••• ISION, RTICLES, EVIEWS, TORIES, NFORMATION, HOUGHTS AND WHAT OU WANT TO READ •••

 e WEEK Independent  Student LENT Newspaper  est. 1947 Friday 27th January 2012 Issue No 751 | varsity.co.uk

10 Features: How Warsaw adapted it’s Soviet 12 Listings: My Cambridge Week 16 Film: ArcSoc 18  eatre: Varsity speaks to the cast of Rookie, the Palace for every day life C i n e fi l e all-female sketch show Shhh... UL’s secrets revealed Exclusive: student who rejected Oxford University speaks to Varsity

“I originally applied to Cambridge (Emmanuel Investigation: Varsity College) last year. I think Emmanuel’s test system is gets a rare glimpse a reasonably good idea, though I found the interview into the behind-the- process stressful. scenes workings I think people receive their most valuable of Cambridge’s education when they decide they really want University Library to study something. It is inconsequential at what Main Feature: point this happens, although it is far easier to study Warsaw’s Palace of at home pre-university, as GCSEs and A-levels are Culture is put under thoroughly limiting. the microscope  e wide-spread interest that my rejection email sparked fascinates me. It’s bizarre that you can make the headlines for laughing at something. Imagine the headline, “student mocks the monarchy”–for some reason, it wouldn’t have the same eff ect. Additionally, the anger that my letter caused was defi nitely most extreme in Oxbridge students/ graduates. I fi nd this quite hilarious, and was taken even further with many claiming, “She can’t criticise it as she’s not a student here, and therefore knows nothing.” To continue the earlier example, imagine if we believed that only the royal family could question the monarchy. Ridiculous.” Elly Nowell

‘The postcard’s MUSIC Neutral Milk Hotel role in the Fighting for a Living Wage BOOKS Ahdaf Soueif by understanding and Colleges aren’t paying a living wage to all employees Sarah Hall dissemination of FILM Asghar Farhadi’s culture is extremely A Separation by Matt Russell, Andrew Griffi n the University, that staff are not being workers fl uctuates throughout the year. important. It is a NEWS CORRESPONDENTS paid living wages with Labour and Some colleges have responded by Green councillors pressuring to make suggesting that the fi gure may not be ART Henri Gaudier- very democratic Almost all Cambridge colleges are not Cambridge City Council a living wage truly reflective because of engage- Brzeska: Vorticist! paying living wages to all of their staff , employer. ment in training and apprenticeship art form’ Freedom of Information requests have Out of the colleges, only Hughes Hall schemes, and also that the term ‘living revealed. were able to state unequivocally that wage’ may not be wholly appropriate in THEATRE e Dumb Waiter,  e University itself pays 112 mem- all staff are paid living wage, although that context. Zombie Haiku bers of staff less than the living wage Jesus said that no permanent staff were Another common reason cited by threshold of £7.20 per hour. As well as on less than the living wage, but off ered the bursars contacted by Varsity for

all training staff , many employees clas- no such qualifi cation about the casual not paying the living wage to staff , and WEEKEND >

sifi ed as Grade 1, the University’s least staff who are not on a fi xed contract particularly casual workers, is the cor- 4 senior staff , are on less than the living with the college. relation between staff costs and student WEATHER 0 wage. Two of the worst off ending colleges charges. In most colleges, staff costs 2

 e living wage is a rate of pay that are Homerton and Emmanuel who, account for between 40-50% of what 0 0

allows workers to aff ord the basic essen- at the time of the FOI requests by the students pay. 4

tials in life, such as housing, food and Cambridge University Labour Club Some also pointed towards generous 4 utilities. Outside of London, the rate is (CULC) in October, employed 65 and pension schemes, benefi ts such as free 4 8

calculated by the Centre for Research in 70 people respectively below the living meals and free parking, and the fact 5 7

British photographer Social Policy at Loughborough Univer- wage. that many casual staff are below the age 1 7

sity and is determined annually. Homerton told Varsity that all per- of 20 and therefore often on much more 7 Martin Parr Look out for our new-look website, coming soon to a laptop near you

The problem has been identified manent staff are paid above the living than the minimum wage. 9 17 across Cambridge, not just within wage, while the number of casual Continues on page 3 PS. 1CM 1CM 2 EDITORIAL january 27 2012 — week 2

Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas. – Susan Sontag EDITORIAL

...24 pages of words, pictures, facts, opinions, thoughts, clues, statements, Inside conclusions, insinuations and the occasional flashof genius... Cities: Zoom in, DIgITAL cOnTEnTs nEWs don’t zoom out Online: Interview 5 Tony Benn CUSU disaffiliation 6 his week’s uncovering of the encountered multiple nostalgic The Varsity May Ball guide, keep Robinson and Pembroke vote on weakening ties with CUSU results of the Living Wage accounts from ex-Cambridge checking regularly for more updates! Campaign in Cambridge whippersnappers interviewed in the shocked us; many of us paper, no longer so young and bright- Tmust surely remember the days of eyed, talking of their days here. Podcasts: after-school and weekend jobs, taken Rose-tinted the muddy River Cam scIEncE up with the glint of a little extra might be upon moving away, but the Alternative Idea of the University: spending-money clear in our sights. realities of cloistered college life, time Grad union president, Liv Watson, To work within specifications of what spent reading in grand libraries (and, on her idea of the university. Rock of the Week 7 is denoted as the national minimum on occasion, in bed, as we attempt wage, only to find that ends simply to soak up a semblance of a Normal My Ear Abroad: This weekVarsity takes a look at the latest in a series of hunks, sandstone aren’t meeting, must be both Student Life of late rising and – Rebecca Bailey, on life and demoralising and utterly alienating. difficult to imagine as it is – ‘Reading on location in Beijing Such an oversight of care for Week’), and being offered a cup of tea workers seems incongruous if by a supervisor is to be valued here Soapbox: FEATuREs we look to the stringent policing and now. Felix Danczak on the status of of safety standards at work, with It is important to remember, privacy in the modern-day city employers increasingly afraid even though, that the city extends much 10 to allow a member of staff up a further than college and library walls. The Ink Trail: Palaces of Culture ladder for fear of their safety (and It takes only a short cycle ride to John Kinsella interviewed on his A look at Warsaw’s abandoned people’s palace the lawsuit that would inevitably realise quite how fast the spires fall new poetry journal, ‘This Corner’ follow, to adopt a more cynical line away to flat, green countryside, dusty of thought). It is clear that employers farms, and the odd stile. Escaping www.varsity.co.uk/podcasts look to abide by the rules – and, as the city is integral to relishing our MusIc evidenced in the majority of colleges inhabitance of it: a pair of our very VarsiTV: examined – strive for nothing more. own small-scale, self-adopted rose- 14 Ultimately, then, it is the rules that tinted glasses. RAG Jailbreak: Blues Funeral urgently need to change, with the Spaces, buildings, and the streets Covering the student stampede Review: Mark Lanegan Band’s newest release ‘Blues Funeral’ current broad and careless strokes we walk along every day build up beyond the bubble of the umbrella minimum wage powerful associations for each of us. adjusted accordingly, shaded in, and This is surely acknowledged in the www.varsitv.co.uk/tv painted more delicately. It is up to inspiration taken from architecture us as students to set such a change in everything from cinema to fashion, FAshIOn in motion, and follow St John’s as we have explored in this week’s College Oxford, in pushing their issue. Team List (What’s your favourite city?) JCRs to pass the motion insisting Take a look through; most of all, we Gareth Pugh 18 that their college staff are paid the hope that Varsity’s presence in your Editors Madeleine Morley and Louise Benson [email protected] (Austin) Blurring the line between fashion and architecture living, not the minimum, wage. A city library and porter’s lodge can help Business Manager Michael Derringer must be understood as a sum of its to shape your week, and fit into this [email protected] (Salzburg) Senior Arts Editor Zoe Large parts – and the people who interact familiar, fleeting landscape. [email protected] (St Petersburg) with these components should News Editor Matt Russell not become a blur within a much [email protected] (Athens) spORT larger picture; each worker cannot Online Editor James Vincent [email protected] (York) be whitewashed out with national Science and Theatre Editor Helen Cahill averages. [email protected] (Slough) Blues Lose 24 And so, we should focus more on Perspectives Editor Emily Fitzell [email protected] (Washington) Disappointing post-Varsity loss to Durham this city that we inhabit for these Features Editor Katy Browse three short years. Already, with [email protected] (Phnom Penh) only two issues behind us, we have Music Editor Rory Williamson [email protected] (Berlin) Books Editor Charlotte Keith DOn’T FORgET [email protected] (Edinburgh) Madeleine Morley & Louise Benson Film/TV Editor India Ross Editors, Lent 2012 [email protected] (Rome) TheVarsity Crossword 23 Art Editor Holly Gupta [email protected] (Venice) Fashion Editors Claire Healy & Naomi Pallas [email protected] (Paris) Sport Editors Laura Kirk, Olivia Fitzgerald, Adam Fuller Mistaken identities the receiving end of a VERY SERIOUS Shakespeare was a serious play- [email protected] (Manchester (CITY)) Post VarsiTV Editor Vicki Perrin LITIGATION PROCESS. wright, and would never have allowed [email protected] (Reykjavik) Eggscuse me! Dear Editors, My Sincerest Regards, these juvenile indulgences to be asso- Podcasts Editor Patrick Sykes [email protected] (Ripon) I was recently outraged by the unl- eugene geidelberg ciated with his works. In annotating Head of Investigations Isabella Cookson Dear Editors, censed publication of private images of this performance with your practically [email protected] (London) Visiting my friends’ universities I myself in last issue’s VARSHITTY. In defence of Will physiological sense of humour(s), you Business & Advertising Associate Tristan Dunn have seen a lot of different Student IMAGINE my consternation upon do him an injustice. And yet, across the [email protected] (Honolulu) Design Louise Benson and Madeleine Morley Newspapers, and must say that I was opening your paper over my Friday To whom it may pun-cern, four printed photographs, you persist. Chief Illustrator Lizzie Marx particularly impressed by yours. The morning Coco-Pops, only to spit out Being a devoted thespyman, your Allow me to assure you, parapraxis does Chief Sub Editor Alice Bolland new-look paper is bright and colourful, the chocolatey milk all over your Fash- review of King Lear – printed in last not make perfect. You even skewed the Week 1 Sub Editors Jonny Barlow, but what I really wanted to congratu- ion pages. week’s issue – caught my eye. The image of act three’s remarkable sign Bryony Bates, Paige Darby, Emily Chan late you on is the fashion page. Varsity Do you REALISE how difficult it is swelling syntaxes of Cindaz Higgie’s language display to give the impression Varsity Board Dr Michael Franklin (Chair), Prof. Peter is not Vogue and it’s good to see that it for a person of my delicate complex- effervescent prose was, as ever, a delight that it was some kind of dance. Please Robinson, Dr Tim Harris, Mr Chris Wright, Mr Michael doesn’t try to be; the playfulness and ion to endure such drastic amounts to read, but before I knew it, my naïve – for decades there has been a scholo- Derringer, Ms Alice Hancock (Varsity Society President), originality of the double-page spread of cosmetic surgery EVERY SINGLE gaze had been all but molested by the larly consensus that the only Knight Ms Charlotte Wu, Mr Rhys Treharne, Mr Laurie Martin, Ms (pages 20-21) turned it from a section MORNING in order to maintain the captions that accompanied the action Fever to feature in the Bard’s canon was Louise Benson & Ms Madeleine Morley I skipped in previous newspapers to a illusion that I am in fact a petite Kiwi shots of my dear ADC-bar-brethren. syphilis. page now stuck to my notice-board. gentleman, not in reality a tall sexy It is outrageous that you seem to (Up) yours, NEWSPAPERS Varsity, Old Examination Hall, Free SUPPORT School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF. One thing though, I do think you French girl. think it appropriate to denigrate the sillyam japespeare RECYCLING Recycled paper made Tel 01223 337575. Fax 01223 up 77.4% of the raw could have provided an answer to the This is certainly not how I intended Bard’s work with the so-called ‘wit’ of material for UK 760949. Varsity is published by newspapers in 2010 Apologies and corrections NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT Varsity Publications Ltd. location of the third penguin egg (cap- my true race and gender (never mind whatever sub-sub-standard sub you RECYCLING Varsity Publications also publishes BlueSci and The Mays. tion 6, page 11) to provide an easy way my penchant for cheerleading in stock- have churning out these puns. I am ©2012 Varsity Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this out of hours of searching. ings) to be revealed to my friends and writing to bring to your attention this Apologies to James Vincent and Lizzie publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or trans- mitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical pho- Yours, family. literary discourtesy, and to tell you that, Marx, who were omited from our team tocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the sophie watson I don’t know how these pictures were like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, Dad- list, and to Amy Lonton-Rawsthorne publisher. Printed at Iliffe Print Cambridge — Winship Road, Milton, Cambridge CB24 6PP on 48gsm UPM Matt Paper. Registered as a leaked, but be aware that you and your dy’s home, and (word)playtime is most who was not creditied for her review of newspaper at the Post Office. ISSN 1758-4442 entire organisation are soon to be on definitely over. Shame last week. WEEK 2 — JANUARY 27 2012 NEWS 3

INTERVIEW

Student Sir Crispin sent down following Tickell bog-standard The former president of the Royal row An unnamed student from Emma Geographical Society and has been sent down after being caught urinating in a toilet by prominent environmentalist talks porters. Against all natural instincts to Felix Nugee about his past, of comfort and convenience, the student left his room at and visions for the future approximately two in the morning.  e trek two fl oors down to relieve himself was made despite the completely functional sink ormer diplomat and now explains, was that he used to have all merely metres away from his bed. a leading authority on cli- fi ve members at his house for meetings; Declining to comment, the student mate change: Sir Crispin he believes it certainly helped having a has since returned to his home in cut an authoritative fi gure friendly relationship with his opposite Somerset and deleted his Facebook upon fi rst sight of him at the numbers. due to intensive bullying. Peterhouse Politics Society. Throughout, Sir Crispin stresses  e attendant porter told Varsity After his talk “ inking Diff erently: the need for academics from diff er- “It’s very unusual to hear the sound FOut of the Box and into the Future”, we ent disciplines to work together in of tinkles at that time of night. It’s sit down to talk. order to combat the multiple crises sometimes the European students, Having been one of Britain’s top we currently face, both economic and Sir Crispin Tickell was ahead of his time on the environment but that’s a culture thing.  e young diplomats for many years, his career environmental. lad even washed his hands after, like changed direction signifi cantly in the of achieving these changes, stressing is driving the world in an alarmingly that made it alright or something.” mid 1970s, something he describes as ‘Out of date economics that “Governments have to somehow wrong direction”. He points out that  e Dean of the college has “a product of chance, because I had a understand these changes are not only there is no such thing as a true free promised to launch an investigation sabbatical year off at Harvard in the should be recognised for the good of the planet but for the market, that we need to determine the amid fears that the practice may mid 1970s and contrary to the advice I good of themselves.” character of regulation and somehow be more widespread than anyone was given at the time, I focused on the as a dangerous mental  e attitude of “Why should Britain take these externalities into account. would like to admit.  e Guardian’s relationship between climate change condition’ damage itself for the sake of the world?”, Illustrating these points he asked “Comment is Free” pleaded wider and politics. I was able to read all the as shown in a recent speech by George “how do we value uncut rainforest?” socio-economic understanding of literature in something like 3 months Osbourne, is labelled deplorable and Sir He envisages a future where instead of the incident, while  e Daily Mail whereas now it would take me 30 years.” “In an ideal world, you’d make an Crispin calls for one of the larger coun- focusing purely on GDP, we measure died of a hissy fi t. His 1977 book Climate Change and arrangement whereby people very tries to take leadership of the issue. health, wealth and happiness. Angus Hackdonald World Aff airs was incredibly infl uential, rapidly change their energy policies. Sir Crispin also emphasises the need As we draw to a close, I ask him and led to him advising successive Brit- But that means thinking again about for a New Economics: “I welcome the what he feels about the prospects of ish governments, including  atcher’s. economics and measuring things dif- demonstrations against market capi- the changes he outlines actually being He muses “I think my biggest ferently and putting your priorities in talism at present; I’ve walked amongst implemented in order to stop what he Varsity May Ball achievement has been to help people diff erent places. If you did that you may those people at St Paul’s and I don’t describes as climate destabilisation. understand the problems of climate be able to stay or delay some of these think they know what they want but “Optimism of the intellect and pes- change”, despite a spell as Britain’s rep- things happening and get it under con- much of the resentment about bank- simism of the will”, he replies, but he guide 2012 is resentative on the UN Security council. trol.  ere are one or two things where ers giving themselves huge bonuses is carries on with cautious hope, stress- He boasts that during his time there we are past the tipping point though; part of the unease about the system as ing that not only British political parties now online “I never once used my veto”- no mean such as sea level rise.” a whole.” are aware of the issue, but also those in feat, considering that he was present He does accept that multilateral trea- He expands on this topic: “Out of France and Germany.  e question is Keep checking the website for up- during the breakup of the Soviet Union ties, such as Kyoto or Copenhagen, do date economics should be recognised now when, not if; – hopefully before a dates on launches, themes and tickets and the fi rst Gulf War.  e secret, he not necessarily provide the best way as a dangerous mental condition which tipping point.

Continued from page 1 wage, Magdalene 30 and was said that this was equiv- of Oxford. However, many of the Churchill 13. alent to 24 full-time staff However, the campaign staff paid under the living Many colleges were vague since most of these employ- in Cambridge is proving to wage are on permanent con- about the number of staff ees were part-time. be slow moving. Although tracts. Among them, Selwyn paid less than the living These are also absolute Emma’s JCR passed a motion employs 28 permanent staff wage; though Downing said fi gures and therefore more in support of the cam- who are paid below the living 42 employees were on less, it likely to be skewed against paign last term, as yet many larger colleges, such as JCRs are still refusing to Homerton. give formal support to the Looking for work Universities across campaign. the country are already One positive move has this summer? beginning to make the com- come from Peterhouse mitment to living wage. In where 30 members of staff 2010 UCL agreed to pay were paid below the living University of Cambridge International living wage for all their staff wage. From 1st August this Summer Schools can offer 4-7 weeks after initially making media year, the college’s standard headlines for refusing to. pay per hour will increase to work for Cambridge undergraduate  ey are now one of nine £7.24 from the current level and graduate students. London universities who of £7.10, and therefore above committed to the move. the threshold. £250 per week plus college Last week it was Yet, despite this, many announced that St John’s colleges do not seem to be accommodation. College in Oxford had agreed following suit. When con- to pay their staff the living tacted, Selwyn stated that wage after the college’s JCR there was only a 1% increase For details call network: 60850 had passed a motion to lobby in the last pay round in addi- or 01223 760850 the college to pay the rate tion to some of the ‘perks’ in Michaelmas. The news mentioned earlier, while or email: [email protected] comes amid a similar cam- many colleges have so far paign for the living wage to failed to respond to enqui- Selwyn College: One of the worst offenders for paying living wage be paid across the University ries at all.

Varsity AD 2012.pdf 1 04/01/2012 12:59:54 4 NeWS jaNuary 27 2012 — week 2

IdeaSpace: Cambridge’s new enterprise initiative

CambrIdge A new enterprise initiative Cultivating the wrong kind of affinity? in Cambridge aims to further assist by Helen Charman Although the Academy is a state school start-up companies in the region. Deputy News eDitor and prides itself on taking students of IdeaSpace, which is based on the all backgrounds and abilities, it is inde- University of Cambridge’s West The Affinity project, which had its offi- pendently run, meaning its funding is Campus, will offer new firms business cial launch on Tuesday night in Cindies, not received in the same way as state mentoring and access to 70,000 square is a student-run project endorsed by the school. feet of laboratory space at Barbraham Cambridge Union Society that terms The fact that the school is not affiliated Research Campus. itself “education helping education”: it to a Local Education Authority means It is hoped that the initiative will aims to provide pastoral and financial the company that runs it, in this case mean that ideaSpace can extend its assistance to a comprehensive school the Harris Federation, can decide how reach to encompass businesses in the in Croydon that was affected by this much funding and support the school biotechnology sector. summer’s riots and the ongoing gov- receives. Dr Belinda Clarke, Director of ernment cuts to education. The Academy is one of 13 in the External Relations at ideaSpace said, country run by the Harris Federation, “Many companies don’t need full time with Lord Harris of Peckham – the access to lab facilities but want to chairman and chief executive of Car- access it on an ‘as needed’ basis”. petright – the main sponsor of the scheme. The Harris Federation invests ‘CO2morrow’: Climate worth of facilities have been provided in educational opportunites in London, for£170m academies by the Harris Federation and has so far overseen an investment change artwork comes of approximately £170 million in build- The Harris Academy Purley is sponsored by Carpetright CEO, Lord Harris of Peckham ings and facilities for the academies. to Cambridge The project is linked with the Harris Certainly the mentoring side of the Academy Purley, and aims to give the week, aiming to help the pupils not just well-intentioned, questions have been project and its focus on helping with CambrIdge A striking, 28 foot environ- school the financial resources to help with academia but also any personal or raised about the choice of school for the the education of children living in mental sculpture named ‘CO2morrow’ with the purchase of equipment and future goals they have. The project will project to support: several figures from disadvantaged parts of London are is soon to be installed at the entrance facilities that the school has asked for in be holding various events, but the main the educational community and mem- admirable. However, it seems perhaps to Cambridge University Botanic a wish list given to the project. way it plans to raise money is through bers of the university have expressed an odd target for a fund-raising initia- Garden. The project has also started a “Skype- a fortnightly lottery, where tickets will surprise at the choice of the Harris tive, bearing in mind the number of The city council obtained this buddy mentorship” scheme, where cost £1 and the prizes on offer will vary Academy Purely as the school that the struggling comprehensive state schools unusual piece of art, designed and student volunteers talk with a pupil from vouchers to free meals. Affinity Project have chosen to focus that do not have the financial support of created by Marcos Lutyens and Ales- from the school for an hour once a Although the project is undeniably on. a company like the Harris Federation. sandro Marianantoni, through a Sustainable City grant. After initially being displayed on the facade of the Royal Academy, London and Seaton Delaval Hall, Northum- berland, the sculpture continues its Shift in CUSU relations A charitable affair at journey to Cambridge to increase Colleges voting on their affiliation with Cusu awareness of climate change. Vermeer exhibition the Union Society by Varsity News by Varsity News ventures such as Alora, a not-for-profit record-breaking success organisation set up by students. Alora A referendum on Robinson’s affiliation Friday 27th January sees the first ever creates bespoke May Ball dresses and CambrIdge A staggering 131,416 people with Cambridge University Students’ charity fair to be held at the Cambridge will be making an appearance at the fair. packed into The Fitzwilliam Museum’s Union (CUSU) will take place today Union. The fair, which will be held on The fair will also involve a food work- three-month Vermeer exhibition. after 55 Robinson students signed a the Union premises at 9A Bridge Street shop from Cambridge FoodCycle, a Impressively, this is almost half the petition forcing the vote. will be open to both members and non- comedy sketch representing Cambridge number of visitors the museum usually Ewan McGregor, the previous chair members, taking place as it does during Mental Wealth performed by Sidney opens its doors to in an entire year. of Robinson College Students’ Asso- the traditional Union open period at the Sussex students and a talk from Tom Such was the demand to see ‘Ver- ciation (RCSA), started the petition at beginning of term. Latchford about building viable careers meer’s Women: Secrets and Silence’ the end of last term. The fair is open from 6pm to 10pm in the not-for-profit sector. that opening hours had to be extended He believes the relationship is not and will see contributions from twelve Latchford is a leading expert in the in the last few weeks. Those who vis- financially beneficial, saying: “It seems charities including Amnesty Interna- field, and CEO of RasingIT, an organi- ited the exhibition could expect to interesting that out of a budget of half tional, Cambridge Mental Wealth – a sation that enables charities to improve queue for up to 90 minutes for their a million, CUSU only spend £5,000- group of Cambridge students devoted their productivity by improving IT chance to see the masterpieces. 6,000 on access activities per year. This to promoting wellbeing on campus – facilities, aiming to change the way that Director of the Fitzwilliam is reduced to £750 if you take away and Campus Children’s Holidays – a charities are often seen to lag behind Museum Dr Timothy Potts said he what they make in revenues, which Cambridge-based charity dedicated to other industries in benefiting from lead- was “delighted” with the exhibition’s seems pitiful given that we pay them providing holidays for disadvantaged ing edge technology. “unprecedented success”. £2,500 every year.” children from inner-city Liverpool. The Union are hoping for a healthy The current executive committee of The fair is not only the first charity fair turnout at the fair, particularly due to the Cambridge research the RCSA have already voted to not put on by the Cambridge Union Soci- trailblazing nature of the event, offer- disaffiliate from CUSU. ety but the first event of its kind to be ing free food and what the facebook leads prominent figures Gerard Tully, president of CUSU, Robinson’s referendum marks a changing held in Cambridge. It taps into a philan- event describes as “delicious cocktails” said that McGregor’s claim that it is attitude in the relationship between thropic trend currently appearing in the to encourage a more charitable mindset to call for alternative just £750 is “factually untrue”, point- colleges and CUSU university, as shown by the emergence of amongst the attendees. Leveson Inquiry ing out that there will be £22,000 for access next year. states that they are automatically affili- UNITed KINgdOm Leading human rights CUSU turned out in force for the ated. The proposed change is to force brIef INTerVIeW WITh campaigners and lawyers, journalists open meeting at Robinson regarding a referendum to be held every year Michael Winner and prominent public figures have the potential disaffiliation with four Which of your films are possible in order to recoup their very formed the group ‘The Alternative sabbatical officers, among others, ‘We essentially have a you proudest of? Leveson Inquiry’ to highlight the fact turning up. If Robinson do vote to substantial costs. That does not mean that the Leveson Inquiry has failed to disaffiliate, they would become the service relationship with Probably a movie I made in Cambridge they cannot be artistic. But so many deal sufficiently with the issue of anti- second college to do so after Corpus in 1967 called I’ll Never Forget movies seem to be made as “arty farty Islam media coverage. Christi paved the way in 2010. CUSU, and have never What’s’isname. It starred my all time films” to delight people in Hampstead, Recent research that was undertaken 71% of Corpus’ undergraduates and really assessed whether hero Orson Welles together with Oliver fellow so called ‘intellectuals’. A popular by University of Cambridge found that 86% of their postgraduates had voted Reed and other notables. It was very film can still say something, can still “a wider set of representations of Islam in favour after citing disillusionment CUSU give us value for ahead of its time in dealing with the have considerable artistic merit, but if would signify a welcome change to with the welfare support they had despoliation of the planet in a very it is made purely for art the chances are reporting practices. Muslims deserve a received. money’ humorous way and in someone (Oliver it will attract far few people. That is not better press than they have been given At Robinson the affiliation fees were Reed) who wished to opt out of the rat to say some great movies which could in the past decade”. discussed; it costs £6.70 per under- and within the first two weeks of term, race and chopped his desk up with an be called artistic are not worthwhile. The group are calling for a more graduate student for affiliation with which would reaffirm their affiliation axe at the start of the movie. Citizen Kane was one of the greatest pro-active response to the increas- CUSU.Pembroke are also reconsider- with CUSU. A similar set-up is already movies of all time. It never made a profit. You’ve been quoted as saying, “If you Indeed, it made a substantial loss! ingly frequent findings of this kind in ing the nature of their affiliation with in place at other colleges. want art, don’t mess about with movies. research undertaken into the issue, CUSU with a referendum of their own Though not as direct a threat to their buy a Picasso”. do you think l Michael Winner, ex-Editor of Varsity, suggesting that improvements need coming up soon. affiliation with CUSU, with the move this still applies today? to be made to the ethical standards of Unlike Robinson, the referendum coinciding with Robinson’s referen- will be talking at the Union on reporting in the UK media. does not concern complete disaffili- dum, Pembroke’s own vote signals Movies are made as entertainment, Tuesday, 31st. See next week’s issue ation, but rather a change to a clause a drastically shifting relationship they have to attract the largest audience for our full interview. in their constitution which currently between students and CUSU. Massive Camera & Up to Camcorder Clearance t H s u la rry ks OFF whilst stoc 30%Light, compact Cyber-shot Save camera with simple operation Slim, light, easy to use • 12.1 megapixels • 4x optical zoom camcorder with very high £30 • 6.7cm LCD power zoom • Sweep Panorama • iAUTO • Record on memory card • Carl Zeiss 60x optical zoom • 70x extended zoom £ .99 • 7.5cm LCD Sony DSC-W510 Save • iAUTO Also available in Silver Colour Was £89.9959 Sony DCR-SX45EB High performance £50 Cybershot with powerful Save zoom, Full HD & GPS £ .99 • 16.2 megapixels • Exmor R CMOS • 10x Zoom Was £229.99 £80 • 7.5cm LCD 179 • Sweep Panorama £ .99 Full HD Flash Memory Sony DSC-HX7VB Camcorder. 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16 Lyon Yard Shopping Centre CAMBRIDGE. CB2 3NA Tel: 01223 351135 http://cambridge.sony.co.uk ‘Sony’,’make.believe’,’Sony Centre’, and their logos are registered trademarks of Sony Corporation. All pictures are for illustration only. Offer valid only whilst stocks last. Prices correct at time of going to press. E & O.E. Operated by Shasonic Centres Ltd. 6 InVestIGAtIon JAnUARy 27 2012 — wEEk 2 The UL: an insider’s guide Described by Chamberlain as “that magnificent erection”, Isabella Cookson and George Austin-Cliff explore the lesser-known passages of the University Library for a glimpse into one of the biggest academic organs in the world

photos BY GeorGe AUstin-CLiff he UL: the building that welcomes over 1,100 of tHe LIbrArIAn us every day and expands below the surface at a shelf rate of 3km per year. The longest serving member of staff, It reduced our fresher John Reynolds, has been working selves to tears when we contemplated at the UL for nearly 47 years and is Tthe collective IQ of the people sharing currently Head of the Entrance Hall. our desk. It frustrates us daily during the hot but vain pursuit for a book on How has the UL changed since you the desolate sixth floor of the North begun working here in 1965? Front – or was it Wing? While so many When I started, we still had the of us feel we know this place inside out, manual system. Undergraduates Varsity’s intimate tour reveals a new had to get borrowing forms signed world unseen by the average Cam- by their tutors. If they were overdue, bridge undergraduate. Have you ever we used to phone the tutors up wondered what happens to the book because they were, in theory, you just gave back? Or even who works responsible for the fines. in those many rooms where no student treads? What actually goes on in that Any particularly amusing moments? tower? I remember one morning I was at It’s right up to the 17th floor where the desk when a young chap came Vanessa Lacey, Head of the Tower Proj- in without his library card or any ect, revels in the musty smell of 19th ID. When I asked for written proof century ‘trash’, which she has been of his name he replied, “Well, it’s inhaling daily for the last few years. on my underpants” and started Trash? The recently acquired Peter Clockwise from top left: Delicate work: repairing manuscripts; Books to be shelved; Book binding workshop. Below: Cover of the undoing his trousers! André autobiography is perhaps the Magnetic Corsets catalogue modern equivalent of the texts that What’s the social scene suddenly started flooding into the UL’s ‘All sorts of texts started of requests launched by stu- a conservator, shows us the like among the staff? former buildings, after it first became a dents. ‘Seventeen minutes is intricate work of repairing It’s great. We have the Christmas legal deposit library in the early 1800s. flooding in when we our average fetching time. old manuscripts, a rare but social, a grand summer quiz and ‘You can imagine the sort of chaos there Pretty good compared to essential skill when faced with there’s a choir – we sing carols in was. The students were all sitting there became a legal deposit other legal deposit librar- the Taylor-Schechter Genizah the entrance hall at Christmas. reading their Greek and Theology, and library. You can imagine ies: the British Library has Collection that she is cur- There are even football teams who suddenly they’re getting Little Martha’s deposits in Yorkshire, where rently working on. Its 190,000 play against each other for the glory Book of Geography and all these chil- the chaos‘ books are located by robots manuscript fragments, mainly of the trophy, the ‘Copyright Cup’. dren’s books that nobody really knew and sent down to London in Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic and what to do with. So when we moved Students have mythologised the light by lorry. Even the Bodle- Arabic, are an unparalleled You are retiring this year: here in the 1930s, they dumped them on the top floor which stays on after ian can take up to three resource for the study of Jewish what will you miss most? all up in the tower.’ What of the explicit nightfall, maintaining that it illumi- days. There are stories of history in the Middle Ages. The people – both the staff and the images rumoured to be lurking some- nates the smutty literature over which Oxford professors driving to Cam- The work of the industrious readers. It really has always been where among these dusty tomes? ‘Well, ageing professors stoop into the early bridge to read books here because we’re bookbinders happens next door. Tools a wonderful place to work over all so far we’ve managed to unearth a few morning. Maintenance denies its exis- so much quicker. and noisy machines fill the room as these years. racy catalogues of electric and magnetic tence. Suspicious. Downstairs, we’ve When you hand in your book to the they sew and chop, cover and emboss corsets made by a certain Mr. Harness. managed to steal a few precious min- desk, it normally takes a maximum of titles onto the books. Jim Bloxam, Could be a sex toy, or possibly a slim- utes of Larissa Erzinclioglu’s time, one two days to be digested through the senior Book Conservator, explains that Delve into the manuscripts room and ming aid. Who knows?’ of the library’s book fetchers. Eight to system and put back on the shelves: with the advent of online material, the request to see the famous Gutenberg A glimmer of hope still remains, ten fetchers are on duty at any moment, quite a feat considering that an aver- skills in this room are becoming rare Bible. Or even check out one of the though, for Cambridge’s best-loved with extra conscripts over exam term age of 821 loans are made each day. indeed. He talks also of the difficulties other numerous UL blogs on the library rumour; a glimmer – or a desk lamp. to cope with the increased onslaught Manned by humans alone, with all its that are prone to arise when sharing website (the tower project blog is quite deposits stored on site, faster than any- their resources with other academic a treat).Throw away your academic where else – the UL is truly the crème institutions. Shipping their delicate insecurities and remember that while LIttLe-knoWn UL fACts de la crème. material to other countries “can be a bit you are here you are one of the few And, as we discover as the afternoon of a nightmare”– especially consider- people in Europe to have access l The building opened in 1934, and l The Rare Books department goes on, there’s more to the University ing the recent terrorism scares.The UL to so many priceless treasures, was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott includes the Gutenberg Bible, Library - even more than its role as might seem like a rigid, static building such a vast array of literature, who also designed the Tate Modern, produced by Mainz around the grand site of desperate attempts to – but this is a place of movement and and so much trash. From the Battersea Power Station and the old- 1455 by Johann Gutenberg come up with a sexy dissertation title, transition, of international exchange sublime to the ridiculous: style red phone boxes or to grasp the intricacies of 18th cen- and flux. People come from all over Cambridge University l There are 355,000 registered tury economic policies. The UL also the world to use the library that Library welcomes l In total there are around 8 million users of the library houses some of the best craftsmanship we casually stroll to after lunch. us all. books in library, around a quarter in the country, and is one of the very That being said, there are their of which are on open shelves. This l About 33,000 serial titles are few places where book conservation loyal members: Professor makes the UL the largest open-access deposited, representing over is carried out in the UK. Lucy Cheng, MacCaffery, now in his early library in Europe 100,000 issues a year nineties, can still be seen industriously working away l The oldest items in the library’s l There are 350 members of in the Reading Room most collections are Chinese oracle staff, including 100 working days of the week. bones dating back from the 13th on research projects with outside Next time you visit the Century BC funding library, then, forget for a moment about your weekly l The main Reading Room houses l In 2011 there were 205,281 essay, cast aside the tempt- around 17,000 titles loans (excluding staff and reader ing Tea Room, and explore renewals). Assuming 250 working its majestic realms a little l Around 85,000 monographs are days, this gives an average of further. Visit the exhibi- currently received under legal deposit 821 loans per day tion centre to view some each year of those treasures l The Book fetchers fetch a that lie hidden l The library contains over 160km total of around 1,000 books in its depths. of shelving per week

Browsing the 160km of shelves in the UL Lizzie MArx WEEK 2 — JANUARY 27 2012 SCIENCE 7

Rock JamesNature’s Elderfi eld shows useager why we’re not engineersthe only of the ones with urban-style living tendancies Week SANDSTONE t is often said that humans are stunning 850m long.  is puts the Great About 2.4 billion years ago early diff erent from other organisms Pyramid of Giza to shame. Despite cyanobacteria (also known as blue- Upon receiving this week’s rock, Kiki cried because we change the world being one of our fi nest and most revered green algae) caused the Great ‘That’s not a chunk, that’s a bloody slab’ – around us rather than adapt to it. examples of building, it is a meagre Oxygenation Event. Atmospheric and she was right. This sandstone continues  at buildings and cities allow us 145m (roughly 85 times the height of a oxygen levels went from basically nil to last week’s sedimentary theme, though to live sustainably and comfortably at a human) – and we only managed one of a concentration greater than what it is unlike limestone, this week’s rock is Imuch greater population density than those whilst there are tens of thousands currently. decidedly clastic. This means the rock otherwise possible shows this nicely. of termite mounds across the world.  ey brought this about by a little is composed of minerals and rock However, there are cases of organisms Perhaps even more impressive is process called photosynthesis. Pho- fragments that were transported by with this capability to modify their sur- the fact that termite mounds can, in tosynthesis is generally considered moving fl uids, such as rivers. Its roundings throughout nature. some African species, extend above the a “good thing” these days as 99.9% of porosity means it plays a vital Easy examples are the construction ground to 9m (roughly 1500 times the ecosystems rely on it and it does a good role in the formation of aquifers. beaver dams and termite mounds. You length of a worker termite) not count- job of off setting our carbon emissions. The ancient settlement of Petra might consider these to be unimpressive ing the extensive nest underground. Back then, however, it was catastrophic is carved entirely of sandstone. compared to our feats of engineering, Termite mounds also can maintain and caused one the biggest extinction Closer to home, the morose and but you should think again. temperatures within a range of one events in the history of Earth. It also rainy northern town of Stockport is  e largest known beaver dam is degree Celsius over the entire day and produced hundreds of new mineral built upon sandstone. It’s a shame they found in Wood Buff alo National Park keep the air/gas balance suitable for life types and converted the high propor- settled on such a sturdy rock, as the world in Alberta, Canada and measures a with ventilation. tion of methane in the atmosphere into would be a better place if the entire town and  ose examples, however, are con- carbon dioxide, causing one of the lon- its inhabitants were swallowed up in some freak FAQS fi ned to animals, which really only make gest Ice Ages. geological disaster. Joseph White up a very small portion of the world’s Mankind manages some pretty spec- If beavers build such great dams, biodiversity. For small-scale building tacular, and sometimes spectacularly why don’t we just employ them one can look at the single-celled amoe- stupid, things – but to avoid species- instead of those expensive, bozoa of the genus Diffl ugia which build wide arrogance it’s important to notice annoying enginneers? intricate and beautiful house-like shells that we are not alone in this. Plus, Diffi cult question. I don’t think I can out of sand for themselves. nature beats us in that it never evolved answer that one. Microscopic organisms even beat to accomodate a Cindies. us to bringing about climate change Could I live in a termite mound? and what’s more, they did it on a much TAKE FIVE Depends how fussy you are about bigger scale, though maybe not quite internal design. as rapidly. Since the Industrial Revolu- If microorganisms caused tion we have managed to increase the climate change, why didn’t carbon dioxide levels in the atmo- they stop it, like we are? sphere by about 35% to the current They just musn’t feel guilt. level of 390ppm. Best gadgets for city living Would you advise getting a pet beaver? WiFi Bathroom Scales Well, given that they such profi cient Fast We all want to monitor our weight builders I certainly would. I’m sure it worker: all the time. What better way to would be easy to convince them to the largest make sure you always feel guilty do odd DIY jobs around the house. known about it than bathroom scales that beaver sync to your iPhone? Perfect. What would I feed my beaver? dam They’re herbivores, so any plant. measures Lumie Bodyclock Active 250 a stunning A digital clock that

850m long LIZZIE MARX simulates sunrise in your bedroom. We may not wish to actually rise with the sun but “human beings haven’t evolved to spring NOT-SCI: Flu-fighting fraud awake at the sound of a digital Nicola Love asks if the herbal product Echinacea will beep”. The best of both worlds. actually cure your fever Desktop Coffee Maker City living is busy, and we don’t t’s that time of year again. The at the fi rst sign of a cold can signifi - all have time to leave our desks to my Uni ID card is. And what about dreaded fl u season is back, and, cantly reduce the severity of symptoms go and grab a coffee. This handy by James Vincent the history of these places? Returning although the common cold is pretty and that taking it before you catch a machine even comes with two mugs Online Editor to my room I notice little changes – minor, we all wish for a magic pill cold may prevent you from getting ill in - so you don’t even have to go buy clothes on the fl oor or festering mugs Ito help us feel better. the fi rst place. those. – but websites don’t show change Cold cure quackery is almost as On the other hand, recent studies (except content) and they never show common as the viruses themselves but have shown that taking Echinacea has a past, only their present. despite the widespread use of alterna- no benefi t whatsoever. In fact, some Star-Theatre Planetarium My internet went out the other day. I In 1992 the anthropologist Marc tive therapies, little scientifi c evidence trials show it also frequently has side There’s a world beyond the froze for a second then sank my head Augé invented the term ‘non-place’ exists to show how these treatments eff ects, just what you want when you towering buildings of the city, but into my hands, rubbed my temples, that perfectly describes these work, or whether they’re safe to use. already feel ill. why bother going to a place without light pollution to see the stars? This and tried to remember all the funny odd, ephemeral spaces. Although In the UK one packet of the most Also, it is little use as a preventative handy gadget simulates all the pictures of cats I could.  e shakes Augé was referring to the likes of method, unless you can predict when wonders of the night sky at the click eased off but I was left with a feeling motorways, supermarkets, or airport you’re likely to catch a cold, as the Euro- of the button. of stalled arrival. Frown. What now? terminals, his description fi ts the pean Medicines agency states that it’s Come home – dump bag – internet: internet perfectly. Non-places are only safe to use for a maximum of 10 it’s a routine years in the making, devoted to “solitary individuality... days. Voodoo Knife Block rooted in the little roster of websites the temporal”, grant anonymity via Number of formulations of  e problem with alternative med- Maybe knife crime wouldn’t be I visit daily: they make a sort of “contracts”, and guide unknown 800Echinacea available icines is that they’re not regulated as such a problem in the metropolis virtual home-from-home – familiar masses via “instructions for use”. tightly as drugs, so it’s hard to know if all those angry and oddly soothing. But with this  ey’re also bleak as hell. So, I what you’re getting – and as safety murderers had one of unexpected break in the schedule wonder, is the internet any diff erent? popular ‘fl u-fi ghting’ herbal product, information is not mandatory, if it’s safe these. Who wouldn’t I began to wonder what I’d been Augé says that non-places are Echinacea, is bought every minute to take.So is Echinacea a miracle cure want to put their knife making a home out of. often defi ned by their function (eg, during the winter months, amounting or just a placebo?  e jury is still out. away with this guy to  e internet, of course, doesn’t commerce or transport) but what’s to an annual spend of around £30 mil- Echinacea supplements are unlikely hold it? Incentivising really exist.  ere’s no physical reality the internet’s ‘purpose’? lion. However, scientifi c research on to cause you harm, but with an average criminals to store to these sites I fi nd homely.  ey’re For me, I’d say it was the eff ectiveness of Echinacea is incon- price of £7.50 you might be better off their weapons rather not run for me but for some nameless communication – whether local or clusive, with many studies showing saving your money, because chances are than use them would and faceless proto-user. And though global – via blogs or news sites. Put that Echinacea works no better than a they won’t do you much good either. surely put stabbings I might make profi les or log-ins for in those terms, coming home to a placebo. to an end. sites, those aren’t ‘me’ anymore than conversation isn’t so bad. Supporters of the immune-system Not-Sci is produced by BlueSci, the Cambridge Helen Cahill University science magazine from Varsity stimulator claim that taking Echinacea 8 PERSPECTIVES JANUARY 27 2012 — WEEK 2

“All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim” Charles Morley e voice of the megacity and the architecture of UN statistics show that almost 180,000 people move into cities every day- an estimated 2 people a second. As urbanisationwords thrives in this age of the megacity, it is not only the way we live that is changing, but the way we defi ne ourselves

POOYA SAREH huge shift in is it still possible to identify a marginalisation serve to demonstrate global demo- quirk, an eccentricity which the reality of life on the urban peripher- graphics now makes that place particular ies of the modern city. sees a world in or individual and character- In a rather negative sense, then, we rural decline, ises its citizens? Something can see that the city and its citizens are the global which unites its inhabitants, also defi ned by the physical urban land- landscape today punctuated by who, mostly migrants, have scape which they inhabit. Acity after city and the rise of the their origins and histories in Take another much more trivial megalopolis. With 1.5 billion people other places? Or is each inhabitant example – the apparently ominous (22% of the world’s population) living in a city of millions rendered faceless infrastructure of London’s public in over 600 cities, compared with only and unidentifi able? Perhaps Rousseau transport. It practically conditions any 3% of the population in 1800, and with was right: “Cities are the abyss of the outsider into a state of tense, mute these cities generating around 60% of human species”. silence as they emulate the averted global GDP, the shift represents not only  e sheer size of a megacity does gazes of the city’s hardwired commut- vast economic and social changes across undeniably make the task of ascribing ers. A Londoner wouldn’t bat an eyelid the world, but poses challenging ques- an identity challenging, yet I contest (literally, wouldn’t bat an eyelid), yet tions to us about the nature of collective that every city irrefutably has its own in the eyes of a tourist or a visitor, an living and cultural identity today. voice, its own idiosyncrasies and its apparent austerity seems pervasive and Every city has its own voice. We have own “feel”.  is could be said to arise infectious. ideas and assumptions about places from two main features: firstly, the However, urban conditioning is not which we have never even visited. And architectural landscape and infrastruc- always perceived as a negative thing. as a traveller or tourist, one wholly ture, and secondly, the architecture of Far from it. On a much greater scale, expects upon arrival in a diff erent city the urban landscape and its redevelop- to hear this strange new voice resonat- ‘We have regressed from ment has had the power to alter and ing in synchrony from its populace. We transform entire cultures.  e complete pitch up, guide books in hand, on the the days of Babel’ redesign of Paris, for instance, under prowl for the distinctive sounds and Louis-Napoleon both created and facil- stories of a new, untrodden land. the language of that place. itated the boulevard-based culture of Whether we seek the dulcet tones According to Steven Fry’s recent the ‘fl âneur’ which is an iconic associa- of a welcoming Dubliner, armed with episode of ‘Fry’s Planet Word’, each lan- tion with the French capital today. charm and a pint of the black stuff , guage that we come into contact with is  us, it is defi nitely possible to char- the elegantly restrained riposte of a a symbol of a shared cultural identity. acterise the megacity. Its citizens are haughty, cigarette-waving Parisian or More than 6000 languages pervade our more than just a cog in the merciless the laid-back chat of a beach-bound planet, each an encapsulation and an mechanism of the ‘concrete jungle’. But San Diego “dude”, we are demonstrating emblem of a people’s history, and per- the international megacity and the of art and culture allow a city’s person- this characterisation encompasses the an awareness of this process of defi - haps more importantly, of an identity, prevalence of Globish (global Eng- ality to thrive despite the pressures of city’s confl icting identities and develop- nition-by-dwelling, ascribing certain a personality; they provide as much a lish), perhaps in some respects we have conforming to the global mould. ments as much as any sense of overall characteristics to people based on the form of expression as a form of cultural regressed from the days of Babel, the Unfortunately, the megacity does not, cohesion. As a result, this multifarious place where they live. impression. scattering of languages and the cre- however, come without its drawbacks; question of identity exposes the truth In today’s world, the rise of the mega- Fry even traces senses of humour ation of diversity in the human race to not every defi ning characteristic is a behind the mask of touristic expecta- city is indeed rapidly altering the global back through old languages such as a shrunken world in a state of global, good one. What we are often confronted tions of a stereotypical, straight-forward demographic. Around one in twenty- Yiddish, and demonstrates that words, soulless unity. with in the megacity is a fractured, city identity. fi ve people live in what is classed as a language, dialects and accents shape Fortunately, this is only half the fragmented populus, shaped as much Even megacities, it would seem, have megacity.  ere are currently 23 mega- us, and consequentially our munici- story, as we need only look beyond the by diff erence and disparity as by their their own individual architecture; the cities with populations over 10 million, palities as much as the buildings which commercial, business world of mega- shared urban identity. A megalopolis worlds of each inhabitant are present including Mexico City, Tokyo, Dehli, surround us. In short, we inhabit a lan- lopolitics for reassurance that these such as Mexico City epitomises these both in a skyline of fears, anticipations, London and Paris, and this number is guage as truthfully as we inhabit our idiosyncrasies are still prevalent. Speci- issues, and through fi lms such as sur- aspirations and expectations, and in the set to rise to 36 by the year 2025. city dwellings. fi cities in urban language, accent and realist Buñuel’s ‘Los Olvidados’, artistic verbal and artistic culture that perme- In such a colossal urban environment, However, thanks to globalisation, lexicon and their portrayal in the world depictions of violence, mobocracy and ates the city’s streets. Emily Fitzell Whatever You Say THE ONLY LIMIT TO FEMALE SUCCESS IS FEMALE AMBITION

omen can’t vote,” said the fi ctional man in the pub. “Yes s a mother, I would fi nd the notion that female ambition is they can,” I countered. “Okay, but they can’t have jobs.” the only limit to female success to be risible, were it not so “Yes they can,” I again riposted. “Okay well, yes, they off ensive. We have heard it said often that society is not, can be secretaries and nurses,” he said in a way that was metaphorically speaking, ‘colourblind.’ Are we to believe both sexist and patronising to two professions. “Actually, they do all that, in spite of this, society is sex-blind? (Tee-hee.) Wkinds of jobs nowadays,” I sighed at the imaginary sexist, “but, seri- ACan we seriously entertain the view that women are only being ously, name one thing that men do better than women?” He paused: held back in life by their lack of desire for success? Of course not. ALI LEWIS “Sports! Name a sport women can play that men can’t.” I thought Women are also being held back by the fact that they are less for a long moment, and then went in for the kill: “Women’s football”. good at things, a point to which many of the 19th cen- “But, but... men can’t play women’s football.” , “Precisely.” In light of tury minor aristocrats who formed my focus group will this defeat the apocryphal chauvinist moved onto safer ground: attest. “Women can’t wee standing up”. “But Ahir,” you ask, “is it not the case that you can’t AHIR SHAH “So?” I said, “How does that in any way hold women think of anything meaningful you can do that a woman back?”, “Well, let me tell you,” said the chimerical intran- couldn’t do just as well? Furthermore, isn’t it true that sigent, improvising wildly, “female politicians have to even if this hypothetical woman were doing something plan their campaign routes around public toilets, whilst that you can do either better or worse than you can do their male counter-parts are free to piss gaily against it, this has less to do with the fact that she is a woman arbitrarily-chosen shrubbery and brickwork, thus and more to do with the fact that she is a diff erent rendering...” , “SHE WEE!” interrupted an imaginary, person? And, over and above any other point, is it not screaming dullard. “Yes, yes, she wee, women do wee, well the case that many people considering this topic of done,” we replied patiently, approaching with the strait jacket debate will have in their minds a conception of suc- reserved in my dreams for committers of grammatical sins. “No!” cess centred on the world of business, with a focus he cried, “SheWee™!” , “Oh!” we said, loosening the bonds of the on high-powered and -salaried jobs, that doesn’t outmoded mental health apparatus, “why didn’t you say so? I necessarily appeal to everyone - male or female - as completely forgot about SheWee™!” , “Excuse me, for a moment, each individual has their own notion of what consti- if I might interject?” interjected the sexist self-permissively, “but tutes ‘success’ in life?” what exactly is a SheWee™?”, “Well, to quote from their website, a “ at may be the case,” I would respond. “But the SheWee is a “water repellent plastic funnel that allows women to fact remains that I am deeply prejudiced, and also urinate whilst standing.” “But if women can vote, have jobs, play deceptively good at opening jars.” sports and wee standing up, that means...!” I beg to propose. For the sake of these jokes, I beg to oppose. WEEK 2 — JANUARY 27 2012 PERSPECTIVES 9

Ladylike Education for life? Education FREYA BERRY for exams more like y mistress’ eyes are Our system is impersonal and in need of reform. Does Philosophy hold the answer? nothing like the sun’, wrote Shakespeare. Short of coloured n our culture we are brought What would he have said to education system in its rigidity, empha- e main aim of the education system Mcontact lenses, we girls can’t up to have a very clear an education system built sising that the main aim of education should be to celebrate originality and change our eyes. But we damn understanding of ‘edu- around learning as a mere should be to encourage creativity. Soci- inspire creativity, whilst retaining a rel- well can, and do, alter the other cation’ – what it is and means to passing exams? ety does not value originality, and this evance to everyday life. parts he lists – breasts, lips, Iwhat it entails. Rarely does the Nineteenth century not only stalls personal development, cheeks... If Shakespeare had been opportunity arise to question it, German philosopher but is also damaging on an interna- married to, say, Heidi Montag though question it we should. Friedrich Nietzsche would tional scale. ‘The main aim of the or Demi Moore (let’s just pause e system here in Britain is have agreed with Montaigne’s He reasons that our education system education system should and imagine that for a minute – driven purely by the acquisition of aca- criticism. He felt that education was developed in the nineteenth cen- I’m picturing Ashton Kutcher in demic knowledge. We ardently believe became a lifeless process when all it tury and was designed to meet the be to celebrate originality tights, tweeting sonnets line by that children should leave school, fi rst set to achieve was to transfer a body of needs of a mass industrial society, one line) then his sonnet would have and foremost, with a fi rm theoretical facts rather than a process of develop- which valued the Sciences over the Arts and inspire creativity’ been rendered invalid. knowledge of the various disciplines. ing human understanding. – education was for installing you with Not that these two female is is certainly the stance of our He argued that the main aim of edu- knowledge and skills, not for bringing Education should also aspire to celebrities look especially better Education Secretary – indeed Michael cation should be to give students the out talent and potential. the attainment of happiness – not by with plastic surgery. Montag Gove has just called for a return to tools required to develop their own abil- However, in the modern world, our preaching, but by introducing young had ten procedures in a day. But the teaching of “rigorous” scholarly ities rather than being handed an image requirements have changed. As we are people to the works of philosophers is it any wonder they did? H&M subjects, and has recently given per- to merely imitate. Students should be faced with new challenges, we need to who dedicated their lives to the chal- were caught late last year using mission for existing grammars to set up allowed to ascribe value to whatever produce a more ‘thoughtful society’. e lenge. Philosophy has the potential to computer-generated bodies in “satellite” schools based on these very they choose in order to become authen- education system, in Robinson’s eyes, generate equality in a classroom like no their advertisements, with real principles. tic individuals, for if everything had the needs to be revolutionised in order for other subject. By encouraging freedom female models’ heads attached. Yet what relevance does the regurgi- same value for everyone, nothing would this to become possible. of thought and expression, it ultimately Yup, that’s right, ladies – even tation of facts have to our own lives? As have any true value at all. Education should therefore be made has the power, as a core academic disci- models, the beings whose very the sixteenth century French philoso- The contemporary educational pertinent to our own lives, and, learn- pline, to open minds and reinvigorate a name suggests some kind of pher Michel de Montaigne emphasised thinker Ken Robinson would approve ing by example, perhaps we should stagnant education system. Platonic ideal, aren’t good enough – “we know how to say, ‘ is is what of this sentiment. He criticises the put greater emphasis on the subject of Montaigne wrote: “I have seen in to be put on a billboard anymore. Cicero said’….but what have we got to Philosophy. If Philosophy were a com- my time hundreds of craftsmen and Imagine the stress of being a say? What judgements do we make? DID YOU KNOW? pulsory subject, young people would ploughmen wiser and happier than uni- fat cell on a female celebrity’s What are we doing? A parrot could talk be encouraged to expand their minds versity rectors.” Academic achievement body. Endlessly photographed, as well as we do.” It was estimated in 2010 that by - counteracting the impersonal, doc- alone does not make you happy. Only speculated upon, laughed at. Our system is, as Montaigne feared, age 19, students would have spent trinal elements of the system. Children an education of the whole person can Sometimes, you are swaddled in fundamentally impersonal with a clear an entire year’s worth of their school would be encouraged to ‘think outside do that – and it is this we should strive clingfi lm, or rudely sucked out estrangement between academic attain- education taking exams the box’ – to question everything and for. Mr Gove should take note. by liposuction – which may leave ment and our own personal wellbeing. take nothing for granted. Francis Dearnley huge scars, but hey, look how skinny her stomach looks! From what I remember of A-level biology (which ain’t much – my teacher spent most of his Cambridge talks time reminiscing about how he Austerity doesn’t work taught Rosamund Pike and telling e State of the Union With regards to Greece, the Eurozone-come- us to evade relationship bliss with dangerzone needs to rethink its tactics the slogan ‘Dump the Lump’), you Given that Obama are composed merely of a nucleus, a cell wall and – my memory fails was elected at just me here. Well it must be said the moment that the eeply into the Danger Zone”. become unbearable for Greece. House- Whatever. I find fat cells as is is not a scaremonger- hold incomes are falling by 7.3% a year, interesting as I found measuring that this term has a lot world economy began ing newspaper headline, but and unemployment has now reached trampled footpath width on a more promise than the to fail, widespread more worryingly, the title of 18.2%. Most shockingly, reports now Biology trip to Nettlecombe. at last, and their coffee’s disappointment was Dthe IMF’s most recent Global Finan- say child and baby abandonment rates is to say, not at all. I bloody love cial Stability Report, published on 24th have spiked, their parents no longer Heat magazine, but one has to pretty good – oh wait, inevitable. Voters have January. able to aff ord to keep them. wonder why acres of ink are spilt you mean that Union. been left disillusioned Cutting global growth rates from 4% in it quoting sources – who speak, and he has been put on to 3.25%, the IMF concluded that the ‘Austerity may fatally curiously, exactly like magazine Actually, I guess the Eurozone debt crisis has just entered journalists – telling the public how same applies. the defensive in the face ‘a perilous new phase’. Even Britain’s damage democratic stressed / unhappy / generally fat of rising conservatism economy, so far seemingly immune to accountability‘ a celebrity is. Luisa Filby and the crippling levels the Euro debt crisis, contracted by 0.2% Then there is more ink, Newnham in the fourth quarter of 2011. ese fi g- more serious this time, in the of federal debt. ures, released by the Offi ce of National But this suff ering need not be the case. broadsheets, telling us how So far, however, no Statistics, challenge the wisdom of If Greece returns to the drachma, it rubbish a self-image teenage credible opposition George Osborne’s austerity measures. could devalue its exchange rate, boost girls have. I know girls who have Financial talks to avoid a chaotic its competitiveness, and reduce its real or have had anorexia, some who has emerged among Greek debt default muddled on through debt burden, soon returning to growth, have recovered and one who has I voted for Obama last the Republicans, with the week. Excessive levels of Greek meaning that the rest of Europe will no died; girls who post Facebook infi ghting damaging the debt contributed to the current Euro- longer have to bail it out. statuses about their weight and time round, and I have not zone crisis, but this does not mean that More importantly, however, Euro- have terrifyingly tiny arms in their been disappointed. He’s party. I think Obama government austerity, the European pean-imposed austerity may fatally profi le pictures. had a tough ride, but he’s probably stands a good Central Bank’s favoured solution, will damage the democratic accountability ‘We have no time to stand and solve all of Europe’s problems. of the European project. e European stare’, wrote W.H. Davies. We made the best he could chance at winning re- Firstly, no balance of tax cuts and Central Bank, an unelected institution, bloody do. It’s just that all the of a bad, bad situation. election, and hopefully spending cuts can stabilise the Greek will have to impose austerity against the gazes we should be saving for Come November, he’ll this time more realistic budget, which is currently running a will of the Greeks and other peoples. natural phenomena are instead defi cit of 9.5% of GDP. Raising already Already there has been a rise in popu- concentrated, slack-jawed, on sure as hell be getting expectations might make penal tax rates only chokes off eco- larity of anti-EU nationalist parties in the waistlines of women. Because my vote; there’ll be no for a stronger term. nomic growth and tax revenues. reaction to government cuts, including fl owers and waterfalls don’t have a removal vans needed at Spending cuts will simply increase the Popular Orthodox Rally in Greece, fat content or a good PR, and have expenditure on unemployment, and the Northern League in Italy and Jobbik never been pictured falling out of the White House this year. Katie Lam President of the reduce tax revenues further. Defl ation in Hungary. Any deepening of the Mahiki in a tiny dress. Cambridge Union will also increase the real value of debt, ‘democratic defi cit’ through centrally- Tracy Anderson, personal From across the water – Blake making it even more diffi cult for Greece imposed austerity will ultimately lead fi tness guru, is our cultural leader, Tomlinson, the man in the to pay it off . to more civil strife, like that in Greece, our very own Wordsworth, elevator, San Diego, USA Even the normally pro-austerity accompanied by a backlash against the attractively packaged in a honeyed newspaper The Economist has now whole European project itself. blonde casing. We brought this admitted that no level of austerity can Curing the Euro through austerity upon ourselves, I tell you. balance Greece’s budget, which has could end up killing the patient – the also been confi rmed by a recent IMF whole idea of a federal Europe itself. study. e social cost of the Euro has Charles Read 10 FEATURES JANUARY 27 2012 — WEEK 2 Palaces of culture

From our powerhouse of culture, the UL, to Stalin’s contribution to war-torn Poland. Climbing the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Michal Murawski shows how a piece of communist architecture has adapted to everyday life

nyone who spends any crowned by an enormous sculpture of length of time in Warsaw two muscular proletarians locked in cannot remain indiff erent homoerotic embrace. Representing Pol- to the Palace of Culture ish-Soviet friendship, this was an early, and Science. Grotesquely “regime-friendly” work by top sculptor outsized (231 metres in Alina Szapocznikow. In a charmingly phi- height, 212 metres in width at the base) 1 listine outburst typical of the profi t-hungry Aand unambiguously phallic, the tower loony years of early 90s Polish capitalism, (surrounded by a vast and windswept the Palace’s then-director fl ogged the piece ‘Parade Square’) is impaled into the belly for the price of scrap metal to an entrepre- of Poland’s capital. A ‘gift’ from Comrade neurial farmer, who came to pick it up on Stalin to the Polish nation, the Palace was his pick-up truck under the cover of one hoisted between 1952 and 1955 onto a night in 1992. Its plinth still stands, discon- 2 sixty-acre plot then still strewn with ruins certing visitors with its emptiness. Here, left over from the carnage of WWII. ‘...a magnet for workers two middle-aged ladies on an ironic Stalin- 1. The once cutting-edge direct the Palace’s Soviet-era infrastruc- Cambridge’s twentieth century has ist nostalgia trip do their best to bring back Museum of Technology in the ture, a feline workforce of sixteen or so been gentler than Warsaw’s. Be that as it on cigarette breaks and the good old days. palace’s wing is now home individuals scurry around the cellar corri- may, this twee town’s collegiate idyll has pigeon shit’ Before scaling the phallus, let us briefl y to a model of a mini-Fiat, dors.  ey keep the Palace rodent-free, but also been rudely interrupted by a solid descend into its murky roots.  e subter- a collection of cacti and their bodily outgoings ensure that a trip to exemplar of midcentury architectural ranean Palace is the subject of many urban various other curiosities. the basement makes a lasting imprint on totalitarianism.  is week, Varsity reports legends (secret train lines to Moscow, evil 2. Affectionately referred to even the hardiest nostrils. as ‘Stalin’s Penis’, the Palace on the UL: littler (a mere 48 metres high), FACTFILE nuclear bunkers, that sort of thing).  e Reaching out like talons into the sur- older and less conspicuously central, but reality is a little more prosaic. Along with of Culture and Science at the rounding city are the Palace’s sprawling a blood-relative of the Warsaw Palace 2 2 a poster of a malevolently-smirking Pope heart of Warsaw bears more side wings.  e biggest one accommodates Area: 123 084 m (1 324 876 ft ) nevertheless. While in Warsaw on PhD Ratzinger, a huge fi shtank and a collec- than a striking resemblance Warsaw’s premier concert venue. Every- fi eldwork, I became seduced by the nooks, Rooms: 3,000 tion of empty beer cans, this calendar snap to our own UL. body from Miles Davis to Marlene Dietrich crannies and social life of this beastly but Construction material: of a scantily clad lady fi reperson adds a 3. The plinth where an has graced this stage; here, Mick Jagger fascinating building. Now, as I fumble for limestone (last week’s rock of the week) touch of colour to the windowless control enormous sculpture of two devoured a bunch of fl owers during the proleterians in a homo- the light switch among the North Front  e year of 1956 saw seventeen room on Level -1. While the control room Stones’ fi rst ever Iron Curtain gig in 1967. bookstacks, I thank George Gilbert Scott is alive with aff able tall men with mous- erotic embrace. Sold to a  e ‘Congress Hall’ was primarily designed suicides from the top viewing deck. farmer for scrap, two tourists for making me feel a little bit at home.  ere is now a metal railing in place. taches, who spend long shifts turning and to host the long and vodka-soaked confer- The Place’s entrance hall was once pushing the giant dials and switches which re-enact the monument. ences of the Polish United Workers’ Party: a hilariously Bond-villainesque mecha- nism would part the stage fl oor, revealing a 72-seat Praesidium that accommodated the plump buttocks of the biggest cheeses in the People’s Republic. Another talon is reserved for the wonderfully anachronistic Museum of Technology, a perpetually unchanging cabinet of once-cutting-edge technologi- cal curiosities. A dissected model of the socialist-era motorisation stalwart, the Polish Mini Fiat, and a collection of cacti look out onto the building site of a 192- metre residential tower designed by Daniel Libeskind – one of the many wishful but ultimately doomed attempts to challenge the Palace’s dominance over Warsaw’s cityscape. A massive chunk of the Palace is occupied by the Palace of Youth – a once highly

3 the Days ose Were 10TH NOVEMBER 1995 WEEK 2 — JANUARY 27 2012 FEATURES 11 SCOTT POLAR RESEARCH INSTITUTE

4 5

LETTICE e FRANKLIN Little Gem

f you type ‘Savino’s’ into google, it brings up Igushing reviews, seasoned with ‘authentic’, ‘genuine’, and ‘antidote to chain-coff ee shop’. One even reaches a fever-pitch of excitement when it considers the cafe’s customers… wait for it... deep breath... “people who actually just live in the city of Cambridge.” Yup, you heard that right. ACTUAL. REAL. PEOPLE! And here I am, in the actual, real Savino’s, gazing at these incredible specimens. More relevant is what I do not gaze on: students, architectural 6 treasures, cows, rivers, punters, stars. And whaaat a relief. So bored of beauty, we tend to seek the urban and REAL. Mill Road prestigious site of extra-curricular incul- around on the dance fl oor to socialist 4. Far from being a acquires mythic status - “Oh you cation for thousands of Warsaw’s brightest power ballads.  ey have sated themselves gratuitous picture to brighten haven’t been, naive First Year? But it young things. Despite having lost much of on liquor and a menu of ironic People’s up our page, this headless is the only place to stock up on real its once lavish state funding, the talented Poland-style delicacies (cold stuff ed hog, pigeon is a common sight on dumplings. And I can only work in and hopeful continue to fl ock to the Pal- pickled herring, etc.) the terraces of the Palace. CB1.” - although a pretty ordinary city ace’s overstretched and rustically aging Higher up, above all the politics and Just another victim of the street. facilities, hoping to excel in fi elds as diverse spectacle, are the unused terraces sur- pair of peregrine falcons A funny thing about cities is that as boat building, synchronised swimming, mounting the Palace’s forbidding side that have taken residence. we like them most when they don’t body-pumping and ballroom dancing. towers, magnets for cigarette butts and 5. The by-gone glory of the feel like cities – thrilled by daff odils  e fourth-fl oor Rudnev Room is the pigeon shit. Yet these elaborate ramparts Palace now plays host to growing within an inner-city round- venue for many open meetings on archi- also provide a spectacular backdrop for right-wing weddings. about, the unexpected canal, lilacs tecture and planning (the city’s Municipal brutality of Attenbourghian proportions. 6. Again, not gratuitous, blooming from an abandoned car. In Architects have their offi ces high up in the  e highest reaches of the tower are home this is pin-up sits in one of postcard-perfect Cambridge, beauty tower), to which members of the public to a pair of famished and bloodthirsty per- the Palace’s underground is standard rather than surprising. My fl ock for a chance to heckle and harangue egrine falcons, who do their best to gorge control rooms. daily journey (to and from the UL - decision-makers. In the aftermath of one and poke all they can out of the intrepid 7. The UL doesn’t quite have sigh) includes a moonlit crossing of such event, a group of irregularly-shaped pigeons who dare wander into their the same night-time display. the Cam, glittering with stars and the attendees exchange invectives over a scale domain. Come migrating season, the fl ying Except to stop collisions with refl ection of yet another Wren fl ight model of the future city centre, with the rats are joined by a morbid multitude of low-fl ying aircraft. I don’t of fancy, occasionally fracturing when Palace still conspicuously slap-bang in the more exotic avian carcasses. think this counts. violently invaded by... a swan. middle. Nearby the Palace is Warsaw’s central Savino’s too is an urban oasis in  e marble-stuff ed, stuccoed and col- railway station, a Mecca for the city’s dens- our idyllic desert. Seconds away umned halls on the 2nd and 4th fl oors are est concentration of bearded and pungent from Emma Garden, it off ers a vista hired out for posh and opulent debauch- vagabonds and booze hounds. On a sum- exclusively of buses roaring by. ery (by those who can aff ord to pay). In mer’s day, you could do worse on a trip to  e fact that there are real Italians the photo above, a right-wing politi- Warsaw than to strike up a conversation here is layered on as thickly as the cal journalist and his new wife cut their and raise a glass with one of these fellows nose-strokingly-frothy foam on the wedding cake.  ey chose the Palace for as they recline in vacant statue niches, cappucinos.  is is the kind of place their ceremony to provoke their Com- striking classical poses. All hail to Stalin’s where MML students can’t comment munist-bashing friends.  e assembled Palace, may it forever fascinate and dis- patronisingly on the incorrect usage of 7 conservatives, however, harmlessly jiggle turb us! the plural panini. A sample panin-o encloses dolcelatte cheese, wild rocket, fresh pesto and artichoke hearts, its ingredients (happily given my word-limit) speaking for themselves, requiring no awkwardly-hyphenated adjectives. Glamourous, terrifying Italians down espressos (SORRY, espressi!) at the counter, presumably living fast-paced, metropolitan lives, their minds alert and caff einated, rather than fi lled with bloody books. Salvino’s, 3 Emmanuel Street Large Latte: £2.60 Panini: £3.65 e Comic Strip LEWIS WYNN Pull out and pin up on your board

1. This noticeboard sums up the way I live my life Friday Saturday Sunday Monday 27th 28th 29th 30th Jazz @ Johns Wagner Insight Day Gran Partita King Creosote FisheR BuilDing, sT John’s 9pM-12aM; £4 Kings College Chapel 12.30pM; £3 King’s College hall 8.30pM, £16/£10/FRee The JunCTion 7pM; £12.50 (sTuDenTs) For the first night in a long time, CuJo a rare chance to meet sir Mark elder and King Creosote showcases tracks from his new performs with equally-accomplished cousins attend his final rehearsal of arsifalp (act iii) in Mozart’s work is ‘filled with such longing...it had album, self-described as the ‘soundtrack to a from somewhere to the west. There will be King’s College Chapel. Followed by a talk by me trembling. it seemed to me that i was hearing romanticised version of a life lived in a scottish ample dance floor space, and the Josh ison Wagner specialists John Deathridge and Robin a voice of god’ (salieri in peter schaeffer’s Ama- coastal village’. it weaves in slices of Fife life, Trio will be featuring in the next room. holloway, chaired by David Trippett. deus). nicholas Daniel plays Britten’s miniatures bike wheels, tea cups and café chatter. 2. A view from the bridge. with poetry readings by professor simon goldhill. MuSic

The Descendants The Adventures of Tintin ArcSoc Film CaMBRiDge vue FisheR BuilDing, sT. John’s 7pM anD 10pM; £3 aRChiTeCTuRe DepT. sCRoope TeRRaCe 7pM From alexander payne, the creator of the Tintin is a Belgian boy who manages to be a a free screening of Ridley scott’s sci-fi epic oscar-winning Sideways. george Clooney journalist without ever writing a word, knocks Blade Runner (1982). set in a dystopian los stars as an indifferent husband and father of out grown men twice his size with a single angeles in november 2019, wherein geneti- two girls, forced to re-examine his past and fling of his fist, and lives in a world where the cally engineered organic robots are manufac-

FilM embrace his future when his wife suffers a only woman is a jolly opera singer. enjoy the tured around the world. boating accident off Waikiki. surrealism tonight.

Life in Ruins A Breath of Fresh Air Storytellers’ Workshop Architecture as Spolia laDY MiTChell hall 5.30-6.30pM; FRee FiTzWilliaM MuseuM 2-3.30pM; £5 CB2 CaFé, 5-7 noRFolK sTReeT 10aM-12pM; £5 leCTuRe RooM a, Bene’T sTReeT 5-6.30pM 3. I see this sign every day. It makes me laugh. as part of the Darwin College lecture series, shake off the winter blues on an informal Do you have a story waiting to be told? Come The second in the series of slade lectures, Dr Robert MacFarlane investigates a persistent gallery tour. Discover ways in which artists and pick up some tricks of the trade, whether given by prof. paul Crossley, offers an analysis paradox of apocalyptic art -that in order to have engaged with nature by looking at early you´re going to tell stories in clubs, pubs or of the creation of gothic in northern France. abolish the world imaginatively, it is also paintings, and those in the newly refurbished round the fireside. You can either listen to the Run by the history of art department, but open necessary to summon it into being. impressionist gallery. Booking essential – see writing of others, or bring something to read to all. website for details. yourself. TalKS

‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore Swagger Of ICE and Men CaMBRiDge aRTs TheaTRe 7.45pM; £15-£30 aDC TheaTRe 7.45pM; £10/ £8 CoRpus plaYRooM 9.30pM; £5 Cheek By Jowl have established an Your last chance to see Cambridge university Tired of being driven from your home by care- international reputation for bringing fresh Contemporary Dance Workshop in their return less scot poets? Turned down for that comedy life to the classics. in this new production, to the aDC stage. Featuring performances bit-part alongside Michael Caine? Fear not; we watch a brother and sister’s passionate ranging from ballet to hip hop, to classical improvised Comedy ents brings you an hour of

VieW descent into hell. indian Bharatanatyam, and all things in japes and tomfoolery to gladden the heart and 4. Meryl went past me. She’s the real Iron Lady. between. bristle the whiskers.

READ: Londoners POD: Festival for Living LISTEN: Marine Girls CRaig TaYloR souThBanKCenTRe.Co.uK alBuM: BeaCh paRTY subtitled “The Days and nights of london The ultimate equalizer, The grim Reaper, The We’ve been listening to this post-punk group of now, as Told by Those Who love it, hate it, Blessed Release. We all have death in com- sixth form school girls this week, and we think live it, left it and long for it”. These narratives mon, and the southbank Centre is confronting that you should to. paint a vivid and fresh portrait of 21st Century this unknowable certainty from many angles in london. Festival for the living. hear more in this special festival podcast. STaY in STaY

Cambridge Charity Fair Chinese State Circus ArcSoc Más-O-Menos 5. I have yet to pay my overdue fine. The CaMBRiDge union soCieTY 6pM CoRn exChange 5pM anD 8pM; £25/ £21 Fez ; 10pM-3aM; £3 BeFoRe 11pM, £4 TheReaFTeR Bringing Cambridge’s up-and-coming charities From the land of legends and warrior shaolin presented by arcsoc and Body shop. “Follow together to provide information about their monks comes live acrobatic show Yin Yang. the herd to the heart of the beat on a long, cause, alongside a range of entertainment The traditional masters of physical theatre put smouldering night. a hot fiesta, a seductive including food and live music. precision acrobatics, martial arts and dazzling soundscape, nocturnal naughtiness.” exotic. circus skills on display. gO OuT

1. Home: i get to proper fields and trees Tiny. Cramped. Delicious bagels 6. Champagne and magazines help me procrastinate. For sleeping, eating, and using during term time. and top-quality eavesdropping. tuna fish to try to tempt next- door’s cat to be my friend. 3. Social anthropology Faculty: 5. english Faculty: Where the Cambridge Text and For seminars and observing the 2. Jesus green: Thought weekly reading group tribal loyalties of the sidgwick Cycled across at least twice is held. i sit around pontificating, site, plus drinking very bad My Cambridge a day. it’s nice to see people arguing and debating alongside coffee and pretending to know feeding the ducks, playing a diverse group of students, stuff about literature, when, in ultimate frisbee, dog-walking. including mathmos and chemists fact, i generally don’t. Week it reminds me that even in to philosophers and musicians. Siana bangura Cambridge real life is going on, it’s quite fun, really. Sylvia Christie, Homerton, 3rd year somewhere. i’m a country girl but English student. 2nd Year, PeTerHOuSe this park is pretty much the closest 4. indigo cafe: MiXed uP ■ ■ CosMopo- London is one of the ingredienTS MeTHOd lonDon most cosmopolitan of 1 part Bombay London gin 1. Pour all the ingredients, cities, so let’s make a toast 1 part Cointreau triple sec along with ice, into a to its diversity with the 1½ parts cranberry juice cocktail shaker. eponymous cocktail. ½ part lime juice OliVer reeS Orange zest (to garnish) 2. Shake well and fi ne strain is cosmo pays homage into a chilled glass. ost people in Cambridge need to get to London by putting a ■ YOu Will need out more. And by out, I mean out of twist on the classic recipe, Cocktail shaker 3. To fi nish, garnish the Cambridge. There are some great replacing the traditional Martini glass martini glass with a twist of sights they’re missing: the American citrus vodka with a splash orange zest. MCemetery, the Steam Museum, Fen Ditton, Mad- of London dry gin. ingley Hall, Audley End and Ely to name a few. And even if you don’t care about the sights, you’re prob- ably one of those people who just needs to relax. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Th ursday 30th 31st 1st 2nd King Creosote Jazz Wave Baroosh Nick Mulvey The JunCTion 7pM; £12.50 B BaR, MaRKeT passage 8.30-10.30pM The JunCTion 7pM; £12 King Creosote showcases tracks from his new Jazz Wave band with singer Ruth Wilman, a key founding member of portico Quartet, album, self-described as the ‘soundtrack to a playing a mixture of vocals and instrumentals nick has toured the world picking up a wealth romanticised version of a life lived in a scottish centred on swing, mainstream and modern of international acclaim. his solo music is coastal village’. it weaves in slices of Fife life, jazz, with excursions into Dixie, funk and pop. infl uenced by both Western artists and african VARSITY venTuReD onTo Kings paRaDe To asK You WhaT You Do bike wheels, tea cups and café chatter. guitar styles. When The husTle anD BusTle BeCoMes Too MuCh To BeaR e most depressed person in Cambridge that I ever see is a science student who cycles home at 6.10pm every day. One day I saw his bike fall over ArcSoc Film Corpus Films City of God after he’d locked it up and he looked really sad. He aRChiTeCTuRe DepT. sCRoope TeRRaCe 7pM MCCRuM leCTuRe TheaTRe 8pM FisheR BuilDing, sT. John’s College 9pM; £3 only ever seems to use his bike to cycle to lectures, a free screening of Ridley scott’s sci-fi epic Corpus’ new fi lm society offers a free screen- st. John’s Film society presents the true story and I just want to tell him: go to the American Cem- Blade Runner (1982). set in a dystopian los ing of Animal House (2010), a broody austral- of Rocket, a poor young fi sherman’s son, who etery! I don’t tell him this because it would probably angeles in november 2019, wherein geneti- ian independent fi lm about a Melbourne crime dreams of becoming a photographer as he sound weird out of context. But I mean it. Some- cally engineered organic robots are manufac- family. The venue is situated next to The eagle chronicles the rise and fall of one of the city’s tured around the world. pub. most notorious gangs. times the only way to relax is to get out, if only for a moment.

Architecture as Spolia David Miliband Debate: Fashion is Elitist? leCTuRe RooM a, Bene’T sTReeT 5-6.30pM Michael Winner The CaMBRiDge union soCieTY 12pM The CaMBRiDge union soCieTY 7.30pM The CaMBRiDge union soCieTY 7.30pM The second in the series of slade lectures, David Miliband is a labour Mp and former Michael Winner, ex-editor of Varsity, has guardian columnist hadley Freeman, fashion given by prof. paul Crossley, offers an analysis Foreign secretary. he studied at oxford and directed over 30 movies including the Death journalist Caryn Franklin and prof. Beth Dincuff of the creation of gothic in northern France. MiT, and was a major contributor to labour’s Wish series starring Charles Bronson. he is take the bench, opposed by Charley speed, Run by the history of art department, but open manifesto for the 1997 general election. he also a restaurant critic for The Sunday Times. grace Woodward (of Britain’s next Top Model to all. stood for the labour leadership in 2010. fame), hilary alexander and sir David hang.

Of ICE and Men AVOID: Th eatre Column Th yestes Mother Courage CoRpus plaYRooM 9.30pM; £5 VARSITY, p18 aDC TheaTRe 11pM; £4 aDC TheaTRe 7.45pM; £8/ £6 Tired of being driven from your home by care- Whispers around the offi ce are confi rming what With characters locked in a never-ending (until 4th Feb). The formidable Mother Cambridge is a pretty small city but the greyness, less scot poets? Turned down for that comedy you all suspect - our Theatre editor is deranged, struggle for control, seneca’s classic tragedy Courage makes her living following armies people and devastating depression that sometimes probably senile. in fact she’d be out of a job if is brought to the heart of Cambridge. This up and down the country, peddling salvaged bit-part alongside Michael Caine? Fear not; people get caught in can get too much for anyone improvised Comedy ents brings you an hour of it weren’t for the charitable heart of the senior production brings its raw brutality full circle, goods amidst a war-torn wasteland. she brings japes and tomfoolery to gladden the heart and arts editor. Do yourself a favour and skip her round to the dark comedy and meta-theatre her two sons and dumb daughter, battling – especially the science student that I see out of my bristle the whiskers. carpings, not that you ever read them anyway. inherent in the text. times of conveniently profi t-surging violence. window. ough lots of people say going for a night out is the best way to lose yourself, it isn’t, especially as you now have to choose between kids so alter- native they don’t even look alternative any more LISTEN: Marine Girls BLOG: Lists of Note WATCH: Th e Idiot Colony and guys who wear “no-one’s ugly after 4am” on alBuM: BeaCh paRTY WWW.lisTsoFnoTe.CoM iCa.oRg.uK their t-shirts. Sometimes you just have to properly We’ve been listening to this post-punk group of lists are created, and have been for many a clip recorded from a live performance at get lost for an hour. Especially when the water polo sixth form school girls this week, and we think centuries, for all manner of reasons. Creator the iCa. RedCape Theatre present this jarring team is in town. that you should to. of this blog, shaun usher, features hilarious play about three women forgotten for decades and memorable examples from lots of famous inside a mental hospital. part of the london names right here. international Mime Festival.

Braided Together Th atcher’s 80s Revival MuRRaY eDWaRDs 10aM-6pM; FRee The FounTain inn; FRee BeFoRe 10.45pM Brings together ten international contemporary Remember the 1980s? Black Monday, high women artists, all of whom investigate the employment rates, depression, rioting, £9,000 symbolic meaning of hair in their artwork. tuition fees etc. here’s your chance to relive all The exhibition is the fi rst of its kind, and will the special moments you never had. Maggie T investigate concerns such as fragility, power on the decks bringing you her all time favourite and loss. tracks.

MuSic ediTOr arT ediTOr SeniOr arTS

Elektra Songs in the Dark Kinshasa on Film Tidal Waves or Time Bombs sun 29th Jan 8pm Tues 31st Jan 4.15 - 7pm Mon 30th Jan 6.15pm Tues 31st Jan - sat 4th Feb 7pm The Clowns Cafe Free CRassh, Rm sg1 Free lecture hall, Trinity hall Free Corpus playrooms £6/ £5 An informal open mic night where e screening of two fi lms on Kin- Professor Simon Wessely discusses musicians, poets and other perform- shasa, ‘Cemetery State’ and ‘The the mental health consequences of REDS presents the fi rst-ever UK performance of Ezra Pound and ers can show their talents before an Tourist City’, and a discussion with Iraq and Afghanistan on the UK Rudd Fleming’s translation, which relocates the tragedy from audience. Rory Williamson the directors. Holly Gupta Armed Forces. Zoe Large Ancient Greece to the Deep South

Want to draw a mind map, take your week in pictures, or see your event listed on these pages? get in touch with [email protected] 14 MUSIC JANUARY 27 2012 — WEEK 2

RORYListen WILLIAMSON idway through their For folk’s sake: the rise of pop-folk supporting slot, the Why is current music so saturated with references to folk tradition? Alice Rudge explores singer from psych- folk band Fuzzy its rise in modern music culture, and probes the authenticity of popular ideas of folk MLights uttered the last words I ever expected to hear at a gig: “We’re from Cambridge, by the way.” o one would want to be the contexts in which we are used to One Direction are shiny and new, folk making the whole experience incredi- For a second, I was forced branded a ‘folkie’. e hearing it; for example, Joan Baez’s is nicely worn and tattered; vintage, bly hypnotic and eff ective. Proof of this to abandon my comfortable word conjures up an rendition of ‘We Will Overcome’ can’t if you will. Folk has a personality; it’s borrowing between genres can be found assumption that Cambridge was image of a cider-swig- help but conjure up images of the Civil otherworldly and yet at the same time in the fact that in 2010 Laura Marling’s a barren wasteland where new ging, morris-dancing Rights Movement in America. honest and earthy. Songwriters today ‘Rambling Man’ was nominated for music was concerned, with the only yokel with a penchant are looking to use this inherent hon- a Radio 2 Folk award, alongside folk possible fruit the delights of a Led for ‘hey nonny-nonnys’ and, sadly, ‘Songwriters today esty and authenticity that folk music greats Andy Cutting and Eliza Carthy, Zeppelin tribute band (yes, they Nless of a penchant for washing. Folk are looking to use the has to give their own music those same while her album was nominated for the really exist). My mind immediately is uncool. e young don’t get excited qualities. Mercury Prize alongside indie greats, fl ew to wild conjectures: could it by the idea of tradition any more than inherent honesty and is borrowing of material and ideas e xx and Wild Beasts. be that this quaint little city had a the old get excited by the avant-garde. also works the other way around. Bel- It’s clear from the prevalence of secret wealth of exciting musical So how do we explain the recent surge authenticity that folk lowhead are using traditional tunes but bands such as Fleet Foxes and Johnny talent thriving under its surface? in popularity of folk-tinged popular reworked in a much bigger way – a line Flynn that popular genres are learning Sadly, the inevitable answer was music that has variously been termed music has’ up of brass, strings, pots, pans, cut- from folk to great commercial success, no. My foolishly instantaneous ‘nu-folk,’ or ‘psych-folk’? lery and many other things lets them but there is a danger of alienating audi- hopes could never be supported Folk music is rather romantically In this age of Simon Cowell, some- create a massive sound more suited to ences. Take Mumford and Sons: they by the reality of Cambridge; it was described by many as ‘the music of the thing music fans do want to protest the stage than the folk club. At their have exploited their success to such a hardly going to become Brooklyn people’. It has always naturally been about is the homogenisation and recent London gig, Lau combined degree that people now consider them overnight. Hell, Nick Drake couldn’t a community music: many refuse to general dumbing-down that is mass their furiously infectious jigs and reels inauthentic and bland, a pop band even bring himself to finish his acknowledge that traditional songs media entertainment. Folk off ers the with electronic eff ects, light shows and falsely donning folk apparel. Likewise, degree here. have had a composer at all, but have perfect antidote for this. Whereas an impressive amplifi cation system, if a band like Lau pushed too far in the However, my search wasn’t an sprung up as a result of a feeling of a abstract electronic direction, they’d absolute failure: I discovered a particular group of people at a particu- risk losing many of their fans. clutch of interesting artists that I lar time in history. As a result, it has It’s principally a question of choosing had previously been oblivious to, always had a role as protest music, and between success and sticking to your a variety that, though small, was let’s face it – protest is a bit cool. One roots, although it’s arguable that bands heartening. only has to look at Bob Dylan’s mas- like Mumford and Sons and Noah and Aside from Fuzzy Lights, of sive 60s following to see that. the Whale have no genuine ‘roots.’ In particular interest are Kelvox1’s People want to feel like they are the their hands, folk becomes an empty, organic, experimental song renegades on the edge of society fi ght- tacked on sign of authenticity and structures, as well as Nochexxx’s ing for a worthy cause, and folk music originality, as though the addition of a boundary-pushing techno; on a allows them to feel like they could banjo renders a pop song revolution- completely different note, The be that person - even if they are ary. While it can be disheartening to Willows play a delightfully delicate just some middle class kid listening see such bastardisations of the folk rootsy folk. Cambridge to it in their room at home. Folk tradition, it is worth remember- may not harbour a somehow inspires that feeling of ing that there are many musicians vibrant underground power and possibility because of using these infl uences in new and community, but it’s exciting ways that help to combat not worth giving up One Direc’n: are some modern this over-saturation. Pop may have hope quite yet. ‘folk’ bands just boybands with had its way with folk, but the tradition banjos? LIZZIE MARX continues to thrive in other areas.

ere is just enough discontinuity to keep the album fresh, but He is not just vulnerable, he is constantly at risk of not fragmentary” being consumed by the product of his own thoughts” ●●● Grunge, with few exceptions, Muddy Water’ and ‘St Louis Elegy.’ ●●● It turns out playing ‘hard to get’ the incredible ‘Naomi’ - in my opin- has not aged well. ose of its fi gures But the interest of this record lies in can work rather well. ion, their greatest moment. who haven’t faded away have mostly its not being straightforward. Opening In 1998, Jeff Mangum and his band Here his lachrymose lungs plead for settled into a cycle of producing over- track and single ‘Gravedigger’s Song’ Neutral Milk Hotel released their a lover to not leave him here, wher- blown anachronistic rock that might works within a similar tone to the rest magnum opus, In e Aeroplane Over ever that may be, and it could not shift units, but doesn’t inspire or chal- of the album, but its throbbing drums e S e a and it barely registered as a sound more urgent, vital and on the lenge (see Dave Grohl, Chris Cornell). and distorted bass backbone reference drop in the indie ocean. After over a precipice of destruction. Fortunately, ex-Screaming Trees his time playing with bastions of stoner decade of being a recluse, Mangum On the new Ferris Wheel on Fire E P, frontman Mark Lanegan doesn’t make rock, Queens Of e Stone Age. sold out London’s own Union Chapel live staple ‘Engine’ is the immediate these mistakes in his solo work, instead Later, just as we might begin to feel in just 3 days. standout. Between the lines of his curi- situating himself within much older, complacent with the established aes- For the fi rst time, the band’s brief ously cursive lyrics and accompanied more timeless blues and folk thetic, there’s a surprise in the form of career has been com- by a lonely singing saw, he attempts to Mark Lanegan Box Set Band traditions. Lanegan’s low, the upbeat synth line and disco beat of piled into one vinyl-only exorcise both the monsters that lurk mournful voice has some of ‘Ode To Sad Disco.’ As Lanegan’s vocals box set containing their under his bed and the demons that Blues Funeral the resonant timbre of Nick pull us back into a familiar gloom, there Neutral Milk Hotel two studio albums, and a sleep between the covers. ★★★★★ ★★★★★ Cave or Tom Waits, and he is just enough discontinuity to keep the wealth of rare and unre- The crestfallen ‘My Dream Girl doesn’t shy away from this album fresh, but not fragmentary. leased material. Don’t Exist,’ meanwhile, is a tale of inheritance. Lanegan intelligently plays with ref- In The Aeroplane Over The Sea suburban dissonance that feels like Without Isobel Campbell’s sweet- erential styles and self-aware song titles is, quite bluntly, one of the greatest gazing through a spinning zoetrope; ening infl uence from their previous to place himself within a lone trouba- records ever made. e lyrics con- the multitude of images are individu- collaborations, Blues Funeral takes on dour archetype that the album doesn’t jure images infl uenced by Georges aly fl eeting, spinning so fast you can a great sense of lonely personal lament; quite fi t. is may sound like a know- Méliès and Jules Verne, anachronistic hardly hold them in your head. this is an album populated with bluesy ing joke, but who cares when it sounds contraptions composed of the bric- Neutral Milk Hotel’s impact on the dirges that have titles like ‘Bleeding so good? Joey Frances a-brac of the household of his youth. contemporary indie scene is colossal. Mangum never sounds entirely in eir incredible repertoire of obscure control of the music he creates; he is instruments surely guided Beirut’s Double Booked Heaven or Las Vegas not just vulnerable, he is constantly Gulag Orkestar and Su an Stevens’ ROBERT GLASPER (2009) COCTEAU TWINS (1990) at risk of being consumed and swal- work, as well as undoubtedly infl u- lowed alive by the product of his own encing Arcade Fire, Bon Iver and First half ‘trio,’ second half ‘experiment,’ This is perhaps the most accessible thoughts. Brand New, among others. both halves excellent. The trio side opens the group ever sounded, with some of At the climax of ‘Ghost,’ and in its Despite this, no one has yet with a phone call from famed trumpeter Elizabeth Fraser’s astounding vocals consequent instrumental reprise, he replicated anything quite this extraor- Terence Blanchard, anticipating five even comprehensible. Concrete meaning fi nally explodes in a jubilant, cathartic dinary. Obsessive and corrosive yet tracks of blistering sophistication, was never what the band were about, of cacophony of theremin and bagpipes. intricate and bittersweet, only one Glasper’s disjointed lines and Chris course; backed by shimmering, effects- is sets the stage beautifully for ‘Two person could have created such beau- Dave’s technical drumming on full show. laden guitars, every syllable Fraser utters Headed Boy, Part 2’ - an arcane album tiful, personal music. is collection The experiment side, a progressive mix seems to take on a gut tangibility and closer, a mournful serenade that plays proves that by the point that Mangum of jazz and hip-hop, is a wild mess of texture of its own. This roots their sound while the subsequent debris cascades disappeared, he had perfectly defi ned vocoders and electric pianos, and, in both ethereal landscapes and direct down around his head. his life, his death and everything in critically, pervasive melodic sensibility. reality, and the effect is intoxicating. Rory Elsewhere, their debut On Avery between; what on earth could you Theo Evan Williamson Island is much murkier and messier have done for an encore? Dominic than its refi ned sibling, but features Kelly WEEK 2 — JANUARY 27 2012 BOOKS 15

Why the Romantics were wrong CHARLOTTERead KEITH Forget the room, says Zoe Large, a whole city of one’s own is right there for the taking ere we are all, by day; by night we’re hurl’d/ By dreams, each one ven if you know nothing claims – his belief that the Imagination possibility. evoke the city in terms which praise into a several world”– else about Virginia Woolf, is properly nourished only by rolling Cities might be built by men, but industrial progression. Dreams realised RobertH Herrick. An uncannily you’ve probably heard her hills and unpolluted skies. they always contain more than any one are often placed in vibrant proximity to apt description of the Circle line most famous maxim: that “Humble and rustic life’” he argued, inhabitant can know. Perhaps they run dreams deferred; thriving trade repro- during rush hour? Since Judith “a woman must have money was where “the essential patterns of to fulfi l inhuman criteria of effi ciency duced alongside grubby opium dens. Chernaik launched the scheme in and a room of her own if she and predictability, yet the by-prod- In fact, these are the juxtapositions 1986, there have been Poems on the is to write fi ction”. Feminist concerns ‘Do cities lack the subtleties ucts, at the level of the individual, are highlighted within any city, yet they Underground.  ere is a peculiar Easide, this notorious statement seems that inspire great writing?’ refreshing possibilities for anonymity are always more easily appreciated in beauty to the idea: moments of to confi rm a basic common sense truth. and infi nite variety. fi ction. Reading the novels of Dickens stillness in a crowded tube carriage, Surely works of great genius can’t be This year marks the 200th birthday or Defoe, we can come to appreciate subtly shoving the person next to produced amidst the hustle and bustle the heart fi nd a better soil”.  e wan- of Charles Dickens, whose continuing London as its own sort of wilderness you, perhaps, to get a better look. of the city, with all its barking dogs, dering, meandering lifestyle upheld popularity is affi rmed by the thousands – the perfect landscape in which to More interesting, at the very least, hooting vehicles and screaming chil- in his poetry is certainly at odds with of festivals and events being held to cel- get lost, or expand our horizons. How than reading another advert for car dren?  ey require space to develop; the frenzied pace of modern London. ebrate his life’s work. Dickens’ acclaim ironic, then, that many writers feel the insurance.  e poems only require silence in which ideas can be fully pro- Apparently, we don’t have the patience owes much to his vivid and intri- need to escape its bounds in order to a glance, a snort of derision or an cessed and explored. to browse for books any more, let cate explorations of urban dwellings. produce great work. Rather than indi- appreciative ‘hm’, and provide a Woolf’s words are being taken liter- alone write them. Digital stores such as Famously hailing London cating any debilitating quality in the welcome distraction if someone has ally by the Hosking Houses Trust – a Amazon proudly lead us directly to our as his ‘magic lantern’, his atmosphere of cities themselves, this positioned their armpit awkwardly registered writers’ charity founded in goal while showing us virtually nothing novels notion reveals a problem in our own close to your face.  is week, the 1999. Its purpose is to off er selected along the way. Cities provide a hub for attitudes to the world around us. project gets animated: advertising applicants rent-free accommodation this kind of technology: devices which In her beautiful book Storming the screens across the tube network will in the rural site of Cottage Chambers, save time, but inevitably prevent Gates of Paradise, Rebecca Solnit longs be hijacked by poems transformed supporting talented writers by giving the expansion of our imaginative for a ‘public landscape in which we can into typographic fi lms, which them space to work outside the city. world. roam the streets at midnight, in which promise to ‘uplift and inspire Likewise, the Arvon Foundation aims Conceived as nothing more every square is available for Virginia commuters during the bleakest to take members of its writing course to than the sum of mechanised Woolf to make up her novels’. Her solu- months of the year’. Take that, car “a secluded atmosphere where there are parts, cities lack the subtleties tion to Woolf’s maxim is not an escape insurance!  is also claims to help no distractions, other than the beautiful which inspire great writing. from the city, but a reclamation of combat ‘the apparent indiff erence countryside’” imbuing them with rural Engineers cannot design public space. to literature shown during the “sustenance and inspiration”. (Quoted epiphanies, computers Urban sites can be used to our advan- London riots’. Unlikely. But the from www.arvonfoundation.org). cannot measure alliances tage, and material circumstances are ‘several world’ that a The logic behind such projects or associations, and mar- only distracting if we work against city encompasses coheres with the artistic theories of keters do not deal in them rather than alongside them.  e deserves this kind Blake and Wordsworth, Emerson and meaning or emotion. metropolis will become the home of the of creative public  oreau. It’s diffi cult to argue when Add people into the imagination when it is welcomed and space. Some Wordsworth denigrates the anesthetis- mix, however, and treated as such – approached, no less commuters might ing eff ect of the city, because the beauty this landscape turns than rocks and soil, as an environment even smile. of his writing seems to support his into a repository of to be ‘roam[ed]’, explored and enjoyed. LIZZIE MARX

snapshots of Shabab revolutionaries forming a not an easy collection, but language that can only human chain around the Egyptian Museum” be described as exquisite”

●●● You may have gathered that shortlisted for the Booker. Sentences ●●● e Beautiful Indiff erence is not when suddenly it seems they have this Wednesday was the anniversary such as “each person was in one place, an easy collection: in its pages are con- bright colours under a dull wing.” Her of the protests which led to the down- totally and fully committed to that tained moments of pain, heartache and short, sharp, sentences simultaneously fall of President Mubarak, and that place, unable to be aware of any other” anxiety. Neither, in the strictest sense, capture urgency and control; her life the Egyptian parliament opened on must have been put down in a hurry to is it a perfect one. e stories are not observations are intense and occasion- Monday after an election that a British publish in time for the anniversary. consistently well-plotted and in some ally wince-inducing. broadsheet called “the freest in Egypt’s stories there are moments In ‘She Murdered Mortal He’, a modern history”. So far so good, then. ‘Soueif’s friends are hurt, The Beautiful – that slightly jar. But what woman contemplates the man who Yet the most striking element of Indifference Sarah Hall lacks in suspense- has spurned her: “maybe he was Ahdaf Soueif’s Cairo is not those eigh- imprisoned, killed’ building she makes up for asleep; oblivious to everything, making teen heady days in Tahrir Square last Sarah Hall with language that can only be use of that shut-off mechanism men Spring, but the “interruption” that  e subtitle My City, Our Revolu- ★★★★★ described as exquisite. could rely upon”. I can’t say that I felt skips on to the Summer and Autumn. tion warns that much of the narrative is She is a poet, playing with an engagement with every character; Cairo: My City, The events of Tahrir personal. Initially, this is poignant – we rhymes and sounds. In ‘Bees’, “You”, the protagonist of ‘Bees’, strug- Our Revolution are recent in the memory, are made aware of the suff ering of Cai- the phrase “Is it something to gles to feel like “me”. But I am anxious though Soueif’s account ro’s citizens in particular, rather than do with infected hives? Mites in their to justify my star rating. e collec- Ahdaf Soueif adds first-hand immedi- general, terms when Soueif’s friends throats or pesticide?” requires a reader tion’s fl aws, necessarily emphasised in ★★★★★ acy: we see, for example, are hurt, imprisoned, or killed. None- to glance back, to think, and to marvel. a review, are minor. And what is the snapshots of shabab revolu- theless, the personal easily becomes In ‘Butcher’s Perfume’, she says of one 5th star for except to reward writing tionaries forming a human obscure – the hospital where Soueif character that, when in the grips of a that takes your breath away? chain around the Egyptian was born, for instance, clearly has fi ght, “she was lit up, the way some- Joe Harper Museum to hand it over intact to the signifi cance for her, but not for the one plain looks better when they sing, ● Faber and Faber, £12.99, paperback Army (whose offi cers’ IDs are even reader. checked), only for snipers to be placed Perhaps, however, the book’s great- on the roof and torturers set to work est fl aw is one that Soueif can do little inside.  at story, for all its vicious about: the story of the revolution is irony, encapsulates too the mutual ongoing, as indeed she acknowledges respect with which the Army and the in her fi nal words.  e regime remains protestors interacted; there were foot- in power, backed by the support of the enough ball matches, fl owers on tanks, and Army.  e Muslim Brotherhood has as now to go about chants of “ e People!/ e Army!/One yet stayed fairly quiescent, though that like a Provençal ravi Hand!”.  is is where Soueif’s structur- could change. (which comes up ing shines: we fl ick forward to a protest To date, the signs of hope, such as on the crib-side sign as ‘ecstatic’), in July which is blocked off by the Army the recent elections, are a compromise so that the supposedly dissolved Cen- to preserve this situation; for example unstilled, always tral Security and plainclothes baltagis Field Marshal Tantawi announced on praising unseen; heading allward can batter the crowd with stones and Wednesday the end of the 31-year state out of my districts with arms out, Molotov cocktails.  is most violent of emergency, but reserved the right to and so making the circuit part of the book comes when the Army re-impose the law on “thuggery”, the just beneath the upstream; begins to “protect the revolution” from term the Army has taken to using to  is is the fi rst poem in a the revolutionaries themselves. describe the protests. At least 12,000 singing sequence, ‘be they mouths’.  ere are faults here that detract “thugs” remain in jail. Soueif’s book, into the noise, See the rest online. from our ability to empathise with therefore, feels sharp, but incomplete. just to check the current data Soueif: the text can be surprisingly Ed Winfi eld for us, to Christ-Of- e-Excess Jack Belloli clunky for a novelist who has been ● Bloomsbury, £14.99, hardback 16 FIlM JAnuAry 27 2012 — wEEk 2

WatchINDIA ROSS The decline and fall of British TV here’s nothing we love Film Editor India Ross on Downton, EastEnders and falling standards on the small screen more than a good awards ceremony. No, wait, a ITV Ricky Gervais-hosted he thing is, people will from other pioneering networks, an Tawards ceremony. But for all their watch anything. apathetic equilibrium is reached in tacky delights, the might of the When the slack-jawed which expectations are so low that no Oscars and Golden Globes in British populus hit the one can ever be disappointed. dictating common cinema-goers’ couch, Stella in hand, curry Broadcasters are embarking on an tastes is not to be underestimated. in lap, what’s actually on the box is no insidious moving of the goalposts, At the time of writing, the Oscar Tmore than academic. The Youtube cashing in on the low-expectation void nominations are yet to be released generation seek instant gratification left by The X Factor et al. Stagnant – but given the hallmarks of many with minimal emotional investment; airtime is filled with play-it-safe, a second-rate winner in the past, a parade of cheap laughs and familiar low-budget productions with one can make a fair stab at how it’s faces. irritating, recycled actors. The going to play out. Best Picture will, Such is the extent of the pathological traditionally, be universally adored defeatism in British TV, we are losing ‘The US has left us by the moderately educated, and sight of what a good show even looks universally panned by the arthouse like. With Downton Abbey hailed as the impotent in its wake’ brigade. It will have been flogged to ‘most critically acclaimed television within an inch of its life in Awards show of 2011’, one is forced to concede rise and rise of the ludicrous Season mania, emblazoned across that standards are in dangerous Benedict Cumberbatch leaves Downton abbey drew in an audience of 12 million in 2011, while Mad double-deckers and Daily Mail decline. me all but speechless. Men, left, remains one of the most critically-acclaimed shows of the decade supplements. It will contribute It is all a question of expectation. The It is with regret that I watch something tentatively political British public are the captive recipients David Lynch’s incomparable of dazzling productions, in an otherwise banal decade, which was or cultural but not to the extent of whatever the BBC et al choose to feed Twin Peaks. An artist and a from Mad Men to Breaking promptly exported across the Atlantic that ‘haters gonna hate’. With such to them, and without selection pressure visionary, Lynch pushed the Bad, is a showcase of when its potential was recognised, cultural influence comes, one medium of television into stellar cinematography and going on to spawn an entire movement would hope, a little integrity, but OutSIDe the bOx transcendence; no longer inimitable character actors in situational comedy, from the under- with a long history of questionable a stop-gap between news sourced from obscurity. appreciated Arrested Development to winners and outrageous misfires 1 The X Factor Results bulletins, it was an artistic There is of course a parallel the wonderful Modern Family nearly a (Natalie Portman, anyone?), one 13.7 million viewers vehicle to rival the cinema. The supply of junk food entertainment decade later. can’t resist a sense of skulduggery 2 most accessible of all artforms, (we’ve all dabbled in 90210), but The obvious retort is that limited in the offing. There is no hiding The Royal Wedding the small screen could erode A STRINgER it is recognised as such, never budgets will always constrain British the fact that the ‘Oscarcast’ itself 13.6 million viewers cultural divisions in a way that serving as a substitute for the real TV. A fair point (apparently Jon Hamm is higher rated where box-office 3 Strictly Come Dancing non-mainstream cinema, in all its thing. is currently racking up $250,000 per smashes are tipped 13.0 million viewers exclusivity, never did. Even in comedy, the British have episode of Mad Men, and the first for success. At 4 Britain’s Got Talent Results The US once again leaves us been usurped. Former triumphs like season of Game of Thrones reportedly risk of personal 12.95 million viewers impotent in its wake. While there Monty Python and Yes, Minister have went for a whopping $55 million) but embarrassment, I 5 have arguably been few successors long since been archived, and in considering that the BBC’s annual would bet money I’m A Celebrity... to quite match Twin Peaks, current the post-Seinfeld era we have been expenditure on EastEnders is £30m, 12.8 million viewers on The Artist. FigurES For 2011, SourcE: bArb American television reeks of losing ground year on year. Britain perhaps a re-think is in order. After all, ambition. The growing array wasn’t ready for The Office, a rare gem inspiration costs nothing.

GOING GlObAl A Russian vampire film about yes, but nonetheless a A story of men whose sense of moral certainty is such Russia the struggle between Good masterpiece in genre-defying and Bad – what could be cinema. The bleakness of the that they will do almost anything to find vindication” better than that? Pre-sparkly- Russian cityscape combined R-Patz-vamp-mania, but with the absurdity of the post-Buffy-Spike-Angel love storyline – one of the women ●●● The opening shot of Iranian Terrence Malick, Farhadi's stripped- triangle, director Bekmambetov frequently turns into an owl – drama A Separation finds bank teller back direction feels refreshingly offers up a sinister thriller. make it a riveting watch with Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and university understated. There's also a noticeable Back in the Middle Ages, so an explosive climax. lecturer Simin (Leila Hatami) in a lack of music in the film; instead the story goes, an epic battle Bekmambetov went on drab government office, filing for the the chatter of crowded government took place between the forces to release an apt sequel, titular divorce. In an unbroken take, hallways and Tehran's thrumming FILM: Nightwatch of Light and Dark, culminating Daywatch, in 2006. I also the audience sits in place of the unseen streets provide the soundtrack. DIRECTOR: Bekmambetov in an equilibrium between the eagerly await the third judge who will decide their fate, setting The cast are faultless across the board, YEAR: 2004 destructive powers who await instalment, “Twilightwatch” the stage for the unflinching scrutiny with the two central couples imbuing the arrival of a Messiah-type which should hopefully be out A Separation of its characters that will their roles with such ambiguity that arbiter. any day now… unfold in the film’s two no true heroes or villains ever emerge. An admittedly silly premise, Alice Bolland Asghar Farhadi hour running time. While the character of Nader defies ★★★★★ Writer-director the cliché of the uncaring, conservative Asghar Farhadi's fifth husband, the script is also eager to point film, and winner of the out the hypocrisies present in liberal, Berlin Film Festival's coveted Golden middle class Iranians of his ilk. At its Bear, combines beautifully observed heart, A Separation is a story of men Cine-filecItyScApeS everyday interactions with the high whose sense of moral certainty is such stakes of a suspense thriller. The fallout that they will do almost anything to I recently read a letter pub- imagines a dystopian Los Angeles from Simin and Nader's attempt find vindication. Farhadi doesn't linger lished in PIDGIN, a Princeton in 2019. Architecture evokes as to divorce leads the couple to cross over this inherent paradox but we see School of Architecture jour- much as it reveals, being only paths with an unemployed shoemaker that in a society still clinging to some nal, titled ‘Dear Architects, based on real space. Similarly, and his timid wife. When a tragic semblance of patriarchy, self-doubt is a I am sick of your shit’. In this in its various incarnations on accident (or was it?) entangles their privilege left only to the women. the author complains, among the big screen, Gotham City lives even further, the film veers off in The title A Separation begins as an other things, that architects (home of Batman), has been unexpectedly heart-racing directions. oblique reference to a marital split but are incapable of discussing any- imagined and re-imagined, In a year dominated by visual stylists quickly encompasses much more than thing other than architecture, such drawing inspiration from New York like Nicolas Winding Refn and that: the division of social classes, the as her interest in Turkey eggs, and that all City, Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, London gulf between moral justice and the law, buildings resemble phalluses. and Chicago. Contrasting Tim Burton the irreconcilability of two versions Phalluses aside, buildings are, needless and Christopher Nolan’s visions, Burton of the same event. The adulation the to say, everywhere. Our whole lives are does more in the line of evoking, collag- film has received is well deserved and, underpinned by architecture: no wonder ing architectural styles. The power of this having already won the Golden Globe it’s so difficult for an architect to escape alternate reality comes from its architec- for Best Foreign Language Film, it it. This brings me to a filmmaker’s fas- tural roots, the inexorable metropolis. seems poised to snatch the Oscar too. cination with the metropolis. Some of Tom Hart But whatever happens on February its most interesting cinematic portray- 26th, A Separation is undoubtedly als lie not in the real, but the imagined ArcSoc will bE Showing BLaDE runnEr among the best small films of the year, city. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) on 30.01.12 At 7PM, ArchitEcturE dEPt. no matter the language. Jamie Fraser ● On a similar theme: La antena (Esteban Sapir, 2007), Metropolis (Fritz lang, 1926), Escape from new York (John A Separation was on limited release carpenter), rear Window (Alfred hitchcock, 1954), Gattaca (Andrew niccol, 1997) in the UK from July. It is now widely available on DVD WEEK 2 — JANUARY 27 2012 ART 17

Boring postcards get interesting HOLLYLook GUPTA Making fi ction from reality: iconic British photographer Martin Parr talks to Louise Benson odak used to be a byword for the film and camera PHOTOS BY MARTIN PARR industry; last week, they t was in a bathroom of a cafe sev- all. Parr pauses over the contradiction fi led for bankruptcy. eral years ago that I fi rst came that he proceeds to lay out, detailing the KTheir failure to invest in new across Martin Parr’s work: hung ‘‘ambiguity of contradictions even in digital technology is only one side up were several framed images of one frame”, while concluding “But yes, of the story. Kodak went out of typical English food – two limp documentary is certainly the simplest business because no-one wanted slices of white bread, a fry-up and most straightforward reading of my the products that they had remained swimming with baked beans, and a work”. His reticence to resign himself loyal to. These were the camera loneI cup of milky tea. Photographed to a terming so simple, though, is clear, fi lms that created real prints that arrestingly close up, with their stinging and we retread this and fi nd ourselves you could stick on your wall and colours glowering off the stained white addressing the humour evident in his into albums. Beyond and above walls, I was delighted by their cheerful work. Parr stresses that it is “Very Brit- the tangible nature of fi lm, prints showcasing of the ordinary. ish – one of the things we do best in this from negatives look very diff erent – Now, I am curious to zoom in further country in irony.” sometimes better, sometimes worse. still, and hear Parr’s take on the ordi- We talk next about his editing pro- Snapfi sh is faster and cheaper, but nary and everyday of our experiences in Photographs from The Last Resort, largely by the pioneering cess – Parr describes the hundreds of probably not as fun. here in Cambridge. Having had several above; Food, top right; and colour photographs of John images he takes in order to discover However, recent interest in fi lm commissions lead him here over the last Boring Postcards, right Hinde, the vivid hues of the among them just a handful of greats: seems to owe much to a curiosity decade, it is with a certain familiarity snapshots imbue them with put bluntly, “If you take more pictures about all things pre-digital, which that he considers the city. Within this, about contemporary photog- an excitement, and almost a to edit from you’re likely to get some have a sort of mysticism about them. though, I detect an arch note of humour raphy emerging today. He is quick to sickness, that Parr acknowl- better.” I ask about his grouping together People my age seem to feel nostalgia in his remarks upon fi nding himself counter his earlier abruptness on the edges when I pitch this towards him, of his work, with over 60 photo books to for an era of fi lm that they never in Cambridge – “that most secretive younger generations emerging, talking summarising “I regard myself as creat- Parr’s name, where patterns are sought knew – just look at the success of place” – once more. He discusses the animatedly on his experience of curat- ing fi ction out of reality.” out in ways that never fail to make me high street chain Urban Outfi tter’s diffi culties he has been faced with when ing the Brighton Photo Biennal in 2010  is brings us to his reaction to being laugh. Bored Couples is a favourite, as attempt to sell basic Japanese fi lm photographing the city, describing the – “‘I wanted to give a platform to those inaugurated in 1994 into Magnum, one is Bad Weather: much of his British cameras originally meant as toys. closeted professors and suddenly-self who I felt were photographing the world of the most infl uential social-documen- sense of humour emerges in this placing Tacita Dean explores our conscious students encountered here in an interesting way; to young photog- tary establishments in the world. He together of his images. fascination with these ideas in her when he was commissioned by the raphers who have not yet been seen, and describes in plain terms the “partnership It is on his vast collection of post- current Turbine hall installation Guardian to capture ten British cities older ones who have a potential to fi ll.” and cooperative” nature of Magnum, cards that we close – Parr went so far as ‘Film’, a, er, fi lm in which lightning – it is “a challenge to get any kind of When asked for names of ones to watch, and “their strength to apply themselves to publish a volume of them under the strikes and eggs roll across the access”. Cambridge was the third of he quips, “Well, you’ll have to check who to the commercial world.” It is evident title Boring Postcards. He describes the screen. She provokes more than she those in the series, and he “pushed hard featured in Brighton, won’t you? I’m not postcard as “the most democratic art explains. How has she created these to penetrate its shell”. We focus on the going to do all the work for you.” ‘He describes the postcard form”, and the infl uence of the colour- eff ects in such a ‘primitive’ medium? university, Parr stressing how bizarre it Such fl itting between seriousness and as “the most democratic art enhanced cityscapes that populate so Why are unmoving sprockets visible is that in a location so rich with a diver- straight-faced humour, the gap between many of them sold in unassuming against a changing image? And why sity of life – most notably the town/ the two being navigated almost imper- form”’ newsagents around the world is clear has she not chosen digital? gown split – “photography is ignored ceptibly, characterises the images that in his own photographs – although the Dean’s favour of the and marginalised” as a discipline to be Parr catches through his lens. His famed that Parr appreciates the stepping stone democracy of the fi ction created by physical, complex and taught and explored. photographs of the seaside town of that they are able to give photographers, his lens could certainly be drawn into archaic has broad Reflecting on his experience of New Brighton, Merseyside, published while unashamedly asserting that “It is a question. Parr insists “I am not trying and challenging teaching photography, Parr notes the in 1986 under the title e Last Resort broader church than previously, which to preach in my images, simply to implications. “laziness of the students” he’s encoun- (pictured below, bottom left) catch the my being taken on certainly assisted.” show one point of view.” As he puts it tered: “ ey’ve either got it or haven’t fantastic banalities – and, on occasion, I ask whether he would consider him- moments before we end, “It is one way got it”. I wonder, then, what he feels absurdities – of everyday life. Informed self a documentary photographer at of seeing the world.”

Sparked by the Tate’s exhibition, ‘ e Vorticists: Manifesto for a modern world’, there ...a way of controlling the has been an explosion of critical interest in Vorticism.” chaos”

●●● Vorticism, perhaps the with it the rediscovery of Vorticism. (among others) to found the Centre ●●●  e editor of this wittily titled most avant-garde and cohesive art Sparked by the Tate’s exhibition, e in opposition to Roger Fry’s autocratic book of contemporary collage describes movement to emerge on Vorticists: Manifesto for a modern regime at the Omega workshops in the medium as “a way of controlling Henri Gaudier- the British Isles, was so world, there has been an explosion of London.  e group would be baptised the chaos”.  e idea that, in the still- Brzeska: Vorticist! ephemeral that history had critical interest in Vorticism. ‘the Vorticists’ by Ezra Pound, a close ness of a scalpel knife and some PVA, more or less forgotten about Jim Ede (original owner of Kettle’s friend and collaborator. something spontaneous and beautiful Kettle’s Yard it. Still, much like fruit shoots Yard) was an avid collector of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s ink sketch of Ezra can be made in moments is the idea until 1 April (which changed an entire Gaudier-Brzeska, one of the group of Pound is one of many of his works that that all of the artists sell, and is what ★★★★★ generation’s understanding artists to form the Rebel Art Centre have been taken out of Kettle’s Yard’s makes the notion behind compilation about the relationship in 1914. Gaudier-Brzeska, primarily reserve collection and displayed on so successful.  e multi- Book Review: Cutting between fruit and candy) it a sculptor (though many of his most location accompanied by contextual plicity of media imagery Edges should not have been forgotten. What iconic works are in China ink), helped materials from the archive.. is immediately reduced to a relief, then, that last year brought Wyndham Lewis and Jacob Epstein  e gallery pays appropriate tribute something precise, neat Edited by James Gal- to Gaudier-Brzeska’s consuming and delightful: it is the lagher dedication to the Vorticists, symbolised language of advertising, by his Toy, which Ezra Pound declared ★★★★★ but nothing is being sold. the finest of his experiments, and The book selects and used as a totem to fi ddle with whilst presents in a way just as trying to think. Gaudier-Brzeska’s seductive as the medium Hidden Treasures investment in the Vorticist fascination it represents. Block-like geometric Last term Trinity Hall hosted an art with the relationship between animals compositions sit alongside faded natu- exhibition of the work of painter and machines is also represented in ralistic ones. A single image of a body Barbara Rae (left). The college has now the exhibition, in the sharp angles on a blank page can have equal impact been given several of the paintings and aggressive geometrisation of his as a kaleidoscopic layering of lines and Bird Swallowing a Fish.  e sculpture textures  ere is no one success story, for the Master’s Lodge, and is in the sits in the middle of the second room, and the pages work together with- process of buying another. hanging in its moment of suspended out the sequence ever feeling tired: it animation for a viewer to consider as is simultaneously both surprising and

IMAGE REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF TRINITY HALL COLLEGE. they walk around. logical. Do you know what masterpieces your Arranged neatly in the small rooms,  e introductory history of collage was college has tucked away? Gaudier-Brzeska’s brilliant work could bizarre, because the work is immediate. not look more at home at Kettle’s Yard. It needs no explanation or position- Watch VarsiTV’s series ‘Hidden Treasures’ to Which makes sense, because they are ing in time, especially as all the work is fi nd out more. at home – just moments away from very recent. I loved it because, knowing the bedroom in which Ede lovingly nothing about it, I could open it and be sheltered them. Aliya Ram absorbed. Holly Gupta 18 THEATRE JANUARY 27 2012 — WEEK 2

Playground HELEN CAHILL Elektra shock: next week’s Corpus mainshow has the power eing a Section Editor is bloody hard work. Luckily, Meeting the cast at their country I’m rather good at it, but I’ve noticed some of our team retreat, Katy Browse talks to slacking.B e Senior Arts Editor is particularly clueless. Personally, director, Ellie Kendrick, on what I think she should be fi red. Email [email protected] to join the to do with a Greek Play cause. My own competance is what nce every three years young girl fresh from the classical texts has distressed me this week. there occurs a ‘Cam- that all third year English students must Don’t worry, it’s not my editorial bridge Greek Play’. study intensively, reluctantly or no and excellence that has upset me. It e actors are taught an appreciation of the original shows. It is more how underappreciated I to pronounce Greek, shows in the choice of translation par- am – nobody reads my column. choirs to sing it and ticularly, which is that of Ezra Pound, After the fi rst issue, I thought my the audience to appreciate the tense one of the only modern poets that you inbox would be inundated with Oand overblown family dramas of the would trust with classical Greek. It is a congratulatory emails. It wasn’t. On original texts. It is a phenomenon that’s bit of a literary curio in itself, written introducing myself as the masterful hard to translate into English, let alone while the poet was in a mental asylum, author of ‘Playground’, I received re-create in the Corpus Playroom. unpublished in his lifetime. blank stares from my college When I arrive at Kendrick’s home, Kendrick admits that handling the Porters. I assumed Varsity hadn’t the small cast of the upcoming Elektra text was a sensitive process: “Look- been printed yet, but then I saw a production has already been here for ing at what had been done with this copy in their rubbish bin, discarded translation before, it was treated as if heartlessly with their respect for the everything in it, Pound’s use of Greek recycling facilities of St. Catharine’s ‘Much of the time in Kent for one, was imperfect. But if you look College. Is it because my subject has been spent working closely you see that the moments where matter is uninteresting? Surely not. the Greek is put are those when Elektra As Fred demonstrates each week on original music that is looking to the chorus for help. If you in ‘Critique’, eatre is inherently look at the way it’s put next to the Eng- compelling and good. revives the chorus’ part lish, and you read it out-loud, you can It can’t be that Varsity is in the play’ see how he’s trying to build up a dia- unimportant. at claim is not logue – like a secret language between only blasphemous, it’s downright the character and the chorus, one that inaccurate. I wouldn’t work for about a week. Careful timetables reveal we’ve tried to maintain as much as Varsity if it weren’t an exemplar the tight rehearsal programs as well possible.” of student journalism. Despite the as the sheer amount of food that has “At fi rst we asked Anthony Bowen slight (fi gurative) limp incurred been consumed during the making of to teach the cast the Greek parts of the upon us by our incompetant Senior the play. At one point I catch Kendrick’s play,” Kendrick recalls, referring to a Arts Editor, she’s no obstacle that mum restocking the biscuits. “Ellie had classical language coach. Yet here Greek the organisational profi ciency to plan over 300 breakfasts!” she tells meter was not quite right. Much of the of the majority of our team can’t me, laughing. So why the need to lock time in Kent has been spent working on circumnavigate. We put all other themselves up in Kent in the run-up to original music that revives the chorus’ publications to shame. term? part in the play. It’s extraordinarily rare for me is is a particularly diff erent and While the cast rehearses, I can hear to have diffi culty understanding diffi cult take on Sophocles’ Elektra: the snatches of a guitar that I assume something. I’m forced to conclude translation they’re working from has belongs to Music Director, Hatty that this is an unsolvable problem. been pronounced unfi nished by many Carman, putting the fi nishing touches Maybe one day, you’ll look back and and unreadable by others, let alone to a song. Summed up in Blues rhythms recognise my insightful stageable. It is not only liberal with its and some rich harmonies, they give the contributions for the literal translation, but moves the entire play a strength that’s diff erent to the genius they are, and action from Ancient Greece to the fi elds Greek but at the same time very much 1. Sophie Crawford as Elektra, surrounded by the chorus members of the play. 2. An Elektra- wished you’d talked of the Deep South of America. in a similar vein. fying moment 3. Elektra and her less vengeful sister, Chrysothemis (Rozzi Nicholson-Lailey) to me one night in Ellie and I agree that similar mod- Roll on the spectacle and bloody e Maypole. ernisation has proved disastrous to murder! ey are in surprisingly safe these plays, but this is a strapping hands. The Varsity Star Guide ★★★★★ Show me out ★★★★★ Poor show ★★★★★ Unbearable ★★★★★Show me more ★★★★★ Showing off

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Setting up a space within Cambridge comedy Sophie Lewisohn talks to the cast of Rookie, for women is an exciting breakthrough – the all-female sketch show for Lowenthal the most important show e are assigning the week’s collected fi ve like-minded women and nurtured and developed over weeks. she’s worked on” theatre jobs in the Var- a female director for the project. ey “There’s a lot of back and forth, sity offi ces when it gets to then “incarcerated themselves” for two exchanging ideas, right up to the end. CECI MOURKOGIANNIS Rookie, a new all-female weeks in each other’s homes, brain- If something’s not working in rehearsal Wsketch show. Fred Maynard makes a storming ideas, working in diff erent you can just change it – the writer is shrewd point: if a girl reviews it and pairings, testing their jokes and writing standing right next to you!” fi nds it funny, will she be believed? their script. As director, Lowenthal was an audi- Better send a man for the job. Whether their material should focus ence for the developing material, The lurking ‘woman question’ in on ‘female issues’ was a question they advising the cast which ideas to expand comedy runs along the lines of: are debated at the beginning of the proj- and which to cut. “Compared to direct- women funny, and do we even like ect. Giulia Galastro recalls that no one ing straight plays, the process with funny women? It is something the was keen to restrict themselves to the Rookie has been far more fl uid. ere Rookie cast are acutely aware of; over familiar female comedian’s territory of isn’t that hierarchy of director/actors – breakfast in Indigo I hear how the show menstruation jokes and waxing sto- everyone’s comments are valid.” came about. ries. “Women’s lives are a rich mine for Setting up a space within Cam- e comedy scene in Cambridge, as comedy,” says Lowenthal. “ ere’s so bridge comedy for women is an exciting everywhere, is male-dominated. Celine much to play with; the material has a lot breakthrough – for Lowenthal: “the Lowenthal, the show’s director, explains of variety.” Galastro does promise one most important show I’ve worked on’. that though you fi nd girls in comic roles period joke, however. ‘ e girl jokes e hope is that Rookie will encourage and smokers, they are rarely to be found eventually emerged organically – after more girls to put themselves forward in high profi le sketch shows or on the all, you write what you know.’ for comedy. ‘ e talent is there – it’s Footlights committee. “It’s crazy, but it For Galastro, the best part of the just a question of confidence and was so diffi cult to break into the comedy project has been the chance to develop opportunity.” circuit that an exclusively female show sketches collaboratively. Compared ● Rookie opens on Tue, 31st Jan. seemed necessary just to get heard.” with the short, sharp audition and per- at Corpus Playroom starring Rosa Rookie is the brainchild of Rosa formance routine of the fortnightly Robson, Matilda Wnek, Emma Powell, Robson. Gathering up girls she’d seen in smokers, which can be intimidat- Ellie Nunn, Guilia Galastro and Temi comedies and standup nights, Robson ing, Rookie was a show that could be Wilkey. It takes balls to break into the male-dominated Cambridge comedy scene week 2 — janUary 27 2012 THeaTre 19

I would have liked more time to see Critique Elektra shock: next week’s Corpus mainshow has the power Gus explore his situation verbally Fred Maynard Maya Beano as well as physically” s theatre at Cambridge too conservative? Not politically, ●●● I wanted to start this review by Krsljanin’s posture stays precisely, and full as it is of angsty lefties like explaining why the newspaper prop menacingly, on the edge of comic; he Imyself, but in our choice of plays. used in this production annoyed me. I does an impressive job of silently build- In the past fortnight we’ve already don’t know whether it was a deliberate ing up what may, just may, be concealed been visited by that perennial attempt to make A Point in a play which knowledge of what’s going to happen as undergraduate pair of favourites, resists that sort of thing, or just a rare the play ends. Shakespeare and Pinter. These two lapse into lazy anachronistic design, If I’ve got a criticism, it’s that some of return again and again; I count 7 or... But such pedantry would annoy Johnston’s monologues felt rattled off. Pinters and 12 Shakespeares in the you more than the prop annoyed me. I recognise the attempt to play against 4 terms I’ve been here. And both of And it would just show up how little the Pinter-pause cliché but, at 45 min- them are wonderful playwrights. there is in this production utes, this feels disarmingly brief. I But do we need that much of them? The dumb Waiter to get annoyed about. would have liked more time to see Gus I understand the financial reasons 2 The production is a explore his situation verbally as well as behind the same conventional Corpus Mainshow masterclass in using the physically – and perhaps a bit longer plays being staged. The ADC has ★★★★★ Playroom effectively. The on that final tableau. Credit must go to make money, and Tennessee eponymous waiter is kept too to the light and sound design: the Williams and Ibsen are guaranteed (almost) out of the audi- lighting creeps up on you unnervingly to bring in punters from outside ence’s eye-line: it therefore comes as in the silence as the play begins, and the university. There is also a the last surprise reveal of an opening the sound of the dumb waiter is first problem for us compared to other section in which George Johnston’s jolting, then wonderfully ominous. universities, since we have no pacing has carefully established the Best of all, however, is use of the drama degree: practically the whole kind of space we’re in. Playroom’s intimacy. Corpus is the theatre world is made up of English It’s only when he wanders into the kind of space in which a struck match undergraduates. I’m one of them. aisle to pick up a mysterious envelope can hang on the air and, if you’re sitting And English students, especially that Luka Krsljanin rises, and begins next to the aisle at the right moment, Cambridge ones, love wordy, literary making the underground room his you can literally smell a character’s fear. plays that aren’t necessarily at the own as well. It’s rare to see the “shifty, This production exploits that, creating cutting edge of innovation. They shifting dynamics” that the flyer boasts exactly the sort of giddily live experi- have all kinds of ideas as to what so clearly enshrined in blocking. ence I want from theatre. See, hear and Stoppard means in Travesties, where Such clarity is partly possible because smell it for yourself, and find out why a drama student might be interested the play’s a two-hander – but it that newspaper annoyed me. in what Punchdrunk are doing with helps to have two such gifted hands. Jack Belloli “immersive theatre” nowadays. Both might be pretentious, but the latter, I think, ends up with the more interesting theatre experience. Much as I enjoyed King Lear last week (and there was plenty to praise), I couldn’t help comparing it to other versions of the play I had seen. It couldn’t help but suffer from comparison with the Ian McKellen version of 2007 – a ridiculous demand from me, of course, but that is the nature of doing Shakespeare – whatever your innovation, someone will have done it before, with Patrick Stewart, in space. Which 1 isn’t to mention the problem both Pinter and Shakespeare presents to students: they are both far more 3 difficult to perform than they first Johnston and Krsljanin use the intimacy of the Playroom to its full effect appear. The Varsity Star Guide ★★★★★ Show me out ★★★★★ Poor show ★★★★★ Unbearable ★★★★★Show me more ★★★★★ Showing off Those signature rhythms of “Pause.” and iambic pentameter respectively require years of training for professionals to get Why be a producer? right. For students with four weeks I could try and defend this play as an of rehearsal, the result can far too innocent piece of zombie-riffic fun, but I There’s a lot of people easily come out as underwhelming, would be wasting my breath” management involved, especially when there are so many and I suppose the professional examples to compare it to. ●●● I think I had better come clean: I it strikes me as rather pointless. One man’s biggest privilege of Also, Shakespeare does require didn’t get this. I’m not sure there was any- journey to work was presented, it seemed, being a producer is that an age range greater than 18-21 thing to get, but every time I convinced to show that the director could give the for its cast. So much of the plays’ myself of this, something would make me impression of a crowded tube train on you are perhaps one of power comes from the sense of think again. The play was based on poetry, stage; clever, yes, but with this purpose the few people on the generational conflict, and so many which, as any English student will tell you, only, why do it? production who gets of the greatest speeches have that always means something; and perhaps I The cast are mainly novices, but the fact elegant weariness of experience missed the point of the ring composition. that little more was demanded of them to liaise with everyone. hard-won, that somehow 19 year Then again, Zombie Haiku could just be a than prolonged vacant stares and moving Although a lot of the olds can come across as trite and waste of everybody’s time. in time to the director’s signature sound- shallow, through no fault of their This is a forty minute pre- track meant that any acting frailties that time quashing the cast- performance. Not to mention the Zombie Haiku sentation of the frame of a play may have existed went unexposed. techie rivalry would testing of credulity when Polonius that is incoherent and lacks A noticeably strong performance came make the most ardent of is clearly the same age as Ophelia. Corpus Latesow all purpose. The complete from Michael Campbell, while Lizzie (In fairness I should salute the dialogue would fit into my Schenk and Charlie Bindels were given UN negotiators shudder, performance last week of King Lear ★★★★★ 400 word limit for this article just enough of a chance to show that they I revel in it. himself – in both its halves, Theo several times over, but no pro- would be deserving of more substantial Hughes-Morgan and his makeup). fundity lay within the brevity. Exchanges opportunities in the future. If you look at the critical reception were even more mundane than real life, I could try and defend this play as an of recent Cambridge Shakespeare, which is a feat when you are depicting a innocent piece of zombie-riffic fun, but I the broad picture seems one zombie apocalypse. would be wasting my breath. It didn’t seem of general apathy. Very few Most of the duration is padded out with to be making any attempt to get the audi- productions managed to get even highly stylised, heavily choreographed ence laughing – at least, I hope it wasn’t. four stars, which reflects a certain ensemble physical theatre, accompanied I suppose a one star play deserves a jadedness on behalf of critics and by what I can only describe as the director one star summarising line: Zombie Haiku audiences as well, I think. I don’t Chloe Mashiter’s theme tune. presents the bare bones of a play that is think we shouldn’t do Shakespeare, For what it’s worth, the ensemble was not – and never should be – fleshed out. Claudia Blunt it just doesn’t fit our skill set well slick, but ‘neat’ theatre just for the sake of Richard Stockwell Producer enough to do it all the time. 20 FASHION JANUARY 27 2012 — WEEK 2

HeatherAll forWilliams Pugh wants to wear the unwearable: she explores Gareth Pugh and the allure of the architectural hen I first watched a unspecifi ed future event Gareth Pugh show I of radical change where realised it was okay to the relationship between want to be a building. the human body and its WI also immediately understood that I environment has been was born in the wrong century, began transformed – where reading my father’s New Scientist, and an organic connection avidly dreamt of inventing a working between city and self has time machine that would take me to been achieved.  e fabrics a future era where everybody dressed and textures represent in latex, masks, and harlequin squares both transience and per- arranged in bizarre (and painful to manence, evoking the wear) confi gurations. I was sixteen, solidity of the skyscrap- deeply impractical, and had never seen ers that surround us and the delicacy of anything quite like his designs. the objects that appear and disappear Pugh’s work has variously been in the urban debris. Let’s not forget that described as monochromatic, angu- underlying sense of humour, however – notably, Pugh recently created a series ‘There’s a reason why of headpieces by infl ating condoms and much of Pugh’s work is imitating the shapes that appeared. He told the Independent that the inspira- labelled unwearable’ tion came from ‘the idea of creating something permanent from something lar, geometric, and apocalyptic.  e that would normally be here today and models wearing his clothes look awk- gone tomorrow.’ His work gives all ward – oppressed by the architectural aspects of the city validity, and gestures designs that they carry, not wear. His towards a future where we truly inhabit early shows are the clearest example of the spaces we live in. this, with the designs swamping and Yet Pugh’s work also eff ects a recon- extending the frail bodies underneath ciliation of old and new. In 2011, Pugh them.  ere’s a reason why much of made his Italian debut in Florence with Pugh’s work is labeled ‘unwearable.’ In Pitti Immagine, projecting a fi lm into Pugh’s Spring/Summer 2007 collection the ceiling of a 14th century church. His the faces of the models are obscured collection is inspired by Florentine art by impenetrable black masks, and the and religious iconography but fi rmly clothes they wear look as though they locates these within modernity. His have been built around them, with angels sport plastic, rectangular wings, cuboid shoulders and angular shapes and a robotic model is duplicated over hiding the natural curves of their and over again, associating Medici bodies.  ey look as though they are gold with the factory production line. carrying fragments of the city on their  rough his fashion fi lms, as well as in shoulders. his main lines, Pugh shows us a sci-fi Pugh’s early designs show a human future where technology can be beauti- body fundamentally at unease with its ful and the city spiritual, and where the urban environment, so why do they human body and architecture can each appeal to us?  is is because his work mirror the other. One day, perhaps, the I’LL SHOW YOU is only apocalyptic if the apocalypse is teenage Pugh-bot in me will fi nd that interpreted with total optimism, as an future home.

TRUE DAT AROUND THIS Deemed by Pevsner as ‘the best of Marilyn Monroe. the new’, Churchill College occupies one of the largest spaces of the whole Top Tip:  e silver sculpture at the front ALPHABET TOWN university! It houses tonnes of modern that resembles a dog? Don’t make the artwork, from Hepworth’s Four Square mistake of saying it looks like a dog – Walk- rough to Warhol’s prints of it’s abstract.

International May Week inspiration in the making at the monochrome masked ball – from an HotCity living stuff on the mean ! streets of Cambridge can American in Paris to you be tough – but not when you’ve got this neat stuff

‘The Classic’, £74, The Cam- bridge Satchel Company

‘Y5L’ College Sweater, £32.90, La Antena – ‘A city 5 Preview without a voice’, £10.79, amazon.co.uk WEEK 2 — JANUARY 27 2012 FASHION 21

PHILIPPA WEARS (L-R Clockwise) 1 All Clothes and Accessories Charlie May 2 Coat Cos Trousers Charlie May Hairband Topshop 3 All Clothes Charlie May Hairband Topshop 4 All Clothes Charlie May Shoes O ffi c e TasteCLAIRE HEALY & Hairband Topshop Necklace Cos 5 All Clothes Charlie May NAOMI PALLAS

PHOTOGRAPHS Louise Benson STYLING Naomi Pallas & Claire Healy MODEL Philippa Bywater hurchill College woke up this weekend to grey skies, strong winds and two fashion editors Cwailing ‘Rain rain go away, please TRUE DAT don’t destroy the Charlie May!’ – the two fashion editors being some idiots Charlie May is a designer/blogger based without umbrellas, and Charlie May in Hackney. Part of the new breed of being the name of the young designer fashion all-rounders, she blogs (check out whose clothes we shot this week. Our girlalamode.co.uk), takes photographs and theme this week is Cities, but rather has just launched her own line for S/S 12. than predictably hit you with some Fun fact: over-excited anticipation for the the pink ponyskin fabric used upcoming Fashion Month (New York! ‘City Scene’ Motel Dress, £29, on her custom headbands is her Mum’s London! Paris! Milan! Cambridge!) asos.co.uk from the 1970s! we thought we’d abandon big city dreamin’ for the hidden pleasures to be found more locally. Forget riverside punts and grass that you can’t step on – it’s the modern colleges outside of town that have the real feel of a city-scape. Churchill’s buildings, sculptures and general greyness provide the perfect setting for the asymmetric lines and contrast with Finger Puppers – Milan Fashion Designers (Do- the billowing fabrics of the clothes. natella, Giorgio, Miuccia,Viktor + Rolf, Anna), Modelling this week was the lovely £65, Rubbish Magazine Website Philippa, who somehow managed to look comfortable in stiff ponyskin Washington trousers that left little room to breathe Cheerleader – professionalism at its fi nest. Varsity Fashion boffi ns love to talk about ‘Hollywood Tighs’ Jacket, the diff erent styles of each style capital Henry Holland, £55, – Paris is chic, New York is classic and On Sale at London is, well, just a bit odd. In less £8.70, tight- glamorous climes, however, we think splease.co.uk the neutral tones and simple lines of this young design talent suit a grey Cambridge day just fi ne. Andy Warhol ‘Giant Size’ – Hardback, £20.04, amazon.co.uk 22 SporT january 27 2012 — Week 2

TimKickabout KenneTT Blues draw continues TV Rights and Piracy

eing, like many people, not only pay for their strips, but to undefeated streak almost wholly dependent pay a premium for them. The clubs Julie HaRRiSon on Wikipedia for our didn’t realise that the advertising degrees, my friends and I space on their shirts had value. The Bwere concerned with the blackout incompetence is staggering. staged last week to protest SOPA and They’re in a similar situation with PIPA. Thankfully, we all managed to broadcast rights at the moment circumvent the blackout, and return, though. The current situation is bad undisturbed, to procrastinating from for the fans and it’s bad for the clubs. our work. For starters, streaming online would Wikipedia’s protest was increase the revenues of those clubs nonetheless effective, in that it got us – like, say, Swansea – who are not talking about internet piracy, and how ‘big’ enough to have their matches it should be regulated. The conclusion shown on TV all the time, and it we came to was that the best way to would allow all their fans to see all combat piracy within the current their games, even if they couldn’t go copyright framework is to offer a high to the stadium. It would also allow for quality service – something football a massive swelling of fanbase. This clubs universally fail to do. has already been a trend of football in Now, I should confess: I have no the last twenty years, with clubs like great respect for intellectual property Manchester United and Barcelona laws. Nor am I sufficiently wealthy to becoming global brands. These clubs have a Sky subscription. The natural, have millions of fans around the inevitable result of these two factors is world who aren’t capable of attending that I have, in my time, tried to watch games. They would, and do, watch dodgy streams of live football online. games though – and could surely Mostly in Arabic. Not once has the be convinced to buy online ‘season experience been satisfying. And the tickets’ allowing them to view every streams often, somewhat alarmingly, match. cut out while your watching them. The reason Facebook is valued at The clubs are lucky that what they more than $80 billion not because sell – the rights to live games – are they have high revenues (only $4.27 one-offs. No one torrents football billion) but because they have a matches. But they aren’t taking full customer base. The theory is that advantage of this. Sure, they sell it is easier to ‘monetise’ – rip off – Blues captain, nick Parkes, threatens the Chelmsford goal TV rights to companies around the customers you already have than to world. But why have that middleman? get new customers. Football clubs by Gus Kennedy setback, Cambridge stuck to their prevented the visitors from building Why don’t clubs sell their matches are in a similar position. Hockey correspondent attacking style, which seemed sure to any sustained passages of possession, online directly to fans worldwide? They have large, loyal pay dividends. While a penalty stroke and the Blues made incisive forays Football is notoriously bad at customer bases Having dispatched league leaders West following a foul on Charlie Bennett was towards the Chelmsford goal. business. Apparently in the seventies around the world. Herts’ in the opening fixture of 2012, tipped onto the post, only moments Rupert Allison led the way with a some of the sports companies They need to get the Blues were hoping to extend a five later the scores were levelled when a dominant display in the centre of the managed to convince the clubs to on it. game undefeated streak against former fantastic counter attack gave Grim- midfield, and the Chelmsford sup- National League side Chelmsford. shaw his 5th of the season, before the port crew were increasingly muted as With Balding, Bennett and Charleston umpire called half time. a second goal for Cambridge seemed inTervieW returning, the Blues had a strong side After the break, Cambridge began inevitable. Cairns shot just wide of the for what would be a close encounter. right hand post after a terrific forward Cambridge were quick to show ‘Despite failing to convert run, before Bennett saw his one-on- their intent, employing a solid press one saved by the Chelmsford goalie. from the outset. The tight marking multiple opportunities in It seemed only a matter of time as the Off the field of the home sides trio of midfielders Light Blues won short corner after darren Wood has been trinity Head Groundsman gave Cambridge the first goal scoring front of goal, the draw short corner, however the persistent opportunity of the match, with Sam extended the Blues’ pressure failed to translate into goals for 11 years. Laura Kirk went to meet him Grimshaw’s shot cleared off the line. and the home side had to settle for a Grimshaw continued to make a nui- recent streak as they 1-1 draw. What are your responsibilities and genuinely have a laugh with the sance of himself up front, shuttling Despite failing to convert multiple at Trinity? students, although they do give as good between the opposition’s centre halves, build for Varsity’ opportunities in front of goal, the draw The general upkeep of Trinity Old as they get, in particular Ollie Twinam! though his enthusiasm sometimes got extended the Blues’ recent streak as Fields, the gym and Cranmer Road the better of him as he managed to they build for Varsity. pitches, and in particular the transition Worst part of the job? obstruct his own right back. to take control of what had been a Meanwhile the Wanderers beat from winter to summer sports. I am in Definitely having to work seven days a It was Chelmsford who took an early pretty even contest. The back four of league whipping boys Harpenden 3-0, charge of all aspects of sport at Trinity, week. With the exception of rugby, all lead, however, breaking up the right Way, Styles, Cairns and Harrison were giving a relatively young side confi- be it football, rugby and hockey in college games are played at weekends, hand side and sliding a pass across the dominant, in spite of dogged Harrison dence for their Varsity preparations, the winter to tennis and cricket in the which makes it hard to balance work face of goal for a simple tap in against having only been judged fit in the pre- while a struggling Squanderers side summer, or badminton and squash all with family life. When I first arrived the run of play. Undeterred by this match warm up. The University’s press lost narrowly to Dereham. year round. the students were not as friendly as now, but this has completely changed. Favourite part of the job? First and foremost I enjoy constantly What do you do in your spare time? being outside and not stuck behind a Football! I have played at Cambridge desk in an office! More importantly United and am currently coaching King’s in the ascendancy though, I love being able to build the Trinity Football team. I’m also relationships with the students. I watching my son follow in my by Sorcha Bacon, Hatty Carman Nine netball games. The others had ups, hurled abuse and the occasional am passionate about the success of footsteps, having been snapped up by either never played or were only famil- fistfight only added to their fervent Trinity sports and always want the Cambridge United already! The King’s College netball team is not iar with the more conventional rules enthusiasm. teams to do well, so I will always your average netball team, if anything of American basketball. In compliance Frequently hungover ex-captain step-in to offer support when l Each week Varsity will be they are your sub-average netball team. with any Hollywood fairytale, they were Hatty ‘Hellfire’ Carman remarked, “I a team is struggling or needs featuring ‘Off the field’, meeting Donning Docs and, in the words of one born to be champions. like watching people cry.” The scores encouragement. The rugby someone whose work to support obnoxious Newnham girl, ‘home-made’ increased to such an extent that any- boys have had a tough couple the teams of Cambridge is bibs, they hardly gave the appearance of The frequently hungover thing below a 17-0 win brought only of seasons, but I’m hoping last not always appropriately a league topping powerhouse. bitter disappointment to the mysteri- week’s massive win against acknowledged. If you have a At the beginning of Michaelmas ex-captain remarked, ‘i ously competitive team. Magdalene will kick- particular ‘Unheralded 2011, players were few and hard to No one expected a squad from such start their season and Hero’ who you think come by, but the revolutionary captain like watching people cry’ humble beginnings to emerge as an lead to more success deserves recognition, Sorcha Bacon scraped the barrel and undefeated, league topping inspira- in the future. please email turned the sub-par ingredients into a From week to week, the violence tion. And so, King’s College Netball Having been at [email protected] broth of netball excellence. increased as rapidly as their victories team successfully moved up from Trinity for eleven with your Prior to the first match, the average became more glorious. Screaming the fifth league to the blood bath of years, I can have nomination. girl was still recovering from the bitter matches with arbitrary umpires, rouge the fourth. Trinity Hall seconds, you a bit of banter trauma of being steamrollered in Year balls, bent goal hoops, furious toss- better watch out! with the teams Give us a smile, Darren WEEk 2 — jANuARy 27 2012 sport 23

Varsity Crossword no. 536 The Fab

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Across Down 9 Outcast, Eve admitted a prompt (7) 1 Crossword compiler backing kitty to Varsity Quiz 9 10 10 Man with most points becomes ruin everything (4-2) 1. 2 What does the UL have in writer (7) Go off me, Saul and 10’s character common with a telephone box? 11 Ship carrying something strange for (6) 3 10’s villain (7) Reportedly confound 10’s sissy (4) 2. Which Ocean goes to the 11 12 12 4 Cambridge healthier for a bishop’s Elite alien ready after the first of deepest depths? crook (7) January (3,3) 13 Sacred composer grabs one, not in a 5 A caldera explosion for 10’s beauty 3. Which Bear grows larger, wrestling school (9) (3,5) Brown Grizzly or Polar? 13 14 15 15 La Paz dealt with Spanish 6 Achieve calm, his cop murdered marketplace (5) (10) 4. What is a fear of beards called? 16 Dire hairdo for one of 10’s 7 Virtuous church free without characters (7) hesitation (8) 5. What is Paul McCartney’s 19 8 16 17 18 19 English leader repulsive; you give a Sure is strange label for logging on middle name? look of contempt (4,3) (8) 20 French newspaper doubly docked a 14 Dowdier don reformed by 10 (5,5) 6. The Canary Islands were named fruit (5) 16 Ancient Russian leader amongst after which animal? 21 10’s hair-raising quantity reported surge of people looking for precious 20 21 22 23 24 7. after mid-January (5,4) metal (4,4) What was the world’s first 25 Vermin conspiracy a bit of a 17 A Tuesday in jail is childish (8) organised fashion week? predicament (7) 18 Head of government with abnormal 26 8. Which super fun italian brand 25 26 27 Obstacles abutting 10’s character (7) dock is more dissatisfied (8) 28 10’s miser tampered with sore cog 22 Inuits arranged in position (2,4) is moving to london this fashion (7) 23 Fake amongst tigers at zoo (6) week to show its AW collection? 29 Tornado played on a plastic mat (7) 24 Petitions losing Republican 9. Is Cambridge a city? consumers (6) 28 29 27 Initially alto really into alternative 10. What do you call a resident of song (4) Halifax? Set by Phonic 11. The highest-rated broadcast in the history of British TV was the 1966 World Cup final. In which city was it held?

12. Which recent film was the first ever to win 3 Bears at the Berlin Downing snatch last-gasp victory Film Festival? In a dramatic finish, Downing take one step closer to PWC Division 1 title after 3-2 win over Homerton 13. While fourteen horses portrayed Joey in this week’s War Horse, the main equine l star had previously appeared By Tom Nutt on the edge of the Homerton box. He In the Women’s PWC Division 1, match had lost just once this season. in another blockbuster, what FOOTBALL CORRESPONDENT unleashed a trademark shot from long- Homerton and King’s will be looking As the game moved in the latter stages was it? range that looped over the keeper after to build on last term’s success after of the second-half, Homerton levelled A thrilling encounter between two of taking a slight deflection. both recording crushing victories the score line for the second time. Fol- 14. What links Sheffield, Rome & the serious PWC Division 1 title con- This settled the Downing side, who in the final week. With a six-point lowing good work on the right side Istanbul? tenders saw Downing come out on began to grow in confidence and find gap between second place King’s by Barney Mayles, a dangerous cross top with a dramatic late winner. Five their passing game. With few further and third place Darwin, it will be found the head of Ryan Stevens at the 15. Which city has been points separated the sides going into clear cut opportunities created in the a two-horse race for the title. At near post, who glanced the ball past a continuously habited for the the match, with Homerton knowing first half, Homerton found themselves the other end of the table, Girton helpless Alex Matthews in the Down- longest time? that victory would all but end any hopes on level terms going into the break. As will be looking for their first win ing goal. Downing had of claiming their second is somewhat customary of the Downing of the season to lift them out of the Although a draw was looking like the 16. What is the world’s first garden league trophy in three years. side this season, a free-kick from a fairly relegation zone. most likely outcome with 10 minutes city? Homerton saw much of the ball in innocuous position made its way to to play, another speculative effort from

the early stages, with Downing, setting the box, and a failed clearance enabled Dan Sellman put the away side into a Corcut was fumbled by the Homerton

Letchworth Damacus hills seven

16. 16. up with five across the midfield, content the Homerton forward to head the ball deserved lead after a dangerous ball goalkeeper, only for the quick-thinking 15.

All built on on built All Seabiscuit Separation A London

14. 14. 13.

on soaking up the early pressure and home from close range. across the Homerton box eluded their Clark Glasgow to follow up and poke 12.

A Haligonian Haligonian A cathedral a as status same the has 11. 11. 10.

Yes. Great St. Mary’s Mary’s St. Great Yes. chic and cheap Moshino looking to break on the counter. The A large Downing support was begin- entire back line, leaving Sellman with a the ball home. A resolute Downing side Week 9. 8.

New York Fashion Fashion York New Dogs Paul Pogonophobia

7. 7. 6.

deadlock was broken, somewhat against ning to gather on the side-lines, and they simple finish at the back post. saw out the remaining minutes to clinch 5.

Polar bear is twice the size size the twice is bear Polar Ocean Pacific The

4. 4. 3.

the run of play, twenty minutes in after a saw their team move into the ascen- This was met with a strong response a vital 3-2 victory and put themselves in 2. Both designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott Scott Gilbert Giles Sir by designed Both

swift passing move found James Corcut dency as the second half progressed. from Homerton , who prior to the pole position to regain the league title. 1. Answers:

KaTH Morris

Homerton and Downing clash in a tense encounter 24 spOrt januaRy 27 2012 — week 2

22 Hockey: Blues fail to get the points despite sustained pressure against Chelmsford

Lacrosse Kingfishers unable to close-out Oxford Brookes university The Kingfishers twice threw away a three goal lead at Varsity hangover begins KAth MORRIS Oxford Brookes to come away with only an 8-8 draw. After starting strongly and having a goal disallowed, Cambridge let Brookes bring the score back to 4-4. After the break, Cambridge extended their lead to 8-5, but could not capitalise on their numerous attacking opportunities. With minutes to go, a resurgent Brookes scored 4 goals in quick succession, and it was down to the heroics of the Cambridge goal-keeper to keep the scores even at the final whistle. Hockey Blues steal second place from nottingham trent university The Ladies Blues beat Nottingham Trent 3-0 in a match crucial to attaining their Blues status of coming 3rd in their league. Tied for second place prior to the match, the first half ended 0-0. After a rousing team talk from Vicky Evans, the Blues came out strong to take a 3-0 lead, with goals from Abby Gibb and Dani Moyles. Cambridge brought a physicality to the game, with tackles from Gibb and Banfield riling a frustrated Trent side. As always there was a fear that Cambridge scrum-half Donald Blake makes a break Trent might mount a comeback, but the Blues held their nerve until the BLues 22 drive brought the score to 19 -12. converted, the deficit stretched to 17 an apt 44-22. There remained only a final whistle gave them sole owner- DurHam 44 This was a scrap, characterised by points. final flurry from the Blues, thwarted ship of second place. errors from both sides and occasion- The rallying cry from Durham no. by further handling errors, and some Jesus maintain control by Joseph Burgis ally illuminated by slick handling in 6 was ‘let’s get vicious’, and his side imaginary card-waving worthy of Man- Rugby CoRRespondent the back line. Some misguided kick- soon proceeded to do so. Slick passing cini himself. of top Division ing began to creep into the Blues’ game and good angles opened up the Blues’ There is no doubt that Durham put COLLege Jesus had a strong start For most of the university, University before they again started to exert some defence, and at 41-17 the game was in an impressive performance, but the with a huge 36-9 win over newly rugby after Varsity is an afterthought, real pressure. irretrievable. Blues will be disappointed with the promoted Emma. Murray Edwards a quiet footnote to an already decided An encouraging break down the right Rob Stephen provided a late try for manner in which they let this game slip launched their own bid for the season. In the early moments of this wing had the Durham defence rattled the Blues, before Durham converted away from them after pulling it back at title with a 25-7 win against St. Saturday’s fixture against Durham Uni- and resulted in flanker Jonathan Ken- another penalty to make the final score half time. Catharine’s, who were unable to versity, it appeared that even the Blues nedy seeing yellow. stop the clinical Murray Edwards. themselves shared this opinion. The Blues took advantage of their St. Catharine’s had three teams It took less than a minute for Durham extra man. Having earned a penalty and promoted last term, but will face to chalk up the first points of the game, kicked to touch, another well-executed a tough challenge if they are to courtesy of a try and conversion from lineout provided the platform for Rob remain in the top flight. captain M. Ward. Within ten minutes, Malaney, a former Durham captain, to A very complex Elsewhere in Division 1, the scoreboard read 19 –0 in the visi- get over the line. Though unconverted, Newnham recorded an 11-5 win his efforts took the score to 19-17 and over St. John’s. Queens’ started their ‘this was a scrap, the Blues now had a solid foothold in own campaign with a 17-8 victory the game. sports debate over Downing. characterised by errors, Durham looked the better-drilled side, but the Blues were physically dom- by Adam Fuller By contrast, Ospreys’ President Anna Football Blues sent to occasionally illuminated inant. Scrum-half Donald Blake’s ambi- Harrison took a more serious approach. Coventry tious but ultimately unsuccessful quick On Thursday night, the Union held an She focused on the benefits of sport university The Blues were unable by slick handling’ throw-in brought the first half to an emergency debate discussing whether to individuals, and the importance of to repeat last week’s performance end. the new £16m sports centre being built sporting prowess for University repu- against title rivals Coventry, tors’ favour, as the Blues could muster Having fought to get back into the in West Cambridge was money well tation. She also compared the £10m going down 3-2 against the same no more than a sluggish response to the game, the Blues needed a strong start spent. to the £46m spent on the new Mate- opposition. After a promising onslaught of the Durham pack. to the second half. But once again, Dur- It was clear from the outset that the rials Science building. Hawks’ Presi- start, the Blues found themselves With missed tackles, dropped passes ham punished a lack of alertness in the two sides would approach the question dent Andrew Dinsmore was equally behind mid-way into the first half. and a miscued restart, it was beginning early exchanges as second row Josh with different degrees of seriousness. straight-faced, discussing the merits of The reply from Dan Forde brought to look as if the Blues would be on the Beaumont, influential throughout the Arguing against the sport centre, Steve Cambridge level but Coventry took wrong end of a cricket score. In the face game, drove over to make it 24-17. Squirrell was quick to adopt a satirical ‘50 million Freddos is a the lead before half time. of a strong defensive line they struggled A lengthy period of dominance for tone, condemning the development as Cambridge found themselves 3-1 to penetrate with the ball in hand, until Durham began. The Blues failed to “morally disgusting”, and the “worst better investment’ down soon into the second half and no.8 Ben Martin galvanised his side with muster real momentum, spilling passes move since founding Churchill”. Per- it wasn’t until the last 20 minutes a try and Rob Stevens lifted the players and looking a distinct second best at the haps acknowledging the potentially sport with regard to employability and that the side really got a grip on the further with a quality conversion from breakdown. A penalty under the posts indefensible nature of the proposition, again emphasizing the prestige associ- game. Long spells of possession the right touchline. gave Durham a ten point lead. he suggested that the University’s stake ated with top-class University sport. resulted in Danny Kerrigan being From then on the game levelled out, as The Blues looked more aggressive (£10m) would be better spent on cows In the end seriousness won out, and brought down in the Coventry box the Blues embarked on a period of sus- from the restart and were strong in the for King’s and struggling Cindies, win- the audience voted that the sports cen- and Baxter converted the resulting tained pressure. Fullback Greg Cushing scrum, yet barely ventured out of their ning laughs. His fellow proposition tre was a good investment. All were penalty. The remaining 15 minutes, was on hand to convert excellent han- own half. Following a wasted penalty, speaker Josh Heath took a similar line also relieved to learn that Cindies was however, were not enough for the dling into an impressive break, before as touch proved elusive, the Durham of attack, suggesting that 50 million “alive and well”, Mr Dinsmore having Blues to find an equalizer. a well worked line-out and subsequent pack capitalised and forced a try. Once Freddos might be a better investment. been there “only last night”.