Who do you think they are? - Varsity
Who do you think they are? - Varsity
Who do you think they are? - Varsity
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Try our new<br />
board game<br />
On the reverse<br />
of the centrefold<br />
Issue No 672<br />
Friday Feb 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk<br />
Independent e<br />
Cambridge Student Newspaper since 1947<br />
<strong>Who</strong> <strong>do</strong> <strong>you</strong> <strong>think</strong> <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong>?<br />
42% of students recognised<br />
President<br />
Isabel Shapiro<br />
News Editor<br />
Cambridge University’s most important<br />
fi gures <strong>are</strong> unrecognisable<br />
to most students, according to a<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> survey.<br />
Over 200 undergraduates were<br />
shown pictures of six ‘Cambridge<br />
Celebrities’ and asked to put a name<br />
or a role to the faces. But more<br />
than three-quarters of respondents<br />
were unable to identify the<br />
Vice-Chancellor, Alison Richard,<br />
and less than half could name the<br />
CUSU President, Mark Fletcher.<br />
Still fewer could identify Lu Wei,<br />
the newly elected President of the<br />
Union, who had an identifi cation<br />
rate of only 12%.<br />
Also included in the six were<br />
Footlights President Sam Sword,<br />
Debate<br />
CUSU President, Mark Fletcher<br />
Should Sharia be incorporated<br />
into British law?<br />
» Page 9<br />
MP for Cambridge Mr David<br />
Howarth and one particularly famous<br />
Cambridge alumnus, Jimmy<br />
Carr. Despite no offi cial affi liation<br />
to the University itself, these individuals<br />
were much better known<br />
among students; while the people<br />
who really infl uence students’ lives<br />
in Cambridge were largely unidentifi<br />
ed, 95% of the students were<br />
able to recognise the popular comedian<br />
Jimmy Carr.<br />
Alison Richard, who became the<br />
fi rst female Vice-Chancellor in 2003,<br />
acts as the principal academic and<br />
administrative offi cer of the University,<br />
yet only 23% of students<br />
could correctly identify her.<br />
Of the 77% who were unable to<br />
identify the Vice Chancellor, several<br />
came up with some interesting<br />
alternatives. Guesses ranged<br />
from Head Bedder, Librarian or a<br />
Dinner Lady, to Hyacinth Bucket<br />
12% of students recognised<br />
Vice-Chancellor,<br />
Face Off<br />
Will Queens’ give Pembroke<br />
a royal thrashing?<br />
» Page 14<br />
of the Union, Lu Wei<br />
and Ann Widdecombe. One student<br />
chose to remain on the fence<br />
about the Vice-Chancellor’s identity.<br />
“She just looks really nice” he<br />
said. But is the Vice-Chancellor<br />
concerned that such a high proportion<br />
of students have no idea<br />
who she is?<br />
“In general undergraduates nationwide<br />
<strong>do</strong> not tend to come into<br />
regular contact with their universities’<br />
vice-chancellors and particularly<br />
so at Cambridge where the<br />
collegiate system’s genius of scale<br />
means a student’s immediate needs<br />
and pastoral c<strong>are</strong> <strong>are</strong> provided at<br />
that level”, explained a spokesperson<br />
for Alison Richard. “Professor<br />
Alison Richard provides Cambridge<br />
with outstanding leadership and inspiration<br />
and is a highly effective<br />
ambassa<strong>do</strong>r for the University to<br />
the outside world at very senior<br />
23% of students recognised<br />
levels”, he added.<br />
CUSU president Mark Fletcher<br />
was signifi cantly better known,<br />
with his photo recognised by 42%<br />
of the students asked. However,<br />
several students <strong>are</strong> obviously still<br />
unaw<strong>are</strong> of the work that Fletcher<br />
<strong>do</strong>es at the Students’ Union: one<br />
suggested he was “a wannabe Tory<br />
MP”, while another thought he was<br />
a model for Specsavers.<br />
Fletcher was amused by the<br />
results. “I am slightly surprised<br />
that that many people recognised<br />
me, and I’m considering a brief<br />
stint in rehab to further raise my<br />
profile”, he said. On a more serious<br />
note, he added, “CUSU is<br />
constantly trying to promote the<br />
work that we <strong>do</strong> and advertising<br />
how we can help students. I <strong>think</strong><br />
most students <strong>are</strong> aw<strong>are</strong> on some<br />
level of CUSU as an entity. While<br />
people <strong>are</strong>n’t necessarily able to<br />
Interview<br />
Jack Black on Michel Gondry,<br />
his new lm and eating Coco Pops<br />
» Page 23<br />
Alison Richard<br />
pick out the President, <strong>they</strong> <strong>do</strong><br />
associate us with important issues<br />
like welf<strong>are</strong> support, our<br />
green campaign and the access<br />
work we <strong>do</strong>”.<br />
The recently elected President of<br />
the Cambridge Union Society was<br />
the least known face of the six included<br />
in the survey, with only 24 of the<br />
200 students asked able to recognise<br />
him. Of the 88% of students who negatively<br />
identifi ed him, one thought<br />
he was a Cambridge chess champion<br />
and another, clearly up on the latest<br />
University news if not the recent<br />
Union election result, suggested he<br />
might be the person pretending to<br />
be a student at Trinity College. One<br />
student, who works as a barwoman<br />
at the Union, was particularly embarrassed<br />
by her failure to recognise<br />
the Cambridge Union President.<br />
CON T I N U E S ON PA G E 2<br />
STEVE FORREST
2 NEWS<br />
In Brief<br />
State school visit<br />
State school pupils from all over<br />
the country came to Cambridge<br />
last weekend to take part in the<br />
first of three residential sha<strong>do</strong>wing<br />
sessions organised by Cambridge<br />
University Students Union<br />
(CUSU) which will take place<br />
over the coming month. The<br />
CUSU sha<strong>do</strong>wing scheme, now in<br />
its eighth year, is targeted specifically<br />
at high-achieving pupils<br />
from families with little history of<br />
higher education and from schools<br />
that have made few Cambridge applications<br />
in the past. The scheme<br />
allows year 12 students to sha<strong>do</strong>w<br />
a current Cambridge undergraduate,<br />
attending lectures and seminars,<br />
staying in College and getting<br />
a real-life taste of Cambridge.<br />
One visiting pupil commented: "I<br />
thought everyone would be pompous<br />
snobs but everyone was all<br />
right. I will definitely be applying<br />
to Cambridge.<br />
Clementine Dowley<br />
Key-hole surgery<br />
A British student swallowed his<br />
<strong>do</strong>or key to prevent friends from<br />
forcing him to go home because<br />
he was drunk. Chris Foster, studying<br />
computer design at Bournemouth<br />
University in southern<br />
England, had drunk six beers as<br />
well as vodka and whisky when<br />
his friends decided he should go<br />
home and sleep it off. But the<br />
18-year-old wanted to keep partying.<br />
“My friends said I’d had<br />
too much to drink and should go<br />
to my room. But I didn’t want<br />
to so I swallowed my <strong>do</strong>or key.”<br />
When his friends eventually told<br />
him what he had <strong>do</strong>ne, he at first<br />
thought <strong>they</strong> were joking. “I<br />
thought it was a wind-up when<br />
my friend said I had swallowed it.<br />
But my throat and stomach didn’t<br />
feel quite right.”<br />
Clementine Dowley<br />
Punts of the future<br />
Controversial plans to reject traditional<br />
punts in favour of motorised<br />
boats on the river Cam have<br />
been drawn up. The proposal for<br />
12-seater motorised punts could<br />
be put in place by May. But plans<br />
met with concerns over the impact<br />
of noise pollution on the surrounding<br />
<strong>are</strong>a as well as the threat the<br />
punts may pose to wildlife and other<br />
river users. Matt Garlick, who<br />
is behind the venture, had some<br />
words of assurance. “The motors<br />
<strong>are</strong> electric with zero emissions<br />
and will be very quiet. It will only<br />
travel at 4mph - it’s not like we<br />
will be running jet skis up there.”<br />
Isabel Shapiro<br />
52 Trumpington Street<br />
Cambridge CB2 1RG<br />
FREE CHELSEA BUN<br />
With every purchase over £2.00 in the shop<br />
OR<br />
FREE MORNING<br />
COFFEE/TEA<br />
(9am-12pm)<br />
With any cake or pastry in the restaurant<br />
on presentation of this voucher<br />
and proof of student status<br />
News Editors: Clementine Dowley, Richard Power Sayeed, and Isabel Shapiro<br />
news@varsity.co.uk<br />
Con t i n u e d fr o m fr o n t pa g e<br />
When his identity was revealed,<br />
she responded with shock: “Lu<br />
Wei? No way!”<br />
In response to the findings of<br />
the survey, Wei said “I look forward<br />
to having a higher profile<br />
once this article is out.”<br />
Surprisingly, the Footlights<br />
President Sam Sword was considerably<br />
better known than the<br />
three leading University figures.<br />
Although one student thought he<br />
was the man who sells the Big Issue<br />
outside Sainsbury’s, a significant<br />
56% of the students asked<br />
knew who he was.<br />
In response to his newly confirmed<br />
celebrity status, Sword<br />
said “I should get an award. The<br />
others <strong>are</strong> probably more modest;<br />
I just get my big goggly eyes everywhere<br />
because I’m always on<br />
stage.”<br />
David Howarth, Liberal Democrat<br />
MP for Cambridge, while not<br />
quite beating the CUSU president<br />
in the celebrity stakes, was<br />
also well known, with 36% of students<br />
able to name him. Despite<br />
not being identified by the majority,<br />
Howarth’s face was familiar to<br />
most of the students asked, “I’m<br />
sure I’ve seen him cycling about,<br />
or in a big BMW somewhere,”<br />
said one student.<br />
The striking disparity between<br />
these results calls in to question<br />
whether leading members of the<br />
University make sufficient efforts<br />
to promote themselves within the<br />
student population. But it also<br />
suggests widespread student ignorance<br />
as to the people who represent<br />
them at a higher level, or at<br />
least a lack of aw<strong>are</strong>ness about the<br />
organizations <strong>they</strong> head. It remains<br />
questionable whether responsibility<br />
for improving relations between<br />
senior and junior members of the<br />
University lies with the authorities<br />
or the students themselves.<br />
President of the Footlights, Sam Sword<br />
56%<br />
Comedian and alumnus, Jimmy Carr<br />
95%<br />
MP for Cambridge, David Howarth<br />
36%<br />
The wheels on the bus go round and round<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/news<br />
International<br />
students opt for UK<br />
Laura Coleman<br />
The UK’s popularity as a destination<br />
for international students is beginning<br />
to challenge that of the USA, a<br />
recent study has shown.<br />
The study, which was carried out<br />
by ‘I-group’, has found that 95 per<br />
cent of those surveyed believed<br />
that the UK was either an “attractive<br />
or very attractive” place to<br />
study, comp<strong>are</strong>d with the USA’s 93<br />
per cent rating.<br />
The UK currently has 99,000 international<br />
students, a number which<br />
appears to be on the rise.<br />
Patterns at Cambridge confirm<br />
the trend. Levels of international<br />
students have rocketed in the past<br />
twenty years from a number as low<br />
as 282 in 1980 to the current figure of<br />
5,379. Currently, most of the University’s<br />
international students hail from<br />
China, with 702 foreign students<br />
originating from the country. American<br />
representation is also high, with<br />
648 students from the US presently<br />
studying at Cambridge.<br />
Some suggest that the high presence<br />
of international students at<br />
Cambridge is the result of a widely<br />
held perception that the UK is a<br />
safer place to study. Students <strong>are</strong><br />
also attracted to the UK because<br />
<strong>they</strong> believe that it is easier to get<br />
a visa for the UK than to gain an<br />
entry permit into the US.<br />
But despite the popularity of<br />
British and American universities,<br />
<strong>they</strong> still rank as the two most expensive<br />
countries in which to study.<br />
The Cambridge Admissions Office<br />
estimates the minimum cost of com-<br />
pleting a three year BA at the University<br />
as an international student to<br />
be in excess of £50,000. With no full<br />
scholarships on offer combined with<br />
active discouragement of students<br />
taking on employment during term<br />
time, international students can find<br />
the financial burden of studying at<br />
Cambridge overwhelming.<br />
American universities provide<br />
more financial assistance than their<br />
UK counterparts. Chairman of<br />
CUSU International Carl Göbel said,<br />
“Students from outside the EU <strong>are</strong><br />
not getting good value for money.<br />
Whilst the reputation of Cambridge<br />
and the collegiate system will always<br />
attract international students, Cam-<br />
The UK has 99,000<br />
international<br />
students<br />
bridge cannot match American universities<br />
for the funding on offer to international<br />
students.” Göbel also told<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> that Cambridge has failed to<br />
address many other problems faced<br />
by international students, including<br />
where to store their belongings over<br />
the holiday periods.<br />
Some researchers have questioned<br />
the study’s findings. They suggest<br />
that the results demonstrate the success<br />
of smaller competitor countries<br />
in increasing their sh<strong>are</strong> of international<br />
students at the expense of the<br />
USA, as opposed to indicating an increase<br />
in the attractiveness of studying<br />
in the UK.<br />
Trainee bus drivers from Stagecoach complete the first stage of their training. Owen Evans, driving instructor, explains: “Before getting in<br />
a bus, drivers should get into the minds of the pedestrians.” At a notorious accident black spot on the corner of Jesus Lane, the learners <strong>are</strong><br />
required to watch and wait until half a <strong>do</strong>zen buses swing by, putting themselves in the pedestrian’s shoes. This is just one of a series of<br />
training sessions drivers must attend before <strong>they</strong> can get behind the wheel.<br />
Isabel Shapiro
Friday February 15 2008<br />
Got a news story?<br />
varsity.co.uk/news 01223 337575 NEWS 3<br />
Archbishop heckled at St Mary’s<br />
» First public appearance of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams after Sharia law furore<br />
Clementine Dowley<br />
News Editor<br />
The Archbishop of Canterbury<br />
was confronted by protestors in<br />
Cambridge at his first public appearance<br />
since the row over his<br />
comments on Sharia law.<br />
Hecklers met Dr Rowan Williams<br />
outside Great St. Mary’s<br />
Church on Saturday as he was<br />
leaving the memorial service<br />
of his former tutor Professor<br />
Charles Moule at which he had<br />
been preaching. As he exited<br />
the building, the Archbishop was<br />
confronted by TV cameras, photographers<br />
and a large crowd of<br />
people. One heckler chanted: “Resign!<br />
Resign! Resign!”<br />
Dr Williams prompted criticism<br />
after he suggested that introducing<br />
some aspects of Sharia law to<br />
Britain was “unavoidable”. He<br />
made the comments during a lecture<br />
on civil and religious law at<br />
the Royal Courts of Justice ear-<br />
“One heckler<br />
chanted ‘Resign!<br />
Resign! Resign!’”<br />
lier this month.<br />
Dr Williams said that giving Islamic<br />
law official status in the UK<br />
would help achieve social cohesion<br />
because some Muslims did not relate<br />
to the British legal system.<br />
Such comments led some Church<br />
of England synod members, MPs<br />
and churchgoers to call for his<br />
resignation. The Archbishop also<br />
received death threats and was<br />
placed under police protection.<br />
Dr Williams has since taken responsibility<br />
for any “unclarity”<br />
about his remarks which may have<br />
caused “distress or misunderstanding”.<br />
His attempts to clarify<br />
his position reportedly came after<br />
a member of the 482-strong<br />
synod claimed to be prep<strong>are</strong>d to<br />
table a motion urging members<br />
to distance themselves from the<br />
Archbishop if an apology was not<br />
forthcoming. In his presidential<br />
address to the general synod, the<br />
Church of England’s national assembly,<br />
he said: “Some of what<br />
has been heard is a very long way<br />
from what was said in the Royal<br />
Courts of Justice last Thursday.”<br />
The Muslim Council of Britain<br />
said it was grateful for the<br />
“thoughtful intervention” of the<br />
Archbishop on the discussion of<br />
the place of Islam and Muslims in<br />
Britain today. Spokesman Dr Muhammad<br />
Abdul Bari said: “The<br />
Archbishop is not advocating implementation<br />
of the Islamic penal<br />
system in Britain. His recommendation<br />
is confined to the civil system<br />
of Sharia law and that only in<br />
accordance with English law and<br />
agreeable to established notions<br />
of human rights.”<br />
The Ramadhan Foundation,<br />
an educational and welf<strong>are</strong> body,<br />
said the speech was “testament<br />
to [the Archbishop’s] attempts<br />
to understand Islam and promote<br />
tolerance and respect between<br />
our great faiths.”<br />
In response to Dr Williams’<br />
apology, the Prime Minister<br />
praised the “great integrity” and<br />
“dedication” of the Archbishop.<br />
A government spokesman said:<br />
“The Archbishop has been clarifying<br />
and setting in a wider context<br />
the comments he has made<br />
and I’m sure he will continue to<br />
<strong>do</strong> so in the future.” However, he<br />
also emphasised the Prime Minister’s<br />
view that “British laws<br />
must be based on British values<br />
and that religious law, while respecting<br />
other cultures, should<br />
Trinity imposter arrested<br />
» Akhtar faces charges for stealing students’ property<br />
Clementine Dowley<br />
News Editor<br />
An imposter who posed as a student<br />
at Trinity College has been taken<br />
into police custody after flouting a<br />
ban from College premises.<br />
Two weeks ago a man was apprehended<br />
by Porters and asked not<br />
to return to Trinity College after<br />
it was discovered that he had been<br />
posing as a graduate student there<br />
for almost a year.<br />
It has since emerged that the<br />
College is “continuing to have<br />
problems with an intruder who<br />
sometimes calls himself Tarique<br />
Akhtar.” Senior Tutor John Rallison<br />
warned students that Akhtar<br />
had “again been found by the Porters<br />
on College premises”, and that<br />
he had subsequently been taken<br />
into police custody.<br />
Police confirmed that a 21-yearold<br />
man from Surrey was arrested<br />
at Trinity College on Friday after<br />
obstructing a constable in execution<br />
of duty. Akhtar was also charged<br />
with two counts of burglary after<br />
it emerged that he had allegedly<br />
stolen a Nokia mobile phone from a<br />
genuine student at the College. At a<br />
hearing at the Magistrates’ Court,<br />
Akhtar was charged on all three<br />
counts. He is due to appear at the<br />
Crown Court for Committal proceedings<br />
via video-link next week.<br />
Akhtar was first approached by<br />
Porters in the College library after<br />
complaints were made by other<br />
students. When asked for identification,<br />
he was unable to produce<br />
anything other than another student’s<br />
buttery card, and was subsequently<br />
banned from the college.<br />
While masquerading as a student<br />
at the College, Akhtar was allegedly<br />
involved in a series of incidents<br />
including faking his identity, illegally<br />
accessing a student’s computer<br />
account, and unauthorised use<br />
of College facilities.<br />
Although little is known about<br />
the imposter, whose Facebook profile<br />
states that he was born in North<br />
India and then moved to the United<br />
States where he “attended Harvard<br />
before coming to Cambridge”,<br />
police reports show that he is not<br />
even a Cambridge resident. His<br />
registered address is in Surrey. In<br />
a blog entry from April last year,<br />
Akhtar wrote: “One question that<br />
people always ask me is, ‘Tarique,<br />
<strong>are</strong> <strong>you</strong> an international student?’<br />
Sometimes I say yes, and other<br />
times I say no. To be honest, I <strong>do</strong>n’t<br />
really know myself.”<br />
According to Rallison, Akhtar<br />
gained access to College premises<br />
by accompanying a group of students.<br />
Members of the College<br />
have since been warned to “watch<br />
out for intruders ‘tailgating’ when<br />
entering College buildings”. Rallison<br />
also asked students to “take<br />
the usual security precautions with<br />
<strong>you</strong>r belongings” and to “let the<br />
Porters know if <strong>you</strong> encounter Mr<br />
Akhtar on College premises.”<br />
One Trinity student said: “I can’t<br />
believe he’s back. It’s really worrying<br />
that even though he was<br />
banned from College he still found<br />
a way to get in.”<br />
Another undergraduate was less<br />
surprised: “I saw him walking towards<br />
Trinity the day after he was<br />
first caught”, she said.<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> ad 100x100 23/1/08 14:47 Page 1<br />
be subservient to British criminal<br />
and civil law.”<br />
The Archbishop’s comments<br />
have been defended by Cambridgeshire<br />
church leaders.<br />
Spokesman for the Bishop of Ely,<br />
Canon Owen Spencer-Thomas,<br />
told <strong>Varsity</strong> “The Archbishop is to<br />
“press reports<br />
demonstrated a<br />
considerable lack of<br />
understanding of<br />
the issues”<br />
be congratulated on his brave and<br />
thoughtful lecture on Sharia Law.<br />
He has brought to light some important<br />
issues that require continuing,<br />
c<strong>are</strong>ful and responsible<br />
thought. Sadly, on this occasion,<br />
some press reports demonstrated<br />
a considerable lack of understanding<br />
of the issues and resorted to<br />
emotive and divisive headlines.”<br />
Canon Spencer Thomas also expressed<br />
sadness that the confrontation<br />
occurred immediately after<br />
the memorial service for Professor<br />
Moule, an eminent theologian<br />
who died last year aged 98. He<br />
said: “Charlie Moule was a highly<br />
respected figure in this University<br />
whose c<strong>are</strong> and wis<strong>do</strong>m shaped the<br />
lives of generations of students. He<br />
was one of my teachers and I remember<br />
him with great affection”.<br />
In his sermon, the Archbishop<br />
recalled how he had often made<br />
his way to Professor Moule’s<br />
rooms to talk about faith and theology.<br />
Appearing at ease in front<br />
of the packed church, he also referred<br />
to his former mentor’s wit<br />
and popularity, which saw him<br />
frequently fill lecture theatres on<br />
a Saturday morning.<br />
Looking for work<br />
this summer?<br />
University of Cambridge International<br />
Summer Schools can offer 4 - 7 weeks<br />
work for senior Cambridge<br />
undergraduate and graduate students.<br />
£200 per week plus college<br />
accommodation.<br />
For details call network: 60850<br />
or 01223 760850<br />
or email: intrestut@cont-ed.cam.ac.uk<br />
MiChAEl DERRiNgER
A is for Artwork, B is for Business, C is for BCopy, D is for Deadline, E is for Editor, F is for Firefox, G is for Gill Sans, H is for Helvetica,<br />
I is for Interview, J is for Juggling, K is for Kerning, L is for Listings, M is for Microphone, N is for Newspaper, O is for Office, P is for<br />
Panic (on a Thursday night), Q is for Quark Xpress, R is for Readthroughs, S is for Sport, T is for Time, U is for Untidy, V is for <strong>Varsity</strong>,<br />
W is for Website, X is for Xylophone, Y is for Yearbook, Z is for Zapf Dingbats, A is for Arts, B is for Brilliant, C is for Comment, D is for<br />
Di<strong>do</strong>t, E is for Editor, F is for Features, G is for Golf, H is for Hard core, I is for Intelligence, J is for Journalism, K is for Kayaking, L is<br />
for Libel, M is for Madness, N is for Nice, O is for Orange, P is for Perfection, Q is for Quantum physics, R is for Reporter, S is for Stories,<br />
T is for Technical, U is for Understanding, V is for <strong>Varsity</strong>, W is for Wild Wild West, X is for Xcuses, Y is for Yelling, Z is for Zany, A is<br />
for Aardvarks, B is for Britishness, C is for CUSU, D is for Destiny, E is for Editor, F is for Food and Drink, G is for Greatness, H is for<br />
Hairlines, I is for Independence, J is for Juxtaposing, K is for Kool Kats, L is for Leader, M is for Misdemeanour, N is for Nationals, O is<br />
for Ornithology, P is for Paper, Q is for Questions, R is for Reviews, S is for Spelling, T is for Tragedy, U is for University, V is for <strong>Varsity</strong>,<br />
W is for Was, X is for Xellence, Y is for Yoga, Z is for Zoology, A is for Award-winning, B is for Balls, C is for Creativity, D is for Details,<br />
E is for Editor, F is for Film, G is for Genius, H is for Help! I is for Illustrations, J is for Jealousy, K is for Kor Blimey, L is for Literature,<br />
M is for Manic Mondays, N is for News in Brief, O is for Over and Over and Over… P is for Puzzles, Q is for Quality, R is for Redesign,<br />
S is for Setting, T is for Theatre, U is for Underlings, V is for <strong>Varsity</strong>, W is for Weather, X is for Xtremes, Y is for Yellow, Z is for Zero, A<br />
is for Advertising, B is for Bishop, C is for Card, D is for Duck, E is for Editor, F is for Fact, G is for Guesswork, H is for Horseplay, I is<br />
for Irritation, J is for Japes, K is for King, L is for Letters, M is for Money, N is for Narcissism, O is for Oddballs, P is for Photoshop, Q is<br />
for Quiff, R is for Respect, S is for Students, T is for Trouble, U is for Under<strong>do</strong>gs, V is for <strong>Varsity</strong>, W is for Wordplay, X is for Xenophobia,<br />
Y is for Youth, Z is for Ziggerat, A is for Article, B is for Butter, C is for Culture, D is for Dinosaur, E is for Editor, F is for Font, G is for<br />
Graph, H is for Honour, I is for IQ, J is for Jabberwocky, K is for Kicks, L is for Love, M is for More, N is for Ninten<strong>do</strong>, O is for<br />
Organisation, P is for Pictures, Q is for Quibble, R is for Readers, S is for Sources, T is for Team, U is for United, V is for <strong>Varsity</strong>, W is for<br />
Wish, X is for Xplicit content, Y is for Yonks, Z is for Zenith, A is for Artwork, B is for Business, C is for Copy, D is for Deadline, E is for<br />
Editor, F is for Firefox, G is for Gill Sans, H is for Helvetica, I is for Interview, J is for Juggling, K is for Kerning, L is for Listings, M is for<br />
Microphone, N is for Newspaper, O is for Office, P is for Panic (on a Thursday night), Q is for Quark Xpress, R is for Readthroughs, S is<br />
for Sport,<br />
is<br />
T is for<br />
Time, U is for<br />
Business<br />
Untidy, V is for <strong>Varsity</strong>, W is for Website,<br />
Manager.<br />
X is for Xylophone, Y is for Yearbook,<br />
Be<br />
Z is for Zapf<br />
it<br />
Dingbats,<br />
A is for Arts, B is for Brilliant, C is for Comment, D is for Di<strong>do</strong>t, E is for Editor, F is for Features, G is for Golf, H is for Hard core, I is for<br />
Intelligence, J is for Journalism, K is for Kayaking, L is for Libel, M is for Madness, N is for Nice, O is for Orange, P is for Perfection, Q<br />
is for Quantum physics, R is for Reporter, S is for Stories, T is for Technical, U is for Understanding, V is for <strong>Varsity</strong>, W is for Wild Wild<br />
West, X is for Xcuses, Y is for Yelling, Z is for Zany, A is for Aardvarks, B is for Britishness, C is for CUSU, D is for Destiny, E is for Editor,<br />
F is for Food and Drink, G is for Greatness, H is for Hairlines, I is for Independence, J is for Juxtaposing, K is for Kool Kats, L is for Leader,<br />
M is for Misdemeanour, N is Interested for Nationals, applicants O is for for Ornithology, the post of Business P is for Paper, Manager Q is of for <strong>Varsity</strong> Questions, Publications R is for Ltd Reviews, (2008-2009) S is <strong>are</strong> for invited Spelling, to T<br />
contact the current Business manager, Michael Derringer, for an application form and a job description.<br />
e Independent Cambridge Student Newspaper since 1947<br />
Email business@varsity.co.uk or see our website www.varsity.co.uk/jobs<br />
Deadline Deadline for applications will be March 16th 2008.<br />
The <strong>Varsity</strong> Trust<br />
Take <strong>you</strong>r passion for<br />
journalism further...<br />
A major scholarship and/or bursary may be<br />
awarded to students graduating from the<br />
University of Cambridge or Anglia Ruskin<br />
University who <strong>are</strong> about to undertake an<br />
approved course in journalism in the coming<br />
academic year.<br />
For further details on the Trust and to check<br />
eligibility, visit www.varsitytrust.org.uk,<br />
or email trust@varsity.co.uk for an<br />
information pack.<br />
Deadline for Applications:<br />
April 27th 2008.<br />
The <strong>Varsity</strong> Trust offers funding to students planning to undertake journalism courses in 2008-2009.<br />
Registered Charity No. 1012847
Friday February 15 2008<br />
Got a news story?<br />
varsity.co.uk/news 01223 337575 NEWS 5<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong>profi le<br />
» Betinho Ribeiro<br />
Isabel Shapiro<br />
News Editor<br />
Students in Trinity Hall awake to<br />
the knock of an East Timorian celebrity.<br />
Betinho Ribeiro, a prominent<br />
fashion designer in his home<br />
country, has worked as a Cambridge<br />
bedder since 2005.<br />
In East Timor Betinho’s catwalk<br />
shows have been broadcast on national<br />
television, people recognise<br />
him as he walks <strong>do</strong>wn the street,<br />
and he has won plaudits from the<br />
Prime Minister.<br />
He came to England to work and<br />
plans to earn enough to expand<br />
his business at home. But making<br />
clothes is more diffi cult in Cam-<br />
He has won plaudits<br />
from East Timor’s<br />
Prime Minister<br />
bridge. The materials <strong>are</strong> expensive<br />
and Betinho’s landlord has banned<br />
him from using a sewing machine,<br />
so he is forced “to go back to a tailor<br />
in East Timor.”<br />
Designing clothes has always<br />
Oxbridge students<br />
work harder for<br />
degrees worth less<br />
been Betinho’s dream. From an<br />
early age, he was fascinated by<br />
“how people dress up nicely” and<br />
what this says about their personalities.<br />
His fashion i<strong>do</strong>l is Victoria<br />
Beckham and one of his favourite<br />
accessories is “the pink fl uffy”.<br />
As a bedder, Betinho has forged<br />
close relationships with the students.<br />
A budding artist, he sketches<br />
portraits of students in a variety<br />
of garbs which he then posts under<br />
their <strong>do</strong>ors. He even designed a suit<br />
for one second-year, whom he refers<br />
to as “Mr Fashion”. The outfi t<br />
will feature at an upcoming fashion<br />
show in Portugal.<br />
Back in East Timor, the political<br />
situation is fragile. On Monday<br />
President Ramos-Horta was shot<br />
by rebels. Meanwhile, the British<br />
Foreign Offi ce notes continuing<br />
“incidents of civil unrest”, high unemployment,<br />
and an “underlying<br />
threat from Terrorism”. It advises<br />
against “all but essential travel” to<br />
the country. “I feel sad”, said Betinho,<br />
“it’s my President”, but he is<br />
not afraid to return.<br />
Whether cutting cloth or changing<br />
sheets, Betinho <strong>do</strong>es it with fl air,<br />
charisma and a very cheeky smile.<br />
His philanthropic philosophy of life<br />
is simple: “I like people to perform<br />
something for their friends, to make<br />
them happy.”<br />
» 8184<br />
miles to east timor<br />
»15<br />
fashion shows<br />
»12<br />
students under his bedding<br />
jurisdiction<br />
»27<br />
pairs of shoes<br />
Degree declines in value<br />
Lucas Fear-Segal<br />
Recent reports have prompted<br />
widespread fears that the qualifi<br />
cations offered by Britain’s universities<br />
<strong>are</strong> being dumbed <strong>do</strong>wn.<br />
The most recent publications of<br />
the Higher Education Statistics<br />
Authority (HESA) and the Higher<br />
Education Policy Institute (HEPI)<br />
show that two thirds of all students<br />
now leave with top degrees.<br />
The reports showed that of students<br />
gaining their fi rst degree in<br />
2006/07, 13% obtained a fi rst class<br />
honours award, in an increase of 1<br />
per cent on the fi gures for 2005/06.<br />
Meanwhile 48% of students obtained<br />
an upper second class honours<br />
award, also an increase of<br />
one per cent from 2005/06. Such<br />
fi gures fall into a general trend<br />
of grade infl ation which has been<br />
gathering pace for over a decade.<br />
In 1996 only 48% of students graduated<br />
with a fi rst or 2:i.<br />
The statistics have sparked<br />
particular concern amongst students<br />
at older universities, who<br />
increasingly fear <strong>they</strong> have to<br />
work harder for their degrees<br />
than fellow students at newer<br />
ones. A recent study published<br />
by the HEPI showed that undergraduates<br />
studying law at<br />
Sussex University were likely to<br />
get a first or 2:i with just over 20<br />
hours’ work per week, whilst students<br />
at Oxford and Cambridge<br />
50<br />
40<br />
30<br />
20<br />
10<br />
7%<br />
2:i<br />
First<br />
41%<br />
8%<br />
43%<br />
10%<br />
45%<br />
1996/97 1999/00 2001/02 2003/04 2005/06 2006/07<br />
<strong>are</strong> expected to put in around 40.<br />
A similar trend can be observed<br />
in science subjects. At Loughborough<br />
University over 80% of<br />
biology students attained a 2:i<br />
or higher with an average of 21.8<br />
hours’ work a week. Roughly the<br />
same results can be seen for Cambridge<br />
students, but with a working<br />
week of 41.9 hours.<br />
The report concluded that huge<br />
disparities exist between the<br />
amount of work required by different<br />
universities and showed<br />
that while top degrees <strong>are</strong> worth<br />
less and less, students at Oxbridge<br />
still have to work harder for them.<br />
Whilst some degree courses <strong>are</strong><br />
full time occupations, others “resemble<br />
part-time employment”.<br />
Minister for higher education<br />
Bill Rammell was keen to rebut the<br />
fi ndings. He insisted that standards<br />
were rigorously enforced, and<br />
11%<br />
44%<br />
12%<br />
47%<br />
Degree<br />
infl ation over<br />
a ten year<br />
period<br />
13%<br />
48%<br />
claimed that that “independent<br />
reviews by the Quality Assurance<br />
Agency have consistently shown<br />
since 1997 that quality and standards<br />
<strong>are</strong> being maintained or improved.”<br />
But sha<strong>do</strong>w universities<br />
Secretary David Willetts called for<br />
the increase in the number of fi rsts<br />
be “addressed”.<br />
Professor Boyd Hilton of Trinity<br />
College, whilst willing to accept<br />
that the 2:i class had grown over<br />
the past few years, refused to acknowledge<br />
that the fi rst class category<br />
was any bigger than it had<br />
historically been. He said that the<br />
increased number of upper seconds<br />
achieved by Cantabrigians was “entirely<br />
justifi ed”, as students these<br />
days work far harder and <strong>are</strong> “far<br />
more driven” than their historical<br />
counterparts.<br />
£500k of student aid<br />
paid to prisoners<br />
Olly West<br />
The government admitted last<br />
week that student support payments<br />
potentially totalling £500,000<br />
have been paid out to prisoners<br />
during the last 10 years.<br />
Preliminary investigations show<br />
that 250 prisoners received up to<br />
£250,000 in maintenance grants,<br />
while 91 prisoners have received<br />
loans also totalling £250,000.<br />
The payments occurred due to<br />
a loophole in the law authorising<br />
student aid.<br />
John Denham, the universities<br />
secretary, admitted that the payments<br />
were “unjustifi able” and<br />
confi rmed that the loophole had<br />
now been closed. He said “I <strong>do</strong> not<br />
believe that it has ever been the<br />
intention of parliament that prisoners,<br />
who <strong>are</strong> accommodated at<br />
public expense, should receive any<br />
additional form of fi nancial support<br />
for maintenance. Nor <strong>do</strong> I believe<br />
that it is an appropriate use of public<br />
money”.<br />
Amendments have been made<br />
to the regulations that control student<br />
support, and these changes<br />
will come into force next month.<br />
Furthermore, the Student Loans<br />
Company has been told to review<br />
all current and past applications<br />
to check <strong>they</strong> were legal and to assess<br />
full costs.<br />
Opposition parties were quick<br />
to criticise the government for its<br />
oversight, with the Tories labelling<br />
it the “latest in a long line of Labour<br />
fi ascos”. Sha<strong>do</strong>w universities<br />
secretary David Willets said that<br />
“students struggling to make ends<br />
meet will rightly be outraged”,<br />
while Liberal Democrat universities<br />
spokesman Stephen Williams<br />
added: “No wonder students <strong>are</strong><br />
on the breadline when the money<br />
meant to support them is being<br />
paid to serving criminals”.<br />
Yet for all the sensational headlines<br />
that followed the news, with<br />
the Daily Mail announcing that<br />
prisoners had claimed “millions<br />
of pounds” in aid, students were<br />
more philosophical, seeing the<br />
revelations as symptomatic of<br />
wider problems in the distribution<br />
of student aid. One undergraduate<br />
even stated: “At least<br />
this shows that prisoners <strong>are</strong> being<br />
encouraged to continue with<br />
their education.”<br />
The Cambridge branch of the<br />
“Education Not For Sale” campaign<br />
said that the news simply<br />
detracted from the bigger issue<br />
of inadequate student funding in<br />
the UK. A representative said:<br />
“Prisoners receiving maintenance<br />
allowance to cover board and<br />
lodging is patently unnecessary<br />
(books <strong>are</strong> a different matter) -<br />
though like everyone else, <strong>they</strong><br />
should have the right to free education,<br />
especially so, <strong>you</strong> might<br />
argue. This isn’t the only loophole<br />
in means-testing, it’s just the<br />
most obvious - what we <strong>do</strong>n’t hear<br />
so much about is the people who<br />
needed maintenance grants, but<br />
couldn’t get them. That prisoners<br />
<strong>are</strong> cheating the system isn’t so<br />
much of a problem as the fact that<br />
the system is cheating everyone<br />
else”.<br />
There <strong>are</strong> currently around 590<br />
prisoners studying on part-time<br />
distance learning courses, usually<br />
provided by the Open University,<br />
and a smaller number who attend<br />
higher education institutions<br />
while on day release.
6 NEWS<br />
SCIENCE<br />
Cambridge scientists<br />
have discovered a<br />
genetic cause of<br />
heart disease. Kevin<br />
Koo explains it all.<br />
Researchers in the Department<br />
of Public Health & Primary C<strong>are</strong><br />
and the Medical Research Council<br />
Epidemiology Unit have discovered<br />
a correlation between<br />
genetic variations in the human<br />
genome and blood levels of cholesterol<br />
that contribute to the onset<br />
of cardiovascular disease.<br />
Dr Manjinder Sandhu and colleagues<br />
conducted an analysis of<br />
data collected from over 11,000<br />
individuals and found that changes<br />
to single DNA nucleotides,<br />
called polymorphisms, in a particular<br />
region of chromosome 1 were<br />
statistically associated with concentrations<br />
of low-density lipoprotein<br />
(LDL). Individuals with<br />
elevated levels of LDL cholesterol<br />
have been shown to exhibit<br />
an increased risk of heart attack<br />
and stroke.<br />
The study, recently published in<br />
the journal Lancet, may provide<br />
valuable insight into the genetic<br />
basis of variations in cholesterol<br />
levels and its cardiovascular consequences.<br />
In the body, LDL functions as<br />
a transporter for cholesterol and<br />
triglycerides, the main component<br />
of vegetable oils and animal fats.<br />
LDL carries these molecules to<br />
other <strong>are</strong>as of the body, including<br />
peripheral arteries where the oils<br />
and fats can accumulate, leading to<br />
a hardening of the vessels known<br />
as atherosclerosis. This condition<br />
restricts blood flow to the surrounding<br />
tissues and is a common<br />
precursor to more serious cardiovascular<br />
injury. Due to these<br />
risks, LDL is popularly known as<br />
“bad cholesterol,” while another<br />
member of the lipoprotein family,<br />
high-density lipoprotein, has been<br />
coined “good cholesterol” for its<br />
ability to break-<strong>do</strong>wn and remove<br />
the arterial blockages.<br />
Lowering levels of LDL cholesterol<br />
is one of the key strategies<br />
for reducing the risk of heart<br />
disease, and scientists have been<br />
focusing research efforts on the<br />
regulation of LDL-cholesterol<br />
concentrations in the blood. The<br />
strength of this new study lies in<br />
the large pool of individuals from<br />
The condition<br />
is a precursor<br />
to more serious<br />
cardiovascular injury<br />
whom data was collected and the<br />
scale of the genetic analysis performed.<br />
By comparing variations<br />
in participants’ DNA sequences<br />
with levels of LDL cholesterol,<br />
the researchers isolated two polymorphisms<br />
that were both traced<br />
to a region of chromosome 1 that<br />
has not been previously implicated<br />
in the metabolism of cholesterol.<br />
The article suggests that this may<br />
be the site of the CELSR2 gene,<br />
which encodes a cell-surface receptor<br />
whose biological function is<br />
unknown. Future investigations<br />
will aim to clarify how the genetic<br />
changes contribute to fluctuations<br />
in LDL-cholesterol levels, which<br />
may identify new molecular targets<br />
for pharmacological interventions<br />
for heart disease.<br />
News Editors: Clementine Dowley, Richard Power Sayeed, and Isabel Shapiro<br />
news@varsity.co.uk<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/news<br />
Fundraising nears £1bn mark<br />
Rob Craig<br />
The University of Cambridge is twothirds<br />
of the way towards reaching<br />
its goal of raising £1 billion by 2012.<br />
According to a progress report for<br />
the financial year 2006-7 published<br />
on Monday, a total of £663 million<br />
pounds has already been raised under<br />
the auspices of the University’s<br />
groundbreaking 800th Anniversary<br />
Fundraising Campaign, which was<br />
publicly launched in 2005.<br />
The past financial year has notably<br />
seen an unprecedented level of <strong>do</strong>nation,<br />
with a record £155 million pouring<br />
into both University and College<br />
Scarlett Creme<br />
coffers.<br />
Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard<br />
has greeted these fundraising successes<br />
with circumspect optimism,<br />
declaring herself “delighted to report<br />
another record year for the Campaign,”<br />
while equally stressing that<br />
“there is still a long way to go” in a<br />
potentially less auspicious economic<br />
climate.<br />
In a similar vein, the Campaign’s<br />
Co-Chairmen, Sir David Walker and<br />
Dr William Janeway admit that while<br />
“great progress” has been made in<br />
raising two-thirds of the target billion,<br />
“we <strong>are</strong> no more than half-way<br />
home in terms of the effort and determination<br />
needed.”<br />
The fundraising campaign was<br />
launched with the purpose of maintaining<br />
Cambridge’s international<br />
academic pre-eminence. The University<br />
derives its funding more heavily<br />
from government block grants than<br />
virtually every other internationally<br />
leading institution. In recognition<br />
of the need for additional funding,<br />
Alison Richards stated in February<br />
2007 that “the Campaign represents<br />
our determination to raise the raise<br />
the resources necessary to secure<br />
our future.”<br />
The rewards <strong>are</strong> being reaped in<br />
many different forms. Work is underway<br />
on the Centre for the Physics<br />
for Medicine (to be completed in<br />
summer 2008), designed to ensure increased<br />
interdisciplinary cooperation<br />
in this seminal <strong>are</strong>a.<br />
A new Institute for Manufacture,<br />
currently under construction, and the<br />
entrepreneurship-promoting Hauser<br />
Forum will strengthen the links between<br />
the ivory towers of Cambridge<br />
academia and the cut-and-thrust<br />
world of business. The 10,000 individual<br />
<strong>do</strong>nations received last year<br />
have also proved a significant boon<br />
for the development of research, the<br />
enrichment of student bursaries and<br />
the maintenance of Cambridge’s ever-visible<br />
architectural heritage.<br />
THEATRE<br />
Yo ho ho, a pirate’s life for me<br />
The Pirates of Penzance<br />
Arts Theatre<br />
★★★★★<br />
The lights dim, Maureen (who lovingly<br />
provided me with a running<br />
commentary throughout the show)<br />
finally stops talking about her varicose<br />
veins to Dave, the excellent orchestra<br />
begins and the curtain lifts to<br />
reveal the silhouette of a magnificent<br />
pirate ship. “Ooh, look Dave,” exclaimed<br />
Maureen “look, look, there’s a<br />
ship on the stage.” Unfortunately for<br />
Maureen, Dave and myself, this piece<br />
of craftsmanship designed by the<br />
talented Claire Butcher is one of the<br />
few highlights of a production that<br />
showed several glimpses of promise<br />
but lacked spark overall.<br />
The Pirates of Penzance is one of<br />
Gilbert and Sullivan’s most famous<br />
operettas. Set on the coast of Cornwall,<br />
a pirate crew “play and party”<br />
according to the programme, as pirate<br />
apprentice Frederick, played by Tom<br />
Cane, tells the pirate king that his obligation<br />
to them is over now that he is<br />
21. Dear Fred is also a slave of duty<br />
and decides that he must destroy the<br />
pirates as he loathes what <strong>they</strong> <strong>do</strong>.<br />
The male chorus is certainly the weak<br />
link in these first acts. They troup onstage<br />
without any conviction and look<br />
utterly bored. Their first dance routine<br />
is the most spiritless line dance I<br />
have ever had to bear witness to.<br />
Frederick leaves the ship and<br />
takes 47-year-old Ruth (Fiona<br />
Mackay) with him as his wife, believing<br />
her to be the embodiment<br />
of female beauty. However, upon<br />
leaving the ship Frederick hears a<br />
chorus of girls who, unlike Ruth, appear<br />
to be both <strong>you</strong>ng and beautiful.<br />
In comparison to their male counterparts<br />
the female chorus is brilliant.<br />
The execution of their first song<br />
provoked the first loud applause of<br />
the evening. It is, however, Mary Ellen<br />
Lynall (Mabel) who really steals<br />
the show. As the primping leader<br />
of the daughters of Major General<br />
Stanley she is fantastic. Maureen<br />
even stopped hanging over the edge<br />
of the pit to admire her abilities.<br />
Naturally Fred falls head over<br />
heels in love with this vision in the<br />
pretty yellow frock, but there just<br />
<strong>do</strong>esn’t seem to be any chemistry<br />
between them; their love scenes <strong>are</strong><br />
as passionless as the planks of MDF<br />
on the ship. There is a similar problem<br />
during the confrontation scene<br />
between Ruth and Frederick: Ruth<br />
is jealous that her darling boy loves<br />
another, but whilst watching them<br />
one gets the feeling that their hearts<br />
weren’t really in it. Mackay is strong<br />
in her opening solo, but paired with<br />
Frederick the song falls disappointingly<br />
flat.<br />
This was especially true when<br />
the pirates rushed onstage to<br />
capture the girls. I was half expecting<br />
the female chorus to take<br />
their flowered arches and beat the<br />
male crew into submission. It was<br />
a shame this did not happen. It<br />
might have been more interesting.<br />
Again the pace was lifted by Dave<br />
Walton, playing Major-General<br />
Stanley, who stormed the stage<br />
to rescue what could have been<br />
another half baked scene. Walton<br />
puts in a show-stopping display,<br />
blowing previous scenes out of the<br />
Cornish water. He is certainly a<br />
star to watch in future.<br />
The production becomes a far<br />
more exhilarating experience during<br />
the final scenes, and that is not<br />
because it is nearly over. Go and see<br />
a performance of one of Gilbert and<br />
Sullivan’s classics, in a week <strong>do</strong>minated<br />
by new writing and more<br />
sinister offerings, for some strong<br />
performances and a fabulous score,<br />
if for nothing else.<br />
damiaN robErtSoN
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/news<br />
Christ’s<br />
Fry-tening phonecalls<br />
One lucky lady making her<br />
way back to College stopped<br />
by the Van Of Death for a bit<br />
of late night refreshment. A<br />
few days later the diligent<br />
student received a call on her<br />
mobile from a voice who simply<br />
described himself as “the<br />
grease merchant from Death”,<br />
extolling the virtues of her<br />
beauty and extending a Valentine’s<br />
invitation to “the Van”.<br />
The purveyor of Cambridge’s<br />
finest artery-clogging fodder<br />
had somehow managed to procure<br />
her telephone number as<br />
well as her cheesy chips without<br />
the lady remembering anything<br />
of it. No wonder when<br />
one considers the parallels<br />
between fast-food and speeddating.<br />
Trinity Hall<br />
Webbed feat<br />
Cambridge Spies met Cam-<br />
Y<br />
bridge Spider, when having<br />
failed to net a lady, our re- CM<br />
cently single protagonist re-<br />
MY<br />
turned home to find a web-like<br />
structure installed in his room. CY<br />
Strings were suspended be-<br />
CMY<br />
tween various items: the <strong>do</strong>or<br />
handle had been tied to the aer- K<br />
ial of a DAB digital radio, and a<br />
chair had been coupled up with<br />
a copy of Brewer’s Dictionary of<br />
Phrase and Fable. The culprit,<br />
the victim’s ex, was discovered<br />
lying topless on the bed, having<br />
paused thoughtfully between<br />
web-making and sleep to vomit<br />
on the floor.<br />
Robinson<br />
Copping a feel<br />
A Model gentleman, having his<br />
wicked way with a girl beside<br />
a main road, gave the impression<br />
to onlooking motorists that<br />
the copulation was not entirely<br />
mutually agreeable. Thankfully,<br />
our country’s laws deem<br />
unwanted penetration to be illegal,<br />
dubbing it “rape”. The passing<br />
drivers clearly put two and<br />
two together, and immediately<br />
phoned the local constabulary<br />
with some concern. The fuzz<br />
were quick to answer their call,<br />
but unfortunately by the time<br />
of their arrival the gentleman<br />
and his belle had long since disappe<strong>are</strong>d,<br />
presumably to take<br />
their shenanigans to a more appropriate<br />
locale.<br />
C<br />
M<br />
Got a news story?<br />
01223 337575<br />
NEWS<br />
Diplomas may spell end for A-levels<br />
Daisy Belfield<br />
The A-level qualification could soon be<br />
abolished following the introduction of<br />
the new Diploma scheme in September.<br />
Prime Minister Gor<strong>do</strong>n Brown recently<br />
implied that the new Diploma<br />
will be introduced as a replacement<br />
for the old A-level system rather than<br />
as an alternative. His comments were<br />
made in response to concerns that allowing<br />
schools to choose between the<br />
two qualifications will lead to the development<br />
of a two-tier system of education.<br />
Critics fear that the Diploma risks<br />
being regarded as a vocational and less<br />
prestigious alternative to the A-level.<br />
Redgate_Bluesci_fullpage_MD.pdf 04/10/2007 03:07:25<br />
Red Gate Softw<strong>are</strong> Ltd.<br />
St John’s Innovation Centre,<br />
Cowley Road, Cambridge<br />
CB4 0WS United King<strong>do</strong>m<br />
National Schools Secretary Edward<br />
Balls claimed that the Diploma, with its<br />
focus on work experience and emphasis<br />
on combining in-depth theoretical and<br />
practical study of specific subject <strong>are</strong>as<br />
with English, Maths, and ICT, “could<br />
emerge as the jewel of our education<br />
system”. He said that the qualification<br />
could bridge the gulf between the academic<br />
and business worlds.<br />
But support for the new qualification<br />
from leading universities is divided. A<br />
recent BBC survey showed that 38%<br />
of admissions tutors said <strong>they</strong> were<br />
“very unlikely” to accept Diplomas as<br />
a viable alternative to A-levels. However,<br />
it also found that 48% would be<br />
prep<strong>are</strong>d to consider them.<br />
t: +44 (0)870 160 0037 ext.8556<br />
f: +44 (0)870 063 5117<br />
e: c<strong>are</strong>ers@red-gate.com<br />
www.red-gate.com<br />
Cambridge admissions staff seem to<br />
be in favour of the new Diploma. Geoff<br />
Parks, Director of Undergraduate Admissions<br />
at Cambridge and a member<br />
of the Diploma Development Partnership,<br />
has spoken in defense of the new<br />
“A levels can not be<br />
safeguarded beyond<br />
2013”<br />
qualifications. He said “The University<br />
strongly welcomes any moves that<br />
will encourage <strong>you</strong>ng people to study<br />
Your c<strong>are</strong>er is<br />
no laughing<br />
matter.<br />
Red Gate Softw<strong>are</strong> is the ideal place to kick-start <strong>you</strong>r c<strong>are</strong>er.<br />
Ranked 8th in The Sunday Times ‘Best Small Companies to<br />
Work For’, we offer small company culture with big aspirations.<br />
For <strong>you</strong>r opportunity to shine contact us at www.red-gate.com<br />
or call c<strong>are</strong>ers on 01223 438556<br />
ingeniously simple tools<br />
7<br />
the sciences, maths and modern languages<br />
in particular at a higher level.”<br />
He also said: “I anticipate that<br />
many of our academics would welcome<br />
a role in the development of<br />
the Diploma. We have had extensive<br />
input into the Engineering Diploma,<br />
with the goal of ensuring that it will<br />
be a suitably rigorous qualification for<br />
entry into higher education.”<br />
Nearly 40,000 teenagers in 900<br />
schools and colleges around the<br />
country will be participating in the<br />
17 courses offered by the Diploma<br />
scheme when it is introduced this autumn.<br />
Courses will include Construction,<br />
Hair and Beauty, Hospitality,<br />
Public Services and Retail.
8 EDITORIAL&LETTERS<br />
Something to say?<br />
letters@varsity.co.uk<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> has been Cambridge’s independent student newspaper since 1947, and distributes 10,000 free copies to every Cambridge<br />
college and to ARU each week.<br />
Editors Tom Bird and George Grist editor@varsity.co.uk Associate Editors Joe Godsend and Ed Cumming associate@<br />
varsity.co.uk News Editors Tangerine Dowley, Richard Super Power Sayeed and Isabelonabike Shapiro news@<br />
varsity.co.uk Comment Editor Asad Coolness Kiyani comment@varsity.co.uk Features Editors Tash Lennard and<br />
Busta Rhymes features@varsity.co.uk Arts Editors Huge va Gye and we love Patrick Kingsley arts@varsity.co.uk<br />
Sport Editors Henry Standard and Luke Warm Thorne sporteditor@varsity.co.uk<br />
Senior News Reporter Emma Inkstar news@varsity.co.uk Science Editor Kevin Kool science@varsity.co.uk Fashion<br />
Editors Beatrice Perry and Olivia Sudjic fashion@varsity.co.uk Visual Arts Editor Anna Wench visualarts@varsity.<br />
co.uk Theatre Editor Alex Rizzla theatre@varsity.co.uk Literary Editor Ned Hercock literature@varsity.co.uk<br />
Film Editor Ravi Amaratunga film@varsity.co.uk Music & Listings Editors Daniel Cohen, Oli Robinson and Verity<br />
Simpson music@varsity.co.uk, listings@varsity.co.uk Classical Editor Toby Chadd classical@varsity.co.uk Food &<br />
Drink Editor Uncle Monty food@varsity.co.uk<br />
Chief Subeditor Jane Hall production@varsity.co.uk Chief Photo Editor Jason Taylor photoeditor@varsity.co.uk<br />
Chief Photographers Dylan Spencer-Davidson and Lizzie Robinson photos@varsity.co.uk<br />
Business & Advertising Manager The Ringer business@varsity.co.uk Company Secretary Patricia Dalby<br />
secretary@varsity.co.uk Board of Directors Dr Michael Franklin (Chair), Prof Peter Robinson, Tom Walters, Amy<br />
Goodwin (Varsoc President), Chris Wright, Michael Derringer, Joe Gosden, Natalie Woolman, Lizzie Mitchell, Elliot<br />
Ross, Tom Bird, George Grist *Some names have been changed<br />
NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT<br />
Issue 672, 15 February 2008<br />
Row on Williams<br />
It was disappointing to see Dr Rowan Williams heckled outside St Mary’s<br />
Church on Saturday and to receive such vitriolic condemnation in the<br />
national press. At a time of such public disunity and insecurity, his openminded<br />
honesty should have been praised, not chastised. Dr Williams was,<br />
after all, not advocating the radical implementation of the full Islamic penal<br />
code but rather the sensitive treatment of different cultures, of which Islam<br />
is just one, within British and European law. While he must have known<br />
that his couched but convoluted words would have provoked such a hysteric<br />
reaction, he should rightfully be disappointed that yet again Britain’s mass<br />
media has taken what were perfectly reasonable, measured and conciliatory<br />
remarks completely out of context.<br />
The furore has at least reminded us of two important lessons. The first<br />
is obvious; the country’s news outlets, this publication included, <strong>are</strong> too<br />
sensationalist and too eager to kowtow to populist opinion. Unfortunately,<br />
in our celebrity-fuelled and reactionary culture, this is unlikely to change.<br />
The second lesson is more subtle; as a population, we have too weak an<br />
understanding of what Shariah law is. Too many of us still have some hazy<br />
vision of Shariah as one endless string of misogynistic and homophobic<br />
stonings when in fact there is a very great disparity in the execution of<br />
Islamic Law in Muslim societies around the world. While some of the horror<br />
stories may have some credence, and some Shariah laws despicably only<br />
favour men, it is important to remember that in many cases, Shariah law is<br />
restricted to civil rather than criminal cases. Let’s not be so quick to judge a<br />
system which many of us know little about.<br />
NEWSPAPERS<br />
SUPPORT<br />
RECYCLING<br />
Recycled paper made<br />
up 80.6% of the raw<br />
material for UK<br />
newspapers in 2006<br />
<strong>Who</strong>’s who?<br />
Many will be surprised by the widespread ignorance of the identities of<br />
some of the most important members of the university. However, it must<br />
be remembered that it is not necessarily the duty of these people to be in<br />
the public eye. Better for them to be attending to their significant and widereaching<br />
duties with diligence and tact than to be needlessly prominent; this<br />
will only hamper their ability to perform their job. It is when officials pander<br />
to the public that politics is at its worst. Self-promotion should be reserved for<br />
entertainers. Jimmy Carr’s high recognition-rating in this week’s <strong>Varsity</strong> survey<br />
is a testament to the comedian’s success.<br />
More often than not publicity which might improve public knowledge<br />
of officials is indicative of deficiency on their part, or on the part of the<br />
organisation which <strong>they</strong> might represent. If someone’s profile is low, it might<br />
just be the case that <strong>they</strong>’re getting on with their job, and good for them.<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> Publications, Old Examination Hall, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF. Tel 01223<br />
337575. Fax 01223 760949. <strong>Varsity</strong> is published by <strong>Varsity</strong> Publications Ltd. <strong>Varsity</strong> Publications<br />
also publishes BlueSci, The Cambridge Globalist and The Mays. ©2008 <strong>Varsity</strong> Publications Ltd.<br />
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system<br />
or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or<br />
otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. Printed at Mortons Print Ltd — Newspaper<br />
RECYCLING<br />
House, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/news<br />
Le t t e r s letters@varsity.co.uk<br />
Boxing blues<br />
Sir,<br />
Of late, I have received several complaints<br />
from students concerning the conduct of<br />
a “boxing Blue”. Each of them has met a<br />
“boxing Blue” at some point this year, or the<br />
tail end of last, and has phoned to complain<br />
that the “boxer” in question has behaved<br />
in a boorish, arrogant manner at University<br />
events, from college formals to society<br />
squashes.<br />
It is boxing and I expect the lads to be<br />
fairly full of themselves; I’m not looking for<br />
shy, retiring types. But I’m keen to stamp on<br />
behaviour that brings the Club into disrepute.<br />
This particular “Blues boxer” <strong>do</strong>es not<br />
come to mind, and it would seem we have<br />
some mystery boxer out there who is claiming<br />
to be a Blues boxer. A petty offence I<br />
agree, but my lads work very hard to even<br />
get to the final squad of 18 from the 80 that<br />
start, and even then only nine will make<br />
the final cut at the start of March each year.<br />
At that point <strong>they</strong> have given time, effort<br />
and. quite literally, blood, sweat and tears<br />
to make the <strong>Varsity</strong> team. You can imagine<br />
that some sections of the club would be very<br />
unimpressed by a person claiming to be a<br />
boxing Blue, and not just claiming, but wearing<br />
the Blues jacket as well.<br />
Those who have encountered this “boxer”<br />
have said he looks decidedly “weasly”. He<br />
has decl<strong>are</strong>d on various occasions that he is<br />
the “head of sports at Hughes”, a “research<br />
fellow at Eddies”, and “one of the 2006 Blues<br />
boxing team”. He sports a Blues blazer and<br />
is described as having a “foreign-sounding”<br />
name.<br />
In <strong>you</strong>r recent edition <strong>you</strong> “outed” a “fake<br />
student” at Trinity (‘Imposter apprehended<br />
after year-long deceit’, Issue 670), I would be<br />
interested if anyone knows who this “Blues<br />
boxer” is, and if <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong> a fake to either join<br />
the boxing club and actually trial, or give up<br />
claiming to have <strong>do</strong>ne what only 800 people<br />
have ever <strong>do</strong>ne in 100 years of Cambridge<br />
boxing. I am happy to supply the last 100<br />
years worth of names that have received<br />
Blues from CUABC.<br />
Yours faithfully,<br />
Vincent O’Shea,<br />
Coach, CUABC<br />
Hughes errors<br />
Sir,<br />
I was disappointed to read an article in <strong>Varsity</strong><br />
last week (‘“Corruption” at Cambridge’,<br />
Issue 671) that gave space and credence<br />
to the idea that Hughes Hall is somehow a<br />
substandard college involved in jeopardising<br />
a student’s opportunities. The allegations<br />
that <strong>you</strong> reported last week under the ironic<br />
title of “News” <strong>are</strong> nearly 15 years old and<br />
contain serious errors because much of the<br />
article is cut or paraphrased directly from<br />
the diatribe of an embittered former student<br />
of the University. Hughes Hall is a vibrant,<br />
active and dynamic college and from what I<br />
gather from many old members who return<br />
regularly to our May Ball, it has been this<br />
way for many years. It is full of hard-working<br />
and hard-socialising people who enjoy<br />
some of the best accommodation and best<br />
food provided by any Cambridge college.<br />
Keir Shiels,<br />
MCR President,<br />
Hughes Hall<br />
Hunter blatherer<br />
Sir,<br />
In response to Joe Hunter’s ‘Yes’ position in<br />
last week’s varsity debate (‘Are men worth<br />
it?’, Issue 671) could I just say that I have,<br />
as advised, “thought c<strong>are</strong>fully” about why it<br />
is that I would expect my boyfriend to stand<br />
up for me if a drunk tried to grope me and<br />
then called me a “slag”. I would expect him<br />
to stand up for me (not necessarily to “fight<br />
for me” with physical aggression) for the<br />
same reason that I would expect a female<br />
friend to shout “What a fucking cock!” at<br />
the top of her lungs, or take a well-aimed<br />
handbag-swing at him. I would expect<br />
people who c<strong>are</strong> about me to hurl expletives<br />
at predatory sex pests, regardless of their<br />
gender.<br />
Yours faithfully,<br />
Olivia Sudjic,<br />
Trinity Hall<br />
Re: porters<br />
Sir,<br />
I wish to respond to <strong>you</strong>r article reporting<br />
the conviction of the Head Porter of<br />
St John’s (Issue 671). I am particularly<br />
outraged with the closing quotation of the<br />
article: “Now that two have been convicted<br />
of serious offences, we’ve lost all faith in the<br />
St. John’s porters.” First, I have every faith<br />
in the porters and custodians of St. John’s<br />
College; <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong> friendly, helpful and hard<br />
working people who deserve the respect of<br />
students. Second, concerning the “two porters<br />
convicted of serious criminal offences”,<br />
Mr Bailey’s conviction occurred over two<br />
years ago, prior to the student responsible<br />
for this quotation even attending St. John’s.<br />
I have every confidence in Mr Bailey, this<br />
conviction had no impact on his ability to<br />
perform his job, and I suspect it is mortifying<br />
for him to have this indiscretion dredged<br />
up from the distant past. In regard to Mr<br />
Hay, I cannot defend him without knowledge<br />
of the circumstances that surround his conviction;<br />
all I will say is that throughout the<br />
two and a half years that I have known him<br />
he was always approachable and performed<br />
his job with discretion and respect for all.<br />
I will miss seeing him around the college.<br />
Finally, I would like to say thank <strong>you</strong> to all<br />
the porters and custodians at St. John’s, I<br />
appreciate what <strong>you</strong> <strong>do</strong> for this college and<br />
its students, especially at this difficult time.<br />
Yours faithfully,<br />
Alex Wilsham,<br />
St. John’s<br />
Sexual tension<br />
Sir,<br />
In response to Asad Kiyani’s comment piece<br />
(‘Theatre as therapy’, Issue 670), I fail to see<br />
how violence against women (implicitly, by<br />
men) is any different from violence against<br />
men, which would surely be the world’s most<br />
prevalent form of violence if we <strong>are</strong> to divide<br />
by sex.<br />
Domestic violence is not a one-way street,<br />
to mention it only in the light of “violence<br />
against women” is at best ignorant, at worst<br />
dishonest and misandric. It is well <strong>do</strong>cumented<br />
that men and women perpetrate<br />
generalised acts of <strong>do</strong>mestic violence against<br />
each other at equal rates (see Murray A.<br />
Straus’ pioneering work).<br />
The “reclamation” of Valentine’s Day as<br />
a day to remember all the horrible acts of<br />
violence some men have perpetrated against<br />
women <strong>do</strong>wn the years seems as perverse,<br />
negative and narrow-minded as “reclaiming”<br />
Remembrance Sunday as an opportunity for<br />
the glorification of war.<br />
Yours faithfully,<br />
Tom Mason,<br />
Queens’<br />
Write the letter of the week and win a bottle<br />
from our friends at the Cambridge Wine<br />
Merchants
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/comment<br />
De b a t e<br />
Formalising sharia<br />
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s insistence last week that the formalisation<br />
of sharia law was inevitable sparked an outcry across the UK. While Rowan<br />
Williams suggested the integration would be limited, he continued to be<br />
excoriated in the media. <strong>Varsity</strong> Comment asks whether sharia law should<br />
be formally integrated, in the limited fashion suggested by the Archbishop.<br />
Rachelle<br />
Arulanantham Yes<br />
Like many, my initial reaction to<br />
reports that the Archbishop of<br />
Canterbury advocates officially<br />
introducing Sharia law to the UK<br />
was one of bemusement, even outrage. Yet<br />
the more I read, the more I felt a different<br />
outrage – not at the Archbishop, but at the<br />
disparity between his actual speech and the<br />
hysterical, semi-xenophobic reaction by the<br />
public and media.<br />
I have a confession to make. I like to<br />
<strong>think</strong> of myself as a law-abiding British<br />
citizen. Yet I also live according to religious<br />
laws which inform my diet, dress, daily routine,<br />
and behaviour towards others. These<br />
laws <strong>are</strong> not Sharia but Halakha, followed<br />
worldwide by Ortho<strong>do</strong>x Jews.<br />
Like every legal system, Halakha has its<br />
own courts. While smaller courts exist in<br />
the UK, the Lon<strong>do</strong>n Beth Din (est. 1870) is<br />
acknowledged as the overall authority. In<br />
addition to kosher certification, it oversees<br />
marriages, divorces, conversions, and (if<br />
agreed by both parties) cases of civil arbi-<br />
“Muslims and Jews all have<br />
an equal obligation to live<br />
under UK law, as well as by<br />
their own laws. ”<br />
tration between Jews.<br />
These courts operate perfectly legally<br />
under a concession made by English law.<br />
Yet – as seen this week – the average non-<br />
Jewish Brit has never heard of them. This<br />
is understandable. After all, Btei Din have<br />
no impact whatsoever on <strong>you</strong>. There is no<br />
reason why Sharia courts, operating along<br />
the same lines and with the same restrictions<br />
(e.g., no penal cases), can’t work with<br />
the same minimum of fuss. In fact, on an<br />
informal basis, <strong>they</strong> already <strong>do</strong>.<br />
Some have argued<br />
the Archbishop’s<br />
remarks<br />
were naive. Perhaps so. But we must take<br />
the context into account. This was a keynote<br />
academic lecture, in Temple Church,<br />
opening a series of public discussions<br />
entitled ‘Islam in English Law’, suggesting<br />
the issue is already of importance. As<br />
mentioned, informal Sharia courts already<br />
exist, while accommodation is made in<br />
English law for ‘Sharia-friendly’ mortgages<br />
among other things. The Archbishop<br />
specifically discussed whether to further<br />
formalise Sharia’s relationship with English<br />
law, and if so how.<br />
Here, the media has let us all <strong>do</strong>wn. Dr<br />
Williams was widely reported as saying<br />
that some UK citizens ‘<strong>do</strong> not relate<br />
to the British legal system.’ In fact, he<br />
opened his lecture (worth reading in full)<br />
by noting ‘the presence of communities<br />
who, while no less ‘law-abiding’…relate<br />
to something other than the British legal<br />
system alone.’ This distinction is crucial.<br />
Muslims and Jews all have an equal obligation<br />
to live under UK law, as well as by<br />
their own laws – of course, requiring negotiation<br />
when the two conflict, but never<br />
with the aim of ‘trumping’ UK law.<br />
This dialogue can even be helpful. Take<br />
divorce – Jews must obtain a religious divorce<br />
from the Beth Din in order to avoid<br />
future marriage difficulties, but <strong>they</strong> must<br />
also obtain a civil divorce. Furthermore,<br />
thanks to the two systems’ integration,<br />
a woman can withhold the civil decree<br />
absolute if her husband refuses to grant<br />
a religious divorce, helping to resolve difficult<br />
cases for Jewish women.<br />
There may well be similar positives<br />
for formalising Sharia courts in the UK<br />
for matrimonial issues. It is precisely<br />
this recognition of life under two legal<br />
systems and the possibilities for negotiation<br />
between them which the Archbishop<br />
explores – not only for Muslims, but also<br />
the wider religious community.<br />
Interestingly, Muslims’ overall reactions<br />
have been to publicly reject the Archbishop’s<br />
comments. This may be to deflect<br />
Islamophobia, or a genuine acceptance<br />
of the current status quo. However,<br />
unlike Halakha, interpretations of<br />
Sharia currently range widely, with<br />
no real consensus between Britain’s<br />
diverse Muslim communities. While<br />
an authority modelled upon the<br />
Lon<strong>do</strong>n Beth Din could potentially<br />
aid long-term stabilisation,<br />
the complex issues will<br />
require much debate by Islamic<br />
scholars as well as by legal experts.<br />
Ultimately, it will be up to them, not<br />
the Archbishop, to decide the issue of UK<br />
Sharia. More importantly, we should be<br />
open in principle to the idea - not resorting<br />
to a knee-jerk reaction to the worst<br />
aspects of Sharia that, in turn, brings out<br />
the worst in us.<br />
Ed<br />
Maltby<br />
Rowan Williams’ proposals might<br />
seem reasonable enough. He<br />
defends the right of believers to<br />
practice their religion in a secular<br />
society and that the law must take this<br />
seriously: “citizenship in a secular society<br />
should not necessitate the aban<strong>do</strong>ning of<br />
religious discipline, any more than religious<br />
discipline should deprive one of access to<br />
liberties secured by the law of the land, to<br />
the common benefits of secular citizenship”.<br />
Socialists would agree here. We defend<br />
free<strong>do</strong>m of worship, though we steadfastly<br />
oppose religious attacks on other rights and<br />
free<strong>do</strong>ms. A secular society must protect<br />
religious free<strong>do</strong>ms, and its laws shouldn’t<br />
stigmatise or persecute any religious group.<br />
Democracy means minority rights. But Williams’<br />
proposal that democratically-drawn<br />
up, secular law should “loosen its monopolistic<br />
framework” has sinister implications.<br />
Officially-recognised religious courts exist,<br />
like the Jewish-Ortho<strong>do</strong>x Beth Din. Quarrelling<br />
parties can go before a Rabbi, who<br />
will produce a ruling. If both parties decl<strong>are</strong><br />
that <strong>they</strong> agree to abide by the rabbinical<br />
decision, the Beth Din’s ruling is considered<br />
legally binding by UK courts. As the BBC<br />
puts it, “people may legally devise their own<br />
way to settle a dispute in front of an agreed<br />
third party so long as both sides agree to the<br />
process.”<br />
If two free and consenting parties want<br />
to find their own, equitable way of solving<br />
a dispute, that’s fine. But when it comes to<br />
conservative, traditionalist religious communities,<br />
questions of consent <strong>are</strong> far from<br />
clear-cut.<br />
If the Government has given her the option<br />
of going to a Sharia court rather than<br />
to a secular court to settle a marital dispute,<br />
a <strong>you</strong>ng Muslim woman in a close-knit, conservative<br />
community may find herself under<br />
a great deal of pressure to choose an Imam<br />
over a solicitor. A Catholic worker employed<br />
by a member of his diocese, say, who, given<br />
the choice, went to an industrial tribunal to<br />
file a claim against his boss, rather than to<br />
a priest, might find himself shunned<br />
by the rest of his congregation. If<br />
the family of a <strong>you</strong>ng Ortho<strong>do</strong>x Jew<br />
gave her the choice between going to<br />
the Beth Din rather than a secular<br />
court, or being disinherited,<br />
how “free” would her decision<br />
to abide by the rabbinical<br />
ruling be? For marginal and<br />
vulnerable groups (especially<br />
women, gays and apostates)<br />
within conservative religious communities,<br />
it is often hard enough as<br />
it is to stand up to family and priestly<br />
authority: the threats of being disowned<br />
by one’s community and of eternal damnation,<br />
<strong>are</strong> real and traumatic enough. But if<br />
the government were to officially recognise<br />
the pronouncements of unelected religious<br />
Write for this section<br />
comment@varsity.co.uk<br />
DEBATE<br />
No<br />
9<br />
leaders, many people would find themselves<br />
with even less protection.<br />
Williams proposes regulatory bodies of<br />
religious scholars. But who would elect their<br />
members? Other priests. And what if these<br />
bodies started upholding reactionary rulings?<br />
Many religious leaders make a great show<br />
of their ‘cosmopolitan’ credentials whilst<br />
secretly harbouring outright bigoted views.<br />
“How much power would<br />
religious courts want?<br />
How far into society would<br />
religious leaders try to<br />
extend their influence?”<br />
Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim scholar who Williams<br />
appears to consider a moderate, says<br />
that “a Muslim woman cannot marry a man<br />
from another religion”. Sir Iqbal Sacranie,<br />
founding leader of the Muslim Council of<br />
Britain, described homosexuality as “unacceptable”<br />
and comp<strong>are</strong>s it to a disease.<br />
How much power would religious courts<br />
want? How far into society would religious<br />
leaders try to extend their influence? Secularists<br />
cannot afford to be complacent. Religions<br />
r<strong>are</strong>ly voluntarily curb their own power.<br />
When given the chance, as in Spain, Ireland,<br />
the USA and Iran, priests grab power<br />
and <strong>do</strong>n’t let go. In the last couple of years,<br />
Cardinals O’Brien and Murphy O’Connor<br />
have told Catholics how to vote in the general<br />
election, and threatened Catholic MPs with<br />
excommunication if <strong>they</strong> vote the wrong way<br />
on abortion.<br />
The secular free<strong>do</strong>ms we enjoy in society<br />
today weren’t won without a fight, and<br />
religious leaders <strong>are</strong> still determined to claw<br />
back power for themselves. Only a fully secular,<br />
democratic state can defend our rights.<br />
We must defend free<strong>do</strong>m of religion. We<br />
must guard against religious influence<br />
in politics.
10 COMMENT<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> has, of late, been subjected<br />
to a certain amount of censure.<br />
Earnest and indignant members<br />
of the student body have been<br />
launching left, right and centre<br />
into vitriolic tirades against<br />
student journalism. Even the<br />
more moderate dissenters have<br />
expressed relief that the newspaper<br />
provides a solution to their<br />
weekend loo roll shortage.<br />
Criticisms over superfi ciality of<br />
tone, sensationalism of topic and<br />
uselessness of restaurant reviews<br />
<strong>are</strong> always rounded off with a short<br />
snort of derision and exclamations<br />
such as “wittering garbage!” or<br />
“what tosh!”<br />
<strong>Who</strong> c<strong>are</strong>s for competing college<br />
“fi tties” or apocryphal tales told<br />
in euphemistic winks about deans<br />
interrupting anonymous blues<br />
who <strong>are</strong> wetting themselves in the<br />
middle of a threesome with their<br />
bedder and a Big Issue seller on<br />
the dancefl oor of Cindy’s?<br />
In laboratories deep beneath the<br />
university scientists <strong>are</strong> curing<br />
cancer and working out why superglue<br />
<strong>do</strong>esn’t stick to the inside<br />
of the tube, but <strong>Varsity</strong> is too busy<br />
reporting on another JCR squabble<br />
between the ents secretary and<br />
the events offi cer in which insults<br />
were exchanged and digestive<br />
biscuits hurled.<br />
Outside the bubble there <strong>are</strong><br />
wars, recessions and politicians<br />
swimming in scandal. Inside the<br />
bubble the response is a chart<br />
asserting the self-evident fact that<br />
mathmos <strong>do</strong>n’t have sex.<br />
“For any of <strong>Varsity</strong>’s<br />
pragmatic purposes<br />
there is inevitably<br />
another media<br />
outlet <strong>do</strong>ing the job<br />
better”<br />
But what can one expect? If one<br />
wishes to read about the news outside<br />
of a college bop then pick up<br />
a copy of the Cambridge Evening<br />
News, or better still buy a national<br />
newspaper. For informative<br />
and comprehensive reviews the<br />
internet is a seemingly limitless<br />
resource populated by amateur<br />
journalists who <strong>do</strong>n’t spend their<br />
afternoons <strong>think</strong>ing of witty comments<br />
to fi ll the yawning Sunday<br />
theatre space in the weekly View<br />
listings.<br />
In fact for any of <strong>Varsity</strong>’s pragmatic<br />
purposes there is inevitably<br />
another media outlet <strong>do</strong>ing the job<br />
better. Except, of course, for hosting<br />
the self-indulgent scribblings<br />
of the likes of me. And for providing<br />
fodder for lazy columnists who<br />
<strong>think</strong> student shenanigans <strong>are</strong><br />
worthy of mention.<br />
The idea of an article justifying<br />
the existence of <strong>Varsity</strong> within<br />
the hallowed pages of <strong>Varsity</strong> is a<br />
rather pleasing irony. Like holding<br />
a march to defend the right to<br />
protest, except more smug. But<br />
the critics, inevitably sitting and<br />
swilling hearty ales in the corner<br />
of curious pubs which <strong>they</strong> like<br />
because <strong>they</strong>’re not ‘crammed<br />
with undergraduates’, may have a<br />
point. <strong>Varsity</strong> is self-centred and<br />
capricious, but only as much as the<br />
average Cambridge student.<br />
Comment Editor: Asad Kiyani<br />
comment@varsity.co.uk<br />
Katy<br />
Lee<br />
Reports that Tony Blair<br />
is considering a bid for<br />
the EU presidency have,<br />
predictably, met with more<br />
or less universal displeasure. It’s a<br />
kind of Pavlovian response: seven<br />
months after he left offi ce, we still<br />
tend to react with an automatic<br />
antipathy whenever we see him.<br />
Blair’s trouble is that he has not<br />
allowed us enough time to properly<br />
miss him. It may be that, like the<br />
Spice Girls, he will one day be able<br />
to return to the gl<strong>are</strong> and be greeted<br />
only with a wave of nostalgia.<br />
The point is that for this to happen,<br />
he needs to disappear for a while.<br />
It would be acceptable for him to<br />
busy himself by churning out books,<br />
like Churchill, while he waits. It<br />
would be even better if he could<br />
discover a passion for farming, like<br />
Eden. But Blair has declined to<br />
fade into oblivion even temporarily.<br />
Seemingly not content with a<br />
multi-million pound book deal, a<br />
£2.5 million salary from JP Morgan,<br />
and the cash he’s made on the international<br />
conference circuit, he has<br />
felt compelled to stay in the public<br />
eye by becoming the quartet’s Middle<br />
East envoy. He’s now allowing<br />
himself to be touted, app<strong>are</strong>ntly reluctantly,<br />
as a strong candidate for<br />
a job which would involve another<br />
fi ve years of him shaking important<br />
hands and grinning from the pages<br />
of newspapers.<br />
It’s not his attraction to the job<br />
per se that irritates people. It’s<br />
Jacob<br />
Leland<br />
Few people in Britain these<br />
days will dispute the innumerable<br />
advantages that<br />
the liberalisation of free<br />
market structures and closer economic<br />
integration in Europe have<br />
brought, however speak of greater<br />
political integration and most Britons<br />
will react at best with a rather<br />
vague sense of unenthusiasm, but<br />
more frequently with outright<br />
hostility.<br />
When the people in the latter<br />
category <strong>are</strong> pushed for a justifi cation<br />
of their disdain, more often<br />
than not it turns out <strong>they</strong> object<br />
not to the European project in<br />
principle, but rather to Britain being<br />
a part of it.<br />
The view that emerges is one<br />
of polarity and disparity. Britain<br />
somehow stands aloof from the<br />
rest of Europe, as if the tiny sliver<br />
of sea that separates us from the<br />
continent were a vast tumultuous<br />
ocean, an unbridgeable cultural<br />
gulf. One hears statements such as<br />
“We <strong>are</strong> different from Europe”,<br />
or even “Britain is not part of<br />
Europe”, the latter of which surely<br />
would come as a surprise to any<br />
geographer.<br />
The objection to such statements<br />
is twofold. This model of opposition,<br />
which regards Europe as a<br />
single entity, takes no account of<br />
the vast cultural differences found<br />
within Europe. It also ignores the<br />
innumerable similarities between<br />
Britain and our continental neighbours,<br />
which will be obvious for<br />
anyone with even the most cursory<br />
Emperor of the EU<br />
Vain or not, Blair is the best candidate for President<br />
their guess that he only wants it if<br />
turns out to be infl uential and highprofi<br />
le enough. His appetite for the<br />
limelight is seemingly insatiable.<br />
There <strong>are</strong> rumours he is interested<br />
partly because his Middle East job<br />
<strong>do</strong>esn’t afford him enough promi-<br />
nence - he will not play a key role in<br />
this year’s Israeli-Palestinian talks,<br />
and will instead be resigned to the<br />
app<strong>are</strong>ntly more prosaic task of<br />
supporting economic and political<br />
development in Palestine.<br />
The assumption is that he covets<br />
the presidency of the EU Council<br />
because the Lisbon Treaty’s loose<br />
job description suggests the new<br />
president could act as the “face of<br />
Europe”. The only part of the job<br />
that genuinely interests him is “external<br />
representation of the Union<br />
on issues concerning its common<br />
foreign and security policy”. The<br />
patient chairing of tedious meetings<br />
knowledge of Britain’s history.<br />
Those who have perhaps given<br />
the issue marginally more thought<br />
beyond the initial kneejerk reaction<br />
often cite the issue of sovereignty.<br />
The idea is that the EU is<br />
trying, for some reason or other, to<br />
gradually erode Britain’s sovereignty<br />
by stealth until Britain<br />
becomes some sort of vassal state<br />
to Brussels.<br />
The fault in this logic is that the<br />
EU administrative and legislative<br />
structures <strong>are</strong> not composed of<br />
some breed of stateless megalomaniacs,<br />
but by men and women<br />
who, like us, have passports and<br />
national allegiances, and (a minority<br />
of federalists aside) wish to<br />
preserve the sovereign rights of<br />
their mother country, whilst furthering<br />
the cause of pan-European<br />
cooperation.<br />
For instance, why would the<br />
Baltic States, who struggled so<br />
long to achieve independence from<br />
the Soviet Union, immediately<br />
wish to jettison all their sovereign<br />
rights and join another centralised<br />
power bloc?<br />
In most EU countries other than<br />
Britain the question of integration<br />
is simply not controversial. People<br />
from across the political spectrum<br />
support the European project not<br />
due to any Federalist leanings or<br />
over-earnest convictions about the<br />
destiny of our continent, but simply<br />
due to a belief that Europe, and<br />
the constituent countries that form<br />
it, is stronger and more effective<br />
when it acts as a unit.<br />
– central to the job – will not appeal<br />
to him at all. Given the presidency,<br />
Blair will be so preoccupied with<br />
prancing on the world stage that<br />
he’ll neglect his more humdrum<br />
duties.<br />
This is not a fair or helpful assessment<br />
of Blair’s sensibilities. He<br />
may well want the job primarily<br />
because the idea of being the “face<br />
of Europe” appeals to his vanity.<br />
But his penchant for glamour <strong>do</strong>es<br />
not mean he would <strong>do</strong> a bad job in<br />
the EU. If anything, Blair’s anxiety<br />
to secure himself a place in the<br />
history books drove him, during his<br />
premiership, to change Britain and<br />
the world for the better.<br />
Granted, he made wrong,<br />
sometimes disastrous judgements<br />
in attempting to <strong>do</strong> so. But just as<br />
Blair is aw<strong>are</strong> that his reputation<br />
will never recover from Iraq, he is<br />
aw<strong>are</strong> that the stakes of the EU<br />
post could be high. If he is to be the<br />
fi rst full-time Council president, he<br />
will be desperate to be remembered<br />
as a great one – particularly since<br />
this could be his last public job<br />
before he “retires” to give overpriced<br />
lectures in earnest. He has<br />
the talent and experience to go with<br />
the ambition, too. As a seasoned negotiator,<br />
there is no reason why he<br />
could not preside competently over<br />
bargaining within the Council.<br />
It’s unfortunate for Blair there<br />
<strong>are</strong> so many factors suggesting he<br />
won’t get the job. Iraq is the biggest<br />
black mark against his name. The<br />
This brings to mind the third<br />
main criticism, that the EU is<br />
a vast, unwieldy and ineffi cient<br />
bureaucratic monster which gobbles<br />
up our taxes at one end and<br />
defecates useless legislation at the<br />
other.<br />
This is quite far from the reality.<br />
Apart from the pointless waste of<br />
time and resources engendered by<br />
having plenary sessions of the European<br />
Parliament in Strasbourg<br />
and the main negotiations and offi<br />
ces in Brussels, the EU is actually<br />
a very effi cient organisation - only<br />
31,000 people work in the European<br />
Commission, a bureaucratic<br />
institution that serves over half<br />
a billion people. Comp<strong>are</strong> that to<br />
500,000 for the UK Civil Service,<br />
and the fact that much of the ‘red<br />
tape’ that is perceived to come<br />
from the EU in fact comes from<br />
our own administration.<br />
For every directive that the<br />
EU produces, Britain produces<br />
an average of 2.6 implementing<br />
<strong>do</strong>cuments, comp<strong>are</strong>d with only<br />
0.89 in Portugal. In fact, in the past<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/comment<br />
attitude of many of the 14,000 who<br />
have already signed the online petition<br />
against his candidacy is that the<br />
International Criminal Court’s <strong>do</strong>ck<br />
would be a more appropriate place<br />
for him than a smart Brussels offi ce.<br />
French statesmen Valéry Giscard<br />
d’Estaing and E<strong>do</strong>uard Balladur<br />
have both argued that the fi rst<br />
president must come from a country<br />
fully committed to all EU policies,<br />
including the euro. Smaller countries<br />
<strong>are</strong> inevitably wary about key<br />
jobs being fi lled by big shots from<br />
the richest and most powerful EU<br />
members. All in all, given that heads<br />
of EU governments will pick the<br />
president by majority, it’s <strong>do</strong>ubtful<br />
he will come out top.<br />
German Chancellor Angela<br />
Merkel could emerge as a more tolerable<br />
candidate if, as some predict,<br />
she is pushed from offi ce this year.<br />
She <strong>do</strong>es not have Blair’s panache,<br />
but she might meet less resistance<br />
from smaller states than him, and<br />
she generally inspires less abhorrence.<br />
She also carries more clout<br />
on the world stage than Wolfgang<br />
Schüssel or Jean-Claude Juncker,<br />
the other names that <strong>are</strong> being<br />
bandied about.<br />
So Blair will probably see himself<br />
cheated out of this chance to add<br />
another chapter to his memoirs.<br />
But he has plenty of material to be<br />
getting on with already. The most<br />
considerate course of action might<br />
just be to make himself scarce and<br />
get quietly writing.<br />
Pan-European progress<br />
The greater integration of Europe is smart and successful<br />
“This model of<br />
opposition takes no<br />
account of the vast<br />
cultural differences<br />
found within Europe”<br />
ten years the EU has repealed<br />
more directives than it has put on<br />
the statute book, and much of the<br />
legislation that has been produced<br />
is eminently sensible stuff, ensuring<br />
the safety and well-being of<br />
European citizens (and I won’t<br />
even dignify ‘bendy banana’ myths<br />
with a response).<br />
Even where one <strong>do</strong>es not fi nd<br />
antipathy towards the EU, apathy<br />
reigns. A Model European Council<br />
conference is to be held in Cambridge<br />
later this month. In addition<br />
to many overseas participants,<br />
there will be numerous people who<br />
have applied from Cambridge and<br />
other UK universities. Yet the proportion<br />
of these who <strong>are</strong> actually<br />
British is depressingly small.<br />
It seems that the British just<br />
<strong>do</strong>n’t want to be part of the pan-<br />
European decision making process,<br />
which is a pity considering how<br />
much infl uence Britain could have<br />
in Europe if its voice were not<br />
always weakened by infi ghting at<br />
home.<br />
The most precious thing that<br />
the European project has brought<br />
is 60 years of peace and stability<br />
on our continent (which includes<br />
Britain), something our grandp<strong>are</strong>nts’<br />
and great-grandp<strong>are</strong>nts’<br />
generation would not have d<strong>are</strong>d<br />
to hope for.<br />
Given that this project is expanding<br />
both geographically and<br />
in scope and depth, it would be<br />
a great pity for Britain to stand<br />
aloof, beholden to the bizarre<br />
prejudices of some opponents.
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/comment<br />
Edd<br />
Mustill<br />
Since the introduction of tuition fees, and<br />
especially top-up fees in 2006, the idea of<br />
education as a universal right has been<br />
systematically attacked. After next year,<br />
the cap on the amount of money universities<br />
<strong>are</strong> allowed to charge will be raised to an as<br />
yet unspecified amount, and the days of free<br />
university education will seem further away<br />
than ever. Instead, students will be encouraged<br />
to “shop around” for a course that gives them<br />
“value for money” while universities with a better<br />
reputation charge higher fees.<br />
With the introduction of fees in educational<br />
institutions, knowledge becomes a product to<br />
be sold to those that can afford it. This has been<br />
the case for years with private schools and tutors,<br />
which can also prep<strong>are</strong> the children of the<br />
rich for the application processes of Oxbridge.<br />
Already, the proportion of students from lower<br />
income backgrounds applying to university has<br />
suffered from the introduction of fees. At least<br />
three-quarters of undergraduates <strong>are</strong> in debt,<br />
with the average debt by the end of a course<br />
now pushing £20,000.<br />
The news which emerged a couple of weeks<br />
ago, that the country’s top universities have<br />
failed to spend millions of pounds of bursary<br />
money allocated to help poorer students, only<br />
serves to prove that any sort of bursary scheme<br />
is no substitute for a free, publicly funded<br />
education system. Cambridge University<br />
underspent by hundreds of thousands of pounds<br />
equal to 15% of its bursary budget. Overall<br />
at least half of the Russell Group universities<br />
underspent. Here, though, the bursary system<br />
is more complicated than most. There <strong>are</strong><br />
university bursaries, college bursaries, those<br />
arbitrarily awarded to students on a certain<br />
course, from a certain part of the country or<br />
even a particular school.<br />
Meanwhile, proposals to sell off student loans<br />
to the private sector have quietly made their<br />
way through the House of Commons with the<br />
support of government ministers who them-<br />
Write for this section:<br />
comment@varsity.co.uk<br />
Fighting against fees<br />
Despite the NUS’s failings, students can still object to fee hikes<br />
selves benefited from a free university education.<br />
Part by part, from school dinners to the<br />
construction of city academies, the state education<br />
system is being privatised. The introduction<br />
of fees and the marketisation of education<br />
<strong>are</strong> not two separate issues - <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong> inextricably<br />
linked by ideology. The supremacy of the<br />
free market allows our schools to be effectively<br />
bought by businessmen and religious fundamentalists<br />
under the city academies scheme,<br />
and the commodification of learning leads to the<br />
introduction of fees. Free-market capitalism is<br />
an ideology that denies the utility or even existence<br />
of learning for the benefit of society, or<br />
learning for learning’s own sake. It is reasoned<br />
that everything worthwhile must benefit the<br />
individual by better preparing them for the<br />
job market. Everyone must pay their own way<br />
through the system.<br />
In opposition to this is the socialist view of<br />
education, the view that everyone regardless<br />
of their age or background is entitled to learn,<br />
just as <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong> entitled to food, shelter and<br />
health c<strong>are</strong>. These ideas has been mauled by<br />
successive governments but <strong>are</strong> still very much<br />
alive, as shown by the thousands of people who<br />
have marched against hospital cuts in recent<br />
years, or protested against the building of city<br />
academies for fear of a selective education<br />
system developing. Unfortunately, the leadership<br />
of the National Union of Students (NUS)<br />
has given up on this sort of activism. Instead<br />
<strong>they</strong> propose nothing but lobbies of ministers<br />
who consistently ignore them. Their current<br />
slogan of “Keep the cap” concedes defeat in the<br />
ideological argument, and presumes to speak<br />
for all students while <strong>do</strong>ing so.<br />
This attitude is hardly surprising, since the<br />
NUS - at the whim of the leadership - is in the<br />
process of transforming itself from a union into<br />
a charity. Under a proposed new constitution<br />
that will be put to a vote at this year’s annual<br />
conference, unelected non-students would hold<br />
positions on the governing body of the NUS.<br />
In the future, <strong>they</strong> would be able to veto any<br />
student campaigning on financial grounds. Of<br />
course a leadership that has instigated such a<br />
silent coup against the ideals and structure of<br />
the union clearly has no interest in the democratic<br />
involvement of rank-and-file students in<br />
political campaigning. Many of the sabbatical officers<br />
at the top of the union have not even been<br />
students since before the introduction of top-up<br />
fees, instead spending their days progressing<br />
through the bureaucratic full-time hierarchy of<br />
the NUS.<br />
As a result, the self-organisation of students<br />
is vital. February 21 will see the third national<br />
day of action of the Campaign to Defeat Fees,<br />
which last year involved students on over fifty<br />
campuses nationwide. Local victories have<br />
been won against cuts in the public sector,<br />
including proposals to close university faculties.<br />
However, over a national issue like tuition fees,<br />
a co-ordinated national campaign is vital. In the<br />
face of the NUS leadership’s lack of political will<br />
for such a movement, alternatives <strong>are</strong> available.<br />
The first step to winning victories through<br />
campaigning is to break the mental barrier in<br />
so many people’s minds that tells them, “Things<br />
might be bad but there is nothing we can <strong>do</strong><br />
about it”. In the end this will be achieved<br />
through the experience of individuals. The<br />
political culture in most universities mirrors<br />
that of wider society. It is seized and strangled<br />
by a group of professional “politicians” or union<br />
bureaucrats. Grass-roots activism is the cure<br />
for apathy, because it involves people in a direct<br />
form of democracy that many have never before<br />
experienced and because, contrary to popular<br />
belief, it often works. In the long run it is the<br />
only thing that <strong>do</strong>es.<br />
The Campaign to Defeat Fees in Cambridge is<br />
holding a rally at Anglia Ruskin University<br />
at 12 noon on February 21st, and a meeting in<br />
Keynes Hall, King’s College at 5pm.<br />
COMMENT<br />
11<br />
I had never knowingly credited<br />
anyone who possessed hair extensions<br />
with the slightest inclination<br />
towards quick wittedness until last<br />
weekend. I was sitting in Gatwick,<br />
waiting for a plane which - it transpired<br />
- was delayed by four hours.<br />
Small potatoes for one who is<br />
an Idler by trade, and the flâneur<br />
in me was rewarded immediately.<br />
A hairy rhino of a man with a<br />
ripe-brie stomach charged at the<br />
desk from which the offending<br />
announcement had just been made,<br />
bellowing, “Don’t <strong>you</strong> know who I<br />
am ?”<br />
His peroxide target operating<br />
the Tannoy system evidently did<br />
not. Looking coolly at him for a<br />
moment, and being unable to place<br />
his bloated, bristly face in any<br />
recent reality show, she bent <strong>do</strong>wn<br />
toward her microphone and said,<br />
with a certain chutzpah found only<br />
by those who have lived in Slough,<br />
“A man at gate 24 appears to have<br />
forgotten his identity, anyone able<br />
to assist him, please come to the<br />
front of the queue.” Such is the<br />
danger of celebrity shelf-life.<br />
I always find it immensely gratifying<br />
to see a celebrity expending<br />
their last reserves of battery power<br />
in a flailing bid to remain famous<br />
by suddenly becoming ‘useful’<br />
- <strong>think</strong> former pop stars who now<br />
<strong>do</strong> adverts for thrush cream. It is a<br />
wonder (and yet a delight) that no<br />
one at Kellogg’s bothered to inform<br />
Ian Wright/ Jo Frost/ Philippa<br />
Forrester before <strong>they</strong> began their<br />
arduous scientific research into<br />
the conundrum of the cabalistic<br />
cornflake, that their findings (little<br />
Sandeep, who eats cereal, is<br />
less likely, by and large - if <strong>you</strong>’ll<br />
excuse the pun - to have a successful<br />
c<strong>are</strong>er in sumo-wrestling than<br />
Brunhilda, who skips breakfast but<br />
eats her own bodyweight in lard<br />
each day) would hardly warrant a<br />
cry of eureka.<br />
C<strong>are</strong>er-grafting is r<strong>are</strong>ly successful,<br />
as shown by the episode of<br />
Arrested Development in which<br />
Tobias’ entrepreneurial combination<br />
of Analyst and Therapist<br />
produces a business card which<br />
reads Analrapist.<br />
It baffles me why these damp<br />
squibs <strong>do</strong>n’t just kick the bucket<br />
and cruise into ambrosial retirement;<br />
an infomercial is surely as<br />
jarring a death knell as any. Even<br />
us mere mortals who must feed the<br />
hungry maw of a mortgage know<br />
when to quit, and, more importantly,<br />
how to quit.<br />
Only yesterday on a walk back<br />
from Grantchester I witnessed<br />
every pensioner’s idyll. For a moment<br />
I thought I had accidentally<br />
trespassed on a WOMAD rehearsal<br />
as a band of about thirty wheatshod<br />
OAPs (half of whom were<br />
romping in the sunlit fields, the<br />
other half constructing a defensive<br />
fort, some in armour, some in fulllength<br />
white velour cloaks, most<br />
brandishing wooden swords, and<br />
one wielding an axe) were busily<br />
recreating some kind of Arthurian<br />
battle to the warblings of a<br />
minstrel in a leather jerkin. This<br />
beatific vision - only tarnished by<br />
the presence of a few Warhammer<br />
enthusiasts, whose pock-marked<br />
faces crusted with fake blood,<br />
resembled bits of biltong - is how<br />
retirement should be, and someone<br />
should find that mystery Gatwick<br />
rhino and tell him before he hones<br />
his expertise in plasma lipids and<br />
takes over Carol Vorderman’s<br />
Benecol adverts.
CUSU ELECTIONS<br />
W h a t d o y o u s t a n d f o r ?<br />
Ents<br />
Cambridge University<br />
Students’ Students’ Union<br />
Union<br />
Ents<br />
Nominations open Midday Wednesday 20th February.<br />
www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/union/elections<br />
www.cambridgerag.org.uk/fashionshow
“I used to <strong>do</strong> things like<br />
put Coco Puffs<br />
up my ass”<br />
JA C K BL A C K - PA G E 23<br />
Editor of Vogue, Alexandra Shulman<br />
Page 19<br />
Mountain Goats interview<br />
Page 20<br />
A Cambridge Casanova on love poetry<br />
Page 22<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk<br />
VIEW
14<br />
VIEWFeatures<br />
Phil is a 4th year Linguist and<br />
Sarah is a 3rd year Economist<br />
Features Editors: Tash Lennard and Josh Sutton<br />
features@varsity.co.uk<br />
Shackleton and Scott’s<br />
ECCENTRIC EVENINGS<br />
is Week: Lindy hop<br />
Mr Shackleton and Mr Scott invite <strong>you</strong> on a journey into<br />
Cambridge’s strangest subcultures<br />
Back in the 20s, ‘Scott Scotty’ Scott and<br />
‘Boogaloo’ Shackleton were quite the fi xtures<br />
on the hip circuit. We ate jazz, slept<br />
jazz and breathed in jazz cig<strong>are</strong>ttes. We could<br />
<strong>do</strong> the Double Bugg better than Hebert ‘Whitey’<br />
White, pulled out the Collegiate Shag with our<br />
eyes closed and spoke a mean jive to boot. So we<br />
Jumpin’ Joe’d at the chance<br />
to iron our spats and hot foot<br />
it <strong>do</strong>wn the Norfolk Road for<br />
a night of Lindy Hopping.<br />
Granted, it had been a<br />
while since those heady days,<br />
so we enrolled ourselves in<br />
the absolute beginners’ class.<br />
Unfortunately, Cambridge’s<br />
premiere Lindy Hop venue,<br />
The Man On The Moon is no<br />
Renaissance Ballroom. The<br />
classes take place in a grotty<br />
gig room, which was met with<br />
disapproval by our canny accomplice,<br />
the Viscount. A quick glance around the<br />
clientele revealed a wide range of ages, with some<br />
looking like relics of our uptown days.<br />
Our instructors were an eager pair from the<br />
other side of the Atlantic. Their low-key appearance<br />
gave no hint of their considerable lindy<br />
prowess, and their initial demonstration elicited a<br />
frightened murmur from Scott. The Viscount and<br />
I, however, were made of sterner stuff, and braced<br />
Face Off<br />
ey’re fi t, <strong>you</strong>’re fi ckle. <strong>Who</strong>’s fi tter? ere’s the pickle<br />
Round 3: Queens’ versus Pembroke<br />
Omar is a 1st year Engineer and<br />
Milli is a 1st year Lawyer<br />
To vote for Queens’,<br />
To vote for<br />
LAST WEEK’S RESULT:<br />
Text ‘<strong>Varsity</strong> Queens’<br />
to 60300.<br />
Pembroke, Text<br />
‘<strong>Varsity</strong> Pembroke’<br />
to 60300.<br />
Magdelene 40%<br />
Standard network charges apply.<br />
ourselves for our fi rst lesson.<br />
Thankfully, our instructors went easy on us,<br />
breaking us in with the Charleston Step. The<br />
Viscount scoffed at the move’s simplicity: at its<br />
best, the Charleston Step looks like a stylish walk<br />
backwards and forwards. However, it is precisely<br />
co-ordinated to 8 beats, and both Scott and I had<br />
lost our Jazz-Age smoothness.<br />
Things were quickly complicated<br />
by the addition of a dance partner.<br />
My long limbs, never allies of grace,<br />
proved tough to keep up with, and<br />
Scott was simply terrifi ed by close<br />
female contact. Just as we began to<br />
feel comfortable with our progress,<br />
the instructors threw a spanner<br />
into the works by adding the Face-<br />
To-Face Charleston. This move<br />
involved pushing one’s partner into<br />
position while keeping time and,<br />
more importantly, a cool demeanour.<br />
Our abilities only led to a lot<br />
of shoving and tussling, but without the hoped-for<br />
frisson.<br />
Scott’s face said it all – we had failed to master<br />
the Charleston or any of its variants. Despite<br />
offers to swing the night away, we retreated and<br />
headed to the Viscount’s mansion to drown our<br />
sorrows in his moonshine.<br />
For information on Lindy-Hopping classes in<br />
Cambridge, go to www.cambridgelindy.com<br />
Cumming On<br />
a Treadmill<br />
I<br />
have recently taken up exercise,<br />
in the allegedly ‘mild’<br />
form of occasional jogging.<br />
This is largely because I am<br />
overweight, obviously. There <strong>are</strong><br />
only two sorts of people who go<br />
jogging: fat people who want to<br />
be thinner, and crazy people.<br />
Ask <strong>you</strong>rself, when <strong>you</strong> get<br />
home, which category <strong>you</strong> fall<br />
into, and adjust <strong>you</strong>r spiritual<br />
self-worth accordingly.<br />
However, it is also partially<br />
because I <strong>think</strong> it’s good to try<br />
everything once, with the obvious<br />
exceptions of Dr Pepper and<br />
bungee jumping (the former<br />
because I am engaged in legal<br />
proceedings with the company<br />
over the exact sense of the word<br />
‘misunderstood’, and the latter<br />
simply because as a concept I<br />
<strong>think</strong> it’s madder than a bin full<br />
of Britney).<br />
Although this said, it might<br />
be more accurate to say that<br />
exercise has taken up me. Certainly<br />
it feels like I’m the one<br />
being lifted, and then dropped,<br />
heavily, back to the fl oor again,<br />
and certainly I’m the charitable<br />
case in the exchange. Exercise<br />
<strong>do</strong>esn’t owe me anything, whilst<br />
I, over the years, have clocked<br />
a number of savage crimes<br />
against exercise. For instance,<br />
just last weekend I visited three<br />
restaurants within two hours,<br />
just for fun.<br />
Two things I have noticed on<br />
these tentative jogs <strong>are</strong> that my<br />
heart beats faster, and hurts,<br />
and that my breathing becomes<br />
shorter and less effective. In<br />
fact, it often feels like I might<br />
actually be damaging myself,<br />
rather than making myself<br />
better, through this effort of<br />
self-improvement, which is not<br />
what I envisioned at all. What I<br />
envisioned, originally, was that<br />
I would hop to Parker’s Piece,<br />
have a Pizza Hut for lunch, jog<br />
back, look in the mirror and<br />
watch, enthralled, as my vision<br />
improved and my musculature<br />
defi ned itself, not unlike the<br />
scene in the fi rst of the recent<br />
Hollywood adaptations of the<br />
Peterhouse 60%<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/features<br />
comic series ‘Spiderman’.<br />
You can only imagine how<br />
frustrating it was when it didn’t<br />
happen at all like that. After<br />
jogging to Parker’s Piece, I was<br />
sweating so profusely that I had<br />
to sit on a bench, where quickly<br />
the perspiration caused my ambitiously<br />
sleeveless Nike t-shirt<br />
to mould rather exactly the<br />
contours of my upper torso. This<br />
unfortunate state of affairs,<br />
combined with my sedentary<br />
posture, made aspects of my<br />
anatomy somewhat resemble<br />
those of a lady, a fact not lost on<br />
a quintet of passing schoolchildren,<br />
who demonstrated both a<br />
surprising boldness with their<br />
elders and an extensive, readily<br />
available vocabulary of biological<br />
terminology.<br />
After a few minutes sat on the<br />
bench, whilst I thought about<br />
how <strong>they</strong> collectively resembled<br />
nothing so much as a hive of<br />
miniature, navvy Gor<strong>do</strong>n Ramsays,<br />
and how Gor<strong>do</strong>n Ramsay’s<br />
face resembles a sphincter, I<br />
composed myself enough for<br />
lunch as <strong>they</strong> scampered on<br />
their merry way, presumably to<br />
set fi re to a <strong>do</strong>g turd, or loiter in<br />
a newsagent’s all at the same<br />
time. I wandered up with customary<br />
joie de vivre, only to be<br />
turned away from the <strong>do</strong>or, mysteriously<br />
on grounds of ‘o<strong>do</strong>ur’.<br />
My pleas for clemency, and even<br />
offers of eating in the loo, cut no<br />
mustard.<br />
It was really quite depressing.<br />
I’m not sure if any of my erstwhile<br />
readers have ever been<br />
turned away from a Pizza Hut<br />
on grounds of o<strong>do</strong>ur, or even<br />
been turned away from chain<br />
pizza joints at all, but I ought<br />
to warn <strong>you</strong> that at the time, it<br />
feels like a relatively low sociocultural<br />
limbo pole to master.<br />
This is particularly the case if,<br />
like me, <strong>you</strong> pride <strong>you</strong>rself on<br />
only ever having been banned<br />
from a fast-food restaurant<br />
once, the result of a misunderstanding<br />
over the exact sense of<br />
the phrase ‘Dr Pepper’.<br />
I jogged on.<br />
Muscular Spiderman: not<br />
the result of jogging
Welcome to<br />
Varsitopoly<br />
<strong>you</strong> will need:<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
dice (a pair is preferable)<br />
A large cup to place in the middle<br />
of the board<br />
Alcohol. for six players, we recommend:<br />
6 beers (1 each)/large glass of wine each;<br />
4 shots of spirits each. for maximum<br />
enjoyment, it is recommended that these<br />
drinks can be refilled when finished.*<br />
cut out the counters below, roll the dice<br />
to decide which player begins, and move<br />
around the board, performing the challenges<br />
demanded of <strong>you</strong> by the squ<strong>are</strong>s<br />
<strong>you</strong> land on. if <strong>you</strong> land on chance, roll one<br />
dice again, and according to the number<br />
<strong>you</strong> roll, all players follow the appropriate<br />
instructions given in the middle of the<br />
board. the game ends when the alcohol is<br />
finished/ when every player is sufficiently<br />
inebriated. the winner is the player who<br />
can then walk in the straightest line. enjoy.<br />
* <strong>Varsity</strong> reminds <strong>you</strong> to drink responsibly<br />
Cut-out counters<br />
add to<br />
cup<br />
<strong>do</strong> AN impressioN<br />
of<br />
A fAmous<br />
persoN<br />
briNg AN<br />
item from<br />
outside iN<br />
tAke off<br />
AN item of<br />
clothiNg<br />
pAy A girl A<br />
complimeNt<br />
iNterNAtioNAl<br />
rules of<br />
imbibemeNt<br />
<strong>you</strong> mAy go<br />
to the loo<br />
pull out this spread for <strong>you</strong>r full Varsitopoly Board game<br />
oxford<br />
one<br />
finger<br />
one<br />
finger<br />
one<br />
finger<br />
one<br />
finger<br />
one<br />
finger<br />
one<br />
finger<br />
Add to cup<br />
ChurChill robinSon ChanCE girTon Kambar homErTon ChanCE nEwnham nEw hall<br />
one<br />
finger<br />
two<br />
fingers<br />
CaTz PETErhouSE ChanCE magdalEnE vodKa rEvS <strong>do</strong>wning ChanCE SElwyn fiTz<br />
TaKE a ChanCE<br />
roll ThE diCE<br />
1 - 20 PluS onES<br />
2 - waTErfall<br />
3 - add To CuP<br />
4 - i havE nEvEr<br />
5 - buSTa-rhymE<br />
6 - CaTEgoriES<br />
TriniTy ST John’S King’S Emma Soul TrEE QuEEnS’ ChanCE JESuS CaiuS<br />
three<br />
shots<br />
two shots<br />
collAr up<br />
place<br />
cup<br />
here<br />
one shot<br />
kiss the persoN<br />
to <strong>you</strong>r<br />
(politicAl)<br />
left<br />
two<br />
fingers<br />
one shot<br />
Not got A<br />
first?<br />
<strong>do</strong>uble<br />
the shot<br />
Add to cup<br />
Add to cup<br />
kiss the persoN<br />
to <strong>you</strong>r<br />
(politicAl)<br />
right<br />
two<br />
fingers<br />
four<br />
fingers<br />
All toAst to<br />
the queeN<br />
<strong>you</strong>r mAy<br />
bAll is<br />
cANcelled.<br />
miss A go<br />
two<br />
fingers<br />
four<br />
fingers<br />
two<br />
fingers<br />
four<br />
fingers<br />
PEmbroKE ClarE ChanCE ChriST’S CindiES SidnEy ChanCE CorPuS TiT hall<br />
Add to cup<br />
three<br />
fingers<br />
three<br />
fingers<br />
three<br />
fingers<br />
three<br />
fingers<br />
truth, d<strong>are</strong><br />
or drink<br />
four<br />
fingers<br />
three<br />
fingers<br />
go To<br />
oxford<br />
add to<br />
cup<br />
group hug<br />
drink<br />
the cup<br />
Some rules<br />
explained:<br />
20 plus ones<br />
Play starts by the elected player<br />
saying “To my left/right”. He may<br />
then say “1”, “1,2” or “1,2,3”, and<br />
subsequent players continue the<br />
count. If two numbers <strong>are</strong> said (“a<br />
<strong>do</strong>uble”), play reverses direction. If<br />
three numbers <strong>are</strong> said (“a triple”)<br />
play skips a player. If a player speaks<br />
out of turn, says a <strong>do</strong>uble after a<br />
<strong>do</strong>uble or a triple after a triple, he/<br />
she must drink. Every time 21 is<br />
reached (it must be said “twenty plus<br />
one”), the player who says it must<br />
drink and add a new rule for future<br />
games (all multiples of 5 must be<br />
cheeses, etc).<br />
Categories<br />
The elected player <strong>think</strong>s of a<br />
category, then each player must<br />
name something belonging to this<br />
category. He/she who fails or pauses<br />
msut drink.<br />
Proposed to the left/right.<br />
The elected player chooses a category<br />
(cheeses, European countries,<br />
wrestlers etc) and each subsequent<br />
player must choose a different<br />
example from that category. He/she<br />
who fails, drinks.<br />
International Rules of<br />
Imbibement<br />
No swearing, no first names, no<br />
pointing and no mention of the word<br />
“drink” in any capacity.<br />
Waterfall<br />
Play starts with the phrase “I propose<br />
a waterfall to my left/right” followed<br />
by the elected player starting to<br />
drink. As long as the person to <strong>you</strong>r<br />
corresponding side is drinking,<br />
so must <strong>you</strong> be - simple as that.<br />
Particularly damaging for the player<br />
to the opposite side of the initial<br />
drinker<br />
I Have Never<br />
Once round the table - each player<br />
decl<strong>are</strong>s something he/she has never<br />
<strong>do</strong>ne. Anyone who has <strong>do</strong>ne the deed<br />
has to drink.<br />
Busta-Rhyme<br />
Proposed to the left/right. The<br />
elected person says a word, and<br />
each subsequent player must say a<br />
different, real, rhyming word. He/she<br />
who fails, drinks.<br />
pull out this spread for <strong>you</strong>r full Varsitopoly Board game
16<br />
VIEWFashion<br />
Fashion Editors: Beatrice Perry & Olivia Sudjic<br />
fashion@varsity.co.uk<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
Write for this section:<br />
varsity.co.uk/fashion varsity.co.uk/fashion<br />
fashion@varsity.co.uk VIEWFashion 17<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
Back B<br />
TO<br />
ALL SUITS AND GLASSES, MODEL’S OWN<br />
GEORGIA WEARS SEQUINED DRESS, ZARA SALE, £5.95<br />
MODELS: GEORGIA WARD DYER AND, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT,<br />
MAX KIRCHHOFF, LUCAS KRUPP, TRISTAN HAMBLETON, FRANCIS WILLIAMS, JASON PAVER, BENJ WALTON AND JAMES WOMERSLEY<br />
PHOTOGRAPHER: JAMES POCKSON<br />
lack<br />
C O U T U R E<br />
C R I T I Q U E<br />
U.G.G.L.Y.<br />
You ain’t got no alibi. You ugly.<br />
On the whole I try not to read the fashion<br />
pages, let alone write them. They’ve always<br />
seemed to me to be a frustrating combination<br />
of the inane and the hurtful, sprinkled gently<br />
with the visually depressing. Each picture<br />
of somebody beautiful wearing a brown coat<br />
is another beautiful person wearing a brown<br />
coat that isn’t me, or even wanting to step out<br />
to the pictures with me, which is the perennially<br />
acceptable alternative. Fashion pages, in<br />
general, <strong>are</strong> to my mind the print equivalent<br />
of having a big mirror above my bed, emblazoned<br />
with the lyrics from Ludacris’ 2002 hit<br />
‘Move Bitch’.<br />
Aside from anything else, fashion pages<br />
imply that there might be something wrong<br />
with the way I’m presently dressed, which is a<br />
nasty thought from which only bad things can<br />
come. Appearance, as <strong>they</strong> say, is in the eye<br />
of the beholder (a fact convincingly reiterated<br />
by provincial dancefl oors and the continued<br />
employment of David Schwimmer), and I like<br />
to <strong>think</strong> it’s all a matter of personal taste, like<br />
how <strong>you</strong> take <strong>you</strong>r fried eggs (on the chin, in<br />
my case).<br />
Unfortunately, Ugg boots <strong>are</strong> terrible. I<br />
know this because I have seen them, frequently,<br />
a<strong>do</strong>rning the feet of girls (and one boy) who<br />
ought to know better. Footwear, like many of<br />
the more basic innovations, occurs because<br />
it is appropriate to its environment. Football<br />
boots, for instance, <strong>are</strong> popular amongst people<br />
playing, or at least intending to play, football.<br />
In the same vein fl ippers <strong>are</strong> used more<br />
often by people swimming than people walking<br />
on dry land.<br />
The Ugg boot, according to Wikipedia, the<br />
well-known shapeshifting encyclopaedia, was<br />
invented in Australia by sheep farmers, who<br />
had both ready access to sheep and very infrequent<br />
contact with other people, other people<br />
who might notice that <strong>they</strong> had a mammoth’s<br />
muff strapped to each ankle. Later on<br />
the boots were a<strong>do</strong>pted by fi ghter pilots, who<br />
had a need for warmth in an unpressurized<br />
environment, and for whom other people were<br />
also less of a problem (I suppose it could be<br />
argued that in many ways ‘other people’ <strong>are</strong><br />
the problem if <strong>you</strong>’re a fi ghter pilot. Them and<br />
missiles).<br />
None of these factors is applicable to the<br />
modern high street, which has both a proliferation<br />
of other people and also a marked absence<br />
of sheep and missiles. And although it<br />
can get really quite crowded of a Christmastime<br />
Saturday afternoon, Topshop still has a<br />
little way to go before it matches the climatic<br />
extremes of, say the Australian outback, or<br />
the Korean War. Wearing an Ugg boot in a<br />
modern, urban environment, with its wealth<br />
of other possible footwear choices, says three<br />
things of the we<strong>are</strong>r: a) I am not only a sheep,<br />
I am, like, wearing one. b) I have too high a<br />
disposable income for someone of my taste<br />
and judgement. c) I have not yet learned to<br />
fully appreciate the gift of sight.<br />
Still, it’s diffi cult to know exactly what to<br />
<strong>do</strong> to fi x the issue. My original plan was to<br />
blind everyone who owned a pair, until it was<br />
pointed out to me that not being able to see<br />
would make it more diffi cult to dress oneself,<br />
and so the easy to slip-on Uggs would gain<br />
ground. My second was to invest in a pair<br />
myself in a fi t of self-serving hypocrisy. The<br />
third was to ignore them, and hope <strong>they</strong> will<br />
eventually go away.<br />
Ed Cumming
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/features<br />
On the train to Kings Cross<br />
it becomes evident that<br />
one nervous member of<br />
our expedition to meet Alexandra<br />
Shulman is not going<br />
to make it. A fellow passenger<br />
(male) watches with obvious<br />
enjoyment as we flummoxed<br />
technophobe females attempt<br />
to resuscitate our Dictaphone,<br />
which is having seizures on an<br />
operating table littered with<br />
editions of Vogue. We take out<br />
the batteries. Panicked, we put<br />
them back in. The Dictaphone<br />
flat-lines.<br />
It is at this precise moment<br />
that every introduction <strong>you</strong><br />
have ever read to almost every<br />
interview with Alexandra Shulman,<br />
the editor of British Vogue,<br />
comes in useful. She is ‘Normal’.<br />
Good. She is not like Anna<br />
Wintour. Better. She is not like<br />
Miranda Priestly (the editor in<br />
The Devil Wears Prada). Better<br />
still. She goes to Queen’s Park<br />
Rangers matches. Marvelously<br />
soothing; a QPR supporter has<br />
to be understanding of failure.<br />
Unfortunately such comforts<br />
begin to wane immediately upon<br />
entering Vogue House.<br />
By the time the lift <strong>do</strong>or<br />
opens on the fifth<br />
floor and we<br />
<strong>are</strong> met by<br />
what we<br />
hope is a<br />
supermodel,<br />
but<br />
turns out to be Alexandra’s<br />
Amazonian assistant, we <strong>are</strong><br />
starting to feel grossly misled.<br />
The corri<strong>do</strong>rs <strong>are</strong> lined with<br />
rails of Marni dresses. Jimmy<br />
Choos <strong>do</strong> overflow from every<br />
crevice. We have already seen a<br />
lot of orchids.<br />
When we timidly inform<br />
Alexandra that the Dictaphone<br />
is not working, her response is<br />
“Well, it probably is. That’s not<br />
very promising”, and we agree<br />
with her, at once. So, was the<br />
editor of the most successful<br />
Condé Nast title (who has seen<br />
circulation climb steadily from<br />
170,000 when she started in<br />
1992 to over 220,000 now, and<br />
was rewarded with an OBE in<br />
2005) never a poorly organised<br />
student herself? It <strong>do</strong>esn’t seem<br />
likely; “even though I never had<br />
any plans set in stone of what<br />
I wanted to be, I never recall<br />
<strong>think</strong>ing: Oh help, what am I<br />
going to <strong>do</strong>?”<br />
She <strong>do</strong>es, however, have sympathy<br />
with the current studentgeneration:<br />
“It’s harder and<br />
more competitive now. I was<br />
very lucky when I left Sussex –<br />
In those days, if <strong>you</strong> wanted a<br />
job, <strong>you</strong> could pretty much<br />
get it with a certain<br />
amount of effort.Nowadays<br />
it<br />
takes<br />
a lot<br />
longer and is a lot harder”.<br />
There is nothing remotely<br />
granddame about Shulman, no<br />
ice-queen aura, but equally, no<br />
nonsense. She is disarmingly<br />
frank about her c<strong>are</strong>er, citing<br />
“the motivation to make money”<br />
as one of the driving forces be-<br />
hind her success. “I have always<br />
been motivated by earning<br />
money. I still am.” Shulman sees<br />
her work as a day job, rather<br />
than what defines her as a person.<br />
“As far as possible I like to<br />
keep stuff at the office separate<br />
from stuff at home – I’m very<br />
good at being strict with myself<br />
and compartmentalising”. The<br />
majority of her friends <strong>are</strong> not<br />
in the fashion industry.<br />
“In some ways that is one<br />
of my main regrets”, she says<br />
slowly, “I have not made many<br />
close relationships through<br />
work.” We point out that this<br />
may be because Shulman considers<br />
herself first and foremost<br />
a journalist, and not an air-kissing<br />
fashion maven. Condé Nast<br />
hired her not because she was a<br />
fashion editor (she had no fashion<br />
background), but because<br />
she was a strong editor.<br />
“Perhaps it is because I didn’t<br />
have any experience in fashion<br />
when I came to Vogue that I<br />
still feel like I’m learning all<br />
the time. I still feel slightly<br />
new”. So being the editor of<br />
Vogue <strong>do</strong>esn’t mean <strong>you</strong>r primary<br />
interest has to be fashion?<br />
“No. And it’s the same with<br />
everything; whilst working<br />
at GQ I didn’t know<br />
anything about Formula-1<br />
cars, but a good editor<br />
knows whether a piece of<br />
writing has an energy about<br />
it.” So was it hard being at<br />
the helm of a men’s magazine?<br />
“Not really. In those days there<br />
wasn’t pressure to put halfnaked<br />
girls on the front cover.<br />
People were still optimistic<br />
that men’s magazines could<br />
be sold without pin-ups”.<br />
Before working at GQ,<br />
Shulman worked at Tatler,<br />
and before that as women’s<br />
editor of The Sunday<br />
Telegraph.<br />
When asked about her<br />
brief stint in newspapers<br />
she is quick to reply “I’ve<br />
always preferred magazines<br />
because I always<br />
liked working on the<br />
visual side of things. On a<br />
magazine like Vogue <strong>you</strong><br />
can really spend time getting<br />
the pages right.”<br />
She may not miss<br />
newspapers, but Shulman<br />
speaks wistfully of the days<br />
Write for this section:<br />
features@varsity.co.uk<br />
when she was a rather more<br />
anonymous journalist; being<br />
able to slump at her desk and<br />
not having to speak, concentrating<br />
solely on the creative side of<br />
a magazine, rather than getting<br />
bogged <strong>do</strong>wn with budgets. “I <strong>do</strong><br />
miss being invisible, not always<br />
by any means, but certainly<br />
there <strong>are</strong> times when it would<br />
be nice if people left <strong>you</strong> to it.’”<br />
We wonder whether she ever<br />
gets the urge to <strong>do</strong> the writing<br />
and interviewing herself.<br />
“I interviewed Kate Moss last<br />
April. It takes a totally different<br />
part of my brain to editing, it’s a<br />
much more egocentric thing”.<br />
What about if she weren’t<br />
<strong>do</strong>ing her present job, we ask,<br />
what would she be <strong>do</strong>ing?<br />
“Nothing”, says Shulman. “Oh.<br />
So there really isn’t anything<br />
else <strong>you</strong>’d rather <strong>do</strong> than edit<br />
Vogue?” This, it transpires, is<br />
not what she means. She means<br />
she would literally <strong>do</strong> nothing.<br />
“I love the idea of waking up<br />
in the morning and not having<br />
anything planned for that day<br />
at all. But of course I love my<br />
job as well, and in terms of a<br />
c<strong>are</strong>er, there isn’t anything else<br />
I could imagine <strong>do</strong>ing”.<br />
Shulman has <strong>do</strong>ne this a<br />
few times during the interview.<br />
At one moment she is wildly<br />
enthusiastic, citing Miuccia<br />
Prada, Karl Lagerfeld and the<br />
Princess of Wales as just some<br />
of the interesting people she has<br />
got to meet through her work,<br />
the next she is claiming “I’m<br />
not emotional about working at<br />
Vogue. The rest of my life is very<br />
emotional, but I <strong>do</strong>n’t bring that<br />
into the office”. She loves her<br />
job, but she loves dinner parties<br />
and holidays with friends more.<br />
“I <strong>do</strong>n’t <strong>think</strong> of myself as the<br />
editor of Vogue. I wasn’t always<br />
the editor, and I won’t always<br />
be the editor, so it’s lucky that I<br />
<strong>do</strong>n’t”.<br />
But for all her ‘compartmentalising’,<br />
Shulman <strong>do</strong>es, of<br />
course, know that she is on to<br />
a good thing, so good that she’s<br />
kept at it for 16 years. “When I<br />
came to vogue the market had<br />
changed quite a lot. There was<br />
a pressure to <strong>do</strong> something with<br />
Vogue to make it more accessible<br />
- it was felt that it was<br />
too elitist and too r<strong>are</strong>fied, that<br />
it was just about the fashion<br />
industry.”<br />
Shulman says <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong> now<br />
toying with the idea of including<br />
an increased lifestyle<br />
section, instructing people on<br />
how to throw fabulous dinner<br />
parties and so on, but nothing<br />
radical is planned. “To be<br />
honest I <strong>think</strong> things <strong>are</strong> going<br />
very well as <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong>”. She adds<br />
this with characteristic confidence<br />
but not the slightest bit<br />
of arrogance. And, of course,<br />
she’s right.<br />
VIEWFeatures<br />
La vie en Vogue<br />
Our fashion editors, Olivia Sudjic and Beatrice Perry, met with Alexandra Shulman, editor<br />
of British Vogue, to talk success, money and mens’ mags.<br />
“I <strong>do</strong> miss being<br />
invisible... there<br />
<strong>are</strong> times when it<br />
would be nice if<br />
people left <strong>you</strong> to<br />
it”<br />
“I’m not emotional<br />
about working at<br />
Vogue”<br />
19
20<br />
VIEWArts<br />
The Mountain Goats <strong>are</strong><br />
essentially one man, John<br />
Darnielle. He now works<br />
with a number of musicians, but<br />
he founded the band alone in<br />
1991, and much of its early output<br />
featured only his singing and<br />
guitar playing, self-recorded on a<br />
boombox. He is the man identifi ed<br />
with the band, and gives interviews<br />
alone. Naming his band in<br />
the plural was misleading, but he<br />
gives me a simple explanation:<br />
“Dude with an acoustic guitar under<br />
his own name? Either he has<br />
to be comfortable with the folk<br />
tag, or he’s going to be <strong>do</strong>omed.<br />
I <strong>do</strong>n’t play folk music – nothing<br />
against it. Plus, nobody can<br />
pronounce my name.” He tests<br />
me. I fail. “Nobody can misspell<br />
Mountain Goats. If <strong>they</strong> can, then<br />
I can’t help them any further.”<br />
Monday sees the release of<br />
Heretic Pride, the Mountain<br />
Goats’ seventh album this decade.<br />
Darnielle rejects my suggestion<br />
that he’s prolifi c: “Unless <strong>you</strong><br />
buy into an artist talking about<br />
how inspiration is some delicate<br />
gossamer thing, that <strong>you</strong> can only<br />
drink from this spigot every so<br />
often… I <strong>do</strong>n’t buy that! I <strong>think</strong><br />
<strong>you</strong> sit <strong>do</strong>wn to work. So I <strong>do</strong>n’t<br />
consider myself prolifi c, I consider<br />
others lazy.”<br />
Heretic Pride is a minor departure<br />
for Darnielle, or rather a return<br />
to earlier territory. His recent<br />
efforts have mostly been concept<br />
Arts Editors: Hugo Gye and Patrick Kingsley<br />
arts@varsity.co.uk<br />
Great Works of Art in Cambridge<br />
#5: Portrait of John Maynard Keynes<br />
Duncan Grant<br />
King’s College Senior Combination Room<br />
“I quent incest... There is no priest,<br />
found a village where the people<br />
<strong>are</strong> frequently mad from too fre-<br />
no church and no policeman. Don’t <strong>you</strong><br />
<strong>think</strong> we’d better go there at once?”<br />
These <strong>are</strong> the words of Duncan Grant to<br />
John Maynard Keynes, his newest love.<br />
The pair were in their early twenties<br />
when <strong>they</strong> visited the Orkney islands in<br />
the summer of 1908, with Grant making<br />
several paintings and drawings of the<br />
barren and inhospitable landscape, as<br />
well as this striking portrait.<br />
The work conveys a unique sense<br />
of intimacy with the sitter, one only<br />
rivalled by his later portraits of his wife<br />
Vanessa Bell. Grant’s lyrical representation<br />
of the human body can be found in<br />
the somewhat awkward positioning of<br />
his sitter: Keynes is seated on a chair<br />
by the win<strong>do</strong>w and appears almost<br />
to crouch, his ankle awkwardly bending<br />
while his elongated body enfolds,<br />
as though to fi t into the frame of the<br />
picture. Keynes has a peaceful demeanour<br />
that belies the app<strong>are</strong>nt muscular<br />
tension of his fi gure. Pen in hand, he is<br />
likely pondering the very theory that<br />
would enhance his position as one of<br />
the greatest economists of the twentieth<br />
century. As he raises his head from the<br />
page to look at us, the light from the<br />
Ready, Steady<br />
win<strong>do</strong>ws clarifi es his facial features.<br />
The white stroke of paint in his right<br />
pupil conveys a gaze so sharp that he<br />
appears to look straight through <strong>you</strong>.<br />
The b<strong>are</strong> background <strong>do</strong>es not disturb<br />
the intensity of that look, while the<br />
fl oral wallpaper hints at the numerous<br />
decorative fl oral patterns which will<br />
become characteristic of the Bloomsbury<br />
group in their collaborations within the<br />
Omega workshop.<br />
On returning to the mainland, the<br />
portrait was bought by Keynes’s mother,<br />
and was bequeathed to King’s after<br />
her death in 1958. At the end of their<br />
extended vacation, Keynes was admitted<br />
to a fellowship at King’s while Grant<br />
returned to Lon<strong>do</strong>n. Their friendship<br />
lasted until Keynes’s death in 1946.<br />
“Why <strong>are</strong>n’t <strong>you</strong> a Cambridge undergraduate,<br />
damn <strong>you</strong>, instead of a<br />
wretched Lon<strong>do</strong>ner? Come, and I will<br />
make King’s chapel into a studio for<br />
<strong>you</strong>.” Keynes wrote to Grant in the<br />
autumn of 1908. Strangely enough, the<br />
chapel never became Grant’s studio; but<br />
Keynes transformed the King’s <strong>do</strong>main<br />
into a sanctum of the fi nest Bloomsbury<br />
art, culminating in the decoration of<br />
his own rooms, still lived in today, with<br />
Grant’s frescoes.<br />
Julien Domercq<br />
albums. Tallahassee chronicled<br />
the lives of two characters in a<br />
failing marriage; The Sunset Tree<br />
was based on Darnielle’s experiences<br />
with his abusive stepfather.<br />
The new songs <strong>are</strong>n’t related in<br />
such a way – <strong>they</strong> cover diverse<br />
subjects, including reggae singer<br />
Prince Far I, cult horror writer<br />
H.P. Lovecraft, and Halloween villain<br />
Michael Myers. “It’s a bunch<br />
of old obsessions of mine. It’s<br />
really kind of an old-school kind of<br />
record insofar as I’m indulging my<br />
love of some odd, fetish-like creatures<br />
in my imagination, things<br />
that strike my interest, which is<br />
what my old stuff was like.”<br />
Although their early albums<br />
were lo-fi , scrappy affairs, the<br />
Mountain Goats have, thanks<br />
to the work of producers John<br />
Vanderslice and Scott Solter, built<br />
up a rich sound since <strong>they</strong> signed<br />
to 4AD in 2002. On Heretic Pride,<br />
San Bernadino features six different<br />
cello parts; Sept 15, 1983,<br />
which describes Prince Far I’s<br />
death, is as close as the band will<br />
ever come to a reggae track, with<br />
its skanking acoustic guitar and<br />
warm organ. Darnielle admits to<br />
being “kind of obsessive compulsive”<br />
in the studio, and is wary<br />
of adding too many tracks – “I’m<br />
Roman Catholic, I <strong>think</strong>: let’s not<br />
<strong>do</strong> the things we <strong>do</strong>n’t like”. The<br />
result, on albums like The Sunset<br />
Tree and Heretic Pride, is simple<br />
songwriting, backed by c<strong>are</strong>fully<br />
Goat!<br />
constructed music that manages<br />
to avoid being too glossy.<br />
When discussing the Mountain<br />
Goats, critics and fans tend to<br />
focus on the lyrics, onto which<br />
Darnielle clearly focuses his efforts.<br />
He admits, with palpable<br />
enthusiasm, that literature is a<br />
greater infl uence than music. His<br />
literary inspirations include Joan<br />
Didion, John Berryman, and religious<br />
texts. He calls the Canterbury<br />
Tales “perfect in every way”,<br />
apart from the Parson’s Tale. “I<br />
love when he apologise for writing<br />
the book [in Chaucer’s Retraction],<br />
that really gets me… There’s<br />
something very moving, very<br />
emo about that. It’s like, here’s<br />
Chaucer having this emo moment<br />
going: ‘oh, what the hell <strong>are</strong><br />
books anyway?’” Throughout our<br />
conversation, he happily traverses<br />
the boundaries of high and low<br />
culture, elsewhere explaining his<br />
fondness for video games,<br />
namely cowboy games<br />
and the Manhunt series.<br />
This enthusiasm and<br />
lack of snobbishness<br />
makes Darnielle easy<br />
to relate to, and is, in<br />
part, why so many<br />
Mountain Goats<br />
lovers feel close<br />
to him. He is, at<br />
heart, a fan, and<br />
a music geek<br />
– he has a<br />
popular blog,<br />
Last Plane to Jakarta, and is<br />
about to publish a book on Black<br />
Sabbath’s Master of Reality.<br />
When asked what he’s listening<br />
to, he mentions Christian rock<br />
and metal, but he calls rap music<br />
“the most creative form of American<br />
music since jazz... It’s one of<br />
America’s two or three great gifts<br />
to the world”. It’s easy to see how<br />
Darnielle might feel an affi nity<br />
with the genre – he featured on a<br />
recent track by the underground<br />
rapper Aesop<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/arts<br />
Duncan Grant 1885-1978<br />
Portrait of John<br />
Maynard Keynes 1908<br />
Daniel Cohen is entranced by John Darnielle, the genial man behind e Mountain Goats<br />
Rock, and has been described<br />
as “America’s best non hip-hop<br />
lyricist”. He is, surprisingly, a<br />
Babyshambles fan: “I <strong>do</strong>n’t see<br />
why people gotta dwell so much<br />
on how the dude takes drugs and<br />
stuff. <strong>Who</strong> c<strong>are</strong>s? The bottom line,<br />
dude writes really smart, nice lyrics<br />
that I <strong>think</strong> <strong>are</strong> excellent.”<br />
Having talked non-stop for half<br />
an hour, Darnielle’s time was up,<br />
and he quickly disappe<strong>are</strong>d into<br />
the mist. He never explained his<br />
love of Christian rock.
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/arts<br />
Philistines!<br />
Write for this section:<br />
arts@varsity.co.uk<br />
What’s so bad about the commercial art world, wonders Sam Rose? Just because one<br />
writer <strong>do</strong>esn’t want to collect art, other Cambridge students shouldn’t be put off<br />
Student journalism is<br />
a strange animal, and<br />
r<strong>are</strong>ly more so than in<br />
Cambridge. Mindful of the<br />
‘talent’ that must exist in the<br />
University, readers seem to<br />
project a kind of aura onto the<br />
articles. Outsiders read <strong>Varsity</strong><br />
and TCS with reverence, as if<br />
the writers must truly have<br />
‘proved themselves’ to deserve<br />
the accolade of getting<br />
published. Quality control is<br />
assumed to be inherent in the<br />
paper. It is not. Content has<br />
to come from somewhere, and<br />
if things <strong>are</strong> desperate, then<br />
an edited <strong>do</strong>wn bit of rubbish<br />
with a nice la<strong>you</strong>t is a perfectly<br />
happy solution, as I certainly<br />
experienced while editing.<br />
There <strong>are</strong> some fantastic writers,<br />
but mixed amongst them<br />
<strong>are</strong> some shockingly bad efforts;<br />
from ‘political angles’ on<br />
the far right and left provided<br />
by the only people impetuous<br />
enough to ridicule themselves<br />
unwittingly, to articles about<br />
wine written just so the author<br />
can boast about not drinking<br />
things advertised on TV. You<br />
know what Chateauneuf-Du-<br />
Pape is? Great! Go drink some<br />
then, and sp<strong>are</strong> us all <strong>you</strong>r few<br />
hundred words of drivel about<br />
nothing.<br />
Upon closer analysis the articles<br />
yield a hilarious mixture<br />
of typically Cambridge professional<br />
ambitions, and typically<br />
Cambridge petty personal<br />
goals. Fearlessly insult things<br />
and <strong>do</strong>n’t ever worry about the<br />
consequences: climb off <strong>you</strong>r<br />
high horse just long enough to<br />
beg for a Valentine’s date, and<br />
no-one seems to bat an eyelid.<br />
And yet this type of writing<br />
can be funny, and good enough<br />
to avoid the pretence of neutrality<br />
that student journalists<br />
with nothing to say seem<br />
to hide behind. Far worse,<br />
then, <strong>are</strong> the naïve attempts<br />
at objectivity that sometimes<br />
make up a particularly poor<br />
feature. For want of a better<br />
term, I class this sort of thing<br />
as ‘indie-naïve’, a certain brand<br />
of writing that so perfectly<br />
throws together a delicate<br />
sentimentality,<br />
absolute lack<br />
of facts, and<br />
sudden conclusions<br />
that it reads<br />
as I imagine would<br />
the English homework<br />
of a rather sweet fifteenyear-old<br />
girl. Sadly, here<br />
this writing is anything but<br />
sweet or innocent. The more<br />
I see it forming as a trend, the<br />
more it seems that a number<br />
of students really <strong>do</strong> <strong>think</strong> this<br />
way. I always believed that to<br />
pick on one article is impossibly<br />
unfair, but with the ‘aura’<br />
surrounding these papers I’ve<br />
had to watch again and again<br />
as utter rubbish goes unchallenged.<br />
When that one article<br />
is utterly misguided, and so<br />
frighteningly indicative of<br />
the hazy views and style of a<br />
trend, challenging it seems<br />
rather like an imperative.<br />
So. Having written on<br />
collecting in Cambridge a<br />
number of times this year, it<br />
was naturally with fascination<br />
that I recently read a new<br />
article on the subject. The ever<br />
self-effacing writer, perhaps<br />
the epitome of ‘indie-naïve’,<br />
confessed that she was but a<br />
layman in art appreciation<br />
terms. Nonetheless, reassured<br />
by the assertion that she had<br />
a Van Gogh on her wall (a real<br />
one, perhaps?), and that she<br />
remembered the price tags<br />
from exhibitions seen when<br />
three years old (a collector in<br />
the making, surely!), I read<br />
on. Stale wit should<br />
now force me to add “I<br />
wish I hadn’t”. But<br />
no, in fact the rest<br />
of the article made<br />
fascinating reading,<br />
though not for<br />
the reasons it was<br />
intended to. The<br />
general tone, one<br />
of faint unease at<br />
the commercial side<br />
of art, the place of art<br />
in everyday life, and<br />
of feigned disbelief at<br />
prices, is a far more<br />
profoundly worrying<br />
insight<br />
into the author<br />
than<br />
anything<br />
to <strong>do</strong><br />
with art<br />
galleries<br />
themselves.<br />
The lack of<br />
knowledge alone<br />
is astonishing,<br />
but with<br />
her delicately<br />
judgemental attitude<br />
the author<br />
seems genuinely<br />
to be touting this<br />
lack as a posi-<br />
tive quality. Does such ‘I <strong>do</strong>n’t<br />
know art but I know what I<br />
like…’-style philosophising<br />
really have a place in Cambridge?<br />
It’s what one would<br />
expect from The Sun, if the<br />
“The faint unease at the commercial<br />
side of art, the place of art in everyday<br />
life, and feigned disbelief at<br />
price, is a far more worrying insight<br />
into the author than anything to <strong>do</strong><br />
with art galleries themselves”<br />
title banner was pink gingham,<br />
and sported a few pretty<br />
flowers.<br />
The purported revelation of<br />
the article, that Cambridge has<br />
“abundant” (well, five) commercial<br />
galleries yet these <strong>are</strong><br />
“too expensive for students”,<br />
is heart-rendingly moronic.<br />
Clearly there is art in Cambridge<br />
that students can afford<br />
to buy, from paintings on the<br />
walls of Indigo to prints from<br />
the market and drawings from<br />
XVIII Jesus Lane. Our author<br />
has instead picked on the<br />
set of commercial<br />
galleries selling<br />
work by professional<br />
artists<br />
and – shockingly<br />
–<br />
found<br />
these artists need money<br />
on which to live. Not that I<br />
<strong>think</strong> it intrinsically wrong to<br />
“struggle equating art with<br />
selling” as she <strong>do</strong>es, merely<br />
that such “strugglers” have<br />
no business writing about it.<br />
The notion of art created in a<br />
vacuum is a bizarre remnant<br />
of Modernism, and utterly<br />
outdated. Did Leonar<strong>do</strong> paint<br />
the Last Supper just because<br />
he felt like it? Maybe Warhol’s<br />
<strong>do</strong>llar-note screenprints were<br />
just a blind expression of his<br />
artistic sensibility? Art is not<br />
only intrinsically linked with<br />
material circumstances, but<br />
made a lot more interesting<br />
because of it. High notions<br />
of art <strong>do</strong>n’t remove the fact<br />
that the works <strong>are</strong> <strong>do</strong>ne for<br />
money, and crucially, ‘primary’<br />
galleries such as the ones in<br />
Cambridge <strong>are</strong> simply agents,<br />
selling on commission for the<br />
artists <strong>they</strong> take up. They <strong>are</strong><br />
as much sponsors of the arts<br />
as money-making machines<br />
however dubious the actual art<br />
may be, and the prices usually<br />
reflect what the artists need to<br />
survive. How incredibly, inexcusably<br />
selfish <strong>do</strong> <strong>you</strong> have to<br />
be to imply that Lorenzo Quinn<br />
should starve because <strong>you</strong>’d<br />
quite like his little sculpture<br />
but <strong>do</strong>n’t feel <strong>you</strong> can throw<br />
<strong>do</strong>wn as much as £525?<br />
There <strong>are</strong> more surprises in<br />
the galleries, for next we find<br />
that art is emphasised not<br />
as a collectible but as part of<br />
interior design! Clearly our<br />
writer is familiar with modern<br />
art-buying practice, when<br />
upon purchase of an artwork<br />
the buyer whitewashes their<br />
living room and removes<br />
all the furniture. Or could<br />
it be that <strong>they</strong> have never<br />
bought art, and <strong>do</strong>n’t own<br />
a home of their own, and<br />
in fact <strong>are</strong> forgetting that a<br />
condition of the survival of<br />
every piece of art ever bought<br />
or commissioned is that it<br />
finds a setting for itself? It<br />
is common practice for dealers<br />
to model their galleries<br />
on <strong>do</strong>mestic formulae such<br />
as the ‘Gentleman’s Study’ or<br />
‘Art Lover’s House’. Even the<br />
Fitz <strong>do</strong>es it; notice the carpets,<br />
furniture and tablew<strong>are</strong> consistently<br />
used to contextualise<br />
the works, notice how even<br />
the neo-classical architecture<br />
itself <strong>do</strong>es it in the Greek and<br />
Roman galleries. She suggests<br />
spending £30 on an Art<br />
Fund membership so one can<br />
“just look at it all”. Well save<br />
<strong>you</strong>rself the money, there <strong>are</strong><br />
hundreds of free galleries,<br />
and <strong>you</strong> clearly haven’t had<br />
a proper look around any of<br />
them. Is commercial art collecting<br />
relevant to Cambridge<br />
students? As much as <strong>they</strong><br />
wish to engage with it. This<br />
‘indie-naïve’ philistinism, on<br />
the other hand? That’s what<br />
has no place in Cambridge.<br />
VIEWArts<br />
‘What would<br />
<strong>you</strong>rs wear?’<br />
The Vagina<br />
Monologues<br />
Preview<br />
21<br />
Media sensation? Provocative<br />
rant? Vital social<br />
dialogue? Or simply powerful<br />
theatre? The Vagina<br />
Monologues can certainly be<br />
classed as one of the most<br />
contentious theatrical works<br />
of the past decade. At its<br />
debut, newspaper reviewers<br />
urged potential spectators<br />
to “avoid this male-bashing,<br />
disgusting obscenity and the<br />
blatant sexism it purports to<br />
oppose”.<br />
Often perceived as a<br />
feminist tirade and offensive<br />
outburst with its explicit<br />
references to brutal sexual<br />
encounter, the play has certainly<br />
been met with disapproval<br />
and censure. Even<br />
last year three American<br />
high school students were<br />
suspended after saying the<br />
word ‘vagina’ whilst performing<br />
a short section of<br />
the play.<br />
But have the badmouthers<br />
got it all wrong?<br />
Many would say yes. The<br />
Vagina Monologues is a work<br />
shrouded in misconception,<br />
whose real aim is to promote<br />
the empowerment of women<br />
through self-knowledge, and<br />
not (contrary to popular<br />
belief) to depict men as the<br />
enemy.<br />
Created by Eve Ensler and<br />
derived from hundreds of<br />
interviews across socioeconomic,<br />
ethnic and religious<br />
boundaries, The Vagina<br />
Monologues <strong>are</strong> stories of<br />
real women of all ages. Underneath<br />
the controversial<br />
exterior lies a mischievous<br />
and uplifting core with an<br />
extremely important message,<br />
which should not be<br />
confused with aggressive<br />
feminism.<br />
The play is the cornerstone<br />
of the international V-Day<br />
movement to stop violence<br />
against women, founded by<br />
Ensler in 1998. It is now<br />
put on annually at charity<br />
events in over 120 countries<br />
in order to raise money for<br />
women’s charities.<br />
It is a moving experience,<br />
and an attempt to enlighten,<br />
entertain and, most importantly,<br />
pull a taboo out of the<br />
sha<strong>do</strong>ws. The Vagina Monologues<br />
is a genuine and compelling<br />
expression of female<br />
sexuality that is at times<br />
hilarious, at others unsettling,<br />
but always honest.<br />
Emilie Ferguson and<br />
Elizabeth Magness<br />
A group of sixteen Cambridge<br />
students in association with BATS<br />
will be performing The Vagina<br />
Monologues at Fitzpatrick<br />
Hall, Queens’ College, 15 & 16<br />
February, 11pm. Tickets <strong>are</strong> £5<br />
(£4 concessions), available to<br />
reserve at vdaycambridge@<br />
gmail.com. All proceeds go to the<br />
Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre.
22<br />
VIEWArts<br />
patrick kingsley<br />
Arts Editors: Hugo Gye and Patrick Kingsley<br />
arts@varsity.co.uk<br />
The poetry of romantic love<br />
has generally had a bad<br />
press. No <strong>do</strong>ubt this has<br />
much to <strong>do</strong> with execrable collections<br />
marketed as Valentine<br />
gifts, as well as the probability<br />
that anyone who has ever tried<br />
to write any poetry started by<br />
trying to recollect in tranquility<br />
some intermittency of the<br />
heart. The result is a very large<br />
amount of fluff trying to find a<br />
rhyme for “really really in love<br />
with <strong>you</strong>”. The love lyric is also<br />
seen as more accessible than<br />
poetry with other subjects – as<br />
if our own failures to connect<br />
made it easier to get through<br />
Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.<br />
Just because we have known<br />
love <strong>do</strong>es not mean that we<br />
can expect to apply love poetry<br />
transp<strong>are</strong>ntly to our own lives,<br />
or our lives to that poetry. Yet<br />
some of our best poetry has<br />
been driven by the heart, and<br />
the canny reader should not be<br />
put off by all the nonsense.<br />
Reading at Emmanuel two<br />
weeks ago, the poet Geoffrey<br />
Hill maintained that he had<br />
only two subjects, sex and the<br />
dead. Hill’s poetry is at its<br />
most direct when dealing with<br />
sex, as in this Copla, where the<br />
speaker attempts to apply the<br />
logic contained in the<br />
poem to an extrapoetical<br />
world<br />
where it<br />
becomes<br />
non-<br />
sense.<br />
“One cannot lose what one<br />
has not possessed.”<br />
So much for that abrasive<br />
gem.<br />
I can lose what I want. I<br />
want <strong>you</strong>.<br />
Working backwards, the<br />
loved one is supposed to reason<br />
that he wants me, he can lose<br />
me, therefore he possesses<br />
me. Nice trick. The turn here<br />
from “one” to “I” repeats the<br />
manoeuvre that we sometimes<br />
expect love poets to perform in<br />
their poetry. To turn from the<br />
trickily beautiful working of<br />
words or even from some general<br />
knowledge of, say, love, to<br />
what can be taken as personal<br />
revelation.<br />
The first book of poems I<br />
ever really got into was Ted<br />
Hughes’s Birthday Letters, the<br />
near-posthumous collection<br />
that addresses his dead wife,<br />
Sylvia Plath. Although still<br />
admiring this uneven book, I<br />
<strong>do</strong>n’t admire what first led me<br />
(and, I <strong>think</strong>, others) to it: a<br />
voyeuristic desire to observe<br />
and take a part in the terrible<br />
ruptures of Plath and Hughes’s<br />
life, pain that can be thrilling<br />
to the outsider. Some of<br />
Hughes’s lines <strong>are</strong> themselves<br />
mawkish, almost<br />
pastiching his<br />
own life story, as<br />
when he quotes<br />
a Ouija board<br />
pronouncing:<br />
Fame will<br />
come.<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/arts<br />
In the wake of Valentine’s Day, Jeff James pours his heart out about love poetry<br />
“Love poetry<br />
should be<br />
allowed to be a<br />
lovely glorious<br />
nothing:<br />
expecting it to<br />
act in ways that<br />
we can<br />
predetermine is<br />
no less foolish<br />
than expecting<br />
love to give us<br />
what we <strong>think</strong><br />
we want”<br />
Fame especially for <strong>you</strong>.<br />
Fame cannot be avoided.<br />
And when it comes<br />
You will have paid for it<br />
with <strong>you</strong>r happiness,<br />
Your husband and <strong>you</strong>r life.<br />
And yet, in the poem recalling<br />
their visit to the Grand<br />
Canyon, a similar vision of the<br />
future is moving, beyond one’s<br />
knowledge of the couple’s separation<br />
and Plath’s suicide:<br />
Nothing is left. I never went<br />
back and <strong>you</strong> <strong>are</strong> dead.<br />
Only “nothing” and “never”<br />
<strong>are</strong> allowed to grow beyond the<br />
simple monosyllables detailing<br />
the facts of loss.<br />
A wish for an autobiographical<br />
grounding for love poetry<br />
might stem from a need to<br />
tether the poems we read to<br />
our own experience: romantic<br />
love is largely viewed as<br />
experience common to almost<br />
everyone, while other experiences<br />
<strong>are</strong> more often seen as<br />
unlike what we have ourselves<br />
known. We involve love poetry<br />
in our own lives in more<br />
material ways: I’ve sent more<br />
than one card or letter where<br />
I’ve wanted Shakespe<strong>are</strong> or<br />
Marlowe or Sidney to say<br />
something that I can’t quite<br />
frame. The great love poems<br />
<strong>do</strong> not arise out of loves that<br />
<strong>are</strong> necessarily greater or<br />
more profound than those we<br />
have known: it’s the skill with<br />
words that makes the poet,<br />
not (unfortunately) a series of<br />
disastrous affairs or (probably)<br />
a glorious soul. Shakespe<strong>are</strong><br />
must have been a nightm<strong>are</strong><br />
as a lover.<br />
This explains why much of<br />
the great love poetry is about<br />
loss and frustrated love: this<br />
is easier to write about than<br />
romantic fulfilment, when<br />
happiness writes white. In any<br />
case, if things <strong>are</strong> going well<br />
the poor poet should be not<br />
at his desk but rather in bed<br />
(or at least on his desk). W.B.<br />
Yeats is the alpha and omega<br />
of unrequited love poets, falling<br />
very badly aged twentythree<br />
for Maud Gonne and ever<br />
after wanting her. He offers the<br />
following tricky advice:<br />
Never give all the heart, for<br />
love<br />
Will hardly seem worth<br />
<strong>think</strong>ing of<br />
To passionate women if it<br />
seem<br />
Certain, and <strong>they</strong> never
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/arts<br />
dream<br />
That it fades out from kiss<br />
to kiss;<br />
For everything that’s lovely<br />
is<br />
But a brief, dreamy, kind<br />
delight.<br />
Those brief, dreamy, kind<br />
delights <strong>are</strong> hard to ground in<br />
the printed poem, and many<br />
attempts to write of happiness<br />
in love or sex become comic<br />
or soppily cringe-worthy. E.E.<br />
Cummings can <strong>do</strong> it, perhaps<br />
because his poems <strong>are</strong> often<br />
themselves brief and dreamy.<br />
His lyric ‘i like my body when<br />
it is with <strong>you</strong>r body’ ends with:<br />
and possibly i like the thrill<br />
of under me <strong>you</strong> quite so<br />
new<br />
The speaker’s “possibly” creates<br />
the fl irtatious reservation<br />
that Yeats advocates to keep<br />
passionate women, while his<br />
sensual discovery of the ‘new’<br />
is not only stated but also<br />
repeated in his poetic discovery<br />
of a new way to write<br />
of the “shocking fuzz/of <strong>you</strong>r<br />
electric hair”: much headier<br />
than the sex-ed cliché that is<br />
‘pubic hair’. David Harsent is<br />
a contemporary English poet<br />
who also captures something<br />
of the thrill of sex, without<br />
a<strong>do</strong>pting Cummings’ playfully<br />
naïve voice. In his sequence<br />
Marriage, Harsent shows us<br />
something of the captivity of<br />
waking after having made<br />
“love in the all-but dark”:<br />
Morning catches us both in<br />
a different light,<br />
one shaping up to the day,<br />
the other gone deep beneath<br />
the dump of the coverlet, a<br />
twist of hair, a pair of<br />
wholly innocent feet.<br />
I love those feet, whose innocence<br />
needs to be reaffi rmed<br />
after an intimacy that has<br />
allowed one of the lovers to<br />
notice even the other’s “glisten<br />
of spit/on an eye-tooth”.<br />
The Copla of Hill’s that I<br />
fi rst quoted reminds us that<br />
love poems need to be read in<br />
and of themselves. They <strong>do</strong>n’t<br />
need to refer to either the<br />
reader’s or the poet’s affairs.<br />
The logic of w“I can lose what<br />
I want. I want <strong>you</strong>.” works in<br />
a poem, but won’t convince<br />
the loved one whom we <strong>do</strong>n’t<br />
possess. Really: I quoted that<br />
Copla to someone once and<br />
she wasn’t won over. In Hill’s<br />
The Turtle Dove, I can’t work<br />
out which of the lovers is more<br />
destroyed by their love, but<br />
the poem captures brilliantly<br />
the loneliness of a sh<strong>are</strong>d bed.<br />
Hill’s lovers:<br />
Bore their close days<br />
through sufferance towards<br />
night<br />
Where she at length<br />
grasped sleep and he lay<br />
quiet<br />
As though needing no questions,<br />
now, to guess<br />
What her secreting heart<br />
could not well hide.<br />
Love poems might help us<br />
say things that <strong>are</strong> diffi cult,<br />
but really the best thing about<br />
them is that <strong>they</strong> say diffi cult<br />
things. The “secreting heart”<br />
excites us, not just because<br />
of the secrets we imagine it<br />
to possess, but rather in the<br />
thrilling <strong>do</strong>uble movement of<br />
‘secreting’: the heart keeps secrets,<br />
and also allows them to<br />
escape. We needn’t strive for<br />
readings that apply the poems<br />
biographically to the poets, or<br />
expect the poems to mimic our<br />
experience. Love poetry should<br />
be allowed to be a lovely glorious<br />
nothing: expecting it to act<br />
in ways that we can predetermine<br />
is no less foolish than<br />
expecting love to give us what<br />
we <strong>think</strong> we want.<br />
ANNA TRENCH<br />
Write for this section:<br />
arts@varsity.co.uk<br />
VIEWArts<br />
23<br />
Black on form<br />
Jack Tunstall talks to namesake Jack Black about his<br />
new fi lm Be Kind Rewind, released this week<br />
Jack Black marches into<br />
the tiny screening room<br />
at Lon<strong>do</strong>n’s art-deco<br />
Soho Hotel following the<br />
press screening of French<br />
pseu<strong>do</strong>-indie director Michel<br />
Gondry’s latest low-budget<br />
comedy, Be Kind Rewind,<br />
in a manner most appropriately<br />
described as studiedly<br />
jovial. He looks…well, like<br />
he <strong>do</strong>es in the movies; short,<br />
festively plump, and casually<br />
attired in a loud flannel<br />
shirt. It seems logical to get<br />
things started by asking<br />
why working with former<br />
music video director Gondry<br />
appealed, especially given<br />
the hugely reduced pay<br />
packet it would necessitate.<br />
“I was desperate to work<br />
with him after seeing Eternal<br />
Sunshine of The Spotless<br />
Mind”, comes the predictable<br />
answer. “When I got to know<br />
Michel, I guarded our friendship<br />
like a golden pearl, if<br />
ever there was one of those.”<br />
The fi lm centres around<br />
Black’s character and his<br />
best friend, played by Mos<br />
Def, fi lming their own<br />
parodies of famous Hollywood<br />
hits when the stock<br />
from their video store in a<br />
deprived industrial town is<br />
destroyed. (Mos Def exhibits<br />
better comic timing in<br />
the fi lm than Black, and his<br />
deadpan demeanour is far<br />
funnier than the comedian’s<br />
trademark manic style, but<br />
to my shame, I <strong>do</strong>n’t have<br />
the cojones to articulate this<br />
observation in front of Black<br />
and his gurning publicist.)<br />
Did anyone suggest parodying<br />
any of the movies in<br />
which the members of the<br />
fi lm’s cast had previously<br />
appe<strong>are</strong>d, such as Danny<br />
Glover in Lethal Weapon, or<br />
Black’s own High Fidelity?<br />
“No, because it would have<br />
been dangerous, it could<br />
have created a tear in the<br />
“Did Black ever<br />
toy with the idea<br />
of fi lm-making<br />
as a child? ‘No, I<br />
used to <strong>do</strong> things<br />
like put Coco<br />
Puff s up my ass<br />
instead. You can<br />
fi t a lot of them<br />
up there’”<br />
space-time continuum or<br />
something.”<br />
App<strong>are</strong>ntly, the producers<br />
were threatened with<br />
legal action should <strong>they</strong><br />
satirise Back To The Future,<br />
“because <strong>they</strong>’re making<br />
a musical version of it for<br />
Broadway, or some nonsense<br />
like that. Ridiculous!” We<br />
move on. Did Black ever toy<br />
with the idea of fi lm-making<br />
as a child? “No, I used to <strong>do</strong><br />
things like put Coco Puffs<br />
up my ass instead.” And<br />
what did he learn from this<br />
experience? ‘That <strong>you</strong> can fi t<br />
a lot of them up there,’ he<br />
replies earnestly. We discuss<br />
his interpretation of the fi lm,<br />
which is strangely uplifting,<br />
despite its rampant sentimentality.<br />
“Even in the most<br />
run-<strong>do</strong>wn parts of the world,<br />
where <strong>you</strong>’d expect nothing<br />
of note to happen, a lot of<br />
creative energy is produced,<br />
because people have to<br />
rely on their imagination.”<br />
Stretching it a bit, perhaps,<br />
for a slacker comedy in<br />
which one half-expects Jay<br />
and Silent Bob to pop up<br />
at any moment. But it <strong>do</strong>es<br />
have a certain poignancy.
24<br />
REVIEW<br />
view from the<br />
groundlings<br />
I like the theatre. I understand<br />
the process by which watching<br />
people pretend to be who <strong>they</strong><br />
<strong>are</strong> not, and read out others’<br />
words, can help us make sense<br />
of the world around us. Whether<br />
we laugh, cry, or <strong>think</strong>, plays can<br />
affect us in fundamental and<br />
sometimes life-changing ways.<br />
But that still <strong>do</strong>esn’t tempt me to<br />
the ADC: like so many others, my<br />
theatrical instincts r<strong>are</strong>ly apply<br />
during term time.<br />
I am happy to watch my<br />
friends’ plays, and ‘events’<br />
such as last term’s Medea or a<br />
Footlights revue. But a casual<br />
evening at the Corpus Playrooms<br />
would not be appropriate<br />
postprandial entertainment. One<br />
reason for this (in<strong>do</strong>lence apart)<br />
is simple: we cannot tell how<br />
good an arbitrarily-chosen play<br />
might turn out to be. This is no<br />
reflection on Cambridge thespian<br />
talent, which is great. Rather, it<br />
reflects the tiny number of scripts<br />
which <strong>are</strong> actually half-decent:<br />
there <strong>are</strong> far too many skilled<br />
interpretations of unsalvageable<br />
scripts which end up being a<br />
waste of time and money.<br />
Incidentally, this relates to last<br />
week’s column, which asked why<br />
Shakespe<strong>are</strong> is so frequently<br />
performed here: the answer is<br />
because his plays <strong>are</strong> better than<br />
anyone else’s, and we all know it.<br />
Prospective directors must choose<br />
between established classics<br />
such as Shakespe<strong>are</strong>, Pinter and<br />
Miller, or take a punt on a newer<br />
writer – recent examples include<br />
Nick Leather’s All the Ordinary<br />
Angels, or American Eagle by<br />
Chris Amos. Such pieces have<br />
limited professional runs, and<br />
perhaps it is noble of directors<br />
here to wish to revive them; but<br />
no-one wants to watch.<br />
Lon<strong>do</strong>n, of course, is awash<br />
with new plays, but <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong><br />
sustained by word-of-mouth and<br />
an active press. Cantabrigian<br />
play reviews <strong>are</strong> (sadly) not<br />
considered reliable enough to<br />
influence people significantly, and<br />
plays <strong>are</strong> not on for long enough<br />
for an effective word-of-mouth<br />
buzz to build. So we stick to what,<br />
and who, we know, and those<br />
with only a passing interest in<br />
the theatre play it safe, and stay<br />
away from unknown quantities.<br />
Ultimately, this may be a<br />
matter of volume. If there were<br />
only one or two plays on each<br />
week, we would have our choice<br />
decided for us, and would be able<br />
simply to go to ‘the play’; but<br />
when there <strong>are</strong> seven plays on at<br />
once, we will either go to the play<br />
we’ve already heard of, or give<br />
up. There is only one remedy, and<br />
it is one which will never happen:<br />
directors and actors must<br />
put on fewer plays, in the interests<br />
of oversaturated Cambridge<br />
theatre. Quality, not quantity,<br />
will attract the likes of me.<br />
Hugo Gye<br />
Arts Editors: Hugo Gye and Patrick Kingsley<br />
arts@varsity.co.uk<br />
SLAG<br />
Corpus Christi<br />
Playroom<br />
Dir: Emma Hogan &<br />
Roisin Dunnett<br />
Theatre<br />
★★★★★<br />
The White Devil<br />
ADC<br />
Dir: Amy Gwilliam<br />
Theatre<br />
★★★★★<br />
“Of all deaths the violent death<br />
is best”: so says the malcontent<br />
(Flamineo) of Webster’s revenge<br />
tragedy, but it could equally have<br />
been the view of the playwright<br />
himself. This bloody play charts<br />
the progress of a love affair<br />
between Vittoria and the Duke of<br />
Brachiano; at its heart, though,<br />
the play deals with questions of<br />
identity and sincerity: the title is<br />
from a proverb, “the white devil<br />
is worse than the black”, and it<br />
is the hunt for this ‘white devil’<br />
which sets the tragedy in motion<br />
and which brings about the<br />
<strong>do</strong>wnfall of so many characters.<br />
The set for Amy Gwilliam’s<br />
production, designed by Bethany<br />
Sims, is stunning. Combined<br />
with Oliver Rudland’s eerie music,<br />
the scene was set for a truly<br />
dark, grimly humorous portrayal<br />
of life at the top.<br />
Alex Guelff’s Flamineo may<br />
not have the depth of Iago but he<br />
Skates is beautiful in all respects.<br />
Written and directed by Cat Gerrard,<br />
the play recounts the story<br />
of her grandmother’s escape from<br />
the Nazi occupation of Poland as<br />
if told from the perspective of a<br />
child. An ingenious imaginationinfused<br />
world is conjured up,<br />
in which the usual boundaries<br />
between the past and the present,<br />
the imaginary and the real, <strong>do</strong><br />
not apply: the actors step seamlessly<br />
in and out of each mindforged<br />
realm. Make-believe is the<br />
order of the day and such is its cocooning<br />
embrace that when adult<br />
disaster punctuates this childish<br />
world, its effect is resounding.<br />
something/<br />
nothing<br />
Corpus Christi<br />
Playroom<br />
Dir: Grace Jackson<br />
Theatre<br />
★★★★★<br />
David H<strong>are</strong>’s sensationally titled<br />
SLAG is a surreal and comic<br />
experience, depicting a perverted<br />
version of an all-female education.<br />
Beginning with a united<br />
front, the three female leads take<br />
a dramatic vow of chastity as<br />
a part of a stand against male<br />
<strong>do</strong>minance. However, throughout<br />
the course of the play this disintegrates<br />
into a complex web of divisive<br />
power-play and deception.<br />
Exploring the space between<br />
espoused theories of an allfemale<br />
social utopia and the<br />
subsequent subversion of such<br />
ideals, this production is both<br />
dark and satirical. Darkly comic,<br />
is no less quick witted, callous or<br />
attractive. Chloe Massey’s Vittoria<br />
is a virtuosic performance of<br />
a woman stuck in a man’s world,<br />
pitching herself magnificently<br />
against Josh Higgott’s menacing<br />
Cardinal Monticelso.<br />
The main fault of the production<br />
was in some badly thought<br />
out <strong>do</strong>ubling of parts: one actor<br />
died as Flamineo’s brother-inlaw,<br />
only to re appear, and indeed<br />
re-die, a few scenes later as<br />
Flamineo’s brother. The already<br />
complex plot was not helped<br />
by the resulting confusion and<br />
could easily have been avoided.<br />
This oversight did little to spoil<br />
what was a scintillating gem of<br />
a production. Gwilliam and her<br />
cast breathed life into a much<br />
neglected tragedy which has as<br />
much to tell us now about ‘policy<br />
and her true aspect’ as it ever did<br />
to a Jacobean audience.<br />
Lizzie Davis<br />
The fact that the cast helped<br />
creatively shape the play<br />
definitely shows through in the<br />
delicate c<strong>are</strong> <strong>they</strong> display for their<br />
labour of love. Except for, perhaps,<br />
the effortless characterisations<br />
by Belinda Sherlock, none of<br />
the individual performances is<br />
outstanding. As a group, however,<br />
this cast makes a brilliant team.<br />
This is a multimedia production,<br />
timed perfectly to the haunting<br />
musical accompaniment of<br />
three violins. Everything is given<br />
a rhythm, which is never at the<br />
expense of clarity. Delightful<br />
surrealism abounds, intertwining<br />
poetry with folktale, stories, mon-<br />
“Lots of things we <strong>think</strong> <strong>are</strong> opposites<br />
<strong>are</strong> actually the same”.<br />
The world of Rory Mullarkey’s<br />
new two-hander is one in which<br />
every word is minutely weighted<br />
and every gesture is gripped in<br />
the teeth of the dialogue and relentlessly<br />
gnawed at. Over four<br />
tragi-comic scenes in an airport<br />
departure lounge and a 19-yearold<br />
prostitute’s bed, B and D and<br />
A and C (Alex Clatworthy and<br />
Tom Yarrow) discuss whether<br />
we can get something from nothing<br />
or nothing from something.<br />
But Mullarkey’s play is<br />
certainly more than a reductive<br />
word game writ large. Coupled<br />
timing is everything in this<br />
production, as the three female<br />
teachers descend into paranoia<br />
and desperation when faced with<br />
the claustrophobic confines of<br />
their ideal society.<br />
The elegance and confidence of<br />
the sparse set creates a precise<br />
and contained atmosphere,<br />
enhanced by the stark monochrome<br />
scheme of both costume<br />
and set. These devices offset the<br />
unpredictability of the tortuous<br />
plot and focus attention on the<br />
expressive dialogue.<br />
The volatile dynamics of the<br />
trio can be difficult to follow,<br />
partly because of H<strong>are</strong>’s penchant<br />
ologues and recipes in a collage of<br />
the life of Gerrard’s grandmother.<br />
Cars, trains and factories <strong>are</strong><br />
reproduced through wonderful<br />
mime and vocal, physical effects.<br />
Sha<strong>do</strong>w-puppets depict the most<br />
gruesome moments, giving a<br />
sense of a child’s strategy of coping<br />
with horror through play.<br />
Yes, there <strong>are</strong> flaws. The narrative<br />
is, at times, somewhat<br />
contrived, and the sentimental<br />
naivety sometimes puts a toe<br />
over the line into mawkishness,<br />
but this is beside the point. It is<br />
enchanting, magical, delicate and<br />
beautiful. Please <strong>do</strong> go and see it.<br />
Jon Andrews<br />
with Clatworthy and Yarrow’s<br />
flawless and brilliantly humane<br />
characterisation, words here<br />
become supple enough to be<br />
both disturbing and lyrical.<br />
At many perfectly executed<br />
points of gesture and dialogue,<br />
actors and writer <strong>do</strong> succeed<br />
in bashing together contraries<br />
and finding something unusual<br />
and thrilling. Yarrow as ‘David’<br />
describes a dismembered prostitute<br />
– “she had been stabbed<br />
and fucked so many times <strong>you</strong><br />
couldn’t tell what was a stab<br />
and what was a fuck”. He questions<br />
all of this seamlessly in<br />
his delicate delivery, contrasted<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/arts<br />
for the bizarre and surreal. However,<br />
the direction harnesses both<br />
the comic and sinister potential<br />
of the play and lends it order.<br />
Joanne, played with conviction<br />
and passion by Lily Sakula, is<br />
intense and <strong>do</strong>minating, driven<br />
by a militant vision of a feminist<br />
ideal. She is a contradictory,<br />
schizophrenic reaction to Anne’s<br />
sense of propriety and pretence<br />
of rationality. Together with the<br />
apolitical, easily suggestible Elise,<br />
<strong>they</strong> form a parody of the nuclear<br />
family. SLAG’s precision, energy<br />
and control make this a finely<br />
balanced production well worth<br />
seeing. Elly Robson<br />
Skates<br />
ADC<br />
Dir: Cat Gerrard<br />
Theatre<br />
★★★★★<br />
joe gosden<br />
by Clatworthy’s ranting tenaciousness<br />
as B and apathetic<br />
(“that’s almost the same as<br />
pathetic”) fragility as D.<br />
This subtle process of mirroring<br />
and examination breaks<br />
<strong>do</strong>wn only at the very end.<br />
‘You’re nothing but a cunt to<br />
me…’ strikes a crude wrong<br />
note and the balance is broken<br />
in favour of a shock which<br />
<strong>do</strong>esn’t quite come off. ‘something/nothing’<br />
is not a great<br />
play yet, but it is an example of<br />
superb and innovative writing<br />
and acting, and is laden with<br />
serious potential.<br />
Isabel Taylor
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/arts<br />
I Was A Cub<br />
Scout<br />
I Want You to<br />
Know That<br />
There Is Always<br />
Hope<br />
Album<br />
★★★★★<br />
Fuck Buttons<br />
The Graduate<br />
Gig<br />
★★★★★<br />
Fuck Buttons, it must be said<br />
from the outset, <strong>do</strong> not have<br />
a way with words. First of all,<br />
there’s the needlessly confrontational<br />
but nevertheless resoundingly<br />
uncontroversial name. Second,<br />
and perhaps worse, their<br />
biography reads as follows: “The<br />
two Fuck Buttons <strong>are</strong> attempting<br />
some kind of transcendence<br />
between the listener and the<br />
Universe itself; one could easily<br />
envisage one’s psyches being<br />
shaken by the very rumbles of<br />
the earth’s motions”. It is wank<br />
of the highest order.<br />
Thank God, then, that Fuck<br />
Buttons’ music is, almost without<br />
exception, instrumental. When<br />
Benjamin Power screams into his<br />
Tomy baby monitor microphone<br />
on Sweet Love For Planet Earth,<br />
the effect is one of texture, not<br />
lyricism; an overdriven humanity<br />
riding over a cold, electronic<br />
backdrop. There may be words<br />
embedded deep within the static,<br />
there may not. It <strong>do</strong>esn’t really<br />
matter. The vocals that pop up<br />
I’m not usually a fan of inhouse<br />
bands. The phrase<br />
conjures uncomfortable images<br />
of 4 Poofs and Piano, or a<br />
drunken Gloria Estefan lookalike<br />
slugging back Martinis<br />
and singing Copacabana. It’s<br />
a rocky path, and on Tuesday<br />
night Footlights took its<br />
first steps on it, introducing a<br />
musical duo at the back of the<br />
stage throughout the show.<br />
Despite a quiet start, the<br />
pair remained the most<br />
intriguing element of the<br />
performance, which a<strong>do</strong>pted a<br />
musical theme. Pete Riley was<br />
one of the few performers who<br />
Saying <strong>you</strong> ‘like’ an album covers<br />
a huge range of possibilities.<br />
Some albums can sound amazing<br />
straight from the first listen but<br />
then get tiresome very quickly<br />
(I couldn’t get enough of the last<br />
Bloc Party album but it got really<br />
annoying after a week), but then<br />
some albums take forever to get<br />
in to (I didn’t really like the Elliott<br />
Smith album Either/Or until<br />
one night when I was walking<br />
home, feeling a little bit drunk<br />
and melancholic, Say Yes came on<br />
my iPod, and something clicked).<br />
Clearly a lot of what <strong>you</strong><br />
‘like’ about an album is <strong>do</strong>wn to<br />
technicalities such as production<br />
style, or things like rhythm and<br />
harmony. But an equally massive<br />
component has to be the context<br />
in which <strong>you</strong> hear it. Films, for<br />
instance, can heighten the effect<br />
of songs by putting them in some<br />
ready-made emotional context.<br />
But in real life too, music, time<br />
and place can sometimes all slot<br />
together and give a song some<br />
ethereal significance. All those<br />
songs that <strong>you</strong> like because <strong>they</strong><br />
remind <strong>you</strong> of some <strong>you</strong>thful<br />
romance <strong>you</strong> had might be awful,<br />
but <strong>you</strong> still ‘like’ them.<br />
The point I’m trying to make<br />
now and again throughout Fuck<br />
Buttons’ set all have one thing<br />
in common: <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong> heavily<br />
treated, mangled beyond recognition<br />
by overdrive or delay, part of<br />
the instrumental surroundings<br />
rather than a be<strong>are</strong>r of melody.<br />
The music is driven instead by<br />
the almost ever-present bass, a<br />
ring-modulated, shit-<strong>you</strong>rself<br />
roar that simply becomes bigger.<br />
and bigger. It’s the sort of noise<br />
Aphex Twin or Autechre would<br />
be proud of, but within context<br />
– there <strong>are</strong> no absurd drill ‘n’<br />
bass beats (indeed, there <strong>are</strong><br />
frequently no drums at all) and<br />
little arrhythmic twitchiness – it<br />
produces an effect more akin to<br />
a rave than to a chin-stroking<br />
seriousness. The four-to-the-floor<br />
Bright Tomorrow in particular<br />
sets the frail, pale and overwhelmingly<br />
male feet of the<br />
Graduate’s clientele awkwardly<br />
tapping, its synths straight out of<br />
an old 80s Chicago house record.<br />
Indeed, it’s the whole fun of<br />
Fuck Buttons that takes one<br />
took advantage of their presence.<br />
In his sketch with Jack<br />
Gor<strong>do</strong>n-Brown, coming over<br />
like the bitter and retarded<br />
cousins of Simon and Garfunkel,<br />
he resorted to calling<br />
them cunts in a bid to deflect<br />
attention from the deadpan<br />
failure of songs called ‘My<br />
Existential Angst’.<br />
The night’s stan<strong>do</strong>uts paid<br />
little attention to their new<br />
companions. These included a<br />
Flight of the Conchords-esque<br />
‘100 guys I’d go gay for’; and<br />
a sketch in the dark from Rob<br />
Carter and Tom Evans, getting<br />
considerable comic mileage<br />
is this; assuming an album<br />
isn’t substandard or derivative<br />
(and <strong>do</strong>esn’t make <strong>you</strong>r ears<br />
bleed or make <strong>you</strong> shit <strong>you</strong>rself<br />
or something) it is essentially<br />
impossible to say whether <strong>you</strong><br />
like it or not if <strong>you</strong>’ve only had it<br />
a week. And I feel this particularly<br />
strongly with respect to the<br />
new I Was A Cub Scout album.<br />
It is definitely not bad. In fact<br />
it’s pretty good. It has a fairly<br />
original sound (a nice mix of<br />
synths, clean drums and soaring<br />
guitars) and it has some infectious<br />
melodies. It combines some<br />
good aspects of electro, emo and<br />
nu-rave to create kind of sparse<br />
yet epic sound. It’s precisely the<br />
sort of thing I have a fondness<br />
for, but for some reason it hasn’t<br />
clicked. I’ve tried listening to<br />
it everywhere; whilst at my<br />
computer and whilst running;<br />
during the day and at night, but<br />
I haven’t found its niche. Even<br />
though I’m pretty sure it has<br />
one. I’ll give it three stars for not<br />
being crap but such a rating is<br />
essentially meaningless.<br />
But then what the hell <strong>do</strong>es it<br />
matter what I <strong>think</strong>? Music is<br />
about personal response so <strong>you</strong><br />
<strong>are</strong> almost certainly better off<br />
aback. Po-faced techno arsery<br />
quite simply isn’t supposed to<br />
be this visceral and vital, nor<br />
quite so curiously danceable.<br />
The name the pair have taken<br />
for themselves was presumably<br />
chosen on the basis that<br />
from the flash of a disposable<br />
camera and pervy voyeurism.<br />
Yet on the whole sketches<br />
suffered from being overlong<br />
or fell into the trap of: create<br />
quiet awkward situation,<br />
shout something like RAPE,<br />
wait for laughter. It was at<br />
these moments that the onstage<br />
band often provided<br />
moments of respite. If <strong>they</strong><br />
can be more integrated into<br />
the sketches, rather than sitting<br />
forlornly at the back until<br />
their brief interludes, Cambridge’s<br />
funny boys and girls<br />
might be on to something.<br />
Lowri Jenkins<br />
Write for this section:<br />
arts@varsity.co.uk<br />
finding out for <strong>you</strong>rself. Go get<br />
<strong>you</strong>rself a copy of the album and<br />
make up <strong>you</strong>r own mind. In fact,<br />
what is the point of any review?<br />
You should probably just ignore<br />
everything on this page. In<br />
fact why not just set <strong>you</strong>r copy<br />
of <strong>Varsity</strong> alight and use it to<br />
trigger the smoke alarms? Then<br />
take off all <strong>you</strong>r clothes and run<br />
wildly around college listening<br />
to the I Was A Cub Scout album.<br />
Then it will always remind <strong>you</strong><br />
of that time <strong>you</strong> did something<br />
foolish because someone in a<br />
newspaper told <strong>you</strong> to. Maybe<br />
that would be its niche. And<br />
maybe <strong>you</strong> would like it.<br />
Oli Robinson<br />
their music had already ostracised<br />
them from the mainstream<br />
before <strong>they</strong>’d started.<br />
On this evidence, that may<br />
prove to be a slightly hasty<br />
assumption.<br />
Ali Wedderburn<br />
Footlights<br />
Smoker<br />
ADC<br />
Comedy<br />
★★★★★<br />
REVIEW<br />
albums<br />
every right-minded person<br />
should own<br />
Computer World<br />
Kraftwerk<br />
25<br />
It is easy to present Kraftwerk<br />
as being a bit of a joke – even<br />
<strong>they</strong> would surely plead guilty<br />
– but <strong>they</strong> <strong>are</strong> also one of the<br />
most visionary and influential<br />
bands of modern music. Computer<br />
World marks the culmination<br />
of their seminal run of albums,<br />
beginning with Autobahn<br />
and followed by Radioactivity,<br />
The Man Machine and Trans<br />
Europe Express, in which <strong>they</strong><br />
defined electronic music.<br />
It’s not just about the concept<br />
with this band though.<br />
Computer World’s beats <strong>are</strong><br />
seriously heavy, and when<br />
Numbers kicks in, the synth<br />
line cuts in and out of the huge<br />
kick drum line in a way that<br />
Timbaland could never imitate,<br />
while a cacophony of processed<br />
voices counts to five in<br />
a <strong>do</strong>zen languages languages.<br />
Computer World and It’s More<br />
Fun to Compute were a true<br />
portent of things to come, when<br />
in 1981 home computers were<br />
but a twinkle in Alan Sugar’s<br />
imagination.<br />
Each song on this album is<br />
hauntingly beautiful, its crisp<br />
synth lines enveloping <strong>you</strong><br />
in the warm analogue glow<br />
of their Kling Klang studios<br />
where the band hid away for<br />
months to kraft (ha) this perfect<br />
record. The centrepiece of<br />
the album is Computer Love,<br />
the lead line of which Coldplay<br />
pilfered for their song Talk.<br />
The song is compulsive, its<br />
drums beating like a love sick<br />
teenager’s heart. If it’s possible<br />
to be emo over computers,<br />
this is the ne<strong>are</strong>st we get. The<br />
song’s melodies <strong>are</strong> tender and<br />
brittle, fading in and out of<br />
life, some cutting hard, others<br />
sweeping up behind to fill in<br />
the gaps. The rounded bass<br />
notes drive the song onwards<br />
and upwards, propping up the<br />
tragically weak chord sequence<br />
processed on the most beloved<br />
bass synthesiser there has ever<br />
been. But six minutes in and<br />
the song is over; and CompScis<br />
across the world shed a tear.<br />
The album still has a whole<br />
side to go but it’s almost too<br />
much to bear. The age of the<br />
computer is with us, and there<br />
is no better expression of the<br />
connection between Man and<br />
Machine than on this album.<br />
It’s a hilarious concept, and<br />
Kraftwerk keep their metallic<br />
tongues in their cyborg cheeks;<br />
yet this delicate balance is<br />
maintained throughout all of<br />
their work, reaching its pinnacle<br />
in this album. Everyone<br />
should embrace this Computer<br />
World. Tom Hamilton
26<br />
Nick<br />
Knows<br />
Dear Nick,<br />
VIEWLifestyle<br />
I am concerned about the<br />
shape of my new boyfriend’s<br />
penis. The fi rst<br />
time we went to “third<br />
base” I noticed that it<br />
bends to the right when<br />
erect. I’ve never seen<br />
anything like it and I’m<br />
worried that it will hurt at<br />
least one of us when we<br />
have sex. Is it something I<br />
should talk to him about?<br />
Anon., via email<br />
To the Cambridge Wine Merchants<br />
to sup upon various<br />
heavenly nectars and divine<br />
ambrosias. At a wine tasting<br />
there <strong>are</strong> two clear imperatives:<br />
to drink as much as possible and<br />
to eulogise as imaginatively as<br />
possible on the sensory pleasure.<br />
The in vino veritas principle assures<br />
the drinker that the former<br />
imperative should aid the latter<br />
immeasurably.<br />
The wine taster’s modus operandi<br />
will soon expose him as an<br />
expert. One should preferably<br />
wear a loud bow-tie and sport<br />
a limp attributed to a surfeit<br />
of good-living and fine port.<br />
Furthermore, if not already possessed<br />
of a suitably corpusculent<br />
visage, then apply blusher liberally<br />
across the nose and cheeks.<br />
In order to convey an impression<br />
of well-watered experience a<strong>do</strong>pt<br />
an international approach to<br />
toasts. Replace ‘cheers!’ with a<br />
more exotic interjection, such as<br />
the Russian ‘na z<strong>do</strong>rovye!’ or the<br />
Chinese ‘ganbei!’ which may then<br />
be explained away with years<br />
spent drinking shots of vodka or<br />
pints of snake’s blood. Finally, it<br />
is considered the height of bad<br />
manners not to drain the proffered<br />
glass of its entire contents,<br />
whilst spitting the wine out into<br />
a bucket is practiced only by<br />
peasants on the continent.<br />
The more enthusiastic guests<br />
at the wine tasting often smell<br />
Lifestyle Editors: John Lattimore and Luciana Bellini<br />
features@varsity.co.uk<br />
Resident Medic Nick Culshaw Tells You<br />
How To Deal With Your Bendy Boyfriend<br />
Dear bendy-member<br />
recipient,<br />
Your boyfriend’s penis<br />
could be bent for a number<br />
of reasons, many of which<br />
<strong>are</strong> no cause for alarm.<br />
Many men have a natural<br />
curvature to one side or the<br />
other when erect and this<br />
is considered normal. Men<br />
can also be born with one<br />
side of the penis shorter<br />
than the other, causing a<br />
bend towards the shorter<br />
side.<br />
Peyronie’s disease is the<br />
most common cause of an<br />
abnormally bent penis, affecting<br />
around 1% of guys<br />
though usually not until<br />
their forties. Its caused<br />
by a plaque of scar tissue<br />
under the skin and as the<br />
penis fills with blood it<br />
bends around the plaque.<br />
Peyronie’s disease can<br />
cause intercourse to be<br />
very painful, though this<br />
is not always the case, and<br />
please note the disease has<br />
nothing to <strong>do</strong> with cancer<br />
nor is it infectious.<br />
As for whether or not <strong>you</strong><br />
should bring it up with<br />
<strong>you</strong>r boyfriend, that’s a<br />
hard one. Guys <strong>are</strong> very<br />
sensitive about their penises<br />
and <strong>you</strong>r boyfriend<br />
definitely won’t thank <strong>you</strong><br />
if <strong>you</strong> bring it up over dinner.<br />
Personally, my advice<br />
would be to wait until<br />
<strong>you</strong> actually have sex - if<br />
it hurts <strong>you</strong>, or it looks<br />
like he’s in pain, <strong>you</strong> have<br />
the perfect opportunity to<br />
bring it up.<br />
If it is congenital then<br />
<strong>you</strong>r boyfriend will most<br />
likely be used to it, but<br />
could also be self conscious<br />
about it. No-one’s perfect<br />
and if it causes <strong>you</strong> no pain<br />
during sex then <strong>you</strong>’ll get<br />
used to it in no time. If,<br />
however, <strong>you</strong> notice any<br />
sort of lump, or the curvature<br />
gets worse, <strong>you</strong> should<br />
definitely suggest that he<br />
sees a <strong>do</strong>ctor as soon as<br />
possible.<br />
On that note, if either<br />
<strong>you</strong> or <strong>you</strong>r boyfriend have<br />
had other sexual partners,<br />
then <strong>you</strong> should head <strong>do</strong>wn<br />
to the Laurels for an STI<br />
check before having unprotected<br />
sex - a bent penis is<br />
nothing comp<strong>are</strong>d to gonorrhoea.<br />
Oh, and whatever <strong>you</strong><br />
<strong>do</strong>, try not to bend it back<br />
during foreplay as this will<br />
hurt like hell, could cause<br />
penile fracture and will<br />
definitely bring a swift end<br />
to <strong>you</strong>r fun.<br />
Got a problem? Medic and<br />
CUSU HIV and sexual health<br />
rep Nick will happily answer<br />
any questions <strong>you</strong> may have.<br />
Send them in to<br />
lifestyle@varsity.co.uk<br />
BottomsUp<br />
the wine, but this is embarrassing<br />
and perilous. Instead<br />
one should bide one’s time with<br />
mouth exercises. Fletcherism<br />
was the cult of excessive mastication<br />
that prompted Gladstone<br />
to advise children that <strong>they</strong><br />
should chew their food thirty<br />
two times at least, to give each<br />
“One should<br />
preferably wear<br />
a loud bow-tie<br />
and sport a limp<br />
attributed to a<br />
surfeit of good-living<br />
and fi ne port”<br />
of one’s thirty two teeth some<br />
exercise. Similarly one should<br />
swill one’s mouthful around at<br />
least five times, to allow for<br />
each of the basic tastes a chance<br />
to appreciate the grape juice,<br />
with further sluicing to aid in<br />
the evaluation of temperature,<br />
astringency and kokumi (the<br />
Japanese tradition of ‘mouthfulness’).<br />
A wine critic who actually<br />
knows about wine is roughly as<br />
r<strong>are</strong> as a <strong>do</strong><strong>do</strong> egg omelette or a<br />
jeroboam of Black Velvet. They<br />
<strong>are</strong> chosen instead on thirst,<br />
capacity to slur, and an inventiveness<br />
with similes that would<br />
make most ambitious of poets<br />
jealous. The more eccentric or<br />
abstract the comparison, the better.<br />
Experts in the field <strong>are</strong> well<br />
known to dine extensively on<br />
bark, polystyrene and sunshineon-a-a-rainy-day<br />
in order to improve<br />
their receptory faculties.<br />
Moreover the quantifying and<br />
qualifying process should suggest<br />
every state of matter except<br />
liquid: ‘bursting with oodles of<br />
summer berries’ or ‘suffocating<br />
in woodsmoke’. If really wishing<br />
to impress offer impressions<br />
utterly at ran<strong>do</strong>m and enjoy<br />
the earnest and approving nods<br />
of <strong>you</strong>r fellow tasters as <strong>they</strong><br />
struggle to identify the smell of<br />
a poppy seed and pelican pie, the<br />
colour of a well-used medieval<br />
football, or the taste of a handheld<br />
powertool acquired from<br />
B&Q.<br />
At no point should one present<br />
any useful judgement on the<br />
wine. Instead smack <strong>you</strong>r lips<br />
loudly and announce ‘scrummy’.<br />
One will invariably become too<br />
squiffy to remember which wines<br />
were enjoyable or to recommend<br />
any to others, thus select the<br />
most costly and rely on the timehonoured<br />
attitude that the more<br />
expensive a wine is, the superior<br />
its quality. Guy Stagg<br />
Restaurant Review<br />
James Quaife<br />
Havanabana<br />
13, Regent’s Parade<br />
★★★★★<br />
Now I haven’t written a<br />
restaurant review before, but<br />
bear with me - I’m going to<br />
give it my best shot! Contemporary<br />
Cuban cuisine is<br />
hardly ubiquitous in Cambridge’s<br />
restaurant scene, but<br />
Mr Culajo, proprietor of new<br />
Cuban bistro Havanabana,<br />
is determined to make his<br />
mark.<br />
It was with mild trepidation<br />
that Tom (the regular<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> restaurant reviewer)<br />
and I braved a crisp February<br />
evening, but the welcome at<br />
Havanabana warmed our cold<br />
hands. The dining room was<br />
homely and red, walls decked<br />
out with sombreros and other<br />
cool Communist propaganda,<br />
which gave the place a real<br />
authentic vibe of a bygone<br />
era. Our friendly waitress,<br />
dressed in traditional Cuban<br />
salsa garb, handed us our<br />
leatherbound menus, and we<br />
knew from that moment on<br />
that it was going to be a very<br />
special evening indeed.<br />
Tom (an intrepid gastronaut,<br />
always one for making<br />
funky food choices!) plumped<br />
for the cinnamon-spiced pork<br />
belly strips with a plantain<br />
marmalade (!). I went for the<br />
seafood, which turned out to<br />
be a veritable assortment of<br />
maritime delights, swimming<br />
in a most delicious herbstuffed<br />
broth. Tom’s pork<br />
was crispy and creamy at the<br />
same time, and the marmalade<br />
was surprisingly zesty.<br />
Then we entered the realm<br />
of the main courses. Mr<br />
Culajo recommended the<br />
Cuban lamb shanklets with<br />
banana mash, and I wasn’t<br />
going to disagree with him!<br />
Tom plotted his own fishy<br />
James is the winner of Tom Evans’<br />
“Take me to dinner” competition<br />
course, opting for the flashfried<br />
Dover sole served on a<br />
bed of garlic-infused polenta<br />
drizzled lovingly with a white<br />
chocolate relish (I am yet to<br />
be entirely convinced!). The<br />
browned flesh turned out to<br />
be incredibly tender, however,<br />
and the ‘wacky’ sauce complemented<br />
it perfectly.<br />
Next up, the best bit of<br />
any meal - pudding! We were<br />
both more bloated than a<br />
balloon by this stage, so we<br />
plumped for one between two:<br />
a tremen<strong>do</strong>us hunk of quivering<br />
dark chocolate, mango,<br />
pineapple, lychee and saffron<br />
cheesecake served up with<br />
a sizeable <strong>do</strong>llop of licquorice<br />
ice cream. Nice cream,<br />
more like - it was delicious!<br />
Quite simply one of the most<br />
indulgent puds I’ve ever had<br />
the good fortune to pop into<br />
my mouth.<br />
But bloody good grub <strong>do</strong>es<br />
not come cheap. The 3-course<br />
a la carte will set <strong>you</strong> back a<br />
substantial £27.50, and <strong>do</strong>n’t<br />
go <strong>think</strong>ing <strong>you</strong>’ll wangle<br />
a bottle of decent plonk for<br />
under fifteen smackers. Still,<br />
Mr Culajo and his team <strong>do</strong> a<br />
damn fine job at Havanabana.<br />
The food is extremely nice<br />
- my thanks go out to Tom for<br />
letting me come with him.<br />
By way of concluding this<br />
review: if <strong>you</strong>’re an afficiona<strong>do</strong><br />
of contemporary Cuban<br />
cuisine, what on earth <strong>are</strong><br />
<strong>you</strong> waiting for? Get <strong>do</strong>wn<br />
to Havanabana ASAP, before<br />
Mr Culajo moves on to bigger<br />
and better things. It might<br />
not be the cheapest place in<br />
Cambridge, but it’s VERY<br />
good; although it is expensive,<br />
it’s damned nice.<br />
Tom Evans returns next week<br />
e set menu costs £27.50<br />
e wine list starts at £ 10.99<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/features<br />
JAMES QUAIFE
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/listings<br />
pick<br />
of the<br />
week<br />
Write for this section:<br />
listings@varsity.co.uk<br />
fi lm theatre music other going out<br />
Kika<br />
Thurs 21st Feb, Arts<br />
Picturehouse, 17.00<br />
A warning comes with<br />
this fi lm, that it “contains<br />
graphic scenes which may<br />
offend”; of course it <strong>do</strong>es,<br />
it’s by Almodóvar. Expect<br />
a beautician, an American<br />
novelist, his reincarnated<br />
photographer step-son, a<br />
predatory TV reporter, a<br />
lesbian maid and ex-porn<br />
star con. Excellent.<br />
friday<br />
15<br />
Jumper<br />
Vue, 10.00. 12.10, 14.20, 16.40,<br />
18.50, 21.10, 23.30<br />
There Will Be Blood<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 14.00,<br />
17.15, 20.30<br />
saturday<br />
16<br />
The Cat in the Hat<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 11.00<br />
Frankenstein<br />
Old Labs, Newnham, 20.00,<br />
free.<br />
The Bucket List<br />
Vue, 13.10, 15.40, 18.10, 20.40<br />
sunday<br />
17<br />
The Witnesses<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 14.15<br />
Juno<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 12.00,<br />
16.50, 19.00, 21.10<br />
monday<br />
Cloverfi eld<br />
18<br />
Vue, 12.40, 14.50, 17.10,<br />
19.20, 21.30<br />
There Will Be Blood<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 14.00,<br />
17.15, 20.30<br />
tuesday<br />
19<br />
Kings of the Road (Until<br />
the End of Time)<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 14.30<br />
Le Doulos<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 13.30<br />
wednesday Memoires d’immigres<br />
20<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 14.30<br />
Be Kind Rewind<br />
Vue, 13.30, 15.50, 18.20, 21.00<br />
Le Doulos<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 11.00<br />
Kika<br />
thursday<br />
21<br />
Arts Picturehouse, 17.00<br />
Be Kind Rewind<br />
Vue, 13.30, 15.50, 18.20, 21.00<br />
Juno<br />
Vue, 13.40, 16.10, 18.30, 20.50<br />
More...<br />
Music<br />
Open Mic -<br />
Unheard of.<br />
Sat 16th Feb<br />
XVIII Jesus Lane,<br />
19:00<br />
They <strong>are</strong> <strong>do</strong>ing some pretty<br />
cool stuff at ‘The Shop’. If<br />
<strong>you</strong> have been to the Edinburgh<br />
fringe, its a bit like<br />
the Forest Cafe <strong>they</strong> have<br />
there. Im sure this open<br />
mic night will be rather fun.<br />
The Complete<br />
Works of William<br />
Shakespe<strong>are</strong><br />
(abridged)<br />
Wed 20th - Sat 23rd Feb,<br />
ADC Theatre, 23.00 (Sat 23rd<br />
Feb, matinee, 14.30)<br />
If <strong>you</strong>’re an English student<br />
<strong>you</strong> probably won’t want to<br />
see this (though bear in mind<br />
that it could be useful for <strong>you</strong>r<br />
‘Shakespe<strong>are</strong> in performance’<br />
exam question...). However,<br />
we’ve been promised crossdressing,<br />
bad dancing, curious<br />
accents, and even a banjo.<br />
Frankly, it’s not those things<br />
that intrigue me, it’s how<br />
<strong>they</strong>’re going to get all of the<br />
bard’s works, albeit abridged,<br />
into one hour.<br />
Something/Nothing<br />
Corpus Playrooms, 21.30<br />
Rope<br />
Pembroke New Cellars, 22.00<br />
White Devil<br />
ADC Theatre, 19.45<br />
The Vagina Monologues<br />
Fitzpatrick Hall, Queens’,<br />
23.00<br />
Skates<br />
ADC Theatre, 23.00<br />
Rope<br />
Pembroke New Cellars, 22.00<br />
Caribou<br />
Sat 16th, The Graduate, 19.30, £8<br />
Dan Snaith makes laidback<br />
sounding psychedelic tinged<br />
electronica which has the<br />
potential to sound really great<br />
live. Like all the cool kids he<br />
has PhD in Mathematics. He<br />
got it at Imperial College Lon<strong>do</strong>n.<br />
That’s the way it is these<br />
days. All aspiring musicians<br />
must have at least seven years<br />
worth of hardcore academic<br />
study behind them and the<br />
title ‘Dr’ before the music business<br />
will consider them. Even<br />
Amy Winehouse has a <strong>do</strong>ctorate<br />
in Medieval History. Pete<br />
Doherty is a fully qualifi ed<br />
Medic.<br />
Winter Kings<br />
The Graduate, 19.30, £tbc<br />
Melancholic introspective rock.<br />
Yep, life is shit and no one <strong>do</strong>es,<br />
in fact, love <strong>you</strong>. Stand on a<br />
precipice and weep.<br />
Caribou<br />
The Graduate, 19.30, £8<br />
See pick of the week<br />
If only Cindies were open. Set Your Goals<br />
The Graduate, 19:30, £7<br />
Californian ROCK! Don <strong>you</strong>r<br />
Kurt Cobain Hoodie. ROCK!<br />
Devil Horns. Yeah! ROCK!<br />
You could stay in? Swing Jazz<br />
The Man on the Moon.<br />
Entertaining Mr Sloane<br />
ADC Theatre, 19.45<br />
Low Level Panic<br />
Corpus Playrooms, 21.00<br />
Dangerous Liaisons<br />
Robinson College Auditorium,<br />
19.30<br />
The Complete Works of William<br />
Shakespe<strong>are</strong> (abridged)<br />
ADC Theatre, 23.00<br />
Entertaining Mr Sloane<br />
ADC Theatre, 19.45<br />
Low Level Panic<br />
Corpus Playrooms, 21.00<br />
Dangerous Liaisons<br />
Robinson College Auditorium,<br />
19.30<br />
Theatre<br />
Slag<br />
15th and 16th Feb<br />
Corpus Playroom,<br />
19:00<br />
From the description it<br />
sounds like this David<br />
H<strong>are</strong> play is about promiscuous<br />
public school girls.<br />
What more could could <strong>you</strong> possibly<br />
want from a night at<br />
the theatre?<br />
They give no more details than<br />
the name. I imagine <strong>they</strong> will<br />
teach <strong>you</strong> how to <strong>do</strong> taxidermy.<br />
The Bad Robots<br />
The Graduate, 19.30, £5<br />
Ska punk rock. Ooh the naughty<br />
little machines. Stop being so<br />
bad and naughty.<br />
Don Giovanni<br />
West Road Concert Hall, 19.00,<br />
£9.50<br />
They had this thing at Kambar<br />
featuring live strings and a DJ.<br />
Twas really rather good.<br />
Amy McDonald<br />
The Junction, 19.00, £10.50<br />
Pretty Scottish songstress, purveyor<br />
of music to eat cardboard<br />
to. She lists The Kooks and<br />
Razorlight as infl uences. Say no<br />
more.<br />
Don Giovanni<br />
Wed 20th - Sat 23rd Feb, West<br />
Road Concert Hall, 19.45, £6<br />
for students<br />
The team that brought <strong>you</strong><br />
Les Incas du Perous returns<br />
with this production of one of<br />
Mozart’s most popular operas.<br />
Taking inspiration from the<br />
quote: “The only rule is <strong>do</strong>n’t<br />
be boring” (Paris Hilton), it<br />
claims to be bold and exciting,<br />
and looks likely to be one of<br />
the major musical or theatrical<br />
events of the year. It even has<br />
its own website:<br />
www.<strong>do</strong>ngiovanni2008.com<br />
Oliver Letwin: ‘Serendipity<br />
in Political Life’<br />
Lady Mitchell Hall, 17.30-18.30<br />
Letwin continues the Darwin<br />
College Lecture series on<br />
serendipity.<br />
Momentary Momentum:<br />
animated drawings<br />
Kettle’s Yard, Castle Street,<br />
11.30-17.00, free<br />
French Tapestry and<br />
Illustration<br />
Fitzwilliam Museum,<br />
10.00-17.00, free<br />
This House would return the<br />
Parthenon Marbles to the New<br />
Acropolis Museum in Athens<br />
Chamber, Cambridge Union,<br />
19.30-21.30, members<br />
RAG Stand Up Competition<br />
Downing Party Room, 19.30,£2<br />
Chinwe Chukuogo-Roy<br />
Chamber, Cambridge Union,<br />
19.00-21.00, members<br />
RAG Stand Up Competition<br />
Cl<strong>are</strong> Cellars, 19.30, £2<br />
Don Giovanni<br />
Chamber, Cambridge Union,<br />
19.00-21.00, members<br />
First night.<br />
CU Wine Society presents<br />
Falesco of Italy<br />
See www.cuws.co.uk.<br />
This House believes that<br />
Britain’s children <strong>are</strong> being<br />
failed by the state<br />
Cambridge Union, 19.30-22.30<br />
RAG Stand Up Competition<br />
Trinity Wolfson Party Room,<br />
19.30, £2<br />
Going Out<br />
Retro Gaming All<br />
Stars<br />
Wed 13th Feb<br />
The The Graduate, Graduate,<br />
19:30<br />
You pay a pound and then<br />
get to play SNES and<br />
Megadrive games in a tournament.<br />
The winner takes<br />
it all. Like what <strong>you</strong> used<br />
to <strong>do</strong> when <strong>you</strong> were 12 but<br />
with hard cash and beer.<br />
VIEWListings<br />
Carnaval<br />
Wed 20th, Soul Tree,<br />
22.00-03.00, £3/£4/£5<br />
27<br />
This ought to provide the 5th<br />
week escapism. There will be<br />
Brazilian DJs and dancers,<br />
music from all over the world,<br />
and prizes for best fancy<br />
dress.<br />
Heducation<br />
Cl<strong>are</strong> Cellars, 21.00, £4<br />
The Heducation crew bring<br />
hip-hop, funk, breaks, drum n<br />
bass, and impressive guests.<br />
I-Jambie & Technomaus<br />
King’s Cellar, 22.00-00.45<br />
The Voo<strong>do</strong>o Rave crew visit<br />
King’s. I-Jambie will provide<br />
bass music, and Technomaus<br />
will play techno/house.<br />
The Sunday Service<br />
Twenty Two, 22.00-03.00<br />
Fat Poppadaddys<br />
Fez, 22.00-03.30, £3 before 11,<br />
£4 after<br />
Ebonics<br />
Fez, 22.00-03.00, £2 before 11,<br />
£4 after<br />
Carnaval<br />
Soul Tree, 22.00-03.00,<br />
£3/£4/£5<br />
See pick of the week<br />
The Priory: EDMX<br />
Fez, 22.00-03.00, £5/£7<br />
Dance of different shapes and<br />
colours. Watch out for the<br />
trance.<br />
Free Stuff<br />
Frankenstein<br />
Free Film, Sat 16th,<br />
Newnham Old Labs<br />
8pm<br />
Are Friends<br />
Acoustic?<br />
Free Music, Sun<br />
17th, The Graduate<br />
2:30pm
No one <strong>do</strong>es cinema like<br />
grafton centre • cambridge<br />
JUMPER (12a) (1h50) (NFT)<br />
Daily 10.00 (Fri/Sat/Sun Only)<br />
12.10 14.20 16.40 18.50<br />
21.10 Fri/Sat Late 23.30<br />
THE BUCKET LIST (12a) (2h)<br />
(NFT)<br />
Daily 13.10 15.40 18.10 20.40<br />
Fri/Sat Late 23.00<br />
NATIONAL TREASURE 2: BOOK OF<br />
SECRETS (PG) (2h25) (NFT)<br />
Daily 11.10* (Fri/Sat Only) 14.00* 17.30*<br />
(Not Tues) 20.30*<br />
JUNO (12a) (1h55) (NFT)<br />
Daily 11.20 (Fri/Sat/Sun Only) 13.40 16.10<br />
18.30 20.50 Fri/Sat Late 23.10<br />
DEFINITELY MAYBE (12a) (2h15) (NFT)<br />
Daily 21.20<br />
THE WATER HORSE (PG) (2h15) (NFT)<br />
Daily 10.40 (Fri/Sat/Sun Only) 13.20 (Not<br />
Tues) 16.00 18.40 (Not Tues)<br />
Friday 15 Feb – Thursday 21 Feb<br />
CLOVERFIELD (15) (1h45)<br />
Daily 10.30 (Fri/Sat/Sun Only) 12.40 14.50<br />
17.10 19.20 21.30 Fri/Sat Late 23.40<br />
PENELOPE (U) (1h50)<br />
Daily 10.20 (Fri/Sat/Sun Only) 12.50 15.00<br />
OVER HER DEAD BODY (12a) (1h55)<br />
Fri-Tues 13.30 15.50 18.20 21.00 Fri/Sat<br />
Late 23.50<br />
SWEENY TODD – THE DEMON BARBER<br />
OF FLEET STREET (18) (2h20)<br />
Daily 17.20 20.00 Fri/Sat Late 22.50<br />
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS (U) (1h55)<br />
Fri/Sat/Sun Only 11.00<br />
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH (15) (2h25)<br />
Fri/Sat Late 23.20<br />
SUBTITLED PERFORMANCE:<br />
NATIONAL TREASURE 2: BOOK OF<br />
SECRETS (PG) (2h25) (NFT)<br />
Sun 11.10* Tues 17.30*<br />
book now on 08712 240 240 or online at www.myvue.com<br />
We <strong>are</strong> the leading supplier to colleges, May Balls and<br />
student socs and parties. Party wines from £2.99, over<br />
200 single malts, Port, Madeira, Cl<strong>are</strong>t, Absinthe, cans<br />
of lager. If <strong>you</strong> can drink it, we sell it.<br />
Free glass loan, free delivery, generous discounts,<br />
wholesale accounts available for all CU bodies,<br />
socs, clubs etc.<br />
Double-or-Quits <strong>you</strong>r student discount with our<br />
Trivial Pursuit challenge. No conferring, bickering<br />
or face-pulling.<br />
Branches at King’s Parade, Magdalene Bridge and<br />
Mill Road. Edinburgh too.<br />
www.cambridgewine.com<br />
Want to advertise here?<br />
email business@varsity.co.uk<br />
Prices start from just £20<br />
Let’s <strong>do</strong><br />
lunch<br />
bar room bar<br />
Corn Exchange Street, Cambridge CB2 3QF<br />
£ 5 .50<br />
any 12” pizza,<br />
wrap or salad<br />
and a drink<br />
12-4 everyday<br />
How was <strong>you</strong>r y day? y
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/sport<br />
Sports Round-up<br />
Football Ladies out of<br />
cup<br />
Cambridge University’s League<br />
Cup run came to an end on Sunday<br />
at the quarter fi nal stage at the<br />
hands of title chasing Norwich City.<br />
On an unseasonably warm and<br />
sunny afternoon, it was Norwich<br />
who started the brighter, creating a<br />
number of good half-chances in the<br />
opening 15 minutes, only kept at bay<br />
by a combination of solid defensive<br />
play, led by sweeper Claire Hollingsworth<br />
and assured goalkeeping by<br />
Lisa O’Dea.<br />
Having weathered this early<br />
storm, Cambridge started to have<br />
more of the ball, but as the game<br />
became more even, it was Norwich<br />
who seized the initiative, taking the<br />
lead shortly before half time.<br />
The second half began much like<br />
the fi rst, with Norwich on top, <strong>do</strong>ubling<br />
their lead on the hour.<br />
Cambridge seemed spurred on by<br />
this second goal and began pressing<br />
hard for a way back into this game.<br />
This soon came from the penalty<br />
spot, Mandy Wainwright converting<br />
a penalty she herself had won<br />
following good interplay with Felicity<br />
Hughes on the left.<br />
The game then opened up as Norwich<br />
looked for a third goal to kill off<br />
the game and Cambridge pressed<br />
for an equalizer to force extra time.<br />
And in injury time, it was Norwich<br />
who found the decisive goal, scoring<br />
from a corner to make the fi nal<br />
score 3-1.<br />
Lee McGill<br />
Games & puzzles<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> crossword no. 481<br />
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8<br />
7 8<br />
9 10<br />
10<br />
11 12 13<br />
Across<br />
12<br />
14 15 14 16 17 18 19<br />
16 18<br />
20 21 22 23 24<br />
21<br />
25 26 27 28 29<br />
25<br />
30 31<br />
27 28<br />
32<br />
1 Inevitable slur I alter for weaknesses.<br />
(15)<br />
9 Mess in lab can create maneater.<br />
(8)<br />
10 Some Queen’s teeth. (6)<br />
11 Ground grains for lunch perhaps.<br />
(4)<br />
Down-ing and out<br />
The fi rst major upset of this year’s<br />
Cuppers competition saw Queens’,<br />
second in division three, knock out<br />
Downing, third in division one.<br />
From the start, Queens’ were competitive,<br />
but the superior pace and<br />
coherence from the Downing pack in<br />
particular led them to <strong>do</strong>minate territory<br />
and possession. Despite some<br />
exceptional Queens’ defence, Downing<br />
pressure did eventually lead to a<br />
try, were unable to kill off the match.<br />
The second half saw a complete reverse,<br />
with the Queens’ pack rising to<br />
the occasion. With time running out<br />
Tom Ding broke through the fringes<br />
and found support from Thorne,<br />
who managed to drive his way over.<br />
White provided the conversion to put<br />
Queens’ in front, and after that <strong>they</strong><br />
never looked like losing.<br />
Rugby League hopefuls<br />
were given a<br />
tough lesson by Harlequins<br />
losing 48-2<br />
12 Manage company or detain<br />
mess. (10)<br />
14 Cut needles back. (4)<br />
16 Threatening silver guinea<br />
about boat I have. (10)<br />
20 Ass sees red, goes berserk and<br />
is re-evaluated. (10)<br />
24 Inside unfortunate fi sh. (4)<br />
25 Time to fi ght packs a lot. (10)<br />
Athletics Column<br />
28 Be c<strong>are</strong>ful of brain. (4)<br />
30 Small amount of time. (6)<br />
31 Ok loot us, destroy the watchtowers.<br />
(8)<br />
32 Twin fl ags give two sets of<br />
rules. (6,9)<br />
Down<br />
2 Custom of American era. (5)<br />
3 Sticky point on leaf. (7)<br />
4 The heads of Roman Empire<br />
botched everything causing catastrophic<br />
anger for Isaac’s Wife. (7)<br />
5 Dried meat is odd, be it late or<br />
nigh. (7)<br />
7 Aunt set off infectious disease. (7)<br />
8 Bird regrets losing its head and<br />
its tail. (5)<br />
11 Must ark crash for a smelly<br />
rodent? (7)<br />
13 Green and red meal digested. (7)<br />
15 Iraq loses bottom terrorist<br />
organisation. (3)<br />
17 Georgia’s fl atulence. (3)<br />
18 Every evening has whisky in it. (3)<br />
19 One-Nil, app<strong>are</strong>ntly <strong>you</strong> give<br />
acknowledgment of debt. (3)<br />
21 Give in and bum us silly with<br />
two clubs. (7)<br />
22 Red vehicle allowed after a<br />
second. (7)<br />
23 Dijon is free and separate. (7)<br />
24 Grave has nothing before the<br />
French raffl e. (7)<br />
26 First real greeting meets with<br />
refusal for African mammal. (5)<br />
27 Feudal Lord even claimed glen. (5)<br />
29 Isn’t Edward renowned. (5)<br />
Set by Ed Thornton<br />
Answers to last week’s crossword (no. 480)<br />
Across: (1) vulnerabilities, (9) cannibal, (10) biters, (11) meal, (12) coordinate, (14) snip, (16) aggressive, (20) reassessed, (24) tuna, (25) truckloads, (28) mind, (30) minute,<br />
(31) lookouts, (32) <strong>do</strong>uble standards.<br />
Down: (2) usage, (3) nonslip, (4) Rebecca, (5) biltong, (6) lobed, (7) tetanus, (8) egret, (11) muskrat, (13) emerald, (15) IRA, (17) gas, (18) rye, (19) IOU, (21) succumb, (22)<br />
scarlet, (23) disjoin, (24) tombola, (26) rhino, (27) liege, (29) noted.<br />
SOPHIE PICKFORD<br />
COMPETITION<br />
Win a bottle of wine from our friends at Cambridge Wine<br />
Merchants.<br />
Re-arrange the letters by rotating the discs to create six<br />
separate six-letter words leading in to the centre. Email <strong>you</strong>r<br />
answer to competitions@varsity.co.uk<br />
?<br />
A<br />
A<br />
E<br />
R<br />
I<br />
O<br />
N<br />
O<br />
T<br />
N<br />
M<br />
?<br />
C<br />
A<br />
?<br />
L<br />
Seas<br />
W<br />
B<br />
E<br />
S<br />
L<br />
I<br />
?<br />
N<br />
N<br />
?<br />
E<br />
B<br />
A<br />
Su<strong>do</strong>ku<br />
The object is to insert the numbers in the boxes to satisfy only<br />
one condition: each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the<br />
digits 1 through 9 exactly once.<br />
© www.puzzlemix.com / G<strong>are</strong>th Moore<br />
1<br />
8<br />
2<br />
6<br />
9<br />
7<br />
2<br />
Women’s rugby compete<br />
against Nottingham<br />
Trent in a match <strong>they</strong><br />
eventually lost 26-15.<br />
Mixed fortunes in BUSA<br />
In the fi rst round of the BUSA Cup<br />
tournaments, Cambridge teams had<br />
mixed fortunes. Although both women’s<br />
Lacrosse teams and their hockey<br />
and badminton counterparts <strong>are</strong> safely<br />
through, with the hockey girls recording<br />
a stunning 2-1 victory over an<br />
Exeter side that fi nished second, the<br />
netball and tennis teams were both<br />
narrowly defeated.<br />
Men’s tennis, Rugby League and<br />
badminton sides all recorded convincing<br />
victories, but the Blue fencing and<br />
basketball teams <strong>are</strong> both out after<br />
closely fought fi xtures with Manchester<br />
Metropolitan and King’s Lon<strong>do</strong>n<br />
respectively.<br />
1<br />
3<br />
9<br />
1<br />
7<br />
2<br />
N<br />
6<br />
1<br />
G<br />
T<br />
A<br />
7<br />
8<br />
6<br />
4<br />
?<br />
I<br />
9<br />
6<br />
Write for this section:<br />
sport@varsity.co.uk<br />
7<br />
5<br />
8<br />
4<br />
3<br />
7<br />
6<br />
MADE BY ADAM EDELSHAIN<br />
www.puzzlemix.com / MADE BY GARETH MOORE<br />
Kakuro<br />
Fill the grid so that each run of squ<strong>are</strong>s adds up to the total in<br />
the box above or to the left. Use only numbers 1-9, and never<br />
use a number more than once per run (a number may reoccur<br />
in the same row in a separate run).<br />
© www.puzzlemix.com / G<strong>are</strong>th Moore<br />
13 18<br />
8<br />
4<br />
6<br />
6<br />
23<br />
Hitori<br />
18<br />
6<br />
5 28<br />
4<br />
6<br />
14<br />
8<br />
11<br />
Shade in the squ<strong>are</strong>s so that no number occurs more than once<br />
per row or column. Shaded squ<strong>are</strong>s may not be horizontally or<br />
vertically adjacent. Unshaded squ<strong>are</strong>s must form a single <strong>are</strong>a.<br />
© www.puzzlemix.com / G<strong>are</strong>th Moore<br />
3<br />
4<br />
1<br />
2<br />
7<br />
2<br />
5<br />
© www.puzzlemix.com / G<strong>are</strong>th Moore<br />
24 16<br />
24<br />
6<br />
5<br />
7<br />
6<br />
1<br />
4<br />
3<br />
7<br />
16<br />
3 7 9 12 25<br />
1 2 7 8 6<br />
7<br />
2 4 16 4 3 4<br />
14<br />
5<br />
5 9 5 2 3<br />
21<br />
6 7 2 5 1<br />
12<br />
3 9<br />
SPORT<br />
1<br />
7<br />
4<br />
2<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
© www.puzzlemix.com / G<strong>are</strong>th Moore<br />
1<br />
6<br />
6<br />
7<br />
2<br />
5<br />
4<br />
7<br />
1<br />
6<br />
4<br />
3<br />
2<br />
3<br />
6<br />
3<br />
1<br />
3<br />
7<br />
5<br />
2<br />
6<br />
3<br />
5<br />
3<br />
4<br />
1<br />
7<br />
7<br />
2<br />
7<br />
4<br />
4<br />
6<br />
3<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
2<br />
1<br />
5<br />
7<br />
1<br />
6<br />
5<br />
6<br />
4<br />
7<br />
3<br />
1<br />
2<br />
4<br />
7<br />
4<br />
5<br />
4<br />
Last issue’s solutions<br />
4<br />
7<br />
5<br />
5<br />
3<br />
1<br />
6<br />
© www.puzzlemix.com / G<strong>are</strong>th Moore<br />
8<br />
7<br />
4<br />
5<br />
6<br />
3<br />
1<br />
9<br />
2<br />
1<br />
6<br />
3<br />
2<br />
9<br />
7<br />
4<br />
8<br />
5<br />
6<br />
5<br />
2<br />
6<br />
3<br />
4<br />
6<br />
5<br />
9<br />
2<br />
8<br />
1<br />
4<br />
3<br />
7<br />
6<br />
6<br />
8<br />
5<br />
4<br />
3<br />
2<br />
7<br />
1<br />
9<br />
9<br />
3<br />
7<br />
6<br />
5<br />
1<br />
2<br />
4<br />
8<br />
29<br />
Continued from back page<br />
caught still fresh to the game, a<br />
wayward bounce eluded keeper<br />
Fran Stubbins, and gave the Oxford<br />
Monkeys the upper hand. Although<br />
a mid-point goal from impressive<br />
Sarah Baggs took the Nomads to<br />
2-1, it was nevertheless the Monkeys<br />
who were able to capitalise on<br />
their home ground and nervous opposition,<br />
forcing fi ve goals through<br />
the Cambridge back line. But determined<br />
work from forwards Helen<br />
Smyth and Captain Nuala Tumelty<br />
was not enough to resurrect the<br />
game.<br />
The fi nal game of the day saw<br />
the Second team Wanderers attack<br />
Oxford with unstoppable drives up<br />
the line and intricate ball work<br />
around the top of the circle, particularly<br />
from Nikolai Bode. The<br />
Oxford Occasionals were forced<br />
into defence from the off and it<br />
was not long before Johnny Knight<br />
secured an early lead with a defl<br />
ection from a defending foot. Entirely<br />
against the run of play the<br />
Dark blues snatched an equalizer<br />
before half time. The second half<br />
once again saw Cambridge determined<br />
on the attack, Jack Yelland<br />
beating an agile keeper to take the<br />
Wanders once again into the lead.<br />
Despite keeper Chris Robinson’s<br />
best efforts, the game ended in an<br />
unexpected draw when an Oxford<br />
converted a sort corner against the<br />
run of play.<br />
The day ended on equal footing,<br />
a win, a loss and two draws apiece,<br />
but Cambridge were undeniably<br />
the winning support, out-cheering<br />
4<br />
2<br />
1<br />
7<br />
8<br />
9<br />
5<br />
6<br />
3<br />
4<br />
6<br />
3<br />
2<br />
5<br />
7<br />
1<br />
3<br />
4<br />
6<br />
9<br />
7<br />
5<br />
8<br />
2<br />
1<br />
2<br />
5<br />
8<br />
1<br />
4<br />
6<br />
9<br />
3<br />
7<br />
7<br />
1<br />
9<br />
3<br />
2<br />
8<br />
6<br />
5<br />
4<br />
www.puzzlemix.com / MADE BY GARETH MOORE<br />
www.puzzlemix.com / MADE BY GARETH MOORE
30 SPORT<br />
Gamblers<br />
Unanimous<br />
Ed Peace &<br />
Niall Rafferty<br />
It’s now week fi ve and so far our<br />
running total hasn’t changed by<br />
more than £3 in a single week.<br />
We’re starting to resemble the<br />
classic Premiership side that,<br />
despite high aspirations and bold<br />
promises, draws week in, week<br />
out and ends up adrift from the<br />
big boys come May. But unlike<br />
Liverpool, who look destined to<br />
clinch this honour in 2008, we<br />
reckon we’ve still got some tricks<br />
left up our sleeves.<br />
This week our banker travels<br />
to Deepdale in the fi fth round of<br />
the FA Cup, where a struggling<br />
Preston play host to Portsmouth.<br />
The last time Portsmouth went<br />
to Deepdale, <strong>they</strong> conceded a late<br />
equaliser that briefl y checked<br />
their march towards the 2002/03<br />
Championship title. Preston have<br />
paid the price for not following<br />
them up last season, and there is<br />
now a massive gulf between the<br />
teams. Whilst Portsmouth look<br />
like genuine European contenders,<br />
Preston have been in and<br />
around the relegation zone all<br />
season. Despite beating Derby in<br />
the fourth round, a loss to bottom<br />
of-the-table Colchester on Tuesday<br />
night revealed their fragility.<br />
With the recent acquisition<br />
of Defoe, and the return of half<br />
of their squad from the African<br />
Cup of Nations, wise money is on<br />
Portsmouth to triumph.<br />
On Monday night, the televised<br />
tie on Setanta features two surprise<br />
contenders in the Championship<br />
promotion race. Bristol<br />
City and Crystal Palace go head<br />
to head at Ashton Gate but both<br />
may see their Premier League<br />
dreams fade a little here. City <strong>are</strong><br />
in the mix for automatic promotion<br />
while Palace <strong>are</strong> among<br />
13 sides hoping to surge into a<br />
Play-Off place: just seven points<br />
separate sixth-placed Ipswich<br />
from 18th-placed Southampton.<br />
A lack of goals has held these<br />
two back; their respective league<br />
tallies of 38 and 37 <strong>are</strong> lower<br />
than every other team in the top<br />
seven. Neither side is likely to<br />
a<strong>do</strong>pt a gung-ho approach, so a<br />
low-scoring draw could well be<br />
the outcome.<br />
The build up to the Cheltenham<br />
Festival continues with the<br />
Red Squ<strong>are</strong> Vodka Gold Cup on<br />
Saturday. The Hay<strong>do</strong>ck contest<br />
<strong>do</strong>esn’t look particularly enticing<br />
for punters, especially given<br />
that the last 5 winners of the race<br />
have been rank outsiders. But we<br />
<strong>think</strong> Miko De Beauchene has got<br />
a great opportunity to notch up<br />
his second success of the season.<br />
He won the Welsh National in<br />
December in impressive style<br />
and beat a number of Saturday’s<br />
rivals in the process. With a<br />
top-class jockey booked for the<br />
ride this weekend, the 5-1 being<br />
offered by PaddyPower looks<br />
pretty generous.<br />
The Banker<br />
portsmouth to beat Preston<br />
Prediction<br />
Bristol City and Crystal<br />
Palace to draw<br />
Sport editor: Henry Stannard and Luke Thorne<br />
sport@varsity.co.uk<br />
5-6<br />
£4<br />
9-4<br />
£3<br />
The Long shot<br />
Miko De Beauchene to<br />
win Red Squ<strong>are</strong> Vodka<br />
RUNNING TOTAL: £29.30<br />
5-1<br />
£1.5 e/w<br />
So, athletics then?<br />
Yes, it’s not a sport that many<br />
people have ever taken seriously<br />
before coming to Cambridge. I<br />
was lucky in that I lived quite<br />
near an Athletics track in my<br />
home town of Kingston, but there<br />
<strong>are</strong> lots of sportsmen, especially<br />
from rugby and football, who<br />
come over and end up getting<br />
their blue in athletics. Although<br />
there is a fair amount of technique<br />
involved, the natural ability<br />
needs to be there fi rst.<br />
Tell us about <strong>you</strong>r season?<br />
This year for the fi rst time we’ve<br />
got three <strong>Varsity</strong> matches. The<br />
Fresher’s <strong>Varsity</strong> was held in<br />
Michaelmas – we won the women’s<br />
but narrowly lost overall in<br />
the men’s category, although we<br />
did fi nd many new faces to bolster<br />
the Blues squad. Next week<br />
we’ve good the inaugural In<strong>do</strong>or<br />
Relays and Field Events <strong>Varsity</strong><br />
match, which is being held at the<br />
Pickett’s Lock track in Lon<strong>do</strong>n,<br />
the site for of the warm up events<br />
for the 2012 Olympics, before the<br />
traditional <strong>Varsity</strong> match held<br />
on the 17th of May in Oxford.<br />
We also compete regularly at<br />
other meetings, and <strong>are</strong> currently<br />
warming <strong>do</strong>wn from a really<br />
encouraging performance at the<br />
RAF invitational in Sheffi eld.<br />
How’s it looking for <strong>Varsity</strong>?<br />
We caned them in the men’s<br />
last year and only narrowly<br />
lost in the women’s . Although<br />
<strong>they</strong> have a couple of stand-out<br />
athletes, Oxford really can’t<br />
compete against our strength in<br />
depth - our middle distance and<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/sport<br />
Game of mist opportunities<br />
» Apocalyptic fog prematurely ends an enthralling encounter<br />
CAMBRIDGE<br />
GOALS: GETHIN 1<br />
ARTHURIAN LEAGUE<br />
Match Aban<strong>do</strong>nned due to fog<br />
Andrew robson<br />
Sports Reporter<br />
1<br />
It was on Parker’s Piece some 160<br />
years ago that alumni from the likes<br />
of Harrow, Eton and Winchester<br />
contested the fi rst recorded game<br />
of football. And on a murky evening<br />
one mile away on Grange Road on<br />
Tuesday evening, Old Boys from<br />
those very schools humbled the<br />
Light Blues, still in search of genuine<br />
momentum in their preparations<br />
for the crucial <strong>Varsity</strong> match at Craven<br />
Cottage on March 29th.<br />
The Light Blues made a noticeably<br />
subdued start; Cambridge<br />
goalkeeper James Dean was forced<br />
into an outstanding save on the ten<br />
minute mark, tipping over a fi ne effort<br />
when a corner was half-cle<strong>are</strong>d<br />
by Chris Turnbull. The Arthurians<br />
continued to make more of an impression<br />
on the game and their performance<br />
was duly rewarded when<br />
Ali Hakimi’s missed header led to<br />
a clear penalty being awarded for<br />
a trip by Turnbull. Blues’ keeper<br />
Dean showed his class one again,<br />
however, producing a fi ne save to<br />
his left to deny the Arthurians what<br />
Captain’s<br />
Corner<br />
Athletics<br />
Humphrey Waddington<br />
would have been a deserved lead.<br />
The penalty save failed to galvanise<br />
the home side though, and <strong>they</strong><br />
were lucky not to be punished when<br />
two free headers from set pieces<br />
were steered wide of Dean’s left upright.<br />
Cambridge were lacking any<br />
fl uidity or genuine width despite a<br />
real captain’s performance from leftback<br />
Anthony Murphy whose tough<br />
tackling and genuine work ethic<br />
shone through what was becoming<br />
an increasingly misty encounter. Up<br />
to this point, strikers Mattie Gethin<br />
and Mike Johnson had seen very<br />
little possession whatsoever; their<br />
attempts to drop deeper proved<br />
unsuccessful as the Arthurians<br />
continued to <strong>do</strong>minate the opening<br />
exchanges and <strong>they</strong> took a deserved<br />
lead on the half-hour mark.<br />
Their fourth corner of the game<br />
was excellently delivered and met<br />
by towering centre-half Molloy who<br />
headed past Dean with little-to-no<br />
challenge from a Blue. Cambridge<br />
will be rightly disappointed with<br />
their defending but the goal came<br />
clearly with the run of play.<br />
Such a soft goal required a response<br />
from the Light Blues, and a<br />
massive positive that Murphy’s side<br />
can take out of this game is their<br />
reaction to going behind. Within a<br />
minute of conceding, Mike Johnson<br />
spurned a good opportunity to get<br />
back on level terms, miscontrolling<br />
into the arms of the grateful Arthu-<br />
rian goalkeeper. But not long after,<br />
fi ne work from Johnson and right<br />
winger Luke Pendlebury provided<br />
Gethin with the simple task of slotting<br />
home from within the six-yard<br />
Cambridge looked<br />
menacing on the break<br />
with a number of<br />
dynamic assaults on<br />
the Exeter defence<br />
box. It was the fi rst time that Cambridge<br />
had managed any real width,<br />
and the equaliser was genuinely deserved.<br />
The Light Blues ended the<br />
half the stronger with the tireless<br />
Gethin and the aggressive Murphy<br />
clearly rattling the Arthurians.<br />
Having been under pressure for<br />
the majority of the fi rst half, it was<br />
Cambridge who brought their late<br />
fi rst-half momentum into the second<br />
period; almost straight from<br />
the kick-off <strong>they</strong> moved the ball as<br />
quickly and as effi ciently as <strong>they</strong><br />
would all game with Dave Mills’<br />
fi nish failing to match the build-up.<br />
They could not sustain their <strong>do</strong>minance,<br />
however, and a real midfi eld<br />
battle emerged. The presence of the<br />
lofty Mills in a deep midfi eld role<br />
ensured much of the aerial competition<br />
in the middle of the park was<br />
commanded by the Blues, and their<br />
increasing possession mustered an<br />
excellent chance on the in the 57th<br />
minute with Mike Johnson’s excellent<br />
through ball releasing Luke<br />
Pendlebury only for him to drag<br />
his fi nish well-wide of the left-hand<br />
post. The Arthurians came even<br />
closer to grabbing the lead soon after<br />
when <strong>they</strong> smashed the crossbar<br />
just after the hour-mark. Most of<br />
Cambridge’s play was by this point<br />
coming through right-back Nik Pantelides,<br />
with the defender providing<br />
a number of incisive passes into the<br />
front line but as the game wore on,<br />
the visibility became increasingly<br />
farcical. It became clear when the<br />
referee could not physically see<br />
promising fresher Matt Amos ready<br />
to come on from the far touchline<br />
that the conditions had rendered<br />
the match unplayable. The captains<br />
were called and a tightly contested<br />
affair ended in a fair 1-1 draw some<br />
quarter of an hour premature of the<br />
90 minute mark.<br />
Fog rolls in over<br />
Grange Road<br />
Blues revert to a compact<br />
style to cope with<br />
Exeter pressure<br />
Dean makes a crucial<br />
penalty save to keep<br />
the Blues in the game<br />
jump squads especially <strong>are</strong> looking<br />
out of this world.<br />
What’s the training like?<br />
There <strong>are</strong> four compulsory sessions<br />
a week, as well as extra technique<br />
and weights sessions. It is<br />
certainly possible to <strong>do</strong> ten, which<br />
leaves little time for anything else.<br />
Now we’ve got permission to use<br />
fl oodlights at our track at Wilberforce<br />
Road, things should start to<br />
get a little more fl exible. I cannot<br />
emphasise how vital <strong>they</strong> will be<br />
to our future success as a club, and<br />
how well run the campaign was to<br />
get them up.<br />
The fi rst annual In<strong>do</strong>or <strong>Varsity</strong><br />
Field Events and Relays Championships<br />
will be held at Pickett’s<br />
Lock in Lon<strong>do</strong>n on Sunday<br />
JOSH DAVIS
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/sport<br />
That’s why we’re champions<br />
» Women’s Blues show their class with a convinving win<br />
CAMBRIDGE 3<br />
LETCHWORTH<br />
Becks Langton<br />
Sports Reporter<br />
0<br />
With the BUSA top-spot secured,<br />
the Cambridge women’s Blues<br />
Hockey team turned their attention<br />
to the East Premier League<br />
and bottom of the table Letchworth.<br />
A beautifully sunny day at<br />
Wilberforce road drew out the support<br />
for Cambridge and the Blues<br />
were raring to go, determined to<br />
secure a further three points and<br />
maintain their top three position in<br />
the table.<br />
Letchworth were unexpectedly<br />
strong from the start, linking quick<br />
passes through the middle of the<br />
pitch and forcing Cambridge into<br />
last quarter defending. A number<br />
of penalty corners were conceded<br />
and it was only through sheer<br />
determination and consistently<br />
strong tackling from the back line<br />
that the Blues were able to avoid<br />
conceding the fi rst goal.<br />
Determined to make their mark<br />
on a technically weaker team, the<br />
Blues forced the opposition into<br />
their own half with Tash Close<br />
picking up any stray balls at the<br />
back and Lisa Noble injecting<br />
some much needed pace into the<br />
midfi eld. Cambridge established<br />
a strong press around the circle,<br />
retrieving loose passes and forcing<br />
the opposition into basic errors. It<br />
was only a fi rst rate performance<br />
from the Letchworth keeper that<br />
kept the score line even and the<br />
Blues from consolidating on this<br />
pressure.<br />
The inevitable fi rst goal arrived<br />
late in the fi rst half when a complex<br />
short corner paid off for the Blues.<br />
Tash Barnes, once again showing<br />
her innate goal scoring fl air, sent<br />
the ball ricocheting off the goal<br />
keeper’s pads and into the back of<br />
the net. This advantage seemed<br />
to give the home team the motivation<br />
<strong>they</strong> needed to really step<br />
up the pace and searing drives up<br />
the pitch from Jenny Stevens and<br />
Anna Stanley saw ingeniously<br />
worked passing play foiled only<br />
by the athletic Letchworth keeper<br />
and the post. The fi rst half ended<br />
with a green card for Sarah Baggs<br />
following a particularly cynical<br />
tackle to foil a Letchworth break,<br />
the fi rst year defender lucky not to<br />
be shown a yellow.<br />
A reinvigorated Cambridge side<br />
returned to the pitch keen to fi nish<br />
off the game and profi t on their<br />
hard won advantage. Letchworth<br />
also seemed eager to make their<br />
mark, albeit with physicality over<br />
skill. Strong defensive work from<br />
the Blues with damning tackles<br />
from Alex Workman, and blazing<br />
balls up the line from Captain<br />
Tash Fowlie, kept Letchworth at<br />
bay, although their frustration was<br />
clear as swinging tackles arrived at<br />
every angle, threatening not only<br />
the quality of the game but also<br />
Blue shins on a number of occa-<br />
sions. Undeterred by the increasingly<br />
village nature of the Letchworth<br />
play, Cambridge ability was<br />
rewarded by a show-ground goal.<br />
An unwavering tackle from Sarah<br />
Baggs turned the opposition onto<br />
the back foot and, following an inspired<br />
set of passes as Alex Workman<br />
and Lisa Noble left Letchworth<br />
for dust, Tash Barnes seized<br />
her chance, placing a cool second<br />
past the keeper.<br />
“We got the result we<br />
came for, although the<br />
game may have been<br />
functional, not pretty”<br />
Cambridge then maintained this<br />
pressure. Switches around the<br />
back were strong, Rosie Evans<br />
indefatigable and Flick Hughes tenacious<br />
in the tackle, meaning that<br />
the Blues were able to dictate the<br />
game from the back. Letchworth<br />
Lacrosse girls thrash UCL<br />
CAMBRIDGE 22<br />
UCL 0<br />
Jamie Ptaszynski<br />
Sports Reporter<br />
Not many people know this, so keep<br />
it quiet: the game of lacrosse actually<br />
originated on the beaches of Devon<br />
and Cornwall, where kids used to<br />
sling dead guppies and seaweed at<br />
each other with colourful plastic fi shing<br />
nets. Wikipedia would have <strong>you</strong><br />
<strong>think</strong> that it was invented by North<br />
American Indians, and its various<br />
names meant ‘men hit a rounded object’<br />
and ‘bump hips’. But Wikipedia<br />
couldn’t reliably tell <strong>you</strong> when fi shfi<br />
ngers were invented.<br />
Judging by Wednesday’s performance,<br />
many members of the<br />
Cambridge University women’s lacrosse<br />
team harbour fond memories<br />
of breezy afternoons spent digging<br />
around rock pools with their siblings.<br />
Maybe it was the impossibly low temperature,<br />
maybe it was the alarmingly<br />
thick fog, or maybe it was the<br />
sporadic sounds of gunshots coming<br />
from over the hedge, but something<br />
spurred the girls on to one of the most<br />
embarrassing walkovers I’ve ever<br />
witnessed. I would have been more<br />
comfortable watching Kate Middleton<br />
attempting to hold a conversation<br />
with Katie Price, so extreme was the<br />
difference in class.<br />
As it happens, lacrosse is a very<br />
good spectator sport, particularly<br />
when played with such verve, fl uidity<br />
and lethal profi ciency as was displayed<br />
by the Cambridge girls. From<br />
the start their superior fi tness and<br />
tactical aptitude was clear. The fi rst<br />
UCL girl to be substituted came off<br />
after ten minutes with the words:<br />
‘God, I’m knackered! That little<br />
blonde one’s really quick.’ She could<br />
have been referring to either Emily<br />
Knight or Ellie Walshe, who bossed<br />
the midfi eld between them with almost<br />
aggressive grace.<br />
Whilst captain and goalkeeper<br />
Alex Carnegie-Brown must have<br />
been wondering why she bothered to<br />
get out of bed in the morning, Kate<br />
Morland and her supporting cast at<br />
the far end had themselves a right<br />
shindig. Morland herself tossed in<br />
ten goals, reaching her personal target.<br />
Poor Alex, nose reddening from<br />
intense cold behind the metal grill of<br />
her helmet, probably couldn’t even<br />
see far enough through the mist to<br />
appreciate the utter <strong>do</strong>minance of her<br />
side’s attacking play.<br />
At times it resembled a training<br />
session, as the girls casually set up<br />
an offensive set-piece, encircling the<br />
UCL goal before passing the ball anticlockwise<br />
and setting off on a series of<br />
dummy runs. These runs peeled away<br />
the defenders from the goal <strong>are</strong>a and<br />
left the target open to a darting attack<br />
by the ball carrier. I cannot pretend to<br />
understand every nuance of lacrosse<br />
but, as an appreciator of sport, this is<br />
one of the most aesthetically pleasing<br />
attacking moves I’ve seen in any<br />
A ‘shindig’ up<br />
front for Cambridge<br />
Blues defence remained<br />
solid through some<br />
early short-corners<br />
Write for this section:<br />
sport@varsity.co.uk<br />
demonstrated their growing frustration<br />
when some hippo sailed<br />
into the back of Captain Fowlie.<br />
the opposition player justifi ed her<br />
two-footed tackle with the shoddy<br />
excuse of ‘but she’s taller than me.’<br />
Cambridge, however were unrelenting<br />
in their pressure, working<br />
tight spaces to their advantage,<br />
and emphasizing their superiority<br />
with a third goal in the dying<br />
minutes and a hat-trick for striker<br />
Tash Barnes, her top of the circle<br />
strike defl ected off a defensive<br />
stick.<br />
The fi nal score of 3-0 refl ected<br />
well on Cambridge. Observer and<br />
Nomad coach, Nick Mcl<strong>are</strong>n commented<br />
on the ‘clinical performance’,<br />
remarking that ‘we got the<br />
result we came for although the<br />
game may have been functional<br />
rather than pretty’. As Coach<br />
James Waters was keen to point<br />
out however, there were in fact<br />
‘moments of brilliance’ in which<br />
Cambridge were clear in their<br />
<strong>do</strong>minance, and outclassed Letchworth<br />
in every corner of the pitch.<br />
team ball game. It was also effective,<br />
yielding three scores in all.<br />
The origins of the name lacrosse<br />
<strong>are</strong> unclear. My personal suspicion<br />
is that, having witnessed a <strong>you</strong>nger<br />
brother take a faceful of sandy algae<br />
from his sister’s net, passers-by could<br />
often be heard to say ‘that lad’s cross’.<br />
Cross is the word I would have used<br />
to describe the girls from UCL who<br />
had travelled up from cosy Lon<strong>do</strong>n to<br />
receive this humiliation: however as<br />
I walked past them on my way home<br />
<strong>they</strong> let off a cheer, app<strong>are</strong>ntly delighted<br />
to have won the coin toss.<br />
LUKE THORNE<br />
JOE GOSDEN<br />
SPORT<br />
31<br />
News from the<br />
River<br />
Tuesday was the fi nal physiological<br />
test of this Boat Race campaign.<br />
One last 5000 meter test,<br />
fl at out, pitting every athlete<br />
against one another in a fi nal bout<br />
of selection.<br />
When I was <strong>you</strong>ng I always imagined<br />
these sorts of tests would<br />
get easier as talent improved,<br />
that experience would offer reprieve<br />
from the bleak misery<br />
that characterizes rowing pieces.<br />
But I have grown to realize this<br />
sentiment couldn’t be further<br />
from the truth; as Tour de France<br />
champion Greg LeMond expertly<br />
summed up, “It never gets easier.<br />
You just go faster.”<br />
So it was with particular dread<br />
that I approached Tuesday’s piece.<br />
I longed for the shower and dinner<br />
that would greet me upon its<br />
conclusion. Rather than looking<br />
forward to testing the limits of<br />
my ability, I found myself looking<br />
forward to the piece being over.<br />
Yet as any endurance athlete<br />
can attest, the actual race, the<br />
conclusion of days or even weeks<br />
of anticipation, ends as quickly as<br />
it began, unceremoniously and<br />
without any of the aplomb such<br />
endeavor should afford. And now<br />
that it is over, rather than the<br />
expected emotions of relief and<br />
calm, it is nostalgia and a sort of<br />
ill-deserved sadness that accompanies<br />
the abrupt end.<br />
We tested in two fl ights, and as<br />
a part of the fi rst group to start, I<br />
had the opportunity to watch the<br />
second wave conduct their piece.<br />
Surveying the room after its completion,<br />
certain images <strong>are</strong> immediately<br />
app<strong>are</strong>nt. In one corner of<br />
the gym <strong>are</strong> several guys passed<br />
out, one preferring the comfort of<br />
his side, while two more fi nd solace<br />
on their backs. Richard Stutt still<br />
sits on his erg, a physio attending<br />
to a nosebleed he developed gasping<br />
for air in his fi nal sprint. And<br />
in the center of it all is Ryan Monaghan,<br />
face <strong>do</strong>wn in remnants of<br />
lunch, his body contorting like a<br />
seal’s in a rather pitiable attempt<br />
to get as far away from the stench<br />
of sick as possible.<br />
Yet despite the misery endemic<br />
to everything I see, I immediately<br />
realize this scene is one of the moments<br />
I will miss most when I stop<br />
rowing. I will miss wanting something<br />
so much that I am willing to<br />
sacrifi ce my body to achieve it.<br />
Above all else I will miss the camaraderie<br />
that can only be gained<br />
through a sh<strong>are</strong>d and mutual suffering.<br />
I can’t imagine I will ever<br />
have as close of friends as guys<br />
like Ryan and Richard, guys who<br />
have shown me countless times<br />
this year what depths of hell <strong>they</strong><br />
would walk through before yielding<br />
to Oxford on 29 March.<br />
So despite the anxiousness I<br />
felt to fi nish the piece and put<br />
this chapter of life behind me, I<br />
am struck with pangs of regret<br />
rather than reprieve. I am reminded<br />
that I must revel in all<br />
the suffering I can fi nd in these<br />
last six weeks, for it is sure to end<br />
too soon.<br />
It has been one of the pleasures<br />
of my life to pursue this crazy<br />
dream with the members of this<br />
year’s squad. Never again will I<br />
long for it to be over.<br />
Spencer Griffi n Hunsberger
SPORT<br />
Blues send RAF fl ying<br />
» RAF scramble to cope with rugby Blues once mist lifts<br />
CAMBRIDGE<br />
R.A.F.<br />
George Towers<br />
Sports Reporter<br />
27<br />
13<br />
On a miserable, foggy Wednesday<br />
evening the Blues took on<br />
the RAF at Grange Road. Reeling<br />
from their 16-29 defeat at<br />
the hands of the Army the Blues<br />
wanted to put a solid win past<br />
the RAF in what can only be described<br />
as dire conditions. Despite<br />
the weather the match had special<br />
signifi cance for seasoned fl anker<br />
Richard Bartholomew, who won<br />
his fi ftieth cap for the Blues.<br />
The match started at a high<br />
tempo, unfortunately the fog obscured<br />
the crowd’s view of the<br />
far side of the pitch, but shortly<br />
into the match the Blues were<br />
awarded a penalty, which Ross<br />
Broadfoot slotted for three points.<br />
Following on from the penalty<br />
the Blues renewed their attack,<br />
striking up the middle with Bartholomew<br />
who was playing at 8.<br />
In the mist the Blues battered<br />
forward, but an RAF turnover<br />
was rewarded moments later with<br />
a penalty for Corporal Ballman,<br />
who levelled the score at three all.<br />
In the damp, misty conditions<br />
it was no surprise that handling<br />
errors characterised the match.<br />
Several promising Blues attacks<br />
broke <strong>do</strong>wn as the ball was spilled<br />
to the fl oor. The RAF missed their<br />
second penalty attempt, leaving<br />
Cambridge to respond with an<br />
attack up the right. The cheers<br />
of the crowd on the far side of<br />
the pitch heralded the awarding<br />
of a try, the scorer of which<br />
remains a mystery. Broadfoot<br />
again made his kick, building a<br />
lead of 10 points to 3 at half time.<br />
Early in the second half Broadfoot<br />
missed his fi rst penalty attempt.<br />
Having been relatively<br />
subdued for most of the game, the<br />
RAF really opened up. If it wasn’t<br />
for a well worked turnover from<br />
John Blaikie then the score may<br />
well have drawn to a level again;<br />
but as it was the Blues stood<br />
fi rm and held out in the mist.<br />
With the fog just beginning to<br />
lift as the far stand slowly came<br />
into view, both sides opened up<br />
and the game’s pace accelerated<br />
considerably. Broadfoot led<br />
the charge, cutting through the<br />
RAF defence then barrelling<br />
over to score the fi rst of three<br />
second half Cambridge tries.<br />
Despite a decent display of open<br />
running rugby, the Blues didn’t<br />
fail to disappoint with regards<br />
to <strong>do</strong>minance in the tight. They<br />
trundled a maul from 20m out<br />
to score what is becoming quite<br />
a staple Blues try. Amidst the<br />
gloom and the tangle of bodies no<br />
one knew who had scored, however<br />
the try was awarded to Bartholomew<br />
to mark his fi ftieth cap.<br />
Alfi e Weston, an U21 development<br />
player, rounded off the game<br />
with a try on his debut for the<br />
Blues. Along with Weston a host<br />
of U21s came off the bench for<br />
some experience at the top level.<br />
The build up to December’s Var-<br />
sity Match is already well underway<br />
and competition for places is<br />
already set in the minds of those<br />
players still here next season.<br />
The Blues won a convincing<br />
27-13 victory against the RAF, the<br />
RAF fought well, but the fi tness<br />
of the Blues told in the second half<br />
when a lift in the weather allowed<br />
the game to open up. The crowd,<br />
suffering in the cold and the mist,<br />
weren’t disappointed; the Blues<br />
looked drilled and motivated<br />
and hopes for the future must<br />
be high in the Cambridge camp.<br />
<br />
<br />
SOPHIE PICKFORD<br />
Friday February 15 2008<br />
varsity.co.uk/sport<br />
Football p30<br />
Blues battle<br />
with gorillas<br />
in the mist<br />
Honours sh<strong>are</strong>d<br />
in 2nds and 3rds<br />
<strong>Varsity</strong> Hockey<br />
Becks Langton<br />
Sports Reporter<br />
The cumulation of almost fi ve<br />
months of preparation arrived with<br />
four of the Cambridge Hockey<br />
teams traveling <strong>do</strong>wn to Oxford<br />
for the highlight of the second and<br />
third teams season. A long journey<br />
over to the ‘dark side’ and a night<br />
of team bonding saw the fi rst team<br />
to play, the Be<strong>do</strong>uins arrive at the<br />
pitch determined to claim victory.<br />
Undefeated in the nine years of<br />
playing in <strong>Varsity</strong>, the pressure was<br />
fi erce, and although the Be<strong>do</strong>uins<br />
<strong>do</strong>minated the game, with incredible<br />
drives up the pitch by Man of<br />
the Match Emily Bates and fi erce<br />
tackles from Captain Cl<strong>are</strong> Sibley<br />
the scores were level at thirtyfi<br />
ve minutes. An impassioned half<br />
time talk from coaches James Waters<br />
and Philip Balbirnie gave the<br />
Be<strong>do</strong>uins the desire to consolidate<br />
on their <strong>do</strong>minance, and the team<br />
entered the second half keen to<br />
show the Oxford Hos their superiority.<br />
Within ten minutes a fantastically<br />
worked short corner gave<br />
Lucy Maxwell a chance at the back<br />
post, the defender becoming a surprise<br />
goal scorer and hero of the<br />
moment taking the Beds 1-0 up.<br />
Sarah Donaldson was distinguished<br />
in defense and initiating a string of<br />
clinical passes gave Catherine Davison<br />
a ball at the top of the circle<br />
that the centre forward was able<br />
to convert into a two-nil lead. The<br />
Beds were ecstatic to claim nine<br />
years no wins for the Oxford Hos.<br />
The next game was the third<br />
team Squanders who took<br />
on the Oxford Infrequents.<br />
Cheered on by an ever-growing<br />
Cambridge contingent, the light<br />
blue support outclassed the Oxford<br />
crowd entirely. It was clear<br />
that the pressure was affecting<br />
the dark blues as <strong>they</strong> conceded a<br />
goal within the fi rst ten minutes.<br />
Strong defensive work from Captain<br />
Tom Bullock kept the Infrequents<br />
at bay, but the Squanderers<br />
were unfortunate as Oxford caught<br />
them on the break, leveling the<br />
scores at 1-1 and forcing a draw.<br />
Following the Squanders, the<br />
Nomads, possibly the most unifi<br />
ed team of the club, took to the<br />
pitch eager to continue the strong<br />
form of their season. Unlucky to be<br />
Continued on page 29