THE RAMBLING ROSE
Clifton High School Pupil Newspaper
Foreword
I am always in two minds about how early to start feeling festive around this time of year, but a firm benchmark is the 5th November and Diwali fireworks – glittering and shimmering in the dark night sky. I believe that mince pies are fair game after those celebrations. Whether I would go all-out and put up the Christmas tree as early as mid-November, though... that is another matter!
But I do say hurrah to celebrating in our own chosen times. Goodness knows that anything to cheer the increasingly dark and chilly nights is a welcome balm. If you want to put your tree up on 6th November, I say: go for it! I think Icelanders have it right with their Jolabokaflod: books purchased to gift to children on Christmas Eve to hunker down and enjoy long into the night (complimentary hot chocolate is optional, I am told). This is also echoed for me in the Danish mood of hygge – a concept that embodies the feelings of sitting by a cosy fire with something to read after a brisk walk in the chilled air.
'What does all this have to do with our Rambling Rose?' I hear you cry. Why - the celebration of our community; the conviviality of sharing the things that matter to us with others; the hunkeringdown that comes with the return of a Matthew Tsang murder-death yarn… This is what cheers us in dark times. Our Rambling Rose is our beacon of warmth for these mizzly days.
As I leave you with a huge thank you and very well done to our Year 13 Editors Jess and Arabella, as well as for Ms Davis’ expertise with formatting and printing, it would be remiss of me not to gift you, dear Readers, with my favourite quotation about the joy of reading. This might be about ‘books’, but I think it will serve my purpose just as well to consider reading as its core. Be you Icelandic, Danish or Clifton High-er:
'Books are a uniquely portable magic.' - Stephen King
May you all enjoy the magic of the Season and our Rambling Rose.
Mrs Pippa Lyons-White, Head of English
SPORTS
Celebrating Senna
2024 marks 30 years since the tragic passing of Ayrton Senna, a Brazilian Formula One driver between 1984 and 1994. The 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix demonstrated to the world that Senna’s legacy was alive and well as fans flooded the weekend to honour his career. It is an undeniable fact that during a Brazilian Grand Prix, there seems to be more support for Senna than any other driver currently driving. During times like this, it is important to recognise why Senna is regarded as one of the greatest drivers of all time.
Ayrton Senna, born in 1960 in São Paulo, Brazil, was known for winning three Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles with McLaren (in 1988, 1990, and 1991). At the time of his death, he held the record for the most pole positions (65), although this has now been claimed by Lewis Hamilton with 104 pole positions, among other notable records. Over his 11 seasons of Formula One, he won a total of 41 Grand Prix.
Senna’s career in Formula One arose from his success in junior categories that caught the attention of numerous F1 team bosses. He made his debut in the 1984 season with Toleman, scoring points in his second Grand Prix, leading him to be a hot topic in the racing world. His best result of his first season came at the famous Monaco Grand Prix, known for its tricky street track. Despite qualifying 13th, he managed to battle his way into 2nd (just behind the accomplished Alain Prost in a McLaren), however the race had to be stopped due to safety concerns with the rain becoming heavier. Looking back at Senna’s performance, Pat Symonds (Senna’s race engineer) said 'It made a huge impression, not just on me… In fact, it probably made less of an impression on me than all other people, because I’d seen it sort of coming. It made a hell of an impression on an awful lot of people.' This single Grand Prix established Senna as a rising star in the world of F1, causing him to be in more demand. Senna went on to race with Lotus from 1985 to 1987, where he racked up numerous pole positions and wins before signing with McLaren in 1988 to drive alongside Alain Prost.
In 1988, the year of his first championship title, Senna was a part of one of the most infamous driver rivalries in history. The season saw McLaren-Honda win 15 of the 16 races, evoking competition between Senna and his teammate Alain Prost. This feud continued in the years to come as Prost took the title in 1989, notably by taking Senna out in Suzuka (the Japanese Grand Prix). The antics continued as in 1990, Senna took revenge on Prost by colliding with him at the first corner of Suzuka, the place which seemed to be the perfect setting for their rivalry. Despite their fiery competition, they respected each other's driving skills, and both admitted that they used the other to motivate themselves to greatness. Within his career, Senna was recognised for his qualifying speed over
one lap and the ability to push his car to the very limit. He was also acclaimed for his wet-weather performances; notable mentions include the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix, the 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, and the 1993 European Grand Prix.
1994 was a year in Formula One that will infamously go down in history. On 1 May, Senna was killed after his car crashed into a concrete barrier while he was leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at the Imola Circuit in Italy. The crash was ruled as a mechanical failure by the Supreme Court of Cassation of Italy. Senna's death marked the tragic climax of one of Formula One's darkest weekends. Just a day earlier, Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger had lost his life in a crash during qualifying. The weekend saw several other accidents, including a severe one involving Rubens Barrichello. This Grand Prix weekend served as a catalyst for the prioritisation of safety in Formula One.
Senna is considered one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time for numerous reasons; his qualifying pace was envied by many as he set record after record throughout his career and his general strength in Grand Prix racing sits him at sixth overall when it comes to race victories and is tied sixth on the all-time list of world titles won. Regardless of racing achievements, Senna’s prominence within the racing world has left him a legacy that saw a three-day national mourning and around half a million people lining the streets for his funeral. His lasting impact on the sport is undeniable, which is why he is still such a notable figure in the sport today.
German F1 Drivers
Formula One is regarded by many as the pinnacle of motorsport. A legendary sport that has created many legends of its own, where Germany and its drivers have achieved huge successes. With the country itself having a reputation for great feats of engineering and architecture, it is unsurprising that it is the nation with the second-highest number of not only Grand Prix wins and World Drivers Championships (WDCs), but also the engine manufacturer that has won the second highest number of races, despite the brand (Mercedes) only making F1 engines for 34 years total.
Before I launch into my spiel – pun intended –there are some terms and abbreviations it may be helpful to know. Alongside World Drivers’ Championships (WDCs) there are World Constructors’ Championships (WCCs) that are won annually by the team that has accumulated the most points across their drivers. Both of these are measured by the number of points won during Grand Prix, distributed as follows: P1 – 25, P2 – 18, P3 – 15, P4 – 12, P5 – 10… down to one point in P10 (the 10th place finisher) with the remaining drivers receiving no points. An additional point is received for the driver with the fastest lap, as long as they’re in the top 10. The starting positions are determined in the qualifying session, held the day before the race and the person who qualifies fastest starts the race in 1st place or 'pole position'.
Throughout the sport’s seventy-four year history, there have been a total of fifty-four German drivers (although their levels of success vary wildly). Notoriously, Nico Hülkenberg holds the record for the most races without a win or podium finish (221) but what is lesserknown is that a similar record is held by the German driver Nick Heidfeld (most podium finishes without a race win – 13). On the flip side, many German drivers such as Schumacher and
Vettel have gone down in history as some of the greatest.
Michael Schumacher
One of the sport’s most well-known names, Michael Schumacher certainly earned his place in the history books. Despite qualifying 7th out of 30 drivers on what was supposed to be his debut race with Jordan, (the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix) he didn’t complete a single lap due to issues with his car's clutch and finished the rest of his season with Benneton, despite Jordan applying for an injunction (warning) from the British courts in regards to a contract they had not finished signing. He raced for Benetton for the next four years, and with them, he scored his first podiums, won his first races, and earned himself two WDCs.
Schumacher is, however, best known as a Ferrari driver; a reputation that makes sense when you consider that it was with Ferrari he won his five consecutive championships that from 2000-2004, making him the first driver ever to do so. His racing career ended in 2012, following three years with Mercedes alongside his fellow German driver Nico Rosberg and,
at the time of his retirement, Schumacher held the records for: most wins (91), most pole positions (68), most WDC wins (7 – a record he either shares with or that was beaten by Lewis Hamilton, depending on who you ask) and most fastest laps (77 – another record he holds to this day).
Sebastian Vettel
More recently, Sebastian Vettel has curated his image to be the socially conscious sportsman who retired and started setting up beehives at turn 2 of the racetrack in Suzuka, but back in the day (before the Year 7s were born) Vettel was vicious. He debuted with BMW Sauber in 2007, replacing Robert Kubica due to injury but, following Kubica’s return, he was out of a job. Later in the year, Toro Rosso decided to drop one of their drivers, Scott Speed, since he wasn’t fast enough (ironic) and Vettel switched teams to continue his first F1 season - I’m sensing a theme.
Unfortunately, the start of his career didn’t go as desired; but halfway through the 2008 season, things started to change for the better and Vettel won the Italian Grand Prix, becoming the youngest Formula 1 race winner (a record only beaten by Max Verstappen) as well as the first and only race win for the team, Toro Rosso. Following this race win he was dubbed ‘Baby Schumi’ after one of his childhood idolsMichael Schumacher (the others being Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson).
It could be said that things went up from there, racing with Red Bull from 2009-2014, Vettel became the youngest World Drivers' Champion ever in 2010 and also won the next three titles for good measure. This didn’t come without controversies; it was often argued that Red Bull prioritised Vettel over his teammate Mark Webber, something that was backed up in instances like the 2010 British Grand Prix when
Vettel was given Mark Webber’s front wing after damaging his own (Webber won the race anyway).
Vettel raced with Ferrari for six years but never placed higher than second in the WDC with them. Retiring in 2022, he ended his racing career with Aston Martin, but not until he’d proved that he could name every Formula 1 champion in order.
Nico Rosberg
Born to Finnish F1 champion – Keke Rosberg, and raised in Monaco, Nico Rosberg had the option to choose which country he raced under and spent the beginning of his career as a Finnish driver but ultimately chose to race under the flag of Germany after his first Formula 3 series, feeling it would be easier to obtain sponsorships. You could call him a man of many talents since F1 was not his only viable career path. If being a fluent speaker of five languages wasn’t impressive enough, he earned himself a place at Imperial College London to study aeronautical engineering (but eventually turned it down for his racing career) and played for Monaco’s national tennis team in his youth.
He now owns an investment company.
Rosberg debuted in 2006 with Williams, a year before his childhood best friend and teammate Lewis Hamilton, and immediately left his mark by achieving the highest ever score in Williams' Engineering Aptitude Test, which tests a new driver's knowledge of car mechanics and engineering aspects of F1. Rosberg succeeded at Williams but what he is most well-known for was yet to come.
In 2010, Rosberg signed with Mercedes, being partnered with the aforementioned, seventime world champion, Michael Schumacher. Rosberg consistently achieved, gaining places in fifteen races that season and ended the year two positions higher than Schumacher in the drivers’ championship. A similar story was told over the next two years until 2012 when Schumacher retired, and Lewis Hamilton took his place at Mercedes.
You would be forgiven for thinking that having two incredibly talented drivers who had been friends since their karting days on the same team could only lead to success, but in this situation that was not the case. It is important to note, that due to the fact that each team manufactures their own car, the only other person with ‘equal machinery’ to you
in Formula 1 is your teammate. The pair had always been competitive, as you would expect of a professional athlete, with Robert Kubica being quoted as saying 'They would even have races to eat pizza, always eating two at a time.' The two were constantly being compared, with their former karting boss claiming that Hamilton was faster, but Rosberg was more analytical. The fact that Hamilton had won his first WDC in just his second year of F1 would not have quashed the competition. The first signs of tension showed at the 2013 Malaysian GP where team orders were given that, by Hamilton’s own admission, robbed Rosberg of a place on the podium.
It could be argued that the following competition between the two, sometimes known as ‘The Silver War’ left them both at a disadvantage but it didn’t prevent Hamilton from winning WDCs in 2014 and 2015, both times with Rosberg as his runner-up. Rosberg said that Hamilton’s moves were 'a step too far', Hamilton claimed Rosberg did things 'deliberately' or 'to prove a point'.
Following an incredibly heated rivalry, Rosberg secured his 2016 WDC in the final race of the season and announced his retirement from the sport only five days later. When asked about Rosberg’s retirement, Hamilton answered, 'The sport will miss him, but I wish him all the best. This is the first time he's won in 18 years, hence why it was not a surprise that he decided to stop.' Since then, both Hamilton and Rosberg have reported having little to no relationship outside of the sport and since then, Hamilton has gone on to win another four official WDCs.
Of course there have been many more successful German drivers in Formula 1, but here I chose to focus on the three who have won championships. It only leaves the question: who will be next?
Women in Motorsport
Formula One is widely considered the pinnacle of motorsport. However, there are no female Formula One drivers currently competing. This leads motorsport fans to incidentally neglect other motorsport events that have female competitors. Formula Two, Three and Four are the main levels of Motorsports open to women and in which they can currently compete. The only female driver that has ever raced in F2 is Tatiana Calderon. Calderon became the first Latin-American woman to drive in an F1 car. Another female driver who has dominated the field is Sophia Floersch, who made her F3 debut with Campos Racing, becoming the first woman to compete in the Championship since its formation.
In Formula Four, Abbi Pulling became the first female driver to claim victory in a F4 race at the age of 21. Pulling is competing with Rodin Motorsport in F1 Academy backed by Alpine, determined for success at a high level, and demonstrating to aspiring female drivers that it is possible to be a woman and compete in motorsport. A major competition for women in motorsport is F1 Academy. F1 Academy is a female-only, single-seater racing championship, aiming to develop and help women progress into higher levels of the competition such as F2 and even F1. The current managing director of the F1 Academy is Susie Wolff. Wolff started in karting, before graduating to Formula Renault and F3 before moving to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters to compete for Mercedes-Benz. Wolff currently strives to achieve awareness for women in motorsport. Hoping to attract the audience or more specifically the female audience of F1. Wolff has connections to drivers in the Mercedes AMG F1 team- George Russell and Lewis Hamilton- who regularly attend F1 Academy races and raise awareness for the competition via social media.
Image above: Abbi Pulling claiming the Race 2 victory making her the first female to win in the ROKiTBritishF4CertifiedbytheFIAChampionship.
The most asked question about women in motorsport is why there aren’t female drivers competing in Formula One. There is no genderbased restriction on women competing in F1; however, very few have managed to qualify or even score points. The first woman ever to compete in Formula One was Maria Teresa de Filippis between 1958-1959 but she scored no points. Lella Lombardi was one of the two female drivers to qualify for F1 and is the only female driver who has scored points in F1. Divina Galica, who entered three F1 Grands Prix, unfortunately failed to qualify. Desiré Wilson entered one F1 Grand Prix in 1980 but similarly failed to qualify. Finally, Giovanna Amati is the most recent female driver to have entered a Formula One race, but was unsuccessful in qualifying.
The recurring theme of female participants in F1 is their failure in qualifying, which demonstrates perhaps the physical issues that women must face when aspiring to race in Formula One. This requires women to train harder than male drivers. In the article 'Stalled on the grid- why are there no female drivers at the top of motorsport?' Jamie Chadwick (who holds the record for the most wins, podiums, pole positions and points in the W series) highlights the physical issue in lower formulae and discusses with sincerity that it must be addressed. In the interview, Chadwick emphasises ‘in a standard spec series, such as F2 or F3, everything else has been designed around the average male driver and doesn’t have power steering.’ Chadwick expresses her honesty in the fact that she believes ‘it is possible for women to compete in any championship, however the level of physicality required to get to is very high.’ In the same article as Chadwick, Matt Warwick interviews the Iron Dames driver Michelle Gatting as she discusses the sexism she experienced when trying to assert herself in motorsport during the late 2000s. The article states Gatting ‘would regularly beat drivers of the calibre of Kevin Magnussen (now in F1 with Haas)’ thus highlighting the
underlying inequality in race opportunities for women. Gatting must continue to assert herself in a male-dominated sport which still appears hesitant with the ‘growing presence of women in the paddock at circuits across the world.’ Evidence taken from industry statistics corroborate the gender inequality in motorsport. The article 'Women in Motorsport: The Revolution' (ELLE Magazine) states ‘over 80% of fans believe women will be racing in F1 within the next 10 years’. A statistic like this demonstrates how there is an appetite, or at least a faith, that the presence of women in F1 as competitors will grow. On the other hand, the media giant Forbes acknowledges that ‘less than 10% of all motorsport participants around the world are female’ in their article 'Women Can Challenge Men In Formula 1, Says More Than Equal'.
Although women are starting to challenge stereotypes, men are still dominating the field, shadowing women’s progress and chance for equality. Similarly, Elle magazine agrees that ‘women’s participation in motorsport racing has still never risen above 5% of the pool’. However, even though male drivers are currently the more dominant competitors, Forbes magazine mentions F1 Academy ‘40% of F1 fans are women contributing to a total 2022 viewership of over 1.5 billion’ in their article 'Here’s Why Formula 1 Racing Is Growing In Popularity With Women'.
A historical and inspiring female figure in motorsport is Pat Moss. Known to be one of the most successful female auto rally drivers of all time, achieving three prestigious wins and seven podium finishes in international rallies, her successes continued. Moss became a five-time European Ladies’ Rally Champion. Motorsport continues to inspire women to participate, as women pave the way for change. Honorary female figures in motorsport.
include Michèle Mouton who is, to this day, the only woman to have won the World Rally
Championship. Danica Patrick became the first (and so far, only) woman to win an IndyCar race in 2008. Molly Taylor, a rally car driver, became an Australian Rally Champion in 2016 - the first, only and youngest woman to win the Australian Rally Championship regardless of gender, and to win the 2021 Extreme Champions.
Promising driver Doriane Pin, though only 18-years-old, had already accumulated many wins, podiums and even a championship as part of the Iron Dames programme and in the Mercedes Junior Team. Pin is currently racing in F1 Academy with Prema Racing and in the Formula Regional European Championship with the Iron Dames. Iron Dames were founded in 2018 by Deborah Mayer, former president of the FIA’s Women in Motorsport Commission. This Iron Dames project is 'committed to promoting and supporting women in sports where they compete on equal terms with men.' The team includes four members - Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting, Sarah Bovy and Doriane Pin –who swap places in the cockpit of the car during long hours of the endurance races (testing the durability of equipment and endurance of drivers over a large distance in a single event with breaks to change). The Iron Dames are there only all-female team in endurance racing history. Diversity and equality are important topics of conversation that are beginning
to be mentioned regularly in motorsport. In 'Stalled on the grid...' Matt Warwick explains ‘the FIA is aware of the problem around diversity, thanks in parts to seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton frequently talking about it.’ Furthermore, ‘the governing body’s Girls on Track and Rising Starts campaigns are making an impact, with Ferrari taking women from them into its driver development programme.’ This emphasises the significance of campaigning for gender equality and the impacts in which it makes.
In the article written by Natasha Bird 'Women In Motorsport: The Revolution', Susie Wolff argues that ‘society has changed, the world has changed’ therefore women should be granted more equal opportunities. Wolff continues to discuss world changing events such as ‘The #MeToo Movement’ as Wolff understands ‘these factors have given us the perfect timing, and momentum.’ She describes it as a ‘perfect storm.’ Concluding how society is finally ready for women’s presence to be known proudly in motorsport. Furthermore, in the report conducted by Karel Komárek’s and David Coulthard’s More Than Equal organisation called Inside Track, found that ‘There is a universally strong belief that female drivers have all the necessary technical racing skills and emotional intelligence to compete at an elite level, and on an equal footing with their male counterparts.’ Therefore, the argument still stands: what is stopping the female drivers? The investigation continues and discovers that ‘despite this optimism, the barriers to success are still unforgiving.’ Inside Track states that a ‘performance gap’ is increased by ‘a lack of opportunity’ for female drivers, ‘an absence of track time, pervasive negative stereotyping, sexist language, a dearth of sponsorship and more.’ Additionally, there is a negative role that the press plays in ‘degrading the women that do break through.’ At present, gender equality in motorsport has not yet been realised: women still fight daily to achieve the attention and recognition they rightly deserve.
World Cricket Through the Ages (and at Clifton High from 1880)
If you have ever played or watched a cricket match, you have most likely heard the name WG Grace. He is widely regarded as one of, if not, the greatest cricketers of all time, akin to the likes of Sir Ian Botham and Don Bradman. Grace played first-class cricket across a large span from 1865 to 1908, featuring for teams such as Gloucestershire, and had a 19-year international career for England. Over this period, Grace broke numerous records, including the record for the oldest player to captain a Test nation at the age of 50 years and 320 days.
Grace is considered to be the greatest player of all time by many because, not only did he score upwards of 54,000 first-class runs, but he also played in an age of cricket that lacked the high standards of equipment of the modern-day sport. Today, it is a requirement that players under the age of 18 must wear the appropriate protective gear, but these regulations were not in place during Grace’s Career.
While WG Grace may be the most successful, he was not the only cricketer in his family. In fact, his daughter, Bessie Grace, who attended Clifton High School, was hailed as a great player by many in her time. Bessie started playing at the age of five when her father started to teach her. Cricket was a common interest shared by the pair and, at the age of 13, Bessie travelled with Grace on his tour of Australia in 1891-1892. On their journey, Bessie participated in various deck sports aboard the Arcadia, including a victory in the 'needle-and-cigar' race with Middlesex wicketkeeper, Gregor MacGregor. As well as this, Bessie participated in a match between the sons and daughters of the first-class passengers. She top-scored with 24 runs and claimed all of the wickets when the sons batted, but there may have been concerns about the impartiality of the umpire, who just
so happened to be WG Grace.
Bessie Grace was the star player for the Clifton High School cricket team and had a personal best of 63 not out, which came against the Ladies of Glamorgan. An article in 1893 by Woman stated that 'She is the Bonner (a famous Australian slogger) of her sex, and a big hitter when the bowling is loose.' This article was widely reprinted in other newspapers, and many others praised her extraordinary ability.
However, Bessie’s participation in the sport was short-lived, as many women in her time were forced to give up cricket after they had left
school due to a lack of opportunities to continue the sport. As well as this, her father wasn’t an advocate of women’s participation in cricket, stating, 'As to the innovation of ladies’ cricket, I consider it only a game for schoolgirls, and that it ought to be abandoned when they grow up.' This did not stop Bessie from impacting her interest in the game and, in late 1898, she moved to London as part of her father’s attempts to establish the London County Cricket Club.
Sadly, Bessie passed away in 1899 after contracting typhoid. WG Grace was heartbroken with grief, which may have affected his rupture with Gloucestershire in the 1899 season.
LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE
Colloquialism vs Slang in Literature
Although colloquial language and slang are often interchangeable in society, by definition, they do differ. Colloquial language is defined as 'informal language used in everyday conversations', whereas slang is defined as 'informal language used within specific groups or subcultures'. These definitions highlight the key differences which is that colloquial language is generally accepted and understood by a wider audience, while slang can be more exclusive and may require some knowledge of the specific group or context in which it is used.
Colloquial language has greater longevity as it is accepted informal speech in society. One of the key attributes of colloquial language is its regional variation. Different dialects and accents within a language can give rise to unique colloquial expressions and vocabulary. Compared to slang, colloquial language does adapt over time, although the change is gradual as it alters to reflect changes in society, technology, and popular culture. Due to the recognition that colloquial language is an informal type of speech, it has become more prominent in society and specifically in literature.
Traditionally, slang comes and goes within society, having a connection to certain generations; it is often associated with youth culture, as young people tend to be at the forefront of linguistic innovation and the creation of new slang terms. Due to the prominence of social media in today’s society, slang has a more fleeting presence due to ever-changing trends. Slang is used to create a sense of community within society, for example, between newer generations. It is important to note that slang is often considered more informal and less acceptable in formal settings. While colloquial language may be used in everyday conversations, slang is typically reserved for more casual and familiar contexts.
In Literature
Carol Ann Duffy is one of the UK’s most popular poets and some critics put this down to the fact that she opts for a conversational tone of voice in her writing. Within her poems, specifically in the collection ‘Feminine Gospels’, she draws on everyday idioms and clichés which she incorporates with a humorous slant. This evokes discussion between critics who question whether this makes her more or less of a serious poet. However, whether her style of writing is considered slang, or colloquial language can alter perspectives on this. It is evident in her poetry that the conversational tone that she utilises allows her poems to be more accessible to readers, especially compared to older
LANGUAGE
English poetry which is viewed as practically a different language by many. Duffy can showcase a voice in her poetry that is relatable to others and allows reflection through her writing.
Other examples in popular literature include ‘The Bell Jar’, where Sylvia Plath incorporates mid20th-century slang to convey the protagonist's mental struggles and societal pressures, making the narrative feel relatable and grounded. Anthony Burgess even invented his own unique slang called 'Nadsat' within ‘A Clockwork Orange’, which is a mix of Russian and English, to depict the youth culture in a dystopian future. In these ways, slang enriches the narrative and is implemented to create an intricate world in which the text takes place.
The issue with using current slang within literature is that it comes and goes ever so rapidly. Language that has relevance at the time of writing may completely lose this by the time a text is published. This can almost taint a piece of text as it is only deemed relevant within context and, although this can be interesting to analyse, it can lose significance and longevity as an accepted piece of text. This matter, however, once again, brings up the discussion of what counts as slang, and what is classed as colloquialism. To be honest, there is no quota as to what language fits into what category and the future cannot really be predicted. Overall, however, the inclusion of colloquialisms and slang in literature can add to a text and offer interesting points of analysis (bear in mind this is coming from an English Literature student though)!
HISTORY
Sesostris: the greatest pharaoh to never have existed
Who do you think is the greatest Pharaoh? Rameses? Tutankhamun? According to Herodotus, it was none of the names that probably came to your mind. It was Sesostris. But who was he? Why does Herodotus ignore 11,341 years of Egyptian history to talk about him? And was he real? All will be answered in this article.
Herodotus travelled to Egypt in 454 BCE, after an Athenian fleet was sent to disrupt the Persians during the Greco-Persian wars. He most likely landed in Tyre, then travelled the Euphrates to Babylon, and from there found himself at the capital of Egypt: Memphis. The later capital of Egypt – Alexandria – wouldn’t be formed until Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt in 332 BCE. During Herodotus’ time in Memphis, he spoke to priests of Hephaestus, most likely the Egyptian god of Ptah. Whoever the priests were, they and Herodotus had a long conversation about the entire history of Egypt. One of the reasons Herodotus was so fascinated with Egypt, was due to their record keeping. He calls them the 'most learned of any nation for which I have had experience'. During the conversation, he learned of the mostly fantastical 15,000 years history of Egypt which included much, from the founding of Egypt by Menes, to the 18 Ethiopian kings and the singular native-born woman. However, according to him, this did not leave 'any memorial at all'. He then describes Sesostris, who conquered more than Pharaoh or Persian would ever conquer. Herodotus begins his account of Sesostris as follows: 'Passing over these, therefore, I will now speak of the king who came after them, Sesostris. This king, said the priests, set out with a fleet of long ships from the Arabian Gulf and subdued all the dwellers by the Red Sea, till as he sailed on, he came to a sea which was too shallow for his vessels.'
After conquering the Arabian gulf, 'he gathered a great army (according to the story of the priests) and marched over the mainland, subduing every nation to which he came.'
The land he conquered included the Arabian coast, Syria Palestine, Thrace, Anatolia, Scythia, Colchis (the guards of the Golden Fleece) and Ethiopia. The area of land he conquered was the greatest ever ruled by a single person, let alone an Egyptian Pharaoh. In these lands, he erected statues of himself to show his dominion over them. He would 'set up pillars in their land whereon the inscription showed his own name and his country's, and how he had overcome them with his own power.' However, if the cities showed no resistance, he would 'put an inscription on the pillars even as he had done where the nations were brave; but he drew also on them the privy parts of a woman, wishing to show clearly that the people were cowardly.'
He placed these pillars as a sign of his empire: during the Bronze Age, the logistics of reigning over any ‘normal’ kingdom were already considerably challenging, let alone over an empire this big. However, Sesostris wasn’t just a normal conqueror: he was a logistics genius. He invented modern day geometry and socialism by ' [dividing] the country into square plots of equal size... and then raised revenues from this reform by ordering every plot holder to pay an annual tax. Inspectors would then be sent out to measure the precise extent of the man’s loss, so that his future tax rate could be set at a level appropriate to the reduced size of his holding. It is my theory that this is what lay behind the discovery of geometry, and its subsequent importation into Greece'.
This level of precision and the subsequent development of Egypt was the greatest it had ever been. However, it was lost after his son, Pharon (who was blind and weak) lost it all, and regressed Egypt to its pre-Sesostrian borders. While this empire is impressive, what are we as archaeologists meant to make of Herodotus’ text? His text is very nonchalant about the Pharaoh who surpassed the mighty Persian empire, and reads almost as a ‘fanfiction’ in an alternative history of ancient Egypt. The events that he transcribed probably happened more than 1,000 years before Herodotus’ time of
writing, and while his nickname is the 'Father of history', his other nickname is the 'Father of lies'.
So, who was Sesostris? And why have you never heard of him?
The reason why is because his existence is incredibly dubious at best. The issue with Sesostris and identifying him with other Pharaohs was that he was fantastically more extreme and debatably ‘better’ than other Pharaohs. No other Pharaoh conquered Ethiopia, or the Arabian coast, and Egypt wouldn’t control Syria Palestine until the late 1250s BCE, just before the Bronze Age collapse. Furthermore, during the estimated theory of when Sesostris ruled, the Hittite Empire was at its prime, blocking any advancement past the Euphrates.
Due to the extent of his empire and the vast scale of his conquests, historians in the past had tried to link Sesostris with other Pharaohs from Egyptian history, which is one of the most difficult tasks Egyptologists try to solve.
There are 33 known dynasties and 177 known pharaohs, with varying degrees of preservation with their name.
Hartley Year 13
The extent of our knowledge of different pharaohs ranges from our complete understanding of their life (such as Cleopatra) to knowing only their name (there is a Pharaoh literally called 'A'). As a result, identifying Sesostris is incredibly difficult. While there are theories about who he was, they aren’t convincing. Example: Pharaohs who could have been Sesostris include Rameses II, III and Seti I, but there are holes in all the theories of these proposed Pharaohs, and this limits our chances of proving that any of them were Sesostris. Another issue to compound the mystery is his name. It is not Egyptian. It is a Greek transliteration of his name. Herodotus has a level of, shall we say, ‘ignorance’ when it comes to the Egyptians and their history. For starters, Sesostris’ son's name is 'Pheron', which was a transliteration of the word Pharaoh, as Herodotus thought it was the name of someone, rather than the title we know it as today. He also described Egypt as lasting both 11,340 years and 15,000 years, which is wrong. We know that Menes created Egypt in roughly 3125 BCE, so the fact that Herodotus’ estimation was out by at most 12,000 years is proof of his ignorance. If Sesostris was real, his name would have most likely been 'Senusret', as shared with other pharaohs, but it is impossible to say. It could be a shortened name, as with Caligula (whose real name was Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus), but again it is impossible to prove. If only archaeologists could find one of the many pillars of his, it would prove everything. It would show that Sesostris was real, and that he genuinely conquered most of the ancient world....
They found one.
Along the road from Sardis to Ephesus, there is a stone relief showing what is described by Herodotus to be Sesostris (although it is reversed, so that the bow is on this left side rather than right). The carving gives direct evidence of Sesostris’ conquest, and proved
to 1920's historians that he did exist after all. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by construction workers building the road in the 1970s. However, as you might expect, there are problems with this relief, mainly being with the language the inscription is in. It is not in Egyptian. It is in Nesite (the language of the Hittites), and the inscription translates to
'Tarkasnawa, King of Mira (land). [Son of] Alantalli, King of Mira land. Grandson of ... King of Mira land.'
Little is known about Tarkasnawa, as the only other mention of his name is in a signet ring. This once again puts Sesostris’ existence into question, and the modern theory of his
existence is almost as interesting as the history of Sesostris himself. Before we delve into the theory, we need to understand the context of Herodotus’ history, as it is incredibly important for our understanding of Sesostris. During this time, Egypt was under the rule of the Persian Empire. The Egyptians were famous for their intense nationalistic ideology. It is believed that Sesostris’ existence was an urban myth and was invented by someone to show resistance to the Persians. The Persian Empire never conquered the Scythians or the Ethiopians, so it was a way for the Egyptians to show their superiority over their conquerors. This unfortunately means we
can confidently say that Sesostris was not real.
Overall, Sesostris, as described by Herodotus, stands as one of the most remarkable figures of Egyptian history. Although his existence is highly questionable at best, with archaeological and historical evidence failing to verify his achievements, Sesostris still served an important purpose. He reflected the Egyptian need for a nationalistic hero during Persian rule, a symbol of resistance and unmatched power within the Egyptians. Whether real or not, his story reveals how ancient narratives shape ancient culture, during a time of strife for them.
TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE
AI in Medicine
Artificial Intelligence is noticeably making its way into the world as an extraordinary advancement in technology. It can be harnessed in many ways, making work more efficient, rapid and (in most cases) more accurate - which is what makes it fundamentally important within the advancement and evolution of medicine. This essay will argue that overall, the application of AI in medicine is necessary to improve treatment in all stages of patient care from diagnosis to treatment to discharge. However, I will also be taking into consideration that, while AI plays a crucial role in modernising medicine, it cannot override the need for the empathy and critical thinking skills unique to humans and medically trained professionals, especially in environments such as hospitals.
Artificial Intelligence is a groundbreaking technology and, by interpreting huge amounts of data and spotting patterns, AI is able to mimic human intelligence and the structure of the neuron system. General AI utilises a combination of different types of artificial intelligence to be able to possess broad capabilities, as opposed to the narrow AI which performs exceedingly well in a specific domain.
It is capable of completing tasks faster and often better than a human can, which (when it comes to medicine) could have the potential to quickly and efficiently diagnose and compose a treatment plan through analysing the patient's previous medical history and comparing treatment options to similar patient cases in the past.
AI is unarguably useful; but to what extent can AI be applied to the medical field without taking over the roles of doctors?
Predictive AI has recently been created which can interpret data and make predictions such as anticipating the likelihood of a patient developing a certain disease; as an example of a specific application of this form of AI: an IBM client invented a predictive model that was 75% accurate in predicting sepsis in premature babies. While these models can be extremely advantageous to healthcare, the risk of algorithm bias (AI systems were trained on limited data and are consequently one-trackminded) means we need to avoid an over reliance on AI in healthcare, in case it could lead to a lack of human oversight in patient treatment.
SCIENCE
Furthermore, in diagnosis of disease, AI has now been incorporated within medical imaging as it is able to detect structures within medical scans (such as tumours) on the same level of a radiographer, and classify them into specific categories such as benign/ malignant. This is by far one of many beneficial assets of AI in medicine, found by 53 peer reviewed investigations to improve diagnostic accuracy and thereby prevent ‘never events’ (serious medical errors that can lead to the incorrect treatment of a patient. They are deemed preventable and so should - in theory - never happen.) Initial results from a Swedish study of 80,000 women showed a single radiologist working with AI detected 20% more cancers than two radiologists working without the technology.
This could both significantly improve the reliability of diagnosis, and furthermore alleviate some of the pressures on doctors, allowing them to focus on perhaps more rewarding aspects of their job. Alternatively, this raises concerns amongst diagnostic radiographers (whose whole careers rely upon the skill of interpreting medical scans) as to whether their positions in healthcare will remain viable in the wake of developments within AI technology. While the future of radiographers is uncertain, it is an example of why it is important to consider how the integration of AI is not always a positive change.
Another major aspect of AI is the potential for drug development to become more advanced. By utilising AI’s problem solving capabilities, the drug development process can be accelerated as clinicians discover superior drug designs while simultaneously reducing research and production costs. Artificial Intelligence is a part of all stages of pharmaceutical discoveries: molecular discoveries, management of supply chains and aiding the process of clinical trials. However, all uses of AI in pharmacy and drug development are overseen by humans: many
are sceptical of the application of AI In the medical field due to limited testing in real-world settings, lack of transparency about how they work, and questions about the demographics of patient data used in training the programmes.
Eric Topol’s famous autobiography ‘Deep AI’ encompasses his personal experience with using AI as a cardiologist - in both a positive and negative light, taking a dual standpoint. It is intriguing, coming from someone who is directly affected by the emergence of Artificial Intelligence in medicine, to hear how AI can revolutionise the industry, yet still entails a human to oversee and have the final say.
AI (specifically natural language processing) can run blood tests, taking just 20 seconds to conduct whole genome sequencing - where it is able to combine the patient’s phenotypic data with the (approximately) 900 out of five million gene variants that were disease-causing to determine the root cause of a patient’s seizures to be a rare variant that affects less than 0.01% of the population: the patient could be easily treated and discharged only 36 hours after being administered. This shows that AI can more accurately and rapidly detect causes of genetic diseases than manpower can achieve (regardless of the rarity of the condition) and could potentially shape the future in medicine by making diagnosis of disease quicker, leading to faster treatment of disease and, in some cases, preventing the risk of death due to waiting time or never events.
However, another case suggests that there are still drawbacks of using AI in medicine and as Eric Topol writes: 'We will never be fully deconvoluted by machines'. His patient came to him with pulmonary fibrosis and extreme fatigue; but despite the patient having undergone pulmonary function tests, the unchanged result implied the cause of his extreme fatigue was not as a result of a problem with his lung function, but instead due to the narrowing of his right coronary artery by 80%.
Whilst at first Eric didn’t believe this was the cause of the patient’s fatigue, he went forward with inserting a stent and to his surprise, the patient no longer was suffering from the extent of the fatigue as he had previously. The takeaway from this case study, I believe, is that despite AI being the future of medicine, there is still the urgent need for humans to be able to make links where perhaps machines and technology have, and will, fail to do so.
A crucial part of medicine itself, and one of the main roles of professionals in the healthcare system, is being able to choose a treatment plan by weighing the benefits and risks of a certain procedure (surgery or medication) in comparison to alternative options and even (and you find this a lot in surgery) the likely outcome of doing nothing at all. We can consider this when talking about AI in healthcare as, while there are certainly one-of-a-kind benefits of using AI, we need to fully take on board and evaluate how much the benefits outweigh the risks to help us decide to what extent AI should be involved in healthcare... if at all.
Immortality, Invulnerability and Senescence: A Biological Perspective
Immortality is classed as the ability to live forever whereas invulnerability refers to being impossible to harm or damage. Senescence (or biological ageing) is the process of deterioration of functioning with age. It can be applied to a cellular level, referring to the loss of a cell’s power to divide and grow, as well as specific organs and the entire organism. For example, leaves die and fall from trees in the colder months.
The rate of senescence can be increased or decreased by different factors, such as genetics, lifestyle and environmental conditions, and the vast majority of species will inevitably experience it. Hence, immortality from a biological viewpoint can be described as the absence of mortality due to senescence. Simply put, this is dying for reasons other than old age.
Whilst there do exist some remarkable examples of organisms that possess biological immortality, living beings that are invulnerable, where they are resistant to all external harm, have not been discovered. Organisms are limited by their environment, whether that be resources, predation, disease or changes in climate, which provides the driving force for natural selection and evolution.
One example of an organism officially labelled ‘biologically immortal’ is the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, which has adapted to have the unique ability to carry out a reversal of its lifecycle. The life of a jellyfish begins with a fertilised egg, which grows into a planula larvae. These larvae swim around freely before latching onto a surface, where they develop into polyps – cylindrical-shaped structures with tentacles. These polyps form a colony using a network of transport tubes and following this, each polyp separates into multiple discs which detach from the group. Each of these discs has the potential to become a separate jellyfish, as they enter stages to become ephyra (young jellyfish) and
eventually, medusa (adults). For most species, it ends with the medusa reproducing, to continue the cycle.
Though, for Turritopsis dohrnii, this is not necessarily the case. In the event that it experiences environmental stress, physical injury or becomes ill, it can change back to the polyp stage, to then create a new colony.
The process is known as trans-differentiation, which transforms the cells into new types of cells, and can, theoretically, continue indefinitely. However, in reality, these jellyfish can still fall prey to predators and disease, so they are not truly immortal.
Hydra are another species that could potentially be viewed as immortal, in the regard that they don’t experience senescence. Closely related to jellyfish, they resemble the polyp, with a tentacled mouth and foot at either end of its body. Hydra (pictured) reside in freshwater habitats and use their tentacles to sting any prey nearby. These organisms don’t undergo senescence at all and this is believed to be due to an overabundance of FoxO genes (which have a role in controlling cell longevity) compared to other animals. Studies, where these genes were inhibited, found that the hydra began to show signs of gradual cell decline consistent with ageing. Though not yet fully understood, it seems that the genetic make-up of hydra is responsible for their cells maintaining their youthfulness after each renewal.
Finally, it is worthwhile to mention lobsters as they also do not experience a reduction in their cell’s ability to function as they age, but the reasons for this differ from that of the hydra. In mitosis, the process of cell growth, the
DNA is replicated before the cells split into two genetically identical cells. The telomeres are sections at the end of the chromosomes, which help to prevent the loss of genes, and during each cell division, they are halved in length. When the
telomeres become too short, the cell is no longer able to divide, and so enters senescence.
Yet, lobsters possess a large quantity of the enzyme telomerase throughout their lives, which allows them to continually extend their telomeres. Telomerase is present in other species too but unlike lobsters, the enzyme abundance decreases post the embryonic stage and becomes too low to support the indefinite process of repairing the genetic sections.
Unfortunately, despite mitosis being carried out indefinitely, this has a negative effect at a certain point where the lobster becomes too large to support itself. As they are unable to change the size of their shell, they must shed and grow a better-fitting exoskeleton whenever necessary throughout their lifetime. The larger the shell, the more energy that is required and ultimately, it becomes too demanding to moult. Due to this, the lobster will succumb to exhaustion, disease, predation or shell collapse; the lobster has grown too much for its own good.
This would increase the chances of extinction as the whole species would be more vulnerable to a particular change or threat. In addition, it weakens the individual as they must compete more within the species as they require more resources to survive. This could potentially explain why animals have reduced in size over time and smaller mammals and insects outlived the dinosaurs during the asteroid collision.
In conclusion, the Earth is home to an extraordinary range of weird and wonderful life, particularly when looking at immortality and resistance to ‘growing old’. Several organisms have the potential to alter their life cycle or regenerate parts of their anatomy, such as starfish and flatworms. From mayflies, which have no mouths and live only one day once they reach adulthood, to some plants that can live for thousands of years, it is clear that there are very high levels of diversity regarding longevity. Scientists continue studying this field to help better understand our own ageing process.
The History and Future of AI
Artificial intelligence is one of, if not the most important piece of technology developed over the last near century. In the last decade, the usage of AI has surged like that of the internet in the 1990s; from virtual assistants and chatbots to providing personalised recommendations for you, to even helping winemakers optimise vineyard conditions, AI is emerging in pretty much any and every industry you could imagine. As we stand before this AI technological revolution, it is important to understand where AI comes from, its presentday situation, and lastly possible exciting (and scary) future scenarios.
First, to discuss AI we must know what it is. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence in machines, including learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity and reasoning. AI uses applications and devices to see, identify objects, understand spoken language, and even generate human-like text or images. Through things like machine learning (which enables AI to imitate the way that humans learn) or natural language processors (which enables computers to understand and communicate with human language), AI can analyse enormous amounts of data, recognise patterns and make decisions or create trends. Now AI can be put into two different categories, Weak AI (or Narrow AI) which is designed for more specific tasks, and Strong AI (or General AI) a theoretical but vastly superior and advanced AI capable of possessing equal or potentially greater intelligence than humans.
So now we have a basic understanding of AI, we can dive into its history. So where does AI come from? In actuality, this 'idea' of an AI goes back to ancient Greek philosophers, who made mechanical and robot-like creations called 'automatons' meaning 'acting of one’s own will' and even Da Vinci would create one himself in
1495. This would start the creation of 'robots' (a term made in a Czech play in 1921) and people would start to question the possibility of creating an artificial brain. Then came the real birth of AI when Edmund Berkeley published Giant Brains: Or Machines That Think where he compared the newer models of computers to human brains. Alan Turing would then publish 'Computer Machinery and Intelligence' discussing how to build an AI and proposing a test of machine intelligence called The Imitation Game, later known as the Turing Test. Finally, in 1956, a man named John McCarthy coined the term 'artificial intelligence' at the Dartmouth Conference. After which throughout the late 1950s and 1960s scientists would create new program languages for AI and AI techniques like machine learning created by Arthur Samuel in 1959 or Deep Learning by Alexey Ivakhnenko in 1968. The first chatbot, ELIZA, was created by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966. However, this maturation would start to come to a halt in the 1970s due to lack of funding, unrealistic expectations and scientists realising that their technology wasn’t advanced enough to achieve their goals; this became known as the AI 'winter'. But the period of the 1980s boomed rapid growth for AI, in 1979, the American Association of Artificial Intelligence which is now known as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) was founded. The Japanese government allocated $850 million (over $2 billion in today’s money) to an AI project in 1981 and there was much progress with new drawing programs to even the start of some self-driving cars at the University of Munich in 1986. However, another AI winter between 1987 and 1993 would start, although after, AI made impressive progress. In 1997 'Deep Blue' beat the world chess champion, Gary Kasparov; speech recognition would be developed by Microsoft in 1997; Roombas and Mars rovers were released using AI navigation in 2002 and 2003;
companies like Twitter, Facebook and Netflix would adopt AI unto their new advertising algorithms in 2006; 2011 Apple released virtual assistant Siri.
The usage of AI has now skyrocketed to what it’s like today, but what are the present AI aims? Companies are now involved in an arms race to create an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) the 'holy grail' of AI - this an AI capable of performing any intellectual task that a human can do, with reasoning, problem-solving, and learning abilities across a wide range of fields. This AGI would fundamentally change our entire planet. AGI could address some of humanity's biggest challenges, including developing cures for diseases like cancer, eradicating poverty, and reversing climate change or AGI could potentially automate entire jobs that require complex decisionmaking, creativity, and adaptability - tasks that currently only humans can perform. Obviously, there are many challenges when creating an AGI; ethics and safety, the risk of bias and unfairness in AI, not having enough computing power to run an AGI and even the energy cost and sustainability of the AGI (estimates that machine learning could require 1000 terawatt hours in the next couple of years if the current trends continue). But if we did create an AGI what would it be like?
Intelligence and knowledge build and accelerate each other and whilst humans are limited by biology and evolution, an AGI wouldn’t necessarily have the same problem. An AGI could advance itself at boundless speeds once it starts creating AI research and even creating new and improved versions of itself leading to a technological singularity, making a superintelligent being that we could not begin to comprehend. And the thought of a superintelligent being is very terrifying. We don’t know how to react to a being which is more intelligent than us, and if we look at how humans have been to 'less' intelligent beings, we have not been so kind. If AGI is not aligned with human values, it could create a dystopia of
surveillance and control, monitoring humans' every move and controlling the entire world under its will and whim or it could just wipe us out completely with autonomous warfare like in 'Terminator' and we would not stand a chance. However, it could create a human utopia as well, a post-scarcity society, where humans could live in infinite creativity and leisure, with AGI doing all the world's work and solving all the world's problems, humans can focus on what they want to do and potentially create a new golden age for art and culture.
Should killer whales be kept in captivity?
We could expect the short answer to this would be ‘no’ as their real environment is the ocean, not a metal tank. However, if I were to elaborate, I would first explain how it could could be argued that killer whales (also known as orcas) can be compared to pit-bulls: if they are not able get the correct amount of stimulation that their brain requires, or if they were to be abused and mistreated, they could start to become aggressive or savage. However, when in the wild they could be compared to spaniels with their clever, energetic and curious nature. John Jett -a former SeaWorld trainer- said: “Swimming with orcas is dangerous and you can’t completely predict the outcome of you going into the water, or into their environment.” By this, he aims to prove that the people who have died as the result of swimming with orcas perhaps only had themselves to blame.
An added reason why killer whales should not be kept in captivity is that humans do not have the resources, nor do they have the space to accommodate killer whales humanely.
Scientists have claimed that orcas need an average of 40 miles of swimming per day, not including hunting and deep diving. The average enclosure, however, is only 100 x 250 x 30 feet – clearly nowhere near large enough to allow for the amount of exercise and movement that these animals require daily. In the wild, while there has been no record of a human death as the result of a killer whale attack or as the result of orca interaction, but the same cannot be said if we look at orca’s in captivity. Take, for example Tilly. This orca’s name was Tilikum (nicknamed Tilly), and he was abducted from his Icelandic pod in 1983 as a calf. This orca’s name was Tilikum (nicknamed Tilly), and he was abducted from his Icelandic pod in 1983 as a calf. His life was all about being moved from place to place, in particular between different SeaWorld venues in Canada and USA, while experiencing ill treatment and torturous handling (such as not being fed when being ‘disobedient’, or being kept in a pool so small he could not properly turn around) as a punishment … everywhere he was taken.
Of the 4 recorded deaths of orca handlers, 3 of them are connected with Tilly. Tilikum could be compared to a human who has spent 34 years of their life in a cage for no reason at all with no hope of release, purely because of the fact that he was worth a lot of money: SeaWorld’s profits were rumoured to be in excess of $10 million. Tragically, Tilly died in 2017 of a bacterial lung infection at SeaWorld. If you would like to know more about the impact of captivity on the mood and disposition of orcas, there is a documentary called “Blackfish” which explores this.
So, to conclude, I think that keeping killer whales out of captivity is so important: it would protect these majestic, giant animals by preventing mental health disorders and stress, preserving their freedom.
POLITICS
America braces for November
(written in October, before the USA November 2024 election)
On November 5th, 150 million Americans will go to the polls to decide their next president in perhaps the country's most contentious election in its history. The stakes are high. Their choice: the first ex-president to be convicted as a felon - Donald Trump running for the Republicans; and for the Democrats - Kamala Harris, the current vice president, who promises to be tough, having a background in law, and previously having held the post of Attorney General for California.
This election has already been marked by the attempted assassination of Donald Trump; this, and the photographs of a bloodied Trump throwing his fist in the air led to him establishing a sizeable lead over Biden. But after Biden dropped out, Harris has managed to take a surprise lead, currently polling one point ahead of Trump in the national polls. The national polls are largely irrelevant, however: American elections are won through swing states and it’s these state polls that we must focus on. Swing states are ones where Republicans and Democrats have similar levels of support and so the state can ‘swing’ (be won) by either party
These states are important because the US still relies on the Electoral College, an archaic system of election where whichever party wins the state’s popular vote will receive all the state's electoral votes. To win the presidency
then, a candidate must win 270 or more of these electoral votes. Due to the Electoral College system, presidential elections in America have always been historically close: in 2020, the winner of the election would have been changed by flipping 81,000 votes in four states.
The state polls (like the national polls) are close: in five of the seven swing states, either Harris or Trump is leading by a margin of 1%. Even by historic standards this race is tight and as such, both parties' candidates will be investing considerable time campaigning in these states; of these seven swing states, Pennsylvania will be the most important to win, offering up 19 electoral votes. Whoever wins this state will likely take the election. So, what would a third Trump term promise? Concerns have been raised around his involvement with the Heritage Foundation’s ‘Project 2025’ plan (the Foundation being a conservative think tank) which describes itself as an 'historic movement [...] to take down the Deep State and return the government to the people.' A few of the proposals it mentions include a total ban on abortion, eliminating agencies like the Department of Education, along with a plan to ‘deconstruct the Administrative State’ by firing up to 50,000 federal workers and reclassing tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees - essentially Trump
loyalists. Although sounding conspiratorial, reclassifying the federal career civil service is not outside of the Trump playbook. During the end of his most recent term, he partially implemented ‘Schedule F’ which would allow him to make political appointments; but this was later repealed by the Biden administration. The proposals outlined in Project 2025 rely on Trump again enacting Schedule F, which he has signalled a desire to do.
Though Trump has repeatedly said he 'knows nothing' of Project 2025, many who wrote it have worked with Trump, including as part of his White House, and there is an obvious overlap between Trump's policies and the proposals of Project 2025; in fact, during his last administration he implemented 60% of the Think Tank’s recommendations.
Beyond Project 2025, Trump has signalled a desire for mass deportations of illegal immigrants after stating he would 'launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country'. But with an unauthorised immigrant population of 11 million and a reliance on cheap labour by the country to fulfil essential jobs, the feasibility of his plan seems doubtful - at least without doing significant
harm to the country's economy.
But now, a look at Harris: while it’s true she’s unlikely to change the minds of MAGA Republicans—America has become far too partisan for that—for the few undecided voters left in key swing states, her focus on middleclass economic relief and giving 'working families... a break' could just flip their vote. Harris would certainly be a more moderate pick for America. Her policies include making ‘Rent More Affordable’ and providing a ‘Pathway to the Middle Class’ ... but she must be careful not to be labelled as a continuation of the status quo. Despite her predecessor's success in managing and growing the economy, 56% believe the country is in recession when it’s not - although the Biden administration did battle with high inflation which pinched the pockets of many Americans with higher prices. This has led to Trump taking a firm lead in the polls when it comes to the economy - which is the biggest issue to 60% of voters who say the economy was the most important issue facing the country.
Whoever wins, the outcome of this election will profoundly impact the future direction of the United States and the Western world. Trump would seek a more conservative America with an aggressive immigration policy and a reduction in the size and scope of the federal
government. Harris, although underwhelming in her ability to lay out a clear vision, offers the country stability. Ultimately, the choice between Trump and Harris will determine the United States' commitment to democracy and stability for years to come. America must choose wisely.
Sean Robbins
FILM
Dune: A Vast Landscape of Vision, but where’s the Heart?
BenjaminGreyexploreshowVilleneuve’s productionseemstoallowitssubstanceto slipthroughtheaudience’sfingers,likesand.
When people talk about the book Dune, they talk about the world of Dune.
'Arrakis, the only planet capable of producing Spice, the fuel for Faster than light space travel and fuel for psionics' abilities, is caught in a political war between the natives and two noble houses.'
Then, such a person may go on to talk about how the war was orchestrated by the emperor to weaken opposition within his court or about the textual parallels to western involvement in the middle east or even how the story is a metatextual subversion of the traditional heroic narrative.
But they always start with the setting.
The setting permeates the book, the blenchingly hot desert landscape requiring the natives (Fremen) to spend downtime sitting in the shade. Yet when the Fremen meet with the Atreides family, they spit, as to give water is a sign of respect. The cultural idiosyncrasies and humanity of the extremely strange and alien world of Dune ground the setting and provide scale for the immense battles and sheer size of the galaxy.
This is all seen through the eyes of Paul Atreides, the heir to the Atreides house yet a relatively familiar boy, trained by the finest tacticians and swordsmen available to his house. We get introduced to the world though his eyes as he learns of Arrakis, the tense political dinner parties and violent fights to the death, and that despite his immaculate training he may be unable to take control of such a wild place and be subsumed to the will of others.
However the movie, directed by Denis Villeneuve, though successful in demonstrating the scale and magnitude of the setting, floats far above the characters and gets little to no time to demonstrate their personalities. Of all people, Jason Momoa is the most charismatic actor, demonstrating pride and military brotherhood when showing off Fremen technology to his fellow soldiers. This makes you care when he steels himself before a heroic sacrifice to allow Paul to escape.
This opinion sounds really condescending, but the fundamentals are what the movie severely lacks. It is understandable how the expansive plot of Dune had to be trimmed, and some cool bits had to be cut, however a 2-and-a-half-hour movie struggling to adapt half of Dune feels off.
A large part of my issues are with Denis Villeneuve’s directorial style. He often focuses on the atmosphere, featuring characters looking into the middle ground and long shots of the setting. However these tone setting shots feel excessive at points, it feels as if the musicians had to extend the score to fit the length of the shots, filling the music with evermore distracting horns whilst you watch sand.
The characters are dramatically simplified, many scenes that serve to enrich the world and characters being cut for time which has drastic impact on one of the core parts of Dune. Paul, the cunning yet still young heir is a much flatter character as he has no opportunity to verbally spar with bankers during dinner or spot cultural details that help soothe diplomatic issues. In the film he has barely any acting range, constantly brooding with the same pouty face except for the point in which he starts throwing a tantrum and stamping his feet.
Lady Jessica, the matriarch of the Atreides family, arguably one of the most intelligent characters in the book, is reduced to an anxious mother, crying outside the room when Paul is being interrogated by the Reverend Mother. The Reverend Mother’s speech that sets up the themes of the book is dramatically shortened and lacks the same thematic relevance that allowed it to be called back to through Paul’s journey.
The conflict is simplified to a three-way conflict instead of the multifaceted game concerning the Spacing Guild, House Corrino or the Bene Gesserit. Lots of characters are entirely gone from the movie and a lot of the weirder aspects of dune such as how Mentat are humans who have replaced computers are gone. Extremely weird things, such as how the Guild Navigators are spice addicts, disfigured and elongated beyond recognition whilst kept in anti-gravity chambers that drive the FTL travel, are not elaborated on. The distinction of Dune as the extremely weird evolution of humanity in the
far future is eroded, the intrigue in the setting and the world reduced to a series of setup events to allow the story to occur in the first place.
Interesting sublots, such as the Harkonnen discovery of how to override imperial mind conditioning which in turn permit emotional control of Dr Yueh in the plot to usurp the Atreides family, get removed or simplified to the point in which Dr Yueh goes from being a hero who can persist against the strongest mind control and strike back against his controllers to the same tired hostage-leverage-mole story that only makes Dr Yuh look like an emotional fool who cannot see the bigger picture and the House Atreides like feeble idiots instead of the master tacticians there said to be.
And all the time saved with the cuts to the rich setting in the two-and-a-half-hour-long movie is then used for more shots of sand or long slowmo perfume commercial shots of a celebrity actor, who is not important or even properly introduced in the movie. And yet it feels that we spend more time looking at blurry footage of her, every 20 minutes, than Leto Atreides, the patriarch and leader of the House Atreides.
It feels like, and this is the reason you can feel my frustration though the page, none of the actors were given the opportunity to act, to show off their characters, to introduce themselves and the world of Dune to the audience. There is a solid 30 minutes of this movie that you could cut out and not notice and yet so much that made the book special has been removed instead. The film lacks charisma and character, instead feeling hollow as if the novelty of scale is supposed to distract you from how it fails its fundamentals to tell an engaging narrative.
PUZZLE
Just bad fortune or plain skill issue? Either way, I’m not getting that W
Hi, professional try-hard and lifetime sweat here.
From a young age, I have always been a fan of logical board games with a sprinkle of elements of luck, because not only could I butcher my own friends (or foes) with my unhealthy obsession over victory, even when I bumped into somebody else who was more obsessed, I still stood a chance.
So recently, I picked up a game, mahjong, which is similar to that — just that there’s a downpour of luck elements instead.
The Game
I won’t bore you with the details, but here’s a simple explanation of the game. A game consists of several hands, and the four players receive 13 tiles at the start of each hand. Tiles come in three suits, four each of numbers 1-9 in each suit and four each of seven 'Winds and Dragon' tiles. Each player takes turns drawing and discarding tiles until they reach a winning hand.
The game seems very complicated at first glance, with its difficult terminology and complex winning requirements. And you are right. The game does take decades to master. On the other hand, do you need to master it to beat skilled players? Definitely not.
You see, in Mahjong, what you do is mostly affected by your hand you get dealt at the start, and what tiles you pick up each turn. What determines that? You’re right, our biggest pal RNG! And no one is immune from times when seemingly nothing goes the right way.
Furthermore, a logically better choice in the game does not always lead to a good result. If another player wins with the tile you discard (a deal-in), you lose points. In most other games, losing points is due to bad risk management or right-out mistakes. For example, in football, if you slam the ball into your own goal a few times, you’d probably lose. However, in mahjong, with luck, mistakes can not only become less punishing, it might favour you even. A logically superior choice may cause you to deal in and lose, while another inferior choice might cause you to win instead.
Right now, the game sounds depressingly like a glorified coin toss. However, there are longterm rewards for those who choose to master the game, as the longer you play, the more skill actually matters. Mathematically, the larger 'sample size' (i.e. the more games you play),
the closer your average hand and pick-up 'goodness' is to the average value of everyone else. Therefore, the longer you play with the same people, the smaller the overall gap in luck and the more the skill difference starts to show.
(To be honest, another thing I find nice about this game is that I can blame the RNG gods when I lose even when it’s clearly my fault.)
I entered a tournament. But why?
When people think of their hobbies, smiles usually appear on their faces. Either from the inner peace they get when crocheting on the sofa, or from the passion they feel when they duel with their friend in front of a chessboard.
However, as my confidence grew in the game, I read about Mt. Stupid online. And no, it’s not something like this Belgian town named 'Silly', it’s a graph of confidence vs confidence, proposed by social psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning and is also known as the DunningKruger effect. As you may be able to spot on the graph, unless you have either rock-bottom or sky-high confidence, confidence is usually not a great measure of competence. For example, the horizontal line I drew on the graph crosses the curve three times, so someone with that level of confidence has three possible levels of wisdom they might be at, which vary wildly.
So even though I am quite confident in my skills in the game, I cannot be sure that I am not just a smug idiot. Furthermore, I am a sweat and can’t help but crave to know how good I am at everything. (help) Finally, my ranking in an online game in which players rage quit three minutes in and are replaced by bots with an IQ of -5 isn’t going to take me anywhere.
As a result, why not take a three-hour train after eight hours of school on a Friday night on a quest to put a big red dot on that weird curvy graph?
Or so I thought I could.
The tournament
I felt great and relatively relaxed when I entered the tournament hall. The tournament I entered was quite small, with 28 players and seven games going on at once. However, I soon realized a 4th enemy, beyond my three opponents in-game, and took the form of a gigantic glowing monitor.
The clock.
You see, the online games I usually play last around 45 minutes. When I looked at the 75-minute time limit, it felt more than enough. However, in person, every time a hand starts and ends, a relatively significant amount of time is used to deal tiles and allocate points, unlike online games in which the app does it for you. With some new players unfamiliar with offline mahjong, the time needed expanded a lot more, and many games I played were cut short.
Another realisation was the unreliability of the results. Sure, you can say that the champion of the tournament is the best player who attended. However, this isn’t completely true for mahjong.
Imagine the race between the tortoise and the hare, but there’s a huge pitfall in the poor hare’s racetrack. Even if the hare ran perfectly with its strong legs and agile movements, it’s still completely helpless from plunging into the abyss; even if the tortoise were to take a 19-hour nap in the middle of the race, its opponent would still stuck in a hole.
That’s how much bad luck can cost you in the tournament. As there are only five games, the pattern on one single tile can cause you to be eliminated from the trophy contest or propel you to the top of the leaderboard.
At last, results. What did I get? 4th. How many people get a trophy? Three.
Ehhhhh, the top 3 might have just gotten really lucky, if my opponent didn’t draw that tile there, I could have gotten 1st place, and if I had gotten this lucky draw they wouldn’t have won …
In all seriousness, I am quite satisfied with my result. But does it mean that I am good enough at the game? Maybe not.
Wow, I’ve argued for the importance of the tournament in determining my actual skill and then argued against it in the second half! What a pointless article. Anyway, I’d be very glad if you were entertained by this in the slightest and didn’t think that reading this was a complete waste of time.
Thank you very much.
MYSTERY
Rose Coloured Glasses: A Clifton High Private Eye Mystery
It was shaping up to be quite the interesting Employer Talk, the students could tell you that. The school was fortunate enough to have the vice commissioner of the entire Avon and Somerset Police organisation come in to give a lecture, and it was certainly a pleasant surprise for many of the children when Vice Commissioner Harper pulled out a duffel bag of firearms for some show and tell. All unloaded, of course: after all, it was a school visit.
What also surprised the students was the harsh rattling noise that suddenly came from behind them in the middle of the VC’s demonstration. Some whipped their heads around to see what all the fuss was about, while others recognised it immediately as the distinctive sound of the futile attempts at opening the Pembroke Room door by someone who did not know the door codes. Mr. Perry, Head of Careers, turned his head away from the stage, then back again. VC Harper had momentarily paused his lecture to dig another firearm out his duffel bag to showcase, so Mr. Perry got up to let in whatever student was stuck at the Pembroke Room entrance.
'Strange,' VC Harper muttered, 'I could have sworn I packed that sniper rifle.' He zipped up the duffel bag and looked back up at the eager audience. He then glimpsed a flash of light from above them, and looked up at the balcony.
All the students could hear was a loud crack, before VC Harper fell to the floor. Mr. Perry returned to the room to see what the fuss was all about, but it was too late. Blood had been drawn. His guest speaker was dead.
Mr. Will Pheland stood before the stage, now cordoned off by a band of yellow police tape. Even from a distance, and with the white-clad crime scene investigators swarming the Vice
Commissioner's body, the Head of School could see the gunshot wound, and involuntarily turned his head away from the grisly scene.
When Mr. Pheland accepted the role to be the school’s new Head, he had heard of the many murders that had taken place within its grounds. He recalled the initial hesitation he had held for assuming responsibility over a site which had come to be the subject of much suspicion regarding its safety. Tales of water supplies poisoned with neurotoxins, rumours of the school being a secret hub for organised crime, even absurd horror stories of hypnosis schemes taking place in the staff rooms; all conspiracy theories he had heard from news outlets (most of which were, admittedly, dodgy sources of information).
Yet, he nonetheless went ahead with taking such a responsibility. Perhaps, it was partly due to the recency bias induced by the lack of a murder in the last term of the previous academic year. Perhaps, it was because of his subconscious drive to accept the challenge of leading a school known for its misfortune. He certainly knew he took the job because he appreciated the tight-knit atmosphere of the small school community, and decided that it was worth the risk of potentially burdening his future self with having to navigate through a murder happening in his school.
Well now, he was his future self, and, shooting another glance at the dead body before him, he wasn’t so sure anymore that he wanted to handle this aspect of Headmastership.
'Excuse me, sir.' he heard a woman say behind him, 'Are you Mr. Pheland, the Head of School?'
Mr. Pheland turned around to face the voice. 'I am indeed, officer,' he confirmed. 'And you are?'
'Detective Sergeant Rosa Ryan,' she said, extending her hand forward. 'I’ve been sent to lead this investigation.
I used to go to this school, you see.'
'A Rosarian,' Mr. Pheland remarked, shaking it. 'Well, thank you for your help, Detective. We will definitely need your expertise here.'
DS Ryan nodded. 'Thank you,' she said. 'Fortunately for us, we’ve got a bit of a head start. We’ve already narrowed down the four members of staff who were near the area at the time of the crime.'
'Four suspects?' Mr. Pheland was surprised. 'That was quick.'
DS Ryan produced a notepad. 'Some kids voluntarily approached us when we got to the school. They were playing table tennis, they told us,' she recounted to Mr. Pheland. 'And they say they saw three teachers who were at the Bear Pit area outside the Main Hall when they first found out about the murder.'
'And when was that?'
'The students noticed something was wrong when they saw the Employer Talk audience members being evacuated,' DS Ryan explained. 'So they asked some nearby teachers what was going on, and it was no use because they were equally as confused. But it was this that made the students remember what teachers were in the vicinity.'
'Who?' Mr. Pheland asked. For a brief moment, he hoped that the suspects would all be staff he didn’t know well, but quickly cast aside the callous thought.
'The three teachers at the Bear Pit were Mrs. Daire, Dr. Brookington, and Mr. O’Solomon.'
'Teachers of Biology, Maths, and Economics respectively,' Mr. Pheland observed. 'Don’t seem to have much in common.'
DS Ryan nodded. 'With these cases, the suspects often have a wide range of specialities.'
'That complicates things,' said Mr. Pheland. 'Wait, I thought we said there were four suspects. You mentioned three in the Bear Pit.'
'There’s also a Mr. Perry, who was in the Main Hall,' DS Ryan clarified. 'He was the one who arranged the Employer Talk,'
'That would make sense, as the Head of Careers.'
'Yes, but according to the students attending the talk, he fled the Main Hall before the Vice Commissioner was shot, only to be seen back in the hall a while after the murder,' DS Ryan said. 'This is severely incriminating for him, making him our prime suspect at the moment.'
'Hold on,' Mr. Pheland furrowed his brow. 'An Employer Talk at lunchtime, you say? That’s suspicious, they usually take place in the mornings. And to be in the Main Hall too! I was under the impression that Employer Talks are conducted at the Rose Theatre. Why would Mr. Perry schedule the talk to take place here, and at this time?'
'Interesting,' DS Ryan stroked her chin. 'Maybe the reasoning behind the Main Hall venue is so that he can shoot from the balcony?'
'That might just be it,' Mr. Pheland said, before letting out a heavy sigh. 'Regardless of who it is, I just don’t understand why anyone would be willing to murder anyone in front of an audience of children.'
'We haven’t yet identified a motive for the crime,' DS Ryan admitted, 'But we have confirmed the means. Our guys found a sniper rifle in the balcony of the Main Hall. But get this, it was one of ours. It was one of the police weapons the Vice Commissioner brought in from the police station for the talk.'
'And the murderer just managed to get a hold of it?' Mr. Pheland asked, surprised.
'Apparently so,' the DS said. 'And somehow, the murderer owned the right ammunition for the sniper rifle.'
'Couldn’t they have just taken the bullet from the Vice Commissioner? Along with the rifle?' Mr. Pheland asked.
'Couldn’t they have just taken the bullet from the Vice Commissioner? Along with the rifle?' Mr. Pheland asked.
DS Ryan shook her head. 'It’s unlikely,' she said. 'We’re not allowed to bring ammunition of any sort into schools. So the murderer had to have brought in their own ammo.'
'I see,' Mr. Pheland said. 'I presume that to find out more about the motive for the crime, you will have to question the suspects?
'You would be correct,' DS Ryan replied. 'In fact, that’s due to happen now. Our officers are gathering them as we speak.'
Mr. Pheland nodded. 'Well, best of luck with that,' he said, offering a firm smile. 'I’m sure you folks will do well in finding our murderer.'
DS Ryan smiled back, then said: 'You can tag along to the interrogation if you want.'
'Oh, no,' Mr. Pheland shook his head profusely. 'I wouldn’t want to interfere in police matters.'
'Are you sure?' DS Ryan asked, 'I am a Rosarian, true, but my time at the school was from years ago. We could use someone else familiar with Clifton High in the room who isn’t a suspect, just to corroborate the evidence they might give relating to the school. And it would be less stressful for the suspects if it’s a known friend questioning them, and not some random detective.'
Hesitation. Mr. Pheland would be lying if he said he was completely confident he could help with the investigation without accidentally sabotaging things. But he was also confident that he believed in helping the school as much as he could. If that entailed facing his fear of having to assist in solving a murder case, so be it.
'Why not?' Mr. Pheland replied. 'Count me in.'
DS Ryan smiled. 'Alrighty, then.'
The four suspects, plus the Head of School and the Detective Sergeant, were all sat down in the Head’s office.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' DS Ryan announced, 'As some of you may know, there has been a murder.'
She looked around the room, and saw no significant reaction to the news apart from some uncomfortable seat shuffling.
'Good, I’m assuming the lack of reaction means everybody already found out,' she said. 'I’m here to tell you things you don’t yet know.'
She proceeded to divulge the known detailsthe victim, the murder weapon, the personally owned ammunition.
'The reason why you’re all here today,' she continued, 'Is that unfortunately, you are all currently suspects due to being near the scene of the crime when it happened, and that it is likely that amongst us is the murderer.'
More nervous seat shuffling, which the DS expected.
'Fortunately, you can prove your innocence if you cooperate with us and answer our questions,' DS Ryan added. 'And we’ll start by asking you why you were where you were. Mrs. Daire, let’s go with you first.'
The Head of Biology cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses. 'Well,' she said. 'I was walking over from the Rose Theatre. I’d just finished a rehearsal with some of my Biology students for an upcoming Biology assembly we’re doing. It was almost 2 o’clock, and I figured, little point hitting the staff rooms to work or for a coffee I wouldn’t finish by Period 5. I knew there was an Employer Talk because they take place on Wednesdays, so I decided to go watch, just for the last 10 or so minutes. And wouldn’t you know it, a murder had taken place.'
DS Ryan finished writing her notes and looked up from her notepad. She turned to Mr. Pheland. 'Sir, is it true that Employer Talks take place on Wednesdays?'
Mr. Pheland nodded. 'They do indeed.'
Mr. Perry nodded too. 'Yes, but usually in the mornings,' he added. 'I only scheduled this one for lunchtime because the guest requested it.'
'Right,' DS Ryan said. She was still keenly aware that Mr. Perry was the likeliest suspect.
'Mr. Perry, could I also ask why you scheduled it to take place in the Hall, and not the Rose Theatre?' Mr. Pheland finally chipped in, hoping the question wasn’t too aggressive. 'Because it was the fact that the venue was the Main Hall, with its balcony and all, that a murder by sniper rifle was able to take place.'
Mr. Perry sat up in his seat. 'I was going to use the Rose Theatre like normal,' he explained. 'But it was booked out at lunch. So I had to use the…'
He trailed off, as if realising something.
'Wait,' he started. 'Mrs. Daire, you said you were using the Rose Theatre. That means it was you who booked it out.'
DS Ryan shot a glance at Mr. Pheland. This was a good point from Mr. Perry that somewhat shifted suspicion from him to Mrs. Daire.
But she was having none of it. 'Well, that’s hardly an incriminating factor,' she responded. 'It’s not my fault the Talk had to suddenly take place at lunch.'
'Then whose fault is it?' Mr. Perry argued back. 'As I said, it was the guest that wanted this time slot.'
'Maybe he just wasn’t free in the morning or something,' Mr. O’Solomon suggested.
'True,' DS Ryan said. 'I imagine the Vice Commissioner would be quite busy, although I’ve never met him.'
'Funny though,' Mr. Perry mused. 'For being a busy man, it was him that reached out to me voluntarily to offer to give the talk. And I accepted in the end, of course.'
'Regardless of whether or not the VC was actually busy or not, we still need to know where each of you was,' Mr. Pheland said. 'Detective?'
'Thank you,' DS Ryan said to him. 'Dr. Brookington, why were you near the Hall at the time?'
'Lunch duty,' Dr. Brookington replied. 'I have it on Wednesdays.'
'I see,' DS Ryan said. 'Mr. Pheland?'
'If I recall correctly, that does check out,' Mr. Pheland said. 'She does have lunch duty on Wednesdays. Though I thought that your duty only entailed patrolling the hallways, Doctor?'
'Well… there aren’t usually a lot of students roaming around in the Science Block where I’m stationed,' Dr. Brookington revealed. 'So I decided to see if I could help out outside instead.'
'That’s a good reason, I suppose,' Mr. Pheland responded.
'Thank you for trusting me, sir,' Dr. Brookington said. 'Wow, this is stressful.' She rubbed her eyes as if for dramatic effect.
DS Ryan turned to the Economics teacher. 'And Mr. O’Solomon? What were you doing near the Main Hall?'
'Also lunch duty,' he replied. 'But I was actually posted outdoors, by the tree. The students can tell you, they’ll remember me having duty at lunch.'
'I do recall seeing you on duty through my office window,' Mr. Pheland said. 'But I thought it was on Mondays that you had lunch duty?'
'Mondays?' Mr. O’Solomon seemed nervous. 'Oh, I requested a change for the date on which duty is required of me. Clashes with my schedule, that’s all.'
'Right,' Mr. Pheland responded. This time, it was he who shot a glance at DS Ryan. He wasn’t entirely convinced by Mr. O’Solomon’s tense tone. Perhaps it was just nerves, he thought.
'And you, Mr. Perry,' DS Ryan said. 'I’m going to ask you some more questions because I already know you were at the Main Hall for the reason of listening to the lecture you organised in the first place.
Unfortunately, that does make you our biggest suspect. Could you walk me through, in detail, what happened from your point of view?'
'I don’t know what to say,' Mr. Perry said slowly. 'I guess it started like any regular Employer Talk. Near the end of the lecture, I heard someone try to open the door to the Pembroke Room, so I went out to help. I opened it, and thought it would just be a latecomer, so I told the student there that he was late for the talk and that he should be more punctual next time. But he said he wasn’t here for the talk, and that he was told to meet with a teacher at 2 o’clock. I checked the time- 13:57. I think I joked to the student that it was ‘fair play’ or something that he was at least punctual for his meeting, and suggested he could sit down while he waited for whichever staff member he was meeting.'
Mr. Perry paused hesitantly, before saying: 'That’s when I heard a loud bang from inside the hall, but I didn’t even realise at the time that it was a gunshot. I thought maybe the Vice Commissioner could have tipped over a lectern, or dropped his mic, just something else that would make a loud noise. Never would I have imagined that it was a gunshot. Either way, I went back in, and of course, by then, he was… dead.'
The room was silent for a while after Mr. Perry finished, collectively musing upon the gravitas of the situation.
Eventually, DS Ryan broke the tense silence. 'Thank you for your answer, sir,' she said. 'Did you manage to get this student’s name? Finding them would be good for establishing an alibi for you.'
Mr. Perry shook his head sadly. 'I didn’t think I’d need to ask for his name at the time,' he said. 'Look, I know how suspicious I must seem right now, with me exiting the Hall at the most
incriminating time.'
'To be fair, you mentioned you went back into the Main Hall quite quickly after you heard the gunshot,' Mr. Pheland reassured him. 'That means you couldn’t possibly have gone up to the balcony at the time of the shooting, because that would mean you wouldn’t have the time to get back down before going back into the Hall.'
'Could it be possible that you were framed, Mr. Perry?' Mrs. Daire asked. 'That the murderer instructed a student that they knew for sure didn’t know the Pembroke Room door code to meet them at 2 o’clock, so that you would be drawn outside right when the murderer takes the shot?'
'That’s a plausible theory,' DS Ryan noted. 'And if it’s true, it’s doubly beneficial for us if we find this unknown student, because we can ask the student who it was that he was told to meet. Then we’ll have our murderer.'
'I can let you look at our database of every student here and their photo,' Mr. Pheland suggested. 'Have a scroll, I bet that student’s face will be somewhere in there.'
Mr. Perry breathed a sigh of relief. 'Thanks for believing me, gang,' he said.
'No worries,' Mr. Pheland consoled him. 'I think ironically, you might be our safest suspect right now.'
'Agreed,' DS Ryan said. 'Even if you were able to steal that sniper rifle, you wouldn’t have been able to use it.'
'I just think it’s silly that the Vice Commissioner could be so careless as to let the murderer nick an entire sniper rifle off them in the first place,' Mrs. Daire remarked.
'We’re in agreement on that,' Dr. Brookington said. 'But what did you expect? He was a cop.'
An uncomfortable silence fell upon the room again, and heads were slowly turning towards DS Ryan.
'Look,' DS Ryan said cautiously. 'I’ll admit the Avon and Somerset Police don't exactly have the best rep.'
'That’s kind of an understatement, isn’t it, detective?' Dr. Brookington retorted. 'Sexual abuse, discrimination in recruiting, now this fiasco.'
'I appreciate there’s a lot of bad apples out there in the force,' DS Ryan said. 'But there’s a lot of people, me included, trying to do good too. Trying to reform the system from the inside.'
'But could you not argue that continuing to serve the police force is tantamount to complicity in these misconducts? That it’s equivalent to fuelling further injustices?' Dr. Brookington asked.
'I think that logic is very much applicable to many other places,' DS Ryan shot back. 'Places where the police system is so institutionally rooted in the goal of maintaining inequality that the only solution lies in sweeping reform or complete abolition. But not here. I don’t believe the UK is one of these places.'
'And that’s where we differ,' Dr. Brookington said sadly. 'There is no way that, as a nation so plagued by a history of colonialism and class inequality, modern law enforcement was established and designed for the reason of anything but assisting the elite in oppressing marginalised and disadvantaged groups. We should be spending the funding that currently goes to the police in better ways. We should be giving more to infrastructural development, to healthcare, to education! All alternative methods of reducing crime. Not using our taxpayer dollars to protect the interests of the police. Because all cops are-' 'Woah woah woah!' Mr. Pheland interjected. 'Let’s keep it civil here. We’re veering more and more off-topic.'
He turned his head to the Head of Careers, while Dr. Brookington and DS Ryan maintained their mutually vicious glares like some sort of bizarre staring contest. 'Mr. Perry, did you notice anyone
stealing the murder weapon from the VC’s bag of firearms?' asked Mr. Pheland.
'I didn’t, unfortunately,' Mr. Perry replied. 'He arrived at the Main Hall before I did, and I had to stand outside the Rose Theatre a couple of minutes before the lecture began to redirect any students who might have mistakenly thought the talk was to take place there and not in the Hall. So I couldn’t have seen the murderer steal the gun, or any bullets, or anything like that.'
'About that,' Mr. Pheland spoke. 'We think the bullet might have been brought in by the murderer themselves. Police apparently don’t bring in ammunition for school talks.'
'Well, I know close to nothing about owning guns or bullets in the UK,' Mr. O’Solomon asserted. 'How would you even get your hands on any? Legally, I mean, as to not arouse suspicion.'
Dr. Brookington finally broke her iron gaze with the DS turned to Mrs. Daire. 'Miss, weren’t you in the navy?' she asked, frowning. 'Isn’t that slightly incriminating, given, you know, potential connections you might have with gun suppliers, or any shooting training you might have?'
'That’s ridiculous,' Mrs. Daire returned. 'There are strict protocols that forbid illegal access to military firearms if that’s what you’re asking. And if anything, you’re the Maths teacher. I imagine in-depth knowledge of the mechanics of sharpshooting would be required of a murder like this. Is that not incriminating too?'
'Operating a sniper rifle would indeed be made easier if you were able to properly work out all the maths involved,' DS Ryan confirmed. 'But even without proper training, the recoil involved with firing such a rifle would injure the user. Might bruise an eye with the scope.'
'Or break a pair of glasses,' Mr. Pheland said, scanning the room. 'Mrs. Daire still has hers on. And there’s not a bruise on Mr. Perry and Mr. O’Solomon’s faces.'
He looked at Dr. Brookington. 'Doctor, don’t you usually wear glasses?' he asked.
'Most of the time,' she said. 'But I don’t see how me going glassesless is a reason for suspicion. It’s a bit far-fetched to say not wearing glasses proves I used a sniper rifle and broke them through recoil, isn’t it?'
'She’s… right,' DS Ryan admitted, 'It’s a good hunch, but it won’t pass in court as proper evidence.'
'My bad,' Mr. Pheland threw up his hands in mock surrender.
It was at this moment that a garbled message came through on DS Ryan’s personal radio. She lent her head towards it, and thanked the voice on the radio. She looked back at the suspects, her gaze slightly angled to the carpeted floor as if slightly in shame.
'So, a couple of our guys checked the logs of the police station,' she began. 'And strangely, the Vice Commissioner did check out a box of ammunition from the armoury. But we didn’t find the box in the duffel bag of weapons the VC brought.'
She paused. 'So presumably, the box of bullets wound up in the possession of our murderer,' she added sheepishly.
'You know, I’m beginning to see Dr. Brookington’s point now,' Mr. O’Solomon said angrily. 'What is with this lack of care given towards upholding the law? Are you purposefully trying to let these weapons slip into the hands of criminals? I must say, as an economist, I’ve read a few antipolice economic theories myself, and the one that’s piqued my interest the most is the theory that it will always be more profitable for the police to collaborate with crime organisations than not. Is that what’s happening here?'
'I know a fair few things about the problems of British police as well,' Mrs. Daire chimed in. 'I know the London Metropolitan Police were partly created to replace the military in putting down working class rebellions because of the military’s increasing unpopularity. The suppression stayed, but the name of the
suppressors changed. Yes, I’m not in London anymore, but I don’t imagine the system is much different in Bristol.'
'And I,' Mr. Perry said, 'I did somewhat hesitate before inviting the VC in for the Employer Talk. I recognise the controversy behind the career of policing as a whole, that the legal privileges that come with the job of a police officer are inherently immoral, and oppressive, and undeserving of existence in a truly equal society.'
'First of all, we’re going off-topic again,' DS Ryan said. 'And secondly, Mr. O’Solomon, we haven’t yet figured out a motive yet, we don’t know if it’s actually organised crime that’s behind this murder.'
'Maybe it’s not just a murder,' Mr. Pheland suggested. 'Maybe it’s an assassination. All this talk of anti-police sentiment, it’s made me realise perhaps the murderer did this killing as a statement. As a form of protest.'
He stood up from his seat. 'But who? We’ve all put forth some negative opinions on the law enforcement system. And as a History teacher by trade, I too am familiar with some,' he continued. 'But if the murderer is in this room, if they indeed commit the crime for political reasons, and if they are truly proud of what they have done for their cause, then reveal yourself. Tell the world what you wanted to achieve with this killing, how fair it is, how it’s a glorious triumph of good over evil. Otherwise, it’ll just appear in the news as just another senseless murder from Clifton High School. Otherwise, your good work will go to waste.'
Mr. Pheland ended his emphatic monologue. He breathed out. Had he been too emotional in his delivery? In truth, it was to stir up the murderer’s emotions, motivate them to confess. He scanned the room. No sign of such confession imminent.
'Apologies for that,' he said. 'Maybe I got a tad dramatic there.'
He backed up to his seat and sat down. But as he did so, he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He looked up, and saw one of the suspects standing up, before saying: 'It was me.'
Thestory’snotoveryet!
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Rose-ColouredGlassesisaworkoffiction.ALLnames,incidents, and beliefs expressed are used fictitiously and are in no way a reflectionofactualpersonsorevents.
GET INVOLVED
Showcase your creativity by writing for The Rambling Rose!
Are you an artist? A writer? Someone with an opinion? Do you have a unique perspective? Have you got a passion you would like to tell others about? Perhaps you just want to flex your writing skills in preparation for a project, your EPQ, or to add to your CV.
We want to feature your work!
To contribute your work to the Rambling Rose Spring Issue (coming out just before the Easter holidays), please add your name to the Friday Club on SOCS – it starts on Friday 17th January at 1.30pm. You can also contact Mrs Lyons-White: plyonswhite@cliftonhigh.co.uk
