Courier 1332

www.thecourieronline.co.uk Monday 16 May 2016 Issue 1332 Free

The Independent Voice of Newcastle Students

SUMMER OF LOVE POLITICS A fashion & beauty photoshoot STUDENT Is modern student politics spectacular p.18

crumbling? p.10

Est 1948

SCIENCE QUIZ Take a procrastination break

and test your basic science , p.39

We’re leaving

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Referendum results: Newcastle New Part-Time Officer team votes to disaffiliate from NUS

By Mark Sleightholm Deputy Editor

By Victoria Armstrong Editor

Following last week’s cross-campus referendum, Newcastle University Students’ Union will begin the process of disaffiliating with the National Union of Students (NUS).

The referendum lasted from Monday 9th of May till Thursday 12th and saw 1475 students vote, with 989 (67%) of votes cast in favour of leaving the NUS and 486 (33%) voting to stay affiliated.

Student Unions are required to give the NUS six month notice and so NUSU will remain a member of the NUS until the end of the calendar year.

This vote was the result of a petition started by Newcastle University student Matt Wilson-Boddy who was also one of NUSU’s delegates at the NUS National Conference in April. The petition asked that the referendum held every three years on NUS affiliation be brought forward to this academic year

and reached the requisite 300 signatures in under 21 hours. This is one way of triggering NUSU to hold a referendum.

Speaking to The Courier, WilsonBoddy, who also led the ‘No to NUS’ campaign during referendum week commented: “I’m incredibly proud of the way the our team campaigned and the huge amount of work they put in. We ran a good, honest campaign full of passionate people in the face of opposition from the better-funded NUS leadership team and won.”

“I’m pleased with the result, and look forward to seeing how our own union grows in the wake of disaffiliation. It is a shame, however, that the media has spun our victory to be about the election of a new president, whom we made no

reference to in any of our materials, instead of the unrepresentative and ineffective nature of the NUS, which has continuously proven itself incapable of reform.”

Some of the key issues cited by the ‘No’ campaign included the rejection of a ‘One Member, One Vote’ motion at National Conference, a motion on ‘Safe Social Elections’ which sought to forcibly suspend usage of the anonymous social media app ‘YikYak’ during campus elections, which the ‘No’ campaign stated demonstrated the NUS’s disengagement and lack of familiarity with the needs and desires of the average student. continued on on page 7

“The unrepresentative and ineffective nature of the NUS, which has continually proven itself incapable of reform”

The results from the third elections of the academic year were announced on Thursday and Friday, revealing some of the Part-Time Officers for next year.

Voting closed at midday on Thursday, and while the results were due to be announced at 2pm, a power cut that affected several buildings on campus, including the Students’ Union, delayed the announcement. Candidates for most of the positions were notified by email on Thursday evening, before the final Student Council meeting of the year.

Safiya Robinson was re-elected as Racial Equality Officer after running un-contested, but resigned almost immediately in protest at NUSU’s disaffiliation from the NUS, standing up at the start of Student Council to announce her decision.

Sneha Vincent was elected the new International Students’ Officer, taking over from Jingxuan Guo. She defeated Oras Al-Ani by 330 votes to 183, gaining a clear majority in the first round of voting.

Vincent spoke to The Courier following her election. “As a first year

law student standing against a third year, initially elections and campaigning was very intimidating, but I was confident in my abilities and in my initiatives as an International Students’ Officer,” she said.

“I have a list of objectives that I will definitely be sure to fulfil and work towards devotionally. I am also very excited to work with such great, diligent people on the PTO panel for 2016/17 – the best team I could ask for.

“2016/17 will be ‘the year of change’ for international students.”

The current Gender Equality Officer, Lucy Morgan, successfully put a motion through Student Council to change the title of her role to Marginalised Genders Officer. The first holder of the new role will be Saffron Kershaw-Mee, who won 467 of the 651 votes in this election, with 184 students voted to re-open nominations (RON).

Kershaw-Mee said: “I was absolutely ecstatic when I found out I would be NUSU’s Marginalised Genders Officer next year. The past three years at University have been filled with emotional turmoil and chronic mental illness, making it hard for me to feel continued on on page 4

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News

Monday 16 May 2016

Deputy Editor: Mark Sleightholm News Editors: Peter Georgiev, Antonia Velikova, Sinead Corkett-Beirne, Sophie Norris & Jack Parker courier.news@ncl.ac.uk | @TheCourier_News

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NEWS

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Where does your recycling go?

Lecturers to strike during exams

COMMENT

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Student Politics Discussed

CULTURE

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Your tales from the Toon

Blind Date:

Jack and Sara

The Courier

Virtual reality educates viewers on veganism

By Ritwik Sarkar The vegan society held one of the most intriguing campaigns to have graced the front of the Students’ Union this past year. Instead of handing out leaflets, having bake sales or just generally trying to talk to the vast student populous, the society chose to tie-up with ‘iAnimal’ a company that transport people inside factory farms and slaughterhouses via virtual reality technology.

Paul McCartney once famously said: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarians” but of course they don’t, and most people remain unaware of the lives and deaths of animals raised for food.

Marrying the message of veganism with a full-scale entry into the world of slaughterhouses, however went beyond our traditional perceptions of food consumption. Veganism in its modern form has been panned as an alternative way of life that professes perplexing double standards that limits animal love to meat consumption.

The Vegan Society’s aim is to change this very perception. Through their presentation of the slaughterhouse, from a virtual reality perspective, one

is not only given a first hand account of how their meat is treated, but moreover the suffering animals have to undergo for our consumption.

Evoking a plethora of emotions from all participants, the campaign largely serves to shock people into realisation.

Upon the video’s completion, participants were asked by Vincent Kam, the president of the Society, whether this video would deter them from eating meat.

The answer, however, is not as simple as yes or no.

While television adverts showing starving children can easily be ignored by the flick of a remote, an immersion into virtual reality forces you to come face to face with a conception of reality you’d come to take for granted. The close up encounters of pigs being stuffed into lines, unaware of the fate that lies ahead of them, will elicit a response from the most emotionless of participants.

The staggeringly simple voice over forces you to not only place yourself in the position of the animal, but also view the fellow animal in a human form, and thus understand the true message of veganism.

As a meat eater for the better part of my 21-year existence, it took a 360 de-

“Terms like ‘free range’ and ‘farmfed’ only refer to a minuscule change in the environment of the animal”

gree virtual reality video of pigs being blinded and led into a gas chamber to truly realize why people chose not to eat meet. Understanding why people treated pigs like Nazis treated people is an absurd double standard that’s positively perplexing to get around.

That, in essence is what the campaign achieved successfully: to get people thinking about how we treat a fellow living entity that we rely on for such a large section of our lives.

The very fact that supermarkets across the nation regard gas chambers as “the most humane way” of killing animals, show how closed our understanding really is, and why the need for a dialogue towards veganism deserves, if nothing else, our attention.

Abbey Oxley, secretary of the Vegan Society, dispelled the perception of ‘ethically raised’ animals by highlighting that terms like ‘free range’ and ‘farm fed’ are deceptively advertised, as they only refer to a minuscule change in the environment of the animal. She also highlighted the hypocrisy of individuals choosing to consume free range products on one day, and eating meat from major fast food joints the next.

Which ever way you look at it, there is a need for people to, at the least, re-examine why they consume meat.

Moreover a deeper understanding of the functioning of a vegan diet needs to go beyond populist generalizations of alternative lifestyles and moral highground.

Skint Summer Savings The death of the Artist Drifting the Light Fantastic

Spotlight on Hormonal Research

The VR headsets showed the perspective of the animals Image: Ritwik Sarkar

NUSU, King’s Walk, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8QB. Tel: 0191 239 3940

The Courier is a weekly newspaper produced by students, for students. It’s never too late to get involved in the paper, whether you’re a writer, illustrator or photographer. Email editor.union@ncl.ac.uk for more information.

Editor Victoria Armstrong Deputy Editor Mark Sleightholm News Editors Antonia Velikova, Peter Georgiev, Sophie Norris, Sinead Corkett-Beirne and Jack Oliver Parker Comment Editors Jack Dempsey, Hanson Jones and Daniel Robertson Culture Editors Ellie McLaren and Laura Staniforth Lifestyle Editors Lauren Exell, Ruth Loeffler, Katie Ackerley, Fiona Callow and Jack Oliver Parker Fashion Editors Sara Macauley, Ellen Dixon and Liz Rosling Beauty Editors Lucy Cochrane, Ellen Walker and Flo Davies Arts Editors Holly Suttle, Jade Holroyd and Emily Watton Film Editors Rhian Hunter, Simon Ramshaw and Emma Allsopp TV Editors Helen Daly, Hannah Bunting and Reece Hanson Music Editors Jamie Shepherd, Dominique Daly and Connor McDonnell Science Editors Iqra Choudhry, Louise Bingham and Anna Jastrzembska Gaming Editors Ollie Burton, James McCoull and Michael Hicks Sports Editors Calum Wilson, Alex Hendley and Lewis Bedford

The Courier is printed by: Print and Digital Associates, Fernleigh House, 10 Uttoxeter Road, Derby, Derbyshire, United Kingdom, DE3 0DA. Established in 1948, The Courier is the fully independent student newspaper of the Students’ Union at Newcastle University. The Courier is published weekly during term time, and is free of charge.

The design, text, photographs and graphics are copyright of The Courier and its individual contributors. No parts of this newspaper may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Editor. Any views expressed in this newspaper’s comment pieces are those of the individual writing, and not of The Courier, the Students’ Union or Newcastle University.

The Courier

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Monday 16 May 2016

Courier study drug survey results in

By Antonia Velikova News Editor

Over 40% of students in Newcastle University believe that taking study aid drugs during term time does not amount to an unfair advantage, a survey conducted by The Courier has found.

From the 80 students who filled in the survey, 70% have not used study drugs before. Out of the 30% who have, 79% have said that they only use them on the odd occasion that they need them. 12% used them the majority of time during term time, and only 8% have reported using them all the time during their studies.

These results come as 93% of students said they had never used a drug testing kit after they were introduced in the Union, and just under a third were aware that they could buy their drug testing kits from the Student Advice Centre.

“I found it hard getting up early and spending all day revising in the library so I decided to buy some modafinil off the Internet in my final year after hearing good things about them from some mates,” one of the anonymous respondents in the survey said. “Studying Biomed, I knew that they were a novel therapeutic for many diseases including bipolar disorder and myalgic encephalopathy so I thought it was pretty safe.

“When I first took, I found that I was really jumpy and restless for the whole

morning, finding it hard to do any work. However in the afternoon I settled down and worked really solidly. It did wonders for my dissertation - I literally sat there and cracked it out.

“I only did it a few times though as I found the restless period really unsettling and difficult. I wouldn’t say the effect was hugely noticeable but it does help with studying.”

Out of the 29% of students, who said they had used study drugs before, 62% said they had experienced minor side effects, such as headaches, while 16% said that they had experienced significant side effects.

“They made my anxiety really bad afterwards,” one respondent has said in the survey.

25% of all surveyed students believed that the study aids provided those who take them with an “unfair advantage” over their peers.

“It’s disrespectful to people who are actually prescribed the drugs due to need and it’s cheating,” one respondent said.

Others described the taking of study drugs as “cheating” and “disrespectful” and something that “should be penalised.”

The results from the study drug survey come after members of Students for Sensible Drug Policies in Newcastle University have introduced accessible drug testing kits, setting a national precedent.

“12% used them the majority of time during term time, and only 8% have reported using them all the time during their studies”

Luke Allison, Welfare and Equality officer at Newcastle University said: “This re-iterates that some students do use drugs and not only recreationally. I think its important, looking forward to future exam seasons, to provide further information around study drugs and the risks students take by using them.”

Studies have shown that so-called

study aides do not increase intelligence, but performance and concentration.

“Study drugs have been shown to be effective to increase concentration but not ability - thus they are merely allowing students to focus for an extended period of time. It doesn’t amount to cheating,” another anonymous respondent said in The Courier’s survey.

Study drugs are normally prescribed for genuine medical conditions – for example Modafinil, one of the most widely used study aids, is a prescription-only medication for narcolepsy that the NHS’s website describes as “a central nervous system stimulant” that prevents “excessive sleepiness during daytime hours”.

PTO elections: the results for each position continued from front page proud of anything I achieve!

“However, I have finally reached a point in my life where I have regained my ambition and passion. I have plans to develop NUSU’s understanding of gender as a spectrum, to raise awareness of alternative pronoun use and increase the number of gender neutral toilets on campus.

“As a non-binary individual I will be able to give a new perspective on the term ‘marginalised genders’ and will hopefully cause some progressive change in the Union when it comes to gender identity. I’d like to thank every single person for voting for me (and for not voting RON!).”

Like Kershaw-Mee, Holly Waddell ran un-contested for the position of

Student Parents, Guardians and Carers Officer. This position was known as Students with Caring Responsibilities Officer until a Council motion this year changed the title to more accurately describe the role. This position attracted the fewest number of votes, with just 541 students voting. 79 of these votes went to RON, leaving Waddell the clear winner with 462.

Waddell said: “I would like to thank everyone who voted for me – I am really excited to get started in my new role.

“I hope to make Newcastle University more accessible to students with caring responsibilities by having them recognised on PEC forms as well as

strengthening ties between NUSU and Newcastle Carers to make students more aware of additional help available to them in the city.”

The election for the new LGBT+

were redistributed.

Following the result Levin said: “I’m really excited to continue the great work our LGBT+ officers have been doing this year! I hope I can work with all of the Newcastle LGBT+ to make our campus inclusive for everyone.”

The results for the new Chair of Union Council were delayed until Friday afternoon, while a complaint against one of the candidates was investigated.

This position attracted 718 votes, more than any other PTO position, and just 13 votes separated the two candidates in the first round. Once RON’s 37 votes were redistributed this gap narrowed to 11 votes, with Ollie Burton narrowly losing

“I have finally reached a point in my life where I have regained my ambition and passion. I have plans to develop NUSU’s understanding of gender as a spectrum” Officer saw the current officer, Fope Olaleye, defeated by Courtney Levin.

Levin was 14 votes ahead in the first round, with this margin remaining unchanged after the 63 votes for RON

out to Sam Cooke, who will take over from current Chair Rohan Kon. Cooke said: “I’m absolutely delighted to be the new chair; I think the fact that there were only 11 votes in it shows how hard-fought the campaign was. Next year I hope to see council attendance increase, not just from council regulars who are already really involved in NUSU but from normal students who just have good ideas to improve University life.”

Following last year’s record number of candidates for the March elections, NUSU decided to separate the Sabbatical and Part-Time Officer elections this year. Since there were no candidates for several PTO roles, such as Scrutiny Officer, elections will be held for these positions alongside Freshers’ Week Organisers in November.

4.news

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

A load of rubbish: what happens to your recyling?

The University is littered with colourful recycling bins, with a whole line of bins for paper, plastic, tins and other waste. But how much does it matter whether you separate your waste?

By Mark Sleightholm Deputy Editor Recycling has become a lot more common over the past few decade, with recycling bins now a common site. In fact, very little waste actually goes to landfill these days, with much of what cannot be recycled being burned to generate electricity.

Nearly a third of all the waste from the University is recycled, with the University’s recycling system a lot more sophisticated than in the average student house.

Once collected, the University’s waste is taken to a sorting facility. Here it is laid out on a conveyor belt and sorted into different materials. Some facilities use machinery to do this, but most use people. A line of employees stand either side of the belt, picking out a particular material; some will gather up the paper, others the card, and so on, throwing it down a chute.

The fastest, most experienced workers stand at the front of the line where the pace is most hectic, with newer recruits further down, where there’s less waste left on the belt.

These workers have to sort through all the rubbish that is thrown away. Not so bad if it’s just paper and card, but not a nice job when it’s mixed in with food scraps and is all soggy and greasy.

The more we separate our waste, the

less it needs sorting, and the easier it is to reuse. Once paper has been contaminated there are less options for recycling it, which is why we have separate recycling and normal waste bins. The University provides separate bins for tins, plastic and paper, because more streaming makes it even easier to recycle.

Many students wonder why there are so many bins, when at home it’s just one for normal waste and one for recycling, and in reality all of the recycling from the University’s colourful array of recycling bins is mixed up together on collection.

However, by separating it first the recycled material is kept in better condition, and it means the University is prepared for new regulations requiring everyone to separate recycling more extensively.

Scotland introduced a multi-stream recycling system in January this year, and it’s probable that regulations will soon change throughout the UK, requiring more nuanced recyling.

Recyling is ultimately the responsibility of individual councils, and so what can be recycled currently varies from area to area.

Separating out our recycling also makes it easier for the workers at the waste sorting facilities. There is someone there to pick out the paper you put in the wrong bin, but it’s making their job that bit harder.

“The more we separate our waste, the less it needs sorting, and the easier it is to reuse”

It actually does matter which bin you put your rubbish in Image: Mark Sleightholm

Researchers put on performance

By Sinead Corkett-Beirne News Editor

Researchers from Newcastle University have collaborated with Cap-a-Pie, a theatre company based in the North East, to create three short theatrical pieces which will be performed at Northern Stage on 26 May 2016.

An array of topics will be explored which will focus on research that is currently being conducted by academics at Newcastle University.

These include the migratory behaviour of birds and humans, how individuals curate and edit their lives for future generations, and the work that scientists are pursuing designed to protect the human body from bad bacteria once antibiotics have removed traces of good bacteria.

Paula Salgado, a lecturer and researcher at Newcastle University, is currently conducting research on Clostridium difficile, a bacteria that can affect the bowels. Salgado said, “I am interested in doing performing research because it sounds like an exciting way to explore different ways of looking at this bacteria.”

A discussion is set to take place following the performance that will give members of the audience an opportunity to discuss the show with members of Cap-a-Pie and Newcastle University academics.

Brad McCormick, an artistic direc-

additional reporting by Emilie Coutin

tor at Cap-a-Pie, said, “This is a brilliant opportunity to come and find out what goes on inside Newcastle University.

The researchers we are working with on this programme are all exploring the latest thinking and ideas in their various fields and they are really excited about bringing their work to a wider audience.”

Newcastle University have been working with Cap-a-Pie since 2012 to combine research and theatre that is designed to branch out to new audiences and encourage wider participation.

The theatre company is currently working with Newcastle University’s Institute for Creative Arts Practice and the Engagement Team.

Cap-a-Pie also work with schools and communities where they engage with people from a diversity of backgrounds.

They also work with a range of groups including older people, school pupils, immigrant communities, foster children, unemployed youths, homeless adults, young people with Autism spectrum disorder and children and families.

The performance will commence at 7pm and it is expected to last one hour.

Tickets cost £5 and are available to purchase online or from Northern Stage box office. The project is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and funding from Newcastle University.

“The researchers we are working with are all exploring the latest thinking and ideas”

34.4%

The Courier

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Monday 16 May 2016

World food celebrated at culture tasting event

By Sima Nikolajeva On Tuesday 10 May, Combined Honours Student Staff Committee hosted their first ever “Taste of Culture” event on campus, aimed at helping international students to integrate into the local community while bringing people together to share food and culture.

“The idea is that everyone come along with some food, maybe something from their country or region, and we all come together to eat!

It is a great way to meet new people and learn about different cultures in a relaxed environment”, told Rachel, first year French and Psychology, to The Courier.

According to the organisers’ words, the event welcomed a diverse public of around 30 students from many different degree stages and disciplines, with many of them actually bringing national meals and dishes from their home countries, and will be aiming to encourage even more to come next time.

“We had Bulgarian filo cheese pie, German caramelised nut biscuits and English apple and berry crumble to name just a few foods and countries that were represented”, said Rachel.

“I think everyone really enjoyed the event, we ended up playing games, put some music on and I think everyone

met someone new, which is the whole point!”, she added.

As referred to Rachel, the event was a first attempt at what is believed to become an annual event, promoting sense of inclusion among international students on campus.

The idea for “Taste of Culture” event came from members of the Combined Honours Student Staff Committee, which meets several times a year to look into the problems experienced by different groups of students and try and come up with solutions to improve their university experience.

“It was the Student Staff Committee of our degree that was really the driving force behind the event, and the feedback we got will go towards setting up an annual or biannual event, to take place at the beginning of each term”, Rachel explains.

“This time it took us a couple of weeks to organise the event, to advertise it, buy in a few supplies and cook.

Hopefully, when we come to do the next one at the beginning of the next academic year, we will be very well organised”, she added.

“Many thanks to Rachel for the amazingly organized event and her hard work; we all had lots of fun and great food!”, said Fanni, the event’s attendee.

“The event was a first attempt at what is believed to become an annual event promoting sense of inclusion”

Bulgaria was represented with its filo cheese pie (Banitsa) Image: Merle ja Joonas (Flickr)

App works like magic for city’s drivers

By Sophie Norris News Editor A new parking app has been created by third year Computing student Dylan McKee. The Parking Fairy, which aims to help drivers find a parking space in Newcastle’s busy centre, launched on May 9, alongside other winners of a competition set up by North East and Tyne Valley (NETV) Digital Catapult, in partnership with Sunderland Software City.

20 year old McKee created the free app in response to the problem of finding a car parking space in Newcastle City Centre.

To date, it has been downloaded over 400 times.

The app uses open data provided by the North East Combined Authority to learn the driver’s location through geofence technology.

Apps that use similar location-based technology include Google Maps, The Guardian and other news apps, and even dating apps such as Tinder.

The competition was won by three winners, all of whom came up with ideas on how open data could deal with travel problems.

The winners each recieved £5000 funding to develop their ideas into working applications for the Apple iPhone App Store.

Digital Catapult NETV aimed to encourage individuals with ideas to submit them via a form on the Data Movement website, stating that even beginners could put forward their ideas.

McKee has particular expertise in mobile apps.

On the topic of his original idea, he

told The Chronicle: “I came up with the idea of The Parking Fairy to offer a simple but smart solution to the problem of struggling to find a parking space when you come into a city.

“Using open data provided by the North East Combined Authority, once you have The Parking Fairy app, it will know your location via geofence technology.

The Digital Catapult Centre, based in Sunderland, working in partnership with Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland, Teeside and Northumbria universities.

It aims to help digital innovators to bring products to market.

It works with both private and public sectors, universities and the wider North-East software community.

The partnership works largely with businesses from non-technical backgrounds in order to help them use data to promote their work.

The centre will host a Charity Sector Hackathon on May 20 to enable members of that sector to learn how to overcome challenges through the use of data.

McKee’s app also helps you to avoid getting lost in the map of one-way systems in Newcastle and even takes the weather into account.

He said: “The app will also give you directions and prioritises indoor car parks so if it is raining you do not get caught out.”

“I intend to add more features to the app in the future to show which car parks are free after 5pm.

“I’d definitely like to develop more apps in the future too.”

“The app uses open data to learn the driver’s location through geofence technology”

The app was funded by NETV Digital Catapult Image: Dylan McKee

The Courier

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Monday 16 May 2016

‘Our students feel that the NUS no longer represents their views’ continued from front page Meanwhile, the ‘Yes’ campaign focused on the NUS’s history of achievements made possible by the NUS speaking for students nationally, for instance their 1992 campaign which led to all students being exempted from council tax and their successful campaign to remove the age cap on postgraduate study loans, alongside the work that NUS does for liberation groups.

The financial cost/benefit of NUS membership was also heavily debated by the two campaigns, with the ‘No’ campaign stating that NUSU’s annual affiliation fee of approximately £52,000 was not getting good value for money, whilst the ‘Yes’ campaign argued to the contrary, also noting the benefits of the NUS Extra card that approximately 2000 Newcastle University students purchase every year.

Rob Noyes, leader of the Newcastle ‘Yes to NUS’ campaign, said: “The decision, celebrated by some and voted on by few, will impact many. What will replace the support for liberation campaigns? How can Newcastle possibly hope to address national issues from inside the bubble of our own university? Leaving the NUS leaves people leading liberation campaigns vulnerable and unsupported.”

Newcastle is just one of the campuses to have held or be intending to hold a referendum on NUS membership. Increased dissatisfaction has been seen from SUs nation-wide over a variety of reasons, typically including accusations of lacking democracy, divisiveness, and that the NUS leadership are out of touch.

Referendums have already been held at Lincoln University and the University of Exeter, with the former opting to disaffiliate and the latter opting to remain. Referendums are upcoming at the University of Hull, Royal Holloway University, Oxford University, Cambridge University and Loughborough University, amongst others. A petition has also recently been started at Northumbria University, seeking for the Northumbria SU to hold a referendum on their NUS membership.

Speaking to The Courier, the President of the NUS, Megan Dunn, commented: “We’re disappointed Newcastle University Students’ Union has decided to leave the national student movement and disaffiliate from NUS. We understand there were issues raised by students and we could not answer them.

“NUS has a 94-year history of winning for students and that has positively impacted students from Newcastle in many ways. We have already promised and will deliver change in NUS and hope one day soon NUSU will rejoin us.

“Plans to reform our membership model are currently being put in place and we already looking to the long term future of NUS, as we work on a new democratic structure and develop the strategy that will carry us through to our 100th anniversary in 2022 A comment by NUSU President

Dominic Fearon, regarding the result was published on NUSU’s website, and stated: “It is clear that our students feel that the NUS no longer represents their views, does not prioritise correctly, and is not effective at achieving change.

“The current discontent amongst students nationally can be measured in the number of unions considering holding referenda on their membership. We hope that the NUS will acknowledge their shortcomings and will work to become the national union that students deserve and can identify with.”

“The warning signs were there last year when the President of NUSU along with 12 other Presidents signed an open letter calling for reform in NUS; this fell on deaf ears. It is not clear at this stage whether all signatories of the letter will be holding similar affiliation referenda.

We feel at this point in time that all students should be given a chance to have their voices heard.”

“I personally believe through moving to a ‘one member, one vote’ system for elections the NUS can make big improvements in these areas and students may become more engaged and represented.”

“Newcastle University recently ranked in the Top 10 for student satisfaction in the Times Higher Survey and were voted “Students’ Union of the year” and “University of the Year”

by Educate North. 86% of Newcastle students believe that NUSU campaigns effectively on their behalf; this clearly does not translate nationally with only 33% of students wanting to remain affiliated to NUS.”

“We have already promised and will deliver change in NUS”

“The decision, celebrated by some and voted on by few, will impact many”

Lecturers to strike during exams over pay rise refusal

By Antonia Velikova News Editor

Universities and College Union members in Newcastle University will undertake strike action on Wednesday 25 May and Thursday 26 May as part of an ongoing dispute over pay cuts.

This is a part of a national decision after a ballot undertaken by the national UCU. Staff will also begin working to contract from 25 May, which means they will refuse to work overtime, set additional work or undertake any voluntary duties like covering timetabled classes for absent colleagues.

The planned strike action is in light of the ongoing regional ballot among UCU members about strike or action short of strike to counter University-led initiative for research expectations, Raising the Bar. The dispute has arisen following a pay offer of 1.1% from the employer body, the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA), which the union has described as ‘an insult’. The

national UCU said universities could afford to pay more and that the latest offer does little to address the real terms pay cut of 14.5% suffered by higher education staff since 2009.

“Members in higher education have sent a clear message to employers that, after six years of real-terms pay cuts amounting to 14.5%, they will not tolerate a continued squeeze on their income,” said UCU general secretary Sally Hunt.

“Industrial action which impacts on students is never taken lightly, but staff feel that they have been left with no alternative.

“A 1.1% offer is an insult to the hard work and dedication of higher education staff, particularly in light of the 3% average pay rise enjoyed by vice-chancellors this year.”

The squeeze on staff salaries arrives

“A 1.1% offer is an insult to the hard work and dedication of higher education staff”

when pay and benefits for university leaders have increased, on average, by 3%, with the average pay and pensions package for v i c e - ch an c e l l ors standing at over £270,000.

The University has stated that they expect there to be very little, if any, impact on students.

If the ballot for industrial action against Raising the Bar, which ends on Tuesday, ends with a decision for a strike or action short of strike, marking exams in the end of May and beginning of June may be delayed.

Raising the Bar has been criticized by both staff and students for using what has been described as an ‘outdated’ form of performance management tactics.

The University is holding a Town Hall meeting with Vice Chancellor Chris Brink to discuss Raising the Bar on Tuesday 17 May in the Curtis Auditorium. A motion was also past at last week’s Student Council, mandating sabbatical officers to hold public consultation with students on the scheme.

“Industrial action which impacts on students is never taken lightly, but staff feel they have been left with no alternative”

Blast from the past: Courier archive to be launched online

By Mark Sleightholm Deputy Editor Every issue from The Courier’s 68-year history will soon be made available online, following the complete digitisation of the archive.

The Courier launched in 1948, making it one of the oldest surviving student newspapers in the country.

Since 2015 the Special Collections and Archive team at the Robinson Library have been digitising the archive with help from Woodhorn Museum and Northumberland Archives. Not only is every page from almost every issue available to browse online, the archive will be fully searchable.

The archive will be officially launched as part of the Convocation and Alumni weekend, on Saturday 11 June in the Herschel Building. It is hoped that former contributors to The Courier will attend the event.

Ian Johnson, Head of Special Collections and Archives, said: “At the launch guests can hear some fascinating insights from this collaborative project.

They will then have the opportunity to explore these fascinating archives themselves.”

Originally known as King’s Courier, the paper was launched by Stuart Shaw and Allan Marsh as an eight-page paper covering news, sports and arts in what was then known as King’s College, part of the University of Durham.

Many former editors and contributors to The Courier have gone on to successful careers in the media. Stuart Prebble and Dianne Nelmes, both edi-

tors of the paper in the early 1970s, later worked for Granada Television, while Simon Bird (Editor 1993-94) and David Coverdale (Editor 2009-10) both now report on football in the North East for national newspapers.

Tim Farron, current leader of the Liberal Democrats, was President of the Union from 1990-91, and appears in The Courier, both as a writer and as the subject of news articles.

The Courier has won best publication at the Guardian Student Media Awards on three occasions, in 1994, 2012 and 2013, and came runners-up in 2015.

The paper had a tabloid feel until a substantial redesign in 2008, under the editorship of Sam Parker. The Courier was frequently at odds with the Students’ Union and the University, and on several occasions editors were sacked or forced to step down.

The paper has expanded significantly since the early 2000s, with many new sections, such as Fashion, TV and Science, being added to the paper, most recently Gaming in 2014.

The archive offers an insight into not just the history of the newspaper, but the history of the Students’ Union, the University and the city of Newcastle itself. In many cases parallels can be seen between the stories in the archives and contemporary events: Newcastle also faced calls to leave the NUS in 1981, for example, and violence in Mens Bar (and calls to rename it) have been recurring themes throughout The Courier’s history.

8.nationalstudentnews

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

NEWSTACK Strike could delay results Nationwide

University lecturers are to walk out on 25 and 26 May following a pay rise offer of 1.1%, announced the University and College Union (UCU). It is expected to cause disruption on campuses across the country, especially over the busy exam period.

The union has described the decision as “an insult” and that institutions “could afford to pay more”. Vice-chancellors, on the other hand, have had a pay rise of 3% this year, leaving unions with “no other alternative.”

The University and Colleges Employers’ Association, the employers’ body, said the figure of a 1.1% increase only represented part of the pay deal and the average rise would be worth 2.3%.

UCU has warned that without a resolution there would be “additional action in August to coincide with the release of A-level results”.

Withdrawal from Stockton Durham

Teaching Excellence Awards 2016 Location: The placement can be carried out in a variety of spaces on the Newcastle Campus. The student will have regular meetings in Dr Dale’s office, can use the History, Classics and Archaeology Reading Room as workspace, but also use the library, computer clusters.

Person Requirements: The idea candidate will be well-organised, able to manage their own work independently, and demonstrate good research skills.

Students with a solid knowledge of Russian/Soviet history at undergraduate level, and who have previous knowledge and experience of Dr Dale’s Second Year Module – HIS2235 – The Soviet Experiment, 19171991 may have a particular advantage. The placement would also suit students comfortable with a range of computing resources and practices. This need not be at the level of an ability to code or programme, but an ability to use navigate YouTube, conduct extensive web-searchers, and use blogging packages like WordPress would be extremely helpful. Knowledge of Russia is not essential to this project, but students with some Russian or a willingness to at least learn the Cyrillic alphabet and some preliminary research terms would be an advantage.

Degree Discipline: Specified Above How to Apply: Please apply online stating Newcastle University as the employer and Multi-media Resources Placement as the placement title.

Newcastle Work Experience-Sustainability Resource Assistant Newcastle University | Newcastle upon Tyne | £1200 Bursary Newcastle Work Experience (NWE) is a summer work experience programme providing current and graduating Newcastle University students the opportunity to undertake challenging, project-based placements within Newcastle University and North East businesses. This placement is for 5 weeks full time between June and September.

The successful student would review and update the material currently posted on the Sustainability Resource guide hosted by the University library. This will include validating existing resources, adding new “hot topics” and sourcing information on these as well as working with students, possibly as a focus group to assess their opinions on the site. At the moment the site is biased towards engineering due to competences on the previous students who worked on this. We want to redress this and add more societal aspects as well.

Closing Date: 22/05/2016

Location: Newcastle upon Tyne Person Requirements: Student must have a keen interest in Sustainability and knowledge of key issues.

Must be highly computer literate and be able to work with websites and enter data.

Must be self motivated.

Degree Discipline: Any degree discipline How to Apply: Please apply online here http://forms. ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=5828 stating Newcastle University as the employer and Sustainability Resource Assistant as the placement title.

School of Mathematics & Statistics Outreach Development Assistant Newcastle University | Newcastle upon Tyne | £1440 Bursary Newcastle Work Experience (NWE) is a summer work experience programme providing current and graduating Newcastle University students the opportunity to undertake challenging, project-based placements within Newcastle University and North East businesses.

The School of Mathematics and Statistics is responsible for the teaching of all mathematics and statistics degrees at the University. We have active research collaborations with many groups worldwide and across the University. We also organise a range of events aimed at promoting the study of mathematics and statistics at school level in order to raise awareness of the subjects with school-age children.

The aim of the project is to compile a useable database of contacts in local schools and colleges for use in the School of Mathematics and Statistics outreach programme. This will include contact information for the lead teacher for Mathematics in each school as well as the numbers of students in sixth form studying a Mathematics subject. The student will also be required to make contact with each school, by phone in the first instance and maybe face-to-face subsequently, to discuss our outreach programme with them. Additionally, the student will carry out a review of the outreach and promotional activities of other Higher Education establishments as well as those of other schools and faculties within the University. Finally, they will review the careers pages of other HE providers and create a presentation relating to Careers in Mathematics.

This placement is for 6 weeks full time and it is intended that the placement will begin in June and run until the middle of July.

Location: Sunderland Person Requirements: Previous experience in marketing and social/digital media is essential.

We are also interested to hear from individuals with previous journalism and design experience.

Degree Discipline: Any degree discipline How to Apply: Please apply online here http://forms. ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=5828 stating Content Marketing Executive as the placement title.

Newcastle Work Experience - Content Marketing Executive Sun FM Ltd | Sunderland | £1200 bursary Newcastle Work Experience (NWE) is a summer work experience programme providing current and graduating Newcastle University students the opportunity to undertake challenging projects within Newcastle University and North East businesses.

This placement is for 10 weeks part time to take place between July and September.

Sun FM Ltd is the No.1 radio station broadcasting to Sunderland. Our sister brand localsunderland. com launched one year ago, and we are investing in growing this local platform further.

Our news team currently populate stories. We require a Content Marketing Executive to oversee the content strategy, sourcing and creating local stories and items of interest to grow the reader audience. This will predominantly be through social media and digital platforms, as well as utilising our Sun FM multiplatform channels to cross pollinate more users.

We need ideas that generate both content and particularly revenue.

Closing Date: 22/05/2016 Location: Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne Person Requirements: You must have strong analytical and numeracy skills. A background in economics is desired but not essential.

Degree Discipline: Any degree discipline How to Apply: Please apply via this link: http://forms. ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=5828 stating Market Research Analyst as the title.

Newcastle Work Experience - Market Research Analyst (Energy) Ceres Energy Ltd | Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne | £2400 bursary Newcastle Work Experience (NWE) is a summer work experience programme providing current and graduating Newcastle University students with the opportunity to undertake challenging, project-based placements within Newcastle University and North East businesses.

This placement is for 10 weeks full-time to take place between June and September.

We are seeking two placement students to work as a team to research price and regulation in the gas and electricity markets. On completing your placement, you will have a good understanding of the retail gas and electricity markets in the UK, the components of its prices and the regulations that the market regulator, OfGEM, has in place to safeguard the consumer.

Closing Date: 22/05/2016

Durham University is to relocate ‘some academic and all college-based activities”’ from Stockton to Durham City beginning next year.

Proposals will potetntially affect academic units including the School of Medicine, as well as Pharmacy and Health, the John Snow and Stephenson residential colleges and the Wolfson Research Institute.

Regarding the decision, professor Stuart Corbridge, vice-chancellor and warden, Durham University, insisted: “We remain committed to both Stockton and Durham and are excited by these developments, following extensive consultation and discussion internally and more widely.

When the review was reported, concerns were raised that the university’s scheme could have a negative impact on Stockton, but the Borough Council has now shown its support for the plans.

Fluffy pets help with stress Leicester

In order to support students studying for endless hours for exams, University of Leicester Students’ Union has been organising over 16 events for them from 29th April to 26th May. Two of the most popular events both involved adorable animals.

Krishna Consciousness society is also to host a meditation session on 16th May, when students have a great opportunity to take time out of their busy study schedule to meditate and free their mind of those exam and revision blues. Other activities included NYX Cosmetics Giveaway, Lasertag game, golf, free massages, etc.

Lion King sparks outrage Cambridge

Cambridge University is embroiled in a race row after students complained about an Africanthemed dinner last Wednesday based on Lion King and inviting guests to “Bring your Rafikis”. Some students called to boycott the event because it represents ‘cultural appropriation’ rather than appreciation, meaning elements of a minority culture are inappropriately borrowed by those in the majority. The Africa Formal dinner saw undergraduates from Queens’ College dine on traditional cuisine from Senegal, Morocco, South Africa and Nigeria.

On the dinner’s Facebook page, it wrote “Hakuna Matata” and signing off saying “bring your rafikis along!” Writing on the feminist blog FlygirlsofCambridge, student Alice Davidson said: “Perhaps if the initiative had come from members of the African Society Cambridge University themselves, who could then determine the menu and terms of cultural exchange rather than being invited as a token afterthought.”

The president of the African Society, Halimatou Hima, confirmed that Queens’ College had tried to work with them on the event. But they withdrew after communication broke down.

By Phoebe Ng

The Courier

.9

Monday 16 May 2016

Comment thecourieronline.co.uk/comment

Comment Editors: Daniel Robertson, Hanson Jones & Jack Dempsey courier.comment@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Comment

Should pro-life societies be at universities?

Two writers give their opinions on whether universities should or should not encourage debate about the legitimacy of abortion Iqra Choudhry — YES

L

et me say this, first and foremost – I’m staunchly pro-choice. I grew up in a conservative Muslim household, with a mother who is firmly entrenched in the pro-life camp. I think she’s befuddled as to how I turned out so very different and ‘liberal’, but we’ve never fallen out about our stances on this issue or numerous others.

University is a place where you’ll meet people of varying ideal: differing political stances; people who believe in charity and those who can’t be arsed; people who fight passionately for diversity, awareness of mental health issues and race issues; you meet people with pro-choice views, with prolife views; vegans, vegetarians, and pescetarians – it’s the one place you’ll find yourself coming across a myriad of views that you won’t have encountered before, and might not necessarily agree with.

University is also a place where you can vice your opinions. Free speech dictates that you can hold whichever views you identify with, without being imprisoned by the state or unfairly discriminated against. (Yes, I’m playing the free speech card, because it does apply here). So long as a group is not inciting hatred, nor condoning violence against another group, they should be allowed to hold their view, meet, and discuss them without fear.

Some students have concerns that LifeSoc’s existence would be upsetting to those at university who have had abortions; who have a personal tie to euthanasia; students who support embryonic stem cell research for personal reasons.

They believe that having a pro-life society on campus would send out the message that students who have had abortions are not welcome at Newcastle. And these are valid concerns. But we cannot vilify a society for anything

“Free speech dictates that you can hold whichever views you identify with, without being imprisoned by the state or unfairly discriminated against”

other than what their actions bring about, and it seems unfair to judge a society before its ratifica-

tion.

Playing the ‘free speech’ card again – I think that if those with differing opinions from LifeSoc members want to, there’s nothing to stop them from forming a pro-choice society – I for one would be amongst the first to join. We have a unique opportunity here to bring a taboo issue to the fore, and we shouldn’t pass it up.

In their own words, LifeSoc have stated that ‘the ethos of Newcastle Life Society is to uphold respect for human life from conception to natural death to create a culture where all human life is respected.

As such we do not support

I

“Even here at Newcastle, a society now exists in which members can freely discuss issues close to their hearts.

Unfortunately however, one of these happens to be the flagrant immorality of abortion”

In our democratic society, it is the kneejerk reaction to rail against all forms of censorship. This comes from a good-natured liberal philosophy: that the voice of every individual should be heard, no matter what their background is. As righteous as this is in theory, it refuses to acknowledge those trou-

“Having a LifeSoc on campus could open up a host of conversations about the issues they feel strongly about, and surely that’s a good thing?”

affect human life.’

As a person of faith, I disagree with the beliefs held by those in the Newcastle Atheist and Secular Humanist Society, but I would never have tried to protest their formation - just because our views clash, it does not mean I have a right to silence them. Instead, I’m actually going along to one of their talks about Muslim women, and debating whether my beliefs are better for women than atheist views, because having differing opinions doesn’t mean we should be divided.

In fact, here is a unique chance for LifeSoc to hold talks and discussions with lots of other societies about their views – I’m sure FemSoc would be up for a debate on pro-choise vs pro-life views, for one. I personally, would like to learn more about what makes people our age choose a pro-life stance.

I’m sure that I’m not alone. Having a LifeSoc on campus could open up a host of conversations about the issues they feel strongly about, and surely that’s a good thing?

Jack Dempsey — NO n recent months, there has been a great deal of media interest in censorship on British university campuses. A particularly highlighted example of this was the no-platforming of Germaine Greer, who was disallowed from speaking at Cardiff University under the reasoning that her transphobic views could hurt or offend trans* students. Now a story has arisen in Scottish media over a ‘pro-life society’ being refused funding by the University of Strathclyde Students’ Association, who view the beliefs of the group as being at odds with their equality policy. As with the Greer debate, all the same buzzwords can again be heard: censorship, suppression, PC gone mad, the list goes on.

practices including but not limited to embryonic stem cell research, abortion and euthanasia which intentionally aim to destroy human life. We will hold talks, discussions and debates on issues which

blesome outside factors that so often muddy up the issue of who should be heard.

Without any external circumstances to consider or emphasise with, it is far too easy to boldly declare that anyone should have a platform regardless of their views. Even here at Newcastle, a society now exists called ‘Life’ in which members can freely discuss issues close to their hearts. Unfortunately however, one of these issues happens to be the flagrant immorality of abortion.

As much as I am a fervent believer that university is the exact kind of place where difficult conversations should be taking place on a wide range of issues, I do not believe that abortion is one of them.

Women fought ferociously for years for the legal right to an abortion, and they sure as hell aren’t going to give that up any time soon. The legalisation of abortion has made it an extremely safe medical procedure, providing millions of women every year with release during what can be a very dark time in their lives mentally and emotionally. Nobody should ever be obliged to have a child if they don’t want to, and I am genuinely baffled as to how anyone could think otherwise. The idea in itself is tremendously dangerous, as exemplified by those countries where abortion is still illegal and vast amounts of children are born into crime and poverty every day. Or, even worse, pregnant women

are forced to seek dangerous backstreet abortions.

But aside from that, the main issue with societies with anti-abortion views operating on university campuses is that they then represent the university itself. One must ask: what kind of message does this send to women who come to university having had abortions? More often than not, the circumstances behind an abortion are terribly sad and emotive.

Imagine a person who gets an abortion in order to further their education without the near impossible challenge of having to raise a child alongside

“Imagine the University ‘Life’ society condemning you at the Freshers’ fair for what was in all likelihood one of the most affecting experiences of your life”

finally arriving at the Freshers’ fair only to have the University’s ‘Life’ society brandishing their harmful message and actively condemning them for what was in all likelihood one of the most affecting experiences of their life. A huge problem with

the anti-abortion stance is that it presupposes a knowledge of a pregnant woman’s life circumstances, such as the nature of the conception itself. If the act wasn’t consented to, then criticism of their decision to abort would not just be triggering, it would be actively condemning the victim of a traumatic crime for rectifying an injustice forced upon them by another.

Students are adults, but independently achieving emotional stability is a slow and continuous process that is more difficult for some than others. Everyone knows how unsettling those first few months at university can be; a period of time that makes us feel most like children. Obviously, no one expects the university to eradicate all forms of the stigma from the lives of its students. The least it can do however is cut itself off from a group so divisive that it basically traffics in stigma. At the same time, if students do want to discuss anti-abortion ideas, then they obviously cannot and should not be stopped from doing so. But that does not mean universities need to validate their views by officially affiliating with and funding the society, which should be refused anyway on the grounds that their views clash horrifically with the policy of equality and progression that our union supposedly upholds. You can call this the marginalisation of a minority religious group, but think about the isolation they in turn induce upon women who have had abortions and tell me whom you feel sorrier for. This isn’t dictatorial tactics: on the contrary, it’s letting vulnerable students know that they will not be confronted with the presumptuous, intrusive and dangerous attitudes of a group that champions an archaic patriarchal agenda rooted in superstition and myth.

10.comment

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

The Courier investigates how student pol For the last edition of the year, Comment re-investigates the current state of student politics in STUDENT DIVISION

CONTROVERSY

Errol Kerr

Lewis Elliott

T

his has been the most difficult piece I’ve written, for multiple reasons. Directly criticising student politics when the political body is composed of so many well-respected individuals and friends has been the most difficult thing I’ve done – and this is my dissertation year. I’ve feared that voicing my opinion on the state of Newcastle Uni’s political shambles will have me labelled many things. But, what can I say? Sometimes, you need to get past the fear.

On Thursday evening, I entered the last Students’ Union council of this year, knowing that, as always, the atmosphere of student politics was going to be more divisive than ever. This year has seen an extraordinary divide occur in the core political body of students, even prior to any questions of referendums into the NUS and widespread anger during elections. It was in that last council meeting, having brought new individuals to council for the first time, that I realised the damaging nature of current student politics and the danger that it possesses to alienate the student body. I’m in no place to dictate student politics myself, however I’ve seen too many vulnerable people caught in the crossfire whilst uncaring individuals met violence with violence, too busy reacting to how others have belittled them.

Student positions of power within the university, as well as the existence of a Student Council, is designed to allow students to make a positive difference within the student community, however I can guarantee I’m not the only person to believe that these aims have been overridden by a toxic and unhealthy environment for everyone involved. Incredibly passionate camps have sprung up on all sides, each with their backs up toward each other. There has been little to no attempt at communication, for multiple reasons, and a pervasive mindset held that there is only *us* and *them*, with there being enough of a willingness to maintain this dichotomy that this divide has held. Because of this lack of communication and cooperation, people have seen little option than to resort to anger. Students no longer feel represented by the bodies who are supposed to do so, and whilst this may be well-known in the media with the NUS, this is all too visible in our own Students’ Union.

Despite this, anger has only been met with anger. Across the board, differences of opinion have led to personal attacks. Hatred has spread across certain groups and individuals due to differences of opinion. Misunderstandings have led to situations where individuals have been confronted by multiple individuals, anonymous messages have personally targeted individuals, and people have felt like places where they once felt welcomed and safe are no longer places they are welcome.

Hell, at a point, criticisms toward the NUS led a friend of mine to abandon their social media after anonymous ProNUS individuals threatened to out them to their relatives. Whilst this is unbearably petty, it has done significant damage to many people’s mental health, on all sides of the debate. If this is how current university political divides work, no wonder voter and council turnout has been so low. People should fear having their views rebuffed with toxic direct attacks, and nobody should be reduced to tears in student council. It’s no wonder that people feel uncomfortable and unrepresented.

When paperwork, money and personal vendettas come ahead of the good of the student body, there’s no way that progress can be made. And this toxic environment has been pervasive across the year - as an individual with autism, this kind of environment is one that pushed me toward a complete meltdown, and I know more than one person who has anxiety who has felt incapable of voicing their views due to the state of things.

Aggression and violence is the current core of Newcastle’s political body, and is forcing individuals out who just want to be heard and no more. I desperately hope that in the next year, cooperation is something central to student politics, that even for just a few moments, people are truly included and are able to voice their opinions without fearing that passionate and wonderful people will suddenly turn against them and equally because nobody should be reduced to tears in student council.

FOLLOW UP

This re-investigation comes a year after Rob Magowan’s article highlighting (and praising) a year of youth activism and ‘solidarity’ within the university. He demonstrated how youth activism had paved the way forward, through campaigns and democracy. What we have posed this year to our writers is whether the assurance that we can be ‘rest assured’ to the future of student politics for this year has come into fruition, or failed.

S

tudent politics has been full of controversies recently, and consequently it has received a great deal of press coverage.

For example on a national level, we have seen an emerging debate across the UK about whether universities should remain affiliated to NUS or not, and this is being felt at campuses across the country, and not least here at Newcastle, where students voted to leave by a large margin.

This seems to me to be one of many symptoms of a wider problem and general dissatisfaction throughout student politics today. It has increasingly become very divisive and in my view, very much biased toward the political far-left, leaving those with other views on the side-lines.

In this sense I feel student politics at Newcastle could be seriously improved and made much more effective with some key changes.

Currently Council motions can be passed with the approval of only a handful of students, and to me that is not representative when such motions could have implications for thousands of students across campus. In addition, the 20 casual places allocated at each council sitting for a student body of around 23,000 seem to me to be far too few to be representative, although that is an entirely different debate.

Finally, the divisiveness and factionalism that features in council and student politics more generally must change. It should not be an all-out battle of ideologies or identity politics, rather it ought to be a forum for discussion and civil debate, for the benefit of all Newcastle students, -always.

People should be able to agree to disagree, even on the most irreconcilable differences, and in my view anything less than that is unsatisfactory. Student politics as a whole has a major problem at present and we could start to change this right here in our institution by making our own political processes fairer and more representative. Only by doing this, can we build a better student politic and therefore a better way in which we run our union and protect the interests of students.

JUST A CLIQUE Max George

A

brief jolly through the Twitter feeds and threads of those involved in student politics might lead one to believe that something degenerate is afoot. Personal attacks and one-ups are far easier to articulate in 140 characters than reasoned arguments are. And then there’s the NUS. The fucking NUS. Whether you love, loathe or are totally indifferent towards it, the organisation is hardly getting a good press right now. Student politics is a bit of a joke, but as with all levels of politics, jokes tend not matter when it comes to serious business.

There is no reliable evidence for this hunch, but anecdotal evidence suggests heavily that most students JUST DON’T CARE. NUSU’s student council is abuzz if 50 people turn up. Officer elections elicit a turnout of only around 20-30 percent. And we only seem to hear about that bloody NUS when some provocateur avouches that Holocaust Memorial Day isn’t inclusive so ought not to be supported.

My parents testify to me that student politics has always been thus: a small clique involved in all the organs of student politics, blissfully unaware of the general dispassion of the student population. Student politics is such a peripheral activity that perhaps we should start electing a union officer for marginalised student politicians.

This is not at all to disparage everyone involved in student politics.

I count myself among the ultra-minority that has attended student council meetings; many good ideas are aired and debated. But the bubble which surrounds the little world of student activism and campaigning ought to be burst. Let’s not stop ensuring that help is in place for students who need it, but by the same token let’s start recognising what most students want from their university years: good mates, great parties, and a decent degree at the end.

There are movements at all levels of politics which often attract ridicule or appear to be of total non-interest to the majority of the population. We can see this fully exercised in last week’s NUS referendum where only 6.5% of student’s engaged with the poling of the referendum and the PTO positions. But this is not exclusively to undermine this one election, voter turnout on a university level struggles to surpass anything close to 25%. Whatever minor influence this political clique may have occasionally, when the big decisions have to be taken, the silent majority pushes that influence into insignificance.

The Courier

comment.11

Monday 16 May 2016

itics fell from grace this year a period of adversity, one year on from Rob Magowan’s glowing review of student activism POPULARITY CONTESTS

PRIVILEGE

Emma Bancroft

Iqra Choudhry

T

here have been several elections held this academic year. So I’m told, I had to check. Did you know? I didn’t. After being a student at Newcastle University for two years now I had pretty much no idea about any of this.

I’ve seen some colourfully decorated bed sheets with peoples faces on hung outside the Student’s Union a couple of times since I’ve been here and a few posters stuck to the arches, and I’ve also overheard some chat on something called the NUS and whether or not we should be affiliated with it. I know for a fact that its not just me that feels this way - only 3,977 of us voted in our NUSU February elections this year – so why so much apathy?

You could argue that the elections within the university are nothing more than a popularity contest. We all want to see our friends do well, so if we recognise the name of somebody running for a position, we vote for them, and as a result, a significant number of people I know didn’t vote in the elections simply because they didn’t recognise a single candidate on the ballot sheet. Maybe I’m just being ignorant, but I can’t name one change that has come about as a result of people we’ve elected in. I’m not saying there haven’t been changes and maybe it’s my job to inform myself but perhaps there just isn’t being done enough to inform students of our university as to what it’s happening and why it is in our best interests to vote. Personally though, I think the situation is wider than just our university; I blame the indifference plaguing university politics on the general political situation in our country at the moment.

And why is our country in such a state of voter apathy? Maybe it’s that people don’t think that their vote counts. Or maybe that people don’t feel they have the room to make much of a choice that would make a difference in the Labour/Conservative two-horse race. Or maybe it’s the casual, un-engaging and apathetic attitude of our politicians. You never know, if Jeremy Hunt stopped playing on his phone for long enough during important parliamentary debates, he may be able to enlighten us.

PETTINESS Benjamin Eckford

I

despair at the present state of student politics. Students have a rich history of getting involved with their unions and doing some great extra-curricular activities. I think of the sports teams, or the people who run The Courier. I’ve seen the amount of time and effort they put in. It’s a noble tradition. Student politics, however, has degenerated. Long ago, students led the fight against apartheid in South Africa, against discrimination based on skin colour, sex or sexuality, against the nuclear arms race and the Cold War, against tuition fees and austerity.

But look at us now. Student politics has become a self-congratulatory echo chamber, a platform for the arrogant and self-obsessed. The pervasive culture of banning the use of certain words, enforcing the use of others, and refusing to acknowledge the existence of the views of people you don’t agree with. It’s as narrow-minded, arrogant and, crucially, authoritarian as it gets. University used to be a place where the mind was liberated and broadened, where students encountered new ideas and ways of thinking that pushed them out of their comfort zone. Now, thanks to the state of student politics, the comfort zone has been ring-fenced, labelled a “safe space” and told that noone with opinions dare venture forth. A candidate for chair of student council abused on Twitter for being a cisgender, white male, in favour of greater democracy, accountability, free speech, attempts by the council to engage with students, and have all views represented.

Sounds natural and reasonable to me, but he was abused for it. Is this what it has come to? Have we become so weak and feeble that we can’t deal with the reality that some people have different views to our own? It certainly seems so.

Of course, we’re taking our lead from professional politicians. The NUS referendum is a microcosm of the EU referendum. A hardcore agitated for a referendum, then urged people to vote for isolation, in both referendums. I voted to stay in the NUS, but frankly even my own side annoyed me with their “holier than thou” attitude.

We seem to be interested only in ourselves and the highfalutin, arid, la-di-da issues we deem worthy of our attention. This is what we’ve become. Selfish, arrogant, entitled, spiteful, ungrateful, elitist, reactionary snobs, with no care for those less fortunate than ourselves.

T

he term ‘privilege’ has thrown about a little too easily this year in discussion, online debate and personal disagreement and I feel this has been central to the shift we have had in our student politics this year – possibly not for the better.

Defined as ‘a special right, advantage or immunity granted or available only to a particular group,’ it’s something that’s woven into the fabric of almost every society since forever. As individuals, we are all holders of privilege, in some form or another. Examples include: the privilege that comes with being white in a society that hasn’t quite allowed ethnic minorities the same opportunities; class privilege – any working class individual can point out the issues that middle-class individuals do not face; the privilege that comes with being able-bodied and never having to worry about accessibility; the privilege that comes with being heterosexual in a world that still marginalises groups with differing sexualities; and cisprivilege, the privilege afforded to everyone whose gender at birth matches their identity.

Those are only some examples. I haven’t even started talking about age; mental health; religion; not fitting into the gender binary (being non-binary or genderqueer etc.); neuro-atypicalities, nationality or any of the other socio-economic factors that put some of us at more of an advantage than others. And these things that give rise to privilege in its varying forms, are referred to as ‘intersections’. The current wave of modern feminism is supposed to accept that the intersections in our lives give rise to different experiences – a white, heterosexual feminist has more privilege than a heterosexual feminist from an ethnic minority, and both are more privileged than a feminist from an ethnic minority who isn’t heterosexual.

Personally, I tick a lot of boxes, in terms of being a part of marginalised communities – I’m: female, Pakistani, Muslim, bisexual, unashamedly working-class and suffer from mental health difficulties. But, having said that, I hold cis-privilege, gender-conforming privilege, able-bodied and neurotypical privilege. I have the privilege that comes with being who I am in a country allows me to be all of these things.

In a society where equity in all its forms is what we’re striving for, it’s important for us to acknowledge the mishmash of privilege we are all afforded. And yes, some people hold a heck of a lot. If you’re male; white; young; cis-gendered; gender-conforming; heterosexual; upper-class; able-bodied; neurotypical; from a religious majority; live in the first world and don’t suffer from mental health issues, then you probably stand on a mountain of privilege.

However, the issue I have is with people equating privilege to character. You can be heterosexual and aware of the difficulties faced by someone who’s not; you can be neurotypical and understand that people on the autistic spectrum have a harder time of it; you can be white and understand that there are certain challenges you’ll never have to face.

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of calling out – on campus, on social media, and over the course of the PTO election campaigns, and it’s saddened me. I’ve seen friends silenced because they’re scared of the backlash they might face, even though they have a valid point.

One of my friends, who is incredibly visually impaired, stayed silent on a debate about disability, because she was scared of being shouted down as a white, middle-class girl. And in this way, calling out privilege every time you see it can be a bad thing, if it silences someone when they genuinely have something to contribute.

The thing is – if someone holds a ton of privilege, that doesn’t mean that they’re incapable of coming to terms with that privilege and counteracting it by being intersectional in their outlook. Similarly, the fact that someone ticks a lot of ‘marginalised group’ boxes, it doesn’t mean that everything they say on every topic ever can’t be challenged.

I’d like to think that if I was ignorant or offensive, that I’d be called out, the same way I hope that one day my race, religion, sexual orientation etc. won’t stand in the way of me making my way in the world.

We all have privilege. We all have differing relationships to our privilege, whether we accept it and try to be intersectional, or whether we’re unaware of it altogether. But screaming ‘LOOK AT ALL THE PRIVILEGE THIS PERSON HAS, THEY CAN’T POSSIBLY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING BECAUSE PRIVILEGE!’ is harmful.

Calling someone out based on a privilege that isn’t directly related to the conversation at hand isn’t just ignorant. It can be damaging.

So sometimes, give someone a chance to be heard, and don’t judge so harshly, based on privilege alone. I try not to. I hope this is something that can be dealt with better next year.

SOAPBOX

COMMENT’S HOME OF WEEKLY RANTS

EUROVISION

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Helena Vesty

fter taking a brief, thoroughly representative survey of friends within a ten feet radius, it seems that I am very much alone in my sheer hatred for the Eurovision Song Contest. As a fierce defender of the Kingdom of Cheesiness that is Flares, it should be right up my street. Yet this is not the case. Eurovision simply pushes me over the edge.

Maybe it’s the fact that the points system seems to be used as a forum for political fighting, or perhaps it’s the contestants who are often akin to the monsters from Doctor Who, which make me question whether there is any integrity left at all in music of the modern age. Either way, it’s frankly awful from start to finish and certainly does not deserve to be marked down on the calendars of Britain as a TV event for all the family. It’s only redemptive qualities are the witticisms of our presenter, national treasure Graham Norton and you can tell that even he hates every minute of the absurd rigmarole.

Exactly zero points from me.

HAY FEVER Lewis Elliott

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or millions of people the arrival of summer, warmth and even some sunshine also brings with it a tinge of sadness: the knowledge that at some point, the snivelling, coughing and endless eye-rubbing will return once again to try and spoil what little nice weather we actually get ‘up North’.

The single most irritating thing about it, apart from the fact hay fever tablets don’t seem to work, is that (for me, at least) it always crops up right on exam period. Its timing is frankly impeccable – just at the point when thousands of students need to focus and concentrate most – they can’t! It’s one of a select few things that never cease to irritate myself and no doubt many others too.

I simply do not get why our immune systems react to pollen of all things as some kind of awful threat that must be countered with a ton of histamines. Maybe one day modern science will do its magic once again and there’ll be something to stop hay fever in its tracks. Until then, however, I will perpetually dislike this time of year and the snivelling and coughing it always brings!

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BLOODY LEAFLETS Tom Shrimplin

he problem with leaflets is that they get in the way. A poster can only hang on the wall, emails can be deleted and for Youtube there are ad-blockers. But leaflets get everywhere, collecting at the bottom of your door to create a laminated, smooth surface ready for you to slip-up on.

Then when you leave the flat it is still not over. Coming into campus, nine times out of ten there are people at the tables outside with yet more leaflets. As a walk by you accidentally gaze at them and like a bird of prey they swoop at you, a flyer in hand. Once I remember in a rush for a lecture, getting stopped not once but twice, aggravating me so much that I barked “No”. As I escaped, the girl muttered “That’s rude”. Yes it may be a tad impolite, but I’d rather not be late and interrupt a lecture, which would be more disrespectful. Not only that but leaflets are a waste of paper, ending up in the bottomless abyss of your backpack until the end of eternity (or at least until you empty it out at the end of the year). Surely in this modern age there are better, more environmentally-friendly and less annoying ways to promote things then using leaflets?

12.lifestyle

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Lifestyle Editors: Katie Ackerley, Ruth Loeffler, Fiona Callow, Lauren Exell & Jack Parker

Rant of the Year

Forget Rant of the Week, this is Rant of the Year.

Brooklyn Shakeshaft Ward explains why she loves pettiness, and she isn’t afraid to say so

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016 has been a year rich in rant worthy topics. At times it’s felt like a badly directed slapstick film, and I could easily rant about Donald Trump or Brexit or some other political campaign that seemed like a joke at first but now looks close to actually happening. At other times its felt like a horror show—I could rant about the fact everyone is dying and everything’s awful and everything just needs to stop being awful.

Or I could rant about deadlines or stress or the spectre of a life after university that looms just around the frighteningly near corner, because those are the real things that matter. But I’m not going to, because I’m too petty for all of that. In fact I’m going to rant about pettiness. More of a celebration than a rant, because pettiness is the spice of life.

What I mean by pettiness is holding a grudge against someone for 3 years because they borrowed a pen and never gave it back. That level of pettiness.

Not life changing events or politics but equally as important. I LOVE ranting about tiny insignificant things. I want to rant about people who’s shoes are too loud. I want to rant about the time that guy that wouldn’t move up in a lecture and I had to sit on the FLOOR. The more inconsequential and petty the better.

“This is more a celebration than a rant, because pettiness is the spice of life”

Last week I found a blog called pettyrevenge. com (there’s literally tonnes of these) where people post all the petty revenge they’ve inflicted on people and I LIVE for this kind of thing. These are the people that build tiny houses in the middle of fields just to stop their neighbour getting the land.

These are people who wait until the day before the Orange is the New Black comes out to change their ex’s Netflix password. They don’t care about Donald Trump or deadlines. They just want one moment of smugness when they feel marginally better than their fellow humans, and in the end isn’t that what we all want? I’m not a glass half empty person. In fact, these blogs inspire me that, no matter how small and petty the problem is, there is always an equally petty solution. But apparently spending a large portion of the day being petty is not seen as a positive thing to do. And I do get that, surrounding yourself with negativity doesn’t lead to positivity, but it really gets me down when people tell me not to indulge in my pettiness and bitchiness and rise above it. Instead of ranting about things, they say, go out and change the world! Raise some money for charity! Get an internship! Actually do all the recommended reading! NO. Stop right there,

“These are the people who don’t care about Donald Trump or deadlines. They just want one moment of smugness when they feel better than their fellow humans” I am having a great time wallowing and having all night bitch fests, I don’t need your do- good attitude. I think the reason I don’t like it is because I know deep down that they are right. These will be the people that get firsts and actually end up working at magazines or on the food network. But who cares about them? I’ve decided to not let the hate free haters rain on my parade. Yeah everything else is important, but being petty is the where it’s at.

Tales from the Toon Now the academic year is drawing to a close, and some of us are moving on, the time is ripe to look back and reflect on all of the weird, wonderful and probably deeply humiliating stories you’ve collected from your time as a student. This could only ever happen at uni

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he end of the academic year is always a time for reflection, a reflection on the complete and utter random, bizarre but side-splittingly funny direction that your uni life has taken.

There’s something about uni- a magic combination of lots of free time, alcohol, hoardes of young people and a general c’est la vie attitude- that cre-

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ates the perfect cocktail of promiscuity, gossip and more than one or two drunken escapades., the type of which doesn’t seem to be able to be recreated anywhere else.

In any other context, these stories would be hide-under-a-rock, become-a-social-hermit kind of embarrassing but the culture at uni means you

shake off the hangover, perhaps avoid awkward eye contact with that certain someone on campus, and laugh it off. Soon the stories become the stuff of legends. To students anywhere, these stories will be relatable, there’s a universal appeal to student idiocy.

One Night, Half a Police Force

icture this. It is a casual Wednesday night. Not much is happening. My two friends and I are debating whether to go to the pub or not. We were a solid no. Until my cup of tea was replaced with a glass of schnapps.

We have the music blaring and a glass of peach schnapps in hand. As the alcohol starts to do its job we start to dance and my friend ends up dancing on the sofa. I am singing Avril Lavigne’s classic “SK8ER BOI” at the top of my lungs. Our friend returns from the cinema and goes to her bedroom. All of a sudden we hear ‘POLICE!’ Naturally we froze. ‘We heard there’s an intruder in this building, is everyone okay? Has anyone seen the intruder?’ Again, we froze.

We went outside with the police officer, naturally for our own safety. What do we see? 7 police cars, a riot van and 2 police dogs. Well at this point we were completely terrified, thinking that there was an intruder in the flat.

One of us ran through to go and get the two who were hanging out in their rooms. But, there was not two, there was three. Turns out our friend had not returned from the cinema alone, the two of them had planned to climb through the window into my other friend’s bedroom with the intention of running into the living room to scare us all to death. The best part was that this friend did not even realise what had actually happened.

So, knowing that she was the intruder she ran to the police men and started to explain herself. What did she end up doing? Pulling. That’s right, she ending up flirting with the police man and we all laughed off the fact that we had taken half the police force out because of a practical joke.

After that my friend rang her mum who is on the police force, she made us all tell her the story individually, each time it was just as hilarious!

Stacy Williams

“What did she end up doing?

Pulling!”

The Tale of The Anonymous Shitter

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his tale begins back in the now-distant days of first term, at approximately half 2 on a Tuesday morning. Two friends and I arrived back at our accommodation, many a treble drunk between us, to a rather unpleasant smell wafting from the hallway.

Now this was not exactly an unheard of occurrence (our accommodation being, quite frankly, a bit grim), however what was remarkable was the exact source of the smell. Now, there is no particularly pleasant way to put this so I will just get to it: we turned the corner to find some drunk dude passed out in the hallway who had very, very severely shat himself. Like ‘bury all your clothes and take a day-long shower’ severe.

Furthermore, as we later found out, he had been lying there for an absolute minimum of 2 hours, as revealed by a flatmate who at around half midnight had also seen this unfortunate person, and promptly done nothing about it. So we gave him a kick, gently at first, then somewhat harder, till he responded. To our relief, he was not only alive, but had managed to sleep off the worst of it and was able to walk relatively unaided. Keeping our distance as much as possible – for obvious reasons – we escorted him back to his room (which turned out to be a significant distance away), at which point we left him to it, and continued with our night.

However, our tale does not quite end there, as fate had another twist in store. At some point during the walk back, this gentleman revealed his name. Now, obviously I won’t give his actual

name, so for conveniences sake, let’s just call him ‘Jeremy Hunt’. Fast forward now to the second term, where once again the three of us arrived back from a night out in the early hours of the morning. We drunkenly found ourselves at a dark after-party, with another friend (let’s call him ‘Jeff ’) and three of his mates we did not know, continued to get more smashed, and eventually went our separate ways.

Fast forward (for the final time, I promise) to some weeks later, where Jeff and I were reminiscing about that particular night. Casually, I enquired as to who his three friends were (my memories of that night being hazy at best). As it turned out, he only knew two of them, and the third was a random tagalong they had run into at the club. As to this randomer’s name, it was, as you may have guessed, our old friend Jeremy Hunt. We had, once again and completely by chance, crossed paths with the anonymous shitter, incidentally mere yards from where he had passed out that fateful night. I sincerely doubt he has any recollection of how he had made it home, how he lay face down for hours on end unaided. And he will never know that those three strangers, at that random post-drinks he by chance ended up at one night, had such a part to play in what I’m sure was a horrific, embarrassing and incredibly messy situation to wake up to.

But we know.

Charlie Issac

“I won’t give him his actual name, so for conveniences sake, let’s call him Jeremy Hunt”

The Courier

.13

Monday 16 May 2016

Culture thecourieronline.co.uk/culture

Culture Editors: Laura Staniforth & Ellie McLaren Sections: Lifestyle, Fashion, Beauty, Arts, Music, Film, TV, Gaming & Science courier.culture@ncl.ac.uk | @CourierOnline

Blind Date Sara on Jack

Sara Macauley 3rd Year Media meets Jack Parker 3rd Year English Lit

Jack on Sara

So where did you go with Jack?

We went bowling at Lane 7 then stayed for a few drinks and beer pong.

Classic date venue. Where you impressed?

I was fairly impressed. I’d never been there before but have always wanted to go. I didn’t know they did beer pong so that was a nice surprise.

What did you wear?

I just wore jeans and a top. It definitely didn’t go with bowling shoes but I don’t think he cared.

What did he wear?

He was wearing quite a smart shirt and jeans. He said he made an extra effort because he knew I was fashion editor.

Did his outfit make the grade?

Yeah, I’d say he looked nice. At least he did at the start of the night.

Who was better at bowling?

I won the game, which he was not happy about. He wasn’t particularly coordinated but that may have just been the alcohol.

How did the date progress?

It kind of just got more awkward as the night went on. He made it very obvious that he had done some serious Facebook stalking before the date and as the night went on he was just getting more and more drunk. I had a few as well but I was pretty sober in comparison. I definitely couldn’t keep up.

What kind of things was he doing?

We played beer pong against two girls and we were losing so badly he threw one of the cups of beer at them and ran off. I was so embarrassed, I stayed and apologised so many times.

How did you know he was Facebook stalking?

He started by asking to see my rib tattoo which I thought was a bit odd but it progressed to him asking about my friends who he’d seen in my pictures and stuff. He named a few of them and that was so creepy.

Did you get any reasonable conversation in before this?

Kind of. He seemed nice for about the first half an hour whilst he was sober and trying.

So did you fancy him?

Not particularly. I don’t like a man who can’t handle his alcohol and doesn’t know when to stop.

How did the date end?

He went to the toilet to throw up and I left. I went home and had a few glasses of wine with my housemates and told them all about the evening. That was probably the best part of my night.

I assume you wouldn’t go out with him again then?

Not a chance. He might be a fun friend to have but definitely not a good guy to be with.

If he was an animal, what would he be?

A baby deer on ice. He couldn’t stand up by the end of the night.

If he was a biscuit, what would he be?

Any biscuit that has been dunked in vodka.

Out of 10, rate your date?

A 5. Maybe.

That’s higher than I expected?

It was funny I suppose. He was sweet at first and I reckon he’s a nice guy at heart. And it’ll be a good story to tell.

You chose Lane 7 for your date, any reason why?

I thought Lane 7 was quite an impressive place.

Pretty trendy. I thought she’d be into it. Also, I knew it had beer pong upstairs and I’m usually pretty great at that.

What was your first impression of her?

She looked really nice. I was very impressed. I’d done some cheeky Facebook stalking so I already knew she was fit.

Oh I’ve heard. Do you think your Facebook stalking went a little far?

Maybe. I tried to be prepared and know a little about her but I let slip a little too much I think.

Did you make any extra effort to impress?

Definitely. I even wore a shirt. I never wear shirts.

I heard you may not have won at bowling. Were you annoyed?

Yeah I lost. I was quite disappointed. I’d like to pretend I let her win so she felt good but I really didn’t.

She beat me fair and square.

How did the date progress?

Honestly, I don’t hundred percent know. I got way too drunk. The last thing I remember was playing beer pong. I don’t think I was up to my usual standard.

Do you not remember throwing beer on a girl?

WHAT?! I seriously did that? That’s so embarrassing. No wonder she didn’t text me back. I started off by drinking a lot as I was a bit nervous and I knew she was Irish so I thought she would be up for it. I must have taken it a little far.

Yes, apparently you did. You threw a beer at the girls you were playing against.

That’s really not me at all. I’m usually more sensible. I was just so nervous I couldn’t stop drinking.

Did you at least offer her a drink? She said she was pretty sober.

I hope so but I don’t really remember. I definitely paid for bowling and her first drink but after that anything could have happened. If she was sober I assume that means she didn’t take me up on any offer I may have given. At least I offered some kind of entertainment though right?

Would you want to go on another date?

I’d love a second chance. The bits I remember were great. She was lovely to talk to and we got on really well. I just wish I hadn’t been so stupid. I’m definitely still hungover from that night. I still smell of alcohol and regret.

Would you take she home to your parents?

Yeah definitely. My mum would really like her I think.

If she was an animal what would he be?

A hairless cat. I just get that kind of vibe.

If she was a biscuit what would she be?

A rich tea. She was classic and elegant. I like that How would you rate it out ten?

I’d rate the first half around an 8 but the part where I woke up face down in the bathroom was a 0.

Looking for love? Send in your details to c2.lifestyle@ncl.ac.uk

14.lifestyle Foody Foddy

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Dating your dissertation?

Emma Foddy tells all about her favourite restaurant in Newcastle; The Earl of Pitt Street

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he Earl of Pitt Street is one of my favourite restaurants in Newcastle. Situated a stone’s throw from St James’ park, it’s easy to get to from town but I’d recommend a taxi if you’re travelling from Jesmond. It’s not in the most obvious place; the street it’s on looks like a bit of a building site but have faith and keep going because the restaurant is right at the very end. The staff are very efficient and the Manager always makes an effort to come out and check on each individual table, which I think is a nice touch.

“The staff are very efficient and the Manager always makes an effort to come out and check on each individual table, which I think is a nice touch”

It’s a place to dress up. Downstairs it’s a bit more casual, however, if you’re sitting upstairs I’d recommend making a bit of an effort. If you’re booking ahead I’d request a table upstairs. They have tables downstairs as well to cope with overflow from the restaurant but it’s primarily for drinkers so might get a bit loud! The restaurant upstairs is supposed to be Alfred Hitchcock meets Vivianne Westwood.

There is a quirky picture of Alfred on the wall, in which his face is made up of elements from his films.

It sets the bar high in terms of the quality and variety of food offered. I’ve been there a few times over the last six months and every time the menu selection has been different. Starters range from Korean spiced king prawns to warm marinated goat’s cheese with toasted focaccia. Another one I’d recommend is Shaanxi style lamb with lettuce cups. The lamb is minced and delicious, very tender and mixed in with all sorts of herbs and huge chunks of garlic. Not one for a date night unless you’ve got some strong chewing gum for after. In terms of mains, a personal favourite of mine is the herb crusted cod fillet, served with smoked haddock in white wine cream, tiger prawns and baby potatoes. The smoked haddock is thick and flaky, just like fish should be.

Is your dissertation always on your mind? Is it the last thing you think of when you fall asleep? Amanda Yap discusses how it has crept up on you these last few months; you are officially in a committed relationship with your dissertation

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t’s definitely all final year students’ worse nightmare, the root of countless sleepless nights, hair-wrenching stress and most of the time, lack of motivation to fight on for the

rest of the semester. Yes, I am talking about the dissertation! Nothing like a major, tearinducing, future-defining paper to successfully round up your tumultuous three years in

ROMANCE STAGE

You have decided on a topic after much deliberation and consultations with lecturers, you are honestly psyched about it. You have ambitious plans for it because you are honestly passionate about it and you would like to bring about critical viewpoints, you actually feel that you and your dissertation paper are one of the rare partnerships that would have a fairly smooth year ahead. Like the beginning stage of a relationship, you pretty much overlook all the potential flaws and focus on the positive.

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70 Pitt St, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5ST

POWER STRUGGLE STAGE

It becomes painful, on some days you loathe to even see it, yet along find the motivation to proceed with the writing or conducting research analysis. This is the hardest stage to conquer, difficulties and misunderstandings arises during this stage. You get frustrated with research findings, results that varies from your keen expectations causing you to have a change of strategies. At this stage, it seems like nothing is working out for the both of you. The topic becomes very rigid and you gradually find the limitations too hard to work around. To summarise, both of you are rigid in your opinions and nobody wants to give in.

3 STABILITY STAGE Slowly, you manage to assert your authority, exploring the different options whenever you hit a barrier or writer’s block in the middle of your dissertation paper. You really start to take consultations with your advisors extra seriously to carve out a definite direction that you will more or less follow, supposedly if everything goes smoothly. You start accomplishing your short-term goals along the way so that the magnitude of this relationship do not burn you out halfway.

“I’ve been there a few times over the last six months and every time the menu selection has been has been different” Every dish is so flavoursome and unique. Even when someone’s ordered something that I didn’t think would be my thing, I’ve enjoyed it when they offered me a taste. Normally I wouldn’t rave about the puddings in a restaurant because I’m not really a pudding gal, but the deserts at this restaurant deserve a mention. One that has really stuck out for me is the sticky toffee pudding. It is served moist and oozing with salted caramel sauce, perfectly combined with vanilla seed ice-cream. This restaurant would also be ideal for wine lovers – try the house red if this is your thing.

When I’ve mentioned the Earl of Pitt Street to people no-one has ever heard of it, which is such a shame and truly makes it a hidden gem. It’s a secret I’d love to keep to myself but it’s too good to stay hidden. Just make sure you book ahead to avoid disappointment!

university, right? Creepily, a dissertation paper somewhat follows the stages of a relationship, from the infatuation stage to the stage of total trust.

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5

COMMITMENT STAGE

Slowly, both of your differences are worked out. You create opinions about your dissertation topic, you start to understand the limitations of it and how to work around them. After some time, your perseverance pays off, you unexpectedly receive small surprises that fuels the entire writing process so much better. You surrender to the struggles that your dissertation is not easy but it is too late to turn back the clock and somehow you managed to convince yourself it will definitely be worth the sweat, blood and tears in the end.

CO-CREATION STAGE

Sadly, this is the last stage which would probably at the last three weeks, you would probably feel regretful or miss the regular hectic process of researching and coming out with hypotheses. Eventually, you have done what you set out to do initially. However, a Congratulations is in order because you have completed an entire 150-pages dissertation by yourself! You are finally ready to graduate, well not yet, you still have papers to conquer. Yet, half the battle has already been won!

The Courier

lifestyle.15

Monday 16 May 2016

thecourieronline.co.uk/lifestyle c2.lifestyle@ncl.ac.uk | @CourierLifestyle

Skint summer savings

Hometown Glory

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Think you’re excited to go home for summer?

Siobhan Fuller talks us though everything you’ll miss about university

Lifestyle Editor Lauren Exell talks us through a few of the worst jobs that are a student-must to get you out the dreaded overdraft during the summer months he thought that summer is nearly upon us should be an amazing one, right? For three months you no longer have that constant dread of uni work looming over you, and you can spend your days lounging in your back garden with Drake’s new song on repeat. However, sadly for quite a few of us, summer is the time where we realise we’ve maxed out our overdraft and need to start earning money before the new academic year begins. Speaking from personal experience, I know how it feels to look at your bank balance mid-June and realise you’re -£1500, and it isn’t pretty.

(by about 50p…) and most of the time you can just sit on a park bench and hand out one flyer for every 30 people that walk past. Your boss is probably asleep, and even if they aren’t they don’t care what you’re doing, as long as you show up before and after your shift. Yet, you probably only work about four hours a week and this is the kind of job you have for about a fortnight before you realise it is absolute shit and you could get something better.

“You’ve maxed out your overdraft and need to save before the new year begins”

“For three months you can spend your days lounging in the back garden with Drake on repeat”

So what are you going to try next? Catering and hospitality, of course. This is definitely the most common way to fill up the time of a skint student over summer.

These jobs are always in demand and looking for people like you to make up for the staff who have left to spend their summer doing something fun, like going on holiday.

The nature of your work depends on what job you go for.

Café jobs are definitely the best, serving little old ladies their cups of tea, whereas late night restaurants or event venues serving lairy drunken customers are by far the worst. My personal experience lies in a summer job at a Crown Carveries. Who on earth would want a boiling hot carvery in the middle of summer, you ask? Surprisingly, a shit load of people, particularly families with small screaming kids. I became known as the ‘gravy queen’ by my friends and my days consisted of befriending a 70 year old man who wanted ‘just one more pint of Carling, please’. By no means the worst summer job I could’ve picked up, but far from being the best either.

Whatever you end up getting, a summer job is always going to be a dull way to spend your time away from uni.

Just remember that when your paycheck and new student loan come in simultaneously, you’ll have all the money in the world to spend on a messy Swingers Thursday.

So what are you going to do about it? Realistically, you have to go home. Food and accommodation are usually free here thanks to the bank of mum and dad, but they’re lending you nothing else. How will you fund your trebles for the following semester, when you need your student loan to pay off your overdraft? Alas, the search for the summer job begins.

Easiest place to start: promo jobs. While this isn’t something easily accessed by everyone, I have the luxury of being from a big city, and so they’re still looking for promo wankers even during summer. Fortunately, your employer is nine times out of ten a 20-something bearded bloke who decided to sack off all his other life prospects and run a club night, and so the experience they ask for is slim at best. With such a high staff turnover rate, they really don’t care who you are and how many criminal convictions you have, all they want is someone who will be up for handing out flyers at any time, whether it’s 2pm on a boiling Tuesday afternoon or 3am outside the club after it finishes. They usually pay more than minimum wage

R&R? Revision and Rays Lifestyle Editor Fiona Callow gives the best places to fulfil the two student summer essentials all in one go. And surely this all counts as multitasking, right?

C

an’t we all just take a second to appriciate how glorious the weather has been these past few weeks? Forget your fancy holidays abroad, stick a defiant finger up at the South, who seem to never enounter sub-zero temperatures, Newcastle is hot right now, and we’re all the happier for it. All-day drinking in beer gardens, lunching on sun terraces, and barbequing in Jesmond Dene. Well, I mean we would be doing all of those things, if we didn’t have the threat of exams looming overhead, like the proveribal black storm cloud come to rain on our parade. So instead we find oursleves hunched over a desk in the pitchy gloom of the library, looking longingly out at the sunlight.

There has to be a happy medium: work and our needed intake of Vitamin D. Even if it’s fifteen minute lunch break , but outside as opposed to in, it’s proven that fresh air and a bit of sun can really help improve your mood, which then could go onto improve your creatvity (as well as meaning you don’t have to resort to tan out of a bottle when the time for your your course ball rolls around). Here’s a list of the best suntraps on campus where you can kick back, catch some rays, and maybe even get some revision done.

Outside of The Northern Stage For the extrovert among you, this is perfect for watching the world go by, this is a popular spot for the nosiest, or wannabe BNOCs amongst you, as you can see all the people milling around uni, and more importantly, they can see you. Surrounded by your loyal admirers, you can fulfil your dream of being Newcastle’s version of The Plastics. (On Wednesdays we wear pink don’t ya know?!).

There’s always something going out at the SU, and that means you’re guranteeed to win over another group of people, as well as perhaps getting your five minutes of fame if TCTV are there to film precendings. Because as we all well know, if there isn’t an artsy Insta-post of you sipping your double-chilled-soy milk-caramel-frozen latte by the Kings Gate, did it really happen?

The Robinson Library Grass This is one for you, the anxious desk-defenders, the lovers of the library who are filled with fear everytime they even leave their seat to nip to the loo. I encourage you to venture just a tiny bit further out of your comfort zone and take yourself off the concrete and onto the relative haven of the grassy bank outside the Robbo. Far enough away so that you can relax a little, spend some time conversing without the medium of WhatsApp/with voices pitched higher than that strangled whisper you hear people talk to each other in the library. But not too far, so that when your loyal friend who has stayed behind to guard your precious desk, rings you and tells you that a vulture is circling, you can up and run back to reclaim your rightful place.

we’re sticking to it, however tenuous the truth in it might be. Because what’s a sunny day without a cold beer as well?

Everyone knows that geniuses produce their magnus opus under the influence, you say to yourself, as you down the next pint, stumbling back to the Marj at 10pm and falling asleep at your desk.Even if you’ve not ended up getting any work done, at least you’ve had a good time.

Forget Dad’s classy Jamie Oliver spaghetti bolognese at appropriate mealtimes; you’re in the kitchen at 2am making gourmet chicken dippers from the freezer with packet noodles, and probably spoonful of Nutella whilst you wait for it all to cook. Regular mealtimes are overrated anyway.

2) New Drinking Schedule It’s Saturday night and you’re in your pyjamas, fully invested in the audition episodes of Britain’s Got Talent.

However, only a few days later and you’re definitely in the mood for Club Trop. You’ve got the predrinks playlist all ready on Spotify and a couple of trebles would not go amiss... It’s a shame everyone else in your hometown is tucked up in bed because they have actual jobs to go to in the morning. Downing shots with your cat really isn’t quite the same.

“What are you going to do with all your post-it notes now that you have no passive aggressive messages to leave out?”

3) Misplaced feelings of frustration at how tidy everything is.

How annoying that your mum hasn’t left any dirty dishes on the side! What are you going to do with all your postit notes now that you have no passive aggressive messages to leave out?

4) Drastic and uncomfortable increase in temperature AKA basically climate change. It’s actually a normal temperature in your house, which feels absolutely tropical compared to the draughty subzero student accommodation you’re used to. Withdrawal truly starts to show when you’re opening all the windows, putting fans in every room and refusing to touch the central heating, just so you can make full use of all those jumpers and hot water bottles. It’s either that or you’re going to have to invest in some bikinis to wear around the house.

5) Exhaustion.

You’re just so tired and fed up of being expected to change your clothes every day and get out of bed at a reasonable hour. It’s ridiculous how it’s no longer acceptable to wear the same hoodie and sweatpants four days in a row. The university lifestyle fully advocates keeping the blinds firmly shut whilst you binge on Netflix series after Netflix series, and only emerging at intervals for snacks.

“You need a view which you can stare pensively at, composing song lyrics that could rival The Smiths for nihilism”

6) The residue revision stress.

You’re still dreaming about the assignment that you handed in a month ago and you feel like you should be making notes on something. Although this is often a negative side to pursuing academia, part of being a university student is that most of us actually enjoy our courses. Withdrawal from the lifestyle is one thing, but it reaches a level of desperation when you just want to start learning again. After the intensity of exams, it feels abnormal to be so comparatively idle... However, as soon as September brings all the pressures from the year before, you’ll similarly long for the stretches of summer when you had nothing on your plate. The grass is always greener, hey?

The Hershal Building Steps If the view of grey concrete and industrial landscapes, which you can stare pensively at, composing song lyrics that could rival The Smiths for nihilism, then this is the place for you. Sometimes you just need time alone with all your feelings and stuff, to escape the hundrum of everyday life and contemplate your own existence. You don’t want to see flowers and greenery, you need the gritty reality of urban life. You’re pretty sure this is how all the greats got their inspiration, and besides, being alone must have been made fashionable by hipsters by now? Or maybe you’re just ahead of the curve.

The Hancock Terrace This classes as ‘on campus’ right? Right? That’s definitely the justification the alkies amongst us give, and

1) Weird Food

Illustation Katie Wiseman

16.fashion

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Fashion Editors: Ellen Dixon, Liz Rosling & Sara Macauley

Chanel meets Cuba:

The National Controversy

Go-to graduation looks Fashion editor Ellen Dixon gives you three different looks perfect for your big day

Emily Higgins discusses the recent Chanel show in Cuba - and why it caused such controversy

Look 1:

I

t’s no secret that Karl Lagerfeld loves causing controversy… nothing seems to make him happier than ruffling a few feathers. Adele, Pippa Middleton, sweatpants, tattoos and children have all been subject to opinion of the outspoken designer, and now he can add choosing Cuba as the location for the Chanel 2016/17 Cruise show to the ever growing list of his dubious actions amongst public thought.

But why exactly did his choice leave so many people riled up? Cuba is beautifully scenic and boasts idyllic weather and so seemingly the perfect choice for such a lavish event. It is however only within the last 12 months that Communist-ruled Cuba has begun warming relations with the west, leaving many critics questioning whether the decision was too much too soon and used the political attention directed at Cuba to sell clothing.

Chanel muse Gisele Bundchen was sporting a beret in a subtle nod to the underlying political themes in the Cuban inspired collection coupled with the embellished military colours- could it be a nod to Che Guevara, the iconic figure of the Cuban revolution? There is a real irony about the whole thing, since the revolution in Cuba that saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, this was the first time that so many notable people had travelled from abroad to see a show which essentially is a celebration of capitalism.

“A political statement of union and celebration, or just a pretty backdrop for a fashion show?”

Guayaberas – the classic short-sleeved Cuban shirts with vertical pin-tucks – were the basis for black organza cocktail blouses, and lightly pleated Chanel jackets. There were two-tone corespondent shoes, Panama hats and Cadillacprinted T-shirts. There’s no doubt that the show was a real celebration of Cuba, but is it cashing in on the buzz the country has recently received for the sake of fashion? It seems so, as many have criticised Lagerfeld, calling it a step too far - even for him.

The luxurious event boasted jelly-bean coloured vintage cars, transporting guests to a main street in Havana, which Chanel exclusively accessed not allowing any members of the public to come close to the star studded 600-person guest list. Eyebrows were again raised when Lagerfeld chose not to invite Cuban designers to the show, again bringing into question what the real intentions of the show were.

A political statement of union and celebration, or just a pretty backdrop for a fashion show?

The most notable element of controversy was the decision to hold such an elite fashion show in a country where the average annual salary of £3,000 wouldn’t even cover the cost of most items featured in the show. In fact, aside from perfume and cosmetics, Chanel clothing is not available to buy anywhere in Cuba. This makes the entire event almost laughable and, although he has claimed otherwise, questions how much consideration Lagerfeld gave when choosing its location.

As aesthetically satisfying as the event was and as beautiful as the clothing being showcased may have been, it leaves an uneasy feeling upon closer inspection and perhaps dirties the idea of fashion when blurring it with politics. The sole purpose of the show seemed to have been overshadowed with attention being drawn on Lagerfeld and his debatable decision, rather than the garments which will be real summer trend setters. @thenewcuba

Ok, so admittedly this dress isn’t cheap, but most of us are only going to graduate once so this is the time to splurge. If you are, like myself, a huge fan of All Saints but usually can’t afford their hefty price tags, maybe graduation is the time to make an exception. And who knew All Saints did colour?! This is a dress you could wear again and again, and it would be perfect for a summer wedding or a trip to the races. With a beautiful summery print, silk material and relaxed shape, you will look effortlessly classy whilst also hiding that huge pre-grad meal food baby. Make up for the price of your dress with these cheap but super classy stiletto heels from Boohoo. They have such a wide variety of heels at generally inoffensive prices, but this pale pink pair would be an ideal match to the dress.

Finish the whole look off with this Leather Whistles clutch bag. £40 is a lot for a clutch, and Primarni usually do ones that are a lot cheaper, but I think a plain, smart clutch is needed against the busy print on the dress.

Dress: All Saints, £168 Heels: Boohoo, £22 Clutch: Whistles @ ASOS, £40 Bracelet: Topshop, £7.50

Look 2:

Topshop are always a firm favourite for finding grad dresses, but there is always the risk that someone is going to be wearing the same thing as you. Regardless, there is usually so much choice and you are bound to find a hidden gem, especially online. This lace midi dress is so unique, so if you like to stand out it could be the one for you. It’s classy but a lil’ bit edgy, whilst also fitting in nicely to the whole ‘return of the 90s’ thing that’s happening in fashion. Pair with these cute ‘Alexa’ pumps from Office. They look pretty stable thanks to their chunky heel if you are, like me, worried about falling flat on your face when you walk onto the stage. It could happen to the best of us, but if you’re choosing sky-high heels, you’re asking for trouble. Finally this asymmetrical black clutch will finish the whole outfit off nicely. It’s big enough to fit most of your make-up bag in, so if you need a touch up or three throughout the day and night-time events, it will do the trick nicely for storing your fave Mac lippy (and the rest).

Dress: Topshop, £95 Heels: Office, £55 Clutch: ASOS, £15 Earrings: Vivienne Westwood @ ASOS, £48

Look 3:

For those of you who don’t do dresses, or who always do dresses and want a change, this jumpsuit from ASOS is perfect if you want to still look smart without the risk of flashing your knickers. It’s got a blazer-esque neckline which will make you look really fancy and academic while you’re holding your degree, and the cinched-in waist makes for a flattering silhouette. This is also a fab choice for those who just can’t stray from trusty black, and honestly, black probably is the safest option. Newcastle weather is really not reliable, even in July, and there’s a chance that your lovely white body-con dress will turn transparent when the downpour comes. Still though, you can please your mum by adding a smidgeon of colour into the outfit: enter accessories. These burnt orange leather heels from Topshop are amazing IMO. Not only will they jazz up your all-black look, but just look at that ankle support. That is really what you need for a full day on your feet. To round it all up, this orange suede fringed clutch by Matthew Williamson matches the shoes perfectly, and even has a strap for when you head out for your last night on The Toon (cry).

Jumpsuit: ASOS, £50 Heels: Topshop, £69 Clutch: Matthew Williamson @ Debenhams, £36 Rings: Topshop, £8 for the set

The Courier

fashion.17

Monday 16 May 2016

thecourieronline.co.uk/fashion Instagram:@thecourierfashion | Facebook: facebook.com/thecourierfash |Email: c2.fashion@ncl.ac.uk

Met-tacular looks: best of the Gala Miranda Stoner shows us her fave looks from the infamous and iconic Met Gala

K-Middy takes Vogue Kate Middleton has graced the ultimate Vogue centenary issue cover, and Charisse Waterman tells us why she’s the classic choice

K @liuwenwl

@zacposen

@calvinklein

Most sustainable: Emma Watson Actress and activist Emma Watson proves that not every Met Gala gown is a one-wear affair with her custom made Calvin Klein outfit. The designers worked in collaboration with Eco Age, a company encouraging sustainable business growth, to create the eco-friendly dress made of sustainable cotton, satin and a taffeta, which was woven from the yarn of recycled plastic bottles. However it is not just the world saving credentials of this dress that makes it amazing: as a design it is both quirky and stunning.

The overall shape complete with train and off the shoulder sleeves is reminiscent of a fairy-tale ball gown, while the simple and classic monochrome and a cut out front revealing tailored trousers simultaneously modernise the look and create a more practical alternative to an oversize skirt. All whilst still maintaining a sense of sophistication and grace.

Most extravagant: Claire Danes This gown is spectacular in daylight, but looking at it you would never imagine what it was capable of when the sun goes down. Although a fairy godmother could create a dress of this standard with the mere wave of a magic wand, the reality of creating this dress by Zac Posen was not so easy. It took 6 people 600 hours to complete as piles of a light gossamer fabric imported from France had to be layered over a hollow skirt structure to ensure that the LED lights and 30 individual battery packs did not make the dress too heavy to walk in. Extra lights were installed at the edges of the fabric to enhance the outline of the dress and give the sense of sparkle. Claire Danes, a close childhood friend of Posen was a great choice to model the design, as her blonde up-do and princess physique complimented it perfectly. Cinders meets the Met Gala.

Best robot: Liu Wen The metallic glimmer of model and Estee Lauder ambassador Liu Wen’s silver laser cut leather Iris Van Herpen dress reflected the ManusXMachina theme of the Met Gala perfectly. The robot-like artificial clean cuts and colour were contrasted against the use of a natural material. The dress fits Wen’s body shape giving the dress a very human element. Wen was also allowed input into her hair and make-up and opted for a natural look, with just a touch of bright lipstick, which allowed full attention to be placed on the dress. It is from Iris Van Herpen’s QUAQUAVERSAL collection, the aim of which is to move away from traditional tailoring techniques, which Van Herpen does through the folding and weaving seen in the body of this dress.

It keeps the ball-gown theme with a mesh skirt, which has the added bonus of making Wen’s cute silver sandal heels still visible.

Save, spend, splurge: swimwear Imogen Scott-Chambers on how to look good (almost) naked this summer

Save New Look £18 If you’re looking to save on your swim shop this summer, you need search no further than the high street’s very own New Look. This cute tropical number only adds up to £18 - an absolute bargain!

The juxtapositioning of the bright colours against the black background screams sunshine and will compliment any skin tone perfectly.

Boohoo £20 Fancy something a little different? Boohoo.com has a range of quirky, cool bikinis to fit the needs of the fashion conscious bather. This palm print swimsuit and its scooped back looks effortlessly edgy, and it’ll only set you back £20 – the price of a couple of cocktails! Kooky prints have been making a comeback in the swimwear world recently, so rest assured you’ll definitely be on point if you hit the beach in this baby.

Topshop £34

Topshop have smashed it out of the park with their swimwear designs this summer season.

This strappy monochrome two piece oozes glamour and style, and certainly wouldn’t look out of place on the likes of Kylie Jenner.

The price is reasonable for students - at £34 it’s great for those willing to spend a little more without breaking the bank. A black and white two piece like this is a poolside staple, just beware of potential tan lines!

ASOS £38

Whether you’re lucky enough to be jetting off to sunny climes, or just want to pretend you’re swimming somewhere tropical, this gorgeous bikini can be yours for just £38. ASOS are also offering a range of reasonably priced colour block two pieces this season, so if mixing and matching is your thing – this shop is paradise.

Spend

Splurge It seems as though ASOS really does have our back this summer season - this cute watermelon two piece by cool girl brand Lazy Oaf costs £58, so is definitely a pay-day kind of purchase. It’s fun and fruity feel is sure to be a hit at the beach, and the halter neck top gives a nod to the 90’s.

ASOS £58 Ted Baker £74

If you’re really hell bent on splurging this year, head on over to Ted Baker for a girly fix. His effortless floral print range of bikinis are perfect for those wanting to keep their swimwear vibe classy. Price-wise, the range is pretty expensive for something you won’t wear that often. With the whole ensemble costing just less than £80, this is certainly an investment. In saying that, what better way to turn heads this summer than by wearing a Ted Baker design, which are renowned for their elegance, femininity and class?

ate Middleton has officially become a Vogue cover star. The Duchess of Cambridge will be honouring all of us as the cover model for their 100th anniversary issue, fittingly labelled ‘style through time’. Known around the world for her classic yet bold fashion choices, is was only a matter of time before the world’s leading fashion magazine decided to snap Kate up for their cover.

Kate, who always dazzles us with her use of colour and ability to wow with her interpretation of the latest fashions, kept it unusually simple for her shoot. Always ahead of the trends, how does she manage to make JCREW so elegant? The theme for the shoot seemed to be “beige on the farm”, shot with natural lighting and neutrals to highlight the picturesque backdrop of down on the range.

On seeing the photos, I immediately needed to know who styled her for the shoot. It turns out Kate herself picked out the outfits for the shoot and that made so much more sense. The Duchess veered from her usual high glamour look and kept her makeup minimal and hair simple. I have no doubt that we will be seeing several “no makeup makeup” looks on all the upcoming runways during fashion week in September. She makes a fresh face look so ultra-glam. Mommy chic is officially a thing people: and Kate is leading the pack. We could learn a thing or two!

“I’m sure the Queen wholeheartedly approved of Kate’s choices, as it seems quite often that she picks her outfits right out of Her Majesty’s closet” Instead of elegant gowns or the latest highfashion designs, Kate purposefully kept her looks simple as she wanted to show her adoring fans the reality of her normal life as a royal. My fave look from the shoot was the Burberry boot-cut trousers (yes BOOTCUT) and a simple Petit Bateau striped tee. At the end of the day, she’s not just a future princess but a regular girl who bakes cookies and knits scarves just like the rest of us.

I’m sure the Queen wholeheartedly approved of Kate’s choices, as it seems quite often that she picks her outfits right out of Her Majesty’s closet. Let us not forget the head-to-toe beaded cobalt blue dress with matching shawl, earrings, and bag on her recent trip to India (and one of my personal favourites), which seemed to pay homage, not just to Indian culture but also to Queen Elizabeth herself. I would not be surprised if there were a lovely pair of kitten heels adorning her feet.

Like others, I’m sure, her spread has truly inspired me to jazz up my wardrobe. Try something new and maybe switch out dark denim jeans for wide leg palazzo overalls. An outfit that would look so good on my 5’3 inch plus size body, and I’m sure would really emphasis my lower belly pooch.

But hey if Kate can make it glamorous so can I, am I right? I have no doubt that if the Duchess of Cambridge wasn’t on someone’s international best dressed list she definitely will pop on one now. It isn’t easy turning every day basics into global fashion must-haves but when you’re a Duchess and every housewife wants a chance to be like you, why not make it easy for them!

@britishvogue

18.fashion&beautyfeature

Summer of love

With sunny days just around the corner, The Courier Fashion & Beauty bring you the best of Summer style

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Clothing by Topshop Eldon Square Photography: Fay Jiang Hair & Make-up: The Courier Beauty Models: Katherine Chambers, Pippa McLeodBrown, Charles Mason & Nick Robinson

The Courier

Monday 16 May 2016

Fashion Editors: Ellen Dixon, Liz Rosling & Sara Macauley Beauty Editors: Flora Davies, Ellen Walker & Lucy Cochrane

20.beauty

Monday 16 May 2015

The Courier

Beauty Editors: Lucy Cochrane, Flora Davies, & Ellen Walker

Best Summer holiday essentials of the BAFTAS S

Nathasya Gunawan brings us the best beauty products to keep you looking fresh in the sun

ummer holidays are approaching and many of you will have an exciting summer holiday booked. Then comes the stressful part, packing! You don’t want to over pack your suitcase with beauty products that you won’t need, so here are some holiday essentials for you.

Hair

For hair, I chose Aussie Beach Mate Shampoo as well as their Aussie 3 Minute Miracle Beach Mate for the conditioner. The shampoo cleans hair without stripping it or drying it out, leaving hair soft, light, and bouncy. The conditioner has a balmy consistency and it leaves hair soft and easy to style.

I also tend to not wash my hair every day so I make sure I have my Batiste Dry Shampoo in my bag to keeps my hair fresh and gives my hair volume.

Sunscreen & Aftercare A huge essential when going away somewhere hot is sunscreen. La Roche Posay’s Anthelios XL range is my go to product for sun protection. I use the Anthelios XL SPF 50+ Ultra Light Fluid for my face. The sunscreen is an ultra light fluid that spreads evenly on the skin. It absorbs quickly and it doesn’t leave white cast or greasiness on the skin.

If you have dry skin, you might want to use their Anthelios Comfort Cream that comes in SPF 30 and 50. For the body, I use their Anthelios SPF 30 Smooth Lotion, which is the same as their facial lotion as it absorbs quickly and doesn’t feel greasy on the skin. All of these products are also waterproof.

For after sun, I go for Banana Boat Aloe Vera Gel. It soothes sunburnt skin and relieves the burning and itching feeling. I also use it on the face to tone down any redness.

Makeup I usually go for less makeup during my summer holiday. Instead of using foundation, I tend to wear BB cream or tinted moisturizer. My favourite tinted moisturizer is the NARS Pure Radiant Tinted Moisturizer. It’s long lasting, sheer, and evens out skin tone. It’s also lightweight so you will feel like you have nothing on your face. For my eyes, I only use waterproof mascara. My holy grail product is the Clinique High Impact Waterproof Mascara.

It has a lightweight finish and doesn’t leave your lashes crunchy no matter how many layers you apply. It gives you long and lush looking lashes. Plus it doesn’t smudge and lasts for a long time.

To give my face a bronzed look, my favourite product is the Bourjois Delice de Poudre Bronzing Powder a.k.a the chocolate bronzer. The highstreet classic is perfect for contouring or just to use all over the skin for sun kissed look. Last but not least, cheeks and lip stains. My favourite is Benefit Cha Cha Tint. Just use your fingers to apply it on your cheeks and lips. It is also sheer so you can layer it on if you want more intense colour. The tropical coral hue of the product is definitely the perfect colour for summer.

“For the body, I use their Anthelios SPF 30 Smooth Lotion, which is the same as their facial lotion as it absorbs quickly and doesn’t feel greasy on the skin”

A beginners’ guide to beauty blogging Flora Davies shares with us her tips on to take the world of beauty blogging by storm in three simple steps, focusing on: the set up, the content, and finally, the look.

A

few factors that contribute to an impressive blog are the domain name, the direction, the content, the opinions and the photography. It’s important to have a think about the domain name your blog holds, so try to make sure it’s memorable. It’s also worth thinking about what direction you wish your blog to go in, and therefore what theme it holds- what will make your blog different from all the other beauty blogs out there? Are you going to try and take swatches, or focus on reviews, FOTD’s or compile an online beauty journal, which is a compilation of just about everything?

Set up “When it comes to content: write a blog that you would like to read-try to be original” There are a few platforms to host your blog on: Blogger or WordPress. Blogger is the simpler of the two and is less technical. It takes you through the steps of creating a simple layout and is quite self-explanatory. Because it’s so easy, Blogger is however quite restrictive; you can only customize things to a certain extent. From what I’ve gathered,

WordPress is more for the html savvy, from a designer’s point of view, there’s a lot more you can do with WordPress in terms of personalization. For WordPress you have to have your blog on a server, which means you see your posts but the design is all html coded, so you just see the backend of your posts. To understand how WordPress functions, you might look into the Word Press for Dummies book to help you with all the technicalities. Alternatively, you can buy a blogger template from a graphic and web design company or even commission them to personally turn your blogger visions into a digital reality. These websites will say either ‘BlogSpot’ or ‘word press’ in the URL, so if you want your own personalised URL you can buy a domain name from a host.

Be honest and detailed and people will soon start to trust your opinion. Most importantly: remember to be patient-It takes time to build up readership of any blog. Try and be consistent, whether you update your site daily, every 4 days or weekly.

It’s nice for your readers to know when to expect new posts.

Content is key

You must remember that a blog is about the content, with the visuals only there to complement what you have written. Nevertheless, in my opinion, simpler is better in terms of template designs as it’s easier to navigate around. In terms of navigation, its good to have visible social media links and make it easy to manoeuvre from one post to another. It helps to have a way for your readers to find relevant posts, whether it’s using a search bar or categories. Try and think of how you like to read blogs and go from there!

When it comes to content: write a blog that you would like to read. Try to be original. In order for people to have a reason to go to your blog, there has to be content worth reading and with they’re being a plethora of blogs out there, you have to differentiate your blog from the others.

It’s all very well informing someone of the facts, but adding in your opinion is what people want to hear.

Look “What will make your blog different from all the other beauty blogs out there?”

The Courier

beauty.21

Monday 16 May 2015

thecourieronline.co.uk/beauty Instagram @courier_beauty | Twitter @CourierBeauty

Interviewing like a pro Phoebe Hoi Yiu Ng gives us her top tips on how to give yourself a professional look for that all important interview.

A

s summer is approaching, it is time for soon-to-be graduates to go searching for jobs. With so many other competitors out there, you need a lot more than talent to stay on top of the job-hunting game.

Of cause your skills and personality is important, but how you present yourself in terms of appearance also says a lot about yourself - it is the first impression you give to the interviewer. It is especially true if you are applying for a position requiring you to represent the company and talk to clients. You want to look polished but be yourself at the same time. Read the following guide to boost your career!

Make-Up

Different industries may have slightly different expectations on their candidates. Large corporations or finance may be a bit rigid in terms of your look. Meanwhile, if you are looking for a more creative industry, there’s probably more room to play around with your look. Something chic, but serious.

“The focus of the interview should be on you, as a potential talent for the company, not your beauty (of cause it is important to get hired, but not for the wrong reason). Therefore, do not go too far on make up so that it would not overpower your talent” However, that’s a general rule you should follow - KISS (Keep it simple, stupid). The interview room is not a place for you to experiment the latest beauty trend. The focus of the interview should be on you, as a potential talent for the company, not

your beauty (of cause it is important to get hired, but not for the wrong reason). Therefore, do not go too far on make up so that it would not overpower your talent. Play up one feature. For example, if you are wearing a bright lip colour then you should tone down the rest of the face. While there are many arguments both for and against big statements like red lipstick, there’s one biggest no-no for interviews though, which is smoky eyes. Save that clubbing look for the celebration after you bagged your dream job.

Finally, get someone to check your look or take a selfie in front of a full length mirror just to make sure your contouring do not look like a piece of dirt or your mascara clumping up together.

Beauty Hacks from your Beauty editors Stock up on the Coconut oil! This beauty gem can be used as a hair mask, moisturiser, eye make up remover, teeth whitener, and can even be used for cooking!

Hair “If you have long hair, go for a ponytail to look confident and collected. Finish off by wrapping a small section of hair around the elastic and secure with bobby pin”

Got a lemon? Lemon juice works a treat for removing blackheads, lightening scars and as a hair treatment for naturally lightening hair!

No matter what style you are wearing, the main thing is to look fresh and tidy. A lot of girls like to put their long hair in front, as if they are trying to hide their faces. This kind of action could be considered to be lack of confidence. Even if you are not a hairspray person, you could use it to avoid flyaway and frizz hanging around.

If you have long hair, go for a ponytail to look confident and collected. Finish off by wrapping a small section of hair around the elastic and secure with bobby pin. A ponytail is suggested for another strategic reason - so that you won’t have any hair to fiddle with. A topknot could do too.

How to make a smoky eye more subtle and soft? Take your bronzer and lightly apply around the edge of the eye and blend everything to create a warmer look.

Get set for a long hot summer If you worry about your make-up lasting in the heat, Melody Ramsey is here to bring us her fail-safe products for a look that’s almost bulletproof

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e have returned to that time of year where the day could either entail some bearable sun and a nice cool breeze or where the mere thought of stepping into the blazing heat could break you out into a sweat.

British Summer is upon us, and for the days where it is inevitable you will suffer from sweaty upper lip syndrome, these products promise to keep your makeup on your face and your shine under control. So hopefully you will stay looking fresh and not too oily after half an hour outside.

“By using an all-in-one BB cream you run less of a risk of a million products sliding down your face in the summer sun, and even if it does start to wander, the re-application is easy” The rise of the BB cream has been a blessing for our summer skin. With more coverage than a tinted moisturiser (meaning you don’t need super human skin before you even apply it) but not as heavy as a normal foundation, these serum/moisturizer/primer/foundation concoctions are perfect for a lightweight every day look. By using an allin-one BB cream you run less of a risk of a million products sliding down your face in the summer

sun, and even if it does start to wander, the reapplication is easy. Particularly you should make the products with SPF included your new best friends, such as Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream with SPF 30 (£7.99). With flawless skin and protection, BB creams should be a seasonal essential.

Although lightweight products are the solution to your sweaty problems throughout the day, there are still going to be times where a trip to a beer garden will be necessary and a BB cream isn’t quite going to cut it in the coverage stakes. For those nights on holiday where a full face of make up is required, there is Benefit POREfessional primer. A favourite in the beauty community, this primer promises to minimise pores, compliment all skin tones and help makeup stay put. With a silky smooth consistency that applies like a balm, you won’t even feel like you have an extra layer on your face. At £24.50 for 20ml, this primer is on the pricey side but as only a pea-sized amount is needed to cover your whole face, the bottle lasts for a long time.

However if you are looking for something a bit cheaper, a great contender is The Body Shop’s AllIn-One Instablur (£14.00 for 25ml). Although the consistency of this product is heavier and more gel-like than the POREfessional, its vow of 12-hour shine control will make sure your foundation and concealer stays put.

So we’ve gone through summer-friendly bases, now we can turn our attention to products that will hopefully set these bases and do some face-sliding prevention.

“A favourite in the beauty community, this primer promises to minimise pores, compliment all skin tones and help makeup stay put” For powder, there are no products with better value for money than from Rimmel London. Their Stay Matte Pressed Powder and Clear Complexion Transparent Powder (both £3.99) are so affordable whilst also being really high quality. The Clear Complexion particularly will look lovely on top of a BB cream for a super natural day look.

Finally, it is time for the holy grail of long-lasting makeup, the Urban Decay All Nighter Setting Spray. This product will change your life (or just make your makeup stay on for a really, really long time). Three or four quick sprays directly onto the face will leave you feeling cool, refreshed and ready to bask in the sun. At £22.00 the 118ml bottle lasts for months and is definitely worth every penny.

Unlike other settings sprays, the All Nighter settles into skin like a fine mist, so there is no stickiness or tightness after application.

Urban Decay have created the ultimate summer essential which every beauty addict needs in their makeup bag!

All pictures are taken from the companies instagrams

The Courier

arts.23

Monday 16 May 2016

thecourieronline.co.uk/arts c2.arts@ncl.ac.uk | Instagram: @CourierArts

The way the world works breaks

Drama Fest Newcastle University’s Theatre Society put on their annual drama festival and once again amaze our reviewers.

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eligion and theatre have gone together like a good cheese and a great wine, throughout large parts of modern history.

With tales of resurrection, bloodshed and questions of our place in the world, being portrayed on stage throughout history, NUTS’ The way the world works breaks the established narrative of religion and theatre, to deliver a truly unique product.

With heaven being represented as a typical office, a delightfully post-modern God, has his job on the line against a female Lucifer, Lucy, for control over humanity.

Frustrated by his inability to cure humanity of its vices and self-destruction, God sends Jesus, disguised as a janitor to the office departments of heaven in order to heal humanity.

What unfolds, is an utterly clever and comical representation of Jesus and his journey, in a modern context. The contrast created between God and his administrative subjects, mir-

Good Taste

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ing.

Centred on the female character Rose, the play revolves around her experiences on three different blind dates.

A delusional magician, a vampire and a man of peculiar sexuality all lend themselves brilliantly to the tragic-comic nature of the production, as each over-the-top portrayal keeps the narrative of the story flowing well.

The wacky performances of the performances of the male supporting actors is delightfully underscored by performance of the Rose who goes along with the increasing intensity of unbearable shenanigans, without losing herself in the cacophony of the awkward interchanges.

While stale in parts, the play’s sucker punch of a twist, proves how a meticulous build up can seem all the more impressive when ended of a crescendo of a dynamic swerve. The tragic element of the plot, bring to the fore our own struggles with loneliness, the need to seek companionship and an understated desire to find the good in people, no

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matter how out-of-sorts they seem.

NUTS’ Good Taste ticks all the checkboxes of what can be considered a good comedic production. While the over-the-top personality portrayals might seem a tad repetitive and tacky to some, their use as human objects to elevate a seemingly simple plot, add to the subtle wonder of the play.

The production managed to elicit a plethora of emotions throughout it’s run time and posed some key thoughts that would’ve caused many an audience member to introspect, and in doing so leave the audience engaged beyond the play’s completion.

Ritwik Sarkar

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by Hannah Jayne Leek

n Tuesday 3rd May, the first night of Newcastle University Theatre Society’s Dramafest took place. This is two day event where students showcase their own work. Three plays were performed on the first night Dot, Welcome to Camp Camp and, following last year’s success, Durham theatre society’s Small Hours.

Dot, written and directed by Hannah Jayne Leek, is based on the true story of her Great-Grandmother’s life. Set in 1950’s Scunthorpe, Dorothy, Dot, hopes to be reunited with her younger brother. However, this is not something her uncle, who raised her, is keen on. Her Uncle is a drunk, who is violent towards both Dot and her Aunt. He believes the boy is responsible for the death of his mother, the sister to his wife, whom he loved. His temper and violence prevents Dot from going to get her brother as she is scared of what he might do.

Meanwhile, Dot falls in love with George, whom she meets at her job singing in a bar. He hates how she lives in fear of Uncle and persuades her to marry him. The couple are on the way to fetch the child when George is taken ill and rushed to hospital.

The play ends with Dot reunited with her brother, but losing her husband. This creates an ending that

Jigsaw

sticks with the audience, after the play has ended.

The story is at once heart-warming and heartbreaking, you would not know this was Hannah’s debut as a writer/director for NUTS and I hope she is very proud of what she achieved. She manages to portray love and loss with equal clarity. This was a brilliant play to open Dramafest with and I hope she continues to write.

There were wonderful performances from Flora Squires and Max Fosh as Dot and George. Their singing was particularly good and helped set the scene for the play. Also, well done to Max who performed whilst injured. Other notable performances were from James Howlett and Emily Turnbull as Dot’s Uncle and Aunt. Howlett, in particular, was a surprise as this performance was a huge change of tone to his other parts this year and he handled it very well.

Kathryn Norton

Spoon-Feeders

by Lucy Sherratt

ucy Sherratt’s Jigsaw provided a contrasting tone and absorbing juxtaposition to the previous comic performance. Despite tackling the challenging subject of mental illness, the play was approached with a great deal of sensitivity and integrity. From the opening lines the audience fell silent and enthralled as the patients embarked on the tough journey of divulging their suppressed fears and inadequacies.

The naturalistic acting style allowed sophisticated characterisation from the four actors playing the patients, and their polished monologues with strong vocal musicality shaped a nuanced portrayal of their anxious and erratic personalities. The poignant dialogue was also remarkable in reflecting their struggles with inner torment. The atmosphere of pathos was often unexpectedly punctured with comic interjections, to temporary dispel the emotional intensity such as the candid line ‘’I think I’m gay’’, or the irony of a self-confessed liar narrating ridiculous anecdotes. Sherratt cleverly toyed with the audience’s emotions with the balance of humorous lines and profound confessions. The setting was fascinating as whilst the psychotherapist was positioned from the audience’s perspective, a single spotlight lit the patients one by one, which turned the large auditorium space into an intimate atmosphere.

The small stage worked to the cast’s advantage as the minimalistic set and plain costumes drew attention to the char-

rors humanity’s constantly evolving relationship with a higher power, their apathy and their preoccupation with the mundane. Such a dynamic is delightfully played up in Jesus’ unfolding reactions with the staff.

The comic interplays both staff and messiah are perhaps underscored brilliantly by the staffs’ frightening ignorance of the simplicity of Jesus’ message and their failure to recognize him for who he is.

The plays only downfall perhaps lies in the portrayal of the female devil, who for now fault of her acting ability, serves only to halt the plot with her frivolous, yet timid desire to establish her rule over humanity.

The way the world works uses intelligent plot devices and clever humour to re-assess our relationship with religion and a higher power in a manner that intends to inform and entertain brilliantly.

Dot

by Aidan Clancy & Joe Hodgson

xploring the wacky world of online dating, Good Taste is a delightfully tacky presentation of all the wacky ups and downs of online dat-

by Tom Merson & Victoria Kaye

acters’ revelations. Sherratt’s tightly-structured dialogue elicited one’s sympathy and close engagement as not a word in the script was futile. Standout moments included the palpable tension of seeing tears in the eyes of a young man, angry and exasperated as he huddled into a chair, or the girl overwhelmed when she described the roots of her illness; both characters haunted by their imperfections. The audience’s attention was also retained with sudden pace changes from slow dialogue to explosive violence or angst. ‘Jigsaw’s unsettling effect was also testimony to its original stylistic elements, such as the patients’ synchronised answering to their therapist, and their internal voices projected in the theatre; which was reminiscent of Brechtian style. ‘Jigsaw’ was met with great success as it resonated on a raw emotional level, and its resilient actors movingly captured the fragility and frustration of mental illness. The audience was left stunned by the ambitious piece.

Eleanor Benson

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by Patrick Watson

he preview of Spoon-Feeders depicted a somewhat futuristic world, where voice actors in an office record news interviews, which was met with a vibrant and responsive audience from the onset. The director and writer Patrick Watson used the intriguing script to shed light on and question the nature of media, and its capacity to manipulate verity with misleading information; and spoon-feeding society.

Integral to the performance’s success was its dynamic, energetic characterisation of the full cast who threw themselves into their characters.

The selections of very strong leads were particularly impressive as they commanded the stage with confidence, projection and notable sense of poise. For me a standout character was Maximilian, who offered a convincing a n d measured performance of the authoritative company boss, of whom the audience could not take their eyes off as he asserted his control and striking presence in commanding the full stage space.

The mixture of occasional rather melodramatic physicality and witty dialogue executed by skilled comedic timing had the audience roaring with laughter such

the charismatic Felicity’s blatantly ironic line ‘’I’m not posh’’.

Watson’s moments of humour carefully placed in the script were balanced however with rather profound reflections and thought-provoking themes about the existence and nature of truth, and the role of media in broadcasting only the public’s interests. The performance was mostly very slick and assured, and the one unfortunate technical mishap with a stage prop was dealt with very skilfully, and only contributed positively to the audience’s enjoyment and engagement with the piece. As the lights dimmed on the final freeze frame of Felicity just about to record an interview, the audience was left wanting more from this modern and provocative drama. The short snapshot of ‘Spoon-Feeders’ displayed an effective and hard-hitting mixture of comedy and complex socio-political themes, which was executed through inventive scriptwriting and thoughtful acting. Watson’s preview delivered an entertaining conclusion to the NUTS Drama Festival and promises an intriguing and original work for the Edinburgh Fringe.

Eleanor Benson

24.arts Arts Editors: Holly Suttle, Emily Watton & Jade Holroyd

The Meta-Narrative of Cole Jackson

Part III of a three part instalment of Kitty Marie’s short story

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atherine sighed as she looked at her watch, the hands turned and she wondered how long she had been sitting there. Waiting. Waiting for the elusive, intriguing Cole Jackson to return, she was completely oblivious to who Cole was chasing, she was completely oblivious to what was going to happen to Cole, she was completely oblivious that she wouldn’t see him again, at least not in the way she knew him. Catherine Hector was completely oblivious to what was going to kill her heart.

Cole stared at the strange device in the assailant’s hand; it was silver and oddly-shaped, it looked like something out of his science-fiction pulp novels. He was going to ask what it was but before he could, the assailant fired. A bright blue bubble of light enveloped Cole and gave him the most severe headache, he raised his hands and tried to escape the bubble but could not. As the bubble dissipated, Cole could feel the environment around him warp and shiver, when the bubble disappeared he looked at his hands.

“He ran his strange new hands around his body and felt something really wrong”

They were not the hands that he recognised, they were paler and somehow smaller, he pulled up the sleeve of his trench coat and looked at his arm, that was paler and smaller too. He ran his strange new hands around his body and felt something really wrong. He looked down and noticed something that shouldn’t have been there, it shouldn’t have been there at all, or rather they shouldn’t have been there at all. His hands shook as he felt them, they were firm, round and protruding out of his chest.

They were something that only females should have.

At that point in time he didn’t know what the assailant had done to him, he felt only fear, anger and confusion about what was happening to him…

His hands shook like leaves caught in wind as he looked at himself. He screamed and screamed and screamed.

The assailant slowly walked towards Cole and put his hands in front of him. He tried to calm Cole down, “Calm down Cole, it’s alright” he said in a strange accent as he looked at Cole.

“Cole scowled at the assailant and pulled open his trousers and looked down; he screamed...”

The assailant’s accent did sound very strange and unlike any other Cole had heard before, but at that moment he was unconcerned about the strangeness of a man’s accent. He was much more concerned with what the man had done to him. What had he done to him. What and how?

“Calm down?!” shouted Cole “It’s alright?!” he whailed as he looked at the assailant “What the hell have you done to me?!”

The assailant sheepishly swallowed and looked at Cole “I’ve turned you into a woman” he said slowly.

Cole’s jaw dropped “You’ve done what?!” he shouted as he unbuckled his trousers to check on something even more pressing.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you” said the assailant as he looked at Cole.

Cole scowled at the assailant and pulled open his trousers and looked down; he screamed…

Didn’t manage to catch Part I and II? Head on over to thecourieronline.co.uk and have a read!

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Beautiful language? It’s in Pole position Zofia Zwieglinska offers us an insight into the beauty and eccentricity of her native language and gives us some of the classic idioms they use in Poland

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oming from Poland to the UK at the tender age of five was a culture shock, and I have since become accustomed to the differences between my home language and the one of my adopted home. English is beautiful in it’s simplicity- it is extremely applicable in all forms, whether that is in literature, spoken language or in song. With Polish, there are difficulties- there are different versions of different words depending on certain extremes, like ‘słodki’, ‘słodziutki’, ‘najsłodzszy’ (sweet, very sweet, sweetest), which usually have a similar structural pattern.

The alphabet includes accents, like in French, although I am sure you have no idea how to pronounce ‘ł’ (like the ‘w’ in ‘ew’), three types of ‘z’ accents ( ‘ź’, ‘ż’, ‘rz’, pronounced ‘zi’, and two types of ‘j’, like in the French ‘janvier’), and others. When learning the Polish language, the alphabet is relatively easy- unlike Cyrillic or Japanese; it does not have a completely different set of symbols.

“Raw, real and constantly in pain from bruises, unhappiness and drink” Today, the Polish language looks and sounds very different when compared to its past forms. There was a time when it would have been impossible for people from one side of the country to understand the other. Although this isn’t the case today, in modern Polish dialects still do exist and are mostly defined through certain border regionsthe Kaszub dialect and the Silesian among others. Taking into account the multiple wars, country divides and different rulers,

the Polish language is a melting pot of borrowed words and old-time cultural habits, resulting in a beautiful language that is on the list of top ten hardest languages to learn.

To understand the variety in association that would be unheard of in English, you have to look at particular Polish language groups. Idioms are an interesting topic in Polish, and many idioms that appear in Polish may sound funny to Englishspeakers. ‘Wiercić komuś dziurę w brzuchu (to drill a hole in someone’s belly) means that you pester someone relentlessly.

“The Polish language is a melting pot of borrowed words and old-time cultural habits”

‘Rzucać grochem o ściane’ (To throw beans at the wall) would translate as ‘falling on deaf ears’, or that a pursuit is pointless and won’t achieve anything. Another fun one is ‘wypchać się sianem’ (to stuff yourself with hay) which usually gets shorted to ‘get stuffed’, or in other words, get lost.

The Polish language does have some weird expressions and metaphors also. To ‘grow like yeast (‘rosnać jak na drożdzach’) means to grow quickly and is usually applied to children, while ‘to run away to where the crabs spend their winter’ (‘uciekać gdzie raki zimuja’) means to run away very far.

To ‘look like a jumping pig’ (‘wyglada z boku jak świnia w skoku’) may not be the most polite way of talking about someone’s appearance but you do have to admit that it adds a certain originality to a text, especially since in Polish it rhymes.

Although Polish is hard, it is by no means im-

“Idioms are an interesting topic in Polish, and many idioms that appear in Polish may sound funny”

possible to learn. Adam Mickiewicz, a Romantic, was a wordsmith of Polish verse and likened the language to Shakespeare in musicality and expression. Many great Polish writers are widely recognised around the world for their contributions to literature, so why not turn away from the famous French translations and turn to Polish instead?

Revise with the artistic vibes CharlotteFirthgivesusthelow-downoncreativerevisiontechniques to get you through this stressful final term and guarantee success*

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ith the ever-increasing popularity of social media apps that share only photos and videos with your friends and followers – Instagram, VscoCam, Vine, to name only a few – the use of the written word on social media has massively depleted in favour of the visual arts. Where people once uploaded photos of themselves or their friends only, people now take photos of the landscape, art, and architecture and, now that exam season is fast approaching, amateur photographers around the country are doing the same thing with their revision notes (#revison #exams #needaholiday) and its inadvertently helping their learning.

The use of colours and images in revision notes and posters has long been thought of as a good strategy to revise. It makes reading and writing notes less monotonous and tedious and it means that you’re using more than one revision technique to learn – in this case, visual aids as well as writing notes. Associating facts and quotes with a particular image will improve your memory and your results, according to The Guardian in 2015. Rather ironic given that whatever bright future lies ahead for graduates, “culture and creativity” are not, as far as this government is concerned, central to it.

“The use of colours and images in revision notes and posters has long been thought of as a good strategy to revise”

To find that ever sought after “perfect composition” for an Instagram photo, the revision notes cannot be dull and this is where a student’s creativity kicks in.

Whether re-arranging your bedroom so that your MacBook is angle perfectly parallel to your Yo Sushi lunch and your Pret A Manger flat white (aren’t you disappointed that you’re one of many),

or taking out your highlighter pens for the first time since GCSEs to make it all a little more aesthetically pleasing, you’re looking at your revision notes and methods objectively in a way that you would not have done otherwise. Students are using colour and images and creative methods and when they have bought their fourth coffee of the day, they’re drinking it next to their work instead of in the café because only the former not the latter will get them closer to that thousand followers mark.

“When they have bought their fourth coffee of the day, they’re drinking it next to their work”

It also means that by uploading the photo, you have told other people you’re revising. This means no texts from your friends who have finished asking what you’re doing today, and that moment where you contemplate telling them you’re free when you should be doing work.

Yo u ’ v e p u t

out the smoke signal when you upload your arty revision photo to Instagram, you’ve put a sock on the door and told them do not disturb unless it’s to discuss the work. It’s all a little superficial but it helps and it means that taking a break might just be editing your photo and chatting in the comments.

“We all do this to look like we’re doing more work than we really are and to pretend we’re more arty too”

I have no doubt that we all do this to look like we’re doing more work than we really are and to pretend we’re more arty with it too; but if it walks like a good student, talks like a student, and Instagrams like a good student, they might just be a good student.

The Courier

arts.25

Monday 16 May 2016

thecourieronline.co.uk/arts c2.arts@ncl.ac.uk | Instagram: @CourierArts

Golden oldies of ‘Op Art’ history

With the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro fast approaching Mark Sleightholm talks us through some of the best colourful and politically-charged art from the past Olympic Games

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ith the Olympics coming round once more this summer, the world will turn its attention to Rio to watch the magic of sport.

These days the Games are a multi-billion industry, so it’s unsurprising that so much care goes into the design of the logos and posters for each Games. But even in simpler, less commercialised times, Olympic posters were genuine works of art, with many designs quickly becoming iconic symbols of their age.

very straightforward – some would say boring – designs. In 1964 Tokyo took the red dot from the Japanese flag, added the Olympic rings, put “Tokyo 1964” at the bottom, jobs a good’un.

In 1976 later Montreal added a shadowy effect

“It was ridiculed at the time, but certainly has a confident, slightly aggressive air”

The modern Olympics began in 1896, when poster design was a rather different business to anything we know today. The early posters had a lot of writing on them, which detracts from their impact, although there was still space for creativity.

London’s 1908 poster has a high jumper jumping out of the frame in a playful use of depth, while the 1912 (Stockholm) and 1920 (Antwerp) Games had posters that included the flags of many of the countries taking part; a symbol of international cooperation to bookend one of the worst international conflicts in history.

As a nod to the Games’ heritage, many of the early posters channelled Ancient Greece, with lots of naked athletic men. They were finally banished for the 1956 Melbourne games, which kept things simple with a picture of the Olympic rings on the end of a folded piece of paper.

This simplicity seemed to be popular, with many of the posters from the 1960s and 70s featuring

dents just days before the Opening Ceremony and the famous Black Power glove protest during the Games, but the poster captures history of Mexico and the psychedelic optimism of the 1960s beautifully.

Op Art was a big scene in 1968 thanks to the likes of Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely, and Mexico City’s poster combines the geometric, concentric lines of this style with the geometric designs of the Aztecs and other pre-Colombian Mexican cultures. “68” is woven into the Olympic rings, while “Mexico” blends into the mass of lines, making it hard to see but at the same time very noticeable.

As the Olympics became more commercialised in the 1980s, the logos became more “organic” and “expressive”, with lots of flowing curves and writing that looks like it’s been done by hand. Barcelona, Sydney, Athens, Beijing, and the design for this summer’s Games in Rio.

“some Soviet stars and stripes to create quite a fearsome, no-nonsense design” to the rings, which looks alright but says absolutely nothing about Canada. Four years later the Moscow poster included some Soviet stars and stripes to create quite a fearsome, no-nonsense design.

But one of my favourite Olympic posters has to be Mexico City ‘68. The Games themselves were overshadowed by the massacre of Mexican stu-

There are a couple of exceptions to this. Atlanta ‘96 looks like someone did on Microsoft Paint, maybe on their nice new PC. London 2012 also stands out, with its angular shapes that possibly look a bit like the four countries of the UK, if you squint a bit. It was ridiculed at the time, but certainly has a confident, slightly aggressive air, while keeping the energy that wavy lines offer in the designs of other recent posters.

Summer readin’ had me a blast Lydia McNeillie’s top 3 book recommendations for the summer

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ith exams and essay deadlines fast approaching, spare time and reading for fun is the last thing on everyone’s mind. However, every cloud has a silver lining and after exams, a very long summer is to follow; a summer which offers ample reading time for all Newcastle University book lovers, so without further ado, here are my top three recommendations for the summer months. I have selected books from different genres so there should be something for everyone on this list!

1.

Altered Carbon

by Richard Morgan

Altered Carbon is a science fiction novel, that I read this year for one of my English modules. I adored it. The story is set in a world where human personalities can be stored digitally and downloaded into new bodies. Death has become a thing of the past, especially for the rich. We follow the engaging main character Kovacs as he is transported into a new body and a new world to be hired by a man who wants to find his attempted murderer. Yet again, this book is perfect for the summer as it is fast paced, so ideal for a beach read.

In addition, I would recommend this book for any time of year. It is engaging, original and has a truly unique take on questions of love, immortality and what it means to be human.

Our summer holiday photography 2.

Sarah Davis gives her opinion on the artistry , creativity and blatant shallow bragging that occurs when it comes to preserving our summer holidays on social media for the world to see

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ays are elongating, cherry pink blossom is in bloom and leaf buds are beginning to appear on each tree without exception. Nature’s full exuberance may be found from the likes of personal Instagram feeds, and Tumblr timelines. Well-captured Notting Hill decorated doorways embellished with trailing ever-green ground creeping climbing plants, captivating our scrolling delights, the arrival of summer brings nothing less.

“an open outlet for a new world of creativity and discovery”

Exams are on the horizon, deadlines are looming, but there is a spot of summer sunshine at the end of the tunnel that we are steadily approaching. For many of us struggling to afford bread each week, summer may consist of confining oneself to a menial, mundane, repetitive temporary job.

Whose only holiday will be the possible luxury of visiting the east coast for a shot of extravagance, including penny slot machines, a trip to the shell shop and of course, those five freshly made sugary doughnuts for £1.

However, for the more eager and prosperous character, this summer may be filled with enchant-

@jalhamdani

ing trips around the world, discovering the earth’s best kept secrets whilst taking a few snapshots on the way. For my housemate, for example, three months will consist of a journey visiting twelve different European counties. As well as a monumental trip climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, followed by an enduring trek through the African landscape to its beautiful wildlife… Finally completed with a once in a life-time holiday to the white crystal coast of Zanzibar.

Many of us departing the shorelines of the United Kingdom will no doubt keep our Instagram followers inundated with breathtakingly radiant pictures of our travels. Decades earlier, holiday snaps were often physically shared with family members with date and time referenced on the back of hard copies, however, today our personal memories are shared with the entire digital world.

The Guardian reported nine months ago that professional and personal photographers are now included in small tours to Colombia and Nicaragua, simply because their photos will immediately updated on social media and promote the product. Phrases such as: “If you didn’t photograph X did you even go?” bombard Facebook memes and vines. These create a compelling force that drives us to feel a need to show off our tanned legs with the remnants of a Mediterranean coastline taking

@tanyazakharovaa

up the backdrop of our adventurous trip.

Are we artists? Or simply tourists, whether we like it or not, or do we just want to document the beautiful memories we have made and enchanting visions we have seen? It may be difficult to reign in the seething jealousy expressed at over sharing #loveroftravel snapshots and how the profound privilege of many travel accounts can be utterly repulsive. Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook have reshaped many perceptions of how we view and interact with our travels.

“captivating our scrolling delights, the arrival of summer brings nothing less”

Social media platforms have created such an open outlet for a new world of creativity and discovery that was incredibly restrictive for those who do not have the monetary backing to peregrinate our awe-inspiring planet. Meanwhile my followers will be entranced by my highly filtered pictures of a cloudy bleak Bridlington promenade, with an extra upload of a demolished vinegar soaked, bag of chips. Definitely worthy of an Instagram famous award!

@ghidoluc

The Cuckoo’s Calling

by Robert Galbraith & JK Rowling

As an avid Harry Potter fan, it is obvious I would recommend a novel by the not so secret author of this highly acclaimed and successful novel. The Cuckoo’s Calling was released in 2013 and follows the loveable private investagator Cormoran Strike as he is asked to uncover the true murderer of a celebrity. This novel is a charming yet fast paced read so perfect for a day in the sun and the characters have great chemistry. In addition to this, The Cuckoo’s Calling is the first in a series and there have been two published since 2013, The Silk Worm and most recently The Career of Evil. I am currently half way through the Career of Evil and it promises to be just as successful as its predecessors. This is a series that will see you through the summer and will not disappoint!

3.

Beautiful Ruins

by Jess Walter

My final selection is a book which is, in my opinion, like no other.

Beautiful Ruins tells the love story of an Italian innkeeper and an American starlet, it is a story which covers a lifetime and is honest, funny and sad all at the same time.

I would recommend this book with one warning, when you decide to read this book, you have to leave your pragmatism at the door. This is a story for those who love the surreal and marvellously eccentric moments in movie and life, it is a book which will leave you uplifted and ready to enjoy the summer sun.

26.music

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Music Editors: Jamie Shepherd, Dominique Daly & Connor McDonnell

Living La Vida Local Music Editor Jamie Shepherd gives us best music events the North East has to offer this summer

We appreciate that not everyone can spend their summer holidays swanning around South East Asia or raving at the best up and coming Croatian Festivals. So here are three music events for those staying closer to home this summer.

18th June: The June Genie @ The Cluny

So we started the year with the devastating news that David Bowie had passed away. Us music editors were incredibly cut up by it here at Courier HQ but we were overjoyed to see all the sincere tributes pouring in for the man himself. We were also happy to see the good that it’s brought out in people. One such example being the tribute night The Cluny are hosting on the 18th June. Playing a whole host of Bowie and co-conspirator records, the night looks like it’s going to be a fun, flippant and exceptionally funky night (much like the man himself) with face painting and all funds raised going to the teenage cancer unit at the RVI. At only a fiver a ticket there’s no reason why you shouldn’t indulge in the gift of sound and vision.

8th July: Late Nite Tuff Guy @ The Cut

Ever since Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’ topped every end of year chart back in 2013, the disco resurgence has permeated into the orifices of Newcastle’s club scene. Even the heaviest of techno nights have been broken down with the odd bit of Chic midway through a Berghain worthy set. With all of this in mind, it’s no surprise that Newcastle will be welcoming back the leading proponent of jacked up disco edits Late Nite Tuff Guy when he returns with the gang from Loop and One20 to turn The Cut into the sweatiest disco in town. While those who are faithful acolytes to the church of Loop may be more attuned to dancing away to the more subtle sounds of the next deep house mix, I’d defy anyone who doesn’t have a “TAPS ARFFF” moment when Late Nite Tuff Guy plays his edit of our recently departed purple little man Prince’s classic ‘Controversy’. As someone who saw him last summer at The Cut, I can vouch for this being up there with one of the best parties we can expect to be held in Newcastle this year. Expect sweat, Sister Sledge and super sexy disco dancing .

16th July: Grace House Summer Showcase @ The Cluny

The North East has a very vibrant gig scene with a variety of different genres being represented across the region. One such gig that exemplifies this diversity is the Grace House Summer Showcase being held @ The Cluny on Saturday 16th July.

Opening the event we have improv-folk duo Apple Scruffs who I interviewed in an earlier edition of this column. Hailing from Wearside, Apple Scruff ’s is the side project started by Joe and Jordan from Sunderland stalwarts Lilliput. After a video of the duo performing live in the basement of the Lit and Phil went viral we can only hope that they’ll bring the magic to The Cluny. Also featured on the lineup is the surf/doom rock Cheap Lunch who bring a raucous and heady mix of genres to the table in one very loud set. In a more melodic contrast, we’ve also got nugazers High Tide 15:47 on the line-up who’ve supported Eagulls and even managed to accrue a Facebook like from one Mac DeMarco’s mam. Heading the bill is Nine Tons who recently got airtime on Tom Robinson’s BBC 6 Music show and describe their sound as “Shautrock”. Later in the evening disco and funk vibes will be provided by Jo & Pav from Cubik and Moon Rocks and Gregg and Dean from It Lives and Nightworx, stalwart DJs from The Forth, Tokyo and Ernest.

Be sure to follow us on Spotify so you can have a little listen to local music and more at - https://play. spotify.com/user/thecourierdoesmusic

The death of the artist After Prince’s passing, the news of his treasure trove of music was discovered.

Sophie Ahmed discusses what should happen to the vault of music

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hortly after Prince’s death at the end of last month, rumours have circulated about a vault which the singer-songwriter used to store tons of unreleased music. Reports suggest that recordings in the vault date as far back as 1983, and considering that the star put out a mind-boggling 39 studio albums in his 57 years on Earth, it’s crazy to think that there’s even more. It’s been confirmed that Bremer Trust, a bank holding company in Minnesota, has drilled open the vault while it was in temporary control of the estate, and supposedly the singer was the only person with a key. This has led to a lot of debate amongst fans regarding what should be done with Prince’s hidden treasures.

“It seems that Prince didn’t like the Internet very much so we should maybe rule out the option of releasing the contents of the mysterious vault via social media or streaming sites”

frequently found himself embroiled in issues of copyright infringement. In 2007, he threatened to sue YouTube and EBay for circulating his material without permission and it’s for this reason that it’s impossible to find any unedited versions of virtually any Prince song on Youtube or Spotify.

Spookily, days before the singer passed away I tweeted something whiny about the classic 1971 hit ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’ disappearing off the Internet. After hearing the tragic news, I bought the track because it’s what Prince would have wanted.

It has also been quoted that Prince once said, ‘the Internet is completely over’, and went on to say, ‘the Internet was over for anyone who wants to get paid, tell me a musician

Whilst nothing has been released as of yet, clues about what the vault might contain have been given by Prince’s former Sound Engineer Susan Rogers. Rogers supposedly wanted to protect Prince’s legacy and believed that one way of doing this was to lock up everything the multi-talented man had ever produced. But what is to become of Prince’s protected legacy now that he is no longer here?

Of course the right thing to do is to release it in a way that Prince would have approved of, if he would have approved of that at all. This is the tricky thing as Prince

who’s got rich off digital sales’. Some might argue then that the recordings should be free of charge to avoid the wrong person making money off the back of an artist who is no longer here. But really, it seems that Prince didn’t like the Internet very much so we should maybe rule out the option of releasing the contents of the mysterious vault via

“Reports suggest that recordings in the vault date as far back as 1983, and considering that the star put out a mind-boggling 39 studio albums in his 57 years on Earth, it’s crazy to think that there’s even more” social media or streaming sites.

Overall, it seems a bit tedious getting wound up over questions of rights which have no definite answer. After the shock of Prince’s premature passing, fans just want to enjoy everything the artist had to offer. Whilst a huge amount of Prince’s creativity has been released in the form of almost 40 records, making the music in the vault readily available would cause pleasure, rather than pain, to everyone involved. After all, Prince spoke about the recordings in 2012, saying, ‘One day, someone will release them. I don’t know that I’ll get to release them’, which does validate the voices that say they should be made available.

Radiohead are the internet stars

The internet is both a friend and foe of the music industry. In the wake of their new album, Dan Pye investigates how Radiohead have utilised the WWW

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eing the owner of a large record label was probably a relatively cushy job back in the nineties. Mainstream pirating wasn’t really a thing back then, someone had to go over to a friend’s house a burn a load of CDs or record cassette tapes before distributing them out to other friends. On the whole, it was a lot easier to just spend the tenner on a CD and accepting that the majority of your hardearned cash was going to the faceless exec at the head of Capitol records.

Imagine then, the shock that these guys must have got when they discovered the existence of Napster. Who would have thought that this newfangled thing called the Internet could challenge their so far unquestioned dominance over the CD market? Who would have thought that anyone, anywhere, with a working Internet connection could download almost any song for free in the space of about five minutes? Madness.

“Radiohead didn’t treat the Internet as the deadly enemy that needed to be eliminated, but rather as an opportunity to rebrand the way we consume and listen to music” How is this in any way relevant to Radiohead?

Well, rather than being like record labels and certain bands (*cough* *cough* Metallica), Radiohead didn’t treat the Internet as the deadly enemy that needed to be eliminated at all costs, but rather as an opportunity to rebrand the way we consume and listen to music. Nine and a half years ago Radiohead released In Rainbows, but this wasn’t any ordinary album release. Firstly, Radiohead gave their fans only ten days warning after years of silence following their previous

album Hail to the Thief. Secondly, the album was going to be released exclusively online months before the physical release, and the final cincher was that fans could pay what they wanted per download. The album received a huge response, and was one of the first instances of a band using the Internet as a tool for PR.

“Now, using the Internet as a way to promote an upcoming album has become an industry standard”

The following album, The King of Limbs, contained only one single on it, yet it went on to become one of Radiohead’s most popular albums to date.

This time, it was Thom Yorke’s improvised dancing on the music video for ‘Lotus Flower’ that quickly made the album an Internet sensation (or meme, if you prefer).

Now, using the Internet as a way to promote an upcoming album has become an industry standard.

Beyoncé just did it with her album Lemonade.

This stirred social media into a frenzy, by giving the

album a surprise release, then hinting at cracks between her and Jay-Z’s relationship, which itself was undeniably genius. The 1975 did it with their last album, by removing everything from social media for a day and then only giving cryptic messages on Facebook and Instagram until their LP launch. Radiohead did something similar, with the surprise release of their new single, ‘Burn the Witch.’ So, in light of their new album, we should pay credit where credit is due. Radiohead have more than done their part in progressing music into the digital age.

The Courier

music.27

Monday 16 May 2016

99.9%

Electronic Blanket

Kaytranada

Sophie Ahmed discusses the potential saviour of British clubs and blowouts, in her final column of the year

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ollowing the lines of hip-hop production with jazz-infused drums. On a much more intimate is like studying ancestry. In recent years, level, Kay’s father identifies the Haitian essences in beatmakers such as Flying Lotus and these tracks, calling his son “a revolutionary” and a Hudson Mohawke were inspired by the likes pride that “he didn’t forget Haiti.” of J Dilla, Madlib and A Tribe Called Quest.

99.9% is the subject of Kaytranada melding with Although FlyLo and HudMo are still very much an inspiration. On ‘GOT IT GOOD’, which features active, there are fresher talents rising through UK’s legendary Craig David, Kay draws in garage the ranks. The 23 year old XL Recordings’ signed sounds to compliment David’s voice and already Kaytranada is one of the names that has been established acclaim as pioneer of a British musical newly added to the bottom of the tapestry of hip- movement. The same goes for his partnership with hop.

BADBADNOTGOOD on ‘WEIGHT OFF’, letting The Haiti-Canadian became a nocturnal musical his fellow Canadian instrumentalists pilot him creature when his brother, Louis-Phillipe, another before showing up himself. Kaytranada lets his hip-hop hopeful, introduced him to FL Studio in hand be taken, and shown around, before engulfing his teens, forming and knowledge he has “Kaytranada lets his hand be the splicing in their shared learnt and making it his. basement bedroom, in He is simultaneously taken, and shown around, their modest Montreal a lingering silhouette, family home. He still lives before engulfing the knowledge while also protruding there. He supports his he has learnt and making it his” outwards and staging family with the money his authority. This is he makes from music. His oeuvre of remixes, the role of the producer, something Kay does production credits and songs put out in his exceptionally. early days, as Kaytramadus, is huge. But nothing On ‘LITE SPOTS’ he samples the Brazilian compares to the importance of his debut, 99.9%. popstar Gal Costa’s ‘Pontus De Luz’, a rhythmic When Kay started out, pushing his songs in to number, which Madlib also sampled on ‘Salvador’ the public sphere of internet distribution forums on his 2010 release, and the second LP from his like Soundcloud, he was grouped in with house Medicine Show series, Flight to Brazil. On the music makers. Disclosure were one of the related recently released music video for ‘LITE SPOTS’, artists that listeners were quick to jump to. It seems Kaytranada builds a dancing robot which mimics almost insulting to compare Kaytranada with human dance moves. When the robot is unable to anything, because he possesses the prodigious do a move involving some strange arm contortion, talent of elusivity and experimentation. The it gets upset and sits alone. The dancing robot leading two tracks on the album - ‘TRACK UNO’ figuratively encompasses Kaytranada’s modest and then ‘BUS RIDE’ - are both instrumentals that up-bringing, while possessing an obvious, selfKay created, fashioned with groove and inspired awareness of talent. He impersonates and makes electronic interpretations. The album opener reeks his own original. of nouveau disco, while the latter sways around Connor McDonnell

The Ship Brian Eno

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rian Eno’s The Ship is what most fans of the Roxy-strutting, synth wobbling virtuoso have come to expect: an ambient, diverse collage of textures and timbres that leave the imagination both enriched and also unsettled. The album is an atmospheric journey into the depths of the sea in following the submersion of the Titanic, whilst recalling the lost voices of war that resound throughout the album, with the pleasant surprise of a perfectly executed cover of The Velvet Underground’s ‘I’m Set Free’ as its closing song.

On the 20 minute Odyssey of the opening track ‘The Ship’, Eno experiments with metallic, glasslike sounds that billow over one another – reflecting the track’s title in its evocation of the sea.

Within the vastness of this oceanic sonic-portrait, a chord crescendo is heard over the top of every other sound, which creates a lighter shade within the apparent depths of the ocean’s darkness. The auto-tuned vocals on this track, and the other singing voices heard, are a collage that feed from the song and not each other. Eno, although not tragically, allows them to drown all as one, which then evokes a vocal reminiscent of a whale’s call – calling into question aspects of life and death that permeate this album’s meaning.

On ‘Fickle Sun (I)’, the bass synthesizer that is used cleverly binds the oscillations of the track together, and more popular instrumentation is used here, which gives it the sense of a traditional song – folkloric almost. At the 8-minute mark, we reach the album’s most climatic point. The synthesized Brass ensemble and the percussion viciously attack the forefront of the sound, comparable to something like Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack to the film Inception.

A cinematic endeavour that is not quite a blockbuster.

Andy Mills

Xiu Xiu Plays the Music of Twin Peaks Xiu Xiu

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often like to think what would happen if audition songs got more famous than the famous ones (I’m talking about Johnny Cash’s potential Bond theme for Thunderball, etc.) Immediately, Xiu Xiu’s fascinating take on Angelo Badalamenti’s score for David Lynch’s cult TV show Twin Peaks is going to be another one of those alternative masterpieces.

Anybody who’s watched the show will now how truly terrifying it can get, and Xiu Xiu do a phenomenal job of drawing out the horror that lies beneath Badalamenti’s mournful strings. Their experimental, eerie slant owes lots to Lynch’s own musical aesthetic of recent years, full of low-fi vocals that echo and distort Julee Cruise’s original lyrics into something far more sinister. There’s still beauty to be found in tracks like ‘Falling’, but in ‘Sycamore Trees’ (featured in the series’ final episode), there’s a real sense of entrapment within the song itself, like it will never end, with Jamie Stewart’s vocals shaking through a minimal piano accompaniment.

When the album isn’t scaring the life out of you, there’s also plenty of the cool Badalamenti’s jazzy original score that’s replicated in interesting ways here. Audrey’s Dance is xylophone-heavy, and it’s a lovely refreshment from the album’s darker songs.

The climactic track is a spoken-word rendition of extract from Laura Palmer’s diary, furnished with dark synths and possibly the most unsettling final minute you could hope not to here. Stewart’s versatile voice returns with Mairzy Doats to tail off the album, the significance of which I shan’t spoil for readers who haven’t seen the show. But it’s nightmare-fuel.

Xiu Xiu’s loving tribute is a phenomenal indirect audition for the show’s 2017 reboot, but since Badalamenti is already returning, it’ll have to settle for a close second place.

Simon Ramshaw

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More than this Flying Lotus - You’re Dead! (2015) Flying Lotus’s most recent album was imbued with the producer’s take on jazz.

With his aterego Captain Murphy as one name on the album, he also hosted Kendrick Lamar, on the favourable ‘Never Catch Me’, Snoop Dogg, and the lesser known, yet masterful bassist, Thundercat.

Flying Lotus makes the recurring theme of death sound less morbid than it should.

Hudson Mohawke - Satin Panthers (2011) Satin Panthers is a five-track EP from the Glaswegian music-maker. The opening track ‘Octan’ is a dreamland, introducing thr EP with a twinkling twilight arpeggio.

‘Cbat’ is a crazed, catchy medley. You might listen to this track and think you’re losing your mind, but HudMo has method to his madness - like the offbeat bass and unpredictable drops.

Nocturnal Koreans Wire

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ursting forth from the vicious underbelly of the punk-rock scene in the 1970s, to crafting a more considered artistic temperament during the development of post-punk, Wire return in 2016 with Nocturnal Koreans – an album no less politically aware in its digressional fears of technocratic conspiracies, but tries to cover so much sonicground that you are left wondering where to stand.

Sharing the name of the album, the opening track Nocturnal Koreans fizzes and boils in its opening seconds to deliver reverberating guitars that shimmer across a bed of sure-fire drums that even the late Tony Wilson, post-punk aficionado and once Hacienda-manager, would be proud of.

As the obviously treated vocals step into view, the lyrics are oddly reminiscent of a Paul McCartneyesque narrative: ‘I dressed and I showered before I awoke.’ This is to great effect though, as the frenzied tempo and immediacy of the track reflects an apparent anxiety within modern living, heard clearly in the chorus’ question ‘do you think you are able of finding your way?’

Where the album seems to lose its focus, where it disappointingly starts to lose the sharp edges of a punk razorblade, is when it explores more ethereal and ephemerally despondent sonic landscapes, most prevalent on the song Forward Position. Not hinting at a sexual innuendo in any sense, the moody echoes that ring and contort throughout means that the song drools itself to sleep. Although the delay on the vocals gives them a futuristic radiance, the song can’t help sounding like a Pink Floyd B-side, as the lyrics bemoan the super-surveillance capabilities of modern technology: ‘I am black box I remember every promise that you broke.’

Sure of their beginnings, but less sure of their endings, Wire may need to raise the white flag, rather than their Pink Flag.

Andy Mills

o whilst I’ve enjoyed writing Electronic Blanket a lot, as summer approaches it’s time to wrap it up (pardon the pun). I’ve successfully made it sound like I know things about electronic music for a whole year now, even though I came into this without a clue. Thanks to everyone for reading and for giving me the honour of Columnist of the Year at this year’s Media Awards. I hope that in return I’ve provided you with loads of sick beats which you’ll treasure for years to come.

Soppy stuff aside, I’ll leave you with a nugget of optimism regarding the future of Britain’s club culture. Not long ago, Sadiq Khan was elected as the first Muslim Mayor of London in history which was a huge victory. Political views aside, Khan has vowed to protect the city’s ‘iconic club scene’.

He hopes to make London a 24-hour city, which would prevent further closure of small music venues. Khan doesn’t want young people to fled the city for the flourishing electronic music scenes of Amsterdam, Berlin or Prague. Newcastle’s doing just fine at the moment, but let’s hope his pledge spreads up North just in case. And on that positive note, I’m out.

You Need To Hear: Kaytranada

Haitian-Canadian beat-maker Kaytranada has just put out his debut album entitled 99.9% - an accurate percentage of how I would rate it. From Montreal, Louis Kevin Celestin is the truest example of a 21st century electronic musician. He’s a DJ and producer of the digital era who has been active since 2010, dropping various projects and over 40 remixes on the World Wide Web. Many of these were uploaded to Majestic Casual’s YouTube account ft. the standard saucy pic of a beach babe lounging around, and include reworkings of Flume’s ‘Holdin On’, Modjo’s 2000 tune ‘Lady’, and Janet Jackson’s ‘Alright’. To my surprise, Kaytranada actually took it upon himself to release his own music in the traditional form of an LP – and it payed off. 99.9% is sizzling to say the least. It grew from a project to make an EP which was ‘as funky as possible’, and funky it is. It’s hugely collaborative, featuring Craig David on ‘GOT IT GOOD’ which is 99.9% cheese-free despite the lyric ‘I’ll treat you like the Queen in Buckingham Palace’, and Little Dragon on ‘BULLETS’. Using his mad mixing skills, each track flows seamlessly into the next, and there’s a selection of tracks with vocalists as well as purely instrumental offerings. Jazz group BadBadButNotGood have even laid down some real instrumentation on ‘WEIGHT OFF’ with its melancholy bassline and rickety drumming. Talking basslines, those on the AlunaGeorge collaboration and ‘VIVID DREAMS’ with River Tiber will have you itching to dance. There’s too much good stuff to recommend on this 15 track whopper, so please listen to the whole thing. It’s my last wish.

Listen To: Kaytranada ft. AlunaGeorge – TOGETHER

Preview: Ape-x Summer Closing Party, 27th May, Cosmic Ballroom

There’s a real shortage of good music events in the coming weeks due to deadlines and exams, but no doubt there’ll be some big end of term blowouts announced before we know it. Already on the calendar is the Ape-x summer closing party, which has booked Pearson Sound, Marquis Hawkes and residents Jammhot. If Pearson Sound’s remix of ‘Help Me Lose My Mind’ by Disclosure is anything to go by, this promises to be a night of some of the heaviest, bassiest, most uplifting Techno and House in the country at the moment. I’ll leave you all with an inspirational quote from Marquis Hawkes’ Resident Advisor bio: ‘Listen to the music- that’s all you need to know ;)’.

Go follow us on intagram for live gig updates, fun pictures and the latest music gossip- @courier_music

The Courier

featurefilm.29

Monday 16 May 2016

So long and thanks for all the films Another Courier year comes to an end, so here’s the round-up of our favourite films we watched during our time as your beloved editors

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Rhian Hunter

t’s been a strange year for film. I’ve been perpetually unsure if it’s been really awful, overall, or really great. The saturation of superhero films has been my biggest pet peeve – as much as I love being film editor, there’s only so many Iron Mans and Captain Americas you can Photoshop before going slightly insane. Deadpool was the standout for me – slightly different to the usual superhero movie formula, full of witticisms, but also unfortunately a tad cliché.

It’s terrible as they’ve probably been the blockbusters of the year, but I didn’t bother to see any of the others.

But those aside, there have been some hidden gems dotted throughout the year that I’m super glad to have had the chance to see. I’d have to say Carol was the standout for myself; outstanding performances all round and probably the most emotionally draining experience of my life – poignant, heart breaking, heart-warming; all in one twohour film. Macbeth was another highlight; despite the whispery and growly delivery of 90% of the lines (if you’ve seen it, or read my review back in October, you’ll know what I’m talking about) Michael Fassbender’s wonderfully emotional, devastatingly real portrayal of Shakespeare’s mad King of Scotland overrode all of the tiny issues with the film to maintain its place on my list of the best this academic year. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, HighRise was absolutely fantastic; a p h a nt a s magor i-

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Simon Ramshaw

n my stint as Film editor (the bigger and badder sequel of which is coming to you this October), I’ve just about had some time to watch some films (funnily enough) that I’d like to tell you about.

The end of 2015 to the beginning of 2016 has been a bit of an odd period for film, as it’s been dominated by blockbusters that are in danger of becoming self-parodies of themselves. The colossal Batman v Superman suffered from this most heavily, embracing the studio’s hell-bent messiness in the face of doing something interesting with DC’s fledgling franchise. On the other hand, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was note-perfect, hitting the nostalgic beats hard and bringing the franchise back to life (even) better than Abrams did with Star Trek. You’ve all seen this one, so I don’t know why I’m recommending it, but yeah, best blockbuster evah.

On the opposite end of cinema, I saw a wonderfullycalming quasi-western Jauja, starring Lord of the Rings’ own Viggo Mortensen as a Danish captain in colonial Patagonia who frantically searches for his missing daughter across the arid but beautiful wasteland. There’s a third-act twist that I actually couldn’t possibly tell you about, but Jauja is like those self-help tapes that you stick on to calm any anxiety you might have. Seek it out, it’s lush.

At the other end of that spectrum is the 2016 one-two punch of the Kurt Russellstarring Bone Tomahawk and New England horror The Witch, which are two of the most hopelessly terrifying experiences you can possibly have in a cinema. While Bone Tomahawk nearly put me into shock with its no-holds-barred brutality, The Witch slithers its way into your mind and doesn’t let you go for at least a week. So, if you’re a fan of Satanic goats, then this is the film for you.

OR, if you want something super, SUPER alternative, delve into Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers, the most ridiculously antiart film I’ve ever seen. It is exactly what it says on the tin, where the elderly residents of Nashville, Tennessee go about at night and literally hump trash.

They do other things, mostly in the vein of Jackass, but if Jackass was an utterly horrifying exploration of how much intentional crap your audience can endure in a feature length film.

So watch Trash Humpers if nothing else.

orgy of raw human emotion featuring naked Tom Hiddleston on a balcony… what more could you ask for?

And, of course, there’s Star War: The Force Awakens. I’m not sure anyone could write a piece on top films of the academic year without giving JJ Abrams’ masterpiece a nod. As someone who grew up with the prequels, loved the originals and has forever been yearning for one final trilogy to cement their excellence in cinematic history, The Force Awakens, did just that and so much more. I can’t wait for Episode VIII. I think there’s more to look forward to yet though. XMen: Apocalypse looks absolutely insane, Tarzan with Alexander Skarsgard and Margot Robbie is one to look out for. I’ll be sad not to be a part of the Film section next year, but with some of the exciting film prospects over the summer and winter, I’m sure they’ll manage without me.

Emma Allsopp

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o it’s been a great academic year for films, and being a film editor, I’ve seen quite a few of them. One of the biggest thing for me this past year has been Star Wars, which I hadn’t previously seen (only two of the prequels which put me off ). I watched the three originals, and obviously The Force Awakens, which I loved. My mind has been opened to the wonders of it, finally.

Another great experience this year was Macbeth as I am an English Literature student and a Shakespeare fanatic, and at the time I was studying a module which included the play. This film had by far the best cinematography of the year; it truly was beautiful. It also didn’t hold back from the grim reality of Macbeth, encapsulating the blood and barren Scottish heath perfectly.

Trainspotting was a film that I’d always wanted to see, but only got the chance to this year. It did not disappoint me, it was truly high-octane and adrenaline-filled. I was struck by how deep and disturbing it was, but the contrast between the energy and the darkness was hugely captivating. I will definitely be watching it again as I’m sure I missed quite a lot since it is so packed with content.

One film I was very excited for this year was Room, especially after it garnered a lot of critical acclaim. I was stunned by this film, its exploration of abduction was so layered and detailed that it was heart-breaking and

moving in equal measure. I was very disappointed by the fact that Jacob Tremblay was not nominated for an Oscar, as his performance was absolutely outstanding for such a young actor tackling such a heavy subject.

High-Rise has been my favourite by far this year though as I had been waiting so long for it, and it finally arrived and it delivered!

It was so twisted and dark that I was gripped from start to finish. The performances were brilliant, with Tom Hiddleston being wonderfully detached as Robert Laing. Jeremy Irons also gave a great performance as the architect, Anthony Royal. I will definitely be watching this again, multiple times.

I’ve really enjoyed this year, both editing and watching all the films. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as me.

Hopefully see you all next year!

30.filmfeatures

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Film Editors: Emma Allsopp, Rhian Hunter & Simon Ramshaw

TEAM STARK VS

TEAM CAP For our final Mega Fan Vs. Giant Cynic, we’ve mixed things up a bit. Seeing as Captain America: Civil War has been captivating audiences worldwide for a couple of weeks, Jordan Oloman and Dan Haygarth put forward their reasons for backing either Team Tony Stark or Team Captain America. Which team are you rooting for?

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Team Stark

am so Team Stark it hurts, and I can’t understand you Bucky Barnes groupies. I get it, he’s hot, but the guy’s a dick. Have you seen Civil War? There’s a bit where (SPOILERS) he tells Tony that he remembers everything about killing his parents. What a guy eh? I’m glad he’s cryogenically frozen so that Marvel can get some more interesting storylines other than ‘hurr durr bucky was my friend so it’s ok when he kills people’.

Anyway, Bucky rant over, let’s get to the wider reason why I’m team Stark. Cap wants to run around, cause the death of droves of innocent people, and not feel any repercussions for it. He quips his way through Sokovia and Lagos, whilst the completely unstable Scarlet Witch is let loose to cause horrendous damage. Yeah, sure man.

And regardless, Stark has the better team. No question. Spiderman, Black Panther and Widow trump the boring Hawkeye and Falcon. If only Ant-Man would have a change of heart.

Jordan Oloman

The weird and wonderful world of the sequel

With the recent announcement of a sequel to the classic Space Jam, Errol Kerr takes a look at some of the best, worst and weirdest sequels in history

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emember Space Jam? Most of you will. If you don’t, it’s a film about Michael Jordan and the Looney Toons playing basketball against cartoon aliens. That’s literally it – and it’s brilliant. Of course, in this age of sequels, Justin Lin has confirmed he’s to direct a sequel. Starring LeBron James, because of course it will star LeBron James, it’s odd to see a second instalment of a film that practically defines “one trick pony” However, it’s not the only time we’ve had completely unexpected – or completely bonkers – sequels. It seems that nothing is safe from becoming a franchise, and it’s to be expected that every concept or film could become something more than a singular instalment. I mean, I’d like to see how a second Deadpool movie turns out, but that’s beside the point.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen a childhood classic return to our screens – the first one that comes to mind would h a v e b e e n w h e n y o u r grandparents were children.

B

y signing the United Nations’ ‘Sokovia Accords’, Captain America would surrender control of the Avengers. While Tony Stark may believe that UN regulation of the group is essential, within the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Captain is right to mistrust the powers that be.

The events of The Winter Soldier saw the revelation that HYDRA, a Nazi death cult, was operating within the ranks of US government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. In The Avengers, while Cap et al were busy in Manhattan, dealing with an alien invasion and protecting citizens, the World Security Council’s response to was to fire a nuclear weapon at the city – an interesting way to save lives.

Captain America says about the team, ‘the safest hands are still our own’ and the emergence of the Avengers as an independent group, without a political agenda, has removed any restrictions on their ability to protect the earth.

Dan Haygarth

“Take The Mask, the zany Jim Carrey film about… well, a mask which turns him into something like The Joker with superpowers and slightly less death” It seems like successful films for a younger generation are always doomed to the “weird sequel”. Take The Mask, the zany Jim Carrey film about… well, a mask which turns him into something like The Joker with superpowers and slightly less death. Of course, they had to add in a sequel, starring the Norse Gods, a return of the allpowerful mask, a magic sup e r p ow e re d mask-baby… you get the gist. A film which was already just

plain odd, made even weirder?

“I mean, suit nipples can’t be effective in any way. A Bat-Credit-Card? Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze? Those one-liner puns? Awful”

And who can forget George Clooney in the 1997 Robin Of course, the earlier instalBatman and Robin? ment, Batman Returns, was always going to be much darker – Tim Burton as director, with Michael Keaton’s Batman being the dour individual expected from our more recent series, directed by Christopher Nolan, but I digress. Whilst the first sequel to this was decent –in 1995’s Batman Forever, having Jim Carrey as the Riddler was, as expected, strange – but it can’t compare to Batman and Robin. I mean, suit nipples can’t be effective in any way. A Bat-Credit-Card? Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze? Those one-liner puns? Awful.

Sadly, I can’t say I have any positive thoughts about it. And let’s not even get into Jaws 3D. or any of the Jaws sequels after Jaws 2. They’re all just completely bonkers.

However, whilst odd and unexpected sequels tend to ruin franchises, there’s always hope – if George Miller’s original Mad Max can get weirder and weirder with the releases of Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome – and I mean, Tina Turner in spike-armour is undeniably weird – and still be successful, maybe it goes to show - if there’s method in the madness, perhaps there’s a chance Space Jam 2 can work out.

We know what you’re doing this summer In our last issue of the academic year, Zoë Godden looks into the future

What better way to celebrate the summer sun than to head indoors to a giant dark room and watch this year’s biggest flicks? Okay, maybe the cinema isn’t for everyone when the weather is this good, but there’s no denying the awesome range of films coming out in the next few months – more than enough to convince you to swap your sunglasses for 3D ones.

“Finding Dory adds to the long list of Pixar sequels we didn’t need, but nevertheless will be swimming onto our screens on June 17th”

Team Cap

Fifty years after the unbelievable success of the original 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, a second instalment was released by Disney in 1985 starring Fairuza Balk. This film, whilst not an official sequel, is completely out of this world. If the original film was a silver-screen LSD trip, Return to Oz is a straight-up heroin overdose. Monsters on rollerskates, clay-animated creatures, and themes of extinction lie beneath the overarching subject of mental health – turning a childrens’ film into something far darker.

Finding Dory adds to the long list of Pixar sequels we didn’t need, but nevertheless will be swimming onto our screens on June 17th. The thirteen year gap with its predecessor may work to its advantage however, offering us stunning updated animation of the ocean floor, and featuring the same voice cast and creative team as its first underwater adventure. Whether it’s a catch of the day or a dead fairground goldfish is yet to be seen, but it’ll

no doubt be worth watching for nostalgia value alone. In other animation, stop-motion company Laika’s latest, Kubo and the Two Strings, features a star-studded cast (Ralph Fiennes and George Takei to name a few) and is a family fantasy journey into ancient Japanese mythology.

After two politically-driven films, Spielberg returns to his roots with his take on Roald Dahl’s beloved The BFG, one of the author’s most prominent novels not yet to receive a major big-screen adaptation. Recent Bridge of Spies Oscar winner Mark Rylance will play the titular ‘Big Friendly Giant’, and the animation alone makes it surpass the previous Dahl adaptation (shudder, Johnny Depp Wonka), with the film hopefully capturing the whimsy of the original book. Speaking of CGI, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 is a surprising improvement to 2014’s Michael Bay catastrophe, featuring fan favourite char a c te rs Bebop, Rocks t e a d y, and Casey Jones, a n d sporti n g a

more upbeat tone and killer soundtrack.

“After two politicallydriven films, Spielberg returns to his roots with his take on Roald Dahl’s beloved The BFG”

If a biopic is more of your thing, Michael Keaton, fresh off the success of starring in the past two Best Picture winners, plays McDonald’s creator Ray Kroc in The Founder, releasing August 5th. With director John Lee Hancock (known for The Blind Side and Saving Mr. Banks) at the helm, the film details how the company’s rise was no Happy Meal, and seems like a fun alternative to the cinema superhero saturation. However if you only want a retro aesthetic, look no further than The Nice Guys, set in gorgeous 70s Los Angeles and looking to be the best comedy of the summer. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe seem like a hilarious yet super slick buddy cop duo, but neither will compare to Matt Damon’s triumphant return to the Jason Bourne franchise – another unneeded reboot, but its back-to-basics formula, plus original director Paul Greengrass, are welcomed with open arms.

So although the sun will damage our eyes less than The Angry Birds Movie, the new Ghostbusters, and Kevin Spacey turning into a cat (seriously, it’s called Nine Lives), 2016 is cinema’s strongest year in recent memory, with plenty to look forward to should the real British Summer dampen your plans.

The Courier

reviewsfilm.31

Monday 16 May 2016

thecourieronline.co.uk/film c2.film@ncl.ac.uk | @Courier_Film

Bad Neighbours 2 (15)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Daniel Radcliffe

S

eth Rogen, Zac Efron and Rose Byrne are back in the sequel of the 2014 comedy, Bad Neighbours. After finding much success in the frat-house based comedy, the memorable parent duo of Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly Rander(Rose Byrne) are brought along with former fraternity leader Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron) to face off against a new sorority led by a college freshman Shelby, played by Chloe Grace Moretz.

While it is known that sequels normally don’t match up to the strengths of the original film, Bad Neighbours 2 proves itself to be better than its predecessor. Newfound comedy blended in with the twist on the fraternity sub-genre allows the film to bring in much more significant depth and message than what the original film aimed to do.

The audience is immediately brought in to the reality of real estate as the oblivious and reckless nature of the protagonist parent duo. Mac and Kelly are subjected to an escrow, which is a financial limbo where they have to last 30 days without the buyers of their old home backing out. It provides a hilarious ongoing theme throughout the film as the whole situation was the result of the parents’ lack of understanding and carelessness of what an escrow is.

Of course, a problem arises to for Mac and Kelly.

A newly-founded sorority moves in and presents itself as an unwanted and troubling nuisance that would definitely caused the buyers to back out.

However, there is more to the sorority than meets

the eye. The foundation of the sorority is a notable one as its founder, a college freshman Shelby, created Kappa Nu as a means to defy the “system” that has not allowed sororities in the United States to party. The sorority serves as a solution to equal their social standing as only fraternities are allowed to host parties and the sorority members that go to such parties are subjected to sexist inappropriate party games.

It brings the audience to a new perspective that in terms of conflict, neither side of the argument is usually at fault or divided in the black and white perspective of hero versus villain. Unlike the first movie, where the fraternity presented itself as an antagonist towards a young developing family, Bad Neighbours 2 replaces the fraternity with a fresh element of an equality-motivated group of young women that are devoted to not allowing themselves to be burdened by the flaws of the “system”.

Florence Foster Jenkins (PG)

Demolition (15)

A

n absolute delight from start to finish, Florence Foster Jenkins does not disappoint as a heartwarming tale of courage, love and music.

Meryl Streep plays the titular songbird, a New York socialite and a lover of the arts with a huge heart and even bigger dream. After taking inspiration from a performance by soprano Lily Pons, Madame Foster takes up singing lessons, exhibiting a true passion and enthusiasm for the subject.

Hugh Grant is at the top of his acting game with his role as partner and manager St. Clair Bayfield. He acts just well enough to match Streep’s undeniable talent but also demonstrates some restrain, not over acting as the role could easily have allowed for. Both Streep and Grant are complimented by Simon Helberg’s superb acting prowess as spirited pianist Cosme McMoon, and the three bring an interesting dynamic, bizarrely reminiscent of a classier You, Me and Dupree.

The main plot focuses on Madame Foster’s desire to sing at Carnegie Hall. This event has now become the stuff of cult legend, since, at the time, there was more than a little doubt that the insatiable socialite would pull it off. The film chronicles an interesting period in the life of an extremely intriguing character, unlike anyone you will ever know, she is a force of nature and the film enchants you, making you thirsty to know how her story will end.

Florence Foster Jenkins teaches one to follow their dream and live their passion, without the use of cartoon characters and auto-tuned voices chirping Disney melodies in one’s ears. The film is a real life story of feminism, fight and fun. It’s also another triumph for Streep, giving another performance that will surely be in contention when Oscar season rolls around next year. Is there nothing this woman cannot do?

More like this: Marguerite (2016) Imogen Scott-Chambers

T

he modern world is commonly accused of having become impersonal, despite technology broadening the possibility for connection between people further than ever before.

Perhaps director Jean-Marc Vallée feels aggrieved, because it is clear that he believes a level of honesty has been lost. That is what Demolition seems to want to reclaim: honesty. The purity of penning a letter, tearing down walls with your bare hands or admitting you don’t love someone or something the way you’re expected to. Emancipating the inside, absolving the out. Unfortunately, Demolition’s storytelling feels pre-assembled, and clichéd.

Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) has no idea how to react when his wife is tragically killed in a car accident. Everyone is seemingly doing the mourning for him: his parents, his in-laws, his coworkers. But Davis is coming to terms with having never loved or understood his wife, and confides in a concerned customer service worker for a vending machine company, Karen Moreno (Naomi Watts), befriending her and her son Chris (Judah Lewis).

As you might expect, Gyllenhaal is excellent, particularly when our protagonist cuts loose. Davis deals with his loss by regressing in maturity, almost to the level of a child, free from responsibility and the superficiality of his professional life. He unburdens himself of his emotions. It is an affecting sentiment in the end, to let go of one’s baggage in a time of crisis.

Vallée, though, burdens his audience with shoddy voice-over and rote plotting. While there are a few surprises, nothing about Davis’ arc screams originality. In fact, the whole film feels shielded by a Hollywood sheen, which Vallée’s first hit Dallas Buyers Club triumphed without.

Despite some intimate moments, Demolition feels less like a wrecking ball through a condemned skyscraper and more like a misfired tennis ball through a garden shed window.

More like this: Seven Pounds (2008) William Leng

This issue encourages the rest of the film to bring in sharper and funnier commentary on the gender disparity as well as secondary jokes focusing on the age difference with Seth Rogen’s Mac, Zac Efron’s Teddy and the rest of the sorority. It’s a well-worn type of comedy, but Bad Neighbours 2 manages to cover new and (most importantly) very funny ground.

While the sequel obviously follows a similar pattern to the first film, Bad Neighbours 2 delivers key self-awareness as it pokes fun on its characters and their development such as the bromance between Teddy and Mac and evolves into a more defining movie with a message pertaining to strengthening relationships.

More like this: National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)

The Good: The Harry Potter Series (2001-2011)

I

t’s been almost five years since we last saw Daniel pick up the wand. But still to this day, in my book that was Daniel Radcliffe’s unforgettable performance.

The way Daniel portrayed the character of Harry Potter; made me sure nobody else could pull it off.

Sure, The Goblet of Fire was a disaster for the franchise, but still, he was the Harry Potter that I knew and loved from the previous movies. He also managed to avoid becoming the archetypical child star, and has grown to be a fine actor, free from teenage controversy (that ‘want some drugs?’ meme aside..).

Mark Tam

Arabian Nights: Volume 3 -The Enchanted One (15)

I

No Rating

n the words of Frodo Baggins, “It’s gone. It’s done.” I have finished Miguel Gomes’ Arabian Nights. I hoped not to be opening with a quote of such blessed relief that this trilogy has come to a close, but Gomes seems to do everything to prompt that, with his final instalment, The Enchanted One. There is little of the passionate polemic spirit left in the two dying hours of this Portuguese epic, as in the absence of anything else to say, Gomes opts for bizarre obscurity by detailing to us the underground practice of chaffinch trapping, chaffinch song-recording and just general facts about chaffinches. In fact, I’m not even sure if ‘obscurity’ is the right word, since it relates to absolutely nothing that has come before it or after it. In essence, it’s just trolling us.

I can respect a filmmaker for doing something completely unexpected with the form of their work, but when it actively defies what cinema is all about, it’s rather undefendable. Gomes spatters his film with on-screen text, adding layers and layers of backstory to narratives that otherwise tell us very little. By definition, cinema is a visual medium, not a literary one, but Gomes mashes the two together, completely undermining the trilogy’s power in a poor attempt at creating an audience endurance test.

I endured it, and I can tell you that after sleeping on it, I have not found a justification for the absurd 80 minute-long tangent. And yet, I’m still not rating this, since this instalment is not representative of the other two parts of the trilogy, however inconsistent they may have been too. That being said, I will revisit this in a decade or so, to see if it makes more sense outside of Gomes’ own brain.

For the meantime, it’s a joke without a punchline, which is precisely its punchline. Budumptisk…*cricket, cricket, whistle, trill, etc.* More like this: Nymphomaniac: Volume II (2013) Simon Ramshaw

The Bad: Victor Frankenstein (2015)

I

might be one of those 0.1% of couch potato population who rather guiltily enjoyed 2015’s Victor Frankenstein starring James McAvoy and of course Daniel Radcliffe. Most critics tend to disagree.

It was more of James McAvoy’s movie than Radcliffe’s, as he steals the show when playing Victor Frankenstein. And this is pretty much why this movie was seen to be bad for Radcliffe, as he didn’t show much of a difference between the hunchback and straight back Igor; all of the attention was given to McAvoy. From beginning to end, Daniel never really developed from sad circus clown to confident lover with an aerialist girlfriend.

I

The Ugly: Horns (2014)

cannot even begin to wonder why an actor with bright future would even star in movie that would spit on an actor’s career.

This one starts out really well. It’s witty and satirical, with the idea of seeking justice for a falsely accused man. He develops the power of getting dark secrets out of the people he meets, and the trail gradually grows colder. Just over half way through the story loses the witty touch, and we end up with a mechanical work through of a second rate plot that relies on daft symbolism and half-baked religious notions as expressed through the wonders of special effects. To top it off the villain is laughably unimpressive, and the final conflict is pure cheese.

Salman Ali

32.tvfeatures

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

TV Editors: Hannah Bunting, Helen Daly & Reece Hanson

Sun, sand, sea, and great TV If you thought we’d abandon you to a summer without TV guidance, think again - Robyn Colclough has rounded up the most promising new releases hitting our screens in the next few months.

Orange is the New Black - June, Netflix Netflix’s most anticipated show of the summer, if not all year. Jenji Kohan’s breakout hit has produced three solid seasons of fantastic character building, intense storylines, and badass female sassiness, and so the show has high expectations from its biggest fans. But what will Litchfield Penitentiary have in store for us in the new series? It seems that there are going to be plenty of new characters to add to the brilliantly diverse cast who already steal the show.

Preacher - May, AMC

A new AMC adaption of Garth Ennis’ popular comic book series of the same name, the show seems to be a perfect treat for anyone who enjoyed the darkness of the comic series, especially since reviews seem pretty positive so far. The eponymous preacher Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) is inhabited by an unknown entity, giving him an unusual and mysterious power. He, along with his ex-girlfriend and an Irish vampire named Cassidy, set out on a quest to literally find God – a very promising premise.

Robot Wars - Summer, BBC Two A six-episode reboot of one of the noughties’ most memorable shows, hosted by comedian Dara O’Brien, an admirable choice of presenter to take over from Craig Charles. Since technology has advanced since the show went off air in 2004, hopefully the new series will have progressed with it, the new robots being bedazzled with new and exciting ways to pummel each other to death. Let’s hope they still keep the endearing geek-ish charm that made the show so successful, including my favourite house robot, Matilda.

Gogglesprogs, June, Channel 4

For those of you who enjoyed the exciting glimpse into the eyes of children watching British television last Christmas, fear not! Yes, that’s right, Gogglesprogs is returning to our screens after the one-off Christmas special proved too popular not to gain a series in its own right. This twist on the original Channel 4 show Gogglebox was a treat for all audiences across the UK last winter, and thus we demanded more! Although Gogglebox is still as funny as ever, Gogglesprogs has the innocent and often hilarious narrative of children commenting on an array of sad, funny and often scary shows that grace our screens. Not to be missed!

Check out our website thecourieronline.co.uk/tv

And the award goes to...

As the end of term draws ever closer, we are celebrating the best of TV this year with our very prestigious and completely legit Courier Academy Awards

Best finale There’s been some pretty dire finales of the past twelve months, naming no names (*cough* The Walking Dead *cough*). There’s nothing worse than dedicating what seems like your life to a show and then they drop a clanger at the end. Not cool. However, when finales are done right, they’re done right. Case in point: Doctor Who’s ‘Hell Bent’ and ‘Heaven Sent’ which saw our favourite Timelord pushed to his absolute limit, living a thousand lives to escape a prison even worse than the Robbo library around deadline day, only to find that he’s returned unwittingly to Gallifrey.

On top of all of that home drama, arguably Doctor Who’s strongest modern day companion (controversial I know, but that’s for another article), Clara Oswald, left the show, removing herself from the Doctor’s memory completely. A lesson in creating tension, intrigue and heartbreak - producers, pay attention.

Helen Daly

Bae of the year

Recently, there has been a huge buzz about Game of Throne’s Jon Snow, who, I must admit is pretty lush.

However, TV bae of the year has to be Channel 4’s very own silver fox: Jon Snow.

If it wasn’t his rendition of Hotline Bling for Big Fat Quiz of the Year that secured his babe status, it was his constant top journo skills, always delivering the news in his dignified, Jon Snow-like way. His constant array of colourful ties help to brighten up the generally depressing news and provide constant outfit goals for us all.

An absolute Channel 4 babe, I ask you: who else could deliver news like him and be that flawless?

In a time when absolute legends are dropping like flies, it is good to know that a top TV bae like Jon Snow will always be around, making the news a little bit more enjoyable for all.

Imogen Scott-Chambers

Best show

Shaking off the melancholy malaise of a mediocre Season 3, the latest season of House of Cards decides to shed off any semblance of reality in a dark, dystopian and Trumpless (yes somehow more dystopian) alternate universe as it continues the presidential election.

This season primarily on the development of the relationship between Frank and Claire Underwood, from a warring couple back to a united front in a fantastic examination of two completely empty and immoral monsters. Spacey and Wright, continue to deliver masterclass performances in keeping you enthralled with these two horrible, powerhungry people.

A couple of new interesting characters played by other stellar actors are also introduced, especially Ellen Burstyn who plays Claire’s estranged mother and Joel Kinnaman who plays Republican nominee Will Conway. While a few old faces also return including the slimy Russian Premier Petrov, not really Frank’s friend Freddy and journalist Tom Hammerschmidt. The direction, aesthetic and production values remain first class too while previous plotting issues have mostly been fixed. By delivering an exciting 13 episodes of manipulation, madness and more breaking of the fourth wall, it thoroughly deserves this award.

Tom Shrimplin

Best death

It’s been a great year in TV in regards to death. Talk about a depressing intro, but seriously. We’ve had Jon Snow kick the bucket (only to cheat the grim reaper). Stannis’ daughter Shireen turned into crispy bacon bits. The world of prime time TV is a seriously cruel mistress, but we forgive because it’s the kind of stuff that keeps us watching. Imagine Game of Thrones without the tension of your favourite character kicking the bucket in the next 30 minutes. Unthinkable.

However, seeing as I am giving out awards here, I have to pick one, and I’m going to have to give the award to the ambiguous face who got pummelled with a barbed wire baseball bat in the finale of The Walking Dead season 6. They aren’t here to collect the award, mainly because we don’t know who it is yet, and also because they’re currently a thin red paste lining the pavement.

What a build-up though? Even though they kinda left us high and dry, Negan had me quivering in my boots for my one true love Daryl Dixon. I pray every night to Scott Gimple that they spare him.

Jordan Oloman

The Courier

highlightstv.33

Monday 16 May 2016

thecourieronline.co.uk/tv c2.tv@ncl.ac.uk | @courier_tv

Geek Peek

E

Top Gear

Sunday, 8pm, BBC Two

I

n just under two weeks, the replacements for Britain’s most beloved TV trio will be arriving to a silver screen near you. The new Top Gear promises to be many things, but the one thing it will definitely be is a significant departure from its predecessor. Expectations are tepid at best, as the BBC aims to reinvent its biggest cash cow without destroying the global reputation that it has built.

Changing the three-host format was the biggest gamble. Evans lightly mocked the previous system, remarking on his BBC Breakfast show, “The Three Stooges, they are the Bee Gees, they are that and I’m not, I’m me. I’m a solo artist at the moment, I’m on my own, so do I form a band or not?”. While loud engine noises, multi-million pound cars, and wacky stunts will still take up most of the show, the success of Evans’ proposed supergroup be pivotal to the gamble paying off.

Every band needs that one member who just oozes cool. In Matt Le Blanc, they have just that. Though jokes of being ‘stuck in second gear’ dominated social media after his announcement, Le Blanc’s comedic nous, and presence in front of camera will be one of the shows main draws. Ex Formula 1 boss, Eddie Jordan, will serve as the wise sage of this group, with a near encyclopaedic knowledge of the industry and a real passion for the sport. Journalist Rory Reid will aim to add a modicum of likeability if the audience doesn’t respond to Youtube star Chris Harris as the producers hope.

The real gem of this cast however, is German Sabine Schmitz. Her ‘outsider’ status irked those who didn’t know her and wanted the show to remain a glorified boy’s club, but those in the motoring world aware of who she is are pleased to say the least. In her last run with the show, she tried to do a lap of the Nurburgring in a van in under 10 minutes, and in doing so held her own against all three hosts in a manner that no guest before, or since, had done.

Despite some obvious positives, the show’s been hit by its fair share of controversy whilst filming. A

Upstart Crow

Monday, 10pm, BBC Two

Thursday, 9pm, ITV Encore

Netflix

C

Ritwick Sarkar

The Americans

iZombie

W’s undead comedy-crime-drama is limping its way to Netflix with its first two seasons – and trust me, the jokes won’t leave you groaning.

Loosely based on the comic book series of the same name, iZombie follows Liv Moore (played by Rose McIver, known for The Lovely Bones and being a Power Ranger that one time), a once perky medical student, as she attempts to ‘survive’ daily life after accidentally becoming a member of the undead. In an effort to satisfy her new appetite for brains, she takes an appropriately dead-end job in the Seattle coroner’s office to secretly snack on the grey matter of the many Jane and John Does she inspects.

However she soon discovers with each brain she consumes, she briefly gains part of the victims’ memories and personalty traits, leading her to team up with homicide detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) to use her ‘psychic’ abilities to solve the murders through her newly found knowledge of the crime scenes. Meanwhile, Dr. Ravi (Rahul Kohli) acts as Liv’s sole confidant, surprisingly taking the whole zombie thing rather well as he attempts to create a cure. Overall, think a mash-up of Dexter and The Walking Dead, but with surprisingly less gore for a show about the deceased.

It’s an odd mix of dark humour, police procedurals and slice-of-life anecdotes, but somehow these all work in iZombie’s favour. And its no surprise, considering it comes from the creators of Veronica Mars, who are once again able to create a show held up by a funny, strong female lead. If binge-watching on Netflix has left you feeling lifeless, this show may be the jolt of lighting you need.

Zoë Godden

paparazzi shot showed Evans walking out of a car, puking his guts out, after being driven by Schmidt not the most inspiring of confidence. More recently, Le Blanc and driver Ken Block were seen doing circular-brake donuts near a Cenotaph in central London, a disrespectful gesture to say the least.

Despite all the subtle mockery that Evans sent Clarkson’s way, the new interpretation of Top Gear seems to run into the same old roadblocks that plagued the shows previous instalment. The development of his show has run into the same run of controversy that had plagued the shows previous instalment. While it took nearly two decades and a plate of cold food to lead to a showdown between host and producer, Evans’ has managed to accomplish that already, with producer Lisa Clark exiting because of Evans’ ‘tyrannical manner’.

While the diversity of the panel seems more appealing than three middle-aged blokes going on an adventure, Evan’s crew will have to make the show more than just an obsession with automobiles, and at this rate, it doesn’t look like that’s happening.

W

hen it comes to commercial television, it is very rare that you come across a near perfect episode. But what FX has done with The Americans is marvellous.

As by the name of the show and the soviet logo goes, the series is set in Cold War-era. Some of us who are old enough to remember this period, a period of Russians-are-coming-phobia that was second only to the Civil Rights movement the decade before. An era very under- represented in film and ignored on the small screen, comes to life for a new generation.

I credit the success of The American to its music.

“Harden my Heart” opens the series, and how fitting it is. Disguised, and ready to perform sexual acts for information, we first meet the series heroine, Elizabeth Jennings whose heart is truly hardened. Fast forward to a back alley chase and we are introduced to our hero(?) Phillip to the beats of “Tusk” by Fleetwood Mac. “Tusk” is appropriate here too. Just think about it.

As far how the undercover KGB spies are living on an American soil goes, well it’s because of their ‘disguises’ and the disguises are not your ‘unrealistic mission-impossible’ disguises. Absolutely not, the disguises in The Americans are really disguises and surprisingly, with very little to disguise. What makes these disguises work for Jennings is that the way she can act. With each disguise comes a new personality. Elizabeth does her disguise well but the master of disguise is Phillip who is played

by Matthew Rhys. He is genuine, nerdy and funny in disguise talking to Martha, reminding you of a young John Ritter.

Salman Ali

B

en Elton. David Mitchell. Historical comedy. Are you excited yet? If you’re anything like me, you’ve already thrown the carcass of your wallet at the screen, chanting the El Dude Brothers famous honk. Looking to weave more of his Blackadder/ The Young Ones magic, Elton has created another period comedy, this time focused on the life and times of old Shakey.

David Mitchell will portray the playwright, in his typical dry comic style. It’s set in 1592, the start of his legendary career, and the series will focus on Shakespeare finding the balance between family and professional life. Surely the background to many of his famous stories will be explored.

Much like Baldrick, old Shakey will have a comic relief servant called Bottom, as well as consistent cast members like his wife Anne, and famous dramatist rival Robert Greene. Joining David Mitchell in the cast are Harry Enfield, Paula Wilcock, Game Of Thrones’ Gemma Whelan and Liza Tarbuck. The show will be part of BBC’s 2016 Shakespeare festival, as it marks 400 years since the famous playwright’s death. Upstart Crow will be one of many re-interpreted stories to commemorate his legacy.

I for one am very excited to learn about the background to his most famous stories, as well as seeing David Mitchell back on our screens after Peep Show tragically ended, leaving a Corrigan-sized hole in my heart. After the dull Thin Blue Line and the awful The Wright Way, it looks like Ben Elton is back in his stride with this show, and we can get the same sort of quality comedy that the legendary Blackadder is known for. Count me in!

Jordan Oloman

ntering what may well be the final season of Person of Interest, it feels strange to think that the adventures of Finch and Reese might soon be over.

In the wake of 9/11, Harold Finch, a reclusive billionaire, builds an artificial intelligence (called The Machine) that watches everyone and is able to predict crime. He gives it to the government in order to prevent future atrocities. However, The Machine sees all crimes and the government only deals with large scale terrorist threats. Finch hires former CIA operative John Reese in order to help him prevent the crimes that the government classes as irrelevant, and over time, more people join their cause. However, going into season five, the story is focusing on another, more powerful artificial intelligence – Samaritan. Samaritan has grown increasingly powerful over the previous season and it seems that the show will end on Team Machine’s last stand.

In a sci-fi crime drama that feels like a spy thriller, it is perhaps peculiar that the well-developed characters and their relationships are the most striking feature of the show, though that’s not to say Person of Interest is not tense, though-provoking and full of intrigue. In the morally grey world of Person of Interest, the core team of protagonists are interesting – three former assassins with sociopathic tendencies, a formerly corrupt cop and the man who built a machine that spies on everyone.

None of these people are perfect, all having made serious mistakes at one time or another, and season five deals with this early on, having a rebooted The Machine decide that the team were all threats. The show is best when dealing with moral and ethical dilemmas, mixed with emotional stakes, as this allows Person of Interest’s greatest strength to become apparent – it’s incredibly human. The flawed characters that are capable of bad things but choose to be heroes, the quest to help people in need and the psychological complexities of the characters all combine to give the show a real depth that a lot of similar shows lack.

“In a sci-fi drama that feels like a spy thriller, it is perhaps peculiar that the well-developed characters and their relationships are the most striking feature of the show” Both wounded in different ways, Finch is an altruistic hero, genuinely trying to help people while Reese looks for redemption. The friendship between the two is always played wonderfully, having grown slowly since the distrustful animosity and begrudging partnership that existed in the show’s earliest episodes.

Sameen Shaw might also make a return, after her disappearance last season. Being one of the show’s most central characters, it’s unlikely that that particular plot thread would not be wound up before the end.

Former antagonist and master hacker-assassin Root is one of the show’s greatest assets, and now a core member of the team, bringing a little bit of everything to the table – Finch’s genius, Reese’s fighting skills, Shaw’s coolness and Fusco’s comic timing.

The world of Person of Interest is darkly vibrant, playing with the things that lie in the shadows of society, like shady government taskforces and criminal organisations. The show is very strong tonally, never being too light or too dark, maintaining dramatic tension while allowing for humour here and there. If you’re a fan of spy thrillers, crime drama, or sci-fi shows, I strongly recommend Person of Interest. It’s been an engaging, enjoyable and interesting watch from start to (near the) finish.

Dominic Corrigan

The Courier

Monday 16 May 2016

featurestv.35 thecourieronline.co.uk/tv c2.tv@ncl.ac.uk | @courier_tv

Soap star superstars

Jack Parker steps into the glamorous world that is soapland, as he tries his hand at ‘celebrity’ autograph collecting, all in the name of journalism. What he managed to get back will excite any die hard soap fan

Sent to soapland with success

Named and shamed: the ones that got away

EastEnders

Mark and I sent off for these signed photos too, but they never got back to us (bastards)

Barbara Windsor - Peggy Mitchell

Danny Dyer - Mick Carter

Steve McFadden - Phil Mitchell

June Brown - Dot Cotton

Adam Woodyatt - Ian Beale

Samantha Womack - Ronnie Mitchell

Gillian Taylforth - Kathy Sullivan (or Beale, in a previous life)

Jessie Wallace - Kat Slater

Rudolph Walker - Patrick Trueman

Natalie Cassidy - Sonia Fowler

Shane Ritchie - Alfie Moon

Laurie Brett - Jane Beale

Lacey Turner - Stacey Branning

Kym Marsh - Michelle Connor

Bonnie Langford - Carmel Kazemi

Helen Worth - Gail Platt

Linda Henry - Shirley Carter Kellie Bright - Linda Carter

CORONATION ST David Neilson - Roy Cropper

Malcolm Hebden - Norris Cole Barbara Knox - Rita Tanner Sue Cleaver - Eileen Grimshaw

Looking nice, Norris x

W

ay back at Christmas I made a bet with waited. And my god, did I have to wait. the editor, Victoria, saying that I could Out of the 40 odd that I can remember sending get autographs off celebrities. She (I didn’t keep a copy of the list. Oops), I eventually didn’t believe that I could do it, BUT LOOK! I got 14 replies. I sent the letters in March, and they HAVE! started trickling back in after a couple of weeks.

To start off with, I was originally going to write Just over a third of responses in two months isn’t to random celebrities, such as David Tennant, too shabby to be honest, after all, these actors work Dawn French and the odd EastEnder. However, I in shows that air four days a week. Their schedules soon decided that was too complicated to carry out must be incredibly demanding. in such a short space of time. In the end I decided Of course, the star who got back to me fastest on a battle-of-the-soaps-style, autograph shoot- was the living legend that is Barbara Windsor, out (pew pew). Also, I didn’t have to pay for post- who plays the East End matriarch Peggy Mitchell. age for the BBC ones (that’s where our licence fee She got back to me in only six days, like the true goes, it turns out). professional. To me, getting a So, after scouring the intersigned photograph off her was “I don’t know how I’m net, looking at the cast lists of the holy grail. Fuck Ian Beale, EastEnders and Coronation going to cope with the she’s the real deal. It makes it Street, Mark, my glamorous as- death of Peggy Mitchell much more special knowing sistant, and I drew up a hit list. that her character is due to bow - I was utterly beside out of the iconic soap. Honestly, A hit list containing some of the soap world’s national treasures: don’t know how I’m going to myself when Pat died Icope Barbara Windsor (Peggy Mitchwith the death of Peggy five years ago” ell from EastEnders), Adam Mitchell – I was utterly beside Woodyatt (Ian Beale from Eastmyself with Pat Butcher dying Enders) and Barbara Knox (Rita from Coronation on New Year’s Day five years ago, my mother had Street). to console me.

Next came the tricky part. We had to write letI must say that the cast members of EastEnders ters to each of them that complimented them on have been much more responsive in getting back their acting skills and how much we loved their to me with my fan mail requests. Clearly, they are character in their chosen soap, without sounding much happier to write to their fans, and much too generic. I sent Peggy a special one, though, just happier to have fans than their Coronation Street because I love her so much and my heart is already compatriots. Or maybe ITV have some sort of polbreaking over the fact that her character is about to icy on not replying to fans, even if they send send bow out of the iconic Walford soap. self-addressed and stamped envelopes, the cheap Then, we were faced with the mammoth task of bastards. printing them out. We went to the computer clusOverall, my experience in writing to the stars ter in the Barbara Strang Teaching Centre, in hon- of soapland has shown me how easy it is to get in our of Barbaras, Windsor and Knox, but got some touch with some icons of the entertainment infunny looks from our peers. Just because they’re dustry. It has also shown me that you’re still just not soap fans. The things we do for The Courier. as likely to get ignored by some of your favourI spent a fortune of my printing credits, not to ite celebs. At least you don’t have to deal with mention the price of book of second class stamps. the embarrassment of being pied off at autograph Since when were stamps 55p each? signings or the studio gates.

I sent them off, and waited. And waited. And

Jack P Shepherd - David Platt Jimmi Harkishin - Dev Alahan

36.gaming

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Gaming Editors: Michael Hicks, Ollie Burton & James McCoull

Top 5 ways to die

Drifting the light fantastic James McCoull dashes and dodges through the beautiful, deadly world of Hyper Light Drifter

James McCoull puts characters through hell so you don’t have to 5. The Sims It’s a hard-knock life for a Sim. Sure, you can’t get diseases (apart from… pregnancy?) and if you run out of money your own personal God can give you more, but said Gods are known for their cruelties just as much as their kindnesses. Kicking off this list is an old favourite: the phantom pool ladder.

True horror is going for a leisurely swim and finding yourself trapped, totally unable to escape your watery tomb and simply waiting for your muscles to surrender to the inevitable pull of your chlorinated death by watery asphyxiation.

4. The Last of Us Joel takes a hell of a beating throughout the torturously tragic narrative of Naughty Dog’s acclaimed masterpiece, but some things just can’t be endured.

Fail to knock away a Clicker in time and the twitching funghoul (geddit?) will bury its teeth into Joel’s neck, coming away with a mouthful of mangled tendons and blood vessels as our hero screams his last. Worse still is the haunting knowledge of the fate that will befall his body.

3. Tomb Raider Lara’s adventures have typically taken her to dangerous places, but it was only in 2013’s reboot that we began to see those perils for what they are.

Throughout the game, various quick time events endanger our youthful protagonist, though none so grotesquely as a pit of jagged spikes towards the start of the game. Fail here and you’ll be punished with a scene of Lara clawing at a spike lodged through her face, her hands struggling and twitching as her face contorts in pain. Thank god for save states.

2. Resident Evil 4 Chances are you already know where I’m going with this. One burlap-clad resident of the game’s eerie starting area fights a little dirtier than the rest; far worse than the pitchforks and hatchets of the rest of los Ganados, Dr. Salvador fights with a chainsaw, and the only thing worse than its rusty screeching is the fountain of blood gushing out of Leon’s pretty white neck as his head is painstakingly bereaved from his shoulders. Once you’ve seen it, it stays with you; you learn to give the good doctor a wide berth from then on.

1. Dead Space A game famous for its death scenes, Dead Space really takes the cake - or, more accurately, the entire head - with one entry. When damaged, the Divider necromorph will split into components, including the skull. Fail a quicktime event wherein the severed skull binds itself around Isaac’s neck, and you’ll get to see Isaac’s own head popped away like a dandelion before the Divider rams its tendrils down the bleeding stump, seizing control of Isaac’s still twitching body. A fate worse than death, some might argue. The only saving grace is that the intrepid engineer isn’t left alive to feel it.

Image; Hyper Light Drifter

P

icture this. You’ve just finished your second run of Dark Souls III, and you want more - more tense combat, more gorgeous dying worlds, more music you could just drink in, more isolation and fear in a world that’ll kill you, drag you out of the grave, and kill you again.

Sound familiar? Then I’ve got just the remedy.

Hyper Light Drifter is the first game by indie devs Heart Machine, and the product of a longheld dream by director Alex Preston. Preston wanted to take the exploration and world-building of the top-down Legend of Zelda games and mix it with the combat and darkness of Diablo, and on both counts he has certainly succeeded. Hyper Light Drifter follows a nameless protagonist, on their quest to… well, I’ll let you figure that out for yourself. HLD takes the Dark Souls approach to story and setting, whereby everything must be inferred by environmental clues and the little exposition you’re given, but steps it up a notch: in this game there is not a single written word. Not a one.

Dialogue is represented pictorially, and the only

to honour. That argument could be made, but it won’t. Hyper Light Drifter does all of these things, and certainly doesn’t do anything exceptionally novel with them, but it does them tremendously well. The aesthetic is stunning, the combat absolutely challenging enough to offer frustrated Dark Souls veterans something new to grind their teeth over, and the whole thing makes for a nice little timesink even if you don’t care to unpack the story.

If you like the kind of skirmishes that make you hold your breath and grit your teeth, Hyper Light Drifter has what you need. If you like a soundtrack that drips with liquid beauty, with adrenalinecoursing peaks and moody falls right where they belong, Hyper Light Drifter has what you need. If you like roaming through breathtaking scenery in a world of overgrown ruins, lifeless colossi clinging to mountains, and subterranean labs bristling with hostile machines - Hyper Light Drifter has it all. The question isn’t whether Hyper Light Drifter has enough to offer; it’s whether you have enough to take it on.

Oohp, you chE3ky bastard

Our writers share their hopes and fears for the ever-exciting escapades of E3

Image; E3

Jordon Oloman

Image; Tomb Raider

sound stirring the world is the clash of weapons in combat and the frankly gorgeous soundtrack delivered exquisitely and hauntingly.

The sound really can’t be understated in this game. Sprawling vistas offer the sights, invariably stunning in their beautifully reconciled imagery of the ancient and the futuristic, and the music half of the atmosphere equation comes courtesy of Disasterpiece, whose melancholy chiptune jams will see you through the emotional despondency of HLD’s sparing yet oddly touching narrative. The protagonist is well and truly up against the odds, outnumbered in every fight and invariably falling to flurries of blows dozens of times before finally attaining success. Their allies are few, and their victories Pyrrhic. It is, arguably, easy for indie titles in the current climate to win over our emotions: talented musicians are everywhere, pixel graphics are relatively straightforward and cheap to create as well as being very popular at the moment, and gamers are always up for gameplay that embodies what they miss about the retro classics HLD strives

E3 is back, and I’m scared. If I put my optimist hat on, I’d like to see a new Crash Bandicoot (there’s an easter egg about it in Uncharted 4 so Sony are definitely making moves), a new Jet Set Radio, or a remake of the literally perfect Jet Set Radio Future, and just more Psychonauts 2 and Dishonored 2 gameplay. Anything beyond that would be a pleasant surprise. I’m fearful for the NX, which looks like a gimmick machine, no matter how Nintendo play it, and the VR hype is dead, so let’s not try and peddle that too much either.

Sam Blackburn

“Hopes and Fears for E3.” It’s a funny topic for me to discuss because I can honestly say I’ve had the same hope and fear for E3 since 2009, and 7 years on I still expect them both to happen. My dream for E3 has got to be an announcement of a new Banjo Kazooie game. I know it’s less likely this year due to Rare working on Sea of Thieves and Yooka Laylee pretty much being the next best thing, but a man can dream. My fear is that Nintendo do not mess up as per usual. Remember the last great Nintendo press conference?

Neither do I.

Zoë Godden

Are half-consoles a thing now? The PS4.5 or ‘Neo’, as the leaks suggest, will reportedly run games at 4K resolution, with Microsoft’s unnamed counterpart offering similar. These ‘new’ consoles run slightly better specs than their base models, but regardless, we still can’t afford them.

Let’s just hope the Nintendo NX’s rumoured subscription service has enough launch titles to keep it relevant on the market. As for games, with Uncharted 4 releasing one month prior, E3 would be perfect for Naughty Dog to drop The Last of Us 2’s trailer.

The Courier

gaming.37

Monday 16 May 2016

Say hello to my little friends

James McCoull gets to know Pokemon Sun & Moon’s new shiny starters

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FUCKING LIT MATE’. A pure Fire type starter is about as strange to the Pokemon series as a belt full of balls, so no surprises there. Fingers crossed it won’t go into Fire/Fighting as it evolves, though its dark-toned design suggests this won’t be the case.

Fire/Dark? Me-ow.

Finally, we have Popplio, which is a seal. Popplio is described as being able to ‘blow water bubbles from its nose’ which is… well, I mean, I can do that come flu season, so. However, this could lead into a nice Water/Ice pairing, which would be another first for the starter line-up.

Honestly, I’m elated by these starters. They capture the adorable personality of what a starter should be, and one of them is an owl. No word on the evolutions as of yet, but based on these I have high hopes. Check out Pokemon’s official channel to see the trailer for yourself! It’s worth a look, as there’s previews of the game’s celestial legendaries as well as a whol host of environments from Sun and Moon’s new region, Alola - ostensibly a Hawaiian themed area full of all sorts of yet-to-beseen new Pokemon.

Memory Card: Zoo Tycoon

Katie Ackerley stars as the benevolent dictator of her very own menagerie Image; Zoo Tycoon

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probably shouldn’t be allowed to write here. I am most definitely not a seasoned gamer and some of the things I say may be accidentally offensive. I look back on my childhood to see that my gaming repertoire exclusively contained The Sims 2, a dance mat (which, as a 90s child, I was obviously amazing at) and the never aging classic that is Zoo Tycoon.

Ok so never aging is a bit of a stretch. For those too busy playing real games to have ever experienced Zoo Tycoon, it’s a PC game where you are basically given a large field and told to build a zoo on it. The seemingly simple task is made harder by the customers’ inability to be happy and the animals’ pickiness of terrain variety but as a whole, it’s fairly challenging for an 8 year old. I found it in a charity shop about a year ago and just had to have another go for old times’ sake. The graphics are laughable and it’s literally impossible to make everything happy at once but you still get to run a zoo without getting out of bed, and that’s the aim in life really isn’t it.

Preview: Fallout 4 - Far Harbor

Jordan Oloman breaks down what we can expect from Fallout 4’s third DLC pack

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Image; Nintendo

ell I’ll be damned if I’ve ever seen a cuter looking bunch of superpowered abominations in my entire life.

We’ll start things out with my personal favourite, Rowlet - the dapper little spheroid on the far left. A Grass/Flying type, Rowlet represents the first starter to include flying, which will eliminate the need for a Fly-compatible HM slave later in the game for some players. It’s also fucking wonderful.

Look at it. Look. It’s an owl. An OWL. WITH A BOW TIE. Next in the line up is Litten, as in ‘this kitten is

thecourieronline.co.uk @Courier_Gaming

The first version had two expansion packs, Dinosaur Digs, because every good zoo has dinosaurs, obviously, and Marine Mania, where you basically got to make your own SeaWorld, which was still seen as a positive thing in 2002. The dinosaur pack provided you with scientists to genetically create new dinosaurs (copied straight from Jurassic Park) and added the extra stress of the dinos eating your guests, so never claim this game isn’t thrilling enough for you.

The marine option allowed you to perform shows with your animals, which brought in loads

“As the world called out for more virtual penguins, the Xbox version crashed and burned” of money and made the rest of the zoo pretty useless in terms of income. Simulated people in the noughties were obviously a lot less conscious of animal cruelty.

For those actually living in the 21st century an Xbox 360 version was realised in 2013 because apparently there was just so much demand for a console version. Although the graphics were much better and they fixed some of the issues with large animals getting stuck behind tiny rocks, the public were outraged, or at least mildly unhappy, which the animal diversity and general standard of the game. As the world called out for more virtual penguins, the Xbox version crashed and burned.

I remember playing this game for hours on end, making bets with my friends on who could make the best zoo, even sitting with four people all round one screen trying to make a zoo together (would not recommend, I need full creative control). I’m not going to say that 80 is the best game ever as I’m not qualified to make that sort of claim, but I will say that out of the three games I had as a child, it was definitely one of my favourites.

e’re going back to Bahston, to Pahk the Cah in Haavahd Yahd. Yes. Bethesda is really on point with their DLC, with another impressive looking expansion coming soon after the short but sweet Automatron. They released an ominous trailer that stinks of Point Lookout in the worst way. I think I’ve had to watch it about 8 times to take in every minute detail, as there’s so much bloody stuff going on.

Let me break it down for you.

We seem to be on another ‘find a lost child’ mission that the devs absolutely love, and it’s going to take us to what looks like a series of fishing towns and swamps. Some of the wildlife in the trailer include mutated crustaceans, landborne angler fish, radioactive salamanders, and a huge evil shrimp that we’ll have to battle with a harpoon gun. A secret colony of synths also features, and it looks like we’ll be juggling factions between them, the children of atom, and the local townsfolk. I’m a slut for some synths so this is getting me hyped like nothing else. The new synth guy shown looks like an ancient synth, perhaps one of the first prototypes, with strange components and tangled wires attached to him. It’ll be interesting what his angle is. One can only assume it’ll be sinister, unlike the main campaign where the synths are the victims of the institute. Perhaps they’ll be embroiled in conflict with the poor townsfolk.

I also feel like the Children of Atom may be up to no good, and may be irradiating the important water supply in the fishing villages of Far Harbor. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, but from what I’ve seen, I’m very impressed, and I can’t think of a piece of Fallout DLC that I’ve ever been let down by!

Preview: Nioh

Michael Hicks is a glutton for punishment in another nailbiting dark fantasy

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ormally, I try to avoid writing clichés when writing reviews. One of the clichés that pops up a lot in modern game critique is ‘like Dark Souls’. When it comes to Nioh, however, it really is like Dark Souls. The game got a very out of the blue alpha release last month. Comparisons with Dark Souls are all well and good, but how well does Nioh stand on its own?

First though, what is Nioh? It’s a hack ‘n’ slash action game currently being developed by the guys at Team Ninja (of Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive fame, and Metroid: Other M infamy) for the Playstation 4. You play as William, a blondehaired samurai and son of a feudal Japanese lord and a western woman (loosely based around the real-life figure William Adams, the first ever western samurai) and is set during the Warring States period of seventeenth-century Japan.

From what was available in the alpha, signs point to Nioh being a fun time. Gameplay is almost lifted entirely from the aforementioned From Software game. You collect ‘souls’ (here called amrita) with each kill and exchange them for levels at a ‘bonfire’ (a shrine). Die, and you drop all of the amrita you have collected, although you have the chance to pick up what you’ve lost.

Die on the way and they’re gone for good. One of the main differences is that have multiple stances from which you can chose, and each style can be upgraded for new moves and stat bonuses. Nioh’s cuts are much deeper than Dark Souls. I am not joking when I say any enemy can kill you with ease. Stamina management is key here, and at the end of the combo you can hit the shoulder button for quick stamina recovery. There’s definitely some improvements that need to be made, but a very solid alpha has definitely got my attention.

Image; Nioh

The Courier

sciencefeature.39

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier’s

ULTIMATE SCIENCE QUIZ Take a well-deserved break from revision and essay writing and see how much basic science you really know!

1. What is spaghettification?

a) Making spaghetti b) What happens to someone falling towards a black hole c) The division of a molecule into its component atoms

2. Why is the sea salty?

a) From decomposed marine plants such as sea weed b) A tanker accidentally spilled thousands of tonnes of salt c) It is washed in from the surrounding land d) So the fish can do tequila properly

3. Why doesn’t the moon fall down?

a) It is rapidly moving sideways, avoiding Earth b) It is hung there by Donald Trump c) It is stuck between the gravitational pull of Earth and Mars d) The moon is made of cheese which just floats in space

4. Why is the sky blue?

a) Atmospheric molecules scatter blue light more than other colours on the spectrum b) All the water molecules in air contain blue pigments c) The sun’s light reflects off the ocean d) The sky is actually colourless, it is how our brain interprets the incoming light

5. Why onions make you cry?

a) They are the bullies of the vegetable world b) Air gets trapped between the layers, rots and dries your eyes c) They don’t, it’s all lies. d) They produce the chemical syn-propanethial-S-oxide which forms sulphuric acid

6. What is a cat righting reflex?

a) When a cat recognizes that you are stressed and comes to you to hug and purr to make you better b) A karate technique, that’s scientifically proven to throw the opponent off their feet c) The reason why a cat always lands on its feet d) Fancy name for when cats look at their servants aloofly, putting them in their place

7. Why do chameleons change colours?

a) To reflect their mood b) To disguise themselves from predators c) To attract the opposite gender d) They don’t- it’s a myth

8. When was the first iPhone released?

1 b, ,9

0d

a) 2005 b) 2006 c) 2007 d) 2008

a,

8c

9. What was the hottest capital in 2015?

rs we s An

:1

b,

, 2c

3a

,4

5 a,

6 d,

7 c,

a) New Delhi b) Kuwait City c) Cairo d) Astana

10. Why do trees drop leaves?

a) It’s a form of reproduction b) To conserve chlorophyll c) To grow stronger leaves d) To survive cold winter

40.science&technology

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Science Editors: Anna Jastrzembska, Louise Bingham, & Iqra Choudhry

Spotlight on hormonal research

Research into conception and contraception is coming on in leaps and bounds. Errol Kerr has a look at the “twin genes” and Ellen Jones investigates the use of seaweed as the new pill

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they have been able to isolate two genes that increase the chances of having twins, and this was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in late April.

complete analysis again in a database f r o m Iceland.

In this manner,

The first gene, FSHB, is a gene which increases production of the follicle-stimulating hormone FSH, which causes multiple eggs to be released when the level of FSH is too high. Naturally, this would cause a higher likelihood of twins – more eggs, more chances of multiple eggs being fertilised. It’s just maths, really.

The other one, however, is more complex. The gene SMAD3 changes how molecules signal to each other. In this manner, SMAD3 changes how the ovaries respond to the production of FSH. After being tested in mice, it has clarified only this, and precisely what it does is still an unknown, but Mbarek argues that this could be why some women respond better to IVF treatment than others. Mbarek’s next plan is to study whether women who have the SMAD3 gene are more likely to conceive from IVF treatment.

The results of having just one of these genes in your DNA database is immediately noticeable - having one copy of each of these increases the chances of having fraternal twins by 29%. This find is extraordinary, and with increases of fraternal twins, could indicate these genes are on the rise now that resources are more readily accessible.

Errol Kerr

t is known well that women are more likely to give birth to twins if their families already have fraternal, or non-identical, twins, and there’s been endless speculation as to why this was the case.

Fraternal twin births are on the rise in the western world. In the USA, from 1980 to 2011, the numbers of fraternal twin births have increased by 76% in comparison to non-twin births. IVF is also far more likely to result in twins than conception from sexual intercourse.

A multinational team led by molecular geneticist Hamdi Mbarek managed to compile data from almost two thousand mothers of fraternal twins from the Netherlands, Australia and the USA, and then compared it against women who didn’t have twins or only had identical twins.

Scientists alongside h i m searched for DNA bases which occurred in the fraternal t w i n s ’ mothers.

After this, they ran a

“IVF is also far more likely to result in twins than conception from sexual intercourse”

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s scientific developments and breakthroughs become more innovative and efficient, they also seem to be becoming stranger. Artificial “eggs” are being developed by scientists which could be used as a new contraceptive for women.

However, this is a highly different contraceptive method to the currently widely used pill – these tiny, microscopic “eggs” are made out of seaweed!

To put the incredibly small size of the beads into perspective, scientists claim that about eight million would fit on a small fingernail. Made from a substance extracted from the seaweed, this new bio-technology is officially known as ZP2 peptide beads that have the ability to trap the sperm and consequently, prevent pregnancy. This works once the beads are inserted into the woman’s womb where they trap the sperm before reaching the natural eggs creating a highly efficient barrier to the human sperm. A trial carried out by researchers using a sample of mice found that none of them became pregnant once the beads were inserted into their wombs,

despite regular mating patterns. As a result, this trial certainly indicates a promising effectivity in the contraception method.

Also, not only do the beads have the possibility to be used for contraception, they also have been found to aid in conception too. For example, a representative from the University of Sheffield Fertility commented on how fertility clinics may be able to develop on the idea that binding the beads can assist in being able to select sperm for use in assisted conception techniques such as IVF. This information is of vital importance due to the current limited ability to select the desired sperm characteristics.

“They trap the sperm before reaching the natural eggs creating a highly efficient barrier to the human sperm”

The future market for this hormone-free alternative in women’s health and family planning appears to be due to the increasingly negative press the contraceptive pill is receiving which tends to be focused around the unwanted and sometimes serious side effects caused by the combined pill.

Headaches, nausea, breast tenderness, mood swings and a drop in libido are all commonly experienced symptoms felt by women as a direct result of the pill but it has also been linked to an increased risk of some serious health conditions, such as thrombosis (blood clots) and breast cancer.

Therefore, it isn’t hard to see why scientists are turning to other alternatives for contraception.

These seemingly strange seaweed “eggs” may be a new cutting edge hormone-free method in preventing pregnancies around the world at some point in the future.

Ellen Jones

Wrap your head around this

There have been some revolutionary breakthroughs in medical science in recent years, but this is heads and shoulders above the rest. Mark Tam investigates the heady heights of head transplants

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t won’t be long before people can switch their heads with brand new bodies. Such a concept has always been such an ideological and imaginative piece of science fiction only existent in novels and movies. However, there has been a massive step of progress and a significant sign for revolutionary medical technique.

Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero has apparently claimed that the first head transplant on a monkey was conducted and was successful. A team led by Xiaoping Ren at Harbin Medical University, China was able to properly connect the blood supply between the head and the new body and did not allow causation for any neurological injury of any kind. The Chinese surgical team conducted the operation with the hoal of testing cross-circulation and hypothermia as an effective neuro-protective strategy.

“The procedure starts with the subject’s head as it is cooled down to around -15ºC and removed from its original body”

Sergio Canavero, who is an associate of the Chinese team led by Dr. Xiaoping Ren, is well-known for being vocal about his determination in his controversial revelation of focusing on attempting a human head transplant last year that went viral on the media. After he revealed that he planned to

attempt a human head transplant back in 2015 within a two-year time frame of saying so, Canavero received much speculation, mostly social media backlash at the insanity of the concept.

cords and arteries are severed simultaneously. A very strong polyethylene glycol glue is used to connect the spinal cord while everything else is stitched up together.

The cooling of the head during the

“The expected date of the realization of the procedure is estimated on Christmas 2017”

The maverick surgeon exclaims that, “It’s important that people stop thinking a human head transplant is impossible. This is absolutely possible and we’re working towards it.”

The procedure starts with the subject’s head as it is cooled down to around and removed from its origibody. The Donor body is pared quickly and timely as

“Sergio Canavero plans to have the first patient of the human head transplant to be a 31-year-old Russian, Valery Spriridonov who is suffering from a genetic muscle wasting disease”

-15ºC n a l preall

procedure allowed the monkey’s head to survive without suffering brain damage. The specimen was only kept alive fro approximately 20 hours following the operation for ethical reasons.

There was no need to keep the monkey alive away from its original body for the sake of an experimental procedure.

The research began from the cutting and fusing of spinal cords of mice to actual applied research on monkeys and now they have claimed to perform initial testings on human cadavers or corpses.

Sergio Canavero plans to have the first patient of the human head transplant to be a 31-year-old Russian, Valery Spriridonov who is suffering from a genetic muscle wasting disease. However, there are legal complications that require a permission and commitment from Russian authorities for a body.

The progression of the seemingly controversial procedure is advancing as they reach out to Russian surgeons in preparation of Valery Sprirdonov’s body for operation and looks towards approaching Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for financing. In addition, Vietnam has reported offered as the host country for future head transplant. All of this is reportedly on schedule and according the HEAVEN/AHBR HEAD TRANSPLANT INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIVE EFFORT, the expected date of the realization of the procedure is estimated on Christmas 2017.

The Courier

technology&science.41

Monday 16 May 2015

thecourieronline.co.uk/science c2.science@ncl.ac.uk | @courier_science

Welcome to Newcastle-topia

Is it the end of the app era?

We all love Newcastle, but this week we decided to present you three ideas that would make Byrne discusses the rise, it a true dream city- and university. It’s up to you to decide what’s science, and what’s fiction Matt fall, and rediscovery of chatbots

Party car

As far as Science Fiction can take us, I’m just hoping that the school of History will abolish the draconian hard-copy and enter the digital age, so I don’t have to use those hallowed objects we call stationary anymore. In a wider, more imaginative sense though, I’d like to see a number of things. First off, I want some driverless cars up in here. Uber is great, but I’d rather talk to Jarvis than Stephen from Jarrow for 10 minutes, so let’s get that going.

I want to see cars with the booming’ system. Top down, AC, with the cooling system. Let’s revolutionize the way we get to our nights out, right? Spotify voice control, cigars on ice, the whole nine yards. And when we get there, I want some sort of system that makes a shit DJ obsolete. I’m talking personalised headphones, or a voice controlled request system, wearable tech where you vote for the next song. Let’s please the room and create some quality atmosphere. I don’t want to wait all night in Dirty pop for them to play Mr Brightside, OK? And robot bartenders of course, so you don’t get stiffed on your treble measures.

Jordan Oloman

For the past year I’ve been keeping close tabs on scientific and technological developments, and now I’m convinced that nothing is impossible. Just in the past two weeks we’ve heard of computers installed in people’s eyes and delivery drones. So while it’s my last semester in Newcastle, there is one thing that would revolutionize studying experience, if not the world.

Learning while sleeping. I realize that it’s not a new idea, but it’s definitely underdeveloped.

Imagine going to sleep with headphones on, listening to ReCap in your sleep, and then waking up knowing word for word what happened in the lecture- whether it’s Foucault’s surveillance model, mollecular structure of a cell or German past tenses. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Instead of hours in the Robbo, you put on your jammies and make sure to sleep eight hours a day. Instead of frantic last-minute note-browsing, you take a nap. Instead of forcing yourself to find any sense in a dense French philosophical text, you get an audiobook and doze off. Robbo would have them all- all books and journal articles condensed into two versions- 30 minute nap to give you an idea what it is about and 8 hour sleep to make you a master of the topic. So much less stress, so much more sleep (and sleep is so good for you!), and plenty more free time during day. I can see it changing the world.

Anna Jastrzembska

Teleport pads

As an incredibly lazy (and I mean incredibly lazy) student, I’m looking to the far future, where scifi meets scientific developments and teleporting could become reality. Why on earth would we walk anywhere, if we could just hop on to teleport pads on campus?

Imagine them, instantly transporting us to other buildings; to the library; to the Courier office; even to the Caffe Nero down the road which has become a favourite haunt. And they’d solve problems with accesibility, too. Wheelchair? No problem! Visually impaired? It’s fine, no worries. Broke a leg doing something stupid whilst inebriated? We’ve got your back.

There may be teething problems, initially. I’m thinking of the Knockturn Alley fiasco in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - no-one wants to end up in the library when they were aiming for a Greggs.

Never again would I be late for a lecture or seminar. Rolling out of bed at quarter to the beginning of my lecture would be an absolute dream come true. Let it not be said that I don’t dream big, kids.

Iqra Choudhry

Weird, wacky and wonderful Liz Lennox talks about the weasel trouble in Switzerland

T

he Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland does exactly what is says on the tin – it’s a machine that spins minuscule particles around a circuit at high speeds until they collide, to investigate sub-atomic particle physics. When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was switched on in 2008, the entire world seemed terrified of the concept. Despite other successful experiments having been run around the world, there was mass panic about a gigantic black hole swallowing the Earth… Or apparently not.

The LHC has since been subject to some incredible discoveries, not least the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle in 2012, which proved numerous scientific theories, but it has also faced a few very embarrassing total shut-downs over the course of its existence.

“The scientists at the collider will have to wait until midto-late May to resume their work whilst the weaselinduced damage is repaired” It isn’t surprising - given its location in the

Sleeplearning

Swiss countryside - that animals occasionally interfere with the normal smooth-running of the LHC. Running was interrupted due to a fault reported as a ‘severe electrical perturbation’ at 5:30am on the 29th April which was later confirmed to be a weasel breaking into the electrical facilities. The animal did not survive its inquisitive foray into the LHC, unfortunately.

Having made its way into a 66kV transformer and damaging the connections, the marten, a member of the weasel family caused damage which took days to repair. The damage occurred as the team at the LHC were collecting further data on the Higgs Boson particle. Unfortunately, the scientists at the collider will have to wait until mid-to-late May to resume their work whilst the weasel-induced damage is repaired.

This is not the first time an animal has stood in the way of science; in 2009 the LHC was taken out by a bird dropping a baguette into the machinery (no word of a lie), although no remains were found.

Sometimes, humans stand in the way of scientific progress, but it also seems that sometimes the biggest obstacle to science can be a tiny little critter.

Word of the Year: SMOMBIES

If you’ve read Fahrenheit 451, you might remember a passage where he talks about a woman, almost catatonic, oblivious to the world thanks to a radio in her ear. This sort of stuff stunned Ray Bradbury in 1953, but it’s second nature to us millennials in the 21’st century.

The guy might as well have been a prophet, because nowadays we have the German youth word of 2015, Smombie. Smartphone Zombie, for those of you who aren’t with the program…

If you didn’t think we were already entering a cyberdystopia of immense proportions, let me drive it home to you. We currently have special ‘cell phone lanes’ for people with smartphone addiction in cities like Chongqing and Antwerp. Lanes created specially to herd the human cattle from their station to their slumber. Depressing, isn’t it? Cologne and Augsburg have also introduced groundlevel traffic lights, so that we don’t end up six feet under when we cross the road, tweeting about Kylie’s latest selfie. Famous last words!

Jordan Oloman

C

hatbots may be the next big thing. Hard to imagine when there is an app for everything, but that could soon change. Chatbots are computer programs that emulate human conversation and interaction. They aren’t a new creation and have been around for a while. The first Chatbot was designed in 1966 by a professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, it was rather crude and made mistakes often. Chatbots were initially designed to help with customer service and as help tools, and large companies such as Lloyds and Citroen use Chatbots instead of call centres.

“Chatbots are computer programs that emulate human conversation and interaction.

They aren’t a new creation and have been around for a while”

However, this is all about to change. Soon, Chatbots may start to make all activities easier than before! They allow users to type commands, similar to doing a Google search, and then the command is carried out. For example, if I want to order a pizza, I would have to Google “Take away Pizza” and then order it through a website. With a Chatbot, I could simply ask it to order a large peperoni from Dominoes as soon as possible and it would do it all for me. Chatbots may make hangovers a little bit more bearable.

“If I want to order a pizza, I would have to Google “Take away Pizza” and then order it through a website. With a Chatbot, I could simply ask it to order a large peperoni from Dominoes as soon as possible and it would do it all for me”

But why are they coming about now? App sales are still growing, but it is not at the same rate as it once was and with the top 20 developers collecting almost half of all revenue generated from apps, start up companies are eager to try something new.

There are now Chatbots that can interact with your bank account to help you find ways in which to save money, and others that can help set up meetings. But for the Chatbots to thrive there needs to be involvement of major players, such as Google and Facebook. Both of these have expressed an interest, however, Microsoft’s AI Chatbot “Tay” turned rogue quickly, and became a racist sex-loving monster within 24 hours.

“Microsoft’s AI Chatbot “Tay” turned rogue quickly, and became a racist sex-loving monster within 24 hours”

The problem is, because the tools are still in their infancy, their interpretation of text is currently very limited. The Chatbots only carry out commands i f the correct phrase is entered as their guesswork is poor. This will improve with time, but it means that for the time being there will be a rocky few years of awkward conversations with robots.

The Courier

puzzles.43

Monday 16 May 2016

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1 Large deer, like a moose (3) 2 Louis ______, jazz legend; Oldest building on campus (9) 6 Messenger, delivery service (7) 8 Queen’s English (2) 9 Being, in the morning (2) 11 Luke ____, England and Man Utd player, currently injured (4) 12 Happens every year (6) 14 Norwich and Newcastle (10) 18 No longer wild (4) 20 Last letter of the Greek alphabet (5) 21 What Newcastle said to the NUS (2) 24 Pre-Colombian Peruvian empire (4) 25 Distributing parliamentary seats according to the number of votes won (2) 26 How can you be better than him? Tell my man shut up (7) 27 The front end of an app (2) 28 Exited; Labour (4) 29 No more, finished, done (3)

Connectword

Find the link that connects these three words.

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Word search

We’ve hidden the surnames of 19 of our favourite* Courier editors, can you find them all?

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Grand-Duke of the Realm of Confusion: Jack Parker Puzzles Bitch: Mark Sleightholm

*We chose the editors who have really cool surnames.

The term “favourite” does not imply editorial favouritism

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1 Town near Manchester, cake (6) 2 Insurance company, sponsors of Norwich City FC (5) 3 Left-wing German philosopher (4) 4 Director of many violent, confusing or surreal films (9) 5 Risk, bet (6) 7 The most northern of all the provinces of Ireland (6) 10 Championship champions (7) 13 Delayed, possibly pregnant (4) 15 End of an ___ (3) 16 1973 hit for Elton John, about a war veteran (6) 17 Spanish capital (6) 18 Cooked bread, cheers (5) 19 Sadiq Khan’s new job (5) 22 No reversed (2) 23 Where the heart is, or just wherever Paul Young leaves his hat (4) 25 Word play (3)

“Where’s Roy Walker gone?” Maybe he’ll come back next year

Completing the entirety of this puzzles page will entitle you to the respect of (some of) your peers. Bring the proof of your achievement into the Courier office, where you’ll receive a firm handshake

44.sportfeatures

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

Hillsborough: the long fight for justice Hillsborough: key events 15 April 1989 A crush at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forrest results in 94 deaths. Another victim died of his injuries several days later August 1989 Lord Justice Taylor publishes an interim report into the disaster, blaming police mismanagement. The final report led to all-seater stadiums being introduced in the top two divisions of English football August 1990 The Crown Prosecution Service decides against a trial, on the grounds of insufficient evidence Commemorations to the 96 victims have kept the memory of Hillsborough alive Image: Wikimedia Commons

By Mark Sleightholm Deputy Editor Last month’s historic ruling that the Hillsborough victims were unlawfully killed marks a major turning point in the story of Britain’s worst sporting disaster. For 27 years the families of the victims have been fighting for justice, and the latest inquest has vindicated their efforts. It has finally been established, definitively, that fans played no part in the catastrophe, which was caused by police mistakes.

On 15 April 1989, fans flocked to Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield to watch Liverpool play Nottingham Forrest in the FA Cup semi-final. After a build-up of people at the turnstiles, the police opened an exit gate to allow more people into the ground. 2,000 fans entered the already-crowded standing terraces behind the goal, which were divided into pens in a bid to stop hooliganism. The crush that followed took 96 lives and injured hundreds, and we now know that at least 41 of those deaths were preventable, had the emergency services responded more effectively.

Tragedies such as this happen all too often, but Hillsborough is particularly poignant because such an atrocity happened at something so that’s means to be as safe, as innocent, as enjoyable, as a football match. 96 ordinary people went to watch the beautiful game, as so many

Hillsborough Stadium, home to Sheffield Wednesday FC Image: Wikimedia Commons

thousands of people do every week, and never came home.

This alone is a tragedy, but the pain and suffering for the families of the victims continued long after that terrible day, as the police tried to cover their actions by blaming the tragedy on drunken hooliganism by the Liverpool fans.

Not only did 96 people lose their lives in a disaster that could have been avoided, their reputations were tarnished and abused so that those responsible for the tragedy could hide their monumental mistakes.

prosecutions of those responsible.

Much of the media focus on Hillsborough has, understandably, been on the 96 people who died. But Hillsborough has affected so many more people as well: the families of the victims, the survivors, the police officers who did help, whatever their orders may have been.

The first official report, by Lord Justice Taylor in 1989, blamed police mismanagement for the tragedy, but this judgment was pushed aside as the police narrative of drunken hooliganism took hold. Police statements were al-

“The Hillsborough victims were ordinary people, football fans, the unfortunate victims of a disaster that was in no way their fault” Despite the efforts of the families, the police retained control of the official explanation, with the media all too willing to believe that drunken Liverpool hooligans were responsible for the tragedy.

The Hillsborough victims were ordinary people, football fans, the unfortunate victims of a disaster that was in no way their fault. Books and documentaries supporting this view have come and gone. But only now, 27 years after the event, has this version of events been recognised in court.

The new ruling only states that the victims were unlawfully killed; it was not a trial. But it could lead to eventual

tered, evidence withheld and the media manipulated to suppress the truth, and even in the most recent inquest lawyers for the police still maintained that Liverpool fans were to blame for the crush.

Not only did the police cause, or at least contribute to, the disaster, the appalling cover-up prolonged the battle for justice. Had the police admitted their mistakes in 1989, ‘the truth’ could have been revealed and the families of the victims could have begun to rebuild their lives.

Instead 96 innocent victims of this horrific tragedy, along with the hundreds of traumatised survivors, were

branded hooligans and thugs. The families of the victims have fought for 27 years to clear the names of their loved ones, many of them attending almost every day of the various inquests and hearings. The most recent inquest began in 2014 and is the longest case in British legal history to have been heard by a jury.

The 1980s saw several tragedies in football, with the Bradford City fire in 1985 followed just days later by the Heysel disaster in Belgium, that saw English clubs banned from European football for five years. Following the Hillsborough tragedy standing areas in stadiums in the top two divisions were phased out, and stadium safety has undoubtedly improved.

But it shouldn’t have taken 96 fans to die for this to happen. The warning signs were there; in 1981 a crush at Hillsborough Stadium had seriously injured several fans, and yet before the 1989 semi-final match the police focus was still entirely on stopping hooliganism and violence, with no thought given to crowd safety. The terraces on which the crush happened were divided into pens by fences, intended to stop fights, but on this occasion also stopping the rescue of people trapped in the crush.

Lessons were learnt from Hillsborough, but the story, from the disaster itself to the police cover-up that followed, can never be a happy one. The recent judgment is a victory for the families, but comes only after 27 years of constant fighting. Two charity singles have been made for the victims: a cover of “Ferry Cross the Mersey” in 1989 featuring Paul McCartney and other Liverpool musicians, and a 2012 version of “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”.

Both singles went to number one, and the various minutes’ silences that have been held before football games, both immediately following the tragedy and on anniversaries and commemorations, shows that, despite the efforts of the police to hide the tragedy, it has never been forgotten by the public.

Mistakes, misjudgments, mismanagement and misfortune cruelly coincided on that day in 1989 to lead to tragedy. Of course no inquest can ever bring the victims back, or undo the years of pain that their families have suffered, but there is at least a chance of some justice in this very unjust situation.

November 1990 – March 1991 Coroner Dr Stefan Popper begins the first inquest, which reaches a verdict of accidental death and focuses on alcohol consumption by the victims March 1993 The death total rises to 96 after the life-support system of Tony Bland was switched off following no signs of recovery.

November 1993 The families of several victims try to have the inquest verdict overturned, but this is rejected in the courts.

December 1996 A documentary is broadcast which makes allegations of a police coverup.

June 1997 – February 1998 Despite finding evidence that police statements were altered, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith rules against a new inquest August 1998 – July 2000 A private prosecution by the families of the victims against David Duckenfield, match commander for the semi-final, fails April 2009 Andy Burnham, then Culture Secretary, is heckled by fans during a speech at Anfield to mark 20 years since the tragedy December 2009 – September 2012 The Government sets up the Hillsborough Independent Panel to review the disaster. The Panel finds that Liverpool fans were in no way responsible and blames the police December 2012 The verdict of the first inquest, led

by Dr Popper, is quashed following the evidence produced by the Hillsborough Independent Panel March 2014 – April 2016 A new inquest is held, becoming the longest case to be heard by a jury in British legal history. It concludes that responsibility for the disaster lies with the police, and that Liverpool fans were in no way to blame. It also rules that the victims were unlawfully killed, instead of the ruling of accidental death made in 1991.

The Courier

Monday 16 May 2016

sportintramural.45

Sun’s out puns out: the hottest Intramural action of the year

By Alex Hendley Sports Editor

The epic 5-4 between Oxbow Lakers and Rodallega Bombs

Image: James Sproston

Newcastle’s Sports Hall saw some dramatic Netball action this year Image: Lucy Brogden

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It’s been a punny old year. Despite the averagely named Newcastle Uni Reserves winning the Saturday Football 11’s Division One with an unbeaten record and a monumental goal difference of +40, the jeux de mots were still rife throughout Intramural sport. FC Civille aren’t quite the Europa League finalists they were named after, currently lying bottom of the table ready to be pounced on by Division Two champions Panthers FC. Below the black cats lies the battle of Barcelona, no relation to the naval conflict of 1642, as Bath A Loner and Barca-Law-Na struggle it out over Division Two’s second spot – closely followed by the Italian banter-kings themselves SS Ladzio. Special shout outs must be reserved for Henderson Hall FC’s -60 goal difference, and the rock solid attempt at a niche pun from Archletico Madrid.

Moving on to the Wednesday 11’s league, Newcastle Medics 2, Barca-LawNa and Oxbow Lakers are set to win their respective leagues. Disappointingly for all great pun fans, Rodallega Bombs and Chamakh My Pitch Up prop up the whole league structure. Not so surprising when one considers the calibre of the teams’ namesakes. Mid-table mediocrity of the year award goes to Jesmond Tutu of Wednesday’s Division Three, along with religious pun of the year, the most devout of awards.

Onto Netball, and the Saturday league of hoop-shooting hot shots. Worthy champions of the 12pm-1pm league and without doubt the best pun in the division Nets Top Models just squeezed out

the intolerably dull “History” and “Lawyers Netball”, and quite right too.

There was an epically surgical three way split at the top of the 11am-12pm league, with Biosci 1, Medics and Toothfairies all taking 48 points over the course of the season – though Toothfairies should take the title if just for their better than average name. The MLS Señoritas waved adios to any title hopes a long time ago, but enjoyed a respectable campaign considering GPs and Scrubs cleaned up with first and second place.

Intramural has enjoyed some absolute bangers that The Courier has had the fortune to report on, but surely the highlight of the year has to be February’s showdown between Oxbow Lakers and Rodallega Bombs, an explosive game which resulted in a 5-4 victory for the geographers. Earlier in the season, the fixture had finished 8-1 in favour of the same team, so goals have been rife between these two 7s teams throughout the season. The analogies of reporter James Sproston have been something of a miracle this year, and comparing striker Mike Fry to “Dani Osvaldo in that one good game he had for Southampton again Manchester City” is as niche as they come. As for headlines, “Hung Like a Bony prove very stiff opposition for Limp Giroud Boiz” back in October has to go down as an euphemistic miracle.

On a final note, everyone’s favourites Dyslexic Untied deserve a special place in this end of season review. Personally, I have experienced the trauma of chipping a tooth first hand, and therefore I’d like to wish Tom Hanham and his gnashers the best of luck following Untied’s exciting cup victory.

Category Team Name of the Year

Winner “Hung Like a Bony”

Game of the Year

Oxbow Lakers Rodallega Bombs

Best Points Difference

Biosci 1 (+213)

Crash and Burn Injury of the Year

Rodallega Bombs Tom Hanham

Worst Team Name

“History”

5 4

46.sport

Monday 16 May 2016

The Courier

A season of sporting success

With a record number of BUCS points amassed, trophies won and promotions gained, it’s been a historic season of sport at Newcastle University. Sports Editor Calum Wilson and Deputy Editor Mark Sleightholm reflect on the best of the action from Team Newcastle.

Ultimate win regional finals 27 teams descended on Leeds for the Northern University Women’s Indoor Ultimate Championships, but Newcastle’s girls travelled back up the A1 with the trophy. The win also secured qualification to the BUCS Nationals.

For the first time in the competition’s history, Newcastle fielded three teams comprising of 23 players. The tournament took place over the weekend of the 21st and 22nd November.

The Saturday morning saw the club start off strong with two 13-0 wins over Leeds and Sheffield’s second teams which provided early confidence. Next up, the girls faced a tough outfit in York 1’s, but sailed through the test, winning 12-4.

That left Newcastle needing to beat local rivals Durham 1’s to top the group, progress to the semi-finals and automatically qualify for Nationals.

After a tight first half, Newcastle finally showed their strength, running out 6-3 victors.

SEPTEMBER

That evening, the squad travelled across to Manchester to re-group and recover. Sunday saw the conclusion to the tournament with the semi-final drawing Newcastle against favourites Leeds whilst Leicester faced Central Lancashire in the other semi-final.

Newcastle started their semi-final well, taking a 2-0 lead, but were quickly pegged back. The two sides traded blows until the final few minutes but Newcastle held their nerve and triumphed 6-5.

Meanwhile, Newcastle’s 2’s became the highest placed second team in the competition. After an agonising wait for the final, the 1’s lined up against Leicester full of confidence having earned victory against Leeds.

The girls started the final nervously with drops and throwaways but eventually found their rhythm to outclass their opponents and take the regional title.

OCTOBER

Image: Diane Marquez Lopez

NOVEMBER

Image: Jack Parker

DECEMBER

Annual darts night hits the spot After proving to be a smash-hit in last year’s calender, the Uni’s Darts society hosted its annual showpiece again in 2015. 16 teams of 4 battled it out for the trophy and the prize pot, which made up of £100 and a crate of Carling.

The early rounds saw a number of the inexperienced sides crash out of the competition, including a disappointing exit for the aptly named Bulls-eyes. The biggest shock of the night saw The Treble Makers, consisting of 2 Uni players, take an early bath.

The headline clash of the quarter finals saw Oliver Clements take on

Uni reclaim Clash of the Titans crown Newcastle’s rugby team regained local bragging rights after coming from behind to defeat rivals Northumbria in the annual season opener. Second half tries from George Fellows and Dave Graham were enough to give Newcastle a narrow 13-10 victory in a cagey affair at Kingston Park.

The game started slowly with both sides making early mistakes as a combination of nerves and wet conditions played a part. Newcastle’s setpiece taker, Rhodri Adamson, had the first opportunity of the night, but the full back couldn’t convert from 30 metres out.

The match remained scoreless until the 22nd minute. Newcastle scrum half Duncan Swanson gave away a

penalty as he tried to rip the ball from the opposition and the Poly kicker converted.

Northumbria’s lead lasted only a matter of minutes. Adamson made it 3-3 converting from in front of the posts, 25 metres out. The two sides went into the break level after a subdued first period.

The style of play became increasingly open in the second half, but the slippery conditions continued to cause havoc. 46 minutes in, Newcastle winger Teddy Hewins appeared to have broken free down the right, before suddenly losing his grip on the greasy ball.

In response, the powerful Poly forwards put a series of drives together

before finally bundling the ball over the line, taking the score to 3-10.

Newcastle needed an instant reply and they got it. Swanson provided some spectacular link up play with George Fellows, allowing the latter to race through and score, leaving Newcastle trailing 8-10.

With the clash now in full flow, Northumbria wasted an opportunity to extend their lead, narrowly missing a penalty kick.

Having regained possession, Newcastle mounted an attack from right to left and found Dave Graham in space on the wing. The winger dived for the corner and Uni held on at the end to complete a famous victory over their closest rivals.

Image: Jake Jeffries-Jackson

Michael Van Gherkin. Van Gherkin took an early lead and held on to progress to the last four. The Time Wasters, Once You Go Black You Never Go Back and Johny’s Big Black Jonc joined them in the semis.

After less than 10 minutes on the oche, Van Gherkin outdid The Time Wasters, setting up a final showdown with Johny’s Big Black Jonc. Van Gherkin went into the final as undoubtedly the favourites.

After a tight first singles match, Van Gherkin finally took advantage later in the tie to the delight of the gathered crowd in the SU.

JAN

The Courier

sport.47

Monday 16 May 2016

Rugby girls win BUCS Vase

Basketball boys beat Derby in promotion playoffs Newcastle won every match they played this season, dominating the Northern 1A League, winning the BUCS Trophy and, outside of BUCS, the gaining promotion to the second division of the National Basketball League.

In the BUCS League, their outstanding performance saw the Knights through to the Premier League playoffs, where they walloped Leeds in the semi-finals, to face Derby in the playoff final.

The game was aggressive and fastpaced from the off, with both sides prone to diving and obstructing each other.

2014/15

Image: Amie Walker Newcastle won the very first BUCS Vase, more than making up for their relegation from the Premier North division.

The Vase was set up this year for the bottom two teams from the Premier North and South divisions.

Newcastle travelled down to Cambridge for the semi-final and came back victorious, having defeated their southern rivals 15-0, despite finishing with just 13 players.

This left them to face Premier North rivals Leeds Beckett Carnegie,

ANUARY

as part of the BUCS Big Wednesday event in Sheffield.

An early try from Charlie Woodman set Newcastle off to a strong start, and they dominated for the first 30 minutes.

Even a fight back from Leeds in the second half was not enough to stop Newcastle’s attacking style of play, and a final try from captain Shauna Buckley sealed their victory.

They won the match 24-7 to take home the vase.

FEBRUARY

keen on slam dunks and outrageous shots that drove the crowd wild, but they couldn’t compete with the entire Newcastle side, whose solid performance saw the gap steadily rise.

By the final quarter Newcastle were 20 points ahead. Derby continued the frantic pace and put up a good fight, but the Knights were now unstoppable.

Derby gained a point from a penalty in the final minute, but further baskets from Ensz and Wallrapp wrapped up the game at 113-97 with seven seconds to spare, sending Newcaslte into the Premier League next sesason.

Image: Kevin Wong

11th in BUCS

2015/16

9th in BUCS

MARCH

Image: Newcaslte Raiders

Derby scored early on and maintained a four point lead for the first half of the first quarter, before shots from the likes of Charlie Walrapp, George Beard and Nathan Ensz gave Newcastle the lead.

Going into the second quarter 39-30, Newcastle extended their lead, with the score at 67-52 by half time. Derby’s Watts brothers, Dan and David, fought back valiantly for the Ducks, but their efforts were not enough to stop the Newcastle onslaught.

Such was the importance of the game it attracted a strong Newcastle crowd. Both Watts brothers were

Sport wins Section of the Year APRIL

University hosts inaugural Sepak Takraw tournament

While massive in Malaysia, this time last year Sepak Takraw was almost unheard of in the Toon, and probably would be still, were it not for the efforts of John Haswell.

As well as founding Newcastle’s Sepak Takraw club, he organised a European tournament, hosted in Newcastle’s Sports Centre, with teams from all over the UK and even Germany competing.

Sepak Takraw is somewhat like volleyball, except played with the feet, and players are known to jump and back flip their way to victory.

Despite a strong performance from Berocca Juniors, the tournament was won by Balai Malaysia B, who defeated Newcastle’s B team in the final.

Newcastle’s A team, which included club president Haswell, came third.

MAY BUCS FACT FILE Won: 900 Drawn: 80 Lost: 722 Win ratio: 53%

Raiders touchdown in the playoffs NUBC beat Durham in Boat Race of the North Poly pinch Stan Calvert again Having comprehensively regained Stan Calvert last year, Northumbria made it three victories in a row by narrowly defeating Newcastle 73.7567.25 in 2016. Uni battled heroically as they closed the gap from the previous year from 34 points to just 6.5.

The main week’s events began with Northumbria establishing a head start in the competition with wins in Women’s Football and Volleyball. On the Wednesday, Newcastle closed the gap with a clean sweep of victories in Cricket, Rowing and Equestrian.

Saturday saw Northumbria regain a clear advantage and mount pressure on Uni going into the final day.

Defeats for Skiing, Snowboarding, Gaelic Football and Basketball saw the Poly’s lead stretch to 32-18 at the

start of Super Sunday.

Midday successes from Newcastle’s Women’s 2’s in Squash and Hockey saw the overall gap close. At around 3pm only three points separated the two teams. Newcastle were then dealt a huge blow as the Men’s fencers lost unexpectedly.

The competition’s finale took place at Gateshead Stadium with Men’s Football chosen as the showpiece event. In an incredibly tight match, Olly Walker’s second half strike was enough to earn Newcastle a surprise victory against the much-fancied Poly.

That surprise victory marked the end of what was a valiant effort from Newcastle in the competition as a whole.

Image: Hanson Jones

Sport

www.thecourieronline.co.uk Monday 16 May 2016 Issue 1332 Free

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HILLSBOROUGH P.44

Sports Editors: Alex Hendley, Calum Wilson & Lewis Bedford courier.sport@ncl.ac.uk Twitter: @Courier_Sport | Instagram: thecouriersport

INTRAMURAL REVIEW P.45

SEASON’S SUCCESS P.46

Sunderland sink Toon

Uni struggled to put runs on the board from ‘The Big Head’s bowling Image: James Sproston

Men’s Cricket Newcastle

162-5

Sunderland

213-3

By James Sproston at East Boldon As the rest of the University sports start to put away their rackets and rattan balls, it’s just the cricketers that are left to represent Newcastle in BUCS. Interestingly, they don’t represent Newcastle in Newcastle; instead they play their home matches in Durham.

So rather than travel down to the land of the Pitt Yakkers, we focussed on the Mens 2nds team who faced Sunderland at their home ground in East Boldon.

The omens were in Newcastle’s favour. Sunderland hadn’t even played a game yet, whilst Newcastle were well warmed-up having won two of their three games. There was also incentive to get back to winning ways after their loss to Leeds Trinity last week.

Looking to make their mark, Sunderland sent out Sean Tindale and Lewis “The Big Head” Aiken to make a quick start to the match. To ensure they didn’t, James North and Sam Robinson were in picked to quell their attack.

Rather than danger-man Tindale, it was Aiken who made the most head-

way in the opening few overs. The big opener, hitting three boundaries in the opening six overs, enjoyed what little joy they had.

When Harry Kennedy took over with the ball, he not only kept the score down, but he almost caught and bowled Aiken in the seventh over. He continued to pressurise the wicketkeeper-turnedopener, as well as his own wicketkeeper, conceding four byes in the tenth over.

As Aiken’s runs dried up, it was Tindale who took up the mantle. He hit a number of fours back over each bowler’s head, and picked out gaps where it didn’t seem possible. Not even Cam Scott or James Gregson’s different styles of bowl-

cent job. Armstrong couldn’t replicate his feat though, getting ran out by Matthews in the 26th over of the match after making just 12. Tindale ran, Armstrong didn’t.

Matthews continued his fine form, catching Josh Burns after just one over at the crease. But as Richie Arnott came in to bat, Newcastle were put to the sword.

After dropping another catch, Evans was unable to collect a Tindale hit-andhope for the boundary, conceding a six in the process. This was followed by another two Tindale sixes, taking his total to 120.

North was then punished by Arnott,

the bat, he made an immediate impact with the ball, dismissing Everett for a duck.

Newcastle’s resurgence was led by Jack Hughes and Harry Kennedy, having to survive several LBW appeals from Tindale before chalking up a serious amount of runs.

The two men in kept the boundaries ticking over, with both Kennedy and Hughes scoring fours off one Andrew Davies over.

In the sixteenth over, Hughes secured his fifty as Tindale dropped him off a fast Davies ball. However Kennedy wasn’t so lucky, being bowled by the Sunderland spinner, James Houmark. Hughes was

“After a valiant effort, Turner was caught off a Ben Sims delivery, having made 17. He claimed that there was nothing he could have done” ing could slow the Mackem down.

Tindale reached 50 in the nineteenth over and didn’t slow down, as his two sixes sandwiched four byes by Sam Robinson two overs later.

However Newcastle finally broke through as Dave Matthews, spurred on by plenty of vocal encouragement from the field, caught Aiken off one off his tricky balls. He almost had new man David Armstrong moments later, but Mat Evans couldn’t hold the catch.

Aiken claimed that he got himself out because he’d “forgot how to score runs.”

But having racked up 41, he did a de-

as the big man hit a four and a six before Tindale rounded off the performance with another six. Sunderland closed on 213-3. A seemingly unreachable target in 30 overs.

Nevertheless, after the umpires were “well chuffed” by their egg mayo sarnies, Newcastle looked to make a recordbreaking run chase. The “dream team” of Charlie Everett and Harry Kennedy walked out to face a Sunderland side full of confidence.

It was no surprise really that Sean Tindale would be the man to lead the Sunderland attack. Having shone with

then caught out two overs later.

Besides regular leg byes from Davies, the Newcastle runs dried up as the new batsmen played themselves in. Connor Baynes-Holden did so successfully, James Gregson did not. The number five was Houmark’s next victim as he caught him off his spin for just two runs.

In came wicketkeeper Dougie Turner to attempt to form a productive partnership with Baynes-Holden. Although the batsmen weren’t making many big shots at this stage, Tindale was regularly beating Aiken with his pacey deliveries, keeping the scoreboard ticking over.

Out of nowhere, Turner decided to turn on the fireworks, slogging some deliveries and making some risky runs, with Baynes-Holden narrowly escaping after two Tindale leg byes.

After a valiant effort, Turner was caught off a Ben Sims delivery, having made 17. He claimed that there was nothing he could’ve done, “some balls just have your name on.” In came Cam Scott to do what he could with the remaining two overs.

Two fours in the final over gave the sparse crowd something to cheer about, but Newcastle’s total of 162-5 was no way near good enough to ever challenge Sunderland.

Losing by 51 runs in a 30-over game sounds worse than it was, as Newcastle faced a Sean Tindale in blistering form with both the bat and ball.

Newcastle now face second-placed Bradford in the their final league fixture, and will have to wait to see the other results in Northern Division 3B before being able to work out their final league position.

With this having been Sunderland’s first fixture of the season, they’ve got matches scheduled on consecutive days in a fortnight’s time. The league positions will be determined after their final league fixture on 1 June.

For now Newcastle can take heart in their valiant batting and glimpses of brilliance in their bowling, nullified only by the fantastic Tindale.