T.C.D.
Volume 120 | Issue Two | October 2012
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volume 120, issue 2
Contents 4
Obama vs. Romney: The Great Debate The Two Futures of America are discussed
6
A Journey to the East Duncan Moss recounts his experiences in Guangzhou and his explorations of the Far East
10 The Drugs that Changed my Life Gavin McLoughlin on the doping scandal surrounding Lance Armstrong, and the Texan’s nemesis Paul Kimmage. 14 Graffiti Wars Our Editor discusses the divisiveness of the graffiti scene in Dublin and the wider world 20 Trinity Bragger A truthful look at the culture of elitism in Trinity, and what we really think of ourselves as students today 21 Ex-Advice The Dos and Don’ts of a break up, and why not to watch Romeo + Juliet at any time in the aftermath. 22 Interview with Julien Neel Denise Wilkinson has a chat with the YouTube one-man a cappella sensation 24 The Long Con Donal O’Siochru discusses the grifters that are living under the guise of politicians 26 50 Shades of the Abortion Debate The many facets of the most contentious issue in Ireland 28 Medicine for Sale Paddy Duffy discusses the manipulation of the market and abuse of power by pharmaceutical companies 30 The Politics of Fashion Former Editor Elaine McCahill discusses the importance of fashion and it’s impact on the world of politics
T.C.D. Miscellany is a full participating member of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. This scheme, in addition to defending the freedom of the press, offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go to www.pressombudsman.ie.
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o-one ever really seems to know what Miscellany does. It seems unfathomable that a publication has no coherent theme and is just a random collection of opinion and analysis on whatever our contributors fancy this issue. But that’s what Miscellany does. We’re lumped with it now anyway, so in this issue I delve into the murky world of street art, and we hear from an array of talented writers on topics from advice on a ‘good’ break-up, to the Constiutional Convention, and travels to the Far East. The U.S Presidential candidates are analysed, as are the fashion choices of their wives, which leaves us wondering why the most famous women in politics and society are only famous as wives and girlfriends. I, for one, would prefer to see a woman on the ticket in the U.S Elections than on the arm of one of the candidates. Rantings aside, to celebrate Miscellany’s 120th Volume (in cohorts with TN, who reach a spritely 60 years very soon) we want to raise the profile of Trinity’s best independent publications this year. Add us on facebook (facebook.com/TCDMiscellanyMagazine) to keep updated on news about upcoming issues and events.
a letter from the editor... Editor: Clare Burnett Assistant Editors: Gavin McLoughlin, Denise Wilkinson Staff Photographer: Atalanta Copeman-Papas Business Manager: Laura Healy Assistant Editor: Lola Boorman Online Editor: Katie Varvos
T.C.D. Miscellany 6 Trinity College Dublin 2 www.miscellany.ie tcdmiscellany@gmail. com Printed by Grehan Printers, 12 Brunswick House, Dublin 2
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Romney was the CEO of Bain Capital and Governor of Massachusetts
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Estimated $250 million fortune, held in offshore accounts
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Against abortion except when approved by a Latter Day Saints doctor
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Opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions, saying “they are identical to marriage other than by name”
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Against stricter gun laws, wants to improve existing frameworks
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Would increase military spending by almost $100 billion
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Would increase the size of the armed forces
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Despite his push for renewable energy as Governor of Mass. opposes EPA regulation of greenhouse gases
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Would repeal ‘Obamacare’
Mitt
By the time this issue of Miscellany gets to you, the U.S Elections will be near completion, or, after half term, we will know for certain who the next leader of the United States of America will be. For now however, as the political debate in the States heats up amidst the race to the White House, it’s important to remember that regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, issues such as economic stimulus, foreign policy and social policies will have a knock-on effect globally when it comes down to it, and the man in the Oval Office will have the deciding vote. Obama and Romney are polar opposites on many of topics, and their policies and plans are under massive scrutiny at the moment. One imperative issue that has not been addressed in the American media however, is the question of how the beliefs of the candidates might impact on the policies they would implement. I wonder what it says about a nation, which elected its first ever black president in 2008, that it now looks set to elect a man whose religious beliefs inform him that the indigenous peoples of America were Israelites with the gift of foresight, believing in Jesus Christ hundreds of years before his birth. Obama may not have been able to work a miracle cure on the economic wasteland left behind after Bush, but I think it’s important to note that his religion does not affect his policies, unlike Romney. As a Mormon, Romney is against abortion except in cases where it’s medically approved by a Latter Day Saints doctor. He would also advise single women facing an unplanned pregnancy to consider adoption. In power, he would end federal aid to Planned Parenthood and would like to see the Roe v. Wade ruling
Romney 4
reversed by the Supreme Court. Obama supports abortion rights and his health care law requires contraception to be available for all women on an employment healthcare plan. Romney opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds and says it should be banned with a constitutional amendment, meaning individual states wouldn’t be left to decide the law for their own constituents. He also opposes civil unions on the grounds that they are “identical to marriage other than by name.” If Obama let his religion inform his policies he would agree with Romney on these issues, because that’s what Christianity teaches. Obama supports legal recognition of same-sex marriages and achieved repeal of the military ban on openly gay members. Another hugely important topic is one that both candidates are reluctant to voice their opinions on for fear of inciting the wrath of the National Rifles Association (NRA). In the wake of a series of mass shootings across America, no selfrespecting presidential candidate would think of talking about introducing tighter gun control, such is the financial power and might of the NRA that a candidate could literally write themselves off as a lost cause were they do so. Obama previously backed stricter gun laws and Romney opposed them. Both talk about stronger reinforcement of existing laws but neither are willing to tackle the problem directly.
V
Barack
Obama
Like the gun laws, both Obama and Romney differ on their approach to military spending. While both endorse a full withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014, Obama wants to implement major cuts in the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, slashing the current $487 billion in military spending. Romney, on the other hand, would increase the strength of the armed forces and add almost $100 billion extra to the Pentagon budget in 2016. Just to put it all in perspective, America spends more on its military than the next fifteen countries combined, the overwhelming majority of which are allies. Each day in Afghanistan costs the government more than it did to build the entire pentagon and in 2008 more money was spent every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earned that year. More money is spent on war than on health, education, welfare and safety combined. War is a lucrative industry for armaments companies and they are the ones that fund a large part of Republican campaigns. To speak against them is a political death wish.
S
Mitt Romney’s beliefs and assertions are as far removed from those of the
Constitution of the United States as is possible to be. Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement said “God said, ‘Thou shalt not murder’ and at another time He said, ‘Thou shalt utterly destroy.’ This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted- by revelation adapted to the circumstances...” This picking and choosing of appropriate passages to suit oneself resonates strongly with claims that United States was founded on Christian values. “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” said Benjamin Franklin. Barack Obama may be too idealistic and rhetorical, but in his discourse he shows that the values he holds dear are values the Founding Fathers also held dear. In his books he sets out his beliefs that Republicans and Democrats can only ever work together for the good of the people they serve. As Abraham Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed it ourselves.”
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Former Civil Rights lawyer and senator
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Barack and wife, Michelle, are worth an estimated $6 million
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Supports abortion rights and wants to make contraception available free of charge
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Supports legal recognition of gay marriage
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Achieved repeal of the military ban on openly gay members
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Previously supported stricter gun laws
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Wants to cut military spending and reduce the size of the armed forces
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Wants to make America more self-sufficient by encouraging the development of “clean energy” and reducing carbon emissions
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Lower health care costs through ‘Obamacare’
Georgia Lena O’Sullivan is a Junior Freshman student of Science.
I once bumped into an affluent man from Quebec walking by the promenade in Geneva. He was lost. After helping him, we got talking and I asked why he was in this most pristine of Swiss cities. The man replied: “Oh, I’m afraid it’s only a brief visit. I flew in from Paris this morning and I’m leaving for Berlin tomorrow. Zurich after that. Then I head east to Vienna, continue to Abu Dhabi, and from there on to China. I’m flying around the world you see. Actually, what are you doing here in Geneva?” I felt like saying: “Nothing really. Just hanging out. Playing Nintendo”.
“Stepping into the polluted night air of Guangzhou was like stepping into another world” Now this is not to say that I too have not been afflicted by the travel bug; just that I would rather meet the real people of a place going about their daily lives, or be the jester in a travelling gap year posse, than be provided with a fleeting overview while someone jauntily shouts that they have chundered everywhere across some serene landscape. Indeed, I had applied to teach English in an English-speaking summer camp for the New Oriental School in Guangzhou, a city situated right beside Hong Kong which a quick Wikipedia search revealed had over 17 million people and I barely knew the name.
6
A Journey East I remember being nervous for the interview. I was expecting a middle aged Chinese woman peering tirelessly over imposing black-rimmed glasses, and a wobbly accent, but instead was greeted by a bubbly Chinese girl of my age, chatting amiably and delighting in asking me questions about my application. I passed the interview. So, after booking the cheapest flight available to Guangzhou, which happened to be with Turkish airlines on Friday the 13th, I found myself at Dublin Airport. I was not of the superstitious disposition, and thought nothing of the fact that the woman at the check-in desk told me I couldn’t put my bags in the hold. It then dawned on me that this polite rebuttal meant that I could not board the plane. Panic struck. I was flabbergasted. She was being coyly rude and brisk, yet after much argument, she whispered hushed words into a telephone and instantly afterwards her tone changed, bringing the apologies, fake smile and arse-licking. They had overbooked the flight, and thus eventually booked me on to another plane with Air France which would arrive in Guangzhou seven hours earlier than my previous flight, while also giving me ¤150 cash. Chuffed does not
by Duncan moss
quite cut the bill. Stepping out into the polluted night air of Guangzhou was like stepping into another world. Skyscrapers rose up vertically out of the ground like giant hulking parapets, and for the first time in my life I realised why people spoke of buildings scraping against the sky’s soft and pale skin. The streets were adorned with so many colours and smells: the most delicious sweet and sour pork you have ever eaten in your life, chicken feet, nuts and fruits galore, squid soup which bore a striking resemblance to semen, skewers of spiced lamb, and an undeniable hint of poo. Men and women bartered in the street over the prices of plastic shoes, mobile phone covers stood unsold like armies of soldiers waiting for a war they would never wage, and the occasional group of old men sat playing mah-jong in the background, away from the hustle and bustle. The city never sleeps. And everywhere: lights, lights, lights. The following morning I arrived at
“The city never sleeps. And everywhere: lights, lights, lights” the school. I saw parents casting their children a warm and heartfelt glance as they bade farewell for the week, in a way that Mums do oh so well as they realise that their child is growing up. While everyone flurried around me speaking Chinese, a girl in a schoolgirl outfit approached and in perfect English introduced herself as Sherry, and gave us a little rundown of what was to come. I had been posted to the nearby town of Zhuhai, populated by over 5 million people.The school building itself looked rather how you would expect it to look. It was well equipped, spacious, had blocky square communist architecture and an inoffensive yellow paint. All the living quarters had four bunk beds on each floor and that was it: no amenities, no kitchen and no comfy seat to be found on the entire premise. I arrived at the camp with another of
the foreign teachers, a bubbly Tunisian guy named Zied, and we were greeted by one of the Chinese teachers. Now, Chinese people who speak English often choose an English name. This can be anything, from names like Johnny or Wendy, to a translation of their Chinese name as in the case of my student named Music, or just a favourite word, as in the case of a girl named Micole, Derek, Liking, or a guy named Big Secret. My personal favourite however, was the guy we met on that first step into the school. His name was Fish. “Fish?” I replied, in an incredulous tone. “Fish as in a fish that swims in the sea, like a fishy fish?” “Yes. Fish. In the sea. Fish” “Alright. Fish then. Can you swim Fish?” “Swim? No.” I suppose the man had no need. The school was on an island just outside the main bulk of the city, and unless global warming caused the sea levels to rise drastically I was sure he would be safe. I remember passing a newlywed couple on a hulking concrete monstrosity of a bridge to the island; the woman clad happily in a pearl white dress adorned with frills and the man in a striking suit, posing
happily for wedding photos. They had elected to stop in a motorway lane, with an upturned oil tanker casting a mottled shadow across the dun brown sea as a backdrop, as the tides brought an assortment of pollution lapping up against the far shore. China is a funny country, after all. For example, bicycle lanes and road
“Chinese people who speak English often choose an English name...in the case of a guy named Big Secret. My personal favourite, however.. .was ‘Fish’” regulations are viewed more as guidelines than rules. In most places, the major roads have a bicycle lane and a footpath beside them, and yet it is not uncommon to see bicycles cycling the wrong way down the road as motorbikes and small scooters drive down cycle paths, and people walk across the streets with no hindrance.
The organisation in the school was a bit like that. Aside from being told the hours of my classes, I was given free reign into how I conducted my classes. “Go and teach” were the only instructions. I thus did a little background reading before I started. “Teaching English as a Foreign Language: For Dummies” seemed like an appropriate place to start. I opened my first class with a few name games to get to know the kids, and the next day after successfully forgetting the all the kids’ names, I helped them really get to grips with some of the fundamental topics of conversation. Each day, after a game of Stop the Bus or something of a similar vein, we would discuss a different subject: eating out, music, hobbies, that sort of thing. It touched me how much the kids grew attached to me, and I to them, in such a fleeting stay. Their faces were beaming, smiling, laughing, and above all they were enthusiastic to learn and to practice speaking, both in the classroom, and the night time activities, which ranged from fashion shows to debating and drama nights. While I opted for more conventional methods, one of my friends teaching
knew this sentence I could not fully ascertain, but I couldn’t help but feeling a sense that I had missed something as I left the pier that night.
English in another province decided instead for some patriotic Irish rebel songs. ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ was a firm favourite amongst his students while ‘The Fields of Athenry’ was deemed more suitable for the younger generation. Much to his dismay, the essence of ‘Get Out Ye Black and Tans’ was not fully grasped by the students. But I too did not always grasp some lessons. One night, after work, my friend Paul & I decided to venture for a little walk outside the camp and stumbled across a group of Chinese fishermen who lived on a few run-down wooden boats beside a pier not too far from the camp. We got talking to them in Chinese and, though Paul speaks far better Chinese than I (indeed, he speaks Chinese whereas I merely attempted), it is amazing what one can understand through various isolated words, context, and people gesticulating enthusiastically. There were four of them at first: one guy I presumed to be in his thirties with a chiselled body from years of hard work, an older man, a harsh yet friendly teenager, and his younger brother of about seven who viewed his sibling with a God-like reverence. As the clock hand ran away from the twelfth hour the group grew. More suspicious onlookers desired to witness this chartering of unknown conversation. As our new friends brought us a second round of beer and the seven year old puffed away at his third cigarette, a dim light hanging from the roof of their rickety home glistened like a firefly against the blackness. The sound of the sea was singing beneath our feet as the teenager eagerly told us the only English phrase he knew. “F*** your mother, seven colours” he said excitedly. Not knowing how to respond, or whether I had correctly understood, I asked him to repeat himself. He did, saying the same thing. Quite why he 8
Nearing the end of the camp, I got asked by one of my Chinese friends, Aimee, if I would like to do a day’s modelling. Always up for an adventure, and never one to decline an invitation for adventure, I took her up on her offer. Now just to clarify, I am not normally one for modelling. I had never done it before, and until recently was hard pushed to get out of my cantos and trainers. Despite the addition of some hipster red trousers to my repertoire of clothing, I still am not renowned amongst my friends for my fashion sense. Little did I know that my stint as a model would provide a wage, two nights paid for in a hotel; breakfast, lunch and dinner; some clothes bought for me which I could later keep, and also two leather bags with an RRP of 150 euro each. All that, and all I had to do was hold a series of (mostly dull concrete grey) leather man bags/satchels in a variety of poses beside different glasses of bourbon, perhaps holding an iPad or iPhone, or leaning up manly against a brand spanking new Mercedes Benz. The work was so tough that someone was given the task of wiping sweat from my brow as I sweltered in the blistering equatorial heat while the photographer snapped away and lapped up any poses I could muster while regularly rotating the bags.
“It was Napoleon who wrote ‘Let China sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world’. But what I found was not a sleeping country, and indeed, my world was shook” However, it was not all work and no play, at least on other occasions. I managed to visit various places around China during my stay there, and by far my favourite was the Guilin province, situated in the south-west of the country. In the city of Guilin, we found ourselves a tour guide who was to take us south to Yangshuo town by boat along the Li River. A jovial chap, he wrote us a receipt which read “Nine foreign friends book nine tickets to visit Li River by bamboo boat”. What I was later to discover was that the Li River is perhaps the most beautiful place on earth.
As the water gently lapped against the bamboo raft bound loosely together by decade-old rope, it created a rhythmic symphony to accompany our sojourn on the water. I was in bliss. The mountains which littered the landscape rose steeply out of the ground like giant molehills, planted without intention or planning permission by some God in a bygone age. They dictated the deft and winding channels which the river had eroded through the valley, providing each meander with a new sumptuous feast for my eyes and soul. While the setting sun cast forlorn shadows against these green and luscious pimples on Mother Earth’s back, I could see why James Cameron had chosen to shoot some of Avatar’s scenes here. Drifting downstream was by far the easiest and most enjoyable way to travel. As pre-booking train tickets in advance is nigh on impossible if you are not Chinese or able to visit the station in person, I also ended up getting a twenty one hour train journey to Beijing with a standing ticket. Despite the trepidation involved in attempting such a feat, five minutes into the journey I found myself sitting happily amidst a bunch of the friendliest Chinese people, with them teaching me Chinese by the simple pantomime point and speak method, sharing food and chatting amiably despite the language barrier. By this time, as I had endeavoured to practice/learn Chinese whenever possible with my little notebook, I could at least string a few simple sentences together about my background and my varying levels of hunger. Yet I remained a man apart. It was not uncommon to see mothers excitingly tap their children on the shoulders, point at me, and then see the toddler’s eyes light up in wonder as he/she notices that I am a white English man, complete with brown and orange shorts and a cookie monster t-shirt. I had become the Monkey King and this was my journey East. But that is what it’s all about really. Talking to each other, no matter where you’re from. I left China behind me with a new viewpoint on the country. Gone were the façades and preconceived ideals of Made in China labels. This is a country full of people just like us, who just want to have happy lives in their own culture. I believe it was Napoleon who once wrote “Let China sleep, for when she awakes, she will shake the world”. But what I found was not a sleeping country though indeed, my world was shook. No more playing Nintendo for me then. Duncan Moss is a Junior Sophister student of English and Classics
The drugs that
changed my
life
by gavin mcloughlin
Sport has been my great passion for as long as I can remember. It is sacred to me, the ultimate means of escape from the mundane. Some find beauty in art or music, and though I appreciate these things too, the real transcendent moments come when Rory McIlroy swings a golf club, when JJ Watt clobbers a quarterback into the turf, or when Andrés Iniesta slices open a defence with a single penetrating pass. As a kid, I was never naïve enough to believe that things were totally unalloyed. I knew about the drugs scandals, about Ben Johnson, Justin Gatlin and Michelle Smith, but I never attached them any real importance. In my eyes, these clowns were foolish enough to cheat and they got caught. Athletics and swimming didn’t matter a damn as far as I was concerned, so my thinking never extended any more deeply. As for cycling, well, that was a farce, a sewer-sport ridden with doping. I knew a bloke who used to follow it. He would spend hours ensconced on the couch in front of the television. I tried to like it, but found this impossible. To me, it was just a bunch of rail-thin junkies cycling around. Nothing ever seemed to happen; the bunch just ambled its way across the French countryside. Of course, I was aware of Lance Armstrong. Who wasn’t? His reputation transcended sport. Never, though, did I make a connection between Armstrong and the drugs furore. I presumed that if he was doing something he shouldn’t 10
have been doing, he would have been busted like the others. That lazy piece of illogic aside, he was a minor blip on my radar. I have always wanted to write for a living. The English language is a source of endless delight to me. Newspapers were a constant presence in my childhood, and it was through newspapers that I first came across a journalist named Paul Kimmage. I used to read his pieces in the Sunday Independent in primary-school and I remember being disappointed when he disappeared from those pages all of a sudden.
“Of course, I was aware of Lance Armstrong. Who wasn’t? His reputation transcended sport.” Some years subsequently, The Sunday Times started to arrive in our house, and it was there that I stumbled across Kimmage again. He was doing interviews almost exclusively now. It was relatively anodyne stuff for the most part, always thoughtful and wellwritten. I habitually read the sports section of the Sunday papers first, and his interviews quickly became an eagerly anticipated weekend treat. But aside from reading a piece once a week, I knew nothing about him. To me, he was Paul Kimmage: the interview bloke. In 2009, Lance Armstrong came out of retirement. At a press conference on the eve of the Tour of California,
he got into a row with a journalist. It caused a bit of a stir on the internet, so I was curious enough to seek out the Youtube video. To my shock, the journalist was Kimmage. Here was the man who wrote all those lovely, gentle pieces ranting and raving at a sporting icon. It seemed that Kimmage had written an article referring to Armstrong as a “cancer” in cycling. Pretty close to the bone, but a valid metaphor when approached from the position Kimmage espoused in his question to the returning hero. What, Kimmage wanted to know, did Armstrong admire about Ivan Basso and Floyd Landis, the disgraced riders he had welcomed back to the sport in the aftermath of doping bans? The response was utterly cringeworthy, a supercilious little tirade. Armstrong seemed astonished that someone could have had the temerity to deploy cancer against him. “I’m here to fight this disease.” he intoned solemnly, “I’m here so I don’t have to deal with it, so you don’t have to deal with it, so none of us have to deal with it.” Who dared question such a noble crusader, he didn’t quite say. I shared the video with my schoolfriends, and when we discussed it the next morning there was general agreement that Armstrong was a sanctimonious creep. Kimmage said in the clip that he had raced as a professional cyclist and had made the exposure of doping in cycling his life’s work, so with my interest piqued, I resolved to study the issue when the impending Leaving Cert was over. But resolutions, as you know, are not always kept. My well-intentioned plans quickly receded into the boozesoaked haze engendered by post-exam euphoria. And when I came back down to earth to start college, I had more or less forgotten about Armstrong and Kimmage. I would be studying Law and Politics, and with a slew of negativity surrounding the future of newspapers in the internet age, I had effectively accepted that the best bet career-wise was to try and wangle my way into some utterly somniferous law firm job. In the summer of 2009, I had been humiliatingly reliant on a co-worker for a lift to the sports camp on which I work. In 2010, I was determined not to be in this position again. To reclaim my independence, I dug out my father’s rusty old mountain bike. I hadn’t cycled a bike for ten years, but I quickly grew to love my daily commute. It was incredibly satisfying to grit my teeth and
grind up a steep hill, to punish my legs until they begged for mercy, to feel myself grow stronger every day. I loved it so much that I decided to make another effort to watch the Tour de France, the 2010 edition of which was reaching its conclusion at the time. It was the 22nd of July, the 174 km Stage 17 from the Pyrenean town of Pau to the top of the 2115 metre Tourmalet mountain pass. At the foot of the mountain, the Luxembourger Andy Schleck set a ferocious pace and left all bar race leader Alberto Contador trailing in his wake. I watched both men suffer like dogs as they climbed up and up into the fog that laced the top of the mountain. Each was a pugilist trying to land a knockout blow on the other, with barely enough space on the road for their bikes to pass through the cheering hordes. Contador attacked with 3 km left to the summit, but Schleck somehow managed to fight his way back to the Spaniard and eyeballed him defiantly, before eventually crossing the
finish-line marginally ahead. It was the most majestic sporting moment I had ever seen, and from then I was hooked. Once I acquire a new interest, I immerse myself totally in it. I watched as much cycling as I possibly could, and began to read up on the sport’s chequered history. Top of the list was Kimmage’s Rough Ride, considered a landmark exposé of cycling’s problems. Mawkish though it may sound, this book changed my life. More specifically, it permanently altered the way I view sport, and it made me realise that a career outside journalism was utterly out of the question. It was no longer a question of wanting to be a writer, but having to be one. Kimmage dreamed of being a professional cyclist his whole life. He trained hard as a kid, and had plenty of success as an amateur, becoming Irish national champion for 1981 at the age of 19, and finishing sixth in the Amateur World Championships in 1985. But when he turned professional, he quickly realised that for most, the ingestion of more
than just bread and water was required for success in the elite ranks. Put yourself in those shoes. Imagine spending thousands of hours toiling in pursuit of a dream. Imagine finding out, just when you think you’ve got your foot in the door, that to reach the
“Imagine finding out... that to reach the top you’ll have to pump yourself full of drugs and lie to the world about it” top you’ll have to pump yourself full of drugs and lie to the world about it. What would you do? Would you pack up and go home, abandoning your lifelong ambitions forever? Or would you accept things were a little more complicated than you thought, take the dope and commence your life of lies? Kimmage decided to take the middle path and persevere as a clean rider. He
< Michele Ferrari, doping doctor
was afraid to cheat, desperately so. There was the risk of getting caught, and the obloquy that would unleash on his family. There was the jeopardy in which he would place his health, and the misery of an utterly mendacious existence. Choosing to cheat was a big step. He became what is known as a domestique; a lieutenant whose job it is to protect the needs of the star riders on the team. It was a far cry from the glamour and the glory of which he had dreamed. The book is a wonderful account of the gruelling nature of the sport and its rampant doping culture, but the key
“It was a far cry from the glamour and glory of which he had dreamed” point comes when Kimmage succumbs to the almost inevitable. Out of form and fearful of being humiliatingly left behind by the other riders, he takes amphetamines to get him through a series of exhibition races at which it is guaranteed that there will be no doping controls. The prospect of falling down the slippery slope into full-time drug use ensures he never dopes again, but his spirit is finally broken.On stage 12 of the 1989 Tour de France, he climbs off his bike and abandons the race. It is his last day as a professional cyclist. Kimmage wanted Rough Ride to be the catalyst for lasting change in cycling. He hoped that the authorities would comprehend the magnitude of the book’s revelations and clean up the sport once and for all. But this was quixotic on his part. Instead, he was pilloried. The book was dismissed as a bitter little rant from a bitter 12
little man, an exercise in excusemaking from a rider who was no good in the first place. Far from accepting its import, the cycling world swept the book under the carpet. The lesson this hideous affair taught me was profound. With shining perspicuity, it demonstrated the conflict of interest that confronts governing bodies tasked simultaneously with the attraction of revenue and the prevention of doping. Exciting, energetic racing was the key to enticing sponsorship money, but the corollary was that the deleterious consequences of scandal had to be avoided. And though none of the riders got into the sport looking to dope, they too had to subscribe to the code of silence surrounding the drug culture so as not to jeopardise a living aboard cycling’s gravy train. To speak out was to spit in the soup from which the sport drew sustenance, and the price Kimmage paid was pariah status. The 1998 Festina scandal saw that year’s Tour de France descend into farce as it became clear that cheating was endemic. It proved that Paul Kimmage told the truth. This should have been a cathartic moment, a chance for the authorities to draw a line under the past and cleanse cycling of its poison. But this did not happen. The first champion of the supposed new era was Lance Armstrong, finally exposed this year as probably the most egregious liar and charlatan in the history of sport. The signs of Armstrong’s duplicity were there for those who looked, but too many were happy to embrace the tale of the all-American hero who beat cancer and returned to win the most arduous sporting event on the planet. In his new incarnation as a journalist, Kimmage was one of the most trenchant critics of the Texan’s fraudulent reign, and after reading Rough Ride I felt compelled to seek out the truth about Armstrong. That truth is now public knowledge. Armstrong doped, but that’s not what is most important. Instead, what really matters is that the crippling weaknesses that undermine sport’s anti-doping regime have been laid bare, and that should scare the living shit out of you if you care about clean sport. Defenders of Armstrong frequently parroted his claim that he had never failed a drugs test as irrefutable proof
of their man’s legitimacy, and it has been immensely satisfying to see this entirely specious piece of reasoning blown out of the water. It is important to realise that the battle between dopers and anti-doping is an arms race. Both sides constantly strive to improve their technology and steal a march on the other. But with a moment’s thought it immediately becomes obvious which side has the advantage, as by definition it will take time for drug testers to come up with methods of detecting new substances innovated by cheating athletes’ unscrupulous doctors. We need look no further than the squalid Armstrong business to provide a concrete example of how this works in practice. In his early Tour victories,
“The battle between doping and anti-doping is an arms race” the Texan’s preferred method of cheating was the liberal use of the wonderdrug EPO, a blood-boosting hormone designed as a treatment for anaemia precipitated by chronic kidney disease or cancer. Most observers believe cyclists began using this substance in the early 90s. However, a test for EPO was not instituted until the Sydney Olympics in 2000, after which Armstrong switched to autologous blood transfusions, a grotesque practice where athletes withdraw some of their blood out of competition and re-infuse it as a blood-boosting method when required. There is still no reliable test for autologous blood transfusions. Quite aside from the question of undetectable drugs, there remains plenty of scope for the circumvention of the rules in other ways. Given that athletes know they are more likely to be tested during competition, the best time for them to reap the benefits of cheating is in training. The rules require athletes to notify the authorities of their whereabouts so they can be subjected to out of competition testing,
Kimmage and McQuaid, after Kimmage finished 6th in the 1985 World RR Championships
but the Armstrong report details how the Texan and his US Postal teammates were easily able to avoid these by keeping a look-out for the testers’ arrival and then doing a runner, or by fudging the details on their whereabouts forms. A penalty only ensues when an athlete misses three of these tests. Finally, science-savvy cheats will
“Lance Armstrong, finally exposed this year as probably the most egregious liar and charlatan in the history of sport” know the amount of time it takes for drugs to clear the system, and as such will ensure to take them when they are least likely to be tested. After the EPO test was introduced, the US Postal Team would inject small doses of the drug intravenously, allowing them to pass tests in a matter of hours. The same went for synthetic testosterone, administered by their nefarious doctor Michele Ferrari in skin patches or an orally-ingested olive-oil mixture, again to allow the riders to test clean in short order. Inject EPO after dinner, Ferrari would say, and do not walk around or be available to testers for 12 hours. Canny dopers know the game. They know it is not in the governing body’s interest to enforce the anti-doping regime rigorously. They know what the tests cannot detect. They know how much time to allow for drugs to clear their body. They know the whereabouts program is easy to manipulate, and they know when the probability of being tested is high or low. After all the sordid scandals of the past, no-one should be in any doubt that there are plenty of athletes willing to cheat in the pursuit of triumph and its concomitant fame and riches. Accordingly, there is no doubt in my mind that doping remains widespread in the hughest echelons of sport, even in those endeavours where the advantage to be gained is comparatively less than in endurance pursuits like cycling.
So why does this matter? As human beings, we have an instinctive yearning to push the limits of our existence. At its essence, this is what sport is all about. But when the guy or girl who wants to compete clean is robbed by drug users of the right to see how good they naturally are, that essence is totally perverted. Sport’s legitimacy is lost when the quality of a synthetic doping program becomes a determinant of victory. It is the difference between watching a veritable contest and WWE wrestling. And that, I’m sure you agree, is a distinction that must be maintained. This means that governing bodies must be removed
from the oversight of anti-doping rules. It means that all samples must be stored and tested retrospectively when new technology becomes available. It means that arbitrary statute of limitations rules must be done away with. It means that the out of competition testing regime must be as comprehensive as resources allow. But most of all, it means sports fans must take a stand when an anti-doping campaigner is singled out for holding the powerful to account. Early this year, it emerged that Pat McQuaid, the President of the International Cycling Union (UCI), and his predecessor Hein Verbruggen are suing
Paul Kimmage for defamation on foot of his repetition of the sworn testimony of Lance Armstrong’s teammates Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton. It is a reprehensible and craven attempt to silence a journalist seeking to uncover the truth. Last week, plagued by negative publicity following the release of the Armstrong report, the UCI announced the suspension of the suit pending the conclusions of a report into thegoverning body’s conduct in that era. The whole thing smacks of a PR exercise. McQuaid and Verbruggen are the men under whose noses Lance Armstrong ran his illicit system. On multiple occasions, they have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to deal with doping cases in an impartial manner. For example, they saw no conflict of interest in the UCI’s acceptance of a $100,000 “donation” from Armstrong in 2002. When the German Jörg Jaksche tried to assist anti-doping in the aftermath of his admission of EPO use in 2007, the UCI had no interest in hearing his story. When Landis made the allegations that ultimately led to Armstrong’s downfall, McQuaid publicly impugned his credibility. And last year, Verbruggen, still Honorary President of the UCI, claimed that Armstrong “never, never, never” doped. I could go on, but you get the idea. A fund to assist Kimmage’s defence has been established oncyclismas.com, and at the time of writing it had raised more than 80,000 US dollars from over 3,000 contributors. He proposes to use the money to gather witnesses to the historical misdeeds of the UCI leadership, and a bellicose series of tweets following the announcement of the lawsuit’s suspension suggest that even if the case ultimately does not proceed, Kimmage will honour the donors’ intentions by launching his own counter suit. If you are passionate about clean sport, good journalism and standing up to bullies, contribute in whatever fashion you can. Help cycling rid itself of these reprobates for ever. Gavin McLoughlin is a Senior Sophister Student of Law and Political Science
Graffiti Wars Clare Burnett on the graffiti scene in Dublin, and the controversy surrounding it in the wider world.
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ver the years, graffiti has been embroiled in massive controversy, from internal divisions to the disapproval of the authorities and the public. It is considered countercultural art, and vacillates between two extremes: the more political and creative can be considered a reaction to prevailing social and political issues, the less so can be associated with gang rivalry and street crime. It is a genre made famous by the efforts of artists such as Banksy, and, love him or hate him, he has put
“This underground movement has gone from tagging nicknames on walls to becoming bonafide mass art, selling books and filling galleries.” graffiti on the mainstream map. From graffiti’s previous association with anti-social behaviour and vandalism it has taken almost a U-turn in recent years. Pieces of graffiti art, even those pieces still attached to buildings, are being sold for excessive sums of money. This underground movement has gone from tagging nicknames on walls to being bona-fide mass art, selling
books and filling galleries. This phenomenon has caused much unrest amongst the old vanguards of street art, who, quite rightly, believe that the only true way to see graffiti art is on the streets. It was in this frame of mind that Urban Productions (www.urbanproductions. ie) launched a new graffiti walking tour of Dublin City in April of this year which takes place under the tagline: “prepare to be astounded by what you have walked past and missed every day.” Street art is not only becoming accepted but commissioned and even used as advertising, which invokes the wrath of the old school of the street art movement. It has begun the inevitable cycle which true counter-cultures all endure: absorption into the mainstream. On the flipside, it has, as of yet, still remained on the fringes. And as the Banksy/King Robbo feud (likened to that of Picasso and Matisse) showed, the territorial aspects of street art, of possessing a space by putting your name on it, haven’t fully dissipated. This has been eloquently compared to “a dog pissing on a lamppost” by prolific graffiti art author King Adz. Graffiti also continues to retain its roots as a subculture that belongs to the space it appropriates and cannot be moved in the same way a conventional painting can. It refuses to conform to the lines and spaces drawn
by institutions to control who can say what, where. Will St. Leger is one of the artists who believe that graffiti exists to ensure people draw outside the lines, and he has become an artistic commentator on
“It refuses to conform to the lines and spaces drawn by institutions to control who can say what, where” the state of Ireland in the post-recession world. In an interview with Max Nesterak, St. Leger said that the aim of street art and ‘subvertising’ is to rethink their environment and to reclaim their spaces from institutions and corporations, to counter-balance the messages, advertising and competing images that are forced upon the public on a daily basis. According to St. Leger, graffiti and street art opens a dialogue with these institutions so that people become not the passive audiences of their messages, but become equal players in discussions about issues affecting them. By the reproduction and discussion of the art they see on a regular basis, walking to work, cycling to college or taking the Luas.
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The Bernard Shaw is Mecca for graffiti writers in Dublin and is a working canvas for street artists in Ireland
Graffit intends to turn the passive into the participating and the motivated. In Ireland, and Dublin in particular, the graffiti scene, like other US and UK imports, is taking off. Fueled no doubt by the recession (an omnipresent excuse for everything it seems) street art of all kinds; graffiti, stencils, stickers, tags and murals are everywhere. Irish street artists such as ADW, Maser and Will St. Leger have been massively influential in encouraging this movement. The TDA Klann (of which Maser is a part), Ireland’s premier graffiti crew since 1991 according to its Facebook page, have demonstrated their ample skill and ability all over Dublin, in particular on the walls of the Bernard Shaw. The Shaw is a mecca for Irish street artists and enables them to showcase their talents on every available surface. It is here that “A Visual Feast”, a book of commentary on and photos of street art produced by Ireland’s most influential and visible street artists is being launched on November 18th. The Shaw provides a secure space for the exhibition of graffiti art, although some of the old vanguard of the graffiti world would argue that to produce work in such a controlled environment departs from the nature of the genre. Graffiti artist Ben Eine (who is interviewed in the highly-controversial Channel 4 documentary Graffiti Wars) said that “real graffiti writers paint on trains, and real graffiti writers nick their paint, and real graffiti writers do every-
Ben Eine: “Real graffiti writers paint on trains, and real graffiti writers nick their paints, and real graffiti artists do everything freehand” thing freehand.” King Robbo, one of the most acclaimed street artists in London, has said that painting trains in the 1980s was about living on the edge. It was about the adrenaline rush you got out of it, the process and the risk, not just the end product. It is this subversive element which has caused the world of street art to clash so violently with the authorities in the past. In Britain, officials from the interest group “Keep Britain Tidy” have said they are concerned that Banksy’s street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism, and therein lies the dilemma. Where is the line drawn betwen art and 18
criminal damage? Technically, writing on a wall without the permission of the owner or the authorities is a crime; mindless vandalism some might say. External tensions about what on one hand is considered street art and therefore left alone by authorities, and what on the other is considered illegal graffiti and destroyed at every opportunity, have existed for decades. But in recent years, the line between accepted art and vandalism has been blurred, turning what once was considered illegal activity into mainstream art. This has been a point of contention in the world of street art, as authorities are criticised for double standards in their attitudes towards graffiti. Councils have discretion over what they will and won’t remove, so works by Banksy tend to be protected because of the “value” they add to the area and the tourism they attract. It has got to a point where graffiti is illegal unless you’re Banksy. No struggle epitomises this more than the famous feud between this Bristol-born world-renowned street artist and his arch-nemesis, King Robbo of London. Though similar in many respects, from the pseudo-political nature of some of their art to their desire to keep their identities secret, these men entered into a battle for supremacy in the London graffiti scene in 2009. This battle would become not only about two individuals, but about the integrity and place of street art in society. King Robbo is and was a pioneer of British street art, a founding father of the graff scene in the 1980s and early 1990s.
He has said that in coming from a rough area where it was easy to fall into criminality, street art became his drugs and his drink. On the other hand, he is noted and even celebrated for the dubious legality of his art, which has been labelled trespassing, criminal damage and vandalism, and there is always the chance of getting caught by the police in the act and fined or even sentenced. The most famous piece by King Robbo is his own name written under the British Transport Police Headquarters, a big middle finger to the authorities he had been dodging while painting trains throughout his career. It had remained largely untouched since 1985 due to the difficulty in reaching the wall, which is separated from the path by a canal. In 2009, Banksy painted over this historical piece of London graffiti, which was considered massively disrespectful in the graffiti underworld, and provoked King Robbo into coming out of retirement after nearly a decade’s absence.
“The advantages of stencils are clear: they’re quick, which means there’s less chance of getting caught” The real struggle in this battle for supremacy is between the old and the new. It is between graffiti writers from the 1970s and 1980s that were marginalised and considered criminals by the authorities and the wider public, and a new generation who are considered bona fide artists. Banksy, if he chooses to be, is commercially successful, and instead of being painted over, destroyed and stripped, his art is endorsed by the authorities, even protected by them. It is also a war between graffiti styles. Banksy didn’t make much impact on the graffiti writing scene, but in using stencils he gained much popularity. The advantage of stencils is clear: they’re quick, which means there’s less chance of getting caught, whereas a large freehand mural can take weeks. This simplified form of graffiti gained popularity in the mainstream, but not
from the graffiti underworld – as Ben Eine said when he was interviewed using stencils is “cheating”. In his opinion, true graffiti is freehand, it is painted on trains and in hard-to-reach places. A train can be an art gallery on wheels, but graffiti art itself reaches an unprecedented audience in a gallery setting, giving a graffiti artist an audience of thousands, even tens of thousands, before the transient nature of street graffiti sees it removed by the council or destroyed by the weather. In the words of Banksy, if you want things to last, you shouldn’t paint them under a bridge on the canal. There is another view, however, that stencils, particularly when they have a sociopolitical message behind them, means that street art began to find a voice and become more than a tag on a wall. With growing mainstream popularity, graffiti writers face the problem of whether to monetise their work or not. Now, unlike in previous decades, graffiti writers can make the transition from what could legally be called a vandal to recognised artist. Even Robbo, before the accident (unrelated to the Banksy feud) in April 2011 which has left him in a coma ever since, held an exhibition in the Pure Evil Gallery in Shoreditch, interestingly the same gallery in which Banksy first found fame. However, Banksy received no profits from the
selling of “Wall and Piece”. Art of his that has been sold in auction houses has gone for obscene prices. Christina Aguilera bought a Banksy piece depicting Queen Victoria as a lesbian for £25,000. His work “Bombing Middle England” was bought for £102,000, the highest any of his pieces have been sold for. This led Banksy to update his website with an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, “I Can’t Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit.”
“On the street, graffiti is free, seen by hundreds or even thousands of people in a day or a week. It was not made to last.” In the re-use of their art, many street artists have been clear that the rules of plagiarism in the traditional world of mainstream art do not apply in the same way. Images are re-appropriated all the time by the artists themselves. Banksy re-cast Mona Lisa with a bazooka, and Will St. Leger applauded the anonymous person who reproduced his image of the Taoiseach with a red nose on stickers and plastered them all over Dublin, saying only that he wished he’s thought of
it first. With graffiti art, the question of ownership is almost null and void. However, the graffiti world does have a strict set of self-imposed rules making it a faux pas to incorporate another artist’s work into your own without their permission. When it came to light that Banksy had basically stolen the famous rat stencils from Blek Le Rat, a Parisian street artist who was a student in the 1970s when the first wave of graffiti came across the Atlantic and became a Godfather of European street art along with Britain’s Walter Kershaw, he lost a huge amount of credibility. There is a school of thought that believes that how an artist distributes his or her work is as much if a statement the work itself. On the street, graffiti is free, seen by hundreds or even thousands of people in a day or a week. It was not made to last. Therein lies its virtue, and this is why buying street art or reappropriating other artist’s work seems completely at odds with what most street artists are trying to do. If you want to sell art, put it in a gallery. If you want to make a piece of original art unfettered by the need for monetary gain and with a daily audience of thousands – spray it on a wall. Editor Clare Burnett is a Senior Sophister student of English Literature and History.
I have witnessed a humorous phenomenon since I started Trinity College; that of modest boasting. As a regular user of Luas, on a certain morning I happened to overhear a group of lads discussing their medicine courses. Ostensibly, they were having an intelligent conversation about the wonders of their course and its various complexitiesbiochemistry, anatomy and cadaver dissection, as well as enquiring of one other about the forthcoming day. In reality, however, they were engaged in the art of modest boasting. That is to say, not bragging directly to everyone else in the vicinity that they were studying medicine at Trinity, but loudly sharing the details of this course with each other. A few elderly women cast admiring glances in the lads’ direction. One, as she was getting off, even timidly asked with a humble smile if they were at Trinity, to which the sonorous reply was given that yes, indeed, they were and studying medicine too. The medical broadcast continued until the last stop. Once the awe-struck aural beneficiaries of their educational merits had dispersed, the conversation abruptly veered towards nights out. Now certainly, one might assume that they were genuinely conversing about their course on the previously mentioned occasion, yet funnily enough, the same thing happened on three more occasions within two weeks. These conversations are articulated so that even the most detached, uncaring and uninterested passenger is left in no doubt as to what course of study these lovely students are undertaking. Moreover, judging by the enthusiastic uptake of class hoodies at the end of last year by my Two Subject Moderatorship class, college egotism is flourishing. The funny thing is, for most of the day, only Trinity students are lucky enough to experience the eye pleasure afforded by this marvellous college-advertising apparel. Unless you count the man in the shop on Westmoreland Street on the minimum wage, who gets the chance to feel even better about his education as he gazes with wonder on the walking TCD advertisements
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paying for coffee. Trinity students are (unsurprisingly) criticised for their sense of self-importance. Of course, all colleges have hoodies but none is of the same calibre as Trinity. Strolling around the city centre in a Trinity hoody makes you look, frankly, like a bit of a smug prat, or else shouts ‘I’m insecure, and I need this hoody to validate my sense of identity which is bound up with this college!’ The clever slogans and quotes emblazoned on these items of clothing are sometimes pretty funny, but often they aren’t really humorous at all and are slightly wince-worthy. I cringed upon seeing the latest; ‘Strike a prose’ for English. My quite sensible friend, who incidentally attends this college, remarked that if he wore such apparel around his hometown, he would be attacked. A
“Trinity students are criticised for their sense of self importance” rather extreme manifestation of intolerance but one rooted in perceiving the silliness of presenting oneself to society as an advert for an academic institution. Yes, this attire is excellent for highlighting things that matter such as college charities and the Student’s Union. In reality however, generic TCD hoodies (and to an extent, class hoodies) appear to be part of the larger culture of egotism and self-promotion that seems intrinsic to college life. Of course, the entire thing is harmless and mostly justified pride at belonging to such a renowned university. You may as well flaunt it for the craic and all that. Promoting the college is not a bad thing per se. However, students aged 18-24 garbed in lurid purple apparel decorated with stark white course-related descriptions
spanks of silliness, although, again, can be construed as mostly just ‘fun’; however childish.Petty complaint and reading-too-much-into-a-hoody as this may seem, some students forget that jobs are not guaranteed upon graduation, no matter what college attended or what hoody worn. Of course, given Trinity’s recent rise to 110th place in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012, and its position at 67th in the QS World University Rankings, some would disagree. At a TCD Careers Week talk, a management consultant warned that himself and manifold other employers regarded us Trinity students the same as graduates from other Irish universities, regardless of how we might feel , unless academic proficiency is backed up by work-related experience. However, the culture of entitlement that quite a few students wittingly or unwittingly subscribe to in relation to the jobs market is intertwined with the boundless egotism that stems for some from being part of this college. Egotism clearly seen in the strutting around with top hats, tweed suits and majestic canes (yes, canes, and not vision-impairment aids) which I saw last week in the Arts Block, added to the previous Luas vaunting. Why an 18 year old would dress in a tweed suit and tie on a daily basis is baffling. To invoke the cliché, being there and getting the t-shirt, or in this case the hoody, is not going to win you a job, however lofty or fun. Then again, for many, the point of doing a degree is to explore in depth a subject that interests them, regardless of job prospects. This, in itself, is a more admirable thing than wearing a hoody, which, after all, is only a hoody. Kevin Smith is a Senior Freshman student of English Studies
The Two Types of Trinity bragger: A college observation by kevin smith
Being Good at Being Dumped:
A Guide by aimee Johnson
“Oh, that’s cool. I wasn’t really in love with you either.” Ah, if only it was that easy. If there are three things I excel at in life they are brushing my teeth, remembering bus timetables and being dumped. These are anti-talents I simply must hold on to as they make up for my lack of any real socially-recognised skill. And while the first two of my three anti-talents can’t really benefit anyone else, my previous dump-ee experiences can maybe save some poor other soul from committing the same ex-girlfriend crimes that I have. At this stage, I am the dump-ee veteran going on patron saint, thank you very much.
“First off, ‘Single Ladies’ is not your song. You and your best friend may look at each other.. screaming ‘OMG OMG This is my song!...” But it’s not.” Here are the five most common postbreak-up sins you shouldn’t under any circumstances commit. I felt the need to compile these after my third break up bore little to no resemblance to the positive experiences seen in the Bridget Jones series, with my beautiful Colin Firth type nowhere in sight.
First off, ‘Single Ladies’ is not your song. You and your best friend may look at each other openmouthed in a drunken haze and make a dart for the dance floor screaming: ‘OMG OMG This is me! This is me! Girl, this is my song!!’, but it’s not. Oh, and you can’t do the dance so please stop waving your right hand in the air and awkwardly trying to steady yourself for the two-step. Lying in a vodka-lacquered heap on the dancefloor being gently prodded by bouncers does not exactly scream independence. In terms of what to do with your new and unwanted lonely leisure time, watching ‘Romeo + Juliet’ is a bad idea. Because guess what: unlike your relationship their mutual interest in each other remained, to say very the least. Yours is more like that of Jack and Kate from Titanic. There’s enough room on that raft alright, but for a clean cut and convenience’s sake you should just drift off into sea please. Avoid both and opt for something like Murder, She Wrote. You won’t be finding any sexual undertones there, just quality murder mystery drama from the wonderfully independent Ms. Fletcher. Do not invest time discussing your new found singledom. After the fiftieth ‘plenty of fish in the proverbial sea’ speech you hear, responses should be mechanical because no one really needs to listen to details of your emotional train wreck relationship. Unless of course you’re Adele and planning to belt out ‘Someone Like You’, in which case you could earn some serious dough
from this break up. Likelihood is though, you’re not Adele. On the off chance that you are, hey there Adele, honoured you’re reading my article, copyrights on all this material in case your planning to make mega bucks from it. Few of us are blessed with the ability to convey how we feel in an unemotional, respectable manner. Especially when hammered. So this point really should go without saying, becoming a standard procedure by this stage in the 21st century: Delete their number and absolutely NO drunk electronic contact at all! Capisce? There’s no real way to appear dignified and totally over your ex if their inbox is filled with messages such as: “seri5osly i Pure llove uu like”. Likewise for phonecalls, as an awkward minute and a half of silence after, ‘Just, you know, ringing to say hey…’ can never be erased. There is no recovery from that point on. Just emigrate. Moreover, if you are dumped via text message in the first place, please do not even grace it with a response. Delete, forgotten, goodbye mate. Finally and annoyingly I can not ignore the fact that carbohydrates and
“No one really needs to listen to details of your emotional train wreck” chocolate are not suitable long term replacements. Neither are carbohydrates dipped in chocolate or chocolate covered in carbohydrates. They do not reciprocate your love and will never buy you flowers. Get out early while you can before you’re taking cookie dough by the shovel in public with no shame. I’d like to say that abiding by these rules will make you an amazing, undumpable (definitely taking the piss with that one and I apologize to spell check) person but it simply won’t. If anything it will only make you good at being dumped. Now that I have cemented my past crimes in writing perhaps inevitable break up no. 4 will involve a lot less emotional ‘d’oh’ moments. Failing all else kick them in the shins and run. Aimee Johnson is a Junior Sophister student of History and English Literature
With a little more than thirty thousand subscribers, over six million video views and the occasional marriage proposal, the hunky French vocalist from Trudbol, the barbershop one-man-band, is undoubtedly, on a high. Since the creation of YouTube in 2005, many a talented (or talentless) individual has risen to stardom, whether by accident or intentionally, and sometimes leading to longer-lasting and well-paid careers. Examples of this include Rebecca Black, Shane Dawson and Justin Beiber. The artist in question, however, is most definitely of a different sort, and when asked about stardom he responds quite simply: “I don’t want to be famous” and adds “I like having a normal life”. Yet despite this Julien Neel’s celebrity is increasing by the day and, as he puts it himself, although not a full-blown celebrity he is “sorta-famous-ish”. I myself first stumbled upon his channel whilst singing loudly in the kitchen with my flat mate, in what we claimed to be ‘a cappella style’. When told we were terrible, we asked for proof and this is when our dear friend and flatmate told us he would show us “how it’s really done”. This is when he introduced us to Julien Neel’s channel and his hit cover of “Everybody wants to be a cat”. And it was quite mesmerising. Indeed “Everybody wants to be a cat” had never sounded so catchy, and what was more: it was sung by what seemed to be a group of four identical twins. Now when Julien Neel tags himself as a “one-man-band”, he doesn’t just mean that he is the only member in his ‘band’. He really does mean the whole deal: from finding the arrangements to recording, fine-tuning, arranging his separate voice tracks, video editing and marketing: Julien Neel does absolutely everything himself. Also he claims to have absolutely no training in the music field whatsoever. Julien Neel is truly a self-made, self-motivated and self-accomplished one-man-production: Julien Neel: I do everything from scratch… I have my sheet music, I learn the parts… or kind of guess my way through them, fix whatever mistake I make, arrange and then record them. Then I also need to arrange and align all the separate tracks.
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Nerd In a Barbershop: An Interview with Julien Neel
But you need a basic knowledge of piano playing to get the notes to be in tune etc, right? Nope. You sight read? …. I kind of guess it. I mean, I don’t do super difficult arrangements. Most of the time, in barbershop, the melody is very straightforward, very easy, natural, so that’s easy to get. Then the bass also comes naturally because it’s the root of a chord- it’s kind of where you want to go. Baritone voices in Barbershop are always kind of the same, they are always a little dissonant but you feel your way through them.. Hmm but it’s definitely not easy. Well I didn’t say it was easy… I said I can do it, it’s different! But em, I sometimes use programs like, you know, midi notation programs where I retype the whole score, note-by-note and have the computer play it for me, so I can actually hear the chords and memorize them. That helps. What program would you use for that? Oh it’s a dinosaur! It’s called Norton Note Worthy Composer and it’s a program from 1990-something! And the videos? Well then that’s just editing. You can’t just be a musician to do this, and you can’t only be a computer geek… so it’s nerdy artistry… I really like that part. It might be interesting to point out, at this stage, that Julien Neel is a research statistician with a background in maths and physics. He has, amongst
other things, worked in California, which explains the American accent. So behind the somewhat pantomimic charm of the solo singer with a classic voice there lies indeed: a nerdy man. Not a coincidence then that his newest and most successful video is an a cappella version of the iconic Super Mario video-game sound track, where he and co-star Nick McKaig also perform a very entertaining version of the “underwater” theme and the good old “invisibility star”. A journalist from Mashable declares that the listener will be “instantly transported to 1985”, and at Slate.com, journalist David Haglund, who asserts he “never cared much for pop a cappella”, states that Neel’s work was in fact “surprisingly charming”. It’s hard to rock a Mario moustache, but Neel makes a good attempt at it. The lady fans, it seems, are not discouraged, but rather enjoy the man of many disguises, one YouTube commentator simply writes: will you marry me? Interestingly, the reply was: please send me a photo first. But how does one to get from singing in the shower to singing on YouTube? When and why did you decide to put your music on the Internet? Emm… I’m a computer geek so.. I like to sing, I spend all my day in front of a computer, so it came completely naturally, I sing all the time soWhen I was in a musical in college I recorded our pianist playing the different voice parts and then I put them on a website created for the group. Then I thought, why not sing all the parts and put those online so people can
just listen to them? Once I sung all the voices I thought, why not put them together? And YouTube was a perfect medium for that because it’s got the video, which makes it much more entertaining to watch.
are a little depressed and suddenly your music doesn’t sound as good and people walk away.. I dunno. It’s tricky. That’s why I don’t want to be a full time performer or a huge real life celebrity. I am completely anonymous in real life.
Some of your tracks are now available on iTunes, is this turnover from hobby to pro? I think it’s more an illusion that being on YouTube means being an amateur and being on iTunes means being a pro because the boundaries are not that clear today, at all. Lots of ‘pros’ go on YouTube and don’t do very well because there is a whole marketing strategy, a whole way of relating to fans which is different. Also you can put your songs on iTunes without being a ‘pro’, it costs like fifty bucks to have a single on iTunes for a year… Oh wow.. Yeah you basically need to pay copyright fees to whoever composed the song that you are covering and pay ten dollars to rent space on iTunes. That’s it.
Yet Julien Neel is on a high and as the shares and posts grow, so does his presence and acknowledgement in the social media. He has already been reviewed and referred to by a variety of popular sites, including: Smosh, Mashable, Geeksaresexy, Slate and Gametrailers.
The looming question of course is… does this job pay? Has this worked out for you? Do you have a fanbase who actually purchase your music on a semi-regular basis? It’s very difficult to keep track of who buys the music because all I have at the end is how much money I made and how many singles I sold. But the sales are not huge for me, no. But they cover the costs of making the music? Well how do you quantify that? I mean I already have all the equipment… it’s just time so… If I divide the number of hours by the number of singles I sold then well, I should work at McDonalds! You have to be really big to sell on iTunes. I think most people relate to YouTube as a television, where you don’t buy things because it free, it’s normal that it’s free, you don’t even ask yourself or think: ‘Oh but it’s somebody like me, who is making music in his/ her spare time… hmm, I should support them!’. I don’t think it’s the logic today. Would you ever consider dropping your other job and taking this one on board full-time? Ha! My mum is going to be happy! Yeah, emm…I’d love to.. Emm, it’s tricky because I have a solid degree and a regular serious job and music is definitely something that is extremely fragile. You mess up once and people disappear… you stop making music tomorrow, you
Do you have any tips for aspiring, young and budding YouTube artists? Mark Zuckerberg, which I don’t like at all, the founder of Facebook, is really brilliant and has said a lot of great things, one that really struck me was: “Done is better than perfect”. This is something I really apply in my life. So if you like something, start making it and then correct it as you go along. Don’t try to make it right immediately, because it’s not gonna happen. It’s better to produce a video every week, be regular and develop an audience… you know, really make it. A lot of people I work with have big dreams but they won’t really get into it and finish something, they start a lot but don’t finish. That’s my advice: start something and really finish it and then make another one and then another. It’s going to happen, you know, if you are dedicated. So it’s a bit like writing a book. I guess! I’ve never written a book. Yes, the book is never going to write itself, clearly... If you write half a book, it’s not really a book… it’s nothing until it’s finished. There is not such thing as half a video or half a book. So you need to give yourself a schedule? If you can but if you start putting too much pressure on it then it becomes really hard because, I mean, it’s happened to me: I put myself under tremendous pressure thinking, ‘Oh if I want to do this I have to do it really well, be excellent, sing perfectly all the time’- it’s horrible. It has to be fun because, well, it’s not the money that is driving you, it’s the fun factor, which has to be there all the time. Never make something you don’t like. Like, I won’t sing Lady Gagawell ok, because I’m an old man but whatever! What I’m saying is do something that you like and do it regularly, be dedicated.
What do your friends and family think? Well that’s very personal! I’m assuming you don’t have children… because that on top of everything would be would be insane! None yet but I just turned 33 so yeah, it’s round the corner.. The biological clock.. …tick, tock… yeah, no, well I’m not a woman but yeah.. men have a biological clock as well.. it’s juts a little slower. It’s strange to talk about myself for this long! I feel important! But yes my background is a serious background, science and everything, so focusing on music is a little hard to understand for most people I know. Most of my friends are science engineers or work in companies… they don’t really get it. My family doesn’t really get it either. Really? Yes, I have to really prove myself…. You can be good at something but trying to live from it is a whole different ball game. When confronted on the topic of fame, Julien Neel has confirms his unwillingness: I don’t want to be famous, it’s something I’m really reluctant about” Quote! No, not at all, for me well, whenever I’m reading tabloids, fame equals no life; being miserable and I dunno…. I don’t mind being rich, but I don’t wanna be famous, I like having a normal life but it’s difficult to be an artist without trying to be famous.. it’s like: what do you want man? Indeed. Nevertheless we, the fans, wish Julien Neel the best of luck and, if we see him on the opposite side of the street, will try not to recognise him, but the Mario theme song and Disney hit cover, sung by four suspiciously similar voices, will definitely be there, buzzing in our ears… a cappella buzzing, of course. For more information on Julien Neel: YouTube nickname: “Trudbol A Cappella, the One Man Barbershop Quartet” http://www.youtube.com/ user/trudbol http://www.facebook.com/ trudbolmusic Denise Wilkinson is a Junior Sophister student of English Literature
On February 24, 2004, BBC One broadcast, to an audience of over sixmillion people, the first episode of its smooth new crime caper Hustle. The heist genre had undergone a resurrection of sorts following the unexpected success of Ocean’s 11 some three years earlier and with its return to the currents of mainstream media came the floating of a unique vocabulary indigenous to its raffish antiheroes. “The mark”, “roper”, “giving him the convincer”, “the play”, “putting him on the send” – these phrases were delivered with confidence and the audience eased into their recliners reassured by the undercurrent of cool that breezed off the rat-pack. Each episode follows a relatively simple format: The mark is selected by the roper, the insideman receives the mark, the manager pulls the background strings and makes sure the con goes off without a hitch, before the mark
“Could political reform play the role of substitute for our con?” is fleeced and the gang leaves to pop a bottle of champagne and celebrate. They are guided by a loose set of morals called “The Rules of the Con”, and should anything go wrong, they can always turn to their “fixer” who clears up the mess with the Law. So what can Hustle teach us about the political world? Could a politician become a grifter? Could political reform
play the role of substitute for our con? Can the rules of the con find reflection in the unspoken rules of day-to-day politics? And if we apply all of those “ifs”, are we, the mark, already being fleeced? In a country rich in folklore and draped in a culture of myths, the most enduring but frustratingly elusive legend is that of political reform. This beguilingly broad concept proved its worth once more in the heat of 2011’s “Earthquake Election”, when all political parties felt compelled to extend the olive branch of involvement to a disgruntled Irish people by promising them something truly alien; a platform for the citizens, and an auditorium for their opinions. Labour best judged the mood and set the bar by calling for an absolute overhaul of the Constitution. A new Constitution would reflect the changing values of the Irish People of the 21st Century, they said. But the Programme for Government reads a little differently, the circuitous choice of words revealing the steady brushstrokes of their senior partners: “We will establish a Constitutional Convention to consider comprehensive constitutional reform with a brief to consider, as a whole or in sub-groups, and report within 12 months”. The agenda of issues amenable to consideration serves only to confirm a more tempered approach to reform: “Review of Dáil electoral system. Reducing the Presidential term to 5 years and aligning it with the local and European elections. Provision for same-sex marriage. Amending the clause on women in the home and encourage greater participation of women in public life. Removing blasphemy from the Constitution. Possible reduction of the voting age. Other relevant constitutional amendments that may be recommended by the Convention.” Gone are the images of Citizens Assemblies where the true emotions of a nation might be seen and felt. Any spontaneous brilliance which might have sprung from lively debate has been quietly side-lined, participation for the ordinary citizen limited to online submissions and the occasional live webcast.
The Government may have earnestly begun its “reform agenda” in good faith, but the “zeal” An Taoiseach spoke of has faded. The result is a Convention whose remit encompasses debate on two types of issue: (1) Those lacking significance, and (2) Those of importance which will fail to be seriously engaged by Government. Before these categories are expounded upon it makes sense to study the structure and aims of the Convention. Sixty-six people, randomly selected through the electoral register by a hired polling company, and “representative of society generally” will form the fulcrum of the Convention. Rotating around this will be the secretariat (nothing extravagant we’re promised), politicians from North and South, a venerable chairperson with a solid knowledge of Constitutional Law and interest group representatives. The Convention will be “influential and independent of Government”. Furthermore, in order to bring the issues closer, in a physical sense, to the people, An Taoiseach has put for-
“Gone are the images of Citizens Assemblies where te true emotions of the nations might be seen and felt” ward the suggestion that the Convention would “move from Dublin to Cork or Galway on occasion so that geographically our commitment to the Constitution is seen and felt more widely as a living, real thing”. Like a Fossett’s Circus of Constitutional Reform, the proposed mobility of the sixty-six and their secretariat will bring the Convention to the people, in essence at least. Having the Department of Defence HQ in Newbridge doesn’t mean you can walk off the street and give your opinions to top civil servants. In a similar vein, while physically, the Convention would be present, the average citizen would have no engagement rights. Why would you need it? Your opinions are being adequately represented by sixtysix people chosen by a subcontracted polling company. They, in turn, are being informed by interest group delegations that justifiably have greater access due
The Long Con:
Putting the ‘Con’ in Constitutonal Convention
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by donal o’Siochru
to greater knowledge of the issues in question. Returning to the lingo of the grifter world, just to be certain of where we stand, we’ve been impressed by “The Big Store” and reeled by the “roper”. The next step then, is to give “the convincer” – a little something to keep the mark interested and make him feel like he’s ahead in the game. These incentives are the building blocks of category (1) on offer under the Convention. As part of the “dignified revolution” of 2011, it was decided the Irish people, now in the “influential” and “independent” position of advisor to the State, should recommend on whether to lower the voting age to 17. Item number one on the list for the People’s Convention is whether to lower the voting age by twelve months? Such radical societal shifts merit a great deal of soul-searching. Category (1) includes the reform of the Presidency too. In theory, Presidential election fever seizes the country once every seven years. Like the flaring up of a usually dormant strain of malaria, the campaign pulses through the lifeblood of the nation and just as quickly exhausts its host. Voter fatigue is cited as a primary cause in the under-attraction of these campaigns to the voting masses. On average, voting is 7% below that of a general election. This is not to say there is less value attached to the highest office in the land, but it is inferable that any dispute over the powers of the office can only manage to excite a debate of weeks. The Convention will concern itself exclusively with the period a President should be resident in the Áras. Back in 1999 the All-Party Committee on the Constitution felt this issue merited one sentence: “The committee agrees with
the Constitution Review Group that the term of office of the President should remain unchanged.” This was seemingly dealt with in too offhand a manner for the tastes of the current reforming coalition. It was evidently worthy of greater debate, a topic for the people. Thus, once again, and perhaps in the hope of more than a sentence, the period a President
“As a nation, are we at the losing end of a stlishly executed con?” spends in office is up for debate. Through our dissatisfaction as political reformers we have so far secured seventeen year old voters and five-year Presidents. It wasn’t going to be enough. More depth was required, something solid to convince any would-be mark who was still holding out. Something credible, but at the same something that would not give any genuine say away. The answer came in the form of an epiphany: the role of women in public life. Let the Convention discuss something the Government has already prepared gender quota legislation on. So when the ultimate conclusion is reached, and let us be honest, no-one is going to say women have no place in politics, then the recommendation of the Convention will dovetail beautifully with the proposed legislation. But if we are willing to buy, then we can hardly blame them for selling. Rule number two of the con; never give a sucker an even break. Same-sex marriage fits nicely into category number (2) – Important matters the government will leave on the shelf. On this issue, the coalition remains befuddled. The Tánaiste has cited it as the Civil-Rights issue of our
time and support on the front-bench doesn’t come singularly from the Labour ranks. However, this will not be enough. Numerous Fine Gael backbenchers and councillors harbour private reservations, and the only reason the Civil-Partnership Bill saw such broad cross-party support and success was because it stopped that single step short of acknowledged marriage between same-sex couples. This is not to say that ultimately the government won’t engage with the issue, the trend in society suggests that they will. However, the timeframe promised by the Government in which they will act on the recommendation of the Convention is entirely unfeasible in an issue such as this; fraught as it is with considerations – both political and societal. So, have we been fleeced? As a nation, are we at the losing end of a stylishly executed con? Of course. However, to place the blame solely on the grifter is narrowminded in the extreme. That is the argument of a mark searching desperately for justification. The electorate has a proportion of the blame to shoulder. We allowed the idea of a Citizen’s Assembly to be diluted to its current form. We allowed for the substance to be filtered out until only the husk remained. We stood happily by because we never valued it to begin with. In short, if all any of us want is a forum to discuss side-order issues then this really is everything we could have asked for. But if you thought something more was coming your way; a broad platter, stacked high with burning questions of reform of Irish society and political affairs, then you, like me, will be leaving the table disappointed. Donal O’Siochru is a Senior Sophister student of Law and Politics
50 Shades of Grey:
Choosing abortion in Ireland As I attempt to broach the holy grail of difficult political, social, and human rights issues, many will try to avoid swallowing the awkward lump in their throats, they’ll shift uncomfortably in their seats, and some may even flick rapidly to the next page so to avoid an issue that is becoming more and more polemical in Irish society. Abortion in Ireland is as controversial as it is topical. Not even one month ago (September 29th), a pro-choice group numbering between 2,000 and 3,000 people marched in the defence of choice for women in Ireland. Following the march from O’Connell Street to Leinster House, several speakers took the stage including TD Clare Daly, Collette Brown of the Irish Examiner, and Mara Clark (Director of the Abortion Support Network) and briefed the static and passionate supporters below.
“On September 29th, a pro-choice group numbering between 2,000 and 3,000 people marched in the defence of choice for women in Ireland.” As the speakers elaborated the discourse, commenting on the need for choice and support, and emphasized the inexplicable delay in Government legislation on the X case despite ECHR recommendations, the masses listened intently, attempting to empathise with the strong women who travel abroad, often in precarious financial situations, to seek a termination without their usual network of support, without the option of aftercare, and with the burden of knowledge that the culture in which they live will have them shamefully and silently conceal this decision for the rest of their lives. Nobody can deny that the rhetoric surrounding abortion and choice in
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Ireland, is always fuelled by opinion and emotion, that it is still influenced by religious undercurrents, and that it is an issue that can provoke such strong debate that even a group of the best educated and well informed individuals can be reduced to overly simplistic arguments such as ‘To have an abortion is to MURDER a child’ and ‘Abortion is an easy option that allows women to avoid taking responsibility for their actions’. To be pro-choice covers a myriad of different beliefs, which I feel are often misrepresented and overshadowed by a certain type of pro-life campaigner. These campaigners typically bombard you with images of unborn foetuses, with heart wrenching and morally and emotionally bankrupt advertisements, such as Youth Defence Ireland’s ad campaign featuring a beautiful healthy baby boy, with the caption “Don’t use me for spare parts” in defiance of embryonic stem cell research. These kinds of campaigners and organizations play upon your emotions, suspending rational argument and reasonable belief. The idea that there is many breeds of pro-choice campaigner, only occurred to me following the September 29th March. Abortion cannot be seen in terms of black and white, or right and wrong, because there is so much grey. Shades of charcoal relating to the mental and physical wellbeing of the mother, regarding complications that may later occur, relating to the environmental circumstances in which the foetus would be brought up in, and regarding sexual assault, incest and domestic abuse. ‘Ah but that’s putting conditions upon the choice’ we hear the pro-life supporters cry. I struggle to remember any choice I have ever made, which is not conditional. These are not conditions, but the reality. How do we navigate the many nuances of the abortion question, which cannot simply be argued away by pro-choice propaganda, which has one aim, and one aim only, to shame women into a decision which will affect, and often drastically alter their lives forever. Shame on us, for turning a blind eye to an issue, which plagues our nation, which sees Irish women; your sister, your cousin, your neighbour leave this country to seek termination. We continue allow 12 women a day to leave our shores,
ashamed and shunned into silence, and we are completely undermining the bravery of these women, with our cowardice. With the recent opening of the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast, we see choice available on the island of Ireland for the first time, conditionally available up to 9 weeks in situations where the mother’s mental or physical health is threatened.
“These campaigns... play upon your emotions, suspending rational argument and reasonable belief” As the 1967 Abortion Act does not cover Northern Ireland, pertaining only to Great Britain (England, Wales, Scotland), the clinic must operate within the legal framework of Northern Ireland. Of course this carries certain limitations, such as shorter window for termination, 9 weeks versus 24 weeks, and the approval of two separate GPs at the clinic, although the views of the woman’s GP will be taken into consideration. Despite these shortcomings, this must be recognized as a huge step, and a momentous victory for the pro-choice side. The campaign for choice does not stop here though, and we must continue to fight. The time has come for government legislation on the X case, the time has come for another referendum on abortion (the last one being in 2002), something which the TDs of our coalition government shy away from, fearful of rocking the boat and upsetting the delicate balance between centre right and centre left, more concerned about remaining on the pay-roll than showing any political integrity, or fidelity to their election promises (Labour). End this culture of shame and emotional blackmail pervading Irish society, and let us legislate for choice, giving power to those women lost in a sea of grey. To fight for the women of Ireland and their right to choose, to fight for their bravery, and to fight against the culture of shame and emotional blackmail that pervades in Irish society. Susan Clandillon is a Senior Sophister student of European Studies
The practice of medicine has changed almost immeasurably since the beginning of the 20th century. A stunning and often highly-improbable combination of scientific, social, and historical events and accidents have meant that illnesses and misfortunes affecting our ancestors for millennia have been largely banished or even
“It doesn’t take a genius to work out that a drug a patient is on for life for an incurable condition is much better for the vendor than one which cures the patient”
eradicated altogether. Disease which would have lead to our swift, painful demise can now be overcome by the ingestion of several small, tasteless (or even pleasantly-flavoured) concoctions. Governments have realised the importance of having a healthy population and have instigated systems of universal health care to ensure even the poorest can be assured high-quality care (though we have yet to achieve this in Ireland).
The landscape of medical theory has changed too, with blind speculation and charlatanism replaced by a vast, world-wide movement of scientific inquiry based on rigorous observation and the generation of hypotheses as to the causes and likely remedies of disease. Chief in this process is the randomized control trial, an ingenious invention based on randomizing patients to one treatment or another and analyzing the results with no knowledge of who was on which treatment until the trial is over, thus not biasing the findings. Those who practice medicine are vested with a special reverence by society that is probably unmatched by any other profession. As the 21st century dawned, medicine appeared to be in a golden age, a genuine symbol of mankind’s ability to be compassionate, intelligent, and humane. If all this seems too good to be true, well, that’s because it is. And indeed in the seed of what has largely made medicine so successful contains its own demise- the pharmaceutical industry. Whereas once it was pharmaceutical companies that served medicine, today the reverse is true. The mushrooming of big Pharma into one of the world’s most profitable lines of business is little to do with advances in medical treatment and a lot to do with marketing. When the first drugs began to be made and reached the ‘market’, it was obvious that these new compounds, often discovered serendipitously, were hugely beneficial treatments. Antibiotics and insulin, for example, were
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godsends for doctors and patients alike, allowing previously terrible illnesses to be effectively cured. The term ‘magic bullet’ was coined for agents such as these, as they attacked the disease-causing factors affecting the body while leaving the healthy tissues unharmed.
“The pharmaceutical industry has made the rules of the game - a game it it very adept at winning” However, before long, the flow of miracle drugs slowed to a trickle and genuine innovation (in a medical, if not marketing sense at least) was replaced by the instigation of drugs to treat illnesses that were much less deadly, and much more widespread. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that a drug a patient is on for life for an incurable condition is much better for the vendor than one which cures the patient and leads to a cessation of treatment. Thus today the ‘blockbuster’ drugs (drugs grossing at least $1 billion per year) are all chronic treatments for illnesses like high cholesterol, asthma, and various mental illnesses. Many of these drugs show remarkably marginal effects compared to the original ‘magic bullets’ (indeed, many have little if anything to recommend them over placebos), but you wouldn’t know that if you talked to most people in the medical field. The reason is that the pharma-
ceutical industry has made the rules of the game- a game it is very adept at winning. All involved in medicine today are aware of the presence of drug marketing. To be unaware is impossible. Every conference is sponsored, every lunchtime educational meeting has an array of delicious sandwiches provided, not to mention the innumerable pens and trinkets that litter wards and offices (at a recent conference I attended one company was giving out free towels with their blockbuster’s name emblazoned on it). The slap-up dinners and all-expenses-paid golf trips may be considered slightly unfashionable today, but Pharma is always visible in today’s medical world. In the United States, the industry spends $30 billion dollars annually on marketing. In 2002 the prototype blockbuster Lipitor was the subject of a $1.2 billion dollar campaign by Pfizer- this is roughly equivalent to the US Institute of National Health’s budget for research on Alzheimer’s, autism, multiple sclero-
“Its influence runs much deeper than being an incredibly slick marketing operation” sis, arthritis, epilepsy, influenza, sickle cell disease, and spinal cord injury combined. But its influence runs much deeper than being an incredibly slick marketing operation targeting a relatively small number of consumers considered especially naive to advertising. Pharma’s unassailable edge comes from its control over what is considered to be the essence of modern medicine- the clinical trial. Clinical trials have become sequestered and run by the pharmaceutical industry. There is no external audit of any power to verify that the data they present is correct, and the raw data of the trials remains company property, inaccessible to the public or any concerned party. Papers in ‘high-impact’ journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet
are usually ghost-written by someone working for the company, and then attributed to a willing expert in the field who may not have even read the paper, let alone seen the results. It is now known that 30 percent of clinical trials (which presumably show the proposed treatment in unfavourable light) are unreported, almost all that are reported will be ghost-written, and around a quarter of published trials are so altered as to turn a poor result into a favourable one. A
particularly nefarious case of this, whose details only emerged due to a court case, relates to Lilly Pharmaceuticals (below) now-famous antidepressant Prozac. When the initial trial showed an increased risk of suicide on Prozac versus placebo, Lilly simply moved some of the suicides to the placebo groups to eliminate statistical significance. This allowed them to report that there was no proof that the drug caused suicidality even though the doctored results still showed a doubling of risk. The results of this new arrangement of medicine run for Pharma are very worrying, both for individuals and society. Healthcare costs are escalating to stratospheric levels, with the United States spending an absurd 17.6% of its GDP on healthcare while watching the average life expectancy of citizens lag behind other
developed countries. The trends are similar elsewhere though- escalating costs for limited returns on health, and an increasing medicalization of our lives.
“Much...is known by many in the field but few seem to care”
It is hard to see how medicine could free itself from this state of affairs. Depressingly, much of the above is known by many in the field but few seem to care. There is a deep conservative streak in the medical profession, and many feel that drug companies have every right to try to recoup their losses and turn a profit in the expensive business of researching and developing new drugs. The sad irony is that not only are these highlymarketed drugs ineffective, they are often dangerous to patients. We who enter the medical field often do so because we think, maybe implicitly, that it is perhaps the main unambiguously ‘good’ field to go into- that helping people will naturally follow choosing a career in medicine. Perhaps we were far too naïve… Patrick Duffy is a Final Year student of Medicine
In some ways, style and fashion inspiration has always come from women in the public eye. In past centuries, the Royals were a source of inspiration and awe for aristocrats and the general public alike; in what they wore, how they carried themselves and the events they attended. The same can be said for the royals today, although style inspiration for the 21st girl
“There are so many icons...whether they be a glamour model, a first lady or a socialite” spreads far beyond the realms of Marie Antoinette’s closet. Today, depending on one’s taste, there are so many icons in the public sphere whether it be a glamour model, a first lady or a socialite. In today’s press it would be fair to say that what the royals, i.e. Kate Middleton and Fist Ladies such as Michelle Obama and previously Carla Bruni, wear to public events get the same amount if not more coverage than where they were, what they said or the purpose of the visit. With the US Presidential Election dominating the headlines and press coverage over the past few weeks, the debates between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney have been well publicised. However, within many spheres, it’s not the economic or healthcare policies of the candidates that has been circulated, it’s what Michelle Obama and Ann Romney wore. Now, many people feel that is a superfluous interest, that it doesn’t really matter what they wore and that it has no major influence. This is an incredibly blinkered view of the multi-billion euro fashion industry and the influence that these public figures have on sales and brands in general. Michelle Obama has consistently been a fan of British designers, such as 30
Alexander McQueen which, at times has resulted in less than pleasant responses from American designers. Oscar de la Renta has often expressed his distaste at her not choosing to wear his designs such as on her and Barak’s official trip to China where once again she donned McQueen. De la Rentas’s argument is that her exposure is of such a magnitude that she could champion new and established American designers abroad and boost profiles and sales. Ann Romney must have taken his thoughts on board as she wore a red dress of his to the Republican convention, illustrating that fashion has a place in politics. They both spoke eloquently at their respective Democratic and Republican conventions but Michelle’s toned arms received more attention that her emotive words about her husband. Furthermore, while Barack and Mitt were battling it out in the series of debates, it was the outfits of Michelle and Ann that gained substantial coverage, especially when they both turned up to the second debate wearing hot pint two piece suits and subsequently at debate three, they both turned up for the battle of the A-line dress. Fashion writers and stylists alike raged at this faux pas and declaimed the lack of communication between the two teams as the consistent similarities doesn’t look good for either side. The same attention and politics applies to Princess Kate’s style choices, especially while abroad on public tours with Prince William. When the Duchess wore a navy Issa dress to announce her engagement to Prince William, it sold out within the day. The same can be said for any of the Reiss dresses and jackets she has worn before and after her wedding, with the company reporting a doubling of profits since the young royal has taken them as her high-street brand of choice. Sales increased from £77.7mm to £87.6m, while operating profits jumped from £4.3m to £8.5m in the year to January 31, 2011 and a pretax loss of £2.1m was converted into a profit of £3.64m. When she wore a
nude Reiss dress to greet the Obamas at Buckingham Palace in 2011, the public response caused the Reiss website to crash. It is not just the Duchess’ of Cambridge high-street choices that boost sales, but her designer ones also. On her first Royal public tour to Canada and her more recent one to South Asia, what she wore to every event was photographed from ever
“Kate is expected not to be a style icon so much as a style diplomat ” angle and scrutinised by not only the fashion press but the general public too. People are fascinated by her sartorial choices, her perfectly coiffed hair styles and her classic L.K. Bennet nude pumps. So much goes into these sartorial choices that one may not expect. In a way, Kate is expected not to be a style icon so much as a style diplomat. For example, when she arrived in Canada, she wore a black lace dress by the designer Erderm, a very thoughtful choice in that he was Canadian born but currently living and working in England, thereby giving a respectful nod to both countries. She also recycled her white Reiss dress that she wore for her engagement photographs, which were shot by Mario Testino, and a red hat featuring a maple leaf. Another nice touch was wearing the diamond maple leaf brooch that she borrowed from the Queen for her visit, which also brought some spot-light on the matriarch of the royal family. Her clothes and accessories show respect and strengthen historic and strategic bonds and sends a positive image about the family and the country which she now represents. Essentially, the fashion and style choices of these women have as much to say politically as what they and their husbands do and at the very least it’s interesting to see their choices and if they will affect fashion trends in the future. Former Editor Elaine McCahill is a Senior Sophister student of History
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