky as she is tasting the food kins then pauses, and confesses “I’ve you,” and so he gets grumpy when we can’t grow and prepare our own series of their BBC2 TV show, Su- on the audience’s behalf, providing actually just got a little bit too deep he has to wear ugly outfits. His most food, depending too much on meat persizers Go..., where they transform a “window into history”. She brags into character, and now I’m drunk.” horrendous hairstyle was the Samuel and fast food. No hope for Gardies, their lifestyles (hair, clothes and all) about pig’s tail and nose, and takes Perkins’ favourite dish was snail Pepys style wig he had to wear for the then. according to different periods in great delight in describing the horrors soup in France; she would never French Revolution – “totally unsexual So, what is there in the future history and experience the diet of the of Coffin Pie from the Restoration pe- have it again – “I mean, it’s snails” and very depressing”. He thinks that of this historical program? Sue is time. The program was born in BBC’s riod, a dish baked on a Monday and – but she enjoyed it nonetheless. the centre parting he wears as a man concerned at how well she will be Edwardian Season around a year ago, eaten throughout the week, complete The 70s were special for her from a of the 20s will at least appeal to a seg- able to pull off the ‘damsel in distress’ when the pair spent a week living a with chicks’ heads, gizzards, entrails, personal viewpoint, reinvestigating ment of people. I nod enthusiastically, act in the medieval era, as she’s “far century out of date and at the end of testicles, lung – in fact, anything her childhood as an adult, but when wondering if it would be appropriate too lippy”, but she’s excited for the the week were tested to see how the and everything, just none of the nice asked what his favourite period was, to admit that centre parting, mutton Ancient Rome episode where her and diet and lifestyle affected their health. bits. Gastronomically, this was no Coren booms that he doesn’t like any chops or completely bald, I am unre- Giles will lounge around in togas in- The last series saw the Supersizers pleasure. of them. “It makes you realise how servedly in that segment. terspersing their day with grapes and go Wartime, Restoration, Victorian, They are quick to ensure me that lucky you are to be living in London Their venture is unique in that they orgies. I have been invited to join, but Seventies, Elizabethan and Regency. the show has been a blast though: in 2009; frankly any other date, any are tasting and criticising food from I think it’s best for Giles and I to dis- When I turned up on Monday they they get on well and have a laugh other town, any other country, and ages past. I ask them what they think tance ourselves before things go too were mid first day of filming for sea- together. The show is not scripted, you’re better off eating sandwiches.” would be said about today’s food if far between us. I could hardly remain son two. Theme of the day: the 1920s. says Coren, “Sue and I just burble Both presenters of the BBC2 docu- a similar program was made in the standing when Giles gave me a kiss Oxbridge alumni Perkins and at each other.” He further describes mentary seem to enjoy the dressing future. “You think there will be a goodbye at the end of the interview. Coren admitted to having difficulty their onscreen relationship as really up element almost more than the cui- world in a hundred years time? You Even the very thought of it... makes succumbing to their roles. Some good: full of flirting without that sine. Perkins bases her favourite pe- won’t make it!” admonishes Giles. He me... swoon.

EMPIRE Adventure (starts on page 15): Exactly: all the piss will represent the rain and Gloucester can jump from the top of the condom machine. Meta. Friday February 13th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Arts 23 Bust a Move CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY BREAKDANCE CLUB PRESIDENT MARI SHIBATA DISCUSSES MODERN MISREPRESENTATIONS OF HIP-HOP CULTURE WITH PAUL SADOT, URBAN CONTEMPORARY DANCE EXPERT AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF DANCE OFFENSIVE

ever have I seen the sort of youthful from current hip-hop, which seems to humourous entertainment,” Paul contin- age in breakin’ culture forty years ago, escapism under  atcherism, becom- Nenergy that I witnessed last week be all about money, guns, drugs and ues. “Racial di erentiation meant that Paul notes a parallel movement in ing submissive to drugs to overcome when I saw Pressure Drop, a hip-hop bitches nowadays. Old-skool is de - blacks were always working behind- Britain: “Wigan Casino in Manchester their devastation. Social models for the dance production at the Junction. When nitely the way forward.” the-scenes, arranging music, inventing became a place where miners and la- next generation became non-working the performance had nished, I was So where did hip-hop originate? a new dance culture; but the whites got bourers spent their Friday nights digging drug-taking parents.  ose who earned delighted at the chance to speak with Paul’s collection of over 200 hip- credit.  e only way for black dancers to for break-beats. It was here that the rst stardom as breakers had bitter attitudes, Paul Sadot, the show’s producer, about hop video tapes suggest that it gain recognition was to British male ‘got down’, in 1968. Al- thus gaining the ‘rude-boy’ reputation. his sources of inspiration and work began with the break-jazzers showcase on the though men could meet women  at’s now developed into modern with Dance O ensive, a professional who illustrated spontaneous streets of Harlem. in their local towns, there was hip-hop culture, which shouldn’t have street dance organisation for young physical movement while If it weren’t for no other place to h a p p e n e d ”. people based in Cambridge. listening to bebop music, a the lm Stormy break. Paul believes that the energy emerg-  ey’re certainly not the ‘Young genre which emerged Weather in 1943, ing out of this aggression can be trans- O enders Dance Company’, in response to racial the Nicholas ferred to acrobatic dance. “Elements of although that is the label discrimination in Brothers would have spent the Capoeira, a Brazillian martial art dance, once given them by gov- the 1930s. Jazz- rest of their lives without jobs.” have been passed onto modern breakin’ ernment. tap dance duo, Many black hip-hop artists as ‘power’ moves, stimulating positive I was glad to the Nicholas went unrecognised well into the ambition for rude-boys. I rather see discover that Paul Brothers, 1960s. “As they could o en not power in physical achievement than and I share the translated the musical a ord to buy records, they went through blingin’ images. same philoso- energy and fast improvisa- to DJ Kool Herc’s block-parties “I am lucky to be sponsored by the phy regard- tion of bebop into dance, on 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Arts Council and have support from ing hip-hop in uencing the future Bronx, to hear the latest releases.  e r e Sadler’s Wells in London, who are culture. “One b-jazzers. Paul emphasizes, Kool Herc would mess with vinyls was no launching a three-year programme should turn “ ese were the begin- to create breakdown e ects. Everyone bar – in- to protect the essence of hip-hop.  e to music and nings of urban contemporary would respond by rocking on their feet, juries were second- oor of Madame Jojo’s in Soho dance for consola- dance. Not that contemporary ‘getting down’ on the break and spin- banned on the is reserved for dancers providing free tion through di cult dance that everyone thinks of ning super-fast to visually intensify the dance  oor!” entry to accommodate them, and serves times,” he says. “I want nowadays, the one by Cunning- music.  ese people became known as However, when no alcoholic drinks. With Dance Of- Dance O ensive to be ham and Graham. Why be obsessed the breakers. Naturally, gang leaders and Wigan Casino fensive, I occasionally ask everyone to a platform for those who have over precise placements of each shape? drug dealers would want to join in the closed in 1981, remove all accessories that de ne their experienced racial hostility due  at doesn’t help anyone to be free and fun, but they had to get rid of the bad breakin’ culture social identity. Let’s get back to where to their deprived backgrounds; discover their soul”. shit or they couldn’t dance like the oth- sidetracked. “Work- hip-hop originated from and forget this it is the only way to solve social “What most people don’t really ers. Breakin’ is clearly theraputic.” ing-class laborers rude-boy attitude.”  at’s exactly how corruption. I keep the kids away know is the dark side behind the Despite the lack of media cover- lost their source of I see it. Underground Livewires AS THE SUBWAYS GET BIGGER AND BETTER, THEIR LIVE SHOWS CONTINUE TO DRAW IMPRESSIVE CROWDS. LUCY BRYANT IS HOOKED, AND GETS BENEATH THE SURFACE TO FIND OUT WHAT MAKES THEIR SHOWS SO VERY SPECIAL

illy Lunn stands surveying the crowd felt our music sounds best when we’re to undergo surgery on his vocal chords we thought we knew loads about music few years older with di erent experienc- gathered at Islington’s tiny Lexing- playing it live,” they say. “It’s when you that could have le him unable to speak, and we knew loads of bands but we es, di erent things to write.” Produced by Bton bar. He asks, “So who here’s from get to understand more about a band.” let alone sing.  ey’d also been playing didn’t really, and since then we’ve discov- Butch Vig, who worked on such seminal London?” A cheer. “Who’s from some-  e ambitions they have for their shows shows in support of the likes of Taking ered so many new bands from playing records as Nevermind and Siamese where else?” A much louder cheer. A are impressive, to say the least. “For us, Back Sunday and Foo Fighters, which with them and just our own research. Dream, All or Nothing was a resounding quick straw poll tells us that the furthest it’s about li ing people and escapism. provided them with some fresh in u- We were a very young band, writing success and received praise from both anyone has come is from Glasgow. I’d We’re all big fans of lm; you escape for ences. “We were quite young when we about things eighteen year olds write critics and fans alike. Butch Vig helped think these people were crazy, if I weren’t a few hours into the life of someone else, recorded Young for Eternity, and I think about, and for All or Nothing we were a the band create the sound they wanted. secretly one of them. and we want our shows to be like that. “We de nitely wanted to capture the live You see, over the years, the Subways’ People come and escape and hopefully energy... getting to bigger stages, that live shows have gained a bit of a reputa- they have a good time and just enjoying made us become a bigger band and a tion. You’d need one to over ll the NME thinking about music, and leave all their heavier band and we de nitely wanted tent at Reading Festival. You’d de nitely worries at home.” to re ect that on the record. We wanted need one to do it when Kings of Leon A er the release of their debut it to sound big... because we felt like a are playing the main stage at the same record, Young for Eternity, the Subways bigger band.” time.  e Subways’ live shows have toured America, Japan, and numerous  eir All or Nothing tour was as suc- been described as incendiary, blister- European countries, as well as Britain cessful as any tour they’ve been on to ing and unforgettable. I’d go so far as to (multiple times). “With Young for Eter- date. “We’d been away for such a long say they’re addictive.  ey’ve produced nity, we toured for two-and-a-half years, time, and we really appreciated the fact something of a cult following.  eir and that became our identity as a band, that a lot of our fans had been waiting website’s forum has members who’ve always touring, always being on stage.” around, and were so keen to hear the seen them live upwards of 40 times. In  ey made a special e ort to play shows new record. Most bands, if they go away the past four years. in towns which are rarely visited on for a year, people just forget them, so we Touring is incredibly important to tours by other acts, much to the delight were really touched that we had such the Subways; brothers Billy Lunn and of their fan base. loyal fans.” Josh Morgan and their childhood friend When the time came for a second In my eyes, the Subways had nothing (as well as Billy’s ex- ancée) Charlotte album, the Subways were not short of to worry about. With a live show as good Cooper see it as integral to the process of inspiration.  ere was Charlotte and as theirs, we weren’t going to forget them musical creativity. “I think we’ve always Billy’s break-up, and then Billy had had in a hurry.

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Yup, you’re actually cutting Act IV. Which is a nonsensical idea because Act IV is integral to the well-being of the Lear narrative. Reaction is therefore mixed: TCS gives the production ve stars, while some wag at Varsity notes that it “puts the amateur back into the ADC”. He’s obviously good with words. Features Editor: Joe Hunter Friday February 13th 2009 24 Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk

JANE HALL

y cutest Valentine’s Day was when I was only about seven or eight. Valentine’s Day fell on a school day, and during a period of young love. My boyfriend gave me a sweet hand-made card, signed inside with a heart drawn with kisses. At lunchtime, the school canteen served heart-shaped cookies for dessert, but as I always took a packed lunch, I couldn’t have one. While I wasn’t looking, though, my “Mboyfriend put his cookie in the hood of my coat as a surprise. Why are boys nicest before they hit double gures?” Elizabeth Taylor

‘Hold On’ by Giverny Tatters eld

he told herself that she wasn’t surprised, but she was. She twirled the skewered olive in her vodka martini trying to think of reasons that he hadn’t come, and why on earth she had stayed there in that depressing little out of the way bar, which was his suggestion incidentally, not hers. It had been slowly emptying of couples as the night went on, their lingering smiles and secret suggestive Sglances leading them back home. She thought that tonight was the beginning of something, that they were actually going to have their chance, that they had nally stopped still long enough to grasp on to each other. Her hands released the glass, there was no point holding on anymore. She ran her ngers through her hair, looking to her handbag on the stool next to her. A hand slid around the front of her waist and another pressed against her back and turned her around.  e bar stool whined in protest. Before she had a chance to see who it was, he kissed her. And then, pulling away swept the hair from her face and whispered huskily in her ear, “Happy Valentine’s Day, love.” He was leaning towards her, his hands placed either side of her on the bar. She leant around to look at the clock on the wall. “You’re late,” she said as she turned back to him, “It’s 12.04, you missed Valentine’s.” He smiled, “All the better, ‘cos now it’s just a day for us.” She held his gaze, and he pushed himself away and held out his hand. “Come with me.” “Where?” she asked. He leant closer, “Does it really matter?” Slowly, she li ed her hand and put it on his, he clasped it tight and pulled her towards him. Laughing, she grabbed her handbag as he led her, kissing and running as they went, out of the door and into the night. It had just started to rain.

‘First Date’ Did you know...

How can I start? It is all we have done. hat Valentine’s Day is celebrated di erently in regions across the UK? In Norfolk, for example, a strange It was wonderful: uncomfortable mythical character known as ‘Jack Valentine’ scares the shit out of children by knocking on the door and Silences lining Pembroke Street. Headlong, leaving...T ‘treats’ behind in a ghostly fashion. My research into what kind of ‘treats’ he leaves for the kiddies was incon- Easily known, would not have done at all. clusive – although unsubstantiated rumours have led me to believe that Norfolk branches of Anne Summers tend to Waiting to taste that ‘me too’ was the fun sell out of a miniature (funsize?) variety of something called a ‘Rampant Rabbit’ around the middle of February. Part: watch you, cuter than Lent’s white weather,  is strange ritual, however, is nothing compared to the annual farce that is Valentine’s Day in Japan. Aggressive And softer, darker, (hotter!) and more strong marketing tactics by companies who bene t from the Western tradition has resulted in something called ‘giri- Than both cups of coffee put together. choko’, which translates pretty accurately as ‘chocolate-obligation’ and consists of a national requirement for EVERY Did I lunge? ‘moiselle, you speak the global tongue WOMAN to give chocolate to ALL her male co-workers . It gladdens the heart, does it not? Unfortunately, further Of fencing judges, who tell us we’re ready. greedy marketing has begun to establish something called ‘White Day’ on March 14th, when men are expected to Had I hesitated? Heard avertisement wrong? reciprocate. Sometimes I hate capitalism. Perhaps I tripped, over your lips, with worry, Elsewhere in Asia, the South Koreans have decided to establish three Valentine’s days to really fuck with everybody’s Grazed with my nail slow and sable long heads. As in Japan, February 14th is when women give chocolate to men – although unlike in Japan they are allowed Curls, moved them gliding away from your warmth, to be a little more discerning about who receives their attentions. March 14th is when men are supposed to give Now in control, fingers crossed into one gi s to women – but they have to be non-chocolate based, for some reason. Presumably the South Korean authori- As we fell, this blissful, through each others’ arms. ties fear for public safety in a nation where women have to wait an entire month for expected chocolate. Best of all though is something known as ‘Black Day’, which happens on April 14th. On this spectacularly embarrassing day, in Hugh Burling a stroke of astounding genius, South Koreans have been convinced that if they have not received anything on either of the two Valentine’s Days in February and March they must go to a Chinese(?) restaurant and eat black noodles to ‘My Inner Freak’ mourn their singleton status. As if things weren’t bad enough. Joe Hunter

My Inner Freak runs naked Barefoot ’cross vine twined leaves, She gibbers like a monkey And swings from tree to tree. She gorges on the gorgeous fruit And licks the luscious flowers Completely clean of dew drops, She dreams in nature’s bower. She catches snowflakes on her tongue, She grovels round for acorns, She pirouettes around arms flung Wide open, gleeful, careless. You eat the apple for me, Exhale pure mountain air, You bathe me in the limpid streams My fragile skin laid bare.

My Inner Freak runs naked, JANE HALL But only if you’re there.

Francesca Robbins

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Mmm: you decide all problems can be solved simply by calling the ball “ e British Empire Ball.” Some people – mostly BNP activitists – are delighted but unfortunately some moralising Trotskyites at the College object to the ball’s associations with institutionalised racism and slavery. p30 Mobilize the right-wing press. p31 Change tack. Friday February 13th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 25

‘A Discarded Chocolate Wrapper’

A discarded chocolate wrapper glistening red in the morning light is proof, solid proof, that you love me.

I was your valentine You were mine. It had been organised for us very conveniently.

We did what lovers are meant to do, We looked smug and held hands, fumbling with each other’s moving fingers. JANE HALL

You bought me a romantic present (decreed by a shop) and said “I love you” more than usual. ‘ ere’s No ‘I’ in Love’ by Matt Child

It was very lovely, very nice, very good. xcuse me for just a second, I need to go to the bathroom,” she said plaintively, suppressing tears of frustration I guess. But I always thought we were different, “Nice one, idiot. Now look what you’ve done!” was the sharp reprimand from ‘best friend’ sitting next to me. I caught cocooned together in ourselves my“E dad’s stern look from across the table. His disappointed eyes seemed to say ‘you’re no son of mine, you’re an abomination’. immune. “Honestly, how can you tell your girlfriend the day before Valentine’s that ‘love is just a bunch of chemicals and hormones’? Are you mentally retarded?” I decided to let the question retain its rhetorical dignity. I preferred it when he was silent. We I want to whisper quietly in your ear were having a pre-Valentine’s dinner at an upper class sushi restaurant in Cape Town. My dad was paying for the meal, so an expression of closeness that was good. ough, had I known I’d be charged with a sizeable dollop of emotional guilt, I’d have gladly taken the real distinct from the soppy exclamations. bill o my dad’s hands. “Here she comes, now be cool,” hissed my helpful friend. She had strawberry blonde hair (that’s not a euphemism) and lovely hands. Among other things. I pretended to be absorbed by the indecipherable contents on the menu In the morning because I had to avoid her scowls at all costs, lest I burst out laughing and be damned as Satan for the rest of my Cape Town I fold your t-shirt, existence. My dad started telling a wholesome anecdote about our eccentric cat. It seemed to cheer her up somewhat as her make you two boiled eggs, iced-over face began to melt into a gentle smile. She warmed enough to ask me sarcastically, “So when are we going to get a and smile as you dozily open an eye in greeting. puppy together?” I shrugged my shoulders and said “I don’t see the point of pets. ey’re so inane and inglorious. And it’s pa- thetic how they’re just used as emotional crutches for the sad and lonely of this planet.” My dad’s upper lip curled slightly in As you crack the shell disgust, my friend had buried his face in his hands. Great, dew-drop tears were running down her face. She threw her napkin I scrunch the chocolate wrapper at me and stormed o to the bathroom again. It appears I had said too much. “Dude, you’re about to become part of the sad and quietly file it away in my pocket. and lonely,” observed my wise friend. And so I was.

Soumaya Keynes share few qualities with ‘Miss America’ contestants. I am not delighted by the idea of a bikini and heels, and I really am indifferent to world peace. The one exception to this rule is perhaps my ideal Valentine’s date. The man would be ‘A Weird Kind of Green’ tall,“I intelligent and carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand, preferably half-finished. We would walk, barefoot, down a moonlit beach, conversation dancing between us with light, flirtatious giggles filling the air. I would have previously been Oh, how our love is like a secret little promise, treated to a candlelit dinner and the evening would stretch before us, full of possibility. Like petals in the falling snow, “Incredibly enough, I found myself in that very position just last year. The gentleman in question was a childhood crush, My dear, how the fluttering stars call me to you whom I had not seen for many years until we happened to run into each other, fortunately close to the 14th of February. Like no other girl, like no-one, This date was the culmination of five years’ worth of teenage infatuation, so I was therefore slightly nervous. This lead, like nothing I know. as it so often will, to an unwise level of alcohol consumption and subsequent slight inebriation. However, I felt that I was But I’m not sure how many times you’ve been in love, conducting myself admirably, under the circumstances, so when my date suggested the midnight stroll down the beach, It could be what, fourteen or fifteen? I agreed. What I forgot to take into consideration, however, was that this beach was not in the warm, clean shores of the Because I seem to have come out in a nasty little rash, Mediterranean, but the north of England, Blackpool to be exact, the least glamorous location on the planet. Freezing cold, And my wee’s gone a weird kind of green. booze and most of all lust, effectively anaesthetised me, so the first indication I received of my injury was my date’s finger extended in horror, pointing towards the footsteps of blood just visible in the gloom. You don’t know romance until you N.C. Brooker spend two hours with an antiseptic wipe, cleaning sand and bottle shards out of your own slashed foot, date nowhere in sight.” Sarah Martin

JANE HALL

t sounded perfect: being wined and dined by a lovely man on the most romantic night of the year. His choice to take me for a curry was not, however, what I had quite expected. And it only went downhill from there. It was to be that February 14th that I discovered I have an allergy to red peppers. Our romantic night out ended with us in the middle of a packed Surrey pub: me doubled up in “Ipain su ering from indigestion and rather embarrassing  atulence, whilst he tried (and failed) to console me. I was morti ed...how could it have gone so wrong?!  e man dumped me soon a er, and I now avoid red peppers like the plague, fearful of a repeat performance...” Anonymous

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Er...have you seen the election results? p15 Perhaps you’re an optimist. Features Editor: Joe Hunter Friday February 13th 2009 26 Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk The Cook’s Tale after fifty years of working with food, antonio carluccio, britain’s most celebrated italian cook, is still in love with the simple, bold tastes of his homeland. emma mustich listens as he recounts his flavourful history

tom moriarty ntonio Carluccio is on fine form. Last week, the celebrated cook (“I’mA not a chef”, he insists), who has just marked fifty years of bringing Italy’s diverse cuisine to UK tables, gave a live cooking demonstration on the floor of the Union Society’s debating chamber, to some of the most enthusiastic applause that room has seen in months. Before his Union presentation, I sat down with Carluc- cio, and listened to a story that took me from his first forays into cooking, as a student in Vienna, to his most recent projects on television and in the world of books. I grew up in a family – half Italian- American – where food was always an essential focus. When I tell Car- luccio that, in my first few months at university, one of the things I missed most about home was the food, he signals his immediate understanding. He himself first realised his love for the food of his homeland when, in the 1950s, he left home to live abroad and study languages in Vienna. “Although Viennese food was very good, and I could have got used to it,” he says, “it was missing too much of the wonderful food that my mother used to prepare.” Though he had never helped his mother with her actual cooking, he was used to helping with the shopping and the general preparation of meals. Work- ing from memory in his Austrian kitchen, he tried to recreate the food of his youth. Starting with a simple sauce, Car- luccio got more and more ambitious, calling home whenever he needed di- rections. A new-found courage, born of experience, led to more confident experimentation. His friends and Although Carluccio had only entered complicated. But this one is even What, then, should students end, despite the inimitable style neighbours were his “guinea pigs”, the competition “for fun”, his talent simpler.” cook? The gnocchi that Carluccio and humour of its author, the food tasting the dishes that Carluccio pre- was quickly recognised and trumpet- In the course of both our interview cooks from scratch in an improvised speaks for itself: simple, fresh, fla- pared and offering their opinions. ed by the English press, particularly and his demonstration at the Union, kitchen in the debating chamber is vourful, and delicious. Later on, Carluccio moved to such newspapers as the Observer. Carluccio gets to talking about cer- one option. And the king of mush- “I am not the type who wants to London, where he worked as a wine Soon, his brother-in-law, Terence tain “Spanish chefs” who are popular rooms’ favourite meal – a risotto promote myself as me, but, literally, merchant. Indeed, it was “by pure Conran, offered him a position as at the moment for their “molecular” with porcini mushrooms (“if you add I want to show people what the food coincidence”, he tells me, that he be- manager of London’s Neal Street cuisine. His distaste for this type of a little bit of truffle, it’s not bad, but is about. That’s all.” Indeed, Carluc- came a restaurateur. He was offered Restaurant. Carluccio says he had food is obvious. Mentioning with you have to have it”, he says with a sly cio’s primary goal for most of the a place in a Sunday Times cooking never previously sought work in disgust the fact that table bookings in smile) – is uncomplicated and full of fifty years he has spent working with competition, and he made it to the the restaurant industry because he restaurants serving such “molecular” flavour. Discussion of the snow that food has been epicurial education: finals, but he didn’t win. (Decades knew, from his experience as a wine food must often be made six months has recently caused such a stir in the he wants, more than anything, to later, he was told by an insider that merchant, how stressful it could be. in advance, he laughs out loud: “How UK prompts Carluccio to offer a des- teach us about the nature of genuine he had only lost because one of Even when he accepted Conran’s shall I know in six months’ time that sert recipe: for an ice-cold granita, Italian food. He continues to pursue the judges “didn’t like [his] face”.) offer, Carluccio maintained the strict I’ll want to eat there?” His devotion he recommends, put some snow in this goal in new ways, and, to that distinction between ‘chef’ and ‘cook’ to simple, full flavours, is apparent in a glass and douse it with espresso end, he is busy juggling several dif- that has continued to be important everything he says. “Good cooking is (or, if you want an extra punch, mint ferent projects at the moment. For A Quick Bite to him throughout his career; he was also economising,” he adds, revealing cordial). example, he is finishing the cook- 1937 Carluccio born in Vietri sul willing to cook for the restaurant’s another element of his food philoso- Carluccio’s Union demonstration book mentioned above, and think- chefs, he tells me, in order to teach phy: the use of a variety of ingredi- is lively, punctuated by jokes (some ing about a book he wants to write, Mare, Salerno, Italy them about the techniques of real ents with a minimum of waste. more naughty than others) and called Signor Porcino and Madame 1958 Starts cooking for himself as a Italian cooking, but he did not want In the evening, Carluccio elabo- anecdotes. As he adds ingredients to Chanterelle (“a pedagogical telling student in Vienna to be involved in the nightly mayhem rates his philosophy of simple food the tomato sauce he has simmering of what mushrooms are about, with of the restaurant kitchen. before his Union audience, asking on the stove, he thinks aloud about funny sides”). He says he might also 1975 Moves to London, where he It was not long, Carluccio con- how many of the students present the potential wonders of “making consider a new television series; “I works as a wine merchant tinues, before “the BBC got hold of cook for themselves on a regular love on a bed of basil”. He invites would be delighted,” he tells me with me,” and his cookbooks—of which basis, and then – when the results do students to help him peel potatoes real enthusiasm, to do “the history 1981 Takes over London’s Neal Street there are now fifteen—took off. not impress – looking visibly incred- for the gnocchi he is making, and of food. Really a subject that I enjoy.” Restaurant Here, Carluccio passes on some hints ulous. “It is an act of love to produce then, of course, to taste the finished Although Carluccio has had a long about his newest book, due out this food,” he says, with fervour. Love for product. The soft, fresh pasta is and fulfilling career, he is not ready 1983 First TV appearance, on BBC2 autumn; at first he says only that it is yourself, love “for your body”. Not gobbled up in minutes by the crowd to slow down. He says as much him- 2007 Awarded honorary OBE about “simple Italian food”, but then cooking your own food “means you (suddenly hungry, though the event self, insisting, “My mind is twenty- he clarifies: “the other ones weren’t don’t love yourself,” he insists. began just after dinnertime). In the five – I don’t care about the rest.” empire Adventure (starts on page 15): No, the BBC website was down that day. »p29 Stop lying. Friday February 13th 2009 Write for this section: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Features 27 FRenEtiC GeNetiCS IN APRIL 2003 A STREAM OF AS, TS, GS AND CS WAS PUBLISHED. THIS WAS THE HUMAN GENOME: THE CULMINATION OF 13 YEARS OF HARD-GRAFT BY SCIENTISTS WORLDWIDE. ROSIE POWELL-TUCK FILLS US IN ON THE DEVELOPMENTS

2007 the alarmingly progressive Craig a G, for example) that occur com- Venter Institute sought a patent for a monly and then, by grouping these lit- new bacterium, a Mycoplasma genital- tle genomic eccentricities into handy SALLIE GODWIN ium that Venter’s team had engineered families or ‘Haplotypes’, the HapMap to survive and replicate using a minimal researchers have made it possible for number of genes (around 400). Venter scientists to compare the genomes of hopes that similar synthetic organ- large groups of individuals. To nd isms might one day be made to secrete genes that might be involved in a biofuels or to absorb greenhouse gases. disease scientists simply compare the  e application to patent what is a life haplotypes of a whole load of diseased form, albeit synthetic and unnatural, individuals with lots of healthy peo- has caused quite a hullabaloo. ple’s haplotypes. Trouble, however, can arise amongst the statistics. Put New Day, You’re Gay simply, for a trial like this to be truly hat has homosexuality got to do believable it must involve enormous with le -handedness? Answer: numbers of people and be independ- ‘genesW for’ both traits have made newspa- ently replicable.  e public would per headlines in the last year. Genes for be wise to take a leaf out of a cynical this and that have been widely and o en scientist’s book: do not trust in every misleadingly reported in the a ermath ‘new gene’ you see published under, or of the Human Genome Project.  e in, ‘the Sun’. New Year, New Baby and inseminated into the mother. Paul of Schizophrenia are bearing fruit”. presence of a ‘gay gene’ is understand- Serhal, the Medical Director of the Furthermore, key progress is being ably controversial and provides a good So What? n January 9 2008, scientists from example of a situation where the public n the past decade genetics has made University College London an- Assisted Conception Unit at which made in the ght against AIDS. It has O much of the procedure occurred, com- been found, for instance, that people needs to understand the basics of what some remarkable and important nounced the birth of the rst baby these scienti c studies really mean. No advances.I Where it goes next will ever to be genetically screened for mented, “the parents will have been who lack a working gene encoding the spared the risk of in icting this disease ‘CCR5’ protein have innate protection self-respecting scientist is likely to take depend, to an extent, on public opin- breast cancer before her conception. literally the idea that there is one gene ion. We face some incredibly di cult  e mother’s embryos were screened on their daughter”. against HIV. A new class of drugs is being developed based on this nding that determines a person’s sexuality. So scienti c and moral questions: will ge- for the BRCA1 gene which, when how do these genes get discovered? netic screening for breast cancer lead mutated, is thought to drastically Are you Mad? that might help to alleviate the su er- arkinson’s disease, multiple scle- ing of millions of people. on to common-place baby-improve- increase the likelihood that its bearer Genial Gene Hunting ment? Will scientists be able to cure will develop breast cancer. Research- Prosis, bipolar disorder, asthma, heart disease: all of these and many How to Make a Wooly Mam- entral to this process has been the all these complex diseases? Should we ers analysed a single cell from each high-budget ‘HapMap’ project. allow the patenting of engineered life of several embryos created by IVF at others are being addressed afresh moth C using the genome sequence. A recent cientists have actually sequenced the  is e ort has facilitated gene hunt- forms? What ever the right answers the 8-cell stage. An embryo that was ing. By si ing through the genomes to these questions and other similar found, by chance, not to contain the review in top science journal Nature Wooly Mammoth genome. But some reports that the “e orts in the genetics Shave gone one step further. In June of several individuals, locating single questions are, I for one, do not know. mutant form of BRCA1 was selected nucleotide di erences (an A instead of  e story continues. Out On a Limb COLETTE SENSIER TALKS POETRY WITH CHAR RUNCIE AND EMILY TESH, CAMBRIDGE UNDERGRADUATES WHO HELPED TO FOUND CREATIVE WRITING WEBZINE POMEGRANATE

n September 2007, a group of poets in particular. As Emily says, a you “throw o the shackles of space”, people keep writing”, although, Char students, having met at an Arvon common response is “Oh, you’re a you’ve got to put something in its complains, “good poets do tend to get courseI for Foyle Young Poets winners, teenager, you’re a girl – it must be emo place! siphoned o into prose”. As Emily says, created a webzine called Pomegranate. stu about your boyfriend”. Clichés Emily, who worked with me on “they want to put their talents into Four of them – Queens’ Char Runcie, and triteness are discouraged at Cambridge University Poetry Scene something bigger”. However, they point Trinity’s Emily Tesh, Pembroke’s Annie Pomegranate, which, Char says, wants (CUPS)’s poetry magazine last year, out the growing community of good Katchinska, and Emma’s Dan Hitch- “good, high-standard stu – people mentions that we got a lot of “sub- young poets – including Jen Had eld, ens – are currently at Cambridge. A shouldn’t be able to get away with rub- Eliot stu ”, saying that “people have who at thirty has just become the few weeks ago, I met with Char and bish because that’s not poetry”. weird ideas of what counts as modern youngest-ever winner of the T.S. Eliot Emily to nd out what their project is Instead, she wants “outstanding, poetry”. Char agrees that “you can’t Prize, and Clare Askew, Ahren Warner, all about. original poems, giving a new point of pick words from your essay and put and Luke Kennard, recent winner of the Pomegranate publishes poetry, view, instead of millions about record them in a poem.” Forward prize – all of whom have been reviews and articles written by poets players, unrequited love and cameras”.  ey also describe the Cambridge featured in Pomegranate at one point or under thirty (in fact, a large propor- Pomegranate serves to push forward scene as “scattered”.  ere is lots of another. tion of their writers tend to be under the quality of young poetry, not just college stu happening – particularly, Pomegranate’s name is obviously twenty-one). It was created both to to provide it with a platform – Emily Emily notes, Trinity College Liter- e ‘cover’ of mythically inspired. As Emily says, help the poets who had attended the says, “we want poems that are di er- ary Society’s readings – but not much Pomegranate’s sixth “pomegranates are o en used to rep- Arvon course keep in touch – as Emily ent, and show work. Sometimes we get Uni-wide activity, something we tried issue resent youth, chance, daring, choices puts it, “we wanted to keep talking” a submission and think, this could be to counter when setting up CUPS last – like Persephone”. Char emphasises the – and to give “people in our situa- good – but it’s a rst dra . And form year.  e community is also, of course, common guring of poetry as fruit, and tion, young poets who had work and usually impresses us.” in a constant state of  ux. Both Helen quotes Will Rogers: “Sometimes you’ve wanted to keep working at it and do Both Char, a fresher, and Emily, in Mort and the Clare Poetry Queens, got to go out on a limb, because that’s something with it” an opportunity to her second year, consider the Cam- for instance, have graduated, although shadow of being a professional organi- where the fruit is.” put their pieces in the public eye. bridge poetry scene “divided”. Char Helen is still actively involved in poetry sation”. Emily’s aims for the magazine Issue Six of Pomegranate is out now One of Pomegranate’s primary goals thinks the academic scene is “very into in the city and the university. are simple. “We just want Pomegranate at http://pomegranate.me.uk, and is to contradict preconceptions about its own poetry.  ey’re obsessed with Pomegranate’s future looks bright – a to keep getting bigger and bigger, to be promises to be a thrilling read. Next young people’s writing. Both Char people like Prynne, but he’s 75! Hardly proposal for an Arts Council grant is a place that’s always worth looking at.” issue’s theme is ‘March’ (interpreted in and Emily speak about what they see up-and-coming”. She also despairs of ongoing, and they’ve just set up a bank  e future for young British poetry, any way you like), and submissions are as the prejudice against young female “1970s-inspired stu ” joking that if account. Char calls it “stepping into the they think, is similarly bright, “because encouraged.

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Yes, you were on the shitter, and probably reading the Economist. I know I was. I’d just got to the Charlemagne column at the end of the European section when someone gave me a bell: “Rihanna [not my real name] – Heath’s dead!” “Keith who?” “Heath Ledger! You know, the one from A Knight’s Tale and, er, e Patriot.” ( is was before the Batman thing came out). Theatre Editor: Joel Massey Friday February 13th 2009 28 eatre [email protected] varsity.co.uk

View from the Groundlings THEATRE

Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan Arts eatre, February 9th-14th TIM JOHNS Dir. Sabina Staziker; CU Gilbert and Sullivan Society 

quite understand that a bit of Gilbert rst-night nerves because, from these  eir infectious con dence caught the James Moran tells us what’s Iand Sullivan isn’t everybody’s cup of rather shaky beginnings, Iolanthe just got attitude of the production perfectly and what in theatrical week 4 Marmite. I, however, am rather partial to better and better and better. they seemed to li the entire cast.  ey a wee slice of the old G and S theatre  an, A veritable football team of bright were both excellent; Langley’s expres- he shit gets real in Cambridge so, despite having distinct di culty pro- young fairies tottered on and, as soon sive vibrato raised the vocal bar quite theatre this week. It’s all about nouncing it, I was rather looking forward as their voices shot over the top of the considerably and Hutchins, charged with Tto get very Russian. I, for one, am to Iolanthe, Iola, Eyeol – whatever. orchestra, things instantly perked up. excitement, squeezed every laugh from terri ed.  e ADC bar is about  e curtain rose last night and we were Devastated by Iolanthe’s banishment for Gilbert’s charming libretto. to be transformed into a solemn treated to a sort of montage-prologue marrying a mortal (this, as it turns out, is Andrew-Mark Hanrahan played place lled with existential crises where the el n fairy Iolanthe (Livia King) kind of a big no no in Fairyland), the wee the incredibly di cult part of the Lord and musings upon death. Someone and a wandering human get married. sprites convince the Queen (Camilla We- Chancellor with complete ease. His deep should probably put up some black Told in episodic snippets, this extended, hmeyer) to allow her back into the fold. voice negotiating the tricky lyrics with drapes or change the lighting or overly choreographed mime was pretty It rather swi ly becomes apparent that, remarkable diction and his “bed scene” something. excruciatingly awful. Stunted and a bit despite the prologue, Iolanthe herself was in Act II was just a triumph. I’m very intrigued to see what the hammy, the handful of scenes were completely excellent. Livia King brought  ere were a lot of problems with usually jovial-themed cocktail at the accompanied by rather  abby orchestra- an e ortlessness and a sense of calm to Iolanthe, certainly; some of the danc- ADC bar is for ree Sisters.  is tion. Horns were loud and blustery and the role that made her totally endearing. ing was fairly heavily on the clunky side is a seriously rich slice of top-notch the strings slid all over the place like a In fact, all the principal cast members and some of the orchestration was a tad drama from Chekhov, with an couple of pissed baby gira es: oh God, I were extremely strong. Charlotte Langley clumsy and rough. However, there was embarrassingly good cast (includ- thought, here we go. and Freddie Hutchins played the fairly much more good here than bad – much ing a show-stealing walk-on part However, I should put this down to ill-fated lovers Phyllis and Strephon. more. Nathan Brooker

from yours truly).  ere’s death, un- SEAN JONES requited love, people who never tell Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller each other of their love who then go o and get all dead and that, a airs ADC, February 10th-14th etc etc. Not the sort of thing you could imagine Tom Cruise mixing Dir. Alexander Winterbotham; Cambridge University Players along to in Cocktail.   e show that’s got me actu- ally violent with excitement is the ind if I start with a rhetorical ques- and Wiis. I realise I’m getting o to a slow Loman, smoothly switching between Russian opera Eugene Onegin, on Mtion? Do you know how hard it is start with actually reviewing the play, but hopeful young’un to shu ing older man, next week at the West Road Con- to write a review of a dark play of disil- that’s only fair, as the play itself was quite and to Elizabeth Donnelly for her heart- cert Hall. It’s an amazing piece of lusionment and despair, when you went slow starting. And long. It was very long. felt and moving nal speech. Lighting literature turned into an incredible to the Footlights Smoker immediately Don’t worry though, this review won’t and background music is used e ectively piece of music and performed by a a er the play? re ect the play in that aspect too. But I throughout. cast so good you might throw-up in Death of a Salesman follows the Lo- am writing in an American accent.  e play speaks dissertations about admiration. Varsity will give it ve man family as father Willy heads towards It is not an easy play to stage, with aspirations and perception, which is stars, because all worthy cultural mental deterioration and death (sorry to  ashbacks merging into real time and always relevant for a Cambridge student. productions get ve stars in Varsity, ruin the ending but, you know, it is in the characters appearing to some people It’s enough to make anyone go that extra but I really think this one will merit title) leaving behind him a family full of and not others.  ey did a great job. mile not to  unk maths, that being the them. false hopes.  e actors were exceedingly convincing original reason given for the downward But no amount of talent will stop Financial and business di culties in their roles; while some accents were spiral of events in the play.  ere’s a these productions being blown out must be in the name (Loman brothers, better and more consistent than others, reason that this play is studied by GCSE of the water by Crystal Maze: e Lehman Brothers, anyone?), and Miller’s each contributed to the build up of ten- students nationwide: it’s good and the Musical, at Robinson Auditorium 1949 masterpiece on the American sion and pent-up emotion on stage. I felt concepts are not di cult to grasp. Go (starting Wednesday 25th, showing Dream works today in other ways too. completely drawn into the drama a er see it, feel empowered/despaired (delete at midnight, yes, midnight). For A picture of Obama, complete with my  een minute nap at the beginning. as appropriate) and discuss the future of those who don’t know, Crystal Maze catchphrase “change”, hangs on stage, and Particular mention must go to Tom today in the ADC bar a erwards. was a low-budget 1990s quiz-ad- changes in script incorporate iPhones Cane who was just brilliant as Willy Lauren Davidson venture show in which contestants are lead around a series of challeng- CHARLOTTE RUNCIE es by Richard O’Brian.  e stage Kiss of the Spiderwoman by John Kander & Fred Ebb adaptation was a long time coming. Buy tickets now, because I’m buying ADC, February 11th-14th them up at a desperate rate myself. Dir. Maud Millar; CU Musical eatre Society It is a fact of modern science that at any one time in Cambridge there  is a production of e Importance of Being Earnest being put on, and didn’t do my research on this one. I ering how willingly it was shunted aside faults reminded the audience not to this week dastardly science proves Iwas expecting Kiss of the Spiderwom- in favour of another rousing chorus of take this musical too seriously. Not itself right again. If you’ve never an to be some low budget Cambridge ‘Over the Wall’. Perhaps this excused that there was any possibility of this seen the play before, it might be comedy about a feminist superhero. In- the distinct lack of chemistry between occurring.  e whole thing was such an worth going along. Ditto Waiting stead I got a low-budget musical, trac- the two male leads; but I was still com- agreeably silly romp that the amateurish For Godot at the Playroom this ing the developing relationship between pletely taken aback by their declara- aspects of this production only served week – I’m not going because I a gay window dresser and a Marxist tions of love to each other, given their to enhance the pleasure the audience don’t understand the thing. It’ll just revolutionary who were sharing a cell in nonchalance when one was thought to derived from the performance. make me feel like a confused and a Latin American prison. be dying.  is was in contrast to the Reviewing Kiss of the Spiderwoman frightened old man.  is might have, then, explained the sizzling performance of Aurora, also was a chore; it was far too easy to pick If you fancy something that won’t state of utter bemusement I felt whilst known as the ‘Spiderwoman’, who kept holes in both the musical and this make you seriously question eve- watching this musical. I’ve still no idea the audience entertained despite her production of it, but that meant I was rything you’ve ever thought, then what the Spiderwoman had to do with utter irrelevancy to the plot. missing out on most of the enjoy- there’s the Bar Smoker and e Big anything, and this production certainly It was an enjoyably ramshackle pro- ment. Kiss of the Spider Woman was Book For Girls, which both provide didn’t clarify the proceedings. duction. Characters were barely lit, beds farcical and amateurish, but it was also some much-needed laughter in a  e singing was, of course, excellent. were broken, and phones fell o walls overwhelmingly fun. Immensely more heavy week of drama.  e acting was, by contrast, sub-stand- at inappropriate moments. All technical entertaining than a night in with Tobey ard, but this was to be expected consid- faults I’ll admit, but the bathos these Maguire. Nick Beck

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Daily Express readers are heartened by your stance, as is the Dean of your College, who tacitly rallies to the cause. “ e British Empire”, she observed myopically, “was the epitome of good manners.” She actually says that. Friday February 13th 2009 Join our Theatre team: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Theatre 29

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Sophrosyne by Freddy Syborn SEAN JONES Fitzpatrick Hall, Queens’ College, February 11th-14th Week 5: Waiting for Godot Dir. Freddy Syborn; BATS  hen the National Theatre Wasked over eight hundred ac- lthough his production does little to ber, the minutes silence is kept in full on provides him with at the end. Similarly tors, directors, playwrights and crit- serve it, Freddy Syborn’s new play is stage and is riveting. disappointing is Susie Chrystal as Betty, ics to name the Best Modern Play Arather wonderful. Admittedly, it’s a pretty Yet while the play is beautifully his mother. The character is a subtle and in English, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting conventional family drama. Yet what this relaxed, the pace of the production is moving portrait of mental instability for Godot, which returns to the proves is that there’s nothing wrong with wrong. Oxymoronic as it might sound, manifesting itself in rudeness and appar- Corpus Playroom next week, came conventionality. I commend the slowness in the writing, ent humour. Yet Chrystal is little more out top. Although originally written “Sophrosyne” is a Greek term indicat- yet not in the performance. It is possible than a quivery caricature: “playing old.” and first performed in French in ing morality and self-control. In Syborn’s to achieve momentum without speed, The best performance of the evening 1953, Beckett then translated his play, this becomes merely an unattainable and the pace is almost soporific at points. comes from Will Hensher as Mace’s gay work into English. Many argue ideal. A single room, a family gathering Characters stiltedly wait until others have lover. This might be the easiest character that it is not simply a translation, overshadowed by a death: no reconcilia- finished speaking. Interruptions manage to ham up, yet Hensher provides us with but a reworking into English, with tion, no love, no Sophrosyne. to sound scripted. It’s all just too actorly something altogether more serious and Beckett’s distinctive Anglo-Irish Syborn presents us with two scenes for Syborn’s writing to be believed. sad – a beautiful performance. Many of lilt forever at the back of his mind. of startling coldness and dysfunction. Adam Lawrence turns the central these characters are playing roles as a The result is dazzling, lyrical prose Syborn writes that: “It is like a farce character of Robert Mace into a cari- way of getting through life. Yet we should which captures a perfect blend of slowed down.” Well, he certainly knows cature, without plumbing beneath the be aware that it is the characters acting, humour and tragic insight. his farce from his elbow. This slow nature humorous surface to find the bitterness rather than the actors themselves, some- Although the plot may be sum- is part of the piece’s success. It is a pleas- underneath. He focuses too much on thing only Hensher achieves. marised in a couple of sentences ure to watch something that plays itself straining his voice to a gravelly depth This deeply funny, deeply serious and (or, as the Irish critic Vivien Mer- gently out in its own time, allowing room unnatural for him, rather than unpack- unpretentious play just deserves a better chant famously put it, “nothing for thought. Set on the 11th of Novem- ing the disturbing monologue Syborn production. Oliver Soden happens, twice”), analysis of the play has provided the basis for tIM jOHNS countless PhDs. Beckett himself The Rivals by Richard Sheridan paid extremely strict attention to every word in his plays – there is Corpus Playroom, February 10th-14th no “slack”, and subtle references to all sorts of sources abound. Many Dir. Klara Kronbergs; Clare Actors & Fletcher Players argue that Beckett changed the  language of theatre, and his play is was going to spend most of this char- cast members are going to end up burnt when the wheels look like they might generally considered to be not only acter-bashing a famously dour former out by thirty, offering jobbing directors come off, there’s no substitute for one of the best but also one of the editorI who cast various aspersions on head in an attempt to make a niche for enough energy to convince the audience most seminal works of twentieth how funny my articles are and, more themselves. otherwise. Also good in this regard was century drama. personally, criticised my syntax. But I’ve The only problem is it’s a bit too far David Harrap, who, despite endur- It is also a play which strives to found something that annoyed me more at the other extreme. There were some ing every audience member’s worst avoid easy definition, though not – I swear the following is a true story. irritatingly niggly technical issues: scene nightmare – “Prompt?” – blustered and through intellectual snobbery. Sir Picture the scene. You’re at a rehearsal changes took ages and lighting was all bumbled his way with charm. Peter Hall, the first director to put for a Big Show, on later this term. You’re over the shop. It is perhaps symbolic of Dominic Horsfall and Ed Granger the play on in England, described “hotseating” – when you sit in front of the effect such problems can have on a turned in what were comfortably the it as having “humanity without the cast and have to answer questions in production that the cast’s second bow evening’s best performances, com- sentimentality and a bleakness that character. Once everyone finishes, the was taken in total darkness. mitting to their parts with gusto but coexisted with tenderness. It was director stands up. “Guys, you can all And some of the acting, I’m sorry to also with a nuance maybe a bit thin also funny.” The difficult yoking of go up there and perform”, he says, “but say, just wasn’t that good. Regional ac- on the ground elsewhere. If I’m being these two elements of comedy and when are you going to actually be?” cents – always a potential mire – proved honest, I think I saw the show on a bad poignancy is widely agreed to have Now, I doubt Sheridan had such difficult for some, although the vigour night – bad tech, and a few surprising been nowhere better employed than ghastly self-righteous wankery in mind displayed by Paul Coles in his charm- aberrations from the cast. Do go, despite in Waiting for Godot. when he wrote The Rivals. But in many ing butchery of assorted variations on what I’ve given it: when it gets its feet on Beckett was infamously strict ways, this show is a nice remedy to it: it’s a West Country theme at least turned the ground I’m sure it will be worth it. about performers altering the text fun, it’s unpretentious, and none of the a potential weakness into a strength – George Reynolds of his plays, and, for someone who considered every word so care-

tIM jOHNS fully, you can understand why. But instead of limiting the scope Dodgy Alan’s Alternative Dating Agency by Mark Fiddaman of interpretation, this seems to Corpus Playroom, February 10th-14th encourage it. Attempts to place the two protagonists of Godot in vari- Dir. Hannah Disselbeck; Fletcher Players ous specific social and political situ-  ations have found varied success. One particularly interesting but suppose the title shouldn’t have got ity ensues involving various members I would say go and see it. Everything flawed production set the play amid my hopes up. As it turned out the of the agency’s clientele, a bank robbery, that’s wrong with it you can forgive, just. the tensions of the Israeli-Palestin- playI wasn’t all that awful. It had the odd blackmail, and an undercover police job. Don’t entirely get off your high horse, but ian conflict, using both Arabic and moment that made me laugh. A bit. In I think. at least sit back on the saddle and have a Hebrew dialogue. A more common an audience of about six one felt obliged, If I’m honest it was pretty crappy. little bit of fun while you’re there. allusion is that of two Irish tinkers really. Accents were awry, jokes feeble, acting But not in the Corpus Playroom. Not being confronted by an imperial- Of course, there’s nothing worse than unsubtle. What just about made it OK for six pounds a ticket. I suppose it is istic English Pozzo, and one could performing a comedy to a tiny audience. was that everybody involved sort of knew a little perverse to say that the Corpus argue that Beckett’s own Irishness Gags can fall flat, punchlines stimulate it. It wasn’t great theatre but it wasn’t Christi freshers’ show shouldn’t be staged goes to support this interpretation. two or three rather polite titters. Actually, pretending to be. The odd corpsing cast in the Corpus Playroom. Yet the current This coming week sees the play on the opening night this wasn’t really member didn’t seem to matter. Every- Cambridge dramatic “scene” seems to return to Cambridge in the interest- the case. A pair in the front laughed body had learned their lines well enough, deem the Corpus Playrooms as second ing space of the Corpus Playroom. hysterically all the way through. This was the lights came on and off in all the right only to the ADC and this is the sort of The production will tackle a dif- very sweet of them, although I can’t say places. There were two very nice cameos show that a group of freshers put on for ficult text in a challenging venue. the play entirely deserved it. from Edmund Howard as a drainage-ob- a laugh in the last week of term in their Will they pull it off? Go and see, There are probably worse ways to sessed civil servant, and Mark Fiddaman JCR. Not in the Corpus Playroom. Not if only to pass the time. Patrick spend an hour: Dodgy Alan escapes from in a bizarre but funny interlude from the for six pounds a ticket. Not on your life. Garety prison and sets up a dating agency. Hilar- play’s “sponsors”. Oliver Soden eMPIRE Adventure (starts on page 15): Indeed; you take advantage of the black tie dress code and furtively rename the event “Oscars-themed Ball”. No one notices the difference. The highlight of the evening is a mock Oscars ceremony and it’s just like the real thing: Slumdog and Heath Ledger sweep the awards. Speaking of which, where were you when Heath popped his todger? »p26 On the BBC website. »p27 On the bog. Reviews Editor: Laurie Tuffrey Friday February 13th 2009 30 Reviews [email protected] varsity.co.uk iWatch Week 5: Killer in a small town, Sunday 9pm, available on 4oD. MUSIC

Brakes Radar Club at e Junction Friday February 6th  hat does the emo population But at the same time they felt faintly out (Man)’ (that sartorial reference suddenly of Cambridge do on a Friday of place, playing to this crowd of hyped- becomes clear) and a previous single ‘All night?W Head down to the Junction’s up teens, with their hardcore following Night Disco Party’, felt like played-by- Radar Club apparently. On arriving, sheepishly lining the sides of the venue. numbers Britrock, the same clanging it was like walking into a youth club,  eir set, a mix of short, visceral blasts chords, the same thumping bassline. wo summers ago, I received except one where the members are all of punky powerchords, indie and coun- Maybe it was because the subtleties a text from a work friend. It teenagers with skinny jeans and  oppy try stomp, started well with the minute- of their record got lost in the mix.  e Tasked “Do you play rugby?” I re- fringes.  e band immediately before and-a-half-long ‘Red Rag’, the discordant Junction at least knew how to turn up the plied that I did, to which my friend Brakes, Linda’s Nephew, had heroically guitars and submerged shouting vocals volume control – no doubt icicles must responded “Good, Ipswich are continued their set despite an absent, sucker-punching the audience into pay- have been shaking in Cherry Hinton. looking for a new hooker.” I don’t snowed-in drummer, and their pop ing attention. Moving into forthcoming But the trade-o for such cochlea-cha ng think I found the joke that funny punk musings were received enthusi- single, ‘Hey Hey’, the band kept up the is that Hamilton’s distinctive timbre got at the time, and I certainly did not astically. momentum with some good ol’ ri ery buried beneath the wall-of-fuzz guitars, having watched this documentary. So, when the Brighton indie rockers and such lyrical gems as “I thought and dropping one of the best weapons in It explores the reaction in Brakes took to the stage, it seemed hard I thought until I thought I had thought.” Brakes’ arsenal. mar, ‘Comma, comma, comma, full Ipswich to the killing of ve young to judge what the response would be. But a er this starter course of noise, Having said that, the cult fans cheered stop’. And by the end of the night, the women in late 2006, all of whom Points were earned when leader Eamon the band began to disappoint. Other avidly a er every song, particularly the Radar Club was still dancing. Maybe that were addicted to hard drugs and Hamilton appeared wearing a tin-foil material from their forthcoming album bitesize political commentary ‘Dick spacesuit isn’t such a bad idea... were working the streets to feed spacesuit emblazoned with the US  ag . Touchdown, like ‘Don’t Take Me To Space Cheney, Goodbye’ and the ode to gram- Laurie Tu rey their habit. Police, social work- ers, prostitutes, friends, family and even punters contribute their It’s Not Me, It’s You recollections to form a chilling insight into the grim life of the Lily Allen underclass in small town Brit- Parlophone, out now ain. One of the most interesting perspectives was from a social  worker who remembered crack ily Allen has returned with a new a-Changin’’.  e song has got a nice been tacked onto pre-composed songs, cocaine hitting Ipswich in the late album, and apparently it’s not her, Pipettes-style contrast between sugary and it’s a little jarring at times. Breaking nineties. Dealers from London it’sL us. melody and pointed lyrics, but Allen’s up via the medium of the ever-elegant were literally walking down the Opening tracks ‘Everyone’s At It’ over-egged the irony pudding here. It accordion may be an original idea, but streets approaching teenagers and and ‘ e Fear’ are both radio-friendly, sounds like it was written for a panto it’s not a good one. asking, “Have you ever tried crack reasonably catchy pop songs which deal cast to sing. On top of this, Allen tries It’s Not Me, It’s You is really quite cocaine?”. He recalls the shock and with quite blunt themes and yet, on her hand at a bit of theology in ‘Him’. dull. We’ve become immune to Allen’s surprise of a small, rural market occasion, appear confused.  e former It’s actually painful. special brand of shocking lyrics, which town descending into a destructive is a song concerning the nation’s drug  e better parts of this album appear leaves us with an album of melodies drug problem, claiming, “You’d habit and the latter, a comment on the when Allen tackles the more down-to- that wouldn’t feel out of place in the laugh at the concept because we’re dangers and depravity of celebrity cul- earth topics, such as bad boyfriends, back catalogue of a generic 90s girl not South Central LA”. ture. It’s hard to tell whether this song useless lovers and take-aways. ‘Not Fair’ band. To me, these songs sound like  e social worker’s younger sister, is a subtle attempt at self-deprecation, is pretty amusing and ‘I Could Say’ is the throw-away pop that’s been piped Anneli, was the third girl to be killed or just a little rich coming from a singer really quite touching, as well as being through our supermarkets and car ra- in the spree. Watching family mem- who makes the headlines regularly. one of the best cra ed songs on the dios for the last ten years, but with a few bers trying to explain their disbelief Allen gives Woodward and Bernstein album. expletives. Her songs aren’t as thought- at how these girl’s lives took a trajec- a run for their money in ‘Fuck You’. have a strained relationship at the To her credit, Allen has certainly provoking or edgy as I suspect she tory which met with such a dismal  e track’s quasi-political message is best of times, but I’m afraid to say this experimented with a healthy range of hoped they were; It’s Not Me, It’s You is a end, it was hard to know which essentially that George W. Bush is a bit number is a little more Razorlight’s in uences, but their placement within valiant, but misguided, e ort. death was the most tragic. Anneli, bad. Pop stars and social commentary ‘America’ than ‘ e Times  ey Are the record o en feels as though they’ve Lucy Bryant who turned to drugs a er the death of her father perhaps. Gemma Ad- Elgar, Mozart and Beethoven ams, who worked in car insurance but was dragged down by her boy- CUCO; piano: Tom Poster; director: Andrew Watkinson friend’s drug habit. Or maybe Paula who had her two children taken for Saturday February 7th adoption, and increasingly relied on  drugs to cure the pain her addiction HANYA CHLALA was causing her. few months ago, I wrote on these surpassed even the glorious highs Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, particu- This is not a voyeuristic true pages that I did not expect to of the end of last year, with a clean larly in a bewitchingly still account crime documentary; the actual hearA better student Beethoven than lyricism and sure articulation giving of the central Larghetto, with parts killings are not dwelt upon. In- Daniel Hill’s performance of the way to surprising grit when required. lavishly distinguished. Yet Mozart’s stead, and absolutely to the docu- Eroica. Happily, I have been proven Working under such an accomplished Piano Concerto No. 24 was a disap- mentary’s merit, what one really very, very wrong. CUCO’s Seventh, leader as Watkinson, this was hardly pointment. CUCO themselves were comes away with is a view into an directed from the violin by Andrew a shock. Even they, however, gave as menacing as one could hope in aspect of our society which is all Watkinson, leader of the illustrious way to the magni cent winds. Always the rst movement, though the later too easy to otherwise accept and Endellion String Quartet, was quite beautifully phrased, there was won- movements were a little stodgy (if not ignore. The social worker ends simply breathtaking. It was gripping derful communication between solo in the winds). Tom Poster, however, the documentary by commenting and technically polished, but above parts, especially the principal  ute never drew the audience in, and there on the sad irony of the huge level all it was played with a con dence and oboe. was little considered voicing or depth of media interest that summer. and enjoyment rarely shown by or- Given the vigour of the outer to his playing. His cadenzas came “They pick at everything for the chestras in Cambridge. movements, the Allegretto was Tom Poster as something of a shock, instantly sake of vicarious thrills during the Tempi in the three quicker move- surprisingly sedate. Nevertheless, it introducing a completely di erent most devastating appalling thing ments were daring: the nale was combined an almost architectural harmonic language, o en closer that could happen. And nobody recklessly swi . Indeed, the conclud- grandeur with tender gravity, though horn playing, and the trumpets were to Chopin than Mozart. Instead of cared when they were alive... eve- ing Allegro con brio saw exuberance the fugal passages could have been o en rather too prominent. But this plumbing emotional depths, the slow ryone wanted to be involved after come somewhat at the expense of more mysterious.  is was, admit- was one of those occasions when movement was sopori c. By the end it was too late.” string detail, but it was played with tedly, by no means a perfect perform- exhilaration made up for any number of the Beethoven this mattered not Rob Peal such visceral zz that it mattered ance: pianissimos rarely lived up to of mistakes. a jot. little in the end. CUCO’s strings their name, there was some ropey Despairing beauty characterised David Allen

EMPIRE ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 15): Good move. e Daily Mail is all over this one. “BLEEDING-HEART CAMBRIDGE HIPPIES ASHAMED TO BE BRITISH” is their take on a airs, and the Trots are put  rmly in their place. “IS IT A CRIME TO BE WHITE?” ponders e Sun. And the Daily Express wants a comment from you, as Ball President: p28 “British jobs for British workers.” p32 Quote Enoch Powell at length. Friday February 13th 2009 Join our Reviews team: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Reviews 31

Take ART, FILM & LITERATURE One hit wonders

The Immortal Stone – Chinese jades from the Neolithic period to the twentieth century The Fitzwilliam Museum Until May 31st  t’s February and I’m feeling a little exhibition ‘The Immortal Stone – Chi- enough, but here’s another curato- jaded. Jaded by the dreary, damp nese jades from the Neolithic period to rial gripe. The best jades in the Fitz’s dog-daysI of winter. Jaded because I am the twentieth century’. collection are not included in the Five of the Best half-way through my degree and the And what a dull little exhibition it exhibition but remain downstairs in routine of lectures, libraries, and essays is. Curated with fussy archaeological the permanent galleries. A collection of Chesney Hawkes ‘The One and Only’ has become stultifying, a relentless earnestness and gracelessly presented. beautifully calligraphic jade seals and a (1991) parade of monologuing supervisors, Pieces from the 2nd century BC are delightful brush washer carved with a The song that seemed to encapsu- unilluminating footnotes and half- unhelpfully sandwiched between jades scalloped floral design languish on the late everything strictly mediocre hearted efforts. Jaded by the claustro- from the 18th century when clear ground floor. One case in the exhibi- about the ‘90s. Hawkes is ru- phobic, gossipy insularity of collegiate distinctions ought to be drawn. The dry tion is given over to small carved jade moured to be coming to Cam- life; the same regurgitated banter, the text and unattractive lighting do a great elephants, lions and horses like the col- bridge: expect the kind of craze not predictable boorishness of the drink- disservice to the jades on display. lectibles in Tennessee Williams’s Glass seen since the return of S Club 3 ing society and the relentless churning The appeal of jade lies in its subtlety, Menagerie. A jade boulder carved with last week. of the small-college rumour mill. the delicate, glossy, translucent purity a mountain scene was charming but, What I need, you say, is a spot of in- of the stone. In soft light, jade almost again, the lighting flattened the piece Survivor ‘Eye of the Tiger’ (1982) spiration. A tonic to tide me over till the glows with that beckoning, alluring in- when the cave carved into the moun- An inspirational rocker soundtrack- spring. A little light culture, perhaps? A ternal light of the floating man-of-war. tainside should have been enveloped in ing everyone’s favourite Sylvester Stal- fresh perspective. Something pretty. Here, harsh down-lighting erodes the lighting. A more sympathetic light shadows. lone boxer movie, or everything that So it’s off to the Fitz, in the week-old subtle variations of colour within each scheme would showcase the intricacies So, I’m still thinking jaded thoughts, was wrong with softcore hair metal in slurry, with the same iPod playlist on stone: silvery, fern grey to succulent of the shallow relief carving rather than but not in the way the Fitzwilliam four minutes? You decide. a loop, to stroll the well-trodden cor- crème de menthe. The delicacy of the reducing it to flat, tonal modularity. intended. ridors in search of the museum’s latest carving is also diminished by this plane The jades themselves are pretty Laura Freeman Deep Blue Something ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ (1996) Probably the best song ever based on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button a film based on a book. Well, at least Dir. David Fincher in this week’s paper... in the Reviews section... on p31... in this list. Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Taraji P. Henson  Sixpence None The Richer ‘Kiss Me’ ike Slumdog Millionaire, funded by the anodyne script. Anyway it would be young is stylish, it’s hard to see the point. (1999) the owners of the show it features, churlish to criticise Pitt, whose gawpy This film churns out the surface This pop classic has been used for thisL flimsy film about a boy who is expressions are just a mild distraction detritus of a film with lots of meaning; She’s All That and Dawson’s Creek, as born with the body of an octogenarian from the fact that this movie is geared to ceaseless chaos theory symbolism, a well as during the BBC’s broadcast of and backwards will make a lot more make him grow steadily more attractive. Dawkins-derived ‘blind watchmaker’, Prince Edward’s wedding. No, really. sense if L’Oreal admit it’s all a ploy for (A responsibility he discharges with ter- and weighty ponderings about mortal- a new anti-ageing cream. rific application). ity, causality, fatality calamity ETC. It’s Thunderclap Newman ‘Something In There’s no denying the technical The montage of breezy hedonism just as well all of this never coheres The Air’ (1969) achievements of the film, but they seem (think pillow fights, sex on the beach) around the framework of a message Just type it into YouTube - you think to have supplanted any substance. The that makes up the years when he and - there’s so much of it floating around you don’t know it, but you do... main character arc here is Pitt’s emer- Blanchett’s character meet in the middle that that would be absurd. gence from the cocoon of his ageing of their opposing trajectories is great fun, The director knows that he’s playing makeup. This progression serves to but has all the narrative complexity of a us; every time the film threatens to go too Five of the Worst betray that it’s not the facial prosthetics Davidoff advert; we know that they are far, its fantastical episodes are undercut or fictive arthritis holding him back from free-spirited because the voice-over boasts by the realism of a modern hospital that they had no need for furniture. scene. But is this film a knowing investi- Mr. Oizo ‘Flat Beat’ (2000) acting, and that he truly is determined Seriously, what was going on to play the role with the emotional range But when Benjamin’s collagen is out of gation into the stylistics of narrative? It’s tune with the rest of the world’s, his af- hard to know how it is commenting on here? A song called Flat Beat of the gold statuette his performance is performed by a man under the somehow contending for. fliction invites little attention, and though clichés to which it so heavily subscribes. the symmetry of being too old and too Izzy Finkel pseudonym Mr. Oizo fronted by a But blame rests more deservedly with yellow puppet (see above) called Flat Eric, all made famous by... an Perdika Press advert for jeans.

Shirley Society, St Catharine’s College Los del Rio ‘Macarena’ (1993) Wednesday February 4th Still making people do that dance  in clubs across the country, this song finished second in Rolling t Catz’s Shirley Society, founded brought into the modern world with who “seem to exist merely Stone’s ‘Most Annoying Songs’ Sand named for the Renaissance appeals to “tower blocks”, “the smell to have love letters written poll, which leads us nicely on to... playwright John, is the oldest literary of toast” and “Heaven’s answerphone”. to them”. As she says in one society in Cambridge. On Wednesday, Petrucci brings from Catullus’ Latin the of the poems, “Nothing will Baha Men ‘Who Let The Dogs they hosted a reading by one of the best of what he calls “an indigenously, grow old”, and in both her Out’ (2000) country’s newest poetry presses, Per- inherently smutty language”, with refer- translations and Petrucci’s ...which finished third. dika Press, which publishes experimen- ences to “buggered night-servants” and there is a joy in seeing old tal modern poetry and translations, frank expressions of Catullus’ appeals language made vivid with Afroman ‘Because I Got High’ with two of Perdika’s founders, Peter to Lesbia. images like “artillery wound (2001) Brennan and Mario Petrucci, and one This type of loose translation is in wire / my heart breaks Why did Afroman’s career bomb of their poets, Jackie Rowe, reading about half Perdika’s output. Jackie out of ”. after this track? Because he got from their work. Rowe read from hers, an upcoming Brennan’s poetry, from high, because he got high, be- Mario Petrucci, a former physi- ‘rendering’ of Guillaume Apollinaire’s his collections Didymoi and Torch of with each poet present reading from cause he got high? cist – Brennan introduced him as “a poems. Rowe is a fairly new poet, Venus, deals partly with Frank O’Hara another Perdika collection, which scientist and poet filling the same pair and when Petrucci introduces her he but is mostly original, and Petrucci displayed an interesting and innova- Vanilla Ice ‘Ice Ice Baby’ (1990) of shoes” – read from his translations speaks of the pleasure in watching “a read from his works somewhere in tive selection. Petrucci, a Selwyn alum, You could never accuse Vanilla of Sappho and Catullus. He works from long-dead innovator possessing a still january and Heavy Water in addition claims setting up the press has been Ice of living in the past: his 2008 transliterations, updating the poems living innovator”. She wrote 70 poems to translations. Perdika Press is due to “one of the great pleasures of the last album, Vanilla Ice Is Back!, fea- to be “part Sappho and part me”. The over six weeks, depicting Apollinaire’s visit Cambridge again on April 28th, fifteen years” – and advises “Bored with tured four versions of this song. resulting ‘renderings’ keep the essential “Hollywood view of himself” while reading at Trinity, and will be worth revision? Set up a press!” Only four? spirit of Sappho’s fragments, but are fighting in WW1 and writing to girls hearing; Wednesday’s reading finished Colette Sensier

Empire Adventure (starts on page 15): “The theme isn’t actually anything to do with the British Empire at all!” you reassure them, perhaps unconvincingly. “On the contrary, it’s all about the film magazine of the same name.” But can this win over the baying commies? »p25 Yes it can. »p14 Er, no: you’re forced to resign and concentrate on your theatrical side-project. Arts Editor: Emma Mustich Friday February 13th 2009 32 Arts [email protected] varsity.co.uk

courtesy of the fitzwilliam museum Great Works Of Art In Cambridge Sex in the Univer- #23: Pamela and Mr. B in the Summer House City by Joseph Highmore; Fitzwilliam Museum e moderns like to think we most unnatural excesses”. invented the publishing sensation: But Pamela’s virtue remains intact de- LadyW Chatterley’s Lover, Harry Potter, spite Mr. B’s persistent efforts. Highmore’s the fate of Little Nell. But the best-seller, vision of Mr. B’s attempted seduction in with all its lucrative multi-media tie-ins, the summer-house is a curiously chaste was in full flurry in 1740 when Samuel affair. Here’s Richardson’s description: Richardson’s Pamela or Virtue Rewarded “I struggled, and trembled, and was so first hit the bookshops. A fashionable benumbed with terror, that I sunk down, book-worm-about-town could drink tea not in a fit, and yet not myself; and I from Pamela cups, cool herself with a found myself in his arms, quite void of Pamela fan, queue to see heartthrob actor strength; and he kissed me two or three David Garrick in Pamela, A Comedy, times with frightful eagerness. At last I and, when in Paris, enjoy an evening of burst from him, and was getting out of Pamela: L’Opéra. When you were tired the summer-house; but he held me back of Pamela, you were tired of life. The es- and shut the door.” sential appointment in a Pamelamaniac’s Highmore’s Mr. B is a meek would-be diary was a trip to see Joseph Highmore’s ravisher. He holds Pamela’s hand and twelve illustrations for the novel, now dis- touches her neck almost tenderly, while Week 5: The tributed between the Tate, the Fitzwilliam she rebuffs him with a mild gesture and and the National Gallery of Victoria. demure shake of the head. Her sewing Throwdown Factor As with any craze, the parodists and lies abandoned on the chair; the cloth puritans were not far behind. 1741 saw is in a state of disarray, but Pamela is arack has it, Gordon does not. the publication of Henry Fielding’s immaculate. Perhaps, by 1744, when BHouse has it, Hugh Laurie does wicked Shamela, and a raft of other Highmore painted his series, the Pamela not. Healthcliff has it, Cliff Richard pieces denouncing Richardson’s tale of Censured brigade had cowed him into does not. Bogart had it, and he always virtue under assault. Pamela Censured politesse. His illustration is too pretty, will. hinted darkly at the pernicious purposes too refined, a vision of Mr. B’s attempted ‘It’ is the throwdown factor. That Pamela might inspire, warning that when rape; the thrill-seeking reader would have something in a man that says “I’m Mr. B attempts to seduce Pamela, an to return to Richardson’s original text for gonna grab you and you’re gonna like impressionable daughter “privately may the full picture. it”, or, according to Urban Dictionary, seek remedies which may drive her to the Laura Freeman “Uncommon passion when having sex, making out, or some other form of sexual contact. Usually involves groping or aggression, sometimes growling, and varying degrees of be- ing on the edge of losing self-control.” Games & puzzles Grrr. It’s not about looks or build, or intelligence or humour, or charm or no. 499 arrogance, or status or money. Cha- Varsity Crossword Sudoku risma? Nearly, but not quite – Woody

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The object is to insert the numbers in the boxes to satisfy only one Allen has charisma, but he ain’t got condition: each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the digits 1 throwdown. It’s indefinable, but not 18 Religious man living through oth- through 9 exactly once. ers, free of debts (5) imprecise: you either have it or not. 20 Heads back to point (4) And before you start blathering on

8 9 21 New employee doesn’t finish - step about rape fantasies, know this: it’s not back with right views (10) 4 1 8 5 6 9 about violence either. We’re talking lust, passion, and yes, to a certain 10 23 Explosive advert in mushy pea colour (7) 9 6 2 1 8 7 extent, domination – losing control. 24 Emotional state very quiet in 3 2 But he who has real throwdown does 11 12 southern city concealing Greeks (7) not weaken his lover. Oh no. He em- 25 See 1 6 9 7 powers her with his wild desire, filling 26 To sit on the grass with a sandwich her with yet more hunger to bite back. is a walk in the park (6) Because generally speaking, if one 13 14 15 5 4 2 half of the couple doesn’t have it, then neither half does: it’s a mutual thing. Down 6 8 For throwdown feeds on throwdown, 1 Titania, for instance, loses her head and cannot exist in a vacuum. Fact. 16 17 18 19 for donkey’s creamy produce (5) 1 9 4 6 5 3 So although I wrote that it’s 2 Shylock, for instance, gains a penny “something in a man”, it’s something

5 7 1 3 9 2 / MADE BY G a r e th Moor www.puzzlemix.com for Richard the Third, for instance in a woman too. Writing as a straight (7) woman, I’m no expert, but I can 20 21 22 3 Long distance turning Hitler gay The Varsity Scribblepad spot that foxy female throwdown a (5-4) mile away. Sophia Loren yes, Kiera 5 Tracks article in bars (5) Knightley no. Michelle yes, Cherie no. 6 Desert animal with a red head for CJ Craig yes, Donna Moss, no. Miss 23 24 sugary snack (7) Teri D. Lights? Always had it, and I 7 It helps one climb a hill after laces always will. untied (9) But I’m not condemning those 10 Church crazy to come back, having without throwdown to a life of

25 26 eaten a tasty snack (9) misery and sexless solitude. It is in no 13 Reconstituted peers enter West, way vital for a successful long-term hidden briefly under their breath relationship, or even for a fulfilling (9) fling. Other qualities work too – it’s Across 15 Singer ruining partita with voice- also cool to be cool, and sometimes if over (9) he’s keen, that makes me keener – on 1/25 Large bus to knock down the 12 Austrian painter almost comes 17 Blake’s mills are thus keeping a it like a flannel, in fact. Indeed, some Queen twice (6,6) back for a drink (4) dark complexion (7) wo/men would prefer a lover with 4 Clear out after love, one divines (6) 13 Nowhere near as good with head- 19 Comic moron with no title follows wit, intellect, or kindness, rather than 8 Tell colloquial idiot to play with less racer (5) wagon (7) The Throwdown Factor. But I think glue (7) 14 To be intimate with a policeman, a 21 A musical genre, of which there are Last week’s solution they don’t know what they’re missing. 9 Whimsy about a bill (7) lute must be deployed (8) several Westerly ones? (5) Because it sure as hell makes for great 1 6 9 8 5 7 4 3 2 sex. Grr. 11 Pirate getup impresses without 16 Courtly entertainer misusing Mer- 22 Stop Iceland banking anything to 7 2 4 9 3 1 5 6 8 consent, note (10) lin’s top hat (8) speak of (5) Set by Hisashi 5 8 3 6 2 4 9 7 1 If you’ve got throwdown and you’d 3 5 8 2 4 9 6 1 7 9 7 2 1 8 6 3 5 4 like to share it, add me on Facebook – Answers to last week’s crossword (no. 498) 4 1 6 5 7 3 8 2 9 2 3 1 4 9 5 7 8 6 just search for... Across: 1 Ambush, 5 Caps lock, 9 Vaudeville, 10 Xmas, 11 Nuclear reactor, 13 Senescence, 14 Vent, 15 Revere, 17 Palisade, 19 Senile dementia, 24 G-man, 26 Outpatient, 27 Godspeed, 28 Agency. Down: 2 Measure, 3 U S D, 4 8 4 5 7 6 2 1 9 3 Have a screw loose, 5 Caldron, 6 Prelate, 7 Laxatives, 8 Chagrined, 12 Liege, 16 E M S, 18 Lambada, 20 No-nos, 21 Dated, 22 Naive, 23 Ionic, 25 Moo. 6 9 7 3 1 8 2 4 5 Miss Teri D. Lights

Empire Adventure (starts on page 15): Right-o: “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood.’ That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself.” What an idiot. Friday February 13th 2009 Write for Varsity Sport: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Sport 33

REPORTS Quick Catch-up

Water polo win cheers crowd Varsity Report » Revenge for Cambridge men against old foe in the water Women’s Water Polo

Varsity Sport Yet again, Oxford were  rst to score, attack goal, the celebrations began  e women’s water polo team went Cambridge 15 taking the lead 9-8.  is set back did throughout the pool and building. into their match o the back of two A er an exciting a ernoon of Var- not however upset the rhythm of the  e appreciative crowd had witnessed great wins in the BUCS tournament sity swimming, the Cambridge men’s Oxford 11 Light Blues and the momentum was an utterly breathtaking game of water and were duly con dent. However, water polo team took to the water for still with them. Two goals from Gom- polo, and contributed hugely to the just seconds into the match they the 109th Varsity Match at Parkside ersall and one from Andrea Cantone Cambridge  ghtback. conceded a foul which led to the Pools. bridge trailing 4-3 at the break. saw Cambridge take the lead for the Spurred on by the cheers, the Cam- Dark Blues’  rst goal. For a minute  e game was sure to be a hotly- Now attacking the deep end, the  rst time in the match. bridge team piled into the pool to cel- it seemed like they were going to do contested a air; last year saw Oxford Blues looked to make up for their When George Lentaris rounded o ebrate a fantastic comeback, and the themselves the injustice of losing to a equalise in the last second of the game, sluggish start. However, it was Oxford the scoring with a superb counter- party continued long into the night. worse team. and the Dark Blues were on top again again scoring  rst, before goals from SOPHIE PICKFORD  at was the last time Oxford in a  erce BUCS Match two weeks ago. Riccardo Di Pietro and Captain Nick would lead. Cambridge centre-for- With four internationals on display, McLoughlin saw the scores tied again. ward Rebecca Voorhees pulled one and two of the top eight sides in the But the Dark Blues then put one more back immediately; a taste of things country, expectations of a high quality away to leave Cambridge trailing 6-5 game were higher than ever. at half time. to come. Two further goals in the Once the walk in and line-ups had  e response however turned the period saw Cambridge go ahead 3-1 taken place, the game got underway game on its head. A er conceding two at the end of the  rst quarter. Ox- to a huge roar from the 600-strong more, Steve Cooke then pulled one ford scored  rst a er the break but crowd. Oxford seized the early ad- back from a superb shot into the top the home side stayed focused and vantage, taking the lead via a man-up corner, James Hutchison scored low continued to move the ball well, de- situation. Cambridge’s response was on a man-up and McLoughlin’s hard spite intense pressure. Gradually the swi ; a lovely goal from Steve Cooke work earned the Blues a penalty in the Cambridge game plan took shape. A saw the scores level again. last second of the quarter, which Steve tight passing lane defence rattled Ox- Oxford then went two ahead from Smith duly dispatched. ford, while the Light Blues carried on man-up situations, only to be pegged From here, the writing was on the scoring.  e Dark Blues were limited back again through goals from Henry wall for the  nal quarter. With the to taking shots from further out and Gomersall and a textbook backhand team pumping and visibly energised goalkeeper Rachael Mell e ortlessly shot from Stefan Palzer. With 26 sec- from the huge e orts and noise pro- pulled them down to safety. onds le in the  rst quarter, New Zea- duced by the crowd, momentum was Cambridge dominated Oxford got a couple of goals back land international Shaun Hotchkiss  nally with the Light Blues and their possession at the end of the third quarter and stole a yard to convert Oxford’s  nal  tness and desire to win began to in a brief period of confusion Cap- chance of the period to leave Cam- show. tain Jennifer Macleod broke a  nger JAMES GRAVESTON controlling a pass. But Cambridge regained control and eventually the Laura Soul with pressure became too much. Ox- the ball Varsity victory for Cam kor all ford conceded a penalty early in the fourth quarter, which Voorhees eas- ily put away, taking the score to 8-5. » Light Blues storm ahead in a thrilling weekend encounter Cambridge slowed the game and dends. Bakes took a chance and sunk even a  nal push from Oxford was Varsity Sport a brilliant running-in shot to extend not enough. Cambridge put in an impressive Cambridge 10 the lead, and ensure that all three  e 9-7 scoreline does not do jus- display of korfball last weekend debutant players marked the occa- tice to Cambridge’s dominance. An to justify their status as favourites Oxford 6 sion with a goal. embittered Oxford team declined and retain the Varsity trophy. In a Oxford continued to hang on, the o er of a post-match curry! hard-fought contest, the Light Blues however, managing to scrape a score eventually turned the screw and five Quick to counter, an equally immac- at crucial moments to make sure goals from George Marshall saw ulate finish from Varsity debutant Cambridge never pulled too far them to a comfortable victory over Sophie Harley-McKeown soon lev- ahead. But a further three goals from University Catch-up their oldest rivals. elled the scores. Marshall, combined with long-shots Fielding their strongest team for A couple of trademark drop-offs from Mawditt and Davidson, were Ladies Hockey many years, Cambridge came into from Marshall and a Nic Buttinger enough to drive home an impressive the match boasting a combined 16 long-shot appeared to have given victory.  e Blues hockey ladies were one Varsity caps between their eight Cambridge a cushion, but some The win went a long way to make of the few regular teams in action mixed players. When it became ap- more quality long distance shooting up for a second team Varsity Match this week, tackling top team Exeter parent that Oxford’s two most influ- from Oxford saw the half-time total a which was won by a strong and ex- away on Wednesday a ernoon in a ential players from previous encoun- slender 4-3 lead to the home side. perienced Oxford team. BUCS Trophy League knockout ters had finally become ineligible, In the second period, after a brac- Cambridge firsts now look ahead match. Cambridge confidence was further ing half time talk, Cambridge looked to the BUCS National Champion- Perhaps a result of the enormous bolstered. more comfortable from the restart. ships at the end of term, hoping to journey, the team were a little slow However, as in all Varsity Match- The experienced pairing of Angus cap a fantastic season of this won- to get going in the  rst half. Strug- es, things were not quite that simple. Davidson and Sian Mawditt control- derfully eccentric sport, including gling to contain one Exeter for- Within a couple of minutes, Oxford led their end effectively, and the ap- victories in the Southern Universi- ward in particular, the ladies soon rattled the Cambridge nerves by tak- pearance of Joe Bakes, substituted ties Championship and the Varsity found themselves a goal down a er ing the lead with a long looping shot. for Elgon Corner, soon reaped divi- Match with the Nationals title. a well-worked short corner. A er half time, the girls played Varsity Preview Varsity Preview Varsity Preview noticeably better and engineered some attacking phases of their Squash Pistol Shooting Karate own. Unfortunately unable to cap- italise on a couple of short corner  e ladies fell foul of the other place  is year the CURPC host Oxford in Last year Cambridge came out opportunities, the match  nished last ear, su ering a 4-1 drubbing. But the annual pistol Varsity Match.  e convincing winners in the Men’s A a disappointing 6-0 to the opposi- they have been on top form in their Light Blues will  eld an exciting and event and the Men’s B event. Only tion. BUCS matches and will be looking eager but relatively inexperienced the women le unsatis ed, having- However, the Blues only got one to get their revenge.  e men on the team, hoping to defeat the same group split the winnings with the Oxford round further last year, perhaps other hand demolished a young Ox- of Dark Blue marksmen who beat girls. A er a long winter’s training, as a result of their focusing on the ford team 5-0 last time around. An them last year. It is sure to be a tense all three teams will be looking for- league matches earlier in the term exciting prospect then for our Light day of concentrated shooting at Eliza- ward to the match next week. Spec- and then turning their attention Blue competitors. beth Way. tators are encouraged. to Varsity, now in just a few weeks time. With a double header of Sat 14th, Royal Automobile Club, Sun 15th, 10am, Elizabeth Way shoot- Sat 21st, 9am, Chesterton Sports matches this weekend, they have London. ing range Centre. plenty to look forward to. Sport Editors: Jenny Morgan & Jimmy Pickles Friday February 13th 2009 34 Sport [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Sport Feature: Six Nations Rugby Special Six Nations, One Winner: Who will it be? JENNY MORGAN AND FRANKIE BROWN TALK YOU THROUGH THE TEAMS OF 2009 THE LUCK OF THE IRISH changes to their side for this weekend: at 1.26 with Betfair, and at 4/1 for the Laughable, that is, unless you’ve Heymans will return on Saturday. He ith the vintage O’Driscoll still at Tindall’s recovery sees the one-dimen- Grand Slam, they should win this one wacked on a rugby shirt and a silly wig is a danger on the wing and has a good the helm and a brace of top class sional Jamie Noon ousted from the with plenty to spare. and paid God knows how much to get scoring record in this tournament, but playersW to choose from, this Irish team centre, whilst Joe Worsley adds some yourself and your compagni into the su ered a disastrous match against the look more than capable of steering their muscle to a pack that struggled at times MALLETT HAMMERS ITALY WITH home of English rugby. “We had our English in Paris last year. way to the  nal. against the dogged Italians. goalie at centre-forward”, said a bemused Lievremont described the scrum last Finishing o France at the week- James Haskell impressed last Saturday, BIZARRE TEAM SELECTION fan a er the game. For a footballing na- week as a load of crêpe (maybe not in so end, a team that have whooped them and will (along with Easter and Armit- he match stats for the beleaguered tion, the simile is uncanny and uncom- many words) and will bring in two new in twenty-three of the last twenty-six age) need to be at his best if England are Azzurri make for uninspiring read- fortable. props and a lock. Victory against the confrontations, it was clear to everyone to nullify the experienced Welsh back- Ting. Forty-six appear- Languishing at the bottom of the table Scots could not be described as a recov- watching that this lot mean business. row. e half-back partnership of Goode ances, thirty- with a twenty- ve point de cit and lin- ery, but it may leave Les Bleues feeling Imbued with the spirit of a packed Croke and Ellis will be crucial to ensuring Eng- nine ing up against Ireland this weekend, slightly less bleues. Tout est possible. Park, they were con dent and full of land’s performance does not become as losses, this is indeed a dark hour for Italian  air, playing with the sort of passion that stodgy and unimaginative as it appeared six rugby. only the Irish can munster. the last time out. DOUR SCOTS LOOK DOUBTFUL But it was not all plain sailing for the Undoubtedly the underdogs, Jonno’s omprehensively crushed in their boys in green. Granted, O’Gara’s kicking boys will have to dig deep. Go on, LES BLEUES FEEL ZE HEAT recent Celtic confrontation, the Scots was comfortingly consistent, but the tries surprise us. he French were harried all haveC even more reason than usual to look took a good half hour of slightly nervous over the pitch by the Irish down in the mouth. rugby to appear. inT their opening match and need Team selection has proved di cult Coach Kidney remains con dent WELSH DRAGONS FULL OF FIRE to  nd their feet again against the with not a small amount of controversy. though, and with no real injury prob- landslide victory over Scotland Scots. e conspicuous absence of Magners lems to worry about ahead of this week’s last weekend leaves tournament ere were glimpses of classic Gallic League top scorer om Evans on the clash with the Italians, it looks like the favouritesA Wales right on track. rugby, with the experienced Harinor- wing is little short of bizarre, whilst the Irish could be on for something special. Or does it? ey failed to convert duquy leading the charge up front and decision to leave out Gloucester  anker a single try and Shane Williams, punching a whole through the Irish Alisdair Strokosch caused more than a ENGLAND’S ROSE FAILS TO Gavin Henson and Ryan Jones are defence in the thirteenth minute. Beauxis few raised eyebrows. FLOWER all battling various niggles, forcing was also in  ne form, kicking two eye- Sure, injury has taken its toll, and the manager Warren Gatland to delay the wins catching drop goals. absence of key forwards Euan Murray anager Martin Johnson has admit- naming of his starting line-up. Appar- and a draw. France su ered last year from the loss and Nathan Hines le the pack outmus- ted “we need to improve” – he ently even the Welsh are far from perfect Hardly surprising of a few key players from the winning cled by the  ery Welsh at the weekend. lovesM the rhetoric – and has predicted (who knew?). then, that the boys in blue have come into side of 2007. ey are still struggling to Team selection for this week was then a “volatile and hostile” welcome at the At the prospect of a huge battle up- the 2009 tournament as the underdogs build a new team and that showed on delayed when it became apparent that no Millenium Stadium on Saturday. Well front, the call to arms has been issued by yet again. Saturday. ey lack the  air of the former less than fourteen players were carrying yes, the Welsh aren’t called the Dragons Ian Gough, predicting “blood and guts” ey handed an under-performing team, preferring the functional Beauxis niggles, many of them picked up in the for nothing. and citing the powerful England pack as England side the victory at the weekend, to the more creative Michalak. bruising encounter with Wales. Coming into the tournament with the chief threat. gi -wrapped and all. With their star Elissalde is a recognisable face at But for a team promoting itself as a NINE injuries, it appeared the squad had On the attack, expect Wales to take  anker stu ed in at scrum half, the team scrum half and holds the team together, model of consistency, this will not do. taken Jonny’s example just a little too the play out wide, using their world-class struggled to formulate any  owing game while Chabal will continue to provide Coming scarily close to the wooden much to heart. runners to take on England’s inexperi- plan and were laughably error-prone in the occasional threat we now know all spoon last year, Scots everywhere will be As a result, they have made two enced and unsettled backs. With Wales attack. too well. hoping for a turnaround in fortunes. View from the stands ENGLAND JUST NOT GOODE ENOUGH AGAINST THE AZZURRI...

s a 21st birthday present, tickets to tries were all traceable to the mistakes the chance to take his  rst international fully cra ed move across the  eld soon taken its toll on his  tness. England versus Italy ought to guar- of the tragic Mauro Bergamasco, the points. A disaster for the Italians, but gave Italy (and the Bergamasco family) a All that was le as the clock counted Aantee a winning day out at Twickenham. world-class  anker looking lost at scrum also something of a headache for English consolatory try. down was for the ever-consistent Mark In this, England did not disappoint. In half in a selection nightmare: the  rst rugby. First half points from two late e crowd stopped Mexican waving Cueto to con rm the win with a touch every other way imaginable, they did. came from a lineout overthrow a er an team replacements and a Kiwi? Not just long enough to see man of the match down in the 78th minute. England e spectacle started pretty much as it English foot booted it into touch as the Martin Johnson & co’s  nest hour. Ellis hammer home his justi cation for emerged unmauled, but it was hardly a was to continue. Having been prom- forward forgot himself and dived into the e second half saw the visitors selection, with his little legs going into roaring performance. ised paratroopers abseiling in from the familiar territory of the ruck; the second playing a little more coherently, having overdrive as he charged half the pitch to So what was the problem? Around stadium roof in an adrenaline-packed when Bergamasco was beaten to the ball, decided that it might be a good idea to take a second try. But he was brought o 80,000 people sat in the sun at Twicken- abseiling bonanza, the rather slow leaving Harry Ellis to scamper with it add an actual scrum half to the lineup. shortly a er; his enforced ban a er spear ham, drinking warm beer and watching lowering of eight skinny men and a  ag to the line; and the third a er a missed With fewer mistakes to capitalise upon, tackling Perpignan’s Dan Carter in a cup their team storm to victory. e perfect accompanied by a school assembly-esque pass over Garcia’s head, giving Riki Flutey England’s options dried up and a beauti- match before Christmas appears to have English sporting event, you might say. rendition of Jerusalem was something of Well, no. e lethargy on the pitch a damp squib. Even the team emblems had somehow transferred to those seated marched randomly around the pitch by a in the stands. ere was no escaping it; horde of camo auged ants (well we were England disappointed and the crowd lost quite literally up in the gods) did little to interest. A classic example, winger Paul rouse the passions. ank goodness for Sackey’s hands spent more time on his the national anthem. God save our Ol- hips than on the ball. ympic opening ceremony though, if this e awkward questions le hanging is the best English rugby can o er. a er the disastrous Autumn Internation- With the game underway we soon als remain unanswered. Where were the missed the paratroopers. Despite a  ery improvements the coaching team prom- start, with late call-up Andy Goode using ised? e technical innovations? e brain and brawn to barge through for the shape, the coherence, the drive? Why did opening try, England soon  zzled out. we succumb to ill discipline yet again? Flat and unimaginative, they seemed to e English crowd had mostly le have two game plans: either to get the before the players could come back out ball and run into contact, or to get the to receive their applause. A warning, ball and kick it aimlessly into space, los- perhaps, that they will have to pull some- ing possession. Now I’m all for giving the thing very special out of the bag against Italians a chance, but this seemed a little favourites Wales next weekend to restore excessive. the faith in the squad. In fact, England could only score o England rugby has swung very low the back of Italian errors. e  rst three indeed. Friday February 13th 2009 Write for Varsity Sport: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Sport 35

Charlie Cooney’s Marathon Pearson Sport Umpires given the nger Comment Lauren must say my knee-  is is exactly ments of delay and a bit of game-show a snick, but preposterous, I’m afraid, Cooney jerk reaction to the new referrals sys- the kind of irrational argument that a histrionics if the correct decision is for LBW decisions, which really would Item being trialled in Jamaica was ‘Hell romantic reactionary like me would reached? Referrals might, alas, lead to be an assault on the umpire’s authority. to the no!’ Who cares whether they’re a make to defend a hopeless position. It’s a reduction of the status of an umpire, Given the option to refer upstairs bit unfair? Dodgy decisions by bespec- all very well accepting budget umpir- but so be it. An umpire, by de nition, for run-outs, look how o en umpires tacled umpires are as much part of the ing decisions when turning out for is there to adjudicate in the event of ask for con rmation even if the bats- sport as white  annel trousers and silly Shittingbourne against Little Boom- any disagreement between players. If man’s out by a country mile or in by Week 5 names for  elding positions. tingford on a summer Sunday ‘neath agreement can be reached with the aid a furlong. No umpire in the world Subjectivity, fallibility and rolling pale skies and Spit res, but fourth in- of technology and the minimum of would have the conviction to resist the In which Lauren faces the music and with the punches dealt by bad luck nings against Australia at the Oval and fuss, where’s the problem? temptation to request con rmation for chooses a charity are enshrined in the very fabric of the every half-decent LBW shout, so imag- game. Take the pitch: you wouldn’t ine how much time we’d spend waiting catch the Americans playing a sport ‘International sport no longer has to around having a chat. David Lloyd usic: “If music be the food of where the ball could hit the ground would be having a cracking time, but Mlove, play on”; “Music is my before it reached the batter, making em-brace the spirit of amateurism’ it would be like watching American girlfriend”; “ ank you for the mu- its movement subject to the unpre- football. It would be under this kind of sic, the songs I’m singing”; “What dictable conditions underfoot.  at’s system that an on- eld umpire would would you do if I sang you a song?” partly why cricket is so wonderful; by I’d think everyone’s prepared to admit  e ECB chairman Giles Clarke indeed be reduced to a sweater stand. Firstly, I’d tell you to shut up. nature it is a jumble of charming idi- that, even if it is Ricky Ponting given recently objected to the proposed ICC No, the ICC have it just right.  ey Music has become strictly a ‘run- osyncrasies. So if the pitch can create out on 99 caught silly mid-on clean o referral system.  e argument was are even reducing the number of failed ning only’ activity. Since arriving a few wickets by making the odd ball his willy, both sides would be a little let that players actually preferred umpires referrals to two per innings, quite sen- back at Cambridge my speakers leap like a springbok at the batsman’s down by the sporting gods. deliberating among themselves and sibly to limit frivolous appeals further, have remained unplugged on the outside edge, or if the atmospheric International sport no longer has to favoured the system employed in the and for LBWs, Hawkeye will only show  oor, my iPod has adamantly not conditions are allowed to send the ball embrace the spirit of amateurism. If we Stanford series, whereby umpires the ball hitting the pad to leave just a been updated, and my computer swinging like Hugh He ner towards have the technology, surely we should themselves called in video assistance in little bit of guesswork. Cricket just got is only allowed to serve occa- the o stump, why can’t the umpires use it wherever possible to bring a bit the case of their own uncertainty. All a lot more sensible by further embrac- sional YouTube blasts for sanity’s produce the odd shocker as well? It’s more fairness and objectivity into the  ne for low catches, bump balls and ing technology. We can only hope that sake.  is means that when I hit all part of the fun. sport. Who can begrudge a few mo- run outs, perhaps even the odd case of football gets more sensible too. the streets, with any old beat, the rhythms sound so sweet, and I just gotta move my feet. Yup. Be it some datty drum and bass that has me hurtling over Snow go for sport... ankles, a wankfest of MGMT or the Killers where I smile as I run and probably sing along, or some AS OUR SPORT SEIZES UP IN THE WEATHER, JENNY MORGAN WONDERS WHAT THEY DO ELSEWHERE downloaded DJ set that never fails to surprise as it segues Wu-Tang t’s no secret that England grinds to Snow Rugby: OK so it’s niche in the came up with the concept insists this is Snow hockey: Played in Lapland, Clan into Dolly Parton, I mean it, I a halt in the snow. Quite literally in extreme, with only one o cial game a LADS only area. And a popular one snow hockey is just like ice hockey, just gotta move my feet. Starvation someI areas. And sport, it would seem, in the world. But as you can see, too - sponsors Land Rover have man- but, well yes, you get the picture. Ap- will have you eat anything, even a goes the same way. As we’ve found out we’re embracing niche this week, and aged to get some big names to frolic in parently just as exciting, this slightly lemon. this week, if it’s not in a sports hall or a ST MORITZ POLO AG girlier version is slower paced and less  e di culty with listening to heated pool, it ain’t on. forceful, and won’t hurt as much when music is that you’re not really look- Which got me thinking. What hap- you fall over. Swapping the puck for a ing where you’re going. It’s the age pens in those countries that manage to plastic ball keeps the game moving and old problem where the motorist keep moving even under a dusting of negates the need for unsightly padding hates the cyclist, the cyclist wants the white stu ? Do their people keep and helmet. And of course you can go to hit the pedestrian, and the moving as well? And more importantly and meet the real Father Christmas pedestrian thinks they are much for us, do they keep throwing /kicking a erwards. Result. slimmer/quicker than they are. If things around? this foot peddler happens to be a Turns out some of them do... Snow Polo:  e Cartier Polo World runner (me) then everyone else on Cup on Snow is one of the more bizarre the road should really watch out, Snow Football: Primarily found on upper class activities. Which says a lot. she’s a law unto herself.  ough the the chillier US university campus, Four teams from around the world runner might do well to remember this cold weather combo of American battle it out for the prestigious Cartier that if they are zoned out and deaf football and touch rugby pretty much trophy on the frozen surface of Lake St to the world they are also vulner- does what it says on the tin. Teams Moritz. A logistical nightmare, carting able. of eight follow very similar rules to ponies and players up a mountain for My mum reminded me of this the former sport, though without the four days of polo, it is perhaps un- during the holidays when there extreme contact, and probably the surprising to learn that the concept was talk of a four-foot paedophile jockish behaviour. Players can wear originated from a group of friends stalking the area. I know I am not jackets and hats for the duration of out for drinks back in 1983. Muchos actually paedophile bait, but I the two twenty minute halves, so long a rugby match played in the snowy the powder. Some detractors have been drinks, one would imagine. Now one of haven’t grown since I was in year as they can be ‘de- agged’ easily to mountains of New South Wales, Aus- quick to point out that Kiwi school the most elite and expensive sporting eight, and my hands look like save the need for a tackle. Turns out tralia, seems pretty appropriate. Played kids have been playing it for years, but events, it just goes to snow what a few paws, so I appreciated the concern. they don’t like actually rolling around under lights at a gruelling 1700m either way, rugby with altitude is a cool bevvies and some inclement weather I displayed constant vigilance on in the snow. altitude, the Wallaby’s Mark Ella who concept. can do for the sporting entrepreneur. appropriate runs and maintained one goal if I saw him: just jump over him. Unfortunately, the same cra y tactic might not be so helpful when e Week Ahead pumped with Dutch courage and stumbling across Queens’ Backs, International University International University which brings me to my charity. I decided it would be gratifying to Six Nations Rugby Blues Rugby Test Cricket Ladies’ Hockey support a local charity, and was recently made aware of Cambridge Tindall and Worsley return It’s third time lucky for the Blues, England’s tour of the Carribean The ladies have been enjoying a Rape Crisis Centre: a con dential against Wales a er a mistake- hoping to get back onto their beaches is interrupted by yet an- successful run recently, avoiding telephone based service run by vol- ridden performance against Italy. home turf to play the Royal other cricket match. You may be relegation with a stylish per- unteers and in dire need of funds. Welsh maestro Shane Williams Navy.  e forces always provide lucky enough to catch a glimpse formance against Cardiff. The  e charity is so under-funded that may miss out. Ireland face Scot- strong opposition for the new of the two teams before Strauss match against Holcombe will be they don’t as yet have a justgiving. land, while France have a chance Blues squad and this bunch of orders his men to collapse and an enjoyable wind-down after a com account, but I hope that this to recover from defeat against sailors will pose a serious threat. return to their pina coladas. gruelling season. will be sorted soon. In the mean- the Azzuri. time take a look at the website, and Weds 18th, Grange Road, KO Fri 13th-Tues 17th, Sky Sports 1. Sat 14th, Wilberforce Rd, KO prepare to dig deep: http://www. Sat 14th - Sun 15th, BBC1. 7.15pm. 2pm. cambridgerapecrisis.co.uk Friday February 13th 2009 varsity.co.uk/sport

RBS Six Nations

Jenny Morgan and Frankie Brown analyse the teams’ chances... Sport P34 VARSITY MATCH RUNNING TOTAL: CAMBRIDGE 4, OXFORD 3. NEXT UP: SQUASH 14/02/09, PISTOL SHOOTING 15/02/09

SOPHIE PICKFORD

Natalie Moores comes up for View from the air during the 200m freestyle River Silas Sta ord

ollowing the announcement that “We’ll have a 5k ergom- Feter test on Tuesday morning”, all of the trialists’ hearts filled with dread. Erg tests are the exams of row- ing. They are when we see how the hard training is paying off. The erg asks us, “Exactly how fit are you? How much suffering are you willing to endure?” During an erg test, if you think about the test as a whole, despair is inexorable as the pain escalates. Instead, you must break the test into manageable chunks: think to yourself, “I’m going to pull this split for one minute”, and pretend the remainder of the piece just doesn’t exist. For the final sprint, you stop thinking like a rational creature. The pain from your legs and lungs becomes so great that you stop caring, and become obsessed with going faster. You forget about any reality outside the erg. Suddenly, the test stops, and you are trans- ported back to a reality of pain. Close Encounter at Parkside Pool Every tissue of your body screams in agony. I’ve had teammates re- Jimmy Pickles  e women lost for the rst time in won convincingly by fresher Caroline port that their teeth hurt excruci- Cambridge 89 nine years last year and were keen to Gordon in a new Cambridge record of atingly after an erg test. The pain Saturday saw the return of the Varsity reclaim the cup.  e 100m backstroke 1:15.11. Kate Weber also swam a fantastic does subside, but often lingers for Swimming Match to the Parkside pool. Oxford 90 showed Oxford what they were up race - the turning point of the match.  e hours. As I write this more than Oxford won the men’s event convinc- against with Emily Bottle and captain last individual event was the 100m free- two hours after my test, I have a ingly last year and, having lost a few good Heather Moore placing rst and second, style with De Rome and Bottle stepping bad headache, and my right ear swimmers, this looked like a tough chal- sey and Corley then secured a Cambridge both a good six seconds ahead of the fast- up again and both swimming well to n- pops incessantly. All I want to do lenge for the Cambridge team. one-two in the 400m freestyle, Rootsey est Oxford swimmer. Jess Trevellick and ish second and third respectively. is lie down and take a nap. But they were up for it and made a con- producing a personal best and Corley Natalie Moores then fought well in the Finally the relay teams stepped up to I was fortunate because I vincing start in the 200m. Tom Rootsey breaking the second record of the day. 200m freestyle and the rst part of the the blocks, knowing that they were just pulled the split I was aiming for. showed his credentials in the 100m back- Captain Ho-On To, meanwhile, took an match was nished with Tess  urston one win away from the trophy. Bottle, Some of my team mates have to stroke, winning comfortably and break- important win with a gutsy performance winning the 100m  y for the 6th year in a Gordon,  urston and De Rome went all cope with the disappointment of ing the University record in the process. in the 100m breaststroke. row, with Emily Darley not far behind. out, beating the Oxford team by a length performing below their expecta- Next up was man of the match Andy Cor- In the most exciting race of the day,  e women’s 400m freestyle has been and setting a new University record at the tions. For all of us, however those ley, who had managed to borrow a ‘LZR the 4 x 100m medley relay, Rootsey, To, introduced to re ect the emphasis that same time.  e atmosphere on poolside who triumphed and those who Racer’ swimsuit for the occasion (the one Bajorek, and Corley were pushed all the is now being placed on distance and was electrifying. foundered, those who are a shoo- that caused all the fuss during the Olym- way but nally managed to snatch victory open water swimming at international Varsity Man of the Match: Andy Corley. in to the blue boat and those who pics). He put it to good use in the 200m at the death and break the seven-year-old level.  e two captains battled it out, with Looking good in his special suit, he pro- haven’t got a shot, there is the freestyle and nished rst in the second team record. Eventually, though, it was the Moore just pulling ahead on the last two duced two of the best swims of the day and pain. Thank God that it’s over. fastest time in Cambridge history. Root- Oxford team who took the men’s trophy. lengths to win.  e 100m breastroke was set a new record while he was at it. 25th - 28th February, 8pm Crystal Maze Robinson Brickhouse Theatre Students £6 Others £10 The Musical www.bigfishents.com/crystalmaze