£11M Seeing the E Ect of the ‘Credit Crunch’ Its New Rule on Alcohol in Hall

Friday October 17 2008 e Independent Cambridge Student Newspaper since 1947 Issue No 679 | varsity.co.uk »p16 Arts »p14 Features »p13 Features Maggi Hambling: Cinematic Cambridge: Varsity alumnus Artistic renegade a location lowdown Michael Winner

John’s Dean “a Cambridge Facebook faker” Craig Hogg Deputy News Editor e Dean of St John’s is suspected of using Facebook to nd and discipline students. He has targeted those he feels crunched have gone too far in the recent Hall wine allowance debate. Using the fake account name Pedro University has £11 million at risk in Icelandic banks Amigo, Peter Linehan is thought to have viewed a number of anti-College posts College financial prospects “very, very grim” made on a wall set up to protest against the new limit on alcohol in Hall. some point,” said Rigby. e JCR became suspicious when the Natasha Lennard and Michael Stothard Cambridge University Student Union Dean of College suddenly began sum- Varsity News (CUSU) expressed concern for its over- moning the students who had been most all security in these di cult nancial outspoken on Facebook to his o ce last e University of Cambridge faces los- times. is is because they are depend- week. It was when a student typed Line- ing £11 million invested in Icelandic ent on income from volatile sectors han’s Hermes e-mail address into the banks. But Cambridge colleges, CUSU such as publishing, club entertainments ‘Find Friends’ search bar that they found and local businesses say that this is only and recruitment advertising. the pro le of the mysterious Pedro. the beginning of how the ‘credit crunch’ “A credible block grant from the Despite being a member of the Cam- will a ect Cambridge institutions. University is the only real guarantor of bridge network, the account appears College nances are already being a secure and independent future for a to have no friends and no picture. e badly hit by the ‘credit crunch’. e - charity such as ours,” said Adam Col- name, which translates as ‘Peter Friend’ nancial outlook for colleges is already ligan, CUSU coordinator. in Spanish, shows a command of linguis- looking “very, very grim,” said Church- Some Cambridge institutions are less tics and history in keeping with Linehan’s ill Bursar Jennifer Rigby. a ected than others. Cambridge Union eld of expertise, the history of medieval Students may pay the price. “ e President Adam Bott said: “ e two Spain and Portugal, while recalling the value of College endowments will have services we o er are drinking and ar- Dean’s initials, P.A.L. gone down signi cantly over the last guing, both always in demand in tough Speaking to Varsity, Linehan said: “If few months. We will do all we can to times. Broadly speaking our current a Dean of John’s wanted to gain informa- stop our nancial burden being passed strategy is to spend our way through tion on the student body, he would be onto the students, but it will have to at the recession. Economist friends tell wise not to use a forum as public as Fa- me this is akin to smoking your way cebook to do so.” However, he declined through a heart attack, but if there’s one expressly to deny or con rm any con- thing we ought to have learned it’s that nection to the account. economists can’t be trusted.” ere has been protest by the student Local businesses in Cambridge are body at the College ever since it announced £11m seeing the e ect of the ‘credit crunch’ its new rule on alcohol in Hall. Until this Amount Cambridge University has invested in Glitnir and Landsbanki on consumer con dence. e high-end year, students could bring one bottle of businesses have been the worst hit. wine to Formal Hall. Under the new rule, “ e credit crunch has made a no- diners are limited to two glasses of wine ticeable impact,” said a worker at La per meal, provided by the College. Raza Bar and Restaurant. People come To join a university network on Face- into town to do some shopping, and book, users need an institutional e-mail £9m prefer to buy a sandwich rather than Climbing high: elusive Night Climbers account. e Facebook policy on fake Amount Cambridge City Council has spend thirty or y pounds on a meal accounts clearly states that the use of fake invested in Glitnir and Landsbanki Continued on page 4 photographed and interviewed »p34 names is a violation of the terms of use. Girton receives £5 million donation from anonymous alumnus Camilla Greene of an alumnus, who does not wish to ment to employing a high number of tion, Girton has grown because of The Girton web campaign is ada- News Reporter be named, for its pilot Teaching Sup- teaching officers. the thought and enthusiasm of peo- mant that small gifts by recent alum- port Fund. The donation was praised by ple committed to education and the ni can make a huge difference over- Girton has received an anonymous The fund will ensure that the super- Dame Marilyn Strathern, the Mis- personal generosity of so many.”She all: “The wide participation of our donation of £5 million. The College, vision system at Girton continues tress of Girton, who declared that the added that “the scale of this particu- alumni in donating can influence founded in 1866 by public subscrip- into the future, and that the college gift upheld the ethos of the college, lar donation [will enable us] to take a funding decisions by donors such as tion, is benefiting from the support will be able to maintain its commit- commenting that “from its founda- long view of our objectives.” trusts and corporations.” »p17 Peter Tatchell interviewed »p28 Tessa Jowell, Olympics Minister, on the legacy of Beijing Something to say? [email protected] Friday October 17 2008 2 Editorial Call the Editor directly on 01223 761541 varsity.co.uk

Applications are invited to edit the 2009 Mays Anthology. Interested candidates should contact [email protected].

Contents Intelligent design

ad architecture corrodes the soul. As anyone who’s read JG Ballard’s dystopic masterpiece High Rise can testify, ugly and ill-planned buildings will send you mad. Particularly if you have to live in them. News »p1-9 BIt’s therefore gratifying to learn that a set of beautiful and thoughtfully-designed residential houses has been built on our very own doorstep. Indeed, as the article on the facing page reports, the new Accordia development down by the station has even won a prestig- Credit crunch investigation continued » p5 ious award for its socially-considerate layout. Only time will tell whether the architects’ vision will really result in a communal utopia Cambridge risks losing £11m in which encourages neighbourly love, but it is nevertheless a relief that attention is at last being devoted again to suburban architecture and Iceland banks. not just to more visible public structures. This is a serious issue: depressing houses do affect one’s psyche. Cramped tower-blocks are divisive; dull, brick-built semis often make for gloomy homes. Little wonder that their inhabitants often feel alienated and uninspired. MythBusters » p4 It is a shame, then, that the vast majority of the Accordia estate will only be available to the private market. For all the developers’ Did Isaac Newton really build the Math- pretensions to social revolution, hardly any of the residences have been designated as council houses. The development is consequently ematical Bridge at Queens’? unattainable for the people who are most in need of accommodation like that in Accordia – those who have been confined to high-rises all their lives. Find out in MythBusters. In the end, it is inevitably and, perhaps justifiably, not the first priority of the private developer to redress the problem of social housing. It should, however, be the new Housing Minister Margaret Beckett’s primary goal. She needs to build council estates which are acces- Cambridge Spies » p7 sible to those who cannot afford Accordia-style property and which, fundamentally, serve not just as sleeping quarters, but as beautiful Our world-famous round-up of homes which engender respect for one’s local environment. This country’s housing shortage may need to be solved quickly but Beckett Tab Tattle. It’s outrageous. should be warned against unreservedly constructing the tenements of tomorrow. She could, instead, take a leaf out of Accordia’s book. Varsity Profile » p9 The lowdown on our local MP, Liberal Democrat David Howarth. The Varsity Plagiarism Survey 2008 Varsity is conducting a survey about plagiarism at Cambridge. To complete the survey, please go to varsity.co.uk/plagiarism. Magazine »p11-26 It should take under two minutes to complete. Found Magazine » p11-12 All entries are completely anonymous. Davy and Peter Rothbart began collecting dropped notes and objects at Submit your letter for the chance to win a bottle of wine from the Cambridge Wine Merchants. school. Soon these gems were gathered [email protected] This week’s winner is Amy Goodwin of Queens’ College. in Found Magazine. Michael Winner » p13 One queen or two? weapon manufacturers. If the colleges suc- but in 2003 he said, “the price will have to ceeded in acquiring a controlling stake in come down”. It didn’t, but the Tate bought Calm down dear: Cambridge’s second Sir, a weapon manufacturer they could shut it it anyway. He makes the excuse, “we had most recognisable alumnus on I find it outrageous that the Editors [sic] of down. This certainly would be an effective been following a practice which had been cunnilingus and talking to the dead. Varsity consistently fail to appreciate that way to make a long-term difference. running for fifty years,” which supports my contention of institutional malpractice Yours faithfully, through inbred governance. Tate minutes Cinematic Cambridge » p14-5 Phillipp Heller on the website are not “open”: they are Arriving at Cambridge feels strangely King’s College heavily censored. familiar. The reason? You’ve seen it all Queens’ has two patronesses, as the apos- Serota compares criticism for not buy- before in the movies. trophe, if correctly placed, indicates. Please ing Whiteread and Hirst with criticism for do not confuse us with the college at the Stuck off buying Ofili and Doig. The former were not other place. trustees; the latter were. In 2005, I analysed Listings » p18-9 Sir, recent Tate acquisitions for artists born Our new comprehensive guide to the Yours faithfully, In your interview with Sir Nicholas Serota, since the war: 4% were paintings; nearly Amy Goodwin director of the Tate Gallery [Varsity Issue 50% were installations. A national mu- week. Stick it on your wall. Queens’ College 680], he says of the trustees, “I don’t have seum, the Walker Art Gallery, mounted a any part to play in their appointment.” The major five month show of Stuckist work for Reviews » p20-3 Tate website says, “The key stages of the ap- the 2004 Liverpool Biennial. My petition Varsity’s take on the latest films, albums, exhibitions and liter- Of arms and a man pointment are overseen by a panel, which against Serota’s directorship is at http://pe- will normally include the Director.” Serota titions.number10.gov.uk/tatedirector. ary events, as well as the full lowdown on Cambridge drama. Sir, asks about the trustees, “Why would I want Your report on arms divestment in colleges to win their support?” A good reason is Yours faithfully, Fashion » p24-5 [Varsity Issue 679] failed to consider a cru- that they are his employers. He asserts the Charles Thomson Searching for that méchant look? cial argument in favour of buying stocks of Tate bought Ofili’s work at a bargain price, Co-founder, The Stuckists Find out where the wild things are. Varsity has been Cambridge’s independent student newspaper since 1947 and distributes 10,000 free copies to every Cambridge college and to ARU each week.

Editor Patrick Kingsley [email protected] Deputy Editor Natasha Lennard [email protected] Chief News Editors Hugo Gye Comment »p28-30 and Michael Stothard [email protected] Magazine Editor Daniel Cohen [email protected] Comment Editors Clementine Dowley and Olivia Sudjic [email protected] Sport Editors Ben Riley-Smith and Andrew Robson [email protected] Features Editor Robert Peal [email protected] Arts Editor Anna Trench [email protected] Reviews Editor Toby Chadd [email protected] Fashion Editors Soapbox: Tessa Jowell » p26 Joanna Della-Ragione, Ben Margereson and Zing Tsjeng [email protected] The Minister for the Olympics on Beijing’s legacy Deputy News Editors Craig Hogg, Martin McQuade and Chris Robinson [email protected] Sports Reporters Jenny Morgan, Jamie Ptaszynski and Dan Quarshie [email protected] Science Correspondent Timothy Leung [email protected] Visual Arts Critic Emma Hogan [email protected] Theatre Critics Finn Beames, Elizabeth Davis, Emma Hogan, George Reynolds and Isabel Taylor [email protected] Literary Varsity Debate » p30 Critic Decca Muldowney [email protected] Film Critics Daniel Isenberg and Fred Rowson [email protected] Music Critics Henry Donati and Literary prizes: exercises in vanity? Andrew Spyrou [email protected] Classical Critic David Allen [email protected] Food & Drink Critic Robert Peal [email protected] Chief Subeditors Emma Jamison and Charlotte Sewell [email protected] Chief Photographers Lizzie Robinson and Zing Tsjeng [email protected] Illustrators Jane Hall, Tom de Freston, Alice Edgerley, Giles Smith, Katherine Spence [email protected] Photography Team Patrick Garety, Tim Johns, Sean Jones, Katy King, Paul Smith Business & Advertising Manager Michael Derringer [email protected] Board of Directors Dr Michael Franklin (Chair), Prof Peter Robinson, Sport »p33-36 Tom Walters, Chris Wright, Michael Derringer, Lizzie Mitchell, Elliot Ross (Varsoc President), Tom Bird, George Grist and Patrick Kingsley

NEWSPAPERS Varsity Publications, Old Examination Hall, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF. Tel 01223 337575. Fax 01223 760949. Varsity is published by Varsity Publications Ltd. SUPPORT Cambridge’s Unofficial Sports» p34 RECYCLING Varsity Publications also publishes BlueSci and The Mays. ©2008 Varsity Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a Recycled paper made up 79% of the raw retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. Printed material for UK An exclusive interview with one of newspapers in 2007 at Cambridge Newspapers Ltd — Winship Road, Milton, Cambridge CB24 6PP. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. ISSN 1758-4442 NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT Cambridge’s last Night Climbers. RECYCLING Friday October 17 2008 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 3

In Brief

Accordia is “housing for the 21st century” Tempus frangit e Corpus clock broke down on Monday, for the third time. e eye- catching clock, which cost £1 mil- SEAN JONES lion and took seven years to build, came to a stop in the early evening a er a fault in a temperature sen- sor was detected automatically. Sensation as Cambridge estate wins Stirling Prize e clock was repaired by Tuesday lunchtime. Its designer John Taylor claims that “the timekeeping of the » Judges commend revolutionary residential development despite paucity of social housing clock is not a ected” by such unex- pected failures. Christiana Spens communal. It is a collaboration by ar- some idyllic throwback to the 1950s”, ment agrees. Sunand Prasad, President chitects from three separate practices as one judge said. ere are both rural of the Royal Institute of British Archi- News Reporter – Feilden Clegg Bradley, Alison Brooks and urban views, with private roof ter- tects said that Accordia has done “the Grad banned from Parliament A Cambridge housing estate has won and MacCreanor Lavington – for peo- races and public lawns. It tries to com- most for British architecture in the A Cambridge graduate has been or- the Stirling Prize. e Accordia de- ple with varying residential needs. bine traditional values with forward- past year”. dered to stay away from Parliament. velopment, on Brookland Avenue, is e development includes council thinking and imaginative ways to solve Accordia is said to represent a move Tamsin Omond, an environmen- the rst housing estate ever to win the homes (about a quarter of all housing), old problems. from corporate extravagance to com- tal protestor, is banned from going RIBA Stirling Prize, the country’s most homes for private sale and some avail- Social housing has previously had munal sensibilities, a new approach within a kilometre of the Palace of prestigious architectural award. able under shared-equity schemes. e little attention from the architectur- from a previously business-focused Westminster a er attempting to Accordia beat o competition from judges of the award called it “housing al community, according to Alison industry. As one member of Accordia’s force her way in to the House of the renovated Royal Festival Hall and for the 21st century, a post- atcherite Brooks: “ e fact is that there are very architectural team explains, “A lot of Commons on Monday. Omond the London 2012 Aquatic Centre, development that is not afraid of com- few high quality housing schemes.” mistakes were made in the past: not graduated from Trinity with a 2:1 among others, to win the £20,000 prize munal aspirations and aesthetics”. Brooks’ collaborator, Peter Clegg an- all the fault of architects, but architects in English in 2007 and has devoted last Saturday. e judges hailed the de- e development is supposed to nounced a er winning the award that were party to that. Put all the same sort her time since to protesting with or- velopment as “architecture which gives encourage integration, independence “what we are doing is changing the of people in the same place; it never ganisations such as Greenpeace and hope for all of us in the future”. and play. ere is shared land where mould of housing”. works.” But this new communal aes- anti-aviation campaigns. She hit the e core concept of Accordia is children can safely run wild, “as if in e British architectural establish- thetic seems to do so. headlines earlier this year a er holding a protest on the roof of Parlia- ment, a er which she was released on bail. Her latest brush with the law comes a er a group of activists tried to storm St. Stephen’s entrance to the Palace, recreating the actions Primark comes of a group of su ragettes in 1908. Omond has described the latest protest as “a great success”.

to Cambridge Catz Chorus from the BBC’s Panorama programme Catz has established a new choir Lizzy Tyler earlier this year, when the ethical for girls. e choir, comprised of News Reporter standards of its production systems eighteen girls from local schools, were investigated. But the clothing gi- aged from eight to fourteen, sang Primark is set to open a shop in Cam- ant was quick to quash such concerns, publicly for the rst time on Tues- bridge. e cut-price clothing company sacking three of its Indian suppliers al- day. It will continue to sing in the has secured planning permission for a leged to have been using child labour College’s chapel every Tuesday. e new branch. Primark, which is now the and employing local NGOs to act as its choir is the rst of its kind at any second largest UK clothing retailer by “eyes and ears on the ground”. British university, despite the long volume, has until now been one of the e company is a member of the Eth- tradition of boys’ choirs at Cam- few familiar names missing from the ical Trading Initiative which “aims to bridge and Oxford. e College’s Cambridge streets. promote respect for the rights of people Director of Music, Edward Wick- e new store will be situated on the in factories and farms worldwide”. ham, says that “College music will site of the old John Lewis on Burleigh e news that Primark is to open a new be enormously enriched by this Road, near the Gra on Centre. e de- store in the city has been met with largely new ensemble”. e Chaplain, An- cision to grant planning permission is positive feedback from the student body. thony Moore, adds that “there are thought to be part of a move to regen- “Finally!” was the resounding response exciting times ahead”. erate the area, which has seen a drop in from various Cambridge undergraduates popularity in the past few years as new when informed of the plan. shopping destinations have opened up Not only is Primark a valuable source more centrally. of party costumes but, in economically Although an o cial source reported unstable times, its ethos of low prices that there were “no issues with plan- and fast turnover will seem even more 52 Trumpington Street ning and wide support from public and attractive to increasingly stretched stu- Cambridge CB2 1RG press”, there are worries that the new dent budgets. outlet, which contains 40,000 square feet Although “pretty far away” accord- FREE CHELSEA BUN of trading space, could take some sales ing to one lethargic student, the new With every purchase over £2.00 in the shop away from independent shops in the store promises to attract hundreds of OR area, as well as the many charity shops customers on its opening day in late FREE MORNING based on Burleigh Road. 2009. The flagship branch on Lon- Primark, which is owned by global don’s Oxford Street sold one million COFFEE/TEA (9am-12pm) e opening of Primark’s corporate giant Associated British Foods, items in its first ten days of trad- With any cake or pastry in the restaurant Oxford Street store sparked employs over 25,000 people worldwide ing and, with Primark accounting ghts and has thrived in recent years on its for every pound out of ten spent on on presentation of this voucher “Look Good, Pay Less” tagline. clothing in Britain, the brand’s popu- and proof of student status Primark was the subject of scrutiny larity seems set to continue. together again. back it put to unable then were who students by disassembled b) and Newton, Isaac by built a) was (sometimes called Newton’s Bridge) Week 2: Bridge Mathematical e want youtoknow What Scudamore’sdon’t MythBusters twenty-two years after his death. bridgewas the when was built we are far smarter than Newton clever aswe we are, think and This is not We true. are just as are,” they think say punters. the students are not as clever as they moment.tic “Ha! Cambridge prank with hubris- asatisfying itbecause combines astudent on of part the Scudamore’s, different engineers since 1749. versions of bridge the built by together of all three the different have tosort hold used been website.College of Screws some reality,” according to Queens’ the “cannot have aseriousgrasp on at Anyone all. so thinks who never apart taken by students to put it back together. It was sembled by students failed who builders might have struggled. werethey dropped, bridge the discovered that things fell when bridge, ifNewton had never nothing tangible to dowith the defence, eventhough he had alive.even while In Scudamore’s have building been many bridges or architect, is unlikely so to retical phycisist, not an engineer Younger the sex in1749. bridge was first built by James Es- by dead the time the was very Isaac Newton, in1727, died who we can now straight. set Firstly, Mathematicalthe Bridge, which slightly more plausible crap about making up reams upon reams of that stupid. may tourists, be but are they not off nervously at end. the They stuff...” said one punter, trailing about tocided think space... and that Stephen Hawking first de- was Mallard looking at very this gravitas: “Did you know that it give ducks aprofound historical river. to knows tried they God closest thing you can get to the puntthe itself, abridge is the about it. Aside from aduck, or more’s punter has to bullshit 4 MichaelStothard T This second clever myth is very The bridge was never disas- Moreover, Newton was atheo- Punters into settled then river, more the aScuda- time he an closer is object to the News [email protected] Chief NewsEditors:HugoGyeandMichaelStothard News Reporter NiroshanKumar John’s ent closed a Oxonianer punches porter ity,completed hasdespite hebeing which grav- quantum and cosmology on work weeks. 237 record-breaking a for list bestseller Time theoreti- of including accounts physics, cal popular his for he has published extensively. phenomenom hole,a blackwhich on a of reminiscent arc swirling a bysurrounded will feature the Professor in his wheelchair centre, the atsituated also sculpture, new Cosmology. e eoretical for Centre the of opening the mark to Sciences, ical was unveiled at the Centre for Mathemat- lateIanHawking bythe Walters designed herd. Shep- Eve artist award-winningby statue bronze three-metre-high a in mortalised im- be will physicist wheelchair-bound Cambridge. in statues e two having of honour rare the have will Mathematics, Fellowof Caius and Lucasian Professor of ProfessorHawking,Cambridge. in veiled un- be to HawkingStephenis ofstatue A News Reporter Turrell Arthur New Hawking statue announced black-tie dinner. to decided John’sin festivities a the hotel, join their er a in staying were John’s who team. side, Pembroke e theby defeated been Oxfordlege,had a punched porter. player rugby Oxford en A John’s ent was stopped aer a drunk- He is renowned in academia for his his for academia in renowned is He Professorfamous most is Hawking,66, Professor of bust a year, last Only Col- Pembroke day, the in Earlier , which stayed on the the on stayed which , A Brief History of of History Brief A Sunday Times Sunday

Armstrong and Natasha Moules Heaton- Celestine by reporting Additional 10than apaltry statue”. commented that “he studentmuch deserves more graduate a However,Newton”. say, to, compared when overrated totally seems “Hetribute: a such of undeserving Hawking nds One students. amongst Stephen agreed with that.” disability,and his ignore to didn’twant I “However, says. sculptor Brighton-based his body doesn’t re ect it,” the 32-year-old because sculpture a in that show to cult dif- is it but Stephen’s mind, inside ergy mind and of fragility the his body”. to show the “power of Professor Hawking’s personality,his wanted sheindicatingthat professor the moreorder learn in about to of £250,000, Shepherd has been shadowing by Professor Hawking’s colleagues at a cost ited earlier year. this vis- Hawking Professor which Sciences, Mathematical forInstitute African the to small-scale version has already been given disease. Gehrig’s Lou or sclerosis, lateral trophic amyo- as known condition degenerative neuro- a by paralysed completely almost the “exaggeratedbyresponse” an was bad behaviour coming from other other visitors. no despite ent, entire the frontation. a porter. No-one punched was injured in and the con- temper his lost nian Oxo- the state, drunken his In aside. him taking and student the accosting by acted rep JCR behaviour.A rowdy priortoand during ent, the toleading e sculpture has sparked debate debate sparked has sculpture e en- and personality “ much ere’s so commissioned project, roughout the a but complete, yet not is statue e this that commented have Students down closing by acted porters e both drinking been visitorhad One topintership (105x120).indd 1

BRIGHTON ARGUS other people who weren’tother who people violent were Varsity,told 250 the “it’sthat shame a byinspected porters aerwards. unfounded, especially as the venue was during the ent by the visitors damage have been of Rumours properly. haved be- all nearly although body, student John’s the of eyes the in ‘blacklisted’ individual is completely unfair”. an of actions the the for John’s students all “punishing that and porters, Deputy News Editor Martin McQuade » Vandalism rumours unfounded, says club the dancethe oor. fear of human waste making its way onto amidst 11.30 at evacuated was students, inches. several most by Life club,as e known above rise to water began o later , levels cordoned simply was area refurbished newly the club.ooded e from Place evacuatedon Sunday night aer faulty drains were Revellers Floods shut down Life AIESEC ispresent in106countries around theworld andistheworld’s largest student-run organisation. Tom Chigbo, John’s JCR President,John’s JCR Chigbo,Tom been now has side Pembroke e hlt ntal te oe basement lower the initially Whilst Are you interested in Are you looking to an international career? your www.aiesec.co.uk

business skills? declined to comment. most be awill ected. that freshers of set new the is it year, real ent”. He continuedrst to say that, like last their experienced freshers “it’sthehow is disappointing this that year was cancelled by College. the the the year of lastent butrst years, tainment has been shut down in recent non-Johnians”.of ple John’sNo enter- cou- a of actions the to due punished day by way of an apology,” he adds. Sun- next everybody to entry free fering Manager.Assistant“We’re Bevin, of- also Ollie which says completelyxed,” issues now we’ve drainage some just were bathroom, club the deniesthis. gents’ the in vandalism to due was ing the ood- that club-goers the amongst way we inso have no chance of arefund”. nium. ey didn’t stamp our hands on the Wednesday 22ndOctober, 7:30pm-9pm the UK’sonlydedicatedundergraduate oh t ons n Pmrk have Pembroke John’s and St Both said, Morgan James Second-year “ ere was no vandalism at all: there there all: at vandalism no “ was ere spread quickly rumour ough pandemo- was “it says, attendee One ‘the dedicatedundergraduateinternshipsite’ www.topinternships.com

top top top training session The MunbyRoom,King’sCollege [email protected] Attend afreeAIESEC int int int int int int improve internship andplacementsite internship To register/attend,pleaseemail Wednesday 19thNovember the organisationbehind e e e e e e top top top Tuesday 4thNovember rnships.com rnships.com rnships.com int int int rnships.com rnships.com rnships.com int int int run byQS run top top top Future events: e e e int int int e e e int int int rnships.com rnships.com rnships.com rnships rnships rnships e e e e e e rnships.com rnships.com rnships.com rnships.com rnships.com rnships.com universities match aer thisinter- eincident occurred Friday October172008 .com .com .com varsity.co.uk

16/10/08 10:27:18

TOM PARNELL Friday October 17 2008 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 5

News investigation

Crunch will “affect college dividends by 30%” » Bursar: “Food quality will decrease, food prices will go up and room rates will increase markedly” » Full impact will be “very distressing”

Continued from front page “All retail in Cambridge has been af- which some students see as a safer option. How these losses will impact the work- fected,” said Aileen Hughes at John “We are asking students to have a plan ings of the colleges is currently uncertain. for two,” he said. Lewis. B when trying to enter the financial in- If there is a full recession, “the quality of While up-market restaurants like Although in John Lewis, “there has been dustry,” said Gordon Chesterman, the the food will decrease, the price of food -35% Galeria have been cutting down on staff a growth in the sales of hot-water bottles Director of the Careers Service. will go up and room rates will increase Estimated decrease in retail sales for recently, fast food outlets such as Gardies of 200%, suggesting people are deferring A representative from the University markedly,” said one bursar. selected Cambridge companies or the Hot Sausage Company are doing putting on their heating,” she continued. was keen to point out that the university’s Additional repairs and upgrades to liv- relatively well. “There’s no difference in Cambridge graduates are also suffering money market investments, which are ing conditions are likely to be postponed my business. I’m the bottom of the food from the ‘credit crunch.’ “The big banks threatened by the Icelandic bank affair, until after the downturn. Churchill’s JCR chain, like algae,” said the manager of the aren’t doing the recruitment milk-round, are separate from the long-term invest- President admitted that the financial cli- Hot Sausage Company. and it seems that the number of recruit- ments and endowments that the Univer- mate was already making it likely to be Even he is pessimistic for the future ment events planned for the coming year sity predominantly relies upon for long- more difficult “to raise the £6 million re- -20% though. “I personally think it’s going to is notably smaller than in previous years,” term stability. It is yet to be established quired for a new court”. Estimated decrease in revenue for be six months down the road that it all said Colligan. how much, if any, of the investments in The major effect of the ‘credit crunch’ selected Cambridge companies kicks in,” he said. A recent graduate working at a small Icelandic banks might be reclaimed. on college finances will be the drop in Some newsagents in Cambridge re- fund management firm described the The £11 million hanging in the balance Cambridge’s conferences and banqueting ported sales down by nearly 35% and rev- situation as “bloody awful.” was split between two banks, Glitnir and business. This income helps many colleges enue down by nearly 20%. One reported “It’s not that new graduates are being Heritable – a UK subsidiary of Lands- keep student costs down. Cancellations of that more students were buying rolling fired; we’re cheap to keep. There are, howev- banki – that collapsed earlier this month. bookings are yet to be seen, but as a bursar tobacco rather than straight cigarettes, as er many incidents of contracts being with- Their assets are not frozen. Other poten- of a large college notes “it is only a matter £6m they were cheaper. drawn before graduates begin their jobs... tial victims of the Icelandic affair are the of time.” This is particularly important for Cost of Churchill development which Those wanting to be bankers are entering Cambridge City Council, which has £9 college such as John’s, Queens’, Robinson, may not now be completed into a very different world than they would million invested, and Oxford University, Churchill and Homerton, who rely on have been even last year. Serious money which has £30 million. conference income more than most. and security can no longer be relied upon. Departments themselves have also been As company earnings fall they try to Perhaps they never could be, but it did confronted with financial difficulties. The keep liquidity by stopping the payment use to feel that way,” he continued. Universities financial watchdog has come of dividends to their investors. Many col- 200% Three hundred fewer students out saying that the School of Humanities is leges rely on these dividends for the basic Increase in hot water bottle sales at than last year attended the banking facing “serious financial pressure.” running of day to do college life. “I would John Lewis due to energy price rises Careers Service event on Wednes- On a college level, the full impact of not be at all surprised if dividends fall 30 day. Four banks cancelled their the credit crunch remains to be seen. per cent in the third quarter. The most slots because they were no One bursar told Varsity that it was likely important thing to realise is that this is all longer recruiting, including to take until next year for the financial just starting,” said one Bursar. Lehman Brothers and Bear turmoil to filter down and make a sub- Additional reporting by Chris Dobbing, Stearns. There was, however, stantial difference to college finances. All Imogen Goodman, Mike Hornsey, Jennifer £30m a rise in the number of students bursars agree that when the full impact Mills, Alasdair Pal, Rishin Patel, Caedmon Amount Oxford University has at the consulting event yesterday, hits it will be “very distressing.” Tunstall-Behrens and Vicky Woolley. invested in Iceland banks Triple Helix debates pros and cons of eternal life » Leading scientists argue that prolonging years of poor health is a waste of money

Timothy Leung ity between the steady increase in neth Howse of the Oxford Institute of would be de Grey.” His vision of a hu- Institute, which sponsored the event. Science Editor lifespan that we have seen over the Ageing pointed out that investment in man being maintained by engineer- Okkenhaug discussed the finding that last century and the smaller increase life-extending intervention might be ing remedies to specific tissue damage model organisms with fewer memory Five eminent scientists gathered in in healthspan, the number of years pointless if we are merely increasing provided a refreshing contrast to the T cells in their immune systems have Cambridge at a talk entitled ‘Who one can expect to live in good health. the number of years spent in ill health fatalism of the “pro-ageing trance”, prolonged lifespans, which raises the wants to live forever?’ to discuss the For Guy Brown of the Department at the end of life. the notion that ageing and its related possibility that genes mediating the im- impacts of extreme ageing and the of Biochemistry, this discrepancy in- The possibility of solving this prob- problems are inevitable. mune system might affect longevity. future of life extension research. The dicates that currently, extra years of lem was presented with characteristic Although de Grey’s proposal does The message of the evening was one event was hosted by the Triple Helix lifespan are poor quality years of ill passion by Trinity Hall alumnus Au- not necessitate an understanding of of interdisciplinary co-operation and society, their first meeting of the year. health added to the end of life, so his brey de Grey of the Methuselah In- the biochemical processes underlying practical economics: worthy as research Richard Faragher of the University message was simply to “forget about stitute. Faragher noted that “if ageing ageing, the importance of scientific re- into ageing might be, its annual cost of Brighton began proceedings with living forever…until we have solved research had a paramilitary wing, then search into this field was highlighted to the UK of ₤5 million might simply the statement that there is a dispar- age-related disability.” Indeed, Ken- the head of that paramilitary wing by Klaus Okkenhaug of the Babraham prove too hefty for us to live forever. Chief News Editors: Hugo Gye and Michael Stothard Friday October 17 2008 6 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk

In Brief

Cambridge is “ nishing school”

e vice-chancellor of London Met- ropolitan University has said that Cambridge and Oxford should be denied state funding. In an interview with Times Higher Education, Brian Roper called the universities “rather superior nishing schools”, adding that if Oxbridge doesn’t want to be controlled by the government they should “just go” and turn private. Roper’s comments follow de- mands from both universities that they should be allowed to determine their own admissions policy, state- ments which Roper calls “morally o ensive”. PATRICK GARETY John’s coated in gold leaf Why did Sir Peter Hall cross the road? To re-open the ADC eatre While most colleges are struggling through the murky depths of the ir Peter Hall and Sir Trevor Nunn helped o cially to re-open the ADC eatre on Monday evening. e directing legends were both ADC stalwarts while at Cam- credit crunch, St John’s is painting Sbridge; Sir Peter gave a speech recalling his student thespian experience. e ADC marked its opening night, a er six months of renovations, with the student- its balconies with gold leaf. One penned musical Hero, which was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival over the summer. John’s student said that he was “out- raged, that in such tough times the college was doing something so decadent. is is what gives John’s a bad name,” he said. e move is part of a refurbishment of North University hosts ecumenical conference and Chapel Courts which started in 2006 and is the rst comprehensive » Event praised as important step in Muslim-Christian relations renovation of the building since its completion in 1939. ey are re- Emma Inkester and friendship to Christians, and em- of neighbour and dealing with global plating the original gold leaf. “ is News Reporter phasised their common priorities of love problems.” is a hubristic decision worthy of Mi- for God and for one’s neighbour. e He expressed a hope that the discus- das,” said a third-year student. Cambridge University played host to a Archbishop of Canterbury responded sions would bring about “understand- major international conference of Mus- in July, with ‘A Common Word for the ing, trust and a commitment to ongoing lim and Christian scholars and religious Common Good’. conversation” and future engagement. Tata Steel endows chair leaders this week. David Ford, Regius Professor of Di- He says that “we aim to o er a model e four-day event, ‘A Common Word vinity and director of the Cambridge of partnership between Muslims and The University plans to establish and Future Muslim-Christian Engage- Inter-Faith Programme, describes the Christians at the highest level of intellec- a new chair in metallurgy. Harry ment’, opened on Sunday with presen- Common Word letters as “probably the tual engagement and the deepest level of Bhadeshia will be the first Tata tations from the Archbishop of Canter- most important step forward in Muslim- scriptural attentiveness.” Steel Professor of Metallurgy, bury, Rowan Williams, and the Grand Christian relations in y years, adding: e conference culminated on starting from December 1; he is Mu i of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa. “ ey engage with each other from the Wednesday with a nal address by the currently a Professor of Physical e conference formed the next step core of each faith and they face many of Archbishop at Lambeth Palace. Metallurgy. The new chair is being in dialogue between the two faiths, set in the big issues. ese include practical Alongside communication between Rowan Williams endowed by Tata Steel, one of the motion by ‘A Common Word Between matters of violence, religious freedom Muslims and Christians, Professor Ford attended the world’s biggest steel companies, Us And You’, a letter released by 138 and how to collaborate for the sake of announced “plans for engagement with conference which caused controversy recently Islamic scholars in October 2007. is peace, and also some of the deepest reli- Jews as an appropriate further dimen- with its acquisition of Corus, for- document extended the hand of peace gious issues to do with God, prayer, love sion of the Common Word process.” merly British Steel. The company is donating more than £2 million for the endowment of the chair. Cambridge exams for Ethiopia Cambridge is NHS partner Anna Richardson agers seeking to build upon or formalise their skills. e program will include e University is teaming up with News Reporter three three-day seminars and three short Bombay Lounge offers an exiting fusion of the NHS to improve regular health sumptuous Indian food, friendly service and Cambridge has launched a new exam in research assignments. Assessment will a vibrant atmosphere. Bring your own wine care. Cambridge, along with eight Ethiopia. As of this month, a Cambridge be in the form of an ongoing project on on student night or enjoy our special student other universities, will work to test International Examinations (CIE) di- which the manager is already working. meal deal. Friday and Saturday enjoy a relaxing new treatments and methodologies, ploma in Project Management will be of- is means that not only can a student evening with our a la carte menu with live having been awarded a Collabora- fered in the country. continue to work full time, but their work music and a wide selection of wine. tion for Leadership in Applied e diploma, delivered through a will also make up a considerable portion We can conﬁ dently recommend our Chicken Health Research and Care. e quali cation authority called the Zemen of the diploma requirements. Tikka Masala or Lamb Rogon Josh. collaboration will focus on chronic Institute, is aimed at experienced project Crucially, the new award will be a ord- PRICE WITH conditions such as depression and managers. According to Zemen, it will al- able. In a press release of September 28, FULL BUFFET LUNCH £7.95 THIS ADVERT!HALF dementia, and will involve the low them to demonstrate their skills and Zemen pointed out that “the hidden cost Departments of Engineering and credibility through an a ordable, inter- of full-time attendance of an academic 7 days a week Psychiatry, among others. nationally recognised quali cation. institution, plus the cost of the quali ca- Eat as much as you like! Enjoy from our various selection of starters, CIE is a non-pro t organisation, and tion itself, has been a major inhibitor to main dishes, vegetables, sundries and salad. Tourists fail to drown has launched international quali cation many project managers becoming quali- programmes in 150 countries. As well as ed.” e cost of the new diploma is to be o ering a series of vocational, CIE is the guided by the equivalent cost of a locally STUDENT NIGHT £12.50 STUDENT MEAL DEAL £10 No-one drowned in the Cam this largest provider of international quali- conferred tertiary quali cation, but will week, as many students and tourists cations for fourteen-to-nineteen-year- be open to negotiation. Sunday Monday to Thursday went punting on the river. Five peo- olds. eir mission statement says that In the long-term, such training of Papadom & Chutney Papadom & Chutney ple who fell in the river particularly their aim is “to deliver high-quality and project managers could, according to Choice of main course Choice of main course did not drown, although they did get leading-edge assessment services.” Zemen, improve the e ciency of many Pilau Rice and nan bread Pilau Rice and nan bread wet. One punter said “Yes...no-one e International Diploma in Project Ethiopian projects, including non-gov- Complimentary bottle of cobra or a Complimentary bottle of cobra or a was hurt this week, again, although Management (IDPM) has been devised ernmental organizations, healthcare glass of wine or any soft drink. glass of wine or any soft drink. a few people did get a bit wet.” Fol- for CIE by partner 4cPM, an organization institutions, property and land devel- All Bar Drinks half price or Bring All Bar Drinks half price lowing the ve incidents, which dedicated to gaining worldwide recogni- opment and local government. It has your own drinks forced countless items of clothing to tion for project managers. Udoka Ogbue been suggested, however, that Ethiopian be hung out to dry, the river man- of CIE said that he was “happy with the project managers who attain the new di- Opening Hours Lunch: Mon - Fri 12 - 2.30pm / Sat - Sun 12 - 3pm ager Phillipa Noon said: “we will be design, delivery and assessment” of the ploma might migrate to higher-paid jobs Dinner: Sun - Thur 6 - 11.30pm / Fri - Sat 6 - 12am investigating what happened.” quali cation. elsewhere in Africa. Bombay Lounge is situated on Millers Yard, Mill Lane (off Trumpington Street), Cambridge CB2 1RQ e diploma targets established man- Additional reporting by Louise Nixey Friday October 17 2008 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 7

Addenbrooke’s bed space reaches critical levels Cambridge Lizzie Homersham consecutive years that a rise in emergency whilst the Cambridge News said that the The Cambridge University hospital’s Spies News Reporter admissions has caused the bed capacity to hospital was on “Black Alert,” Woodman annual report for 2007/8 outlines im- be assessed as black at Addenbrooke’s. stated that “nobody in the NHS calls it provements that are still to be made. The Adenbrooke’s was put on ‘Black Alert’ When asked where emergency patients t h a t ”. number of beds occupied by patients ex- this week as demand for hospital beds would have been taken if Addenbrooke’s He described it as “a term coined by the periencing a delay in their discharge is rose sharply. had been unable to offer any more beds, Daily Mail” that could lead to the public still above the national average, despite “Some planned operations had to be he stressed that this had never happened, perceiving the situation as more serious having fallen in the last year. rescheduled,” admitted James Woodman, and that “emergencies always take prior- than it is. The Neuro-Sciences department has an Addenbrooke’s spokesman. i t y ”. Indeed, in terms of urgent and emer- recently benefitted from 16 new beds. A traffic light-style system uses green, Woodman told Varsity that being ‘on gency care, Addenbrooke’s was recently Woodman claims, however, that this amber, red and, finally, black to measure black’ is “not about saying there aren’t rated as ‘best performing’ in a report by boost in resources is not a direct reaction the number of beds available for patients. beds available. It is simply us keeping the Healthcare Commission, an inde- to the problems experienced with bed This marks the third time in as many track of how many beds we have”. And pendent watchdog. capacity.

Master debaters Condomania A senior apparatchik in a Cambridge debating society found herself in a compromising position with a fresh- faced University debutant: as events progressed, it became clear that pro- tection would have to be provided. At this point, a dilemma presented itself: Durex, or the society’s own brand? Despite repeated assurances from top brass that the latter are as safe as (metaphorical) houses, our heroine plumped for the recognised brand. Does she know something we don’t?

St Catherine’s Together we... Star quality A successful actor of the silver screen, turned Cambridge student, was indulging in his weekly celebration of the fact that he was Markets & Investment Banking Workshop affluent, talented and picturesque. He must have had a particularly stupendous week of being himself because he decided to indulge in and Networking Session one or two tipples by the rack. Af- ter several metres of drink, things seemed like a good idea that may, UBS is one of the world’s leading financial firms. And this is why: we are among the leading global wealth in fact, not have been. Like pil- fering a tank of gasoline from a managers, a top-tier investment bank, one of the largest institutional asset managers and a leading bank purveyor of Russian spirits, and bounding outside to deposit the for Swiss corporate and individual clients. contents in the road. Witnesses reported mildly manic cackling. The next day his college suggested he We invite you to learn more about the opportunities in our Markets and Investment Banking departments paid the institution back the price by taking part in a trading game and interactive M&A case study. You’ll also have the chance to chat to of the gasoline, and sign them an autograph. some of our employees, including recent graduates and interns. Girton To apply for a place, mail your CV (mark it “Markets & IBD event”) to [email protected] before 22nd October 2008. We will conﬁrm your attendance and venue details by 27th October 2008. The fairer sex In an exchange over a spilt drink, Date: 3rd November 2008 our rambunctious heroine collided her fist into the nose of a young Time: 18:30 fresher. Shocked by the profuse bleeding, and worried that femi- Venue: Cambridge nism has already made it socially unacceptable to hit men, the cun- ning shrew came up with a plan. It starts with you: www.ubs.com/graduates Slipping into a quiet court, she pro- ceeded to knock her skull against UBS is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We respect and seek to empower each individual and the diverse cultures, perspectives, skills and the wall until she struck blood. experiences within our workforce. Summoning crocodile tears, she slipped back into the party, and ac- cused the now happily bopping fellow of beating her. Needless to say, he was set upon by a loyal drinking society and extracted from Wealth Global Asset Investment the premises. It would appear that Management Management Bank the female of the species is indeed II more deadly than the male. Shock shock horror horror.

© UBS 2008. All rights reserved. Chief News Editors: Hugo Gye and Michael Stothard Friday October 17 2008 8 News [email protected] varsity.co.uk Pressure on parking » Queues for Cambridge car parks a er pay machines are vandalised

Julie Chan pect the new machines to take about a month to arrive from the manufac- News Reporter turer. Vandalism has hit Cambridge car As a temporary solution, two ma- parks. Recent damage to Pay and Dis- chines have been moved from the play machines has le long queues Grand Arcade to the Park Street car in the underground facilities at the park. is is half of the car park’s usual Grand Arcade and Park Street. Ma- capacity, and has led to some incon- chines have been taken out in both venience to drivers. areas, with Park Street being the worse Given that the Park Street multi- hit of the two. storey is a popular car park for drivers According to a Cambridge parking due to its proximity to the city centre, services o cial, three of the nine pay there have been long queues during machines at the Grand Arcade were the busy periods of the day. However, vandalised, while all four of the ma- it does not seem to have a ected the chines serving the Park Street multi- number of people using the car park. storey car park, next to the Maypole, Similarly, there has not been any sig- were destroyed. e police think that ni cant drop in the number of drivers the crimes took place early in the using the spaces at the Grand Arcade. morning. ey have a list of suspected ere are 2,892 spaces in the ve culprits and are continuing investiga- Cambridge car parks, all of which tions. are run by the City Council. ey are is is the second time in recent all open 24 hours a day, seven days a months that serious police incidents week. have occurred at the Grand Arcade. e Cambridge parking administra- In July there had been a break-in at tor declined to comment on whether the shopping centre, with manage- these incidents would justify an in- A vandalised pay ment bee ng up security in response. creased police presence in Cambridge. machine at Park Street While the parking services were As a result of the recent vandalism, able to get the damaged machines at Cambridge parking services are Grand Arcade repaired fairly quickly, modifying the new Pay and Display new machines have been ordered to machines. e new machines will be replace those on Park Street. How- more robust in order to withstand ever, Cambridge parking services ex- vandalism. KING KATY

STRATEGY MARKETING AND SALES INNOVATION ORGANISATION ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SOCIAL ACTION

drop-in session Students are welcome to attend an information session on strategy consulting hosted by Monitor Group consultants with drinks and a buffet. Do more. A lot more. The real engine behind Google is relationships. They power our search, Newton Room, The Pitt Building, empower our employees, inspire our creativity and wire our world. Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1RP Do more. A lot more. Thursday 23rd October 2008 What Therelationships real engine behindwill you Google build? is relationships. They power our search, 7pm (short presentation to start at 7.30pm) empower our employees, inspire our creativity and wire our world. What relationships will you build? Please register your attendance by email: [email protected]. We would love you to join us for a presentation & networking opportunity Apply online at www.themonitorgroup.co.uk with Cambridge alumni to learn more about our graduate programme. We would love you to join us for a presentation & networking opportunity Deadline for applications: Wednesday 12th November 2008 with Cambridge alumni to learn more about our graduate programme. Cambridge University The Pitt Building (Darwin Room) OctoberCambridge 22, 2008 University The Pitt Building (Darwin Room) Start: 6pm October 22, 2008 Start: 6pm

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© 2008 Googlewww.google.com/jobs/students Inc. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google Inc. © 2008 Google Inc. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google Inc. Friday October 17 2008 Got a news story? varsity.co.uk 01223 761543 / [email protected] News 9

Varsity P r o l e Week 2: David Howarth, MP for Cambridge

ambridge as a city has changed enor- no debt at all when I graduated.” So how mously over the past thirty years,” states does his party propose to help ease the David“C Howarth. He should know: he has been burden on students, especially in credit- both a student and academic here, and is cur- crunchy times? “It is probably better to rently Cambridge’s MP. Born near Wolver- spend a recession studying than trying to hampton, David, a Liberal Democrat, gradu- get a full-time job,” he claims. “I am more ated from Clare with a rst in law in 1981. He worried about people coming to the end of 2 also has Masters degrees in law and sociology their course than the beginning.” Jobs: academic and parliamentary from Yale. He soon returned to Clare, and has Despite nding commuting a bit of a been a Fellow there since 1985. drag, he believes that the highlight of his He beat Labour candidate Anne Camp- career was stopping the “ludicrous and bell for the Cambridge seat in 2005. He is dangerous” Legislative Regulatory Reform also Shadow Solicitor General for his party. Bill. is legislation, he feels, “would have His involvement in politics traces back to his transferred all power to make new laws student days: he was president of the Clare from Parliament to the government”. is 3 College Students’ Association and a member success secured him a nomination as Back- Unsuccessful runs for Parliament of CUSU executive. However, he shunned bencher of the Year 2006. the Union: he claims it was “rather grand”. So Yet Howarth seems disillusioned the cur- what advice does it o er for students aspiring rent political system. He describes the ‘ rst to be MPs? “My advice to students who want past the post’ voting system as “ridiculous,” a career in politics is to do something else,” as votes have a far greater value in marginal he says. “We probably have enough career constituencies. However, for this reason, his politicians already. Politics should arise out advice to Liberal Democrat supporters is to 1981 of experience of life, not life out of politics.” “vote here [in Cambridge]”. He believes that Year Howarth graduated However, David himself joined the Lib- Prime Minister’s Questions features “largely eral Party while still a student. Why the Lib pointless macho posturing”. He also doubts Dems? David admits they “are not the kind that the internet has made MPs more acces- of party you join if your only ambition is to sible: “ ere is probably no personal contact be MP!” Instead the party attracted him, he between MPs and constituents than before.” states, “because they stood for the kind of He continues to enjoy interacting with his 4339 politics – political freedom, social justice, constituents and does look forward to spend- Size of Howarth’s majority the spreading of power and protecting the ing time in the city that he represents in Par- environment – that I still believe today”. He liament four times a week. “London might be says that student life has changed consider- bigger and more powerful, but it just doesn’t ably since the 1970s. “We had a lot less to have the spark that Cambridge does.” worry about nancially,” he re ects; “I had Lauren Smith

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win an Exciting Eco-holiday! win a Brompton Learn how you can change your world. folding bicycle! Come and meet our team. It’s your chance to ﬁnd out what a career in investment banking is really about. www.db.com/careers Friday October 17 2008 varsity.co.uk

MAGAZINEFEATURES, INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & LISTINGS // ART, FILM, MUSIC, BOOKS, FASHION & SCIENCE THIS WEEK IN THE MAGAZINE: MICHAEL WINNER / MAGGI HAMBLING / FOUND MAGAZINE CINEMATIC CAMBRIDGE / FOLKLORIC FASHION / CREDIT CRUNCH PLAYLIST / HERO REVIEW Finders keepers Hi! Society EVER PICKED A SCRAP OFF THE GROUND AND BEEN TRANSPORTED? FOUND GATHERS THESE LOVE LETTERS, LISTS, SNAPSHOTS AND SECRETS AND PRESENTS THEM IN A MAGAZINE COLLAGED OF OTHER PEOPLE’S LIVES. SNEAK A VOYEURISTIC PEEK BELOW AND THEN TURN OVER FOR AN INTERVIEW WITH THE FOUNDERS Week 2: ArcSoc

rcSoc is a student-run architecture society. Based in the Aarchitecture department, ArcSoc is not just for architects, it’s for everyone. Here are a few of the tasty gobstoppers we o er: Talks Every Tuesday a di erent speaker from the design world is invited to give a talk in the Architecture department. Last year saw the beginning of an exciting lecture series with a group of Dutch architects and designers. is year we are continuing the ArcSocDutch talks, with Rem Koolhaas, our highest pro le speaker yet, expected to make an appearance, as well as regular lectures from artists, architects and anthropologists. Keep on the lookout for posters. Life Drawing Every Friday ‘ e Shop’ plays host to ARCSOC life drawing classes, with models ranging from ballerinas to eight months pregnant women. is class is run by Christ’s artist-in- residence Issam Kourbaj. Materials are provided and all abilities are welcome. Contact [email protected]. Events Take forty cycling students to Byron’s pond, nr. Grantchester, add three bags of rewood, re-roasted mushrooms with cheese, napkin hot-air balloons, aming marshmallows, Chinese lanterns and home-made mulled wine and you’ve got one helluva bon re night! (summer and winter varieties available). We also put on a Cabaret nights in the architecture classrooms with dancing, singing, swinging, tiny speedos and trumpets. End-of-year Exhibition At the end of the academic year there is an exhibition of all the Architecture students’ work. Last year ArcSoc took the exhibition to London for the rst time with great success. We look forward to doing it again this year. Alice Edgerley Membership £15 for the whole year (with he y discounts on all of the above). To sign up contact amce2@ cam.ac.uk or [email protected]

GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS HERE: Congratulations! at gorilla you adopted has arrived in your pigeonhole. It’s for Amnesty International’s ongoing ‘Protect the Human’ campaign – and since gorillas share 98% of human DNA, you gure a gorilla would be a pretty good mascot for fundraising. p12 But what about the other 2%? p13 And where are you going to keep it? Magazine Editor: Daniel Cohen; Arts Editor: Anna Trench; Features Editor: Rob Peal Friday October 17 2008 12 Magazine: Arts and Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Letter From Abroad

Week 2: Paris, France n October 27 2005, two teen- age boys died in Clichy-sous- Bois,O an eastern suburb of Paris after running away from the police into an electricity sub-station. In the days that followed, the impoverished estates where they lived erupted. Cars, schools and nurseries were burnt to the ground. Within a few days the riots had spread to other banlieues (suburbs) in Paris. By the end of the week, almost every major city in France had been affected. Nearly 9,000 cars were burnt and over 2,500 arrests made in twenty consecutive nights of violence. A state of national emergency was declared. Today, the estates where the riots began are as deprived and isolated The Searchers as ever. To get to central Paris you have to take three different buses. davy and peter rothbart began collecting dropped notes and objects at school. soon Unemployment here is twice as high as the rest of France. It’s a dif- these gems were gathered in found magazine. currently on tour with a show of their finds, ferent world. I met Ladj Ly to talk about the decca muldowney talks to them about booty flava, baby eels and healthy voyeurism situation three years on. He was born in Les Bosquets, the estate which neighbours La Forestière, n a freezing Chicago night in the various fragments. Brett breathes fire hoes to get some burritos’. And the diaries, even shopping lists gives you where the riots began. Despite Owinter of 1999, Davy Rothbart and puts his tongue in a mousetrap. strangest? “The most bizarre find was a lot of insight into how other people President Sarkozy’s much heralded walked out to his snow-covered car to Davy reads out shopping lists, love let- a mason jar filled with formaldehyde,” function.” Perhaps the most fascinat- plan for the banlieues, Ly despaired: find a note on his windshield. All the ters and death threats that have been Peter says. “And inside was a baby ing thing about the writing in Found “Nothing has changed… After the cars looked identical in the snow and found all over America and beyond. eel. There was a post-it on the jar that is its sheer honesty. As Peter puts it, riots everyone was waiting with it was clear that this note was meant He has you laughing hysterically one said, ‘Flaky and Self-conscious’. It was “When people are writing these notes, baited breath. What will happen? for someone else. It read, "Mario, I minute and extremely moved the next. totally inexplicable. I always try and they are not intended to be read by The answer: nothing.” fucking hate you. You said you had His empathy with the unseen people put a story to the found item. But anyone. It’s very raw, they are not Driving around we came across to work whys your car HERE at HER behind the found pieces is obvious. He that time I was baffled.” One thing self-editing. They are people thinking a new block of flats. I asked Ly if place?? You’re a fucking LIAR. I hate manages to bring every scrap, however that Found magazine and its contents and writing how they actually think the former inhabitants have moved you I fucking hate you, Amber. PS brief, to life. At one point, when read- prove outright is that fact is certainly and write. It’s like reality TV for real.” into this improved accommoda- Page me later." This case of mistaken stranger than fiction. Is it not a little voyeuristic? “I think tion. “Some,” he replied, “but others identity inspired Rothbart to start "You're a Fucking Liar. Whilst at college Davy and Peter a degree of voyeurism is healthy. have been moved. They let half the Found magazine, a collection of worked in prisons teaching debate and It’s good to be curious about other original people stay and then they notes, letters, photographs, shopping I fucking hate you, creative writing. As a result of their people’s experience of being alive and move the rest to another estate to lists and other found objects that he Amber. experiences, Found magazine is free being human. There’s so many times I make room for nice white people.” and his friends had collected over to anyone imprisoned in the United read a note and think, God, I’ve writ- He describes this process as ethnic the years. For Davy and his brother PS Page me later." States. “It gave me a lot of insight into ten that same pitiful love note, or this cleansing. Peter, finding things was nothing new. how the penal system works”, Peter person has the same silly idiosyncra- This week, John Travolta will “We used to have to walk across this ing a note found left in a graveyard, he explains. “It’s not about rehabilitation: sies as I do. I think that’s what life is begin filming a new multi-million schoolyard to get to our school bus,” seems almost reduced to tears. it’s just about keeping people away about: finding yourself.” He laughs, “If dollar spy movie (From Paris with Peter explains. “It was always strewn Peter seems equally fascinated by from society. It’s just about people you find myself, please send me into Love) in Les Bosquets. For some, with litter, kids writing love notes to the possibilities of the stories behind wasting their lives. We thought, Found magazine.” such a high-profile actor will bring each other in class and we always used each object. “The most fun part is whatever we could do to give people So, next time you are walking down much needed publicity to the area, to pick them up.” They had no idea inventing your own back-story to something interesting, something the street, keep your eyes open and as well as the chance for locals to that so many other people were do- each item,” he says, explaining his to be excited about, something to be pick up that scrunched-up piece of find employment as extras or as ing the same thing. Found magazine, song-writing process. “I usually take inspired by…if we can inspire just paper blowing round your feet. You security guards. Others do not see published roughly once a year, has a lot of original material from the a few people then it’s worth it.” The never know what you might find. the project through such rose-tint- attracted a cult following, with people finds and then mix it with my own latest edition of Found is a crime issue, ed spectacles. “Some guys got jobs, sending their finds in from all over the material. It has enhanced my style. I containing amongst other things, “a FOUND magazine’s By The Time I Get but for one week, and less than 100 globe. It is a ‘community art project’ am much more interested in writing former FBI agent's life story, prison To Europe Tour “2008!” will be at The euros a day… When they leave, it’ll unlike any other. songs that have a narrative rather than guard poetry, found notes about Cafe Project, 22 Jesus Lane, October 18 be the same old shit for the rest of In 2001, Davy Rothbart and his my own angst or my forlornness with arson, pot, and self-amputation, at 7.30. us,” pointed out Mamoudou, 24, brother Peter began touring the Unit- girls. I am more interested in what academic crime, crimes of the heart, an unemployed resident of Les ed States with a show based on the is happening around me than inside found eyeballs, found crack and the Bosquets. contents of the magazine, visiting all me.” His songs also combine the tragic story of a guy who found a million Most of the movie will in fact be fifty states. Peter Rothbart, a musician and the hilarious. Scarlett Johans- dollars in the road”. filmed in central Paris, and no local who performs under the moniker ‘The son is apparently a particular fan of “We get a lot of finds from prisoners actors were given substantial roles. Poem Adept’, plays songs he has writ- Rothbart’s song ‘The Booty Don’t and ex-cons”, Peter tells me. “I guess One new apartment block has been ten based on the finds, whilst Davy Stop’. It was inspired by a mix-tape the prison yard is a good place to find built since the riots. Les Bosquets reads out some of his favourites. Now found in Michigan, clearly made by things.” Whether it is the schoolyard is still not served by any metro or they are hitting Europe supported by two kids in their room with a Casio or the prison yard then, it seems that suburban train network. Unem- what they call, ‘one of their greatest keyboard and some beats. It included there is always something to be found ployment remains at 25%. finds’, nineteen-year-old Brett Louder- such classics as, ‘Wave Yo’ Booty In if you know how to look. Three years on, the residents of milk, a sword-swallower and sideshow The Air’, ‘Booty Flava’ and ‘Damn! Yo’ But why do people love Found mag- Les Bosquets are still waiting for performer they found in a dive-bar Shit Be Up In My Face’. Peter tells me azine so much? “I think it’s natural to their big break. in West Virginia, and New York DJ it is perhaps his favourite find ever. be interested in other people’s lives, Hannah Wright Andrew Cohn. The show, like Found He also loves the terse, little notes how they live and think and interact magazine itself, is unique, eclectic and that can be peculiarly poetic, like the with the world”, Peter says. “Seeing unpredictable, cobbled together from post-it that just says, ‘I took some what people write into their notes, Gorilla Adventure (starts on page 11): The 2% is probably just taken up with the extra body hair – so if you give the gorilla a shave then it’ll be 100% human. Or 120% human, if it’s on The Apprentice. Whatever the %, it now looks like a massive muscular baby crawling around the floor. »p14 Give it a nappy to complete the picture. »p15 Shorn of all its hair, the gorilla gets really chilly. Friday October 17 2008 Write for the Magazine varsity.co.uk [email protected] Magazine: Arts and Features 13

From the Archives

AWRITER, FOODBorn CRITIC, FILM DIRECTOR: Winner MICHAEL WINNER IS BRITAIN’S LEAST RECOGNISED POLYMATH. HE IS NOW FAMOUS ONLY FOR BEING PROFESSIONALLY INSULTING, BUT ROB PEAL DISCOVERS THAT WINNER HAS A FAR MORE COLOURFUL PAST THAN HE LETS ON he rst thing you notice about Michael Whilst at Cambridge, Winner came TWinner is his tan. is, coupled with second to Jonathan Miller in a vote for his swept-back white hair, makes Winner the university’s most famous student. I look like he is on one of his much loved asked whether opera director Sir Jonathan Caribbean holidays, even when sitting Miller took himself seriously at University Week 2: Varsity, March 5 1955 in the dreary con nes of the Cambridge and got the impression that his defeat ‘How Versatile the Univer- Union o ces. still rankles: “Oh he’s a pompous arse! “I could have become president of the He’s a pompous arse... He wrote for me at sity’ by Michael Winner Union,” Winner boasts. And my God Varsity, I gave him a column and all he did does Winner boast. On every subject we was attack the paper! You know, like he hen I came up to Cambridge mention, he declares either his historic was some kind of god! Oh, he’s a fucking I was frightened. e damp innovation or his unrivalled supremacy. bore, Jonathan Miller.” Miller is clearly the streetsW and bare walls seemed ex- He wrote a newspaper gossip column from antithesis of Winner’s brutal straight-for- tremely unfriendly, and my fellow the age of fourteen, he was the youngest wardness. He venomously hates didactic freshmen a detached set of people editor of Varsity, the rst British director performers: “ ey get o stage and they unimaginable in other surround- to lm nudity, cunnilingus and Billy Fury, think they’re wiser human beings. ey ings. Everyone seemed to wear a he invented a now ubiquitous style of food have something to say to the world. Well, thick tweed jacket, and as I hadn’t reviewing and is (or was) the “dearest that’s unbelievably tedious, isn’t it? I don’t got such a thing I went straight out friend” of John Cleese, Michael Caine, need Jonathan Miller to tell me about the and bought one. Oliver Reed, Orson Welles and Marlon world, thank you". In my rst Hall I met a lot of very Brando. Michael Winner is de nitely So you can see why Winner is so happy earnest men who talked endlessly the type of man who keeps count of how now with his light-hearted, gossipy Sunday about poetry and novels. A er co ee many women he has slept with (130 if Times column Winner’s Dinners. I ask the in my room they sang dirty songs you’re interested). man himself what makes a good food into my tape-recorder for four However, there is no need to correct review. Of course, he replies by telling me hours. It was all rather ba ing. But Winner. He is a fantastically talented how Michael Winner makes a good food one is acclimatised very quickly to polymath. e only reason people do not review. “Well, you know, I changed the the eccentricities of Cambridge. recognise it more o en is because there whole ethos of food reviewing… Until Presidents and Editors were pointed is no need: he trumpets his talents so you I came along it was very serious, and out to me with tones of deference, don’t have to. But herein lies the paradox: everyone talked about the food. And it and I listened as they were insulted Michael Winner refuses to take himself was scholarly and it was totally fucking in private by those who sought seriously. boring!” On the topic of food, Winner favours from them in public. In his early career, Michael Winner was is resolutely unadorned. “I don’t go into e pomposity of the Union was an essential member of Swinging London. great detail about the food because I’m put over with such a rontery to “I made classic swinging Sixties lms, but I not clever enough... If I eat a sauce, I don’t the gullible freshman that I hastily did not say ‘my God, this is a classic swing- know what’s in the sauce. Either I don’t like joined for life, and did not give up ing sixties lm,’” he explains. “I was re- it, or it's bitter or not bitter, but I can’t say a burning ambition to be President sponsible for the rst time cunnilingus was to you ‘this has got garlic...’ I don’t know until a er hearing the rst debate. on the screen, but I wasn’t aware of that what it’s got in it, it’s a bit of sauce and I eat In the Varsity o ce my rst handful really.” Winner is referring to an infamous it!” It is safe to say Gordon Ramsay’s jibe of previously published articles was scene in his 1967 lm I'll Never Forget that Winner does not know the rst thing followed by a request for a weekly What's'isname, starring Orson Welles and about food would not have cut that deep. contribution. I re-wrote the rst Oliver Reed, with whom he made six lms. Winner has clearly dined with some article seven times before handing it Unlike the more self-important members remarkable people over the years. Ten timidly to the editor concerned – he of his trade, Winner sees this as harmless: years ago he was the only celebrity to at- sent it o to the printers without “ ere was no nudity in the Fi ies, then tend Oliver Reed’s funeral. “Ollie wished to ever reading it. At the ADC I gave lmed orgies in the Sixties. But nobody be buried in the eld behind his favourite up any thought of competing with gave a damn. e world did not end, the pub.” What followed was a mawkish scene the amazing variety of “existentialist” Queen didn’t have to abdicate.” of which Winner clearly disapproved. costumes and paint-brush-in-hand Winner made his last lm in 1999, and “Everyone said ‘oh, what a wonderful place verbosity... I ask him whether he misses directing. he chose to be buried. ose elm trees, and My particular fad was writing and “Well, you see, to a degree,” he replies, but the peacefulness, and the Irish green – it’s so I came up against the myriad en- then quali es. “It’s not worth turning up the most beautiful eld.’” So Winner tells tity, the Cambridge public. To satisfy on set with an inferior script and inferior with emphatic approval the reaction of it completely is quite impossible. actors.” From the man who made the 1976 Kate, Reed’s rst wife “she said to me ‘what On the whole people in Cambridge lm Won Ton Ton, e Dog Who Saved a shit house, what fucking rubbish, it's full don’t know what they want, and Hollywood, this is a little hard to believe. of fucking shit and full of ies, only Oliver when they get it they don’t want it... In the public eye, Winner the director could be so fucking drunk to want to be e three things that seem to stir the has all but disappeared, to be replaced by buried here.’” Winner laughs uproariously undergraduates most are sex, reli- Winner the hated celebrity. However, he at such candidness. gion and humour, in that order. e seems to revel in his media notoriety. He Winner nished the story by mention- deluge of letters, most of them quite retells with joy the time that e Mirror ing something genuinely moving: that he inane, that reach Varsity o ce at the photographed him in a convertible sports then recounted the story to Oliver Reed slightest mention of undergraduate car with O. J. Simpson. Piers Morgan ran himself. “But he’s dead,” I protest. “Well, a relationships is quite incredible. the headline “Britain's most reviled man lot of the people I know are dead!” Win- (with his friend O. J. Simpson)”. ner responds. “Marlon’s dead, Mitchum’s His career at Cambridge was a dry run dead, Orson’s dead, all the people I worked for this particular form of fame. When with and was very friendly with are dead. Varsity, May 28 1955 at Varsity, he put a salacious story about So I go to a street in London and can see men swimming in a girls' college’s swim- Mitchum standing on the corner, because From Winner's ming pool on the front page. e men in we lmed there, and I have a chat with weekly column question were not best pleased but their him.” response was more inventive than just l- I am rather taken aback. I ask him hen there are restaurants. I’m ing a law suit. “ ey found me when I was whether his own year spent in a hospital still fed up with getting cold rice going into my digs just o Parker’s Piece. bed changed his outlook, but this was Tand thinly disguised rabbit. In fact, ey all had these hoods with slits – it clearly enough sentimentality for one day. I was going to issue an ultimatum to Winning Times was quite frightening – and they bundled “People say to me ‘you were pronounced Cambridge restauranteurs. Because me into a van. ey took me to the River dead ve times, you went through that ab- some of us are hatching a gay little ames in the middle of winter and they solutely awful period, what did you learn plan to whisk an unchicken-like 1954 Becomes youngest ever editor of Varsity. threatened to throw me in.”He convinced from it?’ And I say ‘yes, I did learn from it, 1964 Makes his rst lm with Oliver Reed, e System. bone away and get it examined by them that he could not swim and fearing I learnt that illness is a nuisance and severe an expert and then print the name 1974 Releases career de ning blockbuster, Death Wish, with Charles Bronson. for his life they relented. I ask him what he illness is a fucking nuisance.’” 1999 Directs his last lm, Parting Shots. of the restaurant that serves such did, and he replies: “I said ‘would you give Life, death, controversy, engagement: things. 2007 Nearly dies of a bacterial infection a er an oyster meal. me a li back?’ Which they did not.” Winner takes it all with a big pinch of salt. GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: Well if Byron kept a bear in his room when he was at Trinity – and he did – then you’ll be ne with a gorilla. e only problem is that the gorilla keeps playing Phil Collins very loudly. On the drums. e neighbours are at the end of their tether. And, dangerously, so is the gorilla. p16 Con scate his drum kit. p17 Protect his right to play the drums whenever the fuck he likes. Magazine Editor: Daniel Cohen; Arts Editor: Anna Trench; Features Editor: Rob Peal Friday October 17 2008 14 Magazine: Arts and Features maga- [email protected] varsity.co.uk

FILM SPECIAL

TOM DE FRESTON

Maurice, Cinematic 1987

M Forster’s posthu- mously published novel, MauriceE , follows the novel’s namesake and a few of his chums as they indulge in “the unspeakable vice of the Greeks.” It Cambridge is set in King’s, where For- ster studied and seemed to live for ever. One would be hard pushed Like visiting Manhattan or having sex for the rst time, arriving at Cambridge feels strangely familiar. e to recreate King’s Chapel in a studio, and thankfully Merchant Ivory did reason? You’ve seen it all before in the movies. From Queen Elizabeth oating under the Bridge of Sighs in not attempt to. Instead they had a whale of a time lming pretty boys St John’s, to Dr Who being pursued through Clare by a oating orb, Cambridge’s cloisters and alleyways have walking to chapel, walking past the been earmarked by many a location scout over the years. Location lming is a lucrative industry: it was worth chapel, looking at the chapel, and icking their oppy hair and banter- an estimated £2.3 million to Cambridgeshire’s economy in 2006/07. We give you a rundown of the romance, ing pretentiously in a punt on the the action and the ga es that have graced the towering spires and great halls of Cambridge. Cam owing past the chapel. ere are also a few shots of Gibbs’, Hall and First Court, all relating to the chapel. ere is a touching scene of the two young male lovers ignoring the threats of the Dean and whiz- zing o through the Webb’s exit in an irresistible old motorcar to hold hands in the Grantchester grass. It’s something I’m sure we’d all like to do at some point, except poor Maurice got sent down for it. Chariots of Fire Elizabeth the Golden Age,1987

his questionable historical epic man- St John’s, the dashing adventurer Raleigh, ages to better resemble Pirates of the still smelling of the Atlantic, rushes over Chariots of Fire, 1981 CaribbeanT than 16th-century England. to perform that legendary romantic e lm opens with Queen Elizabeth gesture: throwing his cape over a puddle. holding court in a Whitehall Palace which Location scouts Screen East organised the hariots of Fire has something paid a fiver for their troubles. The Great Court Run scene was actually better resembles St John’s College where use of Cambridge for lming, and their of a cult following from those film depicts 1920s Cambridge in filmed at Eton, not Trinity, while a many of the opening scenes were lmed. head of Locations Kerry Ixer says “We are Cwho went to Cambridge in the early its element, with some impressive car containing Abrahams pulls up e Queen natters with her ladies in wait- delighted that Elizabeth: e Golden Age 1980s. Particularly because half of shots of the King’s Parade and of the outside an entrance of “Caius” that ing about her new heart throb Sir Walter [chose] the East of England as a lming them, from Stephen Fry and Hugh Societies Fair, filmed in the Senate looks suspiciously like Tit Hall), the Raleigh as she oats along the ames location… the local community was Laurie to Derek Pringle, the England House, where polite boys in striped film won four Academy Awards and in her Royal Barge. e ames is in fact very much involved in the shoot and as a cricketer, are in it. The fame-hungry blazers and boater hats make lad can be recognised, even by those the Cam, and she dri s straight under the result the lming has brought economic students were drafted in, given a chat. You wonder why people think who haven’t actually seen it, by its Bridge of Sighs, quite an achievemwwent and cultural bene ts to the area”. Maybe 1920s crop in order to look the Cambridge is public school. De- epic theme tune, which brought a seeing that the Bridge of Sighs was only Jonathan Rhys Meyers will be along part (a travesty in the ever-trendy spite lacking somewhat in historical whole new wealth of possibilities to built in 1831. As the Virgin Queen enters shortly for the third season of e Tudors. eighties, decade of the mullet) and accuracy (the pretty fundamental the world of slow-motion running. GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: At this point Amnesty International intervenes because rather than protecting the human, you’re degrading a gorilla. at was particularly short-sighted of you, says Amnesty International. Au contraire, you say – because you actually are short-sighted, and it was short-sighted of them not to see that. Ooh, touchy, says Amnesty International, though they probably meant to say ‘touché.’ Friday October 17 2008 Write for the Magazine varsity.co.uk [email protected] Magazine: Arts and Features 15

Zoological Museum

Sylvia

KATY KING

Sylvia, 2003 Dr Who, 1979

ylvia opens with Gwyneth Paltrow, scene among an all too rigid, postcard Severy inch the Fullbright Scholar, soar- recreation of Fi ies Cambridge and Pal- ah, the 1970s. Forget the eco- sued into Clare by a oating ing down Trinity Lane as we follow Plath’s trow and Daniel Craig consequently feel Anomic decline, the oil crisis and orb. He visits a fellow Time graduate years and her relationship with pasted onto the world. But the redeeming the rise of terrorism – this was the Lord in St. Cedd’s College. Ted Hughes. Amid students convulsing to part of Sylvia is when its location speaks decade of David Bowie, the tted Which is actually Emma. “I’m jazz, Plath bites down on Hughes’s cheek for itself. Plath reads Hughes’s poetry in blazer, and Tom Baker as Doctor confused,” says Romana (ponder- in her infamous introduction. e fusty the corridors of John’s and gazes up at Who. Between 1974 and 1981, the ing the occurrence of May Week in college atmosphere drives the corduroy the autumn light passing through the TARDIS took him to the Daleks’ June). “So is the TARDIS,” replies the scale o the charts and our poets incant trees by the backs. e natural beauty of home planet, the birth of planet Doctor (explaining why they arrived Shakeperare amid wine bottles and peeling Cambridge evokes the primal spark that Earth, and the foggy alleyways of in October and not June). So are we. paint. A punting Plath preaches Chaucer then ignites something far greater than the Victorian London. It also took him to to bemused cows at King’s. It’s an awkward drama itself. Cambridge, where the Doctor is pur- CONTRIBUTIONS BY CATHY BUEKER, ROB PEAL, FRED ROWSON, ALICE TYLER AND SARAH WOOLLEY. ILLUSTRATION BY TOM DE FRESTON

Not Only But Always

Not Only But Always, 2004

his superlative dramatisation of gown. Cook reacts by pretending edge of the desk, and ended up in ask him when I see me” Cook dryly the friendship between come- to be Dracula, and fleeing from Addenbrooke’s. Cook hones his replies. Having slept with the wait- Tdians Peter Cook (played by Rhys the natural light. In actual fact, trademark surrealist humour in ress he seduced at a café, she asks Ifans) and Dudley Moore (Aiden Cook never made it to the end of the smokers of Cambridge, where him “making love, dancing, charm- McArdle) begins with Cook’s his finals. Having stayed up cram- Jonathan Miller approaches him ing… Is there anything you’re not career in Cambridge. He is filmed ming all night, he drank a bottle of and asks “you’re speech patterns good at?” “Failure” is the ominous leaving the exam hall and being whiskey during the exam to ‘liven and cadences exactly match those response from man who reinvented e History Boys reprimanded by the Pembroke up his answers’ and promptly fell of a schizophrenic, have you British satire, but so sadly lost his Master for the state of his ripped unconscious, hit his head on the worked with schizophrenics?” “I’ll career to drink and depression.

e History Boys, 2006 Elizabeth: e Golden Age

er sitting their entrance exams, here comes more historical architec- this might have its place, but in e our eight plucky Yorkshire lads ture. Yes, the protagonists have made History Boys the snippet of sunny Aare driven o into the sunset. But to it to their college interviews. Where punting appears absurd when one where? Suddenly, all in less than a would we be without the montage of remembers interviews occur in frigid, minute: punters on the Backs! e iconic buildings to let viewers know overcast December. In a movie that Radcli e Camera! Queens’ Tudor a movie’s action is now in Cambridge fetishizes Oxbridge so much, actual court! e Bridge of Sighs! Christ and/or Oxford? And has it become scenery makes up less than one- Church Cathedral! A Tit Hall arch- mandated by law to always include ieth of screen time and in any case way! ...And an interior from Harrow! punting along the Backs of King’s is overshadowed by Richard Gri ths’ Whoops! Swoosh! Watch your head, and Clare? In other movies a shot of magni cent panniculus.

GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: e gorilla tries to warm himself up by giving you a big old cuddle. But just in case he doesn’t know his own strength – or even, in fact, if he does and he wants to crush you to death – you give him some nourishing refreshment. But what? p18 e slightly racist jungle-themed drink Umbongo. p20 Some chicken cooked on your Lean Mean Gorilling Machine. Magazine Editor: Daniel Cohen; Arts Editor: Anna Trench; Features Editor: Rob Peal Friday October 17 2008 16 Magazine: Arts and Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk

EMMA HOGAN Time In Our weekly suggestions for making the most of your spare time Week 2: a Credit Crunch playlist

rlando Reade takes you on an epic journey through the economic Orollercoaster, from the causes of the crisis down to the depths of despair. Look- ing back to the recessions of the past, he shows us how we can forge a new social identity by nding in ourselves a British love of asceticism.

1. Free Money (live) Patti Smith 2. My Debts Spiral Out of Control Monster Bobby 3. Play with Fire e Rolling Stones 4. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out Nina Simone 5. Darklands e Jesus and Mary Chain 6. Dead Souls Joy Division 7. Deep Water Portishead 8. A Forest (live) e Cure 9. Which Will Nick Drake 10. e Modern World e Modern Lovers 11. Kidney Stew Blues Eddie “Mr Cleanhead” Vinson 12. I Don’t Care Orange Juice 13. New Age e Velvet Underground 14. Wickerman Pulp Fun? It’s pure hell! is playlist will soon be available on varsity.co.uk. MAGGI HAMBLING IS AN ARTISTIC RENEGADE: A DIVISIVE SCULPTOR AND A CONTROVERSIAL COMMENTATOR. Time Out EMMA HOGAN VISITED HER STUDIO Week 2: e Cambridge Folk alfway through my interview with of paintings focussing on a part of the paintings and you can see the personali- historian, George Melly. It sounds as Museum the artist Maggi Hambling, she tells sea o the Su olk coast. She cites Rem- ties of the people she has painted. Her if it was an anarchic mixture of Never Hme that journalists o en describe her as brandt, Bacon, Rothko and Van Gogh favourite Rembrandt quotation holds Mind the Buzzcocks and the Tate Gal- over-the-top. “But what is the top that as in uences but her art is so distinctive true for her own work: “I have painted lery: Hambling sipped vodka instead of hose with the misfortune of living I’m supposed to be over?” that you will have never seen anything nothing but portraits.” water, smoked constantly, and once, for Tup the only hill in Cambridge will Certainly, she cuts a rakish gure, like it. Part of this is down to the simple Hambling studied at Ipswich, Cam- a laugh, wore a moustache – mistaken be familiar with the Cambridge Folk sitting in one of her airy Su olk studios fact that she doesn’t really give a damn berwell and the Slade, managing to be by the female controller of Channel 4 to Museum’s exterior at least. Up the hill wearing a panama hat and paint-spat- what other people think of her work: “It’s a student for seven years when “student be a feminist statement, when instead it from Magdalene College, the museum tered jeans, while Lux, her Tibetan corny but true: one is doing it for oneself. grants were not student debts.” ough was just a form of visual rebellion against is housed in a former Inn. We all know terrier languidly stretches on the oor No one asked me to make paintings.” at Camberwell there was a decided male the watershed. At George Melly’s recent that Cambridge is historic, but if you beside her. e day before our interview ough intensely self-critical, she laughs homosexual bias, she has never really funeral she allowed herself to smoke want to actually know about its history, she had appeared dressed up as the at any negative criticism from the public felt at a disadvantage as a woman artist: again: “ e beauty of it, deliciousness of here is the place. Amongst the curious Mayor in the Aldeburgh Carnival on the or the media, such as that received for “It doesn’t make any di erence to me it… like nectar from the gods. I long for exhibits which are only ever found in oat, winning the rst prize. But it is a two sculptures: her 1998 Conversation whether someone’s gay or straight or a funerals.” Like David Hockney, she hates local museums (see a comprehensive mistake to regard her striking originality with Oscar Wilde in Charing Cross and woman or a man. So what?” When at the smoking ban, and rooted out a fake collection of vacuum cleaners through as mere eccentricity, for it is an original- her monument to Benjamin Britten in the Slade in 1969 she protested against a cigarette from a joke shop in Clapham the ages) are some wonderful insights ity that comes across most forcefully in 2003, Scallop, on Aldeburgh beach. visit by Enoch Powell to the Conserva- for her photograph, just to make a point. into Cambridge’s past. ere is a 1680 her art. It was when she was working on Scal- tive Association of UCL and in 1970 she She is glad now that nally, people letter from a concerned parent to Hambling is perhaps best known lop that she returned to painting the sea, produced Rembrandt, one of her ‘street have forgotten the fake moustache and the Master of St Catherine’s pleading for her portraits, and is included in the a place which she says feels like “the edge works.’ irty polythene bags were lled discuss her art, rather than just her love him to wean his child o tobacco and collections of Clare, Jesus and Murray of everything”. It is “magical, seductive with photocopies of a Rembrandt etch- of performing Cabaret or smoking: wenches and a photo of a campaign Edwards colleges. For the past six years, and sexy… yet savage, eating away at the ing of a couple in bed, and tied to the “People do not have any idea how hard against female entry into colleges in however, she has been working on a land”. is intoxicating mixture of the railings by King’s Cross. ey turned out you have to work to achieve anything. 1921 with a banner over Senate House series seductive and the frightening is perhaps to be particularly popular with a group Most of the time I am in a constant state declaring “Get you to Girton Beatrice, what drives her art. I ask her if being of taxi drivers, and were all taken soon of despair about it all.” Hambling gets get you to Newnham, here’s no place frightened of a subject, whether it a er they were put up. Hambling says up around 5am every day to go draw for you maids”. And did you ever be the sea or a person, is the same that she has never purposely set out to the sea, then comes back to her studio know that Association football began as being a bit in love with it. be controversial in her work, “but if it is, and paints until the a ernoon. I suggest on Parker’s Piece in 1846? ere is a “I’ve always said that painting it shows it’s got a bit of life in it”. that, although she follows such a brutal, painting of the famous Cambridge someone’s portrait is like a For a while, people found her the most dedicated routine, it sounds like fun. She businessman omas Hobson donated love a air… it’s an intense, controversial for her part as a panelist in answers this, however, with a character- to the museum by John Maynard intimate thing, a sworn, a 1980s television art quiz show, Gallery, istically mischievous twinkle: “Fun? It’s Keynes. Hobson, a stable manager, had tacit agreement. But with a hosted by the late jazz singer and art pure hell, woman! Pure hell!” a famous ‘this one or none’ policy when bit of luck at the end there it came to horse hire, giving birth to is a portrait, not a broken the expression ‘Hobson’s Choice’. e heart.” It is through the Hambling Timeline highlight is a room about the mysteri- “vulnerable, human ous lost world of the Fens, where the thing of putting 1969 Graduates from the Slade amphibious inhabitants kept mole’s paint on canvas” 1980 Appointed as rst artist-in-residence at the National Gallery paws to fend of rheumatism, built ani- that her work 1983 First exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery mal bones into their walls and pinned comes alive: 1995 Wins Jerwood Prize for painting and is awarded an OBE ears of corn onto prospective wives. you can feel 1998 A Conversation With Oscar Wilde is unveiled Well worth the £2 student entry. the sea in her 2003 Scallop is installed on Aldeburgh beach GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: Your gorilla is extremely angry because he now can’t practice his new routine to a Bonnie Tyler song. He plucks you up in his paw and whisks you o to the top of the highest building in town. is turns out to be the University Library. He perches on top of the tower, and peeks through the window at the 17th century pornography within. p21 Scream for help. p22 Tame the beast. Friday October 17 2008 Write for the Magazine varsity.co.uk [email protected] Magazine: Arts and Features 17 Peter the Great Next Big ing IF THE WORLD’S GOT A PROBLEM, HE HAS A PROTEST: PETER TATCHELL HAS CAMPAIGNED FOR ALMOST EVERY MOVEMENT FOR THE LAST FORTY YEARS. RICKY POWER SAYEED MEETS THE MAN WHO STARTED AS AN ANTI- VIETNAM CAMPAIGNER AS A STUDENT AND IS NOW RUNNING AS THE GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE FOR OXFORD EAST

eter Tatchell complains profession- It’s not much of an answer. But at the Pally. He wants to change the world debate, Peter proposes a new sort of sex and he’ll keep nit-picking until he dies. I education – “age-appropriate…explicit… A Life in Action actually admire him greatly, which makes teaching children about relationships,” interviewing him impossible. and one audience response is that this is 1952 Born in Melbourne, Australia. I say he complains professionally but, an imposition by the state. Later, I put this 1983 Looses the Bermondsey by-election as Labour candidate. Week 2: Tom Hiddleston even as political activist par excellence, he’s to him. 1990 Co-founder of Outrage! 2001 Attempts a citizen’s arrest on Robert Mugabe. on an income close to zero. At dinner, he “Well, I think all policies of government t the age of 19 I had the saves the bread roll and butter for later. ought to come from a consensus of the 2007 Nearly knocked unconscious at Moscow Pride protest. 2007 Selected as Green Party candidate for Oxford East. presumption to play someone Perhaps he’s just frugal, but I remember p e op l e .” su “A ering with a nervous break- him doing something very similar when A consensus or a majority, I ask him. down.” It was this performance in he spoke at my school, years ago. “A consensus of the people. Now, it’s not he defends, the values he ghts for, he alike, before gladly tucking in. Perhaps A Streetcar Named Desire at the As a professional dissident, Tatchell always possible to have unanimity…at the de nes himself. next time they’ll serve something else. ADC that got Tom Hiddleston an ghts every battle going: homophobia, end of the day, it’s better the government “We all have to follow our own con- is ‘incident’ could be passed o as a agent while still reading Classics racism, sexism, economic inequality, follow a majority view than a minority science… It wouldn’t mean to say that pushy public gure getting his way. But it’s at Pembroke College. A part in a climate change. He was a leading member view unless, of course, the minority view we’d get everything right but I think too not that simple. television adaptation of Nicholas of the Gay Liberation Front, and helped is seeking to uphold and defend human many people go along with the crowd… It was someone with a principle, which Nickleby soon followed, and then found gay rights protest group Outrage! rights against the majority.” it’s very important to have a critical scepti- he applies to his life. Calmly, deliberately, three years at RADA. Now he has He twice attempted a citizen’s arrest on Because human rights are absolute? cal attitude towards all people in authority rationally he made his point, and kept a role in the Donmar Warehouse’s Mugabe at a time when most Britons “Human rights are a human invention, and all institutions.” repeating it until he saw that principle ap- Ivanov, a part in the edgy British couldn’t even name the Zimbabwean you know. Humanity has collectively de- Tatchell, like all campaigners and activ- plied. Whilst Union o cials and a student lm Unrelated and a new television president and got minor brain damage as cided over many decades, even centuries, ists before him, is making the world look journalist sat around, amused and embar- series Wallander, where he plays the a result. He opposes the Miss World com- a body of rights and freedoms which are like how he wants it to look. He spends rassed, we saw how Peter Tatchell wants to side-kick to a “Swedish Inspector petition, the Iraq War and sweat shops. regarded as inviolable and universal… every day doing this. change the world. Morse”, played by his Ivanov co-star At one point, I attempt to joke that those rights need to be defended against In the dining room of the Union, Kenneth Branagh. Not bad for an the rainbow ribbon on his jacket, the the encroachments of the state… the main course is served. e actor who describes his rst couple international symbol of lesbian and gay “I don’t advocate the state imposing a vegetarian option is fairly unpleas- of years at Cambridge as being view about sex education. What I believe ant, but Peter’s complaint isn’t “very green. I had no idea what I “WHAT MAKES PEOPLE is the state ought to draw on the consen- culinary. Gently, he beckons to was doing”. sus of public opinion to devise a policy the attendant and rmly notes Tall, with piercing eyes and a HAPPY IS NOT that can hopefully enhance the welfare that humans need protein and mop of curly blonde hair, it’s not and happiness of the maximum number there is little here – he points to hard to see why he got snapped up NECESSARILY MATERIAL of people.” his plate – compared with that, by top agent Linda Hamilton at the WEALTH OR CONSUMER is is very mainstream, utilitarian, his nger now jabbing towards end of his rst year. Yet Hiddleston representative democratic stu , a far cry the chicken breast on his claims he concentrated more on POSSESSIONS.” from ‘Peter Tatchell, celebrity dissident’. It neighbour’s plate. his degree than other actors; he doesn’t stay that way. Over the course of four or was “hopeless at multitasking” and “Sometimes law-breaking can be ethi- ve exchanges, deferential and not integral to the ADC crowd. human rights, might re ect his wide range cally legitimate when the government whispering attendants spar with e plays he did do at Cambridge, of political interests. He looks at me like goes against the will of the people, when a rm and unembarrassed Peter though, stand out: he was Romeo, I’m a complete idiot. it breaks electoral promises and when it Tatchell. He wants more protein, an o cer in Brian Friel’s Transla- But he’s not in a great mood. He’s had “a violates human rights. they want him to take what he’s tions, and Orestes in the Marlowe crazily busy day”, he’s late and he has to get “Of course, some of those instances given. Eventually, they send out for Society’s Greek play Electra. to his Union debate. So, with no time for can be in mutual con ict. For example, a some mixed nuts. Going to RADA, by contrast, pleasantries, we bundle into the taxi and majority of people may support the death “Not the ones with bits and our?” felt like “going back to school: you we begin. penalty, but I would argue in that case de- “No.” work 8.30 to 7 to a rigid timetable, Seeing that he is a former Labour fence of human rights trumps the major- A bowl of many nuts arrives with thirty people for three years. It candidate, I ask him why he is campaign- ity rule. All campaigns, I’ve tried to work and Peter o ers them doesn’t feel like a natural progres- ing with the Green Party. “ e old grey inside the system. Only when that’s failed around, to veg- sion. Yet it’s about becoming an art- parties are wedded to a productivist and failed consistently, have I resorted to etarians and ist, about becoming creatively free”. economic agenda. ey believe that ever- non-violent civil disobedience.” omni- Where Cambridge was intellectual, expanding economic growth is the route However, Tatchell has a long history in vores RADA was instinctive: “ ree years to prosperity or progress…what makes what appears to be ‘establishment’ party at RADA are three years remind- people happy is not necessarily material politics; rst with Labour, for whom he ing you that acting is a completely wealth or consumer possessions.” He was a highly controversial candidate, and instinctive thing.” It’s an intense, spiels loudly and assuredly but, suddenly, now with the Green Party. incestuous place, “a mixture of the loses his precision. “We’re frozen out, as are other, you best holiday in the world and the “It’s, you know, having a loving sup- know, radical le and green social move- Big Brother house”. portive... having loving supportive friends ments… Direct action is a fundamental Watching Ivanov, it is clear that and family, um, enjoying cordial relations part of the green ethos. Not for its own Hiddleston is an actor who has with one’s neighbours, being in a safe sake, but because we believe sometimes been trained with such precision neighbourhood, um, and, um, being able it’s the only way to shake up the political that he can perform with utter con- to, um, being able to, er, experience, you elite and get the people’s voice heard… viction. He is compelling to watch, know, er, being able to have, you know, e government is tinkering with the even through the tiniest move- good quality air and water. ose basics system.” ments. His character in the play, Dr are fundamental.” And what does he think if the Lvov, is probably the most sympa- e sudden loss of con dence isn’t Labour Party that he once fought thetic of the lot in Chekov’s early because his ideas are vague, but because for? work. Yet Hiddleston describes the they’re broad. ere’s so much detail in “Blairism and Brownism character as a gure who “treads that broad view that his monologue stum- are atcherism by a di er- the line between being a prig and bles somewhere between the transforma- ent name… New Labour isn’t a a revolutionary”. It is testament to tion of human society and how you get on democratic party anymore be- Hiddleston’s ablity that he man- with your neighbours. cause the grassroots members no ages to tight-walk this line, making But should the state try to change fam- longer control the party… Labour him utterly trans xing to watch on ily or community life? has abandoned democracy and it stage. Emma Hogan “ e state shouldn’t be dictating to has abandoned socialism.” people, but if people collectively agree that Tatchell, on the other hand, claims Ivanov is at the Wyndham’s eatre things have to change, then the state can that the basis of his political actions is in London until November 29 be an agency for that transformation.” human rights. But the human rights RICKY POWER-SAYEED GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: e gorilla – let’s call him Juan – Juants to stop playing the drums anyway, so he doesn’t care that you’re protecting his rights. Newly arrived in the inspiring atmosphere of university life, he sets his sights higher than plain old drums, and starts punching the living daylights out of you instead. p22 Calm him with a song. p23 Psalm him with a Kong. Listings and Reviews Editor: Toby Chadd Friday October 17 2008 Friday October 17 2008 Get your event listed 18 Magazine: Listings [email protected] varsity.co.uk varsity.co.uk [email protected] Magazine: Listings 19

VARSITY WEEK ALICE EDGERLEY theTHE VARSITY WEEK: YOUR COMPLETELY COMPREHENSIVE PULL-OUT GUIDE TO THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS. STICK IT ON YOUR WALL. Music e a t r e Talks and Events Going Out Sport Art, Jazz and CUR 1350 Radio Film Pick of the Week Classical Friday 17th Friday 17th Friday 17th Friday 17th Saturday 18th Ongoing Exhibitions Friday 17th Brideshead Revisited Murder on Air Electro-Greece Nevermind the Alcock Unite to Fight AIDS Lee Mortimer Middlesborough v Chelsea Fitzwilliam Museum: e Alphabet Cassette Arts Picturehouse Monday 20th to Saturday 25th October Recital Hall, ARU: 1.10pm e Doubtful Guest Queens’ Building Lecture eatre: 2pm Clare Cellars: 9pm (£4) Sky Sports 1: 12.20pm • Japanese Pottery (booking necessary) 2-4pm Fri, Sat, Sun, Weds: 16.15; 18.45 ( ursday and Saturday Matinees at 2.30pm) A concert of electronic music by con- Hero Four young people from Zambia, N.B. student ID required Luiz Felipe Scolari has enjoyed a • Palaces in the Night - Whistler’s Prints Hey kids! Revise the Latin alphabet Mon, Tues: 16.00; 18.30 Arts eatre: 7.45pm (£10) temporary Greek composers, curated (see last week’s listings for details of above) Uganda, Ireland and the USA will be Fidgety-house. Sounds like Switch bright start to his reign at Stamford • Chinese Imperial Jades through the miracle of indiepop and urs: 14.30; 19.10 by the award-winning eodore coming to discuss how HIV/AIDS has and Claude von Stroke. Bridge but faces a test at the Riverside • Tomb Treasures of Ancient Georgia alternative music! From astrology to It wants to be Atonement. It isn’t. is Anyone who has wiled away many a Sunday a ernoon watching Lotis. Lotis’ current focuses are on Saturday 18th a ected their lives and how they are against Middlesbrough. e Teesid- • Greeks, ‘Barbarans’ and their Coins zoology, sing, clap and dance along as suggests that it could be quite good. the inimitable Belgian played by David Suchet (right) might well spectrum, timbre, sonic space and FOUND Magazine ghting to achieve universal access to Froot ers have a strong record at home to • Picasso Prints – Dreams and Lies you learn! It isn’t. be a little apprehensive about following our hero to the stage, light. e Cafe Project (22 Jesus Lane): 8pm HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, e Harris Suite (South Stand), Chelsea; although Chelsea won there • e Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and and without Suchet! But you will be safe, I can assure you, in the See pgs 11/12 for the low-down. care and support by 2010. Cambridge United Football Ground: last season they were upset on the Lady Nevell’s Boo. Saturday 18th How to Lose Friends and Alienate hands of Bill Kenwright - the UK’s largest independent theatre Saturday 18th 9pm (£5/£4) previous two occasions. e Alice Jones Show People and lm production company. A er a triumphant summer, e Stranglers Monday 20th Unheard Of Featuring Ministry of Sound’s Emma Kettle’s Yard (all free): 10-11am Arts Picturehouse particularly with ‘And en ere Were None’, Bill Kenwright is Corn Exchange: 7.30pm (£23) Murder on Air e Shop, 18 Jesus Lane: 7.30pm Harkness, Fatt Baz, Douggie ‘Filth’ Sunday 19th • Conversations Lively chit chat and special guests. Fri: 14.15 returning to the Arts eatre to perform three of Christie’s radio Touring in support of a new greatest Arts eatre: 7.45pm (£10) Come at 7.30pm to sign up for this Mitchell and D-Sub, Froot allegedly Chinese Grand Prix • Paul Coldwell: ‘I called when you Interesting facts about sea creatures Vue plays in the style of their original BBC broadcasts. hits collection, e Stranglers will e Agatha Christie eatre Com- fortnightly open-mic poetry and brings you the latest electro-house, Setanta Sports: 7.45am were out’ (2-4pm) and Kant. Plus ‘who-to-know-in- Fri-Mon: 15.15; 17.45; 20.15 (Mon

dig into their massive back catalogue pany present a trio of Poirot specials: acoustic music night. Performances electro-clash and dgety-house tunes. e latest instalment from the F1 Cambridge special guests’ and much, also 12.45, Fri & Sat also 12.45; 22.45) LUCA D’AGOSTINO of songs traversing punk rock, new ‘Personal Call’, ‘Hercule Poirot in e start at 8pm sharp, so if you’ve come season in China. Renault’s Fernando Friday 17th much more. Tues: 15.15; 17.45 wave, and 80s pop. Classics like Yellow Iris’, ‘Butter in a Lordly Dish.’ just to watch and listen, you’ll need to Destination Ibiza Alonso followed up his success in Norma Winstone’s Jazz Trio Simon Pegg and Kirsten Dunst team Norma Winstone’s Jazz Trio ‘Golden Brown’ and ‘Peaches’ are See Pick of the Week. have bagged your spot by then. Queen’s: 9pm (£5) Singapore with victory again in Japan Kettle’s Yard: 7.30pm (£8 on the door) Sunday 19th up with Je Bridges in this adapta- Friday 17th October likely to gure. N.B. student ID required last week and will be looking to make An evening of the highest quality jazz, One Step Beyond tion of Toby Young’s book. Kettle’s Yard: 7pm (£8 on the door) Tuesday 21st Bernard Laporte Foam Party with DJ Olly Riley- it three in a row at the Shanghai combining classical, jazz and folk 1-3pm Sunday 19th e Hothouse e Union - Chamber: 4.30pm Smith. International Circuit. in uences. See pick of the week. An eclectic and in-depth jazz-based Gomorrah World-renowned jazz singer Norma Winstone, who Songs in the Dark ADC: 7.45pm (£6) Currently Minister of State for Sport, show, concentrating on the more Arts Picturehouse received the MBE in recognition of services to British Clowns: 8pm (free) CUADC presents Pinter’s darkest Laporte was a coach of the national Green Bay v Indianopolis Colts Jazz at John’s experimental and avant-garde side of Fri, Mon: 12.15; 15.00; 17.45; 20.45 jazz, launched her new album ‘Distances’ with Italian A lovely fortnightly evening of poetry comedy, which follows the fortunes of rugby team, overseeing 8 years of Sky Sports 2: 9pm Fisher Building: 9pm (£4) things: music that is ‘one step beyond’. Sat: 12.15; 18.00; 21.00 pianist Glauco Venier and German saxophonist Klaus and music upstairs at the colourful Roote as he investigates the concep- mercurial rugby. NFL action from Lambeau Field. Featuring the Tom Millar Trio, and Sun: 12.15; 17.45; 20.45 Gesing earlier this year on the prestigious ECM label. In Clowns. tion of a child on the premises of his Expect massive hits, cheerleading and the Alex Merritt Quartet Monday 20th Tues: 16.00; 18.45; 21.30 the 1960s Winstone was a pioneer in vocal improvisa- clinic for lost souls. Monday 20th touchdowns. Indianapolis have been A & E (Anything and Everything) Weds: 15.00; 17.45; 20.45 tion in important collaborations with musicians includ- Andy Bowie Centre of African Studies: inconsistent this term whilst the Pack- Saturday 18th 7-9pm A hard-hitting drama that brings out ing Joe Harriott, John Stevens and Mike Westbrook. Cricketers Pub: 8.30pm (free) Murder on Air Research Seminar Series ers have lost their last two xtures; V-Williams, Dvorak, Rachmaninov Chris Boreham and Sarah Birch the brutality of the Neapolitan Ma a. ere will be £8 tickets on the door, but it might be Sax-led modern jazz from Ellington e Mond Building Seminar Room, both sides will be looking to get their West Road: 7.30pm (£8) bring you your weekly dose of musical Five stories are cra ily laced together; better to be safe than sorry and buy in advance at to Shorter from ever-expanding rep- Wednesday 22nd Free School Lane: 5pm seasons back on track. e City of Cambridge Symphony medication. Whatever you need, based on Roberto Saviano’s bestsell- www.junction.co.uk. ertoire, in a new, larger venue. Life x 3 Mr Barry Gilder, South Africa’s Orchestra, with Tom Poster at the we’ve got it, from rock to rap and ska ing book. In Italian with subs. ADC: 11pm (£4) former Coordinator for Intelligence, Monday 20th piano, perform V-W’s “In the Fen to swing, a guaranteed pick-me-up. To win a pair of tickets to ADC’s mainshow, turn Tuesday 21st Emmanuel Dramatic Society present speaks on ‘From Liberation to Gov- Rugby Blues v Harlequins Country”, Rachmaninov’s Piano Burn A er Reading to our competition on page 23 Flook Yasmina Reza’s comic look at modern ernance: e Birth and Growing of Grange Road: 7.30pm Concerto No. 3 and Dvorak’s New Tuesday 21st Arts Picturehouse Junction: 8pm (£13 adv) marriage. South Africa’s Democratic Intelligence Saturday 18th A disappointing tour of Portugal World Symphony. Talk Scratchings Fri- urs: 13.45; 16.15; 18.45; 21.15 Flook play an innovative all-acoustic Services’. DoN’T PaNcaKe against strong opposition has been 7-9pm Vue Howells Evensongs fusion of Irish folklore and modern Murder on Air King’s Cellars: 10pm (£2/Free for King’s followed with encouraging displays Sunday 19th Christos & Micky return with their Fri- urs: 13.30; 16.00; 18.30; 21.00 Saturday 18th October rhythms. ey won the Best Group e Hothouse Tuesday 21st students) against Blackheath and Nottingham. Wagner, Lindberg, Mahler own unique brand of nothing, along Fri & Weekend also 23.30 King’s Chapel: 5.30pm / John’s Chapel 6.30pm award in the 2006 Radio 2 Folk Moral Sciences Club DJs Far eld and Skenderbeg bring e Blues will be looking to gather West Road: 7.30pm (£12) with the best in new music, and a few e Coens gamble their newfound Awards. ursday 23rd Dirac Room, Fisher Building, John’s: you “three hours of psychedelic deli- some momentum with one eye on the e Prelude to Wagner’s mag- old favourites. ey discuss movies & rep on a classic asco comedy, but Herbert Howells, perhaps the greatest post-Tudor composer of Jesus College Smokers 5.15pm (£1 for junior members, £2 cacies served up on a plate of pound- Varsity xture on 11th December. ni cent Tristan and Isolde kicks o a TV, and the odder side of the news, is it e Big Lebowski or Intolerable church music, was born on the 17th October 1892; and these two Fitz Swing Above Jesus Bar: 10pm (£2) others) ing beats with a garnish of entertain- Northern-European focus. with competitions. Cruelty? evensongs celebrate his life and work. King’s will sing his seraphic ADC: 11pm (£4) See pg 20 for a run-down on one of Jerry Levinson from the University of ment and a ‘MASSIVE FUCKING Tuesday 21st and jubilant Gloucester Service, whilst John’s are staying closer to e popular group present an evening Cambridge’s best comedy nights. Maryland presents a paper entitled PANCAKE’.” Man United v Celtic ursday 23rd Wednesday 22nd High School Musical 3: Senior Year home with his St John’s Service, which recognises the composers of Big Band music from all eras. ‘Towards a Non-Minimalist Concep- ITV1: 7.30pm Night Music Dangerously Unfashionable Vue stint as organist at the college during the war. You could just about From traditional Swing, through e Tiger Who Came to Tea tion of Aesthetic Experience’. Salon Rouge United have made a faltering start West Road: 8pm 3-4pm Weds & urs: 09:30; 10:30; 12:00; make it to both, but my advice would be to opt for the robustness of Blues and on into Latin, Funk Arts eatre: 10am and 12pm (£10) e Junction: 9pm (£9/£8) to the season but will look to get e Britten Sinfonia present a truly Join Chris Boreham as he ghts the 13:20; 14:40; 16:10; 17:20; 19:00; John’s tone, which tends to complement the inspiring grandeur and and some interesting grey areas in A big stripy tiger interrupts Sophie ursday 23rd Get ready for “more divine decadence their season back on track with three eclectic mix of pieces centring around tyranny of modernity, bringing you 20:00; 21:40 lyrical beauty of Howells’ music perfectly. Also watch out for Harris’ between. and her Mummy while they’re having Slade Lectures 2008 with burlesque cabaret, an eclectic points against Celtic. e Hoops have the theme of night, featuring wonder- an hour of the best in classic Rock, ‘Troy! Gabriella! ey’re back, and anthem “Holy is the True Light”, which will be John’s introit. tea. Mill Lane Lecture Rooms: 5pm mix of music, sensuous décor, a host picked up just one point out of a pos- ful British tenor Mark Padmore Pop and Soul. Features include a this time, they’re graduating! Is it any Wednesday 22nd Prof Robert Hillenbrand FBA, of masquerading costumed charac- sible forty- ve away from Parkhead singing Britten’s Nocture. With music spotlight on lesser known bands, good? What a question! High School Roots Manuva Life x 3 recently retired Professor of Islamic ters and cocktails.” Burlesque- and in the Champions League. by Stravinsky, Harrison, Handel and Original vs. Cover and Guess that Musical 3 is undoubtedly the unmiss- Junction: 8pm (£13.50 adv) Murder on Air Art at Edinburgh, will give the second Moulin-Rouge-inspired dress is a John Woolrich. Intro. able lm of the week. Start queuing High School Musical 3 One of the major driving forces of e Hothouse Slade Lecture (which focus on Early must, we’re told. Inspiration above. Wednesday 22nd people – would we lie to you? Vue British Hip Hop, Roots Manuva has Islamic Art 650-750 A.D.) on ‘ e Basketball Blues v De Montfort Friday 24th ursday 23rd Weds & urs: 09:30; 10:30; 12:00; 13:20; 14:40; been immensely successful in the Friday 24th Dome of the Rock: Contested Faiths ursday 23rd Time and Venue TBC Cambridge Gamelan Society Faces for the Radio City of Ember 16:10; 17:20; 19:00; 20:00; 21:40 UK, as well as abroad where he has Knights of the Round Tale in Jerusalem.’ Soundclash: Ghetto A narrow 68-65 loss in last year’s West Road: 7pm (£5) 8-9pm Vue worked with many diverse interna- Peterhouse eatre: 7.30pm Fez: 10pm (£6/£5) Varsity match was harsh on the “A gamelan is a musical ensemble of Libby and Ellie’s safari through indie Weekdays: 13.00; 15.40 In this, the third instalment of the High School tional artists. e Heywood Society presents Au- Women’s Status Men’s States Grime baron Soundclash can’t get squad but Oxford have a strong Indonesia,” Wikipedia tells me. And and alternative classics; from e Vel- Weekends also at 10.10 Musical epic, we join Troy and Gabriella in their den’s translation of Cocteau’s fanciful Law Faculty LG17: 3pm enough of Cambridge, having played record, winning 9 out of 11 Varsity for one night only they will be joined vet Underground to e Verve. More It’s a sort of science ction, city-based nal year of high school. e thought of having ursday 23rd look at Arthurian Britain. e Centre for Gender Studies with Kano at e Junction as recently xtures. New captain Hugo Halferty by the renowned Indonesian dancer, fun than a penguin on a bouncy thing. Look, forget that, it has Bill to separate for college is a daunting one. Fears Goldfrapp presents renowned lawyer and activ- as last week. He doesn’t get on with Drochon will be looking to start the Ni Made Pujawati. castle, and twice as enjoyable! Murray in it. are allayed, however, when the couple and their Corn Exchange: 7.30pm (£22.50 adv) Life x 3 ist Catharine MacKinnon. Wiley apparently. season positively and stop the rot with friends decide to stage a musical to deal with their With their latest album, Seventh Murder on Air victory in this xture. concerns about the future head on. High School Tree, moving towards a slower, folkier e Hothouse Musical 2 was the most watched in history (the sound, it will be interesting to see how e Tiger Who Came to Tea history of the Disney Channel, that is). they have adapted their set. GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: It’s quite hard to get hold of Umbongo nowadays, but you track it down and give him a carton. e gorilla perks up, because they drink it in the Congo, and he is from the Congo as well. Bursting with energy, he bursts out the room and runs around fuelled by E-numbers and a sense of vanquished ennui. e police are dispatched to protect the humans in his path, and they are largely successful. Reviews and Listings Editor: Toby Chadd Friday October 17 2008 20 Magazine: Reviews [email protected] varsity.co.uk

View From e Stage THEATRE

A Midsummer Night’s Dream King’s College Chapel, 11-13 October Dir: James Lewis; Pembroke Players Japan Tour ADAM HOPWOOD  would have loved to have seen this for most of the production. is was mischievous, nuanced performance of James Moran, Iproduction of A Midsummer Night’s particularly damaging to the show, for Kamal Hussain as Puck and the lovely Jesus Smokers Dream on its Pembroke Players Japan at times the production is incredibly comic timing of Celeste Dring, surpris- tour. It would have tted in so per- physical, with actors rolling about on ingly as ‘the Wall’ in the meta-carpenter fectly in a place far removed from the the oor in nearly every scene. ey scenes, which were played with panache What’s it all about? everyday realities of student life: from leap in to the air, throw each other over by all involved. Adam Hollingworth It’s an hour of raw, naked, trembling the opening chords of Finn Beames’ their shoulders, jump upon one another in particular egged out a rather long comedy every other ursday above haunting, moving musical score to the – it is exciting and new, but frustrating ‘death’ scene that most found hilari- Jesus Bar. Expect to see a mish-mash luxurious, stylised costumes and ener- to watch when half eclipsed by the head ous but some, myself included, found of original sketches, monologues getic, upli ing performance of the cast, of someone in front of you. Having rather over the top. However, there was and stand-up from Footlights regu- everything evokes the otherworldly, the said that, the woman sitting next to one particularly brilliant scene which lars and fresh new talent. ere are magical. me whose view was just as obscured as involved the lovers (Sophia Sibthorpe, open auditions before each one, and However, James Lewis’ production mine was practically rolling in the aisles, Scarlett Crème, Edward Rowett and anyone is encouraged to come along. of Shakespeare’s comedy has somehow in union with the actors, with merry Finn Beames) spinning, cavorting, e idea is to make it all a bit edgier managed to transfer back successfully laughter. rollicking backwards under Puck’s than ADC Smokers – for example, on home turf, in the suitably pictur- is production has been played command, and James Lewis managed the last smoker had material about esque chapel at King’s. Yet what the with a constant emphasis on the comic to create a cohesive, elastic team for porn stars, chloratetracyclic acid and Chapel makes up for in atmosphere elements of the play – on laughs that it such group scenes. It was at a moments the Maldivian presidential elections. and occasional reverberating acous- (usually) manages to get. e hysterical such as this that this engaging, though Tell us a tale. tics, it lacks in the practicalities of an Helena (Scarlett Creme) and clown-like occasionally exaggerated, production During our rst batch of auditions, actual theatre: even three rows back, it Nick Bottom (Adam Hollingworth) became truly alive, and made it well we were interrupted by CUSU was hard to see what was happening are the broad slapstick tempered by the worth seeing. Emma Hogan o cers turning up because our audi- tion space happened to be directly in front of their supply of Fresher Hero Packs. So we had to stand by with ADC, 14-18 October

the auditionees and watch huge GARETY PATRICK amounts of condoms and lube get Dir. Matthew Eberhardt; CUADC loaded into a van. e upside is that we now know where all the free  contraceptives and pizza tokens are. ir Peter Hall was always going to be a than a caricature. e best moments of the sound balance and the jokes felt Sdi cult act to follow. A er his short Matthew Eberhardt’s production were awkward and under-rehearsed. It Your role? speech to open the new ADC Complex, courtesy of the slave chorus, excellently should be mentioned that one of the I organise and host the events; I also we settled down to watch Hero – an- choreographed by Hannah Lee. ey main characters was played by an un- provide the eye candy. other production back from a summer succeeded in livening up the stage derstudy on this evening. Even taking in Edinburgh. Hero is the story of Tel- whenever the production agged, as it this into account, however, the show If you like this, you’ll ephos, a failed shopkeeper who decides o en did. should have run more smoothly. like... he too could get the girl and be…a hero. e production paid the price for is could have been a genuinely It’s probably most like e Secret Written by Ben Nicholls and Ashley choosing singers rather than actors. exciting project. But, as one audience Policeman’s Ball – an eclectic mix Riches, Hero promised ‘show-stopping Without the support of a musical score member who preferred to remain of stu . No one knows what the hell songs’ and ‘musical comedy’. Phrases, the acting became wooden and the anonymous said: “Didn’t Disney do this is going to happen – I certainly in my experience, to be treated with a actors themselves nervous. e plot was about ten years ago?” don’t. In the rst one I was subjected degree of caution and trepidation. incomprehensible at points: the lead e script was unoriginal and to a ve-minute improvised With a cast comprised largely of character was a wet-blanket and his needed some serious tightening; some stripping-down from the stand-up choral scholars, the singing was always love for the girl utterly absurd (spring- of the songs needed brutal editing Lucien Young, which the crowd going to be of a very high standard. Par- ing, apparently, from the sight of her and the acting was o en poor. Disney seemed to enjoy more than was ticularly well sung was Maud Miller’s spitting). e ending was so forced that do, indeed, seem to have drained this necessary. song as the oracle: a gem, despite its the audience were at a loss as to how or barrel, with considerably greater suc- irrelevance to the plot and bizarre lyrics. why it was reached. cess. e cast and audience spent the What’s in it for me? Jonathan Kanagasooriam provided the Hero was unforgivably lumpy. Not evening doggedly searching for a hero Some of the best comedy in Cam- ‘comedy’ part of the deal, managing well just its meandering and pointlessly who, unfortunately, never appeared. bridge, cheap entry and drinks deals with Balaska, who was less a character complex plot, but the scene changes, Lizzie Davis all night in Jesus Bar. You’ll be happy if the e Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey audience goes away... …having paid £2. But mainly I Arts eatre, 15-18 October GERAINT LEWIS wanted people to leave having Dir. Shôn Dale-Jones; Hoipolloi laughed like idiots and wanting to get involved in comedy themselves –  although the standard of the comedy oipolloi’s Artistic Director writes of ‘episodes’. Whilst consistently and modern lighting e ects and yet inhabit is very high, the atmosphere is H“we hope that age won’t matter genuinely hilarious, Gorey’s macabre a distressed set, dressed in sti , Ed- very relaxed and inviting. Having when watching e Doubtful Guest”, element is included in equal measure. wardian costume. said that, I do have a bone to pick and the rst thing you notice in the Hoipolloi employ a relentless duality: ere is something sinister about with the man who chose to fart auditorium (something which you are the aesthetic of the show is in some the idea of Gorey’s dark illustrations loudly during a poignant silence in a encouraged by the cast to consider) is way about accepting the con nes of coming to life, and something dif- sketch about sexual politics last that all sorts of people are there. is the physical theatre, but also forcing cult about negotiating the risible, week. production has something to o er each all our responses to it back into the rhyming couplets which accompany one of them, and in that single, glorious imagination. e ensemble explains them. Adapting both for the stage Little known fact... idea lies Hoipolloi’s greatest strengths how they will tell their story – with in one e ort is therefore not an easy e uno cial tagline for the smok- – the excitement to leave no stone what concepts, with which props – and task, and perhaps why Hoipolloi ers is “ e Jesus Smokers – they’re unturned and the ability to lever them yet transitions between meta-theatre chose to project the original words as funnier than being nailed to a cross.” up from every angle. and pretence are seamless. Alexander a visual escort to the actors. Part of e show is dubbed as ‘inspired by’ Rudd’s music underscores and jars this production is about translation – Gorey’s illustrated story of the same by turns, oating between echoes of from image to action, experience to Show Details: name, and it stays intimately close to e Jesus Smokers are at 10pm on the Beethoven’s piano sonatas and clunky, recollection and metaphor to reality. 23rd of October, 6th and 20th of the original work. We witness the inter- end-of-the-pier clarinets and strings. But it is also about confronting – or November above Jesus Bar. ruption of a nervous, quirksome family e songs are beautiful and haunt- not – those unwelcome guests in our by a mysterious caller who proceeds to ing, but disturbing lyrics are comically own lives, our elephants in the room. rattle their cage in a rib-tickling series delivered. Actors alert spectators to Finn Beames GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: Gorillas are vegetarian, so the chicken doesn’t go down well. Not that gorillas have a name for or concept of vegetarianism – it’s rather that it disagrees with his diges- tive system, and so he relieves himself noisily all over your room. p24 Wait – that poo smells like human poo. p25 It isn’t poo at all – it’s just the literal feeling of relief. Friday October 17 2008 Join our Reviews team varsity.co.uk [email protected] Magazine: Reviews 21

FIRST NIGHT THEATRE REVIEWS ARE PUBLISHED ONLINE AT VARSITY.CO.UK/REVIEWS Analysis  Company should be ashamed  Serviceable elements, but little overall success  Very good show spoilt by a few weak moments  Level of success outweighs its few faults  Among the highlights of the term  One of the best you'll see at Cambridge

Wolfson Howler Wolfson College Bar, Monday 13th October

Headliner: Dan Antopolski CHARLOTTE RUNCIE  Week 2: Harold Pinter (1930-) arold Pinter is the Marmite of “ e best night of comedy in Cam- dents, appreciative of his personalised A er four Cambridge comics, includ- the theatre world. Author of bridge!” boasted Chris Lander, touch. He hit the Cantabrigian nail ing Evans and Williams, headliner Dan someH 29 stage plays and 26 screen- founder of Wolfson Howler – quite on the head with wordplay galore and Antopolski (right) took to the stage. plays, and winner of the Nobel Prize some claim to live up to. As soon as absurd jokes that suited the student Coming straight from Edinburgh, for Literature, he seems to polarise the compères introduced themselves audience so well. e highlight of the (which marked his return to comedy audiences and critics alike. ose and rolled out a few lacklustre, insipid evening was Tom Evans, another Foot- a er a paternity break) Antopolski used who are not taken with his work and quite simply inane jokes (leaving lights marvel and writer of Faust: e his incredibly expressive face and seem- are veritably indignant, whilst those the audience awkwardly shi ing in Panto. e roaring audience clearly ingly detached eyebrows to mesmerise who like it tend to be utterly enam- their seats), it appeared that Lander loved Evans’ style, delivery and jokes and captivate the audience with raps and oured. Perhaps the universality of had underestimated the class of the and were howling out for more when rhymes aplenty. e crowd, many fans his name combined with the cryptic Cambridge comedy scene. he le the stage all too soon. He e ort- of BBC3’s Hyperdrive, starring Antopol- nature of his writing puts people Luckily, the mood soon changed lessly wove together disparate scenes, ski, loved his performance and the over- under undue pressure to make snap with the arrival of ex-Footlights mem- and several times reduced the audience all mood at the end of the evening was judgements about his work, pounc- ber Tom Williams. He captivated and to a heap of giggles. Comedians like upbeat and happy; just how you should ing on speci c features in order to relieved the audience within seconds Evans remind you what comedy should feel a er such a night. So was it “the ‘bully through’ an opinion. of setting foot onto the small stage be like. best night of comedy in Cambridge?” Take, for example, the pauses. in Wolfson’s bar, which had a great However, with a running time of Perhaps not the best night, but it was a Spurned by his wife as “the curse of atmosphere throughout the evening. three hours, the evening was just too good one with some hilarious acts that Pinter”, these minor nuances have Williams conjured up images of smug long. On top of this, the audience took made it well worth £6, provided you had become the subject of in nite scruti- Cambridge couples and cocky cyclists, a while to adapt to the di erent styles the time and patience to sit through the ny and perpetual misunderstanding which were warmly received by stu- and paces of each new performer. tedious links. Victoria Ball – and are, in the playwright’s opinion, ultimately ascribed too much importance. Pinter has commented: e Philosopher’s Wife by Jean Rees-Lyons “I think they’ve been taken much too far... I’ve really been extremely

TOM MORIARTY Michaelhouse, 10-12 October depressed when I’ve seen produc- With Clare Crossman’s Poetry tions in which a silence happens  because it says silence or a pause happens because it says pause.” nusual but not striking; nostal- play is capable of having. However, this esting – during the poetic readings, Rees Yet people talk of the ‘Pinter gic rather than provocative, e drawback is vastly compensated by the simply wanders around the small stage, pause’ in a tone of either needless Philosopher’s Wife is a jigsaw of a accompanying guitar – and especially picking up objects in response to the reverence or scornful disdain. playU that nevertheless manages to t to- piano – music. Sam Tannenbaum’s words being read. e pauses either single-handedly gether. e play is an ensemble of letters, minimalist, eerily semi-atonal, yet also Overall, however, the performers illuminate the breakdown of com- poetry and music, based on the story paradoxically harmonic composition make imaginative use of Michaelhouse munication in society or are preten- of French political philosopher André dramatically enriches the play, adding as a dramatic space. e acoustics in tious and silly. But it makes very Gorz, and his English wife, Doreen Keir, a lmic depth that captures the spirit of the main acting area perfectly carry Lou little sense to judge Pinter on his whose love endured 58 years until their the words. Ismail’s delicate voice during her song, pauses. It is the equivalent of judging joint suicide in September 2007. e e play’s main body consists in a My End is My Beginning, the title of Shakespeare on his punctuation or a playwright Jean Rees – whose striking series of letters written by Doreen to which re ects Rees’ crippled walk from piece of music on its rests. Consider hair le an indelible impression upon us her husband throughout their long the chapel and onto the stage at the start the inherent absurdity of criticizing – replaced actress Helen Catrwright at marriage, exploring their personal trials and her triumphant exit as a resurrected or applauding a writer for what he the last minute, and gave a more or less of childlessness and, most touchingly, spirit. doesn’t write. All too o en, pauses convincing performance as Doreen Keir. their rehearsals for the day that they is walk through the valley of become a scapegoat for the Pinter e play unfurls in a cyclical (if at times would be found, hands entwined, on death is perhaps a little too clichéd. e hater or an unnecessary sidetrack for repetitive) monologue about memories, their bed a er a lethal overdose. ese Philosopher’s Wife is neither emotionally the Pinter lover. frustrated recollections of times past, letters, which formed part of the narra- harrowing nor intellectually stimulat- Ultimately, the greatest single and deep-seated proclamations of love. tive alongside Rees’ own writing, sound ing, but as a study of a love that remains misunderstanding surrounding Whilst its components mirror each rather at in comparison to the power- fresh as the body grows old, it is a pleas- Pinter is that there is something to other well, the monologue doesn’t quite fully delivered, haunting poetry of Clare antly melancholic appeal to the ears. be understood. His plays are not reach the levels of introspection the Crossman. Visually, the play is uninter- Jenny Stark & Sophie Sawicka-Sykes naturalistic, nor do they profess to be. e plays do not take themselves overly seriously; their critics Nevermind the Alcock do. People want to say concrete ADC, 15-18 October things about the plays; Pinter doesn’t. Try to read T. S. Eliot’s e Improvised; Alcock Improv. RICHARD GARDNER Wasteland and to extract tangible  meaning from it – it’s not possible. e poem is complex and layered, ore of me comes out when I panto. People shout out genuine sug- of a factory secretly dealing in ‘blood- and that is its very beauty. It is not “Mimprovise,” Edward Hopper gestions, but the group ride the laughs fudge’, had just completely convinced enough simply to say “it’s about the once observed. He was referring to extremely elegantly, and don’t waste us. e set closed with Barker-Wren decay of society” – it just doesn’t painting New York, yet it is certainly time with heckling and banter. e performing a breath-annihilating, do the poem justice. In much the this hope that makes improvisation material is verbally and intellectually stunningly surreal ri on the subject of same vein, we need to relax around games an actor’s most essential sharp (“a cycle of violence…laun- cracked eggs, lover-eating and Batman’s Pinter, submit to its mystery and limbering-up exercise. e four, smil- drette”) but blissfully free from lazy butler. Powerful jabberings that could complexity, to its humour, and ing, black-clad members of Alcock Oxbridge in-jokes and slapstick. almost have been out of Beckett. indeed to its natural poetry, in the Improv. bound onto the stage and It is when the predictable celebrity Alcock Improv. are extremely good knowledge that, whilst we are in the explain that this lateshow is going to be impressions are dispensed with that at what they do and this production hands of a great playwright, there entirely dedicated to just such games, the performers’ formidable strengths as is guaranteed to be an original and is no onus on us to intellectualise – directed by the audience. A risky proc- straight actors are revealed. e penul- extremely funny evening. However, I’m just to enjoy. Joe Hytner ess, crucial in the rehearsal room, but timate ‘game’ involved a police inter- still not convinced that ‘more comes why should an hour long comedy set rogation in which the suspect (Higgot) out’ by performing entirely in this set- Joe is co-directing Pinter’s ‘ e be devoted to it? had to guess the crime assigned him by up. And by the end of the performance Hothouse’ at the ADC from Tuesday Well, it works. Despite the reliance the audience. Alongside the laughs, the I did want more. With a tighter, more 21st to Saturday 25th October, at on ‘audience participation’, one of the group conjured up a sense of genuine complex format and room for darker 7.45pm. And there’s a matinee at greatest strengths of Never Mind e panic and cruelty, perfectly displayed material, this group could develop their 2.30pm on the Saturday. Alcock is its refusal to pander to its in Higgot’s face. is was the same ac- work into even more interesting terri- onlookers or to turn itself into a budget tor whose monologue, as an inspector tory. Isabel Taylor GORILLA ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: e librarians stick their heads out of the windows and tell you to be quiet because people are trying to work. e gorilla perks up at the idea of working in a library, and joins in. Gorillas are pretty clever a er all – and they also love the smell of books. In fact, they love the taste of them as well, and this helps clear some space on the UL shelves. Reviews and Listings Editor: Toby Chadd Friday October 17 2008 22 Magazine: Reviews [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Books Every Right-Minded Person Should Read ART, FILM AND CLASSICAL

Between Somewhere + Nowhere LIZZIE ROBINSON Museum of Classical Archaeology, Sidgwick Site Tom de Freston  Tucked amongst the busts and re- ment. Similarly, displayed amongst the rows of old men huddled in a line to a clining classical gures in the Sidgwick permanent collection in the Classics man walking a dog on a beach, these Museum of Classical Archaeology Faculty, his paintings, drawings and pieces seem to capture life in snatched e Watchmen lies an exhibition of Tom de Freston’s sketches crumple the heroic status of moments, and are a counter to the Alan Moore (1986-7) extensive work. De Freston has been the classical statues lying around them, occasionally oppressive brilliance of awarded the 2008-2009 Christ’s College making it more than just an exhibition his painted work. Yet even these small atchmen is the greatest thing Levy Plumb visual arts scholarship, and of paintings, but instead a dialogue, a sketches can pack a punch – one in Alan Moore’s ever done, better is not only talented but extraordinar- response. particular, entitled ‘To the entomb- thanW e Killing Joke or From Hell, ily proli c. From scraps of paper and Yet perhaps the sheer volume of ment’ haunted me a erwards with its even. Moore – mad as a snake – backs of envelopes in a display folder work on display is somewhat over- three gures lugging an indistinguish- crams everything into this huge, to his large oil paintings, Between whelming, and this exhibition will able person or thing into a building. dense comic, or graphic novel if you Somewhere + Nowhere shows not only need to be seen again. Alongside Looking at the titles of his work such his nished pieces but also the work large-scale paintings such as the stun- as ‘A er the Bacchanal’ and ‘Icarus’, it prefer, which I don’t, because part leading up to them, and is an exhibi- ning ‘Swimmer of Lethe’ series, where is apposite that De Freston has been of what’s terri c about Watchmen is tion all the more exciting for it. a series of male bodies leaping into placed in the Classics Faculty – and at its self-re ective relationship with De Freston obsessively experiments water are conveyed through silhouettes times, illuminating, as when the curved ‘ e Comic’. ere is even a comic- with the human form, cavorting it painted in oils and washed over with reclining gure of ‘Danae IV’ echoes within-the-comic, the furious story across the canvas, bodies twisting gloss, making the canvas sparkle as that of the statue of the Son of Niobe of a pirate driven mad by death, the in distress or leaping into water. His though actually wet, are smaller works. underneath it. Yet though such icker- themes of which shade the epic plot paintings echo or question the work De Freston’s sketches are intimate and ing shadows occur in De Freston’s of Watchmen proper. of Francis Bacon, and he sets his well-worth seeking out amidst the work, his style and force is ultimately A classic hard-boiled conspiracy gures in similar areas of con ne- larger, darker pieces on display. From his own. Emma Hogan relentlessly drives that plot. In Moore’s alternative history, masked vigilantes were on the streets until the mid-1970’s, when Nixon How to Lose Friends and Alienate People outlawed their kind, most of whom retire. e Comedian and Rorschach Dir: Robert B. Weide do not retire; both are psychopaths; the Comedian is murdered, and Ror- Starring: Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst schach sets out to discover why. e  only hero with superhuman powers ow to Lose Friends & Alienate bling, socially awkward British celebrity few insipid laughs, How to Lose Friends is Dr. Manhattan, who was atomised People, however, both asks many journalist thrown into the dog-eat-dog & Alienate People succeeds in stand- by mistake in a nuclear experiment Hquestions: Why are so many of the Brit- world of New York magazines. ink a ing out. Alison’s self-description as the only to have somehow reconstructed ish lms that make it to the silver screen mixture of Mr Bean and Ugly Betty. His “walking cliché” is one example of the himself, and who can now create and romantic comedies? Are we a nation combination of cringe humour and bit- lm not taking itself too seriously; Sid- destroy anything at will. Manhat- that loves the no-hoper given the chance terness makes Young an easy character ney’s cringeworthy comments at a board tan is what mankind understands as of love? And it simultaneously ful ls a to empathise with, perhaps more than meeting show that the lm’s tongue is God. Only he is a God with no taste very British stereotype. Turn o Pegg’s his socks and sandals. It is a shame that placed rmly in its cheek. for mankind. accent and you’d still recognize the many further insights into his character How to Lose Friends & Alienate People He exists in a dimensional plane celebrity parties that are reminiscent of come so late in the lm, including the succeeds in lying between being a similar to that of Kurt Vonnegut’s an episode of Footballers’ Wives with the introduction of his intellectual father. romantic comedy and a comedy drama. Slaughterhouse 5, in which time background ‘suspense’ music of Hustle. Dunst’s character (Alison Olsen) ere is something there for the fan stretches out before Billy Pilgrim as Even Pegg’s character’s jokes sound describes herself as a “walking cliché”, of farce and slapstick comedy, for the a mountain range, with every ridge like they are the spawn of Jimmy Carr and that is precisely what she is: the admirer of banter that only a Brit could and abyss visible at once. Appropri- and a sitcom writer: (Dunst [point- high-powered boyfriend who doesn’t engage in, as well as the sense of the bit- ately, then, Watchmen is concerned ing to an empty seat next to her]: “My really love her, the novel which she can tersweet that makes us fall in love with with the history of its characters, boyfriend is sitting there.” Pegg: “Well never complete, both serve to de ne our protagonist. Forgive the amount of both the original Minutemen (now he’s f***ing small, isn’t he”). Yet, the her. Whereas in most lms this setup inevitability that is necessary and simply forgotten heroes, drunk or dead in lm’s Britishness is not something to be just leads us down the inevitable route enjoy Pegg doing what he does best. the ‘present’) and those trained to re- derided, but is central to its successes. of the archetype romantic comedy, with Daniel Isenberg place them. Dave Gibbons’ drawing Sidney Young (Pegg, le ) plays the bum- a few mild digressions for the sake of a style perfectly (re)creates the sense of a glorious Action Comic-style past, with the Minutemen doing battle in Dido and Aeneas by Purcell; Four UK Premieres by Gibbons Adam West-era Batman gin joints with their nemesis, Molloch, now West Road, ursday 9th October a septuagenarian pensioner with cancer. Dir: Richard Egarr; Academy of Ancient Music e heroic deeds of the ordinary  men and women driven by social conscience and sexual kinks to dress magni cent season-opening sion through never allowing the music (when Dido resolves to die as she up and ght one another are dwarfed Aperformance from the AAM to remain static. Like in the minimal- believes her love Aeneas has betrayed by time and by Manhattan, whose combined the familiar with newly ism of Steve Reich, there is a great her), the vitality of the rst two acts immortality makes every human unearthed gems. release when the individual lines come was brought across so well by conduc- thing seem futile. Moore contrasts e rst half of the concert con- together to create single chordal blocks: tor Richard Egarr (right), especially in our make-believe importance with tained the ‘premieres’ of four works by here, it aptly happens on ‘Hallelujah’. the transitional dances, that the nale the indi erence of molecular eternity, Christopher Gibbons (1615-1676), a Of the other pieces, the most interest- was all the more crushing. eliciting pathos from the e orts of court musician during the English Civil ing was a Fantasy-Suite for two violins, e choir were again the stars, all small people to become ubermensch. War, a music teacher during the Inter- gamba and harpsichord. e two ‘acting’ their parts as a kind of Greek For me, though, the most remark- regnum, and then organist at Westmin- violins serenade one another in the bit- chorus: the soloists taken from within able thing about Watchmen is its ster Abbey, where he played for Charles tersweet opening pavane, followed by their ranks as the witches and sailors ending, which is so bizarre, so II’s coronation in 1661. e pieces, three joyous dances. As ever, the play- were particularly characterful. Brum- audacious, that it doesn’t really sink three anthems and one chamber work, ers and singers of the AAM had real melstroete was masterful in bringing in. What it does do is question what have recently been rediscovered and fun in their performances, investing o Dido’s change of mood in the third lengths people will go to, not for are being toured by the AAM, in their genuine emotion, which never failed to act, her famous lament almost intoler- power or money or territory, but for rst performances for over 300 years. come across. ably moving. Koningsberger was a peace. e masterpiece is the anthem Not Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, a one- suitably weighty Aeneas, and Giles Un- “At midnight all the agents and the unto us, O Lord, written for eight-part hour opera, completed the concert. derwood brought a wonderful contrast superhuman crew…” Freddy Syborn choir. With so many polyphonic lines ough everyone in the audience to his roles as the Sorceress and the moving around, Gibbons creates ten- knows the tragedy of the nal act Spirit. David Allen CANNIBAL ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: Well they do, but it’s not very good Aberdeen Angus meat, so it’s not really a mark of quality, such as Champagne, or Parmigiano Reggiano. en a breathless man from Burger King runs in. “Daisy! Don’t eat that burger!” he shouts. Daisy immediately vomits everywhere. “It WAS human esh?” she screams. But it just turns out that it was a minced mouse. Friday October 17 2008 Join our Reviews team varsity.co.uk [email protected] Magazine: Reviews 23

Take Five CONTEMPORARY MUSIC One-Liners

Parallax Error Beheads You Max Tundra Five of the Best Domino; Out 20th October  Roger Bannister (1952) “Doctors and scientists said that f a country’s national stereotype ancient Commodore Amiga compu- just been listening to Bee eart – he’s breaking the four-minute mile was results in the creation of a cor- ter, with drum loops recorded on a a child of the 80s who watched trashy impossible, that one would die in the respondingI type of music, then the old school cassette player. It took up tv and played video games like the attempt. us, when I got up from the enduring production of soulless to three months to record each song. rest of us. track a er collapsing at the nish line, German electronica is probably e temptation is to say he should e breadth of in uences from I gured I was dead.” caused by their ruthless, machine-like probably get out more. cheesy 80s pop to breakfast cereal e ciency. I don’t like K r a w e r k , and And indeed, on rst and second commercials are all bizarrely blended Rodney Marsh I’m not musically snobbish enough to listen, it sounds like a regurgitated together – Tundra sounds like an over Introduced by a radio-show host as pretend I ever ‘got’ Captain Bee eart. pick and mix, a bewildering blur of excitable 8 year old playing Super “the white Pele,” Marsh indignantly Tundra has spent a lot of time listen- inverted drum‘n’bass, synths and Nintendo on a sugar high - but some replied that Pele was in fact, “the black ing to both of them. And his album is snes soundtracks, skewed trance and of the time it almost works. ‘Which Rodney Marsh.” called Parallax Error Beheads You. On o eat drum loops. But a record so Song’ sounds like Super Mario speed- rst appearance then, it seemed like painstakingly produced deserves balling with Donkey Kong, while Winston Churchill there is everything not to like on this further attention, and on repeated ‘Glycaemic Index Blues’ schizophreni- Lady Astor: “If you were my husband, record. listening, this absurdly named cally ips from e Postal Service I’d poison your co ee!” Densely layered and six years in album begins to endear itself. is is one minute to Pendulum the next. the relentless creativity is part of its Churchill: “My dear, if you were my the making, this is the third album mainly because of its idiosyncrasies, Inevitably at times it descends into an weird charm. Undoubtedly people wife I’d drink it.” from Brit Max Tundra. He played a warmth and obvious delight in its indigestible mess, and Max Tundra will be saying they like Max Tundra and produced every element in the production remind you that it was is too ADD to ever give any of his because he’s ‘rated’, but unlike Captain Withnail and I (1987) recording of this album, which are actually made by a human being and ideas enough space to breathe as a Bee eart, I can actually see why they Danny: “I don’t advise a haircut, man. then painstakingly put through an not just a computer. Tundra hasn’t ‘song’ in any conventional sense. But possibly might. Henry Donati All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hairs are your aerials. ey pick up signals from the In Ear Park cosmos, and transmit them directly into the brain. is is the reason bald- Department of Eagles headed men are uptight.” 4AD; Out Now Rodney Marsh to Ian Botham  “So how’s your wife and my kids?” epartment of Eagles’ core mem- that these are no more than threads in over an acoustic guitar the lyrics “What Five of the Worst Dbers, Daniel Rossen and Fred a wash of mellow acoustics, marching would it take to make you listen?”, Nicolaus, started their career as NYU bands, fuzz-driven guitars and twitch- before evolving into a march, spattered James Bond, Casino Royale (2006) roommates, piecing together collec- ing bass lines. with synthetic squeaks and chirps, then Vesper Lynd: “If the only thing le tions of samples and drum loops into a e curtains are raised with the title ascending into a melange of soaring of you was your smile and your little string of small release EPs. In their rst track, dedicated to a park which Ros- guitars and trembling vocals. nger, you’d still be more of a man major release, e Cold Nose, Rossen sen and his late father once frequented. ‘Teenagers’ provides a pseudo-inter- than anyone I’ve ever known.” and Nicolaus demonstrated a prow- It works to establish the record’s lush lude before the record enters tim- James Bond: “ at’s because you ess for incorporating all manner of and vibrant timbre; a dreamy waltz idly into a symphony of songs which, know what I can do with my little genres from electronica and trip-hop between two tightly knitted guitar although slightly inaccessible upon the nger.” to psychedelic folk and garage rock. parts, sailing upon high-end drones rst listen, provide a rich mixture of Rossen soon put the project on hold to and a sultry double bass. ‘No One Does complex rhythms, hammering pianos Five Easy Pieces (1970) join Grizzly Bear but a er a three-year it Like You’ kicks the record away from and enchanting melodies, textured Dupea: “I want you to hold it between hiatus the two have returned to the it’s pensive beginnings with a gritty with hand clapping, tambourines and your knees” - during a conversation studio with past contributors from bass that bounces below velvety vocals. dramatic e ects. ‘Balmy Night’ closes with a waitress about his sandwich. both projects, to create their latest A 60s pop song in its basic form, it the record with a dancing banjo care- Nicolaus have brought together are cer- o ering, In Ear Park. e result is dif- rises and falls before dropping the fully manipulated to evoke the shim- tainly ambitious, but each is executed Tony Greig (1976) cult to pinpoint; on rst listen there mood for one of the record’s master- mering microtones of a sitar beneath with a dexterity that makes In Ear Park “If they’re down, they grovel, and I are moments of post-Revolver Beatles, pieces, ‘Phantom Other’. Reminiscent Rossen’s harrowing vocals. a wholly convincing record with a great intend, with the help of Closey and the Beta Band and Elliot Smith, but as of Radiohead’s ‘You and Whose Army?’, e combination of sounds, genres deal to o er on each listen. a few others, to make them grovel.” the record spins it becomes apparent it begins lethargically as Rossen croons and arrangements that Rossen and Mike Coxhead Greig’s infamous remark ignited the West-Indian post-colonialist anger; England lost 3-0, and the Windies’ e Chemistry of Common Life bowling hostility le careers, bats and Fucked Up esh in tatters. Matador; Out Now Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)  Charles: “For the rst time in my whole life I realised I totally and ut- couple of years ago, probably in back in town to play a set of punk covers. occultism, mind control and apparently terly loved one person. And it wasn’t some magazine printed on recycled Named a er a book published in 1855 even to Nazi ideals, but I guess that’s not the person next to me in the veil. AA5 paper and only distributed to newly describing experiences with di erent surprising coming from a band two of It’s the person standing opposite me opened skate-shops and record stores narcotics from across the world, e whose members are named Concentra- now... in the rain.” in the East End of London, I saw some Chemistry of Common Life is really a very tion Camp (aka Gulag) and Mustard Carrie: “Is it still raining? I hadn’t photos from a concert where this really well concocted sensory adventure. Lis- Gas. ey use ancient mystic symbols noticed.” fat bald man was lying on the oor of a tening through the dense and spiny forest on their record covers too, and even stage in a little pub, with his shirt o , con- of the dozens of layered guitar tracks have a photo of the “Manhattan-Henge” Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005) tinuing to sing/shout into a microphone which provide the Punk surface to every phenomenon on the cover of this one, so Padme: “I don’t know you anymore. while blood streamed down his face and song, one nds details such as extended it’s not their music alone that makes this Anakin, you’re breaking my heart.” body. My rst thoughts were: man, this is psych-outs that lead you to question what Toronto band so interesting: they actually Ah, young love. fucked up. How right I was. is really going on beneath the aggressive have shallow-seeded quasi-philosophical For a band that leave a wake of outer layer. is attention to detail is unu- roots! thousands of dollars worth of damage sual to nd on a Hardcore Punk album, e pub- oor antics I recounted previ- Competition wherever they are mistakenly booked to and one can’t help but try and discover ously that stick so fondly in my mind play, their music is actually surprisingly the reasons for their intricacies by listen- may have happened in the early days stitched Pink Eyes, the lead, er, singer, up Next week’s topic is lm music: send tame. With the album beginning with a ing hard to the beautiful melodies (yes! of this band’s career, but a er releasing a er he smashed a pint-glass on himself, your worst and best to reviews@var- gentle ute solo, interrupted by a Court- Beautiful melodies!). two full-length albums and a series of 12 they didn’t get all the shards out, so he sity.co.uk by midday on Monday, and ney Love squeal, you would be forgiven e lyrics which you will nd if you inches, they still haven’t really changed, still has glass in his forehead. you could win a pair of rst-night for thinking that the peroxide widow was reach the other end of the forest allude to and they probably never will. When they Andrew Spyrou tickets to the ADC mainshow. CANNIBAL ADVENTURE STARTS ON PAGE 11: No one’s very sure what that means, least of all you. But you chant a psalm about King Kong to the gorilla, and he stops hitting you – mainly out of confusion, rather than the psalm being particularly helpful. Luckily, this nonsense brings the gorilla back to his senses so e ectively that he develops a sixth sense, and it turns out that he was a ghost all along. Fashion Editors: Joanna Della-Ragione and Ben Margereson Friday October 17 2008 24 Magazine: Fashion [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Jacket: £24.99, H&M; socks: £13, Wolford; shirt & shorts: model’s own. Folklorique

Model: Armani Bennett; Styling: Joanna & Ben; Photography: Jamie Daltrey

gorilla Adventure (starts on page 11): Your suspicions are confirmed when the gorilla takes off his head to reveal that it was just a man in a suit pretending to be a gorilla. He’s from the gorilla company, and they ran out of gorillas when the gorillas ran away from them. When you started shaving the suit, the man became so scared you’d bust him that he shat himself. It is a funny old world, isn’t it. Friday October 17 2008 Write for the Magazine varsity.co.uk [email protected] Magazine: Fashion 25

gorilla Adventure (starts on page 11): Yes – the gorilla is actually running around the room saying how relieved he is. He loves being adopted by you, and can’t wait to get stuck in to his new life at university. It’s so much better than the beautiful lush rainforest, full of his gorilla friends. Gorilla sarcasm is harder to pick up than human sarcasm, so you don’t notice what he meant until much later. Magazine Editor: Daniel Cohen; Arts Editor: Anna Trench; Features Editor: Rob Peal Friday October 17 2008 26 Magazine: Arts and Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk

e Day at Georgia on my mind Changed My World LIZZIE MITCHELL INTRODUCES FROM THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE: TOMB TREASURES OF ANCIENT GEORGIA, THE LATEST EXHIBITION AT THE FITZWILLIAM

hey didn’t call ancient Georgia the most high-status objects of all, the ‘rich in gold’ for nothing. It was gold ornaments for which Georgia is Tto Georgia that Jason and the Argo- so famous, are the ones in which there nauts sailed in search of the legendary is the strongest evidence of an indig- Golden Fleece and, looking round the enous Georgian tradition. Fitzwilliam’s exhibition of Georgian One of the most interesting curato- tomb treasures, it’s no surprise that a rial decisions in this show, and an myth might link the most mytholo- extremely successful one, is the posi- Week 2: 9/11 gised of metals to this small kingdom tioning at the entrance of a slideshow lot of people lost their loved on the Baltic coast. of images of modern Georgia. ere’s ones on 9/11. I decided to leave e loot from the Georgian graves a danger, when looking at an artefact AmericaA and make a life in Britain is fantastic. From a land of springs and in a glass case under fancy spotlights, with mine. green mountains comes a glistering of forgetting the unfamiliar landscape I was working at Harvard as a treasure trove of wonderful things. from which it has been unearthed and post-doctoral research fellow, hav- Horsemen, turtles, birds and lions it was good to be reminded of where ing le my girlfriend and family sport and ght over diadems, necklac- all this gold has actually come from. behind in England eight months es and axe-heads. e silver drinking is was especially true given that the before. I loved it out there; I was vessels give o a gleam that belies their photos aren’t just of lonely shepherds involved in numerous exciting two millennia, while the gold chains in secluded mountain valleys which projects and didn’t know when, or are so nely wrought that it’s hard to have remained unchanged for two even if, I would move back. believe they could have been made by thousand years: the image of the town As per usual, I arrived at work, hand. hall in the Georgian capital Tbilisi made some co ee, and stared out But there’s more to this stu than brought the cross-cultural relations of the window: my o ce was in the dazzle and gold-lust. is is the rst an ancient aristocracy sharply into the tallest building in Cambridge, Mas- exhibition about ancient Georgia to be political present. sachusetts, and I liked to watch the shown in the UK. Most of the artefacts is exhibition could scarcely have planes taking o at Boston’s Logan have never been shown outside the come at a better time. ere is no way International Airport. It was a clear, Republic of Georgia before. Putting that the curators of the Fitzwilliam sunny day. What a view. them on display in a major British could have known, when they signed An hour later news came through museum is a crucial stage in broaden- for these beautiful and very interest- of a small plane hitting a building ing awareness of Georgia’s rich cultural ing objects, quite how events would in New York. en it became an air- past. ese objects bring into focus conspire to make Georgian cultural liner; then the World Trade Centre: the fascinating history and identity history so incredibly relevant to the this was major. My colleague turned of a comparatively small civilisation contemporary political world, but the on CNN, and as he said “ ey surrounded by bigger, stronger, far time is most de nitely ripe to increase think it might not be an accident”, a better known ones. You can see the awareness and understanding of the plane cut across the screen behind in uence of the Greeks to the west, the history of Georgia. ‘From the Land of his shoulder, crashing into the Persians to the east, and the Scythians the Golden Fleece’ is an exciting and second tower. to the north. Georgia was a centre of relevant show and it deserves to be a “Holy fuck.” is was a terrorist immensely skilled material production blockbuster. attack. e security guards evacu- with ngers in all sorts of di erent ated the building; its height made it cultural pies. But when taken as a From the Land of the Golden Fleece: Tomb a target. Everything became a tar- group, these objects from the shores Treasures of Ancient Georgia is at the get. We all rushed out to a friend’s of the Baltic are neither de nitively Fitzwilliam Museum until 4 January 2009. house where we stayed glued to the eastern nor de nitively western. And Entry is free. news, watching 9/11 unfold. ose planes had taken o from Logan Airport. Part of this morning’s beautiful view had le New York City in ames. Great Works Of Art In Cambridge As an Englishman in America, I

ORLANDO READE felt completely isolated. e phone #12: St. Peter’s Church system collapsed, so my girlfriend, Honey Hill terri ed, didn’t reach me until the evening. I was 3,500 miles from everyone I wanted to see, and could he rst time you catch a glance Ede compared the view from his feel the distance. When you miss Tof St. Peter’s will be the rst time house onto the church to a Samuel your loved ones already, and you you visit Kettle’s Yard. Unless, that Palmer painting: a piece of the pas- can’t be with them for another day, is, you are at Fitzwilliam, or Murray toral in his backyard. I don’t think a seven-hour ight is just too long. Edwards College, or are particularly this includes the spooky bucolics In such volatile political times, fond of thri y curries. who populate Palmer’s paintings, and that’s not how I wanted to live. Perched on Honey Hill, it has I’ve not been there at moonlight, but Harvard was great but I needed overlooked the main trade routes into there’s no better analogy. e north to go home. I found a job in town for over nine hundred years. windows on the ground and rst London and moved there soon Twelve years ago, workmen digging oor of the house o er tasty glimpses a er. Perhaps I should have stayed a pathway up to the house happened of the church and graveyard, slightly longer. Harvard was extraordinarily upon some bodies, which were obscured (in a nice way) by the ma- stimulating and I le too early to identi ed as Saxon and suggested ture limes and horse chestnuts, which reap all the bene ts. But I’d realised that a burial site and perhaps even litter the ground with leaves, evoking my priorities, and I don’t regret a church existed before. e church the pastoral scenes of the British art- coming back. Far from it. Just over predates the university by around ist and printmaker. seven years later, I’ve become a one hundred years but its continual You can’t appreciate it all from fellow at a Cambridge college, the renovations and down-sizing in 1781 the house: the curious mermen on girlfriend I came home to is now meant it fell into disuse, whilst the the thirteenth-century font must my wife, and we’re expecting our blockish St. Giles across the road on be seen at close quarters. Similarly, rst baby. My life in Cambridge, Chesterton Lane was favoured by the the tranquillity of the whitewashed England, knocks that of Cambridge ecclesiastics (if not by aesthetes). interior and the weathercock just Mass. into a cocked hat. Kettle’s Yard has long had a rela- about visible from the graveyard tionship with St. Peter’s. When the reward detailed inspection. Watch Contributor: A Cambridge fellow owner Jim Ede was renovating the out for the initials of Andrew Perne, Interview and article by cottages into an art gallery in the the infamous Dean of Ely, whose St Peter’s Church, seen from Moya Sarner 1950s, he had a hand in restoring the political ip- opping is thought a window in Kettle’s Yard church, installing agstones torn up to be responsible for the fact that Would you like to be interviewed for from St. John’s (consensually) and a Cambridge survived the tumultuous this column? Please contact Moya new bell which he would ring morn- Tudor period with increased wealth Sarner (mts31) ing and night until his death in 1991. and in uence. Orlando Reade | Changing the nature of investment Innovative, thoughtful, successful. Grow your career with the global leader in alternative investments. Graduate opportunities in London and Switzerland Put simply, we use our market expertise to create innovative, successful solutions – for our investors, for our business, and to continue to drive our portfolios’ growth. In the past 20 years, we’ve become the world’s largest listed alternative investments company, known for our diversity of funds, original product design and excellent investor service. We’re a company of high achievement – combining in-depth business knowledge with global reach. All of which means we can offer a select few exceptional graduates a collaborative and thoughtful environment with the opportunity to grow, develop and succeed. At the cutting edge of financial and quantitative research, we are committed to combining intellectual rigour with commercial flair to sustain an innovative edge. We actively welcome new approaches and new ideas. And we think you can offer that bit more. To find out first hand about a career with Man Group, please join us at our presentation: When: Monday 27th October, 1pm Where: University Arms, Regent Street, Cambridge

Places are limited so please register your attendance by emailing: [email protected] www.mancareers.com Cambridge #2 175x270mm color.pdfPage 1 10/8/2008 1:15:01 PM Comment Editors: Clementine Dowley and Olivia Sudjic Friday October 17 2008 28 Comment [email protected] varsity.co.uk

e Soapbox Tom Cheshire e Virgin Atlantic Why ying is the new religion

spent a lot of my summer on get excited about both aviation and taxes, random confiscation ness efficiencies, but grew fat, lazy I planes. Yes, I’m aware of the religion, make the efforts and wear of possessions and delight and complacent. It could make you massive carbon footprint, but dimly suits; nowadays Madonna can in controlling others’ lives stand in line for hours for security, proud of it too: you know what they board a plane in a dressing — the airlines aren’t far be treated rudely by unattractive say about people with big feet after gown and my vicar wears behind. employees and present an under- all. I realised that flying is the new ladies’ underwear. And as with all good whelming picture of modern Britain religion, baby. Guilt accompa- religions, there to the foreign arrival. It was when on one internal flight nies both, (see are the non- The new runways and airports the in the USA, as we all sat there in carbon footprint believers; flying UK needs (that’s another column our neat rows, some in rapt atten- above) but is eas- is undoubt- before you start complaining) would Week 2: tion, others scarcely noticing, that ily bought off with the edly bad for have been built a lot sooner in a free Tessa Jowell, Minister for a member of the cabin crew asked self-castigation of a couple of hail the planet. market. Endemic mismanagement, for “observance” of the safety rules. marys/bags for life. So too does There is like the handling of the security the Olympics From the hushed dignity of the the omnipresent fear of death: little the crisis in 2006, costs airlines and business lounge to rabble raising the only reason I pay attention aviation passengers money. The shambolic easyJet evangelism – “Go Forth Into to Gospel or safety briefing business can Terminal 5 opening showed BAA ondon learnt many things from The World! For £4.99 + tithes!” - it’s is for tips on how to avoid a do to change the to be entirely unsuited to control this year’s Olympics. Beijing all there. The cordial “hello” as you fiery end. Church is highest at attitudes of these such an important part of our lives. 2008L was a monumental success, on enter, the communion of horrible 30,000 feet. naysayers. But it can When even British Airways joined a hugely grand and epic scale, but I wine poured by preposterously be- A sharp kick in the back in- reach out to those of the campaign protesting BAA’s mo- think they will be the last games of robed attendants, the in-flight mag- terrupted this wild analogising lapsed faith, put off by nopoly, you know things have gone their kind. We’re not trying to emu- azines as interesting as the average and pointed out a discrepancy: the queues and shoddy too far. late Beijing. We’re very conscious of parish news letter. Muslim looking there’s no Sunday school for the service at the airport. The Competition Commission’s what sort of legacy we want to have: fellows are viewed with suspicion by little monsters on airplanes. And Some of the aggravations ruling, that BAA should be forced there will be no white elephants. We the authorities of both institutions very rarely is there the Peace ei- of air travel are inherent to dispose of one of its airports, have had our budget rea rmed and and, by all accounts, the cockpit’s ther, at least not until I’ve gorged – children are annoying in is a move in the right direction. we’re going to stick to it. We want just as randy as the cloisters, if less myself on a fuck-off Toblerone any context and travelling Competition from a new owner at all our expenditure to be justi ed, paedophilic. and BA alcohol, and passed out with them is always going Gatwick will mean cheaper costs and by justi ed I mean that it must At check-in we automatically watching Stuart Little. to be a chore. But it’s not and better service for airlines and be justi ed for the whole country, mutter our Responses - “Have you C.S. Lewis, the devout aeronaut, the individual airlines who customers alike. We need heresies not just London. Regeneration must packed your bag yourself?” - “It is thought that “the perfect Church are to blame, rather the to challenge the flatulent ortho- be accelerated everywhere. One of meek and right so to do”; in security service would be one we were al- BAA. doxy of putting shops before serv- the best ways for people all over we offer our soles to be searched. most unaware of.” Flying has a long ‘The World’s Lead- ice. As people fly less due to cur- the country to become involved The ritual of take-off and landing way to go before it reaches such ing Airport Company’, rent economic hiccups, the general is through our volunteer projects. is familiar, comforting and learned levels of anaesthetised bliss, and air which took control of synod of BAA is going to have to is we really have learned from early on; whatever denomination of miles seem an unenlightened way to Gatwick, Heathrow and be a lot more attentive to the needs the Chinese. ousands of Chinese plane you fly, it’s more or less the get to paradise. But when it comes ‘London’ Stansted for a of its parishioners — both airlines supported the Olympic e ort; a mas- same. to all the things the Church used to pittance, did not use its and customers. BAA must restore sive algae bloom that threatened the In years gone by, people used to pride itself on — torture, obscene monopoly to create busi- flying’s good name. Beijing Olympics sailing venue was cleared in a ash when volunteers cleared 419,000 tons of algae from the water and 333,000 tons from the seashore. Direct involvement will Jasmin do much to boost national pride. Sandelson Importantly, each city will do the is sterile presidency games di erently, each will express its own unique soul. Obama dodges the stereotype of a sexual predator e Olympics brought about many changes in China – economic, sporting and so on – but I think the ex sells. It sells cars, clothes, cosmet- tion, we should have a veritable Capitol and families.” Similarly, in 2008, actress reluctance to be pigeon-holed as a sexu- most powerful and important legacy ics and candidates. So why has one Hill heart-throb in the making. Scarlett Johansson’s jovial comment to ally potent African-American male; will be China’s changing attitude Sof politics’ most attractive luminaries But Barack Obama is black. And in a journalist that her “heart belongs to rather it is requisite that he appears to the disabled. ere has been a run an election campaign that is clean America today, black male sexuality Barack” was promptly rebuked by the sexless before an overwhelmingly white powerful shi , largely thanks to the when attacking his rivals, but positively remains absurdly stereotyped by the disapproving Obama camp. electorate. Chinese witnessing rst-hand the sterile in presenting himself? media and by millions in homogenous is hard-line approach is un- Why? In a 2008 ABC News/Washing- winning of medals in the Paralym- Candidates have charmed and irted Middle-America, with promiscuity, derstandable considering Obama’s ton Post Poll showed that whilst 81 per pics. is has greatly altered percep- their way through interviews, town absent fathers and AIDS among the opponents’ none-too-subtle intimations cent of white Americans surveyed had tions of what disabled people are hall meetings and debates since the many brushes with which all African- about his masculinity o ered. Column- at least one fairly close black friend, 17 capable of and has been a huge boost advent of mass media. e enormous American men are too o en tarred. ist Jo-Ann Wypijewski admonished the per cent of them actively disapproved for China. China has not been previ- opinion poll bounce for the dashing Is Obama excising all innuendo Republican Party for trying to “mine of marriage between blacks and whites. ously been known for its tolerance of John Kennedy triggered by his visual Another poll from www.politicalforum. disabled people. Until recently, pub- advantage over the lined (and sweating) com revealed that of the 94 per cent of lic facilities for the disabled in major Richard Nixon in the rst ever televised voters who would vote for a quali ed cities were practically nonexistent, Presidential Debate carried Kennedy to “Is Obama excising all innuendo from his black candidate nominated by their and state support for the disabled in victory in 1960. Whilst Kennedy, FDR, chosen party, 30.6 per cent would forbid the form of health care or jobs has Johnson, and Clinton infamously be- their daughters to date a black man. So been very limited. In preparation image in order to ‘compensate’ for his race?” guiled more than voters, hyperbolised there remains an unwritten but ubiqui- for the Games, sporting venues, the masculinity has been harmlessly de- tous statute con ning the ‘permissible’ Olympic subway route and some of ployed to woo undecided constituents integration of blacks and whites to the Beijing’s most popular tourist attrac- for centuries. from his image in order to ‘compen- the vein of white fear of unbridled black platonic sphere. Incidentally, mixed-race tions such as the Forbidden City and ese politics of beauty are not sate’ for his race? Coverage of Obama, sexuality”. Such insinuations are patent sexual union was illegal in Alabama the Great Wall were equipped with gender exclusive; the Palin e ect may his wife and two daughters depicts a in the controversial “Celeb Ad”, aired until 2000. facilities making them accessible. since have worn o , but the appoint- wholesome, modest, ice-cream-eating, recently by the McCain campaign. e Consequently, whilst Obama bull- is Wednesday, the Olympics ment of ‘Sexy Sarah’ complete with hula-hoop-frolicking family chan- advert, super cially claiming to liken dozes bigotry and prejudice everywhere, Hero parade took place. For the librarian spectacles (along, of course, nelling Camelot cool lacking only Obama to a Hollywood starlet and the persistent stereotype of the sexually rst time, Olympic and Paralympic with her awlessly conservative voting tactility and passion. is is deliberate question his political gravitas, has been predatory black man is too entrenched athletes took part together, marking record and, presumably, her disbelief in and self-styled sterility, which extends criticised for juxtaposing an emboldened for him to dare challenge. their impressive performances in dinosaurs) to the GOP ticket in August to vocal condemnation of any external Barack, formidable at a podium, with With interracial sex in America stig- Beijing this summer. Even before my propelled John McCain to front-runner sexualisation of the candidate. In 2007, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton - two matised, many white men who believe involvement in the Olympics, I was position for the rst time in months. So the elegiac ‘Obama-Girl’ You-Tube phe- very young, blonde women whose themselves tolerant would doubtless always convinced of the importance why has Barack Obama not capitalised nomenon (where model/actress Amber public notoriety is tied to their sexual- be turned o Obama should he turn and the power of sport, not just in on his own appealing aesthetic? Given Lee Ettinger writhes her way through ity. is, coupled with lingering shots of on white women. Of all the ‘October terms of a festival, but also in its that 20 per cent of United States Sena- the song I Got a Crush on Obama) hit the phallic Berlin Victory Column and surprises’, swi -boating and last-minute power to stimulate regeneration. e tors are septuagenarians, at 47 Obama headlines; the light-hearted skit has Washington Monument makes for some sabotage attempts, it is a frightening Olympics represent the height of is positively sprightly. At a digni ed notched up almost ten million hits to uncomfortably suggestive viewing. and saddening truth that in modern sporting achievement, and without 6’1’’ and sporting a Basketball-toned date. Obama’s response? An austere, e Celeb-Ad exploits a pervasive America, something as innocent as a that global brand, such regeneration physique, commanding charisma and “You do wish people would think about American taboo - interracial sex. us college hook-up could sink one of the would take much longer to e ect. an all-important Presidential nomina- what impact their actions have on kids Obama’s asexual persona is not just a most captivating campaigns in history. Friday October 17 2008 Opinionated? varsity.co.uk [email protected] Comment 29

Spk yr brains

Chatroom chinwag between Wi Wendies and Broadband Brians

Week 2: e US of A

obama was born in kenya. his own mother said she witnessed his birth in kenya. you have to be a natural born citizen of america to be president. no wonder he wont give any records of his background. he posted a copy of his birth certi cate on his website whichhas been prov- en time and time again to be fake. He also will not release his birth certi cate. is man is a fraud! sampsons_hair, Barking posted Thurs 11:23:17

dont any of you nd it interesting that obama is related to bush and

ANNA TRENCH cheeney? whats more interesting is that bush and cheeneys family tree has been traced back thousands of years to ancient babylon. and in Rocco this family tree in every time period these people have been in great po- Falconer e sorry state of Sierra Leone sitions of power. kings and queens and dictators. so obama is part of this bloodline. you guys have to e new government must deliver or face frightening consequences realize that he has the same exact agenda to push as bush and all the crooked politicians. dont ignore ierra Leone hangs in the balance number of street children, many of protect citizens from government Civil society groups need to expand this info! Sbetween development and further them former child soldiers, is stag- cannot be dependent on it. Few states to counter traditional inertia to social Courtminstrel1066, Sheen descent into aching poverty. ere is gering. Equally shocking is the state’s have succeeded in such a politically change if the change is going to be posted Thurs 14:54:12 much cause for hope in the country: response: the children are con ned to patriarchal stranglehold. anything more than skin deep. Seek- peace has nally been secured, its markets and dumps where they sleep Cultural aspects of Sierra Leo- ing to alter a culture so embedded in i love seeing this side of mccain, diamonds are the best in the world, in crowded rooms to shelter. If found nean society continue to haunt its a nation’s foundations is very di cult, such a tough, no nonsense kinda and its vast agricultural and shing by police, they are beaten back. progress. Traditional practices such as but without it Sierra Leone will be guy. give me a case of shlitz, three resources remain largely untapped. A momentous step needs to be female genital mutilation, polygamy, unable to compete on a global scale xanax pills, the keycard to his hotel But that may not be enough. Given taken in ghting corruption. Outdated and forced and early marriage, are or raise itself out of constricting eco- room, and hear you me, he’ll be that local chiefs determine political pay rates leave it as the only way to extremely widespread an estimated nomic relations. Agriculture needs to singing praises of the black man allegiances o en violently and earn a living wage, meaning that pub- 94 per cent of girls have been ‘cut’. e be cultivated, to create employment and his long dong silver.. the legal system lacks any autonomy, lic service becomes nothing more than consequences of a corrupt government and counter the devastating ine - ovenchips07, East Finchley the state is little more than a crooked individual gain. e anti-corruption are evident here too. In elections, ciencies of the food supply. Currently posted Thurs, 17:35:51 means of employment when it needs the norm is subsistence farming, with to be an e ective means of economic surpluses sold. e majority of food Obama girl versus palin. Garsh she’s and social development. e tasks of comes from outside. is is because purtty. esp when she winks... state-building must get underway. “Without fundamental economic, social and resources are unused, not because Younglad666, Merseyside Encouraging steps have been taken they don’t exist. e scale of produc- Posted Fri, 12:43:21 by indefatigable local and international political reappraisals, and engagement with tion must be expanded to feed a grow- groups. But development must be ing nation in a time of rising food I f*cked Palin in the a**, she loved driven by the market and the state, and the nation’s growing problems, optimism is costs, not least because of the trend in it! She kept looking back and wink- at present both are too weak to counter Africa of foreign countries purchasing ing at me. many problems facing the nation. agricultural rights, as recently hap- such_a_chiller, Bungay Government is still the interest-driven, hollow” pened in Sudan. posted Fri, 12:59:40 personal a air that constitutionalism e new government faces aston- arose to assault. e needs of citizens, ishing challenges. It has promised to i just got my chatcam working!!! so o en let down in Africa, must come commission, founded in November politicians encourage and fund mass inspire hope, but it must deliver more. msn me jane24belle V before the needs of governors. It would 2007 with the new government, lacks initiations – mass mutilations – to gain Without fundamental economic, so- piesaregood_pastiesbetter, Hull be a paradigm shi , but without it the autonomy, which it needs to have any support. e morals are irrelevant: cial and political reappraisals, as well posted Fri, 13:39:53 focus will always be on survival rather tangible e ect. Its only power is to Sierra Leone has signed up to the as engagement with many problems than development. And that must hand cases to the Attorney General African Charter on Human Rights and set to grow in size, optimism is hol- 9/11 was an inside job. e war on change. (also Minister of Justice) the head the International Rights of the Child, low. ese are changes that take time, terror is a sham. Come on people e war le a horrifying legacy. Just of a judiciary nancially dependent which forbid such practice. Musu excruciating e ort, and billions of know your Hitler youth. ey even outside the capital is Gra on, a vast on corruption, which has secured Kandeh, minister for Social Welfare, pounds to achieve. Large scale, long brainwash children. camp of 17,000 internally displaced no convictions as yet. e govern- Gender, and Children’s a airs, at- term action which must meet the ob- greggregoryvigilant, Hants persons (IDPs), dispossessed and ment’s refusal to grant independence tended a two-day conference and gave stacles of an extremely undeveloped posted Fri, 14:24:31 uprooted by the war. With no medical to commissions designed to encour- his voice to the cry against FGM, but state, a culture resistant to it and a facilities, secondary schools or perma- age reform ensures that everything the government is reluctant to enforce near-total lack of political, infrastruc- ats not a wink. She wrote the nent houses, and unchecked disease is overseen and ultimately controlled the laws it has agreed to, arguing that it tural, and legal institutions support- answeres on the inside of her eye- rampaging, it is not unique. With no by government. All Sierra Leone’s is the role of civil society groups to al- ing it. Only change and engagement, lids ! wink wink wink ya little eva livelihoods, the IDPs are forced into human-rights organisations, for ex- ter opinions. He is right, but as things though, from both society and state, braun !! the ever-retreating trees behind the ample, fall under an umbrella network stand politicians retain more power to is enough to foment real progress that vaginadialogue, Derby camp to hack down enough to sell for chaired by a cabinet minister, which resist shi s in attitudes than NGOs do bene ts the nation as a whole. e posted Fri, 18:18:26 rewood in the city. In corners are declares itself “non-confrontational” to advance them. And that balance of alternative is further descent, with pockets of amputees and lepers. e to government. Groups designed to power must change. frightening consequences. Comment Editors: Clementine Dowley and Olivia Sudjic Friday October 17 2008 30 Comment [email protected] varsity.co.uk

e Varsity Debate Has our prize-giving culture become meaningless? is week the winners of the Booker and Stirling Prizes were announced, and the Turner Prize will be awarded in November. But has prize-giving become so commonplace as to devalue its signi cance completely?

Katherine Rob Yes Waters Stagg No Prizes are most relevant to the big businesses ere’s nothing wrong with an which sponsor them egalitarian system

homas Gray provides the jump-o point for Prize to toss away the winning cheque. Most stars n 1998, the journalist Melanie Phillips inter- the adulation of that old roadblock Menachem Tthis debate: wouldn’t bat an eyelid over £20,000, its about rupted her weekly assaults on everything con- Begin. Both were jerks of the knee to placate a “Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes symbolic capital and belonging to a cultural Itemporary to write a book called All Must Have servile, grateful and abjectly uninformed audi- And heedless hearts, is lawful prize; hierarchy. Prizes. ( e title is annexed from the Dodo’s em- ence. Nor all that glisters, gold.” Intrinsic value is hard to spot these days, so phatic words in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Which segues tidily into that most especially ere is many a “lawful prize” but if you go quickly does it become bound up in celebrity and in Wonderland). It was a talking-points-only unbeloved of awards, the Turner Prize. One about it with a “heedless heart”, then more o en commerce. Jean-Paul Sartre, elected in 1964, is criticism of ‘postmodernism’ in education, and could allocate considerably sympathy to Jonath- than not, it’s the dross you’ll come across, or the the only Nobel laureate to voluntarily decline the its alleged excesses of egalitarianism. As Phillips an Jones’ criticism: “Turner Prize art is based on fools’ gold. Nobel Prize for Literature. In turning down the might have intended, her title has mutated into a formula where something looks startling at rst I’m not going to say that all prizes, awards and $53,000 award, he said, “It is not the same thing if an ironic comment on itself. Her rather broad- and then turns out to be expressing some kind of ceremonies deserve a lambasting, but rather sug- I sign ‘Jean-Paul Sartre’ or if I sign ‘Jean-Paul Sar- brush thoughts are now engraved into the crani- banal idea, which somebody will be sure to tell gest that we assess the impulse which lies behind tre, Nobel Prize winner’. A writer must refuse to ums of ‘middle England’. ‘Dumbing down’ is the you about. e ideas are never important or even our appetite for them. ere is, quite obviously, allow himself to be transformed into an institu- phrase of choice for stupid people everywhere. really ideas, more notions, like the notions in a rather large di erence between say, the Nobel tion, even if it takes place in the most honorable is queasiness about rewards, awards, cel- advertising.” One might even nd oneself in cho- prizes, and knowing that your Waitrose own- for m .” ebrations, recognitions and prizes has uncontrol- rus with former Culture Minister Kim Howells, brand ready-to-cook frozen margherita pizza is Prizes function as a pivot for the indecisive lably bled over into the land of High Culture. who stated that such show-art is “cold, mechani- a prize-winner thanks to a rather spurious laurel to turn upon. If you are choosing a CD for the I’ve heard more than one author respond to a cal, conceptual bullshit”. But who, I wonder, will on the back. e di erence isn’t just between sole reason that it received an award, then you’re nomination with the quip, “I think there are too say that the show’s regularly silly attempts to be oven-ready pizza and Nelson Mandela, but the either curious in a mundane sense of the word, many award ceremonies.” But is this wit dry or ‘progressive’ and ‘boundary pushing’ are un- thought which has gone into awarding the prize; clueless, or a sheep. With books, prizes long ago desiccated? What is the pointlessly egalitar- necessary or misguided? I am curious about this. the deliberation behind not only who will receive replaced reviews and are encroaching ian, unthinkingly postmodern position I am curious about it because it sounds very the prize, but why the prize should be given in on the work of professional critics here? It seems to me that the ideology much like the baseline response to the rst place. as well. Michael Portillo judged Phillips so detested has chased its own the Momart warehouse re, As far back as 1928, Ezra Pound Tuesday’s Booker Prize. Enough tail and vanished up its own which destroyed a spectacular questioned this impulse, writ- said. It is as if we have no other fundament. For the new trendy quantity of contemporary art. ing that “ e whole system of praise to o er an author, no al- position is one of contempt I remember a prim dumpling prize-giving... belongs to an ternative for ‘authorities’ like the Nobel of a woman, sporting preten- uncritical epoch; it is the method of Committee. We can all curdle sion straight out of a catalogue, act of people who, having evaluation a sneer for the Turner Prize stridently asking a Question Time learned the alphabet, except a and its passé notions of panel whether they considered refuse to learn how to roll-call the ‘progressive’. Don’t all this smoke without much re, spell.” Our judgments and blurb of past achievements which we they understand that such and a cow in a tank isn’t art, and personal tastes are dictated unquestionably understand to validate the labels are so out this season? Why not a tent with sex partners is vulgar, to us by juries whose irritating latest o ering. be altogether fairer and leave everyone to and why can’t we go back to good publicity-stunt prizes seem to Oscars on an annual basis are rather a paddle for recognition on their own? We portraiture, and to hell with the have become the sole tool by waste of time. Award-winning lms are don’t need to be condescended to by the YBAs, they should have their which we measure success and publicized enough and so the honour of an critics, do we? Such talk simply announces paintbrushes taken away from value. award, be it Oscar or Academy Award, is the death of art, or its prostitution to the them, and should all go home Turner, Mercury, Stirling, super uous an exercise in self-aggrandise- highest (monetary) bidder. And tedious hanging their heads in unison. I Oscar. We usually only know the ment. And the situaton is worsening since one arguments about how prize committees thought ‘fuck o ’ then, and I still do. e smug names of the awards themselves, not those prize spawns another, in imitation or reaction, mandate ‘objectivity’ over ‘subjectivity’ are as applause of the audience (for everyone is now a who actually win them. No one cares who wins as if we needed any more. Awards such as the Ig easy to demolish as to construct. critic) proved sanity is de nitively not statisti- the Turner Prize anymore. Last year, the six Nobel Prizes are perhaps the best of the bunch. I concede. e Nobel Prize was founded by cal. Tracey Emin later emerged to make an un- foot blond transvestite potter, Grayson Perry, ese are meant to “ rst make people laugh, a man accurately described as a “merchant of apposite comparison with Nazi book-burning. narrowly defeated the Chapman brothers’ dolls and then make people think”. ere is a kind of death” in his premature obituary. Its literary wing A better analogy might have been the entartete cast in bronze performing oral sex. is seemed integrity in this. e Ig Nobels seem to be the has passed over Tolstoy, Chekhov, Joyce, Auden, Kunst – ‘degenerate’ – art exhibition held by irrelevant to all but the big businesses who vie for apogee and nadir of prize giving. On the one Borges, Nabokov, Greene, Ibsen, Zola and Twain the German state in 1937, highlighting ‘Jewish sponsorship in order to seem culturally relevant hand they are derisory awards handed out to – and went through a particularly silly phrase Bolshevist’ works by Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, and hip. those who nd out that eas jump higher on where it only rewarded the ‘lo y and sound Kirchner and van Gogh. No awards ceremony It was announced on Wednesday that Gordon’s dogs than on cats. On the other, they provide idealism’ that its founder desired. It also regaled could compete because they weren’t allowed to. Gin is taking over from Channel 4 as the main a real insight into our culture. Whatever your Harold Pinter as a sage for having written “fuck Those who emit glib chat about awards sponsor of Turner Prize. A spokeswoman said opinion, this year’s Chemistry award was shared George Bush” a lot. But for every alarming reject, ceremonies being too ‘objective’ might find the sponsorship was aimed at linking Gordon’s between researchers who proved Coca-Cola is a there’s been a heavyweight accepted. e Nobel this suggestive. And those who prefer a tone reputation as a re ned British spirit with the spermicide, and a competeing team who proved Committee championed Dario Fo when he was of censorious condemnation might find this cra smanship and skill needed to create a work that it isn’t. e medicine award went to Dan regarded as a crass propagandist, and other cer- instructive. Rewards remain worthwhile. of art. As part of the deal, Gordon’s is doubling Ariely who proved expensive placebos are more emonies chose to defend Salman Rushdie’s e Those who would prefer some sort of Joshua- the prize money awarded to the winners of the e ective than cheap ones demonstrating how Satanic Verses from the monominds of Islam. Reynolds-is-king autocracy betray themselves competition from £20,000 to £40,000. easy it is to manipulate people’s perceptions. It’s Indeed, the most notable failures of the Nobel quickly when holding forth on this subject. It is not the prize money that is at stake: it is obviously harder than we thought to know if all system have been ill-considered e orts to please We need not be in the giving vein every day, commonplace for the winner of the Mercury that glisters is gold or not. the wider public. I think of the commendation but we cannot afford to sacrifice art to the of the war criminal sophist Henry Kissinger or propagandists for anaemia. Discover a world which people are constantly shaping.

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EVENT: Shell Careers Presentation VENUE: Newton Suite, The University Arms, Regent Street CB2 1AD DATE: 22nd October 2008 TIME: 18:30. You do not have to register to attend this event. MODELS Bene’t’s Cafés 20 King’s Parade Cambridge University Kenya Education

of t Ki ree Partnerships is recruiting for its 2009 ng’s t St 4 Bene’t’s Street Parade and Bene REQUIRED Summer Project and will be holding an informal presentation on Wednesday For life drawing, 22nd October at 7pm in Caius Bateman £15 per hour Auditorium. (inexperienced models Bene’t’s of ■ Live and work in a rural East African welcome) community and school for 2 months next summer! Contact: Mr Issam Kourbaj, King’s Parade ■ Opportunity to travel and explore East Visual Art Centre, Africa! Christ’s College. Open till 8pm ■ Fully supported project, with a team of co- For more information please ordinators to help you every step of the way! email Visit www.kep.org.uk today. Apply online by Midnight Monday 27th [email protected] Loyalty Cards for October 2008. Toasted Ciabattas Murray Edwards College Politics Society Award winningIcecream Norfolk 27th October: Burma after cyclone Nargis Cappuccino, Espresso Music room at 7pm Try our Bene’t’s Chocolate Indulgence The current military regime has been in power since 1962, one of the longest dictatorships in history. Homemade Cakes Hows has the political situation been affected by the recent We are the leading supplier to colleges, May Balls and student socs and parties. Party wines from £2.99, over 200 cyclone Nargis and what is being done to get rid of this single malts, Port, Madeira, Claret, Absinthe, cans of lager. If dictatorship? you can drink it, we sell it. Free glass loan, free delivery, generous discounts, The Murray Edwards Politics Want to advertise your event here? wholesale accounts available for all CU bodies, socs, Society is pleased to invite [email protected] clubs etc. Nang Seng on 27th October Double-or-Quits your student discount with our Trivial who is a senior campaigner 01223 337575 Pursuit challenge. No conferring, bickering or face- from Burma Campaign UK pulling. and will talk to us about these Branches at King’s Parade, Magdalene Bridge and Mill issues. Road. Edinburgh too. www.cambridgewine.com Games & puzzles

Varsity Crossword no. 488 Sudoku Kakuro

The object is to insert the numbers in the boxes to satisfy only one Fill the grid so that each run of squares adds up to the total in the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 17 Caught a lovebug? (9) condition: each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the digits 1 box above or to the left. Use only numbers 1-9, and never use through 9 exactly once. a number more than once per run (a number may reoccur in the 21 A er ghts, Latin is most thinly same row in a separate run). 8 spread (8) 22 Puck and company combine 9 10 somehow in a big mess (4-2) 6 4 8 1 2 9 24 e Vikings used this constrictive 8 21 constrictor to a T (6,4) 1 5 8 15 25 Rebel! Decay surrounds the 8 5 9 6 3 4 21 11 12 individual (4) 19 26 Inside dire mess is most of the fuss 6 4 9 20 6 (6) 14 11 27 Lisp at weird girl’s hair (6) 4 5 6 8 2 24 13 14 15 5 9 16 12 Down 9 1 9 6 5 4 3 16 1 Unconscious person on railway track (7) 3 1 6 16 17 18 19 15 2 e end of a crossword is a 2 7 3 4 5 1 www.puzzlemix.com / MADE BY GARETH MOORE www.puzzlemix.com / MADE BY GARETH MOORE www.puzzlemix.com 20 dangerous weapon (5) 3 Hidden within holder hidden

21 22 23 within end (7) e Varsity Scribblepad 5 Young chap, expire?! (6) 6 Heavy area of water meets soured uprising (9) Hitori

7 In conclusion, assorted greenery Shade in the squares so that no number occurs more than once 24 25 has gone in (7) per row or column. Shaded squares may not be horizontally or 8 Safe sex machine broken by church vertically adjacent. Unshaded squares must form a single area. (13) 14 Find the meaning of strange tree- 26 27 print (9) 7 1 5 2 6 4 7 16 Composer in police state (7) 18 When musicians play about the 6 2 4 1 5 1 3 Across backside, including myself (7) 19 Permits government overthrow on 3 4 2 5 7 5 6 1 Resist furious nun (6) 11 Gardeners use these suits (6) state leader (7) 4 Pass by an unfortunate recurrence, 12 Toiled endlessly to make an e ort 20 Sporty American kids cry, upset, 3 3 3 7 1 6 4 topless (6) for a cosmetic product (8) and head East several times (3-3) Last issue’s solutions 9 e protagonist, she owns nothing? 13 I, branded a loony: just plain 23 Inside decor, ginger dog (5) 1 4 3 2 2 7 5 9 1 2 5 7 4 3 6 8 27 14 3 25 1 4 6 7 3 5 5 (4) thoughtless (5-4) 16 7 6 1 2 5 2 7 1 4 3 6 4 3 7 8 6 1 2 5 9 24 5 8 6 2 9 3 4 1 7 10 A cinder too frustrated to organise 15 Secure loan connection (4) Set by Hisashi 9 9 8 2 5 13 5 3 5 4 5 6 5 2 6 3 7 1 9 5 8 4 8 17 4 7 1 4 1 2 1 6 2 9 8 3 2 5 1 6 5 7 7 5 4 3 2 8 6 9 1 (10) 16 Give credit to aural vision (4) 4 8 8 9 1 4 5 6 7 3 2 3 1 10 14 3 5 6 7 2 3 2 1 2 22 6 2 9 1 3 7 8 4 5 Answers to last week’s crossword (no. 487) 8 3 5 6 7 5 4 6 1 5 5 3 7 8 9 4 5 1 2 6 16 5 1 6 2 4 7 7 Across: 6 Elgar, 7 Over ow, 10 Comedic, 11 Utensil, 12 Sinatra, 13 Old time, 14 Aerodynamic, 19 Othello, 21 Mobster, 23 Spreads, 25 Nuanced, 26 Fine tune, 27 Mimes. Down: 1 Egomania, 2 Credit, 3 Touch-and-go, 4 Beau, 5 7 9 1 6 1 5 1 2 4 1 4 5 6 8 2 9 7 3 www.puzzlemix.com / MADE BY GARETH MOORE www.puzzlemix.com Bonsai, 6 Excise, 8 Freedom, 9 Olden, 13 Ornamented, 15 Release, 16 Catacomb, 17 Moist, 18 Grades, 20 Hermit, 22 Brahms, 24 Smut. Friday October 17 2008 Write for Varsity Sport: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Sport 33

REPORTS

TOBY PARNELL John’s crush Oxford rivals » Oxford’s Pembroke humiliated by a dominant St John’s side » Impressive display sends warning sign to college opponents

But the second half brought yet Jenny Morgan more glory to the boys in red. Hungry Sport Reporter John’s 46 for points, some strong work from the captain, Will Hall, kept the team from It was all in the socks. You have to play Pembroke, Ox. 3 becoming complacent and a quick try like Stade Français to get away with such for fresher Fred Burdon came within pretty, hyacinth hosiery but Pembroke, the rst few minutes. John’s proved unfortunately, fell short of the mark. John’s were able to demonstrate their they are more than just muscle when ey wore owers; they played like pan- dominance in the lineout too, and the an imaginative kick into space lent sies. From the moment the Red Boys ran danger was soon averted. To cries of winger Shao-Chun Lin the opportunity out onto the pitch, cool and professional ‘keep it simple’ from some of the more to aunt his speed and take his second in tight formation, the lads from Oxford experienced players, John’s did just try of the match. Soon a erwards, four knew they were in for a rough ride. And that, and the ensuing speed of move- Johnian players were recruited across John’s did not disappoint. ment across the pitch was impressive, to the Pembroke pinks (Oxford lch- From the rst whistle, John’s were with strong balls reaching the mark ing from Cambridge? Surely not). Even o , driving to the try line and domi- accurately and quickly. Soon the boys they were unable to halt the nal John’s nating in the early scrums. Pembroke were rewarded with a second try, this onslaught which began with an excel- were slow to come out of scrum for- time out to the le when the Pembroke lent take from full back Henry Begg; mation and le gaping holes in the anker was caught o his guard a er crunching tackles from Hugo Cart- defence which John’s soon penetrated another excellent John’s scrum. A point wright and Lloyd Rickard coming too with a swi move to the right and an of weakness here, John’s were able to late to stop another try taking the nal early try for fresher Ilia Cherezov. e wage a war of attrition down this side score to 46-3. play soon came back down to the home in particular with several more scores Cambridge teams take note: whilst end though, and some beginning of the to result. e only glimmer of hope for today’s xture was a victory for us all, season fumbles led to a line out dan- Pembroke was an excellent penalty kick John’s will walk away from this Oxford gerously close to the John’s try line. All from far out on the touch line; John’s encounter full of con dence for the teams this year will have to pay close need to show more consistency in this season ahead and based on this show- John’s captain Will Hall protects the ball attention to the new rules. However area as the season progresses. ing, they’ll be the team to beat.

SOPHIE PICKFORD Footballers turned over on South Coast » Rutt’s men go down to a strong Navy XI in Portsmouth

Andy Ryan failed to clear a corner and the Navy goal, the Navy stole possession and a striker took full advantage, smashing central midfielder unleashed an am- Sport Reporter Cambridge 1 home from six yards out. bitious lob from all of forty yards to The Blues’ trip to Portsmouth ended It was another corner that ulti- put the home side back in front. in a 3-1 defeat, after a hard-fought Navy 3 mately led to Cambridge’s equaliser. With time running out, the Blues game against the Navy. The well worked short corner found began to desperately chase the game, Cambridge made the brighter start Michael Johnson who was upended committing men forward in numbers. at the Victory Stadium and their early tip save to deny the hosts. Cambridge in the box. He gathered himself and This left them exposed at the back attacking intent led to a series of half- then had their best opportunity of slotted home the spot-kick with com- and the Navy began to enjoy some chances. The Blues also showed that the half. Mark Baxter beat a couple of posure. success on the counter-attack. One they were not going to be intimidat- defenders on the right wing. He then The Blues had precious little time of these moves culminated in a dan- ed by the Navy’s physical approach, did well to fire in a shot from a tight to enjoy being back on level terms. gerously positioned free-kick and a competing strongly. angle and force a good save, though Straight from the restart, the Navy sublime strike effectively ended the Despite this beginning, the game’s he may have done better to square the chanced a long ball over the top and contest. first real chance fell to the Navy. Cam- ball. The half ended goalless. substitute keeper Chris Ellis was Star Man: Michael Johnson – lively Johnson equalised from the spot bridge were left indebted to keeper Stu Moments into the second half, forced to rush out and clear it. But up front and a cool spot-kick to bring Ferguson who produced a fine finger- the deadlock was broken. The Blues before he was able to get back in his the sides level.

SOPHIE PICKFORD Hockey boys outmuscled by Havering » Blues follow up their cup heroics with a narrow defeat

le playing catch-up again, securing a goal Jenny Morgan from Owen Kemp in the closing stages of Sport Reporter Cambridge 2 the rst half to take the teams level at half It was the best of days and the worst of days. time. Taking to the pitch on a glorious autumn Havering 3 e sheer physicality of Havering be- Saturday, fresh from a resounding vic- gan to take its toll as the match continued. tory the previous weekend, and with two Another goal from open play and Cam- promising young players excited for their to the base line before slipping in a neat bridge simply couldn’t nd the means to debut, the Men’s Hockey team were walk- pass to the penalty spot, ready for an excel- respond, leaving the nal score 3-2 to the ing tall. Funny thing how sport can bring lent sweep nish from vice-captain Stuart visitors. Cambridge will be disappointed you crashing right back down again. Jackson. e boys have been working on with the end result, which could have gone Havering began the dream-wrecking this sort of set play in training, with the for- either way, and would no doubt have been in the rst few minutes, when a truly awe- wards delaying their movements out wide looking to get the season o to a more im- some shot to the top right hand corner in order to create the space for such a ma- pressive start. However, all signs point to caught keeper Chris Robinson by sur- noeuvre, and it was great to see them reap- this being an early blip; with both League prise. Cambridge fought back with some ing the rewards in the form of an equaliser. and third-round Cup matches to play this fabulous work from the back; Jez Hansell However their defence was not so sharp; weekend, the boys and their supporters sending the ball hard and fast up to the failure to step in front of their players let to will be looking for a return to form. mid eld, then out to Jack Yelland creating a second de ected shot on goal taking Ha- Star Man: Jack Yelland – genuine pace space on the right, who was able to storm vering ahead once more. Cambridge were and incisive movement in attack. Sport Editors: Ben Riley-Smith and Andy Robson Friday October 17 2008 34 Sport [email protected] varsity.co.uk

Sport Feature: Cambridge’s Uno cial Sports

TOM DE FRESTON

Cambridge’s Uno cial Sports BEN RILEY-SMITH DELVES INTO A WORLD OF SECRECY AND OBSCURITY AS HE INVESTIGATES CAMBRIDGE’S UNOFFICIAL SPORTS

I like leaving something.” is predispo- Our source described howhe was once Night Climbing sition for marking his athletic achieve- le hanging o the Virgin Mary’s golden Hash House ight Climbing – the practice of ments has le our climbing enthusiast in crown on St John’s gate as a patrolling roaming college roo ops under some unfortunate predicaments in the police car passed below. Another night Harriers moonlightN – is one of Cambridge’s most past. Having scaled the Old Library next brought a run-in with the University au- ashing’ is perhaps the world’s famous and dangerous uno cial sports. to the Senate House by following Whip- thorities. “Me and one mate went to the largest uno cial sport. Invented e activity burst onto the scene in the plesnaith’s directions, our man decided top of Sidney Sussex and rang their huge by‘H a group of bored British colonial of- 1930s with the publication of Night to crown the highest tower with his bell. I looked down and suddenly just cers serving out in Kuala Lumpur in Climbers of Cambridge, a book written boxer shorts. All was going to plan until outside the plodge ve porters had run 1938, the game is essentially a human by undergraduate Noel Howard Sym- the descent. “Sliding down, my trousers out,” leaving only one choice: to “escape hare-and-hound chase. One person is ington under the pseudonym ‘Whip- got caught on a gargoyle’s head, ripping from them on the roo ops.” designated as the ‘hare’. eir job is to plesnaith’. Its 2007 re-release to celebrate them clean o ,” leaving our poor subject As far as our man knows, there isn’t set a trail, leaving markings in white the 70th anniversary of the original edi- “hanging o the Old Library starkers”. any Night Climbing society, but sim- powder for the following ‘hashers’ to tion has inspired a new wave of noctur- “I rung up my mate waiting below and ply “a group of nutters like me giving it identify, interpret and follow. e aim nal adventurers. said ‘two things: rstly, when I’m climb- a go.” Nonetheless many “nutters” still of the game is for the hashers to nd “Every Christmas I would go up to the ing down, don’t look up. Secondly, can I take to Cambridge’s roofs by night. the ‘true’ path, successfully avoiding Caius statues and put Christmas hats on borrow your trousers?’” “One thing you learn is that people any attempts by the hare to mislead them,” recalls a recently graduated Can- For all the japes and capers, this sport never look up.” Next time you are out them and to either catch the hare or tabridgian. “Whenever I get somewhere, brings with it a signi cant danger factor. under the stars, we suggest you do so. reach the end of the trail rst. Having died out during the Second World War, the Hash House Harriers (named a er the Hash House restau- from Dartmouth College’s ‘pong’, a simi- letic endeavour? To many this is certainly rant frequented by those colonial in- Beer Pong lar game played with table-tennis bats. the case. Yet those who advocate the game ventors) were recreated a er combat. ombining two of Cambridge’s fa- Whatever its beginnings, Beer Pong’s would strongly stress the sporting skills Yet the sport remained almost un- vourite pastimes – team sports and popularity has soared. An annual tour- needed to succeed. Compare it to darts. heard of until the 1970s when its pop- Cbinge drinking – Beer Pong has become nament is now held in Las Vegas with Both test precision throwing, with suc- ularity soared and new ‘kennels’ were increasingly popular with undergradu- $50,000 prize money for the winner. cessful players using skill and judgement rapidly created throughout the world. ates. e idea is a simple one. Two pairs Indeed Nintendo Wii have deemed the to produce the correct trajectory to hit Today, the numbers are astonishing. stand at opposite ends of a table, each game so internationally popular that they a small target. Both, many would point It is estimated that 1700 kennels exist with six cups half-full with beer. ey have created virtual Beer Pong as part of out, have had heavy drinking as a central across the globe, with between 20-100 then take turns to project a ping pong ball their Frat Party Games which launched part of their game in the past. And nally regular participants attached to each through the air towards their opponents’ this summer. e craze certainly has not neither ‘sports’ necessitate a player to be kennel. Every major city has at least cups. Should the ball successfully enter passed Cambridge by. In recent years it is athletic or physically t. Andy Fordham one kennel. Its popularity has even the cup, their opponent must consume not uncommon to see students pour into would certainly not look out of place at reached the Antarctic, which proudly its alcoholic content and remove it from college bars and JCRs armed with a ping- a Beer Pong match. So if Darts can seri- boasts two kennels. the eld of action. e game continues pong ball and a crate. As one student stat- ously push for inclusion in the Olympic Given its imperial origins, it will come until one team has no cups remaining. ed simply, “It is tiddlywinks for adults.” Games, Beer Pong’s skill and popularity as little surprise to learn that drinking is e origins of Beer Pong, much like Yet can Beer Pong really be called a among this town’s students more than an element of the games. Self-described the vision of its players, remain blurry. ‘sport’, uno cial or not? Is it not just warrants its title of an ‘Uno cial Sport of as a “drinking club with a running It is generally believed that it sprouted heavy drinking weakly disguised as ath- Cambridge’. problem”, the Hash House Harriers are keen to emphasise the social side of their athletic pursuits. e constitu- tion of the original Kuala Lumpur ken- cent years the finest punters at Cam- The eventual winners receive a bot- nel declared the game was designed to Varsity Punting bridge and Oxford have met to race tle of champagne, not to mention a “get rid of weekend hangovers” and to he Varsity match is the biggest in the summer term. In some ways it year’s bragging rights. “acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it in highlight of any Oxbridge sports is surprising that this event has such The Varsity Punting match is, beer” as well as to “promote physical t- Tteam’s season. Each year Cam- a low profile given punting’s popu- of course, unofficial. But it is also ness among our members”. bridge’s meanest, strongest and fast- larity. After all, there must be more brilliantly Oxbridge. The races add Cambridge itself has a kennel called est reopen the oldest sporting rival- students who have punted than who a competitive edge to one of Cam- the Cantab HHH. ey meet every ry in England. Eager to secure their have played rugby or football at bridge’s most treasured pastimes yet Monday at 7pm at the St. Radegund place in history, Cantabridgians do Cambridge. never lose its sense of wholehearted pub on King Street. Its members, ac- battle with their 800-year-old foes, Then again, most people punt for fun. Unfortunately, in the last cou- cording to its website, include “stu- whipping themselves into a frenzy pleasure, not competition. Not so at ple of years, the annual event has dents, lecturers, computer scientists, and baying for Dark Blue blood. Life the Varsity Match. The race is a sim- not occurred, or at least has been US air base sta , a condom tester and and limb are placed on the line for ple sprint. Each team provides four very poorly publicised. It would be others who actually work for a living”. honour and glory. Yet, far away from boats, each manned by two people. sad to hear that such a fun tradition ey go out hashing at least once a the hysteria and adrenaline fuelled Four head-to-head races are con- has died out. For now all we can do week and are always looking for new One night climber hatred of your average Cambridge- ducted, with competitors driving is wait and hope that Cambridge’s members. If you want to try out this braves a famous Oxford clash, lies the Varsity Punt- their poles into the murky water’s most light-hearted unofficial sport wacky historic sport, either pop in to Cambridge landmark ing match. sludge with the hope of crossing the still lives to fight – goodnaturedly – the St. Radegund on Monday night or Few people are aware that in re- finish line first and claiming victory. another day. email [email protected]. Friday October 17 2008 Write for Varsity Sport: varsity.co.uk [email protected] Sport 35

John On e Terraces Savage Wembley: the ckle fortress? Sport Comment

9,107 fans ocked to England’s new again, it’s counter-productive to the jority of the section above the dugout realise a common dream and therefore home last Saturday evening to face cause to demand such performances, probably missed the goal, choosing need the invaluable advantage that a lowly8 Kazakhstan, dwar ng the crowd to treat them as England’s right, a rather to enjoy the free half-time home game a ords. size of every other European xture. notion which the supporters have hospitality to the full. And the own Any suggestion that Wembley is As Fabio Capello had hoped, the fostered from the moment the Jules goal that followed took the score to an now a fortress is plainly wrong. Know- Week 2: Basketball stage was set for the fans to transform Rimet trophy was held alo in the old acceptable level. ing the ckle nature of the crowd, the stadium, which has yet to nd its en came Ashley Cole’s ga e, it can hardly be comfortable for the Sporting layman Jamie Ptaszynski trains character, into a fortress, one in which which sparked pockets of the stadium England stars to play home games, with a di erent Blues team each week the home side would feel every clap to boo his every touch therea er. e whereas for a member of the opposi- and would hear every cheer, and in “Why has Rooney, the lip- treatment he received as a result of his tion, this knowledge is a dangerous which the visiting side would tremble reader’s dream, not su ered error has divided opinions. weapon: force England into mistakes y personal experience of the at the sight of an ocean of white shirts. True, it would be a close call be- and the home advantage has been Msport of basketball used to be However, let’s not kid ourselves. e at the hands of the boo tween Cole and Joey Barton for the nulli ed, if not tipped in favour of the limited to one viewing of the lm real reason for the full house had little Sports Un-Personality of the Year, visitors. Space Jam: not a full education I to do with the manager’s plea. Rather, boys? but to use the former’s admittedly Hampden Park saw an equally feel. So, I pondered to myself, what it was the thought of another demoli- distasteful behaviour as a justi cation horrendous mistake, one which could am I missing? is week I went tion job, as orchestrated in Zagreb, is questionable. Why has Rooney, the potentially cost Scotland a place in to train with one of the university that drove the spectators towards the Wembley all those years ago. lip-reader’s dream, not su ered at the South Africa, but the players and teams. Why not go straight to the famous arch. With each minute the Kazakhstan hands of the boo boys? Why, then, fans have jumped to Chris Iwelumo’s top? A er all, it might be really Because entertainment is what net remained untouched, the pressure were Owen Hargreaves and Peter defence, preferring to congratulate easy. counts at the moment. e through- on the England players increased. Al- Crouch, both ne examples of modern him on making his international I know it’s predictable for me thick-and-thin mentality has largely though this pressure was not explicitly footballers, subject to boos in previous debut, rather than hounding him for to now tell you that it’s not, but been replaced by a hunger, almost a seen or heard in the rst half, how internationals? his miss from two yards with the goal I’d be lying if I said anything else. presumption, for England to replicate else can Upson’s bizarre back pass be e whistles were admittedly at his mercy. Dumbfounded by the hellishly noisy the prowess of the Premier League’s explained and how else can Gerrard’s drowned out by encouragement for Con dence is a huge factor in foot- blur of orange rubber and moistened top clubs. sudden lack of passing accuracy be Cole from the many who realised that ball and is predominantly in uenced human esh which hung about six On the one hand, people argue that accounted for? the situation was ridiculous. is at by the fans. By boosting the players feet o the ground, I approached the price of a coveted Wembley ticket Ferdinand’s header dispelled some least shows that the majority are aware from the stands, at least they’ve been the leader of the session, Rich, in a warrants such expectations but, then of the pressure, even though the ma- that the England players are ghting to given the chance to entertain. daze. He was welcoming and said he’d try to nd something fun for me

SOPHIE PICKFORD to get involved in. e rst exercise involved loads of running around. Being a man who values his lungs, and his dignity, I opted out. e sec- Hockey girls humbled ond one, Rich said, would be really fun. We had to sprint from one wall to the other and back to the middle »Oxford prove too strong on the counter-attack and not be last to get a ball. I soon realised that if I’m ever going to be a professional bee-baller, or whatever Becca Langton the jargon is, I’m going to need to Sports Reporter get a lot quicker. Cambridge 1 en we had a better game: trying to get the ball in the hole from a few In the rst of the Ladies Blues matches Oxford 4 yards away. It’s a bit like golf in that since promotion to South Premier B.U.C.S, way, except you use your hands not the highest level of University Hockey, Lisa Noble was instrumental in mid eld a metal stick. And the hole is in the Cambridge took on Oxford at Wilber- dominating in territory and possession, it air, not on the ground. And every- force Road. Cambridge entered the game was Oxford who, against the run of play, one’s a lot taller than you. e ball is as the underdogs, having not beaten Ox- stole the lead when England player Beth es sliding a second past keeper Fran Stub- was peerless on the wing, leaving her big, maybe about the size of a certain ford in Varsity for the previous six years. Wild took a snap shot on the edge of the bins with ten minutes le to play. marker for dust on almost every occasion type of whale’s testes, or something, However, with a number of new players D and sent a swerving ball inside the le It was inevitable that the game would whilst Sarah Baggs bossed the le side of which makes it a lot harder to hold looking to make their mark against the post. be a high scoring one and Cambridge an- the pitch, making crucial tackles at one than it looks when the Rabbit does Dark Blues, there was everything to play Undeterred and unwilling to allow the swered Oxford almost immediately; play- end, and drilling balls through the Oxford it in Space Jam. I didn’t get it in the for. e game started well for Cambridge relentless long-ball tactics of the opposi- er of the match Jenny Stevenson showed defence at the other. Although Cambridge hole, even though I tried to cheat, as possession was taken immediately from tion get the better of Cambridge’s preci- her perpetual tenacity, clipping a loose ball increasingly looked to score it was the visi- so I had to run up and down some a careless Oxford push back. Ignoring the sion play, the Light Blues reformed their past a desperate Oxford keeper. At two tors who once again demonstrated their more. It’s a training system based on torrential rain, the home side surged into attack. With great distribution around the goals to one, it seemed as if Cambridge reliance on a core of key players, catching punishment rather than reward. Af- the Oxford circle and looked threatening backline Rosie Evans was superb in break- might be able to overturn their long run the Light Blues on the break again for a ter that we did some defensive stu . from the o . Driving runs down the wing ing Oxford’s aggressive press while Han- of losses, however with a lapse of concen- commanding 4-1 lead. e nal score was When they’re defending they touch from quick paced Anna Stanley le the nah Rickman, unerring as usual, sent the tration just before the 35 minute mark the an unjust representation of the territorial each other quite a lot; not as much visitors o guard and, ungainly in defence, opposition chasing well placed balls to the visitors consolidated their lead as Alice and tactical dominance which Cambridge as in rugby but de nitely more than Oxford were lucky not to be punished for hard working mid eld. Cambridge were Cook claimed a de ection at the far post. demonstrated. Re ecting on the end result in snooker. Finally they started a their slow start. Pressed into their own repeatedly unlucky in their attacking half, Cambridge were not to be downheart- coach James Waters was positive about real game but I snuck o quietly, twenty- ve, the Dark Blue defence found Lisa Noble showed her dominance in the ed, and in the second half immediately the season to come: “Basically, we were out of breath and more than slightly it increasingly di cult to escape from centre of the park, shaking o the niggling regained pace, showing the strength and undone by some poor execution in the embarrassed. Cambridge’s masterful press. tackles of her opposite number and send- depth inherent in their game and team. attacking D and by some weak tackling To anyone else who’s thinking of However, while the Cambridge for- ing a series of searing passes into the circle Oxford looked menacing on the break, on Oxford’s star players. We had twice as being a bee-baller, here’s my advice: ward line maintained possession, a clinical which were sent wide by a frantic attack. however Stubbins was solid in goal and many attempts on goal but lost the game Unless you’re really t, are good at nish eluded them. e Oxford keeper, However, whilst the Light Blues were un- tipped a number of Oxford attempts wide 4-1. It shouldn’t really happen like that.” handling big balls and can jump, re- forced into a series of close range saves, doubtedly the better side, it was Oxford of the mark. Cambridge repeatedly turned Star Player: Jenny Stevens – inspiration- ally high, and stay there for a while, kept the scores equal. Despite Cambridge who were able to capitalise on their chanc- over Dark Blue possession, Emma Goater al work rate and tenacity. don’t bother. e Week Ahead

University University University National National Basketball Rugby Lacrosse Football Formula One Cambridge’s basketball Blues Jon Dawson’s men look to build on The Blues Mens’ Lacrosse team Man U take on Celtic in a Champi- With Brit Lewis Hamilton only take on De Montfort in their first last week’s last minute victory and have started the season strongly ons League Battle of Britain. Celtic 5 five points ahead of fierce rival match of the season. With Oxford gather momentum for the Decem- with two victories in the SEMLA have picked up just one point out Felipe Massa, a huge amount rides having won 9 of the last 11 Varsity ber 11th Varsity match as they take league. They start their BUCS of a possible 45 away from Park- on the penultimate grand prix in matches a strong start to the sea- on The Ospreys campaign this Saturday. head in Europe. China. son is needed. Kelsey Kerridge, Wednesday Octo- Grange Road, Monday October 20, Queens’ College Sports Ground, Barton Watch it on ITV1, Tuesday Otober Watch it on Setanta Sports, Sunday ber 22, KO 12:00 KO 6:00 Road, Saturday October 18 KO 13:00 21, KO 19:30 October 19, KO 07:30 Friday October 17 2008 varsity.co.uk/sport

Uno cial Sports »p34

Night-climbing and Sport Hashing introduced Captain’s Corner Lax ladies Kevin Musselman smash Oxford Ice Hockey

s far as ice hockey goes, the » Lacrosse ladies continue in last season’s fine form AForce has most de nitely been with the Dark side in recent with a comprehensive victory times: the Oxford team has reigned victorious in the Varsity Match for the last four years on Jenny Morgan the trot. A di cult task, then, Sports Reporter Cambridge 17 for the man charged with turning around the Cambridge Blues’ for- Lacrosse: like Quidditch but without tunes, captain Kevin Musselman. the brooms, they told me. ere was Oxford 7 e squad is not lacking in tal- certainly magic in the air the way the ent, with many members having Cambridge women played on Wednes- cation that comes from an established played competitive ice hockey day a ernoon. Perhaps not surprising team enabled calm play under pressure in North America. e interna- from a team who were unbeaten last around the goal. Multiple shots nally tional dimension of the squad season and who have retained more resulted in a fabulous goal from Ros is remarkable, yet more British than half of their former squad this Lloyd, dodging past two defenders and interest in the sport might lead year. But against the old enemy, Ox- slamming it into the top corner, bring- to provision of better training ford, one can never be too sure. ing the rst half score to 9-2 to the facilities in Cambridge and hence From the draw, Cambridge domi- home team. increased participation – which nated the early possession and were A er a half time talk calling for would be no bad thing for a club rewarded with a quick goal within the more of the same, Cambridge con- such as CUIHC. When asked if rst two minutes. e speed of play tinued to deliver. Hannah Whittaker the demographics of the sport was astonishing from the o set, with pushed through a slightly improved a ect his talent pool, Musselman excellent dodging through the mid eld Oxford defence for the opener. Oxford concedes that the absence of ice and good communication around the had more in uence in this half, but hockey in the sporting main- goalmouth ensuring that the ball was their play remained erratic and their stream in the UK manifests itself moved around e ciently in the attack. possession short-lived. ey managed in “a larger percentage of Cana- e spoils were shared between these to slip two quick scores on the bounce dian and American players than forward players, as they clocked up a past the Cambridge keeper, and then British ones” but he feels that “we second, third and fourth goal in quick a third made it look like this could be will see more home-grown play- succession against the rather static a late comeback from the dark blues. ers in coming years”. Oxford defence. But like bees round But then, as the clouds gathered, Cam- Having been on the end of an a honey pot, the players were drawn bridge shone once more. Battling into 8-2 defeat in the Varsity match towards where the action was happen- the sudden wind which brought the last year, the captain exudes a ing, leaving them on the backfoot when heavy rain straight into the faces of the refreshingly positive outlook on Oxford suddenly gained possession players, Cambridge found their stride the coming season. “Many of the and went storming up the middle to once again, clocking up goal a er goal old Blues are back this year, and take their opening goal. is proved to in the di cult conditions, bringing we have had an excellent in ux be Oxford’s strength; with two or three the nal score to a decisive 17-7. is of quality recruits, so I am very speedy players capable of outrunning is perhaps where the ultimate strength optimistic about our chances.” their Cambridge counterparts over dis- of this team lies – the ability to keep e Blues’ rst test of the new tance, they were quick on the break af- their heads as all around them lose season is a tasty encounter with ter a long period of Cambridge attack. theirs. e Cambridge game plan was the old enemy on November But this wasn’t enough to make up set from the start of the match, and 1st. Clearly, the captain has for their fumbling handling errors and there was a ruthless calm to the way con dence in his side’s Varsity- rather inaccurate passing. Cambridge the team delivered it. e con dence winning credentials; it is a ne kept picking up the loose ends in mid- and certainty of the whole squad was opportunity to test them out. We eld and punishing the Oxford defence. infectious – this is a team going places, wish the team the best of luck in Some aggressive and ambitious play and it knows it. their preparations. through the middle from Ellie Walshe Star Player: Ros Lloyd – her spectac- just kept sending the play back to the ular nishes topped o a cool and classy

Oxford end, where the good communi- attacking style. SOPHIE PICKFORD

£11M Seeing the E Ect of the ‘Credit Crunch’ Its New Rule on Alcohol in Hall

£11M Seeing the E Ect of the ‘Credit Crunch’ Its New Rule on Alcohol in Hall