••• ISION, RTICLES, EVIEWS, TORIES, NFORMATION, HOUGHTS AND WHAT OU WANT TO READ ••• e WEEK Independent Student LENT Newspaper est. 1947 Friday 3rd February 2012 Issue No 752 | varsity.co.uk 3News: David 5 Science: David Nutt talks about falling out with 16 Film: Richard Ayoade on his 22 Sport: Cambridge Ladies Blues continue their Miliband the government over drug policy unexpected rise to success winning form I’m an undergraduate... get me out of here! by Stephanie Barrett Not only has it surpassed previous The land race saw more intense DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR years in sponsorship and participant rivalry, as Team 150 narrowly beat “Good teachers fi gures, but the mileage the escapee Team 33 by just 35 miles, reaching MUSIC Leonard Cohen, Cambridge RAG’s annual Jailbreak is prisoners amassed is the most impres- Marcia, Spain ahead of their oppo- Cloud Nothings realise that the set to smash all fundraising records, as sive to date. nents, who made it to Suwalki, Poland they envisage raising over £50,000 for e teams overall travelled to over without taking any planes. Team 150’s You Can’t Read students are the their chosen charities. 28 countries in just 36 hours, accumu- Daisy and Husein both receive a Big- BOOKS The event is RAG’s biggest sin- lating 100,000 miles – the equivalent Fish Ents Life Pass. is Book antenna; they are gle-event fundraiser, which last year of travelling the earth’s circumference With students dressed as anything contributed £40,000 to the annual over four times. Students reached as from Mario Brothers to Mr Men, e Descendants sensing things that Cambridge RAG total of approximately far as Los Angeles, New York, Miami, teams sought to make the experience FILM £150,000. Hong Kong and Dubai – all without as entertaining as possible. Poppy and the teachers don’t This year, however, the Jailbreak spending a penny of their own money. Clare from Homerton, respectively an Committee is confi dent that the total The winners, Team 111, remark- asparagus and carrot for the weekend, ART Grey Matters at the yet sense” sponsorship amount, when confi rmed ably fl ed 6,705 miles from Cambridge busked for money and ended up in Fitzwilliam Museum in March, will exceed this by more to Singapore, trumping last year’s win- Amsterdam. than £10,000, considering the unprec- ning team who reached Buenos Aires, Equally extraordinary were Team edented scale of the event. Argentina. 159, Aaron and Yichaun, who, dodg- THEATRE yestes, “Delighted” at its success, Treasurer The triumphant first years Mat- ing traffi c on dual carriageways, ran to Wolfson Howler Owen Jones feels “the target is very ilda Carr, from St. John’s College, and London. achievable given the number of partici- Matthew Walton, from Trinity Hall, ose who spent last weekend in the pants and the distances they managed succeeded in having their entire jour- library struggled to contain their jeal- WEEKEND > to travel.” ney and accommodation funded by an ousy as updates fed in from the likes of 5 Already the committee is hearing of American businessman who they met Team 23, who borrowed skiwear from WEATHER 0 individual teams raising over £500 and en route. friends in London before heading off to 2 several individual donations of £67 for ey excitedly posted to the RAG Canada and Team 104, who checked in 0 0 the winning team, who were sponsored website’s live feed: “probably gonna to e Ritz, Dubai. 4 on a penny-per-mile basis…and then struggle to make Monday lectures…” Whilst participants are now trapped 4 travelled more than 6,000 miles. As if a free trip to Singapore wasn’t once more in the Cambubble, it is not 4 8 More teams took part in Jailbreak enough, the victorious pair receive tick- too late to sponsor a deserving team. 5 7 Interview: Brian Eno 2012 than ever before and with 300 ets to the Robinson May Ball e money goes to RAG’s selected ten 1 7 10 participants, this makes the event the Coming 782 miles behind Matilda charities, as listed on their website, 7 largest student-run Jailbreak the UK and Matthew was second-place Team www.cambridgerag.org.uk. 9 has ever seen. 110, who reached Hong Kong. ● e Great Escape page 4 forget to check out our brand new Podcast section online! PS. Don’t 1CM 1CM 2 EDITORIAL FEBRUARY 3 2012 — wEEK 3 I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon. – Tom Stoppard EDITORIAL ...24 pages of words, pictures, facts, opinions, thoughts, clues, statements, Inside conclusions, insinuations and the occasional flashof genius... Dissent: there’s more to DIGITAL CONTENTS NEWS university than a degree Blogs: Interview 5 Tony Benn 4 he student protests against beliefs as students. Varsitech: ‘Equality or GTFO’ - Jake The Great Escape Government cuts to higher The space that not only Varsity Harris tells us why boys who play Hear the story behind this year’s Jailbreak champions education resources are but the university experience as a game don’t like girls who play game. surely one of the starkest whole provides is central not only to memories of the last academic year. expressing our views, but formulat- Varsity Blues: ‘Motivational Even those not directly involved will ing and coming to understand them Millions - Rory Boyd asks whether T FEATURES recall the banners decorating the in the first place. Studies published we should be worried about the exterior of the Senate House, the in The Financial Times on Monday African football teams getting strains of music heard from beyond detailed “messy and haphazard million dollar bonuses for sporting Enotes 10 the railings, and perhaps even the reforms” to the university admis- success. impromptu games of football played sions system, in which higher fees A brief insight into the varied artistic career of Brian Eno across the frosty lawn that December. and lower subsidies will create market Verified: ‘Guns and Bananas’ As for those current first-years who conditions in which universities are - George Baker takes a look at had not yet arrived in Cambridge, set in direct competition to appeal to the original banana republic; its the cenotaph stunt splashed across applicants (or, as the FT aptly terms it, government, sponsored by the MUSIC headlines arrived just about the same “customers”), thereby, in theory, forc- Unified Fruit Company. time as their offer letters, providing ing teaching standards up. It is noted, a rather misleadingly rambunctious though, that increasingly the greatest Vetements: ‘The Void at Dior’ - 14 introduction to Cambridge life. concern amongst applicants is their Kristina Bugeja wonders whether King Creosote Studying here in Cambridge cer- perceived job prospects. the sacking of John Galliano has left interview’s King Creosote & Jon Hopkins Varsity tainly does open up innumerable While this assists institutions who Dior rudderless. about their recent collaboration, ‘Diamond Mine’ opportunities to broaden our hori- offer clearly vocational courses, those Vice: ‘Cake With Kate: Auntie’s’ In zons, both in academic study and universities who fall in the ether the means provided to communicate between polarities of the prominent Helena Pike’s latest stop on a round- BOOKS trip of Cambridge Caffs we look in our discoveries, ideas and opinions red-brick and career-geared will find at Auntie’s for banana cake and ice effectively. Our libraries are filled to it difficult to survive. Most concern- cream. the rafters with books, and funding ing of all is the diminishing concept Righting the world?15 is given at every turn for the pursuit of the university experience as a plat- Vulture: ‘The J-Word: Black Does writing books actually change anything for the better? of everything from theatre produc- form for discovery and expression. In American Music’ - Alex Hithcock tions, your own personal chapbook fact, as Stefan Collini, professor here continues his tour through the of poems, and even (our favourite) at Cambridge, stated publicly this dreaded J-Word by asking ‘what’s in a grant available “for strenuous out- week, applicants may, in any case, be a name?’ door excursions, preferably amongst “wrong about what many employers ART mountains.” w a n t .” Protest for change is certainly It is exactly such an awareness that Team List (Figure of dissent) necessary; the power to express ideo- we need to remember in the midst of Where’s Weiwei? 17 logical beliefs, though, in writing, art, our academic life here. The skills we Editors Madeleine Morley and Louise Benson [email protected] (Yoko Ono) Blurring the line between fashion and architecture cinema, music, theatre, and even our gather outside of our degrees are to Business Manager Michael Derringer weekly studies, can be more effec- be valued and carried forward – to [email protected] (Robin Hood) Senior Arts Editor Zoe Large tive than more explicit stunts – and overlook this is to miss out on a huge [email protected] (Joan of Arc) potentially save you a lot of face. amount. News Editor Matt Russell We ought to use all such mediums [email protected] (Giuseppe Garibaldi) SPORT to look towards a different social land- Online Editor James Vincent [email protected] (Clay Shirky) scape, and not only lament the state of Science and Theatre Editor Helen Cahill things as they stand. Varsity stands to [email protected] (Guy Fawkes) Blues Lose 24 be used as a forum for such protest: it Perspectives Editor Emily Fitzell [email protected] (Arthur Rimbaud) Disappointing post-Varsity loss to Durham exists as a forum for debate, dissent, Features Editor Katy Browse and the occasional diatribe.