Concrete issue 307 27th january 2015

Issue

27.01.15

307

Radio 1’s Big Weekend coming to Norwich The University of East Anglia’s Official Student Newspaper

>> Dates confirmed as 23rd – 24th May 2015 Geri Scott Editor-in-Chief Early on Friday morning, members of the UEA Media Collective gathered outside City Hall, close to Norwich marketplace. As students, 07:30 was a time we had merely heard of in tales, or which had been seen on the walk home from a particularly heavy night out, or of course, the library. But armed with coffee and an infamous market-made bacon sandwich, we waited for an announcement which we’d been told we “wouldn’t want to miss”.

The first glimpse we got of something exciting happening was the sudden appearance of the town crier in full red and gold regalia, who greeted us with a cheery “good morning” from the other side of the road. It being Norwich, the home of the puppet man and a cracking owl sanctuary, this could be a regular occurrence, but the next arrival wasn’t: the return of Norwich’s prodigal son, Greg James!

The announcement we’d been waiting for was that Radio 1’s annual music festival, the Big Weekend, would be held in Norwich’s Earlham Park; the first headline act to be announced was Taylor Swift. The festival, held in a different UK location every year, will take place in Norwich on 23rd and 24th May 2015.

The announcement coincided with the unveiling of the location on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw.

Grimshaw said that the Big Weekend always

>> Taylor Swift to headline

has a “dream line-up”. He added: “I can’t wait to see Swifty in Norwich!”. Speaking to Concrete later on Friday morning, he said that he was “really looking forward” to the event. “The Big Weekend always takes over the host city, and it’s great to spend some time somewhere new. I’ve been to Norwich before, but only to do DJ gigs and club nights”. He also said that he: “absolutely loved Bob”, the city’s town crier who announced the location, and said that he wants to see more of him at the festival.

Greg James, who had spent the day in Norwich checking in with various Radio 1 shows at different points in the city, returned to his old stomping ground of UEA in the afternoon to take a tour of the media facilities.

He saw the new studios that Livewire 1350 – of which he was Station Manager during his time at UEA – are now broadcasting from, and the Media Centre. James graduated from UEA in 2007, having previously won Best Male Presenter at

>> Greg James broadcast his show live from campus

the 2005 Student Radio Awards while he was here.

James and his team then started his daily drive-time show from Unio in Union House, attracting quite a crowd, before rushing over to the library to start a classic chant of “UEA is wonderful!” to perplexed studiers – quickly realising the lyrics beyond the first few lines probably weren’t suitable for national radio.

The remainder of the show was conducted from the BBC Radio Norfolk studios, which are located in the Forum, with eight guests from the Media Collective going along to join in for the last hour of Dance Anthems.

The promotion of the festival was a success for UEA, as the university and students’ union got brilliant coverage throughout the day, and there will surely be plenty more opportunities for students as May draws closer.

Local residents are particularly pleased, as tickets to the festival are famously free. This was confirmed again for 2015 with Ben Cooper, Controller of Radio 1 and 1Xtra commenting that: “Radio 1’s Big Weekend is the first big festival of the year, this is where summer begins and it’s going to be amazing. You have got to love the BBC and Radio 1 for bringing you Taylor

Swift and some of the biggest names on the planet to Norwich for free!”

For 2014’s Big Weekend, held in Glasgow, 50% of tickets were reserved for those who live within the boundaries of Glasgow City Council. This continues the BBC’s tradition of aiming to reserve the majority of tickets to those who live in the host city. Lucy Finnie, a UEA graduate and teacher in Norwich, said: “I’m so excited that the Big Weekend has finally made it’s way to the East of England!

We’ve waited so long and I can’t believe it’s still free – thank you Radio 1, Norwich loves you!”

In the lead up to the Big Weekend, for the fourth year running, Radio 1 and BBC Learning will also embark on a special week of local engagement and face-to-face activity in the area – opening the doors to Radio 1’s Academy. During the week, Radio 1 hopes to inspire local 16–9 year olds to take the next step in their careers by inviting them to attend a series of radio shows, masterclasses and Q&As. Councillor Brenda Arthur, Leader of Norwich City Council said: “This is great news for Norwich and will give us the chance to show off this amazing city at its best. We are very proud to be hosting this prestigious national event and the Radio 1 Academy. The Academy will be working with local young people in the run up to the festival to give them an experience of a lifetime. We very much look forward to working with the BBC in the coming months and other partners”.

Let the countdown begin!

2

editor’s column THE

W Geri Scott Editor-in-Chief

“The mash-up of Delia Smith’s ‘let’s be havin’ ya!’ and Shake it Off is necessary”

hat an exciting few days it’s been for the Media Collective here at UEA, and an excellent start to the semester too! It began with an interview with Harriet Harman, Shadow Deputy Prime Minister, on Thursday before her talk as part of the Charles Clarke In-Conversation Series which is being run by the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies throughout the semester.

As a politics student, and a woman, meeting Ms Harman was a particular highlight, even as someone who doesn’t want to go directly into politics, as her thoughts on feminism and the current state of personality politics in the UK were particularly interesting. Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, has also visited UEA this semester as part of the In-Conversation Series, with Brandon Lewis MP, Richard Wilson (Lord Wilson of Dinton GCB) and Douglas Carswell MP still to appear.

When Friday came, there was going to be another high-profile figure on campus, but this time it was UEA and Livewire 1350 alumnus Greg James! I can’t express how excited I was to spend the morning at the announcement of BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend coming to Norwich, as Greg spoke to Nick Grimshaw’s Breakfast Show from City Hall, before the

Media Collective invited him and his team back to visit campus in the afternoon, to start his own show from Unio.

It’s difficult to believe that Norwich, a city I love for its little unique quirks, but which is undeniably an acquired taste, will be hosting Taylor Swift come May. However, as a die-hard Taylor Swift fan, I’m surprised that I didn’t pass out when Swift was announced as headlining more than anything else! I do get the feeling that the mash-up of Delia Smith’s infamous ‘let’s be havin’ ya!’ and Shake It Off is necessary though… Or a Blank Space remix featuring the Puppet Man. With all of this upcoming excitement, there’s really been no better time to get involved with either Concrete, Livewire 1350 or UEA:TV. You can find all of us on Facebook, Twitter or our respective websites, or on the Union website if you want to sign up and be at the centre of the action!

Dear Gloria,

Middle Class Moments

So I arrived downstairs this morning to find Mummy guffawing into her breakfast gin having just read the headline of the Telegraph - something about immigrants arrinving on first-class buses at the expense of the British taxpayer? I don’t pay much attention to politics myself, but Mummy’s always had a great respect for international borders. So when the German republic - bloody ghastly idea - tried to annex our darling little alpine principality she hit the roof so hard she dislodged the rococo chandelier!

Anyhoo, I left her berating the butler for mis-buffing the silver - he really is such a careless old bore - and took Tatania, my sweetie little chihuahua, into town. Giles, of course, couldn’t resist taking a pop at my darling: “off hobknobbing with Shittie-Tittie, I see?” he called. How vulgar!

She’s not even a shitzu, like; how many times must I tell the bugger!?

Fortnums was rammed which was frightful because it took me ages to hail a minion to get me some organic, free-range, gluten/dairy/nut-free, probiotic, fortified quinoa. And do you know what? The daft pleb pronounced it kin-oh-ah! I was flabbergasted! Who employs these simpletons? What on earth is the point of Daddy paying for their bloody state

So having hand-bagged him soundly about the ears, I explained to the now-weeping moron that it’s pronounced keen-wah like foie gras, not kin-oh-ah like “on-the-blower”. Horrendous dirty cockney.

So after all this hullabaloo I simply had to get some space. I left the commoner bleeding into the carpet and made a mercy dash for Harrods. I bought some platinum-plated gold earrings to calm myself down and treated myself to a tall glass of gin-and-childrens’tears-tonic. It tasted awful: the tears were from French children and I only drink Italian.

A thoroughly disappointing day.

Tabitha Hortond Woodwoo

Ella Gilbert

Complaints If you wish to make a complaint about an article in the paper or on the website, or about a social media post, please email the editor (concrete.editor@uea.

ac.uk) to explain the precise nature of your complaint and to clearly indicate the relevant article, passage or sentence. We will be pleased to respond as soon as we are able.

Union House University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ 01603 593466 www.concrete-online.co.uk Editor-in-Chief Geri Scott concrete.editor@uea.ac.uk Deputy Editor Peter Sheehan concrete.deputy@uea.ac.uk

News Elliot Folan & Dan Falvey concrete.news@uea.ac.uk Global Oliver Hughes concrete.global@uea.ac.uk Comment Joe Jameson concrete.comment@uea.ac.uk Features Courtney Pochin concrete.features@uea.ac.uk Science&Environment Jacob Beebe concrete.scienv@uea.ac.uk Travel Jodie Snow concrete.travel@uea.ac.uk Lifestyle Becca Bemment concrete.lifestyle@uea.ac.uk Sport James Newbold & Kat Lucas concrete.sport@uea.ac.uk Chief Copy Editors Helena Bradbury & Frances McKeown concrete.copy@uea.ac.uk

Ta ta for now, Glor,

Illustration:

The University of East Anglia’s independent student newspaper since 1992

Website Administrator Will Cockram concrete.online@uea.ac.uk

schools if they don’t learn anything useful?

Photo: Flickr, Sembazuru

The University of East Anglia’s Official Student Newspaper

Managing Editor Ella Gilbert concrete.managingeditor@uea.ac.uk

The UEA Media Collective with Greg James Photo: Jono Read

13.01.15 Tuesday

Editorial

Chief Photographers Will Cockram & Jacob Roberts-Kendal concrete.photography@uea.ac.uk Distribution Manager Amit Puntambekar concrete.distribution@uea.ac.uk As revealed to Ella Gilbert & Peter Sheehan Front page photo credits Taylor Swift: Wikimedia, Eva Rinaldi Greg James: Concrete photography, Andy Charlwood

Editorial inquiries concrete.editor@uea.ac.uk concrete.venue@uea.ac.uk Got a story? concrete.news@uea.ac.uk

Concrete welcomes all letters and emails, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Letters should be addressed to the editor-in-chief, and include contact details. All emails should be sent to concrete.editor@uea.ac.uk. We will consider anonymous publication, and reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. Anonymous article submissions are permitted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the newspaper. No part of this newspaper may be reproduced through any means without the express permission of the editor, Geraldine Scott. Published by UUEAS Concrete Society ©2014 Concrete BMc ISSN 1351-2773

News

Elliot Folan on the state of the parties with 100 days until the 2015 general election Page 5

Improvement in coursework return time

Union lobbies university after drop in UEA’s Green League rating

Dan Falvey News editor 11% of all undergraduate work submitted in the first semester of the 2014–15 academic year did not meet UEA’s 20-day turnaround policy.

However, the new figures highlight a dramatic increase in the amount of work which is being returned to students on time: in 2013, almost a third (30%) of all marked work did not reach students within the 20-day window.

The increase in the speed of returned work was welcomed by the university as results from the 2013 National Student Survey highlighted that UEA was among one of the worst UK higher education institutions for promptness of feedback. Out of the 203 universities surveyed, UEA ranked 146th in the

89%

Union news round-up

The percentage of work which was returned to students in the 20-day target

category and led to the university committing to explore how to ensure the feedback was returned in a quicker fashion.

UEA’s Pro-Vice Chancellor Academic Neil Ward, said that he is delighted at the increase in promptness: “We’re really pleased with the rate of progress. What it particularly important is the amount of work that is returned well within the 20-day target. Overall, over 50% of work was returned in 15 days”.

Connor Rand, Undergraduate Education Officer at the Union of UEA Students, has also praised the improvement. “When it comes to getting feedback on your work, students have told us that they want it to be clear, helpful,

Photo: Dan Falvey, Concrete Photography but above all, back in time to make an impact on future work. The improvement we’ve seen in term one is testament to the hard work reps have put in at all levels of the union across the university to argue for change for students”.

However, some students believe that the latest statistics are still not good enough. Chris Roberts, a second year history student, said: “I am firmly of the opinion that when students are asked to submit work to a strict deadline, the staff marking them should be held to similarly strict deadlines, with exceptions granted only by extenuating circumstances”.

Ward agreed that “this was not job done” and said that “the box was not ticked. There is still 11% to work on”.

“There’s lots we can do [to improve the current record] and we’re working closely with the students’ union to improve this.

This year we have been much more rigorous in monitoring and analysing assessment feedback. This is the first year that we can see where we are meeting and missing [our deadline target]. This allows us to home in on where the problems are and do what we can to fix them”.

Backlash over tough stance on foreign students Megan Baynes News writer Theresa May faces backlash over her tough stance on international students. Higher education officials have called on her to stop using them as a political football in a Conservative Party power struggle.

This follows the emergence of more visa restrictions for foreign students wishing to study in the UK. May’s department had planned to force foreign learners to leave the UK upon graduation. However, these plans are said to have been blocked last week by the Chancellor, George Osborne.

Despite the block, it is now being reported that the Home Office are quietly proposing controversial chances to the rules on identity documents, branch campuses, private providers and attendance monitoring. The most recent allegations have caused outrage among higher education leaders.

Colin Riordan, chair of the UK Higher Education International Unit has questioned why the Home Office is working to make Britain “less inviting” to overseas students.

He said: “The impression is that the Home Secretary sees international students as a problem and what explanation could there be for that when the evidence doesn’t seem to bear it out? I think the internal politics of the

Theresa May is under pressure from HE officals Photo: Flickr, Cheshire East Council Conservative Party are a reasonable potential explanation”.

He went on to say he believed that May was positioning herself for a Conservative leadership battle that could be fought after the next election.

UEA’s Vice Chancellor, David Richardson, has also been critical of May’s tough stance: “We are acutely aware that many of our international postgraduate students not only bring with them a desire to learn from our academic experts, but equally they bring a different world view, a global picture of the developments of industry and technology”.

“This is invaluable to the UK economy, as well as to our universities in order for us to continue to play a significant part in the advancement of education worldwide”.

Evidence suggests that foreign students are beneficial to the economy rather than a detriment. Every year close to 500,000

students from 200 nations come to the UK to study, paying between £8–15,000 per year. This amounts to approximately £42m annually paid to British institutions, as well as contributing £12.5bn to the economy ever year.

If Conservative plans to restrict international student migration go ahead, 80% of UK universities look at losing between 2–14% of their total income.

With it unlikely that Prime Minister David Cameron will meet net migration targets before the next election, Theresa May continues to back the student visa crackdown.

However, this April saw the first fall in International Student numbers in 29 years.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We continue to work with the education sector to ensure that any abuse of the student visa route is tackled effectively, while at the same time the reputation of our world-class universities is protected”.

The Union of UEA Students (UUEAS) has called on the university to be more conscious of its ethical and environmental policies, after UEA fell six places in the annual People & Planet “Green League”. It fell to 34th in the rankings.

In an open letter, three student union officers accused UEA of failing to “walk the walk” on the environment, arguing that the university has failed to reduce carbon emissions or water consumption. The union officers also called on the university to improve its ethical record by affiliating to Electronics Watch, a body that monitors workers’ rights in electronics supply chains, and paying all its workers a living wage.

“We are pleased to have been awarded a ‘Good Honours’ degree in the People and Planet University League. It is a huge challenge to operate from a campus of UEA’s heritage, running a major community sports centre and swimming pool, as well as one of the country’s top art museums which requires a highly controlled environment...There has also been a drive to cut water consumption, which has achieved a 19% reduction over the last five years”.

GSA president resigns Oliver Steward, the 2014–15 President of the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA), has resigned from his President post, citing “institutional differences within the GSA”.

In a statement read out to Union Council on 22nd January, Steward – who has presided over the creation of new GSA committee positions like Equalities & Diversities Officer, as well as the new Graduate Assembly – said that he has been unable to fully implement the agenda on which he was elected.

He said: “I hoped to transcend the partisan politics which situated the GSA apart from the Union, and instead work together with the Union for a common cause. But very quickly I felt the institutional difficulties of the GSA itself, combined with a lack of a full community and inability of some GSA members to subscribe to the vision I set out meant that I was unable to fully implement my agenda. At times I did feel that however much I spoke about diversity and equality it was not recognised by certain members of the GSA”.

Under the GSA Constitution, the post of President will pass to GSA Secretary David Hall. A by-election is not planned, although Steward has called for one.

Nestlé boycott upheld by Council The 22nd January meeting of Union Council saw councillors vote to uphold a series of policies that were due to expire, including a boycott of Nestle products.

The Nestlé policy was passed in 2005, and committed UUEAS to boycotting all Nestlé products as a way of pressuring Nestlé to stop promoting bottle feeding in developing countries. The motion argued that, by promoting bottle feeding over breastfeeding, Nestlé was damaging the health of babies. The boycott was reauthorized with no speeches against.

Union Council is the representative body of the UUEAS. It decides policy for the union.

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News

Union Council approves move to make student union a company Elliot Folan News editor

Photo: Cadi Cliff, Concrete Photography

UEA students to march in support of free education Ned Samuel News reporter Defend Education UEA, who previously organised the Red Boxes Protest, are organising a march from UEA Campus into the city to the offices of Norwich South MP Simon Wright in support of Free Education. The march, which is set to include members of local campaign groups and trade unions alongside students and activists, will start at noon on the 31st of January, and culminate with speeches from “speakers from across Norwich”.

On the Facebook page for the event, Defend Education list their demands of the government, which include scrapping tuition fees, reversing cuts and planned cuts to the National Scholarship Programme and Disabled Students Allowance respectively, change the system of loans and grants so students have enough to cover the cost of living, and protect

international students with the abolition of NHS charges, relaxation of visa restrictions, the end of restrictions on migration, and a guarantee of free education for internationals as well as UK citizens.

Union of UEA Students Campaigns and Democracy Officer Chris Jarvis told Concrete that the march was “part of a national day of action for free education. Defend Education UEA are taking part in this alongside other groups in cities across the country, to build a mass, nationwide campaign for free, fair and funded education”.

Jarvis does not expect the march will change government policy overnight, but says that “by building a campaign here in Norwich, we can build a movement that will eventually be too big and too broad to be ignored”.

The march follows on from several other actions and protests at UEA, as well as a vote

by Union Council last year to support free education.

At its first meeting of 2015, held on 22nd January, Union Council voted to start the process of turning the Union of UEA Students (UUEAS) into an officially structured legal entity.

The process, known as “incorporation”, aims to make UUEAS into an independent legal entity in its own right, as opposed to the present situation where it only exists because of the Trustee Board.

Once the process is completed, the student union as an organisation will be liable for any debts or decisions taken, rather than – as at present – those responsibilities falling to the members of the Trustee Board.

For the purposes of incorporation, two classes of members will be created: the Trustee Board, who will be the “company” members, and all other students, who will be the “student/democratic” members. This will have no effect upon students’ rights as members, as they will continue to have the power to elect union officers, set policy

through Union Council and approve changes to the constitution. This setup is in line with that proposed by the National Union of Students.

Last Thursday’s vote was the second attempt in the last year to incorporate UUEAS; at the end of the 2014 spring term, an emergency Union Council meeting was held for the purpose of discussing the issue.

However, not enough councillors turned up and the meeting was inquorate, meaning no decisions could be made.

The Trustee Board is the legal body of UUEAS, and has the right to prevent policies from being implemented if they pose a serious financial risk to UUEAS or are illegal. The Board previously also had the power to overrule policies if they presented a “reputational risk” to UUEAS, but this will be removed in the new constitution. The Trustee Board is composed of the five full-time union officers, two part-time union officers elected by the Student Officer Committee, three students elected by Union Council and three external Trustees appointed by the rest of the Board, including UEA’s Finance Manager, Stephen Donaldson.

Photo: Will Cockram, Concrete Photography

Graduate employment reaches ten-year high Faith Ridler News reporter A study has found that those students who were among the first to pay higher tuition fees will graduate into the most attractive job market for a decade.

A study by the company,High Fliers into the graduate job market in 2015 expect that recruitment will be at its highest for ten years. The study encourages that the key to securing a role in a firm is to take work placements there, and suggests that a third of jobs will be offered to graduates who have been able to do this.

Paid work-experience programmes for students and recent graduates are now being offered by more than four-fifths of the UK’s leading graduate recruiters, with 13,049 available this year. Two-thirds reserve paid internships during the holidays for final-

year students, and half make placements available as part of degree courses; first-year undergraduates are now beginning to be offered placements at a number of firms.

Recruiters have said that graduates with no work experience have “little or no chance” of receiving a job offer through graduate programmes.

It is predicted that 8% more vacancies will be available this year, due to the UK’s leading employers planning to expand graduate recruitment further in 2015. Promisingly, this is the third consecutive annual increase.

Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers Research, said graduates will go into a strong job market.

Universities minister Greg Clark said: “This report will be warmly welcomed by the record number of students who started university this year and highlights how a degree remains one of the best routes into a rewarding career.”

ANALYSIS Amy Rust digs deeper into the figures.

T

he increase in graduate employment is great news for students who are often worried by their future projects and paying off the debt they have accumulated whilst at university.

More of the UK’s top employers offering paid internships and expanding their graduate schemes resulting in positive prospects for graduating students.

This provides evidence for the claim that university is the best route for entering the job market.

However, Concrete has recently reported that up to one in seven graduates still face unemployment after graduation.

Moreover the findings are grim reading for students with little or no work experience, as graduate employers stating they are unlikely to receive a place on their graduate schemes.

It is also important to look at which job sectors are expanding. Whereas traditional sectors such as finance and civil service are growing, jobs in the creative industries have remained stagnant.

This news can be considered a light at the end of the tunnel for those students who already have a couple of lines on their CV. However as more employers are seeking students solely from their internship programmes, it further isolates students who are still struggling to get on to the employment ladder.

News

Party games: 100 days till the election ANALYSIS With 100 days to go, Elliot Folan looks ahead to May’s general election.

T

he 2015 general election was always going to be unusual. Ever since the Fixed Term Parliaments Act extended parliamentary terms to a full five years, and took the power to call elections away from the Prime Minister, it was clear that the 2015 election would be much more of a drawn-out affair. Indeed, for the last year it has very much seemed as if the parties have been fighting an invisible election, throwing mud at each other and launching policy initiatives without actually being able to win votes for them. But now, with 100 days remaining until Britain goes to the polls, the election has officially begun.

Across England, the five main parties (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Ukip and Green) are set to battle it out in hundreds of constituencies, while in Scotland and Wales the nationalist parties are added to the mix. Most of the seats will be foregone conclusions: safe Labour seats or safe Conservative seats.

But here in Norwich South, we’re in the rather unusual situation of being a very politically diverse constituency; the Lib Dems won in 2010, but only with 29.4% of the vote. Labour were second on 28.7%, the Conservatives were third with 22.9% and the Greens were fourth with 14.9%.

Meanwhile, over the last year, we’ve seen the Green Party narrowly win the most votes in Norwich South during the local elections and seen a Norwich South poll by Lord Ashcroft that put Labour in first place on 33% and the Greens second on 20%.

So given that the five main parties will be eagerly seeking our votes over the next 100 days, where do they stand right now? We’ve listed them here in the order they came in the 2010 election in Norwich South.

Liberal Democrats

Green Party

The Lib Dems argue that the last five years of coalition have allowed them to implement many of their manifesto promises, including lifting the tax threshold to £10,000 and implementing a pupil premium. The party has begun advertising itself as a ‘middle ground’ party, claiming that Labour cannot provide economic responsibility and that the Tories cannot ensure a fairer society.

Despite this, the party has begun to lose popularity, plunging from 24% of the national vote in 2010 to around 7%, often falling behind the Greens. Some pundits expect it to win as few as 22 MPs, down from 57 in 2010.

The Greens have emerged from the political side-lines this year and have begun out-polling the Lib Dems, putting them in contention for constituencies like Brighton Pavilion, Bristol West and Norwich South. The party presents itself as the “real opposition” to the Coalition, pushing an agenda it claims is further to the left than Labour. It opposes almost all public spending cuts, calls for more taxes on the rich and wants to give every citizen a minimum income of £71 a week. The party, which polled just 1% of the national vote in 2010, recently hit 11% in one opinion poll and averages around 7%. It also has a lead in the only Green seat, Brighton Pavilion.

Norwich South 2010 29.4%

Labour Party

Norwich South 2010 28.7% Labour argues that it is best placed to deal with what it calls “a cost of living crisis” in the UK, and has pledged to reverse some of the more infamous Coalition policies such as the bedroom tax. The party has been trying to improve perceptions of its economic record by pledging to continue cuts to public spending, as well as sticking to Coalition budget plans for the first year of a Labour government. The party has recovered ground over the past five years – it’s now polling 33%, up from its 2010 score of 30%, and seat projections suggest it is on course to be the largest party in a hung parliament. But in the last year it has begun to leak support to the SNP and the Greens, which may harm its chances.

Norwich South 2010 14.9%

UK Independence Party

Norwich South 2010 2.4%

Ukip’s rise over the last five years has been well documented: the party averages around 15%, up from 3% in 2010.

The by-election victories of Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless have given it a permanent foothold in Parliament, and it is likely to add to that in May with victories in places such as Boston and Skegness, and Thurrock. The party famously stands for a referendum on EU membership, but it also draws support for its policies on restricting migration. It positions itself as the voice of ordinary people who have been left behind by mainstream political leaders, and has said it would do a coalition deal with either Labour or the Tories.

Number of students gaining firsts doubles in last ten years Faith Ridler News reporter

Record numbers of UK students graduated with a top degree last summer, according to recent figures.

2014 saw 20% of graduates achieving a first-class degree, whilst 51% left university with a 2:1.

Since 2004, the number of students achieving a first-class degree has near doubled. Some 79,440 graduates were able to gain top degrees in 2014, displaying an increase of almost 10,000 from the previous summer.

Despite Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, suggesting students were

20

%

The percentage of summer graduates who achieved a first-class degree in 2014

“working harder than ever”, a new system was needed to allay fears of grade inflation.

This system, the Higher Education Achievement Report, is being investigated by some universities as an attempt to give students a more detailed record of their finaldegree classification.

“The aim is to provide a more detailed account of what a student has actually achieved during their studies, rather than just a one-off degree classification”, said Ms Dandridge.

Conservative Party

Norwich South 2010 22.9% The Tories are standing on their economic record and seeking a mandate for a full-throated majority Conservative government. The party is already floating policies like the repeal of the Human Rights Act, stricter restrictions on migration and a referendum on the EU. It also wants more cuts to public spending well into 2020, with the aim of pushing the budget into a surplus which will then be used for tax cuts. The party has lost some support since 2010 – it’s now polling 32% across the UK, just behind Labour, compared to its 2010 result of 37%. Seat projections suggest that it could emerge as the largest party in a hung parliament but is unlikely to win a majority.

Photos: Nick Clegg, Wikimedia, HughOttoBaesler | Ed Miliband, Flickr, The CBI | David Cameron Wikimedia, World Economic Forum Natalie Bennett, Flickr, Scottish Greens | Nigel Farage, Flickr, European Parliament

Number of parttime students plummits: report

Photo: Wikimedia, Kit another reduction in the number of part-time students, and should be a significant concern for policymakers and the higher education sector as a whole”.

“Part-time students are more likely to come from groups under-represented in higher education, so this further reduction is

8

%

Dan Falvey News editor Higher Education Statistics Agency has released new data which reveals that the number of students studying part time has plummeted over the last year. The findings highlight a trend that the number of part time under-rates has continued to fall since the increase in tuition fees in 2011.

The watchdog revealed that the number of part-time undergraduates dropped by 8% in 2013–14 compared to the previous year. These figures indicate that the student make-up is very different compared to before the introduction of the 2011 tuition fees:

5

Photo: Flickr, Blue Square Thing while there has been a decrease in part-time students over the time period, there has been an increase in full-time undergraduates.

The statistics also illustrated an even larger decline in the number of part-time students studying for foundation degrees.

These qualifications are aimed to combine academic study with workplace skills and

usually are provided in partnership with businesses. Only 24,000 students studied for a part-time foundation degree course in 2013.

This is compared to 40,000 in 2011.

Les Ebdon, the director of the Office of Fair Access to Higher Education, said that the findings must come as a warning to policy makers: “These figures confirm

The drop in the number of part time students in 201314 compared to 2012-13.

of serious concern to Offa. Part-time students generally have to juggle their study with work or family commitments, and the flexibility that these courses offer can provide an important second chance at higher education for people who might not have been able to go straight to university after school”.

The fall in part-time undergraduate students is a trend which can also be witnessed at UEA. While in 2011–12 there were 460 parttime undergraduates, in 2013–14 there were only 335. This represents a 27% drop in the number of part time students studying at UEA since the introduction of £9,000 tuition fees.

6

Global

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t is well known that economic difficulty breeds support for extremism. The effects of the First World War birthed fascism in Italy and communism in Russia. The effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s saw the rise of a large number of right-wing dictatorships – most infamously, of course, Nazi Germany, but also those of Hungary, Portugal, Romania and Spain, to name a few. In these cases, the situation tipped to one side of a knife edge – so easily these right wing autocracies could have been left wing ones. It was only through the authoritarian, violent nature of the eventual winning parties that this was prevented.

Since the end of the Second World War, where Western democracies and a Soviet dictatorship defeated a Nazi dictatorship and its allies, much has been done to prevent the spread of such ideologies. Germany endured a process of rigid denazification – any semblance of Nazism was wiped out, and the US kept a stern hand on the German people, who only preserved sovereignty due to their strategic position against a potential new enemy in the form of the Soviet Union.

Similarly, the US kept an occupying force in Japan for a decade after the war’s conclusion to subdue any resentment or resurgence of nationalist ideals. To this day, the US keeps military forces in Germany and Japan.

The fear of communism – whether Stalin’s dictatorship can be truly considered communist aside – was all-pervasive in the 1950s, and led to the banning of communist parties in the western world to a similar degree as the banning of fascist and national socialist ones. The policies of McCarthyism saw a systematic elimination – by expulsion, rather than murder – of suspected communists on a scale similar to Nazi Germany barely 15 years previously.

Today, our democracies intact, we choose between two or three central parties each election and complain when little changes.

In the UK, the Labour Party that gradually became less and less socialist is now different only in colour from the ruling Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats having lost any semblance of individuality. In the US, Obama’s Democrats are almost as centre-right as the Republicans – the president’s attempted healthcare reform is dismissed as socialist, which has become a buzzword to the extent of fascist, a misnomer that generates images of grey Stalinist dictatorships.

Right-wing nationalism has grown since the Credit Crunch, especially in Europe, and these groups are feeding off islamophobic sentiment to gain a modicum of popularity.

Whether moderate, as Ukip and the French National Front are, or extreme, as Britain First, Golden Dawn and Pegita are, these groups tread the fine line of ‘nearly being banned’.

In some cases, they are not allowed to stand

EU parliament changes rules on GM crops Marta Catalano Global writer Last Tuesday the EU parliament voted for a piece of legislation that grants all the states in the EU more freedom over the way they deal with genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Member states will in fact henceforth be allowed to ban or approve the cultivation of GM crops in their territories.

GMOs cultivation is perhaps one of the most politically charged debates today, with companies like Monsanto being in the spotlight for their controversial methods of cultivation, investment, and production of genetically modified crops.

Photo: Euronews. Below, Wikimedia, Marie-Lan Nguyen

The consequences of hardship As consensus falls apart in the Greek elections, Global editor, Oliver Hughes, examines the link between economic hardship and the rise of extreme parties.

for election; they stand as much chance as the UK Communist Party, which can only afford to stand in a handful of constituencies due to the political system.

The media loves to report on the ‘terrifying’ growth of these ‘fascist’ groups (which are neither particularly large, nor particularly fascist), and it becomes common to fear any sort of ‘extremist’ party having success in an election. That fear is the same fear that leant support to the Nazis, and expelled all kinds of innocent people from the US in the 1950s. It is a fear of change, a fear that if we gave another party a chance, things could get worse rather than better.

That is the kind of fear that forces disillusioned Americans and Brits into

voting for the Democrats/Labour or Tories/ Republicans, even if they don’t like or agree with their policies.

In a Greece where the austerity of the New Democracy party that has led to a 25% unemployment rate and a plummet in GDP per capita to pre-Great Depression levels, the Marxist-Green alliance Syriza polled at 35% – higher than any other – before the election.

Both Ukip and the Green Party have enjoyed unprecedented popularity in polls in the UK. And this is not restricted to a few countries in Europe. All over the world countries are seeing new political movements emerge, far more radical than the left- or right-of-centre parties they are used to.

With many other European nations having elections this year or next, the increasing popularity of extremist parties in Europe signals not a protest but a real desire for change. Fear of extremism, fear of change needs to end. As we live in a democracy, it is high time we started acting like one.

In Europe, in 2001 it was decided that no GM crops could be grown, with the exception of MON 810, a type of maize, but on 13th January, the EU parliament approved a series of amendments to the existing law about the use of GMOs. As a result, European countries will now have more flexibility whether or not they use GM crops or implement them in their own agricultural production.

One the one hand, this means that governments have the possibility and the power to restrict or prohibit the cultivation of GMOs in their territories entirely. And, if they decide to cultivate them, they will have to make sure that these crops will not contaminate other products or cultivations, following strict procedures and guidelines set by an independent body.

On the other hand, environmentalists and associations like Greenpeace criticized these new measures for several reasons. In an interview with the Deutsche Welle, Marco Contiero, the Greenpeace EU agriculture policy director, affirmed that this move is controversial as it grants private companies “a formal role in the process of banning or restricting GM cultivation”, and provides

them “with a very relevant avenue to influence governments”.

Furthermore, member states will not be able to ban GM crops if their reasons do not resonate with the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) lines of judgment. This means that nations cannot ban GM crops based on singular national concerns or damage if these have not been taken into consideration by EFSA. Local evidence of environmental harm, for example, which is considered one of the strongest reasons behind the ban of GM crops, might not be taken into account. Moreover, the ban only affects the cultivation. What about the circulation of those same GMOs in the territory? Ultimately, these regulations do not even affect the GMOs that might be used in animal feed, which thus leaves consumers at their disposal anyway.

On their blog, Monsanto Europe affirmed that this move is “a tragedy, both for Europe and for the signal that Europe’s anti-scientific hysteria about supposed ‘Frankenfoods’ is sending the rest of the world.” Following along these lines, in an interview with Mother Jones, the neurologist Dr Steven Novella argued that

the genetic modification of crops does not really pose any dangers and that it is “not the panacea, nor is it a menace; it’s just one more tool that has to be used intelligently.” Yet, how do we use them more intelligently? True, GM cultivations, he continues, are more regulated than other crops created with modifications methods, but the same could be said of sustainable and/or organic cultivations, which have rigid controls, too.

A real tragedy would be to have private companies dominate the agricultural production, dictating what we should or should not eat. What seems to be ignored here is the attention that consumers need to pay to the way companies seek to produce, export, and treat the food that ends up on their plate.

It is also equally important to give citizens the opportunity to make an informed choice by at least requiring the compulsory labelling all products that contain GMOs, which is currently not happening for products that do not contain GM in proportion superior to the 0.9%. Because ultimately, that same flexibility allowed to governments should be granted to citizens, to determine by ourselves what we want or do not want to put in our bodies.

Comment Concrete’s Election Countdown

By Abi Constable

A

s we enter election season the ever so topical issue of TV debates has begun to rise, where leaders will battle each other for the political spotlight.

Last week however, Prime Minister David Cameron said that he didn’t want to participate in television debates that didn’t include all minority parties (e.g. Green and SNP) as Ukip leader Nigel Farage has now been asked to appear on certain debates.

Farage has been using this to his advantage by calling Cameron a “chicken” on Twitter, while the Telegraph have also claimed that he is “running scared”. Nick Robinson of the BBC has said that Cameron mainly doesn’t want to be hurt by Ukip while the Liberal Democrats and Labour go unharmed by the Greens.

It has recently been published that 53% of the UK would like Scotland’s First Minister to be involved in television debates, however the BBC are still undecided. They have however made the decision that the Green party will not get airtime, despite previously publishing an article on David Cameron refusing to partake if the Greens were not included. However Ofcom’s stance is that the Green party did not gain enough support in the 2010 elections to be given a spot in the debates.

Some critics say that the Tories and Labour are scared of giving smaller parties positive exposure because the ever-growing influence of the media will

“Television debates are a chance for politicians to show how they can hold their own” definitely have an impact on the already uncertain outcome of the elections. Patterns in modern voting behaviour show that it’s not partisan alignment or simply policy that determine electoral outcomes, but the charisma and general likeability of the leader. Television debates are the perfect outlet for displaying (or in many cases, not displaying) likeability so there would be definite repercussions for Cameron if he were not to take part.

It’s slightly concerning that the most watched public service broadcasting channel in the UK, the BBC, was previously allowing Ukip to participate in televised debates and not other minority parties, as its duty is to provide for the entire public.

However now that the BBC, and also ITV, have included seven political parties (Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Green Party, Ukip, the SNP and Plaid Cymru), they may next be having to say yes to Britain First and the Monster Raving Loony Party too. We will then have to ask ourselves how necessary it is for all of these different views to be heard. Though living in a supposed democratic country, the answer should be that it is extremely necessary.

Television debates are a chance for politicians to show how they can effectively react to taunts and hold their own when answering unplanned questions in front of a camera and millions of viewers. They give the voters a good idea of who is going to be efficient in leading this country, and furthermore a few good eye rolls and laughs.

Meg Bradbury reflects on why it is crucial to maintain library funding Page 9

The state of freedom of speech Brett Mottram, says that freedom of speech will never stop being an important issue for society to champion.

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wasn’t sure whether I was surprised or not by the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. Some work produced by people with a sense of humour is taken as ‘offensive’ by those with no sense of humour whatsoever, and the latter feel they have a right to kill the producers. It’s a familiar story. The 14th February 1989 fatwa delivered by the Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie for publishing his novel The Satanic Verses, the furore over the Danish cartoons in 2006. At home on those evenings, watching the news, I felt as though a high dose of some emotional cocktail had been injected directly into my veins. Its constituents? Hatred and sorrow, slowly turning to admiration and pride as the Parisians, including many students and high

“Freedom of the press should be defended at all costs” school pupils, showed their support for the murdered journalists by coming out onto the streets, wearing ‘Je suis Charlie’ T-shirts and holding pencils, symbols of the profession, aloft.

Now, two weeks on, what remains for me is the feeling, that freedom of the press should be defended at all costs, and with it a sense of determination to personally uphold this principle. But it seems to be under threat, in various ways, every day, along with the principles of the Enlightenment, which are also common targets. As Christopher Hitchens wrote, in a beautiful conclusion to his book God Is Not Great, we need a new enlightenment.

To use Thomas Paine’s concepts, to defend the rights of man, we need an age of reason.

One of the most nauseating things now, however, is how often the concept of ‘offence’ is employed, both by Muslims, and

non-Muslims: ‘I find that offensive’. Stephen Fry came out with the best answer to this years ago; after describing the word as ‘a whine’, he suggested the pithy response ‘So fucking what?’ Religion must, supposedly, be somehow respected. I can respect the right for someone to have religious faith, as long as it doesn’t interfere with me. I won’t respect the faith itself, but if it’s a private source of comfort and succour to the believer, it’s none of my business.

This, I think, is the only reasonable line to take on this issue. If censorship, or even sensitive discretion, is used, in the public sphere, it necessarily supposes that there’s someone who can decide not only what we can and cannot say or write, but also what we can or cannot see, hear, or read. Who could take on this responsibility of deciding?

I wouldn’t give it to anyone, partly for the additional reason that once we decide what is acceptable or unacceptable, we imprison ourselves behind the bars of a single opinion, and won’t even be able in the future to change our own minds. Freedom of the press means freedom of the press. Paris and its people have shown that they value this, and we should all follow their example, especially those of us who care about, love or need writing.

Rupert Murdoch, after the attacks, tweeted that all Muslims are somehow responsible for the actions of Islamist extremists, an idea that J.K. Rowling promptly attacked, but as with all debates over jihadist violence, common sense gets obscured behind numerous shifting veils of anything from political correctness, to decent sensitivity, to simply not knowing the facts. Of course what Murdoch said was nonsense, but the disturbing thing is that the extremists are the only ones who seem to follow the Qur’an’s teachings absolutely, and if the book is meant to be the word of God, then you can accept all of it or none of it. The same is true for any holy book. In this

case, acceptance of all of it led to a cartoon (a cartoon!) becoming the supposed stimulus for the deaths of 12 people. With hermeneutics, scruples only come into play when humanity, decency, and morality take over.

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his fact is supported, if need be, by heaps of additional evidence. Rowling cited a survey about eight times as many Muslims dying in terrorist attacks. Well, a civil war has been raging within Islam for a while now, and has spilled across into the West, so this is unsurprising. Various Islamist factions blowing up the mosques of rival factions, as well as the holy sites and places of worship revered by other faiths, provide further harrowing examples of what can happen when people who know they are right on the basis of revelation trade their humanity for an ideology.

In the end, despite less than pointed attempts at satire, and a tad too much reliance

“Scruples only come into play when humanity, decency, and morality take over” on her own position as a Christian, Rowling seems to support the view that morality begins where dogma ends. (In her fiction, this is also true – ever noticed religion in Harry Potter?

Exactly – there isn’t any.) She pointed out that the actions of Lassana Bathily, a Muslim employee of the kosher shop to which the terrorists laid siege in their second attack, who hid the Jewish customers in the basement to hide them from the gunman, “remind us of what ‘humanity’ ought to mean”. Perhaps humanity is what we should remember.

Common morality, and not religion, led Bathily to do what he did.

Funding a longer-living society Sam Naylor on our failure to see the elderly as genuine members of society, but as an inconvience on the national budget.

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t would seem that British people are becoming ever more like new fangled appliances. They’re being used day in day out for a specific task until they’re of no use anymore, or a new model comes along, or heaven forbid they break altogether. It certainly feels that way when reading the latest article that claims one in three retirees will receive a state pension of no more than £133.56 a week, which will come as a shock to those that expected the usual £150.

This follows millions of workers who “contracted out” and used a national insurance contributions rebate to build up a private pension pot. From a student perspective rent alone can cost anything from £75 to £125 a week. Add to that your monthly water, electric and gas bills, phone and broadband costs, weekly food shop (even on a budget at Aldi), transport costs and money for clothing and toiletries.

You would feel the strain even with your collection of free sugar sachets and napkins.

And yes come retirement age it would be unlikely for someone to still be paying rent or paying off their mortgage, but general upkeep of a home can still be costly. It is also not always the case that people will have accumulated savings or procured a private pension fund to assist with their golden years.

For many, the state pension is all that they will have to live off and why shouldn’t this

“One in three retirees will recieve a state pension of no more that £133.56 a week” be the case when we spend the entirety of our working lives paying into it. The retired should feel secure and safe in their old age, they shouldn’t have to feel the need to scrimp and save like in their younger years. I am aware of the factors that have brought about

this change; the workers that contracted out, combined with the pension overhauls brought about by the stress that a longer living society has placed on the pension funds.

Perhaps the reforms have not been enacted to streamline and simplify the dreaded pensions crisis but are instead David Cameron’s solution to reducing an ageing population. Work the people for longer hours, with a laughable minimum wage, whilst at the same time moving the goalposts of retirement further back until finally, after years of hard work and stress they are rewarded with a squeezed sum of £133.56 a week. The shock may be all too much for some people who will inevitably end up in hospital; throw in rising pressure on NHS A&E departments and they find themselves being told that their elective operation has been cancelled. At least they’ll be able to spend any private pension funds they’re saved to pay for private surgery in a private hospital, because after all, it works so well for the American public.

8

Comment

How long will we wait for the Chilcot Inquiry?

As the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry are delayed, Comment editor, Joe Jameson, says that politics must not get in the way of the truth.

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he biggest stain upon the New Labour government, and the event which delivered perhaps some of the best satire of recent years: BLair, the Iraq war refuses to be forgotten. In 2009 Gordon Brown announced the Chilcot Inquiry would look into Britain’s role in the Iraq War and score a line under the unfortunate chapter in British foreign policy.

He also apologised to Parliament for declaring war before military action had been properly

concern of British foreign policy, irrelevent of the implications, and aftershocks of the conflict.

However, the news that the inquiry will not be published until well after the general election in May has been hijacked by the

“This is inquiry is too important to be used as a simple political football”

“We are now nearing yet another election, and the Chilcot Inquiry is still not here” debated within the commons, inadvertently creating a Parliamentary convention over the declaration of war, saying that Parliament would be consulted before war is declared in future. Six years ago – six years after the outbreak of war – it had seemed that Britain would be allowed to move on from Iraq, but it was not to be.

The inquiry’s timing was in itself a careful piece of political strategy, as the 2010 general election was looming. Labour knew this would be a hard fight, and they didn’t want a scary, independent inquiry throwing a curveball into their electioneering ranks. So it was announced with a comfortable time scale which would allow the newly incumbent government sufficient wiggle room to deflect any unwelcome judgements. However, we are now nearing yet another general election, and the Chilcot Inquiry is still not here, nor is it likely to be any time soon, with Lord Chilcot himself expressing his expectation that it’ll probably be ready by about October, maybe November.

Some are pointing to the high level ‘diplomatic’ channels which have been opened between David Cameron and Ed

Liberal Democrats because they have been denied their big oportunity to remind the British electorate why they shouldn’t trust either Labour or the Conservatives. As with the previous examples of why the delay of this important document is, this inquiry is too important to be used as a simple political football.

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Photo: Wikimedia, Jebur Miliband’s senior advisors as a collusion, or perhaps a way of agreeing how convenient it would be for both parties should the report be published after the general election. However, it takes a rather unhealthy dose of cynicism

“The main issue with the stuttering nature of the Chilcot Inquiry is one of closure” to jump straight to that conclusion, no matter how understandable it might be. Also, it would be disappointing to think that Lord Chilcot thought it best to put the brakes on, just in case it did have the potential to upset the election, simply because the whole idea of

an independent inquiry is that it gets on with its task irrespective of the political situation, no matter whether political leaders put pressure on inquiry administrators directly or not.

This is not an issue of retribution, or ensuring that the public, or the media, were in the right when they branded Blair a liar, and claimed that there was a larger story in the declaration of war. It was simply too long ago, to offer any form of relatable justice. This is not to say that those who are guilty of breaching international law should not be punished, but this was never going to be the net result of Chilcot, it was, similar to Leveson, which was an oportunity to end the squabbling and set the issue to rest. Though these debates are important, they can no longer offer us any insights, as we once thought that they could.

The ‘Iraq War’ as it was, is no longer an active

he main issue with the stuttering and stalling nature of the Chilcot Inquiry is one of closure. Britain needs to be able to learn from its mistakes and forgive itself, but it is impossible to do that without properly understanding what happened nearly 12 years ago. Tony Blair, a man of much controversy in relation to Iraq, gave an interview at the resurgence of the Isis uprising in Fallujah last year claiming that the effects of the Iraq war weren’t to blame and that the solution would have to be derived from a different mind set.

While it is possible to argue that: “He would say that wouldn’t he?” is quite easy, and again understandable, his argument was that it was time to move on from Iraq, this much it is possible to agree with. We cannot, despite how much we might want to, undo our actions in the Middle East at the beginning of the last decade, but what we can do is learn from what we did wrong and deal with the situation as it is now, however, until we are allowed to read Chilcot’s conclusions, that is impossible.

Caitlin Doherty examines the negative impact of the supermarket price war on the British agricultural sector.

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he struggles of the agricultural industry at the hands of the supermarket retail giants is a story that regularly fills space in the newspapers and time on the news broadcasts when there are no cheating politicians or catastrophic terror incidents.

But have recently released figures highlighted that this is an issue more serious than something that just fulfils the word count on a slow news day?

The dairy industry has perhaps been hit the hardest by the price war between the supermarkets with the number in the profession having halved in England and Wales since 2002; 60 of the 9,960 who have given up milk production in the past decade did so in December alone, blaming the fall in price being offered for their produce by high street retailers.

Sustained efforts by the supermarkets to provide the lowest price to the customer, such as ASDA who recently lowered their cost of four pints of milk to just 89p, has meant that dairy is artificially being held at its lowest price since 2007 whilst the costs to the producers themselves have soared by more than 36% in the same period. When we consider the fact that the cost of animal feed, the single biggest spend of dairy farm owners, has risen by more

than 50% in the last seven years it’s easy to see why President of the National Farmer’s Union

“Dairy is artificially being held at its lowest price since 2007” (NFU) believes that the number of farmers will plummet below 5,000 in the next decade.

Multiple TV commercial campaigns and impassioned pleas by members of the NFU on national TV encourage us to buy British and help support the multitude of producers across the nation. But is that such an easy task in 2015?

Despite any bearings of our moral compass in relation to the success of our local agricultural businesses, can we really expect to be able to buy from farm shops and support the producers directly when many people find themselves unable to even spare the time to go on one supermarket shop? Record numbers of people are choosing to have their groceries delivered directly to their door with £14.6bn predicted as the annual spend in this sector by the year 2018. It is easy to understand why in a time where most work schedules

Photo: Wikimedia, David Weller are full to the brim, and family time is hard to come by, the ease and convenience of having food delivered to your door at a time to suit

“There are more people using food banks than ever before” you seems more attractive than the prospect of spending a Saturday morning marching around supermarket aisles.

Equally, there are more people using

food banks than ever before; in 2013-14 alone the Trussell Trust food bank scheme gave emergency food and support to almost one million people. In a time when living below the bread line is a common occurrence and so many people are struggling to make ends meet, would it be ethical to criticise the fall in the cost of any basic food items such as milk and dairy products.

As much as we may wish support our local businesses, it seems that in 21st Century society, one dominated by convenience culture and hectic work schedules is that really a viable option?

Comment

9

I

n September 2013, the flagship new Birmingham Library was opened by women’s rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai. Addressing the public at the official opening ceremony, the Nobel Peace Prize winner stated that “a city without a library is like a graveyard”; the conclusion of this project, which cost £189 million and took more than five years to complete, suggested that Birmingham City Council shared this belief.

Less than 18 months later, however, the council has announced budget cut proposals which, if approved, would result in the library losing more than half of its workforce, and reduce its opening hours from 70 to 43 hours per week.

It is by no means the only centre to be suffering from such cutbacks. Since 2011, at least 324 of Britain’s libraries have been forced to close, with around 400 others now run by volunteers. In 2014, local authorities across the country, Liverpool, Sheffield and Walsall among them, announced further closures, along with severe cuts to library services and plans to turn existing libraries into ‘hub’ libraries, requiring only minimal staffing.

People in some areas have taken action to try and prevent the cutbacks; last November, a petition to stop the closure of the Imperial War Museum library was signed by 1,500 people, and Birmingham City Council will potentially be contacting the British Library in a bid to make Birmingham one of its regional centres.

All the same, the general trend is impossible to ignore.

The reasons for this decline can be strongly linked to the ever-increasing influence of the Internet, and in particular to the rising preference for eBooks. Their popularity is understandable: readers can now access an incredible number and variety of books online, more than even the most expansive of libraries

people, their local library is still a centre of the community. For example, many provide what can be vital support for parents in the form of children’s clubs and activities, which have the added bonus of increasing a child’s access to books, helping them to find stories they’ll like, and thus encouraging them to view reading as something to enjoy, rather than just something you have to do at school; an idea which seems especially significant in the light of Nick Clegg’s recent announcement that if the Liberal Democrats remain in power after May’s general election, they will aim to end childhood illiteracy by 2025.

For other people, libraries symbolise a safe, calm space, where they can go to study, to use a computer if they don’t have one at home, or just for half an hour’s peace and quiet. Anyone who was a fan of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of

“Since 2011, at least 324 of Britan’s libraries have been forced to close”

Photo: Wikimedia, Elliot Brown

Meg Bradbury examines the tragedy of cuts to local library services. can offer; the books are often considerably cheaper to purchase than a physical copy of the same text, with those first published before the introduction of copyright usually available for free; they can be conveniently stored on one tablet; and all of this without the hassle of return dates, renewals, late fees, or, indeed, leaving the house. Even literature students

who swear by their love of the smell of old books may find themselves tempted, once they discover they can download the entire reading list for one module onto their Kindle for free, without even having to get out of bed.

Nevertheless, there remains the argument that the benefits of a library extend beyond simply the books on its shelf. For some

Unfortunate Events when they were younger might recall those haunting words carved above the entrance to the V.F.D. library: “The world is quiet here”. Perhaps, then, it isn’t just about what libraries can provide us with; it’s about what they represent.

It seems only appropriate to conclude with the words of J.K. Rowling, in a speech made to Harvard graduates in 2008: “I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp”. For whatever reason, books occupy a space in our culture which is valued far beyond the words that are written on a page; whether you believe libraries are a valuable necessity or an outdated concept, surely it is this which, more than anything, we should be defending.

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Features

Susannah Smith discusses Russell Brand’s latest controversial comments Page 13

Photo: Flickr, MightyKenny

Why I wish social media didn’t exist

I

am a self-confessed social media addict.

You name it, I’m on it. And owning an iPhone with 3G and wi-fi, I can access it whenever I want (unless there’s no signal and the wi-fi is passwordprotected, in which case I work myself up into a state of irrational panic). I am the social media generation. I spent a large proportion of my teenage years trying to think up witty Facebook updates and finding the perfect Instagram filter for my photos (largely made up of mediocre dinners and views of the sun positioned perfectly behind my Starbucks frappuccino). But growing up I’ve come to realise that there’s darker side to social media than simply not getting as many ‘likes’ as you’d hoped for on your profile picture.

I think the problem with social media most of the time is that we simply know too much.

Sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide us with the tools to share the going-ons in our lives, and there’s not much of a limit on this.

Of course, we can choose what we wish to share, but often not what others share – and it is this which is often the problem.

Whether we realise it consciously or not, ‘knowing too much’ can often make us feel a bit rubbish. For example, we don’t need to see the photos from the trip we couldn’t afford to go on, or the night out we weren’t invited to. We don’t need to see who got the job we also were interviewed for (my advice to those from small towns – when there’s one decent job going, learn to keep your mouth shut that they’re hiring!). We don’t need to see who is talking to who, who liked who’s picture, and we definitely don’t need to see

Alice Mortimer examines the impact that too much Facebook stalking and Twitter scrolling has on our lives.

our recent ex’s new relationship in written and in photographic form! In essence, we don’t need to feel like everyone else is having a great time, when we’re having not such a great time. This is why we need to see people’s internet profiles as mostly a collection of ‘best bits’ – people are only ever really going to post things that make their life look great, or to provoke a reaction.

But the worst bit? We spend more time sitting on our own, scrolling through screens, over-analysing tweets, Facebook-stalking, looking through people’s pictures and old conversations, than actually sitting with each other and having (admittedly now old school) face-to-face discussion. Perhaps if we did a little more ‘real talk’, we might just see the real people behind their media profiles. Real people who probably, just like you, have rubbish as well as good things going on in their lives too. Social media in this way can be used as escapism, and as a way for us to categorise and keep record of our ‘happy’ lives and who we perceive, or want to perceive, ourselves to be via the internet – our ‘happy place’ (spoiler alert: it’s actually just our sad ‘made-up’ place).

I’m not here proposing some kind of revolution where Photo: Flickr, Brian Solis

we all just delete our social media accounts (what Sunday morning entertainment would we have if we didn’t receive drunken Snapchats?!). I am extremely guilty of spending hours on end staring at my phone refreshing feed. Banning social media would never work. Now that is has existed, it has to exist. It has revolutionised the way we connect with people, and this isn’t just for our personal relationships.

In fact, apart from the fact we can now keep up to date with friends from all over the world, I would say it’s our professional relationships through which we gain the most through social media, and the key reason why I would always choose to continue using it. For those aspiring to work in the ever-growing media industry in particular, and for creatives, blog sites and creative outlets such as Blogger and Pinterest are often crucial to uphold in being seen as a professional. Social media is an outlet for creativity, and getting recognised for your work. Sites such as LinkedIn are also a must for professionals and business people who are often expected to have an online CV, and is a site considered great for networking.

We live in a generation where we have so much access to information that we constantly crave it. In some ways, this access to information is great, particularly for our professional lives. But it also has the ability to complicate our personal relationships with one another, and more importantly, how we feel about ourselves and our own lives. And that’s why I wish it didn’t exist. Sometimes.

Ask me again next time I find the perfect filter for my Starbucks on Instagram.

12

Feat Obesity: is television to blame?

Weeks ago I was incensed by a news report (cue my first rant for Christmas) stating that when children become teenagers their diet deteriorates because they suddenly have control and responsibility over what they eat.

In my mind, this is totally false. On my 13th birthday, I don’t recall my mother handing over the reins to me and saying, “Here, eat as much McDonald’s as you like”. And indeed, even if she had, my keen interest in food and cooking would have meant that I probably wouldn’t have chosen to subsist on hydrogenated fats and E-numbers, as is portrayed to be every adolescent’s dream.

However, the influence of TV advertising on childhood and adolescent obesity appears to be an issue of concern for parliament.

It has recently been suggested by Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham that a 21:00 watershed – as is currently the case for television programmes of a violent or sexual nature – be placed on adverts for “junk” foods that are high in salt, fat and sugar. As part of the Labour party’s policy, it cannot be claimed that the sentiment isn’t top-notch.

With 18.6% of year six children in the UK classified as obese in 2013, things clearly need to change. Nobody is arguing with Burnham’s aims, but the current Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has argued in a tweet that legislation might not be the answer: “Backing families two [sic] make better choices brings lasting change”.

Indeed, I believe it is important that families take responsibility for the diets of children and learn how to make healthy diet choices. This is not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – if a chocolate bar is advertised, it cannot be taken out of the screen and eaten there and then. A parent or guardian will generally make choices for their children with the weekly shop. The only responsibility a child will and should have is the question of spending their – hopefully minimal – pocket money on a few sweets.

Call me old-fashioned, but in my day if I saw junk food advertised on TV and asked one of my parents for it, they said “no” and I moved on with my life. As children have little to no disposable income, they should not be a major target audience in the first place.

A watershed on the advertising of junk food would, I believe, impinge upon both the rights and responsibilities of parents. Parents and guardians have the responsibility to make healthy choices for their children and educate them to do the same. Furthermore, like it or not, everyone has the right to an informed decision. We are each entitled to be aware that unhealthy food and healthier alternatives are both on offer… and again, to be educated to make the right choice.

The potential ineffectiveness of this policy also strikes me. Even though many politicians can give the impression that they left their mother’s womb aged 45 and worked from there, anyone who is or has ever been a teenager will know that watersheds, at least nowadays, don’t really make that much of a difference.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to protect our children from things we feel might harm them – that’s human nature – but if children aren’t Sky Plus-ing Skins on the sly they can easily access inappropriate content online or, as was the case for me, simply read the graffiti on the bus ride to school. Advertising can be even more pervasive than this. Are we to ban billboards, magazines, newspapers and – oh yes – the entire Internet as well?

TV image credit: Pixabay

Illistration: Christine Borgeat

Olivia Minnock Features writer

Should Snapchat be banned?

Sam McKinty discusses Cameron’s ideas about scrapping encrypted messaging.

T

he premise of Snapchat is a relatively simple one; you send pictures or videos to one, or more of your Snapchat followers for no real purpose other than a bit of fun.

Selfies, scenery, someone falling over, anything. The beauty of Snapchat, as anyone above the age of 14 and below 22 knows, is that once the photos and videos have been viewed for a certain amount of time (that you determine) they’re gone, forever, never to be seen by man nor machine ever again.

Increasingly, Snapchat is becoming a means for entertainment for fans of celebrities, famous users include Ryan Seacrest, Miley Cyrus and Robert Pattinson, but also as a way for keeping up to date with current affairs. NowThis, an online news website, provides up to date news coverage for their followers, whilst Snapchat themselves have introduced a feature called Our Story, which provides a behind the scenes look at large events including the Golden Globes and the Superbowl. If you take all this into account, and combine an estimated 30 million monthly users, a number that hasn’t stopped growing since the launch, you get all the signs of a harmless social media site that has the potential to be the next big thing.

So why then has the application attracted so much media attention in the past weeks? Well, sparked by the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, David Cameron has all but guaranteed the loss of the super-cool youth vote by threatening to ban everyone’s favourite method of sending selfies with exaggerated double chins. In a statement made last week, Cameron advocated a crackdown on forms of communications and messaging services that can’t be read by the security services, even if they have a warrant.

It’s not just Snapchat that’s under threat: any messaging platform that uses encryption will face being blocked in the UK. So it would be goodbye to iMessage and FaceTime, WhatsApp (no more 3,000-message-long groups consisting exclusively of messages asking whereabouts in the LCR your friends are) and Snapchat’s cultured cousin, Vine.

In the press conference, Cameron said: “Are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read?”. Like a true pioneer of representative democracy, answered the question for himself: “My answer to that question is: no, we must not”. Thanks for asking, mate. He went on to argue that apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat were being used by terror cells as a means for secure communications.

Coming in the wake of the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, it’s very easy to get caught up in a hysteria about the threat from terrorism and, for me personally at least, anything that can be done that has even the remotest chance of preventing an act of terror is worthwhile. But blocking WhatsApp, Snapchat and the rest of the gang is the wrong call. Yes, terrorists may well use these applications, but so do I along with another 417 million people worldwide. So do you, all for entirely innocent purposes. My mum uses WhatsApp to check that I, as a 19-year-old human, have remembered to brush my teeth (although typically sends them to my dad instead). Terrorists undoubtedly use SMS messages, so do we ban texts? No. Heck, they probably call each other, so let’s just ban phones.

You have to understand that encryption is not just about keeping your terror plans away from pesky GCHQ; it’s there to keep your personal information secure. Names, addresses, bank details: all are protected by encryption. These encrypted messaging services aren’t online communities for terrorists and no-gooders, they offer people a private and secure way to communicate in a variety of different forms: text, pictures and video. If the government do away with these forms of messaging, then they’ll have blatantly eroded away an integral right of society; free speech. Which would be ironic, given that it was only a few weeks ago that David Cameron defended the importance and value of free speech in a visit to Paris in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shootings.

Illustration by Christine Borgeat

tures

13

Photo: Flickr, Thompson Rivers

Photo: Wikimedia, Eva Rinaldi

R

ussell Brand revels in shining his spotlight on corrupt politicians. Recently he devoted an episode of his YouTube channel, The Trews, to Tony Blair and the Iraq War Inquiry entitled “Tony Blair Not In Jail? I Literally Don't Understand”.

Brushing over Brand’s cheap shots at Blair’s gesticulation and ad hominem arguments contrived purely for laughs, he was resurfacing an important political issue that has had a habit of fading from the public eye.

The Chilcot Report on the Iraq war has taken almost five and a half years to formulate a conclusion. The current hindrance is that crucial documents relating conversations between George W Bush and Tony Blair have been withheld.

As Brand scathingly states, “How are they going to do a proper enquiry if vital documents are excluded from it?”

Fast forward to the current government and to Theresa May’s thinly veiled attempt at reviving the ‘snoopers’ charter’.

She claims “innocent lives will be put at risk” if police cannot access citizens’ personal data. The Communications Data Bill, or ‘snoopers’ charter’, would allow access to internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile logs – for example, people’s personal conversations.

So conversations from over ten years ago between high profile politicians about a contentious political issue are safeguarded but your calls, texts, tweets and IMs should be readily available? Why were the Bush/Blair communications blocked in the first place? The finger is pointed at the US for being oversensitive, and our government doesn’t want to upset their friends across the pond.

But these conversations could contain crucial evidence that Blair agreed to the Iraq War before consulting Parliament, the people or, most importantly, the UN. In his video Brand said “If those documents reveal wrong doing it will be highly provocative... The contents of these documents will make us detest, deplore, despise politicians so deeply that we won’t bother to vote for them. On which”, he shrugged, “you know my position”. It’s true, the obscurity surrounding political

Russell Brand, Tony Blair and the Iraq War inquiry Susannah Smith discusses the latest media storm caused by the controversial British comedian and shares her thoughts on the Iraq War Inquiry.

figures is incredibly frustrating, especially when they start demanding a right to our privacy.

So the Iraq inquiry today? Ongoing. The official website states that “the Inquiry intends to submit its report to the Prime Minister as soon as possible”. This was published on 25th June 2014. As for the release of the evidence, it assures us that “agreement had been reached on the principles that will underpin disclosure of material from Cabinet-level discussions and communications”. What exactly that means is frustratingly unclear. In the words of George Orwell: “Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”.

Brand concludes by attacking the political system as a whole, urging us to accept that politician’s conversations in private are “treacherous and deceitful” and that though we vote for scarily similar political parties “no one give’s a monkey’s.

It’s ridiculous. Why should we get involved?”

It is easy to become despondent towards our representatives. Yet surely this is a reason to get involved.

Revolution doesn’t seem realistic any time soon, so let’s get angry and demand more of our politicians. Let’s demand equal treatment and not one law for them and one for us. They want to snoop on everyone’s conversations just in case someone is a suspected terrorist, yet they won’t reveal information that could lead to the conviction of a war criminal.

The whole inquiry is a farce and has taken much too long, costing far too much. Nevertheless, it’s not the sort of issue that should disappear simply because we got bored and the media spotlight moved elsewhere.

14

Science&Environment

Demand for gold threatens tropical rainforests Patrick Cook Science&Environment writer Gold is one of the most precious metals on earth. The consumption of gold is rising and now poses a major threat to tropical forests.

The effects of gold mining on deforestation have so far been poorly studied as it was historically confined to small areas. However, after the financial crisis gold prices rocketed reaching $1,300 for an ounce in 2013 compared to $250 in 2000. This has subsequently led to an increase in the area of forest being deforested for gold mining.

A study in South America found that from 2001–2006, 377 km2 of forest was lost across 61 sites, but in 2007 to 2013 this rose to 1,303 km2 across 116 sites. This rise is particularly worrying as it is occurring in some of the few remaining, remote regions of tropical forest in South America. At least 90% of this mining activity has been concentrated in Peru, the Tapajos-Xingu forests in Brazil, the Guianan forests and the Magdalena Valley-Urabá forests in Colombia. Active gold mining has been detected inside the boundary or within 10 km of the boundary of 32 strictly protected areas.

Despite covering a relatively small area the effects of gold mining are far reaching due to the process and labour used to extract

90

%

of mining activity has been concentrated in Peru, Brazil and Colombia.

the gold. Mercury is used to separate the gold from sediments and studies have shown elevated concentrations of mercury in humans hundreds of kilometres away from areas of mining activity. Animals are also affected with mercury accumulating in the food chain particularly in top carnivores such as the giant otter.

Furthermore, many of these areas have experienced a large influx of migrant workers which not only contributes to gold mining but also other activities such as hunting wildlife and illegal logging. This means gold mining directly and indirectly creates threats to biodiversity in tropical forests.

Gold mining should therefore be considered a major threat to tropical biodiversity alongside land conversion and hunting. For more information, see the study

by Alvarez-Berrios and Aide in Environmental Research Letters.

Beagle 2 probe found on Mars following new satellite images

Photo: Wikimedia, DrLee

The devastating effects of deforestation on the landscape can clearly be seen in Uchiza, Peru Photo: Flickr, Jagubal

Louise Fitzgerald Science&Environment writer Over 11 years since it went missing, the Beagle 2 has been found intact on the surface of Mars. The Beagle 2 was launched in 2003 on the European Space Agency’s MarsExpress; the spacecraft was due to land on the Red Planet on Christmas Day 2003, but following ejection it was never heard from again.

It had previously been speculated that the spacecraft crashed into the surface of Mars after a high-velocity impact, the official enquiry into the failure blamed it on poor management and testing of systems and components. The report also concluded that despite the £50m investment, too little money has been allocated to the project.

New satellite images prove that the entry, descent and landing sequence did work and Beagle 2 did successfully touchdown on December 25th 2003, just 5 km from the centre of the target touchdown zone.

Beagle 2 was unable to communicate with Earth as it failed to fully deploy two of

its four solar panels, therefore blocking the communications systems. The reason for the solar panel deployment failure is unknown but it is likely to be due to a heavy bounce which damaged the structure of the spacecraft so that the petal shaped solar panels could not deploy.

The discovery has been a relief to scientists who for over a decade have wondered what happened to their project. Suspicions that the Beagle 2 had made it to Mars emerged in 2013 when satellite images showed something glinting around the Beagle 2 landing zone.

New high resolution images confirm that the glinting is from the partially opened solar panels of Beagle 2 which are 70% reflective.

It is hoped that more high-resolution images can be taken to analyse what exactly went wrong.

Mars is a notoriously hard planet to explore with over half of missions failing due to overshooting the planet or never leaving Earth. Our next hope of exploring the Red Planet will start next year when the European Space Agency launches the next mission to Mars, ExoMars, due to land in 2019.

Photo: Wikimedia, VISimpson

Science&Environment Cone snail venom show promise for cancer and addiction treatment Elliott Chapman Science&Environment writer Researchers from Florida Atlantic University have discovered that the venom of cone snails may be used to treat some forms of cancer and nicotine addiction.

The cone snail differs vastly from the ones found underfoot on a rainy day; they are in fact marine molluscs like squid, octopuses and conch, and are found along the Florida coast. In another stark difference to the common garden snail they utilise their venom to immobilise and capture prey.

The venom contains a number of components which are of interest due to their effect on the body. One of these is alpha-contoxins, which are selective for the nictotinic receptors of the body. Nicotinic receptors are associated with certain forms of cancer, nicotine addiction, Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia, making them ideal targets for drugs.

The researchers, led by Dr Frank Marí, had a specific interest in Conus regius, a species of cone snail that produces venom which is high in alpha-contoxins. While investigating the venom they identified RegIIA, which is

15 What’s new in science?

South African rhino poaching has reached a new record high.

US scientists say they have taken the first step towards making “safer” genetically modified organisms, that cannot spread in the wild, by rewriting the genetic code of bacteria to use only synthetic chemicals to grow.

Photo: Flickr: Ken-ichi Ueda specific for the nicotinic receptor: alpha-3beta-4, which is associated with lung cancer and nicotine addiction when activated.

The hope is that compounds with similar structures having the same activity at alpha-3beta-4 as RegIIA can be produced.

Frank Marí outlined the goals of the study: “To open new avenues for cancer and addiction research inspired on compounds from marine animals”. This is concurrent with the present trend in pharmaceutical research, with many companies and researchers turning to nature for compounds. From this point they then compose a structure activity relationship study to ascertain what features of the compounds are needed for their activity and can create synthetic compounds with improved aspects.

Contoxins have provided useful research areas for therapeutics since the 1990’s with one drug, Prialt, already licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of severe and chronic pain. With increased research and investment from the pharmaceutical industry it could lead to many more contoxin based drugs.

Researchers have decoded ancient recordings from asteroid fragments dating back to the start of the solar system.

Scientists in the US are asking the public to join them in mining the Earth’s soil for compounds that could be turned into vital new antibiotics.

X-rays have been used to read words from a burnt, rolled-up scroll buried near Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

The genetics involved in resistance to the malaria drug,

artemisinin, have been revealed.

The first organ transplant from a newborn has been carried out.

Scientists have discovered a new bacterial ‘language’: a previously unknown chemical communication pathway.

Scientists have used lasers to turn metals into extremely water repellent, self-cleaning, materials.

Diseases arising in commercial honey bees are affecting wild bee abd insect species Microscopic “machines” have journeyed inside a living animal for the first time. They delivered nano-particles to the stomach lining of a mouse.

A report has said that fracking in two sites in Lancashire should be refused.

Scientists have investigated the genetics behind variation in brain region sizes.

Photos: top, Wikimeida, El Grafo; bottom, J & Hollingsworth

16

Travel

Travelling helped me recover from my depression Dahlia Al-Abdullah Travel writer

Photo: Berit Watkin

Visiting the Caribbean away from the stereotypes Helena Bradbury travels around the Caribbean that many people never find out about.

V

isiting the Caribbean it’s easy to see why there are stereotypes; the crystal blue sea filled with turtles, Bob Marley music, the relaxed laidback attitude and the seemingly endless supply of rum. But there is far more to the Caribbean and far more variation between many of the islands than people know.

Living in cold, wet Britain we associate islands such as Barbados, St Barths, St Lucia with luxury and the likes of Simon Cowell, Rihanna and Beyoncé. Undeniably the island of St Barths is stereotypically rich and exclusive: not the sort of place recommended if you’re a student travelling on a budget. But many of the islands have a façade of richness and luxury when actually those properties or areas only exist because they have been bought and developed by foreign buyers. The reality of other Caribbean islands – Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, St Maarten, St Kitts, to name but a few – is much more culturally preserved.

Beyond the tourism of the ports lie miles

and miles of greenery, Dominica alone has 365 rivers on its 290-mi2 island. It turns out that the Caribbean is more humid and fertile than the pictures of white sandy beaches lead you to believe. The locals live in small, colourful houses where you can sense the feeling of community, even if you’re just passing through. The main trade in many of these islands is agriculture – sugar, bananas, cocoa, and the local knowledge of the land and traditional recipes using local produce are astounding.

The contrast between tourism in the ports and the true culture of the island further beyond is beautiful to see but also shocking.

If you’re able to exercise in the 30-degree humidity, deciding to explore by bike is a truly eye-opening way to see any of the islands.

Cycling out the port of Antigua through the duty-free shops and diamond merchants into the untouched hills of local communities I was met with a local butcher. The shop consisted of the carcasses of three skinned cows strung up on a tree for customers to select the exact

cut of meat they wanted.

In St Maarten, an island split in two with one side French and one side Dutch, it is customary to see houses with gravestones in their front gardens; burying dead relatives in gardens of family houses used to be common practice. An island that functions with two different languages, two different currencies, even two different phone and energy providers is confusing, but both regions are technically European countries carving their own unique place in Caribbean culture.

Outside the celebrity status of west coast Barbados, the island manages to maintain some immunity to the invasion of tourism.

Women carrying baskets of reeds on their heads dressed in oranges and yellows, children playing barefoot on dusty tracks between the numerous abandoned, old buildings. Experiencing the vibrancy and variety of culture across the Caribbean and their attitude to life does become infectious: ”don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ‘cause every little thing gonna be alright”.

It is always important to remember that depression can affect different people in completely different ways. Where one person may want to hide under their duvet for a whole week, another may want to keep their schedule busy as a coping mechanism, in order to try and forget the feeling inside.

For me, it was always the first. At my lowest, I would refuse to leave my bed. Not only because it was one of those wonderful memory foam beds (aren’t they great!?), but because it would feel so much better to be lying under there than imagining facing the world outside. After getting into an abusive relationship in my final school years, I took a gap year to re-sit modules and have a break from everything. The last thing I imagined was that I would go travelling – I could barely imagine leaving my small Welsh hometown.

Growing up with sisters that had travelled to almost all the different continents with hungry, adventurous hearts, I couldn’t help but be filled with the urge to follow them and discover the world around me. It didn’t have to be Japan, or Argentina, or anywhere that had a culture or climate that was completely different to what I was used to. I just wanted to be somewhere new. It was a challenge, and as clichéd as it sounds, I needed something new in my life. The routine of exams, home, piano lessons and bad sleeping patterns had grown boring. I felt that doing something that seemed so unimaginable would help me to see myself in a new light; that was the most important thing to focus on for me. I needed to appreciate myself again.

So I called up my sister, who I knew had loads of experience travelling and who is also my best friend. We ended up booking tickets to Slovenia for two weeks of travelling around the Baltic coast through Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro. I had travelled to many places before – places as diverse as Iraq and Italy – but as intrigued as I was with the countries I was visiting, it was always about what the journey represented.

In those two weeks I became the girl who could, in fact, communicate with people, even when they didn’t speak my language; the girl who could ride a bike around Lake Bled without worrying too much that I looked silly; and the girl who could sit by myself in the hostel when my sister was tired and not feel paranoid that people were watching. The situations had not changed much at all, but the environment had and that was enough for it to make me feel like it was challenge I could tackle. I had someone with me who I could trust to support me and help me to grow by myself, who never made me feel dependent or needy. I grew into an independent, confident girl in only a few days, because travelling helped me come closer to the qualities in myself, like patience and optimism, which exist whether I was sitting in South Wales or Dubrovnik.

As I said, everyone has different ways of coping with depression and obviously travelling is not for everyone. But if, like me, you begin to feel like you cannot understand yourself anymore and have come to a standstill, travelling can remind you of qualities in yourself that even you, yourself, have forgotten. Yes it is a cliché, but in travelling you really do remember, or even discover, that you are more than the girl hiding under the duvet, that you can do something as simple as rowing on a lake and be reminded that your depression does not define you.

Travel

17

In defence of London’s ‘tourist-traps’

Photo: David Rothwell

Photo: David Rothwell

W

hen reading and writing about travel a phrase that is pushed around a lot is ‘hidden treasure’.

Of course there is always going to be desire to uncover the unknown and find a barely known secret location that encompasses all the wonders and awes you had hoped travel would provoke for you. But there exists amongst travel enthusiasts a kind of snobbery and competition over who has visited the most obscure, most unheard of ‘secret’ location. Rather than relentlessly bragging and scouring out places that no-one has heard of, maybe it is time to think about maybe why no-one has heard of them. More importantly, perhaps it is time to celebrate popular destinations and realise that there may be a reason everyone loves and visits them.

Many people will choose to actively avoid places that they consider a tourist trap but perhaps we have simply forgotten why they are a tourist trap in the first place. A typical tourist’s itinerary to London will include a stroll around the infamous Oxford Street, and a slow ride on the London Eye. In 2013 London attracted approximately 16.8 million visitors and how can that many people be wrong?

Oxford Street is relentless. It is a street that is indeed crammed full of people all rushing from shop to shop, clutching and defending their bags of purchases with their dear life.

Jodie Snow cuts through the snobbery to enjoy the most mainstream destinations in the capital.

The street is home to the biggest names and brands, both high-street and up-market, all of whom don impressive window displays and interior design to lure the Oxford Street shopper in. It cannot be doubted that this street is full of people and some will call this ‘crowded’ but maybe a better word is ‘thriving’. Oxford Street is simply full of life.

It is busy, just like it should be. Tourists do not go to Oxford Street expecting a quiet shopping experience that has lots of vintage and unheard of brands and market stalls. The street is big, bold and brassy. It is home to the biggest shops of the biggest brands in the UK and surely that is something to shout about? The hustle and bustle of one of London’s most popular streets is a travel experience in itself and surviving it should be celebrated.

The London Eye is a contraption that allows visitors to slowly admire the city of London from all angles. It is the only way to fully see London from a birdseye view and to see the vastness and Photo: Flickr, Loco Steve concrete beauty of

England’s capital. It may be an odd spectacle, but it has become iconic of London’s skyline. It does not pretend to be anything it is not. Given its size and central location it is impossible to miss and therefore far from ‘secret’ and a ‘hidden treasure’ of London. People from all around the globe pay to see London from

“Perhaps it’s time to celebrate popular destinations” an aerial view and there is something truly remarkable, about viewing one of the world’s biggest cities from a distance. You are both right in the middle of busy, metropolitan London but also far away.

There are plenty of people ready to criticise the tourist spots of cities around the world, but whether they are really tourist ‘traps’ is disputable. If a location is vibrant, cultural and enjoyable to visit then it is rewarded with travellers and tourists alike who all want to see and experience it. Instead of criticising popular places and tourist attractions maybe it is time to fully embrace a popular location instead of reluctantly and cynically following the crowd. If a location is popular, there may indeed be a good reason for it.

Lifestyle

To find out how to cook with quinoa, turn to page Page 20

Maintaining a healthy brain information. Interestingly, moderate levels of alcohol were found to protect brain tissue through increasing good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol.

Katie Wadsworth Lifestyle writer Here’s something to make you think: recent studies on cognitive decline conducted by charities such as Age UK have found that there are certain precautions and lifestyle changes that we can all make to keep our brains healthy and prevent, or at least delay, the onset of conditions such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. The Charity Director of Age UK, Caroline Abrahams said, “While there’s still no cure or way to reverse dementia, this evidence shows that there are simple and effective ways to reduce our risk of developing it to begin with”.

Staying active

We already know that any healthy lifestyle should involve regular exercise, but did you know that exercise is also key to a healthy

“Age UK found that there are significantly more new cases of Alzheimer’s among current smokers” brain? Age UK’s research revealed that physical exercise - aerobic, resistance or balance - is the most effective way of staving off cognitive decline in healthy older individuals and further reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Doctor’s orders are that

Photo: Flickr, Off Beat Mum exercise should be taken three to five times a week and should last between 30 minutes to an hour to be most effective. So that ‘be more active’ New Year’s resolution rewards twofold.

But it’s not just a case of being physically active: mental agility is also key, so socialising, talking, going to the theatre, doing Sudoku and crosswords and listening to music are all key to a healthy brain.

Healthy lifestyle Quitting the cigarettes and limiting alcohol consumption are also key for a healthy mind,

nothing new there, but with recent estimates stating that there are 850,000 people in the UK living with dementia and dementia affecting one in three people over the age of 65, it’s worthwhile trying to kick the habit. Age UK found that “there are significantly more new cases of Alzheimer’s among current smokers compared with those who have never smoked”. It was also found that heavy drinking is linked to dementia as it results in the loss of brain tissue, particularly in areas of the brain responsible for processing and memory and also interpreting visual

Brain healthy diet Managing your weight is essential to a healthy lifestyle and it’s no different for a healthy brain, so ditching the fried foods is key. The Alzheimer’s Association lists some of the ‘brain foods’ which research suggests could contribute to a healthy brain. It is not known in what levels these foodstuffs need to be consumed to have a dramatic impact in preventing cognitive decline, but a study of elderly women showed that those who ate the most green, leafy vegetables had a mental function that was one-two years younger than those in the group who consumed limited amounts of these vegetables. A little food for thought.

So the recipe for brain health consists of dark-skinned fruits and vegetables which have the highest levels of naturally occurring antioxidant levels. The list includes kale, spinach, brussels sprouts, broccoli, beets, red bell pepper, onion, corn and eggplant. Fruits which contain high antioxidant levels such as prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, plums, oranges, red grapes and cherries are also on the menu.

And if that wasn’t enough, you can also tuck into cold water fish such as halibut, mackerel, salmon, trout and tuna which contain beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. And we mustn’t forget the nuts, with almonds, pecans and walnuts being a good source of vitamin E.

LinkedIn is a good way to get connected to potential employers and it’s become a bit of a networking tool. However, knowing what to put on, who to add and how to establish yourself on LinkedIn can be tricky.

1

Detail A little bit like a CV, it’s good to include what experience, education, skills and expertise you have. This can be more general if you aren’t quite sure what you want to do or you can target what you write to a particular field. Adding a picture alongside basic contact information is also key.

Adding a headline at the top of your profile is a good way to let people who don’t have you as a friend to have a bit more information besides your name and photo. A profile summary will also give people a chance to know a bit more about you!

This headline could simply be what current position you may hold, or your main passion.

Keep it punchy so it’s easier for people to remember.

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Keep it truthful It’s easy to play with the truth with things like this, but make sure everything you include is honest. If you’re going for an interview with people who have checked out your profile before they meet you and they ask you about something that you never did, it’s not the easiest to get out of. Appearing untrustworthy is never a positive trait to a company.

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Customise your profile URL Your default URL will contain random letters and numbers which you can personalise. To do this, go to settings>>edit public profile>> customise your public profile URL. You can pick the name you will use to display on the URL.

Photo: Flickr, Sheila Scarborough

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Sort your LinkedIn profile out Rebecca Bemment looks into the ways to maximise LinkedIn success

Get the right picture Having an appropriate picture is important on LinkedIn. It’s not like Facebook where you have all your drunken photos or your latest Instagram style photo. LinkedIn should be a professional thing so make sure your picture clearly shows who you are and that you’re dressed appropriately (a bit like you would want to be viewed in an interview).

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Be part of LinkedIn groups A bit like a professional version of Facebook groups, this allows you to connect with companies and experts in the industry/ area you’re looking at. By connecting with these people, you never know where it might take you or whether it may land you the job that you want.

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Use LinkedIn applications Whatever you might be interested in, you can add applications to enhance your profile.

For example, if you’re a blogger you can add the Wordpress app so that you can sync blog posts that you’ve done on your profile!

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Lifestyle’s lifehack corner with Rebecca Bemment

University work taking up most of your time?

These handy little lifehacks could help you with life’s other dilemmas!

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To get rid of the stems from strawberries, use a straw

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Green fingers from your ring? Using clean varnish around the inside of the ring will prevent this

Photo: Rasbak

Photo: Arvind

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To prevent burning yourself when lighting a candle, light the wick with a stick of spaghetti instead of a match

Photo: Elipongo

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Hate messing up cakes by cutting it wrong with a knife? Use unscented dental floss to give it the perfect cut

Photo: Fancibaer

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Sealed an envelope that you need to get back open? Put it in the freezer so the glue will undo itself

Photo: MASA

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Ladder in your tights? Apply a small amount of clear nail varnish to prevent further laddering

Lifestyle

P-P-Put yourself first

The Perpetual People Pleaser (let’s call them PPPs) wants everybody to like them, is anxious to be accepted and ultimately ends up out of touch with their own feelings. The very thing they crave moves out of reach Are you a ‘Perpetual People Pleaser’? Saying as people begin to take them for granted, yes to everything even though you know or worse, not even ask for their opinion on deep down you should say no? Are you the matters because they know what it will be one who always fits in with others’ plans, the one that everybody else has. who doesn’t mind not getting their own This year, take a long, hard look at your way or who wouldn’t even send relationships and your behaviour, and begin back the wrong coffee in to put yourself first for a while. It may feel a café if it meant strange initially when you say no to doing u p s e t t i n g your housemate’s washing up, or to buying someone? another round of drinks at the LCR. You might feel odd saying no to the party on the other side of town which involves a long bus journey and possibly a taxi, but trust me - trying to please everyone only makes you more stressed and miserable in the long term.

Being a bit selfish allows you to stay in and watch films occasionally. It means that you don’t run yourself ragged organising the logistics of every social event or joining every society under the sun.

It doesn’t mean that you have to become a non-PPP (aka a grump or a kill joy!). It just means that you start to look after yourself a bit more. You start to consider your own issues and problems first. Once they are sorted, then you can look around to see if anyone needs your help!

PPPs have a nasty habit of becoming a bit annoying after a while, so flex your selfish side and you will feel more in control of your life, less tired and, as a result, happier. People will like you for you, and respect your ability to say no when needed.

Photo: US Federal Government Alice Short Lifestyle writer

Photo: Matt Whitby

Tabbouleh Dahlia Al-Abdullah Lifestyle writer Quinoa tastes GREAT as a simple side dish with your main meal, by just crumbling a flavourful stock cube in to the water while it’s boiling and adding a pinch of salt and pepper. Stirring in any dried herbs you have such as parsley, dill, or even some aromatic thyme, will give it body and be a great accompaniment to deliciously filling dishes such as this tabbouleh!

Ingredients: 1 cup uncooked quinoa 1/2 medium red onion, chopped (3/4 cup) 2 medium tomatoes, chopped (2 cups) 1 1/2 to 2 cups minced parsley (1 large bunch) 1/2 cup minced mint (1 small bunch) 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons lemon juice, plus extra to taste Salt and pepper 8 ounces feta, optional

Stuffed Mushrooms Method: 1. Rinse the quinoa, then combine with two cups of water and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a rapid simmer, then turn down the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook until the quinoa is fluffy.

2. Empty the cooked quinoa into a large bowl and allow it to cool almost to room temperature. The quinoa should feel just barely warm to the touch. You can speed this process by spreading the quinoa into a thin layer and stirring it occasionally.

3. Stir the onions, tomatoes, parsley, mint, and garlic into the warm quinoa. Whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice with 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Pour this over the salad and stir to combine.

4. Add sumac if you want an extra citrusy kick, or a little crumble of feta for some saltiness, and serve with warm pitta and garlic greek yoghurt. Delicious, light, and healthy!

Dahlia Al-Abdullah Lifestyle writer

Ingredients: 1 cup cooked quinoa 2 portobello mushrooms 6 asparagus tips 1 chopped medium tomato 1/2 a chopped medium onion 1/2 cup of low-fat cheese 1 tsp of margarine 1 tsp of chilli 1 tsp of nutmeg 1 tsp of fresh dill 1 vegetable stock cube

4. Pop them in the grill for another ten mins on 220 degrees, while cooking your asparagus tips in the margarine until they char, then sprinkle salt and pepper on top to taste 5. Serve while hot, enjoying a protein packed meal that gives you four of your five-a-day – brilliant!

Method: 1. Begin by brushing the mushrooms with a little sunflower oil and nutmeg, then grill for ten mins on 220 degrees until the outside darkens in colour 2. Cook the quinoa in exactly the same way as the tabbouleh, except this time stir in a vegetable stock cube too 3. Stir in the onion, tomatoes, chilli, and fresh dill then load it in to the mushroom cups once they are done, topping with the cheese which will melt beautifully over it all.

Photo: Dahlia Al-Abdullah

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Sport

Kat Lucas Sport editor

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B De Villiers earned a deserved place in this month’s headlines after hitting one of the most incredible knocks in one-day history.

The South African star smashed a century off just 31 balls – a feat that leaves him only one ball off Chris Gayle’s cricketing record, which came in the Indian Premier League nearly two years ago.

Having been hailed by former England captain as a “cricketing genius” for his quick-fire antics against the West Indies, De Villiers must surely now have his eye on the top spot in the International Cricket Council’s official ODI rankings, a position currently occupied by veteran Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara.

The Proteas’ skipper’s form will undoubtedly be seized upon by head coach Russell Domingo as a good omen ahead of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Mercifully – though perhaps somewhat unintentionally – his innings have taken England out of the limelight, as they sorely trudge into another year. Two threewicket defeats by Australia in the ongoing tri-series has already left them fearing the worst ahead of another trip Down Under.

England are far from favourites going into the tournament, not least because they continue to be in disarray off the field. New captain Eoin Morgan has made efforts to lift that burden, replacing the under-fire and out-of-form Alistair Cook, but the Three Lions still bear the scars of a difficult 2014.

Morgan himself scored 121 off 136 balls, but whereas De Villiers could rely on his South African team mates to back him up, for England, post-match talk was once again on their collective failings, with little time for Morgan’s brilliance.

Ian Bell, Joe Root, and new-boy James Taylor all disappointed, while Steven Finn – whose time away from the national side is all too fresh in the memory – struggled with bat and ball. The question remains of who exactly it was at the England and Wales Cricket Board that decided that, with less than a month to go until the World Cup gets underway, it would be in the interests of England’s confidence to face up against Australia and India.

Their second ODI vs the Aussies at least saw a century from Bell, but it was Steven Smith’s ton for the Baggy Green that made the difference. Once again, it is England’s collective spirit that is letting them down.

If the World Cup is to be decided on merit, then in truth, England do not deserve to go far. Through no fault of head coach Peter Moores, their decade-long policy of neglect in the one-day game will surely be telling when they make the long trip in February.

Indeed, the trophy is far more likely to fall into the hands of South Africa or Australia, both of whom have put significant time and effort into ODIs. AB De Villiers has proven a model 50-over captain since taking over from Graeme Smith, and he may well be rewarded with a well-deserved World Cup.

Photo: Flickr, Ronnie Macdonald

Alexis Sanchez: can one man make a team?

James Chesson Sport writer “I would not vote for any Ballon d’Or. I’m totally against it. I’m a team lover and a specialist of somebody who loves team work”.

Those were the words of Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger when asked who would get his vote as the best player in world football.

This came during his first press conference since Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo was crowned winner of football’s highest individual honour for the third time in his career and for the second year in succession.

Wenger’s opposition to such an award highlights the issue in football of the “oneman team”, a term used usually in a derisory context towards a team whose success appears to be dependent upon one player.

Wenger’s Arsenal side have been accused of being just that this season, due to the outstanding performances of the Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez in his debut season with the Gunners. At the time of writing, Alexis has contributed to 19 goals in the Premier League (12 goals, seven assists) which is more than any other player in the league.

While many Arsenal players have suffered from spells of poor form, the summer signing

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nly the most proficient of anoraks would have heard of 28-cap Irish midfielder Stephanie Roche before her nomination for the Fifa Puskás Award alongside World Cup stars James Rodriguez and Robin van Persie thrust her into the limelight as the new poster girl for women’s football.

Inaugurated by Fifa in 2009 to commemorate the year’s “most beautiful” goal, this year’s Award arguably overshadowed the crowning of Cristiano Ronaldo with football’s greatest individual prize, the Ballon d’Or, such was the interest generated by the 25-year-old forward, whose effort came in an Irish women’s league match between Peamount United and Wexford Youths watched by less than 100 people.

It all happened in a flash; controlling an in-swinging cross on her right foot with her back to goal, Roche flicked the ball over the covering defender with her left before volleying into the corner from the edge of the box. Footage of the goal quickly went viral and helped her earn a professional

from Barcelona has flourished in his new surroundings. He has won the club’s Player of the Month competition for three of the five months polled so far, all coming consecutively before Santi Cazorla regained his best form to usurp that position in December.

It is clear when watching Arsenal this season that Alexis has often been the driving force to carry the team forward, outscoring and outclassing his teammates; however, to call Arsenal a one man team is a huge disservice to Alexis’s supporting cast. This was exemplified in the 2-0 away victory against Manchester City, where an uncharacteristically resolute Arsenal defence caused City to draw a rare blank at home. In that performance, Alexis’s role was a supporting one, full of defensive tenacity and hard work (one thing he guarantees every time he steps onto the field) while Santi Cazorla stole the headlines with an exceptionally midfield performance, scoring a penalty, assisting the second goal, and proving to be the main source of the team’s attacking play.

Defensive midfielder Francis Coquelin also received plaudits for his commanding display in front of the back four. Nacho Monreal has been a very strong defender this season, while Laurent Koscielny, Calum Chambers and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have been consistent

performers as well. Alexis is undoubtedly a quality player, delivering the kind of performances expected of a £35m signing, but he owes a lot to the players around him.

Returning to the Ballon d’Or winner, Cristiano Ronaldo scored an incredible 51 goals in 47 appearances last season, including a record breaking 17 in 11 games in Real’s Champions League winning campaign. These are staggering figures that justify his selection as the current best player in the sport, however, doing this once again ignores the contribution of his teammates.

There is a reason Ronaldo only started hitting over 50 goals a season after leaving Manchester United, and while the lower quality of opposition in La Liga certainly is a factor, the players he has around him are the major contributor. The unfairly maligned France striker Karim Benzema encompasses this – a playmaking forward who creates as many as he scores, and who has a brilliant understanding with Ronaldo. Real Madrid pride themselves in collecting the best players from around the world, and while Ronaldo’s individual brilliance surpasses that of any other players in the game at the moment, the overall ability and cohesion in a team should be recognised as the platform that make possible such personal achievements.

COMMENT James Newbold praises Puskás finalist Stephanie Roche’s impact on women’s football. contract with newly promoted French Division 1 side ASPTT Albi.

It is not the first time a female has been nominated for the award. Both Lisa De Vanna and Louisa Nécib were shortlisted last year, but had the misfortune of coming up against Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s sensational bicycle kick against England, but crucially this was the first time a woman made it to the final three. And while she ultimately didn’t win – Rodriguez’s dipping volley in the World Cup knockout stage against Uruguay, recognised by opposition manager Oscar Tabarez as “one of the greatest goals the World Cup has ever seen”, took home 42% of the vote – Roche has at the very least succeeded in furthering the credibility of the women’s game.

Make no mistake about it, Roche was included on merit, and her timing couldn’t have been much better - with the Women’s World Cup set to be held in Canada this

summer and one of the sport’s biggest stars in freefall.

United States goalkeeper Hope Solo, who played every single minute of the USA’s run to the World Cup final in 2011 and was awarded with the prestiguous Golden Glove for her performances, was this week hit with a 30-day suspension after a police altercation alongside her husband Jerramy Stevens. Solo, who last summer faced accusations of domestic violence which were subsequently dropped, seems to attract attention whatever she does, and not all of it positive. The female Mario Balotelli, if you will.

With Women’s football in dire need of a morale boost after Solo’s fall from grace, Roche’s nomination is a moment to cherish.

As a role model for women’s sport, Roche is an ideal candidate, the model professional to inspire young girls to play the beautiful game.

Sport

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Photo: Flickr, Renault Sport

Formula E: the future of motorsport?

Laura Donaghy looks at the new Formula E championship, the world’s first fully electric racing series, and considers the sport’s future.

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ou might think that the perfect formula for motorsport needs roaring engines, beautiful cars and skilled drivers, but there’s a new idea on the scene. The world’s first fully electric, zero-emission racing series, Formula E, is making waves four rounds into its inaugural season and already looks set to be a big success.

With all-action racing on challenging street circuits around the globe and a stellar cast list to boot, it is proving a hit with fans keen to experience what is being billed as ‘the future of motorsport.’ The car itself, built by Spark Racing Technology, with help from McLaren Electronic Systems, Williams Advanced Engineering and Dallara, is a state-of-theart battery powered single-seater, producing around 270 horsepower from the 200 kW available. However, despite the constantly improving technology in car batteries, they do not (as yet) last a full race. This requires a mandatory pit-stop at half distance to change to a second identical car, creating an element of strategy as drivers attempt to conserve energy to use later in the race.

The season started with a bang on the streets of Beijing; quite literally in the case of Nick Heidfeld. The race was Nico Prost’s to lose, having qualified his e-Dams machine on pole and converting it to a comfortable lead once the race got underway, but former F1 man Heidfeld, driving for the Venturi team co-founded by none other than Hollywood

Six Nations contenders announce squads Rob Staniforth Sport writer England will travel to the Millennium Stadium on February 6th as they get the RBS Six Nations underway against Wales. Last week, the final squad announcements took place and now eyes turn to the tournament, but what of the chances of the Home Nations?

Scotland seem to have been one of the perennial underachievers in past Six Nations, with only Italy accumulating more Wooden Spoons. Scotland’s new coach Vern Cotter certainly made an impression on the team before Christmas, as his side suffered just one defeat to world-beaters New Zealand. Cotter has called up four uncapped players to the

lothario Leonardo di Caprio, had other ideas.

The German was the quickest man in the track in the closing stages as he doggedly pursued Prost and finally attempted a move into the final corner. Prost swerved to block and the two made contact, taking both out of the race in spectacular fashion, Heidfeld’s car flying almost over the catch-fencing before coming to rest upside-down. Through the mire came a grateful Lucas Di Grassi to inherit victory, with Franck Montagny taking second after a typically combative drive. But after testing positive for a derivative of cocaine a few weeks later, the Frenchman is likely to face a lengthy ban and may have said au revoir to his racing career.

Putrajaya in Malaysia was next on the Formula E calendar as Briton Sam Bird put in the most dominant performance of the season so far for Virgin. Prost was again the quickest man in qualifying, but took a ten-place grid penalty for causing the collision with Heidfeld in Beijing, leaving IndyCar veteran Oriol Servia as the surprise pole-sitter for Dragon Racing. But after a brief safety car interlude, it took only a couple of corners for Bird to work his way into a lead, before pulling away from the rest of the field – despite using less energy.

After Nelson Piquet Jr. was denied a chance of a podium finish by an errant Jarno Trulli, di Grassi once again was on hand to pick up the pieces, with WEC champion Sebastien Buemi coming from the back of the grid to

finish third. Bruno Senna was on course to finish fourth after a good battle with Prost, but undid all his hard work by thumping the wall on the final lap.

Toro Rosso refugee Jean-Eric Vergne joined the Formula E circus for round three along the beachfront at Punta del Este in Uruguay and promptly qualified his Andretti mount on pole, despite his unfamiliarity with the machinery. The popular Frenchman was one of the three drivers each race to be awarded ‘Fanboost’, a unique phenomena to Formula E chosen by the fans in a pre-race poll which temporarily increases the power output for five seconds per car, however his dream debut would soon go awry. After patiently working his way past a fast-starting Piquet, JEV held the lead only briefly as a lightning-quick pitstop leapfrogged Buemi in front. The stage was set for a frantic two-lap shootout after Matty Brabham’s crash brought out the safety car, but broken suspension for Vergne soon brought any hopes of victory to an abrupt halt. Piquet collected second, with di Grassi once again on the podium in third.

Nobody seemed to want to win the most recent round in Buenos Aires. After a tame first half, the race came alive after Karun Chandhok suffered a suspension failure at the chicane, requiring the intervention of the safety car. No sooner had it withdrawn than race-long leader Buemi threw away his advantage by clipping the wall at the same

place, handing the baton over to di Grassi. But Mr. Consistency would suffer the same fate as Chandhok, with broken suspension resulting in the Brazilian’s first non-finish of the season.

It then looked like the race was Heidfeld’s to lose, but when the German was slapped with a pitlane-speeding penalty two laps from the finish, it was Red Bull protégé Antonio Felix da Costa who brought it home for Amlin Aguri to become the fourth different winner in as many races. Amid a chaotic final few laps, Prost somehow came through to second and Piquet – who believed he was a lap down – to third, in one of the more bemused podium celebrations you’ll ever see.

Despite his setback in Buenos Aires, Grassi has kept hold of the top spot in the points race ahead of Bird and Buemi, with everything still to play for in the second half of the season before the series finale in London in June. It’s only the first season of this futuristic championship and as is to be expected, Formula E has had its teething problems. A litany of suspension failures exposed the car’s weak spot in Latin America and could play a massive role in the outcome of the championship, while criticism for the gimmicky nature of Fanboost – despite its added entertainment value – is likely to persist among purists. But ultimately it’s the on-track product, the racing itself, that can make or break Formula E. And on the evidence so far, electric racing should be here to stay.

squad, while also culling some of the more famous names. Chris Cusiter, Johnnie Beattie and Scott Lawson have all been dropped from the group which comes together next week.

Ireland narrowly beat England to the trophy last year, a fitting last hurrah for the retiring Brian O’Driscoll. However, any suggestion that Ireland are left at a disadvantage as a result are seriously misguided, as they are the in form side, indeed the only one to win all their autumn tests.

Ireland’s A team have one fixture to play in the tournament, against the Saxons, which means they have chosen to name an extended squad for both games. The 42-man squad gives the boys in green a fair amount of depth and experience on the pitch. This, coupled with the fact they host both England and France at the Aviva Stadium, means Ireland could be a force to be reckoned with yet again.

This will be the first competition since Wales introduced central contracts, limiting the amount of games those contracted play for their clubs. Soon, these contracts will also result in the introduction of Gatland’s Law, limiting selection to Welsh-based players.

In the meantime, Gatland is free to choose who he wants, wherever they might ply

their trade. This means Toulon-based Leigh Halfpenny is still in the squad, though in-form Leicester Tiger’s number ten Owen Williams is denied a place. Other than Williams, other notable omissions include Adam Jones and James Hook, who may face an uphill struggle to regain a place in the squad before September’s World Cup. New Zealand-born Gareth Anscombe is one of 11 players in the squad through residency or ancestry, having qualified for Wales through his mother.

Finally, the England squad announcement included well-deserved call ups for on-form fly half Danny Cipriani and number eight Nick Easter. The presence of three of Bath’s back-line players – George Ford, Jonathan Joseph and Kyle Eastmond – who make up one of the most formidable forces in the Premiership had led to suggestions that they should start together in an attempt to bring Bath’s flair to Twickenham. But unfortunately for Lancaster and the England squad, Manu Tuilagi remains unavailable through injury, along with Courtney Lawes, Ben Foden and Joe Launchbury. Tuilagi

remains a possible addition to the squad later on.

Where does all that leave the Home Nations? While Italy are unlikely to make a huge impact on proceedings, Scotland have a chance to cause an upset, and alongside France, will be looking to prove a point and cause some upsets ahead of the World Cup later this year.

Ireland, meanwhile, will look to their two back-to-back home matches to gain momentum going into the final two rounds.

Wales and England go head to head on the opening night of the tournament, and this is sure to set the bar for the return encounter in Pool A of the World Cup this September as well as for the rest of the Six Nations; England won’t have forgetten their defeat in Cardiff two years ago which cost them the championship. So much is up for discussion over the next nine weeks; the only thing that is certain is this should be an incredible championship.

Photo: Wikimedia, Andrew Hazard

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Sport

SPORT

Issue 307 27th January 2015

concrete-online.co.uk @Concrete_UEA ConcreteNewspaper

Flickr: Jan S0L0

Norwich winger Nathan Redmond has started the year well under the Yellows’ new management Flickr: nicksarebi Red

Perfect start for Neil’s City Ross Perkins Sport writer So, just who is the new Norwich City manager? Many supporters had been asking themselves that very question when they first heard the name, Alex Neil, upon rumours of his being approached following Neil Adams’ resignation.

Canary fans scouring the Internet had a mixed response to the information they found.

Neil was a young player-manager at Scottish Premiership club Hamilton Academical – who? For many it seemed the Norwich City board were again pursuing the ‘cheap option.’

After Chief Executive David McNally’s claim that Norwich had ‘scoured Europe’ before appointing Neil Adams, it was important for the board to get this appointment right. With Adams’ apparent successor having only two years’ managerial experience in Scottish football, it led many to point out that often-made comparison between the Scottish and English football systems that put many City fans off the idea of appointing former Celtic boss, Neil Lennon – despite him masterminding the famous 2-1 win over Barcelona.

On the surface then, the idea of a young, inexperienced manager coming to take the reins had many asking, ‘Isn’t that who we just had in charge?’ Many of the yellow army wanted someone who knows the ins and outs of the Football League Championship, such as veteran Neil Warnock.

However, further research turned up some interesting information. Neil had taken over at Hamilton after the departure of Billy Reid in

April 2013 when the Accies were a mid-table side. A year later and Neil had led his club of ten years to the Scottish Premiership via the play-offs and had them jostling with the likes of Celtic, Aberdeen and Dundee United near the summit of Scottish football.

In addition, his win ratio in his two seasons was around 55% - a huge figure bearing in mind that Hamilton are not an established Premiership side. Indeed, their success under Neil was not because they were a starstudded side, but rather because they were a relatively young team wanting to play for their manager. What Hamilton perhaps lacked in quality, they made up for in desire and belief.

“It seemed the Norwich board were again pursuing the ‘cheap option’ ” It is no surprise that Neil was highly spoken of north of the border. City fans were quietly optimistic and hopes for ‘a new Paul Lambert ‘ began to emerge as supporters reminisced of the days when attacking football saw Norwich rise from the ashes of league one obscurity to the Premier League in just two years.

Neil’s appointment to the hot-seat was confirmed a day before Norwich travelled to Championship league leaders, Bournemouth.

A turbulent week had seen the team prepared for the game by coaches Mike Phelan and Gary Holt, but that wouldn’t stop the new boss from having an impact. Politely refraining from intruding too much, Neil originally offered to talk to the players before kickoff and at half-time. However the new man

descended from the directors’ box to grab the bull by the horns following Jonny Howson’s contentious dismissal on the hour. Level at one-all, down to ten men away at Dean Court, Norwich faced an uphill task to hold onto a valuable point. Those associated with Norwich and Bournemouth were perhaps shocked to witness such valiant defending in the face of this adversity, and fans were sent into raptures when, ten minutes from time, Cameron Jerome curled in a beautiful winner from 25 yards.

That glorious win was followed up by a nervy defeat of Cardiff. Having rushed into a 3-0 half-time lead, with John Ruddy denying the Bluebirds’ Peter Whittingham from the spot, it looked like Norwich would go on to destroy Cardiff in the same way they had despatched Huddersfield and Millwall before the New Year. However, two Cardiff goals in four minutes made for a tense finish. Norwich held on though, leaving Neil with six points from six and the prospect of getting back into the top six.

The incoming boss’ impact has not been restricted to matters on the pitch however.

With his assistant at Hamilton, Frankie McAvoy, set to join the Norwich back-room staff, coach Phelan has left the club having only joined the Canaries two months ago; speculation continues as to why, though it is possible there was some resentment at not being considered for the manager’s position.

What is important now is that the whole club focuses its collective mind on building the momentum established in Neil’s first two games, as they seek a Premiership return at the first attempt. All Norwich fans should know, however, it’s never as simple as that.

Football: a team game?

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Flickr: RENAULT SPORT

Formula E Page 23

Flickr: Antonio Cinotti

Six Nations Preview Page 23