Palatinate 721 Indigo

indigo

26.10.2010

Laughs, larks and braces...

Stage

indigo

• • • •

• •

Abroad’, ‘Made in Dagenham’ Visual Arts: ‘A Breathtaking Union,’ ‘Topshop Unique’.

Cover story: Durham Revue Review Stage: ‘A Summer of London Theatre’ Music: ‘Solomon Burke: The Soul King is Dead’, ‘Life on the Road with Mumford and Sons’, ‘From Super-Fans to Groupies’.

Books: ‘The Butterfly’; ‘The Booker Prize 2010’ And more fun with Games!

In this Issue...

Oprah W infrey Onc

et she’s thehe only black billi as philan hostess with theonaire in the wo she couldthropist, produ mostest as well rld, reckon D fit us into that cer and actress.. arguably urham would f hectic schedule . If on side. the world’s mo air brilliantly w , we st influen it tial womh an

? ?

Dec d n a t n Cherygl , A s a s e y the e oyin

re ann asy on d Just asnely slightly mnoow our ‘hooke! and o d Duncan’ k ker Grove li ‘PJ an e back of By like th

FLICKR ID: DOCUMENTALLY

So far almost 3000 people have joined the Facebook group in favour of him becoming chancellor. He’s also one of the most intelligent gents around so we’re sure he’d be able to tell us why Klute’s dancefloor has the same surface area as a postage stamp.

His people have commented: “He is deeply flattered, touched and crimson with enchantment”

Florencio Avalos

FLICKR ID: SAUSYN

Whilst the ‘glitz’ and ‘glamour’ of Fresher’s Week is nothing but a distant memory (well, except for that nickname you picked up due to that unfortunate incident with the kumquat) no matter if you’re a Durham novice or war-hardened post-grad, it’s never too late to add to a new experience to your university belt.

In this issue, be inspired by the example of your fellow students! Join a theatre company, play a gig, channel your inner photography mojo - whatever takes your fancy! Indigo is feeling rather music-orientated this issue - too much time spent The latest gig reviews? Take your pick... watching Glee? You decide. . . D.D

Stephen Fry

FLICKR ID: ALAN LIGHT

• Features: ‘I love College’, ‘How Not to Live Your Life’, ‘Going the Distance’, ‘Mental Block’, ‘Alex Wonders Why,’ ‘Boy’s Eye View’, ‘Ditch the Digital’, ‘Postcards from France’.

• Food and Drink: ‘Tapping into Tapas’, ‘Why Apples Should Be the ‘Core’ of your Diet’.

• Travel: ‘From Terror to Triumph’, ‘What’s the Story?

Northern Glory’.

• Fashion: Beauty and the Beach • Film and TV: ‘An Idiot

d, she’s locpal,les te n le ta s ’ e h S t cute dim and she’s gom a leader”... that say “I’ yl Cole be willing Will Cher r our love? to fight fo

ERUDY

Contents

Cheryl Cole

FLICKR ID: PAUL GUYFORD

Durham isn’t phased by its size. When you haven’t got space for a student union, an exam hall and a place to silently disco, why not cut your losses and have them all in the same building? To hell with the vodmalicardi scent hanging in the air when you’re trying to recall Shakespeare’s eleventh sonnet. After reminiscing about the romantic glances you exchanged with that Rugby player at last week’s Hound, the entire Romeo and Juliet script will come rushing back. And after the 20% off sale at Scarlet Ribbons, you’ll be looking the bee’s knees whilst you do so. Now THAT’s an empire state of mind. So there we have it – Durham, an unsuspecting bite out of the Big Apple... who’d have thought it?

S. Z-O.

Fashion

indigo thinks about who could take over as Durham’s next beloved chancellor. . .

Little Apple

Is it just me or is Durham getting just the tiniest bit NYC on us? Ok so the local accent is more Newcastle than New York, but the number of Blackberry-wielding townies is skyscraper-high, crime is on the up in downtown North Road, and thanks to the good people at Picnic Basket, it’s getting increasingly easy for a girl to get hold of a decent bagel with her morning cappuccino. It takes a cathedral to officially define a place as a city, and boy do we have a cathedral. And it’s located in Palace Green - cobbled jungle where dreams are made. When university is your universe, you want it to be a city, and from its Topshop-in-a-cottage to its pint-sized cinema, Durham is slowly but surely swapping its quaint charm for urban chic and taking its students along for the joyride.

Travel

: FREDMIK

your mum when she told you to pack extra knitwear when you left home for the first time. For the rest of you, the eternal un-fresh, there is still a lot to look forward to. Peter’s Bakery is still in fierce competition with Greggs, the Big Issue lady is back selling balloons outside Boots and, this just in, the DSU café has sofas that will make your bottom weak at the knees. Sure there’s work to be done, but for the time being, the words ‘summative’ and ‘deadline’ aren’t in your vocabulary.

So throw on your stash, get on the lash and buckle up, because, a bit like a trip on the Nightbus, you’re in for a thrilling ride. - S. Z-O.

Food

FLICKR ID

So you’ve been an official student of Durham University for a whole fortnight. Congratulations, you have survived Freshers’ Week/Flu and are now a fully-fledged student. You’re in that beautiful phase when you know your Prebends from your Palace Green yet remain easily seduced by the scent of Saddler’s and can’t quite understand what everyone means about mediocre college grub. Five words – end-of-term budget cuts. As a third year, it fills me with a warm glow of nostalgia to observe you freshlings labour under the misapprehension that hills are fun, and shiver in the North East chill as you realise you should have listened to

Features

Bill - Bye Son!

¡Hola Amigos!

FLICKR ID: CRAZYDUTCHPUNK

I

Indigo

The first of Chile’s trapped miners to be brought to the surface because of his remarkable physical strength, and the only one to feature on ‘yournewcrush.com’, this is one red hot Chile pepper to look out for!

NICK POSNER

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

How Not to Live Your Life We’ve made the mistakes so you don’t have to!

Alison Moulds and Daniel Dyson

ASK ALISON...

Are your fresher photos full of the ‘fun’ you never had?

“I Love College!”

Is Freshers’ Week really the party it’s cracked up to be? One frep ‘fesses up...

Molly Brown

A

nother Freshers’ Week over, leaving beds across Durham filled with students (possibly more than one student per bed but I won’t generalise) suffering from hangovers and Freshers’ Flu. Bumbling around at home this September, preparing for the North (buying umbrellas), my pervading thought on returning to Durham was relief at not being a fresher again. The world and his wife may insist that Freshers’ Week is the BEST time of your WHOLE LIFE but I reckon most students would choose the post-exam weeks of blissful slacking over it anytime.

Whilst I can’t claim my Freshers’ Week was hell on earth, it definitely didn’t match the hype. I’d spent the pre-university September obsessively Facebook stalking Freshers’ Week albums, building myself up into a state of terror as I waited for my own turn. My friends all seemed to be instant bezzies with their flatmates, continually surrounded by hotties, loving every minute and I was convinced that unless my week was the same, university would be a disaster.

This week, lying in my death bed with [re]Freshers’ Flu and looking back at the same photos that had freaked me out so much, it’s clear that in 99% of them the freshers either look happy and relaxed because they’re utterly wasted, or they actually don’t look that happy at all. Arms slung casually around new friends’ shoulders often end in awkwardly clenched fists and overenthusiastic grins scream (unconvincingly) “I’M LIVING THE DREAM!” Clearly no one knows what to do with their hands when they aren’t holding a drink – which probably contributes to the drunkenness.

I decided to be a Frep this year. I had no desire to relive Freshers’ Week but I genuinely appreciated the Freps’ help last year with moving in and wanted to repay the

college. At least, that’s what I told myself.

More likely I wanted to boost my own confidence by gliding above the awkwardness, revelling in the knowledge that I would never again have to go through the stress of Year 1, Week 1.

HOW WRONG I WAS. Turns out, frepping in a large college is basically like being a fresher. You’re still searching for people to talk to, you’re still asking endless identical questions to different people (only this time it’s ‘Good summer? Where are you living? Who with? Is it good?’) but this time there’s the added pressure of trying to convince the freshers that you’re utterly chilled, and creating the illusion that everyone in this happy happy college knows and likes each other. Ha di ha.

I thought I was mature enough to do Freshers’ Week the second time round without my alcohol comfort blanket. I laughed (silently, obvs) in the face of awkwardness and promised myself that I could be confident sober. Thing is, frepping is like going for a night out, but a rubbish one. When you’re not in the mood. In a minging outfit. With a load of people you feel you should know, but don’t.

As everyone knows, sober nights out surrounded by drunk friends are rarely fun.

So sober nights out surrounded by drunk people-who-aren’t-your-friends are even less fun. So my resolution crumbled and I succumbed to a quaddie or two.

In short, if you’re a fresher reading this and you had a great Freshers’ Week, I’m thrilled. The excitement that’s in store for you after exams knows no bounds. If you didn’t hate but didn’t love Freshers’, and just came out with flu, some unwanted new friends and a feeling of ‘bleurgh’ then DON’T WORRY. University only gets better and week one is not the be all and end all.

Chin up and good luck with losing those new ‘friends’.

“Frepping is like going for a night out, but a rubbish one”

Dear Alison, I made the mistake of accepting my mother as a ‘friend’ on Facebook and last week she came across a photo of me kissing a guy in a club. Now she’s tracking my every move on the site and phoning me to check on me every few days.

If I delete her off Facebook now she’ll get massively suspicious, so how I can I throw her off the scent without detagging all my pictures!?

Help? -Concerned, Castle Having your doting parents as ‘friends’ on Facebook is pretty much akin to leaving a diary full of your sordid secrets on the living room table. Sure, your ‘rents might have the decency to back off but can they resist sneaking a peek when they have the welfare of their beloved daughter to think about?

Being caught on camera sucking face with a stranger probably isn’t the wisest move but it’s likely to be a one-off unless you have some rather perverted peers.

If your family are also wary of alcohol consumption, then it’s probably best not to wave those ridiculously-sized quaddies about in too many pictures.

If you really want your parents to stop the stalking though, the best thing to do is offer a little bit of honesty. I’m not recommending giving your family a tally sheet of how many people you get up close and personal with, but throwing a couple of amusing tipsy stories into the next conversation hopefully shouldn’t go amiss - soon they’ll think you’re trusting them with all the hi-jinks of uni life and hopefully stop ploughing their way through your Facebook.

‘Til it takes effect at least peruse some of the privacy options on the site that don’t demand a full-on blocking.

Dear Alison, I’m fresh out of a two year relationship with a guy from back home who I was head over heels in love with.

Now my housemates are determined to take me out on the town every night and push me in the direction of just about anyone. The truth is though I find the Durham clubbing scene really really scary - I haven’t been single since my school days and don’t even get me started on Klute.

What should I do?

-Single Student Girl

In modern society it seems to be the duty of friends to help you ‘bask’ in your newly-single status. After all, there’s only so many times they want to watch another weepie on a Friday night whilst drinking cut-price wine and trying to help you figure out where it all went wrong...

But if your fellow ladies are getting a little too lairy when you’re out and about it’s probably best you tell them to tone it down. Assure them you’re not going to retreat to sitting at home in your PJs every night but you’d rather be able to enjoy a night out without the pressure to pull.

Durham isn’t exactly the greatest place to meet new people in a non-inebriated context but why not prove your commitment to the social scene by (cue motherly tone) signing up to some societies?

Not only can you convince yourself not every male is a predator (pretty much the way it rolls in Klute), but your brand spanking new busy social life should be more than enough to help to take your mind off that pesky ex. Good luck!

FLICKR ID: ON LINDEN WAY

FLICKR ID: ARTY SMOKES

Lifestyle Features

DEAR DANNY...

Dear Danny, Me and a group of my friends were playing ‘Spin the Bottle’ at a house party the other night and it was all good fun until I ended up getting with this girl which would be fine except for the fact my housemate who was also there is totally into her. So now things between us are rather awkward...

Help?

-Confused from Cuth’s Oh dude. You broke the golden rule!

Whilst our female counterparts have ‘sisters before misters’ (at least supposedly), we have bros before ho’s... although I’m hoping for everybody concerned that your party paramour isn’t a prostitute! If so, I would highly recommend emailing Palatinate – student prostitution is a story that would rock Durham’s world!

To be honest, it was a consensual game; fun, and whilst your friend’s feelings may have been hurt, what else could you have done? The answer? Big fat nothing. So as long you’re not interested in pursuing this lady and make this clear to your friend in a not-blindingly-obvious way then this is a thing that should blow over with time!

If there are any massively awkward pauses, crack out my favourite tensionrelieving move and learn how to do the awkward turtle. If necessary, repeat by using the awkward giraffe and awkward tower moves as necessary. YouTube it if you have no idea what I’m on about.

Which is probably most people…

Spin the bottle? Play at your peril

Dear Danny, During Fresher’s Week, my friends and I appear to have accidentally befriended the college weirdo and now he won’t leave us alone.

What do we do to get rid of him?

- Frustrated Fresher Funnily enough , I had the same problem except reversed – I was the college weirdo who wouldn’t leave people alone.

Nah, I jest... ish.

It depends on the level of weird. If this person is just slightly odd, then you’ll just have to roll with it. If we’re talking full on, Britney-Spears-circa-2008 weird, then have you thought about taking that gap year you always wanted? Thought about changing colleges? Thought about putting a hit out on them? No, probably not.

While the sensible thing would be to discuss the issues you have with this person and express your concern with

the unacceptable behaviour sooner rather than later, if you’re a fresher then presuming you will live out (and without them) next year and you’ll ‘naturally’ grow apart.

See this time spent with them now as time which a sadistic PE teacher would call ‘character building’. It will provide good banter in the near future as you can bond with others over odd people you know.

In the meantime, try and restrain that urge I know you have to push this guy into a box, parcel-tape it shut and deliver that package express delivery wise to Alaska.

While student loans are there for spending, it probably won’t be worth it.

Feeling inspired to overshare?

Send in your problems to: feature@palatinate.org, with the subject of your message as either ‘Ask Alison’ or ‘Dear Danny’ depending on whose advice you seek.

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Features

Going the Distance Mental Block G

FLICKR ID: NEON BUB BLE

“Don’t bother re-reading that hoping you’ve misunderstood. You haven’t.

He vomited on me.”

Daisy Wyatt

from a mental illness are not willing to let their colleagues know.

Although recent accounts in the media by celebrities like Stephen Fry, Ruby Wax and Alastair Campbell about their experiences of bipolar disorder and psychosis have gone some way in alleviating the stigma attached to mental illness in the last few years, it seems that we still have someway to go before we come to perceive mental health on equal terms with any other physical condition.

A recent survey by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy found that one in five Britons Remember that you don’t have to suffer in silence has consulted a counsellor or psychotherapist. 803 Durham our general vocabulary. You feel students alone enrolled with the ‘depressed’ on a Monday morning, university counselling service last or because you’re halfway through a academic year. summative that’s due in tomorrow.

Durham’s Mental Health Week The symptoms of those who are actutakes place in the first week of ally suffering from clinical depression November and are quite different. They include havaims to raise ing difficulty getting to sleep, waking awareness about up early, or sleeping too much; a some of the sudden loss of appetite, or need to misconceptions eat a lot; feeling constantly tired and surrounding the unable to carry out everyday tasks; an issue. inability to socialise and a difficulty in One in four concentrating and reading.

Brits will suffer Mixed anxiety and depression from a mental illness in their lifeis the most common mental illness time, but students are more likely to in Britain. Depression is only one develop mental health problems than mental illness that affects students. other young people.

Others include psychosis, anorexia, Despite the hype surrounding the bulimia, alcohol addiction, obsessive university experience, that it should compulsive disorder, substance abuse be, ‘the best days of your life’, for and schizophrenia. many it is a difficult time.

If you find yourself affected by any Life changes such as moving away of the above conditions, don’t suffer from home, living alone for the first in silence. Go to your doctor to seek time, forging new relationships, acamedical advice. Alert your senior demic pressure and exams can lead tutor and course administrator if students to feel isolated and stressed. your health is affecting your studies.

The word ‘depressed’ is bandied The Durham University Counselling around a lot and has integrated into Service (situated on the first floor of Elvet Riverside 1) is also there to help. You’d be ‘crazy’ not to!

ERS

That’s right. Don’t bother re-reading that hoping you’ve misunderstood. You haven’t. oing the Distance is a series He vomited on me. Thankfully, not on my of articles about the trials and face (every cloud...) but on my hair, chest, tribulations, temptations and hands and shoes. The pub went silent as triumphs, of university long-distance sick-boy lurched off, and everyone turned relationships in general, and mine in to look at me. My face was burning as the particular. I am entering my second year Boy ineffectively dabbed at my chest (yes, of study at Durham; my boyfriend (‘the chest) with a used (yes, used) napkin.

Boy’) is in his third year at the other Or, the time when I went on a night out end of the country. We’ve been together for the Boy’s birthday, cue, one drink in, for five years and doing the ‘longthe worst stomach bug of my life. In a club, distance thing’ for two of them. This 15 minutes after we had arrived, and paid has given rise to the best part of an interesting, £10 to get in. challenging, I was too ill miserable and to drive myself funny period of home for four our relationship days, and so I and lives, which lay in the Boy’s I have taken to bed watching chronicling for iPlayer, while he posterity. went to lectures, At about this and I threw up time in my first in toilets shared year, I decided to by twelve boys I’d make the trip from only just met.

Durham to the Suffice to say, dirty South to visit I have a track the Boy for the first record for ruining time. I flew and, organised events, almost needless to normally through say, was delayed, something vomitso landed 3 hours related. Nonethelate and in the less, we were going middle of the out for a meal with night. the housemates, and I got on a the Boy’s assurances bus, driven by that lightning doesn’t a casually racist strike thrice. Famous middle-aged last words. man who I had two glasses chatted ceaseof wine before we lessly to me left – yes, pre-lash for the entire Love is... dutifully downing super-strength cider for a meal, but don’t journey, about pretend you’ve his ungrateful kids, unhappy marriage and never done it – and when we got to the imminent mid-life crisis, despite my efforts restaurant (Tapas, if you’re interested) I, to round up the conversation. promptly, did a comedy fall down a flight When I disembarked, having inadverof very central stairs. I briefly considered tently given a number of personal details getting up quickly and pretending that to a man I didn’t know, I found the Boy nothing had happened, but I’d shrieked so waiting for me in the rain with a half eaten loudly on my way down, that everyone was (well, if you will be delayed...) Penguin bar, staring. and a drippy kiss. Seven hours, two bus My point, I suppose, is that when we journeys, a train ride, five Metro stops, a lived at home, these embarrassments were short flight and a (wet) walk later, I arrived normally only witnessed by our friends at his house for a weekend that would last and the Boy himself, and none of them all of 36 hours. were going to question whether I was Despite my pleas for a quiet weekend in, mentally subnormal as soon as my back the Boy had organised outings for us with was turned. his six housemates. It’s not that I don’t want My mum, in soothing tones, when I to spend time with his friends or go out recounted the details of my many and and do things; it’s just that I have the worst varied misfortunes, said that separation luck when we do. would give me, and the Boy, a much wider Prior to this visit, for example, the Boy, circle of friends, and one day, we’d chuckle the gang and I, went to a much loved pub wistfully at our cringey, but shared, history. that serves ‘Super Strong Cider’. It was Time will tell I suppose, but until then, tiny, was absolutely rammed and I hate I have imposed a blanket ban on my visits cider. I dutifully drank a pint (in 2 ladylike to him, to avoid his friends thinking that he half-pint portions) and made pleasant, if is taking part in an elaborate act of charity, strained, conversation. by going out with a girl from a ‘Care in All was going well until a lanky student the Community’ scheme. I told the Boy type elbowed his way through the crowd, about my resolution, with vague hopes of which people were not at all happy about. a “Don’t be ridiculous,” type response but As he slowly shoved his way through and was, in fact, met with a sheepish, “If that’s staggered past me – and there is no way what you want. I like coming to Durham to say this nicely – he was sick on me. anyway”.

FLICKR ID: ANNIE IN BEZI

Erin Garrett

Durham’s Mental Health Week deserves a spot on your calendar...

Mental health seems to elicit both intrigue and fear in the British public.

Either we’re scouring newsprint for more information on Susan Boyle’s admission to the Priory, or reviled by Britney Spears’ erratic head shaving, preceding her admission to a rehabilitation clinic on the same day.

“She’s crazy”, “I’m having a breakdown”, “it was psychotic” are all phrases we use without thinking about them. Somehow it has become socially acceptable to use words relating to mental illness, often in a pejorative way, in our everyday language.

The Press Complaints Commission has accused tabloid newspapers of exacerbating this, using headlines with words such as ‘schizo’ and ‘basket case’ to refer to people with mental health conditions, and frequently linking mental illness with violent crimes like homicide.

Despite the proliferation of mental health-related language, there is still a huge stigma attached to mental illness in the UK. In a recent government survey, almost a third of people said they would be unwilling to live nearby or to work with someone with a mental health problem.

People with mental health conditions like psychosis and schizophrenia are commonly perceived to be dangerous to the general public, when they are actually far more likely to harm themselves or be victims of crime.

Somewhere in our national conscious is a reluctance to open up and admit if we are affected by mental illness. We feel a sense of failure and that we are to blame. People with mental health issues are often discouraged from talking candidly about their condition because they believe that others perceive their condition negatively; half of those suffering

“803 Durham students enrolled with Uni counselling last year ”

Alex Wonders Why FLICKR ID: PINK SHERBETPHOTOGRAPHY

This issue, Erin goes to visit the Boy...

Each issue Alex considers some of the more ‘pressing’ problems of life in Durham...

Alex Mansell

1) Why is Klute’s VIP area essentially just a smaller room where quaddies cost 20 pence more?

2) Why do Varsity think people want to eat out of dog bowls?

3) Why can’t rugby socials just shut the hell up?

4) Why do there seem to be no public toilets anywhere in the city of Durham?

5) Why does the toilet vendor in Loveshack smile so forlornly?

6) Why on earth is she there selling lollipops?

7) Has anyone worked out what the point of Loft is?

8) Why does no one realise the Assassins Society is a breeding ground for potential Bond characters?

Features

Food

Travel

Features

Boy’s Eye View Anonymous

I

t’s taken some years to realise that I suffer from a common affliction: the inability to accurately define what nature a relationship with a friend of the opposite sex might have.

To refer to this as afflictive might seem to offer it undue seriousness, but if I examine previous years, I understand the significance that it has had on my life - bad relationships attempted and huge potential let past.

This issue has recently been pertinent to me as I stagger again between good and bad potential relationships.

University, in my view, accentuates the complexity of defining these relationships into their proper place. The speed of the university process, added to the series of intense emotions that terms produce means that the wood is never separate from the trees.

Therefore it is of no surprise to me that I find defining these relationships difficult. Friends of mine will joke that I am perpetually surrounded by members of the opposite sex – this is true and no attempt at flattery. I have always felt more comfortable in the presence of females than males. However I, like many others, seem to be perpetually unable to recognise when a friend is a friend and something more is a Something More.

How do you know when someone is right for you? The twisted sexual logic of Klute teaches some that the essential ingredients are the interests and approaches of another. This arouses in us a primitive sense of personal value and self-confidence which draws us towards someone else.

Then consider a different scenario: a late-night DMC with a close friend, in which the comfort of familiarity is confused (or not) with something

Ditch the Digital FLICKR ID: TONI BLAY

We unleash a man’s perspective on university relationships

Fashion

‘more’. The emotion heightened by a mood impacted

by Dutch courage and early morning why-the-hellnot bravado. The questions, perhaps, we’ve wanted to ask for a while.

Freud reminded us that all close relationships have an association “The more the failures, the happier the eventual outcome” with sex, and in would happily share a bed, talk intithe wee small hours of the morning it mately with, or perhaps even kiss. could never seem truer.

But I do think that everyone must Whether you’re just starting your have a right place within your life, university experience or returning whether to resurface once a year, or for more of the action, you’ll meet to lie next to each night. Many of us people who make you wonder about spend years attempting to scrutinise these questions. the relationships with our closest Sex and relationships are as much friends and many can spend decades a part of the Durham experience as getting this right. I’m reminded of full-college bar crawls or cathedral family friends who have just divorced graduation, the only difference being in their 50s. how you decide who to spend them Far from a cry for help, this is with. meant to be written as consolaThe truth I increasingly believe, tion. The history of relationships is is that controlled social definitions strewn with failures, but the story of relationships as ‘on’ or ‘off ’ are I’ve learned so far is that the more probably incapable of dealing with the failures, the happier the eventual the complexity of modern times. outcome. Do we need to have these This, in my view, explains why we are small disasters in order to learn about incapable of being mature about our ourselves? I think we do. sexual selves. If you don’t agree with The pace of university life is me, witness the number of people in unlikely to ever slow down and so acclubs with penises roughly sketched cepting that raw decisions will always on their arms in permanent pen. be made is probably essential to enIf a relationship is neither ‘on’ nor joying your experience here. There’s ‘off ’ then what might it be? The mod- no time to deliberate leisurely on a ern advent of ‘friends with benefits’ situation. Trial and error might have tells us that some of the old distincto remain the method of discovery, tions have definitely worn off. Conalongside open-mindedness to the sider also the friends with whom you complex relationships that are surely a lasting feature of the modern world.

Postcards from France

Rediscover the delights of the disposable Madeleine Pitt

produce creates a far more interesting The tale of the crashed computer photo than a megapixel digital model. is a sad old story. Essays dissolved And the mild blur for the bikini into computer no man’s land and shots on the beach couldn’t have an equally dead iTunes. But in time been more ideal. Any superiority essays can be re-written and music which the digital cameras on my re-purchased. But your fresher’s week trip managed to wield in producing snaps can never be re-snapped. a more accurate documentation of All hail then the revival of the the Mayan ruins was undermined disposable camera which isn’t at the by their ability to equally accurately peril of a crashable computer! highlight the multiple mosquito bites Develop your photos and there and patchy burn. you have it- your memories are safe And what’s and your more, in the children and midst of the grandchilpost-holiday dren will forblues, my trip to ever be able Boots to collect to browse the developed through phophotos added tos of your an element of awkward surprise. Not all Fresher’s Bop good I should and marvel at probably add. the spectacle Having not been of a Jane’s able to endlessly punnet of flick through the chips with photos on bus curry sauce. rides during the There’s trip, I didn’t know also no fear what to expect. of losing Snap happy: is it time we go back to basics ?

It turns out a camera that I should on a night out or even worse, losing probably keep my thumb out of the three years worth of photos which are way and that not putting the flash saved on your computer but never on at night definitely doesn’t create printed out into something you can flattering pictures. It doesn’t create keep. pictures at all.

This summer I bravely decided to With these tips in mind, I urge you veto the digital camera for my trip to to (even temporarily) lock away your Central America (admittedly mainly digital camera and have a go with because I couldn’t find my charger). I the disposable. Who needs accuracy, was more than a little sceptical about definition and clarity when a bit of the very , very plastic cameras which the disposable blur could disguise I picked up but the results were your lash rash or VPL? And you can dreamy. The slightly grainy effect always say the blurry ones were just which disposable cameras seem to part of the creative process.

“All hail the revival of the disposable camera...”

FLICKR ID: SLIMMER_JIMMER

Indigo

Each issue Alex Mansell dishes the dirt on life en France as she navigates the highs and lows of a year abroad...

Alex Mansell

If you thought all the independent living that comes with university was hard, try doing it in another language.

This is what I signed up for on my year abroad, and let me tell you, finding a place to live and setting up the Internet and all that jazz is no fun when you can’t understand a word anyone says.

Yes I study French. That does not mean I understand French. These last two years I’ve coasted through pretty much relying on the art of blagging to get through exams, so probably know as much French as you do. Which I proved as soon as I arrived by my utter inability to interpret the joke the taxi driver made. I think it was about the flower in my hair. I think it was

vaguely insulting. I didn’t have a clue, so I laughed along, hoping I shouldn’t feel too affronted.

To be honest though, I’ve found this whole cliché of the French being unfriendly is so untrue. I’m living in the south, so maybe they have a more chilled-out Mediterranean attitude than the Parisians, but everyone here says “Bonjour!” or “Bonsoir!” regardless of whether or not they actually know you. I’ve never felt so loved!

Speaking of which, the amount of affection I received from meeting one group of French people is borders on the ridiculous. At a house party, I was planning on going for the standard casual “Hey”, so you

can imagine my surprise when a pair of lips flew out at me from nowhere At this point so many things whizzed through my mind – “Which way do I go? How many kisses do I give? Are my lips actually supposed to touch their cheek?” and by the time I got through all this it was too late

“Yes I study French.

That does not mean I understand French” and BAM – I made the faux pas of practically getting off with a girl I’ve just met.

FYI, the best way to avoid awkwardness in this situation is not by

joking “It’s the most action I’ve had in months!” Couldn’t tell you how well that went down. (I really couldn’t, she responded in French).

I haven’t figured out if I’m actually a fan of this kissing thing. I mean, if you see someone you fancy it’s a good way of establishing physical contact.

(Okay, I’m aware that came across as slightly creepy...!)

However, it works both ways. I pretty much spent the entirety of the house party trying to avoid having to meet a disturbing French guy wearing a stripy top (the cliché is true – there are so many stripy tops here!) because meet means kiss, and I didn’t fancy getting up close and personal with someone who looked like they might exhibit homicidal tendencies. Trying to figure out this strange

culture of giving everyone you’ve just met your cold, I asked a teacher at the school I’m working in if you should kiss someone you’ve just met three times. Or at least that’s what I thought I said.

After laughing her head off while I stood by bemused she then kindly informed me that I’d actually asked her if you should f**k someone you’ve just met three times. Needless to say, she told me if I asked boys the same question they’d answer “YES, that’s exactly what you do”. Ahh the joy of the language barrier.

So what have I learned in the week I’ve been here? French people like their intimacy, I need to make better first impressions and, oh yeah, I could really do with learning to speak French.

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Food & Drink

In-Cider Info Lydia Ashby

Eat with yoghurt for a healthy pudding, or as a delicious topping on porridge.

This recipe freezes well and can be multiplied easily, so make big batches.

6 Bramley cooking apples I lemon cut in quarters.

Pinch of ground cinnamon Glug of fruit juice (apple and mango works nicely) 2 tablespoons sugar 1)Peel and core the apples.

2)Roughly chop and place in a pan with the rest of the ingredients .

3)Cook over a low heat (stirring occasionally to stop it catching on the bottom) until the apple breaks up.

Apple Rings So simple to make, and can then be chopped up and added to cereal (make your own Fruit&Fibre) or eaten as a snack. This is a very good way of preserving them, so perfect if you find a tree with a bumper crop. Use unblemished apples.

1) Core the apples.

2) Slice the apples in cross sections in to ¼ inch thick rings.

3) Dip into a bowl of lightly salted water (this stops them from going brown).

4) Thread the rings onto a pole (bamboo works well).

5) Hang up somewhere dry for 2-3 days.

6) Store in an airtight container.

FLICKR ID: ISLAND VITTLES

4)Cool (optional) and eat.

indigo looks at a bite-by-bite guide into the wonderful world of Spanish cuisine. . . not a meal, but simply a snack, so unless you want to be picked out as a ‘guiri’ (a word Spanish people use to make fun of always said it would never happen to foreigners) make sure you only have one me. I used to laugh at these people, retapa in every bar you go into. sent their unpatriotic Facebook statusIt is still unclear where the custom of es written in foreign languages proclaiming tapas originated from; some people say it they were never returning to England, even started life as simply a hunk of bread placed created an acronym for them, the YATs, the over the glass to keep the flies out, ‘tapa’ Year Abroad Tragedies. But, sitting in a bar meaning ‘lid’. This soon grew to a plate of back in rainy London over the summer, I olives or nuts being served to accompany found myself moaning about the fact that the drink, and eventually developed to in England, no one brings you any food become the more elaborate affair that it is with your drink. Having spent the last year today, with each different region of Spain living in Spain, I had become quite accusboasting its own tapas specialities. If you tomed to having something to ‘picar’ (yes, want ham, go to Salamanca. Seafood? San there is even a verb for it!) with my glass of Sebastián. If you’re simply looking for a wine. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great atmosphere, head to the La Latina things that we do far better in England than area of Madrid on a Sunday afternoon for a they do on ‘the continent’ (punctuality, real tapas experience. public transport and of course, queuing to However, for those of you whose name but a few), but there are some things student loans won’t stretch to a weekend in that unfortunately we just cannot compete Madrid, don’t worry! with, and when it You can find tapas comes to food, the “Tapas isn’t a meal, but a right on your doorSpanish win every step, here in Durham. time. snack, so only have one The city boasts I’m sure most not just one, but two people are aware of in each bar you go to” tapas spots. There is what tapas is, but I of course, La Tasca, think it is difficult set conveniently on to understand the Saddler Street, but if importance of the tapas culture unless you’re looking for a slightly more authentic you have been in Spain for a substantial experience, there is nowhere better than amount of time. For most Spaniards, ‘ir my personal favourite restaurant in Durde tapas’ or ‘tapear’ is almost like a ritual; ham, El Coto, on Hallgarth Street. going to a bar in the evening with friends From its tasteful rustic decor to its or family, enjoying a glass of red wine (I varied menu, El Coto is a great place to was told white is only for cooking....) or a sample Spanish food without having to ‘caña’ (a small beer) and a ‘tapa’, which can leave the country. Prices range from £1.95 be anything from a few pieces of Iberian for bread and garlic ‘ali-oli’ dip to £5.75 ham, to a slice of ‘tortilla de patatas’, Spanfor a chef’s salad. They also do some good ish omelette to us. If you’re feeling really selection menus, where for £15 a head they hungry, you can go for the ‘pincho’, which bring you one of everything on the tapas is slightly bigger, or even a ‘ración’, which selection menu. Menus for big parties can could constitute an entire meal. Tapas is also be arranged and with so much choice, Charlotte Henley

FLICKR ID:RORY FINNEREN

FLICKR ID: TIMLEWISNM

Easy Stewed Apple

Tap into Tapas I

Variety is the spice of life in this tapas bar where its no worry if you order the wrong dish...

you’re guaranteed to find something you like.

Or if you’d prefer to have a go yourself, there are thousands of great tapas recipes at your fingertips on the web, try www. proper-spanish-tapas.com for recipes ranging from ‘jamon Serrano’ to ‘croquetas de

jamon’. There are also some great recipes for the vegetarians amongst you.

Tapas is simple, delicious and won’t break the bank. As the winter months draw inevitably closer, what better way to bring the sunny shores of the Mediterranean to you? Just don’t forget the Rioja wine.

Why apples should form the core of your diet. . .

Lydia Ashby

ples ripen at different times, providing the Controversial as this may be, I don’t blame apple eater with a plentiful supply for most months of the year. The earliest are ready Eve for taking a bite out of the forbidden from August to early September but the fruit. I can think of very few people who season extends for the extra-late varieties, possess such steely self-restraint that they ready for eating between December and could turn their noses up at the sight of such glossy, orbiculate fodder. What higher May. Nevertheless, October is undoubtedly prime apple-time, leaving most apple praise can be bestowed upon a fruit than trees drooping under to be the logo of the weight of their the ever-expanding “I don’t blame Eve for crunchy fruit. computer conglomAs a child, I erate? As exotic fruits taking a bite out of the believed that swalimported thousands lowing apple seeds of miles become inforbidden fruit” would cause an apple creasingly common tree to grow inside on the supermarket my stomach. This shelves, it is our worried me. Thankfully, this highbrow patriotic duty to celebrate this fabulous scientific theory is untrue since apple trees British fruit that has enjoyed unwavering do not simply grow from a seed. They need popularity over the centuries. the pollen from two (diploid varieties) We can thank the Romans for the introduction of apples to England and, since or three (triploid varieties) other trees to then, over 1 500 varieties have been grown. be able to pollinate and fertilise the seed.

The apple season is long, since different ap- So when you plant a Bramley seed (a

triploid) and the tree grows, the fruit that is produced once the tree matures will be elements of its three parents. The seed is the result of the pollination of at least three trees and this means that the fruit that grows is particular to the area because it has taken on characteristics from the other trees in the area when it was pollinated.

The only slightly complicated thing about apples is that different types have different usages. ‘Cooking’ apples, such as Bramley, taste sour before cooking but after a small amount of time in the saucepan they reduce down to a sweet, pulpy mush.

Unlike other apples, the flavour of Bramleys is retained and improved by cooking.

This makes them perfect for crumbles, tarts, and apple sponges. Cox apples are widely considered the King of British ‘eating’ apples, due to their crunchy flesh and sweet aroma. Cox makes up around 60% of the total production of eating apples grown in Britain. The main distinctions between ’eaters’ and ‘cookers’ is that eaters

are less sour, and tend to break up less during cooking, but there is no reason why a ‘cooker’, if stored properly, could not become an ‘eater’ by the early spring.

“. . . sure to help ward off any Fresher’s flu or other such sniffles” If you happen to find yourself with a large number of apples, have a go at one of the recipes in our column. Being high in vitamin C and a good source of fibre the well-known adage ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is particularly poignant in the university environment, and is sure to help ward off any Freshers’ flu or other such sniffles. So make sure you get your regular dose and help celebrate National Apple Day, on 21st October.

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Travel

From terror to triumph: eight months in Chile indigo gets a unique insight on how the little-known country bounced back from the brink of destruction

Jess Jones

FLICKR ID:MALINKROP

the middle of the night, its sheer power rocking my bed from side to side, the various objects on my desk bouncing up and down.

This national tragedy brought Chileancloser together. The charity Un Techo Para Chile (A Roof for Chile) welcomed thousands of volunteers, who travelled to the worst hit areas to build houses for those whose entire lives had been swept away in the earthquake. Schools raised money to send to the Juan Fernandez Islands, off Chile, ravaged by huge tsunamis after the earthquake. People helped one another and a great feeling of unity engulfed the entire country.

Just as the wounds from the earthquake were beginning to heal, along came another disaster, but this one was to have a very different ending. The San Jose mine disaster was to be the second international story to come from Chile this year.

Hope had been lost. They were dead, pure and simple. No way could they have survived. But just when Chileans were about to give up their last shred of hope, the miraculous news filtered through: “estamos bien en el refugio los 33”. The atmosphere was incredible, elation and happiness swept the streets of

“The country was in pieces, and I was due to fly there in two days time”

Cracks veined across buildings here and there, but life continued as normal. I became numb to the dangers until I felt my first aftershock and suddenly realised the sheer power of a Chilean earthquake; even a relatively small tremor woke me in

Santiago. Within minutes, car horns were blaring and people were taking to the

“Hope had been lost - they were dead, pure and simple”

finally step out of the shadow of the dictatorship.

The rescue operation from start to finish would be smooth and well-run, all in front of the gaze of the international media.

My time in Chile began in tragedy, the entire nation gripped by a harsh sadness and sense of injustice and frustration and it ended on a massive high; with a national and international good news story that will go down in history.

Watching the news last week, Freedom! Luis Urzua, the last out, celebrates with President Piñera the faces of the minstreets, filling the Plaza Italia, waving Chile ers emerged from the depths of the earth, flags and singing their hearts out at this the tears wept by their waiting families; brilliant news. one cannot help but be moved by joy and Chileans united once again as the long relief. Chile has achieved an amazing feat, wait began for the miners to be rescued. and should be thoroughly applauded for The nation held its breath, soaking up each the brave rescuers and truly historic rescue, new snippet of information like a sponge. and for the way the country has turned Chile would prove itself to be a modern, from adversity to triumph in a few short efficient and determined country and months.

DE CHILE

suddenly catapulted into the world media once again.

Strolling around the capital, Santiago, the damage seemed minimal.

GOBIERNO

I

awoke to rolling news coverage of a catastrophe of Biblical proportions. The fifth strongest earthquake in history had battered Chile. Scores dead, families separated, homes and even entire towns destroyed. The country was in pieces, and I was due to fly there in two days time.

Two weeks, rather than two days, later, I stepped out into the baking Santiago heat to be met with a damaged shell of an airport. Walkways and ceilings had collapsed and I had to bypass the usual immigration line in favour of waiting in a makeshift marquee.

On the way from the airport, I noticed motorway overpasses, or what was left of them; huge clumps of broken concrete scattered on the sides of the motorway.

And this was in Santiago, hundreds of miles from the epicentre near Concepcion.

What, I wondered in horror, would the damage be like there?

Chile, that far off land that conjured up images of a long dead dictatorship, was

What’s the story? Northern Glory

indigo goes on a salty adventure of the North-East with its little-known surf spots You hear knocks rattling on your window.

It’s 5am. Woozy and confused you roll out of bed. It’s the middle of winter in Durham; you’re a stones throw away from the Arctic Circle. You stumble into the car with its engine running and surfboards stacked in the back. You squeeze into the backseat and try to get back to that dream you were enjoying but can’t quite remember.

You pull up beside a field and wind down the backseat window. It’s now 6am and still not yet light, but you can vaguely see signs of white water down below. You saw the promising swell charts last night: a solid northerly groundswell, light offshore winds and an early full moon low-tide but you don’t get your hopes up. If experience has taught you anything it’s that high expectations make bad travel companions.

Putting on the 6mm wetsuit is a challenge. Imagine hopping around, freezing and semi-naked on one leg, as you squeeze

your way into an impossibly tight rubber jumpsuit complete with boots, gloves and a hood. Finally, you screw in the fins, pick up the leash and head off. The crashing sound of water is reassuring. Your fingers are numb but your heart is racing.

You tiptoe over to the edge looking down like a nervous seal, before timing the jump off and paddling through the forest of kelp. Taking a deep breath, you push the nose of your board down and make the first duck-dive under an incoming wall of whitewash.

The water is cold.

It reminds you of a time when someone dared you to down a blueberry slush puppy in one foolish, icy chug. For a moment, your enthusiasm becomes questionable. Using the rip current you begin to paddle towards the horizon, racing the incoming mountains of water. You position yourself for a wave, your feet find themselves on the board. Somehow you make the drop; arms flailing as you fly along the steep section, maybe only for a few seconds before jumping off, letting out an

JONNY MILLER

Jonny Miller

Your fingers are numb but your heart is racing

Brace yourself against the cold weather for the amazing waves along the North-East coast.

obligatory whoop: wired on a dopamine cocktail and watching the ochre sunrise rip through the sky. You feel like there is no other place in the world you’d rather be.

You are now sitting deep for one of the bigger and more consequential waves. You don’t want to let on how scared you are. It’s there for the

taking, spinning the board you turn and paddle down the glassy face. You are blissfully unaware of the outgoing tide and the ever-shallower rock shelf lurking beneath. It looks makeable, so you go for glory but as you pop up your front foot slips. B******S. As if the sea gods themselves were claim-

ing retribution, the lip of the wave slingshots you down into the blue oblivion. Like a rag doll in a washing machine, you are tossed around furiously in the whitewash, loading your ears, mouth and sinuses with salt water. Reaching the surface and gasping for air just as another wave lands a few metres ahead. Taking another deep breath, you try to relax as you’re thrashed around once more, pinned to the kelp-cushioned rock. Eventually the churning water subsides and you are left, fibreglass board and leash thankfully intact, with a newfound appreciation for oxygen.

Back in the line up, you strike up a conversation with an elderly local with kind eyes and a gregarious smile. He’s lived here his entire life, or at least you imagine he’s lived here his entire life. He replies and casually takes off mid-conversation, bottom turning to set up for a sublime hack, his fins carving smooth artistic lines, spray from the lip is routinely sent skyward.

You’ve only been surfing a few years and wonder if you’ll ever be capable of that.

You hope so.

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion Beauty and the Beach With fashion this season taking a look back to the sixties, we took a trip to Newcastle’s vintage stores to give you a taste of current trends with a retro twist.

With thanks to...

Stylists: Antonia Thier Emma Spedding

Photography: Laura Gregory Models: Georgia Gkanville-Harrison

Livvy Wells

Clothes: Attica

Best Vintage

Hair & Make-Up: Dream Oasis

0191 384 8912

Saddler Street, DH1 Offers student discount and

monthly promotional offers

www.dreamoasis.co.uk

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Film & TV

Film

Stage

Music

Visual Arts

Books Film and Television Arts

A breathtaking union of the aesthetic and the mysterious indigo explores the visual richness in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock Sam Cane

FLICKRID: PETRUS.AGRICOLA

I

t is perhaps appropriate that The Truman Show, with all its originality of plot and infectious surrealism, should have come from director Peter Weir, since his similarly enigmatic Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) effectively sounded the birth pangs of the Australian blockbuster.

Adapted for the screen from Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel, the film is set on St Valentine’s Day 1900, and charts the visit made by a group of girls from the exclusive Appleyard College to the geological marvel of the titular Hanging Rock. Some of the party, though, including mathematics teacher Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray), fail to return, setting in motion the mystery that ensues. A sense of mystery, though, is pervasive within Picnic (which was nominated for three BAFTAs) and revolves as much around the College as the Rock itself.

The opening narration of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous assertion “What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream”, accompanied by the declarative tone of Gheorghe Zamfir’s haunting panpipe score, invokes from the outset a sense of wonder, breathing curiosity even into images of the girls’ everyday interactions and rituals. Whether they are reading from Shakespeare or dressing for the day, the visual is underscored by a purportedly benign abstraction that deftly fuels audience anticipation.

The girls’ visit to the Rock is prefaced by words of advice from the College Principal, Mrs Appleyard (Rachel Roberts), who

awakens them to the opportunity for exploration that must be tempered by a social ambassadorship in order to ‘bring credit to the College’. In the early stages of the film, Mrs Appleyard’s leadership of her namesake institution denotes a liberal matriarchy that affords the pupils comparative freedom, accompanied by an abject conservatism emblematic of Victoriana and the pride then endemic in Empire.

En route to the Rock, Miss McCraw shares little of the girls’ enthusiasm for their imminent adventure, remarking dolefully “This we do for pleasure, so that we may shortly be at the mercy of venomous snakes and poisonous ants – how foolish can human creatures be?”. Yet not even her sobering analysis of that potential danger can quell an appetite for temporary escape from the inevitably rather staid etiquette that is the pupils’ prescribed mentality at Appleyard. The Rock is an eerie, deceptive source of aesthetic fascination for the girls, their providential voyage into social and sexual liberation in their removal of gloves and stockings, a sacred outlet for self-discovery and affirmation of their true rather than conformist identity.

Russell Boyd’s exquisite cinematography combines with the Zamfir theme to forge a unique, breathtaking evocation of human interaction with the natural scene, an almost dream-like quality that both enchants and discomforts – the beauty is magnetic, to be sure, but at what cost to its characters, about whom, through the quality of the performances, we come to care deeply? Among the Appleyard student elite, Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert) is the paradigmatic icon, a blond heroine

“An intoxicating union of the sublime and the subliminal create a rare visual richness-the beauty is magnetic...”

of the College, amid considerable public intrigue and media scrutiny, with alcohol becoming her only source of comfort when her usually faultless composure is compromised by the intense, global interest in the case.

The police are not alone in investigating the disappearances, with a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert, after observing Miranda at the Rock, becoming obsessed with finding out the truth of the mysterious goings on. Michael’s profound sense of responsibility, though slightly undermined by the occasionally mocking disinterestedness of his valet, Albert, nevertheless makes for a pleasing if unlikely chemistry between an incorrigibly principled traveller and the well-meaning crudity of his native servant, portrayed, respectively, by Dominic Guard and John Jarratt.

Their friendship lends a touch of humour to an otherwise spellbinding yet often deeply involved entertainment.

Weir’s film is a compelling, haunting, and effortlessly engaging study of Man’s colli-

“A compelling, effortlessly engaging study of Man’s collision with Nature. . .”

Weir combines the beatuy of humans and the natural scene to evoke a dreamlike quality

dubbed by French instructor Mademoiselle de Poitiers (Helen Morse), musing over The Birth of Venus, “…a Botticelli Angel”.

Shared though we have in the girls’ beautifully-realised moments of freedom, a number of pupils, Miranda among them, are drawn, with a palpable submissiveness, to a crack in the Rock, into which they venture and from which only one,

Irma (Karen Robson), will ultimately reemerge. The Rock, having turned the girls’ inquisitiveness against their reason, shows, later, an evidently pensive Miss McCraw, that not even her studious contemplation of Euclidean precision can assure her safety from its mysterious force, as she, too, disappears. Mrs Appleyard, alerted in the evening to these disappearances, must now strive to maintain the face and reputation

sion with Nature and its resultant effects, accompanied by a telling dissolution of perceived gender roles, and how burgeoning independence necessitates sometimes uncomfortable distinctions between freedom and happiness. Dichotomies of space and time, and an intoxicating union of the sublime and the subliminal, combine to make Picnic a masterpiece of social critique, quiet drama and rare visual richness.

Topshop Unique on track for success at Waterloo...

A summer intern shares her experiences at the Topshop Unique Show, where fashion, art, and history merged

Jo Rowley

immediately sensed the electric atmosphere bouncing off the glass walls of the disused station. Topshoppers were running left right and centre clutching press goodie bags and calling for blu-tac. The real excitement hit me during the models’ rehearsal (being new to this, I’ve never experienced a live catwalk before). One by one they strutted down the platform catwalk to loud, ethereal music, in dressing gowns and with backcombed hair an over- groomed poodle would be envious of. But this was only the beginning.

The fashion pack arrived in their droves for a quick pit stop at the Topshop café and then onto the dove grey benches that TOPSHOP

Retail giant Topshop’s designer line wasn’t christened Topshop Unique without reason. Everything about the brand represents creativity, inspiration and innovation – from the drawing board in Design right up to the choice of the old Eurostar terminal as the venue for the show at London Fashion Week, September 2010.

For past collections the pros at Topshop have launched antler-sporting, fur-laden models down a leafy catwalk or twisted the girls’ hair into knots with spaghettistyle neon hair elastics, reminiscent of our 1990s youth.

I was lucky to be given the chance to work at the Topshop Unique show during London Fashion Week. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that despite the usual array of famous fashion faces, bloggers made up a significant part of the audience. The overall turn-out at the

terminal was excellent for Topshop (so much so that people had to watch from the café!) which I think this was largely down to the exciting choice of venue.

However, it wasn’t the starstudded audience that took my breath away, instead it was the magnificent architectural setting for Topshop Unique SS11 – the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo. Along with other NewGen designers Mary Katrantzou, Peter Pilotto, Meadham Kirchhoff, Fashion East and Central St Martins protégé Michael Van Der Ham, Topshop was to show on a skinny strip of platform next to live railway tracks in the old terminal, while the renowned Topshop café was planned to take up a section of platform on the opposite platform, with footbridges connecting the two.

Any initial architectural doubts about the vast scale of the site were soon blasted away as I arrived two hours before the show’s start and

spanned rows and rows along the platform.

The show began.

Topshop chose William Orbit’s ‘Aquarium’ to begin the show with an array of rich terracotta and metallic prints – already a distinct 70s psychedelic vibe could be seen. The music soon launched into Stevie Nicks’ ‘Edge of Seventeen’ as the show gathered momentum and the girls pounded the train catwalk in 6 inch Perspex platforms, showing off hippie flares, wings and fringing. The score also comprised of Crystal Castles’ dreamy ‘Celestica’ and concluded with the gravelly tones of Barry White. You could certainly call it unique!

Playlist aside, for me it was the original venue that made the show. With bright September sunshine streaming through the terminal’s slanted windows and an allgrey, industrial backdrop, the terminal set off the fiery colours and kaleidoscopic feel of the collection. Top marks for Topshop!

Film & TV

Visual Arts

Arts Film & TV

Stage

Music

Books

Film and Television Arts

Post X Factor, Pilkington brings us back to reality

The new series of The X Factor exposes its failure as reality TV. Luckily, there’s a Mancunian idiot on the scene...

FLICKR ID: SUPERBA_

Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant push Karl Pilkington to the limit in Sky 1’s latest documentary, An Idiot Abroad. The trio are keen to distance it from traditional ‘reality’ tv shows.

Nicki Slater

T

he latest brainchild of comedy mastermind Ricky Gervais, travel documentary An Idiot Abroad, follows lovable buffoon Karl Pilkington as he stumbles his way around the Seven Wonders of the World. The 38 year-old Mancunian achieved international acclaim for his series of podcasts with comedy duo Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, after Gervais dubbed him “the funniest man alive in Britain today”.

Karl provides an unusual take on the Wonders with his trademark mix of staggering ignorance and mordant wit. Some of his one-liners are truly hilarious – his view of the pyramids is “a giant game of Jenga got out of hand” – and the show is really worth a watch.

Crucially, though, none of the show was scripted or set-up – a rarity in today’s programming schedule, crammed as it is with such over-edited tat as the X Factor, Big Brother and The Hills.

When I sat down with Ricky, Karl and Steve last month, they were keen to highlight that the show isn’t a scripted comedy, but a very funny, real-life documentary.

Gervais mused: “It’s not a comedy, but it’s the funniest documentary I’ve ever seen. The funniest things, the most traumatic, the most interesting – they’re all documentaries. That’s what reality shows try to tap into, but now there’s no such thing as a reality show. They’re all contrived; they’re all produced, planned and

tweaked in retrospect. This is old school – nothing happened that was fake.”

The trio claim to have never scripted or redone a scene, with Karl insisting: “We never re-shot a scene. I couldn’t do it. I was reacting to what was happening – I’d have to have a million extras all the time.”

The originality and the freshness of the series only serves to highlight the blatant contrivance and over-production of today’s mainstream “reality” TV shows. Take The X Factor, for example. The show claims to tell the story of ordinary people given a chance to make it big – but this series, more than any before it, seems scripted, cynical and predictable.

It seems that several aspects of this years show are scripted beyond belief, but Katie Waissel’s ridiculous first audition really struck me as insulting the viewers’ intelligence. As Katie pouted and blustered her way through the audition, forgetting her words and putting in an average-atbest performance, it seemed clear that the judges already knew she was one to watch, and were dragging the process out at the request of producers.

And it didn’t seem to matter when Katie messed up her audition AGAIN at judges’ houses, with Cheryl waving her through alongside alleged tonsillitis sufferer Cher Lloyd – neither of whom managed to actually sing their song without turning on the waterworks.

“Now there is no such thing as a reality TV show”

I spoke to failed contestant Kirsty Crawford, to find out what really happens behind the scenes.

“It doesn’t surprise me that Cher and Katie got through, even though neither of them sang the song. They got loads of camera time in auditions – the producers were clearly setting them up as the stars of the show.”

After gaining four yeses from the judges to get through to boot camp, Kirsty was booted from the competition without even making it onto viewers’ television screens. She sighed: “I concluded: we’re not so much auditioning for a talent show, as we are a TV show.

“The process is so clinical, there’s so much preparation in terms of filming the “money shots”, and the producers are so aware of the psychological effects on contestants. They change things at the last minute and leave you to your own devices for long periods of time.”

Kirsty went on to talk about the clever editing the producers use to create the finished product viewers see on screen.

“You guys will see us doing dancing classes, having vocal lessons and one to one performance coaching. In reality, one to one tuition was limited to five minutes, ten if you were a promising or high maintenance contestant. I was really gutted to be honest. “We had a researcher doing the ‘wrap it up’ signal once they’d got their footage. I was so excited when I got through and then just so deflated after the first two days.”

With her bright blue hair and body piercings, Kirsty was the perfect target for the producers to add a bit of alternative intrigue to the show – and this was made blatantly clear during filming.

She sighed: “They were just collecting footage to position me in different lights; get me happy, get me bored, get me down – they’d have me positioned as a moody rocker if I had let out how negative I felt towards myself one day.”

Kirsty’s voice wavered as she told me about the cruel postelimination process: “On rejection, the cameras, security & researchers were set up on every exit of the building. There was no way you would get out of there without a poke and a prod to your psyche, a tear shed or an easily misconstrued sentence used against you. And so I left out of a secret fire exit I found.”

This series of The X Factor has seen its fair share of on-screen drama, but what producers haven’t shown us has been far more controversial. Live show finalist Katie Waissel and wildcard Treyc Cohen both already have record contracts, breaking strict X Factor regulations, but rather than kicking them out of the show, the bosses have hushed up the issue, bought their contracts out, and are allowing them to continue in the competition.

So as we move into the ensuing weeks of X Factor mania, its advisable to take the show’s glitz, drama and theatricalities with a pinch of salt – as in today’s world, “reality” TV is not as real as producers would like us to believe.

“In reality, one-to-one tuition was limited to five minutes”

There’s been a mess Made in Dagenham

The hairdos hold more weight than the characters in Nigel Cole’s adaption of the 1968 sewing machinists’ strike something of an issue. A new executive European Commission announced plans to tackle pay inequality this March, estimating that females earn 82% of male salaries for doing the same jobs. Attitudes towards women is an important and contemporary

Made in Dagenham Nigel Cole Number 9 Films ««««« Adam Seddon

Women deserve the same pay as men – anybody who disagrees is a sweaty racist pig (almost certainly with a moustache) likely to respond to any talk of equality with a snarl and a puff on his Cuban cigar. Standing up for womens’ rights involves a lot of shouting through megaphones and spontaneous outbursts of vanilla obscenity. There. Now you don’t need to see the film.

The plot covers the 1968 sewing machinists’ strike at the Ford plant in Dagenham. Two years later, in 1970, the Equal Pay Act forbade workplace discrimination of either gender, for both salary and workplace relations.

This watershed event is shorn of its political significance by uninspired characterisation. Sally Hawkins plays Rita O’Grady like a cross between Norah Jones

“A hen-pecked Bob Hoskins scuttling about like a cockney beetle” The cast of Made in Dagenham sport impressive beehives...and some banners

and Bianca Jackson – often doe-eyed and blinking, occasionally demonstrating her vim and chutzpah with just enough rudeness to seem ballsy without coming across as genuinely militant.

The tagline for this film should have been her mousy utterance to a floor of fellow workers: “Right, we gotta demand pay based on the job you do, not whether you got a d*ck or not.

If you sniggered at this, you might enjoy the film. For such an ethically charged topic it is pretty easygoing and takes the trouble to amuse you rather than inform you. The effect, however, is of a story about women exhibiting genuine political bravery with immaculate hair, which is a waste of the concept.

The potential for this film was substantial. Equality in the workplace is still

issue. There has been a spate of recent studies on the effects of free, instantly accessible pornography on the gender relations of young men, and on the widespread use of sexualised imagery generally, particularly in advertising. This film is about a group of women who not only stood up to their bosses – and, in some cases, the prejudices of their own families – but challenged a systemic, institutional chauvinism. Their plight obtained a high political profile and

they have a genuine claim to being unsung heroes of modern feminism.

But Made In Dagenham would rather give you a hen-pecked Bob Hoskins scuttling about like a cockney beetle and Sally Hawkins redoing Poppy from Happy Go Lucky plus spunk.

There was a tiresome, ostentatious use of the Dagenham accent, often used to cover a scarcity of depth in the character’s lives.

Most of my family speak with that cockney accent, so listening to it doesn’t constitute a cinematic experience for me (unlike the American girl who shrieked with laughter and asked her friend “Is this Charles Dickens?”). It was almost as if the film wanted to emphasise their working class backgrounds, presumably because poor workers behaving in a politically motivated way was considered quirky or unusual.

This is a strange choice of emphasis given the background of union militancy in this country, especially in manufacturing.

In short, Made In Dagenham is a film about a key event in recent British history that resonates today. The 1968 strikers were heroes, but by caricaturing them - and their opposition - Made In Dagenham trivialises them.

Film & TV

Visual Arts

Stage

Music

Music

Books Music Arts

A Gang of Four: Dum Dum Girls

indigo’s Deputy Music Editor chats to Dee Dee about the lo-fi scene and writing pop music in the 21st century TYLER WIRTZFELD

always go back to the classic songs. Today we were listening to Tom Petty’s greatest hits and his songs are perfect pop songs. So I’m coming from that school of thought in terms of writing. He was hugely successful so I think there’s still a big part of music that is based on the principles of a good pop song. But we’re never going to have a pop song that’s as insanely produced as Lady Gaga.

The lo-fi sound is getting a lot of hype at the moment, are you wary of the pitfalls for bands who get labelled in with a certain scene?

I don’t want to be connected to a scene in the sense that it’s a finite sound that’s going to go out of favour, if it hasn’t already.

For me I could never turn my back on the kids and the labels that were the first ones to hear me and who put out the 7” and the EPs, which were super noisy, partially intentional and partially because of my limited recording capabilities.

Dressed for the weather : L-R Sandy Vu, Jules, Dee Dee and Bambi

Nico Franks

L

.A. garage rock four piece Dum Dum Girls’ debut album I Will Be is indebted to feral rock bands like Iggy & The Stooges and Jesus & The Mary Chain, but also the classic pop of 60s girl bands such as The Ronettes. Blending these together, the band create a sound which is much more than mere pastiche.

Dee Dee, lead singer and songwriter, spoke to me before their support slot for MGMT at Manchester Apollo...

You get praise for the mix of scuzzy guitars and strong melody in your songs.

As a songwriter, do you see yourself as primarily writing pop songs with an edge, or garage rock songs with a hook?

Pop songs with the darker edge definitely. I write everything with an acoustic

guitar and the melody comes first. It was a decision I made when I finally wrote enough songs to warrant recording them that I was like OK, this could sound like The Mamas and Papas or it could sound How did your sound change from like what I want to do now, which was your early demos to the songs on the something loud album? (laughs).

“I have no desire to be a My concern when I Do you think recorded the first album retro band” people are too was that I had all these dismissive of pop demos that I’d done mynowadays, in terms of the old-fashioned self and I didn’t want to take too big a leap, 3 minute pop songs that you grew up I mean, switching from Captured Tracks listening to? Is there a place in music now (Brooklyn-based indie label) to Sub-Pop is for bands trying to recreate those kind almost offensive to some people (laughs). of songs?

So what I decided was appropriate was to bring in a producer for some mixing and I think we have a comfortable spot post-production help. I recently recorded within a small scene that is very appreciaan EP which is supposed to come out in tive and enthusiastic about what we do. I the spring and that was yet another step

Solomon Burke: The Soul King is Dead Jess Denham

FLICKR ID: TOM.BEE

However in my view, whilst the aforemen- across time. If only one person is reached tioned are all undeniable contenders for and touched by my songs, then the mesOn 10th October 2010 the world lost yet the soul throne, it is Burke’s understated sage through me is being heard, received another legend when Solomon Burke was and underrated genius that made his music and believed.” discovered dead by shocked air stewards all the more intense on a personal level.

Burke, who never relied on a set list on a flight from Los Angeles to AmThe singer himself once said “If the during live performances, preferring sterdam. He had been en route message is meaningful in the beinstead to respond to requests and vibes to play a sold-out show and is ginning, it from his fans, often reported to have died from will reach described the “Burke described the thrill natural causes. across the thrill of sharing his When debating the waters music as a deeply of sharing his music as a greatest soul singers in and spiritual experihistory, Solomon Burke come deeply spiritual experience” ence. is often overshadowed back Philadelphiaby the fame of artists born Solomon such as Otis Redding, exploded onto the James Brown and Aretha music scene back in 1961 after his gospel Franklin. roots led him to experiment with soul and blues. He was in fact creating a genre of his own when rock’n’roll had only just begun to erode the mainstream.

Burke reigned in the 60s with velvety yet emotionally raw hymns to the soul that included Everybody Needs Somebody To Love, famously covered by The Rolling Stones, and Cry To Me. The latter Big Daddy: Burke leaves 21 children, 90 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren is well-known for featuring in the 1987

forward. I’m hoping that I can carry those original supporters with me; we’ll have to see.

How important is it to you that Dum Dum Girls remain an all-female band?

It was intentional to have the band be “I coud never turn my all women, because I wanted to experiback on the kids and the ence what it was like playing with women labels that were the first and because I was so extremely inspired by ones to hear me” all-female bands. It Completely. If was strange to learn anything it works as about a songwriter a self-confidence booster. That was somelike Ellie Grenich who was one of only thing that I wanted. It’s definitely a weird a few female songwriters at a time when thing to go up there and share something there were all these male songwriters and that I started just as a personal home reproducers that were putting these girl cording project. So when we took it to this groups together. So it’s always been an band level I wanted to have a unified look, interest of mine to have complete control not only to show to the people watching and have nobody else telling us what to but to feel like we were a team. do. It’s really strange because we instantly get pitted against other girl-bands, it’s The band name is a Vaselines and Iggy like “Dude we’re all friends”- you’d never Pop reference, but is it also a statement compare MGMT and a band just because about how you think women in bands they were guys. tend to get portrayed in the music media, literally as dumb girls with nothing to You channel a lot of bands from the say? past, but add your own original slant.

How important do you think it is for a The name is in no way serious- it’s band to acknowledge their influences sarcastic if anything. These are three of the yet still be able to create something fresh smartest girls I know. I don’t know if the and new? band name has helped or hurt us, but I’ve played and toured for many years prior I think it’s silly if bands don’t acknowlto this band and I’ve definitely had the edge their influences. It’s almost smarter experience of being treated differently than to acknowledge them because people will to my male band mates. It is pretty strange always draw their own comparisons which to know that there’s a difference - like my won’t necessarily be true. I have no desire sound guy, I have to ask him to ask for to be a retro or a throwback band and so things which we need because we won’t I’m hypersensitive to that criticism. I just get them. It’s most likely unintentional but want to continue a tradition of rock ‘n’ roll it’s definitely weird. that has been updated since its inception.

Your synchronized wardrobe echoes bands like The Ramones, giving a kind of gang look.

As a band do you feel like a gang?

film Dirty Dancing (it plays during the ‘dance with me’ scene in Patrick Swayze’s bedroom, naturally). Having racked up 17 million worldwide record sales, Burke was awarded a place in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2001 and later went on to win a Grammy award which helped re-introduce his music to our generation.

Having taken the meaning of ‘be fruitful and multiply’ a little too literally, 70

year-old Solomon leaves behind a family of 21 children, 90 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

His legacy has had an astounding influence upon songwriters throughout the decades, so if you’ve never given the big guy with an even bigger voice a listen before now, do yourself a favour and look him up. At the very least, watch that Dirty Dancing clip.

What’s On? 28th Oct– Ellie Goulding @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 30th – Black Keys @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 2nd Nov – Imogen Heap @ The Sage Gateshead 6th - Let’s Buy Happiness @ Durham Live Lounge 8th – Goo Goo Dolls @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 9th – Edwyn Collins @ Cluny, Newcastle 14th - Durham Oxjam with ONSIND and Tim & Will @ Fishtank 12th – Chase and Status @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 13th - Gold Panda and Banjo or Freakout @ The Cut Strum! Every Saturday @ Cellar Door GRAMMAR every Tuesday @ Fishtank

TZ

Film & TV

Visual Arts

Music

Stage

Books Stage Arts

Life on the road with Mumford & Sons

indigo saddles up with the folk foursome across Europe and America and almost dashes their quest for world domination FLICKR ID: THE QUEEN’S HALL

the band has already reached the number 1 slot in the US, Australian and Irish iTunes album chart, number 2 in the UK and are preparing for another sold out tour of America. So obviously, yes, I was interested in his offer. After pretending to briefly check through my imaginary diary, I informed him I could just about fit it in.

A couple of weeks later I found myself on the continent selling band merchandise and getting to visit almost every major city in Europe. A month or so later and I’m drinking beer in L.A. with Jake Gyllenhaal.

All dreadfully ridiculous of course- on going to the bar with Jake (that’s right, first name terms) I tried to appear casual, desperately resisting the urge to blurt out ‘what the hell was Donny Darko actually ABOUT?!’ Instead I nonchalantly asked what a good drink to order might be. His reply to this perfectly acceptable question was a rather sarcastic, uninterested and disappointing: ‘beer, dude’. Gutted. Friendship over before it started, and I had so many questions.

Travelling with the boys was eyeMarcus Mumford: Amazingly has no biological link to his 3 ‘sons’ opening in many ways. It confirmed my Thomas James Gray a friend of mine, Marcus. It was a February suspicions that for a lot of us, university is something we are told we have to do but afternoon and I had been sat most of the can’t play any instruments. At least, in reality, don’t. We’re scared into going by day quietly sobbing to my unemployed, all the ones I’ve picked up and tried believing it’s ‘the thing to do’. Yes, it’s obvipyjama wearing self. It turned out the call haven’t played anything I, or you, ous that playing in a band is something that was a job offer; would call music. Maybe I’m a wonderful can be done he was asking saxophonist- you never know until you without the “A sense of dread overcame whether or not give it a go, I suppose. Anyway, not being need to go to I wanted to tour musically inclined, nor having ever been university but with Mumford & me as I realised I’d left £5,000 a big music fan, I’d always held a rather the carpe diem Sons in Europe romantic vision of what it was like to be in attitude of the and America worth of merchandise in a band and the seemingly glamorous lifepeople in that for the next 3 style associated with it. Earlier on this year months. world was Copenhagen” however, due to enormous good fortune, impressive.

Marcus, the I was invited to share in the experience for Winston lead singer of a short while and get a glimpse into the the banjo the band, is a friend of mine from our mysterious world of the touring musician. player and Ben the keyboard player both undergraduate days at The University of After having come back from a rather had places at Edinburgh and Bristol respecEdinburgh. In 2007 he dropped out from unsuccessful stint teaching English in Chi- his Classics degree in order to pursue a tively- literature and astrophysics, I believena- which, believe me, merits another arti- career in music- a decision that’s proving and yet they set their hearts very early on cle altogether- I received a phone call from a good one. At the time of writing this, what they wanted to do and did it.

I

After working VERY hard over the past enough, I wasn’t allowed to smoke inthree years- on the road for most of it- they doors- surely nulla poena sine lege right?) are beginning to reap the rewards, having Anyway, thankfully it was all recovered been nominated for the Mercury Prize and I felt rather like Edmund in front of a in the summer and being called the ‘best gracious Aslan- I was resolved to never fail band at Glastonbury’ the boys again. by the NME. They’ve Annoyingly I “I received a phone call also recently recorded did just this and with Ray Davies from spent the next from a friend of mine, the Kinks, performing day contemplatwith him this week on ing suicide after Marcus, asking whethJools Holland. having temporarTouring is a ily lost 3000 euros er or not I wanted to genuinely hard thingof merchandise repetitive questions money. Again, it tour with them” from journalists in was recovered but each city have to be I was beginning answered as if it’s the to seriously doubt first time they’ve been asked; gigs need my suitability for a future career in sales or to be as fresh as when the songs were first accounting. written. It’s tough. I guess the benefits of My final catastrophic failure came such a lifestyle are obvious but I think the after inexplicably losing the trailer hard work is often overlooked or ignored. with all the instruments in it an hour A usual day for the boys would begin at or so before a pretty important around 10am with promo and would end festival performance in the States. near 2 in the morning after a gig. To repeat Typical. Needless to say (which itself this for periods of six weeks or more is, I is always needless to say) we parted think, commendable. It certainly shattered professional company at the beginmy illusions of the ‘easy life’ often associning of the U.K festival season earlier ated with being in a band. Great fun yes, this July. We remain good friends of but flipping hard work. course, but there’s a polite and tacit Of course, the touring experience understanding that we’ll never again also had its downsides, particularly, if not be colleagues. Still, something to tell exclusively, for myself. For example, upon the grandkids I guess. waking up in Stockholm one morning a All in all, the whole experience was a sense of dread overcame me as I realised I’d good one, and something I’ll never get to left the equivalent of about £5,000 worth do again, taking part in a world I shall never of merchandise in Copenhagen. again inhabit. It has taught me that there After crying in my bunk all morning is far more to being successful than doing I plucked up the courage to tell the boys the right course at the right university. If what I’d done. They were good about it you’ve got a passion for something, just do and told me not to worry; we’d be going it (assuming of course you also have a bit of back through on the way to Germany aptalent). The world of music most definitely parently. ‘Phew’ I thought, until I recalled isn’t to be my stage in life but the experithat the venue where I’d left the merchanence has encouraged me to be the best at dise was in a dodgy hippy commune on whatever it is I choose to do (so long as the outskirts of Copenhagen exempt from t-shirts aren’t involved that is). For now the rule of law (although interestingly though, back the books…

From super-fans to groupies: The 5 most annoying people at gigs Kathryn Beeson

NICK KIDD

Gigs are a great place to meet like-minded, interesting individuals who share your passion for music. They are also the place where you will meet some of the world’s biggest jerks. From annoyingly highpitched screaming fangirls to desperate drunken thirtysomethings using ‘moshing‘ as an excuse to

start a fight with you/feel you up (delete according to gender), each concert attracts a small group of people who seem to exist to irritate everyone else. Interaction with these people can cause extreme annoyance at best. So, without further ado, and for both your safety and that of the groups mentioned, a rundown of 5 characters that should be avoided at all costs...

1. The amateur film crew

I pay to see bands live. I do not pay to see bands live through the low quality, in-phone video cameras some people seem intent on waving in front of my face for the entirety of the concert. A video or the occasional photo is fine.

Trying

to see round some idiot filming the whole show so that he can upload a fresh batch of pixelated, tinny videos to his YouTube account, on the other hand, gets very tiresome.

2. Obsessive and intolerant super-fans

So you’ve been looking forward to seeing your favourite band for months. You’ve completely bought out the merchandise stand and have made a journey worthy of its own epic poem to get to the venue. This does not give you license to throw things at the opening act you impatient fool. If you don’t like the support act, arrive later or go and buy some overpriced lager and leave the rest of us to discover new music in peace.

3. The ‘you’re-not-a-properfan-unless-you-saw-them-whenthey-were-playing-in-friends’garages’ types...

After rooting around the dingiest corners of Myspace trying to find the occasional hidden gem amongst the rubble of bad emo bands and middle class teenagers blogging about how tortured their existence is, the indier-than-thou crowd ditch the bands they have found and declare them ‘sellouts’ the minute they dare play to an audience of more than a hundred. For reasons still unknown to anyone but themselves, people discovering good music is not a positive thing, and anyone who was not there at the band’s first ever concert is immediately considered to be ‘jumping on the bandwagon’.

4. ...and their mortal enemies, the mindless chart show zombies

“Yeah man, I LOVE Mumford and Sons!

They’re like so original, and I really like their album! Have they played their single yet? You know - the famous one that Chris Moyles always plays? ‘The Cavern’ its called, I think...oh no, that’s right, sorry ‘The Cave’. They haven’t? Oh, ok, I’m off

to get another drink then...” No further explanation is required - anyone who has had a similar conversation knows how infuriating these people are.

5. Ex-Groupies

As well as scoring high on general irritation value, finding yourself next to a middle-aged woman who will not shut up about wanting the lead singer’s babies is detrimental to one’s mental health. It is also a rather unfortunate fact that exgroupies seem, for reasons known only to themselves, to still find has-been rock stars extremely attractive. Imagine Axl Rose acquiescing to an unflatteringly dressed 49 year old ex-groupies’ sordid requests.

Imagine that the groupie in question has been standing next to you, shouting out these requests throughout the gig. Now look up the number for the Priory mental health rehabilitation clinic before those images take over your mind and you become a quivering wreck of your former self.

Quickly, or it might be too late.

Film & TV

Visual Arts

Music

Books Stage Arts

Stage

Breaking the bubble: the best of Durham

indigo explores what happens when Durham theatrical life breaks out into the wider world ««««« Matthew Richardson

P

erhaps it’s the time of year. Perhaps it’s the time of life. Now those smudgy autumnal skies becloud the heavens. Now the trenchant tones of Colonel Capitalism court-martials any attempt to flee his hoarse command. It’s a time for reflection. What has this huddle of years, this sparky splodge of terms amounted to? University was supposed to offer a guaranteed welcome pack of wife, best man and fits-like-adream vocation.

So where did it all go wrong?

Oh for those Blakean days of first-year innocence where everything and anything was possible.

For things like student comedy. Student comedy is everything one is meant to do at university. It’s an all-expenses-paid ticket to success. Exactly the sort of thing those beaky mandarins at the Foreign Office like to see on an ambassadorial CV: a chap able to roll up his sleeves for the serious work but lark, twitter and look all bushy-tailed for the Christmas party and office show.

Or precisely the type of endearment, that added naughty something, to hasten one’s way into the Commons, the showy streak that persuades the party you’ll excel at the dispatch box. It gives you an added twinkle behind the starchy formality that promises all – a winking smile behind the suit, a grin beneath the grey.

Because there will be time for work,

for industry and toil. Undergraduate life is the moment to curvet and goof, to pull silly faces and mercilessly mock any and all in authority. A time without a care in the world save putting on a hootingly good show, to chew on all the tipsy triumphs of carefree independence.

A time, more specifically, to gawp, gurgle and guffaw at the magniloquence of The Durham Revue. Because they are it. They are everything university was meant to be about. They’ve bottled up that sparkly Chariots-of-Fire stardust. Going to see the Revue is like kicking up some sand with Eric Liddell or being in H.M.S. Pinafore with Harold Abrahams. You feel you should be gowned and mortar-boarded just to buy a ticket. They have braces and white shirts.

They come pickled and garnished with praise from the Edinburgh Fringe. They even leave little rectangular flyers on the seats inviting you to audition, all but pencilling in the first line of the autobiography: ‘When I walked into that audition on a dark October night, I had little idea I would leave having met my comedy partner, agent, spouse and now fellow Oscar winner…’

Not unlikely. Because they were, and are and no doubt will continue to be, stunning. New adjectives will have to be minted, new linguistic tools needed to describe the sort of understated, aloofly good material that seems destined to grace a TV studio before the decade is out. There was no wide-eyed sixth-form jolliness. The show was cunningly planned, growing slowly into its own skin right from the understated opening sketch before fully showing off its comedic brawn in a mesmerising middle section.

CHRIS WILLETTS

The Durham Revue Durham Revue The Assembly Rooms

“They are everything university was meant to be about”

At its best the material could easily have come from any tenured gaggle of comic pros. The best sketches were the most confident, the most unwilling to flaunt their punch-lines. Tessa Coates in the ambulance sketch or Ned French in the jazz-driver sketch were both entrancingly assured, daring enough to endure some confused silence in order to amplify the final laugh. The Revue’s President, Harry Bresslaw, bestrode the stage with a Peter Cookish presence, richly complimented by the enviable talents of Andrew Chambers Barratt, French, Alina Gregory and Ben Whittle. On the Thursday performance, Tessa Coates was particularly phenomenal, infusing some of the material (the blood donation sketch, property sketch and astronauts sketch) with an acrobatic display of comic chops barely contained beneath a hazardously anarchic smile.

“They were, and no doubt will continue to be, stunning”

The Durham Revue kids shake up The Assembly Rooms, 2010 style - fame is inevitable

Sly performers that they are, even some of the weaker sketches (the anti-religious satire lacked some of the awesome subtlety and effortlessness of the other material) merely served to spotlight how matchlessly high the standard was throughout. Which it was. Once revved, the Revue were in fifth all the way.

If an agent hasn’t already signed up the cast, then it can only be a matter of time.

Their next show is in December. Don’t miss it. Though if you do, you’re more than likely to bump into it during a season of BBC new comedy soon.

A mid-summer night’s dream of London theatre Emma Richardson

Upon being given an internship in London for the summer, one of my first thoughts was not about the work that I would be doing, but immediate excitement that I could experience as much West End theatre as time and an intern budget would allow.

My summer theatre debut was Love Never Dies, the long-awaited sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. Having received mixed reviews and being the first big musical sequel to hit the West End, I was dubious as to whether LND could live up to its incredible predecessor, but I was not disappointed. Taking place ten years on from the original, LND is a spectacle of incredible musical poetry, dramatic storylines and a series of staggeringly extravagant sets. I was captivated throughout the entire performance and everything I saw after it had a lot to live up to.

In stark contrast to this was my trip down Avenue Q. Advertised as

“pant-wettingly funny” I had high hopes for a laugh-a-minute musical comedy whose loveable Muppets would cheer me up after a hard week at work. Unfortunately, the show was amusing at best, and with a confusing message I neither laughed as much as I would’ve liked, nor understood the point of the story. Needless to say, I am unsurprised that it will be finishing its run in London come October.

Then came Les Miserables, a show so iconic that I felt it would be hard pushed to live up to my expectations, but I was blown away by Cameron MacIntosh’s modern production. There is a reason that this is the longest running musical in the West End and I would encourage anyone to go and experience it.

Following this I spent a few hours in Oz courtesy of Wicked. Silly and fun, it is like Disney on stage and the costumes and magical story kept me smiling throughout.

Following the witches of Oz through their

school days prior to The Wizard of Oz, the show holds its own with clever links to the original tale and a catalogue of both hilarious and astoundingly powerful songs. If you want to come out of the theatre feeling fully entertained then this is the production for you.

For my final theatre experiences I moved on from the world of musical theatre and took in some plays. At the Apollo theatre I was delighted by the Arthur Miller classic All My Sons starring Poirot’s David Suchet and Zoe Wannamaker, whose outstanding portrayals of Joe and Kate Keller left me feeling the most moved of anything that I saw this summer.

And if there is a place to best see Shakespeare then it has to be the Globe, on the

FLICKRID: MR ANDY BIRD

An intern takes a break from work to sample the capital’s vibrant theatre world

South Bank of the Thames. It was here that I had the pleasure

“See everything and anything you can, as you might just discover something incredible”

of watching Henry IV Part I played, as Shakespeare intended, to an enthralled audience in the round. If you get the chance to enjoy the Globe’s summer season then take it, as this was, in terms of acting talent and intelligence, the best performance I saw all summer.

And so to the end. After ten weeks in the capital and a long list of fantastic

theatre experiences, I have fully satisfied my West End cravings... at least for the time being! If you find yourself with one night in London then I would highly recommend Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s epic Love Never Dies for the way it encapsulates everything that is exciting and brilliant about musical theatre, or if you’re more into plays then you will find no higher quality of performance than at the Globe.

Considering all these fanstastic experiences, my utmost recommendation would be to go and see anything and everything you can, as you never know, you might just discover something incredible.

Film & TV

Arts Books

Visual Arts

Stage

Music

Books Go to palatinate.org.uk

Books The Booker 2010

The Butterfly: A short tale

Charlotte Poynton’s story of sibling affection and solitude

H

me with a stern, almost too insistent, strain that nobody cared what kind of bird it was, that I was predictable and, if I didn’t start thinking for myself, I would eventually become a secretary in the town I’d grown up in, with a bald husband who ate peanuts out of a dish and paired up his socks meticulously. I always looked at my feet.

I secretly felt a distant affinity with such a life, and her vivid pictures conjured up a thrilling, tangible adult future, in tandem with a terrifying sense that I should turn on my heel and run from it, as far and as fast as I could. What I wanted, more than anything, was for my ambitions to match hers. No, rather to bask in the shadow of hers, the shivering dreams of a life which was masquerading as a garish pirate, inappropriately trussed up in our father’s red winter coat.

The police car had picked her up on a bridge just outside town, wearing her torn jacket and tattered trainers. God, I coveted those shoes! I remember the first time I crept into her room whilst she was watching old movies with her boyfriend downstairs, tweezed her trainers out from between the layers of creased clothes, slipped my own feet into them and, with a breathless accomplishment, imagined that I was as confident, as intelligent, and as strong as her. In those moments I, the young and inexperienced sister, had made her proud. It was such a stupid thing to do. I knew even then that I was being

Pat Massey

painted rice paper, landing almost imperceptibly on the blades of grass in front of me. I thought it must be the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She shifted her

thing in Eat, Pray, Love and got critically mauled, so how Galgut’s discourse ends up in the Booker shortlist is, shall we say, unexpected. A failed gap year of a narrative, however well-written, was never likely to capture the Booker.

Tom McCarthy’s C is the story of

Emma Donohue’s Room is based on the Elizabeth Fritzl affair, imagining a mother and child (narrating) escaping captivity and dealing with the press blitz. The recent memories of Fritzl, Bennett and Maddie McCann lumber Room with unfortunate intimations of hack journalism. This it isn’t: there is good writing here, obviously; there’s a nicely taut exchange on an extractor fan, for instance… but that acts against it at the same time.

There is no room-bound eight-year-old as precocious as Donohue’s Jack.

Andrea Levy’s The Long Song is a thematic sequel to the Orange-winning Small

Howard Jacobson’s ‘The Finkler Question’ scooped the 2010 Booker prize

FLICKR: SQUIRRELMONKEY

“I saw the butterfly flicker near my blindspot, and I glanced up lazily”

completely insane, but my relish was still quite untainted. I know it annoyed my mother that we two were so close.

FLICKR: H G M

er nose was just a little too short; a butterfly nestling on the skin below her muddy eyes. Dogs’ eyes, our mother said. Just before she ran away for the third time, about halfway through November, she had told me she was going to bore them out, and live like a blind oracle from Classical times. I loved the way she lived: a fluorescent smattering of pieces of the past, as much blind to the time in which we lived as was her fantasy persona.

At the time I never even doubted; not for a minute, that she meant every word. She would transcend the knotted rigging of reality as faithfully as she had launched herself down the climbing frame when we had ‘sailed the seven seas’, toy owl protesting limply as it swung from a rope around her arm. It was supposed to be a parrot. I had told her, but she wanted the owl. She had told

indigo sinks its teeth into the shortlist

Her nose was just a little too short; a butterfly nestling on the skin below her muddy eyes

The last time I sneaked into her room was in early March. I know because I remember looking out on the straggly garden, with its hints of green, and imagining with my customary romanticism that my independence was being born with the spring. Of course, I also remember because of the butterfly. We were sitting in

“It fell as a flutter of painted rice paper, landing almost imperceptibly on the blades of grass in front of me”

shoe, carelessly, a little to the left, covering it, and let her foot thud heavily down. The Overly devoted little pieces of tissue or submissive to one’s wife paper clung to her trainer, desecrated.

I met her eye, and I knew she had seen it because, this time, she looked away, and I carried on twisting the grass between my fingers. When she ran away for the fourth time, about two weeks later, her shoes remained at the bottom of her wardrobe, undisturbed by my roving hands.

the little painted veranda; she was leafing through a magazine and asserting her opinion whenever her reading bored her for long enough to catch snatches of her friends’ conversation; I was lying level with her feet, languidly braiding three strands of grass between my fingers. The sky was an agonising shade of blue. I saw the butterfly flicker near my blind spot, and I glanced up lazily. It fell as a flutter of

Word of the Week “uxorious”

Durham Book Festival Monday 18th October till Thursday the 28th October Highlights include: Sex, Love, Snow: Michele Roberts and Patricia Duncker (18th October) Beer and Empire: Pete Brown (20th October) The Women Who Ruled England: Helen Castor and Linda Porter (23rd October) World Stories: Elif Shafak and Priya Basil (24th October)

The 2008 Booker Winner, The White Tiger

Island, which alone disqualifies it from winning. There’s no series that merit-worthy. Furthermore, it’s populated by the de rigeur stoical slave women types prevalent in this genre.

“The majority of people handed typical Pynchon would drop it if it were not likely to break their foot” Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room involves a character also called Damon (blending fiction and autobiography… clever!) having philosophical and amorous encounters in Greece, India and Africa. Julia Roberts did a similar

wireless radio, Serge Carrafax and his trips over the world ending up in Egypt. Its innovation is undeniable: a quick perusal of Internet reviews turns up discussion of Pynchon, Futurism and Joyce. Yet the majority of people handed typical Pynchon would drop it if it weren’t likely to break their foot. A McCarthy win, however justifiable, would have alienated awards-driven readers in a time of decreasing readership.

Peter Carey’s Parrott and Olivier in America is a bread-and-butter pudding of literary entertainment, easy to like for its clash of British, American and French cultures and the promise of Wodehouse in pairing an aristocrat with a cynical servant. And yet it follows last year’s winner Wolf Hall, another historical heavyweight.

Moreover, it’s the most rambunctious work on the shortlist. The White Tiger (2008) is the only ‘entertaining’ novel this decade to have scooped the prize.

Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question is not entertaining so much as tragicomic.

Known previously as ‘the Jewish one’ (how easy to pigeonhole) it involves two Jewish men and another fascinated by Judaism kvetching about the world at large and their lost loves.

The Jewish milieu is an attractive one for non-Jews to inhabit, capable of Coen Brothers humour and Anne Frank pathos, yet is Jacobson too reminiscent of a sub-par Roth when observing it is ‘better, perhaps, to go through life without knowing happiness at all because that way you have less to mourn’? A sentiment, I feel, only excusable from the mouth of a newlydivorced alcoholic. I started this article on the basis that McCarthy would prove probability right. Jacobson’s upheaval of the apple cart is certainly a rather pleasant slap in the face, a work appealing to the literary inclinations of both the academic and casual reader alike.

Controversial exclusions from the 2010 Man Booker Prize longlist include works by esteemed authors; Martin Amis with The Pregnant Widow, Ian McEwan’s offering Solar, and Salman Rushdie (who won the Booker of Bookers for ‘Midnight’s Children.) This trio are generally viewed as having dominated the novel in the latter stages of the twentieth and first decade of the twenty-first centuries. However, the Booker Prize judges, led by chairman Sir Andrew Motion (last year’s Durham Book Festival Laureate), deemed their work unworthy of the £50,000 prize, voting 3:2 in favour of Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question.

Games

Photography

Stage Arts

Leisure Cryptic Crossword Challenge

Sudoku

Crossword Clues

ACROSS 1. Two rings in empty store, something fishy here? (7) 5. Madman on airline swallows lion leader.

Swell! (7) 9. Athletic actor muddled about degree with tricky centre (9) 10. End old game in confusion (5)

11. Found on a mountain or a cake? (6) 12. Round up scattered bale mess (8) 14 Often ferry is mistaken. What impudence! (10) 16. Primarily Ovid epitomises this (4) 18. Rage with artists and politician (4) 19. Hoist rocks in game(10)

Theme: Dark was the Night Jonathan Allen (below) Durham Night Skyline Canon EOS 350D 30 second exposure Focal Length 18mm Aperture - f/6.3

Ed Ball (right) Red Cathedral Nikon D40 1 second exposure Focal Length 20mm Aperture f/7.1

22. Fades back around front of light and end.

Super! (8) 23. Sebastian stands on his head, Edward is beaten (6) 26. Headdress in militia ranks (5) 27. Student organisation twisted by river plant (9) 28. Even from Monday, Ash sees unknown quest (7) 29. Baffled herald consumes drug of Ivy (7)

DOWN 1. eg. Red team place to build castle? (7) 2. Lofty nest sounds creepy (5) 3. Endless knowledge about a man & dog (8) 4. Pity has no map to give way (4) 5. Support seizure in return blow (10) 6. Robber flipped device about (6) 7. Egg and five edible raisins at first for mixing bowl. Not primarily too much. (9) 8. Oddly need a Greek set to be closest (7)

13. Saint ran around six heavens to get composer (10) 15. Domestic mail fairy is confused (9) 17. The French follow high deity initially, like church? (8) 18. Toppled knight turns to tabletop and old food (7) 20. Having lost point, realised in confusion this is starlike (7) 21. Girl & boy struggle at first for records (6) 24. Rise above building (5) 25. Steal top off distance (4)

Photography Competition Winner 1st - Jonathan Allen 2nd - Sam Gunter 3rd - Ed Ball

Sam Gunter (below) - Even with a four minute exposure a torch was needed to light up the ger (tent)! Taken in the Gobi, Mongolia - always clear nights with great views of the stars.

240 second exposure Focal length 18mm Aperture f/5 ISO 1600

Next Theme: Makes your heart race. Deadline: Saturday 30th October.

Send photos to photography@palatinate.org.uk