PGS Portsmouth Point Summer Mirror

PORTSMOUTH POINT

MIRROR

MIRROR

An Evening with Mr Richardson Matt Bryan Reflections: The Man I Love Mark Richardson

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The Girl in the Mirror: Sylvia Plath Tara Bell 12 ‘The Mirror Crack’d’: Emily Dickinson and ‘The Lady of Shalott’ Edith Critchley The Mirrors of Literature: From Epic to Dystopia Louise Shannon Mirror of Modernity: The Unendurability of King Lear Naomi Smith When Reality Mirrors TV Nicholas Lemieux Utopia or Dystopia?

How Literature and Film Predict Our Future Haleigh Smith

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The Mirror of Narcissus?

AI and Human Identity Lottie Allen

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Is There Such a Thing as Human Nature?

Taylor Colbeth

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A Mirror to Nature: Gilbert White’s Ecological Revolution James Burkinshaw

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The Agony in Gethsemane Tom McCarthy

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The Golden Ratio and Its Repetition Throughout Nature Max Harvey

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A Reflection of our Relatives?

The Biology Behind DNA Sophie Escott 58 The Distorted Mirror: Recognising Body Dysmorphic Disorder Phoebe Clark

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How Architecture Reflects Our Surroundings Habina Seo 42

Seeing Things Differently: Challenging Misconceptions about Mental Illness Flixy Coote

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Speeding Mirrors: The Magic of Classic Motorsport Matt Bryan

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Mirror, Mirror: Debating Personality Tests Emily Nelson and Lian Kan

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Should Companies Mirror Society?

Diversity and Quotas Sophie Reeve-Foster

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What Healthcare Can Learn from Aviation Shapol Mohamed The Underfunding of the NHS: Covid-19's Unflattering Mirror Sophie Mitchell

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Reflections on Medical Technology in the Digital Age Anna Danso-Amoako

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Why We Are Not Mirrors of our Genes: What Epigenetics is Teaching Us Isla Sligo-Young 56

COVID-19’s Economic Impact Mirrors The Great Depression Alex Bradshaw 70 Do We Have the Politicians We Deserve?

Christopher Clark

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Photography: Mirror Benedict Blythe and Oliver Stone

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Editorial Team (Magazine and Blog) Alice Acklam * Lottie Allen * Toby Amos * Matilda Atkins * Alex Barker * Thomas Beattie * Martha Bell * Tara Bell * Claudia Bishop * Benedict Blythe * Alex Bradshaw * Matt Bryan * Max Budgen * Christopher Clark * Phoebe Clark; Rebecca Cleary * Flixy Coote * Edith Critchley * Emily Curwood * Anna Danso-Amoako * Honor Davis * Henry Day * Mimi de Trafford * Lily Eldrid * Franky Elsmore * Sophie Escott * Miranda Gent * Tilly Goldman * Max Harvey * Sarnaz Hossein * Felix Johnson * Lauren Johnstone * Nivethan Kajendran * Lian Kan * Anushka Kar * Esme Kelly * Dulcie Langley * Nicholas Lemieux * Samuel Lewis * Chelsea Liu * Thomas Locke * Sebastian Martin * Eleanor Matthews * Isaac Mead * Sophie Mitchell * Shapol Mohamed * Ella Morgan * Emily Nelson * Fola Odofin * Jay Pasricha * Grace Powell * Sophie Reeve-Foster * Habina Seo * Esha Shahid * Louise Shannon * Sebastian Sharpe * Isla Sligo-Young * Haleigh Smith * Naomi Smith * Rebecca Stone * Connor Storey * Abby Southers * Samantha Todd * Victoria Toh Magazine Designer: Clara Feltham (The Graphic Design House) Editor: James Burkinshaw

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P O RT S M O U T H P O I N T. B LO G S P OT.CO M

I N T RO D U C T I O N

Mr Richardson

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ovid-19 has held up a cruel mirror to the world – ruthlessly exposing ecological fragility, social and racial inequality and political irresponsibility. In this ‘Mirror’ issue of Portsmouth Point, contributors compare the impact of the pandemic to that of the Great Depression and argue that the NHS must never again be left under-funded and under-resourced. They ask whether the corporate and political worlds should be mirrors of society: should we have more diversity and do we deserve better politicians?

We mark the 300th birthday of pioneering ecologist Gilbert White by echoing his call to treat our fellow creatures with more respect. For many thousands of years, humans have struggled to understand their relationship with the rest of the natural world; our writers investigate whether there is such a thing as ‘human nature’ and also consider the impact of Artificial Intelligence and other technologies on human identity. They ask whether psychological tests can truly capture “personality”, evaluate the role epigenetics does (and does not) play in our development and consider why mental health has become such an issue of concern in our time.

We reflect on the role played by the Golden Ratio in nature and art. One of the most ancient symbols of artistic representation is the mirror; our contributors explore writers from Homer to Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson to George Orwell, compare the art of Mantegna and Bellini and explain why ‘Black Mirror’ is the most significant TV show of our time (and ‘Arrested Development’ the most enjoyable).

The editors thank all of our contributors, Oliver Stone and our reflective designer, Clara Feltham. Finally, we thank Mark Richardson, who retires as Teacher of English this month. Mark has contributed to every issue of Portsmouth Point since its launch in 2009. Almost every article was about music, but always

about so much more: culture, history, philosophy, politics, literature - part of the joy of reading a Richardson piece were the magnificent riffs so reminiscent of his favourite musicians (indeed, never afraid of an Olympian judgement, he entitled one article ‘The Finest 12 Minutes of Electric Guitar Music Ever’). However, Mark always came back to the music, which, for all his wonderfully irreverent asides, he treated absolutely seriously, as something lived, something that was, at its best, truthful and transformative: “Music changes, not only itself, but, at its best, you.” Even at his most philosophical, MPR was never abstract; he created a vivid sense of place, whether describing a favourite record shop or an unforgettable concert.

He talked about the unrepeatability of music, but he had a genius for capturing its ephemeral magic on the page, whether saluting favourites like The Stones, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Jimi Hendrix or exploring punk, jazz, folk or psychedelic rock - no genre was off limits. Indeed, one article celebrated the ‘potency of cheap music’; there was no musical snobbery in an MPR article, just the zest and fervour of its author (a favourite Richardsonian imperative was “Enjoy!”). In this issue, we urge you to enjoy not only Mark’s latest article, on Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, but his roller-coaster of an interview with Matt Bryan (worthy of a rock god).

We wish MPR a very happy retirement – and the rest of our contributors and readers a summer that offers some respite after what has been a febrile few months. One ray of light has been the revelation that the Great British Public has started reading more during Lockdown; we certainly hope that you find this ‘Mirror’ issue of Portsmouth Point a worthy addition to your summer reading. Enjoy!

The Editors

July 2020

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an evening with

MR RICHARDSON

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first met the infamous character that is Mr Richardson at the Gunwharf bowling alley nearly two years ago - a rather banal and demeaning location for a man of such flamboyant distinction.

Nonetheless, as someone new to the Sixth Form, the image of a man gliding across the varnished floor in a pair of brogues with hair slicked back, wearing a floral print shirt that had been through the Cath Kidston factory at least twice, was certainly an interesting one. As he knocked down pin after pin, putting his new tutor group to shame in the process, I thought to myself: if Elvis was an English teacher, he was standing right in front of me.

Mr Richardson was my tutor through Lower Sixth and an encouraging figure when it came to keeping me, a scientist, writing - as he was to anyone. An interview with him way back in October 2018 was my first blog post, and he has subsequently read all of my drafts for the magazine in their various states of completion. I recall that, after one of his and Mr Doyle’s frequent table football clashes in Latter Common Room, he shook my hand and congratulated me on my first article. We all know Mr Richardson as a caring figure who sent out cards to all Point editors after a successful issue and whose contributions will be greatly missed as he retires.

Mr Richardson has been a stalwart of Portsmouth Point since its inception in 2009, a founding member and icon of the school’s writing community. He is unmistakably one of ‘the Godfather’ figures at PGS, so I came to him on the day of his retirement from teaching to ask him for forgiveness, and for a favour an interview to chronicle his time here in his own exuberant words.

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Matt Bryan YE AR 13

Where do you think you will be and what do you think you will be doing this time next year?

That’s a great question. When you thought of this question neither you nor I could have guessed what would happen in March, so what next year will look like is very hard to predict. I shall be retired, though, and I hope, at the moment, that all will be as it was before, except that we clean our hands more often and make the most of being in groups of as many as we like!

How far back does your connection with Portsmouth go, and for how many years have you regretted living here?

Ah, Pompey. I’m a recent convert. It can be an acquired taste. I will never warm to Commercial Road, for instance. I first visited the city in the 60s, I think. Dad was in the Merchant Navy during the war and he took us all to a Navy Open Day in the dockyard. We walked around inside a couple of ships but it was so crowded (ah, remember them, crowds?) that we went into the city and I sketched the Guildhall.

I wish I had sketched the Tricorn Centre instead. Far more iconic and a lot easier to draw, too! And now it’s all gone. But there is so much to love here too. The stretch from the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour to Langstone is a great glory, and to be able to walk every day along the front there is a great joy. I come from the heart of the heart of Sussex, land of oak and (once) elm, of secluded dells and little woods, small fields and few people, a hidden land of the Weald, where iron was forged and footpaths linked villages and beamed pubs,

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dotted with spires and towers, nothing to quicken the blood, no dramatic heights or sweeping plains, no majestic falls or broad lakes, no quaint harbours or imposing monuments, perhaps its finest gift to the world being a little bridge in the Ashdown Forest across a tiny stream where once for real but, much more importantly, in fiction a few tiny sticks and then a large heffalump floated downstream. A land of lost content, of quiet and small pleasures, nothing showy or puffed up with self-importance.

But here in Southsea are the wide-open spaces, the huge skies, the sweep of the Solent and history at every turn, with (well, once, at any rate) bars and restaurants in all directions. The pull of the tide was always there back in Sussex, 20 miles from the coast. but always whispering to me, and now I am right by it and so happy.

You are well known about PGS for being a man of impeccable taste, so which Star Wars prequel is your favourite?

Dear old Star Wars. Is that still going?

Bless it. The simple answer is: none of them. The utter beauty of the very first film back in 1977 was that it was total tripe: a hodge-podge of ancient serials that used to be screened incessantly every Saturday morning in local cinemas, with preposterous special effects, derring-do heroes swashbuckling their way across immense space and encountering aliens in ludicrous costumes, with satisfying exotic weapons and a huge explosion at the end. It was, therefore, marvellous and completely disposable. Even the gentle fade to black between scenes was pitch perfect.

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And for years that was that. A lovely piece of tomfoolery, meaning nothing. And then, a ruddy second film! And a third. And, of course, the rest of it all. Now it’s a different kind of meaninglessness. Once just a lark, now, with its series of alternative histories and burgeoning back stories, it has become burdened by its own weight. Leave it alone, please. So, also not a fan of the Disney+ series, obvs.

On a similar line of questioning, as an iconoclast of fashion, what is the appropriate attire for a smart-casual event?

Well, at the moment I am wondering what an iconoclast of fashion actually means or what it says about me, but I fondly recall wearing a pink sou’wester, a donkey jacket and luminous green wellies when I was 19, and being made to stand outside of shops by my friends as they were embarrassed.

Probably rightly. Smart? Casual? I felt I was both. But can they remember what they were wearing back then? I suspect not, so that must mean something.

If you were hosting a dinner party, who would you hire as a maître d’ and how many canapés would you allocate per person?

Well, as I am sure you know, one never serves canapés at a dinner party. Frightfully infra dig.

What is your fondest memory of tutoring in Latter for the past X years?

There are many, and I really should pay tribute to Mr Elphick-Smith and Mr Doyle for making my time as a tutor so enjoyable. Both, in their very different ways, managed to make the ‘feel’ of Latter so special. I really enjoyed the Showcases that we did, though, especially the very first one which we held in the Rotunda. Lots of music and acts, with a real sense of camaraderie. The role of the House system in PGS is always changing, though, and it has certainly changed a great deal in the past year. I think it will change again, and although I won’t be part of that, I do hope that the Houses rise once more, ridiculous flags and all!

What is the most ‘English teacher’ literature interpretation you have read in your time here?

Everything that I have ever encountered can be interpreted through English literature!

If you could bring Prince Andrew to any gig of the last century as his indestructible alibi, what would it be and why?

I bet there is something here, but I can’t make anything of it. Which one is Prince Andrew, again? As for gigs, well, there have been a few, but my first one ever stands out for me amongst all the others.

Quite what the Prince would have made of it is hard to fathom, as he would have only been 10, although his Auntie Margaret might well have been there, so who knows? It took place only a few miles from one of his mother’s residences, so he could have nipped home from East Aston Farm for afternoon tea, perhaps with nanny? Handy. The gig? Well, Andy and I were born almost exactly 5 years apart, which, if you Google that (me, of course: I doubt you’ll find much on the Andster) means that he was ten, I was fifteen and it was 1970. East Afton? Just outside Freshwater, and his mother’s residence?

Osborne House. All, as you are no doubt aware by now, on the Isle of Wight. Why 1970? Well, a small matter of the third Isle of Wight Festival (and the last for a bit too).

It was not a quiet affair: 600,000 - 700,000 attendees, for instance. Why such a huge range in those figures? Largely because it was a ticket-only event, but by the Saturday the fences had been broken down and it became, for those who hadn’t already paid, a free festival. What a brilliant first gig, too.

Andy enjoyed himself hugely.

I got a chance to see and hear, in closeup and with brilliant sound, acts such as The Who, Free, Miles Davis, The Doors and finally, the late great Jimi Hendrix.

What a line-up. It was a brilliant event but also a terminal one for some: the festival itself was banned, only reopening in 2002, and two of the more notable performers, Hendrix and The Door’s Jim Morrison, died the following month and a year later

respectively. But it will live long in the memory, of course. Not in mine, however.

All my memories have come from reading about it, listening to recordings and watching extracts from filmed performances. I never went. Andy carried on his life wherever he was, unscathed by any contact with a great deal of the very unwashed and blissed out. Although, I suspect little of the latter went on for most, given how limited the options were at that time: only one stage, no vendors, limited access to nearby facilities (no Portakabin loos!) and everyone functioning only with cash. As for getting there, most would have walked once they landed via ferry and once they arrived they would not have had a universally positive welcome. The natives were largely hostile to the event, and in fact they made sure that the festival would not return by getting an Act of Parliament, no less, to prevent any festival in the future.

Given the relative hair lengths and clothing of the trippers and the residents, it would have been easy to tell the difference, and the noise, the waste and the sheer volume of attendees would certainly have been an issue. I remember well how hard it was to get there: buses were packed and infrequent, taxis non-existent and roads narrow and seemingly endless for such a small place. It wasn’t hard to find: you just

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followed everyone else who looked just like you, and there were lots of them. I didn’t get there until the Saturday, and I didn’t get there at all. The weather was decent, though, with none of the Glastonburytype mud. Good thing I didn’t bother wearing those fluorescent green wellies.

Not that I needed them anyway, not being there. So, it was great and memorable and I didn’t even go. So how does it qualify as my first gig (and perhaps Andrew’s)?

Because I was fired up by the idea of going, and told my mum that I was going and she said I couldn’t and that was the end of that.

Really committed to my dreams. But what a first gig it was. Oh, and on a side note, although I saw Hendrix at his last gig, except not actually, I have another beingclose-to-Hendrix moment. I was talking to a previous PGS Librarian, Jo Godfree, who told me that she had been shopping in the King’s Road in Chelsea around about 1968 and bumped into a person while looking at clothes in a boutique, and then realised she had just made contact with Hendrix. Both being very polite, they each apologised, of course. Given the fashions of the time, they could well have been reaching for the same item of clothing. I shook her hand, thus touching, by proxy, the wild man of pop himself. So, two castiron encounters with a legend.

Malbec or Cabernet Sauvignon?

Malbec if Argentinian, I have found.

The Beatles or Gerry and the Pacemakers?

‘I Like It’, ‘How Do You Do It?’, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and delightful ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’: brilliant. They were early competitors for the Beatles, too, and one single, ‘How Do You Do It?’ was recorded by Beatles’ producer George Martin at Abbey Road studios.

Nevertheless, the Beatles.

Where might a fellow purchase a high-quality silk cravat?

Well, obviously you wouldn’t buy a lowquality silk cravat, would you? They may be what sustains the meagre income of Primark and such, but one has to admit that the silk is not quite “there” as it were. One

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could, of course, visit the blowsy charms of London’s Jermyn Street, but they are hardly any better when it comes to quality.

No, the finest, la crème de la crème, the dog’s bananas, can only be found in a tiny, unprepossessing shop just off the eastern end of Albert Road. There, the silk worms are sourced from the finest to be found in the world, and they are set to, spinning out their silk in the perfect conditions that have made the road the hallmark of quality that the world has come to admire. Once the silk has been teased out by the strapping youth of Pompey, the delicate colours are applied according to a closely-guarded process, jealously maintained by generations of Southsea silk makers. Such is the demand, one has to have one’s name entered onto a list, the length and time involved of which makes the lists for prospective pupils at the finest public schools seem like mere bagatelles. Oh, and as a side-line they make bagatelles, too.

Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young public-schooled Harrison Ford?

Genuinely that’s a new one! In the past, the comparisons have been with Jules Holland (marginally a slightly better pianist) and with Bryan Ferry. All hugely odd and flattering, and I will take Harrison Ford too, thank you so much.

Do you have any plans for the first year of your gap year (retirement)?

Not taking it easy.

Are you planning to find yourself in the Andes? I’ve heard the llamas are lovely.

Roasted, perhaps?

Do you have any opinions on the life and work of Bill Oddie?

The Goodies were just delightful.

How far do you agree with Plato’s image of the cave as a metaphor for education?

Is it? I haven’t thought of it like that.

Perhaps I will have time to ponder about that on the island. But it is a dynamic and brilliant concept for anyone to have created, so he is rightly still talked about.

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How many combinations of flamboyant ties, exquisite jackets and daring shoes could you create from your wardrobe?

I am not sure that even your brilliant maths skills could help calculate such a massive number.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what consistency of sand would you prefer, in an ideal world?

Ah, now you’re asking the right question, well sort of. I have long had the fantasy of being on Desert Island Discs, and here it is, right now! So, thanks, Roy, for asking.

Here we go.

All of the following are just ones that come to mind: I could substitute all for something else. But I think that I would want music that is both great in itself but also representative of differing strands of music, and for different purposes.

My first choice would be something from the Beatles. They were central to my early life, so I would like to choose something that is earlier in their oeuvre rather than later. Of course, there is such a variety on offer, but I choose ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.

I love the opening chord, the infectious singalong lyrics and the fact that the title apparently came from a chance remark by Ringo Starr as a joke, and it stuck.

If the first is the Beatles, the second needs to come from The Rolling Stones. The two groups were one another’s yin and yang, x and y axes, devil and the deep blue sea: you can’t have one without the other. By the time of the release of the first song in this list, the contrast between them embodied all popular music, and they dominated the airwaves and record sales, both in the UK and abroad. But rather than a 1964 song, I choose ‘Brown Sugar’, the essence for me of their music and would allow for very inaccurate but deeply satisfying air guitar.

My third would be the first of two songs that connect me with other people. This one is actually one my father used to play very often, and he absolutely loathed it!

He played in the band of the Horsham branch of the Royal British Legion, and it was a regular feature on bandstands across the region: ‘Sussex By The Sea’. I think he only said he disliked it because

AN EVENING WITH MR RICHARDSON

(a) he liked being a bit cantankerous, very unlike me, and (b) because it was asked for a great deal at concerts, it being usually in Sussex that they played, or representing the county if playing elsewhere. There is no decent version on the internet that quite does it justice: the Coldstream Guards’ and the Royal Marines’ versions are rather too precise and cold feeling for me (although there is a version by the East Grinstead band that is better), so I will have to do with my memory of those concerts. Good enough, though.

My fourth would represent classical music. I love a great deal of it, but am pretty restricted in choices. Beethoven?

Mozart? Either would be amazing. But I would like to carry on the theme thus far of Britishness, so I came down to two very familiar pieces, between Elgar’s ‘Cello Concerto in E minor’ and Vaughan Williams’s ‘A Lark Ascending’, and of the two I choose the latter, just because it is so redolent of that Edwardian age, somehow of the poetry of AE Housman, English landscapes and a sense of peace mingled with loss. Brilliant, and with a lovely local connection, I discovered, which is that it was inspired by a poem by the writer George Meredith, who is famous, around these parts anyway, for having been born in Portsmouth but also for being so embarrassed by this awkward fact that, when asked where he came from, he answered ‘just outside Petersfield’!

My fifth choice is ‘Woodstock’, by Joni Mitchell. The first version I heard, along with most people at the time, was

by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but by choosing this original version I can smuggle in West Coast countercultural music and retain Mitchell’s glorious voice at the same time. It’s a fine song too.

The sixth represents black soul and R’n’B of the sixties and early 70s. No single record could ever do justice, but one will have to suffice, so I at least should choose a relatively long track. I was tempted to choose ‘Maggot Brain’ by Funkadelic, a psych-drenched paean to easeful death, driven by an extraordinary Eddie Hazel guitar solo. But perhaps that might be a little too down for a desert island, so instead I choose the uptempo cheerfulness of a

child trying to cope with the concept of a father having deserted the family. Well, OK not uptempo and not cheerful: ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’ is the song, and it exemplifies the reach, experimentation and challenge of popular music at the time. Also, I like the echo in the title of Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, which surely should be included in this list, and perhaps would have been if I started over again.

Record number seven is another record that is inspired by someone else, this time: my wife; it is her favourite, being Lesley Gore’s ‘You Don’t Own Me’ (you can hear it as the music for the Armani perfume Sí). I like it too: it reminds me of many fine female singers of the 1960s with strong voices and a constant fight against a male-dominated industry, such as Dusty Springfield and Cher, so the lyrics are particularly pertinent.

Record number eight choice I need to make in order to represent all jazz: impossible, but the record for me is the opening track on the live album Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall, namely ‘So What’.

Rather than the studio album version from the iconic album of the same name, this version of ‘So What’ is exhilarating. It is well-nigh impossible to prevent yourself from tapping your foot once it begins, but it is a real challenge for anyone to sustain that pace of tapping for the twelve minutes’ duration. It is also a wonderful demonstration of the lyricism, complexity and improvisational skillfulness that jazz can showcase, all in one take. Breathtaking.

If I only had one choice: ‘So What’. It is a masterpiece. End of.

My book, not including the Bible and Shakespeare, (which apparently are always to be found on desert islands, so worth bearing that in mind when you next find yourself on one) has to be Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. With only one choice for a book, this does at least contain a great deal. It is reasonably long (358,000 words according to Google), full of great humour, pathos, dozens of great characters, a glimpse of history but also a glimpse of the working of the author’s mind too (it was his favourite), and, above all, exquisite writing.

One also gets a luxury item, and mine would be pen(s) and paper. I could write, I could draw, I could even waste time with origami. I absolutely know that I would never be able to recreate them on an island. The rest I might be able to in my head, after a fashion, but I would die without those items. (That’s all assuming that I am not allowed to have my wife as a luxury item, that is.)

What is your go-to move when it comes to noughts and crosses?

Top left corner, although that always also means I cannot win. Or, reading the novel again, now that I have seen the TV version.

And finally, what do you hope is your legacy at PGS? One thing I know is that one rarely if ever leaves a legacy behind, and if one does as a teacher it is a very short-lived one.

Schools move on relentlessly, caught up in their own thoughts and needs, and past actions are almost never recorded or, if they are, even less celebrated. Perhaps of everything, my involvement with the Leonardo Poetry competition might count: it has been an absolute pleasure to run it for 13 years, and so many great writing moments have come out of that wonderful event.

I do know that I will be remembered by pupils: I know that because I can remember teachers from my primary school days, and everyone I have ever met can also list names, probably of people long since dead. We have an impact, for good or ill, and the best I can hope for is that some of those whom I have taught since 1984 might have a fleeting memory of me, and I further hope that it won’t be too awful for them.

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Reflections: The Man Mark Richardson

TE ACHER OF ENGLISH

‘I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.’ (‘Mirror’, Sylvia Plath, 1961)

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“Hey, Rudy, put this on the record, man - all of it!”

(Miles Davis, Christmas Eve 1954) n Alice Through the Looking-Glass, Alice found that everything was reversed, including logic and physics.

You want to stand still? Keep moving. You want to go forwards? Go backwards. It takes her an age to get from her starting point (one side of a chess board) to the other, but it is only when she realises she has to walk deliberately in the opposite direction that she suddenly finds herself arriving at her desired destination. Or did she? Am I, like her, only dreaming that part? After all, the book famously ends with this line: “Life, what is it but a dream?” Is that what reflections are, perhaps: a type of dream?

Here am I reflecting on the past, though. I am not like Plath’s mirror, however. I am not silver (aside from the merest of hints in the hair, that is), I am not exact, and I certainly do have preconceptions. Plath’s mirror’s voice is a cold one, recording unemotionally the continually ageing face of a woman who looks into the mirror, increasingly fearful of her own inevitable death. We are not mirrors, though, when we reflect. We look back, as we do when we look forward, with eyes coloured by our emotions and conditioned by our experiences. I look back at music because it is important to me: both the music and the ability to look back and see it all again, differently. Perhaps reflections are dreams too: but personal dreams are always intimate, locked away and mysterious, whereas reflections are more nuanced and sharable. I want to share this reflection, this dream, because it is about what for everyone must surely be one of the essences of all music: performance.

There is always something electric about any music performance: so much can go wrong. So much depends on

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skill, true, and musical skill is always something people are in awe of, but life is never perfect, and any performance teeters on the edge of disaster, the performers skating over thin ice, averting disaster at every turn. A completed performance should always be applauded: the better it is, the more magical it is too. Applaud, because it could all have been different, but just for that moment it was a triumph. A completed performance is, if nothing else (and it is so much more!), a momentary triumph over entropy and the heat death of the universe. A pompous claim, perhaps, and I am not sure that all might agree, especially dutiful parents who may have to endure violin screeches and pianists inaccurately hunting for the right note among 87 others on the keyboard. Nevertheless, even then a performance is rightly a moment of joyful celebration.

As listeners, we are used to classical musicians gliding over such potential catastrophe: after all, they have practised for so long and their performances are so easeful that we come to expect something akin to perfection. In turn, though, we can become blasé, and accept such perfection as inevitable.

We are also aware that the use of modern software makes it possible for anyone to combine a few notes, run them through some technical wizardry and out at the other end will come something entirely polished and ‘musical’. Nevertheless, the threat of musical catastrophe, of sonic chaos, may be hidden, but it lurks somewhere, even if only as a concept. Most musical performances, especially recorded ones, cast such a bright light that the shadowy unformed beast of chaos, one that prowls around beyond the limits of perception, disappears from our view. We momentarily forget it, but it is there, waiting.

However, there is one music art form that constantly dances as close as possible to chaos and disaster, so close that it is just one step away from disorder and failure: jazz. With improvisation as its core, it is a music that demands that a performer must reel away from that light into a kind of penumbra, skipping from one mote of light to another on the edge of darkness

T H E M A N I LO V E

What a 'home' studio really can look like!

So, let’s gaze into the Looking-Glass, deeper and deeper, and glimpse a past day, a very specific one: Christmas Eve 1954.

We are in a town called Hackensack in New Jersey, less than 15 miles from the centre of New York City. It is a cold afternoon, getting colder by the minute, and a group of black musicians are climbing up the steps into a residential house in Prospect Avenue. They are here to record some music, before heading off into New York to play in local clubs that night. The house belongs to Louis and Sarah, but the musicians are not here because of the parents, but because of their son.

Top: A rare photo of Monk (left) and Davis (behind Monk) in 1954 Above: Long-time Miles Davis bass player, Paul Chambers, outside RVG's parents' house in Hackensack, NJ

before returning to the full sun once more, both performer and audience exhilarated by the dance with the dark while also gratified to be able to return home, whole once more, but breathless and a little changed.

This is what I love about jazz. It’s not about people, it’s always about music made by people. When you are dealing with jazz you are faced by an extreme range of sensibilities and approaches to music. It can be (is!) a very confusing world, often seemingly entirely closed, entirely ‘other’, resistant to the casual listener in a way that much other music is not. And there is truth to that. But what it also has, at its heart, is that essential quality of performance, as a result of improvisation, that gives jazz its particular nature: it is essential that there will be off-script passages in it, where the performer will move away from the others and away from the given notes and, if able, to rave, rage or ring out.

The ‘Rudy’ from the top of this article was Rudy Van Gelder, legendary jazz record engineer. By trade, he had started as an optician (‘optometrist’ in the US), developing an interest in recording local jazz music at evenings and at weekends in his parents’ house in New Jersey. It was just a relatively ordinary house, certainly no studio, but Rudy had developed a skill that many people demanded. By 1954, Gelder was a seasoned engineer, one who ran a whole recording operation by himself, and whose knowledge of microphones and tape machines was almost mystical. He combined a low-cost production, intimate and focused, whilst also producing high-calibre output, and labels and musicians alike were eager to seek him out. One such musician was Miles Davis, who, together with members of the Modern Jazz Quartet and legendary piano player Thelonious Monk, turned up at the Hackensack address to record some music.

But things weren’t going well.

Miles Davis may now be a legendary jazz musician, but in the early 1950s he was recording where he could and playing wherever possible, struggling with heroin addiction and only beginning to develop his own voice, as it were. But 1954 saw

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From top left: Rudy Van Gelder The cover of the 1956 Prestige LP Thelonious Monk Miles Davis, warming up at Hackensack, 1954

him determined to straighten himself out, and this opportunity was an ideal one: turn up with a group of musicians who had considerable experience of playing together, play a few numbers, finish and get off to an evening gig somewhere.

The Blue Note label had by this time used van Gelder’s place exclusively as their recording studio. Competitor label Prestige started to use the studio too, one key difference being that Prestige boss Bob Weinstock did not pay the musicians for rehearsal time in the studio, which meant that musicians often had to jam together rather than spend any time together practising. Davis was contracted by Prestige to record the tracks, but Davis must have known that such an experienced group would allow him and them to work together seamlessly, pick up ideas quickly and cut several songs at pace. However, the piano player was not the Modern Jazz Quartet’s pianist, John Lewis. That role was being taken by a very different style of piano player: Thelonious Monk.

Monk’s playing was idiosyncratic. His Wikipedia entry describes him as having a ‘unique’ style and an ‘unorthodox’ approach to the piano. Hugely popular as a recording artist in the 50s, his style was not universally admired: the English poet Philip Larkin grumpily described him as an “elephant on the keyboard.” His approach to the piano was to explore discordancy, using silence as well as unexpected runs, dissonant chords and rhythmical shifts of pace, all of which combined to

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make it easy to spot him in a recording. Nearly 10 years older than Davis, this was the first (and only) time they recorded together, and there had been no rehearsal time for the group prior to assembling in New Jersey on Christmas Eve. Rehearsal time is not necessarily something that such experienced musicians would feel they need. All were very used to playing in front of audiences, and all were also very familiar with any number of songs, so it would be quite possible for such a pickup group to check out some of the chord changes, figure out where solos would go, sort out moments where they play in synch, and then just play. No overdubs, no multi-tracking: if it doesn’t work out it usually becomes obvious at the start of a song. If so, just start again.

But. The first song was a version of ‘The Man I Love’, a jazz standard from the 1920s, and even during the vibraphone opening from Milt Jackson, Monk was asking when he could play. Miles was immediately triggered by this. He believed that Monk had a habit of playing during other people’s solos, and here, he clearly felt, Monk was on about it again. That’s why you can hear him talking to Rudy van Gelder, saying “Hey, Rudy, put this on the record, man - all of it!” For Miles it was a question of ‘laying out’: you kept out of the way, so that the soloist could shine, and Miles knew that Monk had a habit of not ‘laying out’, and Miles was having none of it,

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hence his exasperated instructions to Rudy van Gelder. The take continued, but now it was more of a sort of rehearsal: the opening had been ruined, but they could still play and get used to everything. So, once it concluded, they began again, with the second take. And this is where the dance, that teetering on the edge of collapse, emerges in all its glory.

It’s a performance that quivers near the precipitous edge. That earlier take might be history now as far as the players are concerned, but not the emotions, or the unspoken doubt on Miles Davis’s part about Monk’s behaviour. The result is that during this song you can hear the tension, the questioning, the uncertainty that comes out best in jazz.

drums have to keep going, but what will happen next? Who comes in? Stopping is NOT an option, but at the same time this cannot go on, surely? Then, perhaps because it is his gig, perhaps because he was cross with Monk, perhaps because someone has to play for goodness’ sake!, Davis decides to take charge, and he starts soloing again to rescue the situation, filling in the gaps and restoring order from chaos. Brilliantly, though, only two seconds later, Monk comes back in, like a train coming out of a long dark tunnel.

He plays fast and loud. No deconstructed hint of melody this time, but full-on solo, cascading notes in all directions, energetic and purposeful, a man making a point, perhaps. All of which means that Davis suddenly has to back off: after all, he has made a point about ‘laying out’, and now he has Davis is in charge here. It’s his gig, if anyone’s, and there are to do just that, in order, as Jim Morrison of the Doors once only a few precious hours ‘studio’ (parental living room?) time pleaded to a chattering audience, to “give the singer some”. to get the session complete. Still burning from the first take, But he can’t just stop: he has to extricate himself from this as Davis gives the nod for the music to start again, and this time unobtrusively as possible, so he fades himself out to let Monk there are no interruptions: Jackson’s beautifully measured vibe get on with it. At 6:04 Monk signals in a very conventional opening segues into Davis’s cool trumpet as he eases gently way with repeated chords that it is time for the others to into the delightful melody that is the hallmark of this song and return, and so do they all, and one can only which has made it such a popular one, covered imagine the relief and sense of security that they

by Benny Goodman, Billie Holliday, Art Tatum MUSIC IS A all must have felt for the last two minutes as they and Kate Bush among many others.

GLORIOUS played together and negotiated the tricky change LOOKING GLASS, of pace at the very end to go back to the slower The song smoothly uncoils, and after a couple ONE WHICH pace of Jackson’s opening. of minutes of Miles Davis playing in, around ALLOWS US TO and with the melody, the pace then quickens GAZE DEEPLY Magic. In just under 8 minutes, in someone’s and Jackson comes back in for a solo. He plays INTO IT AND front room on a suburban road that is now for longer, and then, at 4:54, he completes, THEN RETURN, utterly changed and filled with medical handing over to Monk. Right from the start, REFRESHED, FROM “Centers” and office blocks, all of the joy, Monk plays really sparingly, with lengthy pauses THE DREAM. the pressure and the humanity of music between phrases, even between notes. It’s the was captured. That single song, for me, melody all right, but it’s almost like some sort encapsulates the artistry, the individuality and of deconstructed version of it, at a much slower the collectivity of musical performance, where sounds are pace, despite the speedy rhythm section. The bass player, shaped together while always flirting with collapse. Music Percy Heath, is actually playing more notes than the pianist embraces the eternal conjunction of maths with emotion. It he is meant to be accompanying. Nevertheless, all is fine: fends off the dark inevitability of entropy and dissolution, Monk establishes his approach to the basics and his solo will never denying its power but also celebrating a triumph over conclude and someone else will move in. But then, at 5:27, he it, no matter how momentary. Listening to music, one can pauses. And he keeps pausing. Nothing. glimpse something of the dread of death that Sylvia Plath speaks of at the end of her poem ‘Mirror’, rising up ‘like a If anyone can pause and follow it seamlessly with another terrible fish’. But, at exactly the same time, music is also a pause, then it is Monk. Which is great for Monk, but this glorious Looking-Glass, one which allows us to gaze deeply will throw everyone off-kilter. The rhythm section continues into it and then return, refreshed, from the dream. its sprightly support, but bass and drums are expecting to be underneath the piano, as it were. Suddenly, they find that there’s no piano. And not just for a bar: another bar of piano silence, and another. And another. On record it is just 12 seconds, but I can guarantee you that no-one knows what the heck is going on here and those few seconds suddenly become an eternity for the players: what do we do? The bass and

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in the MIRROR S Y LV I A P L AT H ' S L I F E A N D W O R K

Tara Bell YE AR 12

Sylvia Plath

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irrors function as a medium of truth; they reflect appearances as they are, without distortion. This can be useful as, in the absence of deception, our understanding of the world around us is echoed plainly, albeit the reflection can be altered upon interpretation. In other words, the impact of the truth on an individual is very much dependent on their prevailing perspectives: for example, whether they’re cynical or optimistic, what they view their personal identity to be, or what previous knowledge and preconceptions they may hold. As a result, people see the world in many different ways.

After reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath during isolation, I have become increasingly aware of the

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different perspectives that people may take upon viewing the world and how that, in turn, affects their experiences of life. More specifically, the narrator of the novel, Esther Greenwood, suffers from a form of depression; as a result, she views the world through a ‘bell jar’, her perspective distorted to the point that she seems to lose touch with reality.

The novel follows Esther through what at first seems an amazing New York internship, but is soon seen to be unfulfilling as Esther struggles to uphold personal and societal expectations. Esther soon becomes disassociated from the world around her and begins to contemplate many forms of suicide.

As she describes it: “To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream”. And so, the amazing life experiences that she has been given don’t make a difference to her, “because wherever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok - I would be

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sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air”. This ‘bell jar’ is a symbol of Esther’s insane state of mind, which lessens her understanding of the world around her.

This novel was published on the 14th January 1963, and to make it even more dismal, it felt heavily autobiographical.

One of the early titles of the novel was The Girl in the Mirror; once Plath’s own life experiences are taken into context, she almost perfectly mirrors her THE MIRROR ‘fictional’ character. Like Esther, Plath received This poem was written in 1961, whilst Plath was ... REPEATEDLY a scholarship to College where she studied still living with her husband, Ted Hughes, and DISPLAYS THE English, but throughout her life was consumed their first child Frieda. This must have been a WOMAN'S by her depressive state. This spurred from the stressful time for Plath; she did not want to settle TRUE INNER age of 8, following the death of her father; the into the quiet married life that was expected FEELINGS THAT later estrangement from her abusive husband, for most women at the time. This uncertainty CONTINUALLY Ted Hughes, also played a large part in this. As a surrounding her identity shines through The HAUNT HER. result, she a ttempted suicide by taking sleeping Bell Jar: "I saw my life branching out before pills in her mother’s home, in 1953, which led to me like the green fig tree in the story. From the her stay in a psychiatric ward of a public hospital where she tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future underwent shock treatments. These worked to an extent and beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy allowed Plath to write many collections of poetry such as Ariel home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and and The Colossus. On 11th February, 1963, less than a month another fig was a brilliant professor …I saw myself sitting in after The Bell Jar was published, Plath killed herself, aged 30, the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I at her London home, by sticking her head in an oven. couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant Plath’s mental health and state of depression permeate her losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs literary works. She viewed life through the distorting lens of a began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped ‘bell jar’, and this pessimism is prevalent in her poem ‘Mirror’, to the ground at my feet." from a collection of poetry released after her death, called In ‘Mirror’, the poet’s attitude is ambiguous; the truth Crossing the Water. displayed by the mirror damages the woman’s perception of her appearance, but she cannot help returning to the truth “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. for solace. The mirror is a source of stability; it repeatedly Whatever you see I swallow immediately displays the woman’s true inner feelings that continually Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. haunt her. The mystical writing style personifies the mirror as I am not cruel, only truthful — an immortal, arrogant object, elevated as an object of sacred The eye of a little god, four-cornered. significance, a ‘God’. It mocks Plath’s loss of vitality as she Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. progresses in age; as she grows older, the truth becomes more It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long and more damaging to her mental state, destabilising her sense I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers. of identity, her self- perception distorted as she struggles to Faces and darkness separate us over and over. uphold youthful beauty to conform to society’s perception of an ‘ideal woman’.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Sylvia Plath’s powerful ability to express and articulate her Searching my reaches for what she really is. inner feelings in her literary works led her to become one of Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. the most renowned American writers of the twentieth century.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.

Over half a century after her death, her writing continues to She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. give a real insight into the injustices she suffered in her role as I am important to her. She comes and goes. a woman in society with extreme mental illness and to reveal Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. how it affected her perception of the world.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.”

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THE MIRROR

CRACK’D EMILY DICKINSON AND ‘THE LADY OF SHALOTT’

‘I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott’ by John William Waterhouse

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T H E M I R RO R C R AC K ' D

Edith Critchley YE AR 12

‘But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror's magic sights, For often thro' the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, came from Camelot: Or when the moon was overhead Came two young lovers lately wed; 'I am half sick of shadows,' said ‘The Lady of Shalott.’ Alfred Tennyson

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o write great poetry, Emily Dickinson had to mirror the ‘Lady of Shalott’. Much like her fictional counterpart, the American poet needed isolation and mythology to create her masterpieces.

When I first considered the theme of ‘Mirror’, ‘The Lady of Shalott’, Tennyson’s 1832 poem based on an old English myth of the lady in the tower and Sir Lancelot, came instantly to mind: the woman in white, entrapped within her tower. As a result of a curse placed upon her, she is unable even to look out of the window; instead she creates tapestries of the images reflected from outside the window through the mirror in front of her. Clearly, she has a childlike ‘delight’ in the mirror’s ‘magic’, this sense of innocence reflected in the tight fairy-tale like rhyme scheme.

There is thus a child-like authenticity to the art she is able to create. However, when she looks directly out of the window to gaze upon Sir Lancelot, the mirror shatters and the Lady leaves the tower to pursue the knight. However, despite her efforts and eventual death, Lancelot never does more than pity her.

‘The Lady of Shalott’ is a story of intense isolation, solitude and, perhaps, madness. The ‘shadows’ described in the poem are mirrored within the poetic form, the breaking of the balladic rhyme scheme and the lady’s use of sibilance creating sinister and harrowing undertones that increasingly subvert the mythic idealisation as the poem progresses - until it becomes more tragedy than fairy tale. Arguably, the Lady is a metaphor for the oppression of Victorian women, cursed to live restricted lives that consisted only of watching the shadows of others, her white dress symbolic of the expectations of purity and repression that they endured. However, on another level, it is an allegory of the artistic need for solitude; the Lady can only create in isolation, which both facilitates her weaving and makes it a necessity. The poem is a meditation upon the relationship between art and reality.

Tennyson’s poetic character, upon further contemplation, seemed to me to reflect the real poet, Emily Dickinson, who retreated from the world in order to express it through poetry. Born on 10th December, 1830, eight years before the publication of ‘The Lady of Shalott’, Dickinson was born to a very intellectual and religious family in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Given a generous education for a woman of her time, at the Amherst Academy, she had extensive knowledge of both contemporary science and literature. However, around 1858, she withdrew almost entirely into her room within her father's home, stating only that she felt a ‘terror’; whether this took the shape of agoraphobia, depression or some other condition is still debated over a century and a half later.

Dickinson seemed, however subconsciously, to be mirroring the Lady of Shalott or the extreme image of female repression that she represented, both to help her write poetry but also, perhaps, to protect herself from a world she feared. Dickinson began wearing only white, much like the Lady, and became known in Amherst as the ‘Myth’, not unlike Tennyson’s mythic protagonist. Like the Lady's tower, Dickinson's room had large windows with extensive views, in which she could perceive a reflection of the world from a distance. Lavinia Greenwood notes that ‘she had not turned away from life- she overlooked it’.

This self-isolation within her tower initiated her greatest period of poetic growth, during which she wrote eighteen hundred poems, sewn together into ‘fascicles’ kept in a drawer by her bed. Although often sent to acquaintances such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson, with whom who she kept up extensive correspondence, only four of her poems were actually published in her lifetime.

These poems, which attempt to make sense of the world around her, could only be created after a complete retreat from it. Mirrors and reflections play many roles here: the mirror motif in 'The Lady of Shalott', the reflection between the Lady of Shalott and Dickinson herself, and finally the reflections of their worlds in an art only possible after isolation. Within this

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article, I will be exploring why Dickinson needed to mirror the Lady of Shalott to write her poetry and how she used a mythical persona to free herself, allowing her to create several narrating ‘masks’ which acted as different magical mirrors to reflect the world. I will also examine how Dickinson perhaps needed her mirrored persona to help her to reflect the world around her, one in which she struggled to find her place, her persona allowing her to hide the fragments of herself behind a whole: her mythos.

Dickinson could harness this reflected Lady of Shalott image to free herself from the constraints of Victorian femininity and humanity generally, to write poetry that transcended her own experience. In the critical work, The Madwoman in the Attic, Gubar and Gilbert argue that Dickinson could ‘metamorphosis’ into a series of characters that transcended herself, through her drama and isolation, her persona allowing her to create characters essential to her creative process.

One of the most recurrent ‘masks’ is that of the archetypal Victorian woman: religious, innocent and pure. Yet she uses this mask within her poetry to free herself from this expectation.

Often Dickinson's poetry addresses a master, usually taking the form of god – one she remained massively sceptical of in her adult life. She writes here with a girlish innocence and charm: ‘Perhaps the "Kingdom of Heaven's" changed— I hope the "Children" there Won't be "new fashioned" when I come— And laugh at me—and stare— I hope the Father in the skies Will lift his little girl— Old fashioned—naught—everything— Over the stile of "Pearl."’

The narrative of this poem seems full of youthful fear and optimism: the anaphora of ‘I hope’ and Dickinson’s staccato hyphenation (‘and laugh at me- and stare’), aided by the simplistic language, create the voice of a young child. However,

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Emily Dickinson

the ideal adult woman in the nineteenth century was, as Florence Nightingale put it, ‘doomed to incurable infancy’ and therefore it is perhaps impossible to claim this narrator is actually young: she could be any Victorian woman. Dickinson erodes this narrative voice, assuring the reader that her own voice still exists underneath, undermining her narration by the exaggeration of her childish innocence, the use of ‘father’ and ‘little girl’ and the possessive pronoun ‘his’ casting doubt upon her sincerity, particularly when this overly-submissive language is being used while the woman imagines her death. The use of quotation marks, particularly around “Kingdom of Heaven”, further signals to the reader that this narrative voice is not to be relied upon; furthermore, we know Dickinson herself to have been a religious sceptic, the only one in her family not to get baptised a second time during the new religious wave in Amherst, stating that she was ‘standing alone in rebellion’. This rebellion further pushed her into isolation, and yet she still uses religious terminology and ideas throughout her work. Her isolation from her religious background acts as a foundation for this childish female character, helping her undermine strictly religious ideas and perhaps the idealised nineteenth century image of a woman.

By creating this image of the perfect faithful, she simultaneously frees herself from its constraints, making this image a removable ‘mask’, which, due to her isolation, she becomes exempt from, weaving a reflection of a character within her poetry rather than a part of herself. Her Lady of Shalott-like isolation is needed to create enough distance to allow this reflection, but also furthers its formation.

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DICKINSON'S 'MASKS' ACTED AS DIFFERENT MAGICAL MIRRORS TO REFLECT THE WORLD

Dickinson also uses her persona to hide her own fragmented self. One of her most recurring motifs is that of the weaving spider. In one of her many poems focused on cobwebs or spiders she writes: A Spider sewed at Night Without a Light Upon an Arc of White.

If Ruff it was of Dame Or Shroud of Gnome Himself, himself informed.

Of Immortality His Strategy Was Physiognomy There's something particularly private and insular about this weaving spider, magnified by the sibilance in the opening line, the magnification of focus upon this already-small creature doubled by the dark imagery of night and the absence of light.

This compact focus upon the spider is contrasted with the grandeur of a dame’s 'ruff', an Elizabethan symbol of class, and the mythical costume of a ‘gnome’, which paradoxically only increases the minuteness of the spider himself as well as creating a sense of closeness and protection usually lacking in some of Dickinson's sprawling poetry with its vast ideas of heaven and death. This sense of closeness and protection is only reinforced by the continued rhyming in the opening three lines and the lack of the poet’s usual hyphenation, creating a tight rhythm that has a predictable and safe tone. Appearing smaller and smaller, the spider then turns inward, transcending the miniscule imagery, particularly with the repetition of ‘himself’, and the emphasis on his ‘physiognomy’. The spider’s mentality becomes more and more focused upon himself and his weaving, the delicate creature seemingly protected by its darkness, its weaving perhaps only possible because it is hidden, again mirroring ‘The Lady of Shalott’.

There is also something compulsive about the use of a ‘spider’; the natural imagery is a deliberate choice that makes the spider's weaving seem like an instinctive, uncontrollable action. This tiny spider becomes a metaphor for Dickinson herself, the private Dickinson below the ‘masks’ of her poetry; she often scribbled verse on tissues or chocolate wrappers, as if uncontrollably.

Not only is the spider creating a form of art in the protective locus of darkness and isolation, but also ‘upon an arc of white’, reflective of the white garments Dickinson took to wearing. For both the Lady and Dickinson, wearing white creates a conflict open to debate; Gubar and Gilbert write, in The Madwoman in the Attic, that whiteness can be seen to address the pain of Victorian women trapped within expectations of purity but can also be interpreted as a symbol of the power to bear witness. Yet there seems to be something quite protective about this ‘arc of white’, facilitating this small spider's weaving. Thus Dickinson's spider, who in another poem weaves ‘pearl’, can be discerned as a metaphor for herself, protected within her darkness and isolation but also her metaphor of whiteness. Her persona of a Lady of Shalott poetic figure, helps to shield her.

It is hard to pin down why exactly Dickinson became a recluse, but it is clear that within her poetry she managed to use the mythic character she inherited as a result. She created a symbiotic relationship with her own façade; like the Lady of Shalott, her myth allowed her to write good poetry and yet was also the product of her own artistic creation at the same time. It not only furthered her reclusiveness but became necessary as a form of self-protection. Although it is doubtful that her mirroring of the Lady was conscious on Dickinson’s part, each became a symbol of the repression of Victorian women and reflected a similar desire to reflect the world around them within their art.

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Louise Shannon YE AR 13

T H E M I R R O R S O F L I T E R AT U R E :

from EPIC to DYSTOPIA

The Iliad, c. 760 BCE

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he history of literature stretches back millennia to the beginnings of human civilisation. Despite all the revolutions and upheavals – cultural, political, technological and linguistic – that have taken place in the intervening centuries, the novels of today are still connected enough to the ancient texts of writers from Homer to Shakespeare, that, for all of the cultural differences, they can all be categorised under one term: literature.

Acknowledging this invites a question: just how many parallels can really be identified between the numerous literary styles throughout history?

In antiquity, the classical prose and poetry of ancient Greece and Rome served as the forerunner of modern

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literature. Greco-Roman epic poems such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid piloted the contrasting and sometimes paradoxical themes of conflict and peace, honour and dishonour, love and hatred. These thematic patterns would continue to exist in later pieces of fiction and can still be identified in the works of poets and authors alike today.

Literary techniques now considered the standards of writing had their origins in classics; for example, the early forms of ‘stream of consciousness’ are observable in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, leading to the development of depictions of internal emotions in the narrator now expected in modern novels. It was these early narrative devices which perhaps led to the rise of distinguishable monologues and soliloquies first popularised centuries

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later. Evidently the foundations of modern literature are rooted in antiquity, despite drastic changes in syntax, contemporary literature mirroring that of the earliest periods of writing.

In the centuries following the end of classical antiquity, there were a number of thematic and stylistic changes in literature.

In the Dark Ages, Old English epics, such as Beowulf, combined Christian motifs with tales of warriors involved in conflict and victory that mirrored Greek and Roman texts. Meanwhile, writers such as Bede and Boethius began to divert away from epic heroic themes to philosophical and religious matters; the hagiography, or a biographical account of saints, became a staple of medieval texts, moral rather than warrior heroes. Secular literature also underwent a revolution in this period; in the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth pioneered fantastical elements in prose with his stories of Merlin and King Arthur and served as one of the forerunners of the fantasy genre. He also influenced other writers such as Chretien de Troyes who helped create the genre of romance, for example the love story of Guinevere and Lancelot.

Thus, the medieval era was one both of continuity and revolution in literature.

During the same medieval era, the GrecoRoman genre of satire, developed by the Roman lyric poet Horace, helped shape Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the latter half of the 14th century; today, Chaucer is often referred to as “the Father of English Poetry” but what made him so transformational was his deep learning in French and Italian literature, each of which was heavily

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influenced by classical writers.

It was not only narrative techniques and styles which had been retained from literary beginnings, however, but cultural depictions. One particularly influential example can be drawn from the medieval Islamic world, in particular Tales from One Thousand and One Nights, better known in the West as The Arabian Nights, tales drawn from Arabian and Persian myths and legends, featuring the likes of now widely-known characters such as Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba, who with various motifs from these narratives have served as inspiration for so much global literature that has since followed, particularly within the genres of fantasy and science fiction to this very day.

One of the most revolutionary eras in literature was the early-modern period of history, between the 15th and 17th centuries, not only resulting from the invention of the printing press in Europe but also the Renaissance that reintroduced European scholars and writers to classical texts that had been thought lost for over a thousand years. The widespread distribution made possible by printing helped literacy to spread as did the rise of grammar school education in England that produced some of the greatest writers of any era: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, who combined classical education with commercial flair to write some of the greatest dramas ever written. Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre reflected the fact that ecclesiastical themes were gradually becoming outdated, plays with biblical themes replaced by texts influenced by the early genres of tragedy and comedy

first created by Greek playwrights such as Aeschylus and Euripides. Shakespeare is today credited with merging tragedy and comedy in a revolutionary way, echoing but reinventing the ancient styles.

An increasingly wealthy middle class ready to read and buy books made the invention of the novel in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century possible, with pioneering novelists including Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson. In the late 1700s, Romanticism, spearheaded by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge represented one of the most radical breaks with previous literary styles in history, seeking to create a new form of literature based on authentic personal experience. In turn, the Realist and Naturalist movements, influenced by science and technology, developed in the late nineteenth century as a reaction against Romanticism. One offshoot of the novel was the Gothic, popularised

by Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto and brought to philosophical as well as literary maturity with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1816; the Gothic was a popular genre that ranged from religion and philosophy to mythology and science to love and horror. The Gothic’s fascination with the irrational aspect of human behaviour anticipated the psychology of Sigmund Freud by over a century and helped influence modernist and eventually postmodernist literature and theory in the twentieth century, that reacted against traditional motifs, often by reworking them in ironic and parodic ways. A notable example of post-modern Gothic in the 1980s was the work of Angela Carter

The Handmaid’s Tale, 1985

and Margaret Atwood, in works such as The Bloody Chamber and The Handmaid’s Tale; the latter focused on the dystopian future but featured many stylistic features and motifs from the past. Thus, the ghost of historical literature continues to be clearly present in today’s most popular genres and varieties.

At first glance, the passage of time and evolution of languages appears to have led to essential differences in the structure, style and substance of writing.

Furthermore, the plethora of themes and motifs, genres and movements might initially lead one to assume that the literary features of our modern age don’t bear close resemblance to historical works. Notwithstanding this, analysis of literary patterns shows that modern texts do, in fact, mirror antiquity in both cultural depictions, underlying subjects and aesthetic choices. This revelation indicates that, in spite of landmark changes over thousands of years, the historical roots of literary ideas and style hold a much greater influence over modern writers than widely acknowledged.

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Mirror of Modernity:

Naomi Smith

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YE AR 13

t can be argued that King Lear is the most unendurable of all Shakespeare’s plays. in Act V, in particular, the sheer number of deaths on stage is deeply uncomfortable.

Moreover, the tragedy of the characters’ deaths are made even more unbearable by the fact that Gloucester and Lear experience a mental lift just before their deaths; the audience is granted a glimmer of hope which is quickly torn away. Finally, the relatability of King Lear in comparison to Shakespeare’s other tragedies such as Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet is greater now as the play still holds great universal relevance for a 21st-century audience, thus making the tragedy more uncomfortably familiar to a modern audience because it holds up such an uncomfortable mirror to our own society.

Firstly, the great death-ridden scene in the final act of the play is deeply unsettling and difficult for an audience to watch. Whilst the death of one or two protagonists is commonplace in a typical tragedy such as is the case with Romeo and Juliet in the final scene, in King Lear, the audience is heavily burdened with mass death and the deeply uncomfortable image of the stage littered with five bodies. Shakespeare leaves us exhausted, saddened, questioning why this has happened and what the true moral lesson of the play is. As Aristotle addressed in Poetics, a tragedy arouses pity and fear, for an emotional release, and that at the climax of the play the audience is granted a ‘catharsis’ of these emotions, left with a moral lesson. However, despite the death at the end of many tragedies arguably granting a satisfying release, the overwhelming image of death in Act V Scene 3 is startling and invokes deep melancholy, even horror, among the audience. In addition, the lexical field of death is emphasised by the final stage direction, ‘Exeunt with a dead march’. The ‘dead march’ is a sound effect of music, suitable for a funeral. The image of death with the music of a funeral further reinforces the atmosphere of complete sadness and overwhelming unendurability. Moreover, the tragic frame of ‘LEAR with CORDELIA in his arms’ enhances the poignancy of the scene, the image invoking a deep sense of pathos amongst

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the audience at the sight of a father holding his dead daughter.

This is a further example of the recurring theme, that there is an inversion or order within King Lear; it is unsettling that the young Cordelia has passed before her elderly, ill father. This tragic event has occurred in the wrong order, death has taken place unnaturally and the knowledge of this makes the sight not only of mass death but the frame of Lear holding Cordelia deeply upsetting.

The natural injustice is highlighted by the line, ‘my poor fool is hanged’. The adjective ‘poor’ is pitiful, invoking sorrow whilst ‘fool’ acts as a term of endearment as well as connoting youth, therefore, furthering the sense of pathos that Cordelia has died too young. Moreover, it also reminds the audience of Lear’s other ‘child’, the Fool. The double reference implies that the Fool too has died, particularly as he has not been on stage since Act III, Scene 6. It can be argued that the fool’s line, ‘I’ll go to bed at noon’ (3.6) marks his death in the play with going to ‘bed’ as a metaphor for sleep, ultimately a far more romanticised presentation of death than the gruesome depiction in Act V Scene 3. The shift from a romantic to gruesome presentation of death in the final scene signifies Aristotle’s tragic ‘fall’ in Lear’s tragedy, how death becomes ugly and commonplace. Ultimately, Lear’s fatherhood is ripped from him with not only all of his daughters dying but arguably the figure he acted mostly as a father towards throughout the play, the Fool. He has lost both his kingship in the public sphere and his fatherhood in the private. However, it is also likely that Lear simply refers to Cordelia as a ‘fool’ out of love. It is argued that at Shakespeare’s time of writing both the Fool and Cordelia would have been played by the same actor, a young boy, and therefore cannot be on stage at the same time. This would explain why the Fool does not appear in Acts Four or Five, rather than his death.

In many ways what makes King Lear the most unendurable of all Shakespeare’s plays is the way in which the mass violence eerily mirrors the horrors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the Jacobean era, Hamlet may have been considered the greatest tragedy, with King Lear, viewed as an overly violent and unrelatable dark play. However, in a modern context a western audience has witnessed, in recent history, two world wars which sparked mass death, deep inhumane tragedies such as the Holocaust and many terror attacks with modern weapons killing many instantly, something which a Jacobean audience would have been blind to.

The way in which Lear anticipates the torments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as its bleak, absurdist, postreligious philosophy, is what helps to make King Lear Shakespeare’s most terrifying but also recognisable play to a modern audience.

R. A. Foakes in his book Hamlet Versus Lear, 1993 says that we are likely to see King Lear as Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy as it chimes with the anxiety and pessimism which world events have made common over the last century. A Christian reading may argue that whilst Lear’s suffering throughout the play is long and arduous his death in the final scene is fairly quick and painless.

In Shakespeare’s time a quick and painless death was seen as a reward for a life lived virtuously, with long and painful deaths being granted to sinners. Perhaps his earlier madness led him to

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a wisdom and understanding that brought him peace in death, experiencing ‘reason in madness’. This may have comforted a Jacobean audience and made Lear’s death scene less unendurable, in the knowledge that he should be entering heaven where, as a king, he belongs. According to the Jacobean theory of the divine right of kings, as he has been chosen and selected by God, Lear deserves to lie in heaven’s resting grounds. Ultimately, however, a modern audience is unlikely to respond to the play in a similar way and more ready to be horrified by the gruesome depiction of mass death.

Most modern in its bleakness and sparseness is the scene on the Heath, in which Lear arguably reaches a breaking point in madness and reduction: ‘Here I stand your slave,/ A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man’. The asyndetic list adds pace and heightened tension to his statement whilst the metaphor of a slave demonstrates Lear’s shift in society; he once ruled over nature and now is ruled by nature. As a slave, Lear has not only lost all freedom, wealth and role in society but is also stripped of any identity. Similarly, Gloucester reaches his state in madness when he loses his eyes and is left suicidal. Drawing upon a metaphor of a smouldering candle end, hating his own force ‘my snuff and loathed part of nature should/ Burn itself out’. Contextually, Gloucester’s suicidal inclination in Shakespeare’s time would simply have been dismissed as mad irrational thoughts. However, perhaps his thoughts may be viewed as even more unendurable and hold greater potency with a modern audience who have mental health awareness, in particular awareness of the common problem which is male suicide. As Knott suggests, ‘this tragedy is above all others, the Shakespearean play of our time’.

The use of metaphors in both Gloucester and Lear’s speeches demonstrates the blur of reality and imagination, the sense of madness invoked by the confusion of the audience at times as to whether the character is taking a literal interpretation of their own speech. Contextually, a Jacobean audience believed in the ‘wheel of fortune’, that we are carried up in society and inevitably down to the bottom. This is directly referenced twice in King Lear, secondly by Edmund in Act V Scene 3, ‘The wheel is come full circle, I am here.’ Ultimately, we see Lear and Gloucester lifted from their maddened state, with an overriding desire to preserve their lives and acknowledgement of their mistakes. Thus, it is deeply unendurable to see the characters experience a minor lift up the ‘wheel’ yet ultimately, and irregularly dragged back down again unto death. Alternatively, perhaps Lear never recovers from his maddened state and is not carried back up with the ‘wheel’. As Edgar paradoxically states, there is ‘reason in madness’. Perhaps, Lear’s wisdom presented is part of mad thought, he in fact never recovers and therefore does not experience a lift in mental stature.

For example, in the final scene Lear’s inconsistency is unsettling; he flickers between thoughts that Cordelia is dead at one moment and alive at another. The imperative, ‘Look her lips. Look there, look there!’ is exaggerated with repetition and the exclamation mark, reflecting his despair and arguably madness. Critic AC Bradley argues that this is evidence that Lear thinks Cordelia is alive. Not only are lips associated with breath and life but earlier in the play Cordelia’s ‘ripe lip’ is associated with healing, thus

leading many to believe that Lear thinks Cordelia is alive just as he dies.

Gloucester’s attempted suicide holds great potency with a modern audience as does Lear’s ‘madness’. Whilst this gives a sense of frustration to the audience, that Lear is maddened, confused and Cordelia’s unjust death isn’t fully mourned it also seems comforting that Lear dies at peace, in his own mad thought.

Simon Callow states that ‘Shakespeare wrote all there is that we need to know about dementia in 'King Lear’’, Lear is not mad but confused and suffering from dementia syndrome. Shakespeare creates a lexical field of old-age confusion throughout the play where Lear is addressed as ‘old man’ and himself accepts his cognitive impairment, ‘I am a very foolish fond old man (...)

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.’ The issue of confusion in dementia is an unendurable reality for many, according to the Alzheimer's society ‘70 per cent of people in care homes have dementia or severe memory problems.’ An audience who has knowledge of dementia would know that Lear cannot be lifted up the ‘wheel’ from his mental state.

In conclusion, King Lear holds up a powerful mirror to our own times, from mass death to mental illness. Its very unendurability is what makes it so modern and why so many critics deem it the greatest of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Colm Feore as King Lear and Sara Farb as Cordelia at the Stratford Festival, Ontario, 2014 (Photo by David Hou).

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Nicholas Lemieux YE AR 12

F

or most people, TV serves as a much-needed break from the stress of reality. Sometimes at the end of a rough day of work, we just want to sit down, relax and switch our brains off for an hour or so as we engage ourselves in a fictional world filled with characters and storylines that just strain credulity. We find entertainment in these shows as we know these manic and bizarre situations surely can’t happen in the real world. Sure, there’s a relatable aspect always there, but for the most part these larger-than-life characters and the wacky problems they find themselves in are just too silly to actually happen for real... ... Right?

A TV writer’s main goal is, of course, to entertain their audience.

Whether creating a reflection of the real world or an entirely different fantasy setting, they do not set out to achieve a complete replica of reality, much less predict what could happen in the future. Yet all too often, in an almost Nostradamus-like manner, these writers hit the nail right on the head by forecasting accurate outcomes in the real world. Life somehow imitates art and people, things, and stories meant to be entirely fictional somehow find their way into our reality. You could even make the case that most of the futuristic technology of Star Trek, like video calls and cell phones, are now just everyday parts of our society, demonstrating how much the times have changed since then and perhaps offering up some commentary on our own technological evolution. As a result, this can cause various one-off jokes and storylines to become either hilarious or harsher in hindsight, depending on your own perspective of things. Whether it’s some eerie coincidence or a genuine reflection of a still-possible dystopian society, it’s still a testament to the creativity and skills of these writers for accurately prophesising the world of tomorrow.

Perhaps some of the most notable cases of TV accurately predicting the future come from the eternally upbeat and optimistic anthology show Black Mirror. The main intention of the sobering sci-fi series is to starkly remind us of our over-reliance on technology, how it easily has the power to cause us great harm; furthermore, it offers a look at the world around us to see where we may be catastrophically heading. Right off the bat,

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however, the show’s very first episode eventually turned out to have a truly shocking reality behind it. Aired back in 2011, “The National Anthem” follows a fictional British Prime Minister who, in order to save a member of the Royal Family from kidnappers, is forced to have sex with a pig on live TV. At the time of its broadcast, many regarded the episode as nothing more than a simple piece of clever commentary upon the constantly changing 24-hour news cycle as well as society’s general obsession with scandals and the humiliation of others. Four years later, however, the media frenzy of “Piggate” broke out after rumours broke out that then-PM David Cameron had committed sexual acts of sorts with a dead pig during his university years which quickly made headline news. Of course, there was never any proper evidence that the claim was true and series creator Charlie Brooker did have to quickly deny any prior knowledge of these accusations, calling it a “complete coincidence”. At bare minimum, however, the show did at least offer up an accurate prediction of what the public frenzy about such a specifically grotesque story would like, as is evident from the sheer humiliation Cameron faced worldwide.

Similarly, some of the technological innovations put forth

by Black Mirror, in its intentions to highlight the unanticipated consequences of new technologies, have scarily started to seep their way into reality as well. For instance, the episode “Nosedive” is set in a world where people can rate one another from one to five stars for every social interaction they have, which has an overall impact on their own standing in society as a whole. As a result, many of the relationships within this world turn out to be wholly insincere and the main character herself ultimately ends up losing her sanity in her pursuit of more likes and a consequent improvement in social status. Even marriages are shown to be out of mere convenience just to boost one’s own raring. Initially just a clever thought-provoking concept, this episode in particular has received much media attention after news broke out in 2016 that the Chinese government was legitimately toying with plans to implement a “social credit” system for their citizens.

The initiative, which was planned for testing this year, would involve assigning each citizen a score determining decisions such as "whether you can borrow money" or "get your children into the best schools", and that actions such as "defaulting on a loan"

W H E N R E A L I T Y M I R RO R S T V

or "criticizing the ruling party" would lead to a lower score.

The proposed system is startlingly similar to the rating concept of Black Mirror, particularly how the idea of stripping a citizen of their rights based off of their low rating directly mirrors the unfortunate fate of the main character in “Nosedive”. As Frank Pasquale, a big-data expert at the University of Maryland put it, "You could imagine a future where people are watching to see if their friends’ credit is dropping and then dropping their friends if that affects them. That’s just terrifying."

Sometimes you get a show that’s just been going on for so long that it’s inevitable at least some of its future predictions are bound to be right. The never-ending zombie of a show that is The Simpsons of course is the key example of this trope (Season 32 coming this autumn!). Over the course of the three decades it’s been on the air, numerous one-off jokes and sight gags have unexpectedly ended up predicting various events in the future.

Notable occurrences of this include the accurate prediction of the Higgs-Boson particle (unexpectedly from a smart Homer), Disney’s buying out of 20th Century Fox, the existence of threeeyed fish mutated by a nuclear power plant, smart watches, autocorrect and the use of horsemeat in products which later resulted in the horsemeat scandal with Iceland. Probably the most memorable of these incidents was the time the show somehow correctly predicted the outcome of the 2016 presidential election 16 years prior. The episode “Bart to the Future” from Season 11, set in a world where Lisa has become President, features a one-off joke alluding to Donald Trump, back then just a mere millionaire, becoming President and causing a budget crisis that Lisa inherits.

At the time of the episode’s writing, the joke was initially inserted in order to tie in with the episode’s overall theme of America going insane in the future, which makes its accidental prediction of this unexpected event all the more surreal. In fitting Simpsons style, the first episode aired after the results of the 2016 election included a gag in the opening credits commenting on how “being right sucks”. I will point out however that the recent reports of the show apparently predicting the outbreak of Coronavirus back in 1993, with a joke involving a global pandemic spreading worldwide from an infected Japanese factory in Osaka, did turn out to be partially false as the virus originally started from Wuhan-more than 2000 km away from Osaka. Ah well, you can’t win them all I suppose.

Even in the world of live-action sitcoms, throwaway jokes and intentionally silly storylines somehow turn out to be oddly prophetic of future real-life events. Arrested Development, a particular favourite of mine, has become notable for featuring many jokes that are actually strongly rooted in reality. The Bluths themselves, the wealthy yet dysfunctional family of the show, have undergone comparisons to the Trumps, and to be fair some of the similarities are quite apt (a failing real estate business, a family obsessed with drawing attention to themselves, buffoonish patriarchs etc.). These comparisons particularly took off after a storyline in the show’s revival season in 2013 ended up suspiciously similar to our current political landscape. George

Sr., the patriarch, lands a government contract to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. Two years before Trump had even announced his campaign, Arrested Development had accurately predicted the Wall. In another example of reality mystically imitating a sitcom, the medical comedy Scrubs somehow managed to predict the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden five years before his death. In a conversation about the Iraq War, the janitor of the show, a character who seemingly always exaggerates his knowledge and backstory to ludicrous degrees, offhandedly mentions he believes Bin Laden to be hiding in Pakistan. In 2006, his guess was as good as anybody’s yet bizarrely it was indeed in a Pakistani compound where Bin Laden was ultimately found and killed. I guess being a janitor he already knew where to find all the bins (joke stolen from a YouTube comment).

Lastly, the final season of workplace sitcom Parks and Recreation, which was filmed in 2014 but had a time jump three years into the future in 2017, featured a number of oddly correct predictions of what would’ve happened by then. This included the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series despite their constant losing streak, the poor reviews for the last season of Game of Thrones and the idea of a Star Wars film being used by the government to distract the public from a big vote, as later happened with the release of The Last Jedi at the same time as the FCC’s attempt to remove Net Neutrality.

Overall, I guess the point I’m trying to make is life can be very weird sometimes and no matter how much we try to predict it, we’ll never truly know what happens in the future. Still, the writers for these shows have done a fantastic job of reading in between cultural lines and figuring out where we may be possibly heading, no matter how surreal it seems. Points off for Back to the Future Part II though. 2015 came and went and I STILL have no hoverboard.

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The Terminator

by James Cameron (1984)

TWO OF THE TOP THREE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETIES ARE DEMOCRACIES: THE USA AND THE UK.

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n a 2010 interview with Paris Review, science fiction author Ray Bradbury said: “Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again.”

However outlandish they may have seemed when first articulated, “Ideas, when mobilised, become the templates of thought and practice.”. Many authors and filmmakers, over the centuries, have conjured many ideas that, at the time, didn’t seem possible, yet have, in the intervening years, become, wholly or in part, a reality. These futuristic inventions and ideas, expressed in novels and movies past and present, emphasise the creativity of the human mind and remind us that “Even the flimsiest ideas rooted in prejudice and ignorance make history and form public culture”. It can be argued that the depiction of the future in science

fiction has influenced our development as a society by transforming many of these ideas into reality.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, science-fiction is the mode of novel that has caught the attention of many, not least because of their fascination with innovative ideas that have become more of a reality during our era of dizzying technological progress.

George Orwell’s 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four touches upon the themes of propaganda and totalitarianism, as well as philosophical issues such as the nature of identity and individuality, particularly in relation to the state. Orwell predicted the mass surveillance that characterises our twenty-first century society, as well as abuse of government control and the cult of personality, which we can certainly see in government and politics today, even in supposedly democratic societies. In Orwell’s novel, the reader is presented with an all-seeing totalitarian

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UTOPIA OR DYSTOPIA? How Literature and Film Predict Our Future Haleigh Smith YE AR 13

presence, Big Brother, used by The Party to instil a sense of loyalty but also fear.

This devotion to Big Brother is illustrated at the end of the Two-Minute Hate ritual, where an entire group of people break out into a slow and deep rhythmic beat, chanting 'B-B! ... B-B! ... B-B!'. In the novel. The Party uses technology and surveillance to maintain this cult of personality, using television screens to watch people as well as having people spy on everyone else to maintain fear. The phrase “Big Brother is watching you” has become part of our everyday vocabulary to describe the mass surveillance society in which we live, in the era of Amazon’s Alexa, Siri and Google Home. Amazon has admitted that its employees listen to customers’ voice recording from many of their Alexa-enabled smart devices in order to “help improve conversation quality”.

The same social media companies use algorithms to keeps track of every gesture, comment, like, purchase and search we

make online, which is then used to predict further preferences and helps control our behaviour and our choices (streaming companies such as Netflix use similar technology to curate a personalised catalogue of entertainment based on viewing history).

Equally troubling is the use by governments of mass surveillance cameras.

The United States of America has approximately 15.3 cameras per 100 citizens, followed by 14.4 in China and 7.5 in the United Kingdom – which means that two of the top three surveillance societies are democracies, not obviously authoritarian states. Increasingly, cameras are disguised as mundane objects like tissue boxes, wall clocks, water bottles and smoke alarms to make them more inconspicuous than ever; the only reason many of us know about them is that they have surfaced to be purchased on Amazon.

Whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has revealed that America’s National Security

Agency (NSA) “specifically, targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default.” The theme of mass surveillance presented in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, seen as quite far-fetched when the novel was initially released in 1949 (particularly in democratic countries such as Britain), seem less science fiction and more a predictive mirroring of the technology used in today’s society.

Even earlier than Orwell, HG Wells, in his novels, made predictions that seemed outlandish at the time, but have proved prescient. In particular, his novel, The World Set Free, published in 1914 before the First World War, suggests that mankind will eventually destroy itself; it imagined a uranium-based hand grenade that "would continue to explode indefinitely" over thirty years before the first atomic bomb created by the Manhattan Project in 1945: including “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” dropped with such devastating effect on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki

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Metropolis by Fritz Lang (1927)

and Hiroshima. Wells argued that, as a result of these scientific “advancements”, humanity would destroy itself; he suggested that “the only possibilities of the case were either the relapse of mankind to the agricultural barbarism from which it had emerged so painfully or the acceptance of achieved science as the basis of a new social order.” We can see this faith in science reflected in our own times, as the Government insists its Covid-19 strategy is driven by “the Science”. However, although HG believed science could bring improvements in society he also understood the dangers in placing too much faith in science at the expense of a moral framework. The 146,000 deaths in Hiroshima and 80,000 deaths in Nagasaki (excluding the deaths caused by the initial explosion) were appalling. However, we should not forget the more recent estimates by United Nations agencies and Greenpeace

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International, in 2005, that, between 4,000 and 90,000 deaths had resulted from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. In our own twentyfirst century, there were, in 2014, 4,760 nuclear warheads in the American weapons inventory and 4,3000 warheads in the Russian military inventory alone. Wells’ prophetic argument that we needed a global governmental body to maintain a stable civilisation influenced the decision of President Roosevelt and others to form the United Nations following the Second World War; possibly their most significant recent pronouncement has been the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, passed on July 7th, 2017: “comprehensive set of prohibitions on participating in any nuclear weapon activities. These include undertakings not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.” However, Wells did not just inspire the peacemakers, he also influenced American-Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, who, having read The World Set Free, conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933 and wrote a letter for Albert Einstein’s signature that would initiate the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb. What more powerful and destructive proof can there be of Ray Bradbury’s description of science fiction as “any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will”.

Modern cinematic technology has enabled the movie industry to present science fiction ideas, such as those pioneered by Wells, to an ever-wider audience. Again, what once seemed fantasy has become reality; the fact that our own lives are increasingly screen-based (not least during the confinement of Covid-19) has perhaps made us feel increasingly that we are each living in a movie, expanding our own concept of what we mean by ‘reality’.

Arguably, the most popular and influential science fiction film of the last forty years is James Cameron’s futuristic apocalypse, The Terminator (1985), which presents a world in which humanoid machines grow an autonomous consciousness and take over the world by force. AI today, although not yet at the stage depicted in Cameron’s film and its sequels, has developed to an extent some find exhilarating others unsettling. The use of AI and robotics globally, from commercial to military, is increasing exponentially; in September 2018, the Pentagon committed to spending $2 billion over the coming five years to “develop the next wave of AI technologies”, while in January 2019, rumours emerged that Russia was developing an autonomous drone which would be able to take off, accomplish a given mission and land without any human interference. Currently, a Taranis-armed drone is under development in the UK, said to be “the most technically advanced demonstration aircraft ever built in the UK”. This use of autonomous technology in the military mirrors the science fiction ideas demonstrated in Cameron’s film, where military drones are seen to roam the skies with the capability of deploying bombs and artillery.

The expansion of humanoid robots is another area in which Terminator and other twentieth century science fiction films (including Metropolis, made as early as 1927!) have been prophetic.

Sofia, a humanoid robot has the capability to hold an intelligent

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conversation; CEO of Hanson robotics Dr David Hanson says that “20 years from now, I believe that human-like like those will walk among us”, and will be “indistinguishable from humans”.

Furthermore, Kuri is said to have a personality, awareness of its surroundings and the ability to learn from experience, while Kurata, 3.8 metres tall and weighing 5 tons, features a BB Catling gun with the ability to deploy 6,000 rounds per minute. The development of the Cyberdyne system Model 101 that possesses a metal endoskeleton seems to make the vision of Cameron and other science fiction directors a reality already; it also seems probable that we will only become more reliant on such technology during our lifetimes.

Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1990) follows a character, Douglas Quaid (played, like the Terminator, by the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger) who discovers that his entire life is actually a false memory and the people who planted his memories now want him dead. We are not quite there yet. However, what is of interest here is that, in one scene, Doug jumps into a driverless taxi, known as a “Johnny cab” which has a humanoid robot posing as the driver to make conversation. In the 21st century, although cars may not be at the point of flying, driverless vehicles or vehicles with less dependence on humans are now very much a reality and, predicted by many, to be the dominant mode of private transport over the next decade or so. The most famous example has been produced by Tesla, with autopilot features and self-driving capacity: ‘Traffic Aware Cruise Control’ matches the speed of your car to the surrounding traffic; ‘Autosteer’ assists in steering within a clearly marked lane and traffic-aware cruise control; ‘Navigate on Autopilot (Beta)’ helps with navigating the car off of roads, into other lanes and taking the correct turn which automatically engages the turn signal or indicator; ‘Autopark’ helps with parallel and perpendicular parking with a single touch; ‘Summon’ moves your car out of a tight space using a mobile of key; ‘Smart summon’ navigates more complex areas and parking spaces, and manoeuvring around objects to come and find you in a parking lot. Robotics company Nuro has partnered with retail company Kroger to create an unmanned grocery delivery which has been tested on customers in four zip codes, providing evidence for the flexibility in the use of autonomous technology to our benefit.

Thus, we can see how inventions and technology of our own era have been predicted by visionary authors from Wells to Bradbury and imaginative directors from Fritz Lang in the 1920s to Paul Verhoeven in the 1990s whose minds were more innovative than their time, mirroring not only the present in which they lived but the future. Ideas and events once portrayed as science fiction through literature and cinema are now our reality. This leaves us to wonder what other ideas we currently think of as science fiction will come true within our lifetimes or maybe beyond. As Ray Bradbury, born exactly one hundred years ago, at the beginning of the technologically transformative twentieth century, wrote: “Ideas, when mobilised, become the templates of thought and practice.”.

Folakemi Odofin YE AR 8

MIRROR As I stood in front of this mirror, The thoughts of a perfect me were illustrated.

Over time it became clearer, The perfect me that I created, Mimicked all the hobbies that I enjoyed, However, wasn’t kind and caring but full of deceit.

My hopes of a perfect image were being destroyed.

What if I change the perfect me, let me repeat As I again stand in front of this mirror The thoughts of a perfect me were illustrated.

Over time it became clearer That a perfect me could not be located.

Then I realised the perfect person I could be, Has always been inside of me.

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Robot (by Franck V)

The Mirror of Narcissus?

AI AND HUMAN

IDENTITY Lottie Allen YE AR 13

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he Information Age or Digital Age, involving a new complexity in the relationship between media and technology, began in the 1970s and still continues today, as more than 4.5 billion people currently use the internet. Do the benefits of technology outweigh the disadvantages? What impact do technology and media have on society? Should technological advances be limited?

Undoubtedly, there are many benefits to this relationship between technology and media; from improvements in education to business, medicine and entertainment, technology has transformed our society. Whilst most of us have prospered from this increased efficiency and connectivity, we must be aware that unhindered access could have negative as well as positive impact on the individual and on society. As Albert Einstein warned, ‘I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction’. To what extent, has technology already become a negative force within society and if so, how can we amend our experience towards positivity?

Postmodernism, as Dominic Strinati argues involves a breakdown in the distinction between culture and society, which has resulted in technology governing and shaping our social relationships; our perception of the social environment is informed by mediated cultural representations, examples of

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which may include celebrity culture and the trends which they begin within society. Furthermore, he argues that technology has contributed to our vision of style over substance; in other words, we consume images rather than seeking meaning (whether through relationships or philosophical texts). In addition, he argues that there has grown a distinction between high art and popular culture. Similarly, Canadian political philosopher Charles Taylor considers populist modern art to be inferior to high art which considers both manner and matter; Taylor argues that art should be meaningful to inspire reflection and wonder. Strinati explains that we now experience confusion across time and space; we are less attached to and in touch with the natural world. Finally, there has been a decline of grand theories, resulting in the undermining of the hierarchical order of society and fragmenting of our human experience. Therefore, according to Strinati and Taylor, we can consider technology as a negative force in our lives, contributing to the narrowing of our lives, a loss of resonance and of meaningful interactions.

Philosopher Jean Baudrillard questions the very nature of media; is it possible that the media is nothing more than a smoke screen, a clever means by which reality is subverted?

Is it possible that the media is nothing? Baudrillard argues that we have entered a hyperreality - postmodern societies have

AI AND HUMAN IDENTITY

become so saturated by media and information technologies we should embrace our stumbles, errors and genuine real-life that they have entered an age of simulation, or an age of thirdselves to reveal ourselves to one another and form more genuine order simulation. This theory articulates that the simulation social relations. Thus, like Baudrillard, Taylor and Strinati, no longer represents reality - it is so far detached from reality Turkle seems to suggest technology as a negative force in our that there is no connection between that and the representation; lives because it acts as an illusory companion that ultimately instead, we live in a hyperreality. For example, Disneyland is pure leads to our social and cultural demise. fantasy which simultaneously functions to make us believe in its Others argue that such dystopian attitudes are nonsense. reality. Baudrillard explains that America is no longer real as a Dennis Dutton criticises Baudrillard’s theory as ‘bombastic result; it is now its own media images and cultural myths rather assertion[s]’ which are either ‘trite, vaguely or badly false’. than being a real, genuine, material and geographical location.

Another critic suggests that Baudrillard’s description of finding Controversially, he argued that the Gulf War and the 9/11 himself ‘disempowered by images which confound the real’ is selfattacks are non-events; in other words, they did not happen in contradictory because, if nothing is truth, how can Baudrillard’s the way we accept their reality. The screened images and mediaown argument be anything but hyperreality? Nakwon Jung saturated spectacle cannot depict a prolonged sense of combat writes that seeking information is a positive and significant and conflict; instead, we experience only a virtual war or a nonpredictor of social capital and participatory behaviours - the more event. In terms of the 9/11 attacks, Baudrillard explains that the active your social networking, the more active your social life. In media becomes part of the event, part of the terror. He argues addition, Hampton argues that technology kindles diversity in that the collapse of the World Trade Centre was more significant reality; for example, there are significant benefits to keeping in symbolically than its physical collapse; the terrorism of spectacle touch with people with whom you could not without technology. rather than the spectacle of terrorism. The real event was not Net Lab asserts that social media connectivity enables you to find for those experiencing screened images because their fascination fellows, peers and like-minded individuals; far from damaging was with the images not the event (similarly, Boorstin argues we relationships, social networking is able to bring people together have entered a Graphic Revolution). However, Baudrillard has and make relationships stronger. Similarly, Zeynep Tufekci faced criticism for neglecting to acknowledge that the events had explains that people are not talking to bots online but rather that very real consequences for the individuals who were there and they are accessing a social network brimming with humanity and for history. In Baudrillard’s argument, technology energy; it is also an opportunity for individuals becomes a negative force because the media is no who lack offline social skills to connect with other SOCIAL longer depicting reality; it cannot be used as a tool people. Within the past two months, during the DEVICES AND to enhance our human experience, but instead Covid-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown, NETWORKING further distances us from the world. the social benefits of technology have been PLATFORMS Furthermore, the psychologist Sherry Turkle, clear, facilitating social interactions, from school CHANGE NOT JUST classrooms to online parties. Therefore, it is clear posits that online life is defining and negatively WHAT WE DO BUT that technology can be a positive force, providing impacting human connection and personal life.

WHO WE ARE. Social devices such as mobile phones and social enhanced human connectivity and enabling people networking platforms change not just what we do, to bring comfort to each other. but fundamentally change who we are. For example, activities In all, technology can be demonstrated as both a negative which were once taboo have become more socially accepted, like and positive force in our lives. It cannot be denied that, during texting in a restaurant or when visiting family. Turkle explains lockdown, technology has helped us to maintain human that we have become unable to relate to one another; when we’re connectivity; most visibly, people organised a nationwide together, we are - in effect - alone. However, the problem with recognition for the NHS via social networks to collectively praise technology is that superficial relations generate dissatisfaction in them on a given day which many people found to be a moving our real world. Since we are able to customize and control our and emotional display of unity and community. Furthermore, online lives, we become lost in the real world, for example unable there are the benefits of an incredible research tool for pursuing to develop meaningful face-to-face relationships. This can be seen knowledge and a platform for exercising our right to free through texting, which allows for editing, deleting and retouching speech and expression. On the other hand, it is also important which become preferable to the messiness of real-time interaction. to recognise that, like any tool, this technology can be misused, Therefore, conversation becomes sacrificed with ‘I’d rather text that it can undermine human relationships, alienate individuals than talk’. The danger of this is that we may end up replacing from one another, remove resonance and texture from our lives. friends with Siri and lovers with sexbots; machines and online life Instead of totally rejecting or embracing technology, we should are slowly replacing our parents, relatives and partners. While a instead recognise its importance but also the need to use it with simulation of human empathy may be beneficial in the short-term moderation and balance. Technology becomes a negative force in to provide comfort to vulnerable people, it is simply an illusion of our lives when our online life becomes a greater focus than our companionship which leaves us lonely and incapable of forming offline, authentic one. lasting intimacy and friendship. This is a symptom rather than a cure and generates a sense of alienation. Instead, Turkle argues,

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IS THERE SUCH A THING AS

Taylor Colbeth YE AR 13

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odern society tends to draw focus to all of the features that divide humans such as culture, ethnicity, nationality, etc. However, we might actually be more similar than we think. It is argued that there are fundamental characteristics that are mirrored across all humans: human nature. This extremely important question has been debated in philosophy for centuries and continues to be a key point of discussion today.

Among those who defend the concept of Human Nature, there are two views: (1) the spiritual/essentialist view that there is something essential within the essence of a human that separates it from an animal; (2) the physical/evolutionary view that humans have evolved and developed characteristics that are exclusive to our species.

The essentialist view is clearly advocated by traditional Christian dogma which presents all humans as created in the image of God, our human nature as something we are born with in our essence and not attained by any other species.

The idea of Original Sin was most cogently put forth by St. Augustine of Hippo: the idea that, through Adam and Eve’s Fall, future generations were universally infected by sin, their minds corrupted. Therefore, not only is it our nature to sin, it is an individual’s responsibility to turn away from this sin and towards God, in accordance with Natural Law, in order to repair our relationship with Him.

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Over 1,300 years after Augustine, German philosopher Immanuel Kant secularised this this essentialist view of human nature, arguing that humans are born with an internal tension between our desires and our reason, between our animal and divine nature. Kant notes that this tension is specific to humans; animals have no concept of moral duty while divine beings have no desires, so neither feels the same tension as human beings.

Kant writes that, because humans are autonomous and capable of choosing actions that are independent of our self-interest, it is our responsibility to resist our desires and use our reason.

Therefore, those who consistently give in to their desires are to be considered animals, as they are not fulfilling the duty that all humans bear.

In the two centuries following Kant there has been a debate within science about human nature. Some rejected the idea of an essential human nature, separating homo sapiens from other species. However, many scientists still supported the idea that there are properties exclusively shared between all humans.

Evolutionary theory helped shape a scientific argument that, over time, our species had developed characteristics that separate us from our ancestors. A central characteristic is language; no other animal can communicate with the same complexity as humans. No other animal’s brain has evolved such advanced cognitive abilities. In this sense, humans are connected and there is a discernible universal human nature.

However, some have disputed the concept of human nature.

H U M A N N AT U R E

William Blake, Elohim Creating Adam, c. 1795

Existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, argued that to believe in human nature is to believe that there is something within our essence that is present before we are born, which counters the existentialist premise of “existence before essence.”

Sartre and others suggest that we have no fixed nature because we exist by defining ourselves in each moment, each of us radically free and radically responsible for our own actions and behaviour. Sartre maintains that the concept of “human nature” allows people to evade moral responsibility for their actions by claiming that it was ‘in their nature to do so’.

Sartre, however, does not completely reject the idea that humans are linked in some way; he believes that we do share a human condition: the fact we are all condemned to be free.

Our situation is characterised by Facticity (we find ourselves in a world we did not choose, make or control), Anxiety (we lack an external source of value and must choose our own nature), and Despair (realising that we are in a world we cannot control and have complete freedom to create ourselves). Therefore, according to Sartre, while our nature is self-defined and nothing in essence is mirrored across all humans, we are all united in some way through this condition.

In the third century BC, the Stoics offered a middle ground between the idea of an essential human nature and existential autonomy. They believed in an essential human nature, but also anticipated existential philosophy in arguing that the individual can define the path that his or her life follows and so must take

responsibility. The ‘facticity’ of our biology is inescapable; however, we can decide how we view and control it. While human nature affects what we can do and what we are inclined to do, we still are free and have a choice. Thus, over 2,000 years before Sartre’s birth, Stoic philosophy offered a solution to his problem of human nature removing our responsibility.

Another response to the Sartrean dilemma has been offered by psychologist Steven Pinker, who argues that our human nature is complex: while it consists of lust, selfishness, revenge, dominance, it also contains self-control, empathy, reason, and moral norms. It is our role, as an individual, to find a balance.

Pinker also suggests that we can transcend aspects of our nature, arguing that violence, for example is decreasing, which suggests that human nature is not a fixed, immutable set of characteristics.

The sheer complexity of human psychology and behaviour means that there will probably never be a definite answer to the question of whether or not there are certain characteristics or properties that can be mirrored across all humans. Does “human nature” exist? Ultimately, that is up to you to determine.

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A mirror to Nature

GILBERT WHITE’S ECOLOGICAL REVOLUTION James Burkinshaw

TE ACHER OF ENGLISH

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merican poet, James Russell Lowell described I also find the word “conversation” fascinating here. White Gilbert White’s Natural History and Antiquities of was no anthropomorphist (except, perhaps, when it came to Selborne as “the journal of Adam in Paradise”.

Timothy, his pet tortoise), but he was extraordinarily alive to It is a delightful image: the gentle, eighteenththe subtleties of animal behaviour and the complexities of the century parson wandering the woods and relationships between species and environments: “The language downs of his quiet corner of rural Hampshire, a natural of birds is very ancient and, like other ancient modes of speech, landscape that he observed in such intricate detail and with very elliptical; little is said but much is meant and understood.” such a sense of wonder.

White saw animals as having an inner existence independent Adam’s expulsion from Paradise, in the Book of Genesis, of humans. They were not Cartesian machines there to be represents our species’ agonising alienation from the rest of controlled and exploited (“ipsa scientia potestas est”); they were nature. The instrument of our Fall is Knowledge: human selfcreatures as complex and, ultimately, unknowable as we were. consciousness. However, 2,000 years after the Genesis narrative Indeed, when White is paying attention to detail, he is was written, philosopher Francis Bacon claimed that it was paying respect. That is why it is so important to him to find the knowledge that held the key to human power right words - not just “a few synonyms”. His over nature ("ipsa scientia potestas est") in his biographer Richard Mabey notes that he “never Meditationes Sacrae (1597). Bacon helped shape openly appropriated (animals’) lives as evidence WHITE SAW a scientific revolution, predicated on human for any moral or theological theory; they are ANIMALS NOT mastery of nature. A century and a half later, respected for themselves.” For that very reason, AS CARTESIAN Gilbert White would pioneer an ecological White is conscious that he must be objective, not MACHINES TO revolution based on respect for the natural romanticise what he is seeing: “It is the hardest BE EXPLOITED world. thing in the world to shake off superstitious BUT CREATURES White was suspicious of an over-reliance on prejudices; they are sucked in as it were with our AS COMPLEX reason and abstraction: “Bare descriptions and mother’s milk . . . become so interwoven into our AND ULTIMATELY a few synonyms . . . all that may be done at very constitutions that the strongest good sense is UNKNOWABLE AS home in a man’s study but the investigation of required to disengage ourselves from them.”

WE WERE. the life and conversation of animals is a concern White was sensitive to the intricacy of the natural of much more trouble and difficulty and it is not world, the essential role played by its most to be attained but by the active and inquisitive.” His dismissive apparently humble denizens: “The most insignificant insects and reference to “synonyms” reflects his awareness of the limitations reptiles are of much more consequence and have much more of terminology to truly characterise the complex nature of what influence in the economy of nature than the incurious are aware is being described. For Gilbert White, “trouble and difficulty” of . . . Earth worms, though in appearance a small and despicable were part of the point: knowledge had to be experienced, had link in the chain of nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable to be earned. chasm . . . a good monography of worms would afford much

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A M I R RO R TO N AT U R E

Eric Ravilious, The Tortoise in the Kitchen Garden from ‘ The Writings of Gilbert White of Selborne’, ed., H.J. Massingham (London, The Nonsuch Press, 1938)

entertainment and information at the same time.” It is passages such as this marvellous encomium to the earth worm that have led to White’s recognition in our own century as the godfather of ecology.

At the heart of his ecological world view was his sense of sympathy. White would go out of his way to avoid harming the creatures he observed; he describes coaxing crickets out of their hiding places: “a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns will probe their windings to the bottom and quickly bring out the inhabitants; and thus the humane enquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it.” Key words here are “gently” and “humane”: to treat other species with respect and care is to be worthy of our humanity.

The “object” is never objectified by White.

The Reverend White’s Natural History is notable for its lack of scriptural references. The Selborne landscape is his sacred text. In his introduction, he seeks to “induce any of

Eric Ravilious, Bird-Nesting from ‘The Writings of Gilbert White of Selborne’, ed., H.J. Massingham (London, The Nonsuch Press, 1938)

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Eric Ravilious, A Rust-Coloured Ferruginous Light,from ‘The Writings of Gilbert White of Selborne’, ed., H.J. Massingham (London, The Nonsuch Press, 1938),

his readers to pay a more ready attention to the wonders of the Creation, too often overlooked as common occurrences.” The sense of finding wonder in “common” things – earth worms, and crickets – reminds the reader of William Blake.

Like Blake, White is more a man of the seventeenth century than the eighteenth (they shared a love of Milton’s poetry); a key influence was John Ray’s Wisdom of God (1691), a classic of “physico-theology” (or natural theology) that sought to “illustrate the glory of God in the knowledge of the works of nature or creation”. White himself often combines scientific diction with poetic imagery to resonant effect: “December 10th being bright sunshine, the air was full of icy spiculae (crystals) floating in all directions like atoms in a

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sun-beam let into a dark room” Some have compared White to the Romantic poets of the next generation, but the sharpness and clarity of his observation and the precision of his imagery are more akin to the Modernist poets of the early twentieth century; his description of the way in which “white butter flies gather in flocks on the mud of the puddles” anticipates the “luminous details” of Ezra Pound’s Imagist masterpiece (“The apparition of these faces in the crowd:/Petals on a wet, black bough”) by a century and a half.

This creative tension between scientific precision and poetic vision, empirical detachment and empathetic connection, is what gives White’s writing its resonance, as in this description of baby swifts: “while we contemplated their naked bodies, their

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unwieldy disproportioned abdominal and their heads too heavy for their necks to support we could not but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor; and perhaps in their emigration must traverse vast continents and oceans as distant as the equator.” It is the mystery of the birds’ “strong impulse towards migration” that fascinates Gilbert White more than anything else in the world, “imprinted on their minds by their great Creator ... I reflected that, after all our pains and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what regions they do migrate”. In the face of the unknown and perhaps unknowable, it was often poetry to which White turned (in which “little is said but much is meant and understood”). In his poem, ‘The Naturalist’s Summer-Evening Walk’, he implores the swallow “say where your hid retreat/When the frost rages and the tempests beat/Whence your return, by such nice instinct led/When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head?/ Such baffled searches mock man’s prying pride,/The God of Nature is your secret guide!” Who, indeed, was Gilbert White’s “God of Nature” and why was he “secret”? In such lines, it is possible to understand how White could have been such an influence on two men as seemingly opposite as the pantheistic mystic Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin.

Although so much of White’s preoccupation was with small, “common” things such as birds and insects, he loved the dramatic sweep of the South Downs: “Though I have now travelled

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the Sussex downs upwards of thirty years, yet I still investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year by year and I think I see new beauties every time I traverse it... a noble view of the wild or weald on the one hand and the broad downs and sea on the other.” Three hundred feet above the vicarage loomed the densely wooded slope, Selborne Hangar, which to this day retains its sense of sublimity; White describes how “the hanging beech-woods begin to be beautifully tinged and to afford most lovely scapes, very engaging to the eye and imagination. They afford sweet lights and shades. These scenes are worthy the pencil of Reubens.” With his reference to “scapes”, “eye”, “imagination” and “shade”, he sounds more like an artist than a man of science. Indeed, like physico-theological forerunners such as John Ray, White saw no boundary between science and art, fact or feeling.

In The Natural History, he will frequently shift without warning from impeccably precise Latin taxonomy to colloquial names that, read aloud, create an almost incantatory quality: “stinking hellebore, creeping bilberries, round-leaved sundew, perfoliated yellow-wort, true-love or oneberry, golden saxifrage, fellwort, toothwort, wild lathyrus, ladies traces, spurge laurel, dwarf elder, danewort.” White brings a similarly vertiginous quality to his vivid evocation of rooks that “rendezvous by thousands over Selborne – down, where they wheel round in the air and sport and dive in a playful manner . .. very engaging to the imagination and not unlike . .. echoing woods or the rushing of wind in tall trees or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly shore . . . they retire for the night to the deep-beechen woods.”

The epic quality of such writing owes much to White’s own literary tastes; when he lyrically describes “the sun at noon . . . shed(ding) a rust-coloured, ferruginous light” he compares it to “Milton’s noble simile of the sun in his first book of Paradise Lost”. However, White can also be an artfully selfdeprecating writer; soon after publication of The Natural History, he wrote ‘Poem to Myself, Commencing Author’ which includes the lines: ‘Who now reads Cowley? The sad doom await/Since such as these are now may be thy fate.”

In a line worthy of Dr Johnson, he describes compiling the index for his Natural History as “an occupation full as entertaining as that of darning stockings, though by no means so advantageous to society.” As with Johnson, we often get the sense that White’s humour masks a deep-seated sadness; in his poem, ‘The Naturalist’s Summer-Evening Walk’, he discovers that “These, Nature’s works, the curious mind employ/Inspire a soothing melancholy joy” the image of a joy that is both melancholy and soothing suggests an extraordinarily complex response to the natural world on the part of the poet. The joy and the melancholy are indistinguishable from each other; both are essential to the writer’s sense of self and to his sense of empathy with the birds, insects and earth worms he observes.

We began this article with Lowell’s description of White’s Natural History as “the journal of Adam in Paradise”. It is possible to read this as a critique as well as a tribute. Was White trying to evade history, tucked away in his self-enclosed world of Selborne village? Is The Natural History a work of escapism? Certainly,

there are few references to the wider world in the book, other than concern expressed for a young local man pressganged to fight the French (“he was bred a carter and never had any connection with sea affairs”) and a single perplexed comment on the political earthquake of the French Revolution (“these strange commotions”). The great nineteenth century nature writer, Richard Jefferies (an admirer of White’s) regretted that “he did not leave a natural history of the people of his day. We would then have had a picture of England just before the beginning of our present era and a wonderful difference it would have shown.” However, locals remembered fondly a friendly, caring, somewhat eccentric parson, his “animated conversations with villagers ... with his peculiar way of shrugging his shoulders”; most of all, they recalled with gratitude his energetic efforts on their behalf to fight the enclosure of the common land.

300 years after Gilbert White’s birth (on 18th July, 1720), there seems nothing escapist about ecology. Although he ended his Natural History with the words “I shall here take a respectful leave of you and natural history together”, we have not taken our leave of him. We recognise more than ever the quiet urgency of his message that, if we are to save ourselves and the planet we live on, we have to find a more respectful and empathetic way of living among our fellow creatures.

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The Agony in GETHSEMANE Tom McCarthy

Andrea Mantegna, Agony in the Garden, 1456

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THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane and saith unto his disciples, “Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder”. And he took Peter and the sons of Zebedee (James and John) and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry ye here and watch with me”. And he went a little further and fell on his face and prayed, saying, “O my Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt”. And he cometh unto the disciples and findeth them asleep and saith unto Peter, “What, could you not watch with me one hour?”

(Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 26, vv 36-40). .....

Within the space of about four years between c. 1456 and 1460, two artists, one from Padua and the other from Venice, painted The Agony in Gethsemane. The Paduan was Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini was the Venetian. At first sight the two paintings seem to be almost mirror- images, but the similarities hide profound differences.

Mantegna Andrea Mantegna was born sometime in the 1430s in a village near Padua. His father was a carpenter. At the age of 10 he was apprenticed to the Paduan artist Francesco Squarcione and when his father died he was adopted by him. Squarcione was also an archaeologist and an antiquarian; his collections of drawings of ancient sites with their gates, arches and towers, their sculptures and reliefs, coins and vases from his travels in Greece and Italy, were an integral part of his Studium (established 1431) where the young Mantegna spent his apprenticeship and were an unfailing source of inspiration. Such training in antiquity was his debt to Squarcione, though the relationship and the adoption ended in acrimony and in a court of law before he was twenty.

Padua’s university was the second oldest in Italy after Bologna, famous for its devotion to humanism and to the study of the classic texts and learning of ancient Greece and Rome.

Squarcione and his pupil, thus, fitted perfectly into this world. Mantegna was precocious. His earliest painting when he was seventeen is an astonishing portrait of St Mark. Soon he was

working on a fresco for the Church of Santa Sophia and later with others he painted the Ovetari chapel in the city, (destroyed in the Allied bombing in 1944).

Giovanni Bellini “If Mantegna with his abiding passion for antiquity and intellectual enquiry can be seen as the quintessential Paduan artist of the fifteenth century, Giovanni Bellini was the archetypal Venetian” (Campbell). He was born a few years after Mantegna into a leading family of artists, indeed into one of the leading families, in Venice.

The school of Venetian painting had been founded

by Giovanni’s father Jacopo when he brought the influence of Florentine art to the city. His first son was Gentile, a painter of panoramic views of contemporary life in Venice; he later became Court Painter to Mehmet II in Constantinople before returning home in triumph.

Unlike Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini’s talent took time to emerge as he took his place alongside his brother Gentile in their father’s workshop.

Jacopo’s sketchbooks with their open landscapes and classical architectures with a Florentine sense of perspective provided a source for many of his sons’ paintings; later when Gentile died he bequeathed these sketchbooks to Giovanni, “my most dear brother”.

Brothers-in-Law In the fifteenth century Padua was an important part of the Republic of Venice; young Venetians were forbidden to study anywhere but at its famous university. It is not surprising that in the late 1440s Jacopo Mantegna heard of and met Padua’s foremost young painter and saw his work in the Ovetari Chapel. In 1453 Jacopo’s daughter Nicolosia Bellini married Mantegna and for the next seven years the painters in each family influenced each other. “Both artists (Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini), on occasion, changed the way they worked in response to each other”, (Campbell).

In 1460 Mantegna and his family (he and Nicolosia had four sons) moved to Mantua and there he remained for fifty years as Court Painter to the noble Gonzaga family. Giovanni Bellini eventually set up his own studio in Venice

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Giovanni Bellini, The Agony in the Garden, c.1460

independent of his family and became the city’s greatest painter, training or influencing artists like Sebastiano del Piombo (later and in Rome a disciple of Michelangelo), the enigmatic Giorgione and Titian. Indeed, this Bellini “laid the foundation of an artistic revolution that Titian would complete” (Hale).

Mantegna’s Agony (c. 1456) In a poem written in the 1480s, Giovanni Santi (father of Raphael) wrote of Mantegna that: In this splendid and gentle art he has the edge over other Italian artists.

That excellence can be seen even in this earlier painting. The central drama is framed from the right by a tall bare tree and to the left by a vision of five angels bearing the instruments of Christ’s suffering and death. Below them the figure of Christ in dark colours looks up, his head set against the mountain side.

Below him and in the shadow of the rock the disciples lie sleeping in a group, their togetherness contrasting with the solitary Christ.

Mantegna’s forms are strongly outlined, indeed almost sculptural; even the five angels advancing with the instruments of Christ’s suffering and death seem almost like a line of statues. The grouped

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trio of sleeping disciples is an object lesson in differing examples of foreshortening. In the mid-distance the procession of soldiers coming to arrest Christ led by Judas is also sharply outlined, the first nine figures clearly distinct and moving while the colours of their robes echo the colours of the clustered disciples. There is almost no room for landscape here.

However, it is his scrupulously meticulous imagining of the city of Jerusalem that captures the viewer’s attention. Its buildings seem to rise and flow around the hillside. We see a column with relief sculptures topped by a golden equestrian statue. Next to it we see a circular building like the Colosseum in Rome and near it we can pick out golden crescents on top of towers and spires. The walls are strong and battlemented.

Art historians tell us that Mantegna’s Agony is one of the first examples of a painting made for an individual’s devotion and meditation. I am sure that the devout recipient of this painting might recognise the artist’s Jerusalem from reading the Psalms in his/her Book of Hours. Psalm 48 invites the reader to: Walk about Zion (Jerusalem) and go all around her. Count her towers; mark well her bulwarks. Consider her palaces.

THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

And Mantegna’s patron could just do that when looking at the painting. Psalm 122 tells us that: Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together; whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord.

If we look closely we can see tiny figures making their way up to the main gate of the city below the central tower.

We can also see in places where the walls have been damaged and replaced with fresh stone, a reminder that Jerusalem had fallen to many a foreign invader from the Assyrians in the eight century to the year 63 B.C. when the Romans came and conquered. It is not too abstruse to imagine that Mantegna had learned his ancient history in Squarcione’s Studium or to imagine that those damaged walls reveal his passion for archaeological and historical correctness.

Mantegna’s Agony is indeed a triumph. And yet...

Bellini’s Agony (c. 1460) Bellini’s Agony was, like Mantegna’s, painted for private prayer and meditation and it seems at first to be its mirror-image: the city on a hill; the kneeling Christ; the angelic vision; the sleeping disciples and the approaching soldiers. In style, however, they could not be more different. In a survey of Venetian art in 1660, long after Bellini’s death, Carlo Boschini wrote:

High on the left moving out of the painting, we see only the roofs, gables and sides of the houses of Jerusalem; there is merely a hint that this is a walled city. ”The absence of detail confirms Bellini’s observation that the brilliant early morning sun has bleached out much of the information about the structure of the distant buildings” (Dunkerton). All is still, has yet to come to life in the early dawn. And in the open landscape below, the clear light reveals each of the four main characters, individual and still, lost either in sleep or in sorrow.

Afterwords Both paintings hang side-by-side in the National Gallery in London.

Mantegna’s Agony is a triumph and yet...and yet perhaps there is too much detail. Look at the tree that frames the scene. A vulture sits on top of the dead tree, emblems of death; and at the foot we can just see tiny pelicans which are ancient symbols of Christ’s sacrificing love. Two rabbits play near the foot of the disciple on the right and on the mid-left another rabbit scurries away: why?

The angels high on the left also leave nothing to the imagination; they advance almost bodily, one of them carrying a hefty pillar on which Christ will be tied, the central angel bears the cross, another the lance that pierced his side. The imagining of the city of Jerusalem is indeed marvellous but it dominates everything as it strides across nearly four-fifths of the picture’s length. The viewer’s attention is distracted everywhere away from the central Christian drama.

Without him (Bellini) art would be an icy winter.

We can see this warmth, this feeling for light and colour, even in this early painting. The landscape is wide and expansive and the light of dawn illuminates the scene. The clouds are lit from below; the faraway hills are dark, except for the buildings high on the left.

Closer to the viewer the light picks out each disciple individually.

The youngest, closest to the picture plane, leans his head on a rock behind him. In the centre the head of the barefoot disciple leans forward to rest on his knee and note how the light infolds the blue of his robe; that same light fades the pink robe of the prone disciple. Each one different. Each one separate. Each one lost in thoughtful or troubled sleep...studies in isolation.

The figure of Christ kneels away and above them, isolated against the dawn, its light his only halo, head and shoulders clear against the sky, hands tight in prayer. The light throws the shadows of his kneeling feet on the ground. His is the greater isolation because he is awake. Moreover, Bellini has looked closely at the Biblical text: He prayed...’O my Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me...’

That prayer so intense becomes the shape of a translucent angel bearing a cup or chalice and so insubstantial as if it were a mere disturbance of a cloud.

By contrast Bellini’s Agony is simple. There is no framing as he lets the drama speak for itself. Everything is harmonious: the light, the colours, the people in that expansive landscape, each individual lost in isolation. Yet if you wish for subtlety: see how Christ kneels at the rock in front of him almost as at an altar and the fence that surrounds the rock below on the right seem like altar rails. And the angel bearing the chalice? Is this not an allusion to the Eucharist?

“Mantegna’s painting is constructed, almost like a model, in solid units which are built from an infinity of minutely observed details and held together by a line. Bellini’s painting is also linear, but, following the sketchbooks of his father, it is open, spacious and free, with a wonderful appreciation of the mood and behaviour of the dawn light as it creeps across the valley” (Steer). It creeps across the valley and surely its devout first viewer was free to let the mind wander and wonder about what was revealed, the central mystery of Christ’s suffering.

Recommended Reading Caroline Campbell and others with Jill Dunkerton: Mantegna and Bellini Peter and Linda Murray: The Art of the Renaissance Sheila Hale: Titian John Steer: Venetian Painting

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Max Harvey YE AR 12

the

GOLDEN RATIO and its repetition throughout nature

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he Golden Ratio could be said to be as fundamentally important to our universe as any other constant such as Pi or Euler’s number, e.

However a lot less is known about the value of the Golden Ratio and even less is known about why it exists and why it is mirrored across all fields of science and throughout our daily lives. The Golden Ratio’s appearances range throughout physics, chemistry, biology and even further into meteorology and architecture.

So, first things first: what is the Golden Ratio and where does it come from? No doubt many of you are well acquainted with the Fibonacci sequence, which arises from the addition of previous terms in the sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21……..) and is used frequently to predict changing prices on the stock exchange by looking at long-term rises and falls which correspond to Fibonacci percentages such as 34% or 55% and then predicting future rises and falls. However, what may not be at first obvious is that the Golden Ratio arises from this seemingly basic sequence. Taking any two consecutive numbers and dividing the larger by the smaller will give a decimal answer between 1 and 2. A few examples are 5/3 which is approximately 1.67 and 13/8 which is approximately 1.63. Interestingly, as you use increasingly higher numbers in the Fibonacci sequence to obtain these decimals, the value that is obtained tends towards a value of 1.61803……. This here is the value of the Golden Ratio. It is often referred to as Phi and is an irrational number that, unlike Pi or e cannot be expressed approximately by a fraction. Putting it simply, the Golden Ratio is just a ratio between two things. It can also be found by splitting a length of wood into two pieces so that the length of the longer piece divided by the shorter piece is also

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equal to the total length divided by the longer piece, both of which are equal to Phi. Now that we understand what the Golden Ratio is and where it comes from, we can begin to look at where it appears around us, in both the past and the present. It is thought that possibly the earliest uses of the Golden Ratio was by the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Certain ratios in buildings such as the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Parthenon hint that both of these civilisations recognised the aesthetic value that the Golden Ratio held. The appearance of many objects is believed to be most appealing when the ratio of the sides is equal to Phi, the Golden Ratio. This is the reason why most rectangular picture frames have their sides in a ratio equal to that of the Golden Ratio as it is believed this provides the best base upon which to mount pictures. Indeed, many other Greeks and Egyptians noticed the importance of the ‘Golden Section’, as it was then known, including Plato, who believed that it was the key to understanding the physics of the universe.

The Golden Ratio has been continually used in architecture and art since the time of the Greeks and Egyptians; it was particularly central to the work of Renaissance artists who used the ratios within their paintings.

Outside of the world of art and architecture, the Golden Ratio also appears in many other areas. One of the most obvious is in nature, in particular plants. When looking at a plant, it is easy to see that the leaves or petals of its flowers are not arranged one on top of each other, but instead rotated by a certain degree. The amount of rotation can be expressed using a fraction, e.g. ¼ is a quarter turn. The value of these rotations is frequently numbers such as 5/8 or 3/5 which are two Fibonacci numbers divided by each other. The value of these Fibonacci fractions tends towards

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THE GOLDEN RATIO APPEARS WITHIN THE SHAPE OF GALAXIES, HURRICANE FORMATION AND THE LENGTH OF YOUR FINGERS. Spiral Staircase (by Ludde Lorentz) Sunflower (by Laura Gilchrist)

0.61803… which is the reciprocal of the Golden Ratio (the reciprocal of the Golden Ratio is actually considered by many to be just another form of the Golden Ratio).

In other plants, such as sunflowers, the Fibonacci numbers, and hence the Golden Ratio can also be seen. Looking at the placement of seeds within the centre of the flower, there are a certain number of clockwise spirals and anticlockwise spirals both of which are usually consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence; hence, the ratio between these two numbers is equal to our magical Golden Ratio. A typical example would be 21 clockwise spirals and 34 anticlockwise ones.

A biological example of the Golden Ratio can be seen in the structure of our own DNA whose dimensions of one spiral is 21 x 34 units meaning that the ratio between the length and width is once again equal to Phi! Although it is clear that there are many instances of the Golden Ratio all around us, the real question is: why are they there? Why is it that this ratio appears across so many disciplines and in so many differing scenarios?

For some of the examples there is an easy answer, such as for the rotation of plant leaves and flower petals. A rotation of the leaves that is equal to the Golden Ratio provides the perfect arrangement so that the leaves receive maximum sunlight and the greatest amount of water is channelled towards the roots.

This setup gives the plant the best possible chance of survival in its competition for nutrients and so is favoured over other arrangements. However, a number of plants do not use this arrangement and are able to survive perfectly well; therefore, it is clear that the golden ratio is not essential to survival, but is only one of many methods that can be used.

Another easily explainable phenomenon is the arrangement

of the seeds within the heads of the sunflower. Here it can be seen that the Golden Ratio of clockwise/anticlockwise spirals arises naturally when you try to place the seeds as close together as is possible. In both these examples it is clear to see that the golden ratio is favoured by nature and it appears too often to simply be a coincidence.

As for an explanation of the appearance of the Golden Ratio within architecture and art, this poses a little more of a problem.

The reason why the Golden Ratio is used in these fields is not due to natural selection but the fact that it appeals more to us humans.

This suggests that humans have a predisposition to find objects possessing the Golden Ratio more aesthetically satisfying. The answer as to why this is the case is yet to be found but some even believe that the beauty of the human face is based on the Golden Ratio; hence, a ‘perfectly beautiful face’ can be predicted by using a Golden Ratio between different facial features.

Perhaps the Golden Ratio is given more credit than it deserves.

Maybe we are quick to locate places where it arises, hailing it as an all-important fundamental constant of the universe whilst ignoring the places where it doesn’t appear, saying that it is due to some other ‘circumstance’ or ‘factor’ that impedes its existence.

However, with the few examples given above it is hard to believe that this constant, Phi, holds no significance at all; it just appears in too many places. All around us the Golden Ratio appears, for example within the shape of galaxies, hurricane formation and the length of your fingers. So, keep an eye out for other places that this mysterious value occurs because you never know where it might crop up; as seen above, it is mirrored in many areas throughout the universe. It may even be true that the dimensions of this page fit the pattern.

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how

ARCHITECTURE reflects our SURROUNDINGS Habina Seo YE AR 12

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rchitecture is the backdrop to our lives: the walls that enclose us, the doors and arches we walk through, the churches we are married in, the theatres we go to, the train stations in which we sit every morning and evening, all involve architecture which both reflects and influences our culture. The world we live in now is largely defined by its buildings and how they mirror our cultural, social and economic surroundings and needs. An architectural identity is one of the most important factors of a nation’s culture and history, as it indicates the environment in which that culture was developed and is itself is a distinctive cultural product.

The physical functions of a building, as well as its design motifs, embrace human values, from ergonomics and safety to orientation, exploration and discovery; in other words, its function is not just to offer shelter but to offer a response to questions relating to science, engineering, art, psychology, technology, environment, and society. By being functional in these other aspects, it benefits the wider society as well as meeting essential requirements. And in a time where the challenge for architects is to embed stronger and more enduring means of evoking context and culture, it is more important than ever to consider many of these factors and more when designing a building. So how have contemporary architects tackled this task?

Take any period of architectural history as an example.

Gothic art was mainly expressed in architecture, lending cultural weight to the growing power of the Church in Rome at the time. Churches were developed to bring lots of sunlight into people’s lives, reminding worshippers of God’s divine presence.

The soaring, pointed arches relieved the thrust and stress on other parts of the building, allowing for smaller columns and a general sense of slimness which allowed for larger windows with stained-glass images of biblical art. The atmosphere that

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this created sparked a naturalistic figurative sculpture which decorated the churches, which were increasingly important to a city’s reputation. A significant example of Gothic architecture is the Notre-Dame cathedral, Paris (1163-1345). These religious, political and engineering changes were reflected in churches- the most expressive, influential and significant buildings of the time, due to the universal and exalted appeal of religion.

The example of religious architecture most local to me is Portsmouth Cathedral, which has been completed, so far, in four different stages. Each section of the cathedral reflects its own time period in history- although the oldest parts have been refurbished.

The original medieval chapel dedicated to St Thomas in 1185 is transitional in its architectural style, between Romanesque and Gothic. Its structural elements show this change, with its combination of massive, bulky pillars and narrow lancet windows with pointed arches, ornate sculptures, crocket foliage, ribbed vaults and thinner columns which are elements of both styles respectively. The stonework seen on the exterior of this part of the cathedral is noticeably more worn and irregular, and the type of stone is different to the newer sections of the cathedral. The chapel later became a parish church in the 14th century, while its central tower was used as a lookout point and lighthouse.

The attacks of the English Civil War in 1642 led to the ruin of the church tower and nave; however, with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, enough money was raised to rebuild the tower and nave, now in a classical style that foreshadowed the neoclassicism that would emerge in the following century; the nave is now the quire and baptistry. The simpler and more symmetrical shapes found in this section of the cathedral reflect this desire to move towards a more classical style of architecture.

With the establishment of the Diocese of Portsmouth in 1927, there was a need to extend the church to a size which would

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Left to right: St Thomas’ Cathedral, Portsmouth, Games Village, Papua New Guinea, Harpa Concert Hall, Iceland.

dignify its new status as a cathedral. The architects chose a neo-Byzantine style, with elements of Eastern and Orthodox Christian architecture; the new, grander nave, transepts and outer quire aisles had rounded arches which echoed the classical style of the quire built previously. The extension of the nave was finally finished in 1991 (the original architect for the nave, Charles Nicholson, had died in 1949); although the original plan for the extension was much longer and similar to other traditional English cathedrals, this length was no longer needed due to the changing needs of the diocese.

It is not uncommon to use reflective materials in today’s buildings. Underpinned by modernist architectural theory, crystalline images are created by the combination of glass and metal, in the belief that light and brilliance can help create a better human world. The idea of reflection has been used aesthetically and functionally, as a cultural and an artistic response. For instance, the Harpa concert hall in Iceland is a collaboration between the architects and artist Olafur Eliasson. There was a need for a ‘reference to Iceland’. Eliasson explored the basalt rocks which are iconic of Iceland (amongst other unique natural phenomena).

Linking the science of how they crystallise with the engineering work of Buckminster Fuller, a ‘quasi-brick’ was designed to perform structurally well, optimising the use of material as well as resembling the basalt rocks. The entire building is covered by this pattern, which in theory is ad infinitum, creating a reflective facade which uses physical reflections from its surroundings to create visual effects on the building (the dichromatic glass creates reflections that resemble elements of the northern lights), as well as emphasising the influence of natural light on our perception of the building. These changes depend on the weather and time of day, creating a dialogue between the building and its surroundings which frees the building from a ‘static’ or ‘background’ state.

Sir Norman Foster is well known for his high-tech buildings; glass and metal are used habitually in his works. His reconstruction of the Reichstag parliament was significant in demonstrating Germany’s departure from its recent history under Hitler’s Nazi regime while also embracing its rich cultural and political past.

Foster kept aspects of the older architecture within the main body of the building; however, his additions were contrastingly modernist

in style. Striking imprints made by Soviet soldiers were preserved, creating a sort of living museum of German history, while the light being drawn into the building created an open, visible platform for the German democratic process, suggesting a forward-thinking perspective and an openness and honesty about the country’s recent past. The dome or ‘Cupola’ is the most publicly accessible part. It brings in natural light, which is reflected down onto the floor by a cascade of mirrors in the form of an inverted cone. Foster is keen on making his structures environmentally friendly; the architecture itself, its shape and the materials used, work with its surroundings.

Detailed analysis of the climate and environment is carried out to help inform energy-efficient and resource-saving strategies; this links in with the feasibility of the use of sustainable and renewable technologies, which is more important than ever in a time of climate change and consequent environmental awareness. For instance, the electricity is powered mostly by locally produced biofuel, which helps to protect and enhance the agricultural economy. ‘Passive systems’ are optimised; the transparency of the design enables light to be brought into the space as the sun moves, the solar collector accumulating natural light in the heart of the building.

Developed in the 1920s, the International Style remains a common style in Western architecture to this day. Its rectilinear forms stripped of ornamentation and its visually weightless quality came about for three main reasons: a decreasing interest in decorative elements which serve little-to-no function, a rapidly industrializing society which created the demand for large numbers of rooms for office workers, and the development of new building technologies and materials. This style, however, brought the danger of cities becoming too generic and limited in aesthetic terms; by the 1970s, people realised the constraints inherent in this style of architecture.

By trying to appeal to such large groups of people at a time, the International style is often unreflective of identity and culture, as it rejects those elements to focus on a more utilitarian environment.

In a time where international attraction is a key factor to consider, the architecture should be inviting to different cultures while also embracing its surrounding environmental context. An excellent example of this is the Games Village for the 2015 Pacific Games, which now serves as student accommodation for the University of Papua New Guinea. Since PNG is a tribal nation where several languages and dialects are spoken, a sense of unity needed to be created for the Games. Seen as a point of engagement between the heart of the country, its people and the outside world, the design challenged the traditional approach of segregating according to tribal affiliation and gender. Five buildings with repeating design motifs are connected in clusters around communal areas within the village. This encourages groups to interact, due to the layout and architecture embracing humanist values, such as exploration and discovery. Traditional motifs and patterns (such as the triangular geometry of the struts, and interlocking structures) appeared as functional structures in contemporary materials, pointing to indigenous art and tribesmen with interlocking arms.

Architecture has always reflected and influenced society, culture and the way we live; indeed, it is often described as the language of a city, helping to build a sense of identity and belonging. However, with changing requirements, increasingly demanding contextual factors and a need for flexibility for the future, the challenge now is to meet a culture of ‘mindset and lifestyle with purpose’.

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Matt Bryan YE AR 13

SPEEDING MIRRORS THE MAGIC OF CLASSIC MOTORSPORT

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or me there are two distinct types of engineering: engineering and engineering. The former is perfectly sufficient in every way, it’s the act of designing and constructing something that functions well and predictably without much fanfare, but is simple enough in its very nature. An aqueduct is a good example - a structure that diverts water from one place to another, as they have done for millennia, to facilitate irrigation and human life. But an aqueduct is in no way an example of engineering, and neither is an electric whisk or HS2.

So how do you identify an elusive piece of engineering? Well, it is no mean feat, but I will try to guide you by the hand through my train of thought.

I’ve been a petrolhead since before I was born; my parents drove around in a 1972 MGB Roadster until my mum’s eight-month bump prevented her from reaching the veneer steering wheel. I must’ve been to every motoring museum imaginable from here to the Lakes and seen every episode of Wheeler Dealers and Top Gear twice over. It must run in the family as even my grandad could be classed as a ‘boy racer’, with a slew of Escort XR3s, TR7s and TTS’ lining his logbook. I gawp out the car window or on the street at anything rare, slightly fast or vaguely interesting, and have quite a sad habit of reciting engine displacements and lengthy histories, even when no one cares to listen - but that’s what makes me a petrolhead. So, with all that, you’d expect I’d be a big Formula One fan. Not at all.

I can respect the engineering of a modern F1 car, with their carbon-fibre fuselages complete with enough downforce to collapse a small star in the corners. Engineers squeeze close to a thousand horsepower out of a unit smaller than most Ford Fiestas; they implement regenerative braking systems that turn the heat from deceleration into even more dizzying speed. Teams invest hundreds of millions in having the best engineering staff tweak their cars within the strict technical specifications, but the cars are still highly similar in order to make racing fairer. The

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problem is that today’s F1 car, however impressive and bedroomwall poster-worthy, is boring - they are too regulated, too focused on marginal gains and too clinically refined. They are certainly well-engineered, but on the other hand, well, not engineered.

F1 is well established as a series consisting of closed-circuit races, typically around 60 laps for distances in the range of 200mi and always less than two hours. From year to year, teams, circuits and cars might slightly change, but the World Drivers’ Championship is awarded to the driver with the most points based on Grand Prix finishes. From my point of view, it’s highly formulaic, with extended rulebooks meaning one race is much like the next - but that’s not just my opinion. The concluding laps of the 1992 Monaco Grand Prix are legendary amongst the petrolhead public. Nigel Mansell leading for almost the entire race, until a puncture forced him to pit; Senna then taking the lead, holding off an advancing Mansell who was much faster

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Moss and Jenkinson in the #722 300 SLR at the 22nd Mille Miglia.

on newer, grippier tyres. This cat and mouse chase continued for the next five laps of the infamously tight street circuit, with Mansell trying overtake after overtake on a track only just wide enough for two cars. Senna would hold off Mansell to take 1st place, but in the process they created a spectacular ten minutes of pure racing.

The point of mentioning this? It’s widely argued that these ten minutes almost three decades ago are better than the entirety of F1 in the last twenty years. It hasn’t always been this way; in the past, motor racing was raw and passionate - not just because it was dangerous and untamed, not because the drivers were silverscreen cool rather than Weight Watchers spokespeople. It was exciting because the cars meant something and were the essence of the sport. Sponsorship and stringent calculation have replaced the blaring V12s of yore and the air thick with rubber. Part of the excitement of motorsport you see in Pathé films from yesteryear

is the close-proximity, wheel-to-wheel racing, partly due to the benefit of drafting behind other cars. With today’s F1 cars, drafting is no longer viable; with the aerofoils designed for fast solo laps, sitting behind another car means turbulent, ‘dirty’ air that in fact reduces downforce, meaning that the thrill of close quarters racing is truly a thing of the past. Their once joyous engineering has lost its soul, becoming merely engineering in the process.

Back in 1953, when men were men and cigarettes were healthy, the FIA held the inaugural ‘World Sportscar Championship’, a racing series that had evolved from wealthy gentlemen throwing their four-wheeled toys around for fun, to a full blown professional series. It was only now that the world’s most prestigious manufacturers saw racing as a way to develop technologies and aid sales and reputation, so their support and the ruthless competition between them fuelled what would be the start of motorsport as we know it. Its list of races reads like a roll of honour: Sebring, RAC Tourist Trophy (at Goodwood & Silverstone), The Carrera Panamericana. Perhaps the most famous and glamorous, and one of few still held to this day, is the 24 Hours of Le Mans; it and the arduous one-thousand kilometre endurance races at the Nürburgring, Monza and Spa were staples.

Monza has since been radically redesigned, but the original ‘Pista Magica’ or ‘Magic Track’ had huge banked corners that meant racers were close to top speed for the majority of a lap. Its straights were long and open, designed for the very first race cars, before the introduction of chicanes to slow cars down to safer speeds. But the 50s and 60s were truly a golden age; a period when cars were raced flat out by their fearless drivers whether they would make it through the whole race or fall dramatically short. Driving these cars at the limit on circuits intended for half their power meant huge strain on brakes, tyres and powertrains, and averaging close to 130 miles an hour meant few made it without gearbox failure or blown engines. Endurance racing was fiercely popular and fashionable, but what was more fierce was the nationalism of its supporters. Two now-infamous races sum up the spirit of motor-racing in its golden age, both held in Italy and fought out by the best manufacturers and drivers from across the globe - the Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia.

The Targa Florio was the world’s oldest race, an epic tour of the Island of Sicily founded in 1906. The first race covered 3 laps of the Island, around hairpin scattered mountain passes, through picturesque Sicilian villages and orchards on rugged rural roads and down to the majesty of the Mediterranean, the winner averaging just thirty miles an hour over a gruelling nine-hour race. The scenery encompassed the rich culture of a developing Italy and its enduring natural charm. Think narrow, hardlypaved roads twisting onwards amongst olive trees and rural sunbaked rooftops that hadn’t changed in centuries à la the original Godfather’s Corleone, Sicily sequences (or that Galaxy advert with CGI Audrey Hepburn, if you prefer less organised crime) and

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you won’t have something half as visually breathtaking.

It was arguably the continent’s biggest race, dominated by Italian drivers and legendary cars from Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Maserati. The first 40 races saw 36 Italian champions in 29 Italian cars - certainly one nation dominated. But by the 50s, the race had developed into a solo start event, where cars went off in intervals around a slightly shorter circuit lined with thousands upon thousands of local spectators. But the really astounding part?

The race was always carried out at full speed, on public roads - drivers spend countless hours practising short circuits, whereas

characteristics as the centre of mass was further shifted back, giving Porsche’s earlier cars a far nimbler front end.

But with the 550, Porsche established a complete dominance in small-engine racing and set a new precedent for what a true race-car could be. Other cars of the era were designed around a powerful, typically large and exotically complex engine with a fine-tuned handling platform, that is chassis, suspension and wheels, to make the most out of it. But the 550 looked like nothing else - with sleek lines at a time when aerodynamics was close to alien, and a body that hugged the tarmac thanks to a flat-4 engine

A 718 RS 60 makes a pit stop during the 1960 Targa Florio.

on open roads each corner could be a complete surprise, and very easy to misjudge. The Targa was the greatest test of a driver’s innate skill, but an even greater test for the engineers to build something robust enough for a thousand kilometres of weathered public roads, but light and powerful enough to do so quickly and reliably, reaching the line in as few pieces as possible. It was under such conditions that Porsche would make a name for themselves.

Ferdinand Porsche founded his engineering firm in 1931, designing tanks and what would become the Volkswagen Beetle.

However, post-war Germany saw a huge parts vacuum, meaning the brand’s first true production car, the 356 (coincidentally one of the most beautiful cars ever produced) was based heavily on Beetle parts. This meant an unusual rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout with air-cooling that would soon become Porsche’s trademark. Putting the engine in the rear gave unique handling

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(in which the cylinders are horizontally opposed, giving a block with lesser height) which further lowered the centre of mass. The car was quick to accelerate, especially out of corners, and all 90 ever produced were aluminium silver, reflecting sunlight as they passed. Oscar-nominated James Dean bought a 550 Spyder in 1955 to race at Salinas, but never started - he died in a head-on collision days before.

If the 550 was successful, then the 718 that succeeded it was indescribably so. It won the Targa three times, facing cars with much larger engines, but with superior handling and a monstrous power-to-weight ratio, it would still triumph. Derek Bell recently drove the same 718 that won the 1960 Targa Florio, stating, “Once you get it on song, get up to 7,000-plus-revs, it just wanted the hell driven out of it. And the fact you could

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brake so perfectly, flick it into a corner, put the power on… It was absolutely amazing”. In the modern era, cars are tweaked and tuned to the track - fast tracks require more downforce and less cornering grip and so on, but for the Targa Florio, “the world’s most torturous race”, how do you tune a car for some 800 unique corners? You don’t, possibly can’t. You build a car to the best of your ability and vision, with so much love, testing and knowledge that it ascends to having its own identity. The 718 was the culmination of a decade of Porsche’s sublime race design and was a quintessentially perfect car.

miles of closed public roads from Brescia at the foot of the Alps down along the Adriatic and through the ancient streets of Rome, before returning to Brescia in the North. The race encompassed everything it meant to be Italian, starting near Milan, the hub of Italian racing and car culture as well as close to the headquarters of Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati, in addition to the design giants of Bertone, Pininfarina and Zagato. In a post-Fascist Italy, the spirit of motorsport and the pride Italians took in their cars helped bring a nation together; it became part of their identity, with the Mille Miglia, and its estimated five million spectators

Clear skies as a 718 RSK speeds past the carabinieri at the 1962 Targa Florio.

Porsche too had a real love affair with the Targa Florio, the race that essentially made the brand and helped develop a lineage of great sports cars - the 718 birthed the 911 and the Porsche formula endures to this day. A roof with a removable section was first introduced on the 1966 911, designated ‘Targa’; a demonstration of how much one race meant for the brand. But the Targa Florio was still not the greatest race of its era; some might say that the Mille Miglia has that honour. Porsche never won the race, but remained competitive in the Ferrari-dominated field; in fact, the 550 was so low that Hans Herrmann drove his under closed railway barriers during the 1954 edition of the race. So, how could this race have been more exciting than the unadulterated romp through the Sicilian countryside?

The Mille Miglia was just as its name suggested - a thousand

(more than 10% of the population) serving as testament to that.

The race developed some of the greatest cars of all time in its 30year run, dominated by Ferrari’s latest raucous V12 racers in the hands of men like Ascari, the twice-F1 World Champion who lived and died in ‘prancing horses’. But even with the glorious sights of cherry-red Italian racers screaming around their natural habitats of vineyards and piazzas, one car stole the show in 1955: a refined German piloted by a refined Brit.

In 1955, the sadly-now-late Stirling Moss won what has long since been labelled as ‘the greatest race of all time’, making him and the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR that took him at an average of 98.53 miles an hour for over 10 hours, instant international icons. Stirling had said “I’m certain it’s my greatest win,” but by far the most brutal and intense race imaginable - having to part spectators on narrow roads whilst he “had a horrible feeling only

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(Motor Sport Magazine Archive, June 1955) (from Racing Demons – Porsche and the Targa Florio)

20-30% (of the other drivers) were competent to (race), most of them were off the road burning in the first twenty kilometres”.

Moss was one of the greatest drivers of a generation, beating Juan Manuel Fangio, the five-time F1 champion, as he excelled at the intense concentration needed to drive a thousand miles of road almost blind. He was one of few racers to opt for a co-pilot, others considering it dangerous or marred by previous deaths; Denis Jenkinson, a journalist from Motorsport, and Moss made a symbiotic team - Jenkinson compiled an 18ft scroll of notes stored in the car, and a system of fifteen hand signals helped them set a new event record.

But even with the talents of Moss and his team, he would admit that the car played a huge part in what would become the greatest motorsport victory of all time; “I can’t think of any other car in the world that would have given me the opportunity to achieve the speeds we did.” The 300 SLR was a pure-bred racer like no other. Its sleek silver lines in Elektron magnesium-alloy gave it Art Deco charm, but the innate illusion of speed that made it look like it was doing 180 on the start line. With huge

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side-exit exhausts and emblazoned with a red 722 to denote Moss’ 7:22 am start, it was almost a dogfighter for the road, but with a huge number of pioneering technologies. The SLR took a 2.5 litre Mercedes-Benz F1 engine and bored it out to three litres and 310 bhp - at a time when the average car had thirty. It used more efficient mechanical fuel injection, developed for the Luftwaffe’s 109, and the engine was mounted at 33o, lowering the centre of mass and improving handling and aerodynamics.

Its eight-cylinders in a line was an unusual set up, typically as a long crankshaft introduces flex and power loss, so the car took its drive from the middle of the engine block using an additional gear. Mercedes engineers had created a car so fast that they had to solve their own new aerodynamic problems, and a car so beautiful that the road-going 300 SL, or ‘Gullwing Coupé’, the timelessly charming fastest road car in its day, has been voted ‘Sportscar of the Century’. That’s what you call engineering.

But to fully comprehend the 300 SLR and its hallowed contemporaries, one cannot just recite their victories and describe their elegance, they must be experienced. Those grand

S P E E D I N G M I R RO R S

old racers make a noise like nothing else, and in the days before acoustic insulation and effective silencers, the roar of the engine was the only radio (much like the soundtrack to ‘C’était un rendez-vous’). On start-up, the SLR crescendos to a rich, gritty growl before ebbing to an uneven purr; at high-revs, the gearbox and differential sympathetically whine with every adjustment whilst the engine continues on its thunderously symphonic crusade through the gears. The pure sound and the wornin smell of petrol that clings to any clothing is not something you get in a modern car, nor is the feeling it invokes easy to describe. It’s almost an induced flashback to an age you’ve never lived, when you could feel the road beneath the floor; when the car was untameable, except for by a select few who could get somewhat close.

Following the 1955 Le Mans disaster, when an SLR overturned into the crowd at 125 mph, killing 84, MercedesBenz retired from racing for 34 years, making the car the last of its kind. The ‘golden era’ of motorsport had produced such technical development that the sport was almost too fast and unruly for its own good - the Mille Miglia was cancelled forever in 1957 after a Ferrari 335 S blew a tyre and took 11 lives, and the Targa Florio saw numerous restrictions until its cancellation in 1977. For many, that would be the end of motorsport as they knew it, and perhaps the end of its most revered era.

Ludicrously powerful F1 cars took centre stage in the 70s and 80s, but never quite reached the same unmistakable magic of those that came before.

Way back when petrol was five pence a litre and ABS and traction control were unheard of, race cars were a different species, ‘widowmakers’ that would lift wheels in the corners and lift off completely in the straights; there was something special ingrained in their DNA. They were slow and inefficient, made of materials insufficient for the forces they had to withstand and far from technically perfect. But even without downforce, driver aids and hybrid systems, they were still perfect from an engineering perspective; full of character and quirks that elevate all the calculations and craftsmanship from blueprint to masterpiece. Not many have stumbled upon those pearly gates since, but when they have, you can feel it. The raw silver finish favoured by German manufacturers and later Ferrari’s 250 GTO amongst others is reportedly an engineer’s choice; the folk story is that Mercedes engineers had to lose a kilogram to scrape into the weight category, so they reduced the car back to aluminium bodywork. Regardless of the truth, the “Silver Arrows” as they were known dazzled like mirrors on the track, speeding by in a fashion that would give Narcissus just enough time to fall in love with them, just as many have done in the past. Engineering is the application of science to solve problems, but with problems as immense as winning thousand-mile road races in record time, surely you strive to make a solution as breath-taking, spine-tingling and unforgettable as possible?

That’s why, when I grow up, I want to be an engineer.

Samantha Todd YE AR 12

GLASS I’ll place my hand up to this wall I might try to break it I might just stand and stare looking at that faint face look back at me I can’t tell is it disappointment that paints this window a stainedglass figure of me.

But it’s not a window that you will find easily It’s kept at the back far from sight and if you notice it pray to God it’s not depicting hell.

They say “Eyes are the window to the soul” but what if that window is cracked and broken does that mirror what’s behind it?

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Shapol Mohamed YE AR 13

WHAT

healthcare

CAN LEARN FROM

O

ne of the most and wife to Martin, has had a BBC significant causes documentary produced about her. One of death in the morning she was due at the hospital to world is also have her sinus problem treated. The one of the most doctor had told her the chances of overlooked. It is complications were tiny and they had not malaria, HIV, done the same procedure countless times. or COVID-19, but medical errors.

At 8:35 Elaine was in the operating According to the World Health theatre and for the anaesthesia to be Organisation, four in ten patients are delivered had a cannula, a straw-shaped harmed in primary care, such as at GPs, tube, inserted into the back of her hand. and 80% of those cases are preventable.

Anaesthetics are strong drugs that disable Meanwhile, in hospitals, one in ten patients many of the patient’s vital functions, and are harmed. Globally, this breathing is usually assisted causes 2.6 million deaths. by an inflatable pouch that For comparison, annually THE RELUCTANCE is inserted into the mouth malaria and HIV cause and sits just above the OF THE 405,000 and 770,000 deaths, airways. The oxygen is HEALTHCARE respectively. Coronavirus SECTOR TO MAKE then pumped in artificially. has caused 350,000 deaths In Elaine’s case, there ERRORS MORE at the time of writing this. was a problem; her jaws TRANSPARENT Medical errors do not had tightened whilst she HAS SLOWED discriminate between rich was, essentially, in a deep PROGRESS. and poor countries - both sleep and the mask was are affected equally. Clearly, unable to be inserted into this is a significant problem that needs her mouth. Of course, that had happened to be tackled and I think we can reduce plenty of times before and the surgeons that number by introducing a few simple were ready to try with smaller masks. At measures.

8:37, she was beginning to turn blue and Now, you might be giving me the look her oxygen levels were 75%. that a parent gives a toddler searching Meanwhile, Martin and the kids were the dog’s mouth for the thing that makes buying the cookies that Mum always the barking noise. It’s a cute idea but liked, so they could give them to her in idiotic. You might be saying: how can the afternoon. you do that? Doctors don’t kill patients Back in the operating theatre, the on purpose. Of course, they don’t medics tried another type of mask to sit healthcare professionals have the purest over the mouth and nose; it still didn’t intentions to help. work. This wasn’t anything too unusual.

Elaine, mother to Victoria and Adam Following standard protocol, at 8:41 a

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paralysing agent was injected to disable her jaw completely so that her mouth was now fully open. A light was shone in the back of her mouth so the tube could be inserted directly into her airway; this was normally visible, a hole with the vocal cords on either side, but in this case they were hidden by the mouth’s soft palate. The situation was becoming critical. The surgeon kept jabbing the tube, hoping that he would find the airways. At 8:43, at 40%, the oxygen levels were so low that they were troublesome to measure; Elaine’s heart rate fell to 69 then to 50, meaning there was little oxygen getting to the heart. The problem with low oxygen levels is that your brain starts to swell; that can prove fatal.

Thankfully, in this situation, there is one last option that surgeons can turn to: tracheostomy, whereby an incision is made directly into the throat and the tube is inserted directly into the windpipe, completely bypassing the mouth. As you can imagine, this is risky but it is the last resort.

Twelve minutes in, the nurse prepared the tracheostomy kit and notified the surgeons. The surgeons, under pressure, ignored the nurse. Time was passing and the nurse thought perhaps the surgeons had already thought about that option but ruled it out for a reason that she was unaware of.

Elaine was now deep blue and her heart rate was a meagre 40 beats per minute.

Every second wasted narrowed her chances of survival. The surgeons continued their increasingly frantic attempts to force in the tube while the nurse continued to agonise over whether to speak up.

It took 20 minutes for the surgeons to bring Elaine’s oxygen levels back up to 90% and by then it was already too late. Later, an MRI scan was taken of her brain and it showed irreparable brain damage at best.

At 11 am, Martin got a call telling him to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

Knowing something was wrong, he left the kids at home, with the cookies they had baked for their Mum. The surgeons had said it was a routine operation with very low chances of complication. Elaine was young and healthy. Martin couldn’t figure

W H AT H E A LT H C A R E C A N L E A R N F RO M AV I AT I O N

out what could possibly have gone wrong.

He arrived at the hospital and found Elaine in a coma. Thirteen days later, he brought his children to see their mother for the last time. Elaine was one of those 2.6 million preventable casualties that occur annually due to medical errors.

Now, of course, all the healthcare professionals were under pressure.

However, one cannot understand why an investigation was not carried out. An investigation only occurred after years of campaigning by Martin. This is the problem. There is a lack of investigations within the healthcare sector when something goes wrong; as a result, learning from failure is rare.

During lockdown, I have read two books, The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, a world-renowned surgeon, and Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed, an Oxford PPE graduate, Olympian, columnist, sports commentator and overall great guy. Gawande’s book talks about problems faced by surgeons; Syed’s explains how we could all benefit from a personal black box, just like aircraft. The two books combined could portray a solution.

The fact that the healthcare sector has been reluctant to make errors more transparent has slowed progress. Galen was a hugely influential surgeon not only during his lifetime in the 2nd century CE but for many centuries afterwards through

his writings; his teaching must have killed a plethora of patients. For example, he was a strong advocate of bloodletting; if a patient survived, the physicians would say “Oh my! Bloodletting is so effective! It saved the patient’s life!” And if the patient died, they would say “The patient was so weak that even bloodletting couldn’t save them.” Now, this may seem like an insane idea to us in the twenty-first century, but his teaching survived for 1,300 years, until the late fifteenth century. The reason why Galen remained influential for so long is that his theories were never subjected to proper investigation or tests.

As previously noted, surgeons do work under immense pressure and within severe time constraints - so do airline pilots.

When an aircraft crashes, it dominates newspaper headlines. Investigations take place to find out the root cause of the catastrophe. Documentaries are made about it. Politicians hold press conferences. A profusion of articles are posted online. There is often a huge public outcry. Major incidents often take an aircraft manufacturer to the brink of collapsing, as seen with Boeing. As a result, the industry is careful to reflect on failures and learn from them; key to this process is the black box.

Black box thinking has allowed the aerospace industry to perfect their engineering works of beauty. As a result, aircraft are poetry in motion. They have done such a good job that the chances of dying in an plane crash are 1 in 11 million, significantly better than the 1 in 10 chance of dying due to a medical error, according to John Hopkins University. If medical errors were investigated more transparently and actions were taken to reduce those same errors from occurring in the future, then they would become far less prevalent.

A straightforward method used by pilots to make sure they have done everything correctly is the checklist. For example, checklists enabled Chesley Sullenberger in 2008 to safely land US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River to prevent the aircraft from crashing into Manhattan. As a result, no lives were lost. A similar approach could help reduce medical error; indeed, checklists have been adopted in many hospitals across the world and have saved many lives as a result. According to a study

by Harvard, nearly 20% of medical errors are due to infection. This could be easily prevented by making sure that healthcare professionals have given antibiotics to patients before an incision is made in the patient during surgery.

This step can be missed very easily when surgeons and nurses are working under pressure. A checklist can help with that, as Atul Gawande explains in his book.

Checklists could have also helped Elaine if the surgeons had followed a checklist that reminded them of the option of tracheostomy.

Atul Gawande has been working with the World Health Organisation for some time now to have this very simple and easy procedure implemented globally, while Matthew Syed has been advocating more transparency so that we can learn from medical errors rather than brush them under the carpet. It is important that the medical profession, like the airline industry, remove the stigma around failure and look at medical errors as an opportunity for us to save lives in the future.

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Sophie Mitchell YE AR 13

UNDERFUNDING

NHS

COVID-19'S UNFLATTERING MIRROR

T

he NHS has been at the forefront of media coverage throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. For once, its funding is not being cut nor is the NHS at the forefront of a political campaign. It is rather the focus of universal national support, with every Thursday being dedicated to ‘Clap for our NHS and Carers.’ We of course admire those individuals on the front line, risking their lives to save others. But, despite all of this positivity and public support, there has been considerable concern at negative issues such as lack of PPE and ventilators at the outset (leaving NHS staff and patients vulnerable), consistent issues relating to testing and, of course, the very high death-rate in nursing/care homes.

The structure of the NHS in England and Wales was established by the National Health Service Act 1946. The Act implemented a system where each person would be assigned to a specific general practitioner, allowing them to access further support from the system. It also relied on the introduction of National Insurance in 1912, ensuring that everyone would have access to all medical, dental and nursing care without needing to pay for it at the time.

However, it was not as popular as first imagined. So much so that the BMA (British Medical Association) decided not to join in 1948. However, they were quickly convinced after they were offered a lucrative payment structure for consultants and the NHS was established on the 5th of July 1948.

Now, however, the NHS faces a new threat. Since SARS-CoV-2 (COVID 19) became a global pandemic, the NHS is now more needed than ever. We have seen ICUs overrun with patients needing round the clock care, some even needing mechanical ventilation and sedation. Unfortunately, many of those who enter intensive care never recover. Our own Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was treated on an ICU ward. A&Es have had to expand RESUS capacity to children’s units, and paediatric respiratory specialists have been retrained to work with adults. Furthermore, we are now seeing members of the public, an NHS volunteer task force, supporting the community to ensure our hospital resources can remain available to all.

However, there are some elements of our healthcare system that are struggling through no fault of their own. We have seen hospitals and care settings with a lack of PPE, meaning doctors, nurses and other health care workers have been put at risk. Despite constant assertions from our government that we have enough

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PPE and they are doing all they can to access more, we are still seeing problems with supply several months since the pandemic began. As of late May it is reported that scores of NHS staff have died as a result of working on the front line (not including staff from care homes, delivery workers, transport workers and other essential staff). But others, including retired staff who returned to work within the NHS, have also died. These people have given their lives to save others. Their names are listed at the end of this article. Their sacrifice shall be remembered.

But surely this is an unflattering reflection of our NHS? That we had to ask retired staff to return to ensure staffing levels were high enough to save lives. That we had to ask fashion designers to make PPE to ensure levels were high enough. That we had to ask F1 manufacturers and hoover makers to supply us with enough ventilators to support as many as we could. The funding has been cut year on year; the budget for public health services is now £850 million lower than in 2015/16 and by 2021, the budget will have been cut by 25% from its 2015/16 level in real terms.

At the end of 2018, £1bn of cuts to public health services and the training of nurses and doctors over the following year were concealed within Government plans to boost the NHS budget by £20bn by 2023.

It is the poorest communities that are being hit the hardest by these cuts. Hopefully, after this crisis is over, we will see the newfound respect for our NHS continued, with further support and funding to improve a service at the forefront of saving lives.

Hopefully, our own Prime Minister will see that the NHS is not a commodity to use in political warfare. All being well, people will learn to respect our health service, using A&E when they need to rather than turning up with alcohol-inflicted injuries for example.

The NHS has never been so important. Our health service is at the forefront of everyone’s minds as are those who go to work every day and risk their lives for others. Yes, the Covid-19 pandemic has held up an unflattering mirror to the NHS’ lack of funding; however, it has also proved a reflection on a country that can pull together to support each other in a time of crisis. We, as a nation, have progressed and it’s fair to say life will never be the same again. We have come out on the other side stronger; let us hope (and insist) that the NHS will benefit in future budgets.

THE UNDERFUNDING OF THE NHS

(by John Cameron)

NHS staff who have died helping others during the Covid-19 Pandemic (as of late May 2020): Joselito Habab, Jeanette McKenna, Andrew Ekene Nwankwo, Neil Ruch, Paul Nutt, Paul Kabasele, Mohinder Singh Dhatt, Abdel Babiker, Liz Spooner, Lillian Mudzivare, Carlos Sia, Evelyn Nicolas, Alanzo Smith, Resy Manalo, Safaa Alam, Jun Terre, Norman Austria, Thaung Htaik, Julie Edward, Peter Gough, Peter Hart, Karamat Ullah Mirza, Poornima Nair, Phil Rennie, Onyenachi Obasi, Eyitolami Olaolorun, Rachel Makombe Chikanda, Augustine Agyei-Mensah, Rutendo Mukotsanjera, Tariq Shafi, Jennie Sablayan, Samson Maja, Van Lang Hoang, Robert Black, Dr Habibhai Babu, Afua Fofie, Lalaine Lopez Pesario, Dr Saad Al-Dubbaisi, Eleuterio Gibela, Ray Lever, Mark Woolcock, Mark Piggott, Elma Cavalida, Cecilia Fashanu, Philomina Cherian, Gill Oakes, Mark Stanley, Furqan Ali Siddiqui, Momudou Dibba, Suzanne Loverseed, Mike Brown, Nasir Khan, Julius Sana, Maria Victoria Prado, Sharad Bhatt, Stephanie Wilcocks, Karen Hutton, William Brodie, Jermaine Wright, Anujkumar Kuttikkottu Pavithran, Jodon Gait, Jane Mary Jongwe, Ken Lambatan, Eileen Landers, Fiona Anderson, Adekunle Enitan, Ibilola Mary Aladejana, Janice Glassey, Larni Zuniga, Andy Costa, Dr Vishna Rasiah, Thomas Oelmann, Tony Kabia, Melonie Mitchell, George Nii Ajedu Aryiku, Mahadaye Jagroop, Angie Cunningham, Brigitte Anguma Eteli, Felicity Siyachitema, Katy Davis, Medhat Atalla, Sharon Bamford, Ann Shepherd, Ian Reynolds, Dawn Marshall, Julie Penfold, Kirsty Jones, Miharajiya Mohideen, Graham Thorne, Charlie Goodwin, Grant Maganga, Yusuf Patel, Sadeq Elhowsh, Craig Wakeham, Manjeet Singh Riyat, Gerallt Davies, Chrissie Emerson, Patrick McManus, Keith Dunnington, Grace Kungwengwe, Margaret Tapley, Alice Sarupinda, Jenny Esson, Khulisani Nkala, Vivek Sharma, Sophie Fagan, Ade Dickson, Linda Clarke, Ruben MuĂąoz Jr, Simon Guest, Brian Mfula, Gladys Mujajati, Jenelyn Carter, Josephine Matseke Manini Peter, Michael Allieu, Nick Joseph, Ate Wilma Banaag, Andy Collier, Esther Akinsanya, Rajesh Kalraiya, Barry England, Jane Murphy, Kamlesh Kumar Masson, Andy Stamp, Gordon Ballard, Krishan Arora, Julianne Cadby, Brian Darlington, Amrik Bamotra, Lourdes Campbell, Andrew Treble, Ade Raymond, Khalid Jamil, Juliet Alder, Linnette Cruz, Gaily Catalla, Stephen Pearson, Amarante Dias, Peter Tun, Josiane Zauma Ebonja Ekoli, Barbara Sage, Melujean Ballesteros, Maureen Ellington, Rahima Bibi Sidhanee, Kevin Smith, Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, Cheryl Williams, Gilbert Barnedo, Oscar King Jr, Charles Kwame Tanor, Sara Trollope, Gareth Roberts, Amor Padilla Gatinao, Leilani Medel, Donna Campbell, Julie Omar, Elbert Rico, Liz Shale, Joanna Klenczon, Abdul Gellaledin, Mandy Siddorn, Edmond Adedeji, Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, Fayez Ayache, Elsie Sazuze, Donald Suelto, Alice Kit Tak Ong, Leilani Dayrit, Jitendra Rathod, Janice Graham, Barbara Moore, Emily Perugia, Maria Cassidy, Rebecca Mack, Syed Zishan Haider, Glen Corbin, Anton Sebastianpillai, Areema Nasreen, Elvira Bucu, Liz Glanister, Amanda Forde, John Alagos, Aimee O‘Rourke, Francis Olabode Ajanlekoko, Sami Shousha, Lynsay Coventry, Laura Tanner, Tony Reuben Eriamiatoe, Joan Grimshaw, Hamza Pacheeri, Eric Labeja-Acellam, Alfa Saadu, John Doyle, Erwin Spannagl, Thomas Harvey, Amged El-Hawrani, Pooja Sharma, Andy Howe, Adil El Tayar, Habib Zaidi.

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Anna Danso-Amoako YE AR 12

Reflections on

MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

T

echnology is an integral part of healthcare. Our bodies and all the conditions that come with them are far from ever being straightforward; medicine grants us the opportunity not only for understanding but towards improving our overall health and standard of living. Within this article I hope to reflect on the past and examine the present. The future of technology will surely be based on what has come before it.

When thinking of technology in medicine, more digital types of technology readily come to mind. However the World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health technology as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of lives."

By this definition medical practice has been aided by technology from as far back as 600 BC with the discovery of an ancient Egyptian prosthetic fashioned from a mixture of linen, glue and plaster known as cartonnage to replace a missing toe. At first there was some speculation as to whether the main function was as a prosthetic, perhaps resulting from burial traditions of

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the period predicated on the importance of maintaining a whole body in the afterlife. However, research conducted by Dr Jacky Finch with two participants who had lost their largest toe found that the cartonnage prosthetic was indeed functional as it didn’t increase pressure in the sole of the foot. In addition, a similar prosthetic made from wood was noted to improve the movement of a participant.

As time progressed, so did the refinement of medical technologies. Ancient prosthetic technology has evolved many other technologies in use today to improve quality of life. A particular favourite of mine is the stethoscope, a device recognisable to the masses and synonymous with healthcare practitioners.

An Australian study investigating the extent to which different medical devices influenced participants' judgement of a male medical practitioner found that of all the other medical devices tested (including reflex hammer, surgical scrubs, otoscope, and pen), the stethoscope was the one which improved the probability of a male practitioner being seen in a positive light.

Before the invention of stethoscopes, listening to the organs required doctors to place their ears on the patient for observation,

M E D I C A L T E C H N O LO GY I N T H E D I G I TA L AG E

National Cancer Institute

a practice known as auscultation coined by René Laennec. it gives way to people forming a diagnosis based on searching a However in 1816, Laennec needed to conduct an auscultation few of their symptoms. This diagnosis cannot be equated in its on a female patient (showing symptoms of a “general diseased accuracy with that of a doctor, even if the information comes heart”), which he (and the patient) found embarrassing. To avoid from an accurate source; it doesn’t take into account individual this embarrassment, Laennec thought to roll up a piece of paper medical history and additional contextual factors. to put to her chest, which resulted in a clear, amplified sound.

However, there are steps people without medical qualifications After developing the design, he produced a wooden version made or knowledge can take to help them remain mindful of their of a hollow wooden tube containing extra parts own health. For example, wearable technology which could be used to listen to the lungs and heart in the form of fitness trackers support personal DESPITE THE respectively, revolutionising diagnostic technique responsibility towards lifestyle choices such as RESTRICTIONS and becoming the de facto face of medicine. exercise, diet and sleep.

COVID-19 BRINGS Health technology in recent times has been more Right now, technology serves a role even TO ALMOST shaped by the application of digital technologies more vital than ever in maintaining a connection EVERY ASPECT in healthcare. This isn’t always successful, as of care with patients. Despite the restrictions OF DAILY LIFE, demonstrated by the NHS National Programme for COVID-19 brings to almost every aspect of daily PRACTITIONERS IT scheme, launched in 2002. The main objective life, practitioners are able to offer medical support ARE ABLE TO was to establish a fully electronic patient database through telemedicine. Appointments are being OFFER MEDICAL for England, connecting doctors and hospitals shifted to calls and online consultants in response SUPPORT across the country; however the practicality of to social distancing measures. The situation with THROUGH the scheme was challenged and its funding level COVID-19 is rapidly evolving and with up to TELEMEDICINE. questioned. Ultimately, the database collapsed in date information constantly being provided in 2013 to be replaced by a smaller, locally focused an accessible manner, we can all make sure we design. continue to do our part to help others.

With improvements and advancements to digital technology, To conclude, technology within medicine is never stationary. healthcare can now be accessed outside the hospital. The NHS Past discoveries and developments are reflected in today’s offers a variety of online health services allowing patients to technology and methods, which in turn will be reflected in the do everything from booking appointments online, manage discoveries and developments of the future. As Sir Isaac Newton prescriptions and find reputable information regarding their argued, “we are standing on the shoulders of giants”. Whatever conditions. Other websites such as WedMD provide people with the era, the ethos of health technology remains the same: the option to learn more about particular symptoms and ways providing innovative ways to consistently improve healthcare for to improve general health. However, this isn’t always positive as individuals and society as a whole.

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Isla Sligo-Young YE AR 13

why we are not MIRRORS OF OUR GENES WHAT EPIGENETICS IS TEACHING US Epigenome

T

he term ‘Epigenetics’ was first used in the 1940s

by Conrad Waddington to unite how organisms move from genes to an expressed characteristic.

All human cells have the same genetic code, but can have a completely different appearance and function. Today, a leading researcher in epigenetics, Edith Heard, defines epigenetics as ‘any change that affects gene expression and that can be heritable through cell division and yet can be reversible and doesn’t change the DNA sequence’; such changes can result from stress, diet and smoking, among other causes.

In reading this definition you may have questioned how these factors could affect the gene expression, while not changing the genome itself. This is where the epigenome comes in, which is how the DNA is wrapped around proteins in the nucleus called histones. Both the DNA and histones are covered with chemical

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tags, that make it easier or harder for transcriptional factors to bind to promoter regions of particular genes on the DNA. Where the transcriptional factors bind determines which genes will be transcribed and therefore which proteins are produced and expressed. These chemical tags include methyl groups that attach directly to the DNA and block the transcriptional factors from binding. Conversely, negatively charged acetyl groups can attach to the histones, which are repelled by the phosphate groups on DNA. Overall, this decreases how tightly the DNA is wound around the histones, making it easier for transcriptional factors to bind. Before any external environmental factors influence the epigenome, the amount of acetylation and methylation fluctuates in the development of a cell. After an embryonic stem cell begins to differentiate, there will be a decreased acetylation and an increased methylation, so that fewer genes are being transcribed.

W H Y W E A R E N OT M I R RO R S O F O U R G E N E S

EPIGENETICS CAN BE USED TO ANSWER MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT EVOLUTION AND THE EFFECTS OF NUTRITION, FOR EXAMPLE.

Epigenome Process

However, the influence of the epigenome does not stop when cells are fully differentiated, but can continue to be altered and change throughout the whole of our lives. The influence of the epigenome on the health of an individual is difficult to study, as it is hard to clearly distinguish between genome and epigenome effect. However, this relationship can be seen in the development of cancer, which begins with a mutation in the DNA sequence; but the cell may also have an abnormal epigenome, where there may be either too little methylation, resulting in the activation of genes that promote cell growth and more unstable chromosomes more susceptible to mutations. Or there may be too much methylation, leading to a decrease in the transcription of tumour suppressor genes, so cancers are more likely to develop.

Environmental factors such as stress may not only alter a pregnant woman’s epigenome, but could also alter the epigenome

of her foetus (and, if this foetus is female, the epigenome of all of her egg cells too, resulting in a change in the epigenome of three generations). Therefore, when looking at epigenetic inheritance the change must be found in the fourth generation.

This makes proving the inheritability of the epigenome very difficult because researchers would need to be sure there were no mutations between these 4 generations. It would also take a long time to study these 4 separate generations and, even if part of the epigenome was inherited, this could be reversed by environmental factors in the life of one of the offspring.

Overall, epigenetics can be used to explain why we are not mirrors of our genes, but also answer more questions about evolution, the effect of nutrition, what influences the epigenome and how.

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a reflection of our RELATIVES?

Sophie Escott YE AR 8

T H E B I O LO GY B E H I N D D N A We are all connected to our parents, whether we like it or not! We get their characteristics passed on to us, which make up part of who we are. Each parent passes on 23 chromosomes.

Those chromosomes pair up, creating a gene pair. Genes are passed on from parent to child, in a never-ending circle, so you could be exactly like someone you have never met! Personally, I find it miraculous that microscopic factors can impact who we are so massively.

However, DNA is much more complicated than that. The 23 chromosomes provided to us by each of our parents most likely will differ from one another. For example, if a mother had blue eyes and a father had hazel eyes, which attribute would the child inherit? Normally, the child

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would inherit hazel eyes, as that is the ‘stronger’ gene or allele (meaning a singular gene). It is like art: when you mix a dark colour with a light colour, you will get a dark colour. However, it can be even more complicated than that, particularly if grandparents further up the DNA trail had blue eyes; it is still possible for grandchildren, or great grandchildren, to inherit their eye colour, missing out generations.

Thus, if two blue-eyed people were to have a child, the child could inherit brown eyes, if this was dominant in previous generations.

So, how can we be related to someone but not act like them? Whilst we share some of our characteristics with family members, the others we make up on our own. Those

personality traits are picked up from the environment surrounding us. For example, I have picked up the laugh of one of my good friends. Lots of siblings may look the same but are polar opposites to each other in terms of behaviour. If they are not twins, then they may well have inherited different genes. As previously noted, sometimes (but very rarely) the weaker gene may be passed on.

Twins present an interesting example.

It is a common misconception that identical twins always share the same DNA; however, they do not always do so. Whilst they may look very similar indeed, their personalities and behaviours may differ enormously.

Conversely, some twins who do not look the same can share the same

A R E F L E C T I O N O F O U R R E L AT I V E S ?

DNA. Twins that share the same DNA So, the world would be a nicer place, and look the same are relatively rare. right? Well, what if our shared genes If we shared the same DNA, would involved hostile or violent behaviour? that result in world war That would create or world peace? After IF WE ALL SHARED an unpleasant and all, if we all shared the dangerous environment THE SAME same DNA, we all would for all of us, much worse DNA, WOULD be the same. Would that than it is at present.

THAT RESULT IN be a good thing? We On balance, I think WORLD WAR OR would all share the same the fact that we all have WORLD PEACE? interests, so imagine the different genes is a queue for the cinema, positive thing; not only as we would all want to see the same is the world itself complex and varied, movie! There would be no variation, but being unique, being individual so there might be less arguing as we is essential to who we are as human would all mirror each other’s thoughts beings. There is a mixture of different and opinions. Furthermore, there types of people, ‘good’, ‘bad’ and would possibly be no discrimination, somewhere in between, the negative because we would look the same and impact of the bad fixable by the good. share the same behaviours.

So, why don’t siblings look like each other when they share the same gene carriers?

As previously mentioned, if multiple generations have one certain gene which is then broken by a new generation introducing a different gene, the gene that the new generation “introduced” was actually inherited from an ancestor, having lain dormant through several generations. For example, if there was a long line of blue-eyed family members and then a green-eyed baby was born, you would know that one of those baby’s ancestors had those coloured eyes.

Many of my friends’ siblings look really similar to them; there are almost always shared features that give them their family identity, even if one sibling has straight hair and the other curly hair (hair textures are one of the few parts of DNA that siblings do not share).

It continues to amaze me how our DNA can trace back many years. To think that there was a suffragette who was walking the streets of London who looked just like me is mind-boggling!

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Photo by Eugenia Maximova

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T H E D I STO RT E D M I R RO R

Phoebe Clark YE AR 11

distorted

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mirror

ody Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is a mental(and uninformedly) as the result of vanity and narcissism, to health disorder whereby someone can't stop the extent that many people will not acknowledge it as a mental thinking about perceived defects in their condition. This unsympathetic perspective can be detrimental appearance, an apparent flaw that appears minor for BDD sufferers, when they’re diagnosed; the downward to or is unnoticed by others. But a sufferer may spiral of low self-worth and self-esteem resulting from their selffeel so embarrassed, ashamed and anxious that perception is worsened by the distance and lack of empathy they may avoid many social situations. Someone from relatives unable to understand BDD as a serious disorder. with Body Dysmorphic Disorder intensely focuses on their As a result, family relationships can become strained, not least appearance and body image, repeatedly checking the mirror or because of behaviour by the sufferer perceived to be repetitive seeking reassurance, sometimes for many hours each day. Their and fixated, leading to frustration, resentment and alienation on perceived flaw and their repetitive behaviours the part of loved ones. cause them significant distress and impact their The first stage of treatment for mild symptoms is ability to function in their daily life, taking up cognitive therapy sessions, either individually or WITH SUFFERERS valuable time and encompassing their world, often in a group, in which the issue is addressed and OFTEN FEELING becoming their primary thought from morning ESTRANGED AND attempts are made to resolve it by changing the to night. BDD has various causes, from genetics LONELY... FAMILY way the person thinks and behaves. Habits are to chemical imbalances in the brain, past trauma, looked at in detail and short term, achievable RELATIONSHIPS eating disorders or extreme perfectionism. goals are set and achieved. The patient will CAN BECOME Body Dysmorphia is so misunderstood, with many face and hopefully overcome (albeit gradually) STRAINED. people unable to comprehend how someone can hypothetical triggers and situations that would look at themselves in the mirror and see something cause anxiety. For patients with more moderate warped, imperfect and grotesque. When a sufferer is told that symptoms, therapy is complemented by prescribed SSR, an what they see is false, or an exaggeration of the truth, can trigger antidepressant that works after roughly 12 weeks. Alternatively, a variety of emotions, as it can be confusing to consider what or patients can be offered further treatment in centres and clinics who is lying to you: your brain or your loved ones? This can be that specialise in BDD. To prevent vulnerable people from a hard concept for a vulnerable person to come to terms with developing BDD, mindfulness and other forms of stress relief and fully comprehend, all while suffering every time they look can be effective, as well as ways of building self-esteem and into a mirror or at a photograph of themself. self-acceptance. Websites such as the official NHS site, Anxiety Body dysmorphia has a stigma around it for many people, UK, the International OCD Foundation and Mind are all leading to sufferers feeling estranged and lonely. It can be reliable resources offering useful information for prevention as hard for many to get their heads around this entire concept well as cure. that what one sees can be completely different to what is true and apparently in plain sight. It is viewed far too commonly

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SEEING things DIFFERENTLY 62

Flixy Coote YE AR 8

CHALLENGING MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH

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ne in four people are affected by a mental illness in their lifetime, either directly or indirectly, experiencing it themselves or through those of a family member or friend. Although many people are likely to come across mental illness, many will not recognise it, just thinking they are “feeling bad” or “a little bit down”, when they are actually suffering ill health. You can’t see mental illness in the mirror; it is internal and this makes it easy for sufferers to hide it - either because they are embarrassed or for other reasons. It is relatively easy to hide it, as so many other people don’t see it or recognise it.

A mental illness can be defined as a health condition that changes an individual’s thinking, feeling or behaviour, causing them distress and difficulty in functioning. It can be severe or mild. Many people think that having a mental health condition means that you are “crazy” or “mad” and, as a result, may treat you differently. However, many people themselves experience a mental health condition without being aware of it.

Sometimes, people recognise their mental illness, but worry that others will not; as a result, they bottle things up and put on the appearance of being fine.

However mental health isn’t just about mental illness. It can also be about what you are feeling. To see mental health as purely about illness is a misconception. It is also about wellbeing. Everyone once in a while will feel sad or anxious or angry, but this does not necessarily mean they have an illness - it might just be a passing thing. But if that person is feeling that anger, anxiety or

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sadness on a more prolonged basis, he or she might be suffering from a mental illness.

People are accustomed to think that mental health disorders are always permanent; this, however, is incorrect. The most common mental illness, anxiety, can be sparked by a single event or experience, such as a car accident, but, equally, can be cured by therapy over time. Depression is much more common than some people wish to acknowledge, for example resulting from the loss of someone you are close to; again, a combination of medication and therapy can help someone overcome a depressive illness. Even a more permanent mental health issue can often be treated very effectively, for example bipolar disorder, through a combination of medication and therapy.

It is only relatively recently that mental health has really been addressed openly and with less stigma, although there are problematic attitudes towards it even today.

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, despite pioneering work by psychiatrists and psychologists, people with what now would be understood as treatable mental health issues were locked up in asylums and psychiatric hospitals, often in appalling conditions. The primary purpose was not to cure them but simply to separate them from the rest of society. Shockingly, patients in these institutions included young people with what now would be classed as “learning difficulties”; records include letters from teachers recommending certain students should be sent to psychiatric institutions so as not to have an “evil influence” on the other children. Nowadays, such a student would receive educational support rather than what was essentially imprisonment.

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Photo by Sasha Freemind

The asylums were very similar to prisons in the way they were run and the rules they had. For example, the ill person could only be visited once a week and they were not allowed to be given any presents. They were often kept in such places for the rest of their life. Asylums were often overcrowded with little sanitation. It is difficult to understand the reasons for this; however, the people who ran them often (but not always) had the best intentions in mind but not as in-depth an understanding as we have today. In England, there are records that go back to the medieval era showing treatment for the mentally ill; in the fifteenth century, for example, it was believed that if you drilled a hole into the person's head, it might cure them of any mental illnesses they might have. In the eighteenth century, many inmates were placed in ‘straitjackets’ that prevented them from moving their arms or legs. Their treatment amounted to what we would now call torture.

The twentieth century saw the start of the modern era of treating mental illnesses, forming a break with the past; however, even now too many people still view having mental illness as a stigma. They do not appreciate that, just like any other kind of illness, mental illness can be treated and benefits from openness and acknowledgement. A significant change in recent years is that counselling and therapy are now available in almost all schools. Also, there is increasing understanding of

the ways medication and therapy can be used in complementary ways to help sufferers recuperate. In addition, more and more support groups have been created which offer shared experience and empathy to people who often feel isolated and alienated.

A wider number of online resources and helplines mean that help is easier to find than it has ever been. Better mental health education in schools has also ensured that children are taught about mental health from an early age, with guidance regarding helpful organisations and reassurance about the support available.

There are many ways that mental illness can develop, but there are certain causes that are particularly common, for example: psychological trauma, physical, mental or sexual abuse, loss, neglect and isolation, as well as developments in technology such as social media. There are also possible biological causes, for example abnormal functioning of nerve cell circuits or pathways in the brain, which can be treated through medication, genetics (bipolar disorder can be inherited, for example) and addiction (to alcohol, drugs, etc).

Mental health is becoming more and more of a pressing issue in society today, partly because of an increase in incidence but also because people are being more open in reporting it, particularly young people. Furthermore, institutions such as schools are becoming more proactive in fostering mental wellbeing and providing support for those suffering mental illness. One positive is that awareness of mental health has greatly increased and there are many more ways for people to reach out and get help and for it to be treated.

This leads me to conclude that, even though mental illness is treatable, it is highly complex. There is always much more going on in anybody’s head than you can see from the outside.

People can hide how they are feeling, put on an appearance of being fine when they are not; mental health is not always reflected in an individual’s actions or behaviour. There is so much for us to learn about mental health.

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Lian Kan and Emily Nelson YE AR 12

D E BAT I N G P E R S O NA L I T Y T E S T S

1. Myers-Briggs Personality Test

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Myers-Briggs Personality Test

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erhaps the most popular personality test currently available (aside from the classic Buzzfeed ‘What type of bread are you?’ style quiz of course) is the Myers-Briggs personality test. With many an hour to pass over the lockdown period, people have flocked to online sites to participate in a myriad of tests and quizzes. What better time to satisfy the human desire to be categorised and labelled? The Myers-Briggs test is my personal favourite of the thousands of online tests available, as it is reliable and easily accessible to the layperson. Secretly, I think it is the cartoon characters and bright colours that make this test palatable to a wider audience.

How does it work? It is all well and good answering a long list of questions and being met with a conclusive personality type, but what is the scientific theory behind the test? Firstly, the questions are based on the Big Five personality traits - the prevailing psychological theory nicknamed OCEAN. These five traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. The Myers-Briggs personality types also stem from the work of psychologist Carl Jung. Jungian theories include the introduction of introversion and extraversion, as well as judging and perceiving types. It was then Katharine Cooks Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers who translated these personality types into the 4 letter acronyms on the MyersBriggs Type Indicator. However, the test on 16 Personalities incorporates more of the Big Five than Jungian types as these are simpler to measure.

Now, onto the acronyms and what they mean. Each personality type is made up of 4 letters, with an additional 5th letter to determine identity. The first letter (I/E) represents one’s mind and indicates a tendency towards introversion or extraversion. Introverts draw energy from being alone and prefer solitary activities, whereas extroverts draw energy from being around other people and prefer group activities. The second letter (N/S) determines whether one’s energy is observant or intuitive. People with the observant (S) characteristic are practical and pragmatic; ready to go into action. Intuitive (N) thinkers are more creative and will spend longer thinking about how to solve a problem than actually working on it. Where observants are practical, intuitive types are theorists,

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which makes them good innovators as they allow themselves to think outside the box. The third letter (F/T) makes up one's nature. Thinking and feeling are the two characteristics which could be simplified into whether one makes decisions with their head or heart. Individuals with the thinking nature are more dismissive of emotions and base their decisions on objective information. In contrast, people in the feeling category take other people’s opinions into account when making a decision and can become overwhelmed by their emotions for others.

Judging and prospecting (J/P) make up the final letter of the acronym. Judging types are more decisive and prefer certainty to spontaneity, whereas prospective types are less focused and more flexible with their plans. Lastly, the identity characteristic (-A/-T) represents whether an individual is assertive or turbulent.

These sit above the 4 main traits and influence every aspect of an individual’s personality. Turbulent individuals can easily become stressed and strive for constant improvement, whereas assertive individuals are confident, stable-minded and do not dwell on past regrets.

As well as being given 4 letters, which feels quite scientific, the 16 personalities test has named each personality type, then further distilled each type into one of four roles. For example, the ISFJ type is named ‘the defender’ as they look out for the people they love. The groups which the types are put into are analysts, diplomats, sentinels and explorers. These are determined by similarities in lettering between the types. For example, analysts all have the thinking and intuitive traits. This combination means that all analysts are rational and strategic thinkers, with their collective flaw being in the social and romantic department.

Diplomats earn their name from being incredibly empathetic, which leads to a desire for cooperation and harmony. The sentinels have a strong work ethic, drawing their confidence from the stability and security in their daily lives. Finally, the explorers

are spontaneous, impulsive thinkers who dislike routines and monotony - however this can lead to a fear of commitment in relationships.

After receiving the results from the 16 personalities test, many participants are left feeling as though someone has taken a mental x-ray of their innermost thoughts and desires, then projected it onto the screen in front of them. In many ways, this can help people understand themselves which has two main benefits.

Firstly, individuals feel understood and know that there must be other people out there with the same fears, pitfalls and fantasies as themselves. Secondly, learning about weaker areas of your personality, such as a tendency towards overconfidence or stress, helps you make slight changes to improve and not fall into the darker sides of each personality type.

However, learning about how all-encompassing and scarily accurate this test is can leave one feeling unexceptional and could possibly feel dehumanising. I am an INFP. Do I self-identify as an INFP or am I Emily Nelson, with unique quirks to my personality? Surely, a personality type is not a cookie cutter for every single person within that type. There are bound to be idiosyncrasies which exist outside the bounds of a four-letter diagnosis. Therefore, should employers be able to request your Myers-Briggs type when recruiting for a job? Arguably, this assists the employer in finding an employee suitable for the job at hand.

However, you cannot change your personality type. Is this a form of discrimination? Someone with a particular personality type might be more suited for a specific role; for example, a logistician (ISTJ) may be more suited to a job analysing numbers than a mediator (INFP), who would excel further in a more creative role. Therefore, it is beneficial to know a potential employee’s Myers-Briggs type; however, this does not take into account small quirks which make up a person. In this way, decisions in terms of employment - and even relationships - should not be based solely on one’s Myers-Briggs type.

Emily Nelson - Type 4, INFP

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THERE ARE BOUND TO BE IDIOSYNCRACIES WHICH EXIST OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS OF A FOUR-LETTER DIAGNOSIS.

The Enneagram of Personality

2. The Enneagram of Personality The Enneagram of Personality is a model containing nine personality types. Developed from the works of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, the Enneagram is a nine-pointed geometric symbol, with the numbers 1 to 9 on each point, each representing a personality. Each personality is centred around an ego fixation, holy idea, emotion, passion and virtue, which Oscar Ichazo coined. The shape itself consists of an outer circle, representing the unity of human life. There is then a triangle between points 9, 3 and 6, and an irregular hexagon linking the other numbers. Each type has two lines connecting to two other types; it is believed that the first line is connected from the personality a person has left behind, and the second line is connected to the personality someone may grow into.

Type 1 is often known as The Perfectionist or The Reformer, having defining characteristics such as being responsible and serious-minded, having a goal to make things better for the greater good and often having a clear life mission. Resentment can be a Type 1 fixation, balanced out by their holy idea of perfection. Type 1 is connected to Type 4, The Individualist, and Type 7, The Enthusiast.

Type 2, The Giver, can often be characterised by their desire to help others and to feel like they belong. Givers are often

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highly empathetic and are natural team-players, often seen as the ‘mother’ or ‘father’ of a group. Their ego fixation is flattery, which can distract them from the idea of holy will or freedom that Ichazo developed. A Giver will desire feeling loved, and as a consequence fear being unloved. Givers are connected in the Enneagram to Type 4, The Individualist and Type 8, The Challenger.

Type 3 can be described as The Achiever or The Performer.

They aim to be remembered in life, and will often be charismatic and goal-driven, as well as being image-conscious. Achievers may be swayed by vanity, as their basic desire is to feel valued; however, they often suffer from pushing themselves too far in their quest to not feel worthless. People who are Achievers are linked to Type 6, The Sceptic and Type 9, The Peacemaker.

Type 4 is recognised as The Individualist or The Romantic, standing out due to their strong sense of identity. They often have a relentless drive to discover who they truly are, wanting to live life in their own emotional experience, but can be dramatic and temperamental in doing so. Fantasising is often an Individualist’s downfall, as they can become self-absorbed in the vision they see. Individualists worry about having no significance or identity in life, and they may overuse their

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imagination in their path to finding themselves. Type 4s are connected to Type 1, The Perfectionist and Type 2, The Giver.

Type 5 is known as either The Investigator or The Observer, being observant, independent and inquisitive. They are usually analytical but tend to be secretive and isolated due to their independent nature. Investigators may give in to the acquisition for material gain or social value, fearing helplessness without material worth. Investigators are linked to Type 7, The Enthusiast, and Type 8, The Challenger.

Type 6, The Sceptic or The Loyalist, is often described as organised and well-liked, prioritising safety and security in their life by developing a social group which they can fit into. Sceptics like to prepare for any problems that may arise, spending a lot of their time thinking up hypothetical situations. As per their second name, they value trust as the most important value, and so will often suffer from cowardice, indecision and doubt in situations they did not prepare for. Sceptics are connected to Type 3, The Achiever, and Type 9, The Peacemaker.

Type 7 can be described as The Enthusiast or The Epicure: having a wide range of interests and being playful are two common traits to find in a Type 7. Enthusiasts will often be popular among peers and versatile at work, with their boundless energy and natural charisma. However, with their endless need for fun, they can often become bored, fearing being unfulfilled or being trapped, which can lead to them thinking that they can feel satisfied somewhere else. Type 7 is linked to Type 1, The Perfectionist, and Type 5, The Investigator.

Type 8 is often known as either The Challenger or as The Protector, having key characteristics such as being self-confident and standing up for what they believe in. Challengers are often found in leadership positions, but, as the name ‘The Protector' implies, they are extremely loyal to those they are devoted to; however this may lead to them seeking vengeance in situations.

They may often challenge authority, as they believe that respect is earned through reason, and a fear of Type 8s can be being controlled or violated. Challengers can be connected to Type 2, The Giver, and Type 5, The Investigator.

And finally, Type 9 is described as either The Peacemaker or the Mediator. These people are often known as agreeable, complacent and easy-going, will let the people around them set the pace, and will often be indecisive or neutral to restore group harmony. However, due to this nature of sitting back, they are often both lazy and idealistic, which can lead them to avoid selfassertion. Peacemakers are linked to Type 3, The Achiever, and Type 6, The Sceptic.

The Enneagram Model has become more popular over the years, from people taking the test to discover more about themselves to all types of use, such as counselling, parenting, education; some workplaces use it to analyse whether a future employee is suitable for a job. The main aim of the model is to deepen self-understanding, so identifying your type is the first step; however, as there are for most psychology models, there are criticisms of the Enneagram.

The first is that the model has deep roots in the spiritual world, with the Holy ideas and ego-fixations, as well as the numerous assumptions about one’s future, which is arguably not set in stone.

Because of these roots, the Enneagram is used less frequently in the workplace than systems such as the Myers Briggs Personality Tests and DISC as these are perceived to have more practical observations. The Enneagram also assumes that you keep your ‘real essence’ throughout your life, as well as having to fit into one of the nine types.

All in all, the Enneagram is one of the most interesting of the many personality models that attempt to explain the human psyche.

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Sophie Reeve-Foster YE AR 12

S H O U L D C O M PA N I E S

MIRROR Society?

Diversity and employee quotas

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ver the last few years, companies have increasingly started to set requirements when employing or promoting employees, in the form of quotas. These are most commonly based on race and/or gender, with the aim of making companies more diverse and therefore more representative in the workplace. For example, some businesses require at least one woman and one member of an ethnic/racial minority on a recruitment board or in a group project. But is this solution quite as simple as it seems? Should it start being used more frequently or are there more harmful consequences?

In this situation there are two things that we want, but the very nature of them conflicts. Firstly, we want the principle

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to be fair (the process of hiring) and secondly, we want the outcome to seem fair (so the people hired reflect the company’s customers). Ideally, we would have both; and get a diverse mix of the best-suited people, without having to think about it.

But, of course, it would be naĂŻve to expect that in every case.

Therefore, which end of the spectrum of this argument you find yourself on depends on your preference for principle or outcome. Both concepts alone, unsurprisingly, are generally highly flawed.

The argument for equal opportunity stands by the principle that the best person to do the job should be recruited for the job so that the job can be done to the highest standard. The principle is seen as more important than the outcome because the outcome is seen as irrelevant.

The argument for equal representation is that opportunity is not equal in ways beyond our control currently, due to the flaws in society including things like unconscious bias. The outcome is seen as more important than the principle because the principle is seen as flawed.

This is an issue that in some ways reflects the idea of equality vs equity, a dynamic which is the foundation for many political disputes between the Right and the Left.

The true equality of an equal opportunity method can be limited by the mindsets and biases of those making the decisions against certain groups. When this is brought up, because of how deep unconscious and ingrained biases can be, people can tend to get defensive, causing civil communication to be tainted with a fear of blame.

Let’s apply this to on-screen entertainment, something many can see and have an opinion about, such as casting acting roles or comedians for panel shows. The producers must choose people who they think will perform the best. What they are trying to achieve is to please the advertisers or shareholders, by getting the most views or perhaps good reviews, which roots down to most pleasing the audience. By knowingly picking what seems the safer choice, they avoid the risk of not entertaining as much. The responsibility now travels to the audience, to be entertained. But how are they meant to do that without being introduced to new people or dynamics and getting used to it over time? The duty drifts back to the producers, and we

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become stuck in a loop of risk avoidance. One way to combat this is through campaigns or petitions from members of the audience, but we can see that, with a limited number of people, that only gets so far.

In order to have true equal opportunity, we must analyse why it may not work as it should in theory. In other words, we must recognise our bias. Let’s narrow in on gender. In her book Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez exposes the dark way that problem), but their future mindset and perception of self-identity the data which we have built society on is systematically and as highlighted by Cordelia Fine. Making someone continually perpetually ignoring the female sex, by simply not measuring aware of their gender or race, and, whether positive or negative, them. In other words, in fields such as medicine, health and is an unintended but harmful side effect. Both false fulfilment safely and even business, males are literally being the default. and impostor syndrome can be generated here, too.

The fact that corporations and scientists have forgotten to put Then there is how this scenario is perceived by others: those half of the population into the equation shows the conscious or having to fill out the quota, bosses assessing results, co-workers unconscious (I don’t know which is worse) prejudice, resulting or any other potential observers. Sometimes consciously but so in largely unnoticed discrimination. often unconsciously, they will start to view it as a burden on In Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender, she discusses a study the job or project, and start to resent the group itself, seeing in which American University students were asked to rate them as a box to be ticked rather than individuals. If frequently their own personal maths ability and their verbal ability. the people “found” aren’t as good, the observing mindset may Some students were asked beforehand to note their gender start to make negative associations. Therefore, the stereotype we down while others noted their ethnicity down. Of European were initially trying to combat heavily backfires; clearly, this is American women, those who noted their gender down rated not the outcome we were looking for. their maths ability lower and their verbal ability Throughout this process, it is important to higher than those who noted their ethnicity remember that one person can’t represent every instead. For European-American men, this effect individual in a community – to assume that we THE FACT THAT was exactly reversed. This study demonstrates a have “covered” one group in appointing one THIS IS AN ISSUE point made throughout her book: the malleability IS A SIDE- EFFECT person would be to categorise that group as one of self-perception (and thus behaviour) based on OF AN UNEQUAL and give into stereotypes, forgetting how there is identity is surprising. Can we still call it equal more variation within most groups than between SOCIETY. opportunity? This is not necessarily an argument them. for introducing these quotas, as there is a risk that Somehow, while this is going on, there are still they will make people more continually aware of their identity minorities who are shouting to get heard, not being considered (for example, “I am the token woman”), enhancing this effect. while they’d love to be. What’s going on here? How has this Some equal opportunity advocates may argue that specific communication gotten so messed up? Many would argue the skills or interests that encourage certain jobs are ingrained people in the companies are not putting enough research into within particular groups, genetically hardwired; an inevitable it or overlooking people without even knowing it. Perhaps it unfair world with little we can do. This leads us on to a whole requires more effort than they thought, as previously they would different debate surrounding nature and nurture, which also have automatically chosen someone within reach. is a heated and complicated topic, but at the very least I think In my opinion, the idea of equal opportunity must be assuming that a characteristic like this is innate from birth is taken with much more scepticism and analysed more in these dismissive of all the other (subliminal or explicit) factors and situations; to take it at first sight is naïve. But at the same time how complex the human brain is. Either way, we should avoid filling out quotas which ultimately cause individuals to be treated being limiting. differently according to their group identity can’t be the way to There are plenty of flaws in the equal outcome approach too. solve this. The fact that this is an issue is just a side effect of an In many cases, because an individual was not the most suited unequal society, and without deconstructing identity prejudice for the job initially, their performance at the task doesn’t match we can’t easily solve the problem. We must recognise that there what other might have expected. The person can be made to is inequality both in opportunity and outcome, and we all have feel inadequate and they might also feel a huge pressure on top a responsibility to recognise this in our daily lives. The first step of everything else, to represent the whole of their group and is to start bringing out the unconscious and change our idea of disprove stereotypes. This is ridiculous and highly damaging the default person. for not only this one performance (reinforcing the initial

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Alex Bradshaw YE AR 12

COVID-19’s Economic Impact

MIRRORS

the great

DEPRESSION

T

he Great Depression of 1929 was the worst economic downturn in history. Lasting more than a decade it had many long-lasting consequences and certainly contributed to the outbreak of the Second World War. By 1933, US unemployment was at 25% and more than 5,000 banks had gone out of business. However, in 2020, with unemployment rates soaring globally, and over 100 countries in either a full or partial lockdown, many are debating whether the economic effects of the recession being caused by COVID-19 are on par with, or if not worse than, those of the Great Depression. In this article, I am going to outline and compare the causes and impacts of each economic disaster and explain to what extent the economic impact of COVID-19 has mirrored the Great Depression.

The causes of the Great Depression can be broken into two factors - what started it, and why it spread beyond the USA so quickly. During the 1920s in America, as stock prices rose to unprecedented levels, investing in the stock market seemed to be an easy way to get rich and many people used much of their disposable income or even mortgaged their homes to buy stock.

By the end of the decade hundreds of millions of shares were being carried on margin, meaning that their purchase price was financed with loans which would be repaid with profits generated from ever-increasing share prices. This bubble burst in October 1929, millions of overextended shareholders fell into a panic and rushed to liquidate their holdings, further accelerating the decline and creating further panic - this has come to be known as the Wall Street Crash.The economic decline in nonUS countries was then driven by their adherence to the gold

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Unemployed workers outside a soup kitchen, 1931 (source: PBS)

standard. The gold standard was a monetary system introduced whereby a country's currency has a value directly linked to that country’s gold reserves. As the United States experienced declining output and deflation, it ran a trade surplus with other countries because Americans were importing less and exporting relatively cheaply. This created significant foreign gold outflows to America, which in turn threatened to devalue the currencies of the countries whose gold reserves had been depleted. In order to counteract the trade imbalance, and prioritising gold reserves, central banks raised their interest rates to encourage saving, which had the effect of reducing domestic output and increasing unemployment in their countries resulting in an economic decline on an international scale.

COVID-19 mirrors the Great Depression as it too started in one country, and then spread around the globe. Over recent decades, countries have become more globalised. They have

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invested in better transportation, focussed on better relations with other countries, and built up supply chains around the world.Due to their vast access to labour and materials, many supply chains started in China. After COVID-19 started the Chinese government took necessary precautions in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. However, the coronavirus still spread quickly through the country which in turn prompted a widespread response in China, meaning many could not leave their homes, the new year holiday was extended by 14 days and all but essential travel into the country was banned.

This had a major impact on the Chinese economy taking it from one of the most rapidly expanding economies to one of the quickest declining economies in the world. The economic impact then spread internationally driven by two factors. First, lockdown in China reduced labour supply, and started to affect international supply chains which tend to operate on low levels

of stock, and deliveries arriving just in time. This impacted on economies around the world, as the production pause in China began to reduce supply of, and therefore increase the price of products globally. Second, governments around the globe have rapidly entered into lockdown to deal with the public health issue, but with a less clear impact on their economies. Most national governments have recognised their primary function is to protect life, but failed to recognise that the economy sustains life. There has been a general consensus to follow the Chinese lead, and initiate lockdown procedure in many countries asking many workers to stay at home. This, in particular has led to a massive economic slowdown with countries closing their borders, stopping international travel and restricting the amount of international business. However as it is now becoming apparent that the opportunity cost of lockdown is ever increasing as lockdown continues, leaders such as Donald Trump and Angela Merkel are pushing to relax, or totally lift, lockdown measures.

Between September and November of 1929, stock prices fell 33%. The result was a profound psychological shock and a loss of confidence in the economy among both consumers and businesses. Consumer spending and business investment were drastically curtailed. This led to reduced industrial output and job losses, which further reduced spending and investment. As consumer spending and investment make up 61% and 15% of Aggregate Demand (AD) respectively, the fall in both created a severe reduction in AD and hence economies drastically declined. Unemployment caused a huge problem. As much as one quarter of the labour force in industrialized countries was unable to find work in the early 1930s which created an air of hopelessness and despondency from citizens in an era before state welfare systems. In the US, this led to labour union memberships doubling between 1930 and 1940. Businesses were also not able to pay wages, so the levels of unemployment further soared while wage levels declined massively. This led to a huge drop in standard of living and an increase in human suffering as many were not even able to afford food. Furthermore, this mass unemployment meant that many countries were operating well below their full capacity, as they were not able to utilise their entire workforce. Internally, this pushed up prices and added to the rapidly expanding problem of poverty; however, operating below full capacity was most obvious when between 1929 and 1933, global industrial production fell by nearly 47% and GDP declined by up to 15% worldwide. In the long term the Great Depression also changed the world economy in crucial ways.

Most obviously, it accelerated, if not caused, the end of the Gold Standard. Although a system of fixed currency exchange rates was reinstated after World War II under the Bretton Woods

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system, the world never accepted that system with the conviction much they would become unmotivated and stop searching for they had brought to the gold standard. By 1973, fixed exchange work. They also worried that relief expenditures would be too rates had largely been abandoned in favour of floating rates burdening on a country's finances as countries such as the US which are mainly used today. Government regulation of the were already spending significant sums on financial support and economy, especially of financial markets, increased significantly. therefore were not very forgiving when handing out relief such The United States, for example, established the Securities and as the dole, only giving to the people who needed it most.

Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1934 to regulate new stock The economic crisis caused by COVID-19 has had a much issues and stock market trading practices. The central role of larger intervention. After the Great Depression John Maynard reduced spending and monetary contraction in the Depression Keynes suggested that “increases in government spending, tax led British economist John Maynard Keynes to develop the cuts, and monetary expansion could be used to counteract ideas in his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). depressions”. Countries around the globe are fighting to get So are these impacts likely to be mirrored as the COVID-19 their economies back on track. Some governments are providing situation unfolds? So far COVID-19 has had massive bonus packages in order to keep businesses afloat. This would consequences on global economic activity, and there is reduce unemployment and put cash in people's pockets which still uncertainty as to how long this will continue. Just like could then be put back into the economy. The USA has given the Great Depression, COVID-19 has had huge effects on each citizen $1200 in a hope this will boost AD and initiate unemployment, with rates at record highs, and some countries economic growth. Interest rates have dropped in an attempt such as the UK introducing schemes such as furloughing. The to disincentivize saving, boost consumer spending and hence USA has reached an unemployment figure of boost AD resulting in economic growth (or a almost 20%, and climbing. This is reminiscent of reduction in economic slowdown). Finally, some the 25% unemployment figure during the Great countries have started to print money. The effect THE ECONOMIC Depression. The first effect that unemployment of this would be to put money back into the CRISIS CAUSED has on the economy is on its productivity. As the economy, however, a secondary risk would be

BY COVID-19 economy is operating well below its full capacity, huge amounts of inflation. This could devalue the HAS BEEN MET countries will not be as productive, therefore currency, however according to the Phillips curve, WITH GREATER there will be a contraction in short run aggregate it should also reduce unemployment as it states GOVERNMENT supply. However, some feel that home workers are that inflation and unemployment have a stable INTERVENTION. more productive than traditional away-from-home and inverse relationship. workers, and a decrease in factors such as travel To conclude, COVID-19 has very closely times will counteract the decreasing productivity. We have also mirrored the economic effects of the Great Depression so seen a decrease in growth to negative levels. This is because far. This is shown by the causes - both economic crises have unemployment is reducing business investment, and consumer started in one country, and then continued on to have a global spending due to a lack of confidence in the economy. However effect, and their effects - causing high levels of unemployment some believe that the huge increases in government spending which then massively affects growth and productivity of will help compensate for this negative growth. countries around the world. However, I do not believe that the Government intervention during the Great Depression was COVID-19 economic crisis will be as severe as that of the Great very limited across the world. The USA introduced a land Depression, as governments are more experienced and prepared settlement program which had a promising start, but eventually for financial crises than ever before, and with the knowledge ended in failure. Under this program, the government helped of many renowned economists are creating new monetary and families establish farms, raise animals, and build communities in governmental policies in order to counteract this recession. various uninhabited parts of the country. The intention was for Furthermore, technological advances since the 1930s have people to eventually support themselves off of the land and pay allowed us to continue to work from home via the internet back the government’s investment. Many countries introduced an option that was not available during the Great Depression. a dole. The dole was a small amount of support the government In my opinion, despite many countries possibly being stuck in distributed to the poor and unemployed. It provided for only lockdown for more than a year I believe strongly that the global about half of a person’s nutritional needs. However, all help was economy will bounce back from this crisis more quickly than in limited as the government feared that if they gave people too the 1930s.

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T H E P O L I T I C I A N S W E D E S E RV E ?

do we have the

THE POLITICIANS WE DESERVE? Christopher Clark YE AR 13

T

o preserve voters’ faith in the political system, it is essential that it continues to mirror the beliefs, aspirations and values of the electorate. In recent years, there has been a particular concern about the role of truth and facts within politics, ‘fake news’ and deliberate manipulation of information seemingly more and more prevalent – blamed by some on news organisations and others on politicians.

The most obvious example of this, in a Western democracy, is the presidency of Donald Trump. While lies, corruption and incompetence have been reported features of his administration for the past four years, they have been thrown into even starker relief by the Covid-19 pandemic. The President has untruthfully claimed that everybody can access tests, that he anticipated the pandemic before it happened, that he has ‘total authority’ over states and their governors. His lies and manipulations have been enthusiastically amplified by propagandistic outlets such as Fox News (pulled from UK broadcast).

In our own country, we have had to put up with politicians making a series of outrageous claims, such as the need for a £1,600 floating duck house paid for by the public (this actually happened during the scandal over MPs’ expenses in 2009), false assertions about NHS funding on the side of a bus during the Brexit campaign in 2016 and bogus reports about Saddam Hussein’s possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2002. There has been a steady erosion of public confidence in government honesty and truthfulness, leading to an increasingly poisonous and distrustful atmosphere.

It is not exactly news that politicians are capable of telling lies; dating back at least as far as Thucydides’ portrayal of Alcibiades, historians, dramatists and novelists have been unsparing in their presentation of politicians’ often unscrupulous behaviour.

However, it is of concern that those in power increasingly refuse to apologise or acknowledge any guilt or shame when wrongdoing or falsehoods are exposed, whether Donald Trump or Dominic Cummings. Such behaviour is fuelling an atmosphere of cynicism and alienation among the electorate that is dangerous; people may either turn to alternative,

less democratic options (as they are in Hungary and other countries) or tune out of politics altogether. According to Peter Pomerantsev, in his account of Putin’s Russia, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, such apathy and confusion is exactly what authoritarians from Putin to Trump, Orban to Bolsanaro wish to achieve, employing weapons of mass distraction.

Should nothing be kept secret? Well, yes, national security means that some confidentiality is required in certain cases, such as war or espionage, but too often in the UK the Official Secrets Act and related legislation is used to cover up embarrassments or corruption rather than protect the nation. In such situations, it is not only acceptable but necessary to leak to the press in the interest of the public finding out the truth – although, of course, this will often involve agonising moral and ethical decisions on the part of whistleblowers and journalists alike.

To those who argue that we should just relax as mendacious politicians have been around for a couple of millennia or more, I would reply that this is not something to feel complacent about.

Voters should be able to trust their politicians, broadly, and take their words at face value, should be able to have politicians who represent the best of our aspirations (Lincoln’s “better angels of our nature”) rather than our lowest instincts. If this does not prove possible, then perhaps an alternative will be to turn politicians into puppets, each equipped with a wooden nose.

Desperate times may require desperate measures.

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Benedict Blythe YE AR 1 1

MIRROR H

aving been given the task of creating the cover image for the Mirror issue of the magazine, I immediately began to explore different ideas. I considered different approaches to how a mirror can be incorporated into an image. More importantly, I focused on what a mirror-based image can make people think, see and feel.

The image you see on the cover is quite minimal, without too many distracting elements to it which intends to emphasise the mirror and make it stand out.

The cover image you see on the front is intended to explore a lot of different layers of meaning, like an onion. Knowing that I wanted this to have an element of protest against climate change to it, the mirror itself creates a sense of visual distortion in the landscape, symbolising what we as humans are doing to the planet.

The mirror itself is not an expected feature of what is otherwise a rather idyllic landscape; it exists in a very surrealist way. This further adds to this sense of distortion. The powerful way in which the mirror is composed within the image is designed to make people notice and think about the mirror, possibly promoting the freedom of emotions, making them ask questions about its purpose and existence. A further layer of meaning behind the mirror is the mirror itself. Not only does having it in the image provide visual distortion and create a personal experience, it also creates the opportunity to think about literal self-reflection: to think about your life and your impact on the planet.

The inspiration behind this provocative placing of the mirror also relates to concepts found in Romanticism. We are presented with a very beautiful landscape that we are both part of and very isolated from. The existence of the mirror represents humans as not belonging in a landscape in this way. The importance of colour and space within the image also adds to this concept of Romanticism. The depth of the colour and surrealist placing of the mirror is aimed to take you there and imagine yourself within it, creating a personal, subjective experience.

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Images above and below by Benedict Blythe

XXX XXXXX

Image above by Oliver Stone (Head of Photography)

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