Palatinate Indigo 722

Durham freshers on the wall...

indigo

09.11.2010

...who’s the fairest of them all?

indigo

Indigo

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Do you remember learning to play your first instrument? For me, it was the recorder. Whilst any musical talent I once had has long since flown out of the window (ask any of the innocent editors of Palatinate or indigo about my singing abilties. Bring tissues for their inevitable tears), I do recall a time when playing the recorder was one of my favourite things to do. For some of you, it will no doubt be the violin, the guitar, the drums. A flute.

The piano (I could continue...) Yet, from the many buskers Durham has, be they the slightly eccentric old man with his wonderful contraption on Framwellgate Bridge to the local dude strumming away on his guitar, a bizarre majority of them seem to play the accordion. Pre-Durham I assumed it was mainly played by people who hung around either in Lederhosen

(German nationality optional) or slightly weird folk fairs. Evidently, I was mistaken.

Whilst that undisputable champion of knowledge, Wikipedia, informs me this most memorable of instruments is quite common in the thankless world of street busking, where do they all come from?

Seriously, where are all the accordions coming from? Is there some kind of specialist shop in the North East or something, as I honestly didn’t think it was that common an instrument to know how to play. Can *you* play the accordion, dear reader? If so, then I would imagine that when that degree never materialises, instead of weeping into that cardboard box that you’ve got discreetly stashed away for an emergency house, you can crack out that accordion. Durham will go wild.

Guaranteed. - D.D

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FLICKR ID: CHARMAINEZOE

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Hibernation

FLICKR ID: ERIK MALLINSON

Oh look. the latest Biblical downpour has started, just before that 9am lecture for that module you don’t care about. You had a heavy night last night. Urgh. Channel your inner squirrel and don’t get out of your duvet. Hey, if the woodland creatures can do it, you can. No judgement here...

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rova, My Way or the Highway • Stage: The Lover Review, Bluebird Review, Q&A with Alan Bennett, What’s On • Music: Grunge Heroes: Smells Like Middle-Aged Spirit, I’ll Get my Coat: 10 Bands who Outstayed their Welcome • Books: Winter in Afghanistan, Pain and Pleasure, The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite.

• And more fun with Games, with its new review section!

QUIN MURRAY

Yes, it’s that time of year again. With Doyles’ Sweet Emporium offering more mouth-waterting confections than you can shake a candy cane at, we at indigo have taken to the streets of Durham in search of a slightly different kind of sweet sensation...Having scoured every nook and cranny from Butler to the Bailey in search of the creme de caramel of Durham‘s finest freshers, we have handpicked an assortment for your delight Durham University’s Fittest Freshers: and delectation. If life is like a box of chocolates then Durham is its Thornton’s Making the cast of Friends look mediocre Continental... S.Z-O since 2010...

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fasts k a e r B Big

Contents

In this Issue...

Fashion

indigo looks into the night sky and ponders how to add a touch of sparkle to the Autumnal nights ahead

Accordion to whom?

• Features: Is Staying Sober Social Suicide?, How Not to Live Your Life, Going the Distance, The Thigh’s the Limit • Travel: What the Truck?, Take on the World • Food and Drink: Purple Soup, Luscious Leftovers, A New Chapter • Cover Story: Fittest Fresher 2010 • Film and TV: Review: The Social Network • Visual Arts: Natalia Goncha-

Travel

FLICKR ID: FOOD THINKERS

innermost, deepest darkest secrets too, people who you have laughed with until your sides split, cried with until your eyes resemble little button mushrooms. People who seem like you’ve known them your entire life, people who feel as close as some friendships you’ve taken years to build up back home. And if not, just give it a bit more time. You’ll be surprised.

Deep, life-long friendship can slap you round the face suddenly like a wet kipper, only infinitely more pleasant.

So embrace that new BFF and paint the town whatever colour should you wish whilst you can. You wouldn’t wanna waste time ‘working’ now would you.

Food

Any bright ideas?

Down the rabbit hole

alloween has been and gone.

Bonfire Night is a distant memory. You’ve been (back) in Durham for a good five weeks now - term is halfway over. Soon it will be Christmas break and you haven’t even cracked open that massive textbook that cost you a small fortune yet. Scary huh? It’s a phenomena we at indigo like to call ‘Durham time’ (which sounds like it would make a great TV show - Palatinate TV’s answer to Lost maybe? Watch this space). For every day of Durham time, a week goes by in the ‘real world’. Take friendships for instance. By now, there are people you have probably told some of your

Features

Doing it 1920s Style When you’re hungover, overworked and the prospect of Loveshack is too much to bear, a night in with the company of your housemates, Monopoly and a mug of marshmallowy goodness is the ultimate soulfood. It’s piggy bank-friendly, a great way to catch up on all the latest gossip, and, contrary to popular belief, highly unisex.

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Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Lifestyle Features

Is staying sober social suicide?

As Alcohol Awareness Week approaches, we take a fresh look at being teetotal

Sarah Parkin

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overly emotional, ill or incapable of supporting their own weight. After a while, putting people to bed, holding back their hair or holding them up on the walk homebeing de facto

nanny- can be somewhat irksome. That might be a position that can be resigned if it isn’t wanted, but sometimes it can be unfairly expected.

On the whole, a teetotaller’s social life doesn’t have to be any different to those of their alcohol-drinking counterparts.

In fact, it can have its advantages; they can go out and have a great night like anybody else. The next morning there will be fatigue but no hangover.

They will remember everything that happened, potentially relishing the opportunity to remind everybody else.

Significantly, usually they will have spent less money (I have had great nights out costing less than £5) which they may even spend on going out more often.

Should they encounter problems, it’s usually more to do with attitudes towards alcohol itself.

Probably the biggest problem for some, especially those who have never been drinkers, is the difficulty of FLICKR

HIMA ID: YAS

henever I’m on a night out in Durham, one event occurs with clockwork regularity. It’s somewhere between 1.30 and 1.45 am that one of my friends, normally in a rather slurred and slightly incomprehensible manner, is guaranteed to declare, “I’m so impressed that you’re sober!”

According to one survey, on average one third of Europeans and four out of ten Americans are teetotal, including numerous celebrities such as Ewan McGregor and Leona Lewis. These statistics may seem surprisingly high but maybe that’s because drinking has become so much a part of our culture that we assume everybody partakes, at least occasionally. Indeed, many of the most well-known abstainers from alcohol are recovering addicts, like Samuel L. Jackson. As a result it can be surprisingly difficult to convince people that you’re one of the few who deliberately choose a life of sobriety.

The situation is all too common, upon telling friends that you are teetotal, to be met with either scepticism or shock. The expectations about the drinking habits of students never go away and chances are at least one person will accuse you of lying, while others will ask you how you could possibly have enjoyed a Monday night in Studio without any “liquid courage”.

Some people’s attitudes might be harder to swallow; at least one of my friends has announced that his only goal before

graduation is to get me drunk, while on one occasion when I bought a cranberry juice it arrived containing vodka because the bar staff assumed I’d forgotten to ask for it. Still, the vast majority are perfectly accepting after their initial surprise.

So how does a teetotaller perceive drinkers? To an extent that depends on their reasons to choose to do the opposite. Personally, I have no problem with other people choosing to drink; I frequently have nights out with friends in varying stages of inebriation, and have rarely had what could be considered a ‘bad’ night.

Though people frequently ask whether drunk people annoy me, most of the time the answer is ‘no’- but that tends to be when they are the enjoyable type of drunk who doesn’t hinder a fun night.

More difficult to deal with are those who for one reason or another make life harder. The teetotaller in a group often ends up responsible for taking care of all of those who become

How Not to Live Your Life Alison Moulds and Daniel Dyson

ASK ALISON...

Dear Alison, My best friend has started spreading crude rumours about all the girls we know and is stupidly earning the pair of us a really bad rep. How can I make sure the lovely ladies of college know I’m not about to slate them?

-Lad Loather Your friend has just discovered the heady concept of the word ‘lad’ and is clearly under the impression that slurring the good name of your gal pals is going to win him some serious social recognition. But slating a stranger in Klute is bad enough without him directing his disses towards your own social group.

Next time he pulls out a putdown, bring out the death-stare. If you rush to the defensive, he’ll only try to denounce your lad credentials (yawn) or throw a similarly juvenile insult your way. But nothing quite compares to the absolute shame of having a joke fall flat, particularly if you’re in public. Watch as he crashes and burns but, if you think he’s worth the effort, then stay around to pick up the pieces. He’s either a little out of his depth when it comes to

women or had some pretty bad experience in the past.

As for the ladies, if there’s a particular one who has caught your eye then a suave apology for your friend, particularly stood at the bar, wouldn’t go amiss. Nothing tastes quite as good as hearing someone retract a rumour, particularly if there’s a little double vodka and coke to go with it.

DEAR DANNY...

Dear Danny Some little swine keeps nicking my milk. I’ve no idea who it is but I know it’s somebody in my flat. How do I stop it happening?

-Hannah I strongly suggest some kind of booby trap. Whilst I’m not sure about the legalities of casual poisoning, try lacing your milk with laxative. They’ll certainly never do it again. If the food theft is substantial over time, then sad as it sounds, consider keeping it in your room. Alternatively, rig some kind of video recording device opposite your fridge. Catching a thief and a possibility for some very interesting gossip…of course, you could always leave

a note but there’s only so many threatening things you can come up with….

Dear Danny, I have a bit of an awkward situation. My cleaner keeps walking in on me and my girlfriend doing the horizontal tango.

It was massively embarrassing the first time but by the third, mortifying isn’t even the word anymore. What do I do??

-Caught in the Act Well, reporting the cleaner in question might be an idea although you should always beware the wrath of a cleaner.

Seriously. One year, the cleaners refused to give the flat opposite me a Christmas tree because of some small slight. And that was just the start…

I’m guessing you’ve put a bright, multicoloured, loud note on your door. If not, try that. If that doesn’t work then, dude, you’re gonna have to change either the place where you do it or time your rendezvouses around her evidently vital cleaning schedule. Or invite her to join in. But again, if you get a reputation, don’t come crying to me…

Feeling inspired to overshare?

Send in your problems to Alison or Danny: feature@palatinate.org

Durham’s Alcohol Awareness Week is 15th-21st November. For more information check out the Durham Student Union website: www.dsu.org.uk

FLICKR ID: ARMIGERESS

We’ve made the mistakes so you don’t have to!

understanding the culture that has sprung up around alcohol. It can be baffling when people say that they need to be wasted to have a good time in a club, or talk about things they’ve done under the influence as though they were badges of honour.

Equally perplexing are the suggestions that stumbling around in the street is somehow fun, or that hangovers are worth it.

This is a question which can never really be resolved without that experience of drinking alcohol; even most of the drinkers I’ve asked have not quite been able to answer it themselves. But I think it’s enough, whether you understand or agree or not, to accept drinking as another lifestyle choice, just like teetotalism or anything else, to be respected unless it begins to impinge on the rights of others.

Every non-drinker has their own reasons for this choice; from religion to health to the fact that it tastes bad. Whatever they may be, the resulting sobriety is not something that separates them from people who enjoy alcohol. Studio, Loveshack, and the rest are all perfectly enjoyable sober, so long as you’re in good company and inclined to appreciate the cheesy joys they usually offer.

An alcohol-free existence, based on my experience, certainly doesn’t mean a boring one.

How can you stop a spot of casual fridge theft?

Indigo

Features

Food

Travel

Fashion

Features

Going the Distance The thigh’s the limit

Erin indulges in a spot of Facebook stalking... Do we flash too much flesh?

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where I mind who his arms are drunkenly oing the Distance is a series slung around, he’s not bothered about of articles about the trials and mine. tribulations, temptations and Do I really not trust my boyfriend? No. triumphs, of university long-distance Do I really think he will cheat on me as relationships in general, and mine in soon as my back’s turned and he’s exposed particular. I am entering my second to Jagerbombs for £1? No. Even if I did year of study at Durham; my boyfriend think he was likely to, and even if he did, (‘the Boy’) is in his third year at the I’m sure none of his friends would publish other end of the country. We’ve been the photos to prove it and I know that this together for five years and doing the guarantees that my stalking will always be ‘long-distance thing’ for two of them. fruitless, if it is evidence of some great and This has given rise to an interesting, secret affair that I am seeking. challenging, miserable and funny Trust is key to the success of any LDR, period of our relationship and lives, particularly those stretching between which I have taken to chronicling for universities. Living away from home, and posterity. active encourageI will admit that ment to have a I am one of a growwild time, leads ing breed: I am a to firmer friendFacebook stalker. I ships faster than tell myself, and my in ‘real life’. The friends, that it is just extent of shared a convenient way of experiences fosseeing what people ters a greater sense are up to without of intimacy among having to make small university friends talk. However, there than friends you’ve are people that I known for an equal speak to all the time, amount of time who are nevertheoutside of that setless subject to my ting (or muggles). online scrutiny.

For LDRs, there They fall, generally, is a tricky balance into two camps: to be struck in acthere is my best commodating and friend, A, who participating in this, talks about what and staying loyal, she wore on a without alienating recent night out your new (or enduras if I was there, ing) inner circle. even though we Knowing what live 150 miles needs to be done Should you peruse his pics? apart, because though, is quite differshe knows I will ent from doing it, and have perused the photos on my News I will admit that I’m still working on it; I Feed immediately; and the second group, veer between Miss Easy-Going Girlfriend who are not aware of the fact my procras2010 and Madame Crazy of the House tination tool is based on their social lives. of Bunny Boiler. On days of the latter, I’m The Boy is a regrettable member of this more likely to scout round his photos, somewhat naive club. To retain my rapidly glaring at those pretty girls who, in my diminishing veneer of sanity in front of head, are all boyfriend stealing witches, him, I have to be careful not to respond like some sort of demented, but technoimpatiently to “I’m going out on Saturday”, logically aware, Miss Havisham. with “Yes, I know!” because I’ve already I feel bad about my attitude to these poked around his upcoming events. girls who are merely the Boy’s friends. Yes, My first port of call is always photos, they are gorgeous, but he must like them though, to be honest, I get no pleasure for reasons beyond that; his keenness for from these forays into photographic me to meet and like them shows this to evidence of his nights out. The only ones be true. I didn’t hold out much hope for I pay much attention to, if I am properly this, until a recent visit to the Boy’s. We honest, are the ones of the Boy and his were clubbing with a group of friends girlfriends, that is, friends-who-are-girls. and expecting to meet the girls later. In Perhaps it is just a burgeoning case of the club, the Boy and I were, as my mum the green-eyed monster, or maybe there would say, snogging. Tacky behaviour, is something in the water of the south, but yes, but we never get chance to be one he has managed to befriend a gaggle of the of those couples. As we were kissing, a most beautiful looking girls I’ve ever seen. girl (from Facebook) tapped the Boy on There is a group of seven of them, pictured the shoulder and had a short but earnest most frequently, who are stunning. What conversation with him, as if she couldn’t are the odds?! Out of seven?! Not a single see me. My resolution not to jealously lazy eye, patch of cellulite or hairy lip. dislike all the girls out of principle, was I know that a fingertip search through swiftly being forgotten, when she leant my own photos would turn up some round the Boy, and demanded of me, with where I look cosier with my male friends the dirtiest of looks, “Do you know he’s than the Boy with his female equivalents. got a girlfriend?!”

But, as I often tearfully whine, “That’s “Yes”, I admitted, “But, er, she’s me...and different!” And it is different, in that, I think we’re going to be friends”.

FLICKR ID: VALERIE REN EÉ

“I am one of a growing breed: I am a Facebook stalker”

Rachael Revesz

Cultural differences in France are hard not to notice. Especially on the day I wore flesh-coloured tights. Girls actually looked me up and down on the underground; my flesh-coloured legs stared back at me from shop windows and glimmered on male eyes. By the end of the morning I went home and changed clothes, feeling as low as a prostitute who had stumbled across daylight hours.

The following week I came across an article in the French version of “Elle” about girls from Liverpool. Apparently they get hammered and aggressive, tottering about with belts instead of skirts and cigs stuffed into their clutches. Apart from being rather unnecessarily unfair towards Liverpudlians, is this really what the French think of us? In the words of Carrie Bradshaw “I couldn’t help but wonder: are we sluts?”

Think about it: boys never show bare skin, unless they feel a sudden, acute desire to whip their tops off in night clubs, which Durham males often do, for some reason.

Are girls actually happy parading around half-naked, or is the naked truth simply that we feel harassed by male attention and selfconscious about our top slipping down/ our skirt riding up, all the while trying to maintain a flawless image of graceful femininity? The minute we

Muslim countries and other places further afield. That was until I went to a European theme park and saw the log flume ride swamped with women wearing the burka. With rapidly changing ethnic proportions, it is no longer appropriate to look half-dressed.

And if we girls do ‘forget’ to cover up, what signals are we sending out? That we’re man eaters? That we deserve unsolicited male attention?

When a group of French men hear a girl speaking English, she is often pelted with sleazy looks and degrading comments.

We have our menus and street signs translated, our tourism services polished, but underneath it all lie the pre-conceived assumptions and, with that, a lack of respect.

Sometimes I think back to an outfit I bought in New Look and had worn out several times in Durham. The heels were very high and the dress was very short: I would rather die than wear that here in France. I would no sooner put on one shoe than hear a barrage of insults – “Pute! Salope!

“The Durham etiquette is usually to forget to wear at least one item of clothing ”

“In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, ‘I couldn’t help but wonder: are we sluts?’”

Working in two high schools in France, I have done much work on stereotypes or, as teachers like to call it, “cultural perceptions”.

Britain is known for three things; fish and chips (ie fat people), London (Big Ben) and easy girls. I’m Does society pressurise young women into exposing more than they’re starting to see their comfortable with? point; on all three points. Granted, I was put on a hoodie and trainers we might and am annoyed that I could not leave as well be asexual. Where is the happy my flat showing an inch of flesh without medium? feeling like a prostitute but is it better to But this is not just about fashion and be comfortable showing too much? Are related cultural norms. What ‘Elle’ failed British girls stuck in some sort of hideous to mention was the fundamental issue societal oxymoron? of immigration in France, where there is Let me start with a very basic comparia large percentage of resident immigrants son: whereas French chic is overdressed from Turkey, Algeria and other parts of – in such as skinny jeans and blazers - the North Africa. Before going on my year Durham etiquette is usually to forget to abroad, I thought the diminished female wear at least one item of clothing. stance only existed in predominantly

FLICKR ID: MARKUSRAM

Erin Garrett

“The minute we put on a hoodie and trainers we might as well be asexual ” Connasse!” – in my mind’s ear before hurling it against the wall. My mother would be pleased: I literally could not step out of the house looking like that. But whether that’s right or wrong, I’ve got absolutely no clue.

Indigo

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Travel

Fashion

What the truck?! Hitching is back every year, in order to fund such projects.

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itchhiking, both at home and abroad, has become a dying pasttime. Thirty years ago it was the assumed means of transport for students either lacking money or wanting to enjoy a more ‘grass-roots’ experience of travelling around a country. However, in recent times, the culture of paranoia, fear and mistrust that has come to inhibit Western society has left this once noble pursuit a pale shadow of its former popularity.

It is with this in mind that many greet the idea of hitchhiking the 1200 miles from England to Morocco in aid of charity with scepticism, even disbelief. However, these views are unfounded. Every Easter thousands of students, in groups of two or three, take part in a mass migration of sponsored hitchers, raising money through sponsorship for the charity Link Community Development (LCD).

LCD delivers school improvement programmes to sub-Saharan African communities, training tens of thousands of teachers and combating illnesses, such as AIDS, that would otherwise prevent a child from receiving a quality education.

They organise two hitch-hikes: one to Morocco and one to Prague, that take place

Being able to speak only from experience about the Morocco Hitch, I can tell you that anybody brave enough to undertake this gruelling challenge will find it rewarding beyond measure. The route of the Hitch takes you into rural France and then south through Spain to the Straits of Gibraltar, where a ferry takes you to your destination. Beauteous experiences beyond comparison will greet you along the way; be it camping on the banks of the Loire River overlooking the picturesque city of Blois, or feeling the wind in your hair as you glide through the steep valleys south of Granada, or sleeping in the tranquillity of secret beaches on the southern Spanish coast. Breathe the heady wind rolling off the barren mountains in Murcia and sense the thrill of your next ride; the freedom of the open road.

It is, essentially, the freedom that is the golden nugget of this experience. Planning of any kind is impossible; on this sort of trip all you can do is go with the flow.

One night you could be inadvertently stumbling upon illicit Mafia exchanges in Barcelona, the next you could be powering along at four am in the back of a trucker’s

GOBIERNO DE CHILE

Henry John

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indigo gives the thumbs up to a retro mode of transport that is making a comeback, all in the name of charity.

“Make a friend for life in the space of a couple of hours...”

Do you have the stamina to hitch hike down through Europe to make it to the stunning Atlas Mountains in Morocco?

cab, whilst the driver blasts out ear ringing Euro-Trance from the triple sub-woofers implanted into his lorry’s sound system.

Pure magic lingers around every turn, and all this even before you reach Morrocco; one of the most mystical and richly cultural countries of the world.

Furthermore, the Hitch is incredibly safe. There hasn’t been a single serious incident since the Hitch began running in 1994. LCD operate a tracking system whereby Hitch groups must text in their location by four pm everyday for safety and

so your family and friends can watch your progress online.

Finally, this journey becomes empowered by the amazing people you meet along the way and the kindness they show you. Many are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to help you on your journey. Complete strangers will buy you food unrequested or will drive you great distances out of their way to make sure you reach your destination.

You could make a friend for life in the space of a couple of hours, to the extent

that before you know it you end up meeting their family and sleeping in their home.

The fact of the matter is, if you are feeling as if all benevolence in the modern era has vanished and wish to have your faith in humanity restored, this is the trip for you.

In previous years hitchers from Durham had to work through Newcastle University’s Hitch Society, but this year, for the first time, Durham University has been granted permission to form its own Society.

For more information, please email: durhamhitch2011@gmail.com

Take on the world! Durham’s travel options...

indigo looks at Durham’s travel opportunities and why heading abroad could be the best thing you ever do! spend a year overseas has dramatically increased over the course of the decade, with multiple departments in Durham alone now boasting strong links with highly reputable foreign institutions. Still, you may ask, what more can a year abroad offer for the high flying law student, the aspiring politician, the driven chemist? The answer is simple; an opportunity to make crucial connections, boost your self-confidence, perfect a foreign language and ultimately change your life!

As unemployment grips the nation, competition for those all-important summer internships intensifies, forcing many students to the bottom of the employment ladder even before they approach graduation day. However, with many international corporations and law firms now offering similar opportunities overseas, it would seem that a solution has finally been found. Yet for many, the chance to intern at one of Paris’ many eminent fashion houses, to study law in Rouen, or politics in Rome, and all as

“A privilege no longer reserved for the language student alone...”

part of your undergraduate degree, seems just too good to be true. The reality is that employment overseas could offer so much more than an average work placement

since even minimal knowledge of a foreign language immediately boosts employability in today’s competitive global job market.

FLICKR ID:IVAN CONSTENTIN

Compiling that illustrious CV proving a struggle? Disillusioned with the monotony of traditional lectures and seminars? With graduate career prospects at an all time low, could a year abroad provide you with a competitive edge, without the postgraduate price tag?

Whilst many students seize the chance to escape the stresses and strains of dissertations and deadlines, for others, the idea of a year fully immersed in a foreign culture seems a daunting and intimidating prospect. Yet, with an increasing number of graduates turning to postgraduate study in an attempt to boost their employability, are today’s students failing to realise the true value of such a unique opportunity?

A privilege no longer reserved for the language student alone, the number of degree programmes offering the chance to

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Helen Hadley

Sydney or the Sahara? Paris or Prague? Travel opportunities are boundless at Durham.

But if the idea of yet another year spent locked in a lecture theatre brings tears to the eyes or the very mention of an office job makes you want to run for cover, do not fear! With overseas placements no longer restricted to the confines of the boardroom and flexible timetables created for foreign students, it seems that there is always time for that short break in Barcelona or that long weekend in Venice.

Ever fancied making good use of all those family trips to Val d’Isere?

Or expanding your knowledge of the Italian Renaissance? Whether you decide to take to the ski slopes of the Alps, the exhibition rooms of the Vatican or the offices of the European Parliament, you will be guaranteed one of the most unforgettable experiences of your life and all whilst accumulating those vital credentials.

So why not take the leap? Throw caution to the wind, conquer your fears and take advantage of this incredible opportunity while you have the chance. After all, who knows where it may lead!

Indigo

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Food

Travel

Fashion

Purple Soup Annie Lund

FLICKR ID:NATALIE MAYNOR

Food & Drink FLICKR ID: FRED_FRED

Beetroot Soup Beetroot is an often-overlooked vegetable but this is the recipe to make you reconsider. It’s simple, the colour is fantastic and it’s extremely filling due to the high proportions of potato. Make sure you don’t buy beetroot preserved in vinegar or anything like that; this is how it’s sold in Tesco and it ruins the taste.

Find the raw, muddy root. Cook it wrapped in foil, until tender all the way through. Also, this recipe should come with a warning: beetroot stains things, especially the cooking juices, so handle it on an old chopping board and be prepared for a slight purple tinge to the hands afterwards.

I used to take this soup to school every day in winter, and dip goats’ cheese sandwiches in it. Not very elegant but certainly tasty and if you crumble some cheese into the top before sealing the flask it should be nice and melted by lunchtime. For the full eastern European experience, get some rye bread from Tesco (near the cereals), toast it and tuck it under the bowl with melting butter or goat’s cheese again.

Ingredients: 50g butter 1 onion, chopped 450g potatoes ½ tsp ground cumin 225g cooked beetroot, peeled and chopped 825ml milk Salt and pepper Optional parsley or coriander leaves 1) Melt the butter in a large saucepan.

Think ahead here; is your saucepan big enough for 675g of root and almost a litre of milk? Add the onion and fry it until it’s soft.

2) Add the chopped potatoes, (make sure the potatoes are roughly the same size for consistent cooking), cumin and beetroot.

3) Pour over the milk and simmer for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

4) Now you need to make it smooth: either using a food processor or with a potato masher (much more fun).

Season.

Luscious leftovers A New Chapter?

indigo takes a look at what’s in your fridge

about anything in, but if you’re looking for something a bit different there is this recipe which I came across which is aptly e’ve all been there. You come the ‘End-of-Term Pasta and Bean home starving hungry, open up named Soup’ .

For this you need a skinned and the fridge (more likely than not chopped tomato, vegetables such as celery, to a repugnant smell of something in there carrots and potatoes, garlic, stock, bits of that everyone is too scared to touch now) pasta and cannellini/haricot/butter beans. and find nothing but a limp onion, a jar of Fry the garlic and onion until soft, add the something unrecognisable and a lump of vegetables and chopped tomato and simmouldy cheese staring at you. You curse for ten minutes. Then add the beans the fact you chose to live out instead of go- mer and pasta and simmer until soft. If you ing back to college (even a mass produced have them, some chilli flakes, lemon juice, dinner of which the principal ingredient seasoning and grated cheese add to the is gravy would probably suffice now) and flavour.

And there you have it; a delicious, make a mental note to congratulate your healthy, quick and easy meal that has got mum on returning home at having run a rid of all those nasty leftovers! house so successfully over the past twenty Of course, the other is knowing plus years (which of course, you never do). how not to get yourself trick into this position But don’t go running to your phone to in the first place. When you go shopping, call Dominos just yet because there are a what meals you are going to have that number of great meals that can be whipped plan week and think through what you really up from what seems to be a mish-mash need so you don’t end up throwing things of horrid old food. And on the subject of away.

Keep emergency supplies in the mash, we come to the secret of leftovers: cupboard such as stock, tins of chopped mash everything! Mash up half old tomatoes, beans and tuna. Similarly, make potatoes and use them to make fishcakes use of your freezer. by adding a tin of Cook up big meals tuna or salmon, “There’s a number of when you have time and eggs and breadmoney and freeze them crumbs to hold great meals that can be for more desperate them together, times. Finally, don’t be and a bit of onion whipped up from horrid fooled by sell-by dates! and parsley for Manufacturers err on flavouring if you old food” the side of caution when have it available. it comes to these so Blitz old vegetawill usually be safe bles with a blender to make delicious soups for up to a few daysyou after the official sell and sauces, or fruits to make smoothies. by date.

Most of the time you can use the And mashing up stale bread into bread‘sniff test’ and your common sense to work crumbs is a great trick to create a thickenout if something is edible or not on your ing base for soups or meat sauces if you’re own before just chucking it in the bin. running low on meat.

And if all else fails? There’s always popThe trick is trying to be creative and to round to a friend’s for a sly ‘catch up’ make the most of what you have left in the ping at dinner time....I mean, it would be rude fridge. The classic leftover dish is of course not to offer you something to eat, right? the omelette, which you can shove just Charlotte Henley

W

Has Chapter’s turned over a new leaf?

The menu did not take much time to read. Admittedly, at lunch most restaurants seem to think people aren’t hungry and At first I thought I must’ve stepped into Chapters proved no exception. Salads, some nightmarish parallel vortex. The sandwiches and tortillas made up the bulk dark, faux mahogany panelling, plasticof the menu. Still, in their defence, on the bejewelled chandeliers and shady corners back of the menu, there was a selection of were seemingly plucked out of the stage burgers, and I have it on reliable authority set for a budget gothic drama. Certainly that they are definitely worth a try. not the surroundings I would expect to I went to place our order find myself when at the bar downstairs. I opted in a café on Elvet “I practically inhaled for a trio of cheesy bruschetta Bridge. But after I’d and my friend chose a hoisin recovered from the the majority of the duck wrap.

As students, I’m initial shock and ashamed to say we did the told myself not to meal” typical thing of sticking to tap judge a book by its water rather than ordering cover, I delayed all subsequent impressions until after the food any of the more elaborate drinks on offer.

Yet the offending beverage was provided had arrived.

One thing Durham does not need is an- with good grace, despite being served in a other sandwich shop and Chapters seemed rather small, tepid tumbler. Never mind, to fit the bill with its more extended menu. back upstairs we waited around for a decent chunk of time before the moment It sits in an ideal location, nestled between our grumbling stomachs had been waiting Oxfam boutique and a sweet shop on the for. My initial reaction was to think they’d main thoroughfare in town. Less pub-like than Varsity, and with fewer geriatrics than given us starter sized portions by accident.

But this little ray of hope was blotted out many of the tea shops, it has the potential by the flimsy curls of lettuce and ministo become a popular eatery. Ongoing cule offering of vegetable crisps arranged work means that the restaurant is limited on the side of the plate. Let me stress, I to lunchtime service, but hopefully after have nothing against lettuce or vegetable Christmas the revamped kitchens will be whipping up culinary delights well into the crisps. In fact, the problem was that more was needed than the laughable morsels chilly evenings. provided. I practically inhaled the majority My friend and I perused a menu from one of the tables slotted in by the window, of the meal. The bruschetta were nice; perhaps the chef had been a little over zealous which offered a brilliant view of the hustle with the cheese but I wasn’t complaining and bustle of Saddler Street. Peoplebecause it added much needed bulk to the watching was evidently a pastime enjoyed three slivers of French bread that formed by many other customers, leaving us with the base. Similarly, my friend’s duck wrap little choice but to escape the cramped was tasty but woefully inadequate. conditions for the relative comfort of the I suppose I could expect little else, upstairs seating facilities. For Saturday having only paid £2.75 for my lunch. But lunchtime, Chapters was reassuringly busy with customers sunning themselves at out- still, in my opinion, lunch has not been satisfying enough if as soon as you cross the side tables overlooking the river, as well as those of us seeking more cosy solace inside. threshold of the café, you nip into Tesco to buy something else.

Lydia Ashby

Fittest Fresher 2010

Sitting On Top Of The World

From left: Tom wears: red jumper with built-in shirt, £29.99, River Island, navy bow tie, £12, MQT Jeans, £89, both at Woven.

Alicia wears: beige tiered silk/chiffon dress, £75, brown shearling jacket, £75, both at Lipsy, gold doll necklaces, £6.99, feather hairband, £12.99, both at River Island.

Nick wears: white ribbed top, £12.99, varsity jacket, £49.99, US scarf, £19.99, all at River Island, MQT jeans, £89, Woven.

Lucy wears: black lace-back top, £16.99, white lace hooded cardigan, £34.99, varsity jacket, £49.99, black denim shorts, £29.99, all at River Island.

Nate wears: white graphic tee, £14.99, River Island, Remus charcoal cardigan, £89, MQT jeans, £89, both at Woven.

Claudia wears: striped top, £19.99, denim shorts, £24.99, cross and feather necklaces, £14.99, all at River Island, trench coat, £70, Lipsy.

From left: Claudia wears: one-shoulder rouched metallic dress, £55, Lipsy.

Lucy wears: black studded dress, £50, Lipsy.

Alicia wears: peacock feather asymmetric dress, £59.99, white lace hairband, £12.99, both River Island.

To the right: Nate wears: Dr Denim hooped black and grey shirt, £39, Remus grey jacket, £170, MQT jeans, £89, all at Woven.

Tom wears: Armani black tee, £59, Selected:Homme charcoal waistcoast, £25, Selected:Homme scarf, £26, MQT jeans, £89, all at Woven.

NickNick wears: Dr Denim white and blue shirt, £39, Selected:Homme jacket, £60, Dr Denim jeans, £99, all at Woven.

Tom Weller Josephine Butler College

Claudia Sarno Van Mildert College

Nick Goldberg Trevelyan College

Alicia Manley Hatfield College

With thanks to...

Stylists: Antonia Thier Emma Spedding Photography: Quin Murray

Laura Gregory

Nathaniel Janks Collingwood College

Location: Rooftop of the Gates shopping centre Hair & Make-up: Saks

0191 384 3295

Clothing: Lipsy, Metro Centre Newcastle 0191 461 9940 Woven, The Gates, Durham 0191 374 100 River Island, Metro Centre Newcastle

0191 439 3212

Lucy Swinton Collingwood College

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The Social Network...Should we ‘like’ it?

Madeleine Cuff & Nicki Slater

G

ally acceptable to warp someone’s life in such a way, for the purposes of Hollywood? And this is not just any narrative, but one that will be widely accepted and believed. The line between fiction and reality is not made clear, and for the great majority

Mark Zuckerberg: creator of Facebook and the focus of The Social Network

“Someone might build something because they like building things”

who will go and see this film knowing no more about the founders of Facebook than perhaps their names, this is the version of events that will be remembered. To frame society’s perceptions of the roots of the company in this way could be considered to be both damaging and morally questionable.

On a more positive note, it is refreshing to see Justin Timberlake in such a central role; he makes a good job of what is a hard task. In fact, this may be due to our ineptness at recognition, but more likely a testament to his unsung skills as an actor, that we didn’t put a name to face until the last fifteen minutes of the film. His character, Sean Parker’s cool exterior is skillfully underpinned by a pervasive sense of neurosis and paranoia. Timberlake underplays his hand, to his advantage.

Excitement is pocketed throughout the duration of the The Social Network.

Durham athletes will particularly enjoy the scene at Henley regatta; this is rowing porn at its best. Of course, this scene serves to demonstrate the overriding predilection for competition and winning that

Adam Seddon

Lost hangs over this show like a phantom parent. The Event generates intrigue quickly and defers explanation indefinitely. It tells its story with parallel narratives, providing a dramatic scene, then flashbacks to help explain it and lend it greater emotional depth, before returning to the action. The climax is diverted by an unforeseeable twist that defers any explanation.

The eponymous ‘event’ is barely mentioned. One inexplicable scene is quickly overtaken by another until the viewer becomes accustomed to stimulated interest being denied gratification; explanation as the antithesis of story-telling .

Wagner was doing this with music over a hundred years ago, refusing to resolve chords to keep the audience in perpetual tension. It has been a truism that television series work by sustaining attention with cliff-hangers and unexplained actions. Those conventions have become explicit, first in Lost and now here. Lost is the superior show, but this is interesting as an indicator of how television is becoming more adept at exploiting its core narratorial device.

Danielle Triggs

FLICKR ID: BENSTEINFLICKR

But is this depiction accurate? Zuckerberg’s interpretation of the events leading up to the genesis of Facebook however, is very different: “The whole framing of the movie is that I’m with this girl (who doesn’t exist in real life) who dumps me. And basically, they frame it as if the whole reason I invented Facebook was that I wanted to get girls. The reality for people who know me is that I’ve been dating the same girl since before I started Facebook. But I think it’s just such a big disconnect from the way people who make movies think about what we do, in Silicon Valley building stuff. They just can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.”

This is, in effect, the essence of the dilemma we had with this film. Is it mor-

many of the characters exhibit, but simultaneously provides a chance to sit back and enjoy what is a perfectly honed cinematic experience.

Much has been made of the inconsistent and sometimes unflattering depiction of women in The Social Network. A female watching the film may balk at the characterization of some of the women. Many female characters are vapid, objectified; designed to show a purpose, to represent the attitudes of the world Mark and Eduardo are entering into.

As Facebook snowballs in popularity, so Mark begins to garner attention from the females who surround him, to whom he had previously been invisible. Suddenly, like vultures, they swoop at the smell of his success. It starts with innocuous drinks, but ends with the girls freshening up in the toilets after an unusually successful encounter for the duo.

The misogynist attitude spirals out of control as the duo are sucked into the world of high-pressure commerce. This is not to say that Mark and Eduardo are misogynistic characters, but merely that the filmmakers place the pair into situations that lend themselves to misogyny. For instance, there is a scene in which Eduardo has flown from New York to California, where Facebook is based. Amongst the multiple laptops and ‘wired-in’ programmers, two anonymous girls are squealing and giggling, stoned on their couch.

Eduardo and Mark try to discuss business issues, but they, and us as the audience, are irritated and distracted by the audible presence of the girls. The viewers can’t help but resent the intrusion of the women, so effectively, the director has cleverly recreated the misogynistic bias of the business world within his audience.

The film is not wholly sexist in its nature though, far from it. Rather, the sexist representation is intended to highlight the depravity of the world Mark and Eduardo are becoming part of. Erica, and Marilyn in particular, provide a strong feminine voice, offsetting the other, degrading, depictions.

With 500 million facebook users worldwide, will this be a successful blockbuster?

Although technically brilliant, watchable and ultimately compelling, The Social Network is a cold film, about isolated characters. Perhaps the filmmakers’ lack of compassion in their ruthless distortion of real people and actual events reflects the lack of warmth inherent in this film.

“The line between fiction and reality is not made clear”

FLICKR ID: CARLO IN THE ROUND PEG

etting off Facebook long enough to write this review was no easy task. This is a testament to how far the website (and it is just a website) has pervaded our existence; every aspect of our generation’s lives is documented, commented and judged on Facebook. It is the fourth dimension that the makers dreamed it would be, “the digitization of our lives!”This film will no doubt be very popular solely due to its subject matter, but The Social Network (directed by David Fincher) offers far more than just its association with Facebook.

The film opens with what has to be one of the best break-ups in cinematic history, with slick, rapid-fire dialogue between Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and Erica Albright (Rooney Mara). Eisenberg throws himself utterly convincingly into this role, bringing a nervous energy and compelling insecurity which hints at his motivations as the plot unfolds. He is brilliant in his portrayal of a pent-up, narcissistic genius, replete with facial tics and clenched fists. He conveys a frustrated creative energy simmering beneath a wildly intelligent, witty exterior.

The Social Network is told chiefly in flashbacks, framed around the two litigations that Zuckerberg, one of the founders of Facebook, faces. The first is from his former best friend and co-founder, Eduardo Saveros (Andrew Garfield), the second, courtesy of a pair of Olympic rowing twins (both played by Armie Hammer via some frankly impressive digital rendering) suing him for intellectual copyright. The combination of static lawsuits, juxtaposed with the dynamic and progressive action of the narrative, provides a tight, absorbing structure. The framework of the film colours our perception of the events and the characters; we already know the ending before it has happened. The effect of this is to alter our viewpoint on Facebook’s emergence and growing popularity, so that the audience does not greet it with positivity and optimism, but rather a sense of foreboding at what success will bring.

While the film is surprisingly silent on the moral and emotional effects of Facebook on its users, the film evokes these issues by characterizing Zuckerberg as a metaphor for its effect on the society it monopolizes.

Zuckerberg, from its creation, is the first Facebook addict. Within ten minutes of the film starting, his whole life is “the Facebook”, and the possibilities it offers for a talented programmer with few friends, who yearns for popularity.

For Zuckerberg, Facebook promises the opportunity to be cool - to stand out from the crowd. It is an alternative entry to success for a character who is not accepted by the elite Harvard finals clubs, of which he is so jealous. He certainly attains recognition with the creation of Facebook, but ultimately, the film depicts him as failing

in real life: in his actual, personal connections. The implication is that Zuckerberg was spurred to create Facebook in a bid to prove a point to Erica, his ex-girlfriend. But by the end of the film, despite the almost harrowing personal upheavals being depicted, he has come full circle, with little visible character progression. He can only sit in front of his creation, attempting to forge a connection with Erica in the only way he knows how.

Same programme. Different views. ‘The Event’: Fridays, Channel 4, 9pm. (1/12) WIKIPEDIA

Set for the stars, but at what cost? indigo explores the ethics behind The Social Network

The Event

The Event. Not satisfied with merely telling a story start to finish, this programme has taken a far more unorthodox approach to telling its tale. It opts to leap back and forth in time seemingly at random. Pop out to refill your wine glass and you’ll have changed time zones, or flitted from Alaska to Miami by the time you return.

The story has many threads but essentially surrounds Sean Walker, who becomes embroiled in the narrative when his girlfriend Leila goes missing. Elsewhere the new US President is struggling against his cabinet over whether to reveal to the public a mysterious prison in Alaska. It transpires that this is the least of his problems, as, almost predictably given his role as President, an assassination attempt is made on his life. The mysterious inmates of the Alaskan prison also heavily feature as part of the plot, but no hint is given of their importance.

The writers of this thriller have obviously been keeping up to date with his current affairs; the President has just pushed through a health bill and faces a Boeing pilot’s attempt at kamikaze.

Sound familiar? As for the event, I can honestly say I have no idea what it is, and I seriously doubt we’ll be getting answers any time soon.

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A magician with colour: Natalia Goncharova

indigo explores Russian avant-garde, pornographic nudes and Dr. Parton’s long-awaited book FLICKRID: REALDISTAN

Sarah Witowski-Baker

N

atalia Goncharova is a Russian avant-garde artist whose work has set the world record for any painting by a female at auction. I met Dr Parton to discuss her fascinating life and work.

“I never intended to write a book about Goncharova”, Dr Parton admits over coffee. “Two very old Russian ladies... both badgered me to write one.”. It’ s been fourteen years in the making, but the book has finally been published. Goncharova: The Art & Design of Natalia Goncharova is an unprecedented study of a remarkable artist, who is still relatively unknown in the west. This is the most authoritative account to date of Goncharova’s work, and chronicles a remarkable career that embraced various painting styles and movements. From its 635 full-colour plates, it’ s easy to see why she was considered one of the leading artists of the Russian avant-garde. “One of the great things about Goncharova”, says Dr Parton, “is that she was a wonderful technician of paint and canvas. Utterly remarkable. A magician with colour”.

Natalia Goncharova’s work is hard to characterise, since she explored many different styles in her career: from Russian folk-art and Icon painting to radically modern movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Rayism, which she developed along with her husband, and fellow artist, Mikhail Larionov. When the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917, she began to work for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. Her sensational costume and set designs reveal a masterful mixture of styles, and a unique flair for colour. However, hundreds of her early paintings had been left behind in her Moscow studio and, in the years after the Revolution, some were sold off, some passed into the hands of the authorities for distribution to far-flung galleries across the Soviet Union, whilst others went missing. She and Larionov both constantly

questioned and challenged social and religious conventions.

Goncharova was arrested in 1910 for the alleged pornographic quality of her Fauve-style nudes, and in 1914 was nearly excommunicated by the Orthodox Church for painting religious works in the style of Russian folk art. The couple even had a penchant for painting offensive phrases on their own and their friends’ bodies, and defiantly strolling through the wealthy, conservative areas of Moscow.

Dr Parton, an expert in the art of the Russian avant-garde, first discovered Goncharova’ s work when he was writing a book on Larionov for his PhD. He recalls, “ …as I’d been researching Larionov, I couldn’t help but also research the work of Goncharova, it was ever-present. They showed in the same exhibitions, they wrote correspondence to each other, they collaborated on projects; to do one was automatically to do research on the other.”

He tells me about his research and a student of Goncharova’s, who told him that he was wasting his time on her other half.

“From the very start she said to me, ‘why are you writing a book about Larionov?

Why aren’ t you writing about my teacher’? and she refused to give me any interview or do anything to help me unless I promised to write a book about Goncharova”.

But with no publisher until 2002, extensive teaching commitments, a lack of support and research leave from the university, progress was slow. In the meantime, new works previously thought to be lost kept appearing, so the book had to be constantly rewritten. Then, in 2007, Dr Parton remembers how he “finally found a lot of very exciting works in private

“Goncharova and her partner challenged social and religious convention” Loom + Woman, 1913 demonstrates the enchanting visual richness in the artist’s work

collections; works that had been thought to be missing or destroyed back in the revolutionary years…we saw them in bank vaults, in dirty hotel rooms, in warehouses, so a lot of those works are in the book”.

This allowed him to fully fill in the blanks of Goncharova’ s artistic development. Dr Anthony Parton added “In the 1930s Stalinist era, Goncharova’s avant-garde works were considered unsuitable for display and some were classified ‘to be destroyed’ by the Soviet state. Fortunately, some of these pieces were saved by museums or hidden away by collectors to prevent their destruction. The raising of the Iron Curtain has helped to open up private collections and to reveal hidden art treasures across Europe”.

Despite her scandalous reputation she was an extraordinary painter and designer and Dr Parton believes that Goncharova’s best work is “equal [to] Picasso and Matisse”. I ask him why he thinks she is not as well known as some of her contemporaries. “One reason is that she was a woman, and art history has not treated its women artists kindly at all… I think art history is largely to blame… Another reason I think is that she detested the idea of the art market and of selling her work.

She used to give her works away rather than selling them, which meant she died in poverty”. Today, however, sales of her work at auction have begun to draw attention.

Her last painting sold for over £6.4 million at Christies, making her the most expensive female artist in the world at auction, despite never having had a major retrospective in a European gallery. Perhaps it is a sign that she may yet get the recognition that Dr Parton believes she deserves.

Dr Parton’ s book is available now for £49.50 from the main Waterstones on Saddler Street, and has been launched at the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris.

It is available to buy at www.amazon.co.uk DURHAMUNIVERSITYMUSEUMSRACHELGROCKE:

My way on the highway

Beautiful student photography at the Oriental Museum Hélène Feest

The allure of the Manali-Leh Highway is in its remoteness. It runs through the least-populated region of India and, with mountain passes at over 5,000m above sea level, the vistas are stark, raw, and on an immense scale. Here we find the typical problem of tourism: the very tourists who are attracted by the region’s isolation are helping to connect it to the outside world, thus radically altering its character. For the people living there, the increasing number of visitors means that the local culture and way of life are changing rapidly.

The Oriental Museum is currently running an exhibition of photographs which explore these cultural changes.

The photographer is Alex Richards, one of a group of four students from Durham University who travelled along the ManaliLeh Highway in August 2009. Along the way, they talked to the people who live and

work in the area, and they have produced an incredibly insightful collection of photographs.

“this remote region’s character is rapidly altering with the rise of tourist interest” Considering the anthropological aims of the project, it is no surprise that the portraits are the most mesmerising section of the exhibition. The photographer has managed to convey glimpses of vivid personalities by interviewing his subjects and asking them to choose their own poses. Samad Rokshen wanted to “look like they do in the movies” and in truth his star presence stands out. He is also a great example of

cultures merging. His orange jacket, cowboy hat and knowledge of “bang bang films” are found in the same portrait as his prayer beads and mantras.

People from the outside world are only seen indirectly. The four students themselves are of course the most significant foreign presence in the photographs, but are only present through their interactions with the subjects themselves, for example in the photograph of two young children playing with the photographer’s lighting equipment, or in their eye contact with the camera lens. There are no other tourists, and although there are trucks passing along the highway, these appear as dehumanised machines. This sense of menace is a quiet but recurrent theme; in one photo the highway is seen as a straight line cutting across the mountain, slicing it in half.

Nonetheless, the overall tone of the exhibition is one of peacefulness. The landscapes in the photographs evoke a

Boy from village of Sissu, a stunning image captured by student photographers

consciousness of the passing of time. For example, we see the effects of the slow process of wind erosion. Even the wind itself seems gentle in the soft curve of the prayer flag in the wind. The only blur is the hand of the woman making chapatis.

In this way the exhibition remains mellow and contemplative, despite it also conveying the liveliness of the region’s inhabitants and their changing culture. The collection

appreciates the culture without romanticising, which makes for art that is beautiful and sincere.

The Oriental Museum is located on Elvet Hill, opposite Van Mildert College. It is open 10am-5pm on weekdays and 12pm-5pm on weekends, and is free for students.

These enchanting photographs will be on display until 30th January 2011.

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A fare to remember: Bluebird takes flight

indigo takes a haunting taxi ride and discovers the secret lives of London’s lonely souls HARRY GATT

Bluebird First Person Theatre Company The Assembly Rooms

DAN JEFFRIES

««««« Rosanna Boscawen

C

limbing onto the dark stage to find your seat and then sitting still in the blue light before the play begins, it’s as if you’ve just clambered with little decorum into the back of a taxi, and are now sitting there in that awkward silence, when you don’t know if you should talk or not. You want to, but you just don’t quite know where to start.

The characters of Bluebird know how you feel. The majority of the ‘action’, or dialogue, I should say, takes place in a taxi and is between the driver, Jimmy (Paul Moss), and his passengers. One gets out, and another gets in. Since Moss had his back to the audience most of the time whilst he was driving his cab, it felt like we were in the back; silent passengers overhearing the deeply intimate exchanges of complete strangers.

Director Adam Usden cast his play fantastically well. Consider David Head, the first passenger, Guvnor, who delivered his jokes with understatement and trepidation that didn’t help to ease the vague discomfort felt on sitting down. Another strong casting decision was Elizabeth Clayden as the nineteen year old prostitute: beneath her character’s feistiness, she found an almost imperceptible fear and, having found it, revealed it only through her body language as she lingered reluctantly in the

An evening of ‘unnerving quietness’ in First Person’s Bluebird: Lucy Cornell and Paul Moss as the tragic couple .

cab at her detsination.

As Jimmy points out, people talk much more quietly in cars. Usden is sensitive to such implicit stage directions, and as a result an unnerving quietness pervaded the production – although enunciation could have been worked on a little more to avoid the one or two occasions when lines were lost. With this in mind, Steffan Griffiths as Robert spoke with calm recollection

of how he went to meet his daughter’s murderer with a knife.

The cast as a whole charted the disappearance of the initial awkwardness effortlessly. Gestures became more relaxed and body language more open, from Natasha Cowley’s anxious fidgeting to Michael Clarke’s intensely curious and philosophising Underground worker. Gareth Davies and Clare Reavey also deserve mention for

their searching portrayal of their characters’ intense doubts – in themselves and in humanity as a whole.

As well executed as all these characters and their stories were, for me the best performances came from Moss, as Jimmy, and Lucy Cornell as Jimmy’s wife, Clare. The fragmented nature of the storyline and the impossibility of any sure conclusion were reflected effectively in the minimal set,

which consisted of a steering wheel (later a cross) and several car mirrors. As the play progressed and Jimmy revealed more of himself and his story, the light altered and more of his face became visible. The subtle staging, too, complemented the plot, with Moss and Cornell facing the audience whilst they revealed their darkest secrets to one another and to us.

Understated, seemingly half-remembered gestures revealed the intensity of their relationship, despite it having ended so long ago. Their easiness was also clearly in existence again, despite the unforgivable tragedy that stood between them. Cornell’s almost silent reaction to Moss’ delicately delivered confession was arresting, and ensured that it did not transform into melodrama. Likewise, their embrace at the close of the play had the right balance of trust laced with misgivings; everything about the way the two worked together felt natural.

I came away very moved, yet a little concerned that I had missed the main point of the play. For all the strengths of this production, there is an inherent weakness in that the two halves do not quite fit together. The passengers serve more to arouse our interest in Jimmy himself than in their own lives and, having done so, they unfortunately become distant and somewhat hazy memories after the final scene.

Neither is there a clear, pervading ‘big idea’ and the overall effect on the audience is emotional rather than intellectual. The fact that the cast and crew made so much out of a text to which they are far superior though, can only be a good thing.

Sex, silence and secrecy prove a dangerous game

Durham University Productions’ The Lover makes a five-star start to a new year of Durham theatre The Lover Durham University Productions The Assembly Rooms ««««« Mei Leng Yew

Durham Student Theatre (DST) has started the new season at a remarkable high with a breath-taking production of Harold Pinter’s play The Lover. The fortyfive minute performance by a talented cast delivered all the tension, intrigue and perplexity that makes Pinter’s work so compelling and yet so confusing.

Contrary to expectation, The Lover is not about love, romance or extra-marital affairs.

Instead, Pinter explores the negotiation and compromise required in marriage, as well as tackling insecurity and sexual desire within a relationship.

Featuring a middle-class couple in their home, the play opens with a deliberately shocking and provocative exchange: “Is your lover coming today”? says

husband Richard. “Yes”, replies his wife Sarah, brazenly. Although considerably more controversial in 1962, the opening conversation continues to surprise audiences as Pinter’s characters discuss Sarah’s apparent affair with a casual politeness and acceptance that remains out of place in today’s comparatively liberal moral environment.

The unemotional and surreal qualities of the couple’s exchange are delicately conveyed by the talented Steffan Griffiths and Catherine Ellis whose immediate portrayal of an affectionate yet dispassionate couple fools the audience into awaiting the arrival of John, a role played by David Head and described in the programme as “physically and emotionally demanding”.

It is only natural to assume that John must be Sarah’s lover but in fact, he is only the milkman. This misdirection mimics Pinter’s own tendency to draw his audience into making certain assumptions before he proves them wrong by revealing

a previously hidden depth in the drama of his characters’ lives.

In The Lover, the twist is that Sarah’s afternoon visitor is not another man but in fact, her husband Richard. Sarah isn’t having an affair with her husband’s permission – the husband-and-wife pair are role-playing.

Griffiths slips abruptly between the personas of husband, lover, stranger, stalker, sexual pred-

the tension between the pair spectacularly.

Richard’s role-playing guises develop an eerie and markedly dangerous quality which contrasts against DST newcomer Ellis’ sexually-confident temptress.

While Griffiths’ experience onstage makes a successfully unnerving portrayal of Richard an almost foregone conclusion, Ellis is a fresh face in the Assembly Rooms and to University drama.

Nonetheless, she matches Grif-

ator and even reluctant hero with an ease that leaves the audience dazzled. As the drama progresses and Richard’s insecurities over the couple’s sexual games are revealed, Griffiths introduces an element of awkwardness to the character that heightens

fiths’ unfaltering performance with her own interpretation of Sarah.

Pinter’s women are usually superior characters who have distanced themselves from the male world. Sarah, who does not possess the doubts and insecurities that

TOM BAYLISS

“. . .a performance that fuses the darkly comic with an intimate intensity”.

plague Richard, is another such character but Ellis’ gradual transformation from confident seductress into a woman disturbed and deeply thrown by her husband’s sudden urge to end their sexual games makes fascinating viewing.

Pinter’s dialogue is always tightly woven, with layers of hidden meaning but Ellis’ precise body language and delicate facial expressions add a dimension of neediness and fragility to Sarah’s character. Ellis smoothly morphs from confident flirtation to fearful lust with a widening of the eyes and a sudden heightened tension in her movements.

The taut atmosphere that simmers and stretches between the pair is further emphasised by the piano music that floats onstage between each scene. Composed and performed by the concealed MaryEllen O’Shea, the music is haunting and eerie, much like the dreamlike and inconclusive interactions between the characters and their onstage personas.

In this one-act, tightly woven production, the cast work superbly under the direction of Donnchadh O’Conaill to put on a performance that fuses the darkly comic with an intimate intensity. With such a triumphant beginning to the 2010/11 season, it will be a considerable feat if DST can build on their success.

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“I always have writer’s block but I’ve never stopped, touch wood...”

National treasure Alan Bennett discusses his habits of art as his newest play comes to the region STEPHEN CUMMISKEY

A

lan Bennett needs no introduction.

With a writing career spanning over 50 years and endless critical acclaim, he is, quite simply, a British institution. With classics such as The History Boys and Talking Heads performed recently by Durham Student Theatre, Bennett’s lasting appeal is evident.

His newest play The Habit of Art, directed by Nicholas Hytner is soon to make its North East debut. Looking at the unsettling desires of two difficult men and at the ethics of biography, The Habit of Art reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passions are spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.Alan gives indigo an insight into the world of the play.

When did it become a play about actors and not only about Auden and Britten?

I wrote the first draft and sent it to Nick, who was very enthusiastic about it and sent me his notes; and when I then did a second draft he was less prompt to give me his comments, so I sensed he wasn’t as keen on it. I knew I had to do something with it but I didn’t know what. In both the sets of notes Nick gave me he thought there was so much information being passed over, and it was difficult to have characters who knew each other telling each other things they would have known already, so it was not a natural conversation for them to have. I then thought that if I made it a rehearsal the actors could ask about this information, as they didn’t know it, so it would be fed to them and to the audience by this device. And you can have a lot more fun with it this way as well. In The History Boys a lot of the way we rehearsed was by the cast asking questions, and any rehearsal really is a lot do to with informing the actors about the play and the details behind it, so it worked very well for the play itself.

Is The Habit of Art very personal to you, and valedictory?

I hope it’s not valedictory! I think there is another play on the horizon. It would have been easier to make it more valedictory really. We talked about the fact that it would be too easy to make it elegiac at the end, and I think that’s true, and I didn’t really want it to be like that for my own reasons and for the reasons of the play. The thing I’ve got coming out next is a story in the next issue of the London Review of Books that’s slightly pornographic.

What prompted you to write The Habit of Art? Alan Bennett: Well, in The History Boys, the charismatic school master, Hector, talks about Auden and knows a lot about him, and Auden keeps cropping up in the play, so that’s why Auden is there. The first time I remember thinking about this play, The History Boys had opened on Broadway and we flew over for the Tony Awards. I was reading a book called Britten’s Children by John Bridcut, which talks about all the difficult questions of Britten and the boys. As we were getting off the plane I saw Nick [Hytner, the director] and said to him “isn’t Britten is a real s*it?’, and I remember Nick was slightly taken aback and that’s when I started reading more about it.

Subsequently I read Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of Britten, and in that when he’s talking about Death in Venice he quotes someone as saying at the time the best person to write the libretto would be Auden. The chronology isn’t quite right, I think Britten had got further on with Death in Venice at the point they meet in the play, but Auden was certainly at Christ Church the year before his death and it’s feasible that Britten could have gone to see him.

you’re writing prose you don’t have to bother about the constraints of the theatre.

It’s a wonderful liberation.

As it is a play within a play, when you wrote Auden’s lines were you consciously writing as Auden, or Auden as seen by Carpenter and spoken by Fitz…?

I wouldn’t be conscious of it being that complicated; if I was it would have stopped me dead in my tracks! I kind of soaked myself in Auden and I probably fed in lots of phrases that he used. I got into the character, and I hope I got into Britten’s character too, as I think they do speak differently in the play. There was a spin off in my favour with Auden in that I think when it opened critics were probably nervous of criticizing some of the matter of the play because they thought perhaps it was a direct quote from Auden rather than myself, so they had to be careful!

Britten talks in the play of pushing on.

Do you intend to do the same?

Britain’s most famous modern playwright Alan Bennett, photographed here in 2006

Do you think you’d have preferred to be Auden or Britten?

Britten. Only because they keep saying in the play ‘go on!’ and he was working right up to death’s door and I think that would be the most satisfying thing. Though I think probably Auden had a better time.

Britten was very, very troubled and there was a programme abut him, a lovely film called A Time There Was by Tony Palmer, in which Leonard Bernstein talks about him and says that conducting his music he was aware of somebody who was deeply troubled and the music was an effort to resolve that, and I’m sure that’s true. Auden was much more open and I think had more fun, but then it’s difficult to know what sort of fun Britten had because he’s a much more closeted character. He probably was, in his own way, very happy.

Neil, the author in the play, gets a tough time from the actors. Is that based on your own experience?

No! I’ve always been well treated. The only play where I wasn’t, was right at the start of my career, but apart from that I’ve always had a nice time. I think if I hadn’t, I probably would have desisted. I think it turns into work if you don’t have a nice time. I can remember once in my career feeling

exactly as Neil does in the play, in the scene when the actors think a part of the play doesn’t work and they want to change it, but they’ve cut out large chunks of it and of course it doesn’t work, as all the information in the play that makes it work has been cut! The author does - or is supposed to - know how his own play works, and so perhaps tends to be aggressive. I hope I’m not. I’ve worked with [director] Nick Hytner five or six times and we tend not to disagree; we don’t even discuss things very often as we know what the other thinks. I like being in rehearsal. It gets me out of the house! I’m more gregarious than I like to think, I like the company of actors and the National Theatre (NT) has been so good to me and I’ve had such a good time that I look forward to rehearsals. It’s a real treat.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

I always have writer’s block but I’ve never stopped, touch wood, and if I can’t get on with the thing I’m doing I try to write something else because it’s writing that makes me happy, really, and keeps me going. Larkin would be a good example of someone who suffered from writer’s block and I’ve never understood with Larkin why he didn’t then write in a different mode, why he didn’t write prose instead.

I’ve written a few short stories and when

I am very lucky because I’m now 76 and I’ve been at it for 50 years and I’m lucky in the sense that anyone can keep on writing but to keep on being listened to and being publishable is something else. I don’t think

it’s any special quality of mine or literary superiority, it’s more about changing times and tastes, but I think I’m very lucky that I can keep going and have an audience.

Auden says in the play ‘music melts words’. Do you think music always trumps words?

Yes, I do think that. I think even things that have jokes in like Gilbert and Sullivan, it’s the music you hear and the jokes are subsidiary to that. I think it’s true that music wins in the end and music somehow has a more direct route to the heart than words do, even with music as dry as Britten’s often is. There is a part of [Britten’s opera] Peter Grimes in the play, and I love the scene but it’s the music that makes that scene. We deliberately didn’t use a lot of music in the play because when you use music as accessible as that, it instantly makes the point for you without any need for words.

Could you come to the play with no knowledge about Auden or Britten?

I think it helps if you do have some knowledge and understanding of them, but then again people have come to me and said they didn’t have any knowledge of Britten but they knew a bit about Auden, or the other way around, and the way the play is written means that the actors ask for the information about Auden and Britten for you, so in a way you fill the audience in that way and they don’t need previous knowledge, they can learn it along with the actors.

The Habit of Art is on at the Newcastle Theatre Royal, 16 – 20 November. Students get tickets for £10 on all first nights.

Many thanks to Newcastle Theatre Royal for permission to print this interview.

What’s On? Thursday, 11th November - Saturday, 13th November Cosi Fan Tutte

The Assembly Rooms Come see Durham Opera Ensemble’s staging of Mozart’s comic exposé of the true nature of women.

Monday, 15th November - Wednesday, 17th November A Doll’s House Fountain’s Hall, Grey College Another Soup Productions presents this Ibsen classic.

Thursday, 18th November - Saturday, 20th November The Government Inspector - The Freshers’ Play The Assembly Rooms Completely directed, produced and acted by Durham’s freshest talent.

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Grunge Heroes: Smells Like Middle-Aged Spirit? indigo meets Mudhoney’s lead-singer to discuss touring and the unlikely origins of ‘grunge’

W

hen a select few people hear the word ‘Mudhoney’, you see a very peculiar thing. Eyes will light up and the corners of mouths will twitch upwards in an almost involuntary grin. Unfortunately, most people I’ve spoken to will greet the name of one of grunge’s finest bands with blank stares and nonchalance.

If you are one of these unfortunate people, then allow me to educate you…

Formed in 1988 from the ashes of seminal proto-

grunge

band

‘Green River’, Mudhoney were tipped from the beginning by their label, Subpop (the Seattle label that brought the world Nirvana, Soundgarden and more lately Fleet Foxes and

Band of Horses) as the band that would bring grunge to the masses.

The immediate thing that hits you when listening to Mudhoney is the massive guitar sound that could easily bring down builings. Famously anti-corporate and intentionally sloppy, the band never hit the dizzying highs of their contemporaries Pearl Jam and Nirvana,

but I doubt they ever really wanted to, was one of the worst experiences with a repreferring their own cult, to following the cord label we’ve ever had. So then we asked masses.

Bruce Pavitt (later Subpop Manager with In a way, lead singer, Mark Arm is the Jonathan Poneman) to help us with the lopersonification of his gistics of putting band’s music. His drawling “At this point with out a single, as we vocals cut through the fuzz were friends of like shrapnel. theirs and… we each other we’re He is a genuine grunge knew where they deity, with countless imita- patient old men” lived!” tors, so I hope you will Whilst this forgive me dear reader, may have seemed that when it came to interlike a marriage of viewing the man, I was mighty nervous. convenience, the label would soon grow “Mark Arm here”, says a far away voice into one of the most influential of the on my speakerphone. “I’m at work, so I 1990s. might have to leave the phone for twenty Mudhoney have been around for seconds to deal with something”. twenty years, so in an attempt to get Mark Work for Mark (when not on tour) is to ‘dish some dirt’ on the band’s touring in the Warehouse of the aforementioned lifestyle, I asked (probingly, perhaps) if ‘Subpop’, a record label his original band there are any differences between the Green River were the first ever act to sign bandmates. to. I asked why they chose the fledgling “Well, of course there’s going to be label to sign to all those years ago. disagreements! But, we all like and respect each other, and at this point with each other we’re patient “I take issue when people say old men”.

Patient old men they may that I reputedly coined the term be, but the singer’s attitude and sense of humour is still firmly in place. When I asked him if ‘grunge’ for the genre. he had any advice for younger bands starting out he replied The phrase was already there” with a curt, “...No” When the subject of the use of new technology for the “Initially there were three people who promtion of music came up, he told me were interested in doing records with us… about a new fuzz pedal he’d acquired for and we initially ended up signing with his guitar.

‘Homestead’, but to tell you the truth that The overall impression I got from my

short chat with Mark is one of a very humble, honest man. For instance, he is reputedly the first person to coin the word ‘grunge’ and apply it to a genre.

“I take issue with that. The phrase was already there. I remember there was an ad for a shower cleaner that said, ‘This’ll clean the scum and grunge off your shower’.

I don’t identify with the term in what it means to most people. I identify with the term in its original intent, like… dirty… scummy. Stuff that you don’t want”.

A few weeks later I found myself at Northumbria University, waiting for the band to come onstage to a packed SU. From the outset, the band had the crowd in their palms as waves of fuzz thick enough to lean on, bellowed from the amplifiers of Mark Arm, and lead guitarist Steve Turner. Grunge was resurrected!

Obviously, the biggest reception from the crowd came for classic songs such as Touch Me, I’m Sick and In ‘n’ Out of Grace (complete with drum solo) from the band’s debut album Superfuzz Bigmuff, but newer numbers such as The Lucky Ones easily stood up to old favourites. The band didn’t play any unreleased material, but Mark Arm assured me that there is new stuff in the pipeline… so watch this space.

Halfway through the set, the singer cast off his guitar, and allowed Turner to take on sole guitar duties.

With the energy of a man half his age, Arm prowled round the stage, leering at audience members, and whilst any other man of his years (48) might look slightly lecherous, he pulled it off seamlessly, adding to the antagonism and menace of the band’s sound.

I’ll get my coat: ten bands who have overstayed their welcome Poppy McPherson A few weeks ago saw the launch of a grassroots campaign to stamp out the spluttering career of the latest resurrected pop-punk embarrassment – an effort spearheaded by the band’s own fans. A group of Weezer fans urged the group to split, offering to stump up 10 million dollars as a reward.

They argued that the band’s releases have been steadily degenerating since their 1996 album Pinkerton (which gave us such creative gems as Tired of Sex, Getchoo, Why Bother? and Falling for You). Weezer drummer tweeted this response: “If they can make it 20 [million dollars], we’ll do the ‘deluxe breakup.’” ...Please, give generously.

Musical legends from The Clash and The Smiths to Biggie and Tupac proved Kurt’s potential reasoning behind his suicide could have made more sense than it at first seemed. In the twitchy music world, it is far better to burn out than fade away, or linger on like a sewer stench. Here’s ten more musicians who should’ve quit before the fame, drugs, obesity or Christmas songs got to them:

1.Oasis

Notoriously pedestrian since ‘(What’s the Story?) Morning Glory’. Keenly anticipating the day Liam Gallagher’s overactive (ever snarling/drooling/pouting/ bitching/gurning) jaw takes leave of his face entirely.

2. Michael Jackson

Would have escaped those pesky child molestation allegations and baby-dangling pap snaps. Probably would have been smart to bow out before the suspicious lightening operation as well.

“It is far better to burn out than linger on like a sewer stench” 3. Elvis

Only royal to die on the john (as far as I know.. although Henry VIII seems a likely candidate).

4. R.E.M.

Michael Stipe’s re-appearance every few years, armed with yet another masterpiece of mediocrity, is starting to whiff of desperation.

5. Manic Street Preachers Ditto.

6. The Libertines

Sold legendary status for approximately £1.5million, to play an underwhelming Reading and Leeds set, for a pilled-up fourteen years . Four guys who are about as subtle at being in it for the money as Anna Nicole Smith. But I would have had a little niggle about buying tickets to one of their reunion shows - you know that feeling when you kinda want to give a tramp a quid, but then you don’t because you know he’ll just spend it on drugs...? Yeah, that.

7. Cliff Richard

Did he ever ‘peak’? Still, we could’ve done without the spectre of his tangoed grin hovering around the media. Recently told the Mail: “If I’d been a one-hit wonder, I’m not sure what I’d have ended up doing”.

Pantomime dame or cruise ship entertainer seem likely pursuits – there’s still

time, Cliff.

8. Rolling Stones

If they’d bowed out in the 70s we might remember them for pulsing anthems and drug-fuelled antics rather than as nostalgia music for ageing accountants.

9. Bob Dylan

His 2009 Christmas single came complete with a truly bizarre video featuring

him dressed up like an undertaker, dancing awkwardly by himself and rhyming ‘special night’ with ‘beard that’s white’. His soulless Hop Farm show in Kent this summer left many dissatisfied fans barely able to recognise the man as the blues idol he once was.

10. The Darkness

Please, Justin Hawkins, go away.

What’s On? 12th Nov– Kissy Sell Out & DJ Yoda @ Digital, Newcastle 13th – Chris Helme (Seahorses) @ Durham Live Lounge 13th – Dry The River @ Vane Tempest, DSU 14th - Skunk Anansie @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 18th – The Gaslight Anthem @ O2 Academy, Newcastle 18th – Pulled Apart By Horses @ The Cluny, Newcastle Strum! Every Saturday @ Cellar Door GRAMMAR every Tuesday @ Fishtank

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Books

‘Winter in Afghanistan’

Reading for pain?

The trials of an English degree

Pat Massey on the mawkish sentimentality of short story contests

B

Khaled ‘Kite Runner’ Hosseini the better, who throws in a triptych of unsubtle narrative technique-symbolism, social commentary and ‘meaningful’ sentences - as if he were still angling for gold stars on his creative writing course.

Neither is coy recourse to the war the only omen of a new lily-of-the-valley popular literature. You’ll have noticed an increase in book covers showing women silhouetted against eye-catching backgrounds, whether of forest glades or winter wood, with titles like ‘A Forest of Secrets’ derived from a Pick-andMix of vacuities; the books Durham English students are meant to rip off the shelves screaming ‘This is not art!’; the ones which receive 100-word reviewsif that - in the TLS. Well, as of 28/10/2010, no fewer than five of the eight covers on the Richard and Judy Book Club website fit this archetype.

Say what you like about the wilful obfuscation of Ezra Pound, at least he The Kite Runner has sparked a renaissance of Afghan literature ‘kept it new’ thus keeping you thinking. Think too of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: scholars upon scholars “Khaled Hosseini throws in a have tried to ascertain the triptych of unsubtle narrative nature of ‘The horror, the horror’, but you can bet your life technique-symbolism, social comno-one’s mentioned Kurtz’s mentary and ‘meaningful’ sentences” daddy issues or traumatic bar mitzvah.

Literature needs to recover some though; Audrey Niffenegger went all-out of its bite before we find Carl Goodwin with the 9/11 histrionics, as The Timeheadlining McSweeney’s with a Carol Ann Traveller’s Wife Henry wakes early on the Duffy state-of-the-nation poem. There is fatal day to ‘enjoy life being normal for just no reason we cannot still keep it new. a little longer’… blech. And the less said of

Emma Grimwood

largely by unlikable NRA misfits. More of this if you must write of ‘our boys’, please, and less of the fantasy son-in-laws.

Goodwin is not the only guilty party,

Everybody at university, no matter how much they love the course they are doing, complains sooner or later about something or other. It might be that nine o’clock seminar every Monday; the number of lectures one has to attend; the hideous amount of preparatory work expected by alarmingly optimistic tutors; or a particularly dull lecturer. For the majority of English students, however, it is, without a doubt, the sheer enormity of the reading list. Obviously, reading is a key concept in a degree about literature, and

FLICKR ID: SUMMERSPOT

Stephen Fry’s autobiographies: more entertaining but of less literary value?

anyone not expecting to pick up a book or two is, quite frankly, an idiot. And yet there is something about that little A5 booklet, pettishly stapled with a pastel-hued cover, containing line upon line of titles that are not just recommended, but compulsory, that utterly drains enthusiasm. Any eager thought of an intellectual journey is replaced swiftly and ominously by a sense of dread that chills the very soul.

This summer revolved around me trying to read as many of those italicised titles as possible. Wherever in the world I went, my bag was a kilo or so heavier due to Anne Radcliffe’s colossal Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho or Byron’s The Major

The Luminous Life Of Lilly Aphrodite indigo disects Beatrice Colin’s latest novel Lottie Gough

For years I have almost placed an inexplicable trust in the Richard and Judy book club. So when I spotted this in the library I figured it was worth a read, and yet again this daytime duo were right. The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite invites you into a world so interesting and colourful you struggle to leave even once you’ve put the book down.

It is the story of Lilly Aphrodite, an orphan turned silent movie star, struggling to survive in early 20th century Berlin. It is not so much that Lilly herself is luminous, but it is the strength of the other characters Colin creates that sets this book apart; from deceitful Eva working away around the gay clubs of Berlin; to brutal Kurt and his hardnosed prostitute lover Hanne, it is their

stories as much as Lilly’s that draw you in to the novel.

Drawing upon the experiences of her parents who emigrated to the UK from Russia, via Berlin, Colin expertly manages to describe the bohemian atmosphere of Berlin, from the seedy strip joints to the downtrodden and poverty stricken masses that resided there. Drawing upon the renaissance and recrudescense of avant-garde cinema in Berlin, based upon the androgynous Marlene Dietrich and Louise Brooks, Colin’s book is a dramatic and seductive read, as she cleverly weaves the history in with her narrative. The economic zeitgeist of inter-war Berlin is a latent, yet potent theme of the novel as Lilly and Hanne are forced to survive on black coffee turnips and ‘Kaiser bread’ (comprising potato and rye flour).

“...The renaissance and recrudescense of avant-garde cinema in Berlin based upon the androgynous Marlene Dietrich.”

There are times however, where the book starts to feel rushed; particularly towards the end, where Lilly has left Germany - you cannot help but feel Colin is rushing to the book’s climax.

Much is made of the early years of Lilly’s life while her apparent love affair (which is her ultimate downfall) is so sudden and vague you almost feel cheated by the

Works. I resented not being able to pick up the new Stephen Fry autobiography, or the immensely popular Stieg Larsson trilogy, because I had to read Graham Greene and George Gissing. Once these books were read, however, there was still more to conquer. One particular module reading list suggests over forty titles, and the more relaxed ones suggest twenty or so. There is a sense of hopelessness in approaching this challenge; a sense of defeat before one has even started.

But, although it may seem like it, this is not just a whiny objection. Whilst the lit-

FLICKR ID: Rex Chen

ack in April, Waterstones launched its inaugural short story competition, ‘Perfectly Formed’ and have just announced the winner. The result is depressing. We could have had the effects of a miscarriage explored through a bird, presumably the titular Penguin in the Shower; we could have enjoyed the kooky passion of a fish-shop worker for a onelegged prostitute courtesy of one Tessa Sheridan. But what did the panel judge to be the epitome of modern story-telling?

A story by one Carl Goodwin, called Winter in Afghanistan.

One caveat before the harangue: the conceit is rather clever, juxtaposing a wounded soldier waiting to die with his five-year-old self, building snowmen with his papa. It’s just a shame that twee questions like ‘We still got time for ice cream?’ as a euphemism for dying are mistaken as ‘beautiful and heartbreaking’;just two of the stereotypes to trot from the mouth of judge Ann Weisgarber (and one Ellen Feldman, who uses both sentiments to review Weisgarber’s novel.) Weisgarber doesn’t have the monopoly on stereotypes, however - as well as coaxing bile from the sappiest of saps, Goodwin squeezes in a September 11th reference, inferior attempts at the running sentences of Cormac McCarthy and portentous statements like: ‘This war. If war even is the word. Sure as hell not what he expected’, lines I thought we’d left with poetry night devotees on a J. D. Salinger kick.

This is rather unfair on Goodwin, but I can’t shake off suspicions that the extent of his planning came to writing ‘Afghanistan’ and underlining it several times. I admit Goodwin acquitted himself better than I did - I wrote my entry in a day after watching ‘Brazil’- but all the neat touches of phrase in the world cannot stop Winter in Afghanistan from giving one the same knot in the stomach that Andrew Marr feels when he has to discuss the headlines of the Sunday Express. War is not mawkish. Generation Kill, the most lauded firsthand account of ‘our boys’ is populated

author’s failure to reveal more. Christopher Isherwood’s feted The Berlin Stories is the pre-eminent work in this particular genre and his protaganist Sally Bowles evidently influences Colin’s depiction of Lilly Nelly Aphrodite. Whilst Colin’s command of prose is inevitably inferior to the fluently cadenced poetry of Isherwood (who Gore Vidal once described as the best writer of English prose of his generation), she brings a delightfully nuanced new perspective to this particular genre; a genre whose contemporaneous nature to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party renders it of particular interest to both the academic and casual reader.

Overall it is a beautiful story of poverty, hope, betrayal, love, hardship, glamour and war told in the most dramatic and poignant of ways.

tle pink booklets command over my reading habits is stern, I have to acknowledge that I would flounder without it. I find that even when it gently notes that you can read outside its suggestions, I am reluctant to do so unless firmly acquainted with the author. And, after all, despite protesting at having to read what I am told, I do this degree because I love literature. As I turn the last page and shut the book with a sigh, more often than not, I am terribly aware that I have just read something rather excellent. For most people, that cannot happen every day.

Quote of the Week It is better to write for yourself and have no public than write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly Write for us! books@palatinate.org Twitter: @palatiBOOKS

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Leisure FLICKR ID: SHOWBIZ KIDS

FLICKR ID: EHAVIR

‘Cause if you liked it you should have put a ring on it

Halo: Reach Bungie

Combining the central letter and at least three other letters, find as many words as you can! There is at least one nine-letter word.

F1 2010 Codemasters

«««« Ed Owen

As a shooter, Halo Reach is almost peerless. The now iconic arsenal of weaponry is still a joy to use; it all packs a raw, brutal punch that makes this shooter so fun to play. The gunplay is now more visceral and coarse, and new innovations such as the jetpack provide an extra dimension (literally) to the game. Multiplayer, online, offline and co-op remain as strong as ever and firefight mode, a customisable pick’n’mix shooting gallery, is dangerously addictive, especially when played with friends.

What stops Halo Reach being brilliant is its plot. The protagonist, Noble Six, is a blank slate, his only characterisation being that he is ‘hyper-lethal’. The inclusion of a faceless protagonist requires well-drawn

Dude, where’s my car?

««««« Ed Owen

characters and a decent plot to keep it interesting, but Halo Reach doesn’t deliver.

The characters of the Halo-universe are one-dimensional, a parade of military clichés (heroic death, anyone?) who we are told to empathise with because they’re the only things not shooting us. The plot is similarly wafer-thin; so much so that the opening scene effectively spoils the rest of the game. What makes a campaign mode enjoyable is actually caring about the protagonists and their eventual fate.

I’ll be honest here; after four hours of this, I couldn’t even remember my squad’s names, never mind care for them.

The lack of a compelling plot keeps it from greatness, but the multiplayer is as much a glorious time-swallower as ever!

Games about F1 usually fail in trying to capture what it is like to be a racing driver; to dance on fine lines between hair-raising speed and a trip to the great beyond. F1 2010 completely nails this feeling.

Races require the reactions of a gazelle and involve the sort of blink-and-you’llcrash levels of attention in order to succeed.

Whilst some racing games reward an improvisatory driving style, F1 2010 is built around precision. Lose fractions of a second on a bend and you’ll lose places in the race. Whilst some may think that this sort of anal approach means less fun, I would disagree; because every corner is a battle, it makes you appreciate taking

Theme: Makes your heart race

Wordsquare

them well that much more. Every position gained is a position you feel you’ve earned, as you’ve had to fight tooth and nail for it.

However there are still moments that turn F1 2010 into a migraine-inducer.

Whilst the game’s difficulty can seem refreshing at first, this soon wears thin.

There are expletives not yet invented for spinning off on the last bend of the race and wrecking the car, but this would all be alright if your opponents weren’t so faultless themselves. The lack of any crashes on their part in all my races is unrealistic in a sport where just a few weeks ago Heikki Kovalainen nearly finished a race on fire.

The game features all nineteen circuits on the F1 2010 calendar.

10 Words - Bogy 20 Words - Par 30 Words - Birdie

The Games section has expanded! Please email games@palatinate.org.uk if you would like to write reviews and comments about videogames, boardgames, drinking games, just anything games related!

Photography Competition Winners 1st - Sam Gunter 2nd - R. Gildman 3rd - Dan Simkin

Sam Gunter (left) - Crossing a North Pakistan suspension bridge. Canon Rebel XTi. f/13, exposure: 1/250, 34mm R. Gildman (right) - The Red Arrows. Canon IXUS 80. f/14, exposure: 1/80, 18mm Dan Simkin (below) - Snowboarder jump.

Nikon D3000. f/4, exposure 1/200, 24mm

Next Theme: Anything but Durham. Deadline: Saturday 30th October. Send photos to photography@palatinate.org.uk